StrategyWiki:Staff lounge

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

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

For regular members only: Wikipedia article draft
Hi everyone. Echelon asked me to help write a draft of an article that would be contributed to Wikipedia about StrategyWiki. Aside from the history (how the site began, which I'm not especially knowledgeable about), I have drafted two of the sections, the Mission and the Milestones. I think what I've done is very rough and in need of much improvement, but it should serve as a good foundation. It would mean a lot to this site if all of the regulars took a stab at molding and shaping it until we have an article worthy of depositing on Wikipedia. Have a go at it here: Wikipedia_Article. Thank you! Procyon 21:57, 2 February 2007 (CST)
 * The problem is notability. Unless outside sources have noted StrategyWiki, well then it is not supposed to exist on Wikipedia. --Notmyhandle 01:32, 3 February 2007 (CST)
 * It needs to be notable so that it can be verifiable. I wouldn't bother putting an article about this site on there unless it has at least three outside sources (not here, or blogs, but gaming sites might due).  Or perhaps one major news story (like a cnn/nbc kind of thing).  As far as I know we've gotten some attention for challenging gamefaqs, but that isn't notability in itself. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:29, 3 February 2007 (CST)
 * What do you guys think of these sources? I am hesitant to say that they alone are enough, but I do think that they would serve well in our defense should our notability be challenged. If we need more sources, perhaps we can simply look into help--I know of a reporter at Wired, for instance.  ech elon  23:57, 3 February 2007 (CST)
 * I believe the key here is to get increasingly notable press for our project. I would like to start seeing GameFAQs regulars switching over to StrategyWiki; a Wikipedia article would only serve as an additional claim to our relevance, and though such would not be the ultimate measure of our project's worth I do believe it can and will serve as a talking point in converting GameFAQs contributors into StrategyWiki contributors. It is ultimately these people of whom we must garner the respect and support of. Random articles and Diggs may help us get more traffic, but they alone will not likely net us the hardcore contributors.  ech elon  00:07, 4 February 2007 (CST)
 * Maybe it's time we got slashdotted. Oh, and a better server while we're at it. GarrettTalk 01:34, 4 February 2007 (CST)


 * I think the Kotaku, MIT Convergence Culture Consortium, Joystiq, and perhaps lifehacker are all good don't bother with digg or delicious obviously.  It'll be a tough call to be sure on notability.  The only thing that could cause us problems is if we don't directly follow policy.  We can't attempt to game the system and using sockpuppets will sadly put our site in a more negative light.  I think we should start the article and use those three (perhaps four) articles as sources.  Ensure that all the information is sourced and meaningful to people outside of just this small group here.  -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:45, 4 February 2007 (CST)
 * I doubt the article will have much length, but why not give it a try. Even if it gets deleted eventually we can bring it back. --Notmyhandle 20:18, 4 February 2007 (CST)
 * Just to note, we do get classed in the top 100k websites according to Alexa, though thats only on Sundays... it'll take a little while before our 3 month avg is above 100k. -- Prod (Talk) 22:34, 4 February 2007 (CST)


 * I added our site to the list of sites using MediaWiki, which could count as a reliable source (sort of) because all links on that page are checked for the fact that they A:exist and B:do use MediaWiki. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 20:41, 7 February 2007 (CST)

Issue with Toolbox and Ad box - Firefox
When using Firefox and going into a guide page the side bar labeled Toolbox and Ads by Google will appear floating over the left side of the page actually on top of the text. I couldn't edit a page in Firefox because it was blocking the save button.
 * That was happening due to some server reconfiguration we were just doing, but it should be fixed now. :-) Thanks for reporting the issue. --DrBob (Talk) 11:40, 4 February 2007 (CST)
 * I told Ech about it before, I dunno if he was listening (in IRC). It also happens in IE sometimes, like I was editing a page and it kept covering the part I needed to see haha. --Notmyhandle 13:24, 4 February 2007 (CST)

What just happened?
Today I went to update Dirge of Cerberus, to find that several links of pages that another contributer and I have created and edited have dissappeared. The pages are still there, all content I added as far as i've seen has remained, but the links to them on the main page of the article are gone. Does anybody know of any reason why they disappeared? I don't think that it was others meddling would be the reason - I have had a brief look at it, and all I can see that was different from last night when I edited it was that Prod had reverted my prior editing (coz I made a stupid mistake).

Oh yes, I've just noticed that all the information I added for the 'unlockable features' section has dissappeared - everything. All that's left is a pink-coloured link.

Anybody have any ideas? I'm off to investigate.--Froglet 02:16, 6 February 2007 (CST)


 * Oh, I see... I thought that the Secrets and Unlockable features weren't big enough to warrant respective pages of their own, so I just kept them in one combined part of the guide - one part is for the bits that are unlocked, and another bit is how to get the hidden ending (look at DoC/Secrets).

Also, the guide had an equipment section that was removed and a new one was put in called weapons... why? Is there any technical reason these changes were made I should know of?--Froglet 02:31, 6 February 2007 (CST)


 * It seems to have happened when Prod reverted your removal of the walkthrough header link. Rather than undoing just that one edit it undid everything until it reached an edit that wasn't yours. I've restored the links now. GarrettTalk 03:33, 6 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks!--Froglet 04:28, 6 February 2007 (CST)
 * Oops, sorry about that. -- Prod (Talk) 09:15, 6 February 2007 (CST)

Radio Buttons
I was wondering if there was any way to do radio buttons because the HTML code didn't work when I tried it and there are currently no wiki features that support it (for those that don't know: radio buttons are those little round buttons that only allow one of them to be selected at a time). --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 16:56, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * What use would they have? Perhaps they are unnecessary. --Notmyhandle 16:58, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * The guide for Twilight Princess has two versions, one for Wii and one for GameCube. The main diff between these versions is that the GameCube version is on a mirrored map (east becomes west, left becomes right, etc.). I was going to include a note on the Walkthrough page warning GameCube version owners of the switch, as the guide is typed for the Wii version, but I felt that it would just confuse those that click on the links in the TOC. Having the radio buttons would allow the person to adjust the version on any page so that the content of the walkthrough is geared for what they are playing. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 17:03, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Do the directions have to be relative? Couldn't you say head to this location and it would still work? --Notmyhandle 17:09, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Most of them can, but some can't, mainly because I use it to guide them to the location. An alternative to the buttons I thought of would be two separate walkthroughs, but that would take up a lot of space for mostly the same content. I could always throw in that reminder to the GameCube version owners on the Walkthrough page too. (Use my talk page if you think this thread is getting too big). --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 17:20, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Take a look at User:Garrett/TP Wii and User:Garrett/TP GameCube, especially the source of the second one. Both share the same content, and alternating noinclude and includeonly tags determine which page gets what directions. The problem is, it looks fine to the reader but is rather messy to edit. It may be possible to make a set of templates that automatically show one direction when included and the other when transcluded, but I'm not certain subst: can be made to do that. GarrettTalk 17:40, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Thanks! --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 17:53, 7 February 2007 (CST)

I have an idea with templates, so hold off before changing everything to that method. -- Prod (Talk) 18:57, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * OK, User:Prod/Wii, User:Prod/Gc, edits go on User:Prod/Common. The magic in common is in ZTP. It needs some polishing, but the idea is the same. -- Prod (Talk) 19:46, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Does it work with east/west (including northeast/northwest, southeast/southwest), counterclockwise/clockwise, images, and just text in general as well? --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 20:15, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Has to be set up on ZTP, though it's fairly easy. -- Prod (Talk) 20:51, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Prod you should edit ZTP to allow the piping of such switches (where anything can be switched for anything). --Notmyhandle 21:15, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * It's a switch statement, you put in one, and it will autoconvert it to the other, you just have to add in all the options. -- Prod (Talk) 21:17, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah I know, but that's what I'm saying. Such options should be noted, etc. within the template page so it's easy for people to use. --Notmyhandle 21:29, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah, I'm totally confused on how to do the switch statement in the template, and I'm sure others will be too when they try to use it. I agree with Notmyhandle that all the options should be noted on the template page. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 17:10, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * If you want new options, you to add them to ZTP. For now I've only got Left/Right and East/West.  Just edit the template and it should be clear. Doing it for controls is a bit more complex, so I'd just suggest you pick the controls from one system and use them. -- Prod (Talk) 17:27, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * Some controls are not the same for both versions, check out the controls to see the differences. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 17:54, 9 February 2007 (CST)

System Categories
What do I do with a game that can run on Windows NT or Windows 9x e.g Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, it will run on both systems, should I put it up for both categories or is the NT category for games that will only run on NT like Age of Empires III? Rocky 08:11, 8 February 2007 (CST)


 * You put it in the system prevalent at the game's time of release, so that would be Windows 9x in this case. --DrBob (Talk) 08:45, 8 February 2007 (CST)


 * Agreed. You can liken it to PS1 games.  They may play on the PS2, but they were still designed specifically for the PS1.  So while many Win9x games will work on WinNT, they were still designed with Win9x specifications in mind.  You would only go to the trouble of listing two versions of Windows if a game saw multiple releases directed at different Windows platforms.  Procyon 08:58, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * On this note, as of December 2006, is Win9x (98/Me) more prevalent, or is WinNT (2k/XP) more prevalent? -Afker 23:58, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * I would think NT is more prevalent, although I have no idea why you'd want to know. :-P --DrBob (Talk) 00:47, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * Well, I want to know because you said "put it in the system prevalent at the game's time of release" q-: -Afker 00:55, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * Oh, right. Basically, I meant the system it was designed for (as Prod explained), which at the moment would either be NT or Vista (although most likely NT for a little while yet). --DrBob (Talk) 01:41, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Thanks for the help Rocky 09:43, 8 February 2007 (CST)

GTA liberty city stories
ok. there are no gta liberty city stories entrys. so, I was thinking, sould I buy a gameguide and copy it all onto this website? or would no-one read it and I wouldhave waisted £20, tweny qwid!


 * Technically, that would constitute a copy right violation. Not that it hasn't been done before... Procyon 21:37, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * No, we'd be forced to delete it (for blatant copy right violations). It'd be much more preferable to simply write up the guide yourself as you go through the game, or perhaps have the gameguide and rewrite it completely in your own words. They have copy right over the way they present their information, but they can't copy righ  the strategy.. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 22:44, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * There are already mission descriptions at Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories/Missions and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories/Walkthrough. The second appears to cover all the story missions right up to Shoreside Vale. Once that's cleaned up and split into subpages it'll probably result in a fairly complete walkthrough. If you're wanting ideas for how to write out the missions, that's probably a great place to start. GarrettTalk 23:43, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * That would in fact, be copyright violation as already said. However, game guides like those are valuable sources of information and can provide otherwise near impossible to get statistics on enemies and codes for the game. If you were already going to get that guide to play through it all, you could copy some of the information like that onto here.--Navy White 09:49, 17 February 2007 (CST)

Links to categories
Can someone help me please, I would like to link to Category:Pokémon artwork on my user page but when I put it as a link it adds my page to that category, also if I put an infobox on my test page, it adds the test page to category:Games, how do I stop this?Rocky 09:28, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * Here's an example of linking to a category: Category:Images . As for an infobox, build it yourself since it is just a table. -- Prod (Talk) 10:50, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * For your test page, just use the infobox and remember to delete the test page once you're finished. It won't matter that the text page is listed in Category:Games for a little while. --DrBob (Talk) 12:10, 17 February 2007 (CST)

Image background
For a game that I'm writing a guide for, Pardus, I have a lot of images that I'm putting on the guide. However, on the game, the images are always displayed against a blackish or dark navy blue background. The pictures from the game are designed to appear against a black background well. Since Strategywiki has a white background, the images look poor against it. Could someone tell me how to put a black background against an image?--Navy White 03:28, 18 February 2007 (CST)
 * Probably the easiest way is to edit the images and put a black background in them. --DrBob (Talk) 05:30, 18 February 2007 (CST)
 * Actually, another way to go would be to put them inside a table cell and assign the color of your choice to the background. That's a technique that I employed on the Xevious/Elements page.  Edit the page to get an idea of how I did it.  Procyon 11:15, 18 February 2007 (CST)
 * What would I put in to get a black background?--Navy White 15:31, 18 February 2007 (CST)


 * Alternatively, the background style tag will recognize certain common color names, so "background:black" would work just as well. You really only need to deal with hex when you're trying to make an unusual color, one that can't be categorized by the generic color names like red, blue, green, yellow, etc. Procyon 16:55, 18 February 2007 (CST)

A Gun Tree
While writing up all possible gun modifications to the weapons in Dirge of Cerberus, I figured that an easier method of writing down the possible weapons you can get from modifying the 3 guns would be to have a sort of tree, a bit like how family trees are presented. Does SW support this? If so, how?--Froglet 03:35, 18 February 2007 (CST)
 * This would require installing an extension. This'll probably happen when we upgrade MediaWiki, so in the mean time, you might want to find something else to edit. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 05:42, 18 February 2007 (CST)
 * Would mocking/making it up in paint and slapping it in the weapons section be an ok alternative (or is that a definite no-no :-P ) ?--Froglet 06:59, 20 February 2007 (CST)
 * As long as it looks nice, it's ok. There might be a way you could do it with tables depending on how complex this graph is going to be. -- Prod (Talk) 09:25, 20 February 2007 (CST)

Stepmania
Soon, I am probably going to make a walkthrough for Stepmania, it's a lot like Flash Flash Revolution, I am planning to make a few files as tutorials for it by making some step files, is it possible to upload a file (ogg or MP3) with verbal instructions, also a text file with a .sm extension and probably a few.png's as backgrounds. Am I able to upload these and will people be able to download them from this site?
 * You can upload (links in the "toolbox" on the left) your .ogg and .png's. Use [[Media:file.ogg]] for your .ogg and [[Image:file.png]] for your .png .  For your .sm.  You'd just copy that to a page of the guide you're working on, so that it can be editable, and viewable by all without needing an outside program. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:06, 23 February 2007 (CST)


 * Sorry, I don't think I made myself clear, can people download the .ogg or .mp3 file to their computer to put in the game as an addon tutorial, It will make the walkthrough that I will make a lot clearer and help people learn the basics of the game, I'm pretty sure that you can download the text file and the png's but I'm not sure about the verbal instructions in the .ogg file. Rocky [[Image:Rally-X_Rock.png|15px]]  ( Talk Contributions ) 11:14, 23 February 2007 (CST)
 * If you can upload it here, then theoretically, anyone can download it from here. The thing is, I didn't think we could upload sound formats.  I would be pretty sweet to be able to, say, upload a midi of the background music from a game and have it play on that game's walkthrough.  But to get back to your answer Rocky, worst case scenario, you may have to host the file yourself and link to it from the SW page in question.  Procyon 12:26, 23 February 2007 (CST)
 * I believe I understood what you meant, you can use the upload file link on the left to upload .ogg files that others would be able to download as they like. Does the text file need to be in-tact as a textfile directly to be implemented in the game, or is it simply instructions that could be put directly into an article?  If it's the former, you may have to link off site as text files can't be uploaded here I believe, if it's the latter you can simply do so, and put it into the article under discussion.  Again, I have no idea what this game is about so if I don't understand what you're saying, please explain exactly what all the files are for.  But if they are as I imagine, you can just upload them here. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 12:46, 23 February 2007 (CST)


 * It's instructions that can be made in something like notepad then saved as a .sm file then copied into the right directory, this is what they would look like under word pad, so I could probably put the instructions on the site as a separate article and give instructions to get it running on your pc, mac or linux machine. It's probably too much hassle to do, but it would give us a good rep, and maybe someone will be able to put it on a site that hosts these files. Here is an example:, if we get this done, it will probably be a replacement to the walkthrough so I'll think about doing it. What do you think?

--Rocky   ( Talk Contributions ) 13:25, 23 February 2007 (CST)

P.S: What are the two hyphens for whenever you sign your posts, I don't think that they do it at Wikipedia and I've just noticed it here at the top of the page
 * I would say, just put it in the page, and tell people to copy/paste and save as a "xxx.sm". It allows everyone to edit the files.  Media files don't play automatically (we don't want to turn into myspace >.>).  You have to click and depending on how it's set up, either they download the file, or it plays in a new window (I think...you have click them for sure though).  And I think you've already figured out image files. I picked up the -- from wikipedia but it all depends on preference.  I like it since it separates your comments from the signature (the internet equivalent of the X in a box). -- Prod (Talk) 14:30, 23 February 2007 (CST)
 * Prod, the way it works is the game will play a stepfile, song & image files (Background, lyrics, artist logo); thus a full package is usually contained in an SMZip or zip file. As far as the stepfile goes, maybe we could just use some random free song (like one of Shooby Taylor's) and then do what he plans to do without hosting the mp3 since you can find it elsewhere on that site (we would just make instructions on how to download, etc. then play the tutorial).  Btw, the hypens (dashes) are just to make the difference between your post and your sig (you don't have to include them).  --Notmyhandle 20:45, 23 February 2007 (CST)

Template Help
I want to make a template for the Seiken Densetsu or 'Mana' series of games to make it easier to navigate around the series, but I'm not really sure how to go about it, and the StrategyWiki guide isn't really helping me. I was aiming for doing something like the FF template that's put at the bottom of the mainpage of FF games. Can anyone help??--Froglet 00:36, 25 February 2007 (CST)


 * How's this? :) GarrettTalk 01:01, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * Awesomeness!!--Froglet 01:09, 25 February 2007 (CST)
 * Go check out the code on the Template:SD page. --Notmyhandle 12:29, 25 February 2007 (CST)

qif, switch, parser functions, and meta
First of all, I noticed that qif is protected, but switch is not. I wonder if that's intentional or an oversight, since they are both "control" templates.

I'm also wondering whether the possibility of installing ParserFunctions has be examined and rejected, or if it has not been considered before. I believe it's supposed to be better (for the server) compared to implementing controls via hacking the template system.

Finally, can interwiki links be implemented for meta? I was gonna link to meta's article on ParserFunctions first, then when previewing discovered that didn't work, and had to change the interlink to wikipedia instead... (too lazy to copy the entire path for meta). Or if it's already in, can someone tell me the syntax for it? (I tried both m: and meta:, neither worked). -Afker 01:55, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * Link These would be quite useful. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:12, 26 February 2007 (CST)


 * And did you mean wikimedia or mediawiki? I assume the first, but both might be useful, I suggest wm and mw respectively if this is done. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:14, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * I say we stick to what wikipedia does. -- Prod (Talk) 10:03, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * works (that's what Meta used to be called). Not sure about MediaWiki.org. GarrettTalk 13:05, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Request to change wikia interwiki url
Currently, interwiki links of the form  $1  gets parsed as  http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Index.php/$1 . I would like to request it being changed to  http://www.wikia.com/wiki/$1  so that it will work with wikia's own redirect feature. Thank you. -Afker 04:01, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Buttons Over Edit Window
I've found that the buttons above the edit box are wierd when the edit is previewed here, I'm not sure if it's something that I've done or the upgrade to 1.9, can someone please help--Rocky   ( Talk Contributions ) 13:40, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * Note: by "weird", it is meant that they're floating at the bottom of the rightmost TOC list. --DrBob (Talk) 13:51, 26 February 2007 (CST)


 * Oops, my bad, it's probably 1.9 because it wasn't like that before but I'd like to know why--Rocky
 * I've noticed this too. A clear break (-) at the very end will fix it at least for editing, but I don't know what effect that will have on other pages. GarrettTalk 15:21, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Template:NotR help
I've created NotR for inline explanation of expansion-only content, but the problem is I can't get the padding working right (see Gothic II/Chapter 1: The Menace). Because the title section has a black background, the padding then inherits it. My CSS understanding is fairly limited. Is there a way to fix this? GarrettTalk 00:12, 27 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'm not too sure what the problem is, so I'll leave it to DrBob, but I gotta say, those look cool :D. -- Prod (Talk) 00:36, 27 February 2007 (CST)
 * But the padding = 0px...? I don't get what you mean anyways, I don't see a black background (besides the raven image) or padding inheritance.  --Notmyhandle 00:51, 27 February 2007 (CST)
 * See User:Garrett/NotR. If I set the background to transparent (left) it makes the heading background white too, but if I leave it black (right) there's this big border, which doesn't help the padding because it's still flush with the text. GarrettTalk 01:02, 27 February 2007 (CST)
 * I changed what you had a bit, is that what you meant? -- Prod (Talk) 11:57, 27 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah, that works great now. Thanks. GarrettTalk 13:30, 27 February 2007 (CST)

Template IF
So on Template:Final Fantasy VII/Boss I want to make it so the default image settings that appears is like it is now, but if specified, it will allow customization of the image. So if I type then it should allow the image to appear on the right instead of left, and use the specified subtitle. Is there something other than qif that can be used? Or can you specify text within qif like, qif|test=VARIABLE(text within variable) or something? If you just want to solve the problem yourself go ahead. --Notmyhandle 20:10, 27 February 2007 (CST)
 * I added a property and a  property to the template, so now you can do this:

and get


 * Does that work? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 20:21, 27 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah, forgot about adding parameters. --Notmyhandle 20:35, 27 February 2007 (CST)