StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal

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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)
 * I think that policy decision should be added to Pelago 16:18, 13 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I've expanded that page a little, although I think it could still do with some more information. Feel free to suggest anything you think it's lacking. --DrBob (Talk) 16:40, 13 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)

2 Important things: 1) We need to support lower resolutions; currently the new main page and community issues pages have graphics that extend beyond the edges of the screen on even 800x600. I use a lower resolution at work, and people on Wii's are going to have an even smaller resolution (I think). 2) An easy way to resolve the community issues page is to make the image dynamic (left border, stretchable image, text, stretchable image, right border) with some html. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 18:35, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Additionally, I think the main page icons could be considerably smaller. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 18:38, 2 July 2007 (CDT)

I like the graphical icons, but I think they should be smaller and not slanted diagonally (or at least, have *all* of them slanted rather than just some).Pelago 16:23, 13 July 2007 (CDT)
 * They wouldn't fit in 64x64px if they weren't slanted (without being illegible). --DrBob (Talk) 16:31, 13 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)
 * Am I missing something? Why is 1337 a milestone?? --RamonSalazar 19:06, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Check wikipedia. -- Prod (Talk) 19:15, 2 July 2007 (CDT)

OK now no one create another guide for a while (j/k). But I would really want to see the day when the number of completed guides is 1337! Baejung92 20:26, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Too late :-P. -- Prod (Talk) 20:30, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Nooooooo!! Baejung92 14:25, 3 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)
 * By changing the AGN to HN and changing prev to back in the FN, those pages still aren't done (Prod's cleaning up every page before he does the navs).--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:46, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * They were put there since the AGN is deprecated. It'll be empty again in a few weeks (or at least mostly).  If you want a list of non AGN related pages, I can give that to you. -- Prod (Talk) 15:00, 2 July 2007 (CDT)

Donate?
I don't mean a big donation drive with a bar at the top of every page, or anything that big. However, some of the more philanthropic people on the internet would probably click a paypal donate button or link, if there was one. How about it? --blendmaster 17:32, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm willing to donate periodically. What I really want is a bluecloud themed SW shirt with admin on the back XD --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 18:36, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * That would be a totally kickass shirt, not to mention it could seriously interest others in joining our cause:
 * "Hey, where'd you get that shirt?"
 * "Oh, I got it at this cool website, StrategyWiki.org..."
 * I like that idea a lot. Perhaps Teddy could bestow upon us some heavenly design of his. echelontalk 23:09, 2 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Only for admins? I want one but not with the word "Contributor" or something on it... haha Baejung92 14:30, 3 July 2007 (CDT)
 * The idea of a shirt is pretty good, though a few diffirent versions would be required. It could be fun to have a few that had odd titles like minion. I would buy one to go be a billboard at some of the local cons in my area. I imagine if we make good guides that leave users satisfied they would want to donate. --Zaiqukaj 03:16, 4 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Well we can probably just leave the text totally customizable. Most print shops allow only upper case letters and numbers, no symbols.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 11:04, 4 July 2007 (CDT)
 * How 'bout cafepress? --blendmaster 14:18, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Move List namespace
Sorry if I've missed talk on this already, but shouldn't there be a namespace for all these Move Lists? Maybe it annoys me more than it should, but it seems like they should be moved to their respective games or namspaced ( yes, it's a verb ), because there's no game called "Move Lists". --blendmaster 13:11, 3 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I think Category:Move lists is enough, though it might be nice to have a separate namespace. I don't think it's necessary though. -- Prod (Talk) 23:50, 3 July 2007 (CDT)

E3
Hey guys, I wanted to give you all a heads up on E3. It starts next week, and you can view it live at GameSpot.com; I'll be checking it out, I hope to see some new StarCraft II footage. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 11:16, 4 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I have some buddies who are going this year so if you want pictures of anything, let me know and I'll see if I can get in touch with them while they are there. E3 is going to be a little different this year, but I doubt that it will be so different that they won't get burned out after like the first day.  I used to make it a little game out of it and see how much SWAG I could get and stuff in my bag... Procyon (Talk) 14:45, 4 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm mostly interested in Blizzard and Nintendo stuff. But anything really innovative is definitely on my list as well.  Whatever happend to that game... Spores was it?  Where you like, create a custom creature, it evolves over time, then eventually you like, duke it out with other tribes and stuff...  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 21:39, 4 July 2007 (CDT)
 * It's Spore. The hype for it is so huge that I'm wondering if it's going to be the next Fable or Daikatana; they weren't terrible, but they were only a shadow of all that was promised. Anyway, it's going to be interesting to see how it turns out. GarrettTalk 23:37, 4 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Don't let Mason hear you say that :P--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 01:30, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't think Spore is real likely to flop... It is being created by Will Wright, who has a history of coming up with really awesome games (SimCity series, The Sims, etc).-- Duke  Ruckley  09:24, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

ps3 walkthroughs
I think some one needs to start on walkthroughs for the playstation 3 games. i own a ps3, and frequently can't find any sort of help online, not even on stratgey wiki. the only game ive seen a walkthrough for is for resistance: fall of man. The games on the ps3 can be more difficult than games on other systems at times, and sometimes you may just want to figure out some oblivious thing to the game. i thing this would really help strategy wiki, and i plan on starting a guide to motorstorm for the ps3. -Pyro maniac 13:02, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * It can take some time for people to start writing strategy guides after getting a new system like a PS3, and we don't have many contributors for the PS3, so as you say we haven't got many PS3 guides. It's good to hear you're planning to write one (just make sure it's not a copyright violation ;-), and feel free to ask any questions here in community issues. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 13:08, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * BTW we have 14 main pages for PS3 guides, see the bottom of here.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 13:11, 5 July 2007 (CDT)

Release dates
I'm not sure why it wasn't done before, but I've got round to making some release date templates, which display release dates in a standard form, with a little country flag. The default one is rd, and I've tried to keep them all as short as possible, meaning that when used normally, they now occupy less space than the old release date stuff used to. :-) I don't think there's much to comment on, apart from the fact that I couldn't get Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg working (so uk is using Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.png temporarily instead). I've converted Final Fantasy X to use the new templates (simply because it has a few release dates), so you can see how they look. Enjoy! --DrBob (Talk) 14:41, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I've just applied the templates to all the guides linked from the front page, and I'll stop there to give people time to point out what a stupid idea this all is. :-D --DrBob (Talk) 14:57, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Might I suggest we use WP:Template:flagicon instead/aswell? It's really just a merge of all the templates into one. The main reason is, we tend to get a lot of those infoboxes from WP, so we might as well stay consistent as much as possible. -- Prod (Talk) 22:15, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * flagicon is better in the long run for several reasons. GarrettTalk 23:55, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I can't see much point, since it would bring an extra dependency into every page with an infobox (once these templates are used everywhere), and we're basically only going to use four or five flags, and only in those places. --DrBob (Talk) 06:09, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

I like the idea of using templates. It helps standardise the country codes (some pages use EU while others use Europe, and so forth) and could have other uses in the future. Since SVG rendering is still faulty (DrBob, can you get this working?) the template should use PNGs for now. These can be easily generated using Wikipedia's sandbox. GarrettTalk 23:55, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I think the SVGs for all flags except Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg render fine. I've got no idea what's wrong with the UK flag, but it isn't rendering well on my system either. --DrBob (Talk) 06:09, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I really like this idea and how it shows up in the infobox. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 12:55, 7 July 2007 (CDT)
 * The image is prerendered as a PNG before being sent to the client; browsers' SVG support (or lack thereof) have no effect on its appearance. GarrettTalk 16:41, 7 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I know; I probably didn't phrase that very well. What I mean is that the program generating the previews for the SVG files as they're saved on my computer is choking on the UK flag. --DrBob (Talk) 07:01, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

SSBB controls
I've just found this page, and despite providing more content for the guide, it raises an interesting question: how are we to represent Wiimote movements in controls pages? We can represent the common ones easily enough, but then you get games like WarioWare: Smooth Moves which use the controller to its full extent, and it gets harder. --DrBob (Talk) 15:00, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Gr8 site, I check nearly every day, we could have very small animated SVGs (if any1 is good with inkscape or other SVG editor) or gifs.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:08, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Animated SVGs are not an option because of poor browser support (see wp:SVG animation) and the necessity of yet another MediaWiki extension to get around them being automatically rendered into PNG (and thus unable to be manipulated by scripts).
 * Since many Wii games don't use the Z axis to its full effect (and thus have controls comparable to a mouse or analog stick) it should be quite possible to come up with a standard set of movements (like cade) and simply combine the instructions (like the Move lists) rather than make individual animations for each individual game action. It shouldn't be too difficult to decide upon some standard and clearly different colours for each axis (as with wp:Image:Flight dynamics.jpg). GarrettTalk 23:47, 5 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Of course, but then what about games like WarioWare: Smooth Moves? I can only suggest we make some game-specific ones, although we could try and make them more general where possible. --DrBob (Talk) 06:11, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * The best solution I can come up with is using images that show the direction the remote should move, with a good description of it. For example, if the remote should be swung above the head clockwise, we should have an image of the remote with a red arrow that indicates a circular, clockwise rotation.  We may be forced to come up with many images for all the different moves, but I think it is possible.  Keep in mind, we can also reference the booklet or even in-game tutorials which would do a much better job than we could anyway.-- Duke  Ruckley  09:33, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * With games that have a 1:1 motion action ratio, Move Lists sound like the best way to go. On something like Twilight Princess, I think it would be good to have a general picture of how a certain action is controlled. For instance, a picture of waggle for the sword, and a picture of a targeting reticle for the bow. Something almost uncannily like this. With games like WarioWare: Smooth Moves, a description would suffice for each mini game. Besides, aren't the controls for each mini game summarized in game anyway? --blendmaster 14:27, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

System messages
Does anyone know what system message controls where the links go in the bottom right hand corner (I want to un-redirect about StrategyWiki). I think MediaWiki:Aboutsite is what it says but I can't find out how to un-redirect the about link.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 02:38, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Fixed. The page that controls the link was MediaWiki:Aboutpage, by the way. -- 10:08, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Thanks.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 10:09, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Stats
We now have over 4000 pages according to Special:Statistics and we are rated no. 921 in New Zealand according to Alexa. W00T --
 * Nice! :D echelontalk 18:14, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Wiki Tabs
After finding out that page-specific js is nonexistant, I would like to request that the ability to make wiki tabs (code here, example here) to be put into MediaWiki:Common.js. This can be particularly useful with long lists of pages (like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess/Enemies), so that instead of having either a very large page or 3-5 sub-pages, you can just hide the content until they want to have it shown. It works with images as well, and it can be used multiple times on one page (as demonstrated in the example). -- 14:00, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Looks OK, can we have a show all button as well if sum1 wants to print it out?--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:03, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * No, the current code won't allow that. The only current way to do it is to put noinclude tags around the divs and then include that page into another page. -- 14:18, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Compression
Does anyone think we should have Category:Images needing compressing for these images--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:40, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Why do we worry about compression? Most of the time we use thumbnails to present these images anyway. I think it's kind of cool that we have a large collection of high-quality game-related imagery. I'd like us to build galleries in the future! echelontalk 18:18, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I think Rocky was meaning lossless solutions like PNGcrush. GarrettTalk 00:43, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Almost, I mean so that you can't really see any difference, e.g this from this. BTW PNGCrush would be good.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 01:17, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I've just reverted that image, as it did lose too much quality, and as echelon says, we've got the space, and almost all of the time people just see a thumbnail. If they want to see a larger version, then it's their choice to download it. I'd be fine with lossless solutions though (although they'd be better if they weren't run by us and uploaded as new versions of files, as that just takes up more space on the server unnecessarily). --DrBob (Talk) 13:21, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Sorry then, feel free to delete what I uploaded--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:51, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * BTW does anyone mind if I compress or resize boxart a bit, it's not really that useful and some of the WP boxart is over 1MB--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:54, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I mind. I think it's a good thing to have a repository of box artwork, and it's not hurting for all the reasons above. --DrBob (Talk) 15:07, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah don't worry about it. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 15:11, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Sorry, I was just a bit worried if they'd break fair use for being hig enough resolution for piracy.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:15, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * My impression is that if they are going to care about a screenshot, it's not going to matter the resolution. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 15:22, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I was talking about boxart, it doesn't matter though.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:30, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

Guide search
I've added some code to search the current guide to my user js. It adds a link to the toolbox to do a search of the current book. Think we should implement it in MediaWiki:BlueCloud.js? -- Prod (Talk) 17:54, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * My one thing is that I would switch "book" to "guide," like I did in my user js. -- 18:45, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * One minor problem is that the page name isn't used as an exact expression—searches started from The Legend of Zelda will also result in hits from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the like. More worryingly, it can't search titles with parentheses (e.g. Shadowrun (Genesis)) or special characters (e.g. We ♥ Katamari) even though these pages are indeed found if you do a web search for site:strategywiki.org. If these problems can somehow be resolved (perhaps by using the Custom Search Engine service?) I can definitely see implementing this. GarrettTalk 00:42, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Sounds good in principle, but the issues Garrett mentioned would need fixing. --DrBob (Talk) 15:08, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

Wikipedia article
I think it's about time we seriously pursue a Wikipedia entry about StrategyWiki; having an article about our project will boost the visibility and viability of our project in the minds of others and further serve to boost our growth. Our notability statistics should already be more than enough to meet Wikipedia's concerns for WP:WP:NN and WP:WP:WEB.

We've worked on Wikipedia Article in the past, but I think we should rethink the content a little and focus on the key points. By focusing on the history we've had with Wikibooks, the past year of growth, and the lessons we've learned about presenting wiki guides, I think our article will give people a sense of what our project is and where it is going. Half of what we're saying just needs to be rephrased.

We don't really even need to mention GameFAQs. I'm tired of us being compared to GameFAQs in every Digg, blog writeup, etc. we ever have. :(

I'd like to post it to Wikipedia in a week.

What do you think? echelontalk 18:33, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree with severing the tie with GameFAQs (like I mentioned in our last digg. As for notability, I think it could stand up through the deletion nom and be kept (I almost guarantee that it'll be nommed for deletion). The one thing is that the infobox is missing the owner and created by info, and I think that it would be nice to include (don't know who you could reference for it, though). -- 18:50, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I still doubt we'd survive it. We have no "notable" references.  And using wikibooks as a proxy is fairly weak as well (they threw all their "junk" at us).  We have to be noticed by some major websites, or get in the top 10k alexa ranking. -- Prod (Talk) 19:41, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Not to mention scale to another server via Squid and Replica (when it's finished.)--Dan 23:19, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Stylistic issue: 2nd person vs. 3rd person
Hi everyone. As some of you may know, I have begun to contribute to the The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past walkthrough. I have begun making changes to the very first part in the Hyrule Castle. I didn't plan on this originally, but it became somewhat enjoyable to write the walkthrough aspect of the guide in 3rd person, sort of as a novelization of Links' adventures. The writing style was designed to be entertaining and at the same time, informative, with examples like:
 * "Link tries to stun him with his new-found Boomerang, but it has little effect. Link fights well, but he takes some damage during the fight. He discovers that the pottery nearby contain hearts, just in case he runs low on life. Better yet, he realizes that he can throw the pottery at the guard, killing him even faster than with a sword."

But Garrett pointed out to me that this does, in fact, contradict every other guide's style of writing, and asked me to change it back to second person. After some hesitation, I agreed. I knew that Garrett had a point, and I didn't want to be stubborn about it and simply deny his request. So I have gone through and made the changes. The above was changed to:
 * "You can try to stun him with your new-found Boomerang, but it has little effect. If you take some damage during the fight, the pottery nearby contain hearts, just in case you run low on life. Better yet, you can throw the pottery at the guard, killing him even faster than with a sword."

For the time being, I will proceed in second person, but I'd like to ask for the community's opinion. Since the revisions are saved, I would like anyone to take a moment, and examine the page as it was written in third person, and as it is now written in second person. After you have compared them both (everything up to the Sewer section, I had not rewritten that part yet), please share your thoughts about whether the third person approach could in fact be a viable approach (if done properly) on StrategyWiki. If the majority clearly feels that this is not the direction that SW should proceed, then consider the matter closed. However, if there is enough of an agreement that the 3rd person style might be included, then we can discuss it here, and decide how we would like to proceed. Thanks very much, and thanks to Garrett for giving me a chance to broach the subject with everyone. Procyon (Talk) 19:34, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Personally, as long as it is consistant throughout, I really don't care. The 3rd person does give the text extra flavor, and, if done carefully and correctly, has the potential to relay more information to the reader than 2nd person (mainly because 2nd person guide-writing normally says "do this", while 3rd person can say "Link tries this, but it doesn't work, so he does this instead" to explains what happens if something else is tried beside the strategy). I'd say keep the 3rd person only to guides which have a central main character that you cannot choose from, and keep it consistant throughout the guides (like Pokémon should be in second person because later games have the option between a boy and a girl, so it must use second person, and the earlier games should match that style). As for the Legend of Zelda series, I think it would be great if the majority of them were in third person, if not just for the extra flavor of it. As another side note, games in the first person perspective should never be written in third person. -- 19:50, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * That first example, the style of writing is just way to weird. Like I can't read it like a guide.  When I looked at the second example, it totally made sense to me.  Strange stuff... Voodoo guide writing!  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 20:00, 9 July 2007 (CDT)


 * I think this diff is more useful. My view is that it actually requires a mix of both.  Cinematics should be 3rd person, gameplay should be 2nd person.  -- Prod (Talk) 22:38, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm hesitant to say "yes" to having a whole guide in third-person, because as NMH says, it sounds weird (to me, anyway). I think Prod has a good idea though, and I'd be OK with that — you could, for example, put stuff in sidebars in third-person. --DrBob (Talk) 12:08, 10 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Hmm... I love this style of writing, but I think it depends on genre. Action-adventure games (Tomb Raider and what-not) and RPGs could really use this and benefit from it, while for certain types of shooters (say, Battlefield 2) and most RTSes the classic 2nd person would be better. But in RTSes where you play a certain character throughout the game (StarCraft), it might work. Baejung92 14:35, 10 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I think it just isn't straight forward enough. Cut to the chase!  Like my whole "flowery" language on Mega Man, it's the same thing (Proc/Prod).  For Cinematics, I think we should have a special template that acts as a drop down (i.e. Template:Cinematic).  Using this template we hide the cinematic info (it's a spoiler, and they can just watch anyways) but use 3rd person descriptions on it.  I'll make it if you guys like the idea.  Also, the bar (like Header Nav) would be colored to have it stand out.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 21:18, 10 July 2007 (CDT)

I prefer the second person imperative style: "Go here, do that, and when you've finished killing him, do this". Some of Paper Mario is currently in third person, and it reads very strangely to my ears. Pelago 16:09, 13 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm on the side of 2nd person. A user that needs help advancing in a game wants either a quick answer or in depth teaching of strategies. The pages that have been linked for examples of 3rd person being used hurt my brain a bit. It takes a moment of studying the text to dig up the instructions. The key word you is great for quickly skimming for instructions on the next action. Any time I have ever needed a guide was becasue I could not figure out what was needed to advance further. I do however agree with someone above. Parts of the guide that are story only (like cutscenes or dialog) work well as either. Since there is no control over elements like cutscenes the change in narrative seems really fitting. It could express a diffirence between when the player has or lacks control over actions. --Zaiqukaj 04:45, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

1st person narrative
Breaking off from the above thread, how's something like this? It's not quite the first person POV I've learned not to use. Baejung92 14:33, 10 July 2007 (CDT)
 * It is certainly interesting, but I'm going to say no. For one thing, it has to be worded perfectly in order for it to flow and sound right, and many people use strategy guides as... guides! I highly doubt someone did everything written on a guide in exactly that order without differing from it slightly. To me, our purpose is to recommend an effective strategy. What the people actually do with our strategy is entirely up to them. Plus, to someone that understands that more than one person wrote the page, it adds a layer of complexity, for the guide implies that it was written by one, whereas the history states otherwise. Whenever I say "we are all one", I think of the borg from Star Trek. I don't want to be a borg. -- 15:42, 10 July 2007 (CDT)

Image too big
I would like to upload this image to put as boxart but every time I try to upload it, I get an error message. Is this a limit that's been set in the software or what?--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 12:10, 11 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't know the answer to your question Rocky, but I'm just curious: why on earth do you want to upload an image that is so huge? Procyon (Talk) 12:19, 11 July 2007 (CDT)
 * It would help if you posted the actual error message. :-P --DrBob (Talk) 13:00, 11 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Dunno about Firefox but it comes up with the default IE6 "Cannot find server or DNS Error" error.

--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:18, 11 July 2007 (CDT)
 * The browser might be timing out because the image is so huge. Seriously, why do you need an image that big? It's 1565x2236! -- 14:23, 11 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I got told By DB to not bother compressing it because we have the space. But I guess that was one exception.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 14:29, 11 July 2007 (CDT)
 * We can use box artwork which is bigger than 250px for stuff, but something that large is going to have to be downsized whatever you use it for. --DrBob (Talk) 16:44, 11 July 2007 (CDT)
 * That image is 1.66 MB. Try to stay below 1 MB, though the cap is at 1.5MB. -- Prod (Talk)
 * I affirm the above statement.--Dan 00:05, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

StrategyWiki:Guide/Tables
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Why is there so much stuff on this page? Does anyone mind if I rip it all out, and replace it with a basic tutorial for simple tables, revolving around correct use of headers, captions, and prettytable? --DrBob (Talk) 09:19, 12 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Don't forget about class="wikitable", but yeah, I think that would be a good idea. I think it should focus more on what is commonly used (wikitable and prettytable), not every aspect of a table. We could have a group of pages in like StrategyWiki:Guide/Advanced/ for more advanced techniques for those who want to learn more than the basic stuff. -- 09:41, 12 July 2007 (CDT)
 * The guide is supposed to be a replacement for the Help namespace on WP. We should have all this stuff explained within the guide, it just doesn't have to all be in the same place. -- Prod (Talk) 13:43, 12 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Why not use |customnext on the footer nav to add the advanced tables and others in and have it bulleted in the TOC--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:30, 12 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Sounds like a plan. I'll try and do it tomorrow. --DrBob (Talk) 18:35, 12 July 2007 (CDT)
 * prettytable is a wrapper for wikitable, so wikitable on its own is basically deprecated. --DrBob (Talk) 18:35, 12 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I've moved the old stuff to Guide/Tables/Advanced, and re-done the Guide/Tables page so it only covers what most people need. --DrBob (Talk) 09:28, 13 July 2007 (CDT)

Half-Life
There's a wikibooks:Wikibooks:Votes for deletion up for deletion on wikibooks. Do we want it or not? If yes, how would we arrange the pages? If someone can tell me how to arrange them, I can take care of the transwiki (edit history and all). -- Prod (Talk) 21:12, 12 July 2007 (CDT)
 * We should definitely have them here, as they do provide some nice information. As to where we should put them, I have no idea. I've transwiki'ed them over to GameInfo on Wikia just in case WikiBooks decides to delete them before we can get them here and/or we decide not to have them here. -- 21:54, 12 July 2007 (CDT)


 * I'll help sort that out later. I've beaten HL like 10 times, OF like twice and played half way through blue shift.  For now, just dump it on something like Half-Life/Wikibooks Dump.  --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 22:44, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

2 covers?
Just a thought, but if a game has 2 completely different covers for its US and European versions (such as MGS: Twin Snakes) could we include both of these in the game's infobox (e.g. one above the other)? --RamonSalazar 08:29, 13 July 2007 (CDT) Pelago 16:32, 13 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Put the cover which was first released in the infobox, and then any other covers in a
 * If it's not obvious which country the boxart in the infobox is from, a note can be made in the introductory text on the main guide page. I think it would be a bit redundant to have the same image again in the gallery below, but I certainly wouldn't be against it (it would allow for a more direct comparison). I'm being nitpicky now, but it wouldn't be AJAX which would be used to do such scripting — it would simply be DOM manipulation via JavaScript, and I think that just over-complicates matters. --DrBob (Talk) 16:35, 13 July 2007 (CDT)

Image Naming
I've created and uploaded a few images for Picross DS (basically puzzle solution pictures) and they have all been tagged for re-naming. As far as I can tell, they fit in with the examples given in the image naming guide. The series of images are called Picrossds easymode a‎ and so on - meaning that image is for "Puzzle A" in Easy Mode of Picross DS. I'd like to know what the images should be called as I have more to add to the guide. --RamonSalazar 09:04, 13 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Looking at those image names without knowing that info you just mentioned makes it seem like they are just all images of "easymode" marked in order with letters instead of numbers. Perhaps Picrossds easymode puzzle a could have reduced that ambiguity, but I think that naming them of their object name (like Picrossds puzzle star or Pircrossds puzzle ball) would reduce the ambiguity even more. -- 09:24, 13 July 2007 (CDT)
 * An extension would be nice. I was talking with Prod when he tagged them.  They don't need to be as descriptive as Skizzers suggested, but I mean, a period and three extra letters isn't too much to ask for. Procyon (Talk) 10:20, 13 July 2007 (CDT)
 * lol, didn't even notice that. .png would be the extension to use for that, since all of them are in that format. -- 10:27, 13 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I didn't notice that either, oops. So does that mean the actual names of the files are OK? --RamonSalazar 10:57, 13 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Everyone's filenaming, including my own, could always stand to be improved, but there's only so far you're going to go before it becomes too much. For me personally, the only things about a filename that truly matter are:
 * Can you tell what game it's from somehow?
 * Is each picture from one game given a distinct label?
 * Is the file type (extention) identified?
 * If you're meeting all three of those criteria, then you've done the minimum acceptable work. Procyon (Talk) 12:27, 13 July 2007 (CDT)