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Recently there has been some discussion about video policy on this wiki. In the past, videos have been the responsibility of HeroGaming, who selected the videos used here and set the criteria for which should be shown.

The suggestion is that we open up this process, and allow more videos and/or more people involved in choosing the videos. What exactly that would mean is something we will need to work out together.

We are using this page so that we can have both a long-form conversation, and allow for shorter comments. You are welcome to participate in either way.

Firstly, some ground-rules.

• Please keep the conversation calm, productive and civil. Please share your ideas, do not attack other users.
• Please do not edit or remove other people's comments. If someone is excessively abusive, then Sannse will act as a moderator and remove comments and ban if necessary.
• Please do your best to say why you feel a particular way. It helps us all to understand each other if you explain your views
• The most productive discussions include flexibility and compromise. Let's try to work together to find the right solutions for this wiki.

To start with, let's hear ideas. What do you think would be the ideal combination of criteria for choosing videos, and how (and by whom) should those criteria be managed? -- sannse (help forum | blog) 00:38, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

Please feel free to edit this page to add your thoughts, or to comment below

The terraria helper2's opinion

We all know hero is a nice guy I support hero and yri. After seeing the guy doing a video. We all like a wiki that is not rude does not have bad videos and most importantly gives good information. Hero may not be rude but the other two things he lacks but still we should keep the videos nice and friendly but has a good discription as well While yrimirs videos are not bad and (semi)nice or neutral he also lacks infomation but terraria help is not bad provides infomation AND is kinda nice.This is my opinion and I standby it

Dzylon's Opinion

I believe any videos not containing harsh language or otherwise inappropriate content should be allowed. I must side with Hero that direct and frequent promotion of Terraria Online in the video is not preferable, but such content should not make the video illegible for inclusion on the wiki. I do not believe content pages should be flooded with "Let's Play" videos. There should be a distinct area of the wiki for inclusion of such videos, if they're to be allowed at all.

That's all I have to say at the moment. I'd like to hear some other opinions. Dzylon  Talk  12:50:21 2/9/2012  

Some Ideas - Math

So, just to get the discussion going, I'm going to propose a number of ideas. I'm not stating my stance just yet--these are just some things for everyone to think about:

• Should anyone be able to add videos if they're good, or is it best to only allow accredited youtubers to post videos to ensure that only high quality content stays on the wiki?
• Should videos be added freely--or do they need to be reviewed by someone (admins, Hero, etc.) before being posted on the wiki?
• In most cases, we might want to limit a page to having only 1 video. But are there some exceptions we can make? For example, what about boss pages like Skeletron Prime--would it be okay to have a small "Video Gallery" for rare and important pages like this, just like we have picture galleries on some pages?
• Certain youtubers like Hero, TerrariaHelp and Yrimir (and others) are quite famous in the Terraria community. Of course, Hero has played a huge role in promoting this wiki. But what about Yrimir and company? Would you like to see some Yrimir, TerrariaHelp, etc. videos here on this wiki?
• Other less known youtubers are great at making tutorial videos. Who are these people, and how can we get their videos here on the wiki?
• Tutorial-like videos are typically preferred for content pages. But, take a moment to consider the Terraria Animated Comic video on the front page, or some of the boss fight videos on the wiki. I think these are primarily entertaining, rather than being there to teach us something. Can we find a way to bring both tutorial videos AND entertaining videos together on our wiki, to bring everyone the best of both worlds? --or should the entertaining videos just remain on youtube?

These are just some things I wanted to throw out there for you guys to think about. I'll return to this conversation later with some more thoughts and to state clearly how I personally feel about videos =)
Mathmagician ( talk ♥ blog ) 01:12, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

This is why-Sirblah

The main question is, how should we select our admins. Also, what do you want to see on this wiki. "Educational videos(HERO, TerrariaHelp,and Yrimir doing tutorials) Entertainment videos(Yrimir and HERO doing boss fights etc) or both? The admins are asking you, the contributers to the wiki, to decide if you want to see more fun videos such as boss fights, how to-first night(Yrimir), or just keep on with the Terraria tutorial vids. You decide!

P.S I'll be back!

Sirblah (thats me!)

There's also a page to talk about how the wiki should select admins. See Administration Discussion for more :) -- sannse (help forum | blog) 17:08, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

HERO and thoughts on video. (this is old. I grow fast and I have tried my best to evelope something that will help people. It's posted right above this.)

I think its easiest to address maths points he brought up for the sake of format and addressing actual issues.

• "Should anyone be able to add videos if they're good, or is it best to only allow accredited youtubers to post videos to ensure that only high quality content stays on the wiki?" I think that accredited partners on youtube should be the users posting the video. This is for 2 reasons. 1) the quality level is far better, i.e. Mic audio, transitions, intros, and outros. It all just looks and sounds better. The same reason why we should have well formated articles is the same reason we should be working with partners. 2) Thumbnails are only avalible for youtube partners and the articles look very bland without them. They are not very good with just a screen shot and look much better with a thumbnail.
• "Should videos be added freely--or do they need to be reviewed by someone (admins, Hero, etc.) before being posted on the wiki?" The videos need to be reviewed if there is an open freely add policy then the wiki becomes bombarded with videos where people just post over and over. Making a policy that allows people to add videos freely will result in a flood of people spamming videos.
• "In most cases, we might want to limit a page to having only 1 video. But are there some exceptions we can make? For example, what about boss pages like Skeletron Prime--would it be okay to have a small "Video Gallery" for rare and important pages like this, just like we have picture galleries on some pages?" A small video gallery at the bottom of the page is perfectly reasonable.
• "Certain youtubers like Hero, TerrariaHelp and Yrimir (and others) are quite famous in the Terraria community. Of course, Hero has played a huge role in promoting this wiki. But what about Yrimir and company? Would you like to see some Yrimir, TerrariaHelp, etc. videos here on this wiki?" Yrimir is a great youtuber but he openly promotes the other wiki in many videos. Sending people to his channel will be sending them to the other wiki, same with terrariahelp. His videos are very entertaining but for the most part not video tutorials. He is a speedrun letsplay/ challenging boss fights kinda guy. Not really fights for the regular user or tutorials. I will conceed that there are a few of his videos that make sense to be on the wiki such as his crab engine video. No one else has really covered that, it is a tutorial, and it doesn't directly promote the other wiki. So in that particular case I think it is ok.
• "Other less known youtubers are great at making tutorial videos. Who are these people, and how can we get their videos here on the wiki?" Oydessygames, Verbalprocessing, and Hbvids1. These guys are youtube partners but smaller. They do tutorials and have no wiki affiliation in particular. They should all be considered.
• "Tutorial-like videos are typically preferred for content pages. But, take a moment to consider the Terraria Animated Comic video on the [[]]front page, or some of the boss fight videos on the wiki. I think these are primarily entertaining, rather than being there to teach us something. Can we find a way to bring both tutorial videos AND entertaining videos together on our wiki, to bring everyone the best of both worlds? --or should the entertaining videos just remain on youtube?" The entertaining videos are not ment for articles in my opinion. If there is an article about how to craft an item it would be out of place to put a letsplay up on the page just because that youtuber happened to get that item or something along those lines in the letsplay. I have 4 different letslays totaling over 30 eisodes and in all of the time i was video admin I never once posted a letsplay on the wiki. The wiki is for tutorials and knowldge.

I will leave the rest for more comment.

Hero, I'm not clear on the visual differences between a partner video and a non-partner video. Would it be possible for you to show us the effect? Perhaps by adding one of each here and explaining the effect of the thumbnailing? Thanks :) -- sannse (help forum | blog) 18:21, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely Sannse.

Terraria - Heart Statue Terraria HERO(02:02)
1,930 views

vs

How To Terraria Making A Heart Dispenser, How To Use Wire, How To Get Engineer NPC(03:57)
23 views

So for the difference you can see that a screen shot of the video does not tell you what it is about and looks much more unprofessional in the articles. We can title it but me and the other admins have had a talk about it and we don't like the thumbnail feature in the code. It also looks unprofessional so we remove it. So with thumbnails you get a crisp image that displays what the video is about and it looks much more professional on the articles.--HeroGaming 10:12, February 10, 2012 (UTC)

"me and the other admins have had a talk about it and we don't like the thumbnail feature in the code" -- in the distance past, yes. To clarify, I never participated in those discussions. Anything and everything decided on previously is potentially up for re-discussion. That's why this is a video discussion. Here's a counter-argument:

1) Thumbnails and titles aren't necessary. The topic of the video is more than clear by virtue of the fact of what page it's on. If viewers are looking at the Heart Statue page, then obviously they're going to expect the video on that page to be about a Heart Statue. They don't need to see a title or thumbnail to know that.

2) Screenshots aren't that bad. A screenshot provides information about what the video will look like before you hit play. This is nice because it gives viewers a better feel for the video itself. A thumbnail masks the actual video footage, so viewers are forced to actually play the video to see what it looks like.

3) Videos should not be required to have a thumbnail on our wiki. At this point, I completely agree with 3ICE in that videos should not be limited to youtube partners and their thumbnails. Thumbnails are a very minor quality feature. What's important is the content of the video itself, not the screenshot/thumbnail etc. Although he stated it like an accusation, 3ICE makes what I see as a valid point in that youtube partners can even possibly detract from the quality of videos in some cases. They can make more money the more videos they make faster. So they sometimes end up making videos with mediocre content, spruced up with fancy thumbnails, intros and outros and they call them professional and good. The most important thing is all the stuff in the middle. A video with good content is good, regardless of whether it has a thumbnail/screenshot and regardless of whether it was made by a youtube partner or not. Both screenshots and thumbnails are acceptable.
Mathmagician ( talk ♥ blog ) 13:32, February 10, 2012 (UTC)

Port5's thoughts

I have always thought that having HERO as our only video manager was better than having everyone posting what they want when they want. But thinking back on it, having one person with all the power may not be the best idea. Most admins should be able to give an opinion on whether a video should be posted, and any person who wants to post a video should check in with someone else first. And yes, I don't think even an admin should be allowed to post without anyone giving an opinion on it, even HERO has made a few mistakes, such as having wrong names or other things (calling the Aqua Scepter a Water Bolt for example.) Thing is, nobody is perfect, and as much as he is loved, HERO isn't either. 98% of the videos on the wikia at the moment are made, produced, and posted by HERO, not always correct, but usually helpful. But he does have some things right that most people don't, such as ONLY promoting this wikia through his video, I.E. having it link to his page and directly link back through to the wikia page in the description, as well as other things. If we have anything fixed, we should have a larger spread of power, but not so large as to say, some random person having the ability to post something where they are constantly promoting other stuff and not really helping with the topic, or having 7 videos on the exact same topic explained in such a way you think the videos are cloned off each other. Videos SHOULD be based of quality, how well the point is explained, and be judged by someone who is a video manager, which we should (in my opinion) have at least 3 of, while keeping HERO as the head video manager, as he does seem to know what he's doing here and has experience on this. On the topic of entertainment, I think that we should either keep in the blogs, or just create a side wiki or something of the sort for that purpose. As this wikia isn't just to inform you on how to play terraria, but to inform you about how awesome it is. Entertainment plays a key part in this.

That is all. Port5 04:10, February 9, 2012 (UTC)Port5

Gracey91: My Thoughts

I think we should allow more users to add videos, i don't think they should be able to freely add them as that didn't work in the past so i doubt it will work now. They could be reviewed by the admins or a small group of known/respected users could be made into like a video submissions group, each video is to be watched and certified before adding it. To help save time i imagine most of heros videos will be kept, i think we should first focus on allowing users to make better versions on currently incorrect videos. As if we allow people to apply to add videos to any page it will end up creating a huge back log. Maybe we could work through categories one at a time. Also i don't think we need to have all the video made by well known youtubers, anyone who can create a quality video should have a fair chance of it being added to a page. Gracey91 (talk • contribs • count) 04:39, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Koggeh

I find that the video policy should not be under one person's control, there should at least be a second manager to make sure the other doesn't dictate it. User_talk:Koggeh

IcecreamKitten: Outsiders' opinions

Even though I'm not involved in this particular wiki, there are a few things I wanted to mention while I was following the recent issues here.

• First of all, the promotion of other wikis. As wikipedians (in a non-Wikipedia-related sense), our purpose is to provide knowledge, or at least access to it. That includes information on a competing wiki, if this one does a worse job of explaining the subject. When deciding whether to include a video that promotes another wiki, consider whether you can (and intend to) make a better video or page and post it. If you can't do a better job, post the other video even though it promotes another wiki.
  
  You'll find that you don't have the manpower to outperform the other wiki all the time.
  
  I would also advise placing a link to similar/competing wikis and resources on the main page.

• Second, adding videos. Anyone should be able to freely add videos if they are good. You need to set guidelines for specific quality (which should not be based on where they direct traffic...). Editors will be able to report unsuitable videos, just like they can do with vandalism or pages that are candidates for deletion.
  
  That's how wikis work, there's no reason to change that.

• Tutorial/entertaining videos. You can make a special section for entertaining videos. That way you will have both. You can also put a "see also" link to the entertaining video on a relevant page, while it already has a tutorial embedded.

--IK

I'd like to challenge one part of this statement (with respect :) -- "That's how wikis work, there's no reason to change that." I would say, that's how some wikis work, and there is a lot of room on Wikia for wikis to experiment with wiki traditions and choose what works for them. -- sannse (help forum | blog) 18:11, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point, though in this case I think we are talking about a simple editing habit being replaced by a more complicated one that offers less freedom and is more likely to malfunction. --IK

Zoro the Gallade: Just my two cents

But I think that having only one person monopolize all the videos is wrong.You've already seen that Hero has been making several mistakes, typos and such in his later videos, and besides, while his videos aren't bad and have a pretty decent quality, I think there has to be people who can do better, mainly because they're not stressed by the fact that every video on the wiki is their responsability. Long story short, I entirely second the idea of letting everyone have their chance at making a tutorial video on Terraria.--{{SUBST:Utente:Zoro the Gallade/firma1}} 05:12, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

No videos (by 3ICE)

Videos are not editable by the community. They are also not licensed correctly, and are hosted off-site. Videos do not meet the wiki requirements and therefore, they should be removed from article space.

This is not YouTube

I completely agree with the comment left by Momi-inu:
"I'd rather not have any videos on pages at all, just text and pictures. If you need a video about something, you can search YouTube and watch any video you like. Or all of them. [...]"

Also copying my relevant note from the now deleted previous vote:
"How about a radical change? I propose the removal of every video from the wiki. I know I never watch them here. If I want to see a video, I go directly to YouTube. [...]"

The deleted vote has excellent points

Here is the archived vote, which you should look at, for some excellent points were raised there.

Videos are not editable by the community

Wiki is lots of text and one image, not a static video and one line of text. We are forced to endure factual errors in Hero's videos, because we can't edit a video once it has been submitted to YouTube.

Hero does not correct his videos

The old, incorrect videos are still on the pages with these comments:

• I understand that HERO is the only person who can put videos on the wiki but this vid is completely inaccurate and needs to be updated
• I'm sick and tired of these hero videos. Not only does he ask me to subscribe through the entirety, but the last 1/4 is him begging as well. List the information!! Where does it come from? What can it be used for? These videos are just view whoring.
• Hero mixed up on the soul of night and soul of light. You can get soul of night by any monster in the underground corruption NOT by chaos elemental. the soul of light drops from any monster in the underground hallow it dosent need to be pink.
• btw, kid in the video is wrong
• i don't watch these stupid videos, write it in text damnit
• I know right? I've been coming to this wiki less and less because there's no real content most the time, just a page to forward you to a video. Is it THAT hard for the person who embeds the videos to add the details to the wiki entry?

And this was just a very small subset of the complaints. I collected them in one minute from 3 pages in Category:Souls. (The last 3 comments are so old they are on page 2, but I found a different way to link them still.)

Hero only started to promote this wiki now
Hero did not promote this wiki in any of his videos that I've seen. And I have seen a lot. Until recently, there was nothing. Then the word "Article:" appeared in most video descriptions (at the very bottom), but no link came after that. Now there is a static link to the main page there, but that's a very recent addition, and quite lazy. People are not going to search for the relevant page on their own, links should point to a relevant article instead of the main page. (Not that I would want Hero's average audience here.)

This wiki should not turn into Hero's fansite.

No partnership requirement

If we decide to keep the videos, then partnership should not be a requirement. Partnership actually lowers the video quality, because most partners are focused on making money rather than making quality videos. (Compare hero's videos from 8 months ago to now to see the gradual decline in quality.)

Short intro or No intro and outro at all

Hero raises excellent points about having a good intro and outro, but his own outro is far from professional:

• Hand drawn kindergarten level images.
• Never fails to beg for favorites likes and comments. This has no place on a wiki.
• Sometimes his outro is longer than the content.
• I'd rather there was no intro or outro at all.

3ICE 19:04, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

Shadow Wolf TJC: My opinions on this matter

First off, I personally don't like to get into arguments in general, though I am personally a heavy proponent of "freedom of speech", and am strongly opposed to censorship (for the most part at least). I don't particularly care about maintaining status quos or getting involved in some petty rivalries or such, though from personal experience, I find that the fewer freedoms are available, the less a site tends to grow. Also, and no offense to Hero, while I do find Hero's YouTube content as being pretty helpful in general, sometimes, I find that other people's videos are even more helpful, particularly when it comes to videos that cover the more less-known or niche things in Terraria, such as strategies on beating such bosses as The Destroyer for example.

That being said, I believe that, despite all the help that Hero has done in the past, other people should be allowed to contribute in their own helpful ways, by being able to post videos that they feel are helpful for certain pages. As a compromise, I'd like to propose that video posting be limited to registered users so that fewer griefers can post vulgar content and such. Besides, if the videos that were posted are found to be not that helpful, or (in the case of videos that were replaced) are found to be less helpful than the previous videos, then we could always revert them back to a previous edit, just like with any other edit.

--Shadow Wolf TJC 21:52, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

Yri's thoughts

As I’m mentioned (got message with link) I feel I have a right to add something (even though I'm not a regular visitor on either wikis). I can see the pros of just having 1 channel as it will add continuity to the pages – which really creates a neat package. This creates a good image of the wiki and adds strength to the site.

I do however think diversity makes it (the wiki and most important the game) stronger – as is the case in real life if you work with big projects. It should also be a big boost to creativity as you have a way to showcase a good and informative video – and if it gets rejected because of quality you would try and improve it, adding to the creative process and giving us better videos in the long run. That should be a big plus for the vitality of the game.

Last summer I could post videos on the wiki, and I enjoyed it. That managed to promote a few channels, adding diversity and interest to the game.I was hoping to post some videos when 1.1.1 came out – but that ambition got shattered very quickly. Finally I wish you a good debate on the issue and hope you find a good solution to your problem.

(About links to Terrariaonline.com: That has nothing to do with wikis, but about the community. The bigger the community, and knowledge about the forums, the better it is for the game)

--Yrimir Real 00:10, February 10, 2012 (UTC)

Some of my thoughts - Mathmagician

Why I'm Against 3ICE's proposal of removing all videos

• This has traditionally been a unique, video-oriented wiki. To completely remove videos from the wiki would be a radical change--not that radical is necessarily bad, I just feel that it's way overboard in this case.
• Nobody is forcing anybody to watch the videos. If you want to read the article, you can simply read the article.
• Some people enjoy watching the videos here. And it can be difficult to find a good tutorial video on how to get which item by searching on youtube--compared to searching for the item here on the wiki and bingo, found the page, found the video.
• Yes, it's true, many of Hero's videos have inaccuracies and many people complain about this. This is a problem that can be solved. We don't need to use this as a reason for removing ALL videos from the wiki.

However, I do agree with 3ICE about intros/outros, and he makes many other good points besides. I just don't support removing all videos.

Terrariaonline and wiki

Hi Mathmagician. Sorry for butting in here, but I've been seeing some confused comments about terrariaonline and "the other wiki". In particular, things like "Terrariaonline is the rival wiki".

I just wanted to point out that terrariaonline.com is actually a forum based community (the only one I know of, too). Our wiki is a wiki.subdomain, yes, but that is an entirely different community and webpage. As a matter of fact, as pointed out by Hero, they have already hosted videos by Hero on their main pages. I myself had never even heard of this Yrimir up to this point. I have never left the wiki, and Yrimir has never been on the wiki. Yrimir is promoting his community (his link is terrariaonline.com), and not the wiki. To be honest, I don't think he really cares about either of our wikis :D EDIT: Especially since he isn't even allowed to post them on the TO.wiki, so he has no reason to promote it anyways...

Of course, both are tightly binded, and I understand that "terrariaonline-the domain" is also a community you may not want to promote, which is also totally fine by me. I just felt the comments were a bit uninformed, and I wanted to point it out. happypal (talk • contribs) 08:35, February 9, 2012 (UTC)

Happypal posted this on my talk page, and the reason I'm bringing it here is because he makes some very valid points. First, terrariaonline is primarily a forum-based community. Secondly, Yrimir doesn't directly promote wiki.terrariaonline. I just went to Yrimir's channel on youtube, did a random sampling of at least a dozen videos--and didn't find a single one that linked to terrariaonline or wiki.terrariaonline. I did find several that mention terrariaonline.com, but there was no link provided. Take this video for example (not that we would post this particular video on the wiki--it's just an example):

In order to get to wiki.terrariaonline.com from our wiki, you have to do the following: 1) watch all the way to the end of the video through the credits (not all people watch the credits--I usually don't). Then, 2) you have to see the terrariaonline.com reference in the credits. 3) Since no link is provided, you have to open your browser and type in "terrariaonline.com." 4) To get to the wiki itself, you then have to then have to click another link to get to the wiki subdomain. (Note: In this particular video I posted above--you actually have to go to youtube and look in the comments to see the terrariaonline.com reference--it's not in the credits.) In any case, as you can see, it's a LOT of work to get from our wiki to wiki.terrariaonline. Also, people who are watching Yrimir videos on our wiki will already have a natural preference for our wiki because we're the wiki that has Yrimir videos--what reason do they have to up and leave and join wiki.terrariaonline?

Conclusion that I draw out of this: Posting Yrimir's videos here on this wiki would not have a noticeable effect of promoting a competing wiki or directing traffic away from here. If anything, Yrimir might consider starting to mention our wiki in his videos/comments if we ask to partner with him =).

Who Should Upload Videos?

I support allowing anyone to add videos. I'm possibly willing to make a compromise to only allow certain people to post videos--but my strong preference is towards users' freedom to post all types of content, including video.

Also, the era of "video edit warring" etc. with everybody uploading videos is in the past--back when the wiki was newer and suffering from lots of vandalism. We're past that phase. I don't expect to see an exorbitant amount of vandalism related to videos if all users have the ability to post them now.

Reviewing Videos

I prefer an after-posting review process, as opposed to a pre-posting review process. We don't screen pictures before uploading, so I see no reason to screen videos before posting. Rather, I think it makes sense to let admins keep an eye on what files are uploaded, and scan through the videos every once in a while to make sure they're appropriate (no spam). Quality control should be passed on towards a "video content team," which may include Hero, admins, and definitely some regular users. Viewers can help with the review process too:

That's what I have to add for now,
Mathmagician ( talk ♥ blog ) 00:46, February 10, 2012 (UTC)

"Promotion", "Traffic", "Competition" (Mathmagician)

It is clear that one of Hero's biggest concerns is that this wiki should not "promote" its "competition." Hero has repeatedly made such claims, but I am far from satisfied with the evidence or logic behind his claims. If this is going to be one of Hero's main concerns in shaping the video policy, then we need to address the notions of "promotion" and "sending traffic away from the wiki" directly and on a sound basis. These are many of my thoughts regarding the matter, incorporating words and concepts other people have said and things I have said previously.
Mathmagician ( talk ♥ blog ) 08:57, February 11, 2012 (UTC)

What Entities Are Not Acceptable To Promote?

• Hero's videos on this wiki promote his youtube channel. Going off the basis of things Hero has said previously, Hero cannot argue the fact that this sends traffic away from the wiki directly to Hero's youtube channel. This is promotion, right? So, it's not okay to send traffic away from the wiki to terrariaonline... but apparently it is okay to send traffic away from the wiki to Hero's youtube channel? Either way the traffic leaves the wiki. And in either case the traffic may or may not come back. Is there a distinction here? If so, why?

• If it is acceptable to send traffic from the wiki to Hero's youtube channel (under certain conditions), then, logically speaking, it must also be acceptable to send traffic from the wiki to other users' youtube channels if other youtubers meet the same "requirements" that Hero does. Of course, it's not Hero's or any one person's place to single-handedly define what these requirements are. Like everything, this is open to discussion.

• w:c:ru.terraria:Terraria_вики is a Russian Terraria Wiki here on Wikia. Are they considered "competition" for this wiki?

• Is there any other place besides terrariaonline that Hero or anyone else objects to sending traffic to? If not, why is Hero only objecting to sending traffic to Curse / terrariaonline?

Hero Promoting The Wiki & Vice-Versa

• Again, no one is questioning the fact that Hero's videos on this wiki promote his youtube channel. Pick any random video on this wiki (I clicked "Random page" on the On the Wiki tab in the nav bar), skip to the end, and you'll see Hero mentioning one or all of the following: "Please subscribe to my youtube channel," "please support this video by giving it a thumbs up and adding it to your favorites," "please check out some of my other Terraria videos."
  
  Terraria - Ivy Whip Grappling Hook(01:52)
  18,070 views

• Do Hero's videos actually promote this wiki? Yes, but it hasn't always been that way. It's more of a recent thing, like 3ICE said. The Ivy Whip video I posted above (and many of Hero's old videos like that one) don't support the wiki. There's the word "Article:" if you go to youtube and look in the comments. But there's absolutely no mention of terraria.wikia.com either in the video or on youtube. Now, on some of Hero's more recent videos, he includes a link to the front page of the wiki (you have to watch the video on youtube and read the comments):
  
  Terraria - Excalibur Weapon Terraria HERO(03:10)
  14,672 views

Definition of "promotion"?

• Hero's repeated claims about how youtubers such as Yrimir or TerrariaHelp send traffic to the Terraria Online wiki are exaggerated. Note: This section is about promotion, not about Yrimir in particular. Yrimir is just an example to demonstrate my point. Yrimir either mentions "terrariaonline.com" in the credits of his videos, or as a comment on youtube. Yrimir does not provide links that you can click on to get to terrariaonline--just plain text. Yrimir doesn't vouch for Terraria Online directly in his videos or actively try to send people there in his videos (by the same token, Hero doesn't do this in his videos for our wiki either). Livestream, personal preferences, etc. are separate issues. We're only talking about videos here.
  • This is something I posted above, I'm restating it as a point regarding promotion. Suppose a Yrimir video were posted on our wiki. For a user watching this video to get from our wiki to wiki.terrariaonline.com, they would have to...
    • 1) Actually watch the video (not all people on our wiki watch videos)
    • 2) Actually see the reference to terrariaonline.com, either in the credits or in the comments on youtube (many people don't watch video credits and many people watch the video embedded, not on youtube, so they wouldn't see the reference)
    • 3) Since no link is provided, you actually have to open a new tab in your browser and type in "terrariaonline.com" (links are easy to click, but not all people aren't going to go out of their way to open a new browser/tab and search for terrariaonline.com)
    • 4) Once you actually get to terrariaonline.com, you have to click yet another link to get to the wiki subdomain.
  • Not only this, but you also have to take into account that Yrimir isn't even allowed to post videos on wiki.terrariaonline.com. If his videos were to be on our wiki, we'd be the wiki with Yrimir videos. The people who enjoy Yrimir videos here on this wiki would have no logical reason to leave our wiki and join wiki.terrariaonline.com.
  • It's entirely reasonable that a youtuber might start linking to our wiki and promoting it going forward if their videos were allowed on our wiki.
  • Conclusion: When I add up these facts, the conclusion that I come to is that having Yrimir's videos on this wiki wouldn't really promote terrariaonline or send a sizable amount of traffic there. It's more likely that Yrimir would bring increased traffic to our wiki, especially if he were to start mentioning our wiki.
  • Sidenote: TerrariaHelp mentions terraria.org in his youtube comments (he doesn't provide a link, just text saying "Buy Terraria from www.Terraria.org"). Terraria.org has a link to terrariaonline.com, but this is one additional step to get to "the other wiki."

• (referring to the block above) So, what exactly is "promotion" of "the competition"? Referencing a place that you can do a google search for, that links to a place, that links to wiki.terrariaonline.com? By this very same type of argument, one would say that I'm promoting Terraria Online simply by mentioning them... Hero is promoting Terraria Online simply by mentioning them... Hero's videos send traffic to Terraria Online, because Hero's videos on this wiki lead to youtube, which link to other youtubers' Terraria videos, which lead to Terraria Online... Do you see how Hero's arguments regarding other youtubers' videos promoting Terraria Online are not logically sound?

• I agree with Dzylon's words and Happypal's words that terrariaonline.com (the official forums) and wiki.terrariaonline.com (the wiki) are distinct entities and separate communities. Are they related and is there some overlap? Sure. But there are plenty of people who use the forums without using that wiki. Just like there are plenty of people who use Hero's youtube channel but don't use this wiki--they're distinct entities. Promoting terrariaonline (the official forums) is different from promoting the Terraria Online wiki. For Hero to lump them together and say that supporting one is synonymous with supporting the other is not accurate--unless you believe that promoting place #1 which links to place #2 is the same thing as promoting place #2.

Must Promotion be Mutually Exclusive?

• If we insist that people only promote our wiki, how many of them are actually going to be willing to do that? It's far more liberating to ask "will you support our wiki in addition to other things you support?" as opposed to "will you only support our wiki?" I think there are many people just love Terraria the game, and aren't interested in having an exclusive relationship with a single wiki/forum/youtuber/etc. By only considering the people who agree to have an exclusive relationship with our wiki, we would be turning aside so many other potential supporters.
• It would be great for most people if Hero started including a link to another Terraria resource in his videos in addition to the link to our wiki. Linking to multiple Terraria resources is excellent for players, as it gives them more resources to look into when it comes to the game.

Traffic & Health of the Wiki

• Individual Terraria communities like our wiki, the terrariaonline forums, particular youtube channels, etc. are all part of the worldwide Terraria community. Being on hostile, unfriendly, isolated, or strictly non-promotional terms with other parts of the worldwide Terraria community greatly limits and reduces our wiki's potential for growth. I've said this before on the Wiki Mediation Forum, I'll say it again: "There's so many people across the world who play Terraria, all of which are potential members of this wiki's community."
• To say something along the lines of: promoting other parts of the worldwide Terraria community is detrimental to the health of our wiki--is a very close-minded view, not looking at the big picture:
  • Promoting another part of the worldwide Terraria community means that other people will, if not immediately then over time, open up to promoting us in turn. Kindness is returned with kindness. As long as our wiki is of good quality--and I am confident in our ability to make and keep it so--our community will not scatter to the wind. By opening up, we may lose a few members who move on to what they feel is a better community, but we stand to gain a vastly greater number from the worldwide Terraria community.
  • People will always choose what they like best. Trying to forcibly lock them onto our wiki with traffic control is not healthy for the wiki nor does it really work. People will always go where they want to go. What is healthy for the wiki is opening up, allowing people to freely choose which communities to participate in, and focusing on improving our wiki to make it their preferred choice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mathmagician (talk • contribs) . Please sign forum and talk page posts with ~~~~ (4 tildes).

Hero's theory that sending traffic to another wiki is harmful to this one is not supported by empirical data.

For example, one of my wikis has received less than stellar treatment by the official wiki editors. As a result, the official wiki gets almost all the links from the community, and all the advertisement. My wiki also links to it.

By Hero's reasoning, the unofficial wiki should have died a long time ago. And yet, it has never shifted from the number 1 position on google (it's been two years now). I'm sure it won't remain there forever, and I'm fine with that. It shows that people find useful info on both wikis, which is great. --IK

Sannse: A note on the section below

The following was moved down from above to put it in context.

As part of this process, everyone was asked to use this page for the conversation. Splitting it gives an incomplete picture of the conversation and leans it towards one viewpoint. Those commenting on Hero's blog post will be invited to add their comments here - comments on that blog or other side-bars will not be taken into account in future stages of this discussion

In order to give people time to transfer any comments they feel are still relevant after reading the conversation and comments on this page, the discussion will remain in this "opinion gathering" stage

HERO's New Video Idea.

So everyone here is my idea for video and how it could be run. This setup took into account a lot of the concerns of others on the wiki. I basically said I think there are certain things that are important to the wiki and there are certain things I think look good and then mixed them with all the objections that I had.

What it does: Allows people to upload videos to the wiki, keeps nice thumbnails on videos, promotes our wiki, promotes the youtuber far more than posting there own videos alone would. So basically it help our wiki grow and helps the video makers grow faster than they ever could have alone.

I am going to list some objections later and explain how this satisfies those for the people who it was important to.

First I would like to say that I truly do care for the wiki more than anyone else here. This has led to me being over protective and very one sided in the past. I understand my flaws so I would like constructive feedback on this idea. If you don't like something about it please tell me how we can improve it instead of telling me I am wrong. If you like the idea and think it's a good idea speak up.

Ok one of the biggest issues is that a few vocal people want to be able to upload their videos. Less than 50 people I would say. This has become a focal point in the discussion for video. What I propose is we let them upload their videos and I am gonna show you how. First I will tell you the huge problems we had with old video so you can understand how just letting anyone upload isn't the best way to handle things. In the past anyone could upload a video. What happened is since the policy allowed for that we had endless uploads of videos on the wiki. We had 3x more videos on the wiki than we had articles. Youtubers who wanted to grow there channel spammed the pages and removed each others video endlessly. Finally the last bcrat decided that videos would be banned from the wiki. I stepped in and said I have a gaming channel with a pretty big following how about I produce really good quality videos for the wiki while promoting the wiki to help us grow. I also offered to manage other videos that got uploaded rather than just ban video all together. He decided to test it out. It was a huge success. It helped the wiki grow because I was directing traffic here and made our articles more professional with less spam. As time went on youtubers stopped submitting videos to me. They either moved on to other games or didn't know how to or didn't know the policy. The issue of not doing a good job of making submissions easy was my fault. So long story short is the list grew smaller and less open based on the requirements we had.

So where does this leave us now? Well we have people who want to upload there vids but aren't very good at producing quick educational content. We have a dozen or so channels who produce content that is good but not all of it has our core goals of helping the wiki grow and keeping things clean. So basically I have thought that I can help this situation again. It is going to take some humbling from me but I think i can do it.

What I propose is that there be a submissions page. Where people can link there videos or provide download links to there videos. What I would like to do Is completely rework video on the site. Including most of my videos as well. I would like to have people be able to submit there videos to upload through my youtube channel. now before you start to think that this has ulterior motives let me explain.

My issues are thumbnails, promotion of the wiki, good intros outros, and quality content. What are others issues? Others not being able to upload there videos to the wiki and that's about all. So with this I think I can help those people more than they asked for in the first place.

I present my first test. It is very rough and made in under an hour and I only had one submission to work with but it can do some serious good for the video directors if implemented.

Gold Armor Terraria(00:57)
76 views

thumbnails take a bit to update like an hour

Now it is worth noting that I have changed a lot of my own video style with this setup. It can be refined as well. it is not perfect. So whats different? There were a few complaints about my videos in general and I think they go across the board.

• Your intros are to long and not very high resolution! I have made the intro about 3 seconds so it is straight into the action. All images are 1080p.

• Your outros are waaaaaay to long! They are now nice and short.
• Your outro always is asking for likes, favorites, and subscribes. That has been removed. I will ad though that Subscribe may return I just haven't made my mind fully up yet. I get that being asked to like and fav a videos all the time can be taxing.
• Audio is too low! Fixed!

So now that I have address a few issues people had with y videos what is different? Well we have a video make who is not me making the video. I did some quick editing maybe 5 minsutes. I slapped on the intro outro that was already made and added some text to help clarify things for the users.

Why is this good for the video producer? well with me promoting someone else and linking to there channel you gain expose to a much larger targeted audiance. I have helped 3+ people gain over 1000 subscribers just with a video or two where I linked there channel. This isn't something you would get from just posting your vid yourself in an article.

So basically when the video is posted through me I can give it a great a thumbnail,(mine are the best in the biz no one argues that, it is simply true) tweek it for the users, add wiki promotion, link back to the directors channel to help them gain hundreds and maybe thousands of subs, expose them to my huge audaince, get there video in the top of youtube search resluts where it normally wouldn't get and it helps with a few other problems. What if the director does do alot of promotion of terrariaonline? what if they can't make thumbnails? what if they don't have skills that help them produce good intros and outros. I can handel it all for them.

How much time would it take for me to do this for all the video articles on the wiki? 2 weeks if I have sumbission. I am open to replacing even good videos that I currently have up with others videos as long as the are good quality and we can get them having the right focus. I will set aside 2 full weeksto complete this task and completly rework video on the wiki, get the submissions worked out with the admisn so they can talk about what vids are best and hel the video makers gain far more traffic than they ever would have gotten by themselfs. I don't care if it is a youtber like terrariahelp or yrimir as long as the videos will promote the wiki. If you are a youtuber I am sure this will help you and I wish I would have ahd the same help when I was starting out.

So to boil it down into bullet points.

• Promote the youtubers who want to upload video
• Keep prmotoing the wiki
• Have great thumbnails
• open to anyone we will just tweek the vids to fit the wiki
• it will take me oughly 2 weeks to do the magority of the vids
• I have said that I am even willing to repost others vids over my existing good videos for the sake of the community.
• This wll help the youtubers who participate gain hundreds and thousands of subs.

Don't take that lightly either I did one collab last week with a guy and he gained 1000 susbcribers in 24 hours just from 1 vid. I favortied a video of another youtuber who was jsut taling about him hitting 8k subs and he gained an extra 200 over whathe normally gets. The promotion will help others more that having videos on my channel with ever help me. Terraria is slowing down... the game is dying out. I am ok with helping other people grow there channels before I pick a new horizon. Lets try to work together while we still love this game.

(feel free to edit my post for grammar and spelling.... I am running on fumes at the moment been up like 36 hours so I apoligze for not taking as much time as I should have.)

Feedback - TerrariaHelp

This is a pretty good concept as it will enable smaller channels to gain exposure that they won't usually achieve without 'prods' from external sources. Although it seems quite irrelevant for the content to be posted on your channel, as the only advantage towards this is a custom thumbnail. Thumbnails do not pose a great advantage on the wiki, as they are primarily used to make your content stand out from dozens of other videos in search results - you are not competing with other search results in a wiki, therefore I fail to see why thumbnails pose a problem in regards to submitting video content.

I understand that having content posted on your channel will enable your 'fanbase' to check out the director, although the vast majority of subscribers will only be interested in your content, therefore it may lead to a low percentage of your subscribers actually taking interest towards the directors channel. In addition it may have consequences in regards to your youtube channel as it is not usual for your channel to have content upload by others (im not against the notion though, as its a win/win situation for both yourself, the wikia and the director).

Overall its a pretty good concept, although It may be more beneficial for the content to remain on the directors youtube channel, as this is a great method to gain subscribers and views (Having content uploaded to you channel will drastically reduce views the director receives, at the cost of an unknown amount of subscribers - which may or may not have increased benefits)

Just to clarify - im not attempting to get my videos placed onto the wiki, nor am I trying to be affiliated with the wiki in any way (although if I am approached about having a few videos embedded onto the site, I wouldn't refuse this offer haha), I am just giving constructive criticism, I hope you dont find it malicious—Preceding unsigned comment added by TerrariaHelp (talk • contribs) . Please sign forum and talk page posts with ~~~~ (4 tildes). (originally posted here)

Feedback - Mathmagician

Agreement:

• I like the idea of Hero shortening the intros and outros and cutting back on asking for likes and subscribes--and considering redoing some videos =).
• For videos on the wiki, I think a short, neutral message such as "please check out my other Terraria videos," "please check out my channel if you liked the video," or TerrariaHelp's "please be sure to rate the video" is preferred over a message openly asking for support such as "please be sure to give the video a thumbs up" or "please subscribe to my channel."
• I think having a short outro or credits section is good, but I would slightly prefer to see intros go away completely so you jump right into the gameplay footage the instant you hit play.
• Having a video submissions page on the wiki is a great idea.

Disagreement: I don't like the idea of putting all videos on a single youtube channel (Hero's or anyone else's).

• Having all videos on a single youtube channel is not different from the current video policy.
• (previously stated) I do not think that thumbnails are necessary.
• People who produce videos should be reassured that their video belongs to them, nobody else is going to modify their video, and they will receive views and credit for their work--and if they want their video to be on the wiki then they need to ensure that it meets some basic requirements.
• Lastly, this places too much work and responsibility on one person. I do not want a single person to be solely responsible for editing/managing videos. The video submission page spreads out responsibility a bit--but the fact of the matter is that ultimately Hero's youtube channel belongs to him.
• I think it's true that Hero can help people get subscribers from his audience--but one person should not have exclusive control of video management. I think there are other some other ways to promote the youtuber and our wiki that don't involve everything being on one channel.

One Extra Idea:

• For promoting youtubers who make videos for the wiki, I think it would be neat if Hero agreed to do a special co-op video with the wiki's "youtuber of the month," and maybe Hero could promote this video on his channel and we could even place this video on our front page on the wiki.
  Mathmagician ( talk ♥ blog ) 07:20, February 15, 2012 (UTC)