StrategyWiki:Staff lounge

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Welcome to all users! This page is where you can ask StrategyWiki-related questions to the staff and senior community figures, and they will do their best to answer. If you want to raise a topic for discussion (rather than just ask about it), please use the community issues forum instead. New issues are entered here, with the most recent at the bottom of the page. If your question does not pertain to editing StrategyWiki (e.g. asking for hints or game-specific information), please ask on the guide's talk page or on the forums.

Please review the Table of Contents to see if your issue has already been raised; also check the archives (to the right) in case it was discussed some time ago.

To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please:
 * 1) Place your question at the bottom of the list.
 * 2) Title the question (by placing the title between equals signs: ==Title==).
 * 3) Sign your name and date (by adding four tildes: ~ ).

Address verification email was never received
I signed up the other day, but I never received the email to verify my address. Is that working properly? I've tried resending it twice now, but no luck. What gives? Can an admin check it out? --JimTheta (talk) 22:28, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I've double-checked my email address; it's correct.
 * No, it's not in my spam folder.
 * My email is Gmail-hosted, so I'm sure it's not getting wrongly rejected.
 * Please check now. -- Prod (talk) 14:27, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I got mails from all 3 of my attempts now. Looks like you solved it for me.  Hopefully the problem is solved site-wide.  Thanks. --JimTheta (talk) 15:45, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Yea, the mail sending process had stopped. I started it back up and it processed everything that was pending.  Thanks for the heads up! -- Prod (talk) 15:47, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Prod, ever considered setting up a Cron to manually reboot services that get stuck like this? Some time in the early morning is probably safest. -- 22:40, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Cron is the one having problems :). Got something in the works that should handle all of this. -- Prod (talk) 00:54, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

wlnote2
Does anyone see &lt;wlnote2> when viewing the watchlist? It seems to be replacing what should say "Below are the last $1 changes in the last $2 hours..." and there's no indication that wlnote2 would still be in use in the latest Mediawiki version. --Sigma 7 (talk) 05:54, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I see it too, and I see the code that generates that line is there in the source. I'll probably just leave this until we upgrade to the next version, when I hope it should get fixed. I'll make note to verify it though, thanks for the report! -- Prod (talk) 02:53, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Missing items in page
--Zeldafan915 (talk) 22:12, 29 December 2014 (UTC) Hi, I am writing the Skylanders Swap Force guide. When I finished the table of contents, the main page seemed to disappear. The only thing that seemed to remain was the stub and main nav template. Could this be because I am using a tablet? Please help me here.
 * Things seem to have gotten a bit crazy with the col tags on the ToC. I've cleaned it up a bit so please take a look. -- Prod (talk) 23:20, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

User:Cornwallismorgan87
Anyone have any idea how to get through to this guy without him throwing a fit? I tried and admittedly failed miserably, and now is taking a crack at it, but it's not sinking in. Do we just let him make a mess and clean it up (as he so politely invites us to do on his user page), or do we stay firm on our requests? Suggestions?  Pro cyon  03:20, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it really is a shame. He'd be such a good contributor if only he just listened! >.< I really don't know how to handle someone like this. It looks like anything we say will either be ignored or ranted about, and I have a feeling warnings would be no exception, so I'm at a loss. -- Wario Talk 04:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Usually these types of contributors are short lived. They only do work here until we push them so far (e.g. CarlCSR and the Command & Conquer Generals debacle). Just let him dump information for a while (it helps us, even if it takes me a long time to get to the cleanup). If an admin gets annoyed by him (e.g. Procyon, Wario, or I), I'm sure we will support their decision to ban. -- 17:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I say just leave him be. It's just one guide, so it won't cause too much disarray. By the way, is there any mediawiki features that let us merge, compress or remove edit histories? It could reduce some extra data. T.testLP(talk) 11:31, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Xbox One button
Can someone upload the menu and view buttons on the Xbox One please? Zeldafan915 (talk) 04:34, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Multi-series infobox parameter
I proposed this, or added it to the infobox a while back but it got reverted. Proc/Prod, dual-series cross-over games like Street Fighter X Tekken, Tekken X Street Fighter, Hyrule Warriors are more and more common. I would like a 'series2' parameter added so that the infobox will nicely display both series, and the category will be automatically added to the page. -- 17:56, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would be in support of this, I think it's a good idea. Yes, it would only apply to a small handful of games, but how could it hurt us to include it?   Pro  cyon  18:20, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Count me in favour of this as well. -- 18:35, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Added. We could remove the "and" line. What do you think? Should there be a comma after the first one? Some back story: I think Prod reverted my change in January due to an aesthetic change I added at the same time (Japanese title underneath English title, above infobox; not something I care about, but thought was cool, so I don't even want to propose it anymore). -- 01:56, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Perfect! Just what we needed. :) -- Wario Talk 06:42, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Non-section jumplink skin bug
What the section name says. Using the current skin (Dolphin), a normal section jumplink works properly (click the "First Job" section link from the Maple Story/Warrior/Skills page - the first thing you should see is the words "First Job" on the top-left article page). However, if you click a non-section jumplink like say the "Slash Blast" sprite image link, instead of seeing the accompanied sprite image with the words "Slash Blast", the first thing you will see is the words "Warrior Mastery" with a different image before the skill name. Adding insult into injury, before the words "Warrior Mastery" is a table named "Slash Blast level data" behind the fading part of the UI at the very top. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before when I encountered it some time ago; can someone please fix this? --RAP (talk) 04:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yea, it's a really hard bug to fix. Browsers don't seem to like the header at the top and won't properly scroll it slightly higher.  If someone can suggest a proper solution, I'd be glad to implement it. -- Prod (talk) 07:25, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * What makes other skins tick in jumplinking non-section parts of the article? Simply because there's no moving UI when scrolling up and down? What makes non-section jumplinks special from normal section jumplinks? You couldn't just add a custom width pixel size to make sure it is shown properly? It saddens me since the non-section jumplinks I implemented a few articles (with User:PirateIzzy basing this use off from my initial design for several MapleStory skills articles) are rendered useless. Would the soft fallback solution be to make the moving UI at the bottom of the screen in the page? --RAP (talk) 09:47, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, RAP, this is an issue. Probably the only issue I have left with Dolphin. However, it has nothing to do with linking to an ID on a page. It has to do with the CSS that codes the page links and the stylized fade at the top of the content section (bottom right quadrant) of any page you are viewing. The faded white gradient is just below the links like 'Edit' and 'History', and these buttons are what is covering up the text you linked to. Your browser is going to the correct location, but Dolphin is basically putting an image over the top of what you want to see. I will play around with the code to see if I can come up with a solution. -- 06:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I found a solution. However, I cannot add it yet. This is what we could add code to the shared CSS: However, although it will fix the linked content correctly, it will add a 65px margin of whitespace at the top of every page. Although it doesn't break the skin, it is obviously a waste of whitespace. Prod, it looks like the page dynamically changes when we scroll down. E.g. while looking at the CSS, if I scroll one mouse-wheel down I see the logo disappear, and then one more scroll wheel down I see div#content-nav-container gain the 'fixed' class. Basically what we need is my code to be dynamically added once the readers scroll down to the same point where that fixed class gets added (or, preferably, one scroll further). I am unfamiliar with how this type of behavior is coded. I see some references online to jquery, I'm sure it could be done in Javascript or maybe PHP. I am searching through the publicly viewable code for hints, but haven't found it yet. -- 18:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Viruses
My antivirus (Avast) is going insane with the site at the moment. So far it's blocked these for apparently being malware (it doesn't want to give me any more details than that):
 * Every image on the site
 * Main.css (so the skin doesn't show up)

These are *probably* false positives (last I checked CSS files can't be executed without changing them to EXEs or whatever), but I thought it was better to mention them anyway.

I'll run a full virus scan on my computer anyway, in case there's something on my end, and report back if anything does show up. -- 09:40, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * All the images and skin related css is hosted from the wikimg domain, so it might be having an issue with that server. Maybe it doesn't like the fact that the IP address behind it changed? -- Prod (talk) 21:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This is happening to me as well, so it's probably a server-side problem. Or maybe it's just Avast overreacting? T.testLP(talk) 10:00, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Still happening. Full scan found nothing. Trying to go directly to wikimg.net just results in the connection being blocked, so there's something about that server it doesn't like (not sure what though). -- 13:39, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Avast must have blacklisted them for some reason. Try opening a thread on their forum. They appreciate reports like these. -- 06:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, it was a false positive. Went to their support forums; they've unblocked it, and all is well again. -- 20:27, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for following up on this and getting it cleared up! -- Prod (talk) 05:51, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Partnerships with other Wikis - how to go about?
I think it would be beneficial to have a partnership with Wookieepedia, even though they are on Wikia. I was looking at this diff and thinking about how many Star Wars games there are, with so much minor lore. Should I say hi to an administrator and see if this is something they would like to do? And if so, what would we ask of them in return? Maybe it's fine to link to them without a partnership? I know we want to exclude external links as much as possible, but on the other hand I know we don't want this much data, like our setup with Bulbapedia. Maybe just set up a template for them without them linking back to us? Does Bulbapedia ever link to us? -- 00:19, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * With BP, each pokemon has a fair bit of detail and is fairly important to the game. I'm not sure how true that is for every character in the Star Wars universe.  I don't think it's that beneficial to have that kind of extensive linking within a page (irrespective of partnership).
 * I do think that a partnership with them may be good, possibly better than the one with Bulbapedia. There's a whole universe of Star Wars, completely outside the gaming world, which will never be within our scope.  Although they're wikia, they're still probably the best resource for this info.
 * I'd say go ahead and ask them if they'd be interested. Most of our partnerships involve the other site linking to our game pages from their pages about the game.  We can link back to them in a similar way, or perhaps with an "external links" section at the bottom of certain pages (for example a page about the various planets).  All depends on what would be most useful for the reader.
 * -- Prod (talk) 06:00, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

File uploads are disabled?
I've used Special:Upload in the past to upload screenshots, and I would like to add some more. But now there is a message "File uploads are disabled." The last successful upload I can find is dated Jan 7 2015. Are there plans to get this feature back up and running? A more detailed message on the uploads page would be helpful.
 * We had a harddrive failure recently, so before re-enabling uploads, We have to validate the files against our backups to make sure nothing got corrupted. We'll have them enabled again in the next few days. Sorry about the inconvenience. -- Prod (talk) 06:02, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Beyond my knowledge
I was working on this page:

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Warcraft_III:_Reign_of_Chaos/Night_Elf_strategies

and I noticed that there were a bunch of claims that are factually incorrect. For example, Archer + Hippogryph -> Hippogryph Rider is irreversible, Priests are a powerful defensive unit in any situation, Wardens do not exist until the expansion. However, I don't know enough about the game to evaluate the overall strategies and am unable to say whether they still work, or don't work at all. I made some notes for now, but am unable to proceed. Suggestions?VictorInThePacific (talk) 05:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)


 * This is the nature of working on collaborative projects like a wiki. You have to make a decision on what you think is the best way to approach the problem.  Some things I do in this situation are:


 * 1) Play the game and try the suggestion to determine how factual it is and either ammend, remove, or improve upon it based on my findings,
 * 2) Contact the original author who wrote the strategy in the first place to get clarification.  Of course that's only useful if the author is still active and responding to comments,
 * 3) Conduct online research through Google or other video game information sites to see if you can find anything to backup or support the claims made on the page.
 * 4) Go to a forum that contains other experts on a game, reference the page in question, and ask them for their thoughts on the content.
 * As the current primary author of the guide, you are the resident WC3 expert, unless there are any other expert players on the site that we're not aware of. When you're uncertain whether to remove or update content on a page, the best fall-back plan is to raise the topic for discussion on the talk page, and simply wait to see if anyone responds.  The chances that they will are somewhat low, but it never hurts to try. Ultimately, if you are not knowledgeable on a subject, it is best to leave the content alone.   Pro  cyon  15:23, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Tally-ho!VictorInThePacific (talk) 03:25, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Can I get some help uploading images, please? I have tried to follow the instructions, and I have to say that the existing instructions are written for experts, but not for beginners. Anyway, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the instructions, and when I finally thought I had figured them out and attempted to upload an image, I got the following error message: Error creating thumbnail: Invalid thumbnail parameters Now, I am not sure whether the image did get uploaded or not. It really isn't clear, and the uploading instructions don't mention thumbnails. Also, how can I see whether my image got uploaded without scrolling through hundreds of pages and thousands of files? The image is a drawing I made (War3RoC Sylvanas-base.png). ThanksVictorInThePacific (talk) 04:15, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems you did it right, but the server is having some trouble with it. I'll have to look into it. It could be because the image is too large, so would it be possible to upload a smaller size (this one is 4000x4000)? -- Prod (talk) 04:42, 13 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Please scale screenshots to something like ~1280x1024 - that is a typical War3 resolution and will be nice on the server. I recommend PNG files, and then upload them to tinypng.com, then re-download them and their file size will be smaller. And for the record I am a long-time Blizzard player (from the old SNES games, Warcraft 1-3 + TFT, WoW, Stacraft 1 & 2 + expansions, Diablo 1-3 + expansions). I've beaten the War3 campaign fully once, and I was working on the first part of the human campaign's guide here last time I picked it up. My favorite thing on war3 was the custom games, so I'm not pro at versus, but I understand the strategies enough to help you. -- 00:55, 14 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's what I do.:

-- 00:55, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) First, I save the screenshot as a PNG. If it is too big, use a program like GIMP or Picassa to resize it.
 * 2) Upload it to tinypng to optimize it/lower the file size. Download the new file (if necessary, change the new file name to something like oldFileName_small.png)
 * 3) Go to http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Special:Upload
 * 4) Select Source: filename (the first circle button, it may already be selected).
 * 5) Click 'Choose File', in the pop-up find your file, then click Open. The upload page will now show the path/filename and maybe a thumbnail on the right.
 * 6) The destination filename should be something clear like 'War3RoC LevelName Map.png' (the name 'War3RoC Sylvanas-base.png' was fine, good job).
 * 7) In the summary, just put a link to the game, like Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and say it is a screenshot, then put the two necessary categories: and  . If it is a map, it is probably not a screenshot and viceaversa (unless it is a screenshot of an in-game map). Like-wise, the diagrams and maps categories are supposed to be exclusive from one another, but it's no big deal - pick the one you like.
 * 8) Click "Ignore any warnings" checkbox.
 * 9) Click "Upload file"
 * 10) If you lose track of your edits, please review your list of contributions, here (you can find the link to your contributions at the top right of StrategyWiki, on any page, if you are logged in): http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/VictorInThePacific

Again, thanks for the information, although it will take me some time to process it. I will be continuing this discussion, but for now, just 2 points: VictorInThePacific (talk) 04:13, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I know nothing at all about pvp play beyond what I have read, and I will never have any personal experience at that. Accordingly, you probably know a lot more than me about it, so would you mind having a look at the pvp strategy sections. For one thing, it seems to me that all of them are based on things that did not exist before TFT, and so would be more appropriate to be placed there. Or not, because most W3 players today probably use the expansion. I expect that this is probably a low priority.
 * I feel that there would be some value in having beginner's instructions for images. What do you think?

Worked like a charm. Thanks again. Now, how do you you feel about modifying the image upload instructions to include a section that would allow a trained monkey such as myself to do it right the first time? I would be prepared to work on that. Also, would it be possible to change the process to tell the monkey after the attempted upload either or something like that? :) VictorInThePacific (talk) 04:04, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Amazing! You actually did it right. Beginner's luck!, or
 * Epic Fail! Can't you do anything right?