StrategyWiki talk:Community Portal

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Desperate times call for desperate measures
StrategyWiki has enjoyed a steady increase in popularity and traffic, and we are grateful for every user's support. However, the little server which once adequately met our meager needs is now hobbling along on its knees, trying to keep up with the demand. As this site is run out-of-pocket by essentially one man, the site owner, the time has come to do whatever is necessary to improve the situation and make ends meet. The site administrators (non-contributing staff) have agreed that by hosting pop-up ads for a limited amount of time, it may be possible to drum up the money for new server in a matter of weeks, at which time the ads would immediately cease. As this is a somewhat dire situation, the decision to run these ads will not be put to a discussion so as not to divide the staff in any way, and will only take effect for as long as necessary and not a day longer. The administrators wish to apologize to any users that they will potentially offend or annoy and wish to assure everyone that this would not be taking place unless it was absolutely necessary. With a new server, we will be capable of supporting a larger community, and provide our viewers with enough speed and bandwidth for the foreseeable future. Having said all of this, and with no desire to guilt anyone into using it, I'd like to point out the PayPal donation button to the left. As you may know, StrategyWiki has made it possible for fans of our site to financially support the site on a strictly voluntary basis. Your personal support of StrategyWiki can help lessen the time that we need to run the ads for, but it is in no way necessary for you to contribute unless you absolutely would like to and are able to at this time. The administrators of this site thank you whole-heartedly for your continued support during this period, and anxiously await the day when we can provide you with higher quality performance than you are currently experiencing. Procyon (Talk) 06:11, 14 October 2007 (CDT)


 * Ok, to me, there are three types of "popup" ads, so could you please clarify which one(s) we would be implementing? The three types (in my perspective) are:
 * The new window type (a la Tribalfusion). I generally find these to be the least effective, as most people I know just close said window without actually looking at the ad/clicking on it, and you can set them to pop up in the background, under the active window.
 * The in-your-face type. These (may) temporarily deactivate the rest of the page unless you click on the close thingy on them. They generally appear right in the middle of the page, hence the in-your-face. I'd judge these to be the most effective of the three, and second-most annoying.
 * The redirect type. These use javascript to redirect the page you are currently visiting to another site. These are by far the most annoying, as hitting back will just load the same javascript again. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not implement this type.
 * Procyon, as for your comment about visibility, I'm thinking of making another box high-ish up on the main page explaining the situation and the cause, and telling people that by donating, the ads will get removed sooner once we actually implement these ads. -- 10:55, 14 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually, a better idea just came to me. What about MediaWiki:Sitenotice? That's the message that appears on the top of every page, with a [dismiss] link for logged in users. Here's the notice I was thinking of:

Due to increased amount of popularity and traffic, StrategyWiki needs a new server. Therefore, we have implemented pop up ads for a short period of time until enough money for a new server has been raised. If you wish to get rid of the ads quicker, please donate so that funds may be raised even faster! [ read more ]


 * 11:19, 14 October 2007 (CDT)


 * When Nick ran this idea by me I told him hell no. What do you think popup ads will do for the public perception of StrategyWiki? Granted, while we *need* a new server, this can't be the only way to raise approximately $1,500 - $2,500. :( echelontalk 14:26, 14 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Perhaps a better option is AuctionAds (Nick also introduced me to this). We could dynamically control the keywords, instead of some lame Google algorithm that gets stuff wrong 75% of the time. example echelontalk 15:09, 14 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Wow... I thought that when Procyon wrote this, it was already in agreement with everyone in the higher-upness, guess not :P. Anyway, I still think it would be a good idea to make use of MediaWiki:Sitenotice, with a donate link and one of those progress bars like the WikiMedia foundation has, it might get some more people to donate. As for Auction Ads, it looks good, but we really have three options to consider if we go that route, outlined below
 * Use AuctionAds
 * Stick with AdSense
 * Try out the Amazon referrals
 * Since we have limited sidebar space, we really can only go with one of the three (unless we make use of the left sidebar as well), so we'll need to decide which one would be best for us. -- 20:51, 14 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I think we can support all three, to an extent. ActionAds at the bottom of each page, Adsense where it currently is, and Amazon links in the infoboxes/HNs. Popup blockers would probably render those mostly useless, those flash ones which cover your screen are extremely annoying, and the redirect ones just take people away from our content.  Also, would it be possible to move that PayPal button down a bit, so that it doesn't overlap that line? Seems somewhat out of place to me.  -- Prod (Talk) 21:13, 14 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah I agree with site notice, and was going to suggest it earlier (but I had to work). The potential drawback to ads are the hardasses (most of us) that will be repelled from the site (Ech's concern).  From my standpoint, I like ads because I know what they do and good ads are actually beneficial to me (for instance an ad about five years ago helped my love of metal grow even more).  Therefore, I'm definitely for this (I know this topic isn't about this) and I believe it won't be detrimental in the long run (especially after getting a new server).  I don't know about BlueCloud, but I assume for CrimsonNight the paypal button is located just below the line underneath Help in the left nav.  From the looks of it, the button should fit between that line and the image below it...  -- 21:16, 14 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Sorry about the confusion guys. When Nick ran it past me, he made it seem that either a) echelon had signed off on the idea or b) he had echelon's approval to implement any idea with full support.  So my impression was the same as Skizzerz's (Skizzerz'z?)  I asked what could I do, should I make an announcement?  He said go for it, so I did.  Apologies all around.  Procyon (Talk) 21:26, 14 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Oh good lord... possessive + my nick = downright impossible >_< (to pronounce, spell it Skizzerz's I guess, so just stick w/ Ryan's or something). Anyway, I totally forgot about the donate button since I have css that hides it, but IIRC it could stand to be moved from its current position. And Procyon, don't worry about it. Tricksey little Nickses can be deceptive sometimes ;). -- 22:18, 14 October 2007 (CDT)


 * When this goes into effect, I think we should throw this up on the PayPal page so that people can see how far along we are and be more interested in how their money is contributing to the goal:

$0.00  Fundraiser 2007 http://media.strategywiki.org/images/2/2e/Paypal_Donate_button.gif $5,000
 * -- 18:58, 15 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I am objected to the usage of any sort of pop-up advertisement. That would quickly get on my nerves (And I'm sure everyone else's.) As for any of the other ad options, where exactly would they go? Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 19:12, 15 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Maybe we could sacrifice the content in one of the four cells on the main page (such as "most promising guide") in order to stick a non-popup ad on the main page. Then once we get the new server we can put it back. - Koweja 22:46, 15 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I never see ads/pop-ups 'cause I have Firefox...so I don't care :/. I do hope we can raise the money though. --Myth (talk) 23:12, 15 October 2007 (CDT)

Woah woah woahhh. I just saw/skimmed over this thread. Procy I told you that Brandon said no to the pop-up ads. I was joking about it too. I'm sorry about the confusion. When I talked to you I was talking in a more general "We need money, we need to test some things out" way. I don't know if you guys have discussed it but trying Auction Ads for a while to see how it would turn out or at least adjusting the Google Ads to a better placement. I'd be against Amazon stuff because it pays out so very little and they only pay out ever quarter which is ungodly slow. The fact of the matter is A. Google Ads aren't going to get clicks because they aren't targetted at all (why would I buy *gamename* walkthrough when I'm at this site?) and it's so far to the side. B. They pay out VERY little (see .01-.05) a click since the ads are so random and gaming isn't a high paying niche.

We should test by putting an adsense square or maybe a leaderboard up someplaces instead of on the side. If only for a little bit to see how it does. We should also test Auction Ads. I'm very confused as to why we aren't testing right now. It just seems like a bunch of procrastination when this could be the thing that saves this site. Otherwise it's going to keep going slow until eventually it can't handle the traffic and it will get shut down. I think the site randomly being DOWN for hours and days is a lot worse of an image than some ads that are more towards the middle of the screen. --ConfusedSoul 14:53, 16 October 2007 (CDT)
 * It says 10% and paid monthly. I dunno about you, but games are NOT a niche market. Ads aren't what make money, sales are (same with AuctionAds I'd assume, their site is info-lite). -- Prod (Talk) 15:45, 16 October 2007 (CDT)
 * The profit margin definitely sounds good. With a bit of prettying, my Amazon template is probably good to go. Many games are multi-platform, so Amazon's automated equivalent might take up too much space. GarrettTalk 16:48, 16 October 2007 (CDT)
 * The KEY word there is UP to 10%. A more realistic estimate is 5%.  So then someone would have to come to strategywiki.  Look up a guide for a game.  REALIZE they don't have that game.  Click the amazon link.  Have an amazon account or get one.  Buy game.  After all that we make $1-2.  We can test it, it just doesn't seem like a realistic income stream to me.  But again we need to be testing this stuff to see how well it works.  We can talk and talk and talk about what will or won't work, but we have NO idea until we try it.  And I'm kind of getting disenchanted by how we aren't doing anything.  --ConfusedSoul 23:22, 16 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Complaining doesn't solve anything. Until echelon registers and sets up the accounts, there nothing we can do.  After that, anyone with server access can set up the page to display the ads.  What we need to decide on is layout, so do you agree with my suggestions above, or have a better idea? -- Prod (Talk) 23:42, 16 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I think it'd make more sense for the actual game or any game related paraphenelia to show up instead of a generic banner on the side. I don't know the way Amazon has its system setup but I know there's a relatively easy way to set that up.  --ConfusedSoul 01:47, 17 October 2007 (CDT)
 * The best part about those amazon links (I want them permanant now) is that I can shop on amazon and give SW money at the same time xD -- 02:36, 17 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Here's the nice thing about Amazon... It doesn't hurt us to have it.  In fact, the template that Garrett created looked pretty good and wasn't obtrusive or anything.  While it would probably not bring enough money to buy a new server, it might be worth it to try out anyway.  Plus, does it have to be games they buy?  Why not books and stuff...  There are a few books out there for Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft, Halo, etc.  Maybe we can say, "Hey, if you are looking at buying a book (any book) from Amazon, do it through us!  You'll be supporting your favorite place for guides!"-- Duke  Ruckley Talk 07:50, 17 October 2007 (CDT)
 * If they click on it they'll get our cookie and so whatever they buy within some time (or unless they get someone else's cookie which overdubs ours) will give SW some commission.

So it sounds like a good idea, but is it legal? Are we "taking advantage" of it? Otherwise, when can we get started? Ech? -- 01:31, 18 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Um...yes. There's no reason why it wouldn't be legal.  Echelon doesn't care he's too busy learning how to manipulate images with programming words.  --ConfusedSoul 21:57, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * That was completely unnecessary CS. Echelon does care.  Unfortunately he, like many of us, have more pressing problems to deal with in real life.  Procyon (Talk) 09:18, 22 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Cut the bickering before it begins. Anyways, if you haven't read the agreement that we would be making with Amazon, then you have no certainty that they are making any rules that would affect how we deal with the links and such.  I should go find that document...  -- 13:04, 22 October 2007 (CDT)

Ads - Section 1
I just added AuctionAds and WidgetBucks per the suggestion of Nick. '''THIS IS A TEST ONLY. IT WILL BE TEMPORARY.''' Nick says WidgetBucks will net us 10 - 30x what AdSense does, and he also suggested testing AuctionAds. We'll see how this goes for a day. Also, let me know your thoughts about how intrusive you think these are... echelontalk 23:52, 23 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't like the way auctionads looks and they don't really preform well based on my personal tests. They may fare better on here.  I KNOW widgetbucks will do better than adsense.  We'll have to see.  There's no reason to not test.  If these work anywhere close to what I've gotten on my sites then we could put SW on a top of the line server that would last us a VERY long time. --ConfusedSoul 00:37, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * The AuctionAds box is ugly and doesn't have anything relevant to the page being looked at; Google AdSense targeting improves once the pages have been indexed by the GoogleBot, but from what I've seen of AuctionAds in the past I'm not too convinced that they have a comparable system. WidgetBucks, however, is very nice. It's nicely presented, only subtly animated, and has a nice selection of (predetermined?) deals rather than the random tripe that AuctionAds throws at visitors. $3-$6 CPM is a very good rate, too. GarrettTalk 01:39, 24 October 2007 (CDT)


 * Wow I didn't even notice AuctionAds until I was looking for it. I probably looked at three or four pages without even noticing it; however the right nav is like BAM.  I suggested to Garrett that we move it down by like 20-50px because on pages like the watchlist, there's no toolbox items yet the toolbox header is still there; thus I thought that the ads were part of the toolbox and it just kind of confused me (considering it says stuff like Nintendo 64, etc.).  -- 02:04, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm not certain I understand the point of having WidgetBucks advertise gaming systems to visitors to this site who, quite presumably, already have consoles and aren't on the market for one. Are we really going to end up selling an Xbox 360 to a visitor?  Or a Dreamcast, N64, or GBA for that matter?  Isn't there a way to make it more software oriented? Procyon (Talk) 09:23, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree with the above people, I like the Widget one better (although I don't think the AuctionAds is that ugly). By the way, I don't know if this was just me, but for some reason when I first saw the main page I didn't see the AuctionAds box, just a white space at the top. I can see it fine now that I've went to a different page and came back. Baejung92 13:49, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I like the Widgetbucks one better than auctionads. Not only does it present itself better with basic animation and nice, rounded corners, but the auctionads one messes up the top on top of looking absolutely ugly. -- 15:52, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm cool with the Widgetbucks, but can't stand the auctionads. Either remove the auction ads from the top, or remove them altogether because, for some reason, they are so ugly up there they piss me off. Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 16:04, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I think the auctionads one looks pretty awful but the one on the right seems fine - you don't really notice it tucked away over there. --RamonSalazar 18:44, 24 October 2007 (CDT)

Um, is the right end of the AuctionAds thing supposed to be cut off by the toolbox, or is it just me again? Baejung92 21:34, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
 * The results are in! After one day of running both AuctionAds and WidgetBucks, we have a clear winner. WidgetBucks estimates that we made $18.00 in ONE DAY. This is over three times what we make with AdSense. AuctionAds, on the other hand, requires someone actually make a purchase to earn any money--not surprisingly, we made $0.00. I think we'll put AdSense in place of AuctionAds and see how much we make with AdSense and WidgetBucks together. (Perhaps $25.00/day?) This is certainly positive... echelontalk 00:01, 25 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm on IE right now and the adsense is too big and it's making a scrollbar on the bottom appear. Also it'd look a lot better without a border. --
 * Ok, the AdSense either needs to be shrunk down a bit, or moved elsewhere other than the top. Even though it looks better than the auctionads box, it's still taking up too much horizontal space (thus overflowing into the toolbox). -- 10:02, 25 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, by the time I finally turned off my Adblock Plus ad-on and saw what the ads looked like, I've gotta say the one on the right looks really good. --Myth (talk) 13:45, 5 November 2007 (CST)

Signatures
I think we should follow wikipedia's example with this policy, especially signature templates. -- Prod (Talk) 21:46, 19 October 2007 (CDT)
 * And I don't. I don't see any valid points in there that really refer to us. Granted, some people are worried about the influx of images, but it doesn't cause all that much of a drain on resources for the few people that actually have them. As for templating, I'm actually more for it than making sigs take up tons of wiki code. Yes, you could say "just reduce your sig's size", but I represent my sig however I want to. As for vandalism attacks, that's why every aspect of my signature is protected (the image, the templates it uses, etc.). If any of these things become a major problem, then I'll consider placing restrictions on signatures, but it so far has not been a problem. -- 16:28, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * This was one of the things the devs stepped in to say that it could affect performance, so I think it was a significant drain. You can do whatever you want, but that's what rules are for, otherwise this site would be full of vandals.  Not everyone has the benefit of protecting all the required pages.  Sigs don't need images anywayz, they're just there to show who you are and give access to your page. -- Prod (Talk) 16:45, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, currently we don't have any guidelines/policies on signatures, so based off this debate, it might be a good time to make one. Here are the following points that I believe should be illustrated in such a policy:
 * Use of Images:
 * No more than 2 per signature
 * No animated gifs
 * No overly distracting/offensive images
 * Should have transparency
 * As an added nicety, images should be wrapped in a span class of "sigimage" so people can disable signature images in their personal CSS if they wish not to see them.
 * If they are linked (elsewhere then the image page), the link targets should be appropriate as well, and should be wrapped in a class of "plainlinks".
 * If you wish to protect images in your sig from a vandal attack, notify an admin so they may be protected.
 * Use of Templating:
 * Long signatures should be in template format or, if not possible, shortened.
 * Templates used in signatures may be reported to an admin so they may be protected from vandal attacks.
 * Other conditions:
 * Must contain a non-image link to user page
 * May contain a link to user talk page
 * All links (external and internal) must be appropriate
 * Only sign on talk pages at the end of the comment
 * Cannot contain line breaks, large images, etc. that interrupt the flow of text and indenting.
 * Of course, this needs polishing and input from other people, but how's that? -- 17:10, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I'd propose the following two changes:
 * Use of images: not allowed
 * Use of Templating: not allowed
 * -- Prod (Talk) 17:19, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * I can see where you're going with that, and I'm just against changing so many signatures so drastically without having hard statistical evidence to back up my claims (about server stress and distractions, etc.). If echelon or Dan would be so kind as to perhaps discover how much stress these templates are causing, I'll consider removal of them (if it's a problem). As for images, I've added in a "sigimage" class to mine, so you can just put .sigimage { display: none; } in your personal css to hide it. If images start to become a problem, however, I'll support you in disallowing them. Also, if vandalising signature templates becomes a problem, I'll support disallowing those as well. -- 17:35, 21 October 2007 (CDT)
 * As far as I can tell, Skizzerz and I are the only people who template signatures, and I think it's fine. For one thing, templating helps to keep signatures constant even as users change them--for example, if I were to change my sig to Towers (talk) in the template, every instance of my green font and t-rex head would go away and be replaced, keeping everything consistent so people aren't confused when someone switches sigs.
 * And as far as images go--they seem fine to me! Again, as far as I can tell, only Skizzerz and I use them at all, and they are small, classed properly (as per his guideline anyways), etc. While I concede extravagant signatures belong more on the abxy forums, I hardly think being noticeable in a cloud of blue and white is a bad thing. -- towers  http://media.strategywiki.org/images/a/a8/Towers_trex.gif 16:11, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * I'd really like us to disable the use of "external" images in sigs. It makes things difficult to track (what links here doesn't work) and it adds tons of markup.  If you really want that image to link to your page, you can just put a #REDIRECT on the image page.  However, I'd suggest checking the reasons against images. Some of those I don't really care about, but things like server performance and vandalism targets do concern me.  And from what I'm looking at now, Towers, you aren't actually templating your signature (Skizzerz does).  The problems with templating are similar to images and listed. Also, protecting all the images and pages is not practical (they can't change it either).  -- Prod (Talk) 16:38, 2 December 2007 (CST)

Ok, fine... I made it a normal image and a new template, happy? As for protecting, they can just upload a new image if they want to change it and request the old one be deleted or something. And for protecting sig pages, just append .css to the end of the sub-page name (although I don't think it can go down more than one level, so User/sig.css would work but User/sigs/sig1.css won't, not sure about that though). Anyway, mediawiki then treats that as a user's skin css page, but it still gets parsed with normal wiki markup. Plus, strategywiki is not wikipedia. Things are overly retarded and bureaucratic over there. I'd rather not bring that here as well. -- 17:14, 2 December 2007 (CST)

Super Mario and Supreme Commander wikis
I've been meaning to suggest a partnership with Super Mario Wiki for a while. It's a good wiki, and has detailed information on quite a lot of Mario stuff, laid out in a nice way. Does anyone who knows more about Mario (etc.) want to approach them, or shall I?

Additionally, I stumbled across Supreme Commander Wiki the other day, and I think it's got just about the right amount of information to make a decent level 4 guide if we merged it in. They average about 3 edits a day, so I think we might have a chance of an agreed merger if we approached them. Any takers?

I realise by looking through Wikia's list of gaming wikis there's a lot of wikis to look at as regards merging, so we might also want to take a good look through it sometime and see if we can pick up the stragglers. --DrBob (talk) 14:30, 17 November 2007 (CST)
 * In regards to the Super Mario Wiki, go for it! I failed at offering mergers last time, so I probably won't do it (unless I really need to), but I do know quite a bit about Mario and friends, so if you need help with that sorta stuff, I'm on IRC fairly regularly :). As for the wikia wikis, I'd say go for those too. Of course, knowing Wikia, the "merger" would involve importing the content here, but leaving the content there as well (you might be able to get away with a text link to us on the sitenotice, but I know Wikia likes to try to keep everything there). However, if you can influence them that it's a good idea (more contributors, etc.), then go for it. -- 15:26, 17 November 2007 (CST)
 * I've already started using content from the Mythos Wiki but yeah a full "merger" would be nice. There's also http://www.mythoswiki.com but they aren't even licensed so I'll only be using that for raw data.  The Wikia Mythos wiki is funny because rather than gathering their own screenshots (only possible by using third party software) they have used ones from the Mythos site and just used brushes in photoshop to make them ugly xD -- 20:29, 17 November 2007 (CST)
 * I've just e-mailed one of the Supreme Commander Wiki admins, and I'll see if he replies sometime tonight. --DrBob (talk) 01:26, 20 November 2007 (CST)

members have concerns about scope of proposed Lunar Boom Town guide
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Lunar_Boom_Town/stragywiki.org Mirwin 01:13, 27 November 2007 (CST)

Back in a bit with specific members proposing deletion. Mirwin 01:13, 27 November 2007 (CST)


 * Mirwin, I like your style. The only way this game is going to be accepted is if the mods vote for it (since all of the reasons you gave as arguments of our scope don't seem truly valid, even if they are logical).  Is there a member list we can see?  I mean, you say you have a player base, but how can it be proven?  It looks like a guide would be useful, considering how confusing it is on that main page.  I don't even understand where to start ahahaha.  Good luck.  -- 05:16, 27 November 2007 (CST)


 * I can find no evidence that this game is a video game of any kind, be it PC, browser, flash, etc. If the game cannot meet even that single criteria, I would support the nomination of deletion unless Mirwin can prove otherwise by the end of the week. Procyon (Talk) 09:46, 27 November 2007 (CST)
 * Agreed with Procyon. --DrBob (talk) 11:22, 27 November 2007 (CST)
 * Agree with Procyon and DrBob. Also, try condensing your reasons to only a sentence or two each. Right now, after reading it over about 3 times, it seems like you're just dancing around each point in the scope instead of answering them directly (aka don't be a politician... I hate politicians for exactly that reason). Secondly, while we do somewhat support guides for games still under development (which is what yours sounds like), it is still a pretty unpopular point among us. Also, if you can make your guide actually look like a guide instead of a description of the game, it would be a big plus in my book. Also, speculative data is not considered, so saying "it should" or "by definition" really doesn't help you much. Just cold, hard, facts, mmk? -- 15:55, 27 November 2007 (CST)

Mass Effect spoilers
People need to be careful, there are some ENORMOUS plot spoilers appearing on various pages of the Mass Effect guide, such as the Characters section (wherein they should not exist). --LeftHandedGuitarist 15:09, 1 December 2007 (CST)
 * Be bold and


 * -- 15:24, 1 December 2007 (CST)
 * Skizzerz, the spoiler template isn't working here because you've indented it. If you remove the indentation, it works fine. :-) (Goodness knows why.) --DrBob (talk) 12:33, 2 December 2007 (CST)

Promising Guide of the Month
None of the guides there are in the positive. Please nominate some promising guides (strong team of writers or nearing completion) and vote on them. Votes on the Collaboration of the Month would also be helpful. -- Prod (Talk) 11:29, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * Guys, Gals, assorted hermaphrodites, we're going to need to have a new 'most promising' up soon - we're a week into January already and still no most promising on the main page. So, speak now and forever hold your peace, else either Drift City or Golden Sun: The Lost Age will be 'most promising guide of the month'.--Froglet 22:00, 6 January 2008 (CST)
 * This type of site activity requires a level of community participation. We've discussed it at the staff meeting, so I won't rehash the arguments about anonymous edits, but continuing to support anonymous edits takes away from the community aspect of the site that helps promote this type of activity.  Lately, site support as been more autonomous and individual, so I'm not surprised that guides haven't been voted on.  Hopefully some of the server improvements will see the return of more community based behavior.  Procyon (Talk) 08:57, 7 January 2008 (CST)
 * Golden Sun: The Lost Age is PGotM; Drift City is CotM. Someone please write up the pages for these as I do not have the time this week or next.  Next months CotM is Super Mario Galaxy, so that can be written up as well (PGotM isn't voted on enough yet). -- Prod (Talk) 10:15, 11 January 2008 (CST)

ABXY Forums
I've added a link to the abxy forums in the sidebar (replaced the donate link). Thoughts? -- Prod (Talk) 11:58, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * Seems OK, but can we get rid of the donate button that's randomly under the help link.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 12:23, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * The donate button is there to stay, however we can discuss a better layout. -- Prod (Talk) 12:35, 2 December 2007 (CST)

Oh and to note, if you do sign up for abxy, please use the same username and email address as when you signed up here. -- Prod (Talk) 12:35, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * Bit late for the username part, but I have the same email there, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? -- 14:51, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * I think you'll be okay. From what we've talked about over at abxy, it seems that matching emails will be enough--though it will make it a tad harder if you have different names. Then again, maybe not--I'm just a moderator, not a developer. But I'm getting my name changed to match this one, so if it's any real problem I am sure you could get your name changed too. -- towers  http://media.strategywiki.org/images/a/a8/Towers_trex.gif 15:59, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * I don't think we should link to abxy's forums at the moment. There's no StrategyWiki-specific forums there yet (so it's a bit confusing to link to somewhere seemingly unrelated), and having people create duplicate accounts just further complicates matters. Also note that the URL should be http://forums.strategywiki.org because, in the future, this address will be used so that cookies can be shared between the forum and the wiki. GarrettTalk 16:22, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * I agree with it not being the time yet, however the infrastructure is in place once we need it. I've also changed the url, however it might be a bit weird to have the whole abxy theme for a site supposedly under strategywiki. -- Prod (Talk) 18:08, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * Teddy is supposed to be making a skin for it (like how http://forums.dsmeet.com connects to abxy's forums using DSmeet's old skin). GarrettTalk 19:12, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * Cool! Will that cookie be able to carry over to http://abxy.org though (so that we can browse all three seamlessly)?  Or is that impossible? -- Prod (Talk) 19:31, 2 December 2007 (CST)
 * It will, yes. Otherwise doing this whole "awesome skin thing" would be pointless and irritating to people switching between them. -- towers  http://media.strategywiki.org/images/a/a8/Towers_trex.gif 11:59, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Main Page changes
The DPL stuff is killing the caching of the page and most likely causing some performance issues. It would be nice if we could add the Announcements page back to replace it. Another change that I've heard suggested was to replace the What is SW with something more dynamic and move that information off to About. The featured guide hasn't been updated in months, though we are (possibly) getting a new one soon. However, I don't expect it to change for another few months. Finally, the promising guide section looks good and keeps changing every month and I don't believe it needs to be changed. Any thoughts or suggestions? -- Prod (Talk) 01:50, 23 December 2007 (CST)
 * Agree with everything stated, except that it's Guide/About ;). As for VFG -- nominate and share your opinion on some :) -- 10:00, 23 December 2007 (CST)

Site news
You may have noticed the site go down Saturday afternoon, and then go really slow for the next few hours. The reason was that we upgraded from MediaWiki 1.9.3 to the latest stable build, 1.11. You can check the newest features from http://mediawiki.org (and there are quite a few). With the new upgrade, we have also been able to update all the extensions to the latest versionss. If there are any issues with pages not looking right, or strange behaviour, leave a message here and we'll try to fix the issue quickly. -- Prod (Talk) 01:59, 23 December 2007 (CST)

Requiring registration
As you can probably tell, anons now appear to be able to edit every page now, whereas before we required them to register before being able to edit with the exception of a few unlocked guides. Now, I'm bringing this up because I'm wondering whether we should go back to the way it was regarding registration or allow anons to edit as well. I'm actually for anons to be able to edit everything. Looking through the Recent Changes, it appears that anons that would've added tons of content may have been turned away by the requirement to edit. Of course, we'll get vandalism from the anons too, but we already got that through registered users. So, what do you all think? -- 10:08, 23 December 2007 (CST)
 * Seems great to me.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 10:17, 23 December 2007 (CST)
 * I know that we're going to get a ton more edits by allowing it, and probably more active users too. Luckily we can toggle anonymous edits quite easily.  -- 17:15, 24 December 2007 (CST)
 * Also, I suggest we preemptively block IP's that have a history of vandalism on Wikipedia, such as various public schools in the US. -- 17:27, 24 December 2007 (CST)
 * I'm against that. We should only block an IP when it actually does do something bad. Plus, how many of those vandals are going to come here anyway? -- 18:03, 24 December 2007 (CST)
 * +1 --DrBob (talk) 19:20, 24 December 2007 (CST)
 * So that's why I've been seeing IP addresses in recent changes. Sure, this all sounds good. Baejung92 12:32, 25 December 2007 (CST)
 * I am moved to weigh in on this discussion. I've been trying to stay out of it since I am generally not in favor of this idea, and I appear to be outvoted, so I didn't want to put a damper on the decision.  But I've been looking at the quality of our anonymous edits, and they appear to range anywhere from moderately obvious at best, to ridiculously immature at worst, and the immature contributions are far more common.  I'm against this for two reasons.  One is the obvious issue that sysops are going to have patrolling all of these edits, but if that is something that some of you are prepared to deal with, then so be it, because I don't relish the idea.  The other reason, however is with regards to a difference between SW and, say, WP.  While WP has a well established community, community is not really WP's primary goal.  It's not ours either, but it is a focus.  Allowing anonymous edits sort of provides a method for people to bypass the community aspect of our site (in addition to providing unaccountability).  Some of you may feel that the benefit of the additional edits outweighs the lack of growth to the community, but I would disagree.  Anyway, I'm not suggesting that we change the policy (yet), I just wanted to throw my thoughts out there as food for thought.  Procyon (Talk) 16:45, 25 December 2007 (CST)
 * While I do agree the quality of anonymous edits is not as good as those of our registered users, I do feel that giving them a taste of editing before we push them to create an account might be beneficial as well. Accountability-wise, I feel that anons actually have a tad more accountability than registered users, because they cannot evade bans as easily (of course, 99% of them don't realize that, which is where the vandalism issue comes in with anons). Patrolling-wise, I try to patrol edits as much as I can while I'm online, and I know a few other sysops are as well. Of course, this does divert attention from other necessary tasks as well... although I know of an extension that can automatically assign rights to users, so perhaps letting users at least x days old and with at least y edits become autopatrolled would help alleviate some of that load. As for the community aspect, I do agree with you on that, as having a good, solid community is the only way to collaborate on some tasks. Also, I've revised our EditSubpages extension (the thingy with MediaWiki:Unlockedpages) to work a bit better (still needs more work, though), and I can probably add a toggle to it that allows any sysop to enable/disable the extension (and thus enable/disable anonymous editing) with a simple edit of some MediaWiki page, so if we change our minds a few times, we don't need someone to go edit our LocalSettings.php a hundred times. -- 19:15, 25 December 2007 (CST)
 * This is not working. The quality of these anonymous users is degrading.  We've had our first major spammer, and I just undid some racist's idea of fun.  All that I am seeing is increasingly leading me to conclude that we need to go back to registration.  I don't see the value in allowing anonymous edits if the majority of what we get in return is crap.  This will definitely be on the agenda for the next staff meeting (Jan. 5th).  Procyon (Talk) 10:25, 29 December 2007 (CST)
 * Agreed, I've got the updated EditSubpages extension, so if whoever is able to install it would meet me on IRC, I'd appreciate that. -- 10:44, 29 December 2007 (CST)
 * I feel that we should disable anonymous editing; the bad really outweigh the good right now. -- 21:22, 7 January 2008 (CST)
 * There were two resolutions made at the staff meeting last weekend. One was that Prod and Skizzerz would like more time to implement some more anti-vandalism measures, and they would be given another month to improve the situation.  The other is that ness feels that the site performance has been detering better edits.  Now that the site has been given a nice shot in the arm, we can look to see if that is indeed the case and revisit the matter next month.  Procyon (Talk) 21:34, 7 January 2008 (CST)
 * The reason I haven't been editing or patrolling is because it takes (or did up until a minute ago) 5 minutes for SW to load a page. -- 22:22, 7 January 2008 (CST)

Hmm, the anonymous edits for Flash Flash Revolution/Tokens have been VERY productive... I agree that the only way we can have anonymous edits is to restrict/"secure" them with the various proposed CVN methods. I think the strangest cool thing I've seen come out of anonymous edits is anonymous signing their summaries with an alias - lawl. -- 01:41, 11 January 2008 (CST)

CVN
I've started a page here, so feel free to add suggestions and voice your opinions. Please allow some time for input before actually assigning and enacting the ideas though. -- 17:45, 8 January 2008 (CST)

New RfA
has been nominated for adminship. Please voice your opinion here. -- 18:58, 24 December 2007 (CST)

WikiNode
Hi, I've started the WikiNode here (looks like some other guy created it before which got deleted). Right now the only other wiki I made SW connect to is the Bulbapedia, since last I stirred up conversation around here it has an official partnership with SW. Currently the AliceSoft Wiki (which SW's Sengoku Rance guides outsources to) has its WikiNode points here, and I'd like to request permission/consensus of the SW community to add the AliceSoft Wiki to the SW WikiNode (WikiNodes don't have to be mutual, so it's up to you guys to decide what to link or not link to).

For examples, see:
 * Wikipedia's WikiNode
 * AliceSoft Wiki's WikiNode.

-Afker 01:28, 26 December 2007 (CST)


 * Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the general attitude towards partnerships and linking is that we only do it to information that is relevant, but outside the scope of SW. Instead, we (should) provide the same information; again, when possible and necessary.  -- 07:20, 6 January 2008 (CST)

Ad problems
I keep getting this message box:

"Adobe Flash Player 9

"A script in this movie is causing Adobe Flash Player 9 to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive.  Do you want to abort the script?"

If things get too annoying, it might cause me to choose to block ads on SW (I run ad-block, but I only selectively block ads). I'd suggest sending feedback to your advertisement provider and get rid of the offending ads. -Afker 02:14, 26 December 2007 (CST)
 * Do you know which ad is causing it? -- 10:21, 26 December 2007 (CST)
 * My guess would be one of the ones in the right side, since that's the fancy stuff. Oh, and since SW is on ads anyways, can we get more bandwidth?  Things load really slow around here, and I live in California... -Afker 19:39, 26 December 2007 (CST)
 * That's the only reason we have the ads. We're saving up for some better hardware to support the site.  Once we can sustain the levels of traffic we get with decent response time, we are hoping to get rid of the ads.  -- Prod (Talk) 02:18, 27 December 2007 (CST)

Next staff meeting
Hello everyone. The next staff meeting will be held in the usual place on January 5th, 2008, at 2pm EST/7pm GMT. As usual, please add anything that you like to the agenda below in advance of the meeting. Procyon (Talk) 10:36, 29 December 2007 (CST)
 * I added in a proposed third item. I know it's been a point in pretty much every other meeting, and not much ever gets decided in regards to the second sentence, but getting some new ideas in the mix may help. -- 12:13, 29 December 2007 (CST)
 * Sorry, I won't be able to be there- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 10:55, 2 January 2008 (CST)
 * Sorry I missed it. I didn't see the notice because I've been pretty inactive all of December and January so far - lack of contribution interest and SW loading so slow. -- 07:23, 6 January 2008 (CST)

Agenda

 * 1) Debate the continued allowance of anonymous edits (see section above).
 * 2) Recent caching failure, and efforts to restore it.
 * 3) Evaluate how the ads are performing. Discuss ways to increase revenue.

Infoboxes
Whats wrong?



What with the image part of the infobox? Lunar Knight (Talk to me + Contribs) 12:25, 5 January 2008 (CST)

3 Left Nav Bar additions
I was thinking that there are some very useful community areas that I don't think a lot of people see or know about. Sections such as: Requested guides, Promising Guide of the Month and Collaboration of the Month. I'm suggesting that we either 1) combine it with the current navigation, or 2) create a separate, smaller navbar section lower (beneath the donate button perhaps; a split similar to Wikipedia's). I rarely go to those pages simply because they are only linked to during community discussions, when there are no CotMs or PGotMs, and on the Community Portal. Since those are major areas of our community (especially requested guides), we should be advertising them more! -- 15:29, 11 January 2008 (CST)
 * The pages are rarely used, and don't really warrant addition to the sidebar. I can live with "Requested guides" but the other two do not belong there. -- Prod (Talk) 15:36, 11 January 2008 (CST)


 * Rarely used (for the reason that no one sees it), but extremely vital to our community. -- 16:08, 11 January 2008 (CST)
 * I think Requested guides should be there but I'm not sure about the others. But if we do put requested guides there, can we please edit the template at the bottom as many people are getting it wrong.-- The preceding signed comment was added by Rocky (talk • contribs). 16:57, 11 January 2008 (CST)
 * I just updated it. Well I think the other two should be there because its not just for sysops, especially 'cuz most of us deal with cleanup rather than content so we miss guides that others see a lot of...  Thus, not many guides have been voted upon (also probably because we don't have a lot of collaboration or massive guide improvement across many guides).  -- 19:35, 11 January 2008 (CST)


 * User:Notmyhandle's idea is excellent. Advantages include: existing members who have spare time will be drawn in; even better, some players who are googling for material about game X will be more likley to find StrategyWiki, and some will think "Hey, I can do that". Philcha 17:46, 12 January 2008 (CST)
 * I would be OK with adding a link to the requested guides page, but I think voting for CotMs and PGotMs should be something only more active members should do (as they've got the best idea of what's going on), and so I don't think the main menu is an appropriate place for the CotM and PGotM pages. --DrBob (talk) 18:46, 12 January 2008 (CST)


 * I always organize those three together as a group based on what their content looks like (requests/support/comments), and so perhaps we would like custom header nav that links to each of the three? I'm just trying to make it easier to find them first off (I have to search through random links in community portal and such, and often don't even remember them until the following month when we have a delayed CotM or PGotM when the link to the page appears...).  We need to utilize these better for our community - do we have them linked in the welcome message? -- 19:59, 12 January 2008 (CST)

More flexible guide structure needed
This arose out of a not particularly friendly exchange initiated by Ryan Schmidt (see User talk:Philcha and User talk:Ryan Schmidt). Ryan insists that articles about turn-based strategy games must be structured under 2 main headings, "Getting started" and "Walkthrough". He also jawboned someone else into re-assembling into 1 long page ( Master of Orion II/Getting Started) what I'd written as 3 sub-pages of "Getting started". This is simply not adequate for a complex TBS game like MOO II or Civilization III. And this is not just my opinion - I've edited bits of Total Annihilation and Starcraft, and the structure I found before I started was not just "Getting started" and "Walkthrough" (and I haven't changed it, only built on it).

My reasons for thinking a rigid framework of "Getting started" and "Walkthrough" is not enough for such complex games are:
 * Walkthrough" generally means mission / level "solutions", and using it in a wider sense will confuse new readers. It's quite unsuitable for games that do not have pre-defined missions / levels. It's even worse for games that have both pre-defined missions / levels and one-off skirmishes / standalone games (e.g. Total Annihilation and Starcraft), which need both mission / level "solutions" and a general strategy guide. In such cases the general strategy guide should come first, as it will explain points that are relevant to the mission / level "solutions", e.g. how to pump production so that you get the key units in time, or how to win battles with minimal losses (I hate limited-forces missions!).
 * "Getting started" can be a pretty complex topic, and Master of Orion II illustrates this in several ways:
 * The risk of malfunctions under Win 2000/XP/Vista is so high that the odds favour going straight to the MS-DOS version under DOSBox.
 * The MS-DOS version under DOSBox is the preferred option for multi-player, and makes it possible to use a patch and some mods developed by a very savvy group of enthusiasts.
 * Starting a single game requires a lot of decisions which the prospective player can't even understand with having an overview of the game's basic principles first. For example custom race design is very important in MOO II - and in more recent games such as Empire Earth. But that's incomprehensible unless you have a basic idea of how economies and research work in such games.
 * In a game as complex as this I think the main page should link to the "game overview" page so that potential players can look and see if they fancy the game enough to acquire and install the game and then learn all the principles.

So the sort of structure I think is needed is something like:
 * Main page (with link to "game overview" page if appropriate)
 * ToC
 * Getting started, possibly split into:
 * Downloading and installing
 * Game overview
 * Starting a game, possibly split into sub-pages:
 * Single-player
 * Multi-player
 * Strategy and tactics. Optional, as some games consist only of fixed levels / missions. May be split into many sub-pages, but the structure depends on the game. Common topics for TBS and RTS will include:
 * Race design
 * Initial build and research orders (which may partially depend on race design or choice - in Starcraft the 3 races differ some much that their build orders are very different - and critical if you're planning to rush.
 * Managing the economy
 * Rushing, raiding, porcing / turtling, etc.
 * Combat unit design, if the game has that option (MOO II has it in spades; so do a few other futuristic TBS games; and IIRC so do a few RTS games).
 * Knowing when to expand, when to keep making units at the current level and when to tech up.
 * Combat tactics - which will often have a lot of sub-pages.
 * Walkthroughs. Optional, as some games have no fixed levels / missions.
 * Solution to each specific level / mission. Philcha 17:41, 12 January 2008 (CST)
 * Let me first make it very clear that there is no way we can reorganise things to the extent that the "Walkthrough" page disappears completely; too much depends on it. However, I appreciate that the concept of a "walkthrough" doesn't necessarily map well to an RTS or TBS, and I've thought about this problem before. The best solution I've come up with for an RTS/TBS game which doesn't have predefined missions or levels is to have a short walkthrough page which explains how to start a game (whether it be a random scenario, or what) and gives directions for first establishing your team in the game, before linking to the various strategies you might need (i.e. linking to the "Strategy" page). This means that the "Getting Started" page shouldn't have much/any information on it about starting a game, and should just link to the "Walkthrough" page. If the game does have predefined missions, then the "Walkthrough" page should link to walkthroughs for them as you say. Other than that, I'm generally in agreement with what you say, and I'm hopeful that we can make this work and get some good guidelines for future guides put in place. --DrBob (talk) 18:23, 12 January 2008 (CST)
 * Just to clarify, I only was pushing for the "Beginning the game" subpage to be moved to "Getting Started", not every subpage under that heading. Both of the pages "Getting Started" and "Walkthrough" are integral parts of our navigation templates, although they certainly don't have to be well-developed, they just have to be there in some way/shape/form (even a redirect would be fine, really). Your format works well for your game, and if you wish to use it, go ahead as it still integrates the key pages that must be present (namely the Main Page, ToC, Getting Started, and Walkthrough; although a Controls page would be beneficial as well). I also agree that the structure of these types of games really need fleshing out, but I'm not being a horse's hind end on the entirety of the guide structure, just the very basic required components. Also, I edited out my siggy from your initial comment, please do not use it in your texts, but just a simple name or perhaps the user template. -- 20:12, 12 January 2008 (CST)
 * Indeed it was my choice to subpage the random content from the mainpage to Getting Started, and it looks like all of it applies (all basic concepts that don't relate to specific parts of the game, and since each section is so small and perhaps isolated from future subpages with a larger scope (i.e. units) it was in my best interests to promote slight redundancy. Considering the getting started page acts as both a ToC header and an actual page full of content, "game overview", "beginning", "installation", etc. all fit under that category.  -- 20:26, 12 January 2008 (CST)


 * Re length and internal structure of parts of Master of Orion II/Getting Started, we seem to have 2 votes for keeping it in 1 page ( Safety Skizzerz and Notmyhandle; and 2 for splitting it into sub-pages (the other one is Rocky, see  User talk:Philcha). I've already stated the reasons for my view, so I'll let that part of the debate run.
 * I'm seriously concerned about DrBob's comment that "there is no way we can reorganise things to the extent that the 'Walkthrough' page disappears completely; too much depends on it." The word "Walkthrough" has a specific meaning that is inappropriate and confusing for a game like MOO II. It looks like StrategyWiki has boxed itslef in with the way it has configured WikiMedia or the templates currently in use. I've done quite a lot of software development and in this situation the usual action is to fix the root problem and convert content / data where necessary, before the size of the problem gets larger. I don't have any previous experience with configuring WikiMedia, but I'd be willing to have a go if someone will provide the necessary info - config files and templates that are fundamental to StrategyWiki, how these lin together, and about 10 guides that I should use for testing on my own PC - I have plenty of spare disk space and can set up a test bed on my PC (I've developed in PHP, so that's a start).
 * As a short-term fix I'd suggest for games like MOO II a pro forma "Walkthrough" section that simply redirects to "Strategy and Tactics". Then there's probably a bot that can identify "Walkthrough" sections that only redirect (it might even be possible to use a standard link checker such as Xenu) and delete them after reconfiguration has removed the site's dependence on them.
 * PS I'm all in favour of standard layouts, provided they can support the full range of content. Philcha 04:51, 13 January 2008 (CST)