User blog:Swordzmanp236/I Come Not to Upset the Order, but to Establish Some

Hard to figure out where I should start, blogging on a wiki and all that rot.

I see in the comments on a few of those posts I've edited, as if I have no right to do what I've done. "Who's doing this?", they wonder. "Why is this article so short/long?", they cry. "This isn't right!"

True, compared to some, I'm still green, and indeed I shoulldn't stick my nose in where it doesn't belong because I'm some low-ranking peon on the wiki totem pole.

But I've never been one to stick with rank-and-file definition of who should do what and when and how he should do it, 100% of the time. In fact, let me tell you that here in the Northwest USA, we have lots and lots of totem poles, and I've heard that the LOWEST figure on the pole, is given the HIGHEST priority.

And so it is in a wiki. Even the most insignificant of writers will play a mammoth role in shaping its direction and future. Every player has a part.

I came here because I stumbled onto this thing called Epic Rap Battles of History: part comedy, part history, part catchy beats, and all MAD fun. I wondered if the series was wikified, and, true enough...

So I start casing this place, and the first thing I've noticed was a pretty serious typo oi the entry for Stephen Hawking. Some knucklehead had misspelled "neuron" I know. Small thing. Such things irk me. Yet, this is how it began six months ago.

I continue on a path, correcting mistakes I can find.

Someone got the idea of transcribing and interpreting all these weird lyrics into one ginormous article. Which was a good idea. But within a month and a half, the mistakes and inaccuracies, even from me, had piled on. The article was getting too long.

Then some other guy (I'll never know whom) tried to fix that. His work, however, was being zapped on sight as being "unneeded" Wait a sec! Isn't this a wiki? Can't anyone edit things that they see as inaccurate or just silly? I thought so, too -- but then, politics stepped in.

So it remained for months, with the Rap Meanings page as one HUGE, disorganized mess. The solution of the day three months ago was to roll the entire page to a 7-episode list. That seemed to work well for a while. Except for one thing: I didm't see folks archiving what was taken out, and so we lost a LOT of good and useful info in the process.

As of today, I've been working with administrators, to bring those pages back. But, we're going to do things differently this time around. And it all stems from the observation that a vertical solution to the problem did not work.

I'm going to suggest, that we do bring all past pages for rap meanings back. So far, we have all 15 battles in the first season, and all but three in the second. Those who know anything about the battles' links to history are welcome to edit these pages. However, there should be a window within which edits to lyrics and their meanings will be accepted. When a battle is no longer current, it should be archived. User FlareBlitz47 has created a template for navigating through these battle archives. And as much as it has made some people cringe, this is perhaps the best idea we've had so far.

And I'll be glad to help, as much as I can, for as long as I can. It may take a while to get used to how things look around here now, but I want to make sure this remains a place where people can talk about their favorite series.

Stay frosty. I'll be in touch.