Putting My Foot Down
 

I'm sick of this, we should enforce a new rule in full:

If you make a page, the most effort possible should be made to it as you can. If the page is not made to the best of your abilities, it should not be made. If someone (meaning anonymous users) ignorantly makes one of these half-assed (or less than half-assed) pages, it will either be deleted or expanded upon by a more capable user. If you plan to expand a page more in the future but don't have the time at the moment, leave a message at the top of the page informing people you will build it later.

If the best of your abilities is poor but you feel the page should be made (say a new movie release that has yet to be made), build it and fill in as much info as you can (with the gun images, descriptions, and links) and then list the page as "Category:Incomplete" and put {{Template:Incomplete}} at the top of the page. (I'm not sure if it is double {} or single)

I know I'm not the only one who is sick of all of these effortless pages. I say we do a sweep of the site, and either delete or improve the format on all of the crap pages (some have enough information to build on). This site should be fully reputable for having completed pages and when anonymous users build crap pages, or reputation is unrightfully hindered. Take a stand! :D

What does everyone else think?

I agree as we have to many pages with nothing on them. I know when people have a work in progress but to never put any caps on it is stupid. I know of one member that is far more guilty of pages with nothing on them other than weapon photos.

Waste of time and makes the site look bad when there is nothing on the page.

I've been deleting empty (or near-empty) pages for a while now. It's not anything to shy away from.

If a page has decent descriptions and the like but no links or images or poster, you can work with that to turn the page into something half decent.

With some info on it that's a start on the page but some have none. I am guilty of pages with nothing when I first started. But I have grown of time and fill out the page on notepad before posting. I know that some don't have the skill or capability to screen cap or it's a time issue.

A page where there are no screencaps, but there is at least description of which character used the gun(s) and format is proper, is OK by me. Even if it doesn't have screencaps, it can still be helpful to our readers because it tells them who used what gun. And that's what matters most.

I've been saying this all along.

I have an idea. On the main page, we put a small notice saying:

SOME THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN VISITING IMFDb:
1) Pages should be completed to the best of the user's ability, empty or poorly built pages with little or no effort will be removed. Use already completed pages of proper format by reputable users of the site (such as the administators [link to the Mods page with list of admins.]) as an example if you are unfimiliar with the site's construction.


2) No bootleg images, please. In occordance with federal law, IMFDb prohibits the usage of bootlegs images from films not yet publically released. Even after release they should remain unused, as they are of poor quality and ugly.


3) Make no uneccessary or incorrect edits to pages. If you believe information on a page is incorrect but are unsure, comment on it in the "Discussion" section of the page so it can be confirmed. Never add your "gut-feeling" insite to a page.


4) Be polite. Keep swearing to a minimum and try to refrain from harsh argument or bashing of another user.


5) Have fun and enjoy the site. ;)


What do you guys think? Could we put this on the front of the main page (maybe as a more stylish template) and is there maybe more we could add? Obviously we can't list all the rules right on the main page but that seems to cover our main basics on annoynances.

Someone loaded the Wolverine page with bootlegs so I had to stop making Watchmen to take time and delete every single image from the site. What a pain. I made a note he was breaking federal law, warned him he was at risk or being banned, and left an obvious comment on the top of the page (somewhat expressing my aggrivation over the extra work)

You might also want to add that the talk pages are there to be used. It's rather distracting to suddenly encounter a conversation in the middle of an article.

Also, rather than put it on the main page, it should probably go under a 'help' heading in the "special" section of the sidebar, along with some of the rule and format posts that are currently here on the forums. When I was first looking around the site I found it odd that there were no sections on rules or guidelines for contributing, and it's something of a leap to figure out that they're buried in old forum posts. Things like how images should be aligned and how to align them, that links to weapon pages don't go in headings and so on would help new users figure out what they should be doing a lot quicker, assuming they actually want to.

I don't think putting it in the special sidebar would be good as the type of people who make crap pages prob won't go there anyways.

I suggest that whenever you click the new page button you will be taken to a page with the rules before you can make a new page.

Or maybe before you edit a page in general. Wikipedia has a huge amount of warnings and precautions before you can post. While I don't think we need to take as many precautions as they do, perhaps a warning would be nice.

But I figure if we have this message on the front page, everytime someone visits, they can be like "Oh, okay, I didn't know that."

Someone who's too lazy to put any effort in a page to begin with likely won't read all the notices and warning and recklessly upload a crap page anyway, but if its on the front page, they kind of have to read it.

But that's why I brought this up here, we can discuss and exact. :D

People who make crap pages won't read anything no matter where you put it. The trouble is at present the people who want to find out the rules can't find them either, and so make pages which are badly formatted because they're not sure of the right way to do things. Case in point would be a certain editor changing "Double Eagle" to "AMT Hardballer Longslide" because he thought a weapon being based on a specific one-off movie prop overruled it being based on something else as well.

Questions like naming for intent versus appearance ["if it's supposed to be an AK but it's a Norinco, what do I call it?" is the obvious version of that], how pictures should be aligned [and if exceptions should be made if the result looks rubbish as with my not right-aligning the images on the BFG page because the result is huge empty spaces], what format we like images in [.jpg unless it's a very early FPS], guidelines for images per weapon, image content [gore, nudity, content that doesn't reflect the final release, black borders, standing in the exact same place for every single shot doing absolutely nothing, etc] and image size, what a "weapon" is and isn't regarding featuring them ["Should I add the 88s to the Call of Duty series?" / "Do I need to use a stock picture of a molotov?"], what the guidelines for article tone are [I personally don't see a problem with a humourous caption versus a useless one; "Character X fires his rifle" under a picture of character X firing his rifle seems rather redundant when the section is about that rifle and probably already says it's used by character X, but this is a better summary of that], why we don't have an article for Halo or Gears of War, if we have a spoiler policy and if so how it applies to a weapon shown only at the end of a movie during a critical plot event, and so on...

At present, someone trying to contribute has to guess most of that, and hope their flailing isn't interpreted as vandalism. Also needs some words on standardisation of article names: for example, all the H&K guns have "Heckler & Koch" spelled out, but the M134 article has "GE" instead of "General Electric" and the MG42 doesn't mention Metall und Lackierwarenfabrik Johannes Großfuß AG at all. It also contains the MG3 section even though that's made by Rheinmetall-Borsig and is essentially a different weapon with some parts commonality [which meant I couldn't find it with a search and only did so by accident when I encountered a movie which linked to that section]. Similarly, the M61 is under "M61 Vulcan" which doesn't mention General Electric, Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics. But even if it did, which one would the article use? :confused:

A lot of that stuff was built before I even came on the site, so your guess on these things is a good as mine.

I agree in full titles should be changed to fill out the full gun names (except maybe the makers of the MG42, because no one ever mentions that.)

And I definately know what you mean on format troubles. The rules and regulations for the site is a long page with too much to read and no easy way to read it. I say we build a "get started" guide, including images of what to do, how format should look, and the sights rules. Every user who logs on will be given this message. Maybe anonymous users should just be forced to see it everytime until they join. Who knows...

Maybe if it would be possible for the {{incomplete}} template to automatically be added to every article that is created and that you would delete it when the article is complete.