StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal

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PC keys?
Should there be a Category:PC keys? I think it would be useful, but I'm not good at graphics, so I'm bringing it up here as the template told me to :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 20:38, 22 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I'd say something more like Category:Keyboard buttons since it isn't for only PC's but all computers (minor distinction :P). -- Prod (Talk) 21:07, 22 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Separated out other talk so we can get more comments about this. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 15:29, 25 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Yea, sorry about that. I kinda hijacked your thread. The category is probably needed, especially for games like Final Fantasy VII.  My image skills are pretty bad, but I'd suggest probably white keys, black borders, raised inner square with a nice large letter in the middle.  Also an Enter button shaped like the old ones (the triangle thing).  -- Prod (Talk) 16:34, 25 October 2006 (CDT)
 * DavysBigKeyCaps is a nice font for that. Another way to make keyboard buttons is to make a template with a plain square keyboard image as a background and the letter centered, with special cases for irregular keys. Then, it'd be more accessible as well. --blendmaster 11:45, 29 October 2006 (CST)

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


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

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


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

This is quasi on-topic, but I put a blurb about us in the latest Retrogaming Times Monthly, and that gets a good amount of traffic, so hopefully some new users might start showing up from there. Procyon 16:25, 30 November 2006 (CST)
 * We should probably keep all these promotions together on one page, just to see what kind of reach this site has. Perhaps Promotions? -- Prod (Talk) 17:54, 30 November 2006 (CST)
 * Let's make that Statistics (and some various related/subpages). We'll just copy Wikipedia on this one--they have a good format.  ech elon  22:30, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Main Guide page content
How far into the game should the main page go (ignoring the one page guides)? What kind of guidelines should they follow? My thinking is: Main page should essentially be an advertisement for the game. It should tell a bit about the history (main infobox points in words), and from there be essentially an advertisement for the game. Include a bit about the story and some unique features of the game. If there are any major flaws in the game they should also be discussed on the front page. Anything more indepth about the game should be in either /Story, /Getting Started, or /Walkthrough. Thoughts? -- Prod (Talk) 01:13, 3 December 2006 (CST)


 * Must say i agree with this. Also the mainpage should go BRIEFLY over the Information about the Game and not go More in-depth that Absoutly Required. Like the Geist Page which myself and Prod were speaking about. I tossed a whole ton of Info and thankfully Prod Helped my Half Asleep Mind to Relize it was overkill and summerized the page for me. As for Major Flaws they should Prob. Be Mentioned on the mainpage also. And there may be a need for an /About page for further Information about the game. WillSWC 01:18, 3 December 2006 (CST)
 * As reference, here is the edit. I think I may have cut too much (info is moved to Geist/Getting Started).  -- Prod (Talk) 01:22, 3 December 2006 (CST)
 * I would agree with that. --DrBob (Talk) 07:58, 3 December 2006 (CST)
 * Though i must say he did a rather nice job. I will see if i can work in a little bit more Info. WillSWC 11:08, 3 December 2006 (CST)
 * I added a little more content to the Page. WHat do you think?WillSWC 16:10, 3 December 2006 (CST)

MySQL Database Errors
Is anyone besides me getting these errors? I just want to report that it makes this site REALLY crappy and is causing me from upgrading guides, etc. I'm hoping its just me. --Notmyhandle 03:15, 10 December 2006 (CST)
 * I also got one this morning, but the edit I was making did save. I'll talk to the server guys about it. --DrBob (Talk) 05:23, 10 December 2006 (CST)
 * This is preventing people from uploading or creating new pages, however editing existing pages seems to still work. --Minimaul 08:10, 10 December 2006 (CST)
 * The message said that some part needed to be restarted. Everything seems to work again, so I guess they fixed it. -- Prod (Talk) 11:02, 10 December 2006 (CST)
 * I have the distinct uneasy feeling that we're going to have some downtime and reinstall the entire operating system, because everything has been falling apart for over a month now. I have no idea what was causing the transaction errors, but strange quirks like this have been showing up ever since somebody messed up the PAM authentication. FTP doesn't work (we have to use SCP for all file transfers), su doesn't work, permissions are sporadic. We're not locked out of the box, of course, but it's very difficult to operate. Anyhow, we should do a reinstall within a week's time. I want database/upload backups in everybody's hands just in case.  ech elon  11:22, 10 December 2006 (CST)

Sidebar Navs
Keeping them? deprecating? adding? -- Prod (Talk) 13:11, 10 December 2006 (CST)


 * I started out with them cuz I thought they looked cool, but then the whole site seemed to be moving in the Footer/Header nav direction, so I started removing mine in order to be consistent. Every page I've made thus far has used Footer/Header navs instead.  Procyon 13:35, 10 December 2006 (CST)
 * I like the way it's used on the Contra III: The Alien Wars page. But on Contra, Metal Storm, Final Fantasy VII and Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship, I think they're redundant.  Keeping it synchronized with the ToC is another step, and they're at the top of the page with the AGN anywayz.  I think they should be deprecated as nav's within guides, but used to link within a series or group of guides on only the front page. -- Prod (Talk) 13:50, 10 December 2006 (CST)
 * So the sidebar navs work for the games themselves rather than the broad category of games that they exist under. So what I'm really saying is that the side-bar nav should have more general links regarding the game in terms of what it is categorized with.  The sidebar nav should link to other games in a series for example rather than reiterating the ToC.--Notmyhandle 17:07, 10 December 2006 (CST)
 * Actually, that is pretty cool, I just took a look at that. I could do something similar with all of the Pac-Man pages.  That's a great idea guys, thanks.  Procyon 17:23, 10 December 2006 (CST)
 * Should we deprecate their use as ToC's for the guide? -- Prod (Talk) 13:00, 11 December 2006 (CST)
 * Didn't we just say that the ToC shouldn't be included in the sidebar nav? Since it's on the page already it shouldn't be repeated and the generalized additions that the sidebar could have would enhance the article.  --Notmyhandle 13:05, 11 December 2006 (CST)
 * As they're already there, is it worth getting rid of? I'd also like to get a few more views on this (more than just 3 people). -- Prod (Talk) 13:10, 11 December 2006 (CST)
 * This is slightly off topic, but Community Issues hasn't been getting the kind of traffic it used to. I wonder if that because things are generally running smoothly and there's less to figure out, or if people have less interest in the bureaucracy of StrategyWiki and more interest creating content (which of course is not a bad thing, just interesting) Procyon 13:19, 11 December 2006 (CST)
 * I'd say they're OK for linking games in a series, but not for ToCs (basically, I agree with all of you above). Make sure you don't get too reliant on them, however, as there is a planned re-skin sometime, and the sidebar may just disappear. --DrBob (Talk) 14:00, 11 December 2006 (CST)

Personally I think the Sidebar ToCs CAN be much better than the header ToC's the only problem they have is they can get very long so they do need some CSS work. I think if we could make them expand/collapse by section (like the whole header ToC expands) that it would be much cleaner and be much more usable than header ToC. For example on the FF VII sidebar ToC I would have the following Section headers visible and then expand to view the sub listings: Intro (would expand to show Characters, Story and Controls sections), Walkthrough Part 1 (Would show Disk 1 and 2), Walkthrough Part 2 (would show Disk 3, Minigames and Sidequests), Appendix (would list Materia, Equipment and End matter items). That would be four main visible sections on page load that would (IMHO) display much cleaner than expanding the whole Header ToC. This would be especially usefull for the really long books like FF7 and OOT. --Argash 00:56, 12 December 2006 (CST)
 * I disagree with this. As I said before, we can't guarantee that the sidebar will exist when we re-skin, so I'm not putting all the work in for some wonderful solution, just to have it made redundant. Additionally, it's a seriously bad idea to have your main navigation for a guide in a 1" wide space on the right-hand side of the screen. Nobody looks there. --DrBob (Talk) 01:40, 12 December 2006 (CST)
 * I would agree that the right hand side is less preferable to the left hand side. Perhaps the whole right sidebar should be moved to the left side below the existing menu there? --Argash 04:22, 12 December 2006 (CST)
 * Much easier said than done, and that still doesn't address the problem that when/if we re-skin, the sidebar may not be there. --DrBob (Talk) 11:38, 12 December 2006 (CST)
 * Not improving something simply because things may change in the future is non productive. Just because the whole site layout may change at some unspecified date doesn't meen we shouldn't improve what we have now.  That said I have cleaned up the  FF7 Nav menu and re-skinned it to match the main toolbox (the CSS obviously is not site wide as I can't edit that so if you want to try it out copy my CSS to yours.  Now that I've finished this I think it's time to start working on the next version that I think should replace the sidebar navs AND the more common dropdown ToCs.  I have an idea on what should be done but I'm going to mock it up first before going any further. --Argash 22:34, 17 December 2006 (CST)
 * I must admit, that is quite impressive :). However, on my screen that space is about 3 cm, which greatly limits the length of words and font size.  I think it would be great to use for the earlier discussed intergame navigation, but I still feel it's somewhat too small for a game specific navigation.  I also don't think that date is that far off since they have been hinting at this reskinning since ABXY came out (check the main page announcements). -- Prod (Talk) 00:30, 18 December 2006 (CST)

Skin Independent Solution Proposal
Ok I've mocked up a new ToC system that is skin independent using the Suckerfish solution. I think this is a MUCH MUCH MUCH more elegant solution than the current ToC system (either the header based or side bar) and it can be done vertically or horizontally! I personally think the best way to do it would be vertically from the left sidebar however horizontally floating from the top (so it scrolls with the page) probably would work good too. My basic goal here is to have something that is accessible from any part of an article.

Now the only problem with this solution is converting it to work with media wiki's html output wont be fun but once we do we can easily style the thing anyway we want. As for the styling I'm average at best with CSS so I can help but if anyone out there wants to improve it please feel free.

A final note this solution is compatible with all major browsers. --Argash 03:09, 18 December 2006 (CST)
 * Well I tried to start converting the CSS to adjust for how wiki outputs it's html list code but so far no luck. Anyone else willing to give it a try? --Argash 00:56, 19 December 2006 (CST)

Section Transclusion
An example of what section transclusion can do for you is visible on Ragnarok Online/Jobs/Magician using the transcluded section at Ragnarok Online/Job TOC. I've replaced the wikiTOC with something much prettier and more appropriate to the content; other guides may want to implement similar methods. Karimarie 21:14, 10 December 2006 (CST)
 * Yeah its a good idea, although I don't know how to make templates. Someone needs to make a game company one based off the one at Wikipedia.  --Notmyhandle 16:41, 11 December 2006 (CST)
 * company perhaps? --DrBob (Talk) 01:38, 12 December 2006 (CST)

Logo Image for MonoBook
Yo, I'm a noobie, fresh off Wikipedia. I changed my prefs to MonoBook, and discovered there's no logo there. Instead, it says "Set $wgLogo to the URL path to your own logo image. Can anyone fix this with a good logo? Meowster 17:13, 11 December 2006 (CST)
 * I wouldn't be the best person to do this, but I'll see whom I can run the idea past. A difficulty would be matching any MonoBook logo with the BlueCloud logo's style; I'm not sure how we could do that in a square logo very easily. It'll take some skill to do this properly.  ech elon  22:47, 17 December 2006 (CST)

Downtime and Upgrade
The Abxy and StrategyWiki server has been experiencing some difficulties as of late. There is probably little doubt that many of you have seen the website go offline for extended periods of time. This is an embarrassment to our community, and we're going to fix the problem by taking approximately a day or two of downtime to change the OS to Fedora Core, which is certainly less likely to fail us in the future.

This said, I would like you to help in this effort. I'm going to offer backups of the database and file uploads; I'd like a handful of you to offer to keep them just in case. Please sign up! Additionally, I would like to upgrade MediaWiki to the latest version, so if one of you wouldn't mind finding out the discrepancies from this version and the latest version, that would be great. (I've more than got my hands busy with the server upgrade and coding, so help here would be excellent!) I would especially like to know which files changed, if any of our hacks/modules will be incompatible, and if there are any schema changes to be mindful of--especially the schema changes!

The database backups I'm making are going to XML-based. If any of you know of a more appropriate format, let me know.

Thanks guys!  ech elon  00:45, 18 December 2006 (CST)
 * Count me in. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 01:12, 18 December 2006 (CST)
 * Me too. -- Prod (Talk) 10:23, 18 December 2006 (CST)
 * I'd be happy to host data. Perhaps torrent files for transferrence?  --Notmyhandle 19:27, 18 December 2006 (CST)
 * I have a ton of spare storage on my dreamhost account if you want to set-up a mirror or something like that--Argash 23:48, 18 December 2006 (CST)
 * Leave a message on my talk page and I'll be able to do it when I get back to school mid-january probably. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 01:47, 19 December 2006 (CST)

Citing sources
Could we get the Cite extension installed? It really makes it a lot easier to cite sources then --Argash 04:41, 18 December 2006 (CST)