Board Thread:Wiki news and announcements/@comment-1585211-20131207142428/@comment-1585211-20131207233306

Nerfmaster8 wrote: Changed the review from phase 1 a minor bit

overview of existing wikis that have "valuable" content:
 * DBE: professional layout/format, news is updated on a regular basis, research nearly completed, working on templates, CSS/JS components are fully imported & installed
 * Nerf Wiki: good organization & images (missing sources) but still missing critical facts regarding article content.
 * Jet is not willing to have multiple portals, defeats the purpose of 1 wiki - notable bias
 * Nerfipedia/NBW: poor organization (home & article format), copyright violations regarding product descriptions and images (Orange or missing sources). little to no useful content - almost all articles are written as short paragraph reviews.
 * there are however a few well written content in spite of this.

My #1 problem with having Off-brand articles on either Nerfipedia or DBE is that it would still leave the community divided. Having everything on one wiki just works better in my opinion, although now I'm going to have to go into more detail.


 * Points against DBE:
 * Lack of visitors; a mere 200-300 a week, whereas NBW and this wiki get in the tens/hundreds of thousands.
 * Lack of editors; very few active editors on the wiki, all of which are active on either this wiki or NBW.
 * Conflicts; several of our editors would be hesitant to edit on DBE purely because of past conflicts, although this reflects the maturity in the wiki.
 * Strict Policies; some of the policies might be a deterrent for editors to edit on the wiki.
 * Layout and Lack of Pictures; currently, it doesn't exactly have a colorful layout, and the lack of pictures is a factor against the wiki.
 * Not in Community Spotlight; Google searches and blogs commonly link to both Nerf Wiki and NBW, yet rarely link to DBE.


 * Points against NBW:
 * Loose policies; NBW features loose policies that are mostly lesser versions of what we have here. This allows for unwanted conduct to occur.
 * Community; the NBW community features several users that would be unwilling to have change. Promotions are also dealt out far too easily.
 * Article structure; the article structure is poor on a lot of articles, and there are many conflicts with other sites over this in the past.
 * Extreme bias; as many reviews and pages indicate, the wiki is extremely biased. The reviews are also, in recent months, not even done correctly and are heavily biased (see Deploy or Secret Strike for example).
 * The Staff; with apologies to NSA and TMG, the staff on the wiki, while caring for it well through frequent editing, show a general lack of maturity and this could throw off some editors. This point is mostly towards having REALNerfNinja6 as a bureaucrat there.
 * Questionable info; some of the info on the wiki is rather questionable and could be debated upon. This relates mostly to the structure of the article.

With that though, here are some positives.


 * Points for DBE:
 * A new start; the wiki offers a new start and could be adapted as a project wiki, due to which some users might be more inclined to help.
 * Accurate info; due to relatively small amounts of content, from what I can tell, the info is extremely accurate and carefully written.
 * Strong policies; the policies, with some exceptions, help keep the wiki maintained and there is a clear emphasis on keeping the wiki in the best shape possible.
 * Simple yet effective layout; the layout on the wiki is straight-forward, yet it works well and gets the job done.
 * Smartly made; you can tell there is a care for the wiki upon entering, and although lacking a major community, it is regularly updated.


 * Points for NBW:
 * Very high article count; with close to 1100 pages, NBW is clearly the largest of the Nerf Wikis and features a lot of info and pictures.
 * Built-up community; the community on NBW is strong and thriving, and routinely active.
 * Many links; many Google searches will bring up this wiki, and sometimes, it's even ahead of Nerf Wiki in some searches (Tek 3 as an example).
 * Amazing pictures; this wiki is clearly the jackpot for older images, and features a great library of very rare images.
 * Already up and functioning; despite merging at least twice already, the wiki is still filled with pages that can be considered complete.

This is not meant to offend anyone, this is constructive criticism and means only for the best.