Forum:Staff needed and stickied threads categories

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I've just added a couple of lines to the Forums listing page.

One is to explain how to make a thread "stickied" and so always at the top of the listing. I think we may need to set some sort of restriction on who can sticky a post, so as not to over-crowd the section... or maybe say that if the category is removed it should not be replaced by the original person who added it? I'm not sure, we'll see what works.

The other is to introduce Category:Staff needed. The idea is that staff can watch this category, and then any of the regulars who see a post that especially needs our attention can add the category to attract our attention. This is a suggestion that came out of my discussion with Fandyllic, and something I'd like to give a try.

I think this will work best if it's used only for group discussions that need staff input, and not for questions (like, say, "how do I change my user name?") that can be best answered by directing the asker to Special:Contact. That's still the primary way of getting staff help, but this may be useful in bringing us to discussion threads that we might otherwise miss.

We'll have to work out exactly the right criteria between us, but I think it's worth experimenting with :)

Please let me know what you think. Thanks, and Happy New Year to all -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 20:01, January 1, 2011 (UTC)

How many stickies?

I think 15 stickied threads is a lot... it kinda loses the impact of having something at the top if there aren't just a couple of key things. But on the other hand, they are good choices of repeat questions. Maybe the sticky should be a FAQ listing of the other pages? With a clear "read here first" title? Or we could just try this way first, and see what happens -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 11:17, January 4, 2011 (UTC)

I previously suggested a FAQ section / link in the help menu drop down in one of the earlier blog discussion after oasis appaeared. Now that this stick thread idea has been implemented I've put up an idea here in the forum as even before the list grew overnight i could see it getting too unwieldy ;) I've done it as a outline table/index of links to other pages on Wikia and added a section for discussion and alternative suggestions rather than just sticking it in the 'Stickied section', so it could be refined first if the idea is acceptable.

See Forum:FAQ - Sugestion -   BulldozerD11   talk    contribs    email   13:09, January 4, 2011 (UTC)

I agree - only a few links should be in the stickies section. I like Bulldozer's idea way better than the current solution which makes the whole forum look cluttered. Other ideas I had in mind:

• A seperate forum thread with a DPL of a a category different than "Stickied threads" which would consist of relevant/repeat threads.
• Simple bullet list of links to relevant/repeat threads, with short descriptions of the threads - that would be easier to edit and more transparent than a table. Not all cells in the table can be filled, some would probably need to be filled with links to different sources, which would create an impression of inconsistency in my opinion.

Also, I'm not really a big fan of the using Template:Sticky for adding the category. Why create a template dependency when it's not needed? Sovq 22:43, January 4, 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure why stickies need to be in the same list as the regular forum posts. BTW, all {{Sticky}} does is add the post to a category. It is not a dependency. It just saves time typing or entering the long category name of "Stickied threads". -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 8:07 PM PST 4 Jan 2011

Important threads should be somehow promoted, but I'm not sure if putting them all in the stickies section is the best idea. The forum already looks chaotic and I assume there are even more threads needed to be promoted so it's going to get worse. Putting important threads into a different forum thread (doesn't matter if it's a dpl, table or simple list)and making only that one thread stickied seems a better solution to me. I know that the template only adds the category, that's my point actually - the category adding procedure is simple enough with the [[Category:Categoryname]], there's is no need to over complicate it with a template. And it does create a dependency, like all used templates, because a change in the template will change all the articles using it = dependency. Other users most likely won't use it to add the category and that will create inconsistency in the posts. That's a minor thing but it's worth considering. I had a {{Exp}} template on a wiki I contribute to and all it did was add the word "Experience", I mean; how lazy can you get? ;P Sovq 14:40, January 5, 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you want to be technical, the category name is a dependency on {{Sticky}} not the other way around. Regardless, I think the you're splitting hairs and distracting from the real issue which is doing something better than having the stickies list appear above and before the regular list.

Since no one else is giving additional useful feedback, I will probably just create a new Forum:Community Central Forum stickies that has the list of stickied threads and just have a link to that page prominently displayed above the regular list. Not perfect, but better. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:19 PM PST 10 Jan 2011

What about calling it Forum:FAQ - Please read before posting, making it a listing of those posts (with "category:FAQ" determining the members) and then making the listing page a sticky in itself? -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 21:32, January 11, 2011 (UTC)

So, this thread kind of died without any solution being implemented. There are multiple good solutions here, should we just pick one and do it?  Monchoman45  Talk  Contribs  Skystone  01:48,1/24/2011 

You can pick one. Can't be much worse than the current setup. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:24 AM PST 24 Jan 2011

Alright, I'll put general questions into an FAQ post, and leave extra important threads as stickies - for example, the thread about the current lag. That seems like a good combination of the given solutions.  Monchoman45  Talk  Contribs  Skystone  19:28,1/24/2011 

Done. All that remains is to put a short description on the FAQ page.

Right, so, I think it's fairly obvious that the previously stickied threads are crowding the threads that need actual attention right now. Is there a short term solution to this?  Monchoman45  Talk  Contribs  Skystone  20:36,1/24/2011 

Nevermind, fixed.  Monchoman45  Talk  Contribs  Skystone  20:45,1/24/2011