Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Community portal/Archive 19

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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.

Viability of video raid guides for the wiki

Hey, I've never interacted on the wiki before, sorry if I do anything wrong. I've been working on a personal project to package up the content in the raids into as short a video as possible while containing all the unique dialogue, music, and story. The idea of which was to create an accessible version of the raid for those that can't complete it. Would that be appropriate for possibly embedding on the page for the raid? I just would like more people to be aware it's there if they should want to see what happens or check out the story they might've missed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pyreo (talk).

We tend not to link directly to player-made videos, because then we'd run into the problem of deciding whose videos are "worthy" of inclusion, which would only lead to edit wars. Instead, we tend to use the {{YouTube search}} template to encourage readers to look up related videos for themselves; by all means we could add this template to the raid articles if we don't have it there already. —Idris User Idris signature.png 22:39, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Tracking skill history

I have been looking at skill pages and it seems like most have not had their skill history tracker updated in a long time (in some cases, even the skill facts themselves might not have been updated in a while). It looks like whoever started this effort has since abandoned it. If there is no process in place to ensure that these histories are kept up to date, I suggest you either add one as part of a game update checklist, or remove these sections from the pages if the will to keep them updated is lacking. Lastly, it might be possible with some programming effort to track changes automatically through the API or existing wiki database, if someone is willing to take on such a project instead. 76.126.247.17 12:58, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Just for the record, Tolkyria and I went through and updated all the patch notes since November 2017. The subpages are annoying to update but I've got a script for that now. The main thing is for editors to update the little summary tables on the main articles. I might consider deleting the history project "progress tracker" subpages since they are out of date example and I have no intention of updating them. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 11:37, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Half a year later, I think we have to call it. Game updates/2020-02-25 gave us the rest (and any update afterwards). I managed to get through the first half but failed at the second half (i.e. Competitive split sections: Mesmer, Necromancer, Ranger, Revenant, Thief, Warrior are missing). Thanks to all who helped so far updating the skill and trait /history pages.
Although I doubt it, maybe someone wants to carry on; there is the template {{game update helper}} that creates the latest game update /history entry automatically. However, it has two big requirements:
  1. The main skill or trait page must be correctly updated (there have been several skill and trait pages from the 2020-02-25 game update that have been incorrectly updated or not updated at all).
  2. It can only "copy" the latest skill infobox version (if the has been another update inbetween it won't add the corresponding skill infobox).
E.g.
{{subst:game update helper|2020-02-25|source=User:Tolkyria|mode=page}}                                          (where source stands for [[User:Tolkyria/2020-02-25]])
--Tolkyria (talk) 15:50, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
The time and effort you have put into project is incredible. I wish I could commend you and show my appreciation with more than just words. Thank you, and everyone else who's worked on this project, for all you have done in tracking the changes over the years. Greener (talk) 18:03, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
The history project has always been nuts.
There is a chance they'll prevent me from going to work due to coronavirus and be unable to give me remote work, so I may get around to it. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 20:32, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to Enable Extension:NewUserMessage/Add a Welcome Bot

Hi folks, seeing as we've been getting a steady stream of new users recently, I thought it might be a good idea to start using a welcome bot that automatically adds a welcome message with useful information and links to a new user's talk page. The German wiki has been using such a welcome bot for ages, so I hope it should not be too difficult to enable this function on this wiki. Here's an overview of the pros and cons:

Pros
  • Provide new users with a compact overview of how things work, where they can find work and which tools and resources are commonly used.
  • The welcome message can function as a "cheat sheet" to quickly gain access to information at hand.
  • Transparency: a lot of standard procedures and/or tricks are shared viva voce (as in where you can find icons, new items etc.), making this information more accessible is overall favourable and inclusive.
  • Common courtesy: greeting new people is a nice thing to do and sadly it does not happen all too frequently at present (and although a handful of us do try to welcome fresh editors, we sometimes miss people).
  • Less red links.
Cons
  • Less personal at first glance, but the welcome message won't replace user welcoming interactions ideally.
  • We'd be welcoming bots at times.

I've been drafting a prototype message in one of my sandboxes. Feel free to share further ideas and suggestions and/or concerns. Thank you for your time. User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 10:23, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good! Regarding your sandbox, I would skip the bot section, that's way too technical for a new wiki editor. Furthermore, maybe it's just me but links to userspace in such an official announcement have somehow an inofficial touch. --Tolkyria (talk) 19:41, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
That's fair, I see that Alex already removed the bit. About the userspace link, I agree, but Darq's directory is a tricky case — it has mainspace qualities, but we're not allowed to have it there since we should not document datamined content, we had a lengthy discussion about it with Stéphane a couple of years back. Maybe we can circumvent the matter by creating a redirect from the mainspace to his sandbox?
Another thing I forgot to bring up yesterday, is it even possible to add this particular extension (version-wise)? I admit I'm not familiar with all the technicalities and dependencies. User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 08:19, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Okay, I wasn't aware of this discussion but with this in mind, I would remove the link to Darqam's userspace. Keep it official, new editors will find this page sooner or later.
For me some alternatives are either New files (Special:NewFiles) or New files (Special:ListFiles) which also shows the uploaded dat files without any linking conflict. Probably also icon category could be interesting. See also this user talk page for an icon introduction, maybe this gives you some ideas.
Regarding the technical details, me neither, but the extension infobox says:
MediaWiki 1.26+
PHP 5.4+
Both is fulfilled based on Special:Version. --Tolkyria (talk) 13:59, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestions! I changed the link to the icon category. :)
Great, so it should work, that's good to hear. User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 15:54, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Fwiw, the german wiki has the "NewUserMessage" extension installed, and since all the language wikis use the same mediawiki version, it should be as simple as flicking the switch back on. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 18:20, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Ah, I see. All right, if no one has any objections (I'll give you until Friday to voice concerns), I'll bring this up with Stéphane then. User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 15:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Maybe one negative aspect of the NewUserMessage extension is that all users, including the spambots, will receive the welcome message on the talk page, resulting in lots of unnecessary created talk pages.
Compare the german wiki new user log ("Diskussion" (en: talk) column vs "Beiträge" (en: contribs)) with our new user log. But I guess that's the price that has to be paid. --Tolkyria (talk) 19:10, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Could we possibly switch our current captcha method to QuestyCaptcha to combat bot account creation and thus reduce the number of bot welcomes? User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 09:48, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
I don't see the creation of spambot user talkpages to be a particular issue. That being said, I can't remember if the welcome bot will even appear in recentChanges. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 19:08, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

API box on Wiki Pages Question

Hopefully I'm doing this right. I've been working on a project for GW2 for a while - namely, going through EVERY mission and all the mission branches in the story up to just before Living World stuff (so through Chapter 8), which requires quite a lot of characters (I'm also gathering up all the starter skins and story skins, so I'm doing more than the 30 to get them all.) I have a spreadsheet to track all the characters I'm using, who's doing what etc. Forever, I was using the Personal Story page to keep myself in order and decide who's doing what next. I just came back after a few months time and noticed a little API box on that page now, that puts a green highlight on stuff when I put an API key in - I did this, it worked, yay! Very helpful for me and my project for a quick look at what I'm missing.

Are there any other areas on the GW2 Wiki that use API keys like that? Achievements, skins, recipes, dyes packs, anything like that? It's nice to visit a page and have it go "oh hey you have this".

Short of me trying to go through every page on this wiki, I figured other users might know! If not, maybe something to think about for wiki users, what they might like to see or what could be useful here with the API keys?

I'm no programmer so I look to you for help!

--Resika (talk) 22:43, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Heya. We've got Category:Uses API key to help us track which pages have got an API box. Within the next week we'll have a new widget for individual achievement pages which will show skin-by-skin or item progress.
there's account api endpoints for all sorts of things; maybe we could have a dungeon widget on the dungeons overview page. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 23:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Reddit AMA for users with questions about the wiki

Just a heads up, we've organised on discord to run a reddit AMA for wiki-related questions tomorrow, covering EU and NA timezones. I'll update the wiki's sitenotice when the AMA is live. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 18:49, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

To add to this, if you want to be named in the reddit post as participant, please feel free to drop me your reddit username on here or discord! You can still participate and answer questions without being named, so no pressure! User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 19:01, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/dgsnge/we_are_the_community_behind_the_official_guild/ -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 09:06, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Key points from the morning so far:
  • Our guides on editing articles need some work. ([[Help:An introduction to editing]])
    • Maybe a video guide?
  • Mobile usability probably needs some action since they're about 40% of our readers. Time to dredge up the MW extension.
  • Achievement pages often have notes at the bottom, maybe add an ↓ arrow to link to them if given? (Template:Achievement table row).
-Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 11:50, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Indeed, I had noticed the "issue" with achievement tables, there is no link or something to relate them to the notes below. Once I tried to put a "ref" on one of them and it messed up stuff then I just gave up. --Txonä Atan - (talk) 17:47, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
As for the guides on editing articles, back before the launch of HoT I made a small wiki editing guide on Reddit. Later I decided to rewrite it on the wiki itself, but I never completed it due to what can only be described as pure laziness. I'm not saying it's the best thing ever or that we have to use it, but if you'd like it, with a couple revisions it could be used as a base for a newer written guide. User Noxx Sig.png 07:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Pretty good guide you have there. I'd probably let the red links be actual red links though. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 11:28, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
I would, but J.A.R.V.I.S. disagreed. :P
I'll try to finish what I had originally planned sometime soon. I've more or less finished it now. I wouldn't dare to replace the current help pages with it myself, but if anyone would theoretically find a place for it and where to link to it, or have some more suggestions or criticism, I certainly wouldn't mind. ^^ User Noxx Sig.png 13:21, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
I propose we overwrite the content of [[Help:An introduction to editing]] with your User:Noxx/Wiki Guide. Anyone against? -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 21:59, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I want to jump in and just add that there are at least 3 "edit help"/"new user" help pages out there. We really need to merge and narrow down which ones get linked. Examples:

  • [[Guild Wars 2 Wiki:How to help]]
  • Help:Editing
  • [[Help:An introduction to editing]]

There's also the bottom of the page infobox called [Guild Wars 2 Wiki Help Center] that could possibly be streamlined.

When I first started I was only ever able to find the Help:Editing one. There weren't really any obviously easy to access pages. I think we could do a better job consolidating and promoting one page or set of pages.--Rain Spell (talk) 01:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

To summarise the changes I've done tonight:
  • Ressurected the Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Welcome to the wiki welcome page. Pasted Inc's welcome bot message onto it.
  • "Guild Wars 2 Wiki:How to help": This page had a mixture of Guild Wars 2 Wiki:About, Help:Editing and List of non-English wikis. Some content has been moved to Help:Contents if it didn't fit in any of the first three. This page has been de-linked as far as possible and now redirects towards the welcome page.
  • Noxx's guide has moved to Help:Editing. The sidebar link now directs towards Help:Editing instead of How to help, as does the Main page.
  • Help:Contents: I've swapped the edit/search and create-page/problems boxes so that the positive stuff is on the left. Updated wording and added links from the old How to help page.
-Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 22:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Well, that was suddenly very fast, and I'm also glad all those pages have been streamlined. Now I wish I'd actually completed the guide all those years ago. :D Now, on to the other points raised in the AMA... ^^ User Noxx Sig.png 20:54, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
It's a great guide, so great job. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 21:22, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Navigation Popups

Navigation popups have been requested from time to time. User:Darqam created a breakdown of the request for the extension.

Essentially, users will be able to view a short summary text or information box of the page behind a hyperlink without having to travel to the page themselves. I would love to have some feedback on this topic, from a technical and user perspective. Greener (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the technical side of things to comment on that, but as a user I really like the popups Wikipedia uses, and I agree with Darq's comment about how they might help ease our problem of overly-fractured articles. My only concern is how laggy they'll be -- I can't stand laggy wikis, and I'd rather skip popups if they're only going to be annoying. That said, Wikipedia's popups are very smooth and don't seem to cause any issues, so I'm in support of giving them a go. —Idris User Idris signature.png 06:04, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Tutorial Page and Video Walk-through for Wiki Editing

Editing the wiki can be daunting, and some people learn well from tutorials. The desire for a tutorial was brought up twice during the AMA, here and here.

Are there ways we can fulfill this request? What would it look like once implemented? Greener (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

We've beefed up the Help:Editing page since the reddit thread per the above section. However, someone able to record some wiki editing on video would be great to have. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 19:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
A voice-over would be pretty nifty, too. How about it, Alex? User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 19:41, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Heh my voice is a wreck atm thanks to the flu.
Oh and the voice would sound so much more international if it came from you. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 19:49, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
But who can resist that awesome British accent?! User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 19:50, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
We use American English on the wiki, it must be an American accent. - Felix Omni 19:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Mobile Friendly Wiki

More people are accessing the wiki using mobile devices; ~40% of our visits were from them. The accessibility/usability question was also brought up on the AMA.

There are numerous changes which would need to be done. It would help to have an organized place to discuss the topic so that:

  1. We can be clear about the hurdles we would have to face when it comes to adapting our pages and underlying code.
  2. We can discuss if the adaptation or additional work is even feasible.

Please discuss below. Greener (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Firstly we would need ArenaNet server-side support to get this started. Have ArenaNet even got a server dev contact for us to approach at the moment? I would initially propose we add mw:Extension:MobileFrontend to the wiki stage server to see what it looks like, and from that we can gauge how much of our content will be broken. We'd also need to install some new skins, such as mw:Skin:Minerva Neue. (Should probably remove cologneblue and modern whilst we're at it, they're both awful skins). -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 19:21, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Adding a comment from Stephane on discord to here: "Stephane Lo Presti, Today at 9:55 PM - @ChieftainAlex I don't remember answering to you on that but the main admin for the French wiki requested a mobile textension. I think it's important and quite high on our todo list. [...] Due to how busy the tech person is, this is not something we can do right now. It maybe easier next month, including upgrade of the MW and SMW software" -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 20:58, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Achievement Cleanup

Achievements are sometimes a messy thing to document, and subsequently can be a messy thing to read. A request to cleanup and add more details was made on the AMA. Are there thoughts on how this can be approached? Greener (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I made an attempt in User:Chieftain Alex/sandbox2. Not sure how long we'd want each set of notes to be. (What qualifies as too short to make a page?) -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 19:16, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
I really like the mockup of the revised achievement table in your sandbox. As for what qualifies as too short, I'd argue an achievement is to easy to warrant a page if you can explain what to do to complete it in a single and short sentence. For example: "To complete Achievement "How about a dance?" the player needs to use the /dance emote on any map" Almdudler (talk) 00:37, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Agreed, I really like Alex's solution. One concern I have though is what happens if the achievement is called by another article via {{achievement box}}? This probably won't happen often with the sort of minor achievements that require notes, but I can see helpful editors filling in the note parameter for any and all achievements anyway. With regards to length, some notes can actually get quite long while still not being big enough to require their own article, for example "feed one of this long list of foods to an NPC". —Idris User Idris signature.png 01:00, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Wouldn't an article with the achievement box template be linked via the "page" parameter instead, + provide a better description, rendering a note superfluous? (e.g. story chapters have achievement walkthroughs with boxes and a line beneath stating the requirements)
The way I'm proposing the notes at the moment, they wouldn't be stored with SMW or anything, so you wouldn't be able to retrieve them with achievement box etc, the notes, and the link to the bottom of the page, would stay on the achievement category overview page. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 06:00, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Ah ok, I wasn't sure if this would have SMW consequences. That's fine then. With regards to achievements with their own article, yeah, they should be linked to via the "page" parameter, but my point is that having "note" as an option is practically guaranteed to mislead less experienced editors into filling it out when it's not necessary, which in turn might mislead readers into thinking the tiny note is all the help they're going to get on a complicated achievement. I'm not saying this is a reason not to add a note parameter or anything, but I think it's something we should address before it has a chance to cause problems... maybe disabling the display of the note if "page" exists? Forget I suggested that, there are plenty of cases where we'd need both. —Idris User Idris signature.png 06:11, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Humour me, can you give an example scenario where we'd use both page and notes? -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 20:53, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Pretty much any smaller achievement which can be linked to an NPC/event/mission/etc. Some of them have multiple eligible triggers, for example the Bound by Blood achiev Meet Your Imperator -- you complete it in one of two missions depending on what Legion your charr belongs to -- we can only link to one page, so it might be worth using notes to clarify the situation and provide a direct link to the other page. —Idris User Idris signature.png 04:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

(Reset indent) We could ommit the problem of defining both a page and a note by renaming the parameter and checking for a note or page name like: | further info = [page|<pagename>] or [note|<note>]. —Kvothe (talk) 13:55, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Got bored and updated the live template with the notes parameter. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 19:06, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Lol, fair enough. In retrospect I think I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Your version is fine, and newbie errors ought not to be a big deal to correct; we can always readdress it later on if they turn out to be an actual problem. Thanks for implementing it. :) —Idris User Idris signature.png 13:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi I have very little experience with wiki editing, but run into something yesterday I'd like to adress. I /wiki the achievement Master Sous-Chef and didn't get any results. Would it be possible for these key words (Master Sous-Chef) to redirect to the event page or to the Prologue: Bound by Blood (achievement) without having to make a page on wiki for Master Sous-Chef achievement? From what I've read here, there's no point for it having it's own page and I agree. But it is also a bit unfortunate to have it come with no results on wiki. If anyone knows how to do this/has ideas I'm happy to learn more about editing. Perpugilliam 12:24, 26 March 2020 (UTC+1)
Hello, usually all achievements, even without their own page, receive redirect links for easy use (sometimes we redirect them to their event page, for example I think in this case it would be better than to link it to the achievement list), so yeah it is definitely possible and we should do it. ~SimeUser Sime Maraca Choya.pngTalk 12:23, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
I see it's been redirected to the event, yeey. However there are a few more of these achievements I noticed. Do I understand it correctly that redirecting is done by creating a page for the achievement and simply putting there "# REDIRECT [ [ page name ] ]"? and "page name" should be the achievement list? Or are we sticking to events like it was done for Master Sous-Chef? Thanks for help. Perpugilliam 14:40, 26 March 2020 (UTC+1)
Yes, both are correct: either you create the #REDIRECT to the event/story/other page when applicable (like for the Master-Sous Chef), or to the achievement list, which in this case would be #REDIRECT [ [Bound by Blood (achievements)#Master-Sous Chef] ]. ~SimeUser Sime Maraca Choya.pngTalk 13:47, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
You can either redirect to a standalone achievement page with #REDIRECT [[<page name>]] or to an achievement on an achievement overview page with #REDIRECT [[<achievement page name>#achievement<achievement id>]] (where the achievement can be found by clicking edit and checking the parameter id = <achievement id>).
E.g. the page Master Sous-Chef can either be
  1. #REDIRECT [[Help Chef Mellitus prepare dishes for the festival]]: Help Chef Mellitus prepare dishes for the festival
  2. #REDIRECT [[Prologue: Bound by Blood (achievements)#achievement4916]]: Prologue: Bound by Blood (achievements)#achievement4916
depending if the standalone page exists and where you want to link. --Tolkyria (talk) 13:57, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Cross-wiki Outreach

Each of our language wiki's are invaluable, and we do rely on each other at various times. When we find we're lagging on information, looking at other the other wikis can help. That said, is there a more pro-active approach we can take to helping each other? This topic was prompted by another AMA post. Greener (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Not sure if this totally counts as outreach, but definitely an attempt at helping..? I can translate pages for the Spanish Wiki from ours, but I would need someone with a stronger grasp of written Spanish to edit what I do translate for conjugation errors. If we've got someone willing to be able to do that, I could potentially knock out several pages a week, time permitting. Muirellthe Moon Geode.png 02:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Documenting Drop Rates by Mobs and Zones

Another request from the AMA concerned itself with documenting drop rates to a higher level of detail. How feasible is this, and what steps would be involved? What issues may we come across? Greener (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Sounds incredibly tedious, difficult to repeat across an entire world and of negligable value. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 19:14, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
User:BuffsEverywhere discussed this with the question-asker on discord and drew up a possible solution on their sandbox. As both I and Buffs suspected, though, that page is really big and loads painfully slowly -- it's not an appropriate solution imo. The question-asker was hoping for something similar to Wowhead, but I'm not sure there's any way for us to accomplish it. It would still be terribly laggy, and I don't think we can create tabbed tables on mediawiki? —Idris User Idris signature.png 01:22, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
The idea as presented is too niche. Farming NPCs to randomly acquire a bag and then opening them to randomly acquire a specific material too narrow a use-case to be added. Plus NPC drops are nowhere near complete and likely never will be. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 10:48, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussing the AMA Itself

It would only be appropriate to discuss how we felt about the AMA we did on Reddit. What worked? What didn't? What could we improve or do differently if we were to do another in the future? Greener (talk) 17:54, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I think apart from starting in a different time slot for the sake of fairness and involving the other language wikis more, we could:
  • promote it better and longer (we really did it on such a short notice this time around)
  • perhaps even make a forum edition (since people felt a bit excluded as it was on reddit)
  • possibly briefly note what kind of areas on the wiki there are, so people have an idea what questions they could ask
Other than that I can't really think of anything else right now. It certainly was a pleasant experience overall! User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 18:09, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
The AMA got a lot of attention and multiple people expressed an interest contributing but not knowing where/how to start. The AMA post could have had a section or followup dedicated to this. I think Idris' post is a good example. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 20:18, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
The AMA has left me thinking about the way we currently handle our Help pages. They're all over the place and even I have trouble navigating them. Updating the editing guide was a good start, but I think we need to do more. —Idris User Idris signature.png 01:09, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Anything in particular springs to mind with regards to improving the help pages? (personally I find the weird split of pages in the nav between the GW2W and HELP namespaces odd - what do we think are the requirements for each?) -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 19:29, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
My thoughts are:
1) As you say, merge the GW2W and HELP namespaces. I'm not sure if this should be a complete merge or a partial one, but I agree that figuring out what we want each space to be actually for would be a good first step. It might also be an idea to draw up a map of all the articles on these two namespaces, since being able to see it all at once may help us identify overlaps.
2) Merge a bunch of articles in general. Our info is very scattered; for example, Guild Wars 2 Wiki:List of administrators doesn't even link to Help:Sysop or Help:Bureaucrat. All three could probably be merged.
3) {{Wiki help nav}} could probably use a rework; for some reason I find it tricky to find what I'm looking for when scanning it, but I'll need to reflect on why that is, because on paper there's nothing wrong with it. Getting its layout to reflect the layout of Help:Contents would be a good idea imo.
—Idris User Idris signature.png 13:43, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I reworked that nav yesterday! But ok I'll map out the help and project pages. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 18:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Ah, maybe that explains why I was confused as to why I couldn't follow it before when I took another look at it while writing the above comment. :P We might end up tweaking it some more after we organize the help pages, but we'll see how it goes! —Idris User Idris signature.png 19:07, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Thanks for drawing up this map, Alex. For the most part I agree with your comments; my own thoughts are:

  • Looks like both namespaces are needed. I think GW2W should be for maintenance and documentation, and HELP should be for guides.
  • The two SMW articles should remain split; the GW2W version is documentation for experienced users, and the HELP version is for overwhelmed newbies. We already discussed rewriting the latter on discord; I'll look into that tomorrow.
  • Practices and processes is a great article; we need something that explicitly lays out our expectations for user conduct. It could use a rewrite though; maybe User:Greener or User:Incarnazeus will have some ideas?
  • All formatting guides should go on the HELP namespace, including Damage calculation which has somehow slipped onto the mainspace.
  • Help:Contents should be the overview article for both namespaces. I think reworking it to have a similar structure to your sandbox (albeit simplified and prettied up) would be useful.
  • Help:Categories might be a good addition? I often find myself recommending the maintenance categories to newbies who don't know where to begin, but they're really hard to find if you don't already know they exist.

—Idris User Idris signature.png 22:45, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Agreeing with Idris regarding HELP and GW2W.
Re: Practices and Processes, it might be better to structure it like Help:Contents. User conduct deserves a whole page I'd say (we could cherry-pick content from the conduct section on Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Policy). I'll ponder a bit more on this one.
Looking at Alex's sandbox, there might still be pages missing, e.g. Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Image formatting, which should be merged with Help:Uploading screenshots and moved back to Help:Images as already suggested.
Lastly, maybe we could merge all the info covering admin et al. rights into one article and rename it to Help:User right groups or something. User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 09:51, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Alex commented out some of the pages for some reason, edit to see the missing ones. —Idris User Idris signature.png 10:17, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Gotcha, thanks! User Incarnazeus Signature.pngtalk 10:29, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
As promised, I've drawn up a skeleton of what I think Help:Semantic MediaWiki should look like on my sandbox. I don't feel like my understanding of SMW is good enough to actually write the guide, but I'm willing to work with whoever does write it to make sure it's newbie-friendly. Please feel free to edit my sandbox. This is now live, cheers Alex! —Idris User Idris signature.png 11:17, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm also drawing up a new map for the HELP/GW2W namespaces on User:Idris/Projects. —Idris User Idris signature.png 11:38, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Remapped it out into two proposed contents pages; User:Chieftain Alex/sandbox#Help:Contents and User:Chieftain Alex/sandbox#Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Contents. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 16:19, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
We should keep the friendly summaries for each section; they have some great advice for newbies that we shouldn't force them to click around in search for. (A complete list of pages underneath each section is okay, though.) Likewise, I'd prefer a single article for this: consider the fact that I tend to mentally categorize the formatting guides as "help" pages; if I was new I guarantee I'd get really confused as to why I can't find the guides in the help contents. I also think we should avoid meddling with the contents page/s until after we've finalized the rest of the articles in these namespaces. —Idris User Idris signature.png 17:08, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Ok so the idea of having two separate pages was intentional (kinda reflects how I feel about how-to-guides vs policy-guidelines)
I was however thinking that at least the Help section would be written like the previous one, but with the links in those sandbox bullet lists reworded into prose.
As a compromise, how about one page (on Help:Contents), with two main sections (Help and GW2W) split by banners. Then we turn it into prose like the existing Help:Contents. -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 18:16, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, that sounds good. I still think we should leave it until we've finalized our reshuffle though. —Idris User Idris signature.png 18:40, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Effect pages — related skills

Currently, the manually created related skill lists on the effect pages, listing all skills that grant the effect, have two problems:

  • Up to date — Keeping track of ~2000 profession skills and their effects result sooner or later in missing or outdated listed skills.
  • Format — Different format on different effect pages.

Even the most common effect pages, such as boon or condition pages, are missing skills and have different formats, e.g. Might, Burning, Bleeding. Therefore, in my opinion in one or another way we should address these two problems.

What I can offer

I am offering to implement (already done) and add the template Skill list that automatically creates the related skill list for a certain boon, condition or control effect, e.g. Might, Burning, Stun, relying and collecting the data from the non-historical skill pages. Each individual skill list is based on a skill context, e.g. skill context "weapon", "utility", "elite", etc... but also more specific ones such as "race" or "pet" skills.

Advantages and possible disadvantages
  • 1Yes Up to date — The skill lists will never be out of date, as long as the skill pages are updated correctly (consistent within the wiki). Furthermore, it reduces the editing effort after each balance game update, no need to check each boon or condition page for outdated skills.
  • 1Yes Format — Using one template all skill lists will have the same format by default.
  • 1Yes Complexity — The automatically created list can display skill details up to a certain degree, at some point in rare cases there might be e.g. skill requirements that cannot be displayed. Here, a manually created list has advantages, but then again the manually added details may be outdated soon. But in the end, the related skill lists are giving only an overview, for additional information the wiki user can always visit the skill page.
Format

In terms of readability nothing beats an properly aligned unordered list which was also the initial design of this pages. Hence, in my template each line has the following format: 

* <profession/elite specialization icon> <skill icon> <skill link> — <weapon, bundle, parent skill or skill type>, <attunement for elementalists>, <stacks> <duration or range>

with the additional information such as type, stacks and duration helping the wiki user to immediately classify the skill.

Sorting

The results are sorted numerically or alphabetically in the following way:

  1. By heavy, medium, light professions, see Property:Has profession sort order.
  2. By core, HoT, PoF specialization, see Property:Has specialization sort order.
  3. By weapon type if applicable, see Property:Is for weapon.
  4. By skill name.
Alternative formats

I have also considered alternative formats, however in my eyes none of them provide the same readability as the format above. They ended up in jumping bullets, massively decreasing the readability or removed the focus from the profession and the skill.

Examples

Examples from my proposed [[User:Tolkyria/Skill list|template]] can be found [[User:Tolkyria/Skill list/Burning|here]].

--Tolkyria (talk) 19:38, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the edits that happened between yesterday (the creation of this community post) and today, I will go a little bit into detail.
Early August most of the boon and corruption pages got an format update for weapon skills, introducing an unordered list excessively using profession or elite specialization icons:
* <profession/elite specialization icon> <weapon type>
** <profession/elite specialization icon> <skill icon> <skill link>
* <profession/elite specialization icon> <skill type>
** <profession/elite specialization icon> <bundle type>
*** <profession/elite specialization icon> <skill icon> <skill link>
E.g. Bleeding (August 2019), note that not all of the major boon and condition pages have been updated Burning (October 2019)
I noticed this format late August 2019, disagreed with it but couldn't find any better format at this time.
Timeskip...
During October I tried lots of different formats in my sandbox, discarded lots of them, and finally presented yesterday what I think is my best result.
Meanwhile, during yesterday and today, the format for weapon skills changed again, e.g. Bleeding (October 2019):
<profession/elite specialization icon> <weapon type>
* <skill icon> <skill link>
basically doubling the size of the list due to the header additional lines and the css margins as well as increasing the difference between the weapon skill format and the utility skill format.
For me, summing everything up, the following just feels strange:
  1. there hasn't been any progress at the effect pages in the past two months, but soon as I'm starting an attempt to properly discuss and try find together a new format, there is suddenly a format overhaul...
  2. ...compeletly ignoring everything I wrote about readability above.
  3. using live-wiki as sandbox, trying out things without any concept (i.e. new weapon skill format doesn't match with the utility skill format at all)
  4. mixing up weapon slot skills and weapon context skills (i.e. if we are using weapon slot skills why are bundles listed under weapon skills but not downed skills? I prefer properly splitting by context rather than overloading by slot.)
For visual comparison I'll leave the following image of the last formats here, maybe it explains why I insist on a plain list format without jumping bullets or different indent levels:
User Tolkyria Blinded version history.jpg
Source:
However, if I'm the only one that sees a problem here, then please tell me so that I can move on. --Tolkyria (talk) 12:22, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
You're definitely not alone on that. The current (October) version is absolutely horrible to read. I wouldn't even necessarily mind having the professions separated a bit with headers (I'm certainly not insisting on that, although it could make it easier for the colour-blind among us); however, having headers take up every other row makes the whole list practically unusable.
I'm all for [[User:Tolkyria/Skill list/Burning|your suggestion]], except that I'd personally drop the "X stacks for Y seconds" texts, that might be a bit of information overload. But whatever the case, the current version has to go... User Noxx Sig.png 16:44, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I would second Noxx on his suggestion to remove X stacks for Y seconds bit, i.e. for the first entry it'd be
-Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 18:12, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Thirding Noxx's suggestion. Nice idea Tolkyria, I think the benefits of automating this outweigh the drawbacks, and I agree that the formatting of the current live version is far too bloated. —Idris User Idris signature.png 20:15, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Plus, if we decide on different automated formatting later, its only one template to change! -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 21:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback! It was very tempting to display stacks, duration, etc.. because we can do it without any further effort, however I understand why you all asked to remove it. I adjusted the template to disable it on default (To be honest I couldn't remove it completely right now, readding this code and readjusting all smw property template parameters kept me of removing it. Note that this template should easily display at least 3-4x times of the length of the burning example.). For the adjusted result see again [[User:Tolkyria/Skill list]]. --Tolkyria (talk) 14:33, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Yep, I think that this is the way to go. User Noxx Sig.png 20:44, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Template:Skill list, for creating skill lists by skill fact and skill context automatically, is now live and can be found right now on the following pages:

--Tolkyria (talk) 16:52, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Legendary Location Locator

Just dropping a link to this suggestion which has been posted on discord and reddit but didn't manage to catch attention yet; I'd hate for it to get lost. My initial thought is that most of these locations/items still haven't had "related achievements" for legendary collections added to them yet, which doesn't seem to be the goal of this project but would still be handy! —Idris User Idris signature.png 22:48, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Using your comment here, I started adding the Related achievements sections to the items themselves and branch items/vendors as well. While it wasn't the intent, it's certainly a helpful step for getting the content up-to-date. Since the collection nav exists, it's at least easy to blow through the collection items to add the section. The end goal I think would be an aggregated, filterable and sortable table for all the collections. VisionOfTheWood (talk) 00:31, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
What exactly is the benefit of adding the related achievement section to collection items which have: (1) a link in the infobox, (2) a nav with the achievement title, and (3) a nav with all the other items linked from it? -Chieftain AlexUser Chieftain Alex sig.png 00:35, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
It's not so useful for the collection items themselves, but it's great for events and mobs that drop the items. I should have been clearer about that in my first comment. —Idris User Idris signature.png 00:36, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Fixing borked links (page not found)

I had a look at the list of pages that apparently need to be constructed due to other pages pointing to a non-existent page. For example, one that needs fixing is Skritt (NPC). However, there is an existing page called Skritt. How can I find the pages that reference the wrong page. I tried a search for "Skritt (NPC)" and that didn't work.

Also - there appear to be hundreds of links to the same non-existent API pages. --Hesione (talk) 09:57, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

If you're using the Special Pages>Wanted Pages list, (Search Special:Wantedpages for quick access), then next to each individual wanted page is a link that says "# links." Click that and you'll be given a list of the pages that link to it. (For the skritt: here Sometimes this helps to find typos, and sometimes you find NPCs like that Skritt one where it's an obvious NPC that hasn't really been given its proper page somehow. Hope this helps.--Rain Spell (talk) 17:29, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, I clearly clicked the wrong bit. --Hesione (talk) 03:10, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Super adventure box chest - needs a page?

I feel sorry for the little lonely links that don't have a relevant page. I've had a look at the links that hoped a "(Chest) Super Adventure Box" page existed. This is the chest that one opens with keys inside SAB, *not* the reward chest/s. Did a page exist in the past? I've noted at least one reference to the chest that doesn't link. I wonder if a page should be constructed, or whether to add this information to the main SAB page. However, as there are multiple SAB pages, maybe the main page is not the way best way forward.

An example of a link to the non-existent page is in the table on this page Super Adventure 1-1, see coin 3 row in the table. I note that an icon for the chest exists (the borked link is on that icon), which is kind of weird that the wiki has an icon but no associated page. Anyhoo, a reference to the locked chest is on this page Unlock (Key) without any exposition on the chest, or link to an expected page on the chests.

Do we want a chest page? It seems odd to have a page devoted to the key, but not one to the chest. Perhaps one page could address both the chest and the key, to avoid having more links than is, perhaps, strictly necessary. --Hesione (talk) 06:17, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

The images were made by User:J.Tesla. While adding them to the Template:SAB icon the link was added. The chests are technically not an object. For now I have removed the link from the template. I think it would be good to put an image on the key page. —Kvothe (talk) 14:55, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Are we missing some champion krait pages?

I may have gone down a rabbit hole with this. I started on this https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Champion_Krait_Nimross and then I noticed that the page had been deleted https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Champion_Krait_Nimross&action=edit&redlink=1 But pages for other various individual levels of krait exist, such as Champion_Krait_Damoss and Champion Krait Hypnoss. Re Nimross, the Champion version is missing from the navigation of the main Nimross page Krait Nimross. I'm lost re fixing the links, or not fixing the links. Does this champion variant not exist? --Hesione (talk) 06:42, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

update from informal discussion: if it gets added, the loot table needs to be confirmed. We would still have the issue of whether the NPC does or does not have a splendid chest. Do one of us hang out in the area until the champion (if there is one) spawns, help kill it, and determine whether a splendid chest does, or does not, appear? --Hesione (talk) 21:20, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
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