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Items and Effects still not centered

I was just informed that "the stated aim of the wiki is to reflect content in-game as accurately as possible". Since that's the case I'd like to request a fix/rollback of the MediaWiki file responsible for the item and effect pages to a version that centers the topmost icon correctly. It has been broken for months and months now. --Yatsufusa (talk) 23:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

  • I don't know what caused the change, but on item pages the top image and item name no longer center on the entire main column width, but center on the space between the left edge of the column and the right edge of the metadata box. For items with very long descid strings, it is most obvious. Something to do with how the item metadata div is styled would be my guess. --Club (#66669) (Talk) 04:25, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
    • I would think this edit and this one would bear responsibility for the change. --timrem (talk) 06:32, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
    • I tried something with the effect template. Looks better I think, but there are a lot of effects to double-check...comments welcome. --Fig bucket (talk) 20:24, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
      • That "for other skins" edit makes it center just as badly in the only other skin available ("Vector"): Not-so pretty flower page (and if you use vector, here's a monobook preview link). --Club (#66669) (Talk) 21:19, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
        • Yes, it's not skin-specific. What I did for effects could be applied to items, skills. Although I don't see much wrong centering-wise with the pretty flower page...maybe a browser/setting thing...what exactly is the issue there? --Fig bucket (talk) 21:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
          • If your browser window is wide, it is hard to see. I made a couple of screenshots at 800px wide "Vector" skin and "Monobook" skin. --Club (#66669) (Talk) 22:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
            • Mine looks similar; also, please refrain from uploading images to the wiki that aren't related to the game in some way. — Cool12309 (talk) 23:06, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
          • Personally the thing that makes my OCD kick in is that the horizontal positions of the picture/name of things differs wildly between pages. That's even worse for effect pages after that template edit (see Apathy). Personally I think it would be nice if everything was centred like the skill pages. That could cause problems with long descids, so maybe they could be moved elsewhere on the page/moved to the data page/truncated unless clicked. --Darkcodelagsniper (talk) 22:04, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
            • The absolute positioning of the skills meta-data looks quite poor when your window size is smaller, or the meta-data is large...less obvious in the skill pages because the skill id is short, but try reducing your browser width and you can see the concern. The width in which everything is centered could be made more consistent though...the game makes popups 400px wide, maybe putting everything into a block that wide, then centering it in a table cell next to the meta-data would be a better solution. --Fig bucket (talk) 22:24, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Not a fan of the new hiding meta-data, makes it incredibly difficult to check in general. Discordance (talk) 07:44, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

  • I'm not entirely sure what you are are bothered by...it's not info people typically need to check on visiting a page, and when one does surely shoving the mouse pointer across the screen cannot count as incredibly difficult. The only drawback I can see is that it is not obvious at a glance that the meta-data is incomplete....I changed the template to make the background red when its incomplete (eg Pride of the Puffin (effect))...is that better? --Fig bucket (talk) 23:22, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
    • The color change for incomplete metadata is a good idea, but might I please request a softer tone of red? Like #ffdddd? --Yatsufusa (talk) 01:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
      • Ha, yes, it's pretty harsh. Changed. --Fig bucket (talk) 01:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
        • The issue, Fig, is that I cannot simply open an effect page and see it; that is, I cannot type and be able to see it at the same time without forcing my mouse to a certain location. It's very, very irritating, and I think that it should be reverted.--Cannonfire40 (talk)
          • I appreciate that it's making whatever you're doing a royal pain, but you've got to admit that needing to rapidly look through the metadata of many effect pages is an edge case.
            Anyway, maybe instead of being hidden and overlapping other page elements, the template could be given dedicated space at the top of the page? One line for the id numbers, another for the view links, like this:
Effect number: 7Description ID: acf143c704afaf7504ac07375084f79e
View metadata   View in-game: view
          • Simply reverting the template would make everything off-center again, which is what started this in the first place. --Vorzer (talk) 07:06, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
            • Couldn't you keep it getting displayed via JavaScript but keep it expanded constantly? So it would just look as it did before, but with the icon centered correctly. We can keep the red, though. I like the red. --Yatsufusa (talk) 15:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
              • I'd recommend this. This makes sense.--Cannonfire40 (talk) 16:52, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
              • Like this?
// ==UserScript==
// @name KolWiki metadata
// @description Display metadata by default on KolWiki
// @include http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/*
// ==/UserScript==

if ($("#metaDataInfo").length > 0) {
	$("#metaDataInfo").toggle();
	$("#metaDataInfo").id = "alwaysvisible";
}
              • If that was done site-wide, people would start complaining about the metadata covering up the icon and name, which would be worse than making them off-center. There's no middle ground where the metadata is visible without taking up too much space, which is why I suggested moving it. It could be placed on top of the page, or we could go with Fig bucket's idea of recreating the appearance of the in-game popups, or something else entirely. --Vorzer (talk) 20:59, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
                • Well, we could make the metadata not be in the top right. What if it were in bottom right? Or a content box to the side of everything below the in-game copy? --Club (#66669) (Talk) 21:37, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
                • I don't want to sound impolite, but it seems my screen is considerably bigger than yours. Can you make us/me see your side of the problem? What kind of resolution are we talking here? --Yatsufusa (talk) 21:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
                  • It isn't "my" side of the problem; I can (obviously) write scripts to rearrange the site however I like on my end. The entire goal of this discussion is to accommodate tiny minorities with specific demands. "Has a monitor smaller than Yatsufusa's" is equal in importance to "Wants metadata to be readily visible", and the end result needs to satisfy everyone. --Vorzer (talk) 22:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
                    • I never said this was about me or my computer and I don't know what gave you that idea. There was something that worked fine until it broke some day along the way to some change I can't tell anything about and I always assumed it would get fixed eventually. To me the wiki is about content, not about style. It's just that it was recently brought to my intention that that doesn't seem to be the stated aim of the wiki. So I tried to help. So can I please move on to what I actually said? What I was assuming was that one's monitor must be rather small to not have plenty of space between the icon and the metadata box. I have an older monitor and right now there is almost room for another whole metadata box until it hits the icon. And that is why I'm (still) unable to see what you think exactly the problem is. Right now it sounds like you were trying to optimize for a group of users we don't even know exist. While it sure is honorable to be so considerate, I'm not sure it's even necessary. Please share your concerns, so it's easier to see things from your point of view. --Yatsufusa (talk) 00:32, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
                      • Ah, sorry. I've run into too many people over the years who consider "BUY A NEW MONITOR LOL" to be a complete and entirely valid argument. I apologize for my needlessly defensive tone.
                        My monitor has a native resolution of 1366*768, but I generally use 1024*768, since 4:3 is the only way to get a refresh rate higher than 60Hz. On Pride of the Puffin (effect), the metadata template, when expanded, completely covers the icon and everything past "Pride o". At 1366*768 there's enough room; since you say there's almost enough room for a second box on your end, I'm guessing you're at 1920*1080?
                        The previous template always displayed metadata and worked at low resolutions, but was off-center. The current template is centered correctly and works at low resolutions, but doesn't always display the metadata. Your suggestion would keep the template centered and always display the metadata, but wouldn't work at low resolutions. In order to satisfy all three conditions, the page layout probably needs to be changed. --Vorzer (talk) 04:00, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
                        • I think at this point the best solution would likely be to place the metadata flat out above the picture and name -- how you did it earlier.--Cannonfire40 (talk) 06:12, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
                        • Apology accepted – I know that kind of people just too well... (I'm looking at the wiki at 1680*1050 by the way, which I was told would be below average.) But: I see the problem now, which makes the current solution look a whole lot better. I think (like Cannonfire40 already suggested) the location of the info box is what became problematic. I'm a little unsure about how good or bad the finished version of the spread out box would look like to the general population, so I took it a step further (please ignore the html, I just wanted to whip up an example):
Effect number: 7
Description ID: acf143c704afaf7504ac07375084f79e
View metadata
View in-game: view
                        • View market statistics (in the template for items) would go to the left in my example as well. I'd imagine it would look better above the icon than putting it the after the blue text/the item infos – which would be the only innovative idea I could come up with right now. --Yatsufusa (talk) 19:53, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I much prefer this idea of a top banner. Would like to see the IDs grouped to one side and the links on the other if possible. One thing I do notice is the word view is being repeated needlessly. Can we trim the links down to "metadata", "in-game", and "market"/"market stats". Or perhaps it we go with yats layout but put all the links on the right on a single line seperated by something and with shortened names?

Effect ID: 7
Description ID: acf143c704afaf7504ac07375084f79e

Discordance (talk) 10:15, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

  • The centred descid is super obnoxious. It's the least likely information to actually be referred to or used so it shouldn't be that promininent. Text should be consistently lower-cased or title-cased rather than a mix of the two. I like the general trend toward abbreviating where possible. How about something like this:
descid: acf143c704afaf7504ac07375084f79e

--Darkcodelagsniper (talk) 11:30, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

  • Any other opinions on this? I'd like to see darks design on every template like this. Discordance (talk) 18:34, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Anyone? I'd just do the edit myself but the template is protected. Discordance (talk) 20:16, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

  • It's not what you were wanting exactly, but the meta-data block was modified so people can individually and persistently toggle it to either always show or keep its mouseover-based behaviour. --Fig bucket (talk) 15:48, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
    • It remembers my preference but everytime I mouse over it it jumps lines around. I appreciate you've put a lot of effort in designing this but I think darks design is much cleaner and less attention grabbing, and easier to maintain/modify. User:Discordance/Test. Discordance (talk) 19:28, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
      • While I've made a few very minor modifications it is actually caseyweederman's design and implementation, not mine. I don't see any jumping around though...I did notice that when unhid it adds an extra line of spacing, which I think I just fixed. Was that what you meant? --Fig bucket (talk) 19:57, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
        • Thats fixed it, but theres still a noticeable lag of about 1 second before it renders the line about your preference. Still not a fan its clunky. What do you think of what dark came up with? Discordance (talk) 20:26, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
          • Hmm, not sure why that would happen; maybe due to a slower implementation of local storage...1s is very slow though... I like both designs actually. The last iteration of Darkcodelagsniper's version is nicely done---it does consume precious vertical space, which for me is a bit more of a concern than horizontal space, but not much. My only real concern with it is that it won't scale nicely to larger metadata blocks, such as for locations. I don't need to see metadata all the time, at least for effects and items, so Casey's auto-hiding version is even less obtrusive, and it would also work with locations and monsters (although there I do want to see the metadata by default). --Fig bucket (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
            • I think in some ways it makes sense to have a clean separation between what is purely in-game identifiers (id and description id) and associated links, and the extended details and fields of monsters and locations, we could simply have two templates, one covering just the id, and a floating infobox for monsters and locations with the extra fields. I had forgotten that we'd need to consider that in the design though, you are right the design needs to work and look good with them as well. I'll have a go with the monsters tomorrow and see how well it works as two templates. Discordance (talk) 22:07, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Edit page warning

Does anyone else have an issue with the list of warnings beneath the page edit form? Maybe I'm wrong, but it strikes me as totally ineffective and very poorly designed.The overabundance of caps, red, and bold results in a big block of red noise--style differences like that only act as emphasis when they represent contrast, which requires they be used sparingly. Additionally, there are so many "if" clauses to check that the notion someone would actually go through them all is absurd to me.

I know we want to keep people from adding redundant or inaccurate information, but I really don't think this current version of the warning is delivering its content effectively. Anyone have ideas on how else to make these warnings?--Southwest (talk) 23:33, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

  • What about just removing all of the specific warnings, and instead asking people to read the linked article? Also remove the use of color in the remaining warning. It's pretty eye-catching, but not in a way that makes one pay attention, rather making one nervous about editing anything at all. --FrodoBatman (talk) 00:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
    • That's right. When I wanted to make my first edit, I turned back on the step and had to come back a day or two later with more time on my hands to read up on all that stuff I had never heard of. After a few edits it's just like Cool12309 said: I read and understood that text once and don't even notice it most of the time – which might be part of the reason this hasn't come up so far.
      But we need users to read that stuff at least once if we want the spaded numbers to be right, so having a linked article containing all the different kinds of specific warnings sounds like the way to go. Everything from "Are you updating adventure gains from food?" to "DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!" could be put into one or two separate pages and linked with a single sentence each. Like "Please check for modifiers before updating numbers gained." and "Please remember our rules and regulations." We should definitely loose the all caps (because those are silly) and everything red. Except for the red "Hey!" before the summary reminder – that box doesn't get enough attention. I think we can also loose the "Cancel" link, because users can as well navigate back in their browser or click the "Page"/"Discussion" link on the top of the page. The second link to the "Established Standards" seems redundant as well. --Yatsufusa (talk) 04:55, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
      • I like the idea of consolidating all of the warnings onto a single page. We should make sure that the note on the edit page includes the last-updated date of the warnings page--that way, it's easy to tell with a glance if you're up-to-date on the warnings or not.--Southwest (talk) 18:06, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
  • As someone who's been editing this wiki for (only) a year, I for one can say that I instinctively skip over any text before/after the edit box, since I always know it's either a useless warning, telling me I'm editing an out-of-date page (which I'm doing to get old source), or it's just guidelines or something or other. We really do need to cut down on the text, and especially on the colors. — Cool12309 (talk) 00:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The warnings were once fairly appropriate, as there was a time when standards weren't very existent, including use of rigid formatting templates. And the game is rather complicated with a lot of weird messages--why would anyone think that getting 37 of something would produce a special message that wasn't normally there for other quantities? It's probably no longer as pressing, and could benefit from de-bloating. Note that we still regularly see people making edits to pages that are the result of them not being aware of the effects of an sbip, etc. --Flargen (talk) 19:18, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

tortoisecore

  • there's a discussion on the forums about megrimlock's 27-day 128-turn ascension. is there a place here for a page analysing lowest turncount strategies? i'm guessing it's something every player wonders about at least once, if not in very great depth. --Evilkolbot (talk) 13:24, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
    • No, and ascension strategy pages in general tend to be poorly updated, or contentiously edited if active, and just generally not that great. Stupac2 put his softcore guide on his user page specifically so he could maintain a greater editorial control over its contents, so things would not get diluted or misrepresented. In general I think run guides are best left in the private sector, for people to store and maintain in their user space or on a separate webpage. It's a nice idea in principle to have pages to educate people on proper ascension techniques, but they are usually hard to maintain or format; and the game is changing very rapidly right now, even without the regular addition of new challenge paths. I think I've seen Lilac putting together some basic strategy pages for specific aspects of the game (such as familiar use and semi-rares). Those seem better than a single all-encompassing guide to entire runs, and perhaps will be easier to maintain and keep relevant. --Flargen (talk) 19:06, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Missing Details

I have observed over the past few months that we miss out on quite a bit of useful information, like:

  • We don't log the links to things (e.g. place.php?whichplace=crimbotown which is made up and might not be accurate)
  • We also don't log item's multiusability (must it be single used or can you use multiple?). Thanks to a certain kolmafia thread, we can easily see quite a bit of information of items. There's a lot of little bits of information that I don't really know what they represent, besides id (itemid), n (number moved), and m (multiusability). We should probably spade that as well
  • Not really related, but something else that's been bugging me. Monsters with random images will usually contain a rand tag in the data file, but does not sometimes list it on the notes page. How do we deal with this? Perhaps a more elegant solution would be better. Also, quite often a lot of information is not consistent or left blank. For example, a lot of limited-time monsters have an unknown physical resistance, and scaling monsters have a wide variety. While there's not much we can do with the physical resistance besides replace it with a "?", the scaling thing needs to be changed drastically. The easiest solution I can think of is to allow "scales" and that only, and either a Note on the monster page to tell how it scales, or perhaps a new tag in the data, since the combat template needs to display something, and having to go to the page to view it's stats is a tad annoying. If needed, we can split this bullet into a new section.

I'm sure there's a lot more than this, but this is all I can think of at the moment. I'm not sure where we would even log this. Do we put it in the data file? Do we place it on the item page? How do we display it? Do you place it with the small metadata box on the right (if it's on the item page), or just a separate line? — Cool12309 (talk) 02:57, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

  • I think the basic mantra is usually: if it's a piece of information that's to be used across several pages, especially if one or more of them are expected to need some regular maintenance, you can add it to the data page (so you don't have to do everything by hand every time). In this case, I don't think there is a multi-page demand for knowing an item is multi-usable, in which case the simplest solution is to (manually) add a relevant category to each page. Categories are nice since they will update and sort themselves automatically, so if all you need is a basic way to tag an item as something, categorizing it is very efficient. At various points proposals have been made to have a more relaxed policy towards what can be included in a data page (up to and including "if it's data, it should be there"), but traditionally that's been how we've done things. More or less. A lot of data about food/booze/spleen is used across many pages requiring manual updates (Best Foods pages, especially), but we do not currently store the relevant fields on the data page. I'm all for pushing the "multiple uses + pain to update manually = put it in the data page" thing more vigorously than it has been so far. The primary caveat to this is "data that's hard to format": if a food randomly gives or subtracts stats, or has many possible consumption messages, etc., there's no good way to store that on a data page, so you have to allow manual overrides if you're going to try to move such an attribute into the data page for the more typical and non-problematic items. --Flargen (talk) 18:58, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
    • I'm all for that. The data page is extremely strict and I think we should include more fields on it. We could move the metadata info to there (item/etc. id and desc id), as well as the info that is now shown in the rel tag (multiusability for one). It'd make the distinction between the item page and the data page more clear - the item page is to display what is shown in-game, and the data page is to hold all the information that is not given in-game. — Cool12309 (talk) 19:09, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

X% elemental resistance on monsters

I'm not sure where to request it, so I'll put it here: There are several monsters that aren't tuned to any element, but possess a X% elemental resistance. Currently, this is noted only on the monsters page and sometimes in the Physical field of the data page. Could we get a separate field for this kind of resistance, please?
Here are some example-monsters which possess a X% elemental resistance:

Animated possessions
Demon of New Wave
Moister oyster
Peanut
Rene C. Corman (Zombie Slayer)
The Avatar of Boris

--Yatsufusa (talk) 20:02, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

  • flargen raised this earlier, and also wanted to also address damage caps. I don't know enough about the various damage capping mechanisms to offer suggestions on how it should be organized, but if just adding a separate elemental resistance field would help that would be easy to do... --Fig bucket (talk) 21:46, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Quest Items and the Collection Tag

I think we should add the Collection tag to quest items. Quest items can be put into display cases by HolderofSecrets, and there are a large number of quest items in other players DC by virtue of the fact that they were once able to be put in there without any restriction. I think adding a Collection Tag to those pages, maybe through a special Template QuestCollection|itemid that explains the item can't normally be put into Display Cases, would more accurately reflect the fact that those items ARE collected. Any opposition?--Cannonfire40 (talk) 23:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

  • I, for one, think we should have a collection section on any item with at least one collector. Quest items or custom items that are not in anyone's case should not have a collection. This would be a change to the Established Standards for item pages but I believe it is in the spirit of the original decision: no empty collections. --Club (#66669) (Talk) 02:32, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
  • As is in one of the archives (4?), this was actually brought up years ago, but died down quickly. I suggested maybe a <questcollection> tag, or if it's possible, something like <collection quest=1> tag (which would be better, obviously). The point of a new tag would be to have a note saying something like "This item cannot be legitimately placed into your Display Case.", and the rest can be inferred from notes/history. If that's too hard though, I guess just a template would be fine. As for which pages, the old discussion pointed out that it'd be confusing to see if there's no collection because there was an editor error or because there is just nothing in it. Which, brings another point, if there's no collections, should we have some text saying "No one has collected this item." or some such? (I have no idea where it is located so I can't edit it myself.) — Cool12309 (talk) 11:33, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
    • afaicr, the intention was that items which would never have collections shouldn't have collection sections. (nothing should be read into the fact that I can't think of another reason why this was so.) now they can I see no reason why the ban should be lifted. the changes above seem sensible to me. perhaps a proposed standard is called for. --Evilkolbot (talk) 13:03, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
      • Where is the.. formatting for <collection>? Maybe I can play around with it. — Cool12309 (talk) 17:33, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
    • Being a collector myself, I have to say I, personally, have little to no interest in being pointed out what especially resourceful players managed to get into their dc, despite the fact that this shouldn't be possible – or at least isn't anymore. When I started collecting I was always a little discouraged by old players' dcs with dozens of quest items in them I could never get in there. Although, sacrificing completing the Crimbo quest from a few years ago, just to be able to have a big leaf in your dc proves quite a commitment in my eyes. But since "the more information the better" I'm not completely opposed to the idea of having these collections in the wiki if there actually are players with those in their dc. But that special command you proposed would be a necessity, to avoid flocks of overly confused players. --Yatsufusa (talk) 17:49, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Stat-Limiters

Since we have more than a few of these "Base Stat Limited To" sources, I figure we should make a page for it. But what should we call these types of effects? Stat Limiters? --JohnAnon (talk) 01:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Good idea. I've created Base Muscle Limited Modifiers etc. pages - please rename if anyone has a better name. --Aelfinn (talk) 03:25, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
I think all 3 should be merged into one page, though. --JohnAnon (talk) 03:32, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. There are not enough modifiers to split them into their own pages. How about just "Stat Limiters"? — Cool12309 (talk) 03:45, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
If there is not any opposition to this by February 6, I will go ahead and merge the pages. — Cool12309 (talk) 20:44, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
And ignoring the fact that I've completely forgot about this, JohnAnon merged the pages. I just deleted the redirects. — Cool12309 (talk) 02:39, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Pasta Thrall EXP items

Maybe I'm a bit too much of a neat freak, but since the big Pastamancer revamp's changed how items like smoking talon work, the majority of the page is cluttered up in a History section that makes the page look kind of confusing. Should the historical summoning text be moved to a different page, like maybe "Pasta Guardian/Summoning Text", and then linked to from the old summoning item?--RacWade (talk) 04:56, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Merge request for Epic Equipment

I think merging the separate pages for Epic Weapon/LEW/ULEW/Hat/Accessory/Pants into one page would be more presentable. If we agree, then I'm going to call it Epic Equipment. --JohnAnon (talk) 09:15, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

  • i'd suggest you make a mock-up of what you intend first. possibly as a subpage of your user page, User:JohnAnon/Epic Equipment. get some feedback first, having your edits edited mercilessly really hurts. --Evilkolbot (talk) 10:39, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Foods missing size

I just added size information to burritos, because I noticed they were missing it. I started looking around, though, and holy crap, there are a ton of foods in Category:Incomplete that don't have size data. Did something change and wipe out a lot of data, or have those items always been missing size data, and it's only recently become apparent? --Southwest (talk) 18:15, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Those foods have been missing size information since "size" became a thing in the item template; before that it was only in useitem. And on the one hand that was a while ago, but on the other hand, holy CRAP that's a lot of foods to add size to. Who's gonna edit that many pages? Not me no sir. Maybe a bot. --Johnny Treehugger (talk) 19:37, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
I've been asked multiple times to have my bot do those edits, but each time I've been expected to try to extract the size from the useitem template being used on the page, which has resulted in me putting it off until later. If someone can provide me a simple list of food sizes, I might be able to get this done sooner rather than later. --Quietust (t|c) 20:31, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
There's Mafia's list. --WhimOrClutters (talk) 20:45, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I think it's somewhere around 400-500 foods---tedious, but possible within a reasonable span of time. Less tedium would be nice though, so a bot doing it would be wonderful. --Fig bucket (talk) 21:18, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
    • No need for a bot any more, all done! --Fig bucket (talk) 22:13, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

+/- Combat effect descriptions

I understand that things need testing for them to be fully included in the wiki, but there seems to be a pretty strong pattern with the wording of each of the effects. At 5% it's regular, and 10% it's "much", at 15% it's "significantly", and 20% it's "way". Would it be safe to assume this for future additions? I'm specifically thinking of AoSP, where there are at least 3 new sources of "significant" -combat (-45%, but effectively somewhere around -29%). ~Erich t/c 18:26, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

While this initially appears to check out right now (Muffled is -15%, we should probably confirm them anyway. It's super easy to confirm via Random Lack of an Encounter. --Melon (talk) 10:25, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Ceil, Floor, SqRoot Functions

I believe there was a discussion on this, somewhere in archive 9, but I feel this needs to be brought up again. We have two functions that show the ceiling symbol: {{cl}} and {{ceil}}. We have one for floor, {{fl}}. None for square root. We also have functions to calculate these: {{ceiling}}, {{floor}}, and {{sqroot}}. This has a couple of issues:

  1. We have 2 functions that display ceiling. Seeing as only one (actual) page uses ceil (which I changed to cl), and because we use fl, I'm thinking we should just delete {{ceil}}.
  2. We have no way of displaying square root. My question is if it's even possible, but I'm pretty sure it is (just display the square root symbol, and add an overline on everything underneath?). A lot of pages use it and I think it'd be quite useful
  3. We don't need ceiling and floor (and maybe sqroot), since we can just do {{#expr: ceil (x)}} for example. Should we keep these?

I might have missed a template or two, so if you could point me to them that would be great. — Cool12309 (talk) 16:45, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

  • 1) Yes, they are identical. 2) I've never found the overline solution to look quite right. Better than nothing I suppose, but either mathml or the TeX-formatting feature of mediawiki would look better and be more versatile...both require coldfront admin help to enable though. Also, note that there's been resistance to the use of mathematical symbols by users less familiar with the syntax. 3) Yes, the ceiling and floor computation templates are redundant now, but I don't think sqrt is part of #expr. --Fig bucket (talk) 22:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
  • The calculation templates were from before we had the parser functions, but I wanted them for certain calculations in one or more templates. They should certainly be considered deprecated and could be deleted as soon as everything was adjusted to use parser functions (and it was checked that they were functioning correctly). {{cl}} is basically the result of an oddly (un)resolved naming conflict with {{catLink}} (I don't even like that it requires a capital 'L'), in relation to {{tl}}--yay self-referencing! Really, {{cl}} should do what catLink does; the entire point of such templates is to make linking to a page in a particular namespace fast and simple! catLink barely saves any typing at all; maybe saves none. I'm too lazy to count. So, yeah, remove the use of the manually coded calculation templates, and then make {{cl}} do the right thing! --Flargen (talk) 15:42, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

PvP

So, it's been over a year since the update. Do we know what the Spooky Scarecrow does nowadays? --timrem (talk) 08:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Consumeitem

At some point, 3-4 years ago actually, the {{consumeitem}} template was created, apparently with the intention of moving the consumption parameters of a food/drink into the corresponding data page. That effort never seemed to go anywhere, and we have ended up with just a handful of applications of that script, which just makes finding the consumption data occasionally annoying. It would be nice to either commit to transferring all that data to the data pages, or just give up and delete that template. At this point I'm leaning toward the latter, as the least effort, given that there's no compelling case for the former. Does anyone have strong opinions otherwise? --Fig bucket (talk) 00:02, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

  • I'm for deletion. I can't really seem to find any practical use for having it in the data page, besides maybe those best food pages (but that'd be really expensive (relatively) to go through all those data pages each load), but that is not a good enough reason. Plus, there are a ton of complicated cases. What do we do for things that give different adventures/stats based on level? Effects currently in place? A few other cases too, I'm sure. If anyone wants to move them, be my guest, but I won't be the one doing it. — Cool12309 (talk) 03:30, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, this was a proposal of Eleron's, and was the more extreme end of the "we should really put more data on the data pages" idea. Some of that data would be good on the data pages, and I think there are multiple discussion topics (possibly still on the main page, and not just in archives) concerning this general idea. No "obvious" consensus (insofar as one can be reached when someone happily shows up a month later, and few people may have chimed in even by that point) was reached. I like the idea of moving some of the data over, since some of it is used across many pages, and so changes to the item result in a series of edits to many pages, some of them possibly obscure. A data page would automatically synch up the pages with just a single edit. But, yeah, consumeitem is the extreme end and I don't think we need to be that extreme. --Flargen (talk) 01:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Add a tag for NC that's BOTH Clover & Semi-Rare?

So the non-combat Methinks the Protesters Doth Protest Too Little for the Zeppelin protesters is both a Clover adventure and a Semi-Rare adventure. The template doesn't support more than one tags, so why don't we add support for 2 tags? I can do it if no one objects. --JohnAnon (talk) 06:15, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

  • Technically those may be different adventures. Same text (modulo the clover poof) and effect, but coded up individually. It's probably reasonable to put them together on the same page, though, in which case a second tag is called for. --Flargen (talk) 12:21, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
    • Yea, as flargen said, these appear to be two separate adventures. We can't really tell since they're not choice adventures and we don't have access to non-choice noncombat IDs, but I think that'd be the easiest solution. I'm not sure if we should add multiple tag support. — Cool12309 (talk) 12:40, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't see any reason why we couldn't just have 2 or more tags instead of multiple, nearly-identical entries on the page, and its technically trivial. I don't object: go ahead. --Fig bucket (talk) 23:29, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

"All references should err on the side of doubt"

A recent attempt on my part to add a 'Pete's Dragon' film reference to the Thwaitgold dragonfly statuette (TDS) page resulted in a swift reversion, followed by some discussion in the Talk page.

I have long held the view that the cultural references are not always explicit, but may be inferred by the reader. In clanchat leadup discussions of Sneaky Pete, I proposed that his Thwaitgold would be the dragonfly, and there was much agreement, even from a couple of people who needed to be reminded whence came the reference.

One podcast question later, and I have failed to resolve the matter completely (see the TDS Talk page), but it does leave me wondering how many of the references may be unconscious nods to a thing, rather than absolute references. I am not asking for my own reference suggestion to be included in the TDS page, but I am asking for clarification on what constitutes a clear reference. For example, how is the Rotting Matilda reference any different? I could make the same argument that "...all references should err on the side of doubt" in that, and many other cases. Whose doubt are we talking about? One wiki admin's?

TL;DR: where do we draw the line on what constitutes a valid cultural reference? --Wertperch (talk) 23:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

  • hmm. tricky.
    1. the reference must be clear
      there should be unique text that announces the reference. e.g. something that references "butterknife" should only be marked as referencing the band if there's something else that points to it, since it is a common word. "svengali" on the other hand has unique provenance which can be noted without any supporting evidence.
    2. the reference must be primary
      many things reference other things. we can't record all the things that reference things also referenced by KoL. if you saw it on the simpsons or homestar runner, chances are it was referencing something else. that something else is what should be included. problem comes when TPTB saw it on the simpsons and didn't know it was a reference to some obscure noir. it happens occasionally, radio questions solve the ambiguity and both references can get included.
    3. the reference must be intended
      it should be obvious that the writer intended there to be a reference. in practice this is impossible to know without asking, of course. again, radio questions are the only option.
  • all of this is academic, of course, since the debacle over "a moveable feast" which has nothing to do with the hemingway story but which skully insisted was a reference. (i was peeved i will admit.)
  • TL;DR; i think the only answer to your question is "because there is consensus that it is." --Evilkolbot (talk) 13:29, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Link Monster Manuel to Monster Metadata?

Right now, accessing the factoids for a given monster isn't particularly convenient, as it requires you to scroll down the given Monster Manuel alphabetization page and manually locate the monster. Can we edit the monster template to automatically link to the corresponding factoid section? --RacWade (talk) 04:57, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

  • the last time this was brought up it was agreed that this wasn't worth the hassle on two counts. firstly splitting out the data is a gigantic task, error prone, blah blah. (er, botting.) the second is that the data should only be stored once, and generating the manuel pages would be a huge overhead. (no answer.) I think I pointed out that moving the factoids into the data space would allow autocatting as incomplete, a task currently done manually using bodged-up lists. if someone can weigh in and say that overheads are not a concern perhaps we can ask a bot nicely to set to. --Evilkolbot (talk) 08:18, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure if I'm entirely getting the complications, but can't we just have a way to link to each monster factoid section and place a link to the Manuel page entry in the monster data? We could add something like a <div id="monster_name"></div> into Template:ManuelEntry and place a link into Template:Data, something like "Manuel Entry" and let's say we're creating a link to dairy goat then it would like [[Monster Manuel (D)#dairy goat]]. That would seem like an obvious solution, but I'm not an expert on these sort of things. --JohnAnon (talk) 20:35, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
      • my enthusiasm for my own ideas has led me to miss the point again. JohnAnon's solution gets my vote. --Evilkolbot (talk) 21:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Ok...it'll take a while to update everything, and there's likely some corner cases to sort out, but hopefully mostly working... --Fig bucket (talk) 23:31, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Oyster Day Page Revamp

I've been noticing that the oyster egg day pages are quite disorganized. A while ago I created a very rudimentary template to try and mitigate this. This template would be used on all oyster egg location pages as a means to easily see where you can adventure to get eggs, what a certain place will give, and what zones still need to be checked. I have just 2 zones (not with their correct zone IDs) set up for testing purposes. There is one (pretty serious) flaw that I don't have the time to try and figure out: zones change over time. On Oyster Day 30, there might have still been one castle, not three. On Oyster Day 10, there wasn't a thinknerd factory out yet. I don't know how to deal with zones that have changed. I'd imagine the best solution is to create a first and last date for each zone. For example, we could say thinknerd has a start date of 30 and a last date of never ("date" refers to first/last available oyster egg day). We could supply the day in the template, and if the day is between the start and end dates, it will display that zone. Otherwise, don't. I think it could work but the template will get massive in this fashion. This also needs some way of working out... perhaps some data page that keeps all the zones and the template just displays them all somehow? I don't know. Thoughts? — Cool12309 (talk) 21:53, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

  • I'd just get rid of the pages. I can't see much point in keeping incomplete information that's valid for only one day, and which few people seem to care about anyway. If someone really wants it, it could be done with something like Google Docs. —Yendor (talk) 08:36, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I've found those pages useful when wanting a specific egg; people like updating them too, and we keep all sorts of archival info. Some clean-up of them would be nice though, to keep zone names standard and better ordered. Instead of generating the table by a template, why not just make a big table listing all zones, and use that to start the page each time (via cut-and-paste, or as a preload)? --Fig bucket (talk) 12:58, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
    • A template would be better organized and less work, I think. At the very least, it would be organized. I dislike the use of tables because it is automated. If, for example, the zone name is changed (as in, pre-Florist and post-Florist we find what the actual name is), all 40ish pages need to be manually changed, and that's tedious and boring. — Cool12309 (talk) 14:52, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Any word on this? Bumping because it's Oyster today. — Cool12309 (talk) 11:47, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Shortcuts

I just got an account and I'm coming from Wikipedia so the first thing that popped into my mind when I browsed the "meta" pages was: where are the shortcuts? Is there currently any provision for a shortcut system on the wiki? Thanks! APerson (talk!) 00:31, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

  • I don't think so...no special objection to them, although I'm thinking there are so many searches of categories or templates that short-forms for them are really worth a lot of effort... --Fig bucket (talk) 00:48, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
    • I don"t think there's a need. policy is rarely discussed, and we don"t have that many pages ourselves anyway. it's assumed that the things Wikipedia do are a good idea. the tiny number of edits and editors here just don't warrant anything more specific. as figbucket, says if you want to add them, go ahead (or if it needs admin rights propose them here) but I don't think they'll be used. --Evilkolbot (talk) 07:20, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
      • Alright - thank you both for the support. APerson (talk!) 14:37, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Collection Page

In my various years as a KoLer I've both seen various requests for and various attempts at a consolidated "people collect things" page. The idea is that I go through my inventory, see that none of the awful poetry journals in my store ever sell, and wonder if there's somebody out there that collects them and would pay more than autosell for them. I check this site and learn that PlayerX(#######) pays 150meat for them. What does the wiki community think about hosting such a page here? --Alabit (talk) 19:50, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

  • It seems like a good idea in theory, but would be hard to format nicely and seems hard to keep up to date. Maybe if you proposed a sample formatting I could change my opinion? As it stands I don't think it's appropriate for the wiki. — Cool12309 (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not the best at wiki'ing, but I'll give my idea a try. A couple thoughts I had about this since I posted-- It would probably be best if we didn't attempt to have a price listed, simply item+buyer.

Item Name Collectors
awful poetry journal PlayerX
antique helmet PlayerY, PlayerZ

And while I don't mean to discount your points, evilkolbot, it's true that many more players check the wiki than the forum. Kbay is also down, which is also one of the motivators I had for bringing this up. In addition, one consolidated page that anybody can add themselves to seems, to me at least, like the easiest implementation.--Alabit (talk) 18:05, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

  • er, in case you missed it, that was no. twice. really not what the wiki is about. this would be more of a coldfront thing. in the first instance you should probably get in touch with one of the admins. --Evilkolbot (talk) 20:18, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Sorry if I've upset you. It's not as if I went and created the page and starting advertising it everywhere. One of the two people who commented requested more information on my idea, and I provided that. I don't know what I did that made you so offended. --Alabit (talk) 06:39, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
      • sorry. please don't confuse a terse and sarcastic tone with annoyance. there should be a rider to Poe's law that covers tetchiness. I would love for there to be the kind of information exchange you propose. as kbay found, no matter how good your implementation it seems not enough people do. it has to be in-game or it gets ignored. on reflection the way to find out who collects stuff (and to advertise that you do) is the collections database we already link to that. mostly because it extends something the game does already. I wish you luck finding a hone for this. I don't think the wiki is the place for it. a thought. with the proliferation of botting scripts, perhaps that would be the way to go. --Evilkolbot (talk) 07:22, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Search box location

Someone has recently added a new set of boxes to the left side of the wiki pages ("kol coldfront" and "well-tempered tools"). Unfortunately, these new boxes have been placed above the search box, which pushes the search box so far down the page that nearly everyone will have to scroll down (possibly more than once) to find it.

Please move the search box back to where it was before (under the "navigation" box). Or, if you prefer, I wouldn't mind seeing it above navigation.

The search box is the primary user interface by which many of us use the wiki. The only people I've talked to who don't care about the search box have all modified their web browser to do kolwiki searches directly from the URL bar.

If there is some technical or political reason why the search box has to be where it is, does anyone happen to have a Greasemonkey script handy that can move it? --Greycat (talk) 14:41, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

  • See the sidebar talk page for more discussion. Also, FYI, I tried to move the search box back up, but the usual method (via *SEARCH) doesn't work here for some reason (end up with 2 search boxes); I assume a customization issue, so maybe need casey to fix it (or switch your preferences to the Vector skin, or wait for Vector to be the default). Also, try something like this (but not with Vector):
// ==UserScript==
// @name           Search Moverupper
// @namespace      kol.interface.unfinished
// @description    Moves the search box back to where it was
// @include        *kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/*
// ==/UserScript==

var psearch = document.getElementById('p-search');
var p = document.getElementById('p-navigation');
if (psearch && p && p.nextSibling) {
    psearch.parentNode.removeChild(psearch);
    p.parentNode.insertBefore(psearch,p.nextSibling);
}
--Fig bucket (talk) 17:08, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Preload templates and piping at ends of lines

Background

In general, pipes separate parameters within templates. This is best distinguished by creating an infobox and starting each line with "|parameter=". Currently, all preload templates and many pages use 

{{template|
parameter1=thing1|
parameter2=thing2|
}}

Apparently it has been discussed before, with two users agreeing that it "looks nicer" this way. I argue that it's bad practice and bad formatting. Pipes serve as dividers, not aesthetic decorations. When I try to make a new item page, I am faced with this:

Why is it problematic?
...
itemid=|
descid=|
desc=|
type=<!-- booze, beverage, combat item, familiar, food, potion, usable, accessory, back item, hat, pants, shirt, weapon, etc. -->|
...
grantskill=<!-- 1 for those skills that indicate that they grant a (non-class-specific) skill in their description -->|
eod=<!-- 1 for items that disappear at the end of the day -->|
}}

It is neither clear nor intuitive what the pipe | does. It appears that the things within the <!-- --> are to be replaced, but I immediately highlighted everything following the < and hardly noticed the | at the end when I deleted it. The final | at the end also indicates to me that the ones who created the template don't entirely understand its function, as it serves no purpose unless additional parameters are added, in which case the | can be added then.

What can be done?
  • Change all commonly used templates to use "|parameter="
  • When editing a page, shift all |'s to the next line
  • Use a wiki bot like AutoWikiBrowser to edit all pages, changing "|\n" to "\n|"

It's never too late for good practice. Explorifice (talk) 20:39, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

The reason pipes go on the right is to cleanly terminate what the field contains without new lines and other ambiguous characters getting included and potentially screwing up formatting (Although this reason may be historical now, need to check through the markup docs). What you've presented is you think they look neater on the left..., which is still purely preference. Discordance (talk) 22:04, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

  • If there's any valid technical reason to use one or the other then I'm all for it. So far I haven't found anything though...well, there is a slight difference in named versus unnamed arguments: for named arguments the whitespace on either side is stripped, while for nameless (positional) arguments, whitespace on both sides does matter. But then whether the pipe is on the left or the right doesn't make things better or worse, just different. Since we have in practice a mix of the styles, it doesn't seem to be an issue for the preload templates. --Fig bucket (talk) 22:23, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

New Spookyraven Quest page

So with the new Spookyraven revamp and whatnot, the Spookyraven Manor Quest page is clearly outdated. But now that the contents in the manor is much bigger, should we start making new pages for the new quest (i.e. the Lady Spookyraven quests) or just add to this page? And what do we do about the current page we have? The page is mainly for how to obtain the Spookyraven skill, and the way to unlock rooms is now tied more to Lady Spookyraven.

Oh and also, should we put in monster encounters from non-combat adventures inside the adventure info or in the monsters section of the page? This is more of a general question, but something you run into in the manor pretty often. --JohnAnon (talk) 17:54, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

  • I don't know what to do with the quest page, probably just archive it and start a new one. As for the monster thing, I can't seem to understand what you're asking. If you're referring to the location pages, put the monster under the choice that the NC is (for example, if a noncombat "Foo" had a monster "Bar" under the "Foobar" choice, you'd put in the "Foo" noncombat with "Foobar" as a choice and "Bar" as the result. If you're referring to the item page, you put the zone, noncombat in italics, and then the monster. — Cool12309 (talk) 01:24, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Dev stream insights

Aside from a few glimpses at special items and things there were a few other things to notice.

  • Areas have an adventure chance, as opposed to combat chance shown on the wiki.
  • monsters have an article "a, an, the" etc, which is currently in the monster data as the pronoun, but they also have a pronoun eg "He/She/It"

Discordance (talk) 11:43, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Theres also a lot of monster IDs and I'm not sure which ones to put in the ID list. Some like #4 seem unlikely to ever be seriously in the game, but theres others that may or may not be finished content at a later point and hmm. I am not sure which to put up for completeness and which to avoid for spoilers. Discordance (talk) 12:51, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Why would you want to avoid putting spoilers on the wiki? This place is basically Spoiler Central. Post away! --Vorzer (talk) 14:56, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
There's a difference between quest spoilers and not-even-released spoilers. Remember when Jick got super mad at me putting the ancient hot dog wrapper on the wiki when it accidentally went public for a few minutes? He/They don't like stuff not released yet on the wiki. — Cool12309 (talk) 14:59, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Jick fucked up, and you did nothing wrong as per how the playerbase should react. He called you an asshole as reflected on his own fuck up. That's compared to the person that leaked the Bricko items before the item was released at all (non accidentally) at least a day before launch. So your incident doesn't count, because it was purely his fault with a misdirected blame. That's why he deleted his post on the forum with an edit reason of "pr" something bullshit, otherwise he would have stuck to it, like he did the Bricko incident. ~Erich t/c 16:09, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Yeah theres some that suggest themes that haven't been covered yet. Its a tough call because the information is out there, and you can download the flv of the dev stream from twitch. I have already. Jick is aware he accidentally showed some stuff thats not released including details on the next revamp which basically everyone saw. But I don't think he wants the wiki to be prominently displaying it either. Reviewing the video is intentionally spoilering yourself. Clicking around the wiki and seeing stuff while your own fault is still a very easy way to accidentally spoiler stuff. I've hidden two mob IDs that I probably shouldn't have added in the comments of the page source. Which is probably the best way to handle them now they are in the history, short of purging the history. If people are digging into the source of the monster ID pages they are probably either trying to add a monster in that ID or spoiling themselves, and they can't spoil it for themselves just by looking at the monster ID page. What I am wondering is if its reasonable or not to do that with the rest. I'm leaning towards not adding anymore atm and just maintaining a private/semi-private list. The ID list is basically only useful for toolmakers. Discordance (talk) 15:25, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
As an aside, I noticed things like "Toughness". What is this? Also, I totally called that we needed to track gender/body parts of monsters. I wonder how we will go about doing this. Anyways, I noticed a ton of weird data things in other items/etc. For example, "Is a Round Object". What is this for? "Is a Mr. Store Item". The only thing I can think of for that is so the chamelon doesn't give that familiar equip, but I don't know. — Cool12309 (talk) 14:39, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Toughness I expect is physical resist? Discordance (talk) 14:43, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
The Round Object bit might be related to the Hidden City altars, or at least the previous version of them. --Vorzer (talk) 14:56, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
I spoke with Jick about the leaked content several hours before the stream went live, as it had actually leaked the previous day. He re-hid what he could, but given their development tools, a full redaction is impossible. I would request that until the content is finalized, we refrain from adding it to the wiki as a page about incomplete unfinished unreleased content serves nobody. It is confusing at best and outright misleading at worst to any user who comes across it.--Nightvol (talk) 16:34, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
I think we need a policy page with some clear rules (mostly do not post unreleased items), creating specific pages for unreleased content is clearly wrong. But it gets more difficult when it comes to the ID lists, perhaps simply stating that its known to relate to something unreleased is better but how do we keep track of where that knowledge came from? And then theres dev stuff, which ordinarily is not public but Jick is happy to go up. Discordance (talk) 16:48, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't think we need formal rules yet as people are generally aware of the administration's stance on posting upcoming content. Dev items are in an entirely different category than upcoming content because they will never see live, so any information regarding them has to come directly from the development team itself, which generally means consent for sharing is included. As to item lists, if an upcoming leaked item isn't live yet, there's no reason to put it in the list of items because nobody should be looking for it. Use good judgment. If something is teased ahead of time, it's different than if somebody datamined it. Our users are smart enough that I don't think hard rules are the best step right now.--Nightvol (talk) 16:59, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
When it comes to spading new items (which I normally do using the ID lists), if there are several new areas arranged in adjacent blocks in the item table its not always clear whether an item is public but unfound, or private. I don't think we should be putting up individual entries in the lists, but knowing that it is definitely private and marking it as such is useful information for spading, it also makes is clearer that its to be left alone. Perhaps a policy is too strong, but sensible guidelines with reasoning couldn't hurt. Discordance (talk) 17:27, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Toughness is likely the DR aura that monsters get, Round object would likely be held over from the old Hidden City quest, and Mr. Store items are a mall search category, so maybe that.-Toffile (talk) 14:14, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Regarding the monster parts-- I've got an old, old page we can use as a starting point. --TechSmurf (talk) 03:43, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
"Is a round object" would have been used in the old Hidden City, for sticking stuff in the altars other than the quest items (usually pool balls). --Flargen (talk) 11:34, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

The "Unconfirmable" template

There's been an increasingly more use of the {{Unconfirmable}} template, but it seems to me that people are not using it correctly. It's supposed to be used for removed content that hasn't been fully spaded, but it's being used for any removed content. My question is, do we have to go correcting all these pages marked Unconfirmed to meet the intentional usage? Or instead, maybe we can change the whole category into just removed content instead. We don't really have a category for just old limited content anyway. --JohnAnon (talk) 04:06, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, this is likely my fault. I wanted to let people know that the spaceship was no longer accessible and I thought that template was the right thing to use. Apologies if it was not. I think it would be useful to have a template that adds a box to the top of the page to say that content is no longer accessible for stuff that can no longer be accessed in any way. A "retired" template perhaps? --Melon (talk) 13:14, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Count me in as wanted a simple Retired tag in the game...I would actually replace Unconfirmable with it, and move towards using ! to indicate any unspadeable pieces of data. (I would also reduce the size of the tag, because right now that thing is way too big.-Foggy (talk) 16:36, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Changing Unconfirmable to Retired seems appropriate. Also, reducing the tag/banner size is a good idea (maybe just use 50x50 images?). I think of "!" as indicating invalid/not-applicable more than an undiscovered...subtle distinction for Retired content I admit. --Fig bucket (talk) 23:57, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Try this...User:Foggy/Template:Retired. I copied the NeedsSpading template instead of the Unconfirmable template. I debated between the giant pair of tweezers, but newer players won't get the significant. I think Buff Jimmy actually has more of that retired feel to it. I'd rather not do a grave or valhalla, as I'd rather not have Retired=Dead.-Foggy (talk) 13:17, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Restoration vs. Regeneration

Right now, the pages for HP Restorers and MP Restorers are a mess. Not only are both in need of updates, and constantly in need of updated, but the pages are enormous. What I'd like to do is split the two as follows:

  • HP Regeneration and MP Regeneration would list items that passively generate HP and MP per adventure.
  • HP Restorers and MP Restorers would list items that in and out of combat can be used to restore HP/MP
  • I'd also move the the Clan Sofa into the Restorers list instead of it being its own subsection, and Resting into the Variable Restorers instead of its own section.

These changes should greatly improve readability and make it easier to update. -Foggy (talk) 13:22, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

  • They're not much bigger than some of the other lists, but yes, splitting out regeneration makes sense. (Although, for consistency, shouldn't that be HP/MP Regenerators?) --Fig bucket (talk) 13:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Problem with Categories?

Melon has found a bug in the auto-category-system-thingy: At least one item that had one of its categories added automatically didn't show up in the respective category and I think this might be a general problem that just hadn't been noticed yet. --Yatsufusa (talk) 19:08, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

  • I see astral mace listed in Category:Clubs now, I don't think things appear in categories (especially large categories) right away all the time, I think there is a script that runs a few times a day or whenever, that refreshes stuff just in case. And when a page is updated, it triggers a bunch of other pages to be refreshed and the wiki goes through those "jobs". This conversation feels familiar to me, but eh? Who knows? The Job Queue at this moment is 0. If something doesn't show up after a day though, that could be a problem. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 06:55, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
    • It's there now, yes. It wasn't there months ago, and still wasn't until Yatsufusa manually added the category to the page yesterday. --Vorzer (talk) 11:25, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Categories are not being refreshed properly when assigned indirectly through autocatting in transcluded templates. For example, look at Category:Missing Metadata. Those pages ended up there because they were created before the data page. But even after the data page was created the category remains until you manually edit and save the page. --Fig bucket (talk) 12:23, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Help:Templates#Control_template_inclusion "Categorizing pages which include the template. Note: when changing the categories applied by a template in this fashion, the categorization of the pages which include that template may not be updated until some time later: this is handled by the job queue. To force the re-categorization of a particular page, open that page for editing and save it without changes." --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 08:39, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Today In KoL History on the Main Page

Those Date Templates used for the "Today In KoL History" section on the Main Page, fell out of sync with the History of Loathing pages in late November of 2010, when some jerk forgot about them :) If anybody is in the mood for a tedious project, they are pretty much the same as History of Loathing with official announcements/updates, just formatted slightly different, newest year on top, but then listed in reading/release order (if multiple updates for the same year)... -JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 10:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Turtle Taming adventures in the data

Now that every zone can have a Turtle Taming adventure, I think it would be a good idea to add them to the data table for each zone. --JohnAnon (talk) 02:11, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

  • Templates are ready. "Just" the data entry now... --Fig bucket (talk) 02:41, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • That was pretty fast. But it doesn't work for zones with 2 columns (i.e. The Frat & Hippy zones). --JohnAnon (talk) 03:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Unsure, but I think we should make the turtles be defaulted to one of the four (five) turtle adventures based on terrain. Is there any reason not to do this (e.g. is there a zone that has no turtles?)? — Cool12309 (talk) 03:37, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
    • There's likely a default in there, but looking at the Turtle Taming page, it is messy---indoor seems to mostly default to gummi turtle, although there are number of turtlemail bits too; for outdoor it could be a hedgeturtle, turtle-shaped rock, or giraffe-necked turtle + irradiated turtle. Maybe it's a function of terrain and level? It seems like there are about as many exceptions as defaults... --Fig bucket (talk) 12:34, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
      • Those are mostly just a few zones, probably. Doesn't seem hard to make those few pages have them manually listed and just leave the default terrain ones alone. — Cool12309 (talk) 15:53, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Category:Guides?

I've been thinking we've got enough help pages (like The Hobo Marketplace Table, How to Chibi or How to Vamp) to move them from Category:Miscellaneous to a own category, like Category:Guides, Category:Advanced Help or whatever. The only thing that stops me right now is the name. Since I'm not confident what will sound right. Any suggestions, or is Guides okay? --Yatsufusa (talk) 09:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Official Ascension FAQ-Rewrite

There was some discussion on the forums about how outdated the Official Ascension FAQ is. If you have ideas about what needs rewriting, you can do so over here. --Yatsufusa (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Outdated links to "The Market"

1. The following pages (at a minimum) should link to "The General Store" page, not to "The Market" page:

"The Casino"
"Worthless gewgaw"
"Worthless knick-knack"
"Worthless trinket"

2. "The Market" page needs some type of "obsolete" header.

3. In the "Notes" section of the "Worthless gewgaw" page, the bullet that begins with "The easiest way to get a worthless trinket is..." specifies the wrong item.

Yes, I could make these changes myself; however, I just received my "The KoL Wiki" account today, and I'd rather start with my first post here on the "Discussion" page. --God is Evil (talk) 15:24, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

  • Welcome to the wiki. Unless it's a large or controversial change it doesn't really require a discussion---please just fix broken/obsolete links. You can put {{Retired}} at the top of the page to indicate obsolete content. --Fig bucket (talk) 15:38, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Done. For the future, though, just do it yourself, please - you clearly know how._-Blargh (talk) 15:46, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Category:Game Messages?

I might be overly enthusiastic about this, but I'd like to move some more pages out of the generic collecting tank that is Category:Miscellaneous into a new category for ingame messages. Among these sites would be Game Messages, Pen Pal Messages and The Council of Loathing/Zombie Slayer. Along with that category I'd add two sub-categories:

So, what do you think about concept and names? --Yatsufusa (talk) 16:17, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

  • Miscellaneous could certainly be cleaned up, so yes, that sounds great. --Fig bucket (talk) 11:49, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
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