StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal/2006/November

&larr; October 2006 | November 2006 | December 2006 &rarr;

ABXY interlinking
How much inter-linking is there going to be between ABXY and StrategyWiki? -- Prod (Talk) 13:38, 1 November 2006 (CST)
 * Each game will link to its article on StrategyWiki, and each article (etc.) which refers to a game will do so by association, afaik. --DrBob (Talk) 16:09, 1 November 2006 (CST)
 * Will there be links to discussion forums for each game? -- Prod (Talk) 00:03, 21 November 2006 (CST)
 * There definitely can be. I will try to program much more of this kind of thing during our Thanksgiving break.  ech elon  00:06, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Posters
I noticed on the main page the suggestion about putting up fliers and posters. Anyone have any good designs? (B/W and color). There are a few small video game stores nearby that might be willing to put up a poster. Perhaps a contest or something? -- Prod (Talk) 11:04, 7 November 2006 (CST)


 * My design is still a work in progress. When I've perfected it, I'll post it here. I've been trying to post fliers all over my campus...  ech elon  09:46, 8 November 2006 (CST)

Zelda Partnership
I feel that a zelda partnership with the HYlia .com would be good becasue they have a bountiful amount of information!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mageman (talk • contribs) 14:30, 9 November 2006 (CDT).
 * Well, for one thing, Hylia.com isn't a wiki, which doesn't exclude them from consideration for partnership, but it certainly doesn't help. For another thing, it doesn't look like they've updated their site since 2004, so it's not clear that it's an active site.  If they have information that would be pertinent to our Legend of Zelda pages, by all means, lets use it and credit them where appropriate, but it's not clear to me how either of site would benefit from a partnership.  Procyon 15:15, 9 November 2006 (CST)
 * Were you meaning hylia.com or THEhylia.com? Either way, I'm not sure what sort of information would be exchanged as it would not have been contributed under a copyleft license. Actually, I've been looking at ZeldaWiki recently; they're GFDL and have only a couple of walkthrough pages at present, so unless they specifically want walkthroughs to be hosted on their wiki linking to ours would be a no-brainer. Since it no longer belongs to any one Zelda site we could get a lot of contributors that way. I'm feeling rather drained after this morning's exam, so if someone wants to beat me to it go right ahead. :) GarrettTalk 18:17, 9 November 2006 (CST)
 * I agree with Garrett, ZeldaWiki is a much better candidate for a partnership. But Garrett, it looks like you already have an in there, so you're probably the best person to propose the partnership.  When I tried with Bulbapedia, it kind of fizzled out because I didn't follow through in a timely fashion, and they just didn't seem to care all that much anyway.  Sure we link to them now, but it's a pretty one sided partnership.  At present I don't think they link to us at all (although I could be wrong.  I'll go check.) Procyon 19:16, 9 November 2006 (CST)

Sidescrolling map size limits
Hello. I've been considering moving on to some of the popular older side scrolling games like Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man. I think that given the power we have here, illustrated maps would be a good thing to provide, but the nature of side scroller maps don't lend themselves well to browsers. The best thing I can think to do is to cut the map up in to parts and present it like so:

description of strip 1

description of strip 2

and so on... So my big question to all of you is: what should the horizontal limit of the width be? 400px? 600px? It's an odd question because regardless of what resolution desktops people have, be it 1024x768 or 1600x1200 or anything, we have to come up with some size where we say, "this is a reasonable size that everyone can see fairly well, regardless of resolution." Personally, I'm considering 600px because in the worst case, if a user runs an 800x600 desktop, and they maximize the browser, shouldn't they still have 600px for the center of StrategyWiki where the guides appear? What are your thoughts on this? Procyon 11:18, 10 November 2006 (CST)

Update: I created a test page for Super Mario Bros. which you can view here. Each of the maps except for the remainder of the level is 600px long (the images of the maps have been reduced by 50%.) While making it, I also wondered if I should put all of World 1 on one page, or make four seperate pages for World 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4. Procyon 11:31, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * I like the idea of separating the image, and I don't think it will become too problematic. Another possible solution is to implement inline scrollbars that allow the user to scroll along the image--we might want to make a template to do that. As for the limit, 600px looks fine here. Only really small browser resolutions would have trouble, and we can implement a javascript function to dynamically resize images that are too big for any given resolution. (We do that at ABXY/DSmeet.)  ech elon  13:56, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * As echelon says, it might be a good idea to have a template which adds a scrollbar, although I can't foresee any major problems with tiny screen resolutions (almost nobody uses them these days, and even if they do, the main site will be broken enough to make a broken image pale in comparison). If you want to upload a full-width image Procyon, leave me a message on my talk page and I'll slap a scrollbar template together for testing. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 14:12, 10 November 2006 (CST)
 * I like the advantages of both ideas. The scrollbar lets you easily see the whole level the way it's played, but the chunk method lets you see tips at a glance. Another possibility would be annotating the map with some sort of universal "tip" icon and use an imagemap to make a Javascript tooltip to pop up when you mouse over it. GarrettTalk 14:27, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * Wow, I didn't even realize that the scrollbar solution was a possibility. While I like the idea of that from a technological standpoint (it just seems cool), it has some limitations.  As Garrett mentioned, it would make providing tips and strategies for a particular point in a map difficult to do without annotating the map somehow.  Then in order for a reader to understand what the tip is trying to say, s/he would have to scroll to the spot on the map that the tip applied to, if it's not already in view.  Another potential problem is for people who browse the web with tools other than a mouse (e.g. a PSP) who might have difficulty scrolling an image, although I'm certain there are ways to get around that problem.  When I think about how Nintendo Power and other magazines detailed side scrolling games, they broke the maps up in a similar fashion to how I did the SMB test.  Dr. Bob, you can experiment with one of the SMB maps found on this page which is where I got the test version from.  I have to run, but I'll give this problem some more thought.  Procyon 15:16, 10 November 2006 (CST)
 * There's also an image in use for the Mega Man game. I'm just wondering how this goes with "fair use".  Having screenshots from parts of the game, or user created maps is one thing; but having the whole map of the whole game seems a bit of a stretch of the fair use rationale. -- Prod (Talk) 15:40, 10 November 2006 (CST)
 * Using the scrollbar shouldn't be much more of an issue, from an accessibility standpoint, than the use of images in general. All downsized browsers and screen readers will have such problems. I believe the template that DrBob has created will still allow users to click on the image and eventually head to the full picture. This will allow any image-capable browser to view the image without scrollbars. --inarius(T) 20:46, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * I've created Template:Scrolling map, and I'm now looking into the possibility of upgrading our imagemaps stuff so that you can hover over areas and they will be explained, as done here. In the mean time, that template should be completely fine to use, and I don't think it'll need any modification if I do install some imagemap upgrades. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 17:51, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * OK, a big thank you to Dr. Bob for starting that template. I applied it to the map on Metal Man's page.  At first, it did not turn out well, because even though the width scrolled, the height did not, so there were about 740 pixels of image before the text started, which was not good.  So I did some research and discovered how to control the width and size of the image and added them as parameters to the template.  That actually worked out quite nice because I could limit just the height of the image to 256, and sure enough, the vertical scroll bar appeared.  So, you can take a look at it and judge for yourself how you like it.  My personal thoughts are that while this approach may not be well suited for a side scrolling action game (especially one like Mega Man where the maps are usually not straight), this may be perfect for a world map of an adventure game.  When I get the chance, I will try to provide an example, perhaps for the Dragon Warrior guide.  Procyon 09:09, 11 November 2006 (CST)
 * I don't think these maps should ever scroll in two directions, nor should they be full sized. Some maps may be huge, and if there were a need for a vertically scrolling map, the template could be split into two, or contain more complicated logic. Please checkout this proposal for a horizontally scrolling map that is automatically zoomed out to a max height of 200 pixels and is also configurable. This would allow for more predictable behavior on the part of the user (Metal Man's lever for instance, is very disorienting when scrolling through a void of blue space). --inarius(T) 02:47, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * I don't like this. The whole point of having a map is so that you can see the levels, but if it's scaled down, it's not at all helpful. Having it at normal size and with a vertical scrollbar isn't that bad. --DrBob (Talk) 11:10, 15 November 2006 (CST)


 * Ironically, I agree with both of you. I think the key is to figure out which maps lend itself well to vertical scroll bars, and which do not.  Clearly, the map on Metal Man's page is a bad example, and one reason why we shouldn't have a blanket policy on all maps.  That was just an experiment.  I forsee vertical scroll bars being entirely useful for world maps that are square (or rectangular) and there's no void of space (except for the usual vast spans of ocean).  By the way, I completed the walkthrough for Super Mario Bros., and you can see an example of maps that were split up by me for the sake of clarity, and yet still use the scrolling map template as a back up for the sake of formatting.  (I plan on heavily reorganizing that guide now that the walkthroughs are done.)  Procyon 11:18, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * I guess I can see the use of having the map at full size. I'll think about this a little further. --inarius(T) 13:58, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * I think that metal man map should be broken into two parts. Maybe with some kind of line to show where they connect (in html?). -- Prod (Talk) 21:21, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * Trust me, I plan on overhauling the whole Mega Man 2 guide like I did with Super Mario Bros. That map won't stay like that, it will get broken up eventually, I just need time... a lot of it.  Procyon 22:11, 15 November 2006 (CST)


 * Not that I am actively involved in creating these types of guides, but I tend to disagree, which is why I preferred the zoomed out map. I prefer continuity above anything else... Breaking up what is essentially a sidescroller map would only consume less space or allow greater detail if done at inflexion points - for instance splitting the Metal Man map into two horizontal pieces, or two horizontals and a vertical, but this further confuses the overall structure of the level, such that it isn't overtly apparent what happens in that part of the map. I think in most cases, having a bird's eye view of some sort would be incredibly helpful, even if separate close-ups had to be provided to highlight certain details.
 * {|style="float:left"


 * http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/9196/viewfinderrf9.th.gif
 * } One interface for maps, which is most likely more of a wet dream than a reality that I could spend time developing would be a separate zoomed-out view-finder and a zoomed-in detail pane. The viewfinder would ideally not scroll (though it wouldn't be terrible if it did - as long as it still worked), and would contain a box which defined the position of the image in the detail pane. For sidescrollers, this could be made fancier by using something like an image map to constrain the detail image to within a particular boundary, which would work for many shapes of maps and allow the user to feel in control of viewing it. Also, inline links presented similar to page bookmarks could call javascript functions which would automatically reposition the viewfinder to a particular coordinate, in order to highlight a particular element/area of the map. None of this would be particularly un-wiki like, as the creation of a simple and versatile viewfinder could be reduced to three variables, the detail image, the size/shape of the viewport, and the initial position of the viewport. Other configurable elements worth adding would be the image-map constraints, and configurable viewfinder size and position. --inarius(T) 02:13, 16 November 2006 (CST)

Expansions
Do they get their own pages, or subpages of the main game? -- Prod (Talk) 10:10, 12 November 2006 (CST)
 * I suppose it depends on how much they change the game, but I'd be inclined to put them as sub-pages. If a game has multiple expansions, they should probably all go beneath an "Expansions" sub-page of the main game page. --DrBob (Talk) 10:38, 12 November 2006 (CST)
 * I agree with DrBob that there should be an expansion subpage. However, I would treat it as a main page redirect so that you can still categorize the expansion properly and just have it redirect to the appropriate subpage.  Kind of like what I've done in the past for Namco Museum (Dreamcast), Vs. Pinball, and a few others, only redirect to a sub-page, not another main page.  Procyon 17:00, 12 November 2006 (CST)
 * Good idea. :-D --DrBob (Talk) 17:10, 12 November 2006 (CST)

External links to maps
OK, before I start this thread, I have to point out that I know that I've already expressed an over-sensitivity towards the map linking that Snesmaster has contributed. Add to that my own (sometimes overblown) protectiveness for guides that I have started. But I strongly question the value of Snesmaster's most recent contribution, which was to provide a link to maps for, of all games, Mario Bros., a game whose map layout never changes beyond decoration and enemy content. The layout and the enemies found in each stage are already spelled out in the guide. So I have a hard time justifying leaving this link on the guide. However, considering the reactions that I've had in the past, I will not edit this revision, and leave it to everyone else to decide. Procyon 19:51, 14 November 2006 (CST)
 * I don't think it can hurt the guide. I suppose I don't mind either way (but I am sympathetic to your over-protectiveness: I get that a lot) --DrBob (Talk) 11:08, 15 November 2006 (CST)

Cheat Code Wiki Interwiki
I'm the owner of Cheat Code Wiki and I just thought maybe we could make interwiki links or something. Like CheatCodeWiki:Halo or whatever. What do you guys think? --ZimShady 02:34, 19 November 2006 (CST)


 * Why don't we just destroy that wiki and move the content over here? There's no point to making people go to another website to see something that belonged in Strategywiki in the first place. --Navy White 09:48, 19 November 2006 (CST)
 * Don't have to be so harsh on him...With the partnership with bp: (which is only half alive) they already have a huge database and lots of contributors. Your wiki is somewhat small at the moment.
 * I'm also a supporter of centralization. I would prefer if we could have all the pokemon info here, but there's just too much to cover, and they do it better.  For the moment, I'd be more interested in seeing your wiki merged to here. -- Prod (Talk) 10:27, 19 November 2006 (CST)
 * The problem is, Bulbapedia has content that goes beyond our mission statement. Cheats and glitches, however, fit right in. I can't see any reason to link to your site rather than having our own equivalent content. As for a merger, some of this content seems to have come from non-GFDL sources, so I would be very reluctant to see that content moved here. GarrettTalk 13:36, 19 November 2006 (CST)

Browser games?
Can (or should) StrategyWiki cover browser games (e.g. Macromedia Flash games, Macromedia Shockwave, Java, etc.)? We could impose notability requirements, so that only the most viewed games be mentioned. Bibliomaniac15 00:11, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * Only really notable ones like RuneScape. --DrBob (Talk) 00:26, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * For now, it'd make sense to have guides for popular games such as unification wars and pardus, but it's pointless to write a guide for a game with 4 or 5 people on at a time.--Navy White 09:47, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Games like N and it's even better d/l version should have guides here. I think this is a great idea. Of course we can't write guides to every flash game ever. But if someone thinks a game needs a guide, and comes here to write it, then why not? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:11, 28 November 2006 (CST)

All Game Nav template
I apologize if this has been discussed before (I haven't been on in quite a while), but there is something I a bit confused about. About 2 months ago all of the game-specific navs were replaced with the All Game Nav template (ex ). However, all of the subpages were left with the game-specific template (ex ). This makes no sense to me. This defeats the purpose of a template since you can no longer make global changes to a guide. Koweja 23:09, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * The main page needs the num=x parameter. -- Prod (Talk) 23:17, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * Ok. So if the num parameter gets added to the game specific template, can it go back on the main page?
 * Short answer, no, since only the main page should have the num parameter. -- Prod (Talk) 23:24, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * We're using num to show only the overall guide completion level, as it would be too ineffectual and redundant to display it on every page.  ech elon  23:31, 20 November 2006 (CST)

Strategy guide for... Strategywiki?
I think that one of the things that this site needs is a guide on how to use it. We should upgrade the help page to have all of the scripts for strategywiki such as how to categorize, place things such as stub tags on articles, how to write the guide correctly and to clean-up. It'd make more sense for new users to know how to use this stuff correctly rather than to have more experienced members use their time to clean up their articles and add the proper tags. --Navy White 13:10, 14 November 2006 (CST)
 * We are slowly putting together a couple of pages here, which describe things in decent detail (I think; if you think otherwise please bring it up on the relevant guide's talk page, and I'll see what I can do). I believe that if we imposed all this "red tape" on new users it would discourage them from contributing. It's better to have a core team of people who really know what they're doing cleaning the place up, rather than a load of people who've quickly read some documentation and are using their own interpretations of it. That said, having the documentation there doesn't hurt. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 16:37, 14 November 2006 (CST)
 * I started Help:Writing guide which covers various things, but there's still a lot missing. GarrettTalk 18:42, 14 November 2006 (CST)
 * Though it's a bit of a tanget, I actually think this could be a really good idea. In the interest of being less Wikipedia-like (and I have always hated the inherent difficulties of locating instructional Help and Special pages for editing wikis), we could use the strategy guide book-format to walkthrough various levels (beginner, advanced, etc.) of editing, and to collect all pertinent information in a single easy to understand place. This would be easy enough to over-complicate and turn into a complete disaster, but I think it could also turn out well. The goal would be to organize the creation of a new strategy guide into a minimal set of simple steps, and to use lots of images to drive points home. A Table of Contents could look like (I would expect the In-Depth guides to grow somewhat rapidly, and have included these only as a sample of how the overall guide could work):
 * The Basic steps for creating a strategy guide are in bold. Other steps cover more In-Depth concepts you may want to skip.
 * Sign Up -- ''Would contain a brief explaination that to edit any pages you must sign up for a user account, hint at the fact that content will be in the public domain, and walkthrough the process of signing up (with pictures)
 * Change Your Preferences -- ''A quick explaination of user preferences and what they do
 * Ask Questions -- ''Introduce the various places for getting help, how to use talk pages, and how to leave a signature
 * Create a Guide -- ''Searching for any existing guide, creating a new page,, basic wiki markup
 * Do Your Homework -- ''Minimum game info, where to find info, how to handle uncertainty
 * Add Pizazz -- ''Images, nav bars, sidebars, other common templates
 * Save Your Work -- ''Previewing and saving, edit summaries
 * Look For More -- ''How to stay involved with StrategyWiki, a complete outline/list of help pages and policy pages
 * And almost all Footer_Navs would contain two links in each direction, the most noticeable ones leading to the nearest Basic step, and the alternate ones leading to In-Depth steps, probably identified with icons and font sizes:


 * [ID]  = In-Depth guide
 * --inarius(T) 01:35, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * Sounds good. Do you want to have a go at doing this? Once you've laid out the basic structure you're envisioning, I'm sure people will be able to help. :-) I suppose this would render the pages I linked to as policies, rather than help. --DrBob (Talk) 11:05, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * I definitely won't have time to get to this until the weekend, and don't have anything against someone else who wants to get it started. I'll make sure to work on it when I get some time. --inarius(T) 14:03, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * If anyone wants to help make a basic guide, I'll pitch in. A good idea would probably be a starter's page with some basic wiki-code and how to use it as well as strategies to writing a strategy guide. I'm thinking a page called Beginner's Guide for this stuff and later creating pages with all of the fancy things like templates.--Navy White 16:35, 15 November 2006 (CST)

Going mainstream
There are a few things which I think we need to get done (in order) before we can become a "mainstream" website. -- Prod (Talk) 13:26, 30 November 2006 (CST)


 * 1) (done) Set up the website, get the admins, basic stuff.
 * 2) (in progress) Set up policies, tell people how to use it. Essentially, have enough documentation so that within 10 minutes they can start editing, but easily find more in depth info after (or at least some direction).
 * 3) (mostly done) Set up a good amount of background guides which follow the policy and are good examples of how to continue other guides.  Having one main example is good, but we should probably have a few that show different aspects of what can be done.
 * 4) Plan a specific opening date.  Get lots of advertisement (probably should have a page with suggestions for this).  Plan some kind of event for that day (abxy should be able to help with that).
 * 5) Make sure there are proper controls so that if we do get a lot of people, there are ways for us to make sure things stay under control.
 * 6) By getting lots of people around the same time, it will show how active the site is, and it will help the any ratings that require a huge jump to become notable (ie. Alexa.com).  To this effect, I might suggest allowing anonymous edits for a few weeks around that time, depending on how bad vandalism is.  Once people are hooked they may be more willing to register (just my opinion).
 * 7) Profit!!! A new layout would be great to release at this time.  Something to show that the site is going from "Beta" to "Official".

This is quasi on-topic, but I put a blurb about us in the latest Retrogaming Times Monthly, and that gets a good amount of traffic, so hopefully some new users might start showing up from there. Procyon 16:25, 30 November 2006 (CST)
 * We should probably keep all these promotions together on one page, just to see what kind of reach this site has. Perhaps Promotions? -- Prod (Talk) 17:54, 30 November 2006 (CST)
 * Let's make that Statistics (and some various related/subpages). We'll just copy Wikipedia on this one--they have a good format.  ech elon  22:30, 30 November 2006 (CST)
 * I plan on donating money, so I'd like to see a donation page (maybe there?) set up both as a portal for donations (we shouldn't have a paypal link on the main page for example) and a place to list all donators. Monetary support is definitely what we want =) --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 17:53, 7 March 2007 (CST)