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The Administrators noticeboard is a message board for requesting, coordinating and discussing Administrative tasks on the Matrix Wiki. All users, including Administrators, are welcome to leave a message or join any of the discussions here. Alternatively, you can always directly contact any active Administrator through their own talk page.

[[ Add a new topic ]] to ask something of the Administrators or to request for a sysop-only task.
And please remember to sign all your posts (using four tildes: ~~~~).


Possible uses of this page:

  • Discuss General Consensuses between admins
  • Dispute resolution
  • Reporting admin abuse/user harrassment
  • Blocked users evading blocks
  • Reporting suspected sock-puppets

What the Administrators are up to[]

This is to share what the current Admins are currently up to in terms of improving the wiki:

  • User:CrPhlebas - Currently, standardizing the entire wiki's general style for the articles and categories.
    • Applying standard article naming conventions to the category naming (mostly, reversing capitalization for normal nouns in category names).
    • Also fixing general categorization so that articles appearing in sub-categories should not appear in higher categories. This should de-clutter a lot of the existing categories and make the wiki easier to browse.
    • After dealing with the existing categories, will move to fixing article styles so that a uniform style is seen across the entire wiki.
    • Improving the Matrix Wiki:Manual of Style to incorporate whatever changes were introduced by this direction.
    • Note: I try to do all my activities on days that the wiki isn't very active because I am not as organized as I would like to be with my edits and I sometimes do a ton. Hopefully, this helps contain them and will make them easier to check for others.

Welcome Roger Murtaugh and Valyrian Wildfire‎[]

Just wanted to welcome you both as Administrators. While you both seem more experienced with this role than I am, the real reason I promoted both of you is due to the great quality of contributions you have both been making. With that said, thank you for continuing to improve the wiki. As of now, any Administrator-related decisions can be freely discussed here between us three in case you feel the need for added inputs.

As for the expiry I initially set on the roles, I intended not to add any pressure with the new roles. But I have since lifted the expiry so that you can both act as if this was not just a temporary call for help. As things stand, you have both earned the roles.

Excited for The Matrix Resurrections!!! Thanks and cheers!
~C. Phlebas (talk) 00:55, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the role and for the words of encouragement. I've been a founder and administrator on many different Wikis. I believe that I counted up to 30 before stopping last time I checked. Haha. That being said, you obviously have the heart and care for the franchise to make you a quality administrator, so you need not worry about a comarable amount of experience. I still mess up from time to time and am constantly learning new things, especially since Wikis differ. Anyway, I do appreciate the trust and the role. I hope to make quality edits in the future. As for administrative decisions and discussing them, I've only done two things. One, I deleted a duplicate video and two, I added the The Matrix Awakens to the navigation toolbar above. I don't want to do anything drastic without speaking with you, of course and I apologize if those two moves were too much. Thank you, again. Roger Murtaugh (talk) 00:59, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
I do not mind those moves at all! If it were going to make things easier for readers, then I would have already done the same (had I only thought about it). This is just a place to reach administrators and for us all to quickly reach consensus on things requiring consensus. Thanks!
~C. Phlebas (talk) 01:05, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
I figured you would be okay with those edits, but I wanted to let you know because it's important to keep you informed. I was trying to think of how to fit the new characters into the top navigation, but I don't want to mess with things too much. Also, I understand and like the idea of discussions about future changes. You're welcome. Roger Murtaugh (talk) 01:12, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
THX Phlebas Val - There are no strings on me (talk) 02:42, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
No problem!
~C. Phlebas (talk) 07:23, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Mainpage Films[]

I updated the main page to include the new film and the new game, as well as updating the template for the section that, in my opinion, makes it a little easier to edit and keep the various media matching in style. Again, I hope that I'm not overstepping. It took a few tries to get things looking the way I had planned. I implemented these changes because I feel as though they aren't very drastic and I didn't know how to really explain how they'd end up looking without showing you. The box of media also makes the right side of the page longer so that it's near the same length as the left side of the page. If you don't like the changes, I'll revert them. Thank you for your time. Roger Murtaugh (talk) 02:17, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I saw it and it looks good! I agree that it is more functional. I do think it needs to be made narrower for smaller screen sizes. I will try to make adjustments to it later once I figure out something. Thanks!
~C. Phlebas (talk) 07:23, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
Thank you. No prboelm. I changed it to make it more narrow. There a part at the beginning of the template that says, "widths" and changing that will make the images smaller. Let me know if you want it updated and I'll do so. Roger Murtaugh (talk) 11:58, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Discord Server[]

Valyrian Wildfire is requesting to add a discord server. While I don't oppose it, I do think it merits some discussion. Mainly, who will act as administrators? There are also a number of already existing discord servers dedicated to The Matrix out there. And we have the option to partner up with an already existing community so that they can let us create channels for stuff related to wiki editing instead. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks!
~C. Phlebas (talk) 07:23, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

You get my Discord friend request on there as well? Val - There are no strings on me (talk) 21:05, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
Hi Val, checkout the Template:Main Page/sandbox, the discord widget should be working just that there might be some additional permissions needed from the discord server itself to really make it work. Let me know if you're seeing other issues. Thanks! (The only other thing I could maybe do is look at alternative scripts from the dev fandom. What we're using now is the DiscordIntegrator but there is a less stable but more customizable Discord alternative to enable the widget.)
~C. Phlebas (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
Hi Val, have you tried Step 2 here: DiscordIntegrator/instructions. I think that's all the setup we are missing from the discord server side to test things out.
~C. Phlebas (talk) 10:28, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
I will look into it now. Val - There are no strings on me (talk) 18:09, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
If you see this, your JavaScript might be disabled or the DiscordIntegrator plugin isn't working. If the latter, please contact us through the Administrators' noticeboard. Thank you!

Val - There are no strings on me (talk) 18:11, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Navigation overhaul[]

I'm an Admin over on the Game of Thrones Wiki. When Fandom Desktop was launched this summer I made a big effort to overhaul the Navigation and Wiki layout. Not from a coding perspective but a layout perspective: based on wiki analytics. I think Matrix Wiki could improve its layout in a few ways and I want to discuss this:

In a recent interview Neil Patrick Harris remarked on how he's fascinated by the way casinos are designed to specifically "herd" visitors in specific paths, and how the Matrix is like that. The wiki needs to do something similar: fundamentally, casual new visitors aren't active editors, and they don't know where everything is. Wikis need to match needs-of-the-casual-user.

MOST site visitors also come in from google search to the most popular pages: Neo, Trinity, etc. So those take top priority and need to be thoroughly interlinked to branch off to other stuff ("come to read the Neo article, stay for the Sentinels article" etc.)

What are the most popular pages according to the Admin analytics page? They only list the top ten but that's usually not an issue for a movie franchise wiki - for larger TV show wikis and so forth we need the top 50 or so. Flag down a Fandom developer contact to ask what the top 50 pages are. Then the navigation should be built around curating those. --- Also the top internal search terms.

There are basically two big top-level navigation areas: the top bar, and the front page.

The Front page uses up far too much space; people rarely read "below the fold" - below the first screen length of the webpage. Currently the entire "fold" is taken up by embedded videos, and the title card takes up half a page unto itself. Need to fit everything onto one page as best as possible, or at least much less space (ask what draws the eye).

When it comes to nav templates like the top bar, well known movie stuff should take priority over less well known things from the comics or the Matrix Online MMORPG. I love the MMORPG as concept but it's not as eye-catching - a Star Wars wiki five years ago...faced with limited space, given a choice to include a link in a dropbar to "Boba Fett" or "Grand Admiral Thrawn"...might reluctantly have to go with Boba Fett, because a movie-going audience doesn't know who Thrawn is.

This will require some brainstroming and cross-referencing with the lists of most visited pages. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:39, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello again! I just learned about this a week or so ago, content seeding, basically. And if I get what you're saying, we should effectively treat our most visited pages as our front pages. Which does make a lot of sense. Quick question, you wouldn't mind administrating for this wiki, would you? While the wiki is gradually moving towards the direction you are suggesting, your help might just really quicken the pace a lot. Thanks!
~C. Phlebas (talk) 03:58, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Admin status would help get things done. Bring order to chaos. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 05:15, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Top Bar Navigation[]

(continued)

Top Bar navigation basically gives you four Tier 1 tabs to play around with...each of which can have seven Tier 2 tabs on it, which can have ten Tier 3 tabs on them.

Data analytics have shown that MOST people only click n the Tier 3 tabs, not realizing that Tier 1 and Tier 2 are themselves links, so keep that in mind.

Thus each Tier 1 tab can potentially lead to 70 different links. And with limited space, they need to be prioritized: right now there's one Tier 1 tab just used for "Films"...linking to only four movies. Four links where there could be seventy.

It would make more sense to combine "Films" and "Other Media" into one big Tier 1 tab - particularly due to their specific nature, that the Wachowskis had Enter the Matrix and the Animatrix pretty much overlapping with the "films" themselves.

So something like this:

  • Media
    • Live-action Films (4 films plus Enter the Matrix)
    • The Animatrix
    • Matrix Comics
    • Matrix Games

Better yet, with seven potential Tier 2 tabs...it may make more sense to split "Matrix Games" into a few other things: three for films, Animatrix, comics...four spaces left....and there's four Game links, some canon and some not. Enter the Matrix and Matrix Online had storylines, but Path of Neo was never meant to be a "canon" thing, and Matrix Awakens is a nice demo but not in-universe.

It MIGHT make more sense to just list all four games given that there are seven Tier 2 tabs (make as much use of them as possible, as each leads to potentially ten Tier 3 tabs).

Whatever the cast, merging "Films" and "Other Media" would free up an entire new Tier 1 tab...for "Events" I guess (Timeline, wars, fight scenes)...or maybe for concepts?....better to be "World" (so it can be subdivided at Tier 2 into Events or concepts).

Characters and Locations also need a major overhaul, they emphasize some of the less important Matrix Online characters too much just to fill out a category, and they need updates for Matrix Resurrections characters. "Locations" doesn't even make any use of Tier 3 categories.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 03:03, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for those inputs! Really informative stuff there. I know User:Roger Murtaugh is thinking of how to overhaul the characters menu. So your inputs should really help him out. Your suggestions for a more general "Media" menu should also immediately work. Characters and locations is something I personally think should just be under the same menu as well (a "Universe" menu instead of "World" maybe? As there is the world of the Matrix and the real world?) The idea behind locations is that history is always tied to them so yes, that needs updating as well.
~C. Phlebas (talk) 03:26, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
Hello. On the top navigation, I have been wanting to change it, but I suppose that I'm still getting used to being an Administrator. I feel weird changing things that I used to not have the power to change. Haha. I'll update it. Feel free to change it if you'd like. Roger Murtaugh (talk) 04:22, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
Actually, I noticed that you have already done that. It just hadn't refreshed for me yet. It's definitely more focused. I wasn't sure what I would've done yet, so it's good that you updated it. Roger Murtaugh (talk) 04:26, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Initial report: We'd need to ask one of the Fandom reps for the Top 50 search results, which is what they used to give in the old analytics, the new one only gives the top ten, which isn't very useful for developing a full navigation system (I have brought this up in meetings as a problem).

But navigation needs to be based around what people are looking for: the idea being that people land on the "Neo" page from google search, THEN branch off from that. The top search results are the core, the spine of a wiki.

The "top ten most visited pages" tend to be things people get to from google - do not assume that people read the front page first, most actually don't. Of lower priority below that but still important is "Top Ten internal search results" - people who actually found the wiki using google, who want to look up other pages, what do they type in? Not nearly as many people as the "top ten most visited", but it gives some sense for what people are looking for.

Top Ten Most Viewed Pages, in descending order:

  • 1 - The Merovingian (!!!) (90,000 views in past month)
  • 2 - Main page (67,000)
  • 3 - Agent Smith (58,000)
  • 4 - Sati (57,000)
  • 5 - The Matrix Resurrections (48,000)
  • 6 - Neo (45,000)
  • 7 - The Architect (42,000)
  • 8 - Exile (35,000)
  • 9 - Deus Ex Machina (31,000)
  • 10 - The Oracle (30,000)

Keep in mind there's "spillover". I saw this on the Game of Thrones Wiki: logically, things related to the most popular pages get some spilover viewership by mere association. "Jon Snow" and "Daenerys Targaryen" are the top pages, but as a result, "Lyanna Stark" is in the top 5 pages, simply because she's Jon's mother, and "Jorah Mormont" is in the top ten...simply because Daenerys Targaryen has such high traffic that articles that are prominently linked in the "Daenerys" page get visited to. Thus "Exile" is probably in the top ten as spillover from "The Merovingian" being number one.

The idea is to work with this tendency: make sure that EVERYTHING that could link to Neo does. The main page isn't the access point, the top ten pages are the access point.

(I'm surprised Trinity isn't in the top 10, but she's probably in the top 20...seriously, why are the Merovingian and Sati so high? People love the Merovingian including myself, but I can't quantify it, verbalize it...because he's an online info broker?)

The Top Ten INTERNAL Search terms, however, in descending order are:

  • 1 - Io
  • 2 - Neo
  • 3 - Zion
  • 4 - Analyst
  • 5 - Smith
  • 6 - Sati
  • 7 - Oracle
  • 8 - "io" (variant spelling counts, unfortunately)
  • 9 - Niobe
  • 10 - Zion

Again, seriously need a higher-up to tell us the breakdown below that. And they do fluctuate over time.

On top of that we need to look up "Google Trends" to basically hijack commonly suggested Matrix search terms there.

--The Dragon Demands (talk) 23:07, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I finished my initial stab at revising the Top Bar Navigation. The goal is to guide a casual audience to other stuff they might be searching for: people come here after googling "Neo", then on the top bar, "Trinity" or even "Zion" might catch their eye and they'll click on it. They simply won't click on more obscure things out of the top 50 titles, like DVD releases etc.

We have four Tier 1 tabs to play around with so I made them: "Franchise" (actually left intact from what you already condensed last week), then "Characters", "Locations", and "Universe". Each Tier 1 tab can potentially contain 70 links (!) and thus while the focus is on "stuff casual viewers might feel the urge to click on", it's also good to make as full use of all links as possible (Tier 2 has 7 tabs, and Tier 3 gives 10 sub-links for each of those - most people only click on Tier 2 tab on "Real World" the first Tier 3 tab should also be "Real World" so they know to click on it).

"Characters":

  • Resistance (M1-M3)
  • Resistance (M4) (new characters in Matrix 4)
  • Programs of the Matrix (that is, aligned with it)
  • Rogue Programs (the Exiles, Merovingian, Orace, etc.)
  • Inhabitants of Zion (there was an extra tab left over, plus a lot of Zion characters didn't fit like Haman, Zee, Mifune, the Kid, then to round it out I grandfathered in Tank and Link - mostly due to their relation to Zee. Yes I know all of Zion is technically part of "the Resistance", the loose idea is that "Resistance" members focuses on hovership crews while "Zion" is more...civilians? People who aren't jacked into the Matrix. The lines are blurred, this is an ad-hoc heuristic solution to make full use of all 70 links. Note that some characters appear more than once)
  • Real World Machines (Deus Ex Machine is actually a top searched title, plus Sentinels, etc., rounding it out with new Machine characters from Matrix 4. Again the lines are blurred, given that Matrix 4 introduces not only that Operators can project themselves into the Matrix without being jacked in (just appearing to field operatives), but that AI can now outright project itself into the Real World and even have some limited tangibility in the form of nanobot clouds held together with magnetic fields. Still, we had some space left over and it made sense to fill it out).
  • "Characters in the Matrix Online" - as I said before, while I love the Matrix Online and defend its inclusion, much like the comics, casual viewers don't know what that is, and movie characters should take priority with limited slots, Thus, functionally, it makes more sense to include MxO stuff but as separate sub-tiers (we weren't even using all seven Tier 2 spaces before).

Locations: I couldn't think of seven subdivisions for this, only five - but that leaves room to grow - there's so many locations in the Matrix that this leaves open the possibility of "Matrix Locations A to M" and then "Matrix Locations N through Z" because there's more than ten...but we don't have articles for all of them yet.

Thus the Tier 2 titles are "Real World", then "Hovercraft" (because they're also locations where many scenes happen), then "Simulations" in general (The Matrix, old Matrix versions, and then other constructs like Mobile Ave), then "Locations in the Matrix", and separated out "Locations in the Matrix Online". Leaves room to expand within this framework.

Universe:

I couldn't think of seven Tier 2 titles, but room to grow (perhaps out-of-universe things? or would that go under "Franchise"?)

for now it's: Terminology, Society & Culture, Technology, Events.

Terminology is stuff that didn't quite fit in Technology: Redpill/Bluepill, Bullet Time, the One, RSI, etc.

Society & Culture is loosely defined as more cultural than technological: Food & Beverages (which should probably be condensed) i.e. in-universe brands like Tastee Wheat, Cultural References to the Matrix, Alice in Wonderland, Simulation and Simulcra, etc.

Technology is everything from Headjacks to Armored Personnel Units to EMP, to "Firearms in the Matrix franchise" - currently a category, but we should try to make this into a series based on the Internet Movie Firearms Database.

Events is because I needed a place to highlight the Timeline, Machine War, Battle of Zion, and Machine Civil War. Then I just filled in the rest with some of the articles for action scenes (not to be dismissive; some of these are actually very well filled out with lots of screenshots). So I just rounded out to ten as best I could.

Currently this wiki has both a "Timeline" and "History" page, of which "History" is actually more filled out. These should be merged into one "Timeline" page. Also articles for individual years doesn't make much sense I think those should also be condensed into links to sub-headers on one timeline page.

I'm just trying to get the ball rolling. So much information from the 2000s has already been lost before it could be archived.

As for the front page, that's a whole other thing. At first I said "the entire top fold is taken up by a video" and it's not supposed to do that...but dear god, a new Matrix movie just came out after 18 years, yes of course the trailer for the new movie should be front and center and as big as possible!

BUT, in coming months, after the Matrix Resurrections leaves theaters, the front page should gradually transition to have video content below the fold instead of at the top taking up so much space and attention. But that's a ways off in the future.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 17:47, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I just saw this. Awesome work! Thanks!
~C. Phlebas (talk) 19:15, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Other analytics[]

Other analytics that aren't as important because they're beyond our control:

"Returning vs new visitors" is actually broken, it says 100% here but it also says 100% at Game of Thrones wiki, which is impossible (on a long enough timeline, anyone with a computer has visited a major TV wiki at least once, but overall I think it's just a nonfunctional feature) so ignore that.

Of passing interest but beyond our control is "Desktop vs Mobile sessions" - only 23% actually view the site with desktop browsers, the rest with mobiles & tablets. The problem of course is that Fandom/Wikia doesn't show up well on mobiles! Not yet. But Fandom Mobile is some time away; you get the impression that people search for stuff on google using their iPhone and visit the "Merovingian" link from there, these are casual readers...whereas hardcore fans and researchers would sit down to use the desktop browser. Speaking of which, it also has a breakdown for most popular desktop browsers: Chrome 52%, Safari 41%, Firefox 4%, Other 3% (this is just trivia, it has no functional difference).

We can't control mobile stuff yet, even in the large and very active wikis.

But you can't ignore people who got here through casual search terms either. The idea is to hook in new viewership who get here through internet search, but convince them to STAY - that's the key part - to STAY with a good navigation system leading them to other interesting content.

Also beyond our control, but interesting: Top Ten Countries viewers come from by IP address. This obviously skews towards English-speaking countries, or countries with large populations who speak English as at least a second language (i.e. on the Game of Thrones Wiki, India recently surpassed Australia as the number four location).

The Top Ten locations for Matrix Wiki are:

  • 1 - US
  • 2 - UK
  • 3 - Canada
  • 4 - Australia
  • 5 - France
  • 6 - Brazil
  • 7 - Germany
  • 8 - Singapore
  • 9 - Poland
  • 10 - India

Also cross-references with G20 countries with large internet presence (i.e. Germany). France is pretty high on here though (on the Game of Thrones wiki it only recently rose to number 10). I'm surprised Singapore is so high, must be due legacy of English-speakers from colonial era continuing into international trade era. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 23:07, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Message Walls disabled due to spam[]

Message Walls have been temporarily disabled due to a sudden onslaught of spam.

Please do not follow any of those links and please use this noticeboard or Talk pages (Help:Talk pages) to contact Administrators directly.

Message Walls will be back once we figure out a way to combat the attack.

Thanks!
~C. Phlebas (talk) 05:41, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

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