Forum:Wilkins maintenance

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This has been an issue for awhile now. Wilkins and Wontkins, Wilkins Coffee, and especially Wilkins Coffee transcripts have become heavy targets for edit warring, unsourced additions, and other issues. The transcript page began in 2018 and went live in 2019, and at the time, as at least some of the Wilkins ads were only seen at festivals or museum exhibits/special research trips, it seemed worthwhile. Now, so much has come out that it's become difficult to maintain the pages, with transcript dialogue being changed or new ones added but without users actually including a link or other way to confirm the source. It's also spreading into some non-Wilkins ads, which it's being assumed are remakes of Wilkins spots. We've had to protect those pages multiple times. A lot of the changes are either subjective to someone's hearing or actually incorrect/incomplete (which defeats the purpose of a transcriptions), and there's also a lot of unnecessary stuff or changes made to the stage directions, where the wording isn't transcribed but additional adjectives ("espionage-esque hat") or longer ways to say the same thing are pretty pointless. It's pretty time consuming to try to correct transcripts for a lot of 30 second or so ads and try to figure out where they are on YouTube.

By now, if we did need transcripts for select ads (like when we're using a storyboard or museum display as a source), it would make more sense to work it into the main Wilkins Coffee page.

The Calso Water page is pretty thin, so if the addition here can be sourced and ideally a picture found, it could just go there. The Faygo addition is confirmably a version of a "Thinking Man's Coffee" Wilkin's ad where only the remake circulates, so that's better noted on the respective pages.

Frankly, right now my instinct is just to redirect and maybe merge the useful stuff, so at least we can just monitor fewer pages. While some may come and go on YouTube, right now they're more accessible to general readers so there seems a lot less point in keeping a transcript page. If we do keep it, then users really need to either cite links or time stamps in a compilation, if concerned they may go dead, at least include them in an edit summary as otherwise it becomes unverifiable, and probably drop the Community Coffee section entirely or move it to a solo page/section on the main Wilkins Coffee page. What do other admins or longtime users think? -- Andrew 01:09, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree; I don't think we need all those transcripts. I'm also good with merging where info is sparse for now. - Oscarfan (talk) 01:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Also agree. Seems as though none of the edits on any of those have been checked. —Scott (talk) 12:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Looking at the page, the majority just repeats images from the Wilkins Coffee page anyway (and a lot of stuff just unsourced), but here's elements that could need rehoming first, before redirecting the page.

Remakes. When verifiable through video or an actual source, but not on a respective product page (Calso Water doesn't have a list), move them there.

Omissions. There's been a lot of changing to name titles but if there's a confirmed Wilkins spot on the transcript page that nobody bothered to add to Wilkins Coffee, do so.

Community Coffee is still a redirect. With actual images now, and since the other products have their own pages, make an article (RedBook has useful intro in various entries, such as this one).

Beyond that, the remainder just looks redundant and overdone, and now that it's encouraging transcripts of the other brands or other thirty second ads because they're now in a user's YouTube compilation, it's moreso (plus there's also been the occasional issue of user's relying on fan "remakes" which use dubbed dialogue or change logos). -- Andrew 19:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Community Coffee exists now, at least as a start (there's a bunch of the remake ones in this compilation). Looking at the page, there was exactly one image not housed elsewhere, and all of the "remade for" stuff is unsourced or better handled by expanding spot lists whenever someone has time to look at the other YouTube compilations. I think it's ready to redirect (I'd almost say just plain delete but it's easier to preserve the history this way just in case). -- Andrew 03:55, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Agree that keeping the redirect makes the history easier to find later. —Scott (talk) 11:51, 1 February 2021 (UTC)