GuildWiki talk:Community portal/Archive 17

Trivia
I would like to state my opinion which is allowed on the wiki and no one has to right to lynch me for saying so. I think that nearly all of the trivia on GuildWiki is a load of crap. The Notes on GuildWiki aren't perfect either. True "notes" are ones like how Holy Wrath splits energy penalty among the maintainers. Other notes (this is just a made up example) like the ones saying Lightning Hammer and Lightning Orb are good with Dual Attunes are not notes, they are advice. I wouldn't mind a seperate section on advice only to clarify this. While some of the advice on GuildWiki is unfounded, biased to one style of play, or simply does not work, most of it is viable, with some help from editors with proper game experience to weed out the bad advice.

Trivia is a different story. I removed the Trivia from "Shields Up!" which was promptly readded. Whether "Shields Up!" really is a common reference to Star Trek can be argued somewhere else. Looking at Talk:Ryoko awhile back and my continuous peeving with seeing unnecessary Trivia on skill pages added by fans of the respective trivia, I thought maybe the rest of the wiki has something to say about this. Maybe this has been brought up before, and if there is such precedent, please link to it and I will see where to go from there.

My main point is that there is no point to trivia. Notes are definetely needed and should be included. Most of the advice is very good and currently it is working. However, the trivia has been riddled with addings, removings, and their reverts. Apparently a lot of the paragon shouts are refering to Monty Python. Some people think only a few of them are. But besides the childish gratification of seeing their favorite piece of media connected to Guild Wars through this wiki's trivia system, what point is there? Sure there are some people that first visit an article and go, "Oh..that does make sense". I'll admit it's happened to me before. But just skimming through Shout's trivia section, I've never seen the said To the Limit video. If the wiki is trying to teach me popular culture, that's something disagreeable, but acceptable. I can choose if I want to listen to it or not. What really bothers me is that the trivia asserts itself as true or is clutter. There is trivia that says "this may be a reference to -insert media here-" which is stupid. Far-fetched trivia that requires a stretch is obviously unneeded, and pointless. The "their names do sound kinda similar" is not needed to be replicated every time someone visits an article. Other trivia asserts itself as true. Like Victory is Mine's trivia states "Stewie from Family Guy says "Victory is Mine" quite often, usually whilst trying to assassinate his mother, Lois." Some people, especially the ones that don't know what Family Guy is, don't think this is true. Who is GuildWiki to say that it is.

You can tell me "just ignore the trivia if you have such a big problem with it". Well I can add a joke about how funny Echo Menders are, but we don't have that. Sure, it is foolish, but who's to judge that it is more foolish then where to cap the skill? Common sense is usually the judge. While more people will benefit from where Mending's skill trainer is than how funny my joke is, I could argue that at least one person will laugh at my joke. I'm taking it to an extreme example to clearly illustrate how pointless Trivia is. While common sense and the general standard for the wiki is to not have mending jokes but to have skill trainer locations and trivia, how is the mending joke, in principal, different from trivia? Neither contribute to the gameplay of Guild Wars, unlike the skill trainer location.

My proposition: Remove all the trivia. All of it. I haven't looked through all of the Trivia in the wiki, but I'm pretty sure that some could be interpreted as a note rather than a pop culture reference (which is pretty much the vast majority of trivia) and could be added as such. Some trivia is so blindingly obvious, such as "Can't Touch This" is a reference to MC Hammer's song Cant Touch This. But, indeed, you really can't touch the shouter of that shout. If trivia really is blindingly obvious, then it is. The wiki doesn't need to say so; everyone will think of that song when they see this skill. If trivia is obscure, then it is as well. Fans of that skill, boss, or place will think of whatever it is supposedly referencing it to. When someone unlocks "I Will Survive!", they can think of the song if they want. They can think that they will survive in game if they want. It's their decision. It's not a sentence on a section of a skill page that decides for them. GuildWiki is not the place to exchange popular culture. Well. At least not in the mainspace. You can do whatever you please in userspace. Trivia was invented by fans. It's main contributers today still are fans of specific media. It clutters the wiki. It makes the wiki less authoritative.

Exception: Some trivia is genuine Guild Wars trivia and not connected to an outside, non-Guild Wars Source. Take example Jamei's Gaze is definitely referring to Jamei. "This does not effect Guild Wars gameplay, so you are contradicting yourself" you may say. Well then Lore doesn't effect Guild Wars gameplay. Hell, let's get rid of all the spoiler warnings then, eh? By keeping these types of trivia, I'm not being a purist to a Guild Wars based Guild Wiki.

Even though it would be a lie to say that I have no personal feelings against trivia and this is truly nothing more than an opinion, consider as one. I have only contributed to the wiki a small amount and I am just an anonymous user. I fully understand this is not my call to make. I just am trying to shed some light onto the situation. Biased? I did my best to present both sides of the argument but surely every singly written argument exceeding ~1000 words has some (maybe a lot if you can point it out, which if you can please do) bias in it. There maybe points I have missed, or some possibly fatal flaws in my argument, which I am willing to hear to if you choose to respond. Most importantly, if you disagree, there's no need to flame me. Remember, I'm not demanding anything at all, only proposing. This is just an opinion.

I forgot to sign, excuse me 67.162.10.70 22:52, 1 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Guild Wars is full of obvious intentional pop culture references, and I think we should aknowledge that fact and include plausible trivia. When something implausible ends up in the trivia section, such as the dubious Ryoko trivia, it generally gets removed, generally leading to a discussion on the talk page, which usually reaches concensus soon after someone points out how implausible or tenuous the alledged trivia really is. Anyway, I think this discussion belongs on GuildWiki talk:Style and formatting. -- Gordon Ecker 23:33, 1 July 2007 (CDT)


 * I agree that a lot of the trivia in the wiki are very difficult to believe. You are entitled to your opinion, however biased or unbiased you may think it is. Here are some thoughts of mine after I read your comments:


 * What I would like to ask is why do you think that a trivia section equals "an exchange of popular culture"? How is one section with a header title that means "insignificant or something of little importance" affect GuildWiki's credibility? You mean you actually became distrustful of the contents of a skill page because someone added a crap trivia at the bottom? I'm not convinced of your "less authoritative" argument. I think you're just bugged by stupid trivia. If you think they're stupid, put a message in the respective talk page and garner support for their removal.


 * And on the side, yes, if you propose to get rid of all trivia, then Jamei's Gaze trivia goes too. Your argument applies here (I see Jamei's Gaze, I think of Jamei, no need to mention Jamei, people can make whatever connection they want). Another thing about the Echo Mender joke, if you look at Mending, you'll find it there. You can even provide links to any relevant forum posts if you want. The thing I find strange about the skill pages is why the trivia section is not right at the bottom. -- Ab.Er.Rant [[Image:User Aberrant80 Sig.png]] (msg Aberrant80) 03:09, 2 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Personally, I support Wikipedia's stance on Trivia's section - but I've never proposed it here as I've seen such major support for the sections here. Basically, WP's stance is that trivia sections are useful when an article is first being built; but trivia sections over there do get tagged as non-encyclopedic.  They view the trivia sections as a collection of facts that are either yet to be incorporated into the text of the article - or if they can't be incorporated, then they are too loosly related to the core subject to merit remaining and are purged from the article after a period of time. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 08:34, 2 July 2007 (CDT)

GameWikis - FuryWiki and meta again
One new wiki and one not-so-new wiki: FuryWiki and the return of meta, the GameWikisWiki. As with the older wikis, account info is shared among Fury and meta, so you don't need to make a new account if you have one already (and of course, you can edit anonymously if you like).

Not much to say about FuryWiki; it's a wiki for Fury. If you're in the beta, head over and write some stuff up. It's essentially empty right now, but I'm adding my feeble knowledge to try to seed it. If you're not in the beta, the signup page is here. I have no clue how often they accept new testers.

Meta's actually even emptier, but I'm trying to address how to get new wikis going. There's a very barebones policy there for what to do if you want us to host a wiki for something (that policy being essentially "write some content for it"). --Fyren 04:43, 7 July 2007 (CDT)

A few questions...
How do you add sections to pages? I need to add sections to MY page. Please and thank you. :) -- MiniKold 15:13, 9 July 2007 (CDT)


 * See Editing_guide. You add sections with ==, which is the same as hitting the "+" tab next to the Edit button. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 15:16, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

Bullseye.com ad...
Anyway to block the Bullseye.com ads? I don't even know what the ads are for exactly (tried going to bullseye.com and bulls-eye.com and found no sites) but there are a lot of scantily dressed ladies in the ads. Which is not the kind of ad I would like us to host. --Karlos 00:33, 10 July 2007 (CDT)

It is not that bad tbh. Just a gossip site if anything. You know, the stars, celebs, controversies, and all that jazz. Readem (talk *contribs ) 00:36, 10 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Seems to have something to do with games as well, which explains why it's even here. The site's called "BullzEye" btw, with a Z instead of an S. Makes it cooler! =P --[[image:GEO-logo.png]] Jioruji Derako.> 00:38, 10 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Fine and dandy but there may be young children around the computers (as was in my case). The last thing I want is to introduce my very young brother and very bewildered grandfather to the internet's scantly-clad ladies.  —ǥȓɩηɔɧ 〚₮/ḉ〛 00:43, 10 July 2007 (CDT)


 * They need to learn sometime!
 * ...but on a more serious note, I do agree, it doesn't seem like the best ad for this site. --[[image:GEO-logo.png]] Jioruji Derako.> 00:53, 10 July 2007 (CDT)


 * If you're running a version of Windows prior to Vista, you should be able to deny them by h4X0ring your hosts file. Though if the site gets revenue based on page loads, that might be you stealing money from the site.  No!!!
 * DaveK 06:04, 10 July 2007 (GMT)


 * I often read Guild Wiki pages durring lunch at work, as a harmless passtime. I was recently given a warning by my supervisor as a result of the Bullz-eye content in the sponsors column. I tried to add www.adbrite.com to my blocked internet lists, but that didn't seem to stop the ads. Also - The sponsor column runs ads for buying gold for real world cash - which is a "terms and conditions" violation. The sponsors need to be reviewed more closely. - Lefick


 * Best way to block them is with Firefox and the AdBlock plugin. Adbrite is a particularly annoying one and not one I was ever able to fully block via the hosts file.  --Rainith 12:26, 10 July 2007 (CDT)
 * It's Google Ads. The sponsors can't really be "reviewed" as they're just loaded based on keywords. What the wiki admin can do is to block them, so please do post the urls of offending ads. -- Ab.Er.Rant [[Image:User Aberrant80 Sig.png]] (msg Aberrant80) 19:33, 10 July 2007 (CDT)
 * It isn't just Google Ads (at least it wasn't a while back). Adbrite was added a while back (I don't know if they have since been removed as I block them) and they were not able to be blocked (in any way that I could figure out) using the hosts file "hack."  Google Ads are easily blocked with the hosts file though.  --Rainith 20:21, 10 July 2007 (CDT)


 * You can disable them in your css settings. You can copy mine as a template to block it on your account. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:26, 10 July 2007 (CDT)


 * There's no reason why it wouldn't work on Vista. DeepSearch 10:06, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

I've been relaying complaints over the last few days to Gravewit as people have been making them. --Fyren 21:44, 10 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Thanks for the css hack, Barek :)-- Snog  rat [[Image:User Snograt signature.png]] 16:49, 14 July 2007 (CDT)


 * The only problem with the CSS solution is that it appears that the MediaWiki software still attempts to access the site, then just doesn't display it. The good news is that the visual distraction is eliminated.  The bad news is that some security suites tag the site http://ads.adbrite.com/mb/te as spyware, and still pop-up warning messages everytime the site is accessed, even though the results are never displayed. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:56, 26 July 2007 (CDT)

Running Guild Wars Under an OS other than Windows
I propose, as someone who is very, very sick of his terribly slow windows install that there should be a comprehensive section of the wiki devoted to helping those who wish to run Guild Wars on a non-windows operating system. I apologise if this is an old concept or that I haven't looked hard enough for an existing page (I have looked fairly hard though), but there needs to be an easy to understand, stress free guide to installing Guild Wars on a non-windows OS; this just simply isn't provided immediately elsewhere and hence, as a source of all things Guild Wars, we should definitely provide it. I'm posting this here to see some thoughts on the topic; if there is enough interest I would certainly consider fronting a project to bring it into being.

Cheers, --Vagabond 05:05, 16 July 2007 (CDT)


 * I know at least a couple people here run it under various *nixy OSes. I don't remember who, off the top of my head, besides Tanaric. --Fyren 05:28, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, given that you're only complaining about the install part, and since you only really need to install once (for each computer you're using), I don't see why a slow install would warrant a switch of the OS itself. But if you're interested, the official wiki has a page on it: . I tried finding a similar page here, but I'm not sure if anybody did. -- Ab.Er.Rant [[Image:User Aberrant80 Sig.png]] (msg Aberrant80) 20:08, 16 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Instructions on Linux:
 * Install current version of wine, not the outdated one in your distro's repository
 * Download gwsetup.exe from guildwars.com
 * run gwsetup via wine.
 * run Guild Wars via wine.


 * Runs pretty well, actually.


 * &mdash;Tanaric 19:13, 17 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Yeah, I had a look at the Official Wiki one. For a casual nerd who has just begun the arduous path to become a fully baptised member of the freakish society that is Linux 0(ie. me), the first glance of this page caused me to wet my pants and order an exorcism. Its a heap of terminal commands, command line switches and other horrors. I know that many would argue that a true Linux nerd revels in that sort of situation, however for someone like me, who is simply a casual "Oh I'll see what something that isn't windows is like, what a delightful trifle (guffaw)" after reading in their PC Magazine that Ubuntu is "Linux for the folks", and that it is really easy to use (what a larf), a huge jumble of code in a not very easy to read format is hardly appreciatable. I'm proposing a really dumbed down version, not patronising but easy to understand, that can help someone who just wants Linux because they don't want to pay for XP Profession 64x, or because they're cheap, to run their favourite game, and currently this simplicity is not on offer. Oh and what switches do you use Tanaric lol, mine keeps randomly closing :P Cheers. Oh and I didn't mean the installation process, I meant the installed version on Windows. Vagabond 05:12, 19 July 2007 (CDT)


 * I just tried restructuring the "Guild Wars on Wine" article on the official wiki, hopefully making it less intimidating. Let us know how that looks. --Dirigible 12:57, 20 July 2007 (CDT)


 * That's brilliant well done. There is pretty much no way you can go wrong with that guide, however I use -dx8 instead of no-shaders these days. But this isn't the place to write that, so well done and problem solvered (you'll only get that joke if you're an Aussie but oh well, it made me chuckle).Vagabond 23:48, 27 July 2007 (CDT)

GW:EN Skills...
Not sure if anyone posted this elsewher, but peering into gw.dat, some people have seen the following skill names: read here Should we bother add them now? --Karlos 03:25, 19 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Nvm. I found the discussion. Please ignore. --Karlos 03:46, 19 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Why speculate about those skills, the description of what the skills do is in the gw.dat file as well, lol. -- Xeon 06:38, 19 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Wiki.GW Has a full list of what I assume are "legal" PvP skills for each proffesion. Are we allowed to copy them? Only thing they don't say are which ones are elites &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.129.239.97 (contribs).


 * None of them are elite, Izzy confirmed it. -- Gordon Ecker 18:01, 21 July 2007 (CDT)

Sponsors
Players Take Note As a reminder, if you purchase in game gold, your account is subject to suspension and possible termination.

How come GuildWiki has RandyRan.com as its sponsor? Does GuildWiki support gold trade that can eventually terminate account? 80.89.53.119 14:35, 19 July 2007 (CDT)


 * GuildWiki itself has not very much control over what shows up in the Sponsors, and we don't necessarily promote or endorse any of them either. There are a few reasons...one is that they are randomly chosen by Google ads based on keywords. Another is that certain unscrupulous companies somehow manage to avoid having their ads blocked by normal means, such that removing them can only be done with haxxor-type code changes to your Wiki files or Internet program itself. Then of course there is the issue that these types of services (runners, online gold, etc) continually change their websites all the time to avoid being shot down by ANet/NCsoft or whoever. If you notice, the ads change all the time, even if the actual people behind them are the same. This makes blocking them difficult since your target keeps changing. Finally...there's only like one or two people on GWiki staff that actually have control over these kinds of things, and they're not usually very active. So the whole process is kind of convoluted. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 15:30, 19 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Actually we add them to the blacklist of ads. Search thru the site, there's lots of references to this. The most recent version is always here (http://gamewikis.org/blog/2006/04/17/current-google-adsense-blacklist/). &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gravewit (contribs).

"Randy Run" should be added to the list. Foo 16:55, 22 July 2007 (CDT)
 * black list randy run. Gcardinal 20:13, 22 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Looks like simple edit takes some time :) 80.89.53.119 11:33, 25 July 2007 (CDT)
 * 1 week later and randy run still on the site. Gcardinal 10:52, 26 July 2007 (CDT)
 * 1 week later... again. RandyRun still on site... Looks like someone making to much cash from it :P I am just saying... 80.89.53.119 12:47, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

PvP vs. PvE Skills
With the upcoming GW:EN campaign, a lot more PvE-only skills will be added to the game. I'd like to verify if I got the template system right: Q: Is this correct? - Xanon 15:10, 23 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Equippable skills for use in PvP and PvE get neither the "pveonly" nor the "nocats" flag
 * Equippable PvE-only skills carry the "pveonly", but not the "nocats" flag
 * Non-Equippable skills (festival arenas, skills granted during missions etc.) receive the "nocats" flag, but not the "pveonly" flag.
 * Skills players cannot see in their skill menu get nocats. Skills players can see in their skill menu but are PvE only get pveonly.  --Fyren 01:30, 24 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Hmm, i marked all skills that are pve only that people can use with the tag, junundu skills and mission skills (no event skills or monster specific skills). -- Xeon 04:32, 24 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Probably doesn't really matter what's marked as pveonly. --Fyren 07:26, 24 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Thanks for the answers. Fyren, with your last reply you mean that it doesn't matter for the skills that have "nocats" already if they get tagged "pveonly" as well? - Xanon 16:13, 24 July 2007 (CDT)
 * The nocats parameter prevents automatic categorization of the skill article in order to keep the categories like Category:Enchantment spells clean and useful for players. People seeking a list of all skills of a type are probably concerned with making a build, so "special" or monster-only skills aren't helpful.  The purpose of the pveonly parameter, which was only (relatively) recently introduced by Xeon, is so far just to add the text "PvE only" to QR boxes (like at the bottom of ranger skills quick reference).  This ends up being possibly redundant for pages like celestial skill where all the listed skills are necessarily PvE skills.  --Fyren 18:10, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

Location article format standardization
While vanquishing today, I noticed that the location articles often had very different formats, particularly for shrine locations, number of enemies present, and miscellaneous vanquishing notes. They can be at the bottom, in a subtitle under Notes, spread across the article, inserted at the top, formatted inconsistently, or just missing altogether. These should be standardized so that information is easier to find, with a Shrines section and a Hard Mode section. The latter could be a subsection of Notes, or independent. New community task? Issa Dabir 19:49, 23 July 2007 (CDT)
 * See Style and formatting/Explorable areas. The missing thing is hard mode, because nobody actually started any discussion for standardising hard mode information. -- Ab.Er.Rant [[Image:User Aberrant80 Sig.png]] (msg Aberrant80) 20:14, 23 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I know that's there, but it's not implemented. Even for bounty shrines, a feature predating hard mode, the formatting is all over the place. I'm posting here because it would be a good idea to make format standardization a community task, once the format is extended to hard mode data. [[Image:Spirit's Strength.jpg|16px]] Issa Dabir 05:56, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

Advertising
I don't know if anyone has noticed but Google Adds has placed an advertisement for a website which sells in game items and gold. This is against the GW rules and it's kinda offensive that a website which supports the game has the advertisement to a website which hurts it so much. I don't belive this is intentional however is it possible to remove the advertisement or replace it with another one which isn't offensive to the game?58.110.141.54 13:03, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

Edit: Nevermind I saw the discussion above.
 * How can you not click on the USA Body Armor ad? - [[Image:Candle.jpg|12px]] Krowman (talk • contribs) 00:35, 28 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Guild Wars Gold In Stock

Wow Gold for all servers in stock. Great pricing, and fast delivery. www.wowgold2u.com

&mdash;Blastedt 08:49, 28 July 2007 (CDT)


 * They advertise in-game as well... they're surprisingly good at avoiding capture. I can only imagine accounts caught advertising in-game are marked and/or banned... they probably make enough money to buy new advertising accounts every so often. --[[image:GEO-logo.png]] Jioruji Derako.> 05:44, 30 July 2007 (CDT)

Re Sponsors
I see you have Alexa Toolbar as sponsor, Alexa is well-known spyware that most anti-spyware and anti malware tools will remove, maybe you could remove it too ? ;p
 * Alexa is not a spyware, its a world leading statistic company, trusted and used world wide in confirming real site traffic without have access to the real "hard" statistic. Its no different then google or any other toolbar. 80.89.53.119 17:15, 3 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Anon is right. Those statistics you hear that say, "Wikipedia is the 9th most popular website in the world" comes from Alexa. It's about spyware as much as google toolbar is.  —ǥȓɩηɔɧ  〚 ₮ /ḉ〛 17:50, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

gold add
you have a add on your pages that takes you to a page were you can buy gw gold "RUNtastic"

Sigh....Archive Time
92 kilobytes....Can't people just get top of the line computers and computer browsers? Amyways, apparently another archive time is coming up. Nhnowell 12:25, 5 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Feel free to do it - there's no designated archiver, anyone can do it. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 12:27, 5 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Archiving is like taking out the trash... anyone can do it, it's just most people don't want to do it. *twiddles his thumbs while someone else archives the page* --[[image:GEO-logo.png]] Jioruji Derako.> 14:28, 5 August 2007 (CDT)


 * Done. -- Gordon Ecker 19:41, 5 August 2007 (CDT)