Talk:Quizbowl software

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Revision as of 23:00, 25 July 2019 by Ophir Lifshitz (talk | contribs) (→‎This Page Sucks: reply and serious appeal for rapport)
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Um, so you deleted a number of items, albeit non-software, that are useful. Should I take this as a cue to create a new page for the study guides etc?.--Zachary Yan (talk) 14:35, 18 April 2014 (PDT)

Sure, feel free. I agree that they are somewhat useful and do belong somewhere, but I don’t think they belong in the same place as a page dedicated to quizbowl software. Ophir Lifshitz (talk) 14:38, 18 April 2014 (PDT)

New supersection headings

I appreciate the stylistic effort that went into Template:Quizbowl software/Unnumbered section, but I am reorganizing the page to use the standard section headings, which keep a consistent look on QBWiki, as well as play nicely with the table of contents. Gregory Gauthier (talk) 19:35, 28 April 2014 (PDT)

This Page Sucks

At this point, is it better to kill this page or update it? The BEeS release date is almost the only thing here that is still accurate. David Reinstein (talk) 10:58, 25 July 2019 (CDT)

I think there's some useful stuff, and it's good to have some page like this. Also, the historical stuff is interesting too (at least to me). If I had time and inclination, I would create a "Defunct quizbowl software" page and move much of this page to it, and do my best to ensure this page had modern information. Jonah (talk) 17:59, 25 July 2019 (CDT)
I assume your title didn’t intend to offend, but it still bites a bit as I spent a long time creating this page, trying to collect and centralize all known information about quizbowl software (so much of which has disappeared with little trace) and stay completely objective and trustworthy.  I think that your remark is itself not accurate – how can a list of timestamped links to published archives not be accurate?  Of course the page is outdated and could use more prominent prose summaries to accompany the disproportionately emphasized existing information (which is mostly hierarchical and tabular).
Now let me answer your question and pose a few more:  Should a quizbowl wiki have a page about quizbowl software? Absolutely.  Should such a page cover the history of quizbowl software in a single place? I think so.  Should such a page also present the saddening narrative that quizbowl software past, present, and future (by extrapolation) has an incredibly poor track record of longevity? Yes.  Should you improve a page if you’ve identified that it sucks, since this is a wiki? By all means.  Should you maybe be less combative, or is that really the only way to get people to come together around reform? Our small, balkanized community strongly needs this centralized resource and your help in maintaining its usefulness. Ophir Lifshitz (talk) 23:00, 25 July 2019 (CDT)