Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Projects/Collaboration

I've thought about this project for two days (and re read the project description maybe 10-15 times), and I'm sorry Infi, but I don't see the point. No matter how you read it, it looks and sounds like a wiki project about being an actual wiki; I don't see the point. The random selection of individuals thing doesn't help either. People will (in the proper/ideal setting) gravitate towards the things they are good at, and avoid the things that they believe they are bad at. In the same way, many on this wiki (myself included) have a group of individuals whom they regularly (and probably prefer to) work with and a group that they might be less inclined to work with. Many acknowledge both of these and I don't feel like spontaneous generation of a work group for the sake of reducing total edits is needed or even helpful. Forcing individuals who might not even be properly suited to the task at hand to work together, especially with the rather strong personalities of many wiki users, just seems like a bad idea in general. Convince me otherwise, if you feel strongly about this, and I'm missing important points, but at this moment, this project seems to be pointless and unnecessary to me. Aqua (T|C) 02:19, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The wiki is one large community. Anyone with the appropriate skill set can edit an article as they see fit. Dividing the wiki into teams to work on certain projects, not only would slow the wiki down greatly, but could potentially cause people to get in each others ways. I just don't see how this could benefit the wiki. Best-case scenario, as I see it, is that this works perfectly, and all of the collaborating, picking groups, communicating between collaborators, discussion on changes, and discussion between groups of collarborators would fill Recent Changes to the brim. I'm just not seeing it. - 03:01, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like work to me - forced pair programming or something like that. It reads a bit like Infinite doesn't like WikiDragons. :S -- aspectacle  04:06, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

That is correct, I dislike WikiDragons. But this project is specifically designed for those who enjoy team work, not for those (as I can read into it) are afraid of teaming up. In all my years on various communities, I realized that lack of pre-emptive communication can and will lead to clashes amongst people. A big change is prone to mistakes if you do it by yourself (again, WikiDragons) and many smaller rectifying edits follow a big one. Collaboration takes minor fixes into account before pushing through an edit (such as the sandbox articles Konig devotes his time to (and allows others to do fixes to them as well)).

I don't care if it "works" or not, every other project can be questioned in that way. I don't care if it "clutters up" the RC, we're relatively young and 10 lines of RC won't drown any other contributions anytime soon. The idea is that we improve communication as a community. Rather than telling edits off in an edit summary, an enflaming post on a talk's topic or even a degenetory remark on one's talk page; collaboration means you're a team and that your efforts should focus on the team, rather than yourself, the individual. Individualism is great and all, but you should question whether it allows you to grow as much.

If you guys don't want to care about this kind of effort, that's fine, this project is not for you. I am sure other users will find this project aiding their weaker points, and their sense of team work. This is not a forced project, now is it. ;) - Infinite - talk 10:57, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A step towards improving communication is always a good thing. Keeps the environment, and everyone else, happy. --Xu Davella 12:08, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Extended Thoughts

So, I've been thinking about this for a month, and I still don't get it. This project is being sold on the whole "reducing edits to content pages" concept, but how could the marginally fewer edits to main pages possibly outweigh whatever large amount of discussion that was had to generate that singular edit.
That's not even my main concern. The main problem that I see with this project potentially is that it is going to cause more dissonance in the community than is needed. What happens if the members of this project are discussing and someone else makes the page. Is that someone else to be prohibited from making the page simply because this group of individuals is discussing it already? Are people not in this project allowed to provide their two cents if they desire?
It just seems to me that it possesses very few positive points, and that several of the basic fundamentals are potentially contradictory with one another. I am also greatly worried about elitism that could rise from this project. ("We are members of the Collaboration Project; we have spent time discussing amongst ourselves and disagree with your thoughts on the matter, therefore, we supersede you.") I don't know, maybe I still don't understand. Aqua (T|C) 01:00, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This project is merely an extension of sandboxed page design (such as Konig's, amongst others). Except that two users actively help each other directly so that they both learn (or multiple users). This entire wiki is based on "me, me, me, you're wrong, me" and it can't hurt to have people working together.

Also, if you don't intend to join up, you might as well leave the project alone? - Infinite - talk 10:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I would like answers to my two questions posed in my previous post. Aqua (T|C) 21:24, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Honestly feels like Charr imperators then... Infinite, I don't think the wiki is based on "me me me" but more of everyone shouting "i did this!"... everyone wants a part everywhere to help better the wiki (excluding the trolls and such who vandalize pages or make useless pages... ie "Running"). Just the same, everybody wants even a CHANCE to edit those big pages. When I see a page hasn't been made yet, I freak out with excitement. Most of the wiki already works as a drawn-out collaboration, and we can all see how well the wiki works for everyone's GWW/GW2W needs... Do we really need assigned special collaboration groups to make bulk-edits to pages?

Isn't it just smarter to have a list of pages that need extra work and people that feel like fixing stuff like formatting or grammar/spelling can go there and patch up the page? ~~ Kiomadoushi 00:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

"What happens if the members of this project are discussing and someone else makes the page. Is that someone else to be prohibited from making the page simply because this group of individuals is discussing it already?"

Then there is no problem and those collaborators should take the new content into fair consideration and don't change anything unnecessarily.

"Are people not in this project allowed to provide their two cents if they desire?"

Of course they are, but the key is to improve teamwork and with that discussion amongst users who think of themselves too good to discuss their edits where required.

"Do we really need assigned special collaboration groups to make bulk-edits to pages?"

Without a doubt there are users who could do with (a lot) more social interaction towards other users and we should try to lure those users into collaboration to achieve this. It can only improve the wiki.

You're making arguments towards a non-existant problem and causing unnecessary plausible drama by questioning a purpose. I would kindly request you all to back off the case and do something more sensible (like hitting random page on your left. ;) But regardless, I'll just delete this as the only feedback I had was this drilling questioning which completely ignores the good will of those signed up. We'll just go back to the stereotypical behaviour here on GW2W, no problem. - Infinite - talk 10:39, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Kiomadoushi in regards to how people view the wiki - it's not "me me your wrong me" but people wanting to be seen for their contributions - admittedly, I also get excited when I see a page that should be created isn't (though I also get upset when I see blatantly incorrect or unnecessarily complex things). I'd also like to note that my sandbox isn't like that - I open my sandbox to anyone's edit because I know I make mistakes and wouldn't mind if people fixed any mistakes they saw before it went to the main page. Once I've re-written articles fully, they go to the mainpage whether or not it was spell/grammar-checked. So comparing my sandbox to this isn't necessarily accurate - tbh, I only have a sandbox/rework page because I'd not alter only parts of articles at a time.

In regards to the project itself - I too find it unnecessary and it's not so much of "making arguments towards a non-existant problem" but rather making arguments about something which is potentially a waste of space (no offense needed). For example, take the recently created gw1wiki gw1:Template:AE. It's the most useless template there could be, but it's not creating a problem in a majority of cases (only problem there is, is that it creates overlinking if used more than once in an article). Likewise, this is an unnecessary project because whether people collaborate or not, there will be a lot of edits to the mainspace articles and, truth be told, the number of edits on articles doesn't matter. At all.

Rather than being a project, this should be a suggestion within an editing guide. -- Konig/talk 12:29, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

How about, rather, having sandbox pages for multiple projects and just ANYBODY coming to fix them up, and point out what issues need to be addressed to get the page in order? But you could do the same thing with any old page, where you leave an html comment in the page to what people editing it should look for to fix up...

Although I still don't see what the big difference is between a bunch of edits to a page in a sandbox and on the mainspace... A page with many edits to fix it up to work right still has many edits, no matter where it goes. If you can give a good reason to have the collaboration project(s), I'd happily sign up and support its existence, but it does seem a little pointless... I have mixed feelings on this thing. ~~ Kiomadoushi 20:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)