HammerWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive 1

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/Archive 1

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/Archive 3

[edit] The popular pages are poor

I was just browsing the wiki to get an impression of what newcomers would observe, and I noticed a terrible trend. We have many really cool articles, but pretty much all of the popular pages are quite sparse and not really very interesting. Which probably means that a lot of people who come here looking for WAR-related information give up long before finding all the excellent information we actually have. As time permits I shall try to remedy this myself, but I urge everyone else who can to lend a hand. --Bishop 14:36, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Click for the totally obvious

Okay, so I just realized I have been doing something silly, which is putting "Click for larger size" on image thumbnails. (Others have done the same, likely just because I started the trend. I mean no disrespect to anyone but myself.) But thumbnails really are just that (even if they're, say, 300 px), and they even have a little small-image-large-image graphic on them (a mediawiki feature). The bottom line is that saying "Click for larger size" is comepletely redundant, wastes space and really speaks down to the readership, who probably are very aware what clicking on them will do.

As such, I'm going to remove all those extraneous words in a few days unless there's any objections. --Bishop 10:38, 11 December 2006 (CST)

Good point - I was following your lead on this, but in hindsight it does look completely redundant (although I'm sure there's still a few people out there who have never used a wiki before). I'm currently adding concept art to the bestiary, so I'll take out any I come across. --Pendrako 05:16, 12 December 2006 (CST)

Okay, so I didn't wait as long as I said I would, but who's counting? It's done now, and I'm quite satisfied that it makes a lot more sense than before. I'm glad we agree. ;) --Bishop 09:54, 12 December 2006 (CST)

[edit] Linkage

I put a link to HammerWiki on Warhammeralliance's new link-tracker with a simple crop of the current HammerWiki logo (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/links/browselinks.php?c=4). If anyone feels like making a better version that fits the strange 150x75 px format, please put it somewhere and I'll make sure to update the link-entry. --Bishop 18:23, 15 January 2007 (CST)

[edit] Icons and Colours

I've been working on a few icons to use for the armies, and I thought I'd better put them out here for the community to discuss. They're based around a different colour for each army: Empire = red, Dwarfs = grey, High Elves = yellow/gold, Chaos = blue, Greenskins = green, Dark Elves = purple.

The Empire

Dwarfs

High Elves

Chaos (Tzeentch)

Greenskins

Dark Elves TBC

These are just a first draft, they're sure to be improved. I know there are others with better icon-fu than me out there, and maybe these will provide people with a bit of inspiration to come up with their own versions.

Any objections to the colours I've used? IMO, they're all fairly obvious choices.

Said somethin on your talk page, but I found it here...so I guess I'll just move my discussion here.

Tbh, I think Chaos should be more black, or grey...seeing as most of the icons I see, and the color of the armor are all darker colors...usually black. But then for the dwarves, the blue may not fit on them, but I'm not quite sure.

my 2 cents - Entice789 (Talk | Contributions) 23:07, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

I see what you're saying, but in WAR, the Chaos army isn't regular Chaos, it's Tzeentch, which is predominantly blue and gold. Take a look at the Magus and Zealot concept art - there's definitely a lot of blue being used there. What you seem to be suggesting is that because Chaos is evil, it should be black, which doesn't really apply to Warhammer, at least not in this case. I'll try to make a new icon which isn't such a bright shade of blue... make it a bit less cool and calming and a bit more freaky ;) -- Pendrako 05:56, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

hehe, I never got into the story of Warhammer...but if blue/gold is the colors of Tzeentch, then darker would be nice...like you said ^_^ - Entice789 (Talk | Contributions) 20:09, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

I don't think it's a big deal at the moment. Soon enough there will be icons from Mythic that we can base these off. They are fine right now IMO. Deadpool 14:17, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Without knowing about the colors of the armies, I would say the Tzeetch and Dwarf colors should be switched to appropriately match the typical chaos/order colors. Knowing what they are, on the other hand, I think that the blue should simply be a darker blue and the gray should be lightened up. Since these are temps anyways though, I think you did nice work! DavimusK 17:27, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

Just read what me and Pendrako talked about just above you...asked about the same thing. - Entice789 (Talk | Contributions) 22:43, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

@Entice: Yes, I know, I read them, Maybe I wasn't overly clear about it, but I tried to passively reference them in my post. As in "Without knowing (pre-reading) and Knowing (post read). No worries, I always read before I post. DavimusK 14:17, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

When official icons are released, I would like User:LordBiro to try his skills on versions for the wiki. The profession icons for GuildWiki and Guild Wars Wiki are his handywork and he is able to do what ever we need with a professional look and he's quick about it. :) -- (gem / talk) 02:38, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

[edit] German Warhammer Online Wiki

Moved from User Talk:Bishop

Hi Bishop, I'm Traxxz from War-Wiki.net. I just thought I'd point you toward our http://www.war-wiki.net/wiki/index.php/Vorlage:Sprache template that we've started to use in cooperation with an english W.A.R.Wiki. I also build this template in your wiki Template:Lang. I hope for a good co-operation! Traxxz discussion contrib

I think the idea of a wiki in German is great (although I would prefer for everyone to work on this one, I appreciate some people do not have the english skills required to make use of it). However, the link http://www.war-wiki.net/Vorlage:Sprache seems to be 404-compliant, so I am not quite sure what your intentions are. :) --Bishop 12:34, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

Hey my fault the link must be http://www.war-wiki.net/wiki/index.php/Vorlage:Sprache - but also see Template:Lang to look what my intenions are. My english skills arent the best but i'm sure you would understand what i mean. Traxxz discussion contrib

Whats about my idea? Traxxz discussion contrib 15:18, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Okay, from what I am seeing, I understand you are proposing adding inter-language links from pages on HammerWiki to pages on your German WAR-Wiki, and presumably vice-versa. And with the intention that there could potentially be a whole range of other-language wikis inter-operating this way. Please correct me if this understanding is incorrect.

In principle, I like the idea of cooperation between wikis. And I hope that German-speaking editors of HammerWiki would help translate articles to the German WAR-Wiki, especially if WAR launches in a localized german version. I also feel our wiki would benefit from listing other-language wikis in a prominent location, possibly the front page.

Unfortunately, I am not sure that cross-linking articles back and fourth between HammerWiki and another wiki, that is not part of the Gamewikis network, is a particularly good idea. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that it is likely to add complication and mass to articles while providing no real benefit to the community. I am sure German-speaking folks who would like their information in German -- and who could find the link to the German wiki here -- would be fully capable of looking up the articles themselves. If there is a need for translations of game terms from English to German, I think that is probably better handled by a single page on the German wiki than by adding links to every HammerWiki page that are not really going to be useful to anyone.

However, there may be advantages or disadvantages that I am not seeing and I think cooperation is an issue worthy of discussion in the community. As such, I am going to move this talk of ours to the community portal for others to offer insights and opinions. --Bishop 07:09, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

I quite like this idea, but I can't see how it could be usefully executed. Adding the template to each page seems like a lot of effort for a relatively minor benefit. But on the other hand, I can't see too many drawbacks to it. Sure, speakers of other languages can make the effort to look things up on another wiki themselves, but surely that goes against the purpose of a wiki? If we can add easy links to help people find what they're looking for, its a bonus. Maybe we can designate a few of the more popular articles to add the lang template to as a trial?

The only condition I'd like to place on this is that any linked articles are worthy of the attention. I had a quick look at war-wiki.net, and it seems that almost all the content has been copied straight from the official german WAR site - something we've tried to avoid here. AFAIK, the template only allows for one wiki site per language, so I'd like to make sure that any foreign language wikis we link to are on the same wavelength as Hammerwiki when it comes to quality content. -- Pendrako 10:06, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

[edit] admins of this wiki

Hi. one month ago i applied at www.wikia.com for a new wiki about this game. after 1-2 weeks of waiting i finally got the wiki. if you dont know, wikia is the largest wiki-farm available atm (alexa rank at 1700) and they use the latest Mediawiki engine. they got that rank because of what they offer (for free of course).

So, i got a proposition to make: do you want to move this site at wikia? as i see you dont have many articles so it will be easy to transfer any information. before you just reject it, plz think about it, and take a look at my (our) wiki: Warhammer Online @ wikia.com. Some of the wikia admins are already members of my wiki, and trust me they just know everything, and they can support us with anything.

If you want to contact me (plz do) try using this page User_Talk:Erdimus. i'll watch mine or this HAMMERwiki page for a reply.

thanks for reading, Erdimus

Thank you for your offer. Wikia is a fine site, and a great tool for many projects. However, when it comes to gaming wikis, and HammerWiki especially, there is really no reason to go any further than Gamewikis. There would be no real advantages, and several disadvantages to moving anywhere else. At least as far as I have yet discovered. If you dig about a bit, you'll notice that you are not the first to make such an offer. And there is bound to be more than one "competing" Warhammer Online wiki -- in fact, there is already at least two others that I know of.

As you have already noticed, however, HammerWiki has been around for a while now and is already leaps and bounds ahead of the competitors, and will in all likelyhood remain so in the future. To put things into perspective, recall that GuildWiki, the Gamewikis wiki for Guild Wars, has been immensely successful in covering a single game -- much more so than any other Guild Wars site, in fact. It seems a sure bet that much of that community is likely to be drawn to HammerWiki once Warhammer Online launches. And even with content-migration, this wiki would still exist, and still draw people and still live on, even if I and the other admins decided to become contributors on Wikia instead.

In honestly, however, I find that rather unlikely. I can speak only for myself, but as far as I am concerned, I cannot come up with a convincing reason why it would make sense to move from a site with large amounts of real content and a format that I am initmately familiar with to a site that really has no content and a color scheme I personally find hard on the eyes.

With all that said, it is a little sad, really, that the concept of collaboration that forms the basis of why wikis work is now becoming more and more a matter of "collaboration is great, as long as we collaborate on MY project". Having been a driving factor in getting this particular wiki running, I suffer from the same syndrome I am afraid. In the end, the only thing any of us can really do -- I think -- is to try and find a site that suits our needs and our fancy, and try to make an effort to contribute there. In the end, it seems likely that only one or two sites are going to pick up enough momentum to reach "critical mass" and become full-fledged self-sustaining communities. The others will likely remain (particularly ones founded on already-ample resources like Wikia or Gamewikis) as dried-up husks, dangerous pitfalls for those seeking up-to-date information.

Be that as it may, I am guessing it is unlikely that I could convince you to become a contributor here at HammerWiki instead. Perhaps others could offer a more convincing argument than I, but for me remains only wishing you good luck with your project. In the event that my predictions fail completely and your WAR site on Wikia becomes much larger and more useful than HammerWiki, I am sure I shall see you there. Just don't hold your breath. --Bishop 18:55, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Ok i have to admit you guys know what you are doing. I am going to abandon my wiki (its sad i was working on that for more than 2 months) and focus on this one. Erdimus ^(talk) 06:50, 28 May 2007 (CDT)

I feel your pain, in all honesty. And I am as surprised as I am delighted that you have decided to help us out. HammerWiki certainly needs all the good editors it can get. And as I am sure you can imagine, we will also need to expand the admin team at some time in the future -- I don't feel I know you well enough to flat out offer you a position, but if you are as dedicated as it appears from the efforts you put into Wikia, I can promise to consider you for the postion if and when we add more admins. --Bishop 09:09, 28 May 2007 (CDT)

[edit] Stubs and Cats

Moved to HammerWiki talk:Community Portal/Structure.

[edit] Deleting articles

Is there a template to tag articles for deletion? If not, there should be one, so that the admins can just scan that category and delete those articles (if necessary). Same for images. --Deadpool 04:34, 30 April 2007 (CDT)

Yes - Template:Delete, and Category:Candidates for deletion. -- Pendrako 04:48, 30 April 2007 (CDT)

Ah, thanks! :D --Deadpool 15:32, 30 April 2007 (CDT)

[edit] Beasts or Mobs?

What is the correct WAR term for enemies? Are there subcategories for entries in the bestiary? (categorizing SSes atm) --Deadpool 03:41, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

[edit] MW 1.10.0

Tomorrow around this time I'll probably upgrade us to MW 1.10.0 finally. Assuming things go smoothly, all the wikis will be set to read only for a little while as I upgrade each. Regarding this wiki specifically, I've kind of slacked off and didn't even bump it to 1.9.1 like GW or Oblivion back in January. So, the change might be a little more noticable. I'll also install ParserFunctions. --Fyren 03:15, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the heads up. :)

Oh, and uh, while I have your ear, maybe you could implement this that seems to have completely slipped Gravewit's mind? ;) --Bishop 09:18, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

I'll take care of this after the upgrade, and replace the google ads with adbrite, too. Gravewit 17:24, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

I assume we're not talking the invasive AdBrite inline ads that modify the wiki text, but rather just an AdBrite-powered replacement for the Googlebar. In which case I don't even know the difference so that sounds fine to me. ;) --Bishop 19:10, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

Correct. 66.189.184.113 22:31, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

Upgraded. People may have seen errors while I was mid-upgrade. Let me know on my GW talk page if anything is wrong. --Fyren 02:50, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

[edit] Server switch / sort of downtime

Tomorrow night I'm going to be moving this wiki to another of our servers which means a DNS change for war.gamewikis.org. I'm going to leave a copy of MW running on the current IP in read-only mode for a few days so that people with the old IP can still see the wiki, even if editing won't be possible. --Fyren 22:16, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

Okay, not tonight. Don't know when. --Fyren 03:32, 11 June 2007 (CDT)

[edit] Editing Guide and FAQ

I believe both are in order. Guildwiki has an excellent guide that could be adopted to our purposes perfectly as long as I have the go ahead as to putting together a FAQ based on their's. I need a project that I have the skills and knowledge for anyways, seeing as I know jack squat about WH lore. DavimusK 23:45, 26 July 2007 (CDT) Obviously I didn't look in the right place for an editing guide cuz I found it while throwing this together as a potential FAQ for the wiki. Admins, if there isn't already a FAQ that I didn't see, look at this and consider it as a starting point. DavimusK

Although I am a little worried that we are currently drowning in help pages, I can see the use for a unified FAQ. Accordingly, I have inter-linked it with the How to help-article. I'll make a couple of redirects too, to hopefully make it easy to find. --Bishop 09:50, 27 July 2007 (CDT)

I should probably mention this help guide here as well. It covers the common sense rules and quirky features of wiki which most general guides don't include. --Pendrako 11:38, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

[edit] Dev profiles

Is it worth adding articles giving info about the various WAR developers to the wiki? Although it doesn't strictly fall under the scope of what should be included in HammerWiki, I think it would be quite useful to keep track of some of the personalities behind the game's design. Could also be useful for keeping track of interviews and quotes. --Pendrako talk 07:26, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

It doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. I was trying to say something like "it is not directly related to WAR"... but really, that's hog. What could be more related, albeit in a meta-fashion, to a game than the people who make it? I wouldn't oppose the creation of such a set of articles, and I might even be interested in reading them. My only worry is that it might end up as a collection of dead links rather than useful articles in the event that noone knows or cares enough to write actual Bio information for the devs (although, technically, Wikipedia import is an option...).

The official Guild Wars Wiki has pages about some of the people in the design team, so I don't think it's a bad idea at all. -- (gem / talk) 15:21, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

I figured that the obvious place to start would be Paul Barnett ;) Pendrako talk 06:20, 13 September 2007 (CDT)