Category talk:Worlds

Qualifications for world pages?

There's been a fair bit of discussion on the Discord about what sorts of worlds should be qualified for having pages on the wiki, and I want to port the discussion here for better transparency. Official worlds have always been a given, but there's a range of opinions regarding the inclusion of other worlds. I am of the opinion that there should be eligible community worlds, but that there should be some minimum criteria for qualification. This stems from both the principles behind Wikipedia's Notability Guidelines and various elements of What Wikipedia is not (particularly because pages shouldn't exist for promotion/advertising purposes), and because as editors our time and attention is finite, and we can not reasonably maintain standards of quality and reasonably content controls on every possible world. As such, I'd like to propose the following criteria for release scope, with reevaluation intended to occur within a few weeks of public release to see how we're feeling.

Proposed world page eligibility criteria:

• Official VRChat worlds
• Worlds featured by VRChat (Spotlight and official event category worlds) [NOTE: I'm not set on inherently including jam worlds for reasons I will expound upon later)
• Worlds that meet any of the following notability criteria:
  • Worlds that the average VRChat user would reasonably recognize by name (as determined by an unbiased 3rd party) [NOTE: hard to quantify, but it leaves room for certain special exceptions. those involved with the creation of the world should not be involved in creating pages under this criteria, but can be involved in editing/maintaining it so long as their contributions remain unbiased and aren't promotional/advertising in nature]
  • Worlds with at least 100,000 visits or 10,000 favorites [NOTE: popularity is a metric of notability, and one VRChat itself uses to highlight worlds it believes are of interest to people by virtue of already being of interest to people. whatever number we use here is intended to make it easier to quantify, and should be a fairly low bar]

Additionally, worlds pages should include the filled out world template, and contain some degree of additional information describing the world. [NOTE: world pages should serve a useful purpose to the reader, and stubs that exist simply to exist should be rejected]

These are the criteria I'm implementing on the category page for the moment while we still have time before public release, but is absolutely open for discussion, and I'd like to keep a moratorium on new world pages (except official ones) until we reach a consensus. Whatever criteria we go with I want to ensure we have a consensus on it, but as final a personal recommendation I strongly suggest we start out intentionally more restrictive than we want to end up, because it's easier to open up more in the event that we have the capacity and interest, than to close down more in the event that we're overwhelmed by submissions.

If you agree with the above proposal or have suggested changes please add your comment under this one. If you dissent overall and would like to propose a different criteria altogether, create a new level 3 heading with your proposal for discussion on it to continue under.

--Prismic247 (talk) 22:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Popularity Metrics to allow Worlds here are flawed and should not be used

Above it is suggested, that one criteria to allow Worlds to be presented here are those with at least 100,000 visits or 10,000 favorites. This would mean only the top 0.1% most popular Worlds can be represented here. This metric is yet another way to strengthen the notoriety of a few select worlds and also puts another dent in discoverability of new Worlds. I understand this wiki is no primary source of discovering worlds. However for a project like this, that strongly encourages Community Content, locking out the vast majority of world projects from being allowed to be represented here is flawed and demoralizing for World Creators. Further it robs us from learning about interesting world projects and their potential to sprawl into further wiki articles, which would go more into detail of unique concepts applied to such world projects. It is certainly much easier to moderate the few world pages, that are going to be written from a fraction of the 0.1% of all worlds that are eligible. We have plenty of people keeping an eye on this wiki, with likely more to come once this goes fully public.

From what it feels like, the fear of vandalism and low effort articles will push moderators of this wiki to impose restrictions as a peace of mind, so here is what can be done to enforce a popularity metric, while still allowing those dedicated enough to help enrich this wiki with a World page:

Dual-Queue

It is as simple as running a dual queue system. Should a majority agree with the restrictive criteria above, then it can go ahead as Prismic has envisioned. However there should be a separate form, that allows anyone to submit a full World Article, which can then be reviewed by wiki moderators and/or wiki volunteers to be officially part of this category. This would alleviate all fears of being overrun by spam, while still allowing creators, or those adjacent to them, to present their work. For all intents and purposes a simple google docs form or discord bot would do. The queue itself would make it easily apparent who put a genuine effort into making a quality World articles at a glace. Something that fits the standard we set so far. As a secondary queue, there is no pressure either. Anyone dedicated enough may come talk to us to take a look at their submissions as well, something those with low-effort entries would likely not bother with. For fitting submissions a simple clearance can be given to a submitter to add it to the wiki and it would be a wrap.

For the record, I would prefer to have no restrictions at all and simply remove low-effort World pages instead, I would hope more were to agree to this much laissez-faire. Having a secondary queue, is the next best thing.

--Maebbie (talk) 00:24, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Regarding popularity as a flawed metric: I agree it does suffer from a feedback loop problem in a prescriptive setting. But the wiki is intended to be a descriptive one. Our focus shouldn't be as a place that people are going to find worlds, but as a place for people to get information on worlds they are already heard about/are aware of, as a reference. The primary function of an encyclopedia is to provide more information on a concept the person is already generally aware of. Further, any of the worlds listed under my proposal would already be known and pushed by VRChat's own systems, and thus wouldn't really have an impact on any feedback loop that may already exist. Conversely, if we're focused on the worry that listing worlds will end up making them more popular, then by having no restriction we're admitting that the function of world pages on the wiki is functionally for promotion/advertising, and the result will creators adding world pages for their own worlds simply because it helps them stand out. I am concerned with investing in and reinforcing that as an objective. Out of curiosity though, and in the interest of reaching a potential compromise, what if the metric were something lower like 50k/5k, 10k/1k, etc. Would that be more acceptable in your view, or should popularity have no relation to notability in our consideration (or are you suggesting we completely disregard notability entirely)?

I actually wouldn't have an issue with a dual queue system so long as we have some degree of defined criteria for qualification, so as to avoid the potential for bias in both practice and appearance. That was more or less the same line of reasoning for adding the notability allowance in my proposal: to enable some exceptions to the hard rules when appropriate. Though in that case there's at least an abstract idea for what worlds might qualify, where as is the dual queue's qualification seems to be "so long as the article of quality". While I want that as part of the standard, I feel like it would be good some definition that depends on the quality/nature of the world itself as well, even if an abstract one.

--Prismic247 (talk) 02:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

A world article can have a lot of value to learn about how things were done in a project, which plays right into accumulating value for the wiki as a source of learning. Other Creators can use this to link a world article as a reference to how a problem was solved there and general inspiration. By restricting submissions, less of this is available. If the popularity metrics were as low as 10k/1k it would likely be fine, since thats about what any serious world project can hit with little promotion no matter what. The metric itself is not as important, as long as it is not locking out those who are willing to teach. I do agree articles should add value and have a high standard of quality, which should remain criterias. With no restrictions at all, you would have a lot of low-effort world pages, but no one would actually read or share them. This would automatically make them obsolete anyway and filter them out in a sense. I guess you could even have a category that allows unrestricted world article submissions, a form to submit such pages to and then this category, which has accepted submissions in this category. Just some of many ways on how this can be solved. My hope is just to not lock participation behind a popularity contest, because not everyone is good at them.

--Maebbie (talk) 04:35, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Any teachable information about how one might do something in a project can/should be a part of a guide, could reference their world from said guide, would still be associated with the creator, and not run afoul of the promotion/advertisement conflict of interest or over-saturation concerns. Those who are willing to teach can and should be writing guides as the medium to convey that knowledge. The purpose of world articles (in my mind) is for people to be able to understand and have context for commonly referenced worlds in the VRC, in the same sort of way that someone might use the wiki to understand what avatars are, or use the menu. The reason we don't have a category for avatars in spite of there undoubtedly being some theoretical value in people being able to look up how things were done in an avatar project, is that it would quickly over-saturate the site, for little positive value if not negative. A page for each official avatar alone would already do that.

As a frame challenge to the meta-topic as a whole: if it becoming a popularity contest is of great concern, perhaps we should forgo listing community worlds altogether? References to worlds could still be made in guides where relevant, and just link to the world's official VRC page. As is, community made worlds just feels like a very strange addition to the wiki without much precedent in other community owned official wiki's that I'm aware of, and even internally as mentioned before we don't have pages for avatars either. This was my original stance when the idea was first discussed months ago, and I want to make an additional separate proposition for consideration, and to solicit people's thoughts on the matter overall.

--Prismic247 (talk) 07:18, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I honestly don't understand your apprehension for having "too much" articles, its not like they will all be right on the front page or taking away anything from other articles. And with worlds/avatars it is not like you end up there unintentionally. Wait and see how this category develops and let the community actually engage with this wiki. I go into more detail in the reply to your new thread below.

--Maebbie (talk) 14:02, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

My apprehension is based on my experiences both in having been involved in other wiki projects, and in using/researching yet others. Adhering to standards and having a limited scope is a sign of a healthy wiki culture, and there is an actual cost/risk to having little to no restrictions. Even guides I'm worried about on oversaturation, but it at least has less risk of becoming a runaway target for promotion/advertising. The stance I take is simply that it is easier to start small and grow from there, reducing restrictions over time, than to start large and try to shrink down if we encounter problems. I'd rather open up to contributions later than end up in a place where we're deleting pages people feel personally invested in. Borrowing from your suggestion: we can afford to wait and see how the community responds to the wiki as a whole and how they want to engage with the content and determine what's working, then grow into the areas that we observe as being of healthy value.

--Prismic247 (talk) 07:05, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Should we have community world pages at all?

I'm not entirely decided whether or not including pages for community worlds is worth it. I can see some niche uses, but also a large number of drawbacks and concerns. As such, I'd like to get people's thoughts. Some concerns that I can currently think of are:

• World pages on the wiki are redundant. World creators can already describe anything they want people to know about their worlds in the world description. If there's VRC knowledge related to world creation, that can go in a guide.
• World pages are likely to be low quality and inconsistent with each other, since presumably world creators will be the most likely to make pages for their own worlds, with the vast majority unlikely to learn the systems and standards and contribute elsewhere.
• World pages are likely to succumb to bias, and are difficult to verify. Short of visiting each one to validate the content is accurate, we simply have to take the page creator on their word, many of which will be the world creators themselves.
• World pages with unrestricted qualification leads to promotion/advertising, and a larger number of pages to maintain, many of which may be low quality, and over-saturation of pages in general.
• World pages with restricted qualification can be seen as favoritism and a popularity contest. Also requires us to have to oversee said criteria.
• World pages are inconsistent with other content on the wiki. We don't have a section for people to create pages for specific avatars. Why then for worlds?
• World pages are without much precedent. I don't know of other successful official community wikis that allow for the creation of pages specifically for community created content like mods. I do know many that have user created guides though, such as Minecraft.

Assuming the validity of the above, are there compelling reasons for us to see the usefulness of community world pages as outweighing the deficits?

--Prismic247 (talk) 07:18, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Think of Worlds you made, there are often many things that make it unique in its own sense (and same for Avatars). It is just nice to read up on more detail of a world that has more than a one-liner description with no other media. More detailed knowledge can be off-loaded to a Guide, but you know what is better: looking up a World, reading its in-depth and finding a Guide linked there as further reading on how a specific thing was done, it would be harder to search the wiki for the guides name, unless directly linked. Many Worlds also have Groups attached to them, communities attached to them and events attached to them. Sure those could just be made non-world articles as well, but world pages serve as a gateway towards that. It is kind of like how on the real wikipedia you can leapfrog your way to a seamingly unrelated article and learn on a grander scope. This is what we would lose without world pages.

Also now that you mention it having an Avatar category is a great idea actually, you could have a page for an avatar base or deep lore on the knuckles avatar. Again maybe those could be split up into 3 or 4 articles instead, but what is going to connect them? Only the source creation can. Finally just going scorched earth and saying all or nothing is destructive to bringing knowledge to the wiki. Worlds and Avatars are the core of VRChat, strip those away and what do you have? To compare it to your Minecraft example, if you strip away all user generated content on minecraft (aka. mods) you still have its core.

As in my other reply above, let's play it out and give people some room to actually engage with this wiki and see what gets added first. I doubt we will have much to maintain.

--Maebbie (talk) 14:02, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I am certainly proud of my worlds. I'm also extremely apprehensive of making wiki pages here for them because naturally I'm inherently biased toward them, and that is not a good foundation for any wiki to be built upon. I don't want there to be any appearance or actual occurrence of bias in my involvement on this wiki project, and I believe we should hold everyone who contributes in any area to that same standard. Even if I could rationalize there being some value in having a place to display information for my worlds here, I would prefer to take the cautious approach, focusing on the health of the wiki and it's purpose over my own vested interests. By having community worlds at all, there is both great the potential of and clear motivation for them to be used for the wrong reasons, which I believe could outweigh the good if we're on careful. On one extreme end of that stance, simply excluding community worlds avoids those concerns outright, and I feel would be one potential valid approach (see above list of reasons).

But I do concede there is the potential for value in someone who is new to or researching VRChat being made aware of existing worlds that are commonly referenced in the community at large. To me, the best example I can think of that we ought to follow is Wikipedia's many articles on people, books, music, organizations, etc: they are not a comprehensive list of all things of their categorical type, nor are they intended to be. If we were to make a page for the Official VRC Wiki organization on Wikipedia for example, it would be deleted for failing to meet notability criteria. Is that unfair? I'd argue not, and that it's actually necessary in order for Wikipedia to be as healthy and effective in it's mission as it is.

That's how I see community world pages. They are of value if there is a strong adherence to some standard of qualification. Otherwise my fear is that such pages will become under-maintained noise, primarily here to serve themselves and their author's by their own existence rather than serving the community with sincerity. I feel like a different wiki could be made who's scope includes such a thing if someone is willing to take that on, but I don't believe this to be the right place for such a thing. As such, I personally advocate for anything ranging from "no community worlds" up through at most "some community worlds so long as they must adhere to strict notability guidelines". I'm also fine with dropping the raw number counts as low-bar qualifiers based on the concerns that Maebbie has expressed with using them as metrics. But ultimately in principle I still strongly believe a community world's eligibility for a page should be the exception, and not the rule. As far as specific avatars and groups, I see even less useful value and greater concern of misuse in their inclusion, and at least at present am against their inclusion altogether.

--Prismic247 (talk) 07:44, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Should World Authors be allowed to edit their own pages?

There are rules on Wikipedia about editing your own pages or the pages of your products. It seems like maybe that should be a rule here too. It would also address some of the issues around pages being posted as acts of vanity. Same goes for people and groups, I would say.

Just thinking out loud here. --owlboy (talk) 03:50, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

We had a lengthy discussion about it on the past 2 check-in meetings and text. We got a clear from Tupper that there is no problem that the primary source of a Community Page is contributing to such page. Of course quality standards need to be retained no matter who edits a page.

It was also reaffirmed that no one "owns" the page, so the primary source remains under the same scrutiny as any other editor. --Maebbie (talk) 22:01, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

owlboy, this was a topic of great discussion over the last week. Ultimately it is up to the community to determine the extent of these policies. The current iteration of this policy as it is being developed is available here. 🍞 dorktoast (talk) ∙ contribs) ∙ 22:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)