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Combat vs. Noncombat vs. Other

Currently, all zone pages split adventures into two categories, combat and noncombat, and list the relative frequency of each.

Unfortunately, this isn't an accurate representation of the game. There are many adventures (all "noncombats" AFAIK) which work on special mechanics: the Azazel item adventures being a good example. They occur once every 10 turns spent in the zone, and boosting noncombats doesn't increase this rate.

I propose that any adventures whose frequency is not modified by boosting noncombats should be categorized seperately. Anything else is misleading and confusing to those reading the wiki. --Starwed 12:09, 20 December 2007 (CST)

  • This seems to be a rehashing of Proposed Standards#Ordering for location pages which went the way of most Wiki discussions... I like the idea of having them split out, but Jonrock brought up the point that it could be slightly misleading to have the specials split out (do the one-times affect the probability of getting a particular regular non-combat?).

    While we're on the subject, we may as well dredge up the related #Choice Adventure template above. I'd like to see the "crazy tree" method implemented uniformly over the location pages. --Bagatelle 21:38, 20 December 2007 (CST)
  • There weren't nearly as many such adventures when this was considered before. (In fact, I can't think of any!) But post-NS13 it has become quite a common mechanic; I'm not talking about one-timers, here, but those adventures which don't sit in the noncombat queue at all. --Starwed 23:10, 20 December 2007 (CST)

Category: One Time Adventures

I'd appreciate a category for all the adventures that can only occur once per ascension. It'd be useful to have them all in one place, so that folks won't ascend without doing them, if they've a mind to. --MoxyFox 18:48, 22 December 2007 (CST)

Current Year of Loathing

It's been brought up on Talk:Kingdom of Loathing Calendar, an observation that placed Jarlsuary 1 on February 1, 2003, the day Kingdom of Loathing effectively started (the day after the first announcement, which itself says it doesn't count). A quick formula (using the same counter as the Moons graphic) allows us to calculate the current Year of Loathing: {{#expr:(({{moons/today}} + 1263) / 96) round 0}} (currently evaluates to 83). Any opinions on adding this to the moon/date block on the top of the front page (if only as a novelty)? --Quietust (t|c) 22:03, 23 December 2007 (CST)

  • Or, for that matter, adding it to the various Holiday pages to indicate the "years" in which each special thing happened (especially for St. Sneaky Pete's Day)? --Quietust (t|c) 21:55, 31 December 2007 (CST)

Monsters in Drop Locations

So, how would y'all feel about listing the monsters that drop an item in addition to the location? For example, for wad of dough, we'd have...

As much of a pain in the ass it'd be to initially do, it'd make things a lot easier. When there's one monster in the entire zone that drops an item, you need to check the zone, figure out which monster drops the item, then go to the monster's page to see the drop chances. --TechSmurf 14:55, 30 December 2007 (CST)

It's a good idea, and it doesn't really matter if it's rolled out slowly across the wiki. I'd prefer a more compact layout, perhaps something like this:
--Starwed 00:37, 31 December 2007 (CST)
  • I believe one reason specific monsters/adventures weren't listed under drop locations was because players don't have a choice of which monster to fight. For example, if I wanted a wad of dough, I can't go and specifically fight Knob Goblin Chefs, I'd have to adventure in Cobb's Knob Kitchens and hope the RNG likes me ;-) So really, which adventures/monsters that are in a location don't matter, it's the fact that some adventure/monster at all in a location does. Of course, drop rate info is always helpful, but having the same information across multiple pages makes wiki upkeep more difficult, especially when something changes. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 01:33, 31 December 2007 (CST)
  • I personally like the idea, but that could be because I've thought the same thing for a long time. The constant back and forth to find out what you have to kill for a specific item can get annoying. We might also want to consider how we would list non-combats, and whether or not there would be something to indicate that. I'm not so sure that one-time changes to items will make upkeep a problem anymore, as we have many contributors now who seem to follow the directions well, and who have the changes in places within seconds after they occur. A large sweeping change across all items may prove to be a bit more problematic, but it would clear itself up pretty quickly. --Fryguy9 09:04, 31 December 2007 (CST)
  • In addition to the points JRSiebz brought up, I'd like to add that the combat pages don't include combat/non-combat rate, nor data on monsters which don't have even distributions. Off the top of my head, I think the Kitchens and the Laboratory have the "easy" monster appearing at ~2:1 ratio with the tougher one. If combat frequency/monster distributions could be added to the stalled combat infobox project (though monsters in multiple zones--e.g., ducks--could be a problem), I think adding the monsters would be a worthwhile project. --Bagatelle 11:31, 31 December 2007 (CST)
    • Monster distribution would actually work best on the location infoboxes, I think.
    • Also, even though you can't really influence monster encounters (Well, there is On The Trail, Creepy Grin, and Harold's Bell. Hmm), it's still useful to know which monster you should expect the item from at a glance. Moreover, I don't see any downsides to having this included, besides a few day or so of work. --TechSmurf 19:47, 31 December 2007 (CST)
      • So, yay or nay? Or will this, like so many other discussions fall by the wayside? ;) --TechSmurf 21:36, 5 January 2008 (CST)
      • I vote yea. Any comments on the format? (Perhaps we should use templates, so the format can be easily tweaked.) --Starwed 17:14, 6 January 2008 (CST)
        • I like the way you've done it up. The bulleted list would be nice if there wasn't so much spacing. Ah well. I'm not sure how best we could template it, it might just be fine being added manually. --TechSmurf 21:05, 6 January 2008 (CST)

If we wanted to keep a list semantic we could use a definition list, looking like this:

Cobb's Knob Kitchens
Knob Goblin Chef
Degrassi Knoll
Gnollish Piebaker
Tower Ruins
Bread Golem
Yeast Beast x2

(I never realised that semicolons created definition list dd elements until I looked up the wikicode for this.  :) )--Starwed 21:46, 6 January 2008 (CST)

  • Ooh, sexy. I love it. Also, I didn't know that either! --TechSmurf 23:32, 6 January 2008 (CST)
  • Ok, no one has voiced a NO vote, so I guess it's ok to start switching to this style. It might be possible to bot at least part of this... regardless, no reason to not do some by hand as the mood strikes.  :) --Starwed 18:08, 10 January 2008 (CST)
  • I went ahead and switched wad of dough; any comments on how it looks? --Starwed 18:14, 10 January 2008 (CST)
    • I'm vaguely in favor of multi-drops being "(2)" instead of "x2". How would this look for an item that drops due to a non-combat? --Jonrock 18:38, 10 January 2008 (CST)
      • Agreed on the (2). I really hadn't thought of noncombats, for this. Hmmm. Perhaps... For hot wings:
The Dark Elbow of the Woods
G imp
The Dark Heart of the Woods
G imp
P imp
On Wings of Fire (2) (Noncombat)
The Dark Neck of the Woods
P imp
The Deep Fat Friars' Gate
G imp
P imp
On Wings of Fire (2) (Noncombat)

I'm not sure if noting that it's a noncombat is necessary or not. Might just be sufficient with the adventure name. --TechSmurf 20:05, 10 January 2008 (CST)

  • Actually, I could go either way on this-- either just list the combat/noncombat names with no indication of which they are, or note (Combat)/(Noncombat) after them. I'm kind of leaning towards the latter. --TechSmurf 13:06, 26 January 2008 (CST)
    • So, any opinion either way, if we're going to be going full steam ahead with this? I'm still leaning towards the latter. Example!
The Dark Elbow of the Woods
G imp (Combat)
The Dark Heart of the Woods
G imp (Combat)
P imp (Combat)
On Wings of Fire (2) (Non-Combat)
The Dark Neck of the Woods
P imp (Combat)
The Deep Fat Friars' Gate
G imp (Combat)
P imp (Combat)
On Wings of Fire (2) (Non-Combat)

--TechSmurf 16:00, 4 February 2008 (CST)

  • I was thinking that only denoting noncombats, and a bit more subtly, would be the way to go. Maybe even just using italics:
The Deep Fat Friars' Gate
G imp
On Wings of Fire (2)
  • I think people would pick up on the distinction pretty quickly. --Starwed 16:15, 4 February 2008 (CST)
    • Hmm. Works for me, I suppose. A template might not be a bad idea. --TechSmurf 16:23, 4 February 2008 (CST)
    • Yeah, a template for this would probably be good. --Starwed 17:05, 4 February 2008 (CST)
    • I'm not "most people", but I got it immediately. I don't know what a template would help with--I generally approve of things (like this, now) based on how simple they are to do by hand. --Jonrock 17:29, 4 February 2008 (CST)
      • The upshot of a template would be that it becomes mutable. Should the wiki's sense of fashion change, and they want a new format, it can be as simple as changing a few lines in a template and then you're done. On other matters, I would suspect implementing this would cause people to start wanting the base encounter and drop rates to appear. And also to want those non-combats with choices to state the correct choice to pick to get the item. People are lazy, after all. --Flargen 23:29, 4 February 2008 (CST)
    • I'd just like to add my tuppence worth and say that I really, really like this idea as a whole, and that the template should follow the last one posted (with italics for non-coms) --Nossidge 18:20, 12 February 2008 (CST)

So... this seems to be causing confusion as evidenced by several people going back and forth between what's in Established Standards and the test edits floated by Starwed. I'm against the update for the reasons I've stated above, but if the community decides to go ahead with it and the bot idea isn't feasible, I'd be willing to sit and page through a few locations to do a share of the work (we've got over 3000 items, though many of those don't actually drop). The issue should be resolved one way or another as soon as possible, before people get too wikistressed... --Bagatelle 21:46, 11 February 2008 (CST)

I asked Quietust about the possibility of botting a few days ago, currently waiting on a response.
Does anyone already maintain a master database of the relations between locations/monsters/items? (All that info seems to be in Mafia, for instance.) That would be very helpful in doing this automatically. If one doesn't exist, it might be easier to compile the data in a parseable format and then get a bot to actually add the info to each page. --Starwed 12:45, 12 February 2008 (CST)
The wiki itself could provide the majority of the desired information. Parse the lists in the item categories and the adventure categories, and then intersect. And throw in locations, too, I guess, for good measure. A few regular expressions should be able to handle this. The harder part comes in getting the number of drops in each adventure, and would require parsing the adventures themselves for multiple item listings and such. Oh, and a thought arises: how would you list things that only drop after certain actions in combat, such as 668 scrolls and 104 punchcards? I have the same basic qualms that JR and Bagatelle have voiced, and this thought makes me wonder how annoying it will get to maintain this section of the item pages if TPTB think of even more strange ways to make items drop. --Flargen 13:31, 12 February 2008 (CST)
I don't quite follow the logic of this objection: if some particular aspect of the idea is too hard/annoying to do, we don't have to do it. No matter what we omit, we'd be providing more information than we do now. --Starwed 17:51, 12 February 2008 (CST)
KoLmafia does indeed have things partially parsed, specifically drops from monsters, but seemingly not non-combats. I don't know how up-to-date the file is though; I think Foggy's been slowly updating the Meat drops on the Wiki, and the one example I looked at (how representative) isn't yet reflected in mafia. I doubt mafia uses disambiguated monster names (cf. how they handle mimics vs. how we do), so that would have to be handled somehow too. Using the Wiki to update has its own dangers: retired adventures (presumably fixable by using set arithmetic), redirects that haven't yet been fixed. If we bot, the special action drops, I think, could be handled manually afterward. They should be pretty completely listed on index pages like Pickpocket (with the Vibrato stuff being the exception due to their newness). --Bagatelle 20:17, 12 February 2008 (CST)
Okay, yes, I'd forgotten about those special cases, and I was simplifying things a bit much. It should be manageable, but there are, indeed, several more lists to cross-reference. Set theory shouldn't be necessary. You just need an appropriate logical expression based on membership in the various lists you've parsed. We just have to throw in the redirect, disambiguation, and obsolete adventure categories...and maybe some more. Presumably the number of pages that are wretchedly mis-categorized and/or tagged will be small enough that any errors they introduce can be weeded out manually without a lot of labor. Well, I stopped doing actual programming a few years ago, so perhaps I'll try leaving the bot implementation thoughts to those with more recent experience. And, in other news, I guess I'll get on the bandwagon here. --Flargen 20:37, 12 February 2008 (CST)

So, in my absence, it looks like this has been added to a few pages. I love it! Full steam ahead. --TechSmurf 17:03, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

  • Or maybe I'll just have to full steam ahead it myself. --TechSmurf 01:36, 8 May 2008 (CDT)
    • Quietust did some botting a couple of months ago that seems to have fallen by the wayside. Prolly less insane to poke'm than do it by hand yourself. --Bagatelle 17:30, 8 May 2008 (CDT)

OK, I started with this. I'm not sure how to do this one for Knob Goblin pants though. There's a choice adventure in The Haunted Pantry called Trespasser that lets you fight a Knob Goblin Assistant Chef. So technically, the pants can drop in the Pantry, too but I'm not sure how to denote it. I'm thinking something like this (in addition to what's there already), and give me your comments.

The Haunted Pantry
Trespasser
Knob Goblin Assistant Chef (C1)

The capital "C" with an "1" denotes its choice one.

One more thing: for chef's hat, it is possible to obtain it from the combat in the choice adventure Trespasser and from the third choice in Trespasser. Should I denote it as...

The Haunted Pantry
Trespasser
Knob Goblin Assistant Chef (C1)
Wait and see what happens (C3)

or something like that?--CG1:t,c,e 18:16, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

  • Why not just list the text of the choice (button)? It'll take up more space, but it'll be more easily comprehensible to the general wiki user. That or don't list choices at all. What would you do about items that are obtained through choice adventures randomized by ascension? Specifically, the Louvre items. --Flargen 22:21, 6 June 2008 (CDT)
    • Hm... I think there are names to the adventures that give the items, so it could be treated as a regular noncombat. Although I think sticking it in after the choice adventure would be good. So like this: for the Pinot Noir,
Louvre It or Leave It
Luncheon of the Boating Party

--CG1:t,c,e 22:34, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

  • I've realized a similar formatting question could be made about, say, spices, which can be obtained from a non-combat in the forest, but only after making more than one choice. You could keep nesting things, I suppose, but that could start looking pretty ridiculous if there's ever an item that you have to go through a handful of choices to get to. And wouldn't the Louvre example look more like this:
The Haunted Gallery
Louvre It or Leave It
Luncheon of the Boating Party

--Flargen 22:53, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

    • Yes, it would: I forgot to put in "the Haunted Gallery". Hm... Spices, eh? I didn't actually nest the adventures because I wanted to ask some people here, but this is what an extension of the forest would be.
The Spooky Forest
A Three-Tined Fork
Take the scorched path
Investigate the moist crater

Or to list the choice numbers,

The Spooky Forest
A Three-Tined Fork
Take the scorched path C2
Investigate the moist crater C2

Like so. I'd say choice numbers are a bit redundant, but with the combat action bar, you can press the corresponding number to make a choice. --CG1:t,c,e 08:25, 7 June 2008 (CDT)

I think the choice # should go at the beginning, since the number obtained will go at the end. Maybe:

The Spooky Forest
A Three-Tined Fork
2. Take the scorched path
2. Investigate the moist crater (1)

--Starwed 16:06, 7 June 2008 (CDT)

I think if we start nesting, we lose the sleekness of the format, so I'd vote for linking to the page where the drop "happens" and leaving it at that. Most adventure pages are already backlinked to parent adventures, or have some sort of summary page we could link to. Otherwise we could end up with entries that stretch over several lines (e.g., Worm Wood items' adventures depend on effects from two prior non-combats). The drawback of this would be that someone blindly following the item page might skip non-combats and miss the item drop. However, we don't list complete instructions for getting items via quests, and I think it's cleaner to have a summary-style section. So for the examples that have been noted:

Spices:

The Spooky Forest
A Pair of Craters

Chef's hat:

The Haunted Pantry
Trespasser
Knob Goblin Assistant Chef (maybe italicise to imply this is part of a choice?)

Pinot:

The Haunted Gallery
Louvre It or Leave It (Luncheon of the Boating Party)
--Bagatelle 16:15, 7 June 2008 (CDT)

Should obsolete drop locations really be noted in the new format? Some examples: googly eye, zombie pineal gland, black paisley oyster egg. I think most of them are obvious from the context that they're obsolete, but kinda not useful. Leave, move to notes/history, explicitly mark as obsolete in-line, other? --Bagatelle 20:29, 13 June 2008 (CDT)

As another example, scroll of pasta summoning used to have one obsolete location (the grim grimacite site) in the drop locations, and all of the old icy peak era drops placed in the notes. Several days ago I moved them all to a History section. --Flargen 20:59, 13 June 2008 (CDT)

Year news template?

Table of contents

2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008

January 2007 | February 2007 | March 2007 | April 2007 | May 2007 | June 2007 | July 2007 | August 2007 | September 2007 | October 2007 | November 2007 | December 2007 | See Also | External Links
Can part of this be a template? On the one hand, it would have to be updated every year. On the other hand, it would only be updated every year. --Raijinili 01:02, 1 January 2008 (CST)
I've been fooling around. I know Wikipedia has something similar in some archiving templates, where they have a bottom and a top. Unforunately I've never had much luck with that code.--Toffile 01:25, 1 January 2008 (CST)
  • The "simplest" solution (IMO, of course ;-)) was to have consistent month links across across all years. Since the wiki does not allow manual anchor/link markup (<a name="Month"></a>), one can fake achieve the same result with divs (<div id="Month"><div>), so no matter what date the first update of the month occurs, as long as its unseen anchor is above it, it will work across all years. I did '08 and '07. I really don't think we need to spend a week working on a parser-function-heavy conditional template for 6 pages ;-) --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 02:11, 1 January 2008 (CST)

Adding new external links

Can the "New Links Spamguard" be turned off for the forum? Or is there a template we can use for the forum? --Raijinili 05:23, 10 January 2008 (CST)

It also does links from the wiki. Probably from the game as well. Just a minor issue, but still. --Raijinili 06:16, 10 January 2008 (CST)

Bug report: Disappearing page

RoboGoose disappeared for me. At first, I thought it was because of the redirection from Robogoose, but when I loaded the page again by clicking "Article", it was still gone. (By "gone" I mean that the wiki thought the page wasn't there, ala nonsensical page that isn't there would display if you tried to go to [1].) The history, talk page, and edit page were intact, and I fixed it by adding a space to the page. --Raijinili 06:14, 10 January 2008 (CST)

In-Game Bugs

I just had an odd idea. Given that there is no public bug tracking system for the game, despite repeated calls on the forum to have at least a sticky thread so people know what's broken, why don't we make a page on the Wiki to do this, and give it a prominent link on the main page? An added benefit of this is that we'd reduce the repetitive "spam" like what happened when the NS anagram fight text got broken (no, there's no need to copy/paste the fight text that's already been posted three times...) or when physical resistance broke down. It'd also presumably help "restrain" editors from noting bugs on the pages, making information outdated when the bugs... eventually... get fixed. A possible drawback would be exploitable bugs being disseminated widely very quickly. --Bagatelle 20:18, 24 January 2008 (CST)

I like that idea. As for serious exploits... I'm not sure. We could can put a note stating that adding a seriously broken working exploit (such as infinite meat or item duping) to the page is a bannable offense. (Assuming we want to treat it that seriously, of course.) --Starwed 10:12, 26 January 2008 (CST)
  • I was thinking about something similar, myself. While the physical resistance bug shouldn't've gone on ever physically resistant monster's page, it did need to go somewhere. The wiki is an information source about the game and that's information that players would want to know. Maybe some kind of "Hey! This is broken!" announcement on the main page, or something to that general effect. --TechSmurf 13:02, 26 January 2008 (CST)
    • Perhaps some of these would prove too much of a headache, but here's a few ideas.
1. A header like the NeedsContent ones to put in a prominent notice that something is broken. Probably wouldn't stop everyone, but the presence of a template should make it easier for editors and admins to track down pages reporting in-game bugs (and remove those that are out-of-date).
2. Admins temporarily locking pages. Was every physically resistant monster page getting edited during the bug, or was it just a few? I primarily only noticed the Protector Spectre getting modified over and over. Most of the other monsters (like the chalkdust wraith) went unmolested, with perhaps just a few mentions on the talk page resulting in the conclusion of "bugged". Which would make sense given that the PS is the only truly prominent physically resistant monster a typical player would encounter.
I thought I was going to have more than that, but I guess not. In any case, pages that get hit as often as the Protector Spectre will likely need extra precautions taken to inhibit uninformed edits. Perhaps I'm just a pessimist, but I don't think a bug page would really put a dent in a case like that. --Flargen 15:10, 26 January 2008 (CST)
Familiar38.gif There is an in-game bug related to this page:
Physical resistance is no longer working for monsters.		 Familiar38.gif

Maybe? --TechSmurf 15:30, 26 January 2008 (CST)

  • Something like that would be nice. Or maybe you could make it more generic and just have it say "Check the Known Bugs page for details before editing this page"? Then you could have a dedicated bugs page, and a template/warning to put on pages that are getting mistakenly edited regardless. Also, I'd like to see the jitterbug image instead. But that's just because it jitters. --Flargen 20:27, 26 January 2008 (CST)

How about a page for non-critical bugs only? (ones that don't clone items, etc), and bugs that have been fixed (meat vortex bug). It would be interesting to read, and act as another useful part of KOL history. --Twilight Guardian 16:11, 26 January 2008 (CST)

Hmm, also the page should urge members who discovered a critical bug not to post it but to report in in the proper fashion, with links and other tips for this. --Twilight Guardian 16:11, 26 January 2008 (CST)

Eh, more than two people in discussion? Controversy!

  1. The Protector Spectre was the major case, and there was one edit to Snow Queen that I reverted. There may have been other questions on talk pages/etc, but I'm too lazy to go and hunt them down.
  2. If this were to be implemented, I would prefer a single page/announcement-type thing. Tagging would seem to make maintenance harder--every page affected would have to be tagged, and then de-tagged when fixed.
  3. Being template-illiterate, I must ask... is there any way of programming an announcement template that activates only if a (data) page isn't empty? Or alternatively, I guess, putting the "lasted edited" date of said page into the announcement?
  4. Agreed on noting proper bug-reporting channels on the page.

(My next suggestion will be modifying the stat day announcement templates to say, "hai don't edit stat gains today ke ke ke?") --Bagatelle 16:37, 26 January 2008 (CST)

@3 I'm unsure why this would be useful, but I think that it's possible. --Starwed 23:05, 26 January 2008 (CST)

@2: That was what I was thinking of when I posted, sorry if I was not clear. --Twilight Guardian 16:57, 26 January 2008 (CST)

  • Maybe I'm getting pie-in-the-sky here, but how bothersome would it be to have a bot regulate tagging/detagging for something like this? For the "physical resistance" case the bot could have just checked the page for the string "[[physical resistance]]" (modulo case) and also for something like the Locations category or an encounter template. Throw in ignoring talk pages and a few other pages (like this one, say), and at least for that case you should have a foolproof method of succesfully detecting pages dealing with a resistant monster. Assuming they're reasonably close to standardized. Really, the bot would probably be better off using the "what links here" for the PR page and cross-reference it with the relevant category (or other limiter) links, so it doesn't have to parse untold numbers of pages. Then the bot could throw in the bug header and/or lock the page (if it has such power). It records the page with any others modified for the same reason, and when the bug gets fixed (or made permanent?), the bot cycles through them and removes the header/lock as necessary. Throw in an emergency shut-down like QuietBot's, and maybe a basic activity log on it's page to keep people feeling apprised. So both issues would be solved, short of maybe a few exceptional situations to be handled more directly, provided someone to run the bot is around reasonably often. Perhaps your announcement template idea was meant to produce much the same effect? --Flargen 17:19, 26 January 2008 (CST)
    • The setup that would take is waaay more than the use we would ever actually get out of it. --TechSmurf 17:54, 26 January 2008 (CST)

After chewing on this one for a while, I think I'm happy no matter how it's implemented--whether through an autocategorised tag at the top of the page, through an autocat in-line tag like {{NeedsReview}}, or through a single page listing all known bugs (hmmm, if we did it the autocat way, the category page could serve as the summary page...). My original rationale for suggesting this was so, for example, the poor sods doing BM lead-ins wouldn't get cheated out of two-thirds of their reward if they did a pathed ascension. I was stuck on a single-page format because I thought it'd be easier (lazy), but I suppose there are benefits to the tag-every-page method too (e.g., it makes it highly evident that there is a bug to someone browsing that particular page, rather than to just people obsessively checking the bug index page). So, we gonna do this? --Bagatelle 17:04, 28 January 2008 (CST)

  • I'm all for it. I'll toss the template and category together tonight. Also, man, this page is in dire need of an archivin'. I'll take care of that tonight, too. --TechSmurf 16:01, 4 February 2008 (CST)
    • And it is done. Ta-da! It works just like the Needs Content template and its ilk. --TechSmurf 00:36, 5 February 2008 (CST)
      • Reading this, I think it does need a main page, like Bugs? detailing what a bug is, and some steps to report them, along with a archive of past KOL bugs, I mean, it is part of the history of the game right? --Naughty Sorceress Apprentice 17:55, 24 February 2008 (CST)
        • Category:Bugs basically serves that function. And most of the bugs are not really historical in nature. Those that are are usually so substantial as to merit new content and plot exposition from the powers that be (such as the penguin mafia's activities). This in turns merits new pages specifically dedicated to the bugs and the resulting fallout, which get marked with the history category. --Flargen 19:38, 24 February 2008 (CST)
        • Bugs now redirects to Category:Bugs. Forgot to do that before. --TechSmurf 21:12, 24 February 2008 (CST)

Archiving

Yowza. We need to keep up with the archiving more. I'm getting all kinds of nasty internal errors trying to move things over. --TechSmurf 23:44, 4 February 2008 (CST)

More things for User pages?

There is a {{clan|clan=the KOL Addicts}} clan template, so why not add a few more things too. Sparksol's skill chart is quite useful, along with many other things that could be done.

Of course I could just be insane. --Naughty Sorceress Apprentice 19:31, 24 February 2008 (CST)


Navigation Sidebar

I think we can safely remove Tuesday from the navigation sidebar over on the left, as they've been discontinued for months. Maybe replace it with the updates page instead. --TechSmurf 14:21, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

  • Youse gots my vote. While the History of Loathing and date template pages offer some hint as to how the game has morphed, they don't offer a good overview of how mechanics have changed. I think Starwed's been pushing for this for quite a while now... can't find the quote offhand. --Bagatelle 16:38, 25 March 2008 (CDT)
  • I'd like to see the "Quick Links" from the main page in the navigation sidebar on all pages. I use these links more than any others in the site. --Anonsi 15:50, 6 August 2008 (CDT)

Wiki bug - 501 Method Not Implemented

I just ran into a wiki bug which prevented me from editing/previewing a page. Apparently the | character followed by the word "Finger" (with some non-letter symbols allowed in between) will cause a "501 Method Not Implemented" error.

I ran into this bug while editing "Choice Adventures by Number", where there is a table with a link to Finger-Lickin'... Death.. Try it by attempting to remove the html comment in the following lines:

Finger-Lickin'... Death.

— SvdB 11:01, 29 March 2008 (CDT)

  • Yet another instance of ModSecurity messing things up. Contact FrostByghte and he should be able to fix it. --Quietust (t|c) 11:52, 29 March 2008 (CDT)
  • I also just got this 501 error while trying to edit, and linking to items by number:

id numbers

For now, I'm just using "item id numbers" as the text, instead. --Fryguy9 12:50, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

Effects and Game Messages

I've noticed in a few places that the effects of game messages are listed with the messages. For insance, from the naughty paper shuriken:

With a hearty "Kowabunga" you hurl the shuriken at your opponent. It neatly severs his belt, dropping his pants to his ankles. (Stuns opponent)

Or the Spirit Hobo:

<name> looks at you with bloodshot eyes, and mumbles, "Oh, Helvetica, damn good girl she was... I miss her so much," before laying down for a nap. (This indicates that he has just used up his booze supply.)

Seems like there's got to be a less messy way of doing this. Thoughts? --TechSmurf 13:08, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

I agree it doesn't quite feel right. Most pages put such things in the notes section, but every now and then we get some editors that feel it would be better to explain the basics of the message's effect (if not patently obvious, which is definitely the case with the spirit hobo) immediately. With the spirit hobo, you could try splitting up the subsections so that the parentheticals are moved into the subsection name; though the parentheticals would suggest you'd be splitting just 2 messages into subsections all their own, which is a little...ugh. The shuriken could just have the parenthetical moved to the Notes (and we could perhaps be really clear that this is the established standard for such explanations). Either that or we need to think up some nice way of formatting these things. Small text maybe? --Flargen 14:53, 19 April 2008 (CDT)
I'm conflicted about the notes section. While it does make sense for short entries, articles that have a lot of information between the use text and the notes (like the GGG and shuriken, and a number of others, I'm sure) require a good deal of bouncing back and forth. --TechSmurf 14:59, 19 April 2008 (CDT)
Well, you could possibly put a (see [[#Notes]]) entry in the subsection. If we're willing to add more anchors to the pages, we could anchor specific notes and messages and have them link to each other. Basically, use footnotes, like:
<name> looks at you with bloodshot eyes, and mumbles, "Oh, Helvetica, damn good girl she was... I miss her so much," before laying down for a nap.1
I'm quite partial to the footnote style above. --Starwed 09:25, 20 April 2008 (CDT)
Looking at some wikipedia entries, I notice they have a footnote system for references that might work well. I'm not sure how this will interact with more generic notes added by hand, but it does seem like an efficient way of templating up the footnote idea. It'd certainly be a pain to have to do it manually. --Flargen 19:25, 21 April 2008 (CDT)
My preference would be to keep explanatory notes as close as possible to the text. I was thinking table with invisible dividers, but looking at it now, it's kinda ugly (not to mention it'd be rather difficult to code). I'd vote for some sort of specially formatted text. Add a Note parameter to {{useitem}}? Of course now that you mention this, there are other places where this could apply; familiar attacks, differing skill usage texts with non-obvious differences (e.g., Shieldbutt), and possibly more... --Bagatelle 20:53, 19 April 2008 (CDT)
Message Notes
With a hearty "Kowabunga" you hurl the shuriken at your opponent. It neatly severs his belt, dropping his pants to his ankles. Stuns opponent

Caught TechSmurf doing this. Having the effect description precede the message is sorta parallel to how we do {{useitem}}, and it's nice and close to the message so no scrolling is necessary. Win? --Bagatelle 20:29, 13 June 2008 (CDT)
You caught me! Yeah, I think that's how I'd like to associate the messages from now on. Most convenient and least intensive code-wise. --TechSmurf 20:47, 13 June 2008 (CDT)

Palindromes

Should every item with a palindromic name need to have that pointed out? (Re: the recent edits of lion oil and bird rib.) Seems a bit excessive to me. --Terion 20:35, 27 April 2008 (CDT)

  • I say definitely not. It's just really not necessary. --TechSmurf 14:52, 28 April 2008 (CDT)
  • I think in the majority of cases, the wiki currently eschews explaining this sort of thing. And by "that sort of thing" I mean jokes that rely specifically on linguistic structure and vocabulary. The main exception being the running joke about not ending sentences with prepositions. Otherwise, pages usually leave it up to the reader to break out the dictionary and/or to have a passing understanding of basic english structures. And I agree with this unspoken policy; though that is perhaps in part because I'm well-schooled enough to understand them readily, so I might just be an elitist. --Flargen 20:16, 28 April 2008 (CDT)
  • Yeah, seems a mite like talking down to the reader to me/way too trivial to note. And don't get me started on notes like "x was spelled wrong when the item was first rolled out." ZOMJ they made a typo immortalise it on teh wiki! --Bagatelle 22:30, 28 April 2008 (CDT)
    • I just had to get rid of that particular example. Don't know how you let it just stand there like that. You're some kind of iron man. --Flargen 01:14, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

Microbrewery

  • in the same vein, jick has said on the radio many times that any booze of the right quality can appear in the microbrewery. is it necessary to list the fact that booze has appeared there? industry is mostly to be admired, but in this case was it misplaced enough to require reversion? --Evilkolbot 15:56, 28 April 2008 (CDT)
    • I've got no problem with it. I think it's a fairly useful note. --TechSmurf 16:21, 28 April 2008 (CDT)
      • Chez Snootee is similar, and it was decided there that it would be silly to make such notes on the random offerings. The matter could certainly be reconsidered, though. Personally I think it is unnecessary to make such a note. If it is decided to make such notes, we're going to have to edit a bunch of food and booze pages to make the wiki consistent. --Flargen 20:08, 28 April 2008 (CDT)
        • I'd vote for leaving them in, despite the fact that it's not terribly useful due to the fact that only one of them will be available on any given day. All other items generally have alternate obtain methods listed; listing the restaurants for food/booze is totally consistent with that. --Bagatelle 22:30, 28 April 2008 (CDT)

Elemental Trophies

Since maybe I'm just having an overdone gut reaction to poor phrasing, what does everyone think about adding in specific ways of obtaining the various elemental trophies, like Dreadful, Just Dreadful still does? I dislike it, personally. You can just click the links in the clarifying notes to find all possible modifiers and work from there to figure out what works best with your resources. Do we really want to spell it out for people? --Flargen 00:27, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

  • There are way too many possibilities of combinations that would work to list them all in one page, I can't see how it would not make the page look cluttered. Little Chickadee's methods of drunkenness should be removed if that's the case, though. --Shima 00:32, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
  • I'm fine with it when there's one specific trick that makes it easy, as with bang potions for Little Chickadee, or Kiss of the Black Fairy for Dreadful, Just Dreadful. However, notes beyond that do feel cluttered-- the description already gives a link to the elemental damage/spell damage pages, which are a comprehensive enough list. Also, I hate revert wars. --TechSmurf 01:00, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
    • Yeah, I realized I was in a revert war, which is why I decided to ask over here. And I feel the same way about the Black Fairy and Chickadee things. --Flargen 01:06, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
      • I wasn't directly yelling at you for the revert war, just generally venting on the subject. ;) --TechSmurf 01:10, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
        • I completely agree on leaving it up to the reader how they go about getting the trophies. The wiki is a reference, not something to hold your hand. Keeping it general in these cases is the best way to go. There's no sense in trying to write out all the permutations or the "best" permutation as this game is constantly evolving.--Shoptroll 14:26, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
          • I agree with Techsmurf: if there's one easy way it's good. Otherwise, it should be up to the reader to check hot, cold, Bonus Melee Damage, etc. --CG1:t,c,e 17:11, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
          • The wiki should tell you what the condition is. I think it should be left up to the reader to figure out the nuances themselves. Besides, how will they ever learn anything in this game on their own?--Ashallond 20:38, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
          • Also agree. In cases where a separate page is not available, or doesn't make sense, we can spoil away, but considering we have an entire page devoted to bonus increasers, it does not belong. I think the link to Bonus Spell Damage is enough. However, I still get confused by the "bonus" part...perhaps a clarification is in order stating that regular spell damage is not counted towards the 100, somehow? --Fryguy9 22:47, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
          • A bit late to this party, but in this vein, real quick, would it be a good idea to make a Maximizing page for each of the Elements?--Antoids 22:53, 22 May 2008 (CDT)

Wiki skins

Apparently someone has removed all skins from the wiki except the standard skin. Took me a whole lot of time to figure out (with help of creating a second account) how to change skin as all I was getting was a blank page.
I have been using another skin for the wiki as I find the standard layout cluttery and bad in a color formatting way. I would like to see the return of the skin I was previously using: cologne blue. Would also be nice to find out why the other skins were removed. -- NitraMo SA TT 08:14, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

Ricket just PMed me to tell me he's encountered the same problem. Why were the skins deleted in the first place, and can they be brought back? --TechSmurf 20:40, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

  • TechSmurf tells the truth. If there's some way to reset the skin on my account, or just restore the deleted ones, that'd be great. --Ricket2 19:27, 8 May 2008 (CDT)
    • Adding ?useskin=monobook (or & instead of ? if there already are arguments to the page) at the end of each url you visit will make it use the standard skin. That way you can navigate to skin changing. -- NitraMo SA TT 01:21, 9 May 2008 (CDT)
      • Thank you! That was annoying. --Ricket 22:34, 9 May 2008 (CDT)

Featured Articles

I think an expansion of featured articles and whatnot may be necessary. Earlier today, I was looking for a few good length informative articles to replace the rotation *which had not been changed for 7 months >:(* but I didn't find too many. Many featured articles are not updated, so I think I'm going to work on that: if anyone wants to help, they are welcome. --CG1:t,c,e 21:08, 7 May 2008 (CDT)


Blender / Opossum

Can we begin tracking opossum/blender adventure gains somewhere on the wiki? The basic theory is known - unfortunately there are too many unknowns to put together a simple Got Milk style formula. Put simply, the adventure range of all foods is changed when born under one of those two zodiac signs. It isn't a simple +0-3 adventures. This sort of data collection lends itself better to the wiki format than it does to the clan-forum format. Either starting a separate page for these adventure gains, or make a space on every consumables page would be good. I've collected some data for some of the more important foods, but was reverted last time I attempted to add the results to the wiki. Opinions on how to make this user-friendly?--QuantumNightmare 22:47, 8 May 2008 (CDT)

  • Yiab's item drop data have traditionally been collected in table format, on the monster encounter talk: pages (e.g., Talk:Gnollish Piebaker). The Mr. Klaw data have been collected similarly. Something like that should probably be the way to go in this case too, if for no other reason than to avoid edit conflicts if lots of people end up contributing to the project. It would also help people to remember filling out important information they might forget/might not be aware would affect adventure gains, or to analyse joint effects. Maybe something like below? --Bagatelle 16:17, 10 May 2008 (CDT)
Opossum? Milk? Munchies? Adv Number of observations
Y N N 5 4
Y N N 6 5
    • That looks very good. Simple, and forces people to double check things like milk/munchies that will effect results.--QuantumNightmare 09:21, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Unifying (Mostly) Potions

In working on Inventory, I noticed that the items classified as (Mostly) Potions in game are spread between Category:Usable Items and Category:Potions. This is more than a little confusing in terms of categorizing. I'll probably, at some point, sort this out. --TechSmurf 03:13, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

Well, "(Mostly) Potions" implies that there are items in there which aren't potions (but are usable). Like candy hearts. Or disintegrating spiky collars. I think nowadays most of the things that appear in that inventory section actually aren't potions, making the title rather misleading. I guess you could try being a little less literal about it and call them all "potions" regardless. Or did you have some other idea in mind? --Flargen 03:21, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

There was talk waaaaaay back about just deleting the category because it served no useful purpose/doesn't reflect the item's actual function or "type" as described in the pop-up, but rather just wherever Jick decided to stick the item (Discussion/archive4#Category Changes, Discussion/archive2#Category:Combines is probably Legacy, Category talk:Potions). I think it would just end up confusing people. --Bagatelle 17:13, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

Misspelling Redirects

I've noticed that Evilkolbot and Sp8z have been having something of a contentious debate regarding wiki policy on redirects for misspellings. Check those links for the relevant discussions (note there's a little bit of cross-posting going on). Anyway, I thought most people probably haven't noticed this and that it might be worth bringing the matter up here to see what people think. On Evilkolbot's talk page, Sp8z provides a few links regarding the policies Wikipedia uses for this. Namely: Reasons for deleting redirects and a category talk for Redirects from misspellings. --Flargen 14:20, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

I would like misspelling redirects to be allowed and encouraged by the standards. A misspelling redirect is a redirect based on a misspelled word, "curtins" would redirect to "curtains" for example. As of now the standard is to delete misspelling redirects. Looking at the Wikipedia redirect pages shows support for misspelling redirects, even in the face of ignorance of the user who doesn't know how to spell. One way the Wikipedia supports misspelling redirects is to comb through the "searched for" queries and to create redirects for high count misspellings. Another way is for every user to create a redirect page when they misspell a word, but believe it should take them where they were trying to go. I am open to doing the "combing and creating" of the misspelled words if the list is made available to me.--Sp8z 15:13, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
I tend to agree with Evilkolbot on this one. if there were a lot of people who didn't know how to spell "curtains" then I'd say create the redirect. Personally, I think a quick check in google or a dictionary would show that it's "curtains" not "curtins". How long does it take to type in a few phrases? "google.com" then "curtins" will show it's curtains. --CG1:t,c,e 17:05, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
Well it's curtains for curtins! Under the existing standard a redirect from "Hanks" to "Hangks" would be deleted. Hangks is not a suggested spelling of Hanks in Google or any dictionary I could find. If that is used as the example for misspelling redirects, will it change your opinion on supporting misspelling redirects?--Sp8z 19:48, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
Hank's you say? That redirect already exists, and falls under a different policy. Namely, the policy that things that are misspelled in the game are allowed to have redirects for their correct spellings. Neither "Hanks" nor "Hank" currently exists as a redirect for storage (somewhat surprisingly), but the latter at least would probably be acceptable; Hanks might be questionable, but might be okay since redirects that remove punctuation are also generally acceptable. Yes, technically "Hagnk" is a proper name and thus it is not possible for it to be misspelled, but game context makes it clear that it is just the gnomish spelling for Hank. In any case, what you are asking for is redirects for things that are spelled correctly in the game, but incorrectly by wiki users. --Flargen 20:14, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
Sorry, I didn't see a policy on redirects for misspelled words in the game in the Established Standards page or the Proposed Standards page. Where's that policy?--Sp8z 21:04, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
Sorry, I was being liberal with my use of the word "policy". For the most part, I go by what I observe, and in my stint as an editor here I've observed that the types of redirects I mentioned are allowed. The Accepted Standards pages may be out of date, or maybe that was a proposed standard that died before any of the admins decided to make it official. --Flargen 22:20, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
Policy found in Proposed Standards Archive 2. That information didn't show up in any of my searches. Above that policy, Dehstil states in part "...so redirects of common mispellings or abbreviattions were useful"--Sp8z 21:27, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

It's also opening a big can of worms as to when a misspelling is acceptable and when it's not in the wiki. Ignoring the category of allowed due to an in-game quirk or an article or plural for a single, etc., You'd be putting extra work on the wiki mods to also have to decide if that misspelling is frequent enough or not to be allowable. I'm with Evilkolbot and CG....if it doesn't work, then do a generic search for something in the area, and find it that way, or google the correct spelling of a word. --Ashallond 21:10, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

It's not opening a big can of worms, it's making the wiki search more useful for myself and possibly others. I believe that if someone goes to the trouble to create a misspelling redirect, then it must be useful to them. However, if everyone agrees that they are not acceptable, then I will go along. Please edit the standards pages to say in part "misspelling redirects are not acceptable except for words purposefully misspelled in the game."--Sp8z 21:27, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
while that's a pretty good summary of usage in this narrow regard, it really doesn't begin to codify the way we want redirects added. policy is left vague or as usage and judgement for a reason. laws make lawyers. and more laws. for example a redirect for the american spelling exists to flavour of magic. it's not a misspelling. and skully's attempts at foreign languages (bless) almost certainly are. the first case i agree that redirects are called for no matter how much it pains me (meter is a perfectly good word already, thanks), and in the second it's plain, at least to me, that they're not. so there's two qualifications to your rule already. and they're off the top of my head and i've just woken up. i'm with the other contributors that the rule stays unwritten. moving forward, if there are high-traffic searches for misspellings then we can look at adding them as redirects. now, how do we get at the search logs? is logging even turned on? --Evilkolbot 01:13, 20 May 2008 (CDT)
I'm thinking the log would show up as a Special Page, "Failed Queries", that would contain a list of search terms, and counts of the times tried, that didn't go to a known page. If possible, the page would also have sections for time periods, last day, last 7 days, last 30 days where each time period would hold a total for each given period of time.--Sp8z 19:17, 20 May 2008 (CDT)
searching for "search logs" in mediawiki produced this page. someone with strong wiki fu should look at the ramifications of this: what overheads it has, whether the page should be public, that sort of thing. anyone? who administers the wiki at that level anyway? coldfront? jinya? --Evilkolbot 02:21, 21 May 2008 (CDT)

I've been watching this go back and forth while muttering under my breath, until I remembered Dehstil set up a custom search ages ago. It handles misspellings exactly as Google does: example. Ironically (?), Google doesn't recognise "curtins" as a misspelling of "curtains." Can has fred close pls? --Bagatelle 17:38, 21 May 2008 (CDT)

I did find that, and it does present "curtains" for "curtins" for me. Not sure why it didn't work for when others tried it. That isn't linked into the wiki search box. Is that an option?--Sp8z 18:12, 21 May 2008 (CDT)
(This is mostly for posterity's sake.) Around February 20, 2007, I tried exactly that. Apparently Mediawiki didnt like me adding dynamic external links (to the Google result), yet alone one of those nifty Google search boxes. Also, see TheKolWiki:Pages_for_deletion/redirects#Spelling if you want a headache over the redirect business.--Dehstil (t|c) 11:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


The logs in game refer to the hobos with a lower case "h": "Normal hobo", "Cold hobo", etc. Here they have both words capitalized. Using the search box, the wiki finds the pages without capitalization. Entering a URL or in a [[cold hobo]] link, it doesn't. Is it unreaonsable to ask that the pages get moved to the lower case version and redirects go in for the uppercase? --Club (#66669) (Talk) 18:54, 10 July 2008 (CDT)

They originally were at the lower case "h" pages, but they got moved by TechSmurf because he likes capitals apparently. I brought it up on his talk page and he said he'd move them back, but he's never actually done so. Of course, we could always do that ourselves. I just didn't want to override a mod's move without figuring out why it was where it was originally. And if one of the lower case pages exists and has a page history we may not be able to move it in the preferred way without a mod, anyway. Not that I've checked if that's the case. Basically: I'm lazy, TechSmurf forgot.--Flargen 19:14, 10 July 2008 (CDT)
Not that this really helps, but the generated Hobo Names are capitalized, and so, for example, since the page Cold Hobo stands for all specific possible generated cold hobo names and their pages, so maybe it should be capitalized to like those it represents? And in the logs it's not specific but generic? Does that make sense to anyone but me? Like using the word "God" vs. the word "god"? What is the text version of "I'm just thinking out loud"? Whatever that is, put it here. "I'm just thinking in type" maybe?--JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 22:10, 10 July 2008 (CDT)

Smart KoLWiki

I was thinking about the possibilities of changing the kolwiki interface based on info from the ascension database if a user has the always connected option set when they log into the kolwiki. The ascension database would know what level the player is at, give or take a level, and based on a "spoiler" preference, present the user with links to locations and information related to that level. For example, instead of having to click on Quests, then click on the desired quest, and then scrolling to the appropriate section of the quest, the kolwiki would open with links to the quests and locations available to a player of that level. And there could be "don't forget" tips like if they're doing the level 4 quest, don't forget to get an enchanted bean checkbox or similar mechanic.--Sp8z 15:17, 20 May 2008 (CDT)

  • That's more complicated than I could even imagine to code. I don't even know if the wiki has the right permissions to do something like that. Plus, we'd need a direct feed from the KoL servers on the ascension status of every player. Then we'd need to link them up to wiki accounts. A nightmare to setup, if not impossible. --TechSmurf 15:52, 20 May 2008 (CDT)
    • I don't believe it would be any more complicated than the collection count connection to the display case contents database that is at the bottom of the item pages. Maybe have a "My Spoilers" personal tools link that would go to the spoiler info appropriate for the level? If www.koldb.com can do it, then it may be just a perl script away? Get the koldb data, push a pre-designated level tips and links page.--Sp8z 19:26, 20 May 2008 (CDT)
      • Just because you do not believe (or wish to believe) it is complicated does not make it less complex. Have you seen the actual coding of the wiki? whereas koldb started from scratch, changing the wiki has to maintain what was originally there and then add stuff such that it does not interfere with what was there before. --CG1:t,c,e 21:26, 20 May 2008 (CDT)
      • Let's put it this way. If you can talk to Jick and get him to give you access to the flag tables for every character, talk to Jinya and the people running Coldfront in order to get the Wiki the proper permissions and software to actually run this, then code a way to synch up Wiki accounts with actual player accounts, and do it in a way that doesn't open up a bunch of exploits and break the wiki (hey, any player with a wiki account has potential access to a whole bevy of account flags! Neat!), sure! Go for it! In shorter, less cynical terms-- the KoL wiki is a wiki, not an omnipotent, interactive guide to the game. --TechSmurf 10:44, 21 May 2008 (CDT)
      • You are so funny with the "it's too complicated" and the "Jick won't allow it" arguments. Hello! www.koldb.com already (magically) scrapes the user pages every 30 minutes to get ascension information. So obviously it is NOT too complicated and Jick DOES allow it. As for the wiki not being an omnipotent, interactive guide to the game, obviously those with wider wiki experience can help determine what is apposite content and the future direction of the wiki. As I now have a better understanding of the desired content and direction I see that this is one idea that will not be supported. Thank you for responding to the suggestion.--Sp8z 15:43, 21 May 2008 (CDT)
  • Frankly, a lot of this is probably better suited for implementation in KoLmafia, if it isn't there already. --Bagatelle 17:38, 21 May 2008 (CDT)
  • You're all missing something very important, which is that this requires no KoL database hits at all, just a front-page link to twelve or thirteen pages of checklists. --Raijinili 08:05, 14 June 2008 (CDT)
    • Except, you know, that whole part where he wants the wiki to dynamically remind you of things depending on what level your character currently is. --Flargen 18:14, 14 June 2008 (CDT)
      • I have to spell it out? The "dynamically updating" part is not nearly as important as the "level checklist" part, and is not required. --Raijinili 22:34, 17 June 2008 (CDT)

Pre-ascension checklist

How about a page on things to do before ascending? Sections on general, hardcore, and pulls. --Raijinili 00:05, 3 June 2008 (CDT)

NS spoiler template

I propose replacing the nest of red boxes that appear above the various NS pages with something neater. I gave an infobox a shot at User:Starwed/NS Infobox.

It could probably be made so that you can show/hide different sections, as is often done for this type of navigational tool on wikipedia. --Starwed 15:55, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

  • That infobox is beautiful and I love it. I've always wanted to remove the red boxes-- they're obtrusive, and they look out of place in the black and white and blue of the wiki. --TechSmurf 16:07, 6 June 2008 (CDT)
  • You've got my vote. --Flargen 16:11, 6 June 2008 (CDT)
  • and mine. --Evilkolbot 16:26, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

I implemented this at Template:NS Spoilers. Any suggestions on how things are labeled, or additional links that should go there?

I added it to all the pages I could find that previously had a red div linking to spoiler info. The NS pages are organized a bit weirdly, though, with spoilers and messages on separate pages. For example, A Perplexing Door tells you what messages you get for wrong/right answers to the riddles, while Naughty Sorceress Quest#A Perplexing Door tells you the answers.

I didn't add the nav template to the message page, since it doesn't have any spoilers and didn't link to spoilers before. But does it still make sense to do it this way?--Starwed 15:23, 7 June 2008 (CDT)

Tagging Unsmithable Items

There's a handful of items that are marked as "meatsmithing ingredients" (twinkly wad, for instance), but currently have no recipes associated with them. I asked Jick about this a while back, and he says they're marked that way so he can roll out new recipes without people immediately knowing what they involve, or something to that effect. All such items are tagged in the wiki with some kind of NeedsWork tag. They shouldn't be-- the answer to "What can they be smithed with?" is simply "Nothing, yet." It should, however, be indicated that that's the case, which is where I can't decide on a solution:

  • Indicate the situation in Notes.
  • Modify the item template to include an explanation in such cases.
    • Give the template a tag that displays them as Meatsmithing Ingredients, but drops them into an Unsmithable Ingredients catagory instead.
  • Create a new tag for pages (a la template:bug for bugged things).

Just some ideas I've had. --TechSmurf 17:58, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

  • If not now, then sometime there will probably be cooking ingredients, cocktailing ingredient, and meat pastable stuff that is similarly not yet implemented. Whatever solution there is should expand to cover them all. I think putting them in categories, perhaps one category for all unimplemented items and one per type of implentation, is best because categories make it easy to find all of the item at once. Notes is not so useful. --Club (#66669) (Talk) 18:34, 6 June 2008 (CDT)
    • You mean like the blackberry? An unimplemented category would seem appropriate. --Flargen 18:40, 6 June 2008 (CDT)
    • Banner that autocats. It'll help prevent people from asking "hay wut this smith with?" on the talk page. Not that having information on the article or banners has stopped them... "Unsmithable Ingredients" is a bit of a mouthful, so how about Unsmithed, Uncooked, Unmixed, Unpasted, etc? --Bagatelle 16:15, 7 June 2008 (CDT)
      • Good call. Off to assemble a template I go. How's Uncraftables sound as a category? In retrospect, I like that more than Unsmithable Ingredients. --TechSmurf 20:39, 7 June 2008 (CDT)
      • Voila! --TechSmurf 02:04, 8 June 2008 (CDT)

Template Updates Required

  1. Jick apparently had an epiphany of clarity and updated the critical hit enchantment note to read: "NOTE: If you wear multiple items that increase your Critical Hit multiplier, only the highest multiplier applies." This needs to be updated in {{item}}, preferably during a long Saturday rollover so when the Wiki hiccoughs from updating 3000+ pages, no-one's affected adversely.
  2. {{Combat/meta}} needs to display new fields (bounty, quest, pickpocket, stat when applicable) when it formats Data: pages. --Bagatelle 16:15, 7 June 2008 (CDT)
  • It looks like another change to {{item}} will be needed, since it seems Jick has added some blue text without the enchantment header to the pastamancer summons. --Flargen 00:31, 15 June 2008 (CDT)
  • It is done. --Quietust (t|c) 14:20, 18 June 2008 (CDT)
  • Well, the item updates are done (which didn't seem to cause any hiccups at all). The combat meta data still needs updating from what I can see. --Flargen 14:25, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

In addition to the {{Combat/meta}} needing updating, we also need to update the {{acquire}} template. This is to account for clan loot drops. Instead of "You acquire an item:" you get the text "An item drops:"; and the clan loot item is followed by a parenthetical note saying that is a clan item. Unfortuantely I didn't think at the time that this means a change was needed, so I didn't screenshot or copy the exact text. I also don't know if the parenthetical appears multiple times if you get multiple loot drops. Is that even possible? --Flargen 00:55, 21 June 2008 (CDT)

C. H. U. M. category?

Since it's impossible to search for. Simply an ease-of-use thing for the wiki. --Raijinili 22:38, 17 June 2008 (CDT)

  • Gettin' there. Give it some time, we're still trying to get all the content in to begin with. --TechSmurf 22:53, 17 June 2008 (CDT)

Nickel page

Could someone please weigh in on which table of things to buy with nickels is more usable, this, or this? — SvdB 13:24, 27 June 2008 (CDT)

Cyrpt Choice Template

I thought it would be good to have a table of the choice adventures in the Cyrpt, in the style of the Cove and Itznotyerzitz Mine templates, as I can never remember which choice in which zone gives which stat boost.

I made a draft of the table for the template here.

2 questions:-

1 - Does anyone agree, or is it a terrible idea somehow?
2 - How can I make the columns of equal width? When I 1st expanded the table to 4 columns by duplicating from the Mine template, it looked fine, but once I filled in the 3rd column with Cyrpt text, it shrank, which looks rubbish.

NoodleHannah 05:59, 30 June 2008 (CDT)

  • Go nuts. You can make the columns equal width by specifying the pixel width explicitly, but the vagaries of browser/font types on the end-users' systems will likely render your efforts for naught. None of the other choice adventure navs have evenly distributed column widths, so don't worry about it. --Bagatelle 18:27, 30 June 2008 (CDT)
    • I didn't want to explicitly define the widths, for the reasons you gave. I was hoping there was a way to say "render the columns as the same width" without specifying the width. I'll go ahead and launch the template meanwhile. NoodleHannah 08:08, 1 July 2008 (CDT)
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