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Proposal Archive
The following proposal has been discussed and is now marked as resolved. The page has been protected and now serves as an archive. Do not edit this page.
Date Resolved: November 19, 2018
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Instructions
This is a page for creating and resolving concerns on the topic: "Discontinuing the news team."
At the end of the page, there is a "Create New Concern" button, which you can use to voice your concerns or questions about the proposal. You can use the "Refresh This Discussion" button, which allows you to make sure that all changes have been saved.
After 7 days of discussion, the concerns stage will end. All points brought up during that phase will be taken into account and an administrator, assistant, or the proposal's creator can move the discussion to voting, modifying the original proposal with any changes discussed by the community.
You can also add your comments to existing concerns. On the other hand, if you have no concerns, then you just wait for the voting stage.
Have a happy discussion!
Proposal
Hi all,
Today, I propose we now abandon and discontinue the news team. It seems crystal clear that the news team has fallen apart. Users leaving, resigning, and losing interest. And I haven't seen any signs of progress. Of course, I understand the somewhat busy schedules of some, I don't feel the necessity of having it as an "active" group of users anymore.
I just want to quickly point out that there is already a feed of ongoing discussions in which users can look at to get updates on it. That pretty much eliminates the part of including discussions in the news team. We could raise more awareness of that page but it's already linked in the wiki's header tabs and includes every discussion there is. I honestly don't see a point in it considering not everyone comes to this wiki to vote (referring to the highlighted news team thread) and those who are interested can just view that discussions feed page.
I noticed also in previous publications (such as this) contains more into the news team than the latest post. SpongeBob news, which was included, can simply be shown using the main page news template, the news feed, or directly on the RSS feed included on the main page news template. It's clear we have multiple options of expressing news to the community. And if there was an exciting part (such as the premiere of the third movie etc), then a highlighted post can be made. But clearly, the news team isn't required as not all news is worthy of such highlight.
User of the Month and Article of the Month are both included sections on the news team thread. Simply answer: there's already a highlighted thread each month for it so it deems it as "unnecessary" on the news team.
For the birthdays section, users can go directly onto here to see who's birthday is coming up rather than being notified by the news team. In most cases, I already see a chain of nice happy birthday comments from people so I assume some of you already use it.
The convention is also included in it in former posts and might be if the news team continues successfully. However, just want to point out AMK already highlights his own separate thread notifying users of it. So that's already done.
Finally, the occasional wiki notices section can easily be announced in a highlighted thread. It doesn't require a whole team of news team users to be mentioned to the community. Just want to point out I've listed all the reasons why the news team should end, considering all of the parts are unnecessary to list in my opinion. And the news team is already lacking interest considering how many people left and the current delays of publishing.
Thus, I officially propose to finally end the news team.
Thanks,
(Contact • Contrib) 22:47, October 31, 2018 (UTC)
On second thought, I'm going to change the main proposed idea slightly. My point of the news team ending still stays. But we could create an ESB:Wiki news page that can be easily updated and maintained (and it would be a much more detailed better version of the ongoing discussions page with every news team bit) instead of continuing the news team. Basically, it would allow anyone in the community to edit and update it rather than a team of users. The page could be linked in the wiki header tabs, or main page for those interested to raise awareness (also, so it doesn't notify those who don't have any interest in community discussion) and wouldn't require a whole group of users gathering, discussing, making parts, and eventually publishing anymore which is quite a lot of work. Alex and the group seem relatively busy and it lacks members anyway so why don't we let the news updating go to the community instead? For example, the MediaWiki:Community Corner displays news on the right side of the wiki activity. There are many ways we can display anything in the news team post to the community rather than continuing to have a group of users do it. Lack of members, delays, it's basically time consuming for them. All the planning and everything. And not everyone reads the news team post actually from what I've heard from a few users. So I'm now adding this to the original proposal and idea.
Concerns
Created concern: Disagree
Preview • Modify • CommentAs the publisher and leader of the News Team, I respectfully disagree with many of the points made by the proposer.
1. The proposal is extremely unfair to the News Team, because the proposer was not willing to share a single concern with myself or anyone else in the News Team, meaning that we have very limited time to address his concerns before this is moved to voting. If the proposal is to discontinue the News Team, should the News Team not be notified first so that they have time to fix any problems? The proposer has given us no time to rectify the situation beforehand, instead choosing to immediately make a proposal.
2. The proposal states that for each part of the News Team there are many other places where you can find the information, making the News Team useless. However, there is apparently no problem with having "multiple other sources." If the News Team is redundant for being another source, why isn't any other source redundant?
3. The News Team gathers information from all sources and puts it in a single thread so that users don't have to search for it. It is near impossible to miss an obvious notification, but it isn't so easy to search through the wiki navigation for news.
4. The News Team's schedule was to publish every two weeks, not just once per month. The proposer mentions that there is a UoTM and AoTM thread every month, making the News Team useless in that aspect. However, we also link to each candidate for both UoTM and AoTM in the middle of each month, which encourages users who may have missed the monthly thread to vote.
5. The proposer says that more minor SpongeBob news isn't worthy of a highlight, but the minor SpongeBob news is part of an entire thread of news. We aren't just highlighting a single part of the thread; rather, the entire thread, not just one section.
6. Regarding birthdays, not every single user uses ESB:Birthdays. The proposer even said "In most cases" he sees a chain of happy birthdays, meaning that there are some cases where it does not happen. The News Team can help reduce the number of those cases.
TL;DR:
1. We didn't have enough time to address this concerns, so it would be unfair to shut down the News Team based on their response in 7 days.
2. Why is the News Team considered useless, but other sources aren't?
3. We gather information from a variety of sources so that users don't have to search as much.
4. We encourage people to vote for UoTM and AoTM in the middle of each month, not just on the first day of each month.
5. The News Team provides additional information about SpongeBob that other sources don't have.
6. Not everyone uses ESB:Birthdays.
I understand that I haven't been the most responsible leader, and that there is a lack of interest in the News Team. However, that does not mean we are planning on abandoning it. The school year has started, meaning that a large majority of the wiki will be very busy. We have planned to reboot the News Team again near the holidays, where we will have more time to plan things out. If you are skeptical about the reboots, it should be known that each reboot brought new users and was successful for a period of time. There is no harm in letting the News Team stay because we still do have a purpose, as I have mentioned in my above concerns. The most expensive boss, Alex.sapre (talk) 20:24, November 4, 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Alex. I think notifying the News Team (or at least Alex) of this proposal would've been a good step to at least check the current status of the News Team.
I understand the Golf's point regarding there being little interest in the News Team, but that's only in its current state. Per Alex, a reboot/revamp is planned for the Holidays with the aim of driving more user engagement.
With the show premiering episodes frequently now and a third movie coming (both of which leading to increased wiki viewership) SpongeBob news will be more important than ever. --Spongebob456 talk 20:38, November 4, 2018 (UTC)
Okay, I apologize for not informing you of my points. I invite any other news team member to have their say on this. But anyway, now that you know about it before it has been moved, I'm mainly proposing it because I feel the news team doesn't have a significant figure on the wiki anymore. I mean, while the news team puts everything in one thread, highlighting it so every user can see wouldn't really be always the best thing to do as not everyone comes to the wiki to vote. To be honest, not many users outside the current ones interested in voting really voice their opinion. To your article of the month and user of the month concern, the thread made once a month for it is also highlighted which provides an opportunity for users to congratulate. But as I said before, the ongoing discussions page that contains each discussion can be available and can raise more awareness to those interested rather than having a news post for the whole wiki to see. Especially as a lot of people don't really participate anyway. (And I don't really notice any voting changes between news team notifying and when it's not). I'm mainly concerned over whether we need it rather than if it'll get back up on its feet again, and once again, I apologize for not informing you at an earlier date. (Contact • Contrib) 20:43, November 4, 2018 (UTC)
To add to that actually of "multiple sources" and "combining each discussion in one post," it seems like all of the things included can be listed on a separate page then? Like ESB:Ongoing discussions can actually be updated into a page that contains every wiki discussion, show news, and every bit in the news team? What I'm mainly curious is if a whole team of users is really needed to document all of that. As well as the highlighting. I think there could be easier, better ways to display that type of information to the community. (Contact • Contrib) 20:47, November 4, 2018 (UTC)
Hello. Thank you for your response. I will do my best to address your concerns.
1. The problem is that we cannot really determine whether or not the News Team does anything or not, because its activity has been fluctuating quite some time. The only way to properly determine whether or not the News Team does anything is to use voting statistics when it was at its peak, and even then the data won't be very accurate considering the community and News Team would be very different.
2. It is my belief that if we were notified of this, the best way to determine whether or not the News Team helps gain viewership on proposals would have been to publish a few editions on schedule and compare voting trends before and after.
3. It is true that not everyone comes to the wiki to vote, but having a news thread can tell those who want to vote where to vote. Those who don't care can simply disregard the notification; one notification isn't that much of a hassle.
4. I am not entirely sure about what you mean with your UoTM and AoTM response. Could you clarify?
5. As I mentioned before, if there are other pages that have the same purpose as the News Team, why should the News Team be the one to be discontinued? As far as I've seen, there hasn't been any reasons for why the News Team would be the less preferable option.
6. The News Team also documents proposals/requests that have been closed and passed/failed, which no other news source on the community does.
7. My concern about updating a page is that pages tend to be more overlooked. A prime example of this is community corner, which is very infrequently updated but should be updated on a regular basis. Another example I can offer are the proposal/request templates. Sometimes someone will make a request for something, but because no one notices it, no one updates the template on the page that lists the requests.
The most expensive boss, Alex.sapre (talk) 03:34, November 6, 2018 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for your input in response. 1. "The problem is that we cannot really determine whether or not the News Team does anything or not, because its activity has been fluctuating quite some time. The only way to properly determine whether or not the News Team does anything is to use voting statistics when it was at its peak, and even then the data won't be very accurate considering the community and News Team would be very different." We could look at past news posts when the news team has been at its highest and check the discussions linked on it to see whether voting increased or not. 2. "It is my belief that if we were notified of this, the best way to determine whether or not the News Team helps gain viewership on proposals would have been to publish a few editions on schedule and compare voting trends before and after." As I said above, we can look at past publications rather than trying this out again. 3. "It is true that not everyone comes to the wiki to vote, but having a news thread can tell those who want to vote where to vote. Those who don't care can simply disregard the notification; one notification isn't that much of a hassle." Getting a highlighted thread every two weeks is a hassle in my opinion. There have been highlighted UoTM threads and AoTM threads. Convention threads get highlighted and important messages. Why add yet another source of notification to everyone, including those who don't want to receive one? Also, I did a short survey by asking a few users who currently, regularly vote if they use the news team as their guide and none of them said they used it. So I don't think the news team and it's highlighted threads provide much help from my short analysis but I'll definitely check previous statistics anyway. 4. " I am not entirely sure about what you mean with your UoTM and AoTM response. Could you clarify?" User and Article of the Month are highlighted each month. The news team includes the winners each month and congratulates and mentions them in their publication but I think it's redundant as UOTM and AOTM are already highlighted each month meaning everybody knows about it and gets the chance to congratulate. 5. "As I mentioned before, if there are other pages that have the same purpose as the News Team, why should the News Team be the one to be discontinued? As far as I've seen, there hasn't been any reasons for why the News Team would be the less preferable option." Because, simple as this, a highlighted thread for everybody to see is ridiculous. Not everyone votes, and the people who do, the ones I've asked said they don't use the news team as a guide. They just view the proposals, requests, or ongoing discussions pages to see what's going on making the news team unnecessary to use. 6. "The News Team also documents proposals/requests that have been closed and passed/failed, which no other news source on the community does." That's why I've created an example page here that will be renamed to ESB:Directory if this passes. It does include closed discussions already and if they passed and failed but just want to point out that it has no effect on voting statistics anyway but I suppose those who like to view it can view that page. 7. "My concern about updating a page is that pages tend to be more overlooked. A prime example of this is community corner, which is very infrequently updated but should be updated on a regular basis. Another example I can offer are the proposal/request templates. Sometimes someone will make a request for something, but because no one notices it, no one updates the template on the page that lists the requests." If users develop a habit of updating the page when they update the proposal and requests boxes, then it should work. The news team only gives updates every two weeks so it doesn't give updates on a regular basis too. The date of the last update is included and usually lack of updating for proposals/requests templates are usually dealt with within' a few days. It's not like a whole discussion will be invisible from the community because of lack of updates. The MediaWiki:Community-corner is rarely updated due to it being a MediaWiki page and only administrators can edit it. My proposed page won't be protected and will be open to the community for updating.
Also, this isn't the first time the news team has went on hiatus, numerous other parts of the years, the news team experienced delays. If it doesn't affect voting statistics, if little people use it as a guide (I'll ask more people on this to gain more input), if it notifies users who don't like voting, and doesn't really play a key role for ESB users, why have a whole group for this work anyway? I also want to point out that with the community page, there won't be any pressure to members and there won't be a risk the news team had in which the members were busy simply because the community updates the page. All these flaws won't be experienced and I'd be open to try out the page for maybe a week and see how it goes. Then compare it to the news team impact on the community.
One more thing is that in the future, once forums are disabled and discussions will take effect as the primary feature, discussions isn't built or set up as the forums which means it's distinctively different from it. One thing that has concerned me is the linking. Linking in discussions is completely different from the way you link things in the forums, source editor, message walls and comments. It relates to visual editor. This page will give you an insight on the different linking technique. In discussions, you have to manually link things at the time of the post. Meaning, news team preparations of everyone getting their parts ready in advance to be combined and published will no longer work. The publisher will have to do it manually at the time of publishing which would take away the basic fundamental roles of all news team members considering how 90% of the post is linked to other areas of the wiki and would put a lot of work on the publisher.
I overall think the news team should be discontinued. And looking into the future, I expect the news team to go through more hiatuses and delays looking at the history of it. I do understand the busy situation of some members and I'm not trying to criticize it, I just don't think it's worth continuing it any longer if it can't be consistently maintained by a group of members alone. I'd rather have a page maintained by the community instead, also considering all the points I laid out about.