User talk:Karlcsr

Welcome to StrategyWiki!
Hello Karlcsr! Welcome to StrategyWiki. Thank you for your contributions. If you have any questions, just contact a sysop through their talk page or post on the staff lounge, and they'd be happy to help. If you need help editing, check the StrategyWiki Guide. If you have a question about the content on this wiki, you can check out our staff lounge page. If you want to ask questions or hang out in IRC, we're usually around. On the other hand, if you have ideas for StrategyWiki, bring them up on the community portal talk page. Please remember to sign your name on, and only on, talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (    ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field as this helps to document all of your hard work. Feel free to delete this message from your talk page if you like, or keep it for reference. Happy editing! -- Baejung92 00:26, 25 August 2007 (CDT)

Contributions
I've looked at your edits, and they seem to have some problems. First of all, there is no need to put your name on a page; the page's history will record your contributions automatically. Also, please remember to keep a neutral point of view (i.e. no usage of the words "I" or "we") in your writing. Finally, I don't believe using swear words would be very appropriate for the site. Remember to follow these guidelines, and thanks for your contributions! Baejung92 01:38, 25 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Once again, a reminder: please remember to refrain from using the word "I". I've gone ahead and reworded parts of the Chinese Level 7 (not well, admittedly), just as an example. If you don't like it, feel free to rewrite it yourself, just don't go back to using "I". Thanks, and happy editing! Baejung92 13:50, 26 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Backing up what Baejung92 said, please do not write guides in a first person perspective. It's not exactly professional. Also on another note, please capitalize nouns and the names of things. I have gone through along with Baejung and corrected most of your mistakes, but please in the future remember to capitalize. One last thing of concern, rather than putting certain words into all caps, just bold them. It looks much cleaner. Cheers. Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 15:21, 26 August 2007 (CDT)

Please could you also refrain from duplicating the page's title as a heading; it's already there in big letters at the top, so why make people read it twice? Additionally, could you please not specify sizes for thumbnailed images, because it prevents people from being able to set the size at which they'd like to view thumbnails (it's an option in everyone's preferences). You can see what I mean with both of these points by looking at this diff where I've cleaned up one of the C&C:G pages. Finally, could you try and use the "Preview" button a bit more effectively please, so that you combine many small edits into one larger, correct edit, rather than constantly editing a page to correct yourself. Reducing the number of small edits you make means the sysops can spend less time patrolling them, and more time contributing! Thanks, and don't hesitate to leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions. -- 16:14, 28 August 2007 (CDT)
 * I take your point about the preference only allowing thumbnails up to 300px (I forgot about that), but it is policy that thumbnails are left to the user's preferred size. There are a few situations – such as when a page has little text (I believe the first C&C:G GLA mission page is like this?) – where I think it would be acceptable to have larger images, though. I'll let you size images how you wish, but please try to be sensible and moderate about it, and leave thumbnails at the default size as appropriate. You can always click on an image to make it bigger. ;-)
 * I too am not trying to make mountains out of molehills — we value your contributions, and hope you will continue contributing as you have done, but you must understand that we do have to try and keep the consistent quality of the wiki up. :-) Thanks. -- 19:52, 29 August 2007 (CDT)

C&C: Generals
You're very welcome! About the talk page thing, new messages are supposed to be added to the bottom of the page, but it's no big deal. The easiest way to do this is to click on the "+" button right next to the Edit button on the top. Also, at the end of a comment type four tildes ( "~" ), which will automatically produce your name and the time/date that you left the comment.

OK, now about the actual guide. From the Table of Contents, click on the Campaign 1: China link. You'll see four template buttons to get you started on a guide. Click on "Guide page" to create the page. Then, cut and paste the Chinese mission information you have on the Walkthrough page right now onto the newly created page, and save it. Do the same for the GLA levels, except you should change the "===" s for the level names to "==" headings. Then, delete the content on the current Walkthrough page, and add some basic introduction (something like this) instead. I hope this helped, and if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask! Baejung92 17:21, 27 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Sorry, I forgot something. After you've pasted over the material, you must fill in the Footer Nav so people can navigate the guide easily. You do this by scrolling to the bottom of the edit space, where you'll see a line that says: . Right next to "prevpage=", type in the name of the page that you want to come right before the current page (since China is Campaign 1, the prevpage for that can just be left blank), and right next to "nextpage=", type in the name of the page that comes right after. I've done the China one as an example. Baejung92 19:13, 27 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Thanks for the contributions Karl. Remember that when posting messages on talk pages or community portals, please sign your posts as Baejung has suggested above (using ~ ).  That's how we get ours to link to our pages.  Please do this from now on to help make it easier to reply to messages and track who said what.  Peace!  -- 21:14, 27 August 2007 (CDT)

Are the levels named? If yes, can you move (at the top of every page) the pages from where they are right now to the proper level name? This may require a bit of discussion, so leave a message on my talk page before starting and I'll help you with it (tell me what some of the level names are if you know them). Also, when naming your images, please put a bit more descriptive name than CCG-GLA1.jpg. I would suggest CnC Generals Destroy dam.jpg or something similar (there can be spaces in the names). Thanks, and nice work with the guide so far :). -- Prod (Talk) 23:11, 28 August 2007 (CDT)

Test Edits
I'm glad to see you're learning and experimenting. I'm going to revert your edits to my talk page, since it's nothing I need to preserve, but for future reference most wikis and StrategyWiki promote the use of sandboxes for experimentation. There's the official sandbox and then you can also use User:Karlcsr/Sandbox if you like. Go ahead and play around if need be! Keep it up, we sysops are here if you need help. -- 00:41, 28 August 2007 (CDT)
 * On a user's page, such as User:Notmyhandle (mine :P) or any game page such as Mega Man X, you'll notice the "Discussion" link on the right side of the page within the Toolbox. Check it out, there's some other useful links there.  If you want a specialized signature, such as mine or Skizzerz, there are two choices.  The first is to go to "My preferences" at the top.  In the box on that page that says "User Profile" there's an input box labeled "Nickname."  Enter the code in there that you want to modify your signature with (i.e. any text or wikimarkup).  If you use wikimarkup, check the box that says "Raw Signatures" just below the Nickname box.  I'll help you out, the code you want is simply  .  Mine is a little different to help cut back on code, but the end result is the same (I followed the second method).  The second is a little more complicated, and Skizz has decided to write a guide on how to do it so we don't have to repeat these instructions so much. Hope that helps (I'm going to bed now)! -- 01:05, 28 August 2007 (CDT)

NPOV and drivel
Please try to maintain a NPOV (Neutral Point of View) when writing articles. You can read up on it here, it describes it pretty well (although obviously StrategyWiki is not Wikipedia). Also, please refrain from using drivel, aka comments that really don't add anything content-wise. A good example of something that is not NPOV and contains drivel would be the phrase "I checked another strategy guide from elsewhere and found that..." - the entirety of that can be eliminated (oh, and if you ARE using content from another strategy guide, please make sure it isn't copyrighted ^_^). -- 10:39, 28 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Remember, drivel and artistic style are a bit different from each other, so you can still incorporate a bit of flair in your writing as long as it contributes to the content as well (but keep it NPOV though, 'you' is fine since you're guiding the reader along, but stay away from 'I' and company). Anyway, about deleting pages, just put delete on the pages that you want deleted and I will (or another sysop will) come around and delete them. Of course, if you were just talking about removing some content from it, you can do that yourself just by editing it. And as for the sig guide, look for it in the Guide in the next week or so. -- 11:04, 28 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Not really a rookie question at all. Anyway, Notmyhandle mentioned above that I was writing a guide for custom signatures. That's what I was referring to. -- 12:00, 28 August 2007 (CDT)

Image Sizes
Hey Karl, what resolution are you using? A larger resolution is of course going to demand bigger pictures to look good on a page. I think increasing the maximum thumbnail size is a good idea, but you should understand that if you could make it 500px, most of the sprite images and smaller things would become stretched. I'm not saying that's a reason not to do it, but just the one downside for using a larger resolution (less crisp images basically). I'll bring it up in the community issues. -- 19:54, 29 August 2007 (CDT)
 * I thought you might want to know that I've now changed the settings so that you can choose 400- or 500px-wide thumbnails. :-) -- 18:24, 30 August 2007 (CDT)

Guide layout
I've got a few suggestions to give you about how you're laying out the C&C:G guide. First off, it would be better if you could use continuous prose, rather than numbered bullet points, both because it allows more explanation, and for reasons I'll mention in a minute. Could you also please use sentence or title case in headings, rather than uppercase? If you prefer headings to be uppercase, I can help you change your CSS so that headings are displayed in uppercase by default, but are still sentence or title case when you edit them. On this page, you might want to consider using sidebar to house the "special strategy hint" sections; but you can only do this if the page is in continuous prose, or the numbering for the bullet points will be messed up. I hope you understand that I'm only pointing these points out so that your guide can become even better, and we value your contributions. If you've got any questions, just leave me a message. :-) -- 05:36, 3 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Looking at China Mission 5, it's a lot better, and I like your idea about just using numbering for time-critical missions. I made one edit to clean up the bullet points on that page (you shouldn't separate bullet points with a blank line), and I have only a few suggestions to make it better:
 * Try to make the text flow more; at the moment there are lots of small, sentence-long paragraphs which read a bit like bullet points. The aim is to try and get a flowing explanation of how to play the mission.
 * Try to explain why things are done a bit more. You don't need to go into reams of detail, but a little explanation for statements such as "Research Nationalism and Chain Guns." helps people understand the game more and how the walkthrough's tactics are working. Adding explanations would also help with the first point.
 * As I said, it's looking better, and if you work at it, the guide will turn out well. :-) -- 13:00, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

CNC Images
I do believe you are forgetting to include these in Category:Screenshots, you can include that in your upload summary and it will do it automatically. --

All you need to do is type into the summary box on the upload screen. -- 00:19, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

It places them into a category on the wiki, in this case, a category of screenshots. Images need to be categorized so that they are properly organized, simply put. Please leave future replies on my talk page and not my user page. The talk page is the one designed for messages from other users. -- 20:11, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

Per your most recent uploads, you seem to have accidentally used a space in your category inclusion instead of a colon. I've fixed these for you already. -- 21:20, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

CNC Names
Aren't there any official names? Like missions... don't they have some sort of tagline you can go by instead of #5 and such? -- 20:39, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

At the top of every page there is a button called Move, it can be found to the right of the History button. Once on the page, change the new subpage name to the mission name as it was suggested to you. After the move, make sure to check the What links here and change anything linking it to the new name. If appropriate, tag the old page (now a redirect to the new one) for deletion by placing a delete tag on it, this will alert the admins that you want the old page deleted, but NOT before changing everything that links to it. -- 20:27, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * There's no need to worry about the delete tag. Just move it to the proper location, fix any of the links to the page (change the Table of Contents first, rest are usually in Footer Navs), and leave the rest to us :).  If anything goes wrong, we'll help you fix it.  I'd also recommend you join us on irc where we can give you real time help.  You can join from http://irc.abxy.org, just type /j #strategywiki after you are connected. I would also recommend you ask for help on the Staff lounge.  It's easier for us to keep track of what other people have already said, and it may help other people with similar problems. Nice work with the guide so far :) -- Prod (Talk) 22:24, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Now that the "proper" names are on the levels, I'm trying to consider this from a users point of view. I would hope that they go through the Table of Contents, which currently tells the campaign + level number, or through the Footer Nav, where they can see the level name to easily get back to it.  Is there another place that renaming the pages would help? -- Prod (Talk) 20:25, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

Don't worry too much about the number of images, consider their usefulness. If the image adds nothing to the guide, remove it; if something is unclear without a picture, add one. There's no set number, just put what you feel is needed. -- Prod (Talk) 20:33, 11 September 2007 (CDT)
 * As Prod says, it's not the number of images, although ~6 is about right for pages of that length. The guide's looking good! -- 00:49, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

When naming the missions, you want them to be as specific to the game as possible. If they actually say Mission 1:  then of course, use that format. If all they give is a name then title the page accordingly. The ToC can be formatted to use numbers instead of bullets, so knowing what number won't be difficult. -- 11:15, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

C&C:G completion
Hi, I wouldn't say the guide is quite ready to be taken to stage 4, as I've found a few pages where there are still "work in progress" signs, and if I look at the ToC, there are three pages missing. Once you've added those pages and gone through the guide removing all the signs (and doing work on the relevant pages if necessary), I think the guide would warrant a stage 4 completion level. :-) -- 01:29, 14 September 2007 (CDT)

Layout adjustment
The - is used to make sure things don't overlap incorrectly. Our most common usage is to "push" the ToCs down on the main game pages, so that they don't overlap with the infoboxes. In a way it means "make sure we start at the first location we have the whole width of the page to work with. Just edit one of the main pages, remove the - and show preview to see the difference (no need to save). It's a very useful little template :D. -- Prod (Talk) 07:48, 21 September 2007 (CDT)

Walkthrough pages
Our policy on walkthrough pages can be found here. If the person wants to see a listing of what's there, they should check the ToC. If they are just starting the game, they should go to where the walkthrough first points them. Check out Diablo II/Walkthrough for a good example.

About the ToC, scroll down a bit. It still needs some fixing up, which I'll do as soon as I get home (my browser is broken here, can't do much properly). Again, check the Diablo II/Table of Contents to see what it should look like. -- Prod (Talk) 17:00, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Leave it to Prod. This ToC expansion inclusion junk is his speciality. -- 19:36, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * The whole ToC needs to be redone for both games (and they will be shared). I had posted all the info in one page, but then I realized my browser (at work) was a bit broken so I just left it until I got home.  I'm cleaning it up now so it should be much neater later. I'm on irc (type /join #strategywiki once connected) if you want to chat with me directly. -- Prod (Talk) 19:47, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Ok, the toc page is redone. What do you think? -- Prod (Talk) 20:00, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Ew, but bravo! -- 20:12, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Karlcsr, is this resolved? I haven't been following the discussion, so I'm not quite sure what you think is wrong. -- 01:26, 27 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Yea, we met up on IRC, so I believe it's resolved (at least for the most part). And thanks NMH :). -- Prod (Talk) 07:48, 27 September 2007 (CDT)
 * My main goal is to make this as easy to use as possible, minimizing redundancy is just a means to that end. I've got a few questions regarding that. Answer whichever ones you feel are important.  Is there a story to the game?  Do you proceed through the campaigns/levels linearly (have to start with the first one, continue to the second) or can you pick whichever campaign you want to start with, and they happen "at the same time"?  Which guide was the person visiting, the original CnC:G or ZH?
 * To be clear, I'm not against having a few helpful links on the Walkthrough pages, I'm just against putting large portions of the ToC there.
 * I'm going to try working on this guide this weekend, hopefully get rid of some of the extra (mostly blank) pages and hopefully make it flow a little better. Leave whatever suggestions you think are necessary on my talk page and I'll try to work in whatever I can.  If you have msn, you can email me your info and we can chat over that.  One final style note, whenever adding successive comments, please indent with ':' so that we can easily tell where one comment ends and the next one begins.  Also, the reason we always thank for your efforts is because we greatly value all editors contributions.  It adds to the community, helps gamers who visit us, and we'd be nothing without them.  We don't want to scare anyone away, but we also need to keep the quality standards fairly high. -- 12:32, 27 September 2007 (CDT)
 * The thing is, they have to eventually see the toc or they're missing out on most of the information. We want to minimize the time it takes them to get to a specific page they want.  Say the user is playing level 3 of the GLA campaign, and they decide they want to play the 4th level of the USA campaign next.  They have a few choices:


 * 1) Click the walkthrough button at the top to go back to the walkthrough page, and then from there go to the specific USA page. This involves two page loads.
 * 2) Click [Show] to see the complete toc (instantaneous) and go directly to the page they want. Only one page load, and they get access to ALL the information (which is also why we push people to add links to the ToC first, then create the page, so that it's always complete).
 * We want people to use the toc, because that's where all the information is. We would rather make the ToCs more visible instead of giving users workarounds to avoid it. -- Prod (Talk)
 * Sweet, we're getting discussed over lunch ^_^. As much as I love allegories, I have to kill the real life example here rather than the argument.  In public speaking, you HAVE to repeat yourself, because usually noone is listening to the whole thing, and you have to keep saying it so that they might hear you at least once.  Back to the "argument", I do believe that in the end, if we can't come to an agreement, you win by default (you're the author putting all the effort).  For the moment, you can put it as whatever you feel would be best, if it suffers the effects of redundancy, we can always get rid of it later. -- Prod (Talk) 14:19, 27 September 2007 (CDT)
 * I hope you don't take my comments negatively, and I really don't want to add to your BP (I've worked in heart research as well :P). Anything I say is really a suggestion, and you CAN ignore me completely (I don't mind, just don't blank every page :P).  I've stuck to only suggesting things (for the most part) since you're doing a good job with it.  If I change something, and you don't like it, just undo it.  It's the spirit of the wiki, just Be bold!. -- Prod (Talk) 16:06, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Having looked through the guides again, I certainly think they're getting better. Some work could be done to stop things bunching up on the right-hand side in Command & Conquer: Generals/A Flood of Violence and other pages; something which Prod may sort out when he goes over the guide. I should probably also remind you that there are still two pages missing from the C&C:G guide, which is stopping it reaching completion level 4. ;-) (I'm staying out of this conversation about the walkthrough page, as you might have noticed. I trust you'll both reach a good solution.) Keep up the good work! :-) -- 16:18, 27 September 2007 (CDT)
 * You could mention to the author of the StarCraft guide about the thumbnails yourself --- you don't have to be staff to suggest things to people. As Prod said: be bold! :-) (Well, that and I'm going to bed now. ;-) -- 17:12, 27 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Umm, are you guys talking about me? Baejung92 17:23, 27 September 2007 (CDT)