StrategyWiki:Staff lounge

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

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


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


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

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

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

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


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


 * Do you guys still want the parser functions installed? We're upgraded to MW 1.9--doesn't it support some kind of internal parsing?  ech elon  23:21, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * I'm not familar with the new features in 1.9, but Wikipedia is on 1.10 alpha and still has parser function installed. So I would conjecture that 1.9's new features still doesn't cover the features provided by parser functions. -Afker 00:27, 1 March 2007 (CST)

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


 * Bump. Pretty please? -Afker 01:49, 6 March 2007 (CST)
 * I wonder why this was overlooked, Ech is definitely someone to ask (as you did). --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 18:53, 12 March 2007 (CDT)

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


 * Oops, my bad, it's probably 1.9 because it wasn't like that before but I'd like to know why--Rocky
 * I've noticed this too. A clear break (-) at the very end will fix it at least for editing, but I don't know what effect that will have on other pages. GarrettTalk 15:21, 26 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yes. http://strategywiki.org/w/skins/BlueCloud/index.css needs to have "#toolbar { clear: both; }" added to it. --DrBob (Talk) 11:08, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * Just for the record, our live index.css file is actually located at http://66.225.234.224/w/skins/BlueCloud/index.css since it's a static file and thttpd handles static files much better than Apache can. The other copy on strategywiki.org is just a dead CSS file.--Dan 08:02, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Initially after the upgrade we were using the non-thttpd copy by mistake. We'll switch to thttpd now for all skin files and uploads. I would like to see it have an alternate URL such as 'media.strategywiki.org', though since it'd be much more professional.  ech elon  09:28, 2 March 2007 (CST)

Policy Question
Is it against policy/rules to post a link on your userpage to something beneficial to you; i.e. a game like outwars, or your own personal website? --Notmyhandle 19:53, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * If we're following wikipedia policy, as long as you don't break any laws, do whatever you want in your userspace. -- Prod (Talk) 19:56, 1 March 2007 (CST)
 * Yeah, I've been encouraging Snesmaster not to advertise his websites everywhere but his userpage, where I told him that was encouraged. So have at it.  Procyon 20:24, 1 March 2007 (CST)

Boxart Question
I was wondering, what is the general concensus on boxart images here? I've seen some of the boxart, such as that for Final Fantasy XII, and the image... looks a little weird (which I commented on the pages talk page), and at some point or other I'm going to upload a better image for it, but what about PAL covers? Do you include those too, as there is a large portion of PAL gamers and games out here, and some of the PAL covers are more aesthetically pleasing than some of the NTSC or Japanese covers. It's a minor point, but I've discovered from my time at Wikipedia that edit wars have started over less :-P


 * See Hyper Street Fighter II and Namco Museum Battle Collection for examples on how to handle that. Procyon 08:09, 2 March 2007 (CST)


 * I have FFXII that I lent to soemone, I may be able to get a better shot of it when I get it back, although I'd like to see the PAL art. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:41, 2 March 2007 (CST)


 * Why not have animated .GIF files for the boxart that rotate through the different versions? I agree that (in the case of Final Fantasy games especially) alternative PAL artwork often looks much better.LeftHandedGuitarist 12:38, 2 March 2007 (CST)


 * Absolutely not. Animated GIFs should be used sparingly, and only for sprites, or complicated maneuvers that aren't easily explained.  Any of the box arts can be featured as the "primary" art in the infobox.  The remaining images should be included in a gallery on the front page.  Procyon 13:37, 2 March 2007 (CST)


 * I agree with Procyon. Animated GIFs are just a bit over the top for something that mundane.  A gallery is a little more clean and presentable.-- Duke  Ruckley  15:04, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * I think the game with the most boxarts currently is Capcom vs. SNK 2. --Notmyhandle 18:54, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Er... have you looked at Pac-Man??? ^_^;  Procyon 19:27, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * O_O I'm speechless... Wow. --Notmyhandle 19:33, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Golden Axe seems to be catching up! -- Prod (Talk) 23:18, 2 March 2007 (CST)
 * Hey, that's not fair :( I didn't include all of the compilation games that Pac-Man was included in on his page (like all of the Namco museums).  If I did, it would get ridiculous. Procyon 09:28, 3 March 2007 (CST)


 * Anyways, the PAL boxart pretty much boils down to this, 'cept it has the usual 'playstation 2' and stuff on it. I think it looks a lot cooler, and is in line with most of the other Final Fantasy title covers, it keeps a bit of a consistancy in the series, but that's just my opinion.--Froglet 03:17, 3 March 2007 (CST)

Userbox
I've got a way to make our userboxes into Wikipedia style see here, can someone with a little more experience help me put this into a template please--Rocky   ( Talk Contributions ) 08:26, 4 March 2007 (CST)
 * Sure thing, how does Template:Userbox sound?; by the way, don't be so impatient - most of us are in different time zones, we don't get paid for this and we are busy with other stuff all the time so just wait for a response next time (like you messaging Proc). --Notmyhandle 16:50, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * Hey will you look at that, it already exists! --Notmyhandle 16:50, 5 March 2007 (CST)
 * Check out Wpuserbox. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 17:15, 5 March 2007 (CST)

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as impatient but thanks anyway--Rocky   ( Talk Contributions ) 00:53, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Expansion Games, addons, not separate
For games like Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, the game is simply modified; much like WoW and the Burning Crusade and Everquest with all of its expansions (I think).

The game is however, isolated from its expansion pack, so LoD players can play with D2 players on Bnet. The problem though is redundancy, since Diablo II/Act I will be the same for Diablo II: Lord of Destruction with minor changes related to the various advantages included in LoD. So, should the Diablo II/Act I page be modified to include the expansion pack like Garrett did with that one game with the Raven... Gothic II? Or should two separate pages exist? --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 22:51, 7 March 2007 (CST)
 * Diablo II/Act 1 should be modified to include LoD stuff, and then the appropriate LoD page should be redirected to it (or linked in some other way — perhaps through transclusion). --DrBob (Talk) 01:21, 8 March 2007 (CST)
 * The method I used for Gothic II: Night of the Raven would be the easiest; transclusion allows All Game Nav to still link to the expansion itself (with the parent method, all pages but the first instead link back to the original game), but the problem is you have to create transcluded versions of every page. Using sidebars like I did for Gothic II/Chapter 1: The Menace could work well, depending on how much new content is to be covered on the page (Gothic II has a lot, so it gets a bit messy). The advantage of using an image header rather than text is it's immediately identifiable and you don't have to keep putting "LoD changes" or whatever in the sidebar. GarrettTalk 01:40, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Something funky going on here...
Have a look at Move Lists/Capcom/CVS2. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but what I see is at some point, in the middle of M.Bison's move list, the templates just seem to stop working. If I take one of the characters whose list occurs below M.Bison's, and move them up above Ken's, it appears fine, and Kyosuke's move list messes up instead. It's making me think that there's some hard-limit on template usage per page. Is that the case? Will that page need to be broken up in order to appear properly? Or is there some other way to fix the cause of this problem? Thanks everyone. Procyon 12:21, 13 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Check the source, it says "WARNING: template omitted, pre-expand include size too large". -- Prod (Talk) 12:48, 13 March 2007 (CDT)
 * I think the answer is to transclude the documentation for cade from a sub-page of the template, so that the size of cade is kept down. That's what MediaWiki's complaining about. --DrBob (Talk) 13:07, 13 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Seems to be fixed now. -- Prod (Talk) 13:34, 13 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Wow, awesome job guys, thanks so much. Procyon 14:10, 13 March 2007 (CDT)
 * I suppose this could potentially be a problem on all of Blendmaster's templates where he laid out examples for users, although the likelihood that any page will exhibit the same problem as CvS2 is extraordinarily small. I just wanted to bring up the possibility, but I suppose it's best to deal with it on a case by case basis.  Procyon 14:13, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

PAL vs. NTSC
Okey dokey, I wanted to start the guide for a game called Another Code: Two Memories, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and found that in America it's called Trace Memory - which do we go with? Personally I think that Another Code sounds better, but I'm horrifically biased because I've got the European copy of the game. Another mind-bending consideration is that the European title is the literal translation of the Japanese, and I see that there's a discussion about this issue on wikipedia. -Froglet 04:14, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Okay, I've just started the page, see what I'm doing here (I'm sure somebody out there will be happy that I even added redirects, boxart and categories, I really am getting better at this :-P)--Froglet 07:26, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Nice job Froglet. Yeah, it really doesn't matter too much which name the guide is presented under, as long as the redirects exist, and that the redirects are given the proper categories as well so that players who are looking up all of the DS games that we have guides for, can find the title that they know the game by.  Which title actually hosts the guide isn't as important as users being able to find it.  Procyon 09:13, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

I agree with Procyon that it doesn't really matter all that much, but unfortunately (as you can see with the Wikipedia article), other people do care. There will probably be a case in the future where this becomes a problem, and I feel that it might be a good idea to set up some sort of policy now. I'm of the view that a game should be called by whatever the more common name is, when there is a dispute. In the case of Dark Cloud 2 from the wikipedia article, it is currently called Dark Cloud 2 because it is more commonly known as that between English speaking users (Americans and Europeans). I'd be interested in hearing others' thoughts on this, as it is actually a very important policy that we should set up before it becomes a rather large problem. As for Another Code: Two Memories... You've done a great job with it, so I don't think there should be any problems at least for a while.-- Duke Ruckley  09:21, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
 * The official (unwritten?) policy is to name by official name of the game (bad grammar and all). If there is more than one official name, the most commonly known name is to be used (google war?).  With games where those are almost equal, flip a coin! (I don't think it really matters, as long as the redirect has categories).  -- Prod (Talk) 09:49, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
 * And I'd rather not see SW sink to that level of bureaucracy if it can be avoided. I think it comes down to who ever is motivated to start the guide first.  If a European wants to start a guide for a game whose name happens to be different in America, then so be it.  As long as the categorized redirects are in place, all we're talking about is a bunch of letters that go in front of a backslash.  I think it becomes more important to wikipedians because there is generally only one page per entry, so people have a greater stake in the name that gets chosen as the most prominent. Procyon 09:59, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Agreed with Procyon. Unless one name is much more commonly used (globally) than the other, the one which is used should be the one chosen by the original guide author. --DrBob (Talk) 10:54, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Fair enough. Keep in mind though, that as StrategyWiki gets larger and larger, we'll be forced to become more and more bureaucratic unless we make these discussions policy.  If it becomes policy that the original author chooses which name to use, then it'll be easier to work out any problems that arise down the road.-- Duke  Ruckley  15:07, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
 * I put what I got was the consensus of this discussion into the naming policy. Please revise it if it is incorrect or in need of revision. --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 20:18, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

Monobook Problems
I just looked at the site in Monoboox and there is something really wrong with the bar on the side of Lunar Knight's and My user pages, it can be fixed on bluecloud with one  but monobook needs two, why does this happen? Feel free to take a look because I haven't fixed it yet.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 05:04, 2 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Just a guess, but it might be because of the different layout in monobook (btw, is my page messed up too, because I use the same sidebar that you do). --Ryan SchmidtTalk - Contribs 18:03, 2 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, I tried to fix it and failed dismally, sorry. Just to note, this only happens after you've refreshed the cache.--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 10:09, 7 April 2007 (CDT)

List of Towns
I've got a slight question about a guide I'm doing - Port Royale 2. I've got a map of all the towns and would like to imagemap it so you can select each town, the problem is that there are 60 towns and I'm on the verge, 60 articles is a a bit excessive but they would have a lot of information in, what do you guys think, should I create 60 articles or just leave out the towns?--Rocky http://media.strategywiki.org/images/thumb/7/78/Rally-X_Rock.png/25px-Rally-X_Rock.png (Talk - Contributions) 15:46, 8 April 2007 (CDT)
 * If it's possible to group a few towns on the same page (based on unlocking/visiting order, or just regions), that might be a better. If you can reduce the amount of information to just what is necessary for the guide, then do that.  If adding the towns helps the player get through the game in any way, then definately add it, irrespective of size. -- Prod (Talk) 16:12, 8 April 2007 (CDT)
 * If there are towns that are identical in features and only differ in name you could cover them together. Mount&Blade has about 20 towns, but there are only about five town layouts which are then recycled between them. GarrettTalk 16:15, 8 April 2007 (CDT)
 * 60 towns sounds like they aren't very detailed, you could just put them all on one page. If they are as diverse as say, Ironforge of World of Warcraft (note that SW doesn't have info on it yet) well then you're going to have 60 sub pages... --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 21:04, 8 April 2007 (CDT)