User talk:SpartHawg948

I hate the way images look when added to talk pages. They mess with the flow of the page, and generally look just plain unsightly. As such, I ask that editors please not post images on my talk page. If you have an image that supports your point, feel free to provide a link to that image, but please don't add the image itself. From this point on, any such posts will be summarily removed as soon as they are noticed, with no warning or explanation.

Auto-refresh
By any change, do you know why some wikis have an auto-refresh feature on special activity page and some don't? I'm asking this because I would love to enable it on Mass Effect Answers site which unfortunately lacks it. If you have an idea how to do it, or where to look for this information, please tell me. Mitranim 10:03, July 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * If I'm not mistaken, it requires a custom Javascript implementation, hence it depends whether the wiki want to have the feature or not. You could ask Lancer as he was the one who implemented it. — Teugene (Talk) 10:37, July 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll wait for Lancer's answer, then. Mitranim 10:49, July 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * If you are awaiting Lancer's answer, please ask him your question on his talk page first. I try to keep conversations that take place on my talk page that don't involve me to a bare minimum. Thanks, SpartHawg948 15:39, July 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I will. Mitranim 16:38, July 11, 2011 (UTC)

Quick Request
As I was just looking around today, I noticed several pages in the Mass Effect Category. One of these pages is User talk:Skypopper with a spoiler template on his talk page. However, the template was left by you in your comment, so could you just remove it to solve the problem? Thanks. I probably will end up doing this for a while to make sure we didn't miss anything. One category a week, that way I can keep track of it. Lancer1289 17:01, July 11, 2011 (UTC)

Opinion needed
Hey there! I wonder if you could head over to the Clusters table redesign project and drop an opinion or two there? Thanks! — Teugene (Talk) 18:07, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

Archiving
Maybe you ought to archive the page now that it's over 100 sub-headings... heh. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 22:16, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

Anon vandal
Check out this pages history, there are two different anons vandalising this users page. Sort 'em out. :)  N7  &#91; T &#124; C &#93; 08:56, July 24, 2011 (UTC)


 * It's a vandal from the Answers site who have become obsessed with me. I suggest locking my profile and talk page on this site to prevent the hassle of undoing vandal edits. The user has a dynamic IP (or uses a proxy), so blocking him/her by IP is unfortunately not going to work. Mitranim 09:01, July 24, 2011 (UTC)
 * Both IPs blocked. Sorry for the delay... SpartHawg948 09:16, July 24, 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks.  N7  &#91; T &#124; C &#93; 09:17, July 24, 2011 (UTC)
 * You bet. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'd have noticed eventually, but leaving me a message about it ensured they got blocked faster. Good looking out! :D SpartHawg948 09:18, July 24, 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem bro. Oh and he's back...  N7  &#91; T &#124; C &#93; 09:40, July 24, 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah another one of these people. I had a similar thing a few months ago, and the fallout was pretty bad at times, so hopefully this person won't be a dedicated, and you can find what happened above on this page somewhere, and in my archives. Lancer1289 15:39, July 24, 2011 (UTC)

No, this one is pretty much nothing like the one you're referring to. There's pretty much nothing in common between the two of them. SpartHawg948 18:24, July 24, 2011 (UTC)

Pausing the Language Policy vote
As I jumped the gun a bit on the voting, effectively skipping the Discussion phase, would you mind pausing the vote on my Language Policy proposal, so that the changes could be discussed?
 * I was going to wait till everyone else had answered and then say "No, I don't want to stop it", but... since you're asking so nicely, sure. I woulda figured that overwhelming community support for the policy in not one but two votes would be enough to preclude any further efforts, but I guess not... :P SpartHawg948 21:26, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Mass Effect Wiki scavenger hunt
Hi! I'd like to let you know that Wikia would like to put a (new and improved) scavenger hunt game up on Mass Effect wiki. To see what it's all about, you can check out this presentation of one done for Avengers. We'd also like to hear your feedback on the feature once it's up and running. The game looks fun, so I hope you're up for it too. :) Ausir(talk) 22:01, July 28, 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds great! Yeah, it does look like a lot of fun, and it should be great fun for the community. If there's anything you need from me for this, just let me know! Thanks for taking the time to leave me this message, and thanks to you and everyone at Wikia for considering us for this! :D SpartHawg948 23:18, July 28, 2011 (UTC)

Inbox
Spart, if you wouldn't mind checking your email as I've got two questions for you, and one of them has been bugging me for a while. Lancer1289 19:38, August 8, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming you mean the email I just got done responding to. SpartHawg948 19:40, August 8, 2011 (UTC)

Updating rights to remove unnecessary blog post comments
Hey Spart,

I have an idea that I'm pondering whether or not to put into a forum, but since you're the bureaucrat here, I'd like to ask your input on it first.

I notice that on this wiki, only Admins and B-crats (and I think the blog post creator) have the ability to delete unnecessary or irrelevant comments in blog posts, and no one else. Conversely, on Avatar Wiki, Rollback Users (myself included) have the ability and are in fact mandated to scour the comments sections of each article (and blog) and delete comments which are either unnecessary, irrelevant, inappropriate, and/or inflammatory to the page/blog at hand. Granted, there are many more RUs there than here (obviously, myself included), but I believe that the Senior Editors like myself and Teugene, etc.. should be extended the privileges to remove these types of comments from the above-mentioned blog pages. This is in light of a few recent blogs which strayed very heavily off-course, such as with the blog on James Vega's supposed class which we both contributed to that unnecessary tangent.

I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter, and if acceptable, how I should proceed to write the forum. Thanks in advance. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem 21:30, August 8, 2011 (UTC)
 * To be quite honest, I'm not entirely cool with the idea, for the sole reason that I don't like the criteria given. I can't speak for the individual admins, but personally, I only delete blogs and blog comments in two cases: If they are pure vandalism, or if the author of the blog requests it. Other than that, I don't mess with them. If the Senior Editors are cool operating within those constraints, I'm fine with it. If it's to be expanded to include subjective labels such as "unnecessary, irrelevant," and "inflammatory", I'm not fine with it. Generally, I'm an opponent of deleting any content from areas that exist to give editors an outlet to speak. After all, whose definition of unnecessary trumps whose here? SpartHawg948 07:00, August 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * Since you can't speak for me, I'll speak for myself then. I also only delete blog comments in those two cases, or mine if I don't like it. I would also have to concur that the criteria given is vague and even if it was laid out, I know I still won't support it. Even if there are long discussions completely off topic, what you can do is just recommend a better place for it. Sometimes it doesn't work, but that is still the best way to go about it. Also Spart makes one, great, excellent point, who's definition of those words do we use? Right now, I have to say that the system currently in place works and if something gets off topic, the blog's author can tell people where the appropriate place for that discussion is, and if it continues, then their posts will be deleted. If it continues, then the author can request the comments be deleted, Commdor did this not too long ago on one of his blogs. That I think is a system that works, and I won't be in favor of expanding it as someone could delete a comment that they may think has nothing to do with the blog, but in reality, might be quite relevant. Lancer1289 17:08, August 9, 2011 (UTC)

Interesting Discovery
Hey Spart, I know when LotSB came out you got all the UD for the Broker and his various reactions to squadmates. Well I discovered something and I'm not willing to declare it an isolated case. I decided to do LotSB before completing Kasumi's Loyalty Mission and the Broker's dialogue changed. Again, I'm sure if this is an isolated case, but I doubt it, and I may test it with others, but I figured I should tell you of this as I found it interesting, and since you did a lot of the work on this end, I figured you would as well. Lancer1289 03:10, August 13, 2011 (UTC)

"Affiliated Wikis"
Hey, Spart -- how you've been, mate? ^^ We are currently going in a revamp on ACWiki's main page and portal system, and the opportunity arose for us to dedicate a section of the main portal to "affiliated wikis" -- kinda a partnership between wikis. Right now the only useful thing so far is that you may increase your reader and editors visits since both our wikis have a lot of movement and some fans of AC may like ME and viceversa, but at least nothing wrong can come of it XD The way its done is pretty simple (example pic here) : We list the logos of partner wikis on a section of our main page, with the intent of increasing flow between wikis and try to bring a overall closer... bond. We already have Prototype and Infamous Wiki on it, and I'm talking with a friend at DAWiki about it too -- you guys want to join? =] -- D. Cello 13:31, August 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear it! =D I also would like to inform you that Dragon Age Wiki is on board with the affiliation thing too (just waiting for their community approval), and somethign came up while talking to them -- since we are all gaming wikis about giant universe games with lots of story in a sci-fi setting, and given the fact that ME and DA are both made by Bioware, we may benefitiate of a partnership between the three wikis. As I said before, altough joint projects or opportunites may appear in the future, the first goal is simply to increase readership between wikis, and given the fact that each of wikis have around 200k readers every month or more, we can heavily increase the traffic and popularity of each site. People who like story usually are interested in RPGs, and AC, DA and ME have a deeper reach and are 3 of the biggest franchises in existence right now =] If a three way (or a group partnership isntead of one-wiki-on-one-wiki) interests you guys, besides contacting me, you can also talk to User:Tierrie on DAWiki if you want to feel them or get now them better or anything -- I've know Tierrie for over a year, and he is the creator of the portal coding in ACWiki, and a very nice person. This involves little effort and can have great gains for all of us. Let's make this happen! ;D -- D. Cello 01:34, August 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * Hahaahaha XD I'm honored ^^ It's already on my user page XD -- D. Cello 03:14, August 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice! SpartHawg948 03:24, August 17, 2011 (UTC)

You look like you know what your doing.
Hey, I'm new to this site and I think it's a great source of not only helpful tips but some fun info too. I was reading your bio and I live in Los Gatos, close to you. Anyway enough with the meaningless info. I love Mass Effect, played both of them through about 4-5 times. I've finally done everything you can and now I'm focused on making this site as good as possible. Any advice?
 * Thanks! It's always nice to hear people saying good things about the wiki. And yup, we do live pretty close to each other. I actually go to Los Gatos when I need to do anything at the DMV. Your DMV is a lot better than the one in Santa Clara. As for advice... hmmm... well, right now we're in a bit of a quiet spell. The only big things happening in the ME world are new tidbits about ME3. So... the big things are to watch out for vandalism, and undo it whenever you see it, and if you see any errors in articles (factual or spelling or whatever), don't hesitate to fix them. And if there are any tidbits of information that are left out of articles, but that you think would benefit them, feel free to add them. Of course, there will be times when things are touch-and-go, and times when your edits will be undone, and when admins may leave you messages about this or that, but don't get discouraged. It happens to everybody from time to time. Oh, and feel free to contribute in discussions in forums, blogs, talk pages, etc. It can be a good way to get to know the community. We have some pretty awesome "regulars" at this wiki. And that's about it... those are my quick tips to success. SpartHawg948 09:29, August 15, 2011 (UTC)

About the N7Academy...
I don't want you to think that I don't have faith in your negotiating skills or that you won't keep the interests of the wiki foremost. I believe given the opportunity you will strike a good bargain for this partnership, in fact, that is my main fear. It seems like keeping up with rumors, "trivia", and vandalism is hard already at times, but it's a good idea to try and drive more traffic to the site. However, if you drive traffic from a FAN site and that site has an "official partner" label, the referrals from the site will naturally expect to see content that supports the site that referred them. They won't find that information here, of course, but this is a wiki. They can just create the content they want to see. This content can be a catalog of fanfics, top bloggers on N7Academy, gallery tips...etc. Soon, ME3 will be released, and the content in existing articles plus new article will probably double by next June, anyway. Do you really want the extra hassle of weeding, deleting, and arguing that could come out of the situation I described PLUS dealing with all the new stuff from ME3? I think adding this kind of partner in that kind of situation is just more trouble than it's worth. That's my only point.--Captainhu 08:43, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * It's definitely a good point. It's got merit, I don't dispute that, and I expect that you're right, I just don't think it would manifest itself on quite the scale you're concerned about. That said, I will certainly keep your concern in mind, and rest assured, if the majority of respondents from the community agree with you, I'll let the folks at N7Academy know the deal is off. It doesn't matter how much I support an idea, I won't go against the will of the community. I hope also that my comments and responses don't seem like I'm brushing you off or anything. I'm pretty tired at the moment, and my comments can sometimes come off sounding a good deal different than they sound in my head. I take your concerns seriously, and will keep them in mind whatever the outcome of the current discussion. Thanks again for taking the time to express your concerns. Community involvement is key to the success of any wiki, and awesome community members like you make this wiki what it is! :D SpartHawg948 09:23, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, SpartHawg948. I know nothing said here is formal yet, but I'd like to attempt to reassure Captainhu that we're well aware of his or her concerns as well, and would ask that you give us an opportunity to present our ideas before worrying about things like vandalism or damaging the integrity of your content (things we are not in the habit of allowing on our own site).  Much of what we have in mind will require minimal moderation on MEWiki admins' part, at most, and won't infringe on the Wiki itself.  When you and your team are ready to negotiate, I'd like to welcome you to register on N7A where I've set up a place for us to discuss.  Let me know then and I'll set your access to the specific area asap.  Thanks for your time. N7 Spectre 01:12, August 20, 2011 (UTC)

Something You Might Want to Read
User blog:Ser Pouce-a-lot/Too many spoilers for ME3. There is a comment line that you might want to read in that blog. The thread starts with a comment by JediSpectre117 saying "Please go to the Dragon age wiki and see what they do there." Lancer1289 18:05, August 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yup. I've been perusing it. I've seen some really out-there notions, and misinformation (intentional or otherwise) from several sources. As for the Dragon Age Wiki spoiler idea, I'm still tentatively in favor of it, just as I was last time it came up. Though your comment seems to claim otherwise... :P SpartHawg948 22:57, August 16, 2011 (UTC)

Affiliate program
Hey there SpartHawg948! I don't think we've talked before but I am a huge fan of this Wiki. I use it to do all my lookups during my Mass Effect playthroughs. I've worked closely with User:D. Cello and I respect what he has done for Assassin's Creed. I've asked my peers and the community what they think and we've gotten some positive feedback for some cross wiki linking.

We will put up some subtle links and we will cross promote any big giveaways or promotions you are having for the big drives. I like what User:D. Cello has done as far as putting the affiliate program on his front page (albeit buried deep down). I'm going to see the final product looks like before we implement one ourselves. I'll keep you posted. Cheers! -- 20:06, August 18, 2011 (UTC)