User talk:Tennessee Ernie Ford/Archive09

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This page is an archive. The contents have been moved from another page for reference purposes only. Any edits made here will be reverted and lost.

Previously on TEF

Maths[edit]

Re: [1] - it appears that in trying to reduce dependence on mathematical knowledge, I assumed that the readers would equate decimals to probability... Lady irony strikes again! -- Armond Warblade 06:56, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

eh, that was more about the phrasing than about whether we can talk about 1.25 chests or not (but it's true that people have trouble wrapping their head around the idea of expectations, averages, and most likely outcome). 4 picks for 5 chests ... seemed like a more tractable example (but I wouldn't be against it if someone converted it back). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 07:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Skill Trainers[edit]

Re: Dau & Symbolic Celerity - You have reverted edits I have made, note that Im not complaining about that. But what did you mean by he does not unlock that skill? Edit : Ah, nvm got the answer myself when I saw the list of Nightfall Skill trainers, at the top it says unlocked. Strange thing is I didnt see it at the Kamadan skill trainer, and then when I went to Dau for Symbolic Posture. I think I was not focusing in Kamadan :/ --ChameleonDevil 10:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I posted a note on your talk page, but you must not have seen it (since you originally posted this while logged out). Short story: yeah, unlock means "to make available to your account," while learning means, "to be able to use the skill yourself." → Learning also unlocks, but unlocking doesn't necessarily mean it's learned. (Heroes can use any unlocked skill and unlocked skills can be taught via tomes, but locked skills cannot.) I'm not sure we do the best job keeping the distinctions clear, since this comes up a lot. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 10:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I logged in and saw the message lol :P. Yes I agree it a bit confusing when you directly consult the wiki directly and going to a skill trainer for a different skill, (also not noticing (unlocked) on the side) and then suddenly seeing the other skill you also wanted to unlock available at the trainer. Sorry :P --ChameleonDevil 10:53, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Light my Fire[edit]

← moved to User talk:Silver Edge#Light my Fire and vanqing

Bald statements[edit]

"The original edit made a bald statement"

They be hairless. Konig/talk 22:01, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Only the statement was hairless. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:03, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Headline text[edit]

Thank you for changing the statement in the Rare Pets Pages. please understand i never intended for it to turn into some sort of war. all i wanted was it to clearly display them as rare. and I am sorry if it caused any inconvenience. Thank you again for the edits.--Chrono Sirus 05:29, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome.

It was helpful (to me) that you posted why you were coming back to this idea again (and again), because it allowed me to put myself in your shoes and look at the article(s) from another perspective. The reason we have policies like the one revert rule is to prevent exactly the kind of conflict that we saw here: once you see an edit undone, the spirit of the policy asks that the parties discuss the reasons behind the variations. In this way, everyone can see what's at stake and everyone interested in making the wiki a better resource (i.e. everyone) can promote different strategies for dealing with the particular gap.

A good example (where I don't come off looking too good) is on Hero behavior. An anon posted an edit claiming heroes never used a certain skill. They didn't leave an edit summary and I (incorrectly) assumed that they hadn't done any systematic testing. Instead of reverting me, the IP added their research notes to the talk page. I took a look and reverted myself because their argument was sound and their testing methodology was replicable. (I then went back and did further testing and several of us realized the situation is more complicated.) In short, what could have been a war over a lonely bullet point became a civilized discussion, resulting in a better result than either myself or the IP could have come to on our own. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 05:39, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Highlighting[edit]

"also highlights the point that this is worth a point" - I do not see how highlighting is ever necessary in wiki articles. It feels distracting more than helpful, as to me it uglifies the portion of the article. Italicizing moreso (bolding grabs attention by standing out, but it's even worse in the uglifying process), as to me it just feels like an emphasis on something that would get the point across whether emphasized or not. A link would be far better, and more appropriate for a wiki. Konig/talk 05:46, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree about italics: emphasis is often appropriate and is used all the time (e.g. in your signature, you 'embolden the link to your name to call attention to your home page). (No, I'm not ignoring your ironic emphasis of far.) I considered a link, but "Fellowship" is already linked a few words later. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 05:50, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I do not believe any emphasis is needed in wiki articles (wiki comments, is another story - obviously). But my point stands, and your comment on no appropriate link, furthers it I'd say. (On the note of my signature, I italicize it because it looks better than not. And overemphasizing like in your comment is counter-productive. ;P ) Konig/talk 05:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

TEF, I believe I pointed you to this before: w:Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Italics. Long story short, there are times to use italics, and times not to, and the latter far outnumber the former. -- Hong 06:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

This wiki is not Wikipedia: it has its own goals and needs. There aren't any universal rules of style that apply everywhere: different paper-encyclopedias use different styles; print encyclopedias use different styles from online ones; and even newspapers disagree about appropriate emphasis, word choices, and even spelling.

Rare pet statue is a term worth emphasizing in the context of pet articles: it's a special term that ANet has used to describe the qualification for earning a particular point in you HOM. Each of the words in the term is used to mean something specific in GW: rare (for items), pet (for animal companion), and statue (various uses); plus, the game refers to prestige pets, not rare ones. It's not obvious that the three words have special meaning when put together. Therefore, some emphasis is almost required. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:54, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

You know what emphasising every word in "rare pet statue" sounds like? It sounds like something taken from here. That's what happens when you put too many words in italics. -- Hong 10:03, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Less is More[edit]

Im slowly doing clean-up, merging and/or downsizing feedback pages, and setup a 'In Progess', 'Resolved' and 'Help' sub-section. In the meantime, please let me know of any further browser issues, or anything else that I can do or requires my attention that I may not be aware of. ^_^ --Falconeye 09:55, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Open your eyes[edit]

← moved to Talk:Masochism#Icon trivia

Soliciting opinions[edit]

Re: this edit - it looked pretty bad on my phone, but I guess less so on an actual monitor. Is there a better way to get the handbook's name in there, do you think? -- Armond Warblade 21:09, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks fine from my laptop (or at least, no different from any other page header on the wiki). However, you could spruce it up, e.g. something like:

Too Much of Heaven

Armond's Handbook for Monks

Invoke Starfish

An Elementalist Handbook

Not as Clumsy or Random as a Wand

Armond's Dervish Handbook

Spirited Away

Ritualist Optimization

You could have that share a row with the quotations, appear in an infobox-like format (upper right, with TOC left or immediately below), share a row with the overview (i.e. the 4-bullet what-makes-a-monk-unique section at the top), or...

Obviously, to make things easier to play around with (and adjust later), you can turn the above into a template with just two parameters (title and prof — everything else derives from that). You could also display an emblematic NPC from the Prof (e.g. Mhenlo), a classic weapon (scythe for dervs; one of the uniques for monks), or some other image that you think captures the essence of the prof. (The tome is an easy choice, o/c.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 22:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

granite[edit]

There's probably no good way to do the granite stuff you mentioned using DPL, since the data is incomplete. No amount of scripting can compensate that. And even for the articles where it says "3-4 slabs", we don't know the chance to yield granite over other contents. My suggestion would be to start with Category:Contains granite, copy everything into a spreadsheet and work off-wiki. Try this code for starters: Tub 19:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

{{#dpl: category = Contains granite
| uses = Template:Item infobox
| include = {Item infobox}:commonsalvage
| table = ,Item,Salvage
}}

Thanks. That was (roughly) where I started: my spreadsheet has 900 rows of trophy and salvage items and guestimates values if there's a range. But I have to manually update it any time someone publishes new research. If nothing else, we (or I) can at least use the DPL to help identify stuff that needs clean-up.

As you say: there's no substitute for poor data. (Let's hope we learn from our GWW/GWiki mistakes/lack of foresight for GW2W.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:18, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Censorship vs deadlinks[edit]

re: this edit (this was the original title of the section)

I don't think that IP was trying to report dead links, but rather censor the mods for their nudity. As of this writing, all the links still work. I'm not sure if there was ever an actual discussion on whether they were to be allowed, but I feel that if they have a warning (which I added) then they should be. Not only must a child show some decent knowledge of the game/online community to get to the page, but even more so to actually get the mod running. If someone can do that, then they're probably mature enough to handle fake boobies. Maybe it's because I haven't had kids, but the "Won't somebody please think of the children!" type censorship is just unfounded. ~Farlo Talk 20:18, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I guess my edit summary didn't cover all the topics. My point was that there are only 2-3 legitimate reasons for changing the links...and none of them were at issue here. I'm not totally opposed to creating a PG-17-like warning, but I object to someone removing links without consulting the community. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 01:45, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I added a " NOTE: This mod contains nudity. " warning in the descriptions of the three mods that do. We shouldn't need anything more than that should we? ~Farlo

Talk 03:08, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

That is above/beyond imo. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 03:17, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Because its been bugging me[edit]

Could you take a look at the disambig 2 at the top of D'Alessio Seaboard (explorable area) and inform me what I should be typing as the second parameter to get it to display "This article is about an explorable area during the War in Kryta. This .." - because when I use the exact same parameters as on Riverside Province (explorable area), it comes up with something slightly different. (namely "This article is about a location. This name is also used for a mission, an outpost, an explorable area during the War in Kryta, and a Zaishen mission." i.e. wrong phrase up front, and "explorable area during Wik appears at the end of the list when it shouldn't be there at all.. )

Also I don't think I ever thanked you for the arrow embellishment list link - I've been using it a lot on pvx ^_^ File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.jpg Chieftain Alex 19:46, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey (you caught me just in time :-)

I'm looking at it now. Apparently, the parser has occasional trouble with apostrophes, so use ' (there's also a textcode version, but I don't recall it off-hand). This seems only to matter for situations in which we need to identify certain types of exceptions. I'm 99% sure I double checked for Minister Cho's Estate and the parser worked fine without kludging the apostrophe. (You might want to triple check, just in case.)

You're quite welcome about the arrows (I assume you've seen my article with an entire list of fun stuff; you can use the codes or copy the symbol. I have a bunch of new ones to add as soon as I have a chance.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Questions about the template are best posted on the template's talk page. I don't usually browse TEFs talk page.

Anyway, I've updated D'Alessio Seaboard (explorable area) to use the minimal amount of parameters needed. No workaround is visible any more! If you notice an article where you actually need the ' stuff, please mention it on the template's talk. Because it could be worked around in template code. Tub 20:35, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Sigh (at myself). Had I more time, I would have moved the comments to the template page. Thanks for updating DAS (ea). I think it's worth leaving the punctuation note in {{location disambiguation 2}}'s usage section, just in case this comes up again before we complete the migration (I'd rather someone be able to solve the issue on their own, even if it means an expert or an expert wannabe has to go back to adjust it later). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Confirmed[edit]

Works in Chrome. Who uses IE anyway? Doesn't need to be tested. →[ »Halogod (talk)« ]← 09:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately, I know that I used css/html code that will be applied differently depending on the browser, so I'd really have to test it myself before I could remove the note. (And apparently, millions of people use IE.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 10:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I feel like ranting[edit]

"the rest is relevant to the Harry Potter wiki" [2] - Not in the least, as all of that has its origin in fantasy rpgs (oldest I can think of is Dungeons and Dragons). Honestly, it's the single Harry Potter line which was irrelevant in every aspect to the note, and none of the note was relevant to the HP wiki but that. /endrant Konig/talk 10:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I support your rewrite; my goal was to remove anything but the ~~hairless~~ bald description. (And yes, liches and their paraphernalia predate D&D; there's precious little lore that Gygax et al didn't (lovingly) borrow/adapt/steal from elsewhere.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I know liches predate D&D, it was more of the connection between the two that I remained unaware of (as I don't recall lich being linked to objects allowing their eternal undeath in German folklore, the origin of liche which is literally "corpse" (aka the original liches were merely walked corpses aka zombies)). Wouldn't be surprising if/that the connection did predate D&D though. Konig/talk 21:49, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, good point; I'm not sure that there is one. I was thinking more of the general category of supernatural/horrific creature that can only be destroyed indirectly, by damaging some totem of their existence. (I could paint you a picture, if you like.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:57, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

(no pun intended - this time)[edit]

re: this change to Hero behavior, with an edit summary of Condition Removal: minor clean-up (no pun intended - this time

I dont understand what that means in summary. Yoshida Keiji talk 04:36, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Both your phrasing ("AI attempts to clean out allies") and mine "NPCs will try to cleanse allies of conditions" use derivations of the word, clean, which puns with the edit summary of "minor clean-up" . Often, I will be silly in my edit summaries, but in this case, it was just a standard phrase that happened to match the text...unintentionally.

Incidentally, I hope it's clear that I am happy that you overhauled that article. I dreaded taking that task on and am very content to make relatively minor adjustments to the presentation/language. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah yes now I understand. It was a word that figures in dictionaries. I was thinking it was some sort of wiki term for coding. So far I have always understood the intention of your messages, its just that compared to the rest of the people, you use words that other people never do. It feels very strange because I have been playing with English speakers all this time but when I read you I have to keep opening internet dictonaries to decipher you lols.

Yoshida Keiji talk 06:50, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm told that Google is working on a TEF→English translator. (The English→TEF translation tool points to here.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:53, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no translator program that works efficiently up to this time, they all convert separate words individually. By the time you read a full sentence... it doesnt make sense at all. Anybody that knows more than one language can tell you that. Even GW's translator is horrible. When I read the game in Japanese, I can't stop laughing.

Yoshida Keiji talk 10:08, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I was joking about a TEF-translator (you can just ask me), but I'm saddened about GW's Japanese localization: they are supposed to use actual people for that, not a program. Have you visited the localization reports section of the wiki? It sounds like there is too much to report, but maybe you can make a generalized note and list the most serious issues. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:25, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Zealous / Vampiric[edit]

← moved to talk:zealous#Are zealous/vampiric mods anamolous?

Forum Links[edit]

I borrowed your forum links. Thanks for posting them. Drogo Boffin 18:18, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

You are quite welcome. (Thanks for posting quickly to the "Ask" article — the official forums have been up for ages, but I guess some people still think the wiki is the best place to discuss current bugs/issues.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:22, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Food in lore[edit]

So as to not further derail the discussion, cases of food being said to be ingested in lore via "In the game dialogues or stories":

Zho's Journal - Entry 10. Onyx; "He mostly eats various seeds and berries, but for a treat, I give him bits of herring or some imported berries from Elona."
Just My Luck#Intermediate dialogue - the whole quest is focused on making herbal tea from Nong Berries
Cain Sentor - was forced to eat Mandragor Roots, which destroyed his intestines and now that's all he can eat
Cold One - quest is about getting a drink for Krak
Fraternal Order of Bakers and Brewers - The Scribe's explanation behind Thanksgiving Day drops
Thackeray's scavenger hunt - everything he accepts (outside the candles) are to be eaten. There's also a good bit that he won't accept which he also states is food (such as the various roots - per Cain above - "In my opinion, roots are a seriously overrated food source in survival situations.")
Chef Armand - states that truffles are quite the delicacy.
Chef Lonbahn/Chef Volon/Chef Panjoh as part of Feast of Bokka - to share the whole "drake meat is eaten" bit, there's one dialogue for collecting a Chunk of Drake Flesh that Nicholas the Traveler brings up.

So yes, we do have people eating (and drinking) in dialogue and stories. We have at least 3 quests focused solely on food - and this list does not include getting eaten, just what humans eat (and in one case, moa). I could site what centaurs, charr, skale, tengu, drake, and perhaps more eat, all presented via dialogue, quests, or the manual, but I believe I made my point on how there is lore on food. Both to what's shown and what's said. Furthermore, I would like to point out your overzealousness on "what's canon" - we do not need to be told by NPCs "I eat this" to know that they eat it. Asking us to prepare it, or them saying they're going to prepare it, is just the same (albeit, I do not think the CNY stuff counts as people food - similar to Fleshreaver Morsels).
So to make it absolutely, perfectly clear, your statement of "There is no "lore" associated with "food"" is incorrect because quite frankly, of all the "unimportant topics" that one can discuss about lore, food is possibly the largest irrelevant lore topic. Konig/talk 20:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I apologize that I made my point poorly. I meant to specifically refer to the idea that consumables include food items with mechanical benefits. (The closest example above is that The Scribe discusses the source of various holiday drops, including at least two others: Special Treats Weekend and Birthday Cupcakes, but he doesn't discuss them as consumables, only as treats.)

I appear also to have misunderstood your point at talk:food, since I now take that to mean you aren't against the idea of an article about things that people eat. I don't think it's all that interesting, but I agree that there's the possibility of (ahem) a meaty article on the topic of things that are eaten or drunk within the game world.

What I think we (still) agree on is that there is no point to naming a subset of category:consumables and/or category:sweets and/or category:beverages merely to group items that have real-world analogs, which is the original (and continued) reason why one person has insisted that we maintain the current article called Food. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

About the Scribe's descriptions - well duh, the Scribe is meant as a "lore explanation for mechanical updates" more or less, meaning he would never use mechanical terms (e.g., consumables). Some consumables are food (Drake Kabob, Bowl of Skalefin Soup, etc.), but not all. To that degree we've been in agreement - and I don't think anyone's been arguing otherwise (even Falconeye tries to keep most of the "food" as actual food, but he fails with Beyond consumables). The issue is and always has been upon the topic of keeping it for listing consumables related to food (to which only Falconeye seems to be pro keeping). Konig/talk 18:35, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Skill recommendations on Kourna Cooperative Mission pages[edit]

You've edited similar Skill recommendations section notes (regarding enchantment spells and hex removal skills) that is on some of the Kourna Cooperative Mission pages (Venta Cemetery [3], Pogahn Passage [4], and Rilohn Refuge [5] [6]), but have worded it differently everytime. That note also appears on Consulate Docks and Kodonur Crossroads. I'm wondering if you can decide on the wording so it can be consistent on all those pages. --Silver Edge 16:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

VSF[edit]

I'm pretty sure you didn't really mean an RoJ monk can also have Healer's Boon, right? I would edit but I having never done VSF I'm not really qualified to comment. Robdalf 23:25, 19 May 2012 (UTC)