User talk:Bob Moncrief

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For my talk archives, see User:Bob Moncrief/Talk Archive.

Zerging

Hello Bob, i am a victim of zerging and i was wondering who i could report this to, i'm stationed around a Necrotech building and am seeing 4 or more zombies with the same realname and nearly sequential Id's indicating they were created around the same time. i just want to know how to get in contact with the person i should be reporting this to. Thanks! User:Fred Fuchs

Responded on your talk page. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 03:46, 4 July 2013 (BST)

Ok, Thank you Bob! User:Fred Fuchs

Thanks for your kindness

Thanks for welcoming me, Bob. I'm new here in the wiki as in the game, but I love to explore all possibilities. I've seen a problem with the inventory scripts. They don't recognize the Sat. Phone. Is there any script that works with the DSS Sat. Phone? --Manu alias Mapache ^{T MCDU} 12:39, 9 July 2013 (BST)

Responded on your talk page. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 04:24, 9 July 2013 (BST)

Thanks

For fixing the Yagoton page! :)--Aphaythea 01:34, 21 July 2013 (BST)

Certainly! It's part of my role as sysop :) Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 01:38, 21 July 2013 (BST)

Thanks for the welcome!

Greatly appreciated the warm welcome, Bob. I was starting to wonder if I was the only player in the quarantined world playing UD -- almost all the "news" I found seemed like from years ago. I managed to stumble around for a few days now and things are starting to make more sense...  ;-) --Garrob 06:50, 30 July 2013 (BST)

Yeah, the owner of the game has been pretty sparse on updates, but the in-game and on-wiki communities are still pretty active. Glad to be of help! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 14:38, 30 July 2013 (BST)

MediaWiki question

Hi Bob, thanks for the welcome. Much appreciated.

One question you might be able to help me with: I'm working on a new map project for the RRF (similar in concept to the MOB map) and I was a bit surprised to find that our install of MediaWiki doesn't appear to have the ParserFunctions extension enabled. It would certainly be handy for the project I'm working on (and elsewhere, judging by some of the workarounds I've seen). Any idea if this is something we might consider enabling on our wiki, and if so how to go about that? Thanks in advance! --Rick Dulton 06:06, 5 August 2013 (BST)

Kevan has pretty much decline requests to install parser functions due to the server strain they cause. ~ _{07:21, 5 August 2013 (UTC)}

Thanks Vapor. That's a shame, but thanks for the links - useful background. --Rick Dulton 08:02, 5 August 2013 (BST)

Thanks Vapor! Not something I knew about myself. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 13:27, 5 August 2013 (BST)

No problem. There aren't too many problems that can't be worked around using some form of wiki magic. Math functions would be nice and would enable us to do more of the "random" stuff (ie random featured page) much easier. I suppose an argument could be made that there are a lot fewer editors these days so the problems that were brought up 3 years ago wouldn't be as bad as described. Still, we already see significant server load problems due to danger reporting. If a parser function were to be used in any of those templates, we'd most definitely see more problems. ~ _{16:01, 5 August 2013 (UTC)}

Also the MOB Map is a variant on my old RRF DoHS maps as it turns out. What specifically do you need it able to do? I could probably work out a way to do it without parser functions. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 03:50, 6 August 2013 (BST)

To be pedantic for the sake of being pedantic, the MOB map is actually a variant of the barricade plan that I originally designed and that Rooster implemented while you were inactive for a awhile, and it appears to function a bit differently than yours (though yours does predate the revamped barricade plans by over a year), since yours has suburb-specific data in both the calling and receiving templates, whereas the barricade plans/MOB map/BB4 map/whatever else don't have any suburb-specific data in the receiving template. And I have no idea why I'm explaining this to you, since you already know it. I'm going to bed. —Aichon— 08:15, 6 August 2013 (BST)

I'm aware and the new mob locator functions differently too because of stuff from the omega maps which made it clear I had to think of a better way. I just never got around to implementing it in anything but the mob map. As it turns out I've been pretty much involved in every complex custom map in some way or another with the exception of the original Suburb map (and the SIM Map as it turns out), Rooster used quite a bit of my works and tweaked, updated, and improved on them. Such as the older Status Maps. The big bash maps were actually attempts to duplicate the function of the DoHS maps. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 23:12, 6 August 2013 (BST)

Yeah, I really liked what you did with the city map for MOB. Very slick. I've been meaning to make a version of the {{TenTenMap}} that uses suburb names instead of numbers after seeing you do it there, that way it can automatically update using something like {{BB4suburb}}, rather than having to be updated by hand. The suburb-level map for BB4 already automates that process using BB4suburb, and while the MOB Locator's suburb-level map could be configured to do the same, we didn't do that since we wanted to maintain the ability to update individual blocks in the suburb, which can't be done easily if we're keeping things generic and automated (though I suppose we could provide a mechanism for overrides of the automated data...hmm...). —Aichon— 23:21, 6 August 2013 (BST)

In theory that could be done with two very complex variable calls but someone would have to make a default variables set template for each suburb individually then replace a {{{{{{1}}}|default colors}}} set. The theory being that the {{{1}}} would be repaced with the called {{{1|BlockName}}} from the second variable. It's been a while but that should be doable, if not in that exact method, and it would make each suburb have custom location block calls so you just then enter the name of the location that's the danger zone. It'll probably have to be a little more complex in practice but hopefully that gets across the gist of the concept. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 04:37, 7 August 2013 (BST)

Hey

I hope im doing these right but thanks for the heads up on my page :) --ShotgunMickey 00:05, 11 August 2013 (BST)ShotgunMickey

Sure thing! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 16:53, 11 August 2013 (BST)

GroupMap

Hey Bob. I made a slight asthetic change to your GroupMap. I hope you don't mind. Feel free to revert it if you'd rather I didn't go mucking around in your userspace. BTW I might be able to helpnsomewhat with GSGM but haven't signed up or anything since I don't know when or how much work I can contribute. I'll probably just like jump in and do stuff from time to time. Cheers. ~ _{02:10, 17 August 2013 (UTC)}

I actually think that edit is great for making it less eyeball-breaking. (Still on the wikicode learning curve myself; so do "muck around in my userspace" anytime!) And feel free to put yourself on the volunteer page; it's not like we'll be assigning people work, but it means I'll know to send you a reminder message once we start with the data-mining process, probably sometime in early-to-mid September. Thanks! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 14:41, 17 August 2013 (BST)

NWO Religious Affiliation

I was wondering if it was ok if I made The Taoist Temple NWOs official religious affiliation. Then we could designate St. Mark's Cathedral for an official Taoist temple. Not sure what you think, but it could be cool. -.- 03:22, 23 August 2013 (BST)

Ooh that sounds cool! I'd be a big fan. Unfortunately my MTT character (Bob Moncrief) is inactive for the duration of BB4, but once that ends I'll see if I can swing by for a religious retreat ^_^ Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 04:57, 23 August 2013 (BST)

That's fine, any requests? I can't do much except help repair it, keep an eye on it and say that my group pays visits to the temple. Publicity would be in your court. Otherwise, I'll play it by ear. -.- 12:57, 23 August 2013 (BST)

see you soon--User:Sexualharrison04:57, 24 August 2013

This will have to wait bob. -.- 00:12, 27 August 2013 (BST)

hahaha!nice idea cyber,lol.Rayne is now an official follower of your religion Bob :D--PayneTrain^(NWO/FU) 17:08, 27 August 2013 (BST)

That's fine. Like I said, I probably can't do anything regarding it until BB4 is over (which should be around the start of October). Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 21:04, 27 August 2013 (BST)

Congrats (now get to killin')

Hey Bob, congrats on the crat election. You'll be a fine crat. There's just one little thing. UD has this tradition thing going for it, and has had a PKer in the wiki crat seat for last several years now. There was a brief time when it was boxy and Ross, but not for long. Now I know Ross, and Ross is no PKer. Oh we've tried, but he just isn't all that into it. So here's the thing. You've got to start PKing. Now there's not an over-abundance of PKer groups left in the game, but most of the ones we've got are fine establishments. You've got Cobra, FOD, JRC, NWO (HA!), Org13 (not sure if they're still around) and PK. You could also go the solo PKer route. Not being a PKer just isn't an option, I'm afraid. You wouldn't want to break tradition, would you? ~ _{23:41, 2 September 2013 (UTC)}

Well, right now I'm running two characters, one a zombie (with BB4) and one currently an independent zombie, but would be a PKer if revived. Now if only you can find her... Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 00:27, 3 September 2013 (BST)

Now Bob, Malton's a big city. And there's flotsam to cull, knowledge to praise and cobras to hail. Might that it would be better if you found one of us. We'd all be more than willing to pump you full of some of the good stuff, pick you up, dust you off, shove a pistol in your hand and point you towards some deserving target. Least meet us half way, eh? Does this killer-in-waiting have a name? ~ _{00:55, 3 September 2013 (UTC)}

We'll see what happens after BB4 - I'm probably making an alts page after then. 'Til then I'm keeping my cards close XD Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 00:58, 3 September 2013 (BST)

Fair enough. Malton's not going anywhere so what's a mere month. Oh, nearly forgot. A little birdie tells me a certain group Rando loving lunatics may be resurfacing soon, should that be more your style. Congrats again on crathood. ~ _{01:12, 3 September 2013 (UTC)}

And thanks again for the well wishes! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 01:34, 3 September 2013 (BST)

Thanks!

Thanks for the warm welcome! Have played this game for a while and happy to finally be able to contribute to the story. Kyle Matrix —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kyle Matrix (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

Editing a game description'

Hey Bob, was wondering if there was any way to change the info in game. Specifically the description of the Gready Building as viewed by a character from outside that states the building has a "collapsed roof" which we would have "fixed" since we moved in a while ago. Just wondering.

--Kyle Matrix 22:08, 5 September 2013 (BST)

Not within UD itself. Best you could do would be to write a Greasemonkey script that changes in-game descriptions for yourself, but it would have no global effect on any other player but those who use the script. -- Spiderzed█ 22:50, 5 September 2013 (BST)

Spiderzed is right, there is no easy way to fix/change any of the in-game text (aside from something like tagging, which is intentionally changeable). Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 23:53, 5 September 2013 (BST)

Thanks!

Thanks both for being kind with the welcoming and for the constructive criticism, bob. I have removed my suggestion User:Jebediah Gibbs Jr. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jebediah Gibbs Jr. (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

Sure thing! Responded further on your talk page. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 15:00, 7 September 2013 (BST)

Building Statuses

Hello bob, I was wondering how to change the status of a building. I'd be glad if you can answer. --Jebediah Gibbs Jr. 01:33, 9 September 2013 (BST)

Answered on your talk page. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 03:00, 9 September 2013 (BST)

Thoughts

Public opinion makes sense. --Rosslessness 16:56, 10 September 2013 (BST)

GSGM

Looks like I missed all the "fun" with GSGM today. Not sure how much I'll be around much in October but feel free to message me again. BTW CNN doesn't use that radio frequency because the group never really existed. It was a failed idea. Comp,etely forgot that I added it to the frequency page. It can be removed from GSGM. ~ _{03:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)}

Should I remove it from the frequency list too? Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 03:55, 13 September 2013 (BST)

Done. ~ _{03:59, 13 September 2013 (UTC)}

Removed from GSGM, thanks! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 04:00, 13 September 2013 (BST)

All the suburb-listed groups in under three hours? You, sir, are a machine.--RadicalWhig 10:15, 13 September 2013 (BST)

My life was made much easier when I made this. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 19:39, 13 September 2013 (BST)

Wrongly accused of being a PKer

Hello Bob,

I don't suppose you have any access, influence or means to communicate with the moderators of the Rogues Gallery for UD?

http://rg.urbandead.net/

One of my unit, Johnny Koo

http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=1755469

was falsely accused of being a PKer when he was in fact making a retributive strike on a PKer

http://rg.urbandead.net/profiles/view/1755469

The "victim" Tasty Snack is a self proclaimed PKer

http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=969049

Johnny and I have both tried to access the site but registrations are down and there doesn't seem to be any other way to get in touch with anyone to contest this old listing that was just brought to our attention via the attentions of a bounty hunter.

Any advice or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

-- ♠ Kyle Matrix ♠ 17:05, 13 September 2013 (BST)

I know I'm not Bob, but for the purposes of the RG if you kill someone who does not have a bounty, you're the one that gets treated as the PKer, since they have no way of verifying that you were merely engaging in a retaliatory strike for misdeeds performed by the other person. That's why it's so important to report deaths you might suffer at the hands of PKers, since it allows you to use those deaths as a reason for striking back later.

At this point, the best course of action is likely to just report the deaths that Johnny suffers from bounty hunters and PKers to the RG. Each one that he reports will decrease the bounty on his head until it's wiped clean. And having a bounty isn't something to be too concerned about, since it's a fairly common tactic among PKers to bait survivors into attacking them and then report them to the RG. A bounty as small as Johnny's should disappear quickly, and almost everyone will recognize that it was an isolated incident. —Aichon— 18:01, 13 September 2013 (BST)

This is the major criticism of RG when I started playing UD again. You can't get your record cleared anymore, even if you sacrifice yourself to a bounty hunter multiple times, they neglect to take you off RG and it sounds like, if you take a screenshot, nobody is maintaining the list. H4ppy 24 7 18:09, 13 September 2013 (BST)

Thanks guys (and Chirurgien and SZ on Kyle's page) for answering this one. I've never used RG, as the one time I tried to visit it seemed to have been abandoned. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 19:37, 13 September 2013 (BST)

Building Status

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the welcome. I notice that building status seem very infrequently updated in my suburb. So, I'm guessing people are not updating building status either because:

• it's a chore, and changes too rapidly to bother with
• it's not realistic to know such details in game
• it can be strategically detrimental to post such info
• all of the above

So I'm wondering, should I bother with it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Psylem (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

Responded on your talk page. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 17:28, 11 October 2013 (BST)

The Great Suburb Group Massacre/2013/Volunteer Organization‎

Hi Bob,

I saw your message about The Great Suburb Group Massacre/2013/Volunteer Organization‎. I will be able to actively contribute this weekend after I finish a college course this week. Until then, I am armpit deep in a final project.

Thanks for all you do for the UD community!

--Slow and Purposeful 17:55, 22 October 2013 (BST)

Sure thing! And good luck with your project! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 18:10, 23 October 2013 (BST)

Welcome!

Cool! Thanks! :)

Hey, Bob! Is it okay for me to use this one account to update burbs that my alts are in? Thanks! --User:BunnyHopkins 07:34, 23 October 2013 (BST)

Responded on your talk page. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 18:09, 23 October 2013 (BST)

Thanks, Bob! That makes it so much easier! BunnyHopkins 00:14, 24 October 2013 (BST)

Thanks for the warm welcome

It is much appreciated, and thanks for the handy link to the Danger Center! Wez 14:10, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

My pleasure! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 15:39, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

This monday morning feeling...

I've been madly busy the last weeks and been only able to occassionally peek in to whack a bot. I'm on my feet this week-end, though. What are six five edits for a whole week-end? -- Spiderzed█ 08:18, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Welcome back! I see you've already managed to re-qualify... Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 13:29, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, and question

Thanks for the welcome Bob, quick question,

• There seems to be a bot for the automatic tagging of mobile phone mast statuses as 'old' and/or 'unknown', but no corresponding measure for the danger center, am I correct?

Actually, I'm not sure if even the mobile phone oldificiator is working... DoctorWikipedia 13:41, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I haven't seen the mobile phone bot in use recently. And there used to be a bot (User:Thegeneralbot) which ran several tasks, including marking danger reports out of date, but it hasn't been in use since last year. Every few months, I've been doing a sweep to mark any that are more than 5-6 months out of date as unknown, but if you come across a Report that's about that old or older, you can mark it unknown yourself if you like! here's an example of such a marking I did back in June. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 13:47, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if this is weird or creepy

But that essay of TripleU on the sandbox is very interesting. Made me think for a while, especially seeing as UD is one of those games I don't want to see dying out completely. I understand it is inevitable, but hng I will miss it and want to take the friends I've met through it somewhere. What I really wanted to say is, thank you very much for sharing it. -- ^{(stalk · KT · FoD · UT)} 03:58, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

User talk:Hagnat/wiki renaissance -- ^{FoD PK Praise Rando!} 04:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Definitely! I saw TripleU write it in a not-very-durable medium (edit summaries) and thought it deserved to be preserved. I myself am not sure how I feel about the future of the wiki, or the game for that matter. But it does give a lot to think about. (Also, thanks for your help on the radio sweep! I'm hoping to get two full sweeps done before the winter holidays start, so all hands are a great help.) Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 05:46, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

ACC Recruitment ad

I noticed you removed the ACC ad from the recruitment page, is there a reason for this? -- TheOdyssey 14:40, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

After two months as measured from the timestamp the entire advert may be removed for inactivity. It is the group’s responsibility to update the timestamp to prevent the advert being deleted. Updating the timestamp may and should be done at any time while the group is still recruiting.

That's one of the rules at the top of the page, but to quickly talk through it some more, ads on that page expire after two months, and the ACC's ad hadn't been updated in over two months (September 10th), so it got removed when Bob cleaned out all of the expired ads on November 15th. You're welcome to re-add the advertisement to the page at any time since you guys didn't do anything wrong or get in any trouble, and to keep it from expiring again you just need to periodically update the timestamp to ensure that it's never more than two months old. You're not the first one to have their ad removed unexpectedly. Happens to me too sometimes. ;) —Aichon— 15:27, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah ok thanks Aichon -- TheOdyssey 16:13, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Crat Election

It is time to conclude that. Hurry up or I'll use gass. -- Spiderzed█ 18:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Done. Welcome back to the seat. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 18:30, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the welcome! If I have any questions, I'll definitely send them your way. Mallory 03:11, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure thing! Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 17:19, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

What's up with the wiki job queue?

I noticed it's been steadily climbing for the last week or two.. now at "Job queue length 119,266" which sounds fairly off the charts for this wiki. At the same time I haven't noticed any obvious performance impact.

Just curious really, based on past experience and the fact I haven't changed anything recently, I'm reasonably sure this doesn't have anything to do with my bot this time (User:TargetReport) but I'm wondering what's causing it or what it means.. Is it anything we should be worried about? --Rick Dulton 05:04, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that is pretty insane. Sitting at over 122K right now. Looking through RC, the bot does seem like the most likely culprit, since we're not seeing any other activity, but nothing immediately pops out to me as being a likely cause. Just to be safe, would it be possible to lay off the bot for a few days and see if the queue steadily goes down? If it doesn't, we can at least say that the bot is probably not the cause, which will make it easier to look at other possibilities.

Also, random curiosity: why set up the map so that you need to edit all of those individual pages, rather than one map for the entire suburb where you just change one line per block? I.e. Why do it like that instead of more similar to the barricade plan code where changing the barricade level means just changing a few characters? I think we've talked about this before, but I can't remember what the reasoning was. —Aichon— 06:03, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure thing. I've temporarily disabled the bot wiki updates, with the job queue currently at 122,853. We can see if that influences it. The page design is partly historical but mostly for flexibilty and extensibility - e.g. User:TargetReport/51,42-style is used by both User:TargetReport/Ridleybank and User:TargetReport/Ketchelbank-Roachtown-Barrville-Ridleybank (as well as User:TargetReport/51,42 although that's not really in active use). --Rick Dulton 06:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Just a quick data point; current Job queue length 110,037 (down 12k after about 48h). The bot is still disabled. --Rick Dulton 03:52, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

And now it's increased by another 8,000+ to: Job queue length 118,213. The bot is still disabled. For comparison, in my previous testing of the bot, each update would generate up to about 10-20 jobs on the queue, which cleared within a minute or two. --Rick Dulton 23:17, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

And now it's down to 91,872, which means a nearly 27K drop in a mere handful of hours. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Anyway, if it did spike by 8000 without bot involvement, then let's go ahead and reactivate it and just keep an eye on the queue's length to see what it does. —Aichon— 15:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Aichon. I've reactivated half of the bot (the part which processes dumbwit updates from the IRC channel, but not the clean-up daemon which ages out out-of-date info). Job queue was 67,973 when I reactivated it. Performed a quick test and the queue dropped further to 67,955 (-18 jobs) during the course of the test.. so it doesn't look like the manual updates are pushing it back up at any rate. (It's dropped another 100 jobs while writing this post, to 67,855). Will keep an eye on things before reactivating the 2nd part of the bot. --Rick Dulton 04:21, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

It's continued to drop.. now down to Job queue length 3,523. The bot has been running this whole time, so it does seem to suggest the job queue spike is uncorrelated (since it continued to rise after I stopped the bot, and then continued to fall after I started it). Still, I'll wait a few more days before re-activating the clean-up daemon part of its functionality.