StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal

http://media.strategywiki.org/images/4/49/SW_CP_Banner.png

This page is for discussion of general community issues; if you just want to ask a question to more experienced users of the site, please use the staff lounge. To start a new thread [ click here]. Resolved threads are gradually archived; see the archives box to the right.

A new skin is under development. If you have any suggestions, please add them to the list

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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:02, 24 June 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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:57, 29 June 2007 (CDT)
 * So do we, I just made ?--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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)

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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-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)

Date categories
For the cats on the main page, should we use all of the dates as cats (e.g for a game that was released in 12 October in 1999 for Japan and 1st January 2311 in Europe), would we have the 1999, 1st Jan, 2311 and 12th October cat. The two years and the 1st date or just the first date and year, I've just been doing the 1st date and year but I'd like to know what is right.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 10:03, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * We used to categorise by all dates, but then it was decided that we'd categorise by the earliest date only, so that's what you should do. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 10:07, 1 July 2007 (CDT)

Sums
Is there a way to do simple sums with the Mediawiki software, I'm thinking of using it here to get the number of guides left. BTW hasn't been installed and I don't really think there'd be much point of having it here.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:04, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10=. -- Prod (Talk) 14:12, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Thanks, Prod.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:15, 1 July 2007 (CDT)

Template parameter consistency
Well, I was looking at some of the templates we have, and a lot of the parameters seem somewhat arbitrary. For example on System we have |released and |consoleimage; on Infobox we have |releasedates and |boxart; on Company we have |logo. I would suggest changing consoleimage, boxart, and logo -> image (they're also consistent with what's used on wikipedia). releasedates on the other hand could be released, which is also used on wikipedia (they also allow |release). Company uses |website, Infobox uses |url. I personally prefer website since it's clearer. -- Prod (Talk) 15:24, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Agreed. I'll see if I can start making some of these changes. --DrBob (Talk) 15:28, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I support these changes, having to "learn" new templates more than necessary is a waste of time. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 17:32, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I've just finished updating the company and system templates, and all the pages referencing the parameters on those templates that I changed. --DrBob (Talk) 20:21, 1 July 2007 (CDT)

Main Page WIP
Dan thinks it's really important that we get community feedback on some proposed changes to the Main Page, so if everybody would care to look at Main Page/WIP and give their opinions, I'd be grateful. The proposal is to add the "system browser" (system browser) just below the introductory text. --DrBob (Talk) 11:38, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * First order of business, do we use it at all. It would be much easier for me to use since I don't like reading... (then again, I rarely visit the front page).  After that, we can decide on placement.  There are two options so far


 * 1) Right at the top of the screen
 * 2) Just below the introduction
 * I prefer 2 since it merges in with the content much more "cleanly". -- Prod (Talk) 11:46, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Thanks DrBob. One of the main issues with the new system nav is that if the browser window is just small enough, the nav jumps out of the page margin and overlaps the toolbox. We need to imeplent a min-width on StrategyWiki to fully fix this problem, and obviously that is an entire different discussion by itself. So until then, I think the logos should be made small enough such that the total width of the new nav is just as wide as the Genres browser. Another gripe of mine is the placement of the nav itself. Having it between the four-point columns and the SW introduction seems very displaced and attention-stealing. If it were smaller, it'd make more sense for it to be placed on the top of the page. And to reply to Prod (I jumped into an edit conflict with him at the time of this writing), I choose 1 on the notation that it steals attention from Most Promising Guide and What is StrategyWiki? columns. Seeing how many people read those sections and few will ever look at the console nav, it's not balanced.--Dan 11:57, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I'd like to offer a third placement that may be more difficult to implement, but more appealing visually. What if we put it inside the introduction box?  The logos would need to be smaller, which I think should be done anyway.  This might prevent it from distracting from the rest of the main page.-- Duke  Ruckley  13:07, 2 July 2007 (CDT)

Milestone achieved
We have now reached 1337 guides! We are officially 1337! -- Prod (Talk) 11:49, 2 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Our 1337 guide (I think) is Heretic WOOT!!!--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 11:57, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Correct, created at 11:28, 2 July 2007 by Vikrant AP. -- Prod (Talk) 12:02, 2 July 2007 (CDT)

Hah, you beat me to it! :P Oh well:



echelontalk 14:08, 2 July 2007 (CDT)

Deprecated Templates Category
There are a ton of pages in the deprecated templates category that really don't belong there. I think it may have happened during the transition to the HN from the AGN... Any easy fix to this?-- Duke Ruckley  14:40, 2 July 2007 (CDT)