GuildWiki talk:Community portal/Archive 17

Archived but potentially still open issues

 * Overuse of Spoiler tags
 * Taking "idocy" skills out of PvP
 * Is anyone else capable of running a bot?
 * Request for abbreviations

Build stub clean up

 * The clean up is nearly over now. As you might have noticed, quite a lot of builds were moved to Category:Tested builds indicating they were successfully vouched for. Category:Untested builds was created to replace the old Category:Build stubs. Build stubs is only for real stubs now (in the wiki sence) no longer for unvouched builds. Builds should always be in either tested builds or untested builds AND at the same time in Category:PvE Builds, Category:PvP Builds or Category:Farming Builds.


 * A special note on builds up for deletion: There are a few builds in Category:Candidates for deletion simply because noone wanted to vouch for them. If you feel any of these builds deserve not being deleted, please go to Category:Candidates for deletion and put your vote down on the talk page now.


 * People generally opposed to deleting builds might want to read about Bishops proposal.


 * Admins, please do not delete builds before the 15th please. --Xeeron 07:32, 13 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Update:
 * Thanks to Bishop, there is now a new "build portal" site at Build.

Vehemntly against new skill box IMPLEMENTATION

 * Archived, see two sections down on restructured discussion

Title Boxes
Anyone want to try to come up with some title boxes (similar to the babel boxes and the newer PvX and Faction boxes)? I am having a major case of... I don't know ennui, apathy, "the blahs" right now and just can't get up the initative to do this. I was thinking something that would have different levels for the different title levels, but an overall color theme for each title track. --Rainith 23:16, 13 May 2006 (CDT)

A New Section for the Bigger Issue - Split/Subst/Redundant
This is an issue common to Collector lists, quest lists, weaponsmith lists, skill lists, and many others. Though how we arrived at the issue differed for some of the above.

Basically we have several method of dealing with data that are repeated across multiple articles:


 * 1) . Split - Split it off and store it somewhere else. Let other articles that need it use inclusion.  This is the currently most widely adapted technique on GuildWiki.
 * 2) . Redundant - Have multiple copies of the same data whereever they are needed. This is the second most widely adapted technique on GuildWiki.
 * 3) . Subst - Have one article as master copy. Use a bot to periodically synchronize the other articles that need the data.   This is a new idea being introduced.

Note these are just rough ideas, there are/maybe different variations of ideas that differ in the details, but still fall into one of the three main types above.

My first question for the community is, should we handle each subject (quest, collector, skills etc) uniformally, or do it case by case? -PanSola 01:47, 14 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Case by case please. Subst: is totally not needed if there is only one or even up to a dozen transclusions. For skill reference pages, the sheer size makes it all different. Not sure about the quest pages, but my brief study of them shows that they have the same (and other) issues with transclusion as the skill reference pages. Hank 01:50, 14 May 2006 (CDT)

The case of server load not being a concern
For things such has collector lists, collectable drop articles, weaponsmith lists etc.

Summary
Feel free to edit it for NPOV, or add any advantages/disadvantages that were left out.

Discussion
It can still very well be the case that we wish to treat different types of articles differently. In general I am in favor of the Split approach over Redundant and Include. The Split approach is what is currently done for collector info etc. I believe the disadvantage of the Split approach is no worse than the Include approach. -PanSola 23:43, 15 May 2006 (CDT)

The Karlosian Factor: Just thought I would list the major issue I have which is mentioned implicitly up there. I want each one of you to go to this article Shove and click on the "edit" link at the top of the page (the usual way to edit articles).

Now observe the number of warnings and flags and flashing red lights. Don't edit here, don't remove this, don't type past this line. This is very, very, very un-wiki like. If I was a new user who has a simple piece of information, I see really one of three things that I will do:
 * 1) I will feel brave, edit the article somewhere to put the info that I have. My guess is that 50% of the time, that info will be placed in a way that messes up things.
 * 2) I feel intimidates by all the flashing lights, but I am a user that is familiar with wikis, so I will go to the talk page, and place a note with the info that I know and let someone who understands all the gizmos figure out how to add it.
 * 3) I will leave the article alone and reconsider adding whatver info I had.

Off the bat, even if choice #3 has a 5% chance of happening, that is WRONG. We are not supposed to enhance the presentation in a way that makes articles uneditableby average users. If Choice #2 happens, then that is work for someone else. I don't know what are the probability of Choice #2, but given my perception of the number of users vs the number sof ones comfortable with wikis, I'd say no more than 10%. Choice 1 and Choice 3 are really what we are looking at, and I don't like either.

''Note: I also removed the "protect other articles from editing" sentence above as I never proposed that and I would actually be against that. Again: You CANNOT prevent people from editing for the sake of tidiness or making the admins/regular contribuotr's life easier. To protect a page just because people don't know how to edit it is BAD.''

--Karlos 01:06, 16 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Um, maybe I'm missing something, but on that specific article I see only 1 line saying "Do not add anything below this line" not a "...number of warnings..." (I'm leaving out the flashing lights, etc...). --Rainith 01:14, 16 May 2006 (CDT)
 * In the middle of the article there is:, and then at the bottom of the article there is:

-PanSola 01:17, 16 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Here:

{{skill box qr
 * --Karlos 01:21, 16 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Ah, I missed those, they need more flashing lights, maybe a few bells and whistles too. Just a note, I am personally very much against doing skills the way that Shove is done.  --Rainith 01:27, 16 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree a lot with the above Karlosian factor. In fact, I find Shove a bigger issue than Echo.  Thus I favor the Split approach used by Echo rather than the Include approach used by Shove. -PanSola 01:22, 16 May 2006 (CDT)


 * There's a German proverb for situations like this: "We've got the choice between the Plague and Cholera.", or "We've got the choice between being hung and being shot.". Whatever way we decide to go, it has some serious disadvantages. I see Karlos concerns about scaring away unexperienced wiki users with complicated code. He definetly has a strong point. But at the end of the day I think maintaining redundant information scattered all over the wiki is worse. The skill overview pages are a good example. They are some of the most popular pages on GuildWiki, but they are in pretty bad shape, because they are a b*tch to maintain.
 * Of the three suggested methods I favor Split with Inclusion as the close second. In both cases, it is a must that the included article ("module") contains a convenient direct edit link, so that wiki newbies don't have to type anything in the address or search bar. Recently I paid more attention to this aspect myself, and when I created all the modules used for example in Getting started (Factions), I added a direct edit link to all of them. --Tetris L [[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L block]] 02:15, 16 May 2006 (CDT)
 * If I recall correctly from previous statements, Rainith also favors Split over Include. I know Karlos vehemntly opposes Split, but not sure how he feel when Split is being weighted against Include and/or Redundant. -PanSola 02:23, 16 May 2006 (CDT)

Ok, you tech guys (and girls) are really not making this easy. Above I see 3 options (split, redundant, subst). Then there is a table with 3 options but 1 is been renamed (split, redundant, include). To make things worse, I dont see the difference between split and include explained anywhere (both seem to be using includes, but in a different way? and what happened to subst? Is that equal to include?) How does split use includes without the noinclude tag?

But my general opinion is does that all these questions need not even matter for me. The articles in guildwiki can be divided into technical "service" articles (skill lists, collectors lists, etc) on the one hand and content driven articles (running guides, mission walkthroughs, etc) on the other hand. The first should be made to maximise easy readablility, the second to maximise easy editability. The collectors descriptions are extremely likely to be uploaded by a long standing experienced wiki member that will know how to deal with the technicalities. And after that, it is very unlikely that the content will be changed much (the layout may change, but that is a question for the tech people anyway) and it is not really necessary to enable every first time wiki user to change it right away. On the other hand, content driven pages should always allow new users to provide or change the content by being very "low tech" in terms of layout.

So in the end whatever you choose is fine for me, as long as
 * 1) it looks nice
 * 2) it is only used on non-content driven pages
 * 3) there will always be at least a small number of people who still know how to work it. --Xeeron 08:18, 17 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Subst is considered not necessary when server load is not an issue. Include means the entire main article gets included, whereas Split puts the redundant information in a separate module for inclusion.  In other words, Split is putting collector info inside Brownlow/Collector, and any article that needs the info will just include that module.  On the other hand, the Include method would put the info directly inside the [Brownlow]] article, and hide the things that don't want to show up with NOINCLUDE tags. -PanSola 08:38, 17 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I disagree with Xeeron on principle. There is no page that is for plebians to edit and a page for experts to edit. Can you find (or even imagine) such a scheme on wikipedia. Are you saying that if ANet alters something in a Collector and does not mention it in the game update, and a user found it out, he is not supposed to update it until one of our veteran contributors comes across it?
 * My choice would be to not make the "arcane" changes, to bear with the "skill" redundancy until the bot solution is tested and if that does not work, then to keep the redundancy. I much rather the skill's info be duplicated in 3 other articles (if we have 8 professions and let's say 3 skill lists per profession, that's 24 articles) that we obfuscate 450 articles from average users. I hate redundancy a whole lot and Tetris can vouch for that, :) but this is a bigger issue. --Karlos 09:21, 17 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Please note a subtile but importent difference between desiring an ideal world and describing the real world. I never said that new users *must* not or *should* not change the collectors lists. However I am very much convinced that they *will* not. And since I think they will not, these pages being harder for them to edit is not as much of a drawback. Oh and since you mention wikipedia, only very recently I checked their help pages to find that I could not understand the code they use, let alone change it. And I am not really a new contributer towards wikis. --Xeeron 11:11, 17 May 2006 (CDT)

I think figuring out how to use an edit link within the article is on the order of diffculty of figuring out how to edit a table. It is just slightly harder than entry-level wiki editing, and thus I still find the merits of the Split method justifying alienating the small population of people who are tech-savy enough to edit a wiki but not quite enough to figure out how to use the edit links. This is with provision that there be comments inside the raw text that instructs -PanSola, Table of The Lyssa Advocacy Front (sing) 01:08, 18 May 2006 (CDT)


 * So... I know I'm late here. I was going to knock out some of the skill box templates, like the old templates say, and wandered in here through various links from GuildWiki style and formatting and stuff, since I always forget to check the community portal :P. Should the note on the templates go away/should I hold off on changing things, if this discussion is changing it (is it?)...? I'll see if I can remember to push "watch" here this time... --Tinarto [[Image:Tinarto-gold-Monk-icon-small.png]] 07:19, 27 May 2006 (CDT)

Category:Unconfirmed
It's annoying trying to find these from the "What links here", so I made up a (temporary) category to help deal with the notices. - Greven 02:20, 15 May 2006 (CDT)

Current Events
I thought we eliminated that link ages ago, why do I see it in the navigation list again? --Xeeron 04:50, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Good question, it comes and goes, see my frustration on the talk page :p (Also how can we get rid of that damn amazon link, however i keep seeing loading assoc-amazon.com with a gamewikis ref link, so I think I know why its there. I wish gravewit would talk more) Skuld  06:06, 15 May 2006 (CDT)

"Advertisements" in user pages
<...> I know that some of us regular contributors have some kind of adverts on their pages, eg I have a link to my running services webpage, but its a bit different than creating a user just for advertising. -- 04:21, 15 May 2006 (CDT)

I know that some of us regular contributors have some kind of adverts on their pages, eg I have a link to my running services webpage, but its a bit different than creating a user just for advertising. -- 04:21, 15 May 2006 (CDT)

They are just user pages. Don't you yourself advertise your running guild on your page? I seriously doubt Blood is getting any customers from the wiki, and he may well use the login for his own purposes. Perhaps he watches several pages for updates. Deleting users is almost never a good idea. 70.20.116.223 05:27, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * I think the idea is more just removing the user page content rather than banning anybody. That's what I'd like to see anyway --Xasxas256 05:39, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * I am NOT suggesting removing the USER, but the USER PAGE. User pages created for only advertising should not be tolerated imho. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 05:47, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Why not? Didn't we have a recent arbitration where it was decided that users can say whatever they want in their user pages, barring illegal material? 70.20.116.223 05:49, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * There was no official decision. If someone wants to make that an official policy, I definitely vote against it. I am strongly against these advert user pages. I would however first want to hear the thoughts of Rainith himslef who was the one to remove my delete tags. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 05:52, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * How can an official arbitration that hinged on the premise that users are allowed full freedom to say whatever they wish not have been an official decision? You are arguing for different standards to be applied to different users. 70.20.116.223 05:55, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Give me a link to the exact place where this was officially made official. I will do anything to have this policy forgotten. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 05:57, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * The ruling included a provision that user pages could say pretty much anything on them. The GuildWiki didn't have an official policy on what is acceptable on user pages. However for something like that to be made official, a discussion and/or vote would have to occur first. The arbitration couldn't wait for that so Tanaric made a decision on what he thought would work for that particular arbitration case. That doesn't mean it's an official policy, and there's been plenty of discussion since about what is acceptable on a user's page but no official policy. --Xasxas256 06:05, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Users "can say whatever they want on their talk page" (Requests for arbitration) for one. Granted, it says "talk page", but I assume this leniency extends to the user page too, as I can't imagine the user page being more restricted than the talk page. 70.20.116.223 06:07, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * As Xas said, one man can't make a policy. A vote is needed, and I definitely vote for NOT allowing advert pages and such. If nothing else, I would like to see User:Blood user page deleted, its nothing else but an advert. The other could be something else than an advert ofr the guild. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 06:31, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * And I disagree. That arbitration should count as precedent, and, while Tanaric wears his arbitrator hat he is more than just "one man". And I agree with him. Users should be allowed freedom to say whatever they want in their user pages, barring illegal stuff and stuff that has been explicitly barred for reasons of being a listed fansite. 70.20.116.223 06:35, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Certainly no one man can make up a policy, unless it is Gravewit or Nunix. No matter if you support it or not. What's the point in not allowing adverts on other pages, but allowing any adverts on user pages? If this means I am allowed to advert GW guilds and fansites on my user page, I'll have one or more guilds pay me GW money for putting large adverts on my user page. This is not going to be a way of proving a point, its a way of using a stupid policy to my advantage. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 06:39, 15 May 2006 (CDT)

For the guild wiki policy, there was another earlier "Rainith Precedent" which differs from Tanarics. The two precedents have different implications on what is allowed on user pages and stuff. I'm not an expert on this type of legality, so I'm not sure whether a later precedent would by default overturn an earlier one, or if the earlier one has greater power as a preceeding precedance. However, if later precedents can overturn previous ones, then I'm not sure how useful they are as precedents since admins can just make new rulings/arbitrations, and have those be used as new precedents to overturn older ones. If anyone knows more about this type of stuff and can enlighten me, that'd be appreciated. -PanSola 06:43, 15 May 2006 (CDT)


 * This is what you get with admin-says-all policies, as I already remarked in the talk page for the arbitration. There is no substitute for a proper arbcom when the benevolent dictator is absent. 70.20.116.223 07:00, 15 May 2006 (CDT)


 * We're not a fledgling country! Don't try to guess which admin is more important that the other, let the community decided with discussion if we can, go to a vote as a last resort. That's how we should decide, like we do for all major decisions. --Xasxas256 07:02, 15 May 2006 (CDT)

I'm Phil, I run the place. My current main character in Guild Wars is Rojhaz Gravewit. He runs the guild, Corpse Corps. Send a tell in-game if you'd like info about joining.

AIM: Sane1983

email: phil.nelson at gmail. c o m

My personal site is www.zerolives.org, and I hate dogs.

Advertising on user pages? I guess the founder of guildwiki is not totally opposed. --Xeeron 08:07, 15 May 2006 (CDT)
 * I totally forgot he hates dogs d-: -PanSola 08:34, 15 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't see anything wrong with linking to other websites from user pages. Unless it's something obviously offensive, like pr0n or something, off course. After all, only those who contribute a lot will get other users to visit their user page, so an inactive user creating a user page solely to attract people to his advert will probably get close to zero hits. --Tetris L [[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L block]] 08:51, 15 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Even if it is close to zero, why should we accept it? --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 08:58, 15 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Fisrt of all we should separate the issue of advertisement of ingame services for ingame gold, vs advertisement for guild/characters. In the latter case, the one we observed was just a banner image, it doesn't even say the guild is recruiting etc.  I don't find it different in nature than what most of the rest of us put on our user pages regarding our character/accounts.  As for the former (services), I'm not ready to comment yet. -PanSola 19:53, 15 May 2006 (CDT)

Rainith's response
Sorry for the self-aggrandizing sub heading here, but it was getting really crowded up there, and this seemed like a better place to respond than my user talk page as more of the conversation has taken place here. (The original stuff that started all this can be found here.)

Ok, now on to the issue at hand. I generally dislike the two user pages mentioned, both Bim's and Blood's, but I don't see that there is any point in deleting them for a few reasons. First, from the bottom of User:Blood: This page has been accessed 60 times. That is since its creation more than a month ago, and I'm willing to bet more than half of those hits have been in the last 24 hours. Compare that with my user page, which is probably one of the most drab and boring (in fact it was listed on Stabber's list of boring user pages) of any contributor on the wiki which has at current count 2,899 hits.

The second reason I chose to remove the delete tag was that there was nothing "wrong" with what they were stating, all Bim's has is a graphic with his guild's logo (I assume that is his guild's logo, I'd never heard of them before he created his user page(s) and have only heard of them on said pages since). Blood's just says that he will run people, what to Grotto? Neither of these things are against the rules for a GW fansite, running isn't against the rules in the game, and neither one was all that offensive (IMO), distateful yes, a complete rip-off (in the case of the run), yes, but not offensive (again, IMO).

Now to jog to the side for a minute here, PanSola mentioned the "Rainith precedent" above, and I'd like to explain that one a little bit for people who may be unfamiliar with what happened there. A user, with no contributions (much like the two users mentioned above), posted that he was the greatest GW player ever, that he could kill anyone here, and that he would then go on to blow up their houses. All of that is my paraphrasing of course and I am leaving out the profanity that was about every 3rd or 4th word. At the time this user posted this, there was a small discussion of what to do about this, which really went nowhere. So I took it upon myself to edit the page to remove the user's comments, I did not delete the page, just edited it so anyone can go back in the history and see what it said, revert it if they felt like it, etc... Nothing was ever heard from this user again, which is about what I thought would happen. I don't personally remember what page it was, but it was posted in either the discussion page about Tanaric's recent arbitration or on PanSola's talk page. That is the "Rainith precedent." Why did I do it? One I felt (and still do feel) that any profanity laced tirade doesn't belong here. If we're trying to present this site in a professional light, all that does is detract from all the good stuff there is here. Reason number two for wiping the comment out was that it was a threat, not one that I (or anyone else I think) took seriously, but still it was a threat to do property damage, which is illegal here. Would any sort of case against the person who posted the 'threat' be thrown out in court? Almost definately, but in the end, we can't have illegal activities here.

I do not like editing other people's user pages, I find it distasteful. I don't even like doing so to fix links, it feels like entering someone's home when they aren't there and going through their stuff. I will however do so to remove anything that could get this site in trouble, either legally or cause us to lose our standing as an official fansite with ANet. I felt that the page that I edited did just that, Blood's and Bim's pages I did not feel were a threat.

Gem (and others), I honestly don't know if the above wandering post answers your questions to your satisfaction or not. Post here and I'll respond as best as I can. --Rainith 23:52, 15 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I think that answered in some way and I thank you for taking the time to read it all and answer. It seems that adverting is allowed as long as no one reads it. Bims case is a bit different and I posted my reply on one of his user talk pages. I was going to clear my user pages Running Rangers stuff a bit, but now I wont bother.
 * It seems that nothing good ever follows when I start discussing something policy related. A few days earlier advertising was not allowed, but now that I tried to have ads removed they are allowed again. Not exactly what I was hoping for, although I do understand Rainiths reasons. I'll try to stick with content related stuff only from now on. Thank you everyone who took part in the discussion non-agressively. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 01:41, 16 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Here are my 2 ectos on this issue (they are as cheap as cents now), I find what this Blood guy did to be incredibly lame. But I also draw a hard line in terms of meddling with user pages and limiting free speech. I find it lame because it is his only contribution. We can set a policy that if a user has NO contributions that his page be deleted if it's just for advertisement. But I think that's overkill and just extra work on admins. More importantly, it will create this environemnt where people are starting to police each other's user pages. I really think we have better things to do. --Karlos 05:16, 17 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Hey, can I give you a dollar in exchange for 100 ectos? d-: -PanSola 05:22, 17 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Again: Making a user page solely for the purpose of advertising is obviously entirely pointless, because nobody will ever visit that user page. Only if the person contributes regularly will his name appear on talk pages and on recent changes so he will get some attention and lure people to his advert page. But as he contributes he becomes useful to the wiki. So the problem pretty much solves itself. --Tetris L [[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L block]] 05:26, 17 May 2006 (CDT)

Green Advertisements
So I open GuildWiki today and find that the pages have been invaded by green links that popup little ads. I find this a horrible idea. While advertising on the menu bar is fine by me, I find invading the actual article with this green garbage against the spirit of the wiki. It dilutes the quality of the community works. --Draygo Korvan 13:26, 17 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I also just noticed these ads. Seems to be a nested JavaScript pogram by a company named AdBrite. By disabling JavaScript in your browser settings this should ease the pain, at first.
 * While I honestly agree that there have to be advertisments on this site (since, after all, someone has to pay the bills) I firmly believe that the commercial content and the editorial wiki content should be well seperated. This isn't just an act of fairness towards the readers of this webpage. Rather, engaging these popup boxes while browsing through an article is, to put it mildly, very annoying. (The true words that come up my mind are more harsh to some degree. I will never understand how these companies can believe that by annoying a potential customer any desirable effect can be achieved.)
 * I agree with Draygo Korvan that the popup boxes in fact damage the quality of this website. I plea to reconsider this decision. If more commercial content is needed to fund this project maybe another advertising bar could be added (top, right, bottom?), but IMHO the editorial content should be left untouched. --MRA 18:47, 17 May 2006 (CDT)


 * It's all a part of the Shroud of Silence embraced by Gravewit as a policy to handle any uncomfortable situations. He can write a page in response to questions about cascaded style sheets, but says nothing (does not even acknowledge reading the question) when asked a question that he does not like. Just keep changing things, hope no one notices, or no one cares enough to complain. Questions and complaints posted on this issue at his talk page have gone completely unattended to. Basically, I believe it's "take it or leave it" policy at this point.
 * Once upon a time, he had made a promise that those who donated to the site would not get those pop-ups through special code. This has gone out the window. Apparently, not accepting further donations means that earlier donations (that got the site to not needing further donations) also no longer exist.
 * It's another in a big pile of Charr doodoo I have been witnessing in how this site is run and how Gravewit and Nunix have conducted themselves as leaders of this enterprise. Coupled with a big let down from ANet with regards to the Elite Missions and a let down from a dear in-game friend, I am close to calling it quits on the whole thing. Move on with my life. Rediscover TV. :) A computer game is (and its related activities) are not supposed to bring grief. --Karlos 00:44, 18 May 2006 (CDT)
 * "TV"? *Tries to look it up GuildWiki appreviations* Hmm... *Looks it up in Wikipedia*.  Huh. -PanSola, Table of The Lyssa Advocacy Front (sing) 00:50, 18 May 2006 (CDT)
 * In general I'd say things that are truely enjoyable and worthwhile can also "bring grief". If you're passionate about something you can get more out of it but it also means that you can get hurt more. Remember forget the "dummy spits" and "all the other crap" :D --Xasxas256 00:57, 18 May 2006 (CDT)

Ok, I have to admit that things aren't that bad as I initially thought. It's even worse.

Since yesterday I'm experiencing problems while using Firefox 1.0.4. First of all, I'm getting error messages regarding the script which indicate that it slows down the system significant (see the first screenshot). Secondly, when I just started to edit this comment, the script messed up everything as can be seen on the screenshot. If this script really should be integrated into GuildWiki (which I still don't find a good idea) it surely need some betatesting first. Where is the right place to inform Phil of this problems?

Concerning the dim mood Karlos spoke of I have the impression that most of the recent conflicts weren't worth the headache they caused to everybody. In fact, sometimes a Wikibreak might be the right thing to do to cool down, this is a common experience in Wikipedia, for example. But throwing the towel forever would really be a shame regarding the good work most of you 'seniors' have done in the past months. Again, just my 2p. --MRA 12:24, 18 May 2006 (CDT)


 * See User_talk:Gravewit. The ads will be removed, I think. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png|User:Gem]] 13:16, 18 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Note: Per Gravewit's comments on his talk page, he also does not approve of the in-page linked ads. He is contacting AdBrite now to get them removed.  The links do not appear on pages where the ad block on the left says "Ads by Google", but only on pages where that block is presumably being presented by AdBrite.  It appears that while Phil thought he was getting a second ad, AdBrite snuck extra ad contect at the same time.
 * To me, he should just remove their ad blocks entirely until this is resolved. --161.88.255.140 13:28, 18 May 2006 (CDT)

Is adbrite gone yet?
Just wondering. I want to do some experiment with server loads, and I don't want people mistaken performance penalties because adbrite is clogging things down. I have adbrite blocked and I don't want to bother with unblocking it just to see if it's gone yet. - 08:20, 19 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Haven't seen it today, but not 100% sure if its gone. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 08:21, 19 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, I'm pretty sure the inline ads are gone now (those are prolly the ones you're referring to). The AdBrite sidebar still shows up from time to time. --Bishop (rap|con) 09:23, 19 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Oh, btw, if I was a tech on GuildWiki I would say this about performance testing: "Talk it over with a tech first before you test anything or DIE HORRIBLY AND ALONE IN A PIT OF DESPAIR. Thank you." But I'm not, so I don't care. --Bishop (rap|con) 09:27, 19 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Well I'm gonna be donig stuff incrementally and slowly. So any problems stay minor and have plenty of time to be noticed, theoretically. - 11:14, 19 May 2006 (CDT)
 * As per gravewit the ads were removed, apperently he didnt opt out in time of a pilot program at adbrite. So Adbrite decided to 'test' a new feature and ended up invading our site with those green links. Gravewit said he opted out of it and now the green links are gone. --Draygo Korvan 11:41, 19 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Thanks for the info. Beginning of incremental tests. - 11:43, 19 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Whatcha up to, Pan? ;p --Nunix 11:17, 20 May 2006 (CDT)
 * If you don't notice anything with the server, then don't worry about it d-: - 11:18, 20 May 2006 (CDT)

Fansite Links
For improving our appearance of Guild Wars community involvement, can we make the link to the Fansite article more prominent (or, more specifically, the link to the list of fansites hosted on GuildWars.com, which can be reached via that article)? I think it just improves our image of community involvement to improve visibility to that link. I'm not sure the best place to put it; the name "Community portal" seems appropriate, but not in the way we currently utilize this article. Perhaps we can link it either from the Main Page or even create a "Fansite Links" entry for the toolbar on the left? --I am 161.88 13:33, 25 May 2006 (CDT)

Mike O'Brien's message to the community
Just a heads up:. Summary: he wonders whether the GuildWiki can be hosted in a more official fashion on Arena Net's servers. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 17:43, 26 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm excited about this. - Jack  18:23, 26 May 2006 (CDT)
 * As a second heads up, that account was created today and that post was the very first (and so far only) post made by that user account. - 19:42, 26 May 2006 (CDT)
 * I doubt someone is yanking our chain here, but I have sent a PM to Inde requesting confirmation. 216.218.240.205 19:45, 26 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Looks like Gaile Gray has chimed in too.


 * Yeah, this looks legit. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 19:54, 26 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Well, that's pretty dang awesome. Too bad I can't see the post. (as below) --Tinarto [[Image:Tinarto-gold-Monk-icon-small.png]] 07:35, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * The errors have stopped for now, the thread is viewable. --Karlos 18:27, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * It's certainly an interesting proposition. I don't have a GWGurus account and I don't intend on getting one simply for this post, so I'll just post my opinions here (although it might make sense to start a proper discussion somewhere else, in which case you have the right to copy my post there).


 * In an ideal situation what would we like to see happen?


 * Being one of the founding members of the GuildWiki I hold it very close to my heart, despite not being as regular a contributor as many of you. I know wikis are not about ego but I take a certain amount of pride in the wiki. The most important principle of the wiki has been to document the Guild Wars universe as faithfully and as clearly as possible (a noble aim), and I have to say that everyone who has helped to reach this goal should also take some personal pride in the wiki. Now, it might sound like I'm droning on (as I am known to do) but I do have a point here.


 * I have mixed feelings about allowing the GuildWiki to be hosted by ArenaNet. It is undoubtedly flattering that ArenaNet know about us. As the GuildWiki increases in popularity (well deserved, I might add, as I know of no other site with such in-depth information on all things Guild Wars) it is no doubt in ArenaNet's best interests to have some sort of control over this medium. My main concern is that this site might be very different if controlled by ArenaNet and not the community. While the removal of advertising would, for me, be welcome, Mike O'Brien has already pointed out that the OblivioWiki link would have to go. This might just be one link, but how much leverage will ArenaNet have over the content of the GuildWiki if they are the hosts?


 * Will we have to censor what is on our user pages? At the moment user pages are regarded as a free area, but if ArenaNet are hosting the wiki would such places be under their juristiction?


 * Would the sysops, currently appointed by the community, still hold their positions or would they come second to ArenaNet sysops?


 * And finally: Would the documenting of Guild Wars be such an achievement if ArenaNet had helped us to do it? Perhaps this is a moot point, some might argue that the aim of GuildWiki is to document the game, and who can document a game better than the developers?


 * I'm not entirely opposed to ArenaNet hosting the GuildWiki, but in many ways I think that our seperation from them has also given us a certain amount of freedom. I hope that you'll consider my points. Thanks.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 19:50, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I've proxied your message there. I am fairly certain Mike O'Brien isn't reading this talk page. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 20:02, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Lol, why the hell not?! :P (Thanks, Stabber)  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 20:03, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Out of interest, how does everyone feel about this? I just wonder if anyone else checks the recent changes more often than they check the forum... :P  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 20:30, 27 May 2006 (CDT)

Please see Community expectations. It tries to crystallize some of the concerns that Karlos, LordBiro and others have raised. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 20:32, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Bloody hell Stabber, how much coffee have you had this evening? (I'm implying you're very quick off the mark)  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 20:34, 27 May 2006 (CDT)

I was just wondering, besides actually hosting the wiki - what else would the wiki benefit from Anet? Any official input? I can think of a few articles that could certainly use a bit of that. Lazy Evan whaomgz 69.124.143.230 20:46, 27 May 2006 (CDT)

It's a good offer, but ultimately unlikely to work out. There is too much blood, sweat and tears invested in this wiki for it to be convertible to an official wiki. Take the builds section. It would have to be cut completely from an official wiki because it's all opinionmongering. An official wiki definitely cannot bless certain builds as "tested" and others as "unfavored". That's actually the big problem -- dissociating what the wiki says from the official word. Regardless of disclaimers, people will take anything written on the wiki as Anet's official word and hold them to it. This is way too much of a risk for Anet. Really, I'm asking myself what Arena Net has to gain from hosting the wiki, and can't think of a good reason.

Also, the only way I see it working from a maintenance perspective is if Arena Net hires Gravewit to maintain the wiki full time, or at least retains him as a paid consultant. Who better knows the ins and outs of the backend system? 141.151.181.135 10:23, 29 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm not so sure about the claim that an official wiki cannot have opinions. All that needs is several well-placed disclaimers.  The "favored"/"unfavored" is done by the community, and we can easily have tags that says as much, leaving Anet out of it.  Regardless of ppl's lack of regard of disclaimers, there is nothing those ppl who do not read disclaimers can legally hold Anet to anything.  I don't seem them risking anything.
 * I don't even see why it's necessary to hire Gravewit (though I'm not opposed to it) for maintainence. The backend system is just MediaWiki running on MySQL, which are among the most well-known wiki/database platforms, with just some tweaks.  It's not like Gravewit wrote all the code for GuildWiki from scratch. - 10:29, 29 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I partially agree with anon. It's not a questio of legality, PanSola, but what people will believe. If people believe that the Wiki speaks for Anet, then no amount of dissuasion will change that. Look how every single word uttered by Gaile Gray is interpreted in the most tortured way possible in the forums and in game. Giving the community an official place to bitch and/or speak "for" Arena Net would mean that Arena Net loses all control of their message. In any case, I do believe that if Arena Net hosts the Wiki, they should be much more proactive in policing it. (Or promote a lot more regulars here to sysops or whatever.) &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 11:00, 29 May 2006 (CDT)

Wow, I leave for a four-day camping trip - and the whole world gets spun around when I return! Almsot makes me wish I had stayed home ... then again, naaa, the camping trip was too much fun! Anywhoots; this looks great! I'm reading through that thread now, and will post over there along with everyone else once I figure out the bulk of my thoughts and concerns on this. --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 14:42, 29 May 2006 (CDT)


 * In response to almost everyone before me in this thread, I give you Gares’s Response Segment…


 * Although I was not here from the beginning to witness all the madness with any new project, it has turned out quite well. So well in fact, that when I started playing the game and using GuildWiki, I felt I had to “pay it forward” and contribute so I could help others as other contributors helped me. I have seen the GuildWiki have server problems, latency issues, downtime, having to move to a larger server, using adverts to fund said server, etc, etc. From the technical side, Arena Net helping to maintain the ever-growing GuildWiki is the best offer the GuildWiki could get. Not only using their server(s) and staff, but as Guild Wars increases in campaigns and content, the technical side will fall off Gravewit and Nunix’s, (if he is still around. I don’t really know.), shoulders.


 * As to the freedoms that some are concerned might be taken away if this merger goes through, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. Regarding the Oblivion link, of course Arena Net would want it down, it’s a rival game, but I’m sure as Gravewit and Mike O’Brien hash things out, perhaps something will be done to ensure (as PanSola put it) GameWikis will continue to grow and not be hampered by one wiki not having a link to another.


 * When it comes to “policing” User pages and, for that matter, talk pages, there should be a line drawn. Threats, lewd comments, and foul language have no place anywhere in a wiki. If a user looks to those options as some sort of amusement at the expense of others, than their maturity level is not up to standard to be involved in a community project such as this. I cuss like a sailor, but I do not feel the need to have it printed in a public domain. For those that say, “Users can put anything on their pages”, think if you had a child and they went to GuildWiki for help and next thing you know he/she is asking you what FU-- meant. I’m by no means a parent, but contributors have to look past the ones (other contributors) they see everyday and realize, if they haven’t, that a lot more people than they think use GuildWiki and the user base will only get bigger.


 * Will GuildWiki be seen as an outlet for official ANet material? I don’t see any difference in the content of the official fan sites and an official wiki. People do not take everything said on the fan sites as official ANet material. The only way I see people thinking the wiki information is straight from ANet’s mouth, is if ANet employees start contributing. Yes, tags can be in place, a header tag on the main page stating that the information on Guild Wiki is contributed by the players of Wiki and not by the employees of Arena Net. Any information directly from Arena Net will be stated as such. I know I disregard the main page and go directly to the recent changes page when I come on, so perhaps a disclaimer heading should be added there as well.


 * My 2 cents and then some. --Gares Redstorm 21:41, 31 May 2006 (CDT)

and I thought GuildWiki had tons of database errors...
it's nothing compared to the Guru o_O""" - 18:49, 26 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Ironically, as I hit the edit button here, I receive a DB error. It took me over 30 minutes to reply to the Guru thread from all the DB errors. --Gares Redstorm 19:20, 26 May 2006 (CDT)

GuildWiki(MediaWiki) version
According to this Special:Version GuildWiki's version is 1.6.1 maybe upgrading to the latest 1.6.6 MediaWiki Important Release Notes Full Release Notes will solve some of the problems GuildWiki has been currently experiencing. --Phoenix 19:28, 26 May 2006 (CDT)
 * Give it a few months, it'll get updated eventually. LordKestrel 19:05, 31 May 2006 (CDT)

stub?
So... what constitutes a skill stub / an item stub / quest stub / NPC stub / whatever? Is there a place I can find an authortative "these sections must be filled out" "missions need maps but quests/skillcaps dont" or something? Because I'm finding inconsistencies everywhere. For example Mursaat Token is a stub but I honestly can't think of other information to put in it, as is Claw Tallfeather (talk) (compare to other collectors, random example Gwynn) and Offering of Blood. This issue was my major roadblock when I tried to start clearing out stubs (emphasis tried) -- and might be an issue to other new contributors as well. There is no basis to simply compare, since some things that are equal have some stubbed and some not, such as Claw Tallfeather vs Gwynn (do neither deserve stubs? or do both?). It would be easy if all other collectors containing the same information, for a weak example, were unstubbed, but that's simply not the case. Seems half the issue might be that articles don't get stub cleared when they are filled out, but that might be because there isn't a source that defines this sort of thing. Another long, wordy, rambly, it's-hard-to-read-in-this-font paragraph from Tinny. Enjoy. :) --Tinarto 10:49, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Unfortunatly, no. Usually, for most new articles, if nothing is missing that an comparable older article (lets say for skills, items, creatures) has, it is not considered a stub anymore. But unstubbing has so far not been a priority here (which might be a bad thing). --Xeeron 12:40, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Skills: progression 1..16 and and aquisition filled in
 * Collectors: Collectors' info filled in, location
 * Bosses: SoC confirmed, image, location (map good but not a hold back)
 * My criteria, no official ones Skuld  13:52, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * I think this task is too large allready and it's getting larger all the time. We would need someone with a lot of time to do a major cleanup. Or maby we could divide certain article types for different people? I could volunteer for something like quests and missions as there is a fairly limited amount of them. I will make a suggestion for some guidelines tomorrow if I remember. Note me on my talke pge if I forget. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 17:05, 27 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Sad but true: Stub tags on GuildWiki are utterly meaningless. :( Do it like me: Ignore them. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 05:04, 29 May 2006 (CDT)


 * We should do a cleanup-drive of the stub types and categories some time. All it takes is some work defining what a stub is -- and what it isn't -- and then some gnoming to iron out the articles already stubbed. I don't have the energy right now, but if noone else does it, I might pick up that torch some time. --Bishop (rap|con) 11:04, 29 May 2006 (CDT)


 * Well, I forgot, but it might not be that important. I think I'll start the work on missions and quests soonish. (in a few days) --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 11:47, 29 May 2006 (CDT)

Dezombified debate on new admins
So we are yet again under attack by a determined vandal during a time period when no sysop is online. This gives me a chance to nominate some new people for sysops. This time around, I present, in no particular order: Discuss. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 13:00, 2 June 2006 (CDT)
 * User:Barek (standard nomination I repeat every time) (contrib)
 * User:Draygo Korvan (contrib)
 * User:Evil Greven (contrib)
 * User:I am 161.88 (contrib)
 * User:Gares Redstorm (contrib)

I nominate: --Bishop (rap|con) 06:08, 3 June 2006 (CDT)
 * User:Skuld (contrib)


 * Took the liberty of adding contrib links to your nominations. Pondering them now. --Bishop (rap|con) 13:07, 2 June 2006 (CDT)
 * All of the mentioned are good suggestions. However, I'm going to second the nomation for Evil Greven for consistent behavior and edits. --Bishop (rap|con) 13:27, 2 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Seconded for User:I am 161.88 and User:Gares Redstorm - Jack  13:04, 2 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm all for this. I like all the users nominated.  I'll try to check the block candidates and clean them up in the next few minutes.  --Rainith 13:34, 2 June 2006 (CDT)

Two additional candidates are User:Stabber and User:Tetris L. I seem to recall them both declining nominations in the past; but I still think they would make good admins. --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 13:59, 2 June 2006 (CDT)
 * EDIT: I struck out Stabber solely because her user page makes it clear she has short term plans regarding being on GuildWiki. Although, I still think she would make a good admin. --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 16:12, 2 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I would second both of those, was it not because I respect a decision to remain a non-admin. I'm sure we would know if either had a change of heart. --Bishop (rap|con) 14:02, 2 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Tetris is already an admin &mdash; Skuld  04:02, 3 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I thought that too, but not according to http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki?title=Special%3AListusers&group=sysop&username= --Bishop (rap|con) 05:56, 3 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Speaking of which, I just noticed you're not on that list. I thought you were already an admin too. I shall attempt to remedy my oversight (see above). --Bishop (rap|con) 06:08, 3 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Oh! I knew there was a third name I had wanted to add to the list, it was Skuld! Sorry Skuld! --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 08:35, 3 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I'd like to apologise for not being around the last few days... Although I think you all kind of expect it from me anyway :P I don't really know many of the people in the list, Stabber, so I'll have to remain silent I think.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 14:50, 2 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I believe all three of us, Skuld, Tetris and myself, have said before that we don't want to be sysops. I, at least, don't desire the position, and given that I have been nominated for bans before, I don't believe I am sysop material anyhow. For the rest, I think it is about time we formalized an RfA process. I'll get the ball rolling now. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 15:07, 3 June 2006 (CDT)


 * The ball, she rolls! Requests for adminship. Much of it is adapted from WP:RfA. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 15:54, 3 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Looks good, Stabber. Nice work. --Bishop (rap|con) 16:19, 3 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Hmmm, I actually don't see a need for a new admin, though I don't mind if all these people became admins. The true question is, is any of them going to be on-line during that time of the day (usually 6 AM to 2 PM PST) when most other admins aren't. If the reason for the promotion is to fill in that void, should we not make sure they CAN fill that void? If they can't, they are still all worthy of being admins, but I want to stay on the ball here. --Karlos 19:40, 2 June 2006 (CDT)


 * It seems Stabber would be the ideal choice for an admin, it's obvious from the way she makes the necessary edits. However, you can't force a position on someone. Shame. - Jack  15:14, 3 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I would actually be opposed to Stabber being an admin. I don't think an admin who threatens to leave the wiki every month is a good thing. On top of that, she's a highly opinionated contributor who contributes a lot. We're still trying to survive the last highly opinionated contributor who contributes a lot (me). :) And yes, I don't think I make that good of an admin, I get involved in too many things too deeply to be able to step back and exercise my role as admin. --Karlos 16:06, 3 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree Karlos, you're a crap admin :P Hehe, only kidding. I think anyone who is active and passionate about the GuildWiki makes a good admin. Of course, they also have to be reasonable and realise that, even if they're certain they're right, decisions on the GuildWiki are made as a collective and not as an individual.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 16:54, 3 June 2006 (CDT)

Bwahaha, that's why I love this wiki. Half a dozen people get nominated for adminship, and half of them turn it down on the spot! Evan The Cursed (Talk) 23:15, 4 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Personally, I would accept if officially asked; but, as Karlos pointed out above, this request for an additional admin is because there's a gap in coverage during the weekday. I think that my availability during that time is limited, so I doubt that I'm the best fit for this round of admin nominations.  Don't get me wrong, I would love to support the community further by being an admin; I just think that if only one additional admin is to be added, then the community would be better served by someone with more availability from 6am - 2pm PST. --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 00:34, 5 June 2006 (CDT)
 * The vandal was only an excuse to take this admin debate out of cryogenic freeze. I think the wiki just needs more admins period. Currently we have Rainith doing the majority of the gruntwork with Karlos and LordBiro (and sometimes 84.175) chiming in occasionally to keep up appearances. PanSola seems to mostly tend to his own projects, of which there are several underway. Given that we have a pretty large userbase at this point, I don't think the 3.5 admins or so is sufficient (Special:Statistics says the admin to user ratio is 0.16%, but it overcounts the registered users and undercounts IPs, so that's not reliable). This is even more relevant if the GuildWiki becomes official and our userbase grows even larger. My recommendation would be to add a bunch of admins (3-5) at once instead of just one. There are several very well qualified candidates who have already received a lot of supporting votes. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 00:55, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I have to agree with Stabber. Its not that there may be a down time between the usual hours of an admin, its that there is not enough admins around. I am on in that time period Karlos suggested (actually, always lurking around) and I have had times where I placed a ban on a vandal and had to play shadow reverting his vandalism because there was no admin around to ban him, so he/she just kept on rolling. It's not a time clock that you punch, where one admin punches out and another punches in. Admins have real life responsibilities as well and sometimes they will not be on for a period of time, thus lower the already low numbers of admins on GuildWiki. --Gares Redstorm 13:18, 5 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I see your point. Maybe I'll modify my decline comment on the nomination list.  To me, the primary goal seemed to be to find an admin who had a higher likelihood of weekday availability.  If the goal is to improve over-all admin coverage at all hours, then I'm willing to become one if asked. --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 13:29, 5 June 2006 (CDT)

Policy and sigs. The Subst Crusade!
First is there any Policy difference between wikipedia and Guildwiki concerning sigs?  If that policy is followed sigs should I am aware of We are not Wikipedia, and if we are applying the sig rules we should probably port that article and start linking to it internally. Wikipidia itself makes several good arguements for following those rules:
 * Not use Images
 * custom sigs be only included once with subst: e.g.  
 * not use any templates themselves
 * 1) Many concerns have been raised over the use of images in signatures, and they are considered to serve no use to the encyclopedia project. Images in signatures should not be used for several reasons:
 * 2) They use unnecessary server resources, and could cause server slowdown.
 * 3) A new image can be uploaded in place of the one you chose, making your signature a target for possible vandalism and Denial-of-service attacks.
 * 4) They reduce searchability, making pages more difficult to read.
 * 5) They make it more difficult to copy text from a page,
 * 6) They are potentially distracting from the actual message.
 * 7) In most browsers images do not scale with the text, making lines with images higher than those without.
 * 8) They clutter up the file links list of the image every time you sign on a different talk page.
 * 9) Your signature should not blink, or otherwise be designed to annoy other editors. Avoid markup such as &lt;big&gt; tags (which produce big text), or line breaks, and be sparing with superscript or subscript
 * 10) Long signatures with lots of HTML/wiki markup can make page editing more difficult
 * 11) Avoid using page transclusion, templates, or parser functions in signatures (like those which appear as, for example). These are avoidable drains on server resources. Transcluded signatures require extra processing. Whenever you do change your signature source, all talk pages you've posted on must be re-cached. 
 * 12) *If you really must use a userpage as a source of boilerplate for your signature, at least substitute it so it is only transcluded once, for example  .

Now that I have opened this can of worms, discuss. --Draygo Korvan 12:07, 5 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Is there much use of templates (page transclusions) as sigs in GuildWiki? I hadn't noticed many, but you may have noticed some during your updates this morning.  The use of templates is the only issue that, to me, we should specifically create a policy against.  The use of images doesn't seem to have been abused by the GuildWiki community (see Category:Templates/User signatures), so I see no problem allowing them.  Although we may want to set a policy of sig images can't be larger than some given size.  Not a problem thus far, but reasonable to prevent future issues.
 * If they are causing any significant contribution to server performance problems, then I could see adopting the full wikipedia policy; but I honestly don't see them as being major contributors to performance issues at this time. --- Barek (talk &bull; contribs) - 13:24, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * MediaWiki 1.6 doesn't allow you to make signature transclusions (unless you defeat it with a double transclusion, but no one does that... right?). The issue is mostly to do with legacy signatures. The server drain you are afraid of is not so huge because talk pages are naturally colder than article pages. The biggest problem is with the recaching penalty whenever a signature changes, but again, most pages using a signature will not be in the object cache anyhow so a recache penalty is moot. Furthermore, user signatures tend to be fairly static. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 14:05, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Personally I don't think it's much of an issue.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 14:28, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Ok lets say we have our own policy on it, and you want to allow images. Then we definatly need to create our own policy page on sigs that outlines the rules that we want to follow. And when I was going through the pages this morning cleaning up the unsigned template and giving it a proper subst, i often ran across the format for sigs instead of it being included with subst. Secondly, we have seen performance problems on the wiki, and I definatly dont think it would hurt anything if we put some guidelines in place.


 * The problem with images are more than just server performance, storage, search interference but also vandalism concerns. Lets say someone (this is only an example, not to pick on Gem) but someone changes the Gem to a picture of goatse. All the sudden almost every single talk page will be spammed with that picture. I think that is my main concern with the widespread use of an image. Most of the content images on the site are pretty much one or two pages only, so if some form of vandalism was done to those images, it would probably be picked up in Recent Changes much faster than any guest of the site actually viewing it.


 * The same applies to sigs not using subst. A vandal can edit that page to create all sorts of messes, and if were not watching recentchanges the user can mess up hundreds (in some user's cases, 500 pages or so actually) of pages. And the casual guildwiki user might not know where to actually go to fix it. (lets say someone takes PanSola's sig and makes it 5mb long filled with X's. Doing so would probably DESTROY the guildwiki server, considering that the server will go to the 250 or so pages pansola's sig is referenced in and make the caching changes. In addition to the 5mb will have to be sent any time a user visits one of the 250 or so talk pages Pan used the sig in.).


 * The vandalism and Denial-of-Service risk is way too high to allow that sort of linking. A smart vandal can probably bring the guildwiki server to its knees in a matter of seconds. While we can not prevent some forms of vandalism, we should take every reasonable action to make vandalism minimal. The server drain on valid and reasonable signatures now, is not high. But it easily can be and I think policy should be set forth to prevent that before we find ourselves in a real mess. --Draygo Korvan 14:38, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * The transcluded sigs you encountered are all legacy signatures from when we used MediaWiki 1.5. Recaching on signatures is not active, like you fear, but lazy ("on demand"). The only active thing that happens when a transcluded page is changes is that all referring pages are invalidated in the object cache. They are not immediately re-rendered and injected into the cache. So, with PanSola's signature example, unless the signature terrorist immediately follows the signature hijack with a simultaneous load of all 250 pages that refer to it, there will be no performance penalty. As far as DOS goes, I don't think signatures are the most likely vector of attack. It is far more efficient to hijack a common template such as Template:Stub or Template:TOCright. Note also that most users watch their own signatures. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 14:47, 5 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Even if its lazy, we do have several users browsing the site, it can at minimum cause the server pain. Templates you mention like TOCRight need to be protected anyway (because there is no reason to change them at all). Such vunerabilities do need to get plugged. I would recommend protecting any template page referenced at least 25 times. Any proposed changes would have to be done on an editcopy. --Draygo Korvan 14:57, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Given how few admins we have and how glacial the process of getting the attention of an admin tends to be (at least when Rainith is not around), I don't think protecting templates is a good idea. It is premature at any rate. The clueful vandal who knows how best to place his explosive charges is a rara avis. Most vandals we get limit their nuisance to blanking pages or spraying graffiti on them. While I certainly don't oppose your subst crusade (though there are more efficient ways of doing it than by hand; ask if you want to know), I think we can afford to have open policies until a more restrictive policy is forced upon us. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 15:09, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I support changing the leagacy signatures and replacing them with a subst version. I'll do that on my own signatures now. However removing images doesn't seem to serve a purpose. We could protect the signature images if you think it is necessary. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 15:17, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I implore you -- don't do it by hand. Special:Recentchanges doesn't need any more pollution. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 15:19, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Feel free to use a bot for it. I thought your bot was removed, but if it wasn't then go ahead. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 15:22, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * It probably was. However, this is not such a pressing issue that it must be done right this instant. We can afford to be civilized about it. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 15:31, 5 June 2006 (CDT)