User talk:Skittles the hog

Cyberman continued
To answer questions you left yesterday, I think Dalekcaan14 is probably not expressing himself fully. Whatever is at the core of what he's trying to convey probably is true, because he's studied the scene too many times for him to be just making it up. That's why he needs to start a discussion on the page. As it was last worded in the history, I'm obviously with you and Revan: it doesn't make much sense. But, again, he made a good faith edit that, in its current wording, is incorrect. That's not vandalism.

As for the "not wanting him to voice his opinion" bit, well, I'm of course not saying that you ever prevented — or even threatened to prevent — him from talking. And you did a good thing by at least explaining to him why you were editing a substantial part of his contribution away. I suppose what I'm saying is that I haven't yet seen genuine discussion about his edits. It started well enough, with you enumerating why you didn't agree with what he wrote, but then that was sorta the end of it. You'd made up your mind and dug in, he was equally frustrated with you, and the perfect storm brewed for an edit war. There was never a phase where we got to ask questions like, "What do you mean, exactly?" and "Could you explain that point a little more?" And, believe me, I understand why the conversation didn't go on those lines. You totally believed the information was just junk — there wasn't any question of that in your mind — and so you were bending over backwards to leave him even that message. And 90% of the time, that would've been fine. If it was junk, the user who added it would've just rolled over and likely not responded to your explanation. But this time, Dalekcaan14 is just a little too determined to simply write off this stuff as "bad information">

In fact, he's posted to my page now, insisting again that his interpretation is right. Users who are intentionally putting bad information on a page don't do that, not after being reverted several times, then blocked. Somewhere in this paragraph is a truth that we can't see yet. I've encouraged him to start a proper discussion on the talk page, rather than these bilateral discussions on user talk pages. Hopefully he'll do it and we can ask the sort of questions that might shake his truth out of the trees. 12:47:10 Fri 15 Apr 2011

User you blocked
I've unblocked User:TheArtistBox. There was no reason to block him. I was hardly a personal attack, and like User:CzechOut said to me here, you should have got another admin involved if you though he deserved a block, which was a bit unfair considering he aimed nothing directly at you. It's also a bit unfair to block in the middle of a forum discussion, if it gets really bad, I will block him for you, middle of a discussion or not; but to block them in the middle of a discussion, for an indirect comment was a bit harsh. ". If someone attacks you, please go to another admin to seek blocking. Otherwise, it'll easily be construed as a distasteful abuse of power. Admins, in any case, should have thicker skin about such matters" as CzechOut said to me. Mini-mitch\talk 21:38, April 22, 2011 (UTC)

The Impossible Astronaut
I found an error in the Story Notes section. Here it is: A prequel for this tory was released on the offcial BBC website. Could you correct? Sorry about the forum thing btw... K'jal'mar ( The talk| Contribs) 17:19, April 23, 2011 (UTC)

Why is the story plot for The Impossible Astronaut being reverted?
I have no idea why you reverted the plot back to a way earlier version. I am sorry if that's because me calling reverters stupid but here I am really frustrated because that takes out a lot of effort that I put into the plot line. If you want to make edits, please make on individual paragraphs... not on the entire thing... A very polite thanks, Arunreginald 17:30, April 24, 2011 (UTC)

River
Why are removing every single edit I make on that page? They have been annotated and factual based on The Impossible Astronaut. Why are you reverting them? -- Rest In Peace Sarah Jane \ Talk to me! 15:23, April 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks...I am going to put the comment she made to Rory back in...I'll use the talk page to discuss the order of events. -- Rest In Peace Sarah Jane \ Talk to me! 15:36, April 25, 2011 (UTC)

River Song
The Official BBC Doctor Who Trading Cards have confirmed that River Song is a Human from Earth. Why remove the information? Michael Downey 16:26, April 25, 2011 (UTC)

Removal From "The Silence"
Twice you have removed the following edit I made to "The Silence," claiming it was speculation:

Monsters created by Steven Moffat are usually designed to make something mundane and everyday into something terrifying (stone statues, gas masks, shadows). In one sense, The Silence stray from this pattern because they are distinctly alien-looking, with large, bulbous heads and elongated fingers. In other ways, The Silence stay with the pattern of turning the mundane into the terrifying in that they wear human-style suits and ties, and are said to be responsible for that "something in the corner of your eye, a creaking in your house, or voices through a wall" (DW: Day of the Moon) which are everyday occurrences that humans experience.

Can you explain to me why you think this is speculative? It's observation and analysis, which is all over this wiki, and is not at all speculative.

Truthbealiar 00:05, April 26, 2011 (UTC)

Aliases
Please understand, I am trying to ensure the article is accurate. I think the latest change fits the best. Please take a look and let me know. Thanks! -- Rest In Peace Sarah Jane \ Talk to me! 21:05, April 26, 2011 (UTC)

Background
I can see it all, though the moon's edge is right on the browser's edge.

Though that said, I have text / page zoomed up quite large so the edit area occupies most of the space. The other Stetson background was cut off in a similar way.

I think similarly themed backgrounds, with some learning along the way should be a direction to go until we work out what's best. As we add and use different images we should be able to come up with a list of things that don't work (tiled colourful images) and what does work (from what we've used so far and other wikis; light or dark colours). --Tangerineduel / talk 15:21, April 27, 2011 (UTC)


 * The limitations are wikia's, which I guess we'll have to work around.
 * We could have things like an image across the top of, with the rest of the image a colour. The Harry Potter wiki used to do this, they've changed it recently, but it used to be the turrets of Hogwarts across the top, with the rest of the image black. We could do something like that but with some large landscape shot matched to a colour or something. I'm not really sure, as I said it's a bit of a learning process as we work through this. --Tangerineduel / talk 15:34, April 27, 2011 (UTC)


 * I can see it, it's only barely over.
 * As I said over on the forum page, we may need to work with images that can 'handle' being cut off on the sides.
 * I thought the moon 'Day of the Moon' image before was fine. I also don't think you should be trying to satisfy everyone's browser views given the infinite amount of views there could be, just aim for middle ground. --Tangerineduel / talk 17:18, April 27, 2011 (UTC)

MITT vids
Why did you remove the vidoes that I put on the Meanwhile in the TARDIS page? Ghastly9090 16:27, April 27, 2011 (UTC)

Upcoming episode descriptions
I have no idea how you format articles here so I'll give you the links:

Episode 3 - The Curse Of The Black Spot http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/tv/2011/wk19/sat.shtml

Episode 4 - The Doctor's Wife http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/tv/2011/wk20/sat.shtml

Sgtcook (My Talk Page) 20:49, April 28, 2011 (UTC)

Episode 5 - The Rebel Flesh http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/tv/2011/wk21/sat.shtml#sat_doctor --Sgtcook (My Talk Page) 15:58, May 5, 2011 (UTC)

Little Girl
This page is getting alot of heat, maybe we should consider locking it for the rest of the day? --Revan\Talk 18:09, April 30, 2011 (UTC)

I'll just see what Mini-Mitch thinks, 3 admins are better than two. --Revan\Talk 18:14, April 30, 2011 (UTC)

Video
Why did you undo my edit to add the "regeneration" video? Tyw7 (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 19:23, April 30, 2011 (UTC)

Background
Background? You mean for the wikia itself? If so then tomorrow I think. --Revan\Talk 19:50, April 30, 2011 (UTC)

Tomorrow does seem best. I really like the backgrounds so far, I had no idea you were making them, I assumed it was CzechOut. Perhaps when the series is over you could design backgrounds for each TARDIS theme e.g. classic (done), gothic, coral, steampunk and then we can alternate them each week/month? --Revan\Talk 19:55, April 30, 2011 (UTC)

Just another suggestion, for times when we are having trouble getting a new background up or we remove one for whatever reason, we could have a police box theme with the door and everything, just as a backup. --Revan\Talk 20:05, April 30, 2011 (UTC)

With ambulance sticker, without... --Revan\Talk 20:07, April 30, 2011 (UTC)

Pictures
I've been having this problem with pictures for ages. If you haven't already then re-upload the file with a different name (ignoring same file exists warnings), things should then work and you can then delete the old file. Hope that helps. --Revan\Talk 17:33, May 1, 2011 (UTC)

Ah thats a pain, is there any way that we can delete the image permanently (without the backup thing) and then start from scratch? Other than that there is just waiting for the file to start to work, it's done it once or twice to me before and started working eventually. --Revan\Talk 17:59, May 1, 2011 (UTC)

Maybe Tangerineduel or CzechOut know some more ways of doing it, I'm dry :( --Revan\Talk 19:01, May 1, 2011 (UTC)

File:Regenerating.png
Why isn't that picture showing the picture with the little girl's face despite me uploading that version multiple times! It keeps on insisting on showing the older version on the articles Tyw7 (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 14:46, May 2, 2011 (UTC)


 * Can you change all its instance to File:Regen girl.png Tyw7 (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 15:07, May 2, 2011 (UTC)

Ah ok, thanks for letting me know. --Revan\Talk 15:32, May 4, 2011 (UTC)

Unknown
Oops; sorry about the 'unknown' in the infobox; I didn't know 'unknown' isn't supposed to be in infoboxes. Sorry again, and thanks for the info. -- Bold  Clone  16:26, May 4, 2011 (UTC)

I'm getting The Curse of the Black Spo (with half the "O" missing). It was fine a couple of hours ago though. --Revan\Talk 15:30, May 5, 2011 (UTC)

I know why, earlier today the hat wasn't there. --Revan\Talk 15:36, May 5, 2011 (UTC)

Background problems
The weird thing I'm finding now is that when I'm on my laptop, I can see all the background image. Yet when I'm on my pc its still a bit off the screen. Maybe its because of the resolution on my screens? --Revan\Talk 11:30, May 6, 2011 (UTC)

Archiving talk pages
I've just been playing around trying to copy your archived talk pages to make myself one, then I realised that wasn't going to work. Can you help me make one? It's getting a bid crowded over here... --Revan\Talk 16:47, May 6, 2011 (UTC)

Wow, wasn't expecting that. Thanks Skittles. --Revan\Talk 16:59, May 6, 2011 (UTC)

A little help
Apon your advice I moved my argument into the Howling, but no ones answering it, I was wondering if you could give me any more advice or help? General MGD 109

River/Stone Dalek
I've left my reasons on the Rivertalk page, but basically; I'm not saying she didn't kill the dalek, only that we saw/heard nothing, and the only evidence either way is the word of someone who is mysterious and untrustworthy.

Therefore; guessing either way is speculative, I'm trying to be descriptive. Geek Mythology 19:04, May 14, 2011 (UTC)

Images
I'm guessing you mean about the Eleventh Doctor article? I was mostly doing a revert on several edits. I can't see any text/image crashing (unless you mean a different article?). --Tangerineduel / talk 15:23, May 20, 2011 (UTC)

Sorry! x
Hi. I'M SO SORRY FOR BEING ANGRY AT YOU I DIDN'T KNOW THAT THERE WAS A SPOILER VIOLATION THINGY! SO SORRY!
 * ( From BethBW! xBethBW 20:26, May 28, 2011 (UTC)

Deletion Policy
Sounds fine to me. --Revan\Talk 13:16, May 30, 2011 (UTC)

Images and Gallery
Okay, I'll keep all the things you said in mind. Thanks for the tip. Cortion 11:21, May 31, 2011 (UTC)

I know. Sorry. Sometimes I forget, and the image you deleted, I just tried to cut off the top part, because we don't need it. Cortion 12:13, May 31, 2011 (UTC)

Choosing a licence
You know if you add an image, and you forget to add a licence, how do you add a license after, because I have no idea. Could you tell me how to, as I surely do not want to breach the rules of course! Cortion 11:40, May 31, 2011 (UTC)

American or British English on this wiki
Do we write in British English or in American English here? Cortion 11:48, May 31, 2011 (UTC)

I'm British, I just wanted to make sure. Are you British? Cortion 11:51, May 31, 2011 (UTC)

Uploading images
The 'Upload new version of this file' doesn't work. Cortion 12:31, May 31, 2011 (UTC)

Licenses
Alright, alright, calm down. I'll add the licences right now. Cortion 17:10, May 31, 2011 (UTC)

Adding an image to an infobox
When I added a new image to the infobox of Alaya (because the previous image was a promo), the image didn't appear and instead it had this in blue writing (as it is a link): Alaya-close-up.jpg. Do you know why this is happening? Cortion 17:38, June 2, 2011 (UTC)

Editing the Main Page
I was going to do a preview of what the Main Page would look like with the slider I created. The problem is: It's absolutely impossible to edit! Cortion 11:29, June 3, 2011 (UTC)

PNG
Sorry about that. I don't usually upload PNG files. It was only because JPG files can't handle transparency, so I uploaded as PNG. Cortion 08:35, June 4, 2011 (UTC)

Protection
I was wondering why it wasnt working, I guess you protect it using the drop down menu from "edit"? Thanks for protecting it btw. --Revan\Talk 19:16, June 4, 2011 (UTC)

River Song
I'm going to leave the River page locked for at least a day, it's been getting lots of attention and has been moved to Melody Pond twice. Is this ok with you? --Revan\Talk 19:37, June 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * According to the protection log, you changed the protection level on this article to sysop-only editing without explanation, and you set the duration for an extremely long six months. I'm a little concerned that you've taken this step without leaving a revision note to explain things, or even selecting a protection reason from the drop-down menu.  Any time a main character's page is locked to editing, it's really important to leave an explanation so that every editor can plainly understand what the lock is trying to accomplish.  There are some angry editors on the talk page whose concerns are quite reasonable.  And you've not posted to the talk page since you instituted the block, unless you've been posting as an IP user.  And there's no forum post about it that I can find.  So, as far as I can see, there's no easily-accessible discussion anywhere about why you've taken this action.


 * There is, though, a message from Revan. But it's saying that the block is going to be lifted in a matter of days, not months.  And he cites "speculation" (and vandalism, but he offers no specifics on either) as a cause. But this is the important thing.  It's not his name people will see when the system stops them from editing article. It's yours. So it's all very confused from the average user's perspective.


 * Frankly, you'd need a hell of a good reason to block editing of a high-profile article like this. Fine, lock it from moves.  But from all editing? For six months?  Imagine if Tangerineduel had done that to you when you weren't an admin.  Would you have been happy with that?  Even if your point is not to block editing for six months — and I don't think it actually is — it looks that way.  And people are gonna wonder, as can already be seen on the talk page, what the hell is going on.


 * It's really important to consider what a full block on a main character page looks like to the average user. This looks like we're being arbitrary and capricious and a bit disorganised.  It's creating resentment against the admin staff, as evidenced by articulate responses on the talk page from IP editors calling us "Pedant Police" for "freezing" the article in such a way that other points of view aren't allowed.


 * I'm sure you don't mean for any of this to happen. I gather from searching through talk pages that you were just trying to help Revan actually lock the page, since he was trying to do it by just placing lock.  But at this point, original intent is sadly irrelevant. What matters now is the way it looks, and it looks iffy at best.  There are at least three registered editors who got pissed off by this blocking, who would have been of good use in keeping the article well-edited, and served as a counterweight to any "vandalism" that Revan alleged.


 * If you don't really have a clear idea of what you wanted to accomplish with the lock, please remove it. If you do, it would be great if you'd please explain it on the talk page.


 * Finally, consider this. River Song could have been a really hot page.  Editors were swarming to it.  A perfect storm was brewing, and our wiki could have had one of the most-edited pages on all of  Wikia this week.  We could have made the leader board at wikia central.  That would have been good advertisement for us.  But the blocking killed it, and turned Talk:River Song into a moderately hot page of complaint.  There is actually some good that can come in letting a lot of editors have free reign over a popular article, even if there are moments when that article reads a little rough.  06:19:47 Thu 09 Jun 2011


 * Please read my entire post before saying I haven't fully tried to understand you. I know you were acting at Revan's behest.  I know you probably didn't intend it to be a six month block.  But I'm talking about the way it looks, not what you intended.  And while I don't claim "protection perfection" — I have once locked a story page incorrectly because I got confused as to the date of publication — I've never locked a page in the immediate wake of the broadcast of an episode.  And I've never seen Tangerineduel fully lock any page in the main namespace, except in the case of an edit war. It took me a long time to write the above message and investigate what happened because you didn't leave a protection reason.  And you know when you lock a page, you really should be leaving a note behind.  Expecially when you have no clear cause to lock this page under tardis:protection policy.


 * Of course, the evidence suggests you weren't locking the page on merit. You've made no significant contributions to Talk:River Song since the airing of the episode.  You didn't start a forum post about issues with the River Song page.  So the only clue as to your actions was on Revan's talk page.   You were apparently locking it simply because Revan had put up the lock template.  That is not a good reason to lock a page, and that's why there is no explanation in the revision notes.  I don't think you have a substantive explanation.


 * And we owe it to our users to give clear explanations for unusual administrative moves. A user shouldn't have to go to Revan's page and your page and the talk page to piece together the answer to a very simple question:  why was River Song locked?  An average user isn't going to know to do that.  They're not going to even care that much.  They're going to say, "These losers have blocked River Song the day after we found out she was Amy's kid.  I want to write about this now, while I'm thinking about.  Not six months from now.  This is a stupid wiki.  I'm outta here."


 * Look, no one is going to be perfect in their use of their administrative powers. But River Song is a high-profile page.  People will think that the way we deal with that page, and those of the other main characters, represents general policy on the wiki.  If this were Jailer (The Reign of Terror), I don't think I'd be here talking to you.  But how much access we give other editors on our highest-traffic pages in the aftermath of televised episodes matters to whether we attract and retain new editors.  Without new editors, the wiki dies.   16:21:11 Thu 09 Jun 2011


 * I still don't think you're reading the entirety of what I've written to you, because you're not addressing anything I've actually said to you. In your latest message, you said twice that you've "told me the reason" why you locked the page, but I'm still not seeing anything beyond what I determined in my original post (had you bothered to read it).  So let me ask it more directly.  Other than that you were trying to help Revan, what was the point of the block?  What, specific policy did the page offend, necessitating the block?  And why did you not leave behind a protection reason?  16:55:32 Thu 09 Jun 2011


 * No, Skittles, I am getting it. This is what I've been saying since my first post.  You didn't have an actual reason to lock this article.  You locked one of the most active pages on the wiki without knowing why you were doing it.  You just did it because you thought Revan needed help with the technical function of protection.  It doesn't appear that you thought for a moment whether it was right to lock the page. And that's what I'm having a problem with.  I don't see how this page fell foul of any policy.  Revan claims "speculation" (which isn't a reason for page locking) and also vandalism (but I don't see it in the page history).  Neither thing is really something for which full page locking is an appropriate response. You handle those by preventing IP editing and by addressing individual vandals, not by preventing registered editors from editing the page just at the moment we want them to.   Blocking like this has never been done before.  Despite the fact that River Song is a mysterious character whose every appearance always leaves plenty of room for speculation, we've never locked her page, or that of any major character.    And it's stopped River Song from being one of the hottest pages on all of Wikia.  Instead, it's turned Talk:River Song into a place of moderate activity, mostly in the form of justified complaints.   17:23:08 Thu 09 Jun 2011


 * Don't force on you the rules of the wiki? You're an admin.  That's precisely is supposed to be "forced" on you.  You have to be able to make an accounting of your actions according to the rules.  I'm not forcing an opinion on you.  I'm asking you to specify exactly what happened on that page — not what might have happened on the page, not what happened on similar pages — to warrant you locking the page.  It's a reasonable question because a) we've never done anything similar and b) you didn't give a protection reason when you protected the page.  Also, I've just checked tardis:vandalism policy and the word "speculation" doesn't appear.  Which is a good thing, because several forum threads have been utterly unable to come up with a definition for "speculation".   If there's an opinion here, it's that vandalism=speculation.  18:23:13 Thu 09 Jun 2011


 * Nah, I'm not angry at anyone other than myself for my inability to communicate what seems an obvious truth. Lemme try another path.  The vandalism policy defines what vandalism is on the wiki.  Speculation is never mentioned on that page.  It can't be vandalism because we as a community have never agreed on a definition of the word speculation.  (See forum:Speculation - What is and what isn't? and forum:hypothesis and speculation.)  It stands to reason that you can't have a rule against that which you've never been able to define.


 * So no, to answer your question, speculation is not vandalism. That's not an opinion, because it can be definitively proved that the vandalism policy in no way mentions or addresses speculation.


 * You seem to feel that I care about you following my opinion, but I'm not offering an opinion. Well, not unless you're going to claim that "our policies and established traditions must govern our actions" is an opinion.  You can't fully shut down page editing without that page meeting criteria established by our policies.  What you've consistently said is  "the reason was only/purely/just to assist Revan" and "I protected it for Revan".  That's not a valid reason under any policy we currently have. Therefore you had no cause to lock it.  You certainly had no cause to lock it for six months, especially when your intent was only to lock it for a day or so.  And while I'm on the subject, why would you lock it for six months if you only meant to lock it for a day?  I don't get that at all.


 * You seem to be overly concerned about how it appears to me, and it doesn't matter to me what you do to the page. I can edit the page regardless of what you do to it. I'm thinking of the average user.  There's a case right now on the talk page that breaks my heart.  Here's a new editor who spent a lot of time writing up a change, they hit "publish", and — wham! — they see that the page was locked by some guy named Skittles the hog.  This Skittles person left behind no explanation of why he'd prevented further editing, and he locked it until bloody November!  The cheek of the guy!  Now, luckily, this editor bothered to persevere and write something on the talk page.  But how many other editors are in the same boat but didn't bother writing on the talk page?    Yeah, we might have protected against some bad-faith edits.  But we also prevented some editors getting emotionally invested in the article, who could then have helped us police it.


 * Just to be clear: I'm not mad at you. I don't think you did anything malicious.  I think you don't have any true emotional involvement in this case at all.  You were just trying to help out a fellow admin who didn't seem to understand how protection was put onto a page.  Noble enough.  In fact, you might be thinking why I'm spendin' so much time writin' to you on this subject since it wasn't even your idea to lock the page in the first place.  Thing is, though, your name is on the lock.   So what I'm asking you to do is to look at the obvious fallout on the talk page.  Consider for the future whether it actually makes sense to stop all editing on an extremely popular page in the wake of one of the bigger character revelations in Doctor Who history. Trust the wiki process to eventually produce a reasonable version of the page.  Consider whether it makes sense for admins to be in the position of being the gatekeepers on an in-universe article.  And, what's more work?  Performing the occasional rollback, or reading through a talk page and deciding what can go into the article and what can't?


 * Protecting — or, if you like, semi-protecting — a page is like building a tiny li'l dog fence around a garden and not even locking the gate. It's annoying to have to open the gate if you've got your arms full of groceries, but it'll keep your dog from running away.  Which is a good thing.  Locking — or full protection — is like the old hillbilly who sits on his front porch with his shotgun saying, "Take a step towards my daughter.  I double dare ya."   01:33:12 Fri 10 Jun 2011

Why did you remove the image from the "Silence" page
Why did you remove the image I posted on the Silence page? --MisterRandom2 20:46, June 4, 2011 (UTC)

Pig Slave
Why the hell did you delete the Pig Slave page? 90.210.131.149 10:17, June 5, 2011 (UTC)

Move
"When story titles have the same name they are both disambiguated. All stories are rated as equal on this wiki."

No story title have preference over the other. If this was the case The End of Time (TV story) would link to The End of Time, since it seems to be of a higher preference I'm just going by what the MOS says about story titles, so I moved it. Mini-mitch\talk 16:35, June 9, 2011 (UTC)

"When story titles have the same name they are both disambiguated. All stories are rated as equal on this wiki."

No story title have preference over the other. If this was the case The End of Time (TV story) would link to The End of Time, since it seems to be of a higher preference I'm just going by what the MOS says about story titles, so I moved it. Mini-mitch\talk 17:29, June 10, 2011 (UTC)

Mini-mitch\talk 17:29, June 10, 2011 (UTC)

Eight image
Guru...hmm I like that. This new image looks way better than the old one, the blurry lights in the background of the old one just put me off. --Revan\Talk 15:30, June 14, 2011 (UTC)

Featured articles
I have tons of thoughts on featured articles. To save myself the bother of retyping them, I'll direct you to forum:Feature Articles and forum:Nominations for featured articles, where I outlay a number of specific objections to the way the process works. (Yes, the threads are from long ago, but things haven't changed much since then.)

Basically, though, I think we have the wrong end of the stick on what a featured article is. We tend to view it as merely "an article that a few people like", rather than one that actually represents our best work. We're saying to people, in a lot of cases, that this half-finished article is "featured". Frankly, I'm pretty embarrassed by the general quality of the kind of articles that we put up on the front page as "featured". I think we should have minimum quality standards that any featured article must meet. But I argued all this years ago and was generally ignored, so I moved on to other things.

Also, as you know, you created the first featured star template and then, when the above discussions made it clear we weren't talking about genuine "featured articles" in the wikipedia/woookieepedia/memoryalpha sense, we changed the name to featured spotlight star. Then I put some work in on the concept, turned it into a transparent version of Adric's star, and then it was all deleted last year. I refer you to template talk:featured spotlight star for the discussion that killed it.

I think my feelings since 2010 have moved a little bit more to conclusion than they were. Then, I was ambivalent, now I'm firmly against the star concept (even though I thought my graphic was kinda cool).

What I want are genuine featured articles, not just "here's something to look at on the front page". I'm not asking for perfection. I just want some sense that when we put an article up on the front page, it's a good example of the kind of writing we're looking for. Some of these story pages, for example, have gone up as semi-skeletons, with whole sections missing.

So I'm now strongly opposed to this whole featured star concept. I don't think we should put a badge of excellence on these articles that formerly appeared on the front page. There's no guarantee that they deserved such distinction in the first place, and there's certainly no mechanism in place to ensure that they're going to maintain any standards after they leave the front page.

Just putting them in a category is fine. All we're really doing by categorising them is making sure we don't pick the same article again. Frankly, though, I'd be for even killing the category. I don't particularly want people to be able to easily find a list of the articles we've featured in the past. 01:03:00 Wed 15 Jun 2011