User talk:Fractalchez

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[edit] Pinball WikiProject

Hello Fractalchez. I am interested in the pinball wikiproject, but I am fairly new to Wikipedia. I have a pretty good background with pinball. I collect games and restore them. I have written a website on pinball restoration and maintenance. When I came to Wiki, I noticed what I thought was a weak page on pinball. I "think" I am interested in helping out, but would like to know what this entails and what direction you see the page taking. Right now, I feel that the page rambles on and tries to do too much on the one page. At one point, I tried to break it out into separate pages, but that was not well received. Please tell me more about the project and in what direction you see it going. How does a project like this progress? Are communications like this supposed to be in the Wiki project discussion area? Thanks.--Lhammer610 17:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi there Lhammer610! I'm glad you swung on by. I was going to contact you directly about the WikiProject. I only just started it recently, and so wanted to let you know it was finally here. The talk page of the project is in fact probably the best place to discuss what to do with it, but one of the great things about Wikipedia is that there is no one right way, so getting ahold of me here is just fine. I do have some thboughts on where the project should go, so I don't mind this at all, even though by the nature of Wiki the project is the equal property of whoever works on it, and you should always feel free to be bold!
What I would do first is to just spend a little time getting acquainted with Wikipedia in general. Find some other areas and just poke around them to see what others are doing. Looking at other WikiProjects naturally is especially helpful, but just getting a feel of how things evolve here will go a long way to helping you understand how to best help the project. The nutshell of what I got out of it is that pinball is very poorly represented on Wikipedia; I'm not exactly sure why that is, but the reason is mostly irrelevant. There's so much that can be done, and I think doing so will help both Wikipedia and pinball.
What I would like to see is a project that is akin perhaps to what is going on with the Video games project. A repository of information about the game that includes primarily information about each machine, about the nature and history of the game, the primary people/companies involved in it, cultural references, etc. An important rule is that it should be useful information to "outsiders": this is why I think the pinball repair page got nixed.
However, I should also inform you that I have a second project for stuff that doesn't fit here. Some time ago I started a separate pinball wiki, and in there I think pages like the repair page you wanted to do would be excellent.
More talk than this should probably occur on the project discussion page, so I'll leave it at this for now. I hope you decide to join up! Fractalchez 19:50, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello Fractalchez. I will take a look to see what is involved. As to your comment that "An important rule is that it should be useful information to 'outsiders' ", I don't know who "outsiders" are. The purpose of the repair page was to help people who might own a machine but not know how to do simple maintenance and repair. My world is full of 'insiders' who live and breathe pinball machines. It is full of self anointed experts many of whom are quite helpful, but others are snobs. I have seen many people who own a single machine and don't know the first thing about maintenance. I think those are "outsiders". Anyway, after I put up the repair page, I found out I violated the Wiki rules on "how to" pages, which is why I took it down.
I am looking forward to a better Pinball page. Let’s see what we can do.--Lhammer610 17:29, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Hey again,
There is a specific guideline that describes this better but I don't remember where it is. The summary is that any Wikipedia articles should be equally useful to anyone; in this case that would include people who don't play pinball and who maybe even know little about it. A pinball repair guide therefore is going to be difficult to do right, since it mostly has use only to those in the field. It's probably not impossible to do, but at least for now I think including it in the main pinball page (I assume that was you that added that section? Looks good either way) is likely best. Hope this helps!
Interesting concept that Wiki articles "should be equally useful to anyone". I think that the only article that would meet that requirement would be a blank page....  :-) --Lhammer610 00:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Good way to think of it is to compare it to the NPOV principle: impossible to to ever pull off perfectly, but the ideal to always strive towards. It's about what makes any good general information source, actually. That's why I made a separate pinball wiki, so that stuff that's more aimed towards people familiar with the game have someplace that assumes a certain amount of pre-learned knowledge. That's about how it's going anymore: separate wikis are everywhere. It's an effective construct, IMO, though I do need to get on pimping the pinball wiki a bit more.
If you haven't seen it yet, a good page of instruction is located here. While some of the ideas there may seem overly restrictive at first, I've found that they really are a bare minimum, and do a great job of making sure Wikipedia stays well focused. Of course everything here is always up for discussion, so remember that you have as much control over the rules as anyone else. You might, for that matter, check out some of the discussions about these guidelines and add your input if you feel enough inspired.
But anyway, enough rambling. Sorry that it took me a while to reply; not on here as much as I want, though maybe that's a good thing. :-) Do always feel free to come to me if you have any questions. I'm still not an expert, but am comfortable enough that I'm happy to help any way I can. Fractalchez 20:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pirates of the Caribbean (pinball)

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Pirates of the Caribbean (pinball), by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Pirates of the Caribbean (pinball) fits the criteria for speedy deletion for the following reason:

this article has practically no information at all


To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Pirates of the Caribbean (pinball), please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. --Android Mouse Bot 2 11:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your reasoning at Talk:Pirates of the Caribbean (pinball); the page is not being deleted ~ Anthøny 20:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks muchly for taking the time to assist, Anthøny, 'tis appreciated. Fractalchez 23:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Road Kings

A "{{prod}}" template has been added to the article Road Kings, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but yours may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. Javit 00:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimedia Pennsylvania

Hello there!

I'm writing to inform you that we are now forming the first local Wikimedia Chapter in the United States: Wikimedia Pennsylvania. Our goals are to perform outreach and fundraising activities on behalf of the various Wikimedia projects. If you're interested in being a part of the chapter, or just want to know more, you can:

Thanks and I hope you join up! Cbrown1023 talk 03:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)