User talk:Dr ishmael/Archive 10

Archives

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1. May – July 2012
2. July – August 2012
3. September – October 2012
4. November 2012 – January 2013
5. January – April 2013
6. April – July 2013
7. July – November 2013
8. Dec 2013 – May 2014
9. June – Sept 2014
10. Sept 2014 – Aug 2015
11. Aug 2015 – inactivity

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

 

Opinion on something

So I have that script, for now it runs on all urls within a page that's linking to the wiki regardless if they're skills or not. It requests data for all links, so if you've got 500 urls it'll pull data 500 times even if they're not linking to skills. The criteria for data pulling is to match href starting with "http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/", back then I was pulling for whatever links with class "gw2skill". The question is: should I pull using the class as criteria or continue with hrefs? Should I assume the script user will treat the url before throwing it in the page (maybe by the use of bbcodes pre-parsing)? As of now, if I am to request data for every url and check for the content AFTER I pulled it, I'm afraid it may be goddamn slow... any ideas? – Valento ^msg 18:19, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Have a prepopulated list of skill names, and only fetch data for things you know that are skills. Also cache all data you get, so you don’t have to fetch multiple times for the same skill. poke | talk 18:32, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

You're writing this for BBcode, right? I would implement a custom tag that prints out an anchor with a specific class, then you can go the route of processing only anchors with that class. —Dr Ishmael 18:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both, I can resume url dependency by mixing both of your ideas... I could create an anchor in bbcode-style, and also cache a lookup table for some skills when their page titles don't match their names. Something like this (for bbcode part, assuming bbcode already attributes an anchor):

     var skillLookupTable = {'firestorm 2': 'Firestorm_(Glyph_of_Storms_skill)'}; //etc this would be cached already on first script execution
     // ... after we get bbcode input skill
     bbcodeSkill = bbcodeSkill.toLowerCase();
     var requestUrl = skillLookupTable[bbcodeSkill] || capitalizeAll(bbcodeSkill).replace(/ /g, '_'); // if not on table, convert to url
     requestUrl = "http://wiki.guildwars2.com/api.php?format=json&action=query&titles=" + requestUrl + "&prop=revisions&rvprop=content";

How does that look? – Valento ^msg 19:02, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Still haven't implemented poke's idea, but here's my first attempt at creating a simple bbcode, and here's a showcase. I think I'll attach bbcode to gw2tooltips and create a nice interface for calling both later on. How does that look? – Valento ^msg 13:45, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Shouldn't the tag parsing be performed in phpBB or BBcode directly? phpBB 3 allows you to configure custom tags directly from the administration panel. Doing that parsing in JS is just increasing the burden on every reader's browser.

Your showcase isn't showing any tooltips for me - not seeing any JS warnings or errors in my console, though. Maybe you only meant for it to showcase the tag parsing? —Dr Ishmael 18:52, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Not seeing? Maybe because I was changing some stuff to allow aliases, and there's a 2sec delay before script is run. Try again, please. – Valento ^msg 19:35, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking about making the script more "standalone", but I guess you're right. I'll just assume the end user will have anchors with correct classes, or I'll never finish skill parsing (I still want to work on traits, items...). – Valento ^msg 19:38, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree that you should use proper bbcodes for parsing there and generate actual links on the server side. That way, you are not dependent on JavaScript to just create clickable links and a readable output (that also helps you with search engines). poke | talk 19:40, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I guess I'll be taking that route, thank you for your time, guys. :) – Valento ^msg 20:44, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Level equipment value

So, it seems those new items don't have any value, as they cannot be sold to a merchant. Just thought you should know, since you, well, created all the containers with the values set in the table. --Ventriloquist 13:42, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh crap. I could've sworn they didn't have the NoSell flag when I started on all this a couple weeks ago... Time for AWB, I guess.

And a big ol' /* unintelligible garble */ at Anet for leaving a vendor_value set on NoSell items in the first place. —Dr Ishmael 13:47, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Seriously. I've seen plenty of values set for items that can't be sold. Wassupwiththat.

Extra-note: They can be salvaged, but they don't give anything when salvaged. WHY. --Ventriloquist 13:50, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Had a report over here that they can give Essences of Luck. Still stoopid. —Dr Ishmael 14:04, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Render service

Wouldn't it be useful to allow the render service to be allowed with $wgAllowExternalImagesFrom? With that users wouldn't need to upload any icon or something from the game anymore but instead can just poll the signature and id from the api (which would also reduce the times where you have to search for an icon which is already uploaded for another item so no duplicates appear). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Asuka (talk • contribs) at 12:04, 28 September 2014‎ (UTC).

External images have a large number of disadvantages. Most prominently, they don’t allow for thumbnails, so if we used the 64x64px icons, those would be 64x64px everywhere. So things like {{item icon}} wouldn’t work. Also, when including an external image, it is just placed there with a basic img tag; we cannot set an image title, an alt text, or even a link on it, so the usability suffers too. It also doesn’t allow us to categorize images, or list them somewhere. And finally, by having the icon on the wiki, we can also get a history of them and track changes to the icon, since ArenaNet likes to do that. Yes, it might be a bit inconvenient to have to download the icon first and then upload it again; but we have plenty of people trained to do that, and we don’t even need to rely on the API for that (did you know that some items, for example Master's Salvage Kit, are not visible in the API?). poke | talk 12:16, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit Request

Since I saw how fast you responded to Dragon's Eye edit request, I'd like to point out Talk:Snaff, if you could be so kind. Konig 18:25, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Done. I took the liberty of replacing the unnecessarily long armor identifier with Savant armor. —Dr Ishmael 18:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Totally unrelated, but new patch icons please, those tempest weapons are calling for me. --Ventriloquist 18:32, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm at work for another 2.5 hours. —Dr Ishmael 19:32, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Sounds to me like you need to keep your priorities in check. (Alright, alright :P) --Ventriloquist 19:36, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

These auto-collapse thingies are annoying...

Since last wiki update, templates and categories listing when previewing an edit are collapsed by default, is there a way to bring back the previous behavior? Or just add something in my common.js? – Valento ^msg 12:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

$('.mw-editfooter-toggler.mw-icon-arrow-collapsed').click(); —Dr Ishmael 13:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! – Valento ^msg 13:25, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Updated - the state is stored in a session cookie, so the first time you expand it, it will remain expanded until you close your browser. The updated code will only click() it if it's collapsed. [bleh] That's only for the "hidden categories" list. Still, this version is better because it won't collapse anything that's expanded. —Dr Ishmael 13:32, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not working

...site notices. People don't read them.

Hehe. — snograt 16:16, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Aww I can't see correct-colored lines! Halp!

For this code:

{| {{STDT|npc}}
! Ability
! Description
|- class="line"
| class="line-right" | Massive Strike
| Deals massive [[Area of effect|AoE]] [[damage]], while [[Blinded|blinding]] nearby foes.
|- 
| class="line-right" | Block
| Blocks incoming [[projectile]]s for 24sec.
|}

Output is:

Ability	Description
Massive Strike	Deals massive AoE damage, while blinding nearby foes.
Block	Blocks incoming projectiles for 24sec.

Line looks black... I suck at these table thingies, how do I get them right with the same color class as npc's? – Valento ^msg 17:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

That's just how that's all set up in the CSS, you're not going blind. The .line-<side> classes just make the border visible on that side, they don't define the border's color. —Dr Ishmael 17:39, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I've set color manually and it worked. I was thinking about putting monster skills in a table, is it good or better not do it? I have a feeling that wrapping these things in templates will help in the future. – Valento ^msg 18:58, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Looks green to me. -Chieftain Alex 19:13, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Honest opinion: it's overkill. Plain list formatting works just fine.

Also, there's a reason those intra-cell borders are hidden by default - that's the "design aesthetic" of the wiki. Horizontal "borders" are achieved by the alternating-row background colors; vertical borders are rarely necessary, since it's easy enough to see where the columns are spaced without them. —Dr Ishmael 19:17, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for comment tag Alex lol. If you say so Ish, I'll do that, it's just that I wanted to standardize color and layout (so we don't have a rainbow soup across all monster pages). Table wiking, here we go! – Valento ^msg 19:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I take it that you pressed CTRLF5 + have seen that I've updated the common.css? -Chieftain Alex 19:37, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean by "rainbow soup"? A plain list shouldn't have much color to it at all. I meant the table format itself is overkill. —Dr Ishmael 19:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Yikes... sorry about that. – Valento ^msg 19:45, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The main problem is that this simply is not tabular data. You have a skill name and a description - one short text field and one long text field - and that's it. Text data on its own only works in a tabular format if it's very short and of somewhat uniform length within a field. If there were numbers involved anywhere, sure, a table would make sense (like our profession skill list pages), but since there aren't, a table just doesn't provide enough benefit over plaintext to justify the extra visual clutter it brings. —Dr Ishmael 19:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I thought about doing similar to profession skill lists, but I take your point. – Valento ^msg 19:55, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Eldritch Scroll in Recipes

Something seems to have happened with the list of Recipes requiring the Eldritch Scroll - it recently had more than 50 items in it, but now there are only 4. Abyssal Scepter, Accursed Chains, Aether, all the Mystic weapons, and many more have all gone missing. I tried looking at it and fixing it, but apparently my wiki-fu is sadly inadequate. As you seem to be a uber GW2 wiki person, I though I'd post here and see if you could get to the bottom of it. Thanks! --24.23.137.165 21:17, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

/sigh *points at red box on top of page* —Dr Ishmael 21:26, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out - I had indeed missed that. Thanks also for the attitude - I guess I deserved that, what with asking nicely and all. --24.23.137.165 03:41, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, it's just that I've had to give that answer about ten times already today, it's getting very annoying. —Dr Ishmael 04:01, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

hey ishmael

nothing, the wiki is working perfectly and nothing is wrong. Shadows of Mordor looks fun!--Relyk ~ talk < 05:03, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

*punts the troll into Lupi's lair* —Dr Ishmael 13:42, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Skill icon

For this skill: Throw_(keg_brawl). No icon param is specified, and displayed skill icon doesn't match page title, where is it pulling image from? – Valento ^msg 14:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

File:Throw (keg brawl).png was a redirect. Corrected. —Dr Ishmael 15:31, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Was! Hahah thank you. – Valento ^msg 15:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Don't mind me, just curious - the new Gemstore update added the Magic Carpet. Its #1 skill is missing an icon (which were not located in the last patch file); it closely resembles the gizmo's icons, just without the blue background. You can see it here. If you can find it somewhere, that'd be great. --Ventriloquist 13:36, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, that is the item icon - I can see the blue background (try 1080p quality on the video?). Remember that the skill bar crops off 16px from each edge.

—Dr Ishmael 14:10, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

How dare they trick me like that. Forgot about the skill bar thing, thannnnnks. --Ventriloquist 19:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

base ingredients query for jewelry

Don't remember whose code it is, but...

When checking the ingredients for an item like Coral Orichalcum Earring of the Rampager, the results didn't have any coral. Instead, the query uses the "transmogrify" recipes to change topaz into coral. I don't think we want this to be the default behavior. Maybe all "transmogrify" recipes need to be suppressed? Vili 点 20:08, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I think your suggestion is valid - suppress transmogrify recipes from being used by that query. I should be able to AWB that real quick. —Dr Ishmael 21:18, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Done. —Dr Ishmael 21:29, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

5 ecto, 5 coral orb, 28 orichalcum ore - yes, that's much better. Thanks. Vili 点 07:42, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Because English is...

Hey, I've created a new category for ground targeted skills, but this got me thinking: does it look more natural "ground-targeted skills" or "ground targeted skills" (without hyphen)? – Valento ^msg 20:22, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I... don't really know. I'd guess hyphenated. —Dr Ishmael 20:47, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I would prefer hyphenated. - Felix Omni 21:04, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Oki, changing it now. Don't mind these questions, it's all about how native English speakers perceive the words! – Valento ^msg 21:34, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

The word is hyphenated in the game.--Relyk ~ talk < 22:29, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Still many pages missing... is there some kind of purge to update category members? – Valento ^msg 10:53, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Never mind, an empty edit is solving this, I got this! – Valento ^msg 11:00, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

"Spritesets"

Is it possible to display a portion of a bigger image, inline? Much like a spriteset? In normal CSS I'd use background-position, but I couldn't find how to reproduce the same behavior here. – Valento ^msg 13:32, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

MW doesn't support that, no. —Dr Ishmael 13:34, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. Another question: is it ok to upload a third-party image? I was planning to create a whatsapp emoticons template for personal use, but not sure how to proceed, and given that I'll have to upload a few icons I'd like to know how to do that. Thanks, Ish. – Valento ^msg 13:41, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Poke is much better versed in copyright/licensing matters, but my amateur opinion is that if you're taking them from an app, that would be copyrighted. —Dr Ishmael 14:34, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

You can't do that, see article 4. But you can upload public domain emoticons, or emoticons with a compatible license, if you like. - Felix Omni 14:58, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks guys, I would use whatsapp ones because I liked them the most. Oh well. :D – Valento ^msg 15:11, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

GW interwiki category

If possible, what do you think about adding a hidden category for GW1 interwiki usage? Just for statistical purposes! I really like the idea of giving a new usefulness for GW wiki, there is so much people can learn from it, so I thought "why not keep track of how many articles we have that links to original GW wiki?". – Valento ^msg 19:25, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I like this idea. Could have a sub-cat for articles using the GWW template. Konig 20:44, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

can't do this without editing the server side mw = not going to happen. -149.254.250.109 20:50, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, what he said. It's impossible to do without modifying the MW codebase. —Dr Ishmael 21:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Ahh... well, I'm not sure if you can change or add support for such thing, but if you cannot then why don't we make a {{gw1}} template that interwikify given text and adds hidden category? By doing this we could easily add sub-cats as mentioned by Konig. – Valento ^msg 12:16, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

And maybe someone with godly powers could run a bot to replace gw1 interwiki's for template (pattern is quite simple!). – Valento ^msg 12:19, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

The {{gww}} template is one thing - it displays a right-floated box on the page with pre-defined formatting. We don't have to add a category to see pages that use it, you just go to Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Gww.

Your suggestion would replace a basic function of the wiki with the only additional function of applying a hidden category with very limited usefulness. Also, it's not easily enforceable - I'd have to keep running that bot periodically to catch any links that other editors add without the template, and I'm not going to commit to that. Especially if all you want this for is statistics. —Dr Ishmael 14:06, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

What kind of statistics are you even interested in? Just a number? You can use the search to find “gw1:” prefixes in articles btw. poke | talk 15:01, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

And why is this on ishmal's page? You could try asking User:Cloned Wrong interwiki.--Relyk ~ talk < 15:12, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

What does he have to do with this? —Dr Ishmael 15:44, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

It was just a random thought really. Since latest patch added a good amount of lore tied to GW1, I thought it would be cool to link to GW1W in various articles and keep track of how many articles we're interwiking. Thanks for the replies! – Valento ^msg 15:58, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

DPL question

For the DPL lists that we use on race articles, is it possible to have a single list with multiple uses parameters? I'd like to include articles that are in both the race and uses {{object infobox}} to appear in the article - e.g., to have Mordrem include Vine Crawler on its article amongst the list. This would, theoretically, only be done for race articles which have objects that are part of the races but function as objects (which as far as I know, are only Mordrem, Icebrood, Branded, and Risen). Or would you have an alternative solution to including such (perhaps a separate section for Objects tied to the race)? Konig 05:25, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

You can just use uses = Template:NPC infobox|Template:Object infobox then. poke | talk 12:29, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Poke. Konig 13:41, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Is it Simple (Or Not Really?) SWM N00b Q

I thought it would be simple to create an SMW query to find:

• Masterwork-quality staffs
• Sold by karma vendors
• Restricted to L40-60

They would be quality = masterwork & subtype = staff & contain the word "karma" in the cost parameter + some sort of regrep match for level. I seem to be able to manage 2 of the 4 criteria with either SMW or DPL, but not all four at once.

Is there an easy way to generate such a list (or similar such ones)? Or is this inherently complicated for one reason or another? Thanks. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 23:27, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

{{#ask:[[Has item cost::?;Karma]]
       [[Sells item::<q>
         [[Has weapon type::Staff]]
         [[Has item rarity::Masterwork]]
         [[Has level requirement:: >40]]
         [[Has level requirement:: <60]]
       </q>]]
|?Sells item
|?Has vendor
|?Has item cost
|?Has item quantity
|link = none
|format = template
|template = Vendor item table result format
|intro = {{vendor item table header}}
|outro = {{!}}}
|sortorder = descending
|sort=Sells item
}}

--Relyk ~ talk < 23:43, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Damn you Relyk, you posted better than what I had (wasn't using an output template). —Dr Ishmael 23:46, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Ish Relyk. I clearly didn't know anywhere near enough of the syntax. Thanks for making it look easy. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 02:12, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Patch info under Trivia

Why remove information like:

==Trivia==	
* [[Page Name]] was/were added to the game with the [[Game updates/xxxx-xx-xx|Month Day, Year]] update, as part of the [[Release Name]] [[release]].

1. It makes it easier to catalog everything that a specific release added/changed/etc, especially for Category pages (like Category:Blood and Madness)
2. It gives us context as to what that NPC's purpose/identity is (a holiday, part of Scarlet's army, etc)
3. It makes pages for patch notes and releases more accessible and easier to transition between

I absolutely think this sort of information qualifies as "trivia".

-Somohexual (talk) 16:52, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Effects that only appear on a specific NPC or items that are only dropped by a specific NPC were obviously introduced with that NPC. NPCs that only appear in a specific location were obviously introduced with that location. Top-level things like The Silverwastes or The Silverwastes (achievements) should have a note like this, but it's entirely pointless to propagate that note to every page of every thing that is directly associated with them.

If you want to categorize them, then categorize them - an extraneous trivia note doesn't do anything useful. —Dr Ishmael 16:56, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Ideally, there would be a template to do this, but I'll just add categories along with the trivia notes from now on.

-Somohexual (talk) 17:05, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Don't add both a parent and a child category to the same page, that's more redundancy. —Dr Ishmael 17:38, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

.Dat archives

Sorry to bother you with more questions, but do you use any specific programs to extract the .png files from Gw2.dat? Thanks. :3

-Somohexual (talk) 13:59, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Gw2browser Oh right, there was a big patch yesterday... had a busy evening and forgot to create new archives. —Dr Ishmael 18:21, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

*stares you down* --Ventriloquist 23:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible you somehow forgot the icon for Siege Blast? I don't think it's a reused one as it matches the other icons in appearance. #2 skill in this video. --Ventriloquist 13:29, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

For the deltas, I use a program called WinMerge to run a folder compare, and it returns lists of files that 1) are the same, 2) are different (changes), 3) only exist in the old folder (deletes), and 4) only exist in the new folder (adds). It's possible that I might miss one file on either end of the lists as I do a Shift+click select to copy them into my delta folders.

The full archive files contain every single file in those folders from Gw2browser - I can't miss anything there, so if you think something might be missing from a delta, check the full archive before you come whining and complaining over here. :P —Dr Ishmael 14:23, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Ah, see, I suspected that was the case, but I thought you messed up the delta files. I don't download both the deltas and the entire icon files until at least 2-3 months of release has passed by, it's just tedious to replace it every time. Whiiiiiiiich is why I thought the delta was the problem (which I redownloaded), but did not think to check the entire folder... At least I can always whine here! --Ventriloquist 16:05, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Drops

Why not use the table format for drops? It looks more organized, has room for additional notes such as what zone it drops in/what level it drops from/etc, and allows us to clearly separate guaranteed drops from chance drops. -Somohexual (talk) 15:33, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Lists can also be organized by level and location by using list-subheaders. Separating guaranteed from chance drops can also be done this way, as I did when I removed the tables. I don't agree that it looks any more organized than a plain list - in fact, lists are generally preferred over tables whenever possible because of extra visual "clutter" that tables introduce.

If we were to ever introduce tables like yours, we would use a semantic template to query the item's type/rarity instead of typing that out explicitly. —Dr Ishmael 15:44, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how a list with multiple specifics for drops (levels, zones, etc) could look more organized than Jungle Tendril Root#Drops. It would be great if someone could create a template-version of this table, but this is an effective method to use until that happens.

I edited that page - I think it looks much better as a plain list now, even if it takes a little more vertical space. It is more organized because the drops are now grouped by location, rather than having drops from different locations interspersed throughout the table. Those "conditions" are also stated a single time, rather than being repeated multiple times on different rows, which makes it much easier to understand what those conditions are.

Corollary: most loot is random, so calling it out as "Chance at..." feels backwards. It makes more sense to instead call out the guaranteed drops, since that kind of drop is much less common than a random drop. —Dr Ishmael 16:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

See also

Why remove the See Also section? It's an easy way for people to find other similar/related content without having to search through a bunch of general pages that link together. -Somohexual (talk) 15:33, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

"See also" should only be used for pages that are immediately relevant to the current page. Listing every single variant of Mordrem Husks on each others' pages is not useful because they are not directly related to each other - just because they share a model doesn't mean they're directly related. The "Breach" champions are all required to complete an achievement, which does make them directly related.

—Dr Ishmael 15:44, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

If an event can spawn a Mordrem Husk, Veteran Mordrem Husk, Elite Mordrem Husk, or Champion Mordrem Husk (depending on scaling) wouldn't that mean those four NPCs are directly related? Mordrem Husks also spawn as part of the same event as Mordrem Husk Slingers, Mordrem Husk Smashers, and Legendary Mordrem Annihilator so they'd be directly related. I'll try to tone down the "indirectly" related pages; like Mordrem Husk Offshoot with Mordrem Husk for example.

Spawning in the same event or in the same location is not what a creature's "See also" should be used for; that's what the NPC lists on the event and location pages are for. —Dr Ishmael 16:36, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Going back to your first post: "an easy way for people to find other similar/related content" - that's what categories are for. —Dr Ishmael 16:42, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Categories aren't broken down that much; you go to the Mordrem category and it basically just lists a ton of pages with "Mordrem" in the name. What if I just wanted to see more Mordrem creatures like Mordrem Husks? I'd have to sift through all the links to find them and would probably overlook one or two, as they don't all have "Husk" in the name. -Somohexual (talk) 16:56, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Heyyyyyy

You switched up the delta links with the other ones. Knew something was sketchy when I downloaded 50+ mb of new item icons, heh. --Ventriloquist 14:37, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Blorp. —Dr Ishmael 14:39, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Is this possible?

The event "Recover cannonballs from the skritt" was changed to Kill skritt to collect cannonballs. They have the same id. It is fairly obvious that one was the replacement for the other. However, the "new" event had a page created for it. Is it possible to merge these two events somehow? To preserve the history. No idea if it is. Thanks. --Spionida (talk) 01:52, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's possible, but complicated - and not really worth it for a little page like that. Just convert the old one into a redirect after copying any relevant content over. —Dr Ishmael 01:54, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

The current info in the "new" event seems OK. Should I just create redirect page on the old one then? --Spionida (talk) 01:56, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that's all you need to do. We like to keep historical redirects because some people might still search for those old names that they remember. —Dr Ishmael 01:58, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, and yeah, I got the message regarding historical redirects  :) --Spionida (talk) 01:59, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I just thought I'd give a better explanation here than I can in an edit summary. :) —Dr Ishmael 02:01, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I can't find any info

Sorry, but I have a question. Looking at The Silverwastes, the events list shows the events linked with the skill points in the table above. Is that the desired behaviour now as the other zones do not seem to do it? Thanks. --Spionida (talk) 18:18, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

When in doubt, follow the existing consensus - i.e. copy what other pages do. —Dr Ishmael 18:24, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, so I will remove the skill point events. Didn't want to tread on anyone's toes. Thanks. --Spionida (talk) 18:26, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Request for API wrappers edit

Hello! Could you please have a look at the API_talk:List of wrappers list discussion? I have a wrapper ready, written in Go. Thanks! --Yasvisu (talk) 13:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Missing icons

Hey, what could be the reason that certain icons for new items are not in the dat? I ran a diff myself against an older icon archive but some of the new items don’t have their icon included there. I am however able to see the icon in-game (via chat link). I was thinking that the icon may have existed before, so it wasn’t added; but for this particular set of items, there is one for each profession and the necromancer icon is part of the new icons—the other ones are missing. Do you have an explanation for that? poke | talk 15:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Some icons don't have power-of-2 dimensions, they have some other odd dimensions like 56x56. I don't bother with exporting these since it's pretty rare for icons to not be power-of-2. I just use the API to get them instead. —Dr Ishmael 16:19, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Meh. The items are unfortunately not discovered yet. Guess I’ll look through the other sizes then. poke | talk 16:30, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

☺

Reminding you to upload the new icons, in case you forgot :P --Ventriloquist 12:28, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Unused templates

Would you be able to go over Unused Templates and delete uneeded ones? Not sure if there's any gain for that or if one should care, just thought I'd point out. You never know, so many things to do that you may forget something. – Valento ^msg 17:31, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

admin noticeboard?--Relyk ~ talk < 17:58, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't have access to move sections between pages, would you mind? – Valento ^msg 17:59, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Just because a template is unused doesn't mean it's unwanted. Some, like Template:Unsigned, should be unused, because they're intended for substitution rather than permanent transclusion. —Dr Ishmael 18:05, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

You could always use the subst template on its template page!--Relyk ~ talk < 18:09, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Oki, gotcha! – Valento ^msg 18:10, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Bah, that was just an example. :P I didn't even look to see if it was in that list - and I figured it was transcluded on its own page as an example, so I already assumed it wasn't, anyway. —Dr Ishmael 18:23, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I had a quick look at them.

• userbox templates - could delete these imo.
• skill dpl templates... surprisingly still work, could delete.
• recipe requires (dpl again)... delete + all its friends
• {{Location-cleanup}} + [[:Category:Incorrect formatting]]‏‎.. delete
• level templates - these ones are probably no use to anyone anymore
• rest are for keeping.

-Chieftain Alex 20:54, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Bro

I'm not sure if anyone's told you this lately, but you're awesome and this wiki would suck without you. - Felix Omni 05:42, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I fully support this statement. --Ventriloquist 08:46, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks guys. I'm not certain the wiki would actually suck without me, though, since there are a lot of other awesome people here. :P —Dr Ishmael 16:56, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Two of which have already commented here, for example ;D poke | talk 17:25, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Make that three. :D —Dr Ishmael 17:54, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Mwah. — snograt 20:42, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Make that... π, I guess. XD —Dr Ishmael 20:52, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Opinion about new race icons

i created new race icons using the symbols on the banners on The World Summit in the The Dragon's Reach: Part 2 episode. i don't want to change them without consent. http://imgur.com/a/MiyEp - Raikiri 18:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Ooh, never thought about those banners. – Valento ^msg 18:29, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

This is something that should be discussed with the whole wiki, so I'd suggest posting on the GW2W:CP talk page. —Dr Ishmael 18:38, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! - Raikiri 20:20, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

What is this GW2W:CP that you describe. Is it similar to the CommPort? -Chieftain Alex 23:08, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

:P —Dr Ishmael 23:50, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Funny thing: I had just finished the last achievement for that episode during The World Summit and noticed those banners' icons were different than what we're used to and was thinking about suggesting a change since the old sylvari icon is used for the Maguuma centaurs now. Konig 03:29, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

We definitely shouldn't resist change just because. If people like new icons, we could totally upgrade! I'm sure GW2 reddit would be on board with whatever :p -Auron 07:59, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I've always preferred accuracy rather than "being used" to something, especially when the new design also looks great (after properly tango-fied, this is). – Valento ^msg 10:58, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

You guys are all posting in the wrong place, y'know. >.> —Dr Ishmael 13:24, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm somehow addicted to your talk page. Don't judge me. – Valento ^msg 13:34, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

<wiki>*pukes comments all over Ish's talk page.*</wiki> Konig 14:02, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Missing dialogue icon?

While editing some of the NPC articles, I couldn't find any dialogue icon for the green 'v' shaped one that appears in dialogue options when you accept a quest from an NPC during a dynamic event. I tried checking the wiki's image lists but still no luck. Have I simply missed this icon somehow, or does it not presently exist in the wiki? If the latter, can it be uploaded so the proper icon can be used for articles that need it? Thanks in advance. :) --Kossage (talk) 16:06, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

? —Dr Ishmael 16:13, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's the one. Thanks! I don't understand how I managed to miss that. :( Would it be alright if I added the icon to Category:Tango_icons too as that category already lists other available dialogue icons? --Kossage (talk) 18:07, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Tango refers to the style of the icon, and if it's not already in there, then it's not tango. You shouldn't be using that category as a reference for icon usage. —Dr Ishmael 18:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally, the tick icons actually do follow the Tango guidelines. poke | talk 20:39, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Then I don't know why it wasn't categorized properly. My second point stands, of course. —Dr Ishmael 21:24, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

null page

Could we have a [[Guild Wars 2 Wiki:NULL]] page with a [[GW2W:NULL]] redirect to use as a null value on page properties?--Relyk ~ talk < 23:11, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

SMW

I have two questions:

• Why does "Is usable underwater" return empty "[]" while "Is ground targeted" returns "f"/"t"? For example, is there anything I should've done when creating this property?
• How do I escape double quotes and apostrophes from skill names while using smw api? I've tried to HTML-encode it and it didn't work. – Valento ^msg 17:59, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

One: Because that property has no value set for that skill, it returns null. SMW doesn't set any default values for any property, even for booleans, because it can't guess whether a given property applies to the page or not. You have to set "default" values yourself.

Two: Give me examples. —Dr Ishmael 18:38, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I actually want it to be null, looks better to code stuff. Those returned values 'f' and 't' are squishy heh. About 2nd: example. – Valento ^msg 19:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I went and edited "Retreat!" so it would display SMW data, it turns out for some alien reason this works. Rofl? what is the logic behind it? O.O – Valento ^msg 19:07, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, it seems double quotes are stored as raw html encoded entities & #34;. So for it to work I must use this entity, and url-encode it. Creepy, but functional. – Valento ^msg 19:12, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

There comes my headache again. Take Infiltrator's Arrow and Infiltrator's Return. The first uses "%27" or simply an apostrophe "'", the second uses html+url encoded entity %26%2339;. Why are they different? – Valento ^msg 19:29, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Root cause was that we use {{PAGENAME}} as the default value for canonical name (and for icon filename), and for some reason it returns single-/double-quotes and a couple other characters as numeric entities (even though that's supposed to be the function of {{PAGENAMEE}}, for returning an HTML-encoded page name). I've updated the skill infobox with a tweak that decodes these entities - later I'll go and do the same for other infoboxes. It'll take a while for the wiki to work through the queue of all skill pages and update the SMW data. —Dr Ishmael 20:15, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Wow! I would never think about that. Thank you! o.o – Valento ^msg 20:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Interesting - turns out it's only a problem for text properties; for page properties, SMW can handle entities just fine. So I don't need to worry about it anywhere except for canonical name, I don't think. —Dr Ishmael 20:28, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Late reply (yesterday I got a strong headache and went to bed earlier): hope it's a fix that's benefic for the wiki itself. That was a good catch. :) – Valento ^msg 10:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

In SMW, "null" values mean absolutely nothing because you can't tell the difference between "this property deliberately left blank" and "this property is not relevant to this page." The only way to know for certain that a property applies to a page is to set it to a non-null value. It also causes problems when you use a property in the query's filter - only pages with values for the property can be tested against the filter. If a page has no value for the filter property, that page won't be returned in the results. Right now, Property:Is usable underwater is mostly useless in query filters because you can only query for the skills that aren't usable - you can't do the opposite filter for skills that are usable because none of those pages have a value set. That's why every page with an infobox gets a value for Property:Is historical, even though most of them get the value 'false'. —Dr Ishmael 19:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

That's nice to know. I take absence of value as false by default in my script, but I guess it has other problems when using in the wiki. – Valento ^msg 19:29, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Tiny question

Is there any problem if I remove that "else statement" {{#set: Is ground targeted=N}} from {{Skill infobox}}? I seek empty parameters rather than chars (namely 't' and 'f') to define false. – Valento ^msg 19:24, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Like I was trying to explain above, that's the wrong way to do things with SMW. Empty means "unknown" not "false". —Dr Ishmael 19:28, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Ahh.. I re-read what you said (my head was certainly frozen yesterday). But SMW doesn't store "true" boolean values? Only characters? Now I see how "Is usable underwater" becomes pointless, it's hard to distinguish in an automated way with skill infobox given how the parameters are set up. – Valento ^msg 19:50, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Nonononono, you still don't get it. SMW stores true booleans, yes, but instead of returning 0/1, it translates those into 'f'/'t' when returning query results.

But that's not the real issue. SMW does not inherently set default values for any property on any page, regardless of property type - even "null" should never be considered a valid default because it's the default for every property on every page, even when the property doesn't have any relation to the page.

Take my userpage. It has a "null" value for every single semantic property defined on this wiki. So does that mean I'm not ground-targeted? No, because that relationship makes no sense. You could just as well say that I don't provide any NPC service, or that I have no merchant value. None of that makes any sense.

SMW's goal was to make wikis make sense. That's why it put the responsibility on the editors to make sure default values get set only on pages where it makes sense to have default values for specific properties. That's why we make sure the historical boolean is set on every page with an infobox. That's why we should make sure that the ground-targeted and underwater booleans are set for every skill. That's why you should never assume that "null" means anything. —Dr Ishmael 20:27, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh... maybe I took it wrong so many times. Thank you for taking your time to make me understand (I get it now), because I didn't know how SMW returned those values I made a wrong assumption ugh... Sorry about my confusion. – Valento ^msg 01:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I apologize if I sounded a bit harsh at the end, I tend to get frustrated when I have trouble making a point. Especially when it's closely related to my day job - we have to deal with null values all the time in our RDBMS environment. It's a little simpler because we at least know that the field definitely applies to the data, because it's defined as part of the table, but we still have to figure out whether our client's business rules mean that a null in a numeric field can realistically be treated as '0', or whether it should be 'N' or 'Y' in different boolean fields , etc. —Dr Ishmael 03:19, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Though I'm a bit apprehensive now (I understand what you said!), I'd just like to point out that, although null means nothing it does mean false for me because of this: conditions=Has canonical name::@@@|Has game context::Skill

I'm filtering very specifically, so if this skill named @@@ doesn't have requested parameters, I set it to false for convenience. I know null still doesn't make sense for anything, but given how data is pulled null equals false because of how I use. I want, for example, that the absence of facts mean false because it's easier in javascript to check later something like this:

if (retrievedData['facts']) {//deal with facts}else{//no facts}

I say "easier" because there are quite a few confusing values to check against (something I never experienced in C++), like null itself and undefined, and there is this "===" logic comparison operator, and I feel like "false" is simpler. – Valento ^msg 12:00, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I'd much rather prefer dealing with variables that always have a value. Trying to determine whether a variable has been defined, then to determine whether it has a non-empty value, and then to test the value is more complicated than simply knowing it has a value and testing it. —Dr Ishmael 13:28, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I see. When user calls my jquery method for an anchor and I request data from the wiki, I always pull the same properties and they always return something (when there's no value then [] empty array is returned), so knowing it's an empty array doesn't really add meaning when someone uses it later. I could set empty arrays to null too, but false seemed a better value. I'm not sure if I got it right, but what I'm trying to achieve is "does this property exists? true || false?", so for checking false, empty array or null means "no value", I just went for a standard (not sure if false is more semantic than null, though). – Valento ^msg 16:16, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

In that case, I would treat null as "does not apply" and ignore null properties for that skill. That would be for things like Is for attunement or Requires offhand which only apply to a small subset of all skills. The booleans Is ground targeted and Is usable underwater, however, definitely apply to all skills, so they should be defined for all skills. —Dr Ishmael 16:23, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I would too if I was re-creating the old tooltips plugin, but this is broader, so I don't know what the end user will use these information for, or how they'll translate them. I've decided I'm only facilitating data pulling, not interpreting them. :) – Valento ^msg 17:47, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, you're right! I don't have to store data for some property if it doesn't exist for a certain skill. Going to change it now. – Valento ^msg 18:45, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Help!

What is going on here? o_o – Valento ^msg 20:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, nvm. Mora fixed it. That was... weird. – Valento ^msg 20:27, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

It looks like the infobox doesn't like sharing a row with other templates. I'm not sure what changed it, but it wasn't like that when I saved it last. •••Mora 20:31, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah. Thanks for fixing that so quick. – Valento ^msg 21:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

This revision of the skill infobox removed a newline that had existed between the status-hatnote and the infobox div. Thus, pages like this one - where an external hatnote (otheruses) precedes the infobox template without a newline in between - worked in the past because the infobox template supplied that newline, even though it shouldn't have.

The current versions of the infobox templates are now following best practices in that they don't output any extraneous whitespace; unfortunately, it screws up pages like this that had relied on that whitespace being output. Bottom line: the same-line usage on this page was incorrect, and any other pages like it should also be corrected. —Dr Ishmael 21:55, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Adjudication

Is there some method for adjudication? Please see Talk:Charr Renegade and the main page's history. Thanks. --Spionida (talk) 22:12, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Skill facts in-game icons

Hey Ish, I see you have some zipped downloads in your page, do any of them have skill facts in-game icons? – Valento ^msg 20:46, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah, first download. :) – Valento ^msg 21:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't get why quickness isn't properly styled as a boon (yellow frame, white picture). Maybe they'll change it once slow comes into play. – Valento ^msg 11:33, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Because it's not a boon and isn't affected by things that affect boons in general. —Dr Ishmael 13:17, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, there must be a reason why it is not mechanically considered a boon (balancing?). By being an effect it is free from boon removal/steal/duration increase, quite interesting. – Valento ^msg 13:49, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Table Template Creation: Opening a Can of Worms

I am considering experimenting with the craft table template to make improvements. Before you get worried, I have no intention of modifying the current craft table template (or any other existing template), but instead would like to create a test variant (new craft table template) to experiment with changes. I have several questions:

• Assume that I have some idea of what I'm letting myself in for, Is this permissible?
• Would my experimental new craft table template need to be in main-space or will it work if placed in my user-space?
• Is there any documentation for table creation, other then in-line within the existing tables themselves?
• Is there access to the underlying common CSS code? Documentation for that code?
• Is there documentation for CTRLF5 and similar special-key sequences?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 1Maven (talk • contribs) at 09:21, 7 March 2015‎ (UTC).

• You can test whatever code you want in your userspace.
• Templates can be created and used in the userspace identically to the mainspace (example).
• Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Table formatting, I'm not sure if you're asking anything else.
• {{Custom CSS}} can be used to test CSS code. Wiki-wide CSS is on MediaWiki:Common.css.
• w:Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts, not hard to find.

--Relyk ~ talk < 09:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Ctrl+F5 is a browser shortcut, nothing to do with the wiki. —Dr Ishmael 16:08, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

note to self

Template:Recipe list result format needs to be updated to get item icons from item subobjects. —Dr Ishmael 20:43, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I've changed skill lists templates

Would you mind reviewing my changes in {{Weapon skill table header}}, {{Weapon skill table row}}, {{Weapon skill table row format}}, {{Slot skill table header}}, {{Slot skill table row}}, and {{Slot skill table row format}}? I'm almost sure you will rewrite everything (*sigh*), I was just attempting to add energy cost to revenant skills, while keeping consistency in other skill pages. :P – Valento ^msg 14:56, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Charr's Triumph.

Hi, regarding your recent reversions in this area. I have walked a character back and forth over the heart NPC, Blayd Gutwrencher, and it seems definitely within Martyr's Woods. I do know that it's on the border, but repeated transitions across the border, while refreshing the minimap display, consistently have Martyr's Woods showing on the minimap's area caption. If you don't refresh the minima's display, it still shows Martyr's Woods as the NPC's location. --Spionida (talk) 19:25, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

That was one of the problematic ones when I was drawing the sector boundaries. Back then, it was more consistently in Charr's Triumph, so that's where I drew the line. —Dr Ishmael 21:28, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

(1) so what to do? leave it or move it? (2) the maps are rather out of date now as quite a few heart NPCs have been moved. --Spionida (talk) 21:30, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

1. I don't really care, move it if you want.
2. I know, but I don't have the time anymore to update them. —Dr Ishmael 21:32, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

HoT mastery tables

Hiya! I made some tables (saved in my sandbox) of the new HoT masteries. I didn't want to do a template though because its seems more involved than making a template for a table. Do you think I could put my tables on the masteries page, just to have something more than a bulleted list until someone else can make a template? Here's links of the two User:Ikarus/sandbox and Mastery.
Also, there were some slight differences between what was typed on the mastery page and what was in game. I can change those if you dont think my tables are good as a placeholder :) Ikarus (talk) 08:01, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

We can fix formatting at any time, so don't worry about it. Just crack on with the demo and get what you can out of it :)

I'll copy your tables over into the Mastery page + apply some wiki formatting to them. -Chieftain Alex 09:53, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't write a template for that, it's just a simple table. Never mind, I see what Alex has done now. —Dr Ishmael 12:30, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

figured I would start with a placeholder template as a vague objective, and then start doing infoboxes with a smw lookup similar to traits. Btw, is the correct term "mastery line" or "mastery track"? -Chieftain Alex 12:46, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

API editorship request

Hi,

I've seen you processed the "latest" editorship requests for the API namespace. Can you grant editorship or who else do I have to poke to get attention :D ? --Teranas (talk) 13:29, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

I didn't "process" those so much as I redirected them. I'm not a bureaucrat so I can't grant editing rights. —Dr Ishmael 14:50, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Incorrect item in Base ingredient query for Twin Spinal Blades

Could you check to see why the query for Twin Spinal Blades is returning an erroneous link? Appears to affect Twin and the upgraded versions, where the "Blueprint" seems to corrupt the item above it (for Twin Spinal, it lists "Pile of Luminous Dust Blueprint (n/a)"). --BryghtShadow (talk) 13:55, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. It was because the name of the ingredient Spinal Blade Pack Blueprint contains the name of a higher-level ingredient, Spinal Blade Pack, and thus it was confusing the part of the template that tracks the list of ingredient names. —Dr Ishmael 14:24, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Sweet, thanks. --BryghtShadow (talk) 14:27, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Wrong Demotion Recipe for Shard of Crystallized Mists Essence

The recipe lists Shard of Crystallized Mists Essence as both input and output, rather than (3) Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence as its output. Thank you. --Messenger (talk) 15:57, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

the only problem here (if I understand you correctly) is that the Shard of Crystallized Mists Essence page had a recipe on it that was already noted correctly on Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence. Deleted the demotion recipe listed on the Shard page. -Chieftain Alex 19:06, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Specializations are changing things

“

Base attribute points on equipment will be increased so that all the gear in the game will give higher stats than it did before. This should account for most of the missing points.

— https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-one-a-primer/

/me looks at Template:Item stat lookup

/cry

—Dr Ishmael 13:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I believe that the correct response is "Nooo why Anet why?" Couldn't we just ask the devs? >.> -Chieftain Alex 18:41, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I have a feeling this is just the start... thorns is coming... - Zesbeer 18:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

At least this time we have the API - originally, I created all of those by manually scraping the TP in-game and recording everything in a massive spreadsheet. Now I just have to update my API database after release and everything will be in a table for me to extract. —Dr Ishmael 18:46, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

The evil editor in me would suggest crowdsourcing reddit because people find this simple to change then feel good about it, and then reveal all that work was wasted.--Relyk ~ talk < 18:48, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Spec changes page

Wow! You're really going to make a raw static copy for each trait line? Maan, it's going to take a lot of time, isn't it? – Valento ^msg 18:49, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

So? When has that ever stopped me? —Dr Ishmael 19:05, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Remember when they added unique recipe icons and you had to manually input the icons on every single page? Good times. —Ventriloquist 21:09, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

[SMW:ON]1=Who doesn't like subst'ing SMW queries to make static versions?[SMW:OFF] -Chieftain Alex 17:56, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

‎(no reason to have a PNG image for this - there is no in-game icon)

The reason for this PNG image is that it was referenced by at least four main-space pages that now show a Lock Icon instead of something more relevant. I thought the proper procedure was to check referencing pages before performing a deletion. ~ 1Maven (talk) 18:27, 5 May 2015 (

But the image you had there was most definitely not an in-game icon. Which meant you were presenting false information by uploading that image as if it were an in-game icon.

Do those NPCs have any floater icon above them in-game? If not, then they shouldn't have an icon on the wiki, either. —Dr Ishmael 18:33, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

The image that I uploaded originated with ArenaNet as concept art and was the most relevant that I could find, but was not an in-game icon. I checked and could find no in-game icon for this particular type of service NPC. In such a case, what do you recommend doing so that several main-space pages do not display a Lock Icon? ~ 1Maven (talk) 19:08, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

We don't make up icons if none exist. Instead, I just modified the infobox to display blank for this service. —Dr Ishmael 19:16, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I can accept that, but would like to know how you "modified the infobox to display blank for this service." ~ 1Maven (talk) 19:30, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

you're an unncessary redirect

--Cronos (talk) 21:04, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Sick burn - Felix Omni 03:46, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Roasted like a chicken.--Relyk ~ talk < 06:06, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Removed posting on Admin Board

Hey Ishmael,

Sorry about posting in the wrong area. I went ahead and removed that section. Is it too spammy to post more than once in the same section in the community discussion portal thread? I don't know how else to grab their attention again.

--Reborngeek (talk) 21:16, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

We don't have an "anti-bumping" policy or anything like that. I'm actually typing a response to your proposal right now, though, so you may want to wait for that. —Dr Ishmael 21:19, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I will do that thank you :) --Reborngeek (talk) 21:20, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

why would you double-annotate this?

Because I'm afraid of getting yelled at for breaking stuff ;_;--Relyk ~ talk < 13:03, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, you were the one who added it - almost a year ago, in fact. I guess I didn't notice, because I would've said the same thing then. I guess you also didn't notice that the infobox was already setting Property:Has effective level, which would have served your "need to query for area levels" just fine.

Anyway, it's all cleaned up now. —Dr Ishmael 13:24, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

The actual reason is laziness. Semanticizing the infoboxes has been slow progress :( I need to finish up the story infobox next.--Relyk ~ talk < 13:34, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Your're too fast

I was in the middle of writing a description of the issues with Orichalcum Rings when I noticed that you have already fixed them :) I'm assuming you're in the middle of fixing similar issues with other rings (Mithril, Platinum, etc.) ~ 1Maven (talk) 02:15, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Category:Experimental research pages

Thank you for deleting [[:Category:Experimental research pages]]. Unfortunately, there is one item that still appears in the category, Lost Orrian Jewelry Box/Drop rate/Archive 1, which appears inaccessible ATM. What's the best way to handle this? ~ 1Maven (talk) 14:05, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Ignore it. The page probably isn't even useful to anyone anymore, so it should probably be deleted instead of sucking up CPU time whenever someone tries to access it. —Dr Ishmael 14:40, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

ascended recipe sheets

I'm not sure if these "pick an item" consumables like the sheets and achievement rewards fall under Property:Gives item/Property:Contains item (Maybe change that property to Rewards achievement item). We probably wants a separate property from those to identify the consumables that allow choice from a list of items.--Relyk ~ talk < 01:59, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Ascended "recipe sheets" are containers, so yes, Contains item does apply. What you probably want is a boolean property for containers like Allows item selection (default "N" obviously) or something like that.

And what are you referring to about achievements? —Dr Ishmael 02:11, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

The achievement rewards use a similar UI for choosing the hellfire/radiant skins or the zenith skins. A boolean might be a problem if some items are always given as part of the reward with the player choosing among a couple; I think this only pops up in personal story/living story rewards and Bonus Chests though.--Relyk ~ talk < 02:56, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Your zip file containing icons

I tried but couldn't find 1012310.png (One with Fire). Will keep you updated if I don't find other icons. – Valento ^msg 20:04, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

It's not there, actually. I extracted them before Ish posted it all and it just goes straight from 1012309 to 1012311, so it's not our dear Ish's fault. —Ventriloquist 20:08, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes an icon is an odd size, so it gets sorted into a different folder. I can look tonight and see if I can find it. —Dr Ishmael 20:09, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

We need a way to trim the corner edges on minor traits, the borderless hack won't work there. We will probably have to edit the icons manually?--Relyk ~ talk < 04:37, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I can get clip-path to work (User:Relyk/clippath), but it's not supported everywhere (like my Pale Moon browser :D). Uploading cropped versions seems best since the icons won't change often anyways.--Relyk ~ talk < 07:02, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

That's what we did with the old icons. There's a mask in the game textures you can use, 1002160.png, to get the full in-game effect. (There's also a square mask, 1002159.png, but I don't think we need to go to that much trouble...) —Dr Ishmael 12:00, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

One thing to note (and I'm not sure if it's major) is that the effect icon for some traits won't match if you crop (example). – Valento ^msg 12:08, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

That was true with the old icons too. —Dr Ishmael 12:21, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I see, shouldn't be hard to make then.--Relyk ~ talk < 12:34, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I had a look over the css we'd need to transform the full original (no transparency) icons into the ones we need at the top of the trait infobox... its mostly unsupported across the majority of browsers.

If I can work out how to run batches with GIMP then I'll see if I can apply the hex as a mask so we get it done consistently for all the icons. -Chieftain Alex 14:09, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

User:Flakkenmarsh might already be doing that. Actually, sounds like he just went to bed or something.

I think what I did for the old minor trait icons (Rhoot had already done the major icons, can't remember why I had to go back and do the minors...) was to load all of them up as layers, then load the mask as the top layer. After the masking is configured properly, I would export the image with the icon that was on top, then remove that icon layer, then export again, etc. Of course, that was only 8 icons, where the new minor icons are 3 per spec * 5 specs per profession * 8 professions = 120 icons. That would take a bit longer. :) —Dr Ishmael 14:43, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

That's how I was going to do it in GIMP so yeah.--Relyk ~ talk < 15:07, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

So, I heard you called for icons. I can give you this: [1] :) Chiubi and myself ran them through Photoshop and pngcrush earlier. The folder names are german, but you should be able to find them easily. --Tera (talk) 15:09, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Looks like I'll leave it to the germans, I'll figure out how to use gimp scripts anyway. -Chieftain Alex 15:12, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

My imagemagick windows batch approach:

FOR %%f IN (*.png) DO convert %%f mask\mask.png -alpha off -compose copy_opacity -composite processed\%%f

Uses mask\mask.png as the mask and puts it all in a pre-existing folder named processed. One % less if you want to run it from command prompt instead of a file. --zeeZ (talk) 15:21, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

(Reset indent) will we be applying the square mask to the major traits too? I used ZeeZ's script to do the ~500 major icons too. CA -81.153.69.56 01:18, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I suppose we could. It would just be a bit of a bother if they ever change trait icons, someone would have to know to apply the mask to the new ones. (Of course this applies to minor icons too, but there are fewer of them and it has a more significant impact.) —Dr Ishmael 02:15, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Quite a few of the icons in the delta zip file you provided already have the mask applied. I've uploaded a zip file with all the major trait icons in + rectangular masks applied to everything (unnamed sadly) to here. -Chieftain Alex 09:34, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

If some of the textures already have it applied, then yes, let's make them all consistent. I hadn't noticed that. —Dr Ishmael 12:13, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I've now uploaded all the masked major icons with my bot (by hand but less spam in RC). As you guys probably noticed there are a few icon anomalies that appear ingame - I've applied the mask which fits over the icon, independent of whether or not it should be a hexagon (minor) or square (major). -Chieftain Alex 10:06, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Greener and Hasaple updated quite a few of the traits last night - and the general minor-major adept-master-grandmaster order looks correct, but we probably still need to update descriptions, facts and recharges. -Chieftain Alex 10:13, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Um... don't use hexagon mask on major traits. They need to look the same as they do in-game. It doesn't matter if it looks odd - because it looks odd in-game, too.

The only two I noticed were File:Last Refuge.png and File:Unsuspecting Foe.png, were there others? —Dr Ishmael 12:15, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Zeez had already reverted File:Merciful Ambush.png, pretty sure that's all of them. —Dr Ishmael 12:23, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Trait icons

Thank god you decided to bot all those. I did necromancer ones, doing the other seven would have killed me. Thanks. —Ventriloquist 12:36, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

You missed 15 necromancer ones because the traits aren't all updated yet, so they're not showing on the list page. Ranger, thief, and all heavy professions have the same problem. —Dr Ishmael 12:42, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I used Category:ArenaNet icons to find them, but didn't want to touch 'em in case they were ranger ones, since they have a similar color scheme. Have fun :P —Ventriloquist 12:44, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Does no one like thieves? That's the only profession that hasn't had all of its trait pages updated. —Dr Ishmael 01:18, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I've recently begun to explore WvW. So, no. I may get there when done with clients. G R E E N E R 01:26, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Specialty table

I was editing the new traits to show their current status since many have changed, but some stopped showing up in the table on their specialty, and i can't figure out why. for example

• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pet%27s_Prowess
• http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Beastmastery

OkkeB (talk) 21:56, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

It's showing now. Dynamically-sourced templates like the trait tables don't always update immediately; I'll try to explain quickly. When the wiki serves a page, it first has to take all the templates on the page and process them into their output wiki-text. Sometimes this can be quite expensive in terms of processing time, and certainly doing it every single time a page is accessed would make the server run quite slowly. To make things easier, the wiki caches the fully-processed page so it can just serve that up immediately the next time the page is accessed. The cached version of the page is kept for 24 hours, after which it expires and the wiki will re-process the page again. Of course, with this caching system in place, any changes in the data used to build the page won't show up until the next time the wiki re-processes the page, which can take up to 24 hours.

Thankfully, there's a way to force the wiki to re-process a page on demand. If you look to the far right of the page-top tabs (the ones that say 'discussion,' 'edit,' 'history,' etc.), there's one that says 'refresh.' Clicking this link will immediately expire the page's cached version, after which you'll get a new version with the updated data. —Dr Ishmael 00:49, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Categories consistency

I've had a talk with Relyk about reorganizing specialization categories, there we decided to drop " traits" from the category names, and go only for the spec name itself. I have even changed the template to accommodate that. I'd like your (and others') input about these changes. – Valento ^msg 18:02, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Hello

Seems like ages since I've deposited anything random on your talk page, so I thought I'd better fix that. I was bored today and I discovered (probably obvious to anyone but me) that you can do /wiki w:dodgywikipediapagehere. I can think of lots of naughty chat abuse opportunities: "Hey guys, try /wiki w:cat anuses - it's cool!" Um, yes. Bored. — snograt 21:56, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Reverts on deleting redirects

Whoops, what have I f*ed up? Sorry! G R E E N E R 00:22, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Those are useful redirects because the old name was the "correct" name. —Dr Ishmael 00:22, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Ah, okay, I'll leave the redirects alone. It seems that whoever named the consumables without the plural also did it the same way for the Aetherblade skins. I haven't checked any of the other sets. G R E E N E R 00:24, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Checking in

Hey Dr ishmael,

Just checking in to see how things are going. It's been a couple months since the last response to my GW2Shinies request. I wanted to see where we were on that and if there is anything I can do to help move things along.

Sincerely, RebornGeek

--Reborngeek (talk) 16:55, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I haven't had any time to work on this, and I probably won't for at least another month. I don't know if anyone else was interested enough in this issue to pick up my slack. —Dr Ishmael 14:52, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh no problem, I'll ask around and see if anyone else is available. If not, we can reconvene in a month's time. --Reborngeek (talk) 14:54, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Hey Dr Ishmael, I'm just checking in to see how things were going. Any progress for this request by chance? Anything I can do to help? --Reborngeek (talk) 19:19, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Stat levels for crafter backpacks

Hi. I don't suppose you happen to know whether I should be using "stat level" for any of the Category:Crafter's backpacks? I was just about to edit the minor/major templates for Intricate Leatherworker's Backpack, but I'm finding that the supposedly level 45 rare item clashes with the value given for another item (and doesn't seem to match the pattern).

For the record, I'm getting values of +17/+12 for Major/Minor, and +8 for celestial. -Chieftain Alex 21:46, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure those back items are considered leveling equipment, so yes, you should be using stat level. —Dr Ishmael 21:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Hmm so now I have to find some other stats + items to verify if it is +6 to the regular level. This ties in with my findings for Elegant Armorsmith's Backpack having a bigger major bonus (+32) than a level 80 ascended (+31) or level 80 rare (+30) version. Thanks though. -Chieftain Alex 22:15, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

These stats are very odd imo. I guess the only item that clashes (same nominal level + rarity but different stats) is the 45 rare one, so maybe I should make up a stat level + stick that value in the lookup, and just use the rest of the stats as given ingame (no stat level).

Item	Simple	Sturdy	Practical	Intricate	Ornate	Elegant
Rarity	Fine	Masterwork	Rare	Rare	Exotic	Exotic
Req lvl	1	15	30	45	60	78
Stats: Major Minor	+2	+5 +3	+11 +8	+17 +12	+26 +19	+32 +18
Stat lvl guess lvl delta	?	24 +9	42 +12	58 +13	60 +0	90 +12

(not enough celestial datapoints to consider for the level delta) -Chieftain Alex 11:45, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, you're right - that doesn't really follow a good pattern. I guess we can't do much then, your idea sounds fine. —Dr Ishmael 12:16, 21 August 2015 (UTC)