User talk:Dr ishmael/Archive 4

Recipes

I'm attempting to cleanup a few of the categories relating to the subpage on the Chef page such that it will load properly via dpl category query - but I'm finding there seems to be no decisions as to whether the Item infobox or Crafting infobox is being used for them.. as I intend to force some of these pages into the snack category to match the list on the chef page, which infobox should they be using? (so i can perform that in one edit) Chieftain Alex 18:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The issue is that some chef outputs are themselves crafting materials, while others are not. The ones that are materials need the Crafting infobox in order to show the required chef level, but the ones that aren't materials just need the plain Item infobox.

I forget, does "Snack" or "Meal" etc. appear in the item's tooltip? If not, then it shouldn't be documented in the infobox at all, since that means it's a property of the recipe, not the item, and we need to start working on a revamp of the recipe template (I've been wanting to do that for a long time, but I've been waiting until we get the #arraymap from Semantic Forms). —Dr Ishmael

18:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Attend the Party

I can completely understand the reasoning behind keeping Attend the Party as a redirect for Special Event, except that none of the other achievement titles (e.g. "Zhaitan's Bane", "Experience Survivor", "Centaur Slayer", etc) do not exist, even as redirects. If we are going to keep Attend the Party and have it be a redirect to Special Event, I think that's a great idea — and will make things easier in the long run — but we need to be consistent with it. -Jya voc 19:00, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with that. —Dr Ishmael

19:04, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

He might be referring to how people have been making individual articles on Explorer when they are only a couple sentences.--Relyk 19:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I didn't really have any one thing in mind, just that there wasn't something across the board. I mean, unless we ultimately have some major problem (like ANet creating a generic NPC named "Orr Explorer") that would mess up the entire thing, having redirects to the relevant information is a good thing. Just... it shouldn't be spotty in terms of coverage. -Jya voc 19:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Events list

I have been doing some work on Queensdale and Wayfarer Foothills. I am soon going to Caledon Forest, The first two do not have icons in front of the list items, the third does. Which way is "right"? Thanks. Bernardus 19:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the consensus was towards including the icons. You may want to ask at Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Projects/Cartography to reach a better audience. —Dr Ishmael

19:31, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I will. Bernardus 19:49, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Armor infobox

The change you did on the Armor infobox seems to have affected the icon sizing. See Opticalium Gauntlets. -- ab.er.rant 09:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed. —Dr Ishmael

12:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

dpl fun

Name	Profession	Description
Well of Power	necromancer	Target area pulses, converting conditions on allies into boons and granting might.
Well of Suffering	necromancer	Target area pulses, damaging foes and inflicting vulnerability.
Well of Corruption	necromancer	Target area pulses, converting boons on foes into conditions.
Fetid Ground	necromancer	Create fetid ground that damages and poisons foes.
Field of the Mists	revenant	Create a field from the Mists that blocks incoming projectiles in front of you, then fire bolts at foes around your target.
Gravity Well	mesmer	Create a powerful well that warps space in an area, knocking down, floating, and pulling foes caught in its event horizon. When it expires, foes still inside the well take heavy damage.
Nightfall	necromancer	Call down a growing column of shadows that damages and conditions foes every pulse.
Shadow Refuge	thief	Create a pulsing refuge at the target area that heals allies and cloaks them in stealth.
Well of Darkness	necromancer	Target area pulses, blinding foes with each pulse.
Dome of the Mists	revenant	Create an area that blocks projectiles and weakens foes.
Ghastly Breach	necromancer	Breach into the realm of torment for a brief time, granting might to allies and slowing enemies. Convert a boon on enemies into torment each pulse.
Rift of Pain	revenant	Saturate your target, creating a chilling area around them with a field type based on which legend you are attuned to upon casting. Allies in the affected area gain beneficial effects.
Embrace the Darkness	revenant	Summon the power of the legendary demon to transform into a powerful avatar. Pulse torment to nearby foes. Using skills that cost energy increases the torment applied on the next pulse.
Well of Gloom	Thief	Shadowstep to your target location and drop a well that cripples foes and heals allies.
Well of Bounty	Thief	Shadowstep to a targeted point and create a well that grants boons to allies.
Well of Tears	Thief	Shadowstep to the target location and drop a well that repeatedly strikes foes.
Well of Silence	Thief	Shadowstep to the target area and lay down a well that removes conditions from allies. Gain shadow force for each condition removed. The first strike of the well dazes foes.
Well of Sorrow	Thief	Shadowstep to your target location and create a well that inflicts foes with any damaging conditions they don't already have. Foes that already have all conditions will be inflicted with torment.
Shadowfall	Thief	Shadowstep to the target location and drop a well that continuously pulls foes to its center, increasing intensity with each hit.
Call to Anguish	revenant	Leap toward the targeted area and pull foes toward your landing point.
Well of Corruption	[[]]	Well. Transform boons of foes into conditions every 2 seconds.
Essence of Living Shadows	engineer	Fire an arrow equipped with a device that spreads shadow magic across the ground on impact, healing and removing conditions from allies with the initial detonation, and healing allies with each pulse afterward. Chain Reaction. The next short-bow skill in the radius will remove additional conditions from allies.

Making <Type> fields skill table possibly. How do you use #ucfirst in that, supposedly you can use parsers functions in the arguments. Also, is {{skill table row}} designed to be used for such things? Those #vardefine use the output from the template itself so you don't need to format from what I've seen. It's all a little over my head.--Relyk 01:32, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

How about we try it with SMW instead?

Skill	Profession	Description
Call to Anguish (underwater)	Revenant	Legendary Demon. Leap toward the targeted area and pull foes toward your landing point.
Dome of the Mists	Revenant	Create an area that blocks projectiles and weakens foes.
Embrace the Darkness	Revenant	Legendary Demon. Summon the power of the legendary demon to transform into a powerful avatar. Pulse torment to nearby foes. Using skills that cost energy increases the torment applied on the next pulse.
Erasculio/List of mesmer specialization skills
Erasculio/List of necromancer skills
Erasculio/List of necromancer specialization skills
Erasculio/List of revenant skills
Erasculio/List of thief skills
Essence of Living Shadows	Engineer	Fire an arrow equipped with a device that spreads shadow magic across the ground on impact, healing and removing conditions from allies with the initial detonation, and healing allies with each pulse afterward. Chain Reaction. The next short-bow skill in the radius will remove additional conditions from allies.
Fetid Ground	Necromancer	Create fetid ground that damages and poisons foes.
Field of the Mists	Revenant	Create a field from the Mists that blocks incoming projectiles in front of you, then fire bolts at foes around your target.
Ghastly Breach	Necromancer	Punishment. Breach into the realm of torment for a brief time, granting might to allies and slowing enemies. Convert a boon on enemies into torment each pulse.
Gravity Well	Mesmer	Well. Create a powerful well that warps space in an area, knocking down, floating, and pulling foes caught in its event horizon. When it expires, foes still inside the well take heavy damage.
Nightfall	Necromancer	Call down a growing column of shadows that damages and conditions foes every pulse.
Rift of Pain	Revenant	Saturate your target, creating a chilling area around them with a field type based on which legend you are attuned to upon casting. Allies in the affected area gain beneficial effects.
Shadow Refuge	Thief	Deception. Create a pulsing refuge at the target area that heals allies and cloaks them in stealth.
Shadowfall	Thief	Well. Shadowstep to the target location and drop a well that continuously pulls foes to its center, increasing intensity with each hit.
Well of Bounty	Thief	Well. Shadowstep to a targeted point and create a well that grants boons to allies.
Well of Corruption	Necromancer	Well. Target area pulses, converting boons on foes into conditions.
Well of Corruption (Nightmare Court Knight)		Well. Transform boons of foes into conditions every 2 seconds.
Well of Darkness	Necromancer	Well. Target area pulses, blinding foes with each pulse.
Well of Gloom	Thief	Well. Shadowstep to your target location and drop a well that cripples foes and heals allies.
Well of Power	Necromancer	Well. Target area pulses, converting conditions on allies into boons and granting might.
Well of Silence	Thief	Well. Shadowstep to the target area and lay down a well that removes conditions from allies. Gain shadow force for each condition removed. The first strike of the well dazes foes.
Well of Sorrow	Thief	Well. Shadowstep to your target location and create a well that inflicts foes with any damaging conditions they don't already have. Foes that already have all conditions will be inflicted with torment.
Well of Suffering	Necromancer	Well. Target area pulses, damaging foes and inflicting vulnerability.
Well of Tears	Thief	Well. Shadowstep to the target location and drop a well that repeatedly strikes foes.

To make the icons "normal size" I'd have to send the query output to a surrogate template, which I didn't feel like creating right now. —Dr Ishmael

01:52, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

That looks nice.--Relyk 03:06, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Something I really miss from gwiki/gww is how any table listing skills would also have their vital parameters, like cast time, recharge, etc. Obviously this gets a lot more complex in GW2 since some of the tooltips have tons of data, but it kind of defeats the purpose of condensing information into neat tables when I need to go to the individual skill pages anyway to figure out how good they are (for sake of, say, writing a guide). I'm not sure if this was ever discussed somewhere else, but would it be possible to include such figures without too much effort? If it is possible and it's not being done I assume there's some good reason for it. Also, it would be lovely if sorting by "can use underwater" actually worked, but that's probably not an easy one unless it's assigned to a boolean 0 or 1, or...something. Vili 点 17:43, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Displaying skill facts was virtually impossible with DPL, but now with SMW it can be done, it's just... complicated. I need to spend some time figuring out the best way to do it.

The underwater thing would actually be pretty easy, like you say, just assign it to a boolean Property:Is usable underwater (as always I'm accepting suggestions for better property names), alongside a page {{Property:Has underwater counterpart}} for the few cases like Tornado/Whirlpool. The time-consuming part is rewriting the skill table templates to use SMW. I'll probably have time to work on all of this next week. —Dr Ishmael

17:55, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Mat icon and Crafting/item

Something's off with some changes you made to Mat icon, because Armorsmith is showing a lot of missing images. Should we just migrate that template over to Item icon? --JonTheMon 14:54, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, let's do that. I don't remember why the mat icon template even exists. —Dr Ishmael

17:37, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Dungeon Armor Icons

These icons aren't showing up for me on the respective armor pages (ie. Ascalonian Catacombs armor). They used to display properly, but I can't figure out what edit broke them. I'm thinking something happened to Template:Item icon, the template now does this --> Item <--. For example Ascalonian Sentry Hat is broken, but Bolt works fine. —Crazy Rabid Squirrel 17:38, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

It's because the pages like Ascalonian Clergy Cowl have 2 infoboxes, it's screwing over the SMW. Those pages should be split, the rare and exotic items don't have anything in common except the name. —Dr Ishmael

17:45, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh that makes sense, I'll go fix that. Thanks! —Crazy Rabid Squirrel 19:05, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Semantic MW and ids

Hey, I need your expertise on Semantic MW. For the chat link extension I was mentioning before, I want to store ids in articles. Now, I need to lookup things based on their id, like “give me the skill with id X”, which should basically give me the title of the skill/article where I put the skill id to X. Very simple idea.

I know DPL cannot handle this kind of lookups. DPL would get a list of pages that use my id template (or whatever), at most N pages (N is 500 iirc), and then filter out all the ones that do not match my id I am looking up. So essentially I need to look at all ids—in wiki code—just to get back a single entry; and at worst, we have more than N of a kind where this will break completely.

So, my question is: Can Semantic MW do this? Can I ask for a specific attribute value and it will give me back that article? And more importantly, can it do that efficiently?

If that’s not the case, I need to look into another solution, and a on-wiki list of ids I need to parse for every lookup is not something that would make this better; so I’d probably end up with a custom, fast lookup table we needed to maintain additionally… I don’t really want to go there unless it’s really necessary. So please tell me, that SMW can do this ^^ poke | talk 06:38, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, SMW can do that very easily, and it is very efficient about lookups because it stores all of its triples (page-property-value sets) in specialized tables, instead of having to parse the wiki-text of all pages at query time. A quick example of a single-value lookup (although not a very useful one) would be {{#ask:[[Has game icon::File:Earthshaker.png]]}}, which returns Earthshaker, Earthshaker (Nightmare Court Knight), Earthshaker (Occam's Enchanted Hammer), Earthshaker (Risen Turtle Shell), Earthshaker#WvW,PvP, Leap (sledgehammer), Overcharge, Spirit Scream. —Dr Ishmael

13:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, that sounds very good then! That leaves me with some things to think about; I’ll come back at you when I have something more definite prepared. Thanks a lot! poke | talk 15:41, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

(no idea what to label this)

Hey, so I was wondering if there is any problem with me making a User:Juicearific/(something) and using it to display some information to my guildmates? It wouldn't show up to anyone not looking at my user, I just wanted to make sure before I put it on there. I know we did it with sandboxes, I'm thinking the same idea except with like, "information" or something. Is there anything wrong with that? (I don't plan on putting like 10k pages. but a few dozen would be plausible.) Just want to make sure it isn't going to create any unforeseen problems. Cheers Juicearific ~talk 19:00, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're even asking, we don't have any restrictions on what people do in their userspace (beyond the obvious no porn etc.). We even require pages about guilds to be in userspace, since we'll never have a Guild: namespace. So go right ahead! —Dr Ishmael

19:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Awesome. Only making sure because I'm not a huge wiki user (aside from GW2) - and I've not delved TOO deep into the wiki rules, beyond the normal things to do when editing a page, etc. Thanks! Juicearific ~talk 19:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Template:Item icon

Hmm... I don't quite understand how this SMW thingy works... Care to enlighten me a little on why icons are not showing up on the items offered of Doolsileep (except the salvage kit) but they are in Blopp (except one of the aquabreathers]]. This doesn't feel like a caching issue. -- ab.er.rant 16:03, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Doolsileep is working now. The aquabreathers are messed up because they have multiple infoboxes on a single page. We really need to stop doing that. (Yes, I know, sigils and runes... dunno what to do about them yet.) —Dr Ishmael

16:08, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Gallery of Weapons

I've had a lot of requests that the Gallery of Weapons page be re-added. I told them it was removed by an admin and that I would check on the possibility of it being re-added. If you think it's best to leave it off that's fine, but I've had a ton of requests for it, which is the only reason I added it in the first place. Thanks. Souldonkey 16:50, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

There's no reason to duplicate content by having both weapon-specific galleries and an all-weapons gallery. How is an all-weapons gallery useful, anyway? —Dr Ishmael

16:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, don't get me wrong I see the logic in that, which is why I was ok with it being removed. I just had a lot of people message me saying they wish it hadn't been. I think people like it because they can look at all the Swords for example, and then flip down to Longbows or something without having to leave the page. I think it's more of a convenience request. --Souldonkey 17:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

So I'm guessing that means it's gone for good, then? -- Souldonkey 04:58, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I wanted to revisit this again, since you never responded before and I just ran into an instance when this would have been useful. I finally have my Warrior to 80 and I have been searching for good weapon skins. I run a Sword/Shield, Mace/Axe build and I found it inconvenient to have to have 4 tabs open in order to find a Sword/Shield combo that looks good together as well as a Mace/Axe combo that looks good together. Keep in mind that a big part (if not the only part) of having weapons galleries is so people can quickly and easily view weapons skins they like for transmuting purposes. If someone wants to make a set (say matching sword and shield) they have to currently go to 2 completely different pages. With an "all weapons" gallery, they wouldn't have to. I'd like to ask that this at least get considered to be re-added. --Souldonkey 20:01, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

But if they're all on one page, then you have to constantly scroll back and forth between the two sections you're interested in, and they could be widely separated on the page with a lot of other weapons between them. How is that more convenient than having two tabs open with only the two specific weapons you want to look at? —Dr Ishmael

20:03, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Couldn't we add "Back to top" links at the top and/or bottom of each section that would jump you to the top of the page for easier navigation to a different weapon type? It wouldn't be as good as viewing the weapons side by side but it's be better than having to navigate to a completely different page or have multiple browser tabs/windows open. --Souldonkey 20:06, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I guess so. :(

Explain yourself

05:53, 11 November 2012 Dr ishmael (Talk | contribs) deleted "Category:Users who share Game Insights" ‎ (troll)
05:53, 11 November 2012 (diff | hist) m User:Vili ‎ (Reverted edits by Yoshida Keiji (talk) to last revision by Vili)

What is so wrong about willing to learn about GW2 from players opinions rather Arena-Net marketing?

Is there a page that makes a comparison between GW1 vs GW2? Talks the positive and negative aspects of GW2?

Is there a single page where the GW1 Community shares its opinion together about GW2?

Yoshida Keiji (talk) 07:58, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

There's very little point discussing differences of GW1 and GW2 at any place since they are very different games, made by different people and at completely different times. I'm not sure what's the issue, but those questions are not useful to documenting facts about the game. Opinions are better taken to other forums or discussed in userspace and otherwise kept apart from wiki mainspace articles categorization and such. Mediggo 08:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Doc-chan. I appreciate you looking out for my userpage, but in the future I can handle such things myself unless there's need of a revision delete or something. Thanks :D Vili 点 08:11, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Ishy, you got some 'splainin to dooo!

08:49, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

@Vili: I wasn't protecting your userpage, I was deleting a category with a very trollish description. That it had been added to your userpage is coincidental, I would've removed anywhere it had been added.

@Felix: I shouldn't have to explain it to you, since you can view the deleted page for yourself.

@Yoshida: Your description on that category page was purely trolling. I suppose it won't hurt anything to quote it here, though, so other users can see it:

Copy and Paste this code in user pages that contain GW2 information written by players.

* Comments that pin point Arena-Net lies and what the game really offers.
* Comments that tell details hidden from media propaganda which could harm Arena-Net incomes.
* Comments that compare GW1 versus GW2, which is very useful for those who protect their money.

It almost sounds like a political attack ad - "ArenaNet lies," "media propaganda," "protect their money." If you don't think GW2 is a very good game, fine, don't buy it, don't play it, don't edit the wiki. But there's no reason to be doing crap like this. —Dr Ishmael

14:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

If I wanted to make a political attack, I would have written in the GWW Feedbacks a formal page of complains or whatever. What I did was a category, which its only purpose was to tag pages with players comments...something more like a research.

Arena-Net did lie in the past and I don't know what is so annoying to you about that. For example, there was an update which I cannot recall the "when" because I wasn't wiki-ing during those days saying that 3.600 accounts have been banned (JQ bots) that prompted a yellow message immediatly after login in to the game. A-Net said they would do that regularly... but ended up becoming an only "once" action.

Arena-Net said that changing weapons would offer players different sets of skills according to the selection, but to me it wasn't clear enough that the skills were going to be "fixed"...which in my opinion is kind of "hidden" detail.

I don't care about "editorializing" content of GW2W... And since I didn't buy the game...as I said months ago in my GWW talk page: The only thing I could do here is "Bookkeeping", because since I don't have the game there is no way I could double check game content. This is because my only real interest here is to see how a wiki is impacted after game release (already goal achieved btw). As GWW was my first ever Wiki, but I arrived too late... when it was already late. If you check my contributions, I have barely participated here "content" related. I remember removing a false tag of an animal companion "said" to exist since GW1 but it was false. Beyond that I already know I can`t really touch any vital information.

You didn't like the Category description, I can understand that and I thank you for replying. But I still think I can create another Category like: "Category:Users who share Deep game insights". Because what I want to know is the un-official information written by players. I have personaly tagged several GWW Categories for deletion that were useless, example: "Category:Fans of Dr. Ishmael" (ficticious) and had only 1 page tagged with it, which was the same user the Category was refering to. And I can even blindly bet that here in GW2W...there must already be very uber lame Categories ready to delete before a Category like mines meant for research purposes only.

Yoshida Keiji (talk) 11:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Everything about this is nonsensical. You aren't looking for "deep" game insights, you're looking for negative ones to justify your irrational predetermined mindset about the game. I linked you to vili's page with that understanding. Laughing at a bad game is fine, and poking fun at people still playing it is even more fun. A problem arises, however, when we try to apply our personal definitions of "good" and "bad" videogames into mainspace categories, and it's even worse when we try to defend our personal definitions with bullshit like "I'm looking for 'deep' insight" when you're clearly just looking for more reasons to hate the game. On a wiki about that game, particularly an official one, that stuff doesn't belong anywhere except userspace. As the IP pointed out, your best option would be to simply create a subpage in your user space with links to every article or page with hate speech about the game so you can find it more easily in the future. Alternatively, use bookmarks in your browser. That information isn't of interest to *anyone* else, particularly not if they're already on the wiki about the video game, so trying to categorize it is pointless.

Lots of your post is either completely off topic or on topic and simply wrong, so I'll just tldr instead of responding to lots of bs; stop it. That information doesn't belong here. It isn't in the best interest of the wiki project, and it isn't of interest to the readers. Don't get me wrong; I hate the game every bit as much as you do. More, probably, considering I actually wasted $60 on it. The PvE is repetitive and boring, the PvP is bad, poorly balanced, and boring. There are hundreds of design flaws in each. But honestly, there's nothing you can do about it. There's nothing I can do about it. Don't take your frustration out on the wiki, and *definitely* don't act like you're trying to do the community a favor by categorizing all the GW2 hate speech for easy access. Just live with the knowledge that you saved yourself $60 and move on. -Auron 12:23, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It is a political attack and propaganda, directed at ANet. Much as I enjoy Yoshida Keiji's edits to the GWW, I don't think it's a good idea to editorialize the content. If the goal, as the OP states above is to make valid comparisons between GW1 & GW2, then said user can create a page in their user space that summarizes and/or links to other users that share similar ideas.

@Doc-chan: thanks for explaining the background. Your actions seem sensible to me. 75.36.177.28 20:56, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Babalu time!

03:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Error 503

I know you've fixed the after-affects of one of these before. On this occasion, I was trying to edit Fort Trinity, specifically the locations section. On submission I get the standard error 503 guru meditation (with an XID of 743956385 that is doubtlessly of no use to anyone) - and the section I just edited replaces the entire page. Is it just me and my iPad that has this recurring problem? And is it just me or is that section edit link in an odd place on that page - its down by gates, rather than up by locations. — snograt 10:31, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

503 errors are entirely within the cache server, I'm pretty sure I haven't fixed them before. I haven't seen any 503s myself recently. The section edit link was being pushed down by the thumbnail in the intro section, I've moved it. —Dr Ishmael

14:26, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Heh, thanks - no, I meant you've fixed the after-effects of one of my 503s before, i.e. half a page disappearing (I think it was something important like Stephane's talk page). — snograt

19:44, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

huh? why create a page with nothing but a delete tag?)

Type in "Template:sour" in to the search box. You will see, "template:source?" as an option. Choosing that led to what appeared to be an existing template without any content.

If the page didn't exist previously, it would have shown a red link for the title, and an offer to create the page, e.g. "Create the page "Source" on this wiki!. (it did not)
If the page had been previously deleted, it would have shown (as it does now), "this page had been deleted" (it did not)

I'm not sure why it looked as if my actions created the page, but perhaps it has something to do with {{Template:Source?}}. 75.36.177.28 21:06, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

The ? symbol in the article name is fucking with it. My guess is the wiki thinks the ? is used for GET method even when the url is passing the character "%3F" instead and pulling up {{Template:Source}} instead of {{Template:Source?}}. --Relyk 21:56, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I deleted the page with the ? on it and changed a filter to stop those pages. --JonTheMon 22:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Spurious wiki-side image caching

Hello, I'm looking at the table in this revision of Pact weapons - and as you will hopefully see, none of the images have loaded correctly - they all have the red cross where images would normally be. I've tested it on Talk:Pact Shotgun and only the 20px and the unrestricted width icons show up. Even uploading another file instead did not change any of the non-loading files on that page - only the unrestricted width file changed. (i.e. even the 20px image would not change appearance - even when the file was replaced with an image of a mace..).

I've temporarily "fixed" this issue on the weapons page by removing the large=yes parameter, but what could cause this problem? (perhaps you could delete the file so that we could try reuploading?) --Chieftain Alex 10:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I have no clue what's going on there. Since they need to be replaced by the 64px textures anyway, I'll just do that and see what happens. —Dr Ishmael

13:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Didn't work. Bug it. —Dr Ishmael

13:55, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Semantic MediaWiki

Dear Mr. Dr. Ishmael. I've been playing with the SMW stuff today and I think I've hit a bit of a brick wall. As a proof of concept I created two vendor pages, User:LordBiro/Mr. Pling and User:LordBiro/Researcher Hrappa. I also created the page User:LordBiro/SMWTest. I believe the property types have been set up correctly (although I do intend to go back and give them better descriptions if we end up keeping those property names). I believe that the data is being properly parsed by SMW, but it looks like something is wrong with my query. While the correct articles are showing up in the list, I'm having trouble getting the data out of the record.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! :) LordBiro 22:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

As an update, I'm now getting the right field from the record (for the most part) but I'm also getting every record in the page, rather than just the relevant ones! LordBiro 22:46, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Ugh, I forgot about that. And we'll need #arraymap from Semantic Forms to make it work, because you'll have use format=template and pass the item you want as userparam=, split ?Has vendor item with #arraymap, and only display output if the record matches {userparam}. —Dr Ishmael

22:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I recognise some of those words. LordBiro 22:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

some SMW

You use an internal object for #set_internal:Effect of skill, which brings up some thoughts for me. Can you set inherent properties for Property:Is Rune (for rune articles), where you have define values based on Property:Is Superior, Property:Is Major, Property:Is Minor and then use #ask to retrieve properties depending on the level of the rune. This comes from the fact all the values for each level of rune are fixed except the description in the upgrade component infobox. The equivalent in the template would be making a bunch of switch statements for the default if the parameter isn't specified.

In practicality, it will set default values for rune pages so we wouldn't have to inquire the value property or level property if we know the level of the rune. Having three separate infoboxes on a rune page defining properties that could be inherently defined seems redundant. Of course, you would use the parameters in the upgrade component template to override the property value if needed.--Relyk 02:58, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Gw00x

Are you planning on making a filter for those? --JonTheMon 05:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I tried a while ago, but the AbuseFilter code doesn't fully support action=upload. It can detect the upload, but it doesn't set any variables for it. I could fix it by changing only a couple lines of code, though. Maybe I should contact Justin about that. —Dr Ishmael

13:28, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Great name for an Asura, though. — snograt

13:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

To clarify it

This is what's happening on the expression: User:Relyk/Template:Unsigned. Even when both parameters are left blank in the weapon infobox template, it leaves the error about the and operator. Unless it wasn't doing the same for you.--Relyk 05:28, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Frakkin' empty parameters. I'll never understand why MW can't just treat empty parameters the same as if they didn't exist. —Dr Ishmael

05:41, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Main page update

Since Accessory was moved to Trinket, at least that change from the editcopy should be carried to the main page. The other changes are not so important in my book, but this should be changed quickly. - Yandere 22:17, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Icons

I think you know how to get icons (I have no clue how to find them or get them) - there are some that need improving. Bank, Trading Post, Guild Bank. Surriela 17:18, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Same method as gw1 I assume, Instructions on how to download Texmod. Follow the instructions on this page upto step 11 of mod creation (depending on what software you have access to, you should use the .dds file type if you can, then convert it to .png - max quality), and go to the output folder and find the files you want. --Chieftain Alex 17:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Textmod will not work for Guild Wars 2. It crashes every time it is run. Surriela 22:03, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Dammit, I thought I'd made a post from my phone on Saturday, but apparently it didn't save (and I never noticed until now >.>). Anyway, in that post, I had mentioned that Texmod does not work with GW2 - you have to use the new, open-source uMod instead. But you probably don't even need that, because I have zip archives of (most) game icons linked on my userpage. —Dr Ishmael

22:07, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Way to contribute with SMW interactive maps?

I read your comment in: User talk:Rari/Queensdale interactive map Is there a way for me to help with SMW interactive maps? I'm sorry if that's not the right place to ask, i am still little confused when it comes to searching information in discussion/project/community pages. Thanks in advance --Leriel 23:21, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The extension isn't installed yet. —Dr Ishmael

14:56, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Event rewards template

I've posted at the bottom of Template talk:Event rewards - I'm pretty sure theres no need for dpl in this template, since we could just set the event infobox to define the level variable instead. If I'm incorrect I'd appeciate the knowledge as to why :P --Chieftain Alex 15:12, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Mostly because inter-template variables open up too many risks: anything in between the templates could modify the variable; someone could unintentionally remove or modify the variable definition in the first template; etc. Using DPL has fewer risks because you're directly accessing the original value, and it's very unlikely that the template parameter would ever be renamed. —Dr Ishmael

19:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

You can call it using the variable outside the scope of the template. That is done on the {{SDRH}} drop rate templates alex. This is mitigated by limiting it to its own subpage using only those templates and using unique variable names, there is no reason to worry that they would get modified.--Relyk 23:43, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Unless you have infinite monkeys, computers and they're all editing the event pages :> --Chieftain Alex 00:41, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

If you stuck a template in between the infobox and event rewards such as the {{reward}} that defined a level variable to calculate experience and coin gained and was used on many different pages, it can possibly fuck up. And if it can, someone definitely will do so.--Relyk 01:09, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Skill Challenge:

There is a discussion at Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Skill challenge formatting#Naming conventions toward the bottom of that discussion regarding keeping "Skill Challenge: " as part of the name. I'm not contending your deletion of the article, but I did want to point you to that discussion so you could voice your opinion/all opinions could be voiced in the same place. —Jya voc 21:27, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

formatting smw output

Can you customize the output for #ask or do you have to use the default arguments with the format parameter? There is a template argument that lets you use a template but that seems excessive. It's probably not needed because #show can simply grab what we want individually.--Relyk 07:59, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

~~This will probably be the same answer as the prior topic for the "send the query output to a surrogate template" List format seems to what I'd want for the those lists :P~~ Actually I want the secseperators like dpl and still can't find it and just end up spamming your page.--Relyk 08:14, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Found it: User:Relyk/Template:Skill table :P--Relyk 09:28, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Deleting scout pages

I'm not sure who deleted the lists of scouts and their locations, but can we bring them back please? From what I could tell, there was only one person touting the deletion of the pages, and only two requesting they NOT be deleted, but unless my first grade math fails me, 2 is greater than 1. Besides, there was information on those pages that couldn't be found anywhere else; and now can't be found anywhere (the locations of each scout). The argument made by Konig is that it was redundant. While some (even most) of the information on those pages was duplicated on the renown heart pages, there was information on those pages that could only be found on those pages, and it is all, as I said, gone now. We need to have separate and distinct pages for the scouts. I have been using scouts to further my completionist goals, and I'm not the only one who does so. Now, if I search for scouts, I'm brought to a generic page about scouts. I cannot currently find any information (particularly LOCATION) of any scout, unless I have the foresight to check the renown heart pages (which I only know to do because of Konigs arguments), and that still doesn't have the scouts LOCATIONS. If someone else went looking for scout information on the wiki, they'd be stuck; no information anywhere. These lists provided an aspect of wiki completion, not duplication. ~Mervil 20:46, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Scouts for your current zone are always shown on the in-game map, unless you have completed all of their hearts. So there's really no need to know their locations, the map will show you. Also, you can complete the hearts without talking to the scouts, so there's no reason at all to talk to the scout in the first place. As long as you know where the heart is, the scout is superfluous. I'm sorry, but there really is no point to having lists of scouts. —Dr Ishmael

20:54, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Regardless, the scouts are there. And they were put there for people like me, to give a little bit more direction in the game. The scouts point out the hearts in increasing order by level. This helps guide players through the maps in more of an ordered fashion. They may be pointless to you, but "I'm sorry" they're not pointless to everybody. And to correct a point you made, the scouts are only shown on the map as long as the hearts they show haven't been revealed yet. As soon as they're revealed (not completed), the scout indicator disappears. So you can accidentally make the scout disappear before talking to them quite easily. It would be very helpful for completionists like me to have a guide to scout locations. ~Mervil

21:12, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

... hearts are ordered by level on zone and location pages, so whats the problem? (you know the zone → you look at the page, scroll to the table, find the heart. I don't see an issue here. --Chieftain Alex 21:16, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Well like I said, if the hearts are revealed, the scout is now superfluous. Whether you spoke to the scout or not, the hearts are what matter. "The scouts point out the hearts in increasing order by level." And so do our heart lists. The scouts are only there to direct players that don't have any other guide to PvE. If you're using the wiki, the scouts are not for you, since you can use our heart lists instead.

In short: our lists of hearts are basically every scout in a zone rolled into a single table. They make the in-game scouts obsolete. —Dr Ishmael

21:24, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I understand that you don't like scouts. I understand you don't use them, you probably don't even talk to them. However, that doesn't change the fact that other people DO use them, they DO exist in the game, and there are enough of them in game to warrant an easy-to-find list on the wiki, despite the fact that they are seemingly pointless. The fact that they exist in the game at all warrants a wiki entry. While not all scouts have their own pages, many of them do. Some of the pages even state where they are. As pointless as you seem to think that is, it's still a fact. Why can't we have a list of scouts on the wiki? What is it hurting? Why take away that convenience that other people are using, even if you aren't? ~Mervil

22:23, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I never said we shouldn't document the individual scouts with their own articles. We should, because they are distinct NPCs. But maintaining list articles for scouts is dumb. Regardless of what you seem to think, scouts are not important enough for that.

In any case, what benefit does a list on the wiki have over looking at your in-game map? —Dr Ishmael

22:34, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

You don't have to maintain them, I will ;). Besides, it has happened to myself too often, and to guild mates as well, that the scout becomes impossible to find because of accidentally revealing all the renown hearts. Despite having revealed all the corresponding hearts, I still talk to them. I talk to all of them. It sucks to go looking for the scouts after the icon has dissappeared, they are nearly impossible to find. I'm gonna keep trying to convince you to keep them permanently, but until then, can you restore them for 1-2 days so that I can reobtain the location information off the pages that I painstakingly recorded and keep on my own system? ~Mervil

22:43, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

If you want a list of scouts, you can stick a simple dpl list in your userspace:

{| {{STDT|location sortable}}
! Name
! Location
|-
{{#dpl:
| namespace = 
| category = Scouts
| uses = Template:NPC infobox
| include = {NPC infobox}:%PAGE%,{NPC infobox}:location
| secseparators=\n¦[[,,]]¦¦,\n¦-
| format=,,,
}}
|}

--Relyk 19:27, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Surely the question of whether to maintain a list of scouts is up to the community to decide, not just an admin.

On its merits, the argument in favor appears to be: some people find it useful to have a single list of scouts in one place; they are actually recommended by some as a map completion tool (since, as noted above, they don't do anything if the relevant hearts are completed). The argument against seems to be, "maintaining list articles for scouts is dumb". Until the "no list" group comes up with a better argument as to why such a list is bad for the wiki, the list ought to be restored. 75.37.19.201 20:23, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Uh, I made plenty of other arguments in there, please don't pull a single sentence out of context to summarize my stance on the issue. —Dr Ishmael

20:25, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Really, the question is: what additional utility would a list of scouts give over the current list of hearts for a zone? Since that has both scouts and hearts on it, I don't see it adding anything. (edit) Ok, looking over some of the other arguments, let me be clearer in my question: what additional information was on the list of scouts page that wouldn't be on the list of hearts page? Also, the link to hearts could be made stronger on the generic scouts page. --JonTheMon 20:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

@ Relyk -- Thank you for that, but I'm not just looking for a list of scouts. I had made pages for lists of scouts in each region and recorded where each scout was located. THATS the important information, and the reason that I was perpetuating the lists.

@ JonTheMon -- The information included on those pages that is now deleted and cannot be found anywhere is the scouts actual location, which is beneficial to those who want to find the scouts when the scout icon inadvertently dissappears.

@ Dr ishmael -- Really, the only other arguments you made against the lists were that they are pointless/useless, but I'm telling you thats not the case, as everybody in my guild was using them, and is now mad that they are gone (especially me). And again, I reiterate my question, what is so wrong with having lists of scouts on the wiki? And why can't the community decide on the issue? If I'm willing to put in the work to create and maintain those pages, why not let me? ~Mervil

00:15, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

But the individual scout page should be made, which would have the location. Or you could have a map with them (dynamic map with links?). So, like Ish, I don't see how a list-list is superior to the current setup. --JonTheMon 00:18, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

A "list-list" would have (did have, before they were deleted) a list of all scouts in Kryta (for example) organized by area (Queensdale, Kessex, etc.) and have each scouts location all in one page, so you dont have to go to each scouts name page, which you wouldn't have anyway, not without knowing who you were looking for to begin with. ~Mervil

00:24, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

First, having it at a region level really doesn't seem right, since we try to mostly organize at the zone level, and region pages are really just aggregates. Second, is a list useful without a map, since they can disappear and don't have an icon? See, I'm just looking at an old copy of the pages (at least one of them), and it has the scouts and their locations, but that doesn't really tell me anything. I'd have to go to the area or the scout page to figure out where that is (unless I knew it, of course). So, without a map, it's still a bit much just to point you elsewhere. --JonTheMon 01:02, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Mervil, all you have said is that "everybody in my guild was using them", but what you haven't said is why you are using them. So please answer that. Why do you feel like you need to visit every single scout, even when you have already uncovered the hearts, thus negating the only purpose the scout has? If we can understand that, then maybe we can figure out the best way to present the information you think you need. —Dr Ishmael

01:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for trying to understand my side, i do appreciate that. As to the "why", I (and I assume others who use them) use the scouts as a guide for the area, for hearing some of the lore about the area before heading into it, and for completionism/thoroughness. I like to explore every aspect of the game, scouts are a part of that. They give information about the areas, tell a little lore, and give you a heads up about whats going on in a particular part of the map. It IS true you can complete the game, even get 100% exploration, without talking to them. But that doesn't mean people DON'T talk to them. The fact is, people DO talk to them, and do actually enjoy talking to them and seek them out. Not everybody, but not nobody either. There really ought to be a page (an easy-to-use list page) that caters to that group of people; a minority not-with-standing. It's not fair for people to say, "you can't and won't have that information because I don't think its necessary or useful." I DO think its useful, and so do others. ~Mervil

02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

That list does show the area of the scouts, so I don't know what you want in terms of location. The thing is a scout is like an annotated version of the wiki. The wiki has an actual article for the area, which provides much more information about the area, including lore. The information from the scout will be integrated into these articles. People shouldn't be looking at scout pages for lore about areas when you can go right to the source. The scout pages will have the NPC dialogue, so it'll still be there if you want to verify information on an area. As for as scouts providing a general guide to a portion of the zone, I'd argue the wiki provides a guide to the entire zone in minute detail.--Relyk 03:20, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) In that case, I agree with Jon - a list that only tells you the name of the area is hardly useful. You need a map. We have an extension in the pipeline (Semantic Maps) that will allow us to build interactive maps within the wiki. Unfortunately, it requires a newer version of MediaWiki, so it can't be installed right now; fortunately, Anet's web team is currently testing our upgrade to MW 1.20, and it should implement before the end of the year. —Dr Ishmael

03:24, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

When in the history of ANY wiki is a page (or set of pages) deleted because a few find them unnecessary while even ONE person finds them useful? What is wrong here isn't the page, it's your attitudes about what does or does not belong on the wiki. Just because an elite few (amazingly those same elite few who have the admin tools to make the page disappear) have decided against it, it's gone. My question is, does the page harm the wiki to have it? Does it cause confusion for users? Does it contain information is a way that is repeated somewhere else and is that information a true representation of the game itself? It appears in this case the answer to each of those question is no. It doesn't harm the wiki to have it, it doesn't create confusion for users, and no, the page presents a set of factual information about Guild Wars 2 in a way that is not repeated somewhere else. Put it back.... please. -- Wyn

talk 04:10, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

My whole paragraph was about how it's redundant with area articles :/--Relyk 04:16, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't see individual area articles presenting the information in the same way at all, I mean, a list of scouts divided by area, is not the same as a list of the few scouts available in a single area. So no, the article in question does not repeat information presented in the same way somewhere else. -- Wyn

talk 04:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Wyn! :). To address the point that Dr Ishmael made (and apparently Jon), the location of each scout wasn't just an area, it was specific. It told you where to find them, for example, "Just West of Winter Haven waypoint". An interactive map WOULD be much cooler and easier to use. But please bring back the lists in the mean time. ~Mervil 04:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems redundant to me and not more useful than other options. Like a list of krait in Caledon Forest or Quetzal Bay. The individual NPC pages handle it well. Manifold

04:31, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

You people tell me, then, where I can find the scouts on the wiki! If the information is so redundant, point me to the page where I can find this information! Wyn and Mervil are 100% correct. Who are you to decide that this information about GW2 does or does not belong?! Is this wiki about GW2? Are scouts an aspect of GW2? YES and YES. Then put the pages back.

It seems to me that your opinions on what is useful and what is not is dictated by your playstyle. There are many completionists, such as myself, in the game that rely on such pages. I do not ever go to a heart without first finding a scout to tell me what's going on in the area beforehand. And what happens if I stumble upon the heart before the scout? The scout disappears from my map. Sure I can scour the map looking for the scout, but that's EXACTLY what the wiki is for! I should be able to come to the wiki and do a search for "Queensdale scouts" and pull up a page just for that. I shouldn't have to know the scout's name to search for it. What I need is a page that lists each scout, in order, and what heart(s) it reveals. And that is exactly what you deleted! Bring them back. --Musha

05:25, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I just don't understand how you're having problems finding scouts and how this kind of list helps. If you go to a heart page, the scout is listed. If you go to the list of hearts, the scouts are listed. If you need very specific information about a scout's location, go to the scout's page or find a map (which we could use, but it's the ideal solution). Scouts are essentially secondary information to a heart, so if you're looking for scout information, it should be centered around the heart. --JonTheMon 05:42, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Fine, I restored the pages. My opinion on them hasn't changed, but I really don't like having whine-fests like this on my talk page. —Dr Ishmael 05:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Could move this to general/npc formatting or community portal.--Relyk 05:57, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Perplexed by an old image

[[:File:Guildwars2 flame temple tombs puzzle.png|This image]] kind of perplexes me - it's an image, the article shows its an image, yet I am incapable of moving it and the tabs say "create" instead of edit/history/move. I can only assume it was a database error when it got uploaded originally. I'd like to move this to, say File:Flame Temple Tombs vista.jpg so that it can have a proper image page, and then added to Flame Temple Tombs as an aid for getting to the vista there. But alas, no move tag. Konig/talk 04:06, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Odd, the tabs worked for me. I moved it, but it's a PNG, not a JPG, so I fixed your link. —Dr Ishmael

04:12, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I just created the page, which then lets you move it :P--Relyk 04:14, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Figured just making the page would fix the issue, but I wasn't sure if doing such would keep the image. Konig/talk 04:18, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Your assumption was correct. It was back when the server had connectivity issues. I've had images that didn't complete their upload and although the image was uploaded, the actual image page wasn't created. So I have to manually "create" the image page. -- ab.er.rant

13:38, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

weapon skill tables

Can this be implemented with smw once Property:Has skill context is added to the skill infobox template? I think it also needs {{Property:Has activation type}} for burst skills.--Relyk 06:10, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

What would "activation type" be? My idea for "skill context" would require a massive overhaul of the infobox and updates to all skill pages, which is why I haven't implemented it yet. —Dr Ishmael

13:21, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

chain, channeled, charge. Burst is put under type so ignore that. I think charge skills are just channeled skills, there's only one skill in Category:Charge skills and Churning Earth was changed to channeled. skill context should cover that purpose since its multi-valued?--Relyk 17:02, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Yes, burst is a skill type; some burst skills are channeled, like Flurry. Chain is also a skill type, but we've been treating it as something separate, which I'd like to change. There are other charge skills, mostly on siege weapons like mortars and trebuchets, where the length of charge determines the range of the projectile, so we should keep that. Skill context is intended to define where the skill appears, not how it is used, so channel/charge/chain should not be merged with it. —Dr Ishmael

17:10, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Works for me, chains have the context of being a chain skill but it'll be under has type property already.--Relyk 17:21, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Screen shots

Can you send me an answer about a way to take a clean screen shot without all panels up? ( mouse pointer or skill bar etc. ) There was an option in GW1 to make such screenies and that was good. --ICBM 16:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Back in BWE1, there was an option to hide UI automatically for all screenshots, and Shift+PrtScrn would also work. Unfortunately, both of those features got removed for some reason. All you can do now is Ctrl+Shift+H to hide the UI, then take a screenshot, then Ctrl+Shift+H to restore the UI. —Dr Ishmael

16:31, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Helpful, thank you! --ICBM 17:41, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Trait lines

Hey, I was working a few days ago with SMW and trait lines, and I realized that I couldn't find a specific way to reference the individual trait line pages (ie Shadow Arts). They're each stored in their own profession category (eg, "Category:Thief traits"), but I couldn't find any SMW markup specifically identifying "this page" as a trait line, and no general category (which I don't think would be a good idea, but I'm including here for completeness). I'm not necessarily sure that I need to have this data personally, but I thought nonetheless to ask you, either to find out that it does exist, or that it doesn't and should (or that it doesn't and shouldn't, though...). —Jya voc 21:07, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a result of how the categories were set up, way before my time here, such that the pages for trait lines are commingled with the pages for actual traits. In my opinion, trait lines should be identified by their own separate category. I can't think of a logical way to define them using semantic properties. —Dr Ishmael

21:13, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I suppose that an example of what I was going to do is appropriate. I wanted to go through every trait line, regardless of profession, and for each trait line, find the max numeric major trait for adept, master, and grandmaster for that line. It would have been possible for me to do workarounds (there are certain pieces of information that I could have done to get this), but there wasn't a straightforward, non-hackish method I could find at first glance. I realize that this isn't the most common thing. Also, regarding SMW definitions, the currently header of Shadow Arts is [[Shadow Arts]] is a [[trait]] line for the [[is for profession::thief]] that focuses on use of [[stealth]].. A proposal I might have for formatting would be

[[Shadow Arts]] is a [[is trait line::thief|trait]] line for the [[is for profession::thief]] that focuses on use of [[stealth]].

if we were to set the datatype of "is trait line" to not-Page. Or if we were to use {{#set:...}}. I submit to your knowledge of SMW. Though I suppose if we were to add every trait line to a category Category:Trait lines, one could use SMW and cross-reference the [[is for profession::]]. —Jya voc 21:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Your example is demonstrates my point when I said there's no logical way of using properties to define this. Is trait line::thief doesn't make any sense semantically. "Is trait line" sounds like it should be a boolean property, and the value you use duplicates the "is for profession" property. —Dr Ishmael

21:41, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm still a new to SMW, which is why I came to ask you what you would do in this scenario. —Jya voc 21:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

The core problem is the decision on this wiki to categorize all category-defining pages only within the category they define. Thus, trait is only categorized in Category:Traits, where it should also be categorized it under Category:Game mechanics since it is a game mechanic. It was challenged a couple times, but was always shot down by the establishment. —Dr Ishmael

21:53, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, that makes perfect sense >_>. Though it doesn't sound like you're at all in agreement with this, so no point in my arguing it. —Jya voc 22:07, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't agree with it. Guess I could've made that a bit more clear... ~_~ —Dr Ishmael

22:22, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

You did, perfectly clear; hence my subtlety. Unless you're responding with sarcasm, at which point, ohh. —Jya voc 22:31, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Having the main trait page (Shadow Arts traits) in the same category as its traits might be a legacy from DPL where you could pick out just the traits-only pages by specifying the usage of the Trait infobox. So, I'm not sure how SMW would handle that. --JonTheMon 03:10, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

We can still pick out the trait pages because they have extra properties. The problem is picking out the trait line page in SMW; I think DPL has a notuses parameter, so you could pick it because it doesn't use the infobox, but SMW can't query for pages that don't have a property set. —Dr Ishmael

04:14, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, picking the trait page and excluding the traits themselves... hmmm. Well, instead of picking out the traits themselves with the trait infobox, couldn't you identify the trait lines by their category and using the trait table? Or is that too generic? --JonTheMon 14:40, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I think I just realized the solution.

{{#ask:[[Category:Soul Reaping traits]][[Is for profession::+]]}}

Death Perception, Dhuumfire, Eternal Life, Fear of Death, Gluttony, Sinister Shroud, Soul Barbs, Soul Battery, Soul Marks, Soul Reaping, Speed of Shadows, Unyielding Blast, Vital Persistence

Yep - query the trait line's category and filter on Property:Is for profession. I deliberately did not use that property on the traits themselves, since they have Property:Is in trait line, and you can use the property chain [[Is in trait line.Is for profession::X]] to find a trait's profession. Really it's a lucky side effect, but at least it works. —Dr Ishmael

14:53, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Aww, thank you guys then! I was originally asking if we wanted to more formalize it, but it works and I doubt that the rarity of this scenario doesn't necessitate an overhaul. I'll continue reading up on the wonder that is SMW. —Jya voc 00:17, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Property:Has appearance

Hello! I apologise for not consulting the resident SMW doctor, but I was reckless :p I had hoped I would be able to create galleries using it, but I have failed. If you have any idea how to combine smw with the <gallery> tag I'd appreciate your input. (and if the answer is the smw:resultsextension, then I am failure^10.)
I should probably have linked to the broken code.. main offender & sub template Chieftain Alex 22:54, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the answer is Semantic Result Formats. —Dr Ishmael

23:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

So, I checked the property page, and it didn't say, but is this something we'd be using to ultimately consolidate all items skins? eg, all items with X skin would have the same Property:Has appearance tag? —Jya voc 00:09, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

If we did that, I don't think we'd want the values to be the filenames. We'd probably want to first set up an article for each skin, collected in Category:Skins, and use those pages as the values. That's the way I think we should go, since skin articles would give us a place to summarize all the different occurrences of said skin and their acquisition methods. —Dr Ishmael

00:20, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Don't we still want a unique icon for each item?--Relyk 00:40, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course, we'll still have pages for any unique occurrence of an item. I'm thinking of it as a step in between weapon type and specific weapons: from Shield to Iron Shield (perhaps with a (skin) suffix) to Haven Protector. —Dr Ishmael

01:21, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I mean, we can still have all of the images still there. It'd probably be easier to users to contribute if we have icons just be instances of the name, and maybe even the images themselves. At least, at first while we're still waiting/needing to get images on the wiki. This brings to mind the GWW project for NPC renders. That project would never have worked had it been done while we were still gathering images on all of the items, but once we had that and the appearances/icons were on the wiki to be able to look at without needing to find them in-game, and they weren't prone to being changed in later updates, standardization was made possible. All that said, either this property, or even a second property, like Property:Has skin wouldn't be a bad idea. For all the reasons above. Sorry if this was worded awkwardly. I definitely need sleep soon. —Jya voc 02:03, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Your advice requested

Sorry to bother you, I was trying to help adding content to the wiki and I wanted to know if I was doing alright. I saw you were an admin so I hoped you were a good person to ask.

I have been trying to add pictures and make missing pages for Monsters and NPC's but I was unable to find a good template to use for this purpose. I know it is important for the pages to be consistent in their appearance. One page I have edited is Risen Acolyte. I was hoping you could take a look at this and tell me if I have this formatted in the correct manner?

Also one other silly question. I understand that making a small change such as adding 1 item to the drop list is a minor edit, where do I draw the line before it no longer is? ( I called this post a "full edit" was that right?)Yoe Dude 20:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

You can check the minor edit checkbox at your own digression. Most people ignore it. GW2W:NPC for NPC formatting, although that page looks perfectly fine.--Relyk 20:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy answer... I thought of one more question, I saw some discussion about "Veteran" monsters but never found if this issue was decided. Should I be making pages for them or just noting on the original monster type page that there is a veteran version of this monster? If so could you direct me to a page that has this notation so I can see the correct way to format this.Yoe Dude 21:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm on a road trip today, so I apologize for the slow response - although I see that Relyk has already answered some of your questions. You can go to GW2W:PP for a list of all our formatting guidelines (and rember that they *are* just guidelines, i.e. not strictly enforced). As for veterans/etc., I'm pretty sure we're goin with separate pages since veterans often have different abilities and even appearances than normal foes. —Dr Ishmael

22:25, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Again thanks for your response, not sure if I'd be responding on my vacation, hope you enjoy yours. I'll make new pages for veterans as I come across them from now on. I hope to get rid of the "dreaded" red pages for Risen today, and then on to something else =)Yoe Dude 22:38, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

PathFunctions extension

Hi, i was wondering if you could install PathFunctions extension, it's simple, non intrusive, and yet - can be helpful (i wanted to use it on static Dragon Timer template i'm building). link: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Brion.finlay/PathFunctions -- Czokalapik 21:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

First tell me exactly why you think we need it, then I'll see if I can't find a different way to do it. We can't just ask Anet to install extensions willy-nilly. —Dr Ishmael

22:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I had a look at your templates, and you're really doing this the hard way. There's no need to refer to a revision timestamp at all, just store the exact time that the dragon was killed. The only difficulty is that #time assumes all input is in UTC (it doesn't recognize time zone codes), so you have to pre-convert to UTC, but that's simple since we have a UTC clock in the wiki's header. The output will also be in UTC.

{{#time:r|@{{#time:U|22:21}} +3 hours}}

1:21

This extension is not necessary at this time. —Dr Ishmael

01:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

My intension was to simply click "edit>save", so timestamp will update and all timezone differences doesn't have to be taken care of. But i'll find workaround for this. -- Czokalapik

16:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

File:Endless Toymaker's Tonic.png

Can you find the 64x64 icon for File:Endless Toymaker's Tonic.png? I've been through the entire directory now probably four times looking for it, and I can't find it, which is really aggravating. —Jya voc 19:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Nope, I couldn't find it either. —Dr Ishmael

19:47, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I guess that makes me feel slightly better, that my eyesight isn't so decrepit. Hmm, though. I'll make another run as I'm looking for other icons to add. I highly doubt that it's going to be in any other folder, nor that they're rendering it dynamically. —Jya voc 19:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm going through and getting the wintersday tonic icons through uMod texture extraction, but that's a slow and very buggy process, so what is a timespan? (laughs) —Jya voc 22:50, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Winter extension

Would love to have arrays and for loops to simplify {{SDRH}} templates. mw:Extension:Winter seems to be the extension for that, but it comes with entire package that we don't really need.--Relyk 03:09, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

For loops are bad for wiki, that's what I've always heard. MediaWiki was not designed to support pseudo-spreadsheets, or block-loop programming, or anything like that. If these drop rate tables are getting this complicated, I would strongly recommend using Google docs instead. —Dr Ishmael

03:31, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The template is done, it would just save time modifying it. Having just an array function would be nice T_T--Relyk 03:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Hey, would you (and others, as well please :P) be able to weigh in on the discussion going on here: Template_talk:Accessory_infobox#Misnomer? Thanks! —Jya voc 04:38, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Effects

I almost forgot there was a discussion about it before. You mentioned this on the Launch talk page too. Due to knockback and blowout being used in the skill variables, I changed those to use as primary parameter names for Skill infobox/effects. I think in prose, it seems more natural to use Launch and Push, since these are used in trait descriptions and Stability; the main reason for the dichotomy (your words :P) is probably the former being nouns and latter being verbs.--Relyk 03:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

A really bad pun

What candy do you eat when you're working on a tough problem? 17:43, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Nerds? —Dr Ishmael

18:58, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Licorice.

19:11, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't get it... because it's tough to chew? —Dr Ishmael

19:38, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

"Liquor ish[y]?" —Jya voc 20:19, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

^I didn't get it until this--

_talk 21:02, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

There's a typo in this section header. I think the proper term you were looking for was "pune", or play on words. Vili 点

23:59, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking more "lick 'er, ish." A tough problem was the more family-friendly but less obvious set-up.

04:29, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah-hah. Ha-hah. I am sleepy. Good night. z_z —Dr Ishmael

05:32, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Recipe sheets and infobox

Why the item infobox instead crafting infobox? Category:Recipe sheets are categorized under Category:Crafting. It's ridiculous to use the item infobox when the crafting infobox is designed to list the disciplines just because the item is consumable. I'll also rage about only using the crafting infobox for items used in the crafting part of the crafting process and then exclude items that can be consumed (i.e. Foods), even though they get categorized back into Crafting under Recipes by a second template. Is the crafting infobox for items in the crafting process or crafting materials? argh-- _talk 06:07, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I've always thought that infobox usage should be grouped by item types. Weapon infobox is for weapons, armor infobox is for armor, and crafting infobox is for crafting materials. (Final-product food items like Omnomberry Bar use the item infobox, not crafting.) Recipe sheets are special in that they are consumables, but they have discipline requirements. Well, technically, the recipe that they unlock has the discipline requirements, the sheet can be used by anyone. I really don't know if we should make an exception in this case or not.

Recipe categorization is a different matter, and goes back to what I've been saying since I joined this wiki about {{recipe}} needing an overhaul. —Dr Ishmael

14:14, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The primary reason for the crafting infobox was because crafting materials have the addition of disciplines and tier, tier not always being used. Recipe sheets definitely fit into the purpose of the crafting infobox >:)--

_talk 00:04, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment:we will want recipes that require recipes sheets to display that information in the recipe infobox, it's an issue that has arisen prominently thanks to these holiday recipe sheets.

Blabber:Have you looked as semanticizing the recipe infobox yet? From my impression of your evil master plan, it goes like: We would grab SMW properties set in the crafting infobox and then set properties for the materials and amounts required (I'd presume with #arraymaps); these are then used for the Recipe/Requires for each item.

Combined:Of course, this also follows the previous comment, where we have a recipe sheet property set in the infoboxes. Both the item infobox and crafting infobox would have the parameter.

And all of this seems like a fuckton of work lulz.--

_talk 00:28, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Diessa Gate

That article wasn't documenting any waypoint. It was documenting a former PoI that was removed during the BWE or after - it was left as a landmark because it is something that still exists in-game, it's just not marked by a PoI marker anymore. We do document landmarks, we just don't document the waypoint itself - e.g., Diessa Gate is valid, Diessa Gate Waypoint is not. Though personally I'm beginning to question the "no waypoint documenting" ideology, but nonetheless feel that the article was incorrectly deleted. Konig/talk 02:43, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

The infobox said waypoint. ~~If you want to recreate it as a landmark, go ahead.~~ Because someone had just changed it to that today. >_< I'm an idiot. —Dr Ishmael

05:50, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry, we all have moments of stupid. Here's your sign. Konig/talk 06:00, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Table help?

Hi, I added info for the new monthly achievement to the Monthly page but now the table looks buggered up. :| I'm not super knowledgeable when it comes to makin tables on wikis so was wondering if you could help. PalkiaX50 00:38, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

You just had an extra cell in the two middle rows, nothing major. I fixed it for you. —Dr Ishmael

00:56, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Crafted armor/weapon set infobox

Hello, Just noticed you're around. Would you take a look at the infobox I made for crafted armor/weapon sets? It's not finished, hence the ugly grey name bar (can't find the right color for it). It can currently be found over here -> User:Sanna/Templates/Template:Template_sandbox. I wish to name it "Crafted set infobox" and place it in the Infobox templates section as a default infobox for pages like Winged armor and Godskull weapons. It's very simple and small but I think it will be a good addition. If it is moved to the default templates section, other people can perfect it. Please let me know what you think of the template and whether it's suitable for the default infobox section. If yes, would you happen to know a good color for the name bar? Thank you in advance! ~ Sanna 22:11, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello again. After some testing (and picking a header color) I decided to put the template in the infobox section (though it still exists in my sandbox as well). Since people here are usually quick to respond, I thought it might be better to expose the template to the community's critics this way. Will start to implement this as well. If the template is still around when you read this, please don't refrain from improving it. Template:Crafted_set_infobox ~ Sanna 23:21, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks?

Sorry thought thats what the help was for more worms more fish ya know :) but Thank You for your um answer your a real sweetheart :) and fast!

Event infobox for skill challenges

Hi, I noted that you are one of the main template people. I am of the impression that combat type skill challenges should use the event infobox now. Might be wrong but that's my impression. If so, would it be possible for the Category:Skill challenges to be generated from the infobox if one uses type = skill challenge, much ike the zone's event category is automatically generated rather than needing Category:Queensdale events to be included. Or am I missing something? If this is in the wrong place, sorry. Thanks. Claret 06:03, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Done. —Dr Ishmael

15:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

As always, thanks for your speedy work. Claret 16:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

would u update the main page

it would be really nice if all the bullet points were the same (I prefer the black squares) it just looks awful with the two different styles. I am asking you because your on regularly and can do it. thanks in advanced!- Zesbeer 01:18, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I've promoted the editcopy version. There's one that's not part of the MP, it's in the news template. —Dr Ishmael

01:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I fixed the news template huzza!-

Zesbeer 01:56, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Hurrah internet explorer now gets shadow on the mainpage :D Chieftain Alex

17:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Where to ask questions about the wiki or areas in the wiki?

I don't want to bother you specifically, but I'm curious about a couple things. Such as... say if I want to know if the wiki overall will be implementing a change or to put in a request for one, where would I go for that? My example would be something such as adding "tooltips" to skills on hover-over. And my second one is asking for a specific section like Fractal walkthroughs. I wanted to ask someone if we can have a section for Tips and a section for Possible Exploits, to help the commnity both legally and aware them of the illegal methods? Sorry to bother! I just didn't know who else to ask ;) (Besides Chieftan Alex of course xP) Fresh Berry Smoothie 14:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Community portal, as linked in the sidebar, is the best place for wiki-wide discussion. Walkthroughs go on the main article for the mission/dungeon they describe. We already have pages for Tips and Exploit, although they're essentially personal projects that individual users created, and they don't maintain them anymore. —Dr Ishmael

15:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I take offense to that statement, I troll the Exploit articleand it isn't anything like a personal project the tips page is--Relyk ~ talk > 16:08, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I took the liberty to edit both of them for a bit. - Infinite - talk 16:50, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks Doc! (I added a section there.) And I didn't mean tips/exploits as their own page, but specific tips/exploits for certain fractals/dungeons. Am I allowed to start a section on those pages for that?

Fresh Berry Smoothie 17:09, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Tips for a specific mission/dungeon should be incorporated into the walkthrough. Exploits should not be mentioned at all. —Dr Ishmael

17:15, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

In fact, exploits should be relayed to ArenaNet on the following email address: exploits@arena.net - Infinite - talk 17:34, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You mean potential -- which leads me to my next question: How to decide what is a tip and what is an exploit? For instance it is not clear whether guardians are supposed to be allowed to spawn multiple crystals from the tentacles on the bonus fractal or not

Fresh Berry Smoothie 19:02, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

If you have to question it, then err on the side of caution and leave it out. It is highly unlikely that a single profession would be meant to have an advantage like that. —Dr Ishmael

19:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I would call that a bug. It's the same as exploiting safe spots in the Jade Maw area. Actual exploits fall on the level of giving players an unfair advantage over what a coordinated, knowledgeable team could achieve. And that bug sure didn't help my team for defeating the Jade Maw. I don't see a reason to add or remove it, but omit the information if you could even possibly consider it an exploit.--Relyk ~ talk > 19:20, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Recipe Redirects

The Leatherworker page has a dead link in the list of upgrade components because you deleted the redirect from Major Rune of the Adventurer to Rune of the Adventurer. How to fix this without the redirect? Is there a way to make it link to the Rune of the Adventurer page instead of the Major Rune of the Adventurer page while still displaying the "Major" in the table? Sabsi talk 16:48, 11 January 2013 (UTC)