User talk:ABSOLON

QIJ page

I started the page for him as a birthday present, please put the page back as it was. He was happy with it and I was JUST GOING over how he can edit it.

Automatic Item Tagging

This is going to sound like a strange question, but would you have any interest in the weapon, shield, armor, and item page templates automatically generate material, color, and symbol tags? This is by far the most time-consuming part of adding item pages. (I wrote a script that does everything else. It attempts to create tags as well, but it requires a lot of cleaning up and error checking.) Tags are literally the reason that I have text files of hundreds of Elanthipedia item forms that I have not yet posted.

For example, this item from Tildi's Flowers has this mind-boggling array of tags:

|name=fragile wirework crown displaying shimmering chaos chalcedony lantana flowers
|noun=crown
|look=Thin palladium wires form an elaborate knotwork of interlocking loops.  Twists of the silvery-white metal curl out and upwards from the headband, creating the base for each flowering cluster comprised of tiny gemstone florets.  Dramatically varying in coloration, the naturally formed combination of hawk's and tiger's eye displays a wide range of colors from pale to dark blue, streaked with chaotic swirls of rusty red, gold and rich brown hues, ensuring each flower is unique in appearance.
|MTag=palladium, chaos chalcedony, chalcedony, hawk's eye, tiger's eye
|CTag=rust red, rust, red, rich brown, brown, gold, yellow, dark blue, blue, silvery-white, silver, white
|STag=lantana flower, knotwork

Manual of Style's standards for item tags: As you can see, we currently tag both the more specific version and the more general version (e.g., "chaos chalcedony" gets tagged "chaos chalcedony, chalcedony"). The same goes for colors. This makes the item search feature work for both general and specific queries. It also creates extra work.

Let me know if you're interested; I don't have the wiki-fu to undertake something like this myself. I have lists of commonly seen materials, colors, symbols, etc. My AIM is IsharonDR. --ISHARON (talk) 18:35, 21 June 2014 (CDT)

I have to wrap my head around how best to go about this. It should be able to be done, but I'm not sure my wiki-fu is entirely up to the task either. I think similar to how Item Properties work, a separate template ItemTags would be included in each of the Item, Weapon, Armor and Shield templates that matches the description and item name for a list of descriptors should do the trick... but I'd have to think how that would interact or interfere with the ability to manually add or edit tags.--ABSOLON (talk) 22:07, 21 June 2014 (CDT)

It could be done. It actually wouldn't be all that complicated, just time consuming. You'd basically use the #pos parser function to check the name and look for each item for every item you want cataloged. Problem is a) you'd have to add in everything you wanted it to catch, and b) I have no idea how resource intensive it would be. I suspect it would be pretty bad, compounded by the fact we have a LOT of item pages. -CARAAMON (talk) 00:29, 22 June 2014 (CDT)

Actually, I just had an idea. Would a form you could cut and paste the name and look into, run it, then cut and paste the output from into the item form be useful? That would cut down needing to run it in the background every time an item is edited or refreshed. -CARAAMON (talk) 00:31, 22 June 2014 (CDT)

I was thinking that myself actually. Basically the same thing as the script Isharon is already using, but a part of elanthipedia so that anyone could make use of it without needing a separate tool.--ABSOLON (talk) 00:35, 22 June 2014 (CDT)

P.S. it would also need the READ in addition to the LOOK and TAP.--ABSOLON (talk) 00:43, 22 June 2014 (CDT)

The form idea could work. I'm happy to share what my Elanthipedia Items script already looks for. However, because there are so many "false positives," I'm actually thinking about editing my script to create fewer automated tags. (For example, currently, if the script sees the word "ebony", there is no way for the script to know whether ebony is a material or just a color. Right now, the script fills out ebony for both the material and the color, requiring me to go and remove any inappropriate tags. This can add up to a lot of work.) Basically, what I am thinking is to produce a list that would check for only unambiguous terms, requiring less intensive error-checking. The downside is that it would increase work on the other end (requiring me to manually add more missing tags). Sometimes I wonder if we should simplify our tagging standards. --ISHARON (talk) 19:53, 26 June 2014 (CDT)

Re: ambiguous tags. It could still check for these, but automatically mark them as ambiguous. E.g. MTag, CTag, STag, and ATag. Manually editing them would be easier that way at least, since you wouldn't have to compare the tag lists to find duplicates manually. The ATag could even simply exist in the item entry without needing to display it on the page, except perhaps flagging the item as an 'Item with Ambiguous Tags.' Then you could still post your items without having to worry about backlog and just go through and move ambiguous tags to the appropriate tags at your or someone else's leisure.--ABSOLON (talk) 03:59, 27 June 2014 (CDT)

Thanks for the idea. I think I'll try something like that. --ISHARON (talk) 23:10, 28 June 2014 (CDT)

Let me know what you do with your script and I can get the template to work with your new output in the meantime. E.g. if you decide to just do an ATag, I can make the template flag the item so it's easier to track it down later.--ABSOLON (talk) 09:03, 29 June 2014 (CDT)

Sorry to jump in on this thread, but I saw it when I was on your TALK page for the herb stuff. Historically, when fests come around, I seem to be one of the folks adding a lot of the game prizes to the wiki. Unfortunately, I don't always get them added how the moderators want them and someone ends up having to make little tweaks to 100 things I added the night before. If there was a script to add things that could make life easier on you guys, I'd be more than happy to use that instead of the FORM pages. With the HE coming up, I imagine there will be a few new batches of items I'll be adding, plus I still have a couple bags of prizes on an alt from the Mega-Safari I need to clear out. --Kythryn 15:18, 21 October 2014 (CDT)

If you use Genie there's two scripts for this.:

1. Elanthipedia_Shops_(script) - This script outputs shop info in template form, although there is still a bit of editing necessary.

2. Elanthipedia_Items_(script) - This script outputs item info in template form, although there is a fair amount of editing necessary, especially surrounding tags.

I am not aware of any non-Genie options, unfortunately. Regardless, no script is going to perfectly create an item template every time, so there probably wouldn't be a lot of difference in how many minor things need editing just from using a script. One suggestion I have when you have a lot of items to enter would be to enter a handful of items and then wait to see what someone fixes on them, and then enter the rest with the fix in place now that you know what it is. (The most common example is not setting 'sourcetype' to '-' when there's no non-automatically populated sources, for example.) The downside to that is it might be a while before someone gets around to checking for fixes.--ABSOLON (talk) 16:25, 21 October 2014 (CDT)

So....

How'd you like to be a moderator? You seem to have a pretty good understanding of everything we need, and we can always use more hands. Gimmie an IM if you're interested. -CARAAMON (talk) 23:39, 18 June 2014 (CDT)

Welcome aboard, don't screw it up. ;P -CARAAMON (talk) 00:32, 22 June 2014 (CDT)

Thanks! Glad to be aboard.--ABSOLON (talk) 00:37, 22 June 2014 (CDT)

Congrats! --TEVESHSZAT (talk) 11:22, 22 June 2014 (CDT)

Congratulations! --BLADEDBUTTERFLY (talk)

Warrior Mage 3.1 graphical spell tree

Just a heads up that I noticed the graphical spell tree has Arc Light listed as costing 3 spell slots, but the Shard Guildmistress as well as DISCERN say it's 2. Thanks for all your hard work! JACOBS77 (talk) 02:22, 4 August 2014 (CDT)

Fixed.--ABSOLON (talk) 14:49, 4 August 2014 (CDT)

Cleric 3.1 graphical spell tree

Hey again. Hand of Tenemlor is 2 spell slots. I'm willing to correct it, but don't want to step on any toes. --JACOBS77 (talk) 12:57, 11 August 2014 (CDT)

Oops, totally missed seeing this message until just now. Will fix it later tonight. Thanks for the heads up.--ABSOLON (talk) 18:46, 1 October 2014 (CDT)

Fixed. You may need to refresh the page to see the change.--ABSOLON (talk) 02:33, 2 October 2014 (CDT)

Help with minor Khri project

I merged what I thought was still relevant information over to the category page, and formatted it. I'm new to wikis so I'm not comfortable enough to mess with the tree images, so if you want to update the one on the category page then feel free to. --NINEVAH1 (talk) 11:46, 4 September 2014 (CDT)

Thanks! I can finish it up from there. I just didn't know what information was still correct or not.--ABSOLON (talk) 01:56, 5 September 2014 (CDT)

Herb Foraging

You commented on the forums that you were hoping someone would take on the task of working on a foraging compendium of sorts. I have quite a bit of data and I regularly gather more. I have a sortable spreadsheet which would allow one to either find a location and discover what herbs are there or to find every place on could find, say, Yelith Root. The problem I have is how to translate that into a functional format for Elanthipedia (which I have yet to figure out). I suppose I could just create a sortable table but I imagine there is a more user friendly way. Do you have any suggestions or guidance? Ithrios (talk) 15:46, 1 October 2014 (CDT)

Gimme a few days to put a template together for individual herb pages. I'll probably have time to get to it on Saturday. Then you can fill out the template data from your database with things like what each heals, locations, special properties, etc on each herb's page. From that we can pull information together for tables like with the spell category pages or possibly queries like with the bestiary search. Unless you have a better suggestion? Out of curiosity, how detailed is your information on location? General, such as 'in boar clan' or 'on the NTR' or is it more along the lines of room no.'s 1, 14, and 26? --ABSOLON (talk) 18:50, 1 October 2014 (CDT)

It is detailed down to a specific room. Quite often two rooms in the same area have different herbs available and, in general, I try and find a room in an area with the most variety. When I have tried to read between the lines from what the GMs have said it seems that they have specific settings for rooms that allow a group of herbs to be foraged in the same room (for example, nuloe and aevaes are almost always found together and qun is only found in deserts). I have tried to guess what these settings are with the goal of being able to classify a room as "boreal forest type 3" or "coastal grassland type 1" but have had only limited success up to this point.Ithrios (talk) 08:34, 2 October 2014 (CDT)

I just figured you would need the categories of information I have for each herb to create the template. Currently each has: area healed (body location and internal/external), preparation type (crush or dry), wether it is forageable during the day, night or both (currently all herbs are forageable during the day, some cannot be found at night), what seasons it is forageable in (some herbs cannot be foraged in the winter) and the general terrain types it is found in. This is in addition to the specific locations, of course. Would it be easiest to track specific locations on their own page where I could fill in what herbs can be found and use the queries to fill in a table on the yelith root page? This would make the location equivalent to a spell and the herb equivalent to a spell list. This would require adding each room as its' own page, unfortunately. The upside is we could link those to specific locations on the maps.Ithrios (talk) 09:59, 2 October 2014 (CDT)

Yeah, each room having its own page is a bit much. I think specific locations are best stored on each herb's own page. The at a glance table could easily provide general biome details which would be enough to give a good idea, and if someone wants specifics they can follow a link. As for the rest, I'm working on getting a more official set of biome and terrain settings, but no guarantees there. At the very least I'll set up what you have indicated above, so regardless of what gets created, you should be able to just enter the appropriate details where needed.

Could you shoot me an AIM so I have it? XyngleburtDR.--ABSOLON (talk) 10:32, 2 October 2014 (CDT)

This should mostly be done except for the data entry and some tweaking as people provide suggestion for improvement. It is set up to work for both healing herbs and plain old foraged items, but since there's not much call for information on general foraged items we're going to just leave it at herbs for now until some issues with Item pages get worked out.--ABSOLON (talk) 03:56, 18 October 2014 (CDT)

With Absolon's update of the wiki pages, it got me thinking about the information over on Olwydd's foragaing database (http://www.olwydd.com/herbs/forage.php). From the sounds of it, a lot of that information mirrors the information that Ithrios is also compiling. I still add to that DB because there wasn't really anything else around, but it is a PIA. I have a spreadsheet and a key for all the cities, herbs, etc. Then, when I get some new items to add, I email Olwydd a copy of that SS and he uploads it when he gets time. Obviously, he doesn't really play anymore, so it's kind of neat he keeps that site running and helps with updates, but it is still a more involved process than just "hey, I found qun pollen here, cool...let me put that in the DB quick". That all being said, would you like me to email him and see if he has any problem with us migrating that stuff over here? Looking at the master SS, as of July 2014 there are 12796 separate listings, which includes herbs, woods and misc. foraged items. We'd need to tag in terrain types and drop some site-specific stuff, but IMO it would be nice to just have a single DB/table/whatever going for this stuff. --Kythryn 12:32, 20 October 2014 (CDT)

The eventual plan is to include all foraged items and to have them be actual Item:Item_name pages. Due to issues with properties in the Item namespace right now, this isn't currently feasible unfortunately. I talked it over with Caraamon and we decided that limiting our data to herbs right now is best, because most people aren't going to need to find information about the various random non-herb foraged items and it saves us from having to convert 100+ pages once the Item namespace issues are resolved. As for woods, those don't currently have much of a meaningful purpose and lumberjacking is coming soon so we're holding off until it is released. That system will likely be much more like mining anyway and not be tied into the foraging system at all.

The other thing is that the database as you have it on Olwydds wouldn't be able to exist in the same form here. On-demand filtered lists like that are not a wiki's strength. I.e. even if we were to include all of your information from there it wouldn't be as easy to access for users here. That said, I do like having elanthipedia being as complete as possible. I think the best solution would be to (eventually, as per above) have all of the foraged items as an entry in our database with the most commonly found or easiest to access locations in each province and then include a link to olwydd's for more detailed information.--ABSOLON (talk) 18:06, 20 October 2014 (CDT)

While we obviously could just filter out for just the healing herbs, there are still a TON of entries for those in there. I also think that it would great to have everything in a single location but unless we could set up some sort of DB that can be accessed similarly by the wiki so it could be sorted down by the user to a manageable list on each use, just having tables of that information on each page will get unmanageable fast. Maybe it is something to keep in mind for future projects though, I imagine a number of things would make use of a database format vs. long tables (looking at you, crafted item pages...heh). --Kythryn 15:10, 21 October 2014 (CDT)

Help with Picked Flora project

heya ABSOLON! I was hoping if you had some time I could get you to help me with getting the wiki-code to do what I want with the next project Linett & I are going to tackle, the picked flowers and foods. I'm starting off with the roses (Rose), since there are so many different variations and other things that need to be sorted OUT of the picked flower list. I'm using as my "test picked rose" the Hodierna's Blush rose. What we're currently thinking about doing is for each individual flower/food page, assign it the itype "picked flora", and then have a table or search populate on the common name page for that flower. If you'll notice on the Rose page there are various sub-headings now for each rose "type", and under the "Flowers" section there is a table query to look for those.

Where I am stuck though is how, on the next section (Store & Festival Purchases) to exclude the roses that have the itype "picked flora".

Also, I would welcome any ideas on how to make these pages more streamlined and wiki-friendly. I know from the TALK on the healing herbs page, you mentioned some server caching issues with tables. If there is a more efficient way for doing a search (ie. with the MSearch, ISearch, etc.) I know we aren't tied to any particular way of presenting the information. Obviously, we'll have a few picked items already in the database we'll need to to back and update, however we have a TON of new ones to add, so if there is a better way to do things now is the time to make the conceptual change...heh.

Thanks in advance! --Kythryn 06:37, 22 November 2014 (CST)

Augstawne family page

Hey there, I wanted you to know that I went ahead and moved the information from the "Augstawne family" page back over to "Augstawne Girene Dzirta" and here's why. A pack for the Rakash is a unique collection of individuals or entire families that have gathered together in a group. Likewise, the Augstawne Girene Dzirta is not just the Augustawne family but a number of other families which have all pledged service to the group. Because of this, it's not correct to simply label it the "Augstawne family" though I could see where confusion might come about because it is the Augstawne who lead the group and whom the group is named after. I kept the catagories you've added to the page in place, so that it will show up in the correct spaces where it is needed. But, again, I've went ahead and reverted the name back to it's original page.--HEXEDBYTHENET (talk) 23:45, 10 February 2015 (CST)

Multi-family structures still fall under the purview of a family structure even if it racially based, and other racial groups such as clans/houses/prides/etc. have to follow the page name guidelines for consistency in searches. Being a Rakash group with a Rakash name does not exempt any group just like being one of those other racial groups does not, and unfortunately we have to be consistent in applying the same page name rules for all groups. I can understand why you would feel your page should retain the same name, but we had the same discussion about the Contraire Empire's page name being changed to the Contraire family and the same reasons apply in this case. I.e. it is not an attempt to control what your group is called, but a standardization of page names to maintain consistency for search tables. There is still a redirect from your original page name, and any links from the original name remain in place and have no problem being listed as such. Searches for either term will likewise still lead to the family page. Also, none of the content of the page needs to be changed, so it is still quite clear what the in-game name of your group is.--ABSOLON (talk) 00:21, 11 February 2015 (CST)

One suggestion I have if your group is active enough is to try and get a folder in the unofficial groups folder on the forums. Groups who have a folder there can use the folder's group name as their page name on the wiki. I think you have to maintain a minimum level of posting within the folder to maintain it - something like at least once a month or somesuch - but as long as the group is even moderately active that shouldn't be much of an issue.--ABSOLON (talk) 01:04, 11 February 2015 (CST)

You know.. I don't have a bone in this but, you're basically in the name of consistency homogenizing a good thing. This is stupid, revert it. Copying this over to Caraamon.--ELRIIC (talk) 01:52, 11 February 2015 (CST)

The group has had a folder on the play.net forums in the past. When we did have said folder it used the correct name which is "Augstawne Griene Dzirta" the folder was removed because we don't use the play.net/dr forums for conversation.--HEXEDBYTHENET (talk) 10:34, 11 February 2015 (CST)

Why not list Rakash packs and Prydaen hubs as primarily Cultural organizations and use that naming convention? We already do this for S'Kra Mur ru'at (a S'Kra Mur's inner circle), since membership is traditionally limited to a particular race and is not necessarily defined by family ties. --ISHARON (talk) 10:52, 11 February 2015 (CST)

Category:Cultural organizations: groups that promote particular cultures, religious beliefs, and/or political ideologies (this includes race-based groups such as S'Kra Mur ru'at). This category may serve as a catch-all for groups that do not fit into the above three functions.

Page name convention is separate from categorization convention. If a ru'at group were to be created that was family based it would be named after their family name and categorized as a cultural organization as well. If a Rakash pack were created that didn't follow a family structure it would follow non-family page name guidelines.

Right, but we have two different page name conventions, dependent on whether the group is primarily a family-based group or something else: --ISHARON (talk) 16:05, 11 February 2015 (CST)

• Family-based groups will have the page name Fancypants family.
• Non-family groups will have the same name that their Play.net folder has. If there is no Play.net folder, the page name will be their in-game designation unless there is a good reason not to do so.

I'm also not quite understanding the resistance here, since the translation of the group's name into English is the Augstawne family pack so the page name Augstawne family is not an inaccurate description of the scope of the group. For another example of a similar situation, please refer to the Silvermist family which is known by the Silvermist name despite being made up of additional pledged families and was also changed from House Silvermist to Silvermist family according to the same guidelines.--ABSOLON (talk) 11:30, 11 February 2015 (CST)

Again, it is a collection of families and idividuals. Rakash do not have plural words so there was no use of "families" within the game. By changing the name to "Augstawne family" it has become incorrect because it is not only the Augstawne who are involved. More to the point, we've been operating for years with our naming convention and have never encountered resistance to it or any attempt to make us adopt any other naming convention. The simple fact is that it is a Pack, which is made up of multiple families and individuals and not a single family. As such, the "Augstawne family" is completely incorrect because it alludes to only the ruling family within the pack. I appreciate what you're doing in trying to keep things organized, and I understand many of the changes to other pages. But, I think you may not quite grasp what some of the racial groups are built upon and how this oversimplification or generalization might be a slap in the face to that. More so when the group has been around longer than this site has and have a history of being known as one thing and not the other. I do not mind the addition of categories to pages and changing some names to be "family" like the Seords and Silvermist, but as Isharon said, I think racial groups should keep their naming convention. Regardless, I've requested we have our play.net folder reinstated on the forums so that I can just put this matter behind me and continue on as I always have.--HEXEDBYTHENET (talk) 11:49, 11 February 2015 (CST)

As an fyi, I am looking into one thing so let's put this discussion on hold for the time being. Thanks for your patience.--ABSOLON (talk) 11:39, 11 February 2015 (CST)

PC Template Changes

The new PC template now defaults to "S'Kra Mur" when there is a space between the equals sign and the race. I think this (https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=Template:PC&diff=prev&oldid=401365) is why, but didn't just want to revert the change. Was this intentional?

Hmm. No, give me a bit to take a look. The change was just to parse the different spelling of S'Kra Mur to the correct one.--ABSOLON (talk) 16:42, 24 March 2015 (CDT)

Okay, fixed. It was a brain fart and I used #if instead of #ifeq. It should have only affected characters who are using the old deprecated {{Player character}} template. Refreshing the page should work to fix your display if it is still showing the S'Kra Mur race.--ABSOLON (talk) 16:52, 24 March 2015 (CDT)

Use of TALK pages

On the Talk:Wayerd pyramid page, you made it sound inappropriate to have a discussion about how to use the item on this item's talk page. Initially I didn't see the link to the LOWER command (and am not used to looking up commands/verbs here, yet), otherwise I definitely would have looked there. That said... it also states twice on the page "lower", without the appropriate syntax... I figure that since it's quite relevant to the use of the item, why not drop the question on the TALK page - if it confuses me, it's likely to confuse one of the hundreds of people that plays this game as well... but this is the second time that I've been scolded about use of TALK pages. Should I stop using these talk pages for clarification of confusing elements within the page in question? I thought that such things were what TALK pages were intended for.. KASHNA (talk) 12:10, 1 August 2016 (CDT)

Hello KASHNA. In the two examples you cited, you do not appear to have been "scolded" or told your use of TALK pages was "inappropriate". TALK pages here on Elanthipedia are not frequently used. We want to make sure you understand that the best way to get these types of questions answered is either in game by a Mentor or on the play.net forums.

Questions posted on TALK pages may never be answered. The majority of users do not use them or even reference them at this time. We are trying to make sure you understand where to get the help and answers you need. You're welcome to continue to post any testing or results on TALK pages so that other users may reference them as well, no one has asked you to stop doing that.

I hope this clears up any misunderstanding on the matter. --GAMERGIRL151 (talk) 14:14, 1 August 2016 (CDT)

That covers everything I would have said. It's not that it's inappropriate to the wiki, per se, but rather it's not really the best way to go about getting an answer since the talk pages are not used very much here. Most people who do, use them to just leave notes about a page's contents that they think is wrong but can't actually confirm yet so a later editor can see the note, or start an information gathering project for more information before adding it to the page. Most of the time, because of the lack of use of the talk pages that is where it ends since either the edit gets buried under the rest of the days edits and no one ever sees it, or the people who do see it either don't know as well, or aren't interested in the project. I've been there done that, trust me. ;) Several times I've also seen answers to a question given on a talk page... that occur months or even years after the question was asked. The forums, or even social media sometimes, really are a much better place to reliably get an answer in a reasonable time frame if a simple question is the goal.--ABSOLON (talk) 00:56, 2 August 2016 (CDT)

Amusing case in point, actually. Scroll up to the Cleric 3.1 graphical spell tree section on this page and you'll see a response I made to another user on my talk page that was 2 months late.--ABSOLON (talk) 01:01, 2 August 2016 (CDT)

Silly internet and us attributing our own imagined tone-of-voice to things. That makes great sense. Thank you for the clarification. I'll keep leaving my questions as I come across them - if it's something semi-big, I'll be sure to go to the forums, then. KASHNA (talk) 15:22, 2 August 2016 (CDT)