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Article comments were disabled in The Legend of Korra and film pages until July 23, 2012.
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For a while now, the Avatar Wiki has had comments on articles, instead of talk pages like most other wikis have. Now, for a while, that didn't much impede the wiki as a whole. Then Legend of Korra came. People have come flocking to the comments section. And the comments they make are simply not constructive in any way whatsoever. All comments truly cause is trolling, vandalism, and people saying the same things over and over again about how "OMG MAKO IZ s0 HAWT" or how "AMON IZ KEWL". It's simply unnecessary. This is the Avatar Wiki. Many of us have made good friends on here, but when it comes down to it, the fact remains: This is not a social networking site. This is an encyclopedia of all things to do with the Avatar Wiki. Comments on articles add nothing to an encyclopedia. Can you imagine if Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Brittancia had comments on their articles? It would be a disaster, much like our comments are now.

Now, I'm sure one thing cited in the inevitable argument against the removal of comments is that we'll lose traffic. I'd like to counter that by saying: Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are very popular shows, and the Avatar Wiki remains the one and only go-to source for everything Avatar/Korra related. This wiki will still get traffic, comments or not.

All I can see comments adding are trolling and blatant stupidity. It's simply not worth the effort in my eyes. Sure they add traffic, but at what cost?

In the end, I know this proposal will get shut down. It has no chance of success. But I feel that it's worth a shot. Comments are, quite simply, bringing the Avatar Wiki down. They need to go. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 15:41, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly (dis)agree to this proposal. By God, we JUST cannot let unregulated capitalism win! I mean look at the Sub-prime Crisis in America, and the Sovereign-Debt Crisis in Europe. May we all revel in blissful censorship forever! All Hail, Fire Lord Censorship! KettleMeetPot (wall • contribs) 15:43, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Maybe what we should do, is try and regulate the comments; delete the ones that are "stupid" or don't contribute in any way. Which, I get would be hard, and piss people off, but one of my favorite things about this Wiki, is the commenting section, because I've never been to another Wiki like this. (RandomGirlYouDon'tKnow) (wall • contribs) 15:49, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Thing is, the unnecessary ones are at least 90% of them. They just don't work. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 15:53, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. Article comments themselves are a contravention of our What Avatar Wiki is not policy. For a long time I've felt that comments detract the site from its main purpose: cataloging and maintaining information. While our rollbacks and admins must keep an eye on comments (which flood the RC on a regular basis) they're being distracted from contributions that also need supervision, perhaps more importantly so. Basically, articles comments only duplicate the workload of our patrollers while only providing a sense of gratification for those who comment, who more often than not are trouble-makers. I've tried to engage in some discussions in a couple of articles. Ultimately, potential good discussions get lost in the deluge of shipping comments and insubstantial replies. I much rather discuss episodes and characters in blogs. Article comments are an opened door for trolling and vandalism. ― Thailog 16:01, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

If anything, article comments should be moved to the page's respective talkpage. There, users may post their comments whether or not they are relevant, and others do not have to see the comments if they don't want to. Also, some pages have extremely huge comment sections and nearly triple the size of the page, making it more difficult to navigate properly, and for the page to load altogether. TDA15 ^{talks and edits} 16:04, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I feel as if this is a hard topic. Comments have both their pros and cons. Some pros would be that it is a quick way to get a response to a question about a certain thing regarding avatar. It also lets users who don't know how to edit comment about something that needs to be fixed on an article. Some cons are the fact that most comments are cluttered with unneeded things as mentioned. Personally I oppose removing comments, but I feel that we should enforce something to delete those unneeded comments.  Technology Wizard  Wall  Contribs  16:07, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

In the end, though, there is really nothing you could ask that couldn't be found by either reading the article or simply asking someone. And if we do enforce something, then the rollback/admin workload grows even more, and we're distracted from our main role of maintaining our articles. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 16:09, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

It's time - I agree with the proposal. Comments are not adding anything more - they have gotten way too far out of hand with personal attacks and trolling alike, and there is no longer any room for solid discussion. When I signed on here, I could have good discussions about several aspects of the show, and it seemed everything flowed fine. Now, it's just all gone downhill, and if people can't respect our discussion policy, then we can't keep comments around. Katara and Bolin Fanboy Send me a messenger hawk 16:12, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

You actually made an serious reply, Thailog? Wow. In response to that, all I can say is that it is important to keep the life in this wiki, not only for its role in the wiki traffic (which gives us benefits when compared to other wikis) but also, I think it is important to note that comments DO serve a worthwhile purpose. There are genuine discussions which occur through that medium which is important, not only for content and opinion, but also for community cohesion. I can wholeheartedly say now that without the comments section, this wiki would be an emptier place, and all the worse for it. It encourages new users to log in and contribute, and it presents a wild, vibrant atmosphere of discussion, even if most of it is irrelevant. You must keep in mind that the demographic of the show is mainly children, who relay their excitement and dedication to the show through the comments. And in the end, the wiki is FOR them, for the community. Last time I checked, this was a wiki based of sharing and community. And this really is a non-issue. It's not that hard for Rollbacks or Admins to keep an eye on the comments; this system has gone years without problems. If you really had such a problem, the most intuitive thing to do (at the least) would be to appoint more trusted Rollbacks, but I cannot support such a drastic, misinformed proposal. KettleMeetPot (wall • contribs) 16:13, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I'm starting to lean towards supporting the removal, however, what are everyone's thoughts on promoting projects and assigning certain areas of the wiki to users? Example: The 888th Avatar patrols article comments with Category:Fauna.  Technology Wizard  Wall  Contribs  16:16, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that with article comments, we even lost article talk pages, which used to be the place when one could challenge or discuss the content of the respective article. Anything raging from verifiability to format. Now, to do this we must open a forum thread to discuss/contest the smallest of things. Yes, there are pros and cons to article comments, but I don't think the pros outweigh the cons. KettleMeetPot: "this system has gone years without problems"... enters LoK. We're discussing the here and now, and how comments hinder efforts, increase workload, frankly, take the fun out of editing. ― Thailog 16:17, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Even then Thailog, this still becomes a non-issue. LoK has nearly run its course for Season 1, and in the break, you can expect a great downward trend in the frequency of comments on this wiki. Really, this proposal has been brought up at the worst time, where it will only make a difference to backlog for only a week or two. KettleMeetPot (wall • contribs) 16:21, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I am leaning toward the removal of comments, but I am also somewhat neutral. The benefit of comments are that they are easy to find, and can help people who can't find the Avatar Answers Wiki with questions, or maybe relay a piece of not-so-commonely known news. However, I definitely feel that if we do remove comments, talk pages should definitely remain for those purposes. If something is so important, I suppose it could be put on the talk page. So, yeah, I guess I'm leaning toward the proposal, but I could lean the other way too if I see a good argument on the other side. Truly Ferret 16:19, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

KettleMeetPot: You're making wild assumptions with little to no proof to support them. If by "empty" you mean "less flooded" then you are correct, and that alone should be a reason to support this proposal. Also, what precise benefits does traffic give us in comparison to "other wikis"? Also, the timing is inconsequential. We're heading to a hiatus (I think season two is not done yet) but that won't stop or even decrease comments. People will keep coming and flooding articles with their theories and disenchantment with whatever is going to happen in the finale. ― Thailog 16:26, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

"Less flooded" seems to be the only pro to this proposal, as you have yet to address some of my other points on the purposes of this wiki. Also, how are you NOT making an assumption by saying that you think that the hiatus between LoK Season 2 will not decrease comment frequency? What we DO know is when the 1st season ends and that it might be months before Season 2 comes out. We MUST work with the information we already have. Thus, it must be said that from what we KNOW, this proposal won't have much of an effect at all in the long-term. It's guaranteed that without the active content from the episodes each week, that the frequency of comments WILL decrease as the break wanes interest in the series, at least enough that those types of contributions will no longer come to the wiki. As for traffic, it maintains community interest in our work, gives our contributors the sense that our work IS being seen and that people do have active interest in the wiki, enough to even come here and contribute their opinions, however irrelevant they may be. It encourages more users to partake in genuine discussion in the comments, and even if they don't contribute too much at all, in doing so, they must go to those pages and, inadvertently or not, look at the fruits of our labour. The broad reaction of the community on those comment pages maintains some of the interest that our editors have, in turn, maintaining this wiki. KettleMeetPot (wall • contribs) 16:43, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I can understand the reasons people have give for why removing comments would be a good idea, but I cannot support this proposal. It is stated on Avatar Wiki:About that one of the goals of the wiki is "To create a community site for members to share their views and their theories on the Avatar shows and movies." Removing comments removes the main way users share their views and theories, in particular anonymous users. If they have nowhere to share their views, they are less likely to stick around. Most anon's do not go straight into editing articles; they start by making comments. I have read a lot of comments that were excellently well written and presented well-constructed arguments, and made me want to reply. Not all comments are like this, but simply removing all comments seems a step too far. It eliminates the main community aspect of the wiki, and in my opinion, would make this place a lot more dull. HAMMEROFTHOR 16:59, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

HoT: They would be able to share on a Talk Page, like what most Wikis do. It won't be the same as comments, but will, in a way, allow them to do the same thing: share opinions, questions, etc. on the page. Or at least, that's how it will work from what I understand. Truly Ferret 17:06, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I'm neutral on this. I agree that one of the most important things is the purpose of the wiki to be an encyclopedia and that comments should not exist in them, but it's also true that the site is for fans and it's a way for them to participate in the community in an easy way, many users and anonymus contributors are part of the wiki just because of comments. They increase traffic, but I don't see that as a more important or benefitial point, besides giving the wiki activeness; comments leading to editing or becoming part of the community in more other areas is not the most frequent thing.

The workload of admins and rollbacks isn't a relevant point here in my opinion, it's just a problem of them/us and it wouldn't be fair for commenters to remove this feature due to our "impossibility" to deal with them. Comments have an obvious consequence, and it's what some have been mentioning as a reason for remove, the flood of irrelvant comments that are never useful to create an atmosphere of a reasonable discussion, ideal purpose of comments but unreachable, as BD said, if we consider most of them irrelvant, we can't be deleting the 90%, those comments will always be made, and if we keep them we have to accept that. However, removing comments would still allow those people to share their opinions in other places, blogs and talk pages, that would have to be used again. If we remove them, we remove them not depending on the time or until what time of more or less traffic, but as a permanent decision. Dcasawang1 • wall 17:30, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

KettleMeetPot: "'Less flooded' seems to be the only pro to this proposal"

If you believe that then that's because you didn't read all other supporting arguments carefully. Comments:

1. increase the workload of rollbacks/admins;
2. replace talk pages, where one used to be able to discuss editorial issues concerning the article (dubious content, title change, etc.)
3. take the fun out of editing.

I think those are valid points, since everyone is here in their free time to have fun.

Just because the show targets a young demographics, it doesn't mean that the site should make it easy for said demographics to make insubstantial and irrelevant comments. This is a repository of information above all. We already have blogs for community interaction and all of what you said in your latter argument. How many venues do you need to do that?

KettleMeetPot: "how are you NOT making an assumption by saying that you think that the hiatus between LoK Season 2 will not decrease comment frequency?"

It's a natural corollary. Regardless of its outcome, people will come to voice their reactions, and after that comments will continue in light of the anticipation for the next season. Why? Because the floodgates are open. Why do you think most TV-shows forums only open episodic discussions a few hours before the episode airs? Because people would flood them with their predictions, theories and wishful thinking as soon as they were open. If there weren't many comments before season one, it's because there weren't many (or at all) LoK articles lying around. But now, every single LoK page is a potential purveyor of trolling, shipping, angry reactions or insubstantial comments.

HammerOfThor: "Removing comments removes the main way users share their views and theories, in particular anonymous users. If they have nowhere to share their views, they are less likely to stick around."

That's what blogs are for. You can have one for each episode and every character, as long as there's something relevant to say about them. Right now, every article equates to an open blog, thus prompting people to make irrelevant comments on them, just because they can; not because they have something salient to say. First and foremost our goal is to be the "ultimate guide to everything to do with the franchise" – not a social network. Removing article comments would not impede the community's ability to share their views. It would merely close one route—not all. ― Thailog 18:06, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how that is any different to what we have now - instead of leaving comments on the article, they leave them on the blog, and we have the same problem. I don't believe it is possible for anon's to create blogs, so they would be forced to wait for someone else to create the blog before they can leave their opinion. They could of course create an account, but I do not believe we should force people to create an account if they do not want to just to leave their opinion. This proposal doesn't benefit them at all. HAMMEROFTHOR 18:30, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

This proposal isn't asking for the benefit of anons who come only to comment. This proposal is asking for the benefit of the wiki as a whole. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 18:34, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

The growth of the wiki is reliant upon gaining new members who may bring something new to the table. If this proposal alienates some anon users, then the wiki as a whole will suffer in the long run. HAMMEROFTHOR 18:45, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

At this point, I must say I am neutral about this, for the reasons Fire Ferret has stated earlier in that comments are a quick, easy-to-access way to convey ideas or ask questions, especially for users who may not be familiar with alternative ways of communicating these ideas. However, there is the downside to comments with irrelevant and uncontributive remarks and it is true in that we are an encyclopedia primarily. I wouldn't mind the removal of comments on articles if there were to be specific blogs and talk pages implemented where users can hold discussions and these said blogs would be easy for users to find. The Ultimate Waterbender 18:46, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, Thor, it does alienate us as-is. Have you ever seen how people on, say, Tumblr talk about us? A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 19:12, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

HammerOfThor, your argument can go both ways: I can turn it around and say that seeing the RC page flooded with bad comments (as if is as I'm typing this), it may also alienate potential, mature editors who could become valuable contributors but turn away because they perceive this as a "kiddie" site. Sure, moving discussions for "official" forums would not solve the problem, but it would certainly contain it. If you had a "Turning the Tides" discussion blog, people would confine their opinions concerning all aspects of the episode there. As it is now, users can discuss what happened to Lin in her article, in Amon's, in the episode page, in the Attack on Republic City, and perhaps in others. Discussions are dispersed and multiple discussion hubs duplicate comments. It all comes down to organization, and it's easier to moderate discussions if they are confined in one place, per topic. Also, you must take into account that many of these anons who makes these flood us with bad comments are not legally eligible to create an account. They may do so, but they would be blocked under the auspices of COPPA if/when found out. So, what kind of potential editors would we be losing here? ― Thailog 19:41, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Your assumption there is predicated on the fact that people would confine their opinions to that blog, when the very fact people do not confine their opinions to the correct articles now is proof this would not happen. I see no reason why removing comments would create a different situation to what we have now. And forcing people to confine their opinions on all aspects of the episode to that episode blog - how is that helpful. If people want to leave a comment about Lin on Lin's page, they should be free to do so. If we took your example, that blog would have been filled with comments on General Iroh, Lin losing her bending, Rohan etc. Just a short time after the episode airing, both Iroh and Rohan had over 100 comments, so that blog would be filled with comments so quickly it would make moderating it just as hard as before, if not harder with the speed at which comments were left.

Maybe being flooded with bad comments turns away mature editors, but wouldn't removing comments altogether have the same affect on them as it would any other anon users. HAMMEROFTHOR 20:11, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Again, it would be a matter of organization. Forum threads on other sites do get locked when they reach a high number of posts and a new one is opened. As for your latter questions: the operative word there is "editor". Editors would ultimately stay because they would want to edit. Again, we're not banning discussions on the wiki; this is about making it less hazardous and rampant. So, if those editors also like to comment, they could definitely still do so, in a more organized and professional way. ― Thailog 20:21, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Definitely agree with everything Thailog has said so far. It's discouraging seeing the integrity of an excellently written article compromised by a wall of commentary that serves no actual purpose. Personally, I think removing comments will actually encourage more community involvement. If people really feel the need to comment, they'll find a way to. They'll create accounts, start blogs and talk to other users. All in all, comments are just largely disruptive and I opt for a more organized collection of opinion. Water Spout 21:14, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Could not disagree more. Article comments have played an important part in the growth and development of Avatar Wiki and taking them away would be a huge step back for us. They provide an easy way to voice opinions and participate on here for newcomers. If you ask around, you’ll find that many of the active users on here today started out through making article comments. I commented a lot when I first came on here. It was an easy thing to do. I learned more about the site and participated in editing and other activities after visiting here several times and making comments. I had been making comments since before I had an account. I was a “nony-commenter” – and I’m not the only one. Not everyone was, but a lot of us were.

This doesn’t mean that these editors who love to comment would leave now if comments suddenly disappeared, but the attraction that kept them coming back to this site regularly in the first place. For this reason, I would say that comments have certainly brought us a lot more than “trolling and vandalism.” Anons and regular commenters are part of the lifeblood of the future of Avatar Wiki. This proposal is like trying to fix poor running form by breaking one’s legs.

@BlueDagger: ATLA and TLoK are popular shows and the site will continue to have more traffic than usual, yes, but a lot of traffic will still be lost because, like I said, comments keep people coming back. And the examples of poor comments you gave are a very unsatisfactory representation of comments as a whole. A lot of good discussions take place and the percentage of comments that go against policy is much fewer than 90%. It’s a smaller fraction and we can deal with them without much harm. The health of this site is much more important than what a few people on tumblr are saying.

@Thailog: It’s fairly easy to look at edits in recent activity and not pay as much attention to comments. I’m able to do it pretty much every day. If you really want the comments to stop “flooding” your computer screen, just go to “see all activity” and filter out talk. In response to some of your other points:

1. The extra “workload” I don’t see as much of an issue. As of now, we have 30 users who have the necessary tool to delete comments and it only takes a few clicks to do so.
2. Talk pages might not be used, but the role they played is still here. We have War Room forums, project pages relating to quotes and images and users are always able to talk to one another on their message walls about an article.
3. A lot of users would claim the opposite about comments and fun. Also, you claim that it’s taken all the fun out of editing here. Well, we’ve had comments for two years and you’re still here. Clearly you’re not completely alienated away by comments.

@KataraFanboy: Comments are the same as they’ve always been. Your perception might be different, but they haven’t gone downhill. The site has more activity in general with the new show and any increase in activity likewise brings increased trolling and vandalism. That’s not something unique to comments. The notion that we should dump comments now because of recent trolling is fallacious. We’re in a cyclical higher period of activity – and we’ll have less activity soon, with the first season ending. Getting rid of comments in the heat of the moment without recognizing the benefits is not something to do.

@ATFF: Talk pages aren’t the same in this case. It requires more clicks and is less attractive at first glance to newcomers. In short, removing comments would be a major step back for the development of the wiki.

@Dcasawang1: To deal with bad comments we have 30 users who can comment-delete, and the admin noticeboard, plus the simple process of delete, warn, block for the (far less than 90%) bad comments. The best way to maximize the pros and minimize the cons is the status quo.

@Ultimate: An encyclopedia needs regular editors and viewers. We need to be as attractive to newcomers as we can. A blog/talk page system for sharing theories and discussion can’t be as fluid and efficient as article comments.

@WS: You can’t encourage community by weakening the flow of participation. Comments are a good way that many start getting involved.

Because this would have such a major impact of the wiki, everyone needs to see this forum. This can’t squeek by under the radar. This is going in community messages now. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 21:21, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Have you guys finally become crazy? Do you look at wikis that don't allow comments? Those kind of wikis are nearly dead. Look at the activity page of this wiki. What do you see? Article comments. Sheesh. If it wasn't for comments all I would see is admins, rollbacks, in a few autoconfirmed users making edits. We need comments.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 21:27, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Again, I am all for redirecting the popular interest and participation found in comments to a more organized and manageable system. There have already been several ideas thrown around and they're worth considering. This is primarily an encyclopedia, and though it is great that the wiki emphasizes community and participation, it shouldn't need to compromise its integrity by allowing substandard and non-constructive commentary with the hopes that the whole ordeal will bring about more users. Though the community was significantly smaller back before comments were allowed, it was still very much active and thriving. There are many many ways to get involved with this wiki, and they are all accessible with the click of a button. Water Spout 21:33, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Comments are part of fans who like to comment avatar, LoK or A:TLA. I do agree that most of it is useless, but there should be some way of having these comments here, but keep them as clean and appropriate as possible. --RaggaR (wall • contribs) 21:39, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@ARG: I said article comments take the fun out of editing; not took. Take, as in regularly. Yeah, when I come here to edit and am immediately bombarded with a flood of comments in the recent changes page I have two options: 1) I ignore them and go about my editing way, or 2) I go over all the comments I can see and delete the bad ones. Option 1 makes me a bad admin, while option 2 takes away my will to edit afterwards. Yes, we've had article comments for a while, but it has never been this bad. You seem too concerned with the potential new user we may not gain, but show little concern for the current ones that can be disenchanted and driven away.

@Omar067: Don't turn this discussion into another admin/rollback bashing rant. Your argument was spiteful and uncivil. Also, plenty of "big wikis" don't have article comments, and they have plenty of activity. ― Thailog 21:42, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

First off: totally disagree with this proposal. Although I didn't comment myself when I first saw this wiki, I sure as hell took a look at them. There were some pretty insightful opinions around, and there still are today. There's no way I wanna see them go.

And second: I don't think Omar was making a rant against admins and rollbacks there, Thailog. He was just saying how admins and rollbacks make a lot of edits, which is true. Nothing wrong with that. --Krazykid51 21:46, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I say we keep them. The wiki will loose quite a lot of users if we remove the comments. On top of that, the comments are a way we share opinions - especially anons. They have no other way to do so, and many of them are not willing to register. If we remove all comments from articles, we remove a part of our identity as a wiki that welcomes all users. Matey Y. (talk • A:TLoM)  21:48, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Krazykid51 and MateyY, please read the entire forum. "Insightful opinions" would still be allowed, just in a more organized way.

I'm not going to comment any further on Omar's jab. ― Thailog 21:51, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't a rant. It was a comment about an observation of the wiki activity page. It seems that speaking the truth, is considered as rant against your rights.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 21:52, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Let’s stay on topic here.

@Omar: I agree with your sentiment fully, but we have different ways of putting it.

@WS: The alternatives for facilitating discussion are not as fluid and efficient as article comments, and are not as attractive to newcomers. The interest and participation would not all be redirected. A lot of it would disappear. Comments are the easiest of all ways to get involved and that’s a large part of why the wiki has grown so well under them. If we want the wiki to progress even further, we best leave the commenting door open.

And like I said, we have 30 users who can delete comments, plus the noticeboard. It’s been a manageable system for a while and I see no reason why it wouldn’t be now.

@Thailog: I do indeed concern myself with the potential new user. Every new user is a potential great editor, and also a potential admin. As for the current editors, once they’ve been “reeled into” the wiki, there are a lot of good, productive things to do on here that help keep them around. Article comments don’t ruin them. As you pointed out, article comments now are different than they usually are, so we shouldn’t make a permanent decision based on the present. We can manage the wave through the processes we already have in place. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 21:54, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I have only speed-read through this, so forgive me if I'm repeating what someone already said: I whole-heartedly support removal of article comments. I mirror all the arguments Thailog made. If people want to discuss the series in the way they currently do, they can always use the blog features, which has the same threaded working. To whoever said that article comments made us who we are (once I again, I apologize if I read wrong due to speed reading), you're wrong: we were a big, full of traffic Avatar site long before article comments were created. Heck, one of the reasons I left this wiki in the first place was the use of article comments. My interest in the Korra series is greater than my despise of article comments, so I'm back, but it doesn't mean I like article comments any more than when I left. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 21:55, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Omnibender, the statistics don’t lie here. We’ve become a much bigger, more active site since article comments came along. When they were introduced, the amount of highly-active users instantaneously doubled and the number of users overall instantaneously tripled. Comments have made as a livelier community on the whole, even if not everyone chooses to participate in them. Just because you prefer the way things were before doesn’t mean it’s what best for the community. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 22:05, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Thats not the case at all (referring to removal of comments, for AvatarRokusGhost has indisputable evidence of their benefits). ive found a lot of information myself via the comments, just now i was looking at iroh (legend of Korra) and all the comments were associated with deducing irohs age. actually, there arent much spam like you described. at all... sure it happens but its rare and its not a disaster. i dont know how one or two annoying comments here and there can be described as a disaster. at the very least, if it annoys you, dont look at the comments. but personally, theyre useful and informative to me. Rydersilver (wall • contribs)

@ARG What I contested was someone's claim that we only became a big site because of article comments. It's obvious that article comments would bring in more traffic, I'm not talking about quantity, I'm talking about quality. Are articles still good quality? Yes, they are, but having to babysit people at article comments diverts attention and time that could be spent making articles even better. And like I said, if people want to have discussions, the blog feature is still there. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 22:11, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

AvatarRokusGhost: A claim like that should be supported with verifiable data. How can you correlate the site's grown with the implementation of comments? One could argue that the merger did that; not comments.

Rydersilver: If comments are more informative than articles, then we failed in our first and foremost goal of being a repository of information. So we should be looking at that; not keeping comments for their informative tenor. Also, blog comments can serve that same purpose without all the gunk article comments bring. ― Thailog 22:15, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry, Thailog, I read the rest of the forum. I saw everything you said about how there are ups-and-downs to comments. You think the the bad outweighs the good; I believe the opposite is truth. As I said before, comments were some of the biggest factors that made me want to join this wiki. Admittedly, there was one more: fanon. I can, however, say without lying that they each played an equal role. And I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but I, along with many other users on here today, have become a really good contributor, and that wouldn't be so without the comments. --Krazykid51 22:20, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@Thailog: See the wiki stats page and go back to the middle of 2010. The increase occurred almost a year after the canon-fanon merger was implemented, much closer to when article comments were introduced.

@Omnibender: Article quality always gets better over time. I would say higher traffic and a strong community gives us editors and more people to read through our encyclopedia and appreciate the hard work that went into making it the way it is. More users also means more users to “babysit” the comments and root out the bad ones, so the higher volume gives us stronger defenses against any bad comments which pop up, which are very much the minority. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 22:21, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@thailog dont know why you think i said that. i said they are informative. besides, the comments easily get across views from members and anons. people arent going to take the time to figure out how to and then create blogs, or comment on blogs. its much more efficient and quicker with comments. if you dont like them... dont read them. and i believe without comments, our site would lean towards a dearth of activity, which we need, and become moribund. Rydersilver (wall • contribs)

@ARG: Time which could be much smaller if people everyone who has to weed out shipping and spoilers and non-sense from article comments. Blog features still can take over that.

@Rydersilver There's a difference in making the wiki more accessible to others, and catering to the lowest common denominator. It's not just a matter of not reading them, I for example don't, because I filter those out in the recent changes. We might not have been getting as much traffic without comments, but we certainly weren't dead. This wiki was the in the first Google page result for me long before I joined it. Article comments didn't put it there. Just direct it to the blogs. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 22:30, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I'm starting to think the only reason why you guys want to remove the comments is just because the uers who are supposed to manage them are getting tired.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 22:34, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Omni, the system we have for dealing with improper comments has never let us down. It takes the time to make a couple clicks, but there are many users who step up to the responsibility. Comments have brought us more visitors than we would have just by having blog discussions. The site has grown since it's creation, long before article comments, but comments have brought a wave of new progress and taking them down would be a counterproductive step back. For those who don't want to participate in the commenting, like you said, they can filter the recent activity and not look at them. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 22:37, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

(Ignoring another of Omar067's jabs) In all honesty, this whole "comments are the reason why I joined and became a regular contributor" is a fallacy. I don't think any of you can say with full certainty that you wouldn't join regardless. This site is about ATLA and LoK. If you're going to join and become an editor it's because you love the shows, not because the comments anchor you. Like Omni said, the site didn't have any problems in getting new editors when there we no comments. Omni, I, 888, and Water Spout all joined then. And frankly, today I'm less likely to join any wiki that has comments than one that doesn't. ― Thailog 22:38, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Omar is right - although his reasons are missing the point. We can't just get rid of all comments, because rollbacks cannot take care of all comments that do not meet policy. We are doing a decent job, and that is it. Rather than shutting all anon's opinions from being heard, the community might try to get a little bit more involved. Any other action would be too hard. Please remember that anons cannot write blog posts; making them create account is also not a good idea, as some people are not very happy with giving their personal information to websites. So comments are a good compromise. Matey Y. (talk • A:TLoM)  22:39, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Can't they comment in article comments? I know that it is possible to request some user right changes to the central wiki. I've seen them making it possible for rollback users to give rollback rights to other users. I'm certain they would make it possible for them to take part in blogs. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 22:42, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Anons can comment on blogs. And if one of the main opposing arguments here is attracting new users, inciting anons to make an account may actually prompt them to become more involved, so that's not a downside. ― Thailog 22:44, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

id also like to add that frequently, a user comments saying "doesnt this need to be edited to this?" and another user fixes it and comments back saying "done!". i dont know why they dont edit it themselves, yet irregardless, it has contributed to the articles. and not in just this way. Rydersilver (wall • contribs)

It's not a fallacy. Comments were a big part of getting me to come here as a new user. I was attracted to the other features too, but I only got to properly know the site once I came back on a regular basis for commenting. While comments aren't a part of why everyone joins, it's a reason a lot of people do. Newer users don't typically have as much experience as you do on a wiki like this before comments arrived. Their criteria in deciding to come contribute is likely different.

And many users come here as anons before making an account. If an anon sticks around longer, they'll probably make an account. The notion of encouraging people to make an account by making things more difficult for anons is not logical. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 22:47, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

If you guys remove the comment option and leave anonymous users ,and any other types of users to bring their opinions to a blog, there would be all kinds of blogs. Some users would not even want to make a blog. They would just leave, or complain to people about the Avatar Wiki disabling comments.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 22:49, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I agree with ARG. The comments showed me the amazing community that this wiki has. Although the wiki's community-ness was stronger back then, I'm sure an anon who sees the jokes and things in comment sections would be compelled to join to feel like a real part of that community, like I did. --Krazykid51 22:52, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

AvatarRokusGhost: I had no experience when I joined my first wiki in 2007, and it certainly didn't have comments. It was about the content: the reason why everyone joined any wiki before the article comments were conceived. Illogical is having 5,898 articles exposed to bad comments in the hopes they will hook one good potential editor. I think our content should speak for itself.

And for the umpteenth time, anons can comment on blogs, and despite their inability to create them, that's a matter of organization on our behalf. ― Thailog 22:56, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

The comment option should stay. That way, everyone, even anonymous users can express their opinions equally. And, comments bring users.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 22:59, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@Thailog - Surely replacing the comments with a system whereby any user can create a blog just replaces one set of problems with a whole load of other ones. It is at least relatively easy to delete comments, but if we get flooded with loads of irrelevant blogs, surely this will be harder to deal with, unless we alter the blog policy to lower the standards, which hardly seems beneficial. HAMMEROFTHOR 23:02, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

KrazyKid, look at the comments. Do you see people joking around and having fun? I sure don't. I see bashing, crackpot theories irrelevant to the article, trolling, vandalism, etc. The comments don't show our community, they show the bad part of the wiki. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 23:04, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

i agree with hammerofthor. wait i dont even see the problem with bad comments. theyre rare and dont harm or affect anyone except for wasting two seconds of reading at the most. besides, i know i would not make a blog in replacement of a sentence comment. which btw, is not even allowed according to blog policies. no, blog comments and creation are no replacement for comments. Rydersilver (wall • contribs)

Call me blunt, but if all a person has to offer is "ZOMG MAKOS SO HOTTT!!!111!" and "LUZL AMONZ SO EVULZ", they should really keep their opinions to themselves, and stop wasting this wiki's time, and the way to do it, is not having the possibility of article comments. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 23:07, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

The bad part of the wiki is the IRC. Nothing can compare to the kind of stuff that is spoke on IRC. So, I find it funny that some of you guys would want to delete comments because some of them are negative, when you guys are worse on IRC.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 23:09, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@Omnibender - but all this proposal would do would be to move those comments from an article's comment section onto a blog. They wouldn't disappear, just be in a different place. HAMMEROFTHOR 23:11, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@Omar: Then do to the IRC what I was told to do, and do on my own in relation to article comments: don't go there.

@HammerofThor: At least them they don't add the articles loading time. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 23:13, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Then don't look at comments.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 23:15, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@HammerofThor: And don't make the site look unprofessional and unencyclopedic. ― Thailog 23:17, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@Omar I don't, doesn't mean they get in the way of enjoying what the wiki is meant to me. And they add to the load time for the article. It might not be noticeable on an individual level, but string together all the time from all people loading articles, or even one person over a long time, it'll added up to a while. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 23:19, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@BlueDagger and Omnibender: You’re overemphasizing the bad comments. If you think that all comments are like that, you haven’t spent a lot of time looking at comments on here.

@Thailog: Okay, so article comments weren’t a factor in why you joined, but just because they’re not a reason behind why ALL people join doesn’t mean they aren’t a reason why MANY people join. Obviously they weren’t a reason why you joined, since they weren’t around then. But I would argue that they’re a factor in many – perhaps even a majority – of newer users joining the site. That’s why we have a wiki-generation gap on this forum. In order to maximize the potential of this site, we have to keep those who come here for the first time in mind, and put ourselves in their shoes. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 23:24, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

And Omni, I've never had a problem loading an article due to comments. If you don't want to participate in comments, that's fine, but a lot of people do. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 23:25, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I am over-emphasising the trolling and the vandalism and the bashing, but that doesn't cover the fact that at least 90% of comments simply don't need to be posted. Saying things like "MAKO IZ S0 H@WT" is just not needed. If there were a lot of comments adding interesting points and creating interesting discussions I might reconsider my stance, but it's simply not like that. That and the simple point that this is an encyclopedia, never meant to have comments in the first place. Wikia as a whole really shouldn't even have comments. Does Wikipedia have comments? Or Encyclopedia Britannica? A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 23:30, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

(Conflict) Comment quality as of late has been and has continued to be terrible, it is as simple as that. People are not looking at our discussion policy and it is showing. There is no simple, average increase in poor comments, there has been a huge surge. You can't refresh RWA or RC anymore without seeing some non-constructive comment, whatever the reason may be for needing deletion. It's gotten far too out of hand and it's time to put a stop to it. Katara and Bolin Fanboy Send me a messenger hawk 23:31, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

@BlueDagger: you are overemphasizing the trolling and bad comments, and you're continuing to do so. As I said a long way up this page, that 90% figure is way off - reality is much closer to the other way around. Commenting has ushered in a wave of new viewers and users and has been indispensable to this site. Taking away commenting is a huge mistake. Just like a lot of active users now joined after commenting, commenters today are the active users of tomorrow.

@KFB: you are basically advocating a permanent solution to a temporary increase in discussion policy violations. We have more traffic than usual now - not surprising, given the season one finale being next weekend - and more traffic always brings more violations. This doesn't mean the trend is a bad one. Quite the opposite, it's just a growth pain. When traffic goes down, there will be less violations then. Article comments, by nature, are the same as they've always been. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 23:38, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

BD's original point is true - even if we could expect an increase, the fact is, almost all of the comments anymore are just getting to be of that type, or even worse. What I am trying to say is that this is not a typical increase in non-constructive comments that could be expected with more traffic - it's getting much more than that and has been for a while. Look at the delete logs nowadays - way more comments than ever before. We are an encyclopedia and our quality is looking very bad with all these bad comments around. Katara and Bolin Fanboy Send me a messenger hawk 23:40, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Until IRC gets more controlled, I don't want comments to be removed because it is the only place where I can express my opinions, without another user telling me to go back in my corner. The comments are a good part of the wiki and they should stay. I thought this place was supposed to be fun.

And to Bluedagger, of course they don't allow comments. They are too popular and then they have a million pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Omar067 (wall • contribs) This note was added on ~~~~~.

There's a reason those comments were in the deletion log. We're doing our job. We're going through a temporary wave of traffic. This is not an indication of comments being bad from now on. It's a phase. We just have to brave the storm, not give in and compromise ourselves in reaction to it. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 23:44, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Well, ...yes, I feel this proposal is a good idea. My only question is then what purpose wwould rollback users serve?Tee 23:48, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Well, you see that button next to all new edits that says "rollback"? A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 23:50, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Rollbacks can also delete blog comments. ― Thailog 23:52, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

I've been browsing through the comment sections of all the major articles. It's mostly good discussion. I had to look a good amount before finding anything worth deleting. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 23:54, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I'm new to the wiki community and I found this topic and read most of the arguments, and I felt that maybe I could put in my 2 cents. While I haven't been an editor for very long at all, I have haunted this wikia for a while as it is the only wikia to come to for Avatar info. I will admit that some of the comments are just downright rude and stupid. But that is people for you and the recent upsurge of comments may have to do with the fact that the end of the season for LoK is near. However, I would like to point out that even if it is the end of the season, what about next next season? The upsurge in comments and the flux of people using (and abusing) the comment section will happen again. I haven't checked all the pages, but if most of the comments are just flamming and trolling and have no real purpose to the page they're commenting on then maybe comments should be removed. No one wants to read that garbage (mainly the trolling and flamming, stupid comments are pretty much whatever.) I propose we watch within the next few weeks and see their behavior and then come to a consensus. That way, if they truly are as unruly as some think they are everyone can see what the problem is. If majority thinks that the comments are ok then we should keep it.-EriHonjo (wall • contribs)

ARG: Ironically, I just deleted: "FUCK U Legend of Korra has better fire blasts". Insightful. ― Thailog 23:57, June 17, 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to the wiki, Honjo. But I don't think that this is just an upsurge. Korra is here, and these people aren't leaving for a while. Also, if the majority thinks comments are ok, we will be keeping it. That's how community consensus works xD A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 00:00, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I swear, if the comments are removed, I'll make sure that the IRC does too.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 00:00, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I saw that, Thailog, because I was about to delete it myself when I got an internal error. There are many better comments out there. Let's not cherry-pick the bad ones as a misrepresentation. And when there are bad ones, there are typically at least two users on and around to delete it.

EriHonjo: Welcome to the wiki. I think if everyone waited a few weeks before jumping the gun that would indeed be a good thing. The way I see it, this is all an overreaction to a temporary wave of activity. Wait and see, BD. Wait and see. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 00:02, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I know I'm going to sound like a complete noob here but what is IRC?? And thanks ARG and BD ^^. But like I said, maybe it is an upsurg, maybe it's not. we should still keep an eye on it and if it doesnt go away anytime soon, the removal of comments should be considered.... --EriHonjo (wall • contribs) 00:08, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

IRC is our chatroom, for talking to each other. Now, to ARG: After the season finale, people are still going to be attracted to the show. Fans don't stop being fans when the season ends. And even then, who can say how long it'll be before the next season? Maybe Season 2'll be up right after summer, and there'll be barely a pause. Comments are out of hand, and they are not going to get better. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 00:11, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

AvatarRokusGhost, you know very well that those pages are riddled with bad irrelevant comments that are allowed to stay because otherwise we wouldn't do anything else besides deleting them, and thus also flooding the RC page. From Amon: Amon#comm-661131, Amon#comm-660895, Amon#comm-660736, Amon#comm-660725, Amon#comm-660348.

Please don't dismiss this forum as an overreaction nor ascribe it to a "temporary wave of activity". Articles have been bad and numerous for a long time. ― Thailog 00:13, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

It is a lawless, chaotic place where users get together and talk about everything that is under the sun. Everything. The stuff there is worse than the comments you see here. Avatar Wiki:IRC access--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 00:15, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I'm nearly neutral on this but would personally prefer the removal of comments on articles, principally because an article's page should contain nothing more than the encyclopedic content on its subject. With comments, the articles seem less clean and organized, and more like a blog for community discussion on the subject of that article. With blog posts, there is another function of the Wiki which serves that exact purpose, and the community chat room readily serves to encompass any less eloquent chatter.

If a user decided to inject their opinion, or some speculation, at the bottom of an article's content, it would quickly be undone and probably called vandalism. If someone succinctly displays their opinion in an article comment, any user might go to the article's page, scroll down, and see the comment, just like a user would scroll down to see the aforementioned vandalous edit. I'm not calling commenters vandals, but rather comparing comments to vandalism in that they both make things less pretty. We want to present the cleanest, neatest product we can, evidenced by our comparatively very high standards.

That being said, I understand that removing comments on articles might be discouraging to some users as it eliminates one of the many ways to express one's opinion on the Wiki. Take a moment, though, to note how difficult it would be to discover and locate, from the home page of the Wiki, the IRC if you knew nothing about it. The same applies to blog posts. Perhaps the existence of these features should be better advertised.

Because of this, article comments are the most visible way that inexperienced users would find to express their thoughts. When comments on articles are removed, it might be slightly more difficult to find a way to broadcast one's thoughts. But, if a user's thoughts are important enough to share, they can easily find a way. This way, the more irrelevant messages that we see every day in comments would never be seen, as the low value of the message would not warrant the effort required to find a place to post such thoughts.

In short, I am all for free speech, but do not think we should allow passers-by to write "I like this art" on the lower third of a Salvador Dali painting. Article comments should be removed. Uiop60 00:16, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Thailog, you know very well that comments are currently easily maintained, and the problem they cause do not seem to take us much time to fix. And to add to my last point, there are some thousand pages and just a handful of blog posts. And if we remove comments and push anons to register to talk about their opinion, then many of them would plain quit, as they might not like the idea. Do not forget that we stand behind the idea of allowing people to speak out. Removing all comments would truly harm the image of the wiki in many people's eyes, especially when done without any serious reason. Matey Y. (talk • A:TLoM)  00:18, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

There will be less people on here in the months in between the seasons than when the finale is near. That's how it works. Whether the upswing lasts or not, though, is not as important as the nature of the cycle of things. More nony-commenters means more eventual active/rollback users. Once this period sinks in, the wiki will be more capable for it. Thailog, I know that this has been your position on comments for quite a while, but you can't pretend this thread wasn't influenced by the current wave. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 00:19, June 18, 2012 (UTC):

Well-maintained? Pardon me for this bluntness, but: Hell. No. When I was scroling through the Korra comments yesterday, it was RIDICULOUS the number of comments solely about when the next show whould premiere, why Mako is sso cute, and why, apparently, a nony is a "STUPID ASSHOLE!" (I deleted that one.) Not well-maintained. At all. And this isn't a singular case; it has to do with all articles except for the totally irrelevant ones (i.e. corncob man, Kangaroo Island, etc.).Tee 00:23, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

@Uiop: there is no way to bring blogs and IRC up to the visibility and acccessability level of article comments by merely "advertising" them. Your comparrison of comments to vandalism is also highly flawed, as it's clearly a different area of the page than the article itself and does not compromise the integrity of the article. If you don't want to see comments in recent changes, go to "see more activity" and filter them out. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 00:24, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I'll admit -- 'advertise' wasn't the best word to choose. I only mean that those functions ought to be somehow made more visible. Besides, it was only hypothetical, as I think the extremely slight difficulty of discovering the blog post section serves well to weed out users' impulses to say things that are not worthwhile. I disagree with the notion that comments do not compromise article integrity whatsoever, as they still appear on the lower portion of an article's page and often stick out like a sore thumb. Like I said, they make things look less neat.

I will not prevent anything from appearing in recent changes because, as an editor, I want to be able to undo anything done against policy. If article comments stayed, I would continue to do anything regarding them that I see needs done, though it would be time better spent somewhere else. When comments are removed, editors will be able to spend that effort in a more constructive way. Uiop60 00:45, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Matey, what would we lose by having anons who do nothing but comment quit? They add nothing to the wiki. This wiki will always be visited by people wanting to know more about Avatar and its universe. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 00:25, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

AvatarRokusGhost, it has been my position for a long while, so I don't appreciate the dismissive generalization. That's all. ― Thailog 00:26, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

(I skimmed the above discussion, so I apologize if I address anything that was already mentioned) I support this proposal. When I first began editing here, I would really never have considered the removal of comments entirely. To me, they always seemed to contain very relevant and engaging conversations, but lately, we have far too much spam, personal attacks, and irrelevant comments that clutter the page and bury what relevant comments are there. I myself issue several warnings for discussion policy related violations on a daily basis, but the frequency of my warnings has increased greatly as of late. These comments are very likely to drive people away and they simply are all too common here. In the RC, you'll often see comments quashing others' theories, saying, "shut up" or "you're stupid"; I'm being charitable here, most of them are not that kind. ^^

Another concern is the irrelevance of comments on pages. Look on any of the main characters' articles, the comments section is filled with posts like, "3 days til Korra!!!" or something to that effect. Most of them have remained on pages and slipped under other comments that are posted. Other comments simply say, "Mako is my fave character!!!", comments of that stature have flooded pages lately. Simply put, many comments are irrelevant, and their frequency allows other comments to slip by, making it difficult for us to moderate discussion.

Disabling comments, in my opinion, seems like a good way to prevent excess spam that we get and unnecessary personal attacks that are all to frequent. Blog posts tend to contain more relevant, on-topic discussion. When sharing a theory, blogs are a simple way to do so and a way to ensure that the discussion following it will be almost completely relevant to your idea. Just my two yuans. Annawantimes (Talk) 00:27, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

@BlueDagger: So then why don't we cancel IRC? It's in a much worse state than comments. Oh, wait, the people who want comments deleted go on IRC a lot. What a coincidence! Matey Y. (talk • A:TLoM)  00:29, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Alright, well, let's stay on topic. BlueDagger, what we would lose by not having nony-commenters is the open door that many came through. Many of the active users you know were nony-commenters. Nony-commenting is a good door to the wiki that we should keep open.

@AAA: you're overemphasizing the worst of article comments and not looking at the benefit to the wiki. I feel like I've been saying that a lot lately. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 00:30, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Boy, what is this place coming to. I feel like most of the people... I'm not even going to say it. Mercy. This is unbelievable. All of the people who say the baddest things on IRC, oppose comments because some users leave bad comments. Sure, maybe some comments do slip through the radar, but it's still better than the IRC. At least most of the comments are on topic. What we need is a group of people that are dedicated to patrolling comments because it clear that most you are not dedicated to it.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 00:31, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Comments and IRC are not in the same department. IRC is not below every single article nor on the RC page. Stick to the topic and quit making over the top comparisons to get your point across. ― Thailog 00:33, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I stand with Omar on that one — IRC is in a much worse condition than our article comments. If we are to cancel the comments because they are too hard to maintain, then IRC should be cancelled, because it is not maintained. No one ever receives consequences for what they write and say, something that is quite different with article comments. Matey Y. (talk • A:TLoM)  00:34, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Omar, while the IRC chatroom may have been made by the wiki and is maintained by the wiki's admins, it is in no way part of this wiki. It is its own separate entity and shall be treated as such. Secondly, you are bringing this drastically off-topic, randomly talking about IRC. That's not what we're talking about. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 00:35, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Annawan, everything you said is about the present. The present is irrelevant. This is a temporary phase and we do not need permanent policy. Article comments are, on the whole, a good thing - a very good thing. I can honestly say I oppose this proposal more than most anything else I've seen in a forum in my 17 months here thusfar. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 00:35, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

What good have comments brought us? One or two good users? More traffic? At what cost? It's simply not worth it. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 00:38, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Two things: First of all, the IRC is fine. All "insults" are alomst always jokes. Just vulgar jokes. And second, there is a group of people dedicated to comments. They're called rollbacks, admins, and bureaucrats. And lately, it seems to me that you, Omar, are just jealous that you're not a part of it.Tee 00:37, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

@ARG Present? Yeah, right, I haven't seen article comments in a while, but I knew Thailog before I left, and if he says they're as bad or worse than they were back then, I believe him. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 00:38, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

@AAA: that personal jab was unneeded. And, you're saying you don't want to do what you're supposedly dedicated to.

@Omni: The current comments are a little worse than usual. The wiki shouldn't make a policy which stifles future use of comments, though. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 00:41, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Bluedagger, why is it called Avatar wiki IRC. They are in the same department, and if they are not, why do some people get banned from there. Anyway you guys are going to remove comments just because they annoy you. This is sad. You guys are being selfish.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 00:43, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

No. IRC is not on Wikia. It is on Freenode. It has no technical affiliation with the Avatar Wiki. If it did, we wouldn't say any of what we say on there. And, really, Omar? Everything you touch you turn for your own personal vendetta against the wiki. Contribute to the discussion like ARG is, or just stop. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 00:44, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Omar067: If you can't participate in this discussion in a civil manner and without resorting to petty name calling, then don't join at all. ― Thailog 00:46, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

@ARG: Wikis shouldn't have article comments in the first place. You think that more means better, which is clearly not the case. The only possible aspect in which more means better in this case, is for whoever has ads in the Wikia, because the amount of page views created by going to the articles to write and delete these comments must generate quite a revenue. Be it clicking it or just loading it. Less traffic with superb content is always preferable to loads of traffic but difficulty in maintaining content. This is an encyclopedia, a knowledge resource, not an an online board. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 00:48, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

They have a point about the name-calling. Please try to leave that out, Omar. It's not helping our position any. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 00:50, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Completely agreed with what Omni just said. This wiki shouldn't have comments in the first place. It's Wikia's greed that brought them to life. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 00:51, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

What name calling? This is another thing I hate about this place. If you disagree with certain person everyone groups up on you. All I have to say is that, if comments are removed, I'll make sure IRC goes down too. Also, we need users who are going to dedicate themselves to removing comments. I knew this conversation about comments was going to come up. It's ironic that I first heard about it on IRC.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 00:53, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Article comments are a supplemental feature that increases traffic, enables discussion and strengthen the community. Let's not name-call Wikia here for being "greedy." --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 00:56, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

We wouldn't need traffic if Wikia didn't want more people to click on ads. As for the discussion and community, as Omni said, that is not what wikis are about. A wiki is an encyclopedia, a database. It is not a social networking site. YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, they exist for a reason. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 00:58, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, ARG, the flaming and spaming showcase deeply thought-provoking discussions, and makes us a great, happy, picket-fenced community. Put them in blogs, please, but don't leave them in the articles. Seeing them right behind such a great and carefully maintained article only makes them look uglier. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 01:01, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

You're painting it in the wrong light. Wikia is an organization which provides service. They ave a feature that enhances the experience (article comments) for the user and they wind up making more money from it. That's not greed. That's business. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 01:02, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

And Omni, you're overemphasizing the bad comments and trolling once again. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 01:03, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

And that feature is optional for a reason. ― Thailog 01:03, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

And most other Wikia sites don't use it for a reason. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 01:45, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Ya take a nap and the discussion goes into a frenzy... anyway, I stand by my original opinion of article comments being worthwhile. I understand that there are a lot of annoying, trollish, and mean comments on articles, but there are good ones, too, if you'd take a look. And also, would everyone please stop comparing us to Wikipedia? I can see it as being a valid point for the fact of us having to stay professional, but we're just a humble community of editors making up a wiki based around a cartoon for kids. And please listen to this next statement in you listen to anything I say: I know we're supposed to be professional, but where the hell's the fun in that? Isn't this place supposed to be fun? The IRC is all kinds of fun, yes, but the stuff people talk about on there is not regulated. Some people wouldn't care for the kind of conversation that is spoken in that place. And despite the fact that recently the patrol on articles has declined due to a huge surge in activity, article comments are better for civilized conversation. And blogs? Some people don't even look at those, soo... I don't like that idea. --Krazykid51 01:55, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely support. You know at the beginning of each Korra episode, how there's a small clip on what the fans are saying, and it's just so stupid it makes you laugh? Well the wiki is becoming worse. You want to discuss episodes? Open an official discussion blog for each episode. Thailog and I use it on Young Justice Wiki, and it works wonders. We're trying to build an encyclopedia here, and the comments are unsightly. I vote remove. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)}

After reading several arguments, I have boinged back to being neutral. I will agree that comments are one way that people get involved on the Wiki. When I first became a Nony, I did it for the sole purpose of commenting. However, later after snooping around I decided to make an account, and started editing, going on the IRC, etc. I agree that there is a lot of spam, but underneath all of that there are some good things that go on in the comments section, but perhaps a stricter control is needed, a way to keep complete trolling, spam, etc. from breaking though. I understand rollbacks and Admins are busy deleting vandalism in articles, and removing unnecessary articles, etc. Perhaps we could create an extra layer on the pyramid (Y'know, Nonies, Registered Users, Rollbacks, Admins, etc.) of people who could only edit comments: people with the sole sake of deleting vandalism in comments. *IF*, of course, that's possible. I'm still new, so I don't really know if that's possible, but if it were I think it may be a good addition to the Wiki. Just my 2 cents.. Truly Ferret 02:54, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I've only skimmed through as well; it's wildly large to read. But I must say this to Thailog: You stated claiming that joining here solely due to comments was a fallacy/anyone who said that was wrong. What kind of iron-minded thinking are you entertaining? I've said it before, I personally solely joined this wiki because of the vast ability to communicate here. I joined because of the comments, directly. And note that I have actually spend a great deal of time on them while I have been on this wiki. I've commented to others, I've deleted heaps of what shouldn't belong, etc. We have comment policy in place for a reason. Right now our traffic is just at an all-time high. Sure; if we didn't have comments we'd see less 'spam' on the wiki.

But guess what; Omar's right! We'd see less life too. That is not a benefit. This wiki has thrived on its ability to allowing multiple methods of collaboration and the benefit that comments uses at drawing in a heavy wave of attention and -- RETURN visitors. Eventually people that keep returning end up making accounts. People who make accounts begin dabbling in editing, branching out and meeting other users. Some of those improve their behavior while here, and end up attaining rollback. It's the lifeblood of this wiki! Sure; wiki's can and do live without comments, but it's a large factor in how this community was built.

Think about it; right now we are the "number one" go-to for anything and everything 'Avatar.' Fans being able to actually participate on each page, as a nony or a user, has been a great reason for this. Removing comments would be a blow to this wiki. It would not be the wiki I joined, as it would indeed feel much, much different, getting fan activity cut down like that. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 03:02, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

But this was never meant to be a place for fan interaction. We are, first and foremost, an encyclopedia, and things such as what we have on our comments simply do not belong on our articles. Not only that, but comments often detract a great deal. I can look through an entire page of the RC and literally see not a single beneficial comment. And if a user joins and does become an editor... Well, if they did manage to become rollback in the end, chances are they would have joined without comments being there, anyways.

At the very least, we need some form of regulation of comments that is better than what we have now. But even then, I simply do not see how a bunch of people saying how much they love the same character over and over again - usually never going off anon or simply making an account and only using it for comments - is beneficial to this wiki in any way.

Also, remember, I did say I would lose this at my first proposal. I'm still sure I'll lose this. There's no chance of succeeding. I have no illusions about that. I simply think this is what's best for the wiki. As Rass said: We are literally almost as bad as the horrible Nick message boards. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 03:13, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

BD: NO. This place is NOT half as bad as that place. I come from there, having formally made an account and earned a reputation on the fanfic board (The only sane place there). The LoK message board is INSANE. The moderators are lacking in their ability to do their job. They have a rule that you aren't allowed to post links to non-nick sites, but they skipped over a comment that had a LEAK in it, but deleted and banned me for making a comment linking to a Nick site, with no more comments than "it was an accident, and there was nothing they could do to fix it". I had a second account (thankfully) so it was ok, but still. The LoK board is mad. Half of it is topics talking about how people are "real-life benders", and "need help with their Avatar training", or are a "legit reason why Hiroshi Sato's Wife is Amon". Truly Ferret 03:24, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Lol, yes, it was hyperbole. Alright, it's not as bad as the message boards themselves. But those stupid commercials for the message boards they show before and after an episode airs? The "i know who amon rly iz" and "ever1 on teh council haz a secret"? Yeah, our wiki's comments are becoming just like those. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 03:22, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

First and foremost an encyclopedia; yes. But we cannot simply throw the need to focus on community to the wayside and say "eh the 'important ones' will stay" - that is not looking for future growth, and much of who was current at the time have already left as well. People come, people go, it happens. There is no rhyme or reason, there is only time. A fundamental to keeping this wiki alive shouldn't be tossed to the wayside.

And this is all being blind-sided by "the bad." If someone wants to see the bad in anything in life, one never has to look far. Try to look for the good as well. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 03:25, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Article comments is pretty much used as a dumping ground for hateful comments on film pages, and it has turned away film fans away from this wiki, so I have to go "social networking" sites like facebook, twitter and glue to discuss the movie, like how did Iroh performed The Four Elements Test with only three items? Last I checked on Netflix, the average of 2,782,283 member ratings for the movie is 3.3/5.0 stars, so it is not as universally hated as most of you think. I am just one of the few film fans that are crazy enough to come here, plus I like Bryke's material in general. So, if you guys want to experiment on disabling article comments and using blogs instead on the film pages, be my guest. — Hasdi Bravo • 03:24, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Is it even possible to remove comments on only one section? A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 03:25, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

No. Vulmen (talk • EoK) 03:26, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Daang. Anyways, I see the good when it happens, Vulmen. It's just that most of the time, the good is far overshadowed by the mounds of bad. And, like I said: If a user interested in editing comes, they will join, regardless of comments. The users who join because of comments, for the most part, only ever do just that: comment. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 03:28, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

A crat can request Wikia to disable article comments on Film namespace. — Hasdi Bravo • 03:30, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Hmm how do I feel about this....Let's put it this way, if the wiki were a government then I would rule this notion unconstitutional and just plain wrong. I also think it's a little funny that someone called Omar out for petty name calling but ignored the person who committed an the exact same crime against Omar by calling him jealous. That's beside the point though. I stand by everything Avatar Roku's Ghost said. ....Koh Koh the face stealer 05:05, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Vulmen, I realize you and ARG came here because of the "interaction" and thankfully you became involved users, but you're just the exception that proves the rule. You can't say we'll lose users because we take comments away. That's saying our site is not good enough to entice newcomers on its own and needs a line and hook to bring them here. Like I also said, we had plenty of editors before comments were enabled, and who's to say they didn't left, like Omni, because of comments? Also, if you had read the entire thread you would have seen that we're not trying to throw away this aspect of the site: we're proposing to optimize it. ― Thailog 08:25, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

With BD's confident assertion at the beginning that this is the most popular Avatar site, I think it's easy to forget that this wasn't always the case. In 2008, the community of this site was smaller than the communities of Avatar fan sites like AvatarSpirit.Net. We suffered huge disadvantages in traffic, reflected by and compounded by our lacklustre performance in search results for the key term "avatar the last airbender". We were near the bottom of the second page. Sometimes, we even ended up on the third page. When I first went looking for Avatar sites, this wiki wasn't the first, the second, or even the tenth site I visited, and most people who look give up before site number ten. It didn't matter how much work the community did to improve its articles – a lack of persistent, returning interest in this wiki was constraining its ability to grow.

Persistent, returning interest in this wiki is critical to its long term success. In July 2008, when the finale for the original series was aired, there was a peak in this wiki's traffic. Yet this peak came quickly and went just as quickly, in the space of a week. Traffic in August 2008 was comparable to the traffic in June 2008. Afterwards, during 2009 and early 2010, we then made a series of changes to the site. On the "social" front, we began by adding blog posts and blog comments in April 2009 and ended by adding article comments in June 2010. Traffic peaked again in July and August 2010. You'll remember that many fans disliked the movie, to be charitable. This peak was lower than that of 2008, yet there was a world of difference between the activity of the community in September and October 2010 after the initial peak compared to May and June 2010. The difference was that from 2010 afterwards, there was a much more significant proportion of visitors prepared to come back on a regular basis. Persistent, returning interest had been caused by greater ability to interact. You post somewhere one day; you're more likely to come back the next day to see what others had said in response.

The facts above show that a one-time boost of traffic from a major occurrence in the Avatar franchise can dissipate just as quickly and leave the wiki as desolate as before. It is important to set "traps" so that people have a reason to come back again and again, spending more and more time on the site. The fundamental point of having article comments is to maximise return traffic. I'm not suggesting that article comments are the only successful "trap" we've set, but as the single most commonly utilised aspect of the site, their impact to return traffic is considerable. We know that users comment much more frequently on articles than on blog posts. Interest in the latter seems to be (with the exception of blog posts posted on the main page) restricted to mainly registered users. Without comments, we jeopardise our ability to attract return traffic from unregistered users, who constitute the vast majority (over 70% before Wikia removed our ability to view Quantcast data) of visits to this site.

I don't think it needs to be said that persistent, returning interest through return unregistered traffic is crucial in attracting users to sign up and be a member of the community. Vulmen and ARG are no exceptions to some rule. Generally, the only people to come to a wiki and immediately decide that they will contribute come from other wikis, mostly other Wikia wikis. Most people here have this wiki as the first wiki they seriously contributed to, and by contrast, they don't immediately arrive with the intention of contributing. They come here for information, so they need to be given a reason to come back enough times to be interested in joining the site. With the exception of Wikipedia, a wiki with only information doesn't provide very good reasons for people to come back often. There's no reason to come back after the information coldly stated on the page is lapped up. People just move on to sites where it's easier to discuss the series, or settle down to watch another TV series.

I'm not going to deny that there are some inconveniences to having article comments, but that is all they are – inconveniences. They are not, by any measure, grievous threats to the vitality of this wiki. If they flood recent changes and cause as much trouble for rollbacks and admins as claimed, then it is difficult to explain how articles are much improved since 2010 and difficult to explain the dramatic decrease in revert times for unsatisfactory edits. And if you ignore the hyperbole employed by some of those in support, you'll find that most comments actually use acceptable grammar and make some kind of point. So what if it's repeated over and over? Don't all true public debates involve many of the arguments being recycled and reworded?

In the end, though, you can name as many inconveniences or problems as you like, but they are nothing compared to the biggest issue of all. We need persistent, returning interest to attract a viable community that is dedicated to maintaining the site at its current high standard. It would be a much more considerable inconvenience to all if this wiki's ability to attract return traffic was harmed. The 888th Avatar (talk) 10:07, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I absolutefreakingly disagree! If the comments are removed, where we could give reviews on the fanons? Where will we put our voice? Where anonymous should stay? Let's think if the anons are move to the editing. More vandals, right? Acer Indonesia Ask anything about fanon! • TCA:TFF 10:46, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I just want to also add my strong opposition to this proposal. Yeah, maybe we are getting a lot more users spamming and making traffic in our wiki, but that's why our wiki is so good and popular. A new user may want to just quickly share their thought on an episode or character, because that's a simple way how. Breaking away from the mainspace, what if there were no comments on fanon articles? That's the main way to leave your thoughts on a new chapter or story. I know who has read my fanon by the comments and what they think of it. I just think that taking away comments from us would be both the loss of a simple way users can share their thoughts and lots of traffic on our wiki. BlackMonkey ^{Talk - Rhythm} 10:49, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Acer Indonesia Ask anything about fanon! • TCA:TFF 11:01, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I have never joined a wikia before and had no intention to before I came here. I saw a great community here, the first wikia I have ever seen with a comments section. On previous wikis, I had ventured into the talk pages and I found them to be unattractive and confusing (I apologise, I'm still struggling with all the options here, haha) I found this Wiki to be inviting to any new people who loved the fandom. I don't think I would have joined otherwise, or started editing at all without comments. So while I'm sure people joined because of their love for the fandom, there are a large part of people that joined because of the great community you guys have built here with great articles, a commenting system, a chatroom (admittedly, I have not been there) and blogs.

I began rewatching it around in mid-2011 when I was watching the show on television and would check here every now and then to confirm things. I thought the comments system was really cool and good, and it was nice to see people being active. Then after I finished ATLA, I begun commenting here anonymously to share my views and chat with other users. I wanted to begin an account so I could talk to people I had previously talked to, and that they would know I was actually that person instead of another anon that butted into a conversation. I loved visiting the pages and talking to people about Legend of Korra about the characters and speculation. I would edit pages, and once Korra came on it was fun to get in there again and talk with people on the comments, and I would always check them again when I got an email saying 'new comments on page yadda yadda'. It was much, and I guess still is, much easier for a shy, newb who doesn't want to venture into something and mess something up like in the forums and the blogs (I haven't really gone far into them yet, haha).

While I have just become active again from earlier this year (school) and I love how active the community is. And while I have read and agree with some of those who think we should disable this feature, I know that I and other users love this feature. Comments like 'mako is so hot' said over and over again, and some people are well trolling (I haven't actually really seen any of this. I've seen vulgar language and some arguments or debates, but never actually any trolling but I guess I wouldn't know that much since I don't really go through the pages of comments). There are always going to be bad eggs, but I and I'm sure others out of the hundreds that visit this site wouldn't mind lending in a hand by throwing the bad eggs in the bin to keep these comments.

I really hope I haven't rambled too much. I'm really not comfortable here seeing a little well, 'harder' arguing going on between a few, but I thought I would just put in my experience with comments and my views. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ghostsheets (wall • contribs) This note was added on ~~~~~.

(edit conflict) Wjxhuang has brought up some excellent points, but I disagree with the idea that removing comments would reduce the traffic of the wiki. I mentioned it briefly before, and as I've only been skimming this, I'm not sure if Thailog's brought it up, but it's an addition I'd like to add to this proposal. As you've seen, both Thailog and myself dislike article comments, which is a reason they haven't been activated at Young Justice Wiki, which we both administrate. Instead, we use official discussion blogs, such as this, where all discussion related to episodes is confined, and each discussion blog is linked in the episode infobox, as seen here.

We have no issue with traffic, though admittedly YJ Wiki isn't as active as Avatar Wiki (we are only a year old), but as you'll see, each discussion blog usually holds around 900 comments, and commenting continues long after the respective episode airs. This achieves several things;

1. Each mainspace article is easier to browse, as the scrollbar isn't as long due to the comment section.
2. The mainspace articles are not unsightly due to poorly formed comments spelling and grammar-wise.
3. There is still a huge amount of discussion and interaction taking place amongst both registered and unregistered users.
4. The amount of discussion taking place on both official discussion blogs and normal conversational blogs made by users creates "persistent, returning interest", as Wjxhuang put it.

I truly believe that the wiki's traffic would not be greatly affected, and that disabling comments in articles would not reduce the amount of returning users, it would only move their discussions to a specified area - if the wiki was to introduce the same blog discussion system Thailog and I have at YJ Wiki. Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 11:33, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I've already dealt with your argument in passing, but I'll do it in more detail. On this wiki, which is the one we're interested in, blog posts are much more the hangout of registered users, particularly community regulars. This is despite years of efforts to promote more discussions on blog posts – linking on the main page, linking on the Korra article, linking in the navigation. The reasons for this are really quite simple. The first is that the traffic pattern of this wiki is such that people don't generally access this wiki through the main page first, which makes finding blog posts much harder. When Tynt was present on this wiki, a breakdown of which search terms led people to this wiki revealed that most access character articles or the Legend of Korra article first. The second reason is one I've repeated often: every extra link a person has to click significantly reduces the number that will reach the end destination. Most will leave before they reach the fabulous end of the rainbow blog post. Even if you do not accept the above, it's still not a good idea to apply the YJ situation to Avatar Wiki. This is a unique wiki with unique visitors, and it is our goal to maintain the persistent and returning interest of the unique visitors to this wiki, not any other. Previous data from this wiki is much more accurate than analogising from another wiki's experience.

Of the four "achievements" you believe disabling article comments would realise, the first two are of the same kinds of inconveniences I detailed in my original argument. They are far outweighed by the need for return traffic, which as I've just explained is much better achieved by article comments than just blog comments in this wiki's situation. The third is really a concession that there would be less discussion and interaction – since when did we believe that was a good idea? – and the fourth is again naively analogising another wiki's situation with ours.

Even if none of the above were true, and disabling comments really did just "move" discussions to a specified area, then it wouldn't even solve many of the fundamental problems this proposal wants to fix. BD said, "All I can see comments adding are trolling and blatant stupidity." Then others complained that it flooded recent changes and added to admin and rollback workload. Those two issues at the heart of this proposal wouldn't be fixed at all if discussions really were just "moved" to blog posts. Is anyone naive enough to believe that moving discussions elsewhere would stop trolls from trolling? So instead, all you've actually done is shorten the length of scrolling on articles. What an achievement. The 888th Avatar (talk) 12:33, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

It would be great if everyone wouldn't dismiss the supporting party's arguments as overreactions or hyperbolic. That's comes off rather "we know better than you" and frankly, it's disrespectful. I think that all supporters are well-established and respected contributors here, and the raised points have merit.

You accuse us of overemphasizing the "bad" comments, but at the same time you are putting a lot of blind faith on what are nothing more than assumptions. You assume that comments bring new users, and that removing them will have the opposite effect. All the while dismissing the plaints of the users you do have. Don't you see what's wrong with this picture? Shouldn't we value what we have, instead of what we may or may not one day? You think that axing comments will lose us the best editor/admin we could ever have. What if "the best editor/admin we could ever have" is thrown off by the flood of capitalized, nonsensical comments flooding the RC page daily and displayed right below our polished pages? It did so to Omnibender... And he was a contributor and an admin. What about all the other editors that were active before the comments were enabled? Assuming they became discouraged and left because of that is just as valid as assuming others joined because of that. So basically, we lose editors because of comments, but we can get (perhaps) new ones. How is this beneficial if we're going around in circles?

Finally, since when have we stopped looking into other wikis for inspiration? We did it before. Closing ourselves to new ideas is narrow-minded and hinders the growth you so vehemently uphold. ― Thailog 14:17, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I don't oppose being inspired by other wikis, and I'm aware that I have done so myself in the past many times. What I am opposed to is ill-considered comparisions of situations. My last post explained that in terms of traffic, access to the wiki is unique for different wikis, and therefore the approach to maintaining persistent and returning interest in this wiki must also consider the wiki's unique situation before rushing off to import random approaches that worked on other wikis. I am distinguishing on the facts, not dimissing the principle.

You need to stop dismissing the facts the myself and others in opposition have raised as "assumptions". That comments have brought new users is well-established. Let's just use the admins as a sample group. You know that two admins, Vulmen and ARG, admit that their participatory origins lie in comments. Lostris' first five contributions were also comments. That makes three from six (even if you account for Lostris' five month absence after her original comments, it's two from six), with the other three of the admins being contributors long before there were comments. And this is a sample group that is skewed towards people present before there were comments! We could extend this sample group to all rollback users, or all registered users (the average time on this wiki for both groups is of course lower), but it clear that if you check the contributions of many users, at least one of their first contributions to the wiki was a comment. Even the originator of this proposal had a comment as his first contribution.

Success of a wiki, as with any project, involves certain risks. Our continued participation in such a project rests in the belief that it can be better one day if we attempt to improve it, not preserving what is there against the perceived hostile outside forces. That is why any measure designed to deliver a net gain of users acting in good faith to this wiki is a sound measure, even if it departs from what was previously tried and tested. Holding to the rigid, traditional model of a wiki may not result in some catastrophic downfall, but the lack of forward thinking in that approach in fear that there will be risks will not allow this wiki to be the biggest and best it can be.

You know, at its foundation, the idea of a wiki is to allow as many people as possible to be a part of a collaborative project, as long as those people don't come with the deliberate intention of damaging the collaboration. Article comments are not in conflict with that central principle and in fact invigorate the idea of mass participation. Abolishing them is equivalent to taking a big step backwards. The 888th Avatar (talk) 14:51, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

But the simple fact is, while we may gain some contributors from comments, that is a very rare case if you look at all the anons and users who join this wiki solely to comment, and never do anything more. And I still stand by my statement that, if indeed a user joins from commenting and becomes an editor, they likely would have joined and edited at some point anyways.

Not only that, but comments bring another bad thing: Bad editors. People will join solely to comment, figure they can do an edit. That edit is a very bad one. That'd be fine if they kept at it and became good editors, but more often than not, they don't. Commenting and the occasional bad edit. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 15:08, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Bad comments can drive away good editors too, especially when it is hateful and bigoted. — Hasdi Bravo • 15:15, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

And you can prove that with.... If we have gotten some of our best editors through comments, then removing comments would be some similar from blocking users that deal with a hundred times - and more - the work that other people on the wiki. I also think that in this matter we should let anons vote. This is their wiki as much as ours, so they should be allowed to say their opinion. If we stop comments, we would limit them from sharing their opinion - remember, they can't write blog posts - on the 6000 pages we have to just a handful of blog posts that may not even be connected to what they have in mind. Matey Y. (talk • A:TLoM)  15:20, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

That's what talk pages are for. This is ideal, in my opinion: Sometimes, an anon or users will have a valid opinion or point about an article, make a comment, get a good discussion. Talk pages would allow them to do things like that, making good discussions, while preventing people from screaming "SOKKA IZ SO KEWL" over and over. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 15:23, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) BD, anything that promotes and encourages, on balance, more people to join and edit the wiki regularly is a sound measure. What proportion of regulars there are to commenters that don't turn up again is quite irrelevant. There is an equally pitiful proportion of regulars to editors that never turn up again. That is simply the nature of a wiki. But kicking the wiki's potential user base in the foot by removing article comments is not the way to go.

I don't buy the idea that people "would have joined... anyways". You assume that people have more strength of will to volunteer much of their time to editing a wiki. These kinds of decisions are greatly affected by factors such as whether a user will enjoy themselves in the community. It is much easier to make such decisions if a person tests the waters rather than just taking the plunge. It took me much of an entire year for me to go from a very infrequent reader to being a user. I think my decision would have been made much easier if I had been able to test the waters.

"Bad editors" will come regardless of whether there are comments or not. That is applicable to every single wiki out there. Attributing this to comments is disingenous when everyone knows that. The 888th Avatar (talk) 15:28, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Yet you joined anyways. You assume new contributors won't have the strength of will to join. Besides, with things like talk pages, the community will still be there. All I'm asking is to cut out the pointless comments, like "Amon is M. Night Shyamalan makes sense to me". They add nothing, and certainly do not belong on a wiki. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 15:33, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Hasdi: There are examples running either way, no doubt about it. But it is difficult to just throw away the evidence I brought up in my original post. Part of making decisions in the interests of the greater good is a focus on net benefit, not citing specific examples of where comments caused some inconvenience.

BlueDagger: Yep, nearly twelve months after I first saw the wiki. If I had made my decision to join earlier, wouldn't that have been one more helping hand? I know there will still be talk pages. There are talk pages now. But we know that talk pages are more difficult to edit and are thus more exclusive. We also know that talk pages need to be accessed via a link. Need I repeat the Internet law that every additional click needed dramatically reduces the number of people actually seeing the destination? Especially when the talk page link is so small... The 888th Avatar (talk) 15:36, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

All of this discussion is getting us nowhere. I say we open voting immediately. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 16:06, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I contribute also to Charmed Wiki, there articles have talkpages just like our User Groups' talk pages, we could implement them, for comments like those. They'll not prevent users from speaking their minds of the issue, and they'll keep the articles' pages clean, with just consistent commenting. What do you thing guys? Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 16:15, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

That is the suggested implementation of this proposal... you might want to read the posts above. It's been discussed in detail. The 888th Avatar (talk) 16:23, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

All I can say is that I find editing TLoK pages more enjoyable than the film pages. Except of course the Tahno and "Ahvatar" nitpick. On the film pages, I have to put up with comments on M.Night molesting their childhood, getting "everything wrong" and being a unrepentant racist, which I can't delete (and pushes down other construct comments out of view and needing more "clicks" to access) because we have respect "the freedom of speech" on this wiki. Which is fine because film fans don't have to put up with the aggravation and leave. So, we are left a majority that thinks Aang's page should have the most depressing profile image you can find and can only conclude that M.Night must be soooo stupid to call a test with three items The Four Elements Test.

Using talk pages still suck; just look at how we have to edit the ENTIRE page for this forum just to add one comment and edit conflicts. I think an imperfect alternative is to stick a bloglist on every page that include blogposts in relevant categorizes (with article comments on the blogs). That way, the discussions can at least be more focused. My two cents. — Hasdi Bravo • 16:28, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Me and 888 are actually working on a great compromise. 888 will announce it soon. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 16:30, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Since this is so far a heated discussion with many users falling on either side of the debate, I think it's worth attempting a compromise solution that more of us can agree on. I do acknowledge that comments have become a dumping ground for unconstructive discussions recently, but I am adamant that they are central to our long term success. With that in mind, I propose that we remove the comment feature from Korra articles until a month after the finale, or some other time such as the community decides. Film articles can be included as well. All comments and the comment posting editor would be hidden by a single line of CSS. The comment notice at the top of the section (which would still be present) would then have a template added with links to discussion blog posts or other relevant traditional discussions as seen fit. This would ensure that we are not completely overwhelmed while saving the feature for a less hectic time when people who come have a greater interest in real discussion. And in future, we will also have the flexibility to do the same whenever the need arises. The 888th Avatar (talk) 16:40, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with the compromise. I like comments, I do, when they're constructive. With this, we can cut down on irrelevancy, while keeping comments. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 16:42, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I'm still reading it all, but it just occurred to me that the proposal should be not removing comments, but working on a rollback/admin labour division. To make a table where every user who's got these rights should be attach to an specific pages for patrolling their comments. Instead of getting rid of them, or creating talk pages for the articles, what is wrong with the work load is that users who got the rights to undo commenting aren't using them correctly, and so the amount of unnecessary commenting has grown. I think creating a comment patrol division is what will solve this question. Not banishing comments, nor creating talk pages (which would just change the problem site) Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 16:47, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

@888 The compromise works fine for me, per BD's reasoning. Katara and Bolin Fanboy Send me a messenger hawk 16:48, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

For the time being, this seems like a good compromise. However, if the slew of irrelevance continues after the finale, I think we should consider removing them permanently once more,or at least on Korra articles.Tee 16:49, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Agreed (though I had more to say!!!!). ― Thailog 16:59, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I suggest disabling just the comment editor and the archived comments hidden with a "collapsed collapsible" frame so we can still access past useful comments if need be. — Hasdi Bravo • 17:00, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Here is a screenshot of the effect of the compromise on Korra pages, if my post was unclear:

The comment header can then have a prominent template added with an explanation of where the comments have gone and links to relevant discussions. Hasdi, I did think of that initially, but in this case I believe simplicity is elegance. We don't want to make a compromise where we would actually increase loading times for pages with more complicated javascript. Much better to settle for a single line of CSS for every page we want to disable. The 888th Avatar (talk) 17:05, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I am thinking of using class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" instead of class="hidden" so we can use Wikia's existing Javascript. Will that work? — Hasdi Bravo • 17:14, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Not as simple as that, I'm afraid. Because we don't have access to Wikia's underlying HTML, we have to add the class (among other HTML changes) via javascript. Basically, javascript to make javascript work, it's kinda messy. We would also have add more code to remove the reply functions, the edit functions and the delete functions from individual comments. The 888th Avatar (talk) 17:22, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Gah! Sounds like a weekend project for me. Otherwise, we need to give the community a head up we're gonna have "lost comments" all over again, but affecting a lot more pages. Oh, well. — Hasdi Bravo • 17:36, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

If you understand JavaScript, it will not be that much time. If not, a weekend may not be enough. Anyways, support for the compromise. Matey Y. (talk • A:TLoM)  17:44, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Ok, maybe not a weekened. I support the compromise but I request the film pages simply have the comments disabled rather than hidden. I propose we do this by editing MediaWiki:Common.js:

• BEFORE: "if (wgNamespaceNumber == 500 && $('#article-comments-ul li').size() > 1) {"
• AFTER: "if ((wgNamespaceNumber == 500 && $('#article-comments-ul li').size() > 1) || wgNamespaceNumber == 114) {"

Savvy? — Hasdi Bravo • 18:09, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Hasdi, I've just included a separate function for film articles in the overall javascript I've compiled to make the compromise work. The code can be found here. :) The 888th Avatar (talk) 18:25, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Awesome! I suppose we can talk about the public service announcement, creation of blogposts to redirect the discussion, etc., etc.. Can we start with a new heading? — Hasdi Bravo • 18:37, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

The proposed compromise seems just fine - it'll slow the flood of irrelevant and unconstructive comments that we've been getting while still allowing users to voice their thoughts overall. The Ultimate Waterbender 18:49, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

This sounds fair enough for me. Like Thailog, I had a lot more to say (an understatement - I'm sure we could've gone back-and-forth for days.) A few things, though.

• I thought it was impossible to remove comments from certain namespaces, let alone certain pages. In fact, I think that was said earlier. I'm guessing this CSS is a loophole around that?
• So, if we go for a month, it's July 23rd that this changes back. Just want that clarified now so there's no ambiguity when the time comes.
• What constitutes a "Korra article" for the purposes of this? Katara was in the first episode, but I don't think she should be included. Then there's pages like Airbending, which have some info from Korra, but still mostly from ATLA. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 20:39, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

Unless I'm delusional, this hasn't been implemented yet. :P I think a "Korra article" defines any article for The Legend of Korra. There'd be hundreds of articles made for Avatar: The Last Airbender, and it's easier to define this way - unless anyone has any other ideas? Was 888 thinking of something different? Rassilon of Old ^{(Wall - Help)} 21:11, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

I support this compromise, per everyone above. We'll have to be mindful of people posting on unrelated articles to avoid this, however. Annawantimes (Talk) 21:18, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

@Rass: well, the proposal was brought up not too long ago. It looks like it will be implemented soon. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 21:19, June 18, 2012 (UTC)

ARG: Yep, CSS and javascript are both loopholes around this. Ordinarily, this kind of action is against Wikia's Terms of Use, but I don't think they can do anything about it when article comments are not a compulsory feature. July 23rd is the date on which it changes back. And everything in Category:Legend of Korra as well as everything in the subcategories of that category is included as a Korra article. (It is possible to make exceptions.) The 888th Avatar (talk) 00:41, June 19, 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with the compromise, because of the reasons I stated above.--Omar067 (wall • contribs) 02:26, June 19, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think my word has much weight into this discussion, because I really cannot undo others' commenting, so I could not clean up the mess around the articles comment area. However I only agree with this compromise term, if only in the meanwhile those comments will have to pass through a cleaning surveillance; for the time the commenting areas come back they'll be fresh and new. And I do think this will only be possible if all users whose rights give them the possibility of undoing comments come to an agreement about sharing the articles which have been targeted by the massiveness amount of non-policy-able comments. That's not an idea where people have nothing to do, though, it's gonna be hard work. I think, personally, that community consensus here isn't about what's good for us as members individually, but as a group, and that's redundant to say communal goals. There are a few rollbacks, which I don't know who they are, actually, and if the compromise if done, but the cleaning instance is done too, we can achieve again brand-new LoK and ATLA articles; free from those undesirable kind of comments. Make a schedule, share the articles by groups of rollbacks and admins, compromise to clean the pages, not to shut them so the problem won't be seen. That's not how a situation is solved. That's my two Yuans. Master Ratava熱沓霸師傅 02:40, June 19, 2012 (UTC)

before i joined the wiki-before LOK, i read every single article there was on the wiki about avatar the last airbender. after that i felt unfulfilled and wanted more out of the experience. around that time i noticed the comments, and i read those too and found those interesting as well. i wanted to join in the experience and discussions and expand others ideas as well as bring new ones to the table. thats one of the major reasons i joined this wiki. i would never ever have seen the blogs or comments on blogs. i didnt even find out about those until recently actually. and where would the anons go? then it would be for only members. Rydersilver (wall • contribs)

why dont instead, we make a badge, worth a few points, reporting bad comments? that would give huge incentive to reporting them, and cleaning out the few bad comments that exist. Rydersilver (wall • contribs)

I just want to point out, that regardless if the article comments are removed or not, people will still be making the same comments on the article talk pages. I have seen this happen before when a wiki removed the comments and then everyone starts flooding article talk page with their unneeded comments. This is one thing to consider.  Technology Wizard  Wall  Contribs  06:58, June 19, 2012 (UTC)

Why don't we just leave things the way they are? People need to be able to talk, and they need to be able to do so on the respective article pages. If we were to remove or patrol the comments section, we would be violating ones' freedom of speech and press. I know many of the comments are stupid, but they are part of what the Wiki is. It is human nature to gossip and chat, and that shouldn't be taken away. DarkKnightRises (wall • contribs) 23:37, June 19, 2012 (UTC)

Lol guys, we're past talking about simply removing or leaving. We have a compromise: We're going to shut down comments on Korra articles only, for up until one month after the finale. A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 02:06, June 20, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we do. When does it take effect, by the way? I still see comments on the Korra articles on the recent activity page. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 02:12, June 20, 2012 (UTC)

Bleh, who knows. Ask Mr. Procrastination over here. :P A Light Shining in the Darkness - ^Talk 02:30, June 20, 2012 (UTC)

The code needed is ready to go. The only thing left is that a whole bunch of comment notices have to be created. Usually, there's the three-day rule, but I'm happy to implement right now. I'll assume from this point that there is enough support, but I'll stop and reverse if opposition builds. The 888th Avatar (talk) 03:23, June 20, 2012 (UTC)

Alright, sounds like a plan. Personally, I think that Katara, Toph, Aang and Sokka should be excluded, since they are not "primarily" Legend of Korra articles. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 03:28, June 20, 2012 (UTC)

per darknightrises all the way. theres a strong opposition why are you simply going ahead with it? and whats the reasoning even? that you saw 2 annoying comments? ive looked at least 10 pages of comments today and saw zero comments like the one described that started this mess. Rydersilver (wall • contribs)

The general consensus is in support of the compromise and there is a place to discuss the finale. It's not simply that these comments are annoying, many of them contain foul language and/or personal attacks; moving the discussion to a centralized blog post will help us to monitor the comments more effectively for the time being. Annawantimes (Talk) 05:11, June 20, 2012 (UTC)

I Disagree and there is a good chance Disney will become involved www.disney.com!