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[[Special:Imagelist]] no longer has a search bar to find images, which I loved. Made finding images very easy for possible needs. Is it possible to put one up there again? Or is there a different way to find images? {{User:Coobra/Sig3}} 05:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 
[[Special:Imagelist]] no longer has a search bar to find images, which I loved. Made finding images very easy for possible needs. Is it possible to put one up there again? Or is there a different way to find images? {{User:Coobra/Sig3}} 05:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
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:Trying my hand at being helpful. [[Special:Search]] has a checkbox for images, maybe that's how you can search for images now? Hope that's helpful... --{{User:Lywellyn/Sig}} 05:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Revision as of 05:58, 27 March 2008

Template:WoWWiki:Village pump/Intro

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Server pages

Having looked around at a lot of the server pages on WoWWiki, i've noticed that almost every server has a different kind of layout on their page. Some follow a special layout (Server:Garithos US as an example), some are just stubs (Server:Die ewige Wacht Europe), some have lots of info (Server:Moonglade Europe), some barely have any info, just links (Server:Agamaggan US). What I propose is trying to create a standard layout for these pages, with an easy way to add information, like realm history, naming background, major server events and an easy way for not very wiki-experienced user to add guilds to a detailed list (for example something looking like the guild list on Server:Moonglade Europe). Any ideas/comments? -- Ose (c / t) 14:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't get complicated. The people who edit the servers don't need a lot of code sticking up and at them in the face. I made Server:Shadowmoon US relatively simplistic. --Sky (t | c | w) 19:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
That's a part of my point. Some of these pages have some cool looking, but over-complicated designs. Others have simple designs, but get messy. I want (us) to create something which is user-friendly, but gives a good looking result. -- Ose (c / t) 21:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
You didn't state that explicitly, and so I was basically looking for what your stance was. --Sky (t | c | w) 00:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

It'd be nice to have a link to the page about the server's namesake at the top of each page. -Cowlinator 20:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

World of Warcraft category proliferation re-think needed

Okay, I didn't say anything at first, because I didn't realize how annoying it would be. Unless this wiki becomes Warcraftwiki, we need to stop having a bajillion categories with World of Warcraft at the beginning to distinguish them from other Warcraft game categories. The default is World of Warcraft, so categories should only need to mention their related Warcraft game, if does not have to do with World of Warcraft. Also, adding World of Warcraft at the beginning of everything definitely discourages people from adding categories by plain old typing and we don't want to discourage people, if we can help it. I don't want to put this up for a vote, but I will, if needed.

Zeal, I think you need to step up and defend your position. Your idea of "correct" and "common sense" doesn't coincide with mine and some other folks, apparently. Also, please don't use common sense as a defense. It doesn't mean anything. I'd also like to point out that User talk:Zeal/Proposals/Format shows that proposal losing 4 votes to 2. Not a strong case. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:29 PM PST 6 Feb 2008
I'll try to defend his position :), because to be honest I find it kinda annoying as well. (I only just learned of this new "WoW cat renaming" when I stumbled upon the Inv potion 126 [Major Frost Protection Potion] article.) This is "wowwiki", and it should be assumed that the default is WoW. Furthermore, it looks kinda silly to see all the category names at the bottom of a page with repetitive "World of Warcraft" text in front of them. Also, it's a bit harder to find the useful non-repetitive part in all the text. So in short, I think other game related categories should prepend as necessary in order to disambiguate, and that the default should be WoW. (I read over Zeal's proposal but it seemed much bigger in scope than just this topic.) -- User:Adonran/Sig1 00:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh ffs. That proposal has nothing to do with it. Read the top level cat discussion on here and the non-wow content discussion Fandy. If you still don't get it (which apparently is the case atm) or if you don't agree, then i can't say anything further. I spoke to Kirkburn a few days ago, and mentioned the problems with the end results of what i was doing and how the up coming upgrade will fix some problems and improve things a hell of alot and hopefully the wikia devs can work on improving the rest in any number of ways.
If you hadn't noticed, i've stopped contributing. I'm only replying to this because you asked me to.-- Zeal (T/C)  08:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, sad to hear you've stopped contributing Zeal.
However, on the topic of mass re-categorization, from what I've read, I didn't see any widespread agreement, just not alot of disagreement. But... there was disagreement and I don't think you really addressed the disagreements, you just talked over them. I don't blame you for moving forward. I somewhat blame myself that we're in this situation because I didn't voice my disagreement clearly at the time you started.
If you're still talking on the Village pump, I really would like to have you recapitulate your reasoning, but especially why we need "World of Warcraft" in so many categories and address some of the above concerns about how it makes it harder to find the distinguishing parts of categories.
After you summarize your case, I'll probably start a policy vote, because it really sounds like a policy thing. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 8:22 AM PST 8 Feb 2008
I'm only talking on here when it's adressed to me or requested of me.
The reasoning for the naming was adressed twice in the same topic above, non-wow content. I've already re-explained with more clarity it for the benefit of one person in the same topic, so i don't see a reason to do so again. If there's a particular thing you want explained further or have an issue with, then that's something i can respond to differently. I addressed all the disagreements appropriately. Some people don't agree on princples, which i can understand and respect. Others are seemingly stubborn or ignorant despite it, i can't do anything with that.
As i said before, what i did was by existing policy and doesn't need a new policy, it's all implicitly supported. If you wish to add upon or make the policy more specific to explicity support or prevent what i did, that's a different matter. -- Zeal (T/C)  09:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I lean towards having the more explicit categories because we don't know where Warcraft and WoWWiki will go in the future. We already should be able to carry Warcraft III info, but make it more difficult through use of ambiguous categories. If we find that the new MMO is also set in the Warcraft universe (unlikely, but not impossible) we will have a bigger job on our hands to recat everything later. Kirkburn  talk  contr 17:46, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Um... no bigger a job than recatting things now is... OTOH, I've already been shouted down, so I don't have anything more to add. --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
My 2 cents is that "WoW" makes sense as a category name qualifier if/when there is a significant amount of related non-WoW content. Eg, a cat for WoW Geography, for locations that exist in-game, as a subset of locations in lore in general. The extensive recent renaming affected lots of content that is currently unambiguously specific to WoW, like Professions, which IMO do not need the "WoW" prefix. I think that it's good for categories to kind of organically be created when the content comes along that requires them. -- Harveydrone 18:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


Category descriptions

I find some of the category descriptions (the actual category page, as it were) insufficient to the task.

For instance, Category:World of Warcraft tailoring items is described as "This category is for World of Warcraft tailoring item articles and categories".

This does a good job at saying "world of warcraft only", but it doesn't provide any cues as to what articles should go in that catagory, as opposed to "...crafted items" or "...ingredient items". As you may have seen by looking the category up, Inv elemental primal nether [Primal Nether] and Spell nature lightningoverload [Primal Might] have been put in there, but Inv ore iron 01 [Elemental Earth] has not.

The former (primals) was edited by Zeal, the latter was not. While I'm not sold on the idea that "if it's in a subcategory, it should be in the main category too" idea (and that is not what I'm on about here), but we should at least be consistent in category usage.

If you're not out to contribute by editing the category page text, Zeal, would you at least express the distinction in what goes in which category for us here, so we can update those category pages? And if there are differing opinions, we can at least discuss it. --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Of course. I made the descriptions as accurate yet simple as possible. The descriptions are best read backwards and out of order tbh, as is typical of descriptions in english.
Categories (further sub-cats/cross-cats etc) and articles that are of the type/subject matter "item" (so actual item pages), related to the tailoring profession and exist in World of Warcraft. -- Zeal (T/C)  01:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I think what Eirik is asking for (and I'd also like to know) is: What goes in this category that does not go in the ingredient & crafted subcategories? Or does the "tailoring items" exist only to be the supercategory of "tailoring mats" and "tailoring crafted items"? I think this needs to be explained because as is, the "tailoring items" cat seems pointless: the two subcats should just go in Category:Tailoring. -- Harveydrone 18:39, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Based on Zeal's changes, I have been guessing that his view is: anything in "tailoring mats" or "crafted items" should also go in "tailoring items". I would venture to say that "tailoring patterns", since they are items related to tailoring, would also qualify. Part of my vague question is asking for confirmation or denial of that. The other part of my vague request is for "what do we put in the category description that guides future editors and readers both. --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah, well in that case.. The wow tailoring items category goes in a category for the tailoring profession, and a category for wow items (i think i also categorised into a wow profession items cat too). It's a combination of too overlapping subjects, a cat for items, and a cat for things related to tailoring. Beyond items used as ingredients in tailoring or crafted by it, there's probably some tools and reagents for skills.. i had started to expand that aspect and change my inital structure to accomidate such things.
When it comes to articles, the descriptions i listed should be more than enough to understand what goes where, though keep in mind my intent was articles go into their parent cats too, pretty much all the way up the tree until it no longer seems beneficial or they fail to meet the description of the cat.
For cats, it's probably not, but trying to describe the parent and child structures branching out from a category in it's description is more complex, and wasn't meant to be something users need to understand, as they never have to modify the structure of the cats. Explaining that would probably be better left to a single page, guideline or how to if you want users to know, but if it's to be left as something on a "higher level" so only the people who plan to change much of the structure know, then discussing it should be adequite. Basically just about what's logical and helpful in navigating without being overloaded with subcats on a single cat.
Wouldn't need descriptions with the naming i really wanted, all self-evident. :p
Anyway, hope that's the answers you were looking for -- Zeal (T/C)  01:05, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
You still really haven't addressed the question why we need World of Warcraft prefixing World of Warcraft-related categories when this is a World of Warcraft wiki. Is your perspective that this is a Warcraft wiki that made the mistake of putting "WoW" in the name? Having the long prefix doesn't bother you because you believe it represents accuracy which you values as more important than readability or the ability to quickly manual type a category?
Regardless, it would also be nice for you to list the other users who supported you in this endeavor. Was the discussion primarily on IRC? I'm just concerned since there was a point in WoWWiki's history where a small group of people made sweeping decisions about the structure of WoWWiki wihtout really reaching a consensus and I accused the group of acting like a cabal. I don't want to see us going back to that process. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:21 PM PST 18 Feb 2008
It was discussed on IRC. I don't know that anyone but Kirkburn ever agreed with Zeal (I know I didn't.). I somewhat agree with the prefixes, but as I've been watching this unfold, I would have to agree with the fact that WoW should be the default... Will continue to watch. --Sky (t | c | w) 21:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Not adressing and you not understanding are different things Fandy, if what i provided is not enough, then i can't say anymore.
I acted alone in the changes, though i showed my plans on here and on IRC as i went and there wasn't anyone against it during those early stages (likely because the finer details weren't understood/explained back then). Changes were made to achieve Kirkburn's initial idea and example, there was never anything in place to determine the exact naming of a category, just generic stuff, which was followed. Afaik changes to correct things or implement something new without any detriment do not need a big discussion or policy additions as they provide something that didn't currently exist or in use and were not governed by an existing policy. As i mentioned before, some people seem to want to make an uproar about something they didn't even use and has always been broken, i'm guessing because they simply want a say in something that has covers the whole wiki.
Sky, based on you saying "wow should be the default", i don't believe you understood what i said either, so what i said to Fandy probably applies to you too. -- Zeal (T/C)  00:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

Here's where I, Kirkburn, stand:

  • The overall way the categories have been restructured under Category:Root is excellent. I can't imagine anyone complaining about that, as it finally makes for a navigable top-down category system. It may not be obvious from first glance, but by using the (rapidly approaching) CategoryTree extension, it makes a lot of sense.
  • As for the prefixes - we are obviously a WoW-focused Warcraft wiki. However, I do believe it would be good practice to be explicit in our category naming as the direction of the wiki may change over time. For example, we should be able to cover Warcraft III info, but with category names like "Category:Quests" pr "Category:Items" it is ambiguous as to what that refers - and confusing for new users wanting to add stuff from WC3. Had this discussion come up a while ago, perhaps we might have come to a compromise on having "WoW" as a shorter prefix - but we didn't so the point is moot.
  • Having longer category names does not break the wiki, though it extends the length of the categories box. It's not perfect, but there are ways of dealing with this. One may be to redesign how categories are presented - as a vertical list, rather than a box. Another may be to reduce the number of categories. In my view articles should be in their most specific categories only, which makes category navigation much much easier.
  • Zeal did not break any policies in what he was attempting though more coordination with bots would have been useful for the larger categories I think some categories still need moving, but this may be unrelated. It's easy to concentrate on the controversial bit, and easy to miss the huge improvements made elsewhere. As changes go, it's not a huge one. We do have WW:BOLD, too.
  • The wiki has grown up from its beginnings as a WoW-only wiki, and it is absolutely feasible for it to carry all sorts of Warcraft info. The creation of competing Warcraft I/II/III wikis would be unsustainable as WoW is so tightly integrated to the lore, which we carry. To not make it easy for such content to be added is to do a disservice to the many non-WoW-playing Warcraft fans out there. Given the upcoming Warcraft movie, Warcraft is only going to get bigger. We've got to be able to deal with this in a clear way. They will be coming to us for background info, and will be confused by continual assumptions of WoW playing. One thing that continually comes up at Wikia is the apparent lack of non-WoW stuff which does exist, but is hidden by mazes.

I hope that was not too long :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 16:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd just like to state, that I questioned it here, not too long after it originally started to happen. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 20:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


Response to Kirkburn...
A fair response, but I think you should take a bit more responsibility for the current situation. Did you give permission to Zeal to make sweeping changes or not? This isn't clear to me but Zeal seems to obliquely imply you did. Was this done with or without any kind of consensus? The current evidence, although scant, indicates there was no consensus or even any kind of significant discussion beyond IRC. I don't think "Be bold" would stand up in light of re-categorizing possibly 30% or more of the wiki.
Perhaps we can start staging a warcraft.wikia.com for a possibly future migration to a non-WoW-specific wiki, but that needs to be planned in some way and not imposed on WoWWiki behind the scenes.
Some responses to the above:
  • I agree that alot of the restructuring was good, but most of the good part were adding structure where none really existed as opposed to redoing a structure that was mostly already in-place. As many people know, the unfortunate way things go is that you get ignored for your good and slammed for your bad, but I have repeatedly asked Zeal to explain his rationale and he never really replied and more talked around the question.
  • Long category names was never the issue from a technical standpoint, it has always been an issue of: Is this a WoWwiki or a warcraft wiki? Does prefixing with "World of Warcraft" provide enough benefit when "World of Warcraft" is by far the most famous and pervasive of the warcraft properties and it makes the category listings at the bottom of the page unwieldy and repetitive. It is quite a pain to parse out the repeated World of Warcraft's on articles that cross many category boundaries.
  • Like I said above, unless we explicitly choose the direction to make WoWWiki or some future incarnation a more general Warcraft wiki, it doesn't necessarily server our main population to cruft up the categories so those people who want WC3 content or such don't get confused. I'm definitely more inclined to accept a "WoW" prefix, but saying "what's done is done" is not a defense or explanation, merely a platitude.
  • Unfortunately, as changes go, prefixing "World of Warcraft" on as many categories as the change was made to, was not a small change. If it were a small change it wouldn't be as controversial and easily undone. As it stands, the prefixing change is unfairly benefiting from inertia and not from agreement that it was a good idea. Zeal didn't break any policies per se, but he was in effect making new policy without following the policy process and that is a violation of policy to some degree.
  • I understand the concern that users looking for non-WoW Warcraft info may have a harder time finding what they want without some changes, but re-categorizing all the WoW stuff is not the only solution. Another solution is to just make sure the non-WoW Warcraft stuff is properly identified and categorized in categories that distinguish them as non-WoW. I argued about this when the RPG classes (whic vastly outnumber the WoW classes) were mixed in with the WoW classes. For those WoW users looking for class information the organization of Category:Classes makes it harder to find the information they need.
Lastly, we must remember, although the Main Page confuses the issue by having had specific World of Warcraft mention conspicuously removed in most places until near the bottom, the amount of World of Warcraft players is likely to vastly outnumber players of other franchises which are probably shrinking. We do a disservice, I think, to the majority of our users when we make it harder for them to find info, just so a minority of our users can find info that we aren't focused on. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:30 PM PST 19 Feb 2008

I can't imagine WoW being separated from Warcraft stuff - to carry WoW stuff properly, we need lore background. To carry lore background means other content should be here too, as it's all rather intertwined. At absolutely no point am I advocating defocussing on WoW of course, it's more about allowing the other content to flourish. Yes, I am partly guilty for changing references to be more "Warcraft" and less "WoW", but that was as a result of the content we already carried. There's a lot of non-WoW specific content that was almost being pretended to not exist.

So, regarding the whole focus thing, I have an idea I'm going to work on that may help satisfy all parties - by splitting up the Main Page into portals. A very very rough guideline in User:Kirkburn/Dev3, where the default is the WoW one, but with specific portals for the other types of content (so users can set their homepage to their desired content). All modular stuff, so "Warcraft news" could appear on more than one portal, for example.

As for categories, the problem is mainly that we need a consensus of what should be done next. The items are recatted, and the bots would need setting up again for another change (the person who did the last lot, Zurr, has gone a bit AWOL from IRC, hence the problem). I do agree having "World of Warcraft" repeated a lot doesn't help, so my preference now would be a complete recat to "WoW xxxx", but only if we can guarantee the bots do it completely and we can finally make the category system sensible and clean.

Where did I stand on this? I was in Chicago, being distracted :P Zeal had a very good layout for the wiki down on an article, which I said looked pretty cool. It had the long prefixes, but in that format it didn't look that weird at all - in practise, that's a bit of a different matter. No shady deals going on here. :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 21:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

PS. I wish I could give you a link to the test site with our CategoryTree right now, but unfortunately it's down atm. That extension really really helps show how the cat system works too :( If we start using WoW as a prefix, it would follow that the other prefixes we use are essentially those from WoWWiki:Book citation index. Useful! Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I should add that I'm the one for convincing Zeal to use full names, rather than abbreviations, as I saw the trouble that we could get into when we get into using names of other items of Warcraft; books and such aren't as easily known (say, Rise of the Horde being RotH?). The terminology when we weren't using one of the main games would be, if not ambiguous, than easily misunderstood. Alas, again, I'll be watching j00! --Sky (t | c | w) 22:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
And edit conflict > me, with KB responding with how I was concerned originally. Lol. --Sky (t | c | w) 22:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I would think WC1, WC2, WC3 and especially WoW would be self evident enough. Of course, with a list like that on the Citation Index, that's half the trouble gone in the first place :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Just to clairfy. I had no "permission", i acted alone. There was the basis of a plan put forward by Kirkburn, but the discussion died off. I decided to implement that plan and expand it past where the discussion had gone. I provided a outline of what i was doing and took feedback form here and IRC, making changes as i went. I know you have some conspiracy theories Fandy, but it's as simple as that. Afaik, adding something to the wiki for which a policy doesn't exist isn't a violation in any form and does not neccessarily need to have a proposed policy before or after (though having one is a good idea imo) it's implementation.
Tbh, i don't think a single person has fully understood why i used the prefixes (even those in support of them), if they have they've not shown so in their comments. Sadly i don't know how to explain it any better than i already did, and a practical example of with and without seems like the only way it will ever click in people's heads. -- Zeal (T/C)  22:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I may not be supporting the cat changes for the same reasons as you - User:Zeal/Proposals/Format - but I still support them for different reasons :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


And now for a little focus...

The way I see it, we have two central issues, here:

  1. We're not as accommodating to other Warcraft games as we could/should be.
  2. Category organisation is lacking. It needs to be fixed for category level browsing purposes.

Is this correct? If 1. is the case, then we first need to decide if and how accommodating we want to be. And, because of 1. we ought to hold off on 2. until we've decided what to do with the first issues.

IMO, there's no reason we shouldn't accommodate the entire Warcraft universe. That our domain name is "wowwiki.com" is hardly a problem. I say we go for it. --DuTempete talk|contr 23:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Encompassing all Warcraft isn't much more than we have atm, it's just better organised (e.g. we already have WC3 missions, but you wouldn't know it). I would draw the line at WC3 modding (a wiki for such was requested recently), as that's going a bit outside the remit, and wouldn't be aided by anything we already cover here. Anyway, I have one thing I'm going to focus on now, and that's sleep :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 23:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
"Is this correct?" My answer is maybe, but only partially.
I'd like to re-do the central issues mentioned by DuTempete above, since I think they are largely incomplete:
  1. We're not as accommodating to other Warcraft games as we could/should be. --DuTempete (Not sure if I agree we should be more accommodating, but we definitely could be.)
  2. Category organisation is lacking. It needs to be fixed for category level browsing purposes. --DuTempete
  3. Category policy is lacking. Apparently it had enough holes to justify a radical re-categorization of the wiki. It does however have WoWWiki:Policy/Category#List of categories that need to be fixed which even though sits on a policy page seems to be convenient to ignore if you find it burdensome.
  4. WoWWiki is supposed to have a World of Warcraft focus, but the amount of focus is far too unclear and needs to be clarified. A movement is clearly afoot to largely do away with this focus from comments above.
  5. WoWWiki has an unspoken policy for consensus decision making, but may need to be made a real, written-down policy so it can actually be enforced without endlessly discussing what to do when it gets flagrantly violated.
I know this sounds somewhat snarky, but it seems like the conversation keeps getting steered away from some of the problems we've encountered during this whole event and ignoring them will not go far towards solving them.
Am I wrong about the additional central issues? --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:46 PM PST 19 Feb 2008
I will briefly voice an opinion here: Fandyllic, your additions seem reasonable to me, particularly regarding the wiki having a WoW focus. I think it removed that focus and needlessly complicates things to be naming categories with the "World of Warcraft" prefix. However, I don't know enough about the overall category structure nor the intended direction of the wiki to strongly argue one way or the other. These are just the perceptions of a less involved user. --Jiyambi t || c 01:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I can say, largely with certainty, that category browsing was very much fixed by Zeal's changes, even if I disagreed with the top level changes (which were primarily inspired by KB ;p). As to the rest, I definitely agree.
PS: You are awesome Du. --Sky (t | c | w) 03:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I can agree with those being our major issues, except that your issue 4, Fandy, is the same as issue 1. So, I'll reply to them with my opinion, and encourage everyone to do the same.
  1. We should seriously consider branching out to full support of the whole Warcraft universe. Otherwise the lines are always going to be blurry because of lore. Like it or not, lore is a major part of WoW, and in order to fully understand WoW lore, one must study lore from other Warcraft Genres. The only way to completely cut out the other games is by cutting out lore. If we did that, we'd be missing out on a serious part of WoW, and Baggins and Ragestorm would have a fit. Tongueout
    • If we're going to accommodate Warcraft at all (and I've already said it's near impossible not to), we need to give it equal standing as WoW. These subjects certainly wont have as many pages, nor as many dedicated editors, at least at first, but we can encourage the WC/TCG/RPG geeks to show their faces by being more friendly toward their games. Kirkburn's idea to create individual portals for the top-level subjects is a great idea. The wiki's main page would then be a general or mix of the games' front-page information with big bold links to each of the portals. This is similar to how Wikia manages the many genres they deal with. Wikia.com has "hubs", like the gaming hub, where users go to get news about gaming wikis, yes this information is all still a part of the main wiki.
    • Something to consider in order to take that one extra step toward fully supporting all of Warcraft: warcraftwiki.com is open, or we could always go to warcraft.wikia.com .
  2. I'm of the sort that likes to browse by category. Our current flow of categorisation sucks donkey balls. This needs to get fixed, but should wait until after we've decided how far we go with issue 1.
  3. See Issue 5.
  4. Same as Issue 1.
  5. I don't think we can manage this one, to the extent you're talking about, Fandy. Where do we draw the line between changes an individual can make, and changes we have to make as a whole? I wouldn't doubt this is why there isn't already a concrete policy like this. However, if there are particularly sensitive aspects of the wiki that are vulnerable to issues like this one, then we may want to consider making a consensus policy specific to that individual aspect. In this case, we're talking about categories, which I do agree, are too sensitive not to have some explicit policy that states there must be a public vote/discussion in which a certain number/proportion of participants need to agree on. I applaud Zeal's use of WW:BOLD, but I'm not okay with how little agreement he waited for before going ahead with his changes to the categories. Kirkburn saying he likes something is never enough reason to go crazy on such a sensitive part of the wiki. Zeal, at least, is competent and smart enough to have done it without causing any problems. What if Sky had done it? We'd be in a real mess, then, instead of just talking about one. Tongueout
That's all for now! --DuTempete talk|contr 08:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Here is what I'm hearing from Kirkburn and DuTempete: We want WoWWiki to treat non-WoW Warcraft topics more equally which means that WoWWiki can't really be WoW-focused anymore. To focus on WoW means cutting out the other games ("Like it or not, lore is a major part of WoW, and in order to fully understand WoW lore, one must study lore from other Warcraft Genres. The only way to completely cut out the other games is by cutting out lore.").
I never siggested that a WoW-focus required cutting out other games. Warcraft lore was never segregated by game, so I'm not sure how segregating such concrete things like items by game and making them all equal has anything to do with cutting out other games. To assert that one must give all Warcraft games equal status is the only way to cover the Warcraft universe is purely an assertion with no evidence behind it.
When I want to undo some of the things Zeal did, why is that not covered by "be bold"? I feel like I've lost this battle before it even started, because the repeated argument is that what Zeal did is being bold and the old way was just bad. As a WoW player, what Zeal did is extremely aggravating and seems to follow a trend that started with the classes categories. It almost wants to make me start a new wiki that really does focus on WoW and just start copying stuff out of WoWWiki because I've already put so much work into it.
I may just have to take a long break and see what the wiki looks like when I get back. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:04 PM PST 20 Feb 2008
Fandy, try and get your head around this one... Nothing i did negatively impacted the focus of WoW on this wiki, infact, very much the opposite. Several changes you've made to undo what i did, have actually now made it so WoW is no longer focused on and the situation for WoW players worse. Your actions do not reflect your intentions which leads me to believe you simply don't understand the issue and have not thought through how what you want works in practice. I assure you, i do not want to detract from the WoW focus of this wiki and think the WoW focus is a sensible idea that i support. All i was doing was making it so what is and is and isn't WoW related is clearly marked and seperated, while still giving WoW the focus it deserved. I'm a WoW player too, i want what you want, but you apparently don't know how to achieve that.
If you want an example of where your actions betray you, you need only look at what you did to Category:Items. You've reverted it back to being the category for WoW items, without a seperate category as i made it. Having WoW and non-WoW items seperate allowed for a better experience and focus for those only interested in WoW. But now you've removed that, people only interested in WoW items are once again forced to browse non-wow items too. Chewbacca... -- Zeal (T/C)  23:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Adding my opinions on the 5 points of discussion following DT's lead.
  1. (WoW or all-WC focus) I'm not a player of non-WoW games, but it makes sense to me to expand wowwiki to cover them as much as WoW, if that's what the users here want. There's a distinction that may get overlooked: will wowwiki allow vs encourage non-WoW content? One of the arguments given for the new categories is that the cat structure did not allow wowwiki to be anything other than WoW-centric. I disagree, but I'd say the structure did not encourage it. I think the different game-oriented portals would go a long way to encouraging this.
  2. (Cats broken) As a WoW-focused reader and contributor, I typically find an interesting page, see what cats it's in, and so find other interesting related pages. With the redesign, I saw that at least some pages would become significantly harder to use this way, with several lines of text mostly consisting of "World of Warcraft" in the category section. Until that happened, I had no problems navigating via categories. Thus, my motivation either to abbreviate these cats, not use the WoW prefix, or limit them to one level (ie not cat pages into every vertical supercategory). It's interesting to hear how other people use cats differently.
  3. (Cat policy broken) I found WW:CAT a little confusing in discussing this issue; there are guidelines for creating categories, but then a big list of "correct" categories. Does revamping all the categories lie within or go against the policy? It's really hard to tell. If a category is on the WW:CAT page as a "correct" one, but its actual page is tagged as cats2fix (or even speedydelete, as is the case now), which do I believe? Part of my resistance to the current changes has been this confusion (to put it charitably) which was created.
  4. and 5 seem to be covered by the above. -- Harveydrone 00:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Zeal, Fandyllic, holy freaking crap, I'm going to beat the crap out of you. Stop being asses, and start working together to get this fixed. Both of you are acting with self-righteous and stubborn pride; stuff it, and lets move on to fixing this thing. I can imagine the rest of us are fed up with the way you two are acting, because I know I am. Please. Focus on the solution, not the people. This will obviously take time to fix, either way, and so threatening to leave (or leaving) are going to affect us little. We could use both of your help in getting this fixed. --Sky (t | c | w) 04:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You know i stopped "helping" already, so why add such a snide comment cleary aimed at me in your reply? You're doing exactly what you're asking Fandy and i not to do, infact worse so imo. I told Kirkburn to feel free to scold me if he felt what i said was too harsh to Fandy (though i received no reply, meh), after all, it's an admin's place to do so. I've tried to help Fandy understand, which is hard when he's been reluctant to help himself and arguing for the same thing everyone else in princple. He's always been stuck on the idea that
  1. There's a conspiracy going on between certain contributers.
  2. That people want something other than what he wants. Despite having said so numerous times before, to the contrary, he still overlooked that.
I've chosen stronger words and given and example. You know i have no hang ups about doing so, especially when someone's going to make blind accusations about my actions or anyone elses. Deal with me however you see fit, because you know i'm not going to change.
I'm not attacking Fandy, just trying to make him see what he seemingly doesn't want to see. Hopefully then he can work on a different solution with the rest of you instead of arguing against what he wants. -- Zeal (T/C)  05:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Why both of you? You Zeal, add little remarks here and there that imo are never, ever needed. Stuff like "Fandy, try and get your head around this one" and "Nothing i did negatively impacted the focus of WoW on this wiki, infact, very much the opposite." and "If you want an example of where your actions betray you,". We don't need that kind of commentary on Fandyllic's intelligence, or rather, the perceived lack of such, or even that what you did was correct and good and you obviously did nothing wrong (with all users). That's just in the last time you posted. I could dig up a dozen other references of such "I'm right and you're stupid, so get over it and do what I told you like a good little sheep." That you're not attacking Fandyllic, from such commentary, is not readily apparent to me, nor to anyone else, and especially not him. I can see why he's frustrated; you're just as much a damn brick wall as he is. Mentioning his weird nuances in your last post was yet more commentary undeserved; none of us care for his nuances, but none of us is going to say "Stop acting retarded." out loud. That's not only rude, but mean. It hurt's.
And, fyi, "That people want something other than what he wants. Despite having said so numerous times before, to the contrary, he still overlooked that." is also rather far from the truth. People want he wants in different ways. What you want is the same as him, you just perceive it to be different. You went about changing it, and so has he.
I did this from what I've seen of both your actions, not you alone. From what I've seen of Fandyllic, while he hasn't exactly been accommodating to exactly what other people wants, he's also stopped to gather more information about what's going on from the rest of us here, and help figure out a different way to do it. You, on the other hand, have charged ahead.
In the end, what's done and said is done and said. I'm not trying to change the way you are, I'm asking you to change the way you act when others, especially those who are a might-side prickly, are around. --Sky (t | c | w) 05:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm not even gunna try. You're being an idiot Sky. I'm done with this side line conversation. Do and think whatever you like. -- Zeal (T/C)  06:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
If anyone cares what my opinion is, I don't care either way. I don't use category navigation, it's nice to have, but I prefer to use templated navboxes, etc. (And I understand category navigation is just another way to do things, which is fine). But I don't see any reason to get upset. Let cool heads prevail, people. If you're gonna let a website about a video game frustrate you, you should take a step back and cool off. You'll find you think and reason better when you come back. Calling people names isn't going to solve anything. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 07:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, we should handle each issue separately, since they are separate. Should WoWWiki continue to expand past focusing on WoW? I think it might be a good idea, and indeed separating out the articles would help clear some things up for my POV as well, like the fact that lore pages take precedence (for some strange reason) when disambiguated from in-game tactics pages for a given boss. So the portal idea is probably good. That's all I've got for now, the category issue is a bit more overwhelming from my perspective. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 07:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Fandy, no, focusing on wow does not mean cutting out other games. But, we're in a limbo between cutting them out and merely allowing them because we haven't publicly talked about this to my knowledge, yet. It's like Harveydrone said; I think we should go beyond just alowing it (and as I've said, how could we prevent it?), and into encouraging it. I'm all for it, and can't see any reason not to do this beyond laziness. I also don't think that Wikia is likely to create a WC wiki, so, consider there will be people coming to us anyway, for WC information. Should we continue to give them the cold shoulder, as we do now? I don't think that "Do as you like, just don't come to me for help." is a good way to go about that.
Specifying the game in the category name, IMO, makes us more welcoming to WC information ("see? We've made this shiny new category just for you! Fill it!"), and also makes things easier for the category browsing users such as myself. I want to know that what I'm looking at is WoW (or otherwise) information without having to go to that article. When 1.12 comes out, we'll be able to browse through the categories without even going to the category page. That's where more descriptive category names comes in. --DuTempete talk|contr 07:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I really liked Sky's suggestion that perhaps the "World of Warcraft" prefix only be used for the higher level categories. This would keep categorizing articles simple, but I'm not sure it would address all the issues talked about here. Just thought I'd throw in my two cents. --Jiyambi t || c 09:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I think you've misinterpreted me, but it did inspire me: it does beg for (at the top anyway): "Items" -> "World of Warcraft items" -> "WoW legendary items", and then to possibly remove the prefix in subcategories to those, as the prefix become all but redundant when faced with such cross categorization as can only mean that the items are from World of Warcraft. Eg, "Cloth head items"; nowhere will you find such usage in any other sources of Warcraft. Summarily, this also prevents issues of "too much information (too little?)", which I (and others, from above) have had concerns of regarding the category box. --Sky (t | c | w) 09:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Bleh. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:10 PM PST 29 Feb 2008
I am inclined against fully removing a prefix in subcategories, as without a category browser, the "level" of a category is not readily apparent. I fear you might end up with a page that had some categories prefixed wow, some prefixed (Warcraft III or whatever), and some unprefixed ones that you could not link to the one or the other. --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Datamining policy changes

The DNP policy underwent some minor albeit important changes (written and un-written) concerning datamined information and images posted on the wiki. Currently the wording of the policy is such:

Datamined pictures and files of unreleased content are not allowed. Note that any in-game screenshots obtained from the live or test servers and clients are okay.
Datamined images of live or PTR content are permissible, but "true" in-game screenshots preferred and will always be given preference over datamined content.

Nonetheless, items such as [Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury] are currently on the wiki despite the fact that they have not been seen on a live or test realm, nor has such specific information on them been released by Blizzard (CM's have only confirmed the bow's existence and its name, but nothing more). The information, stats, and graphics were datamined, and not permissable on the wiki according to DNP. However, admins have informed me that Thori'dal's article is acceptable and will remain on the wiki.

If there has been a policy change in practice, we ought to change the policy article accordingly to avoid disputes; if not, we should remove the datamined content. --Tyrsenus t c 21:54, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd imagine the bow is at least linkable on the PTR (or people wouldn't be able to determine its stats), which means item stats and model (dressing room on PTR -- which makes model viewer pictures acceptable (preferable?) as well) are public; icons of new items can be extracted with the addon kit using the PTR client, so those are also public. -- Foxlit 22:08, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
As best I can tell, the bow was first brought to light by MMO-Champion on Feb 8th. They have a disclaimer that the information is from a "Pre-PTR leak and could be different on live servers." It's clear this is unreleased content. In order to force a link on the PTRs, you need the item ID to create the link command in addition to having the bow actually been "seen" for the link to work and not output regular text. I don't think icons are protected by the server the same way item links are. --Tyrsenus t c 23:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
PTR files are ok to post now? Even if what they are of is not in-game, even in the PTRs? What brought on this change? Is it because we felt like it because datamined content is 'cool'?--SWM2448 00:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that's what they are saying. The files are okay to post if they are at least in the PTR. At least, that's how I understood it. --Jiyambi t || c 00:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
So if a file is in the PTR files, but has no chance of being included in the thing being tested when it goes live, it is still bad?--SWM2448 00:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Another example is the images of Kil'jaeden already showing up. None of the PTRs have come close to even unlocking him, and no guilds have passed the eredar twins yet (if they are even unlocked as well). --Tyrsenus t c 01:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
"Datamined images of live or PTR content are permissible" Read that over and over until you understand the policy allows them. They have not been seen, but are datamined from the files of public test versions which have been released. I'm looking at them right now. -- Zeal (T/C)  01:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
What of the tuskarr, icecrown/forgotten crabs, and frostlord?--SWM2448 02:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Same goes for the Tuskarr, it's in the PTR files. Never seen anything about the others on here or elsewhere. Oh, and just for the record, Kil'jaeden and the bow, they are available on the PTR, just haven't been reached or obtained yet. -- Zeal (T/C)  15:55, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
All right, that clears that up. What of unused models that are in the non-PTR files? BTW, the Frostlord is here. The crabs were here, but I do not see them anymore. They were on WoWInsider too.--SWM2448 16:04, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Both in the files. Just to give you another perspective, they're simply unobtainable content, such as the the old Ashbringer GM's liked to show off. It's only not allowed when it's on private builds such as interal aplhas and friends and family ones, which is when the big Blizzard came and told us to take such content off here. ;) -- Zeal (T/C)  16:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
What of the infamous orca?--SWM2448 17:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Zeal- while the second line of the policy allows datamined images, the first line forbids datamined images of unreleased content. It looks like there is some disagreement over whether "released" means "seen in-game" or just "in the game files." I personally interpreted it as the former. P.S. Link to orca discussion. --Tyrsenus t c 17:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
The Public Test Realm means it is released to me, just not to those people who don't go to the PTR, but they can, if they want. Does that make sense? I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand. The orca was never publicly released anywhere, so it isn't allowed. The orca also is not just speculation, because it was obviously datamined. The worldofraids.com tooltip screenshot for Thori'dal is in the gray area for me, since it hasn't been obtained by anyone all though it is presumably available on the test realm. The big problem is that the sources for Thori'dal could be alot better than they are. If they were, it wouldn't be as controversial. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:36 PM PST 17 Feb 2008
So images, items and other information that are in the game files but not seen on live realms or the PTR are in fact okay to post on Wowwiki? --Tyrsenus t c 00:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes.. that's considered released, but unobtained/unobtainable content. -- Zeal (T/C)  15:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Ummm, no. If you will never see the content in-game, it shouldn't be in WoWWiki. For example, the orca model is in the game files, but can not be seen in-game and there is no evidence it will be added in the foreseeable future before the release of Wrath of the Lich King. So, it is considered only datamined and not publicly released. If a blue post appears saying something like, "Hey guys the orca is coming in patch x.y, so don't drown looking for it now," then it would be okay. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:55 PM PST 18 Feb 2008
What of the other WotLK things?--SWM2448 00:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Sigh... then rewrite the policy to make that destinction Fandy, as currently it doesn't. Other than the issue with the Orca (which i wasn't around for) this wasn't the case for previously released but unobtainable content. Given the meaning you're applying to that terminology, you can't make the distinction without Blizzard. Unobtained content will have to be considered unobtainable, until it's obtained. Pretty easy to make a claim for keeping alot of PTR and live content off of WoWWiki for several weeks-months. Enjoy the minefield -- Zeal (T/C)  02:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Not too long ago Kirkburn was taking down Illidan's model images and sound files, even though he was on the PTR. However, Kirkburn also told me (via irc) that the Thori'dal article was okay. The problem with posting content that's in the files and confirmed by Blizzard is that they change their mind (e.g. Emerald Dream). Kaydeethree (an admin) has been removing model images from the ED page. There's obviously different ways the policy is being interpreted, even among admins. It needs to be spelled out what is okay and what is not okay:
  • Information/items/images of content seen through normal game play on an official Blizzard realm or Public Test Realm are allowed on Wowwiki. (given)
  • Information/items/images of content not seen through normal game play on an official Blizzard realm or Public Test Realm, but may be found in the files of the client thereof (are/are not) allowed on Wowwiki.
  • Information/items/images of content not seen through normal game play on an official Blizzard realm or Public Test Realm, but may be found in the files of the client thereof and has been confirmed by a Blizzard employee to exist in-game currently or in the future (through a citable source) (are/are not) allowed on Wowwiki.
  • Information/items/images of content not seen through normal game play on an official Blizzard realm or Public Test Realm, not found in the files of the client thereof and has been confirmed by a Blizzard employee to exist currently in-game or in the future (through a citable source) (are/are not) allowed on Wowwiki.
  • Information/items/images of content not seen through normal game play on an official Blizzard realm or Public Test Realm, not found in the files of the client thereof, and not confirmed by Blizzard (are/are not) allowed on Wowwiki.
  • --Tyrsenus t c 04:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
And what of the Ashbringer? It has been stated multiple times that datamining a screenshot of the blade itself is NOT OK, despite the fact that A) it is in the game files, B) the main image consists of woefully outdated stats for a version of the weapon that, at the time, existed solely as a GM weapon, and C) there is a screenshot of Tirion holding it later in the article. And, if it's OK to post images datamined from the PTR and other in-game files, even if said things are not accessible in-game, then what, precisely, is the point of the policy? Unless I'm missing something, there really isn't a way to datamine something from files that we don't even have in the first place. -- Dark T Zeratul 04:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a hot topic - it is obvious that everyone (both Blizzard and fansites) are becoming more relaxed about this. As it stands the easiest way to write this (in my opinion) would be: images of announced content existing on the live or public test clients are okay. Certain pieces of unannounced content may be exempt from this for reasons of extreme notoriety and importance. Notoriety would include the tuskarr and Kil'jaeden (both announced), but not give free reign to any and all doodads. Regarding the Emerald Dream, that is unannounced content and would thus not be allowed. Kirkburn  talk  contr 17:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense, but I had to read it a few times. May want to clarify what constitutes an "announcement." --Tyrsenus t c 18:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I would define it as Blizzard specifically saying that "this thing is coming in a patch". It would have to be fairly specific about the content, so a general "Emerald Dream is being looked at" wouldn't count, but "Kil'jaeden is being summoned in Sunwell Plateau in patch 2.4" would. Any official Blizzard spokesperson would make this announcement (forum/interview/website/etc). Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The Doodads for the Emerald Dream are in Moonglade now BTW.--SWM2448 21:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
So is this new policy being decreed? If not, I'd like to start the voting booth. --Tyrsenus t c 18:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

When adding Patch 2.4 stuff, please...

I've noticed helpful people adding Patch 2.4 stuff, but leaving out some important info. Please don't leave the elinks id blank, if you can help it. Also, please note somewhere in the article (I prefer a "Patch Changes" section at the end) that the item/NPC/quest is new in Patch 2.4. Eventually when the patch goes live the {{stub/2.4}} will get removed or replaced with a more generic stub, so the info that it was from Patch 2.4 might get lost. We should have done this por patch 2.3 and earlier, but better late than never. Also, please use {{stub/2.4}} at the top of the article. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:33 PM PST 18 Feb 2008

Just don't forget the WW:MOS: "Patch changes", "External links". --k_d3 22:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
And that "External links" are always to be last on a page. --Sky (t | c | w) 22:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
And its Category:Quest givers (preferably Category:<race> quest givers) not Category:Quest Givers. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 23:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay, okay, but what I said still stands. Don't put empty elinks and add info that the content is new in Patch 2.4. I will comply with the will of the horde, but I will remind you that WW:MOS is a guideline. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:45 PM PST 18 Feb 2008
Guidelines should be followed in all but the rarest of instances. --Sky (t | c | w) 01:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, just because it is a guideline doesn't really give a reason not to follow it... --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 17:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

And it's piggy in the middle time from me. Don't make me separate you two. ;) Perhaps we should be doing Category:World of Warcraft patch 2.4.0 style categories? The MOS is a guideline because we don't ban people for not following it. Gentle soothing advice works better. Reason why elinks should always be at the end is for consistency, so users know where to expect stuff. Remember some users do not visit IRC, which is their choice, and thus may not know about all the (policy-related) changes done by bots. Kirkburn  talk  contr 17:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Category Help/DM Loot up for Inspection

With the suggestion that Jiyambi had for loot pages (to follow the Karazhan loot page, I ended up making one for Dire Maul since it really didn't have one. At least not one that I could find. So that's up for criticism and what not before I go further. == Dire Maul loot == As for categories that it should belong to, they're automatically generated? And will eventually show itself at the bottom of the page without me having to do anything? Or is there a process I should be following? -- Innocentlysassy 03:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Added a category. Makes think there should be another category, for such loot pages. --Sky (t | c | w) 06:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Woot! Thanks. Was wondering how to get a ToC in there, and all the mob pages I was referencing didn't have an example command for me to use. -- Innocentlysassy 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I added a bit to the description at the beginning and also removed the raid template, since DM isn't a raid. The article looks quite nice to me, thanks very much for making it :) --Jiyambi t || c 19:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Nice page, Innocent. I like that layout a lot... --Azaram 02:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah I noticed that it was a raid template after I was done. Shrugged and figured if it mattered someone would remove it.  ;) It was just there when I was following the other page. Went looking for one like that for normal instances, but alas there was none. =( At least not a small one like that. The only other one I found was for the bottom of the page that had every single instance. Perhaps I might consider it. *shrugs* Or if I ever learn to make templates, make my own for the loot. We'll see. =D Thanks for the input! -- Innocentlysassy 06:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks.  ;) Credit for said layout should go to whoever made the Karazhan loot page. It was a great idea. -- Innocentlysassy 20:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it occurs to me that this page (and others if they are made) should definitely be put in the instance navigation template for that particular instance. I will try it out for Dire Maul (the nav probably need to be updated anyway, that's another project atm) and see how it goes, and then you can use it as an example in the futre. --Jiyambi t || c 07:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
EDIT: After investigating the Dire Maul article, it looks like the navigation needs to be revamped and many of the boss pages need their npcboxes made. This may take some time >_< --Jiyambi t || c 07:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Aye, it's been trickling down. What did you have in mind for the loot article, exactly? --Sky (t | c | w) 07:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Not sure what you're referring to, but I'm sure I'll learn eventually. I'm finding I like using templates.  ;) Also Stratholme loot made if anyone wants to smack it around a bit. -- Innocentlysassy 20:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Ensure that you're categorizing properly. Have a look around for Stratholme category, or a Stratholme items category. --Sky (t | c | w) 22:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I know it exists (Category:Stratholme_items). But like I said earlier, I'm not sure how to get the page onto it. It's edit has all of 2 lines. =/ Heh, and apparently I don't know how to make it show up as a link here. Could you perhaps link me a page on editing a Category or what to do after a page to make Categories happen? -- Innocentlysassy 23:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Just add [[Category:Stratholme items]] to the bottom of the loot page - it doesn't link because it's a category. It will then be automatically entered into the category. To make a link to a category you need to type [[:Category:Stratholme items]]. BTW, the Dire Maul navigation has been updated but I can't really add it to the loot page because of the new way the nav is set up. Any ideas for how to deal with this? --Jiyambi t || c 03:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Undenting (and rethreading for correct times): Yes, that's the way such loot pages should be done. Um... also, if they do have a specific category for items from that instance, it should be categorized as [[Category:Stratholme items| ]], so that the loot list will appear at the top of the category. If there isn't a specific category yet (which there should be by now, for most instances, by WW:ZCP), then just leave it in the general list as [[Category:X]]. --Sky (t | c | w) 03:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I set up the navigation box for the Dire Maul loot page. Unfortunately the way I set it up, it only works with the instances that have had their navigations revamped. Essentially, Innocent, if you try it that way and it looks funky, just change it to {{Instance Name}} and it should work out. Alternatively, I can just swing by and add the nav to the loot pages you do, if that seems too complicated. --Jiyambi t || c 04:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
One thing that's missing is a section on Tribute runs. I'm pretty sure that has it's own page somewhere, so linking that would be good, or adding the items to the page would be good also. --Sky (t | c | w) 04:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Dire_Maul_Tribute_Run? --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for reminding me, Sky. It's been a couple years since I've done a tribute run. =D I'll try to get that up later today. And Jiyambi, I put the nav box at the top of the Strath page... but, as there is no
Main Gate

Skul (rare)
Stratholme Courier
Fras Siabi
Hearthsinger Forresten (rare)
The Unforgiven
Timmy the Cruel
Commander Malor
Risen Hammersmith
Willey Hopebreaker
Instructor Galford
Balnazzar

(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)

Service Entrance

Postmaster Malown
Black Guard Swordsmith
Baroness Anastari
Stonespine (rare)
Nerub'enkan
Maleki the Pallid
Magistrate Barthilas
Ramstein the Gorger
Lord Aurius Rivendare

(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)
(lore)

NPCs

Crusade Commander Eligor Dawnbringer
Master Craftsman Wilhelm
Packmaster Stonebruiser
Crusade Commander Korfax
Archmage Angela Dosantos
Argent Flight Commander Vahdat

Loot

... it's currently empty. Shall I just leave them off for the time being until it gets made? I'd make one... but not knowing how is a big barrier. =D Baby steps, ya know? -- Innocentlysassy 04:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know who, but someone split it into Scarlet Strath and Undead Strath. I don't know the exact names of the templates, however, so you'll have to go peck at the various bosses. --Sky (t | c | w) 05:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Found them, it's up. Not labeled undead/scarlet without a header, so with exception of a space, lines up nicely. Especially since one of the bosses spawns on the other side, iinm. -- Innocentlysassy 05:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
That looks quite nice, Innocent. Thanks :) EDIT: I tweaked the nav a little bit (added the loot page to the template and made the two halves of strat separate menus) --Jiyambi t || c 09:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Green Triangle

I am mentioned in the Dath Remar Server site for being awarded the first "Green Triangle". I know when I was starting I had a few teething problems adapting from warrior to Priest, but I'd like to know if anyone can tell me what the details of the original Green Triangle incident was, specifically Ltb0619 who wrote the piece.

-- Eccles 12:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

(I added a header. --Azaram 02:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC))
As an actually useful answer, you might want to post on Ltb0619's talk page and ask him. Assuming he set up an email, he'll get a message that something has been posted there. --Azaram 11:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Something funky going on

So it seems there is something funky happening with the way wowwiki's css is displaying in on my browser (firefox), which was fine up until today. For example, on the instance and npc boxes, the "bosses" or "instance" heading appears small and aligned to the left, when it is usually bolded and centered. More disturbingly, the lootbox has lost almost all formatting, including background, and appears as a bulleted list. Anyone know what might be going on and whether it is just my computer - and if so, how to fix it? --Jiyambi t || c 08:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Everything looks normal on my side. (Tetsted with Safari, Camino and Firefox) - Stupid question, but have you tried to empty thge browser cache? (Reeina 10:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC))
Try what Reeina said... every once in a while, I get Wowwiki as a page from the 80s, where it's a blank white background with plain white text...
Relatedly, though, my user page seems to be having some problems. It used to have two columns of the templates, now has one column with the || formatting marks showing as text. It looks like someone went through and modified a lot of the templates themselves with different colors and icons, but would that have changed the formatting of the page itself? --Azaram 11:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Whatever it was, everything looks normal now. *Shakes fist at weird internet phenomena* --Jiyambi t || c 18:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Azaram, either use the normal syntax rather than || shortcut, use html, don't use tables, or make someone code userbox properly using divs. Basically the table syntax and wiki parser isn't robust enough for embeding tables like that, hence the change to userbox has broken your page. There's probably soemthing specific to point the finger at, but generally, that's the problem. -- Zeal (T/C)  18:55, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I dunno what the normal syntax is... I found someone else's userpage that had something like what I wanted, and copied what they had. I know how to do HTML tables, but I dunno otherwise. Is there a how to somewhere? --Azaram 04:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

In Game Lore + Books

I'm interested in starting to catalog lore in the game, particularly the readable books found on tables, but also other readable items and lore nuggets revealed in quests. What sort of tag system should be used to hold these together? Would these be welcome here? -- Lese 04:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Catalog? What do you mean? --Sky (t | c | w) 04:34, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Look through Category:In-Game Books -- and its alternate versions as linked to at the top of the page... --k_d3 04:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Too slow, I had already started 'cataloging' the book items. Before moving the books around into the correct categories, please wait till a decision has been made to how the new categories are going to be setup. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 04:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Edit: While here, I'd like to redraw some attention from admins to the section In-game books and styling so that the CSS can be implemented... sorry to hound, but I just like how Zeal made the design so much, I would love to use it. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 04:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added Zeal's CSS to the Common.css as it seemed to be the one with the most support. If anything needs tweaking, please let us know! Kirkburn  talk  contr 10:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou Kirkburn. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 22:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
It was apparently decided a 4th lever header was undesirable. The CSS in wowwiki.css and common.css need to be changed to relfect that it's now using a div, and remove the style attributes from the template itself. -- Zeal (T/C)  09:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow at 70

I've added a Wow at 70 page, which it is hoped will carry similar content to the nice "Wow at 60" guide produced by Gamespy for pre-bc level cap activity. [1]

I would really welcome assistance by experienced wowwikians in helping to fill out this page.

-- Ucgajhe 13:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Crushing Blows and Resiliance

I was just out reading the warrior forums, and found folks talking about resilience lowering the "crushing damage required defense value cap". And yet, there is not discussion of this in the relevant pages (Resilience, Defense, Crushing blow), or I am not able to identify it as such.

Would someone who knows something about how all that works do a bit of editing on the pages? Maybe I'm simply info-blind; but if I am, I doubt I'm alone in it. --Eirik Ratcatcher 20:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Resilience has nothing to do with crushing blows, it only lowers the chance to be critically hit, making it an alternative to defense when aiming for crit immunity. Defense can reduce the chance to be crushed, though, as it increases your miss/dodge/block/parry chance. What you heard probably was wishful thinking - it would be nice for the non-blocking druids to get means to avoid crushing blows, as it is rather easily possible for warriors and paladins to become crushing-immune with the respective temporary block buff up, so it sounds weird that you heard about it on the warrior forums. ~ User:Nathanyelŋɑϑ 12:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I freely admit my ignorance on the topic. What I heard was on the lines of "Resiliance reduces chance to be crit, which also pushes crush off the table". The thought there was, I am guessing, that if you can't be crit, you also can't be crushed. You know definitely, then, that this is not so? Either way the truth lays out, however, it should be mentioned on the respective pages. As I said before, if I'm confused, others will be too. --Eirik Ratcatcher 23:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, this is definately untrue, or druids would be piling resistance. The reason druids have tons of armor and HP is that we have no way to avoid crushing blows aside from dodge, so we have to live through them. (A little late, but I just noticed this. :-p) --Azaram 01:29, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
From my understanding, and mind you I am not a tank and I do not PvP... resilience changes crit into hit, it won't "push" anything around on the table. To push things off the table, you have to increase the chance to be missed, via dodge and parry, or to negate the effects of being hit, ala defense and block. User:Tekkub/Sig 02:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

1.12 test site

We've got a test site up for WoWWiki running on MW 1.12! This is strictly for testing whether it breaks the wiki in any fashion, so it would be really useful if people could take a look and report anything you find :)

Info and reports on User:Kirkburn/Problems please! Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Because I basically can't access there, is the issue where [[Project:<page>]] is not redirecting to [[WoWWiki:<page>]] popping up (as documented on WW:SR)? --Sky (t | c | w) 09:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Quest tooltips

With the coming 2.4 patch, quests will now get their own tooltips. I was wondering if we should add similar functionality for the quests to WoWWiki. Information that I was able to determine that is included in the in-game tooltips:

  • Quest name
  • Whether or not you are on the quest (wouldn't be shown on WoWWiki)
  • A short synopsis of the quest
  • A list of objectives

This would, at the very least, require a few parameters to be added to {{Questbox}}.

Along with this idea, we might change {{quest}} et al. to use the yellow "enchant" loot format. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 15:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe the first set of changes are needed, as the reason they are linkable in game (it would seem, from so little information) is to show people what you're on, rather than as a main information. We can include the main information in hard text. As to your second set... I kinda like how they are right now. --Sky (t | c | w) 22:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Quests do have tooltips currently (I just have to enable JS to use 'em... :[ ). I'm not convinced those tooltips have any real use, but they're there. I agree with Sky on this one. --Eirik Ratcatcher 23:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
(Eirik, pcj designed the current js for the tooltips. :P. He's proposing that we add more. --Sky (t | c | w) 23:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC))
Not proposing, merely asking. I don't really care to add all that info, just wondering if anyone expected to see the quest tooltips to be implemented in a similar manner as the items. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 23:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't have much use for the quest tooltips we have currently. I don't expect I'd have much more use for expanded ones. Would it add much to page processing time?--Eirik Ratcatcher 19:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Category/Template idea

Heres a thought...

Why don't we make templates to match the categories and use them rather than the categories. That way, if a change is desired instead of having to create a bot, all you would have to do is change a line on the template, thus changing the category for every page it was on.

Using:

<noinclude>[[Category:Article Type Templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]</noinclude>
<includeonly>[[Category:<category name>|{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}]]</includeonly>

See User:Coobra/sandbox2 for template example
See User:Coobra/sandbox3 for template usage example

The page would not receive unnecessary text anywhere on the page, and only the category would be added. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 18:43, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

This is what Zeal has tried to do; though I find it disturbing that two would come up with the same idea. To say just a little on my thoughts, it is to disagree entirely with the thought of creating a template specifically for categorizing items/whatnot. That they are two different namespaces should make some indication that they shouldn't be mixed; furthermore, "just changing the template" is usually harder than you think, and could result in errors with the template usage made by people in general. In others' words, working as intended. :P --Sky (t | c | w) 23:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Aye, Sky brought up that and another problem before in relation to my templates. I understand his reasonings, but i still feel the benefits are worth the negatives.
The other problem was sort keys. The templates i made to quickly get the job done only allowed for one custom sort key for all categories. It's just not feasible to provide custom sort keys for any category and know what category you want applied to with templates, too much customisation to handle. I still thought they were worth the benefits though. If/When string functions are installed, things like that would become easier to handle with more automation rather than customisation, but still wouldn't be perfect. -- Zeal (T/C)  05:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh...you found it disturbing that two came up with a similar idea, huh........I just had something witty I was going to say, but I lost my train of thought... *walks away mumbling to self* User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 06:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Quest Stacking

Something I've learned over my years playing WoW, is that knowing how to stack your quests can greatly speed up your leveling time. There are things you can do that will help keep you from revisiting the same area several times, and can help mitigate world travel needs.

A great example is the quest Pearl Diving. Although the [[Badlands#Quests|] page mentions you should acquire the Blue Pearl before entering the zone, there is no mention of it in [[Stranglethorn Vale#Quests|]] where it would be very useful.

I'd like to start the process of adding that information, after hearing what everyone has to say on the subject. Perhaps this is what was intended by the "Zone questing guide" links on pages such as [[Badlands#Quests|]]? I was thinking of new pages linked from the Zone#Quests pages, or putting a section on the Zone#Quests pages that lists quests in an execution-order, along with some explanations on why you are doing things in this way where appropriate (To answer the questions similar to "Why the heck do I need Blue Pearl x9?").

There will probably be differences in how the stacking should occur between Alliance and Horde, and rather than creating a single long Zone#Quests page, it might be good to go with the idea of a separate page for each faction.

So, I'd like some feedback on this project idea. Thanks!

-- Loopinvariant 20:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)


Ok, so I found some info on Powerlevel_Northshire_Valley although it seems be indirectly linked. It is a bit confusing that there is a Questing_in_Northshire but it doesn't link to Powerlevel_Northshire_Valley. The style is also inconsistent with Stranglethorn_Vale_quests. I suppose that's because this is a Wiki :-).

Is there an overall style/philosphy/design for quest information? I'm reading the policies now.

-- Loopinvariant 20:55, 22 February 2008 (UTC)


I didn't even know Questing in Northshire existed >_<. I, along with a few others, have been working to add just the type of information you are talking about. Two pages should eventually be created for each zone: a "quest list" (ex: Teldrassil quests) which is just a table with quests, quest givers, and their locations listed; and a "questing guide" (ex: Teldrassil questing guide) which will talk about the most efficient way to complete quests in that zone, and which will contain the type of information you are talking about. Some formatting discussion for the quest list is currently going on at WoWWiki talk:Quest list project, but as of yet there is no standard for the questing guides (though I think the Teldrassil format has been used for several other zones - Thousand Needles questing guide, Dun Morogh questing guide, Azuremyst Isle questing guide, and one for Eversong Woods is on the way). I hope this answers your questions to some extent at least :) --Jiyambi t || c 22:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm... I remember seeing that page, though I had obviously forgotten about it. Category:Walkthroughs holds a few more similar to it. --Sky (t | c | w) 05:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

BlizzCast Q&A Questions Needed!

A message from your heathen overlords:

We are once again looking for fan-submitted questions to answer in future episodes of BlizzCast. It can be anything related to Blizzard, the company, our games, or the talented people that work here. We do have a Q&A session in the soon-to-be-released episode 2 where we cover a bit of Starcraft lore and several World of Warcraft game play questions. Keep an eye on the BlizzCast home page (http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcast/) for when it is released to get all the details.

So if you have a question you want to get to us, please send an email with the subject line "BlizzCast Q&A" to the email address BlizzCast@Blizzard.com and you can include a name/character along with a location/realm if you'd like for us to refer to you during the show if your question is picked.

While we won't be able to get to every one of them, we want to keep you updated on ours games or the company, whatever aspects are most important to you.

Thanks for your help and be sure to tune into future BlizzCasts (http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcast/) to see if your question was answered!

Actually, it's from Blizzard, but do send along stuff anyway Smiley Kirkburn  talk  contr 00:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Theories With No Proof

Should we really let people add theories about things without any proof? I mean it doesn't hurt the page, it just look weird when a proof-less theory is listed. Personally, it reminds of like Elvis or Bigfoot sightings.  IconSmall HighElf Male Mr.X8 Talk Contribs 20:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What pages are you referring to? If it is baseless speculation, it should go or get a base.--SWM2448 21:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Pained's article has one, the Cenarion Expedition's page has one where it says there's no proof but a theory of the naga draining the lke is to help Illidan make a new Well of Eternity.  IconSmall HighElf Male Mr.X8 Talk Contribs 03:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Boss tables

I use to go to the instance pages to search for specific boss information. I used the tables that used to be there to navigate to the correct page. Why were these tables removed? -- Scyth02 06:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

THey weren't removed. Click the [show] link in the infobox next to the word "Bosses". --Sky (t | c | w) 06:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Films and podcasts

Since the category Movies is about ingame videos mainly, how about adding a category "film" that includes the Warcraft Movie and "Second Skin", the mmo ducumentary. And how do we define "videos" and "movies"? what would machinima/bosskill/etc be considered.

And would "podcasts" be considered a type of media as well ?


-- SaudiGamer 08:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Curious about instance/raids

"Ragnaros, along with General Drakkisath, is the only end-boss of a pre-Burning Crusade raid instance that does not drop a quest-starting item as a reward for killing him." is a quote from the MC instance page. While searching for instance info both on Blizz's website and wowwiki, it appears that almost all baby instances have an option to bring 10 people into said instance. Now I've never brought 10 people into VC or SFK, etc, but it's possible which technically makes it a raid instance? Which negates that above quote as a handful of the end bosses in those intances do not drop quest-starting items (i.e. Aku'mai as well as all SM end-bosses).

Just wanted to check before pulling that comment off. Or perhaps clarify it a bit? -- Innocentlysassy 22:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

They used to be raidiable, but I know places like Scholo and Strath were capped at 5, I'm assuming all others below it were as well? --Piu (?!) 23:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, the fact that you can bring 10 people in if you really want to does not make those raid instances. All quests for those instances are for 5 man groups only, and the instance difficulty is tooled for 5-mans. Therefor, I would say they are NOT raid instances and leave the article as is. --Jiyambi t || c 00:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Raid vs group instances are usually defined by how many other people need to be used / can be used in order to complete a quest. --Sky (t | c | w) 00:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I think they're still raidable, Piu, and only 4 instances were capped at 5. O_O I understand the definition you guys are going by, as most quests can't be completed in raids for most instances. And a lot of quests will tell you if that instance is a raid one. I just always thought of it in my mind as "oh I can look at a raid tab as there's more than 5 people in this instance" for a raid. But like I said... je comprends.  ;) -- Innocentlysassy 06:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Everything is capped at 5man pre TBC except those in Black Rock Mtn., Ony, the AQs, ZG and Naxx. --User:Mucke/sig 21:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Where's that patch note change? From what I recall, it's always been that you can raid whichever instances you want, save for Scholo and Strath. --Sky (t | c | w) 21:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Gonna agree with Sky here (which is why I asked in the first place). I know the chances of someone reading this is over, but just in case. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/worlddungeons.html Notice that it still says 10 for almost every instance. And as such http://wowwiki.com/Instance (notice the players advised/max). Okay, satisfied now. =D --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 08:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The Terokkar Mana Bomb

A large number of the quests involved in this chain are duplicated horde-and-alliance. The person the character reports to changes due to faction. But aside from the name of that person (where it appears in the quest text), the name of the stronghold/point the character reports to, and the quest ID, the quests are identical.

When I first wrote those quests up, I included both the Alliance and Horde versions on a single page. I felt, and still feel, that no good purpose is served by splitting them up based on the trivial differences between them.

Recently, these pages have been getting split up, with the original page being used as a disambig page. The components of The Terokkar Mana Bomb quest chain are my chief example. I do not see value to the splitting up of these pages. Most comments about the quest would be equally relevant for the other branch.

I was pointed to The Binding as an example in favor of splitting. I find that uncompelling as an example, as neither the quest text, nor yet the chains in which they appear, match one another. (And that when comparing like-with-like, mind, across either city or pet similarities.) Similarly, I can point to Gnome Engineering, with which I did some work myself. There is enough difference between the branches that I did not feel compelled to put them all on one page.

My contention is not that all quests with the same name should be on the same page, nor even that if they have the same rewards or purpose, they necessarily belong together. I am simply saying that, where the quests are so close together, there is no need to describe them on separate pages; that indeed, doing so causes problems that can be avoided by combining them.

--Eirik Ratcatcher 20:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

another example of (IMO) senseless disambiguation: Quest:Stolen Winter Veil Treats. --Eirik Ratcatcher 20:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I kinda support you here. Wowwiki is different than a data base site in that it's human-added content rather than auto-collected. We have lots of pages that are bot generated, but the strength of a site like this is that a reasonable editor can make decisions about when to group things up like this when it makes sense to do so. --Piu (?!) 20:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Loot Category Additions?

Finished making the page for Mana-Tombs loot and wanted to add it to the items for Mana-Tombs. However, noticed that such a category does not exist? Unless I'm looking in the wrong place. However, if such a page did not exist - to make it so - does that mean I have to go to every item's page and add the Category:Instance items link on it? Essentially building the page myself?

Also comments on how the heroic loot is displayed is welcome. As the other BC instances will follow suit when I get to them. -- Innocentlysassy 09:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Category:Mana-Tombs items? --Sky (t | c | w) 10:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Odd that I didn't see that when I searched for it. And it didn't help that the loot for the bosses I was checking wasn't added. I'll go do that now. Thanks for finding it. --Innocentlysassy 22:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


is there going to be a loot page done up for the Caverns of time instances? They seem to be the only BC loot lists missing from the "Instance Loot" page. --ZepherDossier 14:51, 18 March 2008

Image location changes

As a result of the impending upgrade the location of images on the wiki have changed from http://www.wowwiki.com/images/ to http://images.wikia.com/wowwiki/images/ ... if you spot any broken images as a result of this, please either fix them and/or report them below! Kirkburn  talk  contr 14:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm informed that it should not break, even for old links to the files. However, it would probably be a good idea to search for them and see if they can be dealt with in a better way anyway. Kirkburn  talk  contr 14:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Crap, guess this means I have to edit my adblock settings. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 16:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Image namespace pages are showing up with that external link icon (the little arrow). Will that be cleaned up when we're full integrated? --Sky (t | c | w) 06:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Also, "thumb"ed images are leaving a lot more whitespace than before. Can has also fix? --Sky (t | c | w) 07:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I notice the elink icon thing only appears on the WoWWiki skin - very odd. Will report. Not sure what you mean by the extra whitespace? Larger magins sizes? Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes. There's a good half inch on my screen on one of the thumbed images I was viewing yesterday. Dar'Khan Drathir, for example. Maybe it's just me, but I don't remember having this much margin space. --Sky (t | c | w) 23:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah, looks like the Monobook skin was updated. Kirkburn  talk  contr 13:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

On a another note, we're on a new server system, with a rather cool side effect:

Nice, eh? If you're confused, it's that we don't need the index.php part anymore Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:38, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

2 Items - Same Name but Different

Is there any way of creating a diff page for a 2nd item if both items share the same name? For example Inv misc bandana 03 [Terokk's Mask] is both a quest item as well as a quest reward (See Quest:Terokk's Legacy all 3 required items are that way). So anyone hovering over the quest item (when white) will display the reward since there is no page for the turn-in item itself. -- User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 19:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, see WW:DISAMBIG. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 20:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I've made the necessary changes to Terokk's Mask. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 20:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Sure, see [Medallion of Karabor] compared to [Medallion of Karabor], and the |disambigpage= command for {{tooltip}} --k_d3 20:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll make the change to the other 2 as well. Hopefully it works. =D (And if anyone is still looking at this, is there a reason the 5 in (1/5) didn't show up for the Shoulders of Assassination on Talon King Ikiss's page?... trying to learn stuff) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Innocentlysassy (talk · contr).
Didn't have the |setpc= command specified... [2] --k_d3 22:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Awesome. Love finding out things. Thanks for fixing it. *wriggles* Thanks! --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 23:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
You got a page made for the turn-in item now? --Eirik Ratcatcher 20:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
See Inv misc bandana 03 [Terokk's Mask] and Inv helm mask zulgurub d 01 [Terokk's Mask]. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 21:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Bad Book template

See Old Hatreds - The Colonization of Kalimdor using wowwiki skin. This uses the {{book}} template. On my Firefox 2.0.0.12, the book text appears dark brown letters on dark gray background and basically unreadable. Is no one else running into this? --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:56 PM PST 27 Feb 2008

Fine on mine. Try clearing your cache. --Sky (t | c | w) 22:58, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Fine on mine. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 23:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I cleared my cache and it still looks bad. See Image:BadBook.jpg. Any other things I can try to do to fix this? --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 6:35 PM PST 7 Mar 2008
Here's what I see. See Image:Goodbook.jpg. It's weird you even have a border around the box...wonder who else is having this problem. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 02:49, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
I also see what Coobra is seeing. Fandyllic: Have you checked custom CSS (Wiki or Firefox addons) to see if somehow the class that the book css is implemented at is being confused? --Sky (t | c | w) 04:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it was some custom CSS I had that was over-riding the defaults. All fixed now. Thanks for the tips. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:19 PM PST 10 Mar 2008

Help regarding bold in watchlists

I have an account on Wikipedia and obviously one here as well. On my Wikipedia User Talk page I asked:

  • Q: On WoWWiki when I view my watchlist, new changes are bolded. How do I do that here?

One of the responses I got was:

  • A: This sounds like an extension that your other Wiki uses, but Wikipedia does not. I'd suggest contacting an administrator on WoWWiki - they may be able to give you the name of the extension which does this, which you can look up on the MediaWiki site, and (possibly) copy the javascript code into your personal script file.

Can anyone here assist me with this? Here is a link to the whole conversation.--Rockfang 00:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe it's custom .js, rather than an extension. Try the .js linked on your page first; if that doesn't help, I'll go digging through the code to see what it is that does that. This isn't the only wiki that works like that, as the other wiki I work on also has the recent watchlist changes in bold as well. Hmm... --Sky2042 05:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Strange stuff, that... No, I think it's the other way around. I've been on a great number of Wikis -- both on and off Wikia -- and I've seen the aforementioned bolded new changes. I think Wikipedia either isn't running the little thing that all other Wikis are, or maybe is stuck with older software due to the sheer vast amount of stuff there-in. I dunno... Sorry. ~ Doc Lithius [U|T|C] 06:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
To Sky2042: I'm not sure what you mean when you say: "Try the .js linked on your page first;"--Rockfang 10:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Nevermind. I had a brain fart. I understand now. I tried it, and it works.--Rockfang 03:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

"Exclusive Content Contract" with WOWDB?

Curse has recently launched WOWDB, a World of Warcraft database. According to Wowinsider:

Curse has obtained an "exclusive content contract" with WoWWiki for the use of their information.[3]

The article goes on to say:

Curse entered an agreement with WoWWiki to create a portal to the wiki via their site.

And that Wowwiki confirmed this, although it is left open whether these were the only terms of the agreement. It looks they're already using articles full-length on their pages. Can anyone shed some light on this? --Tyrsenus t c 18:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The "exclusive content contract" line was misspoken, as per that poster's later response in the thread. [4] Everything on the wiki is under the FDL, so "exclusivity" cannot ever be a factor. As long as they obey the FDL by making sure that their copy of our content is under the FDL and sourced as ours, I'm pretty sure the stance the adminship is taking is "ok, whatever". That 'contract', by the way is http://wow.curse.com/wikia/Main_Page --k_d3 18:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Naxx content and tradeskilling

This is content I was never privvy to, and so I am in need of some assistance in understanding, and cataloging the crafted? frost resistance items. Here's where I'm at so far...

  1. You have to become attuned to Naxxaramus by completing N [60] The Dread Citadel - Naxxramas, which requires you to be at least friendly (and probably higher) with Argent Dawn.
  2. You then have to complete N [60R] Echoes of War (does this require higher than friendly status with Argent Dawn?)
  3. You THEN have to complete (one of) the quests (like Icebane Breastplate) of the frost resistance set.

At this point, I become confused. A note mentioned that you learn the recipe if you are Exalted with AD. Do you have to be Exalted to get the quests? Do you get JUST the recipe (assuming you have the right crafting skill)? Do you get JUST the item? Both?

The items are BoE, I presume so that not-everyone in the raid has to get to Exalted AD to be able to get the gear.

Anyone have Naxx raiding experience? --Eirik Ratcatcher 00:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

It's odd that those items are BoE, I'm not sure if they've always been. The short story is that you can learn the patterns from the prisoner NPC in Naxxramas given that you match profession and AD rep requirements; the third quest is an optional step for characters that chose professions that do not craft the resistance gear - they can hand in similar mats (in larger amounts, iirc) to receive the crafted item as a reward from a quest. -- Foxlit 09:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. Could you name names? (of NPCs... on the pages for the items involved)
BTW... is Foxlit an alias for you, or "a name you would switch to if you could"? --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Following links yields Craftsman Wilhelm as the quest giver, and Master Craftsman Omarion as the trainer prisoner.
Generally, I use foxlit on IRC (shorter names there in general, starlightblunder is a bit of a pain to type); the User: pages on wiki are intermixed - since this account has administrator privileges, I tend to edit on it. Think if we had the user rename modification when I got sysoped, we would've preferred to change my username to match the IRC name to reduce confusion a bit. -- Foxlit 00:09, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Following links eventually led me to [this link], which explains enough that I think I know what's going on now. (Now I'm MUCH more dangerous!) The book quest enables the armor quests; otherwise you get taught recipes for the same items. Do you have to have a particular AD rep either 1) to get the recipes? 2) to get the book quest? or 3) to get the individual armor quests? As mentioned above, a comment somewhere implied that you had to have exalted AD rep to get the recipes. --Eirik Ratcatcher 21:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC) Edit: Dur, dur... Craftsman Wilhelm lists the armor quests as requiring revered to exalted. Still, rep requirement on the book quest? on the recipes? --Eirik Ratcatcher 21:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
There are different recipes at different rep levels starting iirc, at honored and going through exalted. You have to be exalted to get all of the patterns. To get them you simply have to beat the first boss in Naxx then talk to the prisoner in one of the following rooms. He will train you in these patterns I believe free of charge. They are BOE because they are items you basically need to complete the dungeon.--User:Mucke/sig 17:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Special section for Arena?

With Arena being such a large part of the game, it seems a bit silly that it isn't discussed in much detail here in WoWWiki. The problem of adding information about Arena here however is I feel that any information about it placed in the Tactics or Builds section of each class will get overwhelmed by dozens of different PvE specs, BG specs, etc.

So I propose each class page be expanded to have a separate page dealing with Arena, with sections for popular builds, members of the class that have distinguished themselves in Arena, popular team matrices run with the classes in question, professional Arena teams who run the matrices, etc. There can also be sections suggesting strategies against other team compositions, and a discussion on how each of a class' spells can be utilized in PvP. For example, it's not a well-known fact amongst general WoW players that a rogue can Vanish a Death Coil or a nuke to completely avoid the CC and damage. Some incredible players like Nitrana even Vanish Blinds and Intimidating Shouts.

What do you guys think? It seems the community here is mostly based in RP and PvE, but I'm hoping for some input. I myself enjoy all aspects of the game, but PvP appeals to me the most. My mage was Duelist last season and I'm planning on going Gladiator with my hunter for S3.

-- Zexx 00:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

This is intended as an encyclopedia, not a 'look how big my epeen is'. I have no idea who Nitrana is, and really don't care. That a class ability, especially a rogue one, can break a lot of other class abilities is not 'incredible'. As long as it doesn't devolve into 'OMG TIS IS MEH TEEM WE R TEH COO:L!!', I am indifferent to it.
Of course, I'm nobody special, otherwise. --Azaram 02:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
The idea of an arena section or sections of the class pages sounds good to me. I myself don't do much PvP, but it would be great to provide content for those who do. And it may encourage people such as myself to try PvP if there are ways we can learn about it. But, I agree with Azaram that it could be difficult to keep these pages neutral and professional, so they need to be carefully monitored. --Jiyambi t || c 21:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Azaram is a bitter, bitter poster. If you actually read my post with a clear head instead of foaming at the mouth, you would've seen that my post about Vanish was addressing adding in Arena information that most people probably would not know -- such as that Vanish can wipe effects like Death Coil, Blind, etc and allow the rogue to roam free in stealth without eating the debuff.

I'll start with some cursory posts for Mages and Hunters. Anyone have a suggestion of what the separate page should look like in terms of organization? List of abilities and what they can do in PvP, team matrices, talent builds, etc. --- Zexx 08:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm not bitter. I just think that PVP is the least interesting part of the game, and am sick of its addicts thinking they are the best and that the whole game is for them, thus setting themselves above anyone who doesn't pvp (See the official forms, where anyone posting anything is berated for having a low arena rating, or 'scrub' non PVP armor, as well as lots of whining about 'welfare epics') You specifically mentioned how incredible it was that a rogue manages to use a rogue class ability, with a name as if that person is impressive for being able to do so. I would be willing to bet that most rogues doing arena already know that stuff, so it's not all that incredible. That being said, I am not against there being how-to arena stuff... just that it needs to not be lots of epeen waving about how great a rogue that one you mentioned is. No need for specific names at all, since who someone is doesn't matter to how a class works. --Azaram 11:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

So you're very very bitter. You just followed up "No, I'm not bitter" with an entire treatise on why you hate PvP. I don't think anyone here asked for your opinion, or gave the impression that they feel their aspect of the game is superior to yours? But you obviously hold a bias against it since you claimed ePeen waving when all I said was Nitrana is good enough to counter instant CC effects with a Vanish... Which is very hard to do. The point was to indicate that this is possible, and the entire purpose of writing how-to-Arena guides is for people who are getting started and need help on strategies they should take with them when encountering certain team matrices.

Your position on this is clear, so if you don't mind, please keep off my section here. Last thing I need around here are anti-PvP trolls. Most players in Arena don't know everything about what they're doing. Your line of reasoning would mean WoWWiki shouldn't sponsor PvE guides on how to down raid bosses, because obviously if they're raiding, they must LOGICALLY know how to do all the fights. Amirite?

Anyway, can I get a response from higher up? Maybe Kirkburn? I'd need help on how to divide the section and make an introductory page. -- Zexx 18:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You're pretty obviously one of the ones who feel that they have to stroke their epeen in public. My position is, since you've managed to miss it every time, that the section is not a bad idea, but it needs to stay non POV. It isn't hard to use a class ability to do what the class ability is intended for, but it seems to impress you. And no, you're not 'rite'. --Azaram 02:34, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to ignore the personal stuff, and say yes. Arena-specific guides is an excellent idea. Raids, battlegrounds, duelling and Arenas are all rather different beasts. If only Blizz would stop adding new aspects to game, organising all this would be so much easier :) Player vs Player is probably a good place to start. Do we have a PvP navigation box? If not, we should probably make one.
I really want to work more on the portals idea when I get some time. By splitting off the non-WoW stuff to other portals, the Main Page can link to more of this stuff. Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)


I don't believe we have PvP navigation boxes. What would be the easiest way to organize this? I was thinking we could make an Arena-dedicated page for each class in the class navigation menus (Like how they each have one for talent builds, races, lore, etc) and divide sections from there... But a PvP dedicated portal might be a good idea. --- Zexx 00:48, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
what i really miss is a page where all, and i mean really ALL PvP-rewards are listed. and in a proper way, per example: hi, im a heal priest doing PvP. Show me all items i can get and this leads me to the priest/heal or disc page where ALL PvP-rewards are listed. in a way like: this is your neck, u get it from there for that. this is your set, from there, and all free equipment slots ar best stuffed with this, that and so on. i dont want a page with all PvP rings on it in a really ugly ordering, including the lvl40 rings... Alliance 15HJT (t/c) 10:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


That's probably best done on a separate page for PvP Rewards, which should list what was offered each season in terms of set and non-set PvP epics. Some PvE items can go in there as alternatives as well, as some weapons (Such as the Black Bow of the Betrayer from Illidan, and many BT trinkets) are actually superior to the Arena weapons for certain classes.
Azaram, I thought I made it clear that I don't appreciate the trolling? Your dismissive attitude wasn't appreciated the first place, nor your accusations of ePeen flinging or that the page would ultimately become NPOV. You can lick your wounds about the mean ol' PvPers on the WoW forums who hurt you so very badly elsewhere.  :) I'll start some opening up some new pages in the Class Portals for Arena and get some work down tonight. As mentioned before Kirkburn if you have any other ideas of making this tidier and easier to access as well as organize, let me know. --- Zexx 18:24, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't realize I needed your permission to express an opinion... I don't remember anyone asking for yours, either. You don't read very well. I said it's not a bad idea, it just needs to be kept non POV. Maybe the third try will get through...--Azaram 13:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay seriously why are you still trolling? Here was your opening statement.

"This is intended as an encyclopedia, not a 'look how big my epeen is'. I have no idea who Nitrana is, and really don't care. That a class ability, especially a rogue one, can break a lot of other class abilities is not 'incredible'."

First you assume ePeen stroking. Great opening troll. Then you demean, continually, the aptitude it takes to operate in PvP as "lawl ability A beats ability B ePeening obviously anyone can do it it's not incredible". Yeah obviously anyone can play pro football too, because all it requires it taking a ball from one side to the other. Then you responded with this after your opening troll post.

"I just think that PVP is the least interesting part of the game, and am sick of its addicts thinking they are the best and that the whole game is for them, thus setting themselves above anyone who doesn't pvp (See the official forms, where anyone posting anything is berated for having a low arena rating, or 'scrub' non PVP armor, as well as lots of whining about 'welfare epics') You specifically mentioned how incredible it was that a rogue manages to use a rogue class ability, with a name as if that person is impressive for being able to do so. I would be willing to bet that most rogues doing arena already know that stuff, so it's not all that incredible."

If you're so uninterested in PvP, why did you post? Why would you even be remotely interested in being part of this project? So you just posted to vent saying how much you hate PvP, you strawmanned the entire PvP population by claiming they're all out to rip you apart (Poor baby.  :( ) then even more hating on Arena players by directly demeaning their favored aspect of the game. Why are you so bitter? Honestly. Stop trolling. Noone here appreciates it and all you're doing is appropriating more evidence for a fat cease and desist ban. You obviously don't care from your posts, but you had to make it a point about how much you think the system sucks while contributing absolutely nothing to the proposed project.

QQ more, L2P, etc. Lick your wounds elsewhere. As you said this is an encyclopedia not a soapbox for you to bitch and moan about us trying to get some Arena info going. --- Zexx 17:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll block the both of you if you can't be nice to each other and/or continue to post in this section. There was no reason for you to respond directly to him Zexx, nor you Azaram (in the most recent discussion). --Sky (t | c | w) 04:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup -- Things to Do Request

Hello! I'm a newer user and was trying to help out on the things to do page, but I noticed a lack of instructions on how to fix the errors. Some of them are more clear in expectation than others. But it would certainly be nice to have someone with more knowledge add some directions on "how to fix a broken redirect"(as an example). If I am missing the directions... can you point me that way? I would have put this on their talk page, but I didn't see one for these "special pages"

-- Trilless 10:31, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if I'll help you out at all, but I'll give it a shot. Iinm there's not going to be instructions anywhere as they'll assume that you know how to help fix it, but if you need to learn you can do a search for the function you're looking for. Redirect, for example, will give you a help page on how to make a redirect page. Some of those pages on the list may have already been fixed? Depending on if the person who was working on it took off the code that requested the "to do." This wiki itself, tho, will tell you how to help edit most of the pages if you search for it. You can also do what you did and ask for help here, or click on "edit this page" on pages that do it right to see how people have done the solution. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 13:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Batting cleanup a pretty hard thing to do, I'll agree. (I've got several folks who seem to follow me around, fixing my boneheaded mistakes...) Some cleanup is "stubs", where you can look up the relevant information (first hand, or third hand via some of the database sites).  ::Some is "to a better standard", which is mostly code for "this is a piece of ####, could someone please rewrite it". However, sometimes it means "this page doesn't look much like those other similar pages". At which point you have to guess which the other pages are... And no, hints are not ususally given. :)
There are SOME boilerplate pages that are as close as we come to "this is what we think we expect". (Note that, since we have 3+ people here, there ARE minority opinions... :) )
If you are uncertain about the quality of your changes, you could always create a page in your user space (User:XXX/something), then start a section on the pump here asking for comments about it before you replace the given page.
Like Sassy above, can't guarantee this helps, but... --Eirik Ratcatcher 20:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
On a similar note, why the heck don't we have a "reason" section on stubs? This would be really useful, as I will sometimes come across a stub and I can't figure out why it was put there, or perhaps someone had fixed the problem but did not remove the stub. Can this feature be added? It should be fairly simple to do. (see the {{ss}} or {{sd}} templates to see what I am talking about, they both have a reason field). --Jiyambi t || c 22:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to wholeheartedly agree here. Sometimes when I feel bored, I decide to look what else can be done... and so I start clicking on things to do, but can't see anything that needs to be done. A reason on some of the stubs would be awesome, or simply writing an explanation in the discussion area of the article of why the stub was put there. Also, if things get done... please remove the stub? --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 22:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
I added a reason field: see #Stubs and reasons below. --Jiyambi t || c 23:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Awesome, Jiyambi! This avoids those cases (like I just had) where a cleanup request on the discussion page grows stale. And also allows the griper (putting a cleanup tag or whatever) to be more particular. --Eirik Ratcatcher 21:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

A Warcraft Apothecary

Hi guys,

I am currently working on giving the harvestable herbs in Warcraft medicinal properties. Now you may say that they already have properties, they are used in the Alchemy trade. So what? Herbs have a wide array of uses in the real world, so why not in Warcrack as well? Ive been using this site for the list of herbs and their in-game icons, and then matching them up with real world herbs... or just picking one that looks similar. Like Peacebloom matches the Daisy, Silverleaf matches Holly... etc. Of course some game herbs wont have any real-world equivalent, like Netherbloom. So in this case Im just going to find a herb that kinda matches what the in-game does in Alchemy. Currently Im on Briarthorn (Smooth Sumach).

So, my question is, can I make a page on this site and have it listed along with the herbs page? It would be a great resource for Role Players that actually want to use herbs in more than just Alchemy. ^.^ -- Eveshka 18:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC) Eveshka - Moonguardian Draenei Shamaness

By all means, be bold! We don't bite all that much. I'd suggest an article title of something along the lines like Herbs in the real world. --k_d3 18:14, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


How do I change the page title? O.o Something like Medicinal Azerothian and Outland Herbs... -- Eveshka --Moonguardian Draenei Shamaness
You don't have to change the page title. You can do as kd said and make a new page about the herbs (and maybe have a link from the original herb page to this one directly to that herb?). You can put the information on the herb page itself (unless it gets really long) and make it a new # in the table of contents. I think some of the jewel pages have real pics or links to the real gem itself irl, so maybe add some pics too? =D Have fun! And if you're unsure, make a test page on your space and have people look at it to see if they like it, or if things should be changed. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 22:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Why Keep This Cat?

Went tromping through the "these pages have nothing that point to it" "things to do" list, and was stumped by this cat: http://www.wowwiki.com/Category:NPCs_sells . Was mildly curious as to why it still exists (especially since it's in the "nothing points to me" list). I checked on maybe 4-5 of the pages, and all the information that can be found on those pages, can also be found on the NPC's page itself. Perhaps it's time to get rid of those pages and that cat? Unless there's a reason we're keeping them around. And also, if that's the case, then there should be a link on those pages back to the NPC itself, so you don't have to manually delete the /NPC_Sells to see the info on the NPC. -- User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 11:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe those pages are automatically generated by Laurlybot. I'm not sure why the bot puts the sells table on a separate page and then links it from the main npc page - perhaps because in this way the sells page can be updated by bot without losing any edits to the main page. I would talk to Laurly or someone who knows more about the bots before messing with it - I'm assuming the category is there to help keep track of all the "sells" pages for the bots. --Jiyambi t || c 20:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
are -> were. The pages are transcluded, like templates. Why it's on the things to do list? To get rid of them, course, as Laurly has gone afk (prolly will be back for the summer), and thus the bot won't be updating them anytime soon. --Sky (t | c | w) 23:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, the truth becomes clear! Thanks Sky. So, we just need to move those tables into the actual NPC article, then delete the table page? --Jiyambi t || c 00:40, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Yah. You can add the subst: magic word, (e.g. {{subst::Joe Bob/NPC_Sells}}), open up the links from the "Templates used in this section" list below the edit box, save, then {{sd}} tag (or delete, whee for being an admin!) the xcludes. I find that to be the most painless way to do it, but whatever works for you. --k_d3 19:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I've also been subst'ing the templates used: T:NPCs Sells Header and what not, as I feel templates aren't really needed, as well as cleaning up the pages in general (getting rid of quests header, adding correct category for the race, add race, etc). As with below, mileage may vary. :) --Sky (t | c | w) 23:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Cited Issues

More and more people are changing cited sentences from the RPG to other things. For instance people keep changing "she" to "them" or "he". Changing cited work is wrong of course, but is changing stuff like that okay? Otherwise, a lot of people are going to be banned.  IconSmall HighElf Male Mr.X8 Talk Contribs 17:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that really depends. The cited stuff should not be quotes, anyway - it should be paraphrased. So as long as the changes don't change the facts, they should be okay in my opinion. But Baggins or someone of more knowledge in this realm should probably give a more definite answer. --Jiyambi t || c 20:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Jiyambi. Unless it's a direct quote (which we shouldn't need too many of), as long as it doesn't effect what the sentence is saying, it's not a problem. Gender changes is ... odd. Is it because different sources give different genders? WoW would normally supercede the RPG, but it should probably be noted that the sources differ - e.g. "(note that X refers to this character as female)". Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Well when wow talks about classes they say "she". People have been changing it to "he" or "them", especially on the demon hunter page.  IconSmall HighElf Male Mr.X8 Talk Contribs 01:36, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Stubs and reasons

Alright, I went through all the stubs who didn't have it already and added a reason field as the second field of the stub. For example, {{Stub/Mob|No npcbox}} produces:



I hope this is a helpful addition. --Jiyambi t || c 21:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Good idea! Kirkburn  talk  contr 21:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops! =/ Rename pic?

Is there a way to rename the page an uploaded pic is on? I accidentally spelled Lemla Hopewing Lemia Hopewing when uploading her jpg. Apparently I need bigger font. So currently the screenshot links correctly from Lemla's page... but I'd like to actually see the pic and pic's page be corrected. How to do? -- User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 01:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Just re-upload the same screenshot with the correct name, change the link on the article, and mark the old image with a speedy delete. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 02:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Aggro template

Is it just me, or do the green and red colors used for this template seem brighter, than a few days ago? User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 02:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean {{hostile}} and the others? Not that I can tell. Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I meant {{aggro}}, thats used in the npcboxes ... an edit was done to it the other day, and it the green/red seem brighter to me. Also, when leaving a blank in it like this {{aggro|<0>}} it produces Alliance Horde now, when it used to not show the alliance if left blank. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 20:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah yeah, I do see that now. Is it bad that they're brighter? It should be CSS anyway, since it's hard to read on monobook. Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
It still looks horrid on monobook, so whoever changed it didn't finish the job. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 20:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

virus warning when visiting GameAmp

There are multiple articles on WoWWiki that link to the GameAmp site. Every time I visit this site, I get a warning from both McAfee SiteAdvisor and my antivirus. Is anyone else getting this? If so, is there any way links to this site can be blocked from WoWWiki?--Rockfang 07:40, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Ouch, do you know where it coming from? An advert? Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Nope. I just checked though, and the virus is still there.--Rockfang 04:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

See Also ...

I admit to having acted somewhat piratically, securing the {{AlsoSee}} template for its intended uses against the forces of doom. Or indiscriminate correction, take your pick.

Or rather, there are at least two opinions out there: 1) AlsoSee should be deprecated. 2) AlsoSee should be converted into a section heading. As I point out on the AlsoSee talk page, there DO exist reasons which, in my opinion, justify the continued existence of this template.

In my researches, I find also that {{See also}}, {{SeeAlso}}, and {{See}} all redirect to {{AlsoSee}}.

Except for two problems, I would suggest a compromise solution: Convert "the pages where an AlsoSee reference line is justified" to one of these names, and convert everything else to another.

Problem 1: use that people would think of as "inappropriate" (for any subjective definition) will creep in again, causing this argument all over again. Problem 2: I personally consider "a template that creates an article section" broken, creating more editing headaches, even as an interim solution, it solves.

So, a second solution... if you don't like See Also lines in a given article, edit the template out. If you hate it as a general solution, go to "what links here" and set to. I've done a little of that, and found that yes, even pages I myself created/edited could have had their See Also broken out. ... But I also found many pages where it would be harmful to do so.

Respectfully, --Eirik Ratcatcher 20:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not a huge fan of the template personally. There's only a few places I think it actually makes sense to use, as the links could either be moved into prose text, or linked as a proper list at the page end under a See also heading - both easier for most people to edit. {{main}} can cover many uses of it, and I only think a see also xxx line is useful where {{main}} makes no sense. And, of course, we need to consolidate them into template name. Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Amberrock suggested a "fix me" tag ala laurlybot and sometimes foxbot.
{{main}} seems less appropriate if your goal is to point someone to it rather than discuss it in summary. Perhaps we agree on that.
As above, even I feel there are plenty of cases where it could profitably be turned into a section. ... Just not, please, by having the template make the section.
Perhaps you would care to take on a sampling of current AlsoSee pages and post on the talk page alternatives to the type of case where I find AlsoSee useful? You can avoid the obvious "move it to a section" cases. (Hmm... perhaps I should have linked particular versions in my comment. Ah, well.) --Eirik Ratcatcher 21:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Note also {{seealso}}, which is the preferred version of in-section linking. The Template {{see also}} should be moved to a section of it's own at the bottom, just as you've made initiative to do Eirik (zomg, you're turning into Zeal... wtflux?!?! :P) Of course, a see also section at the end has its uses. --Sky (t | c | w) 23:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Zeal seems better able to follow through, though... :)

  • Proposed:
  1. create {{seealso_watch}} (or some usefully named template), which should provide the duties of the various {{seealso}}-like template, but in addition add a (noinclude) category reference, with some name like "See Also Review"
  2. Bot substitute {{seealso_watch}} for each of: {{seealso}}, {{see also}} (={{See also}}! try it!), {{AlsoSee}}, and {{See}}
  3. Eliminate all but the the agreed-upon template. Alternately, instead of redirecting to that template, add "don't use this, use that instead" tags to each of the other templates, to discourage someone recreating the redirects.
  4. Go through the "see also watch" category by page, reconverting links to the agreed template when in-place links are most useful, and converting them to "see also footers" where possible.
  5. When it is evident the see also watch category is languishing, bot-convert them manually in some useful fashion (back to {{AlsoSee}}-whatever, to in-place sections, or however).

This should keep the wiki intact during the transition, enable something akin to retropatrolling, allow for individualized translations, and provide for closure of the project. With "poisoned templates", perhaps even prevent a relapse into the current chaos of templates. A relapse into over-use of the template is virtually guaranteed, but whatyagonnado? As I am bot-less in Azeroth, the wiki is safe from me for much some of this. And I'd like to be sure (more than just one voice) we have consensus on "the alsosee to standardize on" before I spend time on it. And yes, I'm willing to put a bit of time into this, if folks want. --Eirik Ratcatcher 21:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Phase 1 starting... I consolidate templates, un-redirecting them in my wake, to prevent relapse. Let the howling commence... --Eirik Ratcatcher 22:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
T:Seealso != T:See also, fyi. :o And you are not so botless as you may think; wikipedia:WP:AWB can be of some aid (see the other section on this page on AWB). --Sky (t · c · w) 23:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I noted that. See improved commentary on {{Seealso}} and {{AlsoSee}}. And given that, I'm reluctant to start in on a one-size-fits-all solution, unless it were to do a mass "AlsoSee" to "Alsosee" conversion. (Or should it be "Seealso" to "SeeAlso"? No matter. SeeAlso is a currently a (low page count) redirect, so I'm going to be undirecting those first. After that, we can move them in mass if we want. --Eirik Ratcatcher 23:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

As Futurama said, "You've watched it, you can't unwatch it". The {{for}} template directed me to wikipedia. Wikipedia shows, perhaps, origins for some of these templates and redirects. Before I wreck things, perhaps a bit more thought is needed. Please examine The See Also plot and tell me what you think. --Eirik Ratcatcher 00:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

AWB

So i'm trying to get AWB going on User:OseBot so that I can fix some category issues myself. The problem is, I need to configuire it to edit wowwiki instead of wikipedia. Can anyone tell me how? --Ose (c / t) 21:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Options > User and project preferences. switch project to Custom, second box set to wowwiki.com/. You will have to make the lists by hand, it is easiest to do it by copy/pasting into notepad and erasing all the extra junk characters, and then uploading it.   Zurr  TC 21:41, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Find and replace in notepad works very easily when making your own lists. I have a subpage where I use some javascript ripped from Wikipedia to do it, then I save it as a .txt. Mileage may vary. --Sky (t | c | w) 23:12, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Odd voting

I would like to direct your attention to these three questionable pieces of fan art. Drawn by Azazel 1944 and uploaded by Egrem, these have been taken down from their respective pages a few times, and are now nominated for deletion. The votes whether for of against should be repeated on all three pages, as they are a 'set' (In a side note, a fourth one of Lady Blaumeux already was deleted). Most of the votes are, but not all, so I am pointing out all three to try and make things a bit more organized. This in no way reflects my opinion of them.--SWM2448 21:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the deleted revision history for the Lady Blaumeux picture, the vote was at 3 Delete votes to 1 Keep vote at the moment of deletion. This violates the Deletion policy, which requires a 3-vote margin on the winning side, as well as a 5-day closure period since the winning vote. If there's a reason for bypassing the deletion policy in that fashion, it is also probably applicable to the other three images. -- Foxlit 01:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
The content of these images was already given the ok by Kirkburn, and should thus not be deleted on those grounds. The only reason i could see for deleting them is issue of fan art and image policies, which are still unclear and contradictory respectively. I brought it up before in Fandy's topic about images that are too big, but it was unresolved. I can't say delete/keep myself unless i know which stance the wiki plans to take on image policy. Personal preference though is to only keep images that are needed at their max required size for use in articles, off link to the full version. So these would be reuploaded at lesser sizes and off linked to these full sizes. -- Zeal (T/C)  11:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I have no problem with them, and I think they're nowhere near "sexually explicit" anyway (not that we have a 'censorship' rule). We're not here to bow down to prudish sensibilities - though we shouldn't be thrusting in it people's faces. Having the images thumbnailed (or in a gallery section) is all that's really needed. As for the actual use of the images - assuming we're allowed to carry them by the author (and are crediting them) there's no reason for them not to be marked as fanart and used on pages lacking images. Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:30, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Adys did the deletion (17:04, 2 March 2008 Adys (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Image:Blaumeux.jpg") of File:Blaumeux.jpg without checking the policy, so he gets a demerit. Admins need to be careful to follow policy especially on deletion votes. The Lady Blameux image may have been more likely to offend, since there was more of a state of "undress" in that image. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:20 PM PST 7 Mar 2008
WoWWiki is not a porn site guys. User:Adys/Sig 22:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Cue wheel war. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 22:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Instance Names?

Just out of sheer curiosity, is there a reason why some of the instance name pages aren't named the way WoW made them and is instead a redirect? For example, all the instances with "The" as the first word have it eliminated, and instead "The <Instance>" redirects to that (<Instance>) page. Is it a policy not to have "The" as a main page? And also Steam Vaults is two words, but the main page of it is Steamvaults, and "The Steam Vaults" redirects to that one. The Stockades has something odd like that too. Just something odd that caught my eye. -- User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 09:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess I do need the information. =/ As I need to create some pages like The_Steam_Vaults (or variations thereof)_loot... --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 09:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
"Steamvault" is its name in-game, and that's what we'll go with, rather than the usually inconsistent Blizzard encyclopedia. And yes, it's naming policy to eliminate the "The" for place-names. --Sky (t | c | w) 10:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it depends where you look in the game Sky. It also two words in the game, the inconsistancy of naming sretches to the game too. -- Zeal (T/C)  11:35, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Argh. Vargh said it was Steamvault in the ZCP edit history; I think he claimed that was the spelling inside the instance, rather than outside. --Sky (t | c | w) 11:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah I looked at some screenshots (I haven't instanced in forever) and it is one full word in the instance... at least the ones I've seen. I was looking at the Dungeon listing on Worldofwarcraft.com when I asked the question. They need to stay consistant.  ;) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 01:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

For names using "The", we would only use that if the name appeared as The Stockades in written text (not titles), as opposed to the Stockades. Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Badges of Justice by instance

Before I create it, is there an article or section under a particular article which lists the number of badges received with a full clear of BC instances? --Tiwuno 19:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Now exists at Badges of Justice by instance. Was unsure what categories to put it in though. --Tiwuno 20:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Beta site v2 :)

A new version of the 1.12 beta site is up, at http://beta.wowwiki.com ... please check it out and report problems on User:Kirkburn/Problems.

Things to be aware of:

  • Our own skin is coming - the current default is the same style (Monaco Gaming), but ours will be recoloured to WoWWiki's current
  • Any edits will be lost
  • Images are shared from this site, do not upload any on the beta site
  • The sidebar is fully editable (and also personally so), and will be turned into something fantastic ;)

I've also been having fantastic conversations about the social tools with the developers, and hopefully some excellent stuff should be able to come of it. They're extremely interested in this stuff, and are great guys.

We're almost there :) If you've got any questions, please do ask! Kirkburn  talk  contr 21:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks spiffy! Question for you. Why have the common/uncommon items up on the sidebar? I know you said it's editable, but will that be the default? Or are we just showing what you can put up there? Wasn't able to login, so couldn't tell if I could change it. And will the Village Pump have a link on the sidebar? =) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 21:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
That's just the default - the two largest categories. That will change - http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page should give a better impression of it. Kirkburn  talk  contr 21:56, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Preliminary two thumbs up. ;) -- Zeal (T/C)  22:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Cool! Kirkburn  talk  contr 01:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
The yellow hurts my brain, could you tone it down a bit? Maybe push it closer to the orange bits in the logo. User:Tekkub/Sig 02:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Ignore the skin (mostly) for now :) I've updated the sidebar on the beta site btw. Kirkburn  talk  contr 18:27, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

No categories for user pages?

So, I put together a guide as a collections of sub-pages from my user page: Hunter's Guide to Karazhan.

Since it's a general-purpose guide for hunters about Karazhan, I put it in the Guides, Hunters, and Instance:Karazhan categories. I figured that would help newbie raider hunters find it and get use out of it.

Varghedin came along and removed it from the categories with a minor edit, "Don't include categories in user articles."

Really? I never saw that as a policy, style, guideline, or anything. Since it's a general-purpose article, not directly related to me, I thought the categories would be a good idea.

I put it in as a user article instead of a general article for a couple reasons. First, it's massive, with 11 sub-pages, 11 transcluded tables, and a navbox. It took some time and work to get all that to work together, which should not have happened out in a general page. Plus, it has a slightly non-neutral view. It goes with the conventional wisdom, while briefly acknowledging competing points of view. It doesn't go into much detail on those competing points of view, simply because the guide is already so damn long.

So, what should I do about this?

Is it really not OK to put the article in a regular category? If not, what mechanism should I use to help people find the thing?

Should I just move the whole thing out to the main name space and then put it into appropriate categories? I purposely built the thing with relative links, so that would be possible.... I'm a little worried about that, though. While it could benefit from edits from the general public, babysitting 23 links to root out the "low-quality" edits would be a bit of a headache.

-- Kathucka 21:56, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about regular categories tbh. There's nothing wrong with your own user categories that's for sure. There is no policy or guideline for this, so i can't say if Vargedin is right or wrong in this case. I'd imagine the reason would be because of "cross-contamination" from the main namespaces to the userspace, where "quality control" is alot looser and not intended to be a public resource of information for wiki readers. But if that is reason enough remains to be decided upon and put in a guideline/policy before actions are taken to enforce it.
Keep in mind, if you want to move it into main namespace, it'll probably be going through alot of reworking and editing from any and every editor. It's no longer yours. -- Zeal (T/C)  22:08, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't know about categories, but I DO know I've seen "So-and-so's guide to whatever" linked from main namespace pages at the see also section at the bottom. So I think it would probably be okay to link it from the bottom of the Kara page. However, it may be best to see what others have to say about it. --Jiyambi t || c 22:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Fandy gave User:Talgar special permission to put User:Talgar/Paladin Suggestions in the Paladin Category. It depends on who you ask, I think. I do not know of a rule of user categoization besides you can not put fan fiction anywhere else besides the Fan Fiction Category.--SWM2448 22:45, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't use the term "special permission", it's more of a judgement thing. If the article is good, it's okay, but we should encourage as much movement from the user namespace as possible. If someone writes an excellent personal guide, not a problem. Kirkburn  talk  contr 01:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Jimmy McWeaksauce

Was looking for him to screenshot, but he's no longer in the game as far as I can tell. From what I gathered he's a blizzard pawn used to help players out for test realms as well as when things are getting hairy in some instances. So he used to be in Naxx, but no longer there. Eastern Plaguelands too, to port you into Naxx. Gruul's used to have him to sell things as well. And he's currently flagged for a screenshot in Shatt's cat zone because he was porting people into Mount Hyjal for a little while. Are we still going to keep a page on him seeing as how he's a temporary npc? --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 05:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Add your observations to the page! We like being complete, so even if he were truly removed from the game (which, I don't think we've seen the last of him if he's been used in TBC), we'd tag his page with a template: T:Removedfromgame (for future reference). :) --Sky (t | c | w) 06:14, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
And dont' forget about his brothers Johnny McWeaksauce and Jebediah McWeaksauce. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 06:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Wonder if it's a pun on McDonald BigMac's special sauce.... User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 06:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
And "Cookie" McWeaksauce.... --Jiyambi t || c 08:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Forgot about him... wonder if he's related... too old to be a brother, maybe the father. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 20:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

WoWWiki Widget Exist?

Got a new Mac the other day and starting to play around with it when I decided to add more Widgets to it, so I went a-searchin. Amused, I was, to come across widgets for WoW! I quickly dl'd the one that searched thottbot/allakhazam/and wowhead's databases, and noticed that there wasn't any for WoWWiki. I personally love this site (as I hope you've been able to tell), so I thought it'd be awesome if someone made a WoWWiki Widget. I would make it myself, but it'd take a damn lot longer for me to make as I'd have to learn some code in the process. But in case anyone else has the skills, then please beat me to it. heh. Cuz I know it'll be a loooong time before I can get one to work myself.  ;) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 09:12, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Um, it's hiding. Let me go find it for you. --Sky (t | c | w) 22:01, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Woot! Guess I'll wait to learn how to make widgits until I find another need. =) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 08:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Help:Search#Browser_Searches --Sky (t | c | w) 22:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Tooltip JS now editable by all users

I've moved the JS files to a more public location. See [5] for the pages themselves. Edits will still have to be approved by me (I will have to change the revision ID at User:Pcj/tooltip.js before the updated script goes live), but hopefully this will be more in the spirit of the wiki. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 17:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Even though I don't know anything about JS, I want to say thanks Pcj :) I know some people had been complaining about not being able to edit it, so I think this was a really good gesture. --Jiyambi t || c 19:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Just glad I figured something out to allow me and others to edit it but prevent vandalism. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 20:17, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Aye, nice solution. :p -- Zeal (T/C)  21:27, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Muy elegante! --Sky (t | c | w) 22:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I protected these .js articles, so only registered users can edit/move them. The protection choices don't allow restricting moves to only admins for some reason, so in theory registered users could accidentally move them. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 4:52 PM PST 7 Mar 2008
Only admins can move them now. --k_d3 01:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Heh, the checkbox was right there and I didn't notice it. Thanks k_d3. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 5:14 PM PST 10 Mar 2008

Rune of shielding?

When were the Greater and Lesser Runes of Shielding renamed to be Wards of Shielding? I see lots and lots and lots of server pages listing the old name... --Eirik Ratcatcher 00:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

"01:58, 17 October 2007 Fandyllic (Talk | contribs) m (Greater Rune of Shielding moved to Greater Ward of Shielding: not a rune, but a ward; verified with wowhead and allakhazam, thottbot was wrong)" Probably then for both. I guess the pages that linked to it just never got changed with them. =/ --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 08:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

WoWWiki and Wikia Gaming at SXSW!

Kirkburn, your friendly neighbourhood admin here!

I'm at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas (USA) - representing WoWWiki at the Wikia Gaming booth in the screenburn arcade area! Anyone in the area, drop by and say hello - we've got a scavenger hunt-type gaming going on where you have a chance to win $200 Amazon gift card. We're here Saturday and Sunday.

In other news, I spoke on a panel called "Edit Me! How Gamers are Adopting the Wiki Way" - check out the report on http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/08/sxsw08-edit-me-how-gamers-are-adopting-the-wiki-way/ ... I think it went quite well :) Totally not used to seeing my name in lights though! A podcast video of the event should be going up at some point too. Kirkburn  talk  contr 21:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Update - a longer report can be found here! http://www.massively.com/2008/03/08/sxsw08-how-gamers-are-adopting-the-wiki-way/ Kirkburn  talk  contr 23:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Kirkburn looks more fierce than I remember... could be the black background... He's famous! --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:55 PM PST 10 Mar 2008
Which scares me ... Kirkburn  talk  contr 01:36, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The SXSW team has posted a link to the audio podcast of the recent panel (see below) - you can download it here. Kirkburn  talk  contr 01:36, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Laurlybot - Guild armory check

I have recoded User:laurlybot. The guild page armory check is working and seams stable. My questions is how often should this run. I'm considering once a month im not sure we need it to run more then that. Input?

Laurly 21:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, once a month. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 21:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm for once a week, as it enhances Wowwiki:Guild stubs. --Sky (t | c | w) 21:16, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
this is just checking guild armory. Another script can be set up to make sure all new guilds are tagged guild,and stub (if the page lacks required info) that can run weekly if you want. We are just talking how often we want to check if a guild no longer exists in armory. Laurly 21:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I know. :) --Sky (t | c | w) 21:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
How about i test it see exactly how long it takes to run against all the guilds. my guess is around 30 min. Then see how many guild pages actually get dumped each week. Im still slightly worried armory will ban me if i run it every week. maybe run a few a day so that all 1500 are split over the course of a week? Laurly 07:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Armory database lag really makes it so weekly is almost too much. Also, WW:GUILD timeframe for other oversight of guild pages is a month. If anything, I would say twice a month at most. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 14:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I am so totally against deleting those pages at all. It's called server history. You wouldn't also delete disbanded sports clubs and political parties from a wiki about a city/country...  INV Misc PunchCards White Armagon (<imagelink>http://www.wowwiki.com/images/c/cb/GossipGossipIcon.png%7CUser_talk:Armagon</imagelink> <imagelink>http://www.wowwiki.com/images/5/51/BinderGossipIcon.png|Special:Contributions/Armagon</imagelink>)  01:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Guild page policy states: Articles about disbanded or non existant guilds can and will be nominated for speedy deletion. If your guild has disbanded but you want to archive the article, please move it to the main author's User: namespace and remove {{Guild}} and any guild-specific category.
If the author doesnt choose to move it then theres not much we can do. WW:GUILD#Disbanded_guilds Laurly 21:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
well, this sucks. Gonna move it then.  INV Misc PunchCards White Armagon (<imagelink>http://www.wowwiki.com/images/c/cb/GossipGossipIcon.png%7CUser_talk:Armagon</imagelink> <imagelink>http://www.wowwiki.com/images/5/51/BinderGossipIcon.png|Special:Contributions/Armagon</imagelink>)  22:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Hmm maybe an idea would be to put them under the server page it is kinda server history. Might require a change in guild page policy though. But imo it still should be up to the author to move it not the bot. Laurly 23:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

how do u get rid of a profession?

-- Qordis 06:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

how do u get rid of a profession? please help me. i accedently got blacksmithing instead of mining.!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me. i am a level 13 blood elf. what is ur name? my blood elf name is Qordis if u guys wanted to know.

thanks,

Qordis


Well this really isn't the place to ask, and if you had asked online on your server they probably would have answered, so for future reference, ask there. But if you go to your profession tab on your character sheet you'll notice that beside Blacksmithing there's a little red "no" symbol. Looks like a circle with a slash through it. Click on it and it'll let you unlearn that profession. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 07:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
For the future, see WW:WP for these type of questions (coughsubtlehintinnocentcough). --Sky (t | c | w) 22:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


thanks!! i'll try it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Qordis (talk · contr).


Screenshots

Is it possible for when requesting a screenshot, in the tag we put a <example>|<example> <zone> alliance/horde for those that are npcs in the respective cities? When doing screenshots I've noticed that it would have made life a lot easier if I had known that certain ones I'm not going to be able to get to (I'm Alliance). And it might make people more willing to help screenshot if they go to a page and aren't overwhelmed by how many shots are being requested, and instead can just choose to improve the site just a bit by doing one city. -- User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 07:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, if I understand correctly you are wanting another field added to the screenshot template to differentiate screenies that are of Horde or Alliance - friendly NPCs or areas? Do you want this just to be noted on the screenshot request tag, or for it to be another subcategory of the image request zone categories? I am hesitant to further divide those categories, but it could certainly be done. Just give me a bit more info on what you want and I can try to accommodate :) --Jiyambi t || c 08:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I was going to say I didn't want another field, but then I realized, that I guess it needs it, huh? screenshot|zone is all it has right now. Bah. I had in my mind that you can change the way it gets displayed like the cat tags. If it's easier it can be another sub cat, but I really just wanted it displayed. So it would look like Mob - Alliance or something to that effect. Didn't realize it would be that much of a hassle, so unless anyone else cares, then just leave it be. =/ --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 09:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
If you can't get to them, consult Wowhead and borrow their pictures. We do prefer home grown, but otherwise, if you can't get them, that's the place to go looking. =) --Sky (t | c | w) 22:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
It's actually very easy to add, don't worry. I just wasn't sure what you had in mind, but I think I get it now :) I think it is certainly a good idea. When I have some time (which might not be until next week, unfortunately), I will try something and see what you think. --Jiyambi t || c 22:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Awesome, thanks! =) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 00:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


"Feet Items"

Went touring some of the new/renamed categories, and ran across a couple things.

Category:World of Warcraft armor items has two types of subcategory: slots, and class. I was thinking that it would be useful to change sort order such that the classes (leather, plate, mail, cloth) ended up in one alphabetic letter, and the slots (back, chest, et al) in another. Wanted to run up a trial balloon before I changed it, though.

The category name Category:World of Warcraft feet items bugs the heck out of me (as I noted on the cats2fix page)... It's one of those weird English language things. "Feet" is plural. "Items" is plural. I cannot identify the language rule that tells me "foot items" is the correct choice, but there it is. --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Looking at it, I find also "hands", and "legs", but for some reason not "wrists". Gah! --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
"Feet items" always sounded wrong to me too. Another one that bugged me was "Off-hand" because it's just weird by itself. *shrugs* But as for the feet... not sure how it would be renamed to be pleasing to the ear. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 20:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
They were named to their exact item equivalents as seen on their tooltips, while doing away with capitalization. As for double pluralization, I don't believe there is an English rule, and even if there were, we could break it, right? Since English just... sucks at consistency. :) --Sky (t · c · w) 20:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
While I agree with feet staying as feet, I think hands items should remain "hand items" as well as legs items remain "leg items". To stay consistent with the others. Otherwise, wrist items and shoulder items will need to be converted to wrists and shoulders as well, to prevent confusion. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 20:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Coobra: with my added comment I was pointing out that "wrist" was singular, "hands", "feet", "legs" plural. Sky: The important bit from that is that it "sounds off to me". I'm not alone (ie Sassy and lurkers). But thanks for the explanation on "why". I don't know if it rises to the "fixme" level or not. I just thought I'd bring it up for discussion. Sassy: "<part singular> items" is what I find sounds best to me.

All: lest they be lost in the scrim...

  • We have "w.o.w. foot items", and "w.o.w. feet items" categories. We should have only one of those.
  • Is using sort order on "world of warcraft armor items" subcategories to separate "slot" vs "class" of enough value to pursue?

--Eirik Ratcatcher 23:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The sub categorization you suggested sounds fine to me. -Jiyambi t || c 03:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Just for reference, i named them based on their slot names, rather than their more sensible names. Blizzard are inconsistant and it doesn't make much sense in English as you said. Hands, Legs and Feet vs. Wrist and Shoulder. Take your pick how you want to correct Blizzard's errors or not as the case may be. Using the actual slot naming is my prefered choice, but really they're all bad options, lol. -- Zeal (T/C)  03:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I presume "wow leather items" vs "wow leather armor items" was on the same basis? Is it too late to press for the latter? --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I vote for keeping the cats named as the slots are in the actual game. It's the most consistent that way, despite the fact that the names sound a little funny. --Jiyambi t || c 04:01, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
As to why they sound funny Eirik, I think it may be because you're correct. I refer in this case to scientific units: foot pounds, newton meters, etc. --Sky (t · c · w) 04:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Coobra axed the "foot items" category, which when I caught it only had one item in it anyway. So that's out of the way. And the opinions are "2 yes, N abstain" on using l337 Sorting-fu on the subcategories. Easy enough to revert, should someone climb the walls about it. --Eirik Ratcatcher 18:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

More, specific category question

Here's two as much for Zeal and Kirkburn: in the category tree... items -> equipable -> armor -> leather, leather is included also in (equipable) and (items). Please assume the w.o.w. prefix, items suffix. Also assume "leather" also applies to other armor classes...

  • (back items) is included both in armor and equipable but not in items, yet the items within do not appear in any of the armor class categories. (Extend to some other similar categories.)
  • Why is (leather) extended up to (items), but (back) is not? (Is it an oversight?)
  • A similar case can be made for (leather) vs (armor).

This impacts my doing sort-order tricks; I'd thought (armor class items) exclusively sub to (armor items). Doesn't mean the sort-order tricks are out, just that they have to be modified. --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to keep out of this category stuff, but I will try to explain some of the discrepancies you see.
  • Back items (cloaks, etc.) are not classified as a particular armor type. The game does not distinguish between cloth, leather, etc. back items. Classes are only restricted from wearing back items by non-armor type requirements (level, profession, etc.).
  • From what I can tell, all the other armor types under Category:World of Warcraft items appear (Category:World of Warcraft cloth items, Category:World of Warcraft mail items, Category:World of Warcraft plate items) along with Category:World of Warcraft leather items, so I'm not sure what the issue is.
  • Back items fall exclusively under armor, so they probably shouldn't appear directly under items.
--Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:47 AM PST 12 Mar 2008
Not sure i understand what the issue is you're trying to describe.
  1. Back items, as Fandy said, do not have armor types.
  2. I added all the armor types to the item cats for quicker navigation, as it seemed a good candidate for such a shortcut. Equipable slot types (which back is one of) seemed a bit too vast to add there, so left them in the equipable cat, which is only one level down anyway. I did this with alot of cats, not just item ones, where i felt it was sensible and practical to do so. I thought most of them though would come later as and if needed once people got used to the system.
  3. I guess armor (and weapons) could be added to the item cat too. *shrug*
-- Zeal (T/C)  05:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The discrepancy I was describing is: <armor class> categories are propagated up, <slot> categories are not. I chose Back as a particular example because (as you both noted) it is not cross-categorized in an armor class. Which is to say, any given (eg) Hands item is one category down from (items), but any given Back item is two. Zeal goes on to explain that one, with the explanation I thought most likely.

I'm happy to leave the cats the way they are; or to have <armor class> items not in (item); or to have <slot items> added to (item). I just wanted to ask the rationales behind this, and make sure they were solid. And desired, useful, etc. --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Screenshots 2

While flying around and snapping screenshots, I randomly check on mobs that aren't on the list to see if they've got a shot. Some have the model shots as an image. Would you like me to replace them with in-game shots? Also finding ones that Laury tagged for the page to be overwritten. They don't have shots, so I've taken some of them. Please check before requesting screenie. =) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 20:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

In-game shots are preferred, so if you see a model viewer screenshot, feel free to replace it. --k_d3 20:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Model image < In-game screenshot. Few people check, and unused images tend to die.--SWM2448 20:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
It would be good to upload it over the model viewer shot. :) --Sky (t · c · w) 21:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I disagree about overwriting existing images - why bother? It just makes it harder if someone wants to subsequently wants to use both versions. If they're the same picture only altered slightly, then fine - but not entirely different pictures.
Regarding WMV pics, I'd keep them (as well) if they're particularly well made. Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I didn't ask for the removal of the WMV picture from the wiki itself, but I did replace one of them so far with screenshots. The WMV are generic pictures and thus aren't specific to that mob and area. Where they're good for temporary pics to give the user a general idea of what the mob looks like, I did think they should be replaced if possible. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 22:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
KB: Because then, we don't have to delete the extra one ;P. Plus, the WMV one is usually named the same as the mob, which is preferable in our case for screenshots. I personally don't like seeing "Medivh2.jpg" (not much to do in his case, except rename them to have better description), but if we can avoid it, so much the better. We have the old image in the archive of the new one, which is a bonus of uploading over; if we need to, we can resurrect the old one (which we cannot do currently with images). And I personally doubt that anyone will want to use a WMV image. --Sky (t · c · w) 01:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Category Links?

How does one make a link to a Category without having it default to the bottom of the page? I don't want to add anything to the cat page, just want to reference it. -- User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 00:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Use a colon right after the first two [[ -- example Category:Beasts (done by [[:Category:Beasts]] ). User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 01:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Template sorting

So I just went through all the user templates (at least the ones in the category) and while in mid process I got to wonder if I should have done it a different way... See Category:User templates for how it's sorted now. Mid-process I began to think that the server templates and want templates should be together. What do you think? Change the sorting to (for example) "Want" instead of worgen,ogre,ranger,etc. Or just keep it how it is? ... If you're confused of how I explained that, let me know. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 02:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The server templates and want templates could of course, be placed in their own categories. ;) --Sky (t · c · w) 02:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Thats true... infact... I just might do that... at least with the server ones. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 02:58, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Help with Disambiguation

So I've noticed an interesting case of ambiguity for the priest talent Unbreakable Will and the sword [The Unbreakable Will] pages. There is a difference, being the use of the word the in the title for the sword. What would be the best way to address this ambiguity? A disambiguation page or a one liner at the top of each page pointing to eachother?

User:Kochira/Sig 18:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

With only two pages, my first choice would be a one-liner. With three, it's a little less certain. --Eirik Ratcatcher 19:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Given that the two pages have (and should have) two distinct names, I wouldn't insert disambiguation notices into either; leave it as is. -- foxlit 20:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
A full disambiguation page would be more trouble than help, I think. However, I think a one-liner would be a very good idea. I could certainly see people looking for the item and forgetting the "The" was there and getting the priest talent. --Jiyambi t || c 20:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Assuming people know what they're looking for, they might as well type the name in correctly. :) -- foxlit 22:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
A One-liner has been added to Unbreakable Will, as *I* have made that mistake before when looking for the sword... --k_d3 22:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Empty Categories

When/how does a sub-cat in a category disappear when there's nothing in it? A bunch of the image requests cats have zones that no longer need anything in them, but the zone itself still exists. Like... Arathi Highlands, for example. -- User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 23:39, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

An admin would have to manually delete it. The only automatic part of categories is the list of articles tagged to appear in them. The categories themselves are statically created and deleted. --k_d3 23:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
If I made a list of all the ones that are empty, would someone delete them? Or are they going to stay as is incase someone else wants to add requests to the zone? --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 00:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Please don't delete them. If you do, when someone adds an image request for that zone, it will never be found - it will be added to a category that doesn't exist and will not be found as a subcategory of the main image request page. I admit that having empty subcategories is not ideal, but I don't really know of another way to keep the image requests organized by zone, which I feel is useful. --Jiyambi t || c 01:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Understood. It's just inconvenient to click on a zone and finding it empty. I don't know enough to code anything here, but is it even possible to take the # of articles in that cat and have it displayed on it's description. Like if Darkshore has 5 images requests can it's link say Darkshore Image Requests (5). Or something like that? --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 02:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I am actually still fairly new to wiki-code too. I haven't seen anything like that yet, but boy would that be useful! Can anyone give us a better response to this? --Jiyambi t || c 03:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
There's nothing like that that I know of that has been developed for wiki, as that would certainly require an extension. --Sky (t · c · w) 03:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)

Darn! Well, in that case, does anyone know of some other clever solution to the problem here? We basically want to be able to use the {{screenshot}} template to subcategorize screenshot requests by zone under the main category Category:Image requests. But we don't want there to be empty categories for those zones that don't currently have screenshots. At the same time, we don't want to delete those categories because if a screenshot is added to one, it won't be able to be found. Any ideas? --Jiyambi t || c 05:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll write some JS which will show if there are any entries in the sub-category. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 17:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Pcj, you rock my socks :) --Jiyambi t || c 17:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, should be done...you'll need to purge your cache and reload the image requests pages...but now it should have a tooltip which'll tell you what you want. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks :) I think that should solve the problem. --Jiyambi t || c 19:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Do not delete empty server guilds categories too. I tried marking a few of them and it was undone.--SWM2448 21:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Pre-TBC Raid Tactics update?

Hi, I'm a guild master on aerie peak realm of a horde guild that has just now ventured into raiding. From what little we've done so far it is clearly obvious that given the expanded content and level cap available in the Burning Crusade expansion, that certain precautions and preparations needed in certain endgame 60 raids, are either completely void, or are often altered due to the raised level cap. My guild, lacking any true hardcore raid experience, managed to zerg the entirety of UBRS (no tank) with 6 people, only 2 of which were actually level 70 (kind of a test run, we farm it nightly). Usually before I plan a raid I research bosses and the dungeon tactics to best adapt to them, only to too often discover that I have over-prepared or simply that certain rules do not apply for my raid group. I was curious if perhaps there could be given an update to pre-TBC raid encounters to show the level of players needed at whatever current level cap is (such as..... Molten Core is a 40 man raid for level 60, but can be done with an average geared group of 15 level 70s). I think while the tactics provided are worth preserving as they are most accurate given the pre-expansion era of a level 60 cap, but the actual occurence of a 40 man of level 60s doing these dungeons is something that won't exist on normal servers, these raids will be limited (barring the hopeful possibility of heroic mode for pre-TBC dungeons) to PuGs and Guild "Fun" events. So I am proposing that the raid tactics pages on pre-TBC bosses be updated to better reflect the diverse groupings you will encounter, it's not all just "A boss for 40 level 60s to fight". The release of TBC has antiquated the relevance of these tactics to normal servers as they currently stand. I think at very least there ought to be given some note to the tactics that they were written and intended for raid groups prior to the release of the expansion?


-- Vicera 10:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea. But, we need someone with experience raiding these instances at level 70 - which it sounds like you have, at least for some of them. If you and others who have this experience want to write some strategies pertaining to this subject, I think they really should replace the ones currently on those raid pages (with the ones there being moved to subpages). Because you are absolutely right in saying that those strategies are antiquated - they really are no longer applicable. I would be perfectly willing to help with the organization of the articles after this change, but unfortunately I don't have the experience to contribute any strategy for this subject. --Jiyambi t || c 17:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
With WotLK coming out soon, this problem will only accelerate. We should be prepared for more than just "pre BC" and "post BC". You may be just the sort of author to design that format, Vicera. How big do you think the writeups will be, for "over-amp'd raids"? Big enough for their own pages? Small enough to be a section? --Eirik Ratcatcher 20:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that the original strategies should be entirely removed, though, if for no other reason than history... --Azaram 03:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd say keep the pages as they are and create subpages for info based on lvl 70, 80, etc. --User:Mucke/sig 04:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Quest list page format

Anyone interested in helping to decide a boilerplate format for quest list pages should check out the vote going on on the quest list project's talk page right now. There are some example pages up and input is needed. Keep in mind that the example pages are the product of a lot of previous discussion, so you may want to check out earlier content on the talk page before voting. Thanks all! --Jiyambi t || c 22:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Portals!

So, I've been working on some portals to replace the current Main Page (without affecting what is presented to a visitor too much). I have made four portals, which you can navigate between via tabs. (You may need to reload your CSS to see them properly).

  • Portal:World of Warcraft (based off the current Main Page)
  • Portal:Interface customization (based off WoWWiki:Interface customization)
  • Portal:Warcraft universe (the really new and awesome bit)
  • Portal:Community (based off WoWWiki:Community portal)

More are possible, depends on what people may request :)

Portal:World of Warcraft would become the site homepage (set via MediaWiki:Mainpage) and Main Page would redirect there. The only difference to a new visitor is a different page name (and a better one for search engines), the tabs and the lack of interface customization links in the main list (as the new portal is prominent). Oh, and the "Portal" namespace is, unsurprisingly, new - created earlier today.

The benefits? Consistent design across the portals, the addition of a portal dedicated to non-WoW info and a lot of expandability. Only the WoW portal is completely locked, since it's the most public one. This is by no means a final design - I still need to work on the talk pages, and cleaning up the code some more. Plus, of course, I'd love feedback on the design and the links present. I know the Community page is very red, for instance, and could probably be improved.

Depending on how long it is until the final parts of the upgrade (next week, all going well, and yes, I know you've heard that before), this could go live with the new skin. That may be preferable as it should allow for a more organised sidebar including portal links - see http://beta.wowwiki.com/Main_Page for a rough example.

That concludes this presentation. Any questions? Kirkburn  talk  contr 03:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks great to me, Kirkburn :) One request - can the WoWWiki:Quest list project be added to the community portal page with the other projects there? I would add it myself but I'm not sure how (or if I am allowed) to edit the page. --Jiyambi t || c 06:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
By all means add it! :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 09:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Good job. It looks great, but I have some thoughts on it. To me, the Featured Critter on all four pages detracts attention from the Featured Article (Cute attracts clickings, do we need a chibi-Lothar to fix this?). Also, the WoW portal and Universe portal (Assumed to be for lore-centered projects) look a lot alike. There were requests, I think, for a Warcraft III focused wiki, so should that be separate from the universe portal? Anyway, this certainly organizes topics.--SWM2448 19:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
The FC thing would be a difficult one to fix - I'm wanting to have a consistent header across each portal. I will have a think about how to deal with making the FA more prominent. If I have free time I could possibly redo the FA topics with WoW and Warcraft versions. Separating WC3 further is quite possible, but getting this done is just the first step :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 06:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Namespaces!

It's that time again :P Very soon we'll be in a place where I can freely pester about namespace tweaks, so I need a plan to present to our wonderful techies (who do so much more than many realise!).

From asking earlier on IRC, there were a few things that came up as wanted/needed. "Portal" was obviously just created (see above), so here are the others I know of:

  • "Spell:" - for the database style spell ID articles. Pseudonamespace "Spell:XXX" pages already exist, techs can deal with.
  • "Quest:" - for the quest articles. Pseudonamespace "Quest:XXX" pages already exist, techs can deal with.
  • "API:" - for the UI API articles. Only pages called "API_XXX" already exist, so this would probably mean users doing the moving.

I know of one othe tentative namespace which I'm not sure what support there was for.

  • "Fanfic:" - tentative fan fiction namespace

I think it would be cool and allow another part of our community to flourish. Apart from community fanfic, it could allow users to have fanfic outside their user namespace and keep ownership of them (if wanted) via templates. There are several fan fiction supporting wikis out there we can take tips from.

Any others, or opinions on those above? Kirkburn  talk  contr 04:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Taking them outside the user namespace, will there be other guidelines aside from those listed so far? Like how mature the content can be to be listed on that space? --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 04:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh sure, yeah, we'd probably have to tweak the policies a bit. Kirkburn  talk  contr 04:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
A Fanfic Namespace reopens a huge can of worms. So much that, if you used a buzz saw to bait your hook and wasted several, you would still have plenty. Do you really think it could work? Not just the policies, but the whole idea...--SWM2448 20:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Why did we create new namespaces for 3 pages worth? /lesigh. Anyway, I would suggest bringing this conversation to WoWWiki:Namespaces, as well as an addition to the site message bar. --Sky (t · c · w) 21:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Sky, because it would be silly to have them all under WoWWiki: with portal at the end of their name. They're not the same type of page as a WoWWiki: page, which are generally informational about the wiki. Kirkburn  talk  contr 02:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Probably a "Data" namespace, to avoid the problem caused by Laurlybot subpages (article count doesn't check outside main namespace) and possibly usable for Adys's OpenWDB project. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 22:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Night elf can't wisp underwater to body

stuck in pool in blackfathom deeps cant go underwater to get to body tried pitching all the way down no luck -- Drutgib 16:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you try holding down your left and right mouse buttons at once, then facing down the waters?--g0urra[T҂C] 16:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Future reference, questions dealing with the game itself go in the Warcraft Pump page. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 20:12, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Also you'd probably find an answer quicker by asking the general chan in game or by petitioning a game master and telling them you're stuck. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 20:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Question on Laury Requests

The Laurybot tags a lot of pages with "Please fix potential issues and remove this notice." What did it decide was a fix that was needed - only race? Most have "Unknown" as their race, was that the only thing it wanted fixed before removing the request? Or was there something else she was looking for as well? Just looking to see how much needs to be added before that request can be removed. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 20:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Laurlybot tags all of it's automatically generated pages with that stub. There are a lot of errors inherent in automatically generating content that need to be checked, including the problem you mentioned - not having a race. Sometimes the pages are perfectly fine, but they all do need to be checked. --Jiyambi t || c 22:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Great! So if I'm working on a page, say for screenshots. And I fill in the race, related categories to that race, and anything else that's blank that can be filled in, then I can delete the request? Leaving perhaps a stub instead if it needs/can be fleshed out more. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 23:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Sounds correct to me :) --Jiyambi t || c 02:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
If you would just read the tag, you'd find the link to a list of issues that it wants you to fix. :) -- foxlit 11:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Really never occurred to me to click on that ~link. *rotf* Thanks for pointing that out.  ;) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig
The issues are mainly with race,sex and a picture. I haven t been able to find a place to rip this info accurately. Well that and the fact that riping the picture along with all the data would be over kill i think. Humans need to have something to do. Laurly 20:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I some cases you might want to replace the Laurlybot stub with {{Stub/NPC}}, if it did not fill in such things as quests related to, recipes/skills trained by, or stuff sold by the NPC (the only thing the bot doesn't do, I believe is fill in recipes/skills trained; i.e. Borgus Steelhand). --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:51 PM PST 17 Mar 2008

Graphics are not good

Moved to Warcraft pump

WW Problems?

Is the wiki having some issues today? Just had a MAJOR problem getting to pages on the wiki. Took about 2 min for the pages to load. Every other site I went to was fine. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 22:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC) -- User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 22:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

No PvP server or PvE server nor contrasting pages.

I recently rerolled on a PvP server (level 27 now!) from my old PvE server. While I debated starting on a PvP server, I looked around here to find a page comparing and contrasting the two types of servers and there don't seem to be any pages like that - nor are there any pages dedicated to simply "PvP Server" or "PvE Server". This is listed somewhat under "PvP flag, but some people won't think to look there because they are looking for "server" rather than "flag".

It's minor, but on a PvE server then names when you move from place to place are in white unless you enter an opposite-faction capital, only then is it red. On a PvP server I noticed that "safe" zones are white lettering, contested zones are orange, and opposite faction safe zones are red.

There's other small things, too. On a PvP server you find a lot fewer people standing AFK on roads (very common on PvE), and then there's the little tricks people use to coax your PvP flag to active on a PvE server - like challenging to a duel with your Flag up, then ganking the other person after the duel when their flag is on and their health is low.

-- Pittsburghmuggle 23:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

PvE and PvP. What exactly are you looking for? Differences between the two? User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 23:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Aha! I'd been searching for PvE Server and PvP Server which just brought up lists of the servers. But yes, I was mostly looking for a page comparing and contrasting the two. These do better than what I was searching for. Thanks!--Pittsburghmuggle 00:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I redirected PvE Server to PvE realm and PvP Server to PvP realm. I filled in the target articles and added links to Pros and Cons sections of PvE and PvP for some comparison. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 8:39 AM PST 18 Mar 2008

Help with User page

Are there any guides on making your talk page, adding images and all off that,I know how to do most stuff about editing pages and adding stuff but I have absolutely no idea how to start making my talk page, so if anyone has some time to explain some basics about making it, or point me out to some guides, I'd appreciate it. Bajo 20:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Your talk page is simply for others to communicate with you. However, your user page is where the action is. As for guides to making it, I've never seen one myself, I just visited other user pages for ideas. Free feel to use mine as an example if you like. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 20:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Ahem.Smiley --SWM2448 20:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Or see the crazy man's page above me. =) User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 21:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Yar, what I did when i wanted to make mine was to scroll through this page and find the people that were most talkative on it. Probably meant they've been doing the stuff awhile, and then went to their pages to see what they had and how they got it. I found the Category:User templates to be a lot of fun. =) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 00:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Try browsing the user category for ideas. --DuTempete talk|contr 00:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm one of those unimaginative sorts; instead of using my User page as an "about me", I'm mostly using it to keep track of what I'm working on, and what I want to do eventually. --Eirik Ratcatcher 01:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Extra "type"?

Was wondering what the extra "type=" was for in the mobbox. I was going through the help the "bot editing requests" category, and noticed the lots had that extra. Brain Eater is an example. Decided to stop editing and deleting them since they might actually serve a purpose. I typed nonsense into the extra one, tho, and didn't see that it did anything. If it's a bot going through to generate these, or someone's copy/paste template, can that extra type be deleted? --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 04:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The extra type is pointless. You can safely delete them. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 04:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, for the mobbox the first Type= is for elite, and the second type= is for Humanoid, beast, etc... It's been preferred that if you see a mobbox to turn it into npcbox and turn the 2nd type= into creature=. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 05:28, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Coobra, please check the actual template before spouting off the wrong answers. There is only one type variable in {{mobbox}}. But yes, {{npcbox}} is preferred, since mobbox is really just a hook. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 05:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, right mobbox uses elite= for elite... Well thats all you had to say Pcj, didn't have to be an arse about it. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 05:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, I did already say that, before you attempted to correct me. :P --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 05:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok then, how about this:

Actually, for the mobbox the first Type= is for elite, so if the mob is elite change Type= to Elite=, and the second type= is for Humanoid, beast, etc... It's been preferred that if you see a mobbox to turn it into npcbox and turn the 2nd type= into creature=, but keep the first type= as type=. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 05:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
...there is only ONE type variable for {{mobbox}}. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 05:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Thats what I just said. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 05:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, misread. :P Getting a bit snappy, should probably go sleep now. Sorry, carry on. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 06:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In the start i only had laurlybot set up to use {{npcbox}} about half way though generating a bunch (1000 or so) i found {{mobbox}} so i added code for it to figure out if it was an npc or a mob. Unfortunately i didn't check it every well i assumed .... that the two had the same variables passed. Well they dont. That is where your double type and other messed up areas you have found come from. IMO both should have the same fields so that they can be interchanged. I was thinking about reworking both templates to work the same and then have the bot go and clean them all up. Laurly 07:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
To change {{mobbox}}, you'd have to change all the articles which use it. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 14:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Maybe we could have a bot to mark articles with bad mobbox usage with a special stub? --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 8:36 AM PST 18 Mar 2008

Help with leatherworking recipes page?

First of all, I'm a newbie at this, so apologies for both my naivete and if I've posted in the wrong place :)

Is there a better place to ask if you're having trouble setting up a page? Assuming not, I'll describe my problem...

I have been working on revamping Leatherworking_patterns, which currently only lists less than half the recipes. I've compiled a table of all of them, added vendors and drop sources and requirements and other useful stuff...

The test page is in User:W.woods/Sandbox1. I know the formatting still needs some prettying up, and before I'm done I'll probably move the various tables out to separate pages and transclude them back in. But that's not the current problem...

It seems my extra info gives the server a heart attack. A short way into the Master Leatherworking table, it stops rendering all templates, and instead displays the wording "Template:Loot", "Template:NPC", etc. It still renders the rest of the page, and processes internal links correctly... just without templates formatted. If I delete some of the earlier stuff, more of the later page then renders, suggesting it's just too many templates for the server to handle. I didn't think I'd added that much more than some of the other recipe pages, such as Alchemy_recipes, but maybe I have.

I'd really like it to have the full list of recipes on the one page, much like all the other professions. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can improve efficiency and get it to work without removing useful data? Or am I going to have to split it up into separate pages? I've tried moving out tables to separate files and transcluding them back in, but (as expected) that doesn't help. Using the item template instead of loot only makes the problem much worse.

Thanks for your help :)

-- W.woods 12:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

User:W.woods/Sandbox1, I'll have my offering of troll souls now. :) -- foxlit 13:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Er, it's now working properly. I don't know if you or someone else did something, but I'm otherwise at a loss to explain it! Still, feedback would be still very much appreciated, thanks :) -- W.woods 15:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
User:W.woods/Sandbox1 looks more than good enough to replace Leatherworking patterns. Thanks for all the hard work! Contributions like yours are what make WoWWiki so much better. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 8:31 AM PST 18 Mar 2008
Looks much better than what is currently up. However, I do have a few suggestions:
  • Move the table of contents to the top (if you don't know how, just put _TOC_ wherever you want the table of contents to be)
  • Separate the apprentice/journeyman/expert/artisan recipes into separate sections, rather than just separate parts of the table, so that they can be navigated to by the table of contents
Regardless, great work on this :) --Jiyambi t || c 19:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
That's an awesome table. I do agree with Jiyambi about putting the TOC up there with access to the Apprentice/Journeyman, etc. Because that is an incredibly long table. I like that it also shows us how many patterns/mobs aren't in the Wiki. More work to do! =D --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 22:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks for all your kind words and advice :) I've now swapped it in to Leatherworking_patterns. There are some minor things I think could be formatted better, though I'm not sure how. I've put them on Talk:Leatherworking_patterns, anyway. -- W.woods 15:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


Class related pages are terrible......

When I first started browsing WoWWiki, most of the time I used it as a resource for information about raid bosses. The description of the fights and strategies/tips suggested are usually very useful and well written. Then I began editing some of those pages from time to time, but not much editing was needed for those pages overall.

One day I surfed other WoWWiki pages aimlessly, and arrived at some paladin pages. It became another story. Many of them were terribly written, out-of-date, or full of wrong information. E.g. it was repeatedly mentioned that protection pallies need strength and mp5; a "smart" guy who obviously hadn't played a tankadin to 70 made up several rubbish prot tanking sets such as a "spell damage" set with a [Bracing Earthstorm Diamond] in it; sample retadin specs that don't even have Spell holy mindvision [Sanctity Aura], etc.

Similarly, hunter pages have the same problem, though not as severe as that of paladin's. I haven't checked the rest but I don't think they will look much better.

As a prot paladin and BM hunter in game myself, I tried my best to help and spent the good part of last few weeks editing many of those pages. More than 20 pages up to now. Nevertheless, at least 5 of those are incomplete and certainly there are more pages out there.

What I want to say is:

  1. Can we all pay a bit more attention to those class related pages? I guess the raid bosses pages are the most popular, though I don't know how can I confirm that. Yet I believe people also read those class related pages. (Well, if anyone can tell me that no one actually read those pages, it is good that I don't need to edit them from now on. =/ ) Maybe it is a bit late as WotLK is coming, but can be at least clean up those things that will still be useful in WotLK and remove things that are simply wrong?
  2. Of all those pages, paladin talent builds page is especially horrific. Reading the old discussion there, the page had long been heavily bombarded by redundant/wrong/useless builds with randomly made-up build names and highly subjective/personal descriptions. I'm no expert at holy/ret builds, so I only helped edit the prot builds section. Nevetheless, random people still keep adding random redundant/wrong/useless builds, even signed it on the article. Can't we have any ways to prevent this from happening over and over again????

WakemanCK 04:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


LOL, just as I was typing, another guy added another terrible build and comment:

Option 4: A build that focuses on what are most likely the important thing for a paladin tank, defensive talents, mana conservation, and reactive agro production. Almost no agro will come from melee, seals, and judgements as a pally, except maybe Judgement of Crusader raising holy damage, so I skipped reckoning, conviction, precision, and 1h spec. Improved SotC and Imp Blessing of might are for helping the group's dps in hopes that you don't go down on mana. Benediction is for if you're in a tight spot and need a seal up, but more than helping group DPS and saving mana, those talents are place holders so you can get Deflection and Improved Retribution Aura. REMEMBER, RET AURA HELPS A GREAT DEAL MORE THAN DEVO AURA WHEN TANKING, KEEPING AGRO AND MAYBE DYING IS A LOT BETTER THAN DROPPING AGRO AND DEFINITELY DYING. Tank, option 4 (0/44/17)

  • He thought Seal & Judgement of Righteousness do not help with aggro?
  • While he emphasized he wanted this build to be good at building aggro, he skipped 1-hand spec and precision. Ok, skipping precision is "acceptable" if you have very good reason, but he definitely hadn't read the description of 1-hand spec carefully.
  • Imp Blessing of might for the benefit of the group??? Sounded like he had too much points to spend and didn't know where to put them. This is the first time I find someone think his tankadin build has more than enough talent points since 2.3!!! (BTW, if you don't know, a 5/5 Imp Blessing of Might gives the target a wonderful addition of 44 AP more than regular BoM.)
  • I have no idea what he want to do with Imp Hammer of Justice in raid. He hadn't even read my comment about this talent at the "common pitfalls" I typed at the end of that subsection a few days ago.
  • He can't even spell "aggro".

I don't know if this is a good idea but I might leave a line to him later today. I'll try to be as polite as possible. Hopefully he will understand. WakemanCK 05:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I read the other pages, and help fix them when I can. I dunno anything about paladins, so I can't really help there... the big problem with the build thing is that it's all incredibly subjective. I have my build for my druid which is not the 'standard' feral one, because it makes me, in my opinion, more flexible. (One quick example: natural shapeshifter gives me the ability to shift, cast a few heals, and shift back without being OOM). On the main character pages, there should be at most one dead-basic example build of each kind (the cookie-cutter if there is one), and a link to the pages where people can put their random tinfoil hat ones... --Azaram 05:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Azaram hit the nail on the head there, and I think his suggestion is a good one. As far as generating interest in improving those pages, you could try making a project (maybe start out as a personal project until you get some interest in it). --Jiyambi t || c 05:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
And he's right in saying a lot of the builds are subjective. You might think one way to play a spec is correct, and others will have a completely different opinion. I like Jiy's idea of making it a project, because you'll get more input that way while members of that class explains why they did something one way, and it can be argued/discussed on that page. Instead of undoing each other's revisions. You'll probably garner some attention since builds are somewhat fun to mess with. =) -User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 05:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. I agree that builds can be subjective. This is good. In the old time, you could look at 100 rogues and found that 90 of them were using builds copied from the few standard "cookie-cutter" builds. Now is different. Blizz tried to make every talents somewhat useful at least in certain situations. So we see a lot more slight variations between different people builds. Just like what I mentioned in Paladin builds#Tanking Builds. But for a specific task, such as tanking, there are some talents that are essential, some that are optional but useful, some that are less useful, and some that are completely useless. I think I had already pointed that out there. The 3 samples builds I put down there are by no mean always the best builds or the only builds. I don't mind if someone post another build that is well-constructed, and not redundant, not similar to the one already there. However, if everyone changed one or two talents and post it there, there can easily have 10 or even 20+ protection builds there, each have only some small variation from several others. Even worse, some builds are simply terrible by containing talents that you can never find good use for them when tanking, like the one I quoted. Show this builds to any experienced tankadins and they can easily spot what's going wrong. I can understand if you guys not playing tankadin don't know why the one I quoted is very bad. But this is the problem. People reading the page won't know either. Some may even copy and use it, because they believe in WoWWiki!
Sorry for the lengthy paragrah again. Just to clarify my points. Azaram's suggestion is actually good. If there is no better option find, I'll try to do it later. Though it is more a "workaround" rather than solving the problem. I had thought of starting a project actually but I had already felt exhausted after all the editing in the past few weeks. Besides, it is not only the paladin pages I'm talking about, but I believe all class related pages, and not only talents but also things like gear, game play, etc, need more attention in general. Right now only warlock have an active project. I'll need 24hrs 7days non-stop if I need to work on projects for the rest. So I hope someone else can pick up the job. WakemanCK 09:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
What you might do is a skeleton tree of the talents that seem to be generally agreed as necessary for X role (like thick hide for a druid bear tank. This is going to be subjective again, but one should probably be able to figure out at least the core abilities, then say 'this 0/25/0 build is the basic druid PVE tank tree, leaving 35 points for customization. See druid builds for more' (Note; numbers pulled out of butt. And I used druid as I am one). I am not heavy into theory, and I do tend to have different ideas of how things go than many/most people, so I may not be the best to totally rewrite pages, but I will help where I can. --Azaram 12:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry but there really is little variance allowed in end game builds. What could be done is to label raid builds versus fun/farm builds. Simply put, good raiding guilds aren't going allow YOUR build in, you either fit the requirement or take a hike. User:Sharlin/Sig 15:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Sharlin, your opinion is waaaay out there. Sure there are some guilds that have that opinion, but it isn't the truth. I know this is off-topic, but I can't stand this narrow-minded, negative attitude, and will tell off anyone that displays it. --DuTempete talk|contr 00:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
LOL, your just clueless then. Raid guilds don't care if you think they are narrow minded. They don't care if you want to tell them off, your not playing with them and they are going to most likely be doing content you won't. Your personal feelings don't count. Get used to it. Its a game. There are rules. The people who raid at the top are the mini-maxers of WOW. I certainly don't subscribe to their play style but I know their rules, understand their rules, and could play by them if I wanted to.
Face it, you cannot adhere to spec requirements why would they trust/expect you to adhere to any other requirements? The fact is they don't have to. There are many other people out there much more willing to play how its needed to be done to experience the game more fully. Its like signing up for the military and balking at the hair cut and uniform... I mean, get flipping real. If your not going to participate at their level then shut the hell up. Your opinion is meaningless to them and me as well User:Sharlin/Sig 10:30, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
One of the reasons I have no intention of being in a 'good' raiding guild again. I already have a job, I don't want to pay for another one. If a build doesn't fit my playstyle, it isn't fun; if a game isn't fun, why play it? I know arms and fury warriors who successfully tank things. There isn't One True Way to do anything. --Azaram 02:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, your understand fully. The game is a blast regardless how you choose to play... and many of us don't need a game to turn into a job.... we are just mature enough to not declare raiders negative minded simply because that person isn't willing to compromise his play standards to adhere to the requirements - IOW selfish to an extreme User:Sharlin/Sig 10:30, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Sharlin, mind your attitude. DuTempete was disagreeing with your view that all raid guilds tell you exactly what build to have. Maybe the top few do, but this wiki is not here to serve the elite raiders, it's for everyone. Kirkburn  talk  contr 12:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Fine, lets put it more direct. GOOD RAIDING GUILDS. Not the namby pamby "oh we raid KARA". Anyone can raid Kara. If your beyond that then non-standard builds are not going to be allowed. I know the wiki isn't here to serve elite raiders, doesn't mean he can spout off in ignorance either. They are narrow minded yes, but that is because their focus is strong. To call that a negative attitude when they don't permit non-standard builds is pure ignorance, if not arrogance. Sorry, its their group, they make the rules, and those doing the 25 man end game content can't afford to compromise because someone has a hissy that their build/class isn't needed or desired. User:Sharlin/Sig 12:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Enough of this, let's stay on topic shall we? Kirkburn  talk  contr 12:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Sharlin, I'll continue this on your talk page. --DuTempete talk|contr 16:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I understand that you feel that a lot of the class pages are substandard. But you seem to know a lot about your class, and were at least willing to help improve those pages. The same could have probably been said for those doing the warlock project. So yes, you might not be able to do all of them, but that's the spirit of the Wiki, right? It's always under some kind of construction. So play your part and fix that which you know, and get others involved if you think it's too overwhelming, or want additional input. If it seems to be a success, then perhaps others will follow suit with their classes. Like someone once told me when I started helping: "If you feel things are not how they should be, step up and improve it. There's over 53,000 articles... everything can't be changed in a day." ;) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 23:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
WakemanCK, I completely agree with you about this stuff. But, I'll reiterate that some things are subjective, and although you may not agree with them, you should try to be as open to others' opinions as possible.
As I've created the Warlock project, I think each class should have similar projects, and I'm actually brainstorming on a cluster of projects, including class projects. You'll hear more from me on that when I have the concept more solid. Until then, I think you should take the initiative and create the Paladin and Hunter projects, if you have a passion for those classes. --DuTempete talk|contr 00:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Instead of having people spin off projects for each individual class I think ya'll need a project to set the standards for each page within each class. Each class page; talents, abilities, builds, and such; needs to be in a consistent format. Until then your just going to end up with the mess it is now User:Sharlin/Sig 10:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Sharlin, this is exactly what the class projects are for. If you'll look at the warlock project, you'll see that we've concentrated a great deal of effort into consistent formatting. There was a lot of effort outside my project to improve consistency as well, as that is when most of those boilerplates were created.
As far as consistency between classes, I'm not sure that's necessary, and I'd like that to be something the group working on the specific class project decides. Obviously, the formatting will be almost identical, but I don't think there's any reason there shouldn't be room for a little variation, if that's what the group thinks is necessary. Who knows, they just might figure an idea that's better than the one already existing in another class's pages. --DuTempete talk|contr 17:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Having a project to set general standards would be very ineffective unless there was someone to consistently enforce those standards. That's not the job of the admins and I doubt anyone else would want to do it. Class projects help to focus enforcements of standards among those who are interested and knowledgeable about those particular classes. Also, having too much focus on high-end raiding is a mistake, in my opinion. Class info pages should just give summaries of types of gameplay (solo, small group, rep grinding, raiding, etc.) and some good ways to reach certain objectives in only a general sense. Class subpages and specific pages for particular goals should just be linked to class pages and put in the appropriate categories. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:27 AM PST 20 Mar 2008


So in other words, what is being attempted with Warlocks is pointless? Who is going to protect the work being done there? Oh, the person who did it. So if he gets tied up or stops doing it all those who have special roles here are off the hook. In other words, do what you want because no one is really going to stop you unless its straight up vandalism User:Sharlin/Sig 13:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually I found a set of talent builds I like. The Shaman talent builds are very clean. While some of the writing is suspect the general layout if very well done. User:Sharlin/Sig 11:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

What would you like to see in a WoW Timeline?

I'm working on an interactive Timeline as a personal project, spanning from WoW's initial release to now, and wanted to know what sort of things you all think would be interesting to see on there. Currently I've got the patch release dates, arena season durations, and additions of new content (Dungeons, BG's, ect). This is more focused on actual events, not lore, but I might do a Lore one later if there's interest.

So what other sorts of in-game and out-of-game events would be a good addition?

-- Syzgyn 06:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Cool! You got the ones I would have thought of initially. For lesser ones... what about the different seasonal events (because some repeated, and some didn't - ie scourge invasion), blizzcon, is it too much to see when different servers went live?, expansion releases (yeah i know there'll only be 2). K, ran out of ideas.  ;) --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 08:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Blizz made this official one, but it is outdated. You could gain some ideas from it.--SWM2448 20:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

New tooltips configuration options

You can now also configure tooltip display in Special:Preferences, as well as the old Special:Mypage/wowwiki.js method. This should make it more accessible for most of you. Let me know if you encounter any bugs. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 17:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Neato. You know what else would be a cool? An option to make item links link to your DB site of choice instead of the wiki. I find that I never read item pages, I only open them to get to the wowhead link. User:Tekkub/Sig 19:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Hmm...that would take some thought. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
This is now implemented for items. Say you use Wowhead. Put http://www.wowhead.com/?search= in the external database field. Let me know if you find any problems. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 20:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
/wuv. You should put examples for the "big three" on that prefs page so people can quick copy/paste in the one they want. User:Tekkub/Sig 08:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
For some reason I'm not finding the option anywhere in the preferences... --Azaram 04:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Try purging your cache and refreshing. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 04:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Reforming Paladin talent builds page

As concluded from the previous discussion, I'll move most of the current content in Paladin builds page to another new page. The new paladin talent builds page will be as clean and simple as possible, containing only incomplete sample builds consisted of some core talents only. I'll add some instructions at the top of the page but my English is not very good, so please help to see if it is ok:

Instructions to WoWWiki editors: In order to keep this page precise and concise, please do not add subsections or complete builds here. For those who are interested in contributing their own builds, please add them to Paladin talents discussion. Any complete builds found on this page will be moved to Paladin talents discussion.

Does it sound ok?

On the discussion page, I'll add instuctions at the top like this:

This page contains builds submitted by individual WoWWiki editors. Their accuracy is not guaranteed, so read them with cautions. For those who want to contribute their own builds here, please add a new subsection under the corresponding section. Please also feel free to add comments to others' builds.

Is this ok? I'm not very used to writing authority style thing, so plz help rewriting it if needed. :P

p.s. I checked out the user page of the one who added that terrible prot paladin build. Maybe I need to forgive the terrible quality of the build, because that guy spent only a few minutes to make it up. As well as the other builds he "contributed". Good lord!

WakemanCK 03:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

WakemanCK, your English is very good! As far as translation goes, you were almost perfect, the only thing being that "caution" is never plural. What is your native language, and how long have you been speaking English?
As far as the content goes, I think for Paladin builds you can just leave that it at "...please do not add complete builds...;" subsections are just a matter of formatting and if it suits the page, we shouldn't restrict anyone for changing up the formatting a bit. Otherwise, I think your point there is a good one.
The only other comment I have about your ideas is that your new page may be better titled Sample paladin builds or done as a subpage of the builds page like so: Paladin builds/Samples or Paladin builds/Sample healing builds, Paladin builds/Sample dps builds, and Paladin builds/Sample tank builds.
I also think you may want to take into consideration that the person you're so openly insulting, here on the pump, is just as able to read your comments as the rest of us. In fact, he or she most likely is. I know we all lose our tempers, and I'll be the first to admit that my Italian/Cuban temper is frighteningly close to the surface during midterms, as can be seen. All the same, we get less done at each others' throats.
Your attitude about improving the wiki is great, WakemanCK, keep it up! --DuTempete talk|contr 04:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll start working on it. :) WakemanCK 02:09, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Please, don't make umpteen new pages. We don't need separate pages for each talent build. Just clean up what we have. We certainly don't need a sample paladin builds or paladin builds. Just replace the current talent builds page with a page in a format that is widely accepted. For a model I would suggest something similar to the Shaman talent builds as it is very clean User:Sharlin/Sig 14:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
More comment, as stated on the discussion page. Don't bother unless your going to make a change that is actually noticeable. Frankly the one linked in the dicussion page of the real article isn't much of an improvement. Its a CF as much as the original... unless of course there is some super secret version hiding out there User:Sharlin/Sig 14:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

A couple of missing NPCs.

I ran into these in Netherstorm, doing Quest:Teleport This!. The demons that you control are the Ironspine Forgelord [6] and the Cyber-Rage Forgelord [7], and neither of them show up here. Was trying to figure out how to get one of the bots to do the gruntwork, but it seems that requires IRC, which I don't do. --Azaram 09:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Taging a npc page with {{User:Laurlybot/Donpc}} will put it in a categories that User:laurlybot rips from and then generates NPC's. But... im recoding the bot from the bottom up. Currently working on the quest module once thats done i will start on the npc module. So you can tag it now if you want but it will be a few weeks before the bot does it. You can tag quests by useing {{User:Laurlybot/Doquests}} quest bot is in testing now hope to have it running by next week. Laurly 09:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I added info for Mob Cyber-Rage Forgelords, Mob Ironspine Forgelords and [Mental Interference Rod]. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 9:54 AM PST 21 Mar 2008
Beginning to think Fandyllic is a bot. :-D Thanks... --Azaram 02:10, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Im a Nubcake

I know I'll be tought of as a complete nubcake moron for asking this, but I've been trying to link my expansion idea to the Expansion Ideas page, and I just can't figure out how to do it! Can someone pwease help this poor n00b? Banana Blaster 04:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Not sure which idea you refer to, but all the links are on the page Expansion ideas. To link them just hit the "Edit this page" tab on the top of the page, and add your page name in the proper place using [[User:<name>/<page name>|<page name>]] by [[User:<name>|<name>]]. Hope this helps. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 04:42, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Scratch that, apparently there's a template you can use {{fanfic user idea}} to add the info. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 04:46, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice, but it turns out my problem was that I had a space in between the / and the idea name in the pages URL that prevented me from linking it Banana Blaster
Ah... yea I was going to move that for ya.. or at least mention it to ya, but I didn't.. =/ User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 22:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Old Hillsbrad Foothills

So the instance name for it is Escape from Durnholde Keep, right? The "see here for information about this instance" is titled EfDK, but the Category for all of the items is Old Hillsbrad Foothills? Is there a reason for it? Can we redirect them so that if they go looking for one they find the other? --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 06:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Opening the Dark Portal/Black Morass items too --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 06:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Funny thing is nearly every refers to the place as Old hillsbrad, not once have I heard the other... That was probably the reason behind it. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 07:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Black Morass and Old Hillsbrad Foothills are the zone names. The instances and encounters are Escape from Durnholde Keep and Opening of the Dark Portal. It's why i typicaly slap people for calling the instance BM in WoW.
It makes the most sense to cat things by the zone rather than the instance. -- Zeal (T/C)  18:27, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Right if you look at WoW's Instance Site as well as WoWWiki's You'll see both named in the funky way they are. I just found it odd that for those particular 2 instances, it didn't follow the naming convention which just tacked the "items" at the end.
Is there a reason we have to post before showing cats at the bottom of a page? And not be able to see them in previews?--User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 20:51, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
New cats work fine in previews :S -- Zeal (T/C)  04:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, never thought to look under all the editing junk. --User:Innocentlysassy/Sig 08:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Zone levels

We need to decide if we want the level shown in the zonebox for each zone to reflect the Blizzard recommended level for the zone, or to reflect the mobs in that zone. I just went through a week or so ago and changed them to the official Blizzard levels, but someone just came through today and changed them to "reflect the mob levels" in the zone. I personally think they should they should be the recommended levels, but regardless we need to make a decision so people don't keep changing it back and forth. --Jiyambi t || c 20:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps have both, the mob levels and recommended levels. That way no one can decide to change them on ya. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 22:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


Laurlybot (Recoded) Npc module

I am in the process of recoding the bot. User:Laurlybot/npc_bot before i start generating pages i thought it might be a good idea to address some of the issues people had with the old bot and get some kind of consensus on how the new one should work.

  1. Npc pages use the {{Zone Map}} to display where the npc is found in a zone. Note: For NPC's found in more then one zone only one map will be shown. More then likely the first.
  2. The bot is still unable to get race and gender for an npc. Human editors will still have to add that.
  3. I am not riping pictures so Humans will have to add them.
    1. I'm going to try and code the bot to check the page if there is a picture there it will use it rather then just clobbering the page.
    2. Humans will have to check that this image is right. (I will probably tag pages like this for bot help)

The dreaded transcluded pages.

  • The old bot had separate pages for drops/teaches/skins/mines .... yes lots of them.
    • The comment i got was: Get rid of the subpages, as it bloats the article count of the wiki.
  • Using templates in these pages. A lot of people didnt like the templates the old bot used due to the fact that
    • A comment i got was:Use wiki-table markup, as opposed to templates. Templates are just adding a (possibly) confusing step

What i would like to do is the following.

  • Only have one subpage. npcname/data This page would contain.
  1. Info on drops, teaches, skins, mines, herbs, pickpocketing...... <and anything else i might be forgetting>
  • There are several reasons for this.
  1. There will be a lot of data there. this could confuse anyone trying to edit the page as to what it was.
  2. I always intended that the bot be run regularly to update the information on this page. If we have it in the main page even if i code a very careful check to only replace the table data there is still a chance that something could go wrong and the main page data would be over writen.
  • Templates would be easer to change on a wide scale. If we leave them on a second page then there really isnt anything confusing as the bot is the only one reading it. But if we don't use templates it shouldn't matter if we need to change the format then i can just rerun the bot and all the pages will be updated.

The parser is mostly written so i have all the data. The only thing i need to know is how we want the pages to look and how we want them to work. So i'm going on vacation for a few days. So i figured i would post this here give you guys time to chat about it and check with you when i get back.  :) Laurly 08:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if there's anything we can do to keep the subpages out of the article count. Put them in another namespace perhaps? --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 12:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I did some checking, and yes, if the data is outside the main namespace it won't add to article count [8]. Therefore, I propose a new namespace be created, possibly called "Data". This would also provide a namespace for Adys's OpenWDB project. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!C207,729 contributions and counting) 14:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


OpenWDB

Here is an early look to a long-discussed project, OpenWDB. For the TLDR guys, it's the standardization and expansion of WoWWiki's WoW database and the idealistic end to a lot of troubles. It's a draft, still, and if you want to know more about it, you'll have to ask me on IRC. This project itself is hard to maintain as a single person, and since I'm doing other work on the sides I don't always have time to edit the wiki itself. I understand there may be some unhappy people about this, but please understand that I really am doing my best to keep in touch on the wiki. Otherwise, your best shot is my User page. I will, however, update it with more infos as I think them through.

Also, be warned. A lot of people "just dont care" about this, but the modifications involved are absolutely huge. They'll be taken care of, but it means a lot for the wiki "database" pages themselves. User:Adys/Sig 23:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Not liking IRC = unhappy apparently. However, I'm not among the Too Long Didn't Read folks and I think it sounds like a fine idea for the future of WoWWiki (which seems to be unhappy, at the moment). --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 9:28 PM PST 24 Mar 2008

Possible violation in Blizzard Downloader article...

Please see Talk:Blizzard_Downloader. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:20 PM PST 25 Mar 2008

Kirkburn made the argument that even though some of the stuff on this page mines data, it probably wouldn't be harmful to Blizzard. I cleared the {{violation}} tag, but feel free to comment on Talk:Blizzard_Downloader. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:47 PM PST 25 Mar 2008

BG and flight maps needed for Maps article

A lot of the maps in the Maps article were linked from Atlas, and a bunch of them are broken, specifically the ones for battlegrounds and flight paths. If someone could find or otherwise construct some maps to replace these, it'd be a great addition to the article.

// User:Montag/sig1 21:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed something funny about some "Starting a XX" pages

Browsing some random articles today, I came across the "Starting a Paladin" page. At the end of the page were two links, none of them I had heard before: http://www.bestlevelingguide.com/paladin_leveling_guide/ and http://www.almostgaming.com/wowguides/paladin-leveling-guide. Basically the first one links to a site that ask you to pay $35 for a mod that helps you to level up faster. The second links to a short so-call leveling guide, but gives you some other links that eventually leads you back to that page of the first links.

I then browsed other "Starting a XX" pages. All of them except druid's are infested by the above two links! Besides, hunter page has one more: http://www.thewowauthority.com/hunter-leveling-guide/, which gives you one page of hunter guide, then again ask you to pay for a full leveling guide. Reading back the history of paladin page, this link was there too, but only replaced by the first link recently.

This is ridiculous! I have never imagine paying real money to buy a mod for leveling or a leveling guide! They are basically using WoWWiki for free advertisement, probably for a long time already. I'm not sure if such act is against the policy of the site. At least, from the point of view of usefulness of those links, they should all be removed.

So, what do you think? -- WakemanCK 03:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like something that needs to be killed, and if they do it again, banned... --Azaram 10:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


Delete the offending links. No links to leveling services and gold selling services User:Sharlin/Sig 11:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Ok, done! Though I'm wondering if there are other pages still have those kind of links. Are there any methods to check? WakemanCK 12:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I did a bit of investigation, and found out that these links were added mainly by
Have a look on their other contributions, and you will find many more page on which they were "active" --Tharbur 16:07, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.12 is live!

WoWWiki is now running on 1.12 :) There may be some teething problems, so please do report anything odd you come across. I currently know of a couple of issues:

  • Monobook skin has a js problem that blanks the page once loaded. Appears to be related to pcj tooltips. I have little js experience and pcj is asleep, so any help is appreciated.
  • Patrollers group may not have their permissions - this is being investigated.
  • Unrelated to 1.12, but some users may have lost the ability to log into their accounts yesterday - if you have been affected, please either drop by the IRC channel, or drop me a mail at <myusername>@gmail.com (replace <myusername>). I'll see what I can do.
  • Special:Brokenredirects is showing old cached data, should be updated within two days.

So, what's new? Well, Special:Version should give a fairly good overview. Also, the new skins are available, though we do not have a Monaco WoWWiki theme yet.

Any feedback? Kirkburn  talk  contr 12:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Patrollers - done. In most cases you'll need to relogin.
There are quite a few extensions which are not listed on Special:Version page because they aren't enabled by default. Stuff like calendars, ogg player, SemanticMediaWiki etc. Look around Wikia for more inspiration. (-; -- Nef (talk) 12:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Rather than correcting the Patroller permissions error, i seem to have simply lost my status as patroller after a relog :/ -- Zeal (T/C)  12:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Should be fixed now. Kirkburn  talk  contr 14:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to see WoWWiki running on the new Monaco skin, see http://www.wowwiki.com/Main_Page?useskin=monaco&usetheme=slate ... no, the WoWWiki colour theme is not done yet. Kirkburn  talk  contr 14:02, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Oooh. That looks nice. User:Kochira/Sig 16:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I personally do not like the new default layout at all. Many people hate reading on white and I don't foresee all users of the Wiki to get an account just to pick a customized layout. Just a thought. User:Lorekin
And I just said that the WoWWiki colour theme is not ready yet. Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I assumed the main page was at least a decent example of what is to come. I practically live on this site, I love it here so drastic changes really affect me. On that note, I can't get the search to work at all. No matter what I type in it thinks I'm looking for a "Special Page"... User:Lorekin
Well, the design and layout are what is to come, but the colour scheme will be similar to the current default :) Thanks for the search bug report! Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
The error is referring to Special:Search being missing, which is apparently the case (and thus makes non-Google searching impossible). Sure would be nice to have it back.  :-) User:DarkRyder/Sig 20:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Correct. It should be back later. Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Couple of notices:

  • We just took down Wikia. Ouch.
  • WoWWiki:Server requests is updated for 1.12. Bug reports can go there - please be concise and use your judgement on the priority of the item. Emergency items, bring to IRC or post here.
  • WoWWiki:MediaWiki 1.12 changes is a list of 1.12 changes. If you know of / find more please add them! Note that some of the new extensions are currently disabled for load testing purposes.

Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Where do we put problems with skins? I'm gonna try to live with the Monaco - Gaming skin for awhile just to see how it works, but I want to know where i can complain... Winky --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:48 AM PST 26 Mar 2008
Ignore problems with it loading the light (monobook) skin colour scheme for templates and other stuff for now, that'll be worked on. General skin issues should come to me. If they're WoWWiki specific, WoWWiki:Server requests. I wouldn't call the Gaming skin representative, fortunately. Kirkburn  talk  contr 19:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I personally am browsing the site with Monaco slate, and enjoying it :) Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I picked the Monaco gaming because it is a dark skin more similar to the old WoWWiki skin. Perhaps we should make some subpages under WoWWiki:Server requests for particular areas like skins and templates. Also, do widgets work? They were working in the beta awhile ago, but not now (for me at least). --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:07 PM PST 26 Mar 2008
Widgets should indeed be working - they're fine for me atm. Anything specific? I don't really want to put too much stuff on WW:SR as the techs need a clear list of what they need to deal with. Skins and template issues aren't their domain. Kirkburn  talk  contr 20:12, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Widgets are working for me now. I upgraded to FireFox 2.0.0.13, but I don't know why that would make a difference. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 12:41 PM PST 26 Mar 2008
AJAX was turned off for a short while, likely caused. Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

"Coming Soon" and "Future Zones" on 2.4 Patch Content

I hope I'm using the village pump correctly...I just wanted to ask someone to review what I had done, considering it's probably the most I've done so far, and I wanted to make sure what I did was right. In a few pages related to the 2.4 patch content (Isle of Quel'Danas, Magister's Terrace, Sunwell Plateau, etc), the categories "Future Zones" and "Coming Soon" were still present. I removed them. Was this done correctly? Thanks! --Lywellyn 22:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Yup, you did the right thing. --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:20 PM PST 26 Mar 2008
I'd say so long as the article is converted from future tense to present tense (if it was created in future tense), then its safe to remove the upcoming Categories and stubs. User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 04:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Where do we report skin problems and who fixes skins?

According to an earlier comment, skin problems shouldn't be put under WoWWiki:Server requests. So, where do they go? If we report skin problems, who fixes them? --Gengar orange 22x22 Fandyllic (talk · contr) 2:34 PM PST 26 Mar 2008

To me. I am the skin contact. :) I collate and pass them on to the designer guy. Kirkburn  talk  contr 22:41, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Learning some more

Two questions: One, is there a way to view all subpages of a user page (say, my own)? And secondly, is there a reason this page is marked 'stub/mob'? Thanks again! :) --User:Lywellyn/Sig 02:38, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Special:Prefixindex, type in your username in the box, choose "User" from the dropdown. So, for you: [9]. This page is marked {{Stub/Mob}} as an example... Take a look at the text near the message box at #Stubs and reasons. --k_d3 02:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh wow, I searched everywhere and couldn't find that. Thanks! --User:Lywellyn/Sig 03:46, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Image locator sadness

Special:Imagelist no longer has a search bar to find images, which I loved. Made finding images very easy for possible needs. Is it possible to put one up there again? Or is there a different way to find images? User:CoobraSssssssssssssssssssssssss User:CoobraFor Pony! {TDon't hiss at me.CIf you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.) 05:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Trying my hand at being helpful. Special:Search has a checkbox for images, maybe that's how you can search for images now? Hope that's helpful... --User:Lywellyn/Sig 05:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)