So for about three months on a sunny day in May I created this Survey to get some greater input about the Wiki's current state and what you guys (all but one who answered the survey who specified their gender) think and as an Administrator for this Wiki I thought that I would address some of the points you've brought up to the table.
Visual Aspect
The first question here gave you the opportunity to report issues or give feedback to things that could be changed. The vast majority seemed happy about how this Wiki looks visually but there were some questions under this question that I think was worth bringing up. Where as these are only two questions, don't worry, we're only getting started :|
- Is it possible to replace the Other Wiki's section at the Main page with something like Hot pages instead?
Anything is possible of course but there is a level of difficulty and implementing a feature like this is not easy because of limitations to what can be added to pages excluding articles. This features does exist though already when you search for pages by using Special:Search as a module on the right side of the page where the module lists the seven current hottest pages. This I believes it auto-updated every 24 hours or so at 00.00 UTC, not sure though.
- Loading images takes too long
This unfortunately isn't something that can be much done about it. Wikia has previously tried to solve this issue by lazy loading which means that any images that appears below in an article or page will not render until the user has scrolled down to the page where these images are featured.
- Less ads
It's Wikia (or Google Adsense) who are in charge with ads which means that I am in under no circumstances to modify the amount of ads shown here or change their dimensions as it's a clear violation of Wikia's customization policy so nopes. Ads will remain the same as they've always been but you know, there's that thing that many people are using nowadays anyway >.>
How's the Real Racing 3 Wiki evolving
There were 182 valid answers in the poll. The vast majority in the thread when excluding the people who had no opinion on the evolution of this Wiki were happy and satisfied.
- 65,38% were feeling satisfied [119 opinions - 89,47% of all opinions]
- 7,69% were feeling unsatisfied [14 opinions - 10,53% of all opinions]
- 26,93% had no opinion about this topic [49]
Here are another round of complaints lifted up:
- Text instead of images (towards the R/events template)
I think I have brought this up at an earlier occasion but I'll do it again. The reason for why there Images instead of Text is because it's more efficient when it comes to saving space and look good at the same time. Longer words such as Endurance or Elimination whilst shorter words such as Cup and Hunter can ruin the a e s t h e t i c flow the Template and this is why Images were chosen instead because they all feature the same dimensions.
- There should be a better way of splitting up upgrades (towards the R/upgrades template)
Where as I want this too, this would eventually completely ruin the template when it's being sorted as the row indicators would be all looking like a mess. So either we could agree on disabling the sorting functions for this Template or just let it be :/
- There should be notes about when cars and circuits were released
It's a good point to begin with and is something I have prepared for my second batch of editing on car articles once this never ending seemingly batch one has ended. Still just at Ferrari. Speaking of Ferrari though, I did kinda do this at the Ferrari F14 T page so if anyone wants to cope my example you are free to do so.
- There should be more relevant content to the Main page
Agreed but it cannot be too much either as it would be ugly just to have it cluttered with links. I will start to work on the Main page soon and I do have some ideas on how to improve it, but for now hold your breath.
- The rewards for tier progression bonuses should be listed
I agree on this too and what I think should also be added apart from this is how many cups/trophies would be needed to unlock this certain tier and/or how much it would cost to skip it. A vertical table showcasing this may be good but what do you all think?
Relevancy
Poll results - 188 valid answers
- Yes, everything I need is here whenever I need it [80 - 42,56%]
- Yes, I usually find the things I need but occasionally I may miss something [84 - 44,68%]
- It's somewhat fine, I usually find what I need but is often missing [17 - 9,04%]
- No, there is some information that's useful but most of the time I don't find what I need [2 - 1,06%]
- No, I can't find what I need! [5 - 2,66%]
Feedback
By having an overlook I can see that we already have the main content covered which means new things may wait for now. What's left for us now would be to polish the articles so that they follow some kind of format and features information of high-quality and not things that may seem as redundant/repetitive/excessive to the article.
From reading some of the comments I can tell that there are a good bunch of you out there that would like to have a sitemap/index and I know that this has been wished by others within the community prior to the survey. How do you want it to be formed though? This is something you can leave in the comments.
Comments & Community
Comments
In the Survey I asked whether you would support a removal of the article comments and most of the people who answered the survey don't actually really care but there were more nay-sayers than yes-sayers.
Now the reason for why I asked is because of the huge amount of comments that users are dropping by day to day to have their questions or concerned answered just completely clutters up the search for bad comments completely that it's almost impossible to keep track of what's going on. Having forums dedicated for this would eventually make so that we had everything in one place but at the same time this may scare away users who are unfamiliar with how these forums work and that's something that I would not want to see happening. But the good news are that I do have one solution to this that I'll be unveiling soon (and don't worry, I'm not removing anything, rather the reverse to be honest)
Community
Most people are happy with each other in here which means that we have a healthy community but there are some complaints.
First there's the bashing of Firemonkeys Studios and sure I'll give you that, they make crazy stupid unexplainable shit sometimes but personally I think the tone should calm down a little bit about them. After all they are the ones making your game eh?
Then there's the second thing that I'm surprised to see that I'm not alone about are that is the comments sections are becoming more like a place to ventilate your anger or frustration with certain things. Quite frankly, yes there are things in this game that is annoying to everyone, think you're alone about it? Not at all but you're the one making the loudest noise about it right now and it's pretty much annoying to many so my question is should we be doing something about these kind of comments? Because let's be honest, it doesn't really contribute to anything and just loops into a circlejerk about how FM and Devs suck and even if official FM-Devs would be reading your comments they wouldn't be able to address them either as we are not an official partnered EA-site. So wat2do here?
Any extra features to add?
- A list of compatible devices
I guess this is more for the Android peeps than Apple but is it really needed? Afaik there's a page on Firemonkeys website for it?
- Leaks?
Honestly, not really a good idea because EA serves the right to shut down any sites that features unreleased content or information that has been given out without any authorization. So I think it'd be really better not to do this. I remember I was on a close thin line with another Wikiproject before so they could very well do it here.
- Limited edition cars
Taken straight out of the survey. Although I do think it'd be a good idea to feature a further explanation to what's so special about LTDEDTN cars.
- A guide for 3rd person writing
Wouldn't be too bad, and let me remind everyone that Wiki articles are usually written in third person. You is the new fuckword around here, it's forbidden :o
- Moar dickbutts
I agree Sorry if you thought I was slacking in the end but it's getting really late around here, Ask questions right away and I'll get back to you later at some point this Thursday [UTC]