User blog:Zathsu/To An Even Brighter Future

With the main big part of the Merge everyone's been waiting for, the Image and Page Transfer, finally concluding, it is safe to say that now we are officially merged, even if there is a lot more to do! Lots of new things popping up here and there around the wiki: Tournaments, Category Cleanup, Votes, and more! May we move onward to a brighter future together! (-^_^-)


 * -|Merge News=

Coming to a close
The File Transfer was completed, the pages transferred with full histories, the main page updated, and it appears the end is nigh. All that remains now is to add links to the TopNav, attribute medals, apply Era Icons to pages, and clean up Conception Categories. While the first few things can be done whenever an admin sits down for 24 hours to get it done, the last one will need to be a community effort, and for that we need a battle plan. Therefore, expect a large project to be announced within the month detailing everything that must be done before we are properly organized. After that project is complete, DCoW will be closed and the merge will be officially over.


 * -|Wiki Event News=

Second Conception Tournament
Just as promised, following the conclusion of The Merge, Zathsu has announced the Second Conception Tournament. Nominations began August 21st and will end September 4th, so if you have any conceptions you'd like to see be rewarded for their excellence, now is the time to vote here: here.

Pages that win the eight categories of the Second Conception Tournament will receive medals in the form of Era Icons on their pages and much recognition. The creator of each winning page will also get a medal on their profile signifying which categories of the tournament their conceptions won. So ready your conceptions! More details on the voting will be given once nominations end.


 * -|Wiki Policy News=

New Conceptions Policies
If deemed to be low quality or a stub, new conceptions will be moved into the User-Space as a subpage of the user who created it. Such pages will lose all Categories and will effectively be cast into article-Siberia until they can be improved enough to merit moving back into a conceptual namespace.

Administrator Repurposing
As seen in this thread, it was proposed that we change the way Staff work. Due to overwhelming support, it will go through, these are the highlights:
 * Fandom Staff will outfit several of the lower user-groups with extra permissions and abilities.
 * All existing non-Bureaucrat Admins will lose their admin rights, however this may take time to fully complete.
 * ,, and will form a temporary tribunal and review each of the other Staff to sort where they should go after the change.
 * Several Staff ranks will be renamed:
 * Junior Admin ceases to exist.
 * Senior Moderator becomes Community Admin.
 * Junior Moderator become Moderator.
 * A new group, populated solely by Rollbacks, will become Code Admin.
 * Due to majority support, this would become the new Staff hierarchy.
 * Anyone with code knowledge who would like to contribute to MediaWiki may ask for Code Admin rights; if accepted only monthly activity would be required.
 * Interns can now receive Chat Moderator OR Discussions Moderator rights for their Internship.
 * The role of promoting new Staff will be tweaked slightly:
 * Senior Admins handle the promotion and demotion of all Code Admins and Community Admins
 * Community Admins handle the promotion of all Sentinels and Moderators, even to full Staff.
 * Senior Admins and Community Admins share responsibility for demoting Sentinels and Moderators.

Promotions & Demotions

 * — Promoted to Intern.
 * — Demoted to regular user.


 * -|Tech News=

Code Relocation
Several script snippets were relocated to gadgets, and one gadget was renamed. Speaking of gadgets, has taken over management of gadgets, so their development is under his purview until such as time as the new Code Admin group becomes ready, at which point anyone with the proper skill may contribute to making gadgets, although he would still manage them.

Main Page Redesign
As has been scheduled for some time, the Main Page has been redesigned to include Fanon content, to future-proof the CSS it relies upon, and to remove the relatively useless Featured Article and Improvement Drive modules. Additionally, the MP-Apps Module was added prematurely because it is not likely that our Wiki will receive its iOS Community App anytime soon, due to restrictions imposed on Fandom by Apple (the original intention was to wait until all Apps were released before adding it). Additionally, the Featured Polls module was removed due to technicalities, lack of space, and low popularity. If anyone wants it to be returned to the main page, please comment so that we know how quickly we (the Admins) must work to remake it.

Future Plans
Era Icons will be installed, and they shall be attributed to winning pages of any past and present Conception Tournaments. Simultaneously, Medals from DCoW will be brought over and attributed to users as well.

Note on CSS Future-proofing
As mentioned here, a great deal of CSS (primarily Main Page CSS this time) has been undergoing cleanup so that it is easier to maintain, change, and expand upon in the future. With the transition from CSS IDs to CSS Classes on the Main Page, it is much easier to make drastic changes, and small alterations can be made with the addition of only three or twelve lines of code (as opposed to 50-700). Case-in-point, this means we are more open to hearing recommendations for changes to the Main Page, so any feedback is appreciated.


 * -|Opinion Polls=