StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal/2007/June

StrategyWiki Forum
I know a few of you have asked for a forum in the past--the key reason being that a forum has been seen as the missing link between our community and GameFAQs. While a forum for editorial discussion purposes would be completely redundant, perhaps a community forum integrated with the StrategyWiki accounts would help spur new editors to become more involved and have fun in the process. What do you guys think? This could be a really good idea or a really bad idea. (I won't be able to answer/provide feedback until I get back from Florida, but it's a good topic to get you guys started on debating now.)  ech elon  01:11, 5 May 2007 (CDT)
 * I was hoping that ABXY would fill this need. A forum would be great, but getting editorials/news/reviews would be even better. But yea, a forum would be excellent! -- Prod (Talk) 01:16, 5 May 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, once the abxy user sign up issue is resolved (if it isn't already) you could create a handful of StrategyWiki-specific forums and link to them from here. If they get a good deal of traffic you could then focus on integrating the skin and hosting it at forums.strategywiki.org and all that. I can certainly see the advantages of a forum--while I like how MediaWiki talk pages allow for nested comments, quotes and the like can do this job fairly well too. I'll post more thoughts about this later. GarrettTalk 01:33, 5 May 2007 (CDT)
 * This sounds like a good idea, although the random chit-chat forums (believe me, even if you intend for all talk to be something SW-related, 'How was your day?' threads and suchlike will soon spring up) would soon be the most active (I'm a moderator on a forum, so I know) and there would be some who seem to do more on the forums than they do editing. Still, it would be a good idea, it makes sure that others who seem to be the only ones out there editing (some days it does seem like that :-P) know that they're not alone!--Froglet 03:33, 5 May 2007 (CDT)
 * Well every page has it's own talk page maybe we should make that more obvious rather than going the forum route? --Argash 12:40, 5 May 2007 (CDT)
 * If this is the case then it will be easy to impliment, just a note on the top of the main game page and we can do this by modidifying the infobox templateRocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 13:11, 5 May 2007 (CDT)
 * I always thought that the Discussion pages were for editing talk. I thought that the idea of a forum would be more like it is on GFAQs - for debate on all the stuff you probably shouldn't debate and gossip about on the Discussion pages (eg, the non-neutral POV stuff that usually gets removed from the page - 'most useless character', 'why does this guy do this at the end of the game?' and so on).  Of course, I may have interpreted this wrong.--Froglet 06:49, 6 May 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree, maybe we could link it to GameName/Forum which would be the forum still using the infobox idea. But at the moment, we only have talk pages across the entire site for articles, we have  articles at the moment and it's not like those missing talk pages will be used because most guides are done by 1 or 2 authors and user talk communication is the best way when that happens. So I'm not sure.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 07:49, 6 May 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't think that would work very well either. I think it'd be better to go along a model similar to that of the Nintendo of Europe's forum base - there's system boards, etc, but the main boards would be the General board(s), the popular game/series boards (Pokemon and Legend of Zelda spring to mind), and of course the random babble boards (these are by far the most active, I've noted).--Froglet 08:45, 6 May 2007 (CDT)
 * I favor the idea of a forum, but what exactly would be discussed there? As stated above, wouldn't topics irrelevant to Strategy Wiki eventually spring up? Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 12:52, 6 May 2007 (CDT)
 * I reckon that may be the point. It would stop people from aimless chitchat on the editing talk pages, and it is easier to maintain as a forum than as a bunch of editing talk pages - if a user creates spam on an editing talk page, you can remove it but the fact that it is freely editable stops it from being effective in discouraging people not to do that.  With a forum, you can at least delete posts and lock discussions.  I have a notion that it would also help create a better strategies for certain games, for example with a DS wifi game that hasn't had its online maps mapped out, two editors could switch friend codes and not only fight each other but also map the level out.  Sure, a lot of idle chatter will occur, but it's a good diversion from editing (or to let off steam when you're not in a neutral POV mood).

Of course, forums like this will need moderators and suchlike to keep the discussion civil, but I reckon it could work.--Froglet 18:47, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

I am vehemently against using MW talk pages as a forum. User talk pages are fine as discussion between people, but they are terrible for general discussion. All content on strategywiki right now is GFDL. Forums typically say ownership of a comment belongs to the writer. I'm not too sure how compatible they are, so I would suggest keeping them separate. Also, forums tend to be POV, and we're trying to keep SW NPOV. ABXY does have most of the stuff needed already (moderators, some users, etc.) but they've been having some problems. What would be cool is if we could add something to the agn like http://abxy.org/forum.php?name=gamename or something similar, and have it link to the relevant forums. Admins on ABXY could add forums for games as they are created (after some basic verification). -- Prod (Talk) 23:41, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

I actually think it's kind of funny that people are suggesting a forum be added StrategyWiki when ness just killed ABXY for the second time - claiming it's hogging all the server resources. It's a shame too, ABXY could have easily been used as a forum outlet for SW users. But instead of helping to fix the problem, he just took the site down. Those who want a forum here, I wouldn't hold your breath... apparently ness doesn't like them. Katana 08:54, 8 May 2007 (CDT)
 * ABXY has been bringing down the whole server. It tends to do it every few days, which is why he took it out. The code needs to be fixed, which is most likely up to echelon (Note the message that tends to come up: too many connections to localhost).  As SW is the one getting most of the traffic, ABXY is sacrificed for the greater good :P. -- Prod (Talk) 23:48, 8 May 2007 (CDT)
 * I love Froglet's idea! Being able to meet up with people somewhere more appropriate than a talk page and trades FC's and map out levels. Brilliant! It indeed would be a good diversion from editing, an area where you can just sit back and relax (Not that I'm not relaxing when I contribute, contributing here is one of my top ways of relaxation, aside from playing the 'ol DS). Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 19:37, 8 May 2007 (CDT)
 * This could be put on trial, using a forum tool such as invisionfree.com, with a few discrete links to it on the site, with a few consoles, gabber and games/series on it just to see how regulars would react, whether it would attract more people in and suchlike. However, there is the query if there are people willing and able to administrate and moderate such a venture (I would be more than willing to assist in such aspects).--Froglet 08:35, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

Check out inside.wikia.com's forum. It's phpbb but is linked to the MediaWiki user accounts. PM buttons point to Talk: pages and everything! I don't know if the extension is available, but this is probably the best implementation since existing accounts would still work there. GarrettTalk 16:43, 12 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Check these out before implementing though--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 16:58, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
 * That page is regarding bugs with MediaWiki 1.10a (which isn't a stable build; Wikia, like Wikipedia, tries to follow the builds fairly closely). The Forum: namespace isn't for discussing the phpbb extension but is part of an earlier, unrelated forum extension. GarrettTalk 19:56, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Forum implementation vote
Indicate whether you are for the new style of forums (like at the Inside Wikia, for the old style of forums (like at Wikia), against the implementation of forums on StrategyWiki, or undecided/neutral (and possibly a reason why). source code for new forums can be downloaded at http://www.phpbb.com/downloads/


 * For new-. I think the new forums are a great idea, and it would help build StrategyWiki's community. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 22:14, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
 * For new. It combines a great forum system with our existing user accounts and markup language. GarrettTalk 22:18, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
 * For new. But the forum misses some basic markup,,   to the end of an SW URL. Using MonoBook, the printable version of the page you want to print above would be here. Hope that helps.--Dan 17:49, 11 June 2007 (CDT)

More content for "Getting started" here
I think someone should add something like "Controls" and Battle Concepts" in the "Getting Started" section. Your thoughts? --Myth 11:37, 5 June 2007 (CDT)
 * The wiki motto is "Be Bold". If you feel it's necessary, add the links to the ToC.  If you have the time, add some info.  Otherwise, just leave the "red link" and hope someone else is interested in filling it out.  -- Prod (Talk) 11:56, 5 June 2007 (CDT)

Tekken 3 Movelists up for edit.
Thanks Procyon for assisting me King2 18:29, 5 June 2007 (CDT) (previously known as King) with cutting my Tekken 3 editing time and also with providing me with a very useful template as I don't have the time to learn the ways of creating professional pages. I will be periodically editing the Movelist so it will take a very long time to complete on my own. If you don't see any improvement for a whole please refer to the talk above about Tekken 3. This is why it would be very helpful if users also assist with this project. Tekken 3 is considered to be one of the revolutionary fighting games of its time and for the StrategyWiki younger generation who know where to easily find game strategy and don't have access to the much more expensive Tekken 5 to get it from their favorite wiki strategy site would create a new generation of Tekken pros.
 * I'll help clean up and organize whatever you add. Just add more!  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 19:56, 5 June 2007 (CDT)
 * King2, in all honesty, the best course of action for both you and StrategyWiki would be to recruit other Tekken enthusiasts and get them to assist you with the movelists. SW is always looking for more members, but your pleas for assistance with the movelist won't net you very much help.  If anyone here was interested in working on Tekken 3, they would have already started.  Since no one has, it falls on you to either do a little bit at a time, or find others who aren't yet associated with SW, and get them to sign on and help you.  I have my hands full with other projects, or I would help you myself.  Working on movelists is a very time consuming task, but it can be very rewarding to look at when it's complete.  Good luck, and I'll provide whatever assistance I can.  Procyon (Talk) 21:13, 5 June 2007 (CDT)

Standard: Sequals with New Features
So for games that are in a series, like Tekken and Heroes of Might and Magic, each game basically adds on to the last. Now the problem lies on where the info for such changes should lie. Front page? Or Getting Started? I say getting started. First of all, we don't really haven't really defined what goes in GS and I think this would be one of the prime things to have in it. Since it's actual game related info, it doesn't need to be placed on the front page, which is basically the "title page" of for the game. We have a good system at trying to keep things to a minimum thus far and yeah, it's not necessary. The two main info points on the main page are the general description and the brief summary/catchy story. We don't need it on the front page. I keep saying just the front page, simply because that's where it's been appearing the most (and yes I am at fault for putting them there at times, I might also be the only one to do so). --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 19:53, 5 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I'd say "Getting Started" would be the place to go with it. The front page can have a sentence or two about it, plus the stuff in the infobox, but things that pertain to new features in gameplay and such should go elsewhere (Getting Started). I think other aesthetic stuff (like a note of the cel-shaded graphics in Wind Waker) can go on the front page, though. --SkizzerzTalk - Contribs 20:00, 5 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Agreed. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 20:08, 5 June 2007 (CDT)
 * You might want to have a look at Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Street Fighter II, etc. This is why we set the "parent" parameter up for the Header_Nav.  Granted, these game only required one page between them, so NMH's argument is valid if you're talking about a game that requires more than one page.  I believe that the Super Mario 64 DS guide needs to be collapsed better with the Super Mario 64 guide.  Personally, I believe that only the bits of the game that are unique to Super Mario 64 DS should be mentioned in that guide, and everything else should point back to the content in the original Super Mario 64 guide. Procyon (Talk) 21:18, 5 June 2007 (CDT)
 * If they don't have this feature already in MediaWiki, someone should advocate for tags that you can enclose text in and then subst it to another page. So, in this case we would take 64 content and subst it to the DS pages; we would have "separate pages" but they would contain literally the same content (besides the extra HN/FN and special subst markup).  Theoretical suggestions are great aren't they?  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 01:14, 6 June 2007 (CDT)
 * This feature already exists. Use  to tag text that won't be shown when used in other pages, and   to tag text that will only be shown when used in other pages. You then insert the page like a template, but with a colon in front (e.g.  ). The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest uses it extensively; all that differs is the dungeons, so the rest comes from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. GarrettTalk 04:10, 6 June 2007 (CDT)

More content on Emerald than D/P?
Why is it that there is way more on the Pokémon Emerald Guide than the Pokémon D/P guide? Is it because Emerald has been out longer, or no one has D/P yet? --Myth 15:24, 6 June 2007 (CDT)
 * That's a rather silly question. The answer is based on multiple factors, but the simple answer is that more people have spent more time contributing to R/S/E then D/P.  SW is not like a professional organization like IGN or EGM where people are paid to sit down with a game and write up a guide for a particular game whether they want to or not.  SW is strictly contributed to by anyone on their own free time, and thus only contribute information about games that interest them.  Naturally, since R/S/E has been out for such a long time, it will have a lot more content.  But even if D/P has been out for a long time, there's no guarantee that anyone will have contributed content for the game.  Is that unlikely?  Yes.  But is it guaranteed?  No.  Procyon (Talk) 15:46, 6 June 2007 (CDT)
 * StrategyWiki has no paid staff, no paid anything, everything here is done by volunteer work. Therefore, people work on what interests them most at whatever pace they feel like. If something isn't being worked on, chances are those knowledgeable enough to write a good walkthrough for it are either busy or haven't came yet. However, if you feel that content is missing for a game that you have, add it in yourself. You don't need anyone's approval to do this, be bold and do it yourself. If it's not completely correct, someone else will eventually come along and correct it. Putting messages here might attract some attention to it, but don't expect much. --SkizzerzTalk - Contribs 15:47, 6 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Saying that, having G/S/C on the main page attracted no-one :(. BTW it hasn't even been released in Europe yet and I think you get errors if you transfer Pokémon from different languages--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 16:05, 6 June 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for clearing that up. I guess I should have known seeing the variation of highly detailed guides to almost completely empty guides. --Myth 18:40, 6 June 2007 (CDT)

Pokemon D/P
I jotted down some notes I got from Route 225 from my game today, but then saw on the D/P page that no Route 225 exists. Could someone please add it in or tell me how to re-add it? Thanks. --Myth 18:43, 6 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Just create the page with the proper formatting and add a link to it in the Table of Contents between the appropriate two sections. --SkizzerzTalk - Contribs 19:03, 6 June 2007 (CDT)

Sinnoh Pokémon for Diamond and Pearl is whack
The Sinnoh Pokémon there have their Bulbapedia entries mushed into their pictures. Does anyone know how to fix this? Myth 20:15, 7 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I've tried that page on Firefox and IE7, with BlueCloud and Monobook. Looks fine in all cases.  What browser and skin (and extensions?) are you using? -- Prod (Talk) 20:27, 7 June 2007 (CDT)
 * works perfectly in IE6, even the PNGs have transparency. Something must be really wrong :P.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 02:57, 8 June 2007 (CDT)
 * There must be something wrong. Because everything loads up fine, and then the words move over three inches and mash inside of the sprites. Myth 12:08, 8 June 2007 (CDT)
 * What browser are you using? -- Prod (Talk) 12:18, 8 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Also, what screen resolution are you using? If your resolution is small (like say 800 by 600), it might cause some squishing-together of items. --SkizzerzTalk - Contribs 15:04, 8 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Hmm, that seems to be exactly the problem. Firefox doesn't suffer from this :P (though the ads overlap the content in that case....). -- Prod (Talk) 15:26, 8 June 2007 (CDT)
 * That happens to me anyway with 'd text and big pages with images like maplestory bosses 100-199 or whatever it is :P. Is there a way to make them go off to the far right like they did In IE.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:38, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

I'll admit that I don't have a very large computer screen (15", but I payed for it, so what can you expect?), but I had the box enlarged pretty big on my screen. I'll try it on a computer with a bigger screen to see if it works on that. Myth 00:41, 10 June 2007 (CDT)


 * I tried it on a larger screen, and it came out fine. I guess it was my screen size o o. Myth 01:03, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * What resolution are you running? --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 01:43, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm not sure what you mean. Myth 13:36, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Right click on your desktop, click properties and go to the far right tab (Usually), there should be a picture of 1 or 2 screens depending on your OS, in the bottom-left of the box there should be a slider, read the no. by it, mine's 1024 by 768, if you don't have windows then it's a bit iffernet, I can't remember how to do it on a mac but I think it's in one of the options when you click on the apple in the top left corner but I'm not anywhere near sure. Oh and you can drag the slider to change the resolution to be a bit bigger. Sorry this is so long.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 13:51, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Mine's on the highest resolution: 1080x800. That definitely isn't the problem. Myth 18:36, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Ok then, what browser are you using (and what version of it)? You can find out in Help-About or whatever is comparable on your browser. Make sure that you are running the most current version of it, whatever it is. Alternatively, you might have your text size set a bit too high. Try decreasing the text size and see if that works (usually under View-Text Size-Decrease or something like that). --SkizzerzTalk - Contribs 21:31, 10 June 2007 (CDT)

Just to note that I made a change a day or two back. Try and check again after clearing your cache (usually ctrl+f5). -- Prod (Talk) 21:41, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually, I just figured out that it's the size of the page. I enlarged it to full-screen and they moved over. Now we can finally stop taking up a billion inches of Community Issues space. Myth 16:06, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
 * You think this is big? Check out this one, this one, and this one! Glad you figured it out though. --SkizzerzTalk - Contribs 16:19, 11 June 2007 (CDT)

Legendary and Rare Pokémon for Diamond and Pearl
I think there should be a section for Rare or Legendary Pokémon in the D/P guide, as there is no section now for it and no place you could really put it elsewhere. Any thoughts on the matter? Myth 13:39, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Add  to the TOC and then click on it to make the article.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:48, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Where should I put it though? Myth 18:31, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Should I put it in the Getting Started Section, as that's where the Un-Obtainable Pokémon is listed. Myth 18:41, 10 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I'd put it under Getting Started immediately before Un-Obtainable Pokémon, but it is entirely up to you (you're the one adding it, put it where it feels right). --SkizzerzTalk - Contribs 21:32, 10 June 2007 (CDT)

Linking to a website
Isn't it banned on Strategy Wiki to link to a personal website on your userpage, or basically anywhere else? I ask because Echelon had a link to his personal site and someone should drop him a note if he's not supposed to have it. Myth 20:21, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
 * We don't have such a rule as yet. Generally, if the mention isn't of the >>>>>VISIT MY SITE!!!!<<<<<  variety it's fine. Since external links all have   applied (which tells Google and the like to not factor them into any ranking algorithms) the spam value of such links is minimal anyway. GarrettTalk 20:33, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
 * We have nofollow?--Dan 20:40, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I think it's a MediaWiki default. Either way, it's on at the moment. GarrettTalk 20:58, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm pretty sure it's not on by default in MediaWiki. In fact, from the previous discussion on it, I thought we didn't have it. --SkizzerzTalk - Contribs 21:10, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Nofollow is definately on, check the source. -- Prod (Talk) 21:23, 11 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't see the harm in it if it's on a personal page (like my band advertisement; yeah it doesn't have a link but my next one might). --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 01:01, 12 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Lol I was reading the thread on Myth's talk page. So adverts aren't allowed?  Mine's been up for like a month now.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 01:07, 12 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Hehehe, if you mean to Abxy/DSmeet I can almost see your point. Right now that entire community application is still being recoded. I had hoped it would serve as the basis for our forum accounts, but right now I'm reworking it into something else entirely. StrategyWiki is a separate entity that just so happens to be (barely) paying for the StrategyWiki/Abxy server, and I don't see any need to cross-promote. Especially at this point, now that Abxy has slowed down. I see the point entirely, though! As for the link to my personal website in my user page--well, anybody can put anything at all (so long as it's legal) into their personal user pages. There's not much useful information at my website either--not right now. :P  ech elon  20:42, 12 June 2007 (CDT)

Sigexpand/Sighidden
I found some css on Uncyclopedia that allows expandable sigs. You can find the code in my css. Basically, one span class, "sigexpand," is always visible. However, when whatever is contained within that span is hovered over, the "sighidden" part appears. I think this could be useful for a) a bit better sig styling b) contracting the size of large sigs. Should we implement this (it would go in the Common css if we do)? (PS-In the case of my sig, if you have that css, only the scissors is visible until you hover over it, in which case the other links appear as well). -- 21:00, 12 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Bumpity Bump. Hello?-- 08:17, 14 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Doobey Doo, for me, the sigs can be annoying there, nobody would think to move their mouse over your sig and it gets in the way when highlighting text.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 11:01, 14 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Isn't this up to the admins? Because it has to do with limitations on sigs...  I think it's fine as long as it works without problems.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 19:30, 14 June 2007 (CDT)
 * The only problem with it is that when not put down on a page correctly (like mine is, I have it substitute User:Ryan Schmidt/sig2, which contains in it. Otherwise, it substitutes the entirety of the code, which is really messy (my sig takes up 7 lines in the default edit box). As for the annoyingness, we can always disable it if it gets too bad (plus, having any superscript or subscript makes the line above/below jumpy, so I'll have to change that part in mine if we make this global). -- 20:52, 14 June 2007 (CDT)
 * As long as they're not too annoying, one person had their sig center when you move over it, if you move your mouse off the line then it would go back to the left, it was fairly hard to click.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 00:42, 15 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Another problem that I have just encountered is with long sigs that wrap to the next line. You can only click on the links in the very same line, it disappears before you can get to the next line. I do agree that we'll have to guage how annoying it becomes when more people (besides me) start using it. However, any changes made to them should be retroactive anyway (if they did it the right way to begin with). -- 09:31, 15 June 2007 (CDT)

So should I put this into Common.css or not? -- 20:41, 22 June 2007 (CDT)
 * When we find out how to stop the line problem, P.S Do you think that it'd be a good idea to have this image when you move your mouse over the sig?--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:02, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Stopping the line problem requires the people that sign them to use preview and check to see how large their sigs are, then putting them on a new line if they would wrap. As for your other suggestion, I put in another css class in my BlueCloud.css called "sigshown" which fulfills that purpose. Copy my css into yours to see how it works. -- 10:09, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * It doesn't work, all I can see is the open scissors, moving my mouse over it does nothing and I have done Ctrl + F5--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 10:41, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * That's weird. It works fine for me, even with the closed scissors. Try closing out of your browser and re-opening it. Also, try clearing the cache on a page with the sig on it (like this one) instead of the css page. Oh, and if we do globally implement this, you can turn it off by putting the following code in your css:
 * .sigshown { display: none !important }
 * .sighidden { display: inline !important }
 * That forces the sig into a perpetual "hovered-over" state -- 10:53, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Nope, I tried everything u said and it still won't work.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 11:04, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I really don't know what to say then, what browser/version are you using? The only other option I can think of is either removing that css or putting in the constant hover state. -- 11:35, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * IE6 v.2900.2180 for XP SP2.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 11:42, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Try using FireFox and see if that works. -- 11:55, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm having FF trouble at the moment :((((((((( --Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 11:56, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

I would like to note that I think this template is unnecessary. Sig's are there to tell who we are, our user pages are there to show who we are. I think anything beyond only your name is excessive, but a bit of expression (like a picture) isn't too bad. I'm a bit against the transcluded sig, because your sig is going to be used on a lot of pages, and if you modify that, it's going to add a HUGE queue (especially if you welcome users). I would really prefer we didn't use this site-wide. -- Prod (Talk) 20:31, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * mmk. The way I see it, there are two options. Option number one would be to put the default switch-off in the common.css (outlined above, without the !important though, so people can actually have it on if they so wish). Option number two would be for me to remove this entirely from mine (and Rocky from his) css and for me to make my sig just be the open scissors and the links without any other formatting. Either one is fine with me. As for changing my sig, that's why the page is protected. The only change I would make to it now would be to remove the styling classes. -- 21:53, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * When I remove it, I will see two pics of scissors, open and closed, so it's not really a good idea IMO. --Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 01:48, 7 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I commented out all of the stylization things on my sig page until this issue is resolved. If you can't see the changes, try clearing your cache. -- 10:49, 7 July 2007 (CDT)

Personal milestone achieved
Well, I have finally done it. A major goal of mine that I had shared with Echelon and Dan was to turn every link in this list blue. As of tonight, I have written a guide, or at the very least, stubbed in a page for every Famicom game ever made through the first three years of its existence, 1983 through 1985. I went in to depth on every game that was appealing to me, and simply stubbed the ones that were a lot less interesting to play. (I don't think too many people are going to be upset that there isn't more information about Bokosuka Wars or Onyanko Town.) I want to thank everyone who has provided me with some form of help, support, or encouragement, especially Echelon, Dan, Prod, Garrett, Rocky, Ryan, Lunar Knight, Mason, NMH, and last but not least, DrBob (we miss you around here man!)  Thanks also to SnesMaster for his help with maps. Sincere apologies to anyone that I neglected to mention. And I feel that even though this monumental task is behind me, I'm only just starting. So where do I go from here? I always ask for feedback and comments about how I can improve any of the guides that I've started, so please feel free to leave some here, or on my talk page. Thanks again everyone. Let's keep making SW the greatest site on the whole web. Procyon (Talk) 00:25, 14 June 2007 (CDT)
 * 1) First and foremost, I absolutely intend to finish the Pokémon Red and Blue guide.  I made completing it rather difficult for myself, and it became very tedious.  But I have so little of the game left, that I might as well just get it over with.
 * 2) Next, there are a number of Pre-Famicom arcade games that I would still like to cover, so I may try to tackle the bigger titles before I look at any 1986 Famicom/NES games.  The next two on my list are Tempest and Wizard of Wor.
 * 3) I was surprised at how much fun it was to put the Combat guide together (although I hesitate to call it a guide), so I want to do the other 8 launch titles that came out with the Atari 2600.  That includes Air-Sea Battle, Star Ship, Indy 500, Street Racer, Video Olympics, Surround, Blackjack, and Basic Math... which isn't really a game ^_^;
 * 4) I've neglected the Move Lists project for quite a while.  I should try to get through the Street Fighter III and Street Fighter EX series, and maybe move on to Darkstalkers...
 * 5) And then finally, when I've completed #1 and #3, and made a sizable dent in #2 and #4, I will start moving on to the 1986 Famicom/NES games.  At that point, the games start to get more complicated.  The guides will be approaching the size of the Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda guides, so they will take a while longer to complete, naturally. (More games were made for the Famicom in 1986, then made in the first three years!)


 * Thanks for all your contributions Proc, glad you're still on board and I can't wait to see what else you'll bust out. I'm just puttering a long with my guides, still haven't completed CT and my newest guide is pitiful ahaha.  Keep up the great work, everyone should follow suit!  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 00:30, 14 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Additionally, because of you StrategyWiki has hit its own milestone with 200 completed guides! Congrats everyone!  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 00:31, 14 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Congrats Proc! I'm glad to see that you're able to complete a major goal of yours.  I've always been impressed with your guides.-- Duke  Ruckley  10:04, 15 June 2007 (CDT)
 * *Does little dance*--Froglet 10:05, 15 June 2007 (CDT)
 * You're like some kind of machine! That's really great; here's to the next 100 guides! :-D I've only got three exams left, so I should be back the week after next (these three are spread out a little >:-, although I may be off frequently to go to parties and stuff. Keep up the good work, Procyon! --DrBob (Talk) 06:44, 17 June 2007 (CDT)

Policy on roms and emulators
What is our official policy on roms and emulators? Roms are essentially illegal unless you make your own backup of the game (fair use). Emulators I'm not sure about. bleem! was sued by Sony and essentially died soon after, and I'm not sure if it goes against the DMCA (something about copy protection schemes). Although they are the best way of getting screenshots for any non-PC games, I get the feeling that game companies aren't too happy with them (of course, I could be wrong...). -- Prod (Talk) 09:24, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * No, you're right. Emulators "take away" from the possible market of re-releases; like those on the Wii and Xbox Live (I would argue that they actually promote playability, but whatever).  I don't think SW should support it, for legality issues, but I don't think it's bad to discuss them and I personally support the use for images and research, but I think if you can buy the game then you should.  --User:Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 14:27, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree, promoting emulators can Only get us into trouble even if it is in the gray area of the law, but I think that if you own the game then you should be able to take screenshots, I disagree with emulatng modern games but I think it's OK if you can't buy them easily.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:41, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * "Buy them easily" is also controversial, like if the game hasn't been republished and we have to rely on used games, then yeah that's not fair if people say it's not ok. --User:Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 15:03, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * And if you download it then it gets re-published but what I'm saying is that if you have the game then it should be your right to take screenshots. E.g PS1 and older, maybe some GBA games now but I think it's wrong to take a rom of a brand new PS3 game and emulate it without the disk. Republished games are different (for me), they're usually a lot cheaper and have extras (E.g 360 games have achievements), it's not like you are buying them for £30-40, if you don't have the console then IMO it's OK to emulate them.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:16, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * OK, I'm not a lawyer (but my dad is), but you guys are way way off on this topic. There is absolutely nothing illegal, nor will there ever be, about emulators.  If there were, the MAME project would have been halted ages ago.  The law (as far as the United States is concerned, and they're the strictest, so I have to assume this applies to everywhere around the world) is that anyone is allowed to reverse engineer anything currently available, so long as said reverse engineering did not take place using proprietary non-public information.  That is, you can't reverse engineer something if you had to use information stolen from Sony in order to do it.  Claiming that emulators are illegal is like saying that CD and DVD players should be illegal since I can buy one and use it to play nothing but illegally copied discs.  Bleem was sued because it attempted to be a commercial product that intended to make money off of Sony's intellectual properties.  Bleem was under no such attack while it was a non-commercial program.  Further more, Sony could not win a case against them solely on the basis that Bleem was an emulator, there were several other IP theft charges rendered against them.  The point is, emulators are not illegal, and no amount of association with them can ever bring harm to this website or any other.  Offering ROMs for download is an entirely different story.  That can bring the threat of a lawsuit, but as long as the requests were complied with, it would never get to the level of an actual case (that costs too much money, so companies always try to resolve issues "peacefully" first).  I would never advocate SW offering ROMs for download, nor provide links to any sites that do (there are plenty of other ways for resourceful people to find them).  So please guys, do not rashly go down the line of thought that we have to outright ban the discussion of emulators because it's an absolutely false pretense, and it is an extraordinarily useful tool for the purposes of this site.  Believe me, I've been a part of the emulation community for over 10 years.  I know all of the arguments that have ever been presented about the legality of emulators.  It's time for the big companies to stop scaring people into believing things that aren't true, no matter how much they might wish they were. Procyon (Talk) 15:28, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Companies would love to have you believe that emulators and game copiers are just as illegal as downloaded ROMs. According to Nintendo's legal page, "The backup/archival copy exception is ... relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner ... to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction", but they then go on to say, "Are Game Copying Devices Illegal? Yes". So a backup of a game you own is kosher if you copied it yourself directly from the original media, but the only device capable of exercising this legal right is illegal? Bottom line is, don't believe everything the companies say. :) GarrettTalk 15:59, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * LOL, I just read that. I'm now going to find a link using the 6 links of separation theory to find that nintendo links to emulators then get them to sue themselves. BTW, click the IDSA link on the bottom of that page, I can't find anything on the front page (Shows how much they care).--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 16:14, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * IANAL. Now that that's out of the way, I think we agree that ROMs are most certainly illegal (not exactly sure what law, maybe copyright infringement?), unless you make your own copy, where it's fair use.  About emulators, I think they are still somewhat a gray area.  There's so many rumors going around on both sides that it's hard to tell what is really true (that whole "delete in 24 hours and you're fine" garbage).  Reverse engineering is protected in U.S., however the DMCA is being used in all sorts of ways these days.  Reverse engineering copyright protection mechanisms is essentially illegal by that law (specifically re-distribution of those mechanisms, but whatever).  To stay legal, as long as we don't distribute we're fine.  I guess I should have focused more on the "good faith" part which is the important part.  We want the game companies to "like" us.  Just because it's legal, doesn't make it the right thing to do.  My suggestion would be, you are able to talk about them, but telling how to get them (beyond the obvious "search for it") should not be allowed (ie. no linking to emulation sites and the such). -- Prod (Talk) 16:15, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * But... we do link to them. There's a link to MAME's website right in the MAME guide.  So does wikipedia for that matter!  If it was really so bad to point to emulators, then all of the publicly known emulation sites would have been shut down long ago.  There are other uses for emulators besides video games (as hard as that may be to believe.)  Emulators in no way violate DMCA either.  If you think about what an emulator does, it takes one foreign machine language instruction and translates into a native machine language instruction.  It's a translator from one machine to another.  How it that can be put to use is one thing, but there's simply no legal precedent for a company to go after a website for linking to a place where an emulator can be downloaded and played with.  ROMs, no question, we can't do it.  I have my own personally feelings about that, but I'll keep them to myself, they aren't relevant to this discussion.  But I would challenge someone to come after us legally for linking to an emulator's site.
 * Please note that this is about good faith towards game companies, not legality. I also don't want to delve into MAME since it has significant use for games that are no longer copyrighted.  -- Prod (Talk) 16:31, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Sure, we all have good faith (for the most part) in the game companies to make games and consoles. What I have no faith in is the fact that the companies say that emulators to create screenshots are a no-go zone, and then rather than provide a commercially available, cheap alternative (where you, say, slot a GB cartridge into a littler device that links up to the computer), just say that it's illegal.  What choice do they leave strategy guide makers?  To me this reeks of how various governments illegalise drugs, then refuse to provide those dependant upon them and proceed to leave a highly lucrative industry open - if you were addicted to drugs and there wasn't any legal alternatives, would you just decide to stay straight and go without?  No.  Some governments that have legalised and regulated certain drug industries have found that there is little to no black market for them.  I say that rather than we have to bend over backwards to comply with a law made murkier by corporate interests and still make guestures of good faith, we just do what we have to - if we have a game, we should be able to have a ROM of it for making screenshots, as it is not as if we are making the companies lose out upon lucrative profits if we already own the game and the game is a few years out of date.  This is just my personal opinion, the law on these matters is murky and I'm just sick of the game companies witch-hunts caused by their inability to provide an alternative.--Froglet 20:29, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I haven't actually heard much from the game companies in either way (except Sony...they have questionable business practices in many industries). The best thing for us would be if people who work for the game companies chose to contribute to the site directly (ie. fill in their info, maybe add a list of all the games they've made, etc.)  That's however wishful thinking.  All I'm hoping for is that they don't bring up any frivolous suits against us, or perhaps even help out financially (if we require it, perhaps SW can get non-profit status? :P). -- Prod (Talk) 21:38, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

This discussion is getting sidetracked. The bottom line is, Wikipedia regularly links to emulators and even BitTorrent sites without getting in any significant amount of trouble. If anyone's going to be targeted for spreading "warez" it's going to start with them since they can affect the widest area. As for screenshots, their validity as fair use of a copyrighted work is not affected by the legality of how said screens were acquired. The sole exception is when the screenshots were associated with a separate licensing deal, such as being exclusive to a magazine, but these cases are few and it is unlikely scanned screenshots would be good enough quality to use here anyway.

In order to use the DMCA to bring legal action against infringing parties the plaintiff must give reasonable notice that infringement has occurred (14 days seems to be the standard), within which the defendant may remove the infringing content and thus avoid further trouble. The plaintiff's position is made weaker if the infringement was done in good faith (see also safe harbor); additionally, if the use is likely to fall well within the fair use provisions of copyright law (meaning the case is likely to be dismissed, as fair use, when satisfied, overrules all other laws) they may decide against further pressuring the other party in case they file countersuits for loss of profit during the downtime (whether assumed or proven). Being non-profit doesn't necessarily increase or decrease the validity of the fair use--unlicensed, illustrated strategy guides exist), and since we use AdSense we are considered to be clearly for-profit.

I am working on a ground-up rewrite of Copyrights to hopefully demystify use of copyrighted content here. To cut a long tale short, don't link to sites with ROMs and don't explicitly state you are using ROMs you didn't dump yourself, but other than that discussion of ROMs and emulators really isn't anything to worry about it. GarrettTalk 22:54, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

stubs
This wiki could be really useful but there is to many stubs!
 * Yeah. :) This is largely because many people sign up, make a start on some guides, and then disappear. There are also some skeleton layouts that were deliberately seeded because some people find starting a new guide a little too daunting but might feel quite confident at filling in the blanks on an existing layout. The core user base remains steady and is constantly working on completing guides, so stubs will eventually become a minority. GarrettTalk 03:16, 22 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I was one of those daunted people. I'm not sure I'd have started work on Call of Duty 2 when I first joined if the article wasn't already there. Baejung92 15:15, 23 June 2007 (CDT)

StrategyWiki scope
Today I noticed Dreams of Deception. While on the surface this looks like an interesting indie game it doesn't actually exist yet, nor has it actually been given the ESRB rating shown on the cover. A quick look at Wikipedia shows that this was just deleted there. I'm not too keen on covering freeware/shareware/etc. games that aren't sufficiently popular, let alone games that don't even exist yet!

Mason11987 questioned our inclusion policy back in March, but nothing ever came of it. After talking to Prod about the matter, I've decided to start Guide/Scope to contain such a policy. This is a rough draft only, so feel free to make or suggest any changes or improvements you feel are right. Once we're satisfied with how it's written and what it encompasses it can become a proper policy.

The requirements I've come up with are mostly "fail safes" so legitimate games can fail some expectations (e.g. being released in a physical form in stores) but still pass the test.

Please comment on this proposal on the talk page, not here. This will make tracking the policy's history much easier. GarrettTalk 02:49, 22 June 2007 (CDT)
 * As per Dreams of Deception, I did my research on it as well and there are absolutely no mentions of it whatsoever anywhere. It has not been rated by the ESRB, even though it was indicated so on its "box artwork" (blatant lie #1=strike #1), "Seed Entertainment" is not truly a company (blatant lie #2=strike #2), and it appears that the page was designed to be nothing more than a sales pitch on the front page (which goes against our goal to have actual walkthroughs for games=strike #3, it's out!). If he/she IS one of the designers (as suggested on the Wikipedia deletion discussion), he/she could at least provide us with the walkthrough for the first level or something, he/she should have that info even though it has not been released. Because of all of that, I marked the article for deletion. Please discuss this nomination on its talk page, not here. -- 21:05, 22 June 2007 (CDT)
 * With Dreams of Deception, I think we should keep an element of good faith. We should delete the page, but notify the page author, and tell them that once they've got the game released/the game is released, they should notify us, and we'll restore the page so that the guide can be developed.
 * Looking at the scope document, I'm a bit unsure about the requirement to have been rated by ESRB or PEGI. Many indie/shareware/freeware/open source games which are still perfectly valid might fail this. You might also want to put in a clause saying that games brought up here are considered on a case-by-case basis. --DrBob (Talk) 12:04, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

Pokemon pages requiring cleanup
I was reading through a list of pages needing cleanup, and I noticed that a bunch of Pokemon pages were on there. But I noticed that when I ran my spell checker on the page, the "spelling errors" were Pokemon names that it didn't recognise, and the capitalization of the word "Pokemon". I think that there may be quite a few pages in there that shouldn't be, but I may be wrong (it's not the first time...) BTW, tell me if this note should be moved to the Staff Lounge, as I am still not quite sure where a comment like this should go. Thanks. Myth 00:46, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * You might as well use Word and modify the custom.dic to contain every pokemon name. Copy and paste works wonders.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 01:31, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * BTW, the problem with my old checker is that Pokemon will not be suggested as Pokémon. Oh, and whenever I copy a strategywiki article into word, the spellcahecker won't work, I can copy the wiki code and it works fine though.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 03:08, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I looked through some of the Pokemon pages, and they are marked not because of spelling errors, but because the layout needs to be cleaned up. It may just be a small part that needs cleaning up, or the whole page need to be redone.  If in doubt, you can always look through the history for who added the cleanup template and ask them why it was added. -- Prod (Talk) 09:10, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * To prevent confusion between the two later on, I've created the spelling template, which marks a page as having spelling errors. -- 10:22, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm not sure if such a template is really necessary. These days (i.e. Firefox 2) it's so easy to fix spelling errors, that it takes about the same time to add the template as it does to fix the spelling errors, while with layout cleanup, it may take considerably longer, so a template should be used. Regardless, there's a spelling "mistak" in the template (unless it's intentional?). --DrBob (Talk) 12:09, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * It is for guides that take 20 mins with firefox spellchecker.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 12:10, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * If a page takes 20 minutes to spellcheck, then it probably needs tagging for cleanup and splitting out into multiple pages. --DrBob (Talk) 17:06, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

Category:Pages needing subpaging and Subpage
Thoughts?
 * Couldn't we just stick with tagging them with cleanup? Pages which need subpaging are typically ones which have been imported, and they need cleaning up anyway. --DrBob (Talk) 17:11, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * However, the required skill set is slightly larger. Cleanup and wikify are both inherently single page things, which anyone who understands basic wikisyntax can do.  Cleanup also requires a bit of knowledge of the game (sometimes).  Subpaging also needs a bit of editorial experience (where are good places to break it up), knowing how to properly lay out new pages, in addition to basic cleanup tasks. -- Prod (Talk) 17:25, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Hmm, this template could have some limited uses. However, I can also foresee this becoming an issue of contention--some editors will favor single pages versus subpages. In such instances which decision will the community support? And by this argument, we also create the need for (which would call for subpages to be unified into a single page). If we decide to implement this template, I'm fine with that. But it does seems to further complicate the issue of keeping our wiki well organized.  ech  elon  18:13, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I doubt we would ever go from a multipage to a singlepage guide. If that does happen, it'll most likely be from a discussion by people maintaining the specific guide, and they should base their decision on consensus (this should be a guide specific discussion, not community discussion).  And we already have the single page template. Actually one page I noticed that would fall under his merge thing would be Need for Speed: Carbon/Cars, but that's besides the point.  This should mainly be used along with Special:Longpages, and it should spawn a discussion if there are any problems.  Actually, I was planning on using this as I was going through some of the main pages with my bot, but now that I'm done those, the use of this template may become somewhat limited. -- Prod (Talk) 18:29, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * My thought is that we should try to keep things simple. The more templates we add, the more complex things become and that can turn some people away...  So unless it's really necessary (i.e. it becomes a big deal later on and "cleanup" just won't cut it) then we can create it.  For now, it's not much of a problem.-- Duke  Ruckley  10:31, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Pokémon Red and Blue Walkthrough status
OK. It's been an arduous task, but the Pokémon Red and Blue walkthrough is, for the most part, complete. There's very little else that I can contribute to it at this point. But the guide as a whole is not ready for a num=4 rating yet. There are little bits that I need to add, and little bits that I'd like others to help me with. The list of things that I have yet to do are:
 * (need to do) Add all of the gym maps to the Gym Battle sections.
 * (would be nice) Add some images, or at least portraits, or the gym leaders and the Elite Four.
 * (need to do) Add a bulleted list of a high-level breakdown of the Walkthrough, interlinked to the right pages.
 * Flesh out Mew information.
 * Add page for other secrets.

The list of things that I desperately need help with from other users are:
 * (need to do) Spel checking, spell cheking, and spell checkng. I know I suck, I'm sorry.  But I especially need help with Pokemon names that can't be checked through Firefox.  I especially especially need someone to verify the bulbapedia links.
 * (need to do) Spot check all of my facts. If you see something wrong, don't tell me about it, just fix it.  The biggest bones of contention seem to be the Gary fights, since I guess the game levels Gary's Pokémon according to your relative level.
 * (need to do) The items list: Rocky and Ryan did just a ridiculously great job creating the moves list table for every generation of Pokémon, and linking it to the appropriate pages in bulbapedia. Well, it would be nice if we could do the same with them items because, frankly, that's the only red link left in the ToC, and it benefits every single Pokémon guide.
 * (would be nice) On that note, in addition to looking for any Pokémon names in the walkthrough that I didn't link to bulbapedia, and perhaps linking them up where appropriate, the same could be done with all of the Pokemon move names and item names. That would go a long way towards saving someone the trouble of having to look it up on another page, but if it never happens, it won't be so terrible.
 * ...and anything else I can't think of right now cuz I'm pretty tired.

So... if you're interested in helping getting this guide all the way up to num=4, this is the best possible time. This will be the site's first fully comprehensive, mapped out, trainer battle identified Pokémon guide, and even though it's ancient now compared to Diamond and Pearl, it's a big milestone for the site, so please help if you're inclined. Thanks so much, and thanks again to all the help that I've received from the usual crowd. Procyon (Talk) 23:33, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Nice work :). This should be up for Promising Guide. -- Prod (Talk) 00:03, 25 June 2007 (CDT)
 * For: Add some images, or at least portraits, or the gym leaders and the Elite Four, do you think we should use FR/LG artwork (e.g this one), sprites (e.g here) or anime artwork (e.g here). I'm happy to start the item list as well. Definitely promising, maybe it should be an example guide with OOT as well.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 01:06, 25 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I've gone through the entire guide and spell-checked it for conventional spelling mistakes, but I can't do anything about misspelt Pokemon's names. I've also normalised all the Bulbapedia links from BP:... to .  Damn good work; take a well-earned break (if you want one :-P )! --DrBob (Talk) 12:37, 25 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm going to disagree with linking to BP for the items, only the ones with articles, in BP it's mainly big lists for them, berries are the only ones I could find.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:28, 25 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree with Rocky... BP's items page is massive and confusing.  I opened it up and left almost immediately.  I think it would benefit us more to have our own full page with information.  I found a site called PsyPokes that has items lists.  That's where I found the recovery items.-- Duke  Ruckley  15:47, 25 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Very well, I trust your judgment regarding the best way for SW to present the material. Speaking of BP, Once all of the items on my checklist are complete, I'm going to write an announcement for them.  I wish that we could get some sort of dialog going with their admins, but so far, they haven't appeared to forthcoming.  Thanks for your wonderful and thorough cleanup DrBob, it's tremendously appreciated.  Procyon (Talk) 16:20, 25 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually, I'm going to somewhat retract my statement... I've done a little more searching and found a better page (the lack of redirects before weren't useful).  This page has a link to different categories, such as status ailment healing pages and such.  If you would like to link for example, "antidote" to this page, it might work out.  I'm not really sure if it's all that useful though.  I think it could work either way.-- Duke  Ruckley  13:00, 26 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, I saw that, maybe we could link the title to bulbapedia but I feel in the items case we're actually better than Bulbapedia, that reminds me... (Gets out GBA and uses it to add things to the movelist that aren't in bulbapedia)--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 13:35, 26 June 2007 (CDT)

Just to provide an update, my task list is complete, and I have made an announcement on Bulbapedia's forums regarding the completion of the walkthrough. All that I can hope for at this point is that some of their members come over and give the guide a glance to search for any errors or inaccuracies. I will aim to promote the guide to num=4 status by the first of July, or when any of the edits die down, whichever comes later. Procyon (Talk) 14:27, 26 June 2007 (CDT)

Some suggestions
Few things I've been pondering and discussed with a few of the other people around. On to discussion: -- Prod (Talk) 00:17, 27 June 2007 (CDT)
 * 1) Header Nav -> Header, Footer Nav -> Footer, Continue Nav -> Continue
 * 2) Deprecated |parent (from the AGN/HN) in favor of transcluding the ToCs.
 * 3) remove the option for |toc from the Footer Nav
 * 1) Yea, I know I was the one who proposed the previous change... I'm just putting it out there even though I'm mostly ambivalent one way or the other.  The previous change was for clarity, this one is just to save one word in typing.  And in the case of Continue Nav, its purpose isn't as obvious after this proposed change (Header/Footer are fine though).  Not too sure it's worth it.  Implementation wise, this is painlessly easy (easier than the AGN->HN since I'm cleaning up pages as I go with that, this will simply be auto-done)
 * 2) It's mainly used on the Street Fighter II "series" of games.  Should be simpler to do ToC transclusion like on Pokémon Yellow.
 * 3) It's at the bottom of the page, what is the reason someone would want to hide the toc?
 * 1. I don't agree with; I think the current names work fine, and a rename would just cause extra confusion (should I use AGN, HN, or H?). 2. sounds fine to me. 3. also sounds fine to me. --DrBob (Talk) 07:26, 27 June 2007 (CDT)
 * 1. Disagree, for all the same reasons as DrBob. 2. Disagree. Just because only a handful of games are making good use of it today doesn't mean there won't be other good candidates in the future.  However, I could be convinced of this choice if I knew how the SF2 series would be rearranged upon its removal. 3. I agree with this one. Procyon (Talk) 09:15, 27 June 2007 (CDT)
 * The change would be completely invisible--all it means is that Super Street Fighter II/Table of Contents and the like would transclude Street Fighter II/Table of Contents rather than calling it directly on the front page. This has the added advantage of eliminating the parent #if; since #ifs can't stack, this would mean onepage guides would no longer attempt to transclude their /Table of Contents pages; right now the ToC is still used by the page, it's just you can't see it--take a look at Special:Whatlinkshere/Sega Swirl/Table of Contents for instance. Since transclusion adds some server overhead the fewer unnecessary transclusion calls the Navs make the better. GarrettTalk 18:35, 27 June 2007 (CDT)

Notmyhandle for sysop
I've nominated for sysopship, and the nomination page's here. I'm sure he'd be grateful if people could go and vote (either way) there. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 06:43, 27 June 2007 (CDT)

Image guide headers
Hello everyone. I was wondering if I could get some honest opinions about the marquee images that I preface the introductions of many of the guides that I construct. Well, I'm not so sure about their placement now. Do people find their placement too jarring in relation to the text that follows? Does it look "unprofessional" in contrast to the rest of the guide layouts? There's no box art per se for an arcade game which is why I used the promotional flyers which I always thought contained artwork that would have been used on a box if one was made. But perhaps the marquees should go there in their place, and the flyers should just be moved down to a gallery. Or the marquee should just be moved down to a gallery instead. What are everyone's thoughts about this? Are they good the way that they are, or should some rearrangement occur? Thanks very much! Procyon (Talk) 12:47, 28 June 2007 (CDT)


 * I like them, just wish they could be centered in the whitespace. One problem is with 800x600 resolutions, the images make the pages have a huge whitespace.  Otherwise, very nice! --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 13:32, 28 June 2007 (CDT)
 * As I've stated to Procyon, I think the headers (or logos if you will) look very displaced on the page of the walkthrough. Almost every single artwork/in-game image you come across on StrategyWiki has been found to have some variant of a border around it, and without the border the image distorts the distinction between what is relevant to StrategyWiki and what is relevant to the game. It's like having a cut out of a game logo from a piece of box art slapped onto the page unconditionally, serving no real purpose. Procyon can argue here and say that for arcade games, it was the only truly memorable visual cue in recognizing a game back in the day, and old schoolers would be familiar with the arcade logo. As a result, I proposed to Procyon that we could simply add a flat frame around the logo, like MediaWiki does for thumbnails, that blends in with the shades and cleanness the infobox.--Dan 21:13, 28 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Another alternative would be to introduce an infobox parameter that places it above the title (like this), but that as issues of its own. GarrettTalk 23:10, 28 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Garrett, the featured star won't show up in IE6--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 00:51, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I think Garrett's idea (in fact, all of the ones on his sandbox page) is good. --DrBob (Talk) 06:56, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I certainly like it Garrett ^_^ Procyon (Talk) 09:21, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * So we changed the topic? Anyways, Garrett's featured template doesn't work in IE7 or Firefox 2.0.0.4.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 10:05, 29 June 2007 (CDT)

When Prod cleaned up MediaWiki:Common.css Ryan's addition of .topicon got lost. Please make sure all CSS/JS changes get onto the talk page version first or they'll simply be overwritten by the next person to make an update. Also make sure you leave a clear comment explaining what it does so it doesn't get culled. I've restored it now, so the featured icon will display correctly once you clear your cache. This is the same code Wikipedia uses for their featured icons (slightly tweaked for optimum BlueCloud positioning) so this is as compatible as it's going to get. Needimage is still broken in IE7, but that's an IE issue and not to do with disappearing CSS styles. GarrettTalk 18:57, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Oops. I thought it was part of the Infobox stuff (it was late at night :P).  And I agree, most of the stuff on your sandbox looks good.  The only one I disagree with is adding the logo/marquee to the Infobox.  Those boxes already get tall enough, and those images look fine (to me at least) as part of the "content" or included in the ToC. -- Prod (Talk) 22:34, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, that was the downside I was meaning. Leaving it where it is but giving it a border (as Dan suggests) would probably look OK... *goes off to try it* GarrettTalk 22:51, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I found this other css compressor, seems to do a better job, though I hear it sometimes has errors. -- Prod (Talk) 23:29, 29 June 2007 (CDT)

New Categories
So as I was grabbing info for Guerrilla War from Wikipedia, I ran into several "new" categories, such as cooperative play and the "sub-genre" called Run and gun. Anyways, run and gun games are pretty well known, Wikipedia has a decent article on the subject but really, what should we do about this sort of thing? For play categories, multiplayer/single player/MMO are pretty distinct, but Cooperative could make a good, detailed category for those games where you can play simultaneusly together with another player or two. For the genre cats, I think the more the better; I don't like seeing all of them grouped into one broad category called "Action" when more specific genre's exist (I'm not saying remove action, although I think I did by accident on one page, but we should add the more specific ones as well). I think we should use Wikipedia as our resource for defining genres, but we should add the ones we are missing (like shoot'em up and others). Like Act Raiser is one that's clearly a platform game, but we haven't labeled it as such. Tell me what you think! I'd like to be able to apply these changes ASAP. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 19:47, 28 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Agreed to all. Cooperative should be on a top level with Multiplayer, etc. --DrBob (Talk) 06:59, 29 June 2007 (CDT)

Help Please
We have a user called Mystery??? (Talk) but In IE6 I have a problem getting to this user's talk and user page, is this my browser or a problem with the MW software, the only way that I can get on the talk page is go to edit mode and manually go to Mystery??? and it's annoying.--Rocky (Talk - Contributions) 00:46, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I thought that question marks weren't allowed unless he like made his user name with the html character codes (%3F). Anyways, I can't even tell that it's a user; no user page, no talk page, no user contribs...  ??  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 01:08, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * You can access it in the form http://strategywiki.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mystery%3F%3F%3F. "?" and "+" don't work in /wiki/ URLs because of server configuration. GarrettTalk 01:23, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * So, uh, what exactly is this? If its a user, yet not exactly a user and you can't access any of the personal pages on it, what can it be? Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 10:43, 29 June 2007 (CDT)

It is a regular user, just with a bad name. If we have a username policy, we should say we will auto ban anyone with ? in the name. -- Prod (Talk) 12:13, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * This user has done some vandalizing in the past, so I would carefully watch his/her contributions. Furthermore, I agree with Prod about banning '?', '+', and '&' from usernames.  ech elon  15:05, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * We should install the rename extension, and do it for the user because they won't be able to see their talk pages. Also, how do we see contribs and can't a dev add a setting somewheere to stop ppl with ? + and & registering (One that works in IE6 as well :P)--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:08, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually, & works fine (see Mount&Blade), so there's probably no technical reason for restricting it. GarrettTalk 15:51, 29 June 2007 (CDT)

Actually, I'm going to about this on IRC--Wikipedia has all three working (+, &, ?), whereas the MediaWiki documentation states you have to choose between & working or ? and + working. GarrettTalk 15:51, 29 June 2007 (CDT)


 * Actually, we can do all except ? and % (Probably because it thinks it's the start of a HTML charachter and gives an error page).--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:57, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * So do we, I just made ?--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 16:02, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * It won't work though, it was a redirect to my user but clicking on it takes u to the main page, I'm deleting it.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 16:04, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Ech, he has a history of vandalism? http://strategywiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Mystery%3F%3F%3F only shows a single contribution/instance of vandalism. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 18:07, 29 June 2007 (CDT)

Feature Guides Template
Ok so breaking off from that other thread, I decided to make one of my own (I made a cleanup one for Wikipedia with an optional small parameter). Anyways, you can check out the template in use at User:Notmyhandle/Sandbox2 and you can use the template (until it gets moved to the correct name) by using. How does it look? Thanks Garrett for some of the things (icon filename, feature guides page link). --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 10:18, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Why is your CSS more complex--what's difference does it make? Also, why is it further over--we don't have any other header templates do we? GarrettTalk 20:16, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * <_< >_> I just couldn't get yours to work so... can you show me an example? I don't even know how to subst/place yours.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 21:40, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I've only just restored the .topicon class, which is probably why it didn't work for you. Do a hard refresh (Ctrl+F5) of this file to ensure it displays correctly. All going well, you can see it in action at the top of Sandbox. GarrettTalk 21:54, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Mmk. Looks delicious, why isn't it at Template:Featured guide yet? --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 21:57, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Cause we don't have Featured guides yet. -- Prod (Talk) 22:25, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, we don't have a featured guides voting system or anything. My idea was to have it sort of like a sixth stage where only the best of the best would be. But first we need some way of determining what makes a "better than simply being complete" guide. GarrettTalk 00:41, 30 June 2007 (CDT)
 * One way of determining "better than simply being complete" guides would be to have candidates for featured guide be reviewed, as on Wikipedia. Currently, level 4 guides aren't reviewed, are they? --DrBob (Talk) 14:23, 30 June 2007 (CDT)


 * Nay they aren't DB. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 17:30, 1 July 2007 (CDT)

Does anybody else think that we should go ahead and get started on this? We came to a general agreement that we should have featured guides, so all we need to do now is come up with policy and standards. Here are some important things I've been thinking:
 * To be nominated, the guide must be at level four completion.
 * A featured guide should:
 * Have all the features of a lvl 4 completed guide
 * Contain no drivel
 * Make good use of images
 * Be easy to follow and understand
 * Have very few spelling/grammatical errors
 * Have no red links
 * Majority rules
 * Confirmed and approved by sysop/bureaucrat on look/feel committee (this I'm unsure about, any thoughts?)
 * Featured guide, once approved, gets a star in place of lvl. 4 completion

Would there be a way to prevent people from making a guide a featured guide without going through the process? That is the only real concern I have (especially when SW becomes larger).-- Duke Ruckley  13:02, 24 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I would say no to the look/feel committee, as they have more to do with standards. Actually, forget all committees whatsoever. What we should do is have a page similar to the Collab page and Promising page, where we have a discussion and voting process by the community lead to a consensus. Then, once a certain day comes (say like 5 days before the first of the next month), a few volunteer sysops look over the nominated guides and judge what they think best follows the outlined points of a featured guide. Then, whoever is in charge weighs what the volunteers think with the votes and comes out with a winner (actually, forming a Featured Material committee might be nice for that). As for people making fake ones, that's why every registered user on StrategyWiki (besides blocked ones) have the ability to revert edits. -- 13:22, 24 July 2007 (CDT)
 * How does Featured guides sound? *Edit* Er, Skizz, just create the page. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 11:21, 9 August 2007 (CDT)
 * ??? -- 11:27, 9 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Just create StategyWiki:Featured guides, outlining what they are and discussing the creation/voting process. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 11:29, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

OK. I've promoted Garrett's template to featured, since I was going to use it. However, some low-life dissidents on IRC put up a fuss, and we need to clarify: Should the star be intrinsically linked with stage 5 status, and always be displayed on guides at stage 5, or should it only be displayed on the guide most-recently promoted to stage 5? I'm going with the former, because the latter doesn't really make sense IMHO; the star is there to promote that the guide is of exceptional quality, and this should always be happening for all stage 5 guides. --DrBob (Talk) 12:16, 12 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah that second idea is just strange. Make them all have a star. -- 14:23, 12 August 2007 (CDT)
 * I say no because the Header Nav is already confusing and long enough as-is. Since we're not going to make a featured guide every day, it isn't that difficult to just manually add in the template. Also, you should be adding the featured template not to the game's main page (which is what would happen if it was tied into the HN with num=5), but to the table of contents so that it gets transcluded in every page on the guide. As for how long we keep the star there, I've changed my mind because the star looks really cool, so we'll keep it up there forever. -- 11:34, 13 August 2007 (CDT)
 * The simplest idea would be to just change the num parameter to five (which would display a star in place of the usual box) AND to add the featured template...-- Duke Ruckley  12:50, 13 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Which is what I just suggested, except that featured be added to the Table of Contents instead of the Main Page so that EVERY page in the guide has the star in the upper-right corner. -- 13:23, 13 August 2007 (CDT)
 * OK. I agree with you now Ryan, due to your suggestion that every page in the guide should display the star, which makes sense. The rest of your comment is complete tripe, though. :-P Saying that a template is "already confusing and long enough" is sort of ignoring the point of using a template; to abstract away confusing code. It's not like people are editing HN every day, so what's the problem with a little more complexity? HN as it stands isn't half as complex as the infobox, and I don't see you complaining about that. ;-) So yes, I'm now for keeping featured unlinked from HN, and putting it in the ToC, but not for the reasons you've specified. :-D --DrBob (Talk) 14:22, 13 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Since the guide's been promoted, I've added featured to the top of the infobox, but it doesn't show up on pages except the main page unless you expand the ToC (due to the ToC section's contents being display:none). I think we can live with that; the only solution otherwise is to use JavaScript to move the star out of the ToC and into the title bar, or to manually put it on each page, neither of which is particularly elegant. --DrBob (Talk) 05:46, 15 August 2007 (CDT)
 * I've fixed that by adding a simple clause to the Header Nav. Instead of putting featured in the ToC, put it in game/Table of Contents/Featured instead, as this will include it on every page in the guide without having to expand the show/hide thingy. -- 12:47, 15 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Only now it doesn't show on the front page :/ Procyon (Talk) 12:52, 15 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Wait for the job queue to die down, it might not have been changed yet. -- 13:02, 15 August 2007 (CDT)
 * We've developed a better solution, using JS to move the star, and you can see it in action right now. Un fortunately, this has put the job queue up to 18000 (due to reverting the changes to HN). What a pity. :-D --DrBob (Talk) 13:26, 15 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Sorry, just a question. How come the JS for the star works but the transparency JS doesn't do anything?--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:30, 15 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Are you still on IE4, or something? Upgrade to something from this millennium, please! --DrBob (Talk) 14:55, 15 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Yep, I'd just like to know, btw with screens with long titles, the star overlaps with the text.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:00, 15 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Pages with titles that long are going to run into problems with the title layout anyway, so there's no regression there. --DrBob (Talk) 15:54, 15 August 2007 (CDT)

WikiProject
As wikipedia has WikiProjects, we could have something similar, perhaps with a gaming theme. Some options: Others could be Move lists, Box artwork, Categories, Series. -- Prod (Talk) 00:57, 30 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Achievements StrategyProject
 * Achievements Taskforce
 * Achievements quest
 * Achievements party
 * Achievements guild
 * Achievements clan


 * I like the idea. We could probably get things done a lot faster. Oh, and I like "quest". It is certainly a gaming theme, and... I don't know, it just sounds better than the others. Baejung92 12:09, 30 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Can we hack the software to put in a WikiProject namespace, that'd be good.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 12:14, 30 June 2007 (CDT)


 * Hmmm...What exactly would this be for? I'm not opposed to the idea, I'm just curious what this would be for exactly. Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 12:22, 30 June 2007 (CDT)
 * It's like an ongoing collaboration. On wikipedia there are groups like WikiProject Video games who focus on improving the video game guides.  Since we are only video game guides here, we can have more specialized ones.  For example, we already have the Cleanup project (which would be renamed to the Cleanup quest).  -- Prod (Talk) 13:40, 30 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I like this idea, it would be really good to have a sort of 'co-ordination list', where people can look in, see what needs to be done (eg, categorise all the pics involved in Final Fantasy games or something), and do it to cross it off the list, and people involved can send wikilove to them :-P.--Froglet 22:02, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

Actually, we don't have to use any hacks to add namespaces. If we decide to implement this as a namespace, it's as simple as editing the configs.  ech elon  00:05, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * We could have games in the scope of the Project, It'd be really good, also, we could have a Game help project which lists all the games completed and will give advice.--Rocky Rally-X Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 01:38, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Er, what? --DrBob (Talk) 10:00, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I like this idea, but I think it'll only be useful for large projects (such as achievements and cleanup). I don't think it'd be useful to have organised "projects" for single games (such collaboration could just happen on the game's talk pages), although large series such as Pokemon could have projects. I'm opposed to calling them anything silly like "quests" or "clans", as I think that's just confusing and not very professional (OK, so I'm boring :-P ). Projects could easily go in the StrategyWiki namespace, just like the cleanup project (which is not being renamed!). --DrBob (Talk) 10:00, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree with DrBob about the professional aspect of it... It may not be as fun, but it will save a lot of confusion in the future.  I like the idea though.  It won't really work out much until we have more people though.-- Duke  Ruckley  13:00, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Cleanup quest... lol. Yeah, keep it simple! Why not just create the various namespaces for now? We don't need to wait for more people. So what ones do we want? Cleanup, Featured guides, Completion Ratings, game series? --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 11:57, 9 August 2007 (CDT)
 * We've already got Cleanup project. The only other one I can see us needing is Achievements project. Featured guides, completion ratings and game series aren't really worthy subjects for a project. --DrBob (Talk) 12:21, 9 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Well what is a project? --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 12:48, 9 August 2007 (CDT)
 * An organised group of people working towards a common goal which would benefit from a collaborative effort, and be largely ignored otherwise. That description isn't particularly good, but hopefully you get the gist of what I mean. --DrBob (Talk) 16:57, 9 August 2007 (CDT)