Time limits on incomplete pages
 

So I have figured out how to take advantage of time limits to take care of incomplete pages. Basically the template will automatically change after x # of months has passed. I proposed doing the following.

We start with the regular incomplete tag. Then, after 3 months, if no edits are made to the page, that switches to a "warning, this will be a candidate for deletion soon" (An "incomplete level 2" if you will). After an additional 3 months, this will change to a new No Effort/Nuke type category which will mark it for deletion by an admin. Since this is not a "one size fits all", these pages will need to be reviewed. A page that has been marked as incomplete for even a year, may not need to be deleted. It could be 95% done but just need someone to come along and finish it up. If that is the case, an admin can reset the timer. On the other hand, a page that is severely lacking, should be deleted.

There is one thing to consider. There are two ways that I can do this. I can either base it on the date of the last revision, or I can base it on the date that the incomplete tag was applied. Here are the pros and cons:

Based of last revision:
Pros:

• Requires no additional code other than {{incomplete}}
• All pages currently marked as incomplete will automatically work, nothing needs to be changed.

Cons:

• If ANY edit is made to the page, even if just fixing a typo, the timer will reset. This means that even pages that are severely lacking will still fall through the cracks.

Based on date that template applied:
Pros:

• Allows for minor edits to be made without resetting the counter which helps to ensure actual quality.

Cons:

• Will require slightly extra code. Instead of just {{incomplete}}. You will have to add the date: {{incomplete|mm|dd|yy}}.
• Will require retroactively doing the 400 or so pages marked as incomplete. (This is actually a pro because it means that we will have to go through each of the pages marked as incomplete).

Let's hear some feedback and I will work on this later this week.
-Zack

When I first asked about time limits, I had suggested different standards for TV and television. It takes a lot more time and commitment to watch and cap hundreds of hours of material of a TV series versus just the two hours for TV.

Maybe base it on length? Like two weeks per every hour of material, with the countdown starting at page creation or home video release date, whichever comes later? A month should be more than enough to finish a movie page. (That gives me about... 17.5 years to finish the Law & Order page.)

Video games would obviously need a different standard. Maybe give console-only games some more time?

I don't think an incomplete tag should ever be automatically changed to a nuke tag. The reason for this is that pages that are marked as incomplete do not necessarily deserve to be deleted, as they may only have a few missing screenshots, some missing guns or only cover part of the run of a TV series. Even with no screenshots, a page that is properly formatted and lists all the guns with a description is fine to include but will have the incomplete tag. Particular with portable hand-held games on stuff like the DS it can be incredibly difficult to get screen shots of the guns, or there are films that are not available on DVD to get high quality caps.

I do think the automatic nuke tagging should happen with "no effort" pages as these are pages that do not meet the minimum requirement as they currently stand. In this case I would have the time be less, something like only a week or two.

The method could also be used on WIP pages after a certain amount of time, but not change them to a nuke tag but a new "limbo" or "abandoned" (or something along those lines) tag to mark the page as being something that needs to be looked at by an admin to determine what needs to be done about the page (tag as incomplete, no effort or nuke for example).

To clarify, these pages will NOT be automatically nuked. I am proposing the creation of a NEW category which, while marking a page for deletion, also means that the admin needs to really look at the page. Pages that are nuked are usually just deleted without much thought as they are almost always spam. This new category would say "this page has had no work done on it in 6 months. Take a look at it, perhaps it should be deleted". As opposed to the nuke tag which says "get this piece of crap outa here!!"

Make sense?

Well, I think an "Under Review" tag would be worthwhile for a variety of reasons. It can also be used to for stuff with questionable eligibility.

I just think that having the incomplete tag automatically change to something else after a set period of time will be an annoyance for whomever has to deal with it, as there are a lot of pages that will likely keep the incomplete tag forever, such as console games or games for hand-helds. In my opinion the incomplete tag should not be applied to something that possibly deserved to potentially be deleted, that should be what the no effort tag is for shouldn't it?

Well if it has little realistic chance of being completed, does it belong at all?

Not up to me, but I think if a page is properly formatted and lists all the guns in the film/series/game with a description of when/where they occur and who uses it I think it can have a page. Besides, there is always the possibility that someone will add shots of the game, and it is a lot easier to drop in screenshots than to build a page from scratch. If an incomplete page isn't embarrassingly poor (e.g. "A guy has a Beretta") I say let it stay.

The issue is with what I like to call "Drive By Creations", which is where some random person comes along and half asses a page for some obscure movie/show/game that no one else has ever heard of. Then after making like 10 edits the guy disappears and never returns. Meanwhile the page just sits there...

Pages that are properly formatted but are just lacking screenshots are fine by me. In fact, I have setup a new thing on the site that posts a message to new users after they first login. Part of that message encourages them to check out the incomplete pages to see if they can help. (We have disabled new account creation at the moment but Bunni and I are working on implementing new spam filters. Once that is done we will turn account creation back on.)

I want to stress again, this is NOT a one-size-fits-all solution. All that this means is that if a page has been marked as incomplete for 6 months, an admin will be able to distinguish it from pages that have recently been marked as incomplete. Then, at their discretion, they can decide that either "this page is still incomplete but its formatted correctly and is still useful so lets keep it" or "this page is severely lacking and really doesn't reflect a good effort so lets get rid of it".

A videogame takes about as long as a miniseries to run through; ideally you'll make two runs (one to plan and one to capture) so it's roughly short TV series.

Unless it's Battle: Los Angeles, obviously.