Talk:Mobile Phone Mast

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Mobile phone coverage template

I just created a template to display the current mobile network coverage based on the Monroeville and Borehamwood population templates. The "as of" date will update automatically when the template is updated, so the only number that will need to be toggled is the coverage percentage.

	Mobile Network Coverage:
	Actual Network Coverage: 25% Known Active Masts: 17 Correct as of: 21:40, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

update

If there are no objections, I'll update this article with the template. This will likely replace: "Current Mobile Network Coverage" / "Mapped Active Network Coverage." Actually, to be honest, I'm not sure what "Mapped Active Network Coverage" reffers to, otherwise I would have included it in the template. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zarneverfike (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

Incorrect District Labels?

Looking through the status list, I noticed that the labeling of districts on the Mobile Mast suburb map do not match up with the district labels on the Radio frequencies page. Is it possible to remedy this so things match up? --Maverick 08:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Pulling updates from the list

Is there a way to put the status of the mast on the page of the individual mast buildings, so that it updates automatically? --Metabob 00:09, 23 May 2008 (BST)

Usually I'd just say that a template could be quickly hacked together and call on the individual status of any mast you like. However the problem is the status exists only on this page. The template call on this page has all the information manually added as part of the template call. So it's my thinking that we'd have to change the system so that the template here called 100 other templates with the information on each individual mast. Each building page could reference the single template it would like. Unless somebody knows a better method (I'm still new to all this) the system would need to go through that redesign. The benefits would be automatic updating on each building page, but the drawback is a more complex and lengthy update process to change a mast status, even moreso if you want to update a few suburbs at once. --  RoosterDragon  01:08, 23 May 2008 (BST)

I'll readily admit I have no idea how templates work, so your point on the complexity of my idea is duly noted. But with the phone mast info contained to only a single page, it doesn't get as much notice as it should. My idea was something like the suburb danger level or the mall status. Those things can be plastered on to any relevant page in the wiki, thus getting more attention and is therefore updated both faster and more often. --Metabob 10:16, 23 May 2008 (BST)

Yes, it would be nice to inject some colour into the map, rather than having it mostly being "Unknown Grey". It wouldn't be hard to instigate such a change, but it'd be nice to have opinions from some of the main contributors to this page as to whether they would mind updating individual template pages rather than this page alone. I doubt many would be against it, be it'd still be nice to get opinions from a few other people. --  RoosterDragon  15:32, 23 May 2008 (BST)

So if I'm reading this correctly the idea would be that each building page (ie the building that contained the mast) would have the status on it and then this page would pull that info from here? If that is the case, would it be possible to instead have each building's page pull the status from this page so we would only need to edit the data on a single page? Also, if the idea is mast status exposure, perhaps we could look at adding something about the mast status on the suburb page in addition to or as opposed to the mast's building's page. I'm all for a change though. And it really isn't THAT much more work to edit multiple pages, but I do tend to hit a few suburbs at a time. =) Pele Rose 06:49, 24 May 2008 (BST)

My idea was to have each building's page pull the status from this page. Sorry if that wasn't clear. --Metabob 18:17, 23 May 2008 (BST)

We don't have the data either here or on the building pages. We have it in a new location, which both this page and the building pages use to display information. People update these new page(s), and so the mast page and building pages both reference the same info. --  RoosterDragon  18:45, 23 May 2008 (BST)

Ok, unless anybody else speaks up, I'm going to start working on a the one or two templates we'd need and then create the 100 pages we'll require for each individual mast soon. I might even create a few images for the templates, who knows. --  RoosterDragon  01:51, 25 May 2008 (BST)

Well I bit off way more than I could chew, and all the new template credit goes to Morgan Blair The danger reports have since been changed for mast buildings (After more bot edits than I'd have liked to have run) and you should now go to each seperate danger report for any building with a mast and change that in order to update the mast status The bot that changes old statuses will get updated so it works on the new system shortly, the displayed accuracy of reports may become a few days out of date until then, but you've had worse in the past. Hopefully, the danger reports can also be changed slightly in order to display the mast status, if not then another template is in order and this issue will be resolved in due course. --  RoosterDragon  00:02, 1 June 2008 (BST)

Hey, it was a big project, even for the two of us! And without your bot-creation skills, it would have taken far, far longer (and been much, much more tedious). And considering that exactly one week has passed since you said you were going to start working on it (and subsequently queried me on my talk page), I think we've made quick work of the job (and at least half of the credit goes to you, Rooster, so don't sell yourself short).

To make a quick response to Metabob, about having the updates on THIS page, and pulling the info from here... The way the old system worked, the info was on this page, because this page was making a call to the required templates, and defining what all the values for the 200 variables were. Even if other pages were able to call on this page and pull the select bit of data that they needed from it (actually, that would be quite easy to implement), it wouldn't really be feasible, because any time one page calls another, it includes the entire size of the data on that included page, even if only a tiny fraction of it actually gets displayed. As it was, we just barely fit the new list and map all on one page, due to the number of page inclusions it uses!

So, just a couple notes of reminder about the new list and map. In the list, clicking on the building's name will take you directly to the Danger Report page for that building; if you want to go directly to the location page instead, you can click on the coordinates. On the map, where the mast building's names aren't displayed, clicking on the coordinates will take you to the Danger Report pages, rather then the building's location page. When you update the new reports, just make sure that you only use the statuses in the list for the mast operation level on the "mast_status=" line, and use the statuses in the list for building danger levels for the "status=" line as normal (nobody's actually messed them up yet, but it would probably be an easy mistake to make).

Also, I'm proud to introduce the brand-new "Mobile-Phone Mast Information Center" ("mpm-ic" for short)! There, you'll see the use of the new Danger Report template for mast buildings. Basically, the page is just a list of 100 Danger Reports, at the moment; I haven't put any info text, or links to other info centers, etc. I suggest one of you MalTel-type folks do that, as well as add links to other info-cents for the new page, etc.

About the mast status images in the template... I figured that keeping things in the style of the regular BuildingStatus template was best, so I simply added an additional position for the new images to the left of the building danger level image. I used the exact same style of asymmetrically-rounded rectangle, and added the classic MalTel transmitter tower graphic (I didn't include the word "MALTEL", because while Malton Telephone is an old and respected group, it is not necessarily the only organization with an interest in mast statuses). For the lettering, I copied the Helvetica font that I assume is being used in Image:Maltel.gif (after all, Helvetica is what the old American Telephone & Telegraph Company used for their logos), with the status descriptions matching the border color. In the case of "old" statuses, a large, transparent "Old" is superimposed on the status text (and of course, the image's colors are different from the non-"old" images, as well). If, for some reason, everybody really hates the images, please let me know, and I'll give it another go (with enough input/direction), but all in all, I'm rather pleased with how they turned out.

Also, before I go, I want to give credit to the original designer of the Mobile-Phone Mast page's list and map, ERNesbitt. Created a full two years ago, now, this system was ahead of it's time, and predates the inception of the Mall and Building Danger Reports by about six months or so (the original Danger Map of suburbs only predates it by a single month!). While it has now been updated to integrate with other, newer systems on the wiki, that should only stand as a testament to the original, forward-thinking design of ERNesbitt (who, by the way, has resurfaced just three days past, after a 6-month absence).

Wow, that was long—too long! Anyway, be sure to come visit my talk page if there are any glitches or other concerns with the new system. --Morgan Blair 18:26, 1 June 2008 (BST)

In related news, the bot is back online and will now update the danger reports containing out of date statuses for you again. It made a bit of a hash of it the first go round, but I fixed it, honest! If it tries to destroy the wiki again do let me know. --  RoosterDragon  19:20, 2 June 2008 (BST)

Wow! It looks really awesome to me. =) Thank you so much for putting so much time and effort into this revamp! I'll do my absolute best not to accidentally mess it all up. =P --Pele Rose 15:35, 3 June 2008 (BST)

Glad you like it. And in the end, some changes were made to the code that ended up making unclosed <span> tags a non-issue after all... --Morgan Blair 16:46, 3 June 2008 (BST)

Bot to Update Old & Unknown Suburbs

This page dates quickly. Every 5 days since a report was filed, it's supposed to be updated to an old state, then unknown. I've made a bot that does the job rather nicly. I control its use manually. As an added bonus it also updates the two stats at the top of the page. (Actual network coverage and mapped network coverage) It basically works fine, I've been testing it on my sandbox to be sure. It does not currently sign updates. I could have it do that, but that means the list would eventually become populated with only the bot's name. I think either an exception should be made since it's a bot, or the bot could sign underneath the list, so as to preserve orginal user's names. Finally, any preferences as to whether the bot operates through its own account or mine are welcome. The Rooster 20:25, 7 May 2008 (BST)

I think it's best just to leave the original signature of five/ten day old entries, otherwise you just end up with the name of whoever took it upon themselves to clean up the list and the time they did plastered all up and down the list, like my name is now. Not helpful. It seems better to have the bot under it's own username so that, if something went wrong for example, we could tell it was the bot's fault and not yours (although it would be yours too, since you built it, but you know what I mean). Thanks a lot for building this, by the way. I've been doing it weekly by hand, and it's not that big a deal, but it is annoying. -Ornithopter (Talk | contribs) 22:14, 7 May 2008 (BST)

It's my pleasure to announce that the bot has made its first edit successfully to the page. The bot's user page can be found at User:MobilePhoneMastBot. The bot will maintain records on the account so any errors can be traced easily enough. I plan on running the bot once a day at most. If there are any problems with the bot, or a major change is made to the page layout that may cause the bot to function incorrectly, please contact me. The Rooster 20:19, 8 May 2008 (BST)

Nifty. Would it be possible to do something similar for the 81 SIMxx,yy pages used as templates on SIM and SIMgrid? When the timstamps are more than 7 days old, I currently change them (manually) to be "expired". I can explain the specific pages / code changes in more detail if needed. I also could host the bot code on http://urbandead.info (and run it as a chronjob) but my skills with page scraping / bots suck.  Swiers 20:59, 8 May 2008 (BST)

Wow! Thanks a lot Rooster. =) That sounds like it'll be a huge help. =) Pele Rose 06:51, 24 May 2008 (BST)

A bot would be nice for A/VD and Suggestions. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:04, 8 May 2008 (BST)

I should probably mention at this point that may knowledge of the wiki code is most basic, and that while updating the SIM appears simple enough on face value (It's along the same lines as the bot operating here) something that doesn't involve an entirly fixed template like A/VD may be harder for me to code correctly. The 'bot' I wrote is closer to the glorified text editor side of the line than to the reasonably smart bots you'd find on say, wikipedia that revert spam edits and the like. All mine does is find/replace. Anyway, if you'd both like to post requests that include the exact pages to edit and a little detail on what needs doing and how I would go about it on my talk page, I'll do what I can to help. We can also avoid spamming this discussion page that way :) The Rooster 21:28, 8 May 2008 (BST)

Done. I don't think either of the pages AHLG mentioned require AI. The suggestions page is VERY fixed in its format, and all that is needed is to delete well definend code blocks related to older suggestions. A/VD is similarly "fixed" in format. Fairly simple regex can find the timecodes on both pages, and do the needed editing, if the bot can parse the time codes.  Swiers 23:23, 8 May 2008 (BST)

ruins

Given the recent changes to the game, is it time to update the map so that it also reflects "ruined" locations, in addition to destroyed, nofuel, etc.? Asheets 20:12, 23 August 2007 (BST)

Considering that we don't have a status to reflect ransacked state, I don't think having a ruined state would really fit. As it is now, destroyed stands for "in zombie hands, without generator," which covers ruined and ransacked states. --Daranz^{.t.mod janitor.W(M)^∞.} 00:24, 25 August 2007 (BST)

It would be helpful for me to have a ruined state for mast buildings. That way I know if I need to bring a tool box or nor, as they are burdensome, and I would prefer not to take one if I don't need one. Erik 01:24, 27 August 2007 (BST)

I Implemented a Ruined state. I agree with Eric that this is a special case. Destroyed means "Bring a genny", nofuel means "Bring a gas can", and ruined means "Bring a tool box". I don't know if dark gray is the color we want, but that is fairly easy to change. RocketYam 17:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Its worth noting that, although rare, a ruined building CAN have a generator in it. If fueled, the generator actually powers up the building and triggers all bonus effects (Necronet Access, search bonuses, rot revies, phone use, etc) but the "lit building" effect is not seen on the map. Its even possible to have a "powered pinata".  Swiers 21:03, 8 May 2008 (BST)

template usage

I wanted to use your template if that is ok...it is on the bottom of my page...--OMC

---

Request to use signatures

Lately, some contributors have been posting status with a time stamp, but no signature. Since the instructions only say to use a timestamp with 5 tildes, that's following the rules. But it would be better if the instructions said to use a timestamp-signature with 4 tildes. It increases confidence in the legitimacy of the status and provides some sense of who is in what area. If this is okay with everyone, I'll update the instruction in a week. Or, you MalTel employees can update it sooner. --SearchDerelict 00:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It appears this was adopted. --SearchDerelict 22:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Some updates were from actions taken by my Dead Air alt(s). I didn't think using the 4 tildes, showing my survivor main's name, was appropriate. I have since figured out a workaround though, so I will try to comply. --Schloss Ritter 07:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Please note that your edits can still be identified using the page's history. The edits are associated with the wiki account you used to make them, whether you sign them or not. --Daranz^{. t . mod . W(M)^∞ .} 15:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The proper indent/signature/time stamp is just being polite. If you edit/destroy something it is all too easy to figure out who did it.--Airborne88^T|ZC|MI|E! 01:00, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Bot to monitor dated info?

Some entries are as old as 19 May-- almost two weeks ago!

I don't know a thing about bots. But how hard would it be to create one that monitors the timestamp of each suburb?

A number could be put in the bottom of each suburb's box, to indicate how many days it's been since that suburb's generator was last checked. After that number exceeded five, an "active" suburb would automatically be re-labeled "unknown."

Is this doable?

--Buddhagazelle 20:02, 2 June 2007 (BST)

Runners

I've noticed how quickly our Mast info gets out of date so I'm thinking of making a runner. Basicly with 50 ap I whould be able to check 10 suburbs with a cell phone. I won't know if it has a generator in it or not but I can atleast confirm which suburbs do have working masts. Oh and just incase you are wondering how I'd manage to check 10 suburbs with 50 ap it's simple: I'll start in the south eastern corner, try my cell phone, then move south, check my phone again, then move 9 squares east, check my phone, move north east, check my phone, east, phone, southeast, phone, 9 squares... well you get the idea. The down side is I doubt I'd be able to cover the entire city with in 10 days and it'd take me a day and a half to reset my position so I can't keep the info realitively updated solo. -Raithwin 03:52, 4 Feb 2006 (GMT)

I am taking a break from RP and am using one of my characters to do a grand tour of Malton to get status and to get masts back online wherever possible. I'm in Pennville right now. Asheets 20:16, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Raines Hills Mast

Hi, if it would make it easier for you guys i can give you a update on the Mast in Raines Hills everyday. as of 3/19 it is active and gen has a good supply of fuel thanks, Borocks

Hey man,

Just update the Mobile Phone page, that way, everybody can see.

Thanks,

SkullnBones

Multiple towers?!

Hey people,

I'm in Danversbank now (And a bit dead, too, by the way), and there are TWO phone masts here?! Both The Barrow Building and The Poulet Museum have a phone mast on top! You can see it when you're standing outside. Has anyone else seen this?

This would make maintaining the masts easier, as we can have a backup tower!

SkullnBones

I've seen the mast there, but I'm not sure whether it's functional or not. --Winnan 23:51, 7 May 2007 (BST)

The Phone Mast unforunately does not work. We in Danversbank have tried several times to see if it would work. All failures.Ganadarf

Another phone mast spotted, I saw this in a bug report: "I’m not sure if this is a bug (it might be intentional) but the Borland Museum in Jensentown, when powered, gives the outside description as possessing a phone mast. The phone mast though is next door in the MacVicar Building." SkullnBones

I noticed that The Denning Museum in Paynterton also has a Mobile Phone Mast, which makes it the second building in Paynterton with a Mobile Phone Mast: The Smither Building being the first. Nowhere in the Wiki had it been mentioned that The Denning Museum has a Mobile Phone Mast, so by now, I have updated the Wiki entry on The Denning Museum. But I wonder, does anyone know whether the mast on The Denning Museum is functional? --- Stahl, 1:18 7 December 2008 (GMT)

Southwest Indpendant Technician

After going independent from DEM-sponsored groups, I'm going to be working up the SW...there are a lot of blue spots there, and it's the natural habitat of Malton's lone mutant.

I arrived at this decision about half an hour ago. Please give me some time to work.

Cheers, Jonathan Frey

Unknown Status

According to the map key, suburbs are "unknown" if not checked in the past fourteen days. According to the notes, any suburb marked "active" that has not been updated in five days should be marked "unknown," as the fuel may have run out. A rewrite to clarify may be in order.--otherlleft ^W! 11:59, 18 June 2007 (BST)

Yeah, and someone changed Spicer Hills to unknown - without changing the signature - though the last time it had been fueled was June 16th. (and today is only the 19th... in Seattle...)--Baruch 07:51, 20 June 2007 (BST)

Checking Statuses

Hey all, I'm currently in Reganbank and am heading North. Along the way I'm gonna check the stats of all the towers in my path. OrangeP47 02:58, 6 July 2007 (BST) 02:58, 6 July 2007 (BST)

Separate Editing Sections

Looking over this page, I noticed that there didn't seem to be any shortcuts to editing individual sections of the "Mobile Phone Mast" entry. I had to use the "Edit this page" link to update the status of an individual mast. --The Masked Lurker 17:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know what the deal is with this? -Ornithopter 19:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Alright, it's definitely caused by the coverage template somehow, and I've mirrored the whole arrangement over to User:Ornithopter/Sandbox so I can mess with it without fear of breaking anything. I haven't had much of a chance to fiddle with it yet. I started putting some noinclude comments on the templates to map out what was happening, and I'm not finished with it, but my feeling is the problem's caused by something about MalTelSuburbStatus, mostly just because I don't have any idea what's going on in that one and the rest make sense to me, but also because removing just the alphabetical list or the map doesn't fix the problem, but removing both does, and both of them call MalTalSuburbStatus. So if anyone who has a better (or worse, for that matter) understanding of wikimarkup than I do wants to go take a look and try to figure it out, you have my permission to edit those pages. -Ornithopter 01:19, 2 April 2008 (BST)

Walla! Done! The change is only the removal of the __NOEDITSECTION__ from User:Ornithopter/Sandbox/MalTelCoverage, now each section can be edited separately :) I'll do the same for Template:MalTelCoverage --Ben2 02:30, 2 April 2008 (BST)

Hooray! Ben2 is my hero! Ironically, explaining the problem caused the problem on the talk page, so I edited your comment to fix that. Hope you don't mind. -Ornithopter 04:20, 2 April 2008 (BST)

Hm.. I thought I have already checked the preview which was OK. Guess I missed that part LOL --Ben2 14:18, 2 April 2008 (BST)

District Issues

Ok folks I'm proud to announce that all five of my suburbs are in the green in the SW5 district. Kinda excited about that. I know it's sad, but I have time now to get some Ammo so that rocks to.Nurelco00:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Easily reset 'old' updates

THIS SCRIPT IS OUTDATED AND DOES NOT TAKE X-OLD STATUSES INTO ACCOUNT. DO NOT USE. -Ornithopter 20:21, 31 March 2008 (BST)

I've made a Vim command to easily reset old phone mast updates to status 'unknown':

%s:\(\w\+\)_status=\(ruined\|unknown\|destroyed\|active\|inactive\|nofuel\)|\_.\(\w\+\)_update=.*, \(6\|7\|8\|9\|10\) January 2008 (.*)|:\1_status=unknown|\r\3_update=\~\~\~\~|:gc

First, copy the Mobile Phone Mast page to your Vim. In the command, make sure you remove the return halfway, and update the \(1\|...\|51\) January 2008 section. If you don't want to manually confirm each change, remove the 'c' at the end, but be careful with that!

SkullnBones

I think that the signatures should NOT be updated when changing a 'burb to 'unknown'. I think the sig should remain as a timestamp for when a MalTel employ was actually in the suburb to check the status. Or perhaps have the timestamp removed from Unknown suburbs? Knowing when someone did a cleanup doesn't REALLY help too much. What do you think?

and I don't know how the script works, or how to use it :) RocketYam 20:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, and sorry for my delay in responding. The script is a search-and-replace regular expression for the editor Vim. Kind of like a Notepad on steroids. :)

And I DO think we need to reset the date when changing it to unknown, as the old date no longer holds. You could be right about removing the signature altogether, but now we can see when a reset has been done. I don't see the harm in having more information...

The way I see it, showing the reset date just shows the last time someone bothered to clean up the map. The cleanup could have happened a month after someone actually visited the 'burb, or 5 days and 1 minute. And it doesn't give us any actual new information, since we all know that over 5 days means the genny is out of fuel. The script just visualizes the information on the map for our easy readin'.

But leaving the date means that we know when a player was actually in the suburb checking things out. It gives us a sense of how neglected the suburb is. Your script changes even the dates of previously 'unknown' suburbs, so ALL data older than 5 days is erased. Like crookton in your last update. Now we don't know that no one has been there since Jan 11 (or earlier, since your script might have made that change):

crooketon_status=unknown| crooketon_update=SkullnBones 15:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

crooketon_status=unknown| crooketon_update=SkullnBones 18:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

So I come down on the side of this being a net info loss. If you want to record the date of a reset, why not let the script replace the "Current Mobile Network Coverage:" on top and replace the timestamp there? Of course, I don't know how to script, so its ultimately up to you what to do. And the script is better than no script at all, so thanks a lot for making this :) RocketYam 02:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Status Colors

I'm proposing a change to the Status Colors. I think they should be the following:

• Red = Ruined (the most severe known state, requires toolbox, genny, and fuel)
• Orange = Destroyed (requires genny and fuel)
• Yellow = Nofuel (requires fuel)
• Green = Active (best known state)
• Dark Gray = Inactive (we know it is not working, but we don't know why)
• Grey = Unknown (hasn't been checked in 5 days)

This gives color to known states, and gray to unknown ones. What do you think?

RocketYam 17:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I was impatient and did it anyway. If anyone objects, we could change it back RocketYam 17:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the color change Rocket. Nice adjustment. Seems to make more sense to me, and a little less chaotic to the eye it seems? Anyway I approve :) --Mr NoName001 20:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Anything that details more information and remains a simple display is always a plus in my book.Eddie Gray ^{T MalTel} 06:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I Tweaked the template a little more to get the colored suburbs to pop out a little more... RocketYam 01:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

i am not sure if it has to do with any recent change, but i find it very difficult to distinguish the orange (destroyed) and green (active), anybody else having a problem? --Scotw 01:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

wow, sounds like color blindness. check this site out and see if the pictures look the same to you: http://www.braunston.com/kevin/colour/colour-exam2.html http://www.braunston.com/kevin/colour/colour.html I happened to have selected orange and green colors that look suspiciously like the ones that get washed out of the VisCheck processed images. We could always monkey with the colors again if that would help. RocketYam 05:53, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

as a matter of fact i am partially colorblind. i am not saying that the colors should be changed solely for me, i am sure there will always be somebody who will not be able to see no matter what color set is chosen. when i look at the Map of Malton Suburbs page i can clearly see the differences in color between the green and orange. perhaps the colors could be made to match the ones on that page. but like i said, i am one person--Scotw 18:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Well then, no mystery. I'm not schooled on web design for the colorblind, but I changed the shades of the yellow and orange a little. Let me know if it's better or worse for you. RocketYam 02:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you know what kind of colorblindness you have? I processed and image of the mast page with VisCheck. The current version looks like you could tell each kind apart to me, but maybe the image processing isn't accurate. check out Colorblind. Do either pair look identical to you? If you're Deuteranope..ic..ish(?) and the image processing was right, it looks like the Active/Ruined states look the most similar to you. RocketYam 03:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Rolt Heights' phone mast

I'm not sure about the "green" condition of the Rolt Heights' phone mast, since the Second Big Bash just razed Rolt Heights to the ground. Could any zombie go check?

Status colors for 'unknown'

I figured knowing the previous status of an unknown 'burb would be a Good Thing. So now, if a suburb is out of date, just append "old" to the status (ie: 'active' becomes 'activeold'). This will change the square to the Unknown grey color, but leave the boarder the same. A quick glance at the map then tells you which areas haven't been updated, AND the state the area was in last time anyone went through. I don't know if this is helpful, but the Unknown status is still available, so you can keep using those if you wish. I'm not sure if we should attempt to put this information in the legend... PakChooieUnf 20:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I made up an alternative legend. what does everyone thing of it? PakChooieUnf 21:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

active

nofuel

destroyed

ruined

inactive

unknown

The following depict suburbs that have not been updated in the past 5 days.

was active

was nofuel

was destroyed

was ruined

was inactive

Great idea! I think "unknown" is still useful, since knowing that two weeks ago the status was set to "activeold" doesn't really tell you anything and might give you false ideas of the overall picture if enough suburbs were reported that way. "Xold" to me seems like it's not useful for longer than maybe another five days. What are people's opinions of reporting "activeold" suburbs as part of "mapped active network coverage"? I'm leaning a bit towards doing it, especially if "xold" times out to "unknown", but I'm not particularly opposed to the alternative. I haven't seen the new legend yet, since you did that while I had this window open, and I have to run right now, but I'll look at it tomorrow. -Ornithopter 21:09, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

well, without someone doing something, active will always degenerate to nofuel, which is the origin of the 5 day rule. But a ruined building will probably stay ruined for a while, unless survivor numbers go up in the suburb. Ruined suburbs being marked as unknown is mainly the thing that motivated me to do this. I just sent my alt into a totally desolated NW quadrant. I don't think those suburbs are going to be anything but Ruined for quite some time. PakChooieUnf 21:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, although I still think we need more people to check thier local mast, half of the map is unknown. --Mouren 21:29, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm going to make more of a concerted effort to tag mast buildings, requesting that people update the map. PakChooieUnf 21:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you should post this on the main page so people can see it, since it's been implemented. I still get confused until I get back here >> << --Mouren 20:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

ok. I didn't want to put it on the main page until I got some feedback. I'm not sure if "Was status" is the best way to put it. But just putting the keyword (activeold) seemed confusing. What do you think? Or maybe I should change the keywords to WasActive instead of ActiveOld? PakChooieUnf 20:40, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

WasActive/nofuel/etc makes sense, so I would, just to make it less confusing for newb Wikiers like me. Now the question is if we should add the "last reported active (AKA OldActive/WasActive)" ones as a part of the mapped percentage at the top. The recent updates I haven't, but don't know if we should. --Mouren 21:02, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they should be added to the active stats. I'm not sure though. PakChooieUnf 06:46, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I would say no, because between 2-12-08 and 2-13-08, "Miltown" went from "activeold" to "ruined" so we just don't know. --Mouren 02:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The new legend looks great. If "active" switches to "nofuel" after five days of not being updated, when do we ever use "wasactive"? -Ornithopter 18:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

What I meant is that a genny runs out of fuel in 5 days. However, just because a MalTel employee reported a genny active more than 5 days ago doesn't mean it is out of fuel now. Local survivors may upkeep the masts on their own with out reporting it. Was Active gives us a sense that an area was well maintained last time, and may still be well maintained. Id rather have an Active state expire to Unknown rather than Nofuel. Or, even better, activeold ;). But mayb I'm making this too complex... PakChooieUnf 06:46, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

No, its not too complex. I favor "activeold" for the same reason. I just misunderstood what you were saying about the five day rule. -Ornithopter 19:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Occupied status?

A lot of technicians have been having trouble with mast buildings being occupied by zombies. They head to a Ruined building to fix it up, but they have no hope of killing the zombies and tossing them out. Which means they can't repair the building. which means they cant close the doors. which means more zombies can wander in. So I tried making an "Occupied" status. It's implemented, but not on the legend yet. I set the Whittenside status to "occupied" in the South East corner of Malton.

an experimental legend

active

nofuel

destroyed

ruined

occupied

inactive

unknown

The following depict suburbs that have not been updated in the past 5 days.

was active

was nofuel

was destroyed

was ruined

was occupied

was inactive

So what do you think? Is this something we want to add? Are the colors too hideous or distracting? Is the map getting generally too complex? RocketYam 00:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

More information is always helpful IMO. I say we use it. I've certainly found myself in the situation you've described aboveErik 16:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Mobile Network Maintenance Teams

Am I the only one who doesn't think the Mobile Network Maintenance Teams section is useful? Maybe we should just give that its own page or some such? RocketYam 01:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I would rather see the map at the top of the page with the Maintenance teams section at the bottom. I think it is important to acknowledge people who want to maintain their local masts. Erik 16:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I added the timestamp rule to the destruction teams section, but do the groups in either category really need timestamps at all? There are links to the groups page, which often gives a good idea of how active a group is. Probably a better idea than the timestamp on this page, which isn't necessarily ever updated after the initial adding of the group to the list. -Ornithopter 20:16, 31 March 2008 (BST)

Record Low Coverage?

1% as of 22:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC) - is that a record low? Is there a place for records?  Swiers 22:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

We can make one. Other than the first few days that Malton exsisted, I doubt it has ever gone that low. I'm curious to know which suburb has the powered mast. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:31, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

occupiedold

I changed the color of the border on occupiedold suburbs to a lighter shade of purple, since the previous shade was difficult to distinguish from inactiveold. Feel free to revert if you disapprove. -Ornithopter 22:09, 31 March 2008 (BST)

Addition of World Map

I added a new map. I think it might be useful. Only having the coordinates of Mast locations can be of limited use. Being able to visualize mast locations in suburbs and in relation to one another might be helpful in figuring out cell phone mast locations. the preceding unsigned comment was added by Steve byr at 17:02, May 29, 2008

West Grayside

Mast in West Grayside destroyed. -Number213 22:02, 31 May 2008 (UTC +3)

Updating

How do you update the tower status? Not the building; whether the tower is active or not. Clicking update on the danger report only shows that, not the active/unknown/etc. part.--Ryvyoli ^{Y R} 10:43, 20 August 2010 (BST)