The Sims Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive 10

Families with one member
I'm beginning to see some family pages with one family member. Wolfe household & Curry family to name a few. Perhaps it's time for a policy or guideline stating that these pages aren't neccesary npr do they hold any information that cannot be added to the one Sim in the family. What do others think? To me they're just articles with no info on them, wasting space. Duskey ( talk ) 02:52, July 31, 2010 (UTC)

I think we should keep them anyway. I don't think it matters if its one person. They're still a family. Jason   Talk To Me!   02:56, July 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * There's nothing on the family pages that can't be included in the sim's page, unless that sim is the only person left living in their family (and the other members are visible on the family tree). I say delete the pages. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 02:58, July 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's exactly my point, Jason. If it's just one person there is nothing you can add to that page which you couldn't add to the Sim page. If these pages weren't family pages they'd get merged or deleted due to lack of content. Duskey ( talk ) 10:29, August 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * redirect. --a_morris (talk) 23:54, August 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Alright, I did it to the Steel family -> Christopher Steel. I made sure to move the info on the family page to the Sim page and also moved player stories. I also remember to delete the family picture (which wouldn't add anything to the Sim page and was of poor quality). Do you agree that this is the right way to do it? Duskey ( talk ) 16:17, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, what about the family difficulty? -- Duskey talk 14:59, September 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * About the difficulty, I would add the category to the family page and add a note could be added to the Sim's article. Eduardog3000 recreated the page because there is a possible second member of the family, Mike Steel, but I still think a family page is unnecessary. --a_morris (talk) 16:56, October 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * I surely agree but something is just wrong.I think that The Sims Wiki should not organise Families with one member as families but just the fact that Family pages add information about Family difficulty and how wealthy the sims really annoy me.Maybe we should reconsider and think about it once more.It will also be harder for people to understand how to search things in a new way.If someone wanted to make a search at the Steel family then he would only be able to see Christopher Steel in Sserch Results for Steel Family.This means that he would have to load more pages.Really bad.Andronikos Leventis 16:58, October 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * Would you find it useful if Sims were listed by last name. Ex. the page "Steel" would link to every Sim with that last name, but the page "Steel family" would only link to "Christopher Steel". --a_morris (talk) 19:01, October 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Does that mean that every Sim would be categorized based on their last name?-- LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:06, October 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Aren't they already? -- Duskey talk 11:34, October 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * These would be articles not categories. They are now only sorted by last name (within categories and lists) not grouped. Actual articles would make searching easier. They would just be another way of organizing information. Not all family members have the same last name and not all sims with the same last name are family members. It could also be used in onomastics. --a_morris (talk) 17:21, October 14, 2010 (UTC)

This discussion has gone off on a tangent. Have we made a decision about families with one member in general and Steel family in particular? Perhaps there needs to be a discussion on what information should be included on a sim page vs. a family page. --a_morris (talk) 22:22, October 14, 2010 (UTC)

Cars & Vehicles
How should we list and categorize cars &amp; vehicles? With FLS incoming we'll need to sort it out. Duskey ( talk ) 16:23, August 26, 2010 (UTC)

Once FLS hits I have half a mind to make an extra menu item in the main menu, pointing to the page and associated pages. Duskey ( talk ) 19:05, August 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * Menu item would be great, and when it comes to the pages themselves I suggest Car, Motorcycle, and Scooter pages with sections for each buyable car and one section for non-driveable/career reward cars. Ae jarv 20:53, September 15, 2010 (UTC)

The Beast needs to be moved to "Motorcycle" and have "The Jamboree" added to the page, and The Kenspa needs to be moved to "Scooter" and have "The Scoot Mobile" added to the page, I did that and Duskey changed it back, why?--Eduardog3000 01:06, September 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * If there's more than one scooter and/or motorcycle, then having a "Scooter" or "Motorcycle" article would be consistent with the way similar situations have been handled. Dharden (talk) 01:54, September 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * That is what I am saying, there is now 2 motorcycles and 2 scooters, i tried moving The Beast to Motorcycle, but Duskey changed it back.--Eduardog3000 02:17, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Since everyone seems to be in agreement, I don't see any harm in going through with moving the pages. I know Duskey wanted to wait for discussion, but I really don't think there will be much more of it, and in any case, I really don't think there's much of a disagreement about what should be done, so frankly there's not much to discuss. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 02:49, September 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Having a Car, Motorcycle, Scooter & Bicycle page sounds good to me. Perhaps the motorcycles and scooters can share the page since their function is identical (2 wheels, not useable by children). Then the types would be split in 3: Cars, 2-wheelers for teen+ and 2-wheelers for children+. The tables or galleries of the vehicles should be split between buyable and not buyable, in my opinion. -- Duskey talk 13:37, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

I like a complete list that has all vehicles in a single page. As long as the types came in order (i.e. motorcycles followed by scooters), it should be fine :)

Ilovefoxes 14:29, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

It would be best just to have a page for Cars, a page for Scooters and a page for Motercycles.Eduardog3000 20:38, September 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * I have to say I agree with Ilovefoxes. The vehicles are in the same category in the game, there's no reason they shouldn't be in a list. I suggest a 'Vehicle' article with all the text and a few pictures. It would have sections about cars, motorcycles/scooter and other vehicles, but the actual images and info on each car would be in 'List of Vehicles in The Sims 3'. There should be a list for each game in my opinion. -- Duskey talk 09:29, September 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * I honestly think Scooters and Motorcycles need their own page.--Eduardog3000


 * Having seperate scooters and motorcycles would prevent users from comparing them directly to each other and to cars, which personally is something I'd like since it's not directly available in the game. -- Duskey talk 23:59, September 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think having three sections (4 wheels), (scooters/motorcycles), and (bikes) that would redirect to a list of each respectively would be best. The gta wikia has something like that65.33.138.203 20:06, September 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's try and resolve this pretty quickly. What are everyone's thoughts? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 04:14, October 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's try and resolve this pretty quickly. What are everyone's thoughts? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 04:14, October 29, 2010 (UTC)

Reopening Featured content discussion
There are still some things to discuss regarding changes to the Featured Article and Featured Media systems. Please participate in determining the new system.


 * Copied from The Sims Wiki talk:Policy

I agree that the featured content should be based on quality rather than popularity. But the system you've outlined above I think would take a lot of work in a short period of time. Perhaps we could separate the review and the voting to separate months or separate the reviewing from the nominations. What I mean by the latter is that articles could be submitted for review then given a quality rating and the nominations for featured article could come from the articles with the highest rating(s). Either way, once an article, etc., is deemed of good quality, I don't think it's necessary for voters to give an explanation. The only reason I could see that being necessary is if they wanted it featured for a specific month. Also, before we can implement this we need to outline the criteria for a quality article, which you mentioned on the community portal talk page. --a_morris (talk) 21:12, November 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * In a situation where items are submitted for review and given a quality rating, would that inhibit the ability of regular users to nominate items for FA/FM? Also, do you think that we should or could coordinate the establishment of criteria with a possible update to the MoS (if you think the MoS needs an update)? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 21:32, November 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * Any user could nominate an item but there would be a limited number of articles that could be nominated. Although anyone could discuss the quality of an article, only an administrator would assign the article a rating. Yes, the criteria should be consistent with the MoS, though it does need updating. I've also been looking at how Wikipedia does it. --a_morris (talk) 22:07, November 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * I like that idea. I'm going to pull the policy proposal from here and start a new discussion in the Community Portal instead. Hopefully we can get some engagement this time around... --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 22:25, November 3, 2010 (UTC)

Discussion
As you can see above, the general idea here is to:


 * Revamp the Featured Article and Featured Media selection process to make them less favorites-oriented.
 * Establish a quality ranking system where articles can be ranked based on level of detail, quality of information, layout, etc.
 * Set up an alternative way for users to nominate articles for Featured status.

Speaking directly to the idea of ranking articles, I think this can be useful even outside of Featured Article selection. If, for example, we choose to rank our articles by some general categories (say, 'A grade', 'B Grade', 'C Grade' and 'Stub Grade'), we can categorize pages into these groupings, which will allow us to focus on improving the lower grade articles. On Wikipedia, I know that an article's ranking is usually saved in a template on the article's talk page - we can design just such a template, that is placed on the talk page of a page that has been ranked and which will automatically categorize that talk page into a quality category (this may seem a bit confusing - Wikipedia sorts articles in this manner on the talk pages, not on the content pages themselves).

Ultimately though, the decision falls with the community. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 15:20, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you. This could work. I'm also getting really irritated with the FA. BobNewbie talk • blog 15:32, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

Support - I do agree with this. Plus, I think that the idea of new users having to make a certain amount of edits or wait a certain amount of time before voting is a good idea as I remember a recent case where a CheckUser found a number of accounts on the same IP who were just voting in FA and FM while making no other edits. GEORGIE GIBBONS  talk contributions 16:09, November 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia's featured article criteria, is essentially very simple and adaptable for our purposes. However, the process can be quite exhaustive. I suggest we base our quality rating procedure on the Video games WikiProject. Also, they seem to have a peer review affiliation with the military history project. It might be a good idea to set up something similar here. --a_morris (talk) 04:21, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible for you to draw up a simpler proposal? those Wikipedia criteria seem to be too specific for our needs here, and I don't think we'd need quite as many categories either. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 16:46, December 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. I will be making a proposal, but I am thinking of improving the manual of style first. --a_morris (talk) 23:27, December 11, 2010 (UTC)

OK, I sort of have a change of opinion now that I've looked at a few other wikis and have seen what they do. For example, Fable Wiki's featured articles are selected in a process somewhat similar to ours, but with some important differences: users can only nominate one article at a time, nominated articles are held to certain layout, length and quality criteria (though the criteria aren't necessarily something which can be easily defined, it's a sort of "you know it when you see it" thing), all nominated articles are reviewed before being featured and admins reserve the right to deny featured articles. I think rather than constructing what is likely to be a needlessly complex system, we could make just a few modifications to our current system and really get it working better.

I've written up a sample of what I think a good policy would be. It may appear long, but when you consider how much simpler this solution is than the rating solution being discussed, the length really doesn't remain a big issue. Most of the policy would not need to be listed out on the voting page, but could be listed on a different page to be referenced by admins and users. Here's the policy idea I wrote up, heavily based on Fable Wiki's policies:


 * Featured Articles must
 * Be well-written and detailed.
 * Be unbiased and written in a neutral point-of-view.
 * Be properly sourced.
 * Adhere to the wiki's Style guidelines.
 * Not be tagged for cleanup, expansion or other improvements.
 * Have a clear and concise introductory paragraph.
 * Have a reasonable number of good-quality images that relate to the article.
 * Have a completed infobox.
 * Have a completed infobox.

Any registered user may nominate one article at a time for Featured Article. Procedure of nomination is:
 * Nomination and Voting
 * An article worthy of nomination is added to The_Sims_Wiki:Featured_Article/Voting, following the example format on that page.
 * Once nominated, an article may be voted on by registered users and either supported or opposed, with valid reasoning.
 * Any article that has had an objection to its nomination can be improved during the nomination period and will still be considered. Any improvements as a direct result of objections should be noted below the corresponding objection.
 * Administrators may disqualify articles that fail to meet requirements of Featured Article status. These articles may not be re-nominated for at least 30 days.

When voting:
 * Voters should be familiar with the article, and should read it in full to ensure its quality.
 * Voters may either support or oppose an article's nomination - votes should include proper justification for their vote, based on the quality of the article and not based on the popularity of the article's topic.

An article is queued to become a Featured Article when it has:
 * Received ten votes of support (with proper justification) from registered users.
 * Been determined by an administrator to meet Featured Article criteria.

Articles queued to become Featured Articles are featured in the order in which they were queued, unless it is necessary to re-arrange their order. Administrators have full discretion to remove articles from the queue or re-arrange them due to current events or article quality.

Again, the policy is, in my opinion, only as long as it needs to be; any shorter and it would not be able to do a good job. Additionally, I see this as being much much more straightforward than any system based on article ratings or a complex nomination and voting process (as I had previously proposed) could ever be. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 07:19, December 28, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this. It's very well planned. Nice Job! -- BobNewbie talk • blog 07:34, December 28, 2010 (UTC)

Decreasing Activity
So, I may be alone in this observation, but I've noticed a substantial decline in editor activity on this wiki in the past weeks. Even during the "Blog/Achievements" period, I've noticed a decrease in total activity here which concerns me more than a little bit. So, I have a couple very big questions:
 * 1) Is there really a decrease in activity occurring here?
 * 2) If our activity is really decreasing, why is it?
 * 3) How do we better engage our existing users?
 * 4) How do we better attract new users?

I don't know if there are any easy answers here, because these may very well be complex issues. Hopefully getting a discussion going here can show us the road ahead. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 22:19, December 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well... for me (in case you have noticed I have gone inactive), the answer(s) to no. 2 are heavy schoolwork, less free time, more focus on real life, lack of further interest in the Sims series, and lack of further interest in Wikia... so I can't really say if and/or why our popularity is decreasing because I'm not around to observe the Wiki activity anymore either. (Thanks for the update anyways patrick) - JEA13  [ iTalk  ] 22:38, December 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the insight into that. When you say you've lost interest in Wikia, why is that, or do you have any particular reason? -  LostInRiverview talk · blog 22:49, December 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * This is getting so personal (no offense) :P I joined wikia when I was thirteen, and back then I had the newcomer's "thirst for glory", in other words, I did everything I could from image uploads to grammar corrections to make a name for myself around Wikia. Rarely did I do important, beneficial tasks (though I was the person who properly categorised the pages of the wiki petween mainspace and wikispace when I first came on here... with all the voting contests and stuff... that action granted me admin rights). Now that I've grown up, I don't care about making a name for my self or anything like that. So, since editing just for the hell of it is not an option due to schoolwork and social life taking all my interest and energy away, I don't edit anymore... - JEA13  [ iTalk  ] 23:00, December 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that's very profound. And that's certainly a reason why you wouldn't contribute, especially if you've lost interest in the series. I didn't mean to make you get so personal in your response.
 * In any case, I have a hypothesis about our recent decline in activity, one which I don't care to directly mention here at the risk of it dominating this conversation. I'm just looking for reasons at this point; the solutions come later (granted, I did ask for solutions...). -  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:04, December 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd have to say that the switching of Monaco to Oasis did cause a certain number of users to leave Wikia. That might be significant as to why there's lesser activity than usual. 23:11, December 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * I had hypothesized as much, based on comments from Monster2821 and Eduardog3000, among others. As I recall, though, they both switched over to Monobook after Monaco was removed, so I'm not sure. I posted on both their talk pages as well but no response thus far (it could be that they're just offline atm). However, I don't recall seeing Eduardog on within the past few weeks (I might just be mistaken). I know for sure that Rodrigo X has left, and I have a hunch based on past comments he's made that it was related to the new skin. As I've said twice though, I am not about to say here and now that the decrease in activity is caused principally by the new skin, as I want to give proper time to other possible issues first. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:21, December 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know about everyone else buy i got used to the new layout pretty fast, so that's not a reason why i haven't done a lot of editing. i try to add new pages/articles when a new patch is released of official word is spoken on a new expansion or game in the franchise. then there's other times i try to help with grammer or clean up. i could start doing more and learn a little more about templates and such. one thing i noticed in that hypothesis was something about maybe moving us out of wikia? would this give us a new domain name but be technically the same database of articles and pages?Bafendo 23:31, December 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * It's been done by other wikis on Wikia, so it's not impossible. What would likely be the manner would be that, once a new home is found, the whole database would be transferred, a system would be set up to transfer over users (see Halopedia for an example of that), and the original site (i.e. this one) would be left behind with all the data, but with notices aplenty telling users that the community has moved to a different site. But, again, I don't really want to say that this is the end-all solution to this problem, and I'm not even sure that us leaving Wikia would do any good (it might even make things worse). --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:38, December 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * well we can't give up on this Wiki. i hope a solution is found soon. Sad if this Wiki was to go dormant. Maybe we should think of some new ways to make this wiki more appealing or something. you mentioned something about the skin. Sad if that's the main thing making some users leave. Maybe there could be some kind of contest to get users to return or to bring in new users.Bafendo 23:48, December 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * well we can't give up on this Wiki. i hope a solution is found soon. Sad if this Wiki was to go dormant. Maybe we should think of some new ways to make this wiki more appealing or something. you mentioned something about the skin. Sad if that's the main thing making some users leave. Maybe there could be some kind of contest to get users to return or to bring in new users.Bafendo 23:48, December 5, 2010 (UTC)

I honestly think that it mostly has to do with the removal of Monaco, I believe that most people don't know that Monobook is still an option, or it could be that they tried Monobook, but it didn't look to well to them (I suggest making a Monobook background at MediaWiki:Monobook.css). If all else fails we could try to move to another wiki hosting site. Although I think the best option at the moment is to put something on MediaWiki:Monobook.css and put a MediaWiki:Sitenotice (which does show up on Oasis) saying to switch to Monobook. As for me being gone for a little bit, I am not leaving the wiki, or becoming semi-inactive, it is simply because I have school and I am also working on getting members to join a (very) small wiki that I "own".--Eduardog3000 00:40, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Eduardog, working on the Monobook background may not be a bad idea, especially considering that if the wiki were to move, we'd be stuck re-creating the look elsewhere anyway. However, Sitenotice does not appear to users of Oasis. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 01:03, December 6, 2010 (UTC)

I have a Site Notice on my wiki and I saw it on Oasis.--Eduardog3000 01:06, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you talking about the text on your mainpage that says "Attention: The Wheezy Wiki is made with Monobook..."? Because that's not a sitenotice. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 01:10, December 6, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I just realized that, I made it a Site Notice and put it on the main page. We could do that here.--Eduardog3000 01:16, December 6, 2010 (UTC)

I don't really know what to think of this situation, I started noticing activity decreasing around the time school started up again. Me being homeschooled, I've been busy with creating my own forum and getting an apprentice journalist job, so I really don't have any free time in my schedule. That's why i don't really edit like I used to.-- DarthCookie  Talk 02:39, December 6, 2010 (UTC)

Enthusiasm. When I first came here, I was so happy. I made friends, took part in awesome contests, was adding to a wiki about my favourite game, ect. I don't know why, but its like I kind of lost that enthusiasm. I am the community director at 2 wiki's, and its pretty easy for me to see when there is a decline in activity. Also, I just ended with exams, and I know people all around the world are busy/starting with them. Now, I think when we get a new user, we go crazy. Everybody gives them a personal welcome like: ''Hey! Welcome to the wiki! and I hope you like it here, and if you need any help, feel free to contact me! ''

Many wikians already do that, like me, but if everyone welcomes someone, he will be very happy here.

Next, I say we need to start having a featured contest every month, and we must start the The Sims Wiki Battles. Both will do a lot of good for the wiki. BobNewbie talk • blog 07:29, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * The main reasons to the "decrease" is ,simply lost of interest in The Sims Series and needing to do stuff IRL.-- Monster2821 talk 12:55, December 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, so I'm getting the idea from the answers here that the decline is mainly due to real life, and isn't necessarily due to one overwhelming factor or another. That being said, BobNewbie did say something which struck me regarding enthusiasm. Perhaps what goes hand-in-hand with a decline in activity is a decline in enthusiastic participation, not just in editing but in participation in a community. By this, I mean the participation in and creation of contests, posts and responses in the forums, messages to other users around the wiki (such as on birthdays or whenever someone does something good) and such.


 * Also, to address BobNewbie's point directly, I have been trying to keep the Features space up-to-date over the past month but I have no ideas of my own as to what our monthly contest should be, and the ideas for such have bee, sadly, a little sparse - the weekly poll is strictly a fallback plan if we can't feature a contest instead.


 * On that note, we move from what I'd like to call phase one to what is now phase two... in that we've identified some likely reasons for declining activity. Some of these things, such as the new skin or people's academic schedules, cannot be easily fixed or avoided. But a gap in enthusiasm very well could be with a bit of concentrated effort. To that end, any suggestions anyone has here - such as starting up The Sims Wiki Battles - would be greatly appreciated at this point. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 14:50, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that we could start up The Sims Wiki Battles or some kind of similar contest to attempt to add interest in the Wiki. I agree with the opinion that the new skin has caused some backlash and that there are some RL issues which are unavoidable. On another note, I am surprised that the JoePlay blog and the Spotlight ad didn't attract any new users. GEORGIE  GIBBONS  talk contributions 16:22, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that a decrease in activity isn't really the problem. The problem is that the examining session has begun and everyone has to study. I agree with the contest idea. At least it works for all the people in Greece. Now, if half of the Earth population actually has been playing The Sims for around 2 years, then advertising the site could be a could idea. If EA publishes a new game about The Sims sooner then March 2010, and we collect information faster than Simfans.de or any other site, something could happen. Restarting the Achievements Leaderboard may be a second solution. - Andronikos Leventis 16:38, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. I started The Sims Wik Battles, so thats 1 thing taken care of. Anyway, we know that school is keeping users busy, and theres nothing we can do about that (actually, there is...). This is a very weird situation. On the 1 hand we could wait a while to see if its getting worse and lose users, on the other one we can start acting now. Andronkis is right with both plans. GEORGIE, both the blog and the spotlight brought some users, but they didn't stay long. BobNewbie talk •  blog 17:14, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. I started The Sims Wik Battles, so thats 1 thing taken care of. Anyway, we know that school is keeping users busy, and theres nothing we can do about that (actually, there is...). This is a very weird situation. On the 1 hand we could wait a while to see if its getting worse and lose users, on the other one we can start acting now. Andronkis is right with both plans. GEORGIE, both the blog and the spotlight brought some users, but they didn't stay long. BobNewbie talk •  blog 17:14, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. I started The Sims Wik Battles, so thats 1 thing taken care of. Anyway, we know that school is keeping users busy, and theres nothing we can do about that (actually, there is...). This is a very weird situation. On the 1 hand we could wait a while to see if its getting worse and lose users, on the other one we can start acting now. Andronkis is right with both plans. GEORGIE, both the blog and the spotlight brought some users, but they didn't stay long. BobNewbie talk •  blog 17:14, December 6, 2010 (UTC)

I actually haven't been that active lately, mainly because there isn't that much here to improve. --Norman Average 17:18, December 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Norman, have you seen how many stubs and short articles we have? How many need images, infoboxes, ect. This is a big wiki, but there is a lot of stuff to do. Thank goodness we have the people to do the job. BobNewbie talk •  blog 17:45, December 6, 2010 (UTC)

In regards to the achievements and JoePlay's blog... speaking from an admin's perspective the whole thing was a nightmare and I for one don't wish to repeat it. It may have brought some people into the wiki, but I don't think it really did much to aid activity, and so much of the activity was vandalism or was just pointless. But if we could get a couple features that really draw people, it would be cool. As odd as this sounds, maybe revising our community guidelines regarding pages for rumored games would help... if we had a compilation of available rumors and information about un-announced titles, we might be able to draw people who are looking for that sort of thing. Granted, I'm not really advocating that since it too would be a logistical nightmare, but it's good to have unique ideas.

Maybe another question, while this is going, is: are there any things here on the Wiki that should be redesigned, changed or removed? I ask because maybe there's certain things here that just don't appeal to people, and we should try and eliminate them if they are not worth having. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:06, December 6, 2010 (UTC)

Okay, listen to this. This is only a suggestion. Fanon. One of the biggest "problems" here are people creating fanon pages. I know its a long shot, but if we spend a month or 2 planning, we could figure out a way to enable fanon being created and it being categorized better. Again, this is only a suggestion. BobNewbie talk • blog 19:27, December 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok... I know a while back a vote about merging with the Fanon Wiki failed (a very close vote, btw)... but I don't think the community had really come up with a comprehensive merge plan for implementing the merge. It might be worth starting a discussion about, or we could take a vote to ask whether the community would support the creation of a project to create an implementation plan for merging the wikis prior to a vote on whether the wikis should actually be merged. I agree though that fanon is a bit frustrating as it sits in this gray area... it's allowed in some places (player stories pages) but not in others, and only regarding certain things. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:40, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. But I don't think a merge is the best idea. We should just weaken the policy a bit: You are allowed to put player stories about existing Sims on pages, but not create fanon articles about pre-created Sims (for example, if I created Bella Goth: My Story, and someone searched Bella Goht accidentaly, they would come to two different pages, and it could get confusing). So we only allow pages about CAS Sims and Neighborhoods being created. Get what i'm saying? BobNewbie talk •  blog 19:49, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with almost all comments on here, sometimes I feel so lonely on this wiki because anyone is editing at the same time as me. Unfortunately I don't see a current solution for this problem. Perhaps we should let it go naturally, certainly activity will increase in future, we all should work to keep activity, I also think you are needing new projects and innovation. I definitely don't agree with fanon implementation, it would be an info mess and making vandalism activities would be much easier. I don't agree with removing this wiki, it would be sad seeing all this info and huge community gone. I am sorry to say that I'm also very busy with school at weekdays, I hope people are not losing the interest in Sims series but I'm sure that is also a main reason which causes this problem. There is another problem, people have real lifes and we msut have it, of course, maybe that explains something, I am also being caught by real life and have real issues to resolve not virtual ones, I am still very interested in Sims, though. We should motivate users to improve articles and/or uploading images, blogs, content and much more, we shouldn't be so negative and harsh when reviewing edits from Newbies or regular users, instead of only pointing them out about their mistakes, indicate what they have positively done, just a suggestion. Thanks for reading. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 21:08, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok. Heres my view. Many people have left due to the skin, and there is nothing we should do about it. We should not move. We need to "change" the wiki a bit. When I say that, I mean it in two ways:
 * To make the wiki look better (not that I have any problems with how it looks right now)
 * To create contests to increase activity
 * I agree with almost all comments on here, sometimes I feel so lonely on this wiki because anyone is editing at the same time as me. Unfortunately I don't see a current solution for this problem. Perhaps we should let it go naturally, certainly activity will increase in future, we all should work to keep activity, I also think you are needing new projects and innovation. I definitely don't agree with fanon implementation, it would be an info mess and making vandalism activities would be much easier. I don't agree with removing this wiki, it would be sad seeing all this info and huge community gone. I am sorry to say that I'm also very busy with school at weekdays, I hope people are not losing the interest in Sims series but I'm sure that is also a main reason which causes this problem. There is another problem, people have real lifes and we msut have it, of course, maybe that explains something, I am also being caught by real life and have real issues to resolve not virtual ones, I am still very interested in Sims, though. We should motivate users to improve articles and/or uploading images, blogs, content and much more, we shouldn't be so negative and harsh when reviewing edits from Newbies or regular users, instead of only pointing them out about their mistakes, indicate what they have positively done, just a suggestion. Thanks for reading. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 21:08, December 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok. Heres my view. Many people have left due to the skin, and there is nothing we should do about it. We should not move. We need to "change" the wiki a bit. When I say that, I mean it in two ways:
 * To make the wiki look better (not that I have any problems with how it looks right now)
 * To create contests to increase activity
 * To make the wiki look better (not that I have any problems with how it looks right now)
 * To create contests to increase activity

At TSM wiki, we are having a logo contest. In the logo contest, you can also vote to keep the current logo. We can create contest like:


 * A new logo contest
 * A new background contest
 * TSWM Contest. A The Sims Wiki Mascot Contest. You can upload a picture of a Sim who will represent TSW for the next year! It can work the same way as featured media voting. Then, we can copy that Sim in our games, and, for example, in December, we put a picture of him in a Santa Outfit! Its just a suggestion, but if you ask me, it will surely attract new users.
 * Featured Media/ Featured Articles need a new voting layout. We can have a contest to decide which layout were gonna use.

BobNewbie  talk • blog  08:05, December 7, 2010 (UTC)

Readers look at pictures, panels, bold letters and links. They don't look at categories. I agree with BobNewbie. A new backround is indeed needed, and the mascot idea is great! Also a way should be found to reduce spam and vandalism. And finally readers are sensible people and want to know more about the advantages of beign a user. We are close to 2011 and if someone created a New Year backround (be careful not to create a Christmas backround) it would be an identical world. Then wait until 25/12 when holiday has started and there won't be a school problem, because most of the users aren't adults. These are only my thoughts. - Andronikos Leventis 13:21, December 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to say that I like the Mascot idea. I think we should be able to create our own Sims for the mascot contest (like costumes etc.) but of course be mindful of the Wiki's policy for images. GEORGIE  GIBBONS  talk contributions 15:48, December 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * All of these sound like pretty good ideas. I know that I've been considering bringing up a change to the wiki's background (it's so green!), but that in my mind would go hand-in-hand with a redesign of the main page, which I consider to be something we should consider - if you visit other Wikis' main pages, you'll see that they have a lot less of an introductory "header" than we do... they get right to the content and offer links to different areas of the wiki; ours is an introduction which reasonably could be relocated to The Sims Wiki:About. I would say that the current mainpage layout is a leftover from Monaco, when there was no giant Wikia bar at the top of the screen, and that it needs an update; in regards to this matter, I've already posed the idea on talk:The Sims Wiki, but no response has been posted yet. Also, I know that A Morris has mentioned ideas for changing Featured Articles, but as of yet she hasn't proposed anything formally - the discussion of Featured Articles should be located on this page, above this conversation. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 16:09, December 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * The main page probably does need to be redesigned so it gets to the content sooner. The content panel is catchy, but it's far enough down that it's unlikely to be one of the first things a newcomer will see. As for changing the background, would that be the background outside the content area, or the background of the content area? If it's the former, a redesign - and a contest - might be a good idea. If it's the latter, I say "no". The background to the content area may not be visually exciting or "cool", but it is easy to look at, which is no small thing if you want people to stay for a while. Dharden (talk) 18:18, December 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I think background was referring to the green Plumbbob wallpaper visible on all pages, not just the mainpage. I would agree that visual ease-of-use is important here, as I certainly don't appreciate eye strain any more than the next person. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:20, December 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I think this wiki is in a negative cicle because there are few people editing and other users don't see any community activity, contests and innovation they swith to another web site and go listening to music or other things, I think most users (even admins) lost the interest they had in this wiki. Thanks --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 12:15, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok. I have created a new logo contest. We still need a new background contest and I think we should have a mascot contest. BobNewbie talk •  blog 12:32, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok. I have created a new logo contest. We still need a new background contest and I think we should have a mascot contest. BobNewbie talk •  blog 12:32, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok. I have created a new logo contest. We still need a new background contest and I think we should have a mascot contest. BobNewbie talk •  blog 12:32, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

Earlier I was talking about how the sims wiki should have a MediaWiki:Monobook.css, well I copied MediaWiki:Monaco.css and pasted it to User:Eduardog3000/monobook.css and it looked really good.--Eduardog3000 02:33, December 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and followed Eduardog's example and added the content in MediaWiki:Monaco.css to MediaWiki:Monobook.css. If there are any issues with it, don't ask me how to fix it because I honestly don't have a clue. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 05:35, December 10, 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we could have a event system. They can work like mini wiki holidays. Like on the 21 January, its stub day, where everyone edits mostly stubs. Weird Day, where we make a page where we put the weirdest pictures on the wiki on a page, and discuss about all the weird things of the game. Just a suggestion. -- BobNewbie talk • blog 17:19, December 10, 2010 (UTC)

We could even try an April Fool's Day prank! Fake information about The Sims, and what's more, a prank about an upcoming TS3 game! Classic, but better than just waiting until 1st April finishes. - Andronikos Leventis 18:34, December 10, 2010 (UTC)

Good idea! Sounds Fun! -- BobNewbie talk • blog 18:40, December 10, 2010 (UTC)

I was the one who suggested the merge with the Fanon Wiki. The Avatar: The Last Airbender Wiki merged with their Fanon Wiki, and they claimed that it was a really successful move. The wiki became very popular and active, even after their original show ended. I know that The Sims is long from ending (I hope! D:), but we are suffering from inactivity. The way how the Avatar: The Last Airbender Wiki handles their fanon is very simple and organized, take a look! If we do merge with the Fanon Wiki, we would have to create a fanon portal, a fanon category (and other sub-categories), and a fanon namespace, much like the Avatar Wiki's. Come and look at the Avatar Wiki Fanon and tell me what you think! — Random Ranaun ( Talk to me! ) 14:00, December 17, 2010 (UTC)

Statistics
I was digging around the wiki and ended up on the About page, and there was a link to our traffic summary on Quantcast... I checked to make sure it wasn't covering the whole of Wikia and it's not - it's specific to us! You can check it out for yourself but I'll summarize:


 * Activity in the past six months was highest on Halloween - October 31. Traffic around that period was significantly higher than traffic preceding or following it. However, it appears that traffic is slightly higher following that peak. That peak and subsequent modest increase in activity coincides (perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not) with the mandatory switch to Oasis.
 * The 'peak and valley' effect, most likely an increase of wiki activity on weekends and decrease on weekdays, is more pronounced after around late August than it is before; thus indicating that many of our contributors have school or other weekday activities which do not happen over summertime.
 * The wiki's audience is split up fairly well geographically... a plurality of contributors are from the United States, but they do not constitute a majority of users.
 * A vast majority of users: 77%; are considered 'passers-by' and visit once a month or less. Only 7% visit the wiki more than 30 times a month.
 * TSW averages over 3,500,000 page views per month, and over 450,000 visits per month from a global audience. An estimated 108,000 visits come from the United States; compare this to an estimated 165,000 visits from the U.S. for TheSims3.com, 82,500 U.S. visits for ModTheSims.info, 93,000 US visits for thesimsresource.com, and (to put it in perspective) 129,300,000 US visits for facebook.com... So to sum it up, we rank higher in (American) site visits than The Sims Resource and ModTheSims, but rank lower than TheSims3.com.
 * There are 14,900,000 US visitors to the Wikia network per month, and 108,000 US visitors to TSW per month, putting us at 0.727% of total network traffic for the Wikia network (Fallout Wiki is highest).
 * Looking at data from the past year, on average our activity here in terms of readership is at this point the highest that it has been all year (factoring out the odd jump or two). Aside from the current time, the wiki was busiest over the (Northern Hemisphere) summer months of June-August.

Feel free to chew all this over for a while. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 10:12, December 27, 2010 (UTC)

TSWM
I posted the idea above, and it seems some people like the idea. Heres what I said:

''TSWM Contest. A The Sims Wiki Mascot Contest. You can upload a picture of a Sim who will represent TSW for the next year! It can work the same way as featured media voting. Then, we can copy that Sim in our games, and, for example, in December, we put a picture of him in a Santa Outfit! Its just a suggestion, but if you ask me, it will surely attract new users.''

Understand what i'm saying? Say someone created a Sim. Everyone likes how he/she looks. We can then copy that Sim in our games. Then, we put them around the wiki. For example, when going to a help page, it has a picture of him/her fixing something. At the community portal, we can have a picture of him/her speaking their mind.

Or, we can try a simpler approach. On Christmas, we use a picture of, for example, him/her in a Christmas outfit. January, him/her at a fireworks show (form world adventures).

It will certainly attract new users. I have at least 4 Sims in mind to enter. It will also have users sign up for the first time. BobNewbie talk • blog 18:40, December 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * Great idea! Also I think we should create a template with images of Christmas things with a place to fill a message and then we could wish a great christmas to our wiki friends, what do you guys think? I think it would be cute ^^. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 18:44, December 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * So, this would be a custom Sim, not a pre-created EA Sim, correct? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:45, December 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think a custom Sim would be better. BobNewbie talk •  blog 18:47, December 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * What do you think about my idea? Thanks --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 18:48, December 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * Guilherme - just to keep things cleaner, I'd suggest starting a new section for your idea. I like it, though. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:51, December 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * Guilherme - just to keep things cleaner, I'd suggest starting a new section for your idea. I like it, though. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:51, December 7, 2010 (UTC)

I think the Sim should have a clever name which has something to do with the name of the wiki. For example "Simon Wikonian" (I am not that good with making names) or something. He should also wear a shirt with one of the custom Sims Wiki Patterns. If he has already been made (Like BobNewbie said he had 4 in mind) then we could just change his clothes and name. Overall though I like the idea of a mascot, but not a new one every year, keep the same one. We could also make it a family, not just one Sim (with one S



im as the main mascot).--Eduardog3000 02:47, December 9, 2010 (UTC)

The Community Support team also have a mascot, Walter. BobNewbie talk • blog 09:40, December 20, 2010 (UTC)

Christmas template
I want to suggest new creation: a Christmas template with lots of Christmas images where we could fill it with a message saying the best wishes to our wiki friends, it would be nice and cute and all users would like to receive one, I think, I don't know if we can do such thing but I hope it is possible. Thanks for reading. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 18:57, December 7, 2010 (UTC)

Any thoughts? Thanks --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 09:21, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

Well, its a very good idea, but I don't 100% think its the best. It's going to be a system of: Go to talk page, put template below page, go to next user, repeat. I think we should all just give personalized messages to make everyone feel special. BobNewbie talk • blog 09:38, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

Yes of course I thought on that, we would fill the template with the message we wanted to give to one friend and then another we would write a different message, if the person wants to give a copied message to all people that is his/her choice. Thanks for reading. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 09:45, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

You are missing something here. Not everyone's religion is Christianity! There are 6 billion people in this planet and I think that such a template could be insulting for some of them. A New Year template is better. I am not an artist myself to tell what would look better, but I think that this could be a little too strange for some people. - Andronikos Leventis 17:31, December 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * I would put it a bit more delicately than that, but it is a point. However, someone who is not Christian may still recognize Christmas as a secular holiday, and may not mind Christmas greetings from friends, even if they might prefer that those greetings be secular. Dharden (talk) 18:10, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * 'Happy Holidays' may be a good alternative to 'Merry Christmas' though I know that the use of that term is also not without controversy. The simple fact in all this is that it's impossible to please everyone. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:20, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I am agnostic and don't really care wherever people say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas. Also, you don't have to be Christian to celebrate Christmas. You can celebrate it religously or non-religously. For example, Christmas is celebrated in Japan, a non-Christian country. --Norman Average 18:23, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok. I think we should stop talking about religion. I believe we should still use the "Merry Christmas" template. As people can see from this discussion, our hearts are in the right place, and we just wan't to tell people to enjoy whatever they are celebrating. We don't mean any disrespect. BobNewbie talk •  blog 18:52, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed, just make it 'Merry Christmas' and leave it at that. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 05:36, December 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * Could someone help me? I'm not really experienced with templates. Thanks so much--Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 15:02, December 12, 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed, just make it 'Merry Christmas' and leave it at that. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 05:36, December 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * Could someone help me? I'm not really experienced with templates. Thanks so much--Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 15:02, December 12, 2010 (UTC)

Category galleries
Information regarding the new feature, category galleries, from Wendy aka Merrystar, Wikia Community Support: The articles included in the category gallery are the 8 most visited in the last 30 days. The image used is the first image on the page which 1) isn't in a template or infobox and 2) is larger than 50 x 50 px in size and 3) is not used on more than 10 pages on the wiki. If no image is found which meets that criteria it will use the first piece of text that is not included in a template.

So I suppose the best way to optimize articles is to have your favorite image be the first one on the page that is not inside an infobox or other template, and to make sure it isn't used on too many other pages.

I'm not sure how quickly changes to the article are reflected in the gallery - we don't have enough experience with the feature to know yet. I would say if you don't see a change to the article reflected in the gallery in a few days to please contact us.

Update: Just a quick update; I was speaking with one of the people who worked on this project and he says that the gallery will take images from templates and infoboxes; I had misunderstood that. So I guess put your best image at the top of the page either in or out of the infobox.

It won't, however, take text from the infoboxes in the case that there is no suitable image to use.

--a_morris (talk) 17:56, December 12, 2010 (UTC)

New Userboxes
I made 2 new userboxes Template:User dating, for users who are dating someone and Template:User divorced for users who are divorced if someone wishes to uptade them feel free to do so. Also use them as you wish. Thanks so much. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 21:23, December 12, 2010 (UTC)

Voting Templates
OK! First thing I did as a community director: I created two voting templates!

What do you guys think? If you feel like creating more, please set the picture size to 16px, and add them below. When we have 6, we can create a page for them all. -- BobNewbie talk • blog 07:52, December 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * Anybody have an opinion? BobNewbie talk •  blog 12:54, December 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * What abou neutral template? Thanks --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 18:19, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about that. But I don't know what image to use. BobNewbie talk •  blog 19:00, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Neutral.png do you think about this image for neutral votes? --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 10:34, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Fine with me. I'll create the template now, and we can change it later if the community decides. BobNewbie talk •  blog 10:37, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Fine with me. I'll create the template now, and we can change it later if the community decides. BobNewbie talk •  blog 10:37, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Fine with me. I'll create the template now, and we can change it later if the community decides. BobNewbie talk •  blog 10:37, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Fine with me. I'll create the template now, and we can change it later if the community decides. BobNewbie talk •  blog 10:37, December 18, 2010 (UTC)

A neutral template, Neutral = has been created.

Thanks Bob! --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 10:53, December 18, 2010 (UTC)

Moodlets
We can also have ones based on moodlets, like Smile makes. -- BobNewbie talk • blog 16:18, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

Here's another one: Lol makes


 * Duskey was working on something similar: User:Duskey/Sandbox. --a_morris (talk) 21:28, December 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Just a small note Bob, you mean "here is" or "here's", that's is the correct form. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 13:34, December 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Guilherme. I Fixed it!

Seeking community input
I've proposed a revision to our policies and feedback is needed. To view the proposal, go here.

Additionally, I have made significant expansion to the wiki Guidelines and some feedback is also appreciated on the talk page. If something is missing from that list and you believe it belongs there, feel free to add it (so long as it's relatively agreed upon by the community).--  LostInRiverview talk · blog 06:54, December 16, 2010 (UTC)

Top 10
This is a popular feature on many wiki's and I think we can enable to help increase activity. For those of you who don't know how they work, users create a list. Other users can add something to that list and vote something up. The feature can be enabled by contacting a wikia staff member. So, what do you guys think? BobNewbie talk • blog 18:10, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you provide links to a couple wikis that have this feature enabled? Thanks! --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:12, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure! Here, here and here (community central). If you would like more, just ask! BobNewbie talk •  blog 18:20, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * I like it, as long as it's being monitored to ensure that the comments made adhere to policy. If the community supports it, myself or another one of the admins can contact Wikia to have it activated. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:29, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * On second thought, I think it might be better to bring it in sooner rather than later, and allow a trial run to gauge reaction to it. I'll leave this open for about a day so that any serious objections can be heard, but then I'll probably make the contact myself. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 18:31, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Great! BobNewbie talk •  blog 18:33, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Great! BobNewbie talk •  blog 18:33, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Great! BobNewbie talk •  blog 18:33, December 16, 2010 (UTC)

Here's how they do it: Special:CreateTopList --a_morris (talk) 21:07, December 18, 2010 (UTC)

I created the first one: Top 10 list:Favorite Sim. BobNewbie talk • blog 08:04, December 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've created Top ten Expansion Packs --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 08:38, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

Defining Households vs Families
In response to previous discussions regarding things to do with families versus households, I think we as a community should, once and for all, decide a few key issues:
 * 1) Should family/household pages with only one Sim in the family/household be kept?
 * 2) If one-Sim households/families are kept, what are they called (households or families)?
 * 3) If one-Sims households/families are not kept, where do we put information such as household/family net worth and difficulty level? Additionally, how do we ensure that wiki users searching for this information will not be challenged by the lack of a family/household page?
 * 4) What kind of information should be placed on a family or household page, and what kind of information belongs on the Sim page?

Feel free to add additional questions or to start subsections for discussion. No voting will occur here; this is simply to ascertain what the community wants and (hopefully) come to a consensus regarding what our stance on these issues should be. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 20:11, December 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * WRT terminology, I think we should follow in-game usage where possible. If the game says "family", use "family", even if there's just one Sim. In-game usage will affect what terms people will use when searching, especially if they're using a search engine.


 * I think family pages should be kept for one-Sim households if they have relatives or ancestors who are mentioned by name, especially if they have character files. For example, Lothario family should stay because Don Lothario's parents and grandparents are mentioned in The Sims 2, even if he is their only living descendant. More as I think of it. Dharden (talk) 20:50, December 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree with using in-game terminology for article pages as the in-game terminology changes, The Sims and The Sims 2 almost exclusively uses "family" while The Sims 3 uses "household". The wiki should use terms consistently. If an article is about Sims who are related to each other the title should be "family", if the article is about Sims living together it should be "household", with "family" taking precedence. Therefore, a family also living together and one-Sim households would be a "family". But in-game names should be used as redirects for easier searching.
 * The keeping of one-Sim household/family pages does seem a bit useless, although I believe they should be kept as redirects for categorization and searching. The Sim & Simbio templates does already have a "household" section which could be expanded to contain difficulty and net worth, or a separate, abbreviated version of FamilyInfobox template could be created. --a_morris (talk) 17:28, December 18, 2010 (UTC)

Bot is needed or not?
Should we have a new bot owned by an admin, i thought in this because Duskey appears to have left wiki and no one can acess VickyBot because it was owned by Duskey, we have some current tasks for bots, who would own one, an admin, possibly? Thanks so much. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 13:27, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that it is a good idea to have a second bot which can take the place of VickyBot, especially as it is unknown how long Duskey will be absent for. GG   (t)  •  (c)  •  (b)  13:39, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * By the time I don't think Duskey is going to return, sad but a possibility... --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 13:41, December 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * -- BobNewbie talk • blog 16:45, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've created A bot, but if anyone else wants to take on a bot they can. --a_morris (talk) 20:59, December 18, 2010 (UTC)

Ombudsman
Now that BobNewbie has taken over as Community Director, I notice that two other positions are available. Since the Forum Moderator will likely need to be an administrator due to their duties, I am coming here to ask if anyone would be willing to step up and take the position of the Wiki's Ombudsman (see Ombudsman for more info).


 * This user must be


 * Among the most active members of the Wiki.
 * Trusted by the entire community.
 * Willing to respond to issues and complaints and;
 * Able to reach a fair and neutral solution in arguments.

The ombudsman here would be more of an intermediary between two parties than necessarily a representative. However, if a user had an issue with a particular Administrator, they could also file a complaint with the Ombudsman.

I see this as being a good role to fill. Administrators aren't the best people in mediating disputes, in my opinion, and having a trusted community member to choose a fair solution seems better to me. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:13, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't really know of a user who can take on the task. Being the only admin on a large wiki, I know how hard it can be to take on the task. You are supposed to research everything that has happened, then listen to both the users viewpoints, and finally, possibly the biggest thing, not take sides. You must always be in the middle. Even if you dislike 1 user and are good friends with the other, you must stay neutral. BobNewbie talk •  blog 07:32, December 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I personally think of Duskey as Obudsman, but, seeing his inactivity, he will likely be replaced. 09:09, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

If nobody else volunteers, I wouldn't mind taking the role of Ombudsman but I personally think that there are users who would do a better job at it than me, which is why I would only take the job if noone else volunteers. GG  (t)  •  (c)  •  (b)  09:35, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

i don't know, but I don't think I would be good when performing this job, sorry. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 09:44, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

I can't volunteer, being the community director, but I won't mind taking the job when Bleeh is back in April. Otherwise, I would say GEORGIE should become one. BobNewbie talk • blog 10:17, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

I do not believe BobNewbie should become an ombudsman, remember when he rallied users to go against Auror and told her if she doesn't change she would need to leave the wiki? Good ombudmen do not do that! They are much too inexperienced, even to be community director. Georgie would be a very good ombudsman though, in my opinion. He is always calm and friendly. PS the main page and community portal talk pages are very long on phones :( 68.171.234.177 17:33, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

That was long time ago, and I think it is time to forget it, all participants learned the lesson (including me) and I hope something like this does not happens once again. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 17:41, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

I respect your right to comment 68.171.234.177, but you may have realized that me and Auror are now on a good basis, and both of us have grew past that. If you believe I should not be Community Director, you have the right to tell an administrator, but when the community decided, I was chosen. BobNewbie talk • blog 17:47, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Bob is right, we are on good basis now and we are all trying to cooperate, that is the most important, it is also time to detach that Bob is doing a great work as a community director, he is very creative never out of ideas and he is raising discussion and bringing solutions. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 18:00, December 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Now, let's see where this is going. Nowhere. Bob is doing a splendid job (much better than I would think) and he really deserves the position. If no one would like to nominate themselves, than us users will nominate them. Does this sound like a good plan?
 * Thats a perfect solution, and thank you. BobNewbie talk •  blog 18:58, December 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I have made a nomination . --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:22, December 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I have made a nomination . --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:22, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if I could do it or not, but I could try, and being that I barely leave the house because I'm homeschooled, I could be on all the time. Besides it would give me a reason to be active here again.-- DarthCookie  Talk 10:17, December 22, 2010 (UTC)

Reader Poll
Attn. Editors and Community;

I don't like disrupting the usual order of things on the main page, but I've added a temporary poll to the sidebar to gauge reader needs in a mainpage redesign. I intend to keep the poll there for only a week or less, so that Battles, Featured Article and the like will be returned to higher up on the page. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:12, December 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Poll is broken. I use Opera, but the poll is not showing my vote or recording that I voted. (I even tried twice.) Dharden (talk) 23:39, December 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * It was doing that for me too... I closed out the browser (Firefox) and the vote was apparently logged, but as to why it's not working, I can't explain. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:41, December 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Tried it on different computers with different browsers, it's broken. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:50, December 19, 2010 (UTC)

Testing a Template
How do I do this. Am I permitted to create a template for testing purposes? Is there a nice inobtrusive way of doing this? Thanks for putting up with my questions.

Techpriest88 02:40, December 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * You can make a sandbox and a template in your userspace for testing. Is this what you meant? GG   (t)  •  (c)  •  (b)  19:47, December 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want to test a template, create a page under your username (such as User:LostInRiverview/Test, my test page for templates). Put the template code onto that page, then go onto your talkpage and place the name of your created page in double-braces: . You can keep a test page as long as you'd like... if you make a good template, feel free to copy over the code and create a new template page for it. If/when you want to delete your test page, just add delete or speedydelete to it and an admin will clean it up for you. --  LostInRiverview talk ·  blog 08:15, December 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * My apologies for seeming so patronizing, as by the looks of it you seem to know exactly what you're doing. As I said, feel free to test your template under your username until you work the bugs out if it (if there are any). --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 08:18, December 23, 2010 (UTC)

Changes
Hey guys! As you may have noticed, me and LostInRiverview worked together and changed the community portal. Since the main page is going to be changed soon, we decided to include a bit of everything. If you ask me, it's nice to look at and is a great navigation hub. What do you think? Also, please remember that the previous Community Portal was just a grey table, if you don't like it :P. BobNewbie talk • blog 12:16, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Bob and I wanted to really improve the Community Portal and make it the hub of the TSW community; I think we've done just that with this revision. I'm really excited about it, and I hope all of you are too when you see it. And if we did something wrong or you have an idea on how to improve it, don't be afraid to suggest it here. All in all, I'm very very happy with the outcome.--  LostInRiverview talk · blog 12:20, December 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I really think me and LIR reached our goal. -- BobNewbie talk • blog 12:23, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * It looks really nice but I think it's too green, couldn't we change that? Thank you. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 18:50, December 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * Me and LostInRiverview talked about that. Would making the header backgrounds blue help? -- BobNewbie talk • blog 18:53, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... yes, but what about hot pink, kidding :p, you guys probably don't like it, for me it can be blue. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 19:05, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * We had originally had a Green background with blue headers but the color difference seemed... odd. What may end up happening is that we just drop the green background entirely (due to contrast and readability) but who knows. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:12, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * I copied over the page onto my test page and got rid of the background color - take a look at it. I personally don't like it without color, but that's just me. -  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:16, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've cut the color out of the very top and very bottom of the page, where most of the main reading is. To make the headers not look "weird" I left the color around the Featured content and Community Contests sections as well as the news. I'd rather not go around changing the colors; keeping it one color makes more sense to me. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:39, December 28, 2010 (UTC)

Love it, guys. Thanks for the great work. This is something I had envisioned for a long time. --a_morris (talk) 20:38, December 28, 2010 (UTC)

The new Community Portal looks AMAZING!!! Great job guys. I added a "Recent Forum threads" section in an attempt to get the Forums more popular. What do you think? — Random Ranaun ( Talk to me! ) 06:31, December 30, 2010 (UTC)

Emoticon Category
A contributer, 68.171.234.7, added the emoticon category to this page. I reverted the edit, but the category is still there. I went into edit mode to remove it, but I cant find it. Any help? Thanks. -- BobNewbie talk • blog 18:33, January 2, 2011 (UTC)


 * They probably didn't add it on purpose. If it wasn't removed afetr reverting, why don't you add their comment back? Their comment didn't break any rules. 74.216.74.238 18:39, January 2, 2011 (UTC)


 * Thats true. I also think it was accidental. I reverted it because I thought that would remove the category. I'll restore it. -- BobNewbie talk • blog 18:54, January 2, 2011 (UTC)
 * The Emoticons were improperly categorized, as the categories were not placed in tags. That means that whatever page they were used on would be added to the Emoticons category. This should be fixed now. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 20:38, January 2, 2011 (UTC)


 * I believe it was me who categorized it wrongly. I would like to apologize for my mistake. Thank you LIR for fixing it. -- BobNewbie talk • blog 21:06, January 2, 2011 (UTC)