New Editors and Wiki Directives
This is my personal list of curated directives and things that need to be done on this wiki, but have not been accomplished, or started on.
The To-Do List has been last updated on March 8th, 2023.
New Users
Welcome to the Arks-Visiphone! If you have stumbled on this page, chances are you are interested in contributing to this wiki, or you are curious about the current development or progress of the site. If not, hopefully this may provide a little insight and persuasion into being a potential candidate to help polish the site.
To be straight to the point, the biggest concern of this site is the quality of content presented. Quality, in my personal opinion, can be broken down into the following factors: the accuracy of the content presented, the amount of content that is available on a given page, and the availability of any given type of content. While I personally deem the punctuality of the content presented on the site acceptable, it is by no means excellent or ideal, as certain pages lack significant details that may benefit the reader experience. In other words, they lack page quality.
If you are a frequent user of this website and find the site useful, then please consider contributing to the site, be it minor corrections or general proposals to the site's information. The layout of this wiki is not complicated; it does not require knowledge in DPL, Lua, or any complicated form of Template editing to contribute. The quality and development of this site is strictly correlated to the amount of time and effort gets invested into the site, and if there are no contributors, then the site ceases to grow, and will no longer provide meaningful content to its readers.
Contributing
If you are interested in helping out the site, then you can do so by the following:
- Signing Up and Adding Content: If you are faintly familiar or experienced with wiki editing, creating an account and adding whatever content you feel is missing on a page doesn't hurt. Users can register for an account here: https://pso2na.arks-visiphone.com/wiki/Special:CreateAccount
- Once you have created an account, you may go over the current pages across the wiki, or review the To-Do List to see what needs to be worked on.
- Wiki Editing: The New Editors page should briefly go over the basics of editing. If you need to understand formatting in more depth, you can try copying text from other pages and putting it on your own user page and experiment with the text editor there.
- Wiki Corrections: Corrections can be made with an account, although if you do not wish to create an account, you may leave a message with any of the communication methods below.
If you have any questions on how to add stuff onto pages, or what is acceptable to add, you may use the #en-wiki-development channel on Phantasy Star Fleet, or contact me on my user page. Your contributions do not have to be perfect, but please be thoughtful when doing so.
Things to Note
The Policy and New Editors pages should have been updated to a legible enough area where it reflects the current policies of the site. Before editing, it is highly recommended that you go over these pages first.
If you do not have ideas on how to contribute to the wiki, the Phantasy Star Online 2 Wiki hosted on http://pso2.swiki.jp/ should be sufficient enough for you to get started. However, please try not to copy everything on that wiki to here, there should at least be a level of independence and self-research on our own without having to resort to copying that wiki. Otherwise, I would honestly tell other readers to use that site instead of this one if we're not doing anything on our own.
Also, please be courteous and respectful with regards to SEGA regarding the type of content available. This is not something you will have to worry about as I primarily maintain and create pages, but as a general thumb rule, don't add unreleased information that could be impactful on pages weeks or months ahead of time.
Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis
To-Do List
| Task | Reasoning | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Data Verification | This wiki lacks a significant amount of information that requires verification, such as Drop Information, Reward Information, and more. There are unfortunately little to no users on the wiki that assist with data verification, with even less activity in the dedicated wiki channel on Phantasy Star Fleet, which results in certain pages being outdated or incorrect. There are missing Waker Titles under the Trinitas section, the drop information regarding Weapon Pages are still too vague, etc. | 
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| Enemy Pages | Certain Enemy Pages subsequent to the Kvaris update lack detailed information of their attacks and behavior. Individual enemy pages with more detailed information are possible, provided there is someone to maintain it. |
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| Title Information | Enemy Titles in Enemy Titles or Quest Titles are missing title information. |
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| Supplementary Pages | Other tidbits of information, like the Personal Shop page, or the Beauty Salon page lack significant amounts of information that could be beneficial for the reader. |
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| Data and Formula Pages | The current formula page is slightly outdated from what I have heard, and other formulas, such as boost formulas, EXP formulas, and other statistics are not on the wiki. |
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| Field Related Pages | I still have yet to start on the detailed information regarding Item Containers and Kvaris interactables. They would be a nice addition to have for readers to indulge in. You may add onto the bottom of the World page, which will then be moved somewhere else, hopefully. |
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| Lore Related Pages | Not in high-priority, but would be helpful to have if there are any individuals who are interested in lorekeeping. |
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| Detailed Event Pages | A revamp of event pages so they fully represent all the information added in a given event would be beneficial to have, although revamping the layout would take a bit and is not entirely feasible given all the other work that could be done. Adding anything missing would be helpful. |
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| Page Layout | Something that I've been trying to alleviate, but have come at a crossroads at times. Recently the List of Augments, QuestNav, and the Fashion Simplified Views are things I have worked on to alleviate the dead-end navigation, but they aren't perfect solutions. I am also aware of the mobile layout view; I don't think I can get that fixed and going anytime soon as I only do editing work. If you are experienced in wiki editing, you are more then welcome to try your hand on some pages that desperately need something better than a Table of Contents. |
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Completed / Ongoing To-Do List
Sufficiently completed objectives (definitely more than can be done) will be denoted with a strikethrough, while objectives that do not have a strikethrough are still being worked on or may still have improvements that can be made. Any productive suggestions or additions are welcome!
| Task | Reasoning | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Quest Pages | Quest Pages should have more detailed information on their pages. Specifically, the lack of enemy or wave details on the Trainia Advance Quests, like Cannonball Rumble should be available. Thanks to User:Valkparkiet for helping out! |
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| Not supplementary information, but technical information, like the revisions in each update in the Versions/Updates page is outdated. Thanks to User:Valkparkiet for helping out! |
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| Photon Art / Technique Pages | I believe the Photon Art Pages still lack detailed and descriptive information regarding their functionalities. The semi-recent balance update to Photon Arts has not been reflected on Photon Art / Technique pages. Thanks to User:Corbis for the major help and revamp and User:Valkparkiet for helping out! |
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| Miscellaneous Quest Pages | Thanks to User:Valkparkiet for helping out! |
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| NPC Pages | NPC Pages do not list much besides their functions, availability periods, and their available tasks. NPC pages could use in-game dialogue and physical stats (height, clothing, VAs). Thanks to User:Valkparkiet and User:Space for helping out! |
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| Base PSO2 Pages | Pages related to content from the original Phantasy Star Online 2. Primarily, data verification for pages and new pages for archival purposes would be complimentary to have. Thanks to User:Jared Dejicai and User:Valkparkiet for helping out! |
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Phantasy Star Online 2
It goes without saying that the opportunity window of these pages have long since passed. In other words, some pages are no longer feasible for them to be made, due to the age and expiration of content, or the loss of information for the pages to be made. One example that I had considered making are the original Mission Pass pages for PSO2, however I could not find any site, YouTube video, or blog covering the exact specifics for a single Mission Pass season, let alone a dozen of them.
These pages are some of the few things that I cannot really provide input on, as most of those pages were created (or not created) before I joined. I haven't really touched any of them, and don't intend to due to the amount of time and work required behind it. If you are interested in maintaining the Phantasy Star Online 2 section, you may review the content available on its Main Page. As a best practice however, you should copy the format and layout of other related PSO2 pages if you so choose to help out on the PSO2 side of things.
Summary
If you are still unsure what to do, don't hesitate to just try and give it a shot. Just try not to do anything silly, like vandalize pages and add inappropriate images or remarks to pages. There are also a couple of other things that you shouldn't really do, like adding questionable information onto pages, or upload/edit warring already maintained pages while there are hundreds of other pages that actually need work done. If so, I might look at you funny and audibly go "why?". Of course, there's no such thing as a dumb question, so if you really are unsure of something, please ask.
Current Thoughts + Plans
I'd like to apologize for not creating this earlier, but recent developments, including taking on another project and academic work has played my hand to a point where I have to really sit down and create a directive list and recruitment post for new editors. I'd also like to apologize for not making a call for editors way earlier; I'm not entirely sure why there haven't been more editors on the wiki. I do read this wiki's criticisms, and it's usually a message along the lines of "wiki wrong" accompanied by a :MatoiSleeper:, yet there aren't many users who will make contributions, let alone create an account on this site to fix the minute errors they find, which leads me to writing this post, in hopes that people understand that this is a community based site and not private, for profit site, but primarily the reasoning as to why portions of the site aren't at the best quality and are flawed at times.
As you may have realized, the release of Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis on a new platform has brought a significant number of new players into the game, and consequently, the site should also see an increase in users. The site however, for an extensive period of time has not been in a state where I, and possibly others, would consider it favorable, as there are a multitude of pages that are missing content that should be present. One good example is the Drill: A Trap in the Forest page. This page has all the information that a user might find useful, such as Quest Information, Drop Information, and a brief overview of the quest. It however, lacks supplementary information that it would benefit from, like intricate quest details, such as enemy waves, a list of all the enemies encountered in the quest, quest dialogue, and more. Other pages are in stricter need for more details, yet they are absent. These pages are absolutely not meant to be the final product- I have not omitted these details out of pure intention, I just do not have the time to run the quest numerous times and write down all of the details.
At this point, you should be asking "well, why haven't you done it yet?". To keep things concise, I will simply reiterate that there are no editors to do it, and as of right now, I am not one of those editors who can do it. As it is right now, I would have to choose between adding and confirming details on every page that requires it, or keeping the rest of the site up to date, and for the health of this site, it would be more beneficial to keep the contents that are most frequently used updated. This however means the quality of the site will continue to drop significantly. This is the reason why I am asking for the help on pages I cannot maintain in a timely manner or at all, no matter how little or small. If this wiki had the amount of contributors as the Japanese Phantasy Star Online 2 Wiki hosted under swiki.jp, then this wiki would reach a flourishing state that can be enjoyed by both editors and readers alike.
For no better way to describe it, the site has been in a state of limbo for a considerable amount of time. If you have been playing Phantasy Star Online 2 since the Global release and are still wondering why to this day (September 12th, 2022 as of writing) that half, if not more, of the content regarding Phantasy Star Online 2 is missing and is plastered with red links. My answer will remain the same as my answer to why some of these New Genesis pages are barren—no one has bothered to do it.
I will make no euphemisms when I say that this wiki does not even come close to the amount of editors and contributors compared to swiki.jp, or any other wiki that I have worked on. You may check the Recent Changes for the recent contributions, and the list of Active Users in the past month alone. There are plenty of assumptions and reasons why I can imagine this wiki does not have the amount of contributions as swiki.jp, from the abandonment of this site from previous staff and editors to the still incomplete, disreputable and disordered PSO2 section of the site. What I only care about now is the future of the site, and while the site is still being actively used, I can only request that you consider helping out.
The reason I am writing this is because I will for the foreseeable future, will not be able to maintain certain parts of the site as much as I would like to. Without trying to sound extremely egotistical or pretentious, I ask this as the current maintainer of the Arks-Visiphone regarding New Genesis. I ensure that all the frequently used pages, such as the Cosmetic pages, Scratch pages, Equipment pages, Event pages, Quest pages, Shop pages, Navigation Menus, and Main Pages are all created and up-to-date in a timely manner, which should ideally be less than a few hours after release, if possible. However, there are other obligations and responsibilities that I need to focus on, and as I can only do the bare minimum for this wiki, there is a greater need for more editors. Of course, this is not to discredit or undermine the work of any other editor or the foundations laid out by other editors however, you may view a page's history and see all the editors that have made contributions on the Active Users page, and all their specialized areas where they contribute to. While I have little to no associations with Phantasy Star Fleet or this site's owners, the responsibility and wellbeing of this site appears to fall to me now, to ensure the quality of the wiki as the current maintainer. And so, I would like to apologize for neglecting the quality of the site and for not making a directive list for editors to use much sooner.
Again, with this being said however, as transparently as I can be, it is not feasible for me to allocate whatever portions I have left of my free time into filling in the gaps that have been left behind during the development of this site, which is the quality of content that is presented on the site, and the incomplete information that has been left behind in the past. I already allocate and spend a considerable amount of time ensuring that the usability and punctuality, if not quality, of the New Genesis portion of the site still remains, by maintaining and updating the site as punctually as I can, with the help of any other editors that are available to help me. There is a lot that needs to be done, and the next major update is just around the corner, which means I will eventually have to work on that while other pages, like the Cannonball Rumble page will succumb to neglect and will have lost its prime time of use.
I do enjoy wiki editing as a hobby, however I am still a regular person outside of my hobby (whether you want to believe that or not). I have other obligations, other things I'd frankly like to do, and other responsibilities that I have to attend to. Just recently, I have been helping some of my external wiki colleagues in kickstarting their new project, and that alone has taken a significant amount of time. I do enjoy the work that I do however, and I will still continue to do what I enjoy doing, as long as I feasibly can, however there will eventually come a time where I will not be able to update and maintain the site as much as I would like to in the future. By that time, I will have hope that this wiki will have enough editors to sustain itself.
I had started contributing to the Arks-Visiphone on June 2021 shortly after the release of New Genesis, after seeing how little to no progress was being made on the wiki regarding New Genesis. It has been quite enjoyable working on New Genesis with other editors to see the growth of the site, from the New Genesis portion of the site starting with 95% of the pages missing to a wiki that is now used by a significant amount of people, especially when you consider that this site's New Genesis content would not show up in any search results due to its lack of information compared to its JP counterpart. I hope that in time, with extra contributions and the work of other editors, this wiki will reach greater heights.