User talk:DRY

Proposal: Creation of a community board
For a long time now I've been playing with the idea of creating and maintaining a "Community Board" where we can gather all the requests, proposals, and todo lists. This board can be a place where contributors make suggestions and request for articles, categories, templates, etc.

I believe that this board could help in several ways:
 * Gather information in one place: we have contributors that make suggestions, discuss features, etc. throughout the wiki, the problem is that not all contributors check the Recent Changes page, and even those that do can miss important discussions for article overhaul, template suggestion, and other trivial and not so trivial issues.
 * To each his own strength: not all contributors proficient in writing or creating templates, and even those that are proficient in such matters don't necessarily have the time, energy, peace of mind to start the new project. Requesting or suggesting the idea on a board might capture the attention of a contributor who is proficient, available, and ready to start that project.
 * Admins benefits (I can only presume from my viewpoint): As admin(s) you have just one place to get updated on what's going on, write messages and notices for wiki contributors, read contributors notices, and make sure you didn't miss anything important. I can only write from my impression, but sometimes I feel I bug you (and this is also for the rest of the admins) with questions, information, and grandiose proposals (such as this) that doesn't necessarily require your attention, but as a contributor I have no idea who else to ask for help or input.
 * Emphasis on community: I might have mentioned it before, but communicating with other members of the wiki community can resolve matters more quickly, supply more input for questions asked or issues risen, and could benefit in resolving issues without the need to get the admins involved.

I have started in making a "first draft" board that is located on my sandbox and will appreciate any input you can give me (of course that there is not much hope for the board without the admins support).

Thank you for reading :) --silverstrike 18:51, March 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * Could be a useful resource. Presumably a Forum board or posts would do the job.  --DRY 07:50, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yup. I can see some definite merit to this idea. I also heartily agree that the Forum is likely the best place for this. SpartHawg948 09:15, March 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Didn't event thought about using a forum for this - but what about the posts layout? I made a few examples for posts here: User:Silverstrike/Sandbox/Community Board, they could be implemented as a template for posts on that forum (or a different layout that will give a similar behavior). --silverstrike 09:29, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the layouts look good. I'm not so sure that the "Suggested by" and "Currently developed by" are really needed, but if the general consensus is that they're needed, I won't object too strenuously. SpartHawg948 09:32, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * If were going with forum layout, then the "Suggested by" will be replaced by the user that created the post, the "Currently developed by" can be helpful to see what user "took up the glove" and started the work on the project - it can even be multiple people collaborating. --silverstrike 09:49, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I think the reason I'm somewhat concerned is because we've had some incidents lately with people becoming possessive of articles they view as "theirs", and as many times as I stress that there is no ownership of articles, it keeps happening. I'm not saying that this will happen because of the "Currently developed by" bit, but it is kind of a nagging concern of mine. SpartHawg948 10:13, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * I see your point - I think that it should state very clearly that development of articles, templates, or whatever is only done in the "Project Sandbox" or "User Sandbox", and once published, "EVERYONE" can edit those pages. We can try it out, and if people start "taking ownership" on pages, we can remove the "Currently developed by" item. --silverstrike 10:43, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * That works for me! SpartHawg948 20:50, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

Should I mail/leave a comment in Tullis talk page regarding this, or should I just go ahead and start working on the forum template (seeing as SpartHawg948 and yourself approve of the idea)? If the answer is yes, do you have any comments on my layout? --silverstrike 16:30, March 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you sure we need a template? I'd like to avoid having to have a lot of policies which must be enforced and/or wikilawyered about.  I was envisioning just having a forum with a post per proposal.  --DRY 16:40, March 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that the template serve more as a "helper" rather than "must fill". it will also summarize what is needed if the forum topic become too long with discussions. The contributor filling in the request/proposal could leave it empty at first and fill it in as the topic progresses - it is also possible for another contributor to fill in the missing data. --silverstrike 16:45, March 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well there's certainly no harm in that. --DRY 16:53, March 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll go ahead and create the template, unless you have any additional comments about the layout of the information. We also need to decide on the forum name (the template name should match). --silverstrike 17:15, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I created two templates to handle this:
 * A Community Board Item template that creates the layout of the "form"
 * A Community Board Post template that is called when creating a new post in the forum (and which has comments in the code as instruction for contributors).
 * I think that "Originally created by" can be removed, and "Status last updated" can be automatically updated using DPL. --silverstrike 18:44, March 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd definitely choose a more descriptive name than "Community Board" since that's what the forums are as a whole. Perhaps something along the lines of "Projects"?  The templates also need better documentation (along the lines of Template:Planet or similar).  The markup can be simplified somewhat as well, but that's not terribly important (see m:Help:Lists).  --DRY 04:05, March 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * "Projects" sounds good to me (can't think of anything better). I didn't want to start documenting something that is going to be replaced/overhauled, I'll go through the link and try to implement what I can. --silverstrike 04:57, March 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * I made some changes to the template layout (Template:CommunityBoardItem) and I think it's ready for production. --silverstrike 15:16, March 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest adding a brief description of how it is intended to be used; I also wouldn't bother with a default for a missing description (or else spell it out in full). Also there appears to be a left-over comment of some kind ("starter comment").  But in the main it seems good to go.  --DRY 15:39, March 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * The brief description will be added instead of the "starter comment" - I will start tackling the description when I'm done with the rest. The text instead of the description was for my testings (I forgot to remove it), I think the entire description box should be removed if it's empty. I'll finish styling and write the description and leave you a comment when I'm done. --silverstrike 15:50, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

I wrote the preface for the post, it's pretty lame, but that is the most I can muster at the moment. I can continue editing it at a later time if you feel that it's insufficient. --silverstrike 16:15, March 9, 2010 (UTC)

Confused
When looking over the talk pages and on the Collector Base ones I saw your comment that you would like full pages for the missions of Mass Effect. I was wondering if you ment that the links on the missions page should have its won page like in the Mass Effect 2 articles? I just want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you. Lancer1289 March 4, 2010 14:47 (UTC)
 * Hey DRY again I was trying to understand your comments on the Talk:Collector Base: Infiltration talk page. Did you mean that each major plot world mission in Mass Effect should have its own page? Lancer1289 March 9, 2010 14:19 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that would be the ideal. --DRY 15:10, March 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well then, I'll pull some information from the guide and the planet articles and see what I can do with them. Lancer1289 March 9, 2010 15:28 (UTC)
 * I will be writing these articles to put in tactics and really get the details of where all the crates, items, and anything can be found. If the community doesn't like the articles when I or someone else writes and posts them, then we can remove them. You can see a preview of how many articles I plan to write on my user page. I had been actulaly writing some details down that weren't in the main guide and I figured that I would get your opinion on the topic espcially after your comments on the Talk:Collector Base: Infiltration page. Lancer1289 20:53 March 14, 2010 (UTC)

When I was digging through the list of redirects page I saw that a lot of the mission walkthrough titles I was planning on using are insead redirects. I don't know everything about how wikis work yet but I was wondering if I created a page with the same name as a redirect, will it cause a problem? If you have questions about the article names you can see them on my my user page. Thanks in advance. I left the same message on SpartHawg948's talk page. Lancer1289 23:08, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * There's no problem with turning redirect pages into real articles simply by editing them as normal. A redirect page is just a regular article which contains a #REDIRECT . --DRY 01:45, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Tag templates
I implemented the new tag styles (as noted on my talk page) and after reviewing a few articles that feature them, I see an issue with the links colors. The active link (bluelink) seem too pale when not hardcoding the link color (in the templates I manually assigned a new link colors to the active links). This could be resolved by adding a rule to the stylesheet that will color the links on notice tags (tags with the orange background):. --silverstrike 16:40, March 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I personally don't see a big problem with the existing scheme. You could try adjusting the relative contrasts a little.  I'd still like to get the icons for the centred tag closer to the text.  The one size fits all solution with the two cell table might not be the best choice: a couple of divs might be more flexible.  --DRY 04:19, March 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * The only problem with the colors is that of the link contributors add. For example, on the merge tag a contributor might write something like: "the article could be merged because it is a duplicate of Assignments " - I cannot change the color for that link manually. Doing the minor change in the stylesheet will take care of the problem globally.
 * I should of changed the layout to tableless when you mentioned the problem with the image position. I'll make the change. --silverstrike 05:05, March 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * I made a change to the Tag template and updated Delete, Merge, and Cleanup templates. It's a bit difficult making the image stick to the centered text; changing the text size in the browser causes the text and the image to overlap. If you like the change I can change the rest of the "notice" templates. --silverstrike
 * I haven't looked at the underlying changes, but it doesn't actually seem to have made any difference to cleanup. IIRC the other two were left justified already.  --DRY 00:00, March 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * I just replaced the table with a couple of &lt;div>s. The problem with putting the image right next to the centered text is that it needs to achieve "pixel precision" which can change according the the preferences of the user - when a visitor's browser is set to show the text as larger or smaller then the default values, the image may overlap the text, which is not a good scenario. If you have other ideas, I'll be glad to try and implement them.


 * I also created another tag template move, for those occurrences when a contributor want to propose a renaming of a page. I created the template mainly for tagging images that have obscure names, but it can be beneficial on articles that are misnamed (in the last week I noticed two or three of those). Unless you're checking the Special:RecentChanges daily, they are easily missed.
 * If you don't like the template, think it's redundant, or any other reason, just delete it, and I'll remove the tag from all pages that use it - the reason I didn't consult any of the admins regarding this is because I noticed your not around the last few days, and I am currently doing massive organization to the wiki's images (I know that that's no excuse, I'll be more patient in the future). --silverstrike 02:04, March 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't really need to be pixel perfect: it just shouldn't float all the way to the left. --DRY 15:36, March 13, 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to achieve pixel-precision, but moving the image more toward the text will cause it to overlap. The only way that I see to fix this is to make all tags left-aligned. --silverstrike 15:45, March 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * I had something like either of these in mind. (They each have slightly different layout properties.)  --DRY 16:54, March 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * hmmm, I like the inline-block approach, I'll try to implement it to the current Tag template. --silverstrike 17:28, March 13, 2010 (UTC)


 * While implementing, I realized that the table layout would work better and with less code. I altered Merge, Delete, and Cleanup back to the table layout and compensated when text is aligned to the left (It just looks weird otherwise). If you have some more input on the layout let me know. --silverstrike 18:57, March 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, those look very good. Thank you for taking the time to address the aesthetics, which I realize tend to be very subjective and personal.  --DRY 18:25, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * I was happy to lend a hand :). There are still two issues that need to be addressed. The first is the behavior of the tags when there is a infobox beside it - the tag engulfs the info box and the result is not pretty, the second is the issue with link colors (the default is too pale) in which case we either make a change in stylesheet (as I noted at the start of the topic) or use the replace StringFunction to insert the span with the color definition to user entered links (like in the delete tag). --silverstrike 18:46, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * I personally don't find the default too pale (if we're talking about the same link/state), but we can certainly change the style sheet if you feel strongly about it. (I assume the class you're using is not used anywhere else?)  For the overlap of floating boxes: I keep meaning to look at the CSS2 layout model to figure out exactly why that's happening.  In the short term, wrapping the whole thing in a table seems to do the trick &mdash; but I was kind of hoping to avoid perpetrating that hack in multiple places if I could figure out a better global solution.  --DRY 18:51, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * Look at the second tag on the Collector Base: Infiltration article, you have the altered links (who looks a little purplish) that use the code:  - this is no problem when I know the link (like: what links here, history, talk page, etc.), but is a bit more complicated when the contributor might supply the link (like the delete tag in the example above). Giving the Tag template a class (like "notice_tag") will allow us to declare a style for the class in the stylesheet.
 * Addendum: The tag was removed while I wrote my comment, but the same behavior also present on the Changes between games article - you can see that the contributor supplied link is extremely pale. --silverstrike 19:19, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * Regarding the tag behavior, I have a pretty good idea for what is the cause. It relates to the box-model and the float-model - I'll try to make a hack for it using Stylish (Firefox extension). --silverstrike 19:14, March 14, 2010 (UTC)

Prereq adds
I just noticed that you are modifying the planets that I added prereqs to in the last few days. I'll be sure to add a little more space in the future. Sorry for all the extra work that I am apparenlty making you do. Lancer1289 01:27, March 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of them are fine. It's actually not spacing I'm adjusting: I'm only modifiying ones which could make use of the (undocumented) third parameter.  One of these days I'll get around to improving the template&hellip;.  In general, if you're finding that the template isn't suitable for a given situation, the best thing to do is to improve the template: drop a note or request on Template talk:Prerequisites.  --DRY 01:39, March 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, it's best if you don't attempt to add extra spacing manually on an article by article basis: it is far simpler to add any extra space in the template itself. Indeed, if the template spacing is changed, articles which manually attempt to modify the spacing will themselves begin to look wrong.  --DRY 01:43, March 24, 2010 (UTC)

Respectfully
Sir or Madam,

Recently you blocked my IP address from this site for a period of three days citing "vandalism". I would like to lodge a complaint as I did nothing approaching vandalism. I added data from the game in a rather unobtrusive manner. The only reason I can think of for being blocked was that I had a disagreement with a fellow editor. I would like to say that my edits were of no foul manner and I would appreciate it if you would unblock me. Now posessing an account, I will not need to use it but I feel that your action was wrong and I would appreciate the gesture. Thank you.

-Vanguard 15, 7:18 PM, EST, 03/30/2010
 * Not to stick my nose in where it doesn't belong, but the only recent 3-day block of an IP I see that DRY initiated citing vandalism was one on the 26th of this month, which did involve vandalism (specifically an IP inserting "tyler white is gay" into an article). The next one I see is over a month ago, again for obvious acts of vandalism. Any chance you could provide the specific IP that was blocked? Because I'm not seeing anything that fits your description. SpartHawg948 23:26, March 30, 2010 (UTC)

IP address 76.99.73.107. Reason listed is vandalism. 19:57, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * The IP was blocked for the following sequence of edits, which appeared to be part of a needless revert war:
 * http://masseffect.wikia.com/index.php?title=Normandy_SR-2&oldid=101752
 * http://masseffect.wikia.com/index.php?title=Normandy_SR-2&oldid=101755
 * http://masseffect.wikia.com/index.php?title=Normandy_SR-2&oldid=101812
 * In the event that you were not responsible, I offer my apologies. In the event that these edits were yours, please note that it was not clear from either the content of the edits, nor the edit messages exactly what they intended to accomplish (and they did damage the page layout while apparently offering no improvements of any kind).  We do not typically offer any warnings to anonymous editors (as we would for contributors with accounts).    In any case, you may avoid the block by creating a user account (if you have not already done so) and logging in.  (The block affects anonymous editors only and account creation is not currently blocked on that IP.)  --DRY 01:38, March 31, 2010 (UTC)
 * I actually also left a message on the talk page for that IP advising you of why the edits were being undone and had been classed as vandalism. SpartHawg948 02:24, March 31, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that, SpartHawg. Feel free to unblock if you think I overreacted: I did hesitate before putting the block in, since it wasn't the usual clear cut vandalism – that's also why it was only a three day block.  I put in the block primarily because I wasn't sure that I'd be able to get back on tonight and I didn't want the situation to escalate in case you or Tullis weren't around.  I'm also honestly not too sure what the editor was doing.  Sometimes the WYSIWYG editor inserts some extra spacing, but I doubt that was the case here.  I also was genuinely unclear about what the editor meant by "Added own section" in the third edit comment.  I wonder if they (or I?) just had the wrong end of the stick or something?  If it had been an account, I would have definitely gone to their talk page first. I don't usually bother when it's an IP since there's no email notification: I wonder if an anon IP gets the "You have new messages" at the top of their screen, though?  --DRY 02:37, March 31, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it seems that the block may be moot, as the individual in question is now registered. As for the "added own section", the user in question was attempting to create a trivia section. And yes, IIRC, anaon users do get the "new messages" thing. SpartHawg948 02:46, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Cluster Pages
After making an edit to the Hawking Eta cluster page, I noticed that the system and cluster pages of the Mass Effect articles have assignments and missions attached to them. I was just wondering if we are doing the same thing for the locations in Mass Effect 2. Lancer1289 05:03, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to make we were before making a lot of additions and then having you or another user just revert them all. I want avoid the common revert headaches that would come out of this. Lancer1289 05:07, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for asking. Yes, the Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style does call for assignments and missions to be recorded on system and cluster pages.  Feel free to go ahead.  --DRY 18:36, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

Ok when I was cheking the style guide again, I noticed, after I had done the edits, that the cluster pages have both mission and assignment heading. I was just thinking that if there are no missions then why ven have a heading in the first place. When I added the assignments and missions to the cluster pages of ME2 clusters and pages, I didn't add that so that is why I removed the mission subheadings. I was just thinking that if there there were no missions or assignments then the section should be omited because it would be redundent. However if you disagree then I will rever all the edits and add them to the ME2 clusters. Lancer1289 13:48, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

Planet's missions
Hey there! Looking at your user page, I figured you must be the admin who are mainly in charge of template layouts and "cleanups". Anyway, there's something that's bothering me about some planets articles, specifically ones that have missions and I was thinking of doing a cleanup for those planets. In those planet articles, for example, Illium and Omega (although Omega is technically not a planet), there are unnecessary bits of information here and there about Shepard's missions and story. However, among the worst offending planet articles are Virmire, Feros and Therum where those planet articles even has walkthroughs and plot related information! IMHO, those information should actually be shifted into their corresponding articles. I felt that the planet articles should be similar to Tuchanka or Haestrom where it is consistent, concise and strictly planet related info without all the clutter of unrelated info. So I'm thinking of doing a cleanup of those articles and shift information where it should belong and keep the planet articles strictly about the planet only (with sections consisting of description, additional description, codex, missions/assignments, trivia). But before I do any major changes, I'm just want to know what the admins feel about this. - Teugene 16:36, April 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * The layout of the older mission pages is more historical accident than anything else. Most of the information should probably be split out into separate mission pages and coordinated with the walkthrough.  The trickiest part will be correcting any inbound links.  I think that User:Lancer1289 is also working on a similar project, so you should coordinate with them as well.  --DRY 12:40, April 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I am actually working on walkthoughs of the major plot worlds. I was going to trim down the articles after I had posed them because they have a lot of walkthough information. I was also planning to trim the Mass Effect Guide down also to have it be more like the Mass Effect 2 Guide. As to the planet articles, if Teugene is willing to work with me then I'm all for it. Lancer1289 12:56, April 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a fair amount of potential cross-over material, but I have no firm views on how it should be managed. I just wanted to make sure that there weren't two or more folks working at cross purposes.  --DRY 13:04, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

RE: Project namespace alias
Hi DRY. Please use the Contact form to send your request to the Community Team. Someone will respond soon and take care of it. Thanks. JoePlay ( talk ) 22:11, April 5, 2010 (UTC)