Wowpedia talk:Village pump

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Missing events in Events API

Try doing a search (google search via the sidebar) for the event named PLAYER_TOTEM_UPDATE. Hits show up; it was listed on Events_(API) until recently. Now try to jump to the actual entry for the event; it's no longer present.

What's bugged? The event itself is certainly still in the game. I have no idea how the events list pages get generated, so I don't know where to begin looking, or to check what other event entries got dropped.

-- farmbuyer (talk) 10:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Crit chance goes down when I level...?

im a lvl 44 NT Elf Rogue. i was @ 15.35%, lvl 43....leveled up, everything went and then i look @ my crit chanc & it went down to 14.96%. i was told thats me lvl compared to others in this same level....so obv., when i get @ the top of 44, my crit chance will be higher....and the process starts over...right? thanx, jeff aka narun (malfurion)

-- Elbastardo1 (talk) 20:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the best answer, but I believe this is a result of diminishing returns. Hopefully someone can give you a more specific answer. -Howbizr (talk) 05:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

See Combat_rating_system for an explanation, Narun. farmbuyer (talk) 16:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The gist of it is that for every level you gain, you require more crit rating to gain 1% crit. So every time you level, the crit rating on your gear has less of an effect on your actual crit rate. This very issue bothered me most of the way through wrath, made every single level bittersweet, especially as I wasn't finding better gear. Graptor (talk) 10:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

All stats, except for base stats (sta, int, spi, a.s.o.) are like that. Anything that says RATING in the stats, will function that way. The higher your level, the higher the rating you need to get the same result. That's why (partially) that tanks at level 70 need 490 defense, and at 80 you need 540. I see a lot of people in-game asking what their rating should be, where it is actually easier to look for the percentage. Like 9% hit chance, rather than 270 hit rating (just a sample). The actual rating you need varies with class, but the actual percentage that you need to achieve is the same for all classes, for the same function. Meaning at 80, all classes need 9% ranged and 2H melee hit chance to be capped, 14% spell hit chance, and 28% dual wield hit chance. But as the actual rating to achieve these percentages varies with class, some classes have an easier time reaching their cap than others. Though I mention hit rating here, it's the same idea for crit, dodge, block, parry, and so on. And thanks to Blizzard's poor design of non-instance gear, it is especially hard for tanks to reach the goals required to survive an instance at their own level. --Metalbunny (talk) 19:24, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Dead according to lore

Moved to Dead according to lore section of Talk:Killable. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 3:13 PM PST 17 Apr 2009

Help me pls:)

Hi everyone!All my freinds know me as Rampaige AKA Ramp.I'm new to this site so im really not sure how all this works yet!But i'm sure if some very generous people will assist me with a small project i would be much abliged.IV been away from WOW for a little while and in order to get back in WOW i need to get in touch with some Freinds of mine so i can jump back in the great world of WOW i would like some of you WOW fans to locate a few simple people if this is no prob,My phone broak and i dnt have any of there numbers and my best freind has taken a little vacation while i was away.But pls if there is any (REALM) (ULDAMAN) players here i would be very greatfule if you could locate these few peaple for me:)Locien,Loctide,Prophanity or Gizmotech!My Email address is (streetsmart15@yahoo.com)when they email me i will ask a question or two so i know its really them and no body is fooling around with me.Who ever is nice enouph to do this task for me,You will not be forgotten,When i get back in WOW you will be rewarded.

Your freind Rampaige!

Almost thought your account was compromised, Rage. Don't do that unless you leave a note you transferred it from somewhere else. o.o --Sky (t · c · w) 03:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered using the Armory? www.wowarmory.com. Though it may take some hit and miss to locate the right people, especially if the character names aren't very unique (we're not all that lucky), it can be a huge help to try and find out where old friends moved to. I use it occasionally to see which server old friends moved to now. --Metalbunny (talk) 19:59, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Spam or sponsor?

Druid PvE guide has an update that is a horribly intrusive spam ad right in the middle of the thing... but the edit comment says "(adding sponsor link - see http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:Working_with_Wikia for details)". I didn't remove it due to that, but if we have to have stuff like this, could it be put at the bottom or something, instead of right in the middle? --Azaram (talk) 01:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Fandyllic and Murph are our representatives working with Wikia on some new advertising techniques. They'll probably see your message here, but you might want to mention it on one of their talk pages as well. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 04:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I noticed this yesterday. What concerns me is that the whole decision was so hush hush. I visited WoWWiki alot in January but I dont recall seeing a header on a page I was viewing or any information on the front page. The consequences of this decision affect all WoWWiki users. I really dislike seeing adds on any Wiki. I would have gladly had voted for the domain change. So, why was there no header on the pages directing the community and users to vote on this important issue? Only 15 people voted on the WoWWiki talk:Domain page, that hardly counts as a consensus. I will post something on both Fandyllic and Murph's pages. Ifandbut (talk) 14:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I wish you had seen it too. =) I hate seeing ads myself. I'm not sure where it was posted or how I stumbled on it. As other people mentioned on the discussion page of the vote though, there's no guarantee we could have stayed ad-free indefinitely (while logged in) if we had gone ahead with the move. Fandyllic and Murph understand our concerns and will hopefully be able to work out something reasonable. Just let them know your opinion on the stuff you see. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 14:54, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how you missed it... it was on this page, see WoWWiki talk:Village pump#Domain name, which continued to WoWWiki talk:Village pump#A proposal - that would require you to designate a representative and then WoWWiki talk:Village pump#Looking to the future for database type content. It was never a hush hush thing. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 17:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply but the thing is I did not even know about the Village pump section until recently when I decided to try to get involved and start editing. Before last week I was just random user #39583 looking for some quick information. I'm sorry but something like this should have been right at the top of the main page or in an alert header on the top of every page with a dismiss button.

Also, I'm sure WoWWiki gets thousands of users looking at it every day. How could anyone think that 15 votes is a consensus? Ifandbut (talk) 18:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Because only a few of those thousands of visitors actually edit the site. Special:Wikiastats says that of all of our users, 637 have made more than 5 edits in January, and only 23 have made more than 100. --k_d³ 19:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, however it is those thousands of visitors who have to deal with the dumb ass gides trying to trick nobies into buying them when the same information is freely found online in several places. At the very least make them blockable by ad block plus, if not then move them to the bottom of the page so that the article flow is not interrupted. Ifandbut (talk) 15:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

They're also the ones that drive the ad revenue in the first place. By the very simple fact that they are the majority of the site's visitors. If they decide it's too obnoxious to be worth coming, WoWWiki will either be dead or a shadow of its former self in surprisingly short order. It's already seriously lacking in Wrath updates if you hadn't noticed. Graptor (talk) 10:14, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

While I'm not as drastically opposed as Graptor is, I agree with his sentiment. I feel that WoWWiki's been going downhill lately, and the sponsor ads right in the middle of the content are a good example of it. The problem I've been seeing for even longer than that, which has been getting steadily worse, is a confusion (in policy and general direction) about what should be on the wiki and what shouldn't. There are databases out there (like wowhead) that list out every item, quest and NPC. There really isn't very much else out there that's a good collection of lore, connections, explanations, and tables. There are approximitely 71,012 pages right now, and 13,014 link to Template:Stub/Box (~18%). Of those 13k stubs, 8,726 (67%) are Item/NPC/Achivement/Object links (Template:Elinks-Stub), and of that, 6,825 (78%) are item stubs which might possibly have slightly more information than is on wowhead, but is more likely to be exactly the same or less. From personal experience (moving to observed rather than hard statistics), maybe a quarter of the item links I click on or hover over don't exist, and a bit more than half of the others are the generic item stub (i.e. basic info straight out of the game, nothing different from what you'd find anywhere else).

I'm not saying that this isn't useful information... but it's also stuff that doesn't benefit from being on a wiki. The Northrend Gems Table is a really useful piece of information that no other straight-from-game database site is likely to have. The  [Delicate Cardinal Ruby] and  [Delicate Bloodstone] pages linked from one box in the table? Entirely useless as far as the wiki goes. It's not bad information, but it doesn't gain anything from being on the wiki, and probably never will.

I'm not even sure where I'm going with this rant. I kindof sidetracked myself and I'm too tired to bring it back on point. I think the short form is that wowwiki's falling behind on the stuff that benefits from being wikified, in favor of halfway doing stuff that other sites do much better, especially compared to a year or so ago. Sorry I'm not more coherent. I may edit this in the morning. --Bobson (talk) 09:14, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

One reason I haven't posted more info about the game is learning how to write these pages is very hard and requires alot of effort. The help pages do have alot of info on them thankfully but, lets face it the wiki markup language or whatever it's called is a big rock to tackle and it has to be if anyone has any hope of contributing to this site. I feel that is the biggest drawback to this site or at least it is to me. By the way is there a way to sign up for helping contribute money to wowwiki to keep ads off the site or am I just missing it?--Ewolfg1 (talk) 03:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

(Indent reset) The spam is getting worse... on the Twin Blades of Azzinoth page, under the Trivia heading, is a WOW SECRETS!!! spam that is larger than the actual information in the section. Now it's not even under a sponsor heading, it looks like it's supposed to be part of the section. --Azaram (talk) 01:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Got a screenshot for that? I'm not seeing it. --k_d³ 02:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Only appears while logged off.. for many pages (if not all) they can be a bit "large". Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 02:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. One more page that isn't respecting the "show ads as if you weren't logged in" pref. Off to complain. --k_d³ 04:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Carrying on this conversation at WoWWiki talk:Working with Wikia#Gigantic js-inserted killerguides ads --k_d³ 04:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Screenshot added there. --Azaram (talk) 07:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Advertisement Bullcrap

Not to flame or anything, but seeing advertisements in the middle of wiki content pages is bullcrap. I don't come to wiki to see Killerguides links slammed into the middle of a page. Infact, I come here for just the opposite, that I don't have to deal with guides or tips or insider lore for the low low price of $29.95.

Get your act together please. This is a very shocking change to wiki and if Ward Cunningham was dead, would be spinning in his packing peanut stuffed grave. Not to mention that this is not only an insult of what Wiki stands for, but the editors and thousands of viewers that come to wowwiki. In short. Are you willing to pay those that add and edit content and pages for their work that wikia is making money from?

Please read as follows.

Advertising and use of free content

Often Wikia has expanded by acquiring an existing wiki's domain name, userlists and databases from a founder or co-founder. The original wiki is then shut down without consulting its editors or wider community and the domain redirected to Wikia's version of the project. In at least two cases the content is used under a Creative Commons non-commercial license, raising the question of whether the wikis themselves can legitimately be sold to Wikia for commercial use.

Once a wiki is on Wikia, there can be problems with inappropriate advertisements or advertising in the body text area. There is no easy way for individual communities to switch to conventional paid hosting, as Wikia usually owns the relevant domain names. Those communities who have left Wikia find the company continues to operate the abandoned wiki using its original name and content, adversely affecting the new wiki's search rankings. -- Gorivan (talk) 05:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Look like it is time for me to stop editing WoWWiki. I don't want to spend hours of editing so that someone else can earn more money, or help those game guides company to trick newbies to buy their stupid guides. --WakemanCK (talk) 08:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree. If anything the adds should appear at the bottom of the page or in some form that can be blocked by ad block plus. I felt very in the dark about this whole thing as I stated above in the Spam or sponsor? post. I think it is only a matter of time till more people start getting angered by these ads like you Gorivan. Ifandbut (talk) 15:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Something getting blocked by AdBlock is really contrary to the interests of the wiki. Also, advertisers don't really pay well for ads at the bottom of pages. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 15:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Well yes, I realize this. However, users (like me) of AdBlock have grown accustomed to not seeing ads on websites (you cant imagine how much I wanted to kill myself every time one of those "Congratulations, you have won a iPod Nano" ads appeared). I know it was only a matter of time before sites started to find ways around AdBlock but the LAST place I expected to see the first one was on a Wiki. Ifandbut (talk) 15:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but unless you want to start paying for the upkeep of the wiki there is no other way for us to raise money. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 16:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Phooey! How about you ask for donations, and if that fails, pay the upkeep on your own instead of using the wiki as a form of income. Why should viewers pay for your mistake of moving it to a payed, for-profit server. Furthermore, are you willing to account for every penny spent? Money that is to be earned, from advertisements that are "for the upkeep." The main issue is the trade of free information. Information none the less that others input for you. I ask, how long will it be until a premium membership is needed to view content.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gorivan (talk · contr).

They don't need to maintain the site, you know. Neither are they doing this for themselves. This website has been ad-free for quite a while, but it's grown and that's necessary. Even Wikipedia raises money because *gasp* bandwidth isn't free. Not for a website of WoWWiki's size. If you want the quality it provides, you'll have to deal with it. Adesworth ^{talk to me} <imagelink>IconSmall Mage.gif|Special: Contributions/Adesworth</imagelink> 14:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

All of us that edit this wiki does it without getting paid, and all voluntarily. We are not forced to maintain this site, but most us that does do it because we like it. As been said before, you have no idea how much it costs for server maintenance, support etc. from Wikia.

I'd much rather pay donations than letting people see ads on the site - I don't except for the new ones - but sadly I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Wikipedia got donations in the end, maybe we'll see that in the future. Nobody knows. g0urra[T҂C] 09:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I to would rather pay donations then see the ads. I am wondering why the donation option was not even considered. From what I have read, it was not. Ifandbut (talk) 14:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind the ads. They're not the way to go - in my opinion - but I don't mind them. What I said a few times back still stands, however. Rather than attempting to raise more money to pay for server load, improving the software is a better investment.

Despite being written in a god-awful language to start with, MediaWiki is still a very good and fast platform. I don't know what Wikia did with it, but there's so much cruft that could be removed... so much room for improvement. Poke me on IRC about that if anything though, but yeah there's plenty of harmless ways towards a higher profit for wowwiki (and wikia in general). User:Adys/Sig 06:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Usually I don't mind ads either. But Priest#Sponsor is just ridiculous. There should be other ways to implement ads that have no influence on the actual article. As if the ad is a part of the content.--Iggey (talk) 18:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I wouldn't mind at the bottom or maybe in a (left) sidebar or something, but reading 'useful information, useful information. ZOMG SPAM!' is annoying. As to telling them to pay for the site themselves, not really cool. We do all use it, and the money has to come from somewhere... but incredibly obtrusive ads is not the best way to go. --Azaram (talk) 13:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

You hit the nail on the head. With the ads being put right in the middle of the of actual content it ruins the flow of useful information. Even putting it at the top of the page where the "Project Page" and "Discussion" tabs are. Ifandbut (talk) 14:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, I would find the utter death of WoWWiki better than the current situation with these in-article ads. If they aren't completely removed within about a week I'm going to leave, going to very bluntly state to the advertisers in question that I will never ever buy their crap as a result of their agreeing to place the ad, and will do my damndest to discourage everyone I know from using WoWWiki in future. The exact opposite, in short, of what I did after I first discovered WoWWiki. This is neither negotiable nor a request. Ads? Whatever. Ads in the articles? No. Still trying to figure out how to delete my useraccount though.Graptor (talk) 09:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

In-line ads are still here, so I'm gone. It was a great site, but honestly, you can go to hell now. You crossed the line. Graptor (talk) 07:10, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I count exactly 7 edits in the mainspace (including minors) by Graptor. I hope you find a better place to get WoW info (although I suspect you will lurk here) and possibly contribute. There's always http://wotlkwiki.info/ to go to.

As far as donations go, WoWWiki started that way and it didn't even remotely cover the costs of running the wiki, so please don't pretend that because someone thought of it now, that it is a good answer. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 3:38 PM PST 17 Apr 2009

Split and merge Glyph pages into Talents and Talent Builds

Hello all! I'm new to WoWWiki, so forgive me if this has been proposed or discussed before.

I was thinking it might be more useful to visitors if we were to split the pages for each class's glyphs into a list of glyphs and a list of recommended glyphs, and merge them with the Talent page and the Talent Builds page, respectively.

For example, the Warrior talents page has a list of each talent and what it does, and the Warrior builds page gives recommendations on what talents to take. The Warrior glyphs page contains both a list of all glyphs and recommendations on what glyphs to take.

Since glyph choice and talent choice are so interrelated, I'm thinking if we were to merge the informational aspect of the glyph pages into the talent pages and the recommendation aspect of the glyph pages into the build pages, it would make it easier for visitors to find what they were looking for and eliminate redundant information. Instead of saying "this glyph goes with this specific spec" on the glyph page and "this specific spec needs this glyph" on the talent build page, we could merge the glyph descriptions into the talent description articles, and the glyph recommendations into the talent build articles.

Thoughts? Obora (talk) 23:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Most of the glyph pages don't have recommendations, in fact only warrior does... but I'm all for merging them with the build articles... However, glyphs should get their own page just like everything else here does. It prevents articles from getting to large. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 23:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Recommendations are bad, because what works for you may not work for me. Frex, the 'recommended' beastmaster hunter glyphs on one website include the minor glyph 'revive pet', (No pushback when casting it). I don't use that one, because I have heart of the phoenix, and rarely need to revive my pet more than once in a fight. A list of the ones that may work would be ok; again frex, my beastmaster build does not include aimed shot, so the aimed shot glyph would be useless for me. Same with glyph of trueshot aura. Personally, I'd recommend the glyph of mend pet, which makes you have to feed the pet less often, but many people wouldn't. Thus, recommendations are bad. --Azaram (talk) 02:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Recommendations are not bad. What works for me might just work for you. What recommendations should have is a reason behind it. If you do spec into aimed shot then getting the glyph of aimed shot would be useful because of X. I'm not sure how you could integrate glyph recommendations . Maybe put them on the talk page or create a new page for glyph recommendations and reasons behind them, or you could edit the page for the glyph with reasons why you might want to use that glyph. Some glyphs should just be avoided and it would be a good idea to let that be known. As one example I give you  [Glyph of Possessed Strength]. Ifandbut (talk) 15:06, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

If recommendations HAVE to be made, it'd be better to put them on the individual skill pages...like "If you have this skill, glyph A, B and C improve it" like the 'talent improvement' section on Swipe, frex. The biggest problem with recommendation is either you have one person who is allowed to make them, whose way of playing won't fit a lot of people, or everyone makes them and you end up with a jumbled mess, like the talent build pages all used to be. "This build is exactly the same as the one above it but I put one point in Sparkly Flowers because I like to see the flowers" type thing. And while I agree that the glyph of posessed strength is a good contender for 'most useless glyph', some people may like it. Wowwiki should be neutral, encyclopedic, or you end up with edit wars. --Azaram (talk) 02:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, you pose a completely valid point. I guess the discussions on why this glyph is good with what talent spec should be left to Thottbot and Wowhead. However, maybe we should add a section to the skill pages that say "This skill is enhanced by glyph X because it does Y"? Ifandbut (talk) 16:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

There's already a section known as "Improvements" which glyphs can go under, for the ability and talent pages. Just no one adds them... Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 20:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually the help article still describes that section as "Talent improvements" .... makes sense to me to generalize it to both talents and glyphs. -- Harveydrone 20:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Data needed

The table on the championing page is a great idea to have in one place, but we could really use some more data. Thanks all. -Howbizr (talk) 14:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I am wondering how you go about getting the numbers for the rep table. The rep you get depends on how much trash you kill and in all the instances there are ways to get through it with killing a different number of trash mobs.Ifandbut (talk) 14:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The way it was done in heroics articles in the past was the typical amount of trash killed was given, with a full clear number as well. Obviously some number is better than none while data is being collected. i.e. ~1300 rep (1900 full clear). -Howbizr (talk) 14:28, February 9, 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I'll keep an eye on my rep tonight when I do some heroics to try and fill in some missing numbers. Ifandbut (talk) 14:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I went to enter some numbers from last night and it appears that Nalumis beat me to it. Ifandbut (talk) 18:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

And with mobs now giving full rep upon death, numbers may be different than when initially created.

Icon broken

Can I get help fixing this? The image doesn't work with the {{tooltip}} template for some reason. See  [Recipe: Fish Feast] for example. -Howbizr (talk) 15:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The image isn't thumbnailing correctly, I've alerted Wikia. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 15:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 00:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Is that the same issue with  [Magroth's Meditative Cincture]? -Howbizr (talk) 05:49, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the problems lies with Wikia. g0urra[T҂C] 10:07, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Noob with a desperate plea!

I've been a wow player almost since day one (well OK I started 6 months in!) And I've always loved the games lore and history. Before long I couldnt help but get my tech savvy brother to help me explore all the hidden content - from Hyjal and the great tree to a wierd place filled with groovy mushrooms that will probably never see the light of day. Then of course were the unopened areas of eastern kingdoms that when hacked are just empty spaces (such as, on the other continant, the Pandaran starting area)

My irrational interest in unaccesible Azeroth brought me to wowwiki, but I can hardly find anything that satisfies my craving! Yes thiers bits on the Pandarans and not even half as much as I now on Hyjal. Am I looking in the wrong places or does wowwiki have a plathora articles on the hidden/ un exploited content I crave? If so can someone point me in the right direction! If not can I plea with the eager contributors of wowwiki to add this stuff. As such information from what I can gather is slim I will do what I can to addto it , but I'd love it if wowwiki had a whole/fuller section on this stuff. -- I'd love to know more about Southern Kalimdor - Theres space in between Silithus and Ungoro almost doubling HFP thats just not used. - What about all the various stuff scattered across the coastlines? - Or the inaccesible areas with no names on the proper maps? --- What about Nessy? - What are the hidden Islands about you can find when you hack the game? - Or the massive maps (like the mushroom filled terrain I found) found in hacking sessions, what were they ment to be? Was the one I found a prototype Zangarmarsh?

theres so much more locked hidden or obvious that I can't find questions to. Please help! --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Benji mon (talk · contr).

Most of what you are looking for is expressly against our policy. Sorry. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 21:19, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Blizzard has made it their strict policy to keep everything under wraps as to what they work on, what things used to look like, why we have massive areas in the game that are not used at all, and more importantly, why there's large amounts of content that is closed off from players, despite obviously having been started, yet never finished. The murloc instance in CoT was a prime example of what happens when Blizzard get started on something, and then abandon it, but yet for some strange unknown reason, doesn't remove the data before shipping the game or patch. But rather than simply tell the public, that "this is here because we wanted to make 'this', but then it got dropped and then never finished.", they block off the areas and don't want people to go there. A main reason why they don't want you to go there is because they may make use of the space for some addition later on, or use the leftover content in an expanded version at a later date. Tyr's Hand, the DK starting area in EPL, is a prime example of how dead space suddenly become a playable area. To answer your request without throwing policy in your face: If you have to hack the game to access the areas, then you're violating the license you agreed to when you installed the game. Anything that cannot be accessed in the game world as Blizzard presents it to us, will never be mentioned on WoWwiki. The few "hidden" areas that are mentioned on here, are because they can be accessed by creative use of in-game mechanics. But there's a very large amount of unfinished content in the game that we actually know nothing about. As for the hidden islands, and yeah, there's a few of them: Some of them are unused decoration, but there's also atleast 2 of them that are GM Islands. Meaning whenever the GMs need to physically create a character in the game for whatever purpose, to interact with a live server's content, the characters will spawn on those islands. It's sorta like the telephone in The Matrix, it's a method to get into the game while the servers are up, without violating the game mechanics. As for the murloc instance I mentioned above, it was overwritten when they put in old stratholme, but when BC first came out there was a glitch in the wall in CoT where you could see part of the intended instance. --Metalbunny (talk) 05:47, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

(screams and hides under bed) Have more evil words ever been spoken? Murloc instance (calms slightly) Apparently some of the unfinished areas can cause problems with servers, too... I've heard of them crashing because people were getting into the instance under Stormwind. --Azaram (talk) 10:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Courtesy Poke: Quest: Field Duty

I've tagged Quest:Field Duty for renaming. Please go here and suggest other names if you wish. Or perhaps, try and talk me out of it. :) --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 23:23, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

WotLK Updating

I have been inactive with the site for many months, as first I lost interest in WoW, and then, when i began the expansion, and started to try and use the site for lore purposes, i was disapointed to find that most pages remain where they were pre-WotLK. At first simply stoped using the site, for reading so many un-updated pages depressed me. However, I have finally decided that no good comes of sitting arround and waiting for something to be done. Therefore, I shall now set about the task of updating the basic, bread and butter pages of the site with present wording, and updated lore. If anyone wants to join in this seemingly monumental task, then i'd be very glad of the help. The site remains quite skilled in the factions and loot department, but it is sad to say that currently the majority of the pages relating to the expansion have not been updated since before release.

-- gadget (talk) 03:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

A wiki is only as current as its users keep it. Its good that you're helping out. I know I've seen a lot of stuff that said "not yet implemented, coming in WotLK" even though it's now available, but there's only so much each of us can do. Your help will be appreciated. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 05:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of updating, I guess I should mention (read: plug) some updates I planned for item tooltips regarding changes in 3.0.8 - does no one have that one on their watchlists? ~ Nathanyel (talk) 11:33, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks good, however I'm a bit careful with that... often times we have our tooltips to make them look as much as possible like the in-game tooltips - for example mount items on Wowhead doesn't have the "Mount" text on them, but they have that in-game (for example compare this with this). But it does look interesting. g0urra[T҂C] 13:05, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem with Feral AP is, only Druids actually see it, and if we put it on every item just the way Druids see it, as a normal green bonus, other classes would get confused. The special color indicates, well, 'special' (and a hover text could clarify this even more) Very open to ideas, though. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 13:32, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

As I said on the Template:Tooltip discussion page, I recommend you copy Wowhead's style of doing this. Use the orange text like they use; it's a great solution to a fairly odd situation. Markkawika (talk) 20:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I myself was actually wondering WHICH pages need to be updated for WotLK? I've been gone from the game for a few months myself, and got discouraged after some of the guilds I made pages for ended up basically falling apart. I was looking at the ToDo list thing, and I must be severely handicapped, because I cannot figure out what on that list is slated for updating and what isn't (maybe because I'm used at how Wikipedia does it, WoWwiki's is a bit more confusing). And then whenever I do find something that could use a little TLC, the thing pops up at the top asking for WotLK updates, but I'm having the hardest time figuring out what pages it is that needs the attention. I'm not a hardcore player, but I do run into things here and there that are out of date, or have never been expanded beyond a footnote (there's an awful lot of articles without the stub tag, that quite frankly are so short that they barely qualify as a stub). I have been plotting on a way to leviate that, just haven't gotten around to actually add the content yet. --Metalbunny (talk) 06:07, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

One issue which always stands out (for me at least) is the phrase in the questbox "(NN gold at level 70)". As the level cap is now 80, and will no doubt rise in the future, is there a way-- short of editing each individual instance-- of changing this so that it's done automatically? Perhaps a variable? Perhaps a clever Wikian can even find a way to (correctly) calculate the reward amount for future expansions!--ClemSnide (talk) 10:07, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I myself have been removing those lines from pages I've seen... However, I haven't been doing that lately. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 20:17, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Rather than removing them, I feel it'd be more appropriate to include ones for each level cap; 60,70,80 and so on (assuming we'll be getting to 90 and 100 over the coming years). There are kids (mainly, most adults have the expansions) that play the game that do not have the expansions, and cannot afford to get them. Though they are a minority group, it simply seems more prudent to me to acknowledge that there are different possible level caps, and write the quest info accordingly. Obviously some quests require BC or WotLK to complete, but there's over 5000 quests in the old world that can be completed at all 3 currently possible level caps. I don't think it's in the spirit of WoWwiki to ignore that. If we do then we're just like WoWhead, and there'll be no reason for anyone to come here to read about quests. Atleast to me it seems like a better idea to try to be more than just a basic database, otherwise the basis for maintaining WoWwiki doesn't exist. --Metalbunny (talk) 06:07, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Which is why I have been removing them, rather than updating... with so many quest pages, it would be a pain to update all of them every xpak. While we like to include as much info as possible, we're not a database and the pages shouldn't require constant maintenance, which is what you're suggesting. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 06:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Point taken. I did not consider that such information cannot be updated by itself, but would have to be done so manually. In that case, yes, I agree it'd be better to omit it entirely. --Metalbunny (talk) 08:25, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Policies

Are we in need a of Video policy? Seems we have many vids linked or being uploaded and yet have no policy towards them... Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 22:04, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

DNP policy applies if nothing else. What else do we need to codify besides that? --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 01:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

idk, maybe soom guidelines that clarifies how to insert a vid, stating which is preferred... linking through <youtube></youtube> or uploading it. I've been seeing vids uploaded and soon after deleted, even though they weren't off topic. I myself would think why upload youtube vids when it can simply be linked to, but others may not know how to link to them. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 22:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually the videos aren't uploaded to the wiki, the video pages are just for simplifying use of videos. Instead of having to remember that "LkCNJRfSZBU" is the youtube ID for the Leeroy Jenkins video, you can just "assosciate" the name "Video:Leeroy Jenkins" with that video. Then, whenever someone puts [[Video:Leeroy Jenkins]], the video is shown. And it takes parameters in the same style as images, so you can add frames, captions and specify sizes. Ose ^talk/₃₇₂₁ 15:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Lore vs MMORPG

My main interest in WoWWiki is as an online resource for information about the WoW MMORPG. I have some passing interest in WoW lore and other topics. It seems to me that I'm not alone in this. Am I wrong?

If this is the case, then when I look up Stormwind, I should get the article that is most likely to be the thing I am asking about, Stormwind City; instead, I get lore, and have to drill down two pages to get what I want. Similarly, Human and Dwarf link to lore articles, not playable race article.

Worse, the redirection has been overwritten, so many articles that once linked to the city or a playable race now link to a lore article. How does it make sense to break hundreds of links for an article that has at most dozens of legitimate links of its own?

This issue is wide-spread, these are just a few isolated examples. Stormwind Guard is another. "Human" has been renamed twice, to Stormwind Human then to Human of Stormwind. Good grief, the lore article Stormwind takes precedence over the disambiguation article Stormwind (disambiguation).

I acknowledging that the WoW franchise is varied, and that something has to take precedence; but should it be lore vs MMORPG information? In my opinion, the root should be the in-game concerns for the online game, because in my estimation, that is what most folks are going to be looking for. Stormwind City Guard should never be subjegated to Stormwind City Guard (mob) (which is technically incorrect, they are NPCs, not mobs in the normal sense), rather, create a Stormwind City Guard (lore) article for the lore. And so on.

In any case, it would be nice to have clear guidance what the concensus for precendence actually is, something on the order of an easily accessed statement of purpose. Madkaugh (talk) 23:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: WoWWiki:Policy/Neutral point of view, "Neutral point of view is a point of view that is unbiased - that is, neither sympathetic with nor in opposition to its subject. Any subject where there are multiple significant fan points of view should be written so that each of these views is impartially stated with equal merit to the others." - says that nothing takes precedence - taken at face value, whenever two points of view conflict, there would have to be a neutral disambiguation article. A. This makes for a cumbersome interface. B. That is not the current situation - where MMORP articles have been subjegated to lore articles (to the point of breaking links).

Re: [[1]] (near the end of the article) "For example, Metzen states that the games themselves are considered the benchmarks for information, with the MMORPG setting the standard. Other sources of lore fall just under the games, or as described "mostly canon" (he used novels as an example)."

Realistically, the centroid of canon tracks the value to Blizzard of the product segment within the WarCraft franchise. Anything they retcon today overrides anything they did ten years ago. Currency should be a metric even within neutral point of view. Madkaugh (talk) 05:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Madkaugh, I barely understood a word of what you wrote, just FYI. But OP has a point. The vast majority of people that come to WoWwiki will be the MMO players. The board games never caught on, the TCG is mainly bought by people that play the MMO, in the hope that they can get the codes for the in-game rewards. And I wanna bet you that the vast majority of MMO players do not know that the RPG books exists. I know many of us didn't know about the comic books until #10 came out. The one part that's always bothered me about WoWwiki is how incredibly hard it is to find anything. Especially when there's multiple possible subjects that could be search result, the page you get first is usually never the one you want, and getting to where you want from there is often very hard, due to lazy linking. For the example of Stormwind, what I don't get is, why not make it so when you search for Stormwind, you get the page that has links to everything Stormwind? I know that's what supposed to happen, but that's not what you get. The obvious pages that you should get, are never the ones you actually get. Unless you happen to be logged in, and happen to know the exact naming method for everything you're looking for, it's actually very hard to find anything on WoWwiki. --Metalbunny (talk) 06:21, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we should take a look at the main Wiki used for The Elder Scrolls, a suitable solution for this would be to split pages, so we have a page that relates to the actual in-game version, and a page related solely to the lore. For instance we could have Dwarf (Playable Race) and Dwarf (Lore)... this would drastically cut down on the amount of information kept on each page, making finding the information more simple, and can help when dealing with issues where there may possibly exist conflicting information about a particular topic as it currently exists in the MMO and it's previously established form as presented in lore. You could also easily link the pages through a quick suggestion link via the top of each article, any takes on this? --Vicera (talk) 07:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The spilt that you suggest has already happened: Dwarf and Dwarf (playable). It could use a little streamlining, but it has been done. As for the other links, we have disambiguation notices at the top of some pages and templates and see also at the bottom.--Ragestorm (talk · contr) 13:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I always thought WoW was included in "lore". If you go to the MMORPG website, they have short stories, articles, a "newspaper", etc. which would all be lore. Rolandius (talk - contr) 13:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Bullet points

Previously on bulleted lists the bullet was on the first line of the content assigned to it. Now bullets are in the middle of the content, making it difficult to see where a point begins and ends at a glance, unless close attention is paid to indentation. This seems to be affecting all Wikia wikis. What purpose does this serve? Is there any way to fix it?--SWM2448 00:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. Can you provide an example? --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 01:01, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It is hard to see, as most bullets consist of less than one line, but on Quotes_of_Warcraft_III/Orc_Horde#Troll_Witch_Doctor the bullet of the Iron Chef joke is between the two middle lines. I can find more examples if you want. It is on any list more than one line.--SWM2448 01:10, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I've looked at it in Fx and IE on both Monaco and Wowwiki skins and it seems fine. Are you sure you don't have some weird personal CSS? --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 01:16, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I use whatever the default is. I have never touched the wiki's code beyond editing articles. What about on Arakkoa#Known_Arakkoa_Factions? Is it really just me?--SWM2448 01:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

They both look fine to me. Bullet at the start of the first line. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 01:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

They look ok to me too... multi-line items have one bullet at the first line in both of those examples... --Azaram (talk) 02:35, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The bullets seem a pixel or two lower than before, but in a multi-line bullet point they start with the first line for me. What browser/version are you using? -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 3:22 PM PST 25 Feb 2009

IE. I do not know what version.--SWM2448 22:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Well there's your problem. Ose ^talk/₃₇₂₁ 15:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

While I dislike IE, that's not causing the problem. I'm using it now and see it working normally. Sammich, if you hit help/about at the top, it'll tell you what version; if you have Firefox-like tabs, then it's at least 7, which is known to be flaky with some pages (The company I work for, almost none of the internal sites work with 7), and 8 is worse... --Azaram (talk) 07:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Instance maps!

Through the pain and suffering that is the 3.1.0 PTR, I bring you the in-game instance maps for (nearly) all Wrath content! The only maps not implemented are for the Vault of Archavon and the Ulduar raid. The names are taken directly from the game (like the WorldMaps), so don't rename them without good reason.

Enjoy! --k_d³ 21:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Took them long enough too... hope they take the time to make maps of the old world content. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 22:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

New in 9637, the Ulduar raid and the Frostwyrm Lair/Kel'Thuzad's Chamber in Naxxramas. Now for VoA to finish off Wrath-level content...

New in 9658, Ahn'Kahet got merged to one map, updates of others (Drak'Tharon, Gundrak, HallsofLightning1, Nexus801, TheNexus, UtgardeKeep1, UtgardePinnacle2, IcecrownGlacier). I haven't updated Icecrown's map yet. Anyone else is welcome to. --k_d³ 06:10, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

New in 9684: Updates of five (Ahnkahet, Gundrak, TheNexus, TheObsidianSanctum, Ulduar2) and, finally, the addition of the VaultofArchavon, which already includes the new boss! Gasp! --k_d³ 00:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

New in 9722: Updates of DrakTharonKeep1, Naxxramas5, Ulduar, Ulduar3, UtgardePinnacle2, VaultofArchavon. Also updated were the zone maps for Darkshore, Dustwallow Marsh and Westfall, which I'm not up for updating at the moment. --k_d³ 21:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I must be missing it, what changed on the old zone maps? User:Tekkub/Sig 23:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

3.1 is adding 30+ new graveyards mainly in all of the pre-30 zones. And while WoWmapviewer is still really flaky, it looks to me like they might actually be beginning to prep Azeroth for flying (or atleast so that at some point when they get that they won't have to repaint the entire world to remove the flying mount lock). The updated zone maps look like they could finally be fully textured atleast. --Metalbunny (talk) 06:30, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Some of the maps (like Darkshore) look like they got completely redone (I'm seeing new textures for all of the map files), others just got minor tweaks for a subzone or two. But by default just stitching together the background results in the "you've never discovered this zone" style of map as I'm too lazy to hack together a script that puts all of the stuff on top in its proper place.

New in 9733! DTK2, Occ4, EoE, Uld2, UK3. --k_d³ 21:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Icon question

Taking the guidance to heart that {{item|icon= links are more overhead and don't always work, I've been using {{loot links, and prefacing them with [[Image:INV_Image_Name_0n.png|18px|icon]] when I want to place an icon. I selected 18 pixels by matching the size to what {{item|icon= was producing.

Editing a table today, I noticed that the {{item|icon= icons are now smaller, 16 pixels. No problem, I'll use [[Image:INV_Image_Name_0n.png|16px|icon]].

I found an image that will not render at 16 pixels:

• 14 pixels
• 15 pixels
• 16 pixels
• 17 pixels
• 18 pixels

Around eight other images gave me no problem. What's going on? Madkaugh (talk) 00:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

It was not working a minute ago; it is working now. Madkaugh (talk) 00:27, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Blame the caches... --k_d³ 07:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I've seen several images misbehave lately, also seemingly related to caching. -Howbizr (talk) 20:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I love it. I even saw the logo having caching problems, although it seems better now. MediaWiki really needs to fix this. -Howbizr (talk) 07:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Vote early!

Vote often! --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 18:51, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Azjol-Nerub Raid

I'm curious why "Azjol-Nerub Raid" appears in Template:Raids. AFAIK, Blizzard has only stated that there will be a raid in 3.2, but its location hasn't been specified. Can anyone supply confirmation? Otherwise, this should be removed. -- Tyrsenus t c 23:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

My guess would be that its the logical choice... as the arthas raid won't happen till much later. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 01:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

How do we know that the raid is in Azjol-Nerub though? All Blizzard has stated to my knowledge is that there IS a raid in 3.2.--Tyrsenus t c 01:21, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

At some point during Beta or maybe even pre-Beta, they said they are planning an Azjol-Nerub raid. Of course, then they also said A-N would be its own underground zone. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 09:59, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

What to do with a new template?

Looking toward contributing more to articles on the site, I have been heavily abusing my user page as I try to familiarize myself with using many of the different features of Wikia, such as templates and tables. To that end, I have created a new template in my namespace that I now think might be useful to others. The template in question is a guild progression table for WotLK that could be useful on Realm pages, as well as guild and user pages to show the progression of individual characters. It is a Wrath version of Template:P, but has more features intended to make it easier to add to a page and update. I haven't seen any other such templates yet. Is this something that should remain in my user namespace, or could it be appropriate to move this into the Template namespace? As it would only be used on user-generated content (Realm, User, and Guild pages) I am not sure what the rule is. The current incarnation of the template can be seen here: User:Wige/Progression.

-- Wige (talk) 20:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Seems a-okay to add the public mainspace. -Howbizr (talk) 00:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I added boss images to the top of the {{P/WotLK}}. No one has complained yet, so I hope you like them. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:18 PM PST 4 Mar 2009

Very nice Fandy, but smaller width screens won't handle that many pictures, so I commented Sarth away (his model looks just like a generic black dragon anyway). Ose ^talk/₃₇₂₁ 21:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, a better way to save space would be to use Image:Kel_Thuzad_small.png instead of Image:Naxx_bosses_small.png. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:32 AM PST 10 Mar 2009

Ok, I have my version up, working and available for testing at {{Progression}}. It is designed to use minimal screen real estate, while supporting 10 and 25 man raids, plus it will be very easy to expand as new raids are released. Just a new column needs to be added to the template once I know how many bosses there are. -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 13:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Search issue?

Anyone able to tell me why  [Idol of the Raven Goddess] does not show up on the list, when I search for the term "Idol of the Raven Goddess"? It's not even like the page is new or something. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 23:38, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Uh. Shows up for me. http://www.wowwiki.com/index.php?search=Idol+of+the+Raven+Goddess&fulltext=Search --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 23:47, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Worked for me, too... --Azaram (talk) 06:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It must have sensed that I was talking about it. It shows up for me too. ... now. Not whne I reported it, though. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course, it just wanted to make you look silly. Heh. Happens to me all the time... Right after I ask about something, it shows up, even though I'd already looked there. --Azaram (talk) 04:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Template documentation questions

I am a relatively new user, and as noted above I am exploring options for various templates. Can anyone point me to the documentation for #switch and #if? I have not found anything here, and also have not been able to find anything for these operators on the main wikia site. Any help is appreciated. -- Wige (talk) 15:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:ParserFunctions . Ose ^talk/₃₇₂₁ 16:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Great! Thanks! Helps to know what they are called, I guess :) --Wige (talk) 16:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Help page for Images

Would it be possible/proper to add a help page dedicated to images to the Basic Editing Help section? I am not thinking of something that would repeat what is already there or at mediawiki, which focuses mostly on uploading and categorizing images, but rather a guide to using existing images - how to find them, incorporate them into pages correctly, and how to use some of the more common wowwiki templates (proficons, for example) so that new editors have a starting point for using images properly in new pages. When I started creating quest pages one of the most frustrating things was trying to track down how to incorporate images like I had seen in many of the existing pages. Although the information exists, it is scattered in various pages right now, mixed between category pages, image indexes, and the mediawiki site. In the Basic Editing Help section, where I expected to find something on the topic, all the image information involved uploading, and most of that is on mediawiki. -- Wige (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

So what exactly do you want to see besides what's in Help:Editing#Images? It sounds like what you really want is info that goes beyond basic editing (by which I mean non-WoWWiki specific stuff). I was working on some intermediate help sections, but I kinda got side-tracked.

Are you looking for how to link pages to images (aka <imagelink> or <imagemap>), find WoW-related images (WoWWiki:WoW Icons), find WoWWiki utility images (Category:WoWWiki icons), and image-based templates (subset of WoWWiki:Templates)? -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:24 PM PST 2 Mar 2009

Right now, that page just addresses the basic point of "here's how to insert an image in a page", with all of the options for the [ [ image ] ] tag. What I think would be helpful would be to expand on this with at least some starting resources such as links to the categories you mentioned, and mention of some of the icon templates. I am not saying this should be a comprehensive listing by any means, just a quick mention ("Templates exist for many icons and images. For example, a human icon (File:IconSmall Human male.gif) can be included with {{RaceIcon|<human>|<male>}}. A full listing can be found in Category:WoW icon templates.") Even though these links can be found elsewhere, links dropping the user right into a few appropriate spots would be helpful I think. --Wige (Talk - Contribs) 21:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to think about how to do this. I may just add my Intermediate help pages with a new page for images and WoWWiki specific help using them, but I'm still undecided. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:23 PM PST 4 Mar 2009

Please give feedback on Help:Image on its discussion page. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:09 PM PST 4 Mar 2009

I'd rather if the race icons vanished somewhere where they can never be used again. They are completely pointless, do nothing but add annoyance (they add a lot of "noise" to a page which makes it hard to read), and this site is incredibly slow as is without having to serve up extra images that do nothing for the content. --Metalbunny (talk) 06:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

WOWWIki Design info

I'm a big fan of the design, layout and control you guys use on your wiki site. I wanted to imitate some of the features onto my site. What feature allows the use of the tabs on the main pages. I think they are being tagged as a portal with div tags too. If someone can point me in the right direction for that feature, It would be much appreciated. -- Travistlo (talk) 21:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Without looking deeper into it than a quick browsing of the page's HTML source, I'd say the tabs function as simple "make one div visible, make others invisible"-toggles. CSS value display:none to hide, and to show, set that value to an empty string with JavaScript, effectively removing the value. If you're not familiar with either JS or CSS, that'd be too lengthy to explain here ~ Nathanyel (talk) 00:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I found out what it is that they use, or something close. After looking at the code, Wikia is using they yahoo api for the tabs. I have found an extension for the tabs, I don't think this is exactly what the Wikia admins use, but its close. And its exactly what you mentioned, just CSS and JS hides. Thanks. -- Travistlo (talk) 02:15, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Cost for redirects?

Is there a "cost" in terms of processing for redirections? The reason I ask is that I noticed a couple of very commonly used templates which embed images actually seem to go through a redirection. Specifically, {{Alliance Icon Small}} uses the file Image:alliance 15.gif which redirects to Image:Alliance 15.gif. If there is no cost, I'd leave it alone, but if there is a processor cost from this, should the template be edited? {{Horde Icon Small}} has the same issue. -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 14:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no actual redirect: the first letter of a link is always capitalized. For example patch 3.1.0 is the same as Patch 3.1.0, with no redirects. --g0urra[T҂C] 14:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Another note, images can't be redirected. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 20:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

CategorySelect - new feature

In our continued efforts to make editing wikis easier and faster, we have a new feature to announce, called "CategorySelect".

This feature makes it much simpler to add and edit categories from the edit page, whilst also making it possible to add new categories without ever visiting the edit page. We would love to hear your feedback on this new feature - feel free to ping me directly or respond here with any issues.

You can find out more about the new feature at Help:CategorySelect. Kirkburn  talk  contr 00:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the button to add categories on the article page should be in line with the category text. On my browser (Firefox 3.0.6) it is being displayed under the first category in the list. Not sure if this is browser specific or even if it is intended... --Wige (Talk - Contribs) 19:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Overall I like it, but as mentioned above, the spacing and positioning could use work. Also, if you try to click Save before pressing enter to accept the category name typed in, it doesn't work. Also, it maybe just my settings, but the highlight/text colors make it really hard to see the choices in the dropdown. Lastly, I don't seem to get any drop-down choices after I type the first word, so as soon as I hit space, the choices go away. I'm using FireFox 3.0.6 on WinXP and 3.0.7 (I think) on Mac OS X 10.4.x. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:59 PM PST 5 Mar 2009

I started a Help:CategorySelect page where I'm dumping what I've experienced. Right now Help:CategorySelect doesn't have alot of info, so I'm focusing on a local WoWWiki help page for now. Maybe the local one will have nfo migrate over at some point. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:25 PM PST 5 Mar 2009

I tried using this new feature but it does not work for me. I still have to manually add or remove categories for some reason. Rolandius (talk - contr) 03:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, it doesn't appear for me. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 04:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

What skin are you using. As with many things at Wikia, it probably only works with Monaco-based skins. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:18 PM PST 6 Mar 2009

I was using the wowwiki skin, so I checked the box for Check this box to use the custom WoWWiki Monaco skin (recommended) and it works... I'll try it out, maybe it will make things faster, if not... well, we'll see. Thanks. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 22:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

To be frank, I never quite got the point of the categories. Yes, I understand obsessively compulsively organizing things... but the category index pages are just... useless. In all my years here I've *never* felt myself needing to use them. Someone enlighten me? User:Tekkub/Sig 19:46, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I just recently used a category to find a bunch of other icons, since searching for images on the wiki is kind of weak. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 7:46 PM PST 7 Mar 2009

Well I use them frequently. Perhaps it's just not necessary for everyone. It's not available for the wowwiki skin and I really don't want it. I just don't like JavaScript gimmicks.--Iggey (talk) 20:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick note, we're working on making it a user option. Thanks for the feedback! Kirkburn  talk  contr 18:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Some quick notes on my own experience with this feature:

• A number of page boilerplates (achievements and quests, to name the ones I've run across) use the sidebar template to add categories to a page. The new feature does not help on that.
• much of the feature is disabled when javascript is not enabled. (I use firefox 3.0.6 with NoScript addon, and run with javascript disallowed by default.)
• Enabling javascript (from wowwiki and wikia both) produced (among other things) a "see this new feature" box that took up space at the lower left hand corner of the edit box, making it problematic to edit text underneath it. No obvious means of getting rid of it was present.
• no Preferences option was available to enable/disable it. (So I disabled it by turning javascript off again.)
• it seemed to remove the category listing at the bottom of the page when performing a preview, even though the tooltip (er, achievementbox) template specified one. I was unable to see in preview that the category I first specified was bogus. Happened both on creating a new page and on editing an existing page, and with javascript disabled.

Hope this feedback is useful. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

More notes from the field:

• You can't turn this feature completely off currently. Adding a category manually gets it put down in the 'category display text box' below the edit box. With Javascript turned off, the categories disappear and cannot be made visible.
• the "add categories" button is visible when javascript is turned off. But it is inoperable.
• The 'code view'/'visual view' selector is not visible with javascript turned off. A useful default would be for the page to use the 'code view', as I was unable to get visual view to allow me to edit an existing category (despite going to the help page for ... help). A more useful default would be the old functionality (one text box, everything in it), as that does not rely on javascript at all. It would also be nice to have 'code view/visual view' have a preference checkbox.
• Because the contents are not all in one text box, the new functionality precludes being able to cut-and-paste categories in the same action as cutting-and-pasting the rest of the article. (Two cuts needed, AND javascript must be enabled, currently.)

--Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Update: this morning, default behavior for "no javascript enabled" was a category box below the edit box, with category text in it. Categories still not displayed on preview. Improved over yesterday; previously box was either missing or mis-sized and so not useable in 'no javascript' mode. Appreciated. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 17:57, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

What happens when fan content conflicts with in-game content?

I ran into an issue where a page about fan-created content has the same name as an achievement. Specifically, there is a page about a fan-created WCIII mod  [Defense of the Ancients], which has the same name as a Strand of the Ancients achievement. I believe a page has been created, or at least linked to, for the achievement at Defense of the Ancients (achievement, but this seems to break the {{achievementlong}} template. What is the normal way that something like this should be resolved?-- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 19:00, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

{{Achievementlong}}, {{Achievementbox}}, and {{Achievement}} should all currently support disambig pages as well as being able to supply alternate text for the link. Check out the talk pages for usage information. If you have a specific question, post on my talk page. -Howbizr (talk) 22:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, in-game or Blizzard created content should always trump fan-created content. Just because Defense of the Ancients (Warcraft III map) was created first, does not allow it to take precedence. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:46 PM PST 5 Mar 2009

For the {{achievementlong}} template and other templates that work similarly, the name parameter is the actual link/page name and optional display name or label is what you would see. So you'd do {{achievementlong|Defense of the Ancients (achievement)|Defense of the Ancients|all=}} to get: Defense of the Ancients (achievement). -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:54 PM PST 5 Mar 2009

I think part of the problem was also that there was a typo (missing closing parenthesis) in the achievement title. The template didn't seem to like either variation. Before fixing that though, I wanted to check on the overall naming. Thanks, by the way. --Wige (Talk - Contribs) 16:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The move candidates

Trying to do my part to try to make WoWWiki a better place for today, I have been going through some of the move candidates. I got it down to three items (most were ood and seemed to me to just need updating rather than a move right now) and I am not sure what can be done for one of them. Quest:Medivh's_Journal/Chain was recommended for a name change about a year ago, so that the name would reflect the goal of the quest chain. Three comments on the talk page are for the change, none against. Can the page be moved, or are additional steps necessary first, or is the change inappropriate? -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 22:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Moved. -- foxlit (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Alert

WoWWiki is being attacked by some vandal. Rolandius (talk - contr) 05:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Ping us on IRC if it happens again. That's the quickest way to get a hold of admins if they're around and not watching RC. --k_d³ 06:12, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Playable races

Now with all the (in my opinion) silly page moves with "<race> of <city>", it would probably be appropriate to think it all over. Would it actually be wrong to have "Orc (playable)" instead of "Orc of Orgrimmar"? To be honest the latter version sounds like a strange way to somehow add a lore version to the name, while the first one is more simple. Why make it so complicated? --g0urra[T҂C] 20:05, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Point of note its both a faction and a playable race page now. It can be used to give general pointers on how characters from the race and other races might achieve reputation for the race. Info that wasn't included in previous versions of the city and race pages in general. Gnomeregan Exiles for example is the race/faction for gnomes but was just redirected into gnomes, but makes a proper title for gnomes and the faction page.Baggins (talk) 20:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't talk about any factions here, I was talking about the playable race page. Again, would it for example be wrong to have "Orc (playable)" instead of "Orc of Orgrimmar"? --g0urra[T҂C] 20:21, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Forsaken of Undercity? There are Forsaken of other places? Anyway, why not have something like: "Orgrimmar", "Orgrimmar (faction)", "Orc", and "Orc (playable)". That is a lot of pages, but at least it does not involve grouping things together. Think about what people would want when they type "Orc". Should that just redirect to "Orc (disambiguation)" with an explanation to what each link is for?--SWM2448 20:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds pretty much reasonable to me. --g0urra[T҂C] 20:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Again they are no longer just a "race page" anymore. Its also a faction page. While any of these races can be found anywhere (including humans and humans of stormwind), they are clearly tied to their factions in the game as well. If you go to the manual for WoW it also ties them directly to their faction (within the backstory and "city"). Faction pages were originally tied to the city names, but then that meant there was little faction information interspersed through the article and made it hard to find any reputation information. There was no reputation section.Baggins (talk) 20:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

While it may say "The Humans of Stormwind are..." in the manual, it simply means that the playable race of humans in the game are the ones from Stormwind. There is no need at all to make it more complicated than going from that the article name is "Human (playable)" and note in the article that the playable humans are the ones of Stormwind. Am I making myself clear? --g0urra[T҂C] 21:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Are we going to have a general consensus here before this is going to go much further? --g0urra[T҂C] 22:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm simply with Gourra here. I had a few choice words that I was going to use about a day ago, but today, I'm just going to go with Gourra... --Sky (t · c · w) 23:32, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It could be simplified by just going Humans (Stormwind), Draenei (Exodar), etc. There is no reason to move Gnomeregan Exiles.Baggins (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Well whichever you end up choosing, I vote for "Gnomes (Ironforge)" as the faction article name since we have "Dwarf (Ironforge)" and the gnomes pretty much live in Ironforge now and have been called "Ironforge gnomes" in many sources. Rolandius (talk - contr) 03:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Technically if Gnomeregan Exiles was moved to a race ("faction") set up it would be "Gnomes (Gnomeregan Exiles)", and trolls if it gets moved out of main darkspear lore page would be, Troll (Darkspear Trolls) or Darkspear Trolls. For that matter, Forsaken could also be Undead (Undercity) based on their "race name" of "undead". I chose the manuals Undead (Forsaken) because it at least connects the race back to better known racial name.Baggins (talk) 03:31, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't they start in the same area as dwarves, and the same thing with the trolls and orcs? Also, Undead (Undercity) doesn't make sense as there are other Undead like the Scourge kind, independant kind, and who knows what other kind. Rolandius (talk - contr) 03:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

All player undead are part of the Undercity faction, People don't play scourge and independent undead in the game. So yes Undead (Undercity) makes sense when one thinks that Undercity faction doesn't include "Scourge" or "Independent undead". The faction comment specifically points out that it isn't any other kind of undead but those from Undercity. As for the gnomes yes they start in the same place but all gnomes are playing members of the Gnomeregan Exiles. I'd recommend reading the little bit of lore on the faction page in game. Also to quell that arguement further, it works the same way for the tauren, dwarves, night elves, orcs, blood elfs etc. Those races are found everywhere, but the player is playing specifically the ones that are part of their factions (Thunder Bluff faction, Ironforge faction, Darnassus faction, Orgrimmar faction, Silveroon City faction, etc.) One final bit of info if you go to the WoW manual you'll notice that gnomes and trolls are "city-less" in their write-ups that's because Gnomeregan and Echo Islands were taken over.Baggins (talk) 03:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

They are called Undead Forsaken so people don't confuse them with other Undead. IF you call them just Undead (Undercity) why even have a name called Forsaken? I know the gnomes and trolls are "city-less" but they have adopted homes now, Ironforge and Orgrimmar. They don't start out in Gnomeregan or the Echo Islands. Why do you think they are called "Ironforge dwarves" and it is said that the trolls have adopted so many of the orcs' customs in many sources? They have pretty much adopted, for now, those cities. Rolandius (talk - contr) 03:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually they're called Ironforge Dwarves to distinguish them from the Dark Iron Dwarves. Ironforge is technically just their version of a dwarf, the city just happens to be named the same thing. --Metalbunny (talk) 06:53, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

This is not about the city this is about the "faction" in-game. Its not a lore thing its a game mechanic thing. As for the Undead, what are they called on the character selection screen now-adays? I.E. the race heading title on the selection screen. Is it undead or is it Forsaken nowadays? We'll go with whatever the character selection title is.Baggins (talk) 04:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It was Undead Forsaken last time I saw but I don't play that race so I am not sure now. Look, why have 6 of 8 articles look one way but 2 of 8 look another way? It looks like you actually know what you are doing if all 8 have the same format. If you have some looking one way, but then others looking another way, it looks like you don't know what you are doing. Rolandius (talk - contr) 04:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

If this is still about a lore/mechanics divide, let's change the things to "<race> (playable/stats/something)" rather than this city-based cluster****. If this is a lore/lore divide, then we need to know what the hell we're dividing, I lost track about three redirects ago.--Ragestorm (talk · contr) 04:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

...and I was originally going to go with "race (playable)" a long time ago. :p... Anywho its a "race and faction" thing. Not race and city.Baggins (talk) 04:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

All I have to say is whichever we choose, we should have them all match and not have half of them in one format, some in another format, and then one in a third format. Rolandius (talk - contr) 04:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you think we're going to have separate pages for general race, specific race, faction, and statistics, you've got another thing coming. Naming should be simple, "<race>" (this with optional city), "<race> (faction)"--Ragestorm (talk · contr) 04:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Point of note Rolandius if you try to take this to other faction pages like Taunka, or Silverwing Sentinels. I.E, move the page to Taunka (The Taunka), or Night elf (Silverwing Sentinels), I'll personaly permaban you. Regardless the reaction of others.

Also I'd suggest looking into "disambig" rules. We don't put (weapon) behind every weapon unless it actually overlaps with something else with the same name. thus the rather pointless to move and insert disambig tag on Gnomeregan Exiles, to force it into "Gnome (Gnomeregan Exiles)", or Darkspear Trolls to Troll (Darkspeara Troll).

RAgestorm actually we didn't have faction pages for the playable races before. For example gnomereagan exiles was redirected into gnomes... Baggins (talk) 05:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Point of note don't threaten me. Rolandius (talk - contr) 05:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Its more than a threat, I will definitely permanban you if you go outside your bounds and start trying to make every page "align" into a single system... Not everything needs to be "disambiged" or forced to be disambiged into something else.Baggins (talk) 05:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't remember putting any disambig tags anywhere, show me where. Rolandius (talk - contr) 05:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, I am not trying to make every page align into a single system. I am talking about the pages which are all in a group. For instance, having "Dwarf (Ironforge)" and 3 other pages like that, but then having "Undead (Undercity) "Forsaken"" and 2 other pages like that. It looks disorganized Rolandius (talk - contr) 05:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

How did you come up with Troll (Darkspear Troll) when it says that they are "trolls of the Darkspear tribe" as much as "trolls of the Darkspear trolls"? Oh and go threaten someone else, I don't have time to play your games. Rolandius (talk - contr) 05:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This wiki is primarily about World of Warcraft, and I feel that our naming conventions policy should include WoW-centric article name priority rules for ease of navigation. IMO pages on capitals, playable races and reputation factions should use the in-game name as the page name whenever possible (with capitals getting name priority over reputation factions if they are split). For example, IMO the main Troll article should be about playable Trolls, with the faction page located at Darkspear Trolls, and the current Troll article should be moved to some other title, such as Troll (lore), while Exodar should either cover both the city and the reputation faction, or should only cover the city, with faction information located at Exodar (faction) rather than some other title such as Draenei of the Exodar. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 05:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

While I am sympathetic to the WoW-centric idea (you can ask other admins and they'll tell you I pushed this in the past), this issue has been discussed before and included input from the Wikia folks. The decision was made to try to accommodate all Warcraft-related info and to only emphasize WoW-centricity where necessary (items are an example). So in the case of races, there is alot of non-WoW lore or pre-WoW lore, so those types of subjects will not focus on WoW, but have a prominent link to WoW info. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:33 PM PST 9 Mar 2009

ENOUGH

Baggins and I have thrashed this out, and this seems the simplest solution: in keeping with the original intent, we will post the statistics of the races, along with in-game mechanics at whatnot at <race, as it appears in the character selection screen> (playable). The previously existing pages will continue to hold lore only. Draenei will hold lore information for them, while Draenei (playable) will hold the mechanics. Exodar (faction) will hold the FACTIONAL information only, as eight of the races' "factions" are just the city name. A few exceptions

• Forsaken will hold lore for Undead (playable)
• Ironforge dwarf for Dwarf (playable)
• Darkspear Tribe for Troll (playable) and Darkspear Trolls
• Gnome or Gnomeregan Exiles for Gnome (playable) and Gnomeregan Exiles

The end result will be ten specific race pages with lore and ten playable pages with mechanics and statistics. The faction pages will all be at <city> (faction), apart from the aforementioned Exiles and Darkspears. This is the only way we can see this working, so we can work on nomenclature a bit. Bottom line, this had been the end result of a horrendous series of miscommunications, so let's just move on.--Ragestorm (talk · contr) 05:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)'ADDENDUM: you many notice that Baggins has begun the reversion process. Please do not hinder the operation until it has been completed and discussed, in the interests of neatness.05:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, the general work is done. I moved all the pages, and fixed the faction and race links templates. Next step is to mark all the excessive redirects with the speedy delete, except for ones that might possibly be used. Humans of Stormwind, might still be useable, but I can't of any others specifically. The links on all related pages that link to the articles will need to be fixed. Gnomeregan Exiles doesn't need the (faction) marking and I've added in-line disambig to Darkspear Trolls to seperate it from the general "darkspear trolls" article, Darkspear tribe. Thus it doesn't really need a disambig either.Baggins (talk) 06:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I think things turned out pretty good. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:33 PM PST 9 Mar 2009

I think it's a pretty good compromise. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if this was intended or not, but it appears the Talk page for Talk:Ironforge dwarf did not get created or moved because a redirection was previously deleted, and there are a few redirects pointing to the empty page now. I didn't want to create anything in case it might overwrite what should go there.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wige (talk · contr).

Permaban

Please keep the permaban threats off the Village pump please. They are both inaccurate (because I can undo the permabans and I will) and unnecessary (off-topic). -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:26 PM PST 9 Mar 2009

Question on guild stubs

My question of the day, heh. Going through the ToDo category, I started digging through the Guild Stubs. I had thought that in order to be considered a stub an article (guild or otherwise) had to be a placeholder or a short article. However, there are some fairly long guild articles (such as Guild:The_Shattered_Dawn_(Wyrmrest_Accord_US)) tagged as stubs. This particular page does deviate from policy in that it does not explicitly state that it is a Horde guild, but I take it that is something that should be marked with a violation tag (so the tagger can note what the issue is) instead. Can I retag these as violations and note what is missing, or is it preferred to use the stub? -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 18:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A guild page is a stub if it does not contain the required information. This is per policy. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I don't know how I missed that on my first readthrough of the policy. I posted a note on the Talk page for the policy suggesting a change to encourage adding a reason when marking a stub so newer page creators know what change needs to be made, and so later editors can easily spot if the problem was fixed or if the page should be marked for {{sd}} -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 19:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Links to official forums

This is something I run into pretty often. A lot of links to blue threads to the official forums are broken - particularly PTR/beta stuff. Commonly I just google the thread id and the blizzard poster's name and get a result on mmoc bluetracker; but I think there should be a policy/guideline for this. Thoughts? User:Adys/Sig 03:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Replace them with a link to an archival site (bluetracker) and don't create new links directly to the forums? I really hate that the official forums are so flaky about keeping old posts around, we shouldn't need a 3rd party archiving shit. User:Tekkub/Sig 05:00, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds more like a guideline than a policy. Do you want someone else to do a draft of a guideline, Adys, or do you have an idea for one? Sounds like a good idea. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 9:44 AM PST 10 Mar 2009

Go ahead and make one, as I said before I'm not really around enough for this - was just bringing it up. User:Adys/Sig 06:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

How many categories?

How many categories and sub-categories is it appropriate to put an item into? I looked at the policy, the help, and the WoWWiki pages regarding categories, and couldn't find any clear guidance on what is appropriate. For example, a set of green plate gloves might be categorized simply as "world of warcraft uncommon items" and "world of warcraft plate hands items", but they might also be in the categories "world of warcraft plate items" and "world of warcraft hands items". I guess my question is, should an item be put into as many categories as possible, or only the appropriate sub categories? "World of warcraft plate hands items" is a subcategory of both "world of warcraft plate items" and "world of warcraft hands items" already. -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 15:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no policy or guideline that I know of (which means nothing LOL). I would recommend no more than 3, if it is possible. Personally, too many categories is okay by me unless they aren't relevant or redundant. Just be careful with redundancy mostly and you're good.-- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 9:41 AM PST 10 Mar 2009

Ok, cool, thanks. Good to have at least a rule of thumb. By the way, sort of on topic... I went a little nuts when I was correcting a typo on the WoWWiki:Categories page, and accidentally rewrote the entire thing. Personally, I'd like to believe I made it better, but I'd let that be a determination for someone who is more familiar with the categories project. If not, revert away. --Wige (Talk - Contribs) 21:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Template for Skill Level Colors

I wrote this template to reduce the amount of space it required to have different skill levels(orange, yellow, green, gray) in color for professions. I am very new to this type of code and would like any suggestions/recommendations about the template before I started implementing it throughout wowwiki. My sandbox is here-->http://www.wowwiki.com/User:Ewolfg1/sandbox . It has a link to the template and an example table with the new template. Please post any comments about the template on its talk page here-->http://www.wowwiki.com/User_talk:Ewolfg1/sandbox/template_item1 . Thank You.

-- Ewolfg1 (talk) 21:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Category bumout

Any reason why it seems impossible to change article categories with the new box? ----  Varghedin  talk / contribs 10:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Thats how it was implemented by Wikia. -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 13:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, it shouldn't be impossible? What issue are you seeing? Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Adding Blood Elf Crest to the Crests category

The Blood Elf crest (Image:Icon of Blood.jpg) has been locked due to vandalism. Would someone be able to add it to Category:Crests? It is the only faction crest missing from the list. Thanks. -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 14:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

It's unprotected now. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 14:20, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. Categorized now as well. -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 14:36, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

WoWWiki: Mobile version?

I recently picked up a Kindle 2 (don't you love tax return splurge time?), and I'd love to be able to check WoWWiki articles from it. (I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that the site is blocked from my work, oh no.) The main page is pretty clunky and hard to navigate from the Kindle's very basic, text-based browser, though.

Does anyone know if there's a mobile-browser-friendly version of the WoWWiki homepage? I browsed around the FAQ and tried a couple searches, but didn't see a mention of one.

Thanks!

-- Eponymous (talk) 11:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring the fact that I despise anything "mobile" and think that a device that can't display a page designed for a minimum resolution of 800x600 should not be called a "browser", did you try different skins? I'm sure there are some minimal ones. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 11:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You should try using Wowwiki.css, which is an option in preferences. That should severely reduce the clunkiness. --Sky (t · c · w) 12:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, didn't even read the original request. --Sky (t · c · w) 21:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Alternately, you can use the "simple" skin or "myskin" (nothing but the article content). Ose ^talk/₃₇₂₁ 14:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That is perfect timing - I was literally about to start on that when I checked the Village Pump. I'll start something simple at Portal:Mobile. Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Since it came up, I just saw a Kindle 2 for the first time today: they look pretty cool. (I'm in the San Francisco Wikia office atm, Jimmy Wales is here too atm, and he showed his off.) It's cool that they browse Wikipedia for free, though apparently not particularly well. In other news, Jimmy was wearing a Cafepress WoWWiki tshirt yesterday - I don't recall who set the page up, but kudos to whoever :) The link is http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/product.aspx?clear=true&number=%20280818986 ... it's not official, though - we're still hoping to do a proper Wikia store for each wiki, with their logos, etc. But don't let that stop you if you want a WoWWiki tshirt now! Kirkburn  talk  contr 21:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'm the one who created that custom product. Good to see that anyone actually bought it! --g0urra[T҂C] 12:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Party hat for g0urra! :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 18:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for a mobile version, but my concern is more bandwidth and weight. My iPhone has no problem with the full-blown WoWwiki, but the site is slow as is (I'm assuming that's a Wikia problem), and over the cellphone it just takes forever to download pages. Pretty frustrating when I try to get a little editing while on break at work, and have to spend 2 minutes to download 1 page, and then almost another minute trying to upload changes. The WoWwiki site is so slow here in Canada, that even on the phone I cannot reach my DL speed limit... --Metalbunny (talk) 07:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

This won't help your mobile problem, but you may find editing a more enjoyable experience in a faster browser like Google Chrome or Safari 4 beta. I've seen a couple benchmarks that were wildly faster than Internet Explorer (performance on IE 8 looks like a joke, come on Microsoft...) and quite appreciably faster than Firefox.

While I'm at it, I'll digress one more time to advertise that Chrome was the only browser to come out unscathed at the Pwn2Own hacking contest, hosted by Zero Day Initiative. -Howbizr (talk) 22:40, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikia updates

It's been a long time coming, but almost the entirety of our logs have been restored - those who have been around a long time will understand :) The issue was that logs before April 2008 were missing due to one of our upgrades - pretty much all of them should now exist again. Hurrah!

In addition we have a new tool to switch on - automatic new user welcoming! No more actively searching thru the recent changes list for new users :) You can find out more on User:Wikia.

And in other news, we're gearing up for the switch to 1.14 - it should occur in a couple of weeks. Also, CategorySelect should get a user preference this week. Kirkburn  talk  contr 21:51, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Is CatSelect going to stop adding whitespace at the end of sections like this? --k_d³ 00:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Yup, that fix will also arrive. Kirkburn  talk  contr 00:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

u giev fastr? User:Tekkub/Sig 01:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Should be out tomorrow. Thanks for customizing the welcome message, pcj :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 23:49, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem, what would be really useful if it would have a variable referring to the new user's name. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 00:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't BASEPAGENAME cover this? Not say we couldn't do an alias, but would/could there be a difference? Kirkburn  talk  contr 16:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well...it would be more personalized. :) --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 16:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed - I mean, we've edited our message to basically do the same, but it makes sense for the default message too. I've passed it on. Kirkburn  talk  contr 17:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Welcomes: I don't quite understand why it fills in the User page when the traditional welcome has been simply on the talk page. I get that it allows for a template for a new user, but a new user can figure out how to use edit tools; most of the time the new editor just doesn't know where to edit (in this case, his user page). Given that, wouldn't it be sensible to restrict the welcome bot to simply the user talk page and to include a big fat link something to the effect of "[http://www.wowwiki.com/User:<Username>?action=edit Tell us about yourself!]"? --Sky (t · c · w) 18:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting that you bring this up - this has also come up elsewhere. We're planning on making some changes around the user page issue, possibly including not filling it in at all. Kirkburn  talk  contr 18:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yea, I'm not so sure on the automatic creation of someones user page... When I watch the recent changes, I tend to examine changes done by someone with red links (I.E. no user or talk page). That way I can give tips/notes if needed. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 21:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey, that's exactly what I do! Works pretty well too...though I could live with the User talk page being created automatically so users can have some exposure (via links on their talk page) to wiki policies. User page is a bit much though. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 22:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

More about T-shirts

Our model... Jimmy Wales

WoW, I really love the WoWWiki T-shirt that Gourra designed. Simple, but very nice. Maybe we could have Wikia make one with a small shirt-pocket location Wikia logo and a big WoWWiki logo on the back? Also, has anyone been in contact with User:Mikk recently? It would be nice to get a larger version of the Image:WoWWiki icon stamp.png to make a T-shirt with. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:58 PM PST 19 Mar 2009

1. Mikk probably has the SVG, which means we can scale that as much as we want if he uploads it.
2. I think I would prefer Image:Wiki.png on the breast and Image:Wiki wide.png on the back... --Sky (t · c · w) 20:49, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I could try and make a new T-shirt by your suggestion, I'll try and have a new one in an hour or so. --g0urra[T҂C] 09:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Apparently the black T-shirt can't have images on both back and front, so I made a white one with your suggestion instead. See here. --g0urra[T҂C] 10:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

And here's the t-shirt being modelled :) Unfortunately, I think the stamp logo is the largest we'll ever get - I think it may have been a SilverSide production. The wide logo, however, should be possible. I like the layout Sky mentions. Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I like Sky's idea too. I would still like to see a WoWWiki/Wikia combo shirt, though. I may also try to make an SVG version of the stamp logo. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 6:54 PM PST 19 Mar 2009

I wonder if someone could splash the Image:Wiki.png really big like they do for the Maintankadin shirts. A witty quote would be fun too (at least if you want me to buy one!). I'm really looking forwarding to working out in the gym with my "righteous fury turns me on" tee. Woo hoo! -Howbizr (talk) 22:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure though that their logo was already big to start with. --g0urra[T҂C] 09:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Subpages are now bad ?

Today while i was working on the Dungeons & Raids achievements/Lich King Raid page Sky2042 moved the page to Lich King raid Dungeons & Raids achievements - so I reverted it and was working to finish the page - when I came back to add the new changes from build 9704 to the page 2042 had moved the page again and in the Summary he put "no. slashes are bad. get rid of all slashes "-- so my question is When did slashes ( sub pages ) become bad ?? and when he does this you no longer can directly edit the ajax page ( because the Edit link says to edit the Page being redirected not the destination of the redirect - so you have to Copy / paste ( hope vandals do not delete the redirect ) the redirect information into the Search/Goto window to get to the redirected page and then edit thet page from there so that it will show up correctly in the Ajax linked main page ( that is like Quadruple the work just to edit a page ) and editing pages are supposed to be easy - and again I ask when did / Sub pages become bad ??? -- ( Morph | Contribs | Talk ) 01:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I won't say I totally agree with Sky, but unless you have a good reason to make a subpage (personal page or local template), a regular page is preferred. In this particular case, I think Sky is just wrong, but he can be stubborn. Since the page you created is basically a local template for Dungeons & Raids achievements, a subpage would seem fine. I probably would have put it at Dungeons & Raids achievements/Lich King raid, though. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 6:52 PM PST 19 Mar 2009

"Local templates" are counted in the official page count; they should be eliminated or made 'proper pages'. In this case, a proper page is without the slash in it. --Sky (t · c · w) 02:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

You need to fix your Ajax template then - it Creates Supbages of the main page ( pages slashes in them ) - Look at every Main Achieveemnt page that has Ajax on them - and I will show you 3 - 5 sub pages ( slashes ) on them because of Ajax -- ( Morph | Contribs | Talk ) 02:24, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Because of you making a [Redirect] page - you just killed anyone from easily UPdating the pages from when they click the Edit link in Ajax - it opens up the Edit screen to the page that is Redirecting to the new page ( it does NOT follow the Redirect to the new page to be edited ) - So because You think they are bad you are breaking the whole idea of a wikia (the idea of easily editing pages as the information changes ) for your little formality that is your rule not Wikia's (Wikia allows sub pages)- ( Morph | Contribs | Talk ) 02:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I finally figured out the problem you were having. And it has been fixed. --Sky (t · c · w) 02:47, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

But Ajax is the one that made the sub page ( it is how it is programed ) when I orignaly made the achievement page there was no ajax - and the page was Super huge because it was on on the main page -- you all added ajax to make the tables not all show unless you click on the ajax link (thus creating ajax sub pages ) - I was just adding to the page when he moved it -- i was NOT creating a new page - I did on the 2 new groups of achievements added into todays build -- ( Morph | Contribs | Talk ) 01:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm on the anti-sky side here. This seems like a local template, so it should go on a sub-page. Now if the current content was wrapped in an includeonly tag and more was added to make the page into a "proper" article, then yes it should be a "proper" page. User:Tekkub/Sig 02:36, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Then it shouldn't be in the main space. I honestly don't care of the two options: Template space, or main space at a proper name. --Sky (t · c · w) 02:47, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, what the hell is up with all the moves? Wine got some of its subpages moved too, I had to move them back. There's an automatic breadcrumb that comes in handy, there's a reason for it to be there; it's just better organization. User:Adys/Sig 02:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

On a wiki? Are you for real? --Sky (t · c · w) 02:52, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

And besides, there's an automatic redirect that comes in handy, there's a reason for it to be there. --Sky (t · c · w) 02:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

On a wiki yeah, the place where you discuss massive changes before taking act. To avoid situations like those. User:Adys/Sig 02:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I think there was a pretty big debate on a pretty similar topic (specifically, there was a project to move templates that are only used on one or two pages out of the public namespace and make them local). The talk page is here. Personally, I am all for content that is being transcluded into a single page being a subpage. And what does showing up in the official page count have to do with it?

Furthermore, in this case it seems to me the only reason that the content is on a seperate page at all is so that the tables can be collapsed, otherwise it would be put into the main page itself. That to me strongly indicates the content should be on a subpage. -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 14:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

A subpage is still considered content. Would you want to end up on a 'subpage' through special:random? See also argument below. --Sky (t · c · w) 16:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I would expect that people who navigate by Special:Random are used to getting "random" things... --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 17:07, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Subpages are not bad. {{Ajax}} does not create pages at all, ever. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 14:20, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

But it does require the content to be on an external page, correct? -- Wige (Talk - Contribs) 14:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but it does not require it to be a subpage. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 14:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

In this specific case, the template being used is Template:Ajaxsub, which either requires a subpage or another target page (the latter functionality I added last night to deal with this). T:Ajaxsub now calls the parameter 'target' from Ajax if target is present. --Sky (t · c · w) 16:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

He mentioned fixing "our" template...considering he made the Ajaxsub template (for that express purpose), I should think he would be aware of that limitation...--PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 16:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for arguing effectively. Yes, subpages are bad. --Sky (t · c · w) 16:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

WoWWiki is not Wikipedia. Sorry you didn't notice that. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 16:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

You didn't even read the page. Good job!
See, I can be fallacious too. Respond to the argument, or don't respond at all. --Sky (t · c · w) 16:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I see both positive and negative arguments on there, with the consensus there being that Wikipedia does not want subpages. Fine, they discussed it and established that they do not want subpages. My point is that Wikipedia guidelines/policy do not dictate WoWWiki guidelines/policy, and that there needs to be a policy/guideline discussion on this before further arbitrary decisions (with the presumed basis on Wikipedia precedence) on sub-page moves. The consensus at this point appears to be in favor of sub-pages in this case. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 16:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

In the context of the linked wikipedia article, I will agree that, yes, subpages are bad except in certain namespaces like User: and Template:. However, in this case, I believe we are talking about a special case. These subpages are not articles that can stand on their own, they are components of the main page which are being separated for readability or resource considerations. They are not articles; in the main namespace I feel they would just pollute the main namespace, and be harder for editors to find. They are not designed with the intention of being included in other pages; they don't really belong in the Template namespace where they might end up getting put in other pages and their functionality might be broken. Right now, from what I can tell, the Wiki software doesn't have a specified way of handling pages that are resources instead of articles. Maybe a solution would be to put these files into a new namespace ("Resources:PageName/ResourceName") but for now, why not follow what seems to be the general practice of leaving them as subpages, and open a vote for a new policy to handle these documents? -- Wige (T - C) 16:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I hope it isn't overstepping any bounds, but I posted a policy proposal here - WoWWiki:Policy/Subpages. Hopefully I got the gist of everyone's points. I am not even sure if this should be a policy or a guideline, but having some forum for a consensus would hopefully be helpful. --

Wige (T - C) 18:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

As I said above, if the page were a "proper" article then I would argue that it should be a "proper" page. But as it is essentially transclude content, it should be a subpage. I am fine with it being a template too, but it seems we had a movement some time back to move transcludes like this out of the template namespace. User:Tekkub/Sig 19:30, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Wige. Lets move this discussion to WoWWiki_talk:Policy/Subpages. I will reiterate much of what I said below in more detail there.

As for the argument for and against subpage, the Wikipedia discussion has alot of red herrings in it. It asserts the discussion is primarily around subpages used as actual whole articles rather than transcluded parts. Most of the arguments against subpages is based on them not being used like templates. I don't give much weight to the linking and talk page arguments against sub pages. Wikipedia doesn't really do a great job presenting table lists like we often get in WoWWiki and since they don't use them as much they just decided to kill subpages. We should also discuss how moving all the subpages to the Template namespace could be problematic as well. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:36 AM PST 20 Mar 2009

That page is a subpage, you're showing bias right from the start! *snicker* User:Tekkub/Sig 19:30, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Most of the arguments against subpages is based on them not being used like templates. I don't give much weight to the linking and talk page arguments against sub pages. Wikipedia doesn't really do a great job presenting table lists like we often get in WoWWiki and since they don't use them as much they just decided to kill subpages. We should also discuss how moving all the subpages to the Template namespace could be problematic as well.

If they look like a template, smell like a template... I would give weight to the link argument; not only is it much easier to link natural English, it looks nicer as an article name. Would you really want a slash in the name? Say it out load; does that sound right to you?
Table lists... Pick anything on wikipedia:WP:FL. I would agree that we should discuss others ideas. --Sky (t · c · w) 21:09, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I understand where you are goin with that - but here is my confusion with your disagreement - the pages you moved are not main pages ( you do not go to them directly ) they just show up ( when you click on the Ajax link ) otherwise you do not see them. You do not see the page name unless you click on the ajax link and then click on the Edit link to edit the page. Ajax does not show the page name because it is a transcluded sub page (much like your signature -- you do not make a main page for your signature) of the main displaying the information -- ( Morph | Contribs | Talk ) 21:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want I can / will go to every sub page ( including all the ones you did not move - since you decided to just start doing this yesterday apparently and did not move any of theo ther pages that have not been touched since there were no changes to them ) and put the {{transclude}} template on all of them? Would that be better? -- ( Morph | Contribs | Talk ) 21:24, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Page edit undone by admin - left no reason

Problem re: http://www.wowwiki.com/API_PlaySoundFile

1. List of soundfile script commands I posted was admittedly huge, and being a very busy non-techie type of wowwiki noob I have no clue if there is a limit or what it is if so. List also perhaps wasn't formatted very well, but don't see that being a reason to delete it. If anything I see that as being a reason to move it to another page.

2. People repeatedly ask for such a list. See page's discussion and various official forum threads that pop if you google this issue.

3. It's not hard to find a list via google, but hard to find one that's easily searchable and reasonably up-to-date.

4. It's enjoyable for no small number of people given how often this comes up in various forums, to be able to play soundfiles in game. The vast majority of all NPC speech is lost on most players due to the distance-limit on speech (e.g., how many times do you actually hear another character's /silly emote?), or due to raiders turning their sound down to be able to hear vent over the explosions, or due to the massive number of explosions and SFX in a "25-person plus raid mobs" environment.

5. Voice-overs are an important aspect of many wow films, and a huge part of a 2-hr PVE film I'm fighting a deadline on - which is why I need an easily accessible and searchable list.

6. Finding, formatting and posting the list took me a few hours. List was not compiled by myself (non-techie, duh), but all of it is WoW sound effects copyright Blizzard. How are these enjoyable and simple SFX commands not relevant to wowwiki? [Thanks to Ratcatcher for teaching me how to do paragraphs.]

-- Parl2001 (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

---

Heh I need to show you something that you are doing

look at this line 

look at this line

That box appears when you start your typing with a space (should always start typing at the border) - anyhow what I came here to post for you - I recovered your files that Adys (talk) from that page -- I posted them on your talk page - you can do with them as you please - again notice how they are in a box ( you put a space at the start of every line ) -- ( Morph | Contribs | Talk ) 01:05, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Besides the sheer size, I also assume it was also the phrase "this was created by X of realm Y" that caused the revert - this should never go on article pages. A while ago, there was a similar discussion on name claims for talent builds.
On the issue of size, complete lists like this should not go on slash command/function pages, but rather a subpage, or a page called "List of game sound files" (for which method to choose, read a bit above, most people are tending towards the latter one. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 15:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

IE8

As you may know, Internet Explorer 8 is finally out, which will finally hopefully mean less browser specific coding. I absolutely recommend you upgrade whether or not you use it as a main browser - visit here to get it.

However, unfortunately, it appears that this causes a couple of issues with WoW's skin/layout. I've noticed two things so far:

• The yellow "Log in" bubbles have their right side styled incorrectly.
• The main page tabs have some space before the main content.

If anyone is using IE8 and notices other issues, please bring them up so we can take a look. If you are using IE8 and want to avoid these issues until they're fixed, click the "compatibility mode" button in the address bar.

The issues appear to be local to us, as I don't notice them on other Wikia wikis. Even so, Microsoft has all wikia.com domains on the compatibility list for now, but wowwiki.com is not. Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:40, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok here are some of the problems I have notice with IE8 on wowwiki.com concerning the Compatability mode:

• I have to turn ON compatability mode when I am editing pages - If I do not and the edit section has a scroll bar on the right then as I make changes near the bottom of the list (scroll bar down near the bottom of the box) then the scroll bar will scroll up a few lines above the location that I am editing - The only way to stabilize the bar movement is to turn ON the Compatability mode when doing Edits on long pages.
• I have to turn OFF complatability mode when I am normaly viewing pages that have Tool-tip links (ie. {{item}}, {{loot}}, {{achievement}}, {{quest}} type of links) on the page if I want to see the Tooltips properly - If I do not then the Tool-tip is realy large compared to what it should be if the Compatability mode was turned off - so I have to turn OFF the compatabilty mode when doing those actions. ((apparently this was my problem when I had RC2 of IE8 - and had a discusion on Kaydeethree's page.)) Screenshots (Compatabilty mode ON) (Compatabilty mode OFF)

(<span="help title=Morph>M o r p h | <span="help title=Morph_Contribution(s)_to_this_Wiki>^C | <span="help title=Morph_Discussion_Page>_T) <imagelink>IconSmall_Gnome_Male.gif|Gnome|Morphgnome</imagelink><imagelink>IconSmall_Draenei_Male.gif|Draenei|Morphdraenei</imagelink> 22:10, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

As the edit page issue sounds like something on Wikia's side, I have confirmed it elsewhere and passed it on. Kirkburn  talk  contr 10:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

What does it take for transclusions to "catch up"?

I just edited the Quest:The Argent Tournament pages so that they use the questlong template instead of the deprecated questrace. As the quest pages have been transcluded into several dozen other pages, how long will it take for those page to disappear from list of links to questrace? Or does each linking page need to be opened or fake saved to update? --Wige (T - C) 15:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Should happen almost immediately. Maybe your browser cached the old version of the pages with the deprecated template? Ctrl+F5 should help. If not, then WoWWiki itself is lagging, there is a command to flush its cache, but I don't know it right now. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 15:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

You have to wait for the job queue to clear. Null edits will also update an individual page's links. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 15:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Ads

One of the enticements for creating an account was ad free wow wiki browsing. Why do I still get ads? The email confirmation was activated or else I could not make this post. I am logged in. -- Skumbonia (talk) 18:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

What ads are you still seeing? Could you post a screenshot? --k_d³ 19:01, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Check your My Preferences section - Skins tab and make sure that you do NOT have a check by the     Show all advertisements - Select this option to see article pages as logged-out users see them.     -- (<span="help title=Morph>M o r p h | <span="help title=Morph_Contribution(s)_to_this_Wiki>^C | <span="help title=Morph_Discussion_Page>_T) <imagelink>IconSmall_Gnome_Male.gif|Gnome|Morphgnome</imagelink><imagelink>IconSmall_Draenei_Male.gif|Draenei|Morphdraenei</imagelink> 19:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is a screen shot that shows i am logged on and also the preference box is unchecked so I shouldn't see ads. --Skumbonia (talk) 21:06, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The main page has ads for everyone, logged in or not. I'm not sure what the reason was, but there propably is one. Ose ^talk/₃₇₂₁ 22:10, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I do wonder why the top banner ad seems to be right-aligned. I thought it should be centered. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 10:58 PM PST 4 Apr 2009

Editing problem

Whenever I edit an article using either Visual View or Code View, the line space between the Category section and for instance the Reference section is removed. Any ideas? Rolandius (talk - contr) 03:46, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

In this particular case the Code View / Visual View is just only for Categories - you do not touch that unless you are adding / removing / modifying a category:

• In the Visual view mode you click on the Add category floating on the left side of the screen - in the right most category location - otherwise you click on the + or x of an existing category to modify or remove (respectivly).

• Correction I said you use the + or x to modify or remove -- I meant the Arrows or the X to modify or remove -- (<span="help title=Morph>M o r p h | <span="help title=Morph_Contribution(s)_to_this_Wiki>^C | <span="help title=Morph_Discussion_Page>_T) <imagelink>IconSmall_Gnome_Male.gif|Gnome|Morphgnome</imagelink><imagelink>IconSmall_Draenei_Male.gif|Draenei|Morphdraenei</imagelink> 04:09, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

• In Code view you manualy enter / edit / remove the cateogries like we used to do it on the main page you type everything out [[Category:Borean Tundra NPCs]] or [[Category:Borean Tundra NPCs|Borean Tundra]].

If edditing page content - do not mess with visual / code view area at all

-- (<span="help title=Morph>M o r p h | <span="help title=Morph_Contribution(s)_to_this_Wiki>^C | <span="help title=Morph_Discussion_Page>_T) <imagelink>IconSmall_Gnome_Male.gif|Gnome|Morphgnome</imagelink><imagelink>IconSmall_Draenei_Male.gif|Draenei|Morphdraenei</imagelink> 04:03, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Well essentially, I could be editing something way on top of the article, like bolding the title, and when I then hit Preview or Save, somehow it still affects the categories it seems without me touching anything near the categories. At least, that is what other users are saying whenever I edit an article. On my computer, it looks like there is a space still but then other users have to edit an extra space into the article they say. Rolandius (talk - contr) 04:17, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I know when they 1st implemented the new category thing there was a problem with extra spaces being added in - and Kirkburn said that Wikia was working on it - could it be they over did it and now it is removing more spaces than needed ? -- but then if that were the case it would be affection all of us hmm - Which browser are you using ( and version ) I am using the new IE 8 ( I was on IE 8 RC ) and have found a few problems with it so far - but have not been told that I am adding or removing spaces if it is the cause of your problem if you are on IE 8 -- (<span="help title=Morph>M o r p h | <span="help title=Morph_Contribution(s)_to_this_Wiki>^C | <span="help title=Morph_Discussion_Page>_T) <imagelink>IconSmall_Gnome_Male.gif|Gnome|Morphgnome</imagelink><imagelink>IconSmall_Draenei_Male.gif|Draenei|Morphdraenei</imagelink> 04:24, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I have Safari 3.2.1. Rolandius (talk - contr) 05:00, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

hmm ok I loged in on Safari 3.2.1. as well and looked at one of the last few pages you had edited Zhevra Runner if you click on the History tab and then click the (Last) that is next to your name you can see what changes were done by you per the server [Link] to same info as well - you can see on the left there was a line between the 2 lines of info - shown in red meaning it was (for some reason) removed - I went in ( using Safari 3.2.1.) and added and then removed a line to see how what it did - for me it did what it was supposed to aded the 1 line and then removed the 1 line - so at the moment I am at a loss as to what is causing the problem -- (<span="help title=Morph>M o r p h | <span="help title=Morph_Contribution(s)_to_this_Wiki>^C | <span="help title=Morph_Discussion_Page>_T) <imagelink>IconSmall_Gnome_Male.gif|Gnome|Morphgnome</imagelink><imagelink>IconSmall_Draenei_Male.gif|Draenei|Morphdraenei</imagelink> 05:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

ooh yeah before I added / removed the line I did click on edit and did not make a change but clicked on Preview and then save - and it did not make any changes to the page untill I added and then removed the line mentioned above - so again I am at a loss as to what is going on -- could you maybe be removing the extra spaces at the ENd of the line ( and accidently going 1 space into the next line - thus causing it to remove the whole line - not realizing it ? -- (<span="help title=Morph>M o r p h | <span="help title=Morph_Contribution(s)_to_this_Wiki>^C | <span="help title=Morph_Discussion_Page>_T) <imagelink>IconSmall_Gnome_Male.gif|Gnome|Morphgnome</imagelink><imagelink>IconSmall_Draenei_Male.gif|Draenei|Morphdraenei</imagelink> 05:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure what it occuring. It happens when I don't even touch the bottom of the article. I thought I could use a < br > to force a space but someone told me not to. I guess I will do some trial and error in my subpages to see if there is a way to figure it out. Rolandius (talk - contr) 05:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I figured it out trying different methods. It looks like when I edit a page, sometimes I have to go to the Category box and make 2 line spaces for it to recognize one line space or something. Rolandius (talk - contr) 10:39, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Dual presence Unholy and frost build

Moved to Warcraft pump, since this is not a wiki question.

Favicon.ico mishap?

Last night looking at druid builds, I found that the default WoWWiki favicon wasn't used. Instead, the Wikia one was showing up. I can't seem to duplicate it today, so was it a mishap? --User:Slxception/Sig 14:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I've had that happen before, it probably was a cache error or something. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 14:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I had a similar issue last night around 7-8pm EDT where the site took a while to load, showed the default Wikia icon, and even briefly showed a default wikia skin, appearing as though perhaps a CSS file wasn't loading. At the same time, the content was loading slowly, which was fun as I was trying to read up on a couple of boss fights. --Wige (T - C) 14:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Rehashing on this topic, it's happened again, this time on many pages, including the WoWWiki:Village Pump and the edit page. More problems?--User:Slxception/Sig 05:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

All Hail KD3!

I welcome you to your new bureaucrat overlord, Kaydeethree! Though it's mostly a promotion in name only, he deserves much kudos for the amazing work he has put towards the site over the years. Indeed, you all do! Kirkburn  talk  contr 09:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Hooray for Kaydeethree! --g0urra[T҂C] 11:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

"grats!" ~ Nathanyel (talk) 13:22, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Gratz! --Wige (T - C) 20:43, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

About time too =P Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 21:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Sea turtle

What's the guideline when there a two different articles, but the only difference is the capitalization? For example: Sea turtle (the creature) and Sea Turtle (the item/mount). Couldn't we just use these two lemma's instead of making a disambiguation page and several pages with parenthetical text? Because now we have a list of a few pages:

• Sea turtle
• Sea turtle (creature)
• Sea Turtle
• Sea Turtle (creature)
•  [Sea Turtle]
• Sea Turtle (Mount)

--Iggey (talk) 18:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Sea Turtle redirects to Sea turtle. Sea Turtle (mount) is the mount's page, Sea turtle (creature) is the creature's page. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but why use parenthetical text when it's technically not necessary? You could use Sea Turtle for the mount and Sea turtle for the creature.--Iggey (talk) 21:14, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Because someone could be searching for it. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 21:15, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

But then you could add Template:For at the beginning of the articles and wouldn't need a disambig page.--Iggey (talk) 21:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

We can use {{For}} anyway, what's wrong with having a disambig page? The result is the same. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 21:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Pcj. Either the search or a manual URL input could come up with the wrong page. Just posting so you don't think it's just Pcj who's contradicting you. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 21:33, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Should we put things like Skeletal Sea Turtle or Beached Sea Turtle on the disambig page too or are they not close enough to the word sea turtle? Rolandius (talk - contr) 02:12, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Those sound like good additions. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:25 AM PST 28 Mar 2009

I'd say at least a "See also" paragraph on Sea turtle (creature), wouldn't speak against a mention on the disambig page, either. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 18:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

In a slightly related note: Sea turtle (creature), Giant turtle, Giant sea turtle, Giant snapping turtle, and Giant turtle battle sub could use some sorting through. I am not sure where they all fit.--SWM2448 19:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

That does look confusing. Some may be overlapping. Rolandius (talk - contr) 02:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It was not my intention to avoid a disambiguation page at all costs. I was confused because both articles could technically use different lemma's without having to use par. text or a disambig page (after I saw this change). But okay, if it's necessary to draw a distiction, then it's alright.--Iggey (talk) 14:44, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

You might want to wait on the Battle.net account merge...

Please move this comment to the Warcraft pump, if you think it belongs there.

I did the Battle.net account merge thing yesterday against my better judgement.

Okay, so I've been pretty busy at work, so I haven't played WoW too much lately. So, after work I get an IM from some friends (who didn't do the merge and can log in fine) that want me to heal an instance run. So I try to log in expecting no problems, since I logged on in the morning to do a quick AH scan. However, I couldn't log in and I got a totally unhelpful error message. Oh well let me check the Service Status... nope no problems reported for my realm or in general. Hmmm... maybe something changed about my account or I messed up my password? So, I log into Battle.net and check my account settings... nope, nothing amiss that's obvious. I check the Tech Support forum and see this: 0. Battle.net account connection issues 03/27/2009 07:44:49 PM PDT by Mikepl. I didn't really want to go through all the steps, so I decide to report my problem to Blizzard support and go get dinner.

When I come back, I get this e-mail from Blizzard support:

We are currently aware of problems with Battle.net merged accounts that are having intermittent connectivity problems. We apologize for the trouble, and we are working to come to a resolution quickly. - lucyt.support@blizzard.com

Gee thanks. I guess they didn't want to put this in Service Status to upset people with useful information. I did eventually find this blue post where Blizzard tech support folks appeared to have figured out this problem yesterday (41. Re: Unable to Connect....but I can with... 03/27/2009 07:12:17 PM PDT by Lucytr; funny, this is the person who replied to my e-mail).

They did eventually fix the problem (I made no changes on my client side), but I foresee future problems intermittently until they shake out all the bugs from this merge stuff. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 10:27 PM PST 27 Mar 2009

Yeah, that's what happens when you use a Mac. :P --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 05:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

As if. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:14 PM PST 27 Mar 2009

Macs rule. Rolandius (talk - contr) 06:21, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Ouch - almost a good thing that the merging for the EU accounts isn't up yet, otherwise I would have done mine immediately. I love how it will support multiple accounts though, and appears region-free :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 09:04, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

There's absolutely no point in doing the Battle.net account merges until Diablo III comes out. Unless you tend to troll the Starcraft 2 site that is, and want to be able to use just 1 login. As for functionality, having seperate accounts actually work better. And I can post on the WoW forums with my WoW account, but not with my Battle.net account, despite supposedly being able to without merging. --Metalbunny (talk) 07:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE: Battle.net accounts are locked out AGAIN. I hear you can unmerge. That's what I'm going to do and never merge again until forced. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 7:25 PM PST 15 Apr 2009

UPDATE2: I just unmerged. The wait on the phone wasn't too long and the customer service person was very fast and professional (with a very nice voice). I didn't say why I wanted to unmerge, but she ended the call with "hopefully you can log in again now." So they know this is a problem.

After the unmerge I logged in with no problems.

Also, FYI the account management site on worldofwarcraft.com still seems to be down at this time...--Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 7:54 PM PST 15 Apr 2009

WAR advert - WTF?

So, if you use the default theme, or log out and look at *any* page, you will see a full-page link (IE, click anywhere that isn't content and you follow the link) to... Warhammer.

What. the F**k.

Is there a reason that the World of Warcraft wiki has been subverted to being one big advertisment for WoW's Rival game? -- FarFromUnique (talk) 04:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Blizzard has bought similar ads on the Warhammer wiki. It's just ad dollars. Keeps us (and by us I mean our corporate master, Wikia) afloat. Brought this up a few weeks ago at WoWWiki talk:Working with Wikia#So uh... Warhammer--k_d³ 04:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, if you don't want to see an ad you don't like (or may be afraid of) then don't get on the internet. Just to stay in your kind of tone. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 07:34, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think WoW has much to worry from WAR. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 8:09 PM PST 31 Mar 2009

Deprecating a template

The template questrace was marked as deprecated in favor of using questlong. I recently finished converting all of the pages that use questrace over to the correct form of questlong, except for a few talk pages. I am not sure what I should do next. Do I mark the template for deletion or sd? Do I remove the links on the talk pages? Do I do something so that the template doesn't continue to be used in new edits until it is removed? Is there a policy somewhere that has these answers? (I didn't really see anything in the policy list relating to templates) --Wige (T - C) 14:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

If nothing uses the template and there was consensus about deprecating it, mark it for speedy deletion. If consensus wasn't established prior to deprecation, mark it for deletion with a vote. You can replace the links on talk pages with text-only versions of their old selves. You can also simply replace the template with a big red "DEPRECATED" label. There is, as far as I know, no policy governing this. -- foxlit (talk) 23:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks like Gourra deleted it. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 8:30 PM PST 31 Mar 2009

Level of Mob categories

I believe there should be a Category for every mob level in the game. This helps players determine what creatures they can and cannot kill. If they need to know the level if something appears ?? they can easily check the categories to see the levels they can kill before they die. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zmario (talk · contr).

I can see how this sounds like a useful thing, but is probably better served by the existing categorization by zone (eg Category:Darkshore mobs), as well as quest categories by level. A curious player could find level X mobs to kill pretty easily this way, and finding the level of a ?? mob is easy (if the mob name is known). Also, most mobs appear at multiple levels, so would have to be in many categories -- Harveydrone 22:51, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

If we had semantic MediaWiki installed on the wiki, that would be a trivial request... but we don't. So I'm going with Harveydrone. --Sky (t · c · w) 00:27, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Does not exist?

I cannot seem to be able to see any edits earlier than "11:42" on recent edits. That is pacific coast time I believe. Right now it is about 20:09. I logged out, logged in, emptied the cache, tried Safari and Firefox browsers, etc. Rolandius (talk - contr) 03:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I think there is some kind of problem. At one point WoWWiki wasn't responding and I was getting blank pages. I'd give Wikia a few hours to work on it. I'm sure they're getting some kind of server error notifications. -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 9:13 PM PST 31 Mar 2009

I think it started at 12:01 or close to it... and you know what today is... Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 04:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay Fandyllic, hope it works itself out. Coobra, it is still March 31st where I am at though. LOL Rolandius (talk - contr) 04:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I still can't seem to be able to look at Recent Edits past around the last 500 most recent, the farthest being April 2nd at 19:23. Rolandius (talk - contr) 13:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Send a message to Faulkner, his user page says, "I handle a lot of Site Operations work for WoW Wiki". His contact information is at w:User:MatthewS. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 9:26 AM PST 3 Apr 2009

Actually, he's no longer with us - he left a long while ago to pursue a life of photography. Met him last month though :)

The 500 limit on the RC list is actually something we added to try and reduce some of the server load - if that is an issue, I can pass on the feedback.

As for who to contact these days - you can try pinging me (Special:EmailUser/Kirkburn), look for Kirkburn, Crucially or other staff members on IRC, or send an email to Special:Contact. Kirkburn  talk  contr 12:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

It started working again for some reason. It just wasn't working April 1-5 or something. Rolandius (talk - contr) 02:14, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

All hail your new admin!

In my first second act of bureaucratic power, I hereby congratulate Coobra as the newest admin of WoWWiki for (finally) passing his RFA. Bow down! --k_d³ 05:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Now I'm curious... what was your first act? Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 05:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Giving User:Wikia its bot flag so we could ignore it on RC. --k_d³ 05:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah... was wondering why its been quiet lately. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 05:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

You should change your name to Kiing Coobra now. LOL Rolandius (talk - contr) 05:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

/sigh... that used to be my name for everything too... till WoW when I shortened to Cobra (cause of the one name thing).. then until everyone else started reserving Cobra on all servers so I added an extra O... and now on the IRC Coobra was taken, so once again added another O... won't be long before I join something else and I'll be known as Cooooooooobra. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! ^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 05:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, one good thing is that it would match the number of s's in Sssssssssss when you hover over the snake in your sig. Rolandius (talk - contr) 06:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations Coobra! --SWM2448 22:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

No foolin'?

Awww, no April Fool's joke on WoWWiki this year? Although I like Blizz's new April Fool's joke: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/mount-p1mpage.html --User:Slxception/Sig 14:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I think Kirkburn forgot to delegate his April Fools duties. Don't forget to check out Introducing the Dance Battle System in addition to P1mp My Mount! -- Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:13 PM PST 1 Apr 2009

My apologies - I unfortunately did not have time to do something interesting this year. But there was still lots of fun to be had elsewhere :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 12:25, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The April Fool's joke was that there was no April Fool's joke this year...or something. Rolandius (talk - contr) 02:16, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

DNP?

Should these datamined images for Tier 8 be removed because of WW:DNP? -Howbizr (talk) 18:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Are the tier sets currently dropping in the PTR? Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 21:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

What really is an enchantment, anyway?

This is for those who haven't been paying attention to my Enchantment/Augment/Imbue/Enhancers edits... What set me off was wandering through the WotLK engineering recipes and wondering where to put things like the  [Nitro Boosts].

Before WotLK, an "enchantment" was: a permanent attribute added to an item through the use of the Enchanting skill. Now, both Engineering and Blacksmithing have recipes that are functionally identical. WotLK also introduced a whole category of item that we currently would classify as "augments", in "enchantments on a scroll" that are functionally identical to armor kits et al.

While I would agree that there isn't a LOT of reason to have a separate page for each "enchantment on a stick" as a separate page from the "enchantment recipe", the very fact that I can forecast the category for it means someone will want it. (Edit:  [Wizard Oil],  [Smoking Heart of the Mountain] might disprove my preference...) (Further edit: okay... on adding enchantment scrolls TO Category:World_of_Warcraft_enchanting_crafted_items. Sorry...)

Part of the problem is that, in creating the augment category, we conflated "item that confers a permanent attribute" with "the permanent attribute conferred". Reasonable at the time, as there were enchantments, and "augment items", and the two didn't mix.

What I cannot identify, if we have it currently, is a category for "all things that occupy the permanent-added-attribute" slot on an item. (Come to think of it, do blacksmith socketings occupy this same slot, or are they a separate addition?) I also do not find a category specifically for "all tradeskill recipes that directly add a permanent attribute", though Enhancers comes close. Enhancers includes imbues, though, which occupy an entirely different mutually exclusive slot.

And on names for any of these hypothetical categories, Enchanting grandfathers in pretty much any name that could be confused with "enchantments".

Thoughts? --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 19:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a situation where Blizzard didn't deign to tell us how to group abilities that apply a permanent bonus. Sometime in the past there was an argument about using the terms augment, enhancement, and enhancer for various items that apply permanent bonuses and it was never fully resolved. I suggest we re-use one of those terms for abilities that apply permanent bonuses, since the use of those terms was never officially indicated anyway.

How about this:

• Augment - An item that applies a permanent bonus to items and is consumed during application. Pretty well established in WoWWiki by now.
• Enhancer - An ability that applies a permanent bonus to items on other players items (but can include the user of the ability's items) and usually consumes some ingredient to use.
• Improvement - An ability that applies a permanent bonus only to the user of the ability's items and usually consumes some ingredient to use. Doesn't conflict with Enhancement which should probably be reserved for the Shaman talent tree and retired as a meaning for anything else.

Amplifier could be an alternative to improvement. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:10 PM PST 3 Apr 2009

Ok, I'm not getting those. Can you provide examples? All I could come up with is: Augment =  [Eternal Belt Buckle], enhancer = ? Only thing I can think of there is an enchant. Improvement = another enchant? The results of an enchanter putting mongoose on a weapon or on a scroll that someone else then uses on a weapon are identical, there's no difference between them aside from the presence of the weapon vellum. The end results are the same. They honestly seem pretty much the same to me. Do we really need a lot of oddball names for things that do the same thing? Items have one permanent change slot and one temporary change slot. You can put mongoose and a sharpening stone on one sword, or +35 agility and a mana oil, but you can't put crusader and a titanium weapon chain on the same weapon. --Azaram (talk) 07:55, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

We're talking about things like Eternal Belt Buckle which are not enchants, but apply permanent bonuses including [Runic Spellthread], [Fur Lining - Attack Power], [Jormungar Leg Reinforcements], [Titanium Plating], etc. Some of these are items and some are abilities. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:10 AM PST 6 Apr 2009

Here's the simple way to look at it, spells and items that overwrite each other are all enchants or augments depending on the source. The *only* thing that does not overwrite these are adding sockets from a blacksmith. These days the line between augment and enchant is fairly blurred thanks to enchanting scrolls, the old logic was augments are items and enchants were obtained directly from an enchanter via the "will not be traded" slot of the trade window. Personally I'd just call sockets an augment and give a note that they don't overwrite enchantments on the item. User:Tekkub/Sig 19:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Does [Socket Gloves] also stack with an enchantment? Don't know that anyone actually reads category descriptions, or I'd suggest a subcat under augments for the socketings (as well as on-page "doesn't take enchantment slot" note). --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 19:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a single coherent opinion on this yet, but I do have some opinion fragments: "Enchantment" should not be used to describe items or spells created by other professions. I lean away from "Enhance" simply because it looks too much like "Enchant" (and also the shaman talents). If there are only three slots -- permanent, temporary, and socketing -- then whatever word is used, they can be categorized as one of those 3 as well. IE we can call them Foobars, and then there are Permanent Foobars, etc. (and we don't need a special other word that means "Permanent Foobar"). It is not important (to me anyway) to name things differently depending on whether it's an item or an ability/spell that creates the enhancement. Whatever scheme is chosen, any new category names should be SHORT! I don't want "World of Warcraft Permanent Emngineering Waist Augment abilities". I guess that adds up to my 10c. -- Harveydrone 21:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

^-- What he said. --Azaram (talk) 10:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Could we all agree on that:

• Imbue is a temporary enhancement, such as mana oils, spellstones etc.
• Enchant(ment) is a permanent enhancement from an enchanter, or an item created by a profession, such as the leatherworking leg armor.
• Augment is a permanent enhancement from an item that is not crafted, such as arcanums.

Blacksmithing sockets (Eternal Belt Buckle, blacksmith-only sockets) are a bit more complicated as they don't fit in either category. --g0urra[T҂C] 11:17, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Since there's no functional difference between the arcanums and a normal enchant made with a foo vellum, is there really a need for a different name...especially since there's only a couple of things named 'arcanum' anyway? It's an item that puts an enchant on a weapon/piece of armor. No real difference, except that the guy who makes it is an NPC instead of IrTehEnhcantarlolz. Personally, I'd lean toward 'add on' or 'addition' just because it's fairly clear, even if it's not in-world foofy. You can add on 40 spellpower, or 35 agility, or a set of spurs, or some oil that gives you mp5...

Eschewing Obfuscation, inter alia, --Azaram (talk) 02:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The auction interface categorizes enchantment scrolls, belt buckles, armor kits and other permanent non-gem equipment upgrade items in Consumable > Item Enhancement, so I think we should consider "item enhancement" the official term. I'm not aware of any official general term for temporary item enhancements such as oils, sharpening stones and lures, the auction interface them in Consumable > Other. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

(Taking this discussion back to the top indentation level...)

• Gourra - I think the definitions I used were...

Imbue - temporary (no change from current)

Augment - permanent (item intercessor)

Enchant - permanent (no object intercessor)

The trouble (as mentioned previously) being the connotations of Enchantment tradeskill upon anything bearing the word "Enchantment". Your definitions roll "enchantment scrolls" into the Enchant category, which I don't particularly object to (given the 1 to 1 mapping), but also rolls eg shield spikes in, which don't have a "non-object" mode.

• Azaram - If there were more arcanums, there'd probably be a category for them specifically. Checked a few arcanums, though, and it appears that though they satisfy the "augment" definition, they currently don't have that category. Perhaps an oversight. They do have "leg enchant" and "head enchant" categories, though.

• Gordon Ecker - I think "Item Enhancement" might be a good replacement for the "enhancers" category, though I'm not sure if it would solve any of the other issues. (Note my earlier comments about Imbues being a bit out of place among the permanent attribute items, but not having a good place for it to go.)--Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:28, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

"Item enhancement" is reasonably ok with me, but you didn't really answer my question... why do we need all these words to mean the same things? Since none of them are used in the game but 'enchant', anybody who sees them in the wiki is going to have to search to find which is what... and to what end? The 'Enchantments by slot' page is one of the most useful... and until I looked just now to get the page title, I'd never seen the Imbue page. Wouldn't even have known to look for it. --Azaram (talk) 10:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

We came up with Augment way back when because Blizzy had no nomenclature for the items. Enchants were not on vellums at that time, and the AH put a *lot* of items under "miscellaneous". It made sense back then. These days I agree that there isn't much need for distinction, and we normally try to stick to Blizzy's names unless they create more confusion (the old gem/jewel crap)... so I say enchants and augments should be rolled together into "Item enhancements". Maybe redirect Enchantments over to the same page, note that the two words can be used interchangeably, and link to the old by-slot page (which really should be broken up into pages for each slot). If smithy sockets are listed on any of these pages, they should include a bold note that they do "stack" with enchants because they aren't actually an enchant. User:Tekkub/Sig 18:02, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

That sounds best / least confusing to me... --Azaram (talk) 01:43, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

So does this mean Fur Linings should just be considered enchants even though you can't put them on other players? I don't like it. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 3:37 PM PST 16 Apr 2009

Since it's exactly like the enchants that enchanters can apply to their own rings, why? --Azaram (talk) 09:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The Patch 3.1.0 notes refer to  [Titanium Plating] as a "shield enhcantment", and refers to "engineering enchants" and "tailoring enchants", so it seems that "enchant" and "enchantment" now officially refer to anything which occupies an item's enchantment slot. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 00:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

External links for spells and talents

I noticed that alot of our spell and talent articles don't have an external links section. So, if you see an article without an external links section, please add it. You can use the {{elinks-spell}} template or the new (in need of optimizing) {{elinks-spell/ranks}} template for spells and talents up to 5 ranks (are there abilities with more than 5 ranks?). --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:51 PM PST 3 Apr 2009

Fireball has, uh... 16? So does Frostbolt iirc. --k_d³ 00:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Oops, I guess I was thinking about talents. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 9:01 PM PST 3 Apr 2009

Okay, added rankadd= param to {{elinks-spell/ranks}} to bump up rank column headings for more ranks.

Example for [Fireball]:

Rank 1	Rank 2
Wowhead WoWDB	Wowhead WoWDB

Rank 1	Rank 2
Wowhead WoWDB	Wowhead WoWDB

Rank 1	Rank 2
Wowhead WoWDB	Wowhead WoWDB

Rank 1	Rank 2
Wowhead WoWDB	Wowhead WoWDB

--Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 10:14 PM PST 3 Apr 2009

Jesus christ. Is that template really needed then? To be honest it should be {{elinks-spell}} and the ID of the highest spell instead of this... this monstrosity. -- g0urra[T҂C] 08:29, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, once you click on the external link you can see the other ranks while there... side note though, rank 1 should probably be the linked one so we don't later on have to go back through the articles to update the id to the next rank upon expansions or even patches that might contain new ranks. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 08:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

What about {{Elinks-talent}}? Should we not use it anymore? Reason is this change by Gourra.--Iggey (talk) 14:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm going with Coobra's trail of thought that only the first rank should be linked through {{elinks-spell}}. Anything else just takes up space, to be honest. Not to mention that when talents get increased/reduced ranks, the last one might no longer be the last one. -- g0urra[T҂C] 14:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Mmm, yeah for simplicity, just link the first rank...of course if we wanted completeness, I could whip up some JS to switch between ranks (using a pull down or something). --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 14:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't get so excited people. I didn't say you MUST include all the external links, it was just a suggestion. Yes, you should use {{elinks-talent}}, if it works for you. The important thing is to start getting external links added for at least the Rank 1 version of a spell or talent. Currently, most of them don't have this. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 10:27 AM PST 4 Apr 2009

I 100% agree that for abilities we should just use the best rank, rather than show a link for all of the fireballs (lolz). While not everyone reaches max level, I think that's good enough.

But I made {{Elinks-talent}} because you don't really know how many ranks someone is using. And 5 is not an overly cumbersome amount to display. -Howbizr (talk) 19:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

60 DK enchantments

Moved to WoWWiki talk:Warcraft pump.

Weapons and Categories

I've become confused. Take an item like  [Gleaming Iceblade]. I expected to see categories of "main hand swords", "one hand swords" "two hand swords", perhaps even "off hand swords". I find "one" and "two"... and a vast bulk of swords in "W.o.W. sword items". Where is the distinction between main handed and "either handed", in weapons categories? --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 23:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Its a work in progress... but I think a discussion, which I was trying to find..but can't, put it on hold. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 00:39, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Ioun knows I have enough on my plate already. I'll just wing it, then. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 17:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Hm... I also notice for the World of Warcraft sword items category page, the two subcategories for one hand and two hand swords aren't displaying, although they are properly categorized and show up in the list correctly in the World of Warcraft weapon items super category. --Wige (T - C) 17:19, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I haven't looked at it myself, but a feature/flaw of mediawiki is that subcategories are alphabetized along with the articles in the category. That is, if the current page displays "apple" through "Elephant", the subcategory "Wombats" won't be shown. Some times, in some places, a point is made to sort subcategories by the space character, putting them on the first displayed page of the category. This doesn't work so well when there are a lot of subcategories, though, and is not (afaik) a standard practice on WoWWiki. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:01, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure you didn't mean something else Eirik? Under Category:World of Warcraft sword items, I can see subcategories right at the top (not in-line with the normal articles).

There is also a way to make very special articles "jump to the top," for example with Category:Jewelcrafting, the Jewelcrafting article is not alphabetized. This was accomplished by forcing no alphabetization:

[[Category:Jewelcrafting|]]

-Howbizr (talk) 19:49, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, Howbizr, you've managed to thoroughly confuse me. I'd mentioned the forced alphabetization in the comment you replied to. (If there were 10 or 20 subcats all forced to the top, though, that would start to be unwieldy IMO.) And for Swords, both categories seem to have been forced to the top, though Two-handed was only forced to "<space>Two-Handed" (from "Two-Handed") after my first post to this topic. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 20:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm attempting to be clearer. When I go to Category:World of Warcraft sword items, this is what I see:

"This category has the following 2 subcategories, out of 2 total.""
"[+] World of Warcraft one-handed sword items"
"[+] World of Warcraft two-handed sword items"
"Pages in category "World of Warcraft sword items""

These are both subcats. Unless there's something I didn't know, nothing special was done to make these show up here. It's just a feature of the wiki.

However, this is different than the Category:Jewelcrafting category, where the page (not sub-cat) Jewelcrafting does not show up under the J section. It just shows up as the first listing. That's because of the code I previously mentioned. When someone added the Category:Jewelcrafting to the Jewelcrafting page, they use the "pipe" notation to force it out of the J section.

Hopefully that was easier to understand.-Howbizr (talk) 22:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Also see the documentation on sort order. -Howbizr (talk) 22:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

NPC Icons

I don't understand the benefit of having an icon next to every NPC (example). In many cases, the icons are distracting, simply too small to see, and making them any larger would take up too much space on the page. I propose that they be removed, and provide a full size image at the linked NPC article. -- Tyrsenus t c 14:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, it's just clutter. It's supposed to show the type of monster, I guess, but that's not all that useful...--Azaram (talk) 10:23, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

This is partly based on the fanaticism of Varghedin for little icons for evey creature in the Warcraft universe (see WoWWiki:List of race and class icons and WoWWiki:List of unique character icons). Apparently his acolytes have a habit of spreading his gospel into the instance pages.

It is not required or necessary, but some people like it. The idea of having mini icons in a list vs. having full-sized images in mob/NPC articles are actually separate issues. All mob/NPC articles should have screenshot images regardless of whether a mini icon appears for them in a list. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 3:06 PM PST 8 Apr 2009

If there's a screenshot on every NPC page, why do we include them for any other reason than "people like them"? Who are these people, or is it just the handful of users that post them that think they're useful? --Tyrsenus t c 01:25, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that they are useful in the way that you don't get bored of seeing just letters; besides it gaves you a small image of the race so you know more or less how they look like without having to go to their article. Benitoperezgaldos (talk) 02:17, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm in the pool of "people who like them" because I find them useful. Of the rare times when I'm browsing the list of NPCs for an area because I don't know the name, I might know something about the character, ie, "female human, she's in Dalaran somewhere but I forget her name and title." It helps draw my eye away from things that wouldn't match, in this example it helps me visually ignore The Filthy Animal and The Underbelly, or at least search them last. -Howbizr (talk) 20:13, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

WoWWiki-skin search box

For some reason, the search function of the WoWWiki skin (the one prior to the Monaco skin) is connected to a Google search. Is there a way to disable it without changing to another skin? The search box just doesn't work right. It doesn't use shortcuts correctly (like PW:S) and you can't enter a new lemma.--Iggey (talk) 22:40, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

See WoWWiki:Searching#Restoring the MediaWiki Search Box. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 22:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Hm, my browser doesn't always use the modified JS-file. I have to reload the page very often. But at least it's a step forward. Thanks.--Iggey (talk) 22:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

URL Links and MediaWiki bug

Ok, so the help for putting in links says to use the double [], and then immediately after the link put | (the vertical bar), and then description as you want it to show. Only problem is, that doesn't actually work. Say you put [[http://www.someplace.com|Link to some place]], then it'll show up as [to some place], the |Link part becomes part of the actual link, the rest shows up as the description. But if you simply put a space instead of the bar, it does it right [Link to some place]. I write on Wikipedia as well, and they mention both methods - the bar and the space - but on their site as well, only the space works, the bar does not. Am I doing it wrong, or is the help wrong that it's possible to do that? Or is it simply the parser that's messed up? The | character is not a valid character in a URL (I even checked with W3C to make sure), and the simple fact that it is included in the URL at all is a grave mistake, especially since the help says it's not supposed to do that. Now the wowwiki version of the help on linking, doesn't actually mention the space method at all, but it does work. I simply normally put double spaces between the link and description to make it more obvious what is link, and what is description. --Metalbunny (talk) 20:23, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Editing/Links. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 20:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

This isn't a bug, you are probably used to using a different wiki markup. The following code works in PMWiki: [[http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml | official WoW site]], but only sort of works in MediaWiki. In MediaWiki, you would use this code: [http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml official WoW site] (note space between end of URL and label) to get official WoW site. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:59 PM PST 8 Apr 2009

Guess what I've been trying to do is what the help page calls a Piped Link (http://www.wowwiki.com/Help:Piped_link), but for the life of me I cannot get it to work. Was actually wondering if it's a localization issue, making the | key on my keyboard into a different character than what MediaWiki expects? I'm using a US keyboard, it's set to US input, but I'm in Canada, and although to my knowledge there's no codepage difference between Canada and US, I'm not sure if Windows knows that. But back to topic: I still cannot find any mention of using a space to put in the description, but if I read Fandyllic's sample right, it is actually a perfectly acceptable method to make the links? I don't really care one way or another how the links have to be written, I just want to be able to do it so they look and work like intended. As long as I don't need spaces in the link there's no problem in using a space to seperate URL and description though. But then there's always %20 if anything else fails to work. --Metalbunny (talk) 07:29, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Got my problem solved. The | character isn't needed, and doesn't work, in links unless there's a colon in the URL of the link. But if there is a colon in the link you have to use it because the space method don't work... How I wish they would've just done it the UBB method... [url=link]description[/url] is in many ways so much more simple and obvious. --Metalbunny (talk) 19:17, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Please follow the full deletion process

I applaud those who have actually made the effort to go through deletion policy process rather than just tagging {{speedydelete}} and hoping you get an agreeable admin, but please try to follow the whole process.

I ran into a couple of pages that seemed to have gotten voted for deletion, but the step of fixing links to the deleted pages was not done.

The part of WoWWiki:Policy/Deletion I'm talking about:

Once the vote closes

Once a vote is closed, the action for the appropriate side is taken:

• If the Delete votes have it:

1. Replace {{Delete/Closing}} tag in the talk page with {{Terminate}}. The voting booth and associated votes are left for the admin to review.
2. Replace {{Delete}} tag in the article page itself with {{Terminate}} tag to mark the article as one that an admin needs to delete.
3. Check What links here and remove links to the article being terminated from live articles.

I don't like going to Special:WantedPages and seeing:

1. Female ‎(304 links)
2. Male ‎(302 links)

--Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 3:44 PM PST 8 Apr 2009

In that particular case, most of the incoming links are from user/realm-space character pages rather than actual articles; which makes it somewhat preferable to leave it to the individual users to maintain their articles rather than go on a editing spree in others' userspaces. Taking a second look at it, most of those links are caused by overzealous linking in templates; which I thought I've axed from {{user male}}/{{user female}}, but there were a few more templates suffering from the same issue.

My oversight on not getting all of the templates; at the same time, I don't perceive the disruption to other content to have been significant as a result of this particular deletion. It's a best faith effort on combatting a chicken-and-egg problem: while the page exists, people create new links to it. -- foxlit (talk) 00:38, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

My general concern was that the articles were deleted rather than just changed to redirects directly. Now to restore the edit history, the articles have to be restored and then changed to redirects (which I'm too lazy to do right now, but may get to). Despite the vote to delete, which I don't totally disagree with, a few people put some work into those articles and a better attempt to preserve some of the info could have been made. There was actually some useful info on those pages about how some gender models for certain races are never seen or ambiguous. Now alot of that info is harder to get to for most folks (who can't see deleted history). --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:52 PM PST 9 Apr 2009

Shared Help live!

I've just enabled Help:Shared Help on WoWWiki. Though it went live across Wikia several months ago, I did not originally enable it for us as the content once appeared above all local content (and we have a lot of local help content). However, it now shows below all local content, and we've got all (hopefully) the little bugs sorted out. Also, I just remembered.

This should mean we may be able to clear some of our own help pages, or at least cut them down a fair bit. The entry point is Help:Contents, as normal, with a full list of pages on Help:Index. Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks pretty good on the dark monaco skin. Where do we report bugs? Via the links called, "Suggest changes here"? --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:50 PM PST 9 Apr 2009

If there are bugs with the way shared help works, I suggest prodding me directly. If there are issues with the content of the shared help pages themselves, use the suggest changes link. Generally I'll pick up on those too, given that I watch the Wikia Help wiki fairly closely, but it's easier to work with that way. Kirkburn  talk  contr 14:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I noticed at Help:Video demos, the blip.tv embedded videos aren't showing up for me on FireFox 3.0.8 (Windows), but they play fine if I follow the link. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:31 AM PST 10 Apr 2009

I've added a note about it to the help page. At the moment, those videos use JS only existing on Wikia Help. Should be able to switch them to the new video extension soon, though. Kirkburn  talk  contr 16:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

NPCs appearing in multiple zones

I've noticed an inconsistency: Hemet Nesingwary and Harrison Jones, for example, each has one page which describes their appearances in multiple places. But there are separate pages for Commander Eligor Dawnbringer in Plaguelands vs in Wintergarde. Also consider Gryan Stoutmantle (in Westfall) and Captain Gryan Stoutmantle in Grizzly Hills, and the different appearances of Chromie, which are basically duplicated on Chronormu. My preference is for a single page for the person, a la Nesingwary, even if the character changes names slightly (as in Stoutmantle's case). Any thoughts? -- Harveydrone 23:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

If they can be put on one page, that would probably be best. For tooltip reasons, you might want to have separate pages if they appear in different places with different stats, especially if they are involved in quests. Hemet Nesingwary should really have two pages because the Nagrand version of him is quite different from the Sholazar basin version. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:56 PM PST 9 Apr 2009

Are we making the pages for the character or for the NPC in the game that represents the character? I guess that's really what it comes down to. The NPCs in-game are basically just another object, like a sword or an armor item. Atleast when it comes to their stats and abilities. In that case, you need a page for each version of the NPC in each location. What I mean is that as much as I can tell, then all the pages on in-game characters are more about the person behind the character (or lore in WoW-speak) than about the actual object that is the representation of the person. For me it would actually make sense to have a page that simply shows the instance of the NPC object (health, stats, abilities, and such) that is being referred to, and a seperate page with the background story for that character, IF and ONLY IF, that character exists in multiple versions (like the Lich King is in several different places with very varied stats). If there's only the one version of the character, or the NPC objects have the same stats at all times, then it makes no sense to seperate the data, but otherwise it'd make more sense to have them seperated so that the lore behind the character is kept in one place, and linked to from the NPC objects. Or maybe it's just me - years of programming change the way you look at things lol. --Metalbunny (talk) 07:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I would probably either have a separate lore page or put the lore that is not tied to an in-game character on the first appearance of a character in-game with a disambig link at the top to other appearances. The game makes it especially confusing, because some characters exist by the same name in different places at the same time and not because thy are part of quest instanced appearance (which adds even more confusion). The reason to separate NPC instances is really to make the tooltip less confusing. Do you want to try to cram all the various stats of various Lick Kings into the same tooltip?

Perhaps to cut down on pages, we could not make separate pages for in-game appearances where they can't be directly interacted with (cut-scene like appearances), but it is complicated. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:25 AM PST 10 Apr 2009

No, I meant make it so you'd have the tooltip that's appropriate for the peticular instance of the NPC that you're talking about at that place of context. Instead of a tooltip that points to a different version than the one in question. Which as I understand it requires a seperate page for each instance where it is different, does it not? Not quite sure which tooltips we're talking about, and why we have them for NPCs to begin with... Obviously making a page for each and every instance would be a little crazy, especially as you say, if you can't interact with them it doesn't matter much. As for the Lich King, the instance of him in astral pre-historic plane of Vangard Port you CAN interact with, and he WILL kill you if you try something funny with him. And it would be proper to have a place to mention that you will get impaled by Frostmourne if you get too close. --Metalbunny (talk) 18:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

So what I'm understanding (from this tiny quorum) is that a separate NPC page is generally warranted if the different instances ought to have different tooltips. This means different level, location, and maybe health? And I do see something of a standard as Fandyllic said, to include a disambig header and character lore only on the "first" NPC page (usually the lower level one), even though this lore usually includes a mention of the "newer" instances of the NPC. I guess it would be nice if there could be multiple tooltips on a single page, and to be able to specify which one appears on a given link, but since I'm not going to take the time to figure that out, I won't actually propose it. For now at least I will refrain from merging NPC articles, and see what other opinions surface. -- Harveydrone 22:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

For NPCs, any NPC article using the {{npcbox}} template should show a tooltip with a subset of info when moused over a link from templates like {{Mob}} or {{NPC}}. Items actually use a {{tooltip}} template, but not all pages that will show tooltips from links will use that template for both separation and historical reasons.

Mob/NPC tooltips are one of the few advantages we have over most DBs (wowhead doesn't show tooltips at all, thottbot doesn't show images or quests, and allakhazam shows map location only).

Setting up pages and links to show tooltips is documented at Help:Tooltips.--Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 3:16 PM PST 14 Apr 2009

So it looks like the whole tooltip code would need to change to support a choice of tooltips for a single target page.

Anyway, what about Andormu? He appears as a both a child and adult, different levels, at the same location. One is a quest giver and the other is a vendor. Ideally, would he have two pages? Or three? Is one page better because there is such a small amount of info for him? -- Harveydrone 19:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

How do I 'turn on' the references, and what category do I put it in?

I created the article on Margulf_Blaggon, because, well, I couldn't find it. Now my question is, how do I turn on the reference section? I'm assuming there's a template for it, but I looked in help under editing and creating pages, and there's no mentioning of references at all (not such a good idea to leave that out of basic help btw) and found nothing. I don't think I've ever created a whole new page that actually requires references, so I've never had to deal with that before. I put in the ref as normal by the context, but it didn't auto-generate the reference section like I thought it did.

Also, this is a character that doesn't exist as NPC in the game, so the NPC boilerplate don't work. That also means I have no clue what category to put this under. He's mentioned in a quest, so obviously it doesn't belong in fiction. But other than that I'm not too sure. --Metalbunny (talk) 18:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Nvm, found what I needed on WoWWiki:Citation. There's still no mention of that in Help under Creating new articles (I know it's probably under article requirements, but there's no clear link to that from that help page either).

Still haven't figured out what to do for category though. Guess I'll go through them and see if anything stands out. --Metalbunny (talk) 18:51, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Put it under Category:Lore_characters for now, seems the most appropriate. Having a hard time figuring out if there would be other categories that would be appropriate. Now I just need to establish return links... --Metalbunny (talk) 19:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I added the article to Category:Lore characters and stubbed it. When in doubt, stub.

Our help files need updating for WoWWiki specifics in many cases and {{cite}} should be mentioned along with the <ref></ref> and <references/> (also {{reflist}}) mechanism.

By the way, if you want to make an internal link to a category, image or template, just put a : (colon) at the beginning, like [[:Category:Lore characters]], [[:Image:Neutral 15.gif]], or [[:Template:Stub/Lore]].--Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:41 PM PST 13 Apr 2009

Been busy with work lately. But thanks. Forgot about the whole stub thing... which is a little odd really since I normally stub everything until 'further notice'. But what exactly is the point in the colon? Just to retain the namespace in the link? --Metalbunny (talk) 22:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

You don't need to put a colon at the beginning when linking to a template: Template:Npcbox and Template:Npcbox is no difference. --g0urra[T҂C] 20:46, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Help:Shared Help, see Help:Cite. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:11 PM PST 13 Apr 2009

Cite early!

Cite often! --SWM2448 00:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

What a cite to see! --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 17:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Gear/Equipment Manager

A'noob just copied/pasted the content from Gear Manager into Equipment Manager and placed a {{speedydelete}} into the former article. It should have been moved and not copied, because of the page history. Perhaps an admin could revert his changes, delete Equipment Manager and move Gear Manager to Equipment Manager?--Iggey (talk) 16:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Ask Gourra what he did exactly. It looks like he moved Gear Manager to Equipment Manager which effectively deleted the previous Equipment Manager article, but kept the Gear Manager history. This effectively killed the Equipment Manager history, so there's not much else to say. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:21 PM PST 13 Apr 2009

If you look at the article's revision history you'll see that, as an admin, you can see what was written on previous revision before they were deleted. But I guess you already know that. --g0urra[T҂C] 20:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any deletion history for Equipment Manager, so I just am hoping it was a redirect before it got deleted for the move. The history for Equipment Manager as it now looks like the old Gear Manager history to me. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:48 PM PST 13 Apr 2009

Because the deleted revisions already got restored. --g0urra[T҂C] 21:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Equipment Manager wasn't more than just a redirect. Then a deletetion-request was added (so that Gear Manager could be moved) and then the copy/paste from A'noob (which was the latest change of Gear Manager). So there is nothing lost.--Iggey (talk) 22:35, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Same goes for [Sanctified Crusader] -> [Sanctified Seals] -> [Sanctity of Battle].--Iggey (talk) 14:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Untitled

How do I start a new article especially concerning the new patch. Thx-Roonwraith -- 1234flame (talk) 02:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

There is already an article on the new patch, entitled Patch 3.1.0. But if you want to create a new article, either create a red link like this, then follow the link. Or type it into the URL, for example: http://www.wowwiki.com/Create_a_red_link.

You might want to rename this section heading - I just added one as a placeholder. -Howbizr (talk) 21:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Another Project: Glyph improvements

Had a greater interest in glyphs lately (wonder why?...) and was wondering if they'd been cross-linked in ability articles. Turns out they haven't. Or not uniformly. I took [Heroic Strike] for an example. After Talent Improvements I picture a Glyph Improvements section, describing those (few) glyphs that affect that ability.

For Heroic Strike in particular, there are more glyphs that affect it than simply  [Glyph of Heroic Strike], though I imagine that there are others with only one glyph affecting them, or perhaps even none.

So, another slug of work, if someone feels interested in it. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 17:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

See also WoWWiki talk:Village pump#Split and merge Glyph pages into Talents and Talent Builds above. I'd say the Talents section should be generalized to talents and/or glyphs, and simply be called "Improvements". The infobox could also have glyphs added. -- Harveydrone 19:13, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of complicating info boxes, but talents/abilities are not really my area of interest. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 19:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I haven't gotten around to it, but I've thought about making a page (possibly per class) to organize glyphs by function. So while paladin glyphs is useful, it would be more useful if they were grouped (and repeating under multiple sub-headings is okay) such as "threat" "improved healing" "damage" "aoe" "endurance" etc. But I'm not sure when I'd have time. -Howbizr (talk) 21:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Or maybe it would be a grid design... Just some ideas. -Howbizr (talk) 21:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

If you see strange advertisement behavior or other peculiar stuff

...please put a comment on WoWWiki talk:Working with Wikia or the talk page of an admin.

As part of an ongoing effort to help Wikia maintain and increase their revenue sources we^† have agreed to let Wikia test certain advertising schemes (see WoWWiki:Working with Wikia) on WoWWiki from time to time. Also, comment here at the Village pump,if you're not sure if it is related.

We will try to make sure your concerns are heard by Wikia. Rest assured, Wikia understands the importance of WoWWiki among its wikis and has been thoughtful about how it approaches advertising here. Being the biggest Wikia wiki gives us influence, but it also makes us the best place to make money. Double-edged sword, as they say.

Also, if you disagree with how representatives were picked and would like a new vote to pick new representatives, make your thoughts known on WoWWiki talk:Working with Wikia. It would be helpful if at least one representative was able to travel to the Wikia San Francisco office, but it is not required. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 6:06 PM PST 16 Apr 2009

^† Representatives voted on here.

"Too Long; Didn't Read"

I'd like to suggest creating a template flagging articles that are overly long, similar if not identical to Wikipedia's {{Verylong}}. Many articles on Wowwiki nowadays could be written much more concisely, contain redundant information, or IMO are better off broken into sub-pages.

On a similar topic, has anyone considered implementing a "theory" tab to contain speculation, as Lostpedia does? -- Tyrsenus t c 22:33, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I would support such a designation. IMO, there are 3 categories of long articles:

1. Listing based, which can be managed with {{ajax}} to improve usefulness and load time
2. Wordy articles, just need skilled editing to be more concise
3. Information overkill, for a lack terminology, like Northrend gems table. I'm sure the intentions were good, but this article is way past useful, in my opinion. I doubt it is the only one.

-Howbizr (talk) 15:55, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I made a copy of Wikipedia:Article size at WoWWiki:Article size as a start for a guideline proposal. I fixed most of the links and made it a little more WoWWiki friendly, but it could use tons of editing and chopping down before it goes to a vote. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:08 AM PST 20 Apr 2009

The irony... The WoWWiki:Article size might be a candidate for being downsized. Thanks for the import! -Howbizr (talk) 20:39, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm glad I'm not the only one that sees a need for this. It looks like a rainbow threw up on that gem page. --Tyrsenus t c 21:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I too have referenced barf when viewing this page. There is a very lengthy discussion (again, the irony, "too long, didn't read") about the fate of the plethora of jewelcrafting articles, if you want to dive in. -Howbizr (talk) 21:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

LOL it does. I do not disagree, but I would like to know more examples of what Tyrsenus thinks is too long.--SWM2448 21:23, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

History of the Horde is a good example, and I suspect there's some Fair Use issues with that article as well. --Tyrsenus t c 03:59, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Just thought I would throw this out there. There is a special page that lists long articles based on file size, Special:LongPages. This might give a good starting point for finding candidates for shortening. --Wige (T - C) 14:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Another project: Vehicle category

Vehicle: something you get in, which has its own HP (and optionally mana, fury, energy, etc), and its own abilities. Example: Alliance Steam Tank. Lots of quests have these. Sometimes they are mechanical vehicles, sometimes drakes, and sometimes illusions. Most often, they are only available for a particular quest. Some are available at any time with particular restrictions (WG tanks, Grizzly Hills shredders). I think it is a distinct enough description that a category could be made for them. As usefully, a boilerplate of some sort could be created for their abilities. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 18:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you asking to get a boilerplate made for vehicle articles, or do you mean we should create a Category:Vehicles? -Howbizr (talk) 20:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

A split may be needed of lore vehicle vs in-game vehicles if that happens. I am also reminded of this.--SWM2448 21:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Good point, SWM. You're right. A split would be needed. Howbizr, both boilerplate and category. (Now, category distinct from 'lore vehicles', whatever those may consist of.) --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I like this idea. I had started a very small sampling of the vehicles (game-wise) I've encountered, here, fwiw. -- Harveydrone 23:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason Engineer-made flying machine mounts aren't on your list, Harveydrone? --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 6:11 PM PST 20 Apr 2009

The UI is that of a mount, perhaps?--SWM2448 01:25, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay well then that needs to be spelled out a little more clearly. I'm not sure "vehicle" is really the right name. Vehicle implies mechanical, but really this list is about destructible mounts, in many ways. Also, we already have a Vehicles article which is a more lore oriented list and needs to be updated (aka it is pretty cr@ppy). I'm not sure why the article isn't "vehicle" (singlular). We should probably distinguish between the in-game definition of a vehicle (based on characteristics and UI for using) and the lore version of vehicle which is more about things you ride on and tend to be mechanical. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 10:20 AM PST 21 Apr 2009

-> Fandy: What SWM said, I think. The "vehicles" on my user page (and what I understand Eirik means) are those with the new UI introduced along with Wrath, with its own abilities, usually own action bar, own health, etc. Yes, there is a terminology issue since "vehicle" is a normal word for other things in the Warcraft universe (ie, any non-living thing that goes). And for that matter, some "vehicles" are actually animals. I was thinking in the context of the Vehicles (mechanic) page (which also should be singluar). I thought I heard that this was Blizzard's term for the new mechanic/UI, but I'd have to find a source for that. -- Harveydrone 21:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

EDIT: From [[2]]: refers to "new vehicle-based content", and that "certain types of vehicles and mounts can now carry passengers". Not that Blizzard's terminology is always the best, but I believe this is where the term came from. -- Harveydrone 16:48, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

There's also vehicle like mounts that don't have special abilities. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 06:18, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Are there still vehicles that haven't been changed to mounts? I know my  [Traveler's Tundra Mammoth] was converted, and I thought the hogs were as well. -Howbizr (talk) 13:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

There are a lot of items in the game which Blizzard defines as "vehicles" - quest "mounts", siege engines such as those in Ulduar and Wintergrasp, cannons (the stationary ones in Wintergrasp and SoA), certain Drakes and Giants, the horses running around the Path of Iron in Grizzly Hills (when on certain quests) and more. There are many different varieties. Not all move, not all can be owned by a player (not sure if any can post 3.1), not all are mechanical, not all require being on a quest, etc. The only thing they have in common is that they have their own hitpoints and sometimes their own abilities and resource pool, and they trigger their own UI when used.

As others have posted above, I think the term "vehicles" is broad and misleading. The most fitting name I could think of was "World of Warcraft mountable objects", which while fitting, just doesn't quite sound appropriate. It is important to remember that riding mounts are actually spells that change your appearance and speed, whereas the things we are discussing here are actual in-game objects. Without a rider, they are still visible in game (although a new copy may be spawned on use) and when in use they are targeted separately from the user. --Wige (T - C) 14:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I understand how Harveydrone decided on "vehicle" as a name for this type of thing, I'm just saying we need to make the distinctions clear in any main namespace articles. Also, the Blizzard quote says, "vehicles and mounts can now carry passengers," so it isn't even clear from that that Blizzard would say a vehicle is something with the new UI, since they mention mounts as well. Maybe we should have a Vehicle-based UI article that describes the UI and lists the occasions where it appears along with the devices, mounts, vehicles, etc. I'm not too fond of "World of Warcraft mountable objects" since that conflates these types of things with in-game objects which many are not. Maybe just Category:World of Warcraft mountables and have that category in other categories like Category:World of Warcraft mount items, Category:World of Warcraft quest items (which is still Category:Quest items), etc.? It looks like we need new categories for siege vehicles in-game, regardless. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:29 AM PST 22 Apr 2009

I personally like the name World of Warcraft mountables for the category, although I think we would need to make it clear on the category page that it does not include mounts, which are spells. Mountables are, as far as I can tell, objects. Even the ones that you purchase as mounts are objects, albeit objects that players summon - they can be targeted and interacted with by other players, have their own attributes, etc. I don't think the category for these items should be in the mounts category (they aren't all mounts, such as the cannons in Wintergrasp) or the quests category, since many are not related to quests. Another name I was considering was "World of Warcraft player controlled objects", which would be distinguished from pets (which are player controlled mobs). However, not all mountables are controlled by the player. Some, such as the planes from Dalaran to Icecrown and Shalozar Basin, and the plane used in Shalozar Basin after obtaining Cold Weather Flying have the player as a passenger, either simply riding in the object, or controlling some abilities but not the actual travel path. --Wige (T - C) 14:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I think "Mountables" is apt enough to be useful without being wordy. I think the mountables category probably should be a subcat from objects, but many items in it should also be considered under "mount", "quest item" etc. "Vehicle-based UI" is pretty much what Vehicles (mechanic) covers currently. You would prefer the name changed?

I'd be hard pressed, Wige, to include the Dalaran-Sholazar Basin plane ride in this category, as it does not offer you the vehicle UI. (I had termed that type of thing a Tour.)

Another thought: "Vehicle Passenger" is different from "Mountable". For instance, the Wintergrasp Siege Engine has two "Mountables" positions (driver, gunner), and two passenger positions. The Mechano-hog has one passenger position. Passengers, in this distinction, have only a minimal UI (leave vehicle).

And yet another: The Karazhan Chess game event, and the Blade's Edge Transporter event. Anyone know if they've been rewritten to use the vehicle UI? --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 18:59, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Good point about the tours. I was probably thinking of the flight after the Cold Weather Flying, where you are just a passenger in the vehicle but have access to the vehicle UI. There is also the Thrusting Hodir's Spear quest - when you attack the dragon you are using the vehicle UI, although you are not exactly a passenger in a vehicle. There are a few others in the opening quest chain for Sons of Hodir that have a similar mechanic. However, they do still follow the spirit of being "mountable" so the name would apply.

As far as vehicle passenger, in the case of the seige engine and the Mechano-hog passengers, would the distinction matter, since the object still has a driver who has a full UI? I know there are some mountables that have a very minimal UI (looking at Bartender, it seems that there is a vehicle bar with three slots that can be used in place of the full vehicle UI - most commonly seen when in a passenger slot) and an NPC driver, but should a distinction be made for them in the category? I guess what I am getting at is, would subdividing the category based on how controllable the object is or which UI modification it triggers be useful, or just confuse readers? Or would we actually want everything to be in subcategories: siege engines, cannons, dragons, etc.? --Wige (T - C) 14:33, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Would anyone consider re-licensing or dual-licensing WoWWiki?

For those interested about wiki licensing issues (to some considered the wiki-equivalent of watching paint dry ), you might want to read w:Forum:Licensing update. Personally, I'm not sure I want to understand more, but for anyone knowledgeable and interested, anyone who could provide a summary of the issues would be great.

From what I could glean this mostly affects wikis who might want to import stuff from Wikipedia or other wikis. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 6:20 PM PST 20 Apr 2009

CC-BY-SA seems to be more friendly to the wiki metaphor and is written better for derivative works. See the license comparison on Meta. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 01:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

WoWWiki 1.14 beta site

We have a beta site for WoWWiki on MediaWiki 1.14 live at http://beta.wowwiki.com - it shares the database with the current site, so edits show up on both. If you have a few moments while editing, it would be great if you could take a quick look at the beta site to check if it looks and functions normally. If you do spot any issues with the beta site, I recommend posting on w:Forum:MediaWiki 1.14 upgrade. The plan is for the upgrade to go live here early next week. Thanks! Kirkburn  talk  contr 15:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm seeing an infobox problem- the background is missing.--Ragestorm (talk · contr) 17:24, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Got an example link of the infobox issue? I checked out a couple of articles and they look okay here. Also, what browser and OS are you on? Thanks :)

For those of you on the old wowwiki skin, it has also been updated with the base monobook changes since around MW 1.5 - it should only mean improvements, but I recommend taking a look around to check it hasn't broken anything. Kirkburn  talk  contr 11:10, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen any obvious issues using the dark monaco skin. Well, except the slowness . --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:19 PM PST 24 Apr 2009

I'm on Safari 3.2.1 for OS X.4.11, but it looks like it's been resolved. --Ragestorm (talk · contr) 14:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.14 is now live on the site! Kirkburn  talk  contr 14:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, imagelink can go away in 95% of circumstances: <-- clicking this will take you to the main page! Code is [[File:Wiki.png|30px|link=Portal:Main]] Kirkburn  talk  contr 17:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Oooh, I guess I have to go around converting the templates. A long time in coming, but good to see. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:00 PM PST 29 Apr 2009

Make sure that when you use the new imagelink syntax to supply alt text! {{cost}} was rather nastily broken in text mode until this edit.

Which reminds me, cost is due for a revamp. Take a look at the bottom of the talk page to see what I have in mind. --k_d³ 04:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Help!

I accidentally deleted the paladin overview. Could someone please help me restore it? -- Jacobthomasm (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

"accidentally" Sure... new contributor, 2 edits, 2 vandalism "accidentally" for sure...

Loremaster A'noob, Arch Druid of the Noobhoof Clan (talk) 22:48, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Assume good faith. He admitted it. Wait until it continues to throw around harsh words. Then feel free to.--SWM2448 23:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Are the WotLK vehicles Steam Tanks or Siege Engines?

From User talk:Fandyllic#Steam tank is out of date for WotLK?.

Are the tanks in Wrath of the Lich King Steam tanks or Siege engines? I am speaking of this thing. I think it is a siege engine. In Stormwind Harbor, unusable vehicles that look a lot like the WCIIIx siege engines are shown being turned into these. Blizzard called the model a Siege Engine at the WWI.[3] The only difference between the Horde and Alliance ones is color by the way.[4] Alliance Steam Tank, Reed's Steam Tank, Refurbished Steam Tank, Salvaged Siege Engine, Wintergrasp Siege Engine, and Wrecked Siege Engine all have the same model.--SWM2448 23:31, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

This came up because I thought they were steam tanks, but SWM pointed out they might be siege engines. There really isn't a model in WoW currently like the old WC3 steam tank. The  Flame Leviathan looks more like the WC3 steam tank, but not exactly. Any thoughts? --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:10 PM PST 24 Apr 2009

In reality the new model is some new design we have not previously seen, that just happens to share the classification of both steam tank and steam engine. Those two terms however also specifically refer to two different unique tank designs used during Third War period. Steam tank (has a grill) and siege engine (roller treads for ramming). Its confusing but its not really a contradiction.

My suggestion create a third article "tank" to discuss the issue in more detail.Baggins (talk) 05:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Baggins, you made Tank, but you did not merge the info from Siege engine into it. Is there a reason for that, or is that just an oversight?--SWM2448 17:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

1. Its a stub.

2. Siege engine is linked in the article.

3. Note, siege vehicle as its own article.

Baggins (talk) 17:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

darktable

How do i find the CSS for "darktable" and other table properties handled by the class? I'd like to have a look at them for another wiki  - Zurgat talk / cont  17:43, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Mediawiki:Common.css is site-wide, no matter the theme. MediaWiki:Monaco.css is the default theme which may (or may not) contain some overrides.

Do a text search for 'darktable' on those pages to find the relevant declarations. --k_d³ 17:57, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

WoWWiki screenshot contest!

I'm proud to announce the WoWWiki screenshot contest, where you can win one of five copies of the new novel Arthas: Rise of the Lich King! Check out wowwikievent.wikia.com for more details! Kirkburn  talk  contr 18:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Note, the contest is open until May 4th! Kirkburn  talk  contr 11:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

As of now, every template but Beauty seems to put things in Humor.--SWM2448 21:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I already fixed that just a few moments ago, it apparently takes time for the files to move themselves. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 22:05, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Poll test

Cool. And so easy. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:16 PM PST 27 Apr 2009

Is this a test like the title says or a serious poll?--SWM2448 00:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a test. I figured I should make a realistic poll for a test. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:30 PM PST 27 Apr 2009

Forum support

Is WoWWiki ever going to get Forum support? I noticed Forum namespace appears in Special:Search. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:39 PM PST 29 Apr 2009

That means the forum namespace exists, it's just unused at the moment. Help:Forum has steps to set up the style of forum seen on other wikis (like Central Wikia) ... however, we do not have the extensions it relies on enabled at the moment - those being DPL and DPLforum. We can likely go for it, but I'll need to pass it by the techs in case it could cause us slowdown issues.

Opinions? The fact this page is at 86 posts is somewhat indicative, I guess :P Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:24, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Is a separate page for every post needed? I do not think so. The current forum/pump system seems to be working just fine.--SWM2448 23:30, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

For archiving purposes and sticky topics, the forum is much nicer. It would be good to know the performance impact, though. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:33 AM PST 4 May 2009

DPL is bad. I know using it causes slowdown on the page it's being used, not sure about for the rest of the wiki just turning it on. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 18:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

DPLforum is now enabled - you can start creating a forum :) It's separate to DPL, and isn't for use on articles, so should have limited effect. Kirkburn  talk  contr 11:53, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, now we need to work out which forum areas to create. Any suggestions? How about: General, Policy, Technical, Warcraft lore, Warcraft gaming. Kirkburn  talk  contr 13:33, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

We might as well be a little more specific. How about: WoWWiki general, WoWWiki policy, Wiki help, Lore, WoW, RPG, RTS, TCG, and Other gaming. In my mind, Other gaming would include the board games mostly, but I think there are some other Warcraft games out there (miniatures?).

Kirkburn, what did you mean by "Technical"? Was it game mechanics or wiki stuff? Also, I assume Warcraft is assumed for lore and gaming, so that's why I would rather distinguish between the types of games. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 9:59 AM PST 5 May 2009

By technical I meant wiki technical (templates, server, extensions). Regarding the non-WoWWiki forums, I'm not sure how far we'd want to go down that road - lore and RPG overlap a great deal, for example. Kirkburn  talk  contr 18:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

How about "World of Warcraft" (replacing Warcraft Pump), "Policy", "Technical" and "Lore" (replacing Village Pump), and "Warcraft gaming". "Warcraft gaming" would be about other games other than World of Warcraft. --g0urra[T҂C] 13:43, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Reading quests

(I'm new at doing anything on a wiki besides reading them, so cut me some slack if this is in the wrong place or something.)

Back when I first started playing WoW, I used to read every line of every quest. A couple of friends called me a noob so I ended up skipping the quest text and only reading what is necessary to finish the quest. I've always been interested in the lore. I find it hard to play ANY game without enjoying the storyline. It seems like lately I've been even more interested in the lore, especially with some of the WotLK quests. I was considering rolling a new character and keeping him as my "lore character". I was planning to read every quest and soak in all the lore that I can while I play him. He'll be an alt, though.

Sound like a good idea? Anyone else have suggestions?

-- Spectro87 (talk) 18:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I still read just about every quest, and I have a hard time following the lore (who's battling who, and why, and the various alliances and heros and such).

The only people I know who do really understand what's going on read the books. Not the in-game books, but the actual warcraft lore books. Not to discourage you from reading the quests, but I think most of them give limited insight, and just mention a lot of names and places without much context. The books that are lying around in the world however might, and you don't need to roll an alt to run into plenty of those.

That's my 2 cents anways. -Howbizr (talk) 19:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm considering starting to read the books. I just get mad at myself for not understand what's going on when it seems really interesting. I remember seeing an area in Borean Tundra or maybe Howling Fjord where half of a city was plagued. I was thinking.. what the hell happened here?

Also, I hope I'm doing this right. I don't really know how to use Wikis, as I said. :P -Spectro87 (talk) 19:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I recommend reading the synopses of various lore events in WoWWiki, if you don't have access to the books immediately. You can start at lore and then dig into Warcraft universe. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:29 AM PST 4 May 2009

STUPID LAG!

Moved to Warcraft pump. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:25 AM PST 4 May 2009

WoWWiki and Xfire in-game browsing!

Xfire in action

Take WoWWiki wiki in-game!

Fresh from a partnership with Xfire, we are proud to announce that WoWWiki will serve as the default in-game web browser for Xfire while playing WoW. That’s right, no more alt-tabbing, throw away your second monitor, close your laptop, put your pants back on... er, you get the picture. Check out Xfire's browser page for more details.

Been living in a cave and haven’t heard of ‘em? Xfire is the number #1 gaming application for PC gamers. In under 6MB, Xfire enhances a users gaming through in game chat, stat tracking and guild hosting. Xfire also allows users to live broadcast their gameplay, capture and upload in-game video and screenshots. Recently Xfire also went live with Pro Voice, which provides free server-hosted voice chat accessible in and out of game. So having Xfire with you in-game is pretty much like having MacGyver in your guild.

You may also notice the screenshot (right) shows Portal:Mobile - this is a new portal designed specifically for low powered devices.

Kirkburn  talk  contr and Doug 19:04, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't get it. Do you mean WoWWiki will be the default homepage for people using the Xfire browser? Spectro87 (talk) 01:37, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Basically yup :) (Steam can provide similar overlay functionality, but it's not as advanced) Kirkburn  talk  contr 17:22, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

System Requirements

From Download XFire...

System Requirements

• PC with a Pentium Processor running Windows 2000, XP, or Vista
• 10 MB available hard drive space
• Desktop resolution of 800 x 600 at 256 colors

Additional Requirements for Xfire In-Game

• DirectX 9.0c or higher
• Video Driver that supports DirectX 9.0c

Maybe like having MacGyver in your guild, but no Mac support. --Beware the sneaky smile! Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:20 AM PST 4 May 2009

Watchlist change

Has something happened to the watchlist recently? There's some box that's been added and it annoys be because the page now doesn't display as many entries as before. Is it me or am I imagining it all? The box I'm talking about is called "Watchlist options". -- 04:48, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Working fine for me. Tweak your preferences on the Watchlist tab to show a larger size. I'm showing 3 days and 250 edits, which is plenty for me. --k_d³ 17:43, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

"Log in to edit"

On a page that was locked, I got the tab "View Source (Log in to edit)" despite the fact that I was logged in at the time. How about changing the text for that case to "View Source (page locked)"? --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Gah, there's always something - I may have to switch it back to "View Source" only, given the naming issues. Kirkburn  talk  contr 10:53, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Is it just me, or do the horde seem to win most BGs?

Moved to WoWWiki talk:Warcraft pump#Is it just me, or do the horde seem to win most BGs?