Diskussion: Presentation of Mods in the BG Fandom Wiki [split from Adalon's Blood Mod and G3 connection]

[jastey]

Ugh, the agenda behind the edits, the lies, the propaganda, it makes me siiick ... good luck cleaning that out, @LichDiet and thank you and your colleagues for your work!

[The Artisan]

The mold has begun to infest official game information too.

This would be an... interesting idea, if only I could find a single example that isn't connected to Roxanne in some way. This isn't even one of her mods and yet... it links to her repository once again. Of course.

Edited May 13, 2022 by The Artisan

[jastey]

@The Artisan oh, you mean the "Mod page" link on the wiki entry for Sheena NPC that links to ... Roxanne's GitHub repo who is not the official mod maintainer.

Wow... seems the whole wiki would need an overhaul with regard to links... I'm out; been there, done that and burned out already. Have fun, guys.

[The_Baffled_King]

@LichDiet

I'd like to offer a view from an alternative perspective, albeit one that's very similar to the views already expressed (on the parts where it overlaps with them).

The alternative perspective is: played oBG1 and TotSC over the course of a year or so in something like 2000-2001; picked up the EEs mid-2020; used the BG wiki as my primary source of information initially; picked up NearInfinity in Sep 2020 and increasingly reduced my usage of the BG wiki in favour of NI; joined G3 in Sep 2020 and posted 119 times since then; is not a modder; has a bunch of partly-implemented mod ideas that may or may not ever see the light of day as mods; is not "G3 folks" (see: my posting history).

Re. Baldur's Extended World

22 hours ago, CamDawg said:

To be fair, it's more of a "Roxanne vs. any modder who's not Roxanne".

To be fair, it's more of a "Roxanne vs. anyone with any interest in mods who knows enough that they (a) understand the problems she causes; and/or (b) disagree with her behaviour on ethical grounds. The situation as it stands is very, very one-sided, and I agree with everything that's already been said by "G3 folks".

Re. My Experience of the BG Wiki

First, thanks for your work on the BG wiki! I find it particularly useful for highlighting changes between the base game, the expansions, and the EEs. There are also other circumstances in which I still use the wiki in preference to NearInfinity. One of the things that turned me off the wiki was this:

17 hours ago, LichDiet said:

... it is a Wiki, and not really controlled by one person.  Sure, there is a rotating site Admin, but a user is encouraged to add to the Wiki if they want to.  On occasion it might be cleaned up.  Or if completely off topic or wrong, then removed.  This is similar to how any of the Wikis' on Fandom operate.

coupled with the fact that the average user often has little regard for the version they're playing or for whether the feature they refer to is or is not added by a mod. Some of you plainly know your stuff, but the comments illustrate how bad things would get if the average user became a contributor.

Re. Mods on the BG Wiki

Am I right in thinking that the wiki doesn't have a page about mods? I checked again, and I get nothing when searching for "Mod", "Mods", or "Modding". I think a page along those lines would help. That page could include, or mention and link to additional pages containing, an explanation of the different types of mods: fix packs; restoration of cut content; miscellaneous tweaks; small quest mods; large quest mods; tactics mods; kit mods; item mods; spell mods; rule tweak mods; mod-added NPCs; og NPC mods; and a few others that I've no doubt missed. For each type of mod, it might not be too controversial to identify and briefly refer to a single representative example of that type of mod.

Then, if you want to do this:

On 5/11/2022 at 10:12 PM, LichDiet said:

I want new players to try mods and branch out from their unmodded comfort zone.

you could consider bulk-adding to every single article a very brief section (2 lines) that mentions mods and links to that hypothetical page about mods that I mentioned.

I hope the above provides some food for thought.

[LichDiet]

Thank you all for your feedback and history/observations about Mods and the connections to the Fandom Wiki.  I'm moving on some of your suggestions, and it will be implemented as time permits (like all voluntary work on the Wiki, and I'm sure with Mods on your side as well).  After some preliminary tasks are knocked out, I may reach out again for your thoughts.  The whole mod section needs some love and has been kind of neglected for some time.  I want to get it in better shape and flesh it out. Any Mod with its own page/article should result in increased visibility when google searching.  Wikis are prominently featured by Bing and Google.

There is nothing stopping any Mod author/maintainer that wants to add their own page about any of their mod(s) on the Wiki.  There is nothing that prevents a fandom player from doing the same, such as adding a page and description of one of their favorite mods to the wiki.  Good or bad, that is the nature of the fandom Wiki.  It is open to the public, and it is for fans of the game.  Modders are people too, and probably Superfans at that.  As an example, if Unfinished Business is actually stable and works with EE, that would be a good candidate for the Wiki.  Really, any NPC mod would be fine too.  Just think in terms of some of the inexperienced readers that really don't know how to a mod install or may be thinking of trying their first one.  They may not even know how to get a mod, The wiki could be another way to steer them toward the actual location.

For Alien - what actual link do you want a fan to go to for the Project Infinity Mod Manager?  Beamdog?  your own?  This should be a link to a place where they can read about it, and most likely click on a download option if they want to try it.  Also think in terms of staying power for the link.  Something stable and unlikely to change would be best.

[AL|EN]

@LichDiet You can use https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/74335/project-infinity-mod-manager-for-baldurs-gate-icewind-dale-planescape-torment-and-eet/p1 If the company forum will go offline, I will reach to you and update the link.

[jastey]

It seems someone integrated the portraits from the mod "Portraits Portraits Everywhere" into several Wiki pages. This mod was created without specific copyright info about the portraits it is using.

[jastey]

There is also a discussion about the wiki here. In short: some modders are not happy.

[Guest Hazif]

On 8/11/2023 at 9:16 AM, jastey said:

There is also a discussion about the wiki here. In short: some modders are not happy.

The issue with @morpheus562 has been resolved.

 

On 5/13/2022 at 11:15 AM, jastey said:

@The Artisan oh, you mean the "Mod page" link on the wiki entry for Sheena NPC that links to ... Roxanne's GitHub repo who is not the official mod maintainer.

Wow... seems the whole wiki would need an overhaul with regard to links... I'm out; been there, done that and burned out already. Have fun, guys.

First of all, thanks @Graion Dilach for bringing this thread to my (and others') attention.

I want to get right to the point and talk about this specific thing I quoted, cause it's an easy change to make.

By checking that page's history, any Internet user can see that the article was created on April 14, 2022 by an anonymous user (wiki keeps the IP). Then the external link was updated 5 days later by another IP, changing it from baldurs extended world "dot" com "slash" Sheena (Mod homepage) to the current one at RoxanneSHSetc. Since then, no-one has cared to change something in this page.

Just like that anonymous Internet user who changed that link, anyone who cared could have updated/edited it later, with minimal editing knowledge/effort. Or a modder among you who has a wiki account can do that non-anonymously. But if you prefer, I can make that change if you tell me here, should I revert to to the previous link it had at baldrsxtndedwrld (see above), or to some other one?

But really, I think it would be better if some of you modders with wiki accounts could make a thread in the forum there, in order to discuss issues related to mods' presentation on the wiki, as was suggested by an admin.

[CamDawg]

If the choice is between spending time working on my mods or cruising the wiki for mistakes, the former is going to win every time. That's not a slight on the wiki--you can insert pretty much anything in the latter half of that statement with the same result.

[Guest Hazif]

31 minutes ago, CamDawg said:

That's not a slight on the wiki--you can insert pretty much anything in the latter half of that statement with the same result.

Hello, nice to meet youI

Honestly, I understood the first sentence but not this one - I'm not sure  what "a slight on the wiki", "the latter half of that statement", and "the same result" mean - could you rephrase it perhaps so that I might understand?

 I offered my help here voluntarily for a specific easy-to-fix issue, that's all. If you don't tell me how exactly to help/edit that link, I'm not going to do anything, cause I don't really know what link to put there.

Cheers!

[jastey]

CamDawg said that his statement that he'd rather mod than edit wiki pages was not meant as a negative statement about the wiki (or working to maintain a wiki) but a statement that he'd basically prefer to mod over any other occupation.

[jastey]

1 hour ago, Guest Hazif said:

I offered my help here voluntarily for a specific easy-to-fix issue,

Unfortunately, the whole thing is not an easy to fix issue.

As was pointed out, the mod information on the wiki is full of info and links to mod versions of a modder "Roxanne" who uses works of other mods and modders, and put their modified mod versions (unauthorized) online (in Dropbox or dubious GitHub accounts, besides their own).

This means, that currently, regarding BG(II) mods, the Fandom BG Wiki misinforms players, (mis)leading them to a Modding Tool that downloads and installs changed mod versions, mods using stolen art and other content, put together by a single modder who maintains the tool to promote their megamod, and who broke with the whole rest of the modding community.

You seem to have a sincere interest in presenting mods on the wiki, which is great and I do feel honoured. But, if you (that's a general you) want the wiki to be taken seriously in this regard, you need to purge it from these info and links. As it is, all I can say to players is to not trust any modding info on the Fandom Wiki - and personally, this also leads to me not trusting any other info given there, because I have to assume that it is a platform for other people with an own agenda, as well.

Which is pretty unfortunate.

Now, expecting us modders to do the work is a false illusion: like CamDawg already pointed out, we mod because that is how we like spending our time. We spend a big time writing documentation fo our mods, as well. But we did not set up a wiki and never will, also because our year long experience is that third party lists and wikis will be outdated quickly (or will lead to people burning out).

And, to be frank: if you (wiki people) want to present the modding community/mods on the wiki, then it is your responsibility that it is done right. You can ask for help and support, but expecting us to clean up third party pages just because it deals with our content is not appropriate, to phrase it politely.

[compleCCity]

16 hours ago, jastey said:

[…] As it is, all I can say to players is to not trust any modding info on the Fandom Wiki - and personally, this also leads to me not trusting any other info given there, because I have to assume that it is a platform for other people with an own agenda, as well.

Which is pretty unfortunate. […]

Really, it is: unfortunate. In fact, it hurts me. Me, as a person who felt responsible for the wiki from 2018 (maybe earlier) until at least end of 2019, and somehow still during my absence from it the following years.
Not exactly the first part. Information about mods presented on the wiki was sub-optimal even until my leave. It had only started then (with minor exceptions for some "standard" mods), and though I didn't really appreciate it, I at least tried to give it some order – by reducing the amount of given details to just a summary, and then just linking to the mod's pages for more info and the download. But, as often on such wikis, we missed the manpower to do this efficiently – it seemed, more mod content was created than could be managed by me. And of course I can't tell how exactly all that evolved after I left – due to a burnout from wikiing, bytheway.

But extending this mistrust to the whole wiki, and even assuming it'd be a platform for … whomever, "people with an own agenda" – that really hurts. If you'd find pages on Wikipedia (assuming, you do not mistrust them) with errors, maybe with links to external sites that seem dubious, or with other misinformation – how many of such pages are needed to let you assume, Wikipedia in a whole has its own agenda? (It has, btw. ) Then again, compare our manpower. Our wiki community is just not able to handle all potentially false or bad information about mods. Even members with extended rights don't necessarily feel responsible for correct information on pages they've never touched. (Necessarily – some do.) Everybody, including unregistered IPs, can edit almost every page or add new ones. And if the new information looks good at first glance to somebody not familiar with the matter, then it may be good? And surely, one cannot expect that everybody active is informed about what's going on on all related boards.

I've created this account only recently (to be informed about and possibly partake in especially two discussions, one of them being this, affecting the wiki). Though I'm using mods from this website – including yours, @jastey – since years. Decades? I've also used mods from Roxanne, unaware of the things I'm learning here about the backgrounds. Yes, only registered recently, as I'm usually not following many boards and am preferring my (wiki) ivory tower. (With my own agenda being, to give correct and comprehensive information about every part of the game series, focusing on the official content, and touching inoffical content only marginally.)

If we gonna make a poll on our wiki, though, and ask if we should or should not have information about mods; or if we should or should not have inofficial portraits polluting (sorry) almost every article, then since years this poll would favor "we should", no matter my own points of view. I've tried to reduce all that, but the majority of the community does either want it or is at least not against it, maybe even doesn't join the discussion. As such, we just can't purge the wiki of this content. So, disregarding your priorities of where to spend your time, your – the modders' – input and assistance on the wiki (not some external board) would also be really appreciated.

(Written in unawareness of what has happened on the wiki since @Guest Hazif's post.)

[argent77]

I just want to chime in and say that I don't mind having pages about my mods on the wiki as long as the descriptions and links are accurate and not too outdated. In my opinion it is a good way to make the mods known to players who otherwise don't visit or know about sites that are dedicated to modding.

However, just like CamDawg pointed out, I don't intend to keep an eye on this or other wikis since it would take too much of my time. From a quick glance I have only found the description for the "Improved Archer Kit" mod somewhat outdated. Everything else looks fine to me so far.