User talk:The Wikihunter

Welcome!

Hello, The Wikihunter, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, like Wikihunting, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's guidelines for page creation, and may soon be deleted.

There's a page about creating articles you may want to read called Your first article. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on this page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 14:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of Wikihunting

The article Wikihunting has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Game with no assertion of notability.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the Proposed Deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The Speedy Deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and Articles for Deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 14:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that using Wikipedia for any purpose other than creating an encyclopedia is not permitted. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Stapler, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and read the welcome page to learn more about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. Thank you. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 15:45, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikihunting

From The Wikihunter: I thought it would be clever to start up an interesting game on Wikipedia called Wikihunting. I think that if given the chance, I could place enough codes on pages for the game to become more noticable in society. These are harmless 10 character combinations located at the bottom of particular articles. They do not in any way try to harm or affect the article, this is why they are placed at the bottom. When the person who finds them tells me on e-mail that they found them, I would remove them from the article straight away. Then the players name would be put in a Hall of Fame and so a massive wiki competition begins. I think this would be a good game which will not only entertain the people who compete, but will increase and promote the use of Wikipedia. Please consider not terminating what could be an interesting stage of the life of Wikipedia. Get back to me. (The Wikihunter (talk) 08:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Wikihunter (talk • contribs) 08:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I copied the above from my talk page, since this is a much better place to have a discussion. Other people can then get involved.

Let me first say that Wikipedia is dedicated to being an encyclopedia, and anything that detracts from that is very much frowned on. We specifically don't allow things like discussion forums and general chat. The reason for this is that it's very easy for 'off-topic' things to take over a website. Almost every website that allows contributions has this problems. There have been a number of 'fun' activities started, but they have all been very careful not to affect the actual articles in any way at all.

Secondly, Wikipedia operates by consensus. If Wikipedians agree that something is OK, then it's OK. However it was entirely the wrong way of going about things to simply start this game on your own initiative. Instead you should propose it to the rest of the community. The place to do that is Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

Next let me say that I see some major problems with this game. You say that "do not in any way try to harm or affect the article", but I think you underestimate the effect. People will wonder what a random string of text is doing in the article. They may also change the text. Remember Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. Anything that appears in the article, and isn't informative, detracts from the professionalism of Wikipedia. If this becomes a "massive wiki competition" then there will be codes all over the place.

Finally I have to point out that your game is very easy. Anyone on Wikipedia can examine the edits made by any person. (Yours are here). That means it's completely trivial to find out where you have put the codes. Stapler is the only one you have added.

As I said, you are free to propose this game to the community, but I'm afraid I'm not optimistic for you. DJ Clayworth (talk) 13:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]