Yes, I have an insufferable love of puns, sometimes.

Well, it’s another month, and another Wiki Tribune report. Less sweeping changes around the Wiki and heavier in terms updates on project work. We also have at least one fact to know and learn, as well as the usual presentation of this month’s Featured Page and Wikipedian of the Month. I will warn you that this month’s article will be a bit more brief than our last, but I hope y’all will get a little something out of it.

Wiki Projects

”Bringing you updates, or just letting you know it’s still on our to-do list!”

Greater Ease of Navigation On the Wiki: This work is ongoing. Focusing information and not having it spread across the Wiki like weeds? Projected finish date: end of quarter 2, 2020. [ONGOING]

Project Timeline: (Lead: Ronovi) A Wiki Team member is working on bringing the Dark Brotherhood’s timeline and event timeline pages up to date. Progress has been made thus far, and member continues to hunt for additional events which align with those already chronicled on the timeline which need to be added. [ONGOING]

Codex pages: Under Review. This went onto the backburner for a number of months, but this project will be getting picked back up. Some parts need to be checked with the appropriate Dark Council offices. <QUEUED>

Brotherhood Guidelines Category update: Going to give this a fresh review so we can evaluate what is needed here. Project will be handed to a staffer this month. <QUEUED>

Category Cleanup: Basically, we will have folks reviewing categories looking for doubled-up categories and fun stuff like that. Staff also grabs this as we see it in the execution of our duties. [ONGOING]

Historical Review: Finding ships, members, possessions and things to bring them into line with the more modern Brotherhood and its systems. An example might relate to the Possessions system, Orders, or other things of that nature. Not pitching things out. Just more of updating. This is a lower priority task. [ONGOING]

Unused Asset Review: (Project Lead: Tribune for the moment) On the eighth of this month the purge of unused files will potentially begin. The intention is to ensure the server where the Wiki is hosted does not get bogged down by unused assets.If nothing is done with a file by server roll over to the eighth, it is subject to deletion. If you don’t plan to link the image to a page and want to keep it, I suggest you save it on your hard drive or an external hosting source. Manual reviews will begin shortly. [NEXT PART QUEUED UNTIL FEB 8TH]

Under Construction Review: (Project Lead: Andrelious) Pretty straight forward. Andrel is going to be going through the UNDER CONSTRUCTION category searching for abandoned pages. They will be tagged with the appropriate template, and upon the project’s completion, the Tribune will provide a link to a change log to show pages affected by this review. [Ongoing]

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This Month’s Points to Consider On the Wiki

Just going to do one thing a month, so I don’t run out of talking points for a while. But this month you get a double feature!

First, I wanted to hit on double-redirects. Now, some of you might ask: “but Uncle Benny, what do I have to do with double-redirects?” Well, this is where things get a little more twisted into knots. Most people, once they set up that redirect from moving their page do Putting aside the unlikely chances that I am actually your uncle, I would like to pull folk’s attention to the way that #redirect works on the Wiki. Let’s say that your character has changed their name. Now, you can have your page moved to a new page, and the Wiki will give you the option when you go to potentially put in comments. There you can choose to NOT leave a redirect. Or to not move associated talk pages. Fun stuff, right?

what all people eventually do: they forget about them. And eventually someone might decide to change their page name or their character name or what have you and then they create another redirect. If this goes on indefinately, you can end up with easily four redirects.

To use my own page as an example, my original Bentre Stahoes page could redirect to Bentre Kairn’tel Stahoes. Bentre Kairn’tel Stahoes could redirect to Bentre Kairn’tel Sadow. Finally, and more annoyingly, when I decide to drop the middle name, my Bentre Kairn’tel Sadow becomes Bentre Sadow. So now, I have a string of redirects.

Bentre Stahoes -> Bentre Kairn’tel Stahoes -> Bentre Kairn’tel Sadow -> Bentre Sadow

Now, in many cases my staff and I can deal with this kind of stuff. It is what we do. However, we can ask that you keep an eye on those redirects. In the above case, you might be able to either redirect Bentre Stahoes, * Bentre Kairn’tel Stahoes* and Bentre Kairn’tel Sadow to Bentre Sadow. Or alternatively, if it is just a big bunch of redirects down a chain, you can just edit the first to point to your final destination page and delete the other redirects. Help us keep the Wiki a bit of a cleaner place!

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The second feature is a bit of an old song. That is namely Featured Pages. See, it doesn’t take a member of my staff to nominate a page. And while I don’t mind looking through some pages on occasion to pick one out, you can be part of a the process of helping decide on the page of the month.

If you have a page that you think fits the criteria, or is near fitting the criteria, you can add it to the linked page, or even just add the template, {{Nominated}}, to the top of the page you would like to see potentially featured in future. Nominations will be discussed by the Wiki Staff in some capacity. If they meet the criteria they may be selected or queued. If they do not, the Wiki staff are willing to discuss what needs improved upon to meet the expected criteria.

It is as easy as that!

Featured Article

This month's Wiki Page of the Month is the Plagueis' Aliso City.

This page is a good example of a page that is informative and comprehensive without being overly wordy. It is nicely presented, and overall demonstrates yet another way to describe a planet without either leaving the page as a barren stub or filling it with superfluous fluff.

Wikipedian of the Month

In January our Wikipedian of the month was a close race. This February, our Wikipedian of the Month is a bit of a runaway. For this last month, the greatest non-staffer impact on the Wiki was a name familiar to many, if not all of us. Some months I like to look down through my data tool and take a peek at the contributions themselves to see what different members have been up to. Sometimes I want to hold up more than just a sheer number of volume of content edits.

This month, there was no real contest. For the second month running, our Wikipedian of the Month is officially Essik Lyccane.

His edits stretched across a decent swathe of our Collective document, and thus he has chalked up another Dark Scroll. He completed a lot of link fixing, which is tedious work in and of itself, and other little detail work that help to keep the wiki both working and that little bit more useful. He also reviewed some images uploaded and added information or categorization that helps to keep our Wiki in nice and proper order.

His work is proof that you don’t need a fancy title like “Wiki Staff” or ‘Wiki Tribune” to make a positive impact on that part of our club.

Final Words

I think I say this every time. Our Wiki is a great, big living document. We all have the ability to create some aspect of our collective corner of a galaxy far, far away. It is not everyone’s favorite element of the club- some folks can’t stand it- but it allows us to express so much beyond what just shows up on a dossier.

It is also surprisingly brittle. A misplaced space or a bit of punctuation can be all it takes to break a Clan template, or to throw off a page, or to break an infobox. It happens all too easily. Which is where my staff and myself come into the picture. When things are broken, when you need help, if you can find us…

whistles the A Team theme

To quote the immortal Darth Frizzle: “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!”

And if you get in over your head, pop a message off to myself or any of my staff in Telegram PM or email. If you do go with email, just be sure to at least CC myself. And with that last word, I think I will close our monthly Wiki Tribune report.

In the meantime I remain, as ever, Yours In Darkness,