Forum:Editor moved all help pages

Note: This topic has been unedited for 5037 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over. Information in this thread may be out of date. Do not add to unless it really needs a response.

An editor redirected 233 of the help pages (the majority of the site) to Help:Contents,[1] then protected the pages,[2] making the help wikia empty.

This editor has been messaged and has not yet responded, can someone with sufficient user rights please revert these damaging redirects?

A lot of editors, including myself depend on these help pages. Talk about frustrating!

Some on this editors talk page says it maybe a malfunctioning bot.

I am also contacting the wikia staff. Anno1404 03:46, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Hello Anno1404, I only see the Help:MediaWiki namespace page being cleared. The reason is, that the new layout (Oasis) will work differently, so customizing that namespace will be obsolete. — ochristi (t·c) 08:04, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the editor redirected then protected around 233 pages on that wikia, the entire wikia. Can someone please restore this until the oasis is put in place? Anno1404 14:02, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

It was User:Uberfuzzy, he's part of Wikia staff, so I doubt they will have someone undo it. ZamorakO_o (talk) 14:18, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

(ninja'd) He's on the staff. They don't want you to use Monaco anymore, and are therefore fucking the bejeezus out of the help pages. Sorry, man. It's the new wikia. Just leave like the rest of us. Karate Jesus 14:19, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

"Like the rest of us", I have no intention of leaving... .d= ZamorakO_o (talk) 14:21, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me. I meant like the rest of the sane people who actually carry site-traffic (so other sites actually want us) and don't want to deal with wikia anymore. Mah bad. Karate Jesus 14:22, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

And once you leave, the site you left here will continue to live on, and over power the new site your on in search rankings. ZamorakO_o (talk) 14:23, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Except that the majority of our content was not released under license and is (in fact) a violation of copyright laws if our domain is no longer an official fansite, which it won't be. So....yeah. Karate Jesus 14:27, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Response

Hi all. Sorry for any inconveniences this causes. Right now we’re working on updating Wikia Help for the new look, so we’ve removed and may still be removing some Monaco-specific pages, but also reworking the wiki a bit too. For example, we’re looking to trim down or remove excessive pages, like things that should be on MediaWiki site’s rather than Wikia Help and pages for unsupported or removed feature on Wikia. The pages that were deleted probably won’t come back unless further review shows that users still need them. The redirects are temporary, though; we’re working to get as many pages as possible that are new look-specific done by Wednesday. It shouldn’t take too long to get the whole wiki back up and running. Again, sorry for any inconvenience this causes. - Brandon Rhea^(talk) 16:57, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Wikia, you are very helpful. Who woke up and said "I know, lets piss users off even more by removing the help pages! That will be a great help." ☆The Solar Dragon☆ 18:24, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

I guess thats where its confusing, you want to change the skin? Fine. Dont see why you have to break everything before you fix it, at least the help pages can help for the next two weeks, the endless redirects help nothing. Outside of this forum, it makes this wiki useless for no reason. Yami Michael 03:22, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

Mr. Rhea:

1. WHY DIDN'T you give people notice BEFORE redirecting these pages?
2. Why did the wikia staff unilaterally decide to redirect these help pages OVER A MONTH before the change?

What are editors supposed to do for one month if they would like to read these help pages? Since these pages are now redirected (buried) they will no longer show up in searches.

The incredibly unprofessional and disrespectful way all of these pages were redirected, is one example of many of why people are so infuriated. We spend hundreds of hours building our sites, including the help wikia (I have 272 edits), and an editor comes along and wipes it out in a few minutes.

When you write "we will decide" Mr. Rhea, you do not mean the users who contribute most of this sites content will decide, you mean the "wikia staff". Your little group continues to push unpopular changes on the community as a whole in complete disregard to our contributions. Anno1404 17:45, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

First, please call me Brandon. Mr. Rhea is my father. =P More to the point, I'll answer your questions as best as I can. Remember that I'm a Helper, not Wikia Staff, so there's only so much I know to answer here. To address your first point, I can ask the Staff, since that's one I don't know the answer to right now. To address your second point, it wasn't a month before the change. Disabling Monaco completely is a month from now, but tomorrow is a big rollout date too, as Sannse's time table addresses. All newly created wikis created tomorrow and afterward will have the new look as their default, as well all Lifestyle wikis. Users will also be able to start opting-in to the new look should they wish to. Because of that, most of the new help pages will be up tomorrow.

Of course your contributions to the help wiki are appreciated. If you want to believe otherwise, more power to you—but that doesn't make it so. Regardless of what you think of the new look, you know it's happening and therefore should know that Wikia Help has to be updated to go along with that. Pages that aren't just new-look specific are really just being tweaked and streamlined (easier to follow step-by-step directions), so it's not like your contributions will be gone. Other redirected ones will also be rewritten because they're either a) no longer relevant to the new look, or b) because they need to be updated, streamlined, clarified, simplified, etc.

Also keep in mind that even though we're updating these, it's not like they're suddenly off-limits to editors. You will of course be able to continue working on Wikia Help if you want to in order to update, improve, fix, clarify, simply, etc. what's put up beginning tomorrow, as well as the pages that haven't been redirected.

Could it have been handled differently/better? Sure, anything that's anything in any situation anywhere can be handled better, but right now it is what it is, so your thoughts here are good if anything like this is to happen in the future. However, like I said, I may work with the community team, but I am just a Helper, and I'm taking the time to answer these questions for you to the best of my ability—which means there's only so much I know about. - Brandon Rhea^(talk) 21:32, October 5, 2010 (UTC)