StrategyWiki:Staff lounge

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Welcome to all users! This page is where people can ask StrategyWiki-related questions to the staff and senior community figures, and they will do their best to answer. If you want to raise a topic for discussion (rather than just ask about it), please use community issues instead. New issues are entered here, with the most recent at the bottom of the page. Please review the Table of Contents to see if your issue has already been raised; also check the archives (to the right) in case it was discussed some time ago.

To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please:
 * 1) Place your question at the bottom of the list
 * 2) Title the question (by placing the title between equals signs: ==title==)
 * 3) Sign your name and date (by adding two hyphens and four tildes: --~ )

infoboxes
With the different categories that infoboxes cover, is there a proper/preferred way to cover remakes or game collections that include the game? There are also some services that allow use of older games. Should the dates a game becomes available on one of those be stated somewhere? Just thought I would ask since Wikipedia threw me off by giving release dates for Midevil on Playstation Network. --Zaiqukaj 06:08, 3 October 2007 (CDT)


 * Zai, I'm not sure if you still have questions, but I don't really understand your questions enough to give you a straight up response. Usually different versions of a game are taken care of together in one guide, otherwise we have two separate guides (separate categories too).  I think Contra III: The Alien Wars has like 3 games detailed in one guide (all with their respective cats at the bottom).  Game collections usually get to completion stage 4 quickly, so check that list for games like Mega Man Anniversary Collection.  -- 19:30, 13 January 2008 (CST)

StrategyGenre
While viewing Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, I saw that the infobox says the genre is Strategy (turn-based). I then realized that there is a Category:Strategy and also Category:Turn-based strategy. What is the distinction? Maybe we can get rid of the strategy category, and just be left with Category:RTS and Category:Turn-based strategy. New User 18:42, 21 November 2007 (CST)
 * The Strategy category has games like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which, to my knowledge, has nothing to do with either real-time or turn-based strategy, along with actual RTSes like Rise of Nations. So I'm guessing this is probably a category for games under the very general definition of "strategy". Also, overcategorization maybe? Baejung92 21:39, 21 November 2007 (CST)
 * Let's break it down then. We all know what RTS is (StarCraft, etc.) and what TBS is (board game like action, Risk anyone?), but for general "strategy games" we need to reclassify.  Pheonix Wright, what sort of game is that?  Puzzle (Mystery/Deduction?)?  -- 22:55, 21 November 2007 (CST)
 * Phoenix Wright is an adventure game. -- Prod (Talk) 22:59, 21 November 2007 (CST)
 * I have never played, nor seen, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, but from a gameplay description I just read it sounds like an Adventure game. I looked over the games in the Strategy category, and the games in the Turn-based strategy category, and some of these games I am familiar with.  Games like the Civilization series (here listed under Turn-based strategy) I have always called strategy games.  Games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, I have often heard referred to as tactics games, or turn-based tactics, or tactics RPG or something similar.  I have also heard them called strategy games, or turn-based strategy games.  As Notmyhandle says, I don't think there is any problem defining RTS.  My proposal is that all strategy games that are not RTS (and that are therefore turn-based), including the tactics RPG type, should be placed into the Category:Turn-based strategy. New User 23:10, 21 November 2007 (CST)


 * Why not separate them completely? Check out Tactical role-playing game, Turn-based tactics, and Real-time tactics. -- 23:54, 21 November 2007 (CST)

A friend of mine has Phoenix Wright, and from what I've seen it definitely doesn't belong in any type of strategy categories. Also, what Notmyhandle suggested above sounds good to me. Although tactical RPGs are turn-based, it's not the same kind of strategy as RTS or TBS to start with. Baejung92 13:35, 22 November 2007 (CST)
 * It seems to me that adding three more categories (or two if we get rid of Category:Strategy) would just make things more complicated, but I don't have very much experience with wiki editing. After looking at the wikipedia articles referenced by Notmyhandle, I see that some wikipedia editor(s) categorized Tactical role-playing game as a subgenre of turn-based tactics.  Also, even though I see a slight difference from RTS and the real-time tactics genre described on wikipedia (I have never played any of the example games), the only difference appears to be that the real-time tactics genre doesn't include resource collection.  That is such a small difference that I would still consider those to be RTS games, but since I haven't played any I guess I can't justly make an opinion there.  So, as long as I am not the only one that thinks to current strategy categories aren't the most efficient way to arrange things, how about we get rid of the Category:Strategy, and be left with Category:RTS, Category:Turn-based strategy (for games like the Civilization series and Master of Orion), and then form Category:Turn-based tactics (for games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness), and we can form Category:Real-time tactics if necessary for games like Midieval: Total War. This will should make a total of four categories, where there now exists three. New User 13:52, 23 November 2007 (CST)
 * It's hard to say, as different people use different genre names for various games. I would say that the most specific applicable category should be used, and that there should be a category for Tactical/Strategy RPGs (afaik most people that prescribe genres for RPGs call them SRPGs). Further division could be made on turn-based vs. real time, but really there are only a small number of real-time SRPGs to date (Heroes of Mana and Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings are the only ones that come to mind right now). Much like any other time genres are used to categorize something, we can fall into the trap of having one sub-genre after another, and may end up finding it simpler just to have broad genres and possibly use multiple genres for games that borrow heavily from more than one (actually most of the SRPGs I have quickly checked do this using Category:Strategy, Category:RPG). It may also be useful to have a hierarchy (if possible), so that Category:RTS shows up under Category:Strategy. -Vizeroth 17:49, 28 January 2008 (CST)


 * Yeah we don't use encompassing, single genres (like Action Platform Strategy Tactical Turn-based RPG, or something xD), but rather the elements of the game (Category:Strategy, and Category:RPG are listed for Final Fantasy Tactics, however Turn-based and Tactics should as well). -- 23:32, 28 January 2008 (CST)
 * Actually, since the cats don't exist, this is more a site-wide policy issue, which needs to be discussed more. -- 23:47, 28 January 2008 (CST)

Hyphens
How do you make them with wikimarkup? I've been using two dashes put together until now, but I'd like to know if there's a way to make a proper hyphen. Baejung92 20:01, 12 December 2007 (CST)
 * If you scroll down to under the copyright warning, you'll find a box with a lot of symbols in it. If you click on one of those symbols, it inserts it into the edit box. The hyphen is near the top. -- 20:05, 12 December 2007 (CST)
 * Ah I see it. — — — Thanks! Baejung92 00:01, 13 December 2007 (CST)
 * Actually, they're dashes. :-P The one you've been using previously (the one on your keyboard) is a hyphen. --DrBob (talk) 00:41, 13 December 2007 (CST)

Wiki bot
Hi all, I ran my bot here some time ago in a silent mode (not editing, only generating a private log) and now I share the log to you all. As it is too long (890 misspelling corrections), I've created a new page, you can check it here. The bot is not only a misspelling corrector, it has many more features (spam detector & reversor, double redirection fixer, etc.) I wouldn't propose it for authorization because it's not open source and seems to be a requeriment. But correcting 890 words manually would be an extremely bored task, so let me know if you want to make an exception and let the bot correct it (or any other task like category moving, template renaming...). Regards, --Green Fig 14:32, 26 December 2007 (CST)
 * Some of those misspellings are not misspellings at all. I'm guessing you're American, btw (am I correct?). You should've checked both variations on the English dictionary and only reported the misspelling if both showed that the word was spelled incorrectly (e.g. MISSPELLING: Battlestations: Midway/Aircraft Tactics: "airbourne" -> "airborne") is not a misspelling, it's just another variation of the word. Also, even then I would oppose such a bot, mainly due to the idiosyncrasies in the English language and due to the fact that the misspellings may be intentional/may not be misspellings.
 * If you want to grab AWB and go through all of those semi-manually to fix them (if necessary), feel free (make sure that they really are misspellings first and that the corrections make sense in that sentence. And if it is a quote from a game, etc. don't fix it without checking to see if the real quote was misspelled). But any fully automated processes of that sort are disallowed. As for the other functions of the bot, again it's best for manual or semi automated checking of those things, not fully automated. -- 14:51, 26 December 2007 (CST)
 * Thanks for answering! The bot uses the common list of misspellings from English Wikipedia, so American/British and other variants should be accepted. I've checked if "airbourne" really exists (I'm not English, but American either) and I got this: . Anyway, you are right: it would produce false positives, so you have to balance what's better. If you don't mind I will keep the log in my userpage so any bored user could have a look at it. Regards, --Green Fig 15:51, 26 December 2007 (CST)
 * Cool, thanks! I'd suggest adding a link to Cleanup project as it'll probably get the best visibility there. -- Prod (Talk) 01:16, 27 December 2007 (CST)

me joining you
hi my name is victor and i love your site i wanted to know if i can join your site to my site if you want to see my site go to (removed website) i want to use information from your site on mine and i can advertise for you on my site i want to be parteners email me at (email snipped, available at the aforementioned website)
 * I have replied to this user via email with an official rejection, and removed Skizzerz's reply (no offense Skizzerz). Procyon (Talk) 20:49, 28 December 2007 (CST)
 * None taken ^_^ The history never lies anyway :P -- 21:00, 28 December 2007 (CST)

Template:·
I made this to place a non-breaking space and a middot followed by a space, which is an idea I copied from Wikipedia. It makes link lists look much nicer, since I have found that most guide-specific navigation templates with link lists simply use commas to separate the links. Maybe I should have initiated a discussion before doing this, but it appears to have turned out rather well. If everyone thinks this is a good idea, then maybe an admin should protect this template as it could potentially see widespread usage. --New User 21:47, 8 January 2008 (CST)
 * It could use a better name, as that character is not standard on keyboards. Also, something to this effect is already in use in user ( for example). As for appearances, I suppose it really depends on what the list is used for as for what separator to use. Again, though, it could use a better name. And no protection until it gets approved :) -- 22:01, 8 January 2008 (CST)
 * Ok. Who has to approve it?  I'm not familiar with the process ;) Wikipedia uses dot and middot as redirects for their template, so maybe we could use a name like that?  Also, the dot in the user template is a small-sized bullet, and doesn't have the non-breaking space.  The small-sized bullet and the bold middot appear identical on my monitor (which I had noticed before) but I don't know if there a reason to use one over the other.  Maybe they wouldn't look identical if a font size other than the default size were used?  --New User 22:10, 8 January 2008 (CST)
 * Usually things that affect the site in general go on CI. But we all dicuss it until we come to a consensus. Except for the naming, I think it looks good in that usage. -- Prod (Talk) 22:43, 8 January 2008 (CST)
 * I'm good with it, and I would support it on the condition that "interpunct" is the canonical template name to it, with "dot" being the preferred redirect to it. It's semantically better to use an interpunct ("middot") rather than a bullet, as bullets are for denoting list items, while interpuncts are for separating words (or, in this case, game names).
 * Why use a template that takes a minimum of five characters when you can just hardcode the dot? -- 02:31, 9 January 2008 (CST)
 * Because hardcoding takes a minimum on nine characters (two spaces, six single quotes, and the middot). dot sounds like the best name for me. -- 16:15, 9 January 2008 (CST)
 * Just as an aside, can people please stop linking to uncreated prospective pages/templates while discussing them? Half the time, the page/template doesn't get created with that name, so you're just creating dangling links which fill up the wanted pages list. [/OCD] --DrBob (talk) 17:16, 9 January 2008 (CST)
 * Sorry, I didn't even know there was a wanted pages list... My intent for the template is indeed because hardcoding takes more characters, more than nine if a line break is necessary (which is the reason for the &amp;nbsp). So should I just change it to "dot" and then make the current template into a redirect? --New User 18:57, 10 January 2008 (CST)
 * Everything taken care of. Now ready for real usage. -- 20:30, 10 January 2008 (CST)

How do I add refs / footnotes to a sub-page?
Master of Orion II/Getting Started contains refs / footnotes, which mostly link to detailed info on how to install MOO II and get it running. I've added a section "References" at the bottom, containing a reflist tag; but neither the heading nor the refs / footnotes are visible. How do I make them visible? Philcha 11:50, 11 January 2008 (CST)
 * It was because the last ref link to atari.com was left open with no closing ] or . I've fixed this, is it OK now?-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 14:03, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Supposedly abandoned page?
Hi ppl! I'm new to the site, to begin with, so please forgive me for not understanding some things maybe.. Anyway, the guide for Nox was brought to my attention. It looked like it was just started, a lot of things were missing or incomplete. Since then nobody exept me ever made any additions or contributions. I'm also not sure who was building the guide in the first place. My question to you (staff, seniors, writer of current Nox guide) is: is this guide abandoned (by the original writer)? And if yes, may I revise the entire guide, maybe deleting parts of the original writers contribution to the guide? I don't know if I can ask such a thing here anyway, else, let me know how to contact the original writer to discuss this topic directly with him. By the way, Nox rules supreme, just as this site! Keep it up..--Jojop 07:28, 12 January 2008 (CST)
 * You'd probably want to talk to Notmyhandle, who I believe is the original author. He's still active on the site (a sysop in fact, which may explain why he hasn't had time to continue the guide ;-), and I'm sure he'd be happy to discuss it with you if you leave him a message on his talk page. :-) --DrBob (talk) 09:29, 12 January 2008 (CST)
 * Yeah I'm the one who started it, PM me or get on IRC if you want to collaborate - I haven't played in a while just cuz... Well I haven't =/  -- 11:13, 12 January 2008 (CST)
 * Btw, feel free to edit whatever you like. -- 11:15, 12 January 2008 (CST)

Delete page Super Mario Galaxy/Bouy Base Galaxy
Can someone delete page Super Mario Galaxy/Bouy Base Galaxy which I accidentally created? It redirects to the page with the correct spelling, but I don't think the redirect page needs to exist at all. Cheers. --Pelago 16:31, 13 January 2008 (CST)
 * It would appear that Procyon took care of this. --PowerMatt 20:47, 15 January 2008 (CST)
 * In the future, you can just add to the top of the page and an admin will delete it sooner or later. - Koweja 13:22, 19 January 2008 (CST)

Template links to series sepecfic wikis
Are there any specific rules about making templates to like to other wikis, such as the one for ? As in, does SW need to have some kind of partnership with the other wiki, or something like that? Or can I go ahead and make more? - Koweja 13:21, 19 January 2008 (CST)
 * I think it's best if we make an official partnership with such wikis first. Please bring up any partnerships you think would be a good idea on community issues. Thanks. --DrBob (talk) 14:30, 19 January 2008 (CST)

Problem with ToC
Hello all-

I was recently working on the Table of Contents for Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, and now when I go and look at it, the ToC is in the header. I have no idea what is going on, but I would appreciate some help. Thank you all in advance.

Angel14995 14:37, 22 January 2008 (CST)


 * All taken care of. The first 🇨🇴 was missing the begin parameter to indicate that the columns were starting.  That caused the page to misinterpret the first column as being part of the nav.  Procyon (Talk) 15:21, 22 January 2008 (CST)


 * Thank you very much. Angel14995 20:01, 22 January 2008 (CST)

ImageMaps
I'm attempting to display an image so that when you hover over it, it links to a specified page. But I'm unsure of how to link it correctly. I've looked at this page and the link to the mediawiki page but the syntax they give is too confusing. What is the correct syntax for linking the whole image to the page?Sims2Guy 19:21, 27 January 2008 (CST)
 * If that's all the image is being used for, then edit the image page itself and make it redirect to the page in question. Otherwise, don't bother as it will just be confusing. The way to make a redirect is as thus (replace the current text in the image page with this, switching "Somepage" with the page you want to redirect to and "Image category" with the category(ies) the image belongs in):


 * 1) REDIRECT Somepage


 * If you REALLY want to make it link without having to use the redirection (again, highly not recommended), the code is as thus:


 * 19:48, 27 January 2008 (CST)
 * Sims2, check the guide again. I added some more info from Wikipedia.  -- 19:54, 27 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks, I'm gonna need this information for other pages when I get to them.Sims2Guy 19:57, 27 January 2008 (CST)


 * You can also check Star Fox 64/Walkthrough for an example. -- 01:14, 28 January 2008 (CST)

Disappearing images
Are the Nidoran female and male images disappearing after the pages finish loading for anyone else? They seem to be visible until the transparency kicks in. This also happens for me on the pages for those specific images.

Here is a page for an example: Route 2-22 --Zaiqukaj 09:54, 2 February 2008 (CST)
 * Seems OK for me on firefox. What browser are you using?-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 11:12, 2 February 2008 (CST)
 * More importantly, what character encoding are you using? Because these two images use the male/female symbols in them, perhaps it's causing an issue with character coding discrepancies. Check to make sure that your browser is in utf-8, as that's what this site is encoded in. -- 13:36, 2 February 2008 (CST)
 * Nvm, just checked the page in Interwebz Exploder 6, and (surprise!) it exploded! (if you can't tell, I abhor IE). Anyway, it appears to be some sort of glitch with the javascript that fixes transparency on the page, it must not be detecting something correctly. Try getting firefox :) -- 13:41, 2 February 2008 (CST)