Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animation/Family Guy work group/Reference desk

Evil monkeys
Volunteers well-suited for this task would be: Sign up on below by adding what time you're usually available, and  *~ 
 * Online frequently enough to ensure prompt responses. It would help to have editors who live in geographically various time zones, or who are just online at odd hours. (Strict shift schedules won't be required.)
 * Able to answer potentially-quarrelsome questions in a cool-headed, NPOV fashion.

Evil monkey sign-up sheet
Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat 23:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I volunteer for Monday mornings. When the new season starts, I will be online at that time to check up on the article for the latest episode. I could add it to my routine to also look at the reference desk. Cromulent Kwyjibo 22:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm here
 * I volunteer for Friday afternoons (CST). You've got to figure that some people will watch Desperate Housewives and TiVo the FG episodes, and maybe not get around to watching them until later in the week. Others might just have a question pop in their hands with no direct connection to a recent viewing. Slappywag42 22:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I can do Sunday nights. Saget53 01:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't log on in a frequent rutine, but I can check up on it Monday or Tuesday afternoon and on Saturday and Sunday.--BrianGriffin-FG (talk) 20:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

When does this get going?
I figure we can start when: 24/7 coverage, while desireable, is not necessary, but gaps of 2-3 days may defeat the purpose of the project. / edg ☺ ★ 00:04, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * We get 2-3 editors who seem to be online all the time.
 * We get 5-7 editors who show up a few hours per week and commit to well-distributed time slots.

How do we find questions
Our targets: Watching WP:RD/E is easy. The hard part is watching every possible Family Guy related Talk page for misplaced questions. We might want to agree on a set of pages worth watching for this type of question. / edg ☺ ★ 00:04, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) General FG questions misplaced on article Talk pages.
 * 2) General FG questions on Reference desk/Entertainment

Main targets
Where can we reasonably expect to find the most questions? Reference desk/Entertainment Family Guy
 * General pages

Stewie Griffin
 * Main character pages

All assessed Top or High importance. There should be less than 20 of these. (Note: assessments should take into account possibility of Talk page questions.)
 * Episode pages

Secondary targets
Participants can opt to watch these pages, but it won't be expected. Reference desk/Miscellaneous All assessed Low or Unknown importance. This will soon be over 100.
 * Episode pages

Monitoring
Refreshing one's watchlist every 10 minutes or so is probably sufficient.

The "Monitor my watchlist" feature in Lupin's anti-vandal tool provides an automatically updated watchlist. (I use this and find it handy &mdash; edg ☺ ★ )

Wikipedia reports all new edits to an IRC channel. This would flow by too quickly to watch, but there's probably an IRC script that would alert when certain items go by. (Can anyone advise or help put this together for other project members?)
 * A sufficiently sophisticated script could watch for changes hundreds of Talk pages, and also scan for key strings like Stewie, Quagmire, Family Guy, familyguy, et cetera. This would obviate the need to watch all these pages in one's regular Wikipedia watchlist.

Templates
These will be renamed (or given shortcuts in Template space) when this sub-project is ready to go.

  produces the following flag:

  produces the following message:

Tentative instructions are included on those pages. Suggestions are welcome.

Usage
Add this category to your Watchlist:


 * Category:Talk pages with Family Guy forum questions

Pages with the   template will be added to this category. The job of FGdesk volunteers is to move these to WP:FGdesk, and replace the question and page template with

Procedures
to be developed

Policies
We should be on the same page with certain things. These policies should be specific to WP:FGdesk, so hopefully contentious issues like inclusionists vs. deletionists won't be a problem.

to be developed

General considerations
Does anyone object to being called an evil monkey? I was thinnking we could use Jmfangio's cool userbox for this project. However, I don't want to drive away volunteers over this cutesy nomenclature. / edg ☺ ★ 00:04, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, I'm shocked and pleased that someone would suggest this. Just some food for thought - I thought it was a humorous and intriguing way to identify myself as a fan of the show.  I can't imagine anyone saying that we are offending monkeys by saying it.  You definitely raise a valid concern, and one that i considered when creating the template (which we can always change).  I sort of answered it by asking myself this question: "Do serious people really watch FG?" and would they be inclined to help at the ref desk? Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  08:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Vote on continuing with this project
Okay, the new season is upon us. Is everyone here? Are we going to try this with two (2) volunteer editors? This is a vote and it needs to be unanimous. / edg ☺ ★ 23:59, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm in. I'm checking the project page and this page even on Mondays after reruns. Cromulent Kwyjibo 15:06, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of evilmonkey template, category
I'm considering requesting deletion of the following, seldom-used tools: To the best of my knowledge, neither has been employed in 2008. The mechanism of tagging inappropriate questions never really took off, and when it was used there was ambiguity on how to do it appropriately. Also, since automation for these processes was never explored, this process didn't save much work.
 * Category:Talk pages with Family Guy forum questions
 * evilmonkey

"Forum" questions can still be moved to WP:FGdesk manually, and the FGdeskmove is not being deleted. Deleting the abovementioned tools is not a move in the direction of closing the desk. / edg ☺ ☭ 13:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Should this project move to WP:RD/E?
We've had 2 Family Guy questions in less than 10 days at Reference desk/Entertainment. I'm thinking this project would benefit Wikipedia more by us watching WP:RD/E and answering questions there, instead of here. Since WP:RD/E usually responds within minutes&mdash;faster than queries can be mirrored here, noticed by one of us, and replied to there&mdash;I'm not sure if keeping a noticeboard within WP:FG would be meaningful, unless a question were so difficult that it would sit and wait for one of us.

Concerns I have been having recently about WP:FGdesk: Either is grounds for WP:MFD, and attempts to publicize the Family Guy reference desk may backfire when someone decides this is not a legit Wikipedia function.
 * 1) This is a bit like a walled garden.
 * 2) This is a bit like a forum.

Thoughts anyone? / edg ☺ ☭ 08:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)