Forum:CT:Interviews

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made in the Senate Hall or new Consensus Track pages rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record.
The result of the debate was to adopt the proposal and begin doing interviews. -- Ozzel 22:55, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

As Wookieepedia has grown beyond the 50,000 article threshold, it has become an increasingly large and detailed repository of Star Wars information. While the average, casual, and hard-core fan can find just about anything they need to know on Wookieepedia, the community's direct contact with SW VIPs has been rather limited. That is not at all to disparage the friendship and rapport we have with notable figures such as Daniel Wallace, Abel G. Peña, and Tom Hodges—all of these people and more have been very supportive of our site and I don't want to belittle that in any way. However, our recent successes—the Veitch and Anderson interviews as a notable example—in reaching out to authors and artists have prompted some thought about how to further reap the benefits of increased contact between Wookieepedia and SW VIPs.

I put together a detailed list of suggestions on the Mofference page, but since we aren't having one of those any time soon and it was suggested that I put together a page and slap {{Proposed}} on it, I did so after consulting with a small focus group. You can see the page here. Don't change anything there; discuss it here first.

Purpose

  • To foster communication between Star Wars authors, artists, editors, and other VIPs with Wookieepedia.
  • To give article-writers an avenue to directly contact VIPs for information.
  • To increase SW community awareness of Wookieepedia
  • To give Wookieepedia useful BTS material for its IU articles and particularly info for OOU articles.
  • To possibly have VIPs request information from Wookieepedia.
  • To bolster Wookieepedia's status among the SW community as a source of reputable and dare I say exclusive information.

Methods

Via e-mail

I list this first because I think it's one of the more viable means and we've had success with it in the past. It's also pretty much universal. There are some concerns, which I'll try and address.

Proposal
  • Interviews conducted by e-mail must be carbon-copied to at least one administrator, if not two. This is to ensure verifiability and to make sure that Wookieepedia is not being misrepresented in its e-mails. E-mails that do not follow this condition will not be accepted as source material (save for those grandfathered in, which would be all the previous ones that are stored on site). If e-mail is the primary mode of communication, creating a generic interview request letter for general use might be a good idea.
Concerns
  • People misusing Wookieepedia's name to write a "Wookiepedia interview request" and then flame the VIPs.
    • Hence the carbon-copy to administrators. Users who send inflammatory e-mail to VIPs and claim it as representative of Wookieepedia will be banned. If User:Darth Moron (no offense if that's an actual username) sends an inflammatory e-mail to AUTHOR, we don't care. Now, if they start making Wookieepedia-related claims or pretending to be sending an interview request from us, that's bannable, or should be IMO. This is to prevent the process from being taken over by trolls.
  • Verifiability
    • The transcripts of the e-mails should be placed on Wookieepedia (Concurrent discussion removed as necessary) and the admin carbon-copy means that we have secondary verification. To insure that we are actually talking to the VIP and not someone else, interviews should be checked for authenticity (by means of Wookieepedia talk, SW.com, or TF.N, as simple as checking to make sure that the proper e-mail address for the VIP is used).
  • Spamming
    • Process for submitting interviews will prevent spamming by legitimate sources. People claiming to be us who aren't are not our problem unless they're on our site, IMO.

Via IRC

To be honest, this wasn't my idea, but I've heard that it's a good way to meet and chat casually with VIPs. Pretty much the same guidelines would apply as for e-mails and virtually the same issues.

Proposal

VIPs are welcome to use IRC to meet with users/administrators to conduct interviews, as long as at least one administrator is present and the identity of the VIP is confirmed.

Concerns
  • The whole flaming VIPs and then claiming to be a Wookieepedia representative deal.
    • Again, having at least one (other) administrator present in the discussion should greatly cut down on that and provide verifiability. Also, there's the little issue of being banned from Wookieepedia for pulling such a stupid stunt. Like, permanently.
  • Are we talking to the right person?
    • I would think that any interview requests could be easily verified by the administration and of course, impersonating a VIP should be one of the faster roads to permananent bannination (inside a thatched roof house, to boot).
  • Spamming
    • Admins with mod powahs! can deal with this very easily in IRC. I'd recommend we set up a channel with the appropriate controls for this if IRC is deemed a good mode of contact, or just use existing resources. I'm not very knowledgeable about this.

The bare minimum

  • Here's more or less what I want out of this, at a bare minimum. Anything else is lagniappe.
  1. The creation of a Wookieepedia:Interviews page to store transcripts of interviews. Once completed, interview pages will be locked to prevent tampering. It is essentially an archived discussion and all the rules about modifying those apply. See the page.
  2. Updating our appropriate policies to reflect that material stored on said interview page is citable for Wookieepedia purposes, but is not intrinsically canon or NPOV.
  3. Update WP:A as needed to give admins the policy leg to stand on. Possibly clarify Wookieepedia:Equality.
  4. Update WP:BLOCK to allow for banning of misconduct w/ VIPs as needed, though I think all but VIP impersonation are already well-covered, though even that could be codified under our disruption clause.
  5. Interviews from other means than the methods currently listed will not be accepted as an official "Wookieepedia Interview", though see below.
  6. The provision for a grandfather clause to allow existing interviews to be useable, as we shouldn't punish legitimate information for our lack of policy at the time.
  7. Provision to allow e-mail and IRC based interviews.
  8. Proposal policy derived from above method.
  9. Adjust a category or create a new one for interview pages.

This section is no longer live.

Original text from Wookieepedia:Mofferences

  1. Something to think about: Judging with our recent successes (see Sitenotice) in interviewing some SW authors, I'd like to set up an official Wookieepedia:Interview page. We already have a category, but I'd like to encourage authors and other VIPs to interact with Wookieepedia as much as they can/are willing to do. I mean, if TF.N can do it . . . come on. I have a few more specific rules that I've set up, after discussing with another admin:
    • All interviews not conducted through e-mail must either be on-site, on SW.com, or via IRC. Mind you, I'm not knowledgeable on how SW.com works, but it would have to be a verifiable process where we can see the interview on a public link. However, the chances of someone impersonating a VIP on SW.com are rather slim, which is why I included it.
    • For the purposes of verifiability, all e-mail interviews should be carbon copied to at least one administrator. By this, I mean that at least one administrator should see all the e-mails exchanged between the user and VIP. Having two administrators involved is *highly* recommended.
    • A similar procedure as for e-mail interviews exists for IRC interviews-i.e. at least one administrator, but two or more being strongly recommended. This is for the purposes of verifiability.
    • Any slandering or rudeness towards VIPs on the Interview page or its subpages will be interpreted as a WP:NPA violation and will result in a ban. While criticism of authors on userpages, provided it's not slander, isn't prohibited, the Interviews page should be as friendly as possible. This is to encourage VIPs to participate in the Wook and not be pissed off by it.
    • Anything currently in the category for current interviews will be considered grandfathered in. No sense in deleting good content or ignoring it because we didn't have a policy.
    • All VIP interviews conducted on-site must have confirmation that the person involved is in fact the VIP-this can include messages from non-Wookieepedia locations confirming the username or e-mails sent to administrators.
    • Anyone caught falsifying interviews or impersonating VIPs will be banned. Probably for a long time.
    • Interviews from other sources than the methods currently listed will not be accepted.
    • Once completed, interview pages will be locked to prevent tampering. It is essentially an archived discussion and all the rules about modifying those apply.
    • Of all Wookieepedia pages, Interview pages-which are essentially VIP quotes-will be citable for referencing in BTS sections.
    • This will require a new/updated category, the creation of a Wookieepedia:Interview page, possibly the creation of a generic Interview request form, and of course, community approval before this all gets started. These are just some thoughts and are open to discussion, but I think the basic idea is sound. Again, let me stress that the two most important things are that we provide A) Accuracy and verifiability, B) A friendly environment for VIPs to visit. Hopefully, this will encourage other SW VIPs besides Dan and Abel (not that we don't greatly appreciate all that you guys do and have done for us) to stop by and visit. I'd like it to be a place where, if an author has some background information they'd like to share on a topic they've written, they can drop by, post it for us or add it into the article. No, this is not some plan to turn the Wook into TF.N. Given that I've only been over to TF.N a handful of times, I wouldn't even know what that is. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Talk page) 16:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
      • It already seems that you have thought this out pretty thoroughly. I'd suggest making the page, slapping a {{Proposed}} tag on it, and then we can get it approved and/or discuss finer points on IRC. —Xwing328(Talk) 19:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

This is open for community discussion. The first and foremost question is do we want this? Indications from unoffical polling indicated an affirmative to me, but sound off. Second, what (if any) changes need to be made to the proposed page? (Linked again here for convenience). For the sake of convenience, do not suggest massive changes to the proposed policy; set up a second CT after this one is ended and generate your own proposal. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Talk page) 19:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

  • As far as greater community awareness of Wookieepedia goes, is it possible for us to have ads that direct people to our site?

Personally, I stumbled upon the site (thank goodness I did!) and I think that it provides superior information on the star wars universe (as far as information of canon continuity goes) compared to any other star wars site, including the official site. We should figure out some way to promote ourselves as one of the best Star Wars information resources on the internet....I think this goes along with the interviews etc. It would be great if eventually Wookieepedia became the go to source for all info, not just background info, but news etc......and interviews/promoting good relationships with authors and other people close to the official sources would be a good first step! --Zadi (Yack Track) 02:52, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

  • I trust the opinions of your excellent focus group. :-p But seriously, I like the idea. My biggest concerns are that we just make sure everyone is on the same page with this. Get input from everyone on the questions, and make sure we're all in agreement on who to approach and when. And I don't want us to get in over our heads—we should probably stick to one VIP at a time. And lastly, I want to make sure that before we approach anyone we have at least a somewhat presentable article for the person in question. At the very least, we should have something with a little bio and a full list of their contributions. (No less than this, I think.) We don't want VIPs to come on here, look him/herself up, and say "What kind of crappy operation are these people running here?" -- Ozzel 04:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Per Ozzel on all points, especially the "getting in over our heads" bit. We should not come up with lists of questions just for the sake of chalking up another VIP interview—there should be a real need for this insider information before the interview-review process begins. (This should allow us to quickly put the kibosh on User:GrandAdmiralSuperAwesome's burning desire to interview somebody. "Y'member that one part where the guy got his hand cut off, just like in the movies?... That was awesome.") Also, I think there should be a specific, clearly-demarcated "Style" phase of this review process. We will quickly earn a reputation as crappy interviewers if our questions are not neutrally phrased, or are riddled with baffling grammatical problems, etc. Gonk (Gonk!) 12:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
      • I like most of what Ozzel and Gonk agree on, but I do caution against limiting ourselves to one at a time. Yes, I think it's patently ridiculous to have dozens of interviews, but I don't see a problem with two or maybe three. I'm also somewhat meh on the issue of the article, but it certainly couldn't hurt. And again, the multi-layered interview process was specifically designed to prevent the sort of fanboy nonsense cited in Gonk's example. We could probably also use a clause stating harsh consequences for anyone who deviates from the list of community-approved questions. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Talk page) 13:51, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
        • Perhaps working on two or three at a time would be fine, just not posting them all at once. -- Ozzel 22:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
          • But when we talk about more than one at a time, is it completely concurrent or within say one week (or more) of each other? I agree with everything that Ataru has laid out, and the additions from Gonk and Ozzel. Yes, we need to have an article of theirs that is commendable, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem if we really want to talk to them and we already know quite a bit of their work. Now my other question relates to just how high we should set our bar. Not getting ahead of ourselves, if we shot for say the Master of the Holocron (or anyone LFL for that matter), would that be too much, or will we be limiting ourselves to purely author and artist-level people which we usually deal with more regularly? Although we would want as much diversity as possible since this wiki covers basically everything. -- Riffsyphon1024 08:50, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, we don't want to flood the VIPs or swamp ourselves by overdoing it; I think it's reasonable to say have no more than two or three interview requests active at the same time. I'm in favor of three just because these things can take some time. As far as I'm concerned, we can send interview requests to any notable figure in the SW community, provided there's a legitimate need for such an interview. This isn't a "Oh, I have a question about continuity to ask Rostini/Chee". This would be "Dear Mr. Chee, could we ask you some general questions about the process something goes through to become canon?" (Yes, I'm aware that he has a blog post on that subject; it's an example) We should also be cognizant of the fact that, especially with authors and LFL higher-ups, we don't want to step on any toes over there and get anyone in trouble by asking them to release information they aren't authorized to hand out. The watchwords for this will need to be respect and courtesy. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Talk page) 15:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Update

For those who don't feel like clicking the (diff) link, after discussion, the following provisions were added to the Wookieepedia:Interviews page. [1]

Under policies
  • No more than three interviews may be active at any one time. The administration will use their discretion and eliminate any interview requests at will that do not meet Wookieepedia standards or exceed this limit.
  • The VIP who is to be interviewed must have an article that at the bare minimum contains a biography section (one solid paragraph) and a complete listing of their Star Wars contributions. This link is provided as the acceptable minimum. [2]
  • Please respect the boundaries that the VIPs have, in terms of their obligations and responsibilities to LFL, and not try to solicit information they are not authorized to release or infringe upon their personal privacy.
Under Interview structure, questions section
  • Unprofessional questions will be removed as well, at the discretion of the administration.
Under Interview structure, actual interview section
  • Use of questions that were not on the community-approved list will result in stern consequences; let's not go there.

Vote

Now that the community has had a chance to voice their opinion, I'm moving this thread to a straight vote; for or against the proposal. I don't prohibit third options or anything like that, but please be mindful of slowing down the discussion by necessitating another thread.

Support this proposal

  1. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Talk page) 04:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
  2. I think it's ready to go. jSarek 06:01, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
  3. I believe everything we've discussed is included. I can't wait to go forward with this. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:56, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
  4. Thefourdotelipsis 09:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
  5. Graestan(Talk) 02:47, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  6. Let's do it. -- Ozzel 20:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
  7. Green Tentacle (Talk) 20:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
  8. Unit 8311 10:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
  9. Because I'd like to contact someone about some BtS info. JorrelWiki-shrinkableFraajic 21:18, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
  10. -- AdmirableAckbar (Talk) 21:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Oppose this proposal

Further comments

  • Would it be possible to use these as a guideline now, even though it's not technically official yet? JorrelWiki-shrinkableFraajic 21:18, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Technically, this has enough support to be closed and set up. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Talk page) 21:43, 19 July 2008 (UTC)