StrategyWiki:Staff lounge/2014/February

Markup broken?
I don't know how long this has been, but today i couldn't use the Guide/Wiki Markup to edit a page. The Buttons at the Top work well, but anything from "Insert" to "Math and Logic" dont work for me. Can someone look in that? Paco (talk) 11:55, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Can you purge your cache and try now? -- Prod (talk) 16:53, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I can now insert anything from markup again (see Sandbox), without having to purge the Cache. Paco (talk) 17:09, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks for the bug report! -- Prod (talk) 18:17, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

website question
The thung on the left side of this website is annoying is it going to be removed in the future-RodKimble (talk) 06:58, 8 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I assume this is part of the new Dolphin skin. It is designed so that it is easier to navigate between walkthrough pages, but I can see why some might find the change jarring. You can always change your skin preferences back to the older Whale skin. Simply go into your preferences and select the Whale skin to revert to the previous skin with the sidebar located at the top. T.testLP(talk) 07:07, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Grid mapping
I am referring to square-grid-maze games that need some mapping, classic RPGs (like Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder) or Interactive Fiction games (like Zork) and so on.

If we want to create, and eventually include such a map in our guide, is there a recommended way or software to do it? Personally, I am using a software called Trizbort, where I an create nodes (rooms) and join them (exits) and add some comments to each (like "There is a dropped key here which opens the locked door in Room A"). Although the game is good to create, browse and edit maps, there is no ideal way to export them into a presentable form. There are options to export a map in PDF or JPG, but this would be just a screenshot, with some lines and texts overlapping, or unreadable tags. There are options to export maps in "Inform 6" or "TADS" formats, but I have no idea what they are.

The only way to use my maps here would be to upload the Trizbort files to an article, so that they could be downloaded, and opened by Trizbort, but this doesn't sound very practical.

I am open to hints or suggestions. Keyan (talk) 13:02, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The best approach to take in this case would be to either export your map as a picture (See Exporting a Picture for instructions) or to capture a screenshot of your desktop while your Trizbort document is open (hit Ctrl+PrtScr and then [aste into your favorite image editor, such as GIMP, then edit and save). Definitely steer away from any solutions or file formats that web browsers do not support natively.  I had not heard of Trizbort before now, but it definitely seems like a good utility for creating certain kinds of map illustrations.   Pro  cyon  14:02, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your reply, however I will prepare an image illustrating why screenshots and the export options don't result in ideally readable and browsable maps. As sometimes the texts and tags don't fit in the image, one has to resolve to artistry and make notations in the image and then add notations in the article. Quite troublesome but there isn't any other way. I will upload as soon as file uploading will be back. I was also wondering if there is an inherent wiki code that would be used for mapping, like the family tree code in Wikipedia (see for example this family tree). Keyan (talk) 16:43, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Trizbort grid maps appear to scale to infinitely large proportions. Large images can be uploaded here, but obviously a thumbnail will not be useful. If that is the goal, then you can screenshot sections pertinent to the particular guide page you are using. Otherwise, uploading the full image as a screenshot is still useful, so you could put it on the page as a small image and say "click here" to observe the whole image. Like you said, making connections between the guide and such an image would not be possible. Another option is to screenshot a portion that fits on the center of the page, then make it like a Table of Contents - image map each room's rectangle so it can be clicked on and people can jump to it. We can't test these at the moment since uploads have been disabled for the next week or two. -- 22:00, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * An image map, combined with a legend below, would be workable. I have seen such in other wikis but I haven't used such code. In the meantime, can you redirect me to a tutorial on how to make an image map? Keyan (talk) 22:47, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * A couple of thoughts. First, with respect to familytree, Wikipedia states that wp:Template:Familytree is deprecated and that wp:Template:Chart should be used in it's place.  It should be a relatively small matter for us to port the chart template to SW if you feel it would be useful.  Second, with respect to Trizbort, if you find that exporting as an image doesn't work well, then one of two things is true: Either you would need to find a way to simplify the information so that it can be presented, (albeit abridged) by Trizbort, or it may not be the best tool to use afterall.  Throughout most of the site, maps are supplementary to the text that accompanies it, and not the primary source of information.  They help provide a visual reference to the information contained the text of the guide, but do not themselves necessarily contain everything the reader needs to know in order to solve a game.  I hate using the phrase "dumb it down," but it's true that we strive for things to be immediately understandable as possible.  Granted, knowledge has a way of complicating that effort.  The point is, if you're finding that a particular approach to illustrating information is becoming rather complicated, consider simplifying your approach rather than scaling back your presentation.  Just some food for thought.   Pro  cyon  05:02, 16 February 2014 (UTC)


 * In regards to image maps, check out info on the following: map tag, area tag. There are only a few examples on SW and I couldn't find any easily. It looks like this website might be able to help you generate an image map: http://www.image-maps.com/ (I don't know how it works). -- 18:41, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Most Wanted Question
I have a question about the most wanted video games are those the games people want to be completed most also can you vote on which one get's to be up there or no just wanted to know.


 * First, please sign your posts with ~ (four tildes). This lets us know who wrote the post. I believe the most wanted list on the main page is a statistic generated by views similar to the popular guides. I think, instead of checking to see how long people view pages and how many pages they go to (as if they were browsing the guide), if they go to an empty page, then that counts towards their "wanted"-ness. It may also count only towards uncompleted guides. I am not sure. Maybe can weigh in. -- 16:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The script looks at the non-existent pages with the most clicks, consolidates them by guide, and puts up the top 10. If you click a red-link, that effectively counts as a vote (assuming you aren't blocking any scripts). -- Prod (talk) 00:17, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Intervals between backups?
After the site outage, I'm a bit concerned about how much time it is between backups, since the announcement said that the backup restored was "thankfully recent". Does this mean that the outage just happened to occur soon after the backup, and that more data could have been lost, or that backups happen often enough that an outage like this would never cause the loss of more than a day of data? Because having lost a full page or two of content from the outage myself, I'm pretty worried it will happen again. T.testLP(talk) 09:42, 23 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The "thankfully recent" was just an optimistic choice of words on my part. I believe backups are performed once every 24 hours, but I will get confirmation just to be sure.  And Test, this is the only time that this kind of loss has occurred in well over three years, if not more.  It's not as though this kind of failure is a frequent occurrence.  I promise you, we do our very best to ensure that there are enough back up procedures in place to guard against this kind of issue.  I absolutely understand how you feel, believe me; I stand to lose as much of my work as you do.  It would be wrong of me to tell you that there is a 100% certainty that you will never lose anymore work ever again, but I can promise you that we keep it as close to 100% as humanly possible, and we learned a number of valuable lessons from this case.  We certainly replaced the faulty hardware, so that's no longer an issue.  Prod will weigh in and confirm the backup frequency.   Pro  cyon  13:39, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Backups are daily, during off-peak hours. -- Prod (talk) 16:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)