Brickipedia:2016 Changes

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Revision as of 12:52, 8 March 2016 by CJC (talk | contribs) (→‎Vote)

Hello everyone. This is a big forum to discuss some big changes which could be coming down the pipe for 2016. Each section represents a separate proposal, and will be implemented technically if approved. Please add / remove to the benefits and disadvantages of each, and add any other major proposals at the bottom. Ajraddatz (talk) 01:19, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

New hosting

Proposal: To move our hosting from RamNode to Harrell Securities, a private company co-owned by Meiko.

  • Benefits: Substantially less cost for more specs
  • Disadvantages: New hosting option; unknown drawbacks.

Vote

Support
  1. ToaMeiko (talk) 21:58, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  2. While its hard to say for certain, I can see no issue with this, especially if we do the server-load reducers below. CJC95 (talk) 22:35, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  3. Worth trying for a month. We can move back to ol' unreliable after if needed. Ajraddatz (talk) 01:22, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  4. Support the idea of new hosting but I'll be more happy if we could get money to buy the domain because it only make senses to have brickipedia.org when we'll just have Brickipedia (assuming we follow through consolidating all projects together if that gets a consensus). Of course no money but I'll look into getting money myself. Codynguyen1116 (talk) 02:17, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
    That can always come later too. Domains are easy to point where they need to go. --ToaMeiko (talk) 02:49, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  5. If there are any issues, we can decide when they arise. But, since we will not know the issues until it is implemented, I do not see any reason not to do this. Latenightguy (talk) 02:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  6. --Knight
  7. Sounds like its worth a try. ~Storm
  8. -- MtMNC (talk) 05:55, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  9. Vasko (talk) 11:50, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Oppose

Discussion

  • Things to note about my server: It's much smaller scale than Ramnode is and right now the only other site it hosts is https://www.harrellsecurities.com. It has more RAM and potentially better all-around performance than our current site (especially is we consolidate the sites, as to be discussed), however a lot of things will still need to be tested so you must bear with us till then. However we're willing to get this underway and host Brickimedia if need be. Plus, since it's smaller, it's more personalized. If we want to upgrade specs for Brickimedia, we can buy more RAM or whatever other spec we're trying to upgrade and upgrade it ourselves, rather than having to pay more each month with Ramnode for more specs. --ToaMeiko (talk) 21:58, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Neutral. We've crashed before, so I guess I'm just more worried about crashing again than I should be. Also, what would happen with backups? NovaHawk 00:51, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
    Backups would still be a thing. FWIW we crash pretty routinely on RamNode; maybe Meiko's thing would have better uptime. Ajraddatz (talk) 01:26, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
    Backups are fine and can continue to work no matter what our host is. :) UltrasonicNXT keeps all of our backups externally on Dropbox, and to my knowledge, everything but images are backed up. --ToaMeiko (talk) 01:28, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  • There is no such thing as free lunch. I'm not against the idea per se, but moving a site — especially as big as Brickipedia — is a pain and has to be carefully thought out. But there are so many moving parts here, so many things that can easily go wrong...I think other options should also be considered. --Jack Phoenix (talk) 03:17, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I put together a kinda half-arsed mockup of Bricki on the new server at http://georgebarnick.xyz/wiki/Main_Page (domain temporary if you couldn't already infer that). It's got pretty much every extension we have and a more or less similar batch of settings, so it should give you a good idea of what page load times will look like on the new site. For me they're faster, Ajraddatz said it was instantaneous, and others have said it's pretty quick too. If it's slow at loading for you, try one of two things. 1) load it again, chances are it'll be faster since it will likely have generated some cache by the second load. 2) download a page speed tester browser extension and let me know how fast it loads in comparison to the current site (this one). If you have any questions, just ask. Don't bother making accounts at the testing site or anything, it's all temporary. --ToaMeiko (talk) 03:18, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Consolidate the sites

Proposal: To merge all images from meta and customs onto the main site, meaning that www.brickimedia.org and greatballcontraption.com would be the only two sites we host. Get rid of ideas, which is inactive.

  • Benefits: More efficient use of server resources. Consolidation of community onto one site.
  • Drawbacks: It can be nice having different sites for different projects, even if they are largely inactive.

Vote

Support
  1. Basically going back to what we had on Wikia... kinda a step back but also a step forward. Should help community grow and makes things easier for new users to understand. Gives us better performance too, and should make things easier to keep track of rather than having different forums taking place all over the place on different wikis. Also will make the backend server-side stuff a lot simpler, which will make it easier for newer sysadmins (Codynguyen1116 and MtMNC) to step up and be able to work backend when necessary instead of just front-end. I support. ToaMeiko (talk) 21:58, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  2. Been thinking about this myself for a while.
    • I have nothing against Ideas, and this is going to sound like some sort of insult when it's not intended that way, but I've never really understood it- you can go to the Ideas site itself and view exactly the same thing
    • When I was merging Customs and Stories content, I thought it'd just make much more sense if it was all on Bricki.
    • Images- what actually happens here? Are they split so GBC gets all their images and Bricki takes the rest, so there's no common image host?
    • Note- I think this proposal should be discussed publicly and not on admin though
    • NovaHawk 00:51, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
      • As it says at the topic, this was meant as a draft for Meiko and I to work on. Then people started to comment on it :P Ajraddatz (talk) 01:12, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
        • Oh. You mean that big bold sentence at the top of the page? Who reads those? :D (sorry) NovaHawk 01:24, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
        • (looks around awkwardly, pretends not to have been the first person to comment) CJC95 (talk) 08:55, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  3. Support from me. Ajraddatz (talk) 01:22, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  4. I like the idea of easier back-end thing. :P Fully support that. But what about a Brickipedia Commons and a Brickipedia, like a Wikimedia and a Wikimedia Commons? Also @NovaHawk: It's more of a site for all the projects that got erased after LEGO CUUSOO migrated to LEGO Ideas, but I get what you mean. Codynguyen1116 (talk) 01:35, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
    • Right now images are confusing to people who don't know the ways of Brickimedia. They don't get why they're sent to another site to upload images and then have to come back to another site to use them. It's kind of an unnecessary hassle. And once we consolidate the wikis, it'll make even less sense that one of three projects ("Commons", Brickipedia, GBC) is just for images when the images could just be on Brickipedia. Plus, being on Brickipedia they'll get more attention and people might actually care to categorize them instead of leaving it the mess it is currently. --ToaMeiko (talk) 01:40, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  5. The only condition that I have is that any Customs content is sectioned, alike the Reviews content. Latenightguy (talk) 02:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  6. --Knight
  7. -- MtMNC (talk) 05:55, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Conditional support - remove ideas but retain customs separate
Oppose

Discussion

  • Your proposal doesn't mention Ideas, but your options do. Can I assume the proposal is to just kill off Ideas? CJC95 (talk) 21:50, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
    • In the first sentence it says "Get rid of ideas" :P Kinda sucks to kill off a project but it is pretty much inactive... :/ --ToaMeiko (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
      • Actually its the second sentence, which I must have forgot to read :P CJC95 (talk) 22:30, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm in support of the images bit so far, (makes it easier to maintain them, categorise them, remove stupid file names, find usage, etc.). Its customs side of this proposal which I see more to discuss in. Would we move it back to its own namespace ala on Wikia, similar to our review namespace? In many ways, this would perhaps get greater eyes on it (customs userbase is restricted to the 4 people who knows it exists). CJC95 (talk) 22:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
    • You're correct, it would be much like how we had it on Wikia. We'd recreate the Custom namespace (Or "Fan" or whatever now that we rebranded Customs) --ToaMeiko (talk) 00:05, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Re:Branding - with meta gone, and all the sites gone, a clear good thing is to avoid the confusion between Brickipedia and Brickimedia, since the latter would just lead to the former. CJC95 (talk) 22:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
    • Yep, had this same thought. I think now would be a good time to acquire brickipedia.com and/or brickipedia.org and use those. It'd not only help our SEO but it'd make more sense. Only thing is someone's probably gonna have to pay out of pocket to buy those domains... --ToaMeiko (talk) 00:05, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Namespaces are cheap. It'd also make anti-spam work a bit easier (less sites to check), but depending on the amount of edits these new namespaces would get, it might clog up the recent changes (etc.) on this wiki. --Jack Phoenix (talk) 03:17, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
    • Shouldn't be too much of a problem. As it stands right now, Customs wiki doesn't see significant enough activity to outweigh the mainspace and other contributions this wiki gets in the recent changes --ToaMeiko (talk) 03:42, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

2016 Readership and Engagement survey

Proposal: Conduct a one-month survey of readers, through an anonnotice, regarding their site experience and trying to get them involved in editing. No financial cost associated, can be run easily through Google docs.

Vote

Support
  1. No reason to oppose, although past ones have been somewhere between useless to ignored. CJC95 (talk) 22:40, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  2. Can we put it in everyone's face like Wikipedia does when they ask for money? --ToaMeiko (talk) 00:02, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  3. Was actually planning to post a survey this week :P NovaHawk 00:51, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  4. Ajraddatz (talk) 01:23, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  5. Support, also you mean Google Forms right? Codynguyen1116 (talk) 01:26, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  6. Latenightguy (talk) 02:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  7. --Knight
  8. Surveys are nice, though I'd prefer not using Google. (Pretty sure that there's a MW ext. that allows the creation of surveys.) --Jack Phoenix (talk) 03:17, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
    @Jack Phoenix: Why opposed to Google? Out of curiosity. --ToaMeiko (talk) 03:41, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  9. Out of curiosity what sorts of questions do you have in mind? -- MtMNC (talk) 05:55, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Oppose

Discussion

  • Re: Questions question. The WMF has "experts" make their readership and engagement surveys; I'll glean from the questions there most likely, using ones that seem to fit our site. In particular, I want to know how easy the content is to access, areas for improvement, and how the social side could be better advertised. Ajraddatz (talk) 08:46, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Scrap the admin wiki

Proposal: Remove the admin wiki, redirect discussion to the public site. Discussions which must be private can be conducted through mail.

  • Benefits: Further engages non-admins in community decision-making.

Vote

Support
  1. I don't mind this too much, if something is really important we can use pms. Most of the stuff here I don't think isn't too admin(y) anyway, like voting on the budget or discussing spam bots. Soupperson1 Friends are Forever! <3Friends girls.jpg
  2. We did this before we moved. I don't remember why we brought it back really. Perhaps the only issue is the budgetry stuff? IDK CJC95 (talk) 22:39, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  3. ToaMeiko (talk) 00:00, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  4. Yes please. NovaHawk 00:51, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  5. Only my... however manyth time proposing this :P Ajraddatz (talk) 01:23, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  6. Codynguyen1116 (talk) 01:26, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  7. Latenightguy (talk) 02:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  8. --Knight
  9. About time. The name "admin wiki" was misleading from the start as it blatantly ignored sysadmins who do not hold local admin rights. Important discussions affecting the site should be as public as possible, and sysadmins should be involved in technical discussions. --Jack Phoenix (talk) 03:17, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  10. All for transparency. -- MtMNC (talk) 05:55, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  11. Admin Wiki never got much activity anyway. Clone gunner commander jedi talk 07:13, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
    To be fair, that is a good thing :P CJC95 (talk) 12:51, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  12. Vasko (talk) 11:50, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Oppose

Discussion