Talk:Lotro-Wiki Contributors' Corner/Archive Feb08

From Lotro-Wiki.com

Looking for a design opinion

I'm looking at a template design schema for Titles available within the game. I have 2 concepts in mind -- using 1 single template or using 3 templates.

Here's a link to the template designs I'm looking at and why... Template layout thoughts

Personally, I'm kind of leaning towards a multi-template model. It allows a bit more flexibility and eliminates 'details' that may not be required for some but will be desired/required for other uses.

Thanks for any opinions you might express on this.
--Eleazaros 17:00, 2 January 2008 (PST)

Thanks Hinney for your suggestion. I implemented the template(s) and linked them like you suggested.

--Eleazaros 12:55, 4 January 2008 (PST)

Server Admin Requests?

I'd like to request a couple things adjusted on the site if possible. Namely:

* Enabling collapsible tables. (I can extract the code for this and provide it or you can get it.. which ever makes you most comfortable) [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.js]

Just go to the section in the file starting with:

 /** Collapsible tables *********************************************************

and copy from there down to 1 line above:

 //Shuffle for election candidates

That will copy the code or I can do that and give it to whomever I'm told to give it to.

Also, where should I bring up such things as categorization thoughts and the like?

I'm not new to wikis really but I'm new to this one. Check my user page for some background info on me. I included a couple links to stuff I've been working on and the like. Mostly the lorebook recently -- categorization of all 379 known titles, categorization and population of all the known warband maneuvers, Traits page stuff, etc... It's just trying to contact Turbine admins to have anything like ParserFunctions or the collapsible tables or even some link colorization CSS stuff put out, is virtually impossible (3 weeks trying to get someone there to reply -- even with a 'kiss off' and nothing).

I figure, why bash my head against the wall versus simply flesh out another wiki with the info that has most of the formatting tools I'd need for advanced template development.

--Eleazaros 22:30, 31 December 2007 (PST)

Hi & welcome to the wiki.

Lotr-admin's usually fairly quick to deal with behind-the-scenes stuff so hopefully you won't find this wiki too frustrating on that point.

Hm, there's no talk page for categories; maybe just create something vaguely appropriate - you could do it here but this page gets quite long enough anyway.

DancesInTrees 01:38, 1 January 2008 (PST)

Thanks for the reply and the welcome. I'll be looking around a bit at a few things, seeing what's around and the like.

--Eleazaros 16:53, 1 January 2008 (PST)

Try adding that to the MediaWiki:common.js page and see what happens. --Lotroadmin 18:15, 2 January 2008 (PST)

Windowed-mode?

How do I run LOTRO in windowed-mode instead of fullscreen? Would make editing a whole lot easier =)

--Miturian 03:13, 10 September 2007 (PDT)

Alt-Enter.

-- Jarehan 15:21, 10 September 2007 (PDT)

New to the Wiki

Hey there, I'm new to the wiki and this is actually my first wiki I have every worked on before so I'm rather new. What I've started working on is the Crafting section and cleaning up a few of the links. I'm going to start by adding some of the lower Teir items in and working my way up from there. I will have questions along the way and well, I though it would be nice to add a small discussions for those that are new to the Wiki to say hello and say what they are working on. Cheers! (I'm on the Brandywine server)

--Knoxx 00:37, 22 September 2007 (PDT)

Hi & welcome :) . Some things wiki do take a bit of getting your head round, but it's well worth it (imho :D ); and it looks like you've sussed out the essentials. Note (to all new users): the preview button is your friend ;) (OK sometimes I need to follow my own advice more *roll eyes* ) DancesInTrees 01:01, 22 September 2007 (PDT)

Thanks, I think I have it down... there is still I have a lot to learn, but I'm getting the hang of it, I think. *snickers* Anyhow, thanks again, I I'll proably be adding questions as I can. Right now that I have is what are some of the basic dictations, commands, and ummm... punctuations, I guess you woulds say to use. Basic code and such that is used within the Wiki, I see some basics already, just curious on others that I should know. (The Editing Help page is kinda empty >.<, and hah! If firgured out how to tab space now too) --Knoxx 01:09, 22 September 2007 (PDT)

I would like to second this request. I had to go to the regular wikipedia to find the cheatsheet found here and I also recommend the Tutorial. It would be really nice, imho, to see those things linked on the help page here. Furthermore, on the help page, there is a subheading called categories, which gives instructions on what category to apply to any particular item, but not the actual code for inserting a category. Adelas 08:09, 1 November 2007 (PDT)

Archiving

The page says it's too long so I've archived most. Not sure if I've done it exactly as who ever set it up intended but it seems to work. DancesInTrees 01:01, 22 September 2007 (PDT)

Help with Adding new Pages

Greetings!

I am understanding how to edit existing pages, but I am confused about how to add/create a new page, such as adding a new game item, or adding a new quest, a new guide, or just a new page in general which other pages would link to.

This is my first wiki that I am interested in contributing to. I plan on being very active with contributing and editing, but am still learning the wiki process.

--Deyvid 17:34, 25 September 2007 (PDT)

Try Help:Contents#Adding Pages & welcome :) DancesInTrees 00:48, 26 September 2007 (PDT)

Thank you. That link was helpful with exactly what I was needing. --Deyvid 09:39, 26 September 2007 (PDT)

Double-Check My New Page Please

I created a new page, Kinship Titles, and would like someone to look it over to make sure I did things properly.

How would I flag this page for needing additional information, like fill-in-the-blank type of help?

--Deyvid 17:37, 26 September 2007 (PDT)

It looks fine :) . Kinships probably answers the ?
For help we mostly use {{Stub/Something}}, there's a list of the things somewhere... ah, here
Categories; it took me ages to get my head round categories. You may find Special:CategoryTree useful to get a feel for the way the categories are linked. type "Lord of the Rings Online" into the box to see all the categories, or try one bit (branch?) eg Quests or Items. Note that in many cases both the category and the page exist eg Category:Quests and Quests

DancesInTrees 00:44, 27 September 2007 (PDT)

Server upgrades

Webhost upgrades occurring this Thursday, 7th between 9 PM and 11 PM PST. Expect intermittent connectivity during this time. --Lotroadmin 18:32, 4 February 2008 (PST)

player character

ok so i made my character page Wogan, then realized I didnt use surname (Wogan Agaric) so I moved the page and it does not show up under the Player Characters page.

--Gh0zt 18:22, 9 October 2007 (PDT)

Hello Gh0zt, Your page appears in the player character list, but it doesn't seem to be in the correct name space. I will ask the wiki admin to look into this, but you might want to go ahead and recreate the player page and delete the old page. --Hinney 23:18, 9 October 2007 (PDT)

Laurenlin Tribes?

Hi, I'm new here and would like to add a list of MP tribes for Laurelin, how would I go about that?

Hi & welcome :).

I've added a Monster Play Tribes heading at the bottom of the page, just add your tribe under that using the same style as the kinships. (We've used the same system for Snowbourn.) DancesInTrees 14:36, 18 October 2007 (PDT)

new logo?

A friend of mine was working on some logos for the wiki.. any thoughts on these two?

There's also my old proposal for new logo somewhere in archive as well... here's just the text-logo:

--Xander 01:26, 23 October 2007 (PDT)

I like the ring on the second ... but shouldn't it have "wiki" on there somewhere? And the edges feel a little plain. I do rather like Xander's; not completely sure about the colors but it's good. DancesInTrees 01:07, 25 October 2007 (PDT)

This better?

First I want to say that I love them all in no particular order, and some feedback

First logo, the text and the sword blend in too much, hard to see. I think it would look great if it was a lot larger, say 200x600

Second logo+enhanced version, Clean, Simple, but would require an entire theme change. Not that isn't a bad thing but can you try with a clear background, dark text and keep the ring like it is?

Third logo, Love the lore, but I think the lotro-wiki text needs to be the dominate text... I also think it would be cool to sprinkle the lore text around the wiki.

--Hinney 21:21, 30 October 2007 (PDT)

The second logo (with wiki edited in) is definitely my favorite. Similar to what Hinney said, I think it would look great without a theme change if the background was transparent, the text black and the ring gold. --Fedaykin 21:52, 1 November 2007 (PDT)

Yes i wanted to say about what hinney posted on...is not so bad just...its gunna not end up how you think. Sure i can make the ring gold but most of that is just a white line with a glow giving the effect.."the effect" so it will pretty much be blan text with a blan ring. Just saying, but if thats what you want i can make it happen..once i fix my cpu ^^

I finally took a little time to make some logos, so here is what I came up with so far... let me know what you think :)

--Fedaykin 19:19, 12 December 2007 (PST)

They are all looking nice, are you guys every going to decide on one or keep the classic? --Lotroadmin 18:21, 2 January 2008 (PST)

How about any of these? (I know borrowed yours) --Rorimli 09:32, 5 february 2008 (PST)

One more logo to rule them all? Note that the shadows are a little less apparent on a transparent background.

--Fedaykin 21:04, 10 February 2008 (PST)

Linking to a category from an article

Im trying to link to a category from an article. However when i do so i just adds the page to the category. Anyone know a trick?

--Anarchie 17:01, 30 October 2007 (PDT)

Add the colon in front of Category[[:Category:Name]] --Hinney 21:13, 30 October 2007 (PDT)

New Quest Category? Instance Quests

It came to my attention that there is no quest category for Instance Quests. This would be a subset of Fellowship Quests, I believe, because all Instance quests are Fellowship quests, but not all Fellowship quests require you to enter an instance.

Also, is there a standard way to do a "see also" in an article?

For example, I recently put in a quest stub for the main Fornost Instance quest "The Darkness Within". Within my article, I linked to the four bosses that must be defeated to finish the quest. However, since I expect folks may be coming here hoping for strategy information, which they won't find in the quest article, I want to make sure they also check out the boss pages to be sure and catch that information.

Finally, as far as the tables of bosses go, after the morale column (at far right), what would you say to adding a column for "associated quests" (ie quests associated with this boss)? My personal feeling is that the more cross-linkage between items, the better. Adelas 08:23, 1 November 2007 (PDT) (ps i hope I'm not driving you all crazy with my minor edits. I do use Preview but sometimes I still miss things.

Created Instance Quests. I'm not putting it under Fellowship Quests because I can think of at least a couple that aren't (at least one in Book 1; some level 15 class quests). To add it to a quest put [[Category:Instance Quest|{{PAGENAME}}]] above the quest infobox (leave "PAGENAME" as is; it helps in sorting names). Similarly for Fellowship Quests or other similar categories that need adding.

I won't complain about any one else's minor edits until I've stopped doing them :D :p DancesInTrees 09:18, 1 November 2007 (PDT)

==See Also==
* random link

In the case of a quest you could add a that as the heading under the quest description.

Cool, thank you! And what about the associated quests designation on bosses? --Adelas 09:26, 1 November 2007 (PDT)

I'm avoiding that one, not really my area :p But in principle it sounds good. DancesInTrees 09:29, 1 November 2007 (PDT)

I looked into this, and unfortunately I don't think it would work out. Many instances have a whole bunch (often 75% or more) of "filler" bosses, which is just a name I'm giving to bosses with no associated quest. If we added that column to the boss table, around 75% of the rows are going to end up being blank. Something that we could do instead is add an "Associated Quests" headline just above the "Links" headline (debatable; could be moved farther up too) to each boss article that has any associated quests, which I think would be useful without leaving any unnecessary clutter. --Fedaykin 21:45, 1 November 2007 (PDT)

---this comment removed by its original poster.

Fixing Categories... help!!!

This is getting long ;) I'm moving the lot to Category_talk:Creature_types. hope that's OK. DancesInTrees 01:32, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

Killing vs Defeating

It's come to my attention that some editors tend to use the word "kill" around here. Though normally I would not disagree, from my LOTRO journeys I can say that I never once read this word anywhere in quest descriptions, quotes, etc.. It seems as though in this game, the idea is that nothing really gets "killed" but rather "defeated", which could also mean defeat in battle simply causing a retreat. I think one of the reasons they may have done this is because it wouldn't make sense if your character was killed in combat, and then randomly came back alive at a "res circle". Either way, I'd like to know what everyone else thinks on this subject, and whether we should proceed to replace "kill" with "defeat" (and others such as "dealt with", "beaten"). --Fedaykin 17:33, 1 November 2007 (PDT)

I thought players were defeated, while creatures were killed - though that does rather fall down when they respawn in your face while arguing over where the hunter is going to port you all :p It probably does make more sense to use "defeat" throughout. DancesInTrees 01:35, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

Defeated works for me. Although I had seen it the same way as DIT described, it makes sense that all players AND creatures have morale, not health points, and it makes MUCH more sense to have it be consistent throughout. --Adelas 07:57, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

-removed-

Lore-master info box

Do we just upload screenies of the box? Or should we have a template to enter the info into? DancesInTrees 09:24, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

Easier to just upload the image. Personally i think its way too much work to punch in all that info into some template. --Anarchie 04:27, 6 November 2007 (PST)

it all comes down to bandwidth usage and if I ever get the tooltip template working then pictures are obsolete =) --Xander 10:54, 6 November 2007 (PST)

Bandwidth was one consideration - and it's probably as fast to type the info in, as to screenie it, sort screenies, crop, save & upload. Plus they could do with being full size so they are actually readable ;) DancesInTrees 09:44, 7 November 2007 (PST)

Im on a pretty high resolution and have no problems what so ever reading them. Yes they are shrunk a bit since it would conquor the entire page if left in normal resolution. --Anarchie 22:45, 11 November 2007 (PST)

Well I see the LM box info and it very cool I am plan to add options in to the template soon --Speico 01:31, 29 November 2007 (PST)

Changing hundreds of pages - way to simplify?

I kept seeing pages that had the typo "Item's" in them. I checked to see if this typo was in the template itself, but it was not. I then did a search and found 294 pages that used the word "item's", and only two of those pages, namely mailbox and Patch_Notes_-_June_12th,_2007, were using that term correctly. All of the rest of the 292 pages need to be corrected.

Is there a fast way to take care of this, to tell the system "on every single page using this word, change it to ____"? I would gladly go back and correct the two exceptional pages, if only I didn't have to fix all 292 of the WRONG pages! Thanks. --Adelas 12:37, 8 November 2007 (PST)

This is something that I can "bot" with a python script let me know what words you want renamed. Did you want me to rename "item's" to "item"? --Hinney 12:58, 8 November 2007 (PST)

Just a little comment, please make sure your bot only checks the affected pages if possible... since "item's" isn't always a mistake, only in that context it is. I remember back when the HinneyBot would change all "light damage" to Light damage, although the term "light damage" could refer to a lesser amount of damage instead. In short, just making sure we don't end up messing up more here than we fix :) --Fedaykin 14:33, 8 November 2007 (PST)

Hm... To start with Fedaykin, yes, I do see your point, and in literally every case of the nearly 300 pages involved (except the two I pointed out), it was a header saying "Quest Item's" or "type=item's" or something similar.

However, just now, I did a search for this term again to reconfirm my previous results. Instead of 290-some results, I got 19 results. Of which, there are the two pages mentioned above, and then the remainder are typos. :P.... So did someone already run a bot on these? I'm a little concerned, because the term "item's" should have been changed to "items" (plural rather than possessive)... Can anyone confirm this? --Adelas 15:23, 9 November 2007 (PST)

Ok, i will fix :) --Hinney 22:14, 9 November 2007 (PST)

Downtime

We had some unexplained downtime today, I will have to work with the web hosting site to understand what happened. Sorry for any inconveniences --Lotroadmin 00:46, 14 November 2007 (PST)

We had more unexplained downtime, the end result seems to be the same as last time. Even though the cause hasn't been nailed down, additional steps have been taken to minimize the downtime in future. Again, sorry for any inconveniences --Lotroadmin 01:17, 12 December 2007 (PST)

Template Changing... questions

A. If a template output (the way the resulting page looks) gets changed while the input (the form you use when creating new pages) remains the same, do all the pages using that template automatically switch to the new look?

B. If a template was changed both in the output (the way the resulting page looks) AND the input (the form you use when creating new pages) is it possible to create a bot that will take all the old input fields, and parse them into the proper information for the new input fields, so that the pages don't have to be fixed individually?

C. Is there someplace where I can go to learn about programming templates? I looked around on Wikimedia but didn't find what I was looking for.

--Adelas 14:17, 16 November 2007 (PST)

A. The short answer is Yes. Long answer, when you change template it turnins into a wiki job and might take some time before all the pages get updated. You can see the job queue on the Statistics page, which basically indicates how many pages are left to be processed with the template change.

B We can bot this. I would recommend doing a two prong approach though, first add the new input fields as required, then if an old input was used assign it to a new category indicating this page needs to be updated. The new category can help limit what we bot and also keep everything in check while we convert the pages. If is just a simple name change, then i would just have the template accept both names.

C This is where i go for help Help:Contents#Getting_started both links are great starting points and lead you to the more advance options.

--Hinney 14:48, 16 November 2007 (PST)

Thanks Hinney, it took me a bit of clicking within that page to find more info about the templates (ended up [[1]] and then [[2]]. Man, that is brain-busting information!

Anyhow, I wonder if someone could please look at my "sandbox" revised creature template and the accompanying demo page, and help me understand why I'm getting the long spaces between my text? I think it has to do with the way I have listed the items in the actual template itself, but I want to keep the template clean and pretty. When I tried running all the markup together, it helped, but there was still a big space between the stuff, and then you could barely read the markup.

Right now I am more concerned with learning to properly use the template in such a way that results in usable formatted text. I'll be asking for feedback on the actual content later, once I can properly format it. --Adelas 13:52, 19 November 2007 (PST)

Angmar Deeds

I've entered data for the Angmar Exploratory Deeds and updated layout of Angmar Deeds page a bit. Please have a look at it and tell me what you think about it, eventually we might want to update other deed pages to the same style... --Xander 07:00, 23 November 2007 (PST)

No complaints from me. I haven't gone over those pages much before, but comparing your layout to the previous one I can say that yours looks a lot nicer. I'd be in favor of updating all the deed pages to that style. --Fedaykin 21:55, 23 November 2007 (PST)

Glossary of Terms?

I'm rather new the the world of Wiki, but I love the potential that this site has. One thing I think would be especially helpful would be a glossary of terms. Perhaps this is incorporated elsewhere, but I couldn't find it easily. One thing I would love to see is a page with common abbreviations. Newer players could gain a lot from a page which defines terms. Even after nearly reaching lvl 50 I'm still encountering abbreviations used by players that I'm not familiar with. I would make the page myself, but I'm really not confident in making it happen. I wondered what you all thought of the idea and thought that perhaps someone might like to take on the task. I'd be glad to add to the page if someone wants to get it off the ground. --Katter 20:03, 2 December 2007 (PST)

We have something like this in Category:Game Terms --Xander 22:00, 2 December 2007 (PST)

CPT Page Rewrite

As some of you may have noticed I'm attempting to rewrite Captain Page --> User:Xander/CPT. If you have any suggestions as to how the class page should look and what sections we should include or improve please post them on the discussion page of the rewrite or on my talk page...
At the same time I'm reviewing all the class skills, traits, deeds, quests and so on...
Any and all help is welcome ;-) Xander 06:21, 8 December 2007 (PST)

Adding to a Template?

I was wondering if there is a way to add an element to an existing template. I was going to create a page that included the Yule-tree decoration item using the Infobox Item template and couldn't figure out how to include the type of decoration item it is.

We need a new field for the Item template for "Decoration Category" such as "Large Yard", "Small Yard", "Small Wall", "Thin Furniture", "Special Furniture", etc. such as the following:

{{Infobox Item
| decoration-type = Large Yard
}}

I don't know how to create templates or edit them (only know how to use them). Can someone add this type of field to the Item template? Or maybe create a new template for decorations?

--Deyvid 03:52, 16 December 2007 (PST)

Use type=Decoration -and- slot=Large Yard

This suggestion actually fits more with how yard decorations work versus using additional fields.

It will also create a new category called "Decoration Items -- so you can then add all the decoration items to that category by simply making them all type=Decoration. --Eleazaros 09:10, 16 January 2008 (PST)

Tooltip Coordinates Template is functional

I've got it up and running right now {{Tooltip Coords|<Map>|<N/S position>|<E/W position>}}

I did NOT implement support for the World level map nor for the Eriador map (yet) and I'm missing coordinate information for all 4 of the homesteads, though I have the maps available to be viewed for *ALL* mapped locations.

To see how it works, I put a 5 point (per map) listing on the discussion page for the coords.js file -- User_talk:Eleazaros/coords.js. Just a quick mouseover of the coordinates in each column will bring up a mini-map with a "ping" marker for the coordinates provided. Pretty easy to work with and it should be possible to implement it for any/all things that have a ;loc available.

Just use the template EXACTLY as shown to get it to function. As in: 12.5N or 112.3W -- no space between the number and the letter. There ARE North and South ;loc positions out there. 0.0 North breaks in Angmar. 0.0 West breaks in Misty Mountains. Thus these areas had some special tweaking for them (so did Rivendell but that was a very minor adjustment).

--Eleazaros 23:17, 20 January 2008 (PST)

That's just incredible *jaw drops* It's going to make showing locations for quests sooo much easier, never mind all the other uses.

Grats on an excellent job Eleazaros :).

I guess you'll have to extrapolate the homestead co-ords seeing ;loc doesn't work as they are instances. Or can you extract ;loc info from /loc ?

DancesInTrees 10:21, 21 January 2008 (PST)

Actually I just got the ;loc for the 4 missing zones. They're more sub-maps versus actual instances so ;loc works. --Eleazaros 17:06, 21 January 2008 (PST)

Yeah, mate, you're genius! =)

as for the GIF request, I'm not that much of an image guru, go ahead and get an animated GIF for now, there are APNG and MPNG formats, but neither is widely supported afaik... --Xander 11:09, 21 January 2008 (PST)

I hate doing graphics stuff too... lol -- I'll go ahead and see about finding a ping style gif. something simple like the old | \ - / char rotation gig or something simple like that which just "moves" on the screen to draw the eye. --Eleazaros 17:06, 21 January 2008 (PST)

I'd say simply having the ping icon flashing on and off would work well enough. Though personally I have no trouble finding the regular ping on the map in the first place. Awesome work btw :) --Fedaykin 17:25, 21 January 2008 (PST)

Updated the Editing info with the current Table definitions and functions

Help:Editing#Table_Classes

Take a look. If you find bad info, spelling, etc.. please feel free to correct or extend the info. I specified most of these table designs so I figured I should get off my "lazy duff" and document what they do/how they work to a functional level.

I'm really not happy with how sloppy I'm being with that page but at least the info is there on how to work with this stuff...

--Eleazaros 10:39, 30 January 2008 (PST)

Explorer Deeds POIs

I've finished Lore section of all the Explorer Deed POIs, all they need now are coordinates and some nice pictures =)

I'll go ahead and add coords slowly and after CPT Rewrite have another go at them expanding lore sections with more info and adding pictures as well... though it would be great if someone with DX10 could do the honour ;-) --Xander 12:08, 2 February 2008 (PST)

All coords should be entered now, except for the Goblin Town ones... --Xander 11:43, 4 February 2008 (PST)

altRows and altRowsMP now support collapsable and sortable

While working through the revamp of the tooltip code, I decided I'd implement some of the stuff into the current tables so... The 2 table classes I built for alternating rows now fully support alternating colored rows in sortable and collapsable tables.

Example of altRows in use: Category:Titles

Example of altRowsMP in use: Warg_Stalker_Skills#Core_Passive_Skills (I added sortable to the table)

I left the old stocktable class in-place for legacy purposes but it won't be needed now.

PS: (yes, I'll be deleting *ALL* my category based info shortly so the titles won't be there in a few days... After the meeting where everyone doesn't like category info, I'll just go and blow all the category pages away... no morer "free" navigators on the site... guess it's back to "how do we get navigation to work for people" versus just using categorization to provide preset navigation...)

--Eleazaros 23:19, 10 February 2008 (PST)

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