StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal

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Template:Toolbox
Can the funcationality of this template be exteneded to monobook? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 19:21, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * Any response? I know Inarius set it up, but I'm sure someone with more css skills can make this work for monobook considering the fact that people from wikipedia may be more comfortable with it and some guides look really ugly without it. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 10:29, 27 February 2007 (CST)

Transiki pages with large number of revisions
I've managed to write something that will allow me to export pages from wikipedia/wikibooks that are longer than the 100 revision limit. If needed, please leave me a message. This is only in the case where a regular Special:Export wont work. -- Prod (Talk) 20:11, 8 February 2007 (CST)

List Counter
Is there some way to automatically count the number of bullets on the page? I want to request this feature within MediaWiki if it is not available, just wondering if you guys know since finding a place to post things on the mediawiki wiki is very difficult. --Notmyhandle 21:07, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * Interesting, gotta ask... why? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 00:32, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * Oh, and you request features on bugzilla, I can find a link for you if you can't. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 00:32, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * MediaWiki's Bugzilla replete with overlord bug. --DrBob (Talk) 05:42, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * Well it would come in handy for automating things like the statistic on the main page of how many level 4 articles we have. Stuff like that; it would be really useful on list pages on Wikipedia, where I first had the idea (for instance, # of games made by a company or # of cities in a state, with the number at the top of the page). --Notmyhandle 11:39, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Edit summary
Whats with having to summarize every single time you contribute? It is extremely bothersome. 0-172Talk to me 00:16, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think it's so that other editors don't have to trawl through your edits and compare them to the current edition - it just saves time.--Froglet 18:35, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * It's also just good practice. I'm all for the policy, however, I would like it if it wasn't required for a preview. Procyon 18:43, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'll look into disabling it when you're previewing. --DrBob (Talk) 02:54, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * Same here - writing 'expanded', 'spelling' or 'AGN' isn't that troublesome - just appreviate it down to a few short phrases or a short sentence.--Froglet 18:54, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think it's incredibly irate that a javascript window is displayed if I don't include a summary. Is there any way we can make the notification friendlier?--Dan 19:35, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * That does make sense, but it can become annoying. What if you make a minor/small change (or any change for that fact) and you cannot easily describe your change as a summary? Also I agree with Dan. I am not a big fan of the javascript window either. Lunar Knight(Talk - Contributions) 20:12, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * If you cannot easily describe your change, just put "Cleanup". I cannot think of a better way to force people to use summaries than using a JavaScript popup; anything else would be non-modal, and could (and would) easily be ignored. --DrBob (Talk) 02:54, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * Is it a big enough issue to need such a thing? We have an option in our preferences "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary".  We don't need it to be forced. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 01:39, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * It makes a sysop's life so much easier if there are edit summaries in recent changes, and if summaries aren't forced, people won't write them. Please tell me if you think the JS could be improved usability-wise. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 12:45, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * I do understand that, but if our ease in doing our sysop job is increased at the expense of writing guides as usefully as possible then I don't think it's worth it. Although I use monobook so I've never even seen this implementation so it doesn't really effect me.  But I'm going to have to bring up the point that wikipedia doesn't have this, and they function well enough.  My suggestion would be to have the preferences option about this selected by default and then users who are more accustomed to this system can turn it off if they like.  -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 15:27, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * Is it possible to just disallow the commit and put a message (in big red letters) near the comment box (and set focus to the comment box)? Just to note, MediaWiki 1.9 (or maybe 1.10) add some automatic descriptions for simple things ('Replaced page with 'blah blah, 'Redirecting to 'some page, 'Blanked page'). -- Prod (Talk) 12:50, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * We can put a stronger notice near the summary box very easily, I think that would be the best option. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 15:26, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * How is that different from a message box, apart from the fact that a message box is more likely to get noticed? :-P --DrBob (Talk) 12:30, 20 February 2007 (CST)
 * Well, it's less annoying, and doesn't require an extra click, and doesn't actually force you to put in an edit summary, just makes it known that you should and it's easier for others if you do. So it's pretty different actually.  Also, the popup doesn't even differentiate from an edit to a section where the editor added no summary, or  one that was added individually, for example, my edit summary for this was loaded with the default "/* Edit summary */" text.  I still don't think an popup box would be good though. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 10:00, 21 February 2007 (CST)

Bringing this up again
I still contend that this isn't a very good idea, and now that it's been brought to monobook it actually effects me. See my comment above. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:58, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * Better? --DrBob (Talk) 14:17, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * Fantastic, is this on bluecloud as well? And could it be ignored if you press save a second time, after getting the message?  Cause sometimes when doing mass-repetitive edit works, it's much easier to leave one summary and leave the rest blanks, but double clicks on save page would be reasonable and not much of a hindrance. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 15:05, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Endorse Firefox?
I just took a moment to check something out. Rocky reported having trouble with the layout of the tables on one of the Pokemon pages in Internet Explorer. Being a staunch Firefox user, I figured I should look at StrategyWiki, for the very first time, in IE6...

OMG, the lack of png transparency support is hideous. And a few of the table layout choices just completely bust. It was to the point that I was kind of ashamed of my own work when viewed through IE6. Now, I don't know how many users (readers or editors) use IE6, and whether IE7 addresses some of these problems as, clearly, I don't use it. But I would like to propose that we, as a site, make some kind of statement such as "Looks best in Firefox" or something to that effect. How does everyone feel about this? Procyon 11:04, 21 February 2007 (CST)
 * "Looks best in Firefox" sounds a bit too much like "Looks best in 32-bit colour at 640x480". :-P We should strive to make the site work in IE, but not too hard. I think a bar at the top of the page saying "Why not use a better browser such as Firefox or Opera?" should be at the top of the page if the user is viewing in IE. It shouldn't be too intrusive though, as many people are forced to use IE through no fault of their own. --DrBob (Talk) 11:38, 21 February 2007 (CST)
 * Alternately we could use the Firefox+Google Toolbar button and earn money from people making the change through us... considering the troubles abxy has been having, the money could really be put to good use buying more RAM or whatever it is the server lacks. GarrettTalk 13:10, 21 February 2007 (CST)
 * That's a very good idea. I like it a lot. :-D --DrBob (Talk) 17:12, 21 February 2007 (CST)
 * Png works just fine for me in the Pokedex so it may just be IE6. I'm going to go on a spree to fix stuff that doesn't work in IE.  Starting with the archive template at the top of this page.  (I miss FF2.0's spellcheck...) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:18, 21 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah. One of the widely-advertised features of IE7 is its correct treatment of modern images compared to IE6. ;-) --DrBob (Talk) 17:12, 21 February 2007 (CST)
 * Another reason firefox is great is due to the addons. The Ressurect one is particularly useful. If the sw crashes due to whatever, you can still see a few of its pages (albeit an earlier version of them). I used it a lot to view walkthroughs during the december downtime and the digg effect. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 15:15, 21 February 2007 (CST)
 * The Png transparancies vary from image to image; see compared to the others (left click, right click, etc.). --Notmyhandle 17:33, 21 February 2007 (CST)
 * Isn't there some magical Javascript hack that gets transparent PNGs working in IE6?--Dan 17:44, 21 February 2007 (CST)
 * Here. --DrBob (Talk) 01:29, 22 February 2007 (CST)
 * Here's a better one. --DrBob (Talk) 01:36, 22 February 2007 (CST)
 * Can you implement it?--Dan 17:03, 22 February 2007 (CST)
 * Never mind, I threw it into BlueCloud.js (although I'm a little tempted to throw it on the main page...)--Dan 09:46, 23 February 2007 (CST)
 * We don't all use bluecloud :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 12:48, 23 February 2007 (CST)
 * Better? :-) --DrBob (Talk) 16:08, 23 February 2007 (CST)

List of stuff that doesn't work the same in IE.

 * Mediawiki code for  will push a  to the full width of the screen, I replaced the one in Template:Archive with -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:23, 21 February 2007 (CST)

IE 7

 * Div style float widths cannot exceed 99% in total; will create a second row if so (see game categories to the left for example). --Notmyhandle 17:30, 21 February 2007 (CST)

IE 6

 * External links and bulbapedia links show up just the same as ordinary links (in-site.
 * You have to highlight the stub template to see the words (usually)
 * Small .png's have a black background if they are reduced in size (e.g my rock in my signature, hopefully it looks better in FF)Rocky [[Image:Rally-X Rock.png|15px]]  (talk) 11:47, 22 February 2007 (CST)
 * You sure about that? It's small, and there isn't very much transparency in it.  So it may just look like it has a black background.  Either way... it doesn't look better in FF :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 15:07, 22 February 2007 (CST)


 * Maybe, would that apply for every image in the Pokémon Artwork category and the star of the stub template, anway my rock does look good, it does :"] Rocky [[Image:Rally-X_Rock.png|25px]]  ( Talk Contributions ) 13:48, 23 February 2007 (CST), does this look better in FF


 * Upload File in Firefox has a warning box come up saying about no categories, in IE6 there is no box and I had to edit the page after I uploaded the PNGs, in the end they were deleted because IE6 has no transparency and the images I uploaded didn't either because of that.--Rocky [[Image:Rally-X_Rock.png|25px]]  ( Talk Contributions ) 13:31, 5 March 2007 (CST)

Firefox
Just noticed this minor thing, Rocky   ( Talk Contributions ) 16:19, 22 February 2007 (CST)
 * male and female signs ♀ and ♂ look worse on firefox in edit mode
 * You can configure the edit font in Firefox through Tools -> Options -> Content -> Advanced... -> Monospace. You can change the font and the font size.  Sizing Courier New to 16 makes the symbols look somewhat better, although still small.  Lucidia Console is slightly better. Procyon 17:43, 22 February 2007 (CST)

collaboration
Greetings. I'm the current sysop of a gaming wiki called AliceSoftWiki. Our wiki focuses on the Japanese computer games produced by the company Alice Soft, and well as related lore and products. We also run under the GFDL, so if you guys are interested in making your own guides for Alice Soft games, you can start from stuff we already wrote instead of starting from scratch. Although I am more contemplating along the lines of having StrategyWiki directly linking to AliceSoftWiki articles for guides on the Alice Soft games.

I'd like to know how the regulars here feel about that, and/or if anyone else have any other ideas of how our two wikis can collaborate. - Afker(talk) 02:42, 23 February 2007 (CST)


 * I'm surprised no one else responded yet. I took a look at your site, and it's pretty cool.  Obviously, by covering only Japanese games from one developer, it's very much a niche site, and one that is extremely unlikely to receive coverage at StrategyWiki, as the users here generally focus on Japanese games that have been translated into English, or can be played by English speakers.  So from that standpoint, you provide a service to a few select games that we are unlikely to cover.  On the other hand, among the few games that I did examine on your site, there isn't much of a walkthrough associated with any of the articles, so if I wanted to play one of those games (much less get a hold of one of them), your site (as it exists at this moment) wouldn't be of much help for anything other than background information.  Please correct me if I missed anything.  So I see one pro and one con.  I'd like to see how everyone else weighs in on the subject, but thanks for getting in touch with us.  Procyon 07:43, 23 February 2007 (CST)


 * Games that we have walkthroughs for currently (that are at least 80% complete): Sengoku Rance,  Rance 3, Tsumashibori, Kickikuou Rance, Rance 1
 * Games that we have guides teaching people how to play the game (our users are often people who canNOT read Japanese, otherwise they'd be using the many detailed Japanese walkthrough sites out there): Daikuji (in a messy state), Mamatoto, Beat Angel Escalayer, GalZoo Island
 * With our wiki just started one year ago, and with Alice Soft releasing on average around 3~4 titles per year (for the past 18 years, since 1989), it'd be quite a while before we actually catch up to the point of decent walkthrough coverage of ALL 60+ Alice Soft games. But at least we are making walkthroughs faster than Alice is making games, so at this rate one day we will eventually get there.  Additionally, our goal is more than to just provide walkthroughs, but also help people understand how to play the game, help people understand the world and character and stories of these Japanese games, so unfortunately walkthroughs might not receive full attention all the time (if ppl can't figure out HOW to play the game, it's pointless to tell them they gotta kill a dragon hidden somewhere to get to the next level).
 * Hopefully I have meaningfully and sufficiently addressed most of your concerns. Let me know if I missed anything! (-:  -Afker 15:31, 23 February 2007 (CST)


 * If you see my statement in the external links section. We are striving to have the best stuff here.  If we can't get the best here physically, then we should link to it.  If we can't get the best here legally, then we should use it as a guide to write a new guide that we can legally host here.  Your wiki sounds like it would have neither of those problems.  Albeit, I haven't looked at it, but if it's a mediawiki with the GFDL, it wouldn't have those problems.  That means if there was content there that we wanted to use, we would simply do an export/import to preserve the GFDL and bring it here, as we have with wp, and wikibooks. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:13, 23 February 2007 (CST)
 * Eventually StrategyWiki will have its own; less external links = better and since you're GFDL then your info might get jacked as well. --Notmyhandle 20:50, 23 February 2007 (CST)
 * "Jack" sounds like such a negative word ^^" AliceSoftWiki was intentionally chosen to be GDFL, so stuff from there being used here is completely ok with us. -Afker 02:57, 24 February 2007 (CST)
 * I came across your site just yesterday. Looks very interesting. We don't currently have any established method of linking to an outside guide instead of our own, but then again these are comparatively obscure games that will obviously receive far more updates on your wiki than here. Hm. Maybe I should think about this when I'm wider awake. :) GarrettTalk 03:40, 24 February 2007 (CST)

The wiki looks good, and I don't think japanese only games would get as much coverage here (I think the only ones so far were by NHN). On the company page, put an external link, and on the specific game pages.....something will have to be figured out. Perhaps a wikipedia type box, or just an external link. -- Prod (Talk) 17:29, 24 February 2007 (CST)

I've started Sengoku Rance as a pilot page, testing the waters on formatting and stuff. Once we get that one throughly flushed, we can use that article as a model of how other similar ones should be formatted. Later tonight I'm gonna research on what the Japanese software rating system is called, and add that to the game info box template. Can interwiki-links be setup for AliceSoftWiki? That way I can easily explain what JAPAN is by interwiki linking it to our article, instead of creating an external link (which looks uglier and I usually don't like full URLs in wiki-code). -Afker 17:49, 24 February 2007 (CST)

rating system

 * Isn't it just CERO? -- Prod (Talk) 17:56, 24 February 2007 (CST)
 * Hmm... Alice Soft is not listed as a member of CERO. And the CERO symbols don't look familiar to me at all.  Maybe CERO is just an organization instead of the organization that rates videogames and computer software in Japan?  I'll do a little more research when I get home tonight, including check the game boxes of my Alice Soft games... -Afker 18:29, 24 February 2007 (CST)


 * I have a feeling that most adult-only games are simply never rated, and are directly advertised as adult-only games. Afterall, incorrectly labeling a game as Adult Only will probably cause it to lose more potential sales than any positive effect it may have. So the difference between whether a label saying "Adult Only" is certified by an established organization or is self-proclaimed seems to be moot.  I've also checked the box of Sengoku Rance, and saw no rating information on it, except the words in red saying "People under 18 cannot purchase this software". -Afker 22:34, 24 February 2007 (CST)


 * Allow me to eat my words. I've found a sticker on the side of the box that shows the organization that certified the 18+ rating.  Let me find out more about it... -Afker 02:08, 25 February 2007 (CST)

merger proposal

 * DrBob and I have been discussing this new opportunity that you have brought to us, and I believe our community's consensus is that they are interested as well. However, what DrBob and I see in your offer is a new possibility--something I would like to propose to you now and that I hope you will carefully consider: would you guys like to become a part of the StrategyWiki project?
 * I know you guys have put a great deal of work and effort into your wiki, and I also realize that it is a project that has a lot of energy going for it. However, I would like you to think for a moment what would happen if your guides were located (and not localized) at StrategyWiki. You'll get a larger group of avid and hardcore gamers looking at your guides and becoming involved in them. The already prevalent Japanese traffic you receive would also be boosted by that which we too receive. Instead of your content existing redundantly and fragmentedly here, there will be one supreme copy (one of our foundation's key tenants, if you will). By making this a combined effort, together we can build an all-encompassing guide to gaming. That's what our goal was when we set out, and we'd love if you could make yourselves a part of it.


 * While this would mean leaving Wikia for StrategyWiki, I think our eager attitude is something that you guys can feed off of. Your content would not just grow here, but thrive here. Your content would become a deserving part of a massive project to encompass all of gaming. You'll have our talent, our resources, and our support.
 * Hope you like our offer. Let us know what you think!  ech elon  01:15, 25 February 2007 (CST)


 * The idea has passed through my mind before. I have a few questions/reservations related to this subject:
 * GuildWiki.org is currently, without a doubt, the single best wiki for the game GuildWars. While it has a core team of trust-worthy and dedicated SysOps, the server and domain name are all under one single person's care.  If one day that person decides to stop paying for the server/domain and just quit, or if he gets killed in a car accident, the entire wiki gets screwed and none of the dedicated SysOps can do anything about it.  Years of edits from countless contributors will simply vaporize.  On the other hand, Wikia is run by an organization, it's finances and contracts are with an organization instead of an individual, and I feel I can fully entrust all my contributions with them, without fearing the (unlikely) sudden-shut-down scenario that GuildWiki can be in danger of.  Right now, I'm not familiar with the organizational structure of StrategyWiki.  Who handles the finances, takes care of the domain and server contracts, etc.  I don't want to put my eggs in a basket without knowing how resistent the basket is against car accidents etc.
 * Image policy independence. AliceSoftWiki currently adopts a image use policy that is stricter than conventional fair-use in the United States.  Specifically, users are not allowed to upload screenshots of the game, unless those screenshots were released by Alice Soft on their own homepage.  This policy is chosen because I am a great fan of Alice Soft, and I greatly respect their hestitation in granting a "foreign language (relative to Japanese)" website the right to freely use screenshots of their game.  If all other issues are addressed and the AliceSoftWiki is to fold under StrategyWiki, I would strongly like to able to preserve this policy for Alice Soft games, again out of respect for Alice Soft.
 * AliceSoftWiki is not just a wiki for strategies on AliceSoft games. We also provide background info, world lore, and misc trivia for AliceSoft games.  Within the AliceSoftWiki, we can directly created articles for each character, nation, location, item, major event etc using their name as the article name, with very rare need of some form of disambiguation.  However, on StrategyWiki, if I were to create an article on the nation of Leazas, I would probably be forced to name it "Rance series/Leazas" or "Rance series:Leazas".  Almost every informational article will need to be prefixed by the name of the game (or game series) it primarily appears in.  This makes linking greatly cumbersome, and resulting in the need to pipe pretty much every single link.  This would be a significant con against merging.
 * AliceSoftWiki is not just about AliceSoft games. We also (plan to) document the OST CDs, card games, character figurines, and other associated items and events related to AliceSoft.  Some of these might not specifically related to any particular game or game series at all.  I am not sure if those types of articles fit in StrategyWiki at all.
 * While it is possible of only putting the walkthroughs on StrategyWiki, and leaving everything else on AliceSoftWiki, many of the walkthroughs work best by having direct links to background information articles, so users who cannot read Japanese (which is the primary target for our wiki) can quickly look up who the heck a particular obscure name refers to. While this can still be implemented via inter-wiki links from SW to ASW, it feels like a different kind of fragmentation that is even less natural (compared to only have a basic informational page on SW, and point the walkthrough to AliceSoftWiki).
 * These are the stuff that spring to my mind when I contemplated on the possibility of folding under StrategyWiki. I'm looking forward to ideas or responses that may address some/many/all of these, or alternate ways we can gain similar benefits you've listed while staying with wikia.  Thank you for the invitation. -Afker 02:01, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'll try my best to answer your questions:
 * I know that Echelon and Dan both have server access, but I don't know who the domain name is under. The funding for the wiki shouldn't dry up anytime soon (thanks to Google AdSense), and I highly doubt Echelon will just decide to abandon this project.
 * Just include a link to AliceSoft's image policy on the image pages and let those that actually contribute to the content of the games know about the policy by putting a link (or just writing it down) on their talk page.
 * You can just name the page Leazas or whatever as long as there is no actual game with that name, just make sure to categorize it into the Rance Series or whatever category it would fit under. Alternatively, we could make a separate namespace for informative articles, but I don't know how much support that would have (comments, anyone?).
 * 4., 5. See above comment. Another way would be to have the articles in AliceSoftWiki and just link there, but that kinda defeats the purpose of merging. Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 16:05, 25 February 2007 (CST)


 * I'm going to append to some of Ryan's responses.
 * echelon can answer this best.
 * I understand you are doing it out of "respect" but may I simply ask why?  Don't you think giving fans the best "legal" information about AliceSoft Games is the most important thing?  Screenshots are fair-use and that is perfectly legal.  I personally think that using fair-use images (as in screenshots) actually helps the company whose games you are taking them from.  Freely use, and "fair use" aren't exactly the same thing, and them being hesitant to grant completly free use on images is reasonable, but I doubt they'd be concerned about fair-use.  I personally do not think it'd be a good idea to be putting different image copy write restrictions for different games here.  And if the games were put here, I think we'd be doing our readers a disservice if we didn't allow fair-use images on these guides.  It's no disrespect to the makers of those games of course, it's just to provide the best possible information.
 * There would only be an issue when the pages with those names already existed here. If the character or location names were the same as a game name we have here (or will later get here) then the game would have to supercede the accompanying article.  Like wikipedia's spore article.  The biological item is more important so it has the article and the game gets the parenthetical title wp:Spore (video game).  If your character article was the same as a character article here, there would simply be a disambiguation page that searchers would find.  This is unlikely to be a common issue, as those are japenese games with japenese sounding names.  So I wouldn't be surprised if there were only a few of them.  Otherwise they could have the same titles they already have.  All in all, I don't think this would be a major issue.  All of the background content for the games can be here and are within our scope.
 * I don't know if this fits quite in with our goals, but you said you "plan" on doing this, so it may be only a minor con for a merge instead of a major.
 * If the content helps the player with the game with information about anything in the game, it belongs here and would be welcomed and would grow here.
 * -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:36, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * From what has been said by Afker, since they want such an "in-depth" view into the company's everything, their separate wiki serves it's purpose better than merging....but not by much.
 * I think Dan has access to the server and everything like that as well.
 * The image policy is fairly restrictive, and I don't think it's that necessary, for the same reasons that Mason11987 stated. If they do complain (under DMCA or something similar) they can easily be taken down.  Anywayz, a few screenshots helps get people interested in a game.  Too many screenshots also tends to weaken the fair use argument, so it's not likely that we're going to put images of everything in the game.
 * This is the main reason why I think it's better to stay separate. The main namespace is for games, companies, series, or anything that globally applies to all games.  Some things could be put under the series pages (similar to the Wii/Wii Virtual Console page) though you can get collisions when the game name is the same as the series name.  Then again, that could be avoided with disambiguations.  Mildly annoying, but can be lived with.
 * As a SW person, I would be more interested in people sticking to this site for guides, though giving users access to all the other information is definitely important. I'm somewhat against having the interwiki link in the AGN, but it's the best way to display the info without copying it all over.
 * Overall, it would be great if you could bring over all the info, but I don't think all the info is within SW's mission. If we can transclude between wikis, that would be great.....but I highly doubt that is possible. -- Prod (Talk) 19:09, 25 February 2007 (CST)

Look at how our other guides are made. If some story detail is necessary for playing the game it's in the guide itself. If it isn't, it's instead a link to Wikipedia or some other site. A Characters page here could focus on their gameplay-related behaviour, while Wikipedia-esque sidebars link to AliceSoftWiki for any non-gameplay information.

Some fan wikis, while comprehensive when it comes to character and story info, deliberately exclude walkthroughs from their scope (Zelda Wiki.org, for instance) and instead rely upon external links for game help, so it is quite possible to, just like Wikipedia, have comprehensive information about the games without offering help with the games. In fact, not having to have gameplay details on character pages could actually make things easier if a character's abilities and behaviour varies widely between games. GarrettTalk 19:46, 25 February 2007 (CST)


 * Indeed, the articles on AliceSoftWiki is designed with that issue in mind. Character abiliities, town stats etc are all in respective game's guide articles, whereas the character articles and town articles etc covers the general characteristics and/or histories, and deliberately leaving out stats that vary from game to game. -Afker 19:53, 25 February 2007 (CST)

Thank's for all the responses up to this point. I'm still reading and thinking and considering. I want to respond to everything at once after reading more people's responses. Though I want to clarify on point 1 a little bit: Among other things, I want to know how resistent StrategyWiki is against unfortunate car accidents. Take AliceSoftWiki for example, if I die in an car accident, other contributors can carry on, and if a SysOp is needed, Wikia can appoint some active user on AliceSoftWiki. If the 12 highest ranking people in Wikia all die in a car accident (12 simultaneous accidents distributed across the world), Wikia as a company/organization will still exist, and it should not affect the operations of AliceSoftWiki. On the other hand, even though GuildWiki has a dozen good SysOps and a few beaucrats, it only take one single car accident to kill one individual (cuz the domain/server etc are all registered under him, as opposed to an organization) for GuildWiki to essentially die (when the contracts expire). So among the things I want to know for #1, is how resistent StrategyWiki is against random car accidents etc. Not that I wish or predict anything bad, mind you. I just don't want to risk my work vaporizing because some drunk driver decides to run over a respected and crutial member of the wiki. Alternately, if StrategyWiki does periodic dumps of the entire wiki and put the backup somewhere accessable by multiple people (and how many). -Afker 19:53, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * StrategyWiki is a living and breathing organization. While I can't say this is true for the present, we are seeking to colocate our servers in Atlanta sometime within the year. This means that at least three of our staff members will have access to the hardware when we upgrade our servers. Currently Dan Joumaa (ness), Matt Merkey (PowerMatt), and myself have root access to our dedicated server. Phil Withnall (DrBob) and Nick Howell (FrenchToast) have access to limited portions of the server, though I certainly have no problem with getting them hooked up with root access either. The domain names are accessible by myself, Matt Merkey, and Ian Szewczyk (roamzero). Overall, the most important aspect of our organization is that we are not going to stay "just a wiki". We are actively working on growing Abxy into a social networking platform for gamers, and our second generation software will debut sometime closer to when we have new hardware. I fully intend to build our organization into an open and independent media powerhouse within the gaming, and ultimately, technology industries. It seems like a large goal, and as I have learned we must take every day step by step, but this does not mean we do not have contingencies in place. (Though you certainly ask a good question!) Dan and Matt actively work on the server when I am not around, and it is quite often that upgrades are made without my direct involvement. Though it may be likely that the full breadth of my future aspirations for this organization would die with me should such a morbid and unfortunate occasion occur, I doubt that any information would be lost and I certainly believe that this wiki alone is more than capable of thriving without my involvement.  ech elon  20:25, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * MediaWiki 1.9.2 was released earlier this month. Since you'll be making backups when you get around to installing it that would be a good time to offer public dumps (minus the user tables and other sensitive data), or at least get them to me/Procyon/Prod/etc. GarrettTalk 20:57, 25 February 2007 (CST)

Page Errors
Uh, has anyone seen The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess lately? Messed up images, ToC section with a giant Edit text on the left. Actually all pages are like this... --Notmyhandle 22:45, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * The giant edit boxes are due to new CSS in MediaWiki 1.9. The images should be fixed now though.  ech elon  22:50, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * There are actually a few CSS concerns now (return of the red links, etc.), but I can't deal with them tonight.
 * (  ech elon  22:52, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * Is it possible to make the edit boxes smaller like they were before the upgrade? The new ones are kind of distracting...-- Duke  Ruckley  15:31, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * http://strategywiki.org/w/skins/BlueCloud/index.css needs to be edited to add "float: right;" to the span.editsection rule, as well as changing the "font-size: 1em;" in that rule to "font-size: 0.8em;" (or 0.7em). I can't do this myself at the moment, due to lack of softwares. --DrBob (Talk) 11:05, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * User:Garrett/Sandbox is really messed up. It also demonstrates that hotlinking no longer works (which was a fairly useful trick). GarrettTalk 13:07, 26 February 2007 (CST)


 * See here for another problem with previews.--Rocky [[Image:Rally-X_Rock.png|25px]]  ( Talk Contributions ) 15:16, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * [show] and [hide] links no longer appear on AGNs. Looky.--Dan 08:15, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Possibly related to the following error, which may be stopping parsing/execution of the JS at that point.
 * wgBreakFrames is not defined
 * http://66.225.237.224/w/skins/common/wikibits.js
 * Line 51
 * For the moment, it's probably best to change that line to "if(false) { // TODO: Fixme" --DrBob (Talk) 11:36, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * You mean if(true) (we shouldn't allow anyone to frame us :P). If it's stopping there, it also means it's not getting to the sorted stuff.  Also, having this stuff at a separate domain means that it might have trouble finding some things.  For example it needs the sort_up] and sort_down images, which it might try getting from the other ip.  I'm guessing that having all that stuff under media.strategywiki.org would fix any of those problems.
 * I also seem to be getting a "Error: mwEditButtons has no properties Source File: http://66.225.237.224/w/skins/common/wikibits.js Line: 336". -- Prod (Talk) 13:11, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * I may indeed mean that. You never know what I'll come up with when I haven't had enough sleep. :-P I think the mwEditButtons problem may (please!) disappear when the wgBreakFrames one is fixed. --DrBob (Talk) 16:42, 2 March 2007 (CST)

On closer inspection, it would appear that Wikipedia have a block of JS at the top of their page which sets variables like wgBreakFrames, which we should probably have: /*<![CDATA[*/ var skin = "monobook"; var stylepath = "/skins-1.5"; var wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1"; var wgScriptPath = "/w"; var wgServer = "http://en.wikipedia.org"; var wgCanonicalNamespace = ""; var wgCanonicalSpecialPageName = false; var wgNamespaceNumber = 0; var wgPageName = "Main_Page"; var wgTitle = "Main Page"; var wgArticleId = "13173"; var wgIsArticle = true; var wgUserName = "MrDrBob"; var wgUserGroups = ["*", "user", "autoconfirmed"]; var wgUserLanguage = "en"; var wgContentLanguage = "en"; var wgBreakFrames = false; var wgCurRevisionId = "98546089"; /*]]>*/ --DrBob (Talk) 00:28, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * I finally got FTP access this morning, and it should all be fixed. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 01:13, 5 March 2007 (CST)

I offer SW a Vision

 * I opened discussion for what will likely be a large section of the community portal to here. A copy of Afker's message is there, and you can respond there.  Hope this will keep the discussion running smoothly and still make the Community Portal readable for other topics. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:28, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Apologies ahead of time if I sound arrogant. I usually don't notice I offend people until I see their reactions (no matter how much I pay attention to how I word things). Even if you get offended, I humbly ask that you at least read the last 2 paragraphs, to see what my main point is. The intermediate paragraphs can be summarized as:
 * 1) Why compete against GuildWiki?
 * 2) If GameFAQs ever goes wiki (and I'm surprised that they haven't), how can you compete against them?

Consider the game Guild Wars. There exists a wiki, GuildWiki (part of the gamewikis network), that is unquestionably the current best resource for Guild Wars. It has the following advantages:
 * The wiki format of GuildWiki allows for multiple editors
 * One game, one guide
 * GuildWiki ensures that the guides remain open
 * There are no more "plaintext" guides

So, why is StrategyWiki trying to create its own walkthrough for Guild Wars? With GuildWiki already having an overwhelming headstart, everyone who is anyone in the guild wars community is going to pay attention, and contribute, to GuildWiki. There is no way StrategyWiki's walkthrough on Guild Wars can catch up to be 10% as good as Guild Wiki, unless Gravewit (the guy behind the gamewikis network) gets killed in a car accident and the contracts expire so that two years of contributions by thousands of people vaporizes.

Even if GuildWiki were licensed under GFDL (it's not, it's under the CC-BY-NC license), and StrategyWiki manages to get a hold of a dump of the entire GuildWiki (minus personal user information), importing all that information into StrategyWiki will still make the guide on StrategyWiki inferior, in a sense, to GuildWiki.

You see, the very fact that the walkthroughs for every single game on StrategyWiki shares the same wiki-space, puts limitations and flexibility on what it can do. The fact that the game Guild Wars gets its own independent wiki-space on the gamewikis network gives it room to be better than any walkthrough that can be hosted on the current form of StrategyWiki.

Even if you ported all GuildWiki articles over (which you can't), and add necessary (Guild Wars) disambiguation (or put them under Guild Wars/), so that you have 100% identical information as GuildWiki has, when an avid fan of Guild Wars thinks about whether he should contribute to StrategyWiki or GuildWiki, I bet the bigger Guild Wars fans will choose GuildWiki, simply because it's themed, and is dedicated to Guild Wars, and they won't have to include the extra words "Guild Wars" in the names of 99% of the articles. Most of them won't know (or care) the difference between GFDL or CC-BY-NC, or your bigger visions.

Any set of articles for the game Guild Wars, hosted on StrategyWiki under its current structure, is going to be intrinsically inferior to GuildWiki.

Here is how I, an outsider, sees StrategyWiki as: I see it as a site that wants to become a GameFAQs.com that has only one guide for each game, uses pictures and richtext, and is open for collabrative editing. If I want help with a random game and I don't know where to begin, I would probably go to GameFAQs first, and your vision is to replace the role of GameFAQs by providing guides of higher quality (GameFAQs' current structure makes it intrinsically inferior to StrategyWiki). A noble vision, but limits the guides and prevent some of them to become the best guides that could exist for some of the games. Additionally, if GameFAQs ever decide to go wiki (with a copyleft license), you will be almost instantly defeated because they are already better known and have developed a bigger user base. StrategyWiki will no longer be different.

Last 2 paragraphs starts here

 * Please respond to Afker's message here. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:28, 26 February 2007 (CST)

I offer SW a vision: Become a hub, a portal, a place where everyone goes to find where the best open guide for any game is located at (which may or maynot be on SW). The game Guild Wars has GuildWiki, so you just point everyone who come here to look for a walkthrough for Guild Wars to Guild Wiki, and never worry about making one hosted on SW. The game Foo Bar has several extensive guides on the internet, but none of them are in an open (wiki with copyleft licensing) format, so StrategyWiki developes its own at  http://strategywiki.org/w/Foo_Bar . Later say Foo Bar come out with a total of 3 sequals, all highly connected, and the world view and lore has become greatly enriched, and you create a "sub-wiki" at  http://foobar.strategywiki.org  for the entire Foo Bar game series. You will still have wiki walkthroughs for games, and you can win over Foo Bar fans as contributors (against other encompassing walkthrough sites that also decide to go wiki) because there is a dedicated Foo Bar sub-wiki hosted at strategywiki.

Hack the mediawiki software to allow displaying of "local recent changes" (say, on Foo Bar Wiki only) and "global recent changes" (across ALL sub-wikis and the central wiki on the strategywiki network). Attract community of gamer fans by giving the games they love enough space to call home (by having themed sub-wikis for games that are connected and have more freedom in article creation/naming), not hotel rooms. With that, issues 3~5 regarding the merger offer for AliceSoftWiki can all be resolved by having a  http://alicesoft.strategywiki.org . I offer the vision to you freely, and hope that if things work out I might have some subliminal advantages when negeociating about issue 2 regarding AliceSoftWiki. d-: -Afker 06:04, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Language Categories
I think there should be categories for games of other languages, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, German, etc. Opinions? --Notmyhandle 19:22, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * Are you meaning for guides in other languages, or for games only released in those languages? Anyway, it could get a bit confusing: many games are released in various languages, so if we don't bother tagging those released in several languages they'll have to be hunted for in the regular ways. GarrettTalk 19:28, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah I see how its a bad idea. --Notmyhandle 19:44, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * On another note, I am going to create ja.strategywiki.org and ko.strategywiki.org before the end of the semester. I think they'll definitely work out due to our substantial Asian traffic.  ech elon  16:23, 28 February 2007 (CST)

Site Changes
Whats with all these changes to the site? The (+120) thing on the recent changes? The enlarged and moved edit buttons? Lunar Knight 13:27, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * lol, you've been away for a while ;) We upgraded to the latest Wiki code, and a few new features were added (like the character edit count, the +120 you referred to).  It also broke a few minor touches.  They can all be restored eventually, but only someone with access to the files, and the time to look into it, can resolve the few remaining issues. Procyon 13:54, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think I've posted resolutions to all the issues people've reported, but I can't do anything with them at the moment, as I've misplaced the software I need for server access. :-P --DrBob (Talk) 14:52, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * I don't favor the rather large and repositioned edit buttons. I havn't been away for a while, I guess this is the first time I've noticed. :-P -Lunar Knight 15:46, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * DrBob, we'll talk tonight about getting you server access again. (I also need to yell at talk to Dan to restore SCP access.) As for the big ugly edit buttons and the blinding red links, that'll take a few CSS patches to solve.  ech elon  16:31, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * If you've got time tonight, I've put the CSS patches up in the various bug reporting threads here and in the staff lounge. --DrBob (Talk) 16:57, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think the bugs are squashed now except redlinks, but that requires a PHP fix.  ech elon  23:38, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * Edit links are still large and in charge on the left. GarrettTalk 00:24, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * Nope they aren't, small and on the right. --Notmyhandle 00:25, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * Dump your cache.  ech elon  01:03, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * Thanks for fixing the edit links! Now you just need to tackle those dazzling red links... :-) Lunar Knight 18:22, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * Be sure to thank our resident CSS whiz DrBob too!  ech elon  01:41, 2 March 2007 (CST)


 * Is there a list of changes that need to be fixed (or have been fixed) other than right here? I feel like there's more than just what has been mentioned in this spot.  Anyway, if I'm being repetitive I apologize.  The show/hide is disabled on All Game Nav and Todo.  Also, the buttons that used to go above the edit box (with bold, italicize, signature, etc) is no longer there.  Once again, sorry if you already know about all these, they seem pretty difficult to miss.-- Duke  Ruckley  15:23, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * There are mentions of bugs here, in the Staff Lounge, on talk pages, etc. As for the show/hide, it seems to work fine in firefox (for me, at least), and the buttons that go above the edit box weirdly float near the top of the page unless a is implemented into the last line of the page (Absolutely no clue why though). --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 15:39, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Eh. I thought it was only IE but I cleared my cache just in case and, voilà, no toolbar or hiding. I don't miss the toolbar (touch typing ftw) but we need show/hide back at the very least. GarrettTalk 15:56, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * I was just about to say that it doesn't work in FireFox for me (I forgot to mention that before). I'm using FF 2.0.0.2-- Duke  Ruckley  15:58, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Nvm, I cleared my cache and it's messed up for me now too. We really need to get that fixed... --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 16:09, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * What exactly do you mean? The show/hide works fine, for me anyway. (Then again, I use a Mac and Safari.) Lunar Knight Talk to me 17:27, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * It's an IE problem (checked FireFox) which can't be solved by clearing temporary internet files. --Notmyhandle 19:37, 2 March 2007 (CST)

Clearing cache will cause the problems on firefox. -- Prod (Talk) 19:46, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Show/Hide doesn't work on Camino, either. (Camino is a Gecko-based browser.)--Dan 10:01, 3 March 2007 (CST)
 * What happened to the show/hide buttons? They aren't there anymore. Lunar Knight 15:25, 3 March 2007 (CST)

'''All these issues should now be fixed. If you come across another problem, please open a new discussion thread.''' --DrBob (Talk) 01:17, 5 March 2007 (CST)

Wikia Hosting

 * Note: I moved this from my talk page to allow for more visibility to the community.  ech elon  16:51, 28 February 2007 (CST)

Hi Echelon. I saw on StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal that you are having problems with the hosting costs. If you'd like to move to free hosting at Wikia, please let me know. It would save you a lot of expense and allow you to focus on the content here rather than dealing with the technical side of maintaining the wiki. Angela 11:51, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * Free hosting necessarily comes with some limitations, what would those be? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 12:15, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * I doubt that she will troll Echelon's talk page for a response, so it's doubtful that you can get your question answered here. Anyway, I was under the impression that since we implemented adsense, we were pretty much in the clear as far as that goes, even making enough money to upgrade to a better server.  Any news on that front Echelon? Procyon 12:57, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * It's possible, I see strategywiki as a site that could do quite well, and wikia is for-profit, they pay for hosting but get the adsense money. So if we did end up huge, and we went under wikia, it'd be easy money.  This is all purely buisness speak here, I don't want to assume intentions. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:05, 28 February 2007 (CST)


 * Hi Angela, thanks for visiting us. Now that we have implemented Adsense, we are making roughly double our monthly expenditures; our earnings are further augmented by Abxy's income. (Abxy is our social networking that is both a sister site and joint project.) This means that for right now we're in the clear--we're actually back on track for raising funds for a colocated server. Although we appreciate your business offer and we certainly respect the company you and Jimbo have built, I believe we are for the moment doing a good job at running and marketing StrategyWiki. For clarification, I'll give you the basis for my thinking:
 * As a CS major I must say one of the biggest thrills I get is from managing our server. (I'd even argue that I'm better at management than guide writing!) While we did have to implement ads on StrategyWiki as primarily a cost-recovery measure, this is only because Abxy is experiencing a small identity crisis of sorts. Pending a few changes to our direction, Abxy should again pay for all of our expenses as it did in the past, hopefully enabling us to go colocated and clustered by this summer. (The thought of having our own hardware, especially clustered machines, thrills me to no extent!)
 * Secondly, our organization intends to become a small force in the gaming sector, and the things that predicate this shift are really starting to fall into place for us. We're not just about building a strategy guide wiki, but rather providing all sorts of services to gamers--and user-driven content isn't restricted to the domain of wikis. Hence this is the reason we have our social networking platform and future projects along the same line and principle. We may or may not interconnect these services by extending MediaWiki, and as we grow this becomes more and more of a feasible possibility since the AuthUser system can quickly be adapted to each new version of MediaWiki through the use of our increasing human resources. I should clarify that we have not made a firm decision on whether or not to connect StrategyWiki, Abxy, and our other services, but it is a real possibility that is quite often brought up in our staff meetings.
 * Thanks again for stopping by Angela. I'm sure that we'll continue to discuss your offer, but I am agnostic to the idea of joining Wikia at this point as it's simply not the direction we want to go. Nevertheless, thanks for making note of us and tell Jimbo hi!  ech elon  16:19, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * There is no reason to join wikia. Nor will there ever be. --ConfusedSoul 20:12, 28 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks for your response Echelon. Let me know if the situation changes and you're no longer able to support the site through adsense on your own. Also, if there is content that you don't welcome here, such as fanon about the games, feel free to let people know that Wikia can provide them a space for that. Angela 17:24, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * Sure thing. Wikia's Gameinfo might be an appropriate place to redirect quality material that is not relevant to StrategyWiki's aim. Thanks for stopping by!  ech elon  01:33, 2 March 2007 (CST)

Just to input my opinion, I really prefer Strategy Wiki independent. I side with ConfusedSoul as well, there is on reason to join Wikia, we found a way of providing profit, so we don't need to be supported by Wikia. Lunar Knight 18:26, 1 March 2007 (CST) :We aren't exactly making a profit. But we're breaking even. If it ever got to the point where we couldn't afford it (would not happen) I would front the money. So we're in the clear. This shouldn't even be a discussion. --ConfusedSoul
 * I didn't exactly mean profit. I just meant that we found a way of paying for the site. Lunar Knight 17:31, 2 March 2007 (CST)

Requests for adminship/Ryan Schmidt
Everyone's attention to the above please. :) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:30, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * There's a little bit of an issue concerning this Mason. I don't think anyone here would actively oppose Ryan's nomination for adminship, but it's very likely that people (such as myself) will neither be in favor of supporting him, nor opposing his nomination.  In other words, I abstain because I don't have enough of a strong feeling either way.  We need to come up with a criteria upon which a user is promoted.  Is it simply a matter of yeas versus nays?  Or does there have to be a strong enough consensus among all admins?  In other words, there are 11 sysops, so does he need at least 6 supporters?  If there were 5 supporters and no one opposes, is he promoted or is he not?  Do Bureaucrat votes count more than sysop votes?  Just curious.  Procyon 15:12, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * With wikipedia, they would rather give everyone admin privileges since everyone should be allowed to contribute, as long as they understand the policies. This means that there are over 1k admins right now.  On the admin page they state "From early on, it has been pointed out that administrators should never develop into a special subgroup of the community but should be a part of the community like anyone else."  They just can do some of the more difficult to undo tasks.  For the moment, admins=regulars, as in we tend to be on here helping out with everything.  As the site grows, the number of sysops will definately grow.  And this is a vote for anyone to support/oppose, not just admins.
 * The way I see it, there are two general voting methods that could work:
 * You count the number of supports and the total votes, and if the supports are over half of the total votes (rounded up), then the consensus is "yes"
 * Each support adds a point, and each oppose takes off a point (undecided doesn't add or remove points). If the points total up to more than half of the total votes (rounded up), then the consensus is "yes"
 * I'm personally in favor of method 2, but, as this is a community thing, I'll leave it up to the community to decide which one (if any of the above) to implement, or suggest new ideas. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 16:18, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * Actually, after reading what Prod had to say, I'm more in favor of supporting Ryan now. As for how we determine the promotion, it sounds like it should simply be democratic yeas vs. nays since it's open to everyone on the site (and there's no true way to determine what the representative percentage of users voted.) Procyon 16:29, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * From the Requests for adminship/Front matter page, (can someone post it I forgot what it was, StrategyWiki:RA?) it says, "At the end of that period, a bureaucrat will review the discussion to see whether there is a consensus for promotion." Thus only Ech, Dr. and Garrett can decide who becomes admin.  The nomination however is only meant to open the discussion of the person for adminship, to weigh the pros and cons of the person and to see if they would even be useful.  Bureaucrats, is this right?  --Notmyhandle 17:00, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * It's RFA, and that's a good point. It's a discussion, not a vote.  Final decision is up to the person who has to power to promote (Bureaucrats).  -- Prod (Talk) 17:06, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * How it works at WP and how I think it should work here, is Bureaucrats determine if their is consensus, then simply act on that consensus. If most people think it's a good idea, then go through with it.  I understand your first comment Proc, and that's fine, that's why there is abstain.  My feelings on sysops is just as WP feels, since we don't really ever rely on votes, sysops only real purpose is to have more effective tools to deal better with cleanup and problem-users (of which we've had a surprisingly small number as far as I know).  My criteria is, if I don't not trust the user with the tools, and I believe they are here enough to make their ownership of them worthwhile, then give it to them. :) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 17:54, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * This is true. Our ratio of sysops may be rather high, but it may nevertheless come in handy when a vandal or spammer sets themselves loose on StrategyWiki in our absence. While we shouldn't go overboard with RFAs at this stage, I don't think this particular RFA is excessive.  ech elon  01:39, 2 March 2007 (CST)


 * Let's allow for another day of voting so everyone can have their say, and we'll come to the consensus. (Though it seems like we may know the outcome.)  ech elon  01:39, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Support: I also feel that right now our biggest criterion for adminship is how often the nominee is around.  In any case, I support Ryan Schmidt for sysop. Duke  Ruckley  12:15, 2 March 2007 (CST)

What happened to my Mule :(
Look at this image. The dithering is all off. The original source image was a smooth grayscale. The uploaded image looks all weird. And when you download it back to your harddrive, it looks fine again. (At least, it did for me.) Could this have something to do with the remaining bugs? Or is this just what naturally happens?
 * Are you using IE6? It's got an alpha transparency layer, and IE6 can't always handle those correctly. If not I really don't know. For me it looks the same in Firefox as it does in various image viewers/editors. GarrettTalk 15:41, 2 March 2007 (CST)


 * For me it looks worse in FF(0_0), in IE6 it looks better but I don't know what it's meant to look like.--Rocky [[Image:Rally-X_Rock.png|25px]]  ( Talk Contributions ) 08:52, 4 March 2007 (CST)

Bugs in History
I'm not sure if anyone has noticed but for me in IE6, when you go to the history and edit tab, the white writing in the blue at the very bottom of the page has gone, it usually says this: "This page was last modified 19:11, 2 March 2007. Content is available under GFDL 1.2." but it is gone, also in looking at a previous diff, it is very far to the left. Can someone fix this please?--Rocky   ( Talk Contributions ) 14:59, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Not too sure about the history tab, but when clicking the edit tab, the white text has been shifted left in firefox as well. -- Prod (Talk) 15:06, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * I don't think that text is meant to be displayed on those two pages. It isn't on Wikipedia, anyway (as far as I can tell). --DrBob (Talk) 16:38, 2 March 2007 (CST)

All Game Nav Bug
Uh, is the table of contents drop down not showing for anyone else? Its like this on every page. --Notmyhandle 19:11, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * . Same with the one below. -- Prod (Talk) 19:17, 2 March 2007 (CST)

Editing Shortcut Buttons, Gone?
Another glitch, on all edit pages the little buttons have disappeard! ='( --Notmyhandle 19:13, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * See . GarrettTalk 19:48, 2 March 2007 (CST)

Summary required no longer?
Is the edit summary no longer required? I just did a few contributions without having to summarise them. Lunar Knight 15:33, 3 March 2007 (CST)
 * The edit summary has always been required, but the notification isn't working at the moment due to our JavaScript issues. --DrBob (Talk) 15:46, 3 March 2007 (CST)
 * Sorry, what I meant was the notification. So this problem is also from the cause of the show/hide problem? Lunar Knight 15:53, 3 March 2007 (CST)
 * Most likely. They're at least related. --DrBob (Talk) 15:57, 3 March 2007 (CST)
 * I've never seen a summary notification, ever. --Notmyhandle 16:18, 3 March 2007 (CST)
 * It's always been on bluecloud, just recently (kinda) got on monobook, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't on other skins although it may be on the common one now. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 21:58, 3 March 2007 (CST)
 * It's in common.js, and should be working again now. --DrBob (Talk) 01:16, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * For me when I first came here I had to turn this on myself in preferences (at the bottom of editing) can we change it so it is automatic, it would help people new to the site provide a summary--Rocky [[Image:Rally-X_Rock.png|25px]]  ( Talk Contributions ) 10:14, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * The JavaScript warning that you haven't provided an edit summary is on for all users, regardless of their preferences. --DrBob (Talk) 11:27, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * I've been here a month, has it been put on after that because I had to change it myself (btw I'm using IE6 and there is no warning in upload file if you don't put in a category)--Rocky [[Image:Rally-X_Rock.png|25px]]  ( Talk Contributions ) 12:03, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * The edit summary JS was added less than a month ago, as far as I can remember. I'll look into the IE6 issues, but I can't guarantee anything. I suggest you add this to the list of IE6 problems which is floating around somewhere. --DrBob (Talk) 13:23, 5 March 2007 (CST)

Message Template Locales
Can someone make a page like in the StrategyWiki:Guide or I dunno, post them on Ech's userpage, in which the templates containing the welcome message, the vandalism warnings, etc. could easily be found? I think people would use them more (i.e. help with warning/welcoming people) if they had access to them. --Notmyhandle 19:50, 4 March 2007 (CST)
 * It's Category:Message templates, and what section of the guide would it fit best in? Guide/Templates? --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 21:22, 4 March 2007 (CST)
 * Well, maybe we should start a new page like StategyWiki:Guide/Community management or something. --Notmyhandle 21:43, 4 March 2007 (CST)

Donate button?
I think that since SW has been getting so much traffic from Google lately, it would make sense to add a "Donate to StrategyWiki!" button to the main page, just like we have on ABXY. We seem to be getting the brunt of the hits, so I think thatthis could really help get funding. -GANNON 22:10, 4 March 2007 (CST)
 * Nick Weinberg? Anyway, I talked with DrBob about this. For now the consensus is not while we have ads.  ech elon  02:25, 7 March 2007 (CST)

JavaScript problems, still need fixing?
If so, you guys might like to check out the Web Developer extension for FireFox, it'll tell you what the problem is, on every page too. --Notmyhandle 22:30, 4 March 2007 (CST)
 * I know exactly what the problem is, and I'm just waiting on Dan or Echelon to get moving and implement the patch. :-( --DrBob (Talk) 00:22, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * Well ok. But if you're interested you should still check it out, great tool (much more than just a java script checker). --Notmyhandle 00:40, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * I've used it for years. :-P Anyway, the errors should now be fixed. --DrBob (Talk) 01:14, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * You might want to check Firebug out, if we're going to be recommending web development extensions to each other. --DrBob (Talk) 01:14, 5 March 2007 (CST)

User Contribs
Is there any way to change the site to find out exactly how many edits you've done, It's a minor thing really but could we change the bullets to numbered lists in Contribs or just a scentence at the top saying how many edits you've done?--Rocky   ( Talk Contributions ) 15:40, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * That's MediaWiki, not us. :-P If you want such a feature to appear next time we upgrade, why not suggest it on their Bugzilla? (Just make sure that somebody else hasn't suggested it already!) --DrBob (Talk) 15:48, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * There are several edit counters for Wikipedia, and some of them are open source. Maybe we could get our own version running? GarrettTalk 16:00, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * I didn't know about those. We should look into them. --DrBob (Talk) 17:17, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * Uh, Bugzilla doesn't allow suggestions yet (only bug reporting); at least for MediaWiki. --Notmyhandle 17:03, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * Bugzilla has always allowed suggestions; just set the bug severity to "Enhancement". ;-) --DrBob (Talk) 17:17, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * >_< they make it so complicated haha! --Notmyhandle 17:40, 5 March 2007 (CST)

Better image map support
If it's not too much trouble, the current extension should be replaced with this one. Not only does it eliminate separate map files and allow making and testing adjustments within MediaWiki itself, it has the added bonus of making the usage show up on the image links (with the current extension they are considered to be orphans). GarrettTalk 20:24, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * Done. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 01:10, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Policy Creation (Collab): Templates
It's an empty page so far; so what's the policy, or rather what should it be? "Templates should only be created to graphically arrange data, and/or to ease the creation of additional pages or elements of pages. Keep in mind that templates should be used to reduce the amount of code on a page via repeated use." Or something like that... --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 00:34, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * Something like that. Also mention that they need to be categorised into either Category:Templates or Category:Guide-specific templates. --DrBob (Talk) 01:07, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * Categorization, careful naming, and maintaining a hierarchy is key in ensuring that our templates don't get cluttered. I'd say this is one of the most important things we have to keep tabs on. Granted, templates are critical for reducing redundancy, but they are powerful tools that must be given respect and much thought so that they don't in themselves become redundant.  ech elon  02:29, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * Created, see header for link (basically a rewrite of this thread). --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 17:37, 7 March 2007 (CST)

New organized effort to promote StrategyWiki
Over the next few weeks I'd like to begin a two-tier program to promote StrategyWiki to a new level of visibility, adoption, and usage. This involves a range of tasks such as outreach to other wikis and related websites and both direct and indirect forms of promotion. Here are some of the things I would like to try: In closing, this is a pending project that I would like you guys to consider and comment on. Each item is a suggestion and is not set in stone; we can tweak everything as necessary before we begin. The ultimate goal of this project is to increase awareness of StrategyWiki, increase our search engine rankings, and possibly add new and seasoned talent to our already growing pool of contributors. Comment away.  ech elon  03:41, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * In order to rise in the google results, we need to do a little offsite SEO. Normally, a rise in search engine visibility occurs over time (as it has already), but a boost would not hurt. If we get links from highly ranked sources (other than Wikipedia--which we already have thousands of), Google will appreciate our site's value even more. One way to accomplish is to request links from similar websites and wikis, especially ones that are already seeing a moderate or good level of success. I don't think this is a bad thing to ask.
 * Along the lines of what was stated above, we could also consider more strategic partnerships, such as our one with Bulbapedia. I think the choice to work with them was a wise one, and we should choose a Zelda-related and MapleStory-related wiki to work with.
 * Beginning this week, I would like to start talking directly with GameFAQs contributors on a 1-on-1 IM or email basis. While the word "proselytize" may be strong, in essence this is what we'd be doing. We can tell GF contributors what a good resource we think their guides are, and then we can explain how we think StrategyWiki may be a great place for those guides to be accessible and extendible by anyone. Obviously, some editors will not want to join us. Be it pride, a sense of loyalty, or something else entirely, not everyone will see StrategyWiki as the next logical step in guide writing. Others, however, may see this as an opportunity to help build our project. Gaining even a few of these such contributors would be invaluable for our project. A great place to start would be with the map makers, as they must already be fed up with GameFAQs lack of inline images.
 * I'd like to use some of our budget on advertising, whether on adsense, through text links, or maybe even banners posted all over my (or your) college or school. I'm not sure how affective this would be, but it's worth a shot. There has to be some reason companies pay millions of dollars for ads...


 * May I suggest a way of advertizing, we could link to relevant Youtube videos, it should then show up on the Links section and we may earn a little free advertizing that way, I'm not quite sure if Youtube will count as a highly ranked source though:pRocky    (Contributions) 10:20, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * I would also suggest looking at this discussion from a while back. Here are some of my comments on the suggestions. -- Prod (Talk) 11:11, 7 March 2007 (CST)


 * 1) When approaching another website, be sure to read their rules and see if they mention their external linking policy. I'm pretty sure most sites would be willing to do some kind of link exchange, so we may have to figure out how to add links to their sites.  I'm not too sure a link in our external links section will be enough of a trade for a link in their sidebars.
 * 2) There is a Final Fantasy wiki I think, but I'm not too sure about Zelda. There is only one wiki I know relating to MapleStory, but I think we're essentially in competition with them (maplewiki.net).  Most of the sites potentially willing to partner are standalone websites (hidden-street and any of the external links on MapleStory).
 * 3) I think the main reason many don't/wouldn't want to join is the lack of their name on the front of the guide. There are all sorts of "incentives" for people to contribute.  For example, there is a count kept of guides uploaded, saves contributed (should we add that?) and various other things.  I think the fact that GF is owned by CNET might have reduced the loyalty of some people (fight the power! :P).  One thing they have which we don't, is a thriving community (ours + abxy is somewhat small at the moment, and fairly disjoint as well).
 * 4) Ads are always good :D There are some small gaming stores nearby, and I think they might be willing to put up an add for a gaming wiki if they were asked.  With the Wii gaining popularity (and the non-gamers perhaps looking for help) getting access to people offline would probably help.  In general, when putting up posters at universities and stores (or any building) you have to get permission from the owners.  At the university I went to, there is a special department that decides which advertisements to allow.  Anyone attempting to put up posters should look into this first.
 * 5) Gamerankings and metacritic (and similar sites) link to websites which host "official" reviews for games (not community reviews, but site staff reviews). If abxy can get recognized by these sites, and has reviews for many games (plus link to strategywiki) we should be able to help increase our traffic.
 * I found a Zelda Wiki that doesn't seem to have walkthroughs (which is good for us). As for GF, I think it would be a good idea to talk with them one on one (maybe getting the LUEs to start up a thread in the forum as well). Also, GF's "thriving" community consists mostly of immature idiots (not to insult anyone at GF, but it is a fact), so I think we have them beat there. We could also try getting an ad into the newspapers, maybe the local ones (as it usually doesn't cost as much). --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 15:39, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * From my experience with working with GF users, so far image users, is just the fear of GFDL licensing and "public domain" works. They are afraid they will lose their copyright and thus the connection between their name and their work.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 17:55, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * Their name will always be retained in the page's history as well as their contributions, so I really don't think that the connection between their name and the guide is that big of an issue (unless they like to put their name in the forefront). Also, they really shouldn't be worried about the GFDL because it only changes one thing, the fact that they don't have to sort through e-mails and retype the guide if there is a simple spelling error (someone else will do it for them here). As for other people copying the guide, they'll do it anyway no matter what it is licensed under, it just so happens that GFDL makes it legal. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 18:35, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * Exactly, the few that I have spoken to (the ones who haven't accepted my request for use of their work) want their name to remain on the images. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 19:06, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah, Ryan, GFDL seems harmless to you because you're comfortable with it, and you don't have the kind of ego that needs your name advertised all over your work. GF authors have a different mindset (as they are entitled to have) and strongly protect their work as their own.  It's simply a distinction of philosophy.  I used to be a GF author, and I understand how they feel about it.  I was strongly protective of my work too.  Coming to SW was simply about accepting the wiki philosophy.  I know that I don't own any of my work here, but I know what work is my own, and I'm fine with that.  I gain recognition, not by claiming any of the work that I do, but by contributing positively to this community.  It's not easy for everyone to make that jump.  Especially if they've produced a large body of work.  I think approaching GF authors is a good idea, but I think the approach chosen is key to the success of that kind of attempt.  Procyon 19:55, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * I find it best to just email a GF author with a large amount of contributions, explain StrategyWiki and GFDL and encourage them to join so that their work can be spread more efficiently. The thing is, I don't want to say it to them, but it's not like we won't use their information if they don't want to join or give us permission to reproduce it =/  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 20:30, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * How about we work on a kind of template e-mail? That way we can contact those who contribute to GF most effectively?  It's not very personal, but they are e-mails so it won't really be known that they are template e-mails and it would be more efficient.  I've contacted about a dozen GF authors already, mostly on specific guides that we could use here, and only a few seemed really interested, but I didn't explain everything as well as I could have (and can now) so I think something like a template would be useful. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 16:56, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Regular "staff" (IRC) meetings
I'm suggesting that we start some regular IRC discussions for everyone to participate. I use the term staff loosely to mean admins are highly recommended (to keep discussions on track), but everyone is welcome. Either weekly or monthly. Weekly might be a bit too often, and bother some users, but monthly might not be regular enough. This would be to quickly get through some of the stuff on community issues, without getting discussions that are too lengthy, or just for general brainstorming. Timings might get tough, since I know we have people from all over North America, many from Europe, and even some from Singapore. It could be that whoever is online at one of the two or three "designated" times can discuss whatever is currently happening, but have one "main" discussion. It would be great for some general brainstorming that may not be appropriate here, as well as attracting people to IRC. Thoughts? -- Prod (Talk) 00:07, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * I'm for promoting IRC conversation in general; I don't like an empty, "silent," channel. I'll be in there as much as I can.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 00:30, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * Sounds alright. What day/time were you thinking of? --DrBob (Talk) 11:09, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * Probably around 11 PM GMT (6 PM EST). Most NA people will be off work (assuming regular work hours) and it won't be too late for some basic discussion for EU people. -- Prod (Talk) 11:13, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * In general I could make a weekday 6 PM IRC (I'm in EST), but I couldn't make any weekend ones, until the summer at least, but then it'd be whenever I wasn't working. Although I like the idea and plan to be in IRC most of the time during the week. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 12:52, 8 March 2007 (CST)

For reference, the channel is #StrategyWiki. -- Prod (Talk) 12:57, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * I say sure, maybe once every other week? Btw, I feel like a fool for asking, but I currently don't have an IRC client. Which one should I get? --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 15:29, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * Unless it's on a Friday or weekend, I have class at 6 PM EST Monday-Thursday. :X  ech elon  15:34, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Info about IRC clients can be found at Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients. I use mIRC, though I've heard good things about x-chat. -- Prod (Talk) 15:37, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * Wasn't their a link to log in without requiring a client?-- Duke Ruckley  15:42, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * It's gone for some reason, but http://irc.abxy.org works. Once you're on you should be able to type  to change to the channel. GarrettTalk 16:21, 8 March 2007 (CST)

I figure if we're all on IRC when possible, then meetings will sometimes just occur when enough people are around as well. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 16:05, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Compression of CSS files
I've decided to use http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/main/csscompressor/ to compress our MediaWiki CSS files. Of course, this will be great for maintaining server stability, but the downside is we'll have to keep two different copies of the CSS file, one compressed and the other uncompressed on it's talk page. Example.

This is going to be incredibly useful since querying for a CSS file via MediaWiki is intensive, and compressing it will reduce the time it takes for an httpd fork to handle a request. What do you all think? Should I go on and do the rest of the CSS files?--Dan 08:18, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * Sounds good to me. What sort of improvements did you see with BlueCloud? --DrBob (Talk) 11:08, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * What would be even better is to put all of our CSS rules for BlueCloud in a static css file that doesn't involve MediaWiki in any way. Why don't we just do that instead?  ech elon  15:23, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * The disadvantage of that is that then only a few select people can change the CSS, which is the exact opposite of the intent of these pages. GarrettTalk 15:49, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * Yes, and MediaWiki does some voodoo with the CSS to concatenate all the files, including the user CSS, and other stuff based on the theme. It would be best to leave it as Dan's set it up. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 16:25, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * Done, for the most part.--Dan 18:35, 8 March 2007 (CST)