Codex Gamicus talk:The Magic Bullet

This is a newsletter aimed at site admins. Why is protected? I can't delete the ungrammatical comma because we're vandals?

I still don't know why Doug is here, or what a "gaming vertical" is. -- ◄mendel► 22:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe he is talking about something similar to 'verticle search' for search engines. David Shepheard 15:19, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * THe gaming vertical is comprised of all of Wiki's gaming wikis...a bucket o' gaming wikis if you will. It helps target community teams, spotlights, and staff so that we treat gaming wikis like gaming wikis, and not like underwater Jenga wikis - which is waaaaaaaaay harder than it looks. -- Doug  (talk ) 01:26, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Gaming template
On most wiki wikis about (video) games, the template Wiki Gaming Footer is on the main page. I think it now need to be updated to include a link to The Magic Bullet. And that without forgetting all localized versions of the template (i.e. Wiki Gaming Footer/fr).

On Wiki, i never set any page to my watch list. I prefer to watch things myself. When i decide it's time for me to return somewhere, i do it. I have no fear of missing anything, perticularly on wikis, since there's an history on every page. So, i consider message that say "you're a fool if you don't watch" as spam. Even though i know it was humour. — TulipVorlax 23:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * US$0.02: I came here to suggest updating the footer, but someone else has already suggested it!  IMHO what makes it spam is creating empty articles just to post a link, even though the link has already appeared in the site notice where it is almost impossible to miss.    Ryan W 17:30, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The Wiki Gaming footer is being phased out, if you see it you can remove it if you want. It didn't work out the way we wanted it to.--Richardtalk 02:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) I've added the link to the template, but it still needs to be translated into other languages. As for the spammy pages on every gaming wiki... that's going to need staff attention :)


 * In reply to Richard, even if it didn't work the way you intended it to, it still works, no? No reason to phase something out simply because it's only being seen by 0.001% of visitors -- that's 0.001% that otherwise wouldn't find some other great links :P -- Skiz zerz  02:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Plus, that shared template was added to fr.guildwars just a few weeks ago. (10:40, 19 January 2009 by MtaÄ)
 * — TulipVorlax 04:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Are you talking about the Wiki Gaming footer that is on the front pages of some Gaming wikis? It seems to me that there is nothing wrong with that concept, itself. But the thing only works (for visitors) if you dump the 'popular wikis' that are left there as examples and replace them with the sort of wikis that you should be promoting in a 'WikiNode'. If people use the Wiki Gaming footer out of the box then it is little better than 'link-spam' for the Wiki wikis that are lucky enough to be left there as examples. Visitors don't really care if a wiki is a big wiki in the gaming section if they are interested in something that is totally unrelated to Star Wars. Visitors need relivant wikis.


 * The main thing I would say against the current footer, is that it is biased towards promoting Wiki wikis, instead of being designed to help promote co-operation between your wiki and similar wikis that may or may not be Wiki wikis. There is for example a tiny Greyhawk Wiki on Wiki and a much larger, and much more active, Greyhawk Wiki hosted on Canonfire! (Canonfire! is the leading Greyhawk fansite.) Logistically, it would seem to me that the people editing the wiki over here should fold their project into the other wiki, or switch this wiki to a different Greyhawk related project that can work in harmony with the other wiki.


 * Maybe we should have an active project to replace these front page footers with:
 * WikiNode pages that list both relivant Wiki Gaming wikis as well as relivant non-Wiki wikis and
 * A TourBusStop project to make at least one bus route to link together popular wikis of a specific type (that has multiple stops within Wiki, but also travells outside Wiki).


 * Don't get me wrong, I think it is great that Wiki has lots of other gaming wikis, and I want to see it thrive. But visitors to our wikis want to see the best information, not a subset of information. So I would like to see an intra-wiki strategy that encourages stand-alone wikis to join in with Wiki Gaming wikis. David Shepheard 15:19, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No on-topic replies for 2 weeks, so I deleted the local copy on the Doom Wiki, and also linked to the master copy from a couple of the navbars etc. there (which is vastly more likely to actually cause people to read it). In the next thread, User:David Shepheard gives very sensible reasoning for this with his three numbered points, so I'll spare everyone a long diatribe.   :>     Ryan W 15:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Gaming Newsletter vs The Magic Bullet
I've got a few comments:


 * 1) Why is this newsletter put onto my wiki as Wiki Gaming Newsletter and then put here as The Magic Bullet? I think that your 'marketing strategy' for the newsletter would be best if everyone referred to it as one name.


 * 1) Why is it even put onto my wiki in the first place? I say this not from a 'get off my lawn' point of view, but the point of view of someone who thinks that this discussion page is a feature of the newsletter. If all the editors are encouraged to come to a central page (or a Magic Bullet portal), the newsletter staff can encourage people to exchange advice every issue. But if I reply on the talk page of the copy on my own wiki, nobody is going to read my comment.


 * 1) If this newsletter is on my wiki and also here, then I presume that somone has uploaded the same page onto dozens (if not hundreds) of wikis in the Wiki Gaming section. Has anyone considered what Googlebot is going to think when it sees multiple copies of this document all over the place? If this newsletter gets all of our wikis onto a 'link-spam' blacklist, we could either hurt the search engine rank of the pages mentioned in this newsletter or hurt the search engine rank of our own wikis. Either way is bad news.

Having said those comments, I would like to see this newsletter do well. And I would like to see it explore things that specific types of gaming wikis might do to speed up wiki development.

''For example, if MMORPGs all have similar sorts of categories, would it not be possible for people to develop a default 'MMORPG wiki' template that someone can choose (instead of the standard barebones Wiki template). Something like this could have a ton of categories and infoboxes pre-made and the founders could tweak or delete the ones they do not like. I'm building up a tabletop RPG wiki and I'm currently reinventing many of the same wheels as the Forgotten Realms Wiki. I wouldn't want to be forced to do a wiki in a specific way, but more starter pages could have really helped me. I'm pretty sure a generic, but more targeted community portal would help new wikis. You might even be able to dump several options into some sort of examples namespace and invite editors to move the one that works best to their Main namespace before deleting the rest.''

Obviously, once someone gets to the stage of reading a newsletter, they probably already have their wiki under development, but if wiki admins could ping someone in the gaming staff to have a set of starter pages dumped into an examples namespace onto their own wiki that would probably be a lot more helpful than SEO advice. (The SEO advice is important too, but you need to get little wikis above the 100 page barrier.) I figure the big sprawling wikis don't really need too much SEO advice, because Googlebot probably loves their content already. And as for the 'move your Main Page' advice, this should really be standard Wiki policy for setting up new wikis. It is in Wiki's interest for all of its new wikis to hit the ground with a good SEO strategy. David Shepheard 15:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Feedback
Hey all, thanks for the feedback! As many of you know, this is our first attempt to communicate via a newsletter and there will always be kinks when trying out something new. The end goal of course, is a simple way to discuss complex community issues, and let communities know that there is a team dedicated to making sure their wikis succeed.

We kicked off the newsletter with SEO advice, as these minor changes have a huge impact on traffic. We can get deeper into building out content in the future, but bright lights, sudden movements and complicated steps tend to scare off the elusive wiki admins. In the meantime, if you do have questions, just ask us.

I would like to address some of the concerns above briefly. The gaming footer is being phased out because of several reasons, the main reason is that it hurts SEO by adding extra links. It was an early attempt, not everything works, and we're fixin' it. You are more than free to put in a footer on your wiki...it's your wiki, but we are just moving in a different direction, now that we know what works.

Our method for posting the newsletter, does not contribute to spam, and it's not for everyone. Unfortunately, some won't find it interesting, and that's fine. We're reaching out to those who need help, and are looking for some advice. As we fine tune the newsletter, and cover a variety of topics, hopefully even the experienced will find something useful.

We have no way of following local copies, so sorry for ignoring you guys, we'll just have to have a central discussion page like this, or better yet, leave me a message on my talk page.

Cheers! -- Doug (talk ) 01:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Newsletters?
So, what's happening with this newsletter? -User452 03:39, August 31, 2011 (UTC)