Notice how I never said it was. Unnecessary change is, I believe, what I was targeting.
Never said you did, but i've explained throughout this whole thread why it isnt 'unnecessary'. Its clearing clutter and adapting to change the wiki to a more professional format
What about it is inefficient in this instance? It isn't particularly efficient but I don't see how removing it is either.
Removing it in place of something thats useful is definitely efficient yeah. It removes the negative connotations associated to these labels
Also I would like to remind you that there is some small utility in marking differences between outright supporters, neutral people, and opponents. Each of these groups adding themselves to a verse page implies familiarity with the work in question. Neutral people can be called to threads to potentially settle disputes, opponents...well, yeah that one's a bit more debatable but as far as I'm concerned being aware of people that could potentially act as naysayers is good.
This is not clear in the slightest i'm afraid, a ton of people (like myself in the past) had used it for merely personal feelings. No one calls neutral parties to settle disputes since mods exist, but i'm not sure how effective it is that people can call themselves 'neutral and unbiased' on their own. It just doesn't work effectively, and this can be easily done under blanket term as 'Knowledgable members'. You lose nothing,
Now is this a great amount of utility? Not at all, there are at best very situational uses for the system. But even so I regard this very small benefit as being of greater weight than the work of getting rid of entire verse section.
What uses that cant be under 'Knowledgeable Members'? If people are putting themselves under these three labels, they're effectively deciding how they want to be portrayed in it. And because its super unclear to the casual traffic of the wiki, it causes a ton of confusion. This doesnt have to be the single greatest change in the history of VSBW just to be considered and applied.
Also this brings me to:
There's literally nothing stopping you from just inputting the Knowledgeable Members list there as well. You don't have to axe one to keep the other.
Its pretty obvious why
1. It makes the verse pages unnecessarily long. Froth is not effective, we want pages as streamlined as possible.
2. It's keeping personal information (as perceived by most) on public pages. As fun as it is (Theres literally a whole Joke battles wiki thats been made to separate this from the VSBW), its not something that has a place in a wiki like this
3. It would literally just be a repeat of listed names to the Knowledgable Members list. Who is gonna call themself a 'supporter/opponent/neutral' but not also not consider themself a knowledgable member?
4. If we do that, we're reciprocating that these sections are infact used for how personal feelings towards a verse are played, which wasn't the original intention of the section, and also shouldn't be a factor if we promote fair and unbiased discussion of a verse.
Again, we have user profiles that stores all the info about users. You can still put your name on a verse page you 'support' or even 'oppose', but you're not going by these negative, misinterpreted labels that are only ever used to create heated discussion, and just letting people know you are 'knowledgable' and that they can approach you without any worry you're gonna be overly supportive or overly opposed. This wouldn't be the case for staff members since you're all knowledgable with the site, but the overwhelming majority of visitors and regular members on the wiki completely oevrshadows that, and this change as agreed upon in this thread, makes it far more user-friendly