[Mobius]

My main beef is that it doesn't seem to be covered by the Veteran Comments policy. However, that policy might be dated considering it was put into place 12 years ago under an administration that got nuked a few days ago. Does that require an update, and if so, what should be added to/removed from it? There's also the option of deleting the policy altogether, but that would run the risk of the VC sections (slowly) going back to what they used to be before the policy was implemented.

Is there a "better" way to place the mixalot, like a random quote at the top of the page, or is it intentional to hide it within the other VCs? Would it be even better if it was placed as an image tooltip, like what I've done to the banner on this article, or would that be missing the joke entirely (not to mention that virtually no one using a touchscreen will ever see it)?

Policies on Veteran Comments should be pretty much the same regardless of the administrators who enforce them.

And just my two cents, even though the edit which has been proposed in this thread points to a joke which is easy to understand for the "broader public", I'd rather not fill the Wiki with jokes and funny references to stuff which can't be understood by those who don't live in countries other than the USA, UK, Australia, etc. This is an international community with players living literally all over the world except for Antarctica, so I'd still favor a form of "international English". Too many funny quotes and references to stuff such as TV shows, which by definition aren't as "international" as the English language itself, may make someone feel estranged from the environment.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Policies on Veteran Comments should be pretty much the same regardless of the administrators who enforce them.

Correct, but it's not up to us, the regular users, to enforce those policies. We can follow them to the best of our ability, but we have no authority to force it on other people, even if they don't really care for it, and it's us, not the administrators, who make up the bulk of contributions to the Wiki.

If a policy cannot be consistently enforced, or will not be enforced, then it fails as a policy regardless of the reason, and it should probably be changed or removed to adapt to the shortcoming.

[Mobius]

You're right, but it's tied to the second point I made in my previous post. If a Veteran Comment ended up like this:

GTVA Colossus

<insert funny reference to Saturday Night Live, written by an American player>

<insert funny quote from a BBC Two comedy actor, written by a British player>

<insert quote from Fox Comedy, written by an Australian player>

It'd derail quite a lot from the "International English" environment a community such as HLP should maintain. The "previous" policy, which is still valid, at least somehow prevented this from happening and required all VCs to be rather professional.

[TopAce]

I merged the two comments together so they both can be there at the same time. Battuta's edit comment (explaining the reference) was added into parenthesis and with a smaller font.

Can we lay this to rest finally? If this launches an avalanche of silly commentary and unknown references to the non-English-native readership, we can restart this debate. We can add "You can add literary references to your commentary as long as you add the reference and provide a proper explaination why it is relevant to the Veteran Comments section" to the policy if that helps. Does this sound good to you guys?

(By the way, I didn't get this reference until I saw Battuta's edit comment)

[Mobius]

For the record, I addressed the issue for the genuine reasons stated above. It has absolutely nothing to do with the previous admins, really.

[Phantom Hoover]

HLP has far too much Policy for the size and activity of the community. We’d be fine with just informal social consensus on issues like ‘is the pun situation in veteran comments out of hand’ but people for some reason think it needs to be resolved with legislation and moderator jurisprudence.

[Mobius]

It would be a matter of common sense under regular circumstances, and no rules would be required; this is an international community, therefore its "official" content has to take this into account.

[TopAce]

PH: You may be right in regards to the Wiki. You even have to request an account from an admin if you want to edit, which surely keeps well-meaning editors from editing. It's a shame, but if you remember the trouble we've had with bots spamming all across the Wiki recently, you understand why it's needed. As for HLP in general, including General and Political Discussion, I'm not sure, but it's not my area, so you need to ask someone else.

It doesn't hurt to have written rules as long as editors remember they are not set in stone, and some exceptions are permitted. Of course, it leaves room for subjectivity, but it's ultimately better than religiosly following the rules and reverting otherwise useful commentary because it's not 100% in line with them.

[EDIT]Also, we don't have guidelines for writing campaign/walkthrough/fiction articles, because the has not been a reason for them, so it's good. The Vet Comment policy is a different matter. Personal anecdote: I had to re-read the policy to understand why my "The Anubis is the TIE Fighter of FreeSpace"-kind of comment had to be edited out, so it's helpful for have it.

Mobius: I tried to address that, hence the suggestion to require people add references if they think their additions are not understandable for everyone.

[Mito [PL]]

As a citizen of Eastern Europe, up until yesterday when this topic was addressed, my reaction was something in between "I don't understand what that means and it isn't important in any way for me to care" and "oh, so I guess someone made a pun I here, that's fine". When I learned what's the pun about, I snickered for the shortest of moments and moved along with my life and Freespace related activities. Is it too hard to do the same?

If you're arguing that having a singular pun hidden at the end of the notably misleading and opinionated section is bringing some sort of harm to the community as a whole, I would respond with arguing that yet another trashcan fire topic taking place in a very delicate time for the community is harming the community even more, vastly more. Just let Batutta have his fun!

That said, if such activities have noticeably gotten out of control, I think it'd be a reason for immediate moderating action. But due to the fact that this pun was there for really long and no such thing happened, I think it's reasonable to assume that it won't cause any problems in the future.

[Nyctaeus]

I understand **** about it, but I guess it's a way for some people to vent. Okay, let is stay for a week or two, as some lelz newer hurt a man, but plz remove it after a while. Wiki is not proper environment for this kind of content.

[Phantom Hoover]

The ritual edit war over that line is the real treasure of HLP culture so i strongly support you editing it out, and then battuta’s next edit to put it back, et cetera

[Mobius]

No offense to anyone but I think the understandability of a Veteran Comment to all humans with a basic knowledge of English and FreeSpace lore should take precedence over the will to inject some funny quote most people will not understand.

Please note that we're talking about the Veteran Comments, only - people who want to say something funny about any given ship have plenty of room for that in other scenarios. Campaigns, Discord channels, forum posts, and so on are all circumstances where funny comments may be acceptable. Nobody is asking for a total ban on "fun".

[TopAce]

The ritual edit war over that line is the real treasure of HLP culture so i strongly support you editing it out, and then battuta’s next edit to put it back, et cetera

I hope you're being sarcastic.

[Mobius]

I'm afraid he's not. 

[TopAce]

No offense to anyone but I think the understandability of a Veteran Comment to all humans with a basic knowledge of English and FreeSpace lore should take precedence over the will to inject some funny quote most people will not understand.

That's why I added the explanation to the reference.

Nobody is asking for a total ban on "fun".

Did anyone suggest this?

[Mobius]

Nobody is asking for a total ban on "fun".

Did anyone suggest this?

Well, if you take a look at some of the posts written on this thread, it seems that asking for VCs to be professional and subject to well-defined policies may be considered the "equivalent" of a censorship on fun.

[The E]

This is a wiki about a game. A niche game at that.

Let me ask you a question, Mobius: What makes you think that Veteran Comments are vital sources of information that must be kept factual and wiki-neutral?

[TopAce]

Mobius: I think we misunderstand each other. Since you added that sentence after arguing that Discord/the forum are better places for that, I assumed you wanted to make it clear you don't want censorship on "ban on fun" there.

[Mobius]

Let me ask you a question, Mobius: What makes you think that Veteran Comments are vital sources of information that must be kept factual and wiki-neutral?

I do read Veteran Comments on ships I'm not familiar with, and that definition includes many user-made ships which got released in the past few years. I rely on these comments to find out about each ship's peculiarities, mostly because there's stuff like blind spots and reported collision issues which can't be determined by simply reading table entries.

[The E]

okay, now, next question: What harm does it do when, amid this information (which is often specific to a ship's appearance in a single mod), there is an occasional joke that you don't get?