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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the main talk page.

← December 2006 | January 2007 | February 2007 →

Marking games as Windows NT games is inaccurate

I think games should be labeled as Windows games rather than Windows NT games. From my understanding, Windows NT is a kernel used in the recent releases of Windows (Windows XP, Windows 2003, etc.), while Windows is the operating system itself. Marking games as Windows NT games would be saying that the game that runs on the *kernel* (and virtually no game in existence runs on a kernel.)--Dan 20:06, 2 January 2007 (CST)

I think it's supposed to mean that they are incompatible with windows 9x. -- Prod (Talk) 22:46, 2 January 2007 (CST)
Windows NT is the name of a series of Windows releases based on the NT kernel. Although games do not really depend on the kernel, the NT series changed a few things around (like dropping DOS), which does affect which games can run on it. As Prod says, marking games as purely running on "Windows" would mean that we're saying the oldest Windows games (such as the original Worms) can run on Windows Vista, which they can't. --DrBob (Talk) 06:18, 3 January 2007 (CST)
Well, I got Warcraft Orcs & Humans to work on XP and Vista is supposed to be backwards compatible... I've also played Commander Keen & King's Quest 1 on XP. --Notmyhandle 16:50, 3 January 2007 (CST)
Most games seem to work on newer systems. They aren't totally supported, but XP comes with a compatibility mode to run as 95, 98/ME, NT 4.0, or 2000. I'm sure Vista has something similar, since it's supposed to be a complete rewrite of the code, ie. breaks compatibliilty. It works more as a minimum system requirements I guess, since we include the earliest version that supported it. -- Prod (Talk) 17:01, 3 January 2007 (CST)
Windows Vista, regardless of what you hear, is *still* using the Windows NT kernel [1], so it appears that the real issue here would be renaming the "Windows 9x" category into something broad enough to cover Windows ME and 3.1.--Dan 22:08, 3 January 2007 (CST)
Nope. Windows ME is on the 9x kernel, so fits into that category, and then we already have a category for 3.1. --DrBob (Talk) 02:01, 4 January 2007 (CST)
The reason for the Vista cat is that some upcoming Games for Windows titles (such as Halo 2) won't work on XP. GarrettTalk 14:41, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Better outlining that a talk page doesn't exist

On Wikipedia, pages whose discussion pages don't contain any content are colored red, while talk pages who do contain content are formatted with the regular linking style. I think our design should adapt to this by possibly tinting the discussion box pink. Opinions?--Dan 22:22, 3 January 2007 (CST)

something, anything! this has been bugging me for awhile. Not sure if pink would work well with the site color scheme but something definitely needs to be done. --Argash 23:43, 3 January 2007 (CST)
There is a new skin under development. I'm not sure how complete it is, but I guess a suggestions page would be useful right about now. Please post complaints with the current skin, suggestions for the new skins, and anything relevant there. -- Prod (Talk) 23:55, 3 January 2007 (CST)

Categorization

Just so it doesn't get missed I wanted to link to this discussion so I can get some feedback. --Argash 01:04, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Moving images to a dedicated httpd

Echelon and I have had this idea for a while now, and I think it's time that it's put to action. StrategyWiki, at the moment, runs shared on a single Apache server. dsmeet.com and abxy.org are also served on the same server, alongside strategywiki.org. But the bottleneck isn't in the other sites. The undeniable truth is images take up almost over 50% of our bandwidth, all of which belong to StrategyWiki. Today, I plan to move all of the images onto a dedicated httpd with a reputation for serving files with a low memory footprint and low CPU usage.[2] This should, almost certainly, speed up downloads of StrategyWiki images and StrategyWiki page load times as a whole. So, if you encounter any image problems while editing, it is just me installing thttpd.--Dan 11:43, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Additions to Infoboxes

For games that revolve around a website, or have a large connection between the game and website (such as WoW), I think that the infobox should have a section added to it that says Website, and then a website can be specified so that people have quick access to it (currently most links reside within the external links section, which new viewers might not see or know about). If it happens, the infobox should have the parameter |url= to save space.--Notmyhandle 20:00, 6 January 2007 (CST)

Sounds good. If you do this, make sure you make the parameter optional. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 02:37, 7 January 2007 (CST)
I added the url section (shows as Game Website on the infobox); although I would really like to modify it somehow (I don't know how) to make it so we can truncate the url to remove the http or simply use our own text. For example the url might be really long or it might be something completely unrelated from the game; in these cases we should be able to change it to something that reflects the game/website accurately. For now though, perhaps we can add a separate parameter (|url trunc= ??) and take that data, run it to the url element so that we can put it in a url tag (<a href="{{{url}}}">{{{url trunc}}}</a> ???) If 1)someone knows this would work and 2)we decide that we should do it (I think we should) then please do this and report that it's been done.--Notmyhandle 02:57, 7 January 2007 (CST)
I've made the link an external link (using single square brackets: '[url]'). If you want, you can add a parameter for the name to display for the link, and put it into the square brackets, with a space separating it and the URL (see Wikipedia). --DrBob (Talk) 05:44, 7 January 2007 (CST)
I added the parameter "url text," which will change the link into whatever is specified. It would work much better if we could have a script that set the link to simply the url IF url text is not specified. Right now if you use url, url text is mandatory otherwise the link looks like: {{{url text}}}. --Notmyhandle 18:08, 7 January 2007 (CST)
I think that gets a bit to complicated. Leave it like the preceded/follow by section. If they want it to be a hyperlink, let them make it a link. It can still follow all the regular url rules, without requiring figuring out some special cases. I also changed the text to Website, since we know it's a game already. -- Prod (Talk) 19:21, 7 January 2007 (CST)
I cannot thank you enough. Such a simple solution. Mmm I'm salivating. --Notmyhandle 19:40, 7 January 2007 (CST)
Heh, no problem. However, I realized that {{Infobox}}, {{Header Nav}}, {{Footer Nav}}, and {{Continue Nav}} are the major templates used on LOTS of pages (job queue got huge after changing anything in these templates). They seem to have gotten fairly stable, so I'm suggesting that we protect them. -- Prod (Talk) 19:54, 7 January 2007 (CST)
Quite a sensible conclusion Prod. I must say that my intentions were quite similar to what you have proposed. Perhaps this community issue page is important after all. --Notmyhandle 20:00, 7 January 2007 (CST)
Umm... I actually found that last comment to be a bit insulting. Procyon 20:15, 7 January 2007 (CST)
I apologize, it was. I'm glad it could be identified though. Don't take me seriously Prod, you do good work 'round the interweb. --Notmyhandle 20:29, 7 January 2007 (CST)
I think I missed the insult...but then again, I'm half asleep. I only take people who take me seriously seriously, so I can't seriously take you seriously. Anywayz, thanks for taking care of the rest of the url stuff, forgot about those. -- Prod (Talk) 23:18, 7 January 2007 (CST)

Archives layout @ the top of this page

Why are they limited to such a small space within that table? Why not have them spread across the entire width of it? Why is there a <br/> tag at all? Doesn't it auto fit content into the table? --Notmyhandle 00:27, 8 January 2007 (CST)

Er, what? Why is what limited to such a small space? What table? You're not making any sense. --DrBob (Talk) 04:32, 8 January 2007 (CST)
Ummm, Its not just you DrBob....I don't get what he's saying either... WillSWC 06:26, 8 January 2007 (CST)
I'm guessing you're talking about the archives box at the top right of this page. It doesn't autofit as the size isn't set. I personally don't like the pages where they spread it out across the top. It just gets in the way of using that top area of the page. -- Prod (Talk) 09:53, 8 January 2007 (CST)
I fixed it so that you could see which tag he was talking about. This is such a small issue, and for the sake of brevity, I'll continue the discussion on Notmyhandle's talk page. Procyon 10:05, 8 January 2007 (CST)
Whoever changed how it looks now, me likes. Twas a suggestion in the first place. --Notmyhandle 18:17, 8 January 2007 (CST)

Headline Spacing

Well, I'm sorry for all these small issue things but small =big, the headlines (all tiers) are by default for all wiki's created with a space in mind (between the equal signs and the text; for example == Example== like that). But think about it, by removing the spaces thats like 2+ bytes saved per page (which would be like several megabytes at this stage). Could someone change the templates or whatever to make it so the spaces aren't there? Even if no one cares or doesn't want to remove the spaces, can someone just tell me why they are there? I always remove them manually anyways, also, if people don't like issues like these, is there somewhere else I can post them? --Notmyhandle 18:49, 8 January 2007 (CST)

Just to note, whenever a page is saved, it re-saves the whole text, not just a diff, so saving the 2+ bytes takes up a lot more. I also think this may be in the software itself (it's definitely not a template) so you should discuss that on www.mediawiki.org. They are also there to separate the words I think (try holding and presssing left and right arrows in the edit box). The '=' gets counted as part of the word without the space. -- Prod (Talk) 19:35, 8 January 2007 (CST)
Prod, are you sure about that (re-saving the whole text, not just the diff)? I was under a vastly different impression, and now I'm not sure who's right. Procyon 19:47, 8 January 2007 (CST)
It's off to mediawiki we go! --Notmyhandle 20:11, 8 January 2007 (CST)
This is where I read it, though I guess it isn't the best source. However, I've used Special:Export a few times and it stores complete histories as well. From [[3]] it seems that they gzip each revision and store it separately. -- Prod (Talk) 20:39, 8 January 2007 (CST)

Compressing Pictures

So Prod mentioned to Procyon and I about a program, WP:Pngcrush, to help compress PNG's. As I was browsing one of the image categories, I noticed that some of the file sizes were large (big pictures) for png's; so I ran a quick test on Image:Css sg-552.png by using index mode rather than RGB, and it cut the size down by about 11kb (65kb). Then I tried a normal RGB version, compressed as a JPEG (worst quality), came out as 37kb, although comparitively worse (not bad as a thumbnail though). The final test was the use of PNGCrush; reducing the file from 65kb (66,437 bytes) to 60kb (60,903 bytes). Anyways, as you can see, there's a possibility of freeing up a lot of space if people want to waste the time.

Opinions, good/bad thing to do? --Notmyhandle 22:50, 10 January 2007 (CST)

By the way, since I have the compressed file (it looks identical to the current version) of that sg-552, should I upload it? --Notmyhandle 22:54, 10 January 2007 (CST)

Just leave them. If we ever get short of space, we can run a shell script on the server to automatically pngcrush all PNG uploads. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 00:18, 11 January 2007 (CST)
Now that's a cool tool. --Notmyhandle 01:32, 11 January 2007 (CST)
Thanks for taking the time to test all of that and report your findings Notmyhandle. Procyon 09:09, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Tournament

Forklet has started up a ladder (rules). Are we going to support this? -- Prod (Talk) 10:39, 13 January 2007 (CST)

Hmm... I'd probably say no. How does it benefit the guide? --Antaios 10:41, 13 January 2007 (CST)
What exactly are those rules for? I don't see how it's relevant to anything. I wouldn't support it. 0-172 16:47, 13 January 2007 (CST)
Yeah, I say we delete them. They're more personal and not beneficial to the guide in any way. --Antaios 11:21, 13 January 2007 (CST)
I took care of it and recommended that they move the tournament to the gamefaqs message board for that game. This is definitely something we don't want to encourage. Procyon 12:17, 13 January 2007 (CST)
0-172, I wanted them to see the message I left for them. Procyon 12:20, 13 January 2007 (CST)
Oy... forget it. :P Procyon 12:21, 13 January 2007 (CST)
Why don't you leave the message on their talk pages? Or I could just restore one of the pages? 0-172 18:21, 13 January 2007 (CST)
Done. I left the message on Folket's talk page. 0-172 18:27, 13 January 2007 (CST)

Wi-Fi

This is just an idea, how about creating a category for DS games with Wi-Fi connection? 0-172 17:01, 13 January 2007 (CST)

Sounds good to me. I guess we could class them under Category:Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection or Category:Nintendo Wi-Fi compatible. -- Prod (Talk) 11:10, 13 January 2007 (CST)
I wanted to try to do something similar for Game Boy games that support the Super Game Boy... (just a random thought) Procyon 12:18, 13 January 2007 (CST)
What exactly is Super Game Boy? 0-172 18:28, 13 January 2007 (CST)
It's an SNES cartridge that lets you plug gameboy games into it (play them on your tv). Don't they all work on the SGB? Or are you referring to the few that have added functionality when played on the SGB? Personally, I don't think it's that important, since all you get is a bit more colors and stuff like that and that info can be put on each page by itself. However, to completely cover all info, it may be beneficial. -- Prod (Talk) 12:36, 13 January 2007 (CST)
Of a similar topic, how about creating a category for Xbox Live compatible games as well? 0-172 2:30, 14 January 2007 (CST)
We've already got Category:Xbox Live Arcade. --DrBob (Talk) 01:23, 14 January 2007 (CST)
Sounds good to me. --DrBob (Talk) 01:23, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Game specific Image Category

So I had an idea, and I started to go off on it as I usually do, but I stopped myself because of course consensus is a better idea.

I think that there should be an image category just to hold the categories of game specific images, such as Category:Age of Empires images; and that this category should be Category:Game images (which is under Category:Images).

Isn't this better than allowing the Image category to be filled with an innumerable amount of categories? Since, in general, every game should have one of these categories. We should begin our categorization of such a large amount of listing before it gets very large. With this cat, more would probably stem off it, perhaps by genre, or whatever. But as a first step, who votes yes and who no? --Notmyhandle 05:01, 14 January 2007 (CST)

I support this (I intended to do it myself sometime), but I feel I should point out that it's a bit off to put up a poll about something, yet start it anyway before anyone's replied. --DrBob (Talk) 05:31, 14 January 2007 (CST)
You're lucky I didn't do it first completely before starting the poll xD. --Notmyhandle 06:16, 14 January 2007 (CST)
I think DrBob's point is well taken. Your actions are, at the same time, beneficial to the site and detrimental to being considered part of the team. It's not a major issue, it's just something that you might want to think about in the future. Procyon 07:09, 14 January 2007 (CST)
I have no opinion on this one way or the other. I don't see how anyone would bother going through the image categories browsing for something, it's much easier to go to the game and then get the category that way. However, I am always up for categorization, so it's ok with me. And if you did change them all, by bot could easily change it all back very quickly ;). As for moving everything to the new cat, I can take care of that (if consensus is reached). -- Prod (Talk) 11:05, 14 January 2007 (CST)
So 3 for support. Proc's vote is necessary, anyone else (Echelon & Dan?) would be nice too. When can we say consensus has been reached? And Proc, yes I know I tend to act before thinking; I'm just glad I stopped myself this time more than usual. --Notmyhandle 15:41, 14 January 2007 (CST)
I support as well. This sounds like a good idea to me, because there are all of these image categories out there, and it makes sense to create a central category for them all. It would certainly make finding an image a little easier and far more convenient. 0-172 22:55, 14 January 2007 (CST)
lol, why is my vote necessary? ^_^ I don't have an opinion about this either way. If DrBob thinks it's a good idea, than I'm confident that it's a good idea. Procyon 22:37, 14 January 2007 (CST)
I support this as well, since there won't be (as much) clutter on the image category. --Antaios 23:01, 14 January 2007 (CST)

I guess that makes concensus :P. I'll take care of moving them over tomorrow. -- Prod (Talk) 23:36, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Maybe I'll beat you to it xD --Notmyhandle 01:00, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Footer Nav - 1 minor change and 1 customization addition

Well, I'd like to point out two things. First of all, the "[go to top]" link in the footer nav doesn't have a capitalized "Go," which it should so it conforms to the rest of the template. Second of all, that same link should be optional, since some pages are short, like that of Chrono Trigger/Getting Started; yet they still need a continuation template to direct people. Can someone do this or am I wrong that these should be changed? --Notmyhandle 20:18, 15 January 2007 (CST)

The capitalizing "Go" sounds good to me, so I changed that. About making it optional, I don't think it's that important. And who knows...someone might be browsing at 640x480 (or 320x240 :P) and find it useful. -- Prod (Talk) 22:39, 15 January 2007 (CST)
Ah yes... StrategyWiki on the Wii ^_^ Procyon 22:53, 15 January 2007 (CST)
Sorry OT but, Web on the Wii is awesome! Me and my bro browse youtube on it :D. -- Prod (Talk) 22:56, 15 January 2007 (CST)

Upload File changes

So its not really "upload file" is it, but really upload image? Is there some future goal in mind or is this an error? Because shouldn't the title be changed, as well as on the page's first sentence where it says, "Use the form below to upload files" ?? --Notmyhandle 18:57, 26 January 2007 (CST)

MediaWiki is configured like this by default, and we do actually support uploading of files other than images. For example, my page on Counter-Strike: Source/Maps/de_inferno has panoramic screenshots uploaded (at the bottom). --DrBob (Talk) 06:49, 27 January 2007 (CST)
Very cool, can you add that information to the StrategyWiki guide? --Notmyhandle 14:49, 27 January 2007 (CST)
What information exactly? The method for making panoramic screenshots will vary from game to game, and uploading them is just the same as uploading an image. --DrBob (Talk) 14:55, 27 January 2007 (CST)
Under user priveledges section I talked a little about the uploading of images, just like, correct or make changes that reflect the slightly broader inclusion of such files. --Notmyhandle 15:53, 27 January 2007 (CST)
I'm afraid I don't have time to do that, but feel free to do it yourself. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 16:26, 27 January 2007 (CST)

MediaWiki:Tagline

You may have noticed by now that a tagline has been appended to the beginning of every page on StrategyWiki. Currently, it reads "From Strategywiki, the collaborative source for game walkthroughs". IMO, this is too long and bulky for what we need: a concise and straight to the-point tagline that includes the word walkthrough (for SEO purposes.) If you have a suggestion for a decent tagline, append it to this thread and it'll be considered by the sysops.--Dan 21:06, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Maybe it isn't so bad.Dan 21:17, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Special:Import not working

XML importing doesn't work. It goes to a "cannot find server" page in both IE and Firefox, whereas before any errors were explained on the page itself. I assume this has something to do with the new image server. GarrettTalk 20:57, 30 January 2007 (CST)

What's the file size you are trying to import? It seems to have trouble with anything over 1 meg. -- Prod (Talk) 21:32, 30 January 2007 (CST)
Ah. It's 1.26 MB, but, still, I've imported things around this size fine in the past. I'll try using the cutoff I read about. GarrettTalk 22:02, 30 January 2007 (CST)

I'm trying to import two XML pages from WP, but haven't been able to, most likely this is the reason, hmmm... -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 22:52, 30 January 2007 (CST)

Which page? -- Prod (Talk) 22:57, 30 January 2007 (CST)
Both have been deleted I believe, one is a list of items common in the zelda series, the other is... I can't remember right now. But they both have large histories. I can send you the xml and you can give it a shot if you like, just use the e-mail me function and I'll e-mail you back with the files. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 12:37, 31 January 2007 (CST)
They are now at Weapons and items from The Legend of Zelda series and Dead Rising/Weapons. Not sure what to do with the first one, so I left it with the same name. I did it by splitting each export file into a few pieces, revision by revision, and uploaded them. Seems the limit is 0.5 MB. -- Prod (Talk) 15:15, 31 January 2007 (CST)
You're dead on, the limit was 500KB. I've bump the cap up to 1.5 MB, so that should allow you to do the transfers you need sufficiently.
Awesome, thank you very much. Just needed to save it from afd. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 01:41, 1 February 2007 (CST)

Forbidden SW

Every time I try to get to SW by typing in http://www.strategywiki.org into the address bar, it comes up with an error. "Forbidden". I have to type in the full address, http://www.strategywiki.org/wiki/Main_Page to pull up the homepage. Is there a way we can just redirect sw.org to sw.org/wiki/... etc.?--DukeRuckley 12:49, 31 January 2007 (CST)

It used to be that way, but I think Dan broke something... Refer to #Messed up Skins. -- Prod (Talk) 13:36, 31 January 2007 (CST)
Rewrite rules were going to .net instead of .org. Dan has a fixation on .net for some reason. Consider this fixed. --PowerMatt 15:58, 31 January 2007 (CST)
Ah, I see. Thanks.--DukeRuckley 17:56, 31 January 2007 (CST)
I really need to apologize for what happened the night before yesterday. SCP screwed up and overwrote the StrategyWiki skin file with squat, so I had to restore a copy from the backups we did in December of 2006.--Dan 18:26, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Thoughts on Google Adsense?

Abxy.org, the source of this server's funding, has unfortunately come into a bit of a dry spell. I'm not sure why, and we're still trying to diagnose this, but traffic has fallen enough to the point we're not getting as many new visitors, and this leads to us not getting as much money from adsense as we're used to. We're working on refining the website completely, but this is going to be a slow process. Nicholas Weinberg, one of the people who moderates at Abxy and gives SEO and advertising advice, has suggested that we could earn a good deal of income through a small (probably one) unit of adsense on StrategyWiki, more than enough to pay for the server and bandwidth, and perhaps enabling us to go colocated.

I know this is a very unpopular topic at Wikipedia, and any mention of ads draws an entire contingent of boos and hissing, but there's no way that a niche wiki such as ours can be driven with their model; can we really expect to get over $100 a month in donations every single month? And what about when traffic grows?
I firmly expected Abxy to provide 100% of the coverage for StrategyWiki, and my belief is that one day it will, but development of that site and service is going to take more time than I had previously expected, especially with all of us developers currently enrolled as full-time students. (I'm taking 21 hours at two different colleges, plus I'm also teaching.)

GameFAQs and Wikia both provide similar services to StrategyWiki (in two different ways), and they are both ad-supported. While I believe GameFAQs is over the top in terms of both licensing and advertising, I think Wikia has a fair enough model. What do you guys think of this? echelon 20:57, 21 January 2007 (CST)

As much as I know this will turn certain people off, I am in support of the idea. If it comes down to seeing ads on StrategyWiki, or seeing SW disappear, I vote for the ads. I've lived with them on gamefaqs.com long enough, and I don't want to see all my, and everyone else's, hard work go down the drain. I say bring them on, and let's continue to build this site to what we know it can become. Procyon
Ads. I don't give a damn about click throughs or ugly white space, etc. SW must survive! Btw, wouldn't we be able to conveniently shove the ads into the toolbox/right side panel? --Notmyhandle 22:38, 21 January 2007 (CST)
I would support having adsense links. Just some info to put things in perspective. SW is almost into the top 100k webpages according to Alexa! ABXY on the otherhand is somewhere around 300k. Now, depending on where it is put, having more than one link may look better. A PayPal link would be good too. However, with donations, I would want to see where the money is going (ie. $XX received, $YY spent on server costs, $ZZ excess). This isn't so much an issue with adsense since it isn't really a person donating their money, just their clicks. -- Prod (Talk) 22:55, 21 January 2007 (CST)
I agree with Prod about the Paypal link. It could be very neatly placed under the menu on the left, with an explination of its purpose on the front page. Procyon 10:03, 22 January 2007 (CST)
While this does sound like a good idea that could really jump start our funding, I think it should be taken into consideration that StrategyWiki, like ABXY, is still managed, (in this case) written, and read by mostly experienced users and/or users with a history with ABXY/DSmeet/SW. We are only a niche of ad clickers compared to the enormous amount of ad clickers we call the casual readers. I can't speak for every one of the 4,500 average visits per day of course, but I feel it will do more harm than good if we allow ourselves to throw an adsense advertisement box on the side of the page and expect our number of contributions per day to stay put. Readers, who we would love to become regular contributors, would see the ads and instantly think of this site being a for-profit site. Even though this isn't really the case, this could scare potential contributors away, leaving us with the small group of hard-working contributors we have now. New writers and contributors will have no reason to why they should write in favor of someone else's wallet.--Dan 15:18, 22 January 2007 (CST)

People put up with all the ads on gamefaqs all the time. So long as that they don't seriously interfere with the regular operation of SW, I don't see any reason to object.--Froglet 03:16, 22 January 2007 (CST)

I agree as long as the ads aren't too flashy or annoying. It sucks to have ads that pop-up in the middle of the page and stay there when the page is scrolled down or up. I don't know a whole lot about Google Adsense, but I'm in support of placing ads on SW until we don't need them anymore.--DukeRuckley 10:51, 22 January 2007 (CST)
Google Adsense adverts are the sensible ones you see which say "Goooooogle!" at the bottom. ;-) I'm in support of this. --DrBob (Talk) 10:55, 22 January 2007 (CST)
Like I said, we have space for ads on both the left and right side; and they would not take away from the site; I mean we have whitespace, why not make use of it. --Notmyhandle 17:24, 22 January 2007 (CST)
What do you think? It doesn't quite match the width, and Google's TOS says not to mess with the code to change the width of ads (although Digg clearly does). Should we change the size of our sidebar? Or perhaps change the placement of the ad? I'm curious to see how much it earns in the first week; I'll definitely report some figures when we find out. echelon 00:11, 24 January 2007 (CST)
Dang, I just saw that you added it and I had been editing and didn't even notice! That's definitely a good sign. Additionally, can you add a box below toolbox in the wiki template that just spaces it from the rest? It can be labeled or not, but a visual (white space or otherwise) break should be there to separate ads from SW. --Notmyhandle 00:22, 24 January 2007 (CST)
The width doesn't matter so much as the alignment. As of now it's just floating not really in the center, not on the side. It should be aligned with the right or left side. Digg is allowed to change the width on their ads because they're a "premium publisher" (aka they get over xxxxxxxxxx amount of page views or something). Change the alignment and everything should be good. And make SURE you have a channel set specifically for SW.org in adsense to see how it does specifically.--ConfusedSoul 00:35, 24 January 2007 (CST)
Just a question, does the adsense payment thing work by how many views it uses or by the number of people who click on it? I think that the idea is a good one for now since we need the funding, but should be removed/reduced once the site gets bigger. --Navy White 09:30, 24 January 2007 (CST)
It looks fine to me, though the 4th ad is usually half off the screen for me, therefore adding a bunch of whitespace below small pages (for example, my user page, area below the cats). Some pages (like Final Fantasy VII) have stuff in the sidebar, which pushes the ads much further down. It's not so much a concern for those pages though, since they're already fairly long. -- Prod (Talk) 10:39, 24 January 2007 (CST)
Yuck!! I hate the ads, but whatever it takes to keep Strategy Wiki going...0-172 20:35, 24 January 2007 (CST)
It's pay per click. So it's every time someone clicks on one of the ads. On this site it will probably come out to be anywhere from $.02-$.20 a click. We could also try something like what they are doing here http://www.centiare.com/Directory:Maryland see underneath the "contents" box it has ads by google. But they are still very subtle. And yeah the ads look "out of place" until they are aligned properly.--ConfusedSoul 14:45, 24 January 2007 (CST)
Procyon 15:13, 24 January 2007 (CST)
Ugh. Did *anyone* read my comment?--Dan 17:14, 24 January 2007 (CST)
Well...I read Dan's comment and I do agree, but as I said before, anything to keep the site running. 0-172 (Talk) 23:41, 24 January 2007 (CST)
I do feel that we need our fundings, but at least if we're going to put up ads, A} put them on the left and format it according to the left, and B} put a small explanation below the ad on why it's there. I'm really worried about new contributors thinking of SW as a for-profit site.--Dan 19:53, 24 January 2007 (CST)
@ Dan: let's put the notice ABOVE (maybe below as well) so people see it (sometimes the ad is only half visible, thus the bottom wouldn't be seen). We can just say "SW is NON-PROFIT."
@ Procyon: Sorry for making the thread big, but the discussion isn't dead yet.
@ Confused Soul: The alignment isn't really that noticible, there's like a 4-8 pixel difference in white space for either side; if its uncorrectable oh well (I would like it fixed, just saying). --Notmyhandle 20:05, 24 January 2007 (CST)
I think ads are not a bad thing really. two things though:
  • think about different ways of funding (the idea with the paypal button surely can be one option). but attracting more visitors is also not a bad idea (marketing?)
  • MMORPG fans will "love" you for displaying ads for platinum/gold sellers like links to thsale.com or power4game.com. I know that certain sites are being boycotted since they sold out to IGE.com i.e. I am not sure of the impact here on the SW though. are there options to block those ads i.e.?

--Kajolus 02:53, 26 January 2007 (CST)

Actually, I had a bad run-in with IGE's Jon Yantis about a year ago; his firm squatted some domains that were critical to the expansion of my then-active project DSmeet. Needless to say, I decided to change my direction rather than pay him a large sum of money for the domains. In investigating his other dealings I also discovered how much the MMO community hate him and his company for what they do. As such, I would love to ensure that IGE are blocked from our ads for their part in gold trafficking. Do you guys have a list of everything we should block? echelon 21:03, 2 February 2007 (CST)
I posted a reply at Echolons userpage (http://strategywiki.org/wiki/User_talk:Echelon#Google_ads_and_IGE ), also feel free to help at the Everquest Discussion page ( http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Talk:EverQuest)--Kajolus 04:36, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Protection and help

  1. Copy over the wikimedia help. It would give our help section a nice boost and somewhere to build from.
  2. Protect {{Header Nav}}, {{Footer Nav}}, {{Continue Nav}}, {{Infobox}}. These are major templates, and they have become fairly stable.
  3. Move Community Issues to StrategyWiki Talk:Community Portal.

--Prod (Talk) 10:39, 8 January 2007 (CST)

I've dealt with #2, but I'm leaving the others for now. --DrBob (Talk) 11:43, 8 January 2007 (CST)
I can take care of #1, just want to know if I should go ahead with it. The reason being that we will have to go through the pages and clean them up for use here. -- Prod (Talk) 12:14, 8 January 2007 (CST)
I'm not sure I understand the purpose of #3. I'm not against it, I just don't understand it. Could you explain the reasoning? Procyon 12:17, 8 January 2007 (CST)
I just thought it might be something to discuss, so here are a few points.
  • We don't use the talk pages for either the community portal or the issues pages.
  • As most of the major issues have been cleared up (new users don't really need this page) the link can maybe be removed from the sidebar and replaced with Staff lounge or something.
  • The community portal is afaik unused, moving it there would draw more attention to it (it could use an overhaul anywayz)
  • We would get the "Edit +" link at the top since this is a discussion page, not an "information" page, and fits in with the community portal "theme".
I still haven't decided if I think it's a good idea or not yet, but I think it's worth a bit of thought. -- Prod (Talk) 12:42, 8 January 2007 (CST)
Cool, thank you for explaining it. I understand your points about the community portal, and my only argument against moving this page is because I'm so used to it being here, which isn't necessarily a good argument, so I would support the move. Procyon 12:45, 8 January 2007 (CST)
Now that you've explained your reasons (I probably should've asked, but I knew they would be good ones regardless), I would support #3. Do you want to do this Prod? For the moment, I say we should leave the Wikipedia help where it is, and just refer people to it where necessary. We could link to it from our help if/where appropriate. --DrBob (Talk) 15:11, 8 January 2007 (CST)
Are we going to leave this page redirecting to there? Should I have the talk pages changed to point there (the one's already subst: as part of Welcome)? Should we move the Archives? (My answers: Yes, No if there's a redirect yes otherwise, Yes) -- Prod (Talk) 15:43, 8 January 2007 (CST)
Sounds good. :-) --DrBob (Talk) 16:56, 8 January 2007 (CST)
I agree with the points brought up on #3. The talk page for the Community Portal is indeed unused and moving Community issues there would bring more attention to the Community Portal page. I have to admit, in the time I've been at Strategy Wiki, I've never really visited the Community Portal. 0-172 00:26, 9 January 2007 (CST)
DrBob took care of #2, I took care of #3. About #1, just to note that the help pages are public domain, so we can just copy them over whenever we deem necessary. -- Prod (Talk) 12:28, 9 January 2007 (CST)
The sooner the better I say. --Notmyhandle 12:45, 9 January 2007 (CST)
I say we leave them where they are. That way, we can direct people to them, but we also get the benefits of wikipedians constantly maintaining them. --DrBob (Talk) 16:57, 9 January 2007 (CST)
PD O'rly? :) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 08:56, 18 January 2007 (CST)
YA RLY!!!. -- Prod (Talk) 16:54, 18 January 2007 (CST)
Neat, very well :) -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 09:07, 19 January 2007 (CST)
Actually, I don't think it changes that much looking at the recent changes (looks mostly like vandalism). -- Prod (Talk) 13:42, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Wikipedia linking

I've noticed that there's a fair amount of linking to wikipedia with the {{wikipedia}} template. I'm wondering how much linking is necessary. Having the template on every game shouldn't be necessary, since our pages should have enough information about the game. Company pages I guess would be a good place to put the template, since I think that's fairly borderline relevant to StrategyWiki's mission. Series pages are almost self completing, as historical information isn't that important, though it could be useful to see the changes in a game based on the developer. -- Prod (Talk) 15:33, 13 January 2007 (CST)

I'd just like to point out that something in the {{wikipedia}} template can really cause havoc with page layouts, especially when you've got an embedded table of contents. --aniki21 18:48, 13 January 2007 (CST)
I believe how necessary the linking is depends on the completion of the guide. If the guide has a fair amount of information, then the link isn't needed. But if there is no, or if Wikipedia has more information, then maybe the linking could be used. Having the link template on each game article isn't necessary, only on articles that might need it (if at all) or with guides with minimal information. Other than that, I believe that the wikipedia template does clutter up pages. As for wreaking havoc with page layouts, it really could mess things up, I can see how would mess things up with an embedded ToC. 0-172 2:25, 14 January 2007 (CST)
The only reason I like to include a link to WP is because frequently there is information in WP that does not belong in a strategy guide such as pop culture references, merchandise, and more detailed descriptions of the technology used to develop the game. In the long run, I don't personally care too much either way, I just provide it as a courtesy. Obviously if someone really wants to look a subject up on wikipedia, they can figure it out. Procyon 21:08, 13 January 2007 (CST)
Thus the WP template should be used on 1)stub-like articles and 2)articles with additional non-game guide information. --Notmyhandle 01:39, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Genesis Buttons

I've noticed that there aren't any Sega Genesis buttons avaiable to use. As a result my contributions keep getting tagged that they need buttons. If someone could make them, that would be awesome--GameboyHippo 12:43, 20 January 2007 (CST)

User:Blendmaster is the one who's made most of our button icons so far...but he's busy with school at the moment. -- Prod (Talk) 12:53, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Protection of copyright on StrategyWiki

I'm trying to work with existing guide writers (for example those who submit their works to GameFAQs) to use their work on StrategyWiki and the concern about using their work while abiding by their request for copyright. For images this isn't really a problem because you can place the notice on the page; but for text, it either becomes jumbled in with non-copyrighted information (am I using the right term here? should this stuff be deemed copyleft?) or isn't noted on the page.

Basically what I'm asking is: is there a template or something to note that the information contained on a page should be noted as not 100% copyable? OR is that sort of text not allowed on StrategyWiki?

Need clarifications, also this sort of thing should be listed somewhere with notices in places that people see it.--Notmyhandle 03:47, 21 January 2007 (CST)

IANAL, but StrategyWiki can't accept contributions which aren't allowed to be copied. Anything which goes on StrategyWiki has to be copyable, as per the GFDL. --DrBob (Talk) 04:20, 21 January 2007 (CST)
I should point out that legally, anybody who copies stuff off StrategyWiki does have to keep the attributions (i.e. edit history) in tact and with the copied content. --DrBob (Talk) 04:21, 21 January 2007 (CST)
As stated within the GFDL I might add. Yeah I understand.--Notmyhandle 14:48, 21 January 2007 (CST)

Header Nav and maintenence templates

It appears that the most common procedure is to have maintence templates above the {{Header Nav}}. Particularly myself, I favor them below below Header Nav but I was wondering what everyone thought. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:37, 29 January 2007 (CST)

I just followed User:DrBobs example. Personally, I don't think it matters. -- Prod (Talk) 18:50, 29 January 2007 (CST)
Realized it's part of the newgame template (where can that be found by a user, by the way?), so nevermind. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 19:21, 29 January 2007 (CST)
{{New game}} will hopefully end up in the StrategyWiki:Guide eventually. -- Prod (Talk) 19:39, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Messed up Skins

What happend to the cloud one? And why can't I change my profile? It's all yellow right now, set to "classic." <_< >_> SOMEONE BROKE SW! --Notmyhandle 22:25, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Oops.--Dan 23:19, 29 January 2007 (CST)
Going to http://strategywiki.org says something about scheduled downtime between dec 20-22, but Main Page works fine. -- Prod (Talk) 00:30, 30 January 2007 (CST)
Dan fixed it. And Lol @ main page. --Notmyhandle 00:33, 30 January 2007 (CST)
No, he was right. When I left to sleep I totally forgot to check the main page, and it turns out according to the backup I used that page was the one we used during the server backup in 2006. Right now I'm hoping there isn't anything else I've forgotten, otherwise I won't be able to fix it until I come back from school.--Dan 08:20, 30 January 2007 (CST)
http://strategywiki.org is forbidden :-O. Main Page works though. -- Prod (Talk) 09:27, 30 January 2007 (CST)

What's going on? http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_3 some messed up yellow template. And SW.org is forbidden. --ConfusedSoul 16:01, 30 January 2007 (CST)

I'm not sure about messed up, but that template is to say that the PS3 hasn't been released in EU yet. The sw.org thing probably has to do with Dan taking down the maintenance notice. Should be easy enough to fix. -- Prod (Talk) 16:09, 30 January 2007 (CST)

Adsense Announcement

Just so the previous thread does not continue to grow, and because the decision has been made, I wanted to start a new thread and announce the new announcement that I added to the main page. I was very thoughtful about how to phrase it in as positive a light as possible. Examine it, and let me know if you have any comments about it. But leave them here, don't edit the announcement directly. Thanks! Procyon 15:22, 24 January 2007 (CST)

I edited your comment in the previous thread out. Don't do what you were saying. Not only is it against Google TOS but it is completely unnecessary. We WILL get banned for that type of thing. And that would pretty much screw us over. But yeah, echelon asap let us know what the results are and fix the alignment.--ConfusedSoul 19:24, 24 January 2007 (CST)
Note, this doesn't show up in the monobook skin, and perhaps others. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 02:06, 26 January 2007 (CST)
The width of the ad box doesn't bother me as much as the margin on the top. There should be a margin equal to the left and right margins between the ad box and toolbox. --blendmaster 18:10, 29 January 2007 (CST)
well, i don't like the Google Ads ad all. If you have to have them, please make them more different from the toolbox on the right side. As for now, the blue Google Ads look like some expansion of the blue Toolbox on the right of the screen. Maybe some empty lines below "related changes" (in the toolbox) would do a good job to better seperate strategywiki content from Ads.--Horstjens 13:58, 1 February 2007 (CST)
So in summary of all comments so far (plus my own):
  • Put space between ads and toolbox
  • Either shrink width of toolbox or expand width of ads to make them the same width
  • If possible have only 3 ads so that the 4th doesn't go off the screen.

-- Prod (Talk) 14:14, 1 February 2007 (CST)

So, any news on funding? Recieved a check yet? --Notmyhandle 20:02, 13 February 2007 (CST)

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


Template:Toolbox

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

Any response? I know Inarius set it up, but I'm sure someone with more css skills can make this work for monobook considering the fact that people from wikipedia may be more comfortable with it and some guides look really ugly without it. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 10:29, 27 February 2007 (CST)
Sorted! (Sorry for the delay.) --DrBob (Talk) 07:25, 18 March 2007 (CDT)
Wow, white space on the left side is gone. You made looking at SW MUCH better. -- Mason11987 (Talk - Contributions) 18:13, 27 March 2007 (CDT)
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