StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal

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Key Issues:
 * License
 * Articles to delete
 * Others to be added...

Server performance - We may need multiple servers...
We're currently running StrategyWiki on a dedicated server along with the website dsmeet.com. Both of these websites have a large amount of traffic and their databases are equally sizeable (DSmeet is 367.2 MB, StrategyWiki is 416.8 MB). The problem is not with the space we are using, nor do I think it's with Apache. It's not even our server load, which for the most part remains at a constant "1". My initial diagnosis is that the MySQL server is experiencing a deluge by these two highly websites. So my question is what do we do?

Since StrategyWiki has no ads and generates no revenue (nor do I intend it to do so!), DSmeet serves as the primary breadwinner for this project and pays for the server. We make anywhere between $150-$300 a month, and that figure varies a lot (July's check will be nearly $400 when it gets mailed). My intentions have been to change and expand DSmeet into a more useful and profitable website that can sustain growth for both itself and StrategyWiki, but our intended update will not be ready until the end of August. Currently our server bill is about $100/month (you can see specifications here).

I've been planning along with some of our server technicians (technical friends of mine) about our plan to eventually go colocated. Colocated webhosting, for those of you who do not know, is sort of a step up from dedicated rentals. You actually buy and own the server and then pay to have your server connected to a fast pipeline. You can then install whatever hardware you want, and you generally rent by the U size (how large the server is). You can run one or more servers concurrently in this model.

The obvious hurdle here is cost. While colocating itself can probably be found for $100/mo at the low end (which fits our bandwidth needs exactly), we'll still have to purchase the hardware--approximately $2,000 per server for a *good* server (AFAIK). And if we decide to go with two servers (one for apache, one for MySQL), this quickly becomes a costly measure. I don't think we're quite ready for this yet, and we need to wait until the year's end before we make this jump.

I've also looked at the options that Wikipedia suggests, and there may be a possibility that we can install eAccelerator (or Zend Optimizer), Squid Cache, and/or some other software to aid in this problem. The only problem is that I know next to nothing about these yet, and if it turns out that RAM is our problem these won't exactly help us.

I need to check on some things, so I'll be back with more info in just a little while. This situation isn't as dire as I make it out to be, we're just faced with the growing reality of the popularity of our sites. If you have any suggestions about eAccelerator, Squid, etc. please leave your comments! :)  ech elon  18:05, 26 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Squid Cache has just been installed (whew!) and it appears to be running smoothly. I'm not sure if it's optimally configured yet, so bear with me if you experience any interruptions in being able to reach the server.  ech elon  02:25, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Server was down today for approximately six hours! Yikes! The cause seemed to stem from two CPU taxing queries on DSmeet, and we're looking into fixing it. For now, those queries are shut down.  ech elon  17:22, 7 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I turned off Squid cache. I don't think it was helping much...  ech elon  09:35, 15 August 2006 (CDT)

Collaboration of the Month / Guide of the Month
July has come up on us, so would anyone like to suggest a Collaboration of the Month or Guide of the Month for the front page? Our collaboration will probably be related to switching from GFDL to SWPL. As for the guide, I'm not sure. What do you guys think?  ech elon  19:13, 1 July 2006 (PDT)


 * My Half-Life walkthrough =D. As for a collaboration, defitenly the SWPL license. --Antaios 20:26, 1 July 2006 (PDT)


 * The Final Fantasy VII walkthrough seems like a fairly good one as well. It still has a few sections that could use some meat to them and it needs pictures, but it is a decent choice I'd say.  Although, Half-Life might be a better choice because we just had an action-RPG, so a different genre might be a good idea.--Dukeruckley 05:01, 3 July 2006 (PDT)


 * Are there any guides here that are actually done? as in a or  quality? Because those would make perfect guides of the month. I know StrategyWiki is fairly new, but if we had a guide of the month with a whole bunch of red links, it might make us look bad. Maybe as we are still small, it'd be better to put somthing like a Most Promising Guide, or somthing that suggests its a good guide to edit or somthing. The collaboration of the month still should be the SWPL or Open Media license. --blendmaster 11:52, 13 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Final Fantasy VII is definitely a quality guide.  There are few (if any, haven't checked all of it) red links and the entire walkthrough is complete save for some minor optional bits of information.  I'd recommend it the most I think.  A Most Promising Guide would be an idea as well and we can always phase it out when we have some completed guides.-- Duke  Ruckley  11:55, 13 July 2006 (CDT)


 * It looks like a good choice, yes, but before it can be listed I really think the front page could be cleared up:


 * Add an infobox and box artwork
 * Make the "Materia" and "Equipment" appendices a link to pages
 * Deal with the "stuff to be merged" section
 * Make sure it's categorised fully and properly


 * (Don't know who that ^ was) The problem with Final Fantasy VII is that it doesn't use the shiny new All Game Nav or anything fancy like that. Anyway, the main page has been sitting at none at all for a while. Should we just replace it with Most Promising Guide or somthing soon? --blendmaster 17:31, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I think it was me. *looks innocent* --DrBob (Talk) 17:53, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Rename the license?
I don't like "StrategyWiki Public License", for several reasons. First, "Public" is unnecessary and might make people think there's some connection with the GNU GPL; also including our name is a mistake. As echelon said, "Imagine if all wikis used a single license and it made copying possible between all wikis. Wouldn't that be awesome?" Yes it would, but I can't imagine other sites would be particularly keen on using a license that so openly belongs to another site. Dropping the Public and removing our name from it are primary goals if we want anyone but us to ever use this. GarrettTalk 04:39, 2 July 2006 (PDT)


 * So you'd have it called "License" then? :-P I agree with you here, and I think now is the time to change the name if ever, before it gets too complex. --DrBob (Talk) 04:52, 2 July 2006 (PDT)


 * Guys, check out the suggestions in User:Echelon/Open Media! Leave comments on the talk page there.  ech elon  23:53, 5 July 2006 (PDT)

Image upload warning
I'm going through categorising all the images, and it's a pain. I have a horrible feeling that people are going to continue to upload uncategorised images, so why not put some Javascript on the image upload form which checks for a category link, and pops up a message box chiding the user if the output of  is true. --DrBob (Talk) 06:43, 2 July 2006 (PDT)
 * I suggest looking into the uncategorized images page sporewiki has set up and have that installed. But if this code gets put it, If you could explain how it's done, then that'd be appreciated echelon, thanks :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 16:42, 2 July 2006 (PDT)
 * I think we should do both. :-P The message on form submission to stop more uncategorised images being uploaded, and the uncategorised images page to help deal with the ones which have already been uploaded. Looks quite simple to install the uncategorised images page, and thanks must go to MediaWiki (and SporeWiki) for it. :-D --DrBob (Talk) 23:00, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

Image guidelines
I've finished writing the image guidelines and they're up for comment. If you've got any gripes or suggestions (particularly for things I've missed), please mention them on the talk page for the guidelines. --DrBob (Talk) 12:17, 5 July 2006 (PDT)

Control Images
I notice DrBob has been going around putting up the Needcontrols template on a lot of guides lately, with requests for controls for specific systems. As of posting, the only controller buttons are my gamecube buttons and the only page that uses them (to my knowledge) is the Super Smash Bros. Melee guide. The current buttons are fairly generic, save for the C-stick stuff and the gcube/xbox specific button colors. Because they were meant to be generic, I named them as such, like Control-up.png and A-button.png. If there are to be specific images for systems, they need to be renamed.

Another problem with the current implementation is that inserting images everywhere makes the markup look horrendous, even with the Button template. Just look at the markup for Super Smash Bros. Melee/Basics to see what I mean. If possible, there should be a away to insert buttons without generic image markup, i.e. the bold tag or the link markup in wiki markup. I don't know how easy it is to put features like this into MediaWiki, but as this is a strategy guide wiki, it would be good to put directly in the code, to keep page markup easy to understand.

One more thing: is there really a need for keyboard button images, like spacebar, tab, and WASD? If this wiki had svg support, there could be away to replace the text in an svg file with a certain letter or symbol before rendering it, but its still kind of overkill.

Well, those are my thoughts on the controller buttons. the unrendered SVG ps2 buttons are still here, if anyone wants to comment on them. --blendmaster 19:05, 6 July 2006 (PDT)


 * I agree that the png buttons are ugly when littered around the page. One thing that might help is a policy to keep pages platform-agnostic when possible--say "shoot" for instance rather than "hit (triangle button image)", then refer to a rosetta page with all the controls for each platform.  Then again, melee games really do need to list the button sequence.


 * I tried making some buttons with Unicode and CSS at Talk:Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Basics/Controls. I thought they looked good except for the ABXY buttons, which of course are kind of important.  DrBob pointed out that not all browsers support Unicode, and how they choose to do so is up to the browser.  That's a good point: If you saw "Hit this sequence of buttons: ? ? ? ? ?" that would be kind of frustrating!


 * Using SVG buttons would be wicked cool. The technology is only slightly less accessible than simple images -- the plugin is easily installable and has been stable since 2001.  We can use alt text in the contents of the embed element, so people who don't have/don't want SVG support can still read the page.   Even better, that alt text is HTML so we can use CSS to style that text however we want (but we should still stay way from exotic unicode glyphs).  That would give two reasonably good renditions of the page probably better looking than the current one, and preserve machine-readability. So I say go for it.


 * In terms of aesthetics, I think it's important that buttons be styled to go with the main page text. If you look at a BradyGames guide you will see that that the buttons with letters use the same font as the text, just bold.  Using different fonts tends to jar the eye a little bit. Sympleko 06:19, 7 July 2006 (PDT)


 * I can't see any problem with the PNG buttons or the markup: once sections like that are written, they're unlikely to be changed, and so it shouldn't be much of a trouble. I'm against moving controls to disambiguation pages for each platform for each game, because that means users would have to follow another link to get to what they probably want to find, which slows everything down. I'm also against new markup for buttons, as it makes upgrading MediaWiki hell due to the hassle of porting all the modifications, then fixing the bugs.
 * I'm all for SVG images. MediaWiki will automatically rasterise them to PNG unless the user has set SVG to be displayed natively in their browser, so that's OK. Using the same font as the text is fine, as it's all the same anyway (and anybody who decides to make another header template containing a custom, stylised page title will be shot). I agree that the control images should be differentiated by platform and renamed; they're not widely used yet anyway, so it won't be much of a hassle to rename them all. --DrBob (Talk) 09:18, 7 July 2006 (PDT)


 * I'm in full agreement with DrBob. I think SVG images would be a neat idea, but I don't see much of a problem with the current PNG images.  I also think that controls need to be game specific and named as such in order to create a consistent convention for when new game systems come out.  In the case of Playstation and Playstation 2 (and a few others), an exception can be made because it is the same controller (except for the addition of the analogs).--Dukeruckley 09:50, 7 July 2006 (PDT)


 * If nobody else objects, this should go ahead. Dukeruckley, do you want to handle it? :-) --DrBob (Talk) 10:16, 7 July 2006 (PDT)


 * Personally I'd prefer typing in somthing like .:left-smash:. (embedded) instead of [[Image:Gamecube-Control-Left-Smash.png||left]]  (generic), but since I'm not a great coder, I can't have much say in whether an embedded button markup is implemented or not. On SVG vs. PNG, svg images are a lot smaller(in file size), and are better at scaling to different sizes, if say the main control page had big button images, and all other pages had smaller button images. On using the same font as the text, I convert all the text in my buttons to paths, just because different SVG renderers use different default fonts, which makes the buttons look worse.
 * One thing no one talked about was the keyboard button images. Are they really neccessary? Well, I guess I'll get started on xbox and other console buttons. I'll can upload the gamecube and ps* buttons whenever the naming scheme is set. --blendmaster 16:30, 7 July 2006 (PDT)


 * I've said already that custom wikimarkup for buttons is not feasible. It makes MediaWiki upgrades a real pain. Honestly. Keyboard images would look nice, and make pages look interesting, but they wouldn't really add much. I'm sitting on the fence about them, really. As for the naming scheme, just use the initials of the system (e.g. "GC", "PS", "DC", "GB", etc.), then an underscore, then the name of the button/stick movement: e.g. "gc_a.png". Make sure to put them in the controller buttons category. --DrBob (Talk) 17:09, 7 July 2006 (PDT)


 * Well, then, now I just have to wait for SVG support in this wiki, as SVG is still a "not a recommended format". I do have another idea for naming the buttons. If they were named fairly verbosely, as in Gamecube-Control-Left.svg instead of gc_left.svg, but there was a template called then you could add buttons to a page with somthing like  or PS X, while the button images have nicer names. --blendmaster 13:31, 8 July 2006 (PDT)


 * For the disambiguation of controls on a single per-guide page, I still think that following another link when you don't know the button attached to the verb (people reading the guide will have at least had some experience with the game on their platform already) is less frustrating than having to translate button names from one platform to another. And as pages grow organically, you definitely don't want button names from different platforms on the same page.  So to keep the guides clean it seems like the choices are to either list all the platform controls wherever one of them appears (as in "hit A, or ×, or NUM0, or...") or aim to keep them all in one place.  Maybe policy is too strong, but it sounds like a good guideline to me. Sympleko 09:18, 9 July 2006 (CDT)


 * What some guides are doing (which is good) is to have subheadings for each system on the controls page, and listing the system-specific buttons that way. However, for games with too many controls (or fighting games with many hundreds of different moves attached to combinations of buttons), the best way to do it would be to list alternatives for different systems in-situ. --DrBob (Talk) 11:38, 9 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree on both. I think Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Basics/Controls and Super Smash Bros. Melee/Basics are good practice, each for their type of game. Sympleko 12:04, 9 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Okay, now that png support is back up, I can upload the now finished gamecube and ps* control icons. They are named Gamecube- - .png and Playstation- - .png.The directions are in camelcase with Up and Down first and then Left or Right. por exemplo: Gamecube-Control-DownRight.png. The reason everything starts with a capital, is due to a wierd error I found with the existing Template:Button. If you specify a value as just "left" or "right", it will take that as an float argument, like an image, so if I tried to get an image for Control-right.png, specified like it would automatically float it right. So, my plan this time, is to make templates gc and psx for the gamecube and ps* buttons. The arguments would be for button name/direction and type of name/direction. But, there will be a qif argument for the type of name, so you specify a button just like  and a direction like , but you wouldn't need to type.
 * Well, I need to upload them now. I'll start with the gamecube ones and do the ps* ones later. they are all 24x24px, which I found is a happy medium between fitting in with the text and being pretty. I will also make the gc and psx templates. Admins, don't delete the old generic buttons and the button template yet, because then Super Smash Bros. Melee/Basics will break. xbox and n64 buttons are next. --blendmaster 14:02, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Super Smash Bros. Melee/Basics has been migrated. Looks pretty cool, huh? --blendmaster 17:39, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Schweet. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 17:54, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Awesome, now just give me the PS control images for Biohazard and I'll be twice as happy. :p --Antaios 18:54, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
 * w00t. --blendmaster 11:46, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Thanks, blendmaster!. Looking forward to the xbox ones. Sympleko 12:50, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Looks great mate, keep it up! :) --Antaios 12:48, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Awesome job blend. Just out of curiosity, would you have any plans to do icons for a generic arcade joystick?  (You know, black stick, red top... something along those lines.)  I could really use those for games like Street Fighter II.  And I uploaded the [[Image:Punch.gif]] and [[Image:Kick.gif]] icons that Capcom used, but they're pretty low quality and could probably use replacement as well... (shoot, forgot to sign) Procyon 20:43, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Hmm, good question. I guess I'll just have to make some shiny svg versions of those. If you see any color highquality ones you like, or even a shot of the buttons on an arcade cabinet or somthing, show me them, And I'll do my best. --blendmaster 22:03, 25 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Ok xbox and 360 buttons are up. I know the analog stick images are just recolors of the ps2 ones, but that was the best way to make them look nice and still be understandable. They are colored after the xbox360 controller, but they can be used for xbox too, as I included both the xbo360 left and right "bumpers" as well as the white and black buttons. One problem with it at the moment is that MediaWiki randomly decided one of the images is corrupted, even though it was made the same way every other button is. Xbox-Rstick-Down.png is perfectly fine with imageshack yet MediaWiki wont render it. I've uploaded it several times, rasterized with different programs like the gimp and it still doesn't display, Which leads me to believe there's something wierd about the name of the image. This has happened before too. Well, besides that enjoy the buttons. --blendmaster 15:28, 27 July 2006 (CDT)
 * The thing these two buttons have in common is the /a/ad/ directory structure. So it seems something's stuffed up there. I tried deleting it completely in an attempt to end up in another directory but the new version still went to /a/ad/. GarrettTalk 01:37, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Has any work been done on DS button images? The NSMB article currently only has 1 image, the box art and it looks rather bland. Just wondering. --RovingRoflguy 16:06, 27 July 2006 (AEST)


 * Not as far as I know. blendmaster will probably get round to them soon; he's on a roll at the moment (correct me if I'm wrong). ;-) --DrBob (Talk) 11:24, 31 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Ds buttons are up. Sorry it took so long. Oblivion=awsome. --blendmaster 12:48, 8 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Those are great! Done in black and with a few additional buttons they could cover GB/GBA and all Sega systems other than the Dreamcast, so maybe that could be your next project. GarrettTalk 19:05, 8 August 2006 (CDT)

I'm not sure myself whether PC keyboard images would be useful, but if anything, images of a mouse with various buttons highlighted and ones with arrows indicating movement of the mouse or the wheel in different directions would certainly be nice. DrV 10:37, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * That's a really good point. I'd say we could do PC images by making some general keyboard button images and having the template put the appropriate text on top of them, with perhaps proper images for special buttons like the arrow keys and enter. I'd definitely be for mouse images; they'd be useful. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 11:02, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, those would be good. I'll have to make some of those. One way to do the keyboard images would be to have just a base keyboard blank, and use it for a background for a span with centered text, and just replace the text one top of it. It wouldn't look as nice as svg text, but it would require a lot less images. That system would still probably require special spacebar, capslock, and other nonstandard size keys to have their own special image. --blendmaster 12:48, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Actually, somthing i just thought of for the non standard keyboard buttons, is if you had a image of the leftmost side of the key as an image, and a extremely long right side image of the key as the background, then, the background would slide out however much to cover the entire text. --blendmaster 12:52, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * If you feel a fluid CSS approach is required, I'll knock something together once you've got some images done. It would have the central part repeating, as opposed to being really long (so you could just make it 1px wide ;-) ). --DrBob (Talk) 12:56, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I uploaded a standard looking keycap here, so if you want too chop it up and work your css magic, go ahead. I still need to work on a way to represent mouse stuff in 24 pixels or less. --blendmaster 15:48, 15 August 2006 (CDT)

Here are NES and SNES control images. I'll get gb* stuff up soon too, because they are pretty much just a recolor of the nes ones. --blendmaster 15:48, 15 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Cool blend, awesome job. I could finally correct the Legend of Zelda controls thanks to you.  Any luck with the Street Fighter II controls? Procyon 16:05, 15 August 2006 (CDT)


 * For street fighter, all you need is fairly generic directions, maybe with an arcade joystick in the image, a punch and a kick, right? Also, do you know of any other special arcade fighting games that have other special buttons, like a throw or grab button? I'd like to put them all under a template with joystick directions, the most common special action buttons(kick/punch/throw), and a whole bunch of generic colored buttons. So if you know of any other fighting game controls, or significant special arcade controls, let me know. I'll start on the joystick and fighting buttons. --blendmaster 16:57, 15 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I'll break it all down for you in your talk, cuz I'd love to help you with this. Procyon 17:47, 15 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Great! A couple of thoughts, though; the directions are white while the neutral Dpad is black, and for the SNES you've got an X instead of a Y. Otherwise an excellent job. :) GarrettTalk 16:10, 15 August 2006 (CDT)


 * The Neutral one is supposed to look nicer, while the directions are outlines so you can tell what they are better. I suppose I could change them to the same color, like the ds ones, with a different arrow thing. I'll do that. I also fixed the snes x and y buttons. I didn't rasterize the right svgs. --blendmaster 16:38, 15 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Okay, all the dpads look like the ds ones now. --blendmaster 16:57, 15 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Great job! :-D --DrBob (Talk) 16:29, 15 August 2006 (CDT)

Yeah pretty much just a recolor. The Gameboy micro buttons may not be the most representative of the gameboy line, but they sure do look nice. And i guess i'll change the dpad here too, because its also the same. --blendmaster 16:38, 15 August 2006 (CDT)

Open Media License
I wanted to involve everyone in writing and commenting on the "Open Media License" that I am drawing up. (I think it may be a better alternative to "StrategyWiki Public License".) You can see it here. If you wouldn't mind taking a look over it, making notes of your thoughts and ideas for improvement, and even working on it, that would be excellent. I want to slim it down quite a bit so it's a small license. Once we have a more polished and refined version, I want to show it off to Debian-legal and ask for their assistance in making this thing real. We'll of course want it to conform to all of their standards, as I generally agree with Debian-legal on most licensing issues.  ech elon  01:32, 22 July 2006 (CDT)

New Namespace?
I've been thinking about the possible problems with the "game index" we have at Special:Allpages and Special:Allpages/C. Using these two search methods to find the title you are looking for is confusing, since all subpages of guides are listed first. What if we create a new namespace (hence it would be searchable) called "GameInxex" and create pages that correspond to the index pages for the guides themselves. Examples would be GameIndex:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and GameIndex:Half-Life. Using this method, we can create a full, easy to search index of all the titles that exist in our wiki. Thoughts? I may make a demo to see what you think.  ech elon  17:55, 22 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Here's a demonstration. Compare with the main index.  ech elon  18:05, 22 July 2006 (CDT)
 * That would be good. I can't see any negatives to it, unless you specifically need to search for a subpage. --blendmaster 22:10, 22 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Nice, but does it have to have such an ugly name? Why not "Game index" (similar to "User talk")? --DrBob (Talk) 01:38, 23 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I was thinking in camel case because I'm a programmer :P If you think "Game_index" is superior asthetically to "GameIndex", I'll change it.  ech elon  01:06, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I do, because when it's displayed as text on a page, it won't have the underscore. ;-) --DrBob (Talk) 04:02, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Renamed! Also, I just created the Portal: namespace Mason's request on my talk page.  ech elon  06:16, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Why have both? I would think the portal namespace would be better for both purposes. (It's more standardised with other sites such as Wikipedia.) :-) --DrBob (Talk) 08:51, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * But wouldn't a "portal" for every single game be overkill? I was thinking portals would be limited to Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and the like. If the portals concept is used for every game, wouldn't it lead to redundancy? People may put content in the portal that should go in the guide.  ech elon  08:55, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Sorry, my mistake. I thought they were both doing the same job, but now I see the distinction. Ignore me please. :-P --DrBob (Talk) 15:00, 28 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't see a lot of use of the gameindex feature outside of the search (In which case every guide made should just have a redirect from that namespace). The Portal namespace should just be for getting a group together to work on a set of guides.  Either a series, or even a console.  I imagine there will be some kind of portal hierarchy here as developed at wikipedia.  With a portal dedicated to, the Halo games for example.  Portal:Halo would be a kind of "child portal" to Portal:Xbox.  Basically a way to discuss the guide as a whole and easily discuss organization issues or drives to improve portions of the games in general.  Also a Portal could also be the place were people can simply talk about the game or whatever, since the talk pages for the guide are for talking about the guide, but that's just something minor. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:53, 27 July 2006 (CDT)

ImageMap Extension
I think the ImageMap Extension could be useful. However I think the coords should instead be retrieved from a normal page using the "raw" action (ala CSS/JS). This would allow diffs and the like to be used, and it would be much simpler than using the upload form and worrying about tracking down misnamed unused map files and all that. It might need tweaking later on when SVG is working, but for now I think this is the only change it needs. GarrettTalk 01:46, 23 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Looks good, but it is a MediaWiki 1.5 extension, and we're on MediaWiki 1.7, so I don't know how compatible it'll be. --DrBob (Talk) 01:49, 23 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I love the possibilities of this extension. I'll see if I can manage to get it to work with a reasonable level of compatibility.  ech elon  01:16, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Here you go. :)  ech elon 


 * This is interesting!  ech elon  08:47, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * That is awesome...wow...very very very cool. I'm going to have to try to steal that.  :-D.  This may be one of the most overall useful changes this site has received in quite some time. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:48, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Cool, but I don't think it's that useful. At least not the most overall useful. It just seems kind of like an excuse to put more images in a guide. I guess it would be sorta useful in a game like Oblivion to include a imagemap of the ingame map in the table of contents, but "overall useful", no. --blendmaster 14:55, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, it's more "cool" than useful. I don't think we should ever use the extension exclusively either--more of a supplement to other content. I may create a maps section of the Ocarina of Time guide.  ech elon  16:40, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Bah on both of you. I think it's cool, and it's original and is very unique for a wiki, you don't see image maps on guides very often, and the ones that you do see it on (some IGN ones) work very well for a TOC sometimes.  It seems very intuitive and while saying it is the most useful is overkill, there havne't been a lot of distictive additions to this site that you don't see many other places.  But thanks for killing my excitement :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 01:43, 29 July 2006 (CDT)


 * There is a problem with this, and that is that images used in this fashion are listed in the unused files list, and are likely to get deleted by a dozy sysop. (I just managed to delete the example Echelon previously posted above.) --DrBob (Talk) 13:32, 11 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Well, there's two ways to correct this: the one way is to rework the extension as I suuggested above (the images themselves should also be retrieved this way), and the other is to manually include Image: links tagged with display:none. I tried to make a template to automate this but for some reason it didn't work. GarrettTalk 17:01, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I was thinking something along those lines. If echelon'll let me at the code, I'll give it a go sometime. (It's going on my todo list, anyway.) --DrBob (Talk) 04:18, 12 August 2006 (CDT)

Making a series overview
I've been doing work on the Adventures of Lolo 2 (Japanese) guide and it's nearly done (98% in fact). My next planned project was to do an overview for the whole Eggerland/Lolo series which lists instructions, info on monsters, gameplay tricks, etc. I was thinking of simply creating an article called "Eggerland series", but was uncertain if that would be the way to go. I chose Eggerland as that was the original name of the games in the series. Just wondering what I should do. Also, is it acceptable to use art from the manuals? --Sivak 00:22, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Is it okay to create an overview? Absolutely! I think that's an excellent idea. But we do need some kind of disambiguation method. Perhaps Eggerland_(overview) is a good method of doing this? I am not certain. We should get lots of opinion as to what the appropriate method should be, because once we settle on a standard we'll have to stick with it. My main concern is making sure that disambiguations and overviews remain easily accessible and placed in standard locations. If we create a Zelda overview, where should it go? Zelda is taken for disambiguation purposes, and it's best not to crowd it with overview data too. Zelda_(overview)?
 * As for manual art/scans, absolutely! Fair use! :)  ech elon  01:11, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I think the best thing to do would be to create a series category (similar to Zelda) and a series page (similar to Zelda) which itself would redirect to the series category, but then put overview information on sub-pages of the series page, and link to it from both the appropriate guides, and a ToC in the series category. That'll keep it all nice and self-contained, and avoid polluting the place with all sorts of bracketed names. :-) This should also be done for series such as Nintendo's Mario (etc.) games – which share characters like there's no tomorrow – and Zelda. --DrBob (Talk) 04:05, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Mason recommended I create the "Portal" namespace, so I recommend you do two things:
 * Create Portal:Eggerland and store common info there.
 * Create Eggerland as a disambiguation.
 * I think that'll work nicely.  ech elon  06:17, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I actually went ahead and started this. I figured I'd break the ice sooner or later.  What I've done is created Eggerland as the name and put in some content.  Naturally, not everything is done yet, but it's a start.  I was hoping to get some opinions.  --Sivak 01:15, 29 July 2006 (CDT)

What is a spoiler?
So does that mean that locations of pickups and things aren't spoilers? I'm going through the list of items and there are lots of tips like "You can find this here...." or "You get this after you complete this mission...." These all give away game information, just not parts of the story. At some point users have to accept that they're coming to this site to get game information. I'm just looking for some guidance on what's too much spoiling. Right now through my own fault there are two item pages, one without location info and one with. I guess I should merge them, but I'm debating whether a spoiler-free list is useful, too. Sympleko 12:16, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I wouldn't classify the locations of items as spoilers. What I personally would call a spoiler would be telling the ending of the plot (if it's not obvious) before the end of the walkthrough. At the end of the walkthrough (i.e. in the logical place) and if it's appropriate, telling the end of the plot would not be a spoiler. Anywhere else, however, it would. --DrBob (Talk) 16:19, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Renaming images
Should I create a template that adds a category to images or pages that need to be renamed? I'm thinking that there shouldn't be any text that shows up on the page, just a category for maintenance purposes. There are a bunch of images that should be renamed at some point because of ambiguity and I think if we place them in a category it'll make it easier later (unless I'm missing something already there for this purpose). Images especially need it because they cannot simply be moved and renamed, they have to be re-uploaded which requires downloading the original image.-- Duke Ruckley  14:51, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I was thinking of doing such a template myself actually. By all means go ahead and make one. :-) Make it include the pages in Category:Pages needing renaming. --DrBob (Talk) 16:21, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Display bug with IE
I've been noticing this and felt I should bring it up. It seems the All game Nav template is causing it too. Anyway, if you look at a page in IE that has that template, it seems it is too wide and it causes the text under it to be sort of "cut off" by the table. Any text following the headers (the 2 equal signs on either side) is okay. I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed. --Sivak 14:18, 25 July 2006 (CDT)


 * "Cut off" by which table? I've just looked at Counter-Strike: Source in IE7 beta 2 and the All Game Nav is too wide, but I'm getting no other problems with it. Could you perhaps link to a screenshot (or upload one as long as you promise to have it deleted afterwards :-P )? --DrBob (Talk) 14:29, 25 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I checked using IE6 on the EarthBound main page and I think he's talking about this: click here to see image-- Duke  Ruckley  14:54, 25 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, same here as dukeruckley. It seems the left edge of the main content has negative padding or something. But, it only happens on pages that have the All Game Nav on them, as far as I checked. I looked at an ealier revision of EarthBound without the All Game Nav, and it looked fine.--blendmaster 22:09, 25 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Ah. Are you sure this only happens on pages using All Game Nav? I'll look into it later, but it's probably a symptom of one of IE's box model problems. :-( --DrBob (Talk) 15:01, 25 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Why can't everyone just get Firefox? :p --Antaios 14:59, 25 July 2006 (CDT)


 * If only. However, we do have to support everyone. :-( --DrBob (Talk) 15:01, 25 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I put a screenshot of my own. It seems maybe the images on the left which make up the menu are overlapping somehow.  Check the area I put a red box over.  It gets "uncut" after a short way down.  click here to see image  --Sivak 09:42, 27 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I think you're probably right. I checked the same pages uses Monobook and there is no problem there, so it might be the skin itself.-- Duke  Ruckley  09:46, 27 July 2006 (CDT)
 * That's partly it (the top is a JPEG while the rest is a GIF) but that still doesn't explain IE drawing it too far to the left. GarrettTalk 22:52, 27 July 2006 (CDT)

Cutscene transcripts
Some of the pages (e.g., Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Missions/Big Smoke) have verbatim transcripts of the cutscenes included. Besides being formatted like a screenplay (way too much space for a web page IMO), this seems like a copyvio to me. Should it go? Sympleko 07:12, 26 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Ya, it should go. It is completely unnecessary and is not useful to the user of the website anyway.  It doesn't give any hints or tips on how to play the game at all.  Plus, it just doesn't look very good.-- Duke  Ruckley  07:55, 26 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree on all counts. Can somebody delete Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Missions/In the beginning/Cutscene then?  It's all transcript.  I already orphaned the page. Sympleko 11:59, 26 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Done :) -- Duke Ruckley  12:18, 26 July 2006 (CDT)


 * You'll also want to see what links to the cutscene templates, do what's necessary with those pages, and then delete the templates themselves. (Danged dialup. :- --DrBob (Talk) 13:40, 26 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Done, there was just one page that linked to the two templates in use, and I deleted it and the templates.-- Duke Ruckley  13:49, 26 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Thanks for finishing what I started. Seems like it was only two pages. Sympleko 08:24, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

Problem (again) with the infobox
http://strategywiki.net/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII

View that page on monobook and understand my dillema, we'll have to make sure this works on all skins before we apply something like that. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 02:18, 27 July 2006 (CDT)

Individual pages for individual developers?
I've noticed that in a couple of a games, only a couple of people or sometimes one person created the game, and I wasn't sure if I should create a separate page for that person. A good example is the list of developers on the Star Sonata page. Should we create separate pages for each developer or no? --Antaios 19:07, 27 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Personally, I don't think we should. Maybe a link to their wikipedia article, but there's no need to include info on lots of different developers in a strategy guide. If you do however, it should just be a short bio with links to the guides of the games they've created. --blendmaster 21:28, 27 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Creating a page for each programmer is overkill, so I suggest we stick with creating pages only for companies themselves. On another note entirely: Look at the Star Sonata homepage! They're linking directly to SW now. That's pretty cool! :)  ech elon 


 * That is cool. Maybe for branding purposes you should ask them to make sure the link text says "StrategyWiki" in it. Sympleko 08:26, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

Abandon Relicensing for Now?
I keep imagining the legal hurdles that will face us if we try to design our own license, and it is beginning to make me wary of designing the Open Media License at this point in time. Even in running a draft of the OML past debian-legal, we probably would want a lengthy review period in order to ensure that it is legally sound and does everything we want. All of this takes a lot of time, which does nothing to speed up the progression of StrategyWiki. (Which I have mistakenly been putting off in trying to complete this license.)

In addition to this, the problems with actually relicensing our content itself is a nightmare. Sure, most our contributions are from a core group, but there have been a lot of edits made by transient editors as well. That's to say nothing of the content we've gotten from Wikibooks! One of the editors there has pointed out a big issue--keeping two different types of licensed content on the same wiki and adhering to the GFDL license for Wikibooks content will be extrodinarily difficult. Someone could mistakenly copy GFDL content from Wikibooks around StrategyWiki without knowing about the consequences thereof, thus causing us a lot of licensing problems. Especially if we don't find out about it until the abuse has spread beyond our control.

I suggest we wait to write the Open Media License once StrategyWiki has actually grown. And when we do this, I suggest we have TWO wikis--one being specific to the Open Media project--until all of our guides are under the OML in order that there will be no license contamination. Perhaps a setup such as open.strategywiki.org, and this present GFDL URL.

In closing, I think we should abandon our hopes to relicense the wiki under the Open Media License for now. We should remain GFDL and focus on the growth and expansion of our StrategyWiki project first and foremost, as I think it is the best possible thing we can do for the time being. Regardless of the problems associated with the GFDL, what is the bigger problem? Having a large GFDL wiki full of completed strategy guides or having a small wiki with only a few half-completed Open Media License guides?

What do you say to this proposal? If we do this now, I say we go ahead and get rid of all the GFDL templates, SWPL templates, and SWPL licenses.  ech elon  22:05, 31 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Despite the fact I've only been here for 4 days, seeing that template everywhere and not being able to do anything about it is somewhat annoying. Therefore, I say yes. Postpone the legal stuff. --RovingRoflguy 14:50, 1 August 2006 (AEST)


 * OK. It does seem to make more sense. I can't see much point in keeping the templates in place, due to the fact that when we do eventually relicense, everything will have changed. Hopefully we'll be able to do it better then. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 05:27, 2 August 2006 (CDT)


 * As discussed on IRC, yes I also agree with this. GarrettTalk 16:24, 2 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Done. The GFDL template is now depreciated.  ech elon  18:12, 2 August 2006 (CDT)


 * So now that its postponed, when is it going to be finalized, especially if echelon wants to release his gamespot/ign open media site by the time the tokyo game show gets here. Thats in about 2-3 months, right?--blendmaster 09:58, 3 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I think we can hold off the Open Media License for much, much longer. Our concern is with growing the wiki now. As for the website we're building, that should be done in time for the Tokyo Game Show. I'll try to give you all an early preview of it. :)  ech elon  14:34, 3 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, we probably shouldn't worry about it too much for now. As long as we have a general GNU license, we should be fine. EDIT: Never mind, I didn't notice it was already deprecated. --Antaios 15:42, 3 August 2006 (CDT)

Collaboration of the Month for August?
I have a few ideas for possible collaborations of the month, and I'm always open for more suggestions. Here are some of the things I have thoguht of:


 * We pick one or two guides and work on them almost exclusively until they are perfected. This will only add to the showcase of completed guides we can show off.
 * We work on all of our templates and categories, deciding what we may need down the road and implementing everything correctly in all guides. This would be an "organizational" collaboration project.
 * We promote StrategyWiki to get new contributors.

What would you guys suggest?  ech elon  15:03, 3 August 2006 (CDT)


 * The only problem I can think of is some people may have never played that certain game, so they could probably only fix grammatical errors, upload media, or do some general cleanup. The article may also be rushed if a small amount of people are working on it and trying to get it done on a certain date. I think a good project for us to do is to just clean up the Wiki by adding in all of the infoboxes, wikifying every page, expanding the system pages, adding in system infoboxes, and complete the series pages. I've expanded almost every Atari system article and have added in a load of infoboxes, and I know some series pages are already done. Those are just some of my thoughts for now. --Antaios 15:50, 3 August 2006 (CDT)
 * My opinion too. I think we should work out all orginizational stuff, and implement it in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which, by the way, is not entirely done. Then, if/when we get digged or slashdotted(again) for that guide, all the new contributors will know how to set up new guides and wikify old ones. So, actually kind of doing 1 and 2, but doing 2 first. --blendmaster 17:48, 5 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Out of experience, most new contributors will not get things right quickly, but that's something we'll have to live with. :-P --DrBob (Talk) 04:35, 6 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Out of curiosity, what are the games that some of you have played/enjoyed the most? I want to see if any of us have a certain game (or games) in common. We really do have to complete one or more final stage guides to serve as examples.  ech elon  20:13, 5 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Just look at my user page: Elite Force, Counter-Strike: Source, Raven Shield, and most other FPSs. --DrBob (Talk) 04:35, 6 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Ah, unfortunately I'm not a big PC gamer (yet). I just got an idea, though. Maybe when we get enough people, we can split up into "teams" such as "FPS Team" or "Platformer Team" or maybe even "Zelda Team". These would function as small groups of collaborative editors that are all working on a special project designated by the team. We could host information and meetings at SW:Teams and team-specific stuff at SW:Teams/FPS, etc. This will help each subset of gaming quickly organize and deploy edits in their respective fields, genres, and franchises. Thoughts?  ech elon  18:42, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I would lean towards the third option. We need more contributors, and I'm always of the opinion that cleanup should only ever be done by a small group of people who really know what they're doing. If we have a cleanup collaboration of the month, I can guarantee that people (with the best intentions, I'm sure) will get things wrong, and it will result in more work for the rest of us. :-( I would echo Antaios' concerns over the fact that only people who have played a game can really contribute to the guide. I've contributed to over 2000 pages on this wiki, but I've played only a very few games we cover. If we had a few games as collaborations of the month, only the people who were here and contributing to them already (really) would contribute, although the guides probably would get some more cleanup than usual. My vote goes firmly to promotion of the wiki as a whole. --DrBob (Talk) 04:58, 4 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Promoting StrategyWiki would be a sure way to help the wiki grow faster. We've done Digg before--twice--, but we have not yet tried Slashdot; I was hoping on saving it for when we're a bit bigger so that more people would be convinced to join our cause. We could go ahead with the Slashdot thing, though, if you guys think now is a good time for it. We've already been featured on Joystiq, Kotaku, etc, and I don't think they'd publish us again. Are there any other means that you might've considered?  ech elon  20:13, 5 August 2006 (CDT)


 * The only thing I can think of at the moment (apart from spamming other news sites :-P ) is to make sure we're linked to from a wide range of gaming-related sites, in prominent locations. Links are power. --DrBob (Talk) 04:35, 6 August 2006 (CDT)


 * If you're part of a forum, a good idea is to put a link to SW.org in your signature (make sure you make it catchy :-) ). Maybe a Wikipedia entry would help too, since I joined here from clicking on the MMX2 walkthrough link. Perhaps we should add SW walkthrough links to all of the Wikipedia video game articles (I know there's already a couple). --Antaios 09:49, 6 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I've got a plug in my sig at DSmeet now, and I'll move the SW links on the DSmeet homepage to a more prevalant location soon. In my upcoming, larger website project I can assure that StrategyWiki will be billed at a very integral level. I hope that will draw not only the kind of traffic we need, but also in larger quantities.  ech elon  01:57, 7 August 2006 (CDT)

How about a collaboration on guides which don't actually need expertise to edit? By this, I mean the huge mass of stubbed company and system categories we have; if we have a collaboration to expand them, all people need to be able to do is research, and it's not hard. It would significantly cut down on the number of stubs we have. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 05:42, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * This is an excellent, sensible first project. I'm on board!  ech elon  18:42, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree 100%. Wikipedia already has a wealth of information, so it should be rather simple. I've already done 5 Atari systems, but no companies yet. Having good company and system information will attract more people and make them think that SW.org is one of the best resources for gaming information. We should get started right away. --Antaios 20:44, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I've updated the main page with the new collaboration, then. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 07:08, 9 August 2006 (CDT)


 * How much information should the pages have? How much before you just put a link to the wikipedia page? Since we're a strategy wiki, and not a general game wiki, how much stuff should we have that aren't strategy guides, and their related templates? --blendmaster 17:14, 15 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Just a paragraph giving the main details of the company, and make sure it's got a company infobox. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 14:52, 16 August 2006 (CDT)

MySpace StrategyWiki page?
Believe me, I'm not a huge fan of MySpace, nor do I want to create an account there, but the site has almost 95 million users, which is extremely large. I was thinking that someone could create a MySpace StrategyWiki page to help promote us and see if people on there like the idea and want to contribute to the Wiki. Digg has a large userbase too, but MySpace is just gigantic. Perhaps we should try it out to see how it goes. What's everyone else's thoughts on this? --Antaios 16:09, 4 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't want to sound like a stereotyping biggotted fool, but do we really want the typical MySpace user around here? :-P --DrBob (Talk) 16:13, 4 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Hmm, perhaps you're right. Strange things do happen there (let's just leave it at that). Also, there's probably not a lot of gamers there (as most people go for the social aspect). --Antaios 19:25, 4 August 2006 (CDT)

Proposal for new image categories
Hello. I was just wondering if I could propose two new image categories. I've been categorizing the arcade control panels that I've uploaded for arcade games in to the "Controller buttons" category for lack of a better place. Can we perhaps create a "Control Panel" category that would be better suited for that sort of thing? The second proposal is very minor and is simply for consideration. We have a "screenshots" category. Would it be worthwhile to create a seperate category (or perhaps sub-category under screenshots) for title screens? Just curious, thanks very much. Procyon 18:58, 10 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I'd agree with the first one, and I'll go off and do it, but I don't think we need a separate category for title screens. Few guides have them, and I don't think the distinction would be useful. --DrBob (Talk) 05:06, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I've created Arcade controls. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 11:12, 11 August 2006 (CDT)

Strict Image Naming Conventions
The images in our system are becoming very mixed up, and since they're both numerous and a very integral part of the guide, we need to keep them more organized in addition to categorization. I propose picking a prefix for every single game and then all images uploaded would use the required prefix. As using the game's full name as a prefix would be tedius, I suggest using short common abbreviations: Ocarina of Time would be OoT_, Mario 64 would be M64_, Twilight Princess would be TP_ or ZTP_ etc. This would help us more quickly navigate to the images we need. Thoughts?  ech elon  00:43, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I remember discussing this before, and blendmaster is already going through all the images (good man!) adding categories and tagging the ones needing renaming with . Once my bot's back in action, I'll set it loose on them. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 05:07, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Ohh, that's pretty sweet! :D  ech elon  10:13, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Ya, I've been going through each image (except for the one's I'm positive there are already categories) and just adding a template to the one's that need to be renamed and categories to those that don't have them. Unfortunately there is no "next 500" option when scrolling through the list (unless I'm just mistaken and haven't noticed it) so I have to actually do searches for the higher letters.  In any case, I'm almost done but unless I finish today, I can't do the rest until I'm down in Florida starting probably Thursday.-- Duke  Ruckley  10:23, 11 August 2006 (CDT)

"Competition" to StrategyWiki
I just sumbled upon 1up's latest venture today. This is interesting as it allows collaborative editing by their users. I see absolutely no kind of license whatsoever, so I guess these users are licensing their contributions directly to 1up. I didn't register though, so I can't be certain.  ech elon  10:22, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Wow, it's not only for cheats it also has a "Superguide" that anybody can edit. Maybe now would be a good time to put on the main page that we were the first to do this :)  In any case, this will make competition tough because 1up already has a strong following.-- Duke  Ruckley  10:26, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * lol, they look a little too much like a Wiki. Eh, I wouldn't really worry about them too much. We have a strong community with a lot of things they don't have (control images, extra MediaWiki tools, company and system information, etc.). I still think we'll be one of the best resources for games once this site really blossoms. --Antaios 11:03, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * The term "bandwagon" comes to mind&hellip; --DrBob (Talk) 11:11, 11 August 2006 (CDT)

1Up may be popular, but their oppressive contributions policy will turn many off. Their laughably cripped attempt at a wiki engine won't even let me log in and has no diff support or recent changes list. While the actual content may seem impressive, much of it is just editable versions of their past static content.

They aren't the first, however; IGN Vault Wiki has been going for months. They wisely went with MediaWiki but only cover RPGs/MMOs, and seem to have only two or three active contributors--one of whom is the manager.

I don't think 1Up will ever be a threat unless they fix their wiki engine. GarrettTalk 18:29, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * It's interesting to read each of your different concerns about the so called competition. When I think of a typical 1up user, I don't think hardcore, dedicated, and intelligent.  I think of the average dim-witted consumer who's only interest is to consume information with little regard to contributing back anything more than "the 360 pwns the PS2."  Again, I said the typical 1Up user, I'm not trying to portray every user that goes to the site the same way (even I do, once in a while.)  And along those lines, I doubt most contributors even read the contribution policy, let alone care what it says.


 * Then there's the notion of what a typical contributor to the internet is like, and the common disdain for anything corporate in nature. Even if I saw 1up or IGN's wiki sites first, I would still prefer to come here where I feel that the well being of the site and it's contributors are considered by real people and not a company aiming for financial gain.  I am grossly over dramatizing the point, but you know what I mean.  My point is that I prefer and enjoy contributing to this site for the purpose that it stands for, and the quality of people I get to work with, you guys.  ^_^ Procyon 19:23, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * w00t! --DrBob (Talk) 04:18, 12 August 2006 (CDT)

Critique of Legend of Zelda
Hello everyone. As of tonight, I feel that I have added everything to the Legend of Zelda entry that I possibly can. There are two bits of help that I would like to ask for if anyone is interested. First, I would like to know what people's thoughts are of the layout and arrangement of the pages and topics. I'd like to know if anyone feels that improvements could be made to it, or if navigation could be made easier by providing a side table of contents. Second, would anyone feel competent enough to replace the ugly map of Hyrule I made for the overworld page with a better image that has an image map associated with it? I don't exactly know how to do that sort of thing, and I noticed some of you were playing around with that idea. Thanks very much in advance! Procyon 21:37, 11 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I've fixed a few issues, and there's only one problem which I can see remaining. You've named the pages somewhat oddly (e.g. Dungeon2), and this will need to be fixed. Once it's finished doing another job, I'll set my bot loose on it. --DrBob (Talk) 06:20, 12 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Done. --DrBob (Talk) 11:57, 12 August 2006 (CDT)

MapleStory Transwiki
I just got back from my vacation and I'm now going to try and get the MapleStory book transwikied. There are a few concerns I have before going ahead with this. I've put together a list of all the pages and images that are used by the book (though its out of date now). There are a lot of images in this (pictures of the enemies) and they are all very badly named, potentially causing collisions. Will it be possible to transwiki all the pictures automatically and rename/categorize them at the same time? Also, the MapleStory/Monsters page is quite large (90+ megs in the database including history I think, page is 83k) and is updated fairly often. Will this cause problems for the rest of strategywiki due to bandwidth issues? (It's the most edited pages on wikibooks). -- Prod 12:52, 13 August 2006 (CDT)


 * With reference to the images, I can't think of an easy way of transwikiing them off the top of my head, and if you want to rename and categorise them at the same time, it's going to have to be done manually. You can take your time over it. :-P It wouldn't be preferable to have to categorise them all later, due to the fact that we can't make a list of uncategorised images, and would thus lose them. The Monsters page is a monster. Whatever you do, it will have to be split up, and the history might have to go, but I'm not too knowledgeable in such matters. (Talk to Garrett, methinks.) I don't think we'd encounter any bandwidth issues, but it should be split up anyway, to make it at least somewhat sane to read. --DrBob (Talk) 13:03, 13 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah the history can't be imported (maximum is around 2 MB) so the history for that will have to be pasted onto the talk page. The rest shouldn't be much of a problem. Images could be transwikied automatically by Kernigh's bot, but since they have to be renamed I don't think it can handle them (unless it has a batch rename feature). I'll look into transwikiing the text portion sometime soon. GarrettTalk 21:06, 13 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Well, there 1500 revisions, so that will be some pasting :P. I'll need to go through the pages again since some pages have changed and new ones have popped up.  I'll put a note on Wikibooks Import List when its ready (hopefully soon).--Prod 07:26, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Right, sounds good. GarrettTalk 21:51, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * There are a few pages where the info was cut and pasted to another page. Those pages are now redirects.  Should they be transwikied as well, or just leave them where there are (where they will probably be deleted)? -- Prod 19:33, 17 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I can't see much point in transwikiing redirects, unless they're used really frequently. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 01:18, 18 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Hmm, guess I didn't say the part I had wanted to say (oops). I meant to say that some of those redirects have a fair bit of history behind them since the original content was cut and pasted elsewhere, and a redirect added manually.  I'll see if I can contact Kernigh about the images. -- Prod 22:11, 19 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Kernigh writes: Okay, I used my bot to download the 397 images (372 PNG, 15 JPEG, 10 GIF) from Wikibooks. They are now in a folder on my computer, along with a "files.txt" containing the image descriptions. (They are in maplestory.zip if anyone wants to look at them.) I believe that I can easily remove the extra  == Summary == ,  == Licensing == , and   tags and put everything in Category:MapleStory images. I want prod to send me some lines looking like this:


 * mv 0023423.png Whatever_the_new_name_is.png


 * I should be able to use these to rename the files (and replace the filenames in "files.txt") before I tell User:File Upload Bot (Kernigh) to upload them to StrategyWiki.


 * Also, 397 images is a lot, so should the bot receive a "bot" flag? --Kernigh 23:27, 20 August 2006 (CDT)
 * W00t, thanks :D. I'll try to upload the file somwhere around here in the next 24 hours, though I can't make any promises as I'd like to make a good naming scheme so I dont have to re-upload the pictures later, probably something like 'MapleStory Monster MonsterName.xxx' for the monsters.  -- Prod 00:01, 21 August 2006 (CDT)


 * It might be a bit late for this, but I'd just use initials for the repetitive parts of filenames, such as "MS" instead of "MapleStory". It'll save a lot of typing. --DrBob (Talk) 03:26, 26 August 2006 (CDT)

Images are being transwikid as we speak (Thank Kernigh!). I think the import list is ready for transwikiing (so many strange words >.>). If there is anything you need from me, leave a message on my talk page. (This is so exciting ^_^). -- Prod 19:53, 25 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Could you please go through all the images in the MapleStory images category once they're uploaded, and categorise them accordingly? You can find information in the policy. --DrBob (Talk) 03:26, 26 August 2006 (CDT)

First Person in Guides
I've noticed that some guides or parts of guides use the first person ("I"), which doesn't make much sense when there is no single author. For an example, see Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Missions/In the beginning ("I will describe a route ..."). The "In my personal experience" bit of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Missions/Burglar doesn't seem to fit, either. I think parts like these should be rewritten to avoid the first person or removed. Is there any precedent for this kind of thing in other guides? DrV 13:48, 16 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, that's bad. Just rewrite it where you see it, or if you don't have time, simply tag it with, and the elite crack team of cleanup personnel will deal with it. ;-) --DrBob (Talk) 14:50, 16 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Cool, I've fixed the first one, but I'm not sure what to do with Burglar - the whole "Unlimited TV's" section is not really all that useful. In my personal experience (with the PC version), it's quite possible to finish the mission in one night without taking advantage of any "glitch", so I say it should just be removed... DrV 15:50, 16 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I've taken a stab at cleaning it up. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 03:58, 17 August 2006 (CDT)

Proposal for italicizing game names
I've been a registered user here for only a few days, but I already have a proposal to make. After italicizing game names on the Valve Software page, DrBob left me a friendly message on my talk page about it not being a policy and that it's unnecessary. I, however, want to propose this as an entry in the style guide. DrBob will oppose this, as he said on my talk page: "I'll be against it, because it takes effort to get right (and apply it everywhere), and - to my mind at least - it's distracting and somewhat frivolous: people'll know the game titles, and won't need them brought to their attention". --Szajd 08:29, 18 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I think it's distracting too, but I wouldn't be totally against it if lots of other people think it's a good idea. :) --DrV 09:44, 18 August 2006 (CDT)


 * If we're going to go round italicising game names, why not just link them as a guide title? That could at least be useful on an interactive level, whereas italicising is a purely aesthetic decision. Personally, I don't really see the point in making sure every game title is italicised on the Wiki; it doesn't really add much to the overall usefulness of the service we're providing. --aniki21 09:47, 18 August 2006 (CDT)


 * It's more of a Wikipedia hangover than anything else. While I'm used to seeing and using italics because of Wikipedia, when it comes down to it I really don't care either way. And, yes, game names should be linked at every opportunity. GarrettTalk 17:15, 18 August 2006 (CDT)


 * If there is a game name, link to it's guide. Every opportunity should in fact be every time a game is used, even if we won't have the guide for a while, the red link encourages it being made.  Italics aren't necessary in the sense.  While Wikipedia wouldn't deem every game or thing with a title within it's scope and therefore only italicize it, here everygame is within our scope and therefore should be linked always. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 23:09, 23 August 2006 (CDT)

Most Promising Guide
Since the Guide of the Month has been a red link for the past month or so, why don't we change it to the idea proposed in the thread up at the top? A most promising guide would be a guide that has the underlying structure laid out and enough content in it to give examples on how to write new pages, but enough red links to not be considered a guide. I think its better then guide of the month because we hardly have any completed guides that aren't just transwikied. It'd be like collaboration of the month, except a bit more specific. This can be the temporary replacement for Guide of the Month until we actually get some completed guides. --blendmaster 10:12, 18 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree, especially because we shouldn't have any red links on the front page. Looks bad.-- Duke  Ruckley  11:12, 18 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Done! Great suggestion! :)  ech elon  00:40, 24 August 2006 (CDT)

Standard back and forward links
Another idea: Since we have a standard All Game Nav, we should make standard back and forward links at the bottom of pages. This was talked about, but was archived with the rest of the All Game Nav discussion. DrBob and I worked on a mockup here but nothing else was done on it. I used a version of it on the EarthBound pages, at the bottom of all the Walkthrough pages. It has a back, here, forward, guide home link and a popdown (like the table of contents) to a list of all the pages within the walkthrough part. I think this (minus the table layout and earthbound images) should become standard on multipage guides.

Another thing that should be standardized are links on the main pages of guides to the beginning of the "getting started" section and the beginning of the walkthrough. Again, like EarthBound. If you look at The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time page, there really is no indicator that there's anything to continue to, unless you show the table of contents, which is tucked up at the top. --blendmaster 10:33, 18 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I like this. The problem with making a unvirsal template to do this is that some pages have multiple origins/destinations, although that could be resolved by including freeform parameters like All Game Nav already has. This could also be implemented into All Game Nav itself; it could be quite useful to go navigate fro the top of a page without re-opening the TOC. GarrettTalk 00:04, 19 August 2006 (CDT)

How about this? This allows almost anything, and pretty much is just like what you'd already developed. The far left and right parts are optional like All Game Nav's. GarrettTalk 21:39, 19 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Where on the page would this be displayed? At the bottom? If that's the case, should the rounded corners be flipped?  ech elon  23:19, 19 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Yes, at the bottom. You can see it in situe on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Controls. I still intend to reinstate the walkthrough start link, but at the moment I can't get it to include without displacing the rest of the nav from its centered position. I'm also not sure about the naming of the mini-TOC subpage, but that's less of an issue. GarrettTalk 00:30, 20 August 2006 (CDT)

I'm not sure the mini-TOC is needed on the less structured non-walkthrough pages; it would be easy to include another Qif parameter to make the entire unfolding function disappear and it be visual-only. Or is this too fiddly? GarrettTalk 00:40, 20 August 2006 (CDT)

Table of contents on the main guide page
Another thing on the EarthBound and Oblivion guides, is a non hidden table on contents, below the forward links, linked using the method. This gives another way of continuing through the guide. Although this could also be rectified by having the All Game Nav expanded by default on the main page, this would push everything else down the page, and in my opinion, looks worse. --blendmaster 10:33, 18 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Hm, I like that, yes. The problem is that infoboxes put the TOC unnecessarily far down when compared to how long the intro blurb usually is--but if the TOC is allowed to wrap around the infobox its layout goes awry. Hm. GarrettTalk 00:04, 19 August 2006 (CDT)
 * This is caused by the fact that almost all table of contents(even legend of zelda), are 100% width tables with 33% width columns. So whenever you put them in without the template, they will go under the infobox, with the text overlapping it. Maybe if you put the table of contents in an enclosing div that isn't 100% width, the table of contents table will 100% within the div, not the entire page. But I'm sure DrBob will have a better solution than this. :) --blendmaster 10:23, 19 August 2006 (CDT)


 * This has been on my todo list for a while. I don't think the unfolding section is necessary: we're going for a simple linear navigation system here, and if people want to go somewhere other than the next section of the walkthrough, they should scroll up to the nav at the top. I'll take a look at the Footer Nav template you've created. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 10:34, 25 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm sure it's a disappointment, but my suggested solution is to not duplicate the TOC on the front page. It's easy enough to access through the all game nav anyway. :-P --DrBob (Talk) 10:38, 25 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Well then, there should be at least some better indication that there's more to the guide than just an info page. Basically a specialized footer nav template for the main page. --blendmaster 17:25, 25 August 2006 (CDT)


 * You shouldn't ever have the main navigation at the bottom of a page. It's suicide. I think what would be best is if we made the TOC expand link more visible, and more easily noticeable. --DrBob (Talk) 03:22, 26 August 2006 (CDT)


 * In general, I agree with DrBob. The top of the page should always accomodate main navigation and the bottom of the page should have only a few links. Links on the bottom should be limited to next/previous page, jump to page top, and maybe a link to the main guide page. (In fact, this is what I think we should implement.) Relatively few websites have crowded footers; the only examples I can think of are IGN and Gamespot, and they do that only because they're trying to SEO those pages. Anyhow, I'm sure there's a good solution we can all agree on. :P  ech elon  04:43, 26 August 2006 (CDT)

Too much like Wikipedia?
I'm wondering if we're taking too much of a Wikipedia route with these infoboxes and writeups. They have nothing to do with the actual guide content, which is what people are here for. As described above, they take up valuable screen space that could be better used by an always-visible TOC.

Personally, I'd like main pages to have a brief blurb with a Wikipedia sidebox, directly followed by a permanently visible TOC. Infoboxes look nice and all, but really don't help those wanting to get straight to guide content. Those who want encyclopedic info or metadata about a game can visit its Wikipedia entry. GarrettTalk 00:13, 19 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Erm...that's basically what we've already got? --DrBob (Talk) 10:40, 25 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I happen to agree with you, but for an entirely different reason. It's not that having this information at StrategyWiki is redundant--it's not--and it can be useful at times when distinguishing between versions comes in to play. The problem I have with the design of our main guide pages is that they are too confusing. For the newcomer, it may be difficult to tell that StrategyWiki is a place for game guides, when it appears at the superficial level that we are a repository for game info.


 * Our main pages should serve as an introduction to their respective guides, and that varies from game to game as all games have different elements and considerations. In supplement to the walkthrough itself, some guides may have full bestiaries and item lists, others may have time trial strategies for those who participate in speed runs. Our main pages should make it easy to find this key information quickly (though I don't think we should clutter main pages with a full table of contents--we have the top navigation and table of contents pages for that purpose). What do you guys think about this? Also, if you happen to agree with Garrett and I, we should perhaps collaborate on a sample introduction page.  ech elon  13:46, 19 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I can't see what you're getting at here Echelon. You haven't actually posted any suggestions, and I can't see any real improvements which could be made to our current accepted front page style. --DrBob (Talk) 10:40, 25 August 2006 (CDT)

Adding categories for game completition levels?
In addition to the guide completion level indicators shown on guide main pages, I think we should have the All_Game_Nav categorize them as well based on their completion level. Would doing this would require some sort of Qif template hack, or is there an easier method? I'm not sure how to do this yet, so I'm wondering if one of you could point me in the right direction.  ech elon  23:22, 19 August 2006 (CDT)
 * The easiest would be to detect num=, but that would mean it would have to be "Pages at completion stage 1" or similar. I don't think Qif can do this, at least not from my brief test. You probably need to install ParserFunctions. GarrettTalk 00:12, 20 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Could we just add the Completeness category to whichever template is pulling the completeness image in? --aniki21 05:53, 21 August 2006 (CDT)
 * No, All Game Nav is the one calling upon percentage images, and doing so directly. Now if the images were instead called from Template:0001 (and so forth) then, yes, each could have a category already attached. That's probably the best way to do it, actually. GarrettTalk 06:05, 21 August 2006 (CDT)


 * But there's a better way. Just put another qif statement at the bottom of the template, that tests if num is defined, (ust like the other qif for num), and if it is, it puts the code which would put it in the right completion level category. And if everyyone doesn't mind, I actually already did this to Template:All Game Nav. Now we just need to tell people to put the num= variable as the page completion not the guide completion. --blendmaster 22:40, 21 August 2006 (CDT)


 * So I see. However I don't think marking individual pages is all that useful, wip and stub already serve this purpose fairly well; a page that’s 0-25% done is usually a stub, and one that's 25-75% is of course wip. Plus, hardly any pages are tagged like this yet and the rest wouldn't be for a long time to come, further reducing its usefulness. I think what echelon had in mind was an easy way of showing readers finished (or nearly finished) guides at a glance, rather than serving a maintenance purpose. GarrettTalk 03:59, 22 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Well, if you are categorizing by the P anyway, and you want it as guide completion, then you should only use it for the All Game Nav on the main page of the guide and omit it in all other All Game Navs in the guide. Otherwise, they will be categorized. A workaround for this would be to put the category in All Game Nav inside yet another qif, which tests for a variable like categorize, so if you don't wan't the page categorized but still want to show the P image, you have to put categorize=no or something like that. --blendmaster 12:28, 22 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, if someone wouldn't mind fixing it so that All Game Nav only shows progress on the guide itself, that would be good. (I'd do it myself, but my available time has been decreased substantially--see my user page.) I see no usefulness in categorizing on a page-by-page basis, unfortunately.  ech elon  00:54, 24 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm not sure if it's possible, but I'm looking into it. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:23, 24 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I'm almost completly certain that pages that are subpages can only be differentiated using parser functions and the #ifeq function:

Until then we can't tell if a page is a subpage or a base page because returns the same as  if the page isn't a subpage (ex: on Help, SUBPAGENAME returns Help and BASEPAGENAME returns Help). If the page IS a subpage then returns the subpagename and  returns the base page name (ex: on Help/subpage, SUBPAGENAME returns subpage and BASEPAGENAME returns Help). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 19:59, 24 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Also, think about the .hack games and what will happen to subpages on them.  ech elon  12:46, 25 August 2006 (CDT)

YouTube plugin
I've found that there are TONS of good videos on [www.youtube.com youtube], and a lot of sites have them "embedded" in the page, so you just click it and it plays where it is. This way we could include videos in guides, and you wouldn't have to worry about the bandwidth issues (youtube has like 200 TB/day or something). Although we can still provide links to youtube, which is nice, the inline videos would be much cooler :P. No idea how hard this would be, just a suggestion. -- Prod 21:15, 24 August 2006 (CDT)
 * This has been disscussed before, and echelon didn't like the idea of using a proprietary FLV video player like youtube or google video on strategy wiki, because it would break our total use of open source software(i can't think of a better phrase to describe this). I did find a open source FLV player, flowplayer, but we'd need our own hosting for our videos with it. It would be cool to eventually have, but I think we should focus on getting the structure of the guides up before we add video walkthroughs. --blendmaster 21:29, 24 August 2006 (CDT)
 * From what I can understand you saying, is that you dont want to host your own videos and run your own software (i use the term "your own" loosly). I meant something like embedding it. From what I can tell, google hosts the video and you just link to it. -- Prod 22:15, 24 August 2006 (CDT)
 * It's the opposite; echelon wants to provide his own equivalent service rather than outsourcing. You can read the original discussion right here. GarrettTalk 03:20, 25 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Without looking into the copyright/licensing problems with embedding them rather than linking to them (I'm not sure if there are any, but there might be), we are looking into adding video and panoramic view stuff later on, with an OSS player. Just forget about it for now, and keep linking to the videos externally. ;-) --DrBob (Talk) 10:44, 25 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Heh, cant wait :D. -- Prod 21:18, 25 August 2006 (CDT)