User:Mendel/Talk Archive 4

IRC This user frequents the #gwiki IRC channel.

IRC can be a quick way to resolve issues of no lasting importance or for things that don't deserve to be written down. Use /query mendel to talk to me (semi-)privately on irc. --mendel

^{I reserve the right to edit section titles to coincide with the section content.}

Comments

RfA

The RfA was placed by Shadowphoenix on 18:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC). --◄mendel► 05:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey

Why aren't you ever on IRC anymore? I wanna talk to you. 16:00, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I resolve to be more present on irc whenever I edit the wiki, but that usage pattern has changed somewhat. --◄mendel► 06:05, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Oops by the way. I spent the last two days with my girlfriend, who was home from college for the long weekend (Labor Day in the US), and I guess I left IRC on the whole time. Well, she's gone again now, so next time you're on I'll actually respond. 01:39, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The other option is always to "E-mail this user", of course. --◄mendel► 04:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

That is inconvenient, plus I'm going to bed now. I have voice lessons in the morning. 04:51, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm using Restore Life on RFA!

Still interested? Or can I close this now? (T/C) 20:54, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there've been new reasons, because it helps with big editing projects to not run into the move throttle, and being able to "clean up" after myself would be nice as well. I'm going to post to the ban discussion today so that we can hopefull ylay this issue to rest sometime soon. --◄mendel► 06:05, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Another good reason is deleted articles: When I delete a normally named article (a name (car, person etc), Acorns or something like that) Mendel wants to know what was on the page. When he's an admin, he doesn't have to bug me with it anymore :D It's a win-win situation. --- -- (s)talkpage 16:00, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Promoting just for convenience is pretty iffy, though...and bans still bother me. We'll see. (T/C) 15:24, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, I wasn't serious on that :P --- -- (s)talkpage 15:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Archiv'd

Bitch.--ìğá†ħŕášħ 06:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Nah, "archive'd" means I made a verb out of the noun "archive", not using the proper verb like you done there. --◄mendel► 06:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

You didn't get the joke. Phail, Mendel. Phail.--ìğá†ħŕášħ 06:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

No, I didn't - I'm checking my spam folder, maybe it got lost in the mail. --◄mendel► 06:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hit that donut.--ìğá†ħŕášħ 07:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a problem with me?

Right, it is time I tackle this, do you have some specific problem with me? Because you are near single-handedly driving me away from contribiting any further to this wiki. Seems every time I make a contibution, you have to go change it. Like today, I take the time to add all 3 of the "deactivating" quests (N.O.X., P.O.X., and R.O.X.) and sure enough you have to go change the formatting (which btw is way ugly and looks too much like GWWiki's format to my eyes), and yet, curiously you've not make those same formatting changes to Zinn's Task (which I had not yet gotten to adding to). And this is by far not the first time, where I get the sense you're singling out my edits. I have been on this wiki for near 3 years, where a few gaps at the start as was busy with other things (check my contribs list and you'll see just how much of what I've done), have made significant additions to A LOT of articles, quests particularily (I wonder if you are seriously planning on going back and re-editting all 564 of the quest articles I've already cleaned up?) and categories to a lesser degree. This is really getting annoying; I've worked so long and hard to get the quest articles consistent, it's bad enough that most of the effort is almost never recognised, but now having someone who's only recently joined the wiki seemingly targetting my contribs, is it really worth my time trying to help out here any more? Anyway, said my piece, I hope you are prepared to clear the air, twice already this year I have gotten to the point of having walked from the wiki, and then when I return and start cleaning up, sure enough, there you are. All I ask is for a little consistency and leave me to get on and complete the 300 or so quests left to clean up (see my projects page for current status). --Wolfie (talk|contribs) 10:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not singling you out, and I am sorry you got that impression. The reason I've not changed Zinn's Task is that it has no dialogue to speak of, so when I edited that, it didn't occur to me to change the formatting. You do remember there was a discussion about using the new CSS for dialogues?

I have proposed the change to the subheadings on GuildWiki talk:Style and formatting/Quests#Subheadings two months ago, linked it on Quizzical's talk, and received no comments either way, so I assumed that was consensus; I am sorry if it wasn't. I should have thought to post to your talk page as well, I think I just assumed you'd be watching Quizzical's talk. Hmm, on further research, it appears that you "walked" from the wiki two days before that, so you couldn't have caught that. I'm sorry.

I'm ready to work with you to change the quest format to something that doesn't look "too much like GWWiki", and I also offer to change the 500+ quests that have been cleaned up to whatever new format we may arrive at; because you have cleaned them up to conform to a common format, I can automate that now, so it's doable. I haven't done that yet because I hadn't perceived it as a high-priority task.

I realize what you and Quizzical have done for the quests and missions on this wiki, and I have only the highest respect for you. --◄mendel► 11:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Reactor Blast Timer

Hi, is there a problem with this page or just my browser? POX is red linked in the article (This opens the POX article in Edit mode BTW), but blue linked in the Template (Opening the normal POX Page)? Any Ideas? Thanks HimmTaeguk (T/C) 13:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I just purged the page, the links are blue now. No clue why it had to be purged, though, that's usually not an issue. —Dr Ishmael 13:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

That's what I was going to do. Ah well, that explains why the links showed blue in edit preview. ;-) --◄mendel► 13:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Guys, I've found out how to purge now, so I'll know for next time. HimmTaeguk (T/C) 14:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd recommend adding the purge tab function to your Special:Mypage/monobook.js (assuming you're still using Monobook, of course; not sure how/if this works in Monaco), that way it's readily available whenever you need it. —Dr Ishmael 15:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Redirects

Responding to your Central post about the redirects... The new redirects extension hasn't been turned on as default, so the problem you're seeing with Travel quest isn't related.

I just created a redirect for Pain Eater, and it's behaving normally... So I'm not sure what's causing that problem with the Travel quest redirect. The new redirects extension will probably fix that, actually. -- Danny (talk) 23:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Could it have something to do with redirecting to an article section? That's the only difference I see between the two - Travel quest redirects to Port#Interconnecting_Quests, while Pain Eater redirects simply to The Pain Eater. —Dr Ishmael 23:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I just realized what's going on.

What you're seeing is actually the existing redirect system working the way that it's supposed to. Travel quest redirects to Port, but in the existing system, it shows up as guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Travel_quest. Then the #Interconnecting_Quests gets added, so you see Travel_quest#Interconnecting_Quests. I'm not sure why that messes up the favicon, but it does.

The new redirects extension will actually fix that -- that shows the landing page's URL instead of the redirect URL. So once that's turned on, you'll see Port#Interconnecting_Quests. The MediaWiki 1.13 upgrade is happening early this week, and then we'll turn on the redirects extension -- so you should see it on the site late this week. Let me know if you see any problems once it's turned on. Thanks! -- Danny (talk) 23:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, great. (I'd rather not have any Javascript messing with URLs, but if that's what it takes...) --◄mendel► 00:22, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

progress bar

What's that for? 17,013 is the number of pages on the wiki, according to Special:Statistics, but I can't figure out what you're tracking about them. —Dr Ishmael 15:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The other number is the size of my watchlist. I guess once I'm at 100%, I've won at Wiki. --◄mendel► 21:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

My guess is that it's your watchlist count. --JonTheMon 21:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Maybe I should start keeping a progression bar of how many pages/images I've deleted versus how many are left on the wiki. I guess once that's at 100%, I can say I've deleted the wiki. :O —Dr Ishmael 22:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you do that, and if you delete your talkpage last, I'll have won before you! :-D --◄mendel► 22:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

There's an easy way to add every page to your watchlist. (T/C) 23:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

There are rules. I know how to edit the raw watchlist, and I know how to get a list of all pages, so if I wanted to cheat, I could. --◄mendel► 00:05, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Edit Special:Watchlist to #redirect Special:Recentchanges. ;-) --◄mendel► 07:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:User skill icons

Before you go and make a hundred edits to add stuff to Category:User skill icons, let me say this. Wouldn't it be easier, and more useful, to create a user skill category? That would allow easier browsing. This of course all depends on if it is actually considered useful. And if the humor category doesn't already count. --Macros 09:10, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

You suggest Category:User skills. That would contain pages. Category:User skill icons contains images.

We need image categories because we have thousands of images, many of which are unattributed. If we want to do any kind of housekeeping on them (like checking licenses), these need to be in some sort of order. That's why I am making categories for those images whose type I can determine easily, and that are actually needed on the wiki. For example, I'm going to create a category for beast portraits (in the Beastiary info boxes) and you could call up the category and look for images that are too dark or badly sized and go out and get better ones.

The licensing templates do automatically add categories, but they're fairly useless. A big proportion of our images is simply in Category:Guild wars screen capture license (in July, 16673 of 18550) - that doesn't help with housekeeping.

See Category:Images for the categories that we've started. The way it works is that I indentify a type of image and strive to get the category complete before I start another one. I've also talked to some frequent image uploaders (you know who you are), and they've started adding categories (e.g. to the armor galleries images) as they upload new pictures. --◄mendel► 09:40, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I hope this doesn't imply that we will be having a copyright/attribution witch-hunt soon. I like joke skills. :\ (T/C) 18:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey, a witch-hunt! What a good idea! see here--◄mendel► 21:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Noo, not again! :((( (T/C) 21:27, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes I think Europe got rid of those by exporting them to the USA - not just Salem, but the McCarthy committe and now the DHS - what one hears, the quality of airport security methods is reminiscent of witchcraft detection. Just think of a "no-fly" list in a Salem context... --◄mendel► 21:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Storeh

Since you spent so much time making the files smaller, did you ever actually read it?--ìğá†ħŕášħ 09:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

"set guildwiki2 up as independent project again, plan international wiki for GW2 "

There will be no GuildWiki 2. We're going to GW2W when that happens. Unless I am totally misinterpreting your concise description. (T/C) 13:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

There will be German and French Guildwikis that document GW2, I bet, unless ANet reverse their stance and offer non-English wikis. If my dream came true and those combined to use a common skills, stats and images database, there'd be a lot of information that would be very easy to offer in English, so I don't see why that shouldn't happen. --◄mendel► 13:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Anet learned from their mistakes with GWW. GW2W willn't have 100 policies set in stone; they'll be formed as needed, and that was the major flaw. I don't see what GWiki2 will have to offer above GW2W. --- -- (s)talkpage 13:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, different language wikis. That's cool then. (ANet doesn't like l18n template?) (T/C) 13:47, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Viper, the fact that many people don't understand policies doesn't mean they're bad. I've been talking to Entropy over on Warwick's RfA about what needs to be done on this wiki; one reason most "old hands" don't add content any more is because the content they deem importnat has, of course, already been added, and whoever tries to add new content must, by definition, be adding unimportant stuff and gets discouraged (if not outright reverted). There are exceptions, but they're rare. Giving authority over the wiki to a handful of sysops, as discussion on GW2W indicates will be the case, means that sort of tendency will be even stronger. As a consequence, you'll get to "take it or leave it" - either you agree with the sysop's vision, and then the wiki will be great for you - or you don't, and then it will be unbearable. The latter group needs GuildWiki2, and policies that give them the right to add what they think useful. We'll find a way to integrate the guildwiki into the game, and then we're on even terms, with users free to choose the wiki they like best. Please understand that I am talking about dreams here - I haven't actually started to work towards that goal yet. --◄mendel► 13:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

If you fear for that, why don't you help them... --- -- (s)talkpage 14:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Help them with what? I can't tell a dozen people running a wiki, who've done it for years, that there are philosophical differences and they should do it my way from now on. I am certain they are aware that this is what they want (and you seem to agree that it's ok), so I feel no responsibility for "helping" at this point, especially if it's going to be a lot of effort for little chance of success, and it's practically certain that a wiki founded on my principles will be as bad for some people as theirs will be for others. --◄mendel► 14:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

How would you ever convince ANet to give you in-game integration? o_O Mostly I am worried because every time this issue has been brought up before, it has been decided by the majority of users that there should be no GuildWiki 2. It is another community split which we really can't handle. (Can you imagine 1/2 the current active users leaving?) Also, no matter how many times GWW/GW2W supporters say "you have a chance to go and change the GW2W right now, we are still in the formative stage", rarely anyone ever takes up on that offer. There is a general consensus that policies have to be different, but (from what little research I have done) it does not seem like there is a unified effort to really make everyone feel welcome...or in other words it seems no one is willing to truly challenge the inclinations they have now, so for all intents and purposes they will be set in stone. Maybe I am overhasty though. (T/C) 14:06, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Been there, tried that, got shouted down. They aren't in any kind of formative stage, that's just BS. I daresay what they want is for other people to write down what's in their heads, or skip the writing down altogether as it just serves to appease the masses - but that may just be my impression. We'll see.

It won't be "another" community split, there'll be two communities and that's that, I don't see what's wrong about it, either. --◄mendel► 14:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The first community split was when GWW was announced. The second will be when GWiki2 will be announced. I bet most people will just go to GW2W, and a handful will go to GWiki2. Thus, splitting the community. Again. --- -- (s)talkpage 14:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The biggest problem for Gwiki2 would be finding editors to fill mainspace. I'm not seeing GWW users switching (back) to Gwiki2. -- 14:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

unattributed images

NO REASON GIVEN, Error: invalid time Eh? (T/C) 14:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's the template, I thought Ishy had fixed the problems? Anyway, I'm not going to mess with it. --◄mendel► 14:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess not. They are to be deleted for copyvio, yes? (T/C) 14:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem comes form me using "unattributed image" liek a regular image tag, with no parameters.

If you want to avoid a witchhunt, better figure out a way to flag images as unattributed without starting the deletion process. Perhaps this could be achieved by not doing that unattributed images without a date given? --◄mendel► 14:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

No, they are merely to be categorized as "unattributed". Hmm, I see solution - more a "crude hack" type of solution, but nevertheless... --◄mendel► 14:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Images that could be attributed some way or another (fair use, most likely) can be put in Category:Unattributed images without the use of {{Unattributed image}}. They are available there for administrative review. --◄mendel► 14:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This is so complicated... >.< Didn't someone run a bot sometime that took all uncategorized images and put them in the unattributed images category? (T/C) 15:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Jedi, once per week. GuildWiki:Bot tasks. --- -- (s)talkpage 15:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

figure out a way to flag images as unattributed without starting the deletion process Then you come up with something, I did the best I could. But apparently it's too much to assume that the admins here have any common sense. >.> —Dr Ishmael 15:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

No, we're just trigger happy. :> (T/C) 16:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not a matter of common sense admins: with no way to remove an unattributed image from the process either someone has to research a lot of sources (it's not that easy to put a complete "fair-use" attribution together), or "candidates for deletion" is going to fill up with dead wood.

To clarify, my use of "witchhunt" refers to Entropy's post up there (own up, how many of you thought that was a dig at admins?). Oh, and Jedi's bot only works on recently added images. --◄mendel► 16:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

"candidates for deletion" is going to fill up with dead wood. And dead wood should be cleaned out. Not "dead" wood per se, more like "dying", which should be cleaned out once it is "dead". I don't see it becoming a huge problem, either, as long as we continue adding licenses to easily-classified images as they are uploaded. CfD would only be "filled up" if someone *cough* runs a bot on every single image on the wiki, and that's only because the admins have historically been lazy about enforcing our image policies. —Dr Ishmael 18:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

And I had my reply all written up when you ec'ed me with your retraction: :::::::My last edit summary wasn't meant as an incitement. If I am to assume that admins have common sense, as you write, that makes sense only if I assume that they won't delete everthing that has no attribution (you don't need any sense or otherwise to delete everyting outright). So what do you propose to do with images that arive in "candidates for deletion" via the "unattributed image" tag that shouldn't be deleted? As far as I can see, if you don't delete them, your only choice is to remove that template again. Which puts it back into the pool of images with unclear, unexamined copyright status. So it is exactly because I assume that admins have common sense that I was looking for a way to tag these images unattributed outside of the deletion process. --◄mendel► 18:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

So you say: kill GuildWiki:Image attribution project and anyone who attempts to do something like that -- no, wait, that came out wrong ....

What instead would you propose to deal with the backlog? --◄mendel► 18:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Read from top to bottom.. Lol --- -- (s)talkpage 18:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

new image categories

Ambitious was Mendel. (hey that will be my next skill!) Do you plan to make categories for every single image we have, so that they are all categorized one way or another? :) Good Luck! </obscure reference> (T/C) 06:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that'll work, unless we make a big "User image" or "User page image" category. I like to add categories that may be useful, e.g. the boxart category is because obviously people like to use boxarts for whatever pruposes, and before you scan and upload one or search for one, you can just look through Category:Images, spot that one, and maybe find what you need right there. Or "userbox images", these already have the right size (of course all skill icons also do), so that's a good idea. Any category that is in and of itself a collection of a large number of similar images is a good idea because it simplifies housekeeping (e.g. "User MTG").

What has become painfully obvious, though, is that the present license schemem is flawed. I've been meaning to take this to the admin board once I have thought of a suggestion to fix this (feel free to move this there). There are currently only two ways to tag ANet material, and that is "screenshot" and "Fansite kit image". They claim fair use. If you look at what I quoted on GuildWiki talk:Copyright, although that is a bit selfcontradictory ("private, personal use" vs. "right to request removal of our content" - the latter implies the content has been published and is thus not used privately), it seems that for non-commercial use, as long as you don't put the artwork into your own game, that covers all use of ANet material on our site. So what we should do is make an {{anet-c}} template that puts the Anet copyright notice on the image (see, again, GuildWiki talk:Copyright). That would cover everything. Boy art, concept art, fansite kit, stuff from their website, textures from the game, any screenshots that show only the interface (such as icons) would be fine with that. For screenshots that the user has an influence over by exerting camery control, the person taking the screenshot has created a derivative work; the same goes for modified skill icons, even if you just scribble on it in the course of a discussion, so there ought to be a way to credit the user with that as well (CC BY-NC-SA demands that). This is the reason why the "original uploader" info is important on re-uploaded images. So we might want to have a {{user-c}} that can be used in conjunction with anet-c and basically says, "the uploader created this work either alone or as a derived work (see other credits). the user's contribution to the work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0" with the option of using user= to credit someone else (the "original uploader") and "license=" to insert another license. For these, we should make small templates available that can be inserted to show a concis of the license terms and maybe a logo, so if I do a "license=LGPL", then Template:License/LGPL gets transcluded into the license box. Some easy way also needs to found to credit open images, e.g. the KDE box in Category:Userbox images. Many images can be found on wikimedia commons, and there ought to be simple ways to duplicate those licenses. --◄mendel► 07:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

"Category:Guild cape images" and "Category:Player character images" - what do you think? I'm sure it'd be intersting to browse through these for inspiration once they exist. --◄mendel► 07:27, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Stuff sounds good to me, go right ahead. I can change any of the MediaWiki stuff (dropdown menus) if you need. (T/C) 19:35, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to set the templates up first and ask for comments. I know that I had some critical ideas about this last night after I turned off the PC, but I don't remember what they were. At the very least, there should be a simple tabular guide "which license for what" or something. --◄mendel► 19:45, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Upload vs. MiniUpload

The difference I see in Monobook is that MiniUpload leaves off the page header, footer, and sidebar, only displaying the "content" portion of the page. Doesn't seem particularly useful. —Dr Ishmael 13:55, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that does make sense. On Monaco, my Upload window has to be 885 pixels wide to not scroll, and MiniUpload is 629. So if you want to have it side-by-side with an explorer window, that's a lot better. Maybe we can replace some of the text with links to make it smaller vertically and have it open in a popup window? Isn't really necessary, though - MultiUpload is much more useful. --◄mendel► 19:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

license

You could just change the licensing yourself. (T/C) 22:30, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The users are still active (I think), and they were under the impression the licensed the image as that what it was, so I'd be happier if they did it themselves. It is of no great consequence in any case. --◄mendel► 22:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

"If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." = You're legible to edit it to what it's supposed to be. The original intent (getting a license on the thing) is still there, just more correct. --- -- (s)talkpage 12:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that granting a license is not really "writing". I can't make the original uploader grant another license, unless I stipulate that he meant to really grant the one I'm changing it to. If you change it anyway, you have to be certain that the uploader holds no copyright (arguably the case with ad screenshots), or you'd have to be equally certain the license you change it to is better - and why should LGPL be better when you don't see any copyrightable interface elements of the browser or the wiki? On my conscience I'd claim fair use for any image with ads that illustrates a problem. --◄mendel► 12:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, listen. If you're going to put messages on the talkpage, at least link to the template instead of putting it (and it's categories) on the talkpage. It doesn't really help adding a category that's almost never looked at to "get attention". And for crying out loud make sure you actually have the right thing!!! XP date and time is not mediawiki! And by the way, ≠ ! Not a screenshot! Sorry bout rant. I just don't like it when people don't bother researching a bit before they do edits like that.Entrea [Talk] 02:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I am actually going to be checking these categories for unfinished business.

See Image_talk:Baxter-guildwiki-logo-135x135.png for my reply to Not a screenshot!

Much along the same lines Image:Isk8-GMT.jpg can't be a GFDL image when it contains Microsoft interface art. I may have suggested the wrong license, but the one that's on it can't be right. And why are you shouting at me when you can't see the proper license yourself? I wasn't the one who put it on the picture. --◄mendel► 05:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm shouting because it makes me feel better when I do something stupid. Blaming other people is more fun.Entrea [Talk] 05:27, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Pssst

If you're still around, can you get on IRC? 06:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I'm going to bed. It was nothing urgent, though not unimportant. 07:30, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, Special:EmailUser/M.mendel.--◄mendel► 08:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

USSW

"I realize now what SmashWiki truly is. It's the Soviet Russia version of GuildWiki." (User:Entropy, 21 September 2008 on User talk:Cafinator) It is probably impossible to guard a wiki against this by means of policy. What you can hope for is to write stuff that makes it painfully obvious that deterioration has occurred, as opposed to writing policy that would cover it up. If one has a cup of tea and time for deep thought, one could ponder which policies on current GW-related wikis fall in what category. I haven't done that yet, but I have a suspicion that "Don't be a dick" would fall in the latter category. --◄mendel► 08:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Categories

Care to explain this to me? o_O (T/C) 14:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I am on a mini-rampage to empty Special:UncategorizedCategories! No really, I thought the explanation on the page was clear? Probably not (again). Sigh. It is a somewhat renegade action, but it amounted to editing 7 categories, so it is easily reversed. It helps users (and myself) to navigate our category system. The goal is to make all categories on GuildWiki be (Sub-)categories of this one. --◄mendel► 14:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC) & 14:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Special:PrefixIndex and then go Category. That always worked for me. But I understand now. (T/C) 14:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Just as Special:Categories, that one is an alphabetical list, which is just a tad impractical for 2000+ categories. However, trees are cool. ;-) --◄mendel► 14:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought the tree was too big and so it crashed. That happened last time I tried that special page. :) (T/C) 14:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Might be the 1.13 update - I notice it doesn't preload the tree, but rather fetches the data when you open a branch. --◄mendel► 14:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

IRC

I was talking to Felix about this in-game. I remember sometime, somewhere, you had a line something to the effect of "You can contact me on IRC with /query mendel to chat (semi-)privately." (emphasis added) Felix was very very certain that a query results to a totally private conversation, and yet I remember you writing that. So we were just curious if a query on IRC is really truly private or not. I could check Wikipedia or something but it's too dense for me. (T/C) 09:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

My (somewhat dated) understanding of irc conversations is that everything a user types into irc runs through the server, where it appears as plain text. Nowadays, the connection between a user and the server is encrypted to protect against text injection. However, for a /query or /msg the irc network still does the transportation and even if there was end-to-end encryption, without authentication features such as personal keys that are independent of the session, the server could always set up a man-in-the-middle attack to get to know the text.

So let's assume the irc server knows what you type in a /query or /msg; that means that the operators of any server that your traffic runs through can read these messages, as could any hackers who may have gained access. These are the only limits to your privacy. You can improve this privacy if both connect explicitly to the same irc /server (not network), whose operator they trust, because then that server is the only one to see the chat.

If you initiate a DCC chat (which may fail to due to misconfigured clients and/or firewalls), a direct chat connection is opened that bypasses the server. This exposes your IP address to your chat partner, and since this may be a risk, it is not done by default. For any chat to be truly private, you'd also have to be certain that malicious keyloggers etc. aren't running on either party's PCs.

In conclusion, I'd say that a /query is reasonably private, even if not truly so. --◄mendel► 09:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

sqrt(x^2)=abs(x)

Oh, that was you. By definition, you set abs(x) equal to sqrt(x^2) when solving absolute value problems. (T/C) 23:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

${\sqrt {x^{2}}}\neq ({\sqrt {x}})^{2}$ --◄mendel► 23:28, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, that can't be right, either. I am being dense tonight, it seems. --◄mendel► 23:33, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Python foot

It floats when you scroll the shoutbox. Why? (T/C) 17:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It does? Cool! I assume it is because the wiki puts it in a <div class="floatright">. It floats because you still haven't switched to Firefox. If Felix doesn't desire that, a {{clear}} below my comment should fix it. --◄mendel► 17:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

so there was one of those quick link-ads at the bottom of the page

and one of those links was mendel. Loltastic. — Nova — (contribs) 23:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks guys for fixing my userpage from the vandal :) Ezekiel [Talk] 01:25, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The first ban that I've tagged, I believe. Should I be thanking you? ;-) --◄mendel► 07:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Vote on my User Page!!!!!!

Hey, go to my userpage and vote on my poll. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Renegade Shinobi (contribs) .

I bet if you had signed I'd know more easily which page that is. --◄mendel► 14:09, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Redirects 2

(I think it was you who said something about this, may have been the Doctor, can't remember)

We are supposed to delete redirects which are only for a single case change, such as "Arbor bay" -> Arbor Bay, because MediaWiki will redirect them automatically. But, let's say I am trying to make a link to Birthday Present. If I want a blue link, I have to have both words in caps, exactly as the article...[[Birthday present]] is a redlink. Yet it will still redirect me.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, why wouldn't MediaWiki make it a blue link? It's smart enough to redirect for case, but not for linkage?

Or am I just confused as usual? :\ (T/C) 00:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

"Birthday present" doesn't redirect you, redlinks always open the "edit new page" page. The search box will "go" to the correct page under certain conditions (case change on a two-word phrase, or case change on a phrase where an article (or redirect) with all lower case (or all upper case?) title exists.

The wiki treats redlinks differently: if there is no article title that is an exact match (excepting the case of the first letter), it redlinks.

Because the search box finds the page, there is no reason to keep the redirect; without a redirect, wrong spellings/cases redlink; editors must spell links correctly or use a | link.

I realise this is a very short explanation; I'll gladly expand if you indicate where it is still unclear. --◄mendel► 00:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I think I understand now. It would be awfully convenient but also problematic if all redlinks would first run through the search engine first instead of going straight to edit. (T/C) 01:34, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Anomalies

Amphibian Garment, Charr Armor, Charr Bracers, Dwarven Armor, Jotun Armguard, Jotun Plating, Modniir Tunic, Quetzal Garb <-- I found runes on those, but I'm lazy. Sorry for being myself :) --- -- (s)talkpage 10:40, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I am amazed that you can tell that offhand. You must keep good records. --◄mendel► 10:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't keep records beyond my memory, but I am known for storing (at that point) useless information and letting all the things I should know, slip. I've been PvE'ing for 3 years, so I've found quite a bunch of salvage armors... --- -- (s)talkpage 10:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Afaik, anything that uses an armor-like icon and doesn't stack can have a rune. (Tundra Giant's Bracer is the one that stacks) Also, "Armor: X" tends to indicate a salvage item, though I don't usually pay attention to that. (T/C) 19:05, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, the Tundra Giant's Bracer can't have a rune and should thus not be in "Salvage armor", but rather in the "Salvageable Remains" category?

Another anomaly are the collectables with no known collectors — 24 in all. Weird. I don't think we have a category for them yet. "Uncollected collectables"? --◄mendel► 22:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Collectorless collectibles?--îğá†ħŕášħ 22:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Uncollectables. 22:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

^What he said. And I am sure that you can never get a rune on a Tundra Giant's Bracer (disregard what I said on that talkpage, I must have been confused). (T/C) 23:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

If it stacks, it's always the same. Thus, no runes. --- -- (s)talkpage 14:56, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Area_of_effect_skills_quick_reference

Apparently the mixture of the templates being used doesn't work so well. And if I try to hide columns, more gets cut off than I want (see Elementalist section). Help? --JonTheMon 18:30, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The templates work just fine. The problem was the colspan on the first cell in the header row - the hidecol classes count cells in each row, so they hid the 4th and 6th cells of that line, just as they should have, except that because of the colspan those were actually the headers for the 5th and 7th columns. I just removed the colspan (inserting an empty cell over the 1st column) and it works as expected. —Dr Ishmael 19:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Absence

I am likely to be more or less absent through the next 7 days, starting in earnest sunday or so. --◄mendel► 02:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 02:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I can expand your watchlist for you while you are gone. (T/C) 18:36, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Absence ended. --◄mendel► 23:54, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

That was 8 days liah!--îğá†ħŕášħ 23:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

• 06:24, 18 October 2008 (hist) (diff) Talk:Lockpick‎ (New section - →Retention Chance too low?)
• 16:13, 11 October 2008 (hist) (diff) m GuildWiki talk:Suggestions/Bonus Weekend tips‎ (→Do Not Want)

No. --◄mendel► 23:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Check the time stamp on your post of when you where going to be afk.--îğá†ħŕášħ 00:12, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

When I do, I find that I was absent on the days of October 11th through 17th. Fix your system errors! --◄mendel► 00:16, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

So that would be 6 days. Weeee! Just because you can use math on me, doesn't mean I can't use illogical logic on you! I can't I need the system up to fix them!--îğá†ħŕášħ 00:34, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

New parser

I'm putting it live now. Good luck! Kirkburn (talk) 23:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls

Funny. (T/C) 07:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Pages with too many skill bars on them. I ought to rewrite that template to not use #ifexist, get the image differently. --◄mendel► 14:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The weirdness is that it is an automatic, built-in category. Witness this diff: the old revision isn't catted, the new one is, but there's no explicit category on it. --◄mendel► 14:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

And the name changed with one of the recent updates. --◄mendel► 14:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

an idea

So you know how there's this "bar" at the top of the page which has "More GameWikis projects: FuryWiki, HammerWiki, OblivioWiki" etc? I have yet to find where that is in the Special:Allmessages. I wanted to know where one might change this. FuryWiki is a dead place, with no edits in over 30 days. HammerWiki and to a lesser extent OblivioWiki are smaller places, and since the Gamewikis connection is lost now, I am not sure why we still have links for them. Do a lot of people on GuildWiki play them? I do not know...

But in any case, I am asking if you knew how to change this, since I'd like to at least update the URLs to point to the Wikia ones. (T/C) 15:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I like the bar. It makes GWiki GWiki a bit :P Changing it to Wikia links sounds fine; maybe we can ask Kyle if that's a suitable replacement for ads? :D --- -- (s)talkpage 15:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that's part of the .css, since I know it's not under the mediawiki all messages. — Warw/Wick 15:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I have a section in my CSS that hides it and adjusts the rest of the page to fit (designed for monobook, would need different adjustments for monaco). —Dr Ishmael 15:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, hiding it is one thing, but to edit it...should I be looking in the global/sitewide .css, or is it part of the HTML and I need to ask Kyle? (T/C) 15:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Pretty sure it's hardcoded - I can't find it anywhere in a search of Mediawiki: and Template: namespaces (so it's not templated), and it shows up normally in the page source (so it's not inserted by any javascript). —Dr Ishmael 16:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I bet it's in our custom monobook.php . Ask Fyren. ;-) Or bug Kyle. --◄mendel► 22:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I asked on #wikia, it is in fact in https://svn.wikia-code.com/wikia/trunk/skins/GWMonoBook.php . Search for "Warhammer". --◄mendel► 23:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

After Wikia beat him in a children's card game, Fyren fell off the face of the wiki, so I guess I will go bug Kyle about it. (T/C) 00:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It's funny you should mention this issue, because I've been discussing GuildWiki's version of Monobook with my boss recently. In particular, I want to migrate GuildWiki to the main Monobook code. We originally tried to do that, but the ad on the right side caused problems, so we undid it. I think, however, I have a way to do it without that being a problem. While we're not close to making a decision to do that yet, I do have one question: would you be heart-broken if the top bar went away, but everything else stayed the same? --KyleH (talk) 02:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I think most people who like it, appreciate it for the aesthetics and how it makes GuildWiki look like GuildWiki. But I don't think anyone actually uses the links. :) (T/C) 03:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not about to get sentimental over an obsolete feature. In fact, I just removed it from my css, as I've been wanting to do so for a long time. Thanks Ishmael! --Macros 06:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The question should really be posed on GuildWiki talk:Community Portal. We're going to lose the top bar, but get the right-hand vertical Wikia Spotlights bar which takes 120px from the width of the article. If it was my decision, I'd keep the top bar and just make it take the text from a MediaWiki: page, but I can see how moving to a consolidated monobook makes debugging it that much simpler. --◄mendel► 07:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, that's the bar I see on Central Wikia and that I wanted to remove. :) The topbar takes up much less space and is inobtrusive to the point that I forgot it was there until I remembered for this post. Vipermagi suggested above that perhaps the topbar could count as some "ads" instead of the Wikia Spotlights, though I see how that wouldn't work on the consolidated Monobook. Hmm (T/C) 10:22, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

*My* error? Have a look at the Monobook sidebar, when it does load for you. --◄mendel► 22:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more clear. If we migrate to the main Monobook code, we will remove the sidebar ad on GuildWiki, so you won't lose any page width--you'd just lose the bar at the top. --KyleH (talk) 23:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds splendid, then. --◄mendel► 00:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Most of the links on the Monobook sidebar aren't the same as where they point to, but that's no excuse for redlinks, especially for such frequently visited page. Also: That sounds fine, Kyle. (T/C) 03:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

on "teh" talkpage, huh

He has been warned on 3 IPs and by 2 or 3 admins to stop being a retard placing that link, because it's nonsensical. Also, 1. --- -- (s)talkpage 18:35, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The point is to not say "We forbid you to post that video", but rather "hmm, you should better have posted that THERE", which is less likely to end in conflict (or, in this case, vandalism). And the section you linked doesn't actually link the video, it just bashes the poster.

I feel that even if the video is too bad for article standards, having it available may inspire someone to do it better. --◄mendel► 18:42, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

RT pointed to PvX which would be a better place to put the build with a link (see the second talk you linked to on the GoM talkpage). I bet you he damn well knows the movie doesn't show a thing and the link is just hitcount farming for some game. Ah well, in the end we're stuck with some guy trying to spam a link using proxies to abvoid bans, anyhow. --- -- (s)talkpage 18:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm hoping the compromise of allowing the link on the talkpage (with a chance for us to comment on its quality) works. --◄mendel► 18:56, 2 November 2008 (UTC)