Talk:Main Page

Builds section?
Was thinking, could we add a builds section for build guides and thoughts?


 * Personally I'm opposed to builds on the wiki. They are much too subjective, and it inevitably leads to a huge number of guides where half only differ on some minor point the author thought was signficant enough to merit a new guide, and the other half is quirk builds that aren't relevant to the general public.
 * I'm not saying it can't be done properly, but it would require strict policing of quality and merging of similar builds. And we should definitely wait a few months even if we decide to go ahead, so there's time to properly evaluate skills and ideas. - Dashiva 16:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

(I am the OP). I think it would have to be very carefully constructed. Do we have a way of locking pages so that they can only be edited by the original author? Then, we can have the individual pages written and locked by their owners, and pages indexing these guides. I would also strongly recommend each guide being written for a particular edition of the TR game, as the devs have posted that this game will be episodic, as per CoX.


 * Dashiva, I understand your points here, and I can see why subjective builds might not fit in with the rest of the wiki's objective content. How would you feel about allowing builds (and perhaps other subjective meta-information) in a separate namespace?  We can add up to three custom namespaces for your wiki, and can call them anything you want:  Builds:, Custom: or Customization:, Player:, etc.


 * We can't lock pages for a particular user, but you could easily design templates (only used on subjective pages) that said either "this build/guide was started by Player X, please improve it" or "Player X would prefer not to have others edit this build/guide, please debate improvements on the talk page."  You can also use categories or navigation templates to group similar guides, and guides by the same player.


 * We really prefer not to have multiple wikis on the same subject, because it splits the potential audience and editor pools for both wikis -- it's always better to have all the enthusiasts in one place wherever possible. Also, guides are likely to want to link to game concepts (armor/weapons/skills/etc), so they'd either need to use  syntax like w:c:tabularasa:Skill name to create those links, or they'd end up trying to rebuild the content locally, which is an unnecessary duplication of effort.   Because of this we're inclined not to create the wiki requested at , but we'd like to hear your opinions about other options.  Thanks!  — Catherine (talk) 01:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There has been some talk here and there, quite fragmented. As far as I know, the current (unwritten) policy is that people are free to make guides in their user space and link them in the main space. When there is a worthwhile number of guides in place, I suppose we could consider a separate guide namespace, but until then it seems overengineering a non-existent problem. Having guides stay in user space for the time being also places responsibility to maintain the guide, which is highly desirable. - Dashiva (talk) 21:50, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As your community wishes, then.  :)  I just wanted to be sure you were aware of the custom namespace option, as a middle ground between a separate wiki and the userspace solution, or banning them altogether.   If community opinion changes over time, please feel free to contact any member of the Community Team about adding a namespace -- it takes only moments for us to set it up for you.  You folks are doing great things here -- please keep up the good work!  — Catherine (talk) 22:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Skills section?
I was wondering if we should add a skills section as in-game, skills are different than abilities, skills are what allows you to use certain equipment, while abilities are basically spells. Let me know what you guys think and I will get to work on ranger, sniper and spy skills.(and abilities) --Mwpeck 23:45, 23 June 2007 (EDT)
 * It's been a while since this was posted. Meanwhile both skill and training have been created and filled in. --Tetris L 03:04, 3 July 2007 (EDT)

Redesign
I intend to redesign the main page to mimic the look of the radial menu. The elements will be slightly different, because some elements that are important to have on the Main Page (such as armor, weapons, etc.) are not in the ingame radial menu. But many elements will be similar, and the overall look will be the same. What do you think? -- T ETRIS L 09:39, 5 July 2007 (EDT)
 * Looks like nobody cares, or those who care are too busy to comment. I'll go for it tomorrow. You've been warned. ;) -- T ETRIS L 14:01, 8 July 2007 (EDT)
 * Well, in wiki there's nothing like going ahead and doing it to draw people to a discussion :) At first blush I found it a little friendlier than the old look.  I've found everything I wanted in a handy location so far, so a thumbs up from me at least.Zerr 21:23, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Making image links to articles is not very easy with MediaWiki. On Heroeswiki.com there is already workaround template for it: http://heroeswiki.com/Template:Imagelink useful for someone wanting to finish the idea.
 * → Zarevak 23:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It used to be a pain, but thanks to the imagemap extension it's now practically a walk in the park. I could whip up a template if there's interest. - Dashiva 00:23, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

To Far Ahead on Templates?
So I was going to get to work on doing some of the armor pages, was browsing the templates currently in place...I don't know wtf is going on w/ them haha, feels like I'm having to reverse engy them. Is there a guide to current templates that I'm missing somewhere? chillinvillain 19:28, 24 July 2007 (EDT)
 * Most of the templates used on TaRapedia so far have been created by me. A list is one of the many things I've been working on, to be added to TaRapedia:Formatting. Sorry, I've been on vacation for almost 2 weeks, but now i'm back, and working on this stuff with highest priority. -- T ETRIS L 16:17, 26 July 2007 (EDT)

Can We Add a "What We Need" Section to the Main Page?
such as:


 * I agree that we should point new contributors towards high priority subjects. Not sure if the Main Page is a good place for it though. I'd prefer a "second level" page like the Community Portal or the Help page. I'll think about it. -- T ETRIS L  16:21, 26 July 2007 (EDT)
 * I'm good for that too, but i think something on the mainpage (while we are building at least) would show people where to head ;o chillinvillain 17:55, 26 July 2007 (EDT)
 * Yes, a "Call for Help" on the main page is definetly warranted. We have 300+ registered users, but only a handful of them have done editorial content edits. I'll work on this over the weekend. Feel free to join in and write a draft. -- T ETRIS L 17:59, 26 July 2007 (EDT)
 * Something along the lines of:
 * "Tarapedia soldiers! We need some help fleshing out our little wiki! If you know how to use wiki, or just want to help, head over to the Community portal and see what needs doing. /salute"
 * CV 18:08, 26 July 2007 (EDT)


 * Also, perhaps for us 'newer' beta members (such as myself) - where our area of expertise in game mechanics lacks, how we as a whole can best contribute. I'm going to assume you wouldn't want basic copy&paste from the official TR site (ie, mob info - although, once the game is a bit more familiar, additions could be made like, resistances, weaknesses, etc). Some things that spring to mind currently are: hotkeys (ie, Shift+R) - I see that /slash commands are added (awesome), but those hotkeys can definitely help with those in the current environment. Also....known bugs? I know that already exists on the primary TR forums, however those forums are a bit busy:). Those are just some thoughts/whatnot - please don't hurt me :) --Reisu 22:43, 16 August 2007 (EDT)

Crafting
With crafting coming in with the latest patch (yeay!) would it constitute having its own header on the main page as opposed to users having to look it up in skills? I would assume it will be quite bulky and would warrant a category all of its own... It will definitely be something I intend to research and document heavily --RickiusMaximus 06:38, 22 August 2007 (EDT)

Work on the crafting guide has begun- can I get a link on the mainpage under the characters and items??? --RickiusMaximus 11:14, 30 August 2007 (EDT)


 * Hey Rickius. I would add it for you if I could, but I'm not able.  I am trying to get some attention directed here, however. - Snorii 15:16, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

Featured articles
Does the site have any articles that are ripe for featuring? It might be a section to add to the Main Page, plus Wikia would like to show a few off elsewhere :) Kirkburn (talk) 15:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As I've had no responses I'm starting up TaRapedia:Featured content, based upon the Mass Effect Wiki . Shouldn't take me too long to get it set up. Kirkburn (talk) 15:52, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Community links
Another little topic - there's no community related links on the front page. For example, if you see the Main Page of the BioShock wiki - http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page - it has some "getting started" links to help out new editors. You may want to implement something similar? Kirkburn (talk) 15:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Related to that, I see you aren't using the forum here? A wiki-forum is a good way to communicate within the community here...  You have the standard "helpdesk" and "watercooler" at the moment, but you could easily change this to something more game-specific -- sannse (talk) 18:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Rebumping this :P The Main Page could really do with some TaRapedia community related links. I shall add a small link to the community portal, which could mostly suffice, but more would probably be a good idea. Kirkburn (talk) 01:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Rival wiki
There appears to be another Tabula Rasa Wiki. Personally, I think the TaRapedia is better! Would it be worth joining forces? 87.113.76.153 23:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it's been around since the middle of September as I recall. Of course everyone is welcome here, the more the merrier, but considering how long it's been it doesn't seem likely they'll come knocking now all of a sudden. And based on the no-anon policy and a scan of the recentchanges page, it looks like a small, tight-knit group of people. It's fully possible they just want to make their own wiki and don't care too much about who is best or biggest. I expect TonyV has been in touch with them one way or another, but he doesn't seem to be around to tell us about it. - Dashiva 01:11, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Main page redesign
I did a small makeover on the main page. Nothing major, but if there's anything you don't like, speak up. - Dashiva 06:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * font is kinda big. i liked tha fact that the older page was all in... one page. also some minor mis-alignment issues.--Stargrazer 00:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikia Gaming footer
Hullo! I'm Kirkburn, a Wikia Gaming Helper, and I just added the Wikia Gaming footer to your Main Page. We are adding these to encourage cross linking and a better sense of community between wikis. Feel free to mess around with the links and tweak the design to better fit your wiki (unless you make it pink with polka dots, in which case I reserve the right to cry). Thanks! Kirkburn (talk) 18:35, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikia Gaming IRC channel
Hullo! I am Kirkburn, your friendly local Wikia Gaming Helper!

You may be interested to know there is a Wikia gaming IRC channel, #wikia-gaming on chat.freenode.net, where you can hop on, ask for help from users of other gaming wikis, or offer your own experiences. If you are not familiar with IRC clients, you can access it from http://irc.wikia.com/gaming.

Different people may be on sporadically, but we organize weekly chats at a fixed time so we can get the most number of people online at the same time to ask and answer questions, or just to hang out. The admins of some of Wikia's biggest gaming wikis (e.g. WoW, Halo) often attend them. You can find the time for the next chat by following this link.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me! Kirkburn (talk) 11:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Optimizing the usage of DPL
Hi folks, I'm PanSola, a Wikia Helper. I am dropping by to chat about DPL (Dynamic Page List) usage practices. This site is among one of the most popular Wikia wikis that use a large number of DPL calls, and as DPL queries can sometimes pose quit a load on the servers, being careful with the usage of DPL can help improve the general user experience at Wikia.

One of the most simple ways to reduce the demand of DPL on the servers is to enable caching of the results. The more often a page with DPL calls get viewed, the greater the effect caching has. And so on a popular wiki such as this one, enabling caching is likely to help reduce the server load quite a bit.

Unfortunately there is a downside: caching means the results won't immediately update when information on the wiki changes. Sometimes the information can be out of sync by several hours. If you are worried about technical accuracy, you can place a note warning the visitors "new changes may not be updated immediately". For mission-critical usages of DPL that are time-sensitive such that any delay is unacceptable, enabling caching wouldn't be a good idea.

I'll drop by again later with more tips on how to improve server performance via optimizing DPL usage. If you have any questions, concerns, or think it's a good idea but need help implementing the change, feel free to discuss here. If you need a fast response from me, please ping me on my talk page (but still keep the main discussion here, so everything is in one place). Thanks. (you can also check out more tips here). -User:PanSola(talk/history) 22:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * For starters, could someone provide a tool (e.g. special page) that lists which pages use DPL? It's sort of difficult to search for. Many of our uses can be cached, but I would prefer to apply a cache policy consistently. - Dashiva (talk) 22:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * a special page is probably not going to happen, but as a one-time thing, a list of pages currently using DPL can be acquired, and I've made a request for such a list. -User:PanSola(talk/history) 21:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Logos location standard
Why are logos locations listed as x,z,y? convention for 3D coordiantes are normaly discribed as x,y,z, especially in games. couldnt see anything specific in game, so why was x,z,y chosen?121.44.254.177 13:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Compatability with the real world users. Most importantly, the map only shows longitude and latitude, so most people will (naturally) assign those to x and y axes. This leaves height as the z axis. It's also in line with the legacy of 2.5D games with no real third axis. The intricasies of 3D graphics and coordinate spaces are quite simply not something that concerns regular players. - Dashiva (talk) 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Main page layout and site skin
Hi all, your friendly local Wikia Gaming helper here!

I've been working on a new main page layout. Hopefully you have read about the skin and ad changes at Wikia's New Style on Central Wikia. If not, I hope you'll have a look.

One of the changes is a block of two ads on each main page. It's possible that they won't always show up, but to ensure your main page continues to work properly when they do, you need to update your main page column formatting code with new column tags.

I have drafted a main page using the new tags on User:Kirkburn/Dev which I hope you can take a look at - feel free to edit it of course. The main change to the layout is the fixed width of the right column. This still allows a lot of customisation - for example see these main pages - w:c:muppet, w:c:wowwiki, w:c:ffxi.

If you encounter any problems with the new tags, please let me know.

You also need to consider the move to Monaco skin. I plan to try and recreate the monobook skin as best as possible over the next few days - I'm from WoWWiki and have a lot of experience with making the dark skin for it, so I shall work from that as a base. For examples of customisation, see Memory Alpha, Millitary Wikia, Rappelz or even (if you really want to see what can be done) UK Transport Wikia.

Thanks, Kirkburn (talk) 15:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've been working on the custom monaco theme - see for an example. Kirkburn (talk) 13:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If there are no objections, I would like to put the main page layout live asap. Kirkburn (talk) 16:05, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I have put the new layout live - the design should still be very familiar, and I've cleaned it up a little. Kirkburn (talk) 15:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the skin, if there are no objections, I would also like to put that live soon. It may need a few more tweaks, but mostly it's done. Kirkburn (talk) 15:44, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * As there've been no objections, I have put the new skin live - you can edit it on MediaWiki:Monaco.css. Kirkburn (talk) 23:40, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikia name
Question: Why did we choose the name, and the nomenclature 'TaRaPedia'? Readingwhatyousaid 07:05, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Welcome to Tarapedia (I don't know, why the name is Tarapedia - I'm not an original admin) → Zarevak 16:41, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay I was just wondering?
 * 1) Who were the founders that decided on the name?
 * 2) When was the initial decision made?
 * 3) What is the 'actual' name? Tarapedia?  TaRapedia?  TaRaPedia?  Other?
 * What I have so far:
 * The About TaRaPedia webpage was never written from the initial population from Twadmin on 04:06, 21 June 2007. Maybe this is what I'm trying to do then.  That would be cool. Readingwhatyousaid 00:52, 5 January 2009 (UTC)


 * There were actually two wikis: TRwiki (created on wikia) and TaRapedia (created elsewhere) and were merged together. This merge was done in the beta times. I became admin after Tabula Rasa launched because the original admins have left.
 * Some information about people behind these wikis: TaRapedia:Administrators - for more information look at their user pages and talk pages.
 * Tarapedia? TaRapedia?  TaRaPedia?
 * The page title in the browser Window says TaRapedia.
 * The wiki namespace for related content is TaRapedia
 * Category containing articles about is Category:Tarapedia
 * Template for displaying the name is Tarapedia
 * Because of the title, TaRapedia namespace and looks of the logo I vote for TaRapedia.
 * BTW: Correct About article is TaRapedia:About.
 * → Zarevak 12:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * PS: Now, when I look at it TaRapedia looks weird :(

The Planet
Please see here, The Planet is archiving all TR discussion as "memories of TR" it is no longer a TR fansite and is now concentrating on crap like star wars instead and "moving on". There's no real reason to link to it as everything that is there is on the main forum anyway. RE: your talk page message before I don't actually own either site so it's not a case of wanting only "my site" up there! ;) --kittenofdoom 01:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The site owner of the forum link I added has complained about us linking to him saying his forum isn't for Tabula Rasa anymore either ("my forums will be changing over the next couple of weeks/months, and will no longer be "Tabula Rasa" focused"" "with most of the TR stuff being archived of") so I've removed it out of courtesy (even though he has shown me none previously with childish actions and clown-like "i has a banhammer" shoutbox gloating elsewhere :rolleyes:) --kittenofdoom 18:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)