Guild Wars Wiki talk:User page/Archive 2

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User:130.58/sandbox

This policy makes much more sense to me and is much more in line with what I would support. --Rainith 22:22, 13 February 2007 (PST)

By semi-popular demand, I move it to the article. There are a few parenthetical sections that need to be filled in, and part of it needs some serious linkifying, but the gist of it's there. — 130.58 (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Out of curiousity, how is a regular user supposed to know that their page is 100kb? I'm not objecting to the number at all but I'm curious as to how that's intended to work. I think a solid cap is good only on the basis that it will keep pages reasonable. I don't think, nor do I expect, people will become anal about it to the degree of "omg, your page is 101kb change it" but simply that if its obviously too large it will be brought up. That being said its late here and I'm way tired so mostly I just hope this all makes sense... Lojiin 22:40, 13 February 2007 (PST)

I suppose by adding all their pictures together. Not sure about the actual text part of it. It gives a warning when you hit 48kb doesnt it? - BeXoR 22:45, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Image:1024x768.gif - approximate size - it'll differ depending on your toolbars and style used. I can get rid of all the text and just make it a 2 color image. - - BeXoR 22:48, 13 February 2007 (PST)

It's the cumulative size of images not the page. --ab.er.rant 22:51, 13 February 2007 (PST)

I have a better idea than that picture. - BeXoR 23:52, 13 February 2007 (PST)

User:BeXoR/1024x768 User:BeXoR/1280x1024. They can be copied to "Guild Wars Wiki:User page/1024x768". Gives a rough outline, and is better than an image (filesize). I will check them in other styles in a sec. - BeXoR 00:10, 14 February 2007 (PST)

They all work width-wise on all of the skins available, in both resolutions (in default browser text size). - BeXoR 02:22, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Those are totally awesome. — 130.58 (talk) 05:35, 14 February 2007 (PST)

New proposal.

Posted. This is the last version of the old policy proposal, and this is the first version of the new one. — 130.58 (talk) 22:38, 13 February 2007 (PST)

I really like this. Hope those favoring restrictive user pages would like the size limits. I attempted to expand on the stub areas highlighted, regarding the size, length and talk page restrictions. Can? --ab.er.rant 23:06, 13 February 2007 (PST)

By "Can" I mean is it ok? local slang :) --ab.er.rant 23:08, 13 February 2007 (PST)

"can" as a question is local slang here too :P you in hawaii? Aside from that, I /agree. I looked at my userpage images, and they fit rather well below 100kb (100kb is plenty enough... although total size at 100kb is pushing it). I'll just resize them more effectively next time. The rest of the policy makes sense. -Auron 23:11, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Nope, quite far from the Hawaii, far from the US as well :) I think 100kb is just fine as a total. We can have 2 different versions of our characters. The smaller pic on the main page, the bigger (slightly) pic on a subpage (if we're so inclined). And this also doesn't preclude you from using lotsa icons on the main page. --ab.er.rant 23:18, 13 February 2007 (PST)

I'm liking it a lot more now. Much improved =) Ale_Jrb (talk) 00:02, 14 February 2007 (PST)

What do people think of the specific sizes? I kinda just pulled them out of my ass. I think they're fair guidelines, but we could go bigger or smaller in each if you'd like. My advice is to bounce around Guildwiki a bit looking at user pages and comparing them to the guideline to see if you think it's appropriate. — 130.58 (talk) 05:47, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Sounds good to me. --Xeeron 06:50, 14 February 2007 (PST)

100kb seems fine to me. I dont think the limit should be or needs to be any higher. - BeXoR 06:59, 14 February 2007 (PST)

I agree, 100kb seems fine.

08:26, 14 February 2007 (PST)

A 100kb total is too small. I mean, what's the difference between that and 200kb? 250kb? Why not a limit that nearly every image user is not going to bump their head on? -- Dashface 01:36, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Wow, I was away from the computer for almost 24 hours (valentines day with kalomeli ;) ) and you guys actually made an improvement with the policy AND everyone seems to accept it. I like the current proposal too. --Gem (talk) 10:14, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Might want to add something in about collapseable nab bars, cause they can potentially become a fix for those long pages. Is this okay or not? I personally would say it's okay, cause we already have a the restriction on maximum total image size. And that in itself should keep the page size down.

11:00, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Page length should be considered without the show/hide navbars as they do not work on all browsers and they might be disabled by users. --Gem (talk) 12:02, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Also, the show/hide stuff doesn't prevent your browser from downloading everything in the hidden sections when you load the page - ~~so a massive amount of images hidden under a navbar would still take forever to load over dial-up.~~ —Dr Ishmael

12:12, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Whoops, I forgot about the total image size restriction. Still, even if you only hid text behind the navbars, it's not impossible to turn the page into a dial-up killer. —Dr Ishmael

12:15, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Yup, I've modified the policy. Someone should add a link in the policy to some article (wikipedia?) explaining what the navbars are. --Gem (talk) 12:14, 14 February 2007 (PST)

I agree the proposel at it is now. This gives all parties involved in this discussion what they would like included, and is much more defined now. EMonk 12:36, 14 February 2007 (PST)

I don't like the length restriction. Images is one thing, but text? I like to write a LOT. I'll chop up my userpage for now, but I don't like it. AOTT 16:34, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

I think the "restrictions" still allow every user to create a page containing a wealth of information about them that may be relevant to the wiki and interesting/useful for other editors to know; I also think that they are vital to prevent the user space becoming a GW MySpace. Tbh, I'm not interested in reading about other people's ingame characters. And I doubt many people really are. Huge userpages are just vanity pages. And AOTT - I can see you like to write a lot - but 99% of that is contributions to your userpage :P

Fox (talk|contribs) 16:52, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

As mentioned, you're not restricted to writing a lot of text in your user space. You just can't put them on the main user page. And so far, there hasn't been any convincing argument on why everything you'd like to put in your user space must be in the main user page. -- ab.er.rant

20:52, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Consensus?

Hmm, seems like we've got consensus, pretty much. I suggest we give it another day or two for people to review and comment on the policy, and commit after that if no new issues are raised. — 130.58 (talk) 08:21, 15 February 2007 (PST)

I consider it a policy if no one has anything major to say before this evening. --

(gem / talk) 03:36, 16 February 2007 (PST)

I've read through the policy and it seems to me to be reasonable. LordBiro 04:03, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Sounds good. --Xeeron 04:17, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Get'r Dun! kaya

09:49, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Has my support. Ale_Jrb (talk) 10:06, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Seems reasonable. Vlad 10:15, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Looks good to me. Lojiin 10:18, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Adding my voice to the support. --Rainith 13:24, 16 February 2007 (PST)

My main concern was the subjectiveness of the previous proposals. Props to whoever decided to quantify the main page restrictions using page-scrolls. Seems reasonable to me. I support the current version. -- BrianG 16:20, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Moved it to accepted policy. --Dirigible 16:35, 16 February 2007 (PST)

Images on user pages

The user Keiko recently uploaded a series of about 20 images for use on his user page, which raised some questions for me.

First of all, some of the images contained inappropriate material, including obscenities and sexual content. Those are violations of the existing user page policy, which is good. They don't appear to be violations of the existing speedy deletion policy, and I think they should be. Anyway, hopefully they'll get moderated soon.

Second, I find it interesting that we now have an image in the top-level image namespace named Gaile1.jpg, which is a screenshot of a text log of Gaile saying "poo". I read through the user page policy and there doesn't seem to be any limitation on users uploading a large volume of new images into the top-level namespace. Isn't there any way to put images under the user page namespace?

I feel uncomfortable about the aspect of users uploading personal content (unrelated to the wiki's primary mission of documenting the game) into a namespace that doesn't identify itself as being that user's personal content. If I follow a link to a page called "User:Keiko", then I at least have some idea that this is a user's personal homepage. But if I follow a link to a page called "Image:Laws1.jpg", then how do I know that this is a user's personal content, as opposed to part of the game documentation?

-- Mike O'Brien 22:11, 27 February 2007 (EST)

All valid points, but one can see what pages the images are used on by looking at the page for that image -FireFox

22:40, 27 February 2007 (EST)

Back on Guildwiki, I always prefixed personal-use images with my user name (it wasn't a policy, I just did it to label them). Like "130.58.(image name).jpg" Anyone opposed to implementing a similar naming convention as full-on policy here? — 130.58 (talk) 23:16, 27 February 2007 (EST)

Or all user page specific images could be put into a User images category. I don't know of any other way to separate images, I don't think they can have their own namespace (I could be wrong). --Rainith 23:26, 27 February 2007 (EST)

As far as I know, there's no way in MediaWiki to place images in a personal userspace, they'll always reside in the Image namespace. It seems to me, though, that this particular fragment from GWW:USER#Content restrictions would address that issue (clarifying whether an image is intended for personal use or official wiki documentation).

When uploading personal images, always name them appropriately and specifically, and preferably add in your user name as well. Do not use generic names and ensure that the image name does not coincide with any in-game names. The description of the image must also explain that the image is for personal use in your user space. Failure to adhere to these rules may result in your personal image being deleted without warning.

Personally, I think that part of the policy should be sufficient (of course, as long as it is enforced). If more is needed, both the suggestion by 130.58 (requiring the username to be part of the filename) and Rainith (a "Personal User Images" category) should do the trick. Or we could just add a tag to each of the relevant images (maybe similar in form to the copyright tag here). --Dirigible 23:41, 27 February 2007 (EST)

However about requiring both? "All images uploaded for personal use must be prefixed by the user's username and be categorized under 'Category:User images' only". -- ab.er.rant

23:46, 27 February 2007 (EST)

I support that wholeheartedly. I like del tagging unused images. BUAHAHAHA! - BeXoR 01:12, 28 February 2007 (EST)

I've got no problem with that. — 130.58 (talk) 01:36, 28 February 2007 (EST)

Great idea! --

(gem / talk) 05:35, 28 February 2007 (EST)

I'm in favour of a {{User-image}} tag or something similar. This might not always be needed; perhaps only in cases where images have ambiguous names, or are linked to from prominent articles. It could also add the image to the category.

I do agree with Dirigible, though, that while Speedy Deletion may not cover the upload, I think that the User pages policy already does when it says "name images properly". LordBiro 06:06, 28 February 2007 (EST)

So should the policy just be edited directly, or does this require a policy change proposal? -- ab.er.rant

23:53, 28 February 2007 (EST)

I don't know what the standing rules are, but, if we've got consensus, there's really no reason not to just change it around. — 130.58 (talk) 02:43, 1 March 2007 (EST)

There is a procedure described in Guild Wars Wiki:Policy#Changing policies that I think should be followed for this, including adding the proposal to the list there. It's important to give some sort of fair notification to users who don't monitor this discussion. --Rezyk 20:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

A requirement to "prefix with your username" wouldn't prohibit these kinds of image names for user space images:

Image:Alpha_screenshot_pirate_ninja_profession.jpg created by a user named "Alpha"
Image:Devona_outfit_trick.jpg created by a user named "Devona"
Image:Laws1.jpg created by a user named "Law"

These examples may be excessive, but I hope they still make my point. We may want to consider also forcing "User " as a prefix (so an image for my user space would have to be named something like "Image:User Rezyk pirate ninja profession.jpg"). --Rezyk 20:08, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Very valid points. I'll go and post a policy change request. -- ab.er.rant

23:14, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Policy change on user images

As per discussion above, this is proposal to expand the current policy on the issue of images uploaded for personal use. Specifically, to replace these existing lines (under Content Restrictions):

The proposed change is to reword the above into:

When uploading personal images, do not use arbitrary or generic names. All personal image names must be prefixed with the word "User" followed by your user name (for example, an image named "User Example my necromancer.jpg" is valid). The description of the image must include the template {{user image}}. Failure to adhere to these rules may result in the image being deleted without warning.

-- ab.er.rant 23:27, 1 March 2007 (EST)

How about dropping "explain that the image is for personal use in your user space", and instead we do it for the user by adding a big equivalent disclaimer (or whatever) inside the template {{user image}}? --Rezyk 00:27, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I agree. - BeXoR 03:41, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Removed the "and explains..." part from the proposed change above. Also, one other concern: if this were to take effect, does that mean all user sig icons have to renamed? It would make things very long, particularly those with long usernames. Also, in my case, should my prefix be "User Ab.er.rant"? Would the dots cause problems? -- ab.er.rant

07:24, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Periods should not pose a problem. As for sig images, They are not used specifically on User pages, and as that is what this is a policy for, I'd say they aren't affected by it. --Rainith 12:06, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Since I'm on a roll...how about dropping "do not use arbitrary or generic names"? I think it made more sense before (to avoid any user creating names like blah.jpg, 1.jpg, etc), but doesn't seem useful now on top of demanding the prefix (would anyone care if I make "Image:User Rezyk blah.jpg", "Image:User Rezyk 1.jpg"?). This is not a deal breaker for me, but let's push back against instruction creep here. --Rezyk 13:08, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I think that'd be best, yeah. — 130.58 (talk) 13:15, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Mind giving an example image that follows that guideline too?--Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 13:19, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I agree with Rezyk and Vallen on both of their ideas. - BeXoR 13:29, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Actually, there's a difference. We don't want to encourage generic names right? How about we use "avoid arbitrary and generic names" instead? It might create a proliferation of generic user images like "User Rezyk 1", "User Rezyk 2", etc. But it's probably just me so I'm willing to accept this change. -- ab.er.rant

21:52, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I'll support this proposal, with or without mine/Vallen's/ab.er.rant's latest proposed modification (preferably with mine =). --Rezyk 06:14, 3 March 2007 (EST)

I've made a basic template: {{user image}}. --Rezyk 03:36, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm gonna have a mess around with it in a bit if you dont mind (style-wise). I think "created" should be changed to "uploaded" though. - BeXoR 04:19, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Sure, just make changes and we'll discuss them if we need to. --Rezyk 04:25, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

It needs a link to the licensing info. - BeXoR 04:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

See it in action here: Image:User BeXoR EQN Cape.jpg. - BeXoR 04:49, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

(slightly off-topic, but if anyone can tell me how to change the filenames of my images to be compliant , I would be grateful. Added the template before it existed but there was no naming convention at that time :) --Snograt

04:57, 11 March 2007 (EDT))

Added the link to the licensing info, per your request. And Snograt, you'll have to re-upload the images, they can't be renamed (which sucks IMO, I wish they would make that change in the next version of MediaWiki). --Rainith 05:00, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Thx Rainith. And yeah, I wish there was a move function on images. Oh well. :( - BeXoR 05:09, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Drat, I thought that was the case. Re-upload and tag the original for deletion, presumably. Heh, all us early adopters with .pngs in our sigs... --Snograt

05:11, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Keep in mind that this new template is based on the proposed policy change above which hasn't been put into policy yet. If you guys support or oppose that proposal, please say so. --Rezyk 05:37, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Well it has been nearly two weeks without any opposition, I think it's fine by now to go ahead with it. BTW, as was said above, sig images dont really fall under this policy. Any naming conventions, templates or categories to do with sig images should be at GWW:SIGN. - BeXoR 05:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Should sig images use the same template or a new one? I would propose Template:Signature image. --

(gem / talk) 06:47, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I don't think a signature image template would be necessary, as most signature images are just redirects to the user's page. Maybe add a line in GWW:SIGN suggesting adding all sig images to a sig image category? Even that isn't really a priority. The problems with user images were the amount, size and naming, none of which really affect sig images. - BeXoR 21:11, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

A problem with the user image template

I use the gem and heart icons as redirects and redirect images don't show any other content when you go to the image page, including the user image template. It still adds the image to the user image category though so it might not be that big of a problem. -- (gem / talk) 06:44, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

I noticed the same problem. I have all of my images as redirects back to my user page. There are two options:

Place the redirect before the template → the redirect words and the image is categorized, but the template text is not visible on the image tab.
Place the template before the redirect → the template is visible and the image is correctly categorized, but the redirect does not work.

For now, I'm living with the redirect not working. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:47, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Not using the redirect is fine for non-signature images, but I think it's more important for signatures. To be honest, though, I don't think there's much we can do about this, and it's not an enormous problem. LordBiro 04:57, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

User Image vs. user image

Just watched the Special:Wanted pages and noticed that a lot of people were calling Template:User Image which wasn't doing anything to their image, even though they were going through the effort of tagging them (albeit incorrectly). After changing a few images, I just made a redirect so that shouldn't be an issue anymore, if it really ever was. - Thulsey - talk 04:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Policy Restrictions

Too much...so much infact that it hurts. Why do you go and put a length restriction like that in there? I find it cramped, and frankly..it stinks... I mean, a few extra rolls of a rollerball never killed anyone, and besides not like we need to be super restrictive, after all, Arena Net has said they will host it for us. Why worry about size all the time... - Drago

Thanks for moving the conversation over here. Anyway, there are a couple of reasons, and they pretty much have nothing at all to do with fact that we've got plenty of bandwidth to play with on the ANet servers. It's actually a matter of courtesy to people with slower connections (yes, there are still people with Dial-up out there, it frightens me too), and it's to avoid some over-the-top userpages that we've seen in the past. Heh. Like that one with the 300-something userboxes, that was absurd. Also, the main userpage is what people go to when they want to know the basics about you, and they often, well, don't care about all of your characters =P The idea is to keep it short, simple, and to the point, and leave the less important things to subpages that people don't have to see every time they click on your name. As far as the image size limitation is concerned, the 100kb total limit was suggested on the last line of Archive1 of this talk page by 130.58 (sorry if I put the wrong number =P), and no one really disagreed with it strongly. I don't really care, I'm just summarizing what has been said up until now. Pepe talk 18:54, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

There were a lot of reasons for the limitations, some of them were listed by Pepe above. If you really want, you can read the loooooong discussionsin the archives. --

(gem / talk) 18:59, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Personally, I fully support the restrictions. It helps users with slow connections as well as those who are connecting from work to not be bogged down by large downloads when they click on a username, among other reasons. There are several ways to keep the page size down. Using jpg instead of png helps, or cropping / resizing images, or moving some content onto subpages instead of in the main user page screen. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:01, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

I also support the restrictions. This is the GW Official Wiki, not the players' blogs. Some information is good to promote a community feeling, but going overdrive with it does little to help the Wiki itself. Erasculio 19:35, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

"a few extra rolls of a rollerball never killed anyone"

Well, a few less rolls of a rollerball never killed anyone either. :p As mentioned, the restrictions or not for bandwidth/space reasons, but for courtesy reasons. The policy isn't stopping you from having any long user pages, just not on the main user page. -- ab.er.rant

22:34, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Bandwidth concerns

As I see it, these are the primary concerns:

Libel or defamation
Material patently offensive to others, including ArenaNet's competitors
Material in breach of the wiki's policies or the game's terms and conditions

I don't see any serious objections to the above. Then, one concern remains:

Visitor's bandwidth

I feel that this is addressed in too many ways and too severely. From the policy:

"Your entire user page should fit into three screens of a browser window at a resolution of 1024x768 (two full downward scrolls). This is roughly two screens (one downward scroll) at a 1280x1024 resolution."
"All images on your main user page must not exceed 100 KB in total size. This speeds up page loading and prevents any needless downloads for users who are simply trying to get to your talk page or one of your subpages."

Why have a restriction on how many screens one's user page can take up? The bandwidth concern is already harshly handled with the image section. Do we really believe that someone will misappropriate bandwidth in this way? If so, why not limit how long the total the html code can be? Surely that's the true way to measure a page's length.

The tone of the policy is halfway between "I'm not interested in your user page" and "here are some tips on improving your user page". I don't see why we need to police boringness. Here are some examples:

"It is acceptable to upload one cropped screenshot of each of your in-game characters, but uploading full galleries of all of your armor sets is not."
- As long as a user stays within 100k, why is this applicable whatsoever? Maybe I want to have scaled images, and not cropped ones. Maybe I want to have small pictures of all of my armour sets and remain within the image guidelines.
"Other users may not be interested in every detail of your characters."
- Then they will stop reading or watching. If you haven't stolen their bandwidth too badly, why does this matter at all?
"Avoid using design aspects that would be frowned upon in ordinary articles, such as garish colors, and keep the formatting user friendly."
- Because? As long as I don't include libel, defamation, offensive material, or things that breach other policies, can't I have a page as garish as I like? If people don't want to look, they're more than welcome not to. Gee, some might not even be interested in the first place. The standard for regular articles is understandably high. Why must the have a policy mandating that we all create personal pages that would fit comfortably into the main space?

Then there's the 100k limit. Personally, I support a 250k limit, if not greater. If those with low bandwidth browse upon a high image page looking only for the talkpage or a subpage, the slow loading of images will give them ample time to click away before the whole page has loaded. This wiki already has articles with images in excess of 300k. -- Dashface 22:42, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

I honestly don't understand the complaint with following the current guidelines. Subpages are still an option. Place larger content in subpage(s) and keep the initial user page as a directory or a summary page with links. It's a win-win ... the user still gets their content, the low-bandwidth users aren't bogged down. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:25, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Userpages have high visibility, which is a factor in deciding whether to put one's time into making an interesting one. Not putting one's effort into subpages is pretty much for the same reason that photos aren't mounted to the wall back-to-front. -- Dashface 23:41, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Again, remember that the userpages are a tool of the community, not a blog for the players. They are the main way for one player to search for information about another and to talk to him, through the talkpage there - it makes no sense to have such tool becoming worse just out of vanity. If it were not possible to make a good looking userpage with the current restrictions I would follow your complain, but we already have many examples of beautiful userpages under those limits. Erasculio 23:48, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

(Bloody edit conflict) So, are you saying that it's impossible to make something that looks good and still work within the restrictions? Because I'm pretty sure I'll have to disagree with you. You can make something that looks good, and still be considerate of others. Are you saying that someone that clicks on your name in a policy discussion, just to figure out who the heck you are, should be subjected to some of the rather absurd pages we had before this policy was finalized? Your user page is a place to express yourself, yes, but within reason. It's really (at least the main page) a way for someone who comes across your name to get a quick idea of who they're dealing with. To be fair, I put pretty much no effort at all into my userpage, and instead spent a fair bit of time making a couple useful subpages and surfing the RC feed, so I may not be the best person to weigh in on this subject, at least in terms of appearance. However, I do know what I'm looking for when I click on someone's name link, and it's not a gallery of pictures or three hundred-something userboxes. I guess my personal opinion is that the main page is more for utility than anything else. If you can make it look good, wonderful. Have a cookie. But, in the grand scheme of things, it's not all that important - there are restrictions, yes, so deal with them. I guess my point is, sure, it helps the people with slower connections, but it helps everyone else too. I see no compelling reasons to change the policy. (also, I agree with everything that Barek just said =P) MisterPepe talk 23:54, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Perhaps it boils down to this: I'll help here and there when I have the time, but my userpage is my main interest. I don't plan to track my unlocks or hog bandwidth or make a million pages of scrolling; I just want a very small section of land. I have a so-called blog, so I know the difference, and it's a poor comparison to what most users set out to make. Video games used to fit on a floppy disk, and some of them were pretty darn fun, but everyone didn't come to the consensus that because a programmer could do so much with such a limited palette, it should stay that way forever. Heck, a lot can be done without pictures at all, but why? You see no compelling reasons to change the policy, but I see no compelling reasons to be so restrictive in the first place. Telling somebody that they can't make something because you don't want to look at it is not a very convincing argument. This policy and the signature image width policies (the latter of which my GuildWiki counterpart would not have breached) are the only two things holding me back from thinking, "Yes, let's give this rival wiki a chance!" -- Dashface 00:17, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

My main interest is contributing to documenting the game, and it should be the same for every other contributor to the site. I'm an editor using a wiki, not looking for a webhost. - BeXoR 01:43, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I have a gig of dedicated hosting and two gigs of advertisement-free image hosting. This is not about looking for a webhost. Yes, it would be nice if we were all LordBiros and Fyrens and Gems, but some of us are just non-vandal participants. Even a non-vandal participant can see the flawed logic in limiting the length of a user page (as opposed to the main page). Gordon Ecker's page was only 38k, pictures included, and yet this breached policy. My current user page, which fits easily without scrolling, is more bandwidth-intensive. Clearly, this part of the policy is not about bandwidth. What is it about? -- Dashface 02:00, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

(edit conflict)I don't think that admitting that your user page is virtually your sole interest in this wiki is going to win you any votes in your favour. Think of your main user page as a cover to a book or video game rather than the content of the game and you get a better analogy. The cover is always small but typically packed full of interesting information - the rest, the story, the game can be as big or small as you like. Why not make your main userspace page a cover which is truly unique that makes people want to click through to see what your Guild Wars experience is all about? --Aspectacle 01:48, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

(two edit conflicts, boo!) I wasn't going to get involved with this, but do you have any idea how terrible "my userpage is my main interest" sounds? How narcissistic and backwards that is? Here's the thing, this entire site exists for one and only one reason: To document Guild Wars. Everything else is and should be merely an afterthought to that. Talk pages = discussing how to document the game. Builds and guilds = documenting the game. GuildWarsWiki namespace = discussing how to better run the wiki to better document the game. Starting to see a pattern? Userpages are not your personal webpage. There's no policy on wikisquatting on this wiki, but that doesn't make this right nonetheless.

Your "hanging pictures on the wall" comparison is invalid, since there you are making the mistake of equalling the wiki to your home. It isn't, this is a working environment, with the editors working towards a goal. If you want to do a picture analogy, it'd be more like: This is an office, and we all have our desks; we don't place the pictures of our wife, kids and dogs on the walls, we have one or two on the desk, and if there's more, they're in a photoalbum, sitting in a drawer somewhere for those cases when a co-worker decides to stop by in his lunch break and try to socialize some.

No one is telling you not to come up with whatever crazy multi-page designs you want to do. All this policy does is merely keep all the excessiveness in your subpages, so those who don't want to look don't have to. "But there's more visibility on the main page" is bad reasoning, is the kind of reasoning that's suitable only for advertisers. If I come to your userpage and see a link "My characters", I have a choice to click on it or not. If I come to your userpage and get thrown pages of such content in my face, I'm not being given that choice. (Oh, and don't even think about saying "Don't come to my userpage then", since a userpage is virtually the only way there is on this wiki to know just who the hell the guy writing that message is; it's as much as a tool for the editors as Recent changes is.)--Dirigible 01:53, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I saved Tyria and Cantha and Elona, but I didn't do it for the citizens. I did it for myself, because I was playing a computer game. The idea that someone could be here for personal enjoyment should not be "narcissistic and backwards". I mean, if we don't finish the day feeling better that we've contributed to the wiki, what are we doing here? We're not getting paid for helping everybody else, after all.

I advance that this (and the other) entire site exists because of one and only one reason: most of the time we've gotten personal satisfaction for ~~others~~ ourselves.

Have a look at my GuildWiki page and ignore everything from "Unlocks" down. Would that be so unreasonable? (I commissioned that comic from Labsenpai, paying actual dollars for it. I had wanted to do something like that here, too.) -- Dashface 02:18, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I was originally supporting this policy as it now stands, but after seeing what kinds of user pages people had to scrap due to the policy, I'm willing to loose the restrictions. The page lengths is one too restrictive limitation, and probably the image restriction too. --

(gem / talk) 02:27, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

Oh, and it doesn't sound too bad to me that the user page and its sub pages are someones main contribution. The point of a game and the wiki is to have fun and the user page is a form of having fun for many. --

(gem / talk) 02:28, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I have no problem loosening page length - but I feel that image size and total size need to be restricted for bandwidth issues - that is a legitimate issue.

As to the argument that "my userpage is my main interest" is not a valid argument against this - you can still maintain your userpage within a subpage - there is no reason the user couldn't do everything they want within a subpage or even multiple subpages if they chose. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:31, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I didn't mean a complete removal of the image size limit, just a little change to the number if it really is a hindrance to users. --

(gem / talk) 03:34, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I actually view extending the size limitation to be a hinderance to users with limited bandwidth, or those users connecting from work. This is not a theoretical problem, it is a factual inconvenience for users. As it is, there are many pages on GuildWiki that I avoid viewing from work for this very reason (Fyren's talk page being one of them). There are some articles here that I already need to avoid.

Also, thus far, I'm yet to see a compelling argument against using a subpage as a substitute - the only argument against it thus far basically boils down to the user saying they don't want to. In no way are they being blocked from the content they want (beyond individual image restrictions - which 100k for a single image is more than enough), only blocked from where extremely large content can be stored. On a subpage, they can get all they want, and users with limited bandwidth still have the ability to view the initial pages. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:50, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

(RI) I disagree somewhat. The game is for having fun, but the wiki is for documenting the game, though I do enjoy doing things on it as well. There are things that are fun about it, but it's primary purpose is not just for fun. Not really part of the discussion, though. Anyway, Dashface, Excessive? Not horribly. But, the question is where we draw a line, not whether we draw a line. If we've got a policy, which we do, we should enforce it unless it's changed. On the other hand, your page - it would be pretty easy to break that up into subpages, not even needing to get rid of any of the content and putting a couple links on the main page. No one who doesn't want to see it has to, and anyone who wants to see it has easy access. Why is this such a big deal? More importantly, having a decently strict set of rules on this keeps things from becoming excessive (which, in my opinion, many of the pages on GuildWiki are). To be fair, I'm not really sure why you have so much of a problem with this. It's restrictive, but you can still put everything you want to on here somewhere, anyway. Subpages are your friends. Might I be able to agree to a slight raising of the image size limits? Yes, possibly, because there was very little discussion on that part in the initial archives, but I think it's fine as is. Length, though, is the part that I actually care about. It forces people to be clear on their user page, which means I can figure out who the bugger hell they are without having to wade through character shots, fanfictions, or unlock lists. And to me, that's really all that matters as far as this policy is concerned. If the policy said to, I'd even be happy with just making it redirect to my talk page, because it's not a big deal. Of course, am I going to convince you, no matter what I say here? No. This is just what I think, and why - make your own conclusions. MisterPepe talk 02:56, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I think the policy about limiting shouldn't be removed, it should be capped, yes. But a higher cap is in order. Have a look at Gem's page User:Gem Doesn't look like it has much on it does it? 97kB (count the image sizes). The length policy should be scrapped as well, who cares if its longer than a few screens, if we have a reasonable cap in place it shouldn't if it has 10 or even 15 lengths. -- Scourge

04:16, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

97? Woah, need to reupload smaller versions. Back to business: 10-15 screens for a lengh limitations is way too long. I would support a maximum of 5 screens and a total of 150-200kB for images. --

(gem / talk) 04:35, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

(edit conflict) Dashface, I see absolutely no problem with porting your GuildWiki user page to here if you cut off the unlocks section. That comic is slightly too big but so is the resolution. A quick minor resize and it's well within the 100k. As for the length restriction, it's very clearly stated that it's a rough estimate. And honestly, when you remove the unlocks, it's just nicely about that length.

And you're right that we play games for personal satisfaction and we contribute to this wiki for personal satisfaction. I agree that there's nothing wrong with being a minor contributor who seems more interested in his or her user page (at least, with all the current policies as is). As such, like several others above, what I don't get is why you think such personal satisfaction cannot be obtained by making use of subpages? The general agreement so far is that a user page in the wiki is meant for providing background and contact details for other users; the restrictions try to support that. That's the general idea behind the restrictions. Don't just argue against; there should be points on why should user pages be allowed long? What are the sort of things that must be on the main user page that would make it long?

I personally have a long user page on GuildWiki and I don't mind doing it here again. But unfortunately, I also find the arguments against it to have very valid points, so I concur, since I'm usually the only one interested in my page, it really doesn't matter if it's on the main page or a subpage. -- ab.er.rant 04:32, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I take back what I said about 10-15 screens, (I just saw Blastedt's page. <-- Thats something that should have never made it onto the wiki imo -- Scourge

04:39, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

Starting to realise why we had to make this policy? I can assure you that the GuildWiki is full of other good examples. --

(gem / talk) 04:57, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

I like the current limitations. As mentioned, I see no reason why whatever it is an user wants to have could not be placed on subpages. By placing just a link (and we have here interesting pages that are like that) you give people the choice of whether to look or not at your content, instead of forcing it over anyone who wanders to your userpage. Erasculio 08:48, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

Reply to various:

Should we draw a line? Yes, of course. I haven't suggested that a line not be drawn. In fact, I proposed 250k when I started this subheading. I also agree on enforcing policies unless they're changed, and I believe that this one would benefit from some (futher) slight modification.

Subpages are not really my friends. Sure, they're not without use, but if something is not relevant enough to go on one's main user page, then it's perhaps not important enough to read at all. (Yes, this is said much about much of the content on users' main pages, but if not even the writer values it enough to have it on the the main user page, to me that's pretty telling.) Subpages are hideaways for indulgent doings. The main user page is closer to saying, 'Here is some stuff that I think you might be interested in.'

My GuildWiki page, linked above, presents information about me in a very clear fashion. My in-game name is in bold at the very beginning of the page. That's it. I am a 23-year-old from Melbourne and my name is Hayden. Does anyone care about that? Probably not. If they want to contact me, they're welcome to post on my talk page or click "E-mail this user". I think that one's talk page and one's contributions are a better testament to one's true character if you really want to know who somebody is.

Gaile Gray inadvertently made a telling observation with the Design Gaile a User Page Competition on her talk page. She picks the following user pages on GuildWiki as good examples of the kind of page that she would like:

Feather's page
- This would violate the length portion if on Guild Wars Wiki.
Aberant80's page
- As acknowledged above, this would also violate the length portion if on Guild Wars Wiki.
CarTune's page
- This would violate the length and image size portions if on Guild Wars Wiki.
84.175's page
- This would also violate the length and image size portions if on Guild Wars Wiki.
Kalomeli's page
- Though Gaile only mentions the borders, this page would also violate the length portion if on Guild Wars Wiki.

I understand some of Barek's image bandwidth pain, but I would suggest that if the difference is just 150k on a few pages, perhaps disabling images in one's browser would be a better user-specific option. -- Dashface 22:49, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

As said before, I would accept a limitation up to 200kB. --

(gem / talk) 06:22, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

So how do you determine how much kB your page takes up? I feel stupid asking this question but I've been trying to make my page condensed yet effective and I'm not sure if it's falling into the suggested guidelines (and how I can tell in the future when I change it). --Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 08:47, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

I meant the image limitation. It's easy to add the image sizes together to see if youare staying under it. Page size/length limitation should be pretty easily testable if it is 3 or 5 screen lenghts with a certain resolution. --

(gem / talk) 09:17, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

So then what about resized versions like on my page under characters? Do they still take up the same space on my user page if resized to 15px or does the resized version only take a few kB? I realize the linked versions still take up the full amount but had no idea of the effects of resizing.--Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 09:27, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Resizing images creates a thumbnail. In some cases the thumbnail can be bigger than the original file, so it's a good idea to test multiple size parameters. As for the file size limit, I've been restricted to dial up for the past few days and it has been PAINFUL. Increasing the size limit is unnecessary and no reason has been given as to why it benefits the community. Re-examine your motives and realise that a size restriction on the main user page isn't stopping you from being creative or showing personality. Just look at aberrants new page, and there are many others that have been created with ingenuity under these restrictions. Please be a little more considerate towards those who are less fortunate than you, especially when the reason behind the demands is so - vain for lack of a better word. - BeXoR 09:54, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm guessing you are talking to Gem as I am trying to find out details about how to identify if my userpage does fall into the guidelines or not as a low kB page. As you have pointed out that the thumbnails are not the way to go then I may make tiny images of each one (like 1-2 kB each) that I wish to have and put a redirect to the larger image or a character page or something like that so that others (like you with your temporary dial-up) won't be bogged down with my vanity. Personally, I'm shooting for a <100kB and a goal of 50kB page but that will take some time to accomplish in the manner I want.--Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 11:03, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Vallen, according to the FireBug plugin for Firefox, your user page is 75 KB. LordBiro 11:05, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Cool. Thanks. :) --Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 11:34, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

You can disable images in your browser and only allow them on pages where you need them. That's what I would do anyway if 100-200kB is too much. --

(gem / talk) 11:29, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

All of this still leaves an open question - what is the issue against using a subpage for the most or even all of the image content? With a subpage, bandwidth issues are satisfied on the primary page reached, and the subpage can contain the full content desired. I honestly fail to see any logical reason for the strong resistance that has been displayed to that approach. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:25, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Dashface, your argument that The main user page is closer to saying, "Here is some stuff that I think you might be interested in. is exactly the reason why the restrictions are requested to be there in the first place. There are alot of people who think that what you think is useful may not really be useful to them. The fact that Gaile pointed out those long pages doesn't mean that we should just relax the restrictions to the point where those pages become acceptable. Also, one more thing, do you actually have a user page design in mind that would violate the policy as is, and that it really cannot be altered to make it conform? Are you mainly against the length restriction, the image size restriction, or both?

But, like Gem said, let's just increase the image size limit and put a lid on this. I think it's been going on for far too long. -- ab.er.rant

12:13, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Excellent questions, Ab.er.rant. Do you actually have a user page design in mind that would violate the policy as is, and that it really cannot be altered to make it conform? Are you mainly against the length restriction, the image size restriction, or both?

Yes. I would like to put a comic strip on my page. The image doesn't exist yet, but currently I'm thinking of something of about six panels. Compression is definitely an option, and I would pursue that even without image guidelines, but the more headroom I have, the better. I don't like to compress images to the point that there is a noticeable lack of quality.

I, personally, have no plans to exceed the currently-recommended length. It's just that the whole idea of regulated page length, understanding that the bandwidth concerns are addressed elsewhere, does not appear to be for any sound reason, and that irks me. I mean, we could restrict the use of the letter L to a maximum of three uses per userpage, but there's little real point, and it would be difficult to justify and enforce. So say somebody wants three hundred userboxes on his page. Waste of life reading them all? Yes, but who is going to bother to try reading them all? In practice, I don't see how that's any different from skimming a slab of text, except that a slab of text takes up less space vertically.

Unlike a Mountain Troll, I find fevered discussion to be draining rather than sustaining. I've voiced my concerns now, both for myself and the people whom this policy will affect in the future. There are twenty-one users who have already breached this policy at some point (BlackGeneral, Blastedt, ChaoticCoyote, Divinechancellor, Drago, Ekrin, Gordon_Ecker, Indian, Katscratched, Keiko, Kurd, Life_Infusion, Match, Murdoc, Oris_rhy, Pakuna, Rah, Renegade, Saranis, SK, and Y0_ich_halt), and I truly wonder if we consider every one of them to have done something unreasonable. -- Dashface 22:44, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

I really do see your point. But the the idea is not that "you don't have to read it", the idea is that "you don't even notice it". It's about not slowing down page loading, and not being disruptive. Factors like loading speed and browser type comes into play. Is it really so unacceptable and intolerable to put your comic strip into a subpage? Because you want everyone who stumbles onto your page to load and see the comic regardless of whether they want to or not? A page with over 500k of images and several scroll lengths is, to some, annoying. You need to consider the opinions of that group of users, those who don't like it. How about coming up with a new middle-ground proposal? You can get more people to respond when you have something nicely spelled out. -- ab.er.rant

01:47, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

500k is, absolutely, excessive. I think Gem's middle-ground statements ("I would support a maximum of 5 screens and a total of 150-200kB for images," and "I would accept a limitation up to 200kB") are reasonable. While I personally don't see how choosing not to scroll down is disruptive, I seem to be alone on that point, so I'll drop it. Five screens and 200k will encompass an extra standard deviation, and I could both accept and work with that. -- Dashface 05:32, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

You are not alone on that point, Dashface. I've stayed quiet in this discussion because I wanted to see where it went, but I too believe that the page length restriction is unnecessary. If a page is below a certain size then who cares if it's ridiculously long? As long as it loads quickly then you can navigate away from it.

However, I don't necessarily agree with the change in the filesize limit, so I may not be an ally for you here :P LordBiro 06:30, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

And how does a regular user like me get to know how big my page is? I have simply no idea. Page length is easier to see. — Anja 06:40, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

@Dashface - My main issue has been and continues to be image size and trying to keep it from slowly creeping up - I've seen it before where it's argued one month that size x should be the limit ... then later size y isn't that much bigger ... then later still size z should be acceptable as it's not much bigger than y ... before you know it, the restrictions have grown several times larger to the point that they are either meaningless or non-existant.

As for scrolling, I actually haven't commented one way or the other on the scrolling down because a single image will often use more bandwidth than even three or four screens of text. I have no problem with increasing that limit - I could see that one going up to 3, 4 or maybe even 5 screens. It still seems reasonable adding some sort of restriction; at some point, even straight text becomes huge, such as this talk page is now almost 60k @ 11 screens on 1280x1040, that's an average of about 5k per screen. Granted, this is more packed text than will usually be found on most user pages - but it does represent an example of where text also takes up space, so some sort of limit is reasonable. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:29, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

I've been thinking about this since I posted above. How about, instead of a length limit we simply impose a restriction on the size of images AND text. The size of a blank page is about 99kb (see this blank page as an example). We could round that up to 100kb and say that the size of your user page, including images, should be below 250kb. You can check this kind of thing using a hard refresh in Firebug. I imagine other tools, like curl or lynx (maybe) would also be able to determine page size including images. LordBiro 14:04, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Imho, I should not need to download or use tools from outside of the wiki to be able to determine if my page follow the guidelines. If the user page watchers are ready to check all pages suspected to violate the policy with those tools, it's ok. But not to tell everyone and their brother to get them just to be able to follow the user page policy. — Anja 14:21, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Anyone could use a tool such as [[1]]? Not that I particularly agree with arbitrary size restrictions. If a user's page is too big ugly and cumbersome then no-ones going to be visiting it more than once. A restriction to ensure the server isn't filled with 30 High definitition pictures of peoples characters is reasonable though Vladtheemailer 15:34, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Anja, what solution would you prefer? LordBiro 16:12, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for that link Biro, Wish I read this thread before I hand counted every image on this guy's page: User:InfestedHydralisk, his page is *drumroll* ~358kB. I'm pretty sure his huge pic isn't his own work too. And Biro if a blank page is essentially 100kb, wouldn't 250kb mean we're only actually getting 150kb to use for the userpage anyway? Not much more than what we have now when no one knew a blank page was 100kb :( -- Scourge

16:50, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

(ri)I like the current "scroll"-defintion. It's easier to understand (at least for me :P) and not many are going to read your page if it's too long either, so why have it long? But, with that simple tool someone just linked, I'm okay with size also. I didn't know it was THAT easy :) Checked my userpage, ended up in 75kb... Can that be true, if a blank is 100kb? — Anja 18:05, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

The WebsiteOoptimization.com site, I linked, shows the compressed size not the uncompressed size so it is a good indication of bandwidth issues. Using that tool the blank page is about 64kb Vladtheemailer 18:12, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

"if a blank page is essentially 100kb, wouldn't 250kb mean we're only actually getting 150kb to use for the userpage anyway?" - yes. I didn't say I wanted the amount increased, I only wanted to alter the way in which we calculated it.

That website optimization site says that my blank page is actually 65k... it's obvious that Firebug and this site must be calculating the figure in different ways, and I suspect it has something to di with me being both logged in and having slightly unusual settings, but I wouldn't have thought this would equate to 35kb! I could try and diagnose this, but I can't be bothered :P LordBiro 18:53, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

May be Firebug is giving the uncompressed size as this is the size the browser is interested in? Vladtheemailer 18:56, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Wouldn't the problem with external tools be that they'll likely include the background graphic, the site logo graphic, and any other icons that may be in the notice bar at the bottom of the page when they tally the total size calculations - not just the user contributed content? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:29, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

That's good actually, since when you load a page, you have to take those stuff into account anyway. And good idea, I support the switch to using total page size, and using 250k as suggested above. Mine's at a 110k :p. But should we put that website link? We might increase their server load by a lot, heheh. -- ab.er.rant

22:54, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Weird Question

not covered in the policy, but User:Eloc Jcg is basically starting up a builds namespace in his user space. Encouraging users to post builds there etc. Surely this is going beyond the use of a personal user space. --Lemming64 17:58, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Umm, nope.--Eloc 17:59, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

It's not disallowed, but it sure isn't encouraged. Eloc, if you want to play with builds, why don't you stay at GuildWiki with them until we get a build policy here? --

(gem / talk) 18:15, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

To be honest, it is something I would actually encourage. It doesn't look like an entire builds space stuffed into one user space; rather, it's encouraging people to create builds in their own user space and use his pages to help track them. --Rezyk 18:32, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

I didn't check what Eloc is doing, but the following from Lemming64s comment is what I wouldn't like: "basically starting up a builds namespace in his user space" --

(gem / talk) 18:53, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

No, no, no. That is not what is happening. Go to User:Eloc Jcg and click on my builds. Then, click on any build and go down to the category that it is in and you will see. All I basically did was make my own category which people are free to put their own builds in there if they want to but they don't have to if they don't want to.--Eloc 18:57, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

In Eloc's words, "This page is instructions for adding builds to. By all means, feel free to add your builds to my Category. Here are step-by-step instructions to putting your builds onto my category for everyones personal useage" - sounds like what Lemming said (making a build section inside his own user page). Erasculio 18:59, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Well, this is a way to go around the build policy, but I don't care enough to make a fuzz about it. --

(gem / talk) 19:04, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Builds in namespaces is not problematic for me. Let me say why:

User namespace should never be linked to from the main namespace (or any other namespace with certain talk pages being an exception) and as such user articles are allowed more freedom, though we may have to reign in certain behaviour at times.
Having builds in the main namespace or creating a dedicated build namespace elevates the builds within to the level of "endorsed content" and as such it makes sense that some vetting procedure, or some rules for acceptance, must be implemented. This is arguably the source of all of the problems that the GuildWiki faces regarding builds; i.e. there are those who cannot agree on what the rules for acceptance should be, and there are those who argue over whether a build is acceptable or not based on those rules.
The most contentious builds are those that are not commonly used. While argument might arise from variants of popular builds, most argument spring from someone inventing a build and someone else saying it shouldn't be published for some reason. This is the source of the whole "no original builds" policy and its relatives.
Since articles in the user space are not linked to from the main namespace they are never considered to be officially endorsed (although they must meet some criteria for the sake of decency). Therefore there need not be any criteria for publication or deletion. This means the source of the problems that GuildWiki faces is removed.

I realise this may sound patronizing or simplified to those familiar with GuildWiki's build policies, but I hope you can agree that overall builds in someone's user space are really no different than posting character information in a user space. It is subjective information, but that information is not official so there is no need to delete it.

If you disagree I would love to see if there is something I have missed ;) LordBiro 19:52, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Don't understand what you mean...lol.--Eloc 19:55, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

My only worry is that something like that grows so much it becomes the unofficial "Official Wiki Builds Page", with all the ranting and name calling and flooding of the "Recent Changes" as seen on GuildWiki. That's very unlikely and I'm probably being paranoid, but still... Erasculio 20:12, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

But still? They are on peoples user pages.--Eloc 20:27, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

What I fear is the problems we had in GWiki. Recent changes flood (but this time it can't be filtered as it's combined with the user name space) and hostility. --

(gem / talk) 20:38, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes but I highly doubt it would get so many people posting builds on my Category. Mine is just for the odd user that comes accross them. You would probably have to know me to some extent because it isn't in a simple like such as Builds like on Guildwiki. They would have to go to my user page and read the page about how to do it.--Eloc 20:52, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

What didn't you understand Eloc?

I doubt that there would be anywhere near as many edits on user builds as there are on GuildWiki, since a build in the user namespace does not require anyone else to get involved with it.

For example, if Gem posts his Troll Farming build and adds it to Eloc's category, then what reason or right does anyone else have to alter it or to ask for it to be deleted? This is the reason there is such a problem on the GuildWiki. Because every man and his dog has an opinion on what would make a build better, or why a build is terrible and should be removed. I have no right to ask for Gem to remove his build from the wiki, whether this build is good or bad; it is in his user space and I have no say in what Gem puts there (provided it doesn't break policies). LordBiro 07:24, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Hmm, your correct. A user name space build section would probably get a lot less edits unless the users implements rules of his own for vetting etc. --

(gem / talk) 12:26, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Pfft, I am not going to add my own Vetting system. Everyones builds are welcome.--Eloc 12:51, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Custom skin remote links

ArenaNet recently brought up this issue in the mailing list (posted with permission):

Our IT team has pointed out something that is a potential security issue, and I’d like to throw it up for discussion with the hopes that we can get some kind of a policy in the works to outline and solve the problem.

As you guys probably know, several of the members in the community have begun to make custom wiki skins for use on the Guild Wars Wiki. While we think that this idea is both fun and creative, there are some issues that have arisen from the new creations that we should address sooner than later.

The primary issue that has arisen is due to several of the user skins linking directly to images on the Guild Wars website. As an example, view this user skin. Our systems are detecting this type of remote image linking as an XSS security threat, which is of great concern to the IT teams who constantly monitor logs for issues like this. While these links obviously aren’t true threats, the fact that they are appearing as threats could pose a problem for us. If dozens of user skins start to follow this pattern (which many do from borrowing code from others), imagine how many alerts we’ll receive from this type of “threat” over time.

This also opens up another issue of concern, which is the potential for users that may not know better to remote link images called in their skins from other, non-Guild Wars sites. Not only does this open up the potential for a large security threat, but this also will pose problematic with our licensing.

A simple solution to these issues would be to inform wiki members that they will need to save images that they intend to use in their skins and upload them to the wiki itself (as many have already done). This will not only eliminate the above issues, but it will save on page load times by cutting out the extra hop it would take to remote link to images on other servers.

It seems like the best step to take from here would be to draft some kind of a user skin policy, discussing and outlining some of the following points:

All images used in wiki skins must be uploaded to the wiki, even if they are found on the Guild Wars website
No skins should remote link to any content found on any other website
We’ll probably want to either ask that users put their skin images in their own user spaces (if they decide to keep their skin’s code in their user space), although I think this is something you guys can decide

In my opinion, getting a policy like this going may do wonders to not only prevent issues in the long run, but to give curious and creative users the extra encouragement to contribute to the wiki in new ways.

It was decided to post this here for the community to discuss. --Rezyk 19:48, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm sure you could have summarized that Rezyk :P LordBiro 19:58, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

The solution is pretty much there, set up a policy about user skins/themes and outline the limitations the users have when making a custom skin. The bullets points listen in the email are a good start already, except for the last point, that needs more input :P -- Scourge

20:02, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Even without the security threat alerts issue it makes a lot more sense to host the images used on the wiki. Also the bonus with a policy is that well made popular skins could be set as options in a users preferences. --Lemming64 20:26, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

I allready asked User:Smurf to change the images of his popular skin to the wiki, but a policy is definitely needed. --

(gem / talk) 20:39, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

A note about not hotlinking images has been added to Guild Wars Wiki:Image use. --Rainith 22:42, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Great. --

(gem / talk) 04:03, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Users not listening

What do we do with users that dont listen or are just innactive while leaving a Userpage with not-allowed content. ~ Kurd16:39, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

I would say that it is not urgent to take any immediate action in these cases. If a user is not active and has contributed little then their user page will (probably) get quite little traffic. If their only offense is that the page is too long or some other similar violation then I think we can leave a message informing them and wait a while. I wouldn't want to say how long a "while" is, but I would say it would be measured in months rather than days.

There are some situations where I would encourage action though. If a message is left and a user is active, i.e. they still contribute to the wiki but they ignore the message, then I think some action should be taken. And it should go without saying that if the user posts some illegal content then immediate action should be taken. LordBiro 19:07, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

I've been following the user page policy and deleting any images which break the image policy with wrong naming. --

(gem / talk) 12:46, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

User talk page restrictions

In the section on user talk pages, the polciy states "Do not apply any special formatting to either the talk page or your comments." Personally, I read that to mean not to use anything that alters the normal formatting of the text (ie: don't structure the active talk page with colored text or background, don't use boxes or special header formatting to split subjects in the talk page, etc) - but I did not read it to ban navigational aids on talk pages. But, I wanted to verify that others read it the same way. If the header at the top of my talk page is viewed as violating the policy as it's written now, please let me know. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:29, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Like I posted on what ever talk page this was discussed on, I think it only disallows something that alters everything posted on the page like font, formatting, a table, etc. The navigation aids, archive boxes etc are allowed and don't present a problem at all. --

(gem / talk) 11:35, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah. I always thought it meant something like this. Although I must say that looks pretty nice :P --Santax 11:39, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Yea it looks nice, but rather confusing as to whether that is really a talk page or a user page. Anyway, how about rewording that sentence as Do not apply any style formatting to the comments on talk pages. The only exceptions allowed are user signatures (governed by GWW:SIGN) and illustrations or explanations on a formatting design. -- ab.er.rant

02:27, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Notice that I specifically mentioned the comments (which should mean the general discussion area right?). This should imply that navigation bars and such are fine. -- ab.er.rant

02:29, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Is what I've done to my talk page, necessarily "style formatting to the comments"? Its just a box around the comments. I'll happily remove it if anyone has a problem against it though -- Scourge

04:30, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

This rule was introduced specifically against such boxes like I aid earlier, so yes, you need to remove it.

I don't think we need to rewrite the note though, atleast the suggested modification isn't an improvement imho. --

(gem / talk) 05:10, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Deleting stuff from your own talk page

Question: Why aren't we allowed to delete stuff from our own talk page? --Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 08:11, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Because some people do it to blank certain unfavourable stuff like a warning from an admin etc. --

(gem / talk) 15:50, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

But then it would still be in the history. The reason I ask is that I don't want to save useless stuff like: "Hey, you forgot to add in X line of text" and a response from me like "Thanks, fixed it". So far my talk page is mostly that kinda stuff and I don't really see a need to waste space keeping it. Are there any exceptions?--Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 08:07, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Just archive it then :P

Fox (talk|contribs) 08:20, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

That still just sweeps it under the carpet. Why not make space and delete uneeded junk? I'm just asking. --Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 11:14, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Going through archives is a lot easier than the history. Space isn't a problem. --

(gem / talk) 11:25, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

What do you mean by "make space"? Deleting stuff will not free up disk space, as the content is still saved. --Rainith 12:10, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

I meant "make space". It would save space as it is duplicated in 2 places, the archives and the history. yes/no? --Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 15:37, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

And scrolling through an archive page is a hundred times easier than checking every single revision in a user's history to make sure he hasn't deleted anything of importance. =\ --Dirigible 12:41, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

That's the only good reason I've seen so far but then again, why bother keeping a bunch of junk to scroll through in the archives too? This discussion is fun even if it's not productive. :) --Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 15:37, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, how do we decide what is junk and what isn't? Do we leave it at the discretion of the user? *deletes the admin warning, 'tis just junk* Even leaving malicious intentions aside, the perception of what "junk" is varies from person to person; someone might consider all issues that don't involve banning or deleting half the wiki trivial and worthless to keep, while another might consider important even those "Hello!"s. I'm probably one of the latter, I think there's real value even to those one liners "hey, you forgot to add X to Y article". The way I see it, your talk page is where the rest of the community is directly communicating with you, and I think you can probably tell more about a person from his talk page than main user page, (polite or rude? needs to be told something a million times or reacts to feedback? careful or careless with his edits?, that kind of thing). --Dirigible 16:10, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Main user page length limitation

Although I was originally one of the main supporters of the length limitation as it now stands, seeing it in action for some time now has made me change my mind. I think that the limitation is too restricting at the moment, and so do many other users. I'm surprised none of them, for example tanaric, has started this discussion yet.

What I propose is changing the limitation of 3 creens at 1024x768 to 5-8 screens at the same reso. -- (gem / talk) 20:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Knowing myself, I never read a userpage that is more than 3 screens, but I don't want people to restrict their pages just because I don't read it :P I support allowing more lengthy userpages. - anja

(contribs) 20:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

For plenty of reasons (to be found in the archive), I fully back the removal of user page restrictions. Never wanted them =) --Xeeron 21:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm keeping mine short regardless but I support lifting the length restrictions altogether (and adding it in to be "within reasonable length) but not just lengthening it a few pages. If someone gets out of hand, then an admin can ask the user to shorten it a bit as it would be up to their discretion. --Image:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG Vallen Frostweaver 00:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

By just saying "reasonable", it'll never be "unreasonable" to some people. As a policy, subjective measure like that doesn't really work. Either we have a specified restriction, or we don't. But regarding this proposed change, after all we went through to arrive at this