Talk: Village pump

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CSS / JS revamp

Few things have been fixed/added throughout the site, such as the possibility to show/hide tables (see {{Navigation Box}}), or the preferences page. Hope you like them! --Ady _s 01:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

In addition to the extensive CSS work (feedback and suggestions please!), I have altered a few Main Page links slightly, with Reputation and Warcraft Universe now appearing. The latter needs a fair bit of link work, whilst one page it links, Quotes of World of Warcraft, is weird to say the least. It repeats a massive amount of info from flirts and jokes. One other quick thing - how should tables be changed? Atm they appear as:

I am a default table without any styles applied to me.

... and should probably be altered to fit better with the colour scheme. A darker background perhaps? For comparison pre (large code block) tags use #2c2c2c, whereas darktable (nav tables) uses #202020. Kirkburn talk contr 01:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'm tempted to remove the default bg colour from tables entirely, since it doesn't actually help (and messes with certain other elements, such as categories). Kirkburn talk contr 03:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

More tweaks made! I have yet to do anything with table bgs yet, asi want to see what stuff breaks with the change. The only stuff I have come across so far is some info tables on zones, e.g. Elwynn Forest, which need converting to new-style tables anyway. Kirkburn talk contr 18:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

nav boxes, like stuff derrived from {{Navigation Box}}, don't actually use darktable... they need converted over. TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 03:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

As a very minor nugget of info: CSS 2.1 has a color shortcut, where you type #rgb and it's expanded to #rrggbb - that means something like #fc2 will expand to #ffcc22, not #f0c020. So maybe when picking widely used colors, stick to that convention, (meaning change both to #222222). Of course, it's safe to assume most people reading this wiki aren't on ancient 8-bit color displays. But it doesn't hurt to be "accessible" to some degree. Further reading: [1] --Piumosso-Uldum 04:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

You might want to remove the "google ads" line from above the "Wiki Spotlight" box in the nav column on the left. - Clyde_Jr - tal_k - contri_b 19:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I have mentioned it to those who can change it. I hate that sidebar anyway, in my own CSS it has no borders or backgrounds. Kirkburn talk contr 20:05, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Another quick change - tables now have no background by default, so you may find tables that need a background defined. The only one's I came across in testing were on zone pages (e.g. Westfall), but those tables need redoing anyway. Kirkburn talk contr 17:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I need a styling opinion on class boxes. Some classes shouldn't have an issue with background coloring. Paladin, mage, rogue, and priest are exceptions, due to their light class color. For the paladin I feel like I got a good color. Further, someone might want to set up alternating background colors for some lists (I'll do my best on the paladin ones. See Paladin and comment on the color choice. Modify at will in mediawiki:common.css. Use your favorite color picker, but the one I found with little searching, which is good enough for me, is ColorPicker 3.1.

I've also changed essentially all the templates that call {{listboxformat}} so that they're properly classed. Some of the times I invented a new class in the middle of it, so not all similar boxes have the same classing scheme throughout. That's pretty easy to fix, and will come out in the wash I suspect. It is my opinion that many similar templates should be classed similarly (in the relevant way) so that even if their class isn't described in the CSS at the moment, in the future you will be able to describe them all in one swoop, and they'll all match in their own way. It could take a lot of work to manage that now, but for future reference.... Schmidt 16:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Great work! Kirkburn talk contr 18:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I came home and my brother's computer was on NFL.com. He's a Dallas fan, so it was open to the box scores for their preseason game. I found it interesting that their rookie kicker Nick Folk made a 52-yard FG and Grammatica missed a 51-yarder. In any case, I noticed that when you mouseover a stat row on Martin Grammatica's page the entire row takes a different class. I know that it can't be that hard to manage with coding. (onmouseover="this.className='over'" onmouseout="this.className=''") I looked at the source and it's pretty basic, but I was wondering if we could manage to set something up somehow where we could have built-in coding...somehow...yeah. I don't know how it could be pulled off other than the obvious (which would be to code that in for each row), but I wonder if you crazy bot-writing people could jerry-rig something in that regard. Further, is this something that anyone would be interested in implementing for generalized styling? If so, and if no other coding would help, I suppose we could write a template that would allow a row to be formatted with one class normally, and if it was moused over, it would take an alternate class. The main class and the mouseover classes should be user-selectable with the call to the template. Or possibly (not sure about this), maybe we could define some such as: .paladin {...} .paladin:hover {...}, eh? Anyone know? Schmidt 23:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

And I've added warlock and mage colors to the CSS. See user:D. F. Schmidt/Sandbox for a test version of the nav table. I'll work on more class colors as I find the time and energy. Comments on color formatting are welcome, as well as whether or not these colors (even if otherwise adopted) should be found in the classnav table. Schmidt 06:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I added all the class colors with the obvious exception of Death Knight. Take a look at my sandbox as above. The class colors could use some tweaking, and I don't mind it one bit. I tried to keep all the colors used within the realm of the class color. Obviously rogues and priests are especially tricky on that part. For priests I just made them silverish; rogues are even more tricky than that because yellow doesn't translate well into darker colors. In any case, I would like it if class pages and especially tables that are associated with a given class use these colors (not these specific colors, but class coloring as such), but I don't think I can enforce that to any extent greater than just an expression of wish. Schmidt 13:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think class coloring to that extent really flows well with the coloring of the wiki. If you hadn't noticed, the wiki is a dark grey background with very dark hues of the other colors. Especially, using bright pink for the paladins won't work. Maybe for accent, but not for the entire table. I think the second dispel example on your sandbox might be best. --Pcj (T•C) 13:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, the last dispel table looks ok, the others are a bit excessive on color. --GRYPHON^tc 15:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Alright, so I guess we can just have one such definition for class box elements, meaning no alternate colors for alternating lines. That works, and it makes it better really, since if the alt colors as they are now are the main colors, it'll match the dark overall scheme better. Alright, when I get to it, I'll change it if no one else has yet. I do agree, but I wanted to check it out anyways. Schmidt 07:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Real namespaces

Content moved to WoWWiki:Namespaces and WoWWiki talk:Namespaces. --User:Sky2042/Sig 07:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The Revolution will not be outlined as a bullet list

Does anyone else here feel that Microsoft Powerpoint will be the downfall of human civilization? I mean no offense to any editor in particular, and I don't want to single out specific articles, and I realize that this is a senseless nitpick and others will disagree. But, I've always felt that the English language is a beautiful and unique snowflake. So, when I read bullet lists of sentence fragments, it wounds my inner child. In general, I'm wondering if anyone else has felt this way, and is it worthwhile to expand and draw more attention to WoWWiki's manual of style. Thoughts? Flames? --Piumosso-Uldum 00:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

What lists are you referring to? I like angle brackets myself.--User:Sandwichman2448/Sig 00:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it's just a general style thing. I was trying to avoid putting a specific article on the spot, so I'll take a good example and bastardize it. Consider if the article on Illidan Stormrage began like this:

Illidan Stormrage:

Known as the Betrayer
Current Lord of Outland
Rules the Black Temple

...instead of what is actually there...

Illidan Stormrage, known as the Betrayer, is the current the Lord of Outland, ruling from the Black Temple.

Which style is better? --Piumosso-Uldum 00:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The latter, by miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles :) Kirkburn talk contr 00:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Your inner child is a whiner, can a smack him upside the head a few times? I will agree that there's some really nasty crap that goes up on the wiki (tables that use for aligning rows anyone?)... but in my view the first priority of the wiki is to make accurate information available to everyone. Making said info pretty and grammarly correctish is lower priority. Not that that's an excuse to not be using the good englishes if you already know its. TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 02:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, my other idea was to enforce iambic pentameter for all articles, but I'm keeping that on hold. That would be redic... err RIDICulous. --Piumosso-Uldum 05:36, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Iambic pentameter for the win!

Unfortunately it will soon become

too repetitious than we all can stand.

So, I suggest some rhyme and, just for kicks,

some four line stanzas alternating rhythm.

So, after pentameter switch to tri.

--DuTempete talk|contr 18:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I think I have a new hero --Ilublawn 19:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Back on topic... Although painful to realize, WoWWiki is not a literature wiki and some people don't want to ply the antediluvian courses of glittering prose to find information about a subject. Hence, bullet items. My counter argument... would you rather see a Template:Tlink for corruption in this form:

A warlock might consider the Corruption (spell) most apropos rather than the clumsy weapon Corruption (sword), when engaging in the dark path that leads to the Quest:Corruption which ironically would only make sense if said warlock was also a blacksmith.

Although it may read nicely, lingering on a disambig isn't really efficient or necessary. --Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:09 AM PDT 23 Aug 2007

Site stats update

I have good news, and very good news. First the good news:

Check out the graph of the site (entry) stats on the right. This should be a good guide of what is popular on the wiki at the moment, and where we need to improve - for example, people spend very little time on the profession and faction page, but our instance, mobs and actual faction pages are huge. The "popular links" box on the sidebar could possibly be changed if anyone has any good ideas, or perhaps a new section for the main page is in order?

One cool idea is to have small banners across these pages (as they are where most people come into the wiki), to point people to useful stuff like welcoming things, useful links, and, of course, other Wikia Gaming wikis (yes).

Now the very good news: check out our latest Alexa stats - [2]! We're doing great ... YOU'RE doing great :) The community is what makes the website, and we have a great one here! There's lots more updates and extensions coming to the wiki to make it even better, and some other "little" announcements to be made.

So anyway, I just want to take a moment to thank absolutely everyone who contributes to the site. Don't forget we have an IRC channel, open to contributers and, indeed, everyone else. Here's to the future, and to Blizzcon ;) Kirkburn talk contr 00:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, pages like profession and faction are going to get used, for the most part, as navigation aides. Yes, profession has a lot of info on it, but just glancing over it it's all info useful to new players. Seasoned players are only going to go there for specific little bites of info ("what level do I need to train up Artisan?") or as a stepping stone to the page they're really after. Faction, IMO, could drop most of the page content. It's all just links to each facton, which are all covered in the footer navbox. Give a good summary of what a faction is and that navbox and we're all good to go. TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 02:52, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Gem and Enchants by Slot are two of the pages I find the most useful and I'm always giving them out as links to other people. Possibly keep/include those in the "Popular" links? Tyka 07:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Zone sub-categories

Just thought I'd mention that I've been starting to make more sub-categories for various zones. For example, I've started for several zones a mob category that aims to be a list of all mobs in the zone, serving the duel purpose of reducing the size and scope of the enormous Mobs category, as well as providing a concise and easily updated list of the killable inhabitants of the zone. I plan on later creating an NPC category for each zone, as well as a Subzone category. Quest subcategories should already be underway for many zones.

If there's a good reason why I should try and reduce the size of the zone categories by dividing the articles into more appropriate areas, speak now or forever hold your peace. --Mikaka 06:21, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't name them like you've been naming them (see WW:BR). Instead of Cat:Mobs:Zone, have them at "Category:<Zone> mobs", eg, Category:Eastern Plaguelands mobs. Please. NPCs would be "Category:<Zone> NPCs", and subzones would be "Category:<Zone> subzones".
As for catting those cats, they should have the categories "Category:<Zone>" and "Category:<type>". I know this isn't how it is currently set up for most categories, but it is, I feel, as it should be. --User:Sky2042/Sig 07:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

K. I'm renaming the categories I've already done. I'll be spamming recent changes for a while, but it shouldn't take long. --Mikaka 06:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The Norwegian Wowwiki

Kjær Alle nordmenn!

Vi har startet en norsk Wowwiki, http://no.wow.wikia.com/wiki/Hovedside , så nå er det bare å komme og lage artikler! Vi ser for tiden etter flere som kan oversette artikler fra den engelske Wowwiki til den norske -- er du interessert kan du spørre meg eller Lymsleia. Jeg håper at mange engasjerer seg slik at dette blir vellykket.

Vennlig hilsen, /Voluspå 13:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

My hopefully semi-accurate translation based on one of those wacky free online translators:

Dear All Norwegians!

We have begun a Norwegian version of Wowwiki, http://no.wow.wikia.com/wiki/Hovedside, now ready and only needing for you to add articles! Currently, we think some people who create articles at the english WoWWiki know Norwegian, so if you are interested and able to help ask me or Lymsleia. I hope that a good many may ask her so that this new wiki becomes more successful.

Best regards, Voluspå 13:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

--Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:23 PM PDT 23 Aug 2007

Starting talk pages

How do you start off a talk page properly? Asharath 12:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Just start making comments on it. --Pcj (T•C) 12:52, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

You may want to see our talk page guidelines (WW:TALK) and talk page help (Help:Talk page), but, as pcj says, just start a new section and type! Kirkburn talk contr 16:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Main Page revamp

Given the proxmity of Blizzcon (yay!), and the need to get the Main Page fixed up for it, I have been working on this redesign for a while - User:Kirkburn/Dev3. Feedback would be appreciated, but it does need to get uploaded soon, so as to allow us to add Blizzcon news more easily! Kirkburn talk contr 19:16, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Only Problem I have with anything is that under the Guide's Portal section you have everything under there as

-Instance guides -Travel guide -Newbie guide

I feel it would look cleaner if it was just

-Instance -Travel -Newbie

Seeing as it's stated above it that they are guides

but other than that it looks great.--Yelmurc 23:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The sections leave an uneven gap at the bottom. The screenshot part is nice. What is Willy doing there?--User:Sandwichman2448/Sig 23:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

More to the point, why does Willy link to the MeoWWiki page?

My suggestion for "fixing" the column gap is to make the About/Help box not span columns. I'd say move the Featured Screenshot up underneath Featured Article in the second column and make About and Help separate boxes in the left-hand column. Also, I'd put the BlizzCon News box above the Featured Article for the time being. // DarkRyder /

/

// 00:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Leave Willy alone.

The page looks really good, no real problems. I would suggest Blizzcon News go in the Top Left corner for its duration perhaps, and move the main categories to the right. This way more users can see it while it is often updated, and the categories aren't gonna change anyway. --Raze 00:50, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

On my browser, the featured article (fairly dense text) looks cramped to the right while the article lists (sparse text) looks visually unbalanced. Widening the right side might fix the gaps at the bottom mentioned a few posts earlier. Have you thought about making the content of each box a transcluded page for easier editing? --Piumosso-Uldum 05:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Ta for the feedback - no time to do stuff tonight (packing, buying stuff!), but will try and look at it tomorrow. Keep it coming! Kirkburn talk contr 22:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry the page is horrible. Your Dev2 page is less annoying.

The links to other languages pushes the selected article box and such down to far

Featured Screenshot might as well not be there as its so far down the page, why not combine it with Featured Article, or place it in that column?

Columns are no longer even

News, which should change more often is still less important than featured artcile?

Why are your changes to main page in village pump and others are not?

if you want the other language wikias there, replace the "patch xxx is out" with that instead. If the patch is important make it the Featured Article.

SharlinTalk / Did 10:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

You complain if I do post stuff here, you complain if I don't. *sigh* This is a big change, hence me wanting to ask people for feedback here first. I post about smaller changes on the Main Page's talk page. Kirkburn talk contr 19:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyhoo, more changes made given the feedback. The FA and FS boxes are being pushed down for now, to make way for temporary Blizzcon stuff. As for what to do with them in the end, I'm not sure. I've been discussing about what was going on with the ad stuff with Wikia - complicated, but basically atm it will be a targeted ad that only rarely appears. Kirkburn talk contr 19:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

No, What I am mostly complaining about is the fact, Why do you bother to ask anyone? Honestly you do exactly what you set out to do regardless of opinion. SharlinTalk / Did 22:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Because it gives us a target to aim at! :) Actually, feedback is a precious thing. He may do what he intends, but I really doubt he totally ignores opinions he gets.

> The links to other languages pushes the selected article box and such down to far

Perhaps Kirkburn already got to that? On my browser (without pictures on), the language links take up 2 small font lines, and even with a seriously small browser window, the featured article box is barely offscreen. Maybe it's just me, but I'm imagining that even with pictures on, a full-screen browser wouldn't have any problem. ... hard to say, my browser settings have been considered idiosyncratic before. Often. --06:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Kirk, you had an unclosed quote in the table. At this point...

<!--

BEGIN LEFT COLUMN

-->
| valign="top" style="width:50%; |<!--

...there's a missing quote on the style param. If I add it in, the two sides balance out, and then the page looks awesome. --Piu ^(?!) 00:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I figured out it was only making the columns uneven on Safari. Firefox handles it OK and makes both columns 50%, which might be why you didn't notice it. --Piu ^(?!) 00:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Editing a pages name

The quest: Cenarius' Legacy has a gap before the first letter of the name I'd like to get rid of the gap but not sure how to fix it. Feel free to reply to my talk page and just delete this. Thanks --Yelmurc 00:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The article needs to be moved to rename it (from Quest: Cenarius' Legacy to Quest:Cenarius' Legacy), though renaming an article has to be done cautiously. --Raze 00:53, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Druid Abilities, not broken out by level.

OK. This page appears to not follow the conventions used for other classes. All other classes break it down by level in order. Druid abilities are simply listed with how many ranks they have, giving no indication WHEN they become available.

Any problem with changing it to match other ability pages?

Oh, how do we find all tables?

--SharlinTalk / Did 10:24, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

See WW:BOLD. Making pages uniform is always welcome (especially as long as you keep all the content). I don't know what you're looking for in "find all tables". --Pcj (T•C) 13:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess what I am looking for is a simpler way to make nice looking tables than all of the steps we have to go through now. Are there programs to convert word documents into WIKI commands? Perhaps HTLM to WIKI that we can use at this site. SharlinTalk / Did 16:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

MS Word generates nasty, bloated HTML, so please don't use that. Making tables in WoWWiki isn't that hard. I can give a quick tutorial here:

{| is that same as <table>
- {| cellspacing="3px" style="border:1px solid #333333;" is the same as <table cellspacing="3px" style="border:1px solid #333333;>
|- is the same as <tr>
- |- bgcolor="#666666" is the same as <tr bgcolor="#666666">
|| is the same as <td>
- | align="center" colspan="2" | is the same as <td align="center" colspan="2">
|} is that same as </table>

With this basic knowledge you can make pretty fancy tables.

So in example:

{|border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0"

|-bgcolor="#666666"

|align="center" width="60px"|'''Status'''

|align="center" width="80px"|'''[[Realm|Server]]'''

|align="center" width="60px"|'''[[Faction|Faction]]'''

|align="left" width="80px"|'''Name'''

|align="center" width="40px"|'''Gender'''

|align="center" width="80px"|'''[[Race|Race]]'''

|align="center" width="70px"|'''[[Class|Class]]'''

|align="center" width="40px"|'''[[Level|Level]]'''

|-bgcolor="#040418" valign="top"

|align="center"|active

|align="center"|[[Server:Dalaran US|Dalaran US]]

|align="center"|<imagelink>Alliance_15.gif|Alliance</imagelink>

|align="left"|[http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Dalaran&n=Gnomity Gnomity]

|align="center"|M

|align="center"|[[Gnome]] <imagelink>IconSmall_Gnome_Male.gif|Gnome</imagelink>

|align="center"|[[Warrior]] <imagelink>IconSmall_Warrior.gif|Warrior</imagelink>

|align="center"|19

|}

Yields:

Status	Server	Faction	Name	Gender	Race	Class	Level
active	Dalaran US	<imagelink>Alliance_15.gif\|Alliance</imagelink>	Gnomity	M	Gnome <imagelink>IconSmall_Gnome_Male.gif\|Gnome</imagelink>	Warrior <imagelink>IconSmall_Warrior.gif\|Warrior</imagelink>	19

Granted, if you don't want create a table from scratch you might want to just hunt down someone else's table and copy/edit it. --Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:57 PM PDT 23 Aug 2007

Top of Page command

Is there a command to send a user to the top of a long page? "As in, I'm in the middle of this stinking page and I don't want to scroll back to the top to see the table of contents again". You know, for us lazy people. --Blame^Me→ Mucke ←^talkTo 18:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Press Home key. --GRYPHON^tc 20:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Or ctrl + Home, or click/drag the scrollbar. --DuTempete talk|contr 22:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, what I was looking for is a Wiki command I could put on my pages that they would allow people to click and it would return them to the top of the page. --Blame^Me→ Mucke ←^talkTo 00:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Try #top: [[#top]] --Piu ^(?!) 01:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!! --Blame^Me→ Mucke ←^talkTo 06:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Search plugin

I'm just letting people know that I created a new search plugin for the WoWWiki, which is at my searchplugins.net profile page. The one this site advertises, that I tried installing, never did work. It just gives me an error. The search box on the left side of the WoWWiki skin uses Google, which I don't like, because you can never view a page with one click. If I know there's a page titled warrior, I don't want to see this. I want to see the warrior page. Hence, I made the search plugin use the Go button functionality at Special:Search. Finally, this search plugin brings up the Main Page if you don't type in anything, making its behaviour exactly the same as the search plugin that Wikipedia advertises to your browser. Feedback is welcome, but not necessary. Русские мертвецы 22:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

There's now a second search plugin at the above link; the one I was referring to is titled WoWWiki (English) Go, while the new WoWWiki (English) MW Search emulates the search button rather than the go button. Русские мертвецы 23:17, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks really good, I'll see if we can get it included as default plugin. --Ady _s 14:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

OpenSearch is already requested to be fixed on WW:SR --GRYPHON^tc 15:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

To follow up (and I knew this yesterday, but was hesitant to mention it since at the time the conversation was only with myself), my brother informs me that the search plugin at WoWWiki:Searching#Browser Searches works fine if you manage to find this page and install it manually. The problem is really that the OpenSearch plugin being advertised by the server (the one that appears as Add "WoWWiki (English)" in Firefox) does not install correctly. At this point I'm moreso convinced there should just be a notice on the Main Page or on the search box on the left that the site's browser search plugin must be installed manually—had I known this, I wouldn't have created what I'm thinking is a duplicate plugin. Русские мертвецы 19:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Mass page influx from foxbot

I chanced across a page I had edited previously, to find the contents pretty much wiped out and overwritten by foxbot, as per request of pcj. I know not who pcj is, nor what authority he may have.

I do have two issues with these additions:

they have been performed without regard to existing content
assuming the above is permissible, they were not marked as needing human audit.

I have no objection to foxbot being used to create new pages where none existed before, but where it wipes out previous content, it should ask for audit. --Eirik Ratcatcher 23:08, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have to correct the above. Many of the pages recently modified by foxbot (back to July 16th, perhaps earlier) did get audited. Not nearly all, though.

But also, I have to retract my "no objection".

In the defense of the bots, there's the twin wonder powers of "quantity has a quality of its own", and "nobody cared enough to make a page until now, so what's the big deal?". The former, I can't argue against. Really, I can't.

But for the latter, I feel that without any notice that the page was merely scraped from other sources, there is going to be the general assumption that "that's all there really is to know about this item", suppressing further additions, or further research. A "well, wowhead said it, so it must be true" attitude.

I hope I'm just crying wolf. --Eirik Ratcatcher 06:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't like how so many gray items were requested to foxbot to be made. Is there any real reason to make pages for all of the poor quality items?
∙ Zurr Talk ∙ Contr 06:59, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of it has been to the effect of removing items from Special:Wantedpages, others needed their tooltips updated. --Pcj (T•C) 14:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can request a foxbot update, no 'authority' needed. Some of your reverts look like it was just a layout prefrence on your part where you didn't like the components infobox. --GRYPHON^tc 15:38, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can, but when the page already exists, there had better be an audit done. See Lucky Rocket Cluster, Cured Medium Hide. Yes, some of my reverts are layout preference as you say. Just as Foxbot had evidently been called on those same pages because they didn't use the tooltip template. More, though include other information, such as schematic location, categories, etc. I has assumed there was some authority to it given that I'd been informed foxbot was specifically for new pages. --Eirik Ratcatcher 16:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Foxbot is a quick way to populate an article with Armory provided data, pcj may have felt the resulting overwrites were more appealing, which I have done myself for some item articles with Foxbot sometimes sending Foxbox to the sandbox if an article just needs a tooltip update, just as anyone could have done manually editing the article. I would assume that since Foxbot's edits are invoked by a person, that the article in question is something that user feels could use Foxbot's article content which suggests that the edit is monitored by the person making the request. --GRYPHON^tc 17:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Please examine the edit history for Lucky Rocket Cluster. While many of the requested articles show signs of monitoring, this is by no means universal. --Eirik Ratcatcher 23:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Lucky Rocket Cluster looks like crap. All you did was undo everything the bot did except the tooltip. Pages should get they existing data moved back in, but don't undo the styling changes... the bot is trying to update to the boilerplate. Maybe the bot needs to leave notes for people that request pages after the page is updated so they can test it... or better yet the bot should just be online all teh time so users don't queue up stuff and forget it. I for one only request a page AS I AM EDITING IT to get a nice automatic update. Anyway, guess I get to go fix the nasty page, lucky me. TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 00:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

There's no real "needs a human audit" requirement/tag; you may be thinking of the FixMe tags that Foxbot adds to pages when armory information is insufficient to display specific text. Consider pages added by Foxbot as pages added by the people who requested the page to be added - there's no specific "authority" needed to add an item page, so the bot edits are really no different. I do believe people should look at what the bot is doing to the pages they requested; there's also a tiponly mode, in which Foxbot only updates the transcludable part of the page. Edits are not marked as patrolled, though - which may just be the call for human review that you're looking for.

As for pcj, User:pcj would be your first bet to look at (or hop on IRC and ask people :) )

Whether or not we want to include the poor items is a separate issue altogether - personally, I'm leaning on the side of only including notable items on the wiki, but that's more up to the individual contributors / wiki-wide policy ("are we also an items database?"). -- Starlightblunder 00:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

How to de-redirect?

There were 2 quest pages, Quest:Gyro... What? and Quest:Gyro... What. Someone merged them into the latter, and the former is a redirect. However, the former is the correct title for the quest. I am unsure which has the more relevant history, so I'm not sure whether a copy-and-paste to switch the contents, or a page move is the better answer. Any assistance? --Eirik Ratcatcher 23:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Quest:Gyro... What has the better history. You should delete the Quest:Gyro... What? and move it to that name. IMO --User:Sandwichman2448/Sig 23:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Gems vs Minerals

Off updating engineered items, I got side tracked by the Talasite page. It seems that when the decision was made to shift Template:Gems to Template:Minerals, few of the links were updated. The old template was a sidebar, and so at the top of the page. There is now a new Gems template, which IMO has useful information, but is much better sitting at the bottom of the page. Both templates have some value, different information, but some overlap. Opinions on whether to:

use both templates (ala Talasite as of this writing),
just the minerals template (ala Blood Garnet)
just use the gems template (like Earthstorm Diamond)

Please note that many minerals (Jade, for instance) that are not Gem stones need to have their links updated. I may get around to it, but... --Eirik Ratcatcher 17:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay to have both. The Template:Tlink template is misleading as it only lists Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Inlinegfx/img_link_data.json' not found. gems. The Template:Tlink sidebar is getting kind of huge. --Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:07 PM PDT 3 Aug 2007

I would suspect that the gems template is to show what items can be inserted into sockets. Maybe it should be called "Socket Gems" or some such, but for simplicity keep it as template:gems. But also, there are pearls (I think) that can be inserted into sockets, and enchanting-crafted items also. I don't know how you would want to finagle that. I'll give it a shot right now, and I'll consider my upcoming change revertible if anyone wants it back the way it was. Schmidt 05:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Pearls are considered gemstones in the real world, why would it be any different in WoW? I think both templates are fine and shold be used in context (BC minerals will get both templates, pre-BC ones will get {{minerals}} only) Perhaps minerals need some of that auto-collapse majick? Only show the relevant section? TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 05:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Doable, with Wikipedia:NavFrame. If you need to see it in action, have a look at Template:Mage. With NavFrame, it is also possible to force it to un-collapse in the specific section, which isn't done at {{Mage}}. --User:Sky2042/Sig 05:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so maybe I misunderstood. Based on what template:gems always was, it would be obvious to me that it's specifically for those gems that are to be cut or those that are ready as is to go into a socket. Not stuff like Mana Emerald (which is also something of a "gem") or Moss Agate which is only a reagent, not a gem to be cut and socketed. It simply doesn't make sense to fit older gems in such a template which from inception was specifically for socket gems. imo, nothing found in http://www.wowhead.com/?items=3.7 should be in such a list. On the other hand, the BC gems should be included with the older ones (perhaps) because many of them if not all are used as reagents in crafted items.[3] Schmidt 06:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

My only beef with this issue is that the profession is called Jewelcrafting and not gemcrafting. It would be easier if we could distinguish cuttable gems as "jewels" like it seemed to be when this whole idea started. Calling a Moss Agate "only a reagent" is unnecessarily confusing because all but the most alien items in WoW are generally analogous to real world items. Imagine how your fiancee would feel if you got her an engagement ring with big reagent or reagent necklace. This is the only reason why it would be nice to have the Template:Tlink template be renamed to something a bit more specific. Keeping it gems is mostly for the lazy. --Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:49 PM PDT 24 Aug 2007

Live from Blizzcon

As I get computer access, I'll be flooding information to User:Kaydeethree/BlizzCon. Any admins, feel free to post whatever. Having a press pass is awesome. --User:Kaydeethree/Sig 19:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice info - CJ talk / cont 15:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Tlink et al.

So, Wrath of the Lich King is here, and no-doubt we're gonna get a great many pages appearing in the next few days. So i threw together a quick mini-logo to put into templates, Any Opinions?

User:Kaso/Wotlk

From User:Kaso/Wotlk

There was some discussion on IRC about how the Template:Tlink template is over/miss used, and perhaps because of that we do not need a Template:Tlink nor infact a Template:Tlink. Anyone wish to discuss that? I have different sizes if the minilogo, if smaller/larger is wanted.

--Kaso 21:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's normally abbreviated to Wrath. I just made this one from yours, I think this might be better.

Kanaru discussion 01:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Blood Elves

Death Knights

Yes thats pretty nice actually i was worried mine was a little too large, the Wrath one does seem to better sized. I wonder if anyone else has opinions on this? --Kaso 20:03, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Just like "the burning crusade" is cut down to BC.

i think "wrath of the lich king" might just be cut down to WK, or WLK

i'm not sure the big banners are needed, though for continents it'll definitely be a good idea. - CJ talk / cont 15:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like I used a different image than

for Template:Tlink Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Inlinegfx/img_link_data.json' not found.. Nothing personal, but I like the "Wrath" one, since it is a bit sharper as far as readability and a bit smaller. --Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:34 PM PDT 6 Aug 2007

Two weeks later... I like "Wrath" better myself. It's sharper, a tad smaller, and more logical than "WotLK". With Burning Crusade "BC worked well, it was easy to say, but you try saying, or typing "WotLK".... it just doesn't roll off the tongue... TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 05:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Preview of new default skin options!

Check out the preview page for ideas on what the new default skin may become, and leave your feedback on the talk page!

--Rustak 23:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The yellow is too bright IMO. Can you tweak it to match a bit closer to the bottom of the W logo? TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 09:05, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

What he said, absolutely. Maybe even some "used" look like the logo itself. Apart from that I think it's fine, but why does it have to be changed at all? Flotsam (talk con) 16:19, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess the thought here is that some of the gadgets and features of the new design will encourage editing, and returning readership? As far as I can tell, it's not going to make things any easier on those of us who are already editing, but it sure is more Wikia-fied. --DuTempete talk|contr 17:26, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Respond on WoWWiki talk:Default Skin Preview, please! Thanks :) Kirkburn talk contr 21:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh god no,, don't add half a page of that wikia stuff, we complained before the move that that was 1 thing nobody wanted to see. We like the colors the way they are :P and huge panels really distract from the normal content. - CJ talk / cont 07:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Owie my eyes! What's wrong with the nice gentle grey background? Having them available as possible choices, ok, but eye-meltingly loud colors bad. --Azaram 04:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

PNG problem

Ever since the main page redesign, .png files will not display for me! ¹³³⁶ 02:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you using Internet Explorer? --Pcj (T•C) 02:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

There was javascript implemented a while ago to help make png's transparent in IE6, that should be the only thing affecting png, not the main page redesign. --GRYPHON^tc 14:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been away. Yes, I am using IE6. Is there something I need to en-/dis-able?

¹³³⁶ 23:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. *All* PNGs won't display? Kirkburn talk contr 23:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, let me be more specific. As a page loads (no the image, the whole page) I can see the image. But as soon as it finishes loading, all the images become transparent. I can click on them still, but they arent there. It's not a broken image either. If I click the image, and it takes me to the Image: page, it is STILL transparent.

¹³³⁶ 02:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I am having exactly the same problem as is stated above by Lessthan 1337 02:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC). This is on a system with Win XP and IE6. Any help would be appreciated. --Cuznvini 23:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Some questions: Is this only on the main page? Is this only .png images? do you have javascript enabled or disabled on IE? Please can you give a link to an image that is affected. Thanks -- sannse (talk) 12:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

From what I can see, all PNG images using transparent colors disappear immediately after the page finishes loading. Specific examples include the WoWWiki logo, Blinky the Beholder, and the "Wiki Spotlight" icon, regardless of what spotlight is displayed. The images both look fine and remain on the page in Opera, but in Internet Explorer 6.0 (and presumably below), the images disappear after the page finishes loading and the image for Blinky is not transparent at all. (In fact, before it disappears, it comes up as Blinky on a light grey-colored background.) ~ Doc Lithius (U)(T)(C) 13:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I can see the problem on IE6. I tried to disable javascript, but still saw the problem (possibly I didn't get all controls for that, I'm not familiar with IE). Kirkburn, maybe you could comment out the section of js relating to image transparencies and see if that's the problem? From what I see this is affecting all png files on all pages. -- sannse (talk) 11:32, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this has anything to do with this problem, but every page on WoWWiki that I display has a error message in IE6:

Line: 52

Char: 1

Error: 'wgBreakFrames' is undefined

Code: 0

Cuznvini 05:03, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

That's to do with the upgrade, and should go away once monobook is up to date. It took me far longer than it should have, but it's definitely the fix on transparencies in the local js file. I've removed this from common.js now, thinking it's better to see ugly backgrounds rather than no image at all! But one of the admins here can revert me if you feel different of course :) -- sannse (talk) 12:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I've got good news and I've got bad news...

The Good News: The graphics aren't hiding on me anymore!

The Bad News: Blinky still doesn't have a transparent background in Internet Explorer 6. XD

Just figured you might wanna know! :3 ~ Doc Lithius (U)(T)(C) 11:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm afraid I don't know how to fix that, or even if it's possible to do so smoothly... I just removed the fix that didn't work :-/ I hate to give this as advice, but can you upgrade or switch browser? IE6 just isn't designed to see transparencies in .png -- sannse (talk) 07:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey guys, me again. All .pngs work for me now and I didn't do anything. Thanks for your help and good luck to all others who still have problems.

¹³³⁶ 23:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

To Sannse -- I'm gonna put this as politely as I can. *inhale noise* ...no. But transparent PNGs really aren't my thing anyway, so don't worry too much about it. I sure won't if I ever actually have something to upload in PNG format that has a solid background! (Yes, I have a program that can make it transparent. Don't worry.) ;3 ~ Doc Lithius (U)(T)(C) 23:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion backlog

Can someone look into Category:Articles for speedy deletion? It's currently sitting at 193 pages, 5 categories and 2 images. Русские мертвецы 06:09, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

When tagging an article for speedy delete, I think it would help the admins, and thus the backlog if:

A reason is provided
The reason is signed
Existing content is left in place (just add the tag, don't touch anything else)

If you just tag the article, then it's the admin that has to figure this all out. And thus the current backlog. --Piu ^(?!) 19:01, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense, for the most part. Although I'm suprised to think that signing something in the mainspace is encouraged, I do see how a lack of information can make it very difficult to follow through. Русские мертвецы 19:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, the sd tag doesn't count as actual article content, which is where a sig is discouraged.--Piu ^(?!) 19:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Also: I see a lot of articles in the speedy delete category that should just be redirects. According to our Deletion Policy WW:DEL, this is preferred if it makes sense. --Piu ^(?!) 20:01, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

While the term is "speedy" delete, don't feel that this means that it needs be deleted quickly. The article is tagged, there is no reason to worry about it further. I must say that entering a reason why on some articles that contain some content helps so that admins don't have to find out why it is speedy delete. --GRYPHON^tc 23:58, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm with you there, Gryphon. I used to do your job. :) It helps a ton when there's a reason. If it's not a legitimate reason, then the speedy deleter can decide that, and set up a proper vote--or tell whoever wanted it speedily deleted to do so. Anyways, the idea behind the "speedy deletion" tag is that there's no due process that takes days to go through. No voting, or anything. Like Gryphon said, it's not so named because it's going to go away quicker than you can say "speedy delete". Schmidt 00:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

That's good to know. As you may have guessed, the reason I saw the size of the category was because I had something in there. I was surprised to see how many pages were awaiting deletion, but if "speedy deletion" is more or less just "uncontroversial deletion" that has potentially zero waiting time, that's fine with me. Not that it would matter if it wasn't fine with me ;) Русские мертвецы 01:00, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Template

Was checking on WoWWiki:Templates and noticed that it was a bunch of red links to Template:T that seems to have been deleted recently. Which template will be used instead? And will a bot update all the pages to this new template?

--Ragowit {talk · contr · qt eu} 11:43, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Restored. Dont know why it was deleted, I'll ask. --Ady _s 12:00, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, it appears I deleted it while deleting other things. I must not have noticed being redirected to it or something on accident. --GRYPHON^tc 00:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Life

These are some of the demonstration pages they have I figure I'd post it so maybe some people could use or expand some of the idea's they are using http://www.eol.org/demonstration.html

--Yelmurc 03:17, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Err... what did you have in mind? --Ragestorm (talk · contr) 03:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking maybe having Tabs inside the page maybe one for media the other for maps orlore information. Have a characters general information and allow people to expand it in some way depending on how much detail they want.--Yelmurc 03:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki Upgrade Imminent

We're going to do a MediaWiki upgrade to 1.10 in nine hours at 0300 UTC Tuesday. There will probably be an hour or so of downtime. Faulkner 18:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to add to this, I can see Faulkner from where I'm sitting :) He just showed me that we have pretty much quintupled (5x) the number of unique IPs visits to the site over BlizzCon! Kirkburn talk contr 21:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sweet. And uhoh. :O --User:Sky2042/Sig 23:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

They make very nice sandwiches over here. =) Kirkburn talk contr 00:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.10 upgrade even more imminent!

Yes, it got delayed. It will start in just over an hour, and may take several hours, though it shouldn't have to. Kirkburn talk contr 04:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The upgrade to mw1.10.1 itself only took about 20-30 minutes but after upgrading we noticed much more database activity and a variety of thumbnail images being purged out of the cache at a high rate. Sometimes with MW upgrades we've seen unexpected new behaviors that have to be worked out. This may or may not be the case here, but we do believe this could cause some slowdown issues, so we've been tracing it for the last couple of hours. If there are any slowness issues as we hit peak hours tomorrow, be assured we'll be tracing what's going on and trying to resolve as soon as possible. Johnq 09:38, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, upgrade complete. We followed the thumbnail purging and cache issues thru the night and everything appears to be ok. Site response seems to be normal both objectively (from our monitoring graphs) and subjectively (reports from our team loading pages from various countries). With this upgrade there are also a number of new extensions in the code base which we have currently disabled. We'll be enabling them over time to see the effect (since some of them have the potential to slow things down). Johnq 20:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Username changes?

Is there a possible way to have my username changed as some other wikis (including wikipedia) have been known to do? Ideally I'd like to be able to change it to reflect my character but I have seen no pages regarding this and have uncovered nothing with search. Thanks in advance.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 19:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I don't think you can. Sometimes people just make up a stupid name as a spur of the moment thing and somewhat regret it later, but I live with it.--User:Sandwichman2448/Sig 20:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

If not that's fine, I was just wondering if there is some place to make admin requests and such since I'm pretty sure it's in the media wiki software. Just wanted to make sure before I consider creating the new account. --Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 20:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

It may become easier once we merge more stuff with Wikia, but atm it's not really possible :( Kirkburn talk contr 20:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Citations/references and elinks

Elinks, the bane of my existance... ugh... So, a question. Since the majority of cites we're going to have are going to be elinks, how exactly do we want to handle this? Should we put them inside the "External links" section as a sub-section or in their own section? If their own, before or after elinks? I've tweaked Death Knight (hero class) a tad, do we want to do this somewhat differently? TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 20:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Common practice on other wiki's is notes section followed by elinks section which looks good to me. --GRYPHON^tc 20:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Database error

I noticed when I check the Shaman page when not logged in (I usually don't log in unless necessary), there is a database error. Is there anything that can be done, short of logging in? --Slxception 14:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Got the same issue here: BC_healing_equipment_(plate), only when not logged in Timb0h 09:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

500,000,000!

500,000,000 page views, almost 900,000 edits, nearly 40,000 articles. Nice! --Ady _s 16:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Woot!--User:Sandwichman2448/Sig 17:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

WoWWiki needs its own Firefox search plugin!

Plskthx? *puppyeyes* --DuTempete talk|contr 17:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a google-wiki-firefox one floating around somewhere that you can get, found at WoWWiki:Searching#Firefox. Unfortunately, there hasn't been one for the default search. Happy? :) --User:Sky2042/Sig 18:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Eeeew. No, I'm not. I'll never use a google search. Default, please! --DuTempete talk|contr 22:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I am mistaken, I think. Click on the external link and see if one of those there will help. I'm guessing the ones not labeled "google search" are pertinent to your quest for a searchbox. ;) --User:Sky2042/Sig 22:45, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! I didn't know that existed, so thanks, Sky. For other peeps, the first download is for the default search, the second appends your text to the wiki's URL, taking you straight to a page (dunno if I like that one better than the default or not, yet), and the 3rd is the Google search. --DuTempete talk|contr 00:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

In Firefox, at Special:Search you can rightclick on the search box space and select "Add a Keyword for this Search..." and it'll let you set one up. Personally I agree. I hate the Google search. I don't know how it can be added back along with the Google search. If I did know how, it would be there. If that doesn't do it for you, consider this Firefox addon Add to Search Bar. It allows you to select an icon; I don't know if you can if you do it any other way. I simply haven't bothered to look. Schmidt 05:21, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I've posted a method for replacing the Google search box with the MediaWiki one at WoWWiki:Searching#Restoring the MediaWiki Search Box. // DarkRyder /

/

// 13:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Counters Disabled

Hey Folks,

I just disabled the counters to see if we can alleviate some of the "mysql error" pages folks have been seeing. We'll let this run a few days and see how it goes. Faulkner 20:06, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

NOOOOO!!! I can't see how popular my user page is now! --Imandir 00:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Link to Quest Coordinates

How about an add on for newbies to be able to look up information about the Quests and find the coordinates that automatically takes you there . Also what about a second link to find where the Quest must be turned in. Matriarch Melandbobbie 22:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting a new feature on the wiki, or an actual World of Warcraft AddOn? It's unclear from your message which you are suggesting. Русские мертвецы 22:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

You might want to look at the Cartographer addon over at http://www.wowace.com. I think there's some modules that might have what you're looking for. - Clyde_Jr - tal_k - contri_b 18:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Math extension?

Any chance for the math equation extension to be added someday? No big hurry, it's just that theorycraft geeks like myself would like equations on pages like Improved Frostbolt to look pretty. I have a hard time myself viewing an equation in text-only form and trying to figure out if I made a mistake. Again, no biggie, there aren't many pages but random talents/abilities that use math, but it would be nice to have. I know one issue is that the .png files it generates by default are black with a white background, which would look bad on our dark background color. --Piu ^(?!) 23:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

It's on the todo list at WW:SR, but it sounds like it could possibly break the wiki. :) --User:Sky2042/Sig 23:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Cool, I didn't know that page was there. I could see how it would increase server load. A fallback thought I had was to manually upload .png files with rendered equations. That might present a different problem (image spam) so I will tread lightly. --Piu ^(?!) 23:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

PNGs of formulas is totally OK. Just make sure you use a background plate (not transparent) since the text needs to be viewable in any WoWWiki skin (#ffffff as well as #333333 backgrounds). One could possibly argue that text in images isn't friendly to blind people with screen readers, but since this is a game that actually requires working vision to play, I think we're fine. --Mikk (T) 21:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I was gonna use the LaTeX source as a mouseover, since that's what you'd get if it was made with the math extension. That makes it easy to change over if the extension ever goes live. --Piu ^(?!) 23:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

DPS equation for Frostbolt. X is points in Empowered Frostbolt, Y is points in Improved Frostbolt. d is spell damage. B is base damage for the spell.

Equation: (.95 \times {3.0 \over 3.5} + .2Y)(1 - .2X)d + B \over {3.0 - .1X}

--Piu ^(?!) 00:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Wowwiki's official drink -- The Mana Juice!

File:MANA.jpg

MMMMM! Tasty Mana Juice!!1

What is better than a glass of cool, tasty Mana Juice while grinding? I suggest, no, I demand that we declare the Mana Juice as Wowwiki's official drink! -- Voluspå

I find it odd how much you remind me of someone else ... Kirkburn talk contr 22:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I am only myself -- no one else. If you want to know who I am you should visit the Norwegian Wowwiki or talk to someone at Wownorge.net . Voluspå

lol --Ady _s 02:54, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

WoWWiki:Crazy people

Why do we have crazy people you can vote on? http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:Crazy_people Voluspå

Because some people are just nuts. They deserve as much glory as the next guy. :) Schmidt 05:24, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Though that can depend on who the next guy is =) Kirkburn talk contr 18:38, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

imo everyone should be crazy, normal people are just dull. ps : whats up with the HUGE intendation? - CJ talk / cont 12:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The rivalry between Wowwiki and Scrolls of Lore

What you may, or may not be aware of is that I am writing an article about the rivalry between Wowwiki and Scrolls of Lore. I have already heard their version – now I would like to hear Wowwiki’s. I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, so (admins) just send me a note and I’ll move this to my talk page. Voluspå

It doesn't sound line an appropriate topic for the wiki. I'd say you were just fanning the flames, and trolling really isn't appreciated here. --Piu ^(?!) 17:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me just get one thing straight here: I am NOT trying to start a flame war -- I am trying to make a contribution to the Wiki. I know how many at SoL feel, but I can’t base my article merely on their viewpoints. Besides, it’s not a regular Wowwiki article, but one for The Quill. Voluspå

All I want is for the sites to work together, and for people to feel like they can contribute to both, but I'd really rather not dredge up old matters. Kirkburn talk contr 18:30, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Pray and you shall receive ;) Voluspå

Thanks :) It hasn't been brought up in a few months, so restarting it just isn't something I want to deal with. I never did get to the bottom of what happened to my account. Kirkburn talk contr 18:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

From someone who doesn't visit their site... I don't see any drama. So as a regular editor of the wiki and not a regular of their stuff, I don't see any drama. Doesn't seem like much of a "rivalry" if it's all one-sided to me. TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 18:57, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Permabanned for being a retard (and a sock puppet to a lesser extend) --Ady _s 20:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

(Note for the above - he also posted this topic on the SoL site >_< ) Kirkburn talk contr 22:19, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Which was dealt with properly at their end. I though he sounded familiar. But how did you figure it out? -_Ragestorm (talk · contr) 23:19, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I think he usually claims to be Norwegian, or otherwise Scandinavian, which is rare enough to link his behavior across accounts. --Piu ^(?!) 04:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Dealt with properly? The post was just moved to a new thread -- http://forums.scrollsoflore.com/showthread.php?t=2007 --Mikk (T) 16:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, dealt with at the very least. And, I notice, lacking the extreme venom found on both sides of the argument.

Actually, the whole situation isn't really a rivalry, given that we're not competing for anything. It's more a a mutual predjudice, with a slice of arrogance on both sides. --Ragestorm (talk · contr) 16:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Main Page revamp continued

Hello again :)

I've been doing some more work on User:Kirkburn/Dev3 to bring it up to standard. It features:

Featured Article and Featured Media boxes (I have correspondingly added stuff for the latter to the WW:FA page.
Separate ad box (I need to sort out with Wikia about the code for that, it can be hidden when not in use).
Combined about and help box.

If I was on my home PC, I would start doing daily image templates (Sleepy Willy and Media), but it's a bit difficult atm. Thoughts? Kirkburn talk contr 03:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Offline wiki editing?

Is there software to edit wiki pages offline? The site can be slow sometimes, and I'm sure my heavy use of the preview feature doesn't help. --Gonzie 12:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Notepad. --Pcj (T•C) 12:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

If you mean an actual program or setting that will let you make edits and preview them without being online, then uploading them when done, unfortunately no there isn't. That's been one of the issues with MediaWiki software since its inception that a lot of people have taken issue with. [4] An endeavor of that magnitude would probably (and unlikely) have to come through a media wiki version release. The only other possibility would be if someone were to create a program to do it, but I highly doubt someone would put forth the effort given the restrictions on return put in place by the liscence. The best you can do is make your edits in a word processor program and save them so you don't lose the work if you get kicked offline, but no editing features would likely be available. --Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 13:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys, I'll stick with Notepad :) --GONZIE T / C

Query API / MediaWiki API?

Is there a way to access the Query API or MediaWiki API on WoWWiki? I'm rebuilding the ArmoryProfileBot to reduce its impact on the wiki and having access to a bot API would sure be nice. Using the "raw" action works for getting wiki source, but it would be nice to bypass the parser for metadata as well (specifically, "what links here" in my case). I was under the impression that the Query API is built into all MediaWiki installations by default, but I didn't find it in any of the usual places. // DarkRyder / / // 17:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I assume that's a "no", then? Any chance of getting one or the other enabled? // DarkRyder /

/

// 05:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like something for WW:SR :) Kirkburn talk contr 07:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Unconfirmed quest information.

I've come across a few pages that contain information taken from quests relating to the article subject.

Pools of Aggonar, Arazzius the Cruel, Ivar Patch, Archmage Arugal

As far as I can tell, none of the quests have been confirmed to have officially taken place. But I didn't want to just delete the information, because it could still add relevant information to the article. At the same time, I'm not quite sure how to edit the paragraphs to make them more acceptable by the wiki's standards. -- Austin P 20:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

All four examples (well, three, as the Aggonar/Arazzius one is cut-n-paste) are written in "storytelling mode", don't add much substance to the article, and in the Aggonar bit even directly contradicts the Horde version of the quest. Personally, I'd just chop the lot of it. // DarkRyder /

/

// 20:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they all need to be chopped off. Additionally, the Pools of Aggonar and Arazzius the Cruel pages are horrible innaccurate, as they claim Arazzius is an agent of Illidan, when he is very much a Legion commander. Mentioning the quests is of course needed, but it's bad form to assume that the actions described therein have occured. --Mikaka 06:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Big red button

A quick warning for anyone checking their preferences - DO NOT use the quartzslate skin on WoWWiki. It isn't ready, and you'll break your ability to view the site. If you do accidently choose it, you'll need to go to http://www.wowwiki.com/Main_Page?useskin=wowwiki&save=true ... that is, assuming you can read this ;) So, again, even though the big red button looks oh so inviting, don't push it. Kirkburn talk contr 21:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Template my template

Truly bizarre things happening to the pages for me today. I read the page "normal", templates such as Lootbox and Questlong appear broken. I preview the page (no changes), and the preview has the normal (correct) appearance. --Eirik Ratcatcher 00:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I've seen that happen when MediaWiki doesn't realize a template has changed. Try doing a purge on the affected pages, e.g.: http://www.wowwiki.com/index.php?action=purge&title=Affected_Page // DarkRyder /

/

// 12:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

JavaScript errors after 1.10 upgrade

Since the recent upgrade to MediaWiki 1.10, I've been getting a couple of persistent JavaScript errors when viewing the wiki (using Firefox 2.0.0.6). I'm not able to determine that the first is causing any problems, but it's easy to fix:

wgBreakFrames is not defined in wikibits.js on line 51

This can be fixed by changing that line from if (wgBreakFrames) { to if (typeof wgBreakFrames != "undefined") { (or, of course, by figuring out why it isn't being set false, if it's supposed to be).

The other error is actually breaking the execution of user JS on edit pages which, among other things, makes it impossible to preview changes to one's user JS:

tooltipAccessKeyRegexp has no properties in wikibits.js on like 519

It isn't getting defined on non-edit pages, either, but it doesn't seem to be causing problems there...

// DarkRyder / / // 16:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, looking into it. Not too unexpected that there will be some hiccups after an upgrade like this. Please keep us informed of anything else. Thanks. Johnq 19:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Hip Hop WOW

Template:Wcpumpmove

Playxpert

The following is an article taken from the Main Page:

PLAYXPERT is a next-generation in-game community management toolset developed for PC-based and MMO games. Built around a completely unique in-game overlay technology, PLAYXPERT brings the tools that gamers use into the games they play.

In conjunction with Wikia, PLAYXPERT is proud to announce the WoWWiki Widget - an in-game widget allowing users to access, read, and contribute to the most popular wiki about World of Warcraft. Users can search, read, and submit new content into WoWWiki without leaving the game.

Screenshots - Image:Playxpert1.jpg and Image:Playxpert2.jpg
WoWWiki Widget overview - [5]

Visit PLAYXPERT.com for more details!

Related news stories - profy - Mashable - GamesIndustry.biz - Gaming Today

From some background - PLAYXPERT recently approached Wikia with news of their overlay technology to allow people to browse WoWWiki whilst staying in-game. We think it's cool, and want to let you know about it. PLAYXPERT are also planning on creating similar widgets for other Wikia wikis, but you can test out the beta client and WoWWiki widget right now by signing up on their site! (edit: Windows only, it seems) Kirkburn talk contr 20:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

That's the best thing ever! I an installing this bugger right now! ...or as soon as I get it, anyways. XD I mean, alt-tabbing out wasn't that much of a hassle, but having it right there in-game is just fabulous, considering I've yet to find a "Notepad" AddOn for World of Warcraft. ~ Doc Lithius (U)(T)(C) 21:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this a widget (a mini-app on Mac OS X) or a gadget (a mini-app on Windows Vista)? It looks like a gadget (no mention of Mac, at least). From the download of the Beta, this appears to be a Windows-only solution. I couldn't find any system requirements on their site. Please list if such things are Windows-only please. --Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:02 PM PDT 17 Aug 2007

My apologies, I haven't been able to test it out myself yet - I'm on Linux atm :D ... as for being called a widget, I think that's just a general term being used for this program. In other news, another article mentioning this here - [6] Kirkburn talk contr 00:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Going to look through the other guides but having bad luck with this so far. Basically it just lagged my machine to a near standstill. --Blame^Me→ Mucke ←^talkTo 00:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

New boilerplate: pet ability

I was looking at warlock pet abilities (of course), and noticed the horrid lack of a standard format. I searched, and to my dismay, found no boilerplate! *gasp* So, what should a warlock do, but create her own?

Check out User:DuTempete/sandbox2, and please make any comments or suggestions you would like. I ripped the infobox template from ALiEN's Template:Infobox ability, and almost all of the content from Help:Ability articles, then adjusted for pet specific content. --DuTempete talk|contr 05:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This would be awesome. For both hunter as well as warlock pets, I assume? In the infobox, as far as I know, all warlock pet abilities use mana, and hunter pet abilities use focus. Maybe also a place to indicate whether it's an active or passive ability. (Not sure if any minion abilities are passive, but many hunter pets' are.) -- Harveydrone ( talk | work ) 20:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

How about I just add "Passive" as an option for cooldown? Or do any of the Hunter pets' passive abilities have cooldowns? --DuTempete talk|contr 01:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've completed a few warlock pet articles with this format. Check out Blood Pact, or Consume Shadows for examples. --DuTempete talk|contr 01:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

New to Making Wikis

I am new to making Wikis. I tried to read all the advice they give, but a lot doesn't make sense to someone who is new, imo. Can someone help me make Fanfiction pages? -- Daenen 01:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

To start your own fanfiction, type http://www.wowwiki.com/User:Daenen/(some name) into your browser, hit the edit button, and you're off!. Anything else you'd like to know? --User:Sky2042/Sig 01:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, how do I do things like paragraphs, pictures, lines, titles, etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Daenen (talk • contr).

Paragraphs: just hit a double enter, like the forums. Pictures require that you upload the picture and then use the format [[Image:(imagename).(filetype)|thumb|(decription)]]. Lines? Titles are easy. Just use == (heading name) == for one, and then for sub sections use three equals or more. for another new section, use 2 equals on each side again. Anything else? --User:Sky2042/Sig 01:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Uploading Pictures? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Daenen (talk • contr).

Click the link silly. --User:Sky2042/Sig 01:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

How do you make a link? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Daenen (talk • contr).

Use [[(linked item)]]. And please, sign your posts with '~~~~' please. --User:Sky2042/Sig 01:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Its a bit confusing. I will try, and come back --((User:Daenen)) How do I do the little mini screen on the right side that says name, race, gender, picture, etc? --Daenen

Try copy and pasting, and then changing the ones you want changed. :) --User:Sky2042/Sig 01:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

How do you Bold/Underline and do I have to mark something as fanfiction, and how? -- Daenen

If you want to mark as fanfic (which you have to, indeed), place {{fanfic}} at the top of your page. Bolding requires either using and , or putting ''' around the relevant items. Underlining is and . --User:Sky2042/Sig 02:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Now I am having a problem. ((http://www.wowwiki.com/User:Daenen/Daenen)). How do I fix it? Daenen 02:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)Daenen

I fixed it, now you need an image. :) --User:Sky2042/Sig 02:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

This may be bad advice but I'm gonna give it anyway. I'm new to all this stuff too. What I have done is looked at other peoples work and then copied the code I liked. Then from there I added or took away based on what I saw on even more people's pages. From there I had figured out enough to change them in ways that were my own (not that no one else has done it, just that I didn't see it before I did it). I think as long as you aren't stealing other people's content and merely formatting you are ok. Also I have found its best to search for the guides as to naming pages and categorizing pages before you make them. This will help you avoid needing to rename or delete pages. --Blame^Me→ Mucke ←^talkTo 07:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Looking at existing stuff is VERY GOOD ADVICE. The fastest way I've found to leran how to do things is look at something that already works. Also, you're asking very basic editing questions here... try reading that Editing help link right net the submit buttons when you edit. TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 09:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Category:Fan fiction holds the kind of articles you would want to be looking at, and what you seem to want to do. There's lots of it, so have fun!

--DuTempete talk|contr 11:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Are tables of Content Automatic? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Daenen (talk • contr).

Yes, the ToCs are automatic, and will show when you have 3 or more sub-headings. Ways to manipulate the ToC are found at Help:Editing. --DuTempete talk|contr 14:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this Daenen page for a Warcraft RPG character? I wonder if we should make a template for RPG player characters (maybe Template:Tlink or something), like Template:Tlink for WoW player characters? --Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12 PM PDT 24 Aug 2007

Am I squatting?

I was reading up on Wikisquatting and I honestly want to make sure what I am doing with my character page doesn't qualify. I am leaning towards no but I want to make sure before I go further, I don't want to waste my time. So, here is my main character page Mucke, please have a look and tell me what you think, either here or on the discussion page is fine by me. -- Blame^Me→ Mucke ←^talkTo 22:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you are squatting, but perhaps you should ask Kirkburn? Voluspå

The idea of this page is so people don't have to go to individual users to ask things :) Kirkburn talk contr 18:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikisquatting means hijacking a wiki (or part of it) for another purpose. While the average WoWWikian may not have much interest in your character over anyone else's, it is neither of no use nor is it unrelated to WoW. You even follow the character article policy almost to the letter. I would caution you, though, that having your character in a public namespace rather than under your user page implicitly invites others to contribute. (As I've just done, so that it does follow policy to the letter.

) // DarkRyder /

/

// 18:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses, and the help in making my page more up-to-code. I've been having a lot of fun playing with the Wiki and wanted to make sure I hadn't gone too far. Well, I'll keep playing and if you ever notice anything questionable just holler at me or fix it or whatever. --Blame^Me→ Mucke ←^talkTo 06:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I need HELP

Can anybody tell me what i do if i forgot my password ?do i make another account ?(like this one)or contact someone to say my account name and e-mail?pls help me (Andy91 23:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC))

You should be able to email yourself the password via the button on the login screen (it will be sent to whichever email account you chose for the old account). Kirkburn talk contr 00:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Character pages

can someone help me make a page for my char, i read the page on how to create one but i dont understand what adress bar to put the imformation in -- Dunnsworth 06:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure Voluspå

Speedy delete

PLEASE people, give reasons why you are marking an article as speedydelete. Some are vague and seem to be only personal opinion as to why they are being deleted and not by policy or by obvious article error. --GRYPHON^tc 15:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, please don't wipe articles when adding delete tags! Kirkburn talk contr 21:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Corrupted Blood Article

Moved from WoWWiki talk:Main Page Dev.

I'm a little curious, in regards to the link about the Corrupted Blood epidemic story from the BBC - it happened almost two years ago, why did it take this long for the BBC to pick up this story? For that matter, why does this story look like a re-hash of what other articles have said since they fixed it? (Funny enough, I got the game about two weeks before the epidemic started...) This is not new news (well, it might be to anyone who got WoW after September-October of 2005, but still...) --Joshmaul 04:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If you visit Corrupted_Blood#External_links, you will notice there are 2 stories from the BBC. The first was written 2 years ago around the time of the event, whereas the second (the one you appear to be referring to) was written recently. So, the BBC did not take long, you just only read the recent article which appears to talk about how Corrupted Blood may give clues to modeling the spread of diseases via simulation.

The real question is why any serious medical researcher would use the Corrupted Blood phenomenon as any kind of guide for disease spread modeling. I was there and people were intentionally trying to spread the disease just to see people die. While one's view of humanity may be dim, I doubt that kind of thing would happen in the RL.--Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:50 PM PDT 23 Aug 2007

wiki template q

BC_Priest_DPS_Equipment/Row

I'd like to have the paremeters "red=1", "yellow=2" result in showing 1 or 2 sockets of that color.. i could make a red1, red2, red3 parameter but that seems an ugly way of doing it. Surely it'd be possible to have a template show 1, 2 or 3 sockets with 1 statement? discussed at Talk:BC_Priest_DPS_Equipment - CJ talk / cont 08:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Easier if a LoopFunctions extension were installed, you'd have to hard code it for right now. --Pcj (T•C) 16:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)