Notice To Visitors

Use a ==Level 2 Heading== below and put all new communications at the bottom of the page. You can do this automatically by using the "+" tab. Swiers 17:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Messages From Visitors

New messages go below, at the bottom.

math

your page looks like math, so my head hurts now. Care to explain what is Vita ex Mors and why it's linked to 154 pages while it seems to be a group you disbanded ? Since we dont have Crit 12, would you like to undelete this page and say the group disbanded ? --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 18:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Vita Ex Mors was a survivor group that never had many members. The 154 links likely come from my old (non templated) signatures. I don't care much one way or the other about undeleting the page, but if it makes things easier for you, I will.

Swiers 20:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Recruitment page

I have a question about something. Ever since ads became templated, the amount of text on the page itself has been reduced to a minimum. The 200 word limit per ad was I think aimed at trying to keep the page a manageable length. But now that they get called from elsewhere, would increasing the permissible word limit have an effect? - Whitehouse ^T 21:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Not really. Its not gonna affect editing the page any. It might take minutely longer for the page to be served and downloaded, but that's true of any page that has longer amounts of text; images are a much bigger factor in that anyhow. In short- no, the only real reason to keep the word limit would be so that adverts don't take up more than a screen or otherwise result in bad page formating.
BTW, I hope you don't mind the stealth "policy" edit I did in making all the group names level 3 headers, so that they could be sub-headers of alphabetic letters. People seem to be playing along, and I expect it makes the page much easier to edit (that was the purpose). Feel free to divide up / recombine any leter sections that need it.

Swiers 21:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Update the timestamp on Brain RotRum for me, it's out of date. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 01:08, 23 April 2008 (BST)

SVS

Grim's apparently suffering from SVS (sandy vagina syndrome) today. I wouldn't weight his complaints on your suggestion too heavily. Nalikill ^{TALK E! W! M! USAI} 04:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Heh. I expect his ranting will, if anything, help discourage other spam votes; nobody's gonna want to be seen in that company. I think my response gives the appropriate weight.

Swiers 04:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Hit Manipulation

I hope I'm not breaking your page. I'm still unfamiliar with wiki code...anyhow, you had asked about hit-manipulation in the topic about zombies using rocks. Hit-manipulation is when a player tries to trigger a bunch of "scores" by by attempting to hit when the RNG is at a favorable value to allow a successful hit. Since the RNG can't be seen by players, usually this was doen blindly through button-spamming. Kevan seems to have since added code to stop button-spam abuse (and the hit and search manipulations brought on by it), so it likely doesn't work like that now; however, people with fast, reliable connections can still execute hit-manipulation once discovering a pattern with the RNG's "favorable outcome" times whle playing the game. I've used this to chop down a 60 HP zed to death in under 25 turns with my Axe in the first major instance, and have used it with some success in other battles. It's difficult to describe though. Just try to play with it if interested.

For the zombie rock-throwing, since I can't do basic math, I miscalculated that a player wouldn't die right away, even with 4 back-to-back hits (if at full HP). Still, a zombie using hit-manipulation tactics could land all 4 hits if lucky, ripping 40 of the player's 50 or 60 HP in only 4 turns. And if a player has already been injured enough to be at or below 40 HP, they can go from having time to escape one moment to being dead the next, through a tactic like this. Instances wouldn't be all that common (as zeds would likely miss with all rocks if button-spamming), but it would happen enough, and those who have the skill, time, and patience could still land more than estimated damage-wise with the right tactics.

Since button-spam abuse has likely been fixed, this would be even less likely to occur now, but hit-manipulation can still be done to some extent, so they may pull it off. With current weapons, hit-manipulation USUALLY isn't able to be powerful enough for regular use. The worst damage is commonly with a Shotgun, and people likely have maxxed skills and don't need it then. And Flare Guns are a bitch to land a single hit, let alone hit-manipulate, so they aren't really abused. But with such a high-damage item able to be carried at up to 4 at a time, such a tactic could be abused extensively, making zombies far more successful on sieges than they should be (if they are organized enough). They could almost wipe out a suburb in a day, without even being Big Bash! At least by my estimates...sorry to have wasted your time on this techno mumbo jombo : ) --Kolechovski 22:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

What's up with Iwitness?

Hi, is there something wrong with Iwitness lately? There's no 2008 stuff anymore. The reocords just end at December 31, 2007. -- Mordac the Refuser 00:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Addressed on Talk:Iwitness

Swiers 00:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk:News

ASCII in headers doesn't link in summaries, I'm not even sure it will link in the TOC. That and having them all be the same header name is going to probably create some confusion. --Karek^maps?! 00:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

It links in the TOC, but not in summaries. -- AHLG T G THE END IS NIGH! 00:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Better now? I changed them to arbitrary letter designations. The only function is to break things up so its not one big mass of text getting edited all the time. I guess its nice that they show up in the summaries, though they really serve no purpose (and are somewhat annoying) in the TOC.

Swiers 07:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Human hunter

Following on from my human hunter skill suggestion.

I dont really have the understanding of the zombie side, to describe the solution you mentioned.

Could you explain it in a paragraph here? maybe with drawings or glove puppets?--Ross less ne s s^{Want a Location Image?} 18:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Scent Death map idea

Hey Swiers, I replied to your entry on my script's talk page. lɐʇɹoW-t-script 21:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Christmas tree stats

Hey Swiers, you linked to http://www.urbandead.com/stats.csv twice on External_Links#Statsistics_History - do you have the right link for christmas tree stats? lɐʇɹoW-t-script 13:58, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Yep, fixed now.

Swiers 20:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! lɐʇɹoW-t-script 20:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

clothes codes

i guess that, with removing your message, you did found where the codes of all clohtes are stored... by the way, i tried to wear clothes that are not in the building's list by url-crafting and it failed --~~~~ [talk ] 07:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I found them, and yep, I also discovered that such hacks don't work. I used normal form submission via a GM script modified profile editing page. It lost me some of the clothing I already had (all the ones from locations the menu I created had no entries for) and didn't give me any of the selected items (I tried getting a damaged paper party had and some damaged clothing). It also doesn't allow a zombie to change clothing, at all, ever; they don't even loose clothing items to such hacks.

Swiers 07:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Clothes Hacking

Heya, just to let you know, I already tired something similar (just manually editing the settings page) and it didn't work :( I really wanted to be able to test all of those masks too :( --xensyria^T 20:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yep, as noted in the section just above. Well, it was a fun experiment.

Swiers 20:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Brr is Back?

Count me in. What's happening? --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 07:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Not much yet. We've got new forums on barhah.com and an irc channel, and are using those to set up our initial gathering point / revive rally.

Swiers 07:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

EMRP

Thanks, I wondered if anyone noticed what went on there. I thought that map would be at least as useful as the main suburb map if it was kept up to date. And I'm going to award myself another medal when I've reported on all 100 suburbs. cheers, Garum 21:03, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I notice every edit that gets made there. I created all the 100+ pages it uses (and did almost all the updates early on) so they are all on my watchlist. :)

Swiers 04:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

A couple of other people have been doing updates too, User:Nell_Faircliff and User:Memoman, but since my character with the radio paid up $5 and Malton's cades are a bit wobbly these days, I do check quite often. Not obsessively, just often. cheers, Garum 18:13, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I have an unpaid alt with a radio who spends all her time dead, and I just log in once every couple days to check the reports. I set the alt to ignore groans, flares, and other stuff. Its actually BETTER to be dead in this case, because my radio is the ONLY thing I get reports from- so I log in once in a while (for one IP hit) and get a lovely, spam free list of EMR's like this! That's one IP hit for 4 days worth of spam free EMR's!

Swiers 18:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I, the heroic Gnome...

...have saved your example page.+0 -- AHLG T G THE END IS NIGH! 21:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Hope all is well with you!

Hey, is there any way to search the directory of private iWitness accounts? I've been saving away files as records of all of my kills, and hope to recover them. I can stop using the tool now, but I kept hoping it would come back. I understand completely, and this isn't a nudge - just wondering if there's a way to recover Jan/Feb private histories?--Squid Boy 14:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

No, there is not currently any way to do that. Iwitness still works (creating record files) but the the database that indexed them is gone. There's no reason to stop using Iwitness- I suggest making a bookmark folder for all your private records, if you want to do something like record all your kills as private records.
Its possible that at some point, the database will be recovered or recreated; I'm not sure how much work either would take, so can't give a time table. In any case, I'd like to eventually re-work the system so that accounts can be linked to characters, allowing that account to see all private records made when playing the associated character(s). This would be the only way I can think of to re-establish access to existing private records if the old DB's can't be recovered. I hope to do that at some point, and have been offered help in doing it, but have been facing other challenges. Its also not a project I currently have the skills for, and I don't want to depend entirely on other people to set the system up again this time.
Indeed, I still haven't updated the Iwitness FAQ to reflect the current conditions; that would be a first step, eh?

Swiers 17:58, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I'm even more remedial than you suspect - I can't even locate the private iwitness records I've made. Whenever I click on any of the private ones, it tells me "PRIVATE!!" I have been consistently making them - is there a way to see them even?--Squid Boy 19:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. Click on them where? All an Iwitness record (public or private) is is a web page. If you know the URL, you can view it; they aren't secured in any way. When you create a record (using a bookmarklet) you should be directed to a page that gives you that URL. (If you create it via udWidget, the record is created, but you get no report, so can't ever view it.) For example, here's a private record I created- http://iwrecords.urbandead.info/02-14-08_2300hrs_PRIVATE/OUT_67-10_test_3d0-66f-90a.html - click the link and you can view it, even boomark it, because its just a web page.

Swiers 00:38, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Huh? No, I still get the report that appears on the UD page under the UDWidget report maker thing, and I can still see them. --Karek^maps?! 03:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah. The udWidget version often gave me trouble, guess my results are atypical.

Swiers 04:17, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I had been creating them with udWidget and not seeing/getting the link, so I guess they're gone forever. :( Thanks anyway. A month and a half of PK records lost! SHIZA!--Squid Boy 14:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

A really big rock

Hi. I forgot to reply about a suggestion you had made about “A really BIG rock”. I had already replied about the use of hit manipulation, but I hadn’t addressed anything else you had asked. Now that a recent zombie update has been implemented, you might want to wait a bit before even considering anything along this scope, but otherwise, maybe you could resubmit for voting your big rock suggestion, but with a name change. I’d recommend (as well as others do) calling it a big piece of debris, found either in ransacked or ruined buildings, and only benefiting from Vigor Mortis (H2H doesn’t typically carry over to zeds anyhow). And with this, since the accuracy wouldn’t exceed flare guns, nor even be as powerful, zombies using it wouldn’t be overpowered. As I said before, hit-manipulation with flare guns is a royal bitch, so I don’t see much chance of zombies resorting to it much, so the chances of multiple hits is so low that it wouldn’t really make a noticeable effect. That said, I’d have moved my vote to keep, though it’s too late to do so, and it still wouldn’t change the results any notable amount. You should also make it clear that this could be used by zombies or survivors. I doubt the SPAM voters would have voted that had they realized it’s the only true “weapon” for use by zombies besides personal attacks. If you ever feel like resubmitting the idea, keep these things in mind to give it a better shot at voting, but wait a while for the current issues to clear up. Sorry again for taking so long to get back on this.--Kolechovski 23:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Zombies and guns

Did you move Zombie shot me with a gun to Known Bugs because you've tested it again and have still been able to pull the trigger, or did you just misread my comment? The bug should be fixed now. --Kevan 09:31, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess I misread your comment. I thought "Known Bugs" was for bugs of any sort- resolved or not= and missed the fact that there was a seperate Fixed Bugs Page. AFAIK, zombies can't shoot guns at all.

Swiers 09:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

My Sig

Thanks for trying to help. I had just finished putting it into template form when I got a message from you. I have been trying to do it for almost a week now. I had the nave-bar at the top of my user/sig page.. Meanwhile the code just kept getting longer and longer... --A irborne88^T|ZC|MI|E! 07:21, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Nope.. I have the -Template:Username:me/sig in the preferences.. but it is still putting the code when I hit save..Any Suggestions??--A irborne88

^T|ZC|MI|E! 07:33, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's what is in my preferences: {{SUBST:Nosubst|User:Swiers/Sig}}. If you do the same (repalcing my user name with yours) it should work, afaik.

Swiers 07:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh. I got it now.. forgot Nosubst code(Thanks)--A irborne88

^T|Z.Quiz|PSS 08:00, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

mall status map

Hi,

I've made a mall status map (here, and I'd like to get it to update whenever the mall information changes. Do you know if there is any way to get the mall status string from the MallStatus template for each mall? cheers, Garum 01:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Not without adding some very complex modifications to the template:MallStatus template page. By "very complex" I mean "I don't think I could do it." A simpler solution might be to make your map page as a temaplte with values for each mall that can easily be set, and use "Switch" to change those vlaues to the appropriate code. Still far from easy... in fact, you'd have to go to wikipedia to find documentation on Switch- I don't know how to use it. The only person I know who knows how to use it is Karek.

Swiers 05:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I've already done something that will work, I just haven't gotten around to connecting it to the MallStatus/BuildingStatus system yet.--Karek^maps?! 06:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It sounds as if it's beyond my capabilities. Karek, if you want to make use of the map I made, feel free. cheers, Garum 09:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Re:Sig

Hey, thanks for fixing that for me. I'd rather you edit it without asking me than let me break the wiki. :D --H h a l 18:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice Job on the Minimap page

It looks very spiffy now. Let me know when you're all done, as I see a few typos I want to fix, but I don't want to edit conflict you while you're hard at work. --Pdeq^Talk* 19:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead- I'm done for now. Glad yah like it, and glad somebody is catching my typos. I need to grab a couple more examples, but that will wait until I come across the needed situations. I think I'd like to show survivors and zombies inside the same non-large building location, a partly ruined large building, and survivors outside. Not because its needed info, but just because they are sites worth recognizing as special conditions of interest to both zombies and survivors.

Swiers 22:16, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there not some way to fabricate such examples but editing html? I am not familiar with such things, but it may be easier than waiting to find a screenshot. --Pdeq^Talk* 22:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, It would be pretty easym but I'd rather use an actual example, and avoid accidentally creating something never actually seen in game. I have a LOT of alts (6 paid) to play with...

Swiers 22:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Free Running Toggle

I just found your suggestion on the history pages. Apparently you never took it to voting? Why not? That better solves the Free Running logic failures even more then my current suggestion, which is mainly based on ruined buildings, even though I have always found the forced movement of Free Running annoying. And such a simple method of making it effective wouldk be easy to implement. Why not take it to voting?--Kolechovski 19:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

If you dig through the history a bit more, you'll likely find the comments that swayed my opinion. Also, the Suggestion:20080314 Don’t Free Run into Ruined Buildings 1.1 is a better solution to the problem, and I think it came up in talk around the same time.

Swiers 21:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: UDunBrain

Thats real bright of you, maybe you should be questioning whether he should be aloud to post his udbrain hacking script to the public without repercussions instead. As you eluded to being a violation of terms of use... --Memoman 22:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, IMO he should. If the system is so insecure as to not use any form of data screening (the accounts and whitelisting I suggested) then its not even worth looking at the info it presents, because it doesn't really take any expertese to edit your GM script to do what his does (or even to send more believable false info). He's actually doing you a favor by forcing you to plug a major security hole.
This is an open forum where anybody can present whatever info they like. If you have a problem with that editors posting, starting an edit war is NOT the way to handle it; go through arbitration to get the edit reversed, but don't assume you have the right to censor him. And in case you think I'm unsympathetic, I'm not; I had major problems with Iwitness getting false reports (really bad ones, with porn images spliced in, etc) and had to plug my onw security holes. "Terms of Service" are generally pretty meaningless.
You might also want to look at the history of DEM's Demon tool, as it relates to the Coalition for Fair Tactics. Using UDBrain would, in many people's eyes, amount to "distributed zerging".

Swiers 22:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

WTE

I bring to you a gift of a template!

	Walk The Earth
	This user terrorises Monroeville as part of The Most Photogenic Horde!

-- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 23:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Radio Transmitters/military frequency

Actually, radio transmitters can be tuned to military frequency, you just can’t broadcast on them on those freqs. There are some bugs with having transmitters tuned to military freqs. Those can be found on the bug pages.--Kolechovski 15:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Swiers!

Swiers, sorry for accidentally using your sig and stuff in the talk suggestions - MAJOR accident, I cut and pasted your below talk:discussion template by mistake and didn't realize it until iscariot pointed it out to me. My bad won't happen again, seriously - it wasn't intentional --Tselita 18:37, 18 April 2008 (BST)

pok

hey, you'r active... care to drop by vandal banning and solve a little dispute there ? --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 06:05, 19 April 2008 (BST)

Sure, one sec.

Swiers 06:08, 19 April 2008 (BST)

Um, which one, specifically?

Swiers 06:12, 19 April 2008 (BST)

the suburb page

why did you used html table tags instead of wiki table tags ? and why dont you close the td and tr tags ? heck man! it pains me in the eye to see that... --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 17:50, 22 April 2008 (BST)

Because I created the table in a text editor using regex to do the repetitive stuff, and (can't recall why) it was easier that way. Fixing it up now should be pretty easy (using the same methods) but I was just going for a "rough draft". I learned HTML back in the days before XML, when not closing certain tags was perfectly fine form. :P

Swiers 17:57, 22 April 2008 (BST)

User:Hagnat/Projects/Suburbs, in case you havent seen it yet. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 18:26, 23 April 2008 (BST)

Look... less is more. If you add that collumn to the suburbs page you are only polluting the page with info most people are not looking for. See how nice it's the current layout of the suburb page, and see how awfull it became after you added that collumn. It diminishes the value of the page by doing so. --20:22, 23 April 2008 (BST)

If you say so; that;s what collective editing is for, right? However, my impression (from my own play) is that often you DO want to know where a specific suburb you have never heard from is. The wiki does provide other ways of finding that out, but its silly that this information is not provided on a page called Suburb that already has a map and which is the page newbies are most often referred to when they are told to "move to suburb X to join our group." I may not have found the best way to display that information, but such info SHOULD be on that page, or prominently linked to.

Swiers 20:33, 23 April 2008 (BST)

check the page i linked above... i have a brand new idea running over there... --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 20:55, 23 April 2008 (BST)

I did, and its a good idea, but I suspect its a bit complex to figure out for newbies who have questions such as the one I asked above. It does the job, but its like using chainsaw to cut down a weed; its more than you need, and takes longer to figure out how it works. I really like it for some other things though, and if you linked to it and wrote up a good explanation for the table, that would be fine by me.

Swiers 21:00, 23 April 2008 (BST)

Re:200 Days in Urban Dead

I turned the compiled pictures into a gif and then imported them into Sony Vegas. After fixing them into a movie I gave it a few dodge effects and added music. D D R 05:06, 30 April 2008 (BST)

And what dates does it cover? Are the GIF frame display times directly related to the actual game dates?

Swiers 05:08, 30 April 2008 (BST)

No, the gif time between frames is 6/second I believe, and I just took one image a day. The time is approximately when the Ruin feature was added to today.

07:34, 1 May 2008 (BST)

Experiments with Transparency

So, I made some headway into solving the problem with the not being able to see the timestamp tooltips with the grid overlay. What I did was, instead of laying the grid over the scent map, I UNDERLAY it. By using a full grid (1000 little squares, instead of the same number of dots, and in #000000), at full opacity, and then laying the scent map over THAT, with just a minor reduction in opacity (.95), you get a very clear delineation not only at the suburb level, but at the level of each individual block as well, with only a 5% sacrifice in the maps brightness (and the darker areas really can't afford to sacrifice all that much). HOWEVER, there is no way to get the suburb names to show up clearly, even by making them #0000FF (a color that isn't used in the Scent Death squares) with a #FFFFFF background (the background color of the text itself, not the table). Discernible, but not very readable. But I've got an idea for that, but I'll have to test it, first... Anyway, you can take a look at it here.
Next, the problem with the white space at the bottom of the page is, of course, because that's the space being taken up by the images that have been displaced away from it. I think I may have a workaround, but I've yet to test it. Essentially, I think I may be able to construct a table that let's you have multiple images originate in the exact same space without using absolute coordinates (so that the assembled product still flows with other items on the page. The basic idea is to construct a 3x3 table, with the cell at the top row middle column is spanning three rows, and the cell in the middle row of the left column is spanning three columns, thus making the center of both columns converging at the same point, as well as any centered images within those two columns. For additional elements, you would simply place two tables such as this within the two spanning cells of another copy of this table. Furthermore, I think the "extra space" problem can be eliminated at the same time, by giving the table minuscule proportions (which will expand to encompass the dimensions of it's contents, but from the same origin), and then putting the finished product within a single-cell table with dimensions bound the repositioned elements. I've got to do some other stuff, but I'll be testing it out a little later today, and I'll let you know if it works as well as I imagine... --Morgan Blair 23:08, 1 May 2008 (BST)

Hmm, I didn't know opacity worked on the wiki. --Karek^maps?! 23:30, 1 May 2008 (BST)

I think pretty much all inline style tags work on the wiki. I did the suburb names simply by setting a tables background color to "transparent". Obviously it doesn't solve the above problem.
Morban- that looks nice, but there are some registration issues. That's one reason I did the dots; they don't require quite as precise a line up of the overlays. They also cover (or would go behind) fewer pixles, and so result in less color alteration. How about using the current transparent grid (with the dots) modified to be solid white on a solid blue background, and putting that behind the SIM images the way you did? That actually would increase the brightness of dim squares, making them easier to see. (I've noticed that highlighting the map makes reading dim squares easier)
I actually had plans to get very ambitious and modify a database listing of all the locations in the city I have into a table that could overlay the map, and would pop up tooltips showing the co-ordiante / location names. Obviously that would negate the data age tooltips, but its utility is worth it- and obviously, that means there would be no need to solve the suburb name issue, as the new table would sit on the top layer.
Truth told, since I pull down any data over a week old anyhow, seeing a tooltip with the data age isn't such a big benefit for the normal user; its mostly for the benefit of editors trying to figure out where to do sniffing / what images are expired. Which right now just means me. Anybody else doing that work probably understands the map well enough that they can get the age info from Scenteral_Intelligence_Map/core_map or SIM the way I do.

Swiers 23:48, 1 May 2008 (BST)

Yeah, I didn't know about opacity OR positioning (what are the other options?, besides "absolute", I suppose). Also, what does " &nbsp:" do, and what is the function of "{{{3|transparent}}}, in the suburb grid? You've got all kinds of interesting tricks...

As for white dots showing through well, I thought that might work, but it really doesn't. If it did, having the suburb names show through would be no problem. As it is, even making them pure-white in bold only came through as a smudge, without drastically reducing the opacity of the map (which makes the dimmer blocks IMPOSSIBLE to see). Regarding occluding information from having too much grid behind, it didn't seem to me that there was all that much occlusion taking place, and in comparison to the dimming-by-overlay, it wasn't really an issue. However, further reduction could be achieved by lightening the color of the grid (since white shows up LESS the black) and/or reducing the opacity of the grid (even though nothings behind it, it won't show through as well. Anything less then .5 and it doesn't even show through at all.)
As for your "extra white space" problem, consider it solved, because my idea about how to use tables worked. Here's the basic format:

{| cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="background:#transparent"
|-
|
| rowspan="3" align="center"|
|
|-
| colspan="3" align="center"|
|-
|
|
|}

You put your elements in the two spanning cells. The first element will be in back, and the second will be in front. If they're the same size, they will overlay exactly, but if you need them somewhere else, you can position them relative to that common center-point. If you need more then two elements, then you just use more copies of the table, using them as elements within the first. The simplest way would be to use a single additional table in one of the two cells, rather then one in each, because it's easier to keep track of the layers. So, for three elements:

{| cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="background:#transparent"
|-
|
| rowspan="3" align="center"| BACK ELEMENT
|
|-
| colspan="3" align="center"|
{| cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="background:#transparent"
|-
|
| rowspan="3" align="center"| MIDDLE ELEMENT
|
|-
| colspan="3" align="center"| FRONT ELEMENT
|-
|
|
|}
|-
|
|
|}

And so on. For each additional element, just add another copy of the table structure as the frontmost element. Check it out here. See? No white space! Actually, I may make a template that makes the whole thing fool-proof...
I won't get to it today, but I'll see if my idea regarding the suburb names pans out as well...--Morgan Blair 04:35, 2 May 2008 (BST)

That table thing is wierd. Maybe it will make sense after some food. & n b s p ; is just an HTML entity code for a non-breaking space. Sometimes I use it for padding, because you can string 2 or more in a row and they won't get split up on multiple lines. Sometimes I use it as intended, like in the middle of a suburb name I want to be sure is on one line. No idea where you saw "{{{3|transparent}}} - that's new to me. Might be from some template I used. A lot of this (including style tags) is new to me as well; I just tried crap I;d seen others use until I got something to work. I do have refrence books for styles, but haven't dug through them yet. Suffice to say, they can do pretty much anything you can imagine, but its probably gonna be a pain in the ass and break the page until yah figure it out. Especially when you start tossing in wiki code, various skins, etc.
Anyhow, thanks for looking at it, and if you figure out a better setup, we can move it over any time!

Swiers 05:09, 2 May 2008 (BST)

Yeah, that table thing IS weird, but it seems to work. However, I need to add valign to it, because it doesn't seem to be defaulting to the middle (the problem doesn't show up if all elements are the exact same height, of course). Oh, and the "{{{3|transparent}}} is what the background color of each cell is designated as in the suburb name table...

For the suburb names problem, I've come up with a solution, but it's going to be a bit of work. Not too hard, but a bit tedious. Essentially, the idea is to overlay the suburb name within the SIM location page itself. Essentially, I use the suburb names table as an overlay of the core map (actually, I made my own version of your table—go here to see why), then I substitute a specific SIM location with a 99x99 grey square. I take a picture of this (with font-smoothing OFF), trim it to the exact 99x99 for that location, then make the grey transparent. Then, I use a different version of your template, where I use my shared-space table trick to place the Scent Death image behind the suburb-name overlay for that specific location, and instead of attributing the tooltip text to the Scent Death file, it gets attached to the suburb-name file (since it's on top), the result being that when the page is substituted into the core map table, you get to have your cake and eat it too, with the suburb name overlaying the map, with the desired info showing up as the tooltip. So, it's a success, right? Well, on to the issues that make it more complex...

First of all, for the template to select the correct image for the overlay of a specific location, I thought I could just use [[Image:{{{page}}}-overlay.png]], and name the image "SIM:XX,XX-overlay.png". However, the use of a ':' character in the name of an image is not allowed, and gets changed into a '-'. Hindsight being 20/20, it would have been less problematic if you had use the "SIM/XX,XX" format, rather then "SIM:XX,XX". However, this obstacle can be surmounted by creating sub-pages for each location, and dealing with the matter there. All problems solved? Not yet...

Because, of course, images that aren't larger then 100x100 pixels break the map! Simply enlarging the overlay image wouldn't work, because then you loose the clear delineation between the text color, and the background color which gets made transparent. I found a way to work around this (double the size of the image to 198x198, to avoid distortion), but it all became moot, because while the compound image on my page using the altered template measures at exactly 99x99 pixels, when used in the core map table, it gets compressed to 97x99, for some unfathomable reason (more table weirdness, I presume). However, all is not lost, because...

Instead of using a regular 9x9 grid table to put each image in it's proper place, I can use my new trick table to put them all in the SAME place, and then displace them from there (so, 80 nested layers). No trial or error should be necessary to find the proper coordinates, either (for example, the upper left image would be top:-360px left:-360px, the one to the right of it being top:-360px left:-270px, and so on. The additional benefit of using this method will be that, in the case of someone uploading an image that isn't perfectly square, or some other problem, while it might cause a local seam in the map, it shouldn't altogether break it (like some of the other workarounds I tried did).

I haven't actually built this new table, but I'll work on it tomorrow. If it does—in fact—work, I'll let you fiddle with the exact color of the suburb-name overlay (using an underlay for the grid), before I start making all the images. Once that's finished, it can all be deployed in the following manner: The SIM location pages will be altered so that instead of expressly using the SIMpic template, the actual template in use will also be a variable, with SIMpic designated as the default. This means that all pages that are currently using the SIM location pages via substitution will continue receiving their content exactly as before, since they specify the substitution without any variables defined. Next, I'll make a sub-page under each SIM location, where I'll call on the same data that's contained in the parent page, but use but for use by my modified template. That way, all your existing maps will continue uninterrupted at any point.

Of course, this is all pending your approval, and all of the intervening steps working as expected. My next great triumph of wiki trickery? Enabling auto-depreciation of outdated information through spamming the Template namespace, which would be entirely unnecessary if Kevin would simply install the basic parser functions extension... --Morgan Blair 08:02, 3 May 2008 (BST)

Good lord man, I lost you half way in. In any case, feel free to whip up any new maps you want, and put them in the psudo name-space / category I've been using. Leave the old ones for now; we can turn them into re-directs to the new version as needed.
BTW, it would not be all that problematic to rename the SIM:xx,yy pages, or just make duplicates of them all with new names. I'm not sure I understand the conflict, though- those pages are not images, they just USE images. THe images can be named anything, althouth I tend to use names that specify the date and location they were created.

Swiers 17:43, 3 May 2008 (BST)

Er, sorry. I have a tendency to go into too much detail. The issue with the page name and the ":" is that you use a magic word to title the image's tooltip, and the contributor specifies the image. I really like that approach, because it means that nobody can mess up the template by accidentally deleting some crucial character (happens all the time with danger reports). However, it means that to use the same magic word to designate a static image associated with that location, the page name in its entirety must be contained within the name of the image file. But I'd advise against changing it at this point, because the effort to do so would outweigh the effort involved in working around it. Anyway, I'll continue on as I specified before, and keep you appraised of the progress. --Morgan Blair 20:26, 3 May 2008 (BST)

So, laying out the SIM blocks with my trick table was a success (see it here), because when I tested it with my compound SIM/Suburb-Name (which caused seams with the standard table layout), it caused no distortion. So, the next step is making all 81 overlays (not too difficult). However, a couple of thoughts... First, I found, because the map is now overlaying the grid, having a black background caused a bit of dimming overall (most noticeable in the areas that were already dim), but by changing the background to white, you actually get a lot more contrast in the darker areas, significantly improving visibility. Additionally, the higher contrast increased the visibility of the grid, so I reworked it, making all lines 2px wide, using a checkered pattern between blocks, and a solid line between suburbs. Actually, zooming in on multiple parts of the map, the lines match up with the lines in the Scent Death images exactly. Here's an example at the corner of four suburbs (from a fairly dim portion of the map):

Anyway, that's all for today. Tell me what you think. --Morgan Blair 04:47, 4 May 2008 (BST)

Hey, just wanted to let you know I'm still working on the overlays. I've been dead tired, so not made much progress in the past couple of days, but I'm still working on it. Dead tired, but not dead yet! --Morgan Blair 07:35, 6 May 2008 (BST)

Er, hey, still at it, but life's been throwing up major roadblocks to my UD time, lately... --Morgan Blair 02:56, 11 May 2008 (BST)

So, I'm finally back at it. All the overlay images are done, and I'm ready to build the sub-pages, but I also need to edit all of the regular SIM location pages, and before I do, I wanted to tell you what I need to do, and ask a question.

First, I'll be changing the first line of each SIM location page from

{{SIMpic

to

{{{{{1|SIMpic}}}

(this is so I can use the same variables defined in these pages with a different template on another page).

Also, I wanted to know if you'd like me to change {{SIMpic |image=YourScreenShot.file |page={{subst:PAGENAME}} |sig=~~~~ }} to include that change as well. Let me know, and I'll get started on it. I'll be working on the rest (uploading the rest of the overlays, building the rest of the sub-pages), but you can see an example here (SIM:5,5, but it's a bit dim without the grid underneath it, and the level of transparency on the overlay text can be adjusted from my template, once it's finished).

Erk, I guess I'm not quite ready. I'm trying to remember how to do this substitution trick, but I can't find the reference... I need my template to tell the first page that uses it to substitute that page's name permanently (so that subsequent inclusions don't use their own page name). Can you remind me how to do this? I'm positive I've seen it done, but I can't find it... If there's actually no way to do it, then renaming all of the SIM:X,Y pages to "SIM-X,Y" might be necessary after all.--Morgan Blair 00:28, 14 May 2008 (BST)

SIM:71,93

No trouble. I won't be doing any more until one of my characters gets killed, though - my zombie got combat revived today. Garum 19:13, 2 May 2008 (BST)

Profile Database

Could you host a text file, or csv or whatever file really of the profile database, this would be helpful as people could run their own queries, at the moment the abbility to only run one query at a time can be quite annoying.--Thekooks 20:27, 4 May 2008 (BST)

Probably, but it would be really big ; the profiles DB is over 67Mb, which means it would make an equally big or bigger text file. People would also have to re-download the whole thing occasionally to stay synched as new accounts get created. I doubt it would kill my server or bandwidth costs, but it seems impractical and inefficient.
Instead, why not simply give people the account names / passwords needed to access the database? I've got one set up with select-only permissions, meaning that I can hand out that info and people still will only be able to look at the content, not alter any of it in any way. (Actually that was Kyle's idea; one of his intended uses for the DB involves having an extension access it, which means the code to do so would be viewable by users, so needs to not disclose any PWs that could be used to alter information.)

Swiers 21:05, 4 May 2008 (BST)

That would be cool.--Thekooks 11:33, 5 May 2008 (BST)

Here yah go:

Connection Strings

Perl $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:sebwiers_kyleprofiles:localhost","sebwiers_PubPro","<PubPro>");

PHP	$dbh=mysql_connect ("localhost", "sebwiers_PubPro", "<PubPro>") or die ('I cannot connect to the database because: ' . mysql_error()); mysql_select_db ("sebwiers_kyleprofiles");

Obviously localhost only applies for code hosted on www.urbandead.info. Otherwise you need to use (I'm guessing) www.urbandead.info...

Please let me know about any cool applications you come up with using this!

Swiers 18:26, 5 May 2008 (BST)

Hmm, after talking to Kyle, its apparent that info isn't much help unless you are coding stuff to host on urbandead.info. If that's not the case, just use the specialized query page Kyle was cool enough to set up. Check this link- http://profiles.urbandead.info/query.php?name=Kyle%20the%20Feared;KyIe%20the%20Feared

Note that you can't stick in any padding spaces before or after the name(s), because some older names actually DO have leading and/or trailing spaces, so the PHP code actually considers them part of the submitted name(s). The format is simply http://profiles.urbandead.info/query.phpname=name1[;name2[;name3...]]

Swiers 19:53, 5 May 2008 (BST)

Thats really cool, thanks Swiers.--Thekooks 19:19, 8 May 2008 (BST)

Dear Swiers,

In an effort to keep the Suggestion page civil I wanted to pose this offensive yet tounge-in-cheek question to you on your talk page. Namely: "Swiers, with all due respect is it ever possible for you to suck less survivor dick than you are now?"?

Sincerely, -- ^Z_Z 19:10, 7 May 2008 (BST)

No, it would not be possible, unless I actually was vomiting forth new survivor dicks that never existed, and thus accomplishing the amazing task of sucking less than zero (negative) quantities of survivor dick.
Or, to quote Tweety bird - "Dat pussy don't me me berry well, do he?"
I may like survivors, but I also like zombies, and do a lot for them. I'm a regulator who takes the long term view that swings in both direction are good, assuming long term balance is maintained. Historically, I'm a zombie player who plays survivors on the side- intitially to understand them better so as to better kill them, more recently because I've come to value their role in the game.
If you doubt this, check my UD "resume":

Member- MotA (over two years) - paid zombie alt with brain rot
Member MOB - zombie alt with brain rot
Member RRF (Gore Corps) - paid death cult alt with KOS rg bounty
Original Author of X:00
Author and owner of iwitness, a tool described by survivor groups as "that fucking zombie spy program" when first introduced.
Author of implemented Suggestion:20070820_No_Free_Running_into_Ruined_Buildings
Author of implemented Suggestion:20071205_Constant_Pest, aka zombie barricade blocking, AKA zombies fuck malls up after January 23 2008

In short, the Dead would probably never have gotten such traction without my long history of "pubbie" suggestion page work and other wiki projects. If you weren't just jerking your buddies off over on the SA forums and actually gave a shit about this games community, you'd probably already know that.
As to my current activities, all I can say is I'm very happy that I'm still managing to piss off all the right people. An insult from you is a SURE sign I'm doing something right. :) Swiers 23:48, 7 May 2008 (BST)

Scent map images

Care to chip in your thoughts here? --Pdeq^Talk* 04:47, 8 May 2008 (BST)

Possible Inaccuracies

I really think you should give this a lookover. --Banana reads Scoundrell for all of Yesterday's News, Today! 08:21, 12 May 2008 (BST)

iWitness

Just been at The Schandua Museum Reganbank 10,57. Repaired the building, read a book, entered Schandua in the iWitness field. "An error has occurred". Went next door, did a test, worked fine. Went back to the Museum, read a book, same thing happened. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 23:12, 14 May 2008 (BST)

If you are using UDwidget, I have no idea; I didn't design that. I do all my Iwitness submissions with the bookmarklets.

Swiers 01:51, 15 May 2008 (BST)

Jamie's signature

My signature is back to standards; frog picture is gone, thanks for the heads up.--Jamie Cantwel3 ^TalkAll glory to the Hypnotoad! 03:55, 16 May 2008 (BST)

SIM Images

Hey. I was just looking through the Unused Images page and found a load of SIM update images. Are these needed for backups or anything or can they be deleted? -- C h e e s e 09:49, 16 May 2008 (BST)

If nothing links to them, all the ones I uploaded that have names like "04-22 scent from 38-27.png" they can be deleted. Hopefully there is some way to do that in bulk? I'm gonna be overhauling the map system soon, so this won't be a continuing issue; the new images will be updates of the old ones.

Swiers 09:54, 16 May 2008 (BST)

Lol. I wish there was. We could use an image deletion bot methinks.Might speed up the process a bit. -- C h e e s e 09:56, 16 May 2008 (BST)

Hmm. Its possible I could maybe cook one up using the same technique as used for MassContacts. That, or (more likely to actually happen) talk to user:the Rooster; if you can point him at a list of pages (and if a bot can be given delete page authority, or simply be signed in as one of the sysops) he could do it. If rooster isn't already a sysop, he probably should be; he's making some really nice "janitorial" contributions.

Swiers 20:24, 16 May 2008 (BST)

EMRP

Would you mind if I move the 'Format and Meaning of Report Summaries' back onto the main EMRP page from the talk page? It's handy to have it in the same place as the links to the individual suburb EMRP pages. cheers, Garum 11:49, 16 May 2008 (BST)

That would be OK. There's two reasons I moved it, though, both somewhat related to the suburb specific EMRP pages being changed (which was required to fix EMRM). First, every one of the suburb-specific EMRP pages has a link to the TALK page saying "here's where to find a description of report summaries". So there needs to be a copy there; editing the links on those 100 pages would be a total pain in the ass. Its OK if its in both places, but maybe should be an included sub page in order to avoid them getting "out of synch". Secondly, the page layout works better (IMO) with the summary table up near the top; it has the links people need to follow to update the reports, after all. So maybe that info should go at the END of the page.

Swiers 20:20, 16 May 2008 (BST)

Went ahead and fixed it myself. I actually created a "template" page for the summary description, so it will stay synched up and could easily be "included" on the talk pages that are currently being created / updated.

Swiers 21:52, 16 May 2008 (BST)

Parser Functions

A discussion on adding the ParserFunctions extention is now underway here. If it were to pass general consensus and be installed, then I for one wouldn't have to make these timestamp checking bots and it would allow much more elaborate templates on the wiki. This is probably something you should chip in on, since you're the driving force behind most of the projects that would benefit from such an addition. -- Rooster Dragon 15:01, 17 May 2008 (BST)

Cool!

Swiers 20:24, 17 May 2008 (BST)

SIM images

I'm sure you know this, but there are over 200 SIM images that aren't categorized or linked to. Just make sure you let me know when your update is complete so that those can deleted or dealt with. Whatever you need done with them.--– Nubis 20:54, 17 May 2008 (BST) EDIT: I meant categorized. I can't say they aren't all linked to without checking them individually.

Give it just till next Friday; after that, any that are not in Category:SIM images can be deleted.

Swiers 21:53, 17 May 2008 (BST)

SIMimage Template

Currently on the Template:SIMimage page, you've got information stating that you must ensure that the tag for the template is inserted into any new image revisions or the image page will lose the templated info. However, I was mucking around with some image uploading earlier as a matter of course for the bot and I discovered that the Summary appears to not affect it. Specifically: The Image Description is set on the first upload and must be changed by editing the image page. While the Upload Summary is nothing more than the comment that gets appended to each timestamped revision in the file history. Basically, a user can put whatever they like in the summary and the image revision, but the image description will remain untouched by the image change. I orginaly thought the Summary would indeed alter the Image Description, but it would appear not. Am I missing something obvious or can I save everybody the hassle of putting a template in their summaries?

You may well be right. I didn't know for sure. Fortunately I was smart this time, and used a template, so making one change on the template page will fix all 81 of the image pages, if that is the case.

Swiers 00:32, 18 May 2008 (BST)

scenting any problems.

Just tried my first SIM map update. How'd I do? --Ross less ne s s^{Want a Location Image?} 21:07, 19 May 2008 (BST)

I don;t see any problems, but I'm actually in the middle of changing the entire map update process right now. (Don't worry- the new method is much EASIER).

Swiers 21:08, 19 May 2008 (BST)

Yay, the new method is so much easier. It took me two minutes from using scent death to finishing updating it.--Thekooks 19:09, 20 May 2008 (BST)

Yeah, its even better when doing 10+ of them at a time. Practically drag'n'drop, if you set your files / desktop up right.

Swiers 22:11, 20 May 2008 (BST)

misconduct voting

hi. could you vote on my misconduct case ? Vote for, vote against, just vote. I just want this thing to be over. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 02:57, 25 May 2008 (BST)

Useful Tool

Hey, I thought this might help you out with the crop/resize portion of SIM submission (well, not you, but other updaters). It's a website called Snipshot, and while it might be useful for folks as an in-browser alternate to an image editing application, the website also lets you hook in from another website, and control various parameters for your users. Since I don't do that kind of thing, I'm not sure exactly what you could do with it, but you might be able to automate some portion of the image editing for SIM contributors. Anyway, it's just something I came across, and I thought I'd let you know about it, in case it turned out to be useful. --Morgan Blair 04:11, 25 May 2008 (BST)

Thanks

Mmm, that is odd. I was aware the need to resize it and thought I did. I'll remember to next time.--KOOKY 19:01, 25 May 2008 (BST)

TZH members with Rot

Yeah, There was a TZH member with Rot. Big Nixon, who I played and retired. That stain on his character was the reason I retired him actually. Because thats what it was, a stain. If you have rot, then play it out and stay a zombie. My drunken misclick led to the ruining of a character. And so Big Nixon was retired.

And he has never been seen since. No more TZH players with rot.

--Dhavid Grohl 03:14, 31 May 2008 (BST)

SIM map image dates

Is there any way to see the dates of the SIM map images other than checking each one individually? None of the things I know about (watchlists and related changes) pick up new file uploads. cheers, Garum 13:10, 5 June 2008 (BST)

Yeah, I've had the same problem. The old system made that easy, but it took MUCH longer to update an image; I've found the tradeoff worth it, but it IS annoying.
There's no way I know of currently, short of getting user:The Rooster to modify his bot so that it outputs a page with that content or some such. I'll ask him about it.

Swiers 21:39, 5 June 2008 (BST)

There's nothing stopping me outputting the content on some page somewhere, but it depends on exactly where you want it. I always thought the tooltips were useful, but I don't know how to go about getting those to show up with custom text. Is there no handy wiki-code for an image's last revision date, rather than a page's? --

	Play on Names
	This user received a template with his likeness. Get it? It's a little known technical fact, but no personal home computer in the world would work without "S Wires". S Wires. Swiers. These wires are constantly sending information back and forth. Here we have an illustration of this wire. Note the suggestive curvature. Your computer will still crash all the time, though, because Bill Gates sucks.

User talk:Swiers/Jul52008Arvhive

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I be takin' all yer Swag, an' givin' you this template. Arrrr.

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