User:Aichon/Archive 2016

Aichon:Talk Archive 2016

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Aichon

ˈīˌkän :Talk Archive 2016

Announcement: I'm no longer active. My talk page is still your best bet to get in touch. —Aichon— 04:39, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

This is an archive. Don't post here.

If you have anything you'd like to add to one of these conversations, then go to my talk page, reference the relevant conversation from here, and post your comments there. This page should not be edited by others. These are all messages I've filed away. They shouldn't be changed or added to, since the contexts of the situations have been lost, forgotten, or could simply be remembered differently by the involved parties. I'd prefer to start any of these conversations fresh, if they must come up again.

Archives: 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | To do

Thanks

Thanks once again for coming to the rescue, I saw that same formatting i n meeso sorrys page where I took the idea from but dont know how to code or anything so was really just tinkering to the best of my (extremely limited) capability. Once again thank you for helping me and not rubbing in my face how much of a pagebreaking fool I am. - Levi R 19:52, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

No worries. I'm just sorry it took me a few hours to swing back through and get the fix in place so it could be re-posted, since I don't like it when I leave people hanging after deleting their ad. Work kept me busy though, so it took a bit of time before I could look at it.

Oh, and for future reference, most templates have examples posted on their pages or talk pages, showing how they should be used. That's what happened to be the case here with the template you were using. I only knew what to do because I copy/pasted the template's example code and inserted the numbers you had come up with already. ;) —Aichon— 19:58, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Range blocks?

Hey Aich! I think I've gotten all the individual accounts and IPs involved in today's massive bot influx, but I wanted to poke you in case you can look at the block log and see if any IP ranges should be blocked. Thanks! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 14:28, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Will do, though it'll probably be tomorrow. I'm just poking my head in quick enough to reply and hadn't even seen the bot activity yet. —Aichon— 15:27, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

So, I see a number of ranges that could be blocked, but I'm not sure which, if any, we actually want to block. As a quick primer, IP ranges are typically expressed with an address and a prefix length, such as 192.168.0.0/8, /16, or /24. They don't have to be in multiples of 8, but multiples of 8 are the most common, since an IP address can be expressed in 32 bits with 8 bits for each of the numbers, so multiples of 8 align nicely with the numbers in IP addresses. So, /8 would mean that we only pay attention to the first number (i.e. 192.*.*.*), /16 means just the first two numbers (i.e. 192.168.*.*), and /24 means the first three (192.168.0.*), but you can actually do stuff like /19 (i.e. 192.168.0.* - 192.168.31.*), if you want to get down to the bits themselves.

You blocked 61 IP addresses yesterday (plus hundreds of individual accounts, of course). Of the addresses, I see a /20 that covers 115 of the spam accounts and about 20 of the IP addresses, and another /19 that nails 97 of the accounts and another 20-ish IP addresses. Given how fast this was coming in and that these are mostly or entirely US-based IPs, I'm inclined to think this was the work of a botnet, so we'd likely be blocking unknowing participants, rather than a spam mill. Even so, I don't see any valid accounts showing up in checkuser in those ranges, so I'm going to go ahead and block those two ranges, that way we'll have a leg up if they start up again. —Aichon— 20:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Cool cool. Yeah, I was surprised the IPs kept coming up as being from within the US — a botnet makes sense. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 20:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Big Bash

Some of us at NecroConnect are talking about bringing back the big bash, and I heard you've helped with it in the past. Interested in helping? -Jerran1 ^{NecroConnect Creator/Admin} 23:51, 28 January 2016 (UTC) 2 people like this comment.

I'll stop by the topic at NecroConnect where I see you guys talking about it and will chime in with my two cents. I'll also see if I can track down Bosch and Vapor to poke them about it too. —Aichon— 16:29, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

(Was the real secret goal of this discussion to get Aichon to join NecroConnect? Shhh...) Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 16:54, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

probably... This also couldve been accomplished a long time ago by telling him something was faulty with the coding :p Commandant Romero (talk) 17:47, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Hey just chiming in to say I talked to Aichon, read the forum thread and agree with pretty much everything he said. I still have admin access to the Facebook page. If another one happens and you want that kind of coverage, I'd be willing to add access to the right person. But I've quit UD now, and for some time now. I'd wake up my Bash zombie for another go around probably but that's about the extent of the activity I'd devote to it I'm afraid. I had a lot of fun with it but never again. ~ _{16:48, 31 January 2016, The year of our lord (UTC)}

Zerg Impersonation

Hey, will keep an eye out for the Aichon zerg. I'm just surprised you hadn't created a throwaway character with the Aichon name ages ago — leaving yourself open to a jebbush.com moment. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 19:55, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I thought about it years ago, but just decided it wasn't worth it. Despite anything going on now, I still don't think it would have been worth my time to create the account. I kinda get a laugh out of the fact that anyone else got worked up enough by me to go and actually do it. Not to mention that they didn't even get the wiki's name correct. —Aichon— 22:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Re: Zerging Baz Baziah

Good evening. I have been playing Urban Dead since July 2007 with my one and only character Baz Baziah [1]. since 2008 I have been a member of the Department of Emergency Management group [2] within the sub group of the Malton Forensic Unit [3] and lately as a Malton Marshal within the DEM -a role that as you are most likely aware aimed at reducing PK'ing and Zerging within the game. Furthermore I am also a member of the DEM counsel [4] and liaison for the Malton Marshals.

So, after introducing myself and giving you a potted history of my time playing Urban dead, I come to the reason for my post here. Earlier tonight (25th Feb 16) you and several of your Zombie assistants killed myself and several others (including another DEM player)inside of Wadham cinema [39,54] on the pretext that I was a known Zerger "POS" and the people inside the cinema with me are also part of my Zerging group. Can I ask where this evidence comes from against me and the other players and can you back it up? I have only EVER played this one character, although my Son plays another character from his own laptop via our home network and I have several friends who also play the game, and oppose all acts of PKing, Zerging and destroying the game for other players.

I await your reply.

Jim —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bas Baziah (talk • contribs) 21:47, 25 February 2016‎ (UTC).

Jim, I'm afraid this is a case of identity theft. You can find a discussion about this particular case over at PatheticBill's talk page, where it was briefly discussed. I've also done some quick documentation of the issue over at my Characters page.

As you, I've been playing the game for a number of years, since 2009 in my case. I've led the Soldiers of Crossman, am on the leadership council of the Philosophe Knights, helped lead strike teams for the MOB, was one of the people in charge of Big Bashes 3 and 4, and have faithfully served both as a sysop and active member of the community here on the wiki. While you and I may disagree a bit about the role of PKing in Malton (I view it as an accepted and enjoyable activity, though I personally only engage in it on my dedicated PKer character), we are very much so on the same side when it comes to zerging or other forms of cheating that are contrary to the rules posted by Kevan (I even had a peer reviewed suggestion back in 2009 that was designed to eliminate unintentional cheating), so I am very sorry that this zerger has caused you trouble while using my name.

Suffice to say, I have no grievance with you. If anything, I'd be interested in coordinating with you on keeping a bead on him. The last I saw of him was about a week ago in the Caiger area. He's been attacking the SoC's home suburb (Darvall Heights) for the last few weeks, as well as posting graffiti aimed at me and the SoC, accusing us of zerging and other things. That's his standard modus operandi, I'm afraid, so I've come to expect it when he's around, but I haven't seen him for about a week now, so this is the first I've heard that he's still active and in the area. To say the least, feel free to deal with him as you see fit.

And, once again, I apologize for any inconvenience he's causing you. —Aichon— 22:32, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for going off like a firecracker at you.

Last year I and the members of the "Galbraith Hills Police Department" group had a run in with the fools of "The Jack Yocum" after we waged a campaign to rid Shore & Galbraith Hills of there Zerging/PKing actions. This was a huge mistake which resulted in myself and the GHPD team being killed time and time again -sometimes as much as three times in one 24 hour period for me, by one of the 80 odd Zergs. The final straw came as all but one of the GHPD and my Baz character getting banned from the game for being repeated Griefers and Zergs of "Baz Baziah". This resulted in me dropping out of the game for several months hoping that this would blow over and JY would have forgotten about me and moved off. It appears I was wrong, as within 72 hours of standing back up I was once again subject to a targeted attack!

Do you have any details or can you point me in the direction of details on this JY clone group? I have a list of around 75 of them, who strangly go inactive and active within minutes of each other. Any ideas who it was that banned the GHPD account and can appeal to them, trying to mail Kevan met with an "I'm not really interested, create a new account" kind of reply which was no help!

Perhaps we can work together to try and stop "Aichon" but I think 2 players with 1 Character apiece v a Zerg who can create as many clones as they need, we are not going to get very far.

Jim —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bas Baziah (talk • contribs) 08:19, 26 February 2016 (UTC).

No worries! I understand the frustration.

In terms of appeals, I'm afraid Kevan is the one and only place you can appeal to. If you haven't been able to get through to him, I'm afraid I don't know of any alternatives.

As far as details about the zerg "group" go, I'm afraid I don't know much. As I said, the last I saw of him was over a week ago, so your report of seeing him in Shore Hills is the most up-to-date intel I have regarding him. That said, quite a few people read anything that's said on this talk page, so if any of them have information regarding his current location, I hope that they'll chime in. *hint hint all of you lurkers out there*

And yes, I agree that we won't get far when it comes to working by ourselves. Really, my goal is to restore our power to choose how we deal with him, whether through direct confrontation or avoidance. We can't do that unless we know where he is, however, hence my comment. Hopefully that makes a little better sense, but basically, I don't want a zerger dictating how anyone plays the game, and if we know where he is, it restores our ability to choose how we play. —Aichon— 16:42, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Try looking at Bale Mall in Yagoton. There is a group claiming to be Jack Yocum that has "taken over" and is targeting the "zergs" of Nation Library with the usual wild accusations and random targeting. They seem to be very susceptible to the common UD illusion that anyone with a common goal and some competence must be a zerg, which is ironic. There also seems to be a hall of mirrors effect as there was an anti(?) Yocum group called The Jack Yocum for a while as I recall? (For history, seek out the information about the Alpha Dogs on Resensitized, also a part of this whole demented affair, as is, I believe, the Goth Store Drama and "that one guy who threatened to sue Kevan.") --Ginormous (talk) 21:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

As an FYI to anyone reading, Crossman Grove PD in Darvall Heights got hit by 13 zombies all of a sudden today, and I just noticed some graffiti saying, "Seekandyeshallfind/DrJackson=Fake PKnights=ZERG". Given that DrJackson is a well known zerg hunter (and that I suspect he was recently in the area since I saw some Philosophe Knight graffiti around recently as well), it seems likely that the zergs are back up in Darvall, engaging in their strange smear campaign. —Aichon— 21:24, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

It might be useful, if not already there somewhere, to create a page on the wiki that contains news items on up-to-date zerg activity. (I know there's Resensitized but maybe something wiki Danger Report -ish.) A project if anyone wants it. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 01:59, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Resens is largely dead anyway and more interesting for its old backlog of zerging documentation. The wiki would probably be a more high-profile place to document current zerg sightings. -- Spiderzed▋ 11:48, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

So, anyone want to take me up on this offer? Could start with a name at least. Or just get Bob to do everything. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 19:37, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

I think I'd rather not take the lead on this one, mostly because I don't think cataloguing zergs is as clear-cut as e.g. danger statuses. As we've seen before, things tend to rapidly decay into back-and-forth "you're a zerg! no you are!" Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 12:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Stick it in my namespace. Ill keep an eye on the bugger. Resens backed up anywhere?--Rosslessness^{Want to complete a dangerous mission?} 18:09, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Its Jack "we have 60 players who all go inactive at the same time" yocum. Maltons favorite crybaby and "ill fight you in real life" hero (once he gets off dads internetz). He zerg impersonates cool people as he gets jealous a little and often upset the Bills pawned him all the way back in 2007. So Baz if you see any EmP's in game then shoot the shit out of them (me included).--EmPathetic Bill (talk) 04:55, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

You are my favourite Urban Dead Wikipedia Sysop.

Thought you should know. --Rosslessness^{Want to complete a dangerous mission?} 23:18, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I cracked up when I saw that he couldn't even get the wiki's name right while trying to impersonate me. Who calls it "Urban Dead Wikipedia"? *facepalm* At least impersonate me right, Mr. Zerger who will likely read this page at some point, if you're going to do it at all! —Aichon— 23:22, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

as a man who loves the small tells that give away zergers it did make me smile. --Rosslessness^{Want to complete a dangerous mission?} 18:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

… Jorm? ЯЭV⁠€⁠NΛИ† ||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 04:51, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

No, no, see, he meant the Wikipedia page for Urban Dead. He works at Wikipedia, as you'll recall. He knows his stuff. It was no accident. —Aichon— 05:21, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

I was the one who called him shitbrain and I stand by it. A ZOMBIE ANT 08:05, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Great spot too, Rev. A ZOMBIE ANT 08:08, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Combining UD A-GPS Coordinates and UD Map Links scripts?

Hello, I ended up joining these two scripts for personal use, so that the DSS map links to `http://map.dssrzs.org/location/X-Y`; this way the tile my character is on will be at the center of the map and in yellow, which is convenient. I was wondering if you'd like to join the two scripts officially for public use. Thank you for those! -Weirdomen 3:30, 01 April 2016 (UTC)

Yours is one of those simple ideas that I wish I'd had, since it's both really useful and really obvious-in-hindsight once someone points out. I've modified the official versions of both userscripts to support the feature, but I've still kept the userscripts themselves separate, that way people can choose whether they want one, the other, or both. I've credited you in the comments of A-GPS as well. Thanks! —Aichon— 15:57, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

That's wonderful! Thank you! Weirdomen 1:35, 03 April 2016 (UTC)

Ellipsis Realty

Ellipsis, despite not (yet) knowing how to make a wiki ad, is definitely an actual group — they've PK'ed me. But their exact name is pretty confusing — I've seen Ellipsis Realty, The Ellipsis Realty Cult (in Capt Raymond Holt's profile; Felix Crossthorp, possibly a member, has no group listed), and now Ellipsis Realty Ltd. No idea why they've taken their group name from a realty company in Ontario. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 16:02, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I think I may adopt a "shoot on sight" approach, simply on account of the spam ads they associate with. Or are they a cult that worships the spam ads and their creator? I have no idea what to believe any more. —Aichon— 16:21, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

In case you're tracking these guys, I've located Cult member Jack Gilhooly. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 09:51, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

New Idea

Hi,

For the past half hour or so, I've been brainstorming about linking the danger reports to the status of suburbs on the suburb map, but for the life of me, I can't figure it out.

The basic idea I had was to assign each status a certain value, which would be processed and result in a conclusion, for instance:

Rot Revive = +5 Safe = +3 Under attack = 0 Under Siege = -1 Ruined = -3 Pinata = -4 Unknown = -5

If the sum of all values is above X, the suburb is considered Safe, if it's between Y and X, it's considered Moderately Dangerous, etc.

Would such a thing be possible? :)

PB&J 17:29, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

You'd need a way to calibrate for proportion of buildings v open blocks, which can vary quite a lot from suburb to suburb, and would miss e.g. large groups of zombies that happen to be standing in open blocks, a situation I've recently encountered in East Becktown. And "unknown" statuses aren't indicative of zombie/survivor levels in-game, just that an area is underrepresented on the wiki. I've tried to make a system to "diagnose" suburbs this way based on EMR (see here, point 8). Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 18:05, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Ignoring Bob's (entirely valid and worthy of consideration) points for the moment and simply answering your question, if we had one of the math extensions installed on the wiki, yup, it'd be basically just one line of code. But I'm afraid we don't, so were it anyone else asking me, I'd just say, "nope, not possible", but because it's you and I know you're willing to go to excruciating lengths to make cool things happen...yes, I think it actually is possible, but it'd be mighty tedious.

Just thinking off the top of my head (i.e. never done this before) doing that sort of math would mean crafting a sorta-recursive algorithm by creating a template for each of the possible values in the total range, so for your example, you'd need 1000 templates to cover every possible value from -500 to +500. Each of those templates would be hand-coded to understand which other values are reachable from it (e.g. Template208 would know it could jump to templates 213, 211, 208 (itself), 207, 205, 204, and 203, depending on what value it was given). A short example of how it would work would be something like:

1. You include Template0 and give it values A, B, and C as parameters to add together.
2. Template0 tells TemplateA to add parameters B and C
3. TemplateA tells TemplateA+B to add parameter C
4. TemplateA+B tells TemplateA+B+C to add nothing
5. TemplateA+B+C provides back A+B+C as the final answer
6. TemplateDangerLevel takes that final number and converts it into a status

So, just to provide some dry-coded pseudo-code (i.e. this is some rough logic that is not guaranteed to work or be anywhere close to correct) for how something like this might work for calculating the total of the first three blocks in a suburb (let's say our example blocks have values +3, 0, and -5):

1. You'd start things off by giving Template0 your individual block values and then passing the result into TemplateDangerLevel: {{TemplateDangerLevel|{{Template0|Block1Value|Block2Value|Block3Value|...|Block100Value}}}}
2. TemplateDangerLevel would have something like: {{switch|{{{1}}}|case: -500=very dangerous|case: -499=very dangerous| ... |case: 499=safe|case: 500=safe}}
3. Template0 would be like: {{if|{{{1|}}}|{{Template{{switch|{{{1}}}|case: 5=5|case: 3=3|case: 0=0|case: -1=-1|case: -3=-3|case: -4=-4|case: -5=-5}}|{{{2}}}|{{{3}}}| ... |{{{100}}}}}|0}}
4. Because Block1 had a value of 3, the above code would concatenate "Template" with "3" to then use Template3, which looks like: {{if|{{{1|}}}|{{Template{{switch|{{{1}}}|case: 5=8|case: 3=6|case: 0=3|case: -1=2|case: -3=0|case: -4=-1|case: -5=-2}}|{{{2}}}|{{{3}}}| ... |{{{100}}}}}|3}}
5. Because Block2 was 0, Template3 would call itself again, which would result in Template-2 being used (because 3 - 5 = -2): {{if|{{{1|}}}|{{Template{{switch|{{{1}}}|case: 5=3|case: 3=1|case: 0=-2|case: -1=-3|case: -3=-5|case: -4=-6|case: -5=-7}}|{{{2}}}|{{{3}}}| ... |{{{100}}}}}|-2}}
6. Because all of the parameters passed into Template-2 were empty, it would fail on the "if" statement and simply provide back "-2", which would be the final answer, which would then go into TemplateDangerLevel.

So, yes, it should be possible, but it'd be a real hassle, the wiki may break from it (I wouldn't know without testing it), and if someone decided to change the system later, it'd involve redoing all of those templates by hand. Not fun. But possible! —Aichon— 18:28, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

OK, I'll look through the entire idea tomorrow morning (pretty late here), but to comment on the last part: who is still going to change the system at this point? I mean, there are barely enough people active to keep the current system alive, one of the reasons the DC was designed 4 (!) years ago.

The whole point is to automate as much as possible. PB&J 19:59, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Surely this would be easier with no ghost town criteria? --Rosslessness^{Want to complete a dangerous mission?} 19:30, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Howdy

If its not too personal, how are the SOC doing? Where are you cruising about these days?--Rosslessness^{Want to complete a dangerous mission?} 19:31, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

We're doing about as well as can be expected, I think, given the state of the game. We're still on the stats page, so that should give you a rough idea of how our numbers are doing. Probably about half of our members hang out around our Darvall Heights home, working in that area full-time, while the other half go on whatever mission we're up to. Right now, we're in the southwest of Malton doing some work outside of our usual area, though we're probably at the point where we're going to head out soon, since we fully repaired the area, reset all of the repair costs, and are mostly just barricade strafing behind the handful of zombies doing stuff in the area (with the notable exception of one building). —Aichon— 19:36, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Fixing my Sig

Hello my good sir! Would you help in fixing my sig please,it appears there's something wrong with it..I had hoped my sig would appear as {{User:Paynetrain/sig}} when you;re editing a page in which i have signed,but instead it appears as --- [[User:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:impact,monospace,serif;color:#e00000;">P</span>]][[User:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:impact,monospace,serif;color:#d00000;">a</span>]][[User:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:impact,monospace,serif;color:#c00000;">y</span>]][[User:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:impact,monospace,serif;color:#b00000;">n</span>]][[User:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:impact,monospace,serif;color:#A00000;">e</span>]][[User talk:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:impact,monospace,serif;color:#900000;">T</span>]][[User talk:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:'poplar std',verdana,sans-serif;color:#a00000;">r</span>]][[User talk:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:'poplar std',verdana,sans-serif;color:#b00000;">a</span>]][[User talk:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:'poplar std',verdana,sans-serif;color:#c00000;">i</span>]][[User talk:Paynetrain|<span style="font-size:1.4em;font-family:'poplar std',verdana,sans-serif;color:#d00000;">n</span>]]^{'''([[FU]])'''} --- and i know how much of an annoyance it can be when other wikizens are editing.I have tried fixing it,but for the life of me i can't do it....I changed my signature in preferences to {{User:Paynetrain/sig}} but when i save it comes as {{SUBST:User:Paynetrain/sig}}.can you help me fix this? While you're at it can you also fix any other mistakes I've made on my sig?i have a feeling its not supposed to be this long.lol P.S i already asked Bob about this,but hes kinda offline now...--PayneTrain^(FU) 17:13, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Try changing your signature in preferences to {{SUBST:Nosubst|Paynetrain/Sig}}. For reasons I can't remember off the top of my head, you NEED to subst the signature, but doing so causes it to behave as you've seen, so we use Nosubst to undo that problem. And I'll try to find some time to look at your sig's code, but I'm at work and can't spare any time at this moment, so I can't make any promises. —Aichon— 17:19, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Managed to find some time. You can find it at User:Aichon/Sandbox/Demo15. More or less, instead of having individual links and styles per letter, I grouped them up so that we could apply the links/styles to groups, meaning that we didn't have to repeat them once per letter. The only visible difference is that when you mouseover the letters in your name, there are now two links instead of ten. Otherwise, so far as I can see, it's entirely identical while being about 1/3 the code of the original. And we can slim it down even more if the "T" were to match the styling of the rest of "rain", but I'm not too worried about that. —Aichon— 17:39, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

MediaWiki’s been set (by default, via software update) not to allow templated sigs, so it’ll auto-subst any template included in the signature. People weren't too impressed by this, so manually substing the {{Nosubst}} wrapper is the workaround that was found & we (still) have— clunky, but easier than bothering Big Kahuna to change the wiki config.
Also, you’re far more willing to suffer fools gladly than I; I would probably just have told ’em to do their homework, considering the entire process is detailed under the Wiki Help linked on every page.
Hell, if you keep just giving ’em fish… _{or fire…} ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 19:45, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Oh,awesome!! thanks man,I've been mulling over this for a while now....and Peralta just showed me the SUBST thing...Been going around asking people about this.lol...Thankyou for fixing my sig too! I owe you one man :) --PayneTrain^(FU) 17:52, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Cycler

Stelar and me are having some trouble with this page. It's supposed to call on a East Becktown Defenders/QuoteXX page, with XX defined by the CURRENTHOUR, but it doesn't seem to take any inputs? Any help would be welcome. PB&J 14:33, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Just tweaked it. See if that works for you. You were missing the | that separated the template's name from the parameter you were passing into it. —Aichon— 14:39, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

No further progress. The removal of that pipe was a desperate attempt :P PB&J 14:40, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Oh, so is the problem that it's not actually cycling every hour? If so, the problem is likely that the page is cached by the wiki, which is something you can't really do much about. Previewing it will cause it to update in your preview...but not for everyone else. If you do a "silent save" (i.e. save the page with no edit made), it'll force the wiki's cache to reset, which should force it to update to the latest hour for everyone, but if you just refresh the page normally, it won't do much of anything, I'm afraid. The only other way around it is to load the page with a cache reset parameter in the URL. You can see an example of one in this edit to the BB4 page (look for the "action=purge" stuff), back when I had a countdown posted to the start of the BB4 event and wanted to provide people with a way to refresh the countdown. —Aichon— 14:46, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that it's not taking any input. The text appearing on Template:EBDQuoteCycler is the default text for when there's no input. I know about the caching, I test everything in preview mode, saves the Recent Changes page a bit of work. PB&J 14:49, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Ooooh. For some reason I thought that WAS the quote you wanted. Yeah...these problems get a bit trickier since trying to grab arguments from other templates causes all sorts of issues with pipes. Two things to try:

• Replace your pipes in the quote pages with {{!}}. Those will get converted into pipes once they're included, rather than before, which may fix the issue, though I can't recall for sure.
• Move the layout logic to your quote pages. Basically, model it after a Danger Report, where each page containing data (i.e. each quote) is responsible for formatting itself. If you want to be able to use the quotes in different formats on different pages, just use {{EastBecktownDefQuote}} as their default template, with an argument that allows you to pass in a different template for other uses, just like how the DRs default to using the BuildingStatus template, but can be used in other ways (as was done with the DangerCenter). That way will definitely work, but it'll take a bit more work. —Aichon— 15:06, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. The first idea didn't work. The second one is a level above my paygrade it seems, since I don't understand half of what's in there :)

They'll only be used on one page as far as I know, I'm not even sure at this point why I tried to put a CURRENTHOUR call inside a template call inside a different template call. Made sense at the time, but I'm just going to go ahead and get rid of a couple levels of complexity :P Thanks for the tips! PB&J 15:21, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, if you want to keep it simple, just put a quote template on each quote page, then include a different one each hour. No different than flagboxes, basically. —Aichon— 15:22, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I went with the rather large switch table, along with putting the quote template on each quote page. Less elegant than a single line of wiki code powering the whole thing, but if it works it isn't stupid. PB&J 15:47, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Then again, apparently my quote pages aren't displaying the default messages for empty variables any more, so now I broke something else :P Not a giant problem, more a curiosity. PB&J 15:49, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Extracting EMR input

Hi,

Me again, with another question about how to potentially break the wiki :)

Stelar and me are looking into extracting the input on EMR reports to use it in a different template. Basicly make it so that if people put info in the EMR's, we can use that info as well without manually inputting it in two places.

What we basicly need is this:

|s=Barrville |z=~0 |i=**- |p=B |d=Jul 1

so without the rest of the template surrounding it.

(example taken from the Barrville EMR)

Ideas?

PB&J 13:31, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

You can use it directly in another template as it is, since the raw data is just defaulting to using the {{EMR}} template, but it can be passed into any template of your choosing already. Take a look at how {{EMR}} is built, then make your own that formats the pieces of data you want, how you want, and use it via something like {{EMRP: Darvall Heights|mytemplate}}. That'll cause the data in the relevant EMR to be formatted according to your template instead of {{EMR}}, which should be what you're looking for, from the sound of things. —Aichon— 13:51, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

It sounds about right. I'll play around with it and come back to you when I inevitably break things. PB&J 14:43, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, I tried it and it just gives me "Template:EMRP: Darvall Heights" as the output... PB&J 14:52, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

You had the right idea. You need a colon before the EMRP template name because it has a colon in the name, which the wiki interprets as a namespace. You also need to tell it which variable you're filling, for...reasons. Anyway, Demo4 should now be working for you with its second example. —Aichon— 14:56, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I tried the colon in preview, never would have guessed the template= . Thanks, once again, you've proven to be a bloody wiki genius! PB&J 14:58, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

It Worked!

Thanks for the help Aichon, it helped us build a binary counter with 6 digits! THIS counts how many East Beck hospitals are currently safe. I'm immensely proud of it :) PB&J 16:57, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

It seems I have tickled your curiosity :P Watcha doing? PB&J 17:56, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

...nuthin'. >_>

Well, I was trying to build a quick little recursive counter that would've worked for way more digits and used way less code, but then I remembered that the wiki doesn't support recursion. Shucks. I may try re-implementing it in much the same way that I did with my intToString templates that can take a series of digits and convert them to their text-based equivalent, since I think it'd be possible to do something of that sort, but that's definitely a less clean version of the concept. Even so, it should work and should let me add any sequence of 0s and 1s up to however many digits I program it to take. —Aichon— 18:17, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

That would be handy, but a lot heavier to load I imagine... I think my current counter is quite clean (although I still have to adjust some small things to make it work on any status). It does what it has to do, and it only calls on the templates of the 6 buildings it counts. I can imagine some greater uses for this, Malton-wide perhaps, but the DC took a great toll on the wiki when we implemented it, and I'm not too eager to make page calls take over a minute again. PB&J 18:29, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

EBD banner issue

We had some feedback about our EBD Stat Party 2016 page saying the banner makes the screen need a horizontal scroll bar when the browser size is reduced (which basically extends to all our pages). I've been trying to figure out how to get it to do it, but haven't managed to. The closest I could get was using something like <div style="max-width=100px">, but that made the banner pop outside the right side border, while everything else reduced as I shrunk the browser. Any ideas on what I should do? stelar (talk) 13:37, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, aside from hacking the CSS for the entire site (which we're not going to do, I'm afraid :P), I'm not aware of any way to resize an image on UDWiki based on the user's browser window size. The way I've tried to get around this limitation in the past when designing pages (e.g. BB4, SoC) is to have the image use a background color that can blend into the page's background, that way the edges of the image aren't obvious. It makes them feel larger than they actually are. Admittedly, it's not a great solution, but it works. —Aichon— 19:22, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Okay no worries. I'll just reduce the size for now I guess! stelar (talk) 07:26, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Userscript to fix building name problem

I finally got tired of the building names being screwed up in Chrome (i.e. no spaces between the words, causing them to stretch the minimap really wide) and I had a few minutes of downtime today at work while I was waiting on code to compile, so I made a userscript that adds the spaces back in where they should be in the names, then modified my Better Name Colorer script to change the CSS so that the buttons word-wrap on spaces like you'd expect. It seems to fix the issue. The reason I'm mentioning it here instead of just putting the code up for download is two-fold:

1. I don't have time right now to combine them into a single script, which is what they really should be before I publish them.
2. I'm worried that if I don't have someone poking me, I'll forget to ever actually finish it and make it available.

I figure that if I post here, you guys will keep me accountable, since I can't possibly be the only one wanting this fix. —Aichon— 17:58, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

And...I've already lost the code to the new userscript. Turns out that having the line of code that causes it to look for auto-updates is a good idea...so long as you don't point it towards a completely different script that will overwrite your new one that you don't have saved anywhere else yet. >_< —Aichon— 19:09, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

And...I found some more time while code was compiling, so I'll be adding a fixed up and complete version to my Userscripts page in a sec. —Aichon— 20:13, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Let me know when this is up and running, love that you're doing this! PB&J 07:47, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

They're already posted up. Check the dates for the scripts on the Userscripts page to see which ones I updated. As I'm updating scripts, I'm also adding auto-updating to them, which should make future updates simpler if you're using a browser that supports auto-updates. —Aichon— 13:05, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Oh and if you get the chance, could you try and get a bigger "search the area"-button in Barrista? It's quite tiny for one of the most used buttons. PB&J 08:57, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Regarding this: I'm open to suggestions. Barrista could use a better layout, but it's difficult to deal with all of the edge cases that can exist. —Aichon— 20:58, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

How about putting it in the same format as the "barricade" button? Nice big square button :) PB&J 14:43, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. Two thoughts for why I haven't done that already:

1. How obvious would it be what it is? The barricade button has "cade" in it when it's able to be used, but I wouldn't be able to fit "search" in a button of the same size, and I already consider the barricade button to be pushing things when it comes to the ease of discoverability.
2. If I'm changing the button from what it is now, I'd like a more comprehensive solution that could also address malls, where you can search multiple things from one place.

I do like the idea of a larger button, but it needs something more than just that, I think. —Aichon— 14:51, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

First of all: the barricade button is by far easier to locate on my screen than the search button right now, just fyi :)

Second, the Mall search is an interesting situation. Perhaps a dropdown menu with all the options and that reverts to "Search the building." when not in a mall? PB&J 15:19, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I probably should have said something more like "intuitiveness". Basically, answering the question, "is it obvious what it does?", more so than the question of, "is it easy to see?" As for the mall search, a pulldown could work, but I'd want it to be something that the user could click repeatedly without having to select from a pulldown each time, otherwise it'd be less convenient than what they already have. ;) —Aichon— 16:13, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

UDToolbar used to* use a dropdown and just select whatever search you’d made most recently, since it’s always in the URL parameters and submitted via form. (Actually, the form bit might mean the browser or cgi script handled that part.) Seems the most elegant way to handle it would be to default to doing what the user was doing last — come to think of it, I had an “attack toolbar” idea ages ago that I never got around to fleshing out which worked on this principle.
_{*Presumably still does, if you’re running an old enough Firefox version.} ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 01:52, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Magic words: time

Hi Aichon,

I'm trying to get this page to display two things: the user's local currenthour and the server's currenthour, but for some reason, it's displaying the servertime twice. Suggestions? :) PB&J 09:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as far as I can recall, neither of them actually provides the user's time, despite what the Magic Words page says. They both provide wiki time. I ran into this issue a few years back when trying to make a table that would show MOB strike times in the user's local time...didn't have much luck. Sorry. —Aichon— 14:26, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Heh. Was trying to do the exact same thing for the Scourge. As usual I went with a 600 case switch :P Thanks anyway mate PB&J 14:35, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Userscript Idea

Not sure how plausible it is, but it would be nice to have radio broadcasts be more readible. Right now, on frequencies like 27.55, it shows " from here, on 27.55 MHz. (x minutes ago)" after every piece of radio traffic. Maybe group them together a bit so it just says:

27.55 MHz:

• "bla bla bla" (2 hours ago)
• "bla die bloe bla" (1 hour ago)
• "blobedieblabedie" (Just now)

Just an idea... PB&J 12:23, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

It's fairly plausible. Radio broadcasts follow a pattern that is stylistically unique to them (so far as I know) and that can't be duplicated by users in some other way, meaning it should be fairly straightforward to recognize them and identify their channels. But yeah, were something like this to be done, we'd definitely want to group the messages by frequency (so long as they were continuous in the stuff the user sees) and then we'd probably also want to toss in some extra styling for related events, such as radios going down.

• 27.55 MHz:
  • "bla bla bla" (2 hours ago)
  • "bla die bloe bla" (1 hour ago)
  • *crash* *static* *silence* (5 minutes ago)
  • "blobedieblabedie" (Just now)

But before I'd even consider doing something like this, I'd need to have a representative sample of dumbwits (not screenshots, since I can't test my scripts on screenshots), simply because it's impossible for me to test radio broadcasts in the game by myself. And they'd need to be showing things like single-line broadcasts, multi-line broadcasts, multi-line broadcasts that get intermingled with other actions at the player's location (e.g. someone talking during a broadcast), multi-line broadcasts that get interrupted by outside actions (e.g. a different broadcast, a flare, a bellow), what it looks like when the broadcast is happening at the user's location vs. happening elsewhere, how it looks when you're the one doing the broadcasting, what the messages look like when tuning into a frequency that has 0 vs. 1+ transmitters with a radio vs. with a transmitter, what it looks like when a transmitter goes down (and the last transmitter too, if the message is different), and so on. More or less, when it comes to text parsing, I want as many examples as possible before I even get started, and I want to know that I have the ability to test as much as is needed, otherwise I'll regret any assumptions I make about how the code should work when I later on discover that there's a major edge case that turns those assumptions on their head.

Also worth saying: this isn't an itch I feel compelled to scratch for myself just yet, which is typically what gets me to work on userscripts, but if you guys actually keep up with the Radio Malton broadcasts on my group's frequency, I may think differently in a few more days. :P —Aichon— 15:03, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

We knew that frequency would get your attention :D When it comes to testing, I think no one in Malton is as qualified as we currently are to deliver any and all necessary examples, since we spend a considerable amount of our time spamming the airwaves anyway. It'll take a while, but we'll try and keep up the transmissions on 27.55 MHz and 26.43 MHz and gather what we can in the meantime.

Respectfully yours, PB&J 15:24, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Umm

Hey, why did you revert all my recent edits to my sandbox? I copied all the old material elsewhere. Was it an error? Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 11:26, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Mis-click? I vaguely remember accidentally tapping the rollback link on a line that had text-wrapped in my watchlist when viewed on my iPad, before quickly tapping the correct link. I didn't think it had gone through, but clearly I was incorrect. Feel free to undo. —Aichon— 13:15, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

No worries. Didn't want to undo in case there was an issue. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 13:28, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Thankfully nothing. Sorry for the hassle. —Aichon— 14:19, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

chrome stuff

thinking of playing again but I stopped using firefox.. got any chrome plug ins to make the game view better.? please let me know on my talk. thx--User:Sexualharrison16:49, 6 October 2016

Responded on your talk. —Aichon— 16:58, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

PK forum error 509?? whats up with the pk forum?? anyone?--User:Sexualharrison02:21, 27 October 2016

It indicates they went over their bandwidth. Since the PK forum is on hosting with other sites run by one of the single initial folks (J or F, I think? Or was it M?), my guess would be that those other sites were a tad too popular this month. Rev may have better info. He doesn't lurk on my talk page like he used to though, so you may have to poke him in IRC (he hangs around on the new server in the secret room, as I recall) or his talk. —Aichon— 04:58, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

And they're back up. —Aichon— 18:16, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Your organizer for Chrome

Thanks again for pointing it out! I did notice, though, that spray cans don't seem to show up in inventory now. I can drop them. I can find them. But they don't get listed in the items. --Queen Mum (talk) 19:06, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

No problem, and yeah, that was a personal preference on my part. I rigged it up to hide buttons that don't actually have any functionality, partially to declutter and partially because some of them cost you AP if you click them, even though they don't do anything. I've been toying with the idea of restoring them as inert labels that can't be clicked, that way people have an indication of how many they have, but I haven't had the time/motivation to get around to it yet. —Aichon— 19:34, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Gotcha. For me, personally, I like having a count, at least, of such things so that I know when I've picked up 6 spray cans when I only needed 2 and fuel, for instance. But hey, not going to look a gift script in the mouth... so to speak. So I know, what other items don't show up? --Queen Mum (talk) 19:40, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I believe this should be the full list from the code for the userscript:

var otherList = [
	'binoculars',
	'book',
	'crucifix',
	'flak jacket',
	'fuel can',
	'GPS unit',
	'mobile phone',
	'newspaper',
	'pair of wirecutters', 
	'poetry book', 
	'portable generator',
	'radio',
	'radio transmitter',
	'spray can',
	'toolbox',
	'stale candy',
];

As you, I want a count (particularly with spray cans), so I do plan to add the feature at some point, but I've just been super busy these last few months, and when I've had the time to spare, I haven't remembered to do it. —Aichon— 19:42, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Ah! So no tuning portable radios, giving candy or using binoculars? Like I say, I'm not especially fussed, but it's good to know. Thanks! Hope things get more mellow for you, if that's what you want. If it's "good" busy, then enjoy :) --Queen Mum (talk) 19:48, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh, wait, that's not right. I grabbed the wrong list. That's just the stuff that shows up in the "Other" section. This is the correct list:

var wastedClicks = [
	'fire axe',
	'flak jacket',
	'spray can',
	'toolbox',
];

So, yes, you can do all those things you said. Sorry about the mixup. —Aichon— 19:53, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh! Ha! That does make more sense. What? No wirecutters? :) --Queen Mum (talk) 20:07, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Do they waste clicks? I joined the game after they became unobtainable, so I've never been able to test anything related to them. As I recall, all of the ones I added to that list were ones that had personally annoyed me by wasting my AP at some point along the way while doing absolutely nothing. —Aichon— 20:35, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, they don't do anything now. In fact, I can't recall whether or not you clicked them to cut into a junkyard or if that was just an option. The one guy I know who stubbornly held onto them has gone dormant. Heck, I'd forgotten you could read newspapers instead of just slapping friends with them. --Queen Mum (talk) 20:41, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Random page from preset group

Since I saw your reaction on the fugly template I made for Bob, a bit of info on how to get a random page from a preset group of pages: it's basically a variation on the Random Page url which I found among the Special pages.

It uses ...Special:RandomInCategory/CATEGORY as a url, so in this case the category is Stubs/Locations. It's too bad we're unable to use it as an internal link (eg. to spawn a different link or template every time you look at a page), but it's better than nothing. Cheers, PB&J 08:00, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I was testing it out earlier to see if it could be used to populate a random template. Sadly not, since that'd have an insane number of potential uses, but a random link can still be useful, as you aptly demonstrated. —Aichon— 08:03, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

It's one of those things that happens when you just browse through those pages and try to find uses for each link and magical word :P PB&J 08:07, 23 November 2016 (UTC)