elanthipedia:Town Green (miscellaneous)

Town Green miscellaneous Discussion   post
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Town Green
Town Green
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New layout template RTOC

I made a new template RTOC to simplify putting a table of contents on the right side of an article:

{{RTOC}}

For examples, see Empath Healing and Elanthipedia:Projects --Farman 12:22, 3 July 2007 (CDT)

Great idea, Farman. Put a note on the news about it and in the Template help maybe?--Naeya ^(talk) 14:08, 3 July 2007 (CDT)

It's a nice template but I don't know if it's important enough to be front-page newsworthy ;) I figured this as the best place to announce or spread the word about little formatting shortcuts like this. (FYI I have slightly edited my previous comment to include a link to the new template) --Farman 18:23, 3 July 2007 (CDT)

City Stubs

I was working on the stubs and was shocked to discover that no cities I could find have any substantial information. Anyone feel like making some stubs for Cities pages?

--Kraelyst 13:00, 17 October 2007 (CDT)

Yep, that's a very good place for substantial contributions to be made. I hope someone can find the time to add to it.

FWIW this isn't really a technical question, so I moved this discussion to "Miscellaneous" --Farman 14:52, 20 October 2007 (CDT)

I have begun working on a standard city layout. I started the discussion in Talk:The Crossing. Please take a look and provide input if you like. --Kraelyst 09:41, 26 October 2007 (CDT)

Bestiary Pictures

I have noticed color pictures in the bestiary that are clearly newer and not on the Simutronics Beastiary page, such as pictures of Adan'f. I've been doing a lot of bestiary work lately and would like to include these pictures. Where can I find them? --Kraelyst 09:43, 26 October 2007 (CDT)

I'm assuming those are pictures from Stormfront. IE the ones you see when you LOOK at the creatures in game.--Naeya ^(talk) 10:03, 26 October 2007 (CDT)

News Item template

I made a simple little template for adding news items to the news panel on the front page: {{news item}}. I protected it since it's a component of the front page. --Farman 15:12, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

Template Link template

For that matter, I also whipped up a template to add a nicely-formatted link to a template article: {{tlink}}. --Farman 15:25, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

NPCs, Historical Figures, Authors, Shopkeepers

I feel like the NPCs are starting to get a little out of control. If we put every single name ever mentioned in DR into the NPC category it will render the category useless. I recommend we subdivide a little more like we already do with Category:Shopowner and keep most names out of the NPCs and associated categories.

I think specifically we should create/continue the following categories and not let these names also be in NPCs/Dead/Alive/Races/Guilds unless warranted as below:

• 1. Category:Historical Figure
• 2. Category:Author
• 3. Category:Emperor
• 4. category:Shopowner

I think we should reserve the "NPCs" category only for:

• 1. NPCs that have actually been in the game
• 2. NPCs that may potentially show up in the game (like guildleaders)
• 3. Very prominent historical figures (like Lanival, Morganae, Corik, etc...)

In fact, I'll probably go ahead and start doing this tonight as I review some of the additions from today. --Kraelyst 21:59, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

I agree it could use more organization, but I don't see a category having a huge number of members being a big problem necessarily. There's a template somewhere (I can't locate it just now) that adds more useful sorting of category pages by alphabet. Naeya, maybe you know what it's called? Anyway as long as the subcategories remain themselves members of the NPC category, I don't object.

One thing to watch out for is, there's always going to be overlap to deal with. For example, many shopowner NPC's have appeared in game as GMPC's at one time or another, whether for fests or events. Along those lines it is also impossible for us as players to say that any NPC's could be excluded from "may potentially show up in the game". --Farman 16:36, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

I'd like to echo what Farman has said so far. Intersections between the NPCs/Dead/Alive/Races/Guilds tags and the Historical/Author/Emperor/Shopowner tags can and do happen. I think that heavy use of the NPC tag is problematic only if it is the only tag we're using. But, we have a variety of tags available presently (and more are, of course, possible) to help differentiate between entries within the larger NPC category. --Basselope 22:28, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

The template you wanted Farman is {{CategoryTOC}}, if I'm understanding what you were referring to.--Naeya ^(talk) 22:45, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

yep, that's it, thanks Naeya --Farman 21:01, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

After more thought I agree with everyone here. I have deleted the "Historical Figure" category since it is useless and moved the 5 articles that used to be in that category to the NPCs category instead. --Kraelyst 08:37, 3 November 2007 (CDT)

Libraries

Can someone add the Libraries category to the Featured Content on the left side of the page. We have almost every book in the game on this site and I think that's valuable content. Also, can anyone tell me how to edit the left side of the page for future reference? --Kraelyst 08:22, 21 November 2007 (CST)

Yes, I'm interested in that as well... is that something any admin can do, or does it require super-duper levels of access? --Farman 21:07, 21 November 2007 (CST)

It is actually very easy for an admin to do it. However it is not very discoverable. MediaWiki:Sidebar is the page to edit (can also find this link under "Special Pages"->"System Messages"). I took the liberty of fixing this for you, even though I've been barely active here lately. --Callek 00:05, 22 November 2007 (CST)

Excellent, thanks Callek! Is that page actually protected? Doesn't appear to be. --Farman 01:54, 22 November 2007 (CST)

Well yes, and no. Wiki internally protects those pages that are deemed "part of the user interface" like all those pages under "System Messages" there.--Callek 18:13, 22 November 2007 (CST)

DRWiki Internal Linking

It looks like the standard for NPC article creation lists the character by its first name, such as Vorclaf. Sometimes you may want to say Prince Vorclaf to include a title, or Vorclaf Lasa'Sorvendig to include a last name. Instead of only having the first name as a link you can do **Vorclaf|Prince Vorclaf** or **Vorclaf|Vorclaf Lasa'Sorvendig**. The first part is the name of the article you want to direct to, and the second is the text you want the reader to see. His Highness Prince Vorclaf Lasa'Sorvendig, Ruler of Zoluren, Paladin of the Gladiolus is possible, but probably not preferred.

Call it being picky, but it looks cleaner. Maje 21:50, 5 December 2007 (CST)

That inspires another tip:

There's a useful way to show the raw text of wikicode without having it activate, but remain plain text. Anything enclosed between <nowiki> and </nowiki> tags will appear as raw text and not be interpreted by the wikicode parser. So for the above example, you would enter

<nowiki>[[Vorclaf|Prince Vorclaf]]</nowiki>

and it will appear on the page as [[Vorclaf|Prince Vorclaf]]. --Farman 23:09, 5 December 2007 (CST)

I actually (on a personal level) agree with you. I would also be ok/advocate in the cases where "Prince Vorclaf" like names (or first+last name) links could be expected in new articles (from people who don't know better) we could set-up wiki redirects from [[Prince Vorclaf]] or [[Lord Sorrow]] --Callek 01:07, 6 December 2007 (CST)

I am wondering about your thoughts on adding a link from the individual guild pages to the player page for that guild.My two cents are these... 1) could help promote more interaction to have a direct link from your guild page to your other guild members pages (well.. the ones that made pages. and 2) I believe the exposure to other ideas and concepts from your guild mates can help and encourage people to round out and think about their own concepts and characters. Anyone? --zedrion 08:21, 7 February 2008 (CST)

Horse / Horses

Anyone willing to merge the Horse and Horses pages? --Aetherie 12:38, 11 December 2007 (CST)

Heh eww, nice find. I'll take a look at it. --Naeya ^(talk) 14:34, 11 December 2007 (CST)

Ok I merged the two articles into Horses, kept most of the info intact. Thanks for finding it, Aetherie. --Naeya ^(talk) 19:03, 11 December 2007 (CST)

Elanthipedia IRC?

Hey folks. I've been tossing around an idea of setting up an IRC channel for Elanthipedia. I could be used for quick discussions on articles and such or perhaps just casual game discussion when an Elanthipedia topic isn't being addressed. Any thoughts on this? --Naeya ^(talk) 11:49, 12 December 2007 (CST)

Elanthian Materials

Just putting feelers out to the possibility of starting a Materials or something similar section. These would include descriptions of gems, metals, cloths and other materials found within Elanthia. Perhaps it would one day be a valuable resource to folks looking for inspiration for alterations. Thoughts? --Naeya ^(talk) 00:17, 14 December 2007 (CST)

I would like it (if it was more than simply a bunch of {{stub}} pages) --Callek 01:52, 14 December 2007 (CST)

Err well I just stumbled across this - Special Materials. That's pretty much what I had in mind, except perhaps with descriptions of more gems and such.--Naeya ^(talk) 12:30, 14 December 2007 (CST)

Yep that was the information that I was talking about at the meeting. Maje 23:31, 14 December 2007 (CST)

What meeting? --Naeya ^(talk) 23:45, 14 December 2007 (CST)

New Logo

Thanks to help from Mayday at Dziner Studio, we have a new logo. What does everyone think about it?--Naeya ^(talk) 12:31, 14 December 2007 (CST)

I like the brackets and the typeface for "Elanthipedia", but I'm not crazy about the map. It's a bit too finely-detailed for a logo IMO, and it spills over onto the brackets so I think it looks a little sloppy. I understand and agree with the concept, putting something that represents Elanthia in the brackets. But I think it should be something graphically simpler. What about an image of the World Dragon? --Farman 21:21, 14 December 2007 (CST)

If you can find one, let me know. --Naeya ^(talk) 21:31, 14 December 2007 (CST)

There's this one http://www.play.net/images/dr/gods/worlddragon.jpg But if the map is too detailed, that image definitely is.--Naeya ^(talk) 21:45, 14 December 2007 (CST)

If anyone has any other suggestions, or wants to take a crack at a better logo, go right ahead. Make sure it is a transparent image (.gif or .png).--Naeya ^(talk) 22:03, 14 December 2007 (CST)

I like the new logo. Maybe the brackets could be made taller so they box in the map. --Kraelyst 11:06, 15 December 2007 (CST)

Well, the brackets are supposed to be smaller, and the image is supposed to slightly overlap them. That was my instructions to the artist. I personally like it. It doesn't look sloppy at all to me. But oh well. Edit: The only problem I have with all the problems with the image that ya'll are bringing up is... it's frustrating for the artist who did it that I keep asking for tweaks. I'd do the work myself but I don't have the software capabilities. --Naeya ^(talk) 11:39, 15 December 2007 (CST)

Ok got a couple of variations (of the same image - I happen to like it sooo... File:Logo-brown.png File:Logo-blue.png

--Naeya ^(talk) 10:44, 16 December 2007 (CST)

Although the sample size is small, seems I'm outnumbered on the map ;) It's not too bad, and I'll admit frankly I'm not in a position to contribute any art myself, at least until I get back home in a few days. But ideally IMO we'd have something that could scale up and down without losing intelligibility. My fear is that it will look like a smudgy unrecognizable blob. I also think a nicely legible dragon image in the brackets would reinforce the Dragon part of being the DR wiki given that it isn't in the site name. Something with a dragon-shaped outline, for example this (courtesy a google image search on "dragon", although I think that particular image is still a little bit too finely-detailed to be ideal).

Anyway I do like it better with the map inside the brackets. I think I prefer the brown one since that would stand out more given the general bluish tone to the Monobook skin. --Farman 18:16, 16 December 2007 (CST)

Well, it's not that you're outnumbered, it's just for lack of a better image now, we're going to roll with this. A simple outline of a dragon could be cool. I have the .psd version of these files if someone wants to take a crack at the images. --Naeya ^(talk) 18:36, 16 December 2007 (CST)

Ok boys and girls, how's the new image?--Naeya ^(talk) 23:15, 10 January 2008 (CST)

I think it looks great! wouldn't change it for anything. Rawkus 23:26, 10 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks! The only thing I changed was the image type from .png to .jpg (same dragon though). I do believe we have a keeper this time.--Naeya ^(talk) 23:29, 10 January 2008 (CST)

love it--Legeres 00:37, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks! And thanks to Markhor who whipped us up a transparent .gif. --Naeya ^(talk) 01:17, 11 January 2008 (CST)

You're welcome! --Markhor ^(talk) 01:33, 11 January 2008 (CST)

WOW Naeya, it's awesome, I love it! --Farman 22:52, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Agreed, love it! --Callek 00:05, 12 January 2008 (CST)

I'm fairly sure using an image of a blue dragon from D&D as a logo for the wiki does not fall under fair use, and WOTC is pretty strict about protecting their copyrights. I should be getting a new stylus for my tablet in about a week so I'd be glad to draw up something else for the wiki if it's really needed. Reene 18:05, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

Thanks to Reene, we now have a new logo. It's a simple black and white rendition of the World Dragon. Thank you, Reene.--Naeya ^(talk) 13:24, 2 July 2008 (CDT)

Festival Shops

With these new shops appearing, it doesn't look like the full shop article template is being followed (ie, Shop templates not being used). Shouldn't they have these templates like regular shops? --Symphaena 18:36, 23 December 2007 (CST)

...yes, go ahead and add them; I did suggest to those adding to "go ahead and enter the stuff as a direct copy/paste if you want, and we'll fix it up later".. Having the content here is the largest step. --Callek 21:02, 23 December 2007 (CST)

anyone else planning to help out with the new shops and and the mini fest happeining in riverhaven? be a pain if i had to do it all...--Legeres 00:26, 20 February 2008 (CST)

I can help with the new shops. Only should be fest shops that actually need real work done on them.--Lyathe 00:31, 20 February 2008 (CST)

Altar List...

Ok the Altar List is up and running, will still be adding a few more in the coming days (missing some on the islands, and p5).. anyone have any other suggestions for things to do with altars before i move on to another decently sized project?--Rawkus 01:16, 1 February 2008 (CST)

How about if the altars work as shrines with a pilgrim badge?--Naeya ^(talk) 14:21, 1 February 2008 (CST)

Items on the main page

should there be a direct link to the Items category from the main page? There's one to shops, but one hardly knows where to start looking if you aren't sure of the item you are looking for.--Symphaena 21:34, 24 June 2008 (CDT)

Added the link to the main Item category. Will need to clean up + add a tutorial for the general user once Caraamon is done messing around.--Naeya ^(talk) 23:04, 24 June 2008 (CDT)

Updating the M'Riss information.

I'll take the lead on the M'riss information, I'm not sure what links need to be made. I'll get started on it and try not to go too crazy. The information on the swimming and climbing guides pages is way off. Anyway, I'll get started on it. --Windharo 23:17, 28 September 2008 (CDT)

Really New Here

I'm not really sure that I'll be editing here much or able to offer much info. But lately I've been working on my stealing ranks, and I've been logging my triviality ranks for certain items. I figured once I got a couple of items I'd post it on that big stealing list. I don't know how to do that too well, and secondly nearly every triviality rank I've gotten is completely different than the one posted. I'm a trader, is that why? Is who ever started the list a thief perhaps? Just asking. Anyway Thanks in advance for any help or info.

--Tjorlando 05:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

archives

based on my tinkerings in wikipedia, I've noticed that they have a bot that sticks old topics from talk pages into archives. Was just thinking it might be a good idea to do something similar here with certain places. Another thing that might be nice, that they have, is a new section tab. since i don't really know enough about wiki-coding i'll let you guys mull it over--Legeres 15:39, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Elanthipedia does not have a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors.

The Wikipedia editors will not allow Elanthipedia to be used as an external link for the DragonRealms page. Can any of you admins over here make the case for its allowance? I can't find the stats for the number of editors here, or the "stability" of this wiki, unfortunately. I'm also not sure what they mean by substantial.

The DragonRealms page on Wikipedia has also been flagged as non-notable and is in danger of deletion. I'm sort of out of my depth when attempting to argue the ins and outs with Wikipedia editors, but I though perhaps you admins here might be on firmer ground with them. --Prime-Lorzelophia 22:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

As a former Wikipedian (hell, I founded the Mergists - how's that for nerdilicious) you may have a difficult time appealing to them. I would recommend pointing to the number of subscribers to DR and its significance in the text-based game market. Elanthipedia is a more difficult argument to make; its status as a "fan site" means they won't want to see it used period. FWIW I've been editing here since before it was called Elanthipedia, back when Rawb added a wiki onto the Ranik Maps website. Reene 23:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)