User talk:Trevman

Welcome to StrategyWiki!
Hello Trevman! Welcome to StrategyWiki. Thank you for your contributions. If you have any questions, just contact a sysop through their talk page or post on the staff lounge, and they'd be happy to help. If you need help editing, check the StrategyWiki Guide. If you have a question about the content on this wiki, you can check out our staff lounge page. If you want to ask questions or hang out in IRC, we're usually around. On the other hand, if you have ideas for StrategyWiki, bring them up on the forums.

Please remember to sign your name on, and only on, talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (    ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. When making an edit, proofread your changes at least once by using the preview button below the editing box. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field as this helps to document all of your hard work. Feel free to delete this message from your talk page if you like, or keep it for reference. Happy editing! -- najzere T 17:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Image categorisation
When uploading images, please make sure to categorise them using the correct image categories and the guide-specific category, i.e.  Category:Half-Life: Blue Shift images. The image policy is viewable here, and contains all the information you'll need to categorise future uploads. -- najzere T 17:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Hopefully you get this, as quite obviously I'm new to this. I noticed you modified the HLbs_alien_grunt pic that I uploaded, and changed it to .png. I have numerous other pictures for the same article so I can copy the categories (I assume that will be ok) but I'd like to try and get it right first time too :p Which software did you use to modify the picture? Trevman 20:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can just copy the categories from Image:HLBS alien grunt.png and use them in the edit summary when you upload. Normally I wouldn't have bothered to change someone's pictures, but I thought the page would look nicer without the aqua background on the image. Normally I would have just uploaded a new version over the same file, but JPEG doesn't support transparency, so it had to be changed PNG format. The program I used is GIMP, a free, open-source image editor. If you have all the files hosted somewhere, e.g. imageshack or something, I'd be happy to remove the background for you. Otherwise, GIMP, PhotoShop, pixlr.com, etc. (pretty much anything but MSPaint) can all do the job for you. Thanks for working on the Blue Shift guide and keep up the good work! Let me know if you need anything else. :) — najzere T 21:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * By the way, if you want to drop messages to specific people, make sure you put the messages on that person's talk page rather than your own =P --Arrow Windwhistler (talk) 20:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, great job on the new pics! Which program did you end up going with? There are a few GIMP users on the wiki, so if you're using it and need any help with the program itself, just give me a shout. :) Cheers, — najzere T 21:19, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It is indeed GIMP that i'm using - and it is a very nice bit of kit, there seems to be enough guides on the GIMP site along with other extra guides around the net for what i need... but i'll bear your offer in mind. With a bit more time Ill try and fill in the gaps ;) - cheers guys - (Trevman 16:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC))

Hi, just wanted to let you know that images can be moved to a different filename, so there's no reason to reupload a duplicate to change the name. (Actually, I'd already moved the three you uploaded to include the game name, but had to delete them as duplicates). If you need an image moved, just ask an admin and they'll do it for you. Also, make sure you're uploading with the correct categories on the files. I've changed all the weapon and weapon ammo image tags from Category:Characters to Category:Items. I know you were just copy/pasting, but remember to double check. Thanks! — najzere T 17:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * thanks! - i wasn't sure who to contact once i realized that i hadn't named the files properly. however since you're admin and appear to be keeping an eye on me (which I appreciate), how do I resize pics on the http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Half-Life:_Blue_Shift/Weapons page, the ammo on the right appears much larger than i expected, but its under the same code as the weapons themselves, also in regards to the m4 assault rifle, which has two ammo types, is it possible to have the two ammo pics on the right? - i have looked in the guide honest lol, perhaps not the right place though - (Trevman 18:09, 15 October 2009 (UTC))
 * To resize an image, put |#px in the image markup, where # is the number of pixels wide you want the image. For example: [[Image:HLbs 9mmAmmo.png|right|50px]] . Guide/Images is the page with most of our information on images. Hope that helps! — najzere T 18:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I just looked at the page (probably should have done that first), and you have the image syntax correct. The only problem is that most of the ammo images are quite thin, so you'll have to reduce the size from 125px to something much smaller to see a big change. — najzere T 18:42, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * already sorted it chief ;) - still not happy about the assault rifle ammo placement though, i would prefer to have them horizontally if possible. can that be done? there's nothing in the page you showed me to say how to.
 * How does it look now? They're side-by-side in Firefox. — najzere T 18:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * spot on, that's exactly what i was after - thanks again!

Hi, can you fix your image category before uploading any more please? "Categories:Screenshots" → "Category:Screenshots". Thanks, — najzere T 20:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Categories
Before submitting categories to a page, please substitute spaces instead of underscores. Thanks, -- 04:25, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Images
Hi, please be a little more careful when uploading. This is the third time we've had to change this. If you're copy/pasting from something, please update it to be correct. And to reiterate another topic, for standardization purposes, please leave spaces rather than underscores between words in links. Thanks, — najzere T 19:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * sorry - I'm not entirely sure when it comes to the categorization of pictures - I had been copying from previous pictures I'd uploaded to the same page as I thought they were correct, and like I said, I'm not sure about categorization... though I think I've uploaded everything I need to upload so perhaps I'll stick to adding text in future :p - (Trevman 19:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC))
 * Please look over Guide/Image naming, particularly the section concerning screenshots. The system is more simple than it may look. For images that are used on guide pages, you need a game specific image category (e.g. [[:Category:Half-Life: Blue Shift images ]] ) and one or two general categories (e.g.  [[:Category:Screenshots ]] ). You also need to be aware of the correct wikimarkup syntax for categories. It is  . Only one category name can be contained within the brackets. Again, do not use underscores instead of spaces (if you happen to copy the name of a category from a URL, you must remove the underscores). We will continue to help you become acclimated to these standards. Thank you for contributing, and thank you for working with us, -- 23:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Page headings
Hi, please start headings on guide pages at ==Level 2== instead of ===Level 3=== to conform with our layout policy. Thanks! — najzere T 15:07, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

STALKER walkthrough
Hey, the current walkthrough is more of an editing guide, so belongs on a talk page. Perhaps you could reword it as an explanation to readers on how to find information on guide pages? — najzere T 22:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Controls pages
Thanks for your contributions to the Controls pages. The current standard is to have Controls pages laid out in a table (see Guide/Organizing the pages); control is used for pages elsewhere in a guide (e.g. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Hyrule Castle) where listing all the controls would get in the way of other content. GarrettTalk 20:52, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You may also want to take a look at mouse for mouse controls. -- 22:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I couldn't verify that Crysis was released on an Xbox system. I left the controls commented out on the Crysis/Controls page, in case they need to be integrated into the table. Otherwise, if they were added in error, or you were thinking of Crysis 2 or something, we can just delete them. Let me know, thanks! P.S. All the work you've been doing cleaning up guide pages is great. Feel free to add to your userpage and visit our cleanup project page. Cheers! — najzere T 02:28, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Image naming (again)
Hi, the recent images you have uploaded for The 7th Guest have been categorized with Category:The 7th Guest, however the correct category is Category:The 7th Guest images. Please could you be careful with category naming when you upload more images. Thanks JordanH 16:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The 7th Guest
Hi Trevman, just wanted to say great job on this guide! It's really rare to see a guide go from non-existent to completion stage four that quickly, and with pictures too! Thanks for adding so much to the wiki – your hard work is really appreciated. :D Cheers — najzere T 16:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, its nice to be noticed :) - It moved that quick because I did my homework before hand ;) however it is nice to see a full guide for an old game. It brings back some fond memories of time spent trying to solve the puzzles. - (Trevman 17:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC))
 * I'm shocked. Great job! -- 23:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You should aim for Featured Guide status. =P --Arrow Windwhistler (talk) 01:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I made an example page to test a new format for the guide. I think it may still be too long to put on one page, so do you know of a way to logically split the puzzles up into 2–4 pages? Besides any remaining issues with the puzzles themselves from the nomination page, the images are really the only thing standing in the way of the guide becoming featured, according to the "undecided" comments. — najzere T 14:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It could be split per floor I guess (though 2nd floor has considerably more puzzles than 1st) - Trevman 18:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I saw that's how it was split in the Walkthrough page, but as you say it would be kind of lopsided. I finished adding all the puzzles to the talk page and I don't think it looks too bad with all of them on one page, but others may have a problem with the length. — najzere T 19:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Theres plenty of longer pages around eg http://strategywiki.org/wiki/MapleStory/Quests/Masteria I would be happy having it like you've set it out, with the thumbnails you can easily find the puzzle you want even if you don't know the name. - Trevman 20:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

7th Guest video walkthrough
Hi, I removed the YouTube video links from the walkthough per this policy. I know the Deus Ex guide has a bunch of video links, which was actually the motivation behind the creation of the policy. All the Deus Ex videos need to be removed as well. The basic gist of the policy is that you created this great walkthough on this site, so why send readers off somewhere else to a competing source of this information? Hope you understand. Thanks, — najzere T 18:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No prob, but that policy seems to be very much against linking to videos - so why not just stop video embedding into the wiki? - Trevman 19:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Video embedding would be fine, as we would be the hosts and could have some control over the content. The YouTube template just links to YouTube however, which sends users away from the site. It's basically for things that would be too hard to cover in writing or images, like a series of complicated maneuvers. According to the administrators that update the wiki, we'll have the ability to actually embed video within the next couple updates to the MediaWiki software. — najzere T 19:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Videos also deny users the ease of editing the information, which is why text is our preferred medium. When we get embedded videos we'll have to modify our policy. Yeah, lack of videos is a bummer, but a video walkthrough is only really necessary when precision is being illustrated (at the same time, text and audio narration is necessary to identify the key elements of the precision). In most cases, the videos we link to are too full to be integrated. -- 08:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Sometimes there are things that are most easily shown through video. Having small segments to demonstrate a difficult portion of a guide is fine.  Video is allowable as long as the whole guide is not only video. -- Prod (Talk) 16:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Simon the Sorcerer
Hey, great to see you're onto another guide! There are a couple things I wanted to bring to your attention. First, when grabbing the intro for the main page from Wikipedia, please be sure to add the attribution to your edit summary, to comply with their CC-BY-SA license. I like to go into the Wikipedia page's history and get a direct link to the exact version I'm copying, as the actual article will continue to change. Second, we have a template called parser, which was specifically made to help with adventure games, especially text ones. It might help you with the walkthrough, as you can use it in place of where you're currently using bold text. In regards to the Series Nav you started out adding to the main game page, I think there are definitely enough games in the series if you wanted to make one. We don't have any hard and fast rules, so you're pretty much okay to make one whenever the series has multiple games (although only two or three might not be worth it). Hope that helps! Keep up the great work :D — najzere T 19:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, just a reminder to put attribution in your edit summary when copying text from somewhere. See my summary for an example. Thanks, — najzere T 19:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit counter
I don't know of any public tools that work, but I have a private tool I use. Here's your listing:

Attribution
Hi, I've mentioned this a couple times so I guess I should make it explicit. You must properly attribute your source to comply with the source's CC-BY-SA license. It's not something we're just trying to do here and it's not just a "best practice", it's so that we can legally use the information you're copying from another site. It's as simple as putting a link into your edit summary. Please get into the habit of doing this, as I will just be deleting any plagiarism from now on instead of retroactively adding attributions for you. You can start by making a small edit on the Crysis Warhead page with attribution to the Wikipedia article. Thanks, — najzere T 17:01, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

7th Guest featured nomination
Hi, I moved all the pages from the guide into one walkthrough page. The only thing I need to move in support of the nomination is for this image to be cleaned up. In GIMP you can use the Paths tool $($B$)$ and it will help you make Bezier curves so you don't have to try and draw smooth curves with the mouse. Other than that, you and Sigma 7 have added information on the points he had issues with and the images sizes have been taken care of, so I think you may have a better shot at getting more supports now. Good luck! — najzere T 18:15, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, I was thinking about using a flood-fill type tool on the path. If you only select the image found directly on the desired path (possible to do by a color-based selection), it should give a clean path between two of the points.  It won't work as well if the line is anti-aliased, and I can't tell by looking at the .JPG image alone.  --Sigma 7 18:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Would it be worth reuploading an unedited version over the current one and then you can try what you suggested? - Trevman 20:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure who you were asking, but if you upload a clean screenshot I'll put the path in for you. Places like ImageShack are good for temporary image hosting like this. — najzere T 19:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey, we need to do something about this image, or the nomination is just going to close as lacking support. Since this is the last item that anyone had a problem with, it's likely that people will be able to make their final judgement on the guide if this gets taken care of. Can you upload a clean version of the image or clean up the path yourself? — najzere T 21:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Apologies I didn't do this sooner - I some how managed to miss your comment on 27 January 2010, however I've added a clean image to the image history. - Trevman 22:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I closed the nomination today as there has been no activity on it for over a month. I apologize on behalf of the wiki, since I think it's ridiculous that long-time users who are still active and hold positions of authority on the wiki can't be bothered to even comment on featured guide nominations. It looks like Simon the Sorcerer is going to end up in the same boat, and if this experience stops you from nominating in the future or trying to work on guides to get them up to featured standards, I don't blame you at all. Once again, I'm very sorry that senior members of our community don't respect the users enough to take an hour of their time to look over a promising guide. — najzere T 19:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit counter
From what I can tell, "bluecloud.js" isn't imported from user pages. If you can't see the edit counts button on your user page, I'd suggest moving User:Trevman/bluecloud.js to User:Trevman/BlueCloud.js. (I know, the MW message at the top says it won't work, but it's a liar!) Hope that helps, :) — najzere T 19:44, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Quick Search
It was always available if you used the OpenSearch extensions for firefox or IE. I've also enabled it for the mediawiki search on the wiki pages. -- Prod (Talk) 14:38, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Is this what you're looking for? -- Prod (Talk) 07:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That search feature is built into MediaWiki, I just enabled it. Configuring it to exclude subpages will take some work, and I'm not sure if it would be the best idea to exclude them.  There's still the ability to search, and there is a full listing of the guides on the site. I'm not sure of the benefit hiding the subpages would bring. -- Prod (Talk) 07:28, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Crysis Warhead
Hi, I think the guide needs the help of an expert! I'm unsure if there are literal objectives (given in-game) for each chapter, or if the guide has just been split up that way by the editor(s). If it's the former, when you get a chance, it would be great if you could go through the few walkthrough pages and explicitly put down what the objective(s) are, either by splitting the page into ==Primary objective== and ==Secondary objective==, or putting them at the tops of the pages, maybe like: I'm hoping the guide can be reorganized into a simpler, more intuitive format so that heading levels can become meaningful again and we can get rid of the one-sentence sections. Let me know what you think, thanks. — najzere T 22:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Primary objective: Objective description
 * Secondary objective: Objective description

Ads
The next time it comes up, can you take a screenshot? Either upload here or to imageshack. If they are coming up with those interstitial ads, we'll have to get them removed. -- Prod (Talk) 00:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Welcoming users
Hi, please don't welcome users unless they've made an edit. We get 20–30 people signing up every day and most of them never make a single contribution! Thanks, — najzere T 16:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Table of Contents pages
Is there some reason you're not linking Getting Started on ToCs? This is a recommended page for guides and shouldn't be de-linked without good reason. Can you just use the Table of Contents preload button and work from there? — najzere T 20:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Category game lists
Hi Trevman, before you continue to remove lists of games from categories, I think we need to come up with a formal stance on this. The lists offer good information regarding chronology and system availability that the series nav templates will not (i.e. dates, possibly different groupings, and console availability). The scope of the categories hasn't been defined, to my knowledge. -- 18:11, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The two best examples I can give are Category:Castlevania and Category:Street Fighter. I'll work on starting a category page under the guide, today. -- 20:17, 14 May 2010 (UTC)