User talk:PanSola

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 * Past mistakes are moved into the /MistakeArchive
 * Other closed issues are moved to /Archive, /Archive2, /Archive3, /Archive4, /Archive5, /Archive6

A bunch of proposed changes to the skill box template(s)
Sorry about dumping all this on you, but there aren't too many people to ask about this since most don't understand how the templates work. Here's a bunch of changes I want to make. I don't think there are reasons not to implement them, but I wanted to ask someone before making changes to "important" templates. If you have no objections, I'll make all these changes.

There's categorization code for campaign, skill type, etc. in the skill box templates besides the basic template:skill box. It's in many (if not all) of the others even though it'll never end up being used. I want to go through and cut the categorization stuff out of all but the basic template.

Along the same lines, I'll cut out the code that generates a message regarding the legacy use of skill templates since it should no longer be needed. This change and the last one aren't important, but it'll cut down on template use some, and that can't hurt but might help the server.

As for the usage of "profession=hide" in the QRs, I think it would be better to have parameters like hideprofession or hidewhatever. When I asked you a while ago on Template_talk:Skill_box about the parameter overriding, you said it was scrapped. Did you only mean for the stats? Hiding the profession icon and attribute for the QRs rely upon the profession being overridable. If it's switched to check for parameters like hideprofession the whole " " thing actually can be scrapped. In addition, SkillBoxIf can be scrapped in favor of just an if-then that checks for the existence of hideprofession (or whatever), cutting out some more template use.

Then there's Category talk:Echo (skill type)s where Galil and I discussed what to do about the echo type with the template. Originally, all the echo skills had their type set to "echo" which resulted in skills being categorized into "category:echos" but the type linking to echo, the skill article. Midnight08 came along and changed all the types to "echo (skill type)" to fix the type link, I guess, which resulted in "category:echo (skill type)s" but a proper type link.

Galil added a "cat" parameter to template:skill box with the intention of it handling the skill type category for echoes. So at the moment, the types are all "echo (skill type)" with cat set to "echos (skill type)." This sort of conflicts with how you have a hardcoded if to handle the skill type category for skills, since they both do the same thing in different ways. I don't really have an opinion about which way should be used, but they should both be done in the same way.

Depending on how the question of hardcoding an if into the template or providing a specific parameter instead goes, I'll do the same thing regarding the skill type link. Right now in the skill box and QRs, they all link to Echo (skill type), but I think Echo would be better. But, it's not possible to use a parameter to construct a link in a template such as " | ." I'll either add a parameter like typepipe so links are something like " | " or add a hardcoded if to achieve the same effect of making the "(skill type)" not display.

Lastly, to try to push to ParserFunctions again, I mentioned PF could be used to auto-fill the progression tables (since they're just linear). We could actually make skill descriptions fill in the values, too. In build articles we can use a "row"-like format that displays the actual values based on the build's attribute ranks. I'm going to post on Gravewit's talk page about it, so please chime in (if you agree).

Once more, sorry for so much text. --68.142.14.80 03:54, 24 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Thanks for caring. I agree with cutting out the categorization code for the non-basic skill box templates.  I agree with removing the legacy note.  The entire "hide" thing should just get nuked -- a new "skill box blah" should be used to display things differently (this is a change of design that I thought through later).  I suggest a "nocat" parameter for skill boxs to disable hard-code autocategorization, and manually categorize all skills of Echo type (manually specify  all of its categories, not just the skill type cat).  Finally, I support ParserFunctions too. - 05:51, 24 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Doing all the work in the specific skill box template seems like a good idea. Between that and removing the legacy note, there's no use for the "part" parameter, right?  Besides removing the useless categorization stuff, I'm going to think about it more before making any other category-related changes.  I was pondering letting skill data templates add additional categories, actually.  Something like extracat1=Touch skills, though that'd just make it a bunch of if extracatX exists then category:extracatX.  I think it'd be best to keep the categorization all in one place, whether the skill article or in the templates.  --68.142.14.80 06:16, 24 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Check out GuildWiki talk:Sandbox/Skill box for what I did with ParserFunctions and the basic skill box template. --Fyren 13:05, 25 August 2006 (CDT)

Skill quick reference layout
You have been taking part in the discussion earlier so I thought I might post to you among some others. I want this to be resolved pretty soon, so plese consider taking part in the discussion at GuildWiki_talk:Style_and_formatting/Skills. -- (talk) 20:01, 25 August 2006 (CDT)

Request for Review
As a well known/well learned mesmer user, I'd appreciate if you could review the Effective Mesmer Guide I've been writing up. Mesmer is one of the only profession without a guide, so I thought you might want to contribute. (bonus wiki-LAFT points) --Theeth (talk)   22:06, 27 August 2006 (CDT)

Massive Link-Changing
I've noticed that you have gone about changing most Tyria and Cantha tags into Prophecies and Factions tags, respectively. Is this a new standard on how to arrange chapter information, and if so, do you want help? ;) There are quite a lot of skills out there... --Ordin 22:28, 2 September 2006 (CDT)
 * It was never standardized. However, I believe in terms of acquisition (skills, items, quests), the Campaign name is more meaningful and relavent information than the in-game continent.  I've brought the issue up specifically regarding quest availbility here.  I will eventually finish changing them on my own, but if you want to help, all the better.  I'm just about to grab dinner anyways (-: - 22:32, 2 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Well, I might as well get something done while waiting for my show (anime -.-).--Ordin 22:51, 2 September 2006 (CDT)

Template:Switch and Template:Case
can you comment on the merge request on these pages. Template:Case is mine, a hold-over until parser functions are installed, and Template:Switch seems to be your creation, but i can't discern use. --Honorable Sarah 15:03, 5 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I thought I read that parser functions are now installed. Please retest and confirm/deny. &mdash;Tanaric 15:36, 5 September 2006 (CDT)
 * you are correct, they've been installed in the week i was gone, both of these should be deprecated then? --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 15:43, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

Warrior Prophesies Unique Items
Hi PanSola, thanks for all the contributions you make here. I hit the green prophesies items to look up a few old stats on greens and found them gone. I didn't go browsing to see when they got deleted and maybe you are working on moving them in still from the work I see you did with changing things to prophesies instead of Tyrian, but can you check to make sure you didn't lose the items in an update. If I find the old table of items here soon I'll edit them in.--ShmEk 19:04, 5 September 2006 (CDT)
 * The only thing I changed was from "Tyrian" to "Prophecies", and that's the only change I was planning to make, with respect to warrior prophecies unique items, if I actually did anything to it. Can you tell me the specific article you are referring to so I can actually look into it?  There's no way otherwise for me to guss.  I haven't touched the Warrior unique items quick reference (Prophecies) article since May. - 19:39, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

Japanese (Nightfall Event)
Hi mate, we need your Japanese skills to decypher this. What is this? People may phone Mike O'Brien and he will answer questions? -- 03:02, 6 September 2006 (CDT)
 * People email NCJapan 2 questiosns for Mike. 12 lucky winners will get invited to the question/answer session, and receive a Chimeric Prism at the end of the event (another indication that Japan is secretely part of Eurpoe?). - 04:22, 6 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Thanks for clearing that up. :) --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 11:05, 6 September 2006 (CDT)

Taiwanese ("Globe Event")
I should start a section "PanSola's Translation Service Request". ;)

<- What's this? It says "Globe Event", but also something about "Jobs". I'm puzzled. -- 07:59, 11 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Job = Profession. This is a Chinese translation of the Scribe article on the PvP event. - 08:02, 11 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Cheers, once again. It was mostly the previously unreleased image of Elementalist and Necro armor that cought my attention. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 08:13, 11 September 2006 (CDT)

The Armor Pages Are a Mess!

 * It's hard to respond to some of the things you are pointing out, because I feel like we already address those things. For example, most armor have a Campaign associated to it, that is true, and we already handle it.  By pointing out things armor have in common but that aren't having issues, you are diluting and obsuring what some of the problems, making it harder for me to see your vision.  I've read the whole thing three times, I'll need to take a break and re-read it a few more times before I have the confidence to form a proper response. - 16:02, 6 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Blah, anyways, here's a few things I know I can support without digesting what you wrote above:
 * templating common components of armor galleries. I think depending on the armor art, additional custom shots should be able to go in the gallery for details.
 * common naming format for gallery pictures to help with the templating above
 * an open efford to give me more ectos and shards d-:
 * As for the rest, I need to figure out what you mean by what you wrote first. - 16:24, 6 September 2006 (CDT)


 * {| width="100%" style="background: transparent;"


 * style="background: #FFE5FE; border: 2px #FF36F7 solid; padding: 5px 15px 5px 15px;" valign=top|I realize that post was long and covered some of the things we already have done. It's just that not all the armor pages have them implemented yet. And as for the confusion of the Armor Art of Tyrian, Ascolon, and Krytan Armors being in the core, I think it's personal opinion of where they belong. They are core, but cannot be made in kryta from other creating a character or from a collector. Technically, Obsidian Armor isn't crafted in Tryria either >^_^<. Obsidian Armor looks so lonely by itself so I gave it some core friends. It looks nicer, although, yes. So far they can only be crafted in Cantha. I emphisise 'so far' because who knows what Nightfall will bring. In Elonia there may be armor crafters for those armors as well. That's only speculation on a common occuring theme though.

Prehaps I should be more succinct. My Main beef right now with the pages is that most of them still don't use templating, and need more of it. In adition, there is problems with data redundancy. I'm not sure if your familure with the term. It means that the item is in multiple locations, and in order to update the pages, you would have to go back and edit each by hand. If we instead store this data in 1 common file, in our case a template function, and link it to it to the pages recalling it, we can update all the occurances of that information. That is what I am really proposing. More templating is still needed. The templates also need to be set up to handle special cases as well, such as with the non bonus armor function types.

We can nitpick over the armor classifications later >^_^<. --Vulpes Foxnik 16:44, 6 September 2006 (CDT)
 * }
 * Enchanter's Obsidian armor can be crafted by people who only have Factions Campaign. It can be crafted by people who only have Prophecies Campaign, and thus it rightfully belongs in Core.  Again, as I have stated, I agree that Tyrian is intrinsically core.  But in the context of Enchanter's Armor, listing it under the core heading is misleading and provide no directly useful information.  People who only have Prophecies Campaign cannot obtain a set of Enchanter's Armor for their characters using Krytan art, and I believe that piece of information to be of sufficient importance that it should be conveyed in the Enchanter's Armor article.
 * I am fully aware of the concept of redundency. I am one of the biggest pushers for using modules to eliminate redundency on this wiki (with Karlos being the biggest opponent against modules, not to say he supports redundency, as he is against modules for other reasons).  However, where concern of misleading information is concerned, to me it trumps the concern over redundency.  We should not structure information to be misleading just to remove redundency.
 * Finally, I am still unclear WHAT is redundent. Part of the problem is you mentioned Campaign as being one of the common things across armor, but I don't see how, using Campaign as an example, is there any actual redundency that can be eliminated.  Campaign is a property that all armor has, but their value vary for each and every armor.  The only redundent thing that immediately comes to mind for me is which thumbnail image should be used for the armor art tables, and that will easily be taken care of using standardized naming scheme without bothering with a template or module to store all the data.  Thus I'm back to re-reading what you wrote to figure out the rest of your vision. - 17:01, 6 September 2006 (CDT)


 * {| width="100%" style="background: transparent;"

Redundancy by urgency: --Vulpes Foxnik 17:39, 6 September 2006 (CDT)
 * style="background: #FFE5FE; border: 2px #FF36F7 solid; padding: 5px 15px 5px 15px;" valign=top|I'm sorry about moving Tyrian to core. I have no intention on spreading misinformation. Both the Ranger and Warrior galleries list Ascolon, Tyrian, and Krytan as core. I've seen it in both. I'm sorry I touched the Mesmer section. I'm sorry if I am being aggravating to you. I'm new here, although I really would like to help out. I did not mean to 'talk down' to you. I'm just used to having to explain every little thing. My first post was ment to set up an overall view of the Armor issue at hand, not to Address a particular issue.
 * 1) The Armor Art Galleries at the bottom of the page.
 * 2) The Armor Art and Function Templates so they Report Ascended, Standard, and Obsidian.
 * 3) The Crafter Tables. (The tables themselves, not the data)
 * 4) The Class Armor pages. Closely related to #1 in the fact that they share(or at least should share imho) the Gallery previews for Armor Art as much as possible.  I may be obsessing over the redudancy of the data in the tables.
 * }
 * Don't worry about apologizing (-: I know you only have positive intentions for the wiki, and that's all that counts.  I'm not aggravated, just explaining my stance, and I am no more valuable than you are (just been around longer so I have a higher probablity to have considered more facet of things).  If you didn't touch anything, I wouldn't have thought about evolving the Mesmer armor/Factions art to be more compact and useful for Mesmer's Armor (the idea has popped up before, but I never gave it much thought until you came along).   Reading the rest of your latest post now (I'm typing this just after reading your first paragraph) - 17:48, 6 September 2006 (CDT)


 * 3. The crafter table already has kind of a header table that gets subst-ed at Template:armor crafting. It's developed after the release of Factions, so many prophecies armor articles haven't conform to that format yet.
 * 1. I believe a certain degree of redundency should be kept to make the information clear. Take a look at the newly evolved Virtuoso's Armor and Mesmer's Armor for example and let me know if you think the redundency there is ok or not.
 * 2. The only thing the armor box templates don't report currently is Standard. They report Ascended and Obsidian.  I prefer not to use IF's in templates when I can help it, and I'll ponder on what's the most elegant solution to get Standard in there.
 * 4. Due to the nature of the forced redundency for clarity in module design (see my response to 1), I think the class armor pages shouldn't be using the same modules (it'll have over-redundency). I think the redundancy problem will be trivially solved if we adapt a common-filename system for the images, which I have stated my support for. - 18:06, 6 September 2006 (CDT)
 * {| width="100%" style="background: transparent;"

I love what you did with the Galleries down there. They clear up any and all conceptual muddles in relation to acquisition. I can see what you are saying about how the Class pages should have their own section, mainly because those are to display the art styles, rather than where to get them. It is not overly redundant if it is only used in 1 location each time, which seems to be the case. Basic and Advanced is a much more succinct way of telling the armor cost than Standard and Ascended (which is relatively irrelevant in factions). As for the Armor Status Leveling, have you ever considered using a Switch? Wiki support them, but I'm not sure if they use namespace. It would also require alot of updating to the page. However, If it were completly in my control, I'd do away with the 2 tier system and classify a 3 tier system. Basic, Advanced, and Elite. Basic would be all the 'Standard' Armors. Advanced would be Luxon, Kurzick, Canthan 15k, and 15k Prophesies. Elite would be Kurzick 15k, Luxon 15k, and Obsidian. Ranking them on total resources needed to create them, rather than the cost solely in gold. I'm going to start working on fixing the Warrior section. Ranger is also a mess, but I think I should take a systematic aproach to updating the pages. --Vulpes Foxnik 19:58, 6 September 2006 (CDT)
 * style="background: #FFE5FE; border: 2px #FF36F7 solid; padding: 5px 15px 5px 15px;" valign=top|
 * }


 * I used Basic vs Advanced out of practicality. Mesmer's Armor only has Basic Art.  All other functional types use both Basic and Advanced. It minimizes the number of rows and modules needed.  It helped that all the "Basic" ones can be found in Kaineng and Shin Jea (early parts of the game) and the Advanced are only found later in the game.  I didn't really care about crafting costs, and I don't think we should complicate matters by adding levels due to crafting costs.  BTW, I don't see why anyone would consider Kurzick 15k and Luxon 15k to be the same level as Obsidian.  Even when certain monk/necro obsidian armors didn't need ectos, they still serously outprice the Kurzick/Luxon 15k and are much harder to acquire. - 20:06, 6 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Getting sick of cutting and pasting the border... Anyhow, I've made Kurzick 15k recently and it is Still fairly costly even if the price of Amber has droped (of course AFTER I made it). Anyhow, I spent around 40 ecto to get enough amber to craft the whole thing. True, It takes much more money to make Obsidian and time, but the Factions 15k are closer in price to Obsidian than the other 15k prices. Your right. We shouldn't complicate it, but I think the basic and Advanced armor sections are much better than what we had before. --[[Image:Vulpes_Foxnik.png]]Vulpes Foxnik 20:22, 6 September 2006 (CDT)


 * "Getting sick of cutting and pasting the border..." <- Thank God! My eyes were starting to hurt! ;) --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 08:15, 11 September 2006 (CDT)


 * At current prices, the amount of ecto and obsidian required for a full set of obsidian armour (excluding headgear) is 1197 platinum. At current prices, the 70 jade required for a set of 15k Luxon armor costs 42 platinum, while the 70 amber required for a set of 15k Kurzick armour costs 63 platinum. For comparison, the 350 Vellum required for a full set of ascended Ascetic's or Scar Pattern armour costs 66.5 platinum. I don't remember Amber or Jadeite ever reached the 3k mark, so even when 15k Luxon and Kurzick armour did cost a small fortune they were far more affordable than Obsidian. I believe we went from 15k to Ascended because it was the official term, but I'm not sure about the source. -- Gordon Ecker 00:34, 13 September 2006 (CDT)

Recentchanges page
Is there a method to 'safe' a setting? i was trying to hide all minor edit and output 500 in a page, but the setting is gone after i click reload.
 * Nevermind, found the option... -- [[Image:Ritualist-icon-small.png]] Cwingnam2000 19:46, 6 September 2006 (CDT)

Template for Crafters
Whats the wikicode to call this table up?--Vulpes Foxnik 13:51, 7 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Template:Armor crafting, just subst it. - 06:57, 8 September 2006 (CDT)

Page deletion
What exactly do you want deleting? Category:Candidates for deletion I don't know how they're all included lol &mdash; Skuld 03:05, 10 September 2006 (CDT)
 * It was caused by this. --Fyren 03:14, 10 September 2006 (CDT)

Good job
Good use of the troll template. :) Wish I'd thought to put that there last night.  --Rainith 22:41, 10 September 2006 (CDT)

Your User Page Formatting
Hey mate, are you aware that in IE in your user page all the main text has an indent, obviously caused by the language boxes?! See this image. You might want to add a

tag. -- 08:26, 11 September 2006 (CDT)
 * It has a clear (not as a template, but as div code). THe problem was an unclosed div tag. - 08:29, 11 September 2006 (CDT)

I really want to apologize.
I feel so bad about the whole template not working out as quick as I hoped. I didn't pick up all the language nuances as fast as I though. I also made some false assumptions, and realised some of my sudo code I wrote is wrong or backwards and corrected this in later versions when Aspectacle pointed out why the icons disappeared. Then you did all the work of fixing everything I messed up. I feel bad about this. I also wrote a new template that should be able to clean up our code a bit. Template:Armor icon check.--Vulpes Foxnik 13:14, 11 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Don't worry about it. Such is the fate of those who meddle with templates (-: - 20:53, 11 September 2006 (CDT)

Alpha leaks?
I'm intreguied to what you do with them once people have reported them to you, care to elaborate? --Jamie  09:48, 13 September 2006 (CDT)
 * I email them to Gaile and Andrew. If it's on imageshack or rapidshare, I also use their internam reporting service to request the image be removed.  If the link has been posted on guildwiki I'll delete the entire article and restore to a previous version to wipe it off the history. - 11:10, 13 September 2006 (CDT)

I just got that you mentioned the other one too, which isn't rly an alpha. If i'd have known about that I wouldn't have posted this >< Might want to change your notice? Sorry about that &mdash; Skuld 13:19, 13 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Um, not sure what you are suggesting for me to change my notice to. As for your own edit, I'll let you clean up after yourself d-: - 13:29, 13 September 2006 (CDT)

This is completely screwed up. We're not ANet, we're not ANet's watchdogs, and we're not under an NDA. Pages were deleted in defiance to our deletion procedure. A user was warned that "if it happens again there'll be a ban." If someone wants to post something on a talk page-- loosely, anything that's relevant, not vandalism, and not a copyright violation-- they should be able to. If they want it in an article they need more than speculation. --Fyren 17:28, 13 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Due to the firewall at work, I can't access the guildwars.com site to review the fansite agreements. What, if any, comments/restrictions are placed on official fansites by Arenanet?  That should be the determination on deletion and banning in cases of violation.  However, I would fully expect ArenaNet to ask us to remove any content of this type from our site if it were reported to them; and our relationship with ArenaNet in all areas would be better if we abide by the request rather than permit it to remain. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:48, 13 September 2006 (CDT)
 * They say that ANet may request removal of any content at any time and that content may not be used on a site that contains "objectionable content" defined at ANet's discretion. Both are rather meaningless; ANet can request whatever they want and it's their copyright so they can tell anyone not to use something at their whim.  --Fyren 18:00, 13 September 2006 (CDT)


 * It is of my opinion that any and all alpha leaks should be removed from the wiki. I have no doubt that if Anet learns that GuildWiki has any alpha leaks on it, Anet will tell us to remove it. Therefore my position is we should remove alpha leaks before Anet even tell us to remove it. Since you disagree with me, do you think that we should keep alpha leaks on talk pages even when Anet tells us to remove it?  Or do you think we should keep alpha leaks as long as possible until Anet tells us to remove it?  - 23:17, 13 September 2006 (CDT)


 * My personal opinion would be to leave it. But in any case, the actions that were taken earlier should either not be repeated or our policies be amended to allow them. --Fyren 23:28, 13 September 2006 (CDT)


 * For clarificaion, your opinion would be to leave it even after Anet telling us to remove it? or until Anet telling us to remove it? - 23:33, 13 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Yes, if it were solely my site, I would leave up "leaked alpha information" even after ANet requested removal. Such information, on the scale of "insignificant" to "important," would be pretty close to "insignficiant" even in context of it being about a video game. At the same time, it's still interesting and an excellent topic for discussion. --Fyren 00:00, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I disagree with that opinion, Fyren. Consider the recent deletion of all Nightfall builds.  Why?  Speculative information.  Guess what Alpha leaks are?  Not only that, but supporting such an action indirectly by ignoring it is liable to harm relations with ArenaNet (hopefully that's *all* it'd harm; consider the financial damages possible), the community, and possibly even the game as a whole. - Greven 23:53, 13 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Reread my first comment. Note what I say about talk pages versus articles regarding speculation.  --Fyren 00:00, 14 September 2006 (CDT)

Ok, a few problems here at the same time: Now, I am deeply troubled by this issue and would like to see this ugly precedent dealt with. --Karlos 05:59, 14 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Ok, found the "deleted" leaked info. That was completely unnecessary. It was a comment in a talk page.
 * 1) Fyren is absolutely right. If someone posted in a talk page that there's a leak that Shiro is coming back in Chapter 3, we have absolutely no business deleting that.
 * 2) It is not our domain to limit what people talk about with regards to the game, PanSola. Our discussion pages are for discussing anything about the relevant article. If the content revealed is something sensitive, then we might go back and ask ANet. But we will use our discretion.
 * 3) I am not comfortable with you giving yourself this power and oversight over the wiki (and for the benefit of Gaile Gray and ANet, not the wiki). I do not think it is appropriate for you to assume such powers, declare them on the spot, against Wiki tradition and even advertize them in your signarute. We do not (and hopefully will not), have admins act as watchdogs for ANet.


 * Ok, check that. I am now extremely annoyed. Wiping Wiki history is a VERY serious offense and to have two admins going about firing their guns at any and all articles is ridiculous. So... One, no more wiping articles under any excuse till this is ciscussed and a consensus among admins is reached. I will be reverting any and all such attempts. I don't care how much you two think Gaile Grey is cute, this will NOT be taking place in this wiki without serious consideration. --Karlos 06:12, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * See now I'm really curious to see what was removed! I guess none of us non admins can weigh in because we don't know what was written. --Xasxas256 06:18, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * For the curious, the edits were to the effect that skill X will be more potent if rumors/leaks about it are true. One comment was in an edit summary, another was in a talk page. Wiping both was unnecessary and wrong. Not to mention that the huge skill update today leaves little doubt that both comments were also wrong. --Karlos 06:27, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Well that's a bit boring! Seriously I was hoping for some juicy goss! Also I'm not sure how Gaile Gray ties in with all this and it's probably not important anyway. It would seem that perhaps some of our admins were a little overzealous because everybody speculates on everything and that's half the fun. Perhaps this was more about public perception, dunno and I'm not sure there's much more I can say on it. --Xasxas256 06:40, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * The big question is whether we want to work together with ANet or not. If we strive to become/remain an official elite fansite, we have little choice but to fight leaks. Whether we are obliged to do so by law or not is irrelevant. As a partner of ANet we should help them to fight things that could cause major harm to their business. During my work for BeyondUnreal I've seen complete alpha builds of games being leaked, which pretty much totally f*cked up EpicGames marketing strategy, and harmed their sales. We did our best to remove all download links, and all screenshots from the leak, from our forums. Of course we didn't manage to stop the leak from spreading, but at least we managed to slow it down, and Epic Games were grateful for that.
 * Removing content, and even wiping an article history may seem overkill for a minor detail like the blurry Elona map that was posted, or the skill update, but where to draw the line? I'm afraight we have no choice but to apply a zero tolerance policy here.
 * As for policies only applying to editorial articles, but not talk pages, I think that's bollox. The same policy should apply to all areas of the wiki, because at the end of the day, talk pages are part of the website, and we have responsibility for those too. Fansites like GWGuru or GWonline.net also have responsibility over their forums, and have to watch over them.
 * It's the history archives that make things so much more complicated on a wiki. If a forum moderator on GWGuru edits a post the removed content is gone for good. If a wiki contributor edit an article the removed content isn't gone at all. It can still be retreived from the history, VERY easily. The history archives are part of our website too, and we have responsibility for them, too. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 07:09, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * It's not often this happens, but I'm lost for words. I've been watching this for the last day or so, and I wish I'd said something sooner. I'm going to bold certain things, so I apologise for the overkill.


 * I can't agree with the deleting of history under anything but the most dire of circumstances. Basically, if ANet confirmed that having something in our history was harmful to their business THEN I MIGHT consider it appropriate to modify the history for an article. But I would also make it very clear that ANet had asked us to remove some content.


 * I beleive our responsibility is to our readers, not to ANet, and deleting the history of an article goes against the principles that I thought we stood for.


 * Equally, if the entire history of the article is no longer there then we are now in breach of our own license, which ensures attribution to all contributors. Not the case.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 10:08, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * My opinion is that speculation should not be included in articles, but our policys do not apply to talk pages (regardless of whether people think they should or not, this has been discussed in the past and if you want to change this then you should raise the issue on a policy page).


 * I'm not entirely sure what's happened, because I don't know which article(s) were involved or what the state of those articles is now, so I don't know how relevant my comments are here. To clarify: I'm not opposed to reporting potential alpha leaks to ANet, but I am opposed to deleting the history of articles unless absolutely necessary, and by necesssary I mean the future of the wiki depends on it.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 07:59, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Just so that admins are informed when they look at this. This is the example that PanSola did: Special:Undelete/Talk:N/any_Icy_Degen (non-admins can't see this). If you see the deleted revisions, you will see the comment that was removed. By deleting then restoring a specific version of the article, PanSola was able to basically wipe out that article's history. Same thing was done by Skuld on the Gust article to remove the edit summary comment. --Karlos 08:16, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Because I can't see jack, I'll raise a hypothetical, what about if I posted some speculative skills info on my user page or discussion page, would an admin simply start deleting those revisions? --Xasxas256 08:22, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Seems a certain admin would --Jamie [[Image:Jamie.jpg|24px|(Talk Page)]] 08:26, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Thanks Karlos, that's very helpful.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 08:24, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * That's a good hypothetical question Xasxas256. As far as I'm aware the only reason an admin can get involved in content on a user's page is if it is seriously harmful to the wiki. If they include pornography, for example, we could delete it. Of course, "seriously harmful" is open to interpretation and I don't doubt that PanSola carried out these actions because he believed them to be causing, or have potential to cause, serious harm.


 * Still though, we, as a wiki, have not signed a non-disclosure agreement with ANet, and as such I don't believe we should be removing history from talk pages. If users post information that is in breach of an NDA then that is their concern.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 08:33, 14 September 2006 (CDT)

All this talk about emailing gaile grey and the A-team...why don't you just ask them if user contributions are within the NDA, surely THEY would be glad to tell you.-Onlyashadow 08:36, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Whether they are or not, that's between the user and ANet, not between us and Anet.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 08:38, 14 September 2006 (CDT)

As a "user" I can say I have signed no NDA for wiki or Anet, good point-Onlyashadow 08:40, 14 September 2006 (CDT)

Preemptive outrage
I fear I will not be heard here, but let me ask you all to calm down instead of stirring up a big debate about minor details. I feel both sides are overreacting here. Of course you can make a big stance of principle about this, wiki "free information for everyone" vs "respecting NDA and copyright", but only do so if you truely enjoy the debate: The issue at hand is much to minor to deserve that much attention. --Xeeron 09:16, 14 September 2006 (CDT)
 * 1) What was actually posted? Some (it seems wrong) hint that a skill might become more or less useful. That kind of rumor happens on forums about 500 times a day. And a blurry (I happen to see it before it was deleted) map of the starter area (or so I guess) of Nightfall, which told you exactly nothing about the game except the basic fact that it will again have a big overview map with land and water and most of it will have fog of war. Even under the worst of circumstances you cant argue that one of these edits would have any impact on ANets future profits. Noone would have ever noticed if it was simply removed, there was no reason to delete the history and start a wiki-wide crusade.
 * 2) Was what happened so bad? So an minor alpha leak was deleted. Both leaks contained close to 0 information value for our readers, while deleting them helps us to maintain friendly ties with Anet. Why alienate them about something of no importance (not that I think they would have cared to begin with). We have a very strict policy about not posting rumors anyway and our discussion pages are neither made nor meant to spread them (forums are much better for that).
 * You're talking to admins here Xeeron, so it's all about principal and precedence! What about next time. What if it wasn't such a small leak? I should also point out that I like the way PanSola made it obvious what was happening to the normal user editing the sig, cos we can't see deleted stuff. Cheers! --Xasxas256 09:23, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm pretty calm, I just use italics cos it makes me feel important ;P  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 09:49, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Hehe, I should have saved my effort: You guys actually DO enjoy this. ;-) --Xeeron 09:58, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Wow, I go to bed and wake to find several pages of text/replies here ...
 * I wasn't aware of the skill comments being wiped. I cannot support that activity if it's just the posting of text claiming a skill change is coming.  We've had those here for as long as I can remember, and they are meaningless and harmless rumors that exist on forums everywhere.
 * On leaked alpha screenshots, I did see a large map of what looked to be the entire Elona campaign, built from radar map images (there was also later a fuzzy reduced version that showed how it linked to Tyria that was posted). Likewise, if a screenshot from alpha of a new or modified skill were leaked, I would see that as different than just posting text about it (not yet done, to the best of my knowledge).  I have little doubt that if they were aware of it here, ArenaNet would request the link removal and could potentially rescind our listing as an official fansite for failure to comply (I don't believe finacial risk is involved to the site, but I'm not a lawyer).  Two relevant quotes from the GuildWars.com Terms of Use:
 * "All in-game images are the property of ArenaNet, and during the Alpha Test, all images will be released exclusively by ArenaNet or its parent company, NCsoft."
 * "You may not use our content on sites that contain or link to sites containing ... Objectionable content, as determined by ArenaNet"
 * If done correctly, deletion of history is not a violation of our license as has been stated above. The article can be deleted, then selectively restore versions that pre-date the alpha link insertion.  Attribution then remains.  It has been mentioned many times; but to be certain, has anyone sent an email to ArenaNet asking if linking to this content is acceptable?
 * Last, we have never placed restrictions on what wiki users can and cannot do outside of the wiki. Even if we decide to keep links to alpha content, if any user of the site wishes to report alpha violations to ArenaNet, they have that right.  If they choose to advertise requesting people report violations to them, and if it's done in their user space or on talk pages (not articles), then I feel they also have that right.  An attempt was made at least once before to restrict the length of signatures within talk pages, but that effort was dropped.  I could see this issue bringing up discussions on that issue again as well. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 09:53, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Argh, edit conflict. I hate you Barek :P


 * Xeeron, I agree with point 1, and I agree to an extent with point 2, but as Xasxas256 says this is more an argument over how future leaks would be dealt with. And it should also be mentioned that a contributor was threatened with being banned if he were to discuss leaks again, which is a road I sincerely hope we do not go down.


 * Barek, I only brought up the issue of license violation because I was under the impression that the entire history of the article had been removed. I'm still not keen on the idea, but I concede that there is no license violation as far as I can see. I will ammend my earlier comments in a moment.


 * If PanSola wishes to report Alpha leaks to ArenaNet then that's fine by me. Equally if an admin feels that he is removing speculation from an article then that's also fine by me, although I think deleting the history is overkill and I'm against it. The important issue here is that this was in a discussion and I don't believe that these should be regulated here. I certainly don't want to get on ArenaNet's bad side.


 * As you say, this argument is really about "what is allowed on a page that is not part of the main namespace?" and personally I have a very liberal view on this.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 10:04, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * What happened Xeeron, is precedent. I have never seen an admin delete content off the wiki (other than image cleanup), and certainly not for such arbitrary reasons. Page history has been tampered with and some page histories have been loss. I believe it was careless on the part of both PanSola and Skuld to engage in this "slight of hand" just for the sake of "protecting" our good ties with ANet.
 * What I would have done would have been to edit the article and remove the link and if the image was uploaded I would have deleted it. 99.9% of users of the wiki do not know how to go back and find the link in the history and we had no precedent or proof that such linking was being done. The reaction was completely disproportionate with the action and in violation of many wiki ethics.
 * We control our content, ANet does not. We certainly would like to hear from them and get their input but all those people cowering before the mighty ANet that's about to kick us off their "specialty" fansite status are overreacting. The posting of a rumor in a talk page is NOT against our policy, does NOT constitue a "threat" to the game (will more people start "farming" Gust now?) and should not have been removed unless there was a complaint from someone affiliated with ANet. The only "admin-like" response to such a comment would be to post an advisory note that the user could be getting in trouble with ANet for passing such rumors around.
 * If there was a huge leak of some sort (or in the case of that lame map), just remove it and tell the user that we do not welcome such troublesome content here in the wiki. End of story. But history tampering should not and MUST not be adopted as a means to do much in this wiki, especially if it's uncalled for "protection" to appease ANet. --Karlos 23:50, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I, personally, see no harm in removing alpha leaks permanently from the (viewable) wiki. That said, I see no distinct gain from this either. Whichever way we go on this, I'd like to see it done in a unified manner.


 * Maintaining the article's history seems more wiki-like to me, and so I'm more inclined to go that direction. &mdash;Tanaric 23:53, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I want to point out another subtle thing with respect to some of the stuff written above. Speculation and (unconfirmed) alpha leaks are two different matters.  Speculation are guesses made by outsiders.  Unconfirmed leaks are information claiming to have come from insiders.  I think speculations on talk pages are fine, and people are free to fill up the talk pages with it.
 * On the other hand, I think unconfirmed leaks should be treated the same as any confirmed leaks. If we only remove confirmed leaks (identifiable via screenshot or if Anet ask us to remove some very specific text) and leave unconfirmed leaks alone, that grants a certain degree of implicit authenticity to the ones that got removed (in case people saved their private copy).  In my opinion, removing anything claiming to be leaks is the best way to minimize the damage of any actual alpha leaks. - 00:15, 15 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I see no distinction between any of those. Both are statements with no verification provided (often with no verification possible).  Whether someone's talking about the stats of the game (fellblades swing .01s faster!) or the alpha (icy veins has a 10s recharge!) is irrelevant as they're untestable for us (even if someone here's in the alpha, they're under an NDA).  For anything, screenshots (and even videos, as we've seen before) are corroborating evidence but not proof.  ANet themselves will not likely every confirm anything yet they're the only ones we would trust on the matter.  They're not going to check things for truth before asking people to remove it, either.  --Fyren 01:50, 15 September 2006 (CDT)


 * While removing (easily) visable alpha leaks is a good idea, editing the history period is a dangerous thing. Makes me think of history books that cover the Nazi and Communist reigns... anything the person (singular, as in Hitler) doesn't like, he removes from the face of the planet. Just makes it disappear, no questions asked, nothing discussed with anyone. Doing that is a mistake, and is either stepping on the line or going over it... either way, I don't like what I'm seeing. While mods have powers others don't, they shouldn't be running around and acting like a God-chosen ruler, making irreversable edits (for a user). Plus... all this because ArenaNet might possibly maybe sort of take us off their list of "elite fansites?" That's paranoid to the extreme. -Auron [[Image:Elit Druin.jpg|||My Talk]] 21:07, 15 September 2006 (CDT)

Just to clear up something
Karlos' original description "to the effect that skill X will be more potent if rumors/leaks about it are true" is slightly unclear. It might be interpreted as someone writing "This skill will be more useful if the rumors about the skill change is true." The comment I deleted was more similar to "This skill will be more useful if the rumor about its recharging time being changed to x is true". Ie, the specifics of a particular proposed skill change was written, as opposed to just an indirect reference to some alpha leak out there. This may or maynot affect your view on the incident. Just want to make sure people are on the same page while continuing discussing matters. - 11:02, 14 September 2006 (CDT)

Also, Karlos' statement "By deleting then restoring a specific version of the article, PanSola was able to basically wipe out that article's history." is also misleading from my perspective. The history of Talk:N/any_Icy_Degen is ALMOST preserved in its entirity. The only part of the history that was lost was the last edit made before my deletion. It is a "selective removal" of the page's history, not a "wipe". Had there been 200 edits in the article previously, they would remain in the history. Wipe to me implies the entire history, every single bit of it, is gone. Again, the distinction may or may not matter to whoever is reading this, but I want to make sure people are on the same page. - 11:37, 14 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I was referring to what happened with talk:Elona, see the history of the article, versus the 116 lost edits. And it was Skuld, not you, so sorry about that. --Karlos 23:39, 14 September 2006 (CDT)
 * hmmm ... that's troubling ... restoring most now ... --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:43, 14 September 2006 (CDT)

Conclusion on history deletion/leaks ?
So what is Guildwiki's stance on this matter? I strongly agree that under no circumstance should the history of a page be completely eliminated. The only exception i'd see to this is if the page served no purpose and ALL information on the page was against the rules.

On the topic of alpha or beta leaks I see no reason to do so unless it is removed by an employee of arenanet or NCSoft or is asked to be removed by an employee of Arenanet or NCSoft. I don't see how showing future ingame content on the site can in any way damage the company. If anything it would be promoting the game/company. Unless of course the update shows something negative about the game, which should be documented as well anyhow. I feel that any content that may be considered "leaked" shouldn't be put on the article page as it will be speculation until offically released, but I think talk pages are a different story. Having an offical Guildwars fansite logo doesn't mean the site works for Arenanet and that we need to start over censoring ourselves. I've seen the same content in question here over on other "elite fansites". If it's good enough for them why isn't it good enough for us? --The King Tarosian 23:11, 18 September 2006 (CDT)


 * FYI: Some of this is being addressed in the draft policy at GuildWiki_is_not_ArenaNet and the related talk page at GuildWiki_talk:GuildWiki_is_not_ArenaNet. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:21, 18 September 2006 (CDT)