User talk:The Rooster/Archive/2009

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2009 ARCHIVE

Oldest posts, at the time of original message, are at the top.

Subheadings have be added to some of the longer conversations, that did not always exist before archiving.

Welcome Back

Good to see you! --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 21:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah! The edit-conflict was unexpected! You're WAY too fast on the ball. Thanks for the welcome though :) -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 21:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Thats us sysops for you! --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 21:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Sysop? Oooo, congrats!. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 21:59, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Have you not heard about the failed coup? --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I have been back a grand total of 20 minutes, I'm still working on determining if anybody has changed anything that might make my bots explode the wiki. I have had a chance to catch up on the latest over-dramatic nonsense this site spews out. So, explain away! -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:12, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Mod Conspiracy --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:12, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Or UDWiki talk:Administration/Misconduct/Archive/Grim s/200809 I don't think anythings been done to the danger reports since you've left. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I'll have to sift through it when I have a proper chunk of free time. Anyway, while it's nice the danger reports haven't changed, I expected progress! Oh well, in keeping with the lack of progress theme, the first error I found was a case of a deleted user line. That piece of poor design plagues everything! I'll risk a manual run once I've fixed that and also the MPM page a bit. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:20, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

disambig

You're stuffing up the links on the locations blocks (at least the towers ones) -- boxy talkteh rulz 01:04 25 January 2009 (BST)

Yeah, I caught it after bout 10 seconds into that grouping, working on manual fixes now. Odd circumstances I wasn't expecting with the links linking to a disambig page, to the tower's location on that disambig page (which the bot was locking onto) which in turn linked to the actual building's page! What was the point in setting it up like that? Weird. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 01:09, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I did it. It's so that if you click on the link on the 9block template, you get taken to the actual location you want on the grouped location page (when all the locations info was on the Tollyton Towers page) -- boxy talkteh rulz 01:15 25 January 2009 (BST)
Yes, I've encountered that before, though usually they're not marked as disambiguation pages thus allowing me to not care. I'll keep an eye out for any others, thanks for the heads up. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 01:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
BTW, it would probably be an idea to register a wiki account dedicated to your bot. If something goes wrong, it makes it easier to deal with, in that it can be temporarily banned by any sysop that notices, and it's edits are all on the one contributions page for easy rollback (rather than mixed in with your other edits) -- boxy talkteh rulz 01:22 25 January 2009 (BST)
Would've done had I thought this was going to be such a job at the time, I was rather expecting to make a few hundred edits tops and have finished. Currently I've got less than 1900 pages left to check, of which maybe 20% (based on average so far) will need changing. In comparison to the far-too-many edits I've made with it so far, I'll just let these 400 run out and end there. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 02:02, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

The bot doesn't actually unmerge any of the locations does it? So, that means we still have to go back and do that anyway, right? If we still have to go back over what the bot has done it seems pointless to run the bot.--– Nubis NWO 17:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

It's very useful for cleaning up after they've been unmerged! -- boxy talkteh rulz 10:34 27 January 2009 (BST)
No, it won't unmerge the collection pages, but it wasn't designed to. It will disambiguate any locationblock template (Most of the edits have been from pages dedicated to single locations) and that was my original goal. (On course to reduce links to disambiguation pages to around 1700 from whatever ungodly number it was) The mass unmerging can be done with another bot (shouldn't be too difficult either), one thing at a time. :) -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 17:33, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't count on grouped locations pages being predictable enough -- boxy talkteh rulz 10:34 27 January 2009 (BST)

Ok, I'm lost, why should the order of disambiguation and unmerging matter? Do you mean if the unmerging then creates an ambiguous link? I can have the bot do a quick lookup on the Locations List for that. I also don't see that the collection pages should be that much of a problem, it can just rip the location template from the page and stick a copy on a new page. Minor nuisances like descriptive text (what little there usually is) is just a quick copy paste job between two textboxes before I hit the 'Save Page' button. The bot does the tedious work, cuts down on page calls and saves time. I don't get bored, and could turn those pages around in probably ten seconds each. Sure, there's the overhead time of setting this up, but the number of pages means that it probably works out in my favour timewise to do it that way, and certainly works out in my favour in terms of not making me terminally bored. But if you still rather I didn't, just say. I wouldn't want to make things worse, the manual changing of those pages would occur in due course, after all.

Anyway, I'll probably set up a generic bot account for any mass edits from now on, tis a good idea Boxy. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 18:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Mall Status Map

The only real problem with your updated version is it's a bit 'busy' on the eyes, it not as easy to read at a casual glance as the old one, although it does contain much needed extra information.

I did have the idea of combining the suburb feature from the Omnimap into the Mall Status Map, allowing people to see the current status of the suburbs using the colour code and being able to see the names of the suburbs with a roll over. -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 14:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it works better without the names and images. I was hesitant to remove them since it was more of an established page. The rollover provides you with the mall name anyway. We'll see whether other people think it could do with de-cluttering too. I'm inclined to agree with you on that point.
As far as the Omnimap bit goes, the whole reason for the suburb system there (as opposed to using the danger map underneath, like the StatusMap system) was because it needed to show SIM data too. It was just a clever workaround, and probably not needed on things like the MSM or NT Status Map etc, unless you mean something else? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 15:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I've just had a go at this, but my coding fails me. I'm thinking a map similar to the old MSM, using Image:Mall-status-map.png and the old status system, but with the addition of a SIM suburb border overlay. This will allow the MSM to display the relative danger levels as well (though I think the colouring will need to be tweaked to make it easier to read). This also means that rolling over a suburb on the MSM will give you its name and a clickable link to its page and thereby reduce the visual clutter on the current MSM. Am making sense? -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 18:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

(Deindented)Uh, not really.

  • When you say a 'SIM suburb border overlay' do you mean:
    • The Omnimap's suburb border's, the transparent gif's?
    • The SIM-grid map's suburb grid overlay?
    • Actual SIM data?
    • Something else?

I get what you mean by the rollover, the same thing as you currently get for the Omnimap. Am you wishing to use this to replace the current underlay that looks a bit like the suburb danger map?

Resulting in, from the bottom-up:

  • Old map image you linked on the bottom
  • Layer of suburb status borders, like the current Omnimap. (If you mean that)
  • Invisible layer of clickable suburb links
  • Old status system (Mall name and status image) on top

Have I got that right? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This level of complexity is why I can't code maps. You seem to have got what I'm after in your 'resulting in' section. However looking at that image I've linked it's got the malls on the image (I thought it was just a grid), and the coloured blocks representing the current status, like the NT Status Map, seem to make an easier instant reference.
Following your list, what I think I'm trying to say is:
  • Grid image (I find an underlying grid to be especially helpful for working out routes without having to use another map)
  • Layer of suburb borders (like the current Omnimap, so it auto updates)
  • Invisible layer of clickable links to suburb pages (again like the current Omnimap)
  • New status system (changed my mind due to the ease of the colour references)
Is all that even possible? Viable? And will it actually make it better do you think? -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 20:14, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Possible, very. The various parts listed are all work separately on their own, so you can just mix and match as you want, making some adjustments for size and so on.
Making it better is another argument. I would suggest first the mall name and status image get ditched (from the old system) and just leave the auto updating colours on what's left (basically, it would be exactly like the NT Status Map and MPM Status Map, just for malls). I personally don't think the suburb links are that distracting. I can see the suburb's in the back being confusing though, it is a lot of colours. Do you find it a problem on the other two maps I just mentioned? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:53, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
On the other maps (NT and MPM maps) the individual location names aren't needed and the suburb names are, however I feel the opposite is the case for malls, it is the mall name (and therefore links to individual mall pages) that is more important. Saying that, what I found limiting for the old system was the fact I had to click the mall name and then go to the suburb page if I needed a general update. I'd like to see whether it'd be viable to have both mall and suburb links, but it's the suburb name links that seem to clutter the map compared to the old one, but I can see how the inverse would be true given your work on the other status maps.
I'll have another go at a mock-up, my last attempt ended in disaster, but I'll see if I can code up something near what I'm trying to convey. -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 21:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

A Mock Up

Again my attempt ended in disaster.If the image will go to the background, so the links work, and it all lines up of course, that's pretty much what I'm getting at. I'm thinking a change in the background image colour to a dark grey grid will make the border colouring show up better. -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 21:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
You're basically there actually. Heh. You're gonna struggle lining it all up without some size changes, because both maps operate on very different scales, but no major worries on that. You're right about the background, the Omnimap relies quiet a bit on the fact SIM data is mostly black. If you set up the main table as a gray (not black, or the gridlines won't show) background, and just shift the div containing the image above the code for the suburb links, you're mostly set. Items are pasted on one at a time, so something at the top will get buried by what is pasted on later. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 21:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I have had a small brainwave, either that or some sort of seizure from too much time editing the Imbalance page today. Anyway, it might be possible to make the little block representing the building clickable, and take you to that building! You already get a nice report on mouseover which tells you the building's name, so would clickability solve the problem with linking to the mall? (Could always add a note on top of page explaining how to navigate the map for such a purpose) Regardless, I might just try that at some point anyway, it would be handy. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm having a hell of a time trying to resize those layers, time to call the Gnome methinks. Your idea about making the blocks clickable could be workable, the mall have would be displayed on mouseover and might work visually with the page not being over saturated. Depending on how it works it might be an idea to add the other large buildings, cathedrals, mansions and forts to the map for an overall view of Malton. -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 22:39, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Resizing wise, you'll probably want to rip open a word processor for some find/replace of size code. I'd suggest scaling up the suburb links and suburb borders to the size of the metatac grid. I'll have a look at it if it's still troubling you. As far as a view of Malton goes, I had a similar idea swishing around in my head, for 'Important' buildings in Malton. Basically, Malls, NTs and Forts. Other stuff isn't that important really. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm trying both Rev and Gnome to see if they can fix the resizing problem, if you've got time, feel free to have a go, after that I'll see about tweaking the aesthetics to make it legible and then we'll see how it compares to the other designs. The reason I suggested the large buildings is because they tend to be indicative of the general health of a suburb, more so that NTs which can generally be suicide striked by a few survivors to get up and running again. -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 22:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
No reason we can't have both! Big buildings and important buildings on two maps. The BIC would match up with the big ones perfectly. Anyway, I've determined that the suburb links line up just fine (set the table to a colourful background, you can see it, I used that trick to check it lined up on the SIMgrid and Omnimap when I set it up way back when. The suburb borders just need a new template, that formats said images to the correct width (79px) and a small edit to the table for the inclusion of a 1px cellspacing. You're literally done after that. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

BIC Status Updater Bot

Hey Rooster, just wondering how progress is coming on the design for this bot. It would certainly do wonders for the wiki, and save me from changing old BIC statuses to unknown manually. You've made some great bots already, and I'm really looking forward to this one as well. --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 16:18, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It has not progressed since my return, most of my bot related time has been to fixing error after error I've suddenly found with the EMR bot. I think a moron possessed me while I was typing up that code or something. Hopefully the BIC bot will be on the cards soon. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Right on. If there's anything I can do to help in the meantime let me know. Otherwise I'll just keep manually updating as many of the BIC reports in the Rose District as I can. --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 22:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Rooster, just had an idea for the BIC Status bot. What about setting it up essentially like the bot for the mobile mast status? Add 'safeold', etc to the list of statuses that the bot can automatically edit for ones that haven't been updated in a week, and default to 'unknown' after a month. I don't know how or if it would even be possible to change the actual comment line, but the status image might be a simple fix in the meantime. --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 19:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I hate that system. It just creates a needless amount of updating that can't really be handled by anything other than a bot. The reason it's used for masts is because generators run out after five days, thus 'activeold' which really means 'haven't checked for a while, probably out of fuel'. For continuity, all the others statuses get an 'old' version too. Anyway, I was probably only going to hit stuff over a month old, although week old reports are probably wrong, they might not always be. Besides we don't get enough updates for weekly clean-outs. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Hmm... good point. I'll keep brainstorming. --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 18:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Testing Dulton

Any chance you could run up a similar section for vinetown? --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 20:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Still working on fixing the errors. Those awful newlines have come back to haunt me again. Why are they appearing! Argh! -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Ok, errors are fixed. If you want to mock up one for Vinetown, go right ahead. The code should be pretty obvious. I'm still in the process of wondering what could yet be gotten out of the system. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

cyclical activity.

Right, I'm off. Thanks for the message and best of luck! --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

User:The Rooster/Sandpit/7

Maybe we could get some sort of project going? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 00:16, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

That was the general idea, though I'm not entirely sure where to start. I'd like to get something set up so that it gets maximum attention, preferably with a nice block on the main page. Though that's beyond even my generally bold editing of things, and also my user rights of course.
I'd be happy to see a project created, but it would need a little time with a few users helping out to set everything up properly, and then a big intrusion onto the main page and general wikispace to try and get the community ball rolling. I wouldn't want to waste my own effort, and especially other user's, setting it up only to have nothing happen. Project CP was a good idea, but CP being the generally deserted area that it was, and the lack of any mission to get people involved again means that the community portal continues to be a generally deserted area. I'm aiming for all or nothing here, and nothing isn't an option. As a reasonably active but almost all behind-the-scenes user, I'm not that well known or particularly influential. Yet here I am, with a backwater sandpit page, pondering nothing less than one of the biggest shake ups in the wiki in recent times. You can see my predicament and general pessimism at this working by now, I hope. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 00:39, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Wiki news could help with visibility, but it can only be up there so long. Something large and noticeable would be great, but I don't know where that would fit into the main page. Speaking of the main page, it could probably do with a redesign. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 00:51, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm kinda thinking of a new entity entirely. A nice, permanent, fixture on the main page. Highlighting all the interesting stuff happening. Like I note on my list, maybe an article of the week and/or article in need of help of the week. Wiki news would be a section of it, and the 'Community Portal' (or something else if renamed) would be the general one-stop shop for finding out which wiki-maintenance projects are going on, what ideas people are proposing for new pages, and for getting help in getting pages updated more. It would also be the place to suggest big changes on the wiki, because I envisage it as being a place where users will check a lot. An entry in the wikinews if the project starts would suffice in trying to attract a few users. The first thing we could attack would be a redesign of the main page, to include whatever 'Community Portal' block we'd like, and whatever other changes people might be after. (I'm guessing you have some to suggest, since you mentioned it) Once done, the main page gets updated, and the general invasion of the wiki starts. I'm really am talking about a big attempt to get a proper community spot set up, no half measures. I am probably being somewhat insane. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 01:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
I have a few ideas for a new main page and how to set things up. I'm thinking Urban Dead themed with the colours and style and all, something different from the common Wikipedia-like look to main pages. I'll be gone for the weekend however, so don't expect anything yet. :O --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 02:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
When you guys get the ball rolling, you can count me in. --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 06:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Sure thing Maverick. Anyway, Gnome I did a little test and found there was 821x550 room on the page in IE, fullscreen for the most common res of 1024x768. Obviously you can have more than 550 height, but that's gonna be in the scroll down region for most people. So if you design it with that in mind, you'll probably be able to get a page that makes the most of the space without too big a cramp. The current version does have some obvious points for improvement, like the 95% width of tables could be 100%, the wiki already gives a margin, no need for extra. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 14:22, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Main Page Redesign

I started it, but I don't like rounded borders. Annoying to code, looks fugly etc. It's at a rough outline right now.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 04:20, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The rounded corners can go, as an IE user I can't even see them. All the pages here seem fine without them and all the places I've see the code I can't imagine actually add much since the page looks fine anyway. The other places I've see it are coder idiocy because they wanted 'teh kool korners' and didn't think about if it was actually a smart idea. Your page looks fine to me without them, and probably better than with since everything tessellates nicely. Also, it matches the UD style better. Coding wise, three things jump out off the bat.
  • You can lose the br clear bit I think, just leave a gap. It seems to work fine and also allows there to be a nice gap.
  • Border wise, I'm pretty sure there's a way to compact the code that might be applicable here. I think it goes something like "border-something: 10 3 10 3;" where each number relates to each border, revolving clockwise from left I think. Might also be possible for padding.
  • Drop the divs, it doesn't allow you to set spacing between the two sections properly. Nested tables are probably nastier to code by can give the correct result.
-- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 13:21, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm good with tables, oddly. Updated.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Well that took care of all the points I had pretty neatly, didn't it? I like it very much. I made a couple of minor fixes. (Well one, the v-align for news, in case the CP bit is ever taller, otherwise little). May I also congratulate you on some wonderfully obfuscated code at the bottom, that's brilliantly evil. Onto the more subjective stuff:
  • Do you think it's worth keeping the current header, that shows the latest game update and the logo? I don't think it's worth repeating what the main site says for its header anyway, but I feel the page is lacking a focus point at the top...maybe just inserting the logo in the top left of the introductory text box?
  • What other links are you planning to include? I don't think we need the same amount of insane links as now, but there's room for a few more. I think keeping a few of the important map/information centre links would be good. Suburb definitely, maybe also the MIC/MPM and NIC/NT Status Map. I prefer the maps, but the IC's are good too.
What do you plan on transcluding? I assume the CP and news sections, anything else? Finally, any thoughts on what to stick in the CP bit as a place holder until it's decided what we should actually have there? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:10, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Updated the top part with Urban Dead, let me know if the cracked font doesn't work or if the alignment looks wonky, we can always switch it for an image. I agree though, less links are needed for the site nav at the bottom. Maybe projects, or community activities should be in the CP section? Things that aren't normally announced in the wiki news section, but deserve a notice. Also, yep CP & Wiki News will be template, that's it though.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, font doesn't work for me, you'd have to stick to something standard anyway, or else use an image. Link wise I've had a thought, if the links tend to be ones that link to the other stuff (IE: Administration links to all the various admin bits, and the BIC links to all the maps and other status information) then you can cut down a lot, while still providing a leap pad to get to places. I agree that current community projects would make a good bit for the CP section, though no doubt that'll be expanded upon somewhat. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:08, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Image it is then. Think the wiki news section needs little aesthetic boxes like the site navigation section at the bottom?--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Sounds good, go for it. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:18, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking these links for the site navigation part:

Gameplay Information

Player Information

Wiki Information

External Links

We could probably do with some obvious in-your-face general starter guide like on what's on the main page now. Feel free to edit the list. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I made only a few additions and changes, you basically got everything I would've added. Do you plan on indicating that external links are external? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:17, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Mmm, I don't know. I don't like the little blue box things. I could change the colour of it, maybe. Should it be indicated? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 01:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Updated. The site navigation looks nice, but it feels off balanced because of the cities. It could be compensated by adding stuff to the other 3 sections, or moving the cities elsewhere? Would it be a good idea to put the game updates somewhere? Seems silly not to have them, but I'm not sure where to put it. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 01:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
I feel the cities should be included, maybe a mention of them at the end of the intro? "The main city of Urban Dead is Malton, but outbreaks have been seen in the cities of Monroeville and Borehamwood too." or something like that? Hmm.
External link wise, I've never been a fan of the system either (Though it's the lighter text that annoys me). Normally, I would say you should indicate them as a matter of continuity, but in this case, the only external links are under the aptly named 'External Links' section, and so people should expect them even if the usual symbol isn't there. I think you can get away with it. Also, if you wish to be very pedantic about the section heights, you could add a link to the Community Portal under Wiki Info. Slightly redundant, but it makes everything a nice 6 links tall. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 18:48, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Added the latest news section. Other than templating the news sections and CP, all we have left is the Community Portal. I'm not sure what should go there. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 00:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Maybe just make a small list of active projects until we get something better set up. The Great Suburb Group Massacre is definitely a good example. 'A Tale of Undead Cities' is a reasonably good one. Should probably have one more to fit the rule of three...maybe a quick mention of the UHUB having recently come online? I'm think basically the name and then a quick description (might even be able to use the 'aesthetic tables' like the News and section lists) EG:

Some of the current projects around the wiki:

  • The Great Suburb Group Massacre - To keep the wiki up to date, groups have been queried as to whether they are still active, you can help out in the maintenance effort. If you're part of an active group, make sure you confirm it as active before the 27th February!
  • A Tale of Undead Cities - An organization effort to clean up, improve and revamp the three city pages about Malton, Monroeville and Borehamwood. Help discuss ideas and add your own suggestions for improvements.
  • User Hub - Recently implemented, the user hub allows you to search for users on the wiki more easily. Bookmark it, and come add your name.

Is the tone suitable? Also, you probably want to write something about the user hub, I've made a right hash of that one. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 02:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

CP updated. I've been scouring other wikis to see what they do with their main page. I think what we have now is fine and we can always add something later. Other than the templating, does it look good to go?--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 23:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Looks fine and dandy to me sir, and it works an utter treat on smaller resolutions too. The only minor things I can spot are:
  • Your edit link for the news has a case error, it should be 'Wiki News' not 'Wiki news'.
  • You need a proper article in the spotlight. Either that and you need a proper description for the example page. Hehe. You could always be a bit cheeky and have: "Main Page - Our main page has just received a really nice redesign, go check it out!". Ok...maybe not.
Last time the main page was changed, a vote was called on its talk page, is that what you are planning to do? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:22, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, I can't think of anything new or amazing that would go under the spotlight, except perhaps the redesigned suggestions portal. Perhaps an article needing work? For implementation, I was thinking of sneaking it under the radar through A/PT, may require a few bribes though. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 23:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
We can work on what to include in the CP bit in due course. You could just ditch that bit for now, it'll be back I'm sure. As for a 'sneaking' it through A/PT...that's a joke, right? I'll go up the Drama template to 'wikigate' in preparation... -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm totally serial. But seriously, I suppose a little announcement and some discussion on the talk page couldn't hurt. Yarp?--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 23:48, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Indeed. I'll swing by and put down my vote once you've announced your little redesign. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 00:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Will do. Something else we might be able to add is that 'coders central' thing, and projects like Project Mentor. Anyway, deal with that later. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 00:05, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Main Page Redesign V2

Updated with a white background. Anyways, I've got something going on at the bottom. Few things: the rounded borders can be done with images, the Urban Dead can be an image urban dead themed thing, and the links are just placeholders (the most important stuff will go there). What are you thinking? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 02:35, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm slightly lost. I get the white thing for those who don't fancy the green. But I have no idea what you're getting at with everything else. What are you after? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 14:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
The bottom hmm... section. The edges can have rounded borders with images (so people using IE can see it). The words Urban Dead could probably something better, an image. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 15:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I thought you meant rounded borders worked on images. Heh. Ok, so this random section, is this a third page variant in progress or what? At the moment you're just throwing random musings at me and I don't know what you're trying to achieve. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 15:32, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure yet either. It's another attempt, like the current main page except it has some changes. The redundant Frequently Asked Suggestions bit can have important links to go through right off the bat, while the rest of the navigation can be at the bottom. See DHPD for the rounded image corners. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 15:36, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
If you're going to use images you can have it look like whatever you like. No need to limit yourself to rounding corners. Beveled corners. Some gradients. Pictures of things. All sorts of stuff. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Good points. I like the idea of having little iddy biddy images for titles, like Evelopedia.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:20, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, they're alright. I was also thinking, since a few people seem to be against change in general, might it be worth just trying to rearrange and fix the current page to fit in the CP and make other minor fixes? It is mostly just layout problems, especially when it's scaled up. Could it be worked around? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
It could be. The very first Urban Dead title could retain it's shape, but I'd like less height and be able to incorporate those most-important links to the side. The latest news may need to go somewhere else, or be shifted. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:49, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Updated. Perhaps with some better alignment, latest news could be put under those links in a white rounded box? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:54, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah maybe it could, give it a go. As far as just messing the current page around: Yeah, the main header is too big, the image can be scaled down too. I was thinking having the introduction take up the full width after that, with the CP and news side by side below that. Then the current navigation below that. The news takes up too much width to be floating in the intro's space. I'll go usurp the Sandbox for some test editing. My sandpit is beyond overused. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Usurping complete. If I can hack that together in a few minutes then no doubt a proper setup can no doubt be made. I had to subst the wiki news somewhat in order to get rid of the fixed width it's set to. Letting the browser deal with the width's helps to kill the whitespace somewhat. The news box template is a bit messy to say the least, and I'm sure more can be done to get it to align seamlessly. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 17:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Updated with the links, probably needs better alignment. I like a lighter green, but the logo background will need to be changed. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's one possible way of cleaning up the nav bit. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 21:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps it could do those silhouettes behind the 9 links at the top right? For the old main page design, perhaps it could be made of use on the Community Portal page? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think we need them behind the links, it won't add much there given the lack of room and the fact there are links in the way. I can whip up a transparent logo for you though. As far the the CP goes, one page at a time, eh? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:02, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Of course. Oh, I can easily make text on images. Click the H in my sig. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm not doubting you can put the links in front of the image. I'm saying doing so would look weird and that adding the image behind wouldn't add anything. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Mmkay. Anything else to add? I'm not fond of the colour scheme for the wiki news section. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:11, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
You're right, it looks really wrong, especially given the white background. Maybe two light shades of grey? Also, the Community Portal bit, even if just a placeholder, also needs fixing up. Up to you how to tackle that. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:30, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Chucked the transparent image up. I need to know which fonts to use to be honest, the bottom part looks off since the background was deleted from around it, and the top part I had to use a close font match since it wasn't going to come out ok otherwise. SO it's not an exact copy this. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:41, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, it looks kinda faded. I'll give Kevan a shout, maybe. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 23:58, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Updated. Rounded borders on the bottom of CP and Wiki News, they're fatty thick because that's the only way I could get the curved edges to work only on the bottom. Is the interchanging colours in the Wiki News part better? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 04:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, the colour interchange is better, and I'm impervious to ye rounded corners so I'll take you word on that. The only probably is when I shrink the window, and the news seems to be set to have it's overflow cut off rather than forcing the nav bit down. Is that intentional? The CP section is likely to get a lot bigger once we have some idea what to put in it, which will likely solve the news problem. I can't imagine it'll create too much of a whitespace issue, we'll see I guess. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 13:35, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
I can set it to a set width for the Wiki News section. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Oh dear lord no! Leave it up to the browser so it can divide up the news and CP as it likes and cut down on the whitespace. I had to remove the fixed width in my initial muck about because it just leaves the CP with a big gap underneath since it gets to absorb most of the screen width on bigger resolutions. I'm actually not too worried, like I said, I'm sure the CP bit will be longer in most cases anyway. For completeness though, would a br:clear thingy do the job? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Ok, so your magical coding means that when you set it to a fixed width, it works just bloody fine. Ignore my nonsense. :P -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
*Wiggles fingers* Magik. Well, I got nothing significant to change. The links might need altering in the Nav, but we can let the rest of the peoples decide that through discussion. All that's left is figuring out the rounded images for the corners. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:18, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Can I assume you want them at all the places you currently have the rounded code? I can knock up some with the radius's specified, they'll be a fixed colour which is a downside. Unless you want to be cheeky and have the inverse made white. That would cover the corner of a rectangular box and you could change the colour if ever needed then, it just relies on a white background being the default instead. Have I made sense there? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 18:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, either or. It shouldn't matter. I'd just start with the first Urban Dead header part block thing, then we can go from there. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
The bottom doesn't want to work. I can't get it centered properly without pushing everything else up, or giving way to the upper right. Could you combine the upper left and lower left & upper right and lower right? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 19:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Oh you... --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 19:03, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Gotta love divs :) Are you getting a colour mismatch though? I had it mismatched originally, and reuploaded after making sure the saved file had the right colour, but somehow I've got a different colour on my screen. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:07, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
It looks off in Safari, but fine in Firefox. Except what you have with the image alignment doesn't work in Firefox. Might I suggest combining the upper right and upper left etc like looks like here? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 19:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Well, I still don't see why the colour refuses to match up, I swear the server is toying with my images. And if the divs won't work on FF, we better drop em unless there's a workaround. Can't have a main header of fixed width since the table is variable width. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Mmm. Go for fixed height instead? Things may be screwy if Kevan decides to update the game, though nothing else comes to mind. The problem with FF is the curvy images are placed on top/under the background, instead of over it. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 19:16, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
That's easily fixed with z-order. I'll add that in. I'll have to do some investigation of the colour issue another time. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
No change. this is what it looks like. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 19:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

(Deindented for Sanity) Oh, I thought you meant something else. Sorry about that. Not too sure about how to fix your error. You might try editing it yourself to try and correct it. Might be something about how IE and FF deal with the top/bottom absolute div. I've done some googling and I can correct the colour mismatch though. If you can't sort the div's, you could always go back to the border radius code and drop the images. Not having rounded corners isn't really a problem. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:19, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Tried that. While I can align it properly in FF, it'll make it wacko in other browsers... I'll put it back the border radius. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 20:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, tis probably for the best. I'll go get the images speedied. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:58, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The last one, I'll put it on a separate page to avoid confusion. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 00:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The Great Suburb Group Massacre, 2009

Is there a page for this anywhere? I noticed you posting on a group's page asking if they were still active, but I didn't see a link to a page for the project. --Pestolence(talk) 20:00, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I had just followed suit based on some earlier posts. Could go back and link it I suppose, though it's not too much of a worry since all they have to do is respond on their talk page. I'll go back and link when I get the chance. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:14, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, cool. Just wondering. --Pestolence(talk) 20:21, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

My sig

Can I increase the size of the images so those two white bars above them don't show up? Or, is there another way? --Haliman - Talk 16:31, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Bots

Do you think it would be possible to program a bot to work off the user list and add the welcomenewbie template to all new user talk pages automatically? The template will need altering if this can be done, but I'd thought I'd check with you if it's viable before planning that. -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 23:11, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It'd definitely help, and it gets rid of the user provided WN spam.--Suicidal Angel, Help needed? 23:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

This section of the conversation was tactically lasered from orbit due to: Irrelevance, later followed by juvenile bickering. Go whine about each other on your own pages, mmmkay? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster

Is there a way to go through the user list and only pick out "newbies", rather than users without talk pages, that may be long abandoned?. Perhaps Special:Contributions/newbies may be a better page to work on? -- boxy talkteh rulz 01:44 17 February 2009 (BST)
Well we know that bots can work from current time as they can do updates based on time with danger reports, so if we tell the bot to start from X time and give every user that is created after that time a template (with a line of code telling it not to repeat itself of course) we should be fine. The only thing that will need to be done to prevent duplication will be to tell users not to add the template any more, provided the bot is running often enough to cover newbies. -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 01:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Already done, tell users they are adding the template in error as it's duplicating an already existing wiki function, that text I linked appears to all new wiki accounts when they first load a page.--Karekmaps?! 03:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
While the current text based wall of doom method is pretty high on the insensitivity scale, having an automated script do it really takes the biscuit. Whatever happened to people just leaving a nice message, anyway? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 12:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Rooster

Evening.

A quick initial purge of the current navigation. Several of the pages left can be lost if they are referred to on other pages, (the lexicon if mentioned in chronicles for instance.) I'll sort that out tomorrow, anything I got read of that you feel is needed? --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 18:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

How opinions differ. I like the creation of the cities bit, but otherwise I would've had a different list to a some extent. I would've kept some of the more useful external links. Namely: stats, forums, IRC and IW. I would've dropped more from Player Info, namely: Lexicon, Chronicles, and historic groups/events. The first two are long abandoned and the latter two are of lesser interest. Wiki Info. Drop the Style Guide (until not horribly outdated, anyway) and keep Wiki Questions & Help (even if outdated, it's useful to some extent).
That's just my opinion of course. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:07, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
A difference of opinion! Oh noes!! I lost stats, as its listed in the side bar, and indeed linked on the front page every time you log onto urban dead. I also feel that most people find out about the IRC, forums by joining a group? (I don't know about your own experience).
Lexicon I will drop, I just need to modify chronicles so its linked from there.
Help, again linked on the sidebar, and Wiki Questions, HAs only been viewed 20,000 times, and was last used in December. I don't think its needed, with FAQ, help and the remnants of project mentor.
I'll bring back Iwitness though. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 19:20, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Good points. That's a reasonably good list then, still I doubt that'll suade the many Nay voters. You should inform the Gnome of this list on his sandbox talk I think. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:32, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I thinking the nav boxes should be uniform in color, mmm? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

You're more than welcome to go tweak. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 21:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

A couple questions regarding you Mobile Phone Mast Bot.

Greetings Mr. Rooster. I am the creator of the Mobile Phone Mast Coverage template, which is on the Mobile Phone Mast page. I was wondering if your bot could be made to update my template, and if you could be persuaded to do so. My original idea for the template (before your bot started running again) was that it would serve a few purposes. First, all of the changes would be recorded on the template's history rather than the Mobile Phone Mast page's history, making the Mobile Phone Mast page history easier to dig through. Second, the mobile coverage data could be easily included on other pages (admittedly, I don't know what other page would need it, but I thought it was worth a mention.) The last benefit is a personal aesthetic opinion of mine (and I'm certain I am biased) but I think "operational masts accounted for" is slightly more intuitive than "mapped active network coverage." Anyway, as I said earlier, I was hoping to combine our creations. I realize the benefits are likely small. I don't know the difficulty involved in modifying a bot. So if the difficulty doesn't justify the benefits, or if you just don't want to, then forget I mentioned it.

My other question / comment regarding your bot is that I think it may be missing masts mapped as active. The last update came up with 12, but I'm almost certain there were 14 masts mapped as active when the update happened. My speculation is that its missing 2 masts that were updated by users without user pages, but I don't know for sure. --Zarneverfike 04:04, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, such a change is reasonably easy. The old format of the text was just what was in place at the time, so I followed that. Updating a template would be nicer actually, it would be quicker to load and save. I wasn't going to do it originally since at the time you only had the current coverage, and I thought it best not to lose the data. I'll look into changing the code since the template now has everything.
I have discovered an error recently where it has failed to recognize the timestamp given, but instead of creating an error, just leaves the date set to the default. (00:00 1 Jan, Year 0) and so makes it unknown since this is indeed more than 10 days ago. I traced one report where somebody had dated it manually in a different style. Maybe there were two, or maybe somebody updated not long after it ran? I'll look into it, but I'm not too worried since most people sign properly rather than adding their own timestamp. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 17:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
I've had a quick go at the template to clean it up a bit. I've also changed the text to "Actual Network Coverage" and "Known Active Masts" and dropped the discrepancy. I think they're better terms, though hit me with any you think are better than that. If it is fine then I can have the bot updating the template right away. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:12, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
That's fantastic. Those terms seem great to me. All I did to it was fix a typo on the instructions. Also, I changed "Correct As Of:" to "Correct as of:" because I'm a capitalization nazi. If you want it the other way, though, I don't really care. Basically, I think its just about perfect now. Once you get the bot running for it, maybe include a bit in the instructions about the bot running similar to the blurb about updating mast statuses to old. --Zarneverfike 00:29, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Not worried over it, I'm caps happy on most things. Anyway, just ran the bot, everything worked and nothing exploded. I'll just update the MPM page accordingly and leave some other notes as appropriate. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

You seem to know alot about sigs...

I may be wrong, but is this guy's sig a little too big? Just trying to help out. --Haliman - Talk 01:11, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The current, and not particularly comprehensive, sig policy only forbids images over 14px. Text can be as big as you like provided it's doesn't "break" something. While his sig does indeed cause minor line breakage, most sigs using superscript cause similar breakage. We could potentially nab most of the wiki for breaking policy. It's a technical point most people ignore, or probably don't even notice. Don't sweat about it. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Ok, sorry. I get it now. --Haliman - Talk 17:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Things to do

Its kind of a placeholder page for in project CP. I'm going to add a number of pages that need a good clean out, or redesign. Starting with zombie skills. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Go for it! --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Cookie.jpg A FREE COOKIE
Linkthewindow has given The Rooster a cookie for for helping with the great suburb group massacre

.

Thanks for your help (and also for lurking on my talk page so often.) Linkthewindow  Talk  05:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

U doan liek..

..my congratulations for Link? :'( --Janus talk 13:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course not, he's awesome. Just trying to keep the news matter-of-fact tis all. Otherwise all the other recent successful promotees look unloved. Can't have people thinking they're not loved, or they might attempt a wiki-coup. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 18:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, they could also hide. --Janus talk 21:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Sig

I've had it for 6 months and used it on both Chrome and Firefox and I never saw anything wrong with it. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 23:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Yet this sentence which I'm typing now will get overlapped horribly. Watch as this typical superscript with no size changes overlaps with the subscript quiet easily indeed. (I think I've got enough text there so that it will occur at most res's) The change you made to make the letters smaller fixes the problem when people use newlines to break text which is what happens most of the time. If text is broken with a br-tag (like this message) or used by a template in a similar fashion it might still cause problems with superscript. It is a rare occurrence though. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Preliminary Discussion

The design for the new main page seems good to go, however I'm discussing some supposed colour problems with Honest. Before I forget, I have a few good ideas for the Community Portal:

  • Articles needing work - Meaning an entire list of articles, or ones of top priority
  • Ongoing discussion - Things that wouldn't be on Wiki News but that require attention
  • Community Projects - A full list of the active/ongoing ones, the rest archived
  • Technical help - Technical wiki questions (not like "how do I sign?")
  • General notices - Again, something that isn't announced on the main page but needs attention
  • Other things the community would be interested in

Probably couldn't be all on the same page, so there'd be links to some of these (such as technical help). --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 19:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Good thoughts and some similar to some of what I had in mind too. I must pick your mind over whether the page is 'good to go' though. I did a count of the yays v nays and got 16v16. That's not a majority opinion by any means. We can't go acting on such numbers, surely? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 13:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
You have to read the comments they put. I've managed to shave down all the nays to basically "the colour". --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Unless you can properly address it, and even if you do, you'll still be looking at an unpromising ratio of votes to try and convince whomever happens by A/PT when you request it. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 17:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
There aren't any guidelines to implementing such a large change, really it just boils down to getting as much support through compromises and changes. I'm sure whatever sysop looks at the request will see what it's gone through to get it liked by everyone as much as possible and the fact that's impossible to get it yay'd by everyone, unfortunately. You'll probably find that there's a significant lack of complaining on the talk page if/when it gets implemented.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:47, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, one would hope so. I'll defer to you on that. Moving on, the CP does indeed need some major re-organization, and adding some of the above pages as sub-pages as needed will be a start. The actual CP page itself will need re-doing since it's going about everything all wrong. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic, but do you see rounded borders here? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 00:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Nope :) I viewed one of the images somebody had posted in the main page discussion, showing the borders on the design. The aliased edges are pretty disturbing, so I get to win on that count regardless. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 17:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Ah, well. The corners look much better on a Mac, much smoother. Lots of things look better on a Mac. Yep. Mac. Buy a Mac. Now. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 20:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

*Ehem* last thing. It seems smart to mention the Community Portal reboot in the CP section on the main page. Do you have anything in mind? Are we calling this project anything? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, make it the top message in the CP section, that's a good thought. Doesn't need a project though. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Everything is up to date and ready, unless you spot something wrong. I noticed that the CP section stretches the full width when the Wiki News section is small. A good thing, it cuts down on the white "emptyness." The CP section is of course still lacking, but we'll worry about that later. Yarp?--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 02:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Your magical code means that it auto-adjusts perfectly. I saw a full width CP even when the news was medium length, and it cleverly stole the CP's room when I windowed it to test 800*600. It's brilliant. Anyway, I just whipped through and made the most pedantic edits I think I'll ever make. For the most part it was just capitalizing the letters in the hex code. In the nav links though (box8 I think), the pink header text has a font size of 102%. That seems a bit pathetic, is it important in some way, or can it be dropped? Finally, and I'm probably insulting you merely by suggesting that you overlooked it, you do plan on templating the "Last Game Update" table at the top of the page, right? Otherwise, no more narks I can see. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Bah, yeah I've forgotten the {{Lastupdate}} template. The teeny 102% increase in font size was requested, it does make a difference, albeit a small one. I'll make the request later, couple of hours I suppose, when I have the time. Since I need to explain what goes where.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 20:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Um, hehehe. Anyways, we're going for a complete redesign for the CP, right? I'll cook something up. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:26, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Yay for collateral damage, I've replaced it with a lolcat for now, so knock up something soon if you can. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 17:41, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

STARS is still active.

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/STARS --Umbrella-White.pngPresident JacksonUmbrella-White.png 16:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

And this concerns me how? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 17:33, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

EMRPs

Replied here.

Also, a bot to maintain the User Hub? 19:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Maintain in what fashion? And does anybody even use the thing? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
See it's talk page, most recent edits. See what its creator thinks? 22:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I officially define that page as "I can see the advantage" on the scale of pages that can benefit from scripted maintenance and "Meh" on the scale of pages for which it would be worth the effort. I'll get Link's opinion though. No doubt his talk page will interest a few other users since it gets stalked so much, mine is backwater by comparison. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Stole mah idea for the mall logos >.> 00:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Danger Reports

Mmh.. I don't know if it's changed now because of the bots, but just wanted to say that Lazarus General Hospital doesn't have the template. :) --Janus talk 00:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Most things don't have templates. The Timekeeping Bot just marks report unknown, it doesn't create missing reports. Forts, Malls, NTs, Large Buildings, MPMs and the Zoo have templates. TRPs have a decent coverage of templates, but not all. The generic stuff might have a template if you're lucky. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the sig help!

Cock a doodle doooooooooo! --Paddy DignamIS DEAD 22:49, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Question

Would it be possible to write a bot to change pages with Category:Human Groups to Category:Survivor Groups? -- Cheese 23:41, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Easily, yes. I could manually nab a copy of the pages listed in said category, have them loaded individually and then just find/replace [[Category:Human Groups]] to [[Category:Survivor Groups]]. Job done. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:45, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The NT/Fort/Mall Status Map

...is lovely. Great work! ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 22:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You think so? I can get a decent overview from the NT Status Map myself, but there's too many colours here and I find I have to concentrate on portions of the map to make heads or tails of it. How well are you able to cope? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, I stare at the NT Map a lot, so honestly it doesn't bug me anymore. However, I can see from a newbie POV that it might seem crowded or confusing. So... hmm. Personally, I never found the "flow" of colors in the dangermap to be particularly good. I like green (safe) to yellow (attack) to orange (siege) to red (ruined) as a degree of danger, but purple isn't an intuitive "hostile" color, and it's supposed to be "in zombie hands," which is pretty damned hostile.
In all honesty, having been making rounds with NecroWatch the last month, from my POV "under siege" is a useless status, since it implies a sense of immediacy that the Wiki doesn't do a good job with. Either something is under attack or its not; am I going to go there faster because someone rated it as "under siege"? I feel the same way about blue for "rebuilding"; I don't know what it's supposed to mean. People (including myself) just seem to use it to say "no zombies, but not powered and EHB either," and so it's a pretty vague status.
I guess what I'm saying is that I would support changes to simplify the status color scheme, if someone suggested it. I'd get rid of "under siege" entirely, and I would probably combine "ruined" and "in zombie hands" into one status (since really, what's the functional difference to someone using this map?).
Sorry, I'm rambling a little. Other things that might help "break up" the combined status map might be thin borders around the forts and malls, to help subtly distinguish them and make the map a little easier on the eye. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 22:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Rambling is awesome, people actually say enough that you can guage their opinion properly, and it makes for interesting discourse!
The system has been around longer than me, and I've had to work around it. The MPM page has this sort of sliding colour scheme (with purple = in zombie hands) and so I adopted that. It's less intuitive as hostile, maybe, but flows on from red in the colour spectrum so it could be worse than say a random beige colour or something. I had no idea what to do with rebuilding TBH, it's a weird fucking status and so I just borrowed the blue colour from the fact it's little image has a blue background. As an aside, rot revive is brown since these NTs are usually ruined, so brown is similar to the ruined red colour, since the building can be sucky as a safehouse but isn't unsafe persay.
As far as under siege goes, I'm not entirely against it, it's so rare that any building actually holds out long enough to attract a zombie horde big enough that I find it interesting to see orange pop up occasionally. As an indicator of status, well yeah, it's not that useful I guess. I do support the distinction of ruined/in zombie hands though. Ruined means you can walk in and fix the thing up right off, in zombie hands means you're gonna need some guns and patience first. Mapwise, you could combine them I guess, though I'd feel like I wasn't making the most of all the possible statuses. Ransacked/ruined is combined, though (It's a pointless difference anyway, no buildings stay ransacked for longer than the ten seconds it takes just to go for the ruin)
I was considering putting a 1px black border round the forts, with a gap on the gatehouse square, just for the heck of it (and maybe back it up with some waffle about not being able to enter through those sides). I don't think much more is needed to differentiate the three buildings though, NTs all being 1x1, malls 2x2 and forts 3x3, that's a great differentiator-in-a-can right there.
If you ever do suggest redefining some of the statuses, give me a shout, I have some rambling about changing the little images so the background colours make more sense on a sliding scale of danger. Maybe a good idea to bring to the CP once that's been revamped. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
I'll let it squoosh around in my brainpan a bit more. I like the idea of indicating the gatehouses on forts quite a bit.
As long as something goes up to replace the horrible (and I mean horrible) Mall map page, I will be happy in the short-term ;) ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 02:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Why do Williamsville and Miltown lack a border as part of their danger color scheme? ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 08:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, maybe somebody was messing the reports around earlier? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 11:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Still looks funny to me... here's a screen grab. Look at Lockettside, Williamsville and Miltown:

No Borders.PNG

See how Lockettside, Williamsville and Miltown don't have colored borders? ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 08:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I've encountered this myself on occasion. It's a spacing issue in the Danger Report page - see here for an example of one I fixed a while back. --Bob Boberton TF / DW 03:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

StatusMap Colour Tweaks

Anyway, as I have been thinking about it, it seems to me like the danger level should progress like this...

Safe Under Attack Under Siege In Zombie Hands

Since "In Zombie Hands" is more dangerous than "Ruined" in actual play. For the other statuses (stati?), I'd mostly keep them as they are, with one minor change...

Ruined Unknown Rebuilding Rot Revive

I made "Ruined" a very dark grey (I'd also thought about white with a thin black border), to evoke more of a ruined feel to it. Anyway, what do you think? I worry any change might be a struggle to get any of this past the community, but maybe I'm wrong. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 08:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I traced the problem with the borders, those reports had a space between the template and the noinclude, which doesn't seem to be a problem for IE but seemingly FF doesn't like it. I fixed two of them, see if you're still getting the error with that one, if so, just edit the report and remove the space. I noticed from your pic that the gridlines are actually 1px too high. I set them to be -1px so they worked for me, I might have to try setting them to 0px like they should be and seeing if I can find a way to get both browsers to align it the same.
The colours used on the StatusMap are not a worry community wise, I seriously just made them up on the spot when I created the whole system, and I'm more or less still the only editor of the system. If you change the key, you'd probably get no complaints, if anybody even noticed. Anyway, I can see sense in the top four for a sliding scale. Unknown should certainly be the gray it is now. The other three are a toss up. Ruined is a sort of 'kinda' dangerous and rebuilding is a 'kinda' safe. Maybe that should be reflected somehow? And rot revive is still weird. Usually they are ruined, but usually not that unsafe, sometimes they are even caded and decaded as needed, therefore being safe 99% of the time.
Maybe a pink colour for ruined (not the eye-burning kind, more of a pale red) and a pale green for rebuilding? The pink/pale red would complement the red or gray of VD and GT burbs, respectively, that those buildings tend to be in, while pale green goes with green and yellow of safe and moderate. Guess rot revive could stay brown. Brown is an odd colour, so it suits the odd rot revives. Something about having ruined as dark gray just doesn't cut it for me. Do keep pinging the ideas back and forth, and hopefully we'll up with something sensible by the end. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:47, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
That space between the template and the noinclude was spot-on. I changed that last one and it looks fine in FireFox now. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 16:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Colour Tweaks Continued

Okay, so you're thinking something like this? "Danger" Statuses

Safe Under Attack Under Siege In Zombie Hands

"Transitional" Statuses

Ruined Unknown Rebuilding Rot Revive

~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 05:39, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

More or less yeah. You think it's reasonable? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 18:03, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Seems good to me, but maybe a test run to see if the pastel colors of the "transition" statuses fade too much into the suburb danger colors. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 05:20, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah I won't use those exact colours. Whatever I can get to show up and maintain the same brightness/saturation for consistancy within the danger and transitionals. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
The other thing worth doing (probably) is looking at the danger status images. I don't know whose "property" they are (if anyone's), but for example...
Mall-safe-small.jpg
It'd be neat to change the background color from yellow/orange to green, to match. Is that worth pursuing? ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 21:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I had a similar thought in my little rambling section of my sandpit. That would probably need community support since they're so umbiquitious. Hagnat made them originally, but they aren't 'owned' persay. I was figuring raising the issue at the CP once that revamp is done. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 21:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, I've got your back, if and when you do. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 21:42, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I have another little pipe-dream about the Status Map. When you mouseover a building, you get "The BLAH Building is safe". Is there any way at all to make that fuctionality draw off the timestamp of the danger report that gives it that color? For instance, I just updated the Hippesley Building‎ as rebuilding and signed my update with a timestamp. Is there any way to make stat status map show

The Hippesley Building is rebuilding ( ~ extropymine Talk |  NW |  4Corners 22:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC))

when you mouseover, or something similar? Or is that not possible? ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 22:22, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Probably not within the constraints of wiki-markup. I originally wanted to show the timestamps, but you need to include the whole userline in the tooltip, which means you see all the markup and it didn't work that well. If there is a way, it's well beyond my skills. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Your skillz pay the billz, so don't sweat it. Unless there was a way to draw the code in a form like the recent updates page, where it filters out signatures and such, I can see it breaking the tooltip. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 22:32, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I changed the colours on the maps (yay for my supurb planning ahead, only 1 edit per status!) Unfortunately the background to the safe and V.D 'burb statuses are pretty much the same pastel we were aiming at, so I've darkened them to be somewhere inbetween the usual safe/in zombie hands colour and the background burb colour. It doesn't seem too bad, but I dunno, could go either way on it. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:22, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

My initial reaction: it looks great, and flows much better. I only have a couple things with it. Under Siege needs to maybe "pop" more as a color (one shade more red?), and I think Under Attack could go one shade more orange. Both blend in a little too much. I think Rebuilding looks great, but somehow the color for Ruined doesn't say "ruined" to me. But by golly, this is progress! ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 23:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah the ruined doesn't come across great, but I rather like rebuilding. I redid under siege and it stand out much better, but the yellow of under attack refuses to come out nicely, it didn't before and it doesn't want to now. I tried a few and it just sucks on orange backgrounds if you notch it too far towards orange or darker, and sucks on yellow like now. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 00:12, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Siege looks great now, and yeah... I'm not sure what you can do with Under Attack. It's either blending in to Moderate or Dangerous. So, hmmph. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 00:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Concerning ruined, maybe some cross between red-orange? It ties with in zombie hands and under siege(IE: Soon to be in zombie hands :)) I'm just tossing ideas about here. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 01:12, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Ruined still needs fixing, it really looks horrid. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 14:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I tweaked it to a darker shade of the red-brown colour and I think it actually works quiet well now. Hits on the original tie in with ruined without looking downright awful, might not need a new colour after all, what do you think? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
It's a bit hard to distinguish from the red of "In zombie hands." Why not be consistent with the Mall Status and have "In zombie hands" be dark green, "Rebuilding" be blue, and then used the freed red color for "Ruined?" --Bob Boberton TF / DW 22:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Because that system has no logic behind the statuses, just some pretty colours. The Omnimap uses that system, and I always have to think about what each means since it's so backward. Some tie in with the suburb danger is also good. Red burb with red buildings for in zombie hands, as opposed to green buildings sitting on a red landscape. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Just as a test, what does the map look like if we use the grey for ruined, and a white with 1px black border for unknown (r possibly the other way around)? If it looks crappy, that's fine-- I'm sortof getting used to the dark red. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 07:46, 29 March 2009 (BST)

I totally overlooked your message! Here's an example for today's map:

IBM-2-4-09.png

A border is a bad idea, it applies externally and gives undue prominence, and would also mess with the border image on for forts when they are unknown. Pure white without border would also be barely visible against yellow burbs. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:36, 2 April 2009 (BST)

New Timed NT Map

I'm not sure how I feel about it. Let me stare for a couple days. But FYI, have you seen Alka's timestamp map he's made (it's on the NW talk if you haven't seen it). ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 00:00, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I have, but unadulterated levels of awesome have prevented my immediate comment. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 00:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I know! I'm going to take this moment here and bask in the fact that I invited him to NW. Go me. Anyway, by pillaging Alka's map code, I bet we can make the the NT Status Map tooltip on rollover say "The BLAH Building is safe, reported X days ago." ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 07:41, 29 March 2009 (BST)

Recruitment and ad size

Hi. :)

You've just got me slightly confused over two of the points of your proposed plan (currently up for voting):

  • If you are using a fixed table width, your advert is limited to 600*800px.
    --For example, using style="width:600px" in your table gives a fixed 600px wide advert on all screens. If in doubt, use this code.

Why 600*800px? That is more height than the lowest resolution, 800*600px, can display. That would result in ads being 200px out of screen. 600*600px limit would result in it still being in screen as that accounts for the sidebar and gives the correct height.

  • If you are using a variable or scaling table width, your advert may be no longer than 800px when viewed on a 800*600 resolution.
    --For example, using style="width:100%" in your table gives an advert that uses 100% of the available space, which varies depending on the person viewing the advert.

Not sure of the use of the term 'longer'. Do you mean width or height? In either case it cannot be 800px while on a 800*600px resolution as (as mentioned above) it would result in the ads being outside of the screen. It might not be necessary to state a max value for px, easier to just state; 'you may not use a variable higher than 100% for both height and width'.

If you could make clear if I am misunderstanding that would be helpful, I'm pretty much for the changes, I just want to be sure what exactly is being said. - User:Whitehouse 22:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The 800px height limit is designed not to ensure that ads are viewable to the 800*600 folks without needing to scroll. That would be horribly restrictive as we'd need something along the lines of a 600*400 max which is restrictive. The 800px height limit is just to prevent people having stupidly long ads, and on proper resolutions scrolling will be minimal, a group should take into consideration the scrolling issues and the formatting etc anyway, it's their ad so they are responsible for its appearance. The overall limits are to prevent ads interfering with the page as a whole.
The ambiguous 'longer' means height. Can easily replace it with 'higher' to be totally obvious. Again, this is needed to ensure non-mad advert length. A person can skirt the measures by setting width 100%, the browser will happily scale to full width and be left to its own devices in deciding the height needed so an advert that is overly long would still go over a screen, or 800px, or anything you might set as a limit. Forcing them to set both means the advert A) Has to fill the screen, even it this leaves space everywhere. B) Defeats the object of setting the absolute limits in the first place. Variable settings are used but sometimes people don't consider squashing the ad to a small res to test it at which point it starts breaking stuff because there's not enough room. Absolute settings means that WYSIWYG for any res, so it's harder to go wrong and also easier to enforce.
I'll correct the 'longer' thing. Otherwise if you feel it's still a bad proposal then by all means shoot it down, hopefully more people would get involved in refining it properly next go, damned discussion barely went anywhere on the size limits... -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Legends of Darkness

My Dark Mistress, Psychotic Pantomime, has informed me you have been most helpful in your suggestions (catergorize LoD, bots). However, I am more wiki savvy then here (I steal code and learn how to use if for my purposes). I am most interested in your suggestions, but not solid enough on my own coding to implement them myself. Hit up my talk page or LoD talk page where you have been posting if you are interested in helping us.

Peace, Donald Crane, Panty's right hand man.

If you're referring about the category, all you have to do is go to that page and edit it so it has some content, job done. Since it's your category I was going to let your group do it. As to the suggestions, I'm not sure what suggestions you're on about, all I wanted to do was let you know your category was a redlink... -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

NecroWatch Scanning Map Template

Rooster, Alka Selzer has taken the time and trouble to turn the Recon Map into an actual template! I'm not sure whether it should remain in his user space or if it should be moved into the general template category, though. Can you chime in on the discussion on the NW talk page and let us know what the best course is? Thanks! ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 15:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

If it's done, it should probably be moved to the template namespace since it can be used by everybody. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 18:05, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you...

upgraded to IE8 yet, its out of Beta now? --D.E.ATalk 14:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the message, I have upgraded now. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
No problem. :) It was only after I tried that nifty little 'Compatability View' feature that I noticed the difference in the main page setup. Just glad that it was an IE7 error and not an overall IE error, otherwise we'd still be staring at the main page attached to the top of the screen. --D.E.ATalk 19:57, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, the IE team seems to be finally getting their act together after the horror that was IE6. I must retest acid 3 sometime and see how it's doing on that front. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 20:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

so...

trying to improve my major contributions to the wiki, are we ? Of course, that was bound to happen with me leaving this place. Anyway, some input: you have coding skillz, but you seem to lack some design and usability skillz... moving the 'update' links from the suburb template to just below their info (the update the dangerstatus link just below the dangermap, for example) simply make the template look awful... having the links at the bottom of the template not only improved its readability, but improves its graphical design. I am completly against your renaming of the danger levels, specially 'ghost town' to 'adandoned', which reads awful and has no connotation to the game... and the reaons to change moderate to moderately is dull... you are the first and only to complain about it in more than two years. And why did you removed the rounded borders from the danger levels colors table ? Since are onto it, why dont you ask all dangerreport pages to be moved from user:DangerReport to template:DangerReport ? --People's Commissar Hagnat [talk] [wcdz] 03:58, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I would like to say that I find the term "abandoned" to be insulting and an unnecessary change. --Bob Boberton TF / DW 04:07, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
'Abandoned' can be changed back to 'a ghost town' is that is preferred. After all but nonexistant discussion on Talk:Suburb and nobody raising any major objections I just went for that term as opposed to the other.
The changes to Template:Suburb were from 2 months ago. The EMR section had been added by somebody but was a bit messy at the time. So I attempted to smooth that out and figured that the extra gap could fit in a section for the phone masts, making the links for it below somewhat redundant. The NT section was already redundant from some while back, and with the EMR and mast section having moved, just leaving the danger level on it's own seemed odd.
Removing the rounded borders on the map key seemed sensible, the map uses a rectangular box with a 2px border, so the key should as well. That as opposed to a circular swatch with no border (as it was when I ran across it) which again is another change from a while back. The light green particularly was a problem without it's border as it matched the background quiet well.
Moving the danger reports is out of the question, this would take creation of 1000's of pages which might be possible, but it would also need the renaming of the many links to those templates which would need, at a rough guess, upwards of 10000 references altered.
I am not opposed to criticism as often I don't come up with the best solutions to things, but I am opposed to you coming here and insinuating I am some kind of moron. I will happily discuss the reasoning behind edits I make and the advantages or disadvantages to using another method but you need not suggest that I am destroying "your work" because you weren't here. Your edits are subject to being improved upon, same as mine, same as anybody else's. It's a wiki, that's the point. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 13:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Creating new templates will only replace 100 pages, and require the edit of only some few templates (unless i am wrong about how i created the suburb template).
Sorry if it looked like i was accusing you of something, but i was not. Actually, i welcome any improvement that can be made to the system, since it was created two years ago with just a little of wiki-knoweledge. --People's Commissar Hagnat [talk] [wcdz] 00:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
In that case, my apologies for the over-reaction. Anyway, I originally thought you were referring the the whole of User:DangerReport which includes some 1000 or so building reports too. The suburb's only would be easily possible, I cannot imagine there would be too much to fix. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 17:25, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I have changed "Abandoned" to "A Ghost Town". -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 14:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

EMRs

Well, in fact, I know about the EMR Bot. I just choose to report it by hands to suburbs that I do care about. So it's not that much work really. Besides, I take the chance to archive news for those suburbs while I'm at it. I may switch to the Bot when I'm bored, though. -- Kittithaj 14:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Understood. By the way, today's 3 reports has already been done by hands. They came to me one at a time, so I figured it was easier this way. -- Kittithaj 18:13, 31 March 2009 (BST)

Preview problem with the new changes

I updated the danger status on Tollyton and noticed it didn't show a change on Preview, yet when I saved it, it did change. Just for grins - and to make sure I'm not blind - I tried changing a different suburb from "very dangerous" to "safe" and saw the same thing; preview doesn't reflect the change. No, I didn't leave it at safe when I was done :) Using FF2 if that makes any difference. -- Grogh 19:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

It would work like that. The preview takes the current page's data, so until you save, you're still viewing the "outdated" version. I'll add a note about that on the template. Thanks for the head's up. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 17:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
I was waiting for someone to upgrade the reports, namely ridding us of the "special" templates. I never even got around to asking for a "special bot", also explains this being broken. I'm still wondering why neither me, nor Karek beat you to implementing that Mall auto logo. :P 11:01, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Well somebody had to eventually. :) -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 14:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Because I'm not doing wiki projects really anymore. --Karekmaps?! 05:49, 5 April 2009 (BST)