User talk:Mason11987

EVO: The Search For Eden
Have you ever played that game? My room mate was going through all of the old SNES games he has on his X-Box and started playing it. It's like 2D side-scrolling Spore. You start out as a little fish and evolve your way up to a man with a club. I'm going to make a guide and propose it for Retro Game of the Month.

Hmm, I thought I signed that. --Filthy swine 12:08, 9 June 2006 (PDT)


 * I haven't, although I've told told I should, I'll have to check into it. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 07:48, 9 June 2006 (PDT)

Welcome to StrategyWiki!
Haha, kidding! You're already pretty much a regular here. :P

I wanted to ask if you would mind being a project administrator. We could use some more administrators as SW grows, and you seem to have experience at both Wikipedia and Spore Wiki. Would you mind being an admin? echelon  22:05, 17 June 2006 (PDT)
 * No problem, I wouldn't be the most active one I imagine, and I'm not completly sure of what policies or whatever you have here, but just let me know what's up and how things go and I'll be glad to help whenever :). Thanks. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 07:28, 18 June 2006 (PDT)
 * And I'm probably going to be having more suggestions as time goes on, lol. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 07:30, 18 June 2006 (PDT)
 * Done! Sorry it took so long! :P echelon [[Image:Ocarina.gif|...]] 02:14, 23 June 2006 (PDT)
 * Cool, thanks :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:45, 23 June 2006 (PDT)

Todo Template
I was considering creating a template like that once I had more experience with the wiki... I'm glad you did though, it'll be very helpful. Thanks! --Dukeruckley 08:20, 26 June 2006 (PDT)
 * Hey thanks, I copied it from the one I set up on sporewiki, which was originally from wikipedia. I'm planning on setting up the dynamic nav here that you see in the link on sporewiki.  It shouldn't be too hard, then the template will not only be useful, but it'll be less annoying, glad to help. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:25, 26 June 2006 (PDT)

Stub template
I noticed you've been moving stub templates to the bottom of articles. Is there any particular reason for this, when they're supposed to go at the top? :-P --DrBob (Talk) 08:52, 30 June 2006 (PDT)


 * Hmmm...I didn't know they were "supposed" to go at the top. I see it's on the stub template page, but I don't see a place where it was a generally accepted standard.  Putting stub messages (which are for editors, not readers) at the top seems like bad practice (a reason wikipedia doesn't do that) because it is distracting, and in some pages, quite ugly.  If there has been a discussion about this that I didn't see, then I'll fix those changes and kick off the discussion again, I really don't see a reason to put it at the top though, especially when it is already quite obtrusive (even at the bottom). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:55, 30 June 2006 (PDT)
 * There has been no discussion: I just put them at the top because almost all other templates go at the top. I can't see a problem with it, and as we're still growing (hopefully) many of our readers will do editing, and thus the template is relevant. Otherwise, readers should know it's a stub anyway, because it tells them that content is missing (which they otherwise might miss). --DrBob (Talk) 09:01, 30 June 2006 (PDT)


 * (Eh, this is more of a problem in general I have with large templates at the top of pages) It tells them that content is missing, but how does that help the reader to know that info?  I can assure you that readers won't miss it at the bottom of a category.  I don't see the reason that the xbox category (for example) needs a large stub thing at the top of the page.  Especially considering that people don't even come here for info on the xbox itself.  I think it gives an unproffessional look to have something like that up there (I feel the same about the cleanup and wikify templates). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:07, 30 June 2006 (PDT)
 * How are people expected to be encouraged to contribute if there's nothing telling them that stuff needs contributing? If they're reading a guide, it's likely that they own and like the game, so therefore they'd be prime candidates for contributing to it. --DrBob (Talk) 09:19, 30 June 2006 (PDT)
 * I didn't say that nothing should tell them to contribute, I just don't think a 4 text line high colorful box is necessary as the first thing someone reads for a guide. And I am certain it isn't necessary as the first thing someone reads on category:Xbox.  It doesn't really bother me as much for guides, but my recent moves were almost all system categories (because I was finding out which ones had the infobox which I had edited).  There are a lot of guides that have the wip template, and the stub template, and then a few lines of text, why both?  That seems kind of stupid to me, and very annoying to those people who may be looking for the bit of info that IS there.  While it'd be great if everyone looking for info was also interested and willing to add something, if this site grows large enough, only a small minority of those people who see that message will even know what a stub is, let alone be willing to edit it.  While I don't think that seeing a couple large boxes at the top of the guide you were looking for will keep them from coming back (or even contributing at a later date), I think that they aren't required to be at the top in order to get people to edit them (wikipedia gets plenty of new editors to stub topics just because they have na interest in the topic. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:27, 30 June 2006 (PDT)
 * I didn't mean to imply that you said nothing should tell them to contribute. :-P The template can be made smaller - I agree with this, and I see your point about doing it with system categories, but I still think the template should remain at the top. Guides which have both the wip template and the stub template are wrong. In this situation, wip takes priority, because it's the current action, so only the wip template should be used. If you see guides like this, please change them. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 10:02, 30 June 2006 (PDT)
 * I'm fine with that, a smaller stub, and no stub and wip templates together. stub templates should only be at the top on guides.  Sounds like a plan. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 10:47, 30 June 2006 (PDT)

Consoleinfo template
Why have you de-floated the consoleinfo template? There's now a huge area of whitespace on the right of them which imho looks awful. --DrBob (Talk) 09:04, 30 June 2006 (PDT)


 * It looked different in the monobook style, I'll revert it until we can sort that out. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:07, 30 June 2006 (PDT)

Template:--
What on earth is that for? --DrBob (Talk) 11:14, 19 September 2006 (CDT)

a very quick way of doing 

which is a combination of and a

You're gonna have to look at the code to understand.

It's just a nice way of clearing all sides for text and throwing in a horizontal rule at the same time, shorthand used on wikipedia :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 13:44, 19 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Check out -- for a better explanation. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 13:46, 19 September 2006 (CDT)

qif template
Hi Mason! I wanted to talk with you because you seem to be a bit of a template expert. I am curious about your thoughts on the recent "More template woes" entry that I posted on the Community Issues page. I'm hoping that you might have some knowledge about templates and qif that might help me with my dillema. Thanks very much for your time! Procyon 10:13, 27 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Hi Mason, awesome job on the template. Thank you so much.  However, there's still a lingering problem that you may or may not be able to do anything about.  It may be that only Echelon can fix the problem.  I expanded on the problem on the Community Issues page.  Take a look and see if you can come up with any explination for the problem.  Thanks again.  Procyon 10:18, 28 September 2006 (CDT)

I've been trying to get the infobox template to have optional parameters. User:Prod/Infobox is my latest try. The problem seems to be that the qif is changing my '<' and '>' to the entity codes so that they aren't rendered as HTML. For testing, the template is used on my user page. Any ideas? -- Prod 17:16, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Thanks for the help. I'm surprised that just changing from wikitables to html fixed it.  Strangely, it works on wikipedia with wikitables.  I've fixed the colors and put it at Template:Infobox. -- Prod 20:34, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Yeah, I don't know either, I made a few small changes because it didn't work right in monobook skin, if it doesn't work now in other skins we can figure something out. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 20:47, 1 October 2006 (CDT)

Eggerland
Since you said you wanted to help me move some stuff over from other Wikis, there's another major article I wanted to move over from WikiKnowledge. Actually, I originally created this on WikiBooks, but copied it to Knowledge as well. Anyhow, it's an overall guide/reference to all the games in the Eggerland series (Adventures of Lolo in North America and Europe, except for one or two titles), and it goes into a lot of helpful details about the games, including some unreleased games. With the way it's designed now, it still leaves room for people to create in-depth walkthroughs if they want to, although I never took the time to do so, mainly because the games are very, very long (the longest one, Revival! Eggerland, having 192 rooms).

Anyway, here's a link to the article:

http://www.wikiknowledge.net/wiki/Eggerland

Also, I have a Work in Progress that I have been designing on WikiKnowledge that is essentially a reference for the Mega Man series, the Mega Man Timeline, which describes the events of each game in detail (but it is not finished yet). We can add it to the Mega Man series page once it is complete, I suppose. At anyrate, feel free to check it out as well:

http://www.wikiknowledge.net/wiki/Mega_Man_Timeline

"Game On!"

--Brahman 14:11, 2 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Sorry to butt in, but the Mega Man timeline would probably go in Mega Man/Timeline, with a link to it from Mega Man; just to make sure this is done correctly first time. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 14:56, 2 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Eggerland transwiki'd, with images and all, and I cleaned it up a bit. CHeck out the talk page for more. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 23:31, 2 October 2006 (CDT)


 * I can import the timeline as is and link it from the main mega man thread if you're interested. Then when you are complete (or when some nice additions have been made, I can just delete the current copy and transwiki your wikiknowledge one if you like.  OR you can write it here ;). Just kidding. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 23:43, 2 October 2006 (CDT)

Eggerland
Thanks for your work in moving this article over from WikiKnowledge, Mason11987! I noticed that some of the Japanese names for the games were displaying as "????????," so I went and copied the original Japanese characters back over to correct the problem. All-in-all, I think it looks very good now! --Brahman 23:56, 2 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Not having the characters display normally on my computer, I didn't notice :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 00:26, 3 October 2006 (CDT)

My games
I uploaded a list of the video games I own (physical games, not ROMs), and the list of them is a sub-page to my userpage. I thought you might be interested in it as I've collected some pretty cool games over the years:

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/User:Yahweh_divine/My_Games

I hope you get your PC fixed!

--Brahman 00:45, 7 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Very cool, I plan to do the same, at least with my more recent games. I'm going to link all of your games, so you can know which have guides and stuff :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 11:35, 7 October 2006 (CDT)

My PC Games
Sometime I may include a listing of my PC games. The one thing I will have to take into account, however, is whether I own a physical copy of the game still or not. In otherwords- do I still own the original floppy or CD or have I lost it? If I no longer own the original media then I most likely will not include the game on my list.

Also, it would take far to long to document the thousands of ROMs that I have on my PC- for example, I have a copy of every NES game in every available language (plus every hack), which alone comes out to around 11,000 files!

Anyhow, I will list games such as The 7th Guest, Myst, Riven, Myst III: Exile, Myst IV: Revelation, Myst V: End of Ages, Hexen, Star Wars Galaxies, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XI, Guild Wars, Guild Wars: Factions, and Rockman X8 for example.

Well, sometime in the not-too-distant future I will make a list! --Brahman 02:55, 8 October 2006 (CDT)


 * I have the same set of NES ROMS :). I'm going to only include things based on that criteria too. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 17:18, 8 October 2006 (CDT)

Firefox 2.0
I might be completely wrong here, but did you just update to firefox 2.0 RC2? The latest version has inline spell checking and I see you doing a lot of spelling corrections. -- Prod 23:26, 9 October 2006 (CDT)
 * You are damn observant. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 23:29, 9 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Heh, well I just spent the last 30 minutes cleaning up/backing up my profile and getting all my extensions working again. When I refreshed the recent pages link i see like 20 spelling edits :P.  What extensions do you use, and are there any good ones you know of for wiki-editing? -- Prod 23:32, 9 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I have of course the musts, Ad block plus and filter set G. Then customize google (very good), Cute menus crystal (much nicer to look at), Gmail manager, Gmail space, Mouse gestures (since my mouse doesn't have back and forward buttons, this is just SLIGHTLY slower), and Video downloader (for downloading videos from youtube and the like).  I don't know of any good wiki-editing ones, but now I'm going to go look... -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 23:44, 9 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Cool, I just installed gmail manager :P. My list is significantly bigger. Download Statusbar (downloads in statusbar instead of window), flashgot (for use with getright), forecastfox (weather), greasemonkey (some scripts, i think there are some wiki-specific ones here), image zoom, menux (maximize screen space), nightly tester tools (lets you use extensions which haven't been verified for the current version), statusbar clock (obvious), swifttabs (instead of gestures just press one button on the keyboard), tabbrowser prefs (advanced tab management), and video downloader.  Of course, I have gotten a few weird conflicts :P. -- Prod 23:57, 9 October 2006 (CDT)

I forgot about tabbrowser prefs, I had that before hte upgrade. Why have the clock? how does swifttabs work? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 23:58, 9 October 2006 (CDT)

How does tabbrowser prefs work with 2.0? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 00:00, 10 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Ah, the clock, I auto-hide my start menu :P. With swifttabs, you can assign any key to back, forward, and close top.  I've got it set to F1, F2, and F3 respectively, though almost any key can be used. About TBP, some things don't seem to work properly, so might have to wait for them to update for 2.0. -- Prod 00:03, 10 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Having a slight mouse movement to go back compared with a key press is about the same for me in most situations. But that's cool. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 00:13, 10 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Here's something that bothers me though, I can't use my Ctrl-e shortcut anymore, any ideas? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 00:14, 10 October 2006 (CDT)
 * What's CTRL+e supposed to do? Also, I was half asleep last night and what I said about SwiftTabs was wrong :P.  Its for moving between tabs...not through history.  F1 for previous tab, F2 for next tab, and F3 for close tab.  -- Prod 11:56, 10 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Edit, Ctrl-S saves, Ctrl-P preview. 2.0 has slowed down my mass wiki-editing by forcing me to use the mouse.  I gotta find a solution. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:16, 10 October 2006 (CDT)

Days
Wouldn't it just be easier to use the days June 05, rather than June 5, to get the sorting done properly? -- Prod 11:32, 14 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Yes, yes it would. BUT I think June 5 looks nicer, and I'm about to go on a quest to create all the days that don't exist yet, therefore making organization of "new day categories" unneeded.  The way I see it is that June 5 looks a little nicer then June 05, and the amount of work needed for June 5 to sort correctly with June 15 is limited to editing 366 pages.  A lot of which are already done. :) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 11:35, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

With reference to the delete tag in that temporary template you made, I know you're a sysop, and I put it there so nobody forgot to delete it. (Bad wording on my part.) --DrBob (Talk) 12:32, 14 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Ah gotcha, thanks :)

Merge
Could you bring over the wikibooks:Category:Merge templates, or do we already have our own? -- Prod 11:31, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * A quick check says we do not, so I will bring those over. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 11:32, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Thanks, I'm going to need them for this FF1 guide. -- Prod 11:35, 15 October 2006 (CDT)

On a related note, please take a look at this. When I say "I", I mean specifically me, and when I say "Is it possible" I mean "How do I". -- Prod 11:38, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Responded, and pages imported... -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 11:45, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * OK, thanks. -- Prod 11:46, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * For some reason, the edit histories don't seem to have been imported, or am I being thick here? --DrBob (Talk) 12:39, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Thick? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:14, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I think he means this -- Prod 14:16, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I think it was just with SimCity as the rest seem fine, it's because I missed it the first time around, if you can grab it correctly, I'd appreciate it. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:20, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Download seemed to work fine for me (using the Export function). 27 k file.  -- Prod 14:50, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Re-imported, history is back. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:56, 15 October 2006 (CDT)

Transwiki`
Seems the EQ2 guide needs these templates. Can you please transwiki? -- Prod 16:32, 17 October 2006 (CDT)
 * wikibooks:Template:EQ2RawLnk
 * wikibooks:Template:EQ2 Recipe 1 Build
 * Took Template:EQ2RawLnk directly, I don't really think that's copywritable in a sense, and if I had looked at the use of the template before wikibooks version I would have wrote the same thing, so Template:EQ2RawLnk is done, and Template:EQ2 Recipe 1 Build is transwiki'd, if you could label it in a noinclude, or on the talk page that it came from wikibooks, that'd probably be nice. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 19:02, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

Sig
Because it's not included in the default signature and this should be usable by anyone. Also, it's not technically part of a signature, its like the box you're supposed to sign in (not always necessary). -- Prod 10:42, 18 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Hmmmm...fair enough. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 11:42, 18 October 2006 (CDT)

Toolbox Layout
Please check out the recent updates to the Article Tags Toolbox proposal and let me know what you think of the current version. Thanks! --inarius(T) 12:39, 20 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Checking it out now. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:24, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

Mega Man Timeline
I finally finished the Mega Man Timeline article...YAY! It took a long time, but mainly because I've been so busy with other things. If you would like to move it over here, feel free! --Brahman 19:33, 11 November 2006 (CST)

MapleStory world
Hey, thanks for the transwiki, but I had already "kinda" done it to MapleStory/Towns (still merging the info in). The problem was that if you look at the history of MapleStory/World it's missing everything since March 6 due to the 100 edit limit on import and export. I've been looking into finding a way to get around that limit (extracting the whole history in 100 edit pieces) but the functionality to export doesn't seem to exist (well...it's supposed to, but doesn't work). Anywayz, good to see you around again :). -- Prod (Talk) 16:49, 18 January 2007 (CST)
 * Ah, my mistake. Feel free to delete it then if it's note useful.  Perhaps the GFDL doesn't actually require that much history recording?  Or perhaps you can just list contributors outside of the 100?  I don't know the legal aspects, Garret would probably be the best for that.  Hopefully I'll be active in the coming weeks again. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:01, 19 January 2007 (CST)

"HL2" template
Is there any particular reason for this odd template? --DrBob (Talk) 14:37, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * Also, could you try and remember to categorise templates in future (either in Guide-specific templates or the main template category) when creating them? --DrBob (Talk) 14:38, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * Nice work on the StrategyWiki guide stuff, BTW. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 14:39, 29 January 2007 (CST)


 * My bad bob, just saw those as empty and went to work making useful copies from the PD source ASAP. The template is used in a few of their help pages, but there isn't really a need for it.  I just added it because they had it.  I may just go through and remove those with some subst'ing when I get a chance. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 17:46, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * I brought back prettytable as I've seen it used on a fair number of pages, just didn't realize it was that template. -- Prod (Talk) 18:00, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah, I saw that you restored it, works for me. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:01, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Cats
Hey, I see you don't like having the tags above the AGN :P. If you really wanna change it, you might wanna edit New game as well. Anywayz, when removing the needcat tag, be sure to add all the necessary cats. --
 * I changed it a little, then realized that it was the standard for new game, so I put it up for disussion in community issues. I think as long as cleanup, or stub, or the infoboxless templates are there, that is sufficient for an empty guide, along with of course the guide at completion stage 0.  What other ones would you suggest? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:47, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * I'd say the needcat should be there until they're all added, because when new users add info to the infobox, chances are they won't add cats at the same time. -- Prod (Talk) 19:05, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * Keep forgetting that monobook is the ugly skin (all the templates appear large on the page by default)... hmmmm... I don't really see that the categorization by the day of the year is really needed and the needs categorization cat would probably be better listing those guides which don't have the game categorized under system (or anything else useful). I may bring back interest in cleaning up the templates for viewing on monobook... -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 19:10, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * Well, year is useful to see what new games are out/coming out. Day/month is not needed, but it usually goes along with year.  Systems is very necessary, and it should include all the systems it's on.  Single/multiplayer is more necessary in the infobox, cause I doubt anyone would search through those massive categories.  etc...  None of them are really "needed", it's just there as a reminder for us to go through and add all the cats.  -- Prod (Talk) 19:21, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah, just when I was writing my previous response I was referring to the large banner templates that I now remember only exist on monobook, so I'm going to cut back on cleaning some of them up for now. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 19:27, 29 January 2007 (CST)