Pyrrhian Newsletter - August 2016

I have a bunch of ground to cover, so I think I may start to do some threads in a highlighted newsletter style.

Should we use Helibot?

Heliosanctus-bot is an alt account that I created to assist with the category cleanup. He uses java scripts to clean up categories on a mass scale, and can categorize or decategorize 4 pages per second.

When his test-run with the category cleanup was over, I retired Helibot to wait for community approval to make him an official bot.

He would be used solely as an edit bot. He would not join chat nor would he log or moderate it in any way. He would be permitted to remove broken links, recategorize pages, and remove page redirects on a massive scale. Any further use of Helibot would be discussed by the admins and the community would be fully notified.

If the community approves of Helibot, he would be officially flagged as a bot by Wikia Staff. His edits could be hidden from Wiki Activity.

Please place your vote on this poll whether or not you feel that Helibot should be flagged as a bot.

Wiki Makeover Contest

I would like to thank everyone who stuck with the Wiki Makeover Contest, from the palettes, to the submissions, to the final voting.

The winner of the Wiki Makeover contest is BoneTheSandwing for their color palette and Sandycheeksisawesome for her beautiful background image!

Why we use blogs for fanmade tribes

Our official statement on our rules page states the following:

With Wikia's new-ish thread cap, the Tribe Ideas thread has been discontinued. I would like to give some reasons why we make our fanmade tribes on blog pages.

• blog pages allow users to easily find their tribe pages. They can tab from their profile to their user blog
• blog pages support a better editor than thread posts
• the blog naming format: User_blog:username/tribename prevents tribe naming conflicts
• stores all of the fanmade tribes in a consistent fashion

The fanmade tribes should be made on blog posts. There is no recommended format, but the category Tribes (Unusable) should be added. The Blog posts category is automatic, and content categories are acceptable, but those are the only categories that should be added to the tribe pages.

Promotions and Demotions

Last month, we announced our new demotion system.

As part of its implementation, users were demoted from the user listing to match our official listing.

We have also had our first demotion, and Atomicake is no longer a chatmod.

Resa the Stormtrooper has asked to step down as an admin, as a result of her leave of abcense.

Spyro the Bedeviled Dragon has stepped down as a chat moderator.

Congratulations to Luster the rainwing, our new admin! Her promotion thread has passed with flying colors.

On the Promotions & Demotions Board:

• Commander Firefly is pending a demotion thread
• BermudatheSeaWing is pending a promotion thread for discussion moderator

Changes to the Rules

Our Chat Guidelines are soon expecting to recieve an update. Hopefully we will be able to make them a clearer and more useful reference.

A section we will be adding, however, is a list of chat topics to avoid. These are topics that have been known to lead to tension. Please keep conversation on these subjects to Private Messages:

• Politics
• Religion
• Depression
• Gender/Sexuality
• Controverisal Issues
• Mental Illnesses
• Hate on Users
• Drugs/Alcohol

There has also been a lot of talk about our Rules page being too bulky. Users reported that they feel like there are too many rules and that the page should be shortened. A rule revamp is in order. If you have any feedback, feel free to comment below.

Wiki Wide Survey

If you have not commented already, please comment on our Wiki-Wide Survey. The responses from this survey should help to improve the wiki by showing the administrative team where to focus and getting it in touch with the user base.