Kodia

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Upload achievement Edit

For some reason, clicking on the link (under the stock shot of a NPC's race), although it does add the picture (once the appropriate file is uploaded and saved correctly), doesn't increase the uploaded photo count toward one's total (for the badges). However, linking a photo directly seems to count toward that total. Necrotherian ( talk ) 14:56, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Its a not a bug per se, but a flaw in how Wikia's code is looking for "an image was added". They are looking to see if you added the text "[[File:]]" to a page during an edit, not to see if you clicked a formatted upload link. There isn't anything we can do about it. Its been this way for a long time (a few years), and Wikia knows about it, but its not something can be changed. -- Uberfuzzy ( talk ) 15:27, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks Uberfuzzy. I didn't know the answer to that one.-- Kodia ( talk ) 16:18, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

They're just more junk to have bugs and clutter up user pages if you ask me, but I'm the resident metaphorical grumpy old guy ;) -- lordebon ( talk ) 18:22, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

wiki special chars in linknames Edit

Hello! Can we have [Advanced Solo] in linknames? I tried to make pages for the instances with these chars... but couldn't figure out how to trick the wiki parser to ignore them as special chars. See: http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Sleeper%27s_Tomb Rittmeister64 ( talk ) 22:33, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

It's not the bracket [ or ] that you should actually be using for specifying which zone, it's actually the parentheses like ( or ) that you should be using. I think this might fix much of the trouble you were having. Also, if you ever run into trouble trying to figure out what to name something, we do have a Naming Policy you can reference and also a Naming Guideline that talks about the use of parentheses as well. We're forging new ground here with Chains of Eternity however, so please know that we really appreciate you pointing out all the new things we're seeing like the advanced solo areas and such.-- Kodia ( talk ) 02:40, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

problem is, the ingame names do have these (sometimes square, sometimes round) brackets in their names. these aren't just disambig names for the wiki. for example, sticking to sleeper's tomb, the advanced solo version is called: 'Sleeper's Tomb: The Forgotten Catacombs [Advanced Solo]'. so these names are basically already disambiguated ingame -- Vraeth ( talk ) 07:36, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. Since I've not made it to the advanced solo area of Forgotten Catacombs yet so I hadn't seen the square brackets. They key points when we were making our naming conventions were two things. First, if someone was in game and used the game interface to click on something, would the user interface take them exactly to that something at the wiki (at the time most of the users used a UI skin that had links to the wiki). Second, if they typed exactly what they were seeing, would a standard web browser take them to that exact something.

I unfortunately have to go to work today or I'd sit down and figure out how to escape the brackets in the template syntax. I'm not sure how to do it, to be honest, but perhaps someone like Uberfuzzy , who's way smarter than me with code can weigh in here and help us figure out how we should make this work. Ultimately if we can go with the naming convention, we should, which means we include what the user sees. But we have to weigh the cost of confusion at the wiki too. Please feel free to speak up here about how you guys would like to handle this. Like I said, this is new ground for us because of the changes SOE is making.-- Kodia ( talk ) 11:28, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Short version: "It's not possible, use something else and move on"

Long version: "It's not possible because [ and ] are special both mediawiki (for linking), and to the entire URI scheme that makes up URLs and passing multiple variables via GET syntax. Its possible to enable some invalid title characters, but the square brackets are explicitly verboten. See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgLegalTitleChars for more technical reasons"

Trust me, I've tried to circumvent this, bad things happened, lots of database voodoo was needed to recover the pages. -- Uberfuzzy ( talk ) 11:45, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and before you think to ask, even if they are URLEncoded, mediawiki doesnt let you, http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/hurp%20%5Bderp%5D

OK, so I figure we just use () instead of the square brackets that are used in-game. Rittmeister64 ( talk ) 12:22, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll make sure we specifically call this out in the naming conventions too with the logic for why we're doing it. That way there shouldn't be as much confusion in the future.-- Kodia ( talk ) 13:35, November 21, 2012 (UTC)

NPC images Edit

There appears to be a difference of opinion, between Rittmeister64 and I, about which picture is more suitable for a page that doesn't contain much content. The page in question is Jenni_Everling_(Obol Plains) . The pictures in question are Rittmeister64's and mine .

I maintain that a smaller picture is better, since the point of the picture - especially on an NPC page - is merely to show the user what the picture's subject looks like. Rittmeister64 maintains that pictures that are cropped lack a certain je ne sais quoi (my phrase, not his - his was more along the lines of calling it soulless and without life).

Were this a wiki devoted to art, I would be able to see his point, but since it is not, I think that the picture ( Rittmeister64's ) linked above wastes space. I have tried to compromise with him, so that we both get what we want, but it seems like he has no desire to reach any sort of accomodation.

Therefore, I leave the matter in the admins' hands. If possible, can someone draft some image guidelines to state the maximum file sizes that are recommended, the largest and smallest resolutions that are recommended, and the proportion of the page that are recommended? This would help clear up any disagreements between content providers.

It is obvious that both Rittmeister64 and I care about the game and the community. We just differ in opinion upon whether utility or artistic merit is more important for content.

Thank you for your time. Necrotherian ( talk ) 21:26, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

I think both of you are right, and both of you are wrong. Let me explain a few things.

Art is subjective . While I agree sometimes screenshots are taken "badly" (i'm just as guilty of this), also consider ANY picture is better then NO picture. Play nice. If you can get a substantially better picture of something, upload it. Dont do it just because you want to re-improve every image, or because you didnt like its author's motivation, remember you are trying to help the whole community, and players reading the material in the future. Images have a revision history, just like pages. If we dont like it, we can roll it back. Again, play nice.
Storage/file size is mostly irrelevant (as is the bandwidth to serve them). I used to work for Wikia for a few years, I've seen their datacenters, and their tech usage flows. We're but a drop in the bucket to them. Since nearly every image is thumbnailed down to a 200 or 250 wide image, (and you can click on them to see a full version), the size (but not the ratio) source image size is irrelevant, BUT , the better image we start with makes a better thumbnail. In short, as long as the end result looks good on the article, We really dont care how huge the uploaded image is. We're going to side with what ever version provides a better quality article. Also remember that you can always add multiple images to the article lower down. There is every a really neat tag to make this easy to do.
JPG and PNG both have very good uses here. For things like icons, where pixels matter, yeah PNG all the way. For a random screenie of a snake or rock or something, meh, JPG it (but you dont really need to use anything more then 80% quality usually). Depending on your graphic setup, and your level of textures, and AA smoothing, a PNG may be a better idea to preserve that quality. EQ2 can be a very pretty game, even then flora *cough*, so if it adds value to the wiki to show off something with a lot of detail, use what ever shows it off best.
We're not an "art wiki" per se, but one of our "improvement goals" we discussed in Vegas was to try to shift toward adding more images to things, since visual aids are often more helpful then a text description of a quest. (I dont know how many times, that a simple picture of a rock/tree/root/clicky is 1000% more useful then "I need to find some X"). (see the gallery tag above)
My personal rule of thumb for name and purpose tag in the picture: I generally like them.
- For "people" such as NPCs you talk to, keep it in (as you can see them from farther away, or when zoomed out).
- For monsters, leave it out (entirely for the fact that we can possibly reuse it later for a similar looking mob)
I think we could probably use more then just a headshot (remember, anything is better then nothing), but I dont think we necessarily NEED a full head to toe of every NPC if its not required. If in doubt, cut them off somewhere around the shin, and move on with life.
We dont have any image size guidelines, because honestly, we've never had this level of enthusiasm (or conflict) over them. We dont like laying down too many rules/guidelines, because we dont want to stifle any budding creativity because historically, people get afraid from jumping in and starting because they dont want to get yelled at for not coloring between the lines.

We love both you guys, and your work, as do all the readers looking stuff up. Lets learn to work together, and harness both your unique views on "how things should be" into improving, rather then squabble over the minutia du jour. Life is short, EQ2 is a game, stop and smell the roses, take a screenshot, and move on with your day :) And always wear sunscreen. -- Uberfuzzy ( talk ) 23:22, November 24, 2012 (UTC)

Picture changes and quest givers. Edit

I apologize for bothering you guys yet again. However, McJeff has gone through and removed a bunch of the questgiver pictures that I had added in order to help those that don't necessarily complete quests on the same day that they are received. He maintains that pictures use too much memory for the in-game browser, but if that is the case, why do we have pictures on the NPC page?

So my main question is this: As admins, would you all prefer that the pictures stay on the quest pages, or would you prefer that the user just use the NPCs map coordinates?

Thank you for your time. Necrotherian ( talk ) 16:19, December 2, 2012 (UTC)

I think we have a more complicated issue here and I'd like to address it in depth. I wanted to response here briefly so that you knew I'd seen it. Right now local time is about 11:30am on Sunday morning and I have some errands that I must run before I can answer this. I will be coming back in a few hours to respond to this more fully but my initial response is that I'm disappointed. This kind of thing isn't something we enjoy dealing with. We're all here to help with the wiki and we'd like you to get along. All of you. I promise to come back and respond to this when my errands are finished.-- Kodia ( talk ) 16:33, December 2, 2012 (UTC)

I didn't want to have to bring it up to you. I'd prefer to bother you all as little as possible, and I try to look at things from others' perspectives. McJeff removed the pictures (to the tune of 20 or more) from the quests. He didn't put a comment in the talk discussing whether the pictures were necessary, he just took it upon himself to remove them. I reverted a few, and explained the justification for reversion, but there seems to be no middle ground. I am appealing to you (the admins) to decide whether you think the pictures of questgivers within the quest pages is useful, or not. I am willing to abide by the result of the admins' consensus; I just need to know what that consensus is.

Again, thank you for your time, and I apologize if I have caused you all any trouble. Necrotherian ( talk ) 23:54, December 2, 2012 (UTC)

Gentlemen, in general when a conflict comes up at the wiki, we attempt to resolve it with consensus of discussion. When that avenue fails, we are forced to resolve it with our standards and guidelines. In the time since our standards and guidelines were originally implemented, the quality and abilities of the EQ2 game interface have changed. Some of the guiding assumptions for our page creation and formatting decisions (I am specifically not using the words guidelines or standards here) were related to those early abilities of the user interface. Some of those abilities are no longer relevant.

In a case such as this, when multiple users have a clear difference of opinion on a major factor that affects the appearance and presentation of information that all users access, we resort to the standards and guidelines first, and failing that, we resort to the pillars by which Wikipedia was founded, unless there is compelling and overwhelming evidence that a for-pay institution such as Wikia does not clearly fit the guidelines of such an institution. In those instances, we create a new standard or guideline to help the EQ2 wiki accomplish what it needs to with as LITTLE NEW STANDARD AS POSSIBLE. For those of you in the United States, this would be paramount to amending the United States constitution. In the history of the US, there have only been 27 amendments, 1 of which was subsequently repealed. I must ask you once again if you two can come to some sort of agreement before we begin the process of amending the standards and guidelines of the wiki.

Please ask yourselves these questions:

Are the original assumptions that guided your decision to edit the wiki still valid? If so, why or why not?
Are you asking for a decision on this issue based on emotion or ego?
HOW MUCH DOES IT REALLY MATTER if your information remains as you edited it or if it is changed by someone else?

I do not expect answers to these questions from you and I will in no way judge you based on your answers to them. You are in no way required to share your logic or reasoning with me in any way. These questions are merely things I would like you to think about. If, however, after seriously considering these questions for 24 hours, then on Tuesday, December 4, at approximately 3pm EST, I will being the process of creating a new standard or guideline related to this issue.

I am happy to do so. Please do no acquiesce to any perceived opinion on my part. My role as an administrator here is merely to guide the wiki's development and to share any historical logic that I am aware of. If you wish to have a new standard created here, please let me know here and I will make it happen for you both.-- Kodia ( talk ) 01:23, December 3, 2012 (UTC)

Let me make sure I understand the issue correctly. Images of NPCs were being added to quest pages by one user but then removed by another, and the issue is whether or not there is a need for quest give NPC images on quest articles, is that correct? The discussion seems to be spread across a number of talk pages, so I want to make sure I'm understanding the issue before I weigh in. -- lordebon ( talk ) 01:49, December 3, 2012 (UTC)

Here's my perspective of what happened.

I was editing and noticed a large amount of pointless NPC images added to articles. I removed them. Necrotherian took umbrage.

The disagreement then moved from "should quest articles have images" to "what should NPC images look like".

When I first started editing this wiki, I was taught by the administrators here that the way to take screenshots was to get the full body and name of the NPC or monster in question, and get the image as high-res as possible. Necrotherian, however, has declared that images must be 180 x 252 p . This has never been policy, rule, or recommendation. It's something concocted by Necrotherian and only Necrotherian - after he unilaterally decided that quest articles need images of NPCs he made this declaration, based on the fact that 180x252 images distort the least when added to the quest template (which he's the only person who wanted to do that anyway). He's ordered me to never overwrite his images and referred to "repairing the damage I caused".

After I linked him to Help:Screenshots , which is the closest thing we have to an Image Policy, he declared that he'll listen to the admins but he won't even discuss things with me [1] .

He's also currently adding improper icons to images. I tried to explain to him how icons work, he informed me that he knew what he was doing, and since he wasn't taking screenshots the way he was doing it was appropriate. [2] .

While writing this post and compiling diffs , I noticed that he had this exact same argument, both over NPC-images-in-quest-templates and over the 180x252 headshot NPC images he demands with another editor, Rittmeister64.

The problem here is that Necrotherian's NPC-images-in-quest-articles thing has resulted in a few very large changes to the wiki that no one ever agreed to, and yet he takes offense when his sweeping changes are reverted.

As for my part in all this, I did indeed remove NPC images from many articles without waiting for discussion, and I did reupload images over top of his low resolution 180x252 headshots - for example I replaced his version of Zeeil.png with this one . I think what I did was encouraged by the policies and guidelines as they're currently written.

I actually have complaints about Necrotherian's conduct, but they'll have to wait until tomorrow, it's late here. Jeff ( talk | stalk ) 03:29, December 3, 2012 (UTC)

Well, after reading the above here's my thoughts:

Regarding NPC images on Quest pages, I really don't see much point in them, but at the same time unless they cause a major issue (e.g., adding large amounts of whitespace to the article) I don't have an issue with them. We've had the image capability on quests for ages, but I don't think we use it for anything so now it just ends up as a bit of whitespace that maybe we can find a way to use more constructively in expanding the quest information table at the top or something. That's a good potential topic for a forum discussion, but as far as this issue is concerned my opinion is that adding the images to the quest pages is optional and allowable when not detramental.
Regarding the size of NPC images, we have not had a fixed size requirement and a fixed requirement based on an optional use on quest pages (which may or may not change in the future) is impractical and unadvisable. We have the help page which offers some suggestions but there are no binding requirements other than wanting as much of the NPC as possible. Perhaps it's time we add an images policy to clarify what is suggestion and what is requirement (things like no SOGA, no tagging, etc.). With that said, changing images to make them ideally fit an optional use is a bit of a waste of effort in my eyes, but unless the new images is made significantly worse (such as cutting the NPC off, lower quality, etc.) or otherwise conflict with a requirement I don't see a major issue with it. There is no ownership of an NPC's image on the wiki, everything is a collaborative effort. In the case McJeff gives, I see no issue with the new image that contains the full NPC being uploaded over the old one. The properly named NPC image should be the full image per the help page, if someone wants to add one to the quest page that is more cut down it can be uploaded to a different name, bandwidth is not an issue.
Regarding icons, wholesale copying of anything from another site is unacceptable. It looks like EQ2U uses images that are actually provided by SOE and then simply placed over an appropriate background: for example, this cloak 's icon is actually hosted at a SOE data feed . While that's likely intended for the community to use, without knowing for sure we really shouldn't just copy the icons, especially since they do not match the rest of the icons we use on the wiki which have a background to them. Uberfuzzy or Kodia might be able to give more information on whether using icons from the feed is acceptable to SOE or not since they are the ones with contact at SOE, but until we know otherwise I would say assume it is unacceptable to copy the icons, and either way it is preferred to get properly-backgrounded icons.

I think that touches on the three main issues at hand. -- lordebon ( talk ) 22:12, December 4, 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for considering the matter fairly.

I doubt this issue will come up again with me involved, because after today, I'm limiting my picture usage to those that are already on the site. I'll still contribute content - just not picture uploads. I think that is probably the best for everyone involved.

Thank you for your time, Necrotherian ( talk ) 00:49, December 5, 2012 (UTC)

Personally I would hope to keep you involved as much as possible but I certainly respect your wishes. I think we at least need guidelines or points to consider regarding images. We have history to overcome and history to make ourselves with them. If you don't mind, I'd like to incorporate some of your commentary and that of the other commenters into a guideline (rather than a policy) and see where that takes us. Would anyone reading this object to that course of action? If so, why? If not, why not?-- Kodia ( talk ) 04:15, December 5, 2012 (UTC)

I think copying the same pics to the quest page that you can see anyway when you click on the name of the questgiver is boring and redundant. If you think there are pictures needed for certain quests put them up, but it should generally be something other than the same questgiver capture. For example pic of a cave-entrance, pic of a hard boss during the quest, a map, a nice scenery shot if you happen to need to go to an instance or some-such things that make a bit of sense. Rittmeister64 ( talk ) 06:17, December 5, 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Lordebon on the images and Kodia on proceeding. I do not think that we need a policy on this. The guidelines give a good enough guidance and worked since launch. On the pictures in quests i agree with Rittmeister64 and Lordebon that it is redundant if it doesnt offer any essential information. That said, i wouldn't mind having the pictures there if the fit with Lordebon's criteria. I would prefer to have a picture there though if the questgiver is difficult to identify, hidden or an object that you might not find ingame easily (i.e. quest says, talk to the strange Froglok and the NPC is an Ogre). -- Xinturaia ( talk ) 07:20, December 5, 2012 (UTC)

I no longer have an opinion about image upload requirements, since I won't be uploading any. The only thing I could add is that the icon naming could perhaps be a bit more intuitive. (For example, the tombstone icon is called File:Icon_stone_formation_01_(Common).png . Yes, it is a stone formation, but, unless I'm mistaken, nowadays the first time most will see that icon is with the Your future tomb stone item. Thus the icon name should probably adhere to the most common usage of the icon.) This would probably reduce the number of duplicate icons, since there are 4773 files containing the word icon on this site - as of the date/time of this message - and some people won't be willing to search through all of those before just deciding that it doesn't exist and uploading one; this just compounds the problem. Necrotherian ( talk ) 00:03, December 6, 2012 (UTC)

If you use the icon subcategories to look for appropriate icons, it shouldn't be anywhere near so difficult as you make it sound to find an individual icon. For furniture icons, for example, you're only looking through Category:Furniture Icons , which has only 180 rather than 4700+. To be blunt, I didn't have such difficulties with icons and neither did any of the other new editors who decided to tackle icons rather than let the templates use default icons, so I don't think the problem is the icon naming system. Jeff ( talk | stalk ) 02:04, December 6, 2012 (UTC)

Except that I am not just having to look through Category:Furniture Icons , I'm also having through Category:Item Icons , Category:Food Icons , and sometimes even Category:Equipment Icons to find the icon that matches the in-game one. Sometimes, it isn't even in those, and I'm forced to try the photo utility that shows 8 at a time - hoping that I can choose a keyword that happens to bring the right icon up. Sometimes, that doesn't even work, and I have to jump on EQ2, find an item with a similar icon, and hope that the item on here has the icon (and it usually doesn't). You and some other editors don't have an issue with the current naming system? That is awesome, but it doesn't follow that nobody will. (Btw, if it was so easy to find the icons, why are there still game items from 2004-2006 missing icons?) Regardless, if I can't find the icon after about 3-4 minutes of searching for it, the article can post without an icon, I'll stop following the article so I don't get email spam about it, and someone more "icon-savvy" can do what they want with it. Is that acceptable to everyone? Necrotherian ( talk ) 02:51, December 6, 2012 (UTC)

actually i do agree that fiding item/equipment icons is a pita. Nowadays the icons are not restricted to a few equipment designs like a choice of 10 helms, gloves etc. like it used to be. Like the quest rewards for CoE Collections have icons like shards, stones, shinies etc. but not much similarities with other equipment. Furthermore, many of these icons are not even on the wiki yet. Also i am unsure about the .png or .jpg for icons. Most seem to be .png but i couldn't find a clear naming logic or file requirements either. Are there any specific requirements for icons? For the sorting i think it might be helpful to add the category (Icons) to all Icons so they are all visibile in the main category page and you dont have to browse through all sub- and subsub-categories to maybe get a lucky find. -- Xinturaia ( talk ) 08:21, December 20, 2012 (UTC)

Hopefully, after I get done going through all the tradeskill recipes (assuming nobody else wants to pitch in) there will be a number of icons available in the different icon categories (because, unless I'm mistaken, if IconA is used with TypeB or SubTypeC, it will populate in the icon list for that type/subtype). As far as the main page icon list is concerned (although I could be wrong), I think it only populates that list if the item subtype is unspecified (again, this is just supposition on my part, so it could very well be wrong - without looking at the code, I couldn't say specifically what is being done behind the scenes with any degree of certainty). Necrotherian ( talk ) 18:39, December 20, 2012 (UTC)

reaping belt Edit

how do you use the reaping belt?? I have been trying to use it but it won't work. I need it to collect souls for a quest.

Izass-Lvl 11 Warlock Frogaz11 ( talk ) 19:54, December 16, 2012 (UTC)

Social media buttons Edit

please take a look at User talk:Chillispike#Social media buttons -- ( Talk ) 23:53, December 6, 2013 (UTC)

input welcome Edit

input welcome about TLE servers Talk:Admins#TLE Servers -- ( Talk ) 05:25, August 10, 2015 (UTC)

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