→ Moved to GuildWars Wikia talk:Community Portal/Leaving Wikia
new wordmark[]
Wagnike's wordmark
The Wikia helper w:User:Wagnike2 has changed our old wiki logo into a new wordmark for the new skin. Its baseline doesn't line up with the rest of text in the navbar, and I resent the change, which as far as I know occurred unasked and with no message to us before or after (and it lacks proper copyright attribution). I'd revert it in a flash if I wasn't afraid of getting into an edit war with Wikia staff. What do you think? --◄mendel► 15:54, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, the navbar is bottom aligned, and with our icons and text, they extend below the "line" so any text will seem like it's offset up. We either need a new wordmark or need to make one for us. Possibly referring to "GuildWars Wikia" --JonTheMon 16:05, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
Well, depends on whether we want it to be graphical. A text-only wordmark is easy to do, with a choice of several webfonts. --◄mendel► 16:09, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
I agree. Our current logo looks great in a square layout, but simply moving the text to the side looks horrible (not only due to the mismatched sizes between the icon and the text, but also because whoever did that didn't notice that their magic wand selected the shield's shadow along with the 'Wiki' text). My first impression is that any sort of icon wouldn't work very well in the new "wordmark" space. —Dr Ishmael 16:18, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I changed it back to text, choosing the "Fontin" font (there seems to be no way to get it to show Roman as in the screenshots). --◄mendel► 17:24, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
So I've been trying to switch to Oasis in order to see this wordmark in action, but for some reason the "New Wikia Look" seems to have been reverted to Monaco. (Seriously: I select NWL, save, then it shows me the Monaco skin, even though my radio button is still set on NWL.) Is anyone else seeing this? —Dr Ishmael 18:17, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
Me! I've tried 3 different browsers across 2 computers (3 if you count repeated browsers) and i can't change my skin except to use ?useskin=oasis (yeah, I know it's supposed to be ?useskin=wikia, but that doesn't work for me). --JonTheMon 18:36, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
Confirmed. 18:43, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
Wonderful. So not only did Wikia bork up their old default skin yesterday, they have now borked up their new default skin today. That is quite an accomplishment. /applaud
So any bets on how long it'll be before they bork up Monobook? —Dr Ishmael 19:05, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
I haev new skin again. --JonTheMon 20:26, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
Wikia have been borking their skins fairly regularly over the past month or two. Wasn't long since they last borked monobook. -- RandomTime 20:33, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
"Recent updates by our hosting service have broken the Monaco skin. As a work-around to make pages legible, use your preferences to choose Monobook or Wikia."
(1) The current notice reads ambiguously, as if we might have done something to harm the beloved/maligned Monaco. (2) There are really only two choices for skins (or, at least, I only have two). (3) In theory, this is supposed to be temporary, right? —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:01, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
The issue's fixed now, anyway -- RandomTime 17:07, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
What do you mean you only have two choices for skins? --JonTheMon 17:08, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
My choices are: New Wikia; Monaco; MonoBook. Since Monaco is borked, that leaves MonoBook and Wikia. (Practically speaking, as RT suggests, that leaves only MonoBook, since Wikia is almost as illegible on GWiki as the borked Monaco.) —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:36, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
The preferences link with &useskin=monobook was necessary because monaco was so broken that preferences was inaccessible without hunting down the phantom search box and typing in "Special:Preferences," and even then it was virtually unusable. The wording wasn't super important to me. 18:07, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
Oasis skin and the NC license[]
1024x768, Firefox 3.6
To the right, you see a screenshot of a random wiki page, with functionally similar areas colored.
color
pixels
function
green
208439
content
red
200358
paid ads
orange
42502
unpaid ad (Wikia, facebook etc.)
white
192352
wiki interface
grey
141295
browser (most toolbars off)
not shown
207270
Wikia mouseover popup (unpaid ad)
Not shown: Facebook connect icon for logged out users
The green content is what we have full control over; the white interface allows some tweaks, but not much. Red and orange is ad space (Wikia self-promotion counts as unpaid ad).
Note that the ad space outnumbers the content; if you count the annoying Wikia mouseover, adspace outnumbers content and wiki interface combined.
CC BY-NC-SA is our license. Do you feel that this is still non-commercial content displayed by a commercial wiki host? Or is it an ad page attracting viewers by including noncommercial content? In other words: Are we using Wikia for noncommercial purposes, or is Wikia using our content for commercial purposes? --◄mendel► 11:11, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
Wikia (ab)uses us for commercial purposes while we contribute to their commercial success without payment. Or something like it.--El_Nazgir 13:00, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
I don't know if you can really count the unpaid ads (especially the Facebook stuff) when questioning the commerciality; however, it's still scary that the paid adspace is 96% the size of the content space. I'd think that for a non-commercial site, you'd want your adspace to be no more than 25% of the content space, and that's probably a liberal estimate, even. Example: Runes of Magic wiki@Curse. The leaderboard banner is 728x90 pixels, or 65520 total. With Monobook at 1024x768, the content space totals 423300 pixels. The adspace is a mere 15.5% of the content space. —Dr Ishmael 13:31, October 17, 2010 (UTC)
Did anyone ever get ahold of Gil to ask how he thought the original agreement and his written promises meshed with Oasis and Wikia's new direction? I'm not expecting that he would agree to postpone/suspend/cancel Oasis for GW@Wikia, but maybe he would agree with other compromises (e.g. how much control current editors can have in determining GW@Wikia's evolution or whether we can have prominent links pointing to GWiki@tbd). Clearly, this presents a difficult situation for them, as they won't want to appear to set a precedent (even if our arrangement here is supposed to be different from other wikis). —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 07:31, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Felix, do you want to tackle this one? --◄mendel► 12:16, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
I was barely active on GuildWiki when it first moved to Wikia- I think JediRogue is best suited to talk to Gil (I didn't even know of him before we started discussing moving), since she is the most senior bureaucrat. 09:49, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
You could have everyone that no longer supports Wikia ask for their revisions to be removed, at the very least, per each author's moral rights. If I'm reading this correctly, Wikia would be forced to hide every revision by any author that no longer wished their "works" to be associated with this wiki.
I could be wrong - haven't bothered to read the full legal license (assuming I could make sense of everything in it). -- DannyGoes Rogue 03:16, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 §4.c You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.
By preventing the dissemination of knowledge that the content of this wiki is available in another location, with the reasoning that we are "advertising a competitive site," they are directing the use of this wiki toward their immediate commercial advantage. —Dr Ishmael 04:29, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, that's the crux - thanks for digging that quote up. It means that Wikia can't publish GuildWiki - it would be primarily for their own commercial advantage. So the deal used to be that we publish GuildWiki on Wikia, because we don't profit from it, and Wikia is just our agent, getting compensated by the ad revenue. However, if Wikia regulates starts to regulate what we can or cannot publish, then the publisher is really Wikia, and the copyright license is void. --◄mendel► 05:17, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
On the other hand, if Wikia effectively said, we don't care what the copyright license says, we're going to do what we want to do, what would happen to them? Even if it were a completely open and shut case that Wikia were in the wrong (which it isn't), how would it be enforced? Quizzical 06:34, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
We could sue, presumably. 06:37, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
We could ask the EFF for advice. --◄mendel► 12:38, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Also, any editor who thinks Wikia is infringing copyright could issue DMCA takedown notices for every page he/she ever touched (I or Dr Ishmael can run a script on the full page dump to find that out), arguing they're derivative works of contributions that are copyrighted under the CC BY-NC-SA license (best get legal advice first?!). [1] --◄mendel► 09:45, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
You can issue DCMA takedowns regardless, then seek legal advice if Wikia refuses to comply. As far as perjury is concerned, clearly everyone here, besides perhaps a few people, are ignorant of whether or not these are legitimate DMCA violations. The only legal recourse that can be taken against frivolous DMCA notices requires that the copyright holder knowingly attempted to undermine proper usage. (You can't commit perjury if you don't know you're lying.) -- DannyGoes Rogue 23:42, October 24, 2010 (UTC)
PvXwiki situation[]
It seems that Wikia is demonstrating on PvXwiki that they're really running the show: the wiki had decided on a somewhat outlandish color scheme (anyone got a screenshot?); Wikia didn't like this and banned Karate Jesus, and then installed their gaming helper to run the wiki in place of the old bureaucrats. Obviously that was a corporate decision, not a community demand.
Since PvXwiki, being a fork of GuildWiki, has the same license we do, we can only infer that the same goes for us: Wikia is running GuildWiki, and we only owe the privilege of having our own chosen bureacrats and administrators to the fact that we managed to stay aligned with Wikia's business interests. The moment we would, for example, upload an animated gif as background image the fiction that we're in control could abruptly cease. --◄mendel► 09:45, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
"our own chosen bureaucrats"? Where was this choice made? --Rezyk 15:19, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
Here. Didn't you like the choices? :-P --◄mendel► 17:00, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
I don't like it sounding like it's been the community's choice. It brings up old feelings about the adminship structure similar to what you've been expressing about Wikia. I do like stuff like your recognition about how control can be fictional (depending on who gets to make the final decision). --Rezyk 18:06, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
The real point is: we (the 'crats and admins) are not being paid for this, we are volunteering our time to manage the wiki. Wikia staff are being paid for it, thus it becomes a commercial operation when paid employees are managing the wiki. And we generally agree that that would constitute a breach of the wiki's license. —Dr Ishmael 18:28, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
And removing said volunteers and replacing them by paid personnel, the wiki goes commercial and everything released under creative commons has no more place for it there, right?--El_Nazgir 20:57, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
Clarification@Naz: It's not Creative Commons in general (all Wikias use a CC license), it's the Non-Commercial clause in our specific license (and PvX's) that raises this issue. This may have been what you meant, but I want to make sure that no one else misinterprets it. —Dr Ishmael 21:03, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
They re-promoted our bcrats and re-promoted me on the basis that I leave after the fork. Sannse doesn't want me on Wikia anymore. Just be careful when you edit the theme. Apparently, you're allowed to make it pretty outlandish, but you can't make it look as if it were "intentionally driving away users". It's about their bottom line, and as we're experienced lately, they will take control of your wiki to prevent you from pulling from their ad dollars. KarateJesus 03:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm happy to hear that PvXwiki has its bureaucrats back. I like that gif animation; it fits the "fighting builds" theme of PvXwiki well (and it's hard to find a good animation with less than 100 kB); the color scheme is memorable and sets the wiki apart from its off-Wikia copy. There is a slight problem with text readability, because the Theme Designer automatically chooses the text color (white or black), and I feel white text would have resulted in an overall better design (Redwall wiki somehow got this to work by choosing a different tone of red). You might want to file a bug report about that. --◄mendel► 09:40, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
My one complaint is, and this is heavily nitpicking here, but who posted the Example Page Title build? I mean, I'm no build guru, but I've tried it before and it is terrible. I mean seriously terrible. Like doesn't even work in RA terrible. And to top off matters, someone posted the entire explanation for why this build doesn't fail in Latin. LATIN. I've seen better builds made by random skill generators the Example Page Title. No respect at all for the decency of gaming these days. Just throw anything at the peons and watch 'em deal with it. It's like they didn't even care, or try it out before hand. I seriously wonder what area Example Page Title was even designed for, because in all the areas I've been in where it is at least semi usable, I already have a one size fits all build that I designed for what I was already facing. --Łô√ë îğá†ħŕášħ is hosting a Card Creation Contest! 09:51, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
That's lorem ipsum, and it doesn't actually mean anything. It's just filler text. 10:04, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Gigatrash was just joking. 10:41, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
Borked by new skin[]
I've created {{Temporary display issue}} [renamed to {{Oasis}}, ◄mendel► 20:00, October 19, 2010 (UTC)] to post on pages that are adversely affected by changes to any skin (including and especially, the upcoming Oasis). The point is to make it easy for people to see that the community is aware of the issue and has plans to fix it (as opposed to leaving up something ugly without notification). I've set it up so that it should be generically useful.
(As usual, I've gotten lysdexic on which tags should go where, especially as I copied the template from {{Notice}}.) —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:22, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
→ (Inserted by —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:45, October 19, 2010 (UTC)) The template is now called, {{Oasis}}, which is meant to be used specifically with pages affected by Oasis and that will need special attention, beyond the general updating of style sheets/templates/etc.
Forget layout issues - broken functionality is unforgivable.
Trying to open up "move" in a new tab using the "Edit" tab opens up both the edit and move pages.
"Suppress redirect" when making a move no longer available.
Magic words such as "New section link" and "Force toc" no longer work.
"Show changes" is no longer available in the edit window.
External links now look identical to internal ones.
Site notices only show up on the "Wiki Activity" page.
They really should've had a public beta for this thing before releasing it. OH WAIT... —Dr Ishmael 13:29, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Hot diggety damn[]
As Jink put it, anyway. My phrasing was more like, "Holy effing sh!tmonkeys," but anyway. We're finally going to get the ability to form all-hero parties.
Cue cries of "OMG GUILDWARS IS DEAD IT'S ALL SOLO NOW" - Troll -- RandomTime 22:02, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
"And most important: New Mad King jokes for halloween!" Yeah, whohooo. Also, the zaishen outpost seems like a good idea. And WiK would have been much easier with a full hero party. But now we get to run 2 mesmers, discord and a prot monk! Wohoo! Arnout aka The Emperors Angel 07:13, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
All the more reason for me to come back. 18:05, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
I have no idea how Anet is gonna make 7 hero flags look good on the UI >.< but this will make playing gw much easier in all the places with low level henchies or no other humans :D 69.181.165.169 00:27, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't be surprised if they left it as-is, i.e. you only have individual control of heroes 1-3, while heroes 4-7 can only be controlled as a group. Or they make 4-7 bindable as hotkeys, but don't provide an interface button for them. —Dr Ishmael 00:53, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
Rebranding - looks good[]
← Moved from GuildWars Wikia talk:Community Portal/Leaving Wikia
I've noticed the rebranding of this site as GuildWars Wikia — looks good on my tabs and elsewhere. (Leaving the icon to update.) It's good for people to start seeing GW@Wikia vs. GWiki. —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:54, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Did someone say icon? —Dr Ishmael 01:17, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Erm, I used icon non-technically. I meant the logo in the upper-left: it still reads "Guild Wiki" and I think that GW@Wikia should have to choose a different image. (Also, the website icon thingee that appears in the address bar. Be nice if GWiki's and GW@Wikia's favicon were distinct. —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 02:01, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
That's because I didn't upload this image directly there. I wasn't sure if anyone would like it or not. It needs to go to File:Wiki.png to appear at the top left. And I have no clue what to do for the favicon. —Dr Ishmael 02:06, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Re: Logo. I think you should change it. GWiki and GW@Wikia should have distinct images/branding. Both sites can adapt later, after a move.
For the favicon, I mean I have no ideas of what to do for it. We could just replace it with the default Wikia one, but that would be lazy. —Dr Ishmael 02:18, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Suggestion: Use the blue Wikia W with a black g superimposed on it? --◄mendel► 05:05, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Ishy, it looks horrible. I am proud of you. —Warw/Wick 17:08, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Suggestion; ask them to rename to project namespace from GuildWiki to whatever you see fit. Tulip. 05:11, October 20, 2010 (UTC)
Apart from the ethics of selling ads "across a wiki" while presumably exempting pages that have been sold individually, this is an open invitation to Gold Sellers and the likes; and I suspect that Wikia keeps communities from announcing their new sites via sitenotice etc. because they hope to sell them these "sponsorships" instead.
I never saw this announced on any staff blog or elsewhere. --◄mendel► 11:38, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
I'm 100% sure that when this wiki moved to wikia, we were specifically told there wouldn't be any fucking ads at all. Now look at this place, this wiki fucking sucks now, I can't find anything on this fucking layout. No wonder people are moving to the official wiki.--Darksyde 02:36, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
BTw, there is theoretically something we *can* do to make the sponsored links look less confusingly similar to a section of a regular article (without breaking TOS). It involves wrapping all of our article contents inside an additional div. It is a very inelegant approach, but the option exists if the community feels it worth the inelegance. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 05:54, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
Wrapping everything in an additional div is too much work to be worthwhile; as you know, I'm loath to make tweaks to this skin because those tweaks do have a limited half-life and will make the skin look worse once Wikia changes it again. However, since you are often determined about these things, I suggest adding the following line to your personal .css if your browser speaks CSS3:
I'm sure I couldn't tell you if this modification obstructs the proper display and functioning of the user interface. --◄mendel► 08:34, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
I'm more interested by the technical side of this issue. Personally I find the div solution also impractical. I don't think I would recommend the last-of-type approach though... the ads probably never show up on the main page, and Wikia might tweak its logic to not show on short pages, or pages with too few sections, or some other logic (similar to logic used in the past for those box ads that get inserted into the middle of articles). -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 09:22, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
"Buy a link across the whole wiki" suggests they'd be scamming their advertisers if it wasn't across the whole wiki. But yeah, it's not on the mainpage, so presumably the css should be expanded to cover those "one-column" pages -- and maybe edit previews? I just remembered why I had decided that doing these sorts of tweaks was too much work this time around. --◄mendel► 09:48, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
WoWwiki already has the sleaze of the MMORPG worlds on these, with ads like # Level 1 To 80 In Under 8 Days Legally! Level to 80 in UNDER 8 DAYS with this lighting-fast and LEGAL WoW leveling guide! 100% Safe, Fast, and Easy! Free Cataclysm Gold Guide! or Cataclysm Gold Secrets -- This One Weird Gold Tip Netted Me Over 31,128 Gold In 7 Minutes. I mean, with all the care Wikia seem to expend to prevent admins "vandalising" the wiki, it seems this vandalism (and I'd definitely see it as vandalism/spam if somebody added these messages to an actual article) is ok if Wikia gets money for it. --◄mendel► 08:42, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
These are the kind of ads over which we ostensibly lost fansite status. If anyone sees sponsored ads of a similar nature on GW@W, take a screenshot and put it on the admin noticeboard asap. 09:10, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
Wowwiki did report those ads to Wikia, but apparently they've given up now (or Wikia did); Wikia certainly isn't screening these in any way. --◄mendel► 09:51, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
Best to try. At least shows we still care. 10:13, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
Well, I think it shows that we don't properly understand Wikia's philosophy and begrudge them their hard-earned revenue. --◄mendel► 13:18, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
Real Money Trading (RMT) is a blatant violation of the Guild Wars EULA. Users found to have participated in such are immediately and permanently banned. Ads that link us to RMT are entirely unacceptable. 20:48, November 14, 2010 (UTC)
Major site changes: discussion overview[]
The GuildWiki community has decided upon some big changes:
to set up a copy (fork) of this wiki at curse.com to continue the traditional GuildWiki with the "old" skin
to explore the new direction Wikia is offering us on GuildWars Wikia.
Because these are major changes, there has already been considerable discussion. These are the pages dedicated to this discussion:
Feel free to extend the list if necessary. --◄mendel► 10:17, November 12, 2010 (UTC)
Oasis sitenotice[]
I've put up to entries on the sitenotice menu on the Oasis navbar; each fails in its own way, and I'm undecided what to do. Do we want no links, or no style (and a scrollbar for long notices)? Do we want both? --◄mendel► 02:09, November 21, 2010 (UTC)
I think the scrollbar is acceptable for now. The sitenotice isn't usually this long. —Dr Ishmael 02:30, November 21, 2010 (UTC)
Am I supposed to see 2 site notices right now? They're the same, except that the one on top is not formatted at all, like a .txt file, and the one under it has links and scroll bar. RoseOfKali 05:57, November 21, 2010 (UTC)
That's kind of the point - I did that so I could pose the question above, i.e. so you could answer it (which you didn't). The bottom version got better, too - it used to look worse. --◄mendel► 11:32, November 21, 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I thought the first one was a bug. <_< Don't confuse me with pointless questions like that. :P Why would you ever prefer the unformatted one? o_O RoseOfKali 18:44, November 21, 2010 (UTC)
I told you, the one with the scrollbar looked worse. That said, I can probably throw some more HTML/css at it to make it not scroll. --◄mendel► 20:23, November 21, 2010 (UTC)
Haven't seen the "worse" one, the one up there now looks good, I don't mind the scroll bar at all. Oh, and you removed the scroll bar anyway, nicely done. RoseOfKali 20:35, November 21, 2010 (UTC)
The worse one looked like this, but with the same small width and height and a scrollbar, of course. --◄mendel► 21:40, November 21, 2010 (UTC)
Best Wikia contest[]
From my talk page notice:
Tell us why your wiki was great in 2010 & win a chance to be featured on the main page of Wikia!
This message will expire on 16:41, December 21, 2010.
Think we've got a chance, guys? 01:01, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
Sannse has suggested some time ago that rather than stick with our old white/grey colors, we should take advantage of the skin change and switch to a more "gaming" theme. As a first simple step, I suggest switching to Wikia's "carbon" theme, which can be previewed by all users with admin access to a Wikia wiki (w:c:www:Special:CreateWiki). --◄mendel► 18:59, December 8, 2010 (UTC) & 22:56, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
Switched to Carbon. No modifications yet. --◄mendel► 23:04, December 13, 2010 (UTC)
Change to color!!![]
→moved from Project Talk:Requests for adminship/M.mendel (2)
Whoever changed the color of this website to hideous grey, please CHANGE IT BACK!!!!
What color would you like? The "old" look is available on that other wiki most editors have moved to. --◄mendel► 08:40, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
I think part of the problem with the new gray theme is that the text is also a light gray, making it hard to read gray on gray, and much of the old colored content looks awful or is unreadable due to contrast issues. There would have to be a lot of work done to adjust for a dark page background, and sadly I don't think it can be automated with a bot. Widely used templates are a good start, though, unless you plan to scrap all of the old content, I don't know what you're planning to do with this wiki. I also think the default text color should be white, not gray. Lastly, you could open up a suggestion thread for theme colors, and after a few days make a poll with the most popular/appropriate colors for the final pick. RoseOfKali 04:46, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
Well, I opened this thread 10 days ago, and nobody seemed interested.
It's tough adjusting stuff outside of Theme Designer, because there are many different elements and element types that use the text color; and the Theme Designer currently does not allow for setting the text color separately; rather, the text color is chosen automatically to fit the background color (or not, as the case may be). I suggest creating a wiki if you haven't already (see above) and playing around a bit; I hear Wikia has also made a Theme Designer wiki where normal users have the right to use it. Upload some screenshots if you like. Unfortunately there isn't a settings page one could easily copy, so make note of your settings if you want me to reproduce them.
Wikia employs bona fide graphics designers (I hope), and I trust they made this theme the best it could be, seeing as the defaults are likely to be chosen on many wikis; feel free to complain via Special:Contact, the name of this theme is "Carbon", maybe Wikia can change their mind and adjust this theme or add a better one. --◄mendel► 05:18, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
On the colored content, I have already adjusted most of the notice boxes (see the mainpage for examples); the box style with the color gradient adjusts to any theme color changes automatically, and I intend to convert all notice boxes to that. For header bars, I hope to emulate the coloring of the title and footer bars (currently deep blue) or maybe the blue buttons; again, that look would change with the theme and thus require little maintenance. If you would suggest an area that needs it most, that's where I would continue this project. --◄mendel► 05:22, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
Maybe the text color isn't that bad if it's used as intended. Here are a couple of examples that I think need work, starting with the most horrible: Necromancer_armor (and the rest of the colored galleries), Template:ArmorNavBox and all dependent templates, Armor_types, the headers sticking out like sore thumbs on the Main_Page. Don't have time to look for more right now, but that's a start. All the pastel profession colors that we've used for backgrounds now have awful contrast problems. Maybe a good place to start are the profession color (e.g. Template:Rt-color) and navbox templates (or class="navbox"? however those are set up), make the colors darker and somewhat dull to fit in with the main theme background and provide enough contrast for the default text to be readable in them. Of course this is all dependent on whether these templates and pages fit with whatever the "new direction" of this wiki is, or if they're just gonna be deleted. Though I think having working profession color templates and navbox class will be good no matter what. Also, would have been nice to replicate the color theme inside the edit window (including the separate summary and title fields), while editing text, if that's possible. RoseOfKali 12:16, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
P.S. Clicking the page links from Main Page is a good place to start looking for badly colored pages. First example: the infobox in HoM, and I suspect most if not all other infoboxes will need color adjustments. RoseOfKali 12:20, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
Mini is another awful example. Skill QR's look horrible as well, but I think those are just dependent on the class color templates, aside from the "gold" for elite skills. Should we start like a mini-project page to report badly colored articles? And I would like to see some kind of tangible explanation about where this wiki is going, and what will be deleted/abandoned/reworked/whatever. I've seen some of the discussions, but none of them had any conclusions. RoseOfKali 14:50, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
Ah, another, pretty important one: Template:Screenshot. What do you think about a notice along the lines of:
As you can see, GW@W has undergone a theme color change. As a result, some of the older articles need their colors adjusted. If you see such an article, please let us know about it <insert project link>here.RoseOfKali 15:03, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
I would like to see some kind of tangible explanation about where this wiki is going, and what will be deleted/abandoned/reworked/whatever. -- There currently is no tangible explanation, we're basically making it up as we go. Nothing has been decided, us discussing this now is "it". If you feel I'm going about this badly, please User talk:M.mendel.
My first guiding principle is that our attitude to Wikia has changed. Before, we tried to keep the wiki the way it was, monobookifying Monaco, discouraging blogs, opting out of RTE instead of adapting to it. Oasis made it impossible to keep that up, so with the traditionalists having guildwiki.org to go to now, we're free to drop these ties and give the Wikia way of doing things a go. The latest changes to the main page were done in that spirit, and they seem to be working.
My second guiding principle is that this wiki must change to require less effort to maintain. We've lost a huge number of active editors that were technically knowledgeable in wikicode. For example, we've already rolled back the SMW pilots because I don't see anyone who would deal with that.
The color change is a bit of both, ideally: it makes us look like a gaming wiki, but it exposes where bits of wiki are hard to maintain because colors are locked down. Ideally, we'd only use theme colors (see the Sandbox for soem others we can use) and a few centrally set ones (such as the profession colors). Our old "stdt" table style is a good example of this concept. If we succeed at this, we need never have a "final" color change.
My plan to deal with this is to look at the pages you listed, and redesign them to use central colors. Once I've enough of a bag of solutions, I can scan the database for hard-coded colors and deal with them. If you'd like me to set up a project for it, I can do that, but I don't believe it's necessary.
I've left the mainpage headers like that because they're at least readable, and the colors do set them apart, and the whole "encyclopedic content" of the mainpage doesn't mesh well with the community features, so the mainpage needs to be reinvented somehow anyway. If you have some inspiration about the main page, please be bold! We can discuss details on Talk:Main Page.
We do have a problem about images with white backgrounds. I haven't figured out what best to do with them. --◄mendel► 17:42, December 20, 2010 (UTC) & 17:47, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
Some of this stuff is beyond my competence, but I agree with what I could understand. Having "master templates" for many of these colors is also helpful, as they make it easy to change color themes with just one edit, and still leave us with some control over them independent of the wikia theme, such as the Prof-color templates. I like the colors in the Sandbox, and I think those should be used for things like infoboxes and navboxes, it would make them look uniform with the overall theme. As far as images with white backgrounds... My affinity to natural in-game screenshots is probably the win here. Otherwise, they can be replaced with good png's with transparent background, but only if the conversion is actually good and the edges were well cropped, without traces of the background leftover, otherwise it would be even worse than full white bg. RoseOfKali 18:45, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
Navbox color[]
header inserted, indentation adjusted, --◄mendel► 13:32, December 21, 2010 (UTC)
I just edited the color in the navbox CSS class, so those that have class="navbox" on them ought to be ok. (That includes the pet nav.) Also, I agree. --◄mendel► 21:00, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
Uh... I'm sorry if I'm missing something here, but white is an equally awful alternative for navbox class: Template:MiniaturesNavBox. Imo it should be one of the colors you suggested in the Sandbox, the ones that are darker than the theme background. RoseOfKali 03:10, December 21, 2010 (UTC)
That is supposed to be very light blue, actually. I'll have another look.
I changed Template:NavBox to have "accent" and "neutral" as default colors, see e.g. Template:ChampionshipNavBox for the effect. I couldn't get the image to float across both rows.
Should we endeavor to keep color-coded box headers (not just in navboxes, but also in infoboxes etc.), or do we want to move to a less colorful design? I could just change the template to override the settings to make all navboxes look the same; I also changed some defaults so the colored ones should have headers that look the way they did before (see e.g. Template:MinionsNavBox). --◄mendel► 13:32, December 21, 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure exactly what you mean about this endeavor, but yesterday I overhauled all the navboxes to have the uniform default coloring. It seemed like for most of them, the old color choice was quite arbitrary, aside from the profession-specific navboxes. I can't see a compelling enough reason for keeping the various colors, while the uniform coloring is easier to maintain, but no strong feelings either way. RoseOfKali 20:47, December 23, 2010 (UTC)
New direction for GW@w[]
I think we should start actively seeking possible directions, with the move being almost complete (I consider it complete when the "delete me from wikia" is executed) The horrors of oasis even seep into monobook, and face it, an encyclopedia which randomly slaps the note section of another page under a page is not a good one (for reference, not sure if it's always the same, but see: Isaiah's Balance). Iirc the most promising new function was that of a fanfic/art/etc. wiki, and I like the idea, but am not sure how that could be set up practically.--El_Nazgir 21:55, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
Oh, right, kinda missed this page. But I still think it's good to start a new discussion, using the material from previous discussion from that page.--El_Nazgir 22:04, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
Holy God, what the crap is that? For an even worse example, see a skill QR page like Action prevention skills quick reference. I'm seeing the raw wiki-text from the table headers there. One page where it actually works is Prince Rurik (all 3 listed pages get a nice thumbnail image).
And how the heck does it decide what pages to include there? For King Adelbern, it picks Palawa Joko. Bwuh? —Dr Ishmael 22:10, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
I don't get thumbnails at all, just a white square on a white background that links to the page... --El_Nazgir 22:35, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
useskin=wikia (there should be an "Oasis View" link in the "support" box on the sidebar) —Dr Ishmael 22:37, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
I think what you see is this. One of my ideas was to change pages and templates to have more images put directly on the page and less "hidden away" in templates where these processing algorithms can't find them. That tallies with my overall goal of simplifying the structure of our pages to the point where the RTE can deal more effectively with them. However, this redesign of pages and templates should ideally already incorporate our new color scheme (if any), which is why my first step in our new direction was to ask for feedback on a new Theme above. Please take the time to reply there. --◄mendel► 22:47, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
SMW off[]
Seeing that Dr Ishmael is active here, could I ask you to revert our SMW pilots (yours and PanSola's) to the point where we can have SMW disabled here? I'd prefer to have this maintenance headache off our plates for now and the foreseeable future; many other gaming wikis on Wikia do well without it. --◄mendel► 22:47, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
I've removed all SMW markup from Template:ItemInfo. For Pan's pilot, just take everything that uses Template:Location box2 and replace it with Template:Location box. —Dr Ishmael 23:02, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm on it. I think I can remove the property pages as well, then? --◄mendel► 23:19, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
I'd recommend waiting for the job queue to process (currently near 20k), then check each property to make sure it's no longer in use. I had to set a number of them explicitly on some pages, but I can't remember which ones anymore. —Dr Ishmael 23:27, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
Ooops. Well, the deletion won't have any effect if the job is not yet processed, so it's probably ok. --◄mendel► 23:33, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
Ok, Special:Properties lists the pages that I deleted, and the number of properties still on them, and like category pages, they work even if they're not there, so all is well. --◄mendel► 23:42, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
Don't forget the Type and Concept namespaces. I started a SMW repair, because it seems like SMW doesn't get taken care of by the job queue. —Dr Ishmael 23:34, December 10, 2010 (UTC)
How would you know? The job queue is still at 19k. :-( It's worth a try, anyway.
Those namespaces are already clear. --◄mendel► 07:57, December 11, 2010 (UTC)
The numbers on Special:Properties have come down a little - as has the job queue. --◄mendel► 06:35, December 12, 2010 (UTC)
We're ready to have SMW turned off now, the SMW namespaces are clear, and all of the pages have updated. --◄mendel► 01:42, December 14, 2010 (UTC)
RTE[]
I'd like to bring the RTE (Rich Text Editor) back. It helps novice users get up to speed on wiki editing faster. The experience will show what we still need to simplify to make this wiki more accessible. For example:
one of the "quick access" tables is not quick because you need to go to the "lightbox" to access it fully - can be simplify it so it fits an Oasis column?
We've had the new GuildWars Wikia moniker for two months now, and nobody's complained. I take this to be consensus that we want this as the new site name.
If you wish something tweaked (capital letters?), please speak up now. --◄mendel► 01:45, December 14, 2010 (UTC)
GuildWars Wikia imo. 02:52, December 14, 2010 (UTC)
/agree with Felix.--El_Nazgir 08:53, December 14, 2010 (UTC)
Out with the Old[]
As I've been deleting various now unneeded things, I realized I have been acting to a new kind of directive that could best be summed up as "Out with the Old". Where before, we kept and collected everything, every decision or talk or half-completed feature installed years ago would stay on the wiki. I now feel that much of this old stuff encumbers the wiki and should go - and in part already has (I've deleted most of MediaWiki:namespace, for example, and Project: namespace is next up for a cleansing). The goal here is to simplify. I seek your consensus on this: that old and outdated pages can be deleted without much ado.
I'd extend this to old talk that pertains to things already put on pages: any comment older than, say, two months, is fair game if it has been resolved somehow. Anyone can always look them up via the talkpage history, which means talkpage archives are also somewhat superfluous.
Also, in the case of some types of comments, e.g. regarding pop culture/Trivia, where it was previously impossible to place content on the page itself, I'd now add this to the page (perhaps in a comments section) to reflect that we're no longer as strictly encyclopedic as we used to be, and that it's more about community input shaping what is on our pages. Maybe we could also put a "Comments" section on content pages, to copy valuable old talkpage comments, in anticipation of having article comments enabled here. (See e.g. w:c:avatar: for a wiki that has them.)
I feel the wiki would benefit from this. Is it too radical? --◄mendel► 20:40, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
I'd be willing to see where the new direction takes us, but let's not move too fast. 23:37, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
Well, the next job in that direction is cleaning out GuildWars Wikia: namespace, but I'd like to avoid delete-tagging a bunch of pages and waiting a week. I can do that though if you feel that itis absolutely necessary. --◄mendel► 23:41, December 16, 2010 (UTC)
Failed policies, for example, I would delete forthwith; and any proposals not yet implemented ought to be considered failed by now, too. Why keep old RfAs around? --◄mendel► 00:23, December 17, 2010 (UTC)
I generally agree with Mendel, though I'd prefer to keep the old talkpages.--El_Nazgir 15:33, December 17, 2010 (UTC)
Request to Wikia - what should our new project namespace be?[]
I am going to request of Wikia some of the things announced above:
to change the site name to GuildWars Wikia (or GuildWars Wikia if they prefer a capital name)
to remove the SMW extension and its relations (e.g. Semantic Forms) and to delete its namespaces (they're already empty of pages)
to re-enable the rich text editor (RTE) here (users can opt out via their preferences)
For the site name change, we ought to change the [[Project:]] namespace from GuildWars Wikia: to something else. I suggest GW@wikia: or, if an @ symbol is not possible, GWwikia:. Does anyone have a better suggestion? --◄mendel► 17:52, December 23, 2010 (UTC)
Either of those would be fine with me. 18:07, December 23, 2010 (UTC)
What I forgot about (but Giga reminded me of) is that we can request Wiki Achievements; this is a set of achievements for doing editing tasks that are displayed on people's userpages. We're able to add achievements of our own. I would like to request this now, and we can then see how it works out for us. --◄mendel► 11:36, December 24, 2010 (UTC)
This is a copy of your message that was sent to Wikia Support
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/User:M.mendel contacted Wikia about Please
reconfigure GuildWiki.
Hi, I am bureaucrat on GuildWiki, and we've discussed the following
request on our Community Portal talkpage. We ask for your support in the
following matters:
1) Could you please change the site name to GuildWars Wikia (or
GuildWars Wikia if you prefer a capital W)?
Since the GuildWiki community has used that brand before they moved to
Wikia and are now located at guildwiki.org, we thought we'd remove the
confusion and re-brand ourselves. The site wordmark has been
GuildWars Wikia since October, so it's well entrenched consensus. The name
"GuildWars wiki" is already taken by the official wiki at
wiki.guildwars.com . We have changed a few MediaWiki messages, but there
are still occurrences that we can't change (e.g. the OpenSearch
description or the cross-Wikia notification for new talkpage messages), so
we ask that the sitename variable be changed in the wiki setup.
1a) If the sitename change is granted, then our Project namespace should
no longer be "GuildWars Wikia:". We suggest "GW@wikia:" or "GWwikia:". We can
relink the pages ourselves; it would help if you could move them, but we
can also manage that in a pinch.
2) Please remove SMW from our wiki.
We no longer have editors with the technical prowess to continue
integrating Semantic MediaWiki into our wiki. We have already rolled back
the SMW projects and cleared the SMW namespaces ( Property: , Type: ,
Form: , Concept: and their talkspaces ). If you could remove them and the
Semantic MediaWiki and Semantic Forms (and related?) extensions, we'd be
grateful.
3) Please re-enable the RTE.
We had requested the Rich Text Editor to be disabled wiki-wide two years
ago, but feel it would be worth it giving it another go; since we're
reworking the wiki anyway, we might as well make it RTE-compatible.
4) Please enable achievements.
We'd like to try them.
Thank you in the name of the GuildWars Wikia community
--mendel
Sannse sent me a reply, informing me that SMW is now off and the RTE is on again, which is pretty fast action considering it's over the holidays.
Re: the achievements, I was cautioned that achievements would only be counted from here on out (i.e. no prior edits count for any achievements, and no existing editor would be able to get the achievement for creating an account), but that the extension would be enabled if we really wanted. I replied:
Yes, we are aware of this. We're at a time where the community is
"restarted" as it is, most editors having left, and the remaining
handful of editors know that some things will be starting new.
On the name change, sannse thinks GuildWars Wikia is "likely to reduce the probability of visitors finding
the site", and she asks us to "find a solution that increases the chance of traffic to the
Wikia wiki". Personally, I am at a loss how we could do that unless we copied the name of the official wiki. Suggestions?
My reply:
As far as I can tell from the highlighting on google results, this
term triggers on searches for "Guildwars" and "wiki", which is really
the best one could hope for, especially since google seems to think
"wikia" is a misspelling of "wiki". Could you check with your SEO
experts on this?
We don't believe this name is detrimental to the site in any way.
I've enabled the awards feature.
I'm back in the office on Monday (and out of the cold of Europe, icy
indeed!). I think the best thing is for me to consult with colleagues
then about the SEO and any other impacts of changing the name. I'll do my
best to get back to you early next week with more on this.
We need to wait a little while longer. If anyone's interested in the full text of the responses, I've got permission to post them. Please comment on the awards/badges here. --◄mendel► 23:08, January 5, 2011 (UTC)
Third Reply[]
I've changed the sitename (and project namepace) to "GuildWars Wikia". I
think this format should bypass any SEO problems, and hopefully will
work for you and the community.
Nice! Please have a look out for any links that need changing, there's going to be a bot run soon. --◄mendel► 02:43, January 14, 2011 (UTC)
As we speak, Marvin is working on the pages in Project: namespace, there'll be a more thorough bot run as soon as I get the database dump parsed; that might take a day or two, though. You can adjust any links you need and wait for the bot run to adjust the rest.
If you have added the wiki search to the search box on your browser address bar, you can now remove "GuildWiki" from the search engine list and re-add this wiki. --◄mendel► 03:14, January 14, 2011 (UTC)
Article comments[]
I also think we should have article comments, but feel that this move needs some changes (move to use the blogs more, for one) and discussion before we request it. --◄mendel► 11:36, December 24, 2010 (UTC)#
Article comments are something you have to request? Good, then I'm fully supporting RT's post.--El_Nazgir 15:35, December 27, 2010 (UTC)
Did you miss the part where I said we shouldn't decide this now because we need more experience using/converting to blogs and discussing this bit, or are you purposely ignoring me? --◄mendel► 21:52, December 27, 2010 (UTC)
Ummm, are you talking to me? Because, yes, I missed that, no I am not ignoring you, and I still think wikia's new "features" are just pavement of the road to hell.--El_Nazgir 22:00, December 27, 2010 (UTC)
What the hell would we be commenting on? Definitely horrible idea for anything on this site right now. I think this wiki needs to make up its mind about what it wants to be first, before deciding on a "feature" like this. Until then, stay the hell away from this crusty cow pie. RoseOfKali 03:13, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
Tip: if you don't like editing on Wikia, you're probably better off not editing on Wikia. If you do like editing here, don't leave it to me to think up ways to get people to become active on this site. --◄mendel► 08:03, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
Rose is right. We should first decide what we're gonna be.
Also: If you don't want to decide this now, as you wrote, why already bring it up? --El_Nazgir 09:39, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
^^That. I think part of why people aren't active on this site is because, well, there's nothing to be active about. All I've seen is that we don't want to be another encyclopedia, and I agree with that. Besides that, nobody has a clue. I have no clue, and I have nothing to propose, but that's no reason to tell me I'm better off not editing on Wikia. I'm just waiting to see what's going to become of GW@W and whether I'll be interested in it. Honestly, that's the main topic people should be discussing here right now: what is GW@W? Introducing, learning and debugging new and unfamiliar features seems like a distraction to me. RoseOfKali 19:57, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
Stop demanding, start discussing. I'm not telling you (and El Nazgir) that you're better off not editing here, there was a condition attached. If you do like it here, stop the Wikia-bashing, it's not going to help anything. Start coming up with ideas, I already did the mainpage, and I'm now busy. --◄mendel► 23:52, December 28, 2010 (UTC)
Mendel, this discussion can't go forward as long as we don't know what direction we have to go forward in. Encyclopaedia is out of the question, and we've already set some minor steps towards a humour based one, but last time I brought it up nobody seemed interested in it except that I noted about the related article stuff that got smacked under a page. All comments were about that, and nobody bothered to continue the discussion this wiki needs right now. Imo, all other discussions are secondary to that one. So if you want to discuss, go ahead, but as it stands, it's not time for this discussion yet.--El_Nazgir 08:55, December 29, 2010 (UTC)
(Reset indent) Look, I'm not going to set a direction for you - if you want one, you have to come up with one yourself. I've written something about my goals above - in a nutshell, this is to become a "social" wiki using Wikia tools as much as possible, but of course that's not a direction as far as content goes. I'm taking the Wikia stance here, that has been characterized by the meme "if you build it, they will come", to add some ideas and content, presumably. And if article comments make it easier to typ somethin and then press "save", that counts as a success in my book. (A poll that racks up over 300 votes in short order and a page that gets added to as much as the announcements are definitely signs that this can work.) My next step is to use blogs more - to not discuss stuff on the "talk portal" pages, but rather make a point on a blog and wait for comments; and we need to expose the blogs properly for that to succeed, too. The idea is that we're going to find out how to make that work for us. But that's still not a content idea. Maybe we can design a "participation portal" - put the legacy mainpage boxes onto our "content portal" and find more ways for people to upload text or images. I'd do it but I don't have the hours to fiddle with it right now. --◄mendel► 10:37, December 29, 2010 (UTC)
Recent Changes out of date[]
Special:RecentChanges is 17 hours out of date right now for me. --80.228.202.237 13:40, January 3, 2011 (UTC)
dismantling the drop rate project[]
Basically, I'd like to delete everything on Drop rate from the heading "The Project" on down, and all pages pertaining to it. The reason is that the project is dormant, has been for quite some time, the tables have not been converted to Oasis yet, and guildwiki.org is moving forward in that area with Yamagawa and his statistics extension, so it's pretty pointless to keep up. I think the project really hasn't made much of a contribution to the encyclopedic pages that document the game properly. Objections? --◄mendel► 13:30, January 9, 2011 (UTC)
All in favour hold up your hands and say Yay! (as opposed no Nay)
*holds up hand and shouts "Yay!"* --El_Nazgir 18:31, January 9, 2011 (UTC)
Category picker[]
Another extension I'd like to request Wikia to enable is the category picker, which allows adding (and editing?) of categories without opening an edit window. It's installed on w:c:communitytest:Special:Random and other Wikia wikis. --◄mendel► 01:32, January 10, 2011 (UTC)
standard table change[]
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
stdt
stdt2
Do a CSS reload if the tables on the right look unaccented, and switch to Oasis if you're on monobook - this is just for Oasis. Accented color (blue) applies to all header cells (marked with !). We can either use both classes in parallel, or simply switch stdt over to the accented look and thus switch all tables that currently use it.
What do you think? --◄mendel► 02:05, January 10, 2011 (UTC)
It looks nice, imo.--El_Nazgir 12:41, January 10, 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I just changed the stdt class; the examples above refelct the new state, because I am using stdt2 for yet another suggestion that ensures that cell boundaries are recognizable even in the off-color rows. --◄mendel► 11:08, January 31, 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure... I'll have to vote neither. I think there's too much contrast between content rows in stdt2, and stdt runs into an issue with no visible borders between the lighter cells, which also blend with page background because of the lack of table border (clearly seen in this table). Can't really tell what this will look like in those tiny examples, try applying it to a larger one, and see what I'm talking about. They turn out too stripy, for the lack of a better word. Here's an example:
Is there a reason you are so opposed to borders? They would fix stdt tables and avoid the stripiness of stdt2. RoseOfKali 11:08, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
I don't want to introduce more css rule colors before exploring the options and determining that it is in fact a necessity - remember, simplicity first for me. Also, I don't mind the stripes, even in the large example. But see below. --◄mendel► 11:32, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
New Suggestion for stdt[]
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
stdt / stdbox combo
stdt with color1 border
stdt & widget style
Which is better? Are any any good? --◄mendel► 11:32, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
I really like the third one for outer border, subtle and effective (hate the first one). I completely agree with not introducing any more colors than necessary. I don't see any cell borders, though, and (five, six, sieben, acht) look llike they're all one cell in the third one. How about the darker blue for header cells (not as pale), the lighter blue for cell borders (different enough from both grays to be clearly visible, but doesn't jump out at you like, say, those white stitches), and the widget frame (because it's cool :D)? I don't know how to make an example of that. RoseOfKali 15:50, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
Well, I pretty much anticipate this is going to suck, but here goes:
Yeah, these suck. :P But this is a much darker blue than the one in stdt2, I'm not sure what's wrong, it says "color1" but is much darker than the one in the Sandbox and stdt2, I tried to tinker with it but couldn't do anything other than "nothing changed" or "completely broken". :(
Can the border color be changed to the darker gray ("neutral"), instead of the pale blue ("accent")? This way there is still the lighter space separating the darker cells, and darker lines could be separating the lighter cells. (This looks good in my head, but that doesn't mean anything. :P) RoseOfKali 21:37, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
We toned down color1 for the wiki, but for this mockup I grabbed the original color1 and put it into the background: style. If I change the border to "neutral" then the neutrally colored cells will show no separations, as the border then is the same as the background. Though it might be possible to add that border to the light-colored stripes only. Hmmm. --◄mendel► 22:00, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
Well, the background is the lighter gray, so the dark gray lines will show up on light cells, and dark cells will be separated by the 3 pixels of the light background between them. At least that's the idea. :P RoseOfKali 22:10, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
Are you talking about the design on the right? --◄mendel► 22:51, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
Yes. It does start to match the darker gray towards the bottom, but I don't think that will become an issue in "real" tables, which are usually larger than these tiny mockups. (Watch me find a table where this goes out the window. :P) Or instead, you could just go with the default light gray background and a simple "neutral" double-line border for the whole table, which is essentially what WikiaArticleCategories does, minus the background gradient to darker gray at the bottom. RoseOfKali 23:14, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and since we're dropping the light blue borders, the header cells can stay that color instead of the medium blue, like I was suggesting before. RoseOfKali 23:17, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
I can't do it. To get the dark borders centered over the light separators, the borders have to be collapsed - which eliminates the separators. So I would need to add a background-colored border. But with that, the outer edge looks weird because the dark separators are slightly "outside". Also, with collapsed borders, it is impossible to draw an outer "box" border on the table. --◄mendel► 00:25, February 10, 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't mean centered cell borders. I meant to
Keep them as the double line, like the light blue lines in the very last mockup, but make them dark gray instead
Replace the button-color header cell blue with the dimmer blue that is the true "color1"
Optionally remove the WikiaArticleCategories frame (which has the gradient background, in case it absorbs the cell borders too much) and use a transparent bg and the same dark gray line to frame the whole table. Can that be done? RoseOfKali 00:46, February 10, 2011 (UTC)
Another suggestion for stdt[]
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
1
2
3
4
III
IV
stdt
for
comparison
6
sieben
acht
Like this? --◄mendel► 08:44, February 10, 2011 (UTC)
Yep. Most definitely the first one, the gradient blends in more than I thought it would. I filled in the cells with more junk to see how the table looks larger, and I think it looks really good. I are now a happy panda. XD RoseOfKali 19:00, February 10, 2011 (UTC)
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
Compromise? --◄mendel► 22:54, February 10, 2011 (UTC)
stdt tweak imminent[]
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
1
2
3
4
III
IV
header
five
six
6
sieben
acht
stdt
stdt2
It's been suggested (see above) to tweak stdt tables some more; you can see the current design on the left, and the new proposal on the right. Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace.
Personally, I like the borderless version better. --◄mendel► 22:52, February 10, 2011 (UTC)
I like stdt2 Ariyen 23:45, February 10, 2011 (UTC)
The reason I dislike the missing border is because it feels to me like someone poked holes into its side (where the cells match wiki background), or like it's somehow aliased, not streamlined.
I wouldn't care about it either way, if our tables were all nice and small and uniform, but they're far from it. The larger tables with all these odd row and colspans really start to show benefits of borders. In the tables that I get to work with, I am now trying to rewrite them to be less "complicated" and oddly sectioned like that, but each one I fix is just a drop in the sea.
Speaking of, is there a way to enforce these colors? Many tables still have the old lightgray or lightgreen or gold cells, etc., and I fix them as I see them, but would be nice if they could just be one-shot via the class, if possible. (Although I doubt it, but figured I'd ask anyway. XD) RoseOfKali 16:09, February 11, 2011 (UTC)
In the section above, there#s a compromise with cell borders, but no outer border. Thoughts?
If you have a list of the idioms used to specify these colors, I can parse the dump to find the relevant pages (or maybe they're all in a category?) and bot them. --◄mendel► 22:20, February 11, 2011 (UTC)
Compromise is fine, it does what I wanted it to do. :P
bgcolor=lightgrey bgcolor=lightgreen bgcolor=gold. Sometimes they appear by themselves after a |- and can be just straight up deleted, and other times they apply to cells with or without other piped parameters, so I don't know how you'd handle that. The only idea I have is replacing the colors with transparent, but you probably already have a better idea. ^_^ RoseOfKali 16:02, February 14, 2011 (UTC)
delete Game Updates?[]
The game updates page hasn't been maintained since most of the editors moved to guildwiki.org (the last update was November). I replaced the list of updates with a notice and an auto-generated list (which isn't long enough), and I have started deleting some updates. It's a bit of a chore since the links to them have to be checked and removed, and the talkpages (if any) as well.
My feeling is that nobody looked at past updates much, the current one being of the most interest, and clearly we no longer have current update info, so having this info around is not really useful at this point. Would it be ok if I just deleted all of them? This would also entail deleting information about updates ("This item was added in the Quintember 42nd update") from articles. --◄mendel► 08:43, February 18, 2011 (UTC)
The same actually goes for the GuildWars.com news: since we changed to RSS in October, we've stopped archiving them. I think the archive can just go, it's all archived on guildwars.com anyway. Would anyone miss it? --◄mendel► 08:53, February 18, 2011 (UTC)
Things I'd like to see here is actual main content, but changed into a fan fic way. With a link to guildwiki for official and original. Screw with everything else. This is still our wiki to do with the way we like. It's not vandalism removing pages that we don't need/want. Ariyen 21:07, February 18, 2011 (UTC)
Well, I agree; that's why I'm asking whether there's somebody who needs/wants it, to make sure I won't be committing vandalism. --◄mendel► 23:25, February 18, 2011 (UTC)
16:18, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
18:17, October 13, 2010 (UTC)
20:04, December 20, 2010 (UTC)
El_Nazgir 21:55, December 9, 2010 (UTC)
