Talk:Suburb

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Reporting Guidelines

How to Update a Suburb Danger Report

First find the report you wish to update, you can search for it by typing "User:DangerReport/Suburb" in the search box. You can also find it listed in this category, just scroll to the bottom of the page. The is also a link listed on each suburb's page in the template on the right. It can be found just below the 9-suburb map.

You then need to change the |Danger= variable to one of the possible statuses. You can briefly explain the reason for the change in the edit summary. Longer explanations are best left on the page of the suburb in question under the news section, or on the suburb page under the reports section.

Example

Example User wants to change the danger level of Hollomstown from moderately dangerous to safe, since he has scouted that suburb and found almost no zombies outside, and no PKing activity was reported for some time.

Example User then goes to the Hollomstown page and follows this link: Update Hollomstown's Danger Level which leads to the danger report page for Hollomstown.

Now he changes the danger variable from |Danger=moderately dangerous to |Danger=safe

He can then note the change on the Hollomstown page in the news section. Or add a report on the Suburb page.

May 10th - No zombie or pking activity in this suburb. This suburb is now safe. --Example User 16:25, 13 August 2006 (BST)

If a suburb is deemed noteworthy, change |Notority=normal to |Notority=notable and this will bold the suburb's name on map output.

Danger colors discussion

main article: Suburb/Color System Discussion

Noteworthy Suburbs

Simple Guidelines for Noteworthiness

For a suburb to be able to be called Noteworthy, important events on the history of Malton must have happened on it. The place where hordes were born, important sieges, or events that gained attention from the entire community.

• An important and unique event must have happened in the suburb

Events like Stanstock, the first and second sieges of Caiger Mall are nice examples of unique events that marked history. The first united the entire urban dead community, and the second and third were HUGE sieges where survivor-kind won against the hordes. Events like the Mall Tour and the Big Bash, on the other hand, doesn't make a suburb noteworthy, as several burbs took part of this event.

• An important and/or historical group was formed in that suburb

When a group manages to draw the attention of the entire community or influence the gameplay centers his actions around a burb of birth, that suburb can be called noteworthy. Examples of this are Ridleybank and Yagoton. The first is the infamous homeland of zombie-kind, homeland of the Ridleybank Resistance Front, while the second is the home of the Yagoton Revivification Clinic, the first and most famous group dedicated to revivification.

• A unique and noteworthy building exists in this suburb

This usually doesn't make a suburb noteworthy at all, unless important events on the history of Malton happened there. Resiting two huge sieges inside Caiger Mall make that unique building noteworthy, while having the only Zoo in the city isn't noteworthy as nothing important of note happened there.

Note that merely fitting in any of these categories doesn't automatically make a suburb noteworthy. It still needs the approval of the community. Nominate and discuss a suburb in the below header.

Nominations

I'd like to nominate Lukinswood for notable suburb status, due to it now containing the Emergency Brodcast system. --Tyl110 07:22, 29 August 2009 (BST)

Quoting the above criteria:

"A unique and noteworthy building exists in this suburb. This usually doesn't make a suburb noteworthy at all, unless important events on the history of Malton happened there."

While I can see the broadcast station drawing some sort of major event in the future, it's yet to host anything particularily noteworthy. As much as I'd like to see it get recognition, I'm not sure it warrants any (yet).--~ Red Hawk One ^{Talk | space for lease} 07:31, 29 August 2009 (BST)

I don't think anything is noteworthy other than Greater Ridleybank and the two suburbs with gatehouses, but Owsleybank is now more notable than Yagoton, Eastonwood, Pitneybank, or Shearbank, and thus meets the community standard, if not my own. --VVV ^RPGMBCWS 05:18, 25 May 2010 (BST)

Pitneybank has a gatehouse (), but I'd think we need to wait and see. Owsleybank is a place where something big could happen. Right now though, I wouldn't say that anything worthy of a historical note on the map has happened yet. Hundreds of people gather every day in Creedy and/or Giddings, but thta's an everyday occurrence. Just because it happens in a different location than usual doesn't make it special, in and of itself. For now, I'm definitely of the "wait and see" mind. —Aichon— 07:18, 25 May 2010 (BST)

I'd like to nominate Owlseybank. As the location of the (failed) ESCAPE attempt, it certainly deserves some notice. Stanbury Village was given special notice for being the site of the Strike, in addition for being part of the territory of the RRF and all that. Unique event: ESCAPE, although not successful, was definitely this. Important/Historical Group: although it failed in its bid for the title of "historical," it was one of the largest survivor groups that Malton has seen for some time. In fact, it was stronger than the Dual Nature movement, the RRF, Feral Undead, and most of the other "important" groups out there. (Although it did get crushed, for a number of reasons.) Noteworthy building: the only attempt to get out of Malton was made in the railway station. I'd say that makes it noteworthy.--Sam 2334 22:01, 14 October 2010 (BST)

I'd disagree. On Strike resulted in literal game changes happening. ESCAPE? Not so much. Can you point to anything that has changed in terms of general thought or actual gameplay in the months since ESCAPE? Also, you conflate strength and size. —Aichon— 22:17, 14 October 2010 (BST)

In hindsight, Escape didn't make Owsleybank all that important. It's still just another suburb, even if there was a big event once upon a time. I'm not saying it shouldn't be remembered, but that the way to do it is by finishing up this page and nominating it as a historical event already. --VVV ^RPGMBCWS 06:27, 15 October 2010 (BST)

General Discussion

Special formatting on group listings

During the Great Suburb Group Massacre, I've noticed some groups using the code for big text (<big></big>) and bolding (<b></b> or ''' '''.) I know that code has been historically used for alliances, but does anyone object to me removing that code when it's individual groups that are using it? Linkthewindow  Talk  07:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There's no reason for any groups to be using additional markup to give themselves undue prominence. The bold/big combo was just used to show the name of organisations with their member groups underneath. It's there to to help people navigate, nothing more. The recommended guidelines are well documented on the template page. All group listings should conform accordingly. --  RoosterDragon  17:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Updating the DangerMap System

This is probably the most updated system of any we have. It's not the easiest to update though and could also do with some other minor tweaks. So here's a few suggestions I'd like some discussion/agreement on before changes are made. Each of these points is independent of the others.

1. Change the code on all 100 suburb danger reports to this.
This is intended to:

• Make it easier for users to update the map correctly by providing the options, with a legend and an example on page so they can tell what the change is as soon as the page saves. This also makes errors dead easy to spot.
• Prevent confusion when using the special/map variations by making it an option the average user will not need to edit.
• Provide flexibility for other pieces of coding by allowing the techie types to call their own formatting templates.
• Make it easier to provide instructions by adding it in a template.

Other notes:

• The current map templates would be renamed to something more explanatory, since the user needs no longer know the name.
  Proposed: "DangerMapNotorietyStatus" where Notoriety would either be 'normal' or 'notable' and Status would be the status.
• After a quick inclusion limit test, I found this code would not endanger any existing templates and force them over the limit. The pre-expand include size, the important one, was unchanged between the current template and the code above. Post-expand and template arguments went up, but these are not factors towards the limit.
• Note: The link on the test page, "2", will link to the suburb when actually used, and not a red page.

2. Change the available status text to one form of English. EG: 'safe' 'moderately dangerous' 'dangerous' 'very dangerous' and 'abandoned'/'a ghost town'

• To allow text based status to be shown, such as in tooltips, without odd English. 'Havercroft is safe' works now, 'Havercroft is moderate' does not.
• For the sake of being uniform.

3. Change the suburb border colour and unify it with the block border colour
Proposed: A darker shade of grey for the cell border and fill. Not as dark as the block one, somewhere in-between probably.

• This makes it easy to distinguish from the ghost town colour at a glance.
• Making the colours the same is a sensible thing to do.

--  RoosterDragon  19:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

All good. But do we need a separate danger report for notorious suburbs? Really? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 20:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean you want to get rid of the 'special' status that gives bold text for such suburbs? That's another discussion. Anyway I'm going to go ahead and implement No.3 since it's not particularly major and easy to revert. 1 and 2 will happen in a few more days in some discussion doesn't show up between now and then. --  RoosterDragon  12:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you explain to me in practical terms how this will be easier to use than the original? I still don't get it. Regardless, I am for a change in this system, and if you want I'll help change the templates for you. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 13:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You get to see the output as soon as you save, so spotting a wrong status or total muck up is easy. The legend gives you a list of available statuses and their meanings on site so you don't have to trawl around to check what they are (Great for the new guys). If the available statuses change or definitions are adjusted, they can be propagated by template in one edit rather than 100. That's about it for the updating user, but the coding bunch can make the template work for them even more. Right now you're stuck to just using the table info the template gives, the new one can allow you to actually use the status to work for you allowing you to reference images or other pages or output text strings or all sorts without resorting to switch hackery which inflates the template cost of the system needlessly and also breaks if anybody changes the colour definitions, even just a little. --  RoosterDragon  13:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Right well, it's been done. I'm still darting about the wiki updating documentation and keeping an eye out for broken maps. Seems to have gone smoothly for the most part. --  RoosterDragon  16:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Other Maps

Needs to me morphed into a template. It shouldn't have been added in that manner in the first place and compromises the readability of the page. --Karek^maps?! 08:00, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Map Errors

Anyone else noticed how inaccurate the maps are becoming since they started basing them on EMR reports instead of eyewitnesses? EMR is a poor indicator of danger level. I think the overall accuracy level has gone down, although at least they all get updated regularly ... even if it is with bad info. -- Grogh 02:49, 11 May 2009 (BST)

The EMR system is the best we've got for suburbs like Miltown and Greentown were there are very few eyewitnesses around that update the wiki. Sure, it's not perfect, but unlike eyewitnesses, it's completely neutral.

By the way, if you've got information, stop complaining and go ahead and update it :P Linkthewindow  Talk  08:19, 11 May 2009 (BST)

No one said you can't edit a map based on eyewitness reports, unless it was while I was away. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 10:06, 11 May 2009 (BST)

I agree a scout (particularly of the detail NecroWatch provides) will always outdo an EMR, there's just not the detail in the EMR, but they make a good general indicator for keeping the maps recent. Recent, if patchy, data is always preferable to outdated information. The only way 'accuracy' of the levels could degrade was if people were using the EMRs as a definitive yardstick despite recent news suggesting otherwise. --  RoosterDragon  16:43, 22 May 2009 (BST)

Report cycling

Why a month? I don't think we would miss much if we changed it to 2 weeks. Not only is this underused as a source of information when compared to individual suburb pages, but most news would be out of date within a week or so anyway. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 13:40, 16 May 2009 (BST)

Would anyone like to discuss this? If not, 2 weeks from now, I'll change it to 2 weeks. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 08:15, 18 May 2009 (BST)

Silence implies consent, in most cases. I don't have a problem with it. Linkthewindow  Talk  08:23, 18 May 2009 (BST)

Silence implies no one was alerted, it's being readded and going to see use. If you see something not getting activity step one is to actually encourage activitiy and this page and it's news played a major role in the game's community when it actually saw use. It's the easy access high visibility way to get the pulse of the game. You're both fail for not having really discussed this at all >_>.--Karek^maps?! 09:21, 21 July 2009 (BST)

Get off ma wikiz! --xoxo 09:27, 21 July 2009 (BST)

is there a reason why...

the south doesn't seem to get as much action as the northern suburbs? Im just curious, cause all the major battles all happened in the upper half of the map. --Mikalos209 01:14, 17 August 2010 (BST)

Geographic tenancies. Predicting zombie movement and survivor resistance is an art. Most people, including myself, agree that the South is more survivor friendly. But the reason is anyone's guess. Let's look at the layout of malls, shall we? You may notice that they group together. Treweeke stands alone, it would be difficult to repair, due to it's distance from other malls, and thus leaves the extreme NE vulnerable. The majority of the Malls form a diagonal vein from the NW to SE corners. This includes the so-called Survivor Security Zone, and the 5 mall loop that includes Caiger. While this would logically mean safety, Malls attract the extremes of the local situation; They're the first building ruined and the first repaired. So the massive dead-zone around Greater Ridleybank spreads though these, with feral ripples hitting even the farthest of the collection. The easiest to defend mall clusters are Marven-Tompson and Pole-Buckley. They're well out of the way of the zombie homeland, invulnerable from feral ripples from a few malls over, and two must be toppled before the complex can fall. Thus the SW and mid-south are easiest to maintain a steady supply to, making them safest for living. However, there are many things which I have not considered; The reputation of an area (it's funner to ruin Caiger than Buckley), local groups (pro-life groups in the South seem to last longer and hold better relations), and local survivor intelligence (or lack thereof) also have an effect. No one can ever fully understand the beautiful display of the danger maps over time, but I encourage you to try. Unless you're pro-life, in which case I'd prefer you die. --VVV ^RPGMBCWS 04:38, 17 August 2010 (BST)

I love being able to legitimately plug my own video [1]! --

 

 

 

 

05:30, 17 August 2010 (BST)

Group in notorious suburb info

why is the kilt store mentioned on this page? what the hell have they done to warrant any special attention?----sexualharrison ¯\()/¯ 22:38, 18 October 2010 (BST)

+1 --VVV ^RPGMBCWS 23:05, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Good call. Removed. If they get into Cat:HG later then they might consider adding themselves back at that time. —Aichon— 23:11, 18 October 2010 (BST)

Suggesting change in danger level

Can we put in a rule for the suburb reports that they shouldn't suggest changes to the danger level and should instead just do it themselves? We can easily provide a link to the instructions for changing it at the top of this page, but the fact that almost every report that comes in says, "Suggest change to X danger level" is ludicrous. Just change it, people! Don't suggest it! —Aichon— 20:57, 22 December 2010 (UTC)