StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal/2007/September

Refreshing the PGotM and other front page monthlies
We need your votes and nominations.--Dan 10:38, 1 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Don't forget collaboration of the month. There's currently a red link there, so we need to pick one soon.-- Duke  Ruckley  08:57, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Show Preview Boilerplate Text
I've created some boilerplate text to be placed in a contributor's talk page when they make many small edits on a single page. If you think it needs any changes or a better name, please feel free to edit it. showpreview-- Duke Ruckley  08:44, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Considering alternatives to Google Adsense
I thought I would throw this discussion wide open to the community. We've talked about it a few times in the staff meetings on IRC, but I'd like some input that any of you have about possible substitutes to Google Adsense. At the moment, it's helpful, but it doesn't quite cut the mustard. With more traffic, that may improve, but it can't be counted upon. There are alternatives out there, but I'm not particularly knowledgeable about many of them. I know that there is an eBay click-through program, and an Amazon click-through program. I also have a direct line to (and have been in contact with) the staff at Advertising.com, but this introduces the subject of visual ads and their placement. I have a feeling that the reception any non-text based visual advertisement is going to be very poor, from both the core community and the outlying community. However, I believe these ads really do stand the chance to create the highest possible stream of revenue from my personal understanding. I would love to be proven wrong, and possibly educated by anyone else if they have personal experience dealing with any of these, or other, possible alternatives. Thanks very much. Procyon (Talk) 13:35, 4 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm fine with ads as long as they don't hinder editing, I really wouldn't want popups here. I think we should try the Amaon and Ebay links first but I don't think we'll get much from them really because if you want the walkthrough then you'll most likely have the game.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:15, 4 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Not ebay, since what would they be selling that people reading the guide would want anyway? As for the Amazon ads, I think they are a good idea (and Garrett already has done some experimentation of how they get laid out, which is also a good thing). Perhaps having both Amazon and AdSense might make an extra hundred dollars or so in revenue per month (hopefully). Also, it appears that non BlueCloud skins don't have ads, so implement them there as well. As for the advertising.com flash/picture ads, as long as they're small and sort-of out of the way, I'm fine with it. Or even better, do what Wikia does and display larger and flashier ads when users are not logged in, and hide/shrink the flashy ones and stick with only the AdSense or whatever when they do log in (also encourages people to create accounts, and hopefully also use them -- perhaps make the type of ads that appear change based on how many edits a user makes, and outline it somewhere). I've brought up a couple of other points in the sections below. -- 16:10, 4 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Auction Ads apparently yields up to 400% more than AdSense. Based on the demo the ads seem to be unobtrusive and properly targeted. We could probably make more from Amazon referrals, though. Unfortunately the Amazon ads box doesn't seem to detect products intelligently enough to give reliable links to the game a given page is actually covering, so the links would have to be done manually via a template of some sort (you can see my experiment right here). GarrettTalk 19:21, 4 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I would recommend just sticking with Google AdSense, and perhaps adding an Amazon link; no other advertising services compare with AdSense (I'm a bit suspicious of the one Garrett brought up; I've never heard of it before), and I worry about turning StrategyWiki into a billboard. We're here for the guides, not adverts. -- 11:09, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I've heard of the service Garrett was mentioning. Personally I think if Garrett can easily implement some of them, we should try any and all that we can easily access.  DrBob, I understand your hesitation, but there's a bottom line for SW users: More money = bigger SW, and bigger SW = better experience for the users.  No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and saying you have to buy something (that's what the donate button is for ^_^), but there's money to be made, and we're not making enough of it.  We can even try implementing the idea that Skizzerz has for logged in vs. non-logged in users (and fixing the non-BlueCloud skins to show the ads as well).  There are so many ways now for users to filter out ads that if someone was truly offended by the sight of them, they could correct that for themselves.  Heck, Firefox makes ad filtering almost too easy!  Procyon (Talk) 14:43, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm currently in agreement with DrBob.. I don't really want to see any large ads on SW.  One of the reasons I left GameFAQs in the first place was because of all the annoying ads they have added.  As for the idea about logged in vs. not logged in users...  What's going to happen here is that potential contributors and browsers are going to come to the site for the first time and see all these big flashy ads, and then just leave.  I think that you are less likely to draw more contributors, even if you get rid of the ads for logged in users.  New users aren't going to know that offhand.  And its not going to be easy to keep their attention long enough for them to see that by registering they can get rid of those unwanted ads.


 * I think that by taking a very slow approach to adding ads would be better than just all of sudden having them. We should start small with the ads and work on having more people who regularly contribute first.  Once we have a very good amount of people, a bit of a following, we can then add the ads (for non-logged in users).  The right time to implement this is when it is more important to make more money than it is to attract new users.  I hope I'm making sense.-- Duke  Ruckley  18:35, 5 September 2007 (CDT)


 * MobyGames has had text-only product ads for a while now, but they offer logged-in users the ability to turn them off (it's not automatic). If it can be implemented without being incompatible with MediaWiki upgrades this would be a great way to maximise profits from visitors and minimise annoying regular contributors.
 * Even if that's not a viable solution, what we're proposing is nothing compared to the ridiculous level of product placement other gaming sites have—right now GameFAQs' main page has two banner ads, a square ad, and a themed background all imploring me to pre-order Medal of Honor: Airborne. Sometimes these ad themes even have mouse-over sounds/animations and other annoyances. IGN and GameSpy are little better, mixing animated ads with reminders about their tantalising "subscriber extras". GarrettTalk 05:32, 6 September 2007 (CDT)

I can do further experimenting with the Amazon sidebar, but before the concept can be actually implemented echelon will need to set up the referrer ID that the sales will be credited to. GarrettTalk 05:32, 6 September 2007 (CDT)

Privacy Policy
It might be nice to have a privacy policy page, and then link to it on the bottom (where About and Disclaimers are). It could cover such things as account creation, cookies used, and info regarding donations, among other things. The two MediaWiki messages that control this are MediaWiki:Privacy and MediaWiki:Privacypage, and their presence is what lead me to believe that including them would be a good idea. What do you all think? -- 16:10, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Other Donation companies
While PayPal is fine, there are some people that don't like using it for whatever reason. I've browsed the web a bit and didn't find much in the way of alternatives to PayPal, but it might be nice to offer some alongside the PayPal button on Donate. Again, I'd like to see your thoughts on this (also, we should probably move "Donate" under "Help" in the sidebar, people are more likely to catch it as they scroll down a large-ish page if it is at the bottom). -- 16:10, 4 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Do we have to worry about donations from minors? -- 21:18, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

Account pruning
If our user growth has been occurring anywhere close to the current rate, do we have any kind of account pruning measures in place? Something like 0 total edits in 3 months and/or 0 recent edits in one year? It seems like it might be beneficial. Someone on IRC stated not all of the account creation is done benevolently. And while I doubt any of the recent activity is malicious, it would be interesting to know if we have any clean up measures in place. Just wondering. Procyon (Talk) 19:50, 4 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't think we do... anyway, I found a DeleteUser extension, but it is unstable and should not be installed here. However, it tells in the documentation the SQL queries that it sends to remove users from the database . Perhaps Echelon or someone could code something that does this automatically once an account meets certain conditions without a UI (although, some inactive accounts, such as blocked accounts and alternate-name accounts (like User:Skizzerz, which is blocked anyway) should be exempt from such deletions). -- 20:20, 4 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Does Wikipedia prune accounts? I haven't heard of this being done before... What would be the advantage? echelontalk 01:11, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Reducing the number of accounts in the database, if you compare the number of accounts with edits, to the number of accounts just sitting there with no edits at all, you don't even come close to half.


 * A possible solution to all these rampant account creations, is to put a captcha on registration, this will certainly hinder any automated registrations and filter bot from person. -- 01:17, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Yes, but these spare accounts are hardly affecting the performance of the database. I don't see any advantages associated with pruning them. Call me the devil's advocate, but I've never been in favor of this kind of action. Having unused accounts floating around will neither increase nor decrease the probability of a spambot or vandal attack; the issue of using a captcha to deter spammers is another issue onto itself, and I wouldn't be one to disagree with the benefits such a system would offer. But as for the issue of account deletion, what other organizations do this? MySpace doesn't delete the billions of unused accounts it has. Does Google do that with Gmail users? I doubt it. And as unlikely as it might be, what of the possible implications a faulty DELETE query on the users table would bring?  might not appear anywhere within the MediaWiki code base, but I am less willing to trust that the same scrutiny that produces the relatively bug-free MediaWiki software lies within the hands (or capability) of third party developers. echelontalk 01:37, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I never said I supported it, I just thought that would be the only "advantage" to doing so. --
 * I would recommend NOT pruning accounts. Having admind many forums over the last ten odd years I can say with certainly it's a very bad practice to prune.  The much better approach to this is an occasional email nudge.  You would be surprised how many people respond to those things.  I myself take long breaks from editing this site (hell I started the Neverwinter Nights guide like 4 months ago and haven't touched it in like 3) but I eventually return a few months later,  but if I came back and my account was gone then I would never ever return.  What you may want to do is re-validate the email after a certain time period has passed but that would be the extent that I would go.  Just remember that nothing is gained by pruning accounts but a very small amount or room on the back end DB (you might gain 10MB),  but you could potentially loose contributing members of the site.  Just my 0.02 cents.  -- Argash 03:32, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Agreed most definitely with Argash and Echelon. -- 11:07, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * OK cool, if my concerns about the user growth being a detriment to database performance are unfounded, consider the matter closed. I didn't know if it would hamper the speed or available space of the database at a certain point or not.  It's actually one less concern to deal with in this case.  Procyon (Talk) 14:45, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

Minor edit needed on Main Page
The following line at the bottom of the Featured Article box should be commented out until it's actually true:

There are many Featured guides to browse and you can vote on future choices at the requests page.

Considering there's only one FA at the moment the line looks really really bad. --Argash 04:11, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Good idea, I've changed the wording. Hopefully we'll get some more featured guides soon... GarrettTalk 05:10, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

Thoughts on Template:Helpwanted
Consider this a kind of marketing move.

A lot of visitors see our site and find stubs for the games that they would consider to be popular. As such, they may look at our site with discontent. Instead, we should turn this into a positive reaction: a chance for the visitor to show their appreciation for the game by contributing. By making that emotional connection with the visitor, we may gain a higher percentage of core contributors and maintainers. (Those not limited to a few casual edits.) Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if motivation of this sort leads to more guides being completed.

Note that we shouldn't (and wouldn't want to) overuse this template. If the visitor sees it on every incomplete guide, they may quickly consider the template a standard boilerplate, and hence they may loose that original emotional queue.

If we do choose to implement a template of this sort, I would endeavor to make it even more personalized and tailored to each guide. Perhaps we could insert a few parameters into it, so that on the Halo 2 guide, it stresses that Master Chief would hate to see the guide fail. If that doesn't establish a connection with the visitor, I don't know what will.

Thoughts? echelontalk 01:10, 5 September 2007 (CDT)


 * It's a good start. Wikipedia has varying cleanup/stub/etc templates for articles that need each respective one. It's better than just having stub and cleanup on everything. -- 01:21, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * OK. How about implementing this for all guides which are popular for the main consoles (look on the consoles' pages for the list), but aren't at completion stage 4? -- 14:25, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * No. I think that this should be used sparingly and that the credential for use is based on active users for the guide.  For example, you might have one or more people working hard on a guide, and then they post this on it knowing they need more help.  If we just say, these "need help" it acts as a stub template notification.  There has to be more than "please do this because it's empty."  -- 15:15, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

August Archive page has been locked for some reason.
I just tried to archive every thing that hadn't been updated since the 20th of August but some one's apparently locked the August archives so I've temporarily deposited them into the September archives. Could someone fix that for me please. -Argash 05:34, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Done-- Duke Ruckley  06:25, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

Peer Review Project
For a while now I've been wanting to copy Wikipedia's Peer Review system over here. Now that the Featured Article system has been put in place I think it's even more important. So over the next few days I plan on starting the frame work of the system/project but I'm not sure where I should put it. Per the conversation here there does not appear to be consensus. I was planning on putting it at WikiProject Peer Review or Peer Review. For the record Wikipedia has it located at  Peer review . Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? -Argash 05:52, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Personally, I don't see the point of this. It adds a needless extra layer of complication on top of processes that we already have in place.  We're not Wikipedia, we have far less need for the level of bureaucracy that they have established.  Procyon (Talk) 09:18, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree with Procyon; while I know what you want to achieve, simply copying Wikipedia's practices is not going to be beneficial for StrategyWiki — they're designed to operate on a much larger scale than what we need, and are needlessly bureaucratic, as Proc says. I think the rule we've got at the moment that a featured guide must be completely proofread by people who know what they're doing will suffice for the time being. -- 11:22, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't think that an exact copy would be the best way your right. And even still it would certainly not be manditory.  It would be a way for people who've put alot of time into a guide to request another persons opinion on what should be done next.  Simply put it would stream line the asking process and open it up so anyone can help pr a guide. -Argash 16:45, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Just post a new section here in CI, and if someone is interested, they'll look it over. Right now, we just want as much content as possible, and since the sysop-to-active non sysop ratio is ridiculously high, things get cleaned up etc. on a minor scale to begin with. The less bureaucratic processes we have, the better. -- 16:59, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

I think that the point being made, in this case, is that we are still a close and tight-knit community that is very much hands on. There isn't much that goes on that is beyond our attention or goes unnoticed. I think WP's contributors are a much broader spectrum of users, and so much is taking place there, that they need those kinds of magnets to draw certain people's attention to issues that need it. Fortunately, we haven't reached that point, and hopefully we never truly will. Procyon (Talk) 20:22, 7 September 2007 (CDT)
 * For reference. we have started these off at Category:StrategyWiki projects. -- Prod (Talk) 10:06, 9 September 2007 (CDT)

What's happened
In IE6 the bottom of the page has been really messed up, the logos are everywhere and images are in the wrong place, there's also a dark blue bar at the bottom of the page, it's like someone's messed up the skin. I tried a ctrl and f5 but it hasn't helped. Is there anything that can be done (apart from the obvious)?--Rocky (Talk - Contributions) 13:02, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Me and DrBob are working on cleaning up some of the CSS/JS on the site (ok, it's mostly DrBob :P). Please note any problems here (or talk to DB on IRC directly) and they will be fixed asap. -- Prod (Talk) 13:21, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * My watchlist is not working. O_O is it related to this?--IsaacGS 13:39, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * shakes his magic 8-ball* - Yes. Please add to the following list. -- Prod (Talk) 13:50, 9 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Anonymous users couldn't access site
 * Images at bottom mixed around for IE6
 * Can't access Special:Watchlist (blank page)
 * I use Firefox and everything works fine. But when I load up IE6 or IE6 Tab in Firefox, all I get is a blank screen on every stradegywiki page with nothing but one of the various "please donate" messages at the top of the page. -- Takiten 13:53, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually, that one should be fixed, try purging your cache (the ie cache). -- Prod (Talk) 13:56, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Just to say,transparency in IE6 is now working but the images are still messed up :)--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 10:36, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm probably not going to be able to fix this for a little while, as school's started up again, so I've got no time on my hands (and booting up Windows to test in IE isn't the quickest of tasks). If the only things still messed up are the images at the bottom, I think people can live with it for a while, can't they? -- 16:51, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Just to note, another problem is the completion stage icon is messed up on the main page of a guide, it gets stretched.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions)
 * And the transparency doesn't work when you look at the image on media.strategywiki.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 10:23, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
 * It won't, because the JS which fixes transparency in IE isn't run when you look at images directly (i.e. on media.strategywiki.org). -- 11:03, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

Welcoming users
I was told by Baejung92 that we're only welcoming users on their first edit and I'm wondering if this is official policy or what? If it's official policy I'd like to open discussion on changing it. My reasoning is that a simple welcome greeting even if it's obviously a pre-built form message, still tells the newbie that they are in fact welcome to this website. Additionally the boiler plate welcome message contains many helpful links to people who may be new to the idea of a wiki and are unsure of where to start. --Argash 23:22, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I think the reasoning behind the policy was that out of the dozens of users that register per day, only one or two actually do anything, so it wasn't worth welcoming them all until they did something. But I'm wondering, what really is the point of the new user log then? Baejung92 23:33, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * But I agree with the links thing. I know they're included in a section of StrategyWiki: Guide, but is there a more noticeable spot that has these links? Baejung92 23:42, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Indeed, there were about 12 people who signed up over the course of 30 minutes today, and only one of them edited anything. There's many, MANY accounts that were created and have no edits, even months afterwards... It just ends up being a waste of time until we know they're actually here to edit. At least, this is my view on it. When a user with a red talk page shows up on my watchlist I always welcome them. --IsaacGS 23:57, 9 September 2007 (CDT)
 * There is 1 use I can think of, banning sockpuppets as it says which account creates other accounts.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 00:41, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I always look through the list to see if anyone is creating accounts with inappropriate names. The way the welcome template is worded, it is geared towards those that actually have made an edit. Besides, they can easily find all the key links in the left sidebar on every page. This is one policy that is NOT going to get changed anytime soon, and Argash, please don't break it. I'm thinking that we should set up an official policy page concerning the New User Log, it could finally stop these types of threads from popping up everywhere. -- 15:20, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Duly noted and agreed with. I would still like to see some way to stop the user log from appearing in the recent changes without having to hide all the minor edits as well.  Unfortunately I know that it is not quite as easy as that.-- Duke  Ruckley Talk 20:23, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I see the usefulness in employing the user log, but in the recent changes, it just tends to get in the way. I don't really care to see any of the new accounts unless they are contributing something. Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 18:33, 25 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. Either you have the log and it clutters RC, or you don't have it. There really isn't an option that removes it from RC, at least, none as of yet. -- 20:13, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

Waste of time?
I see several people say its a waste of time. To that I would say well it's my time to waste so why the heck does it matter to any one else? If I want to take the time to do it that should be my call. Honestly if thats the only "reason" for this "policy" I have to say it's a very weak reasoning. -- Argash 01:17, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * It's also a waste of database space, and a waste of our reading time to have to go past them all in recent changes. -- 01:36, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Well if done properly they should be marked as minor edits which you can exclude from the recent edits page. But seriously is the time that I spend and the little db space used really that critical to you that we not welcome new users? --Argash 02:18, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree with Argash here. I don't think that we have to welcome every new person, but if someone feels up to it, why not let them?  Maybe I'm wrong, but it can't take up that much space can it?  I know I personally won't spend the time, but if someone else will, why should we stop them?  On another note, I think the New User Log is rather useless otherwise.  I'd be okay with just dropping it (takes up a lot of space in the recent changes).  In that case, obviously we would not welcome everyone new to the site, only those that edit.-- Duke  Ruckley Talk 07:08, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * If it's possible to remove new users from being logged in Recent changes, it would also still be possible to find them at Special:log/newusers in this case. But for some people, marking the edits as minor just to filter them isn't very beneficial, as other mainspace edits that are marked as minor need patrolling too. -- 08:26, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * The only part of this conversation that I don't understand is: Why do you care Argash? Why not just focus on contributing more gaming content to the site instead of making such a big deal about a relatively minor issue?  Just my personal opinion... Procyon (Talk) 09:54, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I think I may have already said this but enabling enhanced recent changes helps clear up the users.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 10:42, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Seriously Argash, WHY DO YOU CARE? If seeing all of those red links drives you nuts or something, I'll give you some css that makes them turn blue. As for the log, it has a great potential if utilized properly, and since CheckUser doesn't work, this is the next best thing for finding sock puppets. Duke, see my comment above the heading why it isn't a good idea to just welcome them anyways. -- 15:20, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I care because I see it as a very simple way to encourage new users to contribute to the site. It takes me literally 10 seconds to welcome them and if it encourages them to contribute so much the better. --Argash 21:28, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I disagree, it wastes space and clutters up recent changes.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 12:52, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

I say we either a) get rid of the extension since it has no use or b) welcome all users/allow people to welcome users at their leisure. -- 12:18, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
 * What about c) don't worry about it so freaking much? Anyway, Notmyhandle, the New User log has numerous uses. Since echelon has problems with getting CheckUser working, this extension is our only way to determine 100% if an account is a sock puppet. Also, it can be used to "filter" the new users, which I do every time I see it near the top of Recent Changes, I look at the names of the new users and determine if they are "appropriate." If they are not, I give them a notice of it. Also, it can be used to generate statistics of on average how many different accounts are registered each day. As for your second option, the way that the welcome template is worded makes it sound like they have already contributed, and this wording shouldn't change just to cater to everyone that registers. Plus, it's a waste of database space. Sure, you say, it only eats up a few thousand bytes per welcome, but with 60-ish+ new users each day, that totals up to quite a bit. People can already welcome users at their leisure, but look at that phrase. The key word is "users", which generally indicates that they've actually used their account, not that they just made one because the notice on the edit page view told them to. Besides, I'm sure a lot of those registrations are automated (captchas, anyone?), and welcoming a machine is just weird. -- 17:31, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Speaking of User:Mmm, I'm pretty sure that is a sockpuppet. Assuming a 4 m's or a 5 m's comes along, you should just go ahead and block it.--IsaacGS 19:16, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, It's not a 100% sure way though.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 01:56, 14 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Mmm was just a suspicion, when I was saying 100%, I meant something like this. -- 08:35, 14 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Please be careful when banning these kinds of offenses. Sometimes it can be multiple people at the same house with one account each, or it could be ip's taken from a pool (dial up users).  Bans should be for sockpuppet behaviour, not simply for multiple accounts with the same IP. -- Prod (Talk) 09:07, 14 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Um, I meant that it was a tool to find other accounts by a user if they ever do vandalise. It would be insane just to ban someone for having multiple accounts... (especially since the vast majority of the sysops here have more than one account, so we'd have to ban ourselves then :P) -- 11:23, 14 September 2007 (CDT)

Pokemon Artwork Sizes
I noticed as I was browsing the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl guide that although certain Pokemon icons say they're 40 pixels, some come out bigger than others, which looks rather sloppy. Some of the most noticeable ones are and. Why do they come out like that? You have to shrink the Budew down to 20 pixels to have it come out basically the same size as the Cascoon. --Myth (talk)
 * It's because the images widths are different. In the Pokédex i've tried to make them the right size.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions)
 * I just thought it was odd that it said they were all 40 pixels but they are different sizes...I didn't think that was possible. Anyhow, I guess I'll just have to shrink them down/up until a solution comes up. --Myth (talk) 16:32, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I finally figured out how to fix this while working on the GSC guide, and had been meaning to go back through RBY and fix it up... The problem is that 40px was an attempt to limit the height more than the width.  But specifying 40px only limits the width.  If all of the artwork was exactly square, that method would have worked.  Instead, I realized that the problem is better handled by using 80x40px.  That forces the height to be no more than 40, and limits the width to 80 if for some reason, the image is more than twice as wide as the height (which does not apply to any of the art).  The end result looks like: [[image:Pokemon_268Cascoon.png|80x40px]] and [[image:Pokemon_406Budew.png|80x40px]], which makes the height match nicely.  So change all of the "40px" to "80x40px" and you'll be all set. Procyon (Talk) 16:40, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Thanks a bunch Procyon ^_^ --Myth (talk) 17:52, 10 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Also, I was wondering whether there was any artwork for Shaymin or Arceus out. It would be nice if there

was. --Myth (talk) 18:32, 10 September 2007 (CDT)


 * I managed to Find an image of Arceus, ([[Image:Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Arceus.png|80x40px]]), but artwork of Shaymin is non-existent, it seems. --Myth (talk) 18:50, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Myth, that's a sprite, not artwork, I'll revert you for now until nintendo officially release it.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 00:58, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually, can you do it, I can't edit the page.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 01:48, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

I can't use an artwork-like sprite for now? --Myth (talk) 23:16, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Sprites and artwork are not the same thing, I'd rather leave a link to the correctly named image (See all the others) and anyway, your image is a duplicate of this one here [[Image:PD&P Aruseus.png]] but with the new IE JS that i'm kinda getting anoyed at now I can't even view the page so please revert it with a non-existant link to the image. BTW if you look at the Diamond and pearl pokédex then you'll find shaymin (this page really lags so I don't want to get the link.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 12:03, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * How do I get rid of an image? Do I just delete the name and tag in the edit box? --Myth (talk) 17:15, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, I think I deleted it. Notify me if it didn't work. --Myth (talk) 17:42, 12 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Only sysops can delete images, just stick delete on them, BTW prod deleted it.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 01:41, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

Redirects
Some general statements: Is this acceptable (probably unwritten since sysops are really the only ones enforcing it) policy? -- Prod (Talk) 20:39, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Double redirects are supposed to be fixed by re-pointing them, not deleting them.
 * Redirects should not be moved except for a history merge (just create a new one).
 * Redirect deletion should be handled from IRC if possible, though most main game page redirects should be left (unless they're really dumb). Most in guide redirects should be deleted except for some important ones (outside links which seem to be important that are now dead).


 * The only reason is was moved and deleted is because nobody will search for LoD in ALL CAPS, and the "double redirect" was a little vague. There is no point in repointing the redirect because they are theoretically the same, just a different casing, meaning having the ALL CAPS redirect and the Title Case version exist at the same time is pointless. It is more appropriate to have the redirect be in Title Case because nobody searches in ALL CAPS. -- 20:45, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * You'd be surprised. -- 01:00, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * The point being, there is absolutely no reason to "Move" a redirect. -- Prod (Talk) 09:21, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

Arcade plans and announcement
Well, I have pretty much covered as many of the most popular arcade games from 1983 and earlier that I planned on covering. There are a few lesser titles that I could do, but I would like to get back to working on the Famicom games. However, we have managed to amass a nice sizable number of games in the Arcade and MAME categories, over 250 and 200 respectively. So I figured now would be a good time to make some announcements on related sites, such as MAMEWorld, MAME.net, ArcadeControls.com and AtariAge which also serves as a huge retro gaming community hub. With any luck, it will drum up some interest and we'll see some new user accounts getting created that actually get used. Just wanted to share the news. Procyon (Talk) 21:13, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * This is potentially /.able... If we do make a "press release" create an entry here somewhere, and then have that link to the relevant pages (and tell others to link to that location.  Maybe our announcements section should be made into permalinks like CotM. -- Prod (Talk) 21:20, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Permalinks are a fantastic idea for news and press releases. I really like your thinking about this, Procyon. We can definitely use this particular news to generate more interest in SW, and I think various news sites and communities will like to post it for us. As for Slashdot, I would prefer to publish a general article about our site before we go and tell them about this accomplishment--we never attempted to get slashdotted before. There is no reason why we shouldn't get this Dugg rather immediately, though. Maybe as an additional bonus, we can include links to the various retro boxart pages you created. Those are pretty slick, too! :) echelontalk 22:27, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Go for it! -- 01:02, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Do you think we should try the wikipedia article again with all the new google hits?--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 10:27, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

Wikipedia's embedded ogg files
Is it just me, or are these inline/embeded ogg files new to wikipedia? Maybe it's just standing out since I'm a recent Linux-convert, but I don't recall stumbling over these before.

If it's possible to upload these files and they work well in Windows and IE, I would like to seriously consider the possibility of beginning to host gameplay videos on StrategyWiki. Another possibility would be for FLV files. We could easily build our own MediaWiki FLV player extension--I could get right to it, actually. echelontalk 22:40, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I think I just answered my own question . I'll get to work on this in the morning, if you guys approve. echelontalk 22:40, 10 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Does it have to be Flash? That means I can't easily play the files (no Flash on 64-bit Linux), and it's not an open-source technology. How about just embedded ogg files, as long as MW can thumbnail them? (Haven't spent any time researching this, so I'm prepared to be flamed.) -- 01:05, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Open source really shouldn't matter as long as it is easily accessible (and free money-wise) to get. I do agree that we should shy away from file types that do not cater to the entirety of our potential audience however, so we should stick with things that multiple operating systems (such as 64-bit Linux) can support. -- 15:03, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * We are aiming for a completely open-source approach (or at least, we were; has anything changed?) similarly to Wikipedia. Ogg/Theora embedded video should be supported on most platforms, as they'll all have an embedded video player of some description, and ogg codecs get everywhere (although vanilla Windows users will probably have to install the codec). I'm open to suggestions for other video container/codec combinations, though. -- 15:38, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * That Wikipedia template is a very recent change. Thanks to the long-awaited media back-end rewrite, MediaWiki 1.11a and newer can generate thumbnails from Theora videos on the fly with the same functionality as the image formats. The actual embedding is done via OggHandler, released earlier this month. It uses the Cortado Java applet to embed the video (the player even includes a codec, meaning no separate installation is necessary).
 * Unfortunately the extension only loads the player after you click the button, whereas Flash and DivX solutions have the player fully embedded in a "sleep" state. To play a video using this extension you first have to wait for AJAX to retrieve the player code, and then wait again for the Java runtime to initialise!
 * What I'm worried about is the negative effect on the site's reception. Even in my short time fiddling with the extension I'd far prefer to take the time to open the file in WMP or VLC rather than put up with OggHandler. The extension feels sluggish and outdated, and it will disappoint anyone used to the fluidity of YouTube or GameTrailers; many people will be much less likely to directly watch StrategyWiki's videos in the future, which defeats the very purpose of embedding them! To make matters worse the play button looks just like Windows Media Player 11's&mdash;so much like it that I decided the new media back-end had detected WMP and would use it to seamlessly embed the video. Unfortunately, this idea was smashed the moment Java started loading...
 * Statistically, the percentage of visitors using 64-bit Linux (and any other OSes that can't install Flash) will always very, very small; they can simply download VLC Player or the like and then click through to the FLV to watch it. It would be a simple matter to have the "no Flash" error text provide a link straight to the FLV.
 * Theora is a nice format in and of itself, but I don't think it's a good idea to annoy a sizeable percentage of our target audience just to maintain open source fidelity. If we are going to have videos uploaded here embedding is a must, and to me this nasty AJAX+Java solution doesn't cut it; I am strongly opposed to this extension in its current state, and this means that I'm also strongly opposed to using Theora here unless a better embeddable player can be found. GarrettTalk 03:43, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

ZeldaWiki partnership
Recently, the head guy at ZeldaWiki left a message on echelon's talk page regarding the exchanges of links. Browsing through ZeldaWiki, I've noticed that they've held up their end of our deal by linking to us on the game pages, but we, as of yet, have not really upheld our end (the only place I really found them were two in LttP). After a brief discussion on GoldenChaos's talk page, it was decided to bring it up here, so that's what I'm doing.

Pretty much, this "request" is broken up into two parts, namely, what we should link and how often we should link it. As for what, I think that characters and enemies should definitely be linked to ZeldaWiki, and perhaps items as well. Now, for how often, I'm thinking that the very first mention of the character/enemy/item/whatever on the page should be linked (much like our Bulbapedia partnership). Due to the immense amount of time since the partnership began, I wish to get started on this as soon as possible, so please leave your opinions/views/comments below. -- 17:22, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I think this would be a great collaboration of the month and we should definitely get started right away.-- Duke Ruckley Talk 20:39, 13 September 2007 (CDT)
 * A simple "zw" template, similar to the bp template we have should do for most of the links, and the "For more information..." box on the front page of Zelda guides that was being discussed on echelon's talk page could be dealt with by a "zeldawiki" template, similar to wikipedia. -- 11:52, 14 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I spoke about this on Ech's talk page, but I'll describe what our initial agreement sounded like: I would put "FAQ/Walkthrough on SW" on boss pages and game pages, and SW would implement a system similar to what goes on with SW and Bulbapedia. That was as far as we really got in our discussion - everything else was just chitter-chatter. So, yeah - you hit it right on the dot, Bob. Anything I can do to help get this collaboration going, just let me know! If it's making links and whatnot, I'm happy to help start this project out. --GoldenChaos 09:36, 15 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I've gone ahead and created zw and zeldawiki (I hope you don't mind that I stole your logo for the second template; it can be changed if you want a different one used), which can now be used. zw is basically a wrapper for an interwiki link, and at the moment provides no extra functionality, but using it means we have the option of extending the template in future. -- 10:26, 15 September 2007 (CDT)
 * That's great, Bob! I have a transparent version of the logo, if you want to use that, or a version of the logo that isn't transparent but also doesn't have the extraneous blue background (aka a larger version of the famicon, which I'm not even sure is displaying right now - it's not showing up in my browser for some reason). I'll upload one of the two later. It'll look neater than the current version. --GoldenChaos 20:49, 15 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Excuse me... that's... DrBob. Procyon (Talk) 20:53, 15 September 2007 (CDT)
 * My appologies to dear Doctor. ;) Anyways, I've tried out the nifty template on a small section for the heck of it. I'm not sure how much you guys intent to wikify these articles. I was conservative in what I linked. If it were interwiki style, links would obviously be all over the place. Given the fact that it's a walkthrough, I don't know how much you guys intend to link or if you only intend to link each item/person/etc's reference only on their first entry in the walkthrough. Anyway: ALttP: Eastern Palace - PoI's
 * Actually, he's just Dr, not a doctor :P. I would go with only linking the important items (or when they are first obtained). I would suggest links under the name field on the items pages for each game. I'm a bit worried about sending people to another site in the middle of a guide with minimal backlinkability, but the information is good over there.  What will the purpose of the Zeldawiki be? -- Prod (Talk) 23:43, 15 September 2007 (CDT)
 * The "Dr" often confuses people. ;-) Zeldawiki is to be used on the main pages of Zelda guides, to link to Zelda Wiki's page on the game more clearly. -- 03:48, 16 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I think the current version's OK, but do what you will. :-) -- 03:48, 16 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree with Prod in that perhaps only on the items page do we link to ZeldaWiki (but then link to the items page in the guide). Besides, the parts where it's like [[Image:Zelda ALttP item Mushroom.png]]  just looks really weird having a pic before and after the link. As for zeldawiki, We need to work on that logo a bit before actually putting it up (right now it looks plain ugly with the blue-ish box just around the image and the image not being vertically centered). -- 10:02, 16 September 2007 (CDT)
 * The reason I asked about the box version is because their game coverage seems to be minimal on most games. They have far more info relating to characters, items, and backstory. I think we might want to put their info on enemies and character pages as well. -- Prod (Talk) 14:41, 17 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Question about linking outside of StrategyWiki. Is there a way to make the links to ZeldaWiki (and any other partnership site or even any outside link) open in a new window or tab?  That would eliminate the problem with having people stray from our site to another while allowing for more links to the partner sites.-- Duke  Ruckley Talk 20:28, 17 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Well they can just right click on the link and say open new window/tab... You can't open new tabs with HTML but you can open windows by adding target="_blank" inside of an  tag. -- 00:16, 18 September 2007 (CDT)
 * You can also do it via js (I have some js that works on another wiki), but many people don't like new tabs/windows being forced upon them. -- 15:04, 18 September 2007 (CDT)

Slightly O.T., but speaking of Zelda, I revised the way that the entire first game's Overworld was explained, and tried to make it clearer and easier to follow. Procyon (Talk) 15:44, 18 September 2007 (CDT)

Links
Ok so we need to link to them when regarding: Hm. I actually can't think of anything else... This policy is of course superceded by references to strategy. Anyone else have anything? -- 11:49, 20 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Names (Bosses, Characters, Locations)

Anyone have anything to add? -- 03:27, 25 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Not really, but I don't see the point in doing it just yet, seeing as you can't even view 99% of their pages now. Once their server gets fixed, then we can start adding them in. -- 20:11, 25 September 2007 (CDT)
 * My view is that this has to be divided into two "types".

-- Prod (Talk) 23:43, 25 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Non-Zelda games which have Zelda associations
 * If it has characters from the game (SSBB) then add a See also for each character
 * Zelda games
 * On the characters/items/locations pages, link the header names to zeldawiki
 * If for things like locations we don't have a page listing all of them, link the first occurrence in the walkthrough to them.

Tooltip text for Help Link
If you place your mouse over the help link on the side of the page, the tooltip text of "The place to find out about Wikipedia" instead of referencing StrategyWiki. --Cgsguy2 07:46, 20 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Fixed. It's located in MediaWiki:Common.js so you may have to purge your cache (ctrl+f5 on firefox) to get it to work. -- Prod (Talk) 08:02, 20 September 2007 (CDT)

Template Policies
Alright, here's another thing we can debate upon... I'm thinking that we should name all of our game-specific templates to be in the format of Template:Game_Name/Template_Name. Rather than Propylons it would be The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind/Propylons. Additionally, we would then categorise these templates into their own category such as "Category:Game_Name templates."

I also want to ask, are we still using the naming policy where category names start captilized but aren't "titles?" What I mean is, if we do this is the word "templates" in the category going to be capitalized or not? Since most of you would agree that there isn't enough policy information for its own page, don't you think we need a miscellaneus policy page where all the little nuances can be listed? I really need these when thinking about doing stuff like we are now (if we decide now, things in the future are easier to get going). -- 00:32, 24 September 2007 (CDT)
 * That's the way all the MapleStory templates are. I'd like a game-specific category for templates.--IsaacGS 01:07, 24 September 2007 (CDT)
 * They should already have names which include the game name (or an abbreviation of it), and should already be categorised in Category:Guide-specific templates; I don't see any pressing need to create per-game categories for templates, unless that game has a huge number of custom templates. I would like people to still use sentence-case titles. I don't think we should have a "miscellaneous" policy page; it should be possible to integrate all the "little nuances" into the proper pages. -- 01:36, 24 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Well then, where would we list "sentence-case titles?" -- 01:58, 24 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I'd be against this as a policy, because games like The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble would have gigantic templates. If we must have a policy, it should go along with what our image policy is, as long as we can easily tell which game it's from (and preferably have a link to the main page of the game) it should be fine. -- Prod (Talk) 20:33, 25 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I am tolerant of game acronyms. If we allow them, it looks like you would support this.  -- 18:27, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Votes

 * For
 * 18:27, 27 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Against requiring full name, as long as game is easily figured out it's fine (such as ZTP) -- 21:44, 27 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Against
 * I'm against voting.... We go for consensus, not a mere vote. As long as noone come forward with major objections, it's settled. -- Prod (Talk) 22:43, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Staff meeting this Saturday
Hello everyone. It's been a bit quiet around here as of late, and that is most-likely an indication that things are running smoothly. Yet there are a few issues that need to be addressed, namely the site branding. Therefore, I'd like to propose that we stick to our suggested scheduled date of Sept. 29 for our staff meeting on the IRC. It would occur at 2pm EDT or 7pm GMT. You do not need to specifically say if you can make it, but please let us know if you specifcally can not make it. If there are a sufficient number of people who cannot, then we can postpone the meeting to another week. Thanks everyone. Procyon (Talk) 14:24, 24 September 2007 (CDT)
 * We could stand to have an agenda made before the meeting, the last one didn't really have an agenda and it was massively chaotic. Also, committee heads, please have some sort of report ready on how your committee is doing :). As for the agenda, perhaps something like so?
 * Branding (w/ DoubleJump; advantages, disadvantages, etc.)
 * Committee Reports (committee heads please prepare something in advance)
 * Advertisements (stick with AdSense, do the Amazon Referrals, etc.)
 * Open Topics until closing
 * Of course, feel free to add in anything that you feel is important :). -- 15:15, 24 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I've got relatives coming over this weekend, so I almost definitely won't be able to make it. There's still a slim chance, but it's not likely. GarrettTalk 23:35, 24 September 2007 (CDT)
 * The meeting starts in the next 5 minutes. Anyone who wants to join should come to IRC and join #SW-Meeting. -- Prod (Talk) 13:02, 29 September 2007 (CDT)

Could somebody make a log available? I'm in the dark about all these infobox changes and the like and I'd really like to know what the consensus is before I do any more AWB work. GarrettTalk 00:14, 2 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I've got the log up on my googlepages. link. -- 15:27, 2 October 2007 (CDT)

Signiture Images
I happened to notice as I took a glance at the Community Issues, that quite a few people have images included in their signitures. Now, I do not have any specific problem with these images, except for the fact that I find them extremely distracting. I was fine with the occasional user, but with this increasing amount of signiture images, I can see it becoming a problem in the near future.

If this is of any relevance, WP restricts images from sigs due to the fact that they serve as a distraction. Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 18:25, 25 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Um, my only pet peeve with sig images is when people don't do the template method for their sigs (because the wiki code is so long). Obviously, having too many images per sig is bad, but I don't see what's wrong with just one (or the occasional two). Besides, if you really want distracting sigs, try looking at Uncyclopedia, and then come back here. You'll find that the sigs here are nice and laid back compared to the vast majority of uncyc's. -- 20:09, 25 September 2007 (CDT)
 * It's good for the size of this community, since I can recognize who posted things without actually looking at or reading their name. -- 23:12, 25 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I see what you mean, Ryan. I also agree with Notmyhandle said, though this community isn't exactly very large IMO. Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 18:07, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * We don't really need it yet, I just think the template method can be vandalised (As many people haven't protected it and if they have a lot of sigs on pages then the job queue will be fairly big when they change it.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 02:07, 27 September 2007 (CDT)
 * People can always just request for protection of it, I'll happily oblige. Besides, even just semi-protecting it will stave off most vandalism, as new users will then have to wait four days to be able to edit it. -- 15:01, 27 September 2007 (CDT)
 * The thing is, most people forget, anyway most are admins and you can move the page to a .css page to fully protect it.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 15:39, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Upgraded table of contents
As we recently decided to have all the links for a game and all its expansions listed on the main games ToC, it made some of the ToCs huge. I've created two new templates to try and make these more manageable. It will automatically hide all the tocs for the games which you aren't currently in. For example, when browsing pages in the Diablo II guide, when you expand the ToC at the top, it will hide the LoD ToC but show the D2 toc; when browsing pages in the Diablo II: Lord of Destruction guide, it will hide the D2 toc, but expand the LoD toc. What are your thoughts, and should we implement this for other games with expansion packs? -- Prod (Talk) 01:40, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Looks like it's a better way to do things. Everything else I can say doesn't amount to much: its uglier (maybe we can get rid of the boxes and shading?), the expansion packs don't have the basic game info listed (which technically is ok because you'd expect people to play the first one first...), I still prefer redundant pages (controls, etc.) over this method but we've already settled that, but yeah, it gets the job done and it clearly separates things.  -- 02:09, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I actually don't think its that ugly. I think it's cleaner.  However, I do agree about the expansion packs thing.  There are games like Guild Wars where there are three campaigns that are independent (you don't need one to play the others) but are so closely related that there is really only one guide.  I can see that as somewhat problematic.-- Duke  Ruckley Talk 07:22, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * It is possible to have some parts outside the hidden tocs so they are always shown. -- Prod (Talk) 08:48, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * What about TOCs for two expansion packs, will we need more templates?-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 15:28, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * It all goes on the same page, with only the use of the two templates. It hides everything except for the toc for the current game. -- Prod (Talk) 15:41, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * An example of the always shown pages can be found on Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour. -- Prod (Talk) 20:02, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I think it looks kinda ugly with the box around it and no color. Maybe a light blue?-- Duke  Ruckley Talk 21:00, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually, come to think of it, light blue might not be the best idea with blue links on it :) Meh.  Oh well.-- Duke  Ruckley Talk 21:04, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I think if we removed the border lines it would be better (more like a normal ToC/old look), but the transparency is good because it works across all skins (and future skins) and in IE the boxes don't look good because there's this crappy padding of whitespace. -- 21:35, 26 September 2007 (CDT)

Category:RPG
I don't know why, but in the RPG category, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are both listed under the letter E, while The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles and The Elder Scrolls IV: Knights of the Nine are listed under the letter T. New User 23:22, 28 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Hmmm, I can't remember what the policy is. Guys, are we listing it by Name, The or simply considering "The" as the first word in the title or skipping to the second word?  By the way New User; if you go to the page with the category (those main pages) you'll see that the category has a pipe with the letter, something like  . -- 23:40, 28 September 2007 (CDT)
 * It's better to use if it has a lot of categories.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 02:20, 29 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Due to convention, we categorise games beginning with a grammatical article under the next words. It's explained at the top of Categories, and also briefly mentioned on Category:Games. It relies upon the DEFAULTSORT key being used in the manner . These two pages clearly don't, so they default to the letter T. Now that I think about it, this probably isn't mentioned in Guide... GarrettTalk 05:09, 29 September 2007 (CDT)

Captchas on Account Creation
Something brought up in the September 29th IRC Staff Meeting was to add a Captcha to account creation. It was decided to bring it up here for community input, so that's what I am doing now. Basically, my request is broken down into four parts: what a Captcha is (for those who don't know), the pros/benefits to adding Captchas to account creations, the cons/detriments to adding Captchas to account creations, and how we would go about doing it.

Part I: What is a Captcha?

A Captcha is an image authentication system used to repel automated actions, such as account creations. Captchas are in use in many other places, such as Wikipedia and Digg, for various reasons. See here to read more and see images of what they look like.

Part II: Pros/Benefits of Implementing This


 * It would stave off automated account creations. Many people have told me that automated account creations are not a problem right now. However, they did not take the future into account. If (or when) we become a huge site such as Wikipedia, chances are there will be numerous automated account creations. Adding a Captcha now will prevent that from ever being a problem in the first place.
 * It might cause more of the accounts to actually be used. This is just pure speculation, but it does make some sense. If you require a user to work harder to make the account, then they might want to actually do something with it instead of just letting it sit there collecting dust.

Part III: Cons/Detriments of Implementing This


 * It may discourage some users from creating accounts. They don't want to take the time to solve an image puzzle and write down what it says in a box. Some people here think that some of these discouraged users might actually contribute if we didn't have a Captcha in place that discouraged them. But think about it. If they're too lazy to fill in five or six alphanumeric characters to register, do you really think they'll spend time typing out guides? I don't think so.
 * People with disabilities such as vision impairment will not be able to clearly read the image, and therefore be unable to register. An easy fix to this already exists. There is another extension beyond the normal Captcha extension that allows for audio Captchas, so one can just write down what they hear. More on that in Part IV.

Part IV: How to Implement This

There is a MediaWiki extension called ConfirmEdit, which is what would do this. This extension was written largely by Brion Vibber, and it is implemented in places such as WikiMedia wikis and Wikia, so we may assume that it is stable. Now, you may be saying "Wait a minute... the name is ConfirmEdit, not ConfirmAccount Creation, we don't want to add in a Captcha to confirm every edit." If you did say that, or something similar, I suggest you read the page that I linked you to. While the extension can be used to add Captchas to edits, that feature can be turned off so only account creations have Captchas added to them. As for the audio one, another extension called reCAPTCHA would help with that. However, reCAPTCHA was not written by any of the MediaWiki devs, so I don't know how well it would work.

Questions, comments, concerns? Tell me what you think about this. -- 11:51, 30 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't think that Captchas will entice people to be more likely to use their account once they sign up. I do believe that it will scare some folks away.  However, I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing.  After all, most of these people that choose not to sign up because of a captcha are probably not going to edit anyway.  I won't say it is necessary right now (it is not something that is urgent) but it definitely something to think about and implement before we become a larger wiki.


 * Will someone be updating the meetings page with notes? I was unfortunately unable to make it and I'd like to know what was covered and the outcome.--
 * Just saying, from personal experience, the Mediawiki ones on wikiepdia are a bit annoying, the capatcha changes if the account is alreasdy being used so you have to type them in many times and typing it wrong will reset all the boxes IIRC. It was a bit annoying.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 12:30, 30 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Ok, your first part made no sense to me, can you clarify that? And if you type it wrong, it does not reset all of the boxes, generally just password/re-type password and the place where you type out the captcha. As for why I'm pushing for this now, I'm trying to cut out the problem before it starts. -- 13:24, 30 September 2007 (CDT)


 * I don't think it'll be a problem. CAPTCHAs are common enough nowadays that non-tech people won't be confused by them, nor will they be seen as taking security a bit too far. The only thing I would suggest is that you make them case-insensitive. Getting an all-caps string and having it rejected because I didn't know it was case-sensitive annoys me. - Koweja 01:44, 1 October 2007 (CDT)


 * Skizz if he's using IE6 (which he is) then it's probably because IE doesn't always cache input boxes (which is why I use notepad to save my edits while I'm working). -- 10:49, 1 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I wasn't referring to the input boxes, but to the phrase "the capatcha changes if the account is alreasdy being used so you have to type them in many times". I was just wanting some extra clarification on the meaning on that. Most of the fields are supposed to reset if bad info is inputted anyway, such as password. -- 15:16, 1 October 2007 (CDT)
 * My opinion is still that we should only implement this if bots start becoming a problem, although now that you've introduced reCAPTCHA (which I've heard a lot about before, but didn't know there was a MediaWiki plugin for), I'd be in favour of using that instead of a normal CAPTCHA...if bots become a problem. -- 15:33, 1 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I see what you mean, and it is a valid point. However, I was suggesting implementing this now or sometime in the not-too-distant-future as a pre-emptive strike against bots before they even become a problem. That way we won't have to rush getting it in and smoothing out potential bugs, etc. to stave off such creations. -- 11:43, 4 October 2007 (CDT)
 * If they're official (or nearly official) extensions, there should be no bugs. I'd rather we put time and effort into upgrading to MW 1.11, rather than adding more extensions unnecessarily. -- 15:43, 4 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I do agree that updating our version comes first before adding in extensions (be them necessary or unnecessary). Since you seem so set against requiring it now, and since the fact exists that I cannot prove that bot creations are already happening, I've decided to let this wait until it actually is needed. As for 1.11 on the other hand... when can we start? :P -- 16:19, 4 October 2007 (CDT)

Infoboxes
The fix won't work if there is 2 images, see here I have fixed this by uploading a new version of the image but is there another way to fix this?-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 14:48, 30 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm thinking we should just have another parameter, "image2". -- 23:00, 1 October 2007 (CDT)
 * For the rare amount of times this will happen, I don't see why we should add in another param. Simply make a single image with both boxes and declare that as the image. -- 15:18, 1 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm in agreement with Ryan. The only guides which should have multiple images in the infobox (as opposed to in a gallery further down the page) are those which cover multiple games, which is basically only the Pokémon guides. Having an image with both boxarts on makes sense in that case. -- 15:36, 1 October 2007 (CDT)