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Suggestions for improvements (New forum)

FinePoint said:
Under the What's New tab, the What's new option and New posts display basically the same thing: the thread with the most recent reply.
Why not make the latter display threads in the order they were posted? I've complained in the past that this format prioritizes bloated threads over new ones, this might be an elegant solution over having to set my own filters every time.
Click to expand...
The latter ("New posts") option displays the threads in a far more extensive and easily overviewed manner, so I definitely don't want to get rid of it. However, an extra "New threads" page that lists threads in the order that they were posted seems like a good idea. I am not sure if our system manager would be able to design it though.
 
Antvasima said:
I think that we use the initial level of small size mostly as a gauge from relatively small animals, and that it would risk to offend lots of people if we use real world dwarfism as the lead definition.
Click to expand...
Okay, that's indeed something to consider.
 
Antvasima said:
I think that we use the initial level of small size mostly as a gauge from relatively small animals, and that it would risk to offend lots of people if we use real world dwarfism as the lead definition.
Click to expand...
That sounds reasonable I guess, but aren't profiles about real people prohibited from the VS Battles wiki? I mean, we're not going around making pages pertaining to the powers, abilities, and weaknesses of real-life celebrities struggling with dwarfism, and the term for such a condition already exists for Type 0 Small Size, anyway. I'm also pretty sure there are people out there with dwarfism who don't mind reading different forms of media that contain characters with the defect, either.
 
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The point is that we would still use the real world definition for our wiki, and that seems rather tactless.
 
Isn't it a bad policy in general to not include something just because people can find it offensive?
I still miss those greek myths profiles.
 
Then what if we based the type upon the shortest human history? We already have info on the world's tallest human for the Large Size page, so why not add info on the world's shortest human to the Small Size page? We can make it something like this:

Type 0 (Dwarf): Characters far smaller than an ordinary human. No larger than 1 meter tall; the size for this level ends at 54.64 centimeters, based on the shortest known human in history.

Or like this:

Type 1 (Small Animal Sized) Characters the size of small animals. The size for this level begins at 54.64 centimeters, based on the shortest known human in history.
 
I do not know. A change in this area does not seem to bring any benefit, along with potential controversy.

What do you think @AKM sama and @Promestein ?
 
I'd like to suggest a change of description of the Staff Discussion subforum

From:

"Discussions regarding important wiki projects, and policy or explanation page revisions. Board activity is allowed for VS Battles wiki staff members only."

To:

"Discussions regarding important wiki projects, policy or explanation page revisions and controversial revisions. Board activity is allowed for VS Battles wiki staff members only. and well trusted members unless stated otherwise. Derail is heavily discouraged."

That way it displays the purpose of the board in a more complete manner, we are all aware of how even to this day that board is used to host controversial CRTs at times to this day, and I've also noticed that trusted members like me have been able to contribute to some of the threads in such subforum so long it's done in a productive manner and don't derail, speaking of which, derailing is heavily discouraged here as it's shut down quickly compared to other subforums, which is understandable and all, but I also think it'd be nice to point out to discourage that further and ensure more productivity is done overall.

I'm also open to changes in wording of course.
 
I just updated the then very outdated text for that forum a few days ago.

Anyway, I am not sure about the "well trusted members unless stated otherwise" part, as it seems too ambiguous, but except for that your suggestion seems mostly fine.

Here is a cleaned up version:

"Discussions regarding important wiki projects, policy or explanation page revisions and controversial revisions. Board activity is allowed for VS Battles wiki staff and highly trusted members only, unless stated otherwise. Derailing is heavily discouraged."
 
Well, it's meant to be ambiguous as even newcomers are allowed so long they don't do undesirable "contributions" to the subforum, such as posting a new thread not fit at all for this subforum, one-liner posts that hardly contribute at all (And a FRA is even a no here as only staff agreement is considered normally), among others.

Perhaps we could just clarify that after the main wording like:

"Discussions regarding important wiki projects, policy or explanation page revisions and controversial revisions. Board activity is allowed for VS Battles wiki staff and highly trusted members only, unless stated otherwise. Derailing is heavily discouraged. An highly trusted member for these purposes is considered a non-staff user that is aware of the allowed kind of contributions on their part for this subforum, and can indeed contribute on their own part"

It may be too restrictive with the current wording, but this is just a rough idea to work on further, maybe we could also add "if in doubt, ask an staff member".
 
It is too long for a forum description text. My apologies.
 
Antvasima said:
I just updated the then very outdated text for that forum a few days ago.

Anyway, I am not sure about the "well trusted members unless stated otherwise" part, as it seems too ambiguous, but except for that your suggestion seems mostly fine.

Here is a cleaned up version:

"Discussions regarding important wiki projects, policy or explanation page revisions and controversial revisions. Board activity is allowed for VS Battles wiki staff and highly trusted members only, unless stated otherwise. Derailing is heavily discouraged."
Click to expand...
@AKM sama @Promestein @DontTalkDT @Mr._Bambu @Damage3245 @DarkDragonMedeus

What do you think about this?
 
Thank you for the replies.
 
I'm fine with going with a less defined but shorter description, after all, I did also mention that was just an alternative if that was desired, and leaving it vague on that regard is also fine for our purposes as it doesn't necessarily restricts any member from contributing.
 
Providing an option between a 24 hour clock and a 12 hour clock seems like a good suggestion, I agree with this if it isn't too hard to implement.

18:00 would probably be formatted at 6:00 PM, right?
 
I think that you can already change to a 12 hour clock in your personal user settings, but this is a global forum, so we cannot use it as the default standard.
 
Bobsican said:
I'm fine with going with a less defined but shorter description, after all, I did also mention that was just an alternative if that was desired, and leaving it vague on that regard is also fine for our purposes as it doesn't necessarily restricts any member from contributing.
Click to expand...
Okay. I updated the text.

Btw: Should we update the description text for our VSB Wiki Management forum as well? It seems outdated.
 
Antvasima said:
I think that you can already change to a 12 hour clock in your personal user settings, but this is a global forum, so we cannot use it as the default standard.
Click to expand...
Where is this setting? I cannot find it.
I don't think anyone was suggesting making it the default, 24-hour is far more common.
 
CreatorJoe said:
Type 0 (Dwarf): Characters far smaller than an ordinary human. The size for this level begins at 1.47 meters tall.
Click to expand...
CreatorJoe said:
Type 1 (Small Animal Sized) Characters the size of small animals. The size for this level begins at 54.64 centimeters, based on the shortest known human in history.
Click to expand...
I still would like to propose these additions and/or revisions, but if any or everybody is against this, I have no problem with that. So, who else would like to give their thoughts on this?
 
Well, after checking the Small Size page, it seems very similar to our current standards, so it is probably fine, but I think that the word "dwarf" is considered a mild slur nowadays, so we should probably change the title to "Little Person". I think that is the politically correct term nowadays.
 
I am uncertain. I have seen it mentioned that many extremely short people consider it a slur nowadays, likely due to being associated with the fantasy characters, and that they prefer "Little Person".

Is there somebody in this forum who is more familiar with what is and isn't politically correct nowadays?
 
I don't think that dwarf is a slur either. Otherwise the fictional depiction of literal dwarves might get offensive at this point as well though if people afflicted with dwarfism prefer being called little person, then I'm fine with that. "Little Person" doesn't strike me as a particularly good title though, it just doesn't sound right to me and I don't feel like as if it fits with the page. The Small Size page makes use of comparisons to small animals and bugs, and then it transitions to microscopic and references to particles until it arrives at lower dimensions. So, based on that, maybe we could rename it instead as Medium Animal Sized if we have to rename it? That's just a suggestion though.
 
Medium animal sized might work, but then we would need to base it on the size of some type of animal instead.
 
Antvasima said:
Medium animal sized might work, but then we would need to base it on the size of some type of animal instead.
Click to expand...
Well, technically Small Animal Sized and Bug-Sized begin at 50 centimeters and a few centimeters respectively without referencing any kind of animal or bug, so if Type 0 needs to have a specific example, Type 1 and 2 would technically be in need of that as well. I'd say that considering anything between 1 meter and 50 centimeters as medium sized for animals from our perspective works out well enough.
 
On second thought, I think that using small humans as a gauge seems more practical. I just don't want us to use what is considered a mild slur.
 
Antvasima said:
On second thought, I think that using small humans as a gauge seems more practical. I just don't want us to use what is considered a mild slur.
Click to expand...
So, the title is going to be Little Person and Medium Animal Sized is a mild slur?
 
Last edited:
No, the d-word is apparently a mild slur, but it still seems more practical to continue to use similar definitions to our current ones.
 
Thank you for being reasonable.
 
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