UDWiki:Wiki Questions

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Spambits

Is it possible to limit page creation to autoconfirmed users? 19:37, 19 July 2011 (BST)

Yeah but Kevan has to do it. ~ _{19:50, 19 July 2011 (UTC)}

19:51, 19 July 2011 (BST)

There's discussion about it somewhere. I think the argument was that autoconfirmed users are those with 25 edits or one week under their belt and there are loads of non-spambit users we'd be fucking over by making them wait a week. I think there is a way to limit adding external links to autoconfirmed and probably even possible to whitelist certain domains (like urbandead.com). Still might limit some legitimate users and would still require Kevan's hand. I'll see if I can link you to the discussion. ~ _{20:04, 19 July 2011 (UTC)}

Well the discussion seems to be spread out through several policy discussion pages. The most recent one came just after the wiki software update (recent and relevant info). There was also three separate policy discussions specifically addressing autoconfirmed. Uhh, I'm sure your question is probably in the somewhere but short answer is it's ultimately up to Kevan. ~ _{20:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)}

The answer is: yes, you can. The 'create page' ability is a seperate permission which could be un-assigned to the 'users' group and given to the 'autoconfirmed' group. However, I'd be unwilling to do that given the disruption it would cause newbies (why should they have to make 25 edits to a wiki they really aren't interested in just so they can create a group page?)

If we were going to do it then we'd probably have to create a new "page creation requests" page.

For the record, autoconfirmed groups were originally envision purely for use with semi-protection. 'Autoconfirmed' is granted after one week and 25 edits.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 03:55, 20 July 2011 (BST)

The only way I'd see to make it feasible would be to limit page creation in the main namespace to auto-confirmed users and then adding in a group namespace for all groups to occupy which wouldn't require auto-confirmed status. In that way people who create a wiki account only to create and maintain a group page wouldn't be hindered and no new requests page would be needed (only very special cases possibly). But I couldn't imagine all the page moves and broken links(unless redirects always happen with page moves?) that would be required *shudders* >.>        04:07, 20 July 2011 (BST)

Loosen the autoconfirm criteria then (I'm pretty sure it's do-able, given that it's one day on the big wiki). With the time issue reduced, 25 edits really isn't a lot if you edit your userpage, add links to your new group to places, and then create it. 04:09, 20 July 2011 (BST)

Considering most spambits wait a few hours to post their page and that's the only edit they make removing the time limit and just make 5 or 10 edits the requirement. Heck if you want to keep the purpose of the current auto-confirmed group just make a second group that you'll earn with very little effort (such as 5 or 10 edits) to thwart the spambits. You could even name it aptly "You not a spambit yay!"       04:20, 20 July 2011 (BST)

Second group is possible but requires some fiddling by Kevan.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 10:28, 20 July 2011 (BST)

It's 4 days on Wikipedia. The whole purpose of the autoconfirmed is to protect highly visible pages from vandals, so we can't really change that - it would make semi-protection useless.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 10:28, 20 July 2011 (BST)

It's doable, but quite complicated and so goodluck getting Kevan to do it.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 10:28, 20 July 2011 (BST)

I'm pretty sure that with the way Kevan configured our wiki during the update (which was likely nearly entirely the default configuration) changing group permissions has not been enabled for any level of user (including crat). Crats can assign permissions to specific user by adding or removing them from a specific group but they can't change the actual permissions. $wgGroupPermissions would need to be configured differently before we could go changing group permissions. ~ _{07:03, 20 July 2011 (UTC)}

Yeah, giving crats the ability to change group permissions is pretty unusual for most wikis.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 10:28, 20 July 2011 (BST)

Oh ok, sorry I thought you meant it was something we could do ourselves in your comments above. ~ _{14:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)}

Nah, none of these usergroup changes can be done by us. At best, we might be able to convince Kevan to let the 'crats have the power to create/alter usergroups; but that'd still require a fair bit of fiddling from him.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 02:19, 21 July 2011 (BST)

What about one edit? People could just create a user page. --Rosslessness 10:32, 20 July 2011 (BST)

Yeah, we could. I am thoroughly against using the autoconfirmed group for that, though. We should set up a separate group if we're going to so it.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 10:55, 20 July 2011 (BST)

Doing that would work wonders; can only create a page after one edit. In the restrictive system message for the "sorry you cannot create the page you're trying to make you need X edits", just add a link to the Sandbox or something, easy enough. -- ϑ^anceϑ^anceℜ^evolution 14:47, 20 July 2011 (BST)

I'd be for a separate group. Maybe just "confirmed users". Some spambits would likely still find a way by spamming existing articles rather than creating new ones. We already see that in some cases though its more rare. I still think we should explore the option of limiting who can add external links. I think that's an option on the reCapcha extension we have. ~ _{16:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)}

So Kevan forming a second group with the page creation permission to be earned with 5 edits would kill about all spambits. Then making it so users not in the auto-confirmed group have to enter a reCapcha to post an external link(s)? Sounds simple and solid to me.       22:34, 20 July 2011 (BST)

...are you kidding? I'd rather it be the way it is now, instead of spammers going: "Hmm. I can't make new pages, so I guess I'll just start overwriting currently existing pages." --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 23:33, 20 July 2011 (BST)

You figure they'd send updated bits to our little wiki? I'd say there are bigger fish to fry        00:52, 21 July 2011 (BST)

I'm not a programmer but I'd imagine spambots don't actually have anywhere near that sort of intelligence. P sure they are kamikaze bots designed to just make one page then make another if they havent been banned within the minute. If you find an actual spambot smart enough to have the line of thought you've just hypothesized above then tell me and I'll give it a medal. -- ϑ^anceϑ^anceℜ^evolution 00:54, 21 July 2011 (BST)

Actually the old bots used to do exactly that and it's not something that would even be code intensive really. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 19:03, 22 July 2011 (BST)

There is likely some human intervention involved with the bits. That's how they get past recapcha for account creation. Companies will pay people in china and african nations to solve the capchas. I think the going rate is 5 american cents per 1000 capchas solved. Would they pay the extra monies to solve the extra capchas? I don't know. We really don't know how the bits would react. I actually share Akule's concerns. ~ _{01:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)}

If we were to go through with some change i'd recommend doing only the change to adding urls at first since that works across the board without changing permissions. If we're lucky and it snuffs the bits we don't need to change anything else.if we're not, then we can consider adding the new group. ~ _{01:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)}

Yeah I was referring to the programmers/companies updating their bits :P Just be sure only users not in the auto confirmed group have to enter capchas. I hate those things and so does everyone else.       01:37, 21 July 2011 (BST)

Just to say: It is perfectly possible to use a piece of logic which says "if <can create page> = true; create new page" and then "If <can create page> = false; goto Special:Random; edit page" (I could even give you proof-of-concept code to do it). Whether or not most of the bots are that complicated is another matter (I'd guess "no", but that is only a guess). Adding a captcha when adding external links for non-autoconfirmed users is a setting in our captcha extension; it's a matter of toggling an option on. I doubt it will have much effect, though, given that the only bot which actually seems phased by a captcha would be mine.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 02:19, 21 July 2011 (BST)

That's because your not making your bot run the capcha by younto solve them. Even sophisticated black-hat linkspamming programs like XRumer supposedly use a mix of human and machine to do their evil bidding. I don't know if it would help either but as you said it would be easy to toggle on, it would work well with the autoconfirm settings already in place, and even sysops would have some control over what is allowed through whitelisting. It couldn't hurt to try it. ~ _{02:56, 21 July 2011 (UTC)}

True, and it's not worth the hassle to make it work: It only becomes a problem when I mistype my password and the captcha springs up. Yeah, I believe that's the easiest way to do it. Fun fact: The framework that I use is actually capable of solving several types of captcha on its own; reCaptcha just happens to be one of the types that is impervious to it.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 03:03, 21 July 2011 (BST)

Random thought: The best anti-bot measures are actually the ones that ask questions or give maths problems because they block essentially all auto-solving bots and merely leave the human-solving ones.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 03:06, 21 July 2011 (BST)

That might be something to request. I think it is also a fairly straightforward change. Would you mind doing the honors of requesting the changes fro Kevan. You seemed to have said the magic words last time. ~ _{03:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)}

2+2=<>< will foil all bots! :D        03:24, 21 July 2011 (BST)

Bardiclife

Is there a way to figure out if the account "Bardiclife" that I'm 99.99% sure I created before this one is still around? I tried creating the account, but the user name exists, yet, I can't find it on the user hub or user namespaces.

Or...is there a way to change my username "TheBardofAwesome" to "Bardiclife" without creating another account?

Thanks. -- TheBardofOld 18:21, 12 August 2011 (BST)

User:Bardiclife was created on 20 February 2010 at 01:49. If you provided an email address when you signed up, you can request that your password is reset. Otherwise, there is no way of regaining control of that account, unfortunately. ~ _{18:43, 12 August 2011 (UTC)}

Is there any way for a sysop to change the email address of that account or tell me what email address was used? I have about seven email addresses that I might have used. -- TheBardofOld 19:05, 12 August 2011 (BST)

I'm afraid not. We don't have access to your personal information. I can tell you that it is not likely that you ever provided an email address on that account. Usually, when a user provides an email address, there will be a link on the side bar when viewing their userpages that says "Email this User". User:Bardiclife does not have that link. That's not to say you didn't provide an email and then unchecked the option preferences to allow users to email you, but that's not the most likely situation. I'm afraid that you probably no longer have access to that account. ~ _{19:26, 12 August 2011 (UTC)}

I think your best bet is to just try logging in with the username Bardiclife using passwords you think you may have used. If you just can't remember, click the "email new password" button on the login screen and check each of your email accounts. The login screen may even tell you if you don't have an email address on file. ~ _{19:39, 12 August 2011 (UTC)}

I've tried all of the passwords that I could think of-been changing passwords a lot and checked out all possible email addresses that I remember but no luck. Anything else I can do? I mean, I wouldn't mind having the username Bardiclife deleted. I just don't want to take that route if I haven't exhausted all of my options. -- TheBardofOld 21:20, 12 August 2011 (BST)

Deleting users from the wiki isn't possible, I'm afraid. ~ _{21:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)}

The only one who can delete accounts is Kevan, so we SysOps aren't able to delete accounts. Block them, yes. Delete them, no. If you're worried about your other account getting hacked and afraid the blame will be placed on you, you can always request that the other account get blocked. That's what I did for the account I created a few weeks before this Axe Hack account. I forgot the password and requested the other account be blocked so that it won't go on a spam spree and link back to me if it gets hacked. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 21:40, 12 August 2011 (BST)

I'm not so worried about the account getting hacked, moreso not being able to access my oldest account on the wiki. An account whose name isn't so...vain as TheBardofAwesome is. Nothing serious, just quirky stuff. -- TheBardofOld 01:12, 13 August 2011 (BST)

I'd just say make a new account if you want a name change. TheBardofOld has a decent ring to it and isn't vain. Although I can't think of a word but a more archaic term might fit better. Or you could just pull a Thad and use an alias.        04:33, 13 August 2011 (BST)

BTW, it would be possible to change account names with the use of an extension.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 15:54, 13 August 2011 (BST)

Let's not even go there. Of all the wiki updates needed, that's really low in priority. ~ _{18:33, 13 August 2011 (UTC)}

Just mentioning it; this problem has come up a couple of times now. It'd also take about 5 minutes to perform.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 19:56, 13 August 2011 (BST)

Yeah I know. I just get nervous at the idea of requesting more wiki updates. ~ _{20:23, 13 August 2011 (UTC)}

Adding that ability would be a sign of *cue dramatic music*

	Misconbitragnarok
	This user can see the end fast approaching.

*gasp*        04:26, 14 August 2011 (BST)

Would anyone with the ability to lock accounts, mind locking the users TheBardofAwesome and Bardiclife from future usage? I don't want them to cause a problem, should someone else gain access to them and use them for evil. Thanks. -- TheBardofOld 18:14, 21 October 2011 (BST)

Log into the wiki with those accounts and head over to A/VB and request a self imposed ban on them. ~ _{18:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)}

Or just head over to A/VB and request a self imposed ban on them. As long as we're able to confirm they're you, it's no problem if you request it using your current account. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 18:38, 21 October 2011 (BST)

Done. I just don't have access to Bardiclife. Created it a long time ago and either didn't provide email or the email provided is void. -- TheBardofOld 18:51, 21 October 2011 (BST)

Line breaks

So I finally getting around to updating my Juliette Reau page and I can't remember how to do line breaks like I did for my Derek Sutherland character. I did like the wiki cheatsheet described, but I just want a single line break inbetween any two paragraphs. I'm tired of fiddling with it so if someone could either show me how to do it correctly or fix it, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. -- TheBardofOld 19:50, 3 September 2011 (BST)

Do you mean <br>-tags,
which
will
break
down
text
like
this, or do you mean four minuses (----), which create this

---

break? -- Spiderzed█ 20:00, 3 September 2011 (BST)

More so the
, but about half the line break space. I don't know if I'm just tweaking, but it looks like there's a big difference between the line breaks on my Derek and Juliette pages. -- TheBardofOld 20:17, 3 September 2011 (BST)

The difference comes from using line breaks both in the code _and_ doubled <br>-tags

for Juliette, while there are just line breaks in the code

for Derek. -- Spiderzed█ 20:21, 3 September 2011 (BST)

<br> is the easy way to do it.

If you want a more adjustable space between your lines you can use<span style="line-height: (number)em;">

Sample Paragraph using <span style="line-height: 2.5em;">:

California is the most wonderful place to visit because of its variety of weather and its beautiful nature. (subject development) Visitors to California can find any weather they like. They can find cool temperatures in the summer; also they can find warm weather in the winter. They can find places that are difficult for humans to live in the summer because they are so hot. Or they can find places closed in the winter because of the snow. On the other hand, visitors can find the nature they like. They can find high mountains and low valleys. Visitors can find a huge forest, a dead desert, and a beautiful coast.(summary sentence) So California is the most wonderful place to visit because of its weather and nature.

       13:12, 4 September 2011 (BST)

NT Scan

If a user forgets to sign their NTscan is ok to sign it for them? Or is it better to post a reminder on their talk page? --Greenwarrior 08:46, 22 September 2011 (BST)

use the unsigned template {{unsigned}} that way it's not impersonation.--User:Sexualharrison10:02, 22 September 2011 (bst)

ok, thank you for the advice --Greenwarrior 09:58, 24 September 2011 (BST)

User Category?

can a user have his/her own category? and is that considered vain? i want my own category to shorten my watchlist. i have the template pages i've created, my sigs, images i've uploaded, and my alt pages...and i don't want to "watch" them anymore. →Son of Sin← 22:06, 25 October 2011 (BST)

Yep. You sure can. I don't consider it vain, just an easy way for me to keep track of images and pages I've created. ~ _{22:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)}

excellent. thanks Vapor. and for some reason i think your name is Viper. if i've ever typed Viper, my bad. →Son of Sin← 22:51, 25 October 2011 (BST)

Timestamp

and while i'm here...why is the timestamp wiki markup an hour later than the server time? feels like i'm in 3 different time zones. →Son of Sin← 22:11, 25 October 2011 (BST)

You're talking about the CURRENTTIME Magic Word, right? I think the reason UTC is used rather than BST/GMT is because Magic Words are serve by MediaWiki and use Universal Time rather than one server in particular. UDWiki used BST/GMT because that's where the server is. ~ _{22:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)}

You can use the LOCALTIME magic word rather than CURRENTTIME to get the server time, though. ~ _{22:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)}

i use ~~~~~ which is UTC, i think, but has (BST) in it. 16:29 (current time) is the same as the server time and 16:29 (local time) is the same as ~~~~~. so if i use the CT magic word i'll be an hour behind now. →Son of Sin← 16:29

Oh ok sorry, I didn't realize you meant the 5 tilde wikicode. UDWiki uses the local time in London, England which, at this time is BST (UTC+1:00). When you use five tildes, it will produce the this time. Coincidentally, BST ends in 4 days from now on October 30th, at which time the server time will be at UTC (also known as GMT) once again. ~ _{05:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)}

It also occurs to me that you may be confused because Recent Changes and Page History use your personal settings to display time. By default, this is set to GMT, which is at the moment 1 hour behind server time. You can change this in your preferences from the Date & Time tab. Just set it to use Europe/London and you're recent changes and history pages will match time stamps. ~ _{06:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)}

thanks for explaining. →Son of Sin← 12:22, 26 October 2011 (BST)

Accidentally made two accounts. Whoops.

So, apparently after a year or two gone from my aClashInRedSnow account, I completely forgot that I had an existing UDWiki account and created a new one. This username is the secondary one - it has some stuff on there that I forgot about and might wind up using, but I figured I should mention somewhere that this secondary account exists, and that I'm the creator of any content and edits made by that account. Is there something I ought to do with it? Transfer the content over from the userpage and disable the account or something? DON'T THROW ME IN INTERNET JAIL – aClashInRedSnow^|talk 19:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Posting from the alternate account to confirm. Behold, sockpuppetry. – Nic LesFlics^|?| 19:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

as far as I know on this wiki it's okay to have multiple accounts. as long as you don't use them for sockpuppetry you are in the clear. just pick one for voting on stuff and stick with it.--User:Sexualharrison19:37, 5 February 2012 (bst)

Sweet. Now to abandon this account because the other one has a cooler name. – aClashInRedSnow^|talk 19:55, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

you can put it up for speedy delete if you don't want to use it anymore.--User:Sexualharrison20:10, 5 February 2012 (bst)

Checkuser confirms that the accounts have the same owner. As per the wiki rules, you are fine to have multiple accounts so long as you don't use it to meatpuppet elections and don't use a proxy to disguise the ownership of the account. If you want to deactivate one of the accounts in some way then you are free to request deletion of it's pages and even a block on the account, but that's by no means compulsary. If you want to use both accounts then I'd recommend posting a notice on the userpage(s) stating that they have the same owner--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 22:56, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I might put it up for Speedy Delete after I transfer everything over to my new userpage, whenever I get around to that. Thanks for the help, folks. --Nic LesFlics^|?| 01:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

How do I make my journal appear on the Category:Journal page?

I can see it when I go to it from my watchlist (http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Journal:Samu3l), but I can't see it on the Category:Journal page. What am I doing wrong? :O

User:Samu3l

You need to add [[Category:Journal]] to the page. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 22:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind. I see the category tag is already there. So your page is in there. Somewhere. Just keep flipping pages until you get to the "S" section of the category. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 22:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Found it. It's in the "J" section. The wiki's categoriziation method is quite the weird one, isn't it? :P --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 22:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Not overly. Without the |Samu3l is alphabetizes by the whole page name So what he should have is [[Category:Journal|Samu3l]]--Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 15:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

that seemed to work! thanks! :) User:Samu3l

Fake Template Links

Alright, so I've been making some new location templates for my suburbs in Ross's Unemplementia map and I've run into a snag. It turns out that whenever I link the templates on my Sandbox page to the, the templates break. Even though the templates are tethered to my Sandbox page, they don't have links on their pages and I don't want to bog down the wiki with floating pages.

If someone could look into this for me or at least clue me into what I'm doing wrong, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. -- TheBardofOld 20:45, 20 April 2012 (BST)

I see neither broken templates nor broken transclusions, neither in the current revision nor in the older revisions of today. Mind to be more specific? -- Spiderzed█ 21:24, 20 April 2012 (BST)

Alright, so I linked Template:Water Station to the Fake Template page and it broke, like I said. The same thing happens if I link the railroad crossings.-- TheBardofOld 21:39, 20 April 2012 (BST)

Did this happen to you during preview? This is only an educated guess, but it sounds like you hosed the template inclusion limit of your sandbox. {{EXP Suburbblock}} uses template to produce the necessary block formatting. Each use of the template also calls dozens of other templates, and those count twice. With three or four uses of {{EXP Suburbblock}} you're calling up one hundred or so templates each time the page loads. And the wiki software has a built in limiter to prevent you from calling up any more. ~ _{02:31, 21 April 2012 (UTC)}

Hmmm. Alright, thanks Vapor. -- TheBardofOld 04:06, 21 April 2012 (BST)

Signature

How do you change your signature in "my preferences" to that of a code you made, cause I've tried everything I can think of and it's not working. -- TheBardofOld 17:49, 27 April 2012 (BST)

Put {{SUBST:Nosubst|User:TheBardofOld/Sig}} in the "new signature" field and check-off "Treat signature as wikitext (without an automatic link)". Then sign like usual. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 17:52, 27 April 2012 (BST)

Awesome. Thanks man. -- TheBardofOld 18:44, 27 April 2012 (BST)

index.php redirect

I've recently been having issues (sometimes in the middle of editing) where the wiki will suddenly and inexplicably give a 404. I can switch browsers or computers and everything is fine. I've tried to narrow down the problem and I'm not sure if it is just me or more widespread. In Firefox, if I type http://wiki.urbandead.com, I get a message that the wiki is under maintenance. If I do the same in IE, the wiki loads fine. I've found that the difference seems to be that in IE, I am correctly redircted to http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php but in FF I am not. Has anyone else had this problem? I thought the wiki was really down for maintenancen the first couple of times it happened. ~ _{17:25, 5 May 2012 (UTC)}

Not really possible as an issue. If the index doesn't load you don't see anything and if the site loads the index has loaded since that's the server path with or without a visible index.php on it. More likely it's a caching issue on your end, try clearing that. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 13:02, 6 May 2012 (BST)

Yeah happened to me a couple of itmes in the last month. The first time? It stayed like that for about 4 days until I tried a full cache refresh (or whatever you call it) and it completely reloaded the page and the wiki was accessible once more. i thought the wiki had died for real this time. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 13:29, 6 May 2012 (BST)

Yeah I figured it is a caching issue. Not sure why its been happening so often recently. I haven't really been doing anything differently and its never been an issue before. The only thing I can think of is I sometimes use the in-game button to open the wiki. If this ever happens again, I'll try to take note of the exact steps I used to recreate it and resolve the issue. I imagine it is frustrating for anyone else this happensnto. ~ _{15:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)}

I noticed it was at an instance when bots had exploded on the wiki temporarily... Might be nothing but still. D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 01:46, 7 May 2012 (BST)

Turn off your adblock. That should solve the problem.--Shortround }.{ My Contributions 16:32, 6 May 2012 (BST)

I'll play around with that. It will be interesting if that is the issue. I think my Ad Block Plus has a way to disable it per site. I have no problem unblocking ads on UDWiki but I like blocking ads elsewhere too much to disable it completely. ~ _{17:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)}

Yeah my wiki was having this issue for a week or so (genuinely thought UDwiki was down) but when I turned off Adblock Plus for UDwiki (It's still on everywhere else) my wiki immediately started working again.--Shortround }.{ My Contributions 18:31, 6 May 2012 (BST)

Unfortunately I don't use an adblock and it still happened to me a bit D^ANCED^ANCER^EVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 01:46, 7 May 2012 (BST)

I've disabled ABP for this domain and cleared my cache and still have the same problem if I type the url or use the in-game wiki button. I have to type /index.php after the url to get the main page to load. ~ _{06:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)}

I've been getting the problem again for the past couple of days. Looks like it wasn't ad block this time around. :( --Shortround }.{ My Contributions 12:16, 21 May 2012 (BST)

I still have no idea where you people are getting this problem. I'm on Firefox 3.6.5 from my PC, 5.0.1 from campus computers, and 10.0.4 for Android phones. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 13:30, 21 May 2012 (BST)

I got this problem too, albeit only for brief periods (It's only happened to me twice, and cleared up an hour or so later). -- †  talk ? f.u. 03:19, 22 May 2012 (BST)

Text and title the same color

By placing the code <font color=white> at the beggining of a talk page I can make most of the text look white but when someone adds a new section the new section's title is still black and as the page has a dark background it becomes dificult to read. If everytime someone made a new section they mde the title as follows: ==<font color=white>Section Title==, then there would be no problem but most people won't notice this detail and I'd rather not have them worry about it so, is there any way to make both text and titles the same color (and have that color not be black)? ~THOROAEBORUS 19:32, 14 August 2012 (BST)

Having an unclosed font color might work. --Ross^WHO????ness 19:34, 14 August 2012 (BST)

Place <div font color=white> at the top of the talk page and </font></div> at the bottom of the talk page. Everything in between including the headers should be white. If the new section "+" button is clicked, it will place the new section outside of the div, though. You can disable the new section link with the magic word __NONEWSECTIONLINK__. Just include instructions to users to place new comments in a specific place (such as under a specific header). ~ _{19:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)}

If you were to try what you suggested, you'd see that while most of the text would be colored, the headers would remain black. See below for the reason why. There simply isn't a way that I'm aware of to set the font's color once at the start of the page and have it apply to the entire page, including the headers, otherwise we'd be able to use Ross' suggestion to make it work for talk pages. —Aichon— 20:22, 14 August 2012 (BST)

Contrary to what the others are saying, I'm fairly certain that what you're describing is not possible. In fact, it's a large part of the reason I very intentionally chose to go with a lighter color scheme for my own userspace. To get into the details of why it won't work, the header's color is from a CSS rule the wiki has that is specific to h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 HTML elements (h2 applies to the talk page headers in question). To use a semi-technical term, that rule is somewhat "specific". Because that rule will have more "specificity" than any spans, fonts, divs, or anything else that you apply to the page as a whole, it will overrule any styles applied by those other elements. The only way to get around the issue is to get more specific, but without having access to the wiki's CSS, the only way we can do that is by individually styling each header. However, that cannot be done automatically, as you pointed out, so either you or your visitors would have to do it. —Aichon— 20:19, 14 August 2012 (BST)

Thanks for the quickly answers everybody. Since it can't be done I'll try to work on something else. ~THOROAEBORUS 21:37, 15 August 2012 (BST)

any bots?

I haven't noticed any on RC... But do we still have bots that clean up old dangereports? A ZOMBIE ANT 15:22, 13 September 2012 (BST)

Thegeneralbot, but it hasn't been run on that task since February. —Aichon— 15:32, 13 September 2012 (BST)

Thanks. A ZOMBIE ANT 15:40, 13 September 2012 (BST)

Template Help

Hey guys. Quick question regarding location template coding. I'm trying to create a variant of the Security Fence Corners found here, but I'm lost as to how to specify that I only want Corners E-H to have a portion of the length. Same width, but just a square-shaped allotment.

If imagery is of any help, check out this suburb: Stonegate Estates.

Notice how the outer corners don't line up with the rest of the wall? I'm trying to fix that.

Also, if anyone has any comments or suggestions on the suburbs I've created, feel free to post 'em. I honestly believe that by introducing all these new concepts like gates, grocery stores, individual specialty stores, tunnels, bridges, ski lifts, etc, the game is getting a well-deserved facelift. -- TheBardofOld 01:49, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I can't think of any easy way to do it with HTML and CSS while keeping things mostly as they are. Honestly, my suggestion would be to move the fence from the side of the block it's on to the other side (i.e. the dark gray blocks in Stonegate Estates, rather than on the green ones surrounding the dark gray ones). If you did that, it'd be a trivial issue. If you're dead-set on not moving them though, you'll probably need to add some extra div elements to cover up those borders, and that'll get messy, to be honest. You also might consider simply ignoring the corners, since that would probably look better than having it as it is now for those corners. —Aichon— 04:54, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Category Sorting

It really is too early in the morning for me to have such a simple minded brain fart...Who would have thought my big "last month as SysOps" project of alphabetizing every single Category on this wiki would get stopped by Category tags only being added because of such templates as these? Anybody got any clue on a way around this? Such Categories such as Category:Policy Documents could probably do some good with a bit of alphabetizing. I dunno. Maybe it's 'cause I'm a bit of a neat freak sometimes. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 11:33, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Toss a variable into the template and have it use that variable as the sortkey for the category? For instance, I just modified {{Policy Document}} and made some example edits of it in action. If you go and check the category, you'll see that it's sorted by the name I provided, but, unfortunately, it's still displayed with the actual page name. There's nothing we can do about that. That may work for your purposes, however. —Aichon— 15:22, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Two problems. One being that was already the functionality of that template. The second being your change actually doesn't sort anything. You want {{SUBPAGENAME for this kind of thing as you're actually categorizing everything as Administration/etc/etc in the alphabetical sort, which was the same mistake I made years ago apparently. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 16:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

SUBPAGENAME doesn't work in that namespace, so no, we don't want to be using it, and no, the functionality I just added did not already exist. I just added a variable to the template (not to be confused with the magic word that was already there) that allows you to supply your own sortkey. I did that specifically because SUBPAGENAME doesn't work in that namespace. And yes, my changes do work, since if you look in the category, you'll see that "Update the Wiki Software (2)" is sorted under U instead of under A where it used to be, and that "Automatic Bureaucrat Cycling" is sorted at the end of the A section, rather than near the start of it, since its "Au" comes after the "Ad" of "Administration", which is what the rest of those pages that have not yet been updated to use my variable are being sorted by. Axe will need to add my variable on all of those pages in order for them to be properly sorted using their subpagename, since we can't use the magic word to do it for us. —Aichon— 17:08, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually your changes were showing as under A for me. I was not aware it didn't work in that namespace. I don't have an issue with the variable just that that's not a useful magic word choice. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 22:45, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

The U one was too? Odd. It was working for me before you posted here. Go figure...could be caching. Anyway, I don't disagree about the magic word choice. I tried to use SUBPAGENAME and was reminded by my failure to make it work that it doesn't work properly (in fact, other than in User, I don't know of anywhere else it actually works). It really shouldn't matter which magic word we use as a result, given that they both provide the same (useless) value of the entire page name. —Aichon— 23:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

It most likely is caching. I see the U one being under U after I refreshed the page a few times. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 06:21, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Free running???

Discussion moved to talk:free running -- boxy 02:15, 25 March 2013 (BST)

Team Rating

How is the team rating in the stats page decided?how can i increase or decrease it?PayneTrain^(NWO/FU) 11:25, 29 June 2013 (BST)

Gain more members and/or have them advance in level. It is computed based on member numbers and levels. -- Spiderzed█ 12:45, 29 June 2013 (BST)

It's the culmulative levels of all of the members in the group. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 16:33, 29 June 2013 (BST)

It actually explains it on the stats page right under the listing. To quote: "A group's 'Rating' is the total number of levels that the group has as a whole." So yeah, what Karek said. Basically, if you have 10+ players, you're on the list, and where you get placed on the list depends on the total number of levels for everyone with your group name combined. —Aichon— 02:35, 30 June 2013 (BST)

ok thanksPayneTrain^(NWO/FU) 20:00, 30 June 2013 (BST)

Rollback

I guess I forgot to tag some pages of mine before the rollback and I've lost the changes made. Is there any way to fix this or just go from here?-- TheBardofOld 07:56, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

The old wiki right before the rollback can still be checked here. Your recent contributions in the old wiki can be checked there. I notice nothing of you in the last couple of days that hasn't been dealt with by importing, but if there is anything that has been missed, you can extract it from the old wiki. Just go to the page in question on the old wiki, go to the "show source" tag and copy all the content, then return to the new wiki and paste it into the page in question. -- Spiderzed▋ 14:04, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Problems registering

Apologies if this is the wrong place. Mostly just acting as a proxy, but someone in my group is trying to register for the wiki and is getting internal errors. Would be awesome if this would get looked into, apparently it has been a repeated issue for him/her. Weeks MCDU 22:59, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about that. The problem has been reported to Kevan. There doesn't seem to be much we can do about it here, I'm afraid -- boxy 04:03, 27 September 2014 (BST)

Since it's something that's likely not going to be fixed soon it might be worth changing the system message if possible, to explain that we're aware of the problem and if you have a friend on UDWiki it might be worth asking them to make your account for you, or to email an administrator. A ZOMBIE ANT 08:22, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

When the internal error happens, or at the register message of the wiki, I mean. A ZOMBIE ANT 08:23, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Have them make an account for you? I got the error when I tried to make a test account. Not sure what you mean. Anyway, I got a response from Kevan yesterday. It'll apparently involve a whole wiki update to fix:

[...] looks like I need to upgrade the wiki and a bunch of its extensions to the very latest versions to make them all play nicely together. Will turn to it when I have time both to do it, and to allow extra potential hours to clear up the things that break in the process.

Said by Kevan via e-mail

So yeah, he's aware of the issue, but a fix may or may not be imminent, given that wiki version updates have a tendency to break as much as they fix. :P —Aichon— 20:17, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps a notice on the wiki news template or main page? -- boxy 22:09, 28 September 2014 (BST)

Ah, I didn't realise it was an issue for everyone, just a group of unlucky users. A ZOMBIE ANT 23:47, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

PK groups

Hi,don't know if you guys sill remember me but i used to be an active Wiki member before and had to leave a while back due ti some personal reasons...Anyway,I'm back! only to realize half the people i know have left the game and most groups have gone inactive,anyway i was just wondering if there are still any PK groups still active.....I've been killing people on my own for a while now but its been getting awfully lonely lately,i just wanna sign up someplace and find someone to share my pleasures of killing with......So yeah my question is.....Are there any PK groups still active?if so are they still recruiting?--PayneTrain^(NWO/FU) 05:52, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Based on the Recruitment page, those of us in the Philosophe Knights are the only ones still recruiting. As far as we're aware, every other dedicated PKing group is either dead at this point or not recruiting. So, we're it. And we haven't forgotten you. IV ^PK 06:15, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Crap,that's too bad....PKing is becoming a lost art form i guess :(. and by "we haven't forgotten you" are you saying that the Philosophers knights still remember how much of an idiot you were,so don't even bother applying with us or were you simply stating "we remember you dude :D" --PayneTrain^(NWO/FU) 08:27, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, no PK groups that would ever accept you (i.e. no PK groups that completely lack standards) are still active. Maybe you could start your own... oh wait, that's right, you did. How'd that go? Last I heard everyone absolutely adored NWO and you guys were so relevant. -- ^{FoD PK Praise Rando!}00:42, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

As much as I want to be,IM not really surprised to see that you're still here....I kinda knew you'd still be here,especially since this would be the closest thing you have to an accomplishement in life! But what I didn't expect was that the butthurt that id left you with would still be there after all this time,I mean i don't even remember half the shit that happened here.--PayneTrain^(FU) 03:06, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

• P.S- I didn't start NWO, cyber did.I just joined up...Get yo facts straight before you try to insult someone

--PayneTrain^(FU) 03:28, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Cute. I quit UD almost a year ago, thank you. A friend from the Knights summoned me to the wiki when he saw you, and I thought that you might appreciate some company, so that you'd have someone listening to you for once. Also, cybertart may have been the leader of a generic, confused little club of wannabes, but you were his knight and champion in tactless armor. -- ^{FoD PK Praise Rando!}04:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

ok,first of all,quit implies actually leaving a place,permanently....not going back and coming back in as you please.Thats just a Loa so IM pretty sure you were still stalking the game.oh and I was never a knight or anything you might have imagined me to be in your fantasies,I was pretty much an ordinary guy just sticking up for his freinds,trampling a few douches and making a few enemies on the way.--PayneTrain^(FU) 05:09, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I quit the game entirely. "Urban Dead" refers only to the game. UDwiki, or Urban Dead Wiki refers to the wiki. There is an actual difference. The wiki does not have AP, barricades and items in and of itself. And "knight and champion" thing is something called metaphor. They teach it in secondary school, which is something you should try out sometime. -- ^{FoD PK Praise Rando!}05:17, 4 November 2014 (UTC)~

Nobody even asked you for the difference between the wiki and the game but that was a real good attempt at a comeback?(I think??) but just know,you're a very "special" person for trying! And really dude? Secondary school? Its kinda hard not to say in better than you at this but,you know with Danths law and all ;) --PayneTrain^(FU) 06:57, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Huh, you really read through Best of NWO? I knew you loved me after all. -- ^{FoD PK Praise Rando!}07:02, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

A really interesting observation, Paynetrain. I hadn't noticed that all major PK groups had disbanded in the past few years. I do recommend playing with Jerden Rules Crowbank, that guy is really fun and a great sport, and he rules. A ZOMBIE ANT 07:56, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Lol,I've heard of the guy and seen him a couple of times too.He does seem fun and more suited to the way i play.Yeah,Ill give him a ring! thanks, viva la Revolution! :D--PayneTrain^(FU) 09:36, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

i tried JRC,its been three days since i gave an application on their Forum....i think they've gone Inactive...(this is worth noting for the great suburb massacre)--PayneTrain^(FU) 09:40, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I give everyone involved a "D" for trolling except DDR. He gets and "A". I guess everything associated with UD is going to shit. --_K 23:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah,sorry bout that...in my defense,He started it(not much of a defense):D--PayneTrain^(FU) 09:40, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

hotlinking

is it allowed and if so how to code for an outside wiki to display an image from this location? Or is this against some rule or ethics? --Aphaythea (talk) 19:56, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Are you asking if it is allowed to for another wiki to use an image from this wiki? I guess that would be up to the person who uploaded it - unless theres any copyright I can't see why you shouldn't be able to link this website/an image from here at another wiki. If you could clarify a bit what image, and on what wiki it should be easier to pinpoint how it can happen.

This is just a qualified guess though - I don't know if it's against any rules, but if you bring us hype by sharing the wiki another place I wouldn't consider it unethical, quite the contrary. -- ∀UDIO∀TTACK (talk) 20:10, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I can tell you that one of the most-viewed pages on the wiki is an image (of Homer Simpson, if I remember correctly) that happened to be uploaded here but has been linked to and used across the internet since — and we haven't taken it down. The main thing to know is that if you use a UDWiki-hosted image, and we remove it for some other reason, it'll vanish from wherever else it's linked from. Always a better strategic move to host images on your own site if you have copyright possession of them. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 20:42, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Expanding from what Bob said, as long as I’ve been here I am 95% sure this has never come up as an issue, if what Bob has described is what you are asking about. I think it’s fair to say our assumption on this is that it’s ok until there becomes notable performance issues at the user end, or if Kevan indicates otherwise. A ZOMBIE ANT 01:51, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

History lesson on the lost revisions of the wiki

I'm wondering if those who were present for some of the more recent wiki history purges remember the process by which the revisions on pages were chosen/deleted. I seem to recall a category being thrown around to signal to Kevan that those pages would be kept free from the purge, but wasn't involved in the process enough to remember how serious the process was adhered to, etc.

I ask because I'm interested in contracting a programmer to do a longer-form version of this timelapse of the suburb dangermap or maybe even one with the Danger Center and I would like to know how accurate the revision data on the suburb DangerReport templates are. THE CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER 11:56, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

As far as I can recall, the most recent purge only purged revisions before circa 2008-09. So any suburb-level report should allow you to construct a timelapse picking up roughly where your last one left off. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 13:29, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, my recollection is that the last purge’s lost content pre-dated my time here (late 2009). There was a category as DDR describes for a purge around maybe 2013 or so, but that purge didn’t actually end up happening, as I recall. —Aichon— 04:57, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

This was in early 2014 after an update mangled special characters on the wiki. Some of the discussion is still preserved on Kevan's talk page. LeakyBocks later re-implemented the post-mangling revisions signalled by the special category. -- Spiderzed▋ 07:55, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Math Expression Template

Is there a way to do math with wiki code? On wikipedia you can do {{#expr: [whatever] }} but it’s not supported here. Cheers   vipk 17:02, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

That would require the ParserFunctions extension for Mediawikis, which isn't installed on this wiki. The only one who could change that is Kevan. -- Spiderzed▋ 21:59, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Just chiming in with “yup”. Also, long time no see, VI. Also, you can do some simple math, but you basically need to set up switch templates that churn out a memorized answer for a given input. Like, you’d have to program in every possible permutation for adding two numbers if you wanted it to “add”, but it’s technically possible, at least for some very simple math over limited ranges. —Aichon— 06:28, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I was thinking something like that- like, is it using the "if X then Y" (Boolean?) kind of coding that could do it? If you had the time and inclination to program every formula into it (essentially writing up your own calculator). This is a very non-programming oriented person description though, so it's possible that what I said is totally wrong. THE CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER 00:06, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

More or less, though the way I’d do it for, say, addition of two-digit numbers would be to concatenate the two numbers together, then have a switch statement with all 9999 permutations enumerated. If you could get the user to break up the digits, you can do some more clever stuff that wouldn’t require as much code (e.g. the template I have in my user space to convert “101” to “one hundred and one”, for use with my PKer’s kill count, works with anything up to six or seven digits, just because I could). —Aichon— 05:47, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks... I’m just going to use <!-- and do it by hand... what a shame.   vipk 14:58, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, that extension is something that's been requested on numerous occasions, but it's sadly beyond our ability to add. It certainly would have made a load of templates I've created over the years a lot easier to write and maintain. —Aichon— 16:30, 27 November 2018 (UTC)