View source for Talk:JanuWiki 2019

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The original proposal and discussion from [[Talk:Main Page]] can be found at [[Talk:JanuWiki 2019/Archive]].

The original discussions of Side Job rewards from this page can be found at [[Talk:JanuWiki 2019/Archive]].

== JanuWiki 2019 Feedback ==

{{sign|style=border:1px solid #999;|title=Please do not archive|text=Please do not archive this section. As the "final outcome" of the event, there's no expectation that the event's talk page needs to be "cleared up" for ''further'' discussions. (Making space when needed is the intent of archiving, ''not'' to shut down existing discussions — because it has that effect.) Feedback on our first event continues to be (1) desirable, if anyone wishes to contribute more to this discussion, and (2) valuable, to remain visible here rather than being "filed away" in the discussion archive.}}

* After-action/post-mortem discussion may commence at anyone's discretion.
* ''Note:'' I'm inserting arbitrary subsection headings (the feedback "Rounds") into the discussion below (replacing, in some instances, the horizontal rules that others had previously added to serve as dividers/separators). The advantage to dividing with subsections instead, I realized, is that anyone adding to the discussion at any point has the option to section-edit one specific subsection, so the editor opens on a more manageable hunk of text. (Of course, you can still Edit the ''entire'' discussion using the edit link on the main section heading above, or just edit the entire page content if that's how you prefer to do it.) -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 18:08, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

=== Round 1 ===
: First of all, thank you, everyone, for every effort you've made to bring JanuWiki to a successful close. I don't think it would have worked without all of us.
: Before I forget in all of the happiness of jobs well done, I wanted to bring up a few concerns about this time through JanuWiki:
: 1. There were no Side Jobs or rewards acknowledging the work of the people who created the templates and the article starters. That's a severe lack we need to remedy next time.
: 2. Is there anything we need to worry about in some of the copyright infringements for imagery from this time? It's... not entirely ethical, and it might open Godville to some form of legal censure.
: Otherwise, wow!! This was awesome!--[[User:SourceRunner|SourceRunner]] ([[User talk:SourceRunner|talk]]) 15:08, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

:: I was checking in periodically to see how it was going, and it was one crazy ride. 
:: You guys are awesome for setting up the content drive and then following through to the end! Good job! -- [[User:Wanamingo|Wanamingo]] ([[User talk:Wanamingo|talk]]) 16:42, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

::: Likewise, {{u|Wanamingo}}. Several of us saw you working on perfecting articles behind the scenes. Good job, to you, too, and thanks for your work! --[[User:SourceRunner|SourceRunner]] ([[User talk:SourceRunner|talk]]) 22:48, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

===Round 2===
It was a '''team work''', let's try doing even better next time!
* 1 : Can't argue against that.
* 2: This is a thing we can hardly do something about i'd say. We can't track every existing picture on the wiki to know if they have a copyright or not (it is supposed to be something the uploader should care about, even if it's not easy). I guess that if there is an issue for a picture, the picture will just be deleted from the GodWiki one way or another.

In term of short-term concern I have
* 3: JanuWiki nav-box : should we delete it from every concerned post or leave it as a memento?
* 4: Archiving the event page. Maybe we should have a "GodWiki events" page and/or category from which we could archive the events one way or another, also opening the opportunity to have a talk page for potential events.

There is a lot of things to see for upcomming events, but i don't thinks it's more long-term concerns (less "urgent") to have a healthy environnement for the future.
* 5: Having all main templates (Artifact/monster/Equipment/Town and maybe Skills/Taverns/Places) up-to date and applied on already existing concerned articles (already started)
* 6: Categorise every page (put in my to-do list don't worry)
* 7: Fixing the issue of the potential errors of lists, as it may have some issues with dupes/spellings (see my [[User talk:WardPhoenix|talk page]]), necessary to apply my point n°8 below.

And for the future events themselves:
* 8: Maybe avoiding a list of articles like that was made. People tends to not looks at others potentials articles other than those in the list. Maybe we should instead put "There the list of stubs/Picture missing/articles missing/etc, and keep the themes for the sides jobs.
* 9: More advertising! Even a offer of 250 charges didn't made the Harvest Moon members move, probably because it went under the radar.
* 10: Separate writing time and reviewing time, so reviewers don't have to sacrifice their own articles to reviews others'.


That's all I can think about for now.--[[User:WardPhoenix|WardPhoenix]] ([[User talk:WardPhoenix|talk]]) 16:37, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

: Regarding '''#3,''' it would be nice to leave the box as a memento. Maybe collapsed, so that it doesn't distract from navigation boxes at the bottoms of some articles, but still present. It's a cool piece of GodWiki history to have around. "Hey, this article was created during the 2019 JanuWiki. Wasn't that the first content drive?"
: Regarding '''#4'''... ...call me a pessimist, but I'm inclined for there to actually have been multiple events before there is a page meant to hold a record of multiple events. We have a couple of relic threads in the forums that were supposed to hold lots of iterations of a certain event but never did, and they always strike me as a little sad.
: Regarding '''#9,''' more advertisement makes sense, or maybe continuing advertisement. I did not advertise in threads more than once because my guild's whole ethos is "don't make drama, don't draw drama," so possibly harassing other guilds is not something I do. (As for Harvest Moon, that one I did only with great reluctance because it had a high potential of drawing trolls rather than results. HP4M was a major <s>blessing</s> badass, stepping up to head off the harvest guard for me with the offer to sponsor a side job.) But maybe if we had multiple shifts of advertisers and a specific round of threads to hit multiple times, it would work better.
* 11: What do you guys think of a little medal graphic to put at the end of articles that won in side jobs? Something tiny, like the "not now" clock graphics.
: Continuing to noodle this stuff over. --[[User:SourceRunner|SourceRunner]] ([[User talk:SourceRunner|talk]]) 22:48, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

=== Round 3 ===
This is already producing a lot of great feedback, hopefully we can get more of the event participants to join in. I'll try to do a little [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Canvassing|canvassing]] via talk-page message, to encourage them to join the discussion. Let's see,in order...

'''#1''': Sort of by definition that kind of stuff has to happen ''outside'' the  bounds of the event itself, so it could be a little tricky to define logistically. The event stuff was mostly created (intentionally) to be reusable for future events, so even that was approached as behind-the-scenes / non-specific work. And for {{tlx|Navbox JanuWiki 2019}}, the only truly event-specific template, as well as logistics pages like [[JanuWiki 2019]] itself, keeping those updated became a group effort, and everyone pitched in.

: I ''do'' feel like something should be done to acknowledge {{u|Djonni}}, specifically, for conceiving and organizing the '''entire''' thing. (Despite modest protestations to the contrary, it really was completely 100% him. My contributions consisted of a couple of Eureka! moments [the pre-fill boilerplate, the article-creation links that used them], and a lot of poking holes in his stuff — in the interest of making it even more awesomer, of course.) But he's not '''''here''''', so whatever we might do feels kind of flat... like throwing a party without the guest of honor. I suppose we could still just do something anyway, and hope he resurfaces to see it at some point.

'''#2:''' That's an issue I've thought about ''numerous'' times, but I don't think there are really any issues there specific to the (or a) content event. Those issues are ones that affect all GodWiki content no matter when it's created. 

: In general, I feel {{u|WardPhoenix}} has it right: there's little we can do about it — it's entirely in the hands of the Godville admins. (Which I guess makes sense, as they'd also be the only ones held liable for any issues.) For the most part, they seem to explicitly '''avoid''' addressing the issue. All content-licensing options were ''removed'' from the License selector in [[Special:Upload]], so we couldn't register which content '''is''' covered by a valid reuse license even if we wanted to. (I ''have'' wanted to, several times in the past!) [[Creators Manual#Images]], [[Rules]], none of them make ''any'' mention of copyright/licensing, in fact it feels like they studiously avoid addressing the topic.

: The only place this ever ''does'' get addressed is in the [https://godvillegame.com/login/tos Godville TOS], which says: 
: {{tqb|Some elements of works of literature, cinema, folklore and other sources might be used in the Game. The usage of characters, plots, names of geographical objects, artifacts, including fictional ones, and other content is entirely and only for the purpose of parody, and is not in any way intended to cause harm to objects protected by copyright, or to incite racial, religious, gender or any other form of discrimination. If you believe that your copyrighted work has been copied without your authorization and is available on or in this game in a way that may constitute copyright infringement, you may provide a notice of your claim by sending us an email to the following address: support@godvillegame.com}}

: So that's kind of that. They're relying on a parody / fair-use defense against any claims of infringement, and they <strike>offer to remove content if asked</strike> provide an address to send complaints. '''#WordOfGod''' on that topic, I guess.

'''#3''': I think it's fine to leave it for now. Long-term I'm not so sure, but even if we do decide to remove it editing the template to output nothing is easier than editing 50-, 60-something pages to do it. 

: I did just go in and change the default state to <code>collapsed</code> (which can still be overridden on an individual basis with {{tlx|Navbox JanuWiki 2019|state{{=}}expanded}}), and I removed all of the decorative "clutter" from the title line. If there are no objections, I'll plan to go in again and remove all of the <span style{{=}}"font-size: x-small; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle;">✔</span> Complete article, <span style{{=}}"font-size: x-small; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle;">📷</span> Picture required, etc. housekeeping stuff as well.

: Longer-term, I alway argue these questions from the same position: It's important to keep in mind the ''purpose'' of a navbox, which Wikipedia clearly lays out in [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:NAV|WP:NAV]]: {{tqi|quotes=yes|A navigation template is a grouping of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles."}} Now, ''during'' the event, these articles were very much related, and it made sense to connect them all via the navbox. But, longer-term, are [[Ancient cork]] and [[Meowntain Cat]] ''really'' related simply by virtue of both being products of the event? Seems dubious to me.

: It might make more sense to create a '''[[Special:Categories|Category]]''' for "Content created for JanuWiki 2019" or whatever, and place all of the relevant articles into that. (Which the navbox template could be made to do automatically, either instead of or in addition to displaying the navbox itself.) Adding additional categories to an article doesn't eat up any real space on the page, not the way a Navbox does — to say nothing of the additional HTML footprint the navbox creates on each page, which is '''massive''' even in the default-collapsed state.

: Jumping forward to include '''#11''', there's also the possibility of incorporating the "memento" concept into ''that'' sort of thing. If we're talking about the addition of any kind of visual indicator for JanuWiki articles that received particular honors, the two could be combined, with a "JanuWiki memento" marker added to all of the pages, and those additional awards displayed '''by'''/'''in''' that marker. (It could also link somewhere useful, perhaps even the current Navbox @ its Template page in <code>expanded</code> state.)

'''#4''': This is actually something Djonni and I considered at each step of the event planning, and all of our decisions took permanence/disposition into account. You decide whether you think we made the ''right'' calls on all of that, but there has always been a plan for everything going forward.

: The [[JanuWiki 2019]] page should stay right where it is, as it is. Nothing needs to be done with it at all. It exists as the lasting record of that particular event. (Ditto its Talk and Talk:/Archive pages.) Future events would similarly have pages created around which they'd be organized. The event Navbox was also meant to remain dedicated to that particular event.

: The preload texts used for article creation were all created as subpages of the event page — [[JanuWiki 2019/Monster preload]], [[JanuWiki 2019/Equipment preload]], etc. This was done with the assumption that their contents would likely be specific to the event structure. It's certainly ''possible'' that preload texts could be made more generic, but since we currently haven't come up with any ideas for how we could use them '''except''' during targeted creation events, it's kind of neither here nor there. Anyway, they'd remain with the event, and if new ones are needed for future events, they'd be created, possibly reusing some of the existing ones, possibly starting from scratch.

: Other event resources were intended right from the start to be reusable: {{tlx|Godwiki event banner}}, {{tlx|Godwiki event counter}}, {{tlx|Godwiki event construction}}, {{tlx|Godwiki event review}} — all of those templates were named generically, with the expectation that they'd be continually updated with content specific to each future content event, or for whatever other purpose we find them useful for. They contain nothing that needs to be preserved for the future, beyond the fact that all previous states remain available via their edit history.

: When I proposed this post-mortem discussion, one of the things I suggested was that, after we've discussed everything, the ''results'' of these discussions - things we agree went well, or badly; that we wish we'd known to do, or do differently; etc. — all of that gets written up and placed somewhere for posterity, and for the edification of anyone planning/prepping future events. Possibly even a [[Guideline: GodWiki Events]] addition to the [[Creators Manual]]. 

: That way, the consensus advice/information is passed along concisely to anyone looking to benefit from our experience. And the full discussion that ''led'' to those decisions remains available (here). Because at times it can be invaluable to look beyond what was decided, and see ''how'' it was decided. Or to see the points that were brought up but ultimately rejected, and why. (Very often, because our theoretical future-person is contemplating something that has already been tried and failed in the past, so they just need to see what went wrong to be dissuaded from repeating the mistake.)

: Beyond that, I'm with {{u|SourceRunner}}. There's no point in an events category for our whole ''one'' event. Even if that category could theoretically include the new guidelines page, a couple of the templates, or whatever. When event'''s''' is at least a plural, then we can start talking about categorizing the multiple event pages together. Any future event should get its own event page(s) where everything is organized, just like the [[JanuWiki 2019]] page. Nothing would be changed there as a result of categorization or anything else.

: Plus, if we create a [[:Category:JanuWiki 2019]] for the involved articles, then it would make sense for the event-specific content to ''also'' go into that category. Down the road when there have been additional events, each individual event category can be made a subcategory of some larger, all-encompassing events category.

'''#5, #6, #7''': I agree those are good things, but I'm not sure they have any bearing on future events per se. At least, not events like ''this'' event, which was primarily focused on creating new content. There could certainly be other '''types''' of events in the future, organized differently — content expansion events, cleanup events, etc. It all depends on the nature of the beast. But for creation events, existing content is sort of intentionally secondary.

'''#8''': The list of specific titles is a necessity of the preload boilerplate. We don't have a generic way to do that for any random article title, "Create" links have to be created for specific individual page titles. (Along with being assigned the correct preload content, to match the subject type — different boilerplate for Monster articles vs. Equipment articles vs. Quest articles, etc. There's no way to determine just from the title of a nonexistent page what type of article that should be; {{u|Djonni}} manually associated each of the articles he picked for the event with the correct preload text for it, when putting together that list.

: Now, if the preload text wasn't useful and we decide to do away with it, or if we want to organize an event around something ''other'' than new-article creation, then the list is no longer a '''requirement''' and we can discuss whether it makes sense. (I kind of think it's a good idea to give people a fixed set of options that's not so overwhelming. Because, there are currently 6514 entries on the [[Special:WantedPages]] list, so how does someone even ''approach'' that? Especially someone who's a novice at creating GodWiki content? 

: One of the goals of this first event was to try and draw ''new'' people into the content-creation process. Unfortunately it wasn't really very successful in that goal, but I think if there's going to be any '''chance''' of success... well, I think a "just point them at this massive list and say 'go to town'" approach would be doomed to failure, let's leave it at that. The picks give focus to the event. Who cares exactly ''what'' articles are created, as long as articles are created? Unless we think there are people out there who looked at the event list, didn't find any of the selections appealing, and decided not to participate on that basis, I don't think having a finite event-targets list is really a problem. The titles that weren't made part of this event can be included in the next one, or the one after...

'''#9''': Personally my take on #9 is that no part of an event should rely on being able to motivate the membership of one ''specific'' guild. I mean, I '''assume''' — I hope, anyway — that the Side Job was advertised in the Harvest Moon Guild Council, and in their forum topic, and probably other places they communicate as well, right? Be pretty stupid if it wasn't, but that's all beyond our control anyway. And to whatever extent it was done, the membership of the guild was apparently disinterested.

: There are few enough people contributing to the wiki '''period''', that we should be allowing rewards to be restricted to only members of a certain guild. That's a divisive and exclusionary element that compromises the event, IMHO. If a guild wants to donate a special prize ''that's open to '''everyone''''' — say, for creating some piece of content that's particularly meaningful to their guild, like an article on their totem monster or whatever — then that's great. But I feel prizes restricted to members of a particular guild have no place in the general event. If a guild wants to do ''that'', they can handle it themselves in the guild's forum topic or whatever.

'''#10''': The whole review thing... how do we feel that really went, in general? I wasn't particularly thrilled with it, which is why I pulled myself out of the pool right at the beginning. I just didn't sit right with me, though I can't ''completely'' articulate why.

: Maybe if the event had included lots of ''brand-new'' GodWiki contributors, like it was originally hoped would happen, then a review process might've been more of a necessity. But as it played out, with experienced people creating articles of their own, the in-depth reviews felt kind of unnecessary. And as {{u|WardPhoenix}} notes, they ended up consuming a lot of people's time, which ultimately came at the expense of the content ''creation'' process. It also seemed to me like there was this weird power imbalance created, that unnecessarily (and uncomfortably) elevated the reviewers over the authors. (Even though basically everyone was ''both'' reviewer and author, so they occupied both sides of that equation, it still felt out of whack to me.) I don't know, that could also just be my imagination / misperception.

: Some sort of "post-creation" round is necessary in an event like this, for "''scoring''" purposes, but maybe that's all it should be: When an article's finished, the second-party "reviewer" is responsible for doing the housekeeping of updating the status of that article in the various places where it's tracked (event page, navbox), and for tallying whatever points were earned and whatever Side Jobs the article qualifies for. I mean, ''every'' article on the wiki is always open to editing and improvement by everyone who reads it (if they have a GodWiki account), regardless.

: I think one advantage of the review process was that it created a process whereby people would check out each other's efforts. Because we can '''say''' that we definitely want to look at the articles created by other people for the event, but do we actually make the time to do that? So, I absolutely recognize the value of it from that perspective. But, given how time-consuming and disruptive it was to the ''creation'' side of the process, how worthwhile was that tradeoff?

...I think this is more than enough from me for now, I have my own points to add but I'll come back to those. Apologies for the offensive length of this babbling. -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 17:47, 22 February 2019 (UTC)


::: Answering to your answer as my N°8. I don't say to use special page wanted, but if we give, for exemple, the list of monsters, the potential writer will know he/she is about to start a monster entry. But I can see your point.

:::: Right, well, same deal there really. There are 2116 links in the Monsters table at [[List of Monsters]]. 1231 of those are redlinks. That still seems pretty overwhelming to me, even leaving aside the preload thing.

:::: As far as the preloads go, this time around they were kind of {{ordinal|11}}-hour, but for a future event I should be able to put together a set of templates like {{tlc|monster preload link|<var>article title</var>}} and etc. to generate those create-with-preload-text links, instead of having to build them by hand. That would theoretically make it a lot easier to target more articles more easily when selecting content targets for an event. Perhaps also, if people were interested, we could take nominations ahead of time for which articles should be included in the event. That could work, if people are really interested in specific picks. -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]])

::: As for you N°9: my point was more than even a reward didn't make people come (the harvest moon was just a mere exemple, sorry if it wasn't clear). I mean, even a game announcement  (thanks the Devs) didn't make many people to come. That's kinda sad in a way. --[[User:WardPhoenix|WardPhoenix]] ([[User talk:WardPhoenix|talk]]) 18:03, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

:::: Fair enough, but my comments about the Harvest-Moon-only Side Job still stand.

:::: In terms of ''general'' apathy / lack of participation, and the reasons for it, I think it's hard to draw any conclusions when we don't have a lot of information to go on. It's ''possible'' that more advertising would've made a difference, but it might not have mattered at all. After all, as you said, even a notice on the blog didn't bring in participants. In fact, it brought in literally '''nobody''' —  not a single person showed up to participate in the event after the blog announcement, even though SURELY lots of people saw that. If the problem was just one of getting the word out better, then '''''somebody''''' would've showed up when we did finally get the word out.

:::: So I think we should look at other possible reasons for the low turnout. Things like:

::::# '''Poor incentives?''' <p>I don't need charges. Do you guys need charges? I typically have around 70 built up. Occasionally there will be a flurry of use that drops it all the way down to "only" 40-something, but then all I have to do is wait and it's back up to ~70. I simply have no use for additional charges, and no matter how many you offer me to do something, it creates 0 additional motivation to actually do it. That appears to be true for at least all the members of Harvest Moon, as well.</p><p>I'm not saying we should offer ''more'' than charges, or that we have to bribe people to work on the wiki. I'm just saying, we may be fooling ourselves that charge-based prizes will motivate anyone to compete.</p>
::::# '''Poor organization?''' <p>Did we do enough to explain how the event worked, how wiki editing works, what participants needed to do, etc? I'm not sure what more we ''could've'' done, but maybe we didn't do enough. Or, maybe we did too much. Was the [[JanuWiki 2019]] page overwhelming? Did the preload boilerplate turn people off? These are all questions that only people who ''didn't'' participate can answer, but the answers might help us.</p>
::::# '''Poor selection of content?''' <p>I said earlier that the finite list of articles picked for the event didn't seem like a problem, ''unless'' people showed up to check out the event, looked at the list of available articles they could work on, and turned away because they didn't find anything that interested them on that list. Well... ''did'' that happen?</p>
::::# '''Poor support?''' <p>Several people who '''did''' initially show up to the event ended up either withdrawing their participation or dropping out without completing their efforts. (Heck, that even includes the person who ''organized'' the whole thing in the first place.) We should probably try to find out why that happened. Some will no doubt be for personal reasons, which are beyond our control. But others may have reasons very directly related to the event itself, in terms of how it was organized or handled.</p><p>That list is, if I've got this right:<ul><li>{{user|FeRDNYC}} bailed from review assignments on day 1. I've hopefully at least ''somewhat'' explained my reasons, earlier in this discussion.</li><li>{{user|Nabilou}} requested to be taken off review assignments after the first week or so, citing work commitments.</li><li>{{user|Cham Almighty}} took a brief hiatus from reviewing January 10-13, returned, but then was unavailable for the last 2 weeks of the month. In the forum thread she explained that she was traveling due to a death in the family, so "personal reasons". She returned for the wind-down period.</li><li>{{user|Djonni}}'s GodWiki participation ceased entirely on January 14, reasons unknown.</li><li>The following users all ''started'' articles for the event, but abandoned them unfinished and in at least one case unstarted, leaving only the boilerplate content in place of an article:<ul><li>{{user|Totentanz}}</li><li>{{user|Holy Spirit of Hell}}</li><li>{{user|Muralin}}</li><li>{{user|Ignis Infernalis}}</li><li>{{user|S624}}</li></ul>Other than {{u|S624}} who informed the group of the article abandonment via [[Help:Requests]] and cited work commitments as an explanation, I don't believe we know why any of these authors abandoned their unfinished articles.</li></ul>None of these situations had anything to do with advertising or awareness of the event, obviously. In every case there was something that caused the person to ''stop'' participating after they'd already started. Why is that? Was it too much effort? Was the documentation unclear? Did we suck all the fun out of it with our overlong explanations and boilerplate structure? Was there too ''little'' information, so they couldn't figure out what we were asking them to do?
::::It'd be nice if we could conclude that people didn't participate simply because they didn't know enough about the event. That doesn't appear to be sufficient explanation, though, when you look at all of the data. -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 20:42, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

===Round 4===

I think the main issue for the lack of people are actually two : 
:*'''Lack of enough means of advertisement'''. I don't think the majority of Gods and Goddesses check the forums and probably even less check the godwiki and it's likely not everyone reads the game news. The reasons may varies ("Don't give a damn/Don't want to read") but that's the case. Meaning the only remaining way to have advertisement is the guilds council (hard to do something about it) and even more unlikely useful: godvoices. For the latter I had the surprise to see someone messaging me after i said a GodWiki related entry (better than nothing I guess). Another way to advertise it, will be to have a more general advertising of the GodWiki.

:*'''Writing is not for everyone'''. Let's be honest, writing (in general) is not an easy task, even more when it's not in your native language. Not a lot of people are willing to "waste" hours/days/weeks to write a story than few people are going to read anyway. 
::Even though we are not asking writers to be Shakespeare, some people will tend to judge themselves unable to write a proper article for various reasons, leading them not participating in the event. And for those who may be confident enough, the lack of time or will may block potential writers. 
::Writing, again, is not that easy. It took me more than a week to write the [[Godbuster]] and yet, I am not fully satisfied with the result (yeah i am too much of a perfectionist sometimes), but more importantly, I was totally drained after writing it, which is why I hadn't any entry after that one and switched to brainless standardization instead. Right now that I'm trying to write my own chronicles for my heroine, I realise again how hard it is to write a story (an article being a one-shoy short-story), especially when it's not your native language : and I think that's the case for a lot of players.
::Plus if you happen to not find an article that hook you up, it's even harder to write something good about it. (I mean, i only wrote [[Adminotaur]] because I instantly had the general idea of the article on my mind as soon as i saw the monster).
::As for those who started but didn't finished, they likely forgot/didn't have time/got bored/tired/gave up/obi-wan kenoby (delete as appropriate)

:* On a side note, we had some "ninja" yet efficient non-JanuWiki-related entry recently : [[Cash Cow]]/[[Chocolate Moose]]/[[Moosenger of Death]] as exemples, so the event still may have hooked some people in, which is nice. (maybe i can count my self in, since i had only two major GodWiki entry before JanuWiki]]

--[[User:WardPhoenix|WardPhoenix]] ([[User talk:WardPhoenix|talk]]) 21:42, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

===Round 5===
First, I want to thank everyone who got this organized and ran the event.  I enjoyed it quite a bit, and also learned a lot (more on that later).
Perhaps it is unhelpful, but I do not have strong opinions on some of your enumerated topics.  I am happy to share those opinions I do have, so here it goes.
:*I agree with the sentiment that it would be very difficult to enforce the picture thing, and the "satire/parody" exemption makes sense.  Also, let's face it, far fewer people will read the godwiki (as opposed to wikipedia), so we are not too likely to run into legal jeopardy (spoken like not-a-lawyer).
:*I give a lot of credit to the editors, and it does seem fair that they would get time to edit without feeling like they did not get a fair chance at writing articles as well.  So, a separated editing time after the writing is over would be a potential improvement for those doing the editing.  Of course, if the editors were not interested in writing, then this is probably a non-issue.
:*I do read the blog when new news comes out, but I am pretty sure I learned about JanuWiki from the wiki main page itself.  I do the puzzles every day, and I often (read: always) have to consult the wiki's Omnibus List, so would see the JanuWiki announcement every day. That is what got me interested.  
:*Now, as far as low participation, I would guess that there are two factors (well, two main factors).  First is simple know-how.  I had never before written an wiki article here or anywhere else, so getting started on the first article did take a bit of convincing myself to jump in and figure out how it works.  Not everyone will be inclined to do so.  The templates helped -- a lot.  Still, I ended up looking up existing articles and clicking on the edit tab just to see how certain things are done (how to add a picture, basic formatting stuff, et cetera).  I would bet that our ratio of writers to readers is similar to wikipedia's.  The second inhibiting factor may be that a lot of the article subjects (monsters, artifacts, skills, and such) are basically just names that are puns or jokes.  This requires some extra creativity on the part of the article writer (again, to compare to wikipedia: on there, you are not having to invent the information as well as writing it up).  I know that I selected the subjects from the articles I wrote based on what subjects gave me a workable idea.  There were plenty in the list that made me think "What the heck would I even say this is?"  I think that's just the nature of the beast here -- the ideas are generated and voted on for their cleverness/comedic value much of the time, and not because they are a workable concept.  The person who comes up with the idea for the new monster or artifact is not worrying about whether the idea translates well into an article in the wiki (nor are the voters, the ER voters, or the Final Judges).  I liked the challenge of being creative, but I can see how that might be a disincentive for some.  {{user|WardPhoenix}}  makes a good point about non-native English speakers as well.
:*Incentives -- I'll write for nothing, so getting charges is a welcome bonus.  Probably not enough of an incentive to overcome the disincentives for some of people. But, yes, as a non-ark-owning Godvillian, I am very open to receiving free charges.
:*In a future wiki event, I would volunteer to be an editor, but I think I would like some guidelines or training of some kind before I took that on.
Well, that's my two cents' worth.  I will check back in to see if the discussion is continuing.  Again, thanks for the opportunity to contribute.

--[[User:Beausoleil|Beausoleil]] ([[User talk:Beausoleil|talk]]) 16:46, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
----
Feedback:

:*{{tqi|quotes=yes|Is there anything we need to worry about in some of the copyright infringements for imagery from this time?}} - Been covered but I was wondering about the lack of any license options.
:*{{tqi|quotes=yes|More advertising!}} - I tried to raise interest in Nautilus for this & had a few people say they'd take a look but ultimately no luck. I didn't want to push the issue too much though. Part of the issue is that Godville seems to be generally quieter over the last 6 months or so compared to earlier in the year (at least to me, others may have different opinions).
:*{{tqi|quotes=yes|Incentives}} - I definitely wrote articles with a view to competing for the daily template side job but that only made me push what the templates could do & didn't influence my choice to participate. I now can't be sure if I volunteered to edit before or after the bonus for editing was announced.
:*{{tqi|quotes=yes|selection of content}} - A lot of the articles I wouldn't have tried to write anything for so maybe people were turned off by the selection. That being said, the FAQs did say that any new article could be considered. Whether these were read or not is a different matter.

-- [[User:S624|S624]] ([[User talk:S624|talk]]) 21:08, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

:: Thanks {{u|S624}}, {{u|Beausoleil}} — both of your answers were very helpful. Regarding the article selection, I think the reaction you both had was pretty much what was intended. I certainly wouldn't expect that a potential writer would be interested in '''every''' possible article subject. Most likely, the list of articles you found uninteresting / uninspiring was different, or only partially overlapping, so that increases coverage even more. And if there were some subjects that '''nobody''' found workable, then those didn't get picked up, and that's fine. That's the reason we tried to offer a wide selection (and quickly realized the need to broaden it even more once the event was underway). But as long as you (and everyone else) were able to find something that ''did'' interest you, then I'd say the selection was adequate. Much like, to address something Beausoleil mentioned, it's perfectly fine not to have opinions about all of the points raised, and we're happy to hear whatever opinions you do have!

:: What did everyone think of the "theme" categories that drove the selections? (Other than the boss-monsters, which was just an effort to get rid of as many redlinks as possible in {{tlx|Navbox bosses}}. Personally I thought that using things like "beer", "cats" — well, we never really got to "bears" in any substantial way so I guess just those two — as the selection criteria? It seemed to me that it worked out well, as it ended up providing a nicely diverse set of possible articles so that everyone could find something they liked. -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 23:03, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

===Round 6===
Feedback/Response:

'''Concerning the editing/review process:''' Agreed, the review process was value-added in that it made sure that everyone's contributions got read. I think it also added value in that it enabled a greater interlinking with the rest of GodWiki; several times, I saw editors (myself included) adding links to other articles in GodWiki because we were getting a larger picture of the constellation of articles that JanuWiki was creating. Given that one of the strengths of other Wikis is their ability to draw a reader down branching paths of interest and reading, it would only make GodWiki stronger and of greater entertainment to relate articles to other articles. The more a reader gets drawn in, the more likely that reader is to realize, "Nobody has written this article yet? But it's so obvious where it fits in! I bet I can fix that." The review process was able to help that.

That said, the review process turned out to be slightly more involved than I thought it would be, initially. Going forward, it would be good to recommend that any people volunteering to edit or review hold off on ambitions to write articles after the first week of the drive. The thought to create separate portions of the drive for writing and review has its merits, but I worry that in doing that the reviewers might end up with more work and the authors might end up with less comfort in GodWiki; much of the identification of adjustments to be made with the process (for instance, encouragement on how to use the randomization templates, the need for spacers, etc.) occurred during the review phase, and writers got to see what was possible and tried stretching. If there were separate writing and review phases, I could see a lot of "oh, man, I wish I'd known and tried X" without follow-through to practice.

'''Concerning the Theme(s):''' Personally, I really enjoyed the chosen themes. It gave a sense of purpose to the content drive, and made each article a springboard for the next article. It was easier to make them fit together into a sort of ecosystem. Plus, now I know where to find some of my favorite GodWiki characters. "Where was Elayne Kirchen? Oh, right, she was a boss in the JanuWiki drive."  "De la Fossey... de la Fossey... where have I heard that name before? Naturalist... oh! Bears in GodWiki!" For the next content drive, themes should definitely be a thing.
--[[User:SourceRunner|SourceRunner]] ([[User talk:SourceRunner|talk]]) 12:52, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

----
:*Themes -- I liked the themes in the sense that it narrowed down the "pile" of unwritten articles to an amount that seemed do-able.  I imagine that if you just posted a list of all of the unwritten articles, the sheer quantity might have been intimidating (like all that stuff stored in my basement that I keep avoiding).  As for what the themes themselves were, the beer theme made sense based on the predilections of the hero/ines; expanding that to "Lagers, Tigers, and Bears" was a funny/clever way to expand it out.
:*Review -- My mind has changed on this, because I did, in fact, learn a lot about formatting articles based on the edits that were made to my articles.  It seems clear to me now that my writing and formatting did improve because of what changes had been made by editors.  That would have been lost if the editing had all occurred after all of the writing, and the time taken in the editing of my articles would have been greater (and all due to repeating the same errors).
:*Article Topic Selection -- What I did not adequately articulate in my first comment was that I think some of the article topics are just very abstract or weird conceptually, and therefore harder to write.  There is obviously a personal preference piece, and that will vary from writer to writer -- I agree totally with that.  But I do think that, because ideas are selected from the Ideabox based (it seems) largely on cleverness, we do end up with a certain number of ideas that are hard to imagine as actual things.  I recall seeing a thread in the Fora that was essentially people drawing pictures of their hero/ine.  I looked at the equipment that my hero had at that point, and one or two of the items where things that I could not visualize as something that I could out into a picture (regardless of my artistic skills).  Perhaps that is just the limits of my own imagination, though.
:*Review Going Forward -- If we want to keep the spirit of JanuWiki alive all the year long, maybe what we have done in this first big event is find a self-selecting group of Divine Beings who are interested in the wiki and who have the time and skills to work on it.  We who participated could be the core group of people who will be the curators and keepers of the wiki.  I know that I ''currently'' feel under-skilled to do editing, but I am willing to figure it out/learn how it all works.  That may make this an easier project to roll out next time, as we can all be spreading the word and trying to drum up interest within each of our circles of friends and guild mates. 

So, that's a total of 4 cents from me so far.

[[User:Beausoleil|Beausoleil]] ([[User talk:Beausoleil|talk]]) 17:31, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

===Round 7===
In my opinion the event was organized and advertised as well as it could be under the circumstances and restrictions we face. Djonni was incredible helpful and the sole reason I was able to participate in some way at all. My reasons to drop out were (and still are) extremely high work commitments. I entered the team while on holiday and in expectation that my work life would cool down but instead it picked up a lot so I was simply unable to commit any free time and thus had to resign. I'm still sad about that. :(

What I can say however is that reviewing was indeed a bit unrewarding. It didn't gather any points for my guild and the scoring was very complicated. I simply didn't understand it. I was able to review but unable to do the "housework" after it. Djonni had to do this for me. (Again, he was incredible helpful and inclusive.)

On the topic of rewards: I think there is nothing we can offer that would motivate someone to write an article if they weren't motivated to do so in the first place. Actually if you were in only for the charges then I doubt your output would be creative and fun to read. So we all did it for the fun, for the good of the community and for some virtual internet points. The charges were only a little thank you if someone went through extra troubles.

One last remark: I think one "problem" with our community is that Godville is a (half) ZPG that is played mainly by people with not too much time on their hand (notable and popular exceptions don't need to be mentioned. ;-) ) so even if someone wants to participate they often don't have the time. Also looking at guild leader elections it is obvious that many simply don't want to participate but only idle around for a while throughout the day. So we have a limited amount of people with a limited amount of time. From this small pool we need to pick talented writers and reviewers. There won't be many people left at the end that can participate in such an event. I think we simply have to accept it. I would however open up the articles to the authors choosing next time. So no set theme and no restrictions on what articles can participate. In the end all new or improved articles are worth participating in my opinion.
--[[User:Nabilou|Nabilou]] ([[User talk:Nabilou|talk]]) 18:29, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

===Round 8===
Hello!! I quite enjoyed the event! I personally found the themes fairly useful in highlighting articles of note - otherwise, it would have felt fairly insurmountable to tackle the insane number of monsters/artifacts/etc that could technically have articles written about them. 

I wrote because it happened to be in a free period for me before work commitments started piling up - perhaps that can be considered? I know it's hard, given the fact that this is a fairly global community, but maybe there are some universal periods that players are more available? Like... the holiday seasons?? (Xmas, Halloween etc) I know it can get busy in December, but maybe next time we can consider having an event then, especially since Godville itself runs events that probably do draw people in.

Reviews were really appreciated tbh, especially as someone who is fairly new to writing wiki articles. However, I can understand the burden it may be as this whole thing is fairly thankless and it really is (as Nabilou stated above) a labour of love. (Can I take this moment to shout a thank you to my reviewers Cham Almighty and SourceRunner it was a huge help thank you!!!) I think it's an issue of perhaps widening our pool of participants somehow - maybe we can reach out to the admins and run an actual ad in the Godville Times?!

--[[User: Annieysa9898|Annieysa9898]] ([[User talk:Annieysa9898|talk]]) 11:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

: You make a good point about timing, {{u|Annieysa9898}}. We should definitely look for times when Godville is busy, but work slumps. Holidays are good... the beginning of summer vacation might also be good, because the pupils have finished school, but the families have not yet gone on holiday, so there's briefly a surge in Godville population as well as idle minds, just before the summer slump. --[[User:SourceRunner|SourceRunner]] ([[User talk:SourceRunner|talk]]) 02:09, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

:: Yeah, that actually is a really good point. If we do manage to make ''this'' event the beginning of a recurring tradition, we should perhaps consider starting it a bit '''earlier''' next time — January isn't a ''terrible'' time for an event, but lots of people have free time around the holidays that they might be interested in using to work on the GodWiki, and we kicked off too late for that. Starting around mid-December might be a lot better timing; we could either end mid-January instead or go 6 weeks instead of 4. (We'd have to rename the event, but we've got around 8 months to come up with ideas on that.)

:: As {{u|SourceRunner}} pointed out, start-of-summer feels like the other natural place for a "big" event. (And I honestly think if we could even manage to pull off two "big" events a year that'd be impressive, more than that would be unproductive overkill. Even two may be pushing it.) That'd leave the two events ''reasonably'' close to 6 months apart, too, so they're spaced out nicely on the calendar.

:: ''Smaller'' events remain an option for other times of the year, as well. Some of those may be more dependent on preparation, though, so they may not be as easy to plan via calendar and have to just kick off "when it's time'. (Like, I'd love it if we can get an event together to address the sorry state of the [[Godwiki Guidebook]], [[Creators Manual]], and associated [[:Category:Guidelines|Guidelines]] articles. But, if we're going to get a coherent set of resources out of it, we probably shouldn't kick off that event until we have an adequate set of common resources for things like structure, templates, formatting, and style.)

:: It's easy to overlook or forget that {{u|Djonni}} started thinking about what ultimately became [[JanuWiki 2019]] back in November, officially proposed it on December 6, and by December 14 we were heavily into development for the event tools/materials, something that took up pretty much all of our available time over the remaining two weeks prior to kickoff. And now, here we are in late March with the event only having officially ended like 5-6 weeks ago (feels so much longer!), and at least I don't feel like the post-mortem is really complete yet. (Part of that is my being absent almost entirely for three of those five weeks, of course.) Point is, there's never enough time.

:: For instance, depending what we consider "start of summer" to mean exactly, we'd really need to start planning a summer event... well, if it was going to start in mid-May, preparations should ideally begin in earnest by one month from today — if not sooner. If it'd be kicking off later than that, we have a little more time. -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 19:30, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

===Round 9===
Changing gears a bit, there are still a few things (believe it or not) I've had in the back of my mind regarding event lessons/outcomes. They're either things I expressed in other venues (but still want to present here for the record), issues I was holding off raising for reasons I'll explain, or just stuff I never made time to write out.

====Timezone====
I raised this already on the forum thread, and I know from most people's perspective it probably sounds like I'm harping on this because ''who the hell '''cares'''???'', but I'd like it if we made a commitment to do all GodWiki planning/scheduling using the UTC timezone of the wiki's system clock, and ''never'' tried that Kaliningrad-time thing again. 

For starters, the simple fact is that right now we '''can't''' work in any time zone other than UTC. I mean that not in the sense that it isn't theoretically ''possible'' to write the necessary code for timezone conversion, but in the sense that two of the wiki's template coders (Djonni and myself) tried to make it work, and we both utterly failed. I ended up having to rip out all of the code that was there, as we never got it to work. I personally have no intention of trying again. Which means, as things currently stand the necessary code doesn't exist. And it's a deceptively difficult thing to implement for little-to-no real benefit. (Feel free to browse the [https://wiki.godvillegame.com/index.php?title=Template:Godwiki_event_banner&action=history banner-template edit history] and the [[Template talk:Godwiki event banner|talk page discussion]] to see just how difficult. 7 of the 9 template edits preceding/at the start of the event are attempts — all failed — at fixing the timezone conversion.)

The entire point of syncing the event to Kaliningrad time was, AIUI, that the event was going to be announced in the issue of the Godville Times that would appear at midnight that day, two hours before midnight UTC. And ultimately that didn’t happen, and the event finally get mentioned by the devs in a blog post on day... what was it, like day '''five''' of the event?

We (primarily Djonni) expended a lot of effort fretting over a 2-hour time shift, and all that effort ultimately was completely wasted. The event is a marathon, not a sprint — I can’t see how those 2 hours make enough of a difference to justify making our lives that much more difficult.

I propose that the GodWiki operate exclusively on its system UTC clock from now on.

====Multiple article "claims"====
One thing that ''did'' happen right at the start of the event was a little bit of a "gold rush" to place {{tlx|Godwiki event construction}} banners on the event articles that people wanted to claim as their own, with some editors having a half-dozen articles "reserved" in their name. That became a potential problem towards the end of the event, when as we all know availability issues led to there being multiple articles in a still-unfinished state as the closing date approached. Even though everything ''was'' ultimately completed in time (due to some herculean efforts by the event participants), it still created a precarious situation that would be better avoided in the future.

It's also something {{u|Djonni}} had (in my interpretation) actually intended to disallow. In the [[JanuWiki 2019]] rules (well, "suggestions", it softballs them), it states:
{{tqb|'''One article at a time:''' You are welcome to take your time with your article &mdash; sometimes quality and inspiration can't be rushed &mdash; but we do ask that you keep your creative efforts focused on one article at a time, to leave plenty of choice of articles for other creators to work on.}}
While that rule ''was'' technically followed (though not so much the ''spirit'' of the last part), I think we should be a bit more explicit in stating that you can only '''claim''' one article at a time, and "reserved" articles should be disallowed entirely — the only under-construction article allowed is the one you're currently writing. Once that article's submitted for review, then you can go and create '''one''' new one to work on.

<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="padding:0.2em;border:1px solid;">
'''A digression...'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The reason I didn't bring this up earlier is that I was hoping we might be able to alter the creation process to make it a moot point. 

As I've noted, I don't love the idea of new articles being created and drafted "in-place", because it leads to those situations where an unfinished (or even unstarted) draft is the "live" article for a topic — something that, without the ability to delete articles, we have no options to correct other than to actually write the article (in some form).

So, I was hoping we might be able to change the creation process for new articles, so they start off in a "draft space" — either within the user's own personal space, or in a designated area of the wiki. Then, when the article is finished, it would be moved to its proper location.

Drafting articles that way, we could set it up so it's only '''possible''' to have one article in progress at a time. (It'd be as simple as designating a single location for each user's article drafts — they'd ''have to'' finish one article and move it out, in order for the draft area to be freed up for them to start the next article.)

That idea creates other logistical issues I haven't yet come up with solutions for: For instance, how to apply the boilerplate content. There's also the issue of how we keep track of what article each editor is currently creating, so that there are no conflicts or overlaps (something that can't happen if the article is created in-place). 

Regardless, it's highly unlikely any of that is going to happen before our next event.</div></div>

For now, I think we should just amend the "rules" to make it clear that it's one article at a time, period. -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 05:49, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

: '''Re: Timezone'''-- You summarized why we were trying for Kaliningrad time succinctly, {{u|FeRDNYC}}, so won't rehash it. That said, it seems to have become a point of trauma, which is something incompatible with the aims of JanuWiki (intent to show GodWiki as a fun and easily usable space), and I'm sorry it caused you so much suffering. So yes, you have my vote, too, for future operations being on GodWiki time
: ''However,'' we have to deal with one of the other aims of JanuWiki (intent to show GodWiki as an integrated part of Godville) before we can leave the topic alone. Like it or not, the rest of Godville functions on Kaliningrad time (except for automated mobile themes); to make sure that GodWiki is seen as an integrated part of Godville for future events, we have to either ''make very clear'' that any event starts two hours before the Godville Times changes (many people haven't the foggiest what "UTC" means, and, sadly, are disinclined to look it up), '''or''' we have to be lenient and squishy for people starting early or late. If people can't make the translation in their heads between Godville Time and GodWiki Time, or are scared that they will be told off publicly for making a mistake in timing, GodWiki is going to still appear to be foreign and hostile territory.
: '''Re: O@aT/Reservation'''-- I agree about enforcing "one at a time." I do ''not'' agree about the undercurrent I'm reading of making it so even that one article cannot be reserved. The "reservation" system was partly implemented to help build excitement and commitment to writing; "Oh, man, I really want to be part of this JanuWiki thing, and I've got the ''perfect'' idea for that one article! Can't let this go, gotta be there right off the starting line and snag it before someone else does, and get it written fast!" vs. "Oh, man, I have a perfect idea for that article, but there's no way to guarantee that someone else is not going to write it first, or post while I'm still working. Guess I'll sit back and watch, and if I have time to write later and it's still available, I'll maybe post something. Don't want to waste my time and effort when there are other things I could be doing." Being able to reserve an article is a reward and an encouragement for enthusiasm and commitment, and fosters a sense of temporary exclusive ownership during a special content drive event that creates a space and time where it is safe to exercise creativity. The exclusive ownership of course vanishes once the article is complete or the event is over, and I don't think that anyone expects it to be a normal thing (as was pointed out to me while I was working to complete the sour gnomish beer quest article after JanuWiki, any note I put on an article requesting to be the only one to work on it while it is in progress can only be that: a request). It's one of the advantages to taking part in an event.
: Having to complete an article in a draft space before posting it to a live page makes some sense. In that case, all templates or boilerplate will need to be posted somewhere that someone seeking to write an article can wholesale copy-paste it into a draft space. There would need to be some mitigation of "spying" if reservation of articles is not allowed (most of the rest of Godville has a stronger differentiation between public space and private space than GodWiki has, so having a vulnerable work-in-progress exposed is unsettling to many). And there would need to be leniency for people who don't use the draft space concept. GodWiki is about fluidity and community working together, right? Some people just don't work in draft spaces, whether due to personal style or technological limitations. So draft space would have to be something strongly encouraged and set up to be the easiest option, rather than something required, no matter the hoops one must jump through to use it.
: I... think that covers what I wanted to say. Gotta get to work now, anyway. --[[User:SourceRunner|SourceRunner]] ([[User talk:SourceRunner|talk]]) 09:42, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

:: {{tqb|I do ''not'' agree about the undercurrent I'm reading of making it so even that one article cannot be reserved.|SourceRunner}}
:: Oh, no no, not at all — in fact, I addressed that as one of the issues I don't have a solution for (implying, I would hope, that I think it's something that would '''need to be''' solved):
:: {{tqb|There's also the issue of how we keep track of what article each editor is currently creating, so that there are no conflicts or overlaps (something that can't happen if the article is created in-place).|FeRDNYC}}
:: It may just be a clash of semantics, but when I'm talking about the article someone is "currently creating", the goal would of course be to make ''that article'' exclusive to them, so that nobody else would be writing the same thing. If you want to call that a "reservation", then cool, everyone gets one "reservation" at a time. My "no reserved articles" argument was against someone ''pre-claiming'' additional articles that they '''weren't''' yet working on — articles ''beyond'' the one they've currently claimed (or "reserved", if you like) as their active writing task.
:: Duplicate content creation is just squandered resources. Why would I ever be in favor of people wasting their time like that, much less argue for it? -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 12:04, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
::: {{tqb|''However,'' we have to deal with one of the other aims of JanuWiki (intent to show GodWiki as an integrated part of Godville) before we can leave the topic alone.|SourceRunner}}
::: See, that was never one of '''my''' aims for the event, which is why I've never understood the fretting over this. "Show" to ''who''? The Godville developers? ''They're'' the ones who run the wiki server, and it is fully within their power to set the system clock to Kaliningrad time! If it's so important that the times be in sync, '''that's''' the obvious solution. Since they haven't chosen to do so, I don't feel all that off-base in concluding that it's ''not'' really that important. 
::: {{tqb|to make sure that GodWiki is seen as an integrated part of Godville for future events, we have to either ''make very clear'' that any event starts two hours before the Godville Times changes|SourceRunner}}
::: ...After. Not before. That was the thing. I read, in the forums, all the concern about how it would strike midnight in Kaliningrad, the Godville Times would (presumably) go out with an announcement of the event, and everyone would "race" to the wiki to join the event. And the fact that the event wouldn't be starting for another two hours (or less) was deemed a problem, for some reason. I still do not understand ''why'' that's viewed as a problem, and I don't think I ever will. But I ''accepted'' that it was a problem and tried my best to aid in finding a solution, sadly without success. Regardless, officially launching a (31-day-long!) event a whole two hours ''later'' than the stroke of Russian-midnight seems even less-bad, to me.
::: {{tqb|'''or''' we have to be lenient and squishy for people starting early or late.|SourceRunner}}
::: I'm in favor of '''that''' on general principle, always have been, and can't really fathom why there would even be any question about it. Nobody should have to ''care'' about timezones and converting time in their head! I mean, we put a big countdown/-up clock on both the main page and the event navbox specifically so people would know when the event starts/ends without having to do that. (It's not like the vast majority of us don't have to convert from our local time to Kaliningrad time, same as we'd have to convert to UTC.) But that was the reason for the clock (the whole reason, in my view, though it seems like it became something else): to do the conversion for people. Not to hold them to any specific timing or starter's gun or whatever.

::: My view is, if the clock ran in UTC and someone felt like jumping the gun by starting two hours early, I certainly wouldn't "tell them off" — I'd '''''thank''''' them, because they're creating content, and isn't that supposed to be the goal? A 31-day event has 744 hours in it, a couple here or there on either end couldn't possibly be ''less'' of a big deal. At least, not to me. Is there anyone who would object? Who's this theoretical jerk telling people off for creating content? And over their ''timing''? We welcome new content every second of every day of the year, don't we? -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 12:52, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

:::: OK, it was definitely a semantics issue with claim/reservation/exclusive. Sounds like we're actually on the same page, there. Thank you for clarifying. (Regarding "Why would I ever [...] argue for it?" My thoughts exactly. Hence the what-in-the-world reaction.)
:::: '''Re: Timing'''-- Not sure why the countdown clock was deemed some sort of failure. I thought that it was done exceedingly well, and functioned exactly for the purpose that you made it. It's what I kept looking at in order to start racing for my target article, at least. 
:::: Since we were making the content drive at least partially a contest where creators could earn rewards for certain items, the only way to be fair about people getting to claim the articles that might be most advantageous to them was to make sure everyone started at the same time. Having someone start too early would have potentially raised hue and cry of unfairness if someone else had gone too early. That was the mess that setting a specific time was designed to avoid. We have no control over what or how the devs chose to announce (and honestly, I think the way they did left a much more lasting impression), but my understanding was that when the clock hit 0, whichever 0 that was, then we could go, we could race.
:::: Perfectly happy for that to be on UTC time in the future. If the countdown clock could go back up on the main page for when we're allowed to start, that would be perfect, in my opinion. But if it was the coding of the clock that got to be traumatic, then we can find another way. If that way has to be that I go to every thread in the forums and post a breakdown of exactly which hour is zero-hour for each timezone, that would be fine, too. 
:::: But we do need to choose one or the other. Either UTC or squishy, and communicate whichever to participants. Can't be both, because we have rule-followers in GV and we have laid back people in GV, and if one group gets one message while the other group gets the other message, things get ugly. It happened when we were playing Ideabox Challenge, and it should not happen again.
:::: '''Re: Who are we showing?''' Not the devs. We don't need to show the devs anything, as you've noted, {{u|FeRDNYC}}. Who we were trying to show that GodWiki is an integrated part of GV is the rest of the players and potential content creators. I'm not the only one on the forum/Ideabox who has been left with an impression (erroneous as it might be) that GodWiki is a world unto itself. To pull in more content creators, it's necessary to show that the GodWiki is part of the main Godville continent, not some strange peninsula extruded into the void. One of the surfact disconnects is the difference in clock systems used, so I ''think'' that's part of what {{u|Djonni}} was trying to smooth over by choosing Kaliningrad time for the initial JanuWiki: it gave potential content creators who may feel somewhat nervous about venturing into GodWiki a familiar touchstone, by letting them wait for the newspaper to change, and making that the shot from the starting pistol.
:::: There are probably other ways to show GodWiki as integrated with the rest of Godville to the people we want making use of it. The time thing was one attempt at making things feel familiar. Since it caused trauma, we'll try to find a different way next time that won't cause trauma.
:::: Back to work. --[[User:SourceRunner|SourceRunner]] ([[User talk:SourceRunner|talk]]) 15:03, 26 March 2019 (UTC)