Talk:Main Page/Archive6

View archived discussions prior to July 7, 2005 at the link provided.

Suggestions

To make any suggestions as to the format of the main page, please leave them here. Thanks! -- Joe Beaudoin 21:49, 9 Jul 2005 (EDT)

Hello Joe, I was wondering if their might be a possibility of us adding on a message board for members of BSG Wiki to discuss the actual show rather than the website itself. I think that if we created a community message board it would promote a greater community/fraternity among the members and if we limited it to members it might decrease the number of random messages left on the board. I know it is kind of unwiki of us to do this but since this particular site it concerned with BSG rather than a plethora of items I thought it might be a good idea. What do you think? User:Zarek Rocks

If you're looking for a good BSG-related message board, you could try the one at Television Without Pity --Peter Farago 22:40, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

I know that there is a pretty good message board at Galactica Station, as well. -- Joe Beaudoin 16:34, 10 Aug 2005 (EDT)

The next High Definition/Dolby Digital 5.1 broadcast of Battlestar Galactica is "Flight of the Phoenix" which airs Sunday 2/26/2006 at 8pm EST on the Universal HD channel. The Universal HD channel is available from Dish Network and DirecTV as well as many cable operators. Please update the main page with this info. http://www.universalhd.com/Schedule/search.bravo?month=2006-12&keyword=Battlestar&start=today

The "article of the day" content on the main page should be free for editing by all users in both the spoiler free and spoiler versions. (Ideally both would be updated at the same time, so they both stay current, although it appears the "spoiler version" may be a bit behind the times. The Main Page itself is protected (so normal users can't mess with the formatting), but most of the actual content is made up of user modifiable templates. --Steelviper 15:46, 23 February 2006 (EST)

Thanks. Updated the page myself. --mattchan

Style Conventions

I didn't know what the approaite discussion page for this would be, so I am putting it here as a first stab. I have a question about the "tense" convention being used here on BSG-wiki. While some have noted that this is not wikipedia, I am curious as to why we are using present tense usage on events which occurred prior to the current "timeline" within the show? It seems to me events as they unfold and described here, should be used in the past-tense while ongoing terms and concepts that are presumed still active within the context of the "current timeline" of the show would be present-tense. For example, shouldn't descriptions of Baltar's background, and events which have already occurred on Caprica, etc. be in the past-tense, while referring to him as the Vice-President, and duties onboard Galcatica, etc. be present-tense? Likewise shouldn't passages about say the development of the Mark II Viper be past-tense, while current disposition and capabilities of the Mark II be present-tense? Not trying to be overly pedantic, but if we were to use and adopt the convention that this "encyclopedia" were to be discussing things and concepts within BSG as if it "were real" so-to-speak, like say in a present day encyclopedia would describe the development of the F-14 Tomcat in past-tense terms but describe current description of the presently active variants of the F-14 (i.e. the F-14D) and its deployment and present status within the arsenal of the United States Navy, it would be present-tense. Contrast that with descriptions of say, a WWII German Stuka Bomber which would all be past-tense in a current day encyclopedia. Any thoughts? Lestatdelc 12:38, 30 November 2005 (EST)

The Battlestar Wiki:Standards and Conventions project article should be your first stop. Lords know we've all gone this way and that over the very things you've noted. You'll probably find your answer there (and see my reply to you on my talk page on the specifics of tense in character pages based on what's in the standard). --Spencerian 13:26, 30 November 2005 (EST)

Quote-o-Matic

What's with the (non-working) quote o the day on the front page? Is this a template problem, or what? Can I help? ....or what? Colonial one 22:54, 16 Aug 2005 (EDT)

There is no automatic script to generate the quotes. They must be added manually per day. You can add them yourself, should you choose to take up the task. :-) -- Joe Beaudoin 23:09, 16 Aug 2005 (EDT)

I'd like to add a quote, but, uh... I don't want to mess it up because it then won't be seen for a year, I think. Is there a way to look at quotes that have already been put in, so I can copy the formatting? I tried the little Quote link, but the one that was added for 08 29 wasn't on there, so I think that's not right. Or something. I'm such a confused noob. ;) --Day 00:59, 30 August 2005 (EDT)

That's OK, Day. I (or someone) can do a template for a quote-of-the-day. -- Joe Beaudoin 09:49, 30 August 2005 (EDT)

On that note, how can I see a list of templates, in case I want to utilize one. So far the only way I've figured it out, is to find a page that uses it, edit that, to steal the template info, then go to the place I'd want to use it, paste it in, then change the stuff appropriately. --Day 11:50, 30 August 2005 (EDT)

Whenever this all gets sorted out, I guess it needs to go here: Template:Quote of the Day/Readme. I can certainly do it, it's just the link is small, and I thought I'd note it here for future reference, as well. --Day 05:09, 31 August 2005 (EDT)

So... I guess I should go ahead and ask some specific questions... I assume we incluse the words said in double-quotes. It's really the attributation... attribution... Whatever--the indication of who said it that's the issue. Do we put the name with a dash before? Two dashes? Do we do it in-line or on the next one down or two down? Do we do it in italics or bold or normal font? Do we say the situation all the time or only if needed? Should we link the episode it came from? These are the kinds of things I think should be in the readme. --Day 19:15, 1 September 2005 (EDT)

Yo, just thought I'd add that I worked on the Quotes page quite a bit. It displays all current quotes (that I know of). And it should be super-easy to link to more quotes now, just check the source for example. ~ Aero 00:06, 30 September 2005 (EDT)

NPOV?

Does BattlestarWiki have a NPOV policy, as Wikipedia.org does? I was noticing some pretty strong POV in James Callis, for example. --Fang Aili 10:10, 12 September 2005 (EDT)

It does, indeed. For reference, see the Battlestar Wiki:Welcome, newcomers page. Hope that's helpful. --Day 18:04, 12 September 2005 (EDT)

There also seems to be a great deal of opinion in the "analysis" section of most episode guides. Is it the intent to not use NPOV in this section? - Jason

Fan Fiction

Since we don't have a community portal yet, I suggest listing fan fiction pages here for later deletion or movement to the forthcoming fanfiction site.

History of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol --Fang Aili 12:18, 13 September 2005 (EDT)

IRC Channel?

Some friends and I have an IRC channel set up for discussion of BSG. Would it be appropriate/acceptable to link to it in the 'Community' box on the Main Page? Or elsewhere? ~ Aero 00:06, 30 September 2005 (EDT)

As I've seen no objections in several months, I guess I'll go ahead and do it ;P ~ Aero 20:28, 11 March 2006 (CST)

How BSG Wiki Compares to Other Wikis

I've been visiting other wikis that include SF content, just to compare them to the BSG Wiki. You can visit yourself, but I'm happy to say that, in my slightly-biased review, the Battlestar Galactica Wiki is among the most concise, detailed, and well-maintained wikis of its kind, although there's lots of work to be done. If I were to give a rating out of ten stars to the places I've visited, these would be my grades, based on

Depth and relevant content (overall breadth of material; is it a true encyclopedia or overly-POV?)
Detail of popular pages, such as central characters or events
Photo content and other illustrative content in articles
Server speed, wiki navigation and design, and convenience in access

Battlestar Wiki: 7.5 out of 10
Wikipedia: 9.5 out of 10
Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wikpedia: 9 out of 10
The Great Machine, the Babylon 5 wikipedia (of which BSG Wiki was inspired): 4 out of 10
The TVIV Wiki, a general TV episode encyclopedia: 6.5 out of 10

Of these, the venerable Wikipedia still holds as king of the wikis with the many, many contributors that are ceaseless in their relative accuracy. Only the anonymous editing (and resultant spamming) deters from this site. Almost every page in Wikipedia has substantial content or illustration. Battlestar Wiki lacks the sheer number of pages (of which I cannot accurately determine; how about an article counter, Joe?) but its depth and relevant information per page on its best pages equals Wikipedia's standard. BSG Wiki has one Achille's Heel; the comparative lack of information on the Original Series pages as opposed to the Re-imagined Series is almost shameful, which brought the wiki's personal score down 1 point.

The Babylon 5 Wiki, where Joe got his inspiration to build this wiki, is sadly in poor shape. Central character pages such as Delenn and Sheridan are extremely sparse, almost to major stub levels. Episode pages aren't bad, although they're remarkably short in comparison to BSG Wiki's. Memory Alpha Wiki is a powerfully built wiki for Star Trek, with excellent cross referencing and depth on character and episode pages. Perhaps the wiki is too large as the massive amount of aired information, combined with book and fan fiction and serious contradictive elements makes for reading the wiki a bit of a chore. And, unfortunately, Star Trek has serious canonical issues that make the wiki's data difficult to authenticate. On a lighter note, The TVIV Wiki is a fun wiki to any television show, which includes some BSG episode pages with GREAT screen caps. It just got started last July and has some performance issues, but is shaping up to be a good wiki.

BSG Wiki is coming up on its one-year anniversary, and has a lot to show for itself. Congratulations to everyone as a fellow contributor, and help the lesser wikis out when you're not pondering things here. --Spencerian 15:48, 6 December 2005 (EST)

Wow. I really have nothing to add to this -- it's pretty much spot on. Particularly the point of the difference in quality between TOS and TNS content. If anything else, it demonstrates that there's more interest in TNS than TOS. (Although this doesn't mean that this isn't an area that needs work -- it does.) Another minor note, I really didn't get the inspiration from the B5 Wiki -- I was more inspired by the Lurker's Guide than anything else -- but the only thing that is inspired from it is the main page format, that's really it. -- Joe Beaudoin 16:12, 7 December 2005 (EST)

Logo

File:Bsg logo test.jpg
Made a new logo for the wiki. Do people prefer it? And is it possible to change anyway?--Undc23 02:54, 3 January 2006 (EST)

Heh. This is the third (as far as I know) new logo on offer. Cf. User talk:Joe.Beaudoin#Logo --Day 15:35, 3 January 2006 (EST)

Quotes link

This is all fairly trivial, but at the bottom of the page there is 2 links for quote of the day: readme and edit. The readme one links the current quote, which seems a little pointless to me when you can read it on the main page. Also readme implies a helpful explanation of something or whatever. Edit is an external style link for some reason. Plus "article of the day" is the articles of intrest, and not updated daily. As I said, not important, just thought I'd point it out.--Undc23 07:22, 7 January 2006 (EST)

We've been discussing this for the past week or so; can't seem to find "quality" articles...--Ricimer 11:25, 7 January 2006 (EST)

I agree that we need to wait for the wiki to grow before having an article of the day, I'm just suggesting that the link be renamed to articles of intrest as it actually is in the meantime.--Undc23 20:13, 7 January 2006 (EST)

Article count

It'd be cool to have an article count near the top of the page. Most wikis have one, and I think its neat. Almost 1000 articles now :).--Undc23 02:43, 29 January 2006 (EST)

I'll put one up next time I get to edit the Main Page. (Actually, any admin can now edit the main page directly, should the choose.) And most of those thousand articles are quality as well... Spencerian and Steelviper have been rooting out the "telephone" articles. :-) -- Joe Beaudoin 08:52, 29 January 2006 (EST)

Punctuation

This discussion has been moved to Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions by Joe Beaudoin at 10:53, 5 February 2006 (EST).

Update the spoiler section

Only an adminstrator can do this, not me: the Cylon POV episode, "Downloaded", is in fact not canceled and never was. This needs to be updated.--Ricimer 12:33, 5 February 2006 (EST)

I think that Template:Article is not protected, so you can hack away at it if you don't like how I fixed the "cancellation". You might use the Admin notice board if you want to get Admins on something even quicker (even though I generally patrol Recent Changes pretty closely anyway). --Steelviper 17:17, 5 February 2006 (EST)

Navigation

As a newbie to this Wiki I have found that navigating around it can be difficult. For example if you click on Episodes you are taken to the Category page for Episodes which simply lists all episodes in alphabetical order. Would it make the Wiki easier to use if there was a link to an introduction page for each of the series, ie Battlestar Galactica (TOS). I would put the link up myself but I can't access the main page for editing. Any comments? --Grafix 05:20, 6 March 2006 (CST)

That's not a bad idea. A link to the series pages makes a lot of sense. You do have access to edit all the main page content, it's just stored off in templates (like this). However, I'm not sure if there's enough room on the RDM template without spilling over. If we have to link the headers, it would take an admin to do it. Let's let some others weigh in before we go linking to the headers, but if you can figure out a slick way to link using the templates (Box1,2, and 3 respectively), then you're welcome to take a shot. --Steelviper 06:55, 6 March 2006 (CST)

Thanks for the advice. The page I have linked to is headed TOS but it includes all three series. I think that if we go ahead with this the TOS page needs to be spilt into three. --Grafix 07:18, 6 March 2006 (CST)

That's interesting. Galactica 1980 does have its own page, and obviously Battlestar Galactica (RDM) is standalone. You're correct that we should probably look at reworking the Galactica (TOS) page to stand on its own better. --Steelviper 07:32, 6 March 2006 (CST)

Main Page Re-org

Would the mid-season break be a good time to ponder a new look for the main page? I've been moonlighting a bit at the GalCiv II Wiki (I started while the battlewiki was down, so it wasn't cheating!), and some discussions about revamping the front page their got me thinking about this main page. I realized that I don't really use the main page here. Part of that has to do with the fact that my starting point is usually the Recent Changes, and I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done about that. Also, another of my main contribution areas focuses around the OSAD, which nicely enough has a handy sidebar button. So I don't need much out of a main page.

What changes do I propose? Well, the first thing that sticks out for me is the huge amount of "whitespace" (black, in this case) present under the intro. Part of this has to do, I believe, with the current size of the "Article of Interest". However, a couple things I'd like to see added would be a "featured article" (which I think used to be done, but was discontinued), and maybe some slices into the content (links to prominent articles or somesuch). I know we have the categories upfront, but I'm not sure if those are the best way to navigate.

I just wanted to throw the idea out there (since I was already stirring up trouble at LDYB, II). This page is protected, so if you're interested in playing with designs you can copy the source of this page to the sandbox or create a work area under your user space (kind of like this community portal work area). Or start from scratch. A lot of the updated content on the main page is within templates, so you could tie the templates into your design without necessarily keeping the layout of the page exactly the same (just don't mess with the templates, as that would affect this page too). --Steelviper 12:17, 13 March 2006 (CST)

I been working on a new design for about an hour now. It's up here on a sub-page of my userpage. --Shane 05:24, 14 March 2006 (CST)

Please see my comments on Shane's page. --Grafix 05:27, 14 March 2006 (CST)

To put this out here... if we go with a new main design, would it be after we got the basic foundation for all the portal's done? --Shane 10:50, 17 March 2006 (CST)

That would be preferable. -- Joe Beaudoin 10:57, 17 March 2006 (CST)