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)