GuildWiki talk:Community portal/Archive 17

ZBoard
Hey folks, the zboard people dropped me a line wanting to send out a keyboard for review. The keyboard IS Guild Wars-specific, so I figure this is not out of the scope of the site. What do you think?

I personally don't want the thing, so I figured if one of you did, you can have it. Mods have first dibs. Gravewit 10:52, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm interested, but if anyone has a viable contest idea I would support using it as contest prize. On the other hand, maybe PvP ppl should be given preference, since they might be able to review it better. - 10:58, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * It would be so cool to have one, but I think there are people who need it more. A contest sounds good. How about something that rewards helping the wiki in some way? --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 11:04, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Btw: Can they send it outside North America? I don't think so. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 11:05, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Got a picture of it?--Draygo Korvan 11:06, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * A contest sounds good. --Xeeron 11:42, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * A link from guildwars.com: http://www.zboard.com/experience/guildwars/ --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 13:40, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * What a nice keyboard.. :D --WichmanN 15:04, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * The Zboard is overrated bullpoop. And no version exists for left-handed users. -- [[Image:Bishop_icon2.png]] Bishop [ rap|con ] 15:08, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * What do you mean with "left-handed users"?... --WichmanN 15:21, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Oh, and if you use anyhting else than a US qwerty, this is useless. The (in Finland) very often used ä and ö (and the useless å) are not to be found in the US keyboards. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 15:24, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Well then maybe its not so good if you, like me, comes from Denmark where we use: æ, ø and å... :'( --WichmanN 15:29, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I tried it out at the GW display at E3, and I was not impressed. The side board doesn't have the necessary target keys close enough to the movement keys to make my style of playing practical. So all it gives after that are nice graphics and labeled keys. --Thervold 19:22, 15 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Hmmm, I would think we need to look at this more objectively. Who gets the keyboard is not as relevant as "what will they be looking for?" If we agree on that, it doesn't really matter who gets the keyboard.
 * Also, whoever gets the keyboard should have the time and the capacity to test it in different environments. Mainly, RA and TA then HoH then GvG and then Challenge Missions, Competitive missions and finally, PvE.
 * I would recommend Xeeron, he is an admin and a person able to look at things fairly objectively. The only catch is that he is in Germany I believe. Can you ship that far, Gravewit? --Karlos 17:12, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Last time I checked I was no admin =)
 * More important, German keyboards use special keys as well (öäü), so I guess it would not work for me as well. Sounds like this will be for US/english users only. --Xeeron 17:37, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Maybe I need one, stupid edit conflict, current non detachable keyboard holding me back! Xeeron should be an admin, the RFA vote is at 8/0/0 but Phil hasn't done it yet. I was going to say Xeeron would be good "because I think he's pretty fair and even handed, probably useful traits to have if you're a reviewer" so maybe we'll have to go for plan B, you know some kinda crazy deathmatch, 2 people enter, one walks out, and have a draw like the world cup. Geez Xeeron you could have just said yes instead of forcing the GuildWiki community to fight to the death over it, which is the only fair competition I can think of :P --Xasxas256 17:43, 15 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Just a quick side note on becoming admin: Skuld had the most positiv votes and he became admin, which is exactly the way it should work in my opinion. If we need further admins, we can go to the next person in line. --Xeeron 03:14, 16 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Hmm, you're not an admin? When did you get demoted? :)
 * Anyways, we need to know Gravewit's shipping abilities. I am in the US and I can do it. I can pretty much easily test it in any playing style. Those interested should indicate which playing styles they can or cannot cover. If you're an ardent PvE guy then you are not very useful in testing this. You should also be competent in PvP. --Karlos 18:21, 15 June 2006 (CDT)

I think it's a bad idea for the GuildWiki to host Guild Wars-related product reviews. By their very nature these will not be neutral articles. Note that we don't have guild pages, fanfiction, fancomics, "journals" (except in user pages) and so on because the reason has always been that it is impossible to be objective about such content. We don't even have an official review of Guild Wars! There is also the issue of whether we should have such overtly commercial content in the wiki (reviews, unless they are pans, are glorified advertisements). I think the gamewikis blog is a much better place for such product review articles. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 18:31, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Upon further review, I agree with Stabber. It's not really what we do. This is product placement. The entry for ZBoard should be the same as that for Ventrilo or TeamSpeak. Just a basic description of what that is. Not a review/thumbs up/thumbs down. We're not gonna put a user manual in the wiki for how to use it either. --Karlos 19:13, 15 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Oh, the review is supposed to go in the wiki? That doesn't sound too good to me. But it's not too bad either because it is a directly GW related product. As long as the review is neutral and formal I'm ok with it. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 02:10, 16 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I think it should be halfway between Team Speak and Prima Guide. The art work had to be licensed from Anet, and the GuildWars.com homepage has a square-ish banner for the zBoard.  - 03:18, 16 June 2006 (CDT)

They must be desperate to get rid of them if they're trying to offload one onto you Phil ;) I don't think it's necessarily outside the scope of the site, but I agree with Stabber. Imagine if we were to create the article Zboard or something. What would it actually contain? It's always been understood that articles on the GuildWiki should only contain factual information, so we'd just have to say "Here are some pictures, it's used to control Guild Wars".

If we decided to change our policy and review it then we'd be opening the doors to all kinds of articles. By the time you've read this message Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer will be up for Peer Review.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 08:40, 16 June 2006 (CDT)

So... no one has any contest ideas right? - 07:39, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I suppose I can just tell them 'no', then. Gravewit 13:24, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * If they expect a review article on guildwiki, then the answer is probably no. If they just want to give one out for promotion, then I won't mind taking one. I can post a review on my person blog that no one reads at all d-: - 03:57, 21 June 2006 (CDT)

Even though I do get mine delivered tomorrow (with swedish key layout), I agree with Stabber, Karlos, Gem, etc. It would just mean free marketing for them. So I believe it's safe to say no. &mdash; Galil  16:08, 20 June 2006 (CDT)

Site performance issues due to June 15 update
According to Gravewit, the server load is doing fine. The problem is bandwidth bottleneck. In case anyone is wondering. - 11:05, 16 June 2006 (CDT)

Blocking Vandals
We had a vandal attacking the page today using multiple IPs. I'm not sure if there is a procedure for dealing with this, I blocked individual IPs to begin with, but then I blocked an IP range.

From a technical point of view, after looking at the block list, it appears User:Eightyfour-onesevenfive tried to block him earlier using a 0 to represent the range of IP addresses. For clarification, the correct way to block an ip such as 64.12.116.x is to block 64.12.116.0/24. This is because an IP address is a 32-bit number and it tells MediaWiki to use only the first 24 bits as a mask.

I blocked 64.12.116.0/24 and 64.12.117.0/24.

Because this was a range of IP addresses I only banned them for 1 week. Do you think this was the right thing to do?  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 05:01, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * We could not let him stay without blocking so you did the right thing blocking him. One week seems ok to me, and if this happens again after the week, we can just ban him for another week. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 05:04, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Heh, only a week? &mdash; Skuld  05:06, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Blocking a whole IP range for more than a week isn't a good idea. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 05:08, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Meh, I should've thought of that "/24" thingie... *rolls eyes*. I agree on only a short term ban for now, but I have the serious feeling that this isn't the last time we heared about that one. --84-175 (talk) 05:14, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * 64.12.116.0/23! --68.142.13.99 05:40, 17 June 2006 (CDT)

yeah he only banned me for a week. too bad it didnt work. btw: poop


 * lol. I should be around most of the day, if there's any more vandalism that I miss you can spam my talk page.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 05:13, 17 June 2006 (CDT)

IP range bans can be bad, granted, but we're talking about AOL addresses here. I wonder if he was repeatedly connecting and disconnecting his dial-up modem or something (nothing against dial-up, it's just an idiotic way to change IPs). ;) &mdash; 130.58 (talk) ( 05:17, 17 June 2006 (CDT) )


 * Yeah, it looks like that is what he was doing. Coincidentally 152.163.100.9 is also an AOL IP.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 05:24, 17 June 2006 (CDT)

Blocking IP Ranges: A suggestion
I've been thinking about blocking IP ranges, and I think we should come up with a guideline. When blocking an IP range there is a chance that we will inadvertently also block genuine contributors. This cannot really be helped. However, we can ensure that genuine contributors are not offended by the banning if we make sure the ban message is not insulting. i.e. I think we should avoid ban messages such as "Die Spammer, Die!" or even "let's play".

What do you think?  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 05:34, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * IP range blocks should probably not stay in place for long unless absolutely necessary. I think it would be better to keep any non-insignificant range blocked for a week at most unless the vandal shows again.  A message about IP range blocks should be added to MediaWiki:Blockedtext and perhaps something like "IP range block: reason" should be the ban reason.  Non-insulting ban message should probably be used in any case.  --68.142.13.99 05:41, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I think the Blockedtext should have a general note about the error possibilities of IP based bans (dynamic IPs). --84-175 (talk) 05:48, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree. Here's what the text currently looks like

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by $1. The reason given is this: $2

You may contact $1 or one of the other administrators to discuss the block.

(If this automated message says you have been blocked by Adam.skinner for vandalism, it is due to a known bug. Please wait a few minutes and try again.)

Note that you may not use the "e-mail this user" feature unless you have a valid e-mail address registered in your user preferences.

Your IP address is $3. Please include this address in any queries you make.

Which parts should we change to reflect this information?  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 06:10, 17 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I'd suggest ripping off Wikipedia's and warping it to our needs. --68.142.13.99 06:42, 17 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I would also suggest contacting the ISP of the user and file an internet abuse report with their support department, if such a user is using a dynamic IP to continually and repeativly deface the site. --Draygo Korvan 18:47, 17 June 2006 (CDT)

Request for backreferencing user IPs
Can someone who has access to the server logs please post all the usernames that have been used from the IP addresses 128.2.206.194, 128.2.196.71 and 128.2.141.33, as all three of them seem to be from the same organization that has been confirmed to be the location of User:Stabber, who has been confirmed as using sockpuppets and is suspected of tampering votes? This will settle the sockpuppet debate once and for all, and I am sure will be very illuminating for all concerned. Thanks. 216.9.82.85 18:43, 18 June 2006 (CDT)
 * This wont prove anything, if stabber is working at a university - backreferincing those IP's wont get you jack. It is highly likely that several of stabbers fellow workers might have gotten into guild wiki under stabbers influence. --Draygo Korvan 10:11, 19 June 2006 (CDT)

Let's come up with Fansite Friday questions
No we haven't been asked to solicit Fansite Friday questions (to the best of my knowledge), but I'm just trying to get discussion going on what are some questions that we would really like to see cleared up from the Anet devs. If you are affiliated with any Fansites that are being asked Fansite Friday questions, feel free to use what is here.

My question: "How does interruption vs Kuunavang work?" Because Fansite Friday has in the past explained how the Guild Lord's health/protection work before, I believe we should be able to get an answer for this question. - 06:16, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I could just ask Gaile to pass some of these on, if you'd like. Gravewit
 * I think we should get a few more questions first. Maybe a couple about chapter 3 and NCsofts registration of certain domain names =P. Maybe we can also ask what the total HP of Rotscale is now? --Draygo Korvan 11:06, 19 June 2006 (CDT)

Make Guildwiki multi-lingual?
I suggest making several subsites of guildwiki (like gw-en.gamewikis.org gw- [language-code] .gamewikis.org) to support multiple languages. I think in a game that covers several nationalities, having wikis in each native language would be helpful for the greater guild wars community. Anyway this is just a proposal.--Draygo Korvan 11:11, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * After all the drama just a few headlines up from here, I dont feel ready for the next "guildwiki in different languages" debate yet. --Xeeron 12:00, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't actually feel confident enough making up roughly 5% of German the contributers here. Maybe if we had like at least 40 contributers for a language, such effords would have some perspective. It's not just the translation stuff, it's debating, copying news, patrolling, administrating, lending newbies a hand etc... --Nilles 13:43, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Are you guys aware that there is already a German GuildWiki at http://www.guildwiki.de, which is essentally a copy of gw.gamewikis.org?! (They don't even try to hide the fact that they use the English GuildWiki as their paradigm.) I don't know if that's approved by Gravewit or anyone else, or if they even need an approval, considering the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. I'm German myself, so if you need somebody to contact and talk to the makers of GuildWiki.de, let me know. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 13:58, 19 June 2006 (CDT)
 * No I am not aware, and thats part of the problem, I think we should interlink to guildwiki's in other languages. Nilles, the problem with that arguement is that you cant quantify all the germans that have no ability to contribute in english. I also think this is a step back from all the drama, I dont forsee anyone flashing their e-ego's over this issue. --Draygo Korvan 14:16, 19 June 2006 (CDT)

Specific issue with GuildWiki.de
While contents under GuildWiki is under CC by-nc-sa, what about the name "GuildWiki" itself? I'm a bit disturbed that the logo of GuildWiki and the name "GuildWiki" is getting used by another site without our knowledge/permission. But if it doesn't violate anything, then of course there's nothing to be done. - 16:43, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * guildwiki.de is of course, different than guildwiki.org or guildwiki.com. So they are well within their rights with the domain name, as far as using the logo I think the logo, as everything within this site falls under the license, and because they gave the source of that logo to this site they are protected by that license. I'm no legal expert though =p. --Draygo Korvan 20:11, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * It's not about legality, it's just not cool. --Karlos 02:58, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree that starting a copy project without at least telling us is very bad style. And I don't even understand why. I don't think that anyone here would've disagreed to that project (as mentioned, on what legal ground anyway?). If they'd come here, they may even had gotten a prominent link somewhere on Guildwiki (.org, that is) and with that cheap and effective promotion. --84-175 (talk) 03:54, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Actually I have no issue with starting a copy project without telling us, as long as it's still CC by-nc-sa. My personal issue is using the name "GuildWiki" without letting us know.  The French at least told us about it. - 04:03, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I'll try to get in touch with Chronos, the guy behind GuildWiki.de. Maybe he did ask for a German version of GuildWiki.org at one point in the past or tried to contact us. I'll try to find out. The problem is that my time for GWiki is very limited at the moment.
 * For your info, the introduction text on the Main Page of GuildWiki.de reads (translated): "This wiki is under construction and shall become the German issue of the English GuildWiki, without currently being linked to it directly." So at least they give credits and a prominent link to their rolemodel. I reckon they have good intentions and we should GW:AGF when dealing with them. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 12:10, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I am fine with them using our name followed by ".de" in fact I think it's an honor. I just think they should have told us first. They don't have to tell us if they copy the whole wiki, but if they copy the name, style wise, they should tell us as many people will assume there is a connection.
 * I also want to note that there was someone asking about starting a german wiki some time ago and I think we all said go ahead and stuff. So, again, I would not be too concerned about the fact that they started a wiki that copied stuff from us. I don't really think it was done "behind our backs." Just the naming issue and what it implies. We have no editorial input on their content what-so-ever but the common name implies something. --Karlos 14:26, 20 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Uh, I have the same editorial control on guildwiki.de as I do here as a normal contributer. I think you are confusing terms a bit and mean "content control (administrative tasks etc)" over the actual site. --Draygo Korvan 14:33, 20 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Hello all, I think there's something to clarify. I am Chronos who put up the German Guildwiki. First some history. The idea to start a german version popped up after reading this article on the gamewikis blog. This was around April the 16th, 2006. After writing a comment there, I thought, if nobody starts a a wiki in another language, it will take ages to go multilingual - so before hoping that somewhere in the future a german wiki comes up, why just not do it by myself? I did some experiments/test with MediaWiki, and soon it was clear that its not so much work to set up the wiki. Then, on April, 25th, I sent an email to Phil to the gmail.com address. In this email I asked him if he has any concerns about a german GuildWiki, what he thinks about copying content from guildwiki.org, and how the licensing should look like etc. This was about 3 weeks before GuildWiki.de went "officially" online (by posting the news on the german fansite GuildWars.info). I never got an answer from Phil, so I thought this issue is of no big interest to him. So I just started the wiki, using the same licensing model though I prefered a totally free license. As far as I understand the "CC by-nc-sa" license it's ok to use/copy content as long as you use the same license, so I did use it. Of course, I mentioned on the licensing page, that content is/will be copied from GuildWiki.org. To answer some more of the above issues:
 * It's true, I did not officially tell the GuildWiki.org community what I am doing, and now I feel sorry for this lack of information, and I agree that this was bad style.
 * The idea was not to copy (in terms of steal) the idea, logo, name and content of GuildWiki.org in any way. It is just a german version, so many articles are are translated from the english "standard".
 * The use of the name "GuildWiki" is of course on purpose, to have a link to the original wiki."GuildWiki" is not a trademark and not protected, it is a part of the wiki which is under the "CC by-nc-sa" license. I think there is nothing wrong with it, as long as nobody claims any rights on the name (maybe Phil?).
 * Of course the (not official approved) relationship to the english version is not hidden. This is on purpose.
 * Apart from my "bad style" behaviour in information policy, why do you bother that the GuildWiki word is spread also in german? (Does anybody really bother?)
 * I think there are many native german speakers who have difficulties reading english but do like GuildWars and GuildWiki.org.
 * As mentioned above, I did ask about using "GuildWiki" and its content etc. Not the community, no, but the "guy behind GuildWiki.org".
 * Please be kind with my bad english, I can read but nearly not write.
 * Hopefully, this brings light in the GuildWiki.de issue... --Chronos 14:47, 20 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I like the fact that someone took the initiative to create a German GuildWiki. I do think it would have been cool to know about it beforehand, if for no other reason, than that it would have allowed the English GuildWiki to link to it.  And honestly, since it's mostly the same content, I don't see why the translation shouldn't be using the same name.  When you translate a book, you don't rename it (though you might translate the name)...why should it be any different with a wiki?  Saying it's "uncool" or "bad style" or whatever is unnecessarily harsh, IMHO. Dtremenak 16:37, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I personally don't care if guildwiki.de is a German copy of this one. Considering I play in the european districts (being swede and all), I am well aware of most germans' lack of knowledge in English. I simply see it as a way of german users to be able to get the information we have here, in a language they can understand as well. I bet many of you don't know another language than English if it's your native language. Then one might ask, why should germans be forced to learn English if it's not their native tongue? The only real problem I see with this is the confusion it could cause. Someone on a forum saying "I got THE map of Cantha from GuildWiki!", people wouldn't know if it was the German or English GuildWiki, since they're not related. The best way out of this I think would be if guildwiki.de put an English link on their Main_Page or some place visible, pointing to this wiki so English users don't just assume GuildWiki is all German. Also, if guildwiki.de were to do something guildwiki.org would have never agreed on, I can see how it is indeed annoying. As already stated though, there's nothing anyone can do. GuildWiki isn't a registered trademark, and as such is free to use. The logo is probably the only thing you could really go on, but considering 80% of it consists of ANet's graphics, I don't see how you would have copyright of it. &mdash; Galil  16:51, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * By the way (off-topic and just for the records ;), every german is indeed forced to learn English at the latest by the beginning of her/his 5th school year (age ~10), sometimes even earlier, usually for a period of at least six years. On the other hand, if you perceive this "lack of knowledge in English" you mention, this maybe tells something about our school system ...
 * Regarding the potential confusion you mentioned, such problems also apply to Wikipedia, and they simply solve this by placing interwiki-links to the respective page of the other languages wiki. This should be no problem for GuildWiki either, especially if both sites would team up and work together (and as far as I can see, Chronos is more than willing to do so.)
 * My only fear is, that any GuildWiki in another language could draw upon the manpower of the community and weaken the english GuildWiki in its effort to reach perfection. ;) Since English is the language most commonly used throughout the internet community I find an english GuildWiki more valuable than a version for German-speaking users only. As I stated above, even germans should be able to speak and write English by the time they are old enough to play this game, while you can't assume the vice versa. --MRA 07:09, 22 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Again people are going into copyrights and what not. This is not about copyrights and laws. The question I have is: Chrono, do you not agree that by naming yourself "GuildWiki.de" there is an implication that your site is THE german version of Guildwiki.org? Let's say tomorrow, 84.175 starts his own copy and it becomes our "approved" translation of this site. Your site's name gives the misleading implication that it is THE translation of our site that WE are ok with.
 * I actually don't mind that. My beef is that our voice was never taken. It's like you making a site about Toyota and naming it Toyota.de (I know there are copyright issues there), it's misleading. Most people will assume that Toyota.de is affiliated with Toyota.com.
 * I would actually LOVE to put a link to your wiki on the main page that says "Now in German!" (with a german translation next to it) so that we can direct our German readers to your site (especially the not so literate ones like Xeeron) :). However, such a move would require Gravewit's approval and verification by Tetris/84.175/Xeeron that you guys are on the up and up in terms of adopting fair policies that will help your wiki reach the size of this wiki in due time.
 * So, for now, I would appreciate it if you places in no uncertain terms where you say this site copies GuildWiki.org that it is currently NOT affiliated with GuildWiki.org and is not some kind of subsidiary of it. --Karlos 18:15, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * My German is extremely poor; but it appears to me that http://www.guildwiki.de/ already mentions that it's not directly affiliated with this wiki. If I'm reading that correctly, then I have no issues.  My only additional request to further reduce any confusion from those who may use the german version is that they also develop a unique wiki icon for the upper left of their site.  I don't feel that's a major issue, but it would help in preventing confusion. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:23, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Heh, to verify my translation, I tried using Babbelfish. Wow, and I thought my German was poor - Babbelfish makes me look almost fluent! --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:26, 20 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Heh, Babelfish is pure comedy. :D Most of those translation programs can't even translate single words correctly, let alone complete sentences. But you're correct, Barek, there is such a note on the Main Page of guildwiki.de, and if you scroll up you see that I've already translated it. Not sure if we consider it prominent enough and if we're happy with the wording, but that is something that can be worked on. --217.230.49.122 22:41, 20 June 2006 (CDT) <- This was me, not logged in. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 03:54, 21 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Can anyone who knows German well translate that part for us? Or can anyone who has better eyes find me the translation that I can "scroll up" to? --Karlos 01:00, 21 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Barek is right. This is the topmost paragraph of guildwiki.de:

"Welcome to the German Guildwiki, a wiki and guide for ArenaNet's online role playing game Guild Wars. The wiki is still under construction and is aimed to become the German version of th English Guildwiki, without being directly affiliated with it, at the moment."
 * Note the last line. While the wording can possible be improved (also note that my quick-and-dirty translation will probably not make it look too good, either ;), I am perfectly happy with the content. On a side note I would like to mention that I personally have absolutely nothing against guildwiki.de at all! If people are willing to put up the effort of translating guildwiki, by all means, go ahead! What I called "bad style" is not someone copying us. That is perfectly within the limits of the license and was to be expected sooner or later (actually, it has happened before, with sections). What I called "bad style" is doing so without telling us. But that issue has been resolved now. :) --84-175 (talk) 03:47, 21 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I know that we are not Wikipedia, but lets have a look at how they handle this. Wikipedia, consisting of 100+ laguange sub-wikipedias, is an entity, both legally and technically, legally run by the Wikipedia foundation, technically installed on their server farm, in one location. But still the individual language sub-wikipedias have a very high degree of freedom and autonomy. They do not even try to make one wiki a direct copy or a translation of the other. We all know that this would be impossible, as the content and design of each wiki is dynamic. You cannot possibly synch them all, keeping translations up-to-date. But not only is the content independent, but also the communities are autonomous. When you start a new wikipedia you only have to agree to some very basic policies that apply to all sub-Wikipedias. From that point on, each language has independent communities, admins, policies and rules. Each language works as a little democracy on its own. The head admins of Wikipedia do not expect to have full controll over each of the 100+ language sub-wikipedias.
 * With the Wikipedia model in mind, I could imagine a similar cooperation between en.guildwiki and de.guildwiki, with each of them being an independent community. There may be legal and technical issues that I have not considered yet, but that is something that Gravewit would have to look into first of all.
 * Also note that ANet's offer to host GuildWiki might affect the cooperation. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 04:36, 21 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, I am satisfied with the note too. Any talk of being affiliated with us will have to go through Gravewit. I'll ask him if he's okay with us posting a link to them in our main page for German users. --Karlos 04:40, 21 June 2006 (CDT)


 * The note is quite clear to me, I dont have any problem with guildwiki.de. That being said, I still see all the problems of translations of wikis, which means for me a single english wiki is the better concept. Of course anyone trying to get a translation going is free to do so and I wish them luck. --Xeeron 07:33, 21 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Notes: I have been working on getting multi-language stuff going here for awhile, and we may be at a point where we can try more languages. PanSola and I have been working behind-the-scenes on a chinese-language version of late. German may be up as well, if the server can handle the load. We'll probably be upgrading the webserver again anyway... one thing I don't like is them using the name GuildWiki, because GameWikis does 'own' the name, in the way that wikipedia owns the name wikipedia. Of course the actual content is free for them to use as they see fit, provided they follow the license. Gravewit 18:47, 21 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Wanna synchronize with Chrono to possibly merge them under our umbrella if our umbrella will be including German? --Karlos 19:31, 21 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I think the idea of merging the guildwiki.de version into an official version is very good. I have contacted Gravewit by email (again...) to talk about this. --Chronos 00:23, 22 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Anything new from Chronos oder Gravewit? I'm looking forward to see this two sites merging :)

A request to native english speakers
The first part of this edit Seems to me as bluntly wrong. I will not revert it myself, but someone who can confirm this, please do. Foo 13:41, 19 June 2006 (CDT)


 * That doesn't actually point to a specific edit, but rather to a list of contributions. Unless you expect us to read minds and/or read through them all, you may want to be more specific. :) -- [[Image:Bishop_icon2.png]] Bishop [ rap|con ] 14:10, 19 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Err Emm. fixed that. check again. Foo 15:07, 19 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Tweaked it. Tenses were fine, but some of the prepositions and such were rather wierd (wars are between entities, for example, not among them). &mdash; 130.58 (talk) ( 15:20, 19 June 2006 (CDT) )

Build
Where do I put in a custom build? I've been prefecting it for about 2 weeks, its almost done. I call it the Mind Fryer
 * You can eather put it under Me/Any Mind Fryer, (or other proffesion, I'm guessing it's a mesmer), or register and create a user page. Foo 12:46, 24 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Style and formatting/Builds has the advice for your build page. ~ Nilles (chat) 12:58, 24 June 2006 (CDT)

Copyright message
I think we are supposed to have the following text from Should we put it at the bottom of the site, or on individual image pages? - 18:56, 25 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Should involve Gravewit in this. He's the only one hwo can edit that part of the page anyways. --Karlos 23:12, 25 June 2006 (CDT)


 * MediaWiki:Copyright &mdash; Skuld  03:34, 26 June 2006 (CDT)
 * The fansite expectations just say to "display the appropriate copyright information." Copyrights already exists, but isn't well linked (I think just in the text between the edit bot and edit summar box?).  Perhaps the footer link should go there.  That keeps the footer text compact.  --68.142.14.40 04:38, 26 June 2006 (CDT)

Forgotten move tags
There are several entries in Category:Articles to be moved where the move tag was applied several weeks, if not months ago. If no discussion takes place on a move tag, should we: The other half of this would be how long to leave the tags until an action is taken on these forgotten tags? Two weeks? A month? Do move tags have expirations, or do they remain until someone cares enough to start pushing the change? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:07, 26 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Leave the move tags until discussion takes place?
 * Remove the Move tag - assume that if no discussion took place, then the current name is adequate?
 * Move the article - assume that if no discussion took place, then there's no objection to the proposed new name?
 * I'm inclined towards "assume no objections, go ahead". - 23:19, 26 June 2006 (CDT)

Monster data revised
I passed trough each and every one of the monsters in Guildwiki and made sure the 4 main headings were present, skills had icons and listed alphabetically, elite skills unmarked and monster skills marked. Maybe someone may check it again to confirm since I might have forgotten a few things. --Arkhyn, 18:40, 29 June 2006

Wrong place but it's a bug and I don't know where to put it
Kay. I realized that some articles: Drop rate Talk:Main Page are not showing for me - they appear blank. FF's View Source command is also blank...not sure if this is important or a known bug or w.e 69.253.41.139 06:04, 2 July 2006 (CDT)

5,000,000 views on the main page
Huzzah! &mdash; Skuld  09:42, 6 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Arg, not enough ppl are skipping directly to Special:Recentchanges d-: - 12:14, 6 July 2006 (CDT)

language
Hi, just wanna ask if we can freely add shortcut on page to the translate page in other language ? Is there spécifics rules or policy for that kind of link ? --Elenna 06:19, 8 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I'm not quite sure that I know what you mean. Currently GuildWiki is only available here in English.  There are French and German wikis for Guild Wars that are not affiliated with GuildWiki, and are not linked to from this site.  Also PanSola is/was working on a Chinese (I think it was Chinese) version that would be affiliated with GuildWiki and linked to on this site much like the different language pages are linked on Wikipedia, but I don't know the status of that.  If this doesn't answer your question, feel free to post an example of what you're talking about here on my talk page.  --Rainith 14:29, 8 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Well for the french GW i can said that Gravewit didn't respond at mail, so they made it by their own. But i think that mostly 40% of the site is translated directly from here. But for the shortcut it's just an external link to add at bottom of the page, something like this : 
 * --Elenna 16:36, 8 July 2006 (CDT)
 * MediaWiki already has an "interlanguage link" feature. Go to an article on Wikipedia like Language and look at the navbar on the left.  If GWiki decides to link to the French or German wikis, it should be done using that MW feature.  --68.142.14.86 17:35, 8 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Now that I understand what you're asking, I think this would be a better place to post this question. --Rainith 19:08, 8 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I think if the sites aren't officially affiliated with GuildWiki, any links added should have indication as such. - 22:31, 8 July 2006 (CDT)

Like the "in other languages" on WP? (eg Rocinante) you just need to add Rossinante there. I'm for it as long as we have an info page saying unofficially affialated (sp blaah) &mdash; Skuld  10:50, 9 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Ok...so there is an option in mediawiki, within this wiki, to make articles in other languages, right? Are we allowed to make that kind of articles? --Torins 11:18, 9 July 2006 (CDT)


 * My opinnion: Don't make articles in different languages in this wiki. Don't link to the article in a different language in individual articles. Make a link to the bar on the left which directs to the german/french version of the same article. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] 14:14, 9 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Hum... it would be the greatest waste of time ever seen Torins! Make isolated translated page would be useless without a core between them, also make such page here while there's already a native version i'm sorry but it would be really stupid ! Which advantage did u really expect with this kind of competition between .org .de .fr ??
 * I'm a little sad when i read all this "unoffically affialated" everywhere, that's not really fair. I think gravewit as his own responsability on this fact, we send him lot of request before the lunch of the native language project without any reply. So pleaze stop bother us with copyright, affilation, logo or other like if the .fr/de site were just some robber. Keep in mind that we had only silence when we have asked for common bases & coordination. --Elenna 14:37, 9 July 2006 (CDT) (sorry for my french)


 * I was rather thinking of gathering a few Polish friends and maybe translating the whole wiki, but now, i'm starting to think that it'd be too much work....a better idea would be just helping this wiki prosper.... Torins 15:21, 9 July 2006 (CDT)


 * If would be gravewit's responsibility, if his answer is "yes" but he never responded. On the other hand, it would NOT be his responsibility if his answer is "no" and he never responded.  I'm not trying to imply you are stealing or robbing, but it is a fact that the .fr/de sites are not currently officially affiliated with "the" GuildWiki, despite your attempts/intentions/desire/requests to be so.  I don't see why they cannot be officially affiliated, but on the other hand I do not see any obligation that forces Gravewit to say "yes".  I am all in support of GuildWiki going multi-lingual (at least for languguates that the game itself supports), and I'm all in support of your involvement in the french/german translation efforts.  However, if for whatever reason Gravewit says no (again I don't know why he would say no, but he could), I think the best course of action for the french/german sites would be to not use the pun "GuildWiki" and simply come up with a different name (and logo), which does not affect your ability to translate GuildWiki content at all.  - 22:08, 9 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Our logo is actually under the CC license, like everything else. I dunno how to treat usage of the name.  --68.142.14.86 22:49, 9 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm not agree with you. This discussion shouldn't exist if an answer has been tell 6month ago. Yes or No it's not the matter. Gravewit has the right to say No, if he wanted to, but he didn't. I think you can understand that the main goal was just to give access at guildwiki.org for those who didn't speak english (even for those who can read english, some name can't always be translated from english, for bosses for instance) like i think that you're weel-placed to have a good idea of the work such project involve. So i think it was our right to expect an answer. Anyway let's forgot about that, think we'll make our editorial choice on our side and won't interfere further on your stuff, it should be easier for everyone. --Elenna 14:56, 11 July 2006 (CDT)


 * The interlanguage links aren't "on Wikipedia." Each different language has its own servers, policies, admins, and so on.  They've just all agreed to link among each other.  --68.142.14.86 16:30, 9 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I thought they all belonged to the Wikipedia foundation, despite being on different servers and having different policies and admins. - 22:11, 9 July 2006 (CDT)
 * They do, but I was trying to point out they still operate independently. Jimbo (or anyone) doesn't get to say "Spanish WP, go translate this article from English WP" or "this is how we do it on English WP, so you do it like that on German WP."  Or, more relevant, if someone starts up a new language wiki, they don't get an automatic spot in the alternate languages navbar.  I think it's the same point you were making about "responsibility."  --68.142.14.86 22:49, 9 July 2006 (CDT)

Special:Wantedpages usage
On my userpage, I have links to several special pages and categories that I like to patrol periodically and that I found useful back when the special pages page was broken. But, one of those pages has always bugged me. Special:Wantedpages is, at this point, little more than a listing of missing user pages. I know that there have been multiple recent debates on the creation of info on user pages for existing users. But for anonymous IPs that are unlikely to ever create a userpage, I propose that we (I'll do it if others agree) create a template that says something like:
 * This is the userpage for a contributor using an IP address. If this IP is used by you, you are invited to create a login ID to improve tracking of your own contributions as well as other benefits.

The template could then be {{Subst: into the IP userpages, dropping them from the Wanted Pages listing. Any opinions? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 09:04, 11 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Note: Not for all anonymous IPs, that would be a huge undertaking; but some criteria could be used: all those with double digit counts of links, or all those in the top 50 or 100 or whatever of the list. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 09:16, 11 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I agree - 2 days ago I was patrolling that and it was congested with talk and anon userpages, maybe if it has >5 links to it? or some other arbitrary and meaningless number existing only to save work but meaning the difference between a red and a blue link? ST47 09:22, 11 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Good idea &mdash; Skuld {{Mo}} 09:32, 11 July 2006 (CDT)
 * If you put it on the user page though, then I doubt the anons will notice it... -{{User:PanSola/~}} 19:46, 11 July 2006 (CDT)

Having wantedpages display things with more than a certain number of links is a just a variable value change, but I don't think that makes much of a difference for usability. If you want to ignore things with less than X broken links, just stop browsing wantedpages when you hit that number. It shouldn't be too difficult to change the code to ignore a certain namespace, such as user, but of course Gravewit would have to do it. --68.142.14.78 21:48, 11 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I think the problem is the HIGHEST ones are the ones come from anon signatures. It's especially ironic to look it up and find User:68.142.14.* take up the TOP THREE most wanted pages.  out of the Top 20 most wanted, only 5 are NOT links to user pages.  So setting a threshold won't help with the situation at all. -{{User:PanSola/~}} 01:06, 12 July 2006 (CDT)
 * As I said, doing that won't make much of a difference. --68.142.14.78 02:28, 12 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Adding a {{subst: ... template to those user pages would drop those pages from the most wanted pages list, making it cleaner and more useful/informative. The ideal solution is to have the code for the page modified to ignore links to user pages; but barring that, I think the above is the best available alternative.  As for setting a threshold to view; not sure why that came into the discussion - doing so wouldn't make any difference.  My mention of a threshold above was strictly in relation to determining what triggers adding the template, not in restricting viewing the list in any way. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:39, 13 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Okay, disregard this request. After looking closer at the list, I've realised that the only solution will be to get the Wanted Pages to ignore anything in the User namespace.  Out of the top 50 wanted pages, I think that I counted a total of 8 or 9 actual articles flagged as needed.  Trying to manage the user pages with a subst:template will be too cumbersome, and not worth the relatively small gain. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:39, 13 July 2006 (CDT)


 * On another note, if a contributor has been involved enough to show up in the wanted pages list then can't we safely assume that they know about registering but don't want to? I don't necessarily disagree with adding a template to such pages, but I think that saying "you are invited to make an account" is a little insulting as the contributor has consciously opted not to make an account.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 02:42, 14 July 2006 (CDT)


 * In my case, I have intentionally opted to not use an account. I'd be willing to go through "my" existing broken links to de-red them, but I don't really think I'll remember or even want to keep track of future ones I create.  --68.142.14.33 02:58, 14 July 2006 (CDT)

It seems Gravewit has already fixed this since now I fail to see even one page in the User-namespace. &mdash; Galil {{r}} 01:10, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Documenting mission cutscene dialog
I'd imagine some players may feel pressured to skip cutscenes during missions when everyone else in the party wants to skip them, or they may choose to skip them and regret it later. Therefore, I was thinking that it might benefit to players if the mission pages were to include an extract of the cutscene dialog. Would people agree? I'm happy to initiate such tasks, however I was wondering how best to go about including the dialog into a mission page. Perhaps there is a mission template that could be updated. What do people think? --IAmAI 07:57, 12 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Yeh, good idea :) Limit to the transcript and a summary image maybe &mdash; Skuld  08:00, 12 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree with documentation. I don't think a template is necessary or warrented.  Just put it somewhere in the mission article. - 09:45, 12 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I think it would be a good idea to start this out and see how it goes. It's certainly a nice idea.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 12:55, 12 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I'd assume that if we were doing cutscene dialogue for missions, we'd perhaps also want non-mission cutscene dialogue? Factions introduced many instances of non-mission cutscenes, particularly as you're entering a specific town after a primarly quest.--Zampani 14:47, 12 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I considered this as a possibility also, although I thought the cutscenes would be more important as they are more easily missed and a player can go back and read non-cutscene dialog even after leaving the mission area. For this reason, I probably won't be doing this myself, but I can't stop you or anyone else from doing so, of course! :) --IAmAI 04:19, 13 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I've added cutscene dialog to the page Dunes of Despair (Mission). Please review. Thanks --IAmAI 16:16, 17 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Looks good, though I added the spoiler-template, and stub-template (seeing as it was incomplete). Will document the next time I do missions. &mdash; Galil  00:58, 1 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I'm not so sure about the spoiler notice as, I assume, it is implied by the fact the article is a 'guide'; if not, there would be a spoiler notice on all mission guides. If it should not be completely removed, may I suggest a compromise of placing it just under the dialog heading in the article, rather than at the top --IAmAI 09:39, 8 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I was wondering, should we document the dialogues between NPCs in factions as well? For example the numerous dialogues involving Mhenlo and Master Togo. &mdash; Galil  17:05, 1 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I have no objection to this, although I will not be undertaking it myself. The only problem/challenge I can forseen is distinguishing between cutscene and non-curscene dialog (if necessary) and indicaiting the point at which within the mission the dialog appears (also, if necessary) --IAmAI 09:39, 8 August 2006 (CDT)

Pro/Contra Templates
Hey, I just found these on the german wikipedia: Template:Pro Template:Contra. Since this mediawiki doesn't support .svg, we can't just copy the templates, but we can find a way to convert them if the community would like those templates. Opinion? ~ Nilles (chat) 14:23, 16 July 2006 (CDT)

Server problems
A lot of images seem to be missing and some pages are messed up. I'm pretty sure it's a server-side problem, and I think this is the appropriate place to report it. -- Gordon Ecker 01:01, 17 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Software_%26_Technical_Issues/Bugs, down at the bottom. --Rainith 01:03, 17 July 2006 (CDT)

WTS/WTB on user pages..
It's been brought to my attention what User:Blastedt is doing in his user page. The question is, before this becomes a practice done by all, do we wish to allow this?

The issues I see are bandwidth issues (no disrespect Blastedt, but all that for a bunch of Charr carvings and some dye?)... Soon, every wanna be in-game businessman is gonna make a user page in the wiki especially to make it his/her own auction site. Also, there are a few concerns about scamming. Do we interfere if we see someone offering a fake Crystalline sword as the real one?

A side issue is, what defines WTS and WTB? Does Honorable Sarah's list of things she's looking for qualify as a WTB list? I think not, but I am sure others will ask, where we draw the line.

Your thoughts? --Karlos 23:05, 23 July 2006 (CDT)


 * My thoughts/opinions: You have a really good point that user pages will start sprouting like wild. If the marketing and trading in-game wasn't bad enough (I mean all the spam and shouting), I feel that it certainly doesn't belong here. I think something like Honorable Sarah's wishlist or things she wants is ok as long as she doesn't start listing prices explicitly. If she meets with someone in-game and discusses it privately between players, that's fine. Small short bullets of text like "I'm looking for ABC weapon pm me in-game" is fine but tables and explicit WTS/WTB and numbers is where I personally feel the line should be drawn. --Vortexsam 23:20, 23 July 2006 (CDT)
 * When I see a page with mutable content, I think "rechaching penalty" and "recent changes spam". In my opinion, putting whatever crap you want on your user page should be okay, but changing it repeatedly for no good reason should be discouraged. I would say the same about, say, an XP counter updated every 10 minutes. But if someone wants to list a few items, I don't really care very much.
 * I can definitely see where your slippery-slope argument is coming from, though, Karlos: Guildwiki should not be a glorified auction house. It shouldn't be a glorified Geocities for people to make little pages about their characters and contribute nothing to the actual content of the site, either, though, and we're not exactly cracking down on that. =) &mdash; 130.58 (talk) 23:29, 23 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't think that selling items on the GuildWiki will take off (famous last words...). It's not designed to be an auction site, there's no bidding system implemented or way to view past trade etc. Sarah's thing is fine, it sounds like she's largely after items for damage testing on the GuildWiki. In some ways I don't really mind people selling things on the GuildWiki, (GWGuru is a much better place to do it anyway) but on the other hand I don't want to patrol the recent changes for people putting bids on things and I definately don't want to get into an arguement where for example I revert an edit where someones blanked another person's bid but they say IP address just changed etc. The GuildWiki is not setup for auctions and there's better, dedicated auction sites so I don't really want to see them here (but I'm still ok with Sarah's) --Xasxas256 23:40, 23 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I think my final conclusion is that doing something really bad (policing user pages) in order to prevent something potentially bad (people posting about items on pages) is unwarranted. Much better to just leave users messages if their page editing activities get out of hand. No different from "I know you used the 'minor' checkbox, but you do realize you just made 100 edits to your user page in the course of an hour, right?" No point in trying to make up all kinds of procedures and restrictions for something that isn't - and probably won't be - a problem, though. (And wishlists like Sarah's should definitely be considered kosher.) &mdash; 130.58 (talk) 00:08, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * There will be no policing and nothing really bad. If we're against it, then it will be policy (i.e. no WTS/WTB on user pages) and if someone violates, the admin will remove it as they do a porn link. No big deal. I can see the arguments for "no big deal" and "it won't fly" so I don't really care that much. Just thought we'd consider it before it becomes an issue. --Karlos 04:29, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't really see how "policing" user pages is something "really bad." Though we have no policy on it, there shouldn't really be a difference between a user page and a normal article.  A user page isn't that user's safe haven from normal GWiki operation.  On WP, policy says that user pages shouldn't be used for purposes that don't further the project, which is an easy way to say WP is not a blog, webhost, social network, or whatever (which is what we've said about GWiki in the past).  Listing personal information can let other users know about you to understand your knowledge/experience/credibility a little better, just as character info/game experience (not XP)/unlocks or whatever can help here.  --68.142.14.19 04:45, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Personally, I'm not too concerned by people posting wts/wtb or wishlists on their user pages, provided they are only maintained as lists. The lists use relatively little memory, and as long as they keep the number of edits per hour to the same page within a reasonable count, then no issue (c'mon people, the preview button exists for a reason).
 * My bigger concern is if users where to start using us to host images of gold weapon stats that they're trying to sell; those do start to chew up considerably more memory than a simple list. We've deleted those types of images in the past; but at the time, people weren't using them on their user pages, just hosting them here.  To me, we should still eliminate those types of images even if they are used on user pages. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 08:37, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I guess I should say something, since two wikians pm'd me ingame about it and I went to Karlos for advice, as there is no set policy and while I may be respected (maybe *shrugs*), I have never seen this in my time here at GuildWiki.
 * As I had said before and I will say it over and over, I believe GW is an information center, not a regular forum per say, and definitely not an auction house. If it gets worse, then obviously action should be taken. I would not want to go to Special:recentchanges page and see nothing but posts for buying and selling items.
 * I know even before I write this, that it may construed by User:Blastedt as picking on him and its not the case, but seeing how he has not responded to this discussion yet, I might bring up that it may be a joke. The items for sale are not really in high demand, nor worth more than a few gold for each piece, hence my reasoning it could very well be a joke. -Gares 09:44, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Overall, I am against this. It takes up bandwidth and storage space and provides absolutely nothing to benefit the wiki or the community. I think the best thing is to simply post a link (like this to your auctions in your user page. --Karlos 18:46, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Im against it too, it may not be a problem at first, but it will cacht on. I can already see people with a full gallery of things they want to sell.&mdash; ├ A  ratak  ┤  18:56, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
 * It could be argued that very little on the user pages provide any absolute benefit to the wiki or community. Arguing memory usage is a moot point too, unless "WTS" lists start poping up with images, I'd worry foremost (if at all, mind you) about people posting high resolution in game shots of their characters, which, at last count, are both more frequent and more memory hungry than pure text lists. I do beleive it might be time to start encouraging people to be more thgoughtful about what they put on their user page, but more like guidelines, not "thou shalt not use more than 1 MB for thy user page"-like policies. --Theeth (talk)   20:03, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

I wasnt intending to make auctions, just like "I'm desperate to sell my dye" or "Come to me if you like the colletor's items in Piken"...I didn't expect even MYSELF to put all my mods.... I will remove some of this if wanted. I wasn't intending auctions, nor had I known that they were EVER used in Guild Wars. I have no idea which hat you pulled that out of. Maybe if we limit it to 5 items you are REALLY desperate to buy or sell...I thought this would probably be already common in the wiki user pages.

I am sorry for anyone who may have taken offense to my assuming that.

And why would I take half an hour to post a JOKE?

Blastedt 20:34, 24 July 2006 (CDT)


 * My main reason, I belive, for registering in this wiki, was to open a user page. I use it to store my skillbars and elites, to introduce myself to people, and to offer or ask for help. eventualy I started editing atricles, and testing game mechanics and builds. I would be afraid to limit users, and new ones in particular, in the use of their user pages. Blastedt did not hold an auction. yes, it should be said that a user page is not ment to be a place for selling or buying, but both Sarah and I, (and god knows who else), have alreasy been using it to find items we need. I think that as long as it seems that no one is being scamed, and as long as people will reply the user in game, and not in the wiki, things like that should not be a problem. Foo 20:51, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Ditto

Blastedt 21:04, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Except I was the other way around...I wanted a page of my own yes, but I was helping edit articles for like half a day before signing up.

Im sorry, once again, if I caused trouble.

Sincerly,

Blastedt 21:04, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Don't worry Blastedt, if you hang around here long enough you will see that there is a lot of these little talk.  It's not directed at you at all, it's the idea of selling.  Its just to establish what we accept and what we dont want on the wiki, that is all.  You are just the first user to put something like that, well that cleary focus on trading, so they often use you as a exemple.  No need to take it off your page yet,  just follow the discution and input your tough like you did already.&mdash; ├ A  ratak  ┤  22:06, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

Alrighty :)

Blastedt 08:42, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

GuildWiki is now a "large" wiki
Just a little heads-up that GuildWiki is now listed here, as one of the 100 largest MediaWiki wikis. If you count only the non-Wikimedia wikis we're even among the top 25. :) -- 08:05, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Omg. We are the only one in that list to have over 100 million page views. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 08:12, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * yeah...we hacked... [[Image:ST47logo.jpg|User:ST47|50px]] (talk) 08:51, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * :O Foo 09:33, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Boo ya! &mdash; Skuld 10:30, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Holy! O.O We beat all wikipedias even, except the english one. &mdash; Galil  20:32, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Edit: I take that back, we beat them too. Easy to see here: http://s23.org/wikistats/wikis_html.php?sort=views_desc :p &mdash; Galil  20:34, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Heh I'm impressed. I thought we were a reasonably big project...to receive some kind of confirmation of this is quite nice, it actually makes me feel quite proud to be a part of this project. --Xasxas256 21:19, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

Didn't know where to put this compliment; free feel to move/delete it. You are not only a "large" wiki, but one of the best. I use you all the time and constantly refer players to your site. While in the Sanatarium giving away low req weapons, a new player asked about spending skill points. I referred him to guildwiki.org. A few minutes later, he was back to say "You have answered ALL my questions." Keep up the good work.65.7.211.83 17:03, 16 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Thanks 65.7.211.83 :) It's always appreciated when the contributors' hard work is recognised!  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 01:56, 17 August 2006 (CDT)

Viewing the Wiki
The Wiki takes a very long time to load on my home computer, although I usually don't have any trouble on other machines. I've tried two different browsers (IE and Firefox), but it still takes forever to use the page. Does anyone have any advice? --Willow 23:58, 7 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Try at it at different times, it was slow for me 3 days ago, but now its fine, tell me if it doesn't change over time &mdash; Skuld 10:30, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

Images Cleanup
Would some people be so kind as to have a look at Special:Unusedimages, and chuck some of these? Gravewit 16:39, 2 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Took care of a large chunk of ones from last summer/early fall. Plus every unused one that I uploaded (unless I missed some).  It would be good if people could look thru there and mark for deletion images that they've uploaded that there is no more use for.  That way admins don't need to guess about it or wipe out something that someone actually wanted to keep.  --Rainith 18:33, 2 July 2006 (CDT)


 * If nothing links there, and it's older than a few months, give it the axe. --Karlos 20:15, 2 July 2006 (CDT)


 * I deleted 190 a while ago and kind ppl keep flagging unused, i'll get some more tho &mdash; Skuld 10:30, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I noticed though that if you make a text link to the images instead (eg. Image:Warden_of_Saprophytes.jpg), they page will not show up at "What links here?". So images could be in use, it just doesn't show. Unless that got fixed with the wiki update? &mdash; Galil  20:28, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
 * I went through all of those images and gave Skuld a list of those which could be deleted. (I ignored all armor images, but I'll go for them today) I also noticed that images can be linked to without it being shown on the 'what links here' list. From a few images I knew they are in use somewhere, but I couldn't be sure about the rest. I hope no one lost anything important. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 06:04, 29 July 2006 (CDT)

Canthan collectors
They have unique dialogue lines unlike the Prophecies ones, so what do you think about adding those to their articles? - Lavvaran 16:17, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
 * yeh! &mdash; Skuld 16:20, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Well, so I might get some then :) - Lavvaran 16:26, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
 * you go right ahead, i've done my mass edit for the month. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 16:31, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Seems they need a unified pattern, sometimes it's in the end, in the beginning, formatted differently... - Lavvaran 03:28, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Wishlist Category
Many users have created Wishlists with many different names. I think it may be a good idea to create a category where all could be listed, I suggest either Category:GuildWiki:Guild Wars Suggestions or Category:Guild Wars Suggestions. --Phoenix 00:42, 1 August 2006 (CDT)
 * suggestions not Suggestions!! rah!! &mdash; Skuld 04:16, 1 August 2006 (CDT)
 * all users pages, and half of them are half joking. it's not worth tracking. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 08:37, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Alexa rankings
The Alexa rankings for the most popular English-language Guild Wars–related sites (as of August 6, 2006) follow.

guildwars.com: 5,831 gamewikis.org: 6,055  &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars ogaming.com: 7,556 &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars guildwarsguru.com: 8,159 stratics.com: 9,548 &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars coldfront.net: 10,547 &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars gwonline.net: 12,322 gameamp.com: 12,956 &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars warcry.com: 15,843 &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars mmosite.com: 20,451 &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars tentonhammer.com: 22,185 &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars gw.ign.com (estimated): ~25,000 systemshock.co.za: 58,975 &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars guild-hall.net: 168,613 rpgstars.com: 211,374 &mdash; Covers more than just Guild Wars photics.com: 233,039 arena.net: 342,093 crossingtyria.com: 409,671 ncsoft.net: 424,075 gwkb.org: 490,357 guildwarsrealm.net: 864,354 knights-templar.com: 870,846 gwversus.com: 1,036,623 guildcast.com: 1,505,221 tyria.net: 1,721,084 anzgw.com: 3,797,486 loreofmythos.com: 4,144,779

In short, we're the most popular fansite for Guild Wars! We're very nearly as popular as the offical site itself. We're also significantly more popular than many of the largest fansite networks that cover multiple online games. This is a huge accomplishment, and one we should all be proud of. Thank you to our editors and our readers for your support in making GuildWikis the best fansite out there!

Alexa rankings are a fairly good indicator of how popular a website is. gamewikis.org is ranked at 6,055, which means we're the 6,055th most popular website in the world!
 * Alexa takes into account the entire Gamewikis.org network which includes the Oblivion Wiki (which seems to get some traffic as well) and the Blog. So it can't be an accurate measure for just the most popular Guild Wars fansite. It's the same as trying to find out numbers for gwvault.ign.com as you will only get returned the entire www.ign.com domain name.  Sorry for the downer though I wouldn't doubt that even minus those numbers this is the most frequently viewed GW site. It is also quite the accomplishment to beat out other networks such as ogaming, stratics and warcry.
 * As pointed out here: GuildWiki talk:Community Portal, we apparently get more hits than any other MediaWiki site, including the individual languages of Wikipedia.


 * From Alexa:

Where do people go on gamewikis.org? (what's this)

* gw.gamewikis.org - 97% * oblivion.gamewikis.org - 3%
 * The OblivioWiki ups our ranking a little, but not considerably.


 * On another note, why was this moved from the community portal? I thought that's where stuff like this belonged. This is a valuable congratulatory piece of propaganda *cough Elite status cough.* &mdash;Tanaric 09:24, 7 August 2006 (CDT)
 * What's even more interresting is viewing this page, and its tabs. Especially Rank and even more so, Page Views. The wiki currently ranks about as high as guildwars.com, but it has way more page views per day. &mdash; Galil  14:26, 9 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Aye. We have fewer unique viewers than GuildWars.com, but each of them views far more pages here than GuildWars.com viewers do. &mdash;Tanaric 21:12, 9 August 2006 (CDT)

Profession-specific quests
I'm new to to this wiki, both as a reader and as a registered user, so apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to raise this idea. Does a Category already exist for profession-specific quests (eg, In Memory of Paulus which is available only to Monks)? This might be a helpful thing to have for those switching secondaries, and wanting to skip having to buy skills for the new profession by doing a few quests from farther back in the game. I'd go ahead and create this myself, but I haven't been around long enough to know if something already exists. Thoughts? --Rossio 23:04, 8 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Try looking at Quests (Prophecies) and Quests (Factions). Note the use of the key and icons. --Vortexsam 23:09, 8 August 2006 (CDT)

Perfect! That's exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. Thanks for the quick response. --Rossio 14:01, 9 August 2006 (CDT)

New Techie Tool for Players
Found this post of Gaile Gray:

" We wanted to let you know that we now have a network and graphic diagnostic tool built into GW. If you press Shift-F10, it brings up a graph window, and TAB will cycle through the various graphs that are available to users. The network graph shows how much data is being sent over the wire, and the frame time graph shows how many milliseconds it takes to draw a frame.

That might be helpful for those of a technical nature as they do some diagnostics on their systems in the event of troubles.

Hope you guys find this of help! And we should have word on a new means of getting diagnostics from the game in the very near future. It'll make everyone's life easier. :)"

Here is the link to the post: http://vnboards.ign.com/guild_wars_general_board/b22740/98277717/p1/?5. --Phoenix 08:50, 9 August 2006 (CDT)


 * That link to the post should probably read: http://vnboards.ign.com/guild_wars_general_board/b22740/98277717/p1/?5  --Rossio 13:57, 9 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Yes. I was distracted and i didn't noticed. I corected it.--Phoenix [[Image:Phoenix_Benu.png]] 02:33, 11 August 2006 (CDT)
 * uhm, and where will the article to this new thingy be? need to get home to test it :D HJT 09:45, 14 August 2006 (CDT)

Site Ads
The following Guild Wars gold selling site was linked to from the side "sponsors" ads down the left. I think an affort should be made NOT to have such advertisers. [Link removed] --71.240.89.123 21:08, 17 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Post info about the ads here or here. --Rainith 21:15, 17 August 2006 (CDT)

GWO Wiki
Just a heads up, but you guys have direct competition from http://www.gwonline.net/wiki/ now. 70.96.163.6 18:49, 18 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Wow, they've expanded faster than I thought. Really great job and a nice looking site, but why the hell are we competing and not joining together? ;P (Crush those bastards!) --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 19:09, 18 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Well, they are still a lot behind us. I only found one random assassin build. Compare that to our build section. We have all of the most popular and best builds. We also have more and better images of the armor sets. I couldn't do window shopping with the gwonline wiki images, but the gwiki images are just perfect for selecting my future armor sets. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 19:13, 18 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah, they have expanded very quickly. I say let them get on with it :)  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 19:25, 18 August 2006 (CDT)


 * They're finally growing, but have a lot of ground to cover. Site statistics for GWO Online shows ... there are 153 pages that are probably legitimate content pages. 1,626 files have been uploaded.
 * Glad to see they realized what we knew all along; a wiki is the best way to form a fansite. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:28, 18 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't see it as much as "expanding fast" as "converting html content into wiki format". Do their forums still have that alienating policy against linking to other fansites? - 02:30, 19 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Their forums do still have that horrid linking policy. Fortunately they've adopted a somewhat reasonable copyright policy for the wiki contributions: Copyright --Zampani 16:56, 19 August 2006 (CDT)

Are they allowed to use our icons?.. &mdash; Skuld 17:47, 20 August 2006 (CDT)
 * If you're talking about the skill icons, those look to be the ones from the FSKs. --Rainith 17:56, 20 August 2006 (CDT)
 * i think he's talking about some of the icons with our black border on them --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 17:59, 20 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Yeh, they uploaded the FSK ones, then someone put black bordered ones on top. They might not be ours, look familiar though &mdash; Skuld 18:03, 20 August 2006 (CDT)


 * We didn't start the black border thing, ANet did. The prophecies FSKs have/had black borders.  --Rainith 18:14, 20 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Even if they did copy ours, they would be free to do so provided they gave credit to the source (not sure if that means crediting GW, or the person that uploaded it, or both - need to look at the license closer). As of July 25th, they changed their license to be the newer version of the same license we use.  --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 09:18, 21 August 2006 (CDT)

Redirect from www.guildwiki.org
Worked so far, but now I am getting this:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> 

Hi. We Make Community-Editable Documentation for Video Games.  <link href="/stylesheets/screen.css" media="screen" rel="Stylesheet" type="text/css" />

Hi, we're Gamewikis. We want to be the central repository for video game knowledge. Choose your poison:

<a href="http://gamewikis.org/blog/">The Blog</a> News, idle ramblings <a href="http://gw.gamewikis.org">GuildWiki</a> The GuildWars wiki

<a href="http://oblivion.gamewikis.org">OblivioWiki</a> The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion wiki <a href="http://nwn.gamewikis.org">NeverWiki</a> The Neverwinter Nights 2 wiki

Apart from the fact that the page is not working (it displayed that directly, not after I looked up the source code), I feel that it is very clear that users going to www.guildwiki.org want to go directly to guildwiki, so that page is an unneeded layer. --Xeeron 00:03, 23 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I just tried it, and it didn't show the source for me. Gravewit may be actively working the issue.  Earlier today the gamewikis.org addresses were doing similar.
 * I can kind of understand the reason for the extra layer. I'm guessing here, but my assumption is that it is there to both push people to update their bookmarks to gw.gamewikis.org, as well as advertising the fact that gamewikis is trying to expand into other games. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:11, 23 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm having the same issue. &mdash;Tanaric 12:54, 23 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I was going to email Phil about this directly but now that I've seen this, I'll put it here and hope he sees it. Because http://gw.gamewikis.org is blocked at work, for months I've used http://hi.gamewikis.org and it used to behave pretty much exactly the same and I could get around the content blocker at work. I've used Tor in the past, it's terribly slow. I often do bulk edits (e.g. clean out unneeded redirects, mass tidies etc.) which is impossible with Tor. If you could add a third level domain (other than gw) which could be used to access the GuildWiki...that'd be wild, untamed and awesome! I didn't make a single edit yesterday, can't go on like this! --Xasxas256 09:12, 24 August 2006 (CDT)