Talk: United Corporate Alliance

Is the UCA still active?

It would seem that most of the members are working on other projects and not working on the UCA. Should the UCA still be listed as a variable in company listings? To that extent, what involvement does the Federation have with a company, and why is the listing included in every company? Kbro1990 (talk) 23:57, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

At least half of the companies listed as members in the UCA have been active on the wiki in some way within the last six months. If that number drops below five, then we will contact the remaining members to see how they wish to procede.

The reason the Federation is listed on both the Company and the CivSpace pages is that they have at least five companies AND five civspaces as members. This qualifies them for both.

As for the "Why is the listing included in every company" question, I'm not sure what you're asking; can you give me some additional info? Thanks Ddfairchild (talk) 02:52, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Alliance questions

Not sure if I'm doing this right, as I am new to this type of wiki and interface. Why would the Federation and UCA have links on Company pages that aren't a part of those respective groups. Why does it say "No" under a listing linked to the Federation and UCA, instead of not linking to those unaffiliated pages.

The Federation is the largest alliance in the NMS community, and has been for years. Having a parm for it allows a community to indicate Yes or No if they are a member. If the field is left blank, then the entry for Federation doesn't show in the infobox. As far as the UCA, at one point they had 10+ active members and were a going concern, so a parm for that alliance was added as well. (again, with Yes/No/blank choices)

Also, why is the Galactic Hub not listed beneath the Civilized Space Heading, and instead shows up on the front page? Every other member of Civilized Space is under the Civilized Space umbrella.

They ARE listed on the CivSpace page, and as you mention, also linked from the front page of the wiki. From the first initial months of the game, the Galactic Hub was, and remains, the largest and most active CivSpace in the NMS community. This has been recognized by HelloGames with inclusion of their logo and similar devices in the game itself. For many NMS players, visiting the HUB is a right of passage. Items on the front page are driven by both their importance to the game, and the traffic they generate. In both of these, the HUB has earned their front-page link.

It seems like those editing this wiki have bias towards a handful of individuals.

I can't comment on the civilization/company you represent, as you haven't indicated in your notes what it may be. But if you feel that your civ is not receiving fair recognition, then increase the traffic, page usage, and editing here in the wiki. That's the best way I know of to boost your reputation. Thanks for your comments! Ddfairchild (talk) 15:31, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Is there a group that tracks the traffic here on the Gamepedia Wiki? What process would a civ go through to be recognized by HG as the Galactic Hub has?

Should it be made more clear to individuals that the parm can be left blank, or shouldn't No just leave it blank rather than advertising a non-affiliated Faction?

I am of the opinion that the Gamepedia Wiki paints an inaccurate picture of Civilized Space, with the Galactic Hub and Federation at it's head. This is not the case, as most of Civilized Space is unaffiliated with either group (wholeheartedly), and the Galactic Hub especially is focused on localized exploration and not Civilized Space, with an emphasis on hiding the rest of Civilized Space from it's members to increase interaction within their Hub.

In my unbiased opinion it should just be an "alliances" parm that editors can add their alliances to such as Trinity Pact for the HCIS, etc. It can be an unlimited list and wouldn’t cause any issues unlike what is happening now, which is only a Federation parm and a UCA parm. There should just be one "alliance” parm. That's my unbiased opinion. No one gets hurt. Winter naut (talk) 17:01, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The GHUB home page gets between 200-400 hits a day, higher than any of our other civs (and that does not take into account the other documentation pages the HUB has added to the wiki). As for not being interested in Civilized Space, that is how you choose to define it. The 33 regions that the HUB has heavily explored over the last four years is considerably higher than just about any other organization you may choose to name. The great majority of civs in the wiki document no more than a handful of systems in a single region, if that. The refrain of "hiding the rest of Civilized Space from it's members" has echoes of the Warpway controversy, and there is no need to rehash that discussion here.

Between 20-25% of our civspace and company pages have marked the Fed parm with a Yes, so it is a valid marker for a civ, just as much as size or government type. As mentioned above, if a Civ doesn't want to use the parm, they are not required to, and the tag won't show up. This is the way all of our infobox parms work; if you don't enter information, nothing shows. Ddfairchild (talk) 20:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I think Winternaut has the best idea about how this should be handled.

I'm not familiar with the WarpWay.

I personally will not be adding the 572 systems and 2200 black holes I have documented to this Wiki because it's poisoned by the Federation.

Then I guess we will just have to be satisfied with the 6,070 systems we already have in the wiki. Based on what has been determined about Winternaut today, I'm not sure if his ideas still have relevance any longer.

And incidentally, at this point it appears that the UCA, the subject of your original question, no longer has five active members. I will be reaching out to those that ARE still active to let them know the current situation. Thank you for posing the question. Ddfairchild (talk) 01:53, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Infobox parms

How can a group get a parm identical to the Federation Parm?

How does Winter's activity or w/e determine the relevance of his comments on my talk page? I think it makes more sense to have an open ended parm for that, exactly as Winter stated.

Full history... Originally, there was no Civspace infobox. Civilizations just created a page without one and put on the page whatever they felt appropriate.

In 2017, as the number of civs grew, a decisions was made to create a specific infobox for their pages. This was done in April 2017. As part of that initial design, we looked at our standard civilizations and determined which items would be relevant to have displayed across the board (you can see descriptions of these parms on the Template:Companies_infobox/doc page). At the time, there was only one group in existence of more than just a couple of civs, and that was the Fed.

It was decided that, like for civspaces, a set of requirements would have to be met to be considered an "official" association. These are the basic requirements that you still see today on both the civspace and company pages. At the time, only the Fed came close to meeting the association requirements.

With that being the case, the intent was to provide a simple option to show if you belonged to the Fed (Yes/No/Blank as discussed above), just like an option to show the size or the home region.

As the number of companies began to increase in 2018, a request was made to provide a separate infobox for company pages. This was created in November 2018, and it contained a parm for both the Fed and the UCA as they were the only two associations the met the company qualifications at that time.

Both parms are still there, and as long as both associations meet the requirements, the parm will remain part of the Company preload template.

So the answer to your question about receiving an indentical parm is simple: just meet the requirements to become an official company association. At that point, the association logo will be added to the proper section of the page, and a parm will be added to the infobox FOR that association.

As to why we don't have an open ended parm? It is much easier to keep documentation clean when you are dealing with a parm with specific values than it is to have one where someone can just type in whatever they want. "I only have four companies in my association? So what? I'm going to list my association there anyway even if I don't actually qualify." We also have limited English speakers that use the wiki - making the infobox choices clearer and easier to use also benefits them. As I review wiki pages on a daily basis, I am constantly adjusting the values that are entered for parms to make sure the data is correct. Anything we can do to make it easier on our editors is a bonus in my book <g> Hope that helps! Ddfairchild (talk) 03:37, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Who is who and what is what?

You have been a wonderful ambassador for the Gamepedia Wiki, and you have made me rethink using this site to complete my region's database to 100%, including all flora and fauna, storm data, hotspots, etc. on the 572 systems we already have the essential info collected for. My group also has more than 5 "assosciations" involved with other large groups that have their own members, hubs, databases, etc. I think that I am not alone in being currently incapable of navigating this wiki. Where do I find the requirements to be registered at the various levels for my group; Civ, Company, Assosciation, Faction, Alliance, etc.

Well, thanks for the kind words. I really take pride in working with this wiki and the community it serves; if I can make things better for the users, then I'm going my job right <g>

OK, let's go through some terms first. The first three are all community terms and community definitions, i.e. they are not an official part of the game. (or at least they weren't until the GHUB decal was added, making the HUB, at least semi-canonical).

Civ/Civilized space - this is simply a group of players (or even one, we do have solo civs) that work together in a specified area of space for whatever purpose their civ feels to be important. The requirements to be recognized officially and added to the wiki's civspace page can be found on the Civilized space page under "requirements". Note that once an embassy page is created, our official cartographer will add new civs to the galactic map; the official note on the page isn't added until the full requirements are met.

Company - Similar to a civ, but with more of a business orientation. They may provide services, construction, or even donuts. The requirements for a company are on the [{Company]] page, and are similar to those for civ

Association/Alliance: This is the next step up from a civ or a company, and it recognizes a group of at least five official-and-active civs or companies. They are recognized by having their logo and a description displayed on the Company or CivSpace page. They are also recognized with a dedicated infobox parm (if they want one), similar to the one for the Fed.

Faction - you'll have to talk to HelloGames about this one - they are the only ones that can add another faction to the game!

So what would I do first? Decide if your group wants to be a civ or a company. If you decide you have enough different people in your group that more than one civ makes sense (i.e. maybe you have a big presence in two separate galaxies), you can establish multiple civs. However if this is done, each civ needs to be "run" by different person. This helps avoid conflict of interest, and as you'll find out, keeping the wiki up-to-date with discoveries and other information is not a five-minutes-and-done operation. One person really can't do multiple civs justice.

Next, go to the Search bar and key in the name of your Civ as you'd like the page name to appear. When you search, you won't find it of course, but a text phrase saying "Create the page XYZ..." will show, where XYZ is the name of your civ. Click the XYZ and you'll come to a page where you can create a Civ (or a planet, or a star, or a creature, etc etc etc). We have "blue links" on this page that will preload your page with a standard skeleton for the type of page you choose. In this case, you'd click "Civilized Space"" and a blank page will appear, with the basic sections to fill in for your civ. If you don't have anything for a section to start with, don't delete it; you may want to come back later and update. When you're done, save the page and you'll have created your first page in the wiki.

If you have any question, you can just post them on my profile page (click the "DDfairchild" link anywhere on this page) and I'll be glad to help out as best I can. Yes, it can seem a bit daunting to begin with, but once you've created a couple of star or planet pages, they become second nature. Thanks! Ddfairchild (talk) 03:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)