Board Thread:Wiki news and announcements/@comment-2234967-20160117114955

Hello all, I'd like to discuss a few possible changes to the wiki. I've been thinking about ways to improve the quality of the wiki, as well as fix a few things that need some attention. That being said, I've compiled some of the things I'd like to focus on, as well as ask for thoughts and opinions on the changes that could be made regarding those things.

None of these things are too set in stone, as I like to make it a point to discuss them with the community before barreling ahead and changing things that are important to the site and how it functions. That being said, here's what I've been thinking about changing.

This is something that was decided on a while ago and wasn't implemented as personal life got in the way. Review articles as they are now aren't very helpful to users viewing the site. The concept of a review is something very based in opinion. While we previously did update the review system from a point-based one to a simple positive/negative-based one, it's still rather unprofessional to have them on the site as "official articles". Reviews will still be allowed, but only as a user-created thing, and will go on the forum, a blog post, a user page, etc.
 * Review Pages changed to Performance Pages

Having an article for a blaster's performance information would be more helpful, since it focuses more how it performs instead of trying to come to a conclusion if one blaster is recommended or not. This also allows us to add more technical information, such as internals, and, something I know people have commented on the wiki not having in the past, a blaster's FPS. At the moment I have a very rough template in the works for this, so if you have things you'd like to see featured on it, please let me know and I'll see about adding it.

Having split articles for different re-releases of a single blaster is something that has been argued over in the past. Because of some blasters have reported increases/decreases in performance, as well as having different packaged products and accessories, it's something that I've contested over and over in my head. I feel like something needs to be finally done about this, as some blasters with re-releases have their own articles, and others do not.
 * Revising articles for color scheme re-releases

Personally I think that, if a blaster has a significant re-release, such as being re-released under a sub-series with a different color scheme, or a different series altogether, it should warrant its own article. That way, prices due to store exclusivity, difference in packaged accessories, and other information won't be mixed up in one big article. This can help reduce clutter on some articles (the Jolt article comes to mind).

If you have your own thoughts on this please comment and share them.

This is also something that's been on my mind for a while. BlasterLabs, a while back, did testing and found that Elite XD re-releases of older blasters like the Firestrike, RapidStrike, Strongarm, etc., do not have increased performance. That being said, I'm wondering whether or not we should merge the Elite XD articles with the articles for their original counterparts. While some blasters under the Elite XD series have different color schemes, it's still released under their original series, and, as far as I can tell, don't have any changes to them.
 * Revising articles for Elite XD

If you feel like split articles for Elite XD re-releases should stay, leave a comment and let me know why.

This was probably a flub on my part when the N-Strike Modulus products were first leaked/announced. It was not clear whether or not it was simply a sub-series or not. But seeing now as it's growing and more blasters are being released under it, we should fix this up.
 * N-Strike Modulus - series or sub-series?

I'm going to think that nobody will have an argument for fixing this error, but if you have thoughts, definitely share them.

Hasbro was never very clear with N-Strike Elite Mega as a whole, and it caused some difficulty with the articles when the Centurion and the series as a whole were originally announced. The later announcement of the BigShock and N-Strike Mega only made things more confusing. Sometimes Hasbro refer to both as "Mega Series" (or simply "MEGA"), and other times they are specific about using N-Strike Elite Mega or N-Strike Mega. I've always wanted to fix up these articles and clear up any confusion they initially caused, but I was unsure where to really go with it, as there's already so many discrepancies from the horse's mouth to begin with.
 * N-Strike Elite Mega/N-Strike Mega - merge as "Mega Series"?

So yes, opinions on if anything should be done regarding those articles would be nice. I honestly don't know where to start with them, since there's differences between N-Strike Elite Mega and N-Strike Mega, but I'm hoping to open a discussion about it here.

This is something I never got around to doing. I planned to delete the Nerf tactics article and move the info to a thread on the forums, but I was unable to do so due to the aforementioned life getting in the way. So, I just want to double-check to make sure that nobody is going to miss this being an article. I think that this might be better as a forum thread, as I think lots of people like discussing this. This is more of a community-based topic than a official one, anyway.
 * Removing unused articles (Nerf tactics, international Nerf articles)

As for the international Nerf articles ("International guides" under the "Misc content" tab at the top of the site), I'm unsure if people use these articles. The majority of them are also very out of date and I would rather have information for where to find a product on its own page instead of on a big list just for the country in question.

While I know there are a lot of people out there who really enjoy famous Nerfers, keeping these articles updated is... not something I really want to do. Granted, there are some people worth mentioning, especially people who have contributed greatly to the modding scene, but I feel like these should be the only Nerfers we have articles for on the site. I have a feeling that many people will contest this suggestion, as some people are very big fans of many Nerf YouTube personalities, but I feel removing the majority of these would be for the best, and make the site more professional.
 * Nerfer articles - remove/update

That being said, I'm not for removing articles regarding third party companies. In fact, I'd personally like to see them get their own articles, so they can be found and updated easier. Back in the day, Orange Mod Works was the only third party company that was around for modding blasters. But now there's multiple companies that all produce great products, and I'd love for them to have articles for what they offer on here.

As far as the blogging sites, I'm not sure where to go with those. I think that having articles for them wouldn't be a bad thing, as long as they are expanded to fit the worth of having their own article, as some of them were important for providing information and news back in the day (Urban Taggers, Nerf Mods & Reviews, SGNerf), and some are still very well-known and contribute to the community to this day (Southern Brisbane Nerf Club, BlasterLabs/Nerf.About.com, Buffdaddy Nerf). I also think that maybe having articles for other well-known Nerf sites (NerfHaven, the Nerf sub-reddit), would be neat, but I can also see that people would be against that particular idea. 