Talk: Build Deletion

General Discussion

This is a good start for a policy like this. The problem with the last "build wiki" was that it didn't have a standard for the quality of builds being submitted... which led to builds lacking an elite, or even a good attribute spread getting vetted. The problem with a policy like this is that this is very subjective in some cases where a voter may not understand why a particular build is inferior or better than other builds. IMO clearer guidelines needs to be made as to what is effective or not ie. a profession or even a job specific guideline as to what is effective or not. For example a Job subtype of a damage dealer fits in different categories such as pressure, spike, mixed etc, and a guideline should be setup as to determine if a build's Damage output is clearly inferior to other builds. But this is even subjective because just looking at the pure DPS won't tell the whole story. Is the DPS predictable or unpredictable? Is there a spike potentiol? Can it inflict debilitating conditions? Are the hexes effective for the role? etc etc. There are others for example in PvP, compare specific builds such as Flag runners, split builds, and builds designed only for the flag stand etc etc... Also for team builds something like this gets really complicated because it really depends on the people playing the team build, where a team maybe effective with one set of people, but a different set of people playing the same build may be ineffective or are better at playing a different build. Lania Elderfire 18:33, 23 April 2007 (CEST)

Yeah, there's a lot of things considered in whether a build is effective or not, and having written this around midnight, I didn't think of them all.

I'd love it if this talk page could be used to brainstorm ways to make this important policy clear, effective, and executable. Armond 19:40, 23 April 2007 (CEST)

Let me start by saying that I don't think any policy could ever hope to address all of the possible ways in which a build could possibly be inferior to another. What I think works so well about this policy is that we now have an actual standard (albeit incomplete) that we can cite. Furthermore, I think that this policy, is going to rely on Admins picking apart the merits of individual builds. On the other hand, they would be forced to do that anyway, this just gives us something more concrete. On the one hand, you might say that this is restricting because it doesn't make all of those minutiae things to be considered, but we can easily get around that be merely saying that the list is incomplete. As things come up, we can add new criteria, but I tend to like the intent of the policy. I would even go so far as to say that this alone would be reasonable as policy, just that we would have to be liberal in thinking about the intent of the policy as opposed to the actual wording which as I say, is never going to be all inclusive. At the very least, this adds some structure to an already overwhelmingly subjective process. And, I think we can solve a lot of the problems that Lania mentioned by simply creating a solid vetting system that is able to account for the subjective nature of a build wiki. *Defiant Elements* +talk 04:33, 24 April 2007 (CEST)

I agree with defiant that builds are subjective and its hard to define "better", but i thik this puts to much work on admins. I suggest changing "An admin will review the build in question as well as its talk page to see if it does indeed violate this policy. If it does, the build may be deleted immediately and without discussion." to "A vote will take place, or an admin will review the build in question as well as its talk page to see if it does indeed violate this policy. If it does, the build may be deleted immediately and without discussion.", and change "In this case, an admin will decide if the two builds are similar enough to be merged, if one is inferior to the other, or if the two are separate enough to be considered two different builds, and will take action accordingly." in the same way. i know this brings back voting, but it think merge votes always worked pretty well. admins are going to be VARY busy with the way the policy is now.--Coloneh 04:41, 24 April 2007 (CEST)

I would agree. I don't think it is so much that it puts too much of a burden on Admins, merely that Merge Votes and Deletion Votes, when they are decisive, usually point the Admin in the right direction. *Defiant Elements* +talk 04:52, 24 April 2007 (CEST)

I'll concur. I have bedstuffs soon, so if someone else has a moment, could they change it? And for the record, people on this wiki agree more often than my english class during a debate, and we get graded on the number of times we agree. Armond 07:12, 24 April 2007 (CEST)

I agree with the comments above. We don't want to put too much responsibility on the admin to determine if the build is inferior to another build, as this contradicts our other policy that states that admins administrate users, not content. I think the proposed changes above would be better, but ultimately Defiant is right that an improved vetting system should make this issue less of a problem than it has in the past. I do think there should be some less subjective situations where an admin does have the authority to delete or merge a build, such as "No elite skill included", or "almost exact skillbar as another build". As far as similarity to other builds, it might be useful to set a hard threshold for when a build is considered too similar to another build, for example 6 skills the same or greater. What do you guys think of something like that? Bottom line is, I don't mind admins making this decision in some cases, and the power to do so will be useful to keep the site clean. For example, we should have some power to do some of the things that Skuld did in the past, but with much more specific guidelines to prevent arguments or flame wars over subjective decisions. -- BrianG 01:13, 25 April 2007 (CEST)

I think even 5 similar skills excluding an elite is pushing it. A lot of times the change of the elite alone changes the whole build so it's hard to determine if something really is too similar or not. Ditto on the admins too. I trust the admins :-)Lania Elderfire 04:30, 25 April 2007 (CEST)

At a certain point, any policy like this will still rely on an Admin's good judgment. In my opinion, a debate over whether it should be 5 or 6 or whatever isn't really important to the policy itself. *Defiant Elements* +talk 04:33, 25 April 2007 (CEST)

Well, I'm just suggesting that it would make things easier for the admins if there were some more specific criteria to determine a build's similarity. Obviously if the elite is different it wouldn't count. Beyond that, I don't think it much matters whether its 5 or 6 similar skills, as long as we pick a number and use it as a guideline. Part of the problem with using votes to determine mergers, is that you end up with different standards applied to different builds, based on the opinion of the voters at the time. So you may have builds with 7 matching skills but the voters decide not to merge, and ones with only 4 matching skills and they vote to merge. Having some specific guidelines would help us have some consistency in how we deal with similar builds. -- BrianG 07:54, 25 April 2007 (CEST)

Templates

What's the view on having a few templates rather than just the delete one with a reason, those templates could add it to the delete or review categories, and allow people to mark this up as a possible dupe/to discuss on talk page, and provide a little more information about what's gonig on? --Nela 13:09, 3 June 2007 (CEST)

v2.0

Cleaned up some stuff, took out example, mentioned that we're not going to spend a whole page trying to define what makes a build superior or similar to another. -- Armond Warblade{{Bacon}} 19:16, 25 April 2007 (CEST)

Wait, if this is a proposed policy, how come it's being enforced? Rapta 21:20, 30 April 2007 (CEST)

...Mostly because I need coffee. Partially because I saw stuff on Talk:Main Page telling us to nuke such things. Though to be honest it has near-enough support to leave proposal stage. -- Armond Warblade{{Bacon}} 21:46, 30 April 2007 (CEST)

Non-admin enforcement?

Is it okay for anyone to start enforcing this yet? if so, could a non-admin help enforce it? ZamaneeJinn 02:22, 4 May 2007 (CEST)

Once it is an official policy, feel free to chuck delete tags all over the place on builds that violate this. Unfortunately, there aren't any votes either way on this yet. Will place a voting section below. -- Armond Warblade{{sysop}} 03:30, 4 May 2007 (CEST)

Voting

I support this policy and think it should be implemented. Please include at least one thing you like about it.

1. It's great that we'll be getting rid of horrible builds without having to vote on them first. There's no point to a wammo build that was submitted just to be horrible, and then having to go through the whole unfavoring thing and waiting for it to be unfavored for two weeks. -- Armond Warblade{{sysop}} 03:30, 4 May 2007 (CEST)
2. Definitely. *Defiant Elements* +talk 03:55, 4 May 2007 (CEST)
3. Misfate 03:57, 4 May 2007 (CEST)
4. YES!!ZamaneeJinn 04:02, 4 May 2007 (CEST)
5. 142.161.71.59 04:18, 4 May 2007 (CEST)This is an awesome idea, one help would be that similar builds(proffestion variations)should be allowed, i have a Me/N Spitefull spirt, its used to pump out the good anti melee hexs in 8 seconds(after cast included) its a spike. just drop a talk on this ip

   Yes, variations would of course be allowed. The thing is, we don't want bad variations sitting around all over the place, and we don't want the 1,001 variations of 55/105 monks sitting around. They could all be merged into one article to save space on categories and such. -- Armond Warblade{{sysop}} 20:04, 4 May 2007 (CEST)

6. --Thelordofblah 02:19, 6 May 2007 (CEST)
7. No favored/unfavored voting and just deleting the build would be great. --Mgrinshpon 14:46, 11 May 2007 (CEST)
8. This rules. And plus the fact that I patrol places constantly and slap these up left right and center. I get nothing but satisfaction when the admins do my bidding... I'm teh EMPARAR! ;) '~^\^^/~' Napalm Flame (talk)(contributions) 18:20, 22 May 2007 (CEST)

I do not support this policy and do not think it should be implemented. Please include a suggestion for improvement.

1. Opinionated. This is why we vote for builds. What if I disagree with the WELL tag and someone else doesn't? - Skakid9090 23:43, 3 June 2007 (CEST)

Minor Clarification as to Skakid9090's Comment

Sure, it's opinionated, but so is the vote. Besides, a WELL tag isn't a license to delete a build out of hand. If you disagree with the tag, you say so on the Talk Page so that when the build gets reviewed and the Admin sees that comment, it will give them pause. *Defiant Elements* +talk 23:52, 3 June 2007 (CEST)

So I vote on whether the build should be voted on or not? lawl. - Skakid9090 01:41, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

Official.

Nobody has dissented, and it's a needed policy to weed out the crap. It's official now. -Auron 03:52, 6 May 2007 (CEST)

I didn't notice the vote here but I'm in favor as well. I'll try to watch what gets flagged for deletion and review them. -- BrianG 06:26, 6 May 2007 (CEST)

Peace and Harmony builds ftw. Rapta 06:42, 6 May 2007 (CEST)

If I see a single PaH(thetic) build on this site I'm assuming it's one of your sockpuppets and banning you. :P -- Armond Warblade{{sysop}} 08:20, 6 May 2007 (CEST)

Now now, I vaguley remember Ttgr used to play with a PnH runner. - Krowman (talk • contribs) 08:23, 6 May 2007 (CEST)

Did it work well? -- Armond Warblade{{sysop}} 00:59, 7 May 2007 (CEST)

Yep. It was quite a piece of work, actually :) -138.86.163.139 01:03, 7 May 2007 (CEST)

But I do not see fire nor brimstone. -- Armond Warblade{{sysop}} 07:07, 7 May 2007 (CEST)

Kind of off-topic, but...

Do we use PW:... or PvX:... as our abbreviation here (re: PW:WELL, PvX:WELL)? - Krowman (talk • contribs) 03:21, 15 May 2007 (CEST)

I am not sure that there has actually been an "official" decision... we use PvXwiki at the front of articles, so if you are redirecting, you might want to make both, but just PW should be fine. *Defiant Elements* +talk 04:10, 15 May 2007 (CEST)

A hold on the deleting.

Since we don't have a vetting policy working, I propose we not delete any but the worst builds until further notice. This is to prevent any builds that might make the cut as "good" from being deleted prematurely. Delete tags can still be placed, and discussion can still be held, but I don't want to see builds deleted that shouldn't be deleted. -Auron 04:16, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

Rodger, note taken Shireensysop 04:31, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

Same here. (i noticed armond and shireen have sysop in their sig, am i supposed to?) ‽-(єronħ) no u 04:33, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

Look what I started ^_^ - Skakid9090 04:40, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

I second this proposal. Eronth, you can if you want to, it's just admin visibility. -- Armond Warblade{{sysop}} 05:00, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

Yeah, for the time being, I am fine with this. *Defiant Elements* +talk 05:37, 4 June 2007 (CEST)

Immediate Deletion

"if a build is shown to be inferior to another build, it may be tagged for immediate deletion due
to violation of this policy."

I'm not sure if this was brought up in another section or in one of the archives but I couldn't find it. This states that when a build considered inferior to another then its up to any admin to choose if to delete. This admin may use opinionated reasons to delete the build which may not be the right reasons or incorrect ones. There fore I propose a new template should be put on suspected inferior builds. This template would act much like the abandoned tag on guildwiki where it would give a short time period to give any users a chance to defend it. If viable support is made then it would be kept and vetted on after the time period, this would have to be decided by a uninvolved third party admin of course. I have seen a couple cases before the stop on deletions and still a few after, where a tag is added to a build and a admin later deletes immediately. This is not fair because it doesn't give the author(s) the chance to defend there build and say why it should not be deleted before it is deleted right away by admins patrolling the candidates for deletion section. If a separate tag were made it would be able to put them in there own category and therefore get the attention needed to.--Aliri 18:34, 7 June 2007 (CEST)

Well, speaking for myself (and I know others do this as well), only in the most extreme cases do builds actually get deleted. Some builds are simply bad, those can be deleted quickly. However, I know that what a lot of Admins will do is wait for some comment by the author, or, at least wait to see if there is some reaction from the community. Furthermore, regardless of the tag, the decision still comes to the Admin. Honestly though, I doubt a new tag would make a difference since Admins would patrol that section the exact same way as they do Candidates For Deletion. Besides, if an Author feels that a build has been deleted prematurely, he/she can always ask that the article be restored. Just my two cents though, but still, I don't see the point. *Defiant Elements* +talk 22:00, 7 June 2007 (CEST)

There at least needs to be guidelines that the admin follows when he decides to delete or not, such as reading main discussion on talk pages, and hopefully use only that info to decide whether to delete or not.--Aliri 22:51, 7 June 2007 (CEST)

We are careful. If we aren't, we can always restore. Readem (talk*pvxcontribs) 23:16, 7 June 2007 (CEST)

And we're not going to implement a guideline that must be followed. Sysops aren't going to have strict policies that must be followed, we're going on the whole "the sysops do what is in the best interest of the wiki" idea, which has worked very well in the past. -Auron 05:42, 8 June 2007 (CEST)

Well are we going to at least get a RFA so that the people with all the power are at least voted into that position by the rest of us....?--Aliri 06:24, 8 June 2007 (CEST)

You're asking in the wrong place, but here's a link: PvXwiki talk:Administrators#Requests for Adminship Page. That was the site of a very recent, heated discussion, and atm, we are putting it on hold to allow the participants a chance to calm down, and return to it with a more calm, constructive spirit. - Krowman {{sysop}} 06:50, 8 June 2007 (CEST)

In short; No. We will never have a "vote" for admins. Votes suck. -Auron 08:49, 8 June 2007 (CEST)

I was under the impression that dictatorships suck too. I guess if the apparently all powerful, non-elected, and un-changing leaders say so, I was wrong then.--Aliri 19:49, 8 June 2007 (CEST)

In a wiki-system, Dictatorship pwns face. Readem (talk*pvxcontribs) 20:22, 8 June 2007 (CEST)

First of all, speaking literally, this is an Oligarchy, not a true Dictatorship. Second of all, votes elect popular candidates, the elect candidates "perceived" as being good. However, they are not necessarily the indicator of a good candidate. Both Democracies and Dictatorships have inherent flaws. Now that that's cleared up, let me point out some other things. First of all, the current Admins represent a relatively broad spectrum of thought. For example, Auron and I have very different management styles. The hope is that the elite users will act in the best interest of the community. And, I know that all of our decisions so far in terms of Sysoptions have been carefully thought out and discussed. It's not something we are giving away. Besides, do you think the GuildWiki elections were any better. Those elections came down to two B-Crats deciding. The vote was "taken into account" but it clearly did not determine the "election." Even in the U.S., we don't have true democracy, the electoral college makes the decision, and the electoral college is made up of political elites, not every member of the at large community (i.e. citizens). On Wikis, the truth is that an aristocratic oligarchy does work. *Defiant Elements* +talk 20:38, 8 June 2007 (CEST)

The US is a republic not a democracy. But even a republic has votes so that they may at least influence many elections.

I still think that a chance to vote for admins would be better then having current admins pick the new ones. Who is to say that the current sysop pool is a good one? How do you know there aren't better people to put in those posiitons, if there are current admins may very well be running this wiki into the ground.--Aliri 21:11, 8 June 2007 (CEST)

A comparison to an electoral college is actually pretty accurate for both this site and GuildWiki. Wikipedia's article on Electoral College illustrates the similarity:

"Many times, though, the electors are simply important persons whose wisdom, it is hoped, would provide a better choice than a larger body. The system can ignore the wishes of a general membership whose thinking may not be considered."

An RfA can be taken into consideration - but those in the electoral college are under no obligation to follow it. This is true in the wiki just as much as it's true in the US government; no federal law mandates that electors in the electoral college follow the popular vote for the area they represent.

I actually agree with this form of governance for determining sysops. But, I would like to see a few changes:

• I suggest more control over buerocrats who have more power on wikis - those should be further limited, and I feel elected from the sysop pool for specific terms of service (only open to the sysops to vote - and for non-consecutive terms in that position).
• I would certainly like to see an arbitration means documented for this site,
• I would like a means by which general users can submit a "no confidence" vote in order to show the buerocrats in control at the time that a particular sysop should be seriously evaluated for de-sysoptation due to widespread public displeasure with that sysops perceived abuse of power (should such a thing ever happen - rare, but possible).

Those are my main concerns on the current site governance.--161.88.255.140 21:14, 8 June 2007 (CEST)

Note: as referenced above, I also support having an RfA to provide recommended condidates to assist the Buerocrats in choosing future sysops. But I do not feel that it should be made mandatory that promotions to sysop must originate from the pool of candidates who have RfA support. --161.88.255.140 21:22, 8 June 2007 (CEST)