Inkipedia talk:Ink Pump

The Ink Pump

Welcome to the Ink Pump. Similar to Wikipedia's village pump, the Ink Pump serves as a general place for the Inkipedia community to discuss the wiki as a whole, whether it be ideas, proposals, technical issues, or notices.
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Gear navbox renovations

The current gear navboxes sort the gear per initial rarity/star count/star power; I find this sorting system isn't very useful and it's overall difficult to imagine even a very gear-focused player preferring to sort by star power of all things. I've prepared a demonstration of gear navboxes in which gear is sorted by brand instead, and would like to propose these as a potential replacement for the current ones. I've also included a variation where per-gear icons are present; I imagine most players do not have most gear pieces' names committed to memory thus icons can help with navigation, though there may be concerns with article loading times as a result of adding a lot of icons.

As this would be a rather large scale change affecting nearly the entire wiki, I'm eager to hear others' input on the topic. Yoshifan52 (talk) 08:00, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I would like more feedback from gear-focused players but in my opinion it seems like a fair change Olivia (talk) 09:17, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I really really like this idea! Whenever I look for gear through the navbox, it's always difficult because I don't even know what star power is to begin with. I do however, know and love the brands, so this change would help me tremendously. Stay Fresh! NewSquidbeakSplatoon (talk) 11:02, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Having per-gear icons definitely seems very good, I think that would be sufficiently helpful on its own even without splitting navboxes based on brand (which has the side effect of making the navboxes take up significantly more space). The icons don't presently get pushed onto a new line which makes it a little confusing to read, but if that's on the table to fix, that would strike my only major complaint with it. Driftin Soul (talk) 17:05, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I hadn't thought about the new length potentially being an issue, good point. I'm not sure how to work around that, my understanding is the majority of gear-focused players tend to gravity towards the brand mechanics of the game rather than any other aspect that could be used as a categorization system.

Here's a rough around the edges demo where all of S3's headgear is in one chunk, sorted alphabetically; it's still decently long, but perhaps more manageable in that department? I think it looks a bit too plain and somewhat messy without a categorization system. Not sure what other approach can be taken... Yoshifan52 (talk) 20:06, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Would it be possible to, within the infobox, collapse by default all brands that the page does not belong to? That's one possible solution that comes to mind.

Having it split by starting letter (again, non-applicable letters collapsed) could be a similar approach. Driftin Soul (talk) 20:14, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure it would be possible to automate that (and setting it up manually would be unnecessarily messy and complex)... Yoshifan52 (talk) 20:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Hmm... yeah, if it can't be automated that's definitely a big strike against it. Would definitely also result in some weird edge cases with gear that changed brands (and/or names) between games. Driftin Soul (talk) 21:00, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Your demo is really nice!!! I love the gear organized one better tho, is the best option imo. We should think really hard and see which one comes out on top! The alphebetical one is nice, but I don't know. Looks kinda like BLUHHHERESEVERYSINGLEHEADGEARRIGHTINFRONTOFYOUIF YOUWANNAFINDSOMETHINGYOUGOTTALOOKTHROUGHITALLBLUUH Not really very optimal, right? It's not bad, just not the best. Stay Fresh! NewSquidbeakSplatoon (talk) 21:00, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Trig's sent me this demo as an alternative with the perspective of a player who doesn't care much for gear/brands. I think this format handles the length issue while making it read better; what do you think? I still like my by-brand categorization but I'm not sure it's the most practical. Yoshifan52 (talk) 00:08, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh I like that

Solves my issues with the gear names/icons ending up on different lines if nothing else, which helps readability a lot. Driftin Soul (talk) 00:10, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for the huge delay; I've updated my demo to match the formatting system Trig sent. I've added per-brand navboxes as well: the idea is a piece of gear's page would list both types of navbox. For example, the page for Barrelfish Baseball Hat would feature a navbox for all S3 headgear, as well as a navbox for all S3 Skalop gear. This might get a bit busy in cases where a single piece of gear has been in all three games thus far, but overall seems to be the best possible option for per-brand navboxes. Let me know what you think! Yoshifan52 (talk) 04:08, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Wow… this is absolutely incredible!!! Must've took some hard work to take the current format and rework it per game and category, then do it again for gear brand and game! Some of the spacings are a bit awkward, but I'm on mobile so that might be it? Still looks amazing! It's wonderful! I hope everyone else thinks the same. Stay Fresh! NewSquidbeakSplatoon (talk) 21:23, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I find it difficult to find particular gear in the current navboxes. I usually use the lists (like this one List of headgear in Splatoon 3) instead. I prefer the variation with icons. I think the icons make it much easier to find items. The weapon navboxes also have icons, so including icons in the gear navboxes will make them more similar.  GX_64 (talk)  00:43, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I certainly support using icons, they greatly improve navigation because users are much more likely to remember a piece of gear based on its appearance than its name. Honestly I am neutral on how to split them, star power is least useful but does split in a neat way, brand is most useful but makes the nav incredibly long, and no split at all is a neat compromise but I think it's a little weird having a nav with zero split. But if there's no need for a split then, well it doesn't need one. So I essentially support all three, yeah not very helpful I know. - Harristic (talk) 00:45, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Having every gear icon load on every gear page may bloat up the pages considerably. I think this is one of the reasons the weapon pages are so heavy on load time. Is there another method that could be used to make things easier to find without adding images? Heddy (talk) 00:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Heddy is right, would significantly increase load time, because there is a lot, and I mean A LOT more gear than there are weapons. I'm not sure how to tackle this, because Harristic is right. I remember something better off of appearance than name, because if I saw it on say, a Reddit post, I wouldn't know the name. I'd come to Inkipedia and look at the images to find it! Maybe if we could somehow compress the file or something similar, to be able to handle it better and not make 10 minute load times. I don't know if that is possible, but yeah. To sum it up, make the images easier to present, so it doesn't slow the website down. Stay Fresh! NewSquidbeakSplatoon (talk) 01:05, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

What are we going to do about Hong Kong and South Korea?

As the title says, what are we going to do about Hong Kong and South Korea for the Splatfest navboxes (the previous and next template)? For reference, during region-locked Splatfests, North America, Europe, and Japan all have their separate navboxes, however, Hong Kong and South Korea do not. Are they going to get their own, separate navbox on Splatoon 3's region-locked Splatfest pages, or are they going to be combined with one of the already existing ones?

I asked this before here, but it was ignored. -Random 19:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

From what I have been told by other editors, it is currently impossible for HK and SK to have their own set Splatfest; their theme & results always have to be combined with one of the other three regions. As such, I don't think we have to be concerned about it unless something changes in the future to allow unique themes & results. Driftin Soul (talk) 19:58, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Alright. -Random 20:04, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I kinda liked the way it was. Nowadays it looks more cluttered, and it might take slightly more time to find the JP splatfests category. But... alright I guess. {ЯR}・Veron 04:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

How do I put pictures from my photo gallery onto my page?

This is probably the stupidest question ever, but I need help. I use Inkipedia from my phone, and I was trying to create my user page, but I couldn't find anything for importing a photo from my phone's gallery. Is there any way to do that or do I have to do something crazy like download it? Sandy&Altie (talk) 15:34, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

To upload an image, you need to go to the File Upload page. Before you upload an image, read the image guidelines and the file template information provided at the top of the page so you know the wiki's policies about uploading files! Keep in mind, users can have at most 7 personal images for their userpages. To display the image on your userpage, you would write [[File:Your file's name.jpg|50px]] You can increase the image's size on your page by entering a bigger number before the px, I used 50 as an example. If you do increase the size make sure the image doesn't go off the side of the page. Hope this helps!! Puppet!! (talk) 16:48, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

if u are getting the pics from ur switch u have to click share then click send to smartphone Faulty chair (talk) 12:07, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Salmon Run "Tips" sections

So it's been bothering me for a while, the Tips sections on Salmon Run related pages are not great. They have to be miles long to cover all relevant info (For example: Rush), they don't separate info between games, they actively recommend mediocre to bad strategies (wall clinging on Rush), they gloss over Snatcher optimization, etc... I want to fix them, but for the pages to be actually helpful and as extensive as I think they should be, they would most likely need to be separate from the regular pages to keep it organized.

Something related to this was brought up in the discord and StrategyWiki was mentioned, but when I asked if that's where this should really go I didn't get a reply; I've been told that StrategyWiki mainly focuses on singleplayer or games with linear levels so I'm not sure if Salmon Run would fit there in the first place. I had the thought of making competitive-like pages for it since Big Run and Eggstra Work are in-game competitive events, but I don't think that's the intended use for the namespace. But surely we could figure something out?

The main reason I want to do something about this is that Salmon Run has been my favorite part of Splatoon since S2, but in general it has no central resource for information. Most is spread across youtube videos, discord servers, and google docs linked through either of those, which is extremely inaccessible. I know Salmon Run isn't nearly as popular as the PvP, but it's still a full game mode and if we're going to have gameplay advice for it at all I think we should have it more organized than it is now. I'm not even necessarily advocating for overfishing strategies to be covered since I know that community is pretty niche.

To summarize: The Salmon Run pages' Tips sections are annoying to read at best and unhelpful at worst. I would like to make proper strategy pages somewhere, but I don't know if that's something others believe would belong on Inkipedia specifically. Hoping to start a discussion here. Sourguppyworm (talk) 22:29, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe you could make a sub section of inkipedia that foucuses only on grizzco related things. that way it gets eaiser to navagate. i would help, but i dont know much code. i can give ideas tho Squidkid34 (talk) 12:37, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply! That's kind of close to what I was thinking of, as I mentioned I thought we could do something similar to the Competitive namespace. But there doesn't seem to have been any interest in it since I posted this last month, so I've just been working on my own offsite guide instead 😅... Sourguppyworm (talk) 02:27, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Very late reply here, but moving Salmon Run tips and strategies to a competitive namespace would work really well in my eyes; that info isn't best suited for main either way. I highly agree our Salmon Run coverage is somewhat lacking in this regard. StategyWiki collaboration overall isn't the spot for multiplayer PvE tips and strategies in my opinion, as we already cover the equivalent PvP tips and strategies right here at Inkipedia.

I'm not completely certain on the competitive namespace being the perfect spot for it, but seeing as the overfishing community (from which most strategies derive from my understanding) basically amounts to Salmon Run's equivalent for the general multiplayer competitive scene, I could see a case for it. The alternative, a new "strategy/tips" namespace just for this purpose, doesn't seem particularly ideal.

I saw another discusion supporting/suggesting a similar idea here. Yoshifan52 (talk) 21:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

As y52 pointed out and written on my talk, I see the competitive space being the best place for this. We also do this with weapons already with Strategy subpages, e.g. Splattershot#Strategy leads to the competitive space. We also have a nav template for it. I'd be happy with a section added to the competitive weapon pages dedicated to SR. Slate Talk Contribs 10:23, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Trivia section

I've noticed that a lot of the trivia sections for some pages say tidbits but don't specify in which game it comes from, such as Flounder Heights mentioning the ghost in one of the apartments, but it doesn't specify that it's only in Splatoon 3. Another good example is the Hero Suit page mentioning Agent 3, but once again, does not say which Agent 3. Should we add subsections or a note in those kinds of entries? Rozelia The Octo06 (talk) 22:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The game which the trivia is from should be mentioned. The way that the game is specified is slightly inconsistent across different pages, but it seems to be either mentioning which game it's from in the trivia item (like some of the trivia here Cuttlefish#Trivia), or split into different sections for each game (like these pages Agent 3 (Splatoon)#Trivia, Judd#Trivia). The different sections seem to be used when there is a larger amount of trivia.  GX_64 (talk)  05:57, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Coloring color chip template

is it possible to color the color chip template? I tried to link color it, but it's not working. This kinda applies to other templates w text. Squidcat (talk) 13:53, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Pretendo

Now that Nintendo Network has been discontinued, should we make a page documenting the Splatoon side of Pretendo? They have now released a hackless way of connecting to thier servers and it runs just like Nintendo Network. Thanks, CodingAsteroid (talk) 12:07, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

As it is not an officially-endorsed service (with some legal dubiousness), I would advise against it: It is not what the developers had intended in an official capacity, and I really don't want to seem like Inkipedia is supporting or endorsing the product because that could turn around and hurt us. Unless something notable happens like the scheduled rotations not working as anticipated, I think mention of the service at all should be zero to minimal. Trig - 13:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks for the feedback! CodingAsteroid (talk) 07:12, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Improving mobile layout for Navbox

The existing Navbox layout is horizontal, due to section headings being placed on the left. This makes them not work very well on mobile devices, which has narrow screens on portrait mode. I am testing a modification to the Navbox layout for mobile view: by moving the section headings to the top of each sections, the layout becomes more mobile-friendly. The desktop layout stays the same as the current one.

You can preview this on User:Harimaron/Sandbox#Navbox. The mobile layout will only activate if the viewport is narrow enough, so you can test it by viewing it on mobile or by reducing the width of your web browser window. I would appreciate any comments. Harimaron (talk) 16:41, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I have applied this change which should now be in effect for all Navboxes. Harimaron (talk) 14:50, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Sound effects

So yesterday I was looking up Horrorboros and I thought... "Why isn't there more sound effects on here?" I personally think it's a good idea to add things like Horrorboros's cry to the wiki. I mean... with the Asynchronous Rondo sound effects being datamined... It can't be that difficult... Right?

Maybe there could be a sound effect "gallery"? Hmm...

Now that I think of it, I think the sound effect gallery idea might be too difficult... What do you think?

(I also feel like somebody has posted something like this on here but I'm gonna post it anyway) {ЯR}・Veron 17:54, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Displaying samples of sound effects similar to how we display samples of music is an idea that has been suggested a few times already, it's definitely something worth adding to the wiki. The issue is organizing a dedicated project for such a large undertaking; at this time, people seem to be focusing on getting music files in order first. Yoshifan52 (talk) 21:10, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

There was a major push about two years ago to add sound effects that was ultimately dropped. We still have some of the sound framework set up, so if that's something you are willing to continue pursuing, feel free to drop onto my talk page and we can see what can be done to get that moving again. Trig - 18:17, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

SplatNet App Ideas

So, I can’t be the only one who thinks that Splatnet2 and Splatnet 3 are just. What Inkling’s and Octoling’s phones look like, right? Like, you open up Splatnet 3, and that’s what your character sees? So why not a fun little discussion about cool ideas for apps that you could use on there? Like a dedicated Tableturf app or music app that would basically be the jukebox but on your phone? That sounds awesome to me, personally. Multifandommadness (talk) 15:45, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi, this talk page is for ideas about how to improve the content of the wiki and is not meant to be a space for casual chatting about fanon topics. Please consider joining us on Discord if you would like to engage in these sorts of discussions. Thank you! Driftin Soul [Talk!] 16:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Template Names

Heya all: Something that I've wanted to iron out for awhile now is how we handle naming our templates: Specifically, in terms of casing and spacing. Right now, template names are kind of all over the place (list of all templates), with some being "Sentence case", some being "CamelCase", some being "Title Case", and others being weird blends of spacing/capitalizations. I think we should try to migrate most of the names to use one set standard. Personally, I find Title Case to be the most clear in practice (Template:Incomplete Source), while about half of the major templates used currently are CamelCase (Template:ColorScheme). There are very few Sentence case templates (Template:Italic title). I'd like to encourage moving towards Title Case, but want to know what everyone thinks first before moving to a more formal proposition. Sidenote, shorthand templates like Template:FB or Template:T would remain as they are. Trig Jegman - 18:17, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Either title case or sentence case seems ideal; not much a fan of camel case in this case. Driftin Soul [Talk!] 18:33, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

I personally want sentence case, but I am fine as long as it isn't camel case. Olivia (talk) 18:50, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

The inconsistent template names have been annoying me for a while. I prefer sentence case or title case. Camel case is more difficult to read, so if it isn't necessary to avoid using spaces then I think the other ones are better.  GX_64 (talk)  03:38, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion we should use Sentence case. Anyways, I've noticed that all the template extensions (I'm not sure that they are called "template extensions") are currently formatted as "Template:NameEx". For example Template:GearIntroTextEx, Template:Infobox/MusicEx or Template:Infobox/VersionEx except Template:Gender/Ex.
With the only exception being Template:Gender/Ex. I was thinking that maybe we should rename that template to Template:GenderEx too to meet the other ones criteria unless ya'll have a better idea or this or this discussion takes it into another direction. Also I think sometimes I bother too much on Discord... don't I?
wmyttmlimvty [Talk!] 02:54, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Interest check: featured content

The Inkipedia:Featured content process was retired a long time ago, probably due to lack of voters or interest. Voted featured content was replaced with "News" on the main page; the news posts link to articles, thus automatically featuring any linked articles.

Now that Inkipedia has grown a bit, is there interest in reviving voted featured content? It would encourage high quality articles by featuring the article on the main page at Main Page/Featured. Users would nominate articles and vote on them, and once a certain threshold is reached, like maybe 10 votes, the article would be shown at Main Page/Featured. Heddy (talk) 06:08, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. I was once on WiKirby to look for some information, and I couldn’t help but notice all of the amazing things they had on their main page! I was wondering why we had nothing like that, so I think it’s a great idea to revive this! Lastly, don’t forget to Stay Fresh! NewSquidbeakSplatoon (talk) 12:18, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I think it's an good idea to bring it back. There's quite a lot of pages that could be featured since both Splatoon 2 & Splatoon 3 introduced content not found in Splatoon. WaferCaken (talk) 06:43, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I brought this topic up with another administrator some time ago, and their stance was that they felt we have a particularly high volume of articles that are not inherently feature-worthy; for example our several hundreds of gear pages. Our article structure for these pages (and really just most pages in general) keeps a relatively minimal amount of info in the lead of the article, which would make it difficult to truly feature a good variety unless it was in the form of a link by itself or if we had editors willing to write up acceptable summaries of the key points of the article for main page display. I think this is a somewhat significant hurdle to tackle, but if enough people feel strongly that they want it, I'm willing to support it.

Ideally, if we took the option of writing custom summaries, I would strongly want that to be part of the nomination process (i.e., the nominator would provide a brief summary of the article at hand before voting could begin). Driftin Soul [Talk!] 07:03, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm also iffy on the concept, not only considering Driftin Soul's point, but also that I feel a good amount of our pages are flawed to some degree, such as not considering the Japanese translation for the characters, and even some of our more noteworthy pages have flaws, like Language in the Splatoon series implying in the lead that the concept of different languages spoken by different species has been retconned out. Olivia (talk) 16:15, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I think the return of a featured article section would be neat. It'd be a fun way to recognize the hard work behind our articles. I agree with Olivia when she says some of our noteworthy pages have flaws, but doesn't everything? I'm sure there are WiKirby articles that don't necessarily cover the Japanese translations or are just "flawed" in some other way. We aren't professionals; we have editors from all different backgrounds of all different ages editing. Something doesn't have to be "perfect" to be featured.

I think Driftin Soul's custom summary idea would be really helpful. A short summarization of an article written by the nominator themself would make the actual process of adding the article to the Main Page easier and would be more intriguing than the first line of an article used instead. FancyRat 16:30, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Opposed, I overall think Inkipedia's structure doesn't lend itself too well to the featured article systems seen on other wikis. We don't need to add this just because other wikis like us have it. I'm not a huge fan of the featured article system as a whole as I feel it somewhat promotes a sort of competitive attitude; the goal is for all articles pertaining to a subject (eg. stages, events, missions) to have uniform well-rounded coverage, rather than a few special ones standing out, and we generally achieve this well. Stage pages that are "completed" are left at that, with incomplete ones marked as incomplete rather than elevating the "completed" one to a special status. In general we should be acknowledging our fellow editors' hard work every step of the way rather than primarily doing so upon articles being considered "completed".

At this time I cannot name any articles I think of as being worthy of nomination as a lot of information is missing with several long-term cleanup efforts underway (ie. prominent characters like Marie don't have their basic quotes sections sorted out, as it's a lot of work). I took a cursory glance at Mario wiki and Wikirby's featured articles: they consist of mostly character pages (especially recurring characters within the respective series' 20+ years history), and individual game pages. Inkipedia strongly differs from other videogame wikis that tend to host featured article sections, in that this series is "young" as it only has 3 games thus far, with hundreds to thousands of collectibles spread across them. Other game series (ie. the aforementioned Mario, Kirby) tend to have a completely different games to collectibles ratio, as they are mostly made up of standalone singleplayer games rather than live service multiplayer games. The Splatoon series' comparatively small scope has lead us to decide to build extensive individual gear, weapon, stage, brand, event pages, as that is what the gameplay focuses on, not the attached characters or plot. At this time, our equivalent game and character pages are in need of a lot of cleanup (of which I have taken notes on, and plan to work on).

The Splatoon series focuses on frequently updated multiplayer content within a live service model rather than singleplayer content; the singleplayer component is prominent and given appropriate attention by the games themselves, but the main draw of the series is online PVP as that's what's continuously updated and promoted far more than the campaigns. The campaign/plot component and subsequently, the characters featured in the story modes AKA the characters eligible to have longer, more fleshed out documentation AKA the pages eligible for Mario/Kirby wiki-style featured nominations, are not as high priority to this wiki as documenting the live service multiplayer content (which is occasionally limited-time!). We do strive to have full coverage, but the online multiplayer content, the most important core part of the series and thus our wiki about that series, isn't eligible for nomination under the typical nomination system. What could possibly make our Flipper Floppers article ever be "better quality" than our Boss Floss article, when we're hard at work to make all gear pages contain the exact same amount of substantial coverage? Same goes for our weapon, stages, brand, locker, Splashtag pages.

What else could we nominate? Patch note pages? The only articles reasonably eligible for nomination would be the general game/campaign/character articles, which defeats the point of a featured article system as those articles take up a small percentage of the wiki compared to mulitplayer content pages, the latter which is built so that every page contains the exact same degree of well-rounded coverage uniformly. A featured article system that can only apply to ~30 articles out of hundreds, because there is no means of getting the remaining hundreds articles to "featured" status as they cover completely different types of material uniformly, is pointless. Yoshifan52 (talk) 20:25, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Good points; I guess this wouldn't really encourage quality or anything like that. However, it doesn't have to be about competition or completeness. It doesn't have to be like other wikis did it. We can write the rules to suit our community. Just a slot for the community to feature whatever they want. The people like Big Man? Okay, boom, Big Man on the Main Page. Not because the article is amazing, but because we want Big Man on the Main Page. A unique starting point for Inkipedia visitors to browse our articles.

Currently, the main page features basic "category"-type articles on Main Page/Welcome, the rotation-dependent stage and weapon articles on Main Page/S3, articles for new Splatfest events at Main Page/Event, and articles relating to recent news at Main Page/Featured. I think this leaves a clear hole to fill; there is no community-selected content (the stuff at Main Page/Welcome was selected by editors, but it's obviously very general and static).

Featured content can be more than just articles. Images could be allowed. Maybe even fan art. Just a slot for the community to feature something. Big Man on the Main Page. Heddy (talk) 02:40, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Images would be fun! WiKirby and Pikipedia both have sections for featured images. We have some really beautiful screenshots taken by editors in addition to promotional material. It could be merged into a general featured section if desired.

I want to say that for a game so closely involved with its community, even having player-made posts as graffiti, Inkipedia's main page shows very little community-based content. Even the "We have 3,730 articles since 24 May 2015" part of the welcome template is in tiny text. The Splatoon series is younger than what most other NIWA wikis cover, but with how fast the franchise has grown, it just feels like we could be doing something more. FancyRat 03:03, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's a need for community-engaging content being featured at this time. The goal of main page is to be a quick access hub for the entire wiki; for there to be a community-selected content section hole on main page as you said, that pre-supposes there's some general site-wide community center where something is going on that in turn, is underrepresented on main page and would then need to be showcased, which isn't the case for us. If we had forums or an onwiki chat board or some sort of casual setting I could see it being worth considering, but at this time it's not like we have an image curation forum to showcase our best images or anything like that. Mario wiki's The Shroom featuring a mix of game news, wiki updates and community content both seriously and light-heartedly comes to mind; that's quite a large project that I don't think we're in need of imitating in any capacity. Our own section of the wiki dedicated to a casual newsletter-like format isn't completely out of the question but I personally wouldn't want to work on that and think of it as potentially detracting from efforts needed elsewhere. In general I'd much rather we focus directly on editing as there's a lot of important things still missing from our popular pages (ie. the aforementioned lack of a basic quotes collection for characters introduced a decade ago). Yoshifan52 (talk) 06:23, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Addendum: while the Discord server does count as Inkipedia's casual bonus lounge space, the majority of the "casual" regulars in there tend to not edit the wiki almost at all, often treating the space like a general Splatoon server rather than a Splatoon wiki server... so there's this disconnect within it that made me completely forget that it would count as our forum-like space. Off the top of my head I can't think of anything that goes on in the server that could be considered community content that's then underrepresented on the wiki itself. It's not really organized that way. It's more like a hangout spot where people are more often than not completely off-topic to Splatoon and/or do not even edit the wiki. Yoshifan52 (talk) 06:27, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

concured with yoshi, I completely agree on that we don't have enough feature-worthy pages and that we aren't big enough to support such a system. Olivia (talk) 08:52, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely! I especially love seeing all the featured images on other wikis, my only query is how often they'd be cycled? Pikipedia is daily iirc, but to match that we'd need quite alot of "worthy" images.

Adalent (talk | contribs) 10:23, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

If this was implemented on Inkipedia, we would probably have to do 1 image every 3 months, because due to an extreme lack of community engagement with the wiki, it could take a while to accumulate sufficient votes. See the archived votes for when the process was active to get an idea of how slow it is. Certain video games have playerbases that are very engaged with their wiki, but Splatoon players are not. Heddy (talk) 11:17, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Firmly against the idea. Kinda surprised nobody has pushed this sooner, actually. I agree with pretty much every point that YF52 put out, and didn't even consider the live-service nature of the game impacting the page contents. My main gripe is activity: for the first two or three months we'll see people dogpiling the featured material votes to get stuff in, dropping any focus on actual constructive editing, and then once the hype dies off, Heddy or whomever else is in charge of running this will have to constantly pester and beg people for any submissions and votes to make it work. It's the same thing that happened with polls and even this system the first time around. It either detracts from constructive contributions or is a dead system, even by Heddy's admission. 1 change every three months is bad. For readers, it will seem as though we are not actively updating the site. This will not drive engagement in a healthy way, period.

A formal reminder: We are a documentation service, and not a social space. If people want to share images they like, they are more than welcome to do so via social media, forums, our own Discord, or other more dedicated servers such as the Salmon Run group or a general Splatoon area. The same applies for articles—if anything, posting favorite/HQ articles to social media helps our social presence more than a featured article box would. I think observations set out by some users are wrong: It is not Inkipedia's goal to highlight nor demonstrate the creations of the community as it does not heed the purpose of a wiki. I especially don't want our main page to become an advertisement board for users trying to get featured onto it.

Generally speaking, the featured article is a derivative of Wikipedia's main page, which as a generally unbounded wiki with a scope of everything ever needs to direct people in some manner to a page. Earlier wikis such as Mario Wiki or Pikipedia had adopted the practice simply to replicate the familiar wiki format. Ultimately, with such a specific topic franchise such as Splatoon or even Pikmin, there is already a dedicated topic at play: People are coming here with the specific purpose of getting Splatoon information, which means more likely than not they have something specific in mind that they are looking for initially: Something I think our main page is lacking in, which is navigation to game information. A featured page is not going to be of interest to somebody who's stuck in Alterna and is looking up data about a stage, or trying to learn the difference between the Dynamo Roller in S2 to S3. Even for people who don't know what Splatoon is at all and they're learning about it from our website for the first time, what help does a page on Crusty Sean do to help? They're not going to know any of the context for it, and would much more benefit from reading about the games broadly or a series overview.

TLDR: I'm against the idea because it does not represent what the site intends to cover, and will either devolve into a popularity contest or be yet another swiftly abandoned feature due to lack of interest that makes us look bad. Trig - 16:26, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Strong agree. I appreciate your explanation of how "featured content" is uniquely suited to Wikipedia, not Inkipedia. And I appreciate the takeaway that the Main Page needs some improvements to help newer readers find the answer to common questions. I originally posted this interest check because I felt that the Main Page simply never links to much of the site's content; the first solution that came to mind was reviving a retired process, but community-voted content is clearly the wrong approach. Heddy (talk) 17:27, 28 June 2024 (UTC)