User talk:Tennessee Ernie Ford/Archive10

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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

Trivia[edit]

Hello English master :)

Since you are the contributor with most language knowledge, admirable writing and had been involved editing Festival_hat page. I ask what does Trivia mean? If the term is meant for the modern usage (not education system or a place where three roads met), as reference of popular culture... such new information should be placed in Notes instead. This is because for the past months, I have been finding (and fixing :S) every single article page I visited with very annoying Notes and Trivias: mostly irrelevant, misplaced, lame edits as users want to "say something" but are lazy enough to rephrase the line written just above, etc. Yoshida Keiji talk 11:46, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

To quote directly from Wiktionary: "insignificant trifles of little importance, especially items of unimportant information". Wiki users (and indeed ANet themselves) love trivia. Wiki hierarchy (ANY wiki, not just this one) seem to hate trivia and tend to nuke it from orbit. Excuse my butting in, I'm having one of my RC watch nostalgia days. --snograt

15:10, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

There are several common misunderstandings about trivia (small little bits of knowledge) vs trivial (unimportant aspects) vs Trivia (the section on our wiki's articles):

This isn't Wikipedia; it doesn't really matter what their rules are about trivia.
By popular consensus, the Trivia sections on our articles cover three types of things:
- Deliberate non-canon homages: these are references intended by the developers to things in the real world (fiction or fact), e.g. Ian Sturmme is named after John Stumme.
- Other non-canon connections: these are things that seem obviously connected to the real world, but without developer confirmation, e.g. Battle Isle Iced Tea and Long Island Ice Tea.
- Historical aspects of the game are Trivia not Notes, e.g. the fact that acquiring a Dragon Festival hat required finale participation until ~2010 has nothing to do with how one obtains hats now.

As Snog says, some people love Trivia so much that they add trivial connections. Some hate it so much they want to delete anything non-canon unless it has dev confirmation. I try to find the balance between those, primarily by rephrasing speculation into the facts we can prove (e.g. there is a drink called Long Island Ice Tea) and let the reader decide for themselves the connection.

Similarly, I strongly believe that phrases like, "until the update of ____, you could do X, but now, you have to do Y" do not belong in the body of the article, but in some subsection. They aren't "Notes," because they do not relate to the current game and are irrelevant to people playing today. On the other hand, neither should they be removed from the article entirely, because they were (at one time) a key part of the game.

GuildWiki makes the distinction using {{historical}} (e.g.), so it's obvious that text that follows is no longer part of the game. GWW has long handled this by using the Trivia section.

I haven't been paying too much attention to edits over the last 6-8 weeks, so I cannot offer an opinion about them. Before that, I think YK has been only slightly too aggressive in removing trivial Trivia (or notes), i.e. on the whole, I think YK has done a good job of removing the irrelevant, the misplaced, or the redundant (with just a few relevant items that needed to be restored). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:05, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for answering, your time and patience plus all the explaining. Your messages help me understand a lot.

Yoshida Keiji talk 16:55, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

YW. And thank you for taking all the time to update the missions/quests etc (especially trying to make the walkthroughs more consistent with each other). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:23, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

mission infobox[edit]

Are you any good with inbox editing? I want to make some additions to the mission inbox, but how I want I cannot figure out. Infobox coding confuses me too much. What I'm wanting is two add 5 picture slots to the bottom, two being #ifexist tags like the default top image, one for loading screen (on top) and the other for storybook page. The second thing I want to add is a line for which storybook the mission counts to (and which page). Since all missions sans challenge missions give to a book, and all missions sans 4 have unique loading screens, I figured putting this stuff in the infobox would be easiest. However, for the images, I couldn't get it automated in my past attempts. Konig/talk 06:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I am less bad at infobox editing than some, but worse than others. I do agree that the infobox is the smarter place to put this stuff.

I will take a look at this and see if I can help. (Unfortunately, I'm about to leave on a trip and might not be able to give it the proper attention; if it's not done by the time I get back, I should be able to make it work.)

The easiest way to do this is to manually include a parameter for each of the five images, use the PAGENAME as a default base (and allow the parm to override it when there's no match), and use if→then logic to suppress certain images altogether depending on the missions type.

A sneakier way is to do something what Tub did for {{location disambiguation 2}}, which calls DPL to look for the existence of files with certain names. That's only possible for location because each of those articles can be assumed (by their infoboxes) to be in certain categories (e.g. Landmarks are always in Cat:Landmarks). Since that's largely untrue for images (they are all just cat:screenshots), I think it's probably better to go with the less magic, manual solution.

Adding parms for the page number and the storybook wouldn't be difficult.

One thing you didn't mention is where the maps fit in (I tend to think they should appear earlier rather than later, so they display without scrolling).

Finally, regardless of who does the coding, we'll want to do a good bit of sandboxing, as we did with LocaDis 2, given the number of articles affected by the infobox (making a list of test cases along the way — it always turns out to be more complicated than one thought). tl;dr it's worth doing, but it's going to take effort and time (in fact, editing the infobox might be the easiest part). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 06:41, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Map images would remain as is, hence why I didn't comment. I'm not really good with infoboxes so I tend to avoid messing with them, but another thing I think needs fixing is some of the auto-categorization for the location infobox - for instance, it will put a single page into 3 or so categories, the campaign location type, the region location type, the region, and then "all" of the location type. Gets overly complexe making Category:Locations way too chaotic. I'm mentioning it cuz it sounds like it might mess with the disambig to clean it up, but I'm not sure.Konig/talk 07:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Categories are only important as a means to an end — they usually aren't a sufficient end in and of themselves, but let's tackle whether there's even an issue there (and, if so, how best to resolve it) separately.

So I think I have everything I would need to create a sandbox updated template. It might be worth doing what we did with {{location disambiguation 2}}, i.e. create a second template and slowly replace the old one (that ensures that we cannot break existing functionality...and is roughly the same amount of effort in terms of per-page typing). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 07:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the changes would be that great to need a new template but...*shrug* Konig/talk 08:04, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I saw this, and I created a copy of the template that works - ~~but per Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Formatting/Missions/Archive_1#Storybook_page_info I don't think we should have this stuff there :/~~ File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.jpg Chieftain Alex 08:14, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Just looked at that edit again, it was labelling which storybook page number it was - not the image at all. File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.jpg Chieftain Alex 08:18, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I also want to denote the storybook and page number alongside the page image, but I'd have to disagree with the conclusion there because:

I've never seen the infobox as a place for "important" information (fuck, I don't see how neighboring regions are at all important). I've seen it as a place for short and concise information, and having a basic Storybook = The Flameseeker Prophecies (15) is a hell of a lot simpler than some of the things on certain infoboxes.
The reward box would work... if it didn't seem outright weird to place there considering the difference in the topics of said reward (it becomes hard to denote both which storybook and which page number when it's in columns of experience/money/faction vs NM/HM and it looks weird going from numbers to text). Notes doesn't work because it's all the way at the bottom and doesn't really include useful information like a storybook.
I would also like to argue that it is important to a degree, as every mission sans challenge missions (and elites) have a storybook, and similarly a lot of people, I would assume, work to complete said storybooks for faction or money.
Everyone seems to agree that it should be on the pages, but never agreed with where. The infobox seems like the simplest outcome and even one person (TEF) who disagreed with placing it in the infobox now does agree with it in the infobox as the "the smarter place to put this stuff" (unless he, like you, overlooked the storybook and number bit). And all things considered... where else would they go that it would be seen and, just as importantly, be useful? Konig/talk 18:24, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Formatting Guidelines had been slightly updated[edit]

Check here everything was accepted except for videos: Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Formatting#3_Guideline_updates_at_once_to_uniform_style. This is due to The Great Northern Wall, which I am in the fixing process. Yoshida Keiji talk 04:02, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't call people "clueless" in the actual formatting updates, but that looks reasonable/sensible. Thanks for taking the time (and also for letting me know).

FYI I won't be around for a couple of weeks, starting at the weekend. I apologize in advance if I'm not able to respond to a question/request. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:10, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Tossing in my two cents: I see no issue with what I see. Except one thing on the video bit: "uncontested videos will be instantly removed" - I think you mean contested or perhaps non-consensus as uncontested means no issue is raised. Konig/talk 04:22, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah I meant non-consensus, thanks for the correction. Side note: I have extended video discussion here Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Formatting/Missions#more_debate_by_analising_an_example.

Yoshida Keiji talk 04:50, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Newsletters and Guild of the Week[edit]

I'm creating the basic skeletons for articles regarding what I got off of the official site now, starting with newsletters - next will be Guild of the Week, then I'll try to figure out how best to put the manuals and other info up. When you get the time, perhaps you can prettify and expand the bare skeletons I'll be making. Konig/talk 05:37, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Sure. Can you link me to the relevant bit on your "finished" list? I'll take a look when I get back (or before, if I need a distraction). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 05:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

The above as they go from red to blue. :P The content articles that'll be copied verbatim I can take care of when I have the time. I have to stop for the night considering the time (else I won't be able to wake up in the morning for work), but I should finish the Newsletters and Guild of the Week by the weekend. Assuming I don't decide to work on my fanon instead (very likely). Konig/talk 05:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Oks. I probably won't get to it until after BWE/3 (which I shall miss). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 06:43, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Items[edit]

Another Guideline updated. Yoshida Keiji talk 15:36, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Ta da! (well done). Thank you. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 15:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Reverting stuff[edit]

Some of my edits get reverted in good faith but seem lacking in explanation, most recent are:

Do I need to go out of my way a little more with explaining my changes so I don't get sniped immediately? Would much prefer if reversions were brought up on my talk even if it's a minor issue.--Relyk 03:53, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

That's not really the way it works. Edit -> Revert -> Discuss. If you you feel that your edit is deserving of discussion even after the reasons given for the reversion, you get to take it up on the talk page. -- FreedomBound 11:09, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Or you know, just discussing the changes as that tends to be more constructive.--Relyk 12:03, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

That would take too much time, when simple reversions (and edit summary explanations) are usually sufficient. -- FreedomBound 12:28, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It's true, Relyk. I'm the sort to ask questions about alterations before I make them and tend to forget to ever make them. The wiki has always been "fire first, ask questions later" - it's possibly unfriendlier but certainly more efficient. --snograt

12:39, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at GWW:BOLD If a user makes 1 edit per day, may find it easy to discuss in talk page. But when people do like 25 edits per day, its best to use the summary instead so as to not lose speed/time. Discussion should take when reverts are hard to understand or believe like: Talk:The_Great_Northern_Wall#The_Escape. As mentioned above, if an edit of yours got reverted, use the same courage that lead you to edit and initiate a discussion on the related talk page or simply contact the user who reverted in his/her talk page.

Yoshida Keiji talk 13:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Users should still be prepared to discuss every edit and reversion they make. I understand the reversions, but if I don't find the reasoning sufficient, I then have to bring it up. That's a problem when I don't contribute as actively as the person doing the reverting. The edits seem quite trivial to require bringing up on the talk page, hence being bold and just making the changes. The reverts were too hasty with insufficient reasoning for my liking. It can be discouraging that I have to go to the talk page to make any changes that are even slightly controversial.--Relyk 01:55, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

If the revert reason is stupid, you can revert it back and provide more reasoning... just don't revert 50 times or some shit. Sometimes people don't really grasp what the change is or they're reverting out of ignorance, and if that's the case, then revert them. If they want to learn more about the edit, they can discuss it with you.

On that topic, I've never been a fan of snarky smart-ass comments and responses in edit summaries - users like Raine got really passive-aggressive with them without contributing much to the discussion of the content. On the same token, requiring discussion before *every* change is pointless and inefficient, so we basically just have to find a good middle ground. I'd rather that discussion come after the initial edit and before the first revert, but sometimes people are dumb and launch into reverting without really understanding what they're doing, and in those cases you have to go into babysit mode and spoonfeed them the explanation. -Auron 02:53, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) It seems to me that the system is working as intended. There was an explanation for each of the three reverts listed; it's not clear to me how it would have been helpful to place the same note on the talk page. If you feel the original changes should stand, then imo it's up to you to advocate for the changes on the talk page. I notice that you didn't provide an edit summary yourself for one of the changes — although that doesn't always prevent a revert, I always include an explanation so that people can see (some of) my reasoning (same day or following year).

I'm confused by three other things:

How can a revert can be considered too 'hasty — if the edit prompting the undo was considered unhelpful (especially by a frequent and trusted contributor), shouldn't it be done right away? You did what you thought was appropriate, but so did the people making the next edit.
Why should content changes be discuss on a user talk page? Shouldn't they be discuss on the article's talk page?
Why did you bring up this on my talk page? I was responsible for only the last of the listed changes. (Which was restoring the status quo, for a bullet I thought was mildly useful.)

I'm sorry that you feel discouraged — and I also find it discouraging to be reverted (with or without long explanations). Unfortunately, it's the very nature of a wiki's collaborative and instant editing process which forces contributors to develop something of a thick skin: if we don't want our writing to be mercilessly edited, we must resist pressing Save. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 13:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Formatting/Skills#AI_secrets_by_developer_Joe_Kimmes[edit]

For when you come back: The two notice messages you have written at Hero_behavior/Unexpected_behavior should (must imo) be made consistent through the wiki in Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Skills. Yoshida Keiji talk 16:24, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey, I'm back (sorta). Do you mean you want me to add something of the same to the formatting guide? Or you don't like the new phrasing? Or... something else? (My apologies for being slow to understand.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 14:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the Formatting Guideline for skills needs an update in these aspects:

I believe its time for a template, because the AI behavior will be different in Normal Mode and in Hard Mode. So a split is necessary in the Notes sections to reduce the non-stop "re-add" - "re-remove"...
The syntax does not specify how AI behavior notes should be written. As the latest edit had somebody add an observation as an "Anomaly", which is incorrect.
And the third issue is that due to the misleading results of most AI observation notes, Hero Behavior and Unexpected Behavior had been updated only after discussions. So my idea is to suggest the Formatting Guideline to remove AI notes and transfer them to talk pages until confirmed.

Im just asking your opinions before I go solo to update the Formatting Guideline. --

Yoshida Keiji talk 14:34, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for explaining. Since I'm still jet-lagged and groggy, let me confirm that I understand:

For a template, what about something like {{skill bugs}} (we'd call it, {{skill behavior report}} or something). See this page for some examples; we could also make use of e.g. {{reported}} to indicate whether something on the talk page has also been posted on the relevant skill and behavior page(s).
The anomaly/behavior/bug debate will never end — I don't think we can legislate a solution (so I don't think we should try). I think it's okay if people call something an anomaly and then we discuss whether it should be something else — those discussions are useful imo.
I'm mostly in agreement that things should be discussed and confirmed first (that's how we handle similar topics, e.g. drop rates, true ranges, armor stacking, ...). There are a few cases where it's less important, but those can probably be treated as exceptions as we see them.
- However, I'm not sure that we should remove all behavior notes. A lot of that stuff has been discussed/tested or is otherwise pretty reasonable. So, I would recommend that we put together a list of points that should be reconsidered instead and just move those.

– Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 23:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I will create a template and may take me some time, but this time I only want to clarify the last point. What I suggest to be removed are un-documented notes only. Those that have properly been discussed will stay.

Yoshida Keiji talk 03:16, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I think I would still decide on case-by-case basis — many of them have been discussed, but not necessarily in an obvious place. In other words, I would pick a few of the worst offenders to remove. OTOH, I cannot fault your idea — it might be better to start with the cleanest possible slate and err on the side of removal rather than leaving stuff in. Either way, how about creating a draft version that people can tweak before the overhaul? And thanks for cleaning this up. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:14, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

What is OTOH? TOHO cinemas I know :P. I created a draft Template:AI behavior and also updated my small progress at Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Formatting/Skills#AI_secrets_by_developer_Joe_Kimmes.

Yoshida Keiji talk 04:41, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

On The Other Hand ;) --snograt

11:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Changed your post[edit]

Sorry, I didn't think straight when I chose to change your post in a talk page. My apologies.

(I left the post, but you can feel free to edit it or whatever.) Daddicus 00:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah, well. That link should go to the gem, but since it doesn't, just as well that it got fixed. (I do prefer to fix stuff like that myself, mostly because I've been misinterpreted by both well-meaning and not so well-meaning ppls, but no harm, no foul.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 01:15, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Erm, I just realized: I forgot to offer my thanks for fixing it.

Thank you. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:53, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

...and that[edit]

Perfectly correct - I really shouldn't edit whilst in a flu-induced rotten mood. Consider me chastised :) --snograt 04:42, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

That was you? Wow, didn't even notice. I just saw that YK undid the "QQ" bit, but left the word asinine... and didn't even look to see who had inserted it. You must be in a rotten mood — that's so completely unlike you (at least, in my experience here).

I gotta admit, sometimes it's soooooo tempting to insert something like that, especially when people respond to a post from 4 years ago, with an answer that fails to recognize the game was different when the question was first asked. But... I resist for the good of the wiki and the preservation of Truth and Justice. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:48, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

if it's any consolation, i did laugh a little snog. -Auron 04:52, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

"I resist for the good of the wiki and the preservation of Truth and Justice." He's a GWW-Knight.

Yoshida Keiji talk 05:13, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Sigh, I was thinking more along the lines of Maxwell Smart, "If only he had used his wiki-tools for niceness instead of evil!" – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 05:26, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I like GWW-Knights, although I think we may have a surplus of the dark variety lately. I'm still a dyed-in-the-wool GWW-gnome and proud of it. --snograt

06:03, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

And this[edit]

Your opinion is requested. 50.136.229.5 02:30, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Tennessee Ernie Ford/Archive10

Contents

Trivia[edit]

mission infobox[edit]

Formatting Guidelines had been slightly updated[edit]

Newsletters and Guild of the Week[edit]

Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Items[edit]

Reverting stuff[edit]

Guild_Wars_Wiki_talk:Formatting/Skills#AI_secrets_by_developer_Joe_Kimmes[edit]

Changed your post[edit]

...and that[edit]

And this[edit]

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