Mikipedia clutter

[dvgrn]

It's looking like the newer younger forum dwellers might be going a bit overboard on this new irrelevant "Mikipedia" fad. It's just basically the generation of mildly entertaining nonsense. Confocaloid asked a question about it a few days ago; I was still in the "try ignoring it and hope everyone gets bored" mindset at the time, but it's been getting worse rather quickly.

I'm thinking that it would probably be a good idea to suggest that this kind of thing be kept down to about a one-edit-per-user-per-week level, at most, so that it doesn't make a big mess of the Recent Edits list:

Mikipedia-clutter.png (212.89 KiB) Viewed 1913 times

Any suggestions on this? Would anyone care to tackle the job of notifying the Mikipedians that their fun needs to be scaled back to a less obtrusive level?

[hotcrystal0]

It's looking like the newer younger forum dwellers might be going a bit overboard on this new irrelevant "Mikipedia" fad. It's just basically the generation of mildly entertaining nonsense. Confocaloid asked a question about it a few days ago; I was still in the "try ignoring it and hope everyone gets bored" mindset at the time, but it's been getting worse rather quickly.

I'm thinking that it would probably be a good idea to suggest that this kind of thing be kept down to about a one-edit-per-user-per-week level, at most, so that it doesn't make a big mess of the Recent Edits list:

Mikipedia-clutter.png

Any suggestions on this? Would anyone care to tackle the job of notifying the Mikipedians that their fun needs to be scaled back to a less obtrusive level?

Haaaaaands created a fork onto his Wikipedia userpage. I would suggest asking a note saying that small edits should not be made unless they fix a mistake like a typo.

[confocaloid]

Mikipedia

It is not really new and imo it was somewhat fun, before the point when it became a fad. Now it is mostly spam unrelated to LifeWiki scope.

Haaaaaands created a fork onto his Wikipedia userpage

Would not be too surprising if it gets deleted on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOTWEBHOST

I would suggest asking a note saying that small edits should not be made unless they fix a mistake like a typo.

When the changes are obviously minor and unlikely to be controversial, such as fixing an obvious typo or formatting-only changes, it is better to combine them with other more significant changes (and write an informative edit summary listing/explaining types of changes).

[hotdogPi]

This should not be on the ConwayLife wiki at all.

[haaaaaands]

Mikipedia

It is not really new and imo it was somewhat fun, before the point when it became a fad. Now it is mostly spam unrelated to LifeWiki scope.

Haaaaaands created a fork onto his Wikipedia userpage

Would not be too surprising if it gets deleted on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOTWEBHOST

I would suggest asking a note saying that small edits should not be made unless they fix a mistake like a typo.

When the changes are obviously minor and unlikely to be controversial, such as fixing an obvious typo or formatting-only changes, it is better to combine them with other more significant changes (and write an informative edit summary listing/explaining types of changes).

it might get deleted for an entirely different reason: i forgot to credit the original site, so someone could interpret it as "plagiarism" even though if i was really plagiarizing i wouldn't have said that it was a fork right at the top of the page.

[dvgrn]

So far, here and on Discord, there haven't been any claims that the Mikipedia pages are relevant to the LifeWiki in any way. The best argument is that " edits are fine if it’s just once in a while". But "once in a while" isn't a good description of the last several days of editing (before today). At this point it really looks to me like Mikipedia content is an attractive nuisance, likely to encourage more similar content.

Unless there's more discussion about this, I'll probably go ahead and put speedy-deletion tags on all of the Mikipedia content, fairly soon (unless someone else does it first).

[confocaloid]

So far, here and on Discord, there haven't been any claims that the Mikipedia pages are relevant to the LifeWiki in any way. The best argument is that " edits are fine if it’s just once in a while". But "once in a while" isn't a good description of the last several days of editing (before today). At this point it really looks to me like Mikipedia content is an attractive nuisance, likely to encourage more similar content.

Unless there's more discussion about this, I'll probably go ahead and put speedy-deletion tags on all of the Mikipedia content, fairly soon (unless someone else does it first).

Some Mikipedia pages might be somewhat relevant to CA history (User:Not a pun/Mikipedia/W110, User:Evin/Mikipedia/Andrew K.). Seriously though, there were no visible attempts to keep this related to Life or other cellular automata, on almost all pages.

Since there is already an actual discussion about this issue here, I think these pages should be tagged with Template:proposeddeletion (linking to this discussion thread) instead of Template:speedydeletion.

[hotcrystal0]

So far, here and on Discord, there haven't been any claims that the Mikipedia pages are relevant to the LifeWiki in any way. The best argument is that " edits are fine if it’s just once in a while". But "once in a while" isn't a good description of the last several days of editing (before today). At this point it really looks to me like Mikipedia content is an attractive nuisance, likely to encourage more similar content.

Unless there's more discussion about this, I'll probably go ahead and put speedy-deletion tags on all of the Mikipedia content, fairly soon (unless someone else does it first).

Some Mikipedia pages might be somewhat relevant to CA history (User:Not a pun/Mikipedia/W110, User:Evin/Mikipedia/Andrew K.). Seriously though, there were no visible attempts to keep this related to Life or other cellular automata, on almost all pages.

Since there is already an actual discussion about this issue here, I think these pages should be tagged with Template:proposeddeletion (linking to this discussion thread) instead of Template:speedydeletion.

I agree with Confocaloid, as none of the pages except for one can be marked as spam or just nonsense.

Edit: can we temporarily pin this thread?

[Haycat2009]

So far, here and on Discord, there haven't been any claims that the Mikipedia pages are relevant to the LifeWiki in any way. The best argument is that " edits are fine if it’s just once in a while". But "once in a while" isn't a good description of the last several days of editing (before today). At this point it really looks to me like Mikipedia content is an attractive nuisance, likely to encourage more similar content.

Unless there's more discussion about this, I'll probably go ahead and put speedy-deletion tags on all of the Mikipedia content, fairly soon (unless someone else does it first).

Some Mikipedia pages might be somewhat relevant to CA history (User:Not a pun/Mikipedia/W110, User:Evin/Mikipedia/Andrew K.). Seriously though, there were no visible attempts to keep this related to Life or other cellular automata, on almost all pages.

Since there is already an actual discussion about this issue here, I think these pages should be tagged with Template:proposeddeletion (linking to this discussion thread) instead of Template:speedydeletion.

I agree with Confocaloid, as none of the pages except for one can be marked as spam or just nonsense.

Edit: can we temporarily pin this thread?

No need. Most Users have no other place to create hooked or sus stuff. As long as it stays within the Userpage space, it is fine.

[confocaloid]

No need. Most Users have no other place to create hooked or sus stuff. As long as it stays within the Userpage space, it is fine.

Maybe it would be fine (but this comes from just another pseudorandom CA enthusiast and wiki editor), if only
(a) it was significantly less active than it is recently,
(b) it was some actual self-describing just-for-fun content, that could maybe even describe itself as sus or something, instead of describing someone else or something else as sus.

As far as I understand (I might be wrong on this, but I don't believe I am wrong on this) this entire website was meant to be a place to discuss Life and other cellular automata. Actual patterns, evolution rules, ideas for how to make new patterns, types of patterns or rules or something, creating and sharing software tools for simulating new types of cellular automata, software for searching new types of interesting objects / searching in new interesting ways, the underlying algorithms for simulation/searching, etc. etc.

Stating that someone else is sus or something is not what this place is for.

[Haycat2009]

No need. Most Users have no other place to create hooked or sus stuff. As long as it stays within the Userpage space, it is fine.

Maybe it would be fine (but this comes from just another pseudorandom CA enthusiast and wiki editor), if only
(a) it was significantly less active than it is recently,
(b) it was some actual self-describing just-for-fun content, that could maybe even describe itself as sus or something, instead of describing someone else or something else as sus.

As far as I understand (I might be wrong on this, but I don't believe I am wrong on this) this entire website was meant to be a place to discuss Life and other cellular automata. Actual patterns, evolution rules, ideas for how to make new patterns, types of patterns or rules or something, creating and sharing software tools for simulating new types of cellular automata, software for searching new types of interesting objects / searching in new interesting ways, the underlying algorithms for simulation/searching, etc. etc.

Stating that someone else is sus or something is not what this place is for.

I understand, but the userpage is one's castle. One can do anything they like as long as it does not spread out to the main page space. If cvojan had created the spam pages in their userspace, I would have ignored them.

[confocaloid]

I understand, but the userpage is one's castle. One can do anything they like as long as it does not spread out to the main page space.

Things like spam, attacking content, high-activity editing are still detrimental, even if in userspace. Ultimately the wiki is a shared space with a specific scope (i.e. not someone's own web page).

[Haycat2009]

I understand, but the userpage is one's castle. One can do anything they like as long as it does not spread out to the main page space.

Things like spam, attacking content, high-activity editing are still detrimental, even if in userspace. Ultimately the wiki is a shared space with a specific scope (i.e. not someone's own web page).

Yes, but where do you suggest moving Mikipedia to? I adknowledge that this is shared, but the userspace should allow nonsense. Those that think that it clutters recent changes can just set their preferences for recent changes to exclude userspace edits.

[DroneBetter]

I have a page of my own, User:DroneBetter/miscellaneous curiosities, which concerns various findings of maths and programming (of varying degrees of inanity) that are for the most part unrelated to cellular automata (though it was where I cultivated my findings before making OCA:Rule 225), and to which I make edits of usually about 10000 characters at a time, once per few weeks, as I work on it on-and-off. (It is over twice the length of the longest mainspace page

I assume this is okay, maybe a rule should be created to impose a maximum rate of off-topic userspace edits.

However, I don't mind the Mikipedia pages especially much. As Haycat said, it doesn't take very much effort for one in the Recent Changes to make the three clicks necessary for "Namespaces" -> "Exclude selected" -> "User."

For what it's worth, I find most of them quite funny, it is not as though text files take encumbersomely much server space (and they are generally of a higher brow than many posts in the sandbox). Users who contribute on-topic things should be allowed to have fun and write harmless and humorous nonsense, and seeing people only by their on-topic contributions to the wiki feels somewhat impersonal anyway.

[hotdogPi]

If cvojan had created the spam pages in their userspace, I would have ignored them.

You do realize those pages contained racial slurs, right?

[Haycat2009]

If cvojan had created the spam pages in their userspace, I would have ignored them.

You do realize those pages contained racial slurs, right?

Yes, but I would only have ignored those without.

[Nathaniel]

I understand, but the userpage is one's castle. One can do anything they like as long as it does not spread out to the main page space.

I realize that we currently don't have any rules contrary to this, but that's just because we seem to have a habit here of not writing down rules until we need them. I think this might be one of those situations where I need to write down a new rule.

In principle I agree with "the userpage is one's castle", but my agreement drops off quickly by the time I get to "...can do anything...". There is already one exception listed after the "...as long as..." in that sentence, and I think it likely needs about 5 or 6 more exceptions added. I'll start thinking of what exactly those exceptions should be and write up a rule sometime soon.

(I'm a bit of a curmudgeonly old person who barely tolerates the existence of the Sandbox forum -- I'm OK-ish with goofy stuff there, but I don't want it spreading to the wiki.)

[hotcrystal0]

I understand, but the userpage is one's castle. One can do anything they like as long as it does not spread out to the main page space.

I realize that we currently don't have any rules contrary to this, but that's just because we seem to have a habit here of not writing down rules until we need them. I think this might be one of those situations where I need to write down a new rule.

In principle I agree with "the userpage is one's castle", but my agreement drops off quickly by the time I get to "...can do anything...". There is already one exception listed after the "...as long as..." in that sentence, and I think it likely needs about 5 or 6 more exceptions added. I'll start thinking of what exactly those exceptions should be and write up a rule sometime soon.

(I'm a bit of a curmudgeonly old person who barely tolerates the existence of the Sandbox forum -- I'm OK-ish with goofy stuff there, but I don't want it spreading to the wiki.)

The whole point is, if Mikipedia does not die down, we have to give the participants a but of time to move their shenanigans elsewhere before we can safely delete the pages for good. As of now, only delete the pages that break the rules.

[lk050807]

...
elsewhere
...

The elsewhere may be here.

[hotcrystal0]

...
elsewhere
...

The elsewhere may be here.

I know.

[HerscheltheHerschel]

My honest opinion: This is not "clutter", and deleting all pages on Mikipedia wasn't a good move at all.
Also, I added a tribute to Mikipedia on my forum signature and wiki userpage.
I also even almost considered leaving this community because of this, and returning only when Mikipedia is back, but I didn't leave.
This thread makes me want to able to dislike posts.

[hotdogPi]

Mikipedia failed https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Uncyclo ... ust_Stupid (How To Be Funny And Not Just Stupid, in case the link displays truncated for you). It was entirely pointless.

[Haycat2009]

Just a question: If the Mikipedia pages are just irrelevant, can you just move them to a new wiki for this?

[dvgrn]

Just a question: If the Mikipedia pages are just irrelevant, can you just move them to a new wiki for this?

Anyone is certainly completely welcome to do this. It just won't be a new wiki on the server that hosts the LifeWiki, with a "conwaylife.com" URL.

[Haycat2009]

Where is the Mikipedia website?