RationalWiki:Proposed WIGO merger

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This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar.

Logic dictates that all WIGOs should be consolidated into a singular portal[edit]

Each entry would be identified by some sort of icon, border or color, etc. The list could then be filtered to display WIGO as now you know it. That is all. — Sincerely, Neveruse513 / Talk / Block 20:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

That idea has a lot going for it. As long as we can cut out the "LOL!!!" CP WIGOs (and there haven't been many recently), it might just work.
Would it be possible to do a test page merging the various WIGOs using transclusion? I don't want to screw anything up by experimenting before asking the experts like Nx how it might affect the scripts. –SuspectedReplicantretire me 20:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure about putting wigo CP together with wigo world items in the same wigo. It would be a strange mix. Merging wigo CP & wigo aSK would seem sensible, & probably any clogosphere type items could go in the mix too. Then keep wigo world separate, & include interesting blog/columnist wigos into it too. That way we'd just have two wigos: one of stuff that it interesting in its own right, & one that documents the crazier reaches of the internet. WėąṣėḷőįďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 22:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Two wigos instead of five sounds good to me. ħumanUser talk:Human 22:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Except you are forgetting one thing, page length. There is enough of a drag on the server now without people trying to edit and edit conflict on pages that are over 300 and 400 thousand bytes. The best we could do is maybe merge blog and clog. ASK can easily be coupled with CP seeing as it has one whole entry for the month. World is long, CP is long and if we mix blogs and clog it will be longer than both. - π 01:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
I think mixing WIGOblog and the others would be confusing; WIGOblogs are in theory pro-rational blog entries, whereas the others are usually nuttery. Sterile tube 01:05, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
That is actually an extremely good point. Other than the death of aSK the current system does seem to be working well. However, as the talkpage does serve as a good place for people who edit there to bitch about the place, there is no real reason to get rid of it. Also when considering merging the wigos consider how long the talkpage is going to get. - π 01:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Actually WIGOask + WIGOclog + WIGOworld does make a lot of sense. Keep WIGOCP for volume reasons, and keep WIGOblog separate to keep that pro- and anti-rational stuff separate. Sterile tube 01:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
How does WIGOask + WIGOclogo + WIGOworld make sense? World is suppose to be for actual news item, where as clogo is for people giving their poorly formed opinions on current events. Clog and ask could go together, just.- π 01:43, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

How about 3 wigos - CP, insane, and real? Insane = clogs + aWK, real = World + blogs? ħumanUser talk:Human 02:20, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The only thing I have against merging blog and world is that it is kind on like mixing editorials with news. - π 02:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
So mark "blogs" with "op ed"? ħumanUser talk:Human 02:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, but not doing anything and leaving it as is requires no additional work. - π 03:22, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
As someone who uses the CP and ASK ones rarely, looking giving them cursory glances perhaps once a week or so, I think World, Blog and Clog as separate entities work perfectly fine - this isn't a "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" opinion, I really do think that's a good dividing line; perhaps at a push you could merge blog and clog but that would remove the intentional bias of labeling one for so-called "positive" entries and another for bat-shit insane ones and mixing the two together I don't think will work. Merging everything into one, as π said, would be a massive drain and far too complex to operate (and filters make it no different to having them separate anyway). Unless we want to start merging the wiki/forum post based ones together (as these are a different entity to news items and blog posts) I don't think it needs much doing to it at all. I'd still like to see ""RW Recommends" which was suggested a while back - although this may be pre Saloon Bar, which fills the role okay), which would be like WIGO:World but for slightly less "news" like stories, older stories (as these usually get voted down in WIGO:World), articles or just funny stuff worth sharing that don't fit into the current WIGO structure. Scarlet A.pngsshole 10:30, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

So there have been a few objections. It would be confusing? Yes, all the colors and various topics which you could easily filter can very easily confuse. Point taken. Page length? One problem with the current system is the shitty fucking WIGOs no one reads that have dropped down into the previous section for too long. Front page wigos need to be no older than one week, as I know 95% of you check WIGO at least once a week (and probably 80% many, many times a day). One rolling week of all WIGOs from all sections probably isn't longer than the month of shitty CP WIGOs hovering on WIGOCP. Another problem that this addresses is the extremely low readership of WIGOclog and WIGOblog and the other one. I don't think a lot of people read those, as some editors pointed out. Maybe because the WIGOs suck, maybe people are just missing out on something. Let's find out by giving them more exposure. I'd expect support from the serious business members who insist we are not all about CP (ironically those who made the objections and make WIGOs no one reads). — Sincerely, Neveruse513 / Talk / Block 13:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

To Huwman (who I think brought this up, I'm not going back and reading it): About two WIGOs, I'd suggest WIGO-Rational and WIGO-Irrational. However, WIGO-Rational is probably going to have low readership like blog and world. — Sincerely, Neveruse513 / Talk / Block 14:11, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
The others don't have low readership, it's that CP has a high readership (clog, blog and world have between 50,000 and 75,000 views, ASK is less at 30,000. CP has 350,000, it's clear that it's CP that's the exception, although a large amount of this may come from the fact that WIGO:CP is longer running). Note some of the scores on WIGO:CP too; easily something moderately amusing pops into three figures and we clearly don't have that many people actively contributing to RW. WIGO:CP is just an exception because of the amount of lurking traffic it attracts - and every time Conservapedia gets mentioned in the news or the wider blog world, it'll spike and generate more traffic to there. If combining or rejigging the others is just to increase the page views of it, then that's a very bad reason because it won't work - people who check one will tend to check the others so the page counts remain roughly equal and the combined pages will see about the same amount of traffic. Of course, we'd need the data that the server admins can get hold of to show that conclusively. I agree with more exposure to them, though. But if people don't want it we can't force it on them and then these features will only be there to the minority who have got sick of the boring, repetitive "lulz" generated by Conservapedia. Scarlet A.pngsshole 14:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
WIGO:CP had about 700,000 page view burnt off it when it was deleted. I can't remember exactly what Trent once said, but he gave an estimate well over 60% of the server resources are used to run WIGO:CP. It is important to remember that for a lot of readers (and even a lot of users) RationalWiki=anti-Conservapedia. - π 22:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
The divide keeps coming up, and I guess it shouldn't be fought with cool ajax filtering. I'm throwing my hat in for WIGO-Rational (Serious Business) and WIGO-Irrational (lulz). At least that way I wouldn't be incidentally subjected to the banalities of the blogosphere. — Sincerely, Neveruse513 / Talk / Block 15:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
I think it would be a mistake to mix them up otherwise you're trying to compare apples with Bananarama. It would also be a nightmare sorting out the different wigo markup, people have enough problems with that as it is. What we could have is a WIGO portal with all the WIGOs on a tabbed interface instead of the mini-menu structure. I'm afraid my coding skills are not up to it as I guess some of the WIGO pages have stuff that isn't visible to the casual editor.  Lily Inspirate me. 15:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
If people can't follow simple instructions (such as "select the text and click here"), then how do you expect them to be able to select the correct vote id when adding to a page containing multiple different wigos? The only feasible solution I can think of is to transclude the various wigo pages onto one single page, like the todo list does. A tabbed interface would be possible, but we already have something like that with the links at the top of the wigo pages.
Although filtering based on vote result and vote id is pretty easy using javascript, it can only work on the votes that are on the current page. -- Nx / talk 18:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Is the goal to get more traffic to the less active ones? I just think that WIGOCP will always suck the life out of anything. That is, one ASK post among 20 CP ones is just going to be ignored. On the other hand, maybe WIGOASK just needs to die. Sterile tube 22:12, 20 October 2009 (UTC)