TaRapedia talk:Community Portal

The next few steps
Okay, now that TonyV (May we call you Tony?) has set up the server amd copied the stuff over from Wikia we're ready to go. Now, what's next? Because of my experience with GuildWiki I've got a pretty clear picture in my head what is necessary to run a large wiki about an MMORPG. I guess the same goes for Tony.

These are the next steps, as I see them:
 * 1) Redesign the Main Page. As far as I understand, the Main Page will remain public, so all references to confidential stuff must be removed. It'll merely be a portal to enter the real thing. Things such as "News" and "Development Status" are not needed. Remove all references to Wikia. Add an explanation why the wiki is not public and how to obtain an account.
 * 2) Set up a second Main Page behind the first one. This will be the actual Main Page for registered contributors with all the main navigation links.
 * 3) Set up a basic newbie wiki guide how to add and edit articles. This can probably be copied over from some other wiki, with minor modification.
 * 4) Agree on some basic overall policies and formatting standards (article naming, categories, ...).
 * 5) Create specific formatting guides and templates for all the main things we're going to keep track of, such as:
 * 6) *Creatures
 * 7) *Quests
 * 8) *Weapons
 * 9) *Armor
 * 10) *Locations
 * 11) *Skills/Abilities
 * 12) *etc.
 * 13) Let the contributors start filling in!

I'll be away for a weekend vacation and won't be able to help with this until Monday. But this shouldn't stop you from proceeding. --Tetris L 03:47, 22 June 2007 (EDT)


 * Yup, Tony works great!
 * These are good thoughts, I'll start working on some of them tonight and this weekend. --TonyV 09:52, 22 June 2007 (EDT)
 * These are good thoughts, I'll start working on some of them tonight and this weekend. --TonyV 09:52, 22 June 2007 (EDT)


 * I see you've done some modification. I think we should point the tabulawiki.com index towards a page that is not the Main Page, but a page that has only a very brief explanation why the access to the wiki is restricted, and how to gain access. The Main Page should be a read-protected page, because this will be the main navigation page for registered users, and it would be quite hard to keep it free of confidential information at all times. --Tetris L 17:58, 24 June 2007 (EDT)


 * I agree. Right now, http://tabulawiki.com/index.php is a redirect to the main wiki page.  What I'm thinking of doing is putting up a static page as the front page to the wiki that doesn't redirect, and completely locking down the site's main page (at http://tabulawiki.com/wiki/index.php ) just like all the other pages.  I kind of hate to do that, because it means that the public won't have access to the wiki at all, but they don't have access to much at all right now anyway, and it seems to make the most sense to me.


 * Once the NDA is lifted and the site goes live for the public, we can re-establish the redirect. What do you think?  --TonyV 18:18, 24 June 2007 (EDT)


 * Yeah, that's exactly what I had in mind. --Tetris L 19:02, 24 June 2007 (EDT)


 * Tony, have you had the chance to put the static front page yet? I'm still able to access the Main Page, even if I'm not logged in. I'd like to modify the look and content of the front page and put some stuff on it that may be considered confidential, so anonymous users must not be able to view it. It'd be great if you could make this possible. --Tetris L 03:09, 3 July 2007 (EDT)


 * Okay, I've secured all pages except for the login page and the CSS template so that the public can't access them. Anything changed on the main page will only be viewable by someone who logs in.  I also replaced the home page with a note saying that if someone wants access they need to PM me, and put a link to the wiki for people who have already received an account name and password.  I didn't spend a whole heck of a lot of time making the home page pretty; if you want to change it, feel free.  (It's in index.php.)  --TonyV 11:32, 3 July 2007 (EDT)

Name and look
The name "Tarapedia", the color scheme and the basic layout was my design, but it's merely a draft, and if people don't like it, we should dump it. Actually, since the name and look is already in use on Wikia I think we should not use it here. Or, if people like it and want to keep it, I'll go back to Wikia and change it there. I'm fine with both. Discuss. --Tetris L 03:52, 22 June 2007 (EDT)


 * I was going to ask you about that. I don't want to blatantly rip off Wikia.  How much of the design was your work, and how much was theirs?  I assume that the color scheme is yours, but are there things that they specifically helped you with?  I can start working on a redesign if you want.  I designed the "Hero" skin at the Paragon Wiki, and though I'm sure it could be better, it didn't turn out half bad, if I do say so myself.  :-)  The bulk of the customization is just changing the color scheme and some of the graphics.  --TonyV 18:22, 24 June 2007 (EDT)


 * Well, they didn't really help with anything, at least not regarding look/design. The graphics are my work, so we are free to copy them here and I can go back and change it on wikia. The only thing that was "inspired" by an other wikia is the color scheme. It is based on the color scheme of the Warhammer Online wikia, but I asked the head admin of that wikia for permission to copy it and he told me that he got it from some other wiki. And I was thionking about changing it to the color scheme of the official forum/website anyway. See this page. --Tetris L 20:18, 24 June 2007 (EDT)


 * I actually think that a black (or dark color)-on-white (or light color) scheme for the content section would work better.  The main reason why is because when you print the pages, they will come out black-on-white no matter what color scheme you use.  However, with the dark background, it can be misleading what your printout will look like.  For example, some folks might try to tailor images so that they show up best against the dark background, and manually use #21232c as their background color.  On the web, that would look fine, but when you print it out, it will be an ugly black block with the image inside.


 * If you use a dark-on-light scheme, though, if someone does this, it's still not perfect, but it would look much better when printed out. This would be especially relevant to guides and such.  I'd like to use the same content area color scheme that Monobook does, but customize the background, frames, and such to be Tabula Rasa-specific, using the reddish colors their forums do, instead of the neutral gray that Monobook is.


 * P.S. I really like the logo. :) --TonyV 09:16, 25 June 2007 (EDT)


 * So, after more than two weeks of "testing", how do you feel about the name and look? Do we keep the name "Tarapedia"? Do we keep the color scheme? I've done a little clean-up of the TR wikia, reset the color scheme to default and removed all references to the name TaRapedia. I doubt that the wikia admins will revert my move, because these things were 100% created by me, so we should be free to use the look and especially the name now. IF we decide to keep the name I'd maybe like to register www.tarapedia.com/org. Tony, do you have a cheap domain name registration provider? How much would it cost us? -- T ETRIS L 14:54, 9 July 2007 (EDT)
 * The logo and the name is great. The color scheme, however, should be changed to something more TRish. At least that's my opinion. I'd also like to ask if there's a possibility to add custom CSS tags. Because right now, I'm building a new and rather advanced Icon template that will allow implementation of quality to items (gray, green, blue and purple) with background colors. Check it out here --Mekwall 00:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Mekwall. Tetris L have retired and TonyV is busy and not active on the wiki. The active admins are currently Dashiva and me.
 * You can modify CSS four your account in your monobook.css. If we see your changes worthy we can move them to the global monobook.css
 * Before the Christmas holiday I was working on recreating item tooltips from the game with a plan to add them to item links (would need JavaScript, haven't tried that yet). The current work is currently in my sandbox.
 * If you need any help, leave a message on my talk page
 * → Zarevak 03:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * PS: As for the Image move requests. MediaWiki doesn't support image moves and the image needs to be downloaded and reuploaded again and this doesn't need any special permissions or tools ;-) If the old image is not needed anymore mark it with  REASON FOR DELETION .

Forums?
Do we want to set up our own forums? If so, the way I see it, we have one of two choices. The first is to use the MediaWiki forums extension. The second is to use external forums software, such as phpBB, along with an authentication bridge so that everyone doesn't have two logins and passwords. Or do we just want to post messages on talk pages such as this one? --TonyV 09:19, 25 June 2007 (EDT)


 * I think the forums would server no real purpose. On a wiki all you need is the talk pages. --Tetris L 10:09, 25 June 2007 (EDT)


 * Oh, I disagree. Talk pages make it hard to talk at length about any subject that applies to the wiki as a whole instead of specific articles.  Conversations tend to get spread across a bunch of pages, and once the discussion reaches any decent length, it gets very hard to read and add to conversations.


 * Also, talk pages are hardly ever monitored. This morning, I've made a few changes to some pages in trying to standardize on the formats of articles, but unless someone happens to pull that particular article up, and further, go to that specific article's talk page, the conversation would be completely ignored.  Right now, we can kinda sorta monitor it through the Recent changes page, but once people really start hammering edits into the wiki, monitoring conversations that way will become impossible.


 * Talk pages are great for making short notes about specific articles, but for more lengthy conversations, we definitely need some kind of forums set up. At the very least, I think we need Formatting, Requested Articles, and a General Discussion forum.  --TonyV 08:56, 26 June 2007 (EDT)


 * Hmmm ... my experience on GuildWiki was different, and GuildWiki was extremely busy at times. Discussions that applied to the wiki as a whole were typically held on the Community Portal talk page, the Main Page talk page, or a Formatting or Policy talk page (whatever matched the topic best), and we never really saw the need for a forum. Quite the opposite: Actually, GuildWiki had a forum for some time, but we decided to close it down, because it was a ghosttown, and never really used or checked. All the main contributors did regular patrol of the Recent Changes, or put the relevant talk pages on their watchlist, so it was quite easy to keep track of the important discussion topics right on the wiki. Splitting the discussion up into two places would have been detrimental.
 * Anyway ... if you think that a forum is needed and useful, feel free to set one up. I'll try to keep in mind to check it every now and then. ;) --Tetris L 09:17, 26 June 2007 (EDT)

Standardization
We need to get an acceptable standardization for articles going. Here are a few semi-random notes... --TonyV 09:37, 26 June 2007 (EDT)
 * The native resolution of the item images is 64 pixels x 64 pixels, and they do have an alpha channel. For best results, I think we need to use it in PNG files.  Yes, this means that IE users who haven't upgraded to IE 7 yet will see a gray box background instead of transparency, but 1) that's not so bad, and 2) I don't want to sacrifice the quality of the articles or expend a lot of time and effort on broken browsers.  As time goes on, fewer and fewer people will be affected.
 * I don't think we need a MissionItem template. All it's doing right now is labeling the image, which is already done in a standardized way using the caption mechanism within the wiki.  If there's a significant advantage to creating a different caption style, I'd be for it, but I really don't see a significant functional difference between a normal image caption and the MissionTemplate caption, and I'd like to keep things as standardized as possible.  Also, right now, it's not really needed.  All it does is state what the object is, which should be readily apparent by the page title.  Truth be known, I don't think we need any sort of caption on the image at all, as shown in the Detonator Charge article.
 * I noticed in the mission template, there is an experience point and credits reward listed. Does this vary?  (I'm asking; I don't know, really.)  I'll test this out when I can get a chance.  If it does, we probably need to just make a note the experience is rewarded, or even remove it completely.
 * I've got a few other things, but I'm still hashing them out in my head, and I've got to go. I'll post more later...


 * First of all, I totally agree that we need to agree on certain formatting standards. This should be the very first thing that should be done before large amounts of data are being put into the wiki, because if you change something later it's a lot of work to change it many many articles.
 * I've got no general problem with 64x64. My only comment would be that in some places 64px is much too large. Check the usage of the template, for example on the Skill and ability list. In the icon template the icons are only 25px in order not to increase row spacing too much.
 * The main purpose of the MissionItem template is to allow the user to set up a mission item article very quickly. Usually there is not much to say about such items anyway. And the template includes automatic categorization, which is easily forgotten by many users.
 * The experience and credit reward for missions varies very widely, so I think it should definetly be listed! The annyoing thing about the XP reward is that it isn't mentioned anywhere in the mission briefing or log. You have to pay attention for the number appearing briefly above your character's head when you claim the reward. What I'm not quite happy with is the fact that the XP and credit reward is split from the reward items. We should either put the items into the template box or remove all rewards and put them into the text.
 * As a last comment: The discussion we're having here should be moved to TaRapedia talk:Formatting. :) Keeping the discussions in the relevant place helps to keep track of them. (Yes, I'm a smartass. ;)) --Tetris L 10:02, 26 June 2007 (EDT)

Category names? Singular vs. Plural

 * The following discussion has been moved to TaRapedia talk:Formatting/Article names

Top 10 featured tasks [Discussion]
-- CV 19:45, 28 July 2007 (EDT)
 * Fleshing out of
 * Skill and ability list
 * Armor List
 * Fully Developed
 * Tools
 * Special:Wantedpages gives a pretty good idea too -- CV 14:40, 29 July 2007 (EDT)

Completed Tasks

 * Template:enemy-- CV 20:22, 14 August 2007 (EDT)

Post-release Wiki
I think I've heard there will be an official TR wiki on (or shortly after) release. A non-official wiki has already been started (but is content-less at the moment since it isn't beta-secure) at http://tr.enterwiki.net. Are there plans to maintain this wiki after release or move its content elsewhere? As I plan to be a heavy post-release contributor, I'm trying to plan ahead now.

I talked to cuppajo last week and and NC Soft is definitely NOT building an official wiki. She gave her full support to this wiki! angies (talk) 21:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The NDA is down
They've announced the NDS is down, and we can now discuss the game openly. I propose opening to the public. http://www.playtr.com/news/latest_news/afs_intel_declassified.html Petre 16:23, 6 September 2007 (EDT)

Gaming wiki chat this Sunday!
Hi all,

On Sunday October 14th there is going to be an IRC chat for gaming wikis at the #wikia-gaming channel. Contributors, admins, and foudners of all/all gaming-related wiki on Wikia are invited to discuss common issues that we might have, sharing our experiences, and helping each other out. The time of the chat will be:

Please help to spread the word, and hope to see you there!

-User:PanSola 16:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki changes
Hullo! I added some info to the MediaWiki pages around the wiki - hopefully they are useful! They have links to the pages on them ("View this template"), if an admin wants to fiddle :) Kirkburn (talk) 01:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)