If you walk outside of the confines of Talking Random Stuff and the message walls and look around you, you'll notice the wiki is in a state of disrepair. And as much as I hate to say it, it's quite true: parts of the wiki look outdated, the wiki pages have rarely seen any active editing, and there's too much redlinks everywhere!
So I'm asking everyone here to help me out in renovating and improving this wiki. Together, we can make this wiki the best it's ever (or more accurately, never) been!
Why are you doing this? Isn't it unnecessary?[]
Well, with fellow roleplayer Redfork2000 inviting his friends here, I want to make sure everyone not only feels welcome, but also has a good time browsing the wiki and most importantly, is up-to-date with information on IaLR. Problem is, this wiki...doesn't look quite good, it doesn't document stuff, and it looks like we basically just abandoned it (which is kinda true). Heck, the wiki looks more like a dilapidated house than an active wiki!
That's where you come in. Yes, you. I need your help to make this wiki not only a welcome place, but also a reliable place for information about IaLR.
Well, what can I do?[]
There are many things you can do. I'll list 4 examples.
Create pages, remove redlinks, and document more about In a Locked Room[]
In a Locked Room (and its corresponding spin-offs) isn't well-documented. This wiki is clear evidence. Sure, you have a few pages here and there, documenting some of IaLR's characters, episodes, and what-not, but what if I wanted to learn more about Samantha Pop? Or the Hybrids? There isn't a page for it.
To make matters worse, what the wiki lacks in information, it makes up for it in redlinks. Lots and lots of redlinks. Everywhere you go, you're bound to find one! Users will likely be disappointed when they want to know something and the page for it just doesn't exist.
And don't even get me started on stories. Now don't get me wrong, I love stories! I even have plans for new stories! The problem is, the wiki is overloaded with them, and they are drowning out what little information we have about IaLR. Out of the 1,272 pages this wiki has (at this time of writing), a good chunk of them are stories, which are good if you want to read about adventures but...isn't that good when you want more details on who or what something is.
Now, you'd think the solution would be to either answer their questions or link them to an episode or a story, but not everybody has the time to read an hour-long story just to know who Akasha the Burning Shadow is! Or scour years of RP threads just to find out which Dumb Characters we haven't listed! Ctrl + F doesn't help, it just emphasizes the problem! Also, while asking could help, there is a chance the roleplayer might forget, or isn't active.
Extend stubs and complete pages/sections under construction[]
Somewhat related to the previous problem: some pages are incomplete! There are stubs out there which haven't had any extensions to them, and there are also pages and sections that have been under construction/ a work in progress for a long amount of time!
Clean up pages[]
Most pages aren't really...well...good looking. In fact, some of them look ugly, some of them look outdated, and there are even some which barely recieved any major updates since the beginning of this wiki! It's pretty jarring to browse the wiki and stumble upon a weird looking page which looks like it's still stuck in 2016.
Update categories[]
The categories are a mess. There's duplicate categories, unnecessary categories, categories that are no longer needed...it's clogging up the whole place. If you navigate the wiki through categories quite often, it would be a nightmare!
Closing notes[]
I hope that this blog post convinced you to help out on my mission to renovate the wiki. Let's make this wiki a better place, not just for us, but for those planning to join us.
JeloJellyJam (talk) 05:58, October 9, 2019 (UTC)