Star Wars: The Old Republic Wiki
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Forum index > Secondary Sourcing


Right now we're pulling a lot of information from the DB: lists of missions, codex text, items, etc. I think we need to stop.

We shouldn't be pulling this information from a secondary source, even if we are affiliated with that source. We need to verify the accuracy of content as we add it. Pulling content from another source is not only frowned upon among the wider wiki community, but it defeats the purpose of having a wiki project in the first place. Additionally, none of this content is being flagged for latter review or marked as having come from a secondary source.

I think we need to consider adopting a general practice regarding content submissions: contributors should only add information that has been personally experienced and/or verified. We're adding a lot of information, but the value of that information is minimal at best; it's copied directly from another source, and no additional information is added. That's not a wiki project, that's a backup data dump. -- Heaven's Agent 02:30, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I understand this argument and I recognize that I am responsible for a lot of this. In my defense, I believe that the only way we can attract infrequent contributors that do have first hand knowledge of these pages is by providing them a foundation for which they can build upon. It's important to remember that the specific details of this wiki will be from players that are looking up the articles. If that person feels it is lacking information (such as a number of the items and materials stubs) then they have a page that has already been designed for them to add or correct as they please, rather than putting the responsibility on them to create an entirely new page. I think stubs beg visitors for their input, and that this is the best route to success for this wiki.--Bounty Hunter Elephunk T C 03:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I want to be perfectly clear: no one's done anything wrong. This is simply something we should consider. You make a great point, Elephunk, and I believe Ausir has mentioned it several times as well: if the foundation is in place more users will be directed to this project, increasing traffic as well as potential new contributors.
Perhaps a better way to go about this, then, is to include an "Article not Verified" banner template on all such articles. It would simply serve to show that the information was taken from a secondary source (DartHaterDB) without being verified prior to being added to this project. It would then invite users to verify the article's contents and add any missing information, and then remove the template itself. It could also add these articles to a unique category similar to Category:Stubs, which we could then direct new contributors to should they express an interest in helping the project but lack an idea of where to start. We mentioned such a template briefly when discussing a true data import from the DB, and it might be worth implementing in these cases of individual article importing. -- Heaven's Agent 04:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I definitely agree with Elephunk here, there's no need to stop creating these articles just because they are beased on a secondary source. Although I wouldn't mind a "verify" template to be added to these articles either. Curse flame Ausir (talk)
I've gone ahead and created the Verify template. --Icon class jediknight Alianin T C 15:14, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Very nice. I've elaborated on the general template to create a variant, Template:Verify/DB, specifically for use in articles imported from DarthHaterDB. -- Heaven's Agent 16:12, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
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