Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-5645428-20140415042116

It's been a while, but old Hackey5 still has a few words (yes…) to share.

Staff Status There's no lying; there's no denying. We haven't been in great form recently, and I'd say that's due to a rough combination of lack of time, interest and activity. By activity, I mean others' activity. Gnifle's informal retirement was a sad passing, and that in turn wasn't exactly encouraging, resulting in less interest towards wiki work without such a great leader. By that point, we'd probably be finding other things which urge greater attention, and there we'd feel like we have less time to contribute here. To put it simply, the loss of a valued staff member indeed affects the entire team's morale. It might not by the central reason responsible for it all, but it's about time I sit down and write something in acknowledgement. Gnifle certainly played an important part in all our experiences, and it's understandable how without him it just isn't the same.

Category Sweep Despite the recent events, there's still stuff that goes on and must be taken notice of. Now comes that time when we have a misclassified category on a great number of pages caused by a recent update to the scheme of things. That's the arrival of BBU, and already we're going to have to roll some changes. Summary aside, the "Weapons" category is no longer appropriate for use on BBG weapons alongside BBU weapons, meaning we've got to get categories for the both of them. Fortunately, there's an opportunity to up your badge count by being quick to change the "Weapons" category into "BBG Weapons". I have already done this for the Soldier, so there's ten more classes still to look into. Get on it!

I'll also add, I have revised the weapon classifications themselves a bit to make things a little clearer. The function of a weapon overides its effects if it's an ability or a newly decided "deployed" weapon (Daydreamer, Proximity Mine etc.), and will therefore be classified under one of those two categories. The weapon's effects overides its function, if it is a dominant function such as radiation or poison, and will therefore be classified under one of those two categories. This has allowed for the complete removal of the deceiving "Miscellaneous" category, seeing the new "Field" category will cover that emergent type as well. "DPS" is as best as I could put it, falling into none of the above, being used for only the Rivet Gun and Reverse Fountain.

Welcome Messages Updated Among my shortening to-do list, I finally got around to digging into some of the back rooms of the wiki, shaking off a dusty sheet covering a creaky cupboard, and rearranging priceless ornaments no one knew existed. If they had, clearing the Wanted Pages section might not have taken several days. This was because a link was created on the welcome message whenever a new editor edited a page, but when the page was either renamed or deleted, you were left with a dead link. Never again (even though anonymous editors were mostly responsible). New editors will now be privileged to be greeted by name, but careless coding won't question whether you're new or not and will greet you by name as well. Oh well…

Battle Bears Royale Article All this time it has been annoying me. Battle Bears Royale is more than a redirect, it used to be the name of an entire game! So I believe that needs to be explained. Probably what I'm asking in particular here is whether you were snap-happy enough to have taken a bunch of screenshots of BBR in random places that you'd have some images to provide for the article I'm posing. Around the wiki, it's likely there's enough here and there, but who wouldn't like the opportunity to gain some more picture badges?

Preparations for Battle Bears Ultimate All the BBG pages as you see them took intricate organisation, planning and management from existing admin team and others who were active at the time to get them into shape. I still remember when we were missing weapon articles and had things like "Sci-Fi HASR" with several different names (science-fiction heavy a salt rifle anyone?). This time, I hope those most active can be a little more on the ball when it comes to sorting BBU out. In my case, I will say now I am not going to be as involved as I was the last time around. Ask me later.

Adminship Now more than ever we are looking for active and loyal editors to take up their flags and lead the wiki into its next revolution. Well, we might not need that much of an advancement, but we will need caretakers. Gnifle's situation is as anyone's Internet life resorts to ultimately, and we can't go on forever ourselves. In the past we were far more selective of our choices for staff members, but we had an able-bodied community and our overall activity made things easier, not necessitating a great number of staff. Although there's probably less to have to actively monitor, we need to be sure that's happening at all, and as I have mentioned things above, projects are far from complete. I am willing to accept adminship requests through a short trial period, rather than simply deciding after a duration of time when someone is ready, because we don't have many doing that anymore. It might be flat incentive in itself, so take that as lucky if you are interested. Please ask and I can provide further details about the admin business.

Other Projects I still have a few things on my mind which you can read on my profile page. They are written down so hopefully when I'm feeling up to it, I can get my head into the game and get those things cleared up. Set your own projects, because that's how things get done, and none of us would be here if we hadn't gotten together and mapped out our entire approach. The community is still here to help you, but your own motivation is what drives everything to happen.

And I think that's beyond enough for an update, but certainly much needed. Let's keep this all rolling. 