GuildWiki talk:Community portal

Locking the wiki
For anyone who is still paying attention here, I would to propose that we lock the wiki. Both Guild Wars and GuildWiki are essentially dead - 90% of all edits anymore are spam or vandalism. I still pay attention to RecentChanges, but only to revert the spam.

By "locking" the wiki, I mean that we disable anonymous edits and account creation. Users with existing accounts would not be affected - this means that pre-registered spammers (those that create accounts but don't actually attack until some time later) could still be a problem, and of course anyone could decide to go vandal, but this would prevent the majority of the spam that we've been receiving (not to mention the vandal attack last night). These changes would be enforced with AbuseFilter.

I'll put this in the sitenotice and leave comments open for 7 days. &mdash;Dr Ishmael 15:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Due to persistent vandals, I've been forced to lock down the wiki immediately. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, although I doubt it will cause much at all.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 17:14, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) 90%? That's fairly forgiving if you ask me.
 * Nothing is happening aside from Steve updating Nick (who is registered and thus unaffected), nothing else is going to happen. It's very unlikely to have a negative impact. --Vipermagi 17:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Indeed, I just didn't want to lock it down without warning, and I didn't expect the current vandal to be this persistent. Oh well.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 17:19, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Well I guess it will be for the best. Do spammers actually register before going on a spree? Or would disabling anon edits be enough? Steve 18:13, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes. The common tactic is to register, dump their payload on their userpage, then move the page into mainspace.  We've had a filter in place for a while that prevented the move, but since the payloads varied so much, there was no way to stop the page creation.  Now that we've blocked account creation, the spam will stop.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 18:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * He's got a grudge, we've shut him down on Minecraft Marriland, so now he's targeting other Curse wiki's. I agree that locking this wiki from anon edits is probably for the best, given the state of the game. -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  21:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I sadly concur. Aloha, Mauirixxx 00:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. You have to do, what you have to do. Ariyen 23:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Well it's nice to see that things don't change around here lol. Shame the wiki had to be put on lock down due to vandals.  It sickens me from all the good we did on this wiki for so many years.  Nice to see a few people still are around here though.  I felt nostalgic and thought I would pop in.  -- [[Image:Isk8.png]]   Isk8   (T/C) 04:15, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Even on lockdown with a rare edit here and there, I still prefer 'our' content to the GWW - maybe it's the choice in graphics & colors over here (I feel this is the more 'adult' wiki, where as GWW is the annoying younger sibling?), or maybe it's just me (and I'm not meaning it as slam against GWW and all the hard work it's users put in). I still randomly play GW here and there, and guildwiki is always my first stop, and will be until Curse kills it dead haha Aloha, Mauirixxx 06:12, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Moving forward
Curse is moving full steam ahead now that our Gamepedia platform has been launched and is stable. We have begun the process of migrating our existing wikis to it. In order to successfully migrate GuildWiki, we need to convert it to the Vector skin. This is required. There is no option for retaining monobook on the Gamepedia platform. Since you have retained a mostly default monobook look, this should not be very difficult, I can move the background image and minimize the visible changes relatively easily. Comments? -- Wynthyst  talk  17:24, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I've seen enough of your work to say... go for it. :-) Ariyen 00:18, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. I kept it basic and simple. -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  14:45, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess the differences are negligible. Steve 15:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I noticed a little bit of difference, but I do have to say that I like it. Ariyen 03:07, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Blocking useful editors...
Why oh why are we blocking useful editors and not putting in good security in place? It "is" still active, even if barely. Shame admins are to let it die... I'd rather have some good edits from ips of players that don't want to register or allow those that do to past through some strong securities. We should have things like this in place or get them in place... Much appreciated. Ariyen 07:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems like the consensus was that virtually all anonymous edits and new accounts were not constructive in nature. Guild Wars is no longer an active game, and GuildWiki carried out its mission with great distinction for many years. I I am glad that you feel it still has something to offer, but the fact is that there simply is no new content to add and no necessary improvements to be made. I do not believe re-enabling anonymous edits and account creation would serve a purpose at this point. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 04:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, Guild wars is still an active game. There are people that still play it and complain about not finding things or given up hope to help update traveler, left to the few active members here to do such. The game is not shut down yet and to me, it sounds like only you have given up hope of this site... What about those of use who still do use the site or would edit? What about those that still play the original game and have alternative ideas on missions, etc. that could help? I would say that the only inactives I see are the actual sysops, admins that have decided to leave... It's not "very" active here, but it still is active. Ariyen 19:36, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I respect your opinion, but my position isn't going to change unless you can show me a significant group of editors that's willing to commit to improving GuildWiki on a regular basis. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 20:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC)


 * If people really wanted to keep this wiki up to date, they had a great many months to register and do something. Do you know how many people registered in December and made an edit that can still be accessed? One. It was a spambot. Inevitably. There are another twenty or so spambots whose edits are not accessible as well, that month alone.
 * The game might be active, but there's no one that legitimately wants to put effort into reincarnating the GuildWiki. If they really want to have a positive impact on a Guild Wars wiki, the official Wiki is still open to a lot of new users every month, I heard.
 * It was good, it was fun, and it's forever burned into my memory. It is over, as well. --Vipermagi 18:54, 17 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It's blocking me for some reason and I cannot edit now. Ariyen (talk) 07:11, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sign up for Curse, and than log in. Nobody can edit when not logged in. Even seasoned users. 94.229.63.135 07:48, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, now that a filter error has been fixed, this is true. Ariyen's problems, however, are related to the space/underscore at the end of her username, which has exposed a rather nasty bug. She'll be vulnerable to abuse filters until the account name is changed because AbuseFilter doesn't seem to be able to check her user groups or history. Naturally, I've reported to the tech team, but due to way wikis handle whitespace, I think the only way this can be solved is to disallow such accounts. oOeyes  [[Image:User-Nwash-Eyes.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 08:24, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Underscores at the end of names was not suppose to be allowed anymore by Curse. Ariyen will need to provide us with an alternative username as it has to be fixed by us. -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png|19px ]] talk  20:24, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Advertising?
I know Curse is a company, and as such, it needs to make money to pay employees, and hosting costs, and what have you, and one viable way to make the rent is via advertising. However, the choice of the immediately in your face ad placement leaves a little to be desired. When it's part of the article you want to read, it tends to distract you. Maybe make it "above" the entire page (same height, wider width?) instead of in the article itself? Just a suggestion. Aloha, Mauirixxx 17:54, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * On a side note, I'm thankful there's no pop ups, pop unders, or audio ads, and so far they're all for legit companies. Thanks for staying classy Curse :D Aloha, Mauirixxx 18:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * use an adblocker, e.g. adblock, then they don't appear at all. also, (feel free to steal my css. :P) - Chieftain Alex 07:41, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Wasn't there not suppose to be any advertisements for signed in users? Secondly, I'm getting to where I want to visit gww (despite I'm banned. :- just to look up information. This site is getting about as bad as Wikia was and I think partly why guildwiki left them was advertisements as well as the new forced layout, etc.  I know people need to be made money, but shoving advertisements all over the place is not the answer. Ariyen 18:17, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't know the details of the agreement to move over to Curse, and if the advertising goes against that, well that's not good. On the other hand, it's not like the advertising is anywhere NEAR the level of adverts on Wikia. We got 2 that I noticed, and while I don't like the placement of the top advert, the bottom one isn't so bad. On the plus side, when I'm using GuildWiki from work, my firewall blocks as much adverts as possible, so it's like they're not even there :P. The new "forced layout" was so minor, it's not even worth mentioning almost, again, compared to Wikia. The lesser of 2 evils I guess, even if the lesser evil is still evil. And no, I don't think Curse is evil. :) Aloha, Mauirixxx 18:41, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Curse actually kept GuildWiki ad-free for much longer than we originally expected them to, and their ads are more targeted at people who would actually use this site. I don't have a problem with them. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png|link=User:Felix Omni]] 16:47, 25 April 2013 (UTC)