Gswiki:Village pump - Revision history

VANKRASN39: /* Ringing in the New Year */ response

2018-01-23T23:55:54Z

Ringing in the New Year: response

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:55, 23 January 2018
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	Watch for it! And, please provide your feedback. A pebble now becomes a boulder later, so let's get it all out on the table and start this new year right! [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 13:53, 23 January 2018 (CST)		Watch for it! And, please provide your feedback. A pebble now becomes a boulder later, so let's get it all out on the table and start this new year right! [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 13:53, 23 January 2018 (CST)

			:Doug, thank you for recognizing my efforts. I personally thank you, Zhouy, and Mark for your various forms of help and support over the past 5 years, I would not have stuck it out for this long if not for you three.

			:I am trying and have been trying for 3 years (since the transfer) to make the wiki both easy (enough) to contribute to, moderate, and read/find stuff at the same time. In addition, we are not and will not be provided with any other documentation, this is it. To [http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/Wizards/Major%20Elemental%20Circle/view/2147 quote GM Estild]: "We no longer update the spell database on the website. Players should use the wiki." So I beg people to see it from the point of view that everyone in the community has to use it, from the zealous RPers, to the number crunchers, to the people only interested in playing to write scripts, to the casual play-an-hour-a-week person, to someone who has just heard of GS a few minutes prior to visiting the wiki for the first time.

			:Some new GM in the future will be moderating it and hopefully will have better ideas than I have to balance everything, and I hope that this person gets much more support and less contradiction from senior staff than I have. I was hoping that Mark would leave what he had done where it was because we could have contacted staff and asked if they could verify it, and I was going to edit the Enchant Item page to restore the intended flow of the article while still keeping his work there, because I can certainly compromise and have many times. I'm also open to Research sections like the one Dan put on the [[Shield Bash]] page. When they're organized so neatly and marked as research, I'm good with that. But others were not doing that, they were leaving all sorts of unformatted, intermediate information on various mechanics pages, and it was extremely difficult to moderate. Additionally, countless times people have claimed an article was wrong and made premature edits when really they were making simple mistakes.

			:I really encourage people to put up their research and have them verified by staff, I'm not sure why is so much resistance to that. Combing through the wiki pages and trying to get them right has uncovered a lot of bugs (that have then gotten fixed), cleared up misbeliefs, and opened up communication with the Development team. It's not always fun, it's frustrating, but look at the general success of the site, I think it's been worth it. In the end we all have the same goal of making GS better.

			:To directly answer your action item (besides the research section on the Shield Bash page above), LST has been used by only a few advanced users and very few regular people are willing to take the effort to figure it out. I think it is fantastic though as it makes repetitive info easier to control, and hope the future GM wiki guru will embrace it. [[User:VANKRASN39\|VANKRASN39]] ([[User talk:VANKRASN39\|talk]]) 17:55, 23 January 2018 (CST)

	==October 2017==		==October 2017==

DOUG: Time to archive! And 2018 Kickoff thoughts

2018-01-23T19:53:16Z

Time to archive! And 2018 Kickoff thoughts

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:53, 23 January 2018
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	{{tildes}}		{{tildes}}

			==January 2018==
			===Ringing in the New Year===
			There's a lot to talk about as we shift from an evangelistic moderator-based source of content to a more purely crowd-sourced content base. This is fairly lengthy - I want to share my perspective. But feel free to skip to the '''Action:''' section, if you don't want to wade through the background and proposal justifications.

			The efforts of several moderators in getting us to this stage have been essential - I would argue none more so than V, who has put an incredible energy behind getting us this far. Your direct leadership has certainly set the stage for our future contributions, V. I always ask if I've thanked you for all of this, and I never feel it has been enough. So, again - Thank you.

			'''Background:''' With fewer 'control' mechanisms, and (hopefully) many more contributors, we need to balance out an approach that serves several goals but at the same time may not create the same leverage for maintaining a carefully groomed and curated consistency. We have a style guide, backed by several other documents, which can stand us in good stead, I think. But - I think our (the remaining evangelists) approach to its consumption needs to change its flavor. I would suggest it be used as an enabler for contributions. Whatever we may have thought / tried / positioned it to be, now I feel is the time to convert that over to a sense of enablement. With that, though, comes a need to understand specifically what we're enabling.

			A recent discussion with competing goals - in my opinion - recently took place on the Enchant talk page. Those interested can go read it, but at its core I feel is this sense of shifting to crowd-sourcing, and a sense of goals that aren't fully embraced. To be clear - the primary goal that I feel isn't embraced is simply this: GSIV Canon material (GM / Simu provided) is limited and is likely to remain limited. This is particularly true in mechanics behind spells and spell like effects. As long as I can recall, the game has been one of preliminary information released by the GMs (the Canon), followed by significant rounds of player-research to explain / amplify / illuminate the intricacies of our fantasy world.

			This thought - the goal to 'require' significant player research - hasn't been categorically affirmed necessarily. But, like any other player research, I would say the proof is in the information freely shared, and the information kept behind the curtain. Given a certain sample size, I think it will withstand scrutiny. And interestingly enough, this thought - the goal - may well be counter to current player members' desires, who can oftentimes get freely shared mechanics information from other games in our genre. Still, and for closing on 3 decades, Gemstone seems to stand alone in this regard. I'm not sure it will change.

			'''Proposal:''' If we agree that this is fact (not that we like it, mind - that has an entirely different resolution path), then the question becomes - how best to share the information to a reader while maintaining a sense of Canon versus Research. Fortunately, the style guide gives us a partial answer. Those elements of information that are derived by players going forward should be targeted to Research pages. Unfortunately, simply placing the information in a Research category, and linking it, isn't necessarily 'reader-friendly'. Likewise a goal exists to know specifically what is Canon, and perhaps only work from that - meaning the Research information should be 'hidden' unless the reader wants to see it - thus supporting the link approach. It also creates a sense of bifurcation - some pages have it all, some pages require navigation. Our consistency wanes, and we should be interested in maintaining it. To that end, I suggest Labeled Section Transclusion (LST) and perhaps consider collapsing the Research portions until the reader expands them. We already have a number of articles that use Transclusion and a couple that use LST specifically, so I'm confident we can do this.

			'''Action:''' I will work up a prototype of the concept of LST using a couple of different articles in my sandbox for us to poke holes in the thought that this might be beneficial to the Canon versus Research discussion, continue to support the style guide, and set us up for a rich discussion on what benefits our readers (the most important segment here, bar none, in my view). I will also attempt to lay in a suggested improvement to the style guide about Research pages on the Confirmed, Accepted, and Posited types of player research, so all contributors can gain a sense for how best to position their research. We can discuss how something might be promoted through those categories, and maybe even get promoted to Canon (the concept of GM reviewed / approved) - although I will not be positioning that as a requirement / expectation because - I think such a position is counter to my sense of the GSIV Canon (released) versus Research expectations Simu / GMs hold.

			Watch for it! And, please provide your feedback. A pebble now becomes a boulder later, so let's get it all out on the table and start this new year right! [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 13:53, 23 January 2018 (CST)

	==October 2017==		==October 2017==

VANKRASN39: /* Math and Math extensions */ fixed pages

2017-12-07T16:03:31Z

Math and Math extensions: fixed pages

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:03, 7 December 2017
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	:::Temporary workaround: copy the math code into https://arachnoid.com/latex/ to manually generate an image of the formula. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 19:05, 3 December 2017 (CST)		:::Temporary workaround: copy the math code into https://arachnoid.com/latex/ to manually generate an image of the formula. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 19:05, 3 December 2017 (CST)
	::::This is the exact same workaround that I wanted to do for math display [[#Mathematical_symbols\|originally]], so I'm all for it as a permanent solution. [[User:VANKRASN39\|VANKRASN39]] ([[User talk:VANKRASN39\|talk]]) 09:51, 4 December 2017 (CST)		::::This is the exact same workaround that I wanted to do for math display [[#Mathematical_symbols\|originally]], so I'm all for it as a permanent solution. [[User:VANKRASN39\|VANKRASN39]] ([[User talk:VANKRASN39\|talk]]) 09:51, 4 December 2017 (CST)
			:::::All pages with math errors have been fixed. <section begin=fixing math />When the math extension goes out for an extended time, some pages will still maintain the garbled display when it is fixed. In order to fix it, someone<noinclude> (hopefully in the future the Wiki GM)</noinclude> will need to go page by page and check all pages using the math tag. A search for "math" will obviously display any word with math both on the page and in the code. Look for the ones with "<math>" in the results display and visit all of them. Some will be fixed, some will not be. On the ones where the display is still messed up, make and save an edit like adding a space, or fixing code if something is not right (like excess pipes in templates).<section end=fixing math /> [[User:VANKRASN39\|VANKRASN39]] ([[User talk:VANKRASN39\|talk]]) 10:03, 7 December 2017 (CST)

	===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===		===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===

VANKRASN39: /* Math and Math extensions */ response

2017-12-04T15:51:15Z

Math and Math extensions: response

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:51, 4 December 2017
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	::Update: api.formulasearchengine.com is down again as of now. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 13:46, 30 November 2017 (CST)		::Update: api.formulasearchengine.com is down again as of now. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 13:46, 30 November 2017 (CST)
	:::Temporary workaround: copy the math code into https://arachnoid.com/latex/ to manually generate an image of the formula. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 19:05, 3 December 2017 (CST)		:::Temporary workaround: copy the math code into https://arachnoid.com/latex/ to manually generate an image of the formula. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 19:05, 3 December 2017 (CST)
			::::This is the exact same workaround that I wanted to do for math display [[#Mathematical_symbols\|originally]], so I'm all for it as a permanent solution. [[User:VANKRASN39\|VANKRASN39]] ([[User talk:VANKRASN39\|talk]]) 09:51, 4 December 2017 (CST)

	===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===		===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===

ZHOUY1: /* October 2017 */ Math workaround while waiting for a fix.

2017-12-04T01:05:15Z

October 2017: Math workaround while waiting for a fix.

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:05, 3 December 2017
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	:<pre>$wgMathFullRestbaseURL= 'https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_';</pre>		:<pre>$wgMathFullRestbaseURL= 'https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_';</pre>
	::Update: api.formulasearchengine.com is down again as of now. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 13:46, 30 November 2017 (CST)		::Update: api.formulasearchengine.com is down again as of now. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 13:46, 30 November 2017 (CST)
			:::Temporary workaround: copy the math code into https://arachnoid.com/latex/ to manually generate an image of the formula. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 19:05, 3 December 2017 (CST)

	===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===		===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===

ZHOUY1: /* October 2017 */

2017-11-30T19:46:38Z

October 2017

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:46, 30 November 2017
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	https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Topic:Tqkr5mdviskc8fmk&topic_showPostId=tsm7a3iufmbud2jg#flow-post-tsm7a3iufmbud2jg		https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Topic:Tqkr5mdviskc8fmk&topic_showPostId=tsm7a3iufmbud2jg#flow-post-tsm7a3iufmbud2jg
	:<pre>$wgMathFullRestbaseURL= 'https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_';</pre>		:<pre>$wgMathFullRestbaseURL= 'https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_';</pre>
			::Update: api.formulasearchengine.com is down again as of now. [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 13:46, 30 November 2017 (CST)

	===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===		===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===

ZHOUY1: /* October 2017 */ Math needs fixing

2017-11-20T20:17:23Z

October 2017: Math needs fixing

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:17, 20 November 2017
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	:::Read your note. Headed to the style guide! (Feel free to join us, community! ;) [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 18:22, 12 October 2017 (CDT)		:::Read your note. Headed to the style guide! (Feel free to join us, community! ;) [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 18:22, 12 October 2017 (CDT)

			It looks like the math extension is broken (again) for a lot of wikis. There's a suggested workaround here, to connect to Wikipedia instead of api.formulasearchengine.com: [[User:ZHOUY1\|ZHOUY1]] ([[User talk:ZHOUY1\|talk]]) 14:17, 20 November 2017 (CST)
			https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Topic:Tqkr5mdviskc8fmk&topic_showPostId=tsm7a3iufmbud2jg#flow-post-tsm7a3iufmbud2jg
			:<pre>$wgMathFullRestbaseURL= 'https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_';</pre>

	===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===		===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===

DOUG: Agreeing!

2017-10-12T23:22:23Z

Agreeing!

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:22, 12 October 2017
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	::I've sent an email in response. Please use the math display as described in the [[Help:Style\|Style Guide]] until further notice. Thank you. [[User:VANKRASN39\|VANKRASN39]] ([[User talk:VANKRASN39\|talk]]) 14:47, 12 October 2017 (CDT)		::I've sent an email in response. Please use the math display as described in the [[Help:Style\|Style Guide]] until further notice. Thank you. [[User:VANKRASN39\|VANKRASN39]] ([[User talk:VANKRASN39\|talk]]) 14:47, 12 October 2017 (CDT)

			:::Read your note. Headed to the style guide! (Feel free to join us, community! ;) [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 18:22, 12 October 2017 (CDT)

	===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===		===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===

VANKRASN39: /* Math and Math extensions */ response

2017-10-12T19:47:54Z

Math and Math extensions: response

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:47, 12 October 2017
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	:Alright. I've created a sample for discussion on the Enchanting Potion page (good formula that runs off the edge of the browser on my system.) Please see this Discussion: [[Talk:Enchanting potion]] Interested in the community's thoughts. And as of this moment, there are five new templates copied and adjusted to our use - delimiter-es, ldelim, rdelim, sup and sub. Delimiter template acts as the controller and is called by each the ldelim and rdelim templates (so you probably won't be calling delimiter directly). Ldelim establishes the left side delimiter (with round, vertical, double vertical and square brackets defined), and Rdelim establishes the right side delimiter. Sup and Sub allow for easy superscript and subscript mark-ups (but is not presently set to adjust size of text, so if that's your thing, you'll have to pass that along to sup and sub.) These templates are ready for use, feedback and adjustment - but have a care. The spacing is very tricky to manage. And I do mean very! Recommend you test it in your sandbox first. [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 12:56, 12 October 2017 (CDT)		:Alright. I've created a sample for discussion on the Enchanting Potion page (good formula that runs off the edge of the browser on my system.) Please see this Discussion: [[Talk:Enchanting potion]] Interested in the community's thoughts. And as of this moment, there are five new templates copied and adjusted to our use - delimiter-es, ldelim, rdelim, sup and sub. Delimiter template acts as the controller and is called by each the ldelim and rdelim templates (so you probably won't be calling delimiter directly). Ldelim establishes the left side delimiter (with round, vertical, double vertical and square brackets defined), and Rdelim establishes the right side delimiter. Sup and Sub allow for easy superscript and subscript mark-ups (but is not presently set to adjust size of text, so if that's your thing, you'll have to pass that along to sup and sub.) These templates are ready for use, feedback and adjustment - but have a care. The spacing is very tricky to manage. And I do mean very! Recommend you test it in your sandbox first. [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 12:56, 12 October 2017 (CDT)

			::I've sent an email in response. Please use the math display as described in the [[Help:Style\|Style Guide]] until further notice. Thank you. [[User:VANKRASN39\|VANKRASN39]] ([[User talk:VANKRASN39\|talk]]) 14:47, 12 October 2017 (CDT)

	===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===		===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===

DOUG: /* October 2017 */ Adding to the Math discussion

2017-10-12T17:56:49Z

October 2017: Adding to the Math discussion

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:56, 12 October 2017
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	===Math and Math extensions===		===Math and Math extensions===
	I'm unhappy with the current 'image display' limitations experienced when using the Math extensions. As such, I'm working on installing / modifying some templates to allow us to resize on the fly (I hope) or to render simple equations in HTML with spanning rules which will allow for resizing. For those who watch the Template space closely, I've tried to mark them up, but they're not yet ready for prime time. So save me a headache and don't use any of them until I've posted here releasing them. Thanks! [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 19:50, 9 October 2017 (CDT)		I'm unhappy with the current 'image display' limitations experienced when using the Math extensions. As such, I'm working on installing / modifying some templates to allow us to resize on the fly (I hope) or to render simple equations in HTML with spanning rules which will allow for resizing. For those who watch the Template space closely, I've tried to mark them up, but they're not yet ready for prime time. So save me a headache and don't use any of them until I've posted here releasing them. Thanks! [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 19:50, 9 October 2017 (CDT)

			:Alright. I've created a sample for discussion on the Enchanting Potion page (good formula that runs off the edge of the browser on my system.) Please see this Discussion: [[Talk:Enchanting potion]] Interested in the community's thoughts. And as of this moment, there are five new templates copied and adjusted to our use - delimiter-es, ldelim, rdelim, sup and sub. Delimiter template acts as the controller and is called by each the ldelim and rdelim templates (so you probably won't be calling delimiter directly). Ldelim establishes the left side delimiter (with round, vertical, double vertical and square brackets defined), and Rdelim establishes the right side delimiter. Sup and Sub allow for easy superscript and subscript mark-ups (but is not presently set to adjust size of text, so if that's your thing, you'll have to pass that along to sup and sub.) These templates are ready for use, feedback and adjustment - but have a care. The spacing is very tricky to manage. And I do mean very! Recommend you test it in your sandbox first. [[User:DOUG\|DOUG]] ([[User talk:DOUG\|talk]]) 12:56, 12 October 2017 (CDT)

	===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===		===Apple and Mac OS X, with Lich===