StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal

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

Logo Image for MonoBook
Yo, I'm a noobie, fresh off Wikipedia. I changed my prefs to MonoBook, and discovered there's no logo there. Instead, it says "Set $wgLogo to the URL path to your own logo image. Can anyone fix this with a good logo? Meowster 17:13, 11 December 2006 (CST)
 * I wouldn't be the best person to do this, but I'll see whom I can run the idea past. A difficulty would be matching any MonoBook logo with the BlueCloud logo's style; I'm not sure how we could do that in a square logo very easily. It'll take some skill to do this properly.  ech elon  22:47, 17 December 2006 (CST)
 * We could use a higher resolution version of this logo.--Dan 18:01, 20 January 2007 (CST)
 * here is the SVG version of that, so someone can scale it to the right size for the monobook logo (its square). --blendmaster 18:14, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Adsense Announcement
Just so the previous thread does not continue to grow, and because the decision has been made, I wanted to start a new thread and announce the new announcement that I added to the main page. I was very thoughtful about how to phrase it in as positive a light as possible. Examine it, and let me know if you have any comments about it. But leave them here, don't edit the announcement directly. Thanks! Procyon 15:22, 24 January 2007 (CST)
 * I edited your comment in the previous thread out. Don't do what you were saying.  Not only is it against Google TOS but it is completely unnecessary.  We WILL get banned for that type of thing.  And that would pretty much screw us over.  But yeah, echelon asap let us know what the results are and fix the alignment.--ConfusedSoul 19:24, 24 January 2007 (CST)
 * Note, this doesn't show up in the monobook skin, and perhaps others. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 02:06, 26 January 2007 (CST)
 * The width of the ad box doesn't bother me as much as the margin on the top. There should be a margin equal to the left and right margins between the ad box and toolbox. --blendmaster 18:10, 29 January 2007 (CST)
 * well, i don't like the Google Ads ad all. If you have to have them, please make them more different from the toolbox on the right side. As for now, the blue Google Ads look like some expansion of the blue Toolbox on the right of the screen. Maybe some empty lines below "related changes" (in the toolbox) would do a good job to better seperate strategywiki content from Ads.--Horstjens 13:58, 1 February 2007 (CST)
 * So in summary of all comments so far (plus my own):

-- Prod (Talk) 14:14, 1 February 2007 (CST)
 * Put space between ads and toolbox
 * Either shrink width of toolbox or expand width of ads to make them the same width
 * If possible have only 3 ads so that the 4th doesn't go off the screen.

So, any news on funding? Recieved a check yet? --Notmyhandle 20:02, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * Since we didn't deploy the ads on SW until late January (when we noticed Abxy was not going to pull in the requisite $100), we did not wind up meeting the month's $100 required earnings total (we were a dollar short!). Google carried over our January balance to February, and they won't mail us our February check until 30 days after the month ends--that is, the end of March. Google is earning interest off of this money in the meantime. Our check should be for over $200, and if my estimates are right it may be closer to $300. I'm going to begin a budget for purchasing one or two rack-mounted servers and I'll also start looking for colocation quotes. I'm also going to chip in some of the money I earn with CompSci tutoring at my campus.  ech elon  00:58, 16 February 2007 (CST)

Template:Toolbox
Can the funcationality of this template be exteneded to monobook? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 19:21, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Bulbapedia links
What happened to the Bulbapedia: links (example Pokémon/Pokédex. -- Prod (Talk) 22:29, 4 February 2007 (CST)
 * It's because the image seems to have gone MIA. :-( --DrBob (Talk) 00:24, 5 February 2007 (CST)
 * Fixed. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 00:27, 5 February 2007 (CST)

Userboxes
I've seen a lot of userboxes being created. So here's a few questions about how we deal with them. Many are created directly on people's userpages, which doesn't cause problems. However, many of these would be commonly used and would benefit from being turned into templates. We could do what wikipedia did, or we can pick our own way of doing things. We could create a Userbox namespace, but that could cause problems if that means that we "officially" support them. Another option is to put all userboxes as subpages of Template:Userbox, so something like Template:Userbox/Firefox (or even Template:Userbox:Firefox since it would look better as a template inclusion). Another option is leaving them in regular template space, and having them marked with Category:Userbox. -- Prod (Talk) 21:52, 6 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think that we should just stick with one userbox template which has flexibility, and so it can be used on people's user pages, with the right variables plugged in to customise it. I would oppose having a large number of userboxes (wherever they are) as they would be unnecessary (because all you need is one with flexible variables), and take up a lot of namespace space (i.e. be messy). --DrBob (Talk) 00:16, 7 February 2007 (CST)

Questionable/pornographic games
Things like Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, Playboy: The Mansion, and Do You Like Horny Bunnies?. Do we allow pictures? Do we have a warning on them? Do we allow them at all? -- Prod (Talk) 21:55, 6 February 2007 (CST)
 * I believe we should follow the Wikipedian uncensored rule, but we should have a disclaimer notifying users that it is a pornographic game.  bibliomaniac 1  5  00:15, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * I agree with Bibliomaniac15. I think we should emulate Wikipedia, and allow useful pictures, but anything excessive should be removed. --DrBob (Talk) 00:17, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think we have to model ourselves after Wikipedia as much as possible, but perhaps we can provide a means of ingenuity about this. We have DOM-based article tags. I'm sure we could do Ajax-based image hiding similar in for to how popups works.
 * For instance, we could create a template that blanks the image with a X and instructs the user to edit a page such as User:Username/Age18 and fill in a "true" value that the ajax will check before showing the image in the template. This allows those who want to see images to see them and prevents harm to anyone who doesn't want to see the images. Just a thought.  ech  elon  00:27, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Then again, that requires user registration. That might be too much to ask?  ech elon  00:28, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * YouTube requires confirmation to view videos flagged as objectionable and I think creating an account may be part of that requirement, so I don't see creating an account as being too huge a barrier. Perhaps, though, it should be the whole guide that's blanked, since many of these games will have equally explicit text. It's also tidier than having 20 instances of blanked out images on a single page. This could be simply achieved by placing a template in the ToC, which is then inherited by all pages in that guide via the All Game Nav. GarrettTalk 02:15, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Currently, the AGN works so that when the page is loaded, the ToC is collapsed, and doesn't load at all if the user doesn't have js enabled (as opposed to the MapleStory/Skill desc which loads first, then shrinks). Something like that could perhaps be used. -- Prod (Talk) 00:32, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Actually, now that I think about it, unless the sex acts are actually interactive (e.g. Hot Coffee) what purpose would images serve? It might be useful to have thumbnails for a summary of unlockable h-scenes or something, but other than that I'm not sure what purpose they'd serve. GarrettTalk 02:20, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * The only thing I would propose as far as a policy would be to say that no questionable images appear on the front page of the guide. It's just like a magazine cover.  The cover has to be presentable and acceptable to the public, but if you know what you're about to view and choose to look inside, then all bets are off.  Procyon 08:55, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Agreed. It might be an idea to make an "age 18" template to put on the front cover to warn minors, but I think censoring it is too far. If people are going to ignore an "age 18 only" notice, they're also going to bypass any other measures we put in place, and short of asking for a credit card number, there's nothing we can do to stop that. All that restrictive measures would do is to make life harder for people who are legitimately allowed to view such content. --DrBob (Talk) 10:59, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Images would serve to demonstrate gameplay (not all are adventure games..though most are). I would say we have the warning on the main page, and prevent any explicit language/images on the main page, but allow "anything" (relevant to gameplay) on subpages. Perhaps we could also add a 18+ category for images, incase we do decide to do some kind of hiding for them (easier for bots). -- Prod (Talk) 11:34, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think this the best course of action. Nothing should be hidden, but there should be a banner stating that the game is rated AO and the content that makes the game rated AO may be on subsequent pages, and that should be enough in my opinion. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 22:41, 8 February 2007 (CST)

Just an idea, why can't we use this to stop vandals putting their pictures on the site. We could put this template on all new images and have an admin (or a user with a few months experience) remove it when it has been checked for porn. If a user wanted to see the image straightaway then they could change the flag to True for Unchecked Images so they can see them.

I am new to the site so if this is a bad idea, let me know

Rocky 04:01, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think that would be too time-consuming and inconvenient, as 99.9% of images uploaded are legitimate. We usually catch vandals pretty fast, so I don't think it's an issue. --DrBob (Talk) 06:46, 8 February 2007 (CST)

Following Wikipedia: Implementing nofollow a good idea?
Seeing how we are trying to get StrategyWiki based off Wikipedia's effective policy, what do you all think about having nofollow in our external links?--Dan 09:23, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * To be honest, I tried to follow this discussion but I'm still not clear on the benefits that it provides. A lot of this pagerank stuff goes over my head.  Could you concisely lay out the pros and cons of this decision to make it easier to debate? Procyon 10:16, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Basically, a site gets ranked by search engines (for a large part) on the number of links to that site from others. This encourages certain unscrupulous people to spam other sites with links to their own (or a client's), to boost their own pagerank. If a link has a special "nofollow" property (relationship, actually) on it, search engines won't count that link as contributing towards the pagerank of the linked website, and so the incentive for people to spam sites with such links is anulled. I would strongly support putting nofollow on external links for precisely this reason. --DrBob (Talk) 10:57, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * For the past few months, we've only had like 2 or 3 useless links put on the site. I don't think the nofollow tag is useful unless we start getting spammed.  By having followable links to other sites, it gives the good sites a better rank, and they will potentially link back to us, helping with our rank.  So, for the moment, I'm against the nofollow tag. -- Prod (Talk) 11:31, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * Seconded for the same reasons. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 23:05, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think it would be best to be preventative here. If people start spamming StrategyWiki, they won't stop. We should make sure they know that spamming won't do them any good before they even start. --DrBob (Talk) 01:42, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * No. There is no reason to have nofollow.  It would only hurt us.  Nofollow means exactly that, spiders aren't supposed to(yet some still do anyway)that link. Wikipedia is huge, google knows to spider them.  Nofollow will hurt getting our pages indexed.  Even if you could put it only on outgoing links, our outgoing links consist of abxy, dsmeet and actual relevant pages.  When we get a large amount of spam THEN we can think about this.


 * Not that it would change anything. People spam wikipedia for the traffic.  We'd have the same case if we got to the point of that much traffic for it to be worth spamming anyway.  And people that are spamming that would actually cause any damage would be using bots (or large amounts of indian labor) in that case they'd be targetting wiki's in general and whether we have nofollow or not wouldn't matter to them.--ConfusedSoul 21:55, 8 February 2007 (CST)

Transiki pages with large number of revisions
I've managed to write something that will allow me to export pages from wikipedia/wikibooks that are longer than the 100 revision limit. If needed, please leave me a message. This is only in the case where a regular Special:Export wont work. -- Prod (Talk) 20:11, 8 February 2007 (CST)

Pokemon sprites: Every one from every version, or latest only?
Now that I've taken on the daunting task of getting the P:R/B/Y guide off of the ground, I realize that I would like to present pictures of the Pokemon throughout the guide. The questions is, which sprites should I use? The way I see it, there are three choices: The point about using only the latest is nice cuz we only need to upload 386 pictures instead of every single sprite ever made. The only con is that we'd be using graphics from one version of the game for the sake of another, but it seems to go against certain principles of completeness. Anyway, I wanted to put the matter up for debate and get people's thoughts. Procyon 22:55, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * RBY: use the original black and white images since the guide is primarily for Red & Blue, and these were the sprites used by the game.
 * GSC: use the colorized version of the original 151 Pokemon, since Yellow had colorized Pokemon, and... well, you know... color is better.
 * Advance/DS: use only the latest version of the graphics. This has a couple of pros: they're nicer to look at and we only need to maintain one copy of any Pokemon (the latest) instead of three or more different versions.
 * Note that R&B had color versions... at least when using the Super Gameboy adapter attached to the SNES. --Notmyhandle 23:23, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * I would say, go with the best version of each series (yellow in this case). I don't see why we would have to upload all the images, as there are only a few important pokemon that are useful.  Most of the other info can be outsourced to ind...bulbapedia. -- Prod (Talk) 00:18, 9 February 2007 (CST)

Prod, you gave me an idea. How hard would it be to export all of the images here for us to use as well? I don't want to externally link to their images, I'd rather they be local. But the images are needed in a couple of places (like mentioning which Pokemon can be found where, and who you might fight against). I mean, we are the death of plain-text guides, right? Might as well live up to that reputation. Procyon 09:45, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * User:File Upload Bot (Kernigh) took care of them for the MapleStory/Monsters, so it should be possible to partially modify for bulbapedia. -- Prod (Talk) 10:05, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * If you take a look at Pokémon Red and Blue/Pallet Town, you'll get a rough idea of what I'm going for. Obviously, a) those images sizes are bad (too much white space), b) I don't want to link to an offsite image, and c) I would prefer to use artwork instead of sprites since artwork is not game specific.  So Prod, if you think that Kernigh could do that for us, I would be most greatful.  Thanks! Procyon 13:01, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * That's a great idea, but what about renaming? If we want to change the filenames (e.g. appending Pokémon, or adding a space between the number and the name) it's best to sort that out now. AFAIK Kernigh's bot can rename before uploading, so that should all be fine. GarrettTalk 18:30, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'm all for renaming. There should definately be a "Pokemon_" prefix to each file.  Then a template could easily be made for both the picture and the Bulbapedia link.  So we should end up with filenames like "Pokemon_001.png", "Pokemon_002.png", "Pokemon_003.png", etc.  And they should obviously be categorized together.  Let me know if there's anything that I can do to help.  Procyon 20:11, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * You should probably try getting in contact with Kernigh, he seems to be most active at Wikia. He took care of the whole image moving thing, so he would be the one to ask about any of this stuff. -- Prod (Talk) 20:32, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * Bah... I'll do it myself. You know, I should be able to code a Perl script for a bot myself, but I'm just too lazy to figure out how to do it right now.  I'll pull the images over as I need them. Procyon 21:25, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * The pictures uploaded already probably need to be renamed. To be totally correct, they need the acute accent above the "e" in Pokémon. I've already fixed the category they were in to be like this. --DrBob (Talk) 05:27, 10 February 2007 (CST)
 * Wouldn't it be easier not to have the accent above the "e"? Specifically, when someone is attempting to use one of the images, it would be easier just to type an "e" than having to go find the accented "e" and copy/paste it or using the alt shortcut (which I can never remember).  In the end, its more efficient and I'm pretty sure there isn't anything else that is already pokemon without the accent.-- Duke  Ruckley  12:10, 10 February 2007 (CST)

MMOG categorisation
At the moment, we're categorising MMOGs as a genre, and then also putting them in the Multiplayer category, which doesn't quite seem right. What do people think about removing MMOG as a genre, and then using it instead of Multiplayer where appropriate? If anybody asks, we're not creating an "MMORPG" genre, as that would be combining a genre and a player-count category; for MMORPGs, the genre is RPG (and anything else if appropriate), and it's also a MMOG. --DrBob (Talk) 13:30, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think MMOG by itself is required, and it is a genre, since these types of games usually behave significantly differently then regular multiplayer games (online economies, usually 100s of people playing together rather than 8/16/etc). I think it's fine as it is, and definitely no MMORPG cat. -- Prod (Talk) 14:27, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * That's what I'm saying (although I think I worded it badly above): we should not categorise MMOG as a genre, but instead as something akin to Single player or Multiplayer. Then we don't get games categorised as both Multiplayer and MMOG. --DrBob (Talk) 14:49, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * Actually I think I worded it more badly :P. I was actually saying the opposite, but after some thought, I think you're right.  MMOG is a mode, rather tan a genre, though this is a fairly major change (my bot might be able to take care of it) so I think we need a few more voices.  -- Prod (Talk) 15:28, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * It's a major paradigmatic change, but should be as simple to do as going through the MMOG category, making sure all the games have MMOG moved into the "players" parameter of AGN (rather than the "genres" parameter), and that they are all no longer in the Multiplayer category. --DrBob (Talk) 15:44, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * Category changing is easy enough (botable), moving MMOG to players is not so easy. Let's give this a week for people to leave comments. -- Prod (Talk) 15:52, 9 February 2007 (CST)


 * Support: Go ahead and make the change whenever you're ready.-- Duke  Ruckley  17:22, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * Support: since games can be MMOGs and many other games as well, like simulations, or RPGs, or else. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:42, 11 February 2007 (CST)

Done. --DrBob (Talk) 05:46, 16 February 2007 (CST)

Credits
Considering we already promote the documentation of basically all the game information, should we have a page listing the credits of a game or no? --Notmyhandle 14:42, 10 February 2007 (CST)
 * I don't see why not, as long as it doesn't confuse game credits with SW writer credits... It also shouldn't be top priority, but I don't see why not.-- Duke  Ruckley  15:07, 10 February 2007 (CST)
 * I can't see it as being particularly useful. People can find that information from the game itself (whereas they might not have the game when they look at the other game information we provide), and we should be concentrating on making good walkthroughs. --DrBob (Talk) 15:11, 10 February 2007 (CST)
 * I don't know, I'm not much of a fan of this idea either. Even IMDB doesn't list complete billing credits for movies. The big problem with this idea is that it may detract from our true purpose of writing videogame strategy guides.  ech elon  23:32, 10 February 2007 (CST)
 * Why/How would it detract? I can see how it can shift the focus slightly to a compendium like state, but it's rather complimentary and I think it should be mandatory for games with completion level 4. --Notmyhandle 00:52, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * I really don't care one way or the other, but I really don't see these pages getting a lot of views. Most games make watching the credits mandatory upon completion anyway, so I don't see why we should incorperate them. Then again, it could give our guides a more professional look to them by including them. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 10:02, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * There shouldn't be a ban on them. If someone really wants to spend the time to write them up, then I'd say its okay.  But we shouldn't focus on them either.  The most important thing is the guide.  I personally will probably not ever contribute to a credits section, but if someone feels they want to, they should be allowed to do it.  We also shouldn't make them mandatory, even for a level 4 completion guide.-- Duke  Ruckley  11:21, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * This summarizes exactly how I feel about the situation.  ech elon  12:46, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * Also how I feel. It's nice, but not necessary, and most importantly, I can't imagine it's really be useful and therefore I don't see the point. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:40, 11 February 2007 (CST)

Small requirement for Pokemon guides
I feel that all of the AGN's should include a " |custom=Pokédex ". I'm going to add it to all of the R/B/Y AGNs. I know there's a lot more that would need to be fixed. Procyon 15:31, 10 February 2007 (CST)
 * Perhaps offer a couple links to where I can find all the pages that need it? I'd go through and add that. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:39, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'm fairly certain that all of the Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen pages will be needing them. I have Pokémon Red and Blue covered, and Rocky has Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal covered.  As for any other Pokémon game (such as Pokémon Pinball or Pokémon Stadium), I would consider it a nice option, but not a requirement. Procyon 12:28, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * Doing Ruby and Sapphire
 * Thank you so much Mason. 'preciate it!  Procyon 19:57, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * No problem, Did Ruby/Sapphire as well as Firered/LeafGreen. Firefox is the awesome. :) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 19:59, 12 February 2007 (CST)

Easy game addition
Check out this new page UI from the TV Wikia:

http://tv.wikia.com/index.php?title=TV_Wiki:Sandbox&action=edit

I was thinking that the options they have there could be translated here to make things very easy. We can create a template that we can link to from the UI to preload the page with the game infobox and AGN and other things. It's a relatively minor change difficultly wise but I think it would be very useful, what does everyone think? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:38, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * Me likes. I can only see it working for company, main page and ToC articles, since all others are customized. --Notmyhandle 19:15, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * That can increase spamming of new games/companies/etc. We can use the New game template though. -- Prod (Talk) 20:15, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * Can someone explain subst, perhaps in the Guide? --Notmyhandle 20:34, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * I like. Definitely would be an interesting addition if it can be technically managed without open heart surgery of MediaWiki.--Dan 22:35, 11 February 2007 (CST)


 * Trying it out, just go to any redlinked article and click the button to test it out. (and don't make the article just to make this link blue :-P) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 01:03, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * Nice. I've changed the colours to make it slightly easier on the eyes (although it still needs improvement), and changed the text to make it more descriptive. --DrBob (Talk) 05:52, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * Works great. Now we just need company & ToC.  Can the colors be modified by the skin?  Because on Blue Cloud it should be the commonly used purple (as seen in the lower left of any page) with a font color that stands out on top (maybe just black). --Notmyhandle 08:43, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'll set up the company one, but what exactly do you mean by a ToC page? Is there a standard I can look to for this that I'm not aware of?  I'm also sure it can be modified by skin, but I don't know CSS well enough to implement it myself, so we may need Garret or DrBob to do that (or anyone who can obviously). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:05, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * Company set up, feel free to tweak. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:18, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * I set up the toc, but it needs MediaWiki 1.7+ since the BASEPAGENAME variable doesn't exist in 1.6. -- Prod (Talk) 10:45, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * Echelon? Garret? Dan? :) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 19:41, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * nvm, Echelon's to-do list has that on there :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 20:04, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * So how do we edit those pages? And the game one needs the ratings parameter in the infobox, since it's required and will appear even if it's not in the code. --Notmyhandle 20:18, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * The game one does not need the "ratings" parameter, as it's been superseded by the individual ratings parameters such as "ESRB". --DrBob (Talk) 03:21, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * Look down VVVV, preload is what goes in the box when you click the button, instructions is what is shown above the box. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 20:26, 12 February 2007 (CST)

Also, links of interest (sorry I didn't list these earlier):
 * MediaWiki:Newarticletext
 * New game: preload - instructions - what it looks like
 * New guide page: preload - instructions - what it looks like
 * Company: preload - instructions - what it looks like
 * Toc: preload - instructions what it looks like


 * Until we upgrade the server I'm going to insert "REPLACE THIS" for every instance of BASEPAGENAME so that the template can be used (I would find it useful). --Notmyhandle 19:48, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * Added new guide page (as it seemed inevitable and useful for easy guide making), also, would you want to write instructions for the TOC preload? It's the red link, you can do it in the form of the other instruction pages. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:50, 19 February 2007 (CST)

Keyboard buttons
I've finally got User:Blendmaster/keyboardtest, and have created kbd for use in guides needing PC keys. I finally realised that we needn't use background images: we could just use borders! Now all we need to complete the controls for PC game guides is some images for the mouse and its buttons. --DrBob (Talk) 04:06, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * Can we perhaps put in a switch statement so that you can use up and it'll put the up arrow? Simply for ease of use.  OR... I can throw on the charinsert that they have at wikipedia... -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:13, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * That's a good idea. I'll do the switch statement, if you give us a (cut-down) charinsert. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 08:32, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * There are two additional versions that we need. The first is the entire 9 button numpad, the second is the triangular representation of the numpad/arrow keys (left, up above down, right;4, 8 above 2, 6). --Notmyhandle 17:52, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * Er, what? The keypad can be done by just putting the numbers into the template, and the arrow keys are done, are they not? --DrBob (Talk) 17:57, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * Well, I guess we could just do that. I was thinking of an actual representation to show the four or nine keys in the shape the are seen on the keyboard; like the 9 appear within a sqare, and the 4 are within a triangle where left is to the left, then down and up are vertically aligned and right is to the right.  Maybe you could post the code so that if someone wanted to (me) they could mimic the border style and create a table to create this illusion of an image.--Notmyhandle 18:06, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * It's not simple to find the up/down/right/left arrow character, so that's why I was wondering if a switch thing could be added for those (and it seems it has, or maybe it was always there, either way... niiiice, so you could do those easier since they will be used extensively I believe. I don't think there is a need to display the entire 9 key numpad in the template. you can easily create a template to do it if you need to, although I'm not sure what the purpose would be, to show, here is how you do that and the arrows. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 21:06, 13 February 2007 (CST)

789 456 123


 * The problem is that it won't work when using bullets, like on any normal controls page. I'll just make a mini image for it.--Notmyhandle 23:30, 13 February 2007 (CST)


 * Press up to shoot him.
 * What won't work with bullets? It just did, or are you referring to the numpad?  If so I don't see the need to display the numpad, they do know what one is. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 00:33, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * Well I feel the need for unity so removing all text in place of images is better than a mix. As such, I just came to the conclusion that tables might be a good solution (alignment, etc.); I'll be experimenting with that tommorow (today for some of you).--Notmyhandle 00:40, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'm with Mason11987 on this; where would you possibly need to display the entire numpad? Could you provide an exemplary link please Notmyhandle? (Oh, and Mason11987, I added the switch in after you asked for it. :-) ) --DrBob (Talk) 05:40, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * Like here. --Notmyhandle 21:43, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * That's fine how it is. --DrBob (Talk) 04:57, 16 February 2007 (CST)

List Counter
Is there some way to automatically count the number of bullets on the page? I want to request this feature within MediaWiki if it is not available, just wondering if you guys know since finding a place to post things on the mediawiki wiki is very difficult. --Notmyhandle 21:07, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * Interesting, gotta ask... why? -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 00:32, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * Oh, and you request features on bugzilla, I can find a link for you if you can't. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 00:32, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * MediaWiki's Bugzilla replete with overlord bug. --DrBob (Talk) 05:42, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * Well it would come in handy for automating things like the statistic on the main page of how many level 4 articles we have. Stuff like that; it would be really useful on list pages on Wikipedia, where I first had the idea (for instance, # of games made by a company or # of cities in a state, with the number at the top of the page). --Notmyhandle 11:39, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Game Rankings
Do you think we should include (optionally, perhaps) a table that shows what the videogames are ranked (i.e. by gamepro, game informer, and such)? --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 18:12, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * It's probably a nice addition to the infobox. I'd vote yes. --Notmyhandle 18:28, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * I don't see why not. We could keep a metarating in the infobox too. I vote yes as well.  ech elon  23:27, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * I have somewhat mixed feelings about this. We're a site for guides not reviews.  If you want to know how good a game is, try any one of those sites, it's what they're there for.  On the other hand, ABXY would be perfect for this kind of info (if it wasn't down).  -- Prod (Talk) 23:43, 14 February 2007 (CST)

I think we should just add an average rating. There would be too much stuff if we added all these reviews.  bibliomaniac 1  5  23:47, 14 February 2007 (CST)


 * Well, we could just make a list of approved rating boards (magazines/websites). I think it would also provide information that might be somewhat hard to come by otherwise (having a subscription for example).  It's also useful in that people would have a broader sense of a game before trying it out (most guides here come from fans, NPOV is what we want right?). --Notmyhandle 00:10, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * Gamestats compiles reviews from everywhere, we should just list theirs. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 01:47, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'm not too happy about doing anything like this. As Prod says, ABXY would be better suited to this, and if we start doing things like this with SW, we're opening a rather large can of worms in the wrong direction. I would be OK with a small link to Gamestats in the infobox, though. --DrBob (Talk) 04:44, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * I agree with DrBob, in the sense that this can cause some problems. Since every article is completely editable, if some hater came along and decided to lower the scores by some value, or initially report them incorrectly, it will take some effort on someone's part to verify the accuracy of each change.  Likewise, someone else could artificially boost them, and again, someone would have to be on top of verifying the reported scores.  Anytime someone disagrees with a subjective score, not everyone will have the maturity to abstain from changing it.  Don't say it won't happen... Procyon 10:08, 15 February 2007 (CST)


 * I think having an optional parameter in the game infobox that is the gamestats ID number would be useful, if you want to put it in, you put it in, and it'll show a link to the gamestats stuff, gamestats catalogs what many other sites/magazines put for rankings so that would be useful and NPOV. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:06, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * Actually there are quite a few of those sites around. GameStats, GameRankings, MetaCritic, etc.  If we can get our own reviews on ABXY recognized by any of these, that would help a lot with attracting new users.  For the moment, I would suggest we go with either gamerankings or metacritic.  They seem to be more popular. -- Prod (Talk) 22:57, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * AH, didn't know that, never seen those sites. Gotta check them out, and if they provide a more complete coverage then they should be used for this, as gamestats still has a very large following. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 07:36, 16 February 2007 (CST)

Game Ratings, required?
Within the infobox, I don't think ratings should be required because non-commercial games never have a rating and we have plenty (the number will grow of course) of articles already that cannot recieve an answer beyond "N/A" or "unrated." --Notmyhandle 22:56, 15 February 2007 (CST)
 * The problem with that is that there would have to be a most ridiculously complex qif to determine if all the rating fields were empty, in order to hide the ratings row. --DrBob (Talk) 04:55, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah, so I'm gonna do that, give me a minute. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 07:21, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * Done, enjoy :). -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 07:31, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * As I said, that's one big qif. Nice work Mason11987. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 08:19, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * Well yeah, when we have every rating system under the sun it's bound to happen, thanks :) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:02, 16 February 2007 (CST)

Infobox auto-categorization
At the moment, doesn't categorize the game into anything but category:Games. At the moment there is a strage property in the template and I'm not sure what it's for. I'm proposing the addition of few extra pieces of code, but I thought it'd be best to discuss this first as it clearly has some possible ramifications. Adding category: if genre is present (same for all the others), }}, }}, and I'd like to get category:. The first three should be able to work without too much of a problem, as most of those fields when filled in use text that would be a suitable category for that type of thing. But with systems, it often contains multiple different systems, and so this wouldn't be feasible if that was to remain. Also, often the developer, publisher, genre, and system fields are linked, but not always, this also presents a problem. I'm proposing perhaps a dramatic change for a recognizably useful addition.

I think we should first scan all the games:
 * Those that are for multiple systems, take the platform= property, and replace it with platform=, platform2=, platform3= property. This can also be changed in the new game template and new game pre-load template.
 * Those with inter-wiki linked values for those properties discussed will be replaced plain text.
 * Those who have strange values for any of those properties (N/A, unknown, ect.) or something that wouldn't work as a legitimate category be replaced or removed.

Then, we make changes to Infobox, I've made a test template: here. {{qif|test={{{platform|}}|then={{{platform}}} {{qif|test={{{platform2|}}|then=, {{{platform2}}} {{qif|test={{{platform3|}}|then=, {{{platform3}}} {{qif|test={{{platform4|}}|then=, {{{platform4}}} {{qif|test={{{platform5|}}|then=, {{{platform5}}} {{qif|test={{{platform6|}}|then=, {{{platform6}}} }}}}}}}}}}}}
 * Replaced the plain text display of the developer with
 * Replaced the plain text display of the publisher with
 * Replaced the plain text display of the genre with
 * Also removed the label, if it's not removed from all infobox uses yet, it can be done so during our changes.
 * Replaced the plain text display of with:

We also could possibly do something similar with release dates, breaking it up into day of year and year, and by country, but I fear that would over complicate things (haha) for not a huge benefit (as I never really thought the date categories were that useful myself).

So, what does everyone think? And if you like the idea, would you be willing to help out with such a change? If we each pick a few letters we can get it done easily I'm sure. The bonus is that during the article editing, nothing will change unless the game has weird properties or is multi-platform, and even during the editing no infobox will be broken, at worst it'll just display slightly less information until we make the change to the infobox. -- Mason11987 {{sup|(Talk - Contributions)}} 08:52, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'll start with A, but what do you mean about the "weird properties"? --Ryan Schmidt{{sup|Talk - Contribs}} 09:46, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * Well, if values for any of those fields are "N/A" "unknown" "none" "many" or anything else that isn't informative and explicit, this won't work very well. -- Mason11987 {{sup|(Talk - Contributions)}} 09:51, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * As a programmer, I'm all for simplification, but what we're talking about is the complication of one template for the elimination of a single step that, in comparison to other tasks, is relatively easy. I know we have problems with new users who forget to add categories, but we also have new users who also forget infoboxes.  In the end, one of the "senior staff" will have to go through and add it anyway, and as far as we go, adding categories is pretty painless.  I'm neither for or against this, as, if you really want to do the work Mason, then it's going to be on your shoulders to test it and make sure that it works.  I'm just concerned that the effort you put into it will result in a very small payoff.
 * P.S. If and when this change is implemented, are we then going to go back and rip out all of the categories that we manually provided? I know it won't be necessary, but it would be redundant to have both of them in there... Procyon 10:09, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * I would be against this, mostly in line with what Procyon said. Even for the publishers/developers, there are often more than one (not so much devs, but publishers).  This stuff would be far better suited to some kind of custom bot (any takers :P).  Actually, this might not be that hard for AutoWikiBrowser to handle as it is a fairly easy regex (once we get a wikimedia update). -- Prod (Talk) 10:58, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'm also looking at this along the same lines of Procyon. It seems to me like a lot of work with little benefit.  The question we should ask, then, is will this make SW easier to run when we have many, many members.  Will it be easier to manage then?  Or will it be about the same as now?  I'm leaning toward the latter, but if you can persuade me that it will be worth it, then I'll most definitely support the change.-- Duke  Ruckley  12:19, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * It will probably be the same managing-wise no matter how many members we have (as more members=more sysops-to be blunt about it), but the question is will it be worth it when we have hundreds of guides or more. Going through each of them manually and adding categories would be a pain. I don't know if we should incorperate the change now, but we could always do it later (or have a bot do it) if we really need to. --Ryan Schmidt{{sup|Talk - Contribs}} 12:38, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * Point of order, but theoretically, if a guide is done correctly, it already has the necessary categories, and if a new guide is started, the categories should be added by the user as part of the act of starting the guide. So no additional work is necessary, regardless of whether Mason implements this change or not.  If a user forgets to add categories today, a sysop will come along and add them.  Likewise, if Mason implements his plan, if a user forgets to completely fill out an infobox, a sysop will have to come along and finish filling it out.  The result: no net gain. Procyon 12:43, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * I too follow Procyon's lines of thinking, and I don't support this idea. Besides not giving any gains in editing time, it would also make sorting out guides with complex infoboxes hell, especially guides with information in brackets after each publisher (for example). I think we could have a crawler bot go round guides and look for disparity between the infobox and categorisation, and this would provide a much better solution. This isn't, however, necessary at the moment. --DrBob (Talk) 14:00, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * Using templates to categorize guides seems to defeat the purpose of having standalone categories in and of themselves. Adding categorization to the infobox seems to be a move toward turning it into a cookie-cutter template, rather than a tool. Doing this will also make maintenance of the infobox template an absolute pain in the future, especially if we have to fix anomalies that break the categorization rules. Conceptually, this also seems to be poorly normalized and of a non-atomic design; we need to keep these two functions separate so that they don't grow together into a mess.  ech elon  00:56, 18 February 2007 (CST)

Hmmm... all in all it seems like this doesn't have much support. Fair enough, just thought I'd bring it up :). Thanks for the feedback guys.  *Goes to find another inane thing to screw around with*. -- Mason11987 {{sup|(Talk - Contributions)}} 01:45, 19 February 2007 (CST)

Comments in Template:New game?
Considering the issue raised above by Mason made me think of one solution that might ease the pain of new users forgetting certain steps. The New Game template and corresponding button was, by far, the biggest step in the right direction. I would propose that we go one step further and add  to the template so that a user can see all of the steps that we are asking of users. So the first comment might be, "Please read the strategywiki guide if you are new." Then there would be comments like, "please fill out the infobox" and, "please provide some categories", and then some general things like, "Introduction goes here," and "Table of contents goes here, just edit the TOC page, not this thing..." I'm being very general for the sake of the usual readers, the proper language would have to be ironed out.

The only caveat to this is a fair amount of useless info being stored repeatedly in the database if no one bothers to clear the comments out when they are saved. (And in that sense, perhaps the last comment in the template should be  and see how well that gets paid attention to.)  I also wish the template would consider the name of the page you are starting when you push the button so that all of the name of the game tags would be automatically filled in. I don't know how hard that would be. Anyway, just a thought. Procyon 12:54, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * I don't think this would be useful. I can almost guarantee that the comments would be left there to rot, or that people who don't know wikimarkup might even remove one of the delimiters and mess up the page completely. Instructions like this are best put in the text above the editing box (temporarily forgotten the page name for this, but it's linked to in the original discussion). Your last point may be possible once we upgrade (I don't really know :-P ). --DrBob (Talk) 14:06, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * Couldn't we just automate it to remove the comments, or is that not possible... kinda like how works... --Notmyhandle 20:34, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * Um.... I don't think so. I also don't think comments would be that useful.  We can always improve the instructions shown above the edit box. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 01:48, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * What about bot usage? Removing comments sounds like it would be simple. --Notmyhandle 02:32, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * It would be fairly simple for someone who had a bot, and it would only need to be run through all the new New articles that don't have a "/" in them. Not having any idea how to make a bot or operate one leaves me with little more to say though. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:37, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah, but it gets tedious to run bots, and nobody would ever remember. I think it would be cleaner to move all the inline comments out into the header box (which looks nice now :-D ). --DrBob (Talk) 12:43, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * The bot is easy enough to write (simple find/replace) but it means you can't have comments in the page at all. It's not a big problem, but it could be. -- Prod (Talk) 12:54, 19 February 2007 (CST)

Edit summary
Whats with having to summarize every single time you contribute? It is extremely bothersome. 0-172Talk to me 00:16, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think it's so that other editors don't have to trawl through your edits and compare them to the current edition - it just saves time.--Froglet 18:35, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * It's also just good practice. I'm all for the policy, however, I would like it if it wasn't required for a preview. Procyon 18:43, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'll look into disabling it when you're previewing. --DrBob (Talk) 02:54, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * Same here - writing 'expanded', 'spelling' or 'AGN' isn't that troublesome - just appreviate it down to a few short phrases or a short sentence.--Froglet 18:54, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think it's incredibly irate that a javascript window is displayed if I don't include a summary. Is there any way we can make the notification friendlier?--Dan 19:35, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * That does make sense, but it can become annoying. What if you make a minor/small change (or any change for that fact) and you cannot easily describe your change as a summary? Also I agree with Dan. I am not a big fan of the javascript window either. Lunar Knight(Talk - Contributions) 20:12, 16 February 2007 (CST)
 * If you cannot easily describe your change, just put "Cleanup". I cannot think of a better way to force people to use summaries than using a JavaScript popup; anything else would be non-modal, and could (and would) easily be ignored. --DrBob (Talk) 02:54, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * Is it a big enough issue to need such a thing? We have an option in our preferences "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary".  We don't need it to be forced. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 01:39, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * It makes a sysop's life so much easier if there are edit summaries in recent changes, and if summaries aren't forced, people won't write them. Please tell me if you think the JS could be improved usability-wise. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 12:45, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * I do understand that, but if our ease in doing our sysop job is increased at the expense of writing guides as usefully as possible then I don't think it's worth it. Although I use monobook so I've never even seen this implementation so it doesn't really effect me.  But I'm going to have to bring up the point that wikipedia doesn't have this, and they function well enough.  My suggestion would be to have the preferences option about this selected by default and then users who are more accustomed to this system can turn it off if they like.
 * Is it possible to just disallow the commit and put a message (in big red letters) near the comment box (and set focus to the comment box)? Just to note, MediaWiki 1.9 (or maybe 1.10) add some automatic descriptions for simple things ('Replaced page with 'blah blah, 'Redirecting to 'some page, 'Blanked page'). -- Prod (Talk) 12:50, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * We can put a stronger notice near the summary box very easily, I think that would be the best option. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 15:26, 19 February 2007 (CST)