User talk:Tesla

Welcome

This is my talk page. Please feel free to leave me a message about anything! Tesla 03:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Umm...

How did you get the selection of people that you left the message on? Ariyen 19:36, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, we've been bitching about it, but can't figure it out. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 19:38, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Hey there! Basically when you make a user account on any wiki it comes with a "User Page" and a "Discussion" or "Talk Page". Both need to be made by that user. The "Talk Page" or "Discussion" page is where people can leave you a little message. If you need more help, I'll be happy to assist you or walk you through it via a voice chat program. Just let me know. ^_^ Tesla 22:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Tesla, answer me honestly. Are you a bot? What is love? Who discovered America? What is the inverse of the coefficient of the 115th point of the Mandelbrot series if the entire series is shifted seven points to the left and then multiplied by -i? And most importantly: Who is best pony?--Łô√ë îğá†ħŕášħ 00:28, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Uh...Why would I be a bot? What is love? It is an emotion, a feeling that can not truly be described enough in words. You can attempt to define it, but no words will ever do such a feeling justice. You are insane to ask me all of these questions. xD The best pony? Any pony! By the way, best pokemon is pikachu! :) Tesla 00:53, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

That still didn't answer the question of how you came to choose the people that you did and leave the message that you did on those talk pages... Personally, I'd left that message at the CP (Community Portal). Basically, your answer seems to be on what happens when anyone "creates" an account, not how you had chosen the selection that you did... Many have been on this wiki for a while and I think we know how it works. Plus, that's what our guides, etc. are for. So, I'm still curious and would like an answer to the actual question, please. Thank you kindly, Ariyen 14:37, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

She answered it on Arnout's talkpage for some reason. —Dr Ishmael 18:39, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I answered there because I was unsure where you guys would read the response. So I posted it where most of you were talking about it. Tesla 11:13, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Tbh, does it really matter who got the message and who didn't? Some inactive people got it, and some active people didn't. But the active people noticed it anyway (as demonstrated here) because they're, you know, active. --El_Nazgir 11:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that a mistake may have been made. However as I said on the other page, if you feel you deserved to get the message and have feed back about the wiki, then please post here with your feed back. I am not sure how else to let you know that I am truly sorry if I made a mistake. I hope you all understand. Tesla 11:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you made a mistake, I think people are making a way too big issue of this. RC always makes sure the active people get it anyway, so it could have just as well been placed on the community portal or whatever. Point is, people saw it. Now they should actually think about it instead of making a fuss of where it was asked. --El_Nazgir 11:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Naz makes a couple good points - the CommPort is really the best place to start discussions like this, and the active users will be sure to see it there. Alternatively, feel free to use our MediaWiki:Sitenotice if you want to reach out to the wider readership. —Dr Ishmael 14:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Naz, it was curious quests, nothing "Blown up" or made into "big issue". You do know understandings - misunderstandings or puzzlements, etc. type would like to be "cleared" up. I see nothing wrong with this, If you do. Please state, but don't make such a big fuss over what you think is that may not be. I appreciate Tesla's answer on Arnout's page, therefore I didn't question further. All I and Arnout and others wanted to know was how on the selection, out of curiousity. Tesla answered. Simple. It was already suggested in my comment of where (a good idea, instead of flooding rc and posting on multiple usertalk pages) to "leave" such a message, besides the sitenotice. I don't think Tesla made a mistake, but I just feel it was rather "different". We all know Wyn would have brought it up in CP, same with BumbleBee (I think). I found it interesting at the different approach, but we all do things our own way and I'm sure Tesla appreciates advice too. I hope she didn't take questioning as complaining, like it seems to be assumed as now, instead of a discussion of curiosity. 72.148.31.114 15:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Guys, be nice to Tesla, she's our (Curse's) newest wiki team member. She's just being friendly, she doesn't need all your trollishness :P -- Wynthyst talk 05:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Just breaking in the "new guy". Nah, sorry if you feel we where hard on you... We most defenitly didn't mean it, we were just eager to have an answer. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 07:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Sorry, Tesla. Ariyen 08:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Feedback

Faux pas aside, it's good to know we have someone here taking an interest, and who we can report feedback to directly.
Currently, I think the most pressing issue (at least in my wiki-circles) is the Weapon galleries not working. Keep the back end working, and I think we're pretty happy. Or at least, I am :) → Dark Morelia 15:05, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

To help the devs with investigating that, they can see the SQL query that DPL is actually running by editing the page and adding the parameter "debug=3" to the DPL calls, then previewing the page. For example, the SQL for the DPL call under Axe/Gallery#Unique Axes is:

SELECT DISTINCT `page`.page_namespace as page_namespace,`page`.page_title as page_title,`page`.page_id as page_id
FROM `templatelinks` AS tl, `page` INNER JOIN `categorylinks` AS cl0 ON `page`.page_id=cl0.cl_from AND (cl0.cl_to='Unique_Axes')
WHERE 1=1 AND `page`.page_is_redirect=0 AND `page`.page_id=tl.tl_from AND ((tl.tl_namespace=10 AND tl.tl_title='UniqueWeaponInfo'))
ORDER BY page_title ASC LIMIT 0, 500

(For the record, that query does actually work - if you remove the format parameter from the DPL call, it will output the correct list of pages. The problem appears to be somewhere between that and the surrogate template, Template:WeaponInfo.gallery.) —Dr Ishmael 16:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

More info: It's not that the gallery pages use a surrogate template to format the output, it's that DPL is not parsing the parameters out of the original template on the actual articles. See User:Dr ishmael/Armor art gallery diagnostics - the DPL here should simply parse the parameters out of a template on the article and display them in the table, but it's not outputting anything. —Dr Ishmael 16:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

We have more than one Curse person interested, we should be thankful for that. Anyway... Yea, the weapons are causing issues. It's not helping me with fixing up my sandbox thoughts (which is including gallery link to each unique weapon page and then suggesting these changes and then hopefully implementing them), but I can wait till the errors are fixed. I'm glad Tesla, like Wyn, and Bumble Bee, and more have come to us via various ways be it IRC, CP (which is a great way imo and gets it to the majority), various user talks (some that seem puzzlements), etc. Hope this can be resolved and I, for one, thank you. 72.148.31.114 23:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Feeding your back

Heya Tesla. Sorry for the delay on this, I was sort of confused as to why you'd requested feedback and suspected you were looking for something specific. Wyn explained the situation to me though, so I'll just throw out some general blather.

The major pros for GuildWiki on Curse vs GuildWiki on Wikia are that we essentially have free reign here, we never have to expend effort to support wikia's stupid designs, and the Curse staff are typically friendlier and less officious. On the other hand, Wikia's constant "progress" and the giant shared userbase kept GuildWiki from stagnating, because there was always something to do and someone to do it, even if it was just fixing tables that wikia broke. Nowadays GuildWiki is very stable, but it feels like there's little impetus for people to do anything because most improvements are purely superficial, and as a result we've lost a lot of the energy and community togetherness that we once had.

What can we do about this, and perhaps more relevantly, what can you do about this? I wish I knew. I'd had a few initiatives in the past (Community events, mascot contest, GWGuru integration) that fizzled due to lack of participation; perhaps those could be revived. I know you are, or were, a big Guild Wars player yourself; are there any things you'd like to see on a wiki that aren't being addressed sufficiently here or at GWW? 22:09, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite see things the same as Felix: there's plenty of stuff to do here (and e.g. Ish is doing a lot of it plus still plenty of missing data from WoC etc). I think instead there are three major factors contributing to the to the current energy:

1. The move.
2. Site outages and IP lockouts.
3. Decline in popularity/age of the game.

The first two had a double-whammy impact. Before leaving wikia, nearly everyone in my guild used GWiki at least as a part-time reference (the guild has been around for a long time). For a number of reasons, hardly anyone knew about the move (primarily, I blame Wikia for forcing a fork instead of allowing a move...but that's a different discussion). I did my best to inform people, but, bit by bit, all of those former wikia readers/contributors migrated to GWW. In each case, when asked, the person told me that they encountered some problem (Oasis, site outage, unable to edit as an IP) → went to GWW as a temporary measure → never came back to GWiki. This isn't exactly fair, but neither is there much we can do about it.

It would help, in my opinion, if the current Curse GWW-related resources (e.g. Guru) had more prominent links to GWiki. (I note that Guru contains all sorts of links to facebook, but I can't find GWiki listed on the front page.) Perhaps it wouldn't matter.

The migration issue might not have been as notable if the game wasn't declining in popularity. ANet has done a decent job to keep hard-core fans involved (e.g. Beyond), but there are only so many quests you can repeat and so many titles you can earn before you look for other games. Once your friends leave the game, it's hard to stay involved.

GWW at least connects to GW2W, so there are at least a handful of people who remain involved in GWW because there's GW2W, but that doesn't apply to GWiki.

I've argued elsewhere that I think for GWiki to compete better with GWW, it has to offer something new/better/different that will encourage people to return. Ish has tried to distinguish GWiki in a number of awesome ways (the carto project, the skill update project, ...) and has offered innovations that have mostly been adapted by GWW (the autopopulation of Nick's requests, etc.).

At this point, though, it would have to be a more substantial type of content difference, rather than just a data/cosmetic difference. I've always thought that GWiki did a better job of making room in walkthroughs for the three major types of players: newbies, those with a grip on the game, and jaded veterans who think HM is too easy. I've always hoped that GWiki could offer still more options: more guides, more how-to resources, more about farming and pricing... and all the other things that GWW has tended to avoid over the years. Other examples might be help finding items with a particular skin or stats, ways to compare armors for the same prof, help for players at various stages in the game (newbie island, L20, ...), or how to make money... if you hate grinding.

Finally, one thing that seems to get a lot of interest is contests: maybe Guru could consider sponsoring an in-game event (I'm sure that some people here would donate rewards). If it involved looking up stuff here (esp. if it were things you couldn't find on GWW), it might help garner attention for this wiki (plus, indirectly, Curse and Guru, which hardly needs it).  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 23:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for my late response. I'd also like to say I'm sorry that you got met with the hostile and offended reaction that you encountered. For a number of reasons, GuildWiki has often been the underdog, and people who largely stayed with the original wiki (us) instead of flocking to the newer official one always felt that they were fighting an uphill battle. It bred a great sense of both pride as well as comradery. Editors were united by a belief that loyalty was important (I also often think we - moreso than GWW - tend to do things with style, but hey, I suffer from bias). [Edit: The point I was making which seemed to be lost to a tangent was that people took great pride in their work here, hence when some people seemed to be valued more than others (even if obviously this was not the case at all), they reacted in a more volatile manner than what most would have expected.]

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. As usual, I tend to agree with TEF (directly above), however I'll focus in on two points he raised.

1) The game is dying as the developer expends 99.5% of their time and effort on the sequel to it.

2) TEF pointed out that to make a comeback - or however you wish to refer to it - we would need a team of people generating sizeable amounts of content in the form of guides, walkthroughs, tips and similar.

Sadly, the two issues compound each other. Few people play a dying game, and so there are very few around to write the guides and walkthroughs, because next to nobody is doing the content. One thing I don't believe TEF touched on (apologies if I should be mistaken), is that the game has grown easier with time, and is now in a condition where the target audience is new people (e.g. those with no experience at the game, aka bad at the game). The developer is largely using it as a lure to get the attention of people who may one day buy the sequel. Which leaves more experienced (and capable) players in an odd place. Guides, walkthroughs, tips... what once set GuildWiki apart from GWW is now arguably no longer relevant.

We reigned supreme when people needed help at the game. But now it's an easy game, so few people need a wiki based on it, and fewer still need guides or similar help.

On a final note; thank you. It's always nice when someone offers to listen and asks for one's thoughts. A F K When Needed 20:13, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

While I agree with AFK on some (most, really) of his points, I do disagree with his statement about why we "attacked" you. Speaking for myself, I was surprised and amazed at who you desided to contact. Seeing that you are a long standing member of the "other" side (GWW, for those who don't know) I figured that you know how stuff works. I'd imagine you would contact all the admins and bcrats, OR, perhaps, all the mainspace active users. I feel like I am just making this worse, so I'll shut up. TL:DR; I didn't mean to attack you. Sorry if you felt that way. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 20:34, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Here is my 2 cents about at least one of the points raised here... working better with GWGuru.... I believe that that is perfectly doable, and I believe that the admins there are open to it, and of course Curse has no issue with it. I think that it's something that the admin team here, should work on with the admin team on GWGuru to see how/where it can be best implemented. -- Wynthyst talk 23:05, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, yes we are. I've gone ahead and made a tab that links to Guild Wiki @GWG. I don't have the original files or it'd look better, but it will do until our transformation (though no word on when that may be). I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I haven't heard anything about working together since Jenn posted on the wiki a while back. Either way, I am on IRC 24/7 if I need to be poked. Kvinna//talk 03:02, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

It's been two weeks and no response so I thought I'd leave another note for the admin(s) to contact me on IRC to discuss this. I also wanted to point out that the main page of the wiki isn't being kept up-to-date in regards to the notices. If GWG is going to link to you guys, the main page at least needs to be kept updated. Kvinna//talk 18:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for all the feedback guys! It will be noted and Wyn is going to see what she can do about the idea involving GWGuru. Tesla 23:15, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot. You also thanked us. So thanks for the thanks. Thanks, also, in advance for any possible thanking the thanking of the original thanks.

With thanks, A F K When Needed 01:37, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tesla - mainpage recent deprovements

Welcome Tesla, and Happy New Year too!

I am copying comments I posted on Dr Ishmael's page. I am posting here in case you do not see them on that page.

Best regards!--ShmEk 00:59, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

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Mainpage - current events new format

I have long supported and continue to support Guildwiki. The new format for current events ==> I HATE it. I have the wiki set as my home browser page (for the last 4 years or so) primarily because of the usefulness of the current events. I preferred it even more when the page had more upcoming history then just the one day. Without the information that was previously on the page at load, the wiki is useless as my homepage. Please consider a revert to the older format, and add the flux if you like too, but it was superior information to the way it currently reads for the current events, and was definitely superior to the thieving official wiki too.--ShmEk 00:50, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

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Hello and thank you so much for taking the time to bring this to my attention! I will be happy to pass the message along to my boss. If there is more feedback like this in the future, could you please direct people to post on my talk page so that I can get it addressed as fast as possible? Thank you again so very much. I hope you had a great new year. Tesla 01:11, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Um, frankly, this isn't something that Curse needs to be involved in. It's purely an internal wiki matter. —Dr Ishmael 01:57, 11 January 2012 (UTC)