User talk:DarkMatterMan4500

Post your messages below the other messages

Editing Archived Discussions
Hi, I have reverted your edits to an archived discussion. Once a discussion gets closed, except under exceptional circumstances they shouldn’t be edited. Typos do not fall under exceptional and the value a correction after a discussion gets closed is extremely minor compared to a live discussion or one where no reply has been received for. Thanks John (talk) 15:33, 22 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks anyway. I did spot the mistake in my sentence there. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 15:34, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Wiki creator helpful tips
Hi DarkMatterMan4500,

First off, I will just start by welcoming you to the wiki creator team. Thank you for volunteering. As you are no doubt aware, Content Policy is our key global policy that guides us in creating wikis for customers. Essentially, every wiki needs to have both a clear purpose, some sort of scope (broad or narrow), and a topical focus. This is the main criterion that helps us to determine whether a wiki will have any potential Content Policy problems.

Second, I wanted to share with you a few tips that I found helpful when I first joined as a wiki creator:


 * 1) Study the wiki creator's guide. It contains many best practices, some of which are required steps wiki creators are required to undertake in approving requests.
 * 2) "Request comments" tab. Intuitively, one would think to use this tab when requesting more information, but as Amanda Catherine (and others) pointed out to me shortly after I joined as a wiki creator, there used to be a known issue with this in that the requestor wasn't notified via e-mail unless their wiki is either (a) approved or (b) declined. While there are now notifications, it's still advantageous to decline wiki requests needing more information to maintain a streamlined queue and to take "ownership" of requests, in a sense. Thus, when requesting more information on a wiki request, you really either (a) use the "decline" tab, referencing your follow-up comments in that text box and telling them to back into Special:RequestWikiQueue/  in order to add to, but not replace, their existing description with the needed information or (b) use either the "request comments" or "decline" tab in combination with a message on the requestor's user talk page on Meta. The approach you use is entirely up to you. I personally prefer option A, but either one is fine;
 * 3) Private wikis. Private wikis can generally have a shorter description and a less specific purpose, scope, or topic, but they do still need one. If you have some reservations about approving it as, say, a public wiki, due to that vagueness, you can tell them, in your comments prior to approving it, that you're approving it only as a private wiki and remind them to ensure their wiki complies with all aspects of Content Policy;
 * 4) Eurovision song contest and fictional worldbuilding wikis. These are two types of wikis that have few, if any, problems with them. So, as long as there's a clear sitename, URL, and at least a few words in the description that indicates this as the purpose, it's fine to approve them;
 * 5) Reception wikis (positive and negative). Many of the Reception wikis tend to give us the most the grief, especially in terms of content that is very negative about users. If it's a Reception wiki that focuses on terrible fast-food restaurants, that's usually less problematic than, say, one that focuses on gamer or YouTube celebrities, mainly because you're not dealing with content about real, living people. Please don't hesitate in asking follow up questions, sometimes multiple times, of these wikis, trying to narrow down whether the wikis will write about real people in some way and, if so, how they will do it. And, at the end of the day, if you are still not comfortable approving, you can write "on hold" for review by another wiki creator in "request comments";
 * 6) Chinese language mini-world wiki requests. These ones are tricky, but cause us arguably the most grief, particularly when they publish personal information of real people without their consent. Stewards have recently closed a swath of them following a detailed report on stewards' noticeboard, but some of the tricks I've observed them using are odd descriptions like "anti-dog wiki" or to "expose the truth and scandal". Somewhat less common, they will use a completely different, but vague, description, then change their tune when you follow up with them and use some of those key phrases I mentioned in the previous sentence;
 * 7) Google Translate. Don't hesitate to use Google Translate to review non-English public and private wikis. Notwithstanding the above point, most of these wikis' descriptions translate surprisingly well. As you've probably already noticed, I like to copy and paste the translated to English description into "request comments," so other wiki creators can see it easily. This is optional, but it's a good practice, I think; and,
 * 8) Don't hesitate to reach out on Discord and ask for a second opinion. If you are still unsure about approving a wiki, or just want a second opinion, don't hesitate to reach out to any wiki creator on Discord. This might be the most important guideline.

Cheers,

Dmehus (talk) 18:05, 15 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I won't hesitate to deal with those with certain entities in place. But thanks for the tip nonetheless. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 19:39, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

A couple more great best practices
Hi again DarkMatterMan4500,

A couple more essential best practices I thought I'd share, one or both of which may already be doing...


 * 1) After approving a wiki, it's a very good  required practice to either (a) visit the wiki you created and use Special:ListUsers to make sure the requestor has   rights on the wiki or (b) use Special:CentralAuth on Meta to verify the requestor has   rights on the wiki. I personally use option B now as it is (a) quicker, (b) I manage the number of wikis to which I attach my user account, and (c) with private wikis, you can't view Special:ListUsers anyway; and,
 * 2) It's helpful, I think, to provide comments prior to your approving a wiki. Again, this is technically optional, but is definitely a good practice to continue, if you want.

Cheers,

Dmehus (talk) 18:05, 15 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Oh, I didn't know that I could do that. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 19:37, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * DarkMatterMan4500 Okay, cool. Dmehus (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * So this essentially means that I, as a rookie wiki creator, should check on their wikis from time to time to check on their progress? DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 19:51, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, no not exactly. I mean, that is a fine practice if you want to proactively reach out to wiki requestors to see if they require assistance with their wiki and also to ensure their approved wiki is indeed what they requested their wiki for, but wasn't what I meant by the above added section. What I meant above is that after you approve a wiki, you should verify in CentralAuth, or by visting the wiki, whichever you prefer, to ensure (a) the wiki was created by the CreateWiki extension and (b)  and   rights were assigned to the requestor, as on rare occasions, this doesn't happen. Dmehus (talk) 20:01, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, I understand now. Yes, I've seen people come to the Stewards' noticeboard telling them that their rights weren't immediately added, so it essentially does make more sense, as well as additionally requesting their rights be added as soon as possible. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 20:07, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Declined
May I ask why my wiki request was declined? I'd just like to know as I do want to have a wiki here. Blaze The Wolf (talk) 20:38, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * That's because the database for that wiki name already exists. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 20:39, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh ok. I can choose a new name then. My apologies, I'm new to this site and have no clue where to search. Blaze The Wolf (talk) 20:42, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * But you did it in good-faith, so that's okay. But, in the future, it's best you have a look to see if it already exists before requesting. Hope that helps. :) DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 20:44, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Organization and proper formatting of SN reports
Hi DarkMatterMan4500,

Thank you for your duplicate reports regarding  at Stewards' noticeboard here and here, which I'm reviewing now. I just wanted to let you know that your second report was actually the correct way to handle this, rather than tacking on a report about another, unrelated wiki with potential Content Policy issues to an already ✅ report about an entirely separate wiki with other Content Policy issues. I suspect you just forgot to remove your added reply, but if you intended to create duplicate reports, please do avoid duplicate reporting in the future at stewards' noticeboard. If it's regarding a separate wiki, please remember to create a new thread. If it's related to an existing report about a wiki or user and the existing thread has not been archived, then by all means feel free to add it to your existing report.

Thanks,

Dmehus (talk) 16:07, 19 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'm sorry, and thanks for investigating them, as I intended to investigate any problematic wikis, and I did just that with 2 wikis. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 16:16, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * DarkMatterMan4500 Okay, thank you for your reply, and no problem. You may wish to migrate and incorporate this reply into your separate, fuller reply as well. Dmehus (talk) 16:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * So, what did you find on the  regarding my report? Because I did find some egregious insults, and leaked personal information such as this one, this one, and many others on all the other pages that I found numerous Content Policy violations on, so please have a look at all their pages if you would. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 17:54, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * DarkMatterMan4500 I've only looked through the three pages you've tagged for deletion on that wiki, two of which seem highly problematic to me. I'll have to discuss with other Stewards when they're around for their thoughts as well, and then agree on the best course of action. If you can link to several additional pages which clearly violate Content Policy in some way, that would also be helpful. Dmehus (talk) 18:54, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, there's more alright. This one, this one especially, since it reveals which school this person was in (apparently), and even this one, as it has a bunch of leaked information, like their real name, and their contact information, in which I'm sure they never got permission to get at all, and finally, this one in particular, as it is exactly the same thing as the other aforementioned list of problematic articles, and I discovered this when I went through some of the articles that were on the wikis. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 19:24, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * DarkMatterMan4500 Thanks for the additional page links. Yes, I'd seen a couple of those; a couple others I hadn't yet seen. Anyway, though the wiki appeared to have some legitimate content pages related to a Minecraft server of some sort, there were a relatively high number of problematic pages from the perspective of both Content Policy and Code of Conduct, so I've ✅ and ✅ the wiki pending a larger discussion with fellow Stewards to both review the wiki and decide on the most appropriate next step(s). Dmehus (talk) 19:50, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I bet you'll be locking not only the owner, but many of the contributors involved in this, aren't you? DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 19:55, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * There's really no need to make such comments speculating about what actions a Steward might or might not do on a thread like this, they really bring no value to the discussion. Reception123 (talk) ( C ) 20:25, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry . DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 20:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Sometimes I'm just one of those people who think they can predict the future, even if it's obvious it may or may not result in the exact results I wanted it to be. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 20:32, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Also I'll update you in case I find more wikis that are violating both the Code of Conduct and/or Content policies. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 20:25, 19 March 2021 (UTC)