User talk:Greener/Archive5

This page is an archive. The contents have been moved from another page for reference purposes only, and should be preserved in their current form. Discussion on this page is not current. Any additions you make will probably not be read.

Recent spambot blocks

For full clarity for those who have been watching the RC, the most recent waves of banning that I've been doing have been based on this script (with different timestamps, obviously). I've only blocked bots with recent hits against this filter, and after double checking with other sites before each block.

PS:Yes, I know that link will not work for most people that click it. My apologies. G R E E N E R 02:01, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Sure, email spam may be at a low, but that hasn't stopped them from using servers for other "fun" things. *Leans over shoulder* Hey, Sisyphus, how are you doing back there? </vent>. G R E E N E R 03:12, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

*Tip-toes around*... All quiet on the Western Front. We should update the wiki backbone more often! G R E E N E R 19:59, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

It possibly means the captcha is working, or that everything is broken horribly for anons. -Chieftain Alex 07:34, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

You continue to be a good lad

Ayup. Have another cookie. - Tanetris (talk) 09:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Always appreciated, merci! G R E E N E R 17:09, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

unsigned

Hey Greener, is there an easy way/shortcut to add that "preceding unsigned" comment? Or does it have to be done manually? Steve1 (talk) 19:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

It is a bit of a manual process, but copy/paste is your friend. My steps:

Open edit section (okay so I wrote this for fun)
Open history in a second tab.
Copy the time-stamp and IP/User name.
In the edit section, type {{subst:unsigned+| then paste the time-stamp and IP.
Put a vertical bar between the time-stamp and IP, then close off the template with braces

If there's another method, I have yet to learn it. I imagine that this is close to the intended process for the unsigned template as it then switches the order of the inputs (i.e. puts the time-stamp last). I also always have my time set to UTC for the wikis, mainly for this process and the RC page. G R E E N E R 19:51, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Pics

List

Talk

Gelbrekt's upload has me digging through screenshots, cinematics, and related pages. I found these so far; possibly more redundant/outdated images out there. Can you ask User:Magamdy to pull up render of Glint as to ascertain what her real image is? --Falconeye (talk) 00:20, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure I've seen a discussion somewhere about her odd frame, or maybe that was about the bone dragons which were missing their hind quarters? Btw, you linked the same file twice; not sure which other one you meant to add. I'll knock on Magamdy's door and see what forms of payment he accepts. G R E E N E R 00:57, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, there are a few in there that are basically the same, though for some reason they are each used somewhere, except File:Glint.jpg! I personally love that image, but I'll be the first to say I have no artistic taste.

Feel free to change which images are used where, especially as File:The Dragon's Lair 2 cinematic still.jpg seems to be a poorer version of File:Glint screenshot.jpg. G R E E N E R 09:15, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

G'day chaps. Here are some renders of her 'sitting' position. I pesonally think the 4th image represents her best. To Falconeye, I guess you want to know what her 'real colors' are. Well the problem is that most of Glint's blue color comes from the 'reflection' channel that is overlaid on the entire model. The 5th image Glint without this texture. Usually this channel is 'mixed' in a standardized way, but Proph has these weird irregularities. So I had to adjust the strenght of the reflection channel based on what I see ingame. As such, the images may be too blue, or not blue enough.

Magamdy 22:50, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm partial towards using the brighter blue highlights, since we have some images of her already affected by the surroundings. I'll suggest using these three, below:

I appreciate the effort it took to crawl under a dragon for the sake of the wiki, Magamdy! G R E E N E R 00:09, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Great work! Now we need to decide which are the "best quality" pics to keep, which names to keep, and which ones to move/delete. And with your permission, I'd like to gradually tag all thise Anet/screenshot pics with "common" categories (see Category:Gwen example) as to help avoid redundancies and unused picts. --Falconeye (talk) 07:23, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Go right ahead; I'd like to see an organized set as well. G R E E N E R 10:09, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

98.18.20.208 tagged speedy deletion on several pics; we need a final word on what to keep; what to rename; and what to rename. --Falconeye (talk) 23:14, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me of this, and thanks to the IP. I do agree with many of the edits. I'll make no claim to taste, nor ability to tell good graphics from bad. I'll do the deletions and moves as the IP suggests. If anyone wants to keep an image, they can be moved to the User space. I'll delete them in a few days. G R E E N E R 04:53, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Deletion

File:Glint.jpg was tagged as duplicate of Baby Dragon; your call on how to resolve this. --Falconeye (talk) 09:24, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

It's been many years since I've been in that portion of the game. Could you let me know if this first image of the baby was actually of it? If so, then Anet did reuse the model, and I'll delete the baby pic. G R E E N E R 16:18, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Item image

Hey Greener, can you help me out. I got this item icon which isn't on the wiki yet for whatever reason, but I cannot figure out how to properly upload it. (I.e. without black background.) Here's the link to the BMP: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nhqam1a9lee9o0o/GW.EXE_0xF2DD8891.bmp?dl=0 Can you help me out here? :) Magamdy 15:48, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm a tad confused. The image you linked to currently has a black background. If you wanted me to remove it, you're asking the wrong person. If the wiki isn't letting you upload one with a white background, then I'd be glad to try and help (though I'll likely end up doing what you were doing). G R E E N E R 17:19, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Whats the icon for? (if it's accessible ingame then we can rip it with texmod) -Chieftain Alex 18:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I already ripped it with texmod. That's the BMP I uploaded. If you download it you can see it has an alpha channel for the icon itself, so it should be possible to get it loose from the black background and upload it as such. I just don't know how to do that. Sorry Greener, I should've been more specific as to what image I uploaded

Magamdy 18:27, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

No worries. For future reference, the last image editor I used to a great extent was MS Paint (on Windows 3.1). I was really good at making space battles with UFO's by using ellipses, lines, and that spray can tool. G R E E N E R 18:34, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Ripped as .dds, converted using paint.net to File:Fossilized Shellfish.png. For reference sake, I don't think bitmap .bmp files have alpha channels. -Chieftain Alex 18:58, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

If you want I can fax the .bmp to you Greener. (Thanks Alex)

Magamdy 19:12, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

What, no Teletype? G R E E N E R 22:26, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

out of curiosity

how do you know what companies/corps run each spambot? just looking at the contribs or is there a database you're pulling from somewhere? -Auron 05:56, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Those aren't the companies running the spambots. Those are the companies that own ~~the servers~~ the IP addresses that the spambots are running off of. This is just one of the few sites that I use to grab data. Either people are buying server time/space legitimately and then abusing it, or they're hacking their way in.

Either way, those third party servers aren't the ones that host people/citizens/contributors (I do use check-user when in doubt), and I'm not blocking large groups willy-nilly. I've now got a sad list of over 19,000 IP hits against a single filter, and when they cluster up, I investigate and see which range needs to be blocked. If any of the sysops are interested and want to double-check my info, please let me know. If any regular users want to see it, I'll have to clean the spreadsheet of some potential user-information which is also captured.

In the end, with this new wave of spambots hitting a few hundred a day (where I'd normally see around 10), I'm thinking of giving up the fight. Digging through the abuse log to look for false positives no longer seems feasible.

Edit: Here's the API pull that I've been using off of filter 23. G R E E N E R 07:12, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

It always struck me as odd that once one filter has rejected the edit, another reviews the edit and rejects it too. Good job on the detective-ing though. -Chieftain Alex 17:08, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Removal of some dead dpl stuff

Hi Greener, I recall you asked yesterday if there was a reason I was removing some old and unused DPL calls. And then I logged off and forgot about it. Basically Justin noticed a bunch of PHP preg_replace() errors related to DPL calls, specifically anything using the replaceintitle parameter. He provided a list of those pages, and I figured I could prune the list by removing unused templates and hidden sections. -Chieftain Alex 06:14, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

*puts away the implements of destruction* So no war on DPL?... Fine.

Thanks for the details! If there are any cases that could be cleaned up in some fashion, let me know. G R E E N E R 08:39, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

List of skills by related subject

Examples

List of Star Wars species

Talk

Is there a way to alphabetize lists, similar to wikipedia's long lists? --Falconeye (talk) 00:19, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

If you toss me an example on wikipedia, I can take a look at it. That said, most sorting would need to be done via some sort of flag, to differentiate between the items to be sorted, and the titles for the (sub)sections.

For example, List of skills by related subject#Causes armor-ignoring damage would need to know to sort all of the professions first, and then the attributes, before it would alphabetize the skills (I'm assuming that's your end goal).

If SMW were set up fully on this wiki and properties were added to all of the skills in question, it might be possible. Additionally, if DPL had categories for each subsection which it could grab onto, it might also work. Both of those would require a lot of manual labour to get started without any guarantee of success. In the end, I'd probably end up tossing it into Excel and seeing if I can sort it there, as is my MO. G R E E N E R 03:51, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Here is one, still looking for better examples. --Falconeye (talk) 07:01, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

If you're looking at reducing the length of that page by turning it into a directory, that's fine. What you may want to try to do is have the directory look like this:

List of skills by related subject/A-B: Activation time, Adrenaline, Armor rating, Arrow, Attack, Bleeding, Blind, Block, Blunt damage, Burning
List of skills by related subject/C-E: .....
etc.

G R E E N E R 19:23, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

There was an ingenious TOC-template for some of wikipedia's insanely long lists; sadly it requires a mechanic not supported by this wiki (see Talk). So onward to plan B: the hard method! I've looked at Skill quick reference, User:Shifuimam/Suggestion for skill search, etc. I'm now thinking lets visually start over: because almost everything on that "List" is currently better explained in details on their respective pages, and can be categorized into related subject.

Use redundant "quick reference" as a "directory" article; possibly merge it into Skill parent article. Emphasise simplicity as the greatest form of sophistication!
Split list down into alpha first; then perhaps gradually work in professions, campaigns, skill types, etc.
Transclude this monstrosity by using combination of "Nav-template", "TOC-template", "Skill table-template", categories, etc. Ideally, we only need to edit a page once.
Get more help from contributors smarter then us!

I am taking "graphic design"-courses, so this would be a good practice! ^_^--Falconeye (talk) 00:23, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

This is going to be quite an undertaking! Feel free to get mock-ups going in your user space. If you think you can display all this information in an easy-to-understand and easily accessible manner, be my guest. You can even use it as part of your portfolio ; )

There aren't too many active contributors on this wiki to help out, though. Even I update the gw2 wiki on an infrequent basis, and haven't made a significant contribution here in years. G R E E N E R 08:17, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Construction has started; gonna be messy for now. I'll take baby-steps for now to allow for adjustments and avoid unnecessary work (the "measure twice, cut once" rule). Theoretically viable to find any list within 2-clicks. The end result should be:

Skills = "ROOT"; will be treated as an "Overview".

Skill quick reference = "Sub-Root"; as to avoid overloading ROOT with every list/link but the "list of kitchen sinks"

All other skill-list articles tagged with child categories of Category:Skills should link to/from and/or be transcluded with subroot (using an "all-roads leads to rome" mentality)

All contributors are free to make alterations or suggestions. Personally I'd appreciated it if someone from GW2 with "Madz"-template skills help out, or anyone with access to a bot-program (because we'll likely need one). --Falconeye (talk) 09:00, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Bots work well when you have a strict set of parameters to follow. If you see that you're going to make the same edit numerous times, and you have a way of identifying which pages require that edit, then we can look into getting a bot recruited. G R E E N E R 23:37, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Need second opinion on where to put remaining List of skills by related subject into appropriate Skill quick reference alphabetical order. Debating on deleting 'related subject'. Also, do we want to follow Quick access links-example and populate 'reference' with shiny nav-templates, or focus on transcluding the individual lists and then hide/show them like DMR's userpage? --Falconeye (talk) 07:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

There are still a few on that list, such as "Hexes that affect the caster", which can be given easy homes (in this case under "Hex"). Re-categorizing items will always be a pain when you get near the end. Group them by theme as best as you can (AoE and attribute focused lists under "A" etc.).

Don't worry about making navs like on Quick access links; aim to pull of the transclusion and we'll see if the navigation can be improved later. G R E E N E R 17:12, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Here is just one example of using a bot: Category:Speed boost skills was manually created; Category:Skills that cause Movement Speed Boost is the correct skill infobox term I've been using for Category:Skills by cause effect. Which one is correct? --Falconeye (talk) 02:14, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Falconeye, why are you adding blank parameters? e.g. "removes 1=". -Chieftain Alex 11:08, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

See: User talk:Falconeye and User talk:Blue Totoro. We NEED more parameters in Template:Skill Infobox in addition to "Causes" and "Removes". --Falconeye (talk) 08:19, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Skill quick reference

Main article: Talk:Skill quick reference#Skill quick reference 2.0 & Skill-infobox categorization

Moving discussion to article. ^_^ --Falconeye (talk) 02:58, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Hey, I'll try to catch up on this tomorrow. As it stands, my students are doing finals right now and it's keeping me busy and drained. I nearly fell asleep just getting a set of armour skins done for gw2w. G R E E N E R 15:58, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

You need to learn to prioritize.

GW > students >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GW2

High School? College? University? Steve1 (talk) 18:02, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Ha! Sorry, must have screwed up my inequalities ever so terribly! I'm a private tutor, and all of my university clients are happily finished with their work over a month ago. My high school students are working damn hard, though. G R E E N E R 06:33, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, inequalities can be a pita. ;) Final exams approaching for the HSers, eh. GL to your kiddies. Steve1 (talk) 17:26, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Basic layout of 'Phase: 1' is done! I need fresh eyes to glance over and make necessary adjustments. Blue Totoro is helping us boats-loads with the categorization needed for 'Phase: 2'. --Falconeye (talk) 22:45, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Guru

See also: User:Stephane Lo Presti/News/2016-16-06

Should gww have an article documenting Guru and other notable GW-community sites? --Falconeye (talk) 19:19, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out to me. We do have List of fansites, and Guru was tapped by Anet at one point, so for documenting its existence, we have that covered. On the other hand, we've gone a bit further and documented community driven content such as Category:Community hosted events, and Guru was much larger than any of those individually. (You may note the couple of GWGuru events listed there, too.)

If there's a neutrally toned article explaining what Guru was, I personally would not object at all. If anyone from the site would like to give an over-view/summary, they're more than welcome to.

Guild Wars Guru is open. G R E E N E R 07:23, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

monstrous!

Good test run for first bot order: File:Monster skill.jpg << there are at least 100 icons using the same Monster icon, but are named differently. I don't know the story behind these; I do know many icons/renders/etc. have been deleted over the years to reduce redundancies. --Falconeye (talk) 23:42, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

The tough part about those is that many icons are set up as redirects, such as File:Blood Splattering.jpg. They can be gathered on a list which I hope a bot can access, but replacing them may lose an intended result (the redirect aspect). G R E E N E R 04:05, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Damage/Support/Control

Another project I am considering is refining Team roles: specifically centralizing all combat guides/builds/tactics into three core "combat systems" articles. Damage is reasonably developed, but Support and Control are non-existent. Snare (tactic) could be redirected to control (after disambiguation). See GW2wiki for example of how they would look. --Falconeye (talk) 20:09, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Got pulled away for nearly all of yesterday and the day before, sorry.

Would you say that Support and Control are present and clearly divided enough to discuss in GW1? They exist as tactics, but I'm having trouble picturing them as builds (aside from monks running a lot of protection). It has been ages since I've worked on group compositions, let alone competitive ones, so I do consider myself out of the loop. G R E E N E R 18:01, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Real Money Traders

Who's in charge for those real money traders? --Corporation (talk) 16:43, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

RMT's are businesses which make money in rather ignoble ways. Some may have business licenses, which you can search for, but because the internet is world wide, it may not be possible to find out who exactly is running the show. G R E E N E R 06:18, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Joe?

Who's Joe? Is it someone's nickname here on the wiki or is it a fictitious figure no one seems to like, if I may speak straight? Name the User! --Corporation (talk) 20:32, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Joe Kimmes. Don't think no one likes him though. ;-D Steve1 (talk) 20:39, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

I will let it be whatever the reason is.. --Corporation (talk) 21:19, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

I did a dumb, sorry...

Thought I should let you know I was looking at the https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Alesia page so I could see how they set up Alesia's build within the template and while editing my own in I accidentally saved it.... Very sorry about that, hope it doesn't cause too much trouble --AceOfBalthazar (talk) 05:47, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

No need to come running here in a case like that - just undo your own edit and things are fine. You can either do that in the history of a page or when looking at the prev(iew) under recent changes. Then just hit undo and save it. Steve1 (talk) 09:12, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

It happens; no harm done. It looks like FE got it flipped back. Thanks for taking care of it! G R E E N E R 16:44, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll definitely keep that in mind in the future --AceOfBalthazar (talk) 23:38, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Mantis

Joe says they are insects, so I've requested merge in keeping with this wiki's creature type policies. --Falconeye (talk) 00:21, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Yep, go right ahead! Move the table over (or if you're really daring, try to combine them). Leave the Mantid page as a redirect to Insect. If you'd like some cleanup on the categories after the fact, I can do that. G R E E N E R 07:48, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Please do! Category:Mantid bosses and Category:Mantids. --Falconeye (talk) 20:36, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Before I do, could you give a synopsis over at Talk:Mantid#Merge with "insect"? I did overlook the fact that users may prefer the pages to be separate based on drops. G R E E N E R 09:31, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Mapping the Distance?

In your travels on the wiki, have you found anyone mapping the distance? I recently started a firestorm on Facebook suggesting estimations distance based on visuals and math. Seems science just doesn't cut it with some players. ;D I will be posting some new information and data and science stuff in my newest Laboratory. Stop by and take a look. --Wendy Black 18:32, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

WoT line-up

← moved to Guild talk:World Of Throws

Henchmen

Was there an update I'm not aware of? --Falconeye (talk) 02:31, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Those 2 are PCs belonging to that guild: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild:Acolytes_Of_Balthazar

They should be moved to the personal namespace of the creator or a guild subpage or whatever. I'm not certain. Steve1 (talk) 06:12, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

I'll get those moved in a bit. Thanks for pointing them out. G R E E N E R 17:32, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Redundant

And now you should go ahead and add that unnecessary redundancy to all other festive items in order to make everything conform.

And while you're at it, do the same for alcohol and sweets! :P

Cheers! ;-P Steve1 (talk) 19:07, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh dear, let me get a few more libations before going on that jolly trek.

I wouldn't consider that edit to be precedent setting, though I swear I hear SE in the distance, wailing in despair.

The page can be updated at some future point when it will cause no terrible consternation, I'm sure. 'Til then, back in line you uptight conformist! G R E E N E R 21:05, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh boy, you just don't know how to enjoy a merry confrontation. Lame!

Conformist? Me? Ha! You couldn't be more wrong! Just using da rulez to push you around (or at least tryin'). :P

Uptight?! Sheesh. Steve1 (talk) 21:39, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I know how to enjoy a confrontation, so long as we adhere to the underlying premise that, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, I always win. ; ) G R E E N E R 22:04, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Of course you do, certainly you do!

Have a carrot!

It's the "you won this confrontation carrot", so it must be yummy. ;) Steve1 (talk) 06:48, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

This made me snort with laughter. Luckily there wasn't anyone else around that minute. Thanks dude! ;) Steve1 (talk) 23:56, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Moving minion trick to gate glitch

Sorry for the mess I made you clean, I did not know how to move properly. I believed the page had to be moved so I took the initiative. Merry Christmas :* --Ruine Eternelle 16:07, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

It was no problem at all. Thanks for keeping what little wiki editing skills I have remaining on the sharp side :D. Take care, and enjoy the holidays, both in-game and out. G R E E N E R 16:30, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Old User Account to New User Account Move

← moved to Guild Wars Wiki:Admin noticeboard