23,256
edits
Changes
no edit summary
::::::::UPDATE - Surgo has turned the Assira (kittenAuth) back on, since Simple has been broked. It should trigger only for new pages, url adds, and account registration for non-confirmed users only. You should be able to do regular page edits without it, even if your account is not confirmed. Hopefully it's not too annoying for anyone and spam accounts drop substantially. Report any problems on [[User talk:Tarkisflux|my talk]] please. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 23:36, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
== Main Page Update ==
With the RC abolished and the new rating system in place, I think it's time to get the Main Page updated to show off our favorite articles. I've been trying to find a setup that looks good and doesn't cause the intro or the favorite to get lost on the page, and think I've finally found one that works. You can check it out [[User:Tarkisflux/sandbox/Main Revamp|here]]. Comments on the setup would be nice, and you're welcome to contribute your own alternate arrangement if you have something else in mind.
I'd like to get the Main Page swapped out in the next 30 days or so, but that will get pushed back if we need to of course. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 00:19, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
:One thing that's bugged me about the current main page is scrolling. It's a bit of a minor thing, but I'd like to mention it off the bat. Main pages shouldn't ever have scrolling and hopefully be as concise as possible. If this means writing a shorter version of the intro paragraph, that's fine (or trimming it down to the essentials and then having an About Us type page that expands on it). The new proposed main page look comes pretty darn close but it is a bit text heavy. Also, do you want me to do a new image that fits within some sort of new shape, like a small top banner? The old one was a massive space hog (which was a source of annoyance for me as well). Actually, we probably don't need a "constant" image so long as the community favorite article shows up. Also, this isn't a point for the Main Page, as it's on every page, but those three links at the very bottom of every page are very out of date and basically all useless or misleading. --[[User:Ganteka Future|Ganteka Future]] 01:06, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
::I'm not opposed to trimming text on the main if it comes down to it, but knowing what screen width to trim for has kept me from attempting anything. If you have a width in mind I'll set it as fixed and make things fit. And the intent was to replace the current dragon with an image in the favorite, but I'm not opposed to a new image bringing up the bottom of main for those with wide resolutions.
::What 3 links are you talking about? - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 01:16, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
:::If you look all the way at the bottom of the page you shall see the three links: "Privacy policy", "About Dungeons and Dragons Wiki", and "Disclaimers". All of them lead to empty pages. --[[User:Foxwarrior|Foxwarrior]] 02:16, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
::::I thought those were filled in actually. Yay... something else to work on.... Should have those up by the end of the night. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 04:32, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
::::And done. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 06:46, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
:::::With the About page filled in, I went ahead and thinned out the intro on the main revamp and added a pointer to it. I think it works quite a bit better that way, and I like the revamp quite a bit more now. It might even be non-scrolling for a large number of resolutions. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 00:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
::::::1680x1050 and it scrolls here (though mostly due to the tribute). Not many people are going to non-scroll atm I think. [[User:Surgo|Surgo]] 14:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
:::::::I don't have any other revisions in mind that would eliminate the scrolling, so I'm not going to worry about it. If there aren't any new objections I'm going to go ahead with the replacement in a couple of days. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 23:02, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
{{ri}}
:The help section seems a bit technical. It would be better if they were oriented at content-creating people. "Add your homebrew" or "Add an encyclopedic article". --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 08:13, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
::Yeah, it's been like that for a while now. Updating along the lines you're suggesting is on my list of things to update, I just haven't gotten to it yet. Feel free to beat me to it if you like. The intent was to put those up as well as a random link (for proofreading and rating), with the more technical stuff hidden on the subpage behind a noinclude. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 08:21, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
::Edit - Actually, nevermind. I've removed the section and moved News up, and will clean up the Community Portal page to turn it into a Tasks page and link it in the intro blurb later. Shortens the main a bit, and allows us to have a reasonable task list without using valuable main page real estate. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 08:29, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
== Is there a place that lists all the extensions used on this wiki? ==
I am just curious as to what extensions are used on this wiki, because I am currently making a wiki of my own (don't worry, I am not trying to steal all of your users). [[User:The Dire Reverend|The Dire Reverend]] 14:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
:You probably want [[Special:Version]] :-) - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 15:57, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
== Move Me ==
To the deletion policy discussion page. Don't know where that is or I'd post this there. That said, had an idea--what if something is so bad it gets like 5 dislikes rating; can we have a policy that it be deleted expeditiously or forced to sandbox or something? :-D --[[User:Ghostwheel|Ghostwheel]] 01:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
:I support deletion. - [[User:MisterSinister|MisterSinister]] 01:21, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
::I support Sandboxing becaus it might be somthing the author would like to learn from, to build on and to change... also to avoid 5 man dislike deletion squads... [[User:Wildmage|Wildmage]] <sup>[[User talk:Wildmage|Talk]]</sup> 12:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
:::Sandboxing is what we went with, but if you want to see more of the discussion, you can find it [[Project talk:Deletion Policy|here]]. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 16:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
== Rating and Suggestions ==
In order to encourage rating, would it be possible to have a Special page like 'Articles in need of Ratings'? It would make it much easier for me to find things to rate, and I suspect more people would rate things that way. We could even have a tag that could be applied to pages that need rating.
Secondly, would it be possible to create a ranking page with 'Our Top Raters' to give people like Eiji and myself some recognition for (what I consider to be) important work, and perhaps to encourage more people to do the same? - [[User:MisterSinister|MisterSinister]] 00:34, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
: I think we had one of these before. In the end though, everyone wants all their stuff rated, so it gets filled up with tons of stuff that just stays there since people want as many ratings as possible. --[[User:Ghostwheel|Ghostwheel]] 05:00, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
::A page of articles that need ratings would be basically impossible in our current scheme, since technically every page that you haven't rated needs rating by you. And like Ghost said, allowing people to list pages they want rated didn't work out too well last time. Since letting people tag pages is basically equivalent to that, I'd rather not do either of them. I wouldn't be opposed to people requesting specific articles be rated on their user pages, but I don't think that's the sort of exposure you're looking for. This is all subject to standard "me getting out voted" stuff of course, and if enough people want it we'll do it.
::There are also some links on the Rating Articles page that might help narrow your work down a bit ([[Project:Rating Articles#Rated Pages|here]]). I can also make tweaks to those links if you have suggestions for them.
::As for a "Top Raters" page, I'll look into it. I could do one with manually added users already, but since manually adding new people sucks I want to see if I can figure out how to it another way. We could also make up some user page badges / awards that auto-updated via template for people to show off if they wanted. Aside from pretty images on those, I could have them made up in a day or so (they're easy). - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 00:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
== Help with unreferenced material needed ==
Another round through the DnD Wiki material is done. Now most importantly there are a number of articles left, where I do not have and/or know (all) the sources. Here I need your help. Could anyone who is interested please have a look at [[:Category:Articles lacking sources|these articles]] and add sources as much as possible?<br>
Most probably have valid sources, which are just not stated. Should we allow Canon articles without sources or make it a rule to only have sourced articles in the Canon section, as the cirterion for Canon material is, that it is based on published information?<br>
In connection with this: It was an aim of DnD Wiki to provide a short summary and a link for subjects that are covered specifically by another wiki with the same standards, e. g. [http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page the Great Library of Greyhawk]. Should we postulate the same for Canon material? And if so, do we need sources for those summary articles, too?<br>
Thanks for your help and input. [[User:Daranios|Daranios]] 18:56, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
:There's a few articles in there that I could put up a source or two for. In general though, I'm not opposed to non-sourced material in the canon section, but wouldn't complain if it was restricted to only that.
:I'm also pretty happy to continue the tradition of short summaries and pointers to more detailed wikis. I'd rather not try to recreate or just steal all of their hard work, and that seems the sort of thing where working with existing communities benefits everyone involved. I don't know that we need summary articles for every article they have out, but things sufficiently common to deserve a mention here should probably get that treatment. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 00:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
==Archive and Shortcuts==
Do we have anything like an archive for old threads or the like? I would like to put some things from D&D Wiki into an archive, like old guidelines, and, in the end, the list of all material. If it does not exist, how would we do that and how would we link it?<br>
I also would like to ask if was possible to get short-cuts to Forgotte Realms, Eberron, and Spelljammer Wiki some time? This [[User talk:Surgo#Shortcuts|has already been discussed]], but it has not been possible to do yet. If it is a great problem, we could decide to replace all short-cut syntax imported from D&D Wiki with normal internet links. But I still think, if possible, these short-cuts would be nice. Thanks a lot! [[User:Daranios|Daranios]] 10:32, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
:I'm not sure what you mean by old threads actually, so I'm really not sure how to accomplish what you want there. Can you provide an example?
:As for the shortcuts thing, I really am waiting on Surgo at this point. There's pretty much nothing anyone else can do to get it installed. You may want to message him directly via the "email user" link on his page, maybe with both of us bugging him about it he'll carve out some time to get it done. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 20:47, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
:: :-) I might try emailing Surgo some time. I know this archiving procedure from Wikipedia, e. g. [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons]] is regularly cleaned up and archived like in [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Archive 31|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Archive 31]]. And I would on the one hand like to empty the DnDWiki namespace completely, and on the other hand preserve things like [[DnDWiki:DnD:Mission Statement]] or [[DnDWiki:DnD:Categories]] or [[Dungeons and Dragons Wiki:DnDWiki import]] for future reference somehow. [[User:Daranios|Daranios]] 10:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
:::Ah, ok. Those archives are just done on subpages of the main page. We don't have the tool that does the automatically, and probably wouldn't benefit from it, but if you want to make a new page in the canon section, like [[Canon:DnDWiki]] or something, to collect those things that should work fine. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 21:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
==Monster vs. Creature==
I just realized that at the moment [[:Category:Monster]] is used for the homebrew stuff, while [[:Category:Creature]] is used for Canon. Would it make sense to put both together like it is e. g. for [[:Category:Deity]], or was there a reason for [[:Category:Creature]]? [[User:Daranios|Daranios]] 20:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
:It may have been because we use the same category for articles about races as well as more monstrous creatures. I'm not really opposed to dropping it in favor of monster though. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 20:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
::I see. The distinction between monster and race is not so clear-cut in Canon. So I would keep [[:Category:Creature]] and just place [[:Category:Monster]] and [[:Category:Race]] within it. [[User:Daranios|Daranios]] 20:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
== Imagery? ==
So what is the status on images not working? Is this a permanent issue with the current extensions in use, or is it a fix that Surgo has just not gotten to it yet? I have a couple of images that I wish to upload. Is this your way of telling me that you don't want my crappy images on the wiki? :-P [[User:The Dire Reverend|The Dire Reverend]] 16:45, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
:There's a fix that Surgo hasn't gotten to yet, and Aarnott does not yet have server access to correct himself. I expect Aarnott to get access within the next 2 weeks though, and should be able to get a fix out of someone shortly after that. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 16:55, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
== Articles in need of ratings ==
While randomsurfing for shit to rate, I came to realise that, if we want more ratings, one ''good'' way of making it happen would be to make the 'articles in need of ratings' be more prominent. I also thought about having a link (on the main page) to something like 'Random unrated article'. This would speed up rating considerably, as it would mean that people could be randomly (but still in a focused manner) drawn towards articles that need ratings ''as such'', instead of just dogpiling something like what tends to happen. Thoughts? - [[User:MisterSinister|MisterSinister]] 10:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
:Special:Random doesn't work within a category, just a namespace (and due to changes on our backend, several namespaces for us), as far as I can tell. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 15:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
::The <nowiki><choose> and <option></nowiki> tags can display random text from a list. That can include a link to an article. There might be a way to automatically populate it with the articles in a category. Although I imagine that would require scripting, at which point I suspect you may as well use whatever randomization the scripting language offers. --[[User:DanielDraco|DanielDraco]] 20:52, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
:::I didn't think of that actually, and could probably code it. But I'd rather do something less list intensive that didn't also require me to potentially refresh the default list page every once in a while. I'll see if there are other options for the same thing. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 21:57, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
:::There's an extension in beta for such a thing [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Random_In_Category here]. I'll discuss it with Surgo and Aarnott, see if we think such a thing is worth bringing in. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 22:09, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
== Author/rating template ==
Since I can't find the right place to put this, might as well do so here.<br>
IMO, *what* the article is rated at should be very easily viewable, and thus either the ratings should automatically be expanded, or we should have the average rating (or whatever's closest to it, or the average, or whatever) be displayed. --[[User:Ghostwheel|Ghostwheel]] 18:44, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
:There was concern about authorbox length on the page that caused the box to be initially collapsed. As average did not win and display of ratings did, anything that involves the primary display of a different piece of information would violate the intent of the vote. The only options that I consider valid in light of the vote are "hiding box initially" and "not hiding box initially", and I think the images do a fine job of drawing attention to the collapsed box as is. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 20:01, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
:: Regardless, one should be automatically be able to see the general rating of a given article. Anything else makes it fairly useless. At a glance people need to be able to see what others think of an article without having to do more clicking in my opinion, regardless of how we do it, but it needs to be done. --[[User:Ghostwheel|Ghostwheel]] 20:15, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
:::They do -- provided it's a community favorite or community opposed. [[User:Surgo|Surgo]] 20:46, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
:::: First, if it's community opposed then the article is automatically sandboxed. Second, if you go on Amazon or Newegg or IMDB or IGN and start browsing, should you only be shown the best things? Nah, you get shown ratings for everything. --[[User:Ghostwheel|Ghostwheel]] 21:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
::::: That would have been an argument for the vote, not here. The debate now is really between default-expanded or default-unexpanded. I imagine in either case we'd like to migrate to Tarkis's new Author template style. [[User:Surgo|Surgo]] 21:16, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
::::::Community opposed is probably going to get a 1 week grace period on the 'automatic' part, so it would display in main for a while. If you don't want that, say something in the discussion on rating articles.
::::::That aside, I'm not actually sure what you want Ghost, other than "something different". I've already said what I consider valid approaches at this point. Do you want one of those, or is there something else that you think appropriate (preferably with a reason why)? - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 21:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
:::::::Gonna have to side with TF on this one. The image draws your eye to it sufficiently well, and if you want to see the ratings it is easy as hell to just expand the template. The only increase in visibility I think we need is to show ratings on the listing pages. But that's another discussion. --[[User:DanielDraco|DanielDraco]] 01:12, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
:::::::: All I want is for the average, casual consumer to be able, at a glance, without clicking on ''anything'' upon entering a page, to see what the community thinks of it. Is it good? Does it suck? Should it be used in my game? Should I consider reading further to learn more about it?
:::::::: That's about it. And I think it's just as important as the ease of rating that we pushed forward so strongly since it gives people immediate feedback on what they're reading and a sense of understanding of the community without having to put in the effort to find out what people think in general on every page. --[[User:Ghostwheel|Ghostwheel]] 04:17, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::So, expanded boxes by default? - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 04:54, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::: Works for me, that's all I wanted :-P --[[User:Ghostwheel|Ghostwheel]] 05:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::::That wasn't me agreeing to do it, that was me asking if that was what you wanted since you never actually said as much. I don't think it's necessary at present, but that might change if the author box goes through some additional revision and there's other things in it to draw the eye. - [[User:Tarkisflux|Tarkisflux]] <sup>[[User talk:Tarkisflux|Talk]]</sup> 05:19, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
