Category talk:Trap

considering that Bases and Weapons individually are only half of a Trap, this new category is useful for users navigating via Categories. ~kytti khat– 06:07, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Only a tiny fraction of players will actively use categories for navigation. I strongly question the usefulness of a category whose only purpose is to hold two (and only two) other categories, particularly when even the most novice user has been made aware from the moment s/he began playing the game that traps consist of bases and weapons. This is just bloat. And at the very least it should be plural, not singular, but restrictions in place on this wiki prevent category moves and so the cat should be deleted regardless. --B.Rossow · talk 13:03, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

You are assuming the bit about "only a tiny fraction of players." In reality there might be readers that are quite familiar with wiki usage and navigation and as such might be inclined to navigate via categories. Additionally not everyone reading this wiki is necessarily a player, some might be contemplating playing. As for the bloat the cost of storage these days is dramatically small, and the amount of CPU time involved for the times that the data is retrieved from storage is negligible at best. The amount of network bandwidth is strictly driven by the number of persons enquiring. So before assuming that it is "bloat" consider all the factors involved first. Moreover, why make things more difficult for those with styles of browsing than you assume to be "normal" or "common?" ~kytti khat– 01:48, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm talking about bloat from a maintenance perspective. Storage space is not even on my radar. Unlike Wikipedia, with countless thousands of editors willing and able to perform maintenance, this wiki has a VERY small handful of editors who consistently and carefully keep things tidy. Because you're new here, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for not really being familiar with the work that has gone into this wiki over the past year, give or take, and what we've learned in the process about what it takes to keep it useful and user-friendly. People adding unnecessary pages has been one of the biggest issues from a maintenance standpoint. I really don't have time to get into a lengthy history and discussion about this, but I can tell you from running my own wikis over the years (for example, I started the MythMonger wiki and eventually turned it over to the HitGrab team) that I'm familiar with navigation styles and preferences, and I can tell you that category navigation is minimal. Much better is having a clear, effective main page and a search system that isn't cluttered with needless redirects. But again, regardless of whether this category is necessary or not, this specific one needs to be deleted and, if necessary, replaced with the plural form. --B.Rossow · talk 02:15, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that the biggest issue is lack of leadership in this wiki as there are no active admins (sysops), I'm wondering how much of your time has actually been dedicated to researching readers' wiki browsing styles. You seem to me to be more the wikidragon type rather than the statistical analysis type. Perhaps your obsession with alleged "unnecessary pages" being one of your "biggest issues" is due to the time you spend chasing after and removing or destroying these things you and "the founders" apparently see as harmful rather than nurturing things and newcomers that have the potential to enhance this wiki. Seriously, what is the likelihood that Super|Brie+ will have it's name changed? If the names of things in game change often then yes, i will agree, redirects such as "SB+" are a bit of a maintenance task (although with newer wiki software, some upgrades of which may be available to this wiki, there are built-in tools to automatically fix redirects to pages that are moved.) Then again, however, you state that moving pages is not an option with this wiki, assumedly that is due to the fact that only admins have such access and there are no active admins here) ~kytti khat– 03:04, 3 November 2009 (UTC)