User talk:DRY

Hi there!
Welcome to our wiki, and thank you for your contributions! There's a lot to do around here, so I hope you'll stay with us and make many more improvements.


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I'm really happy to have you here, and look forward to working with you!


 * Tullis 13:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Nice work on the Completionist Achievement Guide. --Tullis 13:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Look forward to criticism/corrections. -- DRY 23:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Nice work (again) - the planet pages are all looking great. --Tullis 21:49, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Small request?
Is there any way you could cook me up a very small template, nothing major (about the size of the spoiler or cleanup tags) for articles that might benefit from inclusion of / improved quality screenshots? Just something to tag on pages to make people think about contributing pics? I'd really appreciate it. --Tullis 20:08, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure thing. As a starting point for discussion, how about Template:PicturesWanted? -- DRY 00:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Density
Thank you for including mass in planets, which saves us a lot of pointless math. Can you give us density too? For terrestrials, density follows from radius and mass. (Gas giants like Saturn might be oblate, having a radius from the pole shorter than that from the equator.) Density will give us further guidelines on planetary composition I believe. You can use Earth's density as the baseline, or just multiply 5.52 for g.cm-3.-- Zimriel 01:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, I can look into it. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get to it for a couple of days at least. Real Life&trade; intrudes.... -- DRY 22:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Eletania Prothean ruins
May I upload a new screenshot in place of the file ? The advantage of my screenshot is that is shows the ruins in their entirety, and there are no characters/vehicles standing around. I am asking because I see that you have placed a copyright on that screenshot, so I wanted to know if it bothers you to replace it with a 'free' (i.e. Public Domain) version. Here is the new screenshot I am talking about (It will of course be compressed later, just like all others will be). Darkdrium 03:37, 26 July 2008 (UTC) EDIT: Same question for the. I only have a large one though, but it is perfectly centered. Darkdrium 03:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Feel free to do as you wish, by all means. (Although I'd strongly suggest that you scale and compress them first – it's not like there's a lot of extra effort involved.) However, please be aware that screenshots of a copyrighted work like Mass Effect are almost certainly not considered to be in the public domain. You cannot unilaterally declare such a screenshot to be in the public domain any more than you could a self-taken photograph the The Voice of Fire or a photocopy of Catch-22. This is the reason why I mark my screenshots as copyrighted, but invoke fair use. -- DRY 04:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh I see. I will make the changes.Darkdrium 16:49, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Luna
May I know the reason for undo my modification on Luna? I have uploaded the image which is used in Mass Effect along with the description. But the current image of Luna's surface is not taken from the game. --Snfonseka


 * I assumed that the edit was accidental since it swapped the planetary map and the screenshot. Do please by all means include screenshots, but please don't replace the planetary map in the infobox with one. (All planets and asteroids which can be landed on have their maps in the infobox by convention; see, for example, Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style/Planets.) -- DRY 17:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

OK. --Snfonseka

Old planetary map placemarkers
Are we still using these old placemarkers, the ones that look this?



... or is it okay to delete them? I don't see them being used anywhere and I don't want to categorise them if I don't have to. --Tullis 18:00, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, they aren't used anywhere any more. Deleting them may cause missing image links on pages which used to use them, but I can't imagine anyone really minding. --DRY 21:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Congrats
Congratulations and welcome aboard the most awesome admin team on any wiki EVER!!! (although I may be a little biased there) Seriously though, it's good to have you here. I look forward to working alongside you (metaphorically, of course) even though you do sometimes prove me wrong and give my ego a bruising. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask. SpartHawg948 19:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Avatar
I find your keeper avatar to be oddly fitting, sir. Good show. : ) --Tullis 18:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

ME fanfiction wiki
Hello DRY, I am Kamikaz, the administrator of the Mass Effect Fan Fiction Wiki. I took a look at some of your contributions to this wiki and I was just wondering if you would like to come to the fan fiction wiki and help with some contributions there too. Think about it.--Kamikaz 02:04, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Cluster:Artemis Tau
There seems to be some issue with Cluster:Artemis Tau. An anonymous user and I both tried to fix it, but still no go. Can you take a look? --Tullis 19:34, September 20, 2009 (UTC)
 * Will do. Looking into it now. --DRY 19:47, September 20, 2009 (UTC)
 * Quite probably a Wikia problem (see w:Forum:Invalid tag extension name: noinclude). I'm purging the sub-templates to see if that will help any. On the bright side, it only seems to be a problem on the Cluster:Artemis Tau page itself and not places where it is transcluded.... --DRY 20:11, September 20, 2009 (UTC)
 * No joy. I suggest that we wait 24 hours and see if it fixes itself when the cache times out and raise a Wikia bug if not. --DRY 20:15, September 20, 2009 (UTC)

Editor w/ Image Issues
Heyo! You know this stuff a lot better than I do, so if you get a moment could you maybe pop on over to User blog:Ralok/Call for help? Ralok is having some issues with the cluster boxes not showing up right, and I think (but am not positive) that it's on his end. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! SpartHawg948 02:27, December 23, 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll see what I can do to help. --DRY 03:31, December 23, 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like IE, Chrome, and Safari don't like rowspan="0" for some reason. I'm not familiar enough with the standards to know who's right, but I've fixed the cluster description boxes. Hopefully there aren't too many other places which use rowspan="0". --DRY 04:17, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Quasar
G'day I'm just curious about your page on quasar and completely and totally don't understand any of the information on it if you wouldn't mind could you you explain to me how exactly it all works... I'm not saying your information is wrong i'm just saying that from my personal observations they seem wrong and those parts would include these projected winnings part of your table do not exist in the game both on the low stakes and high stake quasar games the only winnings to be found are on the numbers 15-20 and even then its rather simple and your option on the payout numbers are completely wrong or non-existent as far as i can tell as well as the average winning per game part, of course math has never been my strong point but i've always been rather good with patterns anyway if you could at some point get back to me about it all so i can understand your information and what you based it upon i'd really appreciate it thanks --Soldier Of Ruin 07:54, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually I wasn't the original author of that information, although I do remember double checking the math (and managing to get one of the entries wrong&hellip;.). My only contribution really was to tidy up the formatting a bit. The math is pretty straightforward, so it should be easy to re-check if you like. --DRY 15:44, January 5, 2010 (UTC)

From VarietyMage 20:37, January 26, 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I ran the numbers (with help from Wikipedia's entry on "expected value"), and here's how it comes out:

Using "1-8", outcomes (rolling a 1 the first roll results in a 16, neither a win, loss or break-even, and doesn't count):

(15 total)

0

50

100

200

-200

-200

-200

0

50

100

200

-200

-200

-200

-200

(Sum: -700) / 15 = -46.67 expected value

This is not accurate, because not all other outcomes are losses

average win based on all win/break-even conditions:

Sum of win probabilities: (0 + 0 + 50 + 50 + 100 + 100 + 200 + 200) / 8 = 87.5 credits * (8/15) probability = 46.67

46.67 + sum loss probs(-200 * (7/15)) = -93.33

46.67 + -93.33 = -47

OR, not looking at break-evens:

700 / 6 = 116.66 * 6/15 prob = 46.67

46.67 + -93.33 = -47

Now for "4-7" outcomes:

100

200

-200

-200

(Sum: -100) / 4 = (-25) expected value

Breakdown by probabilites:

300 * 0.5 = 150 avg win

-400 / 2 = -200 avg loss

win prob(150 * 0.5) + loss prob(-200 * 0.5) = 75 + -100 = -25

-25 is better than -47, and so you should use "4-7". Since the buttons and rules are the same for both low-stakes and high-stakes, the same methods should be employed for both.

Hope this helps. :)

Better
I´m Thinking They Look Better
 * Were you intending to change all of them? If so, I'd suggest trying to build some sort of community consensus first. --DRY 18:45, January 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, the uploaded images were much lower quality than what we have now. Sorry, but we can't accept them. --Tullis 21:58, January 6, 2010 (UTC)

Mass Effect 2
Since mass effect two is right around the corner, I suggest you change the main page to have a mass effect logo and mass effect two logo on it for the perspective games. Also, the sidemenu needs an overhaul. First item on it should be mass effect and second item should be mass effect 2 and then spawn the menu out on each tab for the perspective games. If the menu isn't easy to read, they will go somewhere else and edit.. Polexian ♦♦Talk♦♦♠♠Leave Message♠♠ 15:20, January 23, 2010 (UTC)

On editing quirkiness...
I spoke to SpartHawg948 about editing problems, and he referred me to you. Thanks for fixing what I screwed up. Anyway, I tried to sandbox what I edited in last time, and again, the table screws up, even though I inserted my text at the end, after the table.

Any ideas as to why it screws up?

Here's my code:

Actually, you should be using "1-8" for 15. Using the "4-7" button will give you a 50-50 chance of winning or losing, but that's not the best odds.

Breakdown using "1-8" button:

1 (16): Roll Again (doesn't count: neither a win nor a loss)

2 (17): Break Even

3 (18): Win

4 (19): Win

5 (20): Win

6 (21): Loss

7 (22): Loss

8 (23): Loss

1, 1 (17): Break Even

1, 2 (18): Win

1, 3 (19): Win

1, 4 (20): Win

1, 5 (21): Loss

1, 6 (22): Loss

1, 7 (23): Loss

1, 8 (24): Loss

Results (15 Outcomes):

Wins: 6 (40.00%)

Break Evens: 2 (13.33%)

Losses: 7 (46.67%)

Non-Loss to Loss Ratio: 53.33 to 46.67

The ratio 53.33 to 46.67 is better than the ratio 50.00 to 50.00. While you may not win as much, you *will* lose less, which gains you more in the long run. For each loss, you have to risk losing again to get back to where you started, so lowering the losing percentage is just as important as increasing the winning percentage.

Thanks again,

VarietyMage 05:37, January 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * Is this being added as plaintext following the table? That should "just work". On an editorial note, I would suggest that you include a brief paragraph outlining the difference between optimizing the rate of return for a single game as opposed to multiple games. I would strongly suggest avoiding the horizontal line markup. Alternatively, add a new section with your data in tabular format with an explicative paragraph. --DRY 07:26, January 26, 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't matter now. When you asked me to include a paragraph about optimizing rate of return, I went to the Wikipedia page on expected value (since I had college statistics over 10 years ago, and forgot a lot of it). I went through all the calculations, and it turns out I was wrong. Outcomes was what I was getting at, but once you run the statistics, you win more using what the table has over time - if you don't lose your shirt by randomness. It has to do with how much you win per each winning outcome, and the one in the table only wins 100 or 200 credits, which bumps up the profit greatly as opposed to added break-evens and 50's doing it my way. Also, the added number of loss conditions (-200 per loss) skews things in the computations. So, all for naught, but a good learning experience for me anyway. Problem solved. Thanks :)

I also added my finding to the person who had a similar question three questions above this one.

VarietyMage 20:13, January 26, 2010 (UTC)

Welcome
Thanks for that, but I actually have an account here. I couldn't be bothered to sign in though since I gave up and left that account to focus on Wikipedia which, honestly, I prefer, because it is far better at containing useful information than the majority of wikis I encounter. While I'm glad to come here for information I may not find elsewhere, the general quality of Wikipedia articles is far better in my view as it doesn't let people (the majority of which are, frankly, morons) add in original research on a whim and Wikipedia needs sources. I mean, when you encounter a Wookiepedia page saying that Darth Vader was involved heavily in stopping an attack by dinosaurs and walking skeletons on the Death Star, Wikipedia would remove that garbage immediately, asking for a source. Wookiepedia took three months to remove it (and I was the one who had to do it...). 217.43.94.6 20:28, January 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * The greetings are actually auto-generated, but welcome nevertheless. We generally have a pretty high standard of proof, but it does tend to discourage casual contributors. It's a bit of a balancing act. --DRY 20:54, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome
I was going to input all the planets but you had already beat me to that. I'm trying to think of the best way to update Cluster:List to include all the new Clusters, but it seems a little troublesome for now. Lotier 04:38, February 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually the excellent community at large has beaten both of us to it. I'd suggest leaving the larger structural wiki elements aside for now: we'll spruce them up once things start to stabilize a bit. (There are several similar bits which are going to need clean up, like the Planet Index, the Milky Way page and so forth.) --DRY 04:41, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

Mass Effect Organization
I have started a forum thread on this. Please provide your imput. I think it looks much better having it separate. Forum:ME1_and_ME2 Polexian ♦♦Talk♦♦♠♠Leave Message♠♠ 11:21, February 4, 2010 (UTC)

Broken Redirect on User's Page
Hi there, can you assist with cleaning up the following broken redirect? This user seems to be inactive. User:PanSola/slate.css Thanks! --Chalta 01:18, February 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Please disregard. Issue has been resolved by user. Thanks. 68.146.79.244 03:12, February 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, that was me --DRY 03:58, February 6, 2010 (UTC)

Hello
Hi, I'm the new admin and bureaucrat at | Mass Effect Fanon. I was wondering if you were the creator of this site because I have a proposal for our two wikis. If you are not, could you please tell me who is, I've had trouble trying to find who is. Thanks.--Bluethunder Talk 02:19, February 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm one of the admins here, but our spiritual leader is undoubtedly User:Tullis. I'm more the nuts-n-bolts guy (templates, dpl, general wikichu&hellip;) here. User:SpartHawg948 rounds out our core team here. --DRY 04:01, February 6, 2010 (UTC)

Greetings and an Easy Question
I'm glad to be on board and hope I don't screw anything up too badly. I've been reading the style guides, and I can't find anything on how to link to a specific location in an article. I managed to jury-rig one with an external link directly to the edit location I wanted (minus the &action=edit), but it's inelegant, and I'd like to know how to link to said location directly.
 * The syntax is User talk:DRY. Be aware that these "anchor links" are very brittle: if anyone changes the section name, the link will be broken, but will not redline &mdash; it will take you to the top of the page instead. --DRY 07:16, February 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you; I'll edit the post to which I was referring with all haste. Sorry about forgetting to sign my first post -- I'm new to Wikia and haven't learnt the habits yet. Immortal Hunger 07:22, February 7, 2010 (UTC)

Style questions and suggestions
I have two style questions/suggestions.

First, I've noticed that some character pages will introduce the characters by name and rank. I'm specifically referring to Ashley Williams, Kaidan Alenko, and David Anderson. The problem I'm having is that they all received promotions, so the ranks can be inaccurate depending on whether you are discussing in reference to either Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2. I would rather have the introductory paragraph be more neutral in reference to time and general background, and have under the section for the specific games, their ranks and any promotions.

Second, I noticed that Liara's Illium quests, Illium: Liara: The Observer and Illium: Liara: Systems Hacking are listed under the Missions tab of the Journal, not the Assignments tab. So I guess they're officially Missions and not Assignments, even though they're rather minor sidequests that do not advance the main plot. Should the be re-categorized as Missions and all the references to them as Assignments be changed?

Seburo 07:25, February 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * If you feel that you can improve an article, by all means have a go; or else discuss it on the relevant talk page. (We usually ask, as a matter of politesse rather than policy, that major changes are discussed before being implemented; but this probably doesn't require that level of debate.) For my part, I have to say that I don't really see a need for rephrasing the character articles. For the missions and assignments, yes, the category should match the journal section. --DRY 16:55, February 12, 2010 (UTC)

Welcome Message
You may have received this before but I really like that auto-generated welcome message. Good info links on it as well. Take care! Flannel Salmon 23:44, February 12, 2010 (UTC)

Getting Admins Notice
I was wondering about where to post questions or comments that directed primarily to the Admins, beside posting a new topic on each user talk page? I posted a couple of questions/suggestions on the Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style talk pages, but apart from yourself, I got no comments from the other Admins. I am aware that it has only been a couple of days, and I'm not trying to push the matter - I'm just not sure the other Admins monitor that page. Is there a more appropriate place to leave a link for my comment/question/suggestion? Somewhere where I know that at some point the Admins will see it? --silverstrike 15:53, February 13, 2010 (UTC)


 * Your best bet is to contact User talk:Tullis and User talk:SpartHawg948 directly. As you might imagine, there is quite a high rate of incoming material at the moment, so things can easily slip through the cracks. --DRY 16:42, February 13, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that Caleston Rift image. Very embarrassing :D

Fun Fun!
Just a quick heads up- had another incident where a Russian spambot created a gibberish article (well, gibberish to those of us who can't read Cyrillic, anyways) that, as near as I can tell, was extolling the virtues of some product called the StressEraser. Last time this happened it wasn't just one, it was a wave of them, usually several a day for about two weeks, I think it lasted. I advised wikia, and they said they were working on it, and then it went away, so I assume they fixed it, but it looks like it may be back! So keep an eye out for them. Hopefully I'm wrong and this was an isolated incident, but better safe than sorry, eh? SpartHawg948 13:29, February 15, 2010 (UTC)

Stores Inventory
I noticed a rise of the amount of articles regarding stores in ME2 that started to list inventory items with their prices. I started to create a template for this (User:Silverstrike/Sandbox/Shop, and also noticed another template in development: Template:ME2Store by Dch2404) but half way through I started to realize that those listings are somewhat redundant and could be listed at one location (Merchants or Stores articles). What are your thoughts on the matter? --silverstrike 17:49, February 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * Could be done either way. Or, if the individual pages use templates, a summary page can be generated using DPL. Having a sidebar on the individual pages at least makes them a little less empty. --DRY 19:02, February 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * In that case, do you prefer I continue to work on my template or should I leave this project for Dch2404 to finish? --silverstrike 19:11, February 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * I suggest that you coordinate your efforts in the best way that suits you both. If we're going to have standardized merchant pages, a Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style/Merchants ought to be created. --DRY 19:14, February 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * If were on the subject - do I have your permission to change the Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style/Weapons article to instruct the use of the ItemsList template? --silverstrike 19:31, February 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see why not, although I'm not familiar with the weapons pages myself. I'm sure someone will revert if they feel strongly that it's inappropriate . (Also, it's good of you to ask, but we don't have any special official policy for Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style above and beyond regular pages. Contributions are welcome, but are subject – as always – to reversion by others. Of course, with meta pages like that, discussion (as you've done) is always a better course.) --DRY 19:37, February 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've already cleaned up ME2Store, only minor formatting/presentation might be left. There should be a merchants page, but it'd be nice to be able to insert a particular store's info into random pages where it could be useful; I'm sure full page listing would be fine... just don't condense it with some other subject (i.e. ME1 & ME2 sections). Do Stores->[Transclude Stores(ME2) & Merchants(ME1)] etc! but that's kindof the ME1/ME2 thing. I just don't see why two pieces of content should be together if at any point it time, one of the pieces would be excluded altogether, like when only playing ME2--0333 20:00, February 15, 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) A summary page or table is most easily done if there are individual merchant pages each using a consistent template from which DPL can fetch the information. For content split discussion, see Forum:ME1 and ME2. --DRY 20:03, February 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you use the link to Forum:ME1 and ME2 as punishment (I sure felt like it while reading it) ;p.
 * On topic: I added the template I created for the ME2 stores with a few questions to Mass Effect Wiki talk:Manual of Style/Merchants --silverstrike 20:22, February 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * Welcome to my world. If you think reading it is fun, try cleaning up multiple different attempts to split, join, re-split, and re-join articles. It's a bit like herding cats. --DRY 21:07, February 15, 2010 (UTC)

Eclipse Vanguard weird squares?
Hi I made edits to the Eclipse Vanguard page and their has being these weird squares on the page, I have no idea what they are, and what I did wrong to put them their? it seems every time I delete one another ends up on the page what am I doing wrong? its realy bugging me :S thanks.DC 17:21, February 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * They seem like unicode markers. Do you use any unicode characters that might cause this? This behavior is somewhat odd, considering that the wiki supports unicode. --silverstrike 17:25, February 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * No and it has never happened on any other pages thats why Im confused by it. When I pasted it onto Word to try and delete it their its a question mark within a black diamond. The weirdest thing is it doesn't let me delete them.UPDATE- managed to delete it got a freind to re-email the text got rid of the squares thank you for trying help, still dont understand why it occured but at least their gone:}.DC 17:35, February 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's a UTF-8 encoded unicode replacement character, which is usually rendered in as a question mark in a diamond. (The UTF-8 is ef bf bd which is U+FFFD.) I'm not certain why that would be happening, although I can think of a couple of potential reasons. Are you cutting and pasting from an external application? If not, are you using the fancy or plain built-in wikimedia editor? Which browser are you using? --DRY 19:02, February 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes I write the articles on the plain wikia page and then copy and paste it to Microsoft word to check on spelling errors and then copy and paste the ammended version back, if their was major/many such mistakes. For the vanguard article though I didnt copy and paste it back because it was small enough just to correct (the blue suns article I copied & pasted but had no square problem). Perhaps I pressed or done something to the vanguard article that messed it up?. But I cant work out why they would not simply delete, being honest im just glad its gone.DC 20:44, February 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * It probably was a character injected into the clipboard by Word (perhaps a non-printing join or somesuch?). Anyway, I'm glad that you've got it sorted out. --DRY 20:48, February 16, 2010 (UTC)

Xbox Wikianswers
Hey DRY, I see you're very active here and was wondering if you'd be able to join us at Xbox Wikianswers. Have a look at User_blog:Joeyaa/A_Call-Out_to_Mass_Effect_Veterans and tell me what you think. Thanks for the time :) Joey (talk) 06:12, February 17, 2010 (UTC)

New blockquote template
I looked at some of the assignments articles and noticed the Blockquote template that is used to show the messages that Shepard get before and after assignments. I thought some styling of the template could enhance certain page.

How it looks now: "Reports tell us you've been operating in the Omega Nebula. We'd like you to look into a situation on Lorek, a nearby planet in the Fathar system. Scan the planet for a base, where we believe Eclipse mercs are holding one of our operatives. You should be able to detect the operative's transmitter. Extract the operative; if the operative is beyond rescue, recover any relevant intel that Eclipse may have collected. This is a very delicate matter, Shepard. We trust in your discretion."

With a bit of styling:

--silverstrike 19:16, February 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's fine in and of itself, but the existing blockquote is used in contexts where the styling would not be suitable (inside Points of Interest tables, for example). I had been thinking about adding an emailquote template, ideally somehow using &lt;poem&gt; to better handle multi-line input, but I've been too swamped both here and in Real Life&trade; to even contemplate it. (Even a pair of templates for email begin and end would be OK, if the parsing gets nasty, e.g. in the presence of other wiki markup – like links – on the quoted text.) That would probably be the best bet, if you can hack one up. --DRY 21:07, February 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Pre-assignment:


 * Post-assignment:


 * After countless edits and revision in which the poem tag refused to parse the  parameter, I checked the documentation for it and found out that the tag have issues (none of the examples they provided helped) - so, for the time being, I replaced the &lt;poem&gt; tag with a &lt;blockquote&gt;. If ever I find a way to revert back to &lt;poem&gt; I'll let you know.
 * There is another style for the mailquote - I couldn't decide on the color scheme - seeing as I'm not so good with colors, you might want to suggest other color values:

&ldquo;&rdquo;
 * For each pre/post assignment letter, there is a template call (same template). --silverstrike 23:35, February 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * The parsing issues are why I mentioned a begin/end pair. However, that doesn't seem necessary:


 * That seems to work reasonably well, although it doesn't play nicely with other block formatting elements like indentation. It's probably good enough, though. In passing, I don't think there's any need to provide multiple colour schemes or to otherwise distinguish "start" and "end" messages through styling: that will usually be naturally expressed in the context in which the message appears. --DRY 00:01, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've applied it to Normandy Crash Site. It looks pretty decent. Thanks for your efforts! --DRY 00:26, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Then I misunderstood your meaning - although, giving the options of colors can be used to make the template suit other needs (journal entries, for example). --silverstrike 01:05, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I'd prefer totally separate templates rather than parameterization when they're used for different purposes, particularly when they're this simple. --DRY 01:12, February 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * While integrated this template to the N7: Blue Suns Base article, I encountered two examples for other uses of similar templates:
 * Journal entries - as noted before
 * Console, PDA, etc. - seem to be on many assignments.
 * Should I create additional templates, use the same template, or should I leave it alone (at least for now)? --silverstrike 02:37, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd just go ahead and use emailquote for all electronic notices; blockquote can continue to be used for things like scanner messages, dialogue boxes and so forth. --DRY 04:11, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Very well. I moved this discussion to the emailquote talk page. --silverstrike 14:34, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Color Scheme
While working on the emailquote template I noticed many articles on the wiki that show tables or generic boxes with color scheme not suited for this wiki. I therefore tried to create a template that will return certain color values based on parameters defined. A few examples: Will return the background value:  for the second color scheme. Will return the alternating color:  for the first scheme (default scheme). I tried to make it as user-friendly as possible. I think this template could simlify the usage of colors in the wiki and can be easily changed in the future. --silverstrike 14:27, February 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's probably not worth the effort at this point. I briefly considered something similar when I started out, but it's simply too much trouble to track down all of the existing uses. Note also that there are various project and skin specific colours defined already in the CSS. --DRY 15:04, February 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * I need to take another look at the stylesheet, but unless those color values are inside a class definition, then we going to have a problem in the near future. I for one, can never remember those values and need to start looking for a template that defines those colors (and then start deciphering the code to extract the color values), and I believe that for the next few months many contributors will add tables, caption boxes, and other styled elements that will need some color definition in order to look right.
 * If you're still think that a template is the wrong way to go, we can always write a Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style/Colors article to indicate what colors are appropriate for various uses. --silverstrike 15:41, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not so much that a template is wrong, it's more that "that boat has sailed". Most casual editors (or even more sophisticated ones) aren't going to take the time to find and use a template (or read a style manual for that matter) so improperly styled elements are inevitable. To an extent that's what the admins are for: trying to maintain a common look and feel based on a knowledge of the wiki as a whole. A quick look at recently added material (weapons, shops, upgrades, mission summaries, various different emails) will give you a sense of how that's working out at the moment, but eventually we'll get caught up. (Note too that most of these new elements weren't even styled using cut-and-paste from elsewhere in the wiki but rather cooked up from scratch. Everyone has their own sense of aesthetics, and everyone likes to express their creativity. But maintaining common look and feel is, at the end of the day, a tedious job of fixing things up after the fact (or trying to catch it in progress) and I suspect no amount of documentation or templates will change that. (For the record, for example, I don't much care for the white infobox backgrounds either, but that's the current standard so that's what I ask people to use.) --DRY 15:59, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I meant to add also that a MoS page would probably be a good idea just as a quick reference for the colour values. Also note that I by no means have the last word on any of this: I can only make suggestions. You could use the MoS:Colors talk page for further discussion of the merits of templates. --DRY 16:01, February 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * So if I understand you correctly, you're saying that we should use it, but that no one is ever going to actually implement the template/MoS guideline?
 * In any case I'll start a topic in the MoS:Colors talk page - maybe we could find a way to implement it. I was also thinking about giving more focus to the MoS articles - until you mentioned them to me (on the summary template talk page) I did not really notice them. Maybe including them is the wiki system message and/or the front page. --silverstrike 16:43, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * For the colours, I'm suggesting that we keep doing what we've been doing which is put them explicitly inline, primarily because I don't want to hunt down and change all of the places that do it that way now. Adding an MoS page would serve as a handy quick reference to the values, though. FWIW, the MoS is mentioned and linked on the front page, on your welcome message, at the foot of the editor window, at the top of a new page creation, etc. I'm not sure more links is the answer. --DRY 16:51, February 18, 2010 (UTC).
 * Either I didn't notice it, or didn't notice its importance (maybe putting it in big red letters - I'm just jesting, of course). I'll start a topic on the talk page and see how we can move it along.
 * I still think that such a template could be a life saver in the long run - think what will happened if someday you want to tweak the site colors - you will need to visit each and every page that uses them, and by that time you might need to visit twice the articles. Now we could do the changes gradually, and take as much time as we want - just a thought. --silverstrike 17:41, February 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * I started the discussion on Mass Effect Wiki talk:Manual of Style/Colors. Later on I'll summarize our discussion. --silverstrike 17:54, February 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * You realize, of course, that what you are suggesting is that we go to the trouble of a complete colour scheme overhaul, without actually changing the colour scheme&heliip;. I can think of lots of better uses for that time. I say we cross that bridge if and when we come to it. --DRY 18:19, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Formatting Headquotes
I noticed you were going through several pages to fix quotes with the headquote tag, but something about your markup made the table of contents start to trample the spoiler bar... so when you do the next few edits, it can be fixed by just adding a after the clr and before the spoilertag. :) I'm going through and fixing the ones I found so far. Just thought I'd let you know! :) --Lilliful 00:33, February 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that heads up. Much appreciated. Which browser are you using, and at what resolution? --DRY 00:35, February 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Firefox, at 1024x768 :) I think I got them all fixed now! --Lilliful 00:36, February 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Odd. What version of Firefox? I'm on a Fedora 9 box and only have 3.0.11 available to me right now. I'll try something slightly less dusty when I get home. (Needless to say, I wasn't seeing any problems in my preview, so apologies for the misformatting.) --DRY 00:40, February 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've got 3.5.7 on my windows work computer here, I'll check how it looks on the most recent version firefox on my mac computer when I get home. Though my browser is informing me it's currently working hard to download 3.5.8 for my installation pleasure, haha! No problem with the formatting, how were you to know? :) --Lilliful 00:42, February 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem is that the wikia site works in quirksmode, that makes floated elements behave badly. It could be fixed through the stylesheet, but will require some work. This bug happens on various elements that don't correspond well to the box model and float model. Personally, I didn't notice the bug, but that could have been due to my screen resolution - the version of firefox and the OS shouldn't matter. --silverstrike 01:03, February 19, 2010 (UTC)

Assignments Page Consistency
Hi there. As I was going through the assignments and their respective pages, I realized that the assignment pages are not consistently organized. For example, some assignments pages has an Acquisition subsection whereas some don't. Same goes for Mission Briefing, Mission Summary, Walk Through and etc. I wonder if something could be done to make all the assignment pages with consistent subsections. Teugene 12:01, February 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * We've been working on it steadily, and you're welcome to contribute. See Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style/Assignments and Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style/Missions. At a minimum, non-compliant pages should be marked with cleanup. --DRY 15:28, February 19, 2010 (UTC)

ME2 Article Overhaul and Integration of Templates
I just notice a big overhaul made by Dch2404 to the Combat article, separating it to ME and ME2 articles. As I understand those kind of changes only occur after a discussion and admin approval (I didn't notice a discussion regarding this). Should those changes be reverted?

There were also many creations of templates with immediate integration into articles without them being approved (I don't object to them, specifically). It might sound like I'm complaining, but I just want to understand the admin point of view regarding such changes. --silverstrike 19:19, February 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * We ask that all contributors try to cooperate and coordinate their activities. I personally would prefer that this sort of thing be done all at once in a controlled manner, with suitable notice to the community. Additions to the template space are also not forbidden, but it would certainly be better if they were discussed first to avoid the inevitable effort that has to be put into trying to retain a common look-and-feel. --DRY 20:38, February 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification :) --silverstrike 20:45, February 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Basically, it's pretty permissive &mdash; particularly right now because of the enormous volume of RCs. But, since we're users as well as contributors, we reserve the right to revert exactly as anyone else can. Obviously, we try to exercise a high standard of care owing to the potential for perception of abuse and I personally try to stick to the one-revert-rule. You will very seldom see me, at least, try to outright forbid anything short of vandalism or other grossly inappropriate behaviour. (At least I hope that's what I do.) --DRY 20:55, February 19, 2010 (UTC)

Quick Question:
Did Saren72 talk to you at all about these race boxes he's been doing? They just started popping up, and they seem really poorly planned out to me. Full of speculation, and info that is only partially true b/c it deals with canon issues and whatnot. It's news to me, so I wanted to see if you'd heard anything about it. SpartHawg948 21:44, February 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * "Never heard of him." I have to admit that I'm so busy just with watchlist hits (several hundred a day – I assume you too), that I've given up watching the RC list and I'm getting blindsided by a lot of this stuff. (FWIW, I didn't even realize that Template:Character had been changed until someone pointed it out to me. I also really wish there was a way to be notified of all page creates: that would make my life much simpler.) Actually, there are quite a lot of new templates by various authors popping up here and there with no real unifying scheme. Some look quite good and some are pretty awful; none of them use the existing colours. For my part, I'd much prefer that we have a single look-and-feel &mdash; and I don't much mind what it is &mdash; but that will have to wait until things cool down a bit. There are so many structural and information presentation issues (Upgrade guide, natch) that I haven't had much time for aesthetics. --DRY 21:52, February 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I hear that! Yeah, trying to keep ahead of things has been keeping me mighty busy as well. These just struck me as ill-thought-out, and so many contained speculation or half-truths, so I removed them. The user in question has already protested and I left a reply, so we'll see where it goes. SpartHawg948 21:58, February 19, 2010 (UTC)

They only possess 3 points of information: sapience, home planet, and Citadel status. A small table of data is very useful to quickly get a view of where the race stands in the universe and I think most would prefer it to scanning through the article. The only real small problem has been Citadel status, which some question whether we should add whether they are a Council race. This raises a problem with canon depending on whether the Council is saved, but can be easily avoided by just only stating that they have reached embassy status, which is not a lie, it just deliberately leaves out some information. And I did use the existing Character Template as a guide to make sure the new Race Template matched with it to get uniformity across the Wiki. Hawg had a problem with the Keepers box, saying it was unnecessary, but it IS necessary to keep uniformity. Sorry about not bringing it to your attention beforehand, but I thought they made the articles look much better. -Saren72 22:20, February 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * But you can't claim that the Keeper box was necessary to "keep uniformity" while at the same time not having boxes on the rachni and Prothean pages. Only having race boxes for some of the races is hardly uniform. Factor in to this as well that we don't know the homeworlds for several of the races, and that being included in the races footer and category is an automatic indicator of sapience, and that pretty much removes the need for the box. You can't cite the desire for uniformity as justification for implementing a new box that, if anything, makes the races pages even less uniform. (also, apologies to DRY for having this all end up on your talk page... it wasn't my intent when I first broached the question!) SpartHawg948 23:19, February 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * There weren't boxes on the Rachni and Prothean pages because I wasn't finished yet. You started taking them down while I was still in the process. --Saren72 23:45, February 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry... I figured that since there had been about an hour and a half between the last box you added and when I started taking the boxes down, they were pretty much done. Regardless, the other points I made about speculation, half-truths and such, and the vagueness and inaccuracy of the "categories" being used for the Citadel Status section stand. SpartHawg948 23:55, February 19, 2010 (UTC)

Thank you.
I saw you tweaking the updated images of Sol's planets. Since I know you, I must say thanks for organizing it for me. KaTiON PT 23:46, February 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem. It's not obvious, but we usually use 320px for the dimensions. (That dratted Rich Text editor really does a number on the formatting of template arguments too&hellip; ) Also note that there's no particular pressing need to replace those images. --DRY 23:49, February 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * Atleast it makes the page more beautifull :) KaTiON PT 23:57, February 22, 2010 (UTC)

Messing around with templates
I am working a few projects that I'd like your input:
 * The MoS:Colors article: There are a few things regarding the styles that are still unclear to me (exact color values, how data tables should look like, etc.) - without any input I can't move forward with writing the article (MoS:Colors talk page).
 * Article management tags: mainly the Delete and Merge templates that could be expanded to include the date in which they were added to the page, a link to a specific talk page/discussion, and supported comments or links. Other then those two, I also created a Overhaul template (that can be seen on the Timeline article), and more styling for other tags could be a nice addition.
 * Collapsible feature/script: There are a few implementations of such behavior, such as for infobox, hiding spoilers (was suggested today), and may be helpful in other situations.
 * Other projects: projects like the Summary infobox and the MultiPage proposals, that are currently on hold for lack of final answer or more comments.

I can either leave those projects (and maybe stop messing around with templates altogether), continue based on your comments on those issues, or start to work on other projects you feel are more productive. I leave the decision to you. --silverstrike 18:36, February 23, 2010 (UTC)

(Addition) I also started migrating existing template to the new darker scheme (seeing as this is the preferred one). I posted a comment on Template talk:Planet with an example. --silverstrike 13:40, February 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd strongly suggest that you check with User:Tullis and User:SpartHawg948 before you make any final changes. --DRY 18:03, February 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course. Just wanted to let you know about the proposal :) --silverstrike 18:13, February 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * I left SpartHawg948 a notice, and he replied with his approval - in regard to Tullis, I noticed today that she updated her user page with a notice that she won't be on the wiki until the end of March, so I don't won't to bug her about this, unless you think that we should wait for her approval. --silverstrike 20:38, March 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see any urgent need to wait. Judging by her previous comments, she is neutral with respect to the issue.  If you do go ahead and update, be careful when merging your changes with the current state of the template so as to avoid accidentally reverting revisions (if any) since you took your sandbox snapshot.  --DRY 20:43, March 2, 2010 (UTC)

Manual of Style - Missions
According to the Manual of Style/Missions, in the initial paragraph it says: Text from the in-game journal description (only). Additional commentary belongs in Trivia (or the Talk page). However, I noticed -most- missions and assignments have other introductory text here, for example in the Prologue: Awakening paragraph, it says:
 * Prologue: Awakening is the second mission of the prologue. It begins right after completing Prologue: Save Joker, and it serves a dual purpose as a tutorial, providing a basic combat tutorial and introducing field mission concepts. This mission situates Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect 2 universe as a Cerberus operative with a new team.

Which pretty much sums up or gives a good insight about the mission. It is similar to most missions or assignments in the wiki.

So I wonder, is this kind of information wrong since it's against the style manual? It doesn't really fit in the trivia section, and (imo) is too important to put in the talk page. Is there another place to put this info if the starting paragraph requires the in-game journal description?

Is the info in the style manual obsolete and needs to be changed, or are the missions wrong? Please clarify :) --Spoo12 13:01, February 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * The missions are wrong. (You'll note the cleanup tag on Prologue: Awakening, for example.) Information like that probably best fits at the start of the walkthrough section. --DRY 16:36, February 25, 2010 (UTC)

I've been trying to clean up some articles to follow the style manual, and trying to add in-game descriptions to some of them. However, please read what I wrote in the talk page here. Thanks. --Spoo12 23:51, February 25, 2010 (UTC)

Spoiler tags
Do we have a plain old generic spoiler tag anymore? I know we used to have one, but it no longer appears to exist. I tried to use it for a Mass Effect: Redemption spoiler, but the best I could do is the Mass Effect spoiler tag. Without a generic tag, we're kind of SOL (pardon the expression) for spoilers regarding Mass Effect Galaxy, Mass Effect: Redemption, and SpartHawg948 04:39, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * The following spoiler tags exist:
 * Spoilers (Mass Effect) aka spoiler
 * Spoilers (Mass Effect 2) aka MassEffect2Spoilers)
 * Spoilers (Ascension) aka AscensionSpoilers
 * Spoilers (Revelation) aka RevelationSpoilers
 * I've just added straw-man banners for:
 * Spoilers (Galaxy)
 * Spoilers (Redemption)
 * Spoilers (Retribution)
 * Feel free to adjust them as needed. You can easily use SpoilerBanner to construct new ones too. Note that the old spoiler tag actually always linked to the Mass Effect page; I only slightly shortened the non-link text. --DRY 14:16, February 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Also handy is Category:Article management templates. --DRY 14:18, February 26, 2010 (UTC)

Zaeed links...
I'm really sorry about that. I honestly didn't know what I was doing. I had a passing though, "You know, DRY is an admin here so he must know what he is doing." I didn't pay much attention though because I had everything open in separate tabs ready to go, and then I just hit the "Save Page" button on each of them. I made double the work for you, and I would have undone them all myself. &mdash;ArmeniusLOD 00:26, March 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * These things happen. For my part, I apologize for being short with you.  I had just finished spending ten minutes undoing a previous user's similarly misguided changes and I was a bit irked.  The idea is either to have a page (or pages) for the DLC (perhaps on Downloadable Content) or else to temporarily redirect them somewhere sensible using a single redirect so that it can easily be undone later.  --DRY 00:29, March 2, 2010 (UTC)

Wikia caching issue
I noticed that for the past week or so (maybe more) the cache does not seem to be updated. Do you know anything about it? --silverstrike 18:22, March 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * No I hadn't, but individual wiki maintainers (like the three of us here) don't have visibility into configuration issues at that level. Raise a Problem Report if you think there's a genuine issue and I can arrange to have it dealt with.  --DRY 19:24, March 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * I sent Wiki Central a mail through their contact form. When I get a reply, I'll update you on the status. --silverstrike 20:32, March 2, 2010 (UTC)