User:Bongo50/Tardis:Temporary forums

Current topics:

Temporary forums
It has been well over 1 year since this Wiki last had functioning forums (excluding Discussions, which isn't suitable for most debates and conversations). This is severely limiting the function of the Wiki, preventing policy discussions from taking place and changes from occurring. With major events occurring in the not too distant future (that I won't mention by name due to T:SPOIL), which will likely bring an influx of new editors, and the current broadcast of Series 13, I feel it is imperative that we have a centralised location for discussions of policy so that we don't always have to resort to talk pages and other unideal solutions. Therefore, I have set up this temporary forums page in which these discussions can take place.

Using this page
This page can be used much like a talk page. Use the box at the top of the page to add a new topic (equivalent to a thread), type out your post (note that the section header will be added automatically upon saving) and sign your posts with ~. To add to an already existent thread, click the edit button next to the section header, go to the bottom of the pre-existent text and add your comments, indenting it with colons as relevant. I feel that most topic that would be discussed in regular forums could be discussed here. However, there are a few topics that I feel it would be best to avoid:


 * Spoilers: The Howling is actually fully functional so I see no reason why this can't be used.
 * Topics that may need to be referenced a lot in the future: linking to threads here will be quite inconvenient, requiring you to link to a specific section with #. However, if this situation does occur, a redirect could be made from a page with a short name to the specific section of this one.
 * General Doctor Who discussion: while the Reference desk used to exist as a forum board, it is likely undesirable to clog up the limited space here with these discussions. Discussions can be used instead.
 * Threads that were ongoing at the time Special:Forum was lost: it is not desirable to duplicate the discussions and hard work that went into these threads.

Once a topic has reached its natural conclusion, it can be closed by an admin as normal and archived by cutting and pasting the section of the page into Tardis:Temporary forums/archive. It is quite important to regularly archive topics here to stop the page getting too long.

Status of the proper forums
As you are probably aware, Special:Forum stopped working when Fandom migrated Tardis to UCP. It was replaced by Discussions which is not a platform suitable for policy debates and such. Tardis used to use DPL Forums but later switched to Special:Forum. However, most of DPL Forums' infrastructure still exists. The following is a list of everything that I believe would need to be done to get DPL Forums functioning:


 * The permission to create pages in the Forum Namespace needs to be given to all editors. This requires making a request to Fandom staff which should be done by an admin.
 * MediaWiki:Allpagesnext and MediaWiki:Allpagesprev should be restored. This needs to be done by an admin.
 * and both use  at the top. This transculsion should be changed to  but the argument given should stay the same. This could be done by anyone as the pages aren't protected.  could potentially be left out as Discussions can be used for its purpose.

Moreover, in an ideal world, archives from Special:Forum should be restored as part of DPL Forums. This is something that only an admin could do. It shouldn't be to hard but it does require a file containing the old threads. To my knowledge, only CzechOut has this file. Therefore, he is the only person capable of restoring these.

CzechOut said that he would do this for the start of Series 13 and, failing that, would just get Forum:Index working again. This has not transpired, leading to me making this page.

Conclusion
Hopefully I have made my reasons for creating this page clear and have explained how to use it. Please feel free to add any questions as a reply to this post. An example post has been made below. While it is an example, it is also a full serious thread so feel free to get involved in it. Also feel free to start your own topics. Let's get this wiki moving again! Bongo50 (talk) 17:48, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Gadgets
Since we last had forums, a new extension was enabled which I have been using (there have actually been a few enabled but the others are of little interest to most editors). This is Gadgets. Gadgets allows for the creation of bits of CSS and JS that can be enabled by individual users. Better yet, these bits of of CSS and JS can go against the Customization policy (as long as they're not enabled by default) which allows for some really cool stuff. The gadgets that I've made for Tardis can be found and enabled here. Note that the bottom gadget is now obsolete due to the CSS changes that I made since UCX being reverted. If you have any suggestions for new gadgets, feel free to place them below! Bongo50 (talk) 17:59, 3 December 2021 (UTC)