User talk:Morgan Blair

Hit the + tab to start a new topic; I'll respond to talk on this page. Old conversations can be found on the archive page. Gone but not forgotten… I've been playing UD off and on for years, now, but these days it's more "off" then "on". Just in case someone were to try and look me up, come find me on Steam at [1]. Morgan Blair 21:20, 28 July 2012 (BST) Welcome back Good to see an old MERCY member alive and kicking! --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 20:39, 24 April 2008 (BST) Thanks! --Morgan Blair 20:40, 24 April 2008 (BST) Have you fixed the time setting? By the way your danger reports templates been real helpful around vinetown (And dentonside). --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 20:41, 24 April 2008 (BST) Er, negative on the time setting. Heh, I had a whole bunch of projects going, back then. I really can't remember what all... My health went to crap, and I just didn't have the energy. --Morgan Blair 20:44, 24 April 2008 (BST) of you go to the top of the page to the button that says preferences, next to my talk i think theres a button called time and dates which sorts it out. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 20:46, 24 April 2008 (BST) Scenteral Intelligence Map/update info Your edit didn't break the map. There's maybe 90 included pages that make up the map pages, and somebody else (maybe me) fucked one of them up at the same time you were editing that page. The problem was onone of the 81 SIM:xx,yy type pages, which is where it usually is if the map looks wacky.  Swiers 22:40, 1 May 2008 (BST) Necrowatch The page design, flavor, & reward system Necrowatch has is really nice. Do you think doing something similar for the SIM system would be worth while? Flavor wise, I was thinking maybe A.L.I.C.E. cam up with a neural implant that "voluntary" subjects could have implanted. The implant interfaces their olfactory system with the Necronet, and allows uploads of information when the subject gets in range. However, the data is hard to interpret; even A.L.I.C.E.'s massive processing power only allows her to sift through so much data, so she limits herself to working on data from 81 equidistantly spaced locations around the city, to create and overview that fills the gaps left by the Necronet.  Swiers 01:34, 5 May 2008 (BST) That could have some potential. However, the likelihood of getting that many people to do it consistently is pretty slim. Look at NecroWatch: 30 members on the roster. 21 at 1st rank, with 199 scans between them. 3 at 2nd rank, with 82 scans. 2 at 3rd rank, with 117 scans. 1 at 4th rank, with 121 scans. 3 at 5th rank, with 468 scans. That last 3% of the membership is credited with over 47% of the scans. The point? It's better to have a few highly motivated individuals, then a whole bunch of lackluster crew. But if you can find those few... I know that the achievement and award factor can be a very motivating one, and wrapping it up in a shiny package really sells the deal. I'm trying to think of what kind of awards could be structured around this. Unlike for NecroTechnicians, there really isn't much danger or difficulty involved, so medal ribbons would need to be structured around quantity and long-term consistency, for the most part. Unfortunately, that's also harder to track, and teaching people good record-keeping never really works. Maybe you could structure it as an ongoing race, rather then specific achievements. Here's what I'm thinking: The race is to be the first to submit data from all 81 locations. Everybody keeps a running tally on individual, public pages, which would be set up as special forms, so that there's a place to put each link (Iwitness usage mandatory), and that all the data can be called on and displayed in one place. Once the finish-line is reached (of course, they're all running every-which way, paths crisscrossing across the map), the tally stops, everybody gets new forms, and it's off on another leg. Of course, the winner gets flashily documented on a pretty page (to be moved down the list for the next winner), but their tally also gets added to their running score, with another prominent section to display the top contenders over multiple legs (essentially, the winner of a leg gets 81 points, and everybody else gets a point for each location they tallied up to that point—maybe a half-point for any location reported more then once, due to poor route planning). The idea here is to fuel competitive spirit, both over a short duration, as well as for longer periods. If you got even a dozen participants, and only three of them really took it to the max, most parts of the map would never have a chance to expire (just 4 people racing consistently could keep the map going at a 4-5 day refresh rate). You'd need to make some fanfare, though... It would be great to do some radio broadcasting on the race, but it's be a bit difficult for the zeds to tune in, I suppose, since they'd need to be revived to find radios, or tune one that they have to the right station (zeds who carry radios can still hear them, right?). Might be worth making connections to some of the more social zombie groups, to help with awareness. Their always more into role-playing, anyway, and might be eager contestants. Maybe groups could sponsor contestants, who's points would go towards the group's running tally, as well? That way, people could rotate in and out of their group's contestant position, and only have to do it for about 20 days... I'm really just brainstorming, here. Probably half of what I just said is utter rubbish. Well, let's top it off. Call it the "Malton Smellathon". Hmm. 26.81 MHz is available... Yeah, I know I'm crazy. One last thing. I really do think that you might need to start having people upload new versions of the same filename, because it really does start to add up. I know that with NecroWatch, they have to regularly go through an clear out the old scans, if there's more then a couple previous versions. --Morgan Blair 03:08, 5 May 2008 (BST) New format for EMRPs Hi, I don't see any advantage to putting the text reports on the talk page of the EMRPs. It means that you have to edit 2 pages not 1, and you dont have the text in front of you when you update the stats unless you paste it in and then delete it again before saving. This makes the process more fiddly than need be. Was this discussed somewhere and I've missed it? If so could you point me to where the discussion is. If not, please get input from the other people who update EMRPs before making a change like this. cheers, Garum 08:58, 16 May 2008 (BST) Ah, yes, I can see how you would have missed the discussion (found here: Talk:External Military Report Map). The reason for the change is this: if it wasn't made, the EMR Map would become progressively more broken. Apparently, even though the included portions of the EMRP:Suburb pages was constant, the continual addition of more reports that made the non-included portions of these pages progressively larger contributed towards the EMR Map page's inclusion of all the EMRP:Suburb pages exceed some hard limit on the maximum size of allowable inclusions (not a hard limit in terms of the NUMBER of inclusions that can be made, but a cap on the cumulative SIZE of those inclusion, regardless of the visibility of the content from those included pages). Clear as mud? --Morgan Blair 12:24, 16 May 2008 (BST) I had missed the discussion, thanks for the link. If 'big pages break map,' I'll use the new system. cheers, Garum 13:19, 16 May 2008 (BST) SIM & Your Sandbox Hey there. Since Swiers has changed the SIM to a new format, the old SIM pages are no longer needed, my bot has marked them as such and your sandbox's two and three don't work now. The pages are going to get deleted in due course. Just though you'd like to know. --  RoosterDragon  23:59, 19 May 2008 (BST) Thanks for the heads-up. --Morgan Blair 00:07, 20 May 2008 (BST) Actually, the probably Still DO work, if you are using Scenteral Intellegence Map/Core Map as a template call.  Swiers 03:00, 20 May 2008 (BST) No, they were custom. --Morgan Blair 08:12, 20 May 2008 (BST) Ugh, sorry about that. FWIW, the new system is dramatically easier to update.  Swiers 22:53, 20 May 2008 (BST) Experimental Danger Reports I was looking over some of the Danger Reports today (Trying to work on a bot for them, though hopefully the ParserFunctions will negate that need) and I was wondering if anything ever became of the Experimental Reports that you updated a good number of pages with. Most of those pages are now severaly out of date, some of them were last updated when you changed the template back in '07! Some of the templates are no longer used for Danger Reports at all, and not many of the pages that keep them seem to use the extra functions. Besides, the wiki won't ever get updated enough that generator or cade status can be relied upon, and most people would prefer to stick such info in the comment line methinks. Basically, I'm suggesting that the templates are altered back the current standard, provided you have no objections to that. --  RoosterDragon  02:36, 23 May 2008 (BST) Er, yeah. I've been meaning to go through all of those and change them back to standard, and have the templates and other related pages deleted. At the time, we had a map of the area that showed all of the barricade statuses at once, but something changed since then that broke the map (I was away from the wiki for about five months time). I'll get started on it myself, but go ahead and revert any pages you care to. Actually, with or without parser functions, I've proposed some changes to specific DangerReport pages here (to which nobody at all has responded!)—you might want to take a look. --Morgan Blair 03:00, 23 May 2008 (BST) Is done. All the DangerReport pages that were only ever edited by myself have been nominated for speedy deletion (they were part of a barricade status map that broke while I was away due to some other change up the pipeline), along with all the templates, and associated junk. All the remaining DangerReport pages (resource buildings, or any specific non-resource location that was actually being updated, and used on its location page) have been reverted to standard DangerReport form. By the way, do you mind telling me what your bot is going to do? (I'm assuming that it will be something along the lines of changing outdated pages to "unknown", or the like) --Morgan Blair 06:45, 23 May 2008 (BST) That was darned speedy. Nice work. You guessed right about the bot, it would just update pages to reflect an unknown status if they hadn't been updated in over a month. Disturbingly, it reports that this is about half of all the pages. That said, the whole section could probably use some general clean up, I bet there's a few unused pages still in there. I'll pop over and read that the suggestion of yours now, the only problem with those discussion pages it that old ones are rarly ever checked! And the community portal is basically unused as well, there's no handy ways of attracting attention to these templates these days. Maybe a group for that needs to be created, or an existing one more widly promoted for such efforts. --  RoosterDragon  15:26, 23 May 2008 (BST) Thanks. I'd been dreading doing it, but mostly because of the public embarrassment of making such an extensive deletion request. Re: the NT Status Map: As for attracting a whole lot of attention, I'd avoid that. If nobody's invested in the NT Status Map, then I'd simply make a replacement in my sandbox, make all the necessary changes to the DangerReport pages, and then install it. By the way, how DO you make wiki-bots? Can you point me at a decent tutorial? --Morgan Blair 18:05, 23 May 2008 (BST) I'd agree with that system for mostly minor edits, even if they are large in quantity. Still, getting some attention might be handy if a more obvious change were made to several pages and/or templates. You never know who might have a bit of useful input, had they known something was going to happen. As far as bots go, I don't know of any handy tutorials and I'm mostly hacking it together as I go with what knowledge I have, but if you'd like I could always type up a few things and dump them somewhere in my user space for furthur reading. --  RoosterDragon  18:25, 23 May 2008 (BST) Well, I figured that, after we got a response on the ParserFunctions issue, if nobody had replied, I'd find a couple of reinvent people (recent NT Mappers, anybody who seems active at the NIC, etc.) to weigh in/vet what I was doing. And of course, I'd discuss any changes to templates on the talk pages there. It's basically an operation like the Experimental Danger Reports, and I've learned a few lessons from that "experiment" (but in doing it, and undoing it). Hmm. If you have a main page on your watch list, does that automatically flag the associated Talk page? Sure, if you could type some stuff up, that would be great! I should probably go beg Swiers to do the same. Although, in this particular, I may want to do it manually, as tedious as that's going to be (I've been editing a LOT of DangerReport pages lately, since I joined NecroWatch, and I've seen all kinds of crazy shit that people do to jack up the page's code; I'm not sure that I'd want to leave a format change to My First Bot in this case). --Morgan Blair 18:59, 23 May 2008 (BST) I wouldn't leave it to an automatic bot. I'd have the bot recover the page, make suggested changes and then display them to you. That way you can fix anything that's not right then ask it to save. It's basically an assistant that speeds up the edit process. It can only be automatic if you're sure it won't mess up. Sometimes a page can't be relied upon to be in the right format, and therefore you can't rely on the bot. GIGO I think would be the term here. --  RoosterDragon  19:26, 23 May 2008 (BST) Yeah, GIGO for sure. To be fair, though, there are some exceedingly simple things that can drastically reduce the garbage in. For example, on the DangerReport pages, changing the format from this: {{BuildingStatus| building=Warehouse 84,57|xy=(84,57)| status=ruined| comment=A desolate pile of rubble.| user=--~~~~}} To this: {{BuildingStatus |building=Warehouse 84,57|xy=(84,57) |status=ruined |comment=A desolate pile of rubble. |user=--~~~~ }} Makes a world of difference. Hey, even I inadvertently delete vital pipes, sometimes! --Morgan Blair 19:43, 23 May 2008 (BST) It would indeed help somewhat. Anyway, I've started rambling about bots here and I'll add more when I care to. --  RoosterDragon  21:19, 23 May 2008 (BST) User Page Deletion It would probably be best to group all the subpages under one nomination, just to make sure that everything gets deleted. If I may inquire, what pages do you want to get deleted? --ZsL 04:38, 23 May 2008 (BST) Wow, that's going to be one large deletion request with all those pages in there... --ZsL 06:59, 23 May 2008 (BST) Something Sorry, i'm not really active myself on this wiki these days. Say, could you take over the NecroWatch project? Mobius left wiki completely and passed it to me while i was kind-of away already too, so it is now not supported. You seem active with it, looking from your userpage, so i guess you could run it well. --~~~~ [talk] 13:10, 23 May 2008 (BST) Well, I'm honored that you'd offer me the position. So, er, sure. I accept. I may even take a stab at those new ribbons Mobius never got around to finishing... --Morgan Blair 18:17, 23 May 2008 (BST) Template Assistance I'm trying to work on changing the Mobile Phone Mast page so that it can be updated from a new page, which will then allow some reports to be created so that a mast status could be posted on each mast's building page. See the the talk page for further info. Anyway, I've got a few sandbox pages set up, and they should work, however I think it may have crashed from template overload. (Removing the enclosing '{{MalTelCoverage|' from the top and '}}' from the end displays the varible calls I want, about 10 calls work and then it gives up and blanks the rest.) I could use a second opinion from a more informed person than myself. User:The Rooster/Sandbox houses the template I wish to alter, and User:The Rooster/Sandbox3 has all the information it attempts to reference via a switch statement. If it is just template overkill, do you know a workaround or a way to reduce the calls made in this scenario? --  RoosterDragon  16:33, 25 May 2008 (BST) From your mucking about in the sandbox, I see you might be trying to tackle the problem. I thought I'd expand slightly: Initially 'The New Info Page' was going to host all the reports. The 'Template Call' would replace the one of the Mobile Phone Mast page right now. As far a reports went, I was going to design a new template to show the info, since it would conflict horribly with some danger reports as some buildings are also NTs or whatever. My inital idea for a template is here however, the switch statement refuses to work so I stalled on that too. Man, there I was thinking this would be easy. --  RoosterDragon  20:19, 25 May 2008 (BST) Heh. The MalTel raft of templates are both sophisticated and complex. ERNesbitt was one savvy coder... But, your problem is very simple. You see, every time you make a page transclusion (template call, or inclusion of any page), you are including the entirety of that page's wikitext, regardless of what actually gets shown. So, with the structure of the MalTel nested-templates: Mobile Phone Mast is transcluding: Template:MalTelCoverage, which is transcluding: both Template:MalTelAlpha, which is transcluding: Template:MalTelSuburbStatus times 100; and Template:MalTelMap, which is transcluding: Template:MalTelSuburb times 100, which are transcluding: Template:MalTelSuburbStatus. What this amounts to is that, by including Template:MalTelCoverage onto a page, you're getting the end result of over 4000 lines of wikicode, which amount to about 217kb, and the hard limit on any page is 300kb. So that means that, if Mobile Phone Mast's OTHER content was larger then the remainder of that 300kb limit, instead of getting the transclusion, all you'd see would be a link to the template page. So what this all means is that, while the attempts in your sandboxes were theoretically sound, they didn't take into account the hard limit on final page size. While the number of inclusions can be limited, and the number of levels that transclusion will function can be limited, I don't think that there are—in fact—any such limitations set on this wiki. It's solely a matter of final page size. And on that note... So, therein lies the limited use of Template:Switch. The wikicode in User:The_Rooster/Sandbox3 is probably only about 13-14kb (you don't start seeing the page size until it goes over 32kb), but every time it's transcluded, that gets added to the size of the page that it is included on. And you're doing it 200 times. That means it ends up being 2682kb. So unfortunately it's not going to work. My next line was going to be: "But don't despair; there's actually a very workable solution!" But so far, I haven't gotten it to work, and I haven't yet figured out why it's not working. I'm hoping it's not a limitation on nested transclusions. I'll be getting back to you on this one... --Morgan Blair 20:27, 25 May 2008 (BST) I've copied the entirety of the MalTel system into my sandbox, where I'm going to find out what the problem is. I think it really is the layers of transclusion. I was trying to use the trick of moving the variables defined on the main page (suburbname_status=? and suburbname_update=?) into DangerReport pages for each location (since they're already being signed, it would only add a single user-defined variable). It works like this: The first line of the DangerReport is changed from {{BuildingStatus to {{BuildingStatus. What this does is make the actual template used in the transclusion a variable itself, with the default being the regular one, if none is specified (so, the call would be {{User:DangerReport/Location Name | template=OtherTemplate}}). That other template would only pull the MalTel-specific status variable and the pre-existing user variable, and use them to define the variables asked for on the main page. Thing is, it just isn't working, and I've done all kinds of tests to make sure that everything was transcluding as I expected it to, and that the format wasn't being changed somehow. So, I'm pretty sure that the problem is the number of nested layers of tranclusion that will function. Because those two variables are already being passed back and forth through multiple layers. For example, when you set the status variable on the Mobile Phone Mast page, it's defining a variable on the MalTelCoverage template that is being used to define a variable on the MalTelMap template, which is being used to define a variable on the MalTelSuburb template, which is being used to define a variable on the MalTelSuburbStatus page, that variable being the code for the corresponding color of the table cell for that location. So I guess that by adding yet two more layers to the process (the variable being defined on the DangerReport page, and being passed via the alternate template), it just stops working. But all is not lost! I'm pretty sure that I can eliminate a layer or two, and feed the variables in at a closer level. And I don't think all the additional tranclusion will break it, either (each location's DangerReport will need to be called three times, I think). While I know for sure that there's a limit on the total number of transclusions total that can be on a page, but it's a pretty high number. I found the maximum number of times I could include a specific DangerReport page on one page was 164. That DangerReport page was including 5 pages itself, two of which were including another page, of which one was including one more. Not counting the images, that's 1476 total inclusions before it balked. 2788, if you count images. And that was totally because of transclusion limitations, because all that didn't even bring the page up to even 32kb. However, even though the limit on transcluding the ENTIRE page was 164, when I'm only calling a single variable definition with each transclusion, the limit was much higher (520). Ah, sorry about the detailed, technical rambling... --Morgan Blair 03:01, 26 May 2008 (BST) Quiet alright. It's a shame that when previewing or whatever it doesn't actually bother displayed any helpful information about such limits if you break them. Even the page source contains only a half a comment on the issue. Anyway, I've begun adding Danger reports as needed, but some of the links on your sandbox aren't working. It'll recover the user line but not the status and I can't track the problem for the life of me. Also, what do you plan on doing about Ackland Mall. It's uses a different template with other junk on it, that I think Karek uses for the Mall Status Map he set up in some fashion. Finally, I added Template:Updatedr NTmast for those pesky NT's with masts on top to boot. --  RoosterDragon  17:38, 26 May 2008 (BST) At the moment, I can't figure out for the life of me what the problem is. On the graphical map, it looks like it's setting the status properly, but I didn't check every location, either. Funny thing is, it was working fine for the Norvell building last night, and I even tried reverting it to what I'd left it at before you standardized it, just in case it changed something that I couldn't see, but no dice. And it's not because there's too much on the page, 'cause I tried taking out every other location on the list, and that didn't solve it... At the moment, I'm stumped on this one. I'm going to have to dig deeper... I'll take a look at Ackland... It shouldn't really be a problem, just need to make sure not to disrupt anybody else's special code. I typically stay away from mall stuff, 'cause they're big, and well-known, and people fight over petty stuff about them (like once when Hagnat made a special "safe" graphic for a particular mall. The hue and cry! The outrage! I mean, what's the big deal? If you want YOUR favorite mall to have a special "safe" graphic TOO, then make one yourself and code it in! Er, but I digress. Yes, I'll make sure to handle Ackland with delicacy (maybe). Anyway, re:updatedr NTmast, I was thinking that might have to be done, but was waiting until I encountered an NT mast building. You've made a bit of headway... --Morgan Blair 18:41, 26 May 2008 (BST) Ok, new rule, if we ever talk about anything again, wherever the first post about that topic goes, that's where the topic stays. Now in order to totally contradict what I just said, I've posted a minor brekathrough on my talk page. --  RoosterDragon  23:43, 26 May 2008 (BST) Umm, the Mobile Phone Mast page isn't looking so hot right now, how lnog is that going to last? --  RoosterDragon  02:13, 27 May 2008 (BST) Er... :::Blinks::: Um, I catorigized all the MalTel templates (new and old), and it's all using <noinclude> tags, but that's the only thing I can think of... I'll see if I can fix it... --Morgan Blair 02:32, 27 May 2008 (BST) You know, between </span> tags popping up, and now this... I've reverted the five templates (not edited out, but used the "undo" on the last diff), and it's MOSTLY back to normal, but... The "old" borders aren't showing up! I've combed through my contribution log, looking for something else I did and forgot about, but there's nothing! I really cannot fathom it... --Morgan Blair 02:32, 27 May 2008 (BST) Ah, it wasn't that the "old" status weren't working, it was that "none" of the borders were working. But now they are. I don't know why. Did you fix it? Ack, I'm tired... --Morgan Blair 04:13, 27 May 2008 (BST) Helpful comments from The Grimch I refer you to my comment here about your flooding of Recent changes with your edits on this. Preview is fun. --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 18:58, 27 May 2008 (BST) Yes, preview is fun, and I use it regularly. But in this case, it's not applicable. But I thank you for the advice. --Morgan Blair 19:02, 27 May 2008 (BST) Sticking all the code on one page should work, which would allow you to preview it and get it working as a whole, at which point you can then work on seperating it out into multiple templates as you so desire (Which shouldnt really be more than one hit). While admittedly it makes the start more complicated, it means less page loads overall which would make the work go a little faster. Unless you are trying to get both templates to call each other in a recursive loop theres no need to seperate them at this stage. Also, with everything together you dont need to rely on memory to see how things all mesh together, which lets you spot problems quicker and easier. --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 19:07, 27 May 2008 (BST) Hmm... That makes sense. Er, thanks for the advice. I'll try to do that in the future. Actually, in this case, I didn't think I was going to need to make so many page saves, but every time I made a change that I thought was going to do what I wanted it too, it didn't quite. Actually, right before you left the first message, I had this foreboding that someone was watching (and laughing)... --Morgan Blair 19:16, 27 May 2008 (BST) We are always watching. Also, take my advice and abandon wiki tables. They are downright user hostile. Stick with html, which is much more template friendly. --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 19:17, 27 May 2008 (BST) Wiki tables > HTML tables in ease to use --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 19:19, 27 May 2008 (BST) Re:Grim s: Well, I know that you always are! And I might just do that. I've gotten the distinct feeling that the code for wiki tables isn't quite sound. Thing is, I don't really know html tables (I'll have to learn). Re:Hagnat: Agreed, but I've found that they don't always do what they logically ought to, at certain levels of complexity. --Morgan Blair 19:24, 27 May 2008 (BST) Then use divs >_> Nested tables FTL! --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 19:26, 27 May 2008 (BST) Not when you try to get fancy. Try to put a wiki table in a wiki table and see how nicely they break. Also, they are highly dependant on formatting, which means calling sections of them in, as Morgan Blair appears to be attempting to do, will result in a page break if you dont have the surrounding code formatted just right (Actually, i think this is your problem). A html table doesnt run into that problem, hence my suggestion that he convert. Its not hard to do it. Just read the help pages here.--The Grimch U! E! WAT! 19:35, 27 May 2008 (BST) Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell1row3(Stretched) Cell1row4 row5 Cell2row4 Cell2row5 Above: Simple table created in html to demonstrate the principles. Below is the same code formatted for easier reading when editing the page: Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell1row3(Stretched) Cell1row4 row5 Cell2row4 Cell2row5 Have fun. This is all in response to hagnats first comment but he keeps edit conflicting me. --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 19:35, 27 May 2008 (BST) I suppose I must learn the HTML, then, if I prefer things not to break (and I do). Hagnat, please translate "divs >_> Nested tables FTL". I couldn't parse it... --Morgan Blair 19:40, 27 May 2008 (BST) Basically he is saying he cant keep track of it if you stick more tables in tables. Ill admit it is a little daunting, but i built my userpage from the ground up, starting with an idea of what layout i wanted then just writing one long line of code with tables in tables. So long as you keep your place you'll be fine. The idea is that you can write another table inside any cell of the above and so long as you remember to open and close another set of table tags, you'll be fine and have a nested table. It isnt for everyone however. The main draw is that though it takes longer to write, its easier to understand, manipulate, and repair. My above examples actually provide a pretty good thing to learn from, if you learn by seeing how things work. I included most of the good shit. Example below, nesting the above table into row5cell2 --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 19:47, 27 May 2008 (BST) Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell1row3(Stretched) Cell1row4 row5 Cell2row4 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell1row3(Stretched) Cell1row4 row5 Cell2row4 Cell2row5 YEEEAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHH.. nested tables <o> --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 19:51, 27 May 2008 (BST) cell1row1 cell2row1 cell1row2 cell2row2 Cell1row3(Stretched) Cell1row4 row5 cell2row4 cell2row5 Which is cleaner to read and make maintenance ? --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 19:50, 27 May 2008 (BST) Mine is, especially if you want to pull out chunks of its code and use it in a template (As you would see Morgan Blair is doing, if you examine sandbox10). If i snip out any return in there, it will break. --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 19:56, 27 May 2008 (BST) cell1row1 cell2row1 cell1row2 cell2row2 Cell1row3(Stretched) Cell1row4 row5 cell2row4 cell1row1 cell2row1 cell1row2 cell2row2 Cell1row3(Stretched) Cell1row4 row5 cell2row4 cell2row5 And now with a nested table.. i hate u for making me do this --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 19:53, 27 May 2008 (BST) Impressive, now try this: Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell1row1 Cell2row1 Cell3row1 Cell1row2 Cell2row2 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Cell3row2 Cell1row3 Cell2row3 Cell3row3 Ha --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 19:56, 27 May 2008 (BST) What the hell, lets settle this now. I just made it even more complicated, and it took me a mere three minutes to expand the last thing into this. --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 20:01, 27 May 2008 (BST) And by last thing i mean our last table where we compared code styles. Once you lay the foundations, manipulation is bloody easy :D --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 20:03, 27 May 2008 (BST) I thought I was going crazy. You saved your last change between when I loaded the page, and when I hit edit to look at the code. The preview on the edit page was displaying this totally different table, and I couldn't figure out why it would display differently... Then my mailbox chimed. Heh. --Morgan Blair 20:06, 27 May 2008 (BST) took you that many ? heh >:) Anyway, lets call it a draw, mmkay ? It might be easier to have that many nested tables being written in HTML formatting, but i wonder who is gonna use that many nested tables. Still, doing maintenance in a simple table is easier using wiki coding, and i hope you agree with that :P --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 20:07, 27 May 2008 (BST) Its not a draw until you match it >:D And for the record, I did here --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 20:09, 27 May 2008 (BST) Ok, i removed the formatting from it to shrink its space footprint on this page, and to demonstrate just how weird you can make it without breaking it. Try removing every return from yours ;) --The Grimch U! E! WAT! 20:29, 27 May 2008 (BST) Side-conversation Will a monkey bite me arse... amazing job you have done here, little scotch. Such thing could be used to build the dinamic changing map for the MIC --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 19:28, 27 May 2008 (BST) Well, I intend to build a dynamic map for the (PIC?—"Phone" Info Center—MTIC?—"MalTel Info Center—MBIC?—"Mast Building" Info Center—I'm not sure what sounds best). At the moment, I'm just trying to unravel EBNesbitt's complex system (so that we can make some desired changes to it). Thanks for the complimentary sentiments ("little scotch" notwithstanding). --Morgan Blair 19:36, 27 May 2008 (BST) DRS - Final Run This page looks distinctly familiar :P Anyway, I'd like a quick thumbs up on this final danger report template: {{BuildingStatus |building=Adalbert General Hospital (Ridleybank)|xy=(56,45) <!--Do not edit above this line!--> |status=safe |comment=Powered and run by survivors. |user=--[[User:Goolina|Goolina]] <sub>[[The Kilt Store]]</sub> 03:56, 21 May 2008 (BST) <!--Do not edit below this line!--> }} <noinclude> <!--Please remember to use a NPOV. Do not delete the user line.--> ==How to Update== {{Updatedr_norot}} [[Category:Building Danger Levels|Adalbert General Hospital (Ridleybank)]] [[Category:Hospitals]] [[Category:Ridleybank]] </noinclude> An example for Adalbert General Hospital (Ridleybank). All whitespace is intentional and shall remain as shown. You can deduce the others formats for malls and masts I'm sure. One last thing though, User:Rosslessness suggested that only TRP's and Fire Stations should gain a category for their building type (Hospitals in the above example) Buildings not fitting that description do not gain this category for their type, but still retain a Building Danger Level and Suburb reference. Personally, I would prefer just to have all buildings retain this category for simplicity. Of course, you might still want some special Danger Report categories. Last chance to confirm an opinion. Malls in two suburbs would gain two suburb categories accordingly (and indeed any multiblock buildings that fall into mutiple 'burbs.). Multiblock buildings will not receive XY co-ords. I'll also be sure to handle the weird stuff like NT-Masts and Ackland Mall myself. Finally, any Office or NT Building named "The Somename Building" will get a category as follows: "Category:Building Danger Levels|Somename Building" All other buildings beginning with "The" but that are not offices or NT's retain the "The" (EG: Arm's buildings). During this run the bot will also create the new mast reports with the extra varibles as needed. Oh, almost forgot, do you also want to retain the "Do not delete the user line" bit? Or just reduce to the NPOV text? --  RoosterDragon  19:25, 30 May 2008 (BST) Hmm? Oh, yes, I have shamelessly ripped off your decor. I admit it freely... Looks good. I don't really care all that much about the categories; my feelings are all that strong one way or the other. In regards to the in-code notes, how about making the second one "<!--Do not edit below this line! Please Remember to use a NPOV.-->"? Keep the part about the user-line if you want too, but that really doesn't seem to be an issue these days. Also, in regards to Ackland Mall, since it's such a special case, I think what I'll do is only make the two following changes (in regards to the mast-related code): change "{{MallSwitcher" to "{{{{{template|MallSwitcher}}}", and add the "mast_status=" line. I'll make a special-case template to call the page with, with all the other static values that aren't in the mall DangerReport format. So, if you want to make those two mast-related additions when you make your other changes, go ahead (you don't need to add the "district={{{district}}}" stuff; I'll put all that in the layer between that and the regular template). I think that covers everything for the moment... --Morgan Blair 21:24, 30 May 2008 (BST) Oh yeah, and you should probably put something like "<!--Please update the mast status based on the conditions in the NE corner!-->", right above the "mast_status=" line. --Morgan Blair 21:38, 30 May 2008 (BST) I don't think I'm really quite awake at the moment; I keep forgetting stuff... Also, add "{{Template:Updatedr Ackland mast}}</code>" immediately above the "==Mall Danger Levels==" line. Er, let's make this simple. Just check out the code in my 6th sandbox, which has all of the needed mast-related modifications, add your planned modification, and then check at the top of my 9th sandbox to make sure it works properly, both with a regular call on the Danger Report, and for the table. --Morgan Blair 21:47, 30 May 2008 (BST) I'll attempt to run it to meet those wishes, and I'll check I don't break the template. Once it's done you're welcome to go over it and modify it as nessessary to make sure. It's only one template to worry about after all. I think I'll keep all categories, and I will remove that user line text. --  RoosterDragon  23:04, 30 May 2008 (BST) Update: So far I've killed off 345 of the 759 pages to edit and create. Sandbox 9 is looking a bit more complete, and Ackland Mall seems to be fine (Though I still suggest you check the report and see if the comments are up to standard) It'll do for now. I'll finish it later. In other news, I now estimate that by the time this finishes the bulk of my edits will be made up of approx 1500 of these 'Bot-assisted' edits I've done. I should Run for SysOp just to see how many raised eyebrows I can get at 1500 edits in the short timespan I've been here. --  RoosterDragon  02:07, 31 May 2008 (BST) The Ackland Mall report page looks spot-on. I've changed the custom call from my 7th Sandbox, to Template:MalTelTable/Ackland Mall. I should probably get back to working on the map, and the status template, too. Also, I'll need to look into the template that's used on each suburb page, with all the stuff from the Danger Map, and the NT Status Map, etc., and add in a new Mast status section. I think that, once they're on the suburb pages, they'll start getting updated with a lot more frequency. --Morgan Blair 04:35, 31 May 2008 (BST) My suggestion would be to implement the current table (which looks spanking now I've finshed all the reports and it doesn't break) and just use the current map if it wouldn't take much to convert it over, that way we can get people over to the new system now and do our fiddling later, as it is the reports and the actual page will become increasingly out of date with each other. If it's too much work, no worries, it just means we'll have to thumb through the current listings and update everything before we implement (We'd have to do it anyway, but there would be less differences at this point in time) Any news on adding an image to the reports about the mast status? Maybe we could just create a line break under the comment text and have "The Mast Status is: Active (Old)" or whatever. I've talked myself out of images entirely for some reason. --  RoosterDragon  17:09, 31 May 2008 (BST) Um, first, a problem. I just pulled up the first report on the list (Olivey Library), to look at the template and thing about what would look good, and the image was broken, because... The person who updated it used "destroyed" (a valid value for "mast_status") as the value for "status". I'm going to add a note to the Mast update template that says what I thought was blatantly clear...--Morgan Blair 17:24, 31 May 2008 (BST) If people used to delete entire user lines, then it stands to reason a few might confused on these odd pages that don't follow normal formatting. Hopefully the note will address the former portion of "Ignorance can be cured, stupidity cannot." --  RoosterDragon  18:03, 31 May 2008 (BST) Okay, I've added the following notice-box at the end of the available statuses for masts: IMPORTANT! Only use the statuses for mobile-phone mast operation levels as a value for "mast_status=". Please do not use these statuses as a value for "status="; continue using the statuses for building danger levels, as usual. Hopefully that's not too obnoxious. Really, I thought it was self-evident, but the error I saw was by someone who makes a ton of DangerReport updates, so I guess it must not be. Hmm, I really need to finish the map before we can implement the table, otherwise it will be a messy conversion. I'll try to get that finished ASAP. As for the template, I've got an idea about that, but I'll work on the map first, before I spend any time on that. --Morgan Blair 18:08, 31 May 2008 (BST) Ack! I think you bot was making the errors! I was going to clear out sandbox 3, the one that had the building status images in it, and a whole slew were messed up. Last edit that I checked on a couple of them was you, so it must have been the bot... --Morgan Blair 18:39, 31 May 2008 (BST) You're right as well! It definitely was the bot alright. I've tracked down the code error and unfortunately it looks like it was all of the reports that exsisted as working mast reports beforehand got nuked. Unaffected reports include those pages that were created or converted. It should be easy to trace as I worked downwards from the template list, so start at the top and work down, once it clears up then that should account for everything, except for Yagoton's mast which you updated from the bottom. Now, if you excuse me I have some kicking of myself to do. --  RoosterDragon  20:05, 31 May 2008 (BST) Post Script: The error was that the bot accidentely set the status text as the same as the mast status text (I thought I'd accounted for it, but mistyped a number!) The upside of this is that all the mast statuses of unknown got pasted into the status, which is allowed. Only non-unknown reports can have gone wrong, and it looks like you've probably got them all, but I'll just double check. --  RoosterDragon  20:10, 31 May 2008 (BST) Ah. That's why they're weren't that many... You can look in User:Morgan Blair/Sandbox3, which is the old table with all the status images, but I think I got them all already (only about a dozen or so). So not a huge deal. --Morgan Blair 20:13, 31 May 2008 (BST) Yeah, apart from a sneaky ruined to ruined which I reverted back to ransacked. Sandbox 3 looks nice by the way, much better without that distracting suburb danger level. Those small pictures aren't actually all that bad now they're outside the colourful box. --  RoosterDragon  20:35, 31 May 2008 (BST) Okay, check out my 8th sandbox (the new map). It's a tad smaller then the old one (to match the suburb danger map dimensions), text is vertically centered, and the coordinates link to the danger report pages, rather then the building location pages. Tell me what you think. If it's a go, then I'll transfer the template code from my sandboxes into the template namespace, update the map accordingly, and then it'll be set for you to implement on the mobile-phone mast page. --Morgan Blair 20:57, 31 May 2008 (BST) Spiffing work. If you're going to go to all the effort of transferring it, you may as well implement it too, unless you're still working on the reports to show the mast status on them or something. You should also credit yourself on the talk page, there's a section already in place. --  RoosterDragon  21:30, 31 May 2008 (BST) Okay, number #8 is running of the template calls, now, instead off of other sandboxes. Also, I realized that with the table, it was breaking before because you were using a different font-size. Now, the current table is tolerant of a larger size then the 9pt that I had been calibrating it to, but the map is not. So, I've changed the font-size spec from 80% to 9px. When you last looked at it, were all the suburb cells equal sizes? What about now? --Morgan Blair 21:52, 31 May 2008 (BST) Can't say it looks different really. Probably just less of an issue on the map I guess. --  RoosterDragon  21:55, 31 May 2008 (BST) Under the wire We have just barely scraped in under the maximum page-size limit, with all the inclusions... I was testing it out, replacing the list and map on the Mobile Phone Mast page with the ones in my sandbox, and... The last row in the map was just giving links. So, I went to all the templates that I'd made, and removed the categories. Now only the last cell of the last row wasn't displaying. Then I realized that the legends were using the original MalTelSuburbStatus template, which uses the Switch template. This is inefficient, because every time the template is called, it's including the text for the background and border colors for all 13 statuses, instead of what we're doing now, which is to put each status's color codes in a separate template. So I made a new template for the legend, and that fixed it. Then I realized that my template for the map cells was also using the switching template (I had forgotten to delete a single pipe character), so I fixed that too, and that means we'll have a little bit of margin on the mast page, now. At the moment, it's all sitting in my 10th sandbox, if you want to go ahead and make edits to the associated text there, while we work on getting all the danger reports synced with updates that have been made to statuses on the mast page (i.e., instructions for making updates, etc.). --Morgan Blair 23:03, 31 May 2008 (BST) I think after you killed off the unessesary switches you basically performed a miracle of transclusion limits. <!-- Pre-expand include size: 217429 bytes Post-expand include size: 212959 bytes Template argument size: 31028 bytes Maximum: 307200 bytes --> Well, that's what the HTML source code says anyway. I'll just add some helpful comments about the new system on that page somewhere, and the whole lot looks reasonably synced. --  RoosterDragon  23:13, 31 May 2008 (BST) Ok, all the newer reports from the Mobile Phone Mast page have been moved over, anything that went outdated I've decided to leave to the bot actually, it should only take a day to code anyway. If not, well, the page went out of date anyway before it was even around, they can live with it. Transferring page now... --  RoosterDragon  23:54, 31 May 2008 (BST) ... and transferred, there were were a few edits on danger reports already using the mast system before I even bothered syncing them, and some of those didn't appear on the MPM page, the system's already working! Hopefully the network coverage will begin to have less discrepency at some point, rather than the 40 odd masts it seems to hang around right now. --  RoosterDragon  00:07, 1 June 2008 (BST) Madness Not to try and make it seem like I just want to give you more work or anything, but I had an interesting notion. Your re-work on the MalTel templates mean that you can now reference some 100 danger reports and still only use around 2/3 of the inclusion limit, even after processing them into a map. Well, instead of 100 danger reports, imagine the 40ish that make up a suburb. Instead of a citywide map, imagine a map of the local suburb. You could reference the reports and create something that would be akin to the danger report map of all the suburbs, except it would be for a specific suburb. A more insane notion follows on from this, an entire citywide map could be created from this. Ok you'd hit the limit long before, but maybe each suburb template could be subst manually on occasion into another page which could be read from. Ok, reduces hits, though displaying all 10000 squares would probably kill the server and likly still exceed the limit, probably would have to be limited to quadrents, if not districts. Would be damned cool though. You basically created the exact infrastructure nessessary, swap out the reports. Change the map to a new style. Change all the dangers reports to include the header which allows them to be referenced. Change a few reference templates to deal with new styles and you're probably there. No annoying template infrastructure changes, just the obvious stuff that I bet even I could handle given sufficient sandbox's. Just being generally being mad and pushing an idea out here. Feel free to take a blunt weapon to my head if I'm being totally off the wall. --  RoosterDragon  22:09, 2 June 2008 (BST) Go Madness! Have a go! I'd nominate Vinetown, 2 big buildings, so limited danger reports, and the fact ive kept most of them up to date..... --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:34, 2 June 2008 (BST) Er, well, I had done just that. Something broke it while I was away, but it covered most of Vinetown, and a little bit over the northern border. Thing is, nobody in our group would update it but me. Seriously, look at the NT Status Map. It's not just that people don't bother to make updates to that, it's that the danger reports for the NTs themselves very frequently go very badly out of date. In fact, I'd be shocked if more then half of the 212 locations were even less then 10 days old! So, while doing individual suburb maps with a report for each location is certainly something that could be done, I really think it's a pointless waste of time. I mean, do you have any idea how small a fraction of vital resource buildings such as hospitals and police departments even have danger reports? It's because, unless there's a lot of really motivated survivors oppressing in a particular area, AND a significant portion of those players will make more then the very occasional wiki edit, such an addition is just going to swell the ranks of the outdated danger reports that already exist. Sorry if I'm raining on your parade, it's just the truth of the matter, from my perspective... --Morgan Blair 00:33, 3 June 2008 (BST) You make a good point, a huge amount of reports are severly out of date and all. And they are still only a fraction of the total required. Unless you're willing to clone yourself 99 times for us Rosslessness, outdatedness would be a problem. Half of all reports haven't been updated within a month after all. That said, prehaps a smaller area would still be of some use? What about the area surrounding malls, or maybe the SSZ? --  RoosterDragon  (Late Signing) Well, Im cloned 3 times in malton. Necrowatch has helped to some extent, but I wouldnt roll out for everyone, everywhere. The only thing i can compare it to is the building information centres that some burbs (including the big V) have. Theyve sprung up because people like the original and have copied it. A lot of us wikiers would relish the chance to update everything, but we don't have the technical wizardry to set up everything. Its about accessability. Danger reports are the first "public" area most people update, because theyre standardised and easy(ish) Perhaps it would be a good idea to formulate a Welcome to the wiki Page. Want to help? Why not try doing these things. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 20:07, 3 June 2008 (BST) I think that would be a nice idea. However, it would seem the community is more intent on being as insanely retarded as possible. Ugh. Anyway, prehaps the system could at least be set up for something well updated like Vinetown as a test? Just to see if the community responds well to it. I like the welcome idea though, we have guides for first days in Malton, why not a contents/guide for things to look at and contribute on the wiki? --  RoosterDragon  17:44, 4 June 2008 (BST) After time to be less mad, I'm thinking that the NT Status Map would actually be the best thing to benefit. Granted some reports are out of date, but you've already posted your arguement on the talk page for it. This system seems like the best method, and it would be pretty neat if the map could be converted from it's currently non-instant at a glance style to something more akin to the current Mall Status Map. There are a few issuses arising from the fact there are some many (212, right?) NT's however. We can't have big status symbols like the mall one, but the square representing each NT on the map could be a different colour. The same as the current scheme. Transclusion limits. 100 mast reports took up 2/3 of the limit, 212 would break that somewhat, it might be possible to cut down on space needed though, the masts need a list and a map, whereas here a map would suffice (The NIC already exists of course) I don't know if that means there would be enough room in practise (or indeed, if it would result in any more room at all). Some final feedback would be nice, and if you still want to shoot it down at that point, I'll stop pestering. --  RoosterDragon  19:08, 7 June 2008 (BST) Er, yeah. Sorry if I seemed a bit abrupt; just a bit worn out, I guess. But I'm all for reworking the NT map. Actually, I've been mulling (aka. "dreading") this one for a while... Regarding the inclusion size limit, I don't think it will be a problem in this case. Remember, we were calling on each of the 100 mast locations twice each, and we were also pulling a lot more data then the map does. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but say you include a page via a template that uses just one of the included page's 5 specified parameter values, it will result in less data on the including page then if you called the same page via a template that uses two of the 5 values. Also, including a page via a template that only uses 1 value out of 10 would add more data then from the page that specifies only 5. However, there's a technical issue that I'm not sure I can work around. I thought I had, in previous tests, but now I'm beginning to suspect that it just looked like I had. Essentially, when you use a magic word such as REVISIONDAY, any page that includes the page that contains the word doesn't give you the day of the month that the included page was last edited, but the day for that page that is making the inclusion. Now, the revision date isn't necessary to grab the NT status value from danger report pages, but that value is worthless without the context of a date. In the current map, each suburb gets dated by the last update made to an NT in that suburb, but I have issues with that, particularly as the specify letting 10 days pass before changing a status to "unknown". Seriously, 5 days should be the max, because of the fuel-tank being only that long. Without parser functions, the map wouldn't be able to auto-switch the status itself, so attaching a last-revision date to each value becomes necessary. Now, I suppose we could add a value for that to be manually entered, but it's not a really great solution, and it would be nearly impossible to get people to give the date from a uniform time-zone (by the way, do you have any idea how I can change the time zone on my signature from BST to UTC? I know there's a way, but I can't remember it...). --Morgan Blair 20:09, 7 June 2008 (BST) I was hoping the extra calls on the masts meant it took extra memory. It sounds like it should fit fine. As far as revision dates go, I think I remember a wikipedia article on it that had a sneaky workaround. I'll see if I can hunt that up and if it's actually revelent to this case. Now, as far as dates go, it's not impossible for me to write another bot to do the job. ParserFunctions for the win, but a bot would suffice for now methinks. It would actually be a good idea to have an 'original map' without date adjustment, then the bot could check report timestamps and update an 'adjusted map' which showed powered NT's as barricaded if the last report is too old. A bot also has the handy addition of being able to check the timezones (At least, all the codes I bother to program it to check and adjust for) It already does this for the masts, provided it can find one, otherwise it assumes UTC. As far as changingtimezone goes, goto your preferences click the 'Date and Time' tab and change the value in the offset box. I'm betting that's what affects it but it's just an educated guess. --  RoosterDragon  20:28, 7 June 2008 (BST) If you can find a workaround, that would be fabulous. As for the bot, I'm sure you can do marvelous things with one, but what happens when its operator goes on hiatus? Eventually everyone does... As for the date/time, that doesn't really seem to impact my signature... At the moment, server time is 20:xx UTC; London is currently running on BST, which is 21:xx, and that's what goes in my sig, despite my time-zone settings being -0600, 'cause I'm in Denver, CO, US, where it's currently 14:xx. --Morgan Blair 21:26, 7 June 2008 (BST) Hmm, not sure if this is what you need, but it might be of some help: Wikimedia help on 'includeonly subst magic'. Also, if I go away, then nothing gets updated by the bots. The MPM page becomes out of date, like it used to be, unless updated manually. The SIM becomes out of date, like it used to be, unless updated manually. And in the case of a NT bot, the NT status map becomes out of date, like it is anyway in general and it's even worse given the fact the reports and map are not synced. People lived with it for some time beforehand. The bots are just meant to take some of the manual tedium away, not provide a foolproof system to update things given the lack of functions to do it automatically. As far at the timezone goes, I offically don't know, ask around. --  RoosterDragon  21:52, 7 June 2008 (BST) New Map I've started an example using the masts (They're the only reports with the handy opening call that allows you to set whatever template you like right now) They display on a metatac screenshot with their statuses, see Sandbox 2 The set up is done by Sandbox 1. I've filled in a two rows (of ten) at the time of this post, and the include limit is 78k out of 302k. I'm using a switch within a switch however, and that may not be the best way as far as include limits go. An example switch for NT's is over at Sandbox 3, but relies on a NT report change to include the handy any template you like call and also a powered varible to ever work. --  RoosterDragon  14:57, 11 June 2008 (BST) Re:your post-before-last: Yeah, I've been sniffing down the includeonly subst magic route, but not a lot of luck. But I haven't done all the much tinkering, lately. I had to take a break, because I was literally dreaming about wiki code (seriously, no joke, and believe me it's not a pleasant dream to have). I'm narcoleptic, so I tend to have pretty intense REM-state experiences... Re:your-last-post: That's pretty cool! Actually, I fully expected that, due to your use of absolute positioning for some of the elements, that it would go out of alignment upon inclusion, but that doesn't seem to be the case in this circumstance. Maybe it's because the absolute positioned elements are contained within a relative positioned element? Also, what exactly does the "margin:0 auto" setting do? Particularly the "auto"... Now, regarding the issue with the inclusion-size limit. "switch" is obviously going to take up too much space for your purposes. The alternative, really isn't very difficult. Here's what you can do: Where you have:""width:7px; height:7px; background:{{switch|{{{status}}}, etc.", you can instead use do something like: ""width:7px; height:7px; background:{{ NewTemplate {{{status}}} }}", where you have a set of templates such as "Template:NewTemplate ransacked", containing "Gray", and so forth, or in the special case of "Template:NewTemplate safe", it could contain "{{switch|{{{mast_status}}}|case: active=Green|default=Yellow}}". Also, Template:Switch is a bit bulked up with explanatory text that all gets added to the size of the page where it's included. It's only about 1.25-ish kBs, but it could be a lot smaller. So, instead of using the regular switch template, you could make a "Template:MySwitch", and just use the essential code, which is "{{{case: {{{1|}}}|{{{default|}}}}}}". Does that all make sense? However, I'm not sure that only allowing a mast to display as "active" when it is also "safe" is really the best route to go. What if there's power and the mast is active, even if the building is under attack or rebuilding? --Morgan Blair 17:02, 11 June 2008 (BST) I'm totally stealing code from the Mall Status Map which has been hacked together by a few people so I'm not entirely sure who's responsible for the code. I'm assuming that because it's within it's own div, it's like a reserved canvas on the page and so can't be affected by other crap around it. If possible, it would be great to try fixing the SIMgrid up in a similar fashion since it isn't aligned in all browsers and the current method creates a massive whitespace at the bottom (My theory is that the wiki bargins for whatever space it needs for each image to be used normally and one under the other, and thus when they all get shifted up a bit it creates a whitespace), but I didn't want to tinker. Your solution would work great as far as cutting memory goes, I've got to dig my mind out of the programmer mindset which is asking why a simple selection statement equals death. I'll get there! As far as statuses go, originally I was just doing this as a testbed for NT's which would used a powered varible instead of a mast status. Thus only barricaded buildings with power come out as 'NT Powered' Although a ransacked NT with power is a 'Rot Revive' there's nothing for that in the current map, and they just default to 'NT Ransacked', so the point is moot in that respect. But since I am liking this map thing and it might be useful, the statuses would need changing, but to what? I'm thinking that the map would only display the building status. No point complicating things adding the mast status when the MPM already shows that. --  RoosterDragon  17:53, 11 June 2008 (BST) You're totally on target regarding the white-space issue. I was working with Swiers to fix that, and the overlay issue, but then he totally changed how the whole system worked, and I didn't pick it up again. I'll have to experiment with the div tags a bit more, but I'd also created a "trick table" that solves the problem, by forcing multiple elements to originate for the same location. In regards to the NT map, I think if you just added a "power_status=" parameter to the danger report pages (with the available values "on" or "off"), you wouldn't even need to use the "switch" template, because a "safe" status would pull a template that either uses "on" for "NT Powered", or "off" for "NT Barricaded". That wouldn't work in the cast of the mast buildings, unless you made a template to be triggered for every other situation besides "active". --Morgan Blair 18:11, 11 June 2008 (BST) Can you expand on that? I was thinking an "Power_Status" varible would be the way to go. How would that actually work though? I'm thinking that it calls a template and sends the power status. For everything but the safe template the power wouldn't matter but the safe template would then either use a switch OR call a template named "Template:NTStatusMap safe {{{power_status}}}" and we'd have "Template:NTStatusMap safe on" and "Template:NTStatusMap safe off" with the info we want. --  RoosterDragon  18:30, 11 June 2008 (BST) Hmm, I think you just restated what I said, in a different way... Okay, so, say we're using a map like the one you're working on, and we're going to color all the NTs one of four colors, a la NT Status Map. Here are the definitions for those four statuses: (Green) NT Powered - for buildings that are powered and defended. For "power_status=on" and "status=": "safe", "under attack", "under siege", and "rebuilding". (Black) NT Barricaded - for buildings that are barricaded and have no zombies inside. For "power_status=off" and "status=": "safe", "under attack", "under siege", and "rebuilding". (Red) NT Ransacked - for buildings that are zombie occupied or empty and unbarricaded. For "status=": "ransacked", "in zombie hands", "rot revive". (Blue) NT Unknown - only use this for buildings you do not have info about or if the listed info is 10 or more days old; otherwise, let the posted status stand. For "status=unknown" So, the call would pull the danger report page with an alternate template, which would look something like: "{{ NTStatus {{{status}}} }}". Then, template "NTStatus unknown" would have the wiki code for blue, and templates "NTStatus ransacked", "NTStatus in zombie hands", and "NTStatus rot revive" would all contain the same wiki code for red. Templates, "NTStatus safe", "NTStatus under attack", "NTStatus under siege", and "NTStatus rebuilding" would all contain something like: "{{ NTStatus {{{power_status}}} }}", with template "NTStatus on" having the wiki code for green, and template "NTStatus off" having the wiki code for black. Does that make sense? --Morgan Blair 19:01, 11 June 2008 (BST) Yeah that makes a lot more sense. The on and off templates are basically powered and barricaded. Got ya. I'd like to build on those statuses though, rot revive (and powered ransacked buildings, which are the same) should probably get a new colour. They're a bit of an odd entity after all. Would that be possible? --  RoosterDragon  19:09, 11 June 2008 (BST) Well, I really won't bother, at this point. You could always add it later, but at this point, it's probably best to keep a new systems as much like the old one as possible. Also, if there's a genny in a ransacked building, how long is it going to last? I'm constantly hooking up power in ruined and zombie occupied NTs so that I can access the NecroNet, but when I update the NT Status Map, I don't list them as powered, because they're not barricaded and defended by survivors, which is part of the criteria for "NT Powered". Frankly, the power won't last long enough in those situations to bother listing them, in my opinion. By the way, I figured out this cool way to fill in a grid-table with status colors (and no text), and still put text info in there, using the "title" class. I'd used this before, to change the rollover text for links to something other then the name of the page being linked to, and it works in tables as well. I'm working on one now, so we wouldn't have to manually position 212 NTs on a grid... --Morgan Blair 19:17, 11 June 2008 (BST) True enough, stick to the basics it is. And that table sounds great, go for it. --  RoosterDragon  19:20, 11 June 2008 (BST) Okay, check out the mock-up in my 3rd sandbox. This is from the NW-most corner of Malton. I'm using the same dimensions as the DangerMap, and pulling the suburb's danger statuses from their report pages. The rollover for empty space in the suburb gives you the suburb's name. The tiny colored squares are in the NT building's positions (with the status colors added manually, at this point). Parking your cursor on one of those squares will give you some mock-up rollover text, but the real thing would give you the building's status ("safe", "under attack", etc.), the comments, and the user signature for the report. Since there wouldn't be a "last update" date on the suburb square, I suppose there could be a link to a sortable list showing statuses and user signatures, for people who want to check for outdated reports (in the case that a bot wasn't running). But, if your bot was switching old reports to "unknown" at 10 days (probably best to keep it at that, for the time being, and then we can introduce "onold" and "offold" status later on), then the map would be as up-to-date as people keep the reports. Tell me what you think. --Morgan Blair 20:20, 11 June 2008 (BST) I really would like some gridlines personally, it's hard to fathom things otherwise. My main problem is with the code you've got. Manual positioning would be a horrid process but nothing that you couldn't run through an quick formula to give to positions. In fact I could just program something to spit out code given the danger report link, and the building's x and y co-ords. The code you have is going to span a huge number of lines once you add all the suburbs! It's going to mean a hunt for the line you want to use. It could be simplified somewhat by using the mutiple cells on one line shennigan. |Cell1||Cell2||Cell3|| Cell4Formatting|Cell4 ||Cell5 That would help I think. If your point was only to simplify building positioning, I disagree that it would be better, it's just changing the annoyance from position tweaking to line finding. However, if you had more in mind that just simplifaction, do say so. In the meantime I've worked on the second sandbox somewhat to add in the danger map. It still needs work on font. The gridlines are insane, I'm thinking of maybe knocking them down to 50% transparancy or something because it just burns my retinas. --  RoosterDragon  15:24, 12 June 2008 (BST) Yeah, it'd make you go blind real quick. Anyway, in the case of the MPMs, with just one block per suburb, it's a lot harder to tell the positions without a grid. But regardless, I'd never try to use one of those maps to find my way to a building, because I'm going to pull up a map that shows me the freerunning routes (and that's a tad bigger, too). The problem with gridlines, also, is that with a table, you can't get single-pixel lines between the cells (or at least, I don't know how) because each cell gets it's own border, unless you go through and set each cell to have a border on two sides only... Anyway, at that size (in the DangerMap proportion, each block is only 8x6px), to add cell borders without increasing the size of the map would reduce the cell's contents by half, and then it get's even harder to visualize. The point of doing it all in a table in the first place, is because it eliminates dealing with multiple layers and transparency, and allows you to have links and/or rollover text in various parts of the map, which an overlay would block. So I wouldn't say it's necessarily a better way, but for my purpose... In the case of the NT Status Map as it stands, the purpose is fairly simple: an at-a-glance impression of the suburb's general state, a fairly non-specific indication of the status of the NTs within in, and a general idea of their locations (unless you're really good with quickly visualizing multiple x/y coordinates), with a link to their pages to see more detail. By using a non-grid map instead of coordinates, and removing all text (suburb names), I feel that the NT map better serves its purpose of giving an initial survey of location and status, without any other distractions. If I need to know more, such as the exact coordinates, or the name of the suburb, the rollover text will provide that, but not until I want it. All that being said, because people tend to be so resistant to change, rather then simply build my map and implement it, I think it would be best to update the existing format as well, that keep everything looking the way it is, but incorporate the live status updates from the danger report pages. Essentially, the only thing that would be manually updated on the User:NTStatus/Suburb pages would be the date, and then the link on the map would have rollover text that showed the user signatures for all the associated reports. Although frankly, I think that date's pretty much useless, because it specifies the date of the most recent report on an NT in the suburb, even if another NT's report is, say, 9 days old at that point... Hmm. I'm rambling. --Morgan Blair 16:57, 12 June 2008 (BST) It wouldn't be impossible to modify my version (I think). Remove the annoying gridlines and the font (I haven't removed the font because it broke the first time I tried to, I don't actually want them!) and add the tooltips (I think that should be possible) and you're basically there. I think maybe the main problem I have with your version (apart from a disasterous number of lines) is distortion. I agree that nobody would use the map for navigation but I still think that it could do with squaring up and a cellspacing of 0/1px. At the moment it's hard to tell where the random blobs actually are in terms of the whole suburb. Fix the insane number of lines and sqaure it up and I don't think I'd have anything against it. I'll mock up something in my fourth sandbox for just that in a moment I think. As far as the current system goes, it sucks. Nobody could seriously defend it as opposed to an automatically synced system with individual dates. Plus tooltips can display much more info since they only show up when you need them. Screw the public, they'll get change whether they want it or not! --  RoosterDragon  17:17, 12 June 2008 (BST) I've finished the mock up in my fourth sandbox. Reasonable? --  RoosterDragon  17:54, 12 June 2008 (BST) Well, the reason I was using those dimensions was to match the proportions of the DangerMap, and the reason it's that size (800x600px) is so that it will fit on smaller monitors. It would be pretty easy to make the cell dimensions a variable, and have an alternate on a separate page with a link from the first. As for the "disastrous number of lines", well, I'm not even going to build the table totally by hand. I'll do each suburb in a spreadsheet, export it as a text file, and convert it with this handy site, and then make any formatting changes at that point. --Morgan Blair 20:44, 12 June 2008 (BST) 800x600 is a fair deal and the width/height can be easily fiddled for that, but I'd still say that my method is less insane, it'll be a bit messy for 100 suburbs but it will be at least slightly maintainable to other users, some 10,000+ lines for one map isn't exactly approachable. The other approach using the div method might still work IMO, it would take a little tinkering to set up new dimensions but it allows for quiet a bit. I might be able to alter the SIMgrid code to allow the suburb links to be above the grid-outline (which is now at a less retina buring 25% opacity) and still below the building block meaning it's just as functional as the other way. I'm trying to weigh pro v con here, please point out where I'm probably biasing my methods as I have no problem with insane numbers of lines, provided the alternatives are indeed worse overall. --  RoosterDragon  21:12, 12 June 2008 (BST) With separate lines for each column it's 1000+ lines (not 10,000+), and if each suburb's 10 columns are on one line, it's 100+ lines. Actually, it ends up using more character space that way (an extra pipe plus the space, instead of a carriage return), so I'd have to do a test and see if the one takes more bytes then the other or if the final size is such that it's even an issue... Not really sure. As for being maintainable, I really don't see that 212 individually positioned items is any more or less so, although the finished product shouldn't really need any ongoing maintenance. Either way, don't let me stand in the way of your preferred method of map building; one method in no way prohibits the other. The issue regarding the dates on the NT Status Map, while I agree with you about the map in general, is because that date is also used on the individual suburb pages, so any changes need to take that into consideration. --Morgan Blair 01:10, 13 June 2008 (BST) My maths was a bit poor there, sorry. I'm one of those for whom mathematics is easy, but basic arithmatic can sometimes fial spectacularly. I guess that your method is probably the better one since you can just spreadsheet it then convert it. Mine would be better prehaps if somebody wanted a map for some other building type three months from now and you weren't around. Yours wins out I think. So in comparing the table method you've got, and the div based method I hacked together, they both have the same functionality given the right tweaks. I guess the one that uses the least memory is better. I imagine that it would be similar since the bulk of it will be from calling the same reports and templates in order to get the info displayed. Hmm. Hmmmm. As far as the dates on the suburb page go, I'd say they could afford being dropped. If a bot does keep the dates in check, the displaying the date is less useful. Like you said, it's also only the most recent date which is useless for suburbs with more than one NT. People can check the NIC for the suburb if they really want proper info. --  RoosterDragon  15:26, 13 June 2008 (BST) Wiki Extensions So, Uh, What happened to them? It seems to be a clear yes.. So only Parser? Or Loop too? I'm still curious though, My main use (If any) for these would be Notifying them when something expires, Via say, Email or a posting on my talk page, Even modifying a template, Or new type of page. ■■ 00:03, 20 July 2008 (BST) I assume that the big K just decided against it. --Morgan Blair 00:32, 21 July 2008 (BST) I can easily see how that's possible, But did anyone even contact him about it? The voting and such? Besides, It can always be removed. There's also the thing, Couldn't someone else host some MySQL, PHP and maybe JS and replicate it, I know it is easier on the wiki, But there's Sim. ■■ 05:07, 21 July 2008 (BST) Templates of yours I've been browsing Special:Unusedtemplates and found a number of MalTel ones by you. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out from the above conversation if you needed them or not. Can you offer insight? The ones in question are Template:MalTelUser, Template:MalTelMastStatus, and Template:MalTelBuildingStatus. If you don't plan to use them let me know and I'll put them up for deletion. Thanks! --Pedentic 14:48, 7 August 2008 (BST) Gone but not forgotten… I've been playing UD off and on for years, now, but these days it's more "off" then "on". Just in case someone were to try and look me up, come find me on Steam at [2]. Morgan Blair 21:20, 28 July 2012 (BST)