Talk: Featured Agents

Selection Process

So, it would seem we're choosing featured agents again... question is, how? Desdendelle (talk) 00:53, June 21, 2014 (UTC)

The description on the category page was supposed to explain that... ;^-^ Which parts need clarification? Huinesoron (talk) 06:44, June 21, 2014 (UTC)

Urgh missing stuff. It's all clear now, but just popping the articles in the main page like that feels a bit odd for me. Though... can I nominate another person's agent? Desdendelle (talk) 06:49, June 22, 2014 (UTC)

Well, yeah, it feels odd to me, too... but nominations never worked. They ran for a little while, then just died. That's why I restarted it this way.

Which means, no need to nominate! If the agent's wiki page meets the criteria ('sources' and 'recently created or improved' are the key article-based ones), you can stick it up as Featured Agent yourself. Write a short bio, put the picture in its place, add the agent to this category, and you're golden. Nothing could be simpler! Except a lot of simpler things, obvs. Huinesoron (talk) 07:47, June 22, 2014 (UTC)

I know nominations didn't really work out, but somehow just letting people toss any agent who fits the criteria up as featured on whim feels like it might not go so well. But then, my gut feelings aside, I don't really have many ideas for another way to do it right now. (This is Ekyl by the way, I forgot this machine has me logged out) 74.70.30.4 14:40, June 23, 2014 (UTC)

Prior to my creating this system, we had no Featured Agents at all; I'm not sure how more 'not well' it could get! Furthermore, the criteria are designed to fit agents who have good pages, have a writer with Permission (since it needs sources), and have been recently (significantly) improved. Have you seen how many people we don't have editing the Wiki? ;) In the last 50 edits (ie, the front page of Recent Activity), there have been six edits to PPC agents or staff; five of them were me, and three of those were minor edits to Flowers. The one that wasn't me was doctorlit copy-editing Jenni. And then there's two for Anya.

The last edit which could even conceivably meet the 'significantly improved' criteria seems to be the additions you made to Agent Black. He could potentially take the spot, if you wanted to do that. I think I have a Tektek image of him somewhere, actually (since the current one was drawn by Starwind, I think, not by Artemis, so has no special status). Since Kaitlyn's been up for about ten days, I may make the switch (and leave him there until Anya's ready to take over...) Huinesoron (talk) 17:03, June 23, 2014 (UTC)

You could probably just add the tektek instead of overwriting that picture, I think they'd both give a pretty good idea of him. Doclit improved Talia Nightsong's article pretty well too, so there's her as well.  I'll suggest Black later maybe, I suppose I was worried about the idea of people just tossing up whomever they feel like as opposed to some kind of consensus, but that seems to work. 74.70.30.4 20:01, June 23, 2014 (UTC)

Re: picture requirement, what about characters who haven't been physically described in enough detail for there to be a picture? 74.70.30.4 23:34, July 7, 2014 (UTC) (Ekyl)

A picture is needed to make the front page look interesting. At a pinch, one could follow the example of Architeuthis, who has a stand-in picture until-and-unless someone describes her differently. Huinesoron (talk) 06:43, July 8, 2014 (UTC)

Tweaking this.

I'm planning to make a few tweaks to the Featuring system, so thought I'd lay them out here so people know what's going on.

• Add 'complete' to the criteria. Specifically, I mean that every story the agent appears in should be listed, and that all relevant information should be in the article. It's a bit subjective, but it's important.
• Remove 'recently changed'. References are so new that there's basically no fully referenced agents, so it's essentially redundant. The main reason for both these changes is:
• Insert some description that Featured Agents are essentially a model of how Wiki pages should look. (Why not expand to Featured Articles? Well, with something like, say, CADs, there's always going to be more stories coming out. They'll go out of date very quickly. Agents, however, are only 'updated' irregularly, so can be complete at all times)
• Re-file the pre-2014 'Featured Agents' as 'Former Featured Agents'. When they're then brought up to the current standards, they can be moved back into the main category. That retains their special status, without claiming that they're superb articles.

Hope to get this done tonight, but honestly, who knows? Huinesoron (talk) 18:48, July 11, 2014 (UTC)

It all sounds fine to me. I still balk at the thought of upgrading my own pages, though, especially Nume's. So many links... >.< ~Neshomeh 21:42, July 11, 2014 (UTC)

Some of my Featured Agents appear in Reorg, CD, and EotB... believe me, I feel your pain. ;) That's basically the reason for 'Previously Featured' as a category: so we don't have to update things immediately. I'm hoping the Great Readthrough format will result in decent pages for everything of mine - it seems to have worked for the Origins-related stuff, at least.

And while you're here... I'm considering the viability of adding references for 'Unpublished mission' and 'Author fiat' to agent articles. That way everything can be referenced, and we won't have to sit around wondering where exactly it's said that Kaitlyn's LO is Luthien (since it never is), or when we saw Lou's big reveal about being from an alternate reality (unpublished/unfinished). Obviously I'm thinking only in terms of adding them to one's own agents, not to splurging them all across the Wiki - thoughts? Huinesoron (talk) 13:16, July 12, 2014 (UTC)

For author fiat, I still think referencing wiki edits made by the author could work, even though it feels a little like cheating. It does very neatly attach the information to a name and a date, and anyone can add refs like that, not just the author. I'm not sure how to ref new information of the "I say so" sort while you're adding it, though. Maybe... just put the four tildes for a wiki signature in a ref tag...?

I've used "personal communication from the author" as a source on the Pocket Fictionary page; I think that's an okay option, but the drawback is needing to take my word for it that I actually talked to WM. They get away with using personal interviews and such in formal writing circles, though, so why not here? (And yeah, I'll probably have to go through and ref those bits specifically at some point.)

~Neshomeh 16:32, July 13, 2014 (UTC)