User talk:Fionordequester

Welcome to StrategyWiki!

Hello Fionordequester! Welcome to StrategyWiki. Thank you for your contributions. If you have any questions, just contact a sysop through their talk page or post on the staff lounge, and they'd be happy to help. If you need help editing, check the StrategyWiki Guide or ask a sysop, we're usually around. On the other hand, if you have ideas for StrategyWiki, bring them up on the forums. To keep up-to-date with the goings on of the wiki, consider adding the noticeboard to your watchlist.

Please remember to sign your name when leaving comments on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Feel free to delete this message from your talk page if you like, or keep it for reference. Happy editing! — Procyon 02:18, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

When leaving messages on talk pages, please remember to sign your posts. Also, check out our Chat server (linked in the sidebar). -- Prod (talk) 17:23, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Testing

Your test edit on Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation/Getting Started worked and has been deleted. If you wish to test out the system and wiki markup, please use the sandbox instead. Thanks for understanding! — Procyon 02:18, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation

I cleaned up Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation and Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation/Table of Contents to try and bring them inline with the rest of the site. I highly encourage you to read our StrategyWiki Guide in order to become more familiar with the policies of the site, and to examine our other Dragon Quest guides, particularly Dragon Warrior II and Dragon Warrior III. I think your Table of Contents for DQ6 is way too broken down and many of those links should be organized into larger groupings. Let us know if you have any questions. Procyon 02:34, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I've rearranged the ToC slightly. One thing still required is to switch from title case to sentence case. If any of titles are directly from in-game, they can follow in-game case. Otherwise, only the first word, and proper nouns should be capitalized. -- Prod (talk) 14:28, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Are the chapter/level names taken directly from of the game? If so, follow their case. We like to stay as true to the game as possible. Everything else in the ToC should be sentence case.

Always glad to help, feel free to ask any questions! -- Prod (talk) 18:18, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Neutral point of view

Guides are open for anyone to edit, and to accomodate multiple authors we've decided to use a neutral point of view, meaning content should be written in the third person, with no opinions and a somewhat professional tone. Please keep this in mind as you're editing, and try to avoid words like "I" or "we", or use of slang or non-factual information. Thanks for helping us keep our guide pages polished! — Procyon 00:57, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I apologize, but for the reason stated above, I had to delete your "Goals of this Walkthrough" page. Actually for a number of reasons. Please remember that SW is a collaborative community. You may be the primary author of a guide, but several other people can and will contribute to it along with you, so there is no claim of ownership over any guide on this site, it's the product of collective effort. Additionally, the goals you stated for the guide are pretty much the goals of every guide on the site, so it was a bit redundant to state that explicitly for this one particular guide. Please bare in mind that the majority audience of this guide will not be speed runners, but rather casual players. Also, watch out for your tendency to rely heavily on the phrase "that said." Thanks. Procyon 01:11, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Responses

A couple of things:

1. The filename for the map that you uploaded should at least begin with DQ6, or something else to indicate what game it's from.
2. The text at the top of the map should be removed. That text should only exist in the upload description of the file, not on the map itself.
3. The uploaded screenshots should ideally be at the native resolution of the system they were taken from. So if those are SNES screenshots, they should be at 256x224 resolution (or 256x240 if you're not clipping the top 8 and bottom 8 scanlines.)
4. The text in the walkthrough is fine. However, please don't link to individual items, we tend not to do that here. You can do something like: [[Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation\Items#Seeds|Seeds of Life]], assuming you have a page named Items with a heading named Seeds. It will take the reader to the start of the Seeds header on the Items page.

Lastly, please bare in mind that you are guilty of doing the same thing you accuse other guide authors of doing: writing about how to beat the game the way you're used to beating the game, only in your case, you're not taking the time to consider why the reader is consulting the guide. Yes, some players will want to know, and be grateful for, an explanation about the best way to do it. But many players consult a guide only when they need help, and by that time, they have probably strayed far from the most optimized path through the game. The members of this audience should not be neglected, or your guide will be substantially less useful to them than the others that you've criticized. This isn't a personal attack on your approach; It sounds like the guide you envisioned would be excellent for seasoned players. But the goal of this site is to help players of all levels, so we work very hard to address all visitors to the site, not just pros. Procyon 12:28, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

The ToC is much better, thanks! A few of the Getting Started/Appendices links needs the same treatment. -- Prod (talk) 18:39, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Knowing how much or how little emphasis to give to a point in your walkthrough is a learning process. I've been writing guides since 1996, and I made my first contribution to SW in 2006. I'm still learning how to make that determination. I look back on a lot of my older guides and cringe. The only difference between now and then is that I know I won't get it right on my first try. Another difficulty that new editors have when starting here is dissecting your ego from your writing. This was true for me as well. It's why a lot of established GameFAQs authors don't like contributing to wikis. They don't like giving up complete control over the content, and removing any self-attribution from their work. Speaking of which, I moved your Special Thanks section to the talk page on the Walkthrough, as that was a more appropriate location for it. The Walkthrough page, like all content pages, should be free of any personalization. Let us know if you need any more help. Procyon 00:23, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the ego bit, it may help to point out that we're modeled directly after Wikipedia, and we follow their rules and philosophy of collaborative contribution with very little exception. So if you're used to contributing at Wikipedia, contributing here feels more natural. If you haven't contributed to Wikipedia, then yeah, it's an adjustment. Concerning the Walkthrough page, the best thing to put there if you're not sure, is a brief overview of the game (as spoiler free as possible, but that's tough to pull off). Descriptions of alternate pathways through the game are also a good idea. Again, existing Dragon Warrior guides should provide some examples, as well as any of our featured guides, which have been community selected as the best examples the site has to offer. I highly encourage you to examine these guides and "steal" ideas from them liberally. Procyon 03:56, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

A couple more responses:

1. When it comes to Japanese resources, I realize you're not going to be able to ask for permission. In general, reusing these resources is accepted as long as you provide credits in the upload description. If anyone is concerned about you reusing it, they will contact the site and we'll take it down upon request. The likelihood of that happening is incredibly small. However...
2. Uploading images with Japanese text is generally discouraged, including screenshots and/or maps. There's not much you can do about screenshots. If you're talented with an image editor such as Photoshop or GiMP, you can replace the Japanese with English text. But yeah, that DS map you linked to is pretty poor...
3. Be careful when uploading images, you've uploaded quite a few that aren't being utilized on any page. If you are not going to use images that you've uploaded, please edit the image description and add {{delete}} to alert one of the system admins to remove the file. Any images we can cut will help us out.
4. Don't forget to sign posts that you leave on talk pages by typing ~~~~. And just some basic netiquette; try to avoid religious greetings in order to avoid offending anyone. Thanks. Procyon 18:54, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

The categorization of an image, correctly or incorrectly, does not determine whether the image is being used. It must be referenced on a guide page for the image to be considered in use. At the moment, the following files are unused: File:DQVI_-_Campfire_at_Murdaw's.png, File:DQVI_-_Milly_Prepares_to_Summon_the_Dragon.png, and File:DQ6_Pass_to_Haggleton.png. If any of these files contain images that you no longer intend to include on any guide pages, please mark them with {{delete}}. If you do plan on using them, and just haven't gotten around to it yet, you don't need to do anything. Procyon 14:17, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

DQ6 Ch. 5 title

Why does the fifth chapter title keep changing? (You can reply here, you don't need to reply on my user page. We monitor every edit, we'll see it when you respond.) Procyon 17:50, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

I thought the title were based on in-game chapter names. If there's no in-game corollary and the names you choose can't be used to help the reader figure out what part of the walkthrough they should be reading, then don't come up with poetic names, name them something useful. But beyond that, please don't fill a page with lots of tiny micro-edits. Use the Show Preview button to see how you like a change, and only save it once when you are satisfied with it. Thank you. Procyon 18:00, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Updating images.

If you want to update a previously uploaded image, all you have to do is visit the image page and click on the link that says: "Upload a new version of this file". You don't need to request that the old version be deleted, it will simply be replaced by the new version. Procyon 13:28, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate the sentiment, but there's no need to thank me, I do it for the love of the site. Please, please, please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by putting ~~~~ at the end of your messages. Procyon 00:40, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Source references

Try to avoid mentioning where you got information from directly in the page, since it's not part of the guide. For example, on one page you mention "Stats by "Behindtheword's" guide on Gamefaqs". Instead of putting that on the page, put it in the edit history, on the talk page, or as a reference (if there is further information for the user). -- Prod (talk) 19:44, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Progress

I'm not very familiar with DQ6, so I'm not really in a position to comment on the content. The guide does appear to contain a lot of helpful tips for readers. Just a couple of observations:

1. Try to limit (read: eliminate) the tendency to ask questions of the reader. For example, "Do you remember...?" Not every reader will read your guide linearly, and questions often have a tendency to confuse or muddle the point you are trying to make.
2. Also please reduce the amount of SHOUTING that you are doing in your guide. There are more effective techniques to emphasize a point besides bold-facing and all caps. WHEN YOU DO THIS notice how much your eye is drawn to the boldface text, which makes it harder to read the rest of the text around it.
3. Finally, how many times must we remind you to sign your posts? Procyon 14:57, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Fionordequester. I'm afraid I have to reemphasize point 2 again, as I see you're adding a tremendous amount of boldfacing to your guide, and it makes it harder to read than necessary. I realize your intention is to help people by emphasizing certain things, but if you have to resort to boldfacing to the degree that you have, it suggests that there's probably other problems with the construction of the guide. It also kind of says, "I don't trust you, reader, to figure these things out on your own, so I have to yell at you to do them." Please consider finding another way to get these points across. Thank you. Procyon 00:20, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanking

If you check a diff that someone made, near the top there's a "Thank" button. It's an easier way to send appreciation to others. Also, I did a few styling/layout tweaks here. -- Prod (talk) 03:01, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

YouTube videos

We have a template on the site specifically for the purpose of adding a YouTube video to your guide. Please search the site to find an example of it being used so that you can a) learn how to include it in your guide and b) learn how to search around the site to find other examples of things you might like to learn. Procyon 18:29, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm kind of disappointed in you. I gave you an assignment to search around the site to look for other examples of how to use our {{YouTube}} template, and you clearly didn't bother to try. If you had just typed "youtube" into the site search bar, you would have found multiple pages that include this template. Then you could have clicked the Edit link to look at how those templates are used properly, and incorporated it into your guide. By not bothering to learn how to do it for yourself you a) have created work for one of the site administrator to correct your mistake and b) you are likely to make the same mistake again. We don't mind helping people out and telling them how to do certain tasks, but you seem smart enough to learn how to figure things out for yourself. You simply have to make an effort to do so. Procyon 22:16, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

OK, fair enough, I figured you would try searching for YouTube rather than external links. You made the effort and came up with a different answer. I apologize for jumping to the wrong conclusion. Please consider these other points:

• Please get into the habit of using Show Preview before you save your work. You're making a ton of micro-edits in a small period of time, which is adding to the back log of edits that have to be patrolled. Please examine how the page is coming with Show Preview instead, and don't save the page until you're absolutely satisfied with your work.
• Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation/Bestiary‎ and Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation/Armour absolutely cannot stay in that condition. You must wikify those tables or we will have to remove the content. I know it's a lot of work, but that's kind of what you signed on for when you decided to locate that content there.
  • Hey, just a note: It would do a lot to improve the readability of that bestiary table if you reduced the text in the RESIST column. If an enemy has a resist of 0 for a particular spell, why list it at all? Probably best to only list spells where the resist is 1 or higher. That will cut the size down tremendously. The other thing you could do instead, is make each monster its own table, like the FAQ you were drawing inspiration from. You might be able to catch me on discord tonight if you log in to the chat. Procyon 01:21, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
• Lastly, I saw you were asking about converting your work here back to another site. Understand that all content on this site is governed by the CC-BY-SA license which stipulates that you are free to share the content on other sites, but that you must attribute the work back to the originating site (StrategyWiki), and that you must release it under the same license. So if, for example, GameFAQs does not abide by the CC-BY-SA license (and I don't believe that it does,) you technically can't release the work there (although no one is really going to come after you legally for being in violation.) Procyon 03:59, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Page rename

Hi Fionordequester. You kind of have to make a choice. Either the page should be called "All About Vocations" with all title capitalization, or it should be called "All about vocations" with sentence capitalization. You shouldn't really mix between the two and capitalize "Vocations" but not "about". We prefer sentence capitalization whenever possible. Which would you like? Procyon 21:29, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Map concerns

Hi Fionordequester. I only just noticed this now, so I'm bringing it up as a concern. The maps that you have been uploading which are illustrated maps as opposed to screen capture maps are in PNG format. PNG format is only recommended for screen captures where maintaining pixel perfect accuracy is desired. The maps you are uploading are illustrations and should be in JPG format. In that format, the file sizes will be anywhere from 50% to 90% smaller than the PNG files. However, screen capture maps would be more ideal and preferable to illustrated maps (like the one used for DW3: File:DW3_map_overworld_Aliahan.png. So basically:

1. It would be better to use screen capture maps (in PNG format).
2. If that's not possible, please upload the illustrated maps in JPG format.

Thanks. Procyon 00:27, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

No, you've completely misunderstood me. So many responses to give, I will just bullet point them.

• First, I'm not sure if this is what you intended, but the second upload of File:DQ6 Arkbolt.png was the same size as the original upload.
• Second, what I meant by "illustrated" is hand illustrated. Like File:DQ6_Path_Back_to_Dream_World.png. That wasn't captured from the game, someone obviously drew that map. That is the type of file which should be in JPG format.
• Dovetailing from that, File:DQ6 Arkbolt.png may be marked up, but it is primarily taken from screen captures, and therefore should remain a PNG file. JPG compression is lossy and would diminish the quality of the map.
• As far as the quality to save JPGs, I believe GiMP's default is 90%, and that is sufficient. Even at 90% quality, the file size will be dramatically smaller than the same image saved as a PNG. Procyon 03:04, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Signing and minor edits

You only sign posts on talk pages, not on guide pages. Basically only when you are talking to other editors. It's just a polite way to let people know who they are responding to. There should be no signatures on actual guide pages.

You mark a page as a minor edit when you are making small changes like spelling or grammar fixes, or formatting changes, and none of the factual information changes. It seems like you're using it correctly.

Also, thanks for going through the guide and reducing the boldface. It's greatly appreciated. Nice job on the guide. Procyon 13:51, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Image caching

When you update an image on the site, it will take a couple of minutes for the updated image to appear in your browser. This is a two-fold effect of the image caching servers needing to take time to update themselves, and the caching mechanisms in your browser. You can force the browser to update by dumping your browser cache, but since you don't know when the server will update its own copy of the file, you can never be sure when to force your browser to update as well. So, yeah, there's some time you have to live with before you see the update.

On a more personal note, I understand the sentiment, but if you could stop signing with "God bless you," I'd appreciate it. Thanks. Procyon 13:32, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Mini-medals

Rather than boldfacing the number, it would probably be a better idea to implement the kind of in-guide illustration that the Dragon Warrior III guide uses. Although it's done a bit to excess in my opinion, your situation would be a good use case for it. Check out, for example, Dragon Warrior III/Aliahan and see how they add in the mini-medal image in-line with the text. That would be better than boldfacing, again in my opinion.

Also, one other thing. Headers for new conversations are best kept to just a few words, like the subject of an email. It's a little unusual for people to write out entire sentences for their headers. Please try to keep your headers down to like five or six words tops. Thanks. Procyon 05:01, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

File rename

I don't understand what you want me to do with File:Murdaw's Keep Part 1.png, there already is a File:DQ6 Murdaw's Keep Part 2.png, so I can't rename it that. Procyon 13:42, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Got it, all taken care of. I'm pretty sure you have enough privileges to move (rename) files. Next time, just go to the file you want to move, and click the "More" button in the upper right corner, and select Move. When you rename a file, don't leave a redirect behind, there's no need. Procyon 01:55, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

DailyMotion videos

If you didn't happen to notice, Lukey140701 (talk · contribs) replied to you on my talk page and provided you with an example of how to embed DM videos. Procyon 00:27, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

DW3 Party Article complexity

I've taken the latest copy of Dragon Warrior III/Parties with all of your edits, and put it in Dragon Warrior III/Advanced Party Analysis, and restored the Parties page back to what it was before you changed it. I'm afraid your edits made the page too complex and too difficult for beginners to read and follow. There's a point at which some readers who are looking for basic information will get discouraged and their eyes will glaze over if there are too many details to keep track of. At the same time, there is definitely space for more hardcore articles on the site. The Advanced Party Analysis page is yours to edit and modify however you like. There's also now a ton of redundancy between the two pages, so you can trim the Advanced page to whatever you think is necessary. Please limit changes to the original Parties page to just corrections and, if possible, simplifications. Thank you. Procyon 15:49, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

If I can find some time to surgically alter the edits to reflect just the original content on the original page, and your added/ammended content on the new page, I would. But I simply don't have the time. And without scrutinizing each of your edits, I'm not familiar with what belongs on either page. I set the pages up to help make a clear distinction where the more elaborate content belongs. I was hoping you would take the initiative to clean up behind me, and further differentiate the two pages, however you see fit. Procyon 20:27, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Two things:

1. You don't need to get permission from a user to contribute to a guide that they worked on. That's the whole point of a wiki. Every guide is a collaboration. Granted, communication between editors is nice and always welcome. However...
2. If you checked his contributions, you might notice that Koweja (talk · contribs) hasn't been heard from on this site since October 2008. So it's fairly safe to say that he has retired as an editor on this site. Procyon 02:32, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

External linking

Hi Fionordequester. In general, linking to external sites should only be reserved for extreme cases where the content on the linked site falls outside of StrategyWiki's scope. Linking to a competing site is very frowned upon. I realize the guide you linked to is extremely detailed, but if there is any way to incorporate that guide's content into SW itself, that is highly preferable. Thanks for understanding. Procyon 15:19, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

If you absolutely must link to an external site, add an External Links section to the main guide page, for example here. -- Prod (talk) 16:03, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm a little aggravated by this situation. You didn't link to the specific guide that you were interested in directing people to, you linked to the main portal to all the Dragon Warrior III guide on GameFaqs, which is like basically saying, "don't read our guide, just go here." Upon finding the guide in question, the entire guide's premise is based on a shorthand URL link to a map, in which the shorthand link has expired, rendering the guide fairly useless unless you're willing to Google around to find what he's talking about. I've just gone ahead and uploaded Sk8terpunq's map to the site and linked it to the Monster Medal page (where once again, I had to tone down your writing.) Please use better judgment. I don't know why we have to keep having discussions about your contributions. This isn't typical. Procyon 01:56, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

No, you don't need to run all of your edits by us first, we patrol all the edits anyway. I just need you to try and use better judgment sometimes. Look, don't get me wrong, your analytic ability for these games is top-notch, probably beyond my own. And there's definitely a place for that. But one of the hardest things to do is to join that with the ability to communicate your thoughts to a broad audience. Your writing style lends itself very well to hardcore players. And they are definitely an audience that we should be serving. Unfortunately, they're typically a smaller audience then the people we usually get, who are more casual players looking for that next step in the Walkthrough that they haven't figured out for themselves. Or that can't-lose party make up that they can use without thinking too hard about it. I don't mind you serving more hardcore readers, I just don't want casual players to feel lost in your writing. And naturally, I don't want to send players off to some other site to get information that they can hopefully find right here on StrategyWiki. So please, do your best to think about how we present information to both casual and hardcore players. Sometimes these audiences may require different presentations in order to serve each of them the best way possible. Procyon 01:59, 23 December 2017 (UTC)