User talk:Stephane Lo Presti/April-December 2012

Image Request

I was wondering if we could get the hole set of these images I know there is one for all 5 of them. thanks - Zesbeer 23:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the super late reply, I just forgot to reply to you. This is not a set of picture that we're currently offering to the public. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 00:01, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Bug Report

Hi Stephane, I was wondering if there is a way to report any bugs. When going through screenshots and recordings after beta, have found a few small things. Some typos, radar location name reading seeming off... But forums have closed before noticing these. Would you like these posted anywhere? Kenrid 03:24, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

A great way to start "reporting" bugs is by using the templates {{bug}} and {{sic}} (for game bugs and typos respectively) on wiki articles. After that, there will be categories that group all bugs and text errors; a great way to keep track of bugs to report when the forums are up and running. - Infinite - talk 10:15, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Apart from following what Infinite said, I'd suggest that you wait until the next beta weekend event to see whether these were fixed. And if not, simply use the GW2 forums. Thanks! --Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Copyright text

Might I point you to the small discussion on Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Community portal#Copyright text regarding the text that is shown below the edit box. I simply want to know if what we have now really is legally sufficient and clear enough for our editors, especially new ones. - anja 12:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me to that Anja, I'll add it to the list of topics I need to discuss with our legal expert. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:09, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent)FYI I answered the question on the discussion above, thanks Anja!--Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:07, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Possibly related: The general disclaimer needas updating: Guild Wars 2 Wiki:General disclaimer. It needs to reflect that the game is released and information is public. I think this document is best edited by legal experts? Or at least we should have som e feedback on it from them first :) - anja 15:59, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

MW upgrade and SMW

Sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you could provide an update on the status of the MW 1.19 upgrade and SMW install. Tanetris mentioned a few weeks ago that you were aware of the requests, but I haven't heard anything since then. If you could at least move the requests on Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Requests for technical administration to the appropriate section (whether that's "being considered" or "pending install"), that would ease my worries a bit. Thanks! —Dr Ishmael 13:48, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about the silence due to a host of other things that are of higher priority. It's something I've been working on for a little while but intermitently and our tech team also had an issue that they haven't had the time to look at yet. It's "in progress" and I'll see what status to assign this request. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:09, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Understandable, thanks for the reply. I had really hoped to have SMW available before the next beta (and the accompanying flood of new information) in order to set up some Semantic Forms that would help inexperienced users to add information and to keep articles standardized. I guess I'm spoiled from GuildWiki, where I have commit access to Curse's code repository and can work directly with their staff to get new extensions installed quickly. —Dr Ishmael 16:21, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Non-English wiki support?

Hi, I want to point you to an ongoing discussion about possibly introducing interwiki linking between this wiki and other non-english wikis that are translations of this wiki. Can you consult with Anet's legal team if this is something that can do or should do, or if there are any new plans to host other non-english wikis? Thank you! --Lania 19:50, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I'll add that to the list of topics I have to discuss with our legal expert. Thanks for reporting this to me. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 23:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Meeting with the wiki community

This is the talk for discussing the recent news I posted about meeting with the wiki community. Thanks for sharing your constructive opinion below. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 22:27, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Hello. I think the discussions would work more efficiently if they were held separately for GW1W and GW2W. The two sites have different communities and, more importantly, they are currently in very different moments of their existence. There are many concerns regarding the GW2 wiki that would not apply to the GW1 wiki, and the other way around. Erasculio 00:17, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Eras; many of the same people will attend both, though. 01:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I think it's important to collect transcripts for those who're interested in what's said but can't make it to any/all of the times? -- aspectacle  02:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Are you asking us to tell you what you think? 02:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Obviously! O_O Logs are important. Are we going to be able to collect them? -- aspectacle  02:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Most IRC clients support logging, so pretty much anyone could capture the logs. —Dr Ishmael 02:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

EC Agreed. Inclinations towards acknowledging the separate identities of the two aside, though there are some that are a part of both and certainly more that would be curious as to the happenings on the other, I think that in practical and productive terms that it might be a little more straightforward for discussion and treatment of information (especially in terms of revisiting any logs) if the chats were separated. If it would help to preclude any 'oh, we should have discussed that, too' topics from one to another, it might be useful to do an more specific advance posting of things to be covered for each Wiki should there be any differences. Redshift 02:22, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

We could start a separate discussion to cover what we want to discuss with Stephane.

I'm wondering about the structure of each of the three meetings. Would each meeting cover the same topics or if a topic is discussed in an earlier session it is considered discussed? I could imagine that different attendees at each meeting could mix up any decision making process if the same topics came up several times. Would these gatherings get enough of a quorum of contributors to actually make a consensus decision and have it stick? Wikis have always been about a slow simmer toward consensus and wall of text wars and this doesn't really fit with that decision making model. (I don't mind that, btw) -- aspectacle  02:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I think we need to know what exactly he wants to talk about. to determine if we need to split the discussions into gw2w and gw1w. I do agree that we need the transcripts posted. i also think that we need to go into this with the fact that the wiki is ran by the players.- Zesbeer 05:03, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm hesitant to have any consensus-making discussions on IRC, since the discussions only last while they're actually happening, it's harder to read old discussions via logs than on wiki pages, sometimes it gets loud and confusing with many people talking at the same time, and it's not as easily accessed as the wiki. However, if Stephane finds IRC easier for the topics he wants to discuss (I'm guessing he does, or else he wouldn't have suggested it), I'll go along with it. I hope it doesn't become a regular occurrence though. If I'm there, I'll log all of it so it can be put up on the wiki (and if I'm not, someone else will no doubt do it). pling 19:48, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm with Pling on this one. One of the reasons why consensus on a wiki is "usually" successful is because it takes a loooong time and it gives people a lot of time to mull over things and look at it objectively rather than making decisions on the spot and get carried away with the excitement of the moment. I am hoping that any discussions that take place would be things like long term goals or questions about back end support and other things that won't generate immediate sweeping changes or consensus. If there is a IRC consensus about something It should definitely come back to the wiki for further discussion before implementation. I might make one of the times but I'll likely just be logging and stalking the chat rather than participate in it.

As far as what needs to get discussed... a). Maybe how to get better back end support with more timely mediawiki upgrades etc. Or the possibility of having someone like poke to have access to the wiki server for software upgrade purposes and installing extensions. b). How to get more Anet people to become active users of the wiki with out them getting trolled off the wiki like how it happened on GWW. c). Long term mission as far as what Anet intends to do with the wiki. d). Integrate mobile friendly or mobile-centric features for the wiki. That's all I can think of at the moment :P. --Lania 20:36, 01 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we could agree to 'hurry' a consensus (or something like it) to any topic Stephane marks as important within a shorter period (a week, less than a week?) with view to supporting ArenaNet with getting ready for release. Allowing pure 'wiki time' probably doesn't play nicely which any schedule he might be working to. -- aspectacle  22:09, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

getting consensus on a wiki is like teaching a grawl multiplication- Zesbeer 22:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

You know, this is why they invented polls. It might be a good idea to introduce that on here. --Ee 05:55, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Voting has never worked well on wiki environments. Plus voting =/= consensus and circumvents discussion. --Lania 19:23, 02 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your early feedback. I'd like to remind all that it's a first for me, and probably for a lot of editors. So let's discuss this as such: an attempt, with the goal to be productive and the aim to make it better next time. I want to do more than one of this kind of meetings, but I don't want commit to regularity until I understand better how it works.

About the points mentioned above:

• Separate GWW and GW2W meetings: would it be acceptable to have the first 30 minutes for GWW and next 30 for GW2W? (note: I don't like to see the 2 communities as different, since a lot of things overlap, but I understand the need to have separate meetings)
• Logs: I agree that we should post them here, but I won't be able to do that given that I have to focus on organizing and discussing; if any member wants to do it, go for it and let us know;
• The 3 discussions: they'd cover similar things, the goal is to offer different times to cover more time zones, nothing more; (yes there'll be a lot of repetition but it'll mostly be my burden, I want to offer a lot of editors the opportunity to speak their opinion and provide varying viewpoints, provided that everyone accepts that I can't satisfy everyone)
• Wall of text wars: they can continue fine outside of meeting I'm proposing ;) more seriously this is a first and we'll see how it goes; I'll remind everyone of the need to focus, acting as some kind of moderator of the discussions;
• Agenda: I'll provide an agenda before the meeting;
• Consensus-making discussion: I'm not sure if this is even possible on IRC, given how wiki communities like to usually make decisions; that's not exactly my goal, although I'd like that; I'll communicate some important information and will gather feedback on a few things; I will ask the community to continue the discussion on particular topics, the way it's usually done on the wiki; I understand that the community usually takes time to discuss issues at length and this format is not conducive to this, however I see these topics as high level and where some traction is needed; bear in mind (again) that it's a first and we should not over-prepare this, it's not a wiki but a chat; if it's not working this way, we'll try another one that better fits the community (I'm open to suggestions).

Thanks. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 22:56, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll just note that I'll most likely be able to be present for all three times (even if semi-idling through one or two of them) and will absolutely post logs if no one beats me to it. Either way, I'm sure there will be plenty of people logging at each meeting to ensure that someone gets them up. Documenting is what we do, after all. ;) - Tanetris 00:06, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a great plan. And thanks for splitting up the GW1/GW2 meetings. Both wikis are pretty different with regard to contributors and content structure, though by all means, it definitely wouldn't hurt for GW1W contributors to provide input during the GW2W meeting. I should be able to attend all three too, though the first one is a little questionable due to me commuting to/from class.-- shew|make 01:40, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

a week away

so this being a week away have you stephane made any plans?- Zesbeer 01:54, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes but I haven't had the time to write them down in detail yet, I'll do that tomorrow. In short: we meet as I described in the post on IRC, first 30 mins for GWW and next 30 mins for GW2W.--Stephane Lo Presti talk 03:59, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

IRC commands/OPs

Not sure whether this meetup is about to become more regular, but in any case: Please make sure that people know the IRC commands when they become channel OPs. Coming back from AFK to see that you are banned because the channel OP didn't know how to register the channel and solved the problem by banning everyone present is somewhat unprofessional.

For the record: The command you were aiming for is /kick, not /ban. --Xeeron 20:01, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, this ban was only done so that I can regain control of the channel and register it (kicking didn't work due to your client auto-rejoigning). You've been unbanned. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 20:03, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

It was the other guy (Naut) who kept rejoining, not me, but I see where this started now. Thanks for the unban. --Xeeron 22:36, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Transcripts

Discussion 1, 17:00 UTC, 10am PDT: User:Dr ishmael/IRC wikichat 20120613a. pling 19:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the note Pling. Is this going to be made available or linked to on the Guild Wars Wiki? I'll probably post a news tomorrow linking to all content about these logs. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:47, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I've added a note on gw1:Guild Wars Wiki:Community portal. Since you're going to compile a list of logs later, I won't add a link on your GWW talk page. pling 19:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

This sounds good. I think the more the better, to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to see them. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I did then :P pling 19:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• Log 2: User:Dr ishmael/IRC wikichat 20120613b
• Log 3: User:Dr ishmael/IRC wikichat 20120613c

—Dr Ishmael 21:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing these probably shouldn't remain in my userspace permanently, but where should they go instead? Stephane's userspace? GW2W-space? —Dr Ishmael 00:31, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for making these available. IMO, these discussions about GW2W belong in GW2W space (although SLP led them, the info/decisions are independent of him). I imagine that there might be other such convos, too, perhaps led by someone else. Perhaps creating a discussion archive specifically for IRC convos, with topic headers.

Separately, would anyone object if I added some formatting to make these easier to read? Specifically: color SLP's text, add headers when there's a topic change, and include a ToC. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I won't object to any formatting to make it easier to read because at the moment it hurts my eyes @_@. I also agree that these particular IRC chat logs should go to the main space. But if there are other IRC discussions that is not hosted by Anet exist, they should not go to the main space, and instead should remain in the user space. Also thanks for making these available since I was not able to attend the meeting. --Lania 18:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, what Lania said: I meant ANet-hosted sessions (unless we have a formal GW2W, announced-in-advance, community pow wow, which I don't think is likely). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:27, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The new discussions

• List of fansites
• Mobile version

Other discussions that can be started mainly regard internal wiki protocols, which should not directly need to be linked here (documentation, mostly). - Infinite - talk 21:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

wiki updgrade/SMW

Just wondering if you have any updates on how the testing for the wiki upgrade was coming along. Now that we know the release date, and it's only 2 months away, I'm starting to get a little worried about how much time we'll have to set up our SMW framework before then. —Dr Ishmael 15:55, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I asked the team about this yesterday and have no news so far. I understand your concerns and I'm doing my best to bring this to you as soon as possible. Whenever I've got more information, I'll make sure to share it with you. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 15:57, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Now we're down to 1 month left. Any news? —Dr Ishmael 21:38, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. I wish I had some but it's proving more complicated than I hoped. I'm doing everything I can and, as I said, as soon as I get some news I'll let you know. Sorry about that. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 22:22, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Could we just go ahead and get SMW installed without waiting for the MW upgrade? —Dr Ishmael 20:38, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

From what I was told, it doesn't look like an option. I'm investigating how we could speed up the process around this but there are other backend stuff that may not allow us to do this as quickly as I wished. I'm really sorry about these delays, I know how important SMW is to you and this wiki, and I consider SMW as a top-priority for GW2W but I'm doing the best I can do get it here as fast as possible. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 18:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Rudhraighe 19:23, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Hoping to have SMW installed here before launch. :) – Valento ^msg 18:28, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) (I was minutes away from writing this message after Valento's message, I swear!) So after weeks of discussing this with our tech teams, we've concluded that our current plan of action for updating MediaWiki to the version 1.19 and installing Semantic MediaWiki is not working. So we've designed a new plan to try to get this done. Unfortunately I cannot guarantee that we'll get all this completed before release. I'm hoping that I'll know a bit more about the execution of this new plan at the beginning of next week and if I do I'll try my best to keep you informed (knowing that I'll be in Germany for gamescom). Let me know if you have questions. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 18:39, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Wow! I read your mind! These are good news, crossing my fingers to have that happening. I've seen the importance and difference SMW makes in a wiki, so I'm all for having it installed as soon as possible. *expecting Ishmael's comments below* – Valento ^msg 18:51, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Ninja edit to prevent Dr Ishmael from getting this spot ;) --Stephane Lo Presti talk 18:54, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Double ninja to prevent late comeback. - Infinite - talk 18:56, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Hey now, you two! I actually have work to do today, so I wasn't following RC in real-time like I usually do. :P

Anyway, with this re-evalution of how to implement the upgrade, is there a possibility that they could install SMW "immediately" as I suggested above? —Dr Ishmael 19:03, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

The answer is no unfortunately, as we cannot install SMW outside of this plan of action. Our new plan has several branches, depending on how the testing of a few technical things go. One of them would get SMW faster but unfortunately is the most likely to fail the tests. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:14, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Quick update about this: I'm starting to see some progress, but we've been slowed down by various things (me I was busy at gamescom for example). Obviously we won't get this done in 2 days (alas) but hopefully we'll get some traction fairly quickly after launch. I will personally celebrate the day when we have SMW on GW2W.EN with you ^^ --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:45, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Good to hear something's happening, thanks. :) At this point, it may actually be better to not get SMW until a couple weeks after launch, so that we're not trying to update all our templates at the same time that everyone is dumping truckloads of new data on the wiki. But I won't complain, whenever we get it. —Dr Ishmael 20:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and do you know what's up with the sloooooooooooooow wiki today? —Dr Ishmael 20:30, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I just know that our tech teams have been investigating this for a little while. Sorry about this! --Stephane Lo Presti talk 21:45, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

top bar

I've been thinking about that ever since the new website was unveiled, actually - I think it would be great to have that here, especially since we don't have any other easily accessible links to the main site or the forums (not even from the main page!). We would definitely want to get User:Alfa-R involved for the implementation. —Dr Ishmael 00:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Hey Ishmael. I've got some PSDs from our masthead that can be used by wiki editors who would like to work on this. I'll drop something on the wikis whenever I've got the time --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:43, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

wile I agree that it would be good to add that, I am unsure as to where it would go or how we would handle the user page links(ie user, my talk, my preferences, watchlist, my contributions, logout) that are normally at the top of the page. I guess we could move everything down and re-style it to be like how the forums/website have it. What would be awesome is if you could just sign in using your guild wars 2 account into the wiki...- Zesbeer 00:07, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear: this is a project that should be managed by the wiki editors. I do think it's something positive for the wiki itself, but it requires careful design as the wiki cannot (and should not) have the exact same design as our website. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 00:12, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

List of fansites

So, I've been slower moving forward on doing anything than I expected (life is like that sometimes). Here's the current plan:

• I've been mulling simple ideas around for providing filtered lists and will test that in my sandbox. The first versions will probably be horribly redundant (but with the advantage that they will work...and maybe it will encourage wikigurus to update my poor code for more efficient and more reliable versions).
• I've archived older discussions about the page as well as suggested sites that have already been addressed.
• I've moved the "ANet's input" discussion to a subpage, so it doesn't clutter the other discussions and makes it easier for people to see newly added sites (e.g. I notice that we missed one b/c someone added it at the top instead of the bottom).
• I've double-checked the newest suggestions (they all look viable, although the two new wikis were missing the copyright stuff).

I could use your help with finding out about fansites that ANet has officially mentioned (e.g. in blogs, tweets, or whatever), especially any non-English sites (since I'm likely to miss them). If it's easier, you can link me to the tweets/blogs/etc, and I can grab the details that way. For the future, it would be great if we could figure out how we can keep the wiki's list up-to-date with shout-outs that y'all make — perhaps you guys can make a list on a subpage or email the admins here (or me) or...

Thanks. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 01:28, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi TEF. FYI I'm busy with a few extra things to do and will get back to the List of fansites as soon as possible. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:40, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Blur effect in miniatures

Hello Stephane, our wiki is having a little issue with miniature generation and I'd like your help, would you mind jumping in this discussion? – Valento ^msg 21:14, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Valento, sorry for the delay in my reply. I'll forward this to our team. Feel free to ping me again here as we'll be very busy for a little while now ^^ --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh, by "our wiki" I mean the br wiki as this doesn't apply to English wiki (it's OK here). – Valento ^msg 17:28, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Since I don't know how your wiki is configured, it's going to be very difficult to find out what the issue is. You should look at the image thumbnail generator program I guess? --Stephane Lo Presti talk 17:35, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes yes, it's that. ImageMagick was set by default but we changed because some thumbnails were failing to be generated. Would you mind telling how the thumbnailing settings are configured here? – Valento ^msg 17:37, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

We're using the default configuration for ImageMagick and made no special changes relative to image thumbnails. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 17:43, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

"Bad Input" error pops up again

Could you take a look here? Thanks. —Dr Ishmael 02:03, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Serious Account Issues

Please see discussion here. 192.168.104.31 23:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, we're looking into this. Thanks for reporting it. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 23:22, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

This issue with internal IP addresses is still occurring. —Dr Ishmael 16:06, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Ishmael, I've bumped this topic to our teams for further investigation. Is this causing issues like locks for example? --Stephane Lo Presti talk 23:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, like before we use the auto-IP-block because the banned user might be assigned an internal IP, and then other users might be assigned the same internal IP.

Also there's an issue with thumbnail generation - usually it works fine, but sometimes it pops up the error reported there. —Dr Ishmael 00:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Any update on dealing with these issues? Also, I'll sneak in a request for update on the wiki upgrade - we're coming up with a LOT of things we'd love to use SMW or Widgets for. —Dr Ishmael 15:55, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

No update yet, but be sure that we're working as hard as we can behind the scene to make this happen. I really want to see SMW on this wiki, sooner rather than later, but it's a complex operation involving a few heavy technical components that need to be sorted out. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 18:24, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, how about the thumbnail issue? That has very high visibility, because it seems to be affecting the majority of new images that get uploaded. —Dr Ishmael 19:37, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I thought that it was only a temporary effect as the thumbnails get generated/displayed later. I'll have to read more about this and forward the appropriate description to our team. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 23:02, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Changing Order?

Back in 2010 you posted on Guru "You can change orders once you’ve chosen one – with a little effort (...)". Is this information still actual? http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/4304-interview-french-fansites-meet-stephane-cm-mondes-persistants/page__st__30__p__190210#entry190210 Sethrea 10:42, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

in game they make it out that you cant so I don't think this is true any more.- Zesbeer 18:11, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

That's why I'd like to clarify that! Sethrea 18:22, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

suppressredirect

I just noticed that the 'suppressredirect' right has been removed from the sysop user group, it is now only given to the bot group. Do you know why this was done? And can it please be reverted? —Dr Ishmael 20:15, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that this right was ever defined on GW2W.EN, but you may have noticed that it is on GW2W.FR/DE/ES. I actually have a big Excel sheet with these group rights and wanted to do this change (also add unblockself and remove versiondetail; also changes to ArenaNetLiaison, introduce the Aupatrolled/Patroller groups) so that all basic group rights are the same on all wikis. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 20:32, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I thought I'd used that in the past, but looking at my move log, it doesn't look like it; I must be conflating this with GuildWiki, where we had a lot of trouble with Curse not applying it correctly. I do agree that having the same group rights across the wikis makes sense. —Dr Ishmael 20:44, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

As if you needed another reason

Hey Stephane, the GW2 Wiki Android app I'm developing needs an API feature not supported by MediaWiki 1.16. I'm developing the app using the official German wiki instead since it's on 1.19, which is a bit tricky because I can't read any German. Please kick the tech team's butt a little in regards to upgrading to 1.19, I'd like to be able to release the app with support for all official wiki languages. 14:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Felix, thanks for your feedback. The team doesn't need butt-kicking, they're working the best they can already. We're making progress (as we speak) but are still struggling with a few technical bits. The priority for us at that point is to bring Semantic MediaWiki to the English GW2 wiki, but upgrading to MediaWiki 1.19 is a close next (and we may do both if our tests of SMW on MW1.16). Can you tell me more about this app? Thanks. (Hopefully Dr Ishmael will read this reply too and see that "we're making progress") --Stephane Lo Presti talk 18:10, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I see everything that happens here. (MWAH HA HA--*cough cough* damn these fall allergies...) I've never doubted that you're making progress, just wondering what all these "technical bits" are that keep slowing that progress down. —Dr Ishmael 18:25, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The app uses MediaWiki's API to get the content of the most recent revision of a given article. Somewhere between MW 1.16 and 1.19 they added the parameter "rvparse" to the API, which allows it to return the content as fully parsed html that can be displayed in an Android WebView as-is. Without that parameter supported, what it returns is basically straight wikitext markup, which would be nearly impossible to work with client-side. You can see the difference between Norn on our wiki and Norn on wiki-de.

More general information about the app- it's going to be a small, lightweight application just for viewing and reading content on any of the official GW2 wikis. It won't support editing because generally speaking we don't want to encourage people to attempt to write articles on tiny mobile keyboards, but it will be great for looking things up when you're away from your computer or in-game if you don't have a second monitor and don't want to alt-tab or what-have-you. In addition to being able to display content from any of the official wikis, it will have UI language support for all of those languages as well. Here's a couple of screenshots of the app in its current state- the html is still unstyled and the layout isn't finalized, but it gives a pretty good idea of what to expect. [1] [2] 04:05, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the details Felix, sounds interesting! Good luck ^^ --Stephane Lo Presti talk 17:40, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

SMW test plan

I'm starting to write this up at [[User:Dr ishmael/SMW test plan]]. Let me know if I should go into more/less detail on anything, or if this even looks anything like what you were expecting. —Dr Ishmael 20:27, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Dr Ishmael, thanks for this. It looks great, thanks! We may have to run it and see whether we need more guidance, so if we need some I'll add questions on the discussion page. I'd suggest adding a section to test actual things that you'd implement once SMW is live. Also: what about searches and other SMW special pages? Any idea how to test this? --Stephane Lo Presti talk 20:58, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I haven't had much time to work on it this week. I just added a whole section on the special pages.

I had kind of included an example by suggesting to use trait pages as the test data for #ask, providing the template code for a semantic version of the infobox and the list of properties it uses. While I didn't describe exactly how we would use this semantic data (the end product would be the the trait list tables, i.e. List of warrior traits et al.), I did use it to give examples of the procedure steps. I've extended that throughout the special pages section.

I also have [[User:Dr ishmael/SMW]] where I had started to describe all the properties that we would use on different kinds of pages, like skills and traits. —Dr Ishmael 18:59, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Don't be sorry Dr Ishmael, anything you're doing is volunteer work and helping. FYI we're making good progress on the technical side of things and testing is continuing (the SMW part very soon, so you still have time if there are important part of SMW you'd like to see tested). I don't want to jinx this complex operation but I think that the light at the end of the tunnel is not too far. We're taking it one step at a time to make sure that it's done the right way, but hopefully SMW will happen in the not too distant future. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:09, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

*cough* Um, er... ignore that, my 3-year-old daughter grabbed the keyboard for a minute there. Yeah... yeah, that's my story. Eeeeeyup. *shifty eyes*

Anyway, that is great news. Work is slow this afternoon - I'm between projects and most of my team took the day off so there's no one around to bug me with questions - so I've been able to focus on this. My goal so far, which may not match up exactly with what you were expecting, has been to explain the various features of SMW and give example procedures/use cases to inform your QA team enough that they can write the detailed test cases on their own. In other words, I realize that this is volunteer work, and I don't want to do all the work for you. :P

Like I said before, just let me know what parts you need more details on, and I'll be happy to provide them. And if it helps to expedite things, I give you permission to share my email address with anyone who wants to ask me questions directly (being deliberately formal there to appease any legal oversight there may be). —Dr Ishmael 21:18, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Say hi to your daughter ;) The way you're doing it works for us, thanks! --Stephane Lo Presti talk 22:09, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Ballpark estimate on 1.19?

Hey Stephane, I've made a lot of progress on my Android wiki app and a release probably isn't too far in the future. But as of now, the English wiki is still on MW 1.16 and as such it won't work with my app. The other three official wikis do work, though, so I'm considering releasing it without English support and putting in a little note in the app that says something along the lines of "The app will be updated to support the English wiki as soon as possible." Obviously that's not the ideal situation, but at the same time I don't want to delay an essentially finished product for months. So I'm wondering, and this is pure estimate won't-hold-you-to-it anything-would-help, can you tell me whether there is a decent possibility that the English wiki will be upgraded to MW 1.19 by the end of 2012? 22:14, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Felix. With the current plans we have for the English wikis, I don't see the upgrape happening before next month and even in that case things would have to go pretty fast for that to happen (but it's not impossible). I'm sorry about that but it looks like it'd be easier for you to release it without English support for the moment. Although I doubt it, do you know if there's a way to make MW1.16 work with your software in the meantime? It may be something to mention to the English as a whole, in case someone knows how this would work, or could even code it. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:06, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

It's kind of possible, but it wouldn't be pretty- it would essentially be two apps in one package. The only other way to grab the rendered html of a wiki page is by, instead of using the api, just entering the normal url with action=render; unfortunately, that wouldn't return the other information I need. It's not a huge deal, though- the European crowd can "test-drive" the app, as it were. 19:17, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm wondering whether you could get some support from coders here on the wiki (I know at least one that has the knowledge) to create a new form of "action=render" that would get you the information you need. Of course all this would only make sense if the work to be done for that is fairly easy and can be done fast, well before we roll 1.19 on the English wikis. To be honest, following the first WikiChat, the feedback from the wiki about having a form of mobile presence was very low so I'm not expecting a huge demand (but if available, such an app would be really great). That doesn't mean we don't have to do anything. I was thinking about doing a new post on my page in the not-too-distant future, so I may mention your app. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:35, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I think there are a few ways that could be done. I kicked around the idea of having another service grab wiki content and parse it before passing it on to the app. Ultimately, though, I think it wouldn't be a good use of time or resources to create something that wouldn't be needed once the wiki is upgraded. I just had a brainstorm while writing this and I think I may be able to use render in addition to an API call to enable the English wiki. It wouldn't be much additional work for me and none for anyone else. The downside is that it will require at least two web calls per page instead of one, but it's just text so that'll add only a smidgeon of overhead. Of course, once the wiki is upgraded I'd kick out the extra call. I'll let you know how it goes! 19:55, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

“I know at least one that has the knowledge” – It’s actually my fault that Felix wasn’t using the action=render method any longer, I suggested the pure API-way ;D poke | talk 20:29, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Well well I guess you can now take over this discussion ;P Good luck with your new plan Felix, let us know if there's a way we can help you! --Stephane Lo Presti talk 20:32, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

1.19 is still something we want to see in the near future… not just because of the features but also from a security view. poke | talk 21:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

1.19 will be our next big milestone after SMW. We also want to see it happen as soon as we can do it (we do not want insecure wikis) but some things have to happen first. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 21:55, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I just realized - you say 1.19 is after SMW. So, with the timeline you gave for 1.19 above, does that mean SMW might happen by the end of the month? —Dr Ishmael 15:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes that's what we're working towards. BUT I cannot yet publicly commit to a date and confirm that we'll be able to do it by the end of the month, since there are other pieces to this jigsaw that we need to figure out. In fact today I may talk to you directly on your SMW test page to ask questions. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:10, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) In regards to the feedback about a mobile version of the wiki in the chat sessions, I agree that the general demand for it among wiki editors was low. But that's why I decided to make an app that doesn't require any maintenance on the actual wiki and doesn't allow editing. Wiki contributors weren't big on a mobile version because no one really likes to edit from a mobile device, but I think the hundreds of thousands of Guild Wars 2 players who don't regularly contribute to the wiki but do use it as a primary resource will definitely benefit from a mobile version. 14:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly how I felt about it, but it was difficult to convince other power-editors (i.e. Erasculio) that we are not representative of the wiki readership (aka we are the 1%), so they kept insisting that any mobile version would have to be fully-featured. Since everyone realized that this would be a very difficult goal to achieve, there was understandably little enthusiasm for it. So thank you, Felix, for taking the time to create the tool that is actually needed rather than an unobtainable ideal. —Dr Ishmael 15:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Let me just say Felix, I'm very thankful that you're working on this. Whatever people think, it's definitely a step forward and in the right direction. It's like editing on the wiki, it always starts with someone doing it and then edits. I hope you can get some support at one point from the wiki community (and we'll certainly give you some visibility as soon as things are in a stable state). --Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:10, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I only approve if it uses the holo UI/style guidelines (on Android). :P pling 16:15, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

My pleasure, it's great experience for my field too. Also English is now enabled because I am smart or something (though not smart enough to figure it out weeks ago). The load times are longer for English content only (probably not noticeable on wifi, maybe an extra second on my Verizon 4G LTE, could be a few seconds on 3G) due to an extra call, but that's only temporary so no big deal. I've already been getting support from a number of other wiki users with translations and development, so now I just need to find someone who's fluent in Spanish, get some custom css courtesy of Poke, and possibly overhaul the UI because people keep complaining, and it'll be pretty much ready to publish. 16:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

If you need help with the Spanish and can't find it on the Spanish GW2 wiki, let me know and I'll either put you in touch with a few of the core people or we can also make an announcement on the GW2 Spanish twitter. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Seriously Pling? :P --Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Any news, by any chance?

As per the header, maybe we're in luck and you have an exact date to share with us now? Also, SMW is still planned prior to MediaWiki itself, I take it? Everyone is really eager to see these happen. I was asked yet again today (as you already know). - Infinite - talk 16:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

See below ^^ --Stephane Lo Presti talk 18:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding your tweet

source

Hey Stephane! I was really just curious what version of MediaWiki you guys were running on and when you were planning on upgrading versions. I'm currently working on a plugin as a side project, and want to set up a mediawiki server running the same version as GW2W. Thanks for your time. --Rhokk // "Deus Ex Machina" 16:41, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey there and everyone above (or reading) ^^ So as you've all seen, we're starting to move ahead with our big backend wiki operations that will first bring the Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) extension to the current version of MediaWiki here (1.16.5). Saturday's maintenance is only part 1 of this first operation and won't have any visible impact (apart from small interruption of services as we've explained in the maintenance messaging). There'll be more phases that will start next week and we're aiming to complete the work by the end of next week. Note two important things: 1) one of the part of this whole first operation will require us to put the English wikis in readonly mode for a rather long period of time (possibly 4 to 8h) and I'll have more details to share next week; 2) this is a very complex operation and there are many tasks involved, some of which could generate extra delays, so please take the information here (in particular timing) with a grain of Tyrian salt.

Once the first operation is finished, we'll be working on a second operation next month to upgrade MediaWiki to the latest version (currently 1.19.2 but 1.20 is already showing its head). I'd like to add that we're planning and testing these changes so that they're brought in the least intrusive and most stable way possible, without causing bugs and additional pain to the wiki community. I can't say when we'll have a newer version of the MediaWiki software, because of our focus on the first operation (which, I'll mention for the background, started to be planned a long time ago and had to go through various iterations). I know that this impact a few people who have great projects (like yours or Felix Omni's) but I wanted to let everyone know that we are committed to getting there and supporting your projects.

Once these 2 operations are completed, we'll be in a much better situation from a backend and technical support viewpoint, and may even start looking at new exciting projects for the wiki. But as I said above one step at a time. Please do let me know your thoughts, comments or questions. I may not be able to answer each and every one of them, but I'll try.

By the way, apologies to the wiki community for not messaging this maintenance to you directly. I've worked really hard with our technical teams and because I have so many things going on apart from the wiki, I forgot to message it. I'll try my best to keep you in the loop but you should all feel free to ask me questions here. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 18:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

And there was much rejoicing. 06:13, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) As you know by now, our maintenance went through and we're now checking that things are working as intended. SMW is live. Once we know that we haven't introduced issues in the maintenance, we'll start working on updating MW to the latest version. We don't have a clear timeframe for when this'll be available, as we're going to build a plan from the lessons we've learned in preparation and during this maintenance, but I'll make sure to update everyone when I know more (ideally during the next WikiChat). Thanks everyone for your patience and understanding. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:50, 25 October 2012 (PDT)

Question

Hey Stephane, recently [[The History of Guild Wars|this]] was made copied verbatim from the BradyGames Official Strategy Guide. I have two questions regarding this. Firstly, how valid is the lore on this article? Reason I ask this is because there's a lot of errors, but since it's from an "official" guide, I'd imagine that someone at ArenaNet did a review of it before giving it the O.K., and when looking past the errors, it seems to hold a bit of new lore (e.g., Usoku was aided by the Ministry of Purity, as well as some bit on the economical beginning of guilds in lore history). Would like to know if you can find out how much interaction Anet had with this document being written up.
Secondly, and more importantly to the wiki itself, is this allowed to be up on the wiki? I'd imagine the strategy guide is copyrighted, being for sale and all, so I would imagine that it wouldn't be, but would like an official statement before it gets tagged for copyright violation or left alone. (Side note: If it's not legal to have up, then this should probably be sent to the legal team, as it's a full online PDF transcription of the guide that I found while trying to figure out where the above wiki article came from) Thanks in advance! Konig/talk 18:36, 25 October 2012 (PDT)

another lore related Question if I might interject I found this in game and am wondering how the dates are even remotely correct. as seen on the Timeline page on the wiki it makes no since. - Zesbeer 18:44, 25 October 2012 (PDT)

Hi Konig and Zesbeer. I'm going to forward this to our Lore authorities but I'll ask your patience because: 1) I'll be on a short hiatus for a week or two; and 2) our lore people (like many people at the studio) are very busy and may not be able to answer. Feel free to remind me in a few weeks. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:53, 25 October 2012 (PDT)

While you're gone, will there be anyone we can contact at ArenaNet with issues? One important bug is that we're still seeing internal IP addresses assigned to anonymous users, but now they're in the 10.28.100.x range instead of 192.168.104.x. —Dr Ishmael 05:58, 26 October 2012 (PDT)

His user page mentions several contact methods? - anja 07:27, 26 October 2012 (PDT)

Geh, totally missed that somehow. —Dr Ishmael 07:51, 26 October 2012 (PDT)

Given a month has passed, any update on this? Konig/talk 06:41, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I talked to our legal expert and he explained that copying verbatim content from the Brady Guide is against the licensing. So I'm going to remove that content. (EDIT: I forgot to mention that, while the wiki community can NOT use sentences verbatim from the Brady guide, it is allowed to use the facts that are in them.) About your first question: could you please give me the list of "errors" you noticed. I can't make any guarantee but I'll try to follow up with our Lore team. Thanks. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 18:47, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Mighty big list for errors - and most come in the form of the GW1 storyline. It might be easier and better to list what's brought up and unsupported elsewhere rather than what's contradicted elsewhere:

• "The earliest lifeforms on Tyria were the Elder Dragons, who spent much of their time in hibernation, and the Giganticus Lupicus, a race of giants that are now extinct." - basically saying the earliest lifeforms (rather than earliest known lifeforms) were the Elder Dragons and Giganticus Lupicus, which is a new wording (it's always been "the Elder Dragons have always been on Tyria" and that they predate the G-Lupe, which has a number of interpretations, whereas this has one)
• "The ancient Tome of the Rubicon mentions several races: the dwarves, the mursaat, and the seers. It also states that the mursaat and the seers warred with each other, but the reason why and the resolution of the conflict are unrecorded." - previously, we only knew the Tome or Rubicon mentioning the conflict with previous Great Destroyer(s) and the prophecy of their return, whereas the other races were mentioned in jotun stelae. This bit feels like a miswrite of an old interview with Ree from GuildMag where she stated that the Tome of Rubicon was written during the time the mursaat and seers warred.
• "Abaddon attacked the others" - I believe this was the first time we heard that Abaddon struck pre-emptively (on a side note matter about Abaddon, I'm curious if the lore presented solely to the Asian community holds canon, a fan translation of which being here).
• "At first, these [guilds] were economic organizations, a means for merchants to meet, disseminate goods, and set prices. [...] Soon there were guilds geared toward warfare, religion, magical ability, and even social concerns—in short, any purpose that would bring together a group of people." - this is the first time we're told the origin of guilds in Guild Wars (ironically enough!) other than "powerful groups formed", as well as the full scope of what a guild can entail (thus far, the only non-combatant/religious guilds we've seen that're called guilds would be the Fraternal Order of Bakers and Brewers and the Xunlai Guild) so it'd be interesting to get a confirmation here.
• "In Cantha, the new emperor, Usoka, had finally unified his continent into the Empire of the Dragon. His armies conquered the vassal states of Kurzick and Luxon, making his power absolute. These efforts were supported by the Ministry of Purity, which was originally established by Reiko Murakami to combat the Afflicted. Emperor Usoka had begun to purge the lands of revels, the sick, and any non-humans [...]" - While John Stumme mentioned in a side comment that the Ministry of Purity led to the thought process that was the basis of Usoku's policies, this is the first time we're hearing that they were still around and proactive with those policies when Usoku was around, as well as the mention of "the sick" being purged from the land.
• "Very little is known about this Elder Dragon. It resided deep underwater, probably somewhere in the Unending Ocean. Its awakening wreaked havoc on the undersea races of the quaggan and krait, but its influence on land has been minimal." - this is more or less a confirmation on highly suspected theories, so given the number of errors and seemingly misinterpretations the writers of this article had, a confirmation of the confirmation would be appreciated.

These questions aren't really big, but could provide a lot more insight on the lore of the game. Errors themselves, as said, mostly revolve around the storyline of GW1, or as more minor things like saying the Guild Wars lasted decades (the three wars spanned hundreds of years) or repeated typos (like Usoka instead of Usoku). The errors are more of bringing those above points into further question, as making me wonder if they're errors or new facts. Konig/talk 22:39, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit: Oh, and thanks for taking the time to look into this! Konig/talk 22:41, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Just wondering - did you ever manage to get answers to these questions? Konig/talk 22:51, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jeff told me last week that it was still on his (and Ree's) todo list. They'll get back to me whenever they have the time to take a look at it. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 23:36, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The Lost Shores and the Guild Wars 2 Wiki

Hi,

Feel free to drop your feedback, questions or comments about the last news I posted on my journal here. Thanks. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 22:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

yes please, I know people already want to do a active feature for when the content goes live. my personal idea is that we push some version of the lost shores feature article with lots of information to the main page so visitors of the wiki can see that every time they hit up the wiki- Zesbeer 22:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It's probable a good idea and I think there needs to be a wiki task force specifically dedicated to the main page (as well as the Lost Shores event page ;). LEt me know how I can help. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:45, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

feel free to give us any information that anet is willing to share. imho- Zesbeer 02:43, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

The Halloween event wasn't exactly pretty but it turned out well. The Lost Shores content should go much smoother. We had the featured article set up shortly after the SoftMK content and [[Main Page/featured article/next]] is set for The Lost Shores. For relevant information, area and dungeon names allows us to link and start appropriate pages and information on "getting started" that you would read on the main website. Any non-spoiler lore to flesh out Sea of Sorrows, Unending Ocean, or other articles related to the new content would be useful. Actual gameplay content will be generated and edited mercilessly after release so prior information won't be too important there.--Relyk 06:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the update Relyk. I noted your suggestions and will see what can be done. We're discussing what we can give to the wiki community to kickstart this great effort (very happy to see that everyone's learning from the Halloween page experience, which was the first big event in GW2). I'm expecting to know a lot more about this next week. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree, area information so that can be ready to go when it starts would be useful (or even vague, "point of interest" information for the subsequent events that are in other parts of Tyria a short time before it occurs so we can be better prepared to create and fill in info for the different areas). However, any early info at all that shows the extent of new content (what we have came mainly from Colin's teaser in his interview) would be a boon to getting the page organized into proper sections. Vahkris 22:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure, if this is a correct procedure, because there is a suggestion board on the forum, but well... The Knowledge Crystal and the Fractal Relic seem to use the same icon. Since these are basiclly currencies it is hard to tell on the first glance what "50 " exactly are. I have nothing against reusing icons but in this case it is kind of awkward. Could one of the icons change? A simple recolor or even a horizontal flip would help. Thanks for your hard work. - Yandere 21:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi! This is indeed not the right place :) You should report that on the official GW2 forums, in the "Bugs" subforum. Thanks for your help! --Stephane Lo Presti talk 21:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response I followed your guidance. 2 min is quite amazing though... ^^ - Yandere 22:07, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Update on wiki app, and also a potential problem

Hey Stephane, the GW2 wiki app is nearly finished- I've conscripted a couple of family members to do the non-English localization translations and poke is (probably) working on the mobile CSS. Here's a little collection of screen captures: [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]. The actual wiki content will be more nicely formatted with the mobile CSS, but the app's interface is more or less final. I don't think it would be unreasonable to forecast a release by the end of November.

Something's come up that concerns me though, and I wanted to bring it to ArenaNet's attention. Since I initially started planning this app, three other parties have released GW2 wiki browsing apps. One in particular I take issue with- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grandgto.app.guildwars2. This app is essentially just loading the wiki's web pages into a default Android webview with a couple of buttons and an advertisement banner on the top. I have two issues with it: a) it is using the name "Guild Wars 2 Wiki" without the knowledge and consent of this community, or presumably ArenaNet for that matter, and b) it has in-app advertising, which means the developer is generating revenue from the wiki's content since there's no other content in his app. I'm no lawyer, so I don't know if there's a legal issue there (and I was going to use the shorter name "GW2 Wiki" for this app so there's no conflict), but as a contributor and administrator of this wiki I do object to a third party making money off our work without providing attribution or even letting us know. So if you could run this past the legal department or the ArenaNet Corporate Assassins or whoever would be interested, I'd appreciate it. Either way, this won't have any impact on the development and release of my app. 23:15, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Hey Felix. A quick update while I'm in the middle of many burning tasks (so I'll have to follow up on this):

1) your app looks great! congrats to you and everyone involved ^^;

2) We're now working on a plan to bring MW1.20 to the wikis; I don't know yet when but we're thinking of November/December and I'll provide an update about this whenever I know more;

3) yes an app such as the one you mention seems concerning and I'll try to see what can be done about it (as soon as we have some time); you have to keep in mind that there are a lot of apps and it sometimes takes a surprisingly high amount of time/resources to have them changed; that being said, we would support an app like yours that would come from our wikis using the full strength of our community and I think that this has to count :)

Anyway, I'll make a note but please do remind me at a later point. Thanks again for your hard work!--Stephane Lo Presti talk 23:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

GWW {1} problems

Hi Stephane, while I expect the needs to fix an old wiki are low priority, there is currently a bug on GWW where users cannot register. The same bug got fixed on this wiki but remains unsolved on the other. (I expect the same solution could be copied over but I know nothing technical). if anyone magically manages to find a few minutes to take a look that would be great. --Chieftain Alex 19:25, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Chieftain Alex, I thought this was resolved, apologize for the oversight! For your information, we're treating all our wikis with the same respect and attention. The Guild Wars Wiki is no different from the Guild Wars 2 Wikis for us. What sometimes happen is that I or the team forgets about these things in the middle of the action and we're sorry about that. Thanks. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:29, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I just posted this update on the GWW pages where the issue is mentioned: First of all on the oversight on this bug. We think we've identified the culprit and we'll be applying a fix next week. I'll keep you updated about this as soon as I have more details. Thanks. --Stephane Lo Presti talk 20:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Quick update about this issue: User:Stephane_Lo_Presti/News#Quick_maintenance_today_-_December_11.2C_2012 Thanks --Stephane Lo Presti talk 20:09, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Drop rates

I see the drop rate articles provided some grief. There's a {{research}} tag on drop rate pages now ^^. Couple things that should avoid this problem would be:

• A project tag to clarify it's regarded as a project article.
• Link and elaborate on the drop rate article.

The purpose of the spading project is to figure out how drops work, which doesn't work well when you can communicate directly with the people who designed the drop mechanics :P--Relyk 05:38, 22 December 2012 (UTC)