Team Fortress Wiki:Discussion/Archive 17

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Projectile Movement Speed integration ?

The Projectile movement speed should maybe integrated as a hint into the Damage and function times. The reason i want to integrated it is, that the Manmelter shoots a faster projectile then the flaregun. And if both are the same, then the damage output is higher(slightly) because of the faster movement speed of the projectile. The reloading is not affected by this, but i think it should be mentioned. Also i hope someone can find out how fast the Projectiles movement speed is for the various items. What do you think about my idea??? TheDoctor 13:45, 22 December 2011 (PST)

That shouldn't be too hard to implement, if one were to look into the schema. It's probably listed in there. Balladofwindfishes 11:00, 3 January 2012 (PST)

I don't know where it is listed. Could you tell me where to look for it or just add it into the projectile article? Always wondered about these sci-fi weapons how fast they move. TheDoctor 12:19, 3 January 2012 (PST)

Template:Strange quality table

Hi all, I edited this template, and some of the translation strings are now outdated. Seb mentioned I should pop a comment in here. Rebmcr 17:22, 23 December 2011 (PST)

Everything looks fine to me when I view the template. I don't see any redlinks =\ 404: User Not Found ^(talk) 18:48, 23 December 2011 (PST)

The notes at the bottom have changed, and need to be re-translated. rebmcr 13:52, 26 December 2011 (PST)

I meant to say that you should post about the new design of the template here so that people can post thoughts / votes before it is published seb26 13:54, 26 December 2011 (PST)

I see. Misunderstood that one. Well, [1] is the old version, and the new one. rebmcr 13:59, 26 December 2011 (PST)

I was quite attached to the old version, but it's glad to see change happening. Next time you go to completely revamp a table or something, follow Seb's advice and do not edit the actual template. Instead, create a copy of it in your namespace, make the appropriate edits, then post here and get peoples opinions on it. If consensus is reached and everyone likes it, then you can change the actual template. If not, no changes are to be made. Understando? Just a friendly tip from 404: User Not Found ^(talk) 14:06, 26 December 2011 (PST)

Skins Vs Saxton Hale in error

Hello, good afternoon! Pleasure, my name is Marianne (call me Mary) TF2 game since May of last year, I'm addicted to Arena, but recently (yesterday) has a problem (not sure which) and the Skins VS does not appear ... I do not know if anyone has had any such problem (If they'd love it if I had indicated to the right place and shut the increasing discussion), but it turns out that instead of Saxton, vagina, etc. Brutal Sniper ... the word ERROR appears ... were it not so bother (or bizarre) I was leaving anyway, but that happens even when I hit the word does not damage the ... only in some points, so It's impossible to play ... I even thought about deleting it and downloading again, but before doing so wanted to see here if you do not have any other solution

Thanks for the help now. Mary — The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheEagle (talk) • (contribs) 17:22, 3 January 2012

Best to go to the forums for troubleshooting problems, Wiki talk pages are for discussing the articles. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 10:05, 3 January 2012 (PST)

The Great Steam Gift Pile Article?

It's a bit late now, but should this event have an article like the summer sale and trasure hunt? It had 3 TF2 items related to the event, and it might be nice to have for archival purposes and for a link on the promotion infobox explaining what it is. I'm not sure users in a year or two would know much about it, so I think we'd be better off writing it now while we still know a lot about it and still have resources out there that easily list the achievements. Balladofwindfishes 08:23, 4 January 2012 (PST)

Agree on this one. -- Keisari 08:26, 4 January 2012 (PST)

 Da. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 10:03, 4 January 2012 (PST)

 Agree but what should the article be called? I'm not sure if the event was called "Great Steam Gift Pile", "Steam Great Gift Pile", "Steam Christmas Sale 2011", or whatever. ._. —Rocket Ship BBQ(•) 15:57, 4 January 2012 (PST)

It was The Great Steam Gift Pile. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 16:09, 4 January 2012 (PST)

I thought that was just the name of the gift pile, not the name of the event... —Rocket Ship BBQ(•) 16:12, 4 January 2012 (PST)

 Agree I agree that it should get its own page, but the question remains what it should be called precisely. The Great Steam Gift Pile? I say we stick with the original name of the event. Warlike 16:15, 4 January 2012 (PST)

Good point Rocket Ship BBQ. The official group just called the event the "Holiday Sale", can anyone remember how it was labeled on the Store page? » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 17:39, 4 January 2012 (PST)

 Agree I will make some redirects to this page (GSGP will redirect to that page) However the page should be made before I make redirects and disambigs. --Bigbangbilly!!! My sig!!! 09:22, 27 January 2012 (PST)

TF2 Item Name Comparison Tool

One of the Dutch moderators over at the Steam Translation Server made a little tool that can be used to easily see all the translations for every item currently in-game, both name and description.
It is still a work in progress, but it is already in a functioning state and he thought that some of fella's here on the Wiki might like it. Here is an example page of how it looks like. Have fun! -- Hefaistus - talk 05:46, 15 January 2012 (PST)

Entity names

It appears that the pages for items don't include entity names, example tf_weapon_robot_arm. Whilst it may not be useful for >95% of visitors, I feel it is still worth documenting, probably in the infobox for each article. Weapons would be prioritised over cosmetics, simply because that is probably more useful to mod/plugin coders, for kill/assist/etc. events. What do you guys think? rebmcr 14:57, 17 January 2012 (PST)

• Just realised that this would not even require translation. BONUS! rebmcr 14:58, 17 January 2012 (PST)

This information is readily available in the schema and isn't really useful to anybody reading the Wiki. Mod authors have their own documentation on the Sourcemod Wiki/forums and know where to look, and the entity/class names aren't the same as the kill-feed/log names fyi. Again, all available in the schema. In any case, we have a list of weapon entity classes here. i-ghost 15:08, 17 January 2012 (PST)

Should we really leave something out of the official wiki just because it is already on a third-party mod's wiki? Of course it's not essential, but it's extra information about the game, and not exactly detrimental to include. If there's disparity between entity and feed names, is that not even more of a reason to document the differences? rebmcr 18:06, 17 January 2012 (PST)

"Whilst it may not be useful for >95% of visitors" which is why it's not needed. That 5% would know where to find it, despite it not being on the Wiki. Balladofwindfishes 18:09, 17 January 2012 (PST)

At the risk of employing an overused quote: "It's not about why, it's about why not!" rebmcr 03:41, 18 January 2012 (PST)

Team Fortress Wiki SOPA blackout

Certain high-profile websites and other entities are organising a large-scale blackout of their respective websites to protest the SOPA and PIPA legislations. Do you think the Wiki should follow suit? Should it take a softer approach like Google did? Should it be restricted to English pages? When should it happen? How long should it last? — Wind 22:12, 17 January 2012 (PST)

 Agree Some things have a level of importance that must be addressed through all possible medians. The wiki, as a route through which a large amount of traffic flows, I believe has a responsibility to inform those who may be unaware of the potential disastrous bills being put through the United States congress. You have my unbridled and full support MogDog66 22:15, 17 January 2012 (PST)

 Agree I agree as well. I don't know how much traffic this Wiki gets, but i think we should close it down in protest. And maybe bring the visitors to another page which says what and why the Wiki is closed down. Supporting. -- Swedish Translator 22:18, 17 January 2012 (PST)

I believe Wikipedia is only having a 24 hour blackout, so I think they would be the best example for us to follow. It remains shortish for new players looking for new information, and we follow something in our same category. I think we SHOULD take part, given that video games will be highly effected with playthroughs on YouTube and such. So 24 hours seems fair. As for English pages or all pages. I'm inclined to say all pages based on fairness. But then again, Wikipedia is only doing English pages for whatever reason, so I don't know really on that one. I definitely don't think we should copy Google's approach. I'm actually not a fan of how they are protesting. Blacking out their logo doesn't really make a stand. We need to show we're prepared to close of important services on the internet to show congress we mean business. Just my thoughts! -- Benjamoose (talk | contribs) 22:19, 17 January 2012 (PST)

I think a site shutdown is not our decision to make, we are not the owners. A notice would be fine but I don't think it's an effective move at all considering our target audience, but that's my opinion. —Moussekateer·talk 22:23, 17 January 2012 (PST)

Oh look at that, I posted in such a huff that I forgot to suggest what we actually do if we do a protest. As Benja has stated, Wikipedia's approach (not necessarily them just being a wiki "just like us", but rather that they have executed their protest rather well) would be the guide to follow. A full site shutdown (all languages, more on that later) replaced by a to-the-point message with a clear point (again very similar to Wikipedia's). I see no reason why all languages should not be affected, if this does happen to pass through the United States, it's highly likely that other countries will at least attempt to enact similar reforms, not to mention the fact that the United States is already pressuring other nations to enact SOPA-like bills even before it passes. MogDog66 22:29, 17 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose While I definitely do not agree to the propositions of SOPA or PIPA, I think a blackout is a too heavy-handed move. It would first tangle up the Wiki into US politics, something which I'm not sure it should mess with, even though these pieces of legislations may affect the Wiki itself. It would also most likely harm readers more than it would educate them, as our audience is very likely to already know about SOPA and PIPA. Additionally, a lot of people still associate the Wiki with Valve and some would understandably assume that this represents Valve's stance on the matter. Whether that is true or not, that's the effect it would have, and I don't know what consequences it would have, nor if Valve would really be okay with this. (And, of course, it also harms our own editors by preventing them from contributing. Kinda goes without saying but still throwing that out there.) tl;dr: Let's not jump on the bandwagon just because others are. While the world should certainly be informed about all of this, I feel it is not our decision to make and the Wiki is not the place to practice US political activism, especially if it gets in the way of the Wiki's goal: being a useful source of information to Team Fortress players. — Wind 22:37, 17 January 2012 (PST)

 Neutral I dunno. I think that anything nearly as extreme as blacking out the wiki for a US law should have the approval of VALVe first, for fear of getting us into hot water. On one hand it raises even more publicity to stop SOPA and PIPA. On the other hand it makes a bold statement that could harm our reputation with VALVe. I feel that while getting the message out to the world is important, it's not worth tarnishing the good name of the Wiki suggesting that VALVe strongly dislikes these laws along with us. Not Fyahweather _C 22:42, 17 January 2012 (PST)

I cannot deny the point made by Wind, Moussekateer and others - it is a solid point that the wiki does in a sense represent Valve and it could be considered to step out of our boundaries to make political statements "for" Valve. And to be perfectly honest, I'm still beside myself on that point, I have come to no conclusion. However I do feel the need to address the "You're preaching to the choir" or "Everyone who visits the wiki knows about SOPA anyway" arguments. As I said, certain situations and occurances deserve and merit a certain amount of recognition and attention due to the gravity and importance of their nature. SOPA and PIPA are undeniably members of this group. Even in the situation where 99% of all TF2-Wikipedians who were to read the SOPA/PIPA notice already knew and were well informed on the matter, that slim 1% chance to educate an unaware patron absolutely and without question ratifies the notice. To address yet another point, a small little banner at the top is almost insulting to the gravity of the situation. It would be like throwing a glass of water onto a burning house, then saying "Eh well hey at least we tried". MogDog66 22:45, 17 January 2012 (PST)

I would support the sentiment of a blackout but do not think it is right for us to use free hosting space that is not ours for any kind of political action seb26 22:50, 17 January 2012 (PST)

 Support While I can understands the concerns of tangling the Wiki with politics as well as the perception that the wiki may be viewed as representative of Valve, I do not think that should immediately prevent the possibility of a blackout. I believe you would be hard pressed to find even 5% of Tf2 players who would agree with and support SOPA/PIPA, and who knows, perhaps even Valve themselves are against it. Rather than giving up on the idea of a blackout, I think it might be better if we tried to contact Valve on the issue and see if they could give us the go-ahead or not. If they would prefer not however, I believe we should respect that choice totally, they are being kind enough to host this website on their servers, doing something they don't like would be rather rude. -Mr. Magoolachub 22:52, 17 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose I'm not necessarily a regular to the Wiki, but I personally do not see any effective benefits coming from a widescale blackout, even if it is only for a day. As mentioned before, the target audience for the Wiki here should already be fairly well-versed on these topics, and assuming you aren't a Congressperson, knowing enough about either pieces of legislation almost guarantees a lack of support for it. In addition (these are already mostly points that have been brought up very well), I feel that it is not up to the editors to make political statements, whether they are perceived to reflect Valve's views or not, without Valve's prior consent. Lastly, the "costs" far outweigh the gains. If someone did in fact learn of SOPA/PIPA from a sort of notice on the Wiki, the chances that they would not have learned of it from, oh I don't know, other sources is incredibly slim. You would then be left with numerous people unable to access the Wiki for its original intentions - increasing and improving resources for the game itself. Glen Tennis 22:54, 17 January 2012 (PST)

 NOTE I recommend that the staff email Valve to confirm certain possible political standpoints from Valve. MogDog66 23:17, 17 January 2012 (PST)

(Also needis PIPA) — Wind 07:39, 18 January 2012 (PST)

Some things that aren't really an issue:

1) Doing this without Valve's permission. - I honestly thought it was a given that of course we'd ASK first. If they say no, then fine. But I never thought doing it without asking would be a good idea.

2) Harming the users. - I doubt 24 hours is going to do much damage. Wikipedia has WAY more information on it than we have, and they are used every day by tons of people for tons of other things. With a notice, I'm pretty sure somehow the TF2 playerbase will manage 24 hours without being able to check the wiki. That parts not a huge deal...

3) Getting tangled in U.S. politics. - I highly doubt anything more than just showing we cared would get us "tangled up". Regardless of who we are, whether we have a popular site that people use or not. It's about making a stand for something that is not only the right thing to do, but WILL affect us. If everyone just sat around twiddling their thumbs expecting things to be rescued for them, the world would be a far worse place than it is now. We have a voice. We have a following. Let's ask Valve about this and show that we care about this subject! That's the point of the protest!. TLDR = It's 24 hours... It shows we care and really doesn't hurt anyone or get us "tangled" in the slightest. -- Benjamoose (talk | contribs) 23:23, 17 January 2012 (PST)

 Agree Can't find a single point in there I don't agree with. The aforementioned points are the same beliefs for me as well. MogDog66 23:32, 17 January 2012 (PST)

 Agree There seems to be a misconception that these bills will only affect US websites. Ladies and Gentlemen that is not the case at all. Please inform yourselves as much as possible for this is certainly not what is going to happen if this bill goes live. Any website that is able to support the cause should give it a go and blackout for a day. I just tested the Wikipedia and what I noticed is that for a couple of seconds I can see the page I am looking for, and then the blackout happens. That gave me enough time to get a screen capture of what I needed. If I indeed couldn't wait 24 hours for the information. I don't think our contributors will be upset/angry that for 1 sole day the wiki will not be available. I mean, if it had been a technical error and we could do nothing we would deal with it. Why can't we use the same stance but for something that has value & worth? Let us be frank and realise that the information here is not so vital that something awful could happen if it was withheld. I agree with Benjamuffin's statement that regardless of how strongly we all may feel, that Valve should be contacted for approval. I personally don't believe that we should have to worry about how it is perceived by those that read the wiki with regards to the impression it may give suggesting that Valve supports the cause, when we don't know if they do. That should be left up to Valve to make such a statement and clarify their stance. We here at the TF2Wiki (the editors/contributors) that have made all this happen have a voice and our concerned should be heard. Many people do not know about these bills and if we can inform just 1 more person, then that is knowledge and power that has been given to one more individual. BiBi 00:52, 18 January 2012 (PST)

("misconception that these bills will only affect US websites": With the DNS provision removed, the bill only affects US websites (unless you meant ACTA?). It does affect non-US visitors visiting US websites, however, so it does affect the Wiki's non-US users, which I think is what you meant to say.) — Wind 07:39, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Agree I agree with the blackout because of the aforementioned points. At first I felt it was unnecessary due to the fact this Wiki is based on a Free to Play game, but honestly the whole SOPA/PIPA situation is very serious and every kind of action that would help if only 1 more person understand the seriousness of these bills must be done. So in that regard I am in favor of a black-out. Warlike 00:56, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose This is in violation of the Steam online conduct rules and by proxy this site's Terms of Use, specifically "You will not: Restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying Steam services, software or other content." In addition, this Wiki is not ours to use as a political vehicle no matter how noble the cause may seem and our target audience is most likely aware of SOPA/PIPA, so there's no need to jump on this bandwagon. i-ghost 03:08, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose i-ghost above, pretty much sums up my viewpoint. rebmcr 03:43, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose As much as i dislike the looks of this, i-ghost is completely right, we have legal issues to go by here, we cannot go by moral. The way things work is that law comes first. - Lexar - talk 03:53, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose c i-ghosts comment. -RJ 04:03, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose Even if we could legally, I'd still say no. SS2R 04:14, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose I don't support political information for only a specific region(USA) in a wiki. TheDoctor 09:49, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Nope.avi Absolutely not. Even if they are some of the worst pieces of legislation ever to disgrace the United States, we cannot take a stand against them. This is the Official Team Fortress Wiki. As such, while we are not technically employed by Valve we do in a sense represent them. If Valve chooses to black out their websites then it wouldn't be a stretch to black out the Wiki either. However, doing it on our own could be considered putting words in their mouth. As far as I know, Valve as a company has been relatively neutral on the subject. They've explicitly stated that they do not support the bills, but have not gone so far as to directly oppose them. If we were still at Wikia (though, thank God we aren't) then it would be a no-brainer that we should put up a notice. But as we are a satellite of teamfortress.com it's simply not our place. The best possible route would be to e-mail Valve and ask permission. If they agree to it - and given their current stance I don't think it's likely - then I say go ahead, but not a moment sooner. -- - _{(talk | contribs)} -- 09:50, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose Even though i don't approve that SOPA project, but like all the people up here said, in particular Mr.I-Ghost, "It is a violation of terms and conducts" so i think we can just sit and wait to see what will happen, and i still think our wiki doesn't need to do such thing, it was a great victory when the TF2 Wiki was made Official. _Takamoto_ 10:47, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 ? I hate that upcoming law, and i want to do my part in protesting against it. But if what I-ghost stated is true I really see a problem for tfwiki participating in it. -- Keisari 10:52, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose I already explained the same thing i-ghost did yesterday. While I do support blackouts on other websites, blocking people out compulsively and particularly when we have no clue what Valve thinks about it is doing it all wrong. -- Lagg 11:19, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose While Valve is against SOPA, this isn't appropriate for this website. Balladofwindfishes 12:33, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose i-ghost put it perfectly. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 12:40, 18 January 2012 (PST)

I don't think that anyone that agrees with the blackout would agree with it happening without Valve's consent. This website is after all theirs. Just saying. BiBi 13:13, 18 January 2012 (PST)

Now can we please stop being silly about this? There are MANY ways to take part in this. We don't even have to black out completely. A softer example would be a torrent site I saw (YES EVEN NON-POPULAR OBSCURE TORRENT SITES ARE DOING THIS. I'm not talking about things like TPB). On their site they just cover the screen in black when you first visit the site. On the blackness it says "This is what the internet looks like censored". Then if you click the blackness, it goes away, and you don't see it again. This coupled with a simple banner at the top of the index page on the wiki with a "click for more information" would be just as fine.

To not take part in this to me is stupid. Regardless of how much of an impact WE have, one voice makes a difference, so why the hell not. *sigh*. -- Benjamoose (talk | contribs) 18:31, 18 January 2012 (PST)

Sounds to me like that's sealed the deal. Can we not go ahead with it at this point? MogDog66 18:34, 18 January 2012 (PST)

Team Fortress Wiki SOPA blackout v2

In light of the above messages, here is to another round of votes now that approval has been granted.

The blackout code has been implemented and can be seen here. It is a one-time full-screen announcement that goes away when you click on it.

To clear up some possible misconceptions, some reminders about how these bills will affect the Wiki in practice:

• Need to police every piece of content, image, or link that is infringing or links to infringing websites
• Need to remove all possible references to how to circumvent blocks as per the anti-circumvention clause

The bills do not affect non-US websites (unless they reintroduce the DNS blocking clause). They affect US websites only, and all their visitors (from the US or not) are affected by the decisions the website makes. The Wiki being a US-based website, the Wiki is subject to being blocked should such infringing material be present on the Wiki. This includes publicly-available past revisions of articles and images. Now, let us vote again~ — Wind 20:47, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose For the same reasons as last time. a blackout is a heavy-handed and politically-charged move that has no place on the Wiki. In its current implementation, the blackout code is much less harmful than it could be, so the potential harm to visitors/editors would be minimal. Still, I do not wish the Wiki to join the bandwagon (late) and unleash this upon all users. The statement it is trying to convey, which I fully agree with, is of political nature thus has no place on this website. — Wind 20:47, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Nope.avi This is not a political forum, and we are not to assume everyone else wants on the bandwagon a small few here are content to jump on. -- Lagg 20:52, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Support This entirely concerns the wiki, as well as the welfare of the rest of the internet and I see no reason why a notice should not be enacted here as well. As I've stated, the opposition of these acts is of the utmost importance, and its relevance cannot be denied. I believe the wiki as a median through which many people visit, has a duty to attempt to inform any and all patrons who come to the site. If they are unaware of SOPA/PIPA, they will be informed, if they already are well informed of the Acts then they move on, and if they are annoyed by it, they click the message and it goes away forever. Those who are unaware are informed, those who are informed and are not annoyed by the message are unaffected, those annoyed by the message have it quickly removed from the screen for it never to appear again. Despite it's late timing, I believe it's just as important. MogDog66 20:54, 18 January 2012 (PST)

Posting on behalf of i-ghost with permission:

 Oppose As per my previous comment in the section above, and my comments made in the Staff lounge:

<i-ghost> It's probably better we don't do this in the long-term, so that people know we don't have the capacity to use this wiki to push/oppose whatever view we want. Not sure what Robin was smoking, but he's wrong and given his daily involvement with the site is zero... yeah. Neutrality get.

<i-ghost> You do realise by doing this you set a dangerous precedent and cause to raise serious questions about the wiki to any outsider: namely, where do these guys draw the line.

<i-ghost> Also note: Valve Legal != Valve; Robin could be made to retract his 'permission' (one guy does not speak for whole company and for the entirety of Steam) if asked by Valve Legal/Gabe etc. It's a shaky foundation to launch this on, at best.

i-ghost 21:13, 18 January 2012 (PST)

I think a lot of you are being ridiculous... It's not a huge deal. It's no different than posting a message about supporting breast cancer on a personal blog. The FBI isn't going to come smashing down Valve's door, and Valve probably honestly doesn't give a crap. At this point, I'll be honest. I'm willing to say no to the SOPA protest on the Wiki. I still want it to happen though. But at this point some of the opposing points have become so stupidly over thought and worried about stupid things that it's honestly worth just leaving alone. MOST OF THE INTERNET IS DOING THIS. IT DOESN'T HURT ANYONE! It's just a bit of "fun" (in the sense that it's not getting anyone caught up in anything) and shows support. It does nothing but help and the dramatic way some of you see this is just dumb. I'm out from now. I've made all the points I can. I still support the idea, but clearly some of you are too paranoid and worried about what 5 people may think than making a difference. -- Benjamoose (talk | contribs) 22:04, 18 January 2012 (PST)

To quote what I said on the IRC - "Well what a waste of time we were. We had a chance to be part of something there. Even if it was for an hour, you could say "hey, we stood up against that and won". But we didn't. We just sat around and debated while the rest of the world solved the problem for us." P.S. Beautifully made SOPA screen WindPower. I honestly love that. -- Benjamoose (talk | contribs) 22:18, 18 January 2012 (PST)

That SOPA screen was from a public domain repository on GitHub, I just adapted it so that it worked on the Wiki without extra CSS (due to cache), and added the dismiss-on-click-and-remember-that-ness. That screen was also used on demonoid and Joy of Tech, from what I visited online today — Wind 22:46, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Comment By this point the discussion is almost pointless, it's past due. It would have behooved us to start the discussion earlier, but even then I get the feeling we would have reached the same impasse. I don't regret attempting though, I believe some very good points were fleshed out on both sides. However I do hope that we take this as a learning experience, so that future external-wiki affairs be discussed in possibly a more organized and time-respective schedule. MogDog66 22:26, 18 January 2012 (PST)

If the point is simply to protest, then timing doesn't have to be right, does it? The bills have not died yet, even though a lot of supporters are thankfully gone. It is true that the decision was late compared to other websites. This is partly my fault; I had thought about it a while ago but never thought it would be worth bringing up until Sunday night when people started talking about it, and showed me that I was clearly wrong in thinking it wasn't worth discussing. For this I apologise.

As for "external wiki-affairs" of this kind being discussed earlier, I sure hope so as well, but I hope even more that such bills don't get proposed again. Pretty sure that'll happen though, we will see.

Anyway, voting is still open for those wanting to do it for a period that is not the one the other websites chose — Wind 22:46, 18 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose blackout again. None of the arguments for supporting it really hold much water anymore. First it's "this is so important we have to do something", now it's "the bandwagon is over let's be more organised next time"... err, the bills are still going to a vote. Was the blackout about being one of the other cool kid sites? Or was it about attempting to alert more people to the threats of SOPA / PIPA? There is no ground for us to stand on. As i-ghost has already pointed out, to prevent others from viewing pages is against the Steam online conduct rules, so we should just stop this whole thing and think of better ways to protest than using this site. seb26 12:22, 19 January 2012 (PST)

 Oppose for the reasons already stated - this is a political move and doesn't really have a place here. Though I suppose a banner at the top (like the one currently declaring our 1,000,000th edit) would be appropriate. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 14:15, 19 January 2012 (PST)

 Support TF2 memes does need freedom and with SOPA you might want to say goodbye to Demopan and Spycrab.--Bigbangbilly

Mobile Version of Team Fortress Wiki

Sometimes A lot of times I will use my phone to check up on new information pertaining to whatever might be on my mind, and a lot of the time it is whether a new patch for Team Fortress has come out. Because we have no mobile skin installed it is somewhat difficult to get to new information compared to using a normal computer. I think that it might be a cool addition to have a mobile skin; however, this probably involves a large amount of technical work. (That includes not just style sheets but also modifications to the MediaWiki software). In my own opinion it would be a nice little feature but it might not be worth the time and effort; I'd like to see your opinion, too. I eat derpcakes 12:29, 22 January 2012 (PST)

That's certainly something all the folks with mobile devices would like, but unfortunately nothing can be done about it at the moment without server access, as you guessed — Wind 15:49, 22 January 2012 (PST)

Yes it is sad day with no server access, it would really be nice to have m.wiki.teamfortress.com :( MogDog66 20:42, 23 January 2012 (PST)

 Agree This wiki needs a mobile skin because the steam overlay browser does slow you down sometimes.--Bigbangbilly!!! 11:04, 29 January 2012 (PST)

What is the wiki's view on hidden text or invisible comments?

Should it be disabled or should it be regulated or left alone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Hidden_text

This is one example of hidden text:

Example begin

Example End

My signature contains hidden text also so should I change it? --Bigbangbilly!!! My sig!!! 10:39, 29 January 2012 (PST)

What you are referring to are comments; they are fine where they give special instructions or provide documentation for editors who wish to change certain pages or templates i.e. Item infobox, but they don't really serve a purpose in a signature other than cluttering the page for editors (also it's incorrectly done in your signature anyway). The article you linked pretty much answered your own question in any case. i-ghost 10:47, 29 January 2012 (PST)

Hidden text should only be used when you need to leave a note for other editors, either regarding what to edit or not (eg. Scout's Bio), help on how to edit a piece of text in the page, or to save previously used code in the template without actually harming (eg. some templates). They are allowed if used in either of these situations, but not as a spam or to be around important info. As such, I recommend you not to leave hidden text in your sig.  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 10:49, 29 January 2012 (PST)

Will TF2 have the new valve intro?

Y'all know,that one from DotA 2 beta.Just asking. TheGuy299

We (wiki staff) don't receive any sort of information with regards to the content of upcoming patches, so we can't give an answer. I would presume not as it has no effect on gameplay and there is no benefit to updating it. -RJ 11:05, 6 February 2012 (PST)

Unboxable as Unusual in hat infobox

Under "Availability." It seems like information we would have, just simply state "Unbox(Unusual)" in the infobox for the hats that can be. Because it's not something we have very well documented, and the unusual table we have doesn't get updated nearly enough and is tricky for people to edit anyway. With it in the infobox its right there, easy for the user to see if the item they want can be unsuaul. And also it's a way to get the hat, so it's missing from Availability anyway because that's a method of getting the hat. Balladofwindfishes 16:24, 6 February 2012 (PST)

So few general players are bothered about Unusuals anyway that I'm not convinced it's important enough to be listed on each page - though you make a good point about it belonging in the "Availability" section. As for the Unusual Quality table, I've actually made a simpler version that should be easier to update - it's right here. I thought the current one was a bit too complicated as well. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 17:00, 6 February 2012 (PST)

I mean... it's a method to get the hat. I don't see it much different than listing a hat as promotional. If you can get the hat that way, it needs to be listed. Balladofwindfishes 17:32, 6 February 2012 (PST)

 Support You've convinced me. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 10:17, 7 February 2012 (PST)

Is Valve poking fun at us?

Given that we're the only ones who care about this stuff, I just think it's interesting to note that the recent slew of patches contain a line that mocks the language and wording of the patch itself. That is all. Upgrade 19:00, 9 February 2012 (PST)

Mocking? I don't think they're mocking us at all, it's just a tongue-in-cheek reference to how we have consistently documented localization changes in the undocumented changes section. I think they're sort of just waving a friendly "hello". Also, I am unsure if this discussion belongs on this page. -Mr. Magoolachub 19:05, 9 February 2012 (PST)

[citation needed]– fashnek _(talk·c) 19:26, 9 February 2012 (PST)

zh translation

The wiki has allowed for translation for zh-hant (Chinese Traditional) and zh-hans (Chinese Simplified) but in the most recent past this has been a subject of many problems, with pages being copied from either language and pasted on the other, etc. One possible solution I discovered a few months ago is LanguageConverter for MediaWiki, which provides a way to convert a page in Chinese to different regional 'dialects', i.e. zh-cn, zh-hk, zh-tw, zh-sg. This is done by a table of mappings from 'zh' to each of the dialects (e.g. zh to hant: '㛿' => '𡠹' – there are more examples at [2]).

The biggest working example, however, is the Chinese Wikipedia which is at http://zh.wikipedia.org and allows for conversion into the above four dialects. Pages are written as 'zh' and then converted according to the user's preference. They report that this system has been in place since 2004 and has been received well by the community.

I am posting this here along with some links for zh-hans and zh-hant translators to read and evaluate whether a similar system for the TF Wiki would be ideal. I think that using this would allow both groups to work to translate more pages together and have them still be accessible to different regions that read simplified or traditional. However, since I cannot read Chinese I think the final decision is best to made based on consensus from this discussion. There are also a number of technical questions to be answered to (how best this would be implemented for our wiki), but this will of course rest on the decision whether to pursue this.

• Automatic conversion between simplified and traditional Chinese – Meta-Wiki
• Writing systems (technical) – MediaWiki.org
• zh.wikipedia.org Main Page – switch between variants at top of page, next to 'page' and 'discussion'
• ZhConversion.php – current translation table used on Chinese Wikipedia

seb26 12:22, 14 February 2012 (PST)

Good To Hear :D -- Lockon 12:31, 14 February 2012 (PST)Lockon

Thank you -- Bestipod

To be clear, I believe he is asking whether Chinese translators want this feature. I think he wants a yes or no. – fashnek _(talk·c) 12:54, 14 February 2012 (PST)

 Disagree: I have many reasons to oppose this new function:

• First, the zh-hans and zh-hant have so many different names to call a same item or character. For example, zh-hant call Heavy as "重裝兵", but zh-hans call it "重機槍手", we named Max's Severed Head as "麥斯兔子頭", they called it "Max的半个脑袋". There are still many more items which have different names, and many people could be confused if zh-hant and zh-hans are merged together. They will not be familiar with the new names easily cause they are already used to the old names. Thus I don't think installing a word converter can solve this kind of problem. The first part is the biggest part of problem that I am concerned.
• Second, due to the "below average" quality of editing in zh-hans, I don't think it is a good idea to merge two similar but different languages into one language. If two languages become one language in the future, I am worried that the quality of content will be decreased. In that case, it might be hard to maintain and manage the Chinese TF2 Wiki, causing many sounds of dissatisfaction comes out.
• Third, I have already had a discussion with an old zh-hans translator called Nafoul, he had admitted that the coping from zh-hant to zh-hans is indeed a serious problem inside the Wiki. And he told me that he will try to stop zh-hans people from coping. However, I don't know why but he became inactive in recent months. What I want to say is that if zh-hans translators can restrain themselves from coping or claiming that zh-hans = zh-hant, there wouldn't be any unhappy situation between zh-hans and zh-hant, and I would not need to delete so many pages.
• Last, I have already talked with the Taiwan TF2 communities and some of the translators. Most of them are disagree of Language Converter project, some of them even has bad impression toward Chinese, cause they have done so many unfair things to Taiwanese (note that Chinese ≠ Taiwanese). As for me, due to many experience of being copied, bad impression of lies comes out from zh-hans translators, and threatening words toward me (remember Shawnchi? What a guy.), I am afraid that I cannot translate the article and cooperate with Chinese zh-hans translators. I am also afraid that many more unclear problems and contradictory will come out between us in the future.

These points are my reasons to oppose the conversion project. For my own opinion, I will say that closing the whole zh-hans department will be the best solution of this incident. 20:21, 14 February 2012 (PST)

I think ~www~ is actually right, i think zh-hant has a better translation of the English "麥斯兔子頭" - zh-hant, Max's Severed Head, "Max的半个脑袋" - zh-hans, Max's half brain Lockon 01:41, 16 February 2012 (PST)Lokcon

 Comment That's not what he meant with that...  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 08:50, 26 February 2012 (PST)

 Disagree：

I'll just mention one thing. Most of the articles on Wikipedia.org have their own authoritative references in both S-Chinese and T-Chinese while tfwiki does not. In this case, the editors on Wikipedia.org can do effective conversion between T-Chinese and S-Chinese according to their corresponding references. However, the articles in T-Chinese and S-Chinese in tfwiki are mostly translated by community itself. Since the S-Chinese TF communities and T-Chinese TF communities have different translation customs toward the game and its related stuffs which could be very difficult (even nearly impossible) to merge without authoritative (or say, official) Chinese references, it is better to keep the separation of zh-hans and zh-hant pages.

Jcmbmhitacid 21:14, 14 February 2012 (PST)

Image Consistency

I've been flagging a lot of image files to be moved to try and make them a bit more consistent, and I've come across an anomaly on some articles for all-class hats or misc items. Some of them have an image specifically for the item infobox, while others just use one of the images from the all-class wearing gallery on the page. So, my question is this: Should all-class hats and misc items have a seperate image specifically for the infobox or not? I for one think that we might as well use the all-class gallery - it would be quite nice if the {{Random class}} template could be used to make them cycle or something. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 04:57, 18 February 2012 (PST)

I'm going to start going through the Miscellaneous Items pretty soon to mark some of them to be moved as well (apoologies in advance to FreeXMan, who's been doing all of the actual moving), and as most of them are all-class we should make a decision about the naming format. Here's what I suggest:

• The main infobox image should be in the format <hat name>.png at all times, e.g. Killer's Kabuto.png. This includes images with more than one class in them, such as the Private Eye or Team Captain.
• The all-class gallery images should use the format <class> <hat name>.png, e.g. Engineer Brown Bomber.png. It's also important that the full class names are used - no "Engies" or "Demos". This will allow the use of {{Random class}} to randomly select an image for some purposes.

The point of this exercise is to make filenames more consistant - it will be a lot easier to find and display a picture of a hat if you can be sure that the image will simply be titled <hat name>.png.

» Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 08:46, 20 February 2012 (PST)

Does the {{icon item}} template not hide all of the actual filenames from most editors, anyway? rebmcr 08:50, 20 February 2012 (PST)

Icon item images are one case where they have already been made consistant - every one is labelled Item icon <item>.png, and that really makes them easier to use.

» Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 09:08, 20 February 2012 (PST)

 Support, in that case. Professionals have standards. rebmcr 09:12, 20 February 2012 (PST)

 Oppose moving images for the purpose of another silly random hat template. It appears someone went ahead and moved them anyway now though. Pointless moves should be avoided because of the extra work they create. Please, if it ain't broke don't bother. Filenames at the wrong hat titles is not a valid reason to move. Now the file pages that were moved, you can't see what pages are using each file. And now each of these files is marked as 'unused' because they are unused, all pages are 'using' the redirect at the old title. I oppose pointless moves that create more mess out of a pedantic need to correct all filenames "because consistency". seb26 11:44, 20 February 2012 (PST)

The vast majority of those images are only used in the item infobox on their respective pages - would it be difficult to alter the coding for items listed as "hats" so that the image simply becomes <hat>.png? I really didn't intend to make unnecessary work, but some of the files use nonsensical names and it makes them rather hard to find; making them more consistent would help in the long run, I think. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 18:31, 20 February 2012 (PST)

I've been having another look at these files and I think they can all be moved without leaving too much mess: If the item infobox is coded to use the name of the item as the image name (itemname.png) then they will all switch over to the new image automatically. The old redirects can then be deleted - some of them are used on the occasional article or userpage but those can be fixed manually easily enough. I'll do it myself if need be - the biggest job is the infoboxes, as there is one in every language for every item. The bonus here is that having the images coded into the item infobox will mean a little less work, discourage duplicate images of the same item, and encourage uploaders to use the right filename. I know it's a big task to move all these files in the first place, but once it's done it's done; the job will only get bigger if it's delayed and I do think it will make things easier in the long run. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 10:19, 26 February 2012 (PST)

 Neutral I don't think it's a good reason, but I'm not against it.  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 10:23, 26 February 2012 (PST)

For anyone interested, I'm keeping a tab on the progress made here. All but two of the hats are done, and half of the miscs. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 10:06, 29 February 2012 (PST)

Contributor of the Week

Here is a tip how to improve the quality of edits.

In Russian section of Team Fortress Wiki we have already practice to choose “Contributor of the Week” twice in one month.

Here how it works. We have juries. They are people who have already received a Wiki Cap and famous persons. The leader chooses active users on Wiki and then juries are going to discuss them on local IRC channel.

When they have a “Winner” leader publish information on Translation Progress page and write reason.

Contributor of the Week receives a Wikichievment.

All other contributors can see his User page and take useful tips.

Here you can see all the “Winners”: Contributor of the Week (Russian).

I also think that it is going to be good if it will become preselection for a Wiki Cap.

What do you think about this? -- Gero* talk 03:16, 21 February 2012 (PST)

 Oppose for the Wiki cap preselection. Anyone can nominate editor for wiki cap and the staff will decide if they deserve a cap. Staff will look into the quality and the amount work the person has done. There is absolutely no need to put any value on "contributor of the week", we already check the same contributions. -- Keisari 17:09, 21 February 2012 (PST)

 Can't agree or disagree The consept is pretty funny and it includes a little sport in the edit front. But the thing is the spam edits and the qualified edits would clash to one big mess. The system might work at the translation perspective, but far away from positive if it was added to the Wiki for all the users. Wikichievemets are earned by just giving freely and doesn't need to be given by "force" (excuse me for that) and it marks a milestone which the person has been doing for a time or so. Tips and such might work but only for the users to practice the edits they do and so on. Nominations cannot and can't ever be determed by how many edits or how good you work for the Wiki to get a Wiki Cap, but the users around could find it interesting by adding their opinion on that user to the Nominations. I cannot agree or disagree in this idea but it seemed nice. TheNobleScout 07:10, 23 February 2012 (PST)

Remove Civilian from class lists and etc.

The Civilian hasn't been a proper class since the end of 2007. I'm of the opinion that it shouldn't be listed in such things as the Classes page or the Template:Class Nav template. For new users it seems to me to be information overload, or in other words, way to prominent for something that is an unused feature. --Org 03:25, 21 February 2012 (PST)

 Support because we (generally) don't need to know about a class that doesn't exist (or at least, doesn't exist as much as the others do). I eat derpcakes 10:15, 22 February 2012 (PST)

 Support Makes sence. It should be in the template for unused content, and we should do the same about the Commander. GianAwesome 10:26, 22 February 2012 (PST)

The foul deed is done. However Unused content now needs a new section. --Org 21:57, 22 February 2012 (PST)

 Neutral The article and class might be a so called "deadpool", but this is a class after all. I suggest moving this article instead of a deletion. TheNobleScout 07:14, 23 February 2012 (PST)

Er, I wasn't proposing to kill the article, just moving him from the main pages. --Org 10:11, 23 February 2012 (PST)

 Support I think it's sort of misleading to have them there. We don't stick unused weapons into the weapon lists as if they were real weapons, why do the same for unused classes? Balladofwindfishes 10:13, 23 February 2012 (PST)

Paint preview grid redux

Just wanted to bring up the idea from June 2011 again about the Paint Preview for hats / misc. Team_Fortress_Wiki:Discussion/Archive_11#Paint_preview_grid. IE using the extra space in the bottom corner to show the unpainted version of the hat at the same resolution / orientation / lighting as all the painted versions, so someone using the Wiki for a guide of paint can see it all in one spot, instead of having to scroll between those tables and the info box. There was some agreement to this before but it never went anywhere. --Org 03:31, 21 February 2012 (PST)

 Support Is good. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 10:28, 21 February 2012 (PST)

 Oppose Too much effort just to compensate for some minor scrolling. Keep in mind that the user can just click on two images they would like to compare and switch between their tabs/windows. i-ghost 04:56, 22 February 2012 (PST)

Just because a user can get the same result by scrolling around or tab flipping, doesn't mean better useability shouldn't be added where applicable. De whole point of der wikiering is ter mekin strff 'nderstanable easly --Org 22:00, 22 February 2012 (PST)

I should add that this would be doubly useful as the Team-colored Styles table could be merged with the paint table. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 07:07, 22 February 2012 (PST)

Well they added new paint, so I'd think now would be a good time to do this since all the hats get to be redone, hint hint :D --Org 16:16, 23 February 2012 (PST)

This is now underway due to the addition of two new paints. i-ghost 03:05, 24 February 2012 (PST)

The template has been updated to display the item's team skins if they exist (which will all be updated to match the painted variants rotations, etc), if the skin images don't exist, it will display an unpainted image (which will need to be uploaded separately). Any comments? i-ghost 03:57, 24 February 2012 (PST)

Um, maybe move the single color, unpainted, up into the top table (colspan 2'ed) in the gap next to the new greens, and the unpainted team versions down in the bottom table, as they are now. The other suggestion would be instead of having those three new cells exist or not exist completely, display a N/A instead of the image. --Org 08:11, 24 February 2012 (PST)

Well maybe not colspan 2, just shoved over into the 4th column. --Org 08:15, 24 February 2012 (PST)

It would add unnecessary complication to the template to have it in two seperate places. Not to mention being inconsistent for visitors. rebmcr 12:27, 24 February 2012 (PST)

Using my own argument against me? Inconceivable! :) --Org 20:12, 24 February 2012 (PST)

Page for Halloween mode?

I thought that Halloween mode should have its own page just like Birthday mode does; on vanilla servers it only happens once in a blue full moon or during Halloween, much like how birthday mode is automatically enabled on August 24th. However, Halloween mode can also be activated using tf_forced_holiday 2 in the config, just like with birthday mode's tf_birthday 1. I was not sure if the community would approve, thus this discussion. Thoughts please. I eat derpcakes 10:24, 22 February 2012 (PST)

 Agree There wouldn't really be much on it - maybe a list of all the items which can only be worn on Haloween or during the Full Moon. Even so, I agree that it's worth its own article.

» Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 10:34, 22 February 2012 (PST)

While there already is a list of Full Moon only items I have gone ahead and made the article. Add on as you wish. --Fiskie 17:04, 24 February 2012 (PST)

Halloween Masks

At some point, someone thought that we would have a different page for the Scout Mask, Soldier Mask, etc. However, they are now only causing useless redirects. On the Halloween Masks page, there is a crafting recipe which has every mask linked. They all link back to this page, since an individual page would be excessive. However, the Medic (used to) and Spy masks redirect uselessly to a redirect page--when there is a clear link implied. Theoretically, this crafting template could be used on another page, where the links would be useful, but otherwise it's merely excess linking. There is a similar issue with the very small masks in the Hat Template. I advocate removing these links, and if someone feels that this is problematic, due to a lack of links, add a "See also Halloween Masks". [[User:Darkid]] 04:39, 24 February 2012 (PST)

 Oppose Currently, every item is able to be linked to by it's name. It would be nice for it to stay that way. All the Festive weapons redirect to their regular counterparts, but they can still be linked as Festive Rocket Launcher, for example. Masks and Festives are small enough groups that it's not an issue to keep track of "what links here", nor is it even measurable as a performance hit. rebmcr 17:13, 24 February 2012 (PST)

"Community Strategy" Cleanup Project

In the IRC a few of us were discussing about the sheer redundancy and length of some of the Community Strategy articles, notably the Community Demoman strategy which was cleaned up a bit by Atonement as a result of this. It'd be nice if there were more people patrolling these pages to remove common sense-esque "strategies" which sometimes don't make any sense and are done on a whim because someone killed a bunch of new players with some amateurish tactic. They may be community pages, sure, but it doesn't mean they can't be kept clean. --Fiskie 08:26, 25 February 2012 (PST)

 Support I'll be working on clean-up some more after I get home today. Atonement 08:30, 25 February 2012 (PST)

Might need some active recruiting; it took a long time for me to revise Basic Strategy and Match-ups, and I haven't found opportunity to work on Anti-class. Dealing with constant additions to the Community Strategy pages, which have no set format and have mostly been abandoned, is hella difficult. Heck, the stuff that comes into Basic Strategy sometimes... -- InShane 19:47, 28 February 2012 (PST)

Of Festive Weapons and Other Reskins

Yes, I am aware of this discussion. However, I believe there is, I believe, a point to be made. The festive weapons are indeed reskins of default weapons. However, there are a lot of weapons that function the exact same way as others; for example, the HHHH and the Eyelander.

My question is this: If we already have different pages for reskins like the Scottish Handshake which is the same as the Bottle, why not have different pages for festive weapons?

I do believe there is a legitimate answer to this question, if only we can find it through discussion.

I think there are three different solutions to this:

• We can crush all the reskins into one page (the original weapon). For example, the HHHH and the Nessie's Nine Iron would be sub-articles in the Eyelander page. This will make for many less pages on the wiki, but it makes everything follow the same process as the festive weapons do.
• We can have all reskins in their own page. This means we would create new pages for the festives, and keep old ones for other reskins. In my personal opinion, this one makes a bit more sense, for consistency.
• We can keep it the way it is. The other reskins will have their own pages, the festives won't. This is obviously the most simple to implement.

I'd like to see the points of view from the community with regards to these three ideas. Please discuss. I eat derpcakes 13:07, 25 February 2012 (PST)

I believe one of the big rational about the way it is now is because, while the schema treats festives as new weapons, they aren't presented in-game as anything more than attachments on stock weapons. With "true" reskins, the weapon is entirely different, with only it's stats shared. And I somewhat agree with the concepts of that, however I also tend to lean in favor of how the schema treats the item. Balladofwindfishes 13:11, 25 February 2012 (PST)

 Comment The difference is, it's not called the "Scottish Handshake Bottle" or the "Maul Homewrecker", whereas Festives do all just consist of the original weapon's name with a prefix. That's where the situation has arisen from, I don't have strong feelings either way for whether to change it. rebmcr 14:07, 25 February 2012 (PST)

 Comment I was always against treating the festive weapons as anything more than an item quality anyway - we haven't made seperate pages for all items with community sparkle, or a seperate page for each unusual effect. They're just the stock weapons with lightbulbs wrapped around them. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 14:42, 25 February 2012 (PST)

The difference is, however, that these are entirely different weapons from the stock weapons in terms of the schema, as Balladofwindfishes has pointed out. I eat derpcakes 08:06, 26 February 2012 (PST)

There are four different items in the schema called "Mann Co. Supply Crate Key", in addition to Stocking Stuffer etc. We don't have different pages for them. The schema isn't something to be replicated exactly, to the detriment of common sense. Having them separately in "lists of strange items" and the like makes sense, but they don't need their own page. rebmcr 08:30, 26 February 2012 (PST)

 Comment I agree with cooper kid, festival weapons are just light bulbs and decorations wrapped around a stock weapon

Lockon 14:44, 25 February 2012 (PST)

 Comment I also agree with Cooper. While I love my festive knife, it's really no different from a normal knife except it's colorful. Atonement 21:50, 25 February 2012 (PST)

 Oppose I dont like the idea and many people could find it confusing, as festive weapons are not widely considered more than weapon quality. -- Keisari 08:27, 26 February 2012 (PST)

 Oppose They are items obtainable in different ways, modeled differently, with different update histories and different kill icons... Trying to clutter all of them in a single page would only cause problems. Besides, how'd you do it for items such as the Saxxy or the Conscientious Objector? Would you just place them in all the item pages they are reskins of? That'd be uneccessary, to say the least.  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 08:46, 26 February 2012 (PST)

Y U no use "Preview" butten?

They should make Save changes button locked until Preview button is used and the whole page is checked. Ed 11:49, 26 February 2012 (PST)

Perhaps something like this? Seeing as this is Javascript, it could be easily implemented (I think).  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 11:51, 26 February 2012 (PST)

 Oppose Easy to implement yes, but we don't have a huge problem of users not using preview that warrants pissing off everyone else (including those who know what they're doing) by forcing them to preview things. There's already the captcha for external URLs that's annoying to non-staff members, additional barriers to editing is not worth it — Wind 12:00, 26 February 2012 (PST)

That moment when entire IRC channel is guessing how edits it could take for a novice to make his own userpage Ed 12:29, 26 February 2012 (PST)

 Suggestion What about having it on by default, but with an easy opt-out? rebmcr 15:12, 26 February 2012 (PST)

 Comment There's an option in the Preferences to automatically prompt you if you haven't viewed a preview, maybe that should default to "on"? » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 15:16, 26 February 2012 (PST)

 Support It would solve the issue, and would make users either preview their changes (which I'm guilty of making several edits instead of one large one, because I see the other things in retrospect) and/or make them care enough to pay their preferences a visit. ~Sven 17:10, 26 February 2012 (PST)

"Trusted" usergroup

We could do with something like this so those not here to advertise cheap medicine or WoW gold don't have to write captchas for every link added to a page. In some situations, it's quite an annoyance. It can't be that hard to implement, right? Thoughts? --Fiskie 17:28, 26 February 2012 (PST)

This has been bought up before, the reason it hasn't been implemented is because we'd need Valve to make the changes. —Moussekateer·talk 17:35, 26 February 2012 (PST)

Wouldn't it be possible for them to assign a community user control of the group? Someone like you, perhaps?--Fiskie 17:38, 26 February 2012 (PST)

We're in the middle of a process that will allow us to make these changes. —Moussekateer·talk 17:46, 26 February 2012 (PST)

That's good, then. Until then, I can't wait. </thread> --Fiskie ^{Talk :: Contribs} 17:52, 26 February 2012 (PST)

Plain links for inline text

I noticed the wiki uses regular old links with the little icon, even in inline text. I think this is ugly, and there's an easy way to get external links as plainlinks, without the little icon.

Mayhaps a simple template for it?
If not, don't mind me, just being an idiot. --king of space 04:34, 28 February 2012 (PST)

The icon's there to warn people that it's an external link. There is a template which allows links to Wikipedia without it, so maybe the same should be done for other sites, such as the forums and official blog. I don't think the icon should be removed completely though, or it would be too easy for spammers and advertisers to hide links all over the place. » Cooper Kid (blether) • (contreebs) 04:50, 28 February 2012 (PST)

Does the wiki really get that many advertisers? --king of space 05:07, 28 February 2012 (PST)

It's not so much about the advertisers, but about showing a user that by following this link they'll be leaving this website. Anybody who has read a Wiki is conditioned to know that the little icon indicates an external link, whereas links without the icon are not externally pointing, which is the whole point of having the distinction. i-ghost 06:49, 29 February 2012 (PST)

Model/Texture information on model pages

I feel this would be nice to have, just as a quick reference for developers, like the Fallout Wiki does. Perhaps it can be stored in a dropdown in the Infobox so the casual browser doesn't have to see it. I'm aware there's the rotations page, but that does not contain non-paintables nor is it designed for that and lacks texture information, plus it's not an easily accessible reference to those new to the wiki. Thoughts?--Fiskie ^{Talk :: Contribs} 06:21, 28 February 2012 (PST)

 Oppose We've had a similar discussion before. "Those new to the wiki", on average, aren't going to be concerned with the technical side. We'd be adding technical information to pages which would be useless for 99% of visitors, when people who need this info already know where to look (or simply need to ask on a talk page/IRC to find out). People don't visit articles to see info about the model, they go to see info about the item as it appears to them in-game. The rotations page is for the exclusive use of people preparing painted item previews, not for hosting general model information. We have a help page on how to use the model viewer, which dumps all info about a model; if somebody needs this info, they'll use that. Why do we even need "texture information" on the public-facing articles anyway? Why would we even need a reference of all information about every model in the game when somebody who needs this information can self-educate, which is better overall, and find it out themselves? i-ghost 06:43, 29 February 2012 (PST)

Because this is a Wiki! That same reasoning could be applied to everything that is on here. The model/material file structure in the GCFs are absurd anyway due to the lack of consistency. --Fiskie ^{Talk :: Contribs} 09:59, 29 February 2012 (PST)

The preceding discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.