UESPWiki:Community Portal/Archive 2

This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Community Portal discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Forum Alternative

This has been taken care of. Daveh has disabled guest posting on the forums, and the links to them have been restored. Thanks for all of your input on this situation. --Aristeo 00:13, 28 July 2006 (EDT)

Spammers have completely destroyed the forums. Because of the state it's in, I propose we switch over to Google groups to replace our forums. That's what OblivioWiki is using, and they have told me that it works well. It has many measures against spammers even with guest posting enabled, and it's very useful.

Google groups allow the following (derived from OblivioWiki):

• Multiple moderators and co-owners
• Spam protection for e-mails and the site itself
• Optional E-mail alerts
• Optional email alerts, including an option for a once a day summary or an alert for every post
• The ability to pick your own group nickname no matter what your main account is, allowing us to keep our wiki nicknames
• Messages can be viewed through an atom feed. (I'm sure we could also use Feedburner to convert it to RSS if needed)

You've probally noticed that I removed the link to the forums on the left hand side. This will probally stay removed as we are linking to adult pornographical websites, which cannot be tolerated. --Aristeo 00:27, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

I never use the forums anyway, so I'm not very sensitive to this. That said... Folks can still use wiki talk pages for forum type stuff. Or you could temporarily direct people to OblivioWiki forums. So in short, use other solutions while waiting for Dave to get back. --Wrye 01:25, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

Talk pages will just have to suffice. --Aristeo 02:50, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

Unfortunately I don't use the forums either, but I just went on there to see how bad the damage was and it's the most ignorantly disgusting thing I've ever seen, what is the purpose of that, people say telemarketers are bad. Anyways, I agree the move to Google groups would be in the best interest of the forums, however, I also have to agree with Wrye that it should be put on temporary hold until Daveh returns. The forums currently are done, I don't feel any productivity will be lost holding off on their return for a few, it would take some time to set them up on Google groups anyway. Aristeo, if you feel skeptical, like you sound about going through with it, then that's just more of a reason to hold off. If you really feel it needs to be an ASAP thing, then go ahead and get it ready on Google groups, when Daveh gets back if he agrees then it will be ready to go right then and there, if he disagrees then it'll be lost time but I don't see any reason why he would say that, something needs done for certain. Two things though: Do we really need Guest accounts? I know it's annoying to sign up for everything on the internet just to ask a question, but if someone really needed to post and didn't want an account they could just use bugmenot or similar. Two: Aristeo, you should go ahead and remove the Forums link at the top of the main page in the UESP description, it's one of the protected pages so a op needs to do it. --AlbinoMudcrab 03:26, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

The description of the site is editable via Template:Home. I would do it myself, but people are poking me trying to get me to leave with them. --Aristeo 07:01, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

I haven't used the forums much either, but having said that, I agree with Wrye and AlbinoMudcrab. We should wait until Daveh comes back to take a firm decision on what to do with the forums (get more security controls, move to Google, etc.). In the mean time, the best thing to do is to put them away and tray to clean them as much as possible, as people may have bookmarked the page. --DrPhoton 03:34, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

I have to say, I like having the forum here. And, since the last time I checked it allowed Guest Posting, meaning you don't need to sign up and login into an account. It really isn't people that are doing the spamming, but bots. If we had a signup and login procedure like on most forums, the amount of spam would go down quite a bit. Also, what is the amount of moderators on the forum? One? Two? And how busy are they on the wiki? Maybe we should get some people that are not that busy with the wiki to do the forum moderating? - Magnus 11:19AM, July 10/06 (-4:00GMT)

Shut them down for the moment and don't do anything else. Then Daveh can make the decision when he gets back. If he decides to wipe them and restart with the same system they can always be reactivated, but right now in the current state leaving them up is not a good idea. If they've been hacked to distribute viruses and spam, there's no telling what else they're doing as a bot. Quillan^Talk 10:43, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

What about WebBBS as the guys from Halo.Bungie.Org? Its simple but from what I've seen until now a quite effective system since the HBO forums are quite spam-free in comparision to others, check out the forum faqs over to see how the system works more or less. --Anselm 16:38, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

I was looking for something that looked like the vBulletin forums, as people (like me) are more familiar with them. --Aristeo 18:01, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

I have used the forum a lot and have watch them deteriorate in an oasis for spammers. Personally I'd rather avoid google groups like the plague as I am VERY dubious as to the morality of the companies business activity in China and because the service is there to serve them not the user. I'd go with a version of vBulletin as suggested above or similar package. Just my opinion though. - Pseudopath 17:01, 11 July 2006 (GMT)

I have spent time every day on the Oblivion forum and I really miss it. I enjoyed reading and exchanging experiences with the other gamers. I hope that you'll be able to bring them back. Preferably without the guest function. People should log in. /Akela

I have tried to use the forum, but abstained it because the little response i got on my posts. However, i realised (and told Aritsteo at irc) at that time that the forum is attackable and under attack (but not that amount we encounter now) by spam-bots. Not only because of guest posting allowed, but also by bots that create accounts and put the spam into their profile (no direct impact, but if the user table growes too large, the performance will drop.). My advise would be: take the forum offline, clean it or save a database dump and install it anew, disable guest-posting, enable e-mail check on registration, bring it online again. (Old man's mumblings: I personaly recognised the time when the dream of a free and sane use of the internet ended, when <self-censored: a big american internet access provider> (followed by others) granted mass access to the average antisocial. If you haven't seen it yourself, you can't imagine what the net was a polite and comfortable place before. Only rarely niches that are untroubled by those people survived.) -- The Nerevarine 16:52, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

If you want I do have a vbulletin license in my name and I am not using it at all right now. I also have my own web site to host it from. If you would like more information email me at trl_tanis@yahoo.com I still own the license but I would just need to pay 30 bucks to update the forum which I have no problem what so ever paying myself. You have no idea how much the site has helped me and I would like the ooppurtunity to pay you back.: Tanis

That's very kind of you, thanks. --Aristeo 16:36, 14 July 2006 (EDT)

The forums here are good. They're not as fanboy-ish one way or the other as the official forums (I mean, how many times can you read some 15 year-old kid tell you why Morrowind was better?), which I thought was a huge plus and makes them worth saving. Guest posting is probably the root of the problem. Yeah, it sucks to force people to create an account before they start posting, but it boils down to a choice between moving to a format that is not designed for this kind of thing (google groups), or asking people to register first. People kind of expect that they're going to have to register for a forum to use it, anyway, and signing up with a disposable email address isn't hard. -- GenghisJohn

Jep, the problems we are experiencing are not caused by the software but by the access policy on the forums. The discussion is drifting away from the problems root cause: "Lets transfer from the Arizona to the Titanic, but let both ships stay their course." -- The Nerevarine 07:19, 17 July 2006 (EDT)

It's a lot harder to moderate the forums from PHPBB because the only things moderators can do is delete and close. Moderators have no power over the forum, just limited control over the posts. That being said, if someone were to attack the forums, there would be nothing anyone but Daveh could do to stop it. I know that the current attacks are done by bots, and I know that the access policy has something to do with it. However, PHPBB has been known for its easiness to hack over the years, and I vote for differnt software.

It just so happens that I'm experienced in the development of ASP-based forums. I was part of a robotics team a while ago, and I was required to make a forum for them. I also made a fan-forum called ElderScrollsForum.com, and I would be willing to convert it over to the UESP forum, and give admin rights as well as FTP access over to Daveh. It would be very easy to mask a subdomain like "http://forum.uesp.net" to point to ElderScrollsForum.com. I'll even cover the charges for the site.

There's also another alternative: We could have everything on the wiki. I request that you all give Wikia.com a visit, and check out their forum system that they have set up. All we would need is the InputBox extension, Parser Functions, and an update to the latest wiki version and we could make it work similarly to theirs.

--Aristeo 18:46, 17 July 2006 (EDT)

I miss da forums :( --Poopmongrel 18:46, 17 July 2006 (EDT)

Daveh doesn't link advertisements. We don't even have ads on the site that make money for our site, let alone for other sites. --Aristeo 00:56, 22 July 2006 (EDT)

You could just use invisionfree, there free, and great --Rethenmiir Hlao 12:16 AM, June 20

Aristeo have you ever seen the back end of a vbulletin? If you go to mine and sign up Ill make you an admin with it and you can play around with it to see if you like it or not. Tanis P.s. i sent you a private message on your boards with the URL

Yep, it's a pretty cool piece of software. --Aristeo 16:38, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

Why Put Quests Under "Quests" Article?

I just finished putting all of the Morrowind Main Quests under Morrowind:Quests/, and I'm wondering why we do it? Doesn't this infringe the namespace policy? Should we continue to do this or should we move the quests back to the main namespace? I think we should move the pages back to the main namespace to keep confusion down and because of our namespace policy (which states that we shouldn't have sub namespaces).— Unsigned comment by Aristeo (talk • contribs)

I think you're just trying to find ways to keep boosting your edit count! :) One reason is to distinguish between quests and people/places with the same name, i.e. [[Oblivion:The Forlorn Watchman]] vs [[Oblivion:Quests/The Forlorn Watchman]], or [[Oblivion:Desolate Mine]] vs [[Oblivion:Quests/The Desolate Mine]].--Nephele 12:45, 15 July 2006 (EDT)

That's what disambiguation pages are for. For instance, Morrowind:Vivec links to both Morrowind:Vivec (god) and Morrowind:Vivec (city). [[Oblivion:The Desolate Mine]] could be renamed to [[Oblivion:The Desolate Mine (place)]], and [[Oblivion:Quests/The Desolate Mine]] could be renamed to [[Oblivion:The Desolate Mine (quest)]]. The [[Oblivion:The Desolate Mine]] redirect could then be turned into a disambig page. And no, I'm not just looking for ways to boost up my edit count, I'm just doing repetitive jobs that just need to be done. Besides, it's high enough already. ;P --Aristeo 14:04, 15 July 2006 (EDT)

Doing some research, it seems like everyone was either against or neutral about putting things under /Quests in general. Not only does this make the titles look tacky, but it is against the namespace policy. And I'm sure this confuses the stew out of new readers on the wiki. (Putting things under namespaces is bad enough.) Therefore, I think we should move everything under /Quests back to their proper namespace. --Aristeo 02:01, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

I agree that the disambiguation pages could easily cover the cases where there is overlap/confusion between people/places and quests. And it does seem more efficient than having to type in "Quests/" for the 99% of articles that don't have any issues with confusion. Finally, at this point I'll vote yes to anything that introduces consistency: until all the pages are set up the same way, all of the quest link templates are almost useless.--Nephele 02:16, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

Cool. What does everyone else think? --Aristeo 03:03, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

I went ahead and started converting them, as I noticed that even the Oblivion quests were under the Quests/ pages sporadically. It was painful, but I did it. Some of the links still need to be fixed, but all of the pages have been moved to my knowledge. --Aristeo 21:55, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

I'm in favour of this move. I was never very happy with subpages, since they create a bread crumb of their own (apart of the one we already have) and make the page titles longer. I beleive there's also Places and Books subpages as well as Quest. Would you like to move them as well? --DrPhoton 02:57, 21 July 2006 (EDT)

I didn't see any subpages under Places (looked under Oblivion and Tamriel namespaces). As for books, I believe we would have to talk to a few more people because the Tamriel books are more established. (As for the Oblivion quests, they were sporatically under Oblivion:Quests.) --Aristeo 15:47, 21 July 2006 (EDT)

Template Problems

I'm having problems right now at Oblivion:Sancre Tor, as described at Oblivion Talk:Sancre Tor with transclusions not being pulled into a template. When I try to understand the wikimedia help pages, it looks like they are doing similar things in their examples. In other words, they are able to use }} within input to a template without the template thinking that the braces mark the end of its input. Can anyone who understands this stuff better confirm? In other words, am I messing up, or am I trying to do something that's just not possible, or am I doing something that requires wiki here to be updated? --Nephele 16:00, 22 July 2006 (EDT)

Are you trying to make a nested transclusion? For example, are you trying to transclude something as a parameter for a template? I tried that before, and it didn't work. --Aristeo 17:49, 22 July 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, that sounds like the right technical term for it. FYI, I decided to move the broken version of Sancre Tor to User:Nephele/Sandbox/Sancre Tor. The quick version of what I'm trying to do is to make my sandbox copy look the same as Oblivion:Sancre Tor by getting the {{Tamriel:Sancre Tor}} transclusion to work. --Nephele 17:52, 22 July 2006 (EDT)

One way to get this working would be to use {{{{{AddAbove}}}}}, thus allowing filling in only Tamriel:Sancre Tor, which should work. Of course if that message isn't always going to be transcluded this isn't going to work. Garrett^Talk 20:42, 29 July 2006 (EDT)

My quick test suggests that doing that will make empty braces, i.e. {{}}, appear on the 99% of the pages that don't have any AddAbove text. I'm holding out hope for a wiki upgrade to miraculously solve all of the world's problems... or at least a few of these types of problems. In the meantime, Sancre Tor appears normal to readers, which is probably what matters short term. But thanks for the suggestion. --Nephele 22:29, 29 July 2006 (EDT)

Ah, I thought as much. :( Well, next time the wiki is upgraded this can be fixed by making it an optional parameter (which means it won't render at all if left blank). Garrett^Talk 01:17, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

That's exactly what I was hoping for, and then not having to go through 100 place pages just to add a blank "AddAbove=" parameter to their summaries. --Nephele 01:26, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

Yay! This problem has officially been fixed by the wiki upgrade --Nephele 18:31, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

StringFunctions

Short version: Would it be possible to introduce the StringFunctions extension?

Long version: I've been trying to figure out how to create a template that would allow anchors to be easily created within pages; this would make it easier to link, for example, to the specific entry in a table. I've been playing with it on the oblivion spells page, so for example you can create a link directly to a specific spell. The only problem is the template I've been using, Template:Oblivion Spell Name, requires you to type in each spell's name twice: i.e., both as "Encumbering Touch" and "Encumbering_Touch" (which means when you're updating the tables it's really easy to accidentally mess things up). What I'd like to do is have a template that does that conversion itself. At the wikimedia page, there is a discussion of a StringFunctions extension, which introduces a "urlencode" function, that does exactly that. But it seems like that extension is not enabled on our site. Would it be possible to add that extension? Or do any wiki-savvy people out there know another way to achieve what I'm trying to do?--Nephele 13:11, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

Heh, I have a list of extensions I want as well. CharInsert, InputBox, ParserFunctions, and the latest MediaWiki update would all make me very happy. --Aristeo 18:36, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

I already found a workaround for this. Check out how Oblivion:Ingredients and Oblivion:Alchemy Effects work together. The templates they call are maybe a little too specialised (they can't be easily used for other page match-ups), but they do work. Garrett^Talk 18:49, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

I've definitely spent time looking at the templates on the Ingredients and Alchemy Effects pages: that's where I first learned how to even create a link to an entry in a table. But those templates again require the user to type in the names twice, i.e. Bergamot Seeds{{Oblivion Ingredients Entry|Bergamot_Seeds}}, once with spaces changed to underscores. A couple of weeks ago alot of the links on the Ingredients page were broken, because the some of the names in the templates didn't contain underscores, presumably because users who were updating the tables didn't understand why the underscores were there (me included until recently). What I was trying to figure out was a way to create a smarter template that can take the name entered just once: kind of like the ==Section title== tags do.--Nephele 21:05, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

OK, try this: <span id="{{localurl:{{{whateverkeyword}}}}}"></span>. I'm not sure if this will work, but it's the best I can throw together at the moment. I'll look into it further sometime soonish. Garrett^Talk 23:56, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

OK, that didn't work... hmmm... well, another way is to use a hidden header ( <div style="overflow: auto; height: 1px">===={{{1}}}====</div> ), but the problem there is it will appear on the TOC (if any) with whatever name you've given it, and spans won't work so there's a forced line break. Anyway, see if that fits your purpose. Garrett^Talk 04:36, 15 July 2006 (EDT)

Update: I've added the StringFunctions, CharInsert, InputBox, and ParserFunctions extensions as requested. Make sure to test them to ensure they are working correctly and let me know if there are any problems. DaveH 18:32, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

Actually, for the immediate application I was interested in here, now the functions don't seem to be necessary: the wiki upgrade has made it so that any name used as a span id is automatically urlencoded. But I'm only just starting to see what all is possible now with templates, so I'm sure I'll be testing those extensions soon --Nephele 22:35, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

Page Archive

I just archived everything from Feb 2005 to June 2006 into Community Portal/Archive 1 by moving the page and re-creating this one, because this page was getting too cluttered and long with old conversation. If you want to start discussing something from that page, you can either link to it from this page, or move the discussion back over here at your discretion. --Aristeo 12:51, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

Site Search Engine

Would it be a good idea to put some redirects in the main namespace that point to other articles? At this time if we typed in, for example, "Vvardenfell", it would give us a listing of suggestions, one of them being "Morrowind:Vvardenfell". But if we put some redirects in there, particularly one called "Vvardenfell", it would take the user directly to page. I don't see any cons to this. What do you all think? --Aristeo 18:30, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

Races

Something I've just realized that is so obvious: this site has no information on races or attributes. A nice addition would be a page just for races listing each skill, power, and ability benefit for all races and genders. There's already a race description page, but that just gives a history and lore synopsis. GameBanshee has a nice layout for each race and its attributes. -Werdnanoslen 13:13, 3 August 2006 (EDT)

I'm guessing you mean specifically for Morrowind, because there are pages like Oblivion:Races and Oblivion:Attributes. --Nephele 13:21, 3 August 2006 (EDT)

What we need to do is merge the Oblivion and Morrowind sections into Tamriel, since races aren't a game specific thing. Then we can introduce the game specific information as a footer for each page. --Aristeo 17:18, 3 August 2006 (EDT)

Stubs are up, used the same format from the Oblivian races page, edited for Morrowind. I've also got a big groovy table to skill bonuses listing all the races which I'm not completely sure where to put. i.e. I'll throw the information up, but it'll still needs trails and linking (as I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet).--WrathofDog 23:57, 3 August 2006 (EDT)

Attribute tables are up --WrathofDog 00:35, 4 August 2006 (EDT)

Affiliates

I think it would be cool if we had a link-exchange system with some of the other bigger Elder Scrolls sites, such as Planet Elder Scrolls and Elder Scrolls Files. We could do this by changing the "Links" section on the left menu to "Affiliates", and then we could give a link to the sites that link to us. We'll also need to create a 88x31 button that other sites could put on their menu. --Aristeo 23:00, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

I created General:Links, and removed the links off the left side of the page. None of those pages link back to us on their left side menus. If they or anyone else want to affiliate with us, we can put some affiliate links up there. --Aristeo 20:37, 17 July 2006 (EDT)

I would put a link to the General:Links page on the side menu then. --DrPhoton 03:05, 18 July 2006 (EDT)

Done --Aristeo 03:20, 18 July 2006 (EDT)

Bread Crumb Trail Class

Seems like the bread crumb trails are standardized. I've been playing around contributing diligently with css classes, and if you all want me to, I can make it so that all you have to do is type in class="crumbtrail" or something equivalent to it, and the crumb trail css formatting would be magically set up. It'll make things easier on newcomers who want to make breadcrumbs, and everyone else as well. --Aristeo 14:14, 25 July 2006 (EDT)

Editing vs. Community Portal

On most wikis, this page is called the "Community Portal". Should we conform to make it easier for new editors? Or should I not touch anything and leave the page where it is? --Aristeo 00:04, 6 July 2006 (EDT)

Game Descriptions

I think it would be cool if every game had a general description of what it was about. --Aristeo 21:08, 2 July 2006 (EDT)

I think this is a very good idea! I've been missing this description myself. I would also recommend writing a plot introduction on each of the quest series, so that the player can decide whether is interesting to pursue a series or not. --DrPhoton 03:38, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

IRC Meeting

When should we have the next IRC meeting? It's imperative that Daveh attends, as as many members of the project as possible. Daveh said that anytime is fine, but he is usually less busy on weekends and later in the evenings (+9pm EST). I myself am pretty much avaliable all the time. Consideration needs to be taken with people who live in Europe as well as the American and Oceanic contenients, as we need to find a time that will work with both time zone locations.

Also, if you need help with getting onto IRC and using the commands, Magnus and I can help you out.--Aristeo 16:12, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

"Consideration needs to be taken with people who live in Europe as well as the American contenients, as we need to find a time that will work with both time zone locations."

Fine. Forget about your Oceanic compatriots.

9pm EST is 11am for Australia so that is fine, if it could be 9pm on a Saturday your time then that would be most excellent. --rkMerafel 05:35, 2 July 2006 (EDT)

Cool. :D --Aristeo 11:17, 2 July 2006 (EDT)

Nah, this dude lives in Western Aus somewhere (GMT+9:00). Aristeo, if you wanna convert to "Australian time" then I suggest you use GMT+9:30 as it's Australian Central and thus only 0:30 each way for Perth/Sydney (west/east coasts). We should say 9pm EST is 11:30am for "Australia" which is a great time for me.

And Aristeo? About how I emailed you telling you I woulda attended the original meeting but it was too early for me to get up... well that's because I incorrectly calculated the meeting time to be 7:15am my local time :/

WORLD TIME :(

--teh dave Saturday 8th July 2006 (ACST = GMT+9:30)

Upgrade

If you have any feedback on today's site upgrade, a separate page has been set up to collect information specific to the upgrade: UESPWiki talk:Upgrade_History. --Nephele 18:58, 30 July 2006 (EDT)

Image rights

The Image Rights drop-down list on the Upload Image page is missing one option:

"I created this graphic myself, and release it to the public domain."

Just created several icons, which while they're based on original graphics from the game, are so altered that it's more my work than anything else. For now I'll just use the same option as I did for the others, since they do contain original game source, but this might be a good option to include. --TheRealLurlock 22:35, 31 July 2006 (EDT)

Try using the "Public Domain" license "Released into the Public Domain by the copyright holder". Since its your work you are the copyright holder and can release it like this. Unless this license doesn't exactly match what you wanted? -- DaveH 22:39, 31 July 2006 (EDT)

You can edit the license once you pick it. It's just an automatic template transclusion onto the page. --Aristeo 22:42, 31 July 2006 (EDT)

You could also type just {{PD-self}} (or whatever it's called) in the main description box. Garrett^Talk 23:05, 31 July 2006 (EDT)

I just called the public domain template {{PD}}.

If the image is owned by Bethesda, put a {{esimage}} tag on it. If it's a screenshot, put a {{screenshot}} tag on it. None of those images, from what I've seen, have recieved enough of a make over to be illegable for copyright. Lastly, if you want to make you own image copyright template, feel free to do so. --Aristeo 10:10, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

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