Forum:Attribution or Imports?

I've been hearing that Wikipedia has been deleting some of their Naruto content, which does prove to have a bit of an attribution issue to it. So it's time to decide, should we continue using attribution, or push everything to the side so that we can Import and merge instead.

I should first explain what both are:
 * Attribution
 * All attributed articles have the template at the top.
 * The template can be removed after we have significantly improved the article.
 * Things can be copied to different names. So we can copy Jiraiya (naruto) to Jiraiya instead of copying it to Jiraiya (naruto) then moving it.
 * Any user can move Wikipedia content here with this method.
 * This poses possible GFDL issues... If a page is deleted, the attribution links are no longer valid, And therefore we're violating the GFDL because authors are no longer attributed.
 * Import/Export
 * The entire history of the article is preserved so we do not need to add the template to the page.
 * We never half to link back to Wikipedia as the origin of the article because the list of authors is preserved in our own history.
 * Import/Export cannot change names... If we are to copy Jiraiya (naruto) it will be placed at Jiraiya (naruto) and then we'll half to move it.
 * Normal users cannot Import, for this to work a Sysop needs to Export the Wikipedia pages then Import them here.
 * There are no GFDL issues, Even if Wikipedia deletes a page, we have the entire article history here, so we never half to worry about a page being deleted and our links becoming invalid.
 * Because we already have pages like Naruto Uzumaki in place, we actually half to move all our current articles to another space out of the way, and then import all the Naruto articles here.

If you're wondering what the steps for Import/Export are:
 * 1) Staff create a namespace such as Archive: for all our current articles to be moved to.
 * 2) I have a bot move all the articles in the Main namespace to the Archive: namespace.
 * 3) I Export all the Naruto related articles on Wikipedia with their histories into XML files.
 * 4) I alter the XML files to append @wikipedia.org to everyone's username to identify where the users are located.
 * 5) I then Import the XML files here.
 * 6) We move the (naruto) appended articles to proper names and delete the (naruto) pages.
 * 7) We split the articles up into their own articles.
 * 8) We format the articles again to work with our Wiki and replace/remove/add the templates as we need.
 * 9) We then copy bits of our old articles in the Archive: namespace into the imported articles to merge our own work into the articles.
 * 10) We then merge the histories of our articles with the imported ones and remove the ones in the Archive: namespace.
 * 11) When we're done importing and merging everything, we have the staff remove the Archive: namespace.

Anyone got any questions?

If you're wondering about me... I'm kinda thinking that the nicest method of doing things would be to Import/Export. If you're wondering about the advantages I'm thinking of:
 * We don't need to use those ugly templates anymore.
 * We don't have people working on old bad articles that have not yet been updates with a proper Wikipedia copy.
 * We don't half to worry about Wikipedia deleting pages that we have attribution links to.
 * We can freely manage all the content here because we never half to go back to Wikipedia to copy another missing article.
 * ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) current discussion Aug 28, 2007 @ 01:39 (UTC)

So the war has finally reached its surviving refuge. Anyway I support the Import as its the only one where we can save valueable info if the articles are deleted. Give me the power to do so (and instructions on how) and I could do the task of importing and stuff. Though time is running out...school years starting....TheUltimate3 02:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

What I see as the main problem of the method you call "attribution" is indeed the ugly template: in fact, it has to be added to all articles when they are derived from one shitty list, and be kept until the content start to look completely different from the original. However, the method you call "imports" has much more problems: it's not only the matter of writing a script that will copy and paste all histories. The main work will be in rewriting all those articles in Narutopedia style and (most of the time) reverting changes to more sensible ones - right now all current versions on Wikipedia contain far too little info. Besides, there's a lot of vandalism going on in Wikipedia, so you'll also be importing thousands and thousands of edit wars with people who wanted the Fourth to be called Arashi or the blue-haired Akatsuki to be named Heren. Don't make me start on them using different layout templates and differently named images... And by the way, there are no GFDL issues with deleted articles because the copyright law has no subject in that case, Wikipedia itself is no more responsible for it, and people who were the contributors will be happy to know their work didn't end in vain.

A bit off the topic, but I think it would be much more useful to write a bot that'll check all articles for duplicates (for every "X Y" a page "Y X" should either not exist or be a redirect) and insert something like a template in the case of duplicate articles and a redirect in case of non-existing stuff in characters categories.

What I counter-propose is: That's my view on the problem. We simply lack the sheer manpower to deal with all the imported articles, and I'm afraid the wiki'll turn into one big mess. --Radaghast 12:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * First of all, we do not incorporate any of Wikipedia content. At all. We will use Wikipedia as a source: its contents will be reworked in our pages, and it will be credited at the end of the page among other references.
 * Then, a template should be made that will contain text in the lines of "The topic of this article is better covered by following article: (link)". That link can also be a Wikipedia link.
 * The contributors then will not lose all the work they've already done, and will not be overwhelmed by the amount of new work awaiting them and depressed about it. We will just browse through a category with all articles with better Wikipedia counterparts, open a wikipedia article in another window and start comparing, copying and extending the existing stuff with what they got (or rather what they used to have) there.