User talk:Dr ishmael/Archive 1

Thank Kormir!

Thank Kormir you are finally here! There's a lot of people working on content, so I'm glad that are more people who understand what needs to happen to update the structure (templates, automagic lists, cats, ...). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Ernie! I can still call you Ernie, right? Yeah, I'd been holding myself back from getting involved here simply because I didn't want to lose another 3 years of my life to a wiki, but in the end I just couldn't resist the pull. Wikis are addicting. —Dr Ishmael

20:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Call me Ishmael. Pretty much every time I found myself answering the same question in /l- or /g-chat more than five times, I would jump here to see what GW2W had to say... and was foolishly surprised each time that the info isn't as thorough as on GWW or GWiki. It's good to see you here. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Our userbase isn't as big as we had hoped it to be by now. We'll get there with help, though! The more hands on board, the faster it goes. :) - Infinite - talk 21:13, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

My forces grow stronger by the day. Soon I will be able to overthrow the one they call Tanetris.

21:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

@TEF: We've had all of two days of actual game experience; we don't work magic. Well, maybe Infinite does, but still... Aqua (T|C) 22:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

@Aqua: You missed the bit about how I was foolish to have assumed several years of effort would be completed in three days. (That's a testimony to the amazing community effort that produced GWW...and a comment about my own enthusiasm for the game.)

@Felix: soon? – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

That said, I do feel we could use both (ishmael and TEF) of you to help further determine many things we're still working on. We're all aspiring a shared cause here, after all! :) - Infinite - talk 14:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

@TEF: Like Aqua said, most of us have only had this one weekend to play the game, and I'm sure the majority were much more interested in actually playing it rather than documenting it. I doubt we'll see a whole lot of in-depth contributions until after release when we are no longer time-restricted.

@Infinite: What I would really like to do is to help set things up that will make it very easy for users to add data to the wiki and to keep that data uniform/consistent across the wiki. A very useful tool for this is the Semantic Forms extension, which lets you populate template parameters through an HTML form (including the ability to restrict values with listboxes, check boxes, or radio buttons), and that's a big reason I decided to make my proposal for SMW. Semantic Forms provide a low-learning-curve option for new editors to create pages instead of having to copy and modify existing pages, and since they populate templates automatically, they help keep the pages more uniform.

And I honestly didn't mean to go off on a sales pitch there. >.> —Dr Ishmael

15:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not familiar with Semantic Forms, but I am willing to learn. At first glance that whole proposal looked quite overly technical to me (unlike you coding lot, I'm more of a graphical designer and author, so other than basic DPL I can't really go much more advanced), but I'll give it another read. - Infinite - talk 16:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

For a good example of Semantic Forms, check out STOWiki's Form:Duty officer. Enter any random name in the input box to bring up the full empty form. To see how it works in relation to an existing page, check out an individual DOff like Rurihk (relationship to Prince Rurik uncertain) and comparing the standard "Edit" to "Edit with Form".

They use #widgets (template-like pages that can contain Javascript) to populate some of the options, like listing the possible Powers based on the Specialization entered [1], or displaying the possible Images based on Gender and Species [2] (I helped update that one recently). —Dr Ishmael

16:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I can assure you these examples (and the minor extra explanation) are being very well received. :) - Infinite - talk 16:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Semantic Forms

To tie in with the extensive elaboration in favour of this implementation (which now appears to have hit consensus!) I was wondering if your plans also include making similar ways to edit via form as seen in the examples in the section above. It is insanely user friendly and is well received so far (by users who are not as skilled in editting on wiki). It should definitely never replace raw editting (I doubt you would ever support such a change anyway), but I think this wiki would benefit quite a lot from the introduction of forms-base editting. - Infinite - talk 17:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

No, Semantic Forms is intended as a supplement to standard editing, never as a replacement. Like I showed on STOWiki, it adds an "Edit with Form" action without affecting the normal "Edit" action. There is an option to switch them around so that "Edit" uses the form and "Edit Source" does the raw editing, if you want to make it more natural for users to use the form. Also, usual practice is to include a "free text" input on the form, which equates to the article minus the templates handled by the form. —Dr Ishmael

19:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Then I understood your intentions and will be looking forward to the form-based editting (so that many contacts of mine may be more involved with wiki development (it's hard to get them to do raw editting, because they feel really insecure that way)). Thanks for the elaboration. :) - Infinite - talk 19:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Purge

The clock is a purge link, fyi. --JonTheMon 19:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

..... >.> Why, whatever are you talking about, dear Jon? I created my .js page merely for custom edit buttons. <.< —Dr Ishmael

20:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there a binge button?

20:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

¬.¬

Fine...that is like one telling me to not delete a blog post reply when I want to. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Phoenix Inertia (talk).

Once again, inaccurate, this time due to ownership. You don't own your talk page in the sense of owning a blog. You need to understand a wiki is a community effort and everything that happens on it is public. —Dr Ishmael

23:35, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

.js

It's empowering to have a command center, isn't it? Even without having sysop powers anymore, it makes me feel like a power user. :D Vili 点 14:52, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Hah, indeed! —Dr Ishmael

15:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Gibber names

See, your filter is a little too broad, imo. Like, what if you wanted a name like Ishmael8? That wouldn't be an uncommon name, imo. We do have a filter for "spam account names" which triggers on double names followed by 3 or 4 numbers. --JonTheMon 13:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I did say "adapt". And I never said my filter was perfect, it was simply "good enough" to stop the problem that we were having at GuildWiki. —Dr Ishmael

13:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. Just figured that moving the conversation here was better. But yeah, we had to strike a balance between legit and spam (wheeeeeee... ). It's already got 1100 hits, so it's doing something! --JonTheMon 13:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep, it blocked ~10 just today. Apparently that same spammer hasn't decided to target GW2W yet, which is just fine.

There's also the option to display a message to the user before blocking the action. You could have it say, "The username given matches a pattern of known spam-bot usernames. Please choose a different username. We apologize for this inconvenience." Then the user can modify the username and submit their registration again. —Dr Ishmael

13:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

A very common bot name is <Name><Name><digits>, but I don't think we can make a filter for every bot-like format without taking away actual users' registration freedom. - Infinite - talk 14:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly the filter at GuildWiki. It requires the first <Name> to be at least 6 characters long. Based on the recent hits, it looks like I could modify it to apply that to both <Names> and also require <digits> to be exactly 3 characters. That way it's more specific to the bots and less restrictive. —Dr Ishmael

14:23, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Standard Damage

I noticed you'd been adding a bunch of damage values after the stress test. Since the damage tooltip seems to scale with Power, is there a standard Power to use when filling in damage in skills? I say this after updating a bunch of skills myself before thinking about this particular issue. Capric 21:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Dammit, I wish I'd known that beforehand. I captured the data with characters at level 80 in Heart of the Mists, and I assumed that skill effects only scaled by level, so I didn't bother to check what bonuses I was getting from the default equipment. I found a screenshot of my warrior with 2352 power... graaaaagh.

My intent was to capture the skill effects at "baseline" level 80 stats, which would be 916 in each attribute. I guess I'll spend next BWE running around the Hall of Memories again... but all my characters will be naked. :D —Dr Ishmael

21:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I was in the process of testing it on Monday's beta. Not only does it scale with power, but also with level. We may need to compile data in tables and perhaps use a show/hide table to represent the data. I've noticed one or two pages that display the actual formula for healing. I find this to be useless, as most people are looking for raw numbers and not to have to do the calculations. Venom20

21:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

The formulas are useful, but you're right, it doesn't make sense to put them in the skill descriptions - they should show a known value for a certain baseline level and attribute combination. Whether that's level 1 with 24 attribute or level 80 with 916 attribute, as long as we make it clear that all skill effects are listed at this baseline, then readers can make standard comparisons between different skills. —Dr Ishmael

22:08, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we could do something for skill damage akin to what GWW does, albeit much less explicitly (i.e. gigantic level vs. power table, with arbitrary cells filled in with a regression equation). Aqua (T|C) 22:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I think tables of tables or huge tables would be overkill. Unless damage follows some horrible complex formula, we can do what we did for GW1: present data as simply as possible, have the primary articles describe the complex details behind the mechanics, and offer our clearest synopses of detailed analyses. For example:

Define "base damage" as that done at L80 with "default" power (although defining default might be interesting); use that for skill infoboxes.
Have a damage calculator article that shows how armor, power, and other stats affect damage.
The article on level would show how health, damage, etc scale with level.

The same applies to healing: we define a baseline and describe how certain variables increase/decrease it.

I don't think we need to include formulas on every page, but for some people, that would be the simplest and most useful way to present the mechanics. It might be useful to include the formula as a hidden element of the infoboxes. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:20, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I was thinking. SMW and Widgets will open up a plethora of possibilities for implementing calculators of every sort imaginable. All we need are the formulas for each scaling effect. —Dr Ishmael

22:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Damage scales linearly with power, so you can back-calculate to 916 power and be +-1 very consistently. Since I found some skills where the tooltip damage seems to have no relationship with actual damage done, I'm not terribly averse to using calculated values as opposed to those taken from the UI.

Going forward, it sounds like standard damage should be L80 with 916 Power. Capric 22:31, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess I'll continue with the other professions I was able to capture - mesmer and elementalist - so I can at least make sure they have the full effects listed, and the numbers for each can be consistent within themselves. I did see other people working on some of those skills Monday night, so I'll check to see if they already look consistent first.

But yes, next BWE will be spent compiling skill data - first in the Mists, at level 80, with different attribute scores. Then I'll have to gather what data I can at lower levels in PvE - some professions son't be too hard to get everything, but others have so many tranforms/kits and sequence skills (engineer, I'm looking at you...) that, if they wipe the characters, will make it difficult to unlock them all in one weekend.

Y'know what, I should probably recruit people to assist with this. 8 people, 1 profession each, and we could all be done in a few hours. Y'know what else... I can build a Google Spreadsheet with all the skills, and people can just fill it out with their numbers. Then I apply my mystical data parsing abilities, and we'll have all the formulas worked out before the BWE ends. Wha-ha-HAAA! —Dr Ishmael

03:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I spent the entirety of my 3 hours I got to play the stress test collecting numbers to work out formulas (...which I was going to look at more today but diablo 3). I have a bunch of mesmer data that I'm going to scale down to 916 power and then re-update. I'd happily volunteer to do same thing next BWE. Ideally for mesmer, warrior, or engineer.

Although engineer will be annoying since I'm betting their kit skills aren't based off weapon damage. Which means the tooltip damage is suspect and you can't use steady weapons to get a nice easy verification. Ah well ~ Capric 04:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

[3] Got started on the Google Spreadsheet data collection center, with the Warrior page complete. I generally only listed damage, conditions, and boons, since most other effects (range, knockdown, number of attacks, etc.) are probably static. I'd like to get feedback on this, if anyone has time in the next couple days, before I do a whole lot of work on any other professions.

Also, for anyone who wants to participate in this project, please send me a wiki-mail so I can give you edit permission on the spreadsheet. —Dr Ishmael

21:46, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks For The Help

Hopefully it's ok to Thank You here, for the help you just gave me, with regards to {Skill infobox/effects|push|alt=Knockback distance|100}... as well as on the 2 other pages I Thanked you :-) Frostty1 14:47, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

You can thank me by avoiding red text in the future - it's not necessary to get your point across. :P —Dr Ishmael

14:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry if the red text was a faux pas. I was just trying to get someone's attention. I've removed the red font. TY again for your help. Frostty1 16:25, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Anything we do here pretty much gets someone's attention, so using extra highlighting (boldface, italics, glaring colors) is overkill. If you post on a prominent page (like community talk), give it a few days to get a response. If nothing happens, then consider posting to individuals who seem likely to help. The level of faux pas is something like cutting in line at a movie theater: it earns you a few dirty looks, but nothing that a sincere apology (like that above along with removing the red text) wouldn't fix. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:44, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Hey if we were killing zombies you wouldn't be worried about overkill. Not trying to start a ruckus but... If you cut in line here, you'd get hauled back by the scruff of your neck... red font is not that bad. If I was editing on the king of all anal sites (wikipedia.org) that would have been a different story. Frankly, I was surprised that it bothered Dr ishmael Diablo. But he helped me, was nice about it and that was enough reason for me to not want to annoy him (or others). Coming from the GW1 wiki's, that info has long since been sorted out. This wiki is going to be inundated in the next few months... Maybe even by people who play WoW. Good luck. Frostty1 17:33, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Red text is only a problem because it usually means a broken link.

03:17, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

To be blunt, any sort of alteration of the default font outside of simple bold or italics is unnecessary, unless it's being used to demonstrate a point. In this case, the font size and color were altered simply to draw attention, which is unnecessary on a wiki as active as this one. Comments will be seen by someone, eventually - you may not get a reply immediately, you might have to wait a few days. If you think the issue is especially important, post on the community portal or even post directly on an administrator's talk page.

tl;dr don't alter the font. —Dr Ishmael

14:38, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

I've seen how respectful, dedicated, thorough, and thoughtful you are from your work on GW1 wiki, just wanted to thank you for all your hard work. With you on board for GW2Wiki, there shouldn't be any issues in making this a site of superior quality. Keep up the good work! 107.9.231.4 01:14, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Guild Wars 2 Videos

Hello there, wasn't 100% on the right people/person to contact on this one however I saw that you are the admin of the original Guild Wars wiki so I decided I'd let you know.

Over the few weeks past the first Open Beta I've been making video's explaining and show-casing the mechanics of certain aspects of Guild Wars 2 I was wondering if you guys wanted to use them on the Wiki, seeing as they're more helpful for people looking for specific info rather than someone just looking for game play footage and so on.

Either way, let me know :)

Currently I have these videos: - Level Scaling - Map and Map Markers - The Gem Store - UI & Skills - Combat - PvP (Battlegrounds)

I plan to make quite a few more as well.

EDIT

Sorry, forgot to leave a link: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8E5FA089DD3C3C98&feature=plcp --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Marc1k1 (talk).

I think the general practice here is that we don't link to videos in mainspace, except when citing them as references. (I've only been active here for less than a month, so I don't know everything yet.) You can always put them on your userpage, of course. Perhaps making a thread to advertise them on a forum would be a good idea, too, like in GW2Guru's Community Works. —Dr Ishmael

15:09, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Yah. Plus they can be used to update the relevant pages with more information. So you are encouraged to go to the relevant pages and update/edit the information if you feel that the content on those pages are lacking, and cite the videos as references if necessary. --Lania

19:28, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

skill tables

I've noticed that you a doing skill tables with css. Just wanted to say that my custom CSS has similar feature (TABLE CLASSES section), and using it may save you a lot of copy-pasting time. Alfa-R 19:09, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Ack, can't believe I forgot about that! I should definitely make my sandboxing conform to the soon-to-be-implemented site styles. —Dr Ishmael

19:24, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

[[User:Dr ishmael/List of warrior skills|This]]

I really really (really) like it. It's clear, concise, automatically generated and, best of all, it removes those pesky rowspans. You've done a really good job on these. Aqua (talk) 20:53, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I'd been wanting to do that pretty much since I started working on this wiki, but I was hesitating in the hope that SMW would get installed quickly. Since it doesn't look like that's gonna happen anytime soon, and spurred on by the discussion on your talkpage, I decided I'll just go ahead and do it.

I just added an additional class to all the tables .skilltable so that I could set them all to the same width and give them a left margin (so that the section headers don't feel buried between the tables). This is what I was using:

.table.skilltable {
  width:800px;
  margin-left:25px;
}

Let me know if there's anything else that could be improved. —Dr Ishmael

21:13, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah I agree with aqua... It's absolutely beautiful! From a design perspective, it has a nice open concept feel to it as well, in addition to it just being much much easier to read. --Lania

21:15, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

+1. I've added your class to my CSS (also, I was sure that clear:both for tables was removed long ago, but it was there, so I've changed it to none, so tables would include even less text now). I have a couple of complains though: width:800 doesn't fit an iPad screen, may I suggest using smth like width:100%; max-width:800px instead; I also don't like left margin, it makes text jagged. Oh, and also, I think that calling this class .table.skills would make it more comprehensible (e. g. table warrior skilltable will become warrior skills table) Alfa-R

21:42, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Chrome and Safari don't respect max-width on tables, because max-width only applies for block elements, and tables aren't blocks (they aren't inline either, for some reason). [4][5] The suggestion on the first link to use "display:block" doesn't seem to work, because Chrome then ignores the width value. The suggestion on the second link to wrap the table in a max-width div and set the table to 100% works, but that would require a div around every table (so they don't affect the section [edit] links). What do you think?

The simpler class name makes sense (already updated the page).

Without the margin, the section headers are squished between the tables. I found it difficult to pick out a specific header when I was scrolling through the page. Do you have any suggestions on how else to mitigate that? —Dr Ishmael

22:15, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm assuming that you're waiting for SMW to make the skill lists fully automated? Because the entire point of DPL/SMW is to reduce user generation of lists in favor of software generation (right?) Aqua (talk) 00:07, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Eeeyup. With SMW, each table would be generated by a semantic query. Based on my ideas here for re-swizzling {{skill infobox}} from {slot} to {context}, the queries would work like this:

Burst skills: {{#ask:[[Is for profession::Warrior]][[Has skill context::mechanic]]
<weapon> skills: {{#ask:[[Is for profession::Warrior]][[Has skill context::weapon]][[Is for weapon::<weapon>]]
Healing/Utility/etc. skills: {{#ask:[[Is for profession::Warrior]][[Has skill context::healing/utility/etc.]]
Auxiliary skillbars: {{#ask:[[Is for profession::Warrior]][[Has skill context::secondary]][[Has parent skill::Rampage]]

... etc. The output template would look at the skill type, and if it has type=chain, it would query e.g. {{#ask:[[Has parent skill::Chop]]}}, in order to display the chain skills in order like we do manually. (This would be adapted for other toggle-style skills like turrets and mantras.) —Dr Ishmael

01:23, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh, crap. W3C specifications indeed don't allow for max-width with tables. Adding display:block to table and width:70% to the last column (you'll need to calc exact % value) will probably do the trick then, sorry don't have a PC nearby to check.

I personally don't have any problems with finding headers when there are no indents. They are always followed by darker headers, so their position already stands out alot. Alfa-R

07:28, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess that's just a personal problem then. No margin is fine - I can add it in my personal CSS if it continues to bug me. —Dr Ishmael

12:01, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

On the width stuff, your suggestion doesn't work perfectly, and I'm not sure why. I played around with it for nearly an hour and couldn't make it work. So I tried the max-width div-wrapper solution, and it works quite well. I also modified the table headers so that they each have a class, and the class has a defined width percentage, as an easier way to maintain standard widths between the different tables.

new css

.table.skills {
  width: 100%;
}

.table.skills .th.slot {
  width: 2%;
}

.table.skills .th.skill {
  width: 20%;
}

.table.skills .th.recharge {
  width: 8%;
}

.table.skills .th.weapon {
  width: 12%;
}

.table.skills .th.sp {
  width: 8%;
}

.table.skills .th.type {
  width: 10%;
}

How does that sound? —Dr Ishmael

16:16, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Wrapper it is then. I guess it won't be a problem since it's only needed on pages with a lot of tables positioned under each other, and that are anyway skill lists only I believe. I'd advocate against using classes for column width, as the whole reason to use a class is to encapsulate lots of difficult to comprehend properties under a simple name, and in this case such kind of encapsulation obscures actual properties without necessity. E.g. you can instantly grok warrior skills table, and how is it different from lore table, and you can actually see how it changes the table; but what is so special about sp column of table, and what does it actually do? Width:8% is, on the other hand, so much easier to comprehend in this case. Also, how did having both pixel and % widths misbehaved? I've tried changing it in Chrome's inspector, seems totally fine to me. Alfa-R

17:04, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I finally found the problem - 150px for the skill column isn't wide enough for some of the skill names. Chrome was expanding it to fit on some of the tables, and then when I gave the description the appropriate width %, it shrunk the skill back to 150px - I assumed I had figured the % wrong, so I shrunk it until the skill fit again, but then the table didn't fill 800px anymore.

Divs won't be necessary. I'll go fix up the tables properly. —Dr Ishmael

18:05, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I've upgraded my stylesheets accordingly, though block doesn't work on all browsers for me (but inline-block does). I've also noticed that, when sorting, chain skills behave badly. May I suggest adding invisible spans to chained skills which contain original skill name and a number of skill in chain (so bow's command on guardian will become <span style="display:none">Bow of Truth 2</span>Command, it will sort with the Bow of Truth skill this way). Alfa-R

20:39, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I got everything up to here (lot of discussions), but did you think about "display:table"? It works fine for me, and I've been replacing your "display:block"'s in the br wiki because it behaves weirdly sometimes. - Valento 21:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Nope, that would just undo what we are doing by using display:inline-block. Chrome and Safari won't respect max-width on tables because they don't treat tables as blocks, as per the W3C specifications; we have to change the display property to make them respect max-width. —Dr Ishmael

22:12, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

@Alfa: chain skills sort properly now. While I'm not convinced that we need sortability on any tables, I deliberately added it to the utility table to show how this design is superior to the rowspanned design - sorting is impossible with rowspans. While the other tables are too small to need sortability, we may as well keep it on the utility table. —Dr Ishmael

23:27, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Width

I reduced the width of the tables from 1000px to 800px since I was removing 2 columns from all of them. However, now that I'm using Alfa's new CSS that has the font slightly larger, I had to make the remaining columns a bit wider, reducing the width of the description. I'm debating whether I should increase the table width back to 1000px. On the [[User:Dr ishmael/List of warrior skills|warrior list]], the only table that has a lot of linewrapping is the utility skills, so doing that would only create blank space in the other tables. However, on the [[User:Dr ishmael/List of guardian skills|guardian list]], the majority of the tables have linewrapping, so a wider table would be helpful. Anyone have thoughts on this? —Dr Ishmael 22:23, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I'm going to go back to 1000px, especially after seeing these on my home monitor at 1920x1080 resolution (work monitor is suckier, don't remember exactly but it's much less than that). The max-width plus a percentage-based column means the tables can smoothly adapt to smaller resolutions. —Dr Ishmael

04:56, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

After doing some tweaks to new tables with Pling and Tanetris, we are left with skills class containing only max-width:100px. I think that it's a bad practice, as I've already described, as this class is quite obscure. I think adding style="max-width:1000px" will work much better, so I'd like to delete this class from common.css. Please, tell me if you agree (as right now you are like the only person who's aware of its existance =D), and if you do, update your tables accordingly, please. Alfa-R

16:48, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

EDIT: Actually, both width:100% and max-width would need to be added. (width:100% was removed because Pling had found that it dosn't work with small tables like asura skills table, so it should be added specifically now). Alfa-R

17:00, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

[[User:Dr ishmael/List of asura skills|I don't see a problem]]. It requires that every column have a defined width, with Description having a percentage. —Dr Ishmael

18:11, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Imagine a user who doesn't know that she has to define widths. How would she get how it works? Isn't it better to omit the class, so that tables work when user didn't add additional input? And then, we can add width manually after them how it is often done, and everything will work again. Alfa-R

18:47, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

This can be fixed by removing skills class from asura table, actually. Since class is in use, I've asked Tanetris to revert it. I think we can return to this discussion later when people familiarize themselves with the new tables. Alfa-R

19:24, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Tying into this discussion, this specific requirement of the .skills class would be a good thing to include. I think we should keep it in case we ever decide to make additional CSS modifications specifically to skill tables, so that the class is already in place - even with the current definition, it at least standardizes the width of all skill tables. If you still think we should remove the width:100% declaration, I'd be fine with that, actually. It's not like we're going back to having to specify a style on nearly every cell... it's just one rule on the base table. —Dr Ishmael

00:19, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

non-informative header

I'm guessing that if someone (who shall not be named) nominated you for adminship, you'd decline because you haven't been here on GW2W long enough - not because it wouldn't benefit you/the wiki... am I right? Vili 点 07:40, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we need more administrators right now, but I think we're still one bureaucrat short. Of course, it's good to think about release and get ready for that and flood of contributions and contributors. Mediggo 07:50, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't think you can just nominate a bureaucrat. We're not (I hope?) having the stupid election system from GWW ported over, but I'd think the process is going to be at least semi-formal...you know? Vili 点

07:58, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks like people are pretty aware of that sillyness. I believe the goal is to resolve all these issues without establishing firm policies and instead rely on consensus and its flexibility. I don't know how bureaucrats were nominated/elected on GuildWiki or any other wiki than GWW, but currently we have two, and I think an odd number of bcrats is preferred(?). Mediggo 08:09, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Bureaucrats on GuildWiki were elected on a whim - mine. I liked that system :D Unfortunately I'm not a bureaucrat on this wiki anymore, so that won't be happening again. Vili 点

08:18, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I knew there was a reason you cling on to that communistic Reversal of Fortune (or is it Fortune of Reversal? I forgot) – dictatorial tendencies. Mediggo 08:25, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, yes, I am a bit of a megalomaniac. I'm also a member of Elitists Anonymous^TM, you should have heard about us. But it's also just a reference to a classic page from GuildWiki: Russian Reversal. Vili 点

08:31, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure Ishmael would make for a fine sysop. Anyone with half a brain can tell the difference between admin who has been active for years on another (yet related) wiki and one that has been almost entirely inactive for years and only came back for RFA. While it is likely that rest of the GW2W might not be so eager to place trust on him, I hope you (Ish) will run for admin position in the future, if you feel that now is not the right time for that. Mediggo 09:01, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

If nominated, I would probably accept, for various reasons that I'll lay out in my candidate statement. (*cough*) Yes, my short time of activity here would be a mark against me (many may not feel they know me well enough to support me), but I feel that the potential value I would bring to the wiki with my "get stuff done" admin style is enough that I'd be silly to turn down the chance. —Dr Ishmael

14:16, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

If you were nominated I'd support you in a heart beat. I didn't nominate you last night because I wasn't sure you would accept. But I'll let someone else do the nominating or you can just simply start your own RfA :). --Lania

15:02, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Please do not take today's delete spree as an attempt to sabotage your campaign. I was bored. - Tanetris 02:56, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Hah! XD No, instead I saw it simply as my comment spurring action that needed to be taken. Thanks for finally freeing up the places for those skills to move. —Dr Ishmael

03:00, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Spreading the love

I would like to nominate you as a potential sysop. Aqua (talk) 03:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I didn't expect that to come from one of the "new" crowd, but thank you all the same. Yes, I would accept a nomination. —Dr Ishmael

03:37, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

If people are all going to rally and say "if someone nominated you, then I'd support you" then why should you not be nominated? I'm new(ish) but I don't live under a rock. Aqua (talk) 20:07, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, yeah. It was late when I posted that, I was super-tired yesterday, and I'm not quite sure what I really meant anymore, given the discussion directly above here that did get started by one of the "old" crowd. In any case, what are you standing around for? Go and nominate me already! :P —Dr Ishmael

20:19, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

(That was it.) Aqua (talk) 20:47, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Er, I meant, like, start the RfA and stuff. o.O —Dr Ishmael

20:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

There you are. Aqua (talk) 20:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

SMW envy

The rage of the Chicken Lord is delicious. --JonTheMon 20:48, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

--FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-- —Dr Ishmael

20:48, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

The silver lining is that it shows Anet's wiki/web people at least know how to set it up, so when they finally get MW upgraded it shouldn't take long at all for us to get SMW. —Dr Ishmael

20:50, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

That also means that we get to start off with the shiny new version. --JonTheMon 20:54, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Now that I'm reading this: we only recently got started with SMW, and there is a lot of work to do. I've been looking through your concepts while I was implementing the skill templates a lot while teaching myself SMW a little more. So if you're planning on exchanging things, feel free to drop me a message here or on GW2W.de; there might be some questions you can answer me, if there's some more time after the initial madness. --Tera 21:06, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

About SMW, is there a place to learn it? I'm interested to learn some stuff about of it. Tech Wolf-Talk 21:24, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

afaik, [6] has the most documentation, manuals, and user guides. I'm not sure if there are better places for tutorials and such. Might just wait for the Doc to reply :P. --Lania

21:35, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) They have a user manual that covers a lot of stuff. I use it as a reference all the time. —Dr Ishmael

21:36, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, added. Tech Wolf-Talk 21:50, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I've just read an introduction to SMW, it seems great to structure and retrieve information (that example is self-explainable)! - Valento 01:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

referata

can you, please, give me rights to edit common.css on your referata site? I've registered there by the same name. I need to update common.css to make tables work with older browsers, but. unfortunately, there were problems with testing the results with IE here, so I've figured out I should do it on another site so that users here are not affected. thanks! Alfa-R 11:40, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Sure thing. —Dr Ishmael

12:33, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

thanks. let the chaos wreck upon thy wiki! =D Alfa-R

12:43, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

User:Dr ishmael/List of guardian skills

In Firefox 12, there is an issue with non-optimised cell useage as seen on this image. This is caused because the descriptions don't span the entire width of the last cell (except for the last description in the third table, where the issue doesn't exist). Wanted to bring that to your attention. :) - Infinite - talk 20:19, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

And also, the recharge row in the first table should be aligning with the recharges in the other tables. :P - Infinite - talk 20:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

That's really strange, because I don't see that in FF - but I'm on the beta channel, which means I've got FF 13, and maybe that bug's been fixed.

The reason the recharge doesn't align is because the tables aren't identical - the mechanic table only has Skill/Recharge, while the weapon tables have Slot/Skill/Type/Recharge. To make it align, I'd have to double the width of the Skill column, which wouldn't look right to me due to the inefficient use of space. (Granted, the descriptions on the guardian's virtues are short, but for other professions it would probably introduce unnecessary linewraps.) I guess I'm looking at consistency from a different direction than you are - I want to see each column (besides description) have the same width in different tables, where you want to see columns in the same position between tables. —Dr Ishmael

20:36, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

That is indeed my perspective; I want to find information of the same type in the same location. Granted, your descriptions are also next to recharge, but as you said, you perceive consistency from a different angle. I feel it's more intuitive for all different types of columns to flow as single meta-columns across a page, to improve navigation/browsing. Careful placement of optional columns (such as skill costs) should be calculated from that norm, in my opinion (per example; moving skill costs before recharges, so skill types can overlap that "gap" in tables on the same page where there is no skill cost variable). - Infinite - talk 21:11, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Put a more technical way, you would like for the Description column in every table to take on the minimum width it has in my current tables, for Recharge to always be immediately to the left of Description, and for some other column(s) to suck up the extra width that we're removing from Description in the non-Slot tables. I can fix up a couple of the pages like that tonight to see how it looks. —Dr Ishmael

21:22, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

GAH! Just look at all that empty space between Skill and Recharge! 'Tis an abomination, I tell ye! ..... Eh... I guess it's not that bad. It only introduces new line wraps on 4 skills, which is the main thing I was concerned about with the decreased Description width.

Now, however, I have to wonder if Type is really needed in the weapon tables. Only 6 out of 50 skills have a type (4 symbols and 2 wards), so it doesn't really seem necessary. But the empty space will be there regardless in this design, so... may as well keep it? I dunno. —Dr Ishmael

03:19, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I like 'em better meta-columned like that. Would it be too much of an affront to center the skilltype text in order to maybe regain some slight amount of space? (I also confess that it also seems weird to me in the weapon skills when Type is centered and then you have the sporadic types 'floating' around.) I do like having the Types, though--not so much for the weapon skills, but for the utility skills, where it helps to make the mass of available skills more comprehensible. Also, your Elite skills have their skill points and recharge headings switched around :). Redshift 04:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I buy this Leet for 180 turny-things! ::shudder:: Redshift 04:02, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Sysop

Professor ishmael, passed your RfA, welcome to the club, secret handshake instructions will be mailed to you shortly. Don't forget to add yourself to GW2W:ADMINS. pling 22:04, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Awwwwww maaaaaan, a secret handshake? I'm so clumsy with those... somehow I always seem to end up with my hand stuck up the other person's sleeve. o.O —Dr Ishmael

22:30, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, it could be worse. You could end up punching them. In the face. With your leg. But I hope not! So gz on zyzopz! Too bad infi got all the strippers though.

***EAGLEMUT*** TALK 23:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Gratz! maybe the punch is the secret hand shake? o.o --Lania

23:58, 07 June 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe the leg is the secret hand? At any rate, hurrah. (And also, SMW--wow.) Redshift 01:37, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, is THAT what that was? I always thought Pling was just getting frisky on me.

03:50, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Whoa, I completely missed this due to exams. Congratulations! --

El_Nazgir 19:19, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Can't be helped...

...that basically you know how to say the things I want to with fewer words. ::shakes fist:: :) Redshift 02:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Y'know, I've been told that a LOT, both on wikis and IRL. I just seem to have a very concise nature - which was a huge problem when writing papers in college, because I simply could not make myself write "fluff" into them in order to meet the page requirement for the assignment. I knew that I had already made my point with plenty of supporting evidence... but I was usually at least a page short. Most of the time I'd tweak my margins and line-spacing just enough to push a line to the next page, or some words to the next line, keeping it subtle enough that the professor wouldn't notice. >.> —Dr Ishmael

02:30, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Hah. Savor it well. Sadly my verbal proclivities weren't of much help, either--overly dense, specific, and complex sentences made edits a pain, and I feel a little bad for all the folks that have had to deal with my cross-eyed language over the years :). (I think for the professors it'll sometimes even out--who knows, maybe they saw yours and thought, 'oh thank you, not another sprawling screed i'd love to toss.') Redshift 02:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Profession order revisited

~~re: User interface#Mechanic bar~~ So here's a list of professions where prof type (Soldier, Scholar, Adventurer) doesn't matter, so there's no point in adding it (it would be a distracting level of detail). But this leaves the non-alpha order looking non-intuitive...making a simple presentation of interface more complex. This affects people new to the game or who do not read everything written about the game; it has little impact on the hard core fans devouring every micro change since the first closed beta details were released. I don't want to re-open the full discussion about profession sort order. But can't we do something visually to suggest why Guardian comes before Engineer? I thought you might have an idea of how we could do that. (Of course, it could just be that I am fundamentally opposed to sorting by alpha order so putting Guardian and Warrior first will never make sense to me).

PS Gz on being named sysop. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 05:06, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

nvm the above for now. I notice ANet is using the same order in-game. I hate it, but there are bigger fishes to fry. (Wait, actually Linsey said no fishing in the game, so pick another metaphor.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:01, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

BWE2 screenshot dump

OOook, I think I gathered more data via screenshots than I can parse in the next month. Basically, running around to Renown Heart Karma peeps and mousing over every single item. That means it's going to mostly contain armor and weapon stats for various items at various levels. Is there someplace I can drop this trove of data for others to dig over? (preferably somewhat trusted peeps, since it'll include guild mate names here and there) Looking at around 300 screenshots (not including the screenshots I intend to process by myself) Torrenal 07:20, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

You could either upload them to some image-hosting service (Flickr, imgur, etc.) or zip them up and upload it to a file-sharing service (Mediafire, etc.), then email someone a link. I probably won't have time to do anything with that, though, since I've got my own mess of skill screenshots to work through. —Dr Ishmael

07:23, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

And I'll be busy populating Renown Heart NPC data, random HQ screenshots, and building up drops support. I'll need to check my own hosting limitations, they might be ok covering it (looks like I may have about a GB of images). Any suggestions on who to point at the screenshots? Torrenal 07:28, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Ie 7 and css

I've made a (what is supposed to be a) fix to skins to make them work with IE7. Could you take a look with it, please, as I can't do it myself. Alfa-R 23:26, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks good for Vector. In Monobook, the tabs are still stacked vertically, but in a different position - "page" is in the right place, but the rest are all below it like a normal <ul> list. I'll try to get a screenshot later, right now I need to go eat dinner. —Dr Ishmael

23:47, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for forgetting about this, but here's a screenshot. It's even worse when logged in since there are a lot more tabs that way. —Dr Ishmael

02:48, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Nitpicky capitalization stuff

Regarding this, the in-game descriptions DO capitalize boon names. Are the skill descriptions here on the wiki supposed to be verbatim? ~ Bow | 23:56, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I was told that we basically ignore Anet's capitalization in skill descriptions and always use lower-case except when referring to other skills. It makes sense to apply that to traits as well. My preference would be to keep everything verbatim, just like you say, but that's not how it's done here. —Dr Ishmael

00:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we should contest it again, because I feel that verbatim would be better (though not as logical on a wiki), too. - Infinite - talk 00:31, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I think leaving it lowercase looks better, but verbatim makes more sense overall. ~ Bow | 07:28, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for getting the chatlog up! Redshift 19:35, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Yep, thanks. (Why is my nick "PLing" rather than "Pling"?) pling

19:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I have no clue, that's how Mibbit logged it. I only inserted the headers, other than that this is an unaltered copy/paste. Not saying it can't be modified if necessary - just that the current version has not been modified at all. —Dr Ishmael

19:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks also for unborking my heart (har har). Is there a way to make the :Rewards appear only if any of the three parameters are filled? Redshift 16:05, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I was actually looking at that at the same time as you, and you edit-conflicted me on removing the space in #if. Handled the ;Rewards just now - bracket counting is fun. :) —Dr Ishmael

16:58, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the ec! A little monkey with a wrench—there's something happening with the multiple parameters/value template being used; Assist Bloodsaw Mill Workers is an example. Thanks for the assist! :) Redshift 17:18, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

That's due to a mismatch of dt's and dd's (; and : in wiki-markup). The label on the left is a ; and the value on the right is a : The problem arises from listing up to 3 values for a single label - the values after the first don't have a label. I don't have much time to think about this right now, but I did make a change to split "Reward" into "Experience/Karma/Coins" so that each value has a label. There's probably a better way of doing it, but I have to leave the house in about 5 minutes. —Dr Ishmael

17:31, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Righto; sounds like a good solution for however long we need it (I was just concerned that it would be too busy in the box). Thanks again for the assist. Redshift 18:21, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Thank you for your update to my Account vault/Miniatures page. --Max 2 17:39, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

No problem - all the mini icons were in the same batch of textures as the skill icons (UI textures - 128x128), so since I finished the skills, I figured I'd see what I could do with the minis. The Guild and WvW upgrades are all in there too, so that's next on my list (I know someone else has been doing the WvW upgrades, but I don't think we have icons for Guild upgrades yet). —Dr Ishmael

17:41, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

And thank you again for finishing the page. Did it look maintainable enough? --Max 2 18:47, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I still don't know if that sort of format is something we should use in mainspace - standard tables are much more useful since you can show a lot more information more easily. However, it would probably work great as a checklist-style template for users to track their mini collections (I'm thinking along the lines of checklists like this). —Dr Ishmael

19:05, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Archiving

Were you going to archive the vandal reports? --JonTheMon 15:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I didn't realize there was an archive. Is that really necessary, though? I can't see it being any more useful than the block logs. —Dr Ishmael

15:40, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Adjust width of the predictive search

Is there any way to adjust the display width in predictive search? Anything that begins with my userID is cut off once it starts to be unique. Is there something I can adjust in my .js or .css to see more digits? Thanks. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:04, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Are you talking about the autocomplete on the search box in the sidebar? You keep talking about "predictive search" and I have no clue what that is. —Dr Ishmael

17:30, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:45, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

You can use either the class, .os-suggest, or the id, #searchInputSuggest, with width: ###px !important. The !important will make your CSS setting override whatever the autocomplete JS tries to set. —Dr Ishmael

17:50, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

super - thanks. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:57, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Ach, well, it was worth a try. The width is now bigger, but autocomplete still stops after the same number of characters. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I guess that's your own fault for choosing such a looooooong username. :P —Dr Ishmael

00:01, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I pwn'd myself (almost as badly as 으v트r_9000 did, creating a name no one could type). Anyhow, thanks for the suggestions. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Might be useful

Comparison of skills sandbox

I know that you are mostly just entering skill data so that it's easily absorbed/converted for SMW, so this might not be very useful. However, I noticed that it makes it easy to see at a glance whether a given skill includes icons next to stats, whether the weapon name is capitalized or not, and other bits that might be helpful for ensuring that things are consistent.

I also noticed that we used four variables for the handedness of the weapon (both, main, offhand,aquatic), each of which can take any weapon as a parameter, instead of using one variable for the number of hands and a second for the weapon (e.g. hand and weapon). Do you know why that was? It seems to make it more difficult to compare skills across weapon types and proliferate the number of variables required to describe a skill (four instead of two). I don't see any advantage except to reduce a minor bit of over-specification.

(I understand that a lot of people think it's pointless to compare skills one slot at a time, since one can only choose 123 or 45, not any single slot individually. However, I find it easier to focus on one slot at a time than to try to compare 5 skills across a confusing number of weapon combos. The way we currently present skills makes this annoyingly difficult.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 07:39, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

About the weapon parameters - I also think that's dumb (to be frank), and I am going to try to get that changed in the next week, along with a couple other things, in order to prep the template for SMW so that I don't have to change a hundred things all at the same time. However, I think a hand parameter is unnecessary for the skill infobox - it's a property of the weapon (and the slot number, for one-hand weapons that can be main- or off-), not the skill. —Dr Ishmael

13:45, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Right — if the slot and weapon are specified, hand is already determined. (It's only convenient for people who want to do crazy things with DPL like me...and I can probably learn to work around it...and might not have to when SMW goes live). Anyhow, the main point is: (as expected), our data is inconsistent. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:27, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Merchant Inventories & SMW

Can I get a quick comment on the templates I use here for the merchant inventory? I'm partly aiming for a consistent look, and mainly aiming for something that we can integrate with SMW...catch being I know very little about SMW. Will this suit the task? Torrenal 17:44, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

SMW example

I thought you might be interested in the Tardis Index File's [[wikia:Tardis:Help:Semantic MediaWiki|explanation of SMW]]. I thought they did a nice job of introducing the tool, why it's so cool, and offering up specific examples. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:10, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Very interesting - I read that on my phone while out-of-town today (because Wikia uses a custom version of MobileFrontend, reading it on my iPhone was easy). I guess we should probably write up something similar for here. —Dr Ishmael

03:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Transform

I disagree that transform is actually a true skill type like signet or shout. AFAIK, there are currently no traits or any other effects which affect transform skills. They are more akin to an effect, or modifier type, because transformations can be triggered by skills other than "transform skills" like Elixir X which is an elixir, or Mist Form, which is a cantrip. From what I have seen, racial skills like Avatar of Melandru and Become the Bear don't state their skill type at all. I've been on about this subject before but I can't remember whether you participated the discussion or not. The inconsistency between racial skills, those two transforming skills I mentioned and skills which actually state "Transform." in their skill description make me believe that the "skill type" mentioned in skill tooltip is nothing but part of description, and its sole purpose is to help players identify different kinds of skills. Transformation are pretty unique, but "transform skills" are just general skills which grant another, temporariy form for their user (or somebody else). Mediggo 14:44, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

The key characteristic of a transform is that it completely transforms your skill bar, giving you up to 5 special skills and locking the rest of the skill bar. This differentiates a transform from an environmental weapon, which doesn't affect slots 6-10.

Both Elixir X and Elixir S are dual-type skills, with both Elixir and Transform listed; we just can't display that in the skill infobox right now.
Mist Form is a special case because it completely locks your skill bar, it doesn't give you new skills.
I can't explain the racial skills, but it's probably just an oversight. If they don't state a type in BWE3, I'll report it as a bug.

Skill type is not part of the description, I've seen the descriptions in the dat file. The lack of any traits that modify transforms is similarly irrelevant - there are traits that modify auras, even though aura is not currently shown by the game as a skill type. The fact that some skills do list Transform as their type should be all the evidence we need. —Dr Ishmael

14:55, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I never said anything about environmental weapons, did I?

Just because in .dat files there's a parameter called skill type or that those skill types in skill tooltips are separated in .dat file doesn't mean this or that. It is the mechanics that count. Right now there's no clear reasoning on what is a modifier and what is actually a skill type. I'm sure we all agree that signets, shouts, traps and chains are their own types because they can't really be mixed with each other. Transform, as proved by those elixir skills and Mist Form, is actually an additional modifier because it can be combined with those skill types. Same deal with auras - just because a skill doesn't have a "defined" "skill type" in the tooltip doesn't mean that the skill doesn't have a dinstict mechanic. In my opinion, we should document the game as it actually plays, not just by what ArenaNet's admittedly inconsistent skill descriptions say.

Also, Mist Form is not a special case - it just doesn't grant any skills. Mediggo 15:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

No, you didn't mention environmental weapons; I felt that I needed to mention them in order to give context to my definition of a transform.

The issue is one of semantics - what is a skill type and what is a skill modifier/function. I say that a skill type is whatever the skill explicityly says it is in the tooltip, which means Transform is a skill type. Anything else is an implicit skill function, like aura. —Dr Ishmael

15:31, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

ArenaNet never defined skill modifiers, so perhaps we should stop using the term altogether and simply list all of them as skill types. Or not list any skill types except those explicitly stated in skill tooltips and traits. Mediggo 15:47, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

We should definitely document the modifiers/functions, as long as we make it clear that they are something that we came up with to describe how skills work, rather than being explicitly stated in the game. That is my main point of contention. —Dr Ishmael

15:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Likewise. I just don't think transform quite fits in the same league with very clearly defined signets, shouts and other "mutually exclusive" skill types. I guess it would be theoretically possible to have a signet which creates a trap which triggers a ward, but that is not the case (yet). If skills truly can have multiple types in that way, splitting skill types to "hard" types and modifiers should no longer be practiced. Mediggo 16:31, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Btw, environmental weapons like trebuchets, mortars and other stationary environmental weapons can also disable slot skills. The main difference between weapons and transforming is that e. weapons can be dropped or exited at any time (AFAIK, you can't exit a form even if you wanted to). We should probably find out which e. weapons behave like that, and document the differences. I think siege weapon would be pretty perfect definition for the kind of e. weapons which make you unable to move or use slot skills. Mediggo 07:43, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

You're right - siege weapons are different from "hand-held" environmental weapons, and I wasn't thinking of them before.

You can leave a transform at any time - the transform skill toggles to a "Leave form" icon, just like kits toggle to a "Stow kit" icon. —Dr Ishmael

12:41, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I didn't remember that, vaguely remember the icon now. It's still a different mechanism... and possibly not common to all forms (Mist Form, again?). Gonna add a note on that on the article now. Mediggo 12:46, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Mist Form isn't a transform. Also, it only lasts for 3 seconds, so it's not like you'd ever need a "leave Mist Form" button. —Dr Ishmael

12:58, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Have you ever played a mage in WoW? Staying in Ice Block for its full duration is pointless. In GW2 you might need to, for instance, quickly toggle into invulnerability for just a second to lose control effects and then back into your actual form to pushback that enemy player finishing off your ally. Mist Form behaves very much like transform as it is currently defined (grants different skill bar and effects, usually different visual appearance) even if it's effective skill type is cantrip. Mediggo 13:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

It completely locks your skill bar. No true transform skill does that. And no, I've never played WoW. —Dr Ishmael

13:08, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I doubt ArenaNet ever defined that anywhere. I'm pretty sure that, if we'd ask them, they'd say that Mist Form is a form and that's that. We used to have the whole article/term as Form before they started showing Transform in game, so the definition of the mechanic is older than the words that ANet has lately been putting into the game. Mediggo 13:13, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Just felt the need to say that you can still use skill 6-10 in mist form. It doesn't lock everything.--

El_Nazgir 13:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, that's another difference between Mist Form and actual Transform-type skills. —Dr Ishmael

13:15, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Maybe they should be disambiguation's pages?

At least for me, those pages are used as disambiguation. Should they be modified?

I ask before editing many pages by mistake... --Desaroll 16:48, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This sounds like a topic for THE GREAT CRAFTING FORMAT DISCUSSION!!! (Seriously, I don't know much about crafting.) —Dr Ishmael

16:50, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Site structure / nomenclature feedback request

Hey Dr. Ishmael, before I make a mess, can you take a look at my planned edits and give any feedback that would prevent a mess? Thanks! -- Dosvidaniya 04:18, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

General Communication

Per wiki rules I have not reverted back the information you reverted on the T-Stone Page. I did not know if you were watching the discussion page or not however I have posted my source on the discussion page as requested. Anzenketh 04:33, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I missed that somehow. Yeah, that's fine. Looking back through the page history, the information we have was probably way out of date anyway, since it was added long before BWE1.

However, I think the stones from the Gem Store are correct - your source only said they removed the stones from karma vendors. —Dr Ishmael

13:10, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Reblocking

So, we set up the abusefilter to only automatically block a short while, and for most bots that's enough since a lot don't repeat when they get unblocked. So, typically I only block for repeat offenders. I'm just wondering if that process needs to be amended or if that's just how you roll. --JonTheMon 04:52, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Nah. I was figuring out my own policy as I went yesterday, which is why I reblocked a couple that had only tripped AF once, but after that I decided to only do it for repeat offenders, just like you say. —Dr Ishmael

12:23, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

SMW reports

How flexible are SMW reports and how easy are they to set up? Can they work with Forms easily as well? Anyhow, for the fansite thing, I figured if someone wanted to add their site they would just invoke a template call on a certain page. --JonTheMon 02:09, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

On your marks, get set...

Why does "starting on time" seem like things are behind schedule? – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

GAH! Why did I not update my dat file this morning??? —Dr Ishmael

17:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

It was interesting that the scheduled uptime was quite right on time. All previous public tests started at about half an hour earlier. Maybe they wanted to test especially login servers? Mediggo 07:01, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

SMW vs. DPL

So, as I understand SMW this far, is its purpose to replace DPL? you talked about generating automated lists and stuff, isn't that what DPL does? – Valento ^msg 02:58, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Since I'm about to head to bed, I'll point you at this discussion that got started by my proposal to add SMW to this wiki. The differences between DPL and SMW are touched on in there, I'm pretty sure, but maybe not in detail. If you still have questions, I can answer them tomorrow. —Dr Ishmael

03:09, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Although they offer similar functions, SMW is often easier for non-experts to use to answer questions they might have otherwise not available on a specific article. The Doctor Who wiki has a [[wikia:tardis:T:SMW#The fun stuff|great example]] comparing the ease-of-use of SMW to DPL. If you're interested in a exercise for the reader, compare how the GW1 wiki handles Nicholas the Traveler's collections vs how it's done at Guild Wiki. GWW has to create a dummy table whereas GWiki just reads properties that are already stored at each item. It means virtually anyone at GWiki can make a simple update each week to keep Nick current, compared to GWW requiring that people understand a little of how the code is setup. (To be fair, some of that is the design of the system, but it's easier for the novice to do similar things on their own using SMW.)

When Ish introduced the idea of SMW for GWiki, I wasn't a supporter b/c ...well, see your question above. But now that I've seen what both can do, I find SMW to be more help. It has allows us more flexibility in overlapping classifications and means we don't have to create huge (otherwise unneeded) categories just to run queries. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 03:21, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

SMW update unscheduled

I know this was addressed during the IRC community pow-wow, but I confess, I wasn't able to make sense of the chat log enough to understand: why does ANet need to wait to install the next MediaWiki upgrade in order to install SMW? isn't there a version compatible with the current installation? (And why is there a problem with installing the next MW update in the first place? Is it that their server guys are too busy with the actual game? Or are there actual technical issues preventing it?) Thanks. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:58, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we could install SMW now, but we'd have to use old versions of some of the related extensions because they've already dropped support for MW 1.16 (SMW's next version will also drop 1.16 support), which means more work for the sysadmins installing the extensions. Then, upgrading to MW 1.19 they'd have to simultaneously upgrade those extensions, which could turn into a huge cluster-f***. Bottom line: it would be a lot more trouble in the long run. —Dr Ishmael

17:05, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah, ok.

So to clarify, you think the wiki is "probably" better off in the long run if we end up without any SMW on 1 September rather than being hasty by installing an "any port in a storm" version today. (The "lack of support" issue seems like something that e.g. GWiki might want to deal with, but I can't imagine it would be the right call if I worked at ANet.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:24, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you might have misunderstood - "dropping support" means that the extension code will not work at all on that version of MW. It's not referring to "tech support" that you call up when something goes wrong. —Dr Ishmael

14:23, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Template:ArenaNet image documentation

← moved to Template talk:ArenaNet image#parameter proposal: id

Lists of profession skills

They're all missing categories with the automatically generated version. I don't know if that should be fixed in what's generating the lists or just edited into the page now (also, the Ascalonian poster on your user page is presumably Separatist propaganda). -- Nineaxis (talk) 23:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Oops, no, that was me copy/pasting the full page without thinking about the categories. I'll get them back in. —Dr Ishmael

23:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

About Template:Skill table row

Can you add a fail clause that if there is no icon for that said skill atm that it get replace by the basic locked skill icon? It is mostly so that we can stab those red link away of some page. Also for personal learning knowledge, 1 is the current skill redirect, 2=?, 3=recharge?, 4-5-6= ? so what are the rest? Tech Wolf-Talk 23:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll document the templates later today. Basically, besides a few named parameters, the first unnamed parameter is the skill name, and the rest of the unnamed parameters can be any value X, where X maps to one of the variables {{#var:X-<skill name>}} generated by the DPL statement.

As for the icon fallback... wikis are supposed to have redlinks. Why does this community abhor them so much? —Dr Ishmael

12:46, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Because red link are evil! Well not really I guess it is just a bad abit of mine. Tech Wolf-Talk 15:13, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

In any case, that will hopefully be solved by CSS soon - see here. I've already put it in for item icons, but it's gonna need more CSS expertise than I have to make it work for skill icons. —Dr Ishmael

15:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

where

do we talk about the new design that is being implemented? I saw you updated the Necromancer skill list to it and wow, I hate it. It feels A LOT less functional. There must be a place to talk about this. But where? Previously Unsigned 05:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, when I first started exploring the concept in my userspace over a month ago, there was a discussion started on this very talkpage about it, and most everyone who commented there thought it was a vast improvement. Then, when I thought I had it developed well enough, I started this discussion on the Community Portal, where, after a couple layout fixes, everyone again thought it was good. Finally, I made a "I'm about to implement this" post on the CommPort, and no one brought up any objections. The last would be the best place to start a new discussion about this, even though it's already been discussed twice.

Frankly, I hated the old layout because of how it mashed all the skills together into two huge tables with only minimal visual cues to the breaks between weapons or skill types. I also hated how the multiple rowspanned columns made the code extremely confusing to modify for adding a skill or, worse, moving an existing skill. —Dr Ishmael

12:40, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh. That is exactly why I liked it. I found the separation to be just enough... and now there is too much space between everything for my liking. Takes longer to see all the skills at once. I guess I can save the old pages though. One other thing, that new design doesn't show the difference between main hand and offhand, instead everything looks like a two handed weapon (like sword/sword). Is that a bug, because it doesn't look intentional. Previously Unsigned 17:21, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

It did make the small assumption that the reader knows which weapons are 1- or 2-handed, yes, but that's a fundamental game mechanic that they should be familiar with anyway (or they can follow the links to Weapon or the individual weapons to find out).

However, that's probably going to change - check the CommPort. —Dr Ishmael

17:28, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

MW 1.19

Hi Dr. Ishmael. So I was talking to Qoff and I thought of testing a MW upgrade in our wiki, if we get everything working do you think it would be a good idea to keep the upgrade and continue the work from it? that's because if we upgrade to MW 1.19, I don't know if further changes made here will break something there while this wiki isn't upgraded. – Valento ^msg 01:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't really know. It shouldn't affect the majority of the articles - any effect you would see would be trickle-down effects from differences in low-level features, like the CSS differences you're already dealing with. The major thing would be incompatabilities with extensions, or having to upgrade extensions, that affect a significant number of pages. It's really up to you and your community, and whether you're willing to deal with any potential issues that might arise. —Dr Ishmael

01:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok, we'll make a backup and try it soon. – Valento ^msg 13:43, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Recipes

So, do we need to have a page for every item like Torrenal was saying way back when? Something like [[Crude Warhorn/Mighty Crude Warhorn]] and on down the line is what I had in mind. Make the recipes an extension off of the main item page, so we could have the ultimate page name be exactly as the item name itself, but without running into overlap and having to use a bunch of other use templates. If so, would we use the {{recipe}} template to do it? Wombatt 02:36, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Geez, I need to just mock this frakkin' thing up at the referata mirror sometime... gimme a couple days for that. I've already answered this multiple times, but short answer: yes, every recipe needs to be a separate page; no, they shouldn't be subpages. The recipe template is a good start as far as the parameter set goes, but there are probably a couple data points we should be capturing that aren't in the current version.

Are these pages going to be recipe-only, or recipe + output item? I've brought that up before, but no one's ever given a clear opinion on that. —Dr Ishmael

03:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I have no clue what the recipes would be for, some acronyms that I'm not familiar with, so I can't be much help on the last point. What I CAN do, though, is take things and put them into recipe templates. I'm pretty good at that. If you give me an example of what you want it to look like, I can make it happen. Wombatt 04:20, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Baseline DMG

Get a blue level 5 crafted weapon. Me to where your character is leveled down to 5. Record damage. Use for all baselines. As becomes possible, repeat at level 80 with level 80 gear... —Torrenal 22:13, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

There are Steady PvP weapons available that have a fixed strength of 125, but the damage numbers for that are extremely low. Example: without any weapon equipped, Explosive Shot lists 97 damage (L80/P916). With a Steady PvP Pistol equipped, it's 18. So while I could use the steady weapons for consistency across everything, the numbers would be very low and not at all reflective of "real" damage numbers you'd see at L80. Also, there are no steady aquatic weapons, so consistency is lost there. —Dr Ishmael

22:19, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

End of the day, max gear is where you'll get the best resolution on damage numbers. Haven't seen BWE3 yet, but I get the feeling that max gear isn't available.... —Torrenal 22:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

We should probably just stick with listing the baseline skill damage with the understanding that stats and weapon changes will affect that number, instead of trying to list every possible damage range with every possible weapon/armor setup. -Auron 02:54, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Right, that's exactly what I did for BWE2: the baseline was PvP lobby, Level 80, Power 916, no traits, no buffs, no equipment except for unmodded "Steady PvP" weapons in order to see the chain/sequence skills. The problem is that this baseline is now impossible to achieve for chain/sequence skills because tooltip damage numbers are now affected by the Weapon Strength of the equipped weapon.

However, I've spent the last 5 hours working up some statistics (assisted by the wonderful CheatEngine in order to get damage numbers at increments of ±1 Power), and I think I'll be able to extrapolate the "baseline" for chains/sequences with 99% confidence. I don't know if I'll be able to finish all 8 professions during the BWE, but I'll try. —Dr Ishmael

03:11, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

neat! -Auron 03:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Is it just the chain skills that we can't read without weapons, or are there other ones unavailable via that method as well? - Infinite - talk 05:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Anything on the skill list weapon tables with

in front of it - primarily chain skills, yes, but also sequence skills like Zealot's Fire and Purifying Blast. —Dr Ishmael

05:52, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Dangit. :P - Infinite - talk 09:21, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and the thief's Stealth skills and the warrior's Burst skills. —Dr Ishmael

14:20, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Okay, I've got 3 sets of data recorded for weapon skills:

Baseline data for primary skills — PvP, L80, P916, no traits, no equipment at all, recorded from the Hero panel. Data for secondary skills is derived.
Data for all primary and secondary weapon skills with a "PvP *" weapon equipped (max weapon strength ~1000).
Data for all primary and secondary weapon skills with a "Steady *" weapon equipped (weapon strength ~100).

I uploaded the baseline and PvP weapon data to a Google Spreadsheet for others to view; because the Steady weapons have such low strengths, their damage numbers are likewise very low, and thus not very useful. (The weapon strengths are listed below the engineer skills. I included comments for all transforms, kits, and conjured/summoned weapons to list their "Weapon Damage" as listed in the tootip on the Attack stat.)

My question now is: should we use the pure baseline for all weapons, even though some numbers had to be calculated, or should we use a per-weapon baseline where every value is exact? The difference is easy to see: Cyclone Axe and Greatsword Swing have the same pure baseline of 170, but with the weapons equipped, Cyclone is 236 while Swing is 259, reflecting the respective weapon strengths of 1048 and 1100.

After working this data for so long, I'm actually thinking we should use the per-weapon baseline. Because it accounts for the relative difference in strength between the weapons (crafted L5 weapons have the same strength ratios as the L80 PvP weapons), it would be more realistic, and thus allow for more accurate buildcrafting. (I also don't mind that it requires less work to capture only this data set instead of also capturing the pure baseline and then deriving the secondary skills.) If we used the pure baseline, that would imply to readers that Cyclone Axe and Greatsword Swing do the same damage, when in reality the Swing will do more because greatswords have higher strength than axes.

Since damage is only a single bit of skill data, albeit a fairly important one, and the other bits urgently need to be updated to BWE3, I'm going to go ahead and use this as I update skills. I've got all the data recorded, so we can easily change back to the pure baseline if we want to. —Dr Ishmael 03:05, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no, I'll just leave damage alone for now. —Dr Ishmael

03:33, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The baseline damages seem pretty sketchy, to be honest. Note that steady/pvp damage ratios are pretty constant but pvp/baseline damage ratios go all over the place. I would not place much weight in the baseline damages at all. Capric 03:47, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the PvP/no-weapon ratios "all over the place", they're pretty constant at one of two values: either ~1.37 &plusmn 0.02, which is the most common and holds across all weapons, or at a different weapon-specific ratio that increases with weapon strength (from ~1.24 on focus up to ~1.59 on rifle) but is only used by a few skills. There's probably an extra factor on certain skills that adjusts the damage a tiny bit independently of both power and weapon strength. Whatever's going on, it's still another reason to use the PvP weapon numbers, so I'll revert my stance yet again and start updating skills to reflect that. —Dr Ishmael

04:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Pet template

Figured I'd leave you a note, since you seem to the the primary editor on the template. I added categorization that can handle multiple regions (and commented out the switch.) It's rather ugly, but will add the functionality until #arraymap is available. Rari 04:59, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that's actually a pretty elegant way of doing it. I think I'm going to adapt what we both did there for the skill infobox, so it can handle multiple types on Elixir S and Elixir X (Elixir + Transform). —Dr Ishmael

12:41, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Recipes

What are the differences between a recipe sheet and a recipe? – Valento ^msg 20:37, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

A recipe is the list of ingredients required to craft something. Normally, basic recipes are learned every 25 discipline levels, with advanced recipes learned through Discovery mode.

A recipe sheet is an item that you buy from Renown Heart NPCs - each sheet is only sold by a specific NPC. Using a recipe sheet will teach your character a recipe that cannot be learned through Discovery. —Dr Ishmael

20:48, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I see. Btw, do you think it would be useful to add this explanation as a note here just to clarify? or has it already been done somewhere? – Valento ^msg 21:03, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I edited the intro and added a link to hopefully make it more clear. —Dr Ishmael

21:20, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, is it Widget (Recipe) for the 'how to craft' and the Widget (Recipe Sheet) for the unlock to craft? —Torrenal 04:03, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

A little help with DPL

I'm having some problems with DPL in our wiki, it seems resultsheader isn't working, for example, the following code wouldn't display anything (I ensured the category name is right):
[{{#dpl: category=Gray dyes | resultsheader = %PAGES% | format = ,, | allowcachedresults=true }}]

It works here: [47]
Do you have an idea of what might be causing this? – Valento ^msg 00:54, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I have no clue, because you're right, that should work. Try asking poke. —Dr Ishmael

01:32, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Dr ishmael/Archive 1

Thank Kormir!

Semantic Forms

Purge

¬.¬

.js

Gibber names

Standard Damage

Thanks For The Help

Thanks

Guild Wars 2 Videos

skill tables

[[User:Dr ishmael/List of warrior skills|This]]

Width

non-informative header

Spreading the love

SMW envy

referata

User:Dr ishmael/List of guardian skills

Sysop

Can't be helped...

Profession order revisited

BWE2 screenshot dump

Ie 7 and css

Nitpicky capitalization stuff

Thanks!

Archiving

Adjust width of the predictive search

Might be useful

Merchant Inventories & SMW

SMW example

Transform

Maybe they should be disambiguation's pages?

Site structure / nomenclature feedback request

General Communication

Reblocking

SMW reports

On your marks, get set...

SMW vs. DPL

SMW update unscheduled

Template:ArenaNet image documentation

Lists of profession skills

About Template:Skill table row

where

MW 1.19

Recipes

Baseline DMG

Pet template

Recipes

A little help with DPL

Navigation menu

Search