StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal

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New Pokedex or Partnership?
Hello everyone. I happened to notice some edits that 0-172 was making when it occurred to me that StrategyWiki does not have it's own Pokedex. And it certainly seems that among the many things StrategyWiki should have, a Pokedex should be one of them. However, it didn't take very long until I discovered Bulbapedia and I thought, how awesome is this? So I was curious what many of you felt about approaching them and seeing if we could form some sort of partnership between them and us. Essentially, they could provide all of our visitors with (well presented) Pokedex information instead of forcing us to reinvent the wheel and write something that's been written a million times before, and we could provide their visitors with the actual walkthroughs to Pokemon games. Is this something that we need? No, but I think it would be a great way to form a mutually beneficial partnership with another Wiki site (not that we need that either, I just think it would be neat to cross polinate some of the talent that we have.) OK, I'm getting off my soap box. What do you think? Procyon 20:37, 28 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Nice find :) It would be cool to have them link to SW (we always need more quality contributors ;-) ) We could link to them on all the pokemon guides (if they're that good, we should do that anywayz).  However, how would they link back to us?  I checked out the website, and I'm having a bit of trouble finding where to go. -- Prod 21:09, 28 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Hm. They already have Pokedex entries (e.g. Poliwrath), so I'm not sure they'd need or want an external Pokedex. Also they use the evil BY-NC-SA rather than the GFDL. Hm. Copying the old Wikibook Pokedex here is certainly an idea, although linking to them or Serebii is probably just as good. The MAME guide worked out pretty well so I don't really have a problem with this either way. GarrettTalk 21:40, 28 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I thought perhaps the way that it could work, is that whenever we mention a Pokemon, we externally link to them, like so:
 * "Walk out of Pallet Town until you reach the grass. If you walk around there, you will find a Rattata or a Pidgey."
 * and so on. They appear to have stubs for each of the games like Pokemon Red and Blue so perhaps we could twist their arm to point to us instead. Procyon 22:16, 28 September 2006 (CDT)


 * It's in PD at wikiknowledge so we can easily copy it here. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 23:49, 28 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Yes, but like so many things on that site, it's ugly and presented with little care. Personally speaking, I'd rather link to a site like Bulbapedia where you know they care about the content they have, and they will keep it updated with new information since they're passionate about it.  Plus there's the possibility of attracting new talent to our site.  Procyon 08:02, 29 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Procyon makes a good point. While we could certainly have our own Pokedex, I'm kind of leaning towards linking to theirs. We can always change it in the future if something doesn't work out. What we should definitely concentrate on, though, are getting some good Pokemon guides.  ech elon  00:40, 30 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I suggest being BOLD, and making one right now, and also link to theirs "for more information" as I'd hope they'd link to us for more information on guides. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 14:46, 8 October 2006 (CDT)
 * And I have been bold. I'll make it a list of red links soon. :)

Well, I would have appreciated a little more patience on the matter. It's not that I object to having a pokedex on StrategyWiki. By all means, if someone is willing to put in the time and effort to make one (and I mean REALLY make a GOOD one) than we should go for it. But it's it just going to be a half-assed attempt to throw something up in order to claim that we have one, then I'd rather just rely on Bulbapedia, who has done a really impressive job. Mason, really question yourself as to how dedicated you're going to be in filling out the 386+ entries that need to be filled out. Either that, or find people who you know will be dedicated to the effort. Procyon 18:42, 8 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I won't be dedicated to it. But that doesn't mean the red links won't inspire those people who will be dedicated to it.  I think the pokedex is definitly within the scope of strategywiki and therefore we should make it as obvious as possible that if someone wants to be dedicated to something like that, then can do so.  But if not that's all good to, that's what the bulbapedia links are for. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 20:33, 8 October 2006 (CDT)

So, any news on this? Is there a partnership or not? -- Prod 19:53, 17 October 2006 (CDT)
 * As nothing was happening, I created the template BP:Template:StrategyWiki, and added it to the BP:Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire page. Unfortunately, we have very little about the other games, so I'm not sure if we should link them here. Though, it might attract some people to write the guides that don't exist. -- Prod (Talk) 11:17, 4 December 2006 (CST)
 * Yeah, I feel kind of responsible for this. I was anxious to form the partnership, but their response was luke warm, and then I moved on to other projects and didn't feel particularly encouraged to pursue it.  The way I view the situation is that the partnership is very unofficial, and though I don't think they are taking any advantage of our resources like we may be of theirs, in time that could change if I manage to focus on more than just Ruby and Sapphire. And by that, I don't just mean the newer games, I mean Red/Blue/Yellow and Silver/Gold/Crystal as well.  I've been toying with the idea of contributing to R/B/Y in the not-so-near future.  But that was a great idea Prod. Procyon 12:12, 4 December 2006 (CST)

Newbie section
It seems that this site is starting to attract larger numbers of people (it's getting tough to keep up with recent changes now) meaning a lot of new people. Many people don't know a lot about wikimarkup and need somewhere to ask questions. What I'm suggesting is some kind of Staff lounge -- Prod 11:45, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Good idea! I'll see what everyone else thinks before implementing it, though. --DrBob (Talk) 13:25, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Agreed, good idea. Procyon 14:58, 1 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I've implemented this as Staff lounge, and basically lifted it from Wikibooks, then changed some stuff. --DrBob (Talk) 13:00, 4 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Sweet, now we don't have to all watch your talk page :P. -- Prod 13:03, 4 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I realized that it's somewhat hard to find that page. Perhaps a link in the nav bar would be helpful. -- Prod 13:49, 9 October 2006 (CDT)

Requested guides
Needs cleanup, but here's a starting point. Requested guides. -- Prod 15:39, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

Trademark/copyright
IANAL, but a lot of websites which have info about games/movies/other peoples products, usually has a disclaimer at the bottom saying that all trademarks are the property of their respective owners, or something similar. Shouldn't there be something like that here? -- Prod 16:44, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Potentially that could be due to their commercial nature? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 17:56, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * GameFAQs doesn't have one. The discreet link to General disclaimer should be sufficient. GarrettTalk 19:41, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * The only problem is it doesn't mention anything about fair use and copyright images in there IIRC. If we add that, it should be fine Minun  12:23, 16 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Agreed. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 12:48, 16 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I'll have a disclaimer up when I get home tonight.  ech elon  15:57, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

Half-Life 2 image size
So I started taking in-game screenshots of Half-Life 2 and uploading them...however, the file sizes are very large, exceeding 600,000 bytes most of the time. Should I compress the images or upload them as they are? I know StartegyWiki has a lot of space on the server, but I just want to make sure the size limitations don't exceed too high. I plan on having tons of images for the walkthrough, so expect at least 150+ screenshots for the entire game. I'll stop uploading them now and wait for a general consensus. Thanks. --Antaios 21:24, 16 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Since most images will be shown as thumbnails until enlarged I don't see the need for full resolution, full size images. That's just my opinion though.  I don't think 150+ full size images are necessary for a strategy guide since you don't need to see complete detail in all of them.  Of course having a lot of pictures to explain certain things is great but they don't need to be all full res.  Although if the storage space is a complete non-issue I'm sure echelon will say something different. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 21:30, 16 October 2006 (CDT)
 * While we're still on a single server, our hard drive is limited to 100 GB. We run Abxy, DSmeet, and StrategyWiki off this same machine. This includes all of the software--Linux, Apache, whatnot, as well as the software that runs each site. The databases and associated file uploads are also on the server. I haven't tallied the total usage thus far, but I do believe we are still far from reaching our limits. Nevertheless, we should be wise and conservative in our use of uploads until the time we are able to buy additional hardware through Abxy and DSmeet's income. You can still have very nice, fairly large images that have some compression. Why not upload a few examples for us to take a look at?  ech elon  16:00, 17 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Set up a paypal donation thing and I may drop a few bucks on this project. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:57, 17 October 2006 (CDT)


 * That might be a decent idea. I'll see what I can do about it.  ech elon  23:55, 17 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, I'll probably have to narrow down the amount of pictures. All of the pics are in-game at 1280 x 1024 resolution with maximum graphics settings, so the pics are expected to be of that quality and size. I'll try compressing a couple to see how it looks; if it still looks good, then I'll start uploading those. --Antaios 20:56, 20 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Try png images, they often look sharper then jpeg (from my experience) and they are smaller. Although someone with more image knowledge could probably give better advice. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 11:15, 21 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Try saving both ways, and just compare. I would recommend sticking to images at 640x480 or even lower.  It doesn't have to look amazing, just give the information.  -- Prod (Talk) 11:29, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

"Unofficial" policy of the week
These have to be taken care of sooner rather than later. Perhaps we set one policy as a policy of the week (selected here) for the next 5 or 6 weeks. As Layout is mostly done, I nominate that as the first one (the easiest :P). -- Prod 23:17, 16 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I'll whip up Categorisation as weary as I am of the spelling ;). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 23:32, 16 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I prefer the letter 'z' as well, and Firefox keeps complaining about that spelling :P. Well, if you're going to work on that, I'll change my nomination to that one. -- Prod 23:48, 16 October 2006 (CDT)

Nomination for this week: Naming. -- Prod (Talk) 09:08, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

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)

Controller button category name changes
some of the category naming at Category:Controller buttons seems inconsistent. I suggest these changes (should be easy for you botters ;) ):
 * Category:Xbox360 controller buttons -> Category:Xbox 360 controller buttons
 * Category:DS controller buttons -> Category:Nintendo Dual Screen controller buttons
 * Category:Playstation controller buttons -> Category:PlayStation controller buttons
 * Finally, the buttons also need to be added to the Category:PlayStation 2 controller buttons and Category:PlayStation Portable controller buttons, though I don't know too much about the differences between the controllers. -- Prod (Talk) 21:07, 22 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Why is everything in Category:Controller buttons as well as their own specific category? -- Prod (Talk) 21:16, 22 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Don't call the Nintendo DS by "Nintendo Dual Screen". That isn't official, nor is it even its colloqual name! I would not support a move to do this. While it might be good to aim for consistency between game platform categories and the button categories, please continue to use the standard naming for each: basically whatever the company uses and the community knows best.  ech elon  23:31, 22 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I would support the first and third movement suggestions, and I'll set my bot on them. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 04:11, 23 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Done. I've now set the bot on removing all images from the Controller buttons category, leaving them just in their system-specific categories. --DrBob (Talk) 04:42, 23 October 2006 (CDT)
 * In that case, I suggest the Category:Nintendo DS controller buttons. As I was looking through the official Nintendo website, I found that they referred to the systems as Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Nintendo Entertainment System (and as the NES/Super NES) rather than as the Nintendo/Super Nintendo. So, Category:NES controller buttons and Category:Super NES controller buttons would seem like the appropriate terms in this case.  For that matter, Category:Super Nintendo should be moved to Category:Super NES (just like Category:NES). -- Prod (Talk) 11:25, 23 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I'm not sure about that. Fans always call it either the Super Nintendo or the SNES, never the Super NES. GarrettTalk 14:47, 23 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Well, those are the official names, and we can set up redirects for the others. -- Prod (Talk) 15:08, 23 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I think they're fine as they are, really. The categories I renamed were definitely wrong, but these ones aren't. --DrBob (Talk) 15:16, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Category renaming
This is kinda a separate discussion, heres the summary (in order of controversy, least at the top): My main reasoning is, it's far easier to stick to official company standards (which are easily accessible) rather than community standards. -- Prod (Talk) 11:17, 25 October 2006 (CDT)
 * 1) Add images in Category:PlayStation controller buttons to Category:PlayStation 2 controller buttons and Category:PSP controller buttons (refer to Category:Xbox controller buttons and Category:Xbox 360 controller buttons)
 * Category:DS controller buttons -> Category:Nintendo DS controller buttons (consistency with Category:Nintendo DS rather than Category:DS)
 * Category:Nintendo controller buttons -> Category:NES controller buttons (consistency with Category:NES rather than Category:Nintendo)
 * Category:Super Nintendo -> Category:SNES (Official name)
 * Category:Super Nintendo controller buttons -> Category:SNES controller buttons (refer to #4)
 * Category:GameCube -> Category:Nintendo GameCube (Official name)
 * Category:PlayStation/Category:PlayStation 2 -> Category:Sony PlayStation/Category:Sony PlayStation 2


 * Agreed on all points. Of course, only the appropriate images should be added to the PS2 and PSP categories. --inarius(T) 15:08, 25 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I can agree with the other changes, but I really don't agree with using Super NES. It's a less common name and even Nintendo calls it the SNES now. GarrettTalk 19:52, 26 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I didn't realize they considered SNES official. I think http://www.nintendo.com/systemsclassic?type=snes is a better example.  Updated above. -- Prod (Talk) 20:43, 26 October 2006 (CDT)
 * OK. I think I'll agree with 1, 2, 3 and 6, and also suggest that Category:PlayStation -> Category:Sony PlayStation (and the same for PlayStation 2, inline with 6). --DrBob (Talk) 07:39, 27 October 2006 (CDT)
 * For Ps -> Sony PS: Nintendo mainly calls it the Nintendo GameCube, whereas Sony calls it the PlayStation. I have no objection to adding Sony, but I don't fell it's necessary either. -- Prod (Talk) 09:47, 27 October 2006 (CDT)

I finished some of those off. I still think that we should change 3/4. If I can figure out the add cat functionality of this bot I'll finish off #1 shortly. -- Prod (Talk) 12:03, 21 November 2006 (CST)

ABXY interlinking
How much inter-linking is there going to be between ABXY and StrategyWiki? -- Prod (Talk) 13:38, 1 November 2006 (CST)
 * Each game will link to its article on StrategyWiki, and each article (etc.) which refers to a game will do so by association, afaik. --DrBob (Talk) 16:09, 1 November 2006 (CST)
 * Will there be links to discussion forums for each game? -- Prod (Talk) 00:03, 21 November 2006 (CST)
 * There definitely can be. I will try to program much more of this kind of thing during our Thanksgiving break.  ech elon  00:06, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Posters
I noticed on the main page the suggestion about putting up fliers and posters. Anyone have any good designs? (B/W and color). There are a few small video game stores nearby that might be willing to put up a poster. Perhaps a contest or something? -- Prod (Talk) 11:04, 7 November 2006 (CST)


 * My design is still a work in progress. When I've perfected it, I'll post it here. I've been trying to post fliers all over my campus...  ech elon  09:46, 8 November 2006 (CST)

Zelda Partnership
I feel that a zelda partnership with the HYlia .com would be good becasue they have a bountiful amount of information!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mageman (talk • contribs) 14:30, 9 November 2006 (CDT).
 * Well, for one thing, Hylia.com isn't a wiki, which doesn't exclude them from consideration for partnership, but it certainly doesn't help. For another thing, it doesn't look like they've updated their site since 2004, so it's not clear that it's an active site.  If they have information that would be pertinent to our Legend of Zelda pages, by all means, lets use it and credit them where appropriate, but it's not clear to me how either of site would benefit from a partnership.  Procyon 15:15, 9 November 2006 (CST)
 * Were you meaning hylia.com or THEhylia.com? Either way, I'm not sure what sort of information would be exchanged as it would not have been contributed under a copyleft license. Actually, I've been looking at ZeldaWiki recently; they're GFDL and have only a couple of walkthrough pages at present, so unless they specifically want walkthroughs to be hosted on their wiki linking to ours would be a no-brainer. Since it no longer belongs to any one Zelda site we could get a lot of contributors that way. I'm feeling rather drained after this morning's exam, so if someone wants to beat me to it go right ahead. :) GarrettTalk 18:17, 9 November 2006 (CST)
 * I agree with Garrett, ZeldaWiki is a much better candidate for a partnership. But Garrett, it looks like you already have an in there, so you're probably the best person to propose the partnership.  When I tried with Bulbapedia, it kind of fizzled out because I didn't follow through in a timely fashion, and they just didn't seem to care all that much anyway.  Sure we link to them now, but it's a pretty one sided partnership.  At present I don't think they link to us at all (although I could be wrong.  I'll go check.) Procyon 19:16, 9 November 2006 (CST)

Sidescrolling map size limits
Hello. I've been considering moving on to some of the popular older side scrolling games like Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man. I think that given the power we have here, illustrated maps would be a good thing to provide, but the nature of side scroller maps don't lend themselves well to browsers. The best thing I can think to do is to cut the map up in to parts and present it like so:

description of strip 1

description of strip 2

and so on... So my big question to all of you is: what should the horizontal limit of the width be? 400px? 600px? It's an odd question because regardless of what resolution desktops people have, be it 1024x768 or 1600x1200 or anything, we have to come up with some size where we say, "this is a reasonable size that everyone can see fairly well, regardless of resolution." Personally, I'm considering 600px because in the worst case, if a user runs an 800x600 desktop, and they maximize the browser, shouldn't they still have 600px for the center of StrategyWiki where the guides appear? What are your thoughts on this? Procyon 11:18, 10 November 2006 (CST)

Update: I created a test page for Super Mario Bros. which you can view here. Each of the maps except for the remainder of the level is 600px long (the images of the maps have been reduced by 50%.) While making it, I also wondered if I should put all of World 1 on one page, or make four seperate pages for World 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4. Procyon 11:31, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * I like the idea of separating the image, and I don't think it will become too problematic. Another possible solution is to implement inline scrollbars that allow the user to scroll along the image--we might want to make a template to do that. As for the limit, 600px looks fine here. Only really small browser resolutions would have trouble, and we can implement a javascript function to dynamically resize images that are too big for any given resolution. (We do that at ABXY/DSmeet.)  ech elon  13:56, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * As echelon says, it might be a good idea to have a template which adds a scrollbar, although I can't foresee any major problems with tiny screen resolutions (almost nobody uses them these days, and even if they do, the main site will be broken enough to make a broken image pale in comparison). If you want to upload a full-width image Procyon, leave me a message on my talk page and I'll slap a scrollbar template together for testing. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 14:12, 10 November 2006 (CST)
 * I like the advantages of both ideas. The scrollbar lets you easily see the whole level the way it's played, but the chunk method lets you see tips at a glance. Another possibility would be annotating the map with some sort of universal "tip" icon and use an imagemap to make a Javascript tooltip to pop up when you mouse over it. GarrettTalk 14:27, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * Wow, I didn't even realize that the scrollbar solution was a possibility. While I like the idea of that from a technological standpoint (it just seems cool), it has some limitations.  As Garrett mentioned, it would make providing tips and strategies for a particular point in a map difficult to do without annotating the map somehow.  Then in order for a reader to understand what the tip is trying to say, s/he would have to scroll to the spot on the map that the tip applied to, if it's not already in view.  Another potential problem is for people who browse the web with tools other than a mouse (e.g. a PSP) who might have difficulty scrolling an image, although I'm certain there are ways to get around that problem.  When I think about how Nintendo Power and other magazines detailed side scrolling games, they broke the maps up in a similar fashion to how I did the SMB test.  Dr. Bob, you can experiment with one of the SMB maps found on this page which is where I got the test version from.  I have to run, but I'll give this problem some more thought.  Procyon 15:16, 10 November 2006 (CST)
 * There's also an image in use for the Mega Man game. I'm just wondering how this goes with "fair use".  Having screenshots from parts of the game, or user created maps is one thing; but having the whole map of the whole game seems a bit of a stretch of the fair use rationale. -- Prod (Talk) 15:40, 10 November 2006 (CST)
 * Using the scrollbar shouldn't be much more of an issue, from an accessibility standpoint, than the use of images in general. All downsized browsers and screen readers will have such problems. I believe the template that DrBob has created will still allow users to click on the image and eventually head to the full picture. This will allow any image-capable browser to view the image without scrollbars. --inarius(T) 20:46, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * I've created Template:Scrolling map, and I'm now looking into the possibility of upgrading our imagemaps stuff so that you can hover over areas and they will be explained, as done here. In the mean time, that template should be completely fine to use, and I don't think it'll need any modification if I do install some imagemap upgrades. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 17:51, 10 November 2006 (CST)


 * OK, a big thank you to Dr. Bob for starting that template. I applied it to the map on Metal Man's page.  At first, it did not turn out well, because even though the width scrolled, the height did not, so there were about 740 pixels of image before the text started, which was not good.  So I did some research and discovered how to control the width and size of the image and added them as parameters to the template.  That actually worked out quite nice because I could limit just the height of the image to 256, and sure enough, the vertical scroll bar appeared.  So, you can take a look at it and judge for yourself how you like it.  My personal thoughts are that while this approach may not be well suited for a side scrolling action game (especially one like Mega Man where the maps are usually not straight), this may be perfect for a world map of an adventure game.  When I get the chance, I will try to provide an example, perhaps for the Dragon Warrior guide.  Procyon 09:09, 11 November 2006 (CST)
 * I don't think these maps should ever scroll in two directions, nor should they be full sized. Some maps may be huge, and if there were a need for a vertically scrolling map, the template could be split into two, or contain more complicated logic. Please checkout this proposal for a horizontally scrolling map that is automatically zoomed out to a max height of 200 pixels and is also configurable. This would allow for more predictable behavior on the part of the user (Metal Man's lever for instance, is very disorienting when scrolling through a void of blue space). --inarius(T) 02:47, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * I don't like this. The whole point of having a map is so that you can see the levels, but if it's scaled down, it's not at all helpful. Having it at normal size and with a vertical scrollbar isn't that bad. --DrBob (Talk) 11:10, 15 November 2006 (CST)


 * Ironically, I agree with both of you. I think the key is to figure out which maps lend itself well to vertical scroll bars, and which do not.  Clearly, the map on Metal Man's page is a bad example, and one reason why we shouldn't have a blanket policy on all maps.  That was just an experiment.  I forsee vertical scroll bars being entirely useful for world maps that are square (or rectangular) and there's no void of space (except for the usual vast spans of ocean).  By the way, I completed the walkthrough for Super Mario Bros., and you can see an example of maps that were split up by me for the sake of clarity, and yet still use the scrolling map template as a back up for the sake of formatting.  (I plan on heavily reorganizing that guide now that the walkthroughs are done.)  Procyon 11:18, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * I guess I can see the use of having the map at full size. I'll think about this a little further. --inarius(T) 13:58, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * I think that metal man map should be broken into two parts. Maybe with some kind of line to show where they connect (in html?). -- Prod (Talk) 21:21, 15 November 2006 (CST)
 * Trust me, I plan on overhauling the whole Mega Man 2 guide like I did with Super Mario Bros. That map won't stay like that, it will get broken up eventually, I just need time... a lot of it.  Procyon 22:11, 15 November 2006 (CST)


 * Not that I am actively involved in creating these types of guides, but I tend to disagree, which is why I preferred the zoomed out map. I prefer continuity above anything else... Breaking up what is essentially a sidescroller map would only consume less space or allow greater detail if done at inflexion points - for instance splitting the Metal Man map into two horizontal pieces, or two horizontals and a vertical, but this further confuses the overall structure of the level, such that it isn't overtly apparent what happens in that part of the map. I think in most cases, having a bird's eye view of some sort would be incredibly helpful, even if separate close-ups had to be provided to highlight certain details.
 * {|style="float:left"


 * http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/9196/viewfinderrf9.th.gif
 * } One interface for maps, which is most likely more of a wet dream than a reality that I could spend time developing would be a separate zoomed-out view-finder and a zoomed-in detail pane. The viewfinder would ideally not scroll (though it wouldn't be terrible if it did - as long as it still worked), and would contain a box which defined the position of the image in the detail pane. For sidescrollers, this could be made fancier by using something like an image map to constrain the detail image to within a particular boundary, which would work for many shapes of maps and allow the user to feel in control of viewing it. Also, inline links presented similar to page bookmarks could call javascript functions which would automatically reposition the viewfinder to a particular coordinate, in order to highlight a particular element/area of the map. None of this would be particularly un-wiki like, as the creation of a simple and versatile viewfinder could be reduced to three variables, the detail image, the size/shape of the viewport, and the initial position of the viewport. Other configurable elements worth adding would be the image-map constraints, and configurable viewfinder size and position. --inarius(T) 02:13, 16 November 2006 (CST)

Expansions
Do they get their own pages, or subpages of the main game? -- Prod (Talk) 10:10, 12 November 2006 (CST)
 * I suppose it depends on how much they change the game, but I'd be inclined to put them as sub-pages. If a game has multiple expansions, they should probably all go beneath an "Expansions" sub-page of the main game page. --DrBob (Talk) 10:38, 12 November 2006 (CST)
 * I agree with DrBob that there should be an expansion subpage. However, I would treat it as a main page redirect so that you can still categorize the expansion properly and just have it redirect to the appropriate subpage.  Kind of like what I've done in the past for Namco Museum (Dreamcast), Vs. Pinball, and a few others, only redirect to a sub-page, not another main page.  Procyon 17:00, 12 November 2006 (CST)
 * Good idea. :-D --DrBob (Talk) 17:10, 12 November 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)

External links to maps
OK, before I start this thread, I have to point out that I know that I've already expressed an over-sensitivity towards the map linking that Snesmaster has contributed. Add to that my own (sometimes overblown) protectiveness for guides that I have started. But I strongly question the value of Snesmaster's most recent contribution, which was to provide a link to maps for, of all games, Mario Bros., a game whose map layout never changes beyond decoration and enemy content. The layout and the enemies found in each stage are already spelled out in the guide. So I have a hard time justifying leaving this link on the guide. However, considering the reactions that I've had in the past, I will not edit this revision, and leave it to everyone else to decide. Procyon 19:51, 14 November 2006 (CST)
 * I don't think it can hurt the guide. I suppose I don't mind either way (but I am sympathetic to your over-protectiveness: I get that a lot) --DrBob (Talk) 11:08, 15 November 2006 (CST)

Cheat Code Wiki Interwiki
I'm the owner of Cheat Code Wiki and I just thought maybe we could make interwiki links or something. Like CheatCodeWiki:Halo or whatever. What do you guys think? --ZimShady 02:34, 19 November 2006 (CST)


 * Why don't we just destroy that wiki and move the content over here? There's no point to making people go to another website to see something that belonged in Strategywiki in the first place. --Navy White 09:48, 19 November 2006 (CST)
 * Don't have to be so harsh on him...With the partnership with bp: (which is only half alive) they already have a huge database and lots of contributors. Your wiki is somewhat small at the moment.
 * I'm also a supporter of centralization. I would prefer if we could have all the pokemon info here, but there's just too much to cover, and they do it better.  For the moment, I'd be more interested in seeing your wiki merged to here. -- Prod (Talk) 10:27, 19 November 2006 (CST)
 * The problem is, Bulbapedia has content that goes beyond our mission statement. Cheats and glitches, however, fit right in. I can't see any reason to link to your site rather than having our own equivalent content. As for a merger, some of this content seems to have come from non-GFDL sources, so I would be very reluctant to see that content moved here. GarrettTalk 13:36, 19 November 2006 (CST)

Browser games?
Can (or should) StrategyWiki cover browser games (e.g. Macromedia Flash games, Macromedia Shockwave, Java, etc.)? We could impose notability requirements, so that only the most viewed games be mentioned. Bibliomaniac15 00:11, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * Only really notable ones like RuneScape. --DrBob (Talk) 00:26, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * For now, it'd make sense to have guides for popular games such as unification wars and pardus, but it's pointless to write a guide for a game with 4 or 5 people on at a time.--Navy White 09:47, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Games like N and it's even better d/l version should have guides here. I think this is a great idea. Of course we can't write guides to every flash game ever. But if someone thinks a game needs a guide, and comes here to write it, then why not? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:11, 28 November 2006 (CST)

All Game Nav template
I apologize if this has been discussed before (I haven't been on in quite a while), but there is something I a bit confused about. About 2 months ago all of the game-specific navs were replaced with the All Game Nav template (ex ). However, all of the subpages were left with the game-specific template (ex ). This makes no sense to me. This defeats the purpose of a template since you can no longer make global changes to a guide. Koweja 23:09, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * The main page needs the num=x parameter. -- Prod (Talk) 23:17, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * Ok. So if the num parameter gets added to the game specific template, can it go back on the main page?
 * Short answer, no, since only the main page should have the num parameter. -- Prod (Talk) 23:24, 20 November 2006 (CST)
 * We're using num to show only the overall guide completion level, as it would be too ineffectual and redundant to display it on every page.  ech elon  23:31, 20 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)

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)

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)