GuildWiki talk:Community portal/Archive 23

CATcha
(Reset indent) I have changesets prepared to update ConfirmEdit (replace ReCaptcha with Asirra and modify the triggers) and to install AbuseFilter (no sense ignoring a tool that could be useful). I will push them to the repository as soon as we agree that there is consensus for these changes.

Also, @Giga: Have you begun to pursue the direct access with Donovan? &mdash;Dr Ishmael 21:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If we get AbuseFilter, I'm not sure we'll need to update the CATcha triggers. --JonTheMon 13:46, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * They serve different purposes. ConfirmEdit is preventive, while AbuseFilter is reactive.  You can't define filters in advance for every single attack that will happen in the future, but if the bots can't save any edits in the first place, you'll have fewer successful attacks that require a response.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 14:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I can live with that. --JonTheMon 14:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I have every confidence in you (plural you) and fully support your decisions. A_F_K_sig_2.jpg A F K When Needed 15:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm going to request that the AbuseFilter extension be installed today. We are using it on the Terraria Wiki quite successfully against these types of gibberbots that started attacking early yesterday. Jon created the filter, and overnight it disallowed 99 gibber edits. You can choose to use it or not, but if you wish to see anon edits re enabled, it's probably the fastest solution. While it's not perfect, it's a relatively easy. -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  13:18, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Great, thanks! I'm also pushing the ConfirmEdit change to Asirra (or CATcha as Jon likes to say :P ), but without the new trigger settings - it will still only trigger if a new external link is added, when creating an account, and after 3 failed login attempts.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 15:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * CATcha is live. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it's not. --31.150.9.250 21:09, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Try with a link to an extremely unlikely page to have been linked before, say, here (random link to random amazon). "it will still only trigger if a new external link is added, when creating an account, and after 3 failed login attempts." ∵Scythe∵ 23:48, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a nice sofa. If it only blocks new external links, we could just add links to the spamlist as they come up. Eventually we'll run out of old ones. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 01:30, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's no sofa! (it's a slipcover, they're made to prevent your cushions from becoming threadbare.) ∵Scythe∵ 02:13, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sofa is the last word in the product title, therefore it's a sofa. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 04:13, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You're all idiots, for different reasons.
 * @Mr. IP: You added those links on the Sandbox within an HTML comment. That's not actually adding a link to the page, because it isn't displayed.
 * @Scythe: "a new external link" means a new link on that article, not new to the wiki overall. That's just dumb.
 * I know it was enabled because I tested it - I logged out, then added a link to an article that wasn't on the article before and was not hidden in a comment. Asirra was triggered.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 04:50, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Asirra was installed on GuildWiki and another Curse wiki yesterday, but after testing it was discovered that it was blocking new user registrations for some reason. It's been removed and ReCaptcha has been installed until they can figure out what the problem is with Asirra (or another alternative). -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  05:09, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "You're all idiots" seems like a bit of a harsh critique... :'( ∵Scythe∵ 13:47, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Goobers? &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 14:04, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That may be a personal attack depending on whether you mean nostril mucus or the delicious candy. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 15:01, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Goober = peanut (and the chocolate-coated peanut candy), booger = snot. I've never heard of "goober" referring to the other.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 15:29, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess I've confused anagrams with synonyms again. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 16:40, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You're all idiots, that wasn't a srs omfgwtfbbq he called me an idiot. ∵Scythe∵ 22:58, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * A village is calling, they want their idiots back. ;-) Ariyen 03:36, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Downtime
Working on the assumption that the downtime will become a topic of conversation, I provide a link to Curse's explanation for the downtime. Nwash  12:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Curse changed our footer
Curse made a number of changes to our base code today, one of which was to add an additional copyright notice to the Curse footer.

"GuildWiki content and materials are trademarks and copyrights of ArenaNet or its licensors. All rights reserved."

This is incorrect. GuildWiki content is not copyrighted at all, it is free content under the Creative Commons. The only content that is copyrighted by ArenaNet is images that are screenshots, concept art, or other game assets, and this is clearly specified by the template on each image's page.

This needs to be communicated to Curse, and it should probably come from a bureaucrat (**coughFelixcough**). &mdash;Dr Ishmael 14:42, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm reading this!! -- Bumble talk 14:48, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah, alrighty then. It's hard to tell when anyone from Curse is actually paying attention to our discussions here.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:08, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I just noticed something else. They updated our license from CC 2.0 to CC 3.0.  I don't think that's allowed?  Not without consent of the majority of the editors, anyway.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:33, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Ugh, another bad change:
 * We do NOT want normal users to be able to suppress redirects. This was something we corrected right after moving to Curse.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:40, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * We do NOT want normal users to be able to suppress redirects. This was something we corrected right after moving to Curse.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:40, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I pushed a new version of LocalSettings.php to correct these issues. Please install it ASAP.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 17:08, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, I'm just 'wtf?' at these changes.

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;

$wgAutoConfirmAge = 345600; $wgAutoConfirmCount = 5;

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createpage'] = false; $wgGroupPermissions['user']['createpage'] = false; $wgGroupPermissions['autoconfirmed']['createpage'] = true; $wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['createpage'] = true;
 * You've completely disabled anonymous editing again, and you're preventing anonymous and non-autoconfirmed users from creating pages. You've also instituted requirements for a user to be autoconfirmed: 4 days and 5 edits.  Why?  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:45, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm hoping this is just a mistake. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 20:31, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If it weren't for the GuildWiki-specific changes to LocalSettings, I would almost think that they somehow forked our repo with another wiki. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 20:35, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Anonymous editing has been re-enabled, the license change has been reverted, and the Curse footer now says "GuildWars content and materials..." No explanation yet for the autoconfirmed time/edit requirements or the createpage restrictions. &mdash;Dr Ishmael 14:37, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Curse changed our extensions
Curse made a number of changes to our extensions this morning. Since I'm the only one with repository access anymore, I'll summarize the changes here. Also, since Bumble already has her eyes on this page, maybe she can provide an explanation for some of these changes. (I'm not going to bother signing the individual sections, I think y'all are smart enough to figure it out.) &mdash;Dr Ishmael  16:28, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

AntiBot
This isn't doing anything right now because it runs off of modules, and WikiMedia isn't releasing the source code for their modules (so the botters can't adapt to them). Curse would have to write their own modules, or somehow finagle them out of WM people, for this to do anything.

Cite
Might be useful, but going forward we would develop an inconsistency between old and new articles, unless we could get people to volunteer for going through and updating old pages (where we've adapted a strategy of in-line linking for the most part). If we'd had this from the beginning, that would've been great. Now, though, it's a "too little too late" scenario.

EmbedVideo
Everything EmbedVideo does we can already do with widgets. Granted, it combines all video sites into a single function, whereas we have to create a new widget for each site, but I don't recall anyone complaining that we don't have a widget for DailyMotion or Revver. Also, we can easily customize the widgets in-wiki versus having to update the extension code.

Nuke
I assume they installed this as a reaction to the recent bot attack; unfortunately, it would have been useless during that attack, for two reasons. 1) It's only useful against page-creation spam, and the attack was primarily edits to existing pages. 2) It's only useful if all the spam is from a single user/ip, and our attacker was using a botnet and/or rolling proxies. I guess there's no harm in having it around, though, unless one of our admins goes feral and starts abusing it (not likely).

ConfirmEdit
It looks like they dropped the ReCaptcha version of the extension and installed the base version instead. The problem is that, without an additional configuration option, they have replaced ReCaptcha with... wait for it... SimpleCaptcha. All this does is present a simple math problem, in plain-text. ReCaptcha may have been compromised, but this is even worse.

InputBox
They removed the code that allows the use of 'type=create'. Not sure why they did that, but it doesn't really affect us. The same functionality is available in CreateBox, which we also have installed, so I guess it was redundant in any case.

SpamBlacklist
They removed the link threshold check, where it only allows 5 external links to be added to a page in a single edit. I don't know why they did this, since link-spam is a common form of vandalism. SimpleCaptcha certainly isn't going to stop it.

New users
New users seem to be getting this while trying to create their accounts: A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "SpoofUser::getConflicts". Database returned error "1146: Table 'guildwiki.spoofuser' doesn't exist (10.0.0.55:5002)".

Made worse by the fact that they can't make anonymous edits to complain about being unable to create accounts. Yamagawa 19:29, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Huh. I wonder if that wasn't what was blocking account creation before, and not Asirra.  If only I had direct access I could change things around and run some tests right now, but alas...  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 20:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * New user creation works now. Kaelten created the missing table.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 14:35, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

New skill box format
&rarr; Moved to: New skill box format and GuildWiki talk:New skill box format

Tonight's attack
Sorry guys, I was busy delivering pizza tonight (or rather, I was busy standing around the store waiting for people to make orders so I *could* deliver some pizza... unusually slow for a Saturday). It looks like we actually blocked a significant number of potential edits with AbuseFilters [ 3] and [ 4], but they weren't quite good enough to catch everything.

So I tweaked them a bit, and they now match every vandal edit that got through tonight (as well as the ones that have been blocked by filter 1 since it was enabled), without any false positives. I also marked them as Private, so the botters can't adapt to the new conditions. I haven't disabled filter 1 yet, because I'm going to bed, and I'd rather someone were on hand to monitor things before we open the floodgates again. &mdash;Dr Ishmael 04:26, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Seems you guys are still dealing with it - great job on keeping up with them, and keep up the good work everyone. I'm still positive it's the work of 1 PC, due to the IP address spoofing (hello, 127.0.0.1?? - that's the web server GuildWiki runs on haha). If only we could track it back to it's source and bitch slap 'em :P Aloha, Mauirixxx 18:05, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Facebook Extension?
Any chance we could get the option to login via Facebook via this extension? I know it was an option when we were on Wikia (I even used it) - I'm just curious as to why we don't use it now? If anything, it may encourage some anonymous editors to login/create an account .... no? THoughts? Aloha, Mauirixxx 20:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Errrrhhhh, Facebook? You crazy, bro? Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 08:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No, and my mommy had me tested too. Just curious as to why the hate towards the facebook connector? Aloha, Mauirixxx 22:50, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Facebook is for the faceless masses, and we're all rugged individualists here. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 22:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * But if they create an account here ... they wont be faceless anymore ... no? Aloha, Mauirixxx 22:57, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Probably because it reminds us of Wikia, and most of us "veterans" felt it was just another useless "social" thing that Wikia was forcing on us. So basically, bad vibes.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 23:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Well that makes sense ... thanks Ish. Aloha, Mauirixxx 23:22, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If I may offer a less-subjective reason, as a privacy nut: Putting up "like" buttons and GA scripts is essentially like placing cameras you don't control on your fence, facing towards your yard. Any time a web asset loads in your browser (such as that ubiquitous thumbs-up button), the originating server logs information about the request (including the page it was viewed from), which in turn can be further processed by a script to create a profiling database, suitable for marketing or selling to marketing agencies. While in theory, this can be done by any web server, google and facebook are networks well-known for using the tactic even when acting as a third party. So by putting up one of those confounded buttons/stat scripts, you're essentially giving them free data mining access. And that's why facebook extensions get my "don't like". This concludes this episode of Tin Foil Hat Theatre. — ızǝℲ 01:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... I remember somewhere that it was rumored the Facebook extension made the entire site run slow, but that's all I remember. Anyways yeah a post on facebook about liking a page, a post that you made an edit? Ehhh, no thank you.– User Balistic Pve sig.pngalistic 05:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I genuinely hate that facebook is on everything, and I can't see what it brings to any website other than potentially extra traffic, and I can't see what benefit it would have for the wiki if it was an option. Wikis should be as objective as possible and the facebook community is anything but objective. &mdash; Viruzzz 07:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not for the facebook feature. While it may seem nice in the respect of "traffic", etc., I don't think it'd be the kind that we'd want. This isn't a social media site. It's a site documenting just about anything about Guild Wars and I prefer it to remain that way for the time being. Just wish Curse would add us to other Guild Wars related sites, etc. that they host. I feel that'd draw in the right kind of people that we'd look for. Ariyen 07:23, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I feel like I just ripped off a scab. I get it though, Facebook integration = bad. Just gotta think of other ways to get the anons to want to create an account and keep contributing here :) Aloha, Mauirixxx 09:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The Facebook extension is not something Curse is currently considering implementing on any network wiki due to Facebook's repeated problems with security and data privacy. It also creates general degradation of wiki performance. Just so you guys can just put this subject to rest. We are looking at implementing some alternatives for "Liking and Sharing" that are java based rather than through the extension. -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  13:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * We don't want anything for "liking and sharing" - the only feature of the FB extension we would have used was Facebook Connect, to allow single-sign-on. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 14:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And that is the absolute worst feature of the extension. We won't be adding anything without discussing it with you first (I promise). -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  01:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Wait, what the worst feature - SSO, or the like/unlike stuff? I only brought it up for the SSO stuff (liking a wiki page is stupid, I never used it back on Wikia - but I did use the SSO feature). In any case, dead horse and all that ... Aloha, Mauirixxx 01:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Abuse filters + PvX
Do the guildwiki admins mind if we copy/adapt your filters for our wiki? I'm not very good with creating these filters, and the bots seem to be stepping up attacks on our wiki. Also, you should probably set the two that are publicly viewable to private. Toraen  talk  16:34, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't see why not. I forget, do we have anyone (active) who's an admin on both wikis?  If not, I can email you the conditions for the private filters.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 18:25, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We currently share zero admins, so an email will do. Toraen   talk  19:26, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Sent. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 19:46, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! They've already blocked quite a few edits. Toraen   talk  21:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * If you'd like for one of us to help you maintain the filters, e.g. propagating changes when we modify or add filters here, we'd be happy to. Just make either me or Jon an admin there so we can edit your filters.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 02:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Make me supreme overlord and I shall extend my benevolence to your forgotten realm. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 08:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Ignore Mr. Felix, we just keep him around for the lulz. Already need to make a change - had the wrong variables in one place in the Mainspace large removal filter.  Replace the first line below with the second line.

( length(added_lines) / (length(removed_lines)+1) < 0.05 )

( length(new_wikitext) / (length(old_wikitext)+1) < 0.05 )


 * &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the fix, now I know why one managed to get through. I'll talk with Phen and Auron about getting one of you permissions for modifying the filters (they're our only active bcrats currently). Dunno if they'll go for it and I'm not entirely sure it's the best idea ever. If it doesn't work though you could always make me an admin here! (please don't do this) Toraen   talk  03:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC)


 * It's more work, so I didn't bother suggesting it before, but you could set up a new user group for the AbuseFilter permissions and add us to that instead. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 03:51, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I had actually been thinking of that, but I don't know what that entails since I'm just a lowly admin. I'll have to talk to them about it tomorrow though. Phen is likely asleep (he's not on MSN at any rate). Toraen   talk  04:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Just dropping in to say the usergroup has been requested and I'll add both Ish and Felix to it when it's up! Thanks guys =) Phenaxkian 23:24, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

SEO
Wyn is planning on adding http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Description2 to the wiki, but is asking first. It seems fine to me, but there could be some nefarious resource hogging (miiiiiiiiiine) that i'm not aware of (probably not, but i don't know.) So, anyone have issues/thoughts on it? --JonTheMon 19:10, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jon :D This is part of a network wide effort to better our SEO (Search Engine Optimization). -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  19:14, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I looked through the code, and it's pretty simple. Unless a meta-description is given explicitly through the parser tag/function, it defaults to extracting the first paragraph of text from the article (after removing all tables, templates, and other wiki-markup).  That should be just fine for the majority of our articles, and it should have a negligible performance impact.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 19:38, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I never did really understand how SEO works, not fully. But, given the way a wiki is setup, provided article names are set properly ... is an SEO extension really needed? I'm not either for it, or against it. Just curious as to why now an SEO extension is needed? Also, from reading the above link, it appears to automatically add "stuff" from the article, while giving us the option to manually override (if it's enabled in LocalSettings.php) - that option looks like it could potentially be abused (provided everyone is sleeping I guess?). Also, will the SEO stuff be invisible to the end users? I can't speak for everyone obviously, but I hate reading ... anything ... that clearly shows the SEO words anywhere, to me it makes the page look ... messy? I guess. Anyways, there's my confused 2 bits. Also (thanks edit conflict!), just curious as to how this will help GuildWiki? After reading Ish's comment above, having stuff from the first paragraph extracted sounds neat, but to what end? Again, I'm neutral on the subject, just trying to wrap my head around it :P Aloha, Mauirixxx 19:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It creates a &lt;meta description="blah"> tag in the HTML header. The reader never sees this, but search engine crawlers do, and it will then get displayed below the page's entry in search results.  If the meta tag isn't set, it's up to the crawler to decide what part of the page to extract as the description, and on a complicated layout like a wiki page, it will often pull stuff from the layout that isn't part of the content.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 20:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * With regards to someone abusing it, we could just set up a filter to prevent certain users from adding them to pages. --JonTheMon 20:21, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I understand Mauirixxx, I'm still wrapping my head around it too, but basically you won't see anything on the visible page, even if they are added manually using the tags. What it does is gives us some control of what the Search Engines display, to make our pages more appealing for the searcher to click on. We are going to be focusing mostly on optimizing the main page descriptions, but also taking a look at the top search terms and trying to highlight those as well. Obviously this is to try to optimize the amount of traffic the site gets, which benefits Curse, but should also benefit the community by potentially drawing new editors to the wiki. -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  21:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Alrighty, sounds good to me :) Thanks for the explanation :) Aloha, Mauirixxx 01:52, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

New clean images (For a change?)
I wanted to do a proposal, but it is of course so long that this wikia already excists that I already think it's useless... Anyway here I go:

Wouldn't it be much nicer if all the armor galleries would look like this (front-back-rear etc stay the same, but only without Background)



Lemme know if any1 is interested. I do say it takes some time, but it's worth... I can do a whole gallery in 20mins?

Alternativly, if any1 is interested, I can make a whole walkthrought on how to do this. It can be done with freeware, like I do (GIMP + GW screenshot, that's all) --Jorre22225 13:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I do as most will have noticed in RC also HQ pictures of all the animals... Any1 interested? Same for weapons!
 * I also want to ask something... Can you link a picture to a page? I mean can you edit it that way that when you click on a picture, you go to the page? --[[Image:Character-Verdecandeijas_Jor.png|x19px]] Jorre 22225 19:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Personally, I don't think there's any need to replace our images with "clean" ones. I prefer the in-game screenshots for weapons because they give a sense of scale and proportion.  A clean image of the Gavel of the Nephilim, for example, wouldn't convey the hammer's relatively small size very well.
 * However, scale doesn't matter as much for an armor gallery (the armor will always have the same proportions relative to your character, regardless of the character's height). Still, I think the existing Isle of the Nameless images are "clean" enough and don't need to be replaced.  If you wanted to do one of the incomplete galleries (see here, male Monk Luxon would be a good candidate) with your method, then we'd have something to compare against.
 * Look at my sig for an example. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 19:33, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

hey you guys
I'd seriously apprciate it if you could spend a second adding something here.

Thanks much. A F K When Needed 03:36, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Userspace cleanup
With the wiki being 5 years old now, we have accumulated quite a bit of clutter in the form of userpages created by users who no longer use the wiki. In general, this is not a problem, since they normally have no impact on the rest of the wiki.

However, whenever wiki-wide maintenance must be performed, e.g. modifying a widely-used template, or renaming a widely-linked article, or converting commonly-used icon images to a different format, they can present a logistical nightmare. Granted, this can be mitigated somewhat by using a tool like AutoWikiBrowser to semi-automate the editing task involved, but some tasks are too complex to be performed by a tool like that and the edits must be performed manually. (I admit we haven't encountered a lot of these tasks lately, but that's partly because I haven't had the time to pursue any of them.)

I'm proposing that we perform a userspace cleanup by deleting all pages for any user that is not "active," the precise definition of which is up for discussion, but I would expect it to be something like "has not made an edit in the past X months."


 * The site notice will carry an announcement of this project for 1 week before it is implemented, to give "lurkers" a chance to make themselves "active" by performing an edit.
 * Similar to when we allowed people to request the deletion of their userspace when we left Wikia, we would replace the user's primary userpage with a message stating, "This user's pages have been deleted per the 5-Year Cleanup Project . If you are this user and would like your pages to be restored, please contact an administrator."

The biggest impact this will have is to get rid of the now-worthless (and heavily duplicated) "build archives" that a lot of users created before the builds wipe. 95% of these builds are now useless, considering that nearly every skill in the game has been changed since then, so very little of value will be lost.

I'm not expecting everyone to agree with this, so please speak up if you have an argument against this. &mdash;Dr Ishmael 21:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * My only concern and I've questioned myself on this.... How would you go about deleting pages that have the builds on them? Delete the whole user space after like say 2 years and then leave a note? 72.148.31.114 22:25, 18 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with most things, but I'd like an exception for F1's userspace, because of the Bob Bob language! :P
 * @Anon: I'm not sure what you mean by that, because what you're saying is basically exactly what he wrote there in the first place.--[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir 22:28, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to also use edits by users other than the one in whose userspace the page is as a parameter? Say, don't delete if 5 other editors edited it? [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 22:45, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, so the maintenance edits would be the only ones excluded from the last edit of the userspace? 72.148.31.114 00:20, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * No contribs by user in 2 years, no edits to the page in 1 year, and site notice up for at least 1 month. 76.199.138.205 00:21, 19 September 2011 (UTC)


 * 2 years seems like a very long time, especially since the move to Curse was less than 1 year ago and we did all kinds of promotion at that time. Anyone who wanted to remain active would likely have reclaimed their account by now.  A 1-month lead time also seems unnecessarily long.
 * That's a good point, though - we could instead defined "active" as "has reclaimed or created their account since moving to Curse." This would necessarily include everyone who has edited in the past 10 months, since they must have reclaimed their account to do so.
 * @Felix: That would be extremely complicated to detect, and I'm sure it couldn't be scripted. Were you thinking of anything/anyone specific?
 * @Naz: F1 is safe, since he made an edit less than 1 month ago, which will most certainly fall under whatever definition of "active" we decide on. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 15:11, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Go ahead. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 06:53, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * It seems like there is a lot of interesting information in old user pages. Of course there are a lot of crappy personal builds and to do lists that haven't been updated in two years, but there is also information on things of historical value. There are pages like this which is a part of Guild Wars history and is even linked from a main article. This userpage would be deleted under the proposed rule. If this wiki has no interest in the history of the game, then sure, blow it away. I think it adds to my appreciation of Guild Wars as a work of continuous improvement to see what horribly broken builds were actually recommended by the devs at the beginning of the game. Perhaps any userpage that is linked from a main article could be exempt?
 * I enjoy browsing through userpages to see user generated code like user gallery pages and userboxes. I use this gallery User:Hellbringer/Weapon_Skin_Comparison when I'm deciding on BMP or campaign reward weapons to get, because it's a subset of available weapons I'm interested in. It's even more useful because the gallery pages are broken right now. I found that page because it was listed as linking to the file for one of the BMP weapon images.
 * We have categories for users, such as []. I think community information like this is worth while, even if it is just based on inclusion of a certain userbox. I haven't checked, but I imagine that this particular page would more or less disappear after a user purge.
 * I have not yet updated my userpage to anything elaborate, or even worthwhile, but I hope to use the inspiration of others to improve my own. I have used this wiki since before the Wikia fiasco, and edited under a couple of different usernames, as well as anonymously. I know I'm a small part of the community, but I still feel I'm an important part.
 * Overall, I think the inactive userpages are a valuable part of our community history, and shouldn't be completely discarded. I do not know the details of what is done in wiki maintenance, other than examples listed above, such as bot-editing to update icons or page templates, but perhaps old pages could be excluded from that. Inactive users with elaborate templates would end up with more broken links and deformed templates, but perhaps it would preserve our history.
 * Just my two cents. Valkor Dreamling 19:57, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, your suggestion of "excluding" user pages from wiki maintenance would have the opposite of the desired effect. What I want is for special pages like Special:WantedPages to reflect pages that are actually "wanted" instead of being cluttered with redlinks that only appear on outdated and forgotten user pages.  Yes, we could simply perform maintenance edits to remove said redlinks from those userpages, but that's treating the symptoms, not the disease.
 * As far as user categories go, does anyone actually find them useful anymore? The one you linked is for "users who are elementalists by nature" (generated by the  userbox).  What sort of value does that add to the wiki?  If we had a larger and more active community, then I could understand their value as "social" (blergh) tools for user interaction, but given that 99% of the users in any of those categories are inactive, whatever value they may have had is now moot.
 * I did state above that we could define a list of pages to be excluded from this. If a page is linked from mainspace, then of course it should be excluded, since deleting it would create a redlink, which would be counterproductive.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 20:50, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * On wikia, I have started deleting old userspace and will up to two years exactly before the date that I get to them on. I figured if they want their stuff back to redirect them to here. :-) 72.148.31.114 01:06, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me, should do the wikia some good. Anyway, in any case an Apocalypse happens and something goes horribly wrong, I'll save my entire userpage on a .txt file :) --[[Image:Character-Verdecandeijas_Jor.png|x19px]] Jorre 22225 19:33, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

How about just blanking the pages instead of deleting? That way you get rid of redlinks and all the trash while still preserving the history for those who seek it and at the same time allowing the inactive users to return even more easily. That's a win-win-win. ***EAGLEMUT*** TALK  19:56, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Obviously, the point of this cleanup is to make less work, not more. I am not involved in the heavy lifting of maintenance, so I will certainly defer to those who are. That said, I enjoy looking at old activity on the wiki. It reminds me of those heady days in 2006 when editing after the release of Nightfall brought this wiki to a crawl, and 2007 and 2008 when EotN kept things busy and the userbase here was still huge. Maybe it's mostly nostalgia that makes me want to keep elaborate but inactive userpages. I know we don't have the activity here that we used to, but I have no idea how current activity compares quantitatively to past activity. I think what concerns me most is the prospect of opening a talk page on a quest or item and seeing pages of discussion left by people whose usernames are now red. It would be a very pointed illustration of the fact that most of the people who helped figure this stuff out are not gone. I'm living in the past, but the idea makes me sad.  Valkor Dreamling 19:57, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * My proposal included replacing the main userpage with a message referring to this project (look up there for details) - in other words, the main userpage would be essentially "blanked" as Eagle suggested, rather than being deleted. So their usernames won't be turning red.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 20:51, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Why not blank rather than delete the subpages, too? The issue is reducing cleanup work, not saving server space. Deleting pages might cause an issue, but blanking won't. The curse move date is as good as any other arbitrary choice. 76.199.139.97 22:05, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * This is not input on the proposal so much as a question about the process, if it's undertaken, but... will there be a static backup of the wiki, pre-user-wipe, made available to interested parties? I understand you can export entire categories of pages using the XML dumper tucked away in the special pages; However, if there winds up being a rush of users grabbing dumps before this userspace wipe is underway, it might possibly result in a bit of CPU thrashing. Which is a bad thing.
 * Even if that's a non-issue, I still think making a public tarball of the wiki's contents might be a good thing. There's a lot of information in the userspace that, while dated, is valuable in one way or another. Early spading, the rare still-viable build, and various proofs and discussions of bygone game elements. A lot of it may or may not be conjecture, since it never made it to the main namespace, but there's something to be said for it all. That said, I can see why clearing it off to simplify maintenance is a priority (or at least an idea); I just don't want it to vanish into the ether. Being able to peruse it locally would be kind of neat, too. (As an aside: adjust indent and formatting as needed on this comment, if it sticks out. Keeping it inline didn't feel quite right, given the content.) — ızǝℲ 05:33, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Once you delete pages, you can restore them... So, I don't think any Admin would have any problem with restoring any user's contents, should they come back... 72.148.31.114 06:11, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll ask Wyn if there's any chance they could start producing weekly dumps like we used to have on Wikia. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 15:30, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * [UPDATE] According to Wyn, they are currently in the planning stages of setting up a network-wide policy for regular generation of dumps. (Some Metamucil might help with that... oh geez my brain goes in the gutter so easily.)  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:59, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

If anyone thinks certain userpages still have some value, then those userpages can be archived. Either in their own userspace, or maybe a community archive, like the Anonymous pages. --Macros 17:39, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Btw, whoever owns the Anonymous pages account needs to sign in and make an edit. It would be a crime to lose such priceless gems as "Acorns" and "Albino Dinky Bunny." --Macros 17:49, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I think Mendel owns that account, but I'm not sure. Also, did you forget, or were you just too afraid to mention the [|boobies]? :P --[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir 18:29, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Isn't it much easier to blank pages? That requires no prep work and anyone would be able to "undo" it. Both archiving and deleting would require deciding what is worth preserving. Afterward, unarchiving requires more work to find/restore. And undeleting can only be done by an admin.
 * Regular backups in the form of data dumps should be part of routine maintenance for any wiki, regardless of any userspace cleanup. 75.36.183.81 20:11, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * No, writing an automated script to delete pages is pretty much the same as writing a script to edit pages. And yes, it requires prep work because we still have to decide which pages will be affected by it, no matter whether we're deleting or blanking.
 * The kind of dumps we're talking about here would actually be quite useless in the event that we had to restore the wiki based on them. All they contain is article text and revision information.  No user data, no files, no log activity, no deleted page/revision data, no code backup.  Curse has always had a full-server backup system in place, which is why they initially blew off the idea of wiki dumps - in light of their complete backups, what use was there in generating a text file that only included article content?  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 21:09, 29 September 2011 (UTC)