Mass Effect Wiki

Welcome to the Mass Effect Wiki. Log in and join the community!


READ MORE

Mass Effect Wiki
Mass Effect Wiki

So I was digging out my watchlist and talk recently, and reminescing on my misspent youth all those years ago editing guides and stuff around here. When I came across this discussion where it was noted Temporaryeditor78 fell afoul of recent policy changes.

It's not really my place to comment on the thread directly, I'm really but an outside observer and I'm not looking to make a stir, but I thought it was worth writing some notes about, because it has to be said, TE did a lot of work over the years. Nearly 30k edits is nothing to sniff at. He made large contributions to the consistency of the wiki and the upholding of a consistent MOS, which is something of a rarity in wikispace these days. The fact that he was still consistently editing while I took something of a 5 year hiatus (from 2016 when I finally did a full playthrough) speaks volumes for his dedication.

That being said... yeah, as he admits himself in that thread, while he is and was knowledgeable, also not always great to interact with; and I'd probably fall into the "worked with people i disagree with" category of editors he mentions. It's kind of overdue that something was done to give new users some space to spring up rather than getting squashed down face-first into the MEWiki Manual of Style (MOS) like some sort of hazing ritual, which I personally felt restricted user growth a little more than I was comfortable with, but I'm not entirely sure what those actions are. Probably dumping links to the MOS around the editing window and in those dinky little notification/alerts that seemed to pop up all the time (at least before the switch to UCP).

And as mentioned, it's tough to grow the editor base while retaining quality. One thing I have appreciated about the wiki is its consistent structure, and while it's not without cracks and creaks, it's held up really well over the years. While obviously the larger ME community is large and growing, especially with Legendary edition (or MELE if that's what the cool kids are going with?), it's hard to tell who's out there and willing to contribute to the wiki in a constructive and quality way. As TE mentioned elsewhere on his talk, editors are "building a wiki to be presentable" and it's not like game skill directly correlates with that. My hope is that we can somehow find the cream of the crop in the new LE players and convert them to be contributing editors as they learn more about the series. Anyway, hopefully that sums up some of my thoughts about the state of the wiki and its situation -- and maybe it'll make sense for other people trying to get a grip on things around here.