GTA Wiki talk:Staff Noticeboard

__NEWSECTIONLINK__Welcome to the GTA Wiki Staff Noticeboard. This is a space for staff to issue notices and invite discussion amongst staff. Here, staff can explain recent events, things to watch out for and potential changes; or request comments, suggestions and ideas on anything on the Wiki.

This page is to be edited by Staff only. If you would like to discuss an issue mentioned here, please use the Community Portal.


 * For previous discussions, see: /archive1

Protected Pages
NB: If Moderators cannot edit this page, post on the |talk page instead. I will try to remedy this situation fairly quickly. The problem is that there are two levels of protected pages. There are ones we protect to stop them being broken or vandalised (like or the Main Page occasionally), and there are ones we protect to stop deliberate abuse (such as Staff). Of course moderators should have access to the first group, but not the latter. Currently we trust Administrators with access to all protected pages, but Moderators are often quite new and only being tried out, so giving them unrestricted access to the entire wiki is a very big step. If we allow moderators to access these, it will make it harder to become a moderator (which I want to be quite easy), or if we don't them I might be tempted to promote people to admin quicker. What do you think? Gboyers talk 01:01, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Strange, I haven't gotten emails about edits to SN for ages, luckily I just saw it in recent changes. Moderators should definetly have access to SN, so they do need to be able to edit semi-protected pages. But have you gotten Wikia to change our permissions settings? Because by default all registered users can edit semi-protected pages, but in our case that's just useless because we don't allow unregistered users to edit anyway, so you're right, it would be best in my opinion to give moderators the ability to edit semi-protected pages and take it away from the 'Users' group. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 05:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

If they still can't edit this page now (which is only semi-protected, so every registered user can edit), then the problem is that it is in the 'GTA Wiki' namespace, which I believe is admins-only. I could move this page into another namespace (or even just to the talk page here) so that everyone (including moderators) can edit, and instead just put up a little sign saying don't edit this? I will ask about modifying the semi-protected status. Gboyers talk 09:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Portals
What do people think of our current portals - Portal:GTA IV, Portal:Characters and Portal:Vehicles? None of them look finished, so could anyone volunteer to jazz them up and keep refreshing the featured articles. Check out some portals on Wikipedia such as wp:Portal:Architecture and also on Wikiversity such as Primary Education. Feel free to just hack the portals to pieces and change them completely. We should also think about doing more with the Community Portal, as currently there's a big jump between visiting and getting involved. I'm also trying to make more use of "edit this section" links, so people can edit content without being hit by the big scary code - so bear that in mind when designing portals. Gboyers talk 01:01, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't even think most users know about the portals, and I think they definently need some work. For example, why do they list the forums? They even show the forums that have nothing to do with the topic of that portal (for example, the GTA IV portal shows the Saving in GTA1 forum). A better way of doing that would be instead of automatically listing every forum like the actual forum categories do (like Forum:GTA etc), regularly update it manually with links to new forums about the subject. As for fixing them up, I will have a look at what I can do some time soon. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 05:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Fixing them up would be good. And a list of relevant forum topics would be good - all I've done is just create them with some basic info, giving us a starting point. When they are fixed up, we can make them more prominent on the homepage. I think they are a better place for users to start than just pointing them to Category:Vehicles or whatever. Gboyers talk 09:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Images from German Wikia
After talking to staff from de:, they have asked if they can use images from our wiki. The problem is that they don't want to go through and add a copyright template to every single image they've taken. Since we have a lot of images from their wiki, I have agreed that we no longer need to specify the source for images used across these wikis. This allows us to use any image on the German GTA wikia without expressly saying where it came from (but if you can, it helps), and they can do the same with our images. I will try and agree with Wikia a method where we can simply include images from another wiki, like, but I doubt that will happen. Gboyers talk 15:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Projects
I'm sure we all know there are lots of articles on this wiki in dire need of cleanup, repair, expansion or just some TLC. THe problem is that we rely on someone being interested in those articles to decide to go and clean them up - with them having the skills, time, interest and will to do that. The popular articles get thousands of revisions whilst thousands go unchanged for years. So... I propose we organise this a little better with a Wiki Project. Let's say we start with vehicles. Everyone who is interested signs up to the project, and they get assigned a few articles to work on. Then if they want more, they can ask for more articles to work on - but this is entirely at their own pace, and entirely optional. This way we can make sure EVERY vehicle article gets fixed over the course of a month or so. Then we can move onto Characters or Missions or the GTA 1 Era or whatever. The key difference is that we assign articles rather than just except users to find the problems themselves. If this is a success, we could have a rolling program where articles that need to be fixed get added to a central list, and users take what they want from that list, or even have their assigned tasks sent to their own "to do" list. What do you think? Gboyers talk 23:57, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I like that idea because I wanted something like that when I first came to the wiki. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 05:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

File namespace
The "Image" namespace seems to have randomly changed to the "File" namespace. I uploaded File:SA-counties.jpg, and it put it in the File namespace for no reason. Using and  both work when including the image, but all images link to the File namespace now. Did anyone hear about this change before it was implemented? Gboyers talk 22:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I haven't been on here for a couple of days, and I've already noticed a couple of other things that have changed, like in a page history or recent changes, links for the diffs with the previous edit is now prev, but it used to be last. A more noticeable MediaWiki update than usual! Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 00:28, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * One BRILLIANT change is that we can now move images! I've been waiting for this for years. It moves the image and redirects the old page. Pages using the image with the old name still work (and shows the image at its new location), but it doesn't alter their code. Gboyers talk 21:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Wow, it's good to know that images can be moved. I realized a change about a week ago but since the images were still intact, I just ignored the change.--spaceeinstein 21:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit Summaries
Might I make a small request? Could staff members please start to use simple edit summaries when editing? It sets a good example for other editors, and makes it easier to read Recent Edits. Thanks! --GuildKnightTalk2me 07:39, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Nominations for Promotion
There are two nominations for promotion going on at the moment. Get over to Project:Promotion and leave some questions and comments for the candidates. Gboyers talk 14:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

GTA Answers
I have created GTA Answers, a separate wiki where anyone can ask/answer questions about GTA. If anyone would like to be staff on there, please let me know and I'll promote you. I'd like to get the wiki fleshed out before we start advertising it everywhere. Once we are ready, that will be where we push people for questions about GTA. Please use  to link there, and   to link back here. Gboyers talk 11:43, March 23, 2010 (UTC)

Should we leave Wikia?
As you may know, the new Oasis skin will cause a lot of problems. There is also the issue of a total lack of respect from Wikia, ignoring the whole communities requests and needs. We have the ability to move away from Wikia at any time (as many others are doing), although they would keep the gta.wikia.com domain, and they would continue to operate their copy of this wiki (unless there was a licencing issue). You can read about the issue at Oasis, or discuss it on our private staff forum. Gboyers talk 22:46, October 3, 2010 (UTC)