Battlestar Wiki talk:Official Communiques

Cleanup time limit

Should there be a time limit on questions? Some of the questions (including mine about the episode transcipt permission contact) have pretty much just sat there. I don't want to go archiving questions willy-nilly, but after a certain amount of time with the question remaining unanswered, and especially reflecting on the fact that subsequent questions ARE answered, might we decide on a point at which we are willing to pull the plug on them? I'm just trying to keep this page under the 32KB mark, and that'll get harder to do if we have an "unanswered questions graveyard" taking up space.

Also, I left the episode name question up, as it appears to be getting periodic updates. That's awesome!--Steelviper 14:11, 25 August 2006 (CDT)

I would say that we should leave the unanswered questions up for a period of 1 week, then archive them. As for questions that have been answered, I would venture that after a week of inactivity we should archie it. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 14:24, 25 August 2006 (CDT)

Just my two cents but there are weeks that go by when I don't get a chance to log in -- and answers (Such as Mop Guy's name) that haven't showed up yet. Nevertheless, it's your site, so do what works best for you. - Ngarenn 16:36, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Good point. We may want to work on other solutions in light of these facts. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 16:49, 21 November 2006 (CST)

One of the reasons I wanted to clean up was so that Mr. Thompson had easy navigation, but if he doesn't mind clutter of unanswered questions, I don't. Especially if he responds (as he has been doing) to questions that he won't answer so that at least we know what to clean up. And don't worry... the Mop Guy's name is quite safe. --Steelviper 17:16, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Archives... for the archives?

Let me first say that this is awesome! I am thrilled at the amount that official sources (particularly Brad Thompson) have contributed. That being said, the archive headers are starting to take over the page, and they're not going to get any smaller. As we continue to accumulate questions and responses, we'll need a way to organize them so that people can find what they're looking for (without cluttering up the place). Also, just wading through the question headers is going to start to get challenging, so we may want to consider different ways of indexing the information (by topic, answered vs unanswered, reverse alphabetical by third letter of the last post, whatever). Not necessarily storing them that way (redundancy can be bad/dangerous), but providing some sort alternate index or searches. This isn't really an emergency, but just a trend that I had noticed and I wanted to see if others agreed that this may become a problem as well as solicit ideas for potential solutions. --Steelviper 08:05, 6 October 2006 (CDT)

Can we possible add the show/hide modification to the wiki. That way people only need see the archive headers if they want to "expand" them? --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 08:11, 6 October 2006 (CDT)

We could also do a subpage for just the archive. For instance, we could have a box on top of the page that says "Click here for a comprehensive list of archived communiques." that links to Battlestar Wiki:Official Communiques/Archive. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 09:28, 6 October 2006 (CDT)

The Index button on the little doodad functions similarly, though perhaps it should also be linked in text underneath the doodad? --Steelviper 09:31, 6 October 2006 (CDT)

Doodad? --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 11:56, 6 October 2006 (CDT)

Doodad... ArchiveTOC... sound similar, right? --Steelviper 12:00, 6 October 2006 (CDT)

Tatooed Pilot Question

While we have an actor name now, it'd still be nice to have a name for the character... --Steelviper 14:48, 16 January 2007 (CST)

OC advertisement

The last few months, BW:OC has been awfully quiet. It seems that it's not a popular Q&A place either; Brad was virtually the only one answering our questions. This makes me think we should advertise BW:OC more, get other crew (like RDM, Mrs Ron, writers, anyone, really) to know about it and answer our questions. Any ideas as to how we'd go about this? --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 08:27, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

An excellent idea. I would love to get Kevin Grazier there, but other writers would be good. The notion of having the Moores here is too staggering to contemplate. Perhaps Joe can write a short letter to Brad's private mail address (which I think is on hand) to ask him to forward it to anyone on with the show staff who cares to dive in. Bradley would be our best advocate. --Spencerian 10:40, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, good idea. As for the Moores. Not so long ago, Mrs. Ron finally got fed up with the hellhole that is the Skiffy forums and left there. She said that they might look into setting up their own place to interact with fans. That sounds cool too, though I'm sure there will be the usual trolls and morons there as well. Kevin Grazier has a thread at Hollywood North Report where one could post questions for his tech blog, but that seems to have died as well. --Serenity 11:00, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Man if we got RDM or Mrs Ron here, it would be too awesome to contemplate. --BklynBruzer 11:47, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Right. Grazier's likely busy getting some space probe up and running (and I'm serious). The one thing we have over Skiffy is immediate moderation and the fact that we're not a chat forum. Maybe she'd like to continue her Q&A, or not, but even if we were able to send a list of questions and we'd reprint her (or anyone's) answer, it would still accomplish the goal without her or other VIPs having to make an account. --Spencerian 11:49, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

A solution has been in the works for a month now. We are still trying to work on the details. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 13:30, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Shane, you should be a politician ;) Can't you tell us anything? Seriously, we have far better moderation than SciFi forums. We've got fifteen to twenty pewople from three to five different timezones checking and mopping the wiki every day. We've got very strict policies on vandalism, flaming and chatting. We can guarantee BW:OC is a Q&A page and stays a Q&A page, without becoming a forum (hell, we don't even allow our talk pages to become forums). Using our BW:OC archives is far easier and faster than digging up a year-old post on a forum (if it hasn't been auto-deleted, that is). I agree with Spence that Brad is our best advocate. He knows working with wikis is not as scary and complicated as it looks on first sight, he knows how well we moderate and archive the place, he knows how good a reference we are (writers don't remember everything from 53 episodes). So, as I've said many times before: let's talk to Brad. If we can get the Moores over here, that'd be awesome, but I'd already be pleased if we can get multiple crew members to visit BW:OC on a regular basis. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 15:37, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Heck, the Skiffy forums are for all intents and purposes unmoderated. --Serenity 16:12, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

I can not tell you want is going on but myself and Joe have been working on something for about a month. btw... majors in college: Politics and Information Technology. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 18:10, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Did you also major in teasing? :P --BklynBruzer 19:38, 31 May 2007 (CDT)

Minor. :) Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 00:16, 1 June 2007 (CDT)

Funny combination... but then I'm also interested in both (albeit not to the point that I'd want to study politics; IT and physics is enough). Anyway, if your classified little project helps promote BW:OC, I can only support it (even though I have no idea what I'm supporting). --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 06:30, 1 June 2007 (CDT)

I think Shane and Joe can be officially called a cabal. --Serenity 06:49, 1 June 2007 (CDT)

Any update on Shane and Joe's plan? Did it involve bringing Brad back? If not, can you at least tell us why you can't tell us? :) --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 07:56, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

Well, what I can say is that there's things that need to be worked through and formalized before we can go into details. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 08:46, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

Any news on this? It's been a while... --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 14:51, 7 October 2007 (CDT)

Well, we have Grazier's e-mail information, thanks to Spence. So we can contact him whenever we need some clarification on a scientific subject. As for the plans, they've been put on hold because there's been developments behind the scenes. They're good developments, but I'm not at liberty to comment publicly just yet. I'm sorry I'm so vague about it, but it's one of those things that I have to be. All I can really say is that, by the end of the year, things will look even better for the online fandom. At least, that's the hope. :) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 15:30, 7 October 2007 (CDT)

So we're looking at post-Razor then? :( --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 15:32, 7 October 2007 (CDT)

Essentially. Unless things change. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 15:34, 7 October 2007 (CDT)