GuildWiki talk:Community portal/Archive 22

Fianlly
been using the official in the meantime, man the way they organize quests it makes it really difficult to see what you need to do to acquire the quests (IMO). It was driving me crazy, but not as crazy as the wikia skin. 174.46.61.227 16:26, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Seeking Fansite status
I spoke briefly with ArenaNet's Community Relations Manager Regina Buenaobra yesterday about getting GuildWiki back on the official fansites listing now that we're off Wikia. She was very positive about it and directed me to the Fan Site Program page. Interestingly enough, losing our fansite status on Wikia was a blessing in disguise, because they're encountering a lot of difficulty with PvX's situation- the wikia site is still listed as an official fansite, but we don't have that issue. In particular, I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the eligibility expectations- I want to be sure we meet all the expectations before asking for a preliminary review. To that end, I'd appreciate input on the best ways to meet those goals. 20:06, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think we do. We might have lost our fan site status, but that doesn't mean we allow porn or gold seller ads. We might not be as up to date as GWW, but we try our best. Go for it! Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 20:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Should we add more RSS feeds? I think they have community news, and we could also do an updates feed in addition to the commented one we do. (Of course noen of these are archived on-wiki.) I'm also more than willing to paste ANet logos all over the place if needed. --◄mendel► 05:32, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Just curious, what made us ineligible in the first place when Wikia took over? I can't remember that far back. -- [[Image:Isk8.png]]   Isk8   (T/C) 20:54, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * They accused "us" of money selling ads. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 21:52, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think accused is the wrong word there. It was simply that we no longer had any control over the ads that appeared, and because Wikia couldn't reliably block the gold-selling ads, Anet could no longer allow us to have fansite status.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 22:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's why I used "us". I knew it was wikia, so I tried to explain. But I don't blaim em for removing the fan site status. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 15:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Synopsis of requirements:
 * High Quality and design ✅
 * Legal req'ts, copyrights, etc; attribute properly ✅ – ✅
 * Reflects positively upon the company and the game ✅
 * No porn/porn links, hackz/piratz, gold trading, cheats. ✅
 * Active moderation of forums/chats. Staff behaves appropriately. ✅
 * To abide by the game's User Agreement and Rules of Conduct. ✅


 * I think we're in good shape, except for possibly how we use screenshots (our policy isn't as strict as GWW's, but I'm sure it's at least as good as Guru's). — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 22:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * We could add a tiny ArenaNet or Guild Wars logo to the footer. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png]] 22:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * That seems sensible, Felix. Is there any reason not to &trade; ANet on every page's footer? — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 23:00, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I applaud your efforts at regaining fansite status. If Curse can be of any assistance, please feel free to ask. -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  22:07, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Can we have $100,000? [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 22:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Doubt it, but it's worth a shot :P --El Nazgir 22:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And just how would that help you regain your fansite status??? -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  23:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Bribe budget. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 00:32, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Awesome
This is awesome. Whoever made this possible is awesome. That's all. Thank you. Ethigenetic 20:42, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * We could only do it because the whole community was behind it. Now get the word out! --◄mendel► 06:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I am sorry that it took Wikia behaving badly to get us to move. This new site already feels more like home than the old site did! Well done, Doc Ish, Felix, Mendel, RT, and everyone else who did the lion's share of the work to make this happen (coding, saving images, negotiating with Curse, scouting out new locations, keeping Wikia at bay while the work continued, etc and etc and etc). — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 23:03, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Meanwhile on Wikia
Browser screenshot - Which wiki was that again? o.O --◄mendel► 06:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * World of Warscape: Runiclysm Wiki. Can't you tell? It says so right on the top; if there's one thing the Wikia skin is knwon for, it's being clear about where you are.
 * Can't say how happy I am to be off Wikia. While I don't know that this'll affect my usual inactive activity level, one less tie to Wikia is worth celebrating! -- Jïörüjï Ðērākō.> 19:44, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I say, embrace the change and make it work for us. Paid sponsorships of GW@wikia from the anti-wikia alliance? — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 20:06, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hah! nice, I never see these backgrounds. Venom20 20:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That is pure epic! -- [[Image:Isk8.png]]  Isk8   (T/C) 20:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That's hilarious XD --[[Image:Kirbman sig.png]] Kirbman 17:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Even more ads in new places! --◄mendel► 20:29, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki links
You can link to Guild Wars Wiki with e.g. gww:Jolvor Stoneforge; you can do the same with pvx: to link to PvXwiki, but to go to guildwars@wikia right now you need w:c:guildwars:. I suggest using wgw: for this (Wikia GuildWars), comments? Are there other sites you wish to link to easily, e.g. guru: or youtube: or whatever? ( already works.) --◄mendel► 10:19, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Would anyone who speaks Spanish be interested in inquiring at es: whether they want to set up mutual language links with us (we link to them, they to us)?

Also, somebody who speaks French (El Nazgir?) might inquire at fr: whether they'd change their en: interwiki to guildwiki.org if we added links to them to all our pages?

What do you think about making "GWW" a language so that we can link to the official wiki from the sidebar? (Have a look at the Main Page sidebar to see what it looks like.) --◄mendel► 11:01, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If you want persistent links to GWW, just install the page-top tab in common.js. Making that a language link doesn't make any sense.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 13:24, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The page-top tabs are not a logical place for this as they act on the present page. It would be possible to add an automatic link to the sidebar, even without javascript. The language links are a collection of links that lead to related pages off-site, that's why I think that gww: links would be ok there. The question is, do we want to? They're not linking to us. --◄mendel► 13:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If they're not linking to us, then no, we don't need to edit all ~20k articles to add a link to them. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 13:41, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * A good portion of the information on GWW is redundant with the information we have here- I see no reason to link to them on every article when it wouldn't be a useful addition. We could make a template to link to GWW for specific pages that they might cover in a better or different way- say, ArenaNet staff pages or armor galleries. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 14:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * While they may have official renders for armor/etc., I have heard many people say they prefer our in-game armor galleries. We are definitely deficient on staff pages, though.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 15:14, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I like ours better too, but there's no reason not to provide extra resources whenever we can. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 15:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * While I would love to help, and I disliked not being able to help with the move, but my French is terrible, especially written. I could try, but I'm afraid google translate would do better in an incredibly much shorter timeframe. I might be able to get some smaller mistakes out of google translate's version though.--El Nazgir 16:13, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

We're moved! (Now what?)
So, Guild Wiki has finally obtained the independent, don't-tread-on-me hosting site it has desired since moving to Wikia. Huzzah! Long live Guild Wiki. But: now what?

It seems to me that there are any number of possible directions we can take:
 * Carry on. (Seemed to work for us so far, although there's no future for GWiki 2 on Curse.)
 * Step up our game (Compete more directly with GWW, even though we have trouble keeping up with the modest updates this year. Also: no GWiki 2.)
 * Complement GWW, instead of competing. (We already do better/different job in terms of walkthroughs, advice, innovation. Of course, done well, this would probably be bigger than the move.)
 * Squabble amongst ourselves about interesting and important, but non-critical issues. (Seems to occupy a big portion of recent edits.)

Are people ready to consider what's next? Or is everyone too exhausted from moving (and keeping GW@wikia safe from WikiaStaff) to worry about this now? — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 23:07, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I plan to continue implementing SMW across more classes of articles. I've simply been occupied with trying to get the last little things implemented that we need for the wiki to work how we want, as well as the normal real-life stuff that happens this time of year (read: stupidly-planned project deadlines that I had no say in setting but am now solely responsible for meeting).  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 23:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Search box position
Should we move the Search box to be higher up? It feels awkwardly low, especially since its probably the box that gets the most use. Some lower resolutions even have to scroll down to see it. Let me (and the admins) know where you think it should be. I'm in support of 2, 3, or 4. -- Kirbman 17:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) stay where it is
 * 2) above the support box
 * 3) above the news box
 * 4) all the way at the top like it was in Monaco
 * We could remove the news box altogether, it's all on the main page anyway. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 17:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Search should be high (useful to all). Command center should be at bottom (not useful to casual readers). Support should higher (somewhat useful to some). Toolbox should be higher (mostly useful to most). News should remain (not everyone visits main, especially frequent readers). — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 17:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Command center?
 * Agreed, news should stay. I haven't looked at the main page for information in years.
 * Imo, move Search to below Nav. Rest is fine to me. --Vipermagi 18:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The "command center" is part of his custom javascript (based on mine).
 * Agreed, news is important because my default page is RC.
 * Agreed, search below navigation is a good place for it. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 04:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)


 * gww: has it between navigation and support; if we want to make it easy for readers to switch, we should go with option 2 or 3. --◄mendel► 22:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm in support of #2.– User Balistic Pve sig.pngalistic 00:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd be in favor of vector as default skin when curse is done it's fixing with the ads + all skins thing, the search is in the upper right hand corner such as UnAnswers uses. Though doesn't mendelbook have it there too? &mdash;  Scythe   3:08, 10 Dec 2010 (UTC)
 * It definately needs to move up, since I have to scroll down everytime I want to use it.

I'm using a 10,1inch netbook with the standard resolution on it. Rook 16:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm in favor of option 1. You'd need an extremely low resolution to have to scroll down for it... The navigation is more important, and search comes right after that imo.--El Nazgir 17:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Oops, I should've mentioned here that I've already edited Mediawiki:Sidebar to put the search box below the navigation box (option 3 listed above). &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 17:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Anti-Wikia Skin Alliance newsletter
The AWA have sent us a letter. Since it doesn't "regard GuildWiki in general", I've moved it to User:Anno1404/Anti-Wikia Skin Alliance newsletter, and Gigathrash's comment to the talkpage there. Feel free to drop a short link paragraph here when new newsletters become available, but please do not assume that it will be a GuildWiki community matter. --◄mendel► 18:02, 18 December 2010 (UTC) (edited 22:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC))


 * We could say that the AWA is now looking for people who can help support admins and editors who have decided to move (but are having trouble making it happen). (Read the newsletter for details, if you are interested.) And hey, I just did! ^-^ — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 20:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Overloaded (Curse) server
I've gotten overloaded server messages (from curse) 3 times in the last week (including today and yesterday). In one case (yesterday's), it was 15 minutes or more before I could view anything. Is anyone else experiencing anything similar? — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 20:52, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Never had any problems :S --El Nazgir 21:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I had a curse message showing that there was maintenece or something. Went to bed short afterwards, so I don't know how long that lasted. Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 21:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I had the same thing happen yesterday afternoon. After about 5 min, I just went off to do something else and came back later in the evening and it had passed. Nylana Greymoon 22:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Happened to me a few times but always only lasted a minute or so. (So I herd we dont liek indents or wut) [[Image:EM Signature.jpg]] ***EAGLEMUT***   T  A  L K 23:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Curse is working on it. Actually, that's part of the reason, because when the server configuration is upgraded, the caches are restarted, leading to a high load on the backend servers until things normalize again. --◄mendel► 23:35, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Bryan was installing new servers and increasing the RAM in the existing ones yesterday, so that would explain any issues you encountered yesterday. He hasn't mentioned that the upgrade is complete yet, so if he was still working on it today, that would also explain today's issues.  When the upgrade is complete, though, we shouldn't have any more performance issues.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 00:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * That's good news. It would be great if Bryan et al could find a way to let us know before/during/after about any work that might affect performance. I have a lot of patience for planned maintenance; I don't have that much patience for spontaneous outages &mdash; and I cannot tell which is which without the kindness of administrative strangers. Thanks for the update, Ish. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 01:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Bryan told us about it on IRC yesterday, right before the major outage started. If he had mentioned it sooner, I would've put something in the sitenotice, but since the site was already going under, I didn't have a chance.
 * We'll definitely mention this to him and ask that he give us more lead time in the future. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 05:06, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * That would be good. I realize it might be difficult sometimes to alert all the curse clients at once, so mebbe they have some sort of sitewide notification service? — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 05:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think this was Curse-wide, I'm pretty sure it was just us and PvX and maybe a couple other wikis. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 14:11, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Got hit again. Not sure how long it lasted because I don't bother checking anymore. I now assume that the outage will be indefinite and that I will have no way of knowing when or why it will be back up.


 * This is among the reasons it's important for Curse staff to put a timely notification system in place, targeted to whatever sites are affected by whatever planned operations on their schedule. There's simply no reason in the 2010s to leave the impression that a site is poorly maintained when the opposite is true. With a decent system, it won't add significant time to their change management process.


 * Wikia suffers from this same misunderstanding of customer/client/contributor communication: just because a company doesn't have an obligation to notify folks about system health doesn't mean it's smart to leave it to our imagination. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 01:25, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

ConfirmEdit
Hey doc, aren't we supposed to have that installed/running? --JonTheMon 15:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * No, mendel said it would "tone down the appeal of the wiki" by "discouraging anon edits," so we didn't have it installed. I'll push it to the repository, hopefully Bryan will check in today so we can get it pushed live.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 15:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Think that's going to stop the spammers/vandals much? Or rather stop anon edits? I know that on minor changes, if I'd run into those, I'd say "sod it" more often than not. --◄mendel► 15:43, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * At the very least, confirm edit can kick into gear for things like urls for anons. --JonTheMon 15:50, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * ConfirmEdit can be configured - we've already had this discussion. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 15:57, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm actually going to go with the reCAPTCHA extension, which is the same thing (it includes the ConfirmEdit code and simply builds on it) with a much stronger captcha. Bots could easily recognize and respond to plain-text math questions, which is the default in ConfirmEdit.  The other options in ConfirmEdit mostly require additional server-side configuration, which we should avoid.
 * reCAPTCHA uses the same trigger settings as ConfirmEdit, and the defaults in the current version are as follows:

$wgCaptchaTriggers['edit']         = false; // Would check on every edit $wgCaptchaTriggers['create']       = false; // Check on page creation. $wgCaptchaTriggers['sendemail']    = false; // Special:Emailuser $wgCaptchaTriggers['addurl']       = true;  // Check on edits that add URLs $wgCaptchaTriggers['createaccount'] = true; // Special:Userlogin&type=signup $wgCaptchaTriggers['badlogin']     = true;  // Special:Userlogin after failure


 * I don't see any reason to change these. Also, I changed group permissions for Users and (all) to remove the writeapi permission, since vandal-bots could easily use that vector to bypass all our other protection mechanisms.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 18:02, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Which groups should the captcha trigger for? By default I believe it's anons, new users and auto-confirmed. --JonTheMon 18:06, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm setting it for anons only. We trust our registered users (and they're easier to block).  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 18:07, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I just wonder if it'd help to have captcha true on say page creation and edits... Well, would that help against vandalisms and at least autobots? Ariyen 18:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Take that up with mendel, he doesn't want to scare away potential editors. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 18:11, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Speaking as a potential editor of other sites:
 * I am 5% less likely to contribute the occasional edit to a site that requires confirmation (that goes up to 10% if CAPTCHA is the requirement rather than 4+5=...).
 * I am 1% more likely to register as a user for the same site if I find myself contributing more than X edits in Y weeks.
 * I am 70% less likely to contribute to the same site if I perceive it to be unable to handle vandalism.
 * So, while I agree with Mendel that we should err on the side of openness for anons, I don't think that adding a minor hurdle is going to scare aware well-intentioned folks. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 19:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I registered at PvX to get rid of their obnoxious captcha (gotta type 2 skill 1-word names. Every edit. Ugh). I also contributed a lot, though. If I just wanted to make an edit a week or less, I'd rather just forget about it and not edit at all. --Vipermagi 20:25, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * To both Ernie and Viper: If the instructions for the captcha included a friendly reminder that you could completely disable them by creating an account, for free, with a link to the signup form, what would you do? I've already made that modification to the reCAPTCHA message that will be displayed to our anons.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 21:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't hate Captcha as much as Viper, but it would reduce my participation on a site slightly. I would not be inclined to sign up simply to avoid it. I use different logons for different types of sites, use multiple passwords, need to coordinate some sites across multiple machines, etc. So, for me, signing up is more trouble than it's worth for casual participation. Captcha, horrible as it is, is less trouble. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 21:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * As configured, an anon would only get the captcha for putting urls on pages, registering, and having bad logins. How do you two feel about those scenarios? --JonTheMon 21:40, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The captcha for registering is almost standard practice, if someone has a problem with it they're going to be unhappy with most of the internet. The bad login one is reasonable, though I know if I typed my password in wrong once, I already feel frustrated at having to type it in again, let alone having to type something extra. Good thing I never get my password wrong, as I use Keepass (Thanks Doc!) As for the url one: does it apply to all external links, including gw@wikia, gww, wikipedia, etc.? Other than those, I don't see any reason why anyone would need to post a lot of external links on a lot of pages, so the captcha shouldn't be too annoying, and if someone feels the need to spam a link to their shoddy Gate of Madness "walkthrough" video on Youtube, well, they can deal with it. --Macros 22:46, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If you use the interwiki prefix inside double-square-bracket notation, then no, those are not considered external links (even though they link to something outside the wiki). In this context, "external" links are those entered as an actual URL, optionally using the single-square-bracket notation.
 * The badlogin only shows a captcha after 3 failed login attempts, so if you just fat-finger it once or twice before realizing your capslock is on, you won't see it. &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 22:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh, well, that's perfectly reasonable, from my point of view. --Macros 23:06, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Request more interwiki links if you need them, the admins can add them. Would an anon have to captcha if they edited a page with a URL already on it? --91.96.196.231 23:07, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No, only if new urls are added. That's why the trigger is called 'addurl'.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 23:10, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The bad login captcha on pvx forced me to jump through hoops after I messed up my password once- it made me enter the captcha, then copy+paste a string of characters into a mysterious text box, then retype my user name, then retry the password. I wouldn't mind if we didn't have captcha for bad logins at all, the likelihood of people bothering to bruteforce a free wiki account is pretty low. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 07:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Currently, pages being bot-spammed are mostly off the main (who sees the editcopy or the "recent discussions"?). So the main consideration here is, does the spam annoy more people reverting it than a captcha would annoy anons editing? How many reverts do we save, as opposed to the number of captchas anons would be exposed to? Can we get some numbers? --◄mendel► 08:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * It seems like you're still missing the point that this will only trigger when someone adds an external link to a page. (And once when creating an account, and after 3 failed login attempts).  It will not trigger on every single edit.  I'm not going to go data-mining to satisfy your paranoia, but I know it's very rare that we have an external link added to an article.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 14:16, 24 December 2010 (UTC)