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It is a little later in the month than the norm, but still, I bear joyous greetings from my office on Arx...or maybe I am in my office aboard the Peridition. Although, I hear that Telos is pretty this time of year…

Regardless, a merry July to all of you wonderful DJB’ians out there! I know that the temperatures in my neck of the woods have been pretty nice, and I hope that you all have had relatively wonderful weather to enjoy this season. I am sure that you all have some business to get into amongst your Clans and Houses, so we will try to keep this one relatively brief. The good news is, that there is relatively little in the way of ground-breaking news coming from the Wiki. I am sure that everybody is foaming at the mouth to hear about the latest revolutionary innovation. Unfortunately, some of my intended updates are much more intensive than immediately anticipated. Still, we will try to keep updates coming out to you all in a timely manner. Yes, if all goes according to plan (which is rarely does, unfortunately) we can avoid tagging our working items with the dread SOON(™) tag.

Fingers crossed.

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Wiki Policy Changes

A policy change of sorts I am introducing. There are plenty of pages out there on our Wiki. Actually, there are a good 3,000 pages out there. Not that I am complaining. I can always use some more Wiki in my life. The trouble that we are coming across is that a number of pages have gone on for some time without being updated, or rather are being left with a dusty {{Construction}} template/tag.

With my previous Tribune, we had slid those pages from {{Construction}} to {{stub, which while it works, does make the maintenance category of stubs a little less useful. Which means that it is slightly problematic. To this end, a new template and connected category was birthed. In short, I made an executive decision.

Insert {{Character-history}} on stage right. Now, this new template is connected to a category called Historic Characters, which might seem a little confusing, but given the existing categories starting with Historic _____ it actually solves more problems than it causes. Pages under this new template will display the following:

This will typically used to denote the character page of a member who has gone Rogue for some time or is otherwise no longer among us. The intent is to indicate members who have long gone Rogue, without taking away from their contributions to the website. This will not affect most pages of Rogue members, but mostly those who have sat in a {{Construction}} tag for a period of longer than two years while a member has gone Rogue. There are some notable exceptions, such as holders of the One With the Force title.

That said, more to the point that this matters to all ye end users out there: If you page is mistakenly tagged with the above tag, fear not! All you have to do is remove the template, and your page will be removed automatically from the Historic Characters category. And hey, if you find your page has been mis-categorized and wish to talk to someone on the staff about it, my PM box and email boxes are always a welcome place for you to air your grievances.

Projects

Greater Ease of Navigation On the Wiki: Options exist, but I am still doing some reading to see what we can do that does not involve changing software on the server or messy things like that. Not that James could not do that. That man has been amazing with some of the large and minute changes I observe on the website. But I do not need to add to his laundry list if I can help it.

Perpetual Wiki: A few Clans have gotten to what I would call a servicable level. I will be checking up on the work of some, but it appears that the first portion of this project might be able to be ticked off in a few months.

Project Shift: Antei is quite well imbedded. Deadline SOON(TM)

Codex pages: Some work has been made, but another pass needs to be made over the Codex. Check back next month for a bit more of an update. A lot of language was updated, and references to former Orders have been removed. There are some gaps that need to be filled in pages relating to the Codex. So some messy stuff that most of you would probably find dreadfully boring.

Brotherhood Guidelines Category update: Pages that are rather bare and/or missing information in some cases. So it will be a general update of all things under this umbrella. Some ground being made up. Still under work.

Wiki-Sponsored Summer Spectacular: Looks like it will become the Wiki-Sponsered Fall Festival. Watch your news pages for updates soon.

I do have a few other ideas, but they have to pass through the crucible of Mav before I can chat up about them in a report. Check back here in July where we can keep you updated on projects new and old!

Featured Articles and Wikipedian of he Month

This month’s Featured Article comes from the membership of Clan Scholae Palatine. As a fairly concise, but informative page, I present the page of Mune Cinteropth. The page uses a relatively short format to explain the basics of who Mune is and why Mune is that way. The inclusion of a timeline is actually something I do not believe I have seen on another character page. It presents a useful way to get an idea of where his character has been, relative to the timeline of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood as it denotes specific major events of the Brotherhood.

Now, it would be in poor form if I did not acknowledge the efforts of people on the Wiki. I will admit I am normally more than a little hesitant to recognize members of my staff. However, given the sheer number of edits that he has done over the last few weeks to help make our Wiki a more ordered place, I feel it is appropriate to recognize Morax Darkblade as our Wikipedian of the Month for this seventh month of 2018. Morax came to me seeking ways he could help out on the Wiki and knocked out a surprising amount of work. i mean, yeah I can be a bit intense when there is busy work to be done, but Darkblade has sought out ways that he could be more useful without my prompting. I hope to see him keep up the good work, and I look forward to contributions from both himself and other members across the Wiki.

To you both, I want to give my congraulations. Your Dark Side Scrolls are in the mail.

Wiki Tips of the Month

There are actually a few tips that I wanted to hit upon this month. One tip, actually relates to templates. I have seen a few times when people have taken some Categories, and tried to treat them like templates.

Now, how can you tell a Category from a template? Well, the construction template looks like: {{Construction}}

and the Construction category looks like: [[Category: Construction]]

Why does this matter? Well, there are templates that have modifiers. i use a few myself. One very commonly used one is the Eras Template: {{Eras}}, which is in turn modified with a number of additions. For example, my own character page has an eras template as the following:

{{Eras|rdb|exd|nor|featured}}

rdb, exd, nor, and featured apply the graphics for the eras. Though they do not cover all the possible modifiers for the Eras Template, they refer to the Rise of the Brotherhood era, the Exodus era, the New Order era, and the page's Featured Page status respectively.

If you would like to see a little more about this template and it's potential modifiers, you can take a look at the template page by clicking the following link: Eras Template

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That takes care of the first Wiki Tip. The second is a little more practical. For you see, I fear that perhaps we have not been totally transparent as to what expectations are desired of a Featured Page. Now, the quality Wiki page checklist mentions avoiding a miscellaneous list on a page. I am wanting to hit upon this. As the trivia page states they do not need removed. It also says "as articles grow, these lists become increasingly disorganized and difficult to read. A better way to organize an article is to provide a logical grouping and ordering of facts that gives an integrated presentation, providing context and smooth transitions, as appropriate in text, list, or table."

The DJB Trivia sections are still relatively popular. I encourage you all to see if you can organize the contained information more organically in your pages. For Featured Page potentials, I and my staff prefer, and more often expect, that such sections are either necessary (which hey, they could be) or integrated. This is being pushed toward in an effort to have a wiki that is more standard in some fashions, while still giving members a great deal of freedom in content.

Though if that does not matter to you, you can always throw caution to the wind and do something different. Ask Blade.

Final Words

Sometimes the Wiki can collect a lot of dust. Some people do enough to get through to Knighthood and never look at their pages again. However, I have seen some people's pages grow as their characters grow, and enrich and evolve as their characters do the same.

I encourage you, as you keep those creative juices flowing, keep track of the shifts in narrative on your Wiki page. The Wiki is also a way to help define and build the galaxy we all live in. I have said it before, but I will gladly say it again. The Wiki is a big, collaborative work. It is larger than myself or my staff. Without the rest of you, it is as useful as an empty library. I hope that you will all help us to fill it up, and help enrich this galaxy far, far away in which we all play.

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As always, remember, if there is an issue that you cannot solve on your own:

I (and my Wiki Team) have the power to help out.)

In the meantime I remain as ever, Yours In Darkness,