Talk: Village pump/Archive31

Quest chain with extras

I haven't been editing quests much... not really my interest. But I'm editing some as I come across them while playing. I'm stuck on how to format this chain. Here's the easy part:

Now after you hand in Blending In, these two become available: A Courageous Strike and Neutralizing the Cauldrons, but you don't have to complete those two in order to move on.

I'll figure something out and post it, but feel free to correct my formatting if it's not quite right. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 04:49, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

If they are not required to progress the quest chain, the write in the Notes section that those quests become available after completing Blending In. g0urra[T҂C] 13:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks. I'll do that. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 16:53, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You could also do:

5.

[72] Breaking Through (opens side quests

[72] A Courageous Strike and

[72] Neutralizing the Cauldrons not needed for chain)

...or:

5.

[72] Breaking Through

a. Side quest not needed for chain:

[72] A Courageous Strike

b. Side quest not needed for chain:

[72] Neutralizing the Cauldrons

--

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:23 PM PST 5 Jan 2009

Oddity in the Server namespace

While looking around at what redirects are floating around out there, I stumbled across an oddity that may well need a database edit to fix, as we have a page that cannot be accessed via any combination of URL that I can dream up (and I have tried quite a few).

We have *both* "Server:Stonemaul" (disambig page) and "Server:stonemaul" (redirect). All attempts to access the redirect result in me getting the disambig page.

You can see both listed at http://www.wowpedia.org/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=Stonemaul&namespace=114. "Stonemaul" is at the start of that page, and "stonemaul" is at the end (after the 'Z' entries). --Murph (talk · contr) 06:33, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixed Server:stonemaul versus Server:Stonemaul. Please let me know if you find similar problems. --Pcj (T•C) 15:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks.

. I've had a look at the tail end of Special:AllPages for all namespaces, and I don't see any other lowercase oddities like that, so I suspect it was an isolated case. --Murph (talk · contr) 17:37, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Listing Redirects

Having spent some time cleaning up legacy redirects in the Template namespace, I got frustrated with the information available from Special:AllPages and the API XML. Special:ListRedirects isn't particularly useful, as it's unsorted and essentially unfilterable. So, after a little bit of Python hacking, MurphBot can now produce ListRedirects on a per-namespace basis (currently broken from Server due to the oddity mentioned above). I have no intention of acting on the information for anything other than Template and Category (WP:CAT does not allow redirects) right now, I'm just providing it for information, in case others find it useful. --Murph (talk · contr) 06:41, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Guildprogress templates

I'm contemplating having a look at the huge number of Guildprogress templates to see if they can be merged to a smaller number of parameterised templates. Initially, I'll do most of it in a sandbox, just letting folks know, in case someone is already looking at them, or has any thoughts to add. See Wowpedia:Guild Progression Templates for the docs on what's there, and Special:AllPages for a list. It's not an urgent issue, but I think they would be much easier to maintain if there were a smaller number which found their behaviour from parameters. --Murph (talk · contr) 17:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I've had a quick stab at a modular form of this, and it's looking quite feasible to cut the number of Guildprogress_* templates down to a small fraction of the current number through use of some more advanced template techniques to nearly eliminate the duplication. See User:WoWWiki-Murph/Guildprogress for what I've been playing with, but please don't make any changes at the moment, it's a work in progress. --Murph (talk · contr) 19:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Wowpedia:Server project might overlap with what you're doing, but I don't know the status of the project. Maybe check with one of the people working on that? -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 19:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It does overlap to an extent, although the project appears to have been mostly dormant since approx June/July. I also get the impression that we're not going to force server pages to use any particular format for their progression listings, just provide them with a nice standard set of templates that they can choose to use. My interest in the Guildprogres series of templates spawned from going through the Template namespace looking for legacy that was in need of cleaning (limited to stuff which should be relatively uncontroversial).

My intention is not really to develop the Guildprogress stuff beyond what it does at present, just dramatically reduce the number of templates used to achieve the result, while keeping a 99% identical output. Those templates have been done in a relatively simplistic fashion, using a large number of near identical templates instead of a more minimalist number with conditional logic and behaviour based on the parameters. By reducing the number, we make them more supportable, as any required style change should only be required in 1 or 2 files, not 10 or 20. Admittedly they will be more complex when condensed, but we have a reasonable number of folks around that are good with advanced templates. --Murph (talk · contr) 20:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I should add, that the Guildprogress templates date back to pre-Wikia days when we had a much older version of MediaWiki and far fewer parser extensions. I can't easily rewind history to check, but what I'm doing today might well not have been feasible back then, so there might not have been the same alternatives to a mass number of similar templates. --Murph (talk · contr) 20:46, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Lich King Image

Can someone please move this image Image:LickKing8770c.jpg to Image:LichKing8770c.jpg? it's name is Lick King instead of lich king. and honestly lick king sounds very..very wrong. EDIT: I just noticed that whoever uploaded the image made the same mistake with these also. Image:LickKing8770b.jpg and Image:LickKing8770a.jpg --You know im seriously 1337 now. ^{{T1337 to the extreme.•CThe dragon protects me...that and my MG 30 glock of course..)} 21:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I would just re-upload the images as the correct names and add {{speedydelete}} to the wrongly named ones. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:03 PM PST 16 Jan 2009

Feral Attack Power

Anyone have an ideas about how to handle this? Lots of screenshots from 3.0.8 PTR are showing that druids see one tooltip, while all other classes see another. Note that it's strength and feral attack power that are different on the druid version of the tooltip. I think just concatenating it into one tip might lead people to believe there's more strength than there really is, or that druids didn't realize the weapon gave them extra strength (if we only posted the non-druid version). -Howbizr (talk) 20:51, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Journey's End
Binds when picked up
Staff
Two-Hand
Speed 2.40
254 - 468 Damage
(151.0 damage per second)
+87 Agility
+114 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 226Disenchants into:
[Abyss Crystal]: 1-2
Equip: Increases attack power by 228.

Equip: Increases critical strike rating by 57.

Equip: Increases haste rating by 75.
Sell Price: 26 70 3

Journey's End
Binds when picked up
Staff
Two-Hand
Speed 2.40
254 - 468 Damage
(151.0 damage per second)
+114 Strength
+87 Agility
+114 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 226Disenchants into:
[Abyss Crystal]: 1-2
Equip: Increases critical strike rating by 57.

Equip: Increases haste rating by 75.

Equip: Increases attack power by 2354 in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin forms only.
Sell Price: 26 70 3

Also see this screenshot from MMO Champion for more examples. -Howbizr (talk) 20:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Put both the feral and non-feral tooltips on the same page, and the non-feral version could be inside <onlyinclude></onlyinclude>. g0urra[T҂C] 21:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

We need to know if these are morphing items based on class or actually different item id items first. Having similar items with the same name and different stats is not new. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:07 PM PST 16 Jan 2009

I WOULD like to mention that even before Wrath of the Lich King, there was at least ONE other "morphing item" in the game, namely [Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian]. As you can see on the item's page, the various tooltip boxes for the item were plunked down at the bottom and it actually has no {item} on-hover tooltip thing like other weapons and items have. Therefore, following this trend seems to be the smartest thing to if it's not HUGELY necessary to have it have an {item} on-hover tooltip. ~ Doc Lithius [U|T|C] 07:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Since [Journey's End] and some others I checked still are on pre-3.0.8 status, I assume there hasn't been a decision yet. To answer some of the questions above, the itemIDs don't chance, Strength is converted even for druids (which is actually a good thing, since it is increased by

[Predatory Strikes], granting more total AP than Strength after SotF and Kings)

Of course Feral AP should only be displayed on (for now, only Level 80) Staves, Polearms and 2H Maces, as only these weapon types matter anyway. We could even 'hack' {{tooltip}} to automatically compute FAP for those weapon types, based on DPS. Though the previous FAP staves would need to be updated anyway, since their DPS was increased (they were 'caster' weapons = lower DPS) it would apply to those "new options", including weapons added in the future.

To not confuse non-druids, the FAP display would need to state "Druid only:" instead of the "Equip:". ~ Nathanyel (talk) 17:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Azjol-Nerub Instance link

Hey there. I am a brand new noob regarding Wikis and am not even sure this is the appropriate place to give feedback. However, I am certain somebody can help out. In Portal:World of Warcraft under the "Instances by continent" article (Instances_by_continent) there is a link for Azjul-Nerub however, the linked article (Azjol-Nerub) explains the Azjul-Nerub region and lore. I really think the following article should be linked there: Azjol-Nerub_(instance) as this is the article which discusses the actual instance, not the region or lore. Please let me know of any feeback you would have on this comment. -- Ensonix (talk) 22:55, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixed.--SWM24 48 23:37, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

More on the Warcraft RTS series?

Hello, I'm a noob here, so bear with me a bit if this subject has been breached before to ill or no effect. While I'm well aware that this is the WoW wiki, it is the first and foremost wiki on the Warcraft universe around. In fact, other wikis of a similar subject are pretty hard to come by. The problem there is that, while I'm certain I'd like to, I don't play WoW--I play TFT. And while this DOES have information on the RTS games, it doesn't have much gameplay info--all of the articles relating to Warcraft 3 and its predecessors are about Warcraft universe lore, or how they tie in with the WoW universe. While WoW is the big thing now, the Warcraft games are still popular, and they are still great games. I think the wiki would benefit from developing those articles that would interest the RTS gamers *cough*(like me)*cough* because most specific information on unit types or campaigns is only found on strategy websites, and they don't go very in-depth. Adding gameplay info to the information on the Warcraft universe would make these articles useful to the many Warcraft 3 fans as well as interesting. And if this is a bit outside what the WoWWiki is about, I understand, but would appreciate suggestions as to a wiki that focuses more specifically on the Warcraft RTS series :3 -- ReySquared (talk) 15:47, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

You are certainly welcome to develop those articles here. --Pcj (T•C) 15:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll try to make any edits fit with the rest of the article. I'm not much of a strategy dynamo unfortunately, but I'll give it my best shot.--ReySquared (talk) 16:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This subject has been brought up before, though usually in the reverse from what I've seen. ;) This wiki does encompass all things Warcraft. I keep thinking I should go back and play some of the single player series, but I just never find the time. It's sometimes hard to keep from stepping on the toes of editors that are more interested in other aspects of Warcraft than I am. It would be extremely helpful if you would focus on the RTS games, since WoW tends to overshadow those other subjects sometimes. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 17:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Pcj said it. I actually would like to see more RTS content on WoWWiki. Offhand, I think Benitoperezgaldos has done a good amount of work on that recently. If these RTS game info requests would get a little more constant, I would think and suggest a portal.--SWM24 48 03:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm trying to make an article for every creep, unit and building in Warcraft III, with high quality pictures, icons, in what missions they appeared and statics but now I don't have much time now as I am doing my community service. However I'll try to keep working on this. Benitoperezgaldos (talk) 02:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I have an RTS lore and cleanup based project going on if anyone is interested.--SWM24 48 21:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Death knight capitalization or lack thereof

I'm not posting here to debate the capitalization, merely to point out some confusion resulting from it. There is currently a vote to delete Category:Death knight sets because it's not Category:Death Knight sets. I'm getting confused myself trying to figure out when to capitalize and when not so I'm not voting. But I wanted to make sure this was brought up to those of you who do know since I suspect they are voting to delete the correct category. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 20:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The correct category is Category:Death knight sets as per WP:NAME and WP:CAT. g0urra[T҂C] 14:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I am a bit confused too on the spelling of it in articles. I have seen it spelled Death knight, death knight, and Death Knight. I am not talking about at the beginning of sentences either. I mean in the middle, end, etc. of a sentence. Rolandius

(talk - contr) 14:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

If used in sentences its supposed to be death knight, in the end both ways are sent to death knight. As for categories Category:Death Knights is reserved for in-game death knights (non-players), whereas Category:Death knights is reserved for player death knights. So everything in the Category:Death knights category is kept in the same case, hence why every category is was changed/created to how it currently is.

^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 21:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Namespaces and guild-specific addons / tools

I'm pondering whether PBDKP (DKP web app, guild-specifc, not publicly available) should really be in the main namespace, or if it should be moved to either Guild or Server. I can't decide right now, so leaving it as is, and flagging it here to see what others think. --Murph (talk · contr) 12:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Not publicly available, then it shouldn't be in the main namespace. There are lots of subculture systems and terms that shouldn't be in the main namespace and this sounds like a classic example. You could link to it from the DKP page. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 10:45 AM PST 13 Jan 2009

Image searching

Is there a better way to search for images than to just click through? I tried putting {{bigcat}} on Category:Mob screenshots and that doesn't help because they all start with "Image:". I think ideally, we could add descriptive tags.

For instance, I was going to add a picture for Snowshoe Hare, but then I thought, it's very similar to most other rabbits, so why not just use one of those pictures. There are a few mobs that use the same model in WoW. But searching for "rabbit image" comes up with various "rabbit" articles not necessarily various images, and the only other option is to search for a specific one, "arctic hare" does the trick, but I'd need to know the name first. Ideally, we could add tags to pictures when we upload them such as "critter", "bunny", "rabbit" so that a person searching for an image could find a selection of the most appropriate. Ideally, there would be a way to search within the image namespace as well.

Is there an easy way to do this? Or is this beyond the purpose of this wiki? -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 17:17, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

It might not help for all situations, since I'm not sure how well suited it is to the Image namespace, but have you tried Special:Search? Remember to select the Image namespace and de-select Main. E.g. http://www.wowpedia.org/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&ns6=1&search=rabbit&fulltext=Advanced+search. Edit: when I think about it, Special:AllPages might help you too, e.g. http://www.wowpedia.org/Special:AllPages?namespace=6. --Murph (talk · contr) 17:37, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh cool. I was looking for an advanced search option and didn't see one. Can we move the "Search WoWWiki" option from the navigation bar (part of the menu on the left side of the page) and put it into the search menu? Make a link like Advanced Search under the big glaring Google search box? That seems more intuitive to me than the way it is now.

That mostly solves my problem. The other suggestion I had was to tag images so that they would show up in a search for similar terms. Using Special:Search to find "rabbit" you still don't get Image:ArcticHare.png. Again though, I understand if that type of categorization is beyond the purpose of this wiki. Most users search for articles and not images.

Edit: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching makes it sound like this is possible. "Searching the image namespace means searching the image descriptions, i.e. the first parts of the image pages. For searching the titles, use Special:Imagelist." It seems that our Special:Search isn't doing this - it's only searching the names of the images and the articles that link to them.

If the functionality is there, I'd consider creating a project to tag all of the images we have. And for future uploads, just make it clear that a user should fill in the image description with words that someone would likely use when searching for that image.

Another edit: It seems that wikipedia created a template to do this. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Information

Edit of edit: On second thought I'm not sure that template actually does what I'm asking. It merely adds an infobox to the picture's page with assorted metadata. The search function seems to search it because terms in the template are highlighted in search results, but it's not really tagging the images like the proposal I'm making. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 20:50, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I can actually think of a lot of uses for it. Want to find all of the items in WoW that look like a pink dress? Or a crown? Want to see a gallery of tauren pictures? Or are you writing an article about game lore and you'd like to add a general picture to make the page look nice? I don't see that functionality on wowhead. Could be another way that we differentiate wowwiki from database sites. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 22:40, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, categorizing the images with the existing categories would do what I want too. It doesn't change the search results, but it would group the images together. Is there a reason why we don't categorize images beyond the vague Category:Mob screenshots and Category:NPC screenshots? -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 02:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Not particularly, that I know of. It's just never particularly come up. Kirkburn talk contr 12:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Can WOW be used to transfer files between users?

Is it possible to use the WOW API to transfer non-WOW files (e.g., pdf's) between players or allow a player to pick up a file that has been left somewhere in the game (e.g., at the bridge to StormWind)?

-- Angler101 (talk) 05:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

WoW acts strictly as a sandbox - that is, no information realistically goes in or out of the game from your system whilst you are playing. This leaves only addons, which, to put it simply, can't do it. At least not without some very complex coding relying on converting the files to WoW-readable formats, which would basically be a huge waste of time :) Kirkburn talk contr 18:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

You might be able to leave links to files on the Internet at a location in-game, record the location data and URL using an addon which would then broadcast that information to other users of the addon. --Pcj (T•C) 18:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The closest you get to transferring files (and everything Pcj said above is correct to my knowledge) is plugins communicate to each other through channels. So if two users have the same plug-in installed, they both listen on the same channel, and both perform actions based on some kind of listening mechanism. Don't ask me how it works beyond that, but I'm sure that's what

[Gatherer] and Atlas are doing, because I pick up mining nodes & guild member locations in real time if we both have the same addons installed. -Howbizr (talk) 19:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I had imagined that people would all have the same add-on or plugin. What I'd like to do is create a plugin that allows people to go on quests for real files (e.g., pdf, music, image, etc.) that they could then use when finished playing. Has anyone heard of any thing like that with WOW? Angler101 (talk) 21:23, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you clarify what you mean by go on quests for real files? Do you mean... an internet scavenger hunter? That doesn't sound like something related to WoW at all if that's what you mean. I should note that the kind of add-ons I was referring to are very complex to code. They are not for the feint of heart. -Howbizr (talk) 22:47, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

It could be pulled off, but not in any easy way. It would be more of a hindrance to each user than an improvement, you're better off just sticking to online drop-box services. User:Tekkub/Sig 02:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Zebra stripe tables

Would it be possible to add a class "zebra" or "striped" for tables, which would allow for automatic striping of rows? Or would this be too much overhead?

This would obviously be extremely handy for large tables. If you have to add a new element somewhere inside it, you often have to manually swap a crazy number of "alt" values to get the striping correct again. -- w.woods (talk) 07:21, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I hate striped tables for exactly that reason! But I do see the usefulness of them, I second this, can we get some javascript majicks? User:Tekkub/Sig 07:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Atm that could only be done via JavaScript, as there's not enough browser support for CSS-based automatic striping. Regarding doing it via JS, I'm not sure - we already load the website with a lot of JS, not sure more would be ideal. Kirkburn talk contr 12:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I know you were talking about auto-striping, but I just wanted to point out that we do already have the striping styles, but you have to manually do |-class="alt" for the alternate rows. It is a pretty serious pain when you modify a large table. -Howbizr (talk) 14:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I support the general idea - it has always seemed a bit backward to me to manually tag the alternate rows in large tables. It might be a good idea to go for a hybrid implementation with the relevant CSS striping in place for those who have JS disabled by default, and the JS version to produce a more reliable result in cases where the browser doesn't handle the CSS implementation. m:Help:Sorting#Striping has some info and pointers towards some JS which might be useful (obviously, sorting and striping would need to be independently selectable on a per-table basis). --Murph (talk · contr) 14:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

From what I recall most automation is stymied by the difficulty of getting the row number at render time with JS. I'm somewhat surprised this isn't a built-in option to wiki table rendering, since you can use a custom markup. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 10:41 AM PST 13 Jan 2009

Getting the row number isn't difficult at all, it is just more JS as Kirkburn indicated. --Pcj (T•C) 17:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

From an abstract algorithmic point of view, you don't even need the row number, although it's possible that using the row number might be easier or more efficient in JS for some reason that escapes me right now. The following pseudo-code would achieve it and probably be more efficient than using the row number (no arithmetic operations, just a binary state):

alt=FALSE; while (row=nextrow()) { if (alt) { alt=FALSE; row.class="normal"; } else { alt=TRUE; row.class="alt"; } }

I wouldn't expect the JS to be quite as simple as that, but that's the basics of what it needs to do - no row number necessary, just a simple binary state machine iterating over the rows.

--Murph (talk · contr) 02:09, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, no. You would use a simple for loop to enumerate through all elements of tag name TR in a given table. --Pcj (T•C) 03:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I think zebra striping is supported in CSS3, but that's supported almost nowhere so far. I'm not sure if this helps or not, but there was some discussion on the best ways of implementing zebra tables using JS in: [1], which was improved upon in: [2] and then continued in: [3]. Perhaps those implementations are too elaborate for our use, but maybe the theories are useful. One thing that JS could definitely improve upon over the current manual method would be if it correctly re-stripes tables when they're re-sorted (again, assuming this isn't too costly). Currently, re-sorting zebra tables results in a mess of stripes.--w.woods (talk) 04:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I did some checking and the Wikia JS already had table striping support on the sortable feature (but was using different CSS classes). I have reworked this and patched the appropriate changes in to the MediaWiki:Common.js. The striping itself is still manual. --Pcj (T•C) 16:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I did some quick tests and have a working demo at [4] --Pcj (T•C) 17:16, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I clicked edit, then canceled my edits, and the striping went away. -Howbizr (talk) 18:38, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The link above links to custom JS which is not included in the skin JS yet and won't show up on page load. --Pcj (T•C) 18:40, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Shared Help

You may have seen the announcement about Shared Help (one of the projects I was involved in), which you can read about at w:Forum:Shared Help - new feature!. The plan is to roll it out to all wikis next week - however, since we already have a multitude of help pages, I have requested that we're not included at first. Nevertheless, we've needed to overhaul the help pages for a while, so we may want to look at sorting this out fairly soon :) Kirkburn talk contr 12:34, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good step forward, in general. I'm quite surprised, to be honest, that MediaWiki doesn't seem to have a standardised set of pages for easy local inclusion/import (yes, there's the stuff on meta and www.mediawiki, but there doesn't seem to be a good quick way to pull that onto a wiki and maintain it with changes on the original site).

As far as I can see, the Wikia shared help allows local notes, and those will appear below the shared help. Is that the only way for local variations to appear? Can we still have pages which are completely specific to WoWWiki, e.g. Help:Item articles, or would those need to move to the WoWWiki namespace? --Murph (talk · contr) 13:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Assuming we use different names to those on Shared Help, there'd be no restrictions to continuing to use the help namespace - the articles would display as normal. Kirkburn talk contr 16:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Same Quests, Different Levels

With Wrath of the Lich King, the new battleground Strand of the Ancients was implemented. This new battleground also added two new PvP quests into the game for players level 71 and above. However, these quests share the name with two already in-game quests: Quest:Concerted Efforts and Quest:For Great Honor. I was attempting to make a page for the new quests, however I am unsure of how to title the page. I looked at the page Quest:The Battle for Arathi Basin!, though I was unsure if "Quest:Concerted Efforts (71)" or "Quest:For Great Honor (71)" would be the proper page title.

What would be the appropriate way of titling a page under the circumstances stated above?

-- Jpsblue 02:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Your naming should be fine. The real issue is how we should disambiguate the new from the old. We may want to make the new versions the primary name and add "(61)" to the old ones instead. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:15 PM PST 16 Jan 2009

Zone category project

I think this project is almost done. WP:ZCP Looks like the only thing left is to straighten up the WotLK instances, but that's not my area of expertise. (See my notes on the project talk page for more info on my confusion.) Would be great if someone could finish this up! -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 16:33, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Category tree cleanup

I'm thinking about starting a project to cleanup the categories and give them a hierarchical structure instead of the sloppy mess they are in right now. I'm starting with the Mobs category since it seems relatively innocuous and shouldn't overlap with anyone else's projects. If it goes well, I may start an official project to clean up the entire category tree, but I don't want to set my sights too high at the moment.

I will be keeping notes on User:Mordsith/Sandbox1. Please feel free to comment here or on my talk page if you see any problems with what I'm doing. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 20:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

You're clearly going in the right direction and should be commended for starting on these projects. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:32 PM PST 16 Jan 2009

Thanks =) That's a bit of a relief. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 20:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

By tree were you thinking "Mob" - "Neutral Mob" - "Ogrill'a Mob" kind of thing? But in general, yes thanks for starting the project. -Howbizr (talk) 22:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. From my sandbox page, this is the tree I'm working on starting from Mobs (I included some higher categories to get a sense of where Mobs fits in the grand scheme):

Category:World of Warcraft NPCs

Categories for various professions of the interactive NPCs
Category:Mobs
- Category:Mobs by instance
- Category:Mobs by zone
- other categories?
- Category:Creatures
  - the 10 creatures types
    - subcats of the types

If anyone else is interested in this, I'd move my work to an actual project page. Or you could just pitch in when you feel like it. I wasn't sure I could structure it into an actual project when I started, and I figured there wouldn't be too much interest anyway since categories are kinda boring to most people. ;) -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 10:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Links on Page Priest

I think the link in the page Priest need some fixes. The link to http://www.priesthaven.com seems to be a dead link, at leasst it is not working for me since long time. And i found another page with lots of information about priest, maybe we add this 1. its http://www.timboas.es

Since im i pretty new editor of WoWWiki i put up this comment instead of direclty start editing the page :D

-- Powerdk (talk) 17:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed the dead priesthaven link. Go ahead and add the link you suggested. You could practice using the {{elink}} template with it, but it's up to you. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:53 PM PST 19 Jan 2009

Can someone help me make a page for my guild in wowwiki?

Moved from the Warcraft pump.

I've been poking around the US/Aerie Peak guild info and noticed that a few guilds had their own pages. I'd like to have one too but can't figure out how to go about getting it started. I saw the info about copying stubs etc... but really have no idea what this means. Can anyone help me?

Thanks, Gorgonis

PS: This is my first post here so I hope I'm in the right place and not breaking any rules.

-- Gorgonis (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you know a little about creating pages and editing a wiki, you can start here: Help:Guild articles. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:07 PM PST 23 Jan 2009

The Name's "Passive"..."Racial Passive".

Greetings, fools! I'm back from my four month exile imposed by HughesNET! I found a solution that WORKED! HOT DIGGITY! Guess Wikia won't be needing that secure server after all! Alright, on to the meat...

Rolandius recently brought to my attention that Racial Passive abilities such as [Hardiness] or [Quickness] are lookin' a little...well...redundant. ~~As you can see by the table on the right here~~ (removed due to the issue being fixed), it doesn't say just "Passive", it doesn't say just "Racial", it doesn't say just "Racial Passive"... No...it says "(Racial Passive) (passive)". Maybe this was someone's silly idea of a joke ("Passive racial is passive"), but it does seem a bit redundant...
Now, normally I'd just fix this myself. However, I'm not at all sure what to edit and what NOT to edit in order to make it not do that anymore. I tried changing the Cast Time variable, but it not only changed "(Racial Passive)" to "(Racial)", it also changed "(passive)" to "(Cast time: 0)". So...yeah. Just thought I'd mention this.

As always, thanks for reading! ~ Doc Lithius [U|T|C] 07:27, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. g0urra[T҂C] 15:41, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks, Gourra! ~ Doc Lithius [U|T|C] 16:03, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Wowrp

This might not be the right place to ask this, but I started WoWRP.com a couple of years ago, and it grew quite fast. But then it died due to a couple of server moves, exploits and the like in the WikiMedia software. Anyway, what I was wondering was, would anyone be interested in helping me get it up and running on Wikia? The wiki has been approved and I'm looking for sysops to help get everything on its feet. It can be located at wowrp.wikia.com and any and all help would be much appreciated.

As it's stated in the wowwiki article for the site, it's not there to compete with WoWWiki, but to let users post their stories and characters and build upon the lore (without ruining it of course). The old site already linked to a lot of wowwiki content, and so will the new site.

Thanks for reading this, and like I said, just give me a holler on Wikia site if you want to help. -- Eluna (talk) 10:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Did you talk to Wikia about importing everything that is currently on WOWRP to Wikia? That would be a big help to getting it really jumpstarted, unless of course, that you do not want the current content. --Sky (t · c · w) 14:55, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

They can do that? --Eluna (talk) 18:33, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Found the page. I've imported all the articles from the old site. Thank you for suggesting this. --Eluna (T/C/e]) 23:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Screenshot of large things

I'm assuming this Image:Red_Proto_Drake.png was flagged because of all the noise around the mount. But it was so huge I couldn't take the screenshot and not be in the frame at the same time. It could be improved with a new location, but I don't know how to avoid having two characters in the picture. I definitely don't have the skills to "photoshop" myself out. Any suggestions?-Howbizr (talk) 15:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I imagine it was because the picture is a little busy. I didn't flag it though, so I can only guess. You could try taking the picture in flight, up in the sky where there's nobody around. Check out Category:Mount screenshots or even better check out Category:Nether drakes. I just saw some absolutely gorgeous ones of the nether drake mounts. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 22:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually here's a perfect example Image:Swift nether drake.png -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 22:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Even if I screen shot it in the air, I don't own the mount, so I can't get myself out of the screen shot (it's just too darn big!). -Howbizr (talk) 23:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried zooming the camera all the way in and backing up? When you zoom the camera all the way in it basically gives you a first-person view where you don't see yourself. Also, a screenshot of a tauren on a red proto drake looks extra silly. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:15 PM PST 27 Jan 2009

If you zoom in all the way, you can get great shots of most things (without being in the shot). Appreciate you trying to make it better, but cutting it out of the image is not the solution, please feel free to revert it... and it can just stay like that for now.

^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 00:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Mmm if I click undo for this revision, it says the edit can be undone, but then nothing changed. Could someone else revert it, since I'm not having any luck? -Howbizr (talk) 00:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Reverted. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 03:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

How to make a RP char's page?

How do i make a characters RP page?? cant find it :S please someone help!

-- Spaxes (talk) 23:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this is what you're looking for: Wowpedia:Player character page policy -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 23:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Ooops it occurred to me that you might have meant this page: Wowpedia:Fan fiction policy -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 23:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

You might also consider posting RP stuff at the WoWRP Wikia wiki. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 6:04 PM PST 30 Jan 2009

spam filter blocking picture upload

http://www.wowjutsu.com/sealbuilder/build.php/442382/53.png is the site trying to put it on guild website but will not allow me to can anybody help me out or tell me how to fix it thanx alot :P -- Geesex (talk) 06:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. --Pcj (T•C) 15:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

how do i make a new expansion idea page

im really new to usin wikis and i was looking through here and i saw the expansion ideas page but i couldnt figure out how to make one can anyone tell me how —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jaberwaki (talk · contr).

You can make a new page by substituting the name of the page you want in the URL. Your page name should start with User:Jaberwaki/ and then whatever you want to call it. So maybe User:Jaberwaki/Knights of the apocalypse or something... I'm not very creative ;). When you go to your new page, you will be presented with the option to edit that page. Then you save it and your page has been created. You should look at Wowpedia:Fan fiction guidelines for the other requirements of your page.

And always sign your comments on Talk pages like this one with ~~~~

-- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 01:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Prepositions and articles in quest titles

It seems that Blizzard does not work consistently with prepositions (in, on, before etc.) and articles (the, a, an etc.) in quest titles. While some are written correctly, others are just capitalized. For example:

Should I just follow the spelling Blizzard used in the game? I prefer to write prepositions and articles in lowercase. The naming policy does not mention this.--Iggey (talk) 14:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

It does too. --Pcj (T•C) 15:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

If you refer to "followed by the exact name of the quest", that is just what my question is about. I don't know if this implies capitalized prepositions and articles as well.--Iggey (talk) 16:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, exactly as Blizzard renders it. --Pcj (T•C) 16:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

WoWWiki Skin

I'm creating a wiki for my guild's website, and I like the WoWWiki theme (not the default, the one you can choose as "wowwiki"). I'd like to use it on my site, but I have no idea how to go about doing this, or how to get permission to do so. If you can provide either, I would be very happy.

Thanks, -- FarFromUnique (talk) 22:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

It's mainly based on the Monobook skin seen at Wikipedia (and default MediaWiki wikis). Wowwiki skin CSS can be seen at [5]. You should also probably check out the further tweaks at MediaWiki:Common.css and MediaWiki:Wowwiki.css. Hope that helps. --Pcj (T•C) 22:58, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Colon in summaries

In my watchlist, why do all the headlines (in grey) have a colon (:) after themselves? -- 17:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean a semicolon? For example, "Wowpedia talk:Village pump;" -Howbizr (talk) 18:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

It does that for everyone's watchlist. I assume it's to differentiate between the headline and any editing comment that might be made. It does look kinda silly if there's no comment, but it doesn't really hurt anything. -- Mordsith - (talk|contr) 03:46, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

YEs that was my concern, it shouldn't show the colon unless there is a comment =P --

11:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Mithril ore price

i would like to the the going rates in all servers for a stack of mithril ore. just to compare the diffrence in price. if u have time check the iron, gold, truesilver,ect. the more info the better. thanks. i will write my servers prices after i get back from work.

-- Chachi6971 (talk) 14:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

check Wowhead - (average) Buyout price: 1

50

(for a single ore, a stack would be 20 times that)

WoWWiki is not the place for this, though. Especially not hand-gathered prices, which can vary heavily over time even on the same server. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 18:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The most accurate way to answer pricing questions in general is to run an addon like auctioneer to collect data overtime, or to look at all server averages overtime (median & averages available) on Allakhazam. There might be other tips and tricks on various auction house pages. -Howbizr (talk) 00:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, wowecon is probably more what you have in mind. --Pcj (T•C) 14:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Village Pump page length

At 262k, is it time to archive parts of this off again? --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 23:23, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. g0urra[T҂C] 07:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 23:13, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Noobie's question

Hi all,

I'm totally new to this whole Wiki thing but I wanted to create a page for my guild (following the guidelines and restrictions of Wowwiki of course) but problem is that I simply can't get it "out in the system" once it's done. If I type guild name, server name and location into the search engine, it finds nothing. Although I saved my work and all that.

I've read most guides in here and wasn't able to find anyone explaining how to make the pages appear on the actual Wowwiki but if it's right under my nose, I apologize sincerely. Same thing goes if this is the wrong place to post these kind of questions :)

Thanks in advance,

Drenaus of Runetotem EU -- Drenaus (talk) 12:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Your guild page was moved to Guild:Prophecy (Runetotem EU)‎ as it's the proper name - the server name should be in brackets, which was not the case with "Guild:Prophecy Runetotem EU". g0urra[T҂C] 12:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Images needed

If anyone is good at adding images in batch, we seem to be missing the ones for the Honorable Kill achievement line. See here. -Howbizr (talk) 14:50, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

To what are you referring... the icon? Look here Category:WoW Icons: Achievement PVP, I personally added all the off colored ones.

^{{TDon't hiss at me.•CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.)} 21:36, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes the icons, and there they are! I must have just had some difficulty searching for them. -Howbizr (talk) 15:57, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Personal names in section headings

My main interest in this is in talent builds. I had some problems recently with another contributor replacing common builds with ones named after himself and getting in a tizz when I edited the content and removed his name (I figured it's now 30% mine and I ripped 40% of that from a previous revision by another user, why should one person's name be at the top?). I was reading WP:PA and the policy says some very sensible things about the subject such as personalised content discouraging edits and the problems of giving credit once multiple people have edited it, but the policy seems to specifically apply to article names and not to any smaller units of content.

The logic seems to apply just as well, I thought I'd garner some opinions on whether the policy should be extended, whether it actually does apply as it is, whether talent builds are exceptional because they're by definition based on opinion (I disagree with this but thought I'd mention it), whether it's not worth bothering with and just wing it if it comes up again, or if I'm just wrong...

My problem seems to be solved after another editor got involved so I'm only interested for the future. -- Binkyuk (talk) 18:04, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

"Branding" in main namespace article contributions is not friendly to the wiki metaphor of multiple editors. Personalized stuff should be kept to the user namespace as much as possible. --Pcj (T•C) 18:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

And about specific talent builds, they are neither unique nor do they "belong" to someone who thinks he invented them (one of the major reason people QQ about the armory, btw)

Especially for feral druid builds (found some weird stuff in the history of Druid builds, so I guess this is what you meant) as for either bear or cat, there are many "core" talents which need to be taken, and only a few aspects that make bear/cat/PvP specs actually different from another. There isn't much to choose or optimize. ~ Nathanyel (talk) 11:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it was Druid builds. Thanks, I think those are the replies I was looking for. Binkyuk (talk) 11:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Talking on behalf of Mr.X8

He told me that for some reason the spam filter is blocking hum from typing the words "hi", "fa", and the letter P. We would really appreciate it if you could fix it. Thank you! --User:Airiph/sig 03:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

It's hitting alot of people.Baggins (talk) 04:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it's been fixed; at least for me. Thanks, Airiph. Mr.X8 Talk Contribs 22:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Help needed for attack power coefficient article

I created an attack power coefficient article, however I have only been able to find online sources for death knight and paladin attack power coefficients. Could someone test the other class' coefficients or look for an online source? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:01, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I did a quick look on thottbot at the hunter abilities and they have the attack power coefficients right in the skill description. For example http://thottbot.com/s61006 is Kill Shot and it says "You attempt to finish the wounded target off, firing a long range attack dealing 200% weapon damage plus (RAP*0.40+650). Kill Shot can only be used on enemies that have 20% or less health." (bold mine). Ifandbut (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, I assumed that thottbot wouldn't have them because their spell descriptions don't include spell power coefficients. Between thottbot and wowhead, the article's only missing Swipe,