Forum:Wiki format change

I'm starting to notice some things on the wiki which I either dislike on a wiki. Or are old methods which I have found in experience have a better method which can be used.

~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen -local (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk&#124;local) Nov 6, 2007 @ 22:13 (UTC)
 * The Under Construction template: Every article is always under construction, that's the whole point of a wiki. If it is a small article being started up, then it's a Stub, not an article under construction.
 * Use of and signature templates: There was a large discussion about signature templates on central at w:Forum:Signature templates on central. As it was concluded on Wikipedia, using nosubst and transcluding signatures is a bad idea. That's why it was disabled in the very software itself. I'd like to prevent the wiki from starting this issue right away. There is no valid reason to need to transclude a signature. Signatures work perfectly fine when they are substed and do not harm the wiki like transcluding does to the servers. (You're free to list out what reasons you can think of, and I'll tell you what issues were brought up) There's nothing wrong with using a user subpage to make it easier to edit and customize per wiki. As long as that is substed into the page, not transcluded. It's not a hard switch to make, and it's what the software is supposed to be using.
 * The Voting Booth: Sure putting together input and working together is a good thing. But everything does not need to be voted on, in fact for even a fairly active wiki not a lot of votes need to be made. We do not need a forum dedicated entirely to voting and it actually goes against the recommendations of Don't vote on everything. Things like RfA's, votings, and big policies are not needed until a wiki gets developed and has a community that needs those. But in the case of votes, there is never a formal voting area. We discuss issues inside the Watercooler and if there is disagreement we may chose to use a vote to attempt to grasp peoples opinions.
 * The Stub template also has some issues: A stub notice doesn't need big noticeability. The definition of a stub is a small article, and when an article is that small even a little stub notice can be noticed by a person, so it has no need for big bold or ugly formatting. Furthermore the current format wraps to much, is more noticeable than the actual content. That distracts from the content that actually is there and makes the article worse off and less likely for people to want to touch. (Yes, people stray away from ugly articles because they look hard to edit).
 * The under construction template is there to let users know that the article isn't accurate or needs work, and that people are working on it. 22:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As for the voting booth, I understand that not everything needs to be voted on. But things like this can be different depending on the wiki. The wiki me and Atlandy edit, the RuneScape Wiki, has lots of voting. You're right, we might not need it on this wiki, all of that can go in the watercooler. 22:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Although you are right about the stub template, the normal text can blend in sometimes, that's why it's a good idea to do it this way, but they both give the same message and you can change the template back to its origional form if you want. 23:01, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, voting booth is gone. I'll change the stub template when I get a bit of the base stuff I need done. But an article always needs work and part of the definition of a wiki is that anyone can edit it and that articles may not be accurate. Just looking at an article already tells you that it needs work. All stubs are under construction, and all under construction articles are stubs. So when we have a stub template there is no need for a under construction definition.
 * But about the signature templates. Can we deal with those before they become an issue. If we don't subst them now, there may be to many to subst in the future. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen -local (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk&#124;local) Nov 7, 2007 @ 16:33 (UTC)