Talk:Cerberus Daily News

General Design and Maintenance of the Page
So about the Contents box, it's going to become enormous unless it's redesigned to be more compact. Might be better to list entries by month rather than day and week? Imagine it a year from now.


 * We might have to split this up, depending on how long BioWare supports this. If this goes on until Mass Effect 3 we could very well have several hundred of these daily updates on our hands. Maybe make a separate article every two or three months, and have Cerberus Daily News be a kind of hub page for all the articles. -- Commdor (Talk) 05:39, February 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * I was thinking about this the last couple days I have been updating it. I agree, and I don't see any sign of them stopping. Maybe there should be a page for each individual MONTH of Cerberus Daily News (like "Cerberus Daily News: February 2010"), and then have this page serve as a sort of hub that links to them? It may also make sense to have the current week posted on this page as well, for ease of use? That way, if someone wants to just check out the current, most recent news, they can check out this page, but they can easily find the archives here as well, without the page getting super clogged up. Aisynia 06:10, February 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * Just thinking; maybe keep an archive like this up to date, but the hub page could have a list of news updates grouped into stories that pertain to each other? Might be an easier way of digesting it. FrankieJetson 21:51, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

If it's possible maybe the latest news update could be included on the front page of the wiki in a sidebar or somesuch? That would be a neat way of keeping up to date without having to scroll down the page itself. Good job whoever takes the time to update this page, I can't stand trying to read the box in the game itself! FrankieJetson 18:41, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestions of both Frankie and Aisynia -- if this continue as they are, it is definitely going to be too long, and the Cerberus Daily News page itself should probably serve as a hub that contains general information about what the news is for, what it does, and then link to to the relevant news content. But, definitely having the most recent update around on that page would be nice. However, I just hope that someone would always remember to update it :) --Lilliful 20:43, February 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * Someone did some nice formatting, and now I'm working on some of what I was speaking of above. Here's how I am approaching this article (in addition to format changes already made). I put today's news specifically at the top, as the first topic. After that, is an archives topic. This means that each day, "Todays news" needs to be updated, as well as the archive. For right now, I have left the current month posted on the main Cerberus Daily News page. I am wondering, how should we handle this? Should we keep the current month on there and then remove it when the month changes? As in, when march comes, remove all February entries now that we have an archive? Or should we keep it the way it is? We coudl also keep only the current week.. OR we could also keep the last seven days. I favor the latter, but wanted to give it a couple days to gather opinion before I went ahead and made sweeping changes like that. Aisynia 06:40, February 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Aisynia, I definitely think keeping the Cerberus Daily News (CDN) Page as current as possible is good. Remove previous months and only list the current month news and links to the archives of each month. I'd help with the news, but I can't even read it on my TV. And as someone else mentioned, the CDN page could become a hub that points to the current month and the archives with explanation of what the news means and what effect if any it has for the player. -- (Lone Hunter 22:42, February 23, 2010 (UTC))

Since we are dividing the news into separate month articles, I think the "Week One/Two/Three/Four" division might need to be thrown out entirely, or make it that "Week One" always starts as the 1st of that month, regardless of whether it is a Sunday or not. For example, January 31st should be moved off the February page. At the current rate, there is going to end up being a lot of overlap between months. --Saren72 21:58, February 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. February 28th ended up on the March page as well. I think the week divisions are useful, because they split up the articles into separate sections and add some organization to the pages, but I still think the articles should be on the correct page for their month. So maybe sort by month, then by week? i.e. February 28th would end up being week 5 of February, and March 1st-6th would be week 1 of March? --Rycr 17:26, March 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed, now do we know the year these take place? 2185 when Shepard wakes up? If so, did he wake up in January 2185 or later in the year and CDN will showcase that. They do go by our Calendar so it's definitely not a leap year.


 * Maybe they take place after the end of ME2 in 2186 or maybe the end of ME2 was in January 2185? -- (Lone Hunter 18:03, March 1, 2010 (UTC))
 * I'm inclined to agree. I can't see any reason why we can't have the January 31st entry in as January week 4 as it fell on a Sunday. Most people think of new weeks beginning on a Monday. Equally, once that is moved the others will fall into place correctly so we will avoid the confusion of having the odd day slipping into the next week. Based on the consensus I'll sort this now, we can always undo if it doesn't work. I would also imagine that these news reports are for 2185. Edit: Done. FridgeRaider88 22:18, March 1, 2010 (UTC)

So then I guess at the end of March, we'll have to make a new Week Five heading for the last 3 days. --Saren72 22:22, March 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Right, and Week One of April will have 04/01 to 04/04 (inc). EIther way we do it there will be a compromise, but I think this should reduce confusion. FridgeRaider88 22:26, March 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey, I think we should have a seperate section in the disscussion page for people to voice their opinions of the various news articles. Sothourn5678 17:29, August 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * That's really more what the forums are for. What are talk pages for? See Mass Effect Wiki:Community Guidelines. SpartHawg948 20:03, August 9, 2010 (UTC)

Interactions in game?
The latest news report states that there will be deleages from the new alien race on the citadel, will they be appearing in game, or is the report as close as we're gonna get to them? -- Looq 19:22, Febuary 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Since they are delegates from a new race, they'll probably be on the Presidium, meeting the Council or something like that. The Presidium isn't playable, so you probably won't see any in-game. -Rycr 20:34, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's something we'll see in Mass Effect 3, or for a future DLC. --Spoo12 21:09, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

There are some interesting DLC possibilities hinted at here. There's the corporate forces fighting the Krogan warlord, and now the whole Facinus thing. Both have the look of things that Shepard might want to look into, especially since Shepard could still be a Spectre at this point. --OmegaPaladin 12:05, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

Archiving of recent news.
This archiving of recent news is both unnecessary and annoying. Not everyone checks this page everyday, to have to go to the archive page simply because they missed one day is stupid. Having the currents month news up does not clutter the page unnecessarily so that can hardly be used as an excuse. If anything should be deleted it is the archive for the current month. Not only would it actually be easier to just copy paste the news into an archive at the end of the month, it would remove redundancy without being annoying. Finally I made this page so it would have more functionality than just reading the news on the Cerberus Network but if its only showing today's news then then it's simply equal to the Cerberus Network (except for the scrolling).Bastian964 02:31, March 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that it makes sense to have more than just the news from the current day on this page. Are we sure we want to have a full month on this page though? I imagine the best options would be one of either 1 week, 2 weeks or 1 month. Any more than this and it'll probably start to feel cluttered. FridgeRaider88 10:05, March 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree as well, but I would prefer either the whole month or just keep it up to date daily. If you do it by month at least it reduces the amount of work necessary to keep it up to date. The current way just means someone has a constant job of keeping the article current each day. And I don't think anyone should do that. So if we do it by month, then the archive for the current month should only be created at the end of the month. -- (Lone Hunter 21:49, March 2, 2010 (UTC))

Canocity?
See i get the impression fromm the moderators and most other people that the cerbrus daily news updates are not being treated as fully canon, is there a reason for this? or am i mistaken? whats the deal? ralok 03:42, May 15, 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, the news should be treated as 'flavor material' (I.E possible canon). 216.73.64.6 13:49, May 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Why? there is no reason for that, it comes from canon sources, how is it any less canon than anything else. ralok 01:01, May 18, 2010 (UTC)

I'm more worried about clan Urdnot suppling weapons to those forces Binary Heliz are fighting, if that is indeed canon.Paladin cross 14:00, May 31, 2010 (UTC)

Well they are canon, but nothing like the summer movie thing will probabaly be refrenced in the third game.MEffect Fan 14:04, May 31, 2010 (UTC)

Turian Duel
With this war between the sepertast and the turian government, and the coming duel, probably tomarrow on D-Day, and the distrust. It seems to me that the easiest way to solve the duel crisis is to have an old favorite.

The flintlock single-shot duel. Like here in Andrew Jackson`s life. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheCobaltAgent#p/c/78B31348FA9A97D4/1/dsV3hJtriBE. It is so much simpler. Sothourn5678 02:04, June 6, 2010 (UTC)

Headline layout change
What I want to do is give each report a unique headline and replace "See also" dates with direct links between related reports. As it is, the dates are just a bunch of numbers and it has become difficult to distinguish individual articles since most have nearly the same title. The following is an example of a single report under this new system:

06/16/2010 - Spaedar Captured by Colonialist Forces
"Colonialist forces on Taetrus have announced the capture of the city of Spaedar tonight after several days of fighting. Surrendering citizens are pouring into the safe camps, housing centers built during the city's initial construction for just such an occasion. These have already been supplied with cots, toilets, antibiotics, food, and medical staff. Meanwhile, gunfire erupted on the streets as citizen snipers tried to stop house-to-house killings by the hastatim, soldiers whose job more or less translates to 'execution squads.' The army is keeping close-mouthed about casualty estimates, and underground extranet sites say anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 people were killed today in Spaedar alone. Even Facinus sympathizers are having trouble calling the resistance a success, but they claim anywhere from 200 to 500 colonial casualties."
 * Other stories in The War on Taetrus: (First - Previous - Next)

As you can see, each series of reports will be given a more general name, and links provided to the first report in that series and the previous and next reports. Series that have reached a definite end can have a link added to that series' last report. This is much more convenient to navigate and easier to update. If I get the go-ahead (or at least no virulent opposition), I'll start implementing the necessary changes. -- Commdor (Talk) 01:39, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * At first glance I like it. Right now all those dates are just noise after the article, and this would really help it out. A minor objection might be: How do we determine what series an news article would belong to if it covers two ongoing events? Just multiple (Other stories in...?) lists?
 * And, if this were to be implemented, I think a template would greatly speed the ability of someone to add an article to a "series", eg, so the example you gave above would be easily included by saying  . I haven't thought too much about the details, but I believe that would be feasible. At the very least, some sort of template should be used for that task, even if all it does is apply a consistent formatting. Dammej 01:59, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought about suggesting a template could be made, but I didn't think that would work because all section headings would vary considerably and there's no way I can think of for us to input plain dates and have that link to the date + headline format of the section headings. If you can make it work, though, then by all means proceed. As for your first issue, yeah, I was just thinking of having multiple "Other stories" bullets. -- Commdor (Talk) 02:06, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * Like I said, I haven't thought too much about the details. :) Luckily, the template only needs to figure out how to link to 3 (maybe 4) things. Also fortunate: all CDN stories have a pretty standard link structure. Namely: Cerberus Daily News - (Month/year if not current)#Date - (some extra junk) The first part should be pretty easy to parse. Getting the link to correctly jump to the correct anchor on the page is the potentially tricky bit. If it looks like people support this change, I'd be happy to look into it (if you wouldn't mind, that is!) Dammej 02:18, June 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * Go for it, it's fine by me. -- Commdor (Talk) 02:21, June 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * This sounds good to me. The 'see also' sections have started turning into a wall of text. I've never been overly happy with the current headlining system. I'm happy to help implement this when I get home from work tonight. FridgeRaider88 09:05, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * The only problem I could see happening with this is if stories are added to the archives ahead of time, resulting in them being in the template twice. Bastian964 14:39, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * You're overestimating how complex I wanted the template to be. The template I'm imagining would literally just add 3 links to the end of the article, which would jump to the correct page in the archive. No other mysticism would happen. Having a repository of news articles that are somehow "tagged" and easily retrievable based on, say, a date range and certain tags, would be nice. Sadly, I have absolutely no idea how I'd accomplish this. :) Dammej 17:15, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

January and February are all done. Slow going, though. I figure that we can implement the new system ASAP, so that if a template can be made, everything will already be in place and the template can be incorporated much more quickly. -- Commdor (Talk) 21:49, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that does look tedious. Once it's there though, adding articles will be much easier. I'm currently writing a bunch of templates that I think should help significantly reduce your workload though. At least, if they work the way I expect them to. :P I think I'll have them up in my sandbox in roughly two hours. At the same time, I'll make the project proposal page about all these templates, so that people can go to a central place to comment/make suggestions, rather than one area of a talk page. Dammej 22:12, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * We've picked a good time to do this at least, seeing as we are just about to start July. I'll use the new system when I do the update in about 15 minutes. FridgeRaider88 22:55, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * Or not...as it wasn't a follow-up story to anything, Never mind. FridgeRaider88 23:11, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * Makes it a little easier on us, we won't have to worry about linking anything to July for at least 24 hours. Anywho, March is 100% done, April is in progress. -- Commdor (Talk) 23:55, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

I've added the project proposal to the community forums (Forum:Projects). Take a look there at let me know what you guys think. Dammej 04:08, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

9/17/10 News
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like the first time that Commander Shepard as ever been referenced (either directly or indirectly) in the Cerberus Daily News tidbits. Tanooki1432 15:16, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe you are correct. I don't thing Shepard is referenced directly before today (Sept 17, 2010). Lancer1289 15:44, September 17, 2010 (UTC)

Adding CDN content to other pages?
I'm wondering if content from the Daily News should be added to other pages? For example - Garvug has been used a lot in the CDN, so wouldn't it make sense to add the info, all about the war between the corporations and the Krogan, into the page for Garvug? --Captain Obvious au 10:56, November 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * The answer is largely "it depends". If we've received enough information about the war on Garvug that it would be worthy of mention in the article, I would say go for it. I tend to have a more inclusive view than most around here, though, so you may hear a different answer from others. A sticking point about adding to the page for Garvug: right now the MoS for planet pages doesn't allow for a ton of extra information. It's just adds question two as a follow-up to question one here: (1) Should the information from the war on Garvug appear in its own article separate from the other CDN articles? and (2) Should an exception be made to the MoS to allow that information to appear in the Garvug page?
 * In general, when there's enough information from a canonical source (like the CDN articles), its information has been rephrased and summarized in its own article. For example, the intro paragraph for Tela Vasir mentions the role she played in her CDN adventures. I don't believe she had an article all her own until it was revealed that she made an appearance in LotSB, though: the information about her was just so scarce. I'll leave the question about whether the Garvug war stuff should be placed into an article open to more experienced editors than I. -- Dammej ( talk ) 20:07, November 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm really going to have to say that is a purly case by case basis but it already has some basis for additions. One of the cut planets, Arvuna, which was in the ME2 game guide, but cut from the final game was mentioned in a CDN story in April. However the information was added as a trivia note rather than any additional information. Given the amount of information we have on this conflict, I probably would favor an article over putting a lot of information into the Garvug article, then link said article from the Garvug page. However I really can't say for certain if an article is the best option either. But putting that amount of information into the Garvug article, I really don't like the sound of that one bit. Lancer1289 20:32, November 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there is some precedent for additional info beyond the basic stuff. Not a lot of precedent, mind you, but some. See Illium for an example, with its "Additional Information" section. As for my personal opinion, a separate article for this info seems out of the question. Why create a new article to cover this info when there is already an article better suited for the info than any new one would be? (Referring, of course, to the Garvug article) We may have enough info here to justify an Additional Information section or something. SpartHawg948 21:33, November 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * We could add in a See Also section which links to the Garvug war storyline, like we have with Belan and whatnot. I can set that up now so there's something there until we decide if we want to make a full Additional Info section. -- Commdor (Talk) 21:39, November 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that works. SpartHawg948 23:35, November 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Commdor (Talk) 00:05, November 21, 2010 (UTC)

Cerberus News and Mass Effect 3
Do you guys think that 1 week or so before ME3 is launched we will receive news of the Reaper attacks? KaTiON 19:23, December 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Considering we are about a year off from that, it's impossible to say. Lancer1289 19:39, December 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Impossible to say, but it's probable, at least to me. But this isn't really the place to speculate. --Effectofthemassvariety 20:24, December 17, 2010 (UTC)

2185 to 2186
Since this page displays the current month for CDN, I felt it was appropriate to update the year from 2185 to 2186. The archives for 2010 still list as 2185, but again since this page displays the current month, and we are in 2011 and 2186 in universe, I felt it was appropriate to update that. You can't squeeze this in an edit summary. Lancer1289 00:43, January 1, 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I forgot to do that myself. But since this page contains the archives for both 2010 and 2011, and thus 2185 and 2186, I added both years into the sentence. -- Commdor (Talk) 00:46, January 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * Well whatever fits better. Lancer1289 00:48, January 1, 2011 (UTC)

The end of CDN?
I´ve been reading the forums of bioware and i found this http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/103/index/5600496/2 Changonauta 18:43, January 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * Well I guess all good things must some to an end eventually. Still, this was a great feature and I really have to give credit to the writers for keeping great stories going and a great feature. I guess we'll just have to check it for the weeks leading up to a DLC release. However I do like the end of that statement: "We are sorry to go, but we had fun -- and we hope you did, too!" Well I have to say, I did have fun reading these stories and I'm sorry to see it go as well. Lancer1289 19:01, January 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * That makes two of us my friend, lets hope that the next DLC is from the Virmire Survivor Changonauta 19:02, January 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * Just checked it myself. Unfortunate. And we've only had the reports displayed on the main page since August. :( Oh well. I suppose this will give me an opportunity to go through and organize the reports more thoroughly, as well as finally use that "last" blank for report series. Maybe we can get BioWare to give us the first three or so CDN reports we missed. Anyway, looks like BioWare's notice is the report for the 2nd, so I'll have that up around 6pm EST (early because I'll be away from a computer for several hours). -- Commdor (Talk) 19:52, January 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah I emailed BioWare about that, but perhaps I can try again. Lancer1289 19:55, January 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * Hopefully it will return in Mass 3.NickTyrong 04:42, January 2, 2011 (UTC)
 * Let's hope so. I really enjoyed all the story lines that went on with this. I suppose the writers can only think of so much to do. I loved reading about returning characters. Maybe some will be of importance in ME3 Darth Mondrak 09:57, January 2, 2011 (UTC)

Screwed up the template for "Today's News"
Ok, after changing one word in the "Today's News" section, I've made a horrible error that I can't undo. I feel like I should flog myself several times. Does anyone have the expertise to fix this? It now just reads "Error: String exceeds 1,000 character limit". Freakium 05:17, January 26, 2011 (UTC)
 * Looking at the page history it doesn't seem to be your fault - the Error is there in all versions of the page I can see. I think it's a template issue; I don't really know how they work but I'll try and have a look. Could someone who maintains the CDN template check this out? Bronzey 09:14, January 26, 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how to see them but at a guess the "Today's news" section calls the date of today and because there is no news there it returns an error because there is no conditional statement for it. Ilovetelephones 06:55, January 27, 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I do know it was fine before I edited it. But right now it seems any month I try to use instantly makes the error message. I've tried every month and for some reason, January 2010 works, but only for the title. I've tried looking at the code for the template but it's too confusing. All I can tell is that it calls CDNStory.dpl and some other stuff. I'm trying to figure out how I screwed it up in the first place and it looks like it was created before the mass wikia update. That may be a reason...? Freakium 16:52, January 27, 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't even know how to access the template code. I have minimal experience with wikia coding. The "String exceeds 1000 character limit" error makes me think it's pulling the entire month's history somehow. In programming you store letters, words, sentences and paragraphs in 'strings'. Ilovetelephones 22:06, January 27, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the MediaWiki upgrade broke the old system. I've since updated the template, and it appears to have fixed the issue. Ilovetelephones is correct: the old system combed through the entire month's article in order to discover which story is the last one. I've now implemented a less-idiotic way of doing that. (telling someone else to find it for us. :P) See the change history here: CDNLatestStory. -- Dammej ( talk ) 02:15, January 28, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm glad it's finally fixed. Sorry for the trouble I caused. Freakium 23:27, January 28, 2011 (UTC)

Is someone still monitoring this?
I only ask because I'm curious. Is someone still turning it on everyday to see if news proceeding a DLC is starting, or are we assuming we will be given enough notice to know when to start monitoring?--Xaero Dumort 17:07, February 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm checking. DLC releases are always on Tuesdays, so I'm making sure to check every Tuesday (and on any other days I happen to play ME2). But for the most part, I'm assuming there will indeed be plenty of notice. BioWare wouldn't leave us twisting in the wind like that. -- Commdor (Talk) 17:50, February 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm also following this. As far as I remember there will be updates around the time the next DLC will be due out. I imagine we'll hear about it on one of the gaming sites long before then. FridgeRaider88 21:01, February 3, 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. Just thought I would ask since I know I couldn't count on myself to remember to be on top of it.--Xaero Dumort 19:13, February 4, 2011 (UTC)