Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Community portal/Archive 3

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Archive

This page is an archive. The contents have been moved from another page for reference purposes only, and should be preserved in their current form. Discussion or voting on this page is not current. Any additions you make will probably not be read.
The current version of this page can be found at Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Community portal.

References

I modified the appearance of the reference links so they look more like Wikipedia's - I think they look better, they're more clearer and easier to read, and people might be more familiar with that style. See Guild Wars 2#References to see how they look. I used the customisation help at Extension:Cite/Cite.php, as well as looking at Wikipedia's own MediaWiki pages, to ensure I don't make any mistakes. If you're not sure what I mean about the reference links, the above link explains.

If you don't like the look of the links or disagree about something, please say. I went ahead with the changes without discussing them because I felt the changes weren't drastic and they were explained fairly well for me :P. -- pling User Pling sig.png 01:32, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. --Xeeron 16:30, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Thanks Pling. :) -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 21:03, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

As a note related to referencing - could we make the references as clear as possible in regards to where they're going? For example, displaying the website name and the title of the content would be better than a URL ([1] > [2]). -- pling User Pling sig.png 23:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, Please include as many references to the origin of the information as possible. One of the problems with the GWW is that it does not contain this kind of information, has become much too massive to ever hope of providing more than a fraction of that information and is so old that the sources of the information have been lost. As an example from GW, there was a note that the amount of healing Gwen could do while following you in pre-Searing could increase. When I tried to trace the source of the information, nobody knew where it had come from. It was likely that some one added it as a 'joke'. By keeping track of the origins of the information starting now, we will not have an impossible problem later. --Max 2 21:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

GW1W in-line links...

...May often be confusing to new players. I don't expect someone who has not played GW1 to automatically assume there exists a GW1 wiki and that we link to said wiki without telling people about it; considering how both GW1W and GW2W have a similar look, we risk making players to become lost if we just keep linking to GW1 without telling them about it.
I think it would be better to either use the GWW template for all links to GW1W, as here, or to add links to GW1 in the "See also" section, describing it as:

Erasculio 14:35, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't really think the current procedure is a problem... you come across a link while you're reading the text, you want to know more about it, so you click it. It flows much better than your proposals. The different blue of the link should be an indicator that it isn't a "normal" link, and the background and logos of the two wikis are substantially different. "See also" sections are for when the link can't be put into the body text, for example, if it isn't related enough or it's hard to integrate into the text. If we used only the template, we either have the page filled with boxes (and again the issue of it not flowing with the body text), or we underlink to potentially useful pages just because we don't have space for boxes/see also sections become clogged.
The fact that the game is called "Guild Wars 2" should be an indicator to new players (when they arrive) that there exists a "Guild Wars (1)". If necessary, we can add to the main page something along the lines of "Guild Wars 2, the sequel to Guild Wars"; we already link to GWW, but we could make it clearer. Taking that into consideration, it shouldn't be unexpected that there's a Guild Wars (1) Wiki, especially also if they're linked to it and they actually go there. -- pling User Pling sig.png 15:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Firstly, if we're going to link them anyways using the same method of [[gw1:]], I really see no point in giving them a section, it is just extra and unnecessary scrolling. Also, people would be able to tell the difference between a link heading to another article on the GW2W or going to the GW1W by the color of the link. And it cannot be that hard to realize you changed wikis, or to return to the GW2W.
Secondly, what will we do once we get dialogues that reference events of GW1? Just have an article for it on this wiki, like "Exodus of the Gods"? Or would we just add those links to the "see also" when said links have nothing to do with the article other than the one-time reference? It would be completely unnecessary either way.
Besides, just because there isn't enough GW2-related information to warrant an article doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a link to an article which is more detailed on the topic. I mean, if we make an article for everything mentioned in GW2 – whether directly in the game, or by historical lore – what was the point of making a second wiki? There would be none. It doesn't make sense to not use the interwiki links like you kept saying before, and to make a section for it will either get redundant, unnecessary, or just annoying. And I don't think the reasoning of becoming "lost if we just keep linking to GW1 without telling them about it" as a reason to make something that is completely unnecessary and isn't likely to be the case for many people. There are plenty of differences between the two wikis, primarily the nice big icon to the upper left, that the person would tell that the wiki is different, and as said before, the color of the links are different, and adding on what Pling said, I think there is plenty of reason not to bother with going out of the way to make a new section for inter-wiki links. -- Konig/talk 15:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
"The different blue of the link should be an indicator that it isn't a "normal" link": I think that's too subtle. The difference in link color is less than the difference between a normal link and a newly clicked link.
"and the background and logos of the two wikis are substantially different": when you scroll below the icon, the two wikis look the same. The only difference is in the logo and in the top of the screen.
"If we used only the template, we either have the page filled with boxes": using the template would actually prevent people from overusing links to the GW1W, which is a good thing.
"you come across a link while you're reading the text, you want to know more about it, so you click it. It flows much better than your proposals": "too" much better. Someone may be more interested in knowing about something in its relevancy to GW2, not knowing about something on GW1. Other than the very subtle link color and looking at the link address, someone who's at the GW2 wiki looking for information about GW2 may click on a lot of links by mistake.
That being said, another idea is to change the link color to something more obviously different from the common links. A more contrasting color would make it easier for people to realize it's linking to somewhere different, even if it's not clear where. Erasculio 18:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I think you are making much ado about nothing, Erasculio. Are interwiki links actually confusing? - have they been causing problems so far for this wiki or caused any problems on gww or pvx linking out to other wikis? We have neither the game nor a finalised format for wiki pages here. I think this makes any discussion of what actually belongs on this wiki and issues of confusion based on format a moot topic of conversation. Any action taken would be a temporary measure based on what may possibly be a problem in the future. I don't see there is much point. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 22:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
"Are interwiki links actually confusing?": yes, for the reasons mentioned above.
"have they been causing problems so far for this wiki": yes, see below.
"We have neither the game nor a finalised format for wiki pages here": which is what makes it a good time to discuss formatting, IMO. It's easier to change how people perceive the GWW links now than waiting until a decision has been set in stone and formalized before trying to make a change.
The wiki is almost empty, so almost no one uses it, but one derivative problem is how we get overly eager contributors who try to add irrelevant content to the wiki, often by adding GW1 content. One lesser aspect of such problem is filling articles with GWW links, making how to deal with those links a subject important now, instead of something to be discussed months later when most articles will have more links to GWW than to this wiki. Erasculio 23:13, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
There isn't a lot of evidence that it is actually confusing for users - you're saying that it may be confusing and we risk lost users. I don't think the risk is there.
The wiki is almost empty because there is no information about the game and what we have is lore so the portion of links to gww is exaggerated because of it. I don't see this as a problem and I expect it to change when we get the game. Bored wiki contributors enthusiastically preparing formatting rules are as likely to cause problems for the wiki in the future by trying to second guess how the wiki is going to look and be used in absence of any real content. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 00:45, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Aspectacle. -- pling User Pling sig.png 17:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
I, too, have to agree that the risk simply isn't there. In addition to the reasons given by Aspectacle and co., I find it very unlikely that a user would even be aware of the Guild Wars 2 Wiki without knowing about GWW. Why? Because there is no link to the GW2W on the Guild Wars 2 website. (We should probably have that fixed though). Felix Omni Signature.png 16:01, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
How are we going to document the futures of GW1 characters that are revealed as lore in GW2? Whatever happens in the 250 years between the two games is not relevant to GWW, but it is relevant to GW2W. A perfect example is Blimm, who apparently did a lot more with his life after the War in Kryta. However, that information will not be documented on GWW because it isn't relevant at all to GW1. And as things stand now, it won't be documented on GW2W either because Blimm isn't alive during present-day GW2, so he isn't really in need of his own page here when he has one at GWW. It's not a big deal with Blimm yet, because his fate is only revealed in Ghosts of Ascalon and might not influence the game itself. However, what if I want to know more about what happened to Pyre Fierceshot? His fate is scattered about GW2W, but there's no way for someone seeking it to have it all together in a convenient spot, even if they go to GWW. I'm sure that when the game is finally released, we'll have floods of information about people like Livia, Vekk, Jora, Mhenlo, and others, but GWW isn't the place to put that information. Just putting my two cents in. Fabala011 23:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) It seems to be agreed upon on GWW to have any post-GW1 information on characters, activities, and events of GW1 to be added via notes. Along with that, if it is relevant to other pages, we can bring it up on this wiki. For instance, Gwen is called the Goremonger and was greatly important to the Ebon Vanguard and Ebonhawke - so we bring up information on her on those two pages calling her "Gwen Thackeray, known to the charr as the Goremonger." This, imo, is best to do. If figures have a lot or enough interest brought in GW2, the books, or the community, then a short summary article can be made along with a "main article" or "read more" leading to the GWW. -- Konig/talk 01:42, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. That Gwen was called Goremonger shouldn't be captured on the two pages you list because it is an attribute of Gwen not an attribute of either the place or the organisation. I think Gwen merits her own page here - she has become a true human legend (not just a sentimental favourite with the fans) in the intervening years. You shouldn't have to battle with several different articles and confusing information from GWW to get the big picture and figure out why all of the old school GW fans squeeee whenever Gwen's name is mentioned? -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 02:04, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Gwen, at least, is and should be captured on those pages. Also: The events which give Gwen the Goremonger name occur from 1080 AE on. When people search Gwen, they'll find articles mentioning Gwen - in those articles are links to GWW, where people can find the information. I see no reason to make articles unless the figure is of significant importance. Thus far, Gwen isn't of significant importance - nor is Pyre. The Khan-Ur is, despite being long before GW1. -- Konig/talk 02:18, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree a mention of Gwen goes on those pages. But I think we should take an inclusionist approach to making articles so we aren't squeezing historical footnotes in strange places and take the opportunity to summarise information so it easily digestible for players new to Guild Wars. This means we'd need a fairly flexible interpretation of significant. GoA locations spring to mind, I get the impression you are much more flexible in accepting the significance of these articles (Temple of the Ages ...) than for historical figures which I think are of equivalent or greater interest/significance - such as Gwen. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 05:18, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
If there is really story that is important to GW2 (to some extent), then I don't see a problem with creating a page even if the character doesn't appear in the game. poke | talk 06:43, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
You're right, I am more flexible with locations. But because they are stated to be existent during GW2's timeframe (well, a year prior). That is different than an individual (hero, villain, or other) that lived 200+years ago. Thus far, Durmand is the biggest stretch to this (boarderline deletion worthy, in fact), and Ventari is the only other individual aside from the Khan-Ur that has a great significance to GW2 (mainly because he lived so long after GW1). Gwen's significance may be 100% due to EN and the GW:B events (as it stands, it is highly likely that GW:B will go to Ascalon), and as such we cannot say she'll have significance to GW2 at all. She'll just be a historical figure. Like mentioning gw1:Ewan or Desmina during GW1 - those of that caliber that have pages only have pages because there is no wiki for previous events/figures/locations/objects. -- Konig/talk 07:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Files and forums

It seems we're getting the "wiki is not a forum" problem here, as well. Yes, so we've had an influx of concept art from the slideshow thing, but must every file be commented on on its talk? Please save your "omg that's so awesome, pleeeeease be in gw2" comments for the websites that cater for such comments - save discussion on file pages to be about the file and not how pretty the picture is. I'm sure that there are probably threads where you can speculate your hearts out, but, personally, I find it a little annoying here. -- pling User Pling sig.png 17:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I understand. In the future, people will probably not come across these discussions anyways since they're on images. What I like about the GW wikis is that people can discuss topics (unlike on Wikipedia). If people want to speculate, I think they should either create topics on the actual articles of the topics (e.g. put speculation about asura from images on the talk page for the asura article) or create subpages from their user pages or user talk pages .-- Shew 17:33, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, Pling, I understand how it can be a bit annoying, but honestly; just have a BIT more tolerance and all is well. xD I understand not finding a point in comments that simply say how the individual feels about it (such as how pretty or awesome it looks), but comments asking questions regarding the subject at hand should be encouraged, not discouraged. ^_^ --AmannelleUser Amannelle Me.jpg 18:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
As long as there aren't too many "omg purtie!" posts, and these posts are kept under half of the new concept art being uploaded, I see nothing wrong with a few here and there. Though I agree that they become pointless to post such things, as they aren't going to last, especially on concept art uploaded from slideshows and trailers, as they are of lesser quality than what we (hopefully) will get from the artists. -- Konig/talk 20:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
They'll probably die down when we have an actual game to document anyway RandomTime 01:13, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Skills

So as we all know, as the professions are slowly being revealed so are some of the skills. This is very exciting news, but we also know that the game is still in development; I think that we should place a warning at the top of skill articles informing users that things like this are subject to change upon release (similar to the future content template on GWW). Discuss. --User Phnzdvn sig.png Phnzdvn 18:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I think as this wiki is about an unreleased game it is safe to assume people will realize that details are not final and could change on release. With the other wiki, there is a mix between current and future content, so there is a chance people could become confused. I don't think that applies here. — User indochine dsk tree.png Indochine talk 18:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, we shouldn't pollute pages with lots of tags.. poke | talk 19:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
You guys got a point, now that I think about it you are right. --User Phnzdvn sig.png Phnzdvn 22:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Monster categories

There have been discussions about how to name the NPC categories recently. Konig, without discussing the matter with anyone else, decided unilaterally to create a category structure relying on a classification similar to the one found on the real world; for example, grouping the Skritt and the Asura under a Mammals category, and placing everyone under a [[:Category:Species|Species]] category.
However, such categorization has not been very well accepted, which only makes sense considering its flaws. Trying to discuss the matter point by point with its creator has only led to frustration, so I think it would be better to discuss the entire categorization system with the community.
I don't think the currently proposed system works. As Felix mentioned, tagging Asura, Skritt and the others as Mammals is mostly speculation, since we don't know if that's what those creatures really are (one could say it's almost fanfiction to state so with 100% certainty). More importantly, that's the kind of category that doesn't really tell players anything; what would a player learn by being told that the Charr and the Skritt are under the same category? It feels like we're trying to fit a triangle into a square hole and then tell players, "See, it looks like a square, so we will put it next to a rectangle". Similar concerns rise from the category of Species, which has also the problem of its name (specie has a very specific meaning in real world's taxonomy, which is not the meaning being used in the wiki).
When thinking on how to solve the issue, I have taken a look at the GW1W, and there I found something interesting: it has a somewhat lackluster Species category, and a far more complete NPCs by type category, which, together with the Affiliation system, categorizes the living beings of Tyria based on the traits found in the game (such as groups those enemies are found in, the kind of damage they are vulnerable to, bounties they are under, etc), as opposed to imaginary traits based on real world beings.
I would, then, propose a similar system for the GW2W. No "Species" or "Races" or "Mammals" or "Reptiles" categories; instead, a main NPC category (we could follow Aspectacle's suggestion and call it Bestiary) grouping the monsters of GW2 based on the traits we see in the game. Right now such categories would be rather incomplete, of course, since we know next to nothing about the monsters of GW2, but we could begin preparations by removing the other category systems and listing the few main groups we know. Erasculio 14:24, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Simply put, I don't like using scientific categories for a fantasy game. Maybe there'll be a point where ANet uses "mammal" or "reptile," but until that point, I think, based on my own personal opinion, that descriptive categories such as the ones on GWW sound better.-- Shew ♠♠♠ 17:38, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I can agree with that. pling User Pling sig.png 20:02, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Eras. ^_^ I agree with you and Shew, I'd rather avoid the science terms if we can. I've been thinking about the Bestiary idea and I'll try to mock what I've got in my mind in my user space to see if it is practical. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 22:52, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I seen other RPG games handle this situation. The best thing to do is use the DnD category. Races get their own Species/Creature, like Humans, Sylvari, Asura, Charr, etc. But some creatures will be placed in a larger group. For example, there may be many Undead creatures, so their Creature type, would be Undead. Demon creatures would all go into the Demon Category. Dwarfs, have many styles. But they all would be listed under the Dwarf Category. --Knighthonor 07:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I would like to suggest, then, a categorization tree to act as a companion to [[User:Aspectacle/Bestiary|Aspectable's Bestiary]], based mostly on the NPCs by type category found on GW1. It would (for now) have the following tree:

  • Bestiary category
    • Animal category (using the definition found at Aspectacle's Bestiary)
    • Asura category
    • Centaur category
    • Charr category
    • Devourer category
    • Dredge category
    • Elder Dragon category
    • Grawl category
    • Human category
    • Kodan category
    • Norn category
    • Skritt category
    • Sylvari category

Once we learn more about the world, we would then be able to group those categories, when applicable, under major categories based on the GW2 world. For example, if we learn that all Dredge and Undead are servants of Jormag, we could place both under a "Minions of Jormag" category; if we learn that the five playable races have an alliance called Dragonslayer Army, we could place their five categories under a main "Dragonslayer Army category" (or we could just add them to a Playable races category).
I think that would give us a clean solution to the category issues that have plagued the wiki for the last few weeks, while avoiding scientific terms that may not be valid in the GW2 world and maintaining the category system compatible with Aspectable's idea, while keeping both. Erasculio 01:40, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree with Erasculio; this method would work very well, and, like he said, as we learn more about the game, we can adjust categories accordingly. :) --AmannelleUser Amannelle Me.jpg
I like this categorization as well.-- Shew ♠♠♠ 02:12, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree that "bestiary" should work fine, but I also think that "species" would also have worked just fine, ignoring the race/species drama. (Simply because it seems to have mostly eliminated the aforementioned drama, I support Bestiary.)
However, this so-called discussion was handled clumsily on all sides. We had enough of this sort of arguing on the GW1W, and we've started it again before GW2 is even released! I'm a bit worried. --Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png (Talk) 02:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not fond of the word "Bestiary" as the name for a collection of things (thus a category) as it isn't a collection of bestiaries, but for the sake of not starting up yet another annoying debate and to help not build up stress over something pointless, I'll go with what seems to be the majority to bring about a consensus. I see nothing wrong with using "scientific" names for a game like GW which doesn't do the impossible in every way (btw, the asura have been confirmed by Ree through Martin to be mammals, as I have stated to Erasculio in the past; it isn't speculation). -- Konig/talk 03:01, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
If they're confirmed to be mammals, then it seems evident that they are classified somewhat scientifically; however, though we can guess and assume classifications for certain creatures, it'd be speculation. That being said, I think we should seek out creatures' classifications, since they are classified, but that's an ongoing project that'll either be implemented gradually after GW2's release or at the beginning if ANet gives us a list. We can have them classified biologically as well as by affiliation, which would be the classification used initially, most likely.-- Shew ♠♠♠ 03:50, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Long story short: I vote for both, but I don't think we should add biological categories to creatures until we have official confirmation of their biological classification.-- Shew ♠♠♠ 04:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
The problem with the science terms was the anger they generated because there was no in-game reference to help resolve which would be best or the correct classification. We can definitely change things around if and when we get new information from ArenaNet but in the meantime I'm glad to see that this will ease the monster category madness. :)
Is your list meant to be complete Eras? Ettins and Hylek aren't in your list - is it because they don't need a category? -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 04:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
There is concept art for the Hylek, as well as GW2 info releases concerning them, so they'll need categories eventually; I think the above list was just an example. --Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png (Talk) 04:30, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
But Aspectacle, there is use in-game for scientific names, species alone is used many times. But I won't start that up again. BTW, source for asura being mammals, and it being stated by Ree. Every race will eventually need categories, with possible exceptions of dwarves and forgotten, so we might as well make them now, that's why I made the centaur, and so forth, categories. -- Konig/talk 04:40, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
I've read your examples and they're good you almost had me convinced a few days ago, Konig but I also see how race is a possible option. Had the discussion and edits been any less heated I may have taken a side instead of trying to find a middle path. I don't disagree that asura give birth to live children, but I think rather than trying to build a complete taxonomy of Guild Wars 2 animals within the category system it might be sufficient to note it on the asura page or build a separate page showing links between different species (is that right?) and collecting information like that? -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 05:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Implementation

Since we got one of those rare instances in which everyone agrees with something, I have created the Bestiary category and, as described above, added subcategories within it for each kind of living being in the GW2 world. One good thing I hadn't realized is how since everything is within subcategories, the only article in the main category would be Aspectable's Bestiary page, allowing easy navigation between it and the subcategories for each kind of being.
One thing I have noticed, though, is that the names of the categories are not consistent - some categories are in the plural, others in the singular. I think it would be better to keep all categories in the singular - that's both how Aspectable's Bestiary is using the names and how we have named the articles in the wiki. Erasculio 23:21, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, all category names are in plural. But like deer fish and sheep, there will be gw race names, like mursaat and asura, that has the plural form looking like the singular form. Oh, and I disagree with the removal of Category:Plants (and removal of categories from Category:Animals). I think under Beastiary there should be four or so categories which everything goes under: Animals, Plants, Undead/Constructs (could be one or two things, undead can count as constructs in a way), and elementals. Demons might be categorized under something aside from plants, however. -- Konig/talk 00:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
I think groupings like those will be needed at some point. I was thinking about that when I added oakheart to the (currently ugly :P) bestiary page. At the moment we only have one confirmed plant (not counting sylvari which we'll list separately) so I don't know whether there is particular urgency for these grouping categories? -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 00:55, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
@Konig: regarding the discussion of the Bestiary's category tree, see the above section, in which the community was discussing the same thing. Regarding how to group the categories, remember "Once we learn more about the world, we would then be able to group those categories, when applicable, under major categories based on the GW2 world. For example, if we learn that all Dredge and Undead are servants of Jormag, we could place both under a "Minions of Jormag" category; if we learn that the five playable races have an alliance called Dragonslayer Army, we could place their five categories under a main "Dragonslayer Army category" (or we could just add them to a Playable races category)".
@Aspectable: I think your page looks rather nice, actually : ) It's an inovative idea. And I agree with you - as things stand right now, there's little need for grouping those categories; once we learn more about GW2, then we would have proper tools with which to make larger groups for those beings. Erasculio 08:41, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Category names are always pluralised. As Konig says, though, some of the races' plural names are the same as their singular. pling User Pling sig.png 11:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
As long as eventually they'll be grouped together, I suppose I'll deal. Though we know that sylvari and oakhearts are plants, and that every other we have currently are animals (eventually we'll get non-animals and non-plants, and we can figure how to, if necessary, to categorize those). I see no reason why we shouldn't categorize them right now. -- Konig/talk 23:02, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Creature and other category presentation

Some categories of information are only grouped and presented to the wiki reader through a category listing - like [[:Category:Species]] and Category:Organizations. I think this is fairly dull and we can do better. And now we're actually getting a little info perhaps thinking about general presentation like this isn't too silly.

For presenting creatures in a species category a listing could be done with pictures and a bit of interest text - I've done a quick version [[User:Aspectacle/Bestiary]]. The formatting is pretty plain but it is tidy enough to not completely put you off the idea based on the look of the thing - I hope.

I think something like this is of particular interest now before the game is released because readers don't have access to the game so the additional information in the listing makes it an interesting way to learn at a glance about what you're going to be fighting in future. Thoughts? Concerns? Horror at the formatting? :) -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 11:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It looks interesting, and has far less issues than a Species category, but I have some concerns:
  1. The main advantage of the categories is how they allow easy navigation back and forth; someone who clicks at Zojja page may go back to the Asura category by clicking on the Asura link at the bottom of the page, and then back at the Zojja article through a single link. Navigating from the Bestiary to a specific being could be made to work easily, but navigating back would be a bit more troublesome. This is something we could fix, though, if we could make a category page, hide the automatically generated list and replace it with the bestiary.
  2. I think dividing the bestiary in sections would work better. I'm not sure we will need to split sections in different pages (I doubt the bestiary would become bigger than, say, the full list of monk skills at the GW1W), but organizing the monsters in sections would help people to find what they are looking for. If the page eventually becomes so big to the point in which we need to do that, we could make the sections based on the GW2 equivalent of the GW1 Affiliations.
It's a very good idea, though. It's more informative than just a list, and it looks a lot better as well. Erasculio 17:02, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
A bestiary equivalent of skill lists would be good, yeah. I wouldn't want to see it replacing a categorical system though (I don't think you were proposing that, but just to make it clear..) pling User Pling sig.png 17:20, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, like the gw1 skill lists but probably manually maintained rather than using dpl?
Definitely does not replace the categories - it is just a page for displaying that same group of information differently. You could call the related category 'creature types', 'species', 'races', or 'bestiary' if you wanted - but it doesn't really matter.
@Eras - I hadn't really thought about navigation. The category would still exist if you liked to navigate with that or there is the browser back button? We can put a lot of content on the category page if we wanted to but I don't know how you'd make that work tidily. I think the two can exist side by side pretty well.
As for dividing the page - I was thinking alphabetical but I might have a different mental model of how the creatures are grouped to be put on the page in the first place. I know what will actually go on the page is a big topic so if you don't mind I'd like to defer that conversation until the page is created into the mainspace and have it there? -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 23:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Sure, go on. I like your page so far. Erasculio 23:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
So long as it doesn't replace the categories, I don't see why lists can't be done. But they are far from necessary or mandatory. In a way, they can even be redundant. -- Konig/talk 03:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Ok it seems this isn't going to cause any problems. I'll move a version into the main space when I have time to spend on it. I know it is essentially redundant if we have the category, but I think the presentation of the information makes it more interesting and accessible. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 04:07, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Might get a bit of work later, when more species are introduced, but definitely nicer. Plus: What pling said. --Xeeron 17:07, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Access to individual snippets of information...

The Problem

Being able to get individual items of information can make any collection of facts more useful. If this ability is available, some people (but not everybody) will use it. Tagging those individual facts requires effort, organization and forethought. It is not something that happens automatically unless conventions are established and those conventions are designed with individual item tagging in mind.

Considerations

There are several mechanisms that make small items of information available:

  • Categories
    These organize whole pages into collections. The inclusion or non-inclusion of a page in a category is binary information of the type being discussed. Automatic categorization using templates should be encouraged.
  • Page names
    A consistent convention for naming pages can produce similar capabilities to categories at less expense. In particular, using parenthesized tags can simplify searches while being easy to hide. ([[namespace:pagename(tag)|]] creates a reference link with only 'pagename' being displayed. [verify?])
  • Templates
    Using a particular template can also help with searches. They can also help standardize the way information is presented, making it easier for people to find what they want quickly and, unless deliberately abused, makes important differences clearly visible.
  • Template Parameters
    These can be used to make individual snippets accessable. They can even be used to add hidden snippets like an identification number that most people would find most uninteresting, but can make studying the interaction of various pieces of the game possible.
  • Auxiliary Pages
    These can take different forms but require special structuring to be useful. Typical examples include 'research pages' which contain long lists of template invocations with parameters specify the details of each event being reported and 'local definition' pages that are actually switch templates that return named snippets.

Costs

Each of the mechanisms have costs associated with it. The most important is that none of the mechanisms are going to be by nieve editors; Clear and comprehensive learning aids will be needed for each. These aids should take the form of 'help:' pages.

There are also issues specific to each mechanism described above:

  • Categories
    Each category becomes an indexes of the database that underlies the wiki. They provide quick access to large chunks of data. However, they require the database engine process many (and sometimes all) articles in order to build these indexes. Once a category is created, the indexing process is started automatically. (From what I've read, removing all the tags for a category produces an empty index but it takes a database reload to actually remove that empty index. This has significant implications, but discussing them does not belong right here.)
  • Page names
    The inclusion of tags is not intuitable. Disambiguation pages and Disambiguation redirects become necessary rather than optional and skilled editors are needed to assure they are used consistantly. A clear description of the naming convention is required.
  • Templates
    Again, their use is unlikely by novice editors. Extensive tutorial information and good documentation is required to make this work.
  • Template parameters
    These can be abused and can be difficult to verify. One of the strong points of a wiki is the visibility of information it records. The parameters for a particular template should all connect in some way to something displayed on the page, even if it is only a link to page where a table references the page and the parameter value. Again, they will not be used by nieve editors.
  • Auxiliary pages
    Again, not something naive editors will use. Their rigid structure requires clear documentation and tutorials. However, they are less subject to abuse and more easily verifiable than hidden template parameters.

Discussion

Before 'Poke' starts with 'a wiki is not a database', check it out for yourself. This kind of wiki is built on top of a database engine. (In fact, at least two different database engines are available, or were at one point.) More correct is the statement 'a wiki is more than just a database.' The very special formatting and ease of use features are things that make wikis more than mere databases with simple report generators.

Since wikis include databases, the principles underlying database design do apply. The extra features make the problems addressed by database principles easier to work around, but do not eliminate them. In some cases the extra features make the undrlying problems more severe. In particular, using many different markers to convey the same information is an invitation to trouble. Unless mechanisms are in place to assure that the meanings of the marks are coordinated, the meanings will diverge and become inconsistent

For example, presume there is a fairly large set of pages where the same information should be supplied while there is an even larger set of pages that provide variations on that information. The safe way to do this is to use a general presentation form with the particular information provided for each page. A more economical (in terms of editors' keystroking) alternative is to have a special template used on the special pages and have that special template invoke the general template and provide the special value needed. If the general form is not invoked one way or another, it will be difficult to find all the places this particular kind of information is presented.

--Max 2 19:06, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say this (I'm not sure if sorry is actually the right word), but you still don't seem to understand it. A wiki is not a database, just because it uses a database in the lower level to organize itself. If every application that uses a database was automatically a database itself, life and work with computers or really everything would be very complicated. A wiki is a collection of static* articles. To manage this collection, keep a full revision history and to add features like editing and users to it, it makes use of a database. However in the end, everything that displays the actual information, is plain, static text that is run through a parser which adds some formatting or transclusion features. Unless you are making use of DPL, which accesses the underlying database directly to get information from other pages, nothing of the actual content (not talking about the additional features) is in any way related to the database itself, and nothing of it is making use of the underlying database engine that helps to store the texts.
As a "simple" collection of texts, a wiki can be called an abstract database, but then again it's only a database that stores text with no sematical connection of the actual content. In that way, it is not a database, as you cannot directly access any special content (example: Get the required energy of skill X) without using fancy stuff like DPL (which itself parses the text based on common syntax features of the wiki language).
So as I said before, when documenting code on the wiki, we have to keep in mind, that it is just a collection of texts. As all content is represented as text, it is made easy for anyone to modify content (which is the first axiom behind a wiki). In order to keep this the way it is meant to be, we will have to avoid fancy-database-like stuff (like lookup tables) that makes the source of a page needlessy complicated or less semantically. It should be possible to get exactly the same information from the wiki source text as from the actual rendered page. If we can add formatting to make the latter look more interesting, without hurting the source, even better. And if we can come up with fancy formatting, that we are able to encapsulate into templates, it's completely fine, as long as you are able to tell from the template call what kind of result you will get. In that case it also won't matter if those templates are a bit more complicated than other pages; it's all about usability of the articles, and if we can improve those a lot, while sacrifying the usability on template pages that won't get edited much (or atleast where we can expect that those are stable for a longer time), then that's completely fine.
* I put a star to the "static" above, the reason for that is that the articles are of course not completely static. Alone because of all those parser functions we have or because of nearly everything the parser does. However pages are usually cached, so they will always get to some level of static-ness.
Now in response to your actual .. not sure what it is tbh. .. section. I really don't get what you are trying to achieve with this. To me this somehow sounds as if you want to name some features the wiki posesses to organize stuff, and name the pros and contras on that. Again, I'm not too sure, why you do that, because I feel that we make use of all those things already, yet alone because they are a very core part of the whole MediaWiki software. However in some of your arguments (?) I just disagree with what you say. To get into the detail:
You say that categories should be automatically set in templates; while that makes sense in some cases, where you can directly deduce the categories from the information you entered. This applies for example for most infoboxes, where you add highly compact information to a set of parameters (like profession = Elementalist), as that compact information can be directly be used to refer to the correct category. In other situations however, auto-categorization should be avoided. As I said above, it should always be clear to the editor what code will result in what. As such when someone sees an incorrect category, it should be easy for that editor to fix it. If that category is now hidden deep in some template, it won't be clear what is needed to be changed to change the outcome of the category. Or even worse, if an auto categorization is not respecting a special case, it will be nearly impossible to fix it without first, finding out which template is doing it, and second, digging into that template to fix the error. As such it is not easy to say when auto categorization is to be used and when not, and I think it is wrong to say that auto categorization is to be favored. Instead I would say we should stick to clear categorization links on article pages unless it makes completely sense to move it to a template.
On the other hand, categories don't have a negative impact at all. If anything, it might be confusing when having too many categories applied to a page, but the rest of what you say is just wrong. Categories are never created; they are always there. The only "status" they can possess is being empty or not. When you add a category that was previously empty, that category just gets one more article entry and nothing else is needed. Users don't need to create category articles (the thing you are editing when pressing edit on a category page) to make them working. Categories work on a low level in the software and are integrated deep into the editing process so they don't take up much resources. In fact, when you edit a page and remove or add a category, only that page's link to that category gets edited. The category doesn't need to be indexed or anything.
There is another native feature within MediaWiki that is a lot more expensive, and also definitely is a problem for larger wikis. The Special:WhatLinksHere feature uses an index, and whenever a page is edited, all related pages will get added to the job queue, which then makes sure that all those pages get updated sooner or later. While providing a similar idea of links as categories, categories are much lighter and should be used as much as possible on a wiki to keep articles organized. In fact, categories are the only real native way, to organize articles on a wiki system.
So onto the next thing: page names. Personally I believe our standards on page names on GWW was quite clear and easy. While capitalization is arguable (and I won't cover this here, as this was discussed with you multiple times before), the actual use of article names is quite clear. We use names directly as article names as much as possible, as that is the easiest and most accessible way to access articles. If we have multiple things with the same name, we add disambiguation identifiers to the article names. If we think one or another article is more important than others (like skills on GWW), we will use that article under the main name without any additional identifier, otherwise we just have a disambiguation page that equally links to all available pages. Adding tags to every article name will not help search or anything, if you would like to access a page directly, then you would need to know that tag and add it directly as well. This might be a way to add some level of organization to the article names, but it is a very poor way to do it. If you want such levels in article names, one should rather make use of the subpage mechanism of MediaWiki. For normal articles however, any kind of unneeded relation in the article name will hinder the accessibility.
On templates and their parameters; I'm not sure why you even differ between those, as both are based on the same mechanism of transclusion. As I said above, templates should be used to encapsulate code, and offer an easier way to present information. Usually this makes sense where a standardized way of representing such information is helpful. In particular this means that templates for single pages are completely stupid and redundant. If templates are supposed to display content that is not always the same (in general we call those templates "tags", although those still could have some parameters..), we add parameters to allow editors using that template to pass values to it. Those parameters should be both reasonable and easy to use.
In contrast to what you say, I believe templates actually are very helpful to novice editors - provided that the use is easy enough. As such when we are able to extract a complicated formatting pattern, we use on multiple articles, into a template, we should do so, to make it not alone easy for novice ditors but also to gain some level of uniformity across all those pages. Of course the use of parameters will make the use of those template a bit more complicated, but as long as we are still maintaining a good level of abstraction, in general we should prefer the use of templates.
However I disagree that we should make use of parameters to add content that is otherwise of no interest of the common reader. I think you are referring to the internal ids we added to infoboxes later on GWW. Actually we originally planned to display that data, when we enough articles would have the information. If we really ever have information that is that special that it shouldn't be displayed on the article itself, we should then put that information on a completely different article. Content that is not displayed at all on an article should not be in the code of it.
Last thing was auxiliary pages. Those research pages are quite useful when documenting the game. We very often come to situations where the content we have access to is incomplete. And many of those situations require research to find regularities or probabilities. Prominent examples are all those drop research pages and also the newer cycle-related pages (Nick, ZQuests) on GWW. Given that GW2 will add a much more complicated level of such things with the events and stuff, we will probably have a lot more of those pages here. But whatever we will research on those pages, they will remain as research pages, and - as you correctly identified them as - auxiliary pages. As such every result we get from those pages should be written directly into the source of the articles, and not transcluded from or in other way dependent of the content of those research pages. I know we have some exceptions on GWW (namely those Nick and ZQuest pages), but the only reason for that is that we still lack a better way, and the actual way we are using is working good enough. In any way, as auxiliary pages, we should not think too much about formatting or general style. Those pages are an extra to the normal content we will have, and as such we don't need to think too much about standardizing them too much. If for one page it makes sense to do it in one way, then we can still use a completely different approach for something else.
Coming to the end now, MediaWiki provides quite powerful things for organizing things, but I believe we shouldn't think too much about it and just do it. A wiki is never completed nor stable, there are always things to improve, at any time. At such it doesn't matter much if we don't do it perfect from the beginning, we just start the way it makes most sense, and if later events require us to rethink structure, we, the whole community, will be able to do it and might come up with a better solution. I still don't really know what you wanted to tell us with your comment, but I feel that you are maybe thinking a bit too complicated about most things on wikis. It's not a bad thing that you try to organize stuff in a way it would make more sense to mechanically read out the information, but you really shouldn't forget that a wiki is made for the readers, both on the page viewing side and on the code editing side as well. As such most of such ideas simply don't apply and a simple straight forward way should be preferred. poke | talk 22:32, 16 May 2010 (UTC)::
I said you'd screw it up, and sure enough that is exactly what you did. A wiki is a database AND MORE.
Life IS complicated. Compared to life, databases are simple. The fact that a wiki is a kind of database makes it possible to apply some of the things that have been learned about data structuring to good effect. One of those lessons is to have simple mechanisms available to express relationships. Another is to build up complex relationships from simple ones. These lessons apply to more than databases of course, but databases are impacted by data structuring problems. If you study databases, you will have to understand data structure. Denying that wikis are, in part, databases. is to deny that the data structure lessons can be applied to make a wiki better.
The fact that the data is more or less stable, means that all the problems associated with transaction processing can be pretty much ignored and that does remove a lot of complication. Still, that is no excuse for ignoring the fact that a wiki is a database and more.
The example of finding the energy requirement for using a particular skill is in fact a good example. The information is in the text. Getting it out of the text and using it in another context is exactly the problem. Being able to do that requires that that information be tagged. This discussion is about ways to do that tagging. The mechanisms to be used need to be established now so they can be applied as the new information is going in. Trying to retrofit the tagging after the data has all been entered would be very disruptive. If planned for, it will be fairly easy to do. If not planned for, it will be almost impossible later.
Your characterization of look-up tables is also off the mark. They are necessary for several functions. For example, a reference to the profession 'warrior' in GW1 can take any of a number of forms. 'Profession 1', 'w', and 'warrior' all refer to the same thing in English. Using a table means that the presentation of the information will be uniform and consistent. That will make the information presented easier to understand. Not having such tables assures that there will be inconsistencies. (Having the tables is no guarantee that they will be used.) Therefore there are good reasons for building such tables.
We do make use of most of the techniques I've named. What does not exist is an easy to find description of what the standards are. There is no plan on what tools should be developed when. There are no help pages to teach new editors how to use the tools to get consistently good results. Without that kind of thing, there will be constant arguments about what is needed and how things are to be done. That is the kind of environment where manipulative people thrive. That is the kind of environment that discourages creative people. That is an environment where everyone has to run around and kiss everybody else's arse instead of improving the wiki.
You are setting up straw men. I said that autocategorization was something to be encouraged. I did not say that every template should do autocategorization. I did not say that all categories had to be set up with templates. Notes on how to do autocategorization and criteria that identify when it is likely to be desirable are what would be useful.
Excuse me, but you have me confused with someone else. I do not recall ever discussing capitalization with you. The only issue I have here is the lack of parenthesized tags on some kinds of pages and that a multilevel page hierarchy could improve the over all wiki structure. In that regard, the I have said very little. I'd like to arrange things so that spoiler information does not appear unhidden on top level pages. Having techniques for handling multi-tiered page hierarchies might also be developed for use with special projects. As far as I can tell, your objections to discussing this are very premature.
Templates are useless to novice editors if those editors do not know that the templates exist. Ways to present information about useful templates should be planned now.
You are also focusing on templates as a mechanism. That is, you are concerned about how they work. I actually find that aspect of templates to be old news. It's the impact on accessing, recording and presenting relationships that I want to examine. Of particular interest are parameters that do not produce immediate text, but that supply information that are interesting in another context. For example in GWW, a list of quests available to new characters can be built if prerequisite information is properly recorded.
You are talking like I was against auxiliary pages. The main thing I've said about auxiliary pages is that they are highly structured, which implies that novice editors are not likely to use them even when they should be used. Research pages practically demand special purpose templates to be effective. You've also not discussed local definition pages. Pages where information that is used by multiple standard templates can be stored. Information that would otherwise have to coded as parameters for several different templates with the consistency problems that kind of replication introduces.
Doing it is what is happening of course. The trouble I'm having is with disruptions. People undoing changes just for the sake of destruction and disruption. People deliberately creating chaos so they have an excuse for manipulating others. A number of people, yourself included, have asked that I explain what I intend to do before doing it. Here I am trying to do that, and what I get is disparaging remarks. misrepresentations and apparent ignorance. You wonder why I seem pissed-off?
--Max 2 02:23, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
There's a lot here, but I'd like to comment specifically on your last paragraph. While there's no AGF policy/guideline/proposal on GW2W yet (see gw1:GWW:AGF for reference), it nonetheless is a good idea to keep in mind that people who are 'working against you' are more likely to be people who simply have a different idea about what's best for the wiki. The reason people have asked you to discuss things before making changes is not to add a meaningless extra hoop for you to jump through before you can do what you want, but rather because a large number of things that you do don't seem to make sense to anyone but you, and it's easier to be able to say "Hey, this doesn't make sense" up-front rather than have to say "Hey, this doesn't make sense" and also have to revert. - Tanetris 13:12, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
I think you are making an assumption that is in fact incorrect here. Recently, I started a discussion first. I waited for a response before making a change. No one said anything for three days. I made the change and was almost immediately reverted. I was accused of not discussing the change first. Fortunately someone else undid the reversion and a real discussion followed. I've raised related issues elsewhere. Legal issues. Procedural issues. I have not acted on those issues yet. Still, the people on the other side make accusations.
There is a disruption problem here, but I am not the root of it. Not in the sense that it is my actions that are improper. I have called attention to other peoples misbehavior. I am trying to improve the situation, make things right, follow the 'rules'. Others who have gotten away with things for far too long are upset. Apparently you are upset too. Why? --Max 2 13:37, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

--Unending ♥ fear 20:12, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Spam

I protected those pages instead of blocking the involved users because you tend to contribute to articles and helpful stuff as well as chat incessantly, for the most part. I expect you to realise that you should be decreasing the amount of time spent chatting here, especially about profile pictures and wacky hairstyles - I know it's said ad nauseum, but this is not Facebook, and I'm pretty sure that's exactly what Facebook caters for. pling User Pling sig.png 18:09, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I thank you for your leniency... but isn't it all right to chat a bit during periods of little to no information? We really don't have anything to update at the moment... however, if you find something we could be updating or working on, I'd be very grateful for the opportunity. :) --AmannelleUser Amannelle Me.jpg 18:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
3/4 of those comments were in fact minor edits and could have easily been filtered out. Furthermore, there's nothing to really change (info-wise) now, because we already have every bit of information documented. Lastly, no, we're not going to do stuff like this on Facebook, because some people might in fact not want other people to know everything about them. It was unnecessary, Pling. If this was in a time of many information releases, sure, we get it. But as it happens, when new info comes out, we just aren't chatting, but in fact documenting the info. --Naoroji My Userpage 18:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) x2 Not to come off as rude, but I have noticed a bit of a trend of you perceiving things to be far more detrimental than what they are. While the wiki is not a forum/social networking/what have you... it is a community and things like that are bound happen, especially since the GW2W community is roughly new. Maybe I'm odd, but I feel that admin tools should only be used when things become troublesome to the wiki as a whole (such as protection/blocking)... and in my humble opinion, this was not something that required administrative intervention. I also would not quite classify what they were doing as "excessive" spam either, I've seen excessive spam... and that is not it. Well, thats my two cents anyway. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 18:20, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
To comment on the facebook theme. I personally don't like this idea. People like to hide behind their online avatars, and shows peices of information when they want. Unlike if you add them on facebook, you have to show them everything. I can see we were spamming, but in times like these (no GW2 Info at all) it's hardly hurting anybody. After all, it is a community wiki. --User:Nautaut /(t) 18:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Horribly biased as it may be, Pling, current consensus would appear to be against the protection of those pages. User A F K When Needed Signature Icon.jpg A F K When Needed 18:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
D: I'm not "horribly biased". I can completely understand why this could be problematic in some cases, and I suppose it is more a matter of whether it makes it difficult for people to do their job or not. If Pling is having more trouble because of those, then yes, they are being a problem. I suppose it all goes to the question "Who here is having trouble because of it?". ^^ I'm fine with whatever decision is made. --AmannelleUser Amannelle Me.jpg 19:05, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, I would not consider myself biased either... since I only commented once on Naut's picture (which wasn't directly related to the picture anyway). As an outside observer of the situation, it was in my opinion an unnecessary action. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 19:08, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
They are spam, they have nothing to do with gw2 or gw1 and as such should be deleted. Also I really don't think the offenders should count towards the jury. Tidas 19:10, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) We do need to maintain a sense of community. But at the same time, those edits have been making it a little more difficult to sort through the changes to find actual contributions.-- Shew ♠♠♠ 19:12, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) As already mentioned, most of those edits could easily be filtered out because they were minor edits. Also, they were in the userspace, not in mainspace, so they don't HAVE to have anything to do with Guild Wars. Lastly, what happened to the universal Wikipedia policy 'everyone's opinion is important'? ;) Shew has a valid point, though. However, as I mentioned, again, they could (almost all) be filtered out by filtering out minor edits. --Naoroji My Userpage 19:14, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) x2 Being deleted is out of the question because its a user image. Unless its a violation of copyright then they wont get deleted. Okay, so its nothing to do with GW2/GW1. But what is there to do with the lack of info? And, we have every right to be the 'jury', also we are hardly 'offenders'. --User:Nautaut /(t) 19:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Filtering out minor edits filters contributions as well, though, since many contributions are marked as minor. (If only we had a better filter. :P)-- Shew ♠♠♠ 19:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
It was an analogy. Tidas 19:18, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Harsh, Tidas; that wasn't very polite. :/ --AmannelleUser Amannelle Me.jpg 19:19, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I ACTUALLY HATE EDIT CONFLICTS "those edits have been making it a little more difficult to sort through the changes to find actual contributions". Well tbh, you can clearly tell because all of the edits were on a user image? --User:Nautaut /(t) 19:20, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I hate edit conflicts as well. I think that what it boils down to is being courteous. By no means is anyone obliged to refrain from making those edits...but just be aware that they're mixed in with everything else.-- Shew ♠♠♠ 19:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) (Edit conflict) Just my opinion, but guys, you can do group chats in MSN. The pictures shouldn't be protected in my pinion though. also, Pling, is there any way to have Emily set a filter option for the User Space? That would allow the Spam to be cut down for ya' so it wouldn't affect your work.--Unending ♥ fear 19:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Drama is up again. Once again, Im out. -- Cyan User Cyan Light sig.jpg 20:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) My "work" involves all namespaces - I try to see what's going on to make sure there aren't de facto-"policy" violations, to generally see how article contributions are going, to see if I can help with something, or to check if any technical problems are around (and how much of it I can refer to Poke). The discussions occurred on file-talk pages, where these issues commonly occur. Also, as Shew points out, tagging edits as minor isn't the best filtering option. Therefore, filtering out either a namespace or all minor edits wouldn't help. pling User Pling sig.png 20:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Ah, ok, I see. >.> --Unending ♥ fear 20:12, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh ok, I understand, Pling. ^^ Like I said, if chatting on talk pages make it difficult for people, then I totally understand putting it to a minimum. :) Thanks! --AmannelleUser Amannelle Me.jpg 20:19, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
I understand your concerns, but I can't help but wonder why you thought that protection was warranted. You could have simply requested that the users bring the discussion down to a minimum. I just think that protection is a bit much. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 20:24, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) However my easy response, Im not saying I fully disagree with you Pling, it was indeed spamming, and its true minor edit is not a great way of filtering, but I also think that reaction was just too much. If it was at the same time with a new information release, intervention is indeed needed. In the actual situation, I have my doubts. -- Cyan User Cyan Light sig.jpg 20:27, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
<Minor comment> Pling, your wet blanketness has increased Ten fold! </mior comment> Plings just pouncing on things because he resigned from GW1 sysop <3, so hes taking anything into un'needed, unbiast , Uncarful, Un-actualy-warning-anyone'ness. While i know when is my limit, im only saying this now: Pling Doesent deserv to be a sysop, There,i said it, quote me as many times as you want. as for me. i know limits and buthurt wet blankets.im out. --Neil2250 User Neil2250 sig icon5 Anti.png 20:37, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) To note, I didn't read through everything, so if I repeat stuff, my bad. Firstly, I have to agree with Pling, actually, in that constant chat on user talk pages is quite annoying, as are constant changes to user spaces - if for nothing other than the Recent Changes. However, I don't think this should go to a full stop. Especially considering there are pages on the GWW such as this. Reduced greatly, yes please, but there's no need for this to go to a full stop and have us mindless documenting zombies, and while I dislike pages like what I linked to, they do have some good humor and can be a decent stress reliever for those who go to GW and other games to relieve stress and go to this wiki to help others while relieving stress - I am one of those people, in fact. -- Konig/talk 20:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

You were told to stop spamming those pages for 1 day. Chill, it's not a big deal. --JonTheMon 21:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
It does tend to make it hard to tell what edits are important and which ones aren't. I do enjoy talking and commenting on things in here, but there is a limit. One of those talk pages did have a HUGE amount of edits on it in a fairly small time frame. Is it possible to filter out all talk pages? That would help, or all images, everything in a userpage or user related? That would solve the problem fairly well, in my opinion. Anyway, I support Pling's decision, though a comment would have probably been sufficient.--Corsair@Yarrr 21:09, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
No, Jon, we weren't told anything. Nothing was said about a time period of 1 day. --Naoroji My Userpage 21:11, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Athough the protection for 1 day shows that Jon is right. =) -- Cyan User Cyan Light sig.jpg 21:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh, sorry about that, Jon. ^^ Naoroji and I thought you meant we had been forewarned a day in advance about not spamming. Sorry about the misunderstanding! :) --AmannelleUser Amannelle Me.jpg 21:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Well I'm not so upset that we can't edit those pages, I'm just stating that I think that protection was unnecessary and was a bit unwarranted. A simple comment would have sufficed. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 21:34, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
...astounding.
Pling, for the record, if you protect this page I'll support you - despite just how much the CP talk being protected would be frowned upon for very good reasons. User A F K When Needed Signature Icon.jpg A F K When Needed 22:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Formatting

I think it's time to begin the [[Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:Formatting|Formatting]] guide, with information from this page as well as information on the image naming convention we have been using and, for now, a small note on article retention. Erasculio 23:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it would be unreasonable to capture these sorts of things now. As long as we keep it to these basic rules we're essentially already following and not get carried away with any other page formatting rules at this point. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 23:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I think we've had enough formatting issues/practices to start a GW2W-space article on it, yes. I'd still like to see some independence when it comes to formatting - for example, I prefer lower-case titles instead of the upper-case ArenaNet uses. I don't think we should completely go by ArenaNet's examples where it doesn't make sense (as per GWW), or where we've already got our own style (again, titles). That said, ArenaNet's new style doesn't seem to be too different to ours - lower-case for common nouns and the like is already what we use. (Also, I agree with Aspectacle.)
By the way, I started an RfC at Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Requests for comment/Capitalisation of skills and professions to keep the community portal short. Maybe this could go there or at Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Formatting. pling User Pling sig.png 23:47, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
There is a recent ArenaNet Blog entry on this. Follow their lead? --Max 2 16:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Uploading sounds

I would be interested in uploading some sounds to the wiki. The first use of this feature that I can imagine is for skill taunts ("here come the flames", "and stay down", ...) but it would probably be useful in many other situations (NPC dialogs?). Is this something that seems appealing to you? Wikipedia has a special button that turns into a small media player when you click it (see this page for example). I find this very clean. Do you know how it works? Does it require a mediawiki extension that Anet would have to install? Chriskang 20:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer transcriptions of the dialog/taunts, as it'd take much less time to read through them than it would to listen to them (you couldn't even skim through audio without knowing what the audio is beforehand). They are clean, and I wouldn't be opposed to including the audio in addition to the transcriptions. Here are the various audio extensions.-- Shew ♠♠♠ 21:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
The one installed on wikipedia seems to be OggHandler. And of course, I suggested this as an addition to the usual formatting, not as a replacement. Chriskang 21:39, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
So long as the transcript stays, I have no qualms - the reason why I want transcripts to stay is mainly for those with hearing issues. Also, I don't think it is so much of a skill taunt as a profession taunt for when attacking/using skills. -- Konig/talk 22:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
Not really. We have seen that some taunts are linked to some skill effects - the shout "Here comes the flames" was using when using a skill linked to Fire Attunement, and would not make sense when using a water skill. Likewise with the "I'm so stunning" comment when using a skill which stuns enemies. Ergo, it's not really a profession taunt, rather taunts linked to at least groups of skills, if not skills themselves. Erasculio 16:46, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
We can't say that for sure, though.. poke | talk 19:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
I think Regina made a post on GW2 Guru about how the sounds depended on things happening in the environment, not from skills. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 19:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Location Categories

Since we have a number of location pages already, I figured it would be good to set up how to categorize the Category:Locations and subcategories. Currently, there is "Category:Settlements", each with a series of [[Category:<race name> Settlements]]. I disagree with this due to the multi-racial categories and, at the moment, only the playable races have categories. Eventually, due to the persistence and thus there being no zoning between outposts and outside of said outposts and thus, settlements in GW1 such as the gw1:Ascalon Settlement and gw1:Aerie won't be listed as landmarks but as settlements/outposts/whatever we want to state. Furthermore, due to this, we may even have pages for locations that qualify as the same listing (whichever used - settlement, outpost, town, etc.) that are under the control of enemies (for instance, the much talked about dynamic event example of the centaur camp). As such, I suggest we categorize based on region, like in GW1, likewise I think we should keep names to two things: Towns and Cities - the former being the normal housing area, the later being the major cities (e.g., Black Citadel, Divinity's Reach, etc.). It'll allow fewer sub-categories while not putting everything together like now.
Outside of the town, I think the areas outside of structure locations should be kept in Category:Locations for now. -- Konig/talk 01:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Something I forgot: I think that we shouldn't categorize all the things like the GW1W - it's horrible, in my opinion. Instead of having things like Regions, Continents, Settlements, etc. all in the Locations Category (and then settlements in the regions, and regions in the continents) I'd prefer if we can go just Locations->Continents-><continent>Regions-><region>Settlements/<region>Landmarks; with the generic page for the continents, Regions, Settlements, and Landmarks such as gw1:Landmarks being just in Category:Locations. IMO, this would allow the cleanest form of categorizing it.
And for when we get to templates, I think it would be best to not have the template put the location into the category of their type (as that causes an unfix-able redundancy seen far too often on the GW1Wiki; such as gw1:category:landmarks). -- Konig/talk 01:56, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Hmm, well... I like you idea. Region categorization may make things less messy. I do think that we should categorize major racial settlements under some specific categorization, though. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 01:58, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I like the idea, but I think settlement should be more general. Reason: you can have too few things go into a category and be like well that category hosts so few, why is it even there? To me, Less is more - the less categories to use, the easier it might be. Too many categories may end up with duplicates. Ariyen 02:06, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
@Phnzdvn: I would consider those "Cities" - or as they are called in GW1: Towns. @Ariyen: Settlement will just be via region (Shiverpeaks Mountains, Ascalon/Charr Homeland, Kryta, etc.) instead of via races (eventually: Charr, Sylvari, Human, Grawl, Ogre, Centaur, Norn, Dredge, Hylek, etc. etc.). I think region is MUCH smaller than race. The only way to get more general (that I can think of) is by continent, which with the intial release being only Tyria... well then we might as well just have "Settlements" with no sub-categories. -- Konig/talk 02:26, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Getting ahead of ourselves. I don't think we know enough about individual locations, nor about how the location systems work. What we have is mostly lore-based and not in terms of mechanics. pling User Pling sig.png 19:17, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
@Konig, sounds good to me. Short, simple, and sweet. :-) Ariyen 22:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Pling, that's why I left things that were called explorable areas out of the discussion (e.g., Drakkar Lake, Plains of Golghein, etc.), but we've seen Anet call places like Divinity's Reach "cities" - thus it is implied that what was called towns in GW1 are called cities in GW2. And the term settlements is rather generic for any kind of housing, and as such works (and we even use that now); and should we find that there is an official term, we could always move things. It's just that we shouldn't leave things a mess until GW2 comes out, and while I agree that there are many cases of getting ahead of oneself, things like making the regional and settlement categories are not ahead of ourselves. It's preparation for when we'll get a huge influx of information which will make this wiki an even bigger mess than the small mess it is. -- Konig/talk 22:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Drink articles

I decided that having the discussion here would probably be the best so it is not sprawled out across several talk pages. I wanted to address the Drink articles ([[Witch's Brew]], [[Bottle of Grog]], [[Sugary Blue Drink]], etc.). These articles are pure speculation... we have no evidence that these will appear in-game. A translation on a sign is not enough to warrant an article imho. Discuss. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 01:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not speculation. Matching Krytan characters with English characters leads to the exact English words.-- Shew ♠♠♠ 01:33, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I didn't say that the translations were incorrect. We have no evidence that these items will actually appear in-game at this time. As such they are just speculation. Until it is stated that these will actually be in-game, I do not believe they warrant an article. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 01:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) As I stated on the Hard Apple Cider page, I agree with deletion completely. But none of those pages are speculation, all of them state complete fact, that they are names translated off of a sign. But currently having no idea whether or not they are anything but words, I think for now they should be deleted. EiveTalk 01:38, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I say speculation, because while having an article it seems to be assumed that they will be present in-game. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 01:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
No evidence that these appear anywhere in game but on that sign - if they are only on that sign they do not merit their own article. So, I support deleting. If they aren't deleted the 'possibly not relevant to GW2' category which I tried to apply the other day needs to stick. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 02:15, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Delete, we just don't know if they are relevant. You do have to translate to English, or at least use a substitution cipher to know what that sign says. If the drinks are not included in the game, we could add it as a note to the page this inn(?) is a part of, but other than that it is just unnecessary, especially at this point in time. Oh, and if the deletion doesn't stick, go I would like to keep Aspectacle's category on it as well.--Corsair@Yarrr 04:18, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd say delete the pages, and if we felt it's necessary that people know what the sign say, leave a note on the languages' page. ~ PheNaxKian talk 15:34, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) "I say speculation, because while having an article it seems to be assumed that they will be present in-game." So what's the point of [[:Category:Articles possibly not relevant to GW2]]‏‎ then? Anyways, I don't see why a sign saying something for sale won't be in the game, and even then, we have plenty of articles which are relevant but are non-existent in the game. Both on this wiki and gw1wiki. But as I said on a drink's talk page (forgot which), I think we should delete the pages for now, and if they become relevant, we can have someone restore them. We have enough unneeded pages right now. -- Konig/talk 03:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, as always, we are all entitled to our own opinions. I personally see no harm in these pages, and made a comment here which might be of interest to some? Anyway, I am not going to loose sleep no matter what the outcome. User Arrowmaster Sig.pngArrowmaster - 22:30, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd have to change my opinion. Whether or not they exist in the game is, in my opinion, irrelevant. They are mentioned in the game thus exist in lore if nothing else. As such, they deserve lore articles until we know they are physically in the game. Along with that, they are, indeed, relevant to GW2('s lore). -- Konig/talk 00:17, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Well done pal! See, this Wiki is great when we discuss things sensibly. I have been persuaded to change my mind so many times, that I have forgotten, hehe. User Arrowmaster Sig.pngArrowmaster - 08:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I disagree that they would merit individual lore articles if they're not actually in the game. Redirects to a central 'Food and beverages of Tyria' (or suchlike) lore article would be more appropriate. - Tanetris 16:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Tomorrow's trailer

Just so we don't have to repeat previous discussions (it has been a long time since the last trailer was released):

  • Discussion here and a bit here decided (at the time, at least) that a trailer's article would be named Trailer title or Trailer title trailer, depending of whether the trailer title states it's a trailer or not. So if tomorrow's trailer were called "The Synergy Trailer", the article here would be "The Synergy Trailer"; if the trailer were named "Synergy", the article would be called "Synergy trailer".
  • Discussion here decided that the trailer would be part of a Month year trailer category (probably "August 2010 trailer"), to be sorted as "Year month trailer" subcategory in the main Trailer category.
  • Discussion here had reached somewhat of a consensus about screenshots being uploaded under the format "File: Year month description.jpg" (so screenshots from tomorrow's trailer would be "File: 2010 august warrior.jpg", for example), under the Trailer template in order to be properly categorized (and in order to receive the proper license).

That's what was done with both the other trailers (and the last point is what people are using for screenshots, so that one I really would like to not change). Do you people mind if we do the same for tomorrow's trailer? Erasculio 00:35, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds okay. Thanks for summarizing all of the previous chats. Just don't rip into anyone who ends up contributing without reading the recent changes and this page first - because it is really, really likely to happen. :) -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 00:57, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
How do we even know for sure one is coming? Did ANet say something? Arshay Duskbrow 02:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
http://twitter.com/guildwars2/status/20732353075 - Tanetris 03:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. Looking forward to seeing it now. Arshay Duskbrow 04:40, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
The month should be capitalised: August, not august. pling User Pling sig.png 14:58, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Looks like this has been ignored. For some reason we've got arbitrary numbers instead of descriptions again in filenames. Category:August 2010 trailer and Category:ArenaNet's MMO Manifesto trailer screenshots seem to be duplicates. Looks like more cleanup is necessary, along with Talk:China GDC 2010. pling User Pling sig.png 20:53, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
<_> I just added the newest trailer to the template with regards to how the others were formatted.-- Shew 20:54, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
not all of it, at least people remembered to spell August with a capitol A ;)Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 20:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) "Category:August 2010 trailer and Category:ArenaNet's MMO Manifesto screenshots seem to be duplicates": not really. They are rather redundant right now, but they are what we had discussed previously: one is the category for the trailer itself (the "Category:August 2010 trailer" one, which is where the article about the trailer is), and the other is the category for the trailer's screenshots (Category:ArenaNet's MMO Manifesto screenshots). IMO, it would be better to simply add Category:ArenaNet's MMO Manifesto screenshots to the Category:August 2010 trailer, and remove all screenshots from the latter. Erasculio 21:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Gameplay Footage

Very bad quality video may be found here (YouTube link here). I'm not sure it's worth documenting - the video is really extremely low quality, and it really isn't a trailer like the others we have documented here. Erasculio 23:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I say wait for the official game play trailer. Reaper of Scythes** User Reaper of ScythesJuggernaut1.png 23:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd have to agree. On a different note, I love the better animation for the skills and the new loading screens but the combat is rather unfavorable imo. The amount of damage dealt and received seems ridiculous.--The Emmisary 23:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
idk. There is quite a bit that you can gain from it - names of monsters, names and descriptions of zones. Yes, the quality might be lame, but it isn't completely useless. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 23:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
We are better off waiting for a good trailer or the actual game than trying to decipher what we think are the names of the enemies. Besides they might change some parts later on, this is a demo after all.--The Emmisary 00:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) The Emmisary, I disagree the amount is hard to view due to the low quality, etc. so that's not something you can really assume on even this early. It's still trial as far as we know. Ariyen 00:04, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Actually that isn't even the demo but some guy on the dev mode which is why it looks all...odd. Anyway, Ariyen what exactly are you disagreeing with besides I'm wrong about the quality?--The Emmisary 00:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
The damages dealt and received could still be in tweaking modes you know. I wasn't disagreeing with the quality, but the damages. Sorry you misinterpreted. Ariyen 00:12, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
While I do agree the damages and the amount of health/mana seem high, I do not mind it as much so long as they are able to scale it correctly. I agree, alot can be learned from this cam shot Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 00:23, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure everyone has said wait for a better quality before putting stuff up. The images you put up with the low quality look like trash no offense.--Emmisary 01:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I suggest we document the location and NPC names - but not the rest. Even if they are changed later on, people would enjoy documentation of the "early stages" - I know many people wish there were more documentation of GW1's beta and alpha times. I would say take a screenshot of the UI as well, but it is of poor quality. Since this is pre-Gamescom demo, the numbers might be altered via dev cheats (akin to the GW1 skill "BAMPH!" which does, what was it, 9999 damage?), so they may not be accurate. -- Konig/talk 01:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit: It would also be nice if people going to Gamescom/PAX can document the demo activities of the demo. -- Konig/talk 01:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Just some comments from my side: Martin has confirmed that what happened in the video was just a test and the player used dev commands to be invisible and invincible, so it does not represent the actual game at all. I guess we will see the first real bits today.
I'll be at gamescom starting tomorrow. It won't be possible to get real screenshots, but I'll provide you with a lot high resolution photos. You can probably expect them during the evening when I get back to the hotel. I might not be able to cut them to the important parts, but I'll make the photos public (probably on flickr), so you can do that for me. Also if you are interested in some live comments by me, be sure to take a look at my Twitter; I'll write and also show a lot things via that (not necessarily only GW2 things, but at least at the beginning you can't expect much else :P). poke | talk 06:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
<3 poke. ^_^ -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 06:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
*coughcopyallnamesyouseecough* -- Konig/talk 06:24, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Second video also showing a necromancer. Erasculio 08:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Third video, this time probably from the necromancer's point of view. Erasculio 09:11, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
The livestream is now up as well, too bad it's going to stream the Aion demo first in 40 minutes, and then we'll just have to wait and see when the next GW2 presentation will be ;). --Naoroji User Naoroji Golem - Green.jpg 11:23, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
I'll also make close up shots of the skill descriptions etc. :P poke | talk 17:40, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

{{gww}} on skill pages

Not sure how we should go about this. On skill pages should we just make a note, place the {{gww}} template, or both? --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 03:48, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I think having both would be redundant. IMO just a trivia note should suffice. The gww template states that the GW1 wiki has an article on X. Some people may then get the impression that the skill's descriptions are the same on both wiki. Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 03:51, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
This was discussed... somewhere before. Forgot where, but the general consensus was that the gww template is unnecessary for skill articles and that a trivia mention was enough. -- Konig/talk 04:03, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Koing :-) --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 04:58, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Guild pages

Is the Guild namespace 'open' yet? --Naoroji User Naoroji Golem - Green.jpg 12:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

No, it hasn't been implemented yet. I doubt it will any time soon - guilds don't exist yet, we don't know how they'll work, and I doubt people will want to document them in a separate namespace anyway. pling User Pling sig.png 15:15, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Also GW2 will have it's own web interface. You'll be able to see profiles, so you might be able to show guild information there. In any way, I would object adding a guild namespace for the same purpose (and with the same type of content) as on GWW; at least unless there is a good reason. poke | talk 15:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
There's a discussion about the Guild namespace here. --Santax (talk · contribs) 15:56, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Affiliations and Orders

I find it useless and idiotic (just to be blunt) to have all these pages. Specifically talking about Season, Asuran college, Heritage, High Legion (though that serves a second purpose), Norn Totem, Orders, Social status, and Racial sympathy. Not only are those (excluding High Legion, as that holds a second purpose) is just lists, but it is and will remain short - unless we intend to document the differences in the storyline in said articles (which would be near impossible given all the different choices). Also considering this (specifically: "Some of these questions are defined by earlier choices - a character's race, class, or heritage.") the article "heritage" is incorrect in how it is currently and should be remade into a list of heritages of all races' choices (if not outright removed).
I think that these lists could easily be merged into character creation#Personal storyline which documents the same thing but in a shorter form. It would not add that much and would remove rather unnecessary articles. How it appears to me these things will be classified into two things: Social status and heritage; both terms are currently used for humans only but is being hinted at being the general term for all races' choices - the social status as per this: "An asura will be asked what college they attended (Synergetics, Dynamics or Statics), while a human will be asked to define their social background (Gentry, Commoner, or Streets)." - it is clearly the same thing and the human choice is called social background; though one's college is also a social status kind of thing; albeit it may be called something else in the future. But if so it can be changed.
My point is that we can effectively remove multiple articles but yet still have it orderly. Regarding my mention of the Orders article and Racial sympathy pages - the former could easily be merged into the personal storyline article (and it is also rather unnecessary alone; and not to mention a speculative name) while the later could be merged into the character creation#biography page and section. I just don't see the need to document everything in such small and individualistic pages - not to mention having the same things repeated in those said pages.
Besides, if we just want the lists, we should just redirect the article names to the categories - those make sense and there is no need to make mainspace articles which serve the exact same purpose (with absolutely no difference) as its categorical counterpart. Sorry for the wall of text.-- Konig/talk 00:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, those pages should be combined into the character creation page, there just isn't enough to warrant a page of their own for most of them. This should make it slightly more organized in here.--Corsair@Yarrr 04:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
For now it seems fair to merge them, and if more info comes up later on exactly what the racial affiliations will affect (documenting storylines or something?) then we can always put them back. Sounds good to me. --Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png (Talk) 11:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Agree 100%.-- Shew ♠♠♠ 15:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
I also agree with this. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 19:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) A slightly connected thing that came to my mind earlier. Would there ever be a need to split pages between the groups and the choice? E.g., splitting the group "Order of Whispers" from the choice made for joining the Order of Whispers? Mainly to document the changes between choices; if we do this then there wouldn't ever be a need to list out the things mentioned above except at character creation/personal storyline and on the individual pages, most of which already exist (and will exist). The split would, of course, only be for those which have a double purpose - such as the three Legions, the colleges, the human heritages, the three orders, etc. -- Konig/talk 21:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Lets leave that until such a time that a split is desirable and function-able. Like most things we will likely have to wait till release for it.--Corsair@Yarrr 22:03, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
As I recall Knighthonor got told off for starting to separate the playable humans from the race of humans. This split seems similar to me - it is probably best that we wait to see what information we get before deciding whether a split is necessary. For your first question, I'm going to have to go against the grain and say that I'm starting to think the summary articles are more useful. Your example on the character creation talk page shows that in simple list form relying on the individual choices starts to get a bit unwieldy. I'll join in the discussion there though - there might be a tabular format which could work. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 23:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Aspectacle, there is a difference between "Human (NPC)"/"Human (race)" and "Durmand Priory (group)"/"Durmand Priory (choice)" - the difference being that there is no difference between human NPCs and the human race except that human NPCs are not human PCs, which is an idiotic separation while with the durmand priory example you have the group itself and then you have the storyline and available "rewards" (for lack of a better word) for joining said group. Regarding your second point: the pages for the different heritages are only useful if we intend to note the differences between the options (as listing the questions of the biography available via choosing between, say, the sylvari seasons will just cause a redundency and an unneeded separation of related information (the questions of the biography)). Do note that while the first and second ideas seem contradicting - they are not as the first is for the removal of a list and a potential unneeded separation of related information while the second has related information together but not with semi-related information (that is, say that we have a page for the Ascalonian heritage choice; instead of putting the benefits and downsides of said choice on the character creation page, it would go onto an "Ascalonian (heritage)" page while if we kept the human heritage page it would list that stuff, along with the 4 storyline differences, and the biography questions related to the heritage choices thus creating an unnecessarily long page; but if we were to have the individual pages it would keep the related information (all that related to Ascalonian heritage alone) together and provide links in a "see also" section to the other heritage choices. I suppose I could be confusing but what I'm saying is this:
There is no need for 6 lists where 1 holds all 5 other lists, but there is a need for pages to list the differences between what the lists pertain and I think it would be easier to organize if we have the differences on individual pages as pros and cons of choices rather than on 5 or 1 pages which would cause said pages to be annoyingly long and possible unnecessarily confusing depending on the format. -- Konig/talk 00:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
"splitting the group "Order of Whispers" from the choice made for joining the Order of Whispers?": not really, unless the article becomes too big. Right now the Charr article is both about the history of the race and its gameplay aspects; just as those two are kept together in a single article, we may have the history of the Order of Whispers and its gameplay aspects in a single page. Erasculio 01:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
@Konig, my point was an agreement with Corsair that a split of these pages is not necessary at this time. I'm not going to discuss its potential merits based on speculation on the impact of the order on the game.
The summary page could become full documentation of the question and each of the choices and their consequences so each is no longer just a list. For example drop each of the college pages (these basically duplicate each other atm) and just have the summary page. This has several advantages:
  • In one glance on one page the reader can see all of the consequences of their choice without following 3 different links.
  • A summary page can document the basic overall meaning of making the choice. A list cannot express this when you are simply forwarded to a monster type page.
  • We have a place to document any flavour text which ArenaNet might supply with the question. For instance we might get more more information on the college system when the question is posed.
But...I think I'm getting carried away because again we're discussing something which we're immediately going to want to change as soon as we see how this information is presented and named in the game UI and the nature of how the questions are asked.
tldr; I don't see there is much harm in maintaining both sets of pages until we actually have the game in our hands to make the right decisions on which to keep. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 01:20, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
My 50 cent on the Orders pages: Merge them all.
  • It will look better this way. (instead of 4 small pages, 1 greater page of easy to read text)
  • It will be quicker to find ones order of choice, instead of having to load a different page.
  • All 4 related articles are small, which can easily be merged to just one Orders page.
  • The current Orders page is now just a silly redirect page, instead of seriously adding value or information to the whole system.
Ge4ce 10:12, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
While not against the idea of making the list articles more than a list, to what you suggest I must say no. They are three different groups and while they may be small now they will grow large with lists of NPCs, their own personal lore, and perhaps more. If we expand the list articles instead of merge the lists it should be done from scratch. And it would be placing the differences in choosing which group you join. Which is all stuff we don't know at the moment.
In other words, we have two options 1) Merge the lists into either the character creation or into the personal storyline pages or 2) Expand the lists which cannot be done at the moment. -- Konig/talk 20:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
When i read the personal storyline article it dosnt sound like the order is chosen by the character creation screen (10ish question biography) but later by progession through the personal storyline. I think the personal storyline page should link to the order page, and that the orders page be redone, instead of linking to pages where theres only a bit of lore, put the lore on the order pages and later when we actualy get the game link to the individual pages where we talk about the effects on gameplay. 72.45.5.194 19:27, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Has this already been taken care of? Merging the Affiliations? --Abiohazard User Abiohazard Symbol2.png 19:53, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Another related thought: we now have a number of separate small articles for charr and Vigil military ranks. These are unlikely to grow much. Should they be combined into single articles? Vigil Ranks, Charr Military Ranks, and, eventually Whispers Ranks? Or even one article on Ranks? --BrettM 13:31, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

@Abiohazard: No, I don't think they have been. @BrettM: Can go even more simpler than that. Have a ranks system in the group/race's page. However, we don't know much about ranks so it would be unwise to merge them at this very moment. They are likely to evolve in knowledge and number as time goes on. -- Konig/talk 13:41, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) So with the new biography issue, I still find that many of the pages and mentionings of things being available at character creation are quite pointless. The mentioning of being available can be done here and here, and any changes between them can be done on a "Storyline" kind of page separate from the lore and NPC information of the articles (which is bound be to large, I'd think). So is there any new say on this? -- Konig/talk 09:30, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Ghosts of Ascalon (spoiler free)

Ghosts of Ascalon has created quite a mess on the wiki. Since it has messed with multiple articles and categories, I decided to mention it in order to get more opinions, instead of keeping the discussion at the GoA article (not to mention how those who would like to avoid spoilers are likely going to avoid the book's article and its talk page).
In order to properly document the book, I think we have to establish a few rules:

  • The book is not as accurate as the game. The book itself is not going to change, but Guild Wars 2 will, both before and after release. Which means that, while the game may be taken as an accurate source of information (about the game), the same cannot be said about the book.
  • The book is also filled with artistic liberties, so both in-game mechanics and lore elements found in the book have likely been inserted there in order to make it a better novel. Yes, Jeff Grubb also wrote it, but since the book mentions some things from different points of view, it cannot be taken as an absolute truth (and not even as a generalized point of view; just because character A from race B states that event Y happened in X way, it does not mean that all members of race B think event Y happened in X way).
  • And thus, considering both of the above, content from the book is not necessarily relevant to Guild Wars 2. Not that we wouldn't document it, but there is a clear distinction between Ghosts of Ascalon content and content from GW2 the game.
  • Also, many people have not read the book yet, and would like to avoid spoilers. Since anything beyond the first few chapters already is a spoiler (as knowing what happens in the middle of the book would be a spoiler for those who haven't reached that point in the story), I think we need to be careful when adding spoilers to the wiki.

Therefore, I would like to propose the following:

1. All Ghosts of Ascalon content is to be kept separate from the main Guild Wars 2 content unless we know for sure said content is shared between those two. So an article about GoA's protagonist would not be within the "Characters" category; that's what we use for GW2 characters. Rather, it would be within a "Ghosts of Ascalon characters" category, and only within that category, until we are told that said character will appear in GW2 (when we would also add the "Characters" category to that article). Divinity's Reach, in other hand, is a city which we have been told will be featured in GW2, so it would be kept within the "Locations" category tree.
2. All articles with spoilers from the book will receive the spoiler tag before said spoiler. In articles about characters and locations found only in the book, said spoilers include anything beyond very basic information about said character or location. In articles about common GW2 things which are mentioned in GoA (like Divinity's Reach), said spoilers, if really relevant, are to be added to the bottom of the articles, in the Notes section. (Ah, and of course, describing spoilers at edit summaries would obviously be forbidden, in order to avoid spoiling those users who like to check Recent changes often. And also of course, let's avoid spoilers in this discussion, in order to allow more people to be part of it.)
3. All content from the book will be referenced. That's because content from the book does not necessarily reflect content from the game, so players should be aware that the specific pieces of information they are reading may be inaccurate.

What do you people think? Erasculio 02:59, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to have to disagree greatly with your constant claims that the books are not factual to GW's lore. It is, it was made such. Yes, what's in the game has been said by Jeff to be subject to be changed to be different from the books, but he also said that all said changes will have explanations. I hardly see where game mechanics came into the book anywhere - at most, it was the mention of an ebon blade and the necromancer/elementalist/mesmer - the later was explained in an interview as "it is easy to discern the different kinds of magic used" while not so for the adventurers and soldier classes - the professions exist in lore so why not mentioned? The ebon blade (ebon mod) is likely the same - exists in lore, but acts differently than in the game.
In effect, what I'm trying to say is that Ghosts of Ascalon content is lore to the game - it is background and a series of minor and semi-major events that occur one year prior and it brings up (racial views of) older events. It is very much what you claim it is not - it is relevant to GW2. And in turn, it is "content from the game('s lore)". I highly disagree in referencing it, else we'll end up getting a multitude of articles like this (though terrible in a different manner).
However, I fully agree that spoilers are an issue, and merely changing its category (your character suggestion is already done, btw - what's needed is a Category:Ghosts of Ascalon locations) will not work. Also, the spoiler tag will do nothing. Like on the GWW all it does is merely breaks up the text into a quite annoying bit. The wiki is a spoiler. It is meant to document the game and the lore related to the game (thus the books). One shouldn't simply omit things because they are spoilers and the tag does nothing in reality - it's just a nice pretty strip most people ignore.
Instead, I propose a change the spoiler tag. Instead of it being a nice little red bar that tries to stick out like a sore thumb (and only does so in annoying cases), why not turn it into a collapsible tag, and have the spoiler in that? I believe that'll be better than the other proposed idea of turning spoiler text white, and it'll allow someone to read an article without having to worry about spoilers.
And, to reiterate a point from elsewhere (the GWW), spoiler tags shouldn't be used on every single little spoiler, but rather on those of significance - such as major revelations at the end of a story/storyline. Things halfway through the books and games? Potentially a spoiler. Things 1/4 into them? Not really a spoiler - no more than the rest of the wiki. And as said, the wiki is essentially a massive spoiler. I'd rather not see a repeat of GWW where the spoiler tag was overused to the point of sheer annoyance. -- Konig/talk 06:07, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
Agreed with Konig that GoA content is of course lore that is meant to be taken canonically, and should be treated as such. Beyond that though, I'm clueless about how to handle spoilers. It's quite true that the very act of visiting this wiki is inviting spoilers, but I've still removed a few major ones from articles myself, and even them I'm not sure it was the right thing to do. Maybe for the moment, but how long should we wait before "allowing" them? It just seems like a big source of potential edit conflicts. Arshay Duskbrow 06:52, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I think that GoA is as part of the Guild Wars 2 universe as Guild Wars Factions is a part of the Guild Wars universe. I don't think a "Ghosts of Ascalon x" category should be used to separate content that appears in different media, but they should be used in the same way that gw1:Category:Factions NPCs is used. A character who appears in more than one place would be categorised within all those places' categories.
I oppose using the notes section for relevant content that could be placed in the article proper. Many GWW articles have over-bloated notes sections with info that's sometimes important or interesting, and it's one of the main things I want to avoid here. pling User Pling sig.png 14:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with most of what's been said before me, but I would like to point out that, aside from tiny hints buried within interviews, Ghosts of Ascalon is our only source for any information regarding the world of Guild Wars 2. At the moment practically every article on the entire wiki consists of little more than rehashed Guild Wars 1 information and a one-line phrase saying "and they are still around today," or "their current whereabouts are unknown." I see no reason why, when we have pages upon pages of reference data from the novel, we can't add that to the respective pages, especially lore pages. Why not divide each lore article into sections, one for each different interpretation we have? We could take something like Foefire and have two different sections in the article, "From the Race X perspective" and "From the Race Y perspective." We're bound to encounter the same exact problems during the game itself, given that the five races start in their own area, with their own legends, and their own perspective on the world. Fabala011 19:06, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
We don't have control over the lack of solid wikiable content - no need to rip into the rest of the wiki. :) I agree our spoiler policy (or lack of) is restricting the absorption of information from GoA and this is frustrating. Much of what has been said before makes sense. It might be interesting to discuss exactly what is a spoiler and how to deal with them in articles so we can can add the information without having it immediately removed again. I thought Konig's idea of a show/hide around the relevant text was interesting and I was wondering if it is practical? -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 00:06, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I know that something similar was done on GWW when Manifold (I think) was adding armor values for monsters. If it's the same method, then it's certainly practical. --Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png (Talk) 00:13, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
"All Ghosts of Ascalon content is to be kept separate from the main Guild Wars 2 content unless we know for sure said content is shared between those two." GoA is Canon, full stop. Anyways, heres my view on things; I say we just fill the articles with all the information relevant too them received from GoA, (whether be spoiler or not), slap a {{spoiler}} template on it and be done with not. Don't make comments in the summary, which sparked this argument, that contain the spoilers and be done with it. People have the choice on if they want to read the articles and there is enough to say that there is a spoiler within it, and then edit at their own discretion. --Naut User Naut Dark Blue Monk.png 00:28, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Here's an idea: Take the current spoiler tag as what is shown in the typical expandable coding used elsewhere, and any spoiler content related down below it - either in the form of bullet points of paragraphs depending on what it is. That would be the spoiler tag and can work as {{spoiler|the content}} instead of {{spoiler}} or {{spoiler|what it is a spoiler to}}. Above the spoiler tag is all non-spoiler related content or content we can mention without making spoilers.
I have created an example the best I can User:Konig Des Todes/spoiler example here. -- Konig/talk 01:54, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

After your apparent objection to the appearance of the spoiler tag in GWW I was expecting something a bit more subtle - less red and alarming now that the spoiler is hidden. :) It could be good to include a description about what the spoiler is regarding - some people disagree about what a spoiler is or I may have finished reading GoA but haven't played the game yet or the other way around - how do I tell what I can read? -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 02:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
If the spoiler is for something else, you add a second spoiler. I didn't bother to change the color, but I am certainly not against the change of color (could be white even for all I care). The point that I hate the spoiler for is that it is overused, stretches beyond images and templates on the left end, and, worse of all, doesn't really help.
So for instance, you got a spoiler to GoA and a spoiler to Edge of Destiny, you have this:
{{User:Konig Des Todes/Spoiler|yadda yadda GoA spoiler yadda yadda expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding expanding|[[Ghosts of Ascalon]]}}
{{User:Konig Des Todes/Spoiler|yadda yadda GW2 spoiler yadda yadda}}
Sounds good? -- Konig/talk 02:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd make it to where it's one line and not two... Ariyen 03:18, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I've altered the first spoiler tag to show that it is one line when it is not expanded. Idk how to fix it for when it is collapsed. Also, as seen [[User:Konig Des Todes/spoiler example|here]], if you have an image to the side of it, the tag does not go under it as is, unlike the current version. -- Konig/talk 03:38, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Made a change to the tag test, it now reaches to 65% of the page's width (should vary on actual size based on computer screen). However, now, if it is put next to an image, if the image is large enough, it'll go under the image. However, by testing, the image has to be around 350px+ so it shouldn't be an issue. Also, I made a change in the parameters (if that's what it is called, not sure, not a wiki genius here) so that the content and what it is a spoiler to are switched. Now to code it, with how I set it up, it is {{spoiler|spoiling content|what is spoiled (must smell bad)}}. Also, if it is a generic spoiler to the generic game of Guild Wars 2, one can leave the last part empty (similar to delete tags where you can add |speedy), effectively making it {{spoiler|spoiling content}} if one wished.
Separately, I suggest that we make a second spoiler tag. One that doesn't put a category on the page, in order to avoid what occured on the GWW. That is, the Category:Spoilers getting filled up with user pages, talk pages, feedback pages, pages which are spoilers themselves and thus there is no viable collapse function worth using, and the like. I suggest we simply make this Template:Spoilers or "Tempalte:Spoiler1" and slap the current spoiler tag (not my test sample) there, but without the category thing, as I said. Effectively, that kind will be a banner, not an expandable hiding spoiler tag. For pages which use only those (such as those which will gw2's version of gw1:Spoiler-related boss), a [[Category:Spoilers]] would be added to the bottom. -- Konig/talk 08:05, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Sounds like a plan in my opinion. I like this idea/ideas. Ariyen 08:48, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Looks good. --Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png (Talk) 01:16, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Appears to do exactly what spoiler tags should do. +1 - Infinite - talk 01:17, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
If you say "The following text contains spoilers", a significant part of the users are going to think that the text following the spoiler tag is the spoiler, not the text within it (which is how GW1W uses it, and it's therefore likely that at least the readers of that wiki will believe the spoiler tag here works in the same way). It should say something along the lines of "The hidden text contains spoilers", so people understand the spoilers are hidden within the tag. Erasculio 02:10, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I didn't focus on words or color of the tags. You guys can change that as you wish. I merely changed the way it is used. -- Konig/talk 12:33, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't notice that either. And if I knew how to edit templates, I would fix it. --Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png (Talk) 19:54, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Any opposition to make a second spoiler template if we change the text, and use the new one for articles which are not entirely spoilers (that is, articles unlike this one)? If no comments, due to the favor above, I'll go ahead and make a Template:Spoilers with the above example. -- Konig/talk 09:11, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Warband categories

Now we have multiple categories based on charr warbands. The problem is that most of those warbands have never been mentioned as entities on themselves; they were created based on the surname of some charrs, and most have one member ([[:Category:Doom_Warband|example]], [[:Category:Bael Warband|example]], [[:Category:Brim Warband|example]]) or no member at all (being, thus, empty categories; [[:Category:Blood Warband|example]], [[:Category:Flame Warband|example]]).
I don't see much of a point in those categories. Sure, they represent an analogue of a charr's family, but we don't have a Thackeray category or a Keane category. Adding those charrs to their corresponding legion's category would be more than enough, IMO. Erasculio 02:29, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the warband categories are necessary. I think that we may need cats for well known warbands in the future, but the ones like the Doom warband seem unecessary at this time. --User Phnzdvn sig.pnghnzdvn 05:47, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Too early to tell imo. At the moment, all categories with jusst one entry is pointless, but that's a majority of the categories - along with that, most if not all of those categories will get filled up later. We are most likely going to see members of the primus warbands (Blood, Iron, Ash, Flame), but those like Bael, Doom, Brim might not be the case. I suggest merely putting the charr into their legions for now, instead of their "warband." Since some charr have left warbands or of some such (the gladiums), then they'll not have warbands thus no need for them to be in a warband article. This may go to any warband made from name (btw, the Doom warband does exist). -- Konig/talk 12:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I think we'd be saving ourselves a lot of time down the line by putting them in their warbands now, considering the sheer volume of charr that are going to be in the game. I mean, looking at this video, we already know there's going to be a Faithspotter and a Faithstriker. Sure we don't have a Thackeray category or a Keane category, but how many Thackerays or Keanes are we expecting to be in the game compared to warband members? Putting them all into Legion categories just creates more work down the line when the game goes to beta and we have a whole lot more charr to categorise. --Santax (talk · contribs) 06:35, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the others Santax. Having a category with just one item or about one npc is pointless. It is not safe to assume that there will be more than one warband of certain characters. For all we know, it could disban or be like a family or something. Right now, I'd prefer to see this cease and wait. There are other things that I feel are better left for attention (like policy discussion) than this. Sure it's good to categorize some things, but other things can wait and I feel this to be one of them. Ariyen 19:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Dynamic Event Documentation

On the GWW people did their best to document every quest. GW2 however doesn't use a similar quest system. This presents a slight issue; how are we going to document dynamic events? Are we even going to? Should it be attempted? ShadowRunner 18:02, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm...GW had quest chains, GW2 has dynamic event chains. We could have a section on each dynamic event page documenting each possible end result and the next dynamic event that stems off that...I mean: what else would we document(We would only have skills, professions and guides...not much fun) Aquadrizzt (talk)(contribs) 18:22, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Something like that would be fine imo, but another thought just hit me regarding personal stories; if every choice affects the personal story it's going to be amazingly difficult to document every possibility. ShadowRunner 18:26, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
There are ~100 of us, there are probably only like 1000000000000000000000 possible outcomes for every personal story...how hard can it possibly be? Aquadrizzt (talk)(contribs) 18:28, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I think we're discussing things we know very little about at the moment. Even with the demo, I doubt we have enough specifics about the event system or personal storylines to decide which specifics to document. pling User Pling sig.png 18:41, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
We know of the general layout of how dynamic events work, it wouldn't hurt to get a basic idea or template sorted. ShadowRunner 19:02, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Figuring out the conditions and the different chains may not even be feasible, at least in some cases. Manifold User Manifold Neptune.jpg 19:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Based on what I saw on the demo videos, all events have names and/or descriptions. We can easily utilize those to document the events for article names. There also seems to be two kinds of events - hidden events which are triggered by players (talking to NPCs and picking up items were examples given by Martin over on Guru2) and then the dynamic events which are done automatically, whether or not players are there. This may change though, but that's how it is atm. The only issue I see comes when we note the order of events. It would take a long to denote all the possible outcomes - as by the sounds of it, for each event within a chain, there are at least 2 outcomes (win or loose) - so if there is a single chain line that is 5 events long (just an example), then each one has an outcome for win or lose, effectively doubling that number, and then each of those has an outcome for win or lose... and so on. The thing is, we don't know if win/lose means progressing or getting pushed back in the chain, or if it means that the chain goes into a different branch. We also don't know if how well one does during said event will be determining the next event - for example, in one video at Gamescom on the charr side, there was an event to prevent skritt from taking all of the pieces of siege weaponry and there was a "x pieces left" sign in the description - would the next event that takes place be determined by the number of pieces taken/saved, or is it just a "you win/you lose" situation?
tldr version: We know how to document single events, so long as they stay the same as in the demo, and we have events we can document (though not fully), but we don't know enough yet to know how to document event chains. -- Konig/talk 20:44, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not worried at all. GW2 has to be programmed by humans and they will not implement "1000000000000000000000" different outcomes for lack of time. I predict that it will turn out to be very simple if triggers such as Event X happens if Event Y was "win" or if Event Z was "win" which will be easy to document. --Xeeron 11:27, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
I'll do my best to unravel the dynamic events and put them on the Wiki. Plenty of time to create a system --User Karasu sig.png Karasu (talk) 11:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

It will be great if you can find away to work it out but at the same time i like the idea of not knowing whats going to happen ! But back to the point on how we would go about it we would have to work out how many Dynamic Events are happening at a point on the map and then work out how many diffenet out comes there are and then what runs off from that Event, it will take alot of playing time to see all the diffenet out comes and i have a feeling there will be alot but it will be fun doing it, :O) --Nezz 21:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Archive

Later, if there are no objections, someone else or I should archive everything from the "References" to "{{gww}} on skill pages." Let me know now if you feel any of the topics deserve to stay on as active discussions.--Emmisary 19:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Some of the topics have only been stalled due to lack of knowledge and should/will be picked back up when we learn more. MOstly being "Affiliations and Orders" to "Warband Categories" - excluding the GoA topic, which idk why it became stagnant... but it became a discussion on the spoiler tag, which is still very much relevant and is an incomplete discussion. -- Konig/talk 21:41, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Documenting the demo

Some questions:

  • How do you people would like to name the demo? I would like to make a category for screenshots from the demo, but I'm unsure what to call it. "Gamescom demo" doesn't feel right since we will likely see the exact same demo at PAX; "August demo" could mean a demo from any year; and "August 2010 demo" would be consistent with the trailer categories, but I'm not sure it's the best option.
  • Do you people think we should have an article for the demo? Currently it's kind of documented at the Gamescom article, but since the demo isn't linked exclusively to Gamescom, maybe it would be better to make an article only for the demo?
  • We just got a lot of [[:File:Bone_Minions_Icon_GC.jpg|very bad quality]] images from the demo which show only a skill tooltip. Is anyone opposed to deleting all of those images, since they don't really show anything beyond what we had already documented on the wiki?

Erasculio 12:03, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

First demo? Shatterer demo? Yes, I think a page would be appropriate for the demo because it's a very important event of pre-release GW2. I'd delete the skill tooltip pictures. Just keep some of the meatier pictures, like the one on attribute. Manifold User Manifold Neptune.jpg 15:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Expand the gamescom article to say what occurred there; document individual skills, characters, items, etc, on their relevant pages. I don't think a central article is needed to document the demo itself, but articles can be expanded/created for things in the demo. After all, it's just Guild Wars 2. Similarly, I don't think new categories are necessary. pling User Pling sig.png 19:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't feel a special documentation about the demo is necessary. It was just a part of the final game in a rather early state, and I guess most of the actual visible content didn't reach the public at all (given the sheer size of the demo content). I think it is fine to use the demo as base for documenting some things that will most probably make it into the final game and then just mention which areas were available in the demo. poke | talk 19:17, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I would like to make a category for the demo screenshots, considering how all other screenshots have a category right now; I think it's important to help people realize, when the game is released, why some screenshots look different from the final product, and mentioning they are from the demo would help in that. Erasculio 19:20, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
^ That, is a good idea. And on the subject, I think we should have an article for the demo. Basically a list of things that were available at each demo, the differences (if any) between the two and maybe after release the changes between that and the final product. --Naut User Naut Dark Blue Monk.png 19:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Sounds quite sensible to me. The demo at both conventions are quite popular, so it's only natural that people who couldn't make it wanting to know what it was like and what could be seen/experienced. - Infinite - talk 19:33, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
"Basically a list of things that were available at each demo, the differences [...]" - impossible. poke | talk 19:48, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Impossible how, please elaborate? - Infinite - talk 19:55, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
As I wrote above, the demo was simply too big for players to see everything, so it's impossible to even state where the demo content ended and where it just wasn't discovered. poke | talk 19:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
This is only applicable if the information had to come from 1 source. This is why the wiki is a community, so we can document all different shards of information? I don't see impossibilities, I see potential laziness. - Infinite - talk 20:03, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Did you play the demo? poke | talk 20:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
No, which is exactly why I'D like to see documentation about the demo. What are you getting at? - Infinite - talk 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
As you didn't play the demo, you will understand that it is hard for you to really imagine how big the actual content was. It definitely was impossible for the players to see everything, even if we gathered all people that were able to play it (which doesn't happen to begin with), it would be very unlikely that we got everything. Plus I don't really see how that helps at all, given that we can't give any source and the content is subject to change any day. poke | talk 20:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
So what you're saying is basically; you couldn't be there, thus you miss out completely? That's rather unfair. We have various live footage of various events on the first convention. Enough to document about. I can watch the videos and find more, sure. I just believe, as a wiki, we should also document as much as we can about the convention in regards to GW2. This includes the demo. There's a stub tag for a reason, isn't there? - Infinite - talk 20:16, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Sooo, category for the demo screenshots? If yes, name of the category? Erasculio 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Category:Demo photos or something? poke | talk 20:11, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
We don't need to cover every unseen detail of the demo, just what was found and reported by players. Manifold User Manifold Neptune.jpg 20:14, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I have a quick question since we will see the demo again at PAX in sept, will there be a distinction between the images from gamescom and PAX? Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 20:15, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
The demo will be the same, apart from some rather less visible bug fixes. poke | talk 20:17, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes the demo is the same, but the location may not be. So no distinction then. I don't think there should be one (due to the face that it will be the same source). I'm just curious for the naming of the cat (making sure things are considered). Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 20:19, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) x6 I'm not sure we will have only one demo, or if we will see a different demo later on (different as in, different content, or a different stage of evolution; the PAX demo will be the same thing, so I think it could use the same category). I think "Demo photos" would be too vague, and ArenaNet never gave the demo some kind of title (they just say "demo"). I was thinking of "August 2010 demo", since our trailers are within "August 2010 trailer", "December 2009 trailer" and so on, but all screenshot categories are actually the title of what they're from, not a description like that (it's "Category: Guild Wars 2 Teaser Trailer screenshots", and not "Category: December 2009 trailer screenshots"). Erasculio 20:23, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
*comes in late* I agree with Era that we shouldn't have a generic demo title for the category since we may see another one in the future - though that may be unlikely, it is possible. I don't think that, given how late in the year it is and due to the lack of gaming conventions (especially those which Anet goes to) after PAX in 2010, I don't think we need to document the month of the demo (especially considering that PAX is in September - unless I'm wrong on that - as that will get confusing to have them in the same category). (Side note: I recall someone from Anet (I think Colin?) saying in a video that everything in the demo will be in the game - with slight modifications done for the players' experience in the demo (such as the Shatterer appearing more often in the demo than in the final product) - keeping that in mind could affect how people want to document the demo, though probably not by much). -- Konig/talk 00:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Just call it Auguust 2010 (Gamescom) Demo or something. If any other demos come up make a category of them. Wiki people are so fussy.--Emmisary 00:07, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Pointless to have 2 categories for the same demo (gamescom and PAX). There's likely not to be a second demo in 2010, so just calling it "2010 Demo" would be enough imo. -- Konig/talk 00:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree, a simple Demo 2010 would suffice. And like has been mentioned, if another demo is released (not likely) then that bridge can be crossed later Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 00:40, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
"2010 demo" works (it fits better the "August 2010 trailer" categories than "Demo 2010"). I'm going to hit you people if ArenaNet releases a Sylvari demo with a completely revamped UI in december, though : P Erasculio 01:38, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
If that happens, we merely need a move. Not that big of a deal. Would seem silly to have "August 2010 demo" with no other 2010 demo. -- Konig/talk 22:18, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

GWW links on mechanics articles

When discussing about the GWW link box, the consensus reached was that it would be kept in lore articles (since those articles are documenting the same people and events between both games), and that it would not be kept at the skill articles, but rather replaced with a trivia note (since we have trivia notes documenting the origin of things like "For Great Justice!", therefore it makes sense to have notes documenting how the origin of a skill name comes from GW1).
However, we still have the GWW link box being used on mechanics articles, even when those mechanics have nothing in common between both games. One example is the Attribute article: GW2's attributes have nothing to do with GW1's attributes. To someone looking for information about the GW2 attributes, a link to the attributes article on GW1W doesn't really add anything, since it's not relevant to the newer game. I would then suggest removing all the GW1W links from mechanics articles documenting things that didn't carry over from GW1. Erasculio 12:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The only mechanic I can think of at this moment that should keep the {{gww}} template would be Minion. Outside that, I cannot think of any article where it is necessary - health, energy, etc. of course they'll be shared names between the game, it's not even really a trivia note for those; blood magic, soul reaping, those deserve a trivia note, but nothing more. That's my 2 cents. -- Konig/talk 22:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I have removed the link from all mechanics articles, with the exception of Titles (since the article is nearly empty, and some titles may return from GW1 anyway) and Minion (since Konig mentioned keeping it above). Erasculio 13:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Merging all skill lists with categories

It has been mentioned that categories aren't exactly the best tool for navigating around the wiki. Moving from an article to a category more often than not leads people to a half maze showing a list of names with no information about what those names actually convey.
In GW1W, more people use lists for navigation. We don't really have any skill list ready here yet; we have sketches, but I'm talking about the real deal. They show a lot of information about skills and allow quick browsing from the list to a specific skill... But they have the problem of not allowing people to navigate very well, since it's easy to go from the list to a skill, but not from a skill to the list.
I would like to suggest merging both functionalities. Instead of having a list of elementalist skills and an elementalist skills category, we could have a single article with both the list and the category tree, something like this: a tool allowing people to easily go from the article to a skill (through the list) and from a skill to the article (by using the category).
What do you people think? Erasculio 17:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep lists and categories separate. For those who do browse categories (not for navigation purposes but to organise the cats), it's harder to do so with a mammoth list before it. The category listing at the bottom of each article also isn't intuitive. Instead, have a GWW-style list page, and include a link to it in each skill's infobox. pling User Pling sig.png 17:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, categories should stay what they are. Also note that "the real deal" won't apply here for a longer while, until then I think the current lists (especially the elementalist one) are really great. poke | talk 17:57, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
On the GWW, from list to skil it takes scrolling/Ctrl+F to find the skill. They're alphabetical and sorted by attribute. This is convenient and easy to use. I now hit a random Air Magic skill. From there, I'd like to go back to the list, I hit "previous page" (or backspace). I do this again, but instead of going back directly, I hit various similar skills listed on each subsequent page. I'm about 10 clicks in and would like to go back to the list. I encounter a tricky problem; I can't find a direct link to the full list of Elementalist skills I was on initially. I hit Energy skills, a category. My eyes die. I hit Spells back on the page, my eyes die again. In a last-ditch attempt, I hit the Attribute in the skill infobox (or Air Magic skills, a category), as the Categories are: "Spells | Core skills | Air Magic skills | Energy skills | Elementalist skill rewards | Pre-Searing skills | Skills offered by hero skill trainers". I find a list/category leading to the list. I now have a list of Air Attunement skills in front of me. Some frantic browsing from that page leads no where, until I try to go back to the category Air Magic skills and find the category Elementalist skills. I get a new category with a lot of links on em, I start skimming and eventually find "List of elementalist skills". I click that, assuming I am saved. I am not. The new list I found has ALL elementalist skills on one big list, alphabetically ordered, but not sorted by attribute. I decide after all this trouble, I'd just use this list to continue browsing skills. I also wasted a few minutes frantically clicking away.
It's not a problem you'd like to keep lists and categories seperately, but we need to carefully check if browsing using categories is user-friendly. Because it is not very user-friendly on GWW. - Infinite - talk 18:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
"The new list I found has ALL elementalist skills on one big list, alphabetically ordered, but not sorted by attribute." Skills can be sorted by any of their attributes (not the game things) on GW1 list pages, and ideally the same will be true here.
Obviously category searching isn't for typical users, though, and I think we normally link to lists rather than categories in most cases (except the category lists at the bottom of pages). We could add a flashy disclaimer on category pages linking back to respective lists; I'm sure that would help unsuspecting users who accidentally stumble onto the categories. --Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png (Talk) 20:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
IMO, I think we should allow common users to navigate through categories; the fact that they don't do so is more a sign of how the category system of GW1W is bad than of how categories themselves are bad, IMO. After all, categories are useful for organizing content, sure, but I think such organization loses much of its value if all it's used for is creating DPL lists.
For the matter at hand, I agree with Pling's proposal ("Instead, have a GWW-style list page, and include a link to it in each skill's infobox"). Speaking more generally, though, I would like to keep categories here simpler than on GW1W. Having a single skill under "Enchantment spells - Core skills - Air Magic skills - Energy skills - Skills that target self - Elementalist skill rewards - Skills offered by hero skill trainers" categories feels a bit pointless, IMO: most of that information isn't used anywhere, and would only benefit users who were browsing through categories in order to learn about those things, but the same complex category tree is likely pushing users away from browsing through those categories. Erasculio 00:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
"Skills can be sorted by any of their attributes (not the game things) on GW1 list pages, and ideally the same will be true here." True, but if they're already sorted on attribute, you can then sort the skills of that attribute seperately, i.e: energy cost. We should order lists on attribute on GWW much like we should order them on weapon type on GW2W (in my opinion). - Infinite - talk 19:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, there are lists (and categories, iirc) for each attribute too.
While I thought Pling's idea was the same way on GWW (attributes were the only really useful narrowing method) I guess I'm fine with that. However, the infobox shouldn't be too cluttered, if you mean we should put more information there, such as targeting. --Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png (Talk) 02:42, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
My point, though, was the idea that whatever list we're using, shouldn't use sub-lists to make browsing easier. The main list should be the easiest to browse, or so my primary intuition tells me. Browsing turns into a maze, you can only make it have more dead-ends if you keep expanding options, hence you narrow it down to as broad a spectrum as possible. (Such as a list already sorted on attributes on GWW and something alike on GW2W in the future.) - Infinite - talk 02:47, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Help? Yes template linked

I am new to wikis. I wanted to improve the Weapons page by having those tick-marks link to the relevant Weapon-Profession-Hand page, eg Tick green.png, to jump to the skills. I thought it would be a really easy, minor and helpful little thing I could do. Could anyone help me out? Template previews don't seem to have any effect... I imitated an if code I found at wikipedia... but I could have sworn I got it working at some point. Thanks: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Template:Yes Shaun|Nox 09:38, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

NavboxInfobox + categories

Should we have a rudimentary navbox that will at least categorize skills? Namely, in case we decide to change category structure or naming. --JonTheMon 16:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean a navbox linking to the lists of skills for each profession? --Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png (Talk) 19:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
No, I mean a navbox that based on parameters it sets the categories. To have the box be visibly useful, yeah, that'd probably be a good idea. --JonTheMon 19:35, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I swear I couldn't understand your last comment. Are you talking about the automatic categorization that in GW1W is done by the skill infoboxes? Erasculio 19:40, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
If so, I'd be for that. Less work trying to categorize things. Also, would help solve the issue of navs for those that want it. Ariyen 19:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
OMFG..... *sigh* yes, I mean the auto-categorization done by the infobox. --JonTheMon 19:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
"I mean the auto-categorization done by the infobox" wouldn't we need infoboxes first? Which can't be done with the minimal information that we have. I know we're planning for the future, but we don't know how energy scales or anything about recharge times. But for the future discussion, I will +1 this suggestion. Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 20:28, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I strongly disagree, actually. I think the automatic categorizarion by the infoboxes is one of the worst mistakes of GW1W. As is being discussed elsewhere, the category system has to be complete, but not complex enough to the point of being useless. A category is only really useful to make DPL lists and to allow users to navigate through content; even helping to organize the wiki without any of those two roles would be useless. The skill categories at GW1W often don't serve any of those two purposes (has anyone ever seem a DPL list based on "skills that target self"?); in fact, there being too many categories on a page help only to confuse people. I think the current skill categories are enough. Erasculio 21:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
And what would be wrong with automatically applying the current skill categories, provided only the most specific subcat(s) are applied? Your objection seems to be with GWW's categories themselves, not with the fact they're (mostly) auto-applied. pling User Pling sig.png 21:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Though not particularly with skills, I have to back Era up on that the auto-categorization of GW1Wiki screwed up categories - mainly with species/affiliation bosses categories (those in the bosses category gets put in the species category), the gw1:category:animals, and a lot of locations. The auto-categorization is screwy when trying to categorize multiple things. So long as that is avoided with all templates, I don't have much reason to go against the auto-categorization though. -- Konig/talk 22:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
"And what would be wrong with automatically applying the current skill categories": that could work, as long as we kept a strict watch over it. At GW1W, it began with an infobox adding only a few categories, and soon dozen categories were added to the infobox, with some of them requiring people to tag skills at the wrong category just so more categories could be created. If we can prevent that kind of thing from happening here, I would be ok with the automatic categorization. Erasculio 04:52, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I can probably get the skill infobox to correctly categorize. Now, 2 questions: What categories do we want on skill pages, and do we want to update the look before deploying it? --JonTheMon 16:13, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
"What categories do we want on skill pages": we have been discussing it these last days. In fact, we have just implemented a new category system for the skill pages.
"do we want to update the look before deploying it?": depends, which of the current proposals are you talking about? Erasculio 16:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Oh, thanks for that discussion. The "current" discussion about the infobox look is at Template talk:Skill infobox. --JonTheMon 17:10, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Locations

Since the previous discussion was archived, feel free to read here for the original views. Basically, it was a discussion on how to organize Category:Locations. We know much more now. We have our regions - such as Kryta, Ascalon, Blazeridge Mountains, so forth. Then we have some larger locations - these would be the loading screen names (excluding the instances), such as Divinity's Reach, Blazeridge Steppes, Queensdale. Then we have the smallest zones, such as Claypool, Godslost Swamp, and so forth. The smallest zones don't have individual loading screen names, but rather names on the map akin to the explorable areas' names from GW1 - and are separated by similar zones.
So by this knowledge, how should we be documenting the areas? I suggest by going: Locations->Continent (no need until second release)->Region (Kryta, Ascalon, Etc)->Sub-region (loading screen names). Each section being named "Category: <location name> locations" and the smallest zones would be in their Sub-region's category. For example, the category tree to get to Godslost Swamp would be: Locations->Tyria locations->Kryta locations->Queensdale locations.
Likewise, locations seen/mentioned in books would be categorized as "Category:<book name> locations" directly underneath Category:Locations. Unlike gw1, I would suggest against having both continent-named main categories and campaign/expansion-named categories (there's essentially 3 of a kind in terms of location category trees over there... - mostly thanks to the auto-categorization of infoboxes).
Opinions? Thoughts? 2 cents? A penny? -- Konig/talk 09:48, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Half a cent and no more: I see you went ahead and made Category:Ghosts of Ascalon locations and I'm not sure I agree with its existence. Especially prior to release, it gives the impression that these locations only exist in the novels, and it looks like most of those locations are places we already know we'll be seeing in the game. I might be able to get behind it for locations that are only mentioned in the book, but I disagree with it as it stands. Honestly I think it'd be better to just have a list of such locations on the Ghosts of Ascalon page (perhaps in chronological order?) - Tanetris 10:33, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
The discussion for that category was pre-existent. Jeff stated that as many locations as possible from the book(s) will be returning in GW2. The document isn't to say "these only exist here" but rather "they are existent here" and nothing suggests otherwise. I removed the entries from Category:Locations because of the GoA locations category being a sub-category to the locations category. And to list the locations on the GoA page is a horrendous idea. -- Konig/talk 10:50, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Just to clarify, the entries in that category, if visited in game, will be put in their own other respective category (tree). They won't solely be in the GoA locations category. -- Konig/talk 10:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
That's... Not really a pre-existent discussion of this issue, so much as a discussion of something else where you brought up the category and one person agreed. Regardless. I understand your intentions, but in particular with your recommendation against campaign/expansion categories (which I agree with for now, though I'm sure that discussion will be revisited whenever the first expansion comes out and we see what we get there, but that's so far off it's not worth considering), for example ToA would be categorized Kryta and Ghosts of Ascalon locations. By the specific mention of Ghosts of Ascalon and the lack of other specific mention, it implies that it is only in Ghosts of Ascalon, when we already know from one of the gameplay demos that it is a visitable landmark. Consider Divinity's Reach. It's in GoA, right? And it would not be unreasonable to expect it to be in the next two novels? So it'd be categorized human settlements, Kryta, Ghosts of Ascalon locations, Edge of Destiny locations, Third Book locations, and... Nothing (so far) that actually relates to the game, despite it being a major in-game location. It doesn't make sense to emphasize the books so strongly over the game itself.
As for the list of locations, if we're assuming people will be curious about articles on locations that are visited in the book, a simple, organized list of links on the book's article is a better way to accomplish that than a category. If we're not assuming that, both the list and the category are fairly useless. Either way. - Tanetris 11:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
It's a pre-existent discussion as the category was brought up as a solution - there was no disagreement and one agreement, and there were four people in the discussion (GoA locations), there was also a 2-comment discussion here, in which Pling then brought it up in the first link. A discussion is a discussion so long as more than one person is part of it - we got 5. It's a discussion. No one disagreed so I went through with it - as should be done. It - as everything else - is up for discussion.
As for the "ToA would be categorized Kryta and Ghosts of Ascalon locations. By the specific mention of Ghosts of Ascalon and the lack of other specific mention" - like I said, that is not the final outcome. I merely removed it from Category:Locations because if there is an entry in a sub-category of the category in question, it shouldn't be in the category in question. There is no [[:Category:Kryta locations]] yet, but once one is made - once we know how we want the category tree to work (i.e., once this discussion is settled) - then it will be in such a kind of category and will not be solely in the GoA locations category.
The books won't get an emphasis over the game, they get 3 categories (one for location, one general, and one for characters) and the game gets, what, a category per release/region/loading map name/whatever? Oh yeah, the books get an emphasis over the game... It just looks like it right now because we know more about GoA than we do about GW2.
I am not necessarily against using campaign/expansion categories, but I'd like to not have a continent category, then a <game name> locations category, then also have a category for the individual different kinds of locations (some more) while not being in a Location types category, and within each type of location category has individual campaign/expansion categories for those types... which are also in their individual <game> locations category... I'd like to keep it just "main locations"->"Big locations"->"small locations within big locations"->"smallest locations in smaller locations" - no "x kind of locations" "y kind of locations" "z kind of locations" etc. It's redundant, unnecessary, pointless, and confusing. And personally I'd like to see a removal of the "Category:Settlements" - that's one of the things which is absolutely annoying about GW1's category tree. -- Konig/talk 00:24, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Clarification, clarification... I really do understand that you're intending to put pages in regional categories when they exist as well. However, the part of that point I think you're overlooking is that a regional category does not imply that something is in the game. A location in Kryta is a location in Kryta whether it's accessible in the game or only mentioned in the books. If there are any book-only locations, and we know what region it's in, I would expect it to be categorized in that regional category as well, so no, ToA being categorized as Kryta and Ghosts of Ascalon locations doesn't set it apart from a books-only location.
I wasn't trying to suggest that you'd acted inappropriately or hastily, but rather pointing out that there's no substantive arguments for or against to be found there. It's not an issue that's been debated to death already and I just missed the first round, just an unopposed proposal, which you went ahead with based on that lack of opposition. And that's perfectly fine. I have nothing against it procedurally. I object to the category strictly on its own merits, for the reasons stated above.
Locations by campaign/expansion categories, again, that's something I wouldn't want to see for now, and while I expect that to be re-discussed when there actually are expansions coming up, that's way too far off to speculate about now.
As for the rest... I'm not terribly concerned either way. Hence not offering an opinion on any of it. I neither support nor oppose. - Tanetris 01:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
If categorizing by the region one encounters an area in is not enough classification to state "this is in the game" - then how would one categorize it? This is a game wiki, so one would expect that, unless otherwise stated, the topic/subject would be in the game. Those that are not would be mentioned to not be so (book categories or "mentioned in..." on the article). Technically, we have no notion of where Caledon Forest, Bloodtide Coast, and other book-only locations would be (I suppose, for the moment, "Viewing Hill" and "Ascalon Basin" are book only, but their both surrounded by locations in the game... would be silly not to have them in). -- Konig/talk 02:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
"Not in the sense that we shouldn't inform users which outposts and areas receive a mention in GoA, but much more for the fact that the book is canon franchise and therefore in direct relation with the game. If anything, though, a list should be created on the GoA page or (and this is pushing it) as a note on the areas'/outposts' article pages. -Myself" This is what I think, I don't find it a much objectable solution, per sé. (I'm reading the book still, so I can't actually add to the lists as much as other readers can.) - Infinite - talk 15:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
A list on the GoA page sounds like a reasonable compromise. It's been said somewhere before (by Era I think), but what we don't want to see is a whole slew of cats on an article page. Though the book is important to document, it is not as important as the game itself. What I mean by that is that locations found in both books and game should be categorized on game locations only and not both. I support a list for GoA places on the GoA page itself, but I cannot support an entire cat for them. Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 16:00, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
A list on the GoA page would be worse, actually. It would clutter up the page unnecessarily and bring forth the desire to document other things there. The GoA locations category is done just like this which is actually preferred by the same people who suggested a list page before. Why should we make a list page? It would act exactly the same as a category, but without showing on the location's article where it came from. Why is one category so bad? It's not that I'm defending my idea, it's that I don't see how this single category, which means absolutely nothing in the long run except for adding one piece of documentation - a place where it is seen or talked about - on the wiki without making a big fuss. Would you rather have the pling-suggested "Locations in Ghosts of Ascalon" page which would replace all the small locations thus, if we hear of it in another book, will require the same thing to be put on a "Locations in Edge of Destiny"? Would you prefer the list on the GoA page just to make a duplicate on the EoD page? Or would you prefer a category that is out of the way, doesn't take up much space on articles, doesn't conflict with anything, and is perfectly fine once the locations are fully put in place?
Oh, and venom, don't say I didn't do the right thing as you made changes that wasn't fully agreed upon just to have them reverted by yourself. Despite what people think, not every comment - especially minuscule ones like the GoA locations was - should be put on the Requests for Comments.
Can we get back to the topic at hand and discuss about the locations instead of my "bad" category creation that no one disagreed with? (because, honestly, if we waited for multiple agreements either we're just going to hit a snag or never be able to do our work of documenting). -- Konig/talk 16:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I can agree with the Category if it does not conflict with the book documentation. I'm just wondering if it might be desired to do it for all areas mentioned or just the ones that didn't make it into the game (i.e: deserve special mentions). Of course, with a list of all locations mentioned in GoA for documentational purposes.- Infinite - talk 17:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) @Konig, take your personal business elsewhere. This is a discussion on locations not you or I. You have a problem with me, continue the discussion you already started on my page. "Why is one category so bad?" Adding one isn't, but adding one, then one, then one...then one can be bad. We should be looking at minimizing cats and not creating ones where a list is sufficient. "Would you rather have the pling-suggested...page" yes I would. If you feel that a page is too cluttered with a list of items, then create a page for a list. It becomes as simple as that. As long, of course, that you allow people to discuss said creation. Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 16:58, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I do feel mentioned areas in GoA but not in the game deserve their own articles, though. - Infinite - talk 17:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Venom, typically, I have nothing against you but you started a quite rude discussion on my talk page when this topic existed and it wasn't a question of clarification like I asked you. You're proving to be nothing but hypocritcal to me as it seems from your comments here and on my talk page that it is you who has something against me. What do I have? Annoyance at reading something where it should not have been and being completely baffled on how people support an idea without stating why it they think it is a better idea aside from pointing out the downsides of the opposing argument.
If locations have dozen+categories then please show me where they do. The link you provided is of an NPC that is in practically 50+ places, so yeah, that NPC's category list will be cluttered and it wouldn't be our fault. We'd just be documenting it. The list is a bad idea because 1) it cannot be easily searched, 2) it acts the same as a category while being less useful than one (as a category is linked to each article that is within said category, while a list page is not - or they both are but the list page is out of place in the article, making it an eyesore), and 3) isn't disruptive to a page (even if there are 50+ categories, there is a reason why the categories are at the bottom of a page). -- Konig/talk 17:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I think the lists vs categories has been done to death. "1) it cannot be easily searched" sure it can. A properly made list can be filtered by heading. "2) it acts the same as a category while being less useful than one" the term less useful is perhaps subjective. Both have their uses. A list can hold a small synopsis of the town/location, a list could also have inhabitable creatures for easy navigation. I do agree that having a properly formatted list would be an eyesore, linking to it from the GoA page would not be. Having too many categories on a page is ugly looking. If we can minimize the amount of categories while still maintaining a decent amount of searchability, then all should be accomplished. I cannot see this category being used very much at all when the game comes out, at least not to the extent that you'd get more info than a list. It would only serve to clutter the pages. Just to be clear I'm not talking about this kind of list, I'm talking about something more like this Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 19:40, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

irc

→ moved from Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Admin noticeboard

just a heads up, i've registered the irc channel gw2w, and am willing to give ops status to ops on #gww, or other 'important' channels. As well as new proven worthy ops. Any further discussion? — Scythe 23:30, 27 Sep 2010 (UTC)

Gw2w has been registered 3 times now, I'm not sure how it keeps coming back. Felix Omni Signature.png 23:45, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
caps. — Scythe 23:50, 27 Sep 2010 (UTC)
not caps, inactivity? — Scythe 23:55, 27 Sep 2010 (UTC)
Nobody's really interested in making a separate channel for it, for two reasons - firstly, it would be the same people idling in both channels, so why would we need two, and secondly, there isn't enough srsbzns discussion to warrant a second channel (i.e., it can be held in the current one just fine). I registered the channel years ago and we all decided it was a waste of time, and I think Pling did once as well, and we let it die then, too. Pretty much everyone's just gonna stick with gww. -Auron 02:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
well, its there for any1 that wants to to use it. — Scythe 2:40, 28 Sep 2010 (UTC)
“and I think Pling did once as well” – Irigible did, and after that expired, I did as well, and after that it quietly died (and much later Ariyen registered it again I think).. poke | talk 20:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
It turns out Ariyen did #gw2. It still exists. Never mind, her userpage says gw2w. But #gw2 does exist. Felix Omni Signature.png 22:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
i think 'my' version of #gw2w is here to stay, tis fun times in there. — Scythe 22:27, 29 Sep 2010 (UTC)

Speed

is bad. I'm waiting for seven tabs to open. Dial-up was better.

This is the sixth wiki I've visited today, so I'm betting the problem isn't at my end. User A F K When Needed Signature Icon.jpg A F K When Needed 12:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I find that if you click the link a second time it will load normally. Still a pain, but better than waiting several minutes. Manifold User Manifold Neptune.jpg 14:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Reloading or re-clicking, yeah. --ஸ Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png 18:16, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, thankies much for tip.
But... is this going to be permanent? Because I'm not sure if the wiki has freed itself from loading issues in the years it has been around.
Which, sometime in 2014, will start to actually matter. User A F K When Needed Signature Icon.jpg A F K When Needed 18:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
See Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:Reporting_wiki_bugs#Trouble_loading_pages_since_server_move --Xeeron 19:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Wanted pages & Unused files

The purpose of Special:WantedPages is to allow contributors to know which articles are needed the most, and work on making them. Once in a while it creates some confusion (one time, at GW1W, a guy began making all the articles at Wanted Pages by simply making empty pages with a stub tag; that isn't exactly the point), yet it may be an useful tool. At GW1W it became worthless, though, and here it's following a similar path, as the Wanted Pages list is slowly being filled by articles which are, well, not wanted. Currently it's filled mostly by old links to old policies from talk pages, and other outdated links also mostly from talk pages. IMO, we need to remove those links from there in order to keep the Wanted Pages as something useful. I think we have mostly four options:

  1. Editing all talk pages and fixing those links. Many are from pages which have been moved, some (like the Abaddon article) could be replaced by links to GW1W or simply removed, and so on. However, we usually try to avoid editing people's comments at talk pages, and that's what we would have to do in order to apply this fix.
  2. Get someone to implement the [[self:]] links here at GW2W. It works at GW1W, and it allows the creation of links that do not appear on the Wanted Pages list; while of course we would not replace all links in the wiki for such links, we could use them to replace the links to pages which are not wanted and which are filling the Wanted Pages list.
  3. Doing nothing and just levaing the issue alone.
  4. Some other option I haven't thought about.

A different issue happens with Special:UnusedFiles. It's currently filled with user images which are not being used on the wiki. On GW1W, all such images were tagged for deletion and, if the owner didn't say anything for 3 days, the images were deleted. I'm wondering if you people would be willing to do a similar thing here, in order to avoid having all those orphaned images just left around here. Erasculio 21:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

You could just ask the user for the UnusedFiles situation. As for the WantedPages, I'm not entirely familiar with how that works (I know that redlinks make it appear, but nothing else), nor with what your suggestions would do. Would you mind explaining? --ஸ ķ̌ɎǾshĺ User Kyoshi sig.png 22:02, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Maybe later when the wiki is actually up and running. Alot of users aren't active here, and I'm sure if their images are tagged for deletion, the will not protest solely because they aren't here. I know that I have images that are unused that I uploaded, but that's only because I planned ahead, but don't have the pages yet to use them on. At this time, I think the pile of unused images should just remain as they are. Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 22:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with that either while the game isn't out for a while, but if nothing is done they'll just accumulate and the ones that don't have plans will just not get used. We should try to take care of the mess a little bit where there's mess to be found. Ask users whether they plan to use orphaned images, and if they don't respond, then leave it for now. Switch the default to deletion after X amount of time after game release. --ஸ ķ̌ɎǾshĺ User Kyoshi sig.png 22:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
Change the links. Felix Omni Signature.png 22:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't think changing all redlinks constantly (because this will have to be done time and time again)to improve Wanted Pages is worth the effort. There are better things people could be spending their time on. Similarly for orphaned images - space isn't saved by deleting images, and unlike articles, user images are in the userspace, so there's not really a need to clean things up other than for cleanliness' sake. pling User Pling sig.png 22:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
I'd have to agree greatly with Erasculio (!) that this is an issue and I also agree Pling does have a point that it's not entirely worth the effort, due to the lack of using the Wanted Pages for its purpose. However, I do not think it should be ignored. As such, I'd think that if the reason for editing others' comments (user space, talk space, or other) was for reducing the Wanted Pages, then it should be allowed. Whether this be through fixing a typo or merely adding nowiki tags around the link - as people make links when suggesting a title page for an article move or creation on talk pages - is up to the situation and/or the person. But effectively, I'm merely saying that there should be an exception to the rule of not editing others' comments in order to clean this issue up.
For the Unused files situation, I say go with the 3-day deletion thing. If they truly are wanted for one reason or another, then the person can either take down the deletion (rather than refuting it), or re-upload it. In fact, I'd say add a new parameter to the deletion tag so that it would be done like {{delete|image}} or something of the like, to show that there's no need to discuss the deletion tag - likewise, it may be worth it to increase the waiting period from 3 to say a week - since people won't always be getting on the wiki, they'd probably prefer a longer warning period. -- Konig/talk 23:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
I seem to think it can be botted. Felix Omni Signature.png 00:28, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
It looks like something that a bot can do. But I don't mind looking into it if I can spare some time. Won't be anytime soon, but maybe in a few months when I have less to do. Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 00:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Option 4: Remove the right of normal users to access Special:WantedPages because WantedPages never gave any benefit before but only caused more or less drama with users trying to clean that list up. If a page is on WantedPages it is a non-issue. If a user comes across a red link, he might create that page if it is necessary, otherwise he will just ignore it. Regarding unused images I would say ignore the issue for now. poke | talk 08:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
@poke: Killing the patient to cure the disease is not exactly the best medicine in the world. It's not a surprise you don't see the benefits of Wanted Pages - you wouldn't see it, as people who create one or two pages based on it hardly make an edit summary saying "This is due to Wanted Pages" in all caps.
@everyone else: at GW1W, people created a category for user images which were not in use but were still wanted by their owners. I don't remember exactly the name of the category, but I think we could make something similar here, and ask people to move unnused files they would like to keep there, deleting everything else. I wouldn't mind waiting until Venom has time to work on a bot for this kind of thing (as well as giving people a long time, like a month, to make the category change), though. I think most images we are going to delete are GW1 images, since plenty of people arrived here and tried at first to make a copy of their GW1W or GuildWiki page here. Erasculio 21:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Removing comments from talk pages

At GW1W, policy says we cannot remove comments from talk pages. Here, we have no policies; and so, without the need for a black or white "you can" versus "you cannot", I'm hoping we could reach some better kind of consensus than what was done at GW1W.
I propose we allow people to remove comments from their own talk pages if that comment has no relevance to the wiki. Therefore, if someone goes to my talk page and states "What's up?" I would be allowed to remove it, but if someone went to my talk page and said "Stop trolling or you will be blocked", I wouldn't be allowed to remove it.
My main goal is to avoid situations in which the first contact a new user has with the community is to be told he/she is violating a policy. Often we have the following chain of events:

  1. User registers.
  2. User makes a simple user page.
  3. Someone plasters a "Welcome to the wiki!" template at the user's talk page.
  4. The user removes the template.
  5. Someone else puts the template back there and tell the user he/she is violating a policy, as we are not allowed to remove content from talk pages.
  6. The user removes the template again and explains how it's not wanted.
  7. Other users add the template back and antagonize the new user with threats of being blocked.
  8. More drama issues.

While such process has the advantage of pointing out drama-prone users very early, it does unnecessarily antagonize people who could become useful contributors once in a while. Simply allowing users to remove some comments from their talk pages (as in, welcome messages, chat between people who know each other, and etc) would prevent this kind of thing.
The obvious counter to this argument is that people will begin removing anything from their talk pages, even wiki related content that should not be removed. That kind of thing already happens, anyway: it's no secret that we have users who archive within seconds anything they don't like, and remove comments here and there while calling anyone with a different opinion "vandals". Those more problematic users are going to give trouble whether they are allowed to remove content from their talk pages or not. Erasculio 00:56, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

If it is just the user's own talk page, there's no need tbh. Archiving is there for a reason. So long as you don't do what Neil did on GW1W (try to constantly keep an empty talk page, for whatever reason), then there shouldn't be an issue. (P.S. Can we archive some discussions? This page takes like 5 minutes to load and freezes up my browser while doing so...) -- Konig/talk 05:09, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Though I've had non related wiki talk on my talk page, I've archived it. I don't see a problem with archiving anything as long as it's not too soon (btw - how soon is too soon?). I do see a problem with people removing items, etc. as that could escalate and cause more issues (Yea, I've been on the other side of that fence - so I can relate now and understand). I do feel that It should be removed, only if it's pure vandalism and even that is vague. Ariyen 23:01, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
I would like to be able to delete stuff without archiving at my discretion. Nothing bugs me more than little policy busy-bodies telling people that their spammy hello's, welcome templates and bad jokes have to be immortalized in an archive for all time. It is pointless and counter productive. I could understand warnings and in progress discussions having to stay or admins being asked to keep easy to access records of queries made in an administrative context on their talk pages. I've always strongly believed a restrictive talk page policy causes more trouble than the archive is worth. The only archived pages I've tried to use (Gaile, Regina, Lindsey) I can find jack all in anyway because it is impossible to search and all context and chronology is destroyed.
When I think about the poor arenanet staff on gww. I swear the anal talk page archiving requirements coupled with the insane amount of petty dross which ended up on their pages contributed to the fact we just don't see them around any more. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 23:39, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Anything I could possibly add to this would be about the ability to remove specific types of subjective content, but since there is (obviously) no way to objectify subjective content, it would be hard. As per my actual suggestions: users should have free reign (deletion, archiving, whatever) of their talk page, excluding active and/or wiki related discussions. For example, firsts do not better the user, the person who posted it, or the wiki, so they could be deleted and/or archived as the user sees fit. Wiki related discussion, such as discussing the edits a user has been making, warnings about transgressions, and other discussions that contain information relavent to the game or to the wiki (and/or the community), must be kept available in archives. For talk pages in the main space, spam, trolling, speculation and other things that do not better the wiki nor the page can be deleted, while things that were important/relavent can be archived. In short: for the main space: relavent=archive, useless=deletion; for the user space: relavent=archive, useless=personal choice of either archival or deletion. Aquadrizzt (talk)(contribs) 00:27, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Twas thinking about why we keep warnings. Usually because we want them to stick on the page for a little while as evidence of action and allow comment? Are there other reasons?
If that's the reason perhaps a good alternative could be for any comment/section of any wiki topic to be delete fodder 7 days after the last comment on the topic. Personal or obvious spammy stuff could be deleted sooner. That's even easier, if you aren't sure which is which just wait the 7 days. Warnings are only as useful if they are timely, IMO. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 00:43, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) As per my reasons, the reason to keep the important stuff (such as warnings, explanations of bans, or game/wiki related actions) in archive is to make it easier to review the stuff that is relavent. The stuff that is not relavent isn't really needed anyways... Aquadrizzt (talk)(contribs) 00:48, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I said the same thing above about tracking things above - but my opinion is still in flux on this (all I know is I really don't like archives). I've never reviewed normal user archives for warnings or any sort of wiki related chit-chat. I suppose it could be useful for an admin so I guess it would be better left to those who would actually use them to say if it is useful to have an archive of such things? -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 01:05, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
It is. Having an archive (or several) makes it easier to look through old talk pages for useful/informative sections, admin warnings, block reasons etc, compared to looking only at the history page (which can be a nightmare, even while viewing 500 edits at a time). -Auron 05:20, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Auron. In view of that, I guess I'd rather the guideline be that all interesting wiki related stuff is archived than we make a user archive a distasteful list of warnings and scoldings from the community. I still agree with Erasculio's main point. I don't want people to be jumped all over for deleting what amounts to spam or simple personal conversations. -- Aspectacle User Aspectacle.png 22:08, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) And how about removing content from common talk pages? This kind of comment is something which doesn't really belong at where it was created (if this were a forum, a random person's opinion about GW2 could be relevant, but as far as discussing the main page or even documenting the game, that's useless). Would the wiki be any worse if that comment were simply deleted, instead of archived? Erasculio 21:35, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps education is in order and a move from the topic to IP's discussion page. I agree that it doesn't benefit the wiki in any way, I sort of disagree that the comment should be deleted altogether. IP just wants to voice some opinions. This isn't a vandal (I suppose it could be, but it's better than arbitrary links or phrases to sell things). His/her opinions and views are no better nor lesser than any of our own. Venom20 User Venom20-icon-0602-sm-black.png 21:57, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
IMO, his/her opinion is worse than your own, in this specific context - his/her opinion was stated at the wrong place, while your opinion above was stated in the proper place. If it had been you to make the same comment the IP did, at the same place, I would also argue to have it deleted.
I would rather delete it (we don't even know if the IP is interested in learning about the wiki, or if he just wanted to vent a bit in and be gone), but moving it would be a good enough compromise. Erasculio 22:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
Move it to the Ip's talk page. Simple. Otherwise deleting it could have more complaints, wiki-lawyering, etc. Why not just make all happy and have it moved to the proper place? There's no harm in that and it solves the issue of "wrong place", cause I prefer just to delete actual vandalism. I would not want someone to delete a message I left, just because it was in the wrong place. It is nicer when someone puts it in the right place. After all this whole section, I feel, should be in the PP area and not here. As this is about practices here and not a community portal thing. 72.148.31.114 01:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Skill infoboxes

What was the decision for this, or were we waiting for more gameplay stuff? ShadowRunner 19:47, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I think we were waiting, but I'm not entirely sure. --ஸ Kyoshi User Kyoshi sig.png 19:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I thought it was that a discussion on the design was going underway, but implementation would be on hold until we had more information in case of the need to change it. -- Konig/talk 23:30, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

GW2W:PP on becoming a sysop

Given that practices and processes mentions nothing on how users go about becoming sysops (besides saying that bureaucrats just promote sysops), how would a user go about asking for sysop rights on the wiki? Our past methods of grandfathering and asking off-wiki are becoming obsolete due to the expanding community. So, would a user ping a bcrats talkpage with a WoT and everyone would fill that talkpage with comments? Would the appropriate place to ask be the user's own talkpage?
If I were seeking sysophood, where would be the most appropriate place for me to ask for sysophood? Where would be the most appropriate place for the community to judge me? --Riddle 19:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

If your asking to dive head-first into a shark pool, go >here< --Neil • User Neil2250 sig icon5 Anti.png 20:00, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, this subject was inspired by that discussion, yes. --Riddle 20:26, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I do believe the current thought process is that the sysops will be the ones to choose new sysops. And yeah, I was going to ask the same thing at some point... Aquadrizzt (talk)(contribs) 23:33, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure once this wiki becomes larger, there will be a time for some fixing; however, not right now because everything seems fine as it is right now. Just my opinion. - Lucian Shadowborn User Aios sig.png 01:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
My understanding is... If you wish to become a sysop or want someone to become one, bring it up on the Admin Noticeboard talk. How... Is actually the most interesting question. My opinion would be pros and cons. If the pros outweighs then it'd be up to the 3 b-crats (also if others agree more than disagree, like more than almost 50/50 - i'd say like 70% for example.) Something to that effect, throw out the joke nominations, etc. far easier that way. Just I don't know, but it's what I think as a temporary thing. Same thing for like a re-sysop thing or on one who is a sysop, etc. Either that or the person's talk and a link in requests for comment. Have all this last for at least a week. After a week, the B-crats can then end it all. 72.148.31.114 01:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Realistically, there's no single right or even best answer (if there was, it'd probably already be in PnP). There are probably some wrong ones (off-hand, putting "Hey, make me a sysop!" in all your edit summaries, while likely drawing attention to the request, probably wouldn't get the results you'd presumably want). Can you post on the admin noticeboard talk page? Sure. Post on a bcrat's talk page? Maybe. I probably wouldn't mind (unless it gets excessive) but others might. Post on your own talk page and ping bcrats toward it? Sure. Make a (sensibly named) page in the GW2W namespace for it and ping RFC with the link? Why not.
All that said, the more important point than finding a place to ask for sysop is showing that you would be a good sysop. That means standing out, not because you're trying to stand out but because you've earned the respect (note: not the same as like) of your fellow editors. Showing trustworthiness, calm in tense situations, reasonability and responsibility. Not to put too fine a point on it here, but if I'd seen anyone like that around, I would've approached them, or at least approached another bcrat, and I think so would the other bcrats if they saw any. Maybe we're not looking hard enough, but...
I will say that I don't believe any hard and fast numbers (51% of this or 2/3rds of that or 3:1 ratio of the other) are useful to the process. Even on GWW, the numbers are (supposed to be) treated as no more than a rough guideline. The benefit of RFAs on GWW and GWiki is in its organization far more than the easy access to numbers (which is at best a mixed blessing). One impartial, detailed, well-reasoned support or oppose or even neutral is worth a hundred "I like him/her!"s. Just throwing that out there. - Tanetris 13:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
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