Gswiki:Village pump/Archive 006

FireFox vs. Internet Explorer?

I've noticed that, when using my dad's computer (which, sadly, does not have FireFox installed dispite my recommendations) that many table backgrounds appear black. Further investigation showed that the tables are, in fact, using the correct syntax -- only that IE doesn't support it the same way FireFox does. Specifically, the syntax I am referring to is "bgcolor" amazingly enough. It doesn't seem to support it when the color is defined by three digits, such as "#9CF", and requires a full six digit hex color code ("#99CCFF"). The CSS alternative "Style='background: #9CF;'" works as intended in both FireFox and IE. So far, the tables that I noticed suffered from this are: all the navigational templates (such as Template:Minor elemental navigation) and the current form of the Spell template. Of course, another table command that doesn't work in IE is "-moz-radius" but, since that is specifically labeled, "moz" (for Mozilla), that's expected. - Andy ^talk 11:10, 26 January 2007 (EST)

Glad to Contribute

Hi all. I'm just writing a quick hello here and trying to get a handle on where to start. I've been playing Gem for roughly 10 years now, as I'm sure many have. Part of the reason I'm here is because I'm frustrated with the lack of both current and germane resources for Elanthia. In game, I primarily focus on my warrior. Warrior guild master, Voln master, member of Phoenix. I don't have any great amount of knowledge regarding one particular category, but I've picked up many things over the years. I'm looking to try and flesh out articles regarding anything I've mentioned above, but I'm happy to help elsewhere if I can. Anybody who wants to do some research, please let me know if you need an assistant. If anyone wants to run a collaboration, pardon the cliche, but two head are better than one. Matt ^talk 07:59, 4 December 2007 (EST)

Welcome, Matt! Feel free to tackle any article you feel like. Myself, I focus on the cultural/historical stuff. The elven houses could use fleshing out, as well as the any of the cultures in general. If you want, jump on the giantmen cultures! If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or my talk page. Rail 22:26, 4 January 2007 (EST)

Help Articles

I would like to turn our focus to the help articles, which, in my opinion are lacking. Now, this is for the most part a job that currently can only be completed by those with SysOp privileges, but... in all reality, these help articles are likely a much larger project, and I'd like the assistance of our senior editors with it. We have many, many standards that we adhere to in KP that are similar to Wikipedia, but at the same time, we've many that are very different. I'd like to make these very clear. Additionally, I'd like to unprotect the help articles, as there has been very little situations of abuse and reverting a poor edit is hardly an issue. Opinions? Andy ^talk 14:59, 30 December 2006 (EST)

I think it'd be fair to unprotect them for a given time period, but not indefinitely. This also with the understanding not to change existing policies, but to update or clarify. I haven't checked the help articles myself lately, but never hurts to clarify and improve. Rail 22:29, 4 January 2007 (EST)

New Software

Krakiipedia has been update to MediaWiki version 1.9alpha which brings with is some new and useful features, and some weirdness as well. (Such as a HUGE edit links on the Main Page.) I'll be looking into installing some useful extensions as well, but otherwise everything looks stable. Also, the work I put into standardizing the testing and deploying of new software versions should make this a fairly quick exercise in the future. - Oliver ^Talk 16:07, 22 December 2006 (EST)

In addition to the ParserFunctions extention, I've also installed the LoopFunctions extension. Info about it can be found at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:LoopFunctions. - Oliver ^Talk 18:21, 22 December 2006 (EST)

I must say, totally sweet. -Andy ^talk 18:52, 22 December 2006 (EST)

Though I'm a HUGE fan of the new version and the parser and loop functions (THANK YOU), I think it's more than retarded to put up more barriers to entry for people to become editors of KP. I mean, we have few enough as it is. Why would you put fields in the new account request page asking why people want to contribute and what they think they will contribute to? Are you really going to approve/deny people's account requests? If people don't meet some standards you set for potential editors you'll just deny them? I think that's amazingly ... amazing. Please take that away. It's just... amazing. I mean, seriously. Why would you put that in there? justin ^talk 00:53, 23 December 2006 (EST)

Because I want to know. It's as simple as that. I think you should lay off the conjecture a bit. It's just ... amazing. Oliver ^Talk 02:23, 23 December 2006 (EST)

Oh yeah, just wanted to also say I love the new side bar. Nicely done. justin ^talk 00:55, 23 December 2006 (EST)

Awesome updates, yay for new features. I can appreciate the changes to the account request form, the information could also be used to help develop editor management or hierarchy. That is of course, if and when we actually have enough editors and/or articles that they require task management somewhere down the line.

The giant edit links are a huge eyesore. Can anything be done about that? _{who is} Ulthripe ^{reads this} 00:06, 24 December 2006 (EST)

Are you using a skin other than Monobook or KP? I've *just* noticed that the KP skin has kerfuggled edit links, which I'll fix shortly. Oliver ^Talk 00:10, 24 December 2006 (EST)

Monobook. _{who is} Ulthripe ^{reads this} 00:16, 24 December 2006 (EST)

Dunno, then. Monobook looks normal to me. Oliver ^Talk 00:24, 24 December 2006 (EST)

Are you using MSIE? Because it looks fine to me when I viewed it with IE. Though, I wouldn't dare use it regularly so I suppose I have to tolerate this minor annoyance until (hopefully) the next MW update.

This isn't the first instance of KP displaying strangely on various systems, though. Previously, people had complained to me that the text in the initial paragraph of spell articles would not wrap and instead overlap the spell template right next to it. I've never experienced this on my own computer, but I've seen it do that on others. Luckily, I believe its been fixed with the newer spell templating.

Anyways, its clearly not a major issue its just ugly ;-). The KP skin is looking great, though! _{who is} Ulthripe ^{reads this} 00:47, 24 December 2006 (EST)

Nope! I use Firefox more or less exclusively. MediaWiki 1.9 changed the positioning of the editsection element, which was causing it to appear to the right of the section name, and at the same font size as the section header . Once I updated the CSS file for Monobook the edit sections seemed back to normal. Maybe you have a cached copy of the CSS file, dunno. Oliver ^Talk 01:31, 24 December 2006 (EST)

Cached indeed. All fixed now. Thanks for the help.

Would it be appropriate for someone to add an announcement to the News section of the main page? Something along the lines of "Krakiipedia has been updated to MediaWiki v1.9! Frequent visitors may want to clear their browser's cache to ensure best quality." _{who is} Ulthripe ^{reads this} 04:03, 26 December 2006 (EST)

Scripts section

I just had a bit of a... What's that called? Like a headache with pictures....? Oh yeah, an idea. We should have some kind of script repository here on KP. Some people have made some awesome and elaborate scripts, and some people who play GS can't write a script to get themselves from TSSW to the small park. So, we should share. I'll think about a little script template and a way of putting them up. Whatchoo think? justin ^talk 13:28, 9 December 2006 (EST)

I think it's a good idea. I also think that we don't really need a specific template to introduce a script. Use the <pre> tag to create preformatted tables. An example:

# an.cmd

HIDEAGAIN:
 put hide
  match NO_HIDE You look around, but can't see anywhere to hide.
  match HIDEAGAIN notices your attempt to hide!
  match HIDEAGAIN ...wait
  match HIDDEN A tad
  match HIDDEN You attempt to blend with the surroundings and feel confident that no one has noticed your doing so.
 matchwait

NO_HIDE:
 echo *** NO HIDING! ***
HIDDEN:
 put stance offensive
  match AMBUSH You are now in an offensive stance
  match HIDDEN ...wait
  match HIDDEN Sorry, you may only type ahead
 matchwait

AMBUSH:
 put ambush %0 neck
  match AMBUSH ...wait
  match DEFENSIVE Roundtime:
  match DEFENSIVE What were you
  match DEADTHING is already dead.
 matchwait

DEADTHING:
 echo *** IT'S ALREADY DEAD! ***
DEFENSIVE:
 put stance defensive
  match EXIT You are now in a defensive stance.
  match DEFENSIVE ...wait
  match DEFENSIVE Sorry, you may only type ahead
 matchwait

EXIT:
 exit

-Andy ^talk 13:38, 9 December 2006 (EST)

As one of those people who can really only make travel scrips (gee, hard one there), I think this is a good idea. My only issue with those pre-formatted tables, and perhaps its the text in it, but they destroy the wrap around capacity of the page and thus, you need to scroll to the right to see the full text. Rail 14:21, 9 December 2006 (EST)

Well, with code you generally don't want it to wrap, because it gives the impression of newlines where there aren't any (which plays hell with languages that don't ignore whitespace, like SF's scripting language). Most script lines will be limited to a certain length anyway, so horizontal formatting shouldn't be terribly compromised. Gressel 05:10, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

I like the idea too. I always have a problem myself remembering where I put certain scripts for things. So this could be very use! DRIZZT-12 07:38, 11 December 2006 (EST)

Category Titles

I would like to draw attention to the inconsistency of category titles. That being, some are in First Letter Caps format (Category:Level 1 Creatures), others are of mixed formatting (IE, Category:Dark elves. One thing that I know is already standard is that categories are plural. I would like to come up with a standard. Now, I realize that this sort of thing is going to require a ton of edits to move a category and edit all the associated articles, but accomplishing this would be simple with the use of a bot, so lets not let pre-existing category names deter our choice. What do you guys think should be the standard format of a category title? -Andy ^talk 16:07, 7 December 2006 (EST)

I've noticed the inconsistency. At worse, we can follow WP guidelines on category titling. Rail 18:11, 7 December 2006 (EST)

Well browsing the category list, (and not including all the ones that were made last night), it seems that the every word caps'd ones are winning. And the only ones that seem to be not in that format are templates and stuff (and some of the bestiary). Changing the bestiary stuff isn't so bad, but yeah, I vote for all caps, just because it's less work =) justin ^talk 18:27, 7 December 2006 (EST)

Wikipedia's standard is the non-caps movement. I honestly wouldn't mind either way, but going with the caps option is, admittedly, less work. However, once/if I get this bot working, the most I'd need to do to change a category name is type it into the bot, and it'll gleefully handle the rest of the work. Then, it'd just be a matter of copy/pasting the titles of the offending categories. -Andy ^talk 23:35, 7 December 2006 (EST)

New SysOps

You may have noticed that I have promoted REBELAT (Ross) and BELATHUS (Andy) to the position of SysOp. This decision comes in light of the fact that I do not have as much time as I'd like to administer Krakiipedia, and doing so essentially alone as it is, leaves some of you editors wanting. My selections came based on three primary factors: contribution to KP, passion for working on and furthering KP and prior experience in the area of working in a Wiki environment. The selection also comes as a sort of split between the world documentation effort, and the mechanics documentation effort, which are two very different worlds, and need two different styles of leadership, I believe. All you editors can look to these two fine gentlemen for your needs, though I'll still be around, of course. Any direct administration needs, such as software updates and the like, still need to come through me. Congrats, guys.  :) Oliver ^Talk 20:25, 6 December 2006 (EST)

Thanks for the promotion, Ollie. Now I'm officially guilt tripped into working overtime. :( Rail 20:32, 6 December 2006 (EST)

Parser Functions

Ollie, add this to KP's extensions. It will help with many, many edits, in addition to Justin's proposed method of grouping near-level creatures, which he will tell you about when you ask. In short, this particular file will allow us to utilize math functions in KP, allowing values to be manipulated to, for example, calculate what near-level creatures are for the beastiary or to calculate the various AvDs for weapons in the weapon table templates. Additionally, your talk page needs immediate attention. -Andy ^talk 18:57, 6 December 2006 (EST)

If you need to address me personally, leave a message on my talk page, not here. I'll give my talk page attention when I am good and ready to, thanks. Be more mindful of your attitude, and don't make me regret promoting you to sysop.

Oliver ^Talk 20:08, 6 December 2006 (EST)

That's a joke right? Not giving Andy sysop status, that's awesome. The whole, "I have a bigger (insert alpha-male-determining-trait-here) than you part. justin ^talk 20:13, 6 December 2006 (EST)

Actually, I really was trying to be helpful, and patient. And, I am shocked. Thanks, Ollie. -Andy ^talk 20:58, 6 December 2006 (EST)

Okidoke, the ParserFunctions extensioon should be installed.  :) Oliver ^Talk 17:54, 22 December 2006 (EST)

Krakiipedia Bestiary Information

If anyone is still editing Krakiipedia seriously, I think a group effort could result in some good data on the creatures of GS4. I'd love to be able to search any creature (eg, fire cat) and know exactly its AS, DS, CS, TDs for different circles, armor type, location, attack types, special attack types, wealth types, and approximate skin value. The old Coven bestiary doesn't cut it -- I see hardly any pages there with good information. Why not make Krakiipedia the new best place to look for creature data? Someone could come up with a good template for AS/DS/CS/TDspirit/TDelemental/TDetc/armor/weapon, and then each still-working editor could just add the creatures they're currently hunting. If we had a lot of editors doing this at various levels in the game, we'd quickly have a ton of the in-game creatures listed. I think it would make Krakiipedia and even more invaluable resource, and a ton better than the Coven, since anyone could edit it when creatures are tweaked by GMs. THIKKET 18:26, 25 November 2006 (EST)

I fully agree. We have an amazing resource here, and with time and effort Krakiipedia can easily become the best and most complete GemStone resource out there. Unfortunately, there are few people 'dedicated' to contributing here, and those which are, struggle to maintain any kind of leadership. That's why its important for me to welcome folks like yourself, make them feel welcomed and comfortable with being an editor. Make no mistake about it, we need you! I'd also like to direct you to the comments I just made at: Krakiipedia talk:Nomination] _{who is} Ulthripe ^{reads this} 18:50, 25 November 2006 (EST)

New bestiary will be going up tonight. I've been working closely with ULTHRIPE and BELATHUS and DACAPN on it and we're pretty happy with it. If you see anything that needs changing, it's never too late. justin ^talk 20:38, 6 December 2006 (EST)

Great news. Looking forward to seeing what you've all done. Rail 20:47, 6 December 2006 (EST)

So if you check Special:RecentChanges you'll know that I put the bestiary up. Many thanks to DaCapn for actually ripping the play.net bestiary down for me and of course Andy for doing the template-ing. It's written so that templates control most everything, and if we need to go in and change all the pages again, it's possible, but not easy - so I'd rather not do it. Anyway, I think it could use a good "front page" or something, like a good Bestiary page... But for now, I need a drink. justin ^talk 01:17, 7 December 2006 (EST)

First glance, looks pretty nice. I especially like the template at the bottom which gives like leveled and near leveled creatures. The only improvement, which can be done by anyone now that the entire bestiary is up, is to create categories which lump them by region, i.e, Creatures of Solhaven, Creatures of Ta'Vaalor. Otherwise, looks purty. Rail 08:41, 7 December 2006 (EST)

I need to look closer, I noticed there already is a geographical category. Me wonders if these could also be placed in a larger town related category. Rail 09:37, 7 December 2006 (EST)

Yup! That's the idea, eventually each town can have links to all the hunting areas around it, which would be pretty fun I think. One little bug we just found, it appears that play.net's site is done in such a mind-bogglingly weird way that going to this link [1] takes you to the DR page of that creature number (the creatures in the bestiary are only stored by number) so... We got 10 DR critters into our bestiary because 10 of the critters were set up like that. Who'da thunk? The creatures are: sand sprite, sand crab, merrow, kra'hei hatchling, ochre la'heke, snow goblin, clouded arzumos, bristle-backed peccary, eidolon steed, shadoweaver. So probably need to remove those. Otherwise, yeah, I'm trying to figure out where to put my little stats I'm generating... justin ^talk 13:55, 7 December 2006 (EST) (added my sig because i'm a big boy like that)

Also, maybe tonight if I feel up to it, I'll generate the actual pages for all the hunting areas (Category:Icemule Environs creatures) and with some generic text and then put those into a category of Category:Hunting Areas or something along those lines. I'll also generate generic pages for all the Category:Level 69 Creatures pages (I'm not a huge fan of the "Creatures" being caps'd, though... justin ^talk 14:01, 7 December 2006 (EST)

Has anyone had any thoughts on what information should be included in the treasure attributes/types category? My best guess would be a separation into components like Boxes, Gems, Silvers. Would it be in your minds' a good idea to also have an "All" option?User:GOLDENRANGER 15:17, 7 December 2006 (EST)

Yes I think we still need to make a good style guide, and be like, "this is an ideal creature page" but the treasure types were intended to be that. Silvers, gems, boxes, (skins?). All is not a bad idea, though.... justin ^talk 15:46, 7 December 2006 (EST)

Tsoran's Maps

How about the idea of once we establish Hunting Areas/Categories, we provide links to the appropiate map on Tsoran's site? Rail 09:26, 8 December 2006 (EST)

Yes! Brilliant idea. I hate when someone's like, "oh, those are in such and such an area, around Illistim" and I'm like ZOMGWHATMAP. Anyway, that would involve a lot of finding out which area is where. I'm kind of working on that, and yeah. I've got the list of areas parsed out, and now am just needing to get their closest town and Tsoran map associated with them. If anyone knows this stuff like, offhand, I'd love some help. I have the list posted at [2]. Otherwise I'll get to it when I do... justin ^talk 12:56, 9 December 2006 (EST)

It shouldn't be too hard to do...I say this, but too distracted by other projects to do it myself. But it should be doable with not too much effort. Rail 19:44, 9 December 2006 (EST)

I know,maybe I'm just feeling lazy ;) justin ^talk 21:44, 9 December 2006 (EST)

Alright, here's a sample Category:Abandoned_Mine_creatures. Whatchoo think? I need feedback. If you want to use its talk page, that's awesome, or juts change it to what you'd like. Let me know pls. I'd like to get these pages all up ASAP. I guess it wolud require me to make all the "$town Hunting Areas" pages and all the "Tsoran Map $map Hunting Areas" pages... But, that's easy. Feedback PLEASE! =) justin ^talk 23:48, 9 December 2006 (EST)

I think thats the right path. First, though, you can just go off the area description in the template, rather than create a brand new category. That'll save time and what not, shouldn't it? Second, I noticed you included the Tsoran map to be as an image. I had considered just putting links to the maps. But, if we could upload them, that'd be fantastic. Course, we'd need to get Tsoran's permission for that. But overall, looks good! Rail 00:01, 10 December 2006 (EST)

Thanks. The pages have all been made actually on my other wiki, and yeah, totally easy. It's all automated and all bottified. Yes, I'd planned on uploading all Tsoran's maps, (since I can do that in bulk, too) but you're right. We need to get permission first. Otherwise, I don't follow this part "you can just go off the area description in the template, rather than create a brand new category". I've actually also created a nice nav template for a town on the other wiki, too, that could easily be included, though crafting them could take just a touch of work. Anything else? justin ^talk 00:11, 10 December 2006 (EST)

That was my bad. I had assumed that in the creature template where it lists "Places Found" or what not, that it created a category link. Rather, instead it creates an article link, and thus, isn't self populating. Argh. Rail 10:20, 10 December 2006 (EST)

Right. However, it wouldn't be too hard to make the links in the Area section of the creature templates a link to the category page for :Category:$area creatures. The weirdnesses of our capitalization, though, is really starting to make my eyes bleed. Terribly sorry about that. I think Andy is working on fixing all those... Any other input on the :Category:$area creatures pages? Or should I go ahead and put them up? justin ^talk 11:43, 10 December 2006 (EST)

Er, so I put togethre one of the nav templates and am wondering if you have input on whetehr to call it on all the Category pages before I put them all up. Here's a critter with its nav template: Category:Wraithenmist_creatures. I was thinking I'd do one for each town, but I dunno what else we'd put on them. But, since it's a template, it's easy to change and add to later. Thoughts? justin ^talk 11:55, 10 December 2006 (EST)

Sort of kind of relevant. hhttp://www.krakiipedia.org/maps/ - Oliver ^Talk 23:18, 10 December 2006 (EST) (link disabled due to gswiki port - maps are here for all future reference -- Doug 2 Jan 2015)

Wow Oliver, that's pretty amazing. I don't know at all how that could be relevant or used, but it's awesome. I'll think about it... justin ^talk 03:53, 11 December 2006 (EST)

Well, assuming the entire game's worth of maps could be worked into this system, then we could simply link to it providing a search query for the name of the creature. Assuming a perfect world, it'd bring them to the map with a resulting list of links to areas where those creatures could be found. Oliver ^Talk 12:28, 11 December 2006 (EST)

I see. And I ound out how to place markers and presumably could figure out how to link to markers on the map. I'm reading abuot the API a little bit but am a bit busy today. So I've got two questions. Did you manually stitch the gif's together in a drawing program and then put that all up as the big "map"? And can you have the software somewhere just read the labels and know where they are? In theory the creature names would be better, but that script is maybe harder to read. I'll look into this more, but yeah, I'm sure you know those answers off the top of your head. =) justin ^talk 13:27, 11 December 2006 (EST)

Markers are just visual representations of anything that needs to be marked on the map, so you wouldn't exactly link to markers. A search result could use markers to indicate where each result is on the map, for example. Yes, I spent some time mucking about in Photoshop last night with Tsoran's maps to see how well they'd fit together as one huge map. I not sure what software you mean to read the labels or what you mean by 'know where they are'. If you're meaning to take the images and derive coordinates of things like creature locations automatically, I'm not certain it can be done. However, with the right interface, it shouldn't be difficult to set up a way to set a marker, fill out some fields, and hit submit and manually populate a database with the information. It'd take some time, yeah, but it'd be more accurate than any attempts to automate it. However, I talked to Tsoran, and he was awesome enough to give me his original Visio files, which I'm now using to put the world together like a jigsaw puzzle. It might be possible to go through and export some metadata based on the labels from Visio. In any case, this isn't much more than the proof of concept at that site right now. It'll take a lot of work to rework the maps into on big seamless map. Oliver ^Talk 13:44, 11 December 2006 (EST)

Ah, got all the maps up, and the links from the hunting areas to the maps are... Um, there. But yeah, it's a bit broken at the moment (see). I'll definitely fix that, and get the town templates all put together so that Template:$town thing disappears. Also, I misspelled cemetery as cemetary on all the pages, though the Tsoran map is called "EN-cemetery.gif" so I've not quite decided what to do about that. justin ^talk 19:12, 12 December 2006 (EST)

I, uh, fixed the problem with Justin's example. Though, when I looked at the category pages at first, I thought that it was Justin's intention to display the whole map. Donno why it didn't occur to me to ask about it. Oh, by the way, I fixed the indenting up a bit. -Andy ^talk 19:54, 12 December 2006 (EST)

I just wanted to tell you guys you're doing a great job with the map thing. Congrats! Rail 23:13, 12 December 2006 (EST)

Thanks. Yes I think the Category:$area creatures pages are all done now. If you find any "bugs" let me know. I need to make other templates like this one though, although tonight's getting all the category pages *done* took way longer than I'd expected. Oops. And sorry if your eyes bleed on the recent edits with bot showing on. justin ^talk 00:39, 13 December 2006 (EST)

Custom Skin

Just noticed today that the custom skin doesn't render even close to right in IE6. Yes, the cursed IE. FF's memory leaks have been driving me nuts, so I brought up IE for a quick info check here and noticed the rendering issues. Haven't tried IE7, which is installing now and I'll check later (boo reboot). WELCHA 13:56, 5 November 2006 (EST)

Yep, the KP skin isn't anywhere near finished, and is being primarily developed using FireFox and Safari, since they don't take a crap on themselves when rendering CSS. Efforts will eventually be made to make the skin friendly to as many browsers as possible, but it isn't a priority at the moment.

Oliver ^Talk 14:35, 5 November 2006 (EST)

P.S. I read that the new Firefox 2.0 doesn't have memory leak problems. The problems are with the third party add ons. Erm. Do with that as you will. Rail 14:53, 5 November 2006 (EST)

It's definitely Firefox 2.0 with the leak. All my plugins are turned off and it still steadily increases its memory use. WELCHA 18:48, 5 November 2006 (EST)

Meh, I was fed bad intel. Boo. Rail 14:44, 6 November 2006 (EST)

Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter. Change the value of "browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers" from -1 to 0. That should keep it from eating up your memory. Enjoy! _{who is} Ulthripe ^{reads this} 05:28, 9 November 2006 (EST)

New KP Policy

I'd like to direct everyone over to Help:Style to read over the new NPOV and IUHPOV policy added to KP's style guide. Oliver ^Talk 14:25, 4 October 2006 (EDT)

Would it be appropriate to create templates for flagging articles which need to be brought in line with particular policies? Here's Wikipedia's equivalent templates for examples. _{who is} Ulthripe ^{reads this} 22:10, 1 November 2006 (EST)

I think a template would be fine. Rail 08:20, 2 November 2006 (EST)