User talk:Gordon Ecker

Archive

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February-June 2007
July-December 2007
January-June 2008

Queen Aijundu

Thought id leave you a note that I uploaded one of your images here Fall 09:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

[1]

{{guild cleanup}} tags works best with a timestamp in them. {{guild cleanup|~~~~~}} ;) — ク Eloc 貢 21:21, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright

?. In what way is The Gates Assassin not the originator of his own material? Backsword 08:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Right now, I'm removing deletion tags from any article tagged as a duplicate or as having been merged as a precaution. -- Gordon Ecker 08:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is any legal issue with duplicate pages. One does not have to attribute the original post to the second editor, even if his page is deleted. Backsword 08:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

See section 4 of the GFDL. If the deleted version is the copy, it can be deleted. If the deleted duplicate is the original version, it cannot be deleted without crediting at least five of the principal authors (or all principal authors if there are less than five). -- Gordon Ecker 08:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. However, copyright applies to presentation, not ideas. Ideas are not copyrightable. Backsword 09:03, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I removed the deletion tags as a precaution. -- Gordon Ecker 09:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

They're all tagged as merge sources now. I'll go over them tomorrow. -- Gordon Ecker 10:19, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Backsword, it's still a courtesy to attribute content which is moved/merged. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 15:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Unless the suggestions were completely reworded when merged, the presentation was copied and therefore attribution is legally required. Even if it wasn't, as Aiiane says, it's good etiquette. - Tanetris 19:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

There is no way we can perform good etiquette with duplicate ideas in suggestion pages. We'd have to give attribution to monster articles like this and have to sort through these archives so that we don't step on anyone's toes. What about using the original or duplicate article as a redirect to the proper one. It's faster, and that way, nothing gets deleted. (Terra Xin 02:09, 25 July 2008 (UTC))

I believe attribution is only an issue if text is copied and the source article is deleted, which generally only happens after merging, not after archiving, however I don't have a legal background. -- Gordon Ecker 07:52, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I've sorted out the attribution issues for all of the tagged merge sources and tagged them as resolved. -- Gordon Ecker 09:12, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe Terra was refering to Aiiane's suggestion, which, frankly, is unworkable due to the quantaties and conflicts involved. I agree it would be nice for the people involved, but it's simply not something we're in business doing. Backsword 13:29, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

That's not how it works, Tanetris. I guess you are thinking about how fanfiction does this, but that's becuase it's considred a derative work, and thus using the original. That would almost never be the case here, and hard to show if it was. That rare (never seen it happen) also has an easy fix; in order to happen, someone must make a claim, so any attribution can be taken from that claim. No need to do anything before a claim is made. Backsword 13:35, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

So... What happens to the original articles now that they've been resolved? The only real thing that's changed is the color of it all. (222.153.7.27 01:42, 27 July 2008 (UTC))

The merge targets now have attribution on their talk pages. -- Gordon Ecker 01:45, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

That looks OK. But in future, the history section would be more appropriate to record such changes as the merging takes place, then we can avoid the need to place merge tags onto the original article. There are flaws, however. Now that the articles have been merged, there have been no steps taken to prevent people from submitting content under the original article. We would have to re-submit an attribution tag every time someone makes a change (purposely or mistakenly) to the original article - before the merger can be updated. Again, I suggest to remove all information on original articles and class them as redirects - that's what the history section is there for. No information will be lost this way. (Terra Xin 03:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC))

Ohh! That means new policy!! (Terra Xin 03:40, 27 July 2008 (UTC))

I've blanked the source pages. -- Gordon Ecker 04:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I set up User:Backsword/Sandbox/Merges to help with this. Backsword 12:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Maybe this could be turned into a merging, attribution or copyright / licensing issues (merging, handling pages imported from other wikis, checking that imagges have the correct license tags etc.) project. -- Gordon Ecker 00:05, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

For the two oldest merge pages, I found it impractical to track all sources. (They were evben less organised then), so I rewrote the articles instead. ArenaNet:Guild Wars 2 suggestions/Keep certain aspects from GW1 and ArenaNet:Guild Wars 2 suggestions/Add more stuff for GW2 can be fixed by deleting all revision prior to my latest ones. That would solve attribution there, as noone else has text left on them. Backsword 15:23, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Dragon Festival Actors

Most of the npc pages were crowded with the actor stuff so I created the actor pages, a list can be found here The Fury has two pages i'm not sure which info belongs on which, if you could help sift through the info on all the pages that would be great :) Fall 14:05, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for helping on the fury articles :) Fall 10:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem. -- Gordon Ecker 04:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Oiiijj.....

What kind of computer problems? --Silverleaf 22:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure yet. I've pretty much ruled out the possibility of a hard drive problem. I suspect that one of the RAM chips has worn out. -- Gordon Ecker 23:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Symptoms? (<= bored here, just want to make a shot in the dark). -- NUKLEAR IIV 23:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Either a black screen or the Blue Screen of Death midway through booting with either "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" or "KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED" as the error message. Usually bootvid.dll is mentioned. -- Gordon Ecker 23:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

If it's through booting, you may have software issues. Try changing some components around: If you have an on-board graphics card on your motherboard, try using that instead of you GCard. If you are using two RAM chips, try each one in sequence, then another set just to check. ıf the Gcard is the problem, you may want to...

I just realized a 5 year old lego player could give the same advice. For your own good, ignore me. -- NUKLEAR IIV 23:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

From Tuesday until late wednesday, I was able to boot and log in, but programs started crashing and started getting a BSOD with "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" (along with the other two BSOD messages I already mentioned), the current situation started late Wednesday. I suspect the desktop's approaching the far end of the bathtub curve. Currently, I'm using my laptop to scan the desktop's hard drives. The main drive's virus-free, and I'm nearly finished scanning it with windows' error-checking utility. Once that's done, I plan on individually checking each of the RAM chips. -- Gordon Ecker 23:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's the CPU, swapping the RAM had no effect, however underclocking the processor seems to prevent the BSOD errors. The performance drawbacks shouldn't be much of an issue, as my laptop's more powerful. -- Gordon Ecker 07:22, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It either means a system or hardware driver has corrupted its self. Do a google search of it. Dominator Matrix 00:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Underclocking seems to have worked. Corrupt drivers wouldn't have any effect until after the system tried to boot off one of the hard drives, which wouldn't explain why the system sometimes hung with a black screen, and I don't see why underclocking would prevent driver-related crashes. I've already googled the various error messages. I now plan on doing further research into the CPU theory. -- Gordon Ecker 01:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The error messages look graphics related, however with underclocking working and considering the time of year, it sounds like plain old overheating to me. Backsword 05:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I haven't had any problems in weeks, but I'll keep up the notice until I get a new one. -- Gordon Ecker 00:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

And the desktop just died on me earlier today, however I already ordered the new one, and it should be ready in a couple days. -- Gordon Ecker 03:59, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

So fun times ahead, faster Graphics card etc etc? --Silverleaf Don't assume, ask! 12:06, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I got it today and just finished setting it up. It's not exactly top of the line, but it's still pretty good. -- Gordon Ecker 06:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

YAY!! Back in the Game for you then :). --Silverleaf Don't assume, ask! 13:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

← moved to #Running Guild Wars on a GMA 3100

The BSOD points directly to a failed or worn memory stick. Source here. Try memtest86? Dominator Matrix 03:50, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Hand Axe

I noticed you already re-created this article. I actually intended to move Hand Axe (Tyrian) to "Hand Axe", as there are only two Hand Axes, hence a disambiguation page can be omitted if both pages become tagged with {{otheruses}}. —ZerphaThe Improver 09:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I assumed you wanted it as a disambig, since you were the one who moved Hand Axe to Hand Axe (Tyrian) and the deletion tag didn't specify a region. Using the Hand Axe article for the Tyrian version could be interpreted as going against the naming conventions if multi-campaign skins are considered as broad / narrow in scope as single-campaign skins. Anyway, you could put a move tag in the Hand Axe (Tyrian) article. -- Gordon Ecker 10:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

yeah, excuse me for not having tagged Hand Axe (Tyrian) accordingly, i also admit that it's weird that i was the one who moved Hand Axe to Hand Axe (Tyrian) at first. That was because at this time "Hand Axe" still included both axe skins afair. But why do you think the move could break the article name formatting rules? Guild_Wars_Wiki:Formatting/Article_names#Disambiguation_identifiers states: "[...]When only two articles share the same name, always try to make use of the {{Otheruses}} template to indicate that another article that bears the same name exists. Only one of the two need bear a disambiguation identifier. See the subsection on naming priorities below.[...]" The reason why the core skin bears the name "Tyrian" is because the disambiguation got adapted to Tolkano's reward item names: There is an axe with that skin named "Tyrian Hand Axe". —ZerphaThe Improver 13:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've deleted Hand Axe, moved Hand Axe (Tyrian) over it, tagged with a proposed move back to Hand Axe (Tyrian) and posted the move proposal rationale at Talk:Hand Axe#Move proposal. -- Gordon Ecker 23:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks —ZerphaThe Improver 00:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with you on the "Bad Elites"....

There are plenty of elite skills that I wouldn't takee if they were un-elited. But I think you missed a few.

You forgot Double Dragon, Primal Rage, Healing Hands, Melandru's Arrows, Archer's Signet, Flourish, "Victory Is Mine!", Healing Light, Glimmer of Light, most Smiting elites, and hopefully I'll have time to add more to this list later. Just bringing it to your attention that there are many more bad elites. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:72.71.222.242 (talk).

I have glanced over your list and borrowed/added them on list of 'skills to fix'... hope you dont mind. ^_^ Several of these we have attempted to addresed in some way, so if you have any ideas/suggestions please foward them to I or Lancy --Falconeye 06:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

suggestions

— Skakid 00:27, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't have put it better myself. Absolutely great. Thanks Gordon, Calor 00:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The Golden Gods

Why did you delete my page? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:58.168.82.69 (talk).

It was moved to Guild:The Golden Gods. -- Gordon Ecker 10:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:58.168.82.69 (talk).

Category:Unique miniatures

Did you only create this to serve as a subcategory of Unique items? Or did you plan an accordant category tag for the other miniatures as well? We could add the categories Rare miniatures, Uncommon miniatures, Common Miniatures; and a main category (something like Miniatures by rarity) for them. This could be done simultaneously with defining the new rarity parameter. —ZerphaThe Improver 22:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that the Igneous Summoning Stone, the hero armor upgrade items and the green miniatures were missing from Category:Unique items. -- Gordon Ecker 23:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed that the green endgame trophies were also missing, so I categorized them. -- Gordon Ecker 23:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, i have to apologize for an edit regarding the Igneous Summoning Stone then, i wasn't aware of your tagging plan at that moment and removed the category again, as we hadn't listed any non-weapon items yet in this category before. A subcategory for them could possibly be useful, but if you can't think of a good name for it (Non-weapon unique items sounds strange and would also include minis, trophies etc) i guess it's ok to put it directly into this category. —ZerphaThe Improver 07:43, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Shai Halud NPA

I'm reporting myself for NPA. Please kick me from the website--Shai Halud 14:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

if you know not to do it, you know not to do it again. Backsword 15:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Well that's a first... (Terra Xin 16:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC))

HIYA Gordon

Hi, I liked your suggestion about spirit mobility with spirit channeling, do you mind if I create a skill out of it using your idea? (reply on my talk page)--Lancy1214 23:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure. -- Gordon Ecker 01:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your support

Thanks for reading and supporting my "General Balancing Guidelines" article. I would like all of Guild Wars to be balanced actually. Hopefully with enough support we can convince Anet to get a new skill balancer or convince Izzy to do a better job. Keep adding more points-the article needs all the support it can get.

Thanks!71.174.21.32 12:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC) Well, at least you made an effort to restore the article. Thanks.96.233.8.53 19:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Quick question

Would Backsword be in violation of 1RR here? I couldn't be sure if he is, and if he isn't then I expanded a bit more on the page anyway and will try to clear things with him anyway. --Ezekial Riddle 03:47, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd let it slide since only the third tagging happened after Guild Wars Wiki:One-revert rule was expanded beyond the main namespace and the second and third taggings were over a month apart. -- Gordon Ecker 03:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

asura and dwarveen archtecture resambleing kurzick

k you explained some of it i see kurzick to the sorrows furnacwe archtecture, but i dotn knwo were a stonesouls tature made by asura is to varify this --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:99.182.83.40 (talk).

Actually I think I might've been wrong, see Help:Ask a game question. -- Gordon Ecker 03:39, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Extra statuses on Miscellaneous bugs page.

I see you've added more status icons to the miscellaneous bugs page. Is it worth having another status of outstanding or ignored? Some of the bugs in that page haven't had any ANet response on them at all in several months, so its not clear if ANet think they're bugs, think they're not bugs, or are just hoping they'll go away. Sadie2k 19:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You could bring it up at ArenaNet talk:Portal. -- Gordon Ecker 00:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Has too much power.

oh man a ban dose sooo much gg nub. Dynamic ip ftw75.165.105.173 07:22, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Why are you taking this personally? I'm not the one who deleted the old version of ArenaNet:Skill feedback/Elementalist/Eruption, and I've posted constructive criticism at both the old and new versions of ArenaNet talk:Skill feedback/Elementalist/Eruption. -- Gordon Ecker 07:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I am not. the question is why do you think adding a Delete tag to your user page is vandalism. your the one taking it personally no warning or anything you fail at running a site. i can keep getting a new ip every time your just wasting your time banning me. if you could please point out the line of protocol were it says its a block able offince to put a delete tag on some ones page. also i know you didnt delete them but you where the one who put the tag on there, and your "constructive criticism" was a poor attempt at protecting a skill you feel strongly about if you look at any of the other skill suggestions you can and would see that there all of the same quality also you thought it was a bug.75.165.125.86 07:43, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Tagging people's user pages for deletion as retaliation is rude. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 96.233.2.155 (talk • contribs) at 17:48, 27 October 2008 (UTC) (UTC).

What am I supposed to do? You're not registered, so I can't put a warning on your talk page. If you seriously believe that I'm abusing my sysop power, you can post a reconfirmation request. For the record, I have only deleted five skill feedback pages, one was a move remnant, the other four were uncontested after three days, and one of those four had already been merged into another page. As for my constructive criticism, I'm trying to improve the game like most of the other people involved in the skill feedback pages, that's why I'm active on them, it's no secret that different people have different views on game balance and game design, others people can represent their own views. -- Gordon Ecker 08:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Graphics card problems

→ moved from #Oiiijj.....

Unfortunately, the integrated graphics card seems to be incompatible with Eye of the North, so I can only play it on my laptop for now. The rest of the game seems to run fine. -- Gordon Ecker 02:17, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I did some searching and found this post by Moriz on Guild Wars Guru. Running Guild Wars through 3D Analyzer 2.36b as an administrator with none of the options checked seems to fix everything. -- Gordon Ecker 03:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, not everything, there's still some flickering problems. -- Gordon Ecker 03:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Unchecking Wait for vertical sync checkbox in Guild Wars fixes the flickering problem, and changing the permissions on the Guild Wars folder allows 3D-Analyze to work without being run as an administrator. I still have texture edge glitches and sprite transparency glitches, and the Enable post-process effects box is grayed out, I did something with 3D-Analyze last night which fixed the glitches and allowed post-process effects, as well as preventing the flickering while Wait for vertical sync was checked, but I don't remember what it was. -- Gordon Ecker 22:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I just did a bit more research. It seems that my desktop's Intel GMA 3100 onboard graphics card is strictly better than my laptop's Intel GMA 900 onboard graphics card, however when playing the game on my laptop, the post-process effects checkbox isn't grayed out and I don't need any third-party software to prevent crashes. -- Gordon Ecker 08:01, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems your desktop is running in the inferior DX8 mode. Bad as your chip is, it does support DX9, so that should be one thing to look into. (asides, what possessed you to get graphics like that?)Backsword 01:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The laptop was intended mainly for web browsing and word processing. As for the desktop, I've decided to hold out on a graphics card until I've seen the recommended system requirements of next-generation games such as Guild Wars 2 and Diablo III. According to DXDIAG the desktop's running DirectX 10. I've considered forcing DX9, but I haven't found any way to do so. -- Gordon Ecker 02:27, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Nudging into an old topic here, but I noticed the link to my ol' mate Moriz there and got intrigued. It's a sad fact that none of Intel's integrated graphics solutions are worth a damn. You say it was bought for web browsing and WP - fair do's - that's all it's capable of. On the subject of waiting to see what GW2/DIII are going to need - I wouldn't bother. Get an nVidia GTX260 216 or an AMD HD 4870. They will run those two games fine. Sure, those games are not out yet, but they're in development to some degree, and you develop with what's available now, not what may be available in the future. If you want to be really safe (and lighter in pocket) go with the GTX280 or the awesome HD 4870X2 - that's overkill for anything for the foreseeable future. --snograt 19:38, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Guild Wars 2 Suggestions

Greetings!

I'm writing a canned message of sorts to a select handful of Guild Wars Wiki users whom I believe share a similar passion of mine: exchanging new concepts and ideas for Guild Wars. I chose you by simply jotting down names that showed up frequently in the discussion of the GW2 Suggestion Pages here on the Wiki. If you have no interest in the matter or feel that I'm imposing upon you, I will thank you for your time; please disregard/delete this message. If, however, you do have a creative streak and enjoy sharing your ideas with the hopes that they'll some day be adopted into the game you love, then read on!

I like to think that, on occasion, I have have a good idea. And when it's concerning something I'm very passionate about (like Guild Wars) I tend to go all-out. When Guild Wars 2 was announced back in March of 2007, I was very excited! Here was an opportunity to get some of the features I've really been wanting to see in an MMO integrated into one of my favorite games! The question was, how could I get the developers to actually pay attention to any of my ideas? In my naivety, I began posting them on “Guild Wars 2 Suggestion” topics on several forums of popular GW community sites, only to realize that, as more and more suggestions were posted, my posts became buried. I never got the feedback I desired (were any of my ideas even good?), and I could only assume that ArenaNet would have a slim chance of coming across them in all the drivel and flaming that accompanies forum topics.

Disheartened, but not defeated, I decided that I (and many other creative minds) needed a place where they could post their ideas without them being buried... where other players could easily vote on them, and post suggestions of their own! Thus, I created a site called NikiWiki. Unfortunately, either due to my requests for fansitedom going through the wrong channels, or a lack of understanding on ArenaNet's part, NikiWiki never really took off. At around that time ArenaNet set up a “receptacle” for posting Guild Wars 2 suggestions here on the Guild Wars Wiki. But I saw this as only a tiny step up from posting in forums. How does anyone know what new ideas really matter to the players?

So I've decided to take another stab.

I'll spare you any further ramblings, and introduce you to the Guild Wars Feedback Community. All I'm asking is that you take a few moments of your time and visit the site. Create an account if you wish – everything is free, there is no spam, etc... there aren't even any advertisements on the site. I do all this simply out of my love of the game, and a selfish desire to see Guild Wars 2 become the ultimate MMO!

The GWFC is not perfect by far, please understand that it's currently in beta. I hope that with some input from like minded individuals, this site can become a valuable resource for the developers at ArenaNet and folks like you and I who need a creative outlet. Feel free to criticize (constructively or not), make suggestions of your own, or brow-beat me in any way you feel necessary. I've set up a topic for GWFC site feedback you can use, but feel free to write to me on my Wiki discussion page, or holler at me in-game. Thank you for all of your time, and I hope to see you on the Feedback Community site!

Sincerely,

--Brokunn 03:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Lancy's clarifications

Word of Censure: It's supposed to work when the foe targets an ally of the caster's with a harmful skill.

--The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Lancy1214 (talk).

Deletion Paladin

I thought the process was that if you disagreed with a deletion tag, you discussed it, not removed it. I think it was a bit presumptive of you to remove that tag. I have never heard the term Paladin used to describe a W/Mo in the 2+ years I've been playing this game unless it was being used as a comparative from another game. -- Wyn 03:11, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I've re-added the tag. -- Gordon Ecker 03:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

There was a template for PvP only characters at the creation screen called "Paladin"...it was a W/Mo build. But they removed all that stuff a little before NF came out when they changed the "H" hero pannel.--*Yasmin Parvaneh* 20:46, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Feasibility of changes to existing weapon types ..to izzy

Gordon, why not move their statements here while you wait for an answer from Izzy himself? Besides, that was meant for him to answer not for discussion. Right?--ShadowFog 12:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Congrats

Anet made you an NPC. Congratulations. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:72.71.236.245 (talk).

lol, I saw that. Gratz man =D — Wolf 00:42, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

"Loremaster" is indeed befitting :) -- Brains12 \ talk 00:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Well deserved and welcome to the club. :) -- WarBlade 01:06, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Gratz you lucky fuck--Amantis 01:10, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for everything, Gordon! -Kim Chase 01:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:21, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, welcome to the fold of users with random lore related NPCs. Gmr Leon 02:40, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Grats -- WoB 03:06, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Congrats Gordon XD --Kakarot 04:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations Gordon! (Satanael 04:27, 14 November 2008 (UTC))

Congrats!-- Shew 06:27, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Gordon Ecker rewards gold and experience for copies of "The Flameseeker Prophecies." So... how much gold do you have? Hehe. Gratz. -- ab.er.rant 07:01, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

If I ever see you in town imma trade you a blank copy and demand gold, so be prepared.--Ryudo 08:37, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Congrats indeed /bow Clan Yumemiru 09:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

lol, went to bed last night before reading all of the notes, so I am late: Grats! =) --Xeeron 10:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

"Now where have I read that name before?" *Sees Trivia section* "Ah..." GZ. → BROWNSPANK 12:17, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

gz! that's too funny^^ —ZerphaThe Improver 14:07, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't think of a better suited person to be Tyrian Loremaster - congratulations, Mr Ecker. --'șɳȱɠ'ɍɑʈ 17:10, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Gratz for your NPC!!! ^^ |Cyan LightHere!| 17:08, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

My presents to you Gordon ;-), sincerely, my best congratulations ^^. San Matteo 17:42, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Gordon Ecker!

I would like to take that offer you mentioned before. I have compiled written evidence of my exploits in the fair land. I have taken copious notes of my accomplishments, and I have now brought them to you for entry into the history books.
You mentioned... compensation for my trouble? -- Jïörüjï Ðērākō.>.cнаt^ 14:51, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Dear, Jioruji Derako, Master Ecker is currently busy setting up all his automated Gordon Ecker(TM) dolls that accept books in each district. However, you shall not go unrewarded. Take this gold and go forth on further adventures! --Xeeron 10:31, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

How about ...

Since I moved it to the already created subpage?????? I'm not a total idiot and had you actually looked at the RC history it's pretty obvious. -- Wyn 01:15, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Gordon, I've had a really bad day, I didn't properly summarize my edit, but a little trust in my intelligence would be appreciated. I've been dealing with the OP's issues with Backsword removing his sections from the main page, and knew that he had created the subpage, so I moved the discussion appropriately, and eliminated the suggestion from the main page. -- Wyn 01:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, usually when I encounter such an edit, I check the editor's contributions before reverting, this time I just noticed the edit and, due to other recent edits to ArenaNet:Guild Wars 2 suggestions and ArenaNet:Skill bugs, I assumed that it was a cut rather than a move and didn't bother to check. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 01:44, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I understand. I also spent some time the other day redoing some of the hack and slash deletions to the Skill bugs page, and created a 'resolved issues' archive. I'm hoping that might alleviate some of the issues there. For the skill bugs page, I feel we should wait until ArenaNet (or if they are clearly resolved with an update, anyone can mark them) has marked them resolved (either yes or no) and then give it a week or so for people to see the resolution and then archive. -- Wyn 01:51, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Shield of the Comdemned

Don't we usually just list the different attributes in the infobox and in the weapon stats, for example as in Tormented Shield or Exalted Aegis (unique), instead of giving them their own pages (unless the stats themselves are different, like with Forgotten Shields)? -- Brains12 \ talk 02:31, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

You're right. I moved it since a page was created at Shield of the Condemned (Command) and it didn't make sense to give the Strength version name priority, they're merged now. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:43, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

08:06, 19 November 2008, Gordon Ecker (Talk | contribs) blocked 76.25.197.215 (Talk) (expires 08:06, 19 December 2008, anon. only, account creation blocked) (trolling)

What trolling? I posted two things that day, one was helpful, the other was a legitimate question directed at a guy I know. --71.229.253.172 04:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It was for this edit, it seem like a clear-cut troll post, and the IP has a prior history of trolling. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:52, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

That was the 'legitimate question directed at a guy I know'. I was honestly wondering how he can tolerate this site's userbase. He answered it honestly. Please explain how any of that was "...controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, (made) with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion." --71.229.253.172 05:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Fine, the IP's unblocked, but it seemed like trolling at the time. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --71.229.253.172 07:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Putting in my (perhaps undesired) two cents as a fairly objective observer, it seemed to be a legitimate, albeit bluntly stated question, not at all banworthy. calor (talk) 20:34, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Interview

Hey there! I was wondering if you'd be willing to participate in an in-game interview on behalf of The Tyrian Chronicle, who're gonna be writing an article on the sysops/b'crats of the wiki. --AlexEternal 12:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Young Heroes of Tyria

The book doesn't say (N), (P) or (F) indeed - but there should be some clear indication from which campaign the missions are. i have no problem with the revert. Do you have another idea of making it visible? -- Karasu (talk) 03:01, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I just divided the Chapters section into subsections by campaign. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 03:10, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Great =D -- Karasu (talk) 03:16, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Woops!

Thanks for catching that :D -- Wyn 09:23, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:37, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Userboxes

Is there a way to add many userboxes to my page without having every single box show up in recent changes? I've just started adding the ones I want, so there are probably more...and I just feel kinda bad spamming the recent changes with that stuff (unless that's the only way). Thanks!-- Shew 07:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Not really. People can hide minor edits, so user the "This is a minor edit" checkbox will make it show up for less people. Also, people can filter recent changes by namespace, for example someone could choose to only view recent changes in the main namespace or only view changes in the guild talk namespace. If you're not using it already, the "Show preview" button is useful for experimenting with templates and layout. Also, you could work on your user page layout in an external text editor before updating it. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about it. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

For your consideration..

Gordon Ecker Nominated.--Silverleaf Don't assume, ask! 16:34, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you and best of luck!.--Silverleaf Don't assume, ask! 07:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Voltaic Spear

I'm really not sure if research is even needed. The comment was first posted by User:ZzZzZz, who has a small history of doing things for the heck of it. I'm 99% positive this was another case of vandalism, but...meh. I'm not sure. -_- Wandering Traveler 01:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

"Ask an account question" question

Hey Gordon, I was just wondering if all revisions of this article other than the the one by 70.153.111.111 on 22:18, December 14, 2008 will need to be restored? I was just about to start doing it since it appeared to be just that one revision that needed to be deleted but wanted to check with you first in case you were in the midst of doing it. --Kakarot 04:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm about 1/3 of the way through restoring them. I'm going to restore them one month at a time now working backwards, if you'd like to help, you can start from November 2007. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah right didn't see the note in the restoration mentioning you were doing them in groups. I have started going from the bottom now. On a side note I have also asked Poke here if it is possible to delete one single revision since he's the one that I usually go to if I have a question regarding the wiki. --Kakarot 04:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I was planning on doing the rest together until you offered to help. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

-- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Elections

Sorry Gordon, I guess I'm not allowed to vote. You still have mine regardless. Ghosst • Talk •

It's not so much that you weren't allowed to vote matey, its more the fact that out of your 800 edits only about 12 of them have been in the mainspace. I can point you to a few projects that need helpers though if you want to get to 100 edits and thus be able to take part in future voting. Another set of hands is always welcome :) -- Salome 18:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations!!

Bureaucrat Gorden Ecker. --Silverleaf Don't assume, Know! 14:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

congrats :) poke | talk 14:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Congrats Gordon --Kakarot 15:12, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Gratz =D — Jon Lupen 16:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Nice work, Gordon. Best of luck during your term. :) -- Wandering Traveler 17:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations Gordon! Hope everything goes well for you! --Antioch 17:31, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Grats Gordon! -- Wyn 17:43, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Congrats! -- Salome 17:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Grats! I have fait you'll be a great 'crat. --Xeeron 18:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Grats! --Shadowphoenix 18:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

You are teh winnar! --Riddle 18:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Congrats! -- Indochine talk 18:30, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Could you put an email address on Guild Wars Wiki:List of bureaucrats? And enjoy your term :P -- Brains12 \ talk 22:33, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 23:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy New Year(Its now new year here) and congrats on the seat of Bcrats!--ShadowFog 04:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

So when are you going to give your Inaugural Address? I'll be sure to cancel any other plans I may have for that day. Vili 09:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

IAWTC - try to make it more than one word for a change, eh? Congrats ;) --snograt 22:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

ty

Thanks didn't know where exactly to put it. -- WoB 20:15, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Monster skill

You asked a question on Linsey's page which I can answer, so I made this page : Stun on Critical Hit. Backsword 19:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Sysop bot

So, what are your thoughts on this? Noticed that you haven't voted or commented yet. Tanetris is fine with it, me and Auron are not, although after the talk page thoughts, I'm probably leaning to neutral. -- ab.er.rant 03:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Could you please comment there so we can resolve this finally, Gordon? Thanks. poke | talk 21:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Traitor! >:U

That;s right! I see you playing WoW! Blood and I are coming for you! XD — Jon Lupen 01:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

my warrior rebalance

is +- finished.I think I got the basics but the numbers proly are a bit off and I'm afraid some skills would be imbalanced.I would appreciate it if you would free some time to watch it and give your opinion : http://www.wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:Lilondra/Gamebalance/Warrior Lilondra *gale* 21:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Proper channels

I got for answer (using support) is disgrunted GMs and the answers that goes something like this:"I believe it was purposely intended to be vague. Not speaking for the Development Team, but I do not believe they are going to define or change the definitions of the random effects of these skills.". Have you tried posting bugs through their support?--ShadowFog 15:09, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

You could try reporting it on the wiki at ArenaNet:Skill bugs. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Active Rituals

Hello Gordon Ecker! Just gradually posting feedback requests regarding our campaign. Drop a memo on User:Lancy1214's page if issues/proposals you'd like to contribute, talk about current metagame, or point out any flaws -Active Rituals- that we've might have missed (however unlikely that may be). Thank you! ^_^ --Falconeye 01:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe that support ritualists need sustainable buffs to be competitive in PvE, and support any suggestions which would nudge them in that direction, regardless of whether they would make their skills more active or more passive. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:57, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Lancy and I definately agree with you there; we set goal to find an innovative way to make Binding Rituals more sustainable/survivable, more mobile, and general more fun to play while still allowing competative-teams the option to either protect/destroy them. Under our current -Active- version, with sufficient ranks in Spawning (duration) and desired attribute spread (spirit level) would allow any Ritualist-primary to keep spirits up for 10-20 seconds on average (depending on spirit's function); assuming they live long enough against an aggressive PvP-team. Longer if using spirit buffs such as modified-Ritual Lord, Weapon of Quickening, or Sight Beyond Sight, which can effectively double spirit's lifespan (or diminishing its downtime) when used all at once. And all have recharge of 10-30 seconds. Based on our math, the current metagame, and spirit mechanics, this should be sustainable enough without being imbalanced. Is there anyone else on the wiki whom could bring to my attention that might show interest or would like to discuss the mertis/flaws of Active-system vs. current meta-version (I'm tempted to ask folks such as Isaiah, but im sure they're bothered enough as is). And congrats on your election. ^_^ --Falconeye 03:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Would this remedy the issue? Is penalty too extreme? --Falconeye 20:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• Ritual Lord -

5 0 15 - (Spawning Power) - Elite Skill. All of your Binding Rituals are recharged. You gain 5...21...25 Energy. Your binding rituals are disabled (10 seconds).

Ive posted this version, your thoughts? --Falconeye 07:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• Spirit Channeling -

5 ¼ 15 - (Spawning Power) - Elite Enchantment Spell. Initial effect: spirits you control shadowstep to your current location. (10 seconds.) You gain + 1...5...6 Energy regeneration. You have -5 Health degeneration. End effect: you are healed for 100 if you are within earshot of a spirit.

I think balance in PvE should focus on profession competitiveness and build diversity. The proposed change to Ritual Lord seems like it could make communing ritualists competitive with imbagons, which I think is a good thing. As for the proposed change to Spirit Channeling, the energy gain seems reasonable compared to what some other professions have, and the shadow step effect seems like it would provide speed and convenience benefits but wouldn't have any major effect on the skill's power. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Any chance this version could be abused? Trying to be creative since I nearly always run SQ to maintain this. Is there any other interesteing drop effect AwS could offer? --Falconeye 07:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

• Attuned Was Songkai -

10 2 60 - (Spawning Power) - Elite Item Spell. (45 seconds.) Your spells and rituals cost -20...44...50% of the base Energy. Drop Effect: Your spells (or item spells) are recharged. I can't think of any problems, it seems that the recharge would mainly be useful for Meteor Shower (which can be spammed more frequently by a primary elementalist with Arcane Echo and Echo, Glyph of Renewal or Assassin's Promise) and "charged" rituals (Shelter, Rejuvenation etc.), which I feel are underpowered in PvE. As for PvP, as I understand it, spirits were overpowered in PvP for quite a while, however IIRC that was before the N/Rt nerfs, which might be sufficient to make a spirit buff safe in PvP, if not, they can always do a split. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with your "Bad Elites"

Not all of them, you're entirely right that Amity blows. One misplaced nuke can ruin that spell and it's not recastable for a long time unless they've echoed it. However...

Healer's Covenant is perfectly fine when using only 5 energy healing spells (and condition/hex removals) that are spamable and complimented with an inspiration energy management. Because the less healing does not effect the Divine Favor bonus healing, runes and headpiece bonus should be placed into Divine Favor when using with this enchantment. Also strong synergy with Healing Touch when used with high Divine Favor, allowing majority of the healing received to be untouched.

Mark of Protection is most often equipped on a monk as their only Protection Prayers spell as a way around the drawback.

Lacerate is better than Toxicity because it last longer, costs less, casts faster, and has a shorter recharge. Both inflict -2 health degeneration, but bleeding is a more common condition across professions, while poison is near entirely Rangers and necromancers and disease is necromancers only (PvE only skills excluded). Also, if you can manage to kill the spirit off quickly, either using a ritualist skill or convincing your foe to kill it, it will inflict bleeding on all in the area and you could then recast the ritual since it has a short recharge time.

Nothing is wrong with Ritual Lord if you can properly manage your energy. Its objective should not be seen as recasting all rituals as soon as they are recharged, but being able to when all the spirits die. Instead consider moving the spirits with Summon Spirits or Draw Spirit.

Scribes Insight is maintainable with a reasonable duration, allowing the signets to be used over time in combination with more costly spells.

Shadow Form is extremely suicidal, but so is the assassin class as a whole. The fact that this is an enchantment spell and can be easily removed without numerous cover enchantments makes it far less overpowered.

Shroud of Silence is far superior to Blackout. Without max ranks in Domination you've shut yourself down entirely longer than your foe using Blackout. Farther, domination mesmers usually interrupt opponents skills, and can not do this for five seconds due to the poor drawback. Shroud of Silence cuts your spells off longer, but this is acceptable as the class relies on attack skills and not spells. That said, I wouldn't bother with either skill because they're both poor.

Signet of Spirits PvE does look misplaced, but Signet of Spirits PvP has much better synergy.

Just thoughts! ^^ --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 98.243.157.57 (talk).

How about putting Withdraw Hexes and Mind Burn on the failure list? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:72.71.229.129 (talk).

Umm, nobody uses Mark of Protection because it has ~400% downtime, in addition to wasting your elite. Lacerate wastes your elite skill to increase the effect of Bleeding, the wimpiest condition - it is pitiful in the same way Seeping Wound is. If you really need something to boost Bleeding, use Ulcerous Lungs. Scribe's Insight is a very poor energy management because you have to use two signets at least before you even break even; and it also wastes your elite. Blackout is great when used with Echo, you get ten seconds of total shutdown on the opponent, and that is well worth the drawback. Oh, and Shroud of Silence has 1000% downtime / only lasts 3 seconds which will hardly kill anyone. You may as well take a knockdown instead for the same effect. :\ Signet of Spirits (PvP) is inferior to Offering of Spirit.

About Shadow Form - there are a pretty limited number of skills which can remove it, and most of those are unconventional/never used in PvP because they are useless otherwise. Vili 04:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Ritual Lord is just awful. What attribute have more spirits to use? Communing, but those spirits already cost from 15-25 (ignoring Pain, the only spirit in Communing that cost 5)requiring you to have at least from 25-35 energy, from a pool bar of 45-50 energy, at all times on top of that no energy management is available to net some kind of positive energy back(add old rambling "spirits die too fast").--ShadowFog 16:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion Pages

I like to send these to all admin and bcrats but maybe you can help me here. I've seen some pages been "closed down" because it's no longer in use. Since theres a new team, Guild Wars Live team I don't know if Izzy or someone from GWLT still read these pages. Are there some official word if they are still using the suggestion pages?--ShadowFog 17:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't have any insider information on the subject, according to the posts I've read, the April update, Guild Wars 2 and a cold going around the office seem to be keeping ArenaNet pretty busy. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 05:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Theer's also the formation of NC West. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:23, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Pet Damage Types

Where you asking as to Piercing, Slashing, Blunt, etc.? MystiLefemEle 08:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:46, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, Thank you :) MystiLefemEle 09:04, 6 March 2009 (UTC):::I placed notations on the ones I have observed, others I will when possibleMystiLefemEle 09:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you aware you have placed this question twice? Backsword 18:39, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I've merged the duplicate topics. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:18, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Now, now. Play nice. :) Looks good now with the Blunt damages showing, will try for the others Dmg. Info. soon MystiLefemEle 12:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Molachev...

You certainly know your onions when it comes to Sorrow's Furnace (and, I suspect, the entire Guild Wars canon) - so would you mind having a look at the (non-)discussion at Talk:Melandru's Arrows about Molachev. I'm currently unable to go down there and check, but I'm almost certain our old Dredge friend isn't a boss, which fact would appear to be confirmed by him not being listed as a source of Melandru's Arrows. He is, however, listed as a source on both the elite skills list pages. Thank you. --snograt 09:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll check later today. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 23:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You can't cap Melandru's Arrows from Molachev. I can't remember if he gives a morale boost or not, though. Vili 02:08, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I just checed. No aura, no morale boost. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 05:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Gordon - I could have done it myself, but I find that, when you change something, there's little or no argument about it. --snograt 13:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's great being a bureaucrat. Vili 03:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Your EOTN

I just noticed that you predited something along the lines of that Bahltek was dropping hints about campaign four... and then you crossed it out... Well, you were actually partially right in a way. It's just that your comment was misplaced: since EOTN was not, in fact, campaign four (it was campaign 1.1 the expansion edition xD), that would designate GW2 as a kinda-sorta capaign four, and he DOES, in fact, make mention of the plot of GW2. If you look at his dialogue, the one when you first encounter him in Zehlon Reach, he mentions sightings of a "bona-fide ghost ship". Looking at the relative geography, and taking into account that Elona is to the East of Tyria, Zehlon Reach is actually fairly close to where Orr used to be. Since we know that the Orrian fleet returns to haunt the Sea of Sorrows in GW2, the ghost ship could likely have been a precursor to what is to come. Just a thought :-) You're smarter than you give yourself credit for ^.^ -- Timeoffire45 21:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Skill Feedback

Hey, no one has replied yet, but I'm not going to have time to finish Ele/Sin/Rit/Derv/Para Skill Feedback Archiving, I checked over these sections quickly tho and there doesn't seem to be many ideas that need to be archived as most of them seem current. There's the occasional idea done prior to an update (that make no sense what-so-ever), but not much. You know about all that attribution crap that is beyond my wiki skills at this point (sry for that again), so if you get free time could you (or someone else you know?) have a whack at it? It shouldn't take as long as the other ones did . Most of the old stuff was archived into the actual page itself by Nuclear when he did his cleaning late last year for these sections, so. Then all that will need to be done with Linsey's new system is just move the skills into the new sections since they'll all be relevant. Really just want to see this get done but I don't have the time to dedicate to the other 5 and would probably make you have to retag attribution stuff again anyways, so I was hoping maybe you could help me make sure it gets done somehow? TY :) DarkNecrid 01:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Template:Mergesource

"If the page is the target of an unresolved merge rather than the target". I presume one of those 'targets' are supposed to be 'source' instead. Backsword 19:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's been corrected. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:42, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Lore Category

Hey there Gorden. Recently I've been wanting to expand and organize the Lore related articles best I can, and after a little "general category" explaination from wyn (found here) she told me that the lore category is your domain. So I'm asking if there is anything specific planned for how to organize the Lore Category and if it's ok with you if I move things around to make it more organized. -- Azazel The Assassin\talk 07:09, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I've posted my response. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Decided that it would be easier to do the Category organization before the article stuff. But it's rather... chaotic in all the sub-categories. I think the best way to organize it would be:

1) Wipe the lore-only containing categories (or wipe them from being under Category: Lore)

2) To remake the sub-categories starting from the Lore Category and going down (currently working on a new category tree which I intend to eventually fix what we have to)

3) Go through the articles and fix categories (and any mis-information).

Also, regarding "locations" for lore - seeing how that in itself is chaotic in organization, would it be possible to make a new "Locations (Lore)" category, where the non-visitable locations can go, along with say new articles like "List of Explorable Descriptions" (would be small, as they can only be found in the gw.dat and as such, only NF descriptions were dug out) and "List of Outpost Descriptions" - along with the "Landmarks" category. That way, the Category:Lore can be kept more to lore. If we don't do the wiping, it's more of just finding what can be done to simplify the stuff in the category while keeping it organized. Biggest two issues to me is the Locations and Species categories. (and finding out if things can be moved into different areas) -- Azazel The Assassin\talk 00:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Currently characters who don't appear in-game, such as King Doric, are categorized in Category:Unseen NPCs, something similar should work for locations. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 00:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Any update in relation to the issue of the Locations page? I was just about to ask about it myself, but saw that it had already been asked. Konig, mostly Konig, and I, have more or less organized most of the Lore Category. All that remains is the Locations category. Also, and I'll have to check, but I think there are still some leftover unused pages from where we were trying to organize that can be deleted. If you respond, thanks! Gmr Leon 23:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that landmarks which can be visited or seen in-game such as the Fortress of Jahai should be in the same categories as locations which can't be seen or visited in-game such as Arah, but I don't really care whether locations which can't be seen or visited in-game are grouped in the main lore category or a more specific category such as "unseen locations". -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 01:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

What of those under the Locations category that relate more to game mechanics? Such as challenge missions, has NPC service, has bounty, has bounty-like blessing, arenas, and so on and so forth. Some of them are understandably gray, such as explorable areas, missions, prophecies locations, etc. However, those noted, are more or less tied to game mechanics, rather than lore, I would say. As Konig has said, it's a mess, with certain things being repeated here and there. For instance, the [Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North] locations categories repeat many of those areas defined as explorable areas, and the outposts, while nicely dividing them into the region, are likewise repeated there. You could probably scrap those location categories, and just divide the explorable areas into their regions, if they aren't already, and just make it far less cluttered. Actually, if I can sort this out in my head, would you mind if Konig and I try to do that? Gmr Leon 19:22, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem of the organization of Locations (and, in fact Species) is the templates used, as I said down below (suppose since we are carrying the conversation in this section, that can be archived). If they were to be revised to place them in only one spot (for locations, don't have them in <campaign> locations and just in regions as Leon said). -- Azazel the Assassin/talk 22:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:Mergesource

Hey Gordon, I'm currently working on the move of the suggestion pages to Xeeron's userspace and came across some suggestion pages with the mergesource tag. I just want to be sure: Can I delete those pages where the attribution issue is resolved? poke | talk 22:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

You should be able to, the templates was intended primarily to mark pages as safe or unsafe for deletion. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 00:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions issues

Hey Gordon, thanks for fixing the links. The point of my comment was not to point out the move to CCbySA, but rather that wikimedia appears to have set up a process for changing their license terms (dual licensing all content) within their wikis. Which seems to be similar to what Mike was asking for initially, and what Brains suggested. I understand the discussion has moved away from that somewhat, and it may not be practical due to limitations in the GFDL. More of a how would we go about the change to licensing (and whether its possible) point than a here, use this license point. Hope that helps. --Indecision 00:18, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The big difference is that GFDL 1.3, which was released on demand by Wikimedia/Wikipedia, changed the part that GFDL required derived projects to be licensed under GFDL before but now just requires a compatible license. And CC BY SA is compatible to that. However the GFDL 1.3 -> CC BY SA move is only possible in a limited time (as written in GFDL 1.3). poke | talk 00:24, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I see, I guess that means its not possible under the GFDL 1.3 to alter the license terms on existing content to anything other than CC BY SA. Thanks for pointing that out poke, it's appreciated. --Indecision 01:01, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Reversion

In that case, shouldn't the Battlestar Galactica reference be left and the other references to references be removed? Misery 22:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I've brought it up on the talk page. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 22:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

your sig icon

Has fallen foul to the wiki's random removal of images! congrats :) --Lemming 01:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I've decided to leave it alone until the glitch is sorted out. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It's back, yay :D poke | talk 07:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

So it wasn't my computer. phew. -- Azazel The Assassin\talk 20:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

That's great, it means it is my computer. :[ Maybe someday I should change my sig icon to that white box in a box just to confuse people. Vili 点 10:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Professor Yakkington/Collector

Why is there a formatting stub on this page? It conforms to the Formatting guidelines for collector pages.

Why is this page marked as in need of further research?

--mtew 20:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I figured out why the formatting stub was there and fixed it. --mtew 22:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Names for Lists of Mission Pages

Heya. I find the names you're suggesting moving those pages to to be cumbersome, but what they're at now isn't much better. How about something like:

"(Campaign) Primary Storyline Progression"

Which covers both quests and mission and the prophecies followup missions, and works with the fact that optional, "epic", and conclusionary stuff is listed at the end . . . doesn't involve the words 'list of' . . . etc

I'm tired, tho :) zzz --Star Weaver 07:13, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I've quotinated this over on talk:mission. Um. Still zzzz. --Star Weaver 15:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Moa damage type

I see you've been working on this lately, so I guess you're the most likely person to answer this idle question: I was in Pre yesterday and was idly trying to death level a Moa (for no other reason than to see the mechanic in action.) I noticed that Moas have a distinct attack pattern - three "peck" attacks, then one with the talons. Is it possible, and testable, that these two different attack animations have different damage types, i.e. piercing and slashing? Don't knock yourself out over this one - just idle curiosity ;) --snograt 05:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

It should be easy to test, but I don't have the necessary video capture software and haven't unlocked any tier 7 moas yet. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:05, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Category:Animals and Category:Landmarks

First off, not sure if you govern these category, or if someone else does - I just know that you govern Category: Lore. If someone else does, you can either answer the issue or redirect/move to who should. I'll address this in two parts.

Category: Animal

There are two things regarding this category. First, due to the NPC templates, certain NPCs, such as Crane (collector) and Hector go under the Category: Animal itself, and a subcategory of some kind. This creates an annoying clutter. Is there a way to fix this and get the pages to go just under their sub-category?

The second issue regarding this category, would be the case of what would be considered an "animal" - as the term, by definition, means a living moving creature. Therefore, everything by Constructs, Undead, and Elementals would be considered "animals" in this sense. As even plants are living and moving. For the game we need to "redefine" the term, at least for categorization, or else we might as well not have "Category: Species" which the animal Category is under.

I was thinking along the lines of "living moving creature that is non-plant, non-demon, non-'social/sentient' species." The social/sentient species referencing races like Humans, Dwarves, Charr, Grawl, etc. That are able to easily communicate to other races via use of the player dubbed "common" language. But I wanted your say before doing anything.

Category: Landmarks

The issue is the same as the first above issue. The templates are putting the articles into multiple categories. But here, instead of just two spots, the landmark articles are in three categories. Say, for instance, the Temple of the Dredge (landmark) landmark is under Category: Landmarks, Category: Echovald Forest locations, and Category: Factions locations. Thus, being in three different categories (some will be in multiple "Category: <region> locations" categories) when it can be in simply two (or more) (in this case, Echovald Forest locations and Landmarks).

The templates, while they are nice and organized, start an organizational mess. Figured I'd let you know on these two things that I found while working on Category: Lore, in case you didn't know of those specifically. -- Azazel The Assassin\talk 09:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

If the game mechanics treats them all as animals (which wouldn't be testable for the collectors), I think they should all be categorized as animals for consistency since it's an official game mechanics term, while anything which isn't treated as an animal shouldn't be put in that category for the same reason. One option would be using separate categories for charmable animals and non-charmable animals, as well as possibly a category for NPC animal companions in addition to the main animals category. IMO most of the subcategories in the species category don't belong there.

As for campaign location categories, I think that they should either include every location in the relevant campaign or should only include subcategories and location articles which don't fit into specific subcategories for consistency, I don't think we should exclude landmarks while keeping missions, outposts and explorable areas. For service categories, one option would be to put them all in a category such as "locations by service offered". -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

First, for what goes under Category: Species, I suppose it depends on one's definition of a species (same with animal in relation to gw and "social species"). People had put certain constructs, demons, elementals, and plants, so I just put the whole category of those two in there. As for the Category:Animal issue, if we move things that are not treated as an "animal" than it'll just have the collectors, non-targetable animals, and charmable animals, technically. No problem with that though, as they would just move to Species. Also, there is the point that there are animals that are under category:animal and a sub-category. It should only be in that one sub-category. This issue is caused by the template used, so I don't know how to fix it.

What I suggest for this issue with the templates, if possible, would be to include an optional removal of the auto-categorizing from the "creature type" portion and include that removal to the required pages (which would be boss pages and the animals).

For the Locations issue, I understand what you mean, though I wasn't intending to leave out the Landmarks at all. I was merely mentioning that things are in multiple sub-categories of Category:Location when, simply put, those categories are unneeded (which is just a restatement of above, humorously enough Leon brought it up there instead of down here). Again, the templates are the issue for this categorical issue. The bigger issue with Category:Lore is the "<campaign> locations" categories, which are merely portioned copies of Category:Continent (under that category are the continents, then regions, and in the regions you get "<region> location" which is what is under "<campaign> location").

What I suggest for this issue, if possible, would be to change the auto-categorizing by the templates to go under the actual continents/regions instead of the "<campaign/region> locations". -- Azazel the Assassin/talk 07:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

IMO locations should be removed from the lore category. I don't have a strong opinion for or against including an article in both a broader category and one of its' subcategories. We group skill articles in both broader categories and their narrower subcategories because it makes it far easier to create DPL skill summaries. As for animals, one problem with including it in the species category is that not every article within the animals article is about an animal species, for example Lions and Lionesses are males and females of the same species, Hector is a specific Reef Lurker and Onyx is a specific Black Moa. Also, from the perspective of real world biology, for example standard textbook definitions of species involve the ability to interbreed and produce fertile reproduction. Margonites are magically transformed and completely sterile, I'm not aware of any evidence of any construct being able to make more of its' kind and most other creature types have insufficient information (for example Elona's four types of kuskales could all be members of the same species or members of two or more related species which hunt together for mutual benefit). -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 11:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I believe the locations are in the Lore category for 3 reasons: 1) Landmarks 2) Manual quotes 3) Outpost descriptions. Either make a few new pages with the later two and move Category: Landmarks to another category, which would be with a category for the unvisitable locations, and have that under Lore, or have all of Category:Locations under lore. As for the species/animal stuff, well, to be honest, I don't really know what to do with that issue. -- Azazel the Assassin/talk 13:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The idea I had for the locations, as I posted on our (Konig and I) guild site, was an idea to dissolve the [Region] Location category and simply categorize what it contained in the preexisting categories. Basically, categorize the Factions explorable areas underneath their region, without having them tied to [Echovald Forest] Locations. Similarly, cut outposts away from the [Region] Location category and organize them under region in the Outposts category with whichever campaign they are related to. Also, in regards to Landmarks, I was also thinking of just placing them under campaign, then under campaign, region, and if a region contains landmarks we can't visit or see, underneath region, Unvisitable Landmarks or something like that. I know the first part of this is more or less a rehash of what I said and then Konig said, but I think we have different organizational ideas regarding it. Gmr Leon 19:44, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

But towns, outposts, missions, explorable areas and landmarks are all types of locations. If a category is named "Echovald Forest locations" but doesn't include every location within the Echovald Forest region, the category name would be misleading. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 10:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Can't the many <region> location categories get merged into the category of the region? That would mean removing the "Category:<campaign/region> location" categories, moving say for example Category:Kryta locations to the tree "Category:Locations->Category:Continents->Category:Tyria->Category:Kryta" and "Category:Locations->Category:Continents->Category:Regions->Category:Kryta" thus removing the need for "Category:Core locations", "Category:Bonus Mission Pack locations", "Category:Prophecies locations", "Category:Factions locations", "Category:Nightfall locations", and "Category:Eye of the North locations". It would effectly reduce the amount of Categories directly under Category:Locations while not prove to be misleading, and would in fact be better organized. -- Azazel the Assassin/talk 15:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I have had ocasions when I wanted a list specific to a particular kind of thing (quest, location, mission, NPC and so on) in a particular region associated with a particular campaign or extension. Please be careful, if you change the categories, that this kind of search is not broken. --Max 2 16:45, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I fear that, if we were to instate Konig's idea, that that sort of search would be broken, or terminated. As by his method, the campaign categories would no longer exist, with, instead, simply the Continents, and their respective regions. Under this organization, you could not easily locate the outposts exclusive to the Eye of the North campaign without first knowing the region in which it resides. Likewise for the other outposts within the other campaigns. At least, if I am understanding what you're saying properly.

Also, Gordon, that's why I said dissolve the category. Once everything is no longer categorized under it, it would be empty, and that which it contained would be organized by region under the already existing categories. For example: Category: Factions Locations-Echovald Forest Locations contains outposts and explorable areas. Switch it to where, instead, it's Category: Factions Locations-Factions Outposts-Echovald Forest Outposts. Likewise, Factions Explorable Areas-Jade Sea/Echovald Forest Explorable Areas. Thus terminating the need for them to be categorized under Echovald Forest Locations. Actually, an example of this already exists within Category: Factions missions. It's organized exactly as I'm attempting to explain. My method of organization would effectively reduce the number of subcategories under Factions Locations from 9 to 5. Eye of the North Locations, 7 to 4 or 7 to 3, as Depths of Tyria is a bit sketchy. Prophecies, 16 to 7 or 6, as Pre-Searing is likewise sketchy. Nightfall, 10 to 5 or 6, Realm of Torment is a bit sketchy.

While this would substantially increase the number of subcategories within the subcategories, it would be, at least, I think, more appropriately organized. Edit: Also, was Konig supposed to remove the Locations category from the Lore Category? O_o Gmr Leon 22:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I did that due to the lack of there being lore in the whole locations category. Until Locations can be organized enough to find the lore parts, I figured it would be easier to, assuming nothing eventually gets done, simply create a new category for the lore purposes of why Locations was under Lore. I think at least... don't really recall removing Locations from lore, just recall removing Spoilers from Lore. o_O Might have been a bit tipsy... -- Azazel the Assassin/talk 22:51, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

This user is an officer in 404 Error (XLIV).

You know that XLIV = 44 and CDIV would be 404? Asuka 15:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I believe this is intentional, however I haven't been able to dig up the relevant chat log. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

You Forgot

Withdraw Hexes on your bad elites list. :P--'ÑöẊĭƑý 23:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It's been added. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Replication

The Stonereaper (compare)

There is no requirement in Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Unique weapons to restrict the components, needed to replicate the unique item, with the campaign where this item is from.

Do you agree or disagree? --Slavic 11:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I think maybe you're misunderstanding his edit note. The first version you linked to there said that the staff couldn't be replicated in its entirety, because of the damage type, incorrectly stating that all associated collector's items were cold damage. In fact, as Gordon showed, there are two collectors that offer staffs that use dark damage (the two that were linked). So, no, it's not necessary to restrict the components to the originating campaign, but, in this case, that just happens to be where the base staff for an exact technical replica come from. Freedom Bound 12:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, the collectors who offer staves with the correct stats aren't from the same campaign as the unique item. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

63 topics...

..and 90kb. Have you ronsidered? Backsword 15:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

HELPING OTHER PEOPLE IN GUILD WARS = and information questions

would you be willing to help people in guild wars if they asked you to do so? would you tell people your character name? do you have a guild? how much do you play guild wars?

sorry about the kinda personal questions but i just need to know because i need help....

)

(Zyree 09:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC))

information pages

are we allowed to say what we are in to on our "my talk" ? --Zyree 12:44, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

how to perfectly make a page

how do i make a page so that i can show the item or skill that the character uses and to what the npc sells or whatever, how do i do this? if you could tell me in a letter to me please. --Zyree 13:03, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

making my page public

could you do this please, because i need a lot of help......--Zyree 14:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

[2]

You beat me to it. =P -- Lacky 08:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Giganticus Lupicus

"Although the cause of their extinction has not been confirmed, the The Movement of the World implies that it may have been caused by the Ancient Dragons." This being your addition, I thought I'd ask where the Movement of the World implies this? There is only one mention of the Giganticus Lupicus and that is: "The cycle of their awakening reaches back to the time of the giganticus lupicus, and even further, back into prehistory." Which only mentions that Ancient Dragons are older than the Giganticus Lupicus, not that the Ancient Dragons killed off the Giganticus Lupicus. -- Azazel the Assassin/talk 09:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

It describes the disastrous events resulting from the awakening of the ancient dragons, and states that their only discernible goals are to dominate, control and destroy. IMO currently, the most plausible explanation for the extinction of the Great Giants is that the Ancient Dragons directly or indirectly wiped them out. That doesn't mean they're the canonical cause, prior to Nightfall, Dhuum was the most plausible explanation for the invasion of the Tomb of the Primeval Kings, which was only partially correct, and the most plausible explanation of how the Elonians arrived in the Crystal Desert was that they sailed there like the Margonites, which was completely wrong. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for discouraging QA team volunteers

I appreciate you taking the time to remove the not a bug mark about the fire dart issue. I assume that the QA team is competent to follow-up on all the entries.

You probably noticed that there's another entry about Zaishen quests that also got tagged by a player (rather than ANet). I haven't acted on it because (a) rather than a bug, it is probably a misunderstanding (requiring no more than an article update, if that), and (b) I'm not sure that it's any more appropriate for me to un-tag an entry than it was for a player to tag.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:42, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I vaguely recall someone commenting on this issue and the technical limitations of the Zaishen Challenge Quest system on one of the ArenaNet employee talk pages, but I can't find the post in question. I've requested that a source be provided in that issue's discussion on ArenaNet talk:Miscellaneous bugs. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 22:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Abaddon isn't a boss?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Abaddon

I was just wondering if you could explain to me why not. Vael Victus 01:35, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Like the Lich, Shiro, Varesh, and many other Elite Mission and Dungeon bosses, Abaddon doesn't have a boss aura and doesn't give a morale boost when killed (for the storyline bosses like this, we only have a split second or lag to tell the morale boost part), as such, they are "boss-like" - they are technically "bosses" but they do not function as bosses. I'm sure someone else can explain in more technical terms if you don't get that (or if there is more to determine bosses and boss-like foes). -- Azazel the Assassin/talk 02:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, damn, I was thinking more like "in general" of all games. I was wondering if there was a specific formula for making an actual boss in a game. Well, thanks, Azazel. Vael Victus 02:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Storybook

Gordon, Joe has already explained how the timing of retroactive page availability works, I don't see that it needs any research. That is what made that whole revert war stupid in the first place. -- Wyn talk 09:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I added the disputed tag because there was a dispute, and added the research needed category because that dispute could eventually be resolved with some fact checking. Since I've already warned the major participants in the revert war, I don't want to take a side in the dispute. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I have asked Joe respectively for an opinion on the Note in question. -- riyen ♥ 09:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Ari, Joe has already explained how it works, and that is what is reflected in the note. I don't see any reason that it needs to be taken any further. -- Wyn talk 11:06, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

A note that confuses people?... Or one to explain the four books better? o.O -- riyen ♥ 11:11, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

You are basically the only one who finds your version of the note clearer. Did you ever realize that it's your hubris in the way rather than everyone else being incorrect? And this is not the first time some form of drama has happened due to your "I am right everyone else is wrong" attitude - the guild page drama where everyone already consented to Lensor's wording but you insisted on escalating the issue to waste people's time; running around the wiki accusing people of breaking 1RR when they are not.

Really, the wiki doesn't belong to you and you alone, stop acting like everyone has to kowtow to each and every action you do on the wiki, even if it's clearly wrong. Your contributions will only be a hassle rather than help if you continue what you are doing. Pika Fan 12:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

And you think you're being a help by doing this 'big speech'? You're only helping making the drama bigger, not by being someone who can help settle arguments. If you were, you wouldn't of added to the reverts as well. You don't know me, so don't assume with what you don't know. -- riyen ♥ 12:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I do, I am telling the truth about what you have been achieving with your contributions so far. Consensus has already been reached on many occasions, but you deliberately ignored other experts, users and even sysops alike in your campaign to wikilawyer things that are fine as is. Your contributions speaks so much about you that I don't have to know you IRL, especially when it causes trouble and drama in general. Also, FYI, I only reverted twice, thank you very much, feel free to see how many times you reverted on that page together with your "husband". Really, point fingers more about things that don't matter in the bigger picture. Pika Fan 12:20, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Three, Including your Ip. -- riyen ♥ 12:24, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Both of you stop it. -- Wyn talk 12:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

:)

I would just like to take the chance to say in person, that I deeply respect the intent behind what you are doing, even if I don't agree with its focus upon permabans, a wider focus onto bans in general however I would support. As often the current review process is either simply underused or unviable and I do think this needs addressed. -- Salome 14:09, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking deeply about what Salome said, and after viewing the discussion on the admin noticeboard as well, I feel that ban summaries should contain links to what led up to the action being needed instead of just the reasoning behind the ban. The reason being that one can simply refer to the ban summary, instead of rummaging through each and every contribution the reviewed user has made, even if it is unrelated. Ohaiyo Gozaimasu Konnichiwa Konbanwa Oyasuminasai Sayonara Ja Mata 14:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking deeply about what Ohaiyo Gozaimasu Konnichiwa Konbanwa Oyasuminasai Sayonara Ja Mata said, and I feel that administrators should not be allowed to place bans without significant discussion and the approval of at least two other administrators. The reason being that multiple viewpoints will reduce the number of biased bans placed and decrease the need for future reviews. Это действительно долго имя пользователя 14:24, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

What about short bans of bots and obvious vandals, should we just wait and let them continue to vandalize the wiki if three sysops aren't online? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 01:06, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Review by consensus = good idea, initial ban by consensus = bad idea IMHO. Sysop's need to be able to respond quickly and effectively without the aid of other sysops, to protect the wiki. After that point the ban can be reviewed if appealed. -- Salome 01:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

"sockpuppetry or other misconduct", just to highlight that sockpuppetry in itself isn't misconduct. -- Salome 01:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I was going to ignore it, but since Salome responded too... You guys don't really think that was anything other than a dig at the first really long named user, do you? -- FreedomBound 01:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

May i...

poke your head towards this for deletion? Im off to eat someones parents ...ante been touched for...God knows- P.S Archieving is your freind,not foe Q_Q.--Neil2250 . 12:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Since it's not currently accessible in the game, it isn't protected by the content retention policy, however since the quest exists (or existed at one point) in the game code, it doesn't meet the speedy deletion criteria. Personally, I think that we should retain as much information as possible on historical and unimplemented content. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

GW2 Page

Howdy Gordon. The footnote you were trying to leave on the Guild Wars 2 page left an error message and Freedom Bound reverted you to get rid of the error message since he/she couldnt figure out how to fix it. I found the problem and fixed it for you. Just thought I would let you know what the dealio was. Drogo Boffin 15:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It's already cited on the Guild Wars 2 Wiki's main GW2 article, so I wouldn't mind if it isn't cited on this wiki. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

You could have said that before I went through the trouble of troubleshooting/fixing it. Drogo Boffin 06:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to check for a <references/> tag. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

LoL you just forgot a /nowiki tag. Drogo Boffin 08:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Also your gonna need to fix your signature since I added the tag. Drogo Boffin 08:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It's fixed. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. Didnt remember it would put my sig. Drogo Boffin 03:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Scam

I NEED HELP THIS GUY SCAMMED ME FOR 7 GOLD INSTEAD OF 7K PLEASE IM REALLY POOR AND NEED THAT MONEY =( --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Devastation (talk).

Don't remove others' posts. If you want advice on responding to scams, you could try Help:Ask a game question, but don't use the page to beg for gold. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 03:13, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Dhuum

Are you going to fix up your prediction? :P--Unendingfear File:User Unendingfear Crane eats peanut.jpg 04:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

My predictions have been updated. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Professor Dog

The entire project is harebrained as fuck, but did you purposely ignore the comments on the talk page when you unblocked that account? -Auron 06:12, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

When I started the project, I decided to use delayed block expiration istead of immediate unblocking to reduce the impact of mistakes. I forgot about those comments, however if they are true, the original block rationale is invalid. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello Gordon

I usually have a chat with people off wiki before opening an RfA for them on the basis of a RfR as a courtesy, but I don't think I have any off-site contact with you. I apologise for not doing that and informing you here instead, that due to the length of time that has passed since your RfA and the fact that reasonable reasons have been provided, I am opening a request for reconfirmation. Good luck. Misery 21:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems that people have assumed that the voting stage of the reconfirmation is already open despite the apparent absence of any such declaration by you and the other bureaucrats. Could you clear the page and add some kind of notice tag about not voting early? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The page itself has it listed as open. Drogo Boffin 06:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I found the petition in the archive. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I just thought that I'd apologise again as it was pointed out to me today that I had misinterpreted or misread the policy. I didn't realise I was only supposed to inform you and leave it to you to open it yourself within two weeks. I assume this never came up before because I had discussed it with the person in question either on IRC or msn before doing it. Misery 18:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Based on my interpretation of the policy, bureaucrats only need to inform sysops when the reconfirmation request is open and the 2 week reconfirmation window has started. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Socks

Gordon, one thing in particular is continuing to confuse me with our block review page thingy, that is the continual hints that you seem to think we block socks for simply being socks. We don't and never have. For example with Festooned twinklepixie, you used checkuser to make sure that the account was Grinch, but Grinch himself had already stated that fact, as had about 4 other sysops. The fact it was a sock was not the contentious issue, it was if the sock should be unblocked. I'm just trying to clarify what you think the wiki's stance is on socks as it seems to not conform to how policy currently stands. This is not in relation to your recon by the way, it is just personal curiosity on the matter. -- Salome 22:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it has something to do with this: [3]. Pika Fan 23:01, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

As for the other alleged sockpuppets, my problem was that they seemed to have been banned without sufficient evidence of their sockpuppet status. When an account is banned for trolling or vandalism, there is generally enough publicly available evidence to prove trolling or vandalism beyond a reasonable doubt, however, for the sockpuppet abuse and block evasion, accounts have been permabanned based on reasonable suspicion. I do not understand why sockpuppet abuse and block evasion seem to have such a weak burden of proof. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 23:43, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Gordon I'm a lawyer by trade, I don't need evidential terms linked to me. (especially from wiki *shudders*) It was more that you seem to imply in alot of your writings that being a sock in and of itself is proof of some kind of policy breach. I was just curious as to why. As for banning disruptive socks or suspected socks of banned users, in any legal system one must balance the rights of the individual against that of the protection of the many. I personally am far to the left on this issue (due to my background being in human rights), however on a wiki it is impossible to truly discern if one one user is in fact the sock of another user, thus the community trusts the sysops to use reasoned and balanced judgement in discerning which accounts are in all likelihood sock accounts. Checkuser helps in this but it is by no means infallible. This is a necessary evil in this instance, as without this ability for sysops to ban suspected socks of currently banned users, it negates the effect of a ban of any length (other than if a user is particularly attached to the account in question). A degree of common sense must be used here, as we do not have he resources available to a court to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt and thus the burden of proof is more that of an employment tribunal rather than a criminal case in the high court. (even within the judicial system their are varying burden's of proof dependant upon what is being discussed and at what level it is being heard). If their is reasonable evidence be it through a similarity in editing style, behaviour or extremely similar account naming then it should be within a sysops power to inform the user of the suspected socking and ban the account accordingly. I am not saying that this decision should not be reviewed by the sysop team if appealed, however I think the removing of this power from the sysop team would do much more harm than good to the wiki as a whole. -- Salome 00:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying that sockpuppetry is automatically misconduct, however using a sockpuppet to get around a ban is misconduct. It seems bizarre that Account A can be used to troll like crazy and get away with a slap on the wrist, but if someone who may or may not be the owner of Account A posts on Account B while Account A is blocked and someone thinks both accounts might belong to the same person, the strength of the evidence and the severity of the misconduct are considered sufficient to permanently block both accounts without any formal review. I ran CheckUser because I wanted to make sure that the Festooned Twinklepixie didn't belong to some hypothetical innocent (or at least less guilty) victim of mistaken identity and a cruel joke in the form of a false confession. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 03:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I understand what you mean, but even with formal review it will always be a case of best guess in the end of things. Be it 1 sysop or a team of admins. I personally don't permaban peeps for circumventing blocks unless they are circumventing the blocks to be disruptive. I do however increase the block duration of the original account and then ban the sock for the same duration, this is due to it being compound infraction of policies and showing contempt for the wiki and how it works. I understand that it is at this point that you and I differ, as you would say that someone may well just be trying to get the blocked user in even more trouble by pretending to be them and thus increasing the user's block duration. I do think this is a valid concern, but it is a valid concern in the same way that someone could make a whole load of socks, make 100 edits with each of them and then stack an election. IT's something that's possible, but that we have no proof has ever happened or for that matter is likely to happen. User moo kitty did enough to be deserving of a permaban without circumventing her block in the first instance. IF she circumvented it or not is to me a none issue as I personally feel that it is somewhat academic considering her disruptive behaviour beforehand. I will however repeat that I do see your point, but just within the confines of the wiki we have to choose between the devil and the deep blue see and choose the lesser of two evils. Thus we are left with the choice of permabanning an established troll/disruptive force on the wiki based on the possibly mistaken belief that it is that user who is circumventing their already existing block, or we can give that user the benefit of the doubt and possibly allow continued circumvention of our policies with no ability to properly sanction the individual in question. -- Salome 03:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

As an aside, I've never seen a permaban, or even really extension for a single case of ban evasion. It usually comes after weeks or months of ban evasion. Misery 12:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I want to point out something here Gordon, as a friend of Grinch's, EVERYONE who frequents IRC (including many sysops) know for a fact that Twinklepixie is Grinch's sock. There was never any question of that to Pling when he banned the account, or any of the rest of us. Of course, I have my own view of things, as I have had a lot of interaction with the parties involved. While I know that Grinch has not been the "model citizen" here, this particular instance was not imo serious enough to warrant a permaban, but I was not willing to create the fuss by questioning it. I personally am glad you did.

However, the rest of them (with the exception of the IP bans) came after weeks and weeks of disruption, ignored warnings, and general asshatery (Jonnieboi05, Wafflez, Lena, etc) where permabans were completely warranted. I have been on the receiving end of some of Lena's emails, and I personally do not want to see that sort of crap happening anymore. If any of them were really serious about wishing to contribute positively to GWW, all they would need to do is create a new, totally unrelated account and edit quietly and no one would really know (and I have told them all that via email when they have contacted me). The fact that they make a big show of who they are, (or are not) and go to such lengths to try to get these permanently banned accounts unbanned tells me that they are not trying to contribute, but to create drama. -- Wyn talk 14:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

First, no one brought up anything about the IRC channel until now. Second, IIRC a few years ago, there was a lot of IRC-raletad drama, and a general consensus that we should ignore the IRC channel, and off-wiki events in general because it's outside of our jurisdiction. Third, do you support sockpuppetry to avoid permabans as long as it's done secretly? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

When people say "ignore things that happen off wiki" they mean do not impose bans on the wiki because of off-wiki behaviour. They don't mean ignore information you learn off-wiki. That would be dumb. As for your second point, if there is no way to ever know that a new user is a banned user, then why not? It clearly means they are not doing whatever thing got them banned in the first place. You are also advocating this approach anyway, if we can't prove that x and y are the same person "beyond reasonable doubt", you would rather they were unbanned. This isn't a court of law Gordon. That would be a very bad way of running the internet. Your current suggestions would really just open this wiki up to even more trolling. Misery 07:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

This is interesting. As I understand it, there is a broad consensus that blocks were supposed to be against the person, not the account or the identity, and that if we know several accounts belong to the same person, they should all be blocked together, and that prior misconduct on another account should be treated the same as prior misconduct on the same account. I thought that was why we got CheckUser. Are these assumptions incorrect? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Nope, they are correct. Misery 09:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

As for IRC, I thought that possibility of impersonation and the absence of automated, publicly available online logs were also factors. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe that would be relevant in a case of one person's word against another, when there was disagreement. At the moment we are talking about everyone pretty much being in agreement that Festooned Twinklepixie and Grinch are the same person. In any case sysops are supposed to be trusted with discretion, why do they have to prove every action was justified? Misery 11:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Gordon, I was only mentioning IRC as it pertained to Twinklepixie (and it was mentioned in the discussion on the block review page). As for socking to circumvent bans, the cases I was referring to specifically Lena, Jonnieboi05, and Waffelz all "claim" to be separate people, though there is strong evidence that all three accounts were being used by Lena, though the other 2 people do seem to exist. I was simply indicating that those 2 could simply create new, unrelated accounts and edit if they truly wanted to contribute positively. If there was no further misconduct from the new accounts, there should be no reason for anyone to even bother with Check User, and no reason for the new accounts to be blocked. As for advocating use of sockpuppets to circumvent bans, well, if the sock puppets are being used to troll and disrupt and cause drama then no, but if they are to actually contribute to the purpose of documenting the game without that sort of drama, then I see no harm. There is a difference after all, and no blanket statement/policy is going to cover every instance. Unless we limit each person to a single account I don't see any real way to regulate sock puppets other than based on their actions. -- Wyn talk 18:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Any other block with a remaining duration in excess of one year should have its duration reduced.

Sorry but I disagree with this line completely. In my opinion it should read that:
"Any other block with a remaining duration in excess of one year should have its duration reviewed by the arbitration committee."
As at stands it is just a blanket get out of jail free card with no option of review, it should instead warrant review and appeal by those who you deem to be able to enforce a longer ban than one year. If this line remains within the policy as it is, then personally I will have no option but to oppose it becoming accepted. -- Salome 03:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't this go on the proposal talkpage? Vili 点 04:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It can go there too, I suppose but I wanted to tell Gordon personally and give him a chance to adapt the proposal. Also Vili when did you get back? I thought you quit the wiki. WB (although I'm assuming this is somewhat belated) -- Salome 04:04, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I rewrote the first exception a few minutes before you posted here, it now covers any accounts used primarily for abuse. Was that change sufficient? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 04:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Although I agree with the change, I still think accounts should be reviewed first before bans being lifted. You have used a legal analogy often in our discourse here and I can tell you that no legal system allows the removing of a sentence without at least some formal review. Thus again I would be more in favour of this if instead of accounts banned for over a year just having their blocks removed, instead those accounts were open to mandatory review by the BC's. -- Salome 04:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added an arbitration request clause. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Gordon!

I don't think you'd miss it, but as formality dictates I'm here to say you've been nominated for bureaucracy. :) — Why 16:44, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Your rfr has been passed. Congrats on continuing to be a sysop. Hope you'll continue to do well. -- riyen ♥ 21:15, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Armor rating project

I thought I'd inform you about the new armor rating project since you seem to have some experience in the area.

And also, would you mind adding your data about grawl and destroyers and anything else I may have missed? Or, I could add it for you if you wish. Manifold 19:17, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Since you didn't deign to respond I recorded them all myself. Manifold 17:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Wintersday

Have a Happy and a Merry!  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:42, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

New Drop/Salvage Research Project

After noting that drop research has been almost non-existent since 2007 and quite often presented in different manners I have just begun a shiny new drop/salvage project and was hoping that I could maybe attain your assistance as one of the major contributors of this information (or at least your support or comments on my proposals). The project can be found Here

Many thanks in advance for your time. Dakota

Heya.

Do you have MSN or any form of messenger we can talk through? I prefer Skype and MSN but can download AIM or Yahoo if need be. Thanks, Gordon. --24.98.24.92 10:51, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes I do, who are you, what do you want to discuss and why can't it be discussed on the wiki? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 20:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

It's rather personal as of right now. I'd rather talk to you first before saying anything else. Any means of communication apart from wiki would be appreciated. Thank you. --24.98.24.92 08:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If you have a registered account with a linked email address, you could use Special:EmailUser/Gordon Ecker. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Done- email sent. Thank you, Gordon. --Account to email Gordon 09:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If you're not going to provide any explanation of what you need to privately discuss with me, I'm not going to waste my time on this. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 09:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I sent you an email as requested. <_< --Account to email Gordon 09:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Sent another with more details. Hope it helps. --Account to email Gordon 09:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

sigh

This follows Erasculio's post here but mostly concerning you and your behavior/role as a sysop/etc.

Basically, I agree with Erasculio, with the added plea to stop this insanity. I called it before your block review fiasco even started, and you've still failed to realize how much drama you are causing by mindlessly continuing to post as if your changes would do a single thing better for the wiki.

This wiki works. Until you came along with your block review nonsense, trolls dumb and persistent enough to get permabanned stayed that way. You've tried to directly overturn blocks without evidence, you've tried to convince people to overturn blocks without evidence, and failing that, you took a case to ArbComm - a case, mind you, that was declined, because it was wrong to take it to ArbComm in the first place - all the while creating massive amounts of drama on all these pages.

Reality check, Gordon. This is a small wiki about a dead video game. A dead video game whose company only spares a handful of staff to provide life support. This isn't a court of law. This isn't wikipedia. It's a small wiki, and small wiki things like "sysop discretion" work on small wikis. Stop trying to make this place something it isn't. Stop trying to have every single fucking thing on paper. Stop trying to take away from sysop discretion because your personal beliefs are that nobody should be permabanned. Stop acting like any of your ideas here aren't causing more trouble than they're worth. Basically, stop trying to be a mover and shaker when none of your ideas are worth all the shaking they've caused. You're arguing over minutia, and the arguing is incessantly spreading over many talk pages on many topics, and the end result is always "man, that's a stupid idea."

Just stop. Take a breather. Go outside. Come back and do your best to read this page as an outsider, from a third person POV - you get the impression that there's one guy who is persistently stubborn and no matter how many times his ideas are shot down, he keeps coming back for more, regardless of the fact that he's not achieving anything in the process. Regardless of the fact that the best case scenarios of said user's suggestions are exactly as Erasculio described above - trollfests where trolls don't even have to do work to get people riled up, because you're doing it for them already. It's sad, really, that you have failed to realize how far out of touch you are from wiki consensus, and how much you're trying to force the wiki to change to match your unrealistic expectations. (If you don't believe me on either point, simply read this section - it's you vs everyone else).

A sysop team needs sysops with different backgrounds to deal with different situations. A crucial part of this system is sysops knowing their roles. I'm going to be perfectly honest - you are terrible at dealing with trolls. The fact that you even considered unblocking Lena is proof of that, and the fact that you took it all the way to ArbComm level is just beyond belief. You need to realize that trolls are out of your territory. When a troll contacts you and asks for help, you need to realize that you are unfit to make any serious decisions regarding his blocks or loss of other privileges, and refer him to someone else that can deal with it. Sysops who try to deal with things out of their territory just fuck things up. Salome found that out the hard way. To give you a frame of reference though, take myself as an example. I don't mess with the majority of sysop duties and user disputes that can be handled by a kinder sysop. Nobody wants to deal with an asshole, and an asshole is what I am. Oftentimes, the simple act of me trying to "sysop" a situation will merely exacerbate the conflict instead of resolve it. I realize that those situations are out of my bounds, and I stay away from them. Pling or Salome or Anja or poke will step in and resolve the conflict just fine. I act when I need to act - when trolls are proving too much for you to handle - and I put my foot down hard. You need to realize your place in the sysop team. You need to learn your role and act like you know it. Dealing with trolls simply isn't it, so you really need to stop trying to make decisions when it concerns trolls, and leave those decisions to people who aren't trollbait.

I honestly hate having to go out on a limb to explain your job to you - sysops should know their limitations and abide by them. You have, however, failed to realize your own shortcomings, and your recent actions have been a very tangible detriment to the wiki. You've created more drama than Raptors ever did, and the only reason I haven't banned you for ridiculous amounts of wiki disruption is because I'm assuming good faith in your actions. However, that only goes so far. Look around you. Notice all the turmoil your discussions have caused. If you want to bring small benefits to the wiki, make sure you aren't causing massive damage on your way through. The ends here don't justify the means. -Auron 16:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

My say in the blocking proposal will benefit more on it's talk page, but I wanted to respond and add to what Auron had to say. The policy doesn't disturb me as much as the previous actions (overturning permaban crusade) and the seemingly lack of trust in our sysop team to perform one of their main duties intelligently and just cause it showed, and the stubborness and ignoring comments and suggestions made by those that stated they do not share your idea. You have made yourself the unofficial advocate for banned users and I don't think anyone understands why.

Unless I am mistaken, all of us believe right now that you are still doing all this in good faith is still in effect here. While the fact of banning another sysop, as mentioned by Auron, is not something I would relish, disruption and the OP of continued drama have always been blockable offenses, so Auron would be in the right. I do hate drama, even if it is unintentional, but it is also detrimental to the wiki. I know you are doing what you think is right, but read or reread what others have said and you will see said drama. Then think of the drama (yes, it will be there) should you become, what I considered, a rogue sysop unblocking without consensus again or a proposal like yours would have majority support. — Gares 16:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Just a word to Gordon and Auron:

Gordon, despite his tone, you should think about the cause for Auron's post. The energy you spend on this (and also force others to spend) is way out of proportion to the possible benefits.

Auron, you stated that you are unfit to regulate user disputes, and your above post (while not exactly what you were talking about) is a prime example of how not to handle such a situation. I am sure that the only reason you did not create just the same amount of drama with it you wanted to avoid is due to Gordon being one of the most calm and hard to provoke guys around here. --Xeeron 23:15, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

First, I'd like to respond to Auron's post. The current system leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Ages ago, when I started contributing to GuildWiki, it was mainly because I wanted to have a more detailed, more useful reference available. I didn't really get passionate about it until my involvement in the debate about historical content. That's also when I became interested in policy reform, both as a hobby and as a way to improve the product (an online encyclopedia about a video game) by improving the production process (how the wiki works behind the scenes). I enjoyed the problem solving, I enjoyed the discussion and debate and I enjoyed seeing the solutions I was partially responsible for work. I believe my greatest success on GuildWiki was my proposal for an admin noticeboard like Wikipedia. Prior to the noticeboard, sysops were informed of vandalism either by posting on the talk page of a sysop who may or may not be online, or by putting a removable categorizing template on the vandal's page, alerting the vandal in the process. I stopped contributing after the Wikia merger because I was worried that the CC-BY-NC-SA license's non-commercial clause would make it too easy for someone to kill the project and angry that Gravewit endangered the project without consulting the community. On this wiki, one of my main goals has been a policy and guideline structure which promotes an environment of professionalism, openness and fairness. I interpreted the implementation of the arbitration policy as a major step towards that goal, expecting that cases would only be declined if they were too minor, the bureaucrats were too busy with other cases or the disputes were already resolved. The system worked how I thought it should for over a year, then, from my perspective, it seemed that someone decided that doing things by the book was too much work, and the other two bureaucrats agreed with him. I believe that the way then the Lena situation was handled was the Guild Wars Wiki community's biggest mistake (and, for the record, I consider the block reviews my biggest mistake on this wiki, if I had anticipated the consequences, I would not have done them, when I have described scenarios in which I would have conducted them anyway, it is because those scenarios assume that, as in reality, I would have been unable to predict the block reviews' results). I was frustrated because I believed I could have handled the situation better, but was not allowed to (my status as a bureaucrat prevented me from nipping it in the bud with shorter blocks and warnings and the other bureaucrats' refusal to accept the case prevented me from handling it through arbitration). I was shocked by what seemed to be a dramatic overnight shift in the wiki's culture (or at least the admin culture), but I didn't realize how far it had shifted until after the block reviews and the rejection of the second arbitration request. I'm frustrated by how, after that arbitration case, all of my attempts to make the wiki's system fairer, more open or more professional seem to be interpreted as a mistake at best and trolling at worst. I'm frustrated by how my recent blocking-related policy and guideline proposals have often been treated as irredeemably bad ideas which I should recognize as such instead of rough drafts in need of constructive criticism. I'm worried that if we don't solve the problems on this wiki, they'll spread over to the Guild Wars 2 wiki. I never asked to be a sysop, I got this position because someone decided to nominate me, if the community believes that my opinions on how the wiki should be run, my actions as a sysop or my suggested policy and guideline revesions make me unsuitable as a sysop, they can use the reconfirmation process to remove me from that position. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 02:30, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

In response to Gares' post, if the community has a problem with the volume or frequency of my policy and guideline proposals, suggestions, drafts and critiques, I can try to pace myself. If they have a problem with the way I'm preseting my policy and guideline proposals, suggestions, drafts and critiques, I would appreciate constructive critciism of my presentation style. If the community considers suggesting policies and guidelines which have worked on other wikis, discussing those suggestions and not agreeing with the majority to be intolerable behaviour then the wiki's future looks pretty grim, but I don't think the situation has degenerated to that point. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 03:56, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"If the community considers suggesting policies and guidelines which have worked on other wikis, discussing those suggestions and not agreeing with the majority to be intolerable behaviour then the wiki's future looks pretty grim, but I don't think the situation has degenerated to that point." That's a little melodramatic, don't you think, Gordon? Look. You've proposed a number of policies related to blocking recently, right? And unless I'm mistaken, the response you've gotten has been overwhelmingly negative. Presumably, there's a reason for that response, and I trust you're smart enough to know that it is nothing to do with a belief that proposing policies constitutes "intolerable behavior." Here's a far more likely scenario: your personal views happen to be very much at odds with reality of the current wiki (administrative) culture. It's not that your ideas are bad or wrong, per se--I'm sure you're right that they work for some wikis--, it's that they're, as the overwhelming opposition to them has demonstrated, not right for GWW, at least not at this point in time. That, in of itself, isn't necessarily a problem, however. The reason that people take issue with you--apologies in advance if I'm misrepresenting people's opinions here--is that you're currently perceived as something of a zealot, someone who, despite the fact that he clearly lacks any support (and bear in mind, we're not talking about you vs. a majority, we're talking about you vs. a more or less unanimous consensus) has persevered to the point of creating a lot of--perhaps even an excessive amount of--drama. Obviously, you see yourself in a different light, and that's to be expected, but perception is exceedingly powerful, and you need to understand how you're currently perceived. So when your ideas aren't gaining traction, take a step back. Consider the possibility that while your ideas may be sound in theory, perhaps you'd merely misjudged the wikiculture. Maybe there was no "dramatic shift... in the admin culture;" perhaps your initial interpretation of ARBCOMM's role was simply at odds with the reality of ARBCOMM's role as determined by the prevailing wikiculture. And most importantly, know when to throw in the towel. I'm not saying you should give up altogether, but it's fairly obvious that people are taking issue not only with the particular policies you've suggested, but also with certain aspects of your overarching wikiphilosophy, and it should be apparent by now that you're unlikely to single-handedly alter the current consensus simply by continuing to argue in the face of overwhelming opposition. — Defiant Elements +talk 04:32, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

If other people didn't think the discussions are worth participating in, they probably wouldn't participate and the discussions would be posts without responses instead of long, drawn out discussions. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't think they're arguing because they like your idea, they're arguing to make sure that no parts of it get implemented. The discussions become long and drawn out because you don't stop discussing, even after the discussion has ended. -Auron 07:02, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

They're also arguing because they believe it's better to discuss the proposals than it would be to ignore them. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:23, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it might help for me to clarify my position regarding the original Lena arbcomm that seems to be the primary (initial) source of your frustration. I have always believed in a broad interpretation of the admin policy regarding sysop discretion, which I think will come as no surprise to anyone. I think sysops should feel empowered to freely use the tools they have available to them, up to and including permabans, to enforce the rules (in spirit more than in letter) and to put a stop to disruption. Obviously that doesn't mean they should go ahead and dole out bans lightly, especially not lengthy or permanent bans, but if there were any sysops I didn't trust to give due consideration before banning, my sig would be on a request for reconfirmation for them already.

From the start, I believed Lena's case was clearly and simply a matter for the sysops. Lena broke the letter of the rules, broke the spirit of the rules, and caused large amounts of disruption. Wafflez, depending on which you choose to believe of the several conflicting stories at the time and since, was either a victim whose account was compromised, a willing participant in disrupting the wiki by treating it as their personal playground, or an outright sockpuppet. This is without getting into the abusive/threatening e-mails sent to various sysops.

At the time the case came up, I was frustrated by the inaction on the part of the sysops in a situation that was (to me) so clearly within their purview. I considered taking the case not because I felt it was more appropriately handled by ArbComm but because I was beginning to think that was the only way someone would handle it at all. I hesitated because, as few ArbComm requests as there have been and even fewer accepted, each new one can be interpretted to create some sort of precedent, and I think the precedent "sysops can't handle this sort of situation, they should sit back and let ArbComm do it" would potentially have been more damaging toward the wiki over the long-term than the short-term disruption being caused. While I was attempting to reconcile those issues, of course, Lemming came along and permabanned both Lena and Wafflez, and the rest, as they say, is history.

All this is my way of saying it's my opinion that ArbComm should be reserved for cases that require more complicated solutions than blocks, and I never thought Lena's case could benefit from something like that. All the evidence I had seen to that point, and since, leads me to believe that Lena simply doesn't care about rules or restrictions and believes he can simply ignore or weasel out of any consequences. That is what went into my decline at the time. - Tanetris 06:05, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I've interpreted it as indicating that sysops are encouraged to improvise when there's an emergency or someone's exploiting a loophole, and should be forgiven when an action is taken in good faith which, in retrospect, turns out to be less than ideal. As I understood it, sysops were supposed to handle damage control, cleanup and enforcement, while bureaucrats were supposed to handle formal review and binding dispute resolution, and that cases were only supposed to be declined if they were too minor, a bureaucrat was too busy, there we a conflict of interest or they were already settled through arbitration and the bureaucrats didn't want to review it. This interpretation was supported by evidence from several sources. On Wikipedia, arbitration is the second stage of block appeals, and is recommended for long blocks after the failure of the first appeal. The discretion clause was sold as a necessary tool (or at least that's what sold me on it). On both Wikipedia and this wiki, bureaucrats nominally outrank sysops. The arbitration policy has the "final arbiters of user conduct" line, and in the discussioun about stare decisis, there was general consensus that the arbitration process should not create policy or pseudo-policy, and should not restrict the future actions of bureaucrats or sysops, but there were no concerns about bureaucrats overturning sysops' decisions. In discussions for some of the Guild Wars 2 Wiki's policy draft talk pages, there have been comments connecting the importance of regular elections with the ability of bureaucrats to overrule sysops through arbitration. I'm not saying your interpretation was incorrect, I'm just saying that it seemed incorrect to me based on my understanding of policy and consensus at the time, and that I was shocked to discover that either consensus had shifted so dramatically, that I had misinterpreted it so badly or some combination of the two. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:23, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"They're also arguing because they believe it's better to discuss the proposals than it would be to ignore them": not really, I'm discussing it because I want to make sure that no parts of it get implemented, and I'm afraid if no one kept telling you how bad of an idea it is, you would take silence as approval and implement it anyway. It is currently being a massive waste of my time that I could have been using to improve the wiki, as opposed to prevent the wiki from being hurt, not unlike what happens when a troll decides to create drama and people become engaged in damage control. Erasculio 10:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the proposal: Eras and Auron stated it already. Personally, I would gladly help to tweak any proposal that I see has merit. From the community that has responded and my own opinion, this policy has no such merit. When you added more tweaks however, I felt it was best to step up and add another voice that the proposal is not needed to the added to the consensus that the proposal was not needed. Unless something happens that requires attention, I had not planned on posting anymore and, as you put it Gordon, let it gather dust.

In response to Tanetris' post: I don't know what happened with the original Lena and Wafflez incidents, but you are correct that these types of incidents are for the sysops to regulate on their own. From your description, it is well within our abilities to decide on a correct course of action. I am glad that the ArbComm was not involved and it should not be involved in any blocking case (including the recent Lena one), as there is enough intelligence within the sysop team to come up with a consensus and provide fair, decisive blocks.

Bureaucrats are the checks and balances to our admin team and our actions, as it informally states in the Arbitration policy. So, yes, they do outrank the admin status. I have to point this out before I continue, "On Wikipedia, arbitration is the second stage of block appeals, and is recommended for long blocks after the failure of the first appeal." That statement should be disregarded as it has been stated time and again that this is not Wikipedia and only GWW accepted policies and guidelines are to be used. The ArbComm, as stated in the Guiding principles, is to be use as an intervention as a last resort on issues in where it is strongly warranted. This recent insurgence of block reviews definitely do not fall under the ArbComm's jurisdiction under any principle. However, if enough consensus is found, any issue can be put up for appeal.

Gordon, no one is trying to dissuade you from your attempts at making the wiki and concurrently GW2W more professional. Your recent proposals just are not right for a gaming wiki or at the very least, this one. This isn't the office or wikipedia, and as such, a high level of professionalism is not needed. When it is needed, seriousness and professionalism always comes into play, and it works. Our current policies are not perfect, but as time goes by, we tweak them to make them as close to perfect as we can. I do not know exactly where the assumption that the way GWW is ran and it's policies are messed up to the point that you are worrying that it will effect GW2W badly, but rest assured that there it's not that bad. There are some things that I would like to see changed, but overall, in the 5 years I've been doing this, the current wiki environment in which we work in is getting better as time passes, if even if it does happen slower at times than we would like. — Gares 16:50, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I know we're not Wikipedia, however we're similar to Wikipedia. Until the Lena incident, I had no reason to doubt my assumptions about how arbitration was supposed to work. The other bureaucrats' decisions to decline the case were the first significant contradictory evidence I became aware of. I interpted "last resort" line as recommending that it should not be used when other methods of dispute resolution or avenues of appeal have not yet been tried, but not prohibiting the use of arbitration earlier, and "strongly warrented" as implicitly including any situation with high stakes (such as the possibility of a non-throwaway account being permabanned). I also interpreted the "last resort" and "final arbiter" lines as indications that they're allowed to make tweaks (such as shortening an unusually long block, or adding a "restraining order" prohibiting users from posting on eachother's talk pages under the threat of a block, or lengthening the block of the user who started a flame war to make it match the block of another participant), or, in extreme circumstances, outright overturn blocks. In my opinion, a system for formal reviews and official tweaks would be a useful tool for openness, fairness and drama mitigation, and I am disappointed that the wiki community has decided to throw that tool away. I believe that the arbitration process was used appropriately in the Raptors case, and that it would have also been appropriate to permaban him through that process. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:54, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Let me be clear about something, Gordon. I completely agree with you that Arbcomm can (and does!) have the power to review blocks if it so chooses. In fact, if there arose a situation arose in which, say, the sysops could not come to an agreement with regard to a particular ban, or a case in which it appeared that a particular block was inappropriate, but the sysops were refusing to take action, or a case in which there was some misconduct on the part of the banning sysop, then I would absolutely favor arbitration.

Take, for example, the recent discussion that's arisen as to whether or not it would be appropriate to ban you. It seems pretty obvious that the sysops aren't going to be able to agree on what the appropriate course of action is, and if, say, the situation were to escalate to the point where Auron, Xeeron, Tanaric, et al started a block war, then I should certainly hope that the arbitration committee became involved! But now consider, say, the more recent Arbcomm request involving Lena. I reviewed the request, taking into consideration the fact that the sysops were more or less in complete agreement that Lena should remain permablocked, and decided to decline the case. I did not decline the case because I believed that Arbcomm didn't have jurisdiction over block reviews or that it didn't have the power to shorten or lengthen existing blocks, nor do I think that the rulings in the Lena cases set that particular precedent. I declined it because I did not see a good reason to review that particular ban. I was (and am) thoroughly convinced that a permanent block was appropriate. As such, and because it would have created utterly unnecessary drama and would have likely been perceived as bringing sysop discretion into question, I declined the case. In essence then, I declined the case as a way of saying "All of the evidence that has been provided leads me to believe that the ban that was administered was appropriate and that no further review or tweaking is necessary." Or, to put it another way, there's no reason for arbitration when a case has been dealt with satisfactorily by other means, and my declining the case was simply a way of saying that I believed that that had happened. It's more or less as though we'd accepted the case and then ruled the ban appropriate, except, ya know, without all of the additional drama that would have undoubtedly ensued.

I think that, in this regard, at least, we're merely misunderstanding each other, and I hope that my post helps to clarify what I believe to be the prevailing opinion with regard to Arbcomm in relation to block reviews. — Defiant Elements +talk 07:26, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and as far as similarities with wikipedia are concerned, size, as they say, matters. We administer far fewer blocks than does wikipedia, and, as such, we have far fewer blocks that merit reviews (almost none, really), not to mention that we have a far smaller group of administrators, which facilitates discussion among the sysops. As such, while a system such as the one you proposed might be good (or even necessary!) for wikipedia, I hardly think that that necessarily justifies it being useful here. — Defiant Elements +talk 07:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

My own take on block appeals

Gordon, I would like you to take a look at my own attempt to draw up a guideline for block appeals, found here. Please do comment and critique on the talk page. elix Omni 07:54, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I've read it and left a comment. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

nominated

and while you're at it would you care to archive? the TOC almost takes up the whole length of my screen. Vili 点 00:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Races and capitalization:

Since Anet has stated typing the names out lowercase instead of capitalized (i.e., charr instead of Charr), should that be a retroactive change (i.e., it is done on the GW2W, do you think it should be done on the GW1W)? My personal opinion says yes (for consistency). -- Konig/talk 21:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

User_talk:Lolable_Entrusive_Naughty_Aphrodisiac#In response to your email

Any chance you could give me the gist of that email? It would also help if you could tell me if it was from someone claiming to be Sarrah Dash, especially if the email obviously belonged to her. Misery 07:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The emails sent to me from Lolable Entrusive Naughty Aphrodisiac were from Sarrah Dash (the same email address as the one posted on Jon's talk, i.e. Strong Like Magikarp's). -- pling 17:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. That helps. Misery 23:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

If anyone's still interested, the email was basically a request to be unblocked. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

OMG!

You have the same name as some random dude in LA! I just noticed... Kinda lame that you used his name though... 90.220.83.13 22:37, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

read trivia--Four Year Strong 22:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

So he took 2 peoples name? Now I'm confused?... 90.220.83.13 22:51, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

zzz the npc in LA was named after him. He didn't take the npc's name. Not a hard concept.--Four Year Strong 22:52, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• Cough* Don't feed the trolls *cough*. Solliloqe 22:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I was here first, a lot of NPCs are named after alpha testers and wiki editors. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 01:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

thumtidhumtiduhhhmm...--Silverleaf Don't assume, Know! 14:34, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Sysop rights cleanup

Hello, I appreciate you've been inactive for a fair while, but on the odd chance you've still got your talk page watchlisted/notifications enabled, I thought out of courtesy I would leave a message (admittedly I'm going to copy-paste the same message for all affected users). (1) We're going through a bit of a review of which inactive users have sysop rights (including reconfirmation), and (2) here's a link to yours: Guild Wars Wiki:Requests for adminship/Gordon Ecker. -Chieftain Alex 19:02, 30 May 2020 (UTC)