Talk:Main Page

Previous discussions are archived at:

• Talk:Main Page/Archive 1 (January 18, 2011–February 27, 2011)
• Talk:Main Page/Archive 2 (February 28, 2011-April 25, 2011)
• Talk:Main Page/Archive 3 (April 25, 2011-March 14, 2012)
• Talk:Main Page/Archive 4 (March 15, 2012-April 27, 2017)

Wiki cleanup

There seems to be a discussion in Meduka thread about cleaning up the wiki (and little discussion in User talk:Sondenise). I think we better continue the discussion here. My idea is that if we want to cleanup the wiki and turn it into something more formal (e.g. less fan content and speculah, more confirmed/official info), we better archive this Wiki as read only and start a new. The reason is that the wiki in its current form is a mix of fan content, speculation and official info, and many parts are not exactly well-organized.

In case we archive the wiki, this will be what happen:

• The current wiki content is frozen as read only, and put to oldwiki.puella-magi.net
• New wiki is setup at wiki.puella-magi.net (MediaWiki? Something else?)
• "Not found" page in a new wiki contain a link to suggest to look at the same article name in oldwiki.puella-magi.net

I would love to see an opinion from the community on what would be the best way going forward.

Thanks! — 0x99 14:39, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

For a reference current wiki size is 14GB because all the images. Backup in Tarsnap contains about 21GB of unique data. — 0x99 14:43, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

As long as certain pages won't be locked and the sidebar can be updated, I'm up for it. In retrospect, it's quite a hassle to edit every single page here and remove all irrelevant speculation and fanart. It'd be best to start anew and put up some new rules on the wiki so we don't have this issue in the future when new Madoka stuff comes out and everyone goes nuts:

• No fan art on character pages or episode pages or etc., we don't need to have people upload individual pieces to show off, people need to search for them on their own. Keep most fanworks to a minimum. The most notable such as Grief Syndrome are permitted to have a page. No joke pages either.
• No shipping nor speculation, the latter especially whether it be what everyone generally agrees on or not (such as whether Kyubey is evil or not) and/or what people think/predict what will happen in newer works. This should be discussed and kept to /meduka/ or elsewhere. -- The Witch's House 19:13, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I certainly agree with getting rid of fanarts; they're the source of hotlinking and take up the most space. Most fan artist do not like that we reprinting them without their permissions, etc. As for speculation, I think if it's still in the area of in-series observation and not a crazy theory (e.g. A may have something to do with Y) it should be OK. Page locking have something to do with preventing spam and edit wars (but that was from 2012), so we could definitely relax on that.

Sidebar is another story though as it's locked by permission in MediaWiki (wiki software) rather than manual lock like other pages. Granting permission to edit sidebar equals to editing all system messages which is a little scary (e.g. you can put up a side-wide persistent banner with the permission). I will see if there is an extension capable of allowing user-edited sidebars without affecting other parts of the wiki. -- 0x99 05:10, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

The wiki definitely got cluttered over the years and could use a tune up. My primary concern is whether we have enough (wo)manpower to trim everything down to size. Over the past year, wiki activity has slowed tremendously, with only occasional bouts of individual, herculean efforts. Going through all 666 pages will take a lot work. Either way, I'm going to miss all the fun stuff. - Prima 05:31, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I hear you. But at the same time, we will have a lot more content coming up thanks to Magia Record (story, events, characters, etc.) If we want to those stuff in the wiki, a cleanup is definitely needed. For the fun stuff I think Walpurgischan can still be used (I plan to keep it running as long as I could) although I understand that it's not the same kind. -- 0x99 05:47, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

If we're doing this, I'll help when I could. Any goodies we can get if we're starting afresh? How about languages? Webm? Do we have to manually migrate over all the media? - Prima 05:55, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Multilangual is definitely one (so we can have en:Pages, ja:Pages, fr:Pages, etc). Setting up wiki-family for supporting multi languages wiki with common assets (photos, etc.) require a bit of work, in which doing with current wiki state is rather difficult (but a lot easier when start anew). WebM/HTML5 video is likely yes because we can upgrade MediaWiki without breaking a lot of stuff (and can set $wgHtml5 to true). Media have to be manually migrated though, but I think uploading files in newer version of MediaWiki is a lot easier than what we have. -- 0x99 06:04, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Is it really safe to assume we should delete stuff because we have a lot more content? Kirara is defunct and Magia Record isn't going to be any different from your average region locked mobile game.Trowa199 06:42, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I understand your concern. However, my idea was at we leave the current wiki in read only mode at the different URL and start migrating stuff. The existing content would still be there with nothing deleted, and we would have a clean canvas to start reorganizing stuff. If we're not sure whether the effort is going to be successful, we can even leave the current wiki as-is for the time being (at wiki.puella-magi.net) and start a new wiki at different URL until we're satisfied with it before switchover, e.g.

• Create new.puella-magi.net as a new wiki (leave wiki.puella-magi.net running as-is)
• Start importing stuff from wiki.puella-magi.net to new.puella-magi.net
• Once we're OK with the content in the new wiki, perform a switchover:
  • wiki.puella-magi.net -> old.puella-magi.net
  • new.puella-magi.net -> wiki.puella-magi.net
• Make sure not found pages in new wiki have a link to old wiki.

This way works too, but may be a little bit confusing on switchover. But either way: no content will be deleted. I plan to keep everything up as long as I could. -- 0x99 07:13, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I have the time (mostly late night or early afternoon) to help migrate to a new wiki. I am down for the effort. Also, I was considering starting the content for Magia Record but I'll hold off for now until we start a new wiki from scratch and then add that particular batch of content. Here's my couple of cents:--Sondenise 06:56, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• No speculation unless it's something with really strong evidence (and that kind of discussion can be done on walpurgischan.net rather than clutter up a wiki with things that aren't canon). "In-series observation and not a crazy theory (e.g. A may have something to do with Y) it should be OK." Completely agree with this.
• No fanart. It seems like a big waste of space, bandwith, and hotlinking as mentioned above. Also, much of it ends up being pretty irrelevant or non canon (yuri shipping or theoretical magical girl forms of witches)
• Languages would be fun to have as well. Especially since the show has a dub in several languages (and I speak spanish :3) ---Sondenise 06:56, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Ah I see what you mean 0x99. Main reason why I asked about the sidebar is to reorganize it and be able to rename/add new works as they come such as Magica Record to keep everything up-to-date. I'm willing to help with the new wiki as much as I can. Should we divide up the work load like userA adds News related pages/media, userB adds stuff related to Tart, etc., etc.? -- The Witch's House 07:08, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Also, I know we've gone over the fact that fan art needs to go, but should we limit that in user pages too? (since I do have my own fan made content there...) --The Witch's House 07:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not against it as long as it doesn't go crazy overboard (like 20+ images) Sondenise 07:41, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm personally OK with posting them in user pages, as long as you have the permission to use them. (I know few fan artist who don't like us because all the reprinting without permission, resolving that would be a good thing too.) -- 0x99 08:19, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I meant stuff you made yourself (in my case, my fan witch on my page). I clearly mark them as fanwork so they don't clash of course. --The Witch's House 08:58, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

In that case I think it should be fine! -- 0x99 04:51, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Did the whole yuri page had to be deleted? --Mutopis 03:04, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

That was me. My apologies. I was trying to scrub off the speculation and mostly unfounded pages from the wiki before we all decided to get a proper discussion going. I think 0x99 said that the wiki is archived periodically so we should be able to revive the page for the purposes of this soon-to-be archived wiki and then we can better decide what analysis/speculation pages would be best to transfer to the new wiki (for example, the deciphering the runes / notes pages would probably be good to have, but a page of debunked theories not so much) Sondenise 03:25, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I've rollback the page to the version before blanking. -- 0x99 04:51, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I think dividing the workload for the transfer to a new wiki might work best. It would help to prevent us from tripping over each other in the beginning and then after the bulk of that is transferred we can then assign people/pairs/teams for the new content pages that will need to be created on the (new) wiki. 03:25, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

There's also the template tags stuff that need to be migrated. I can work on that although we need to list what templates are still needed and where (e.g. Template:Runes, Template:Box). -- 0x99 04:57, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Here's the migration plan I have right now after feedback from above discussion and from Meduka thread:

1. Create a new wiki at en.puella-magi.net on a new server.
2. Put up a banner in wiki.puella-magi.net call out for help migrating the wiki.
3. Migrate the wiki up to the point where most important pages are up (series, characters).
4. Put up a banner in wiki.puella-magi.net that it will become read-only in few weeks.
5. Make wiki.puella-magi.net read-only with a banner that this wiki is archived, please use a new wiki.

In this plan, the old wiki would still remain at wiki.puella-magi.net in order to not break any existing links to the wiki. No further edits can be made after step 5, but the wiki will remain accessible. There will be a banner on top of page (similar to Google's Cached Pages) with a wording among the line of "This wiki is archived and the information may be out of date. For recent updates, please see en.puella-magi.net" directing the user to the new wiki. Under this scenario, there are few things that need to be considered/decided:

• I'm not sure if migrating user is possible. In the worst case, you may need to re-register.
• Should there be a new wiki theme to tell apart the new wiki from the old one? (Colors, etc?)
• Replace talk page with Flow?
• Contribution guidelines? (see below)

Would love to hear what you think about it. Thanks! -- 0x99 19:05, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

I think the new wiki should have a new theme (not exactly sure on colors, maybe (slightly) darker tones?) Maybe use one of these as the new theme instead of one of the end cards?

• 
• 

I like that discussion page more so than the talk page; feels more organized and easier to read. The Witch's House 22:58, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

So what's the status of the wiki reboot initiative? Sorry if my questions happened to kill the momentum. - Prima 06:07, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

It's either a reboot or we go through all the pages one by one and start deleting fanart images that take up space. The wiki itself isn't so bad, so for me it's a toss up between clean up or a reboot. Sondenise 05:03, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Either way, cleaning up the fanarts make a lot of sense. Thanks for the hard work! - Prima 19:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Any word on the cleanup progress? I've marked several pages for deletion, but as far as I'm aware the one thing we've agreed on is no fanart since it leads to too much hotlinking and the artists getting upset. Sondenise 03:06, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Switched job, turns out the new one managed to get me more busier than ever. I have the server deploy script ready, now waiting to coordinate things. Sorry for taking so long :( -- 0x99 14:46, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Guidelines

Before doing anything, we should figure out exactly what guidelines the new wiki will follow first. User:Sondenise suggested trimming away fanart, fanwork, and speculation. If we're going with that, we should nail down exactly what fit into those categories. Should Science and Architecture be trimmed because it's fanwork? Should Population Dynamics be trimmed because it's speculative? We have a great selection in Articles that are all various degrees of fanwork, will they have a place in the new "formal" wiki?

At the minimum, I feel well written and edited analysis has a place in this wiki. Pages like Math are among the most popular pages on this wiki, what got it the respect worldwide and in Japan. It'll be a terrible mistake to remove them all in a rush to act formal. This wiki was an authoritative source, not because it was official or up-tight, but because it was comprehensive and in-depth. Let's avoid throwing the baby out with the bath water here. - Prima 03:45, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I love the math stuff and analytic stuff in the wiki and think they should still be fine. Population dynamics is an amazing analysis work, an even the runes decryption actually are speculative (because official never actually give us an answer for that). I think the primary concern should be where to draw a line. -- 0x99 04:51, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Some of the pages need cleaning up in terms or reorganization or cosmetic editing for ease of reading but overall I think the pages listed in Articles should stay. They're important contributions and much of it is strongly relevant to the series overall. I think the stuff that primarily needs to go would be more of the Category:Speculah stuff than anything. Sondenise 07:55, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

What about Theories? Some pages like Speculah:Let's Predict the Ending may be interesting to look back at in hindsight, even when wrong, as such worth preserving. The problem here is without explicit standards, what's "strongly relevant" is vary from editor to editor. - Prima 13:06, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, since we will be starting anew, content from old wiki (i.e. current wiki) would still be accessible from a different URL even after migration. -- 0x99 14:07, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

We won't lose the pages, they'll still remain here for anyone to see how fans reacted to Madoka when it was first coming out. But for the new wiki, are all those speculah pages really necessary? And which of those pages do we want to keep that we could consider as still relevant?Sondenise 17:12, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Documenting Speculah during the initial TV airing was an important to the wiki's growth and popularity. I can see a case to archiving the old ones at the current interregnum, but are we just not going to allow speculah permanently? What about if/when the Madoka sequel airs, will new speculah just be ignored? I'm less worried about preserving specific pages, but more that we'll get started with the new wiki without a clear consensus and explicit standards on what will the new wiki cover. This entire process came about because of editor conflict. We're going to get a lot more of that if we don't work out some clear guidelines first. - Prima 23:15, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Just thinking out loud; if we use wiki-family, we can have separate wiki but with shared user accounts and assets to support speculation and fandom content. It would be treat in similar way to linking between languages. (Or similar to how Wikipedia - Wiktionary works.) -- 0x99 04:43, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

• What is the line between Analysis and Speculah?

• Well analysis has fact based evidence behind it and speculation sounds more like theories based on personal opinion. I suppose a good way of keeping both would be to put speculation about say, a new character, on it's own page marked speculation rather than add paragraph after paragraph of what later becomes clutter on the character's biography. Sondenise 00:53, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

• What criteria mark a Fanwork as sufficiently notable to be worthy of a wiki article?
• How much fanon belong in the new wiki?
• What roles should the wiki play to help preserve history of the fandom?

• If we keep the speculation and analysis on it's own page then it would be easier to archive those particular pages later when they're no longer relevant. Just an idea. Sondenise 00:53, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Yuri undertones page

Like I've stated before, the wiki should not be propagating content that demeans and degrades the show itself. Crack shipping content does just that. I've also explained how people who support crack are factually not fans of the series by the very definition of the word, so the argument you made about the wiki being both "fan" and official is not valid.

It would be redundant to just repeat all the arguments here when they've been had at other places on this site. No one has addressed the arguments I've made that factually proof crack shipping is wrong and damaging to the fan base, so it's pretty rude and unfair to just undo what I did without giving any reason. Please revert the changes back to how I made them, as it is now, you are supporting Darkblader, who is by far one of the worst people in existence. Notice how he screams at people that they're "ack" and how he never actually gives proof for anything he says? He's the only person who does this, and you can see in this thread where he's spamming porn on the girls from Madoka getting fucked by faceless men, he is also calling people "ack" with no proof and never explaining anything he says. WARNING THIS THREAD IS VILE, DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU WANT TO SEE PROOF https://archived.moe/h/thread/4655180/#4655188 I can give tons more evidence at proof of who this person is, but it's not really relevant to the site. I just want people to understand what kind of person he is.

Now, if you'd please be so kind, tell me exactly what it will take to convince you that rabid shipping crack nonsense has no place here and damages the fan base. Tell me exactly what you need, and I will build my argument around that.EditingWizard 19:57, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

0x99, can you please reply to your e-mails.

Like I said before: please don't remove contents from pages without discussing first. I didn't replied to your email because I was sprinting for the whole week, and less prioritized stuff like getting into arguments is the last thing I wanted to do. To answer your question: No. I don't buy into your arguments. -- 0x99 06:23, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

I removed it to see if you would actually do something. Looks like I was right. I sent you multiple e-mails and you just flat out ignored them all you had to do was acknowledge them and just ask to wait. Ignoring people is rude. Literally a five word reply (after you tell people to discuss things) would have been enough. You tell people to discuss things, and then you refuse to do it. What do you expect other people do it.

And for the record, you're objectively wrong and it's actually insane how you think you can prove me wrong by just saying "you don't buy it". You didn't address a damn thing I said. How is that fair? Why do you get to shit up damage the fandom with no contest?

P.S. Just deleted something off the front page, because you clearly have some kind of warning sent to you when that happens.

Also, if you don't discuss this rationally with me and address my argument in full (when you have time), I will DDoS this site forever. Better than letting you be biased and damage the fanbase.

I want you to see the kind of person you are protecting.

http://desuarchive.org/a/search/text/mado%2A/ghost/only/

http://desuarchive.org/a/search/text/homu%2A/ghost/only/

http://desuarchive.org/a/search/text/mami%2A/ghost/only/

http://desuarchive.org/a/search/text/saya%2A/ghost/only/

http://desuarchive.org/a/search/text/kyou%2A/ghost/only/

This person and been spamming crack shit for literally years, and thousands and thousands of posts for the sole purpose of attacking other people. And you want to let him have his way and spread that cancer as much as he wants.

I don't get it, what makes you think you're in the right? Why do all mods abuse their power?

One more thing. I never asked if you buy my argument or not. I asked you to tell me exactly what it would take to convince you that crack shit is damaging to the fan base. I can see how you don't actually read anything. So, you are straight up psychotic, huh? You assume you are always right unconditionally. How insane is that.

Are you literally threatening to DDoS attack a wiki over a pairing you dislike? -- The Witch's House 09:01, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

No, that's not what I said. Maybe you should try actually reading.

Also, what's funny is that I scan and translate guide books and other official content that all gets hosted here, and you people would rather just harass me than have civil discussion and try and prove your stance correct. Of course, you're objectively wrong, so it's more like this is all about you stubbornly refusing admit you're wrong about anything, and throwing fits while abusing your power.

And I'm not threatening, I promise I will do it if the admin doesn't actually talk and have civil discussion. I give drastically more to the fan base than he does, and I'm not going to just let him harass me. It's not like the wiki is actually serving any good if it's just being used a platform for people to shit on the series itself. I get that you're not a fan, but some people are.Temptemp 09:11, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

It's insane how I go out of my way to fully explain and detail my arguments, explaining every step of my thought process, you won't even pretend to address, what's worse, you hand wave it away and don't say a thing.

You are just disgustingly rude.Temptemp

I'm going to explain why I don't buy into your arguments.

1. As stated on the second sentence of Yuri undertones page, that the page is fanon-emphasized and should be taken with a grain of salt. The plan to cleanup the Wiki into something more fact-centric is already discussed above (really, just scroll up to the Wiki cleanup section in this very page). Anything here in this Wiki should be leave alone for archival purpose. It will be put to read-only once the new Wiki is ready.

2. Hurting fanbase is a very blanket statement in my opinion. I don't really see how those information are hurting fanbases (given that it does exists in fanon) and how removing them from the wiki is going to make that fanon goes away. You seems to back your hurting fanbase with archive links, which I don't really see how it's related to the content in the wiki. Would removing content from Wiki make those spamming goes away? I don't think so.

3. Name calling, DDoS threatening, etc. are unneeded.

4. Please read 1.

No, really, please read 1. There's already a plan to make the wiki more formal and that might as well achieve what you wanted (even if the reason of doing so may be different). It's a lot more productive to put efforts into that process and discussion, rather than arguing here. -- 0x99 13:55, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Saying you will DDoS attack the wiki is a threat. You are threatening to do it if 0x99 doesn't listen to you. If you do scan and translate guide books and other official content for the wiki, why do you have separate accounts then? Why did you state you made your account to only edit the Yuri undertones page? -- The Witch's House 23:41, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

As stated multiple times through out my posts on this site, calling it a "fanon" page doesn't actually change the real problem. What's in question here is the quality of the fan base, and obviously the fan base is a collective whole. Any community (e.g. fan base) at all is in essence a container, and what you put in that container effects the quality of area inside the container, either positively or negatively. Put good things in the container and it's good quality, and obviously the vice versa for bad. In the case, "objects" that are being put into the container (this fan base) are the crack images/fics./"theories"/etc. Those objects are low quality, thus effect the fan base negatively. I explained this in much more detail on Cf's talk page, but I'll just copy and paste the key points here.

1. Base line value comes from the original source of the series.

2. Canon and third party made art work have separate values.

3. To find out what is degrading (objectively bad) to the characters, you compare the two previously mentioned values.

4. The aspects you compare are how the characters are portrayed in said settings, canon vs third party, with canon obviously being the base line value.

5. The characters are portrayed in canon as having strong and meaningful relationships with their respective partners.

6. In order for a crack setting to exist in a third part art work it MUST imply that the in canon relationships are weak and disposable. Because if that canon relationships were not weak and disposable in the crack art work setting then it wouldn't be crack, it would just be a canon pair art work again.

7. Thus, because the third party art work is portraying the characters in a lesser state than how they are shown in canon, and implying their positive aspects are actually weak, it is low quality content. Thus, they are being degraded.

Like I also explained, people who support crack content which degrades the characters are, by the very definition of the word, are not fans of the series, so it's not "fan"on. A fan is someone who appreciates the subject in question. And to appreciate something means to recognize its full worth. The full worth of the characters is not to be used as shallow disposable shipping fodder. Plus, you really can't call yourself a fan of something if you're degrading it.

The reason I point out all that spam, is because that's the kind of person you are catering to you when you support crack content. "Darkblader" (http://wiki.puella-magi.net/User:Darkblader) is the one doing that spamming, by the way. While removing crack from here may not make him stop spamming, it will make him have one less place where he can feel validated and self important. Thus maybe making him realize his behavior is not acceptable.

I absolutely hate the idea of DDoS attacking sites, but when you replied to everything I said, which was quite a lot, with "I don't buy it", it was really, really rude and dismissive. I don't know any other want to make a person rethink their stance of being reasonable and having civil discussion. You asked people to discuss things first, then you didn't reply for a week. Like I said before, a simple "busy at the moment, I'll get back to you in a few days" is literally all it would take. As opposed to pure radio silence and people just trying to figure out if you're ignoring them or not.Temptemp 01:27, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

@The Witch's House, you really need to work on your reading and reasoning skills. I said I would DDoS the site if he refused to have civil discussion about it instead of just hand waving it away with thinks like "I don't buy it", not if he doesn't listen. I also never said I scan/tl things FOR the wiki, I scan and translate context for the fan base as a whole. And it gets hosted on other normal sites first, then someone else eventually ends putting it here on the wiki. If you want proof of some sort, say so, and I'll take physical photos of some of the guide books I've scanned, and you can see how they are all debinded taken apart for the sake of scanning.

You have my apologies for being rude. I was extremely exhausted at the time, pulling a 60-hours work week, the last thing I wanted was to get into arguments. Either way, regarding your point and to repeat my point (and the point Witch House made in Cf's talk page): a formal Wiki is in the plan, and this very Wiki will be put in an archival mode. That should solve the problem you have about fanon in the Wiki. -- 0x99 06:20, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

To add a bit more about starting a new Wiki: this Wiki was first created with as a spun-off of discussions in /a/, and major contributors at the time were from there. Now that the community has become a lot smaller than what it had been, but with a lot more contents than we started, and we are expected to have more contents coming in upcoming months (Magia Record, etc.) I think it is a good time to finally formalize the Wiki. However, removing content would be a disrespect to those who made contributions in early days, so the plan is to start a new one and put this one in archive mode. Regarding the "I don't buy it", now that I read it, it is indeed sounds a little rude. It would be much better if I replied "I don't think your argument justify removing contents from the page" which was the original intention of the message. You have my apology for this one too. -- 0x99 07:03, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Menu change

Not sure if there's a better place to put this, so I'll put it here: 0x99, can you add Magia Record under the "Official Games" section of the side menu? Thanks in advance.Sevv 06:34, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Yup this is the right place. Thank you and done. -- 0x99 06:54, 25 June 2017 (UTC)