Template talk:UserAnniversary

Unification

Is there any particular reason why this template merely links to user pages... and doesn't just have all of the data actually exist in this template, or perhaps subpages? Is this just a case of "someone else made this" and not wanting to tamper? Or is there another reason for it? User:Thirty7/Sig 13:13, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if this is related, but is there also perhaps a way to change the 1 and 3 year badges so that they either reflect who actually gave them, or are generic like the others? Felderburg 16:26, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The original anniversary badges were separate templates, each created by different admins who (at the time) defined them as their own user templates. When I started going through the user list and updating the anniversaries, I was simply placing the appropriate template reference (or replacing the existing reference with the template for the next year) on the user pages. After about a year of that, I decided that it would be much easier to have a single template with a switch based on the anniversary year that referenced the existing templates. (Thus the original editing comment when I created the template). And that's how this was born.

Later still, I realized that I could use the {{age}} template and never actually have to manually update a user's anniversary again. I just didn't get very far into replacing the references before we got hit with the shutdown notification and got completely distracted. It's only really now that I'm starting to peel myself away from moderating the Titan boards and managing the Twitter feed enough to start checking the Recent Changes list again.

So, tl;dr version: After a long time of not being very smart about how I was doing things, I started getting lazier and this is just how I chose to implement it at the time.

As for changing the names on who awards the badges: we could probably set something like that up, but the existing templates are a reflection of the admin that created the badge. Not that there's any consistency - particularly given that I created all of years 3-6. Rather than make the templates reflect the person that added the anniversary badge to the page, it might be better to change them to generically reflect "Paragon Wiki" wishing them a happy anniversary. The only real argument against that is based on pure nostalgia.

--Eabrace 07:33, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

The problem with using {{age}} so that it auto-updates is that the user won't be notified when it changes. Not much point in wishing someone a happy anniversary if they aren't going to know about it. Making it automatic also undercuts the somewhat personal nature of it, IMO. -- Sekoia 13:49, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Not really disagreeing with that, either.  :) Eabrace 17:03, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

One nice thing about auto-updating the message, though, is that you don't have to worry about missing someone's anniversary. Case-in-point, Archabaddon just updated his user page in the past couple weeks, and the last anniversary posted was for the two-year mark, even though it's been over five years since his first edit. (I'm not pointing fingers, just making an observation.) This leads me to some other questions:

• Is there a date-sorted list of all first user edits that's used to make the updates?

• Are all users checked each time there's a pass made for new anniversaries?

• Is there a minimum threshhold of edits that a user is required to make before they qualify for anniversary tracking?

• Should all users continue to be checked for new anniversaries, or only active ones? (I realize that Felderburg and I have made the lion's share of edits since the shutdown, but this question isn't asked to bring us special attention. It's just to raise awareness and discussion about future options.)

I think noting a user's edit anniversary is great and a fun little nod we give to thank them for contributing. But, thinking about the ease and thoroughness of maintaining the program in the future, automation might have some weighty benefits worth considering. — talk / contribs 17:26, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

To answer your first question, there wasn't a date-sorted list of all first user edits, and apparently there's no easy end-user way to get that info en masse. So I pulled it from the DB, made it pretty, and created an article for it: Paragon Wiki:Contributor First Edits. The data will need to be updated about once a year, but if someone makes an anniversary check and notices it's too far out of date, they can poke me to get an update.

I have no idea if all users have been checked. I don't think we've been applying a minimum threshold. My guess is it's been applied based on the users that we see active but I have no idea for sure.

I somewhat don't like that we replace the old anniversary badge rather than add the new. If I'm at my fifth anniversary, why shouldn't I have all five anniversary badges? If we were to start doing that, we could start awarding based on whether they've editing during that anniversary's year (so someone who made a few edits, then didn't contribute until four years later might have anniversary badges 1 and 4, but not 2 or 3). But that adds a whole new level of complexity to it that I doubt we want to bother with.

To a degree, we're over-formalizing this. It was originally intended to be a friendly nod from a big contributor/admin to someone who was contributing. It was originally a fairly personal thing. Now we're looking to nearly completely depersonalize it and make it very universally and consistently applied. I'm not sure that's good.

In any case, it does seem a bit weird to me to update anniversaries for people who are no longer involved in the wiki. I'm inclined to stick with awarding/updating them to people who were actually active at some point in the past year. -- Sekoia 18:26, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

"I have no idea if all users have been checked. I don't think we've been applying a minimum threshold."

I had been maintaining an Excel spreadsheet with a list of all users who have registered, their first edit date, and their most recent edit date. I started by looking at the list of all users (by registration date) and checking the history of each user to get a first edit date. Then, each year, I checked those users in the anniversary month of their first edit for their most recent edit date. New users were added to the list as they registered, and if they didn't have any edits at the time, I would check them again the next year, using their registration date rather than first edit date.

The spreadsheet is It's a bit out of date at the moment, but I know it was current at least at the beginning of last year, maybe as late as June.

My criteria for awarding a badge:

• at least one edit for a one-year anniversary badge
• at least one edit within the last year for any other anniversary badges

So all users who made any edit to the wiki prior to January 2011 (one year before I'm absolutely certain my list was updated) should have at least one anniversary badge on their User page.

Regarding replacing vs. adding: when I started my first sweep through, most users had only the most recent anniversary badge on on their page. Only a few had more than one. I just standardized on the most common for consistency. And the issue you mentioned with editors taking a year or two off and then returning was part of my decision.

What I was going for when I began the effort to track anniversaries was trying not to play "favorites" and exclude newer editors from getting the anniversary badges on their page. But that meant getting all of them. And once I started sweeping through the user list, I just found it was easier to get all users rather that select users. I'm pretty sure I started a forum thread asking if there was an easy way to get the data I needed rather than having to track it all myself, but that was probably back on the old forums somewhere.

--Eabrace 19:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)