eRepublik Official Wiki:Bar/January2009

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New Category?

How do you make Categories? It's the main thing I don't really know how to do.Mike Schmittson 19:25, 27 January 2009 (PST)

Hi. I answered this in a chat, but I decided I will answer for everyone. To add a new category, just type [[Category:Category name]] at the bottom of the page. Then, once the page is saved, click the red category link and you will get an "edit" page - add a short sentence of the category and then click save. Every page with your category link will then appear on that page. As a note, as I seem to be the one that is always categorizing things (I love to organize), try to only create categories when there are more than one articles that will appear in the category or if more articles will be added later. This makes maintaining the category list easier. Categories are for collections of similar pages, they are not labels. To see what needs a category, I check Special:Wantedcategories. --QJ Lincoln Talk To Me 19:52, 28 January 2009 (PST)

Citizen Page Tutorial

I have, with Belea's help and input from others, created a eRepublik Official Wiki:Citizen Page Tutorial. Please have a look and let me know what you think. These are the goals:

  1. Provide clear directions to new users on how to create a page that EVERYONE wants to write
  2. Not overwhelm the user
  3. Be thorough yet concise

I would like some feedback before I publicize and get it into general circulation. Thanks!--QJ Lincoln 23:04, 29 December 2008 (EET)

"not set on a "let's insult everyone or that person I hate the most" rampage"
Ho ho ho. Who does this remind me of?...
Looks good. Maybe you could include a note about the differences between a citizen page and a user page.--BGBW 00:26, 30 December 2008 (EET)
That piece of text is from a contributor. :) The first page has a link to an existing paragraph about the differences between a citizen page and a user page --QJ Lincoln 16:23, 30 December 2008 (EET)

Well since I haven't heard much, I am releasing it to the public. It is my New Years gift to the wiki. It can be found at eRepublik Official Wiki:Citizen Page Tutorial or on the Help:Contents#Create a User Page AND a Citizen Page. Admins should redo the welcome message with the tutorial in it. --QJ Lincoln 20:22, 31 December 2008 (EET)

On behalf of the new future contributors, we thank you! (We have changed the welcome message and we will continue approving/rejecting accounts tomorrow! --Admin 20:23, 6 January 2009 (EET)
I like it. It's clear, concise, and it doesn't extensively use our jargon, so it should do its job pretty well.
Seeing how the majority of editors are primarily concerned with their autobiographies, this should end up being very useful in the future. - –Dr. AgentChieftain Flag of the Crescent and Star PPP! B / C / D / F / P / S 21:06, 6 January 2009 (EET)
Thanks! I tried really hard to give enough info while at the same time not overwhelming the user. I tweaked the welcome message a bit. --QJ Lincoln 22:18, 6 January 2009 (EET)
Not much to say. It looks dang near flawless.
- ThisGenMedia aka Franco aka Teacher Amerikkka/The Party Hey girl, can I hit you back? 04:03, 7 January 2009 (EET)

Translation: future plans

No more lang, nor pagename parameter
You see that {{{lang|{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}} in translated templates? That means that for now we use the lang parameter, but as soon as developers do the edits I asked them for lang parameter won't be needed.
After that edit the pagename parameter won't be needed anymore on {{LangMenu}}
New International templates
I created Template:LangMenu2 and {{IParty}} to have a Main Namespace template without messing with the existing one. As soon as everything is ready I'll move them to {{LangMenu}} and {{Party}}. LangMenu will require every page using it to be moved (from (Language) to /Language) but the Party and IParty templates have the same parameters so the change should be easy

So, that's my New Year gift to the wiki :) --Mini "Template boy" Bill Italian in the deep core have a biscuit 21:05, 7 January 2009 (EET)

In the name of the 45.000 + citizens that do not have English as their native language, we thank you! --Admin 22:12, 7 January 2009 (EET)
So, the admins have finally done the edits, enjoy! (have a look at MiniBill, the eRepublik Official Wiki:Citizen Page Tutorial, ...) --Mini "Template boy" Bill Italian in the deep core have a biscuit 16:59, 12 January 2009 (EET)

Languages in the wiki

There are a LOT of new users, a lot of new translated pages. That's good. And bad.

It's good because it means an easier wiki reading for non-english people. It's bad because it's much harder to correct errors, find bised sentences and similar.
For the moment almost every language has a "guardian" or two. For guardian I mean a person that regularly checks Recent Changes, knows wiki syntax, knows guidelines and so on.
Translating pages is a big deal, a good thing for newbies to do something important with small effort, and maybe even learn some code.
Translating templates it's more difficult, but some people have already succeded in it and I think that in a couple of months or even less most templates will be translated in most languages.
Well, allowing translation was a really good idea, and I fortunately succeeded in shaping the structure in an useful way between the Great New Year Flood (a.k.a. the period in which 90% of RC was new users being approved 9% was new users messing around and 1% older users trying to show noobs the way.
P.S. Have a beer my friends. Future will require hard work. --Mini "Template boy" Bill Italian in the deep core have a biscuit 19:20, 10 January 2009 (EET)

Lots of changes

http://www.erepublik.com/en/forum/topic/81534/erepublik-updates/2 --Admin 22:12, 7 January 2009 (EET)

Help for New Users

Since we have SO MANY new users right now, instead of moving pages, making redirects, and adding templates for people, why don't we try an alternate approach - pushing the Citizen Page Tutorial, the appropriate template, or the Help:V1 Integration (depending on the situation). In most cases people learn more by doing. --QJ Lincoln 19:48, 8 January 2009 (EET)

With these two changes - [1] and [2] - any new contributor receives the link to the eRepublik Official Wiki:Citizen Page Tutorial in their e-mail, so there is no need to remind them of that page. Of course, there are exceptions to this advice! We wish that they contribute much and well!--Admin 21:09, 8 January 2009 (EET)
These users are receiving the link on their User Talk page right now, but they still don't seem to be seeing it. --QJ Lincoln 21:24, 8 January 2009 (EET)
/me pushes the Tutorial --Mini "Template boy" Bill have a biscuit 22:23, 8 January 2009 (EET)

Military portal, pt. II

For the previous discussion, look here.

I now have the means to make a Military portal for the wiki, but I'm not sure what everyone else wants to see on the page. Normally, this is okay because people would edit what they want to see into the article, but most people are probably going to be too shy to edit such a seemingly important page full of complex templates and wiki markup. In addition to that, this is intended to be a high traffic page of the wiki, and I want it to suit the needs of everyone, and not just my own as a military commander.

So, to get things started, tell me what you want to see, and where. This template is the basis for the portal, but I can easily modify any part of it, so you can make as extravagant of a request as you like. I have plenty of ideas myself, but as I said, I want it to be able to suit everyone's needs. I'll appreciate any input you have to offer, no matter if you're of PEACE or ATLANTIS.

While answering these requests, I'm going to make a rough version of my idea, and I can improve upon the design as I receive feedback. I'm not a Wig, so you can expect your comments to be responded to rather quickly. :awesome:

LOL --Mini "Template boy" Bill Italian in the deep core have a biscuit 10:52, 11 January 2009 (EET)

- –Dr. AgentChieftain Flag of the Crescent and Star PPP! B / C / D / F / P / S 20:59, 10 January 2009 (EET)

Template:Box portal skeleton/Intro - introduction words about military in eRepublik - how it works, what is good for, what is bad for.
Template:Box portal skeleton/Selected article/4 - important articles like MPP for example
Template:Box portal skeleton/Selected picture/4 - MPP Web picture or pictures with a specific conflict war operations.
Template:Box portal skeleton/Selected biography/4 - Alucard Bloodlust, smif, butnaru, Rafee, Cicero - other soldiers that are epic/legendary
Template:Box portal skeleton/Did you know/4 - I think this is the place for letting things know about tricky things in war - like you can "block" a country from attacking by attacking it first.
Template:Box portal skeleton/News - new wars, new MPPs, new alliances
Template:Box portal skeleton/Categories - military related categories (alliances, tutorial pages for military aspects, generals, marshals and so on...)
Template:Box portal skeleton/Topics - I have no idea what goes in here.
Template:Box portal skeleton/Related portals - nothing for the moment, I think.
Template:Box portal skeleton/Projects - No Ideas
Template:Box portal skeleton/Opentask - a To-Do List for military pages (like creating new ones/updating the already existing ones or any other wacky improvement to be done)
Template:Box portal skeleton/Erepublik - full list of portals

No more ideas for now. --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 19:00, 11 January 2009 (EET)

The current way they're set up, "Selected article" and "Selected picture" pick a random image/page out of a predetermined set of however many images/pages and display them. I can switch these out for static versions wherever necessary.
News will have to be edited rather frequently in order to be usable, so I'm going to try and keep it as simple to update as possible to encourage new editors to update it whenever they can.
I don't necessarily have to include the boxes that serve us no use, such as lists of portals, since there aren't any others in the works. - –Dr. AgentChieftain Flag of the Crescent and Star PPP! B / C / D / F / P / S 19:27, 11 January 2009 (EET)
Any news, here? --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 00:12, 16 January 2009 (EET)

"Ownage"

...must end. These kind of reverts: [3] and [4] - reverts done with the idea: "reverting now, I will look over changes later and add them myself". I consider they are not useful because they create an impression of "ownage" and keep new editors away from that pages. What do you think? --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 18:46, 11 January 2009 (EET)

As I've advocated elsewhere, I agree, and the behavior should be strongly discouraged. Of course, there are some cases that an "owner" would be the first one to catch a bad edit (Such as your second example), but this is not always going to be the case. - –Dr. AgentChieftain Flag of the Crescent and Star PPP! B / C / D / F / P / S 19:14, 11 January 2009 (EET)
"owner" would be the first one to catch a bad edit (Such as your second example)"
I disagree with you - I consider both of them reverts of useful edits. That is my main idea - some people think like you - "So, X (which I consider to hate me) has made a change to a page I take care of. I revert for now (because she/he is evil and will do anything to destroy my work) and I'll see later if the edit is helping me or not." This is so not Wiki Spirit like! :( --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 19:23, 11 January 2009 (EET)
"...some people think like you..."
This isn't the way I think at all; we were already discussing changes to be made to the page, which he removed. Additionally, I would replace "which I consider to hate me" and "evil" with "has a long history of disruptive, non-neutral, and inflammatory edits on the subject matter", and "I'll see later if the edit is helping me or not" with "I'll immediately discuss it with him on the talk page". I believe any rational, rule-abiding editor would have done the same in this case.
Digression aside, I apologize if I've come across as such an editor, as it was not my intent. - –Dr. AgentChieftain Flag of the Crescent and Star PPP! B / C / D / F / P / S 19:47, 11 January 2009 (EET)
So, basically, you will never assume good faith in Aryamehr's case. Apparently, the idea is reduced to lack of trust. Thanks for the clarification! --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 20:20, 11 January 2009 (EET)

Another idea (more or less related to the subject): do you think that EREP:FIC and EREP:REF must be improved to address this kind of long-going time consuming debates? Do you think we need to create a new policy - "eRepublik:Behaviour" to better state this Wiki code of conduct or something like that? Do you think that "citing" Wikipedia's behavior policies works? --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 20:20, 11 January 2009 (EET)

I think that many wikipedia policies work here, although not all of them, because we are similar, but different. Most of the "behaviour" policies would work, but many of the "technical" ones wouldn't --Mini "Template boy" Bill Italian in the deep core have a biscuit 11:01, 12 January 2009 (EET)
I think we are coming to the point where we need to be very specific about the code of conduct here. Though I always assumed a level of decency and that the wikipedia behavior codes apply here - not everyone thinks so. --QJ Lincoln Talk To Me 17:10, 12 January 2009 (EET)
Already started by Geno - User:Geno Garon/Sandbox. --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 00:13, 16 January 2009 (EET)

Advantages and disadvantages

Please state your opinion regarding this page: User:Mimihitam‎.

  1. We kindly ask all of you not to modify the code on that page in order to have a proper discussion.
  2. What advantages do you think there are? What disadvantages? (you can see here a malicious way of using that code)
  3. We kindly ask all of you not to replicate/use that kind of code anywhere in the Wiki until this discussion is over.

Thanks for your support and, as soon as consensus regarding the code is reached, we will allow usage under some conditions! --Admin 15:56, 13 January 2009 (EET)

The major disadvantage is that it opens the door for increased vandalism and/or inadvertent damage. Easily someone can think they know what they are doing, but not, copy the code and cause some major damage. (Seriously, how many times have I {{sausage|fucked}} up a template because I thought I knew what I was doing?). I can see no advantage to it as it seems to serve no function. There are plenty of places on the internet to practice and show of coding skills. This shouldn't be one of them. Information is key in a wiki. --QJ Lincoln Talk To Me 17:32, 13 January 2009 (EET)
You know, I would love to see the sidebar do the same as you scrolled down the page. Actually, I'd like to see this used for the "mini profile" on the left in-game, too! I think he's on to something with adding a z-index.
However, I think boxes like this shouldn't be allowed outside of the User namespace, if at all. If a template were to follow you down the page as you scroll, it should be thoroughly tested and protected beforehand to prevent abuse. The again, it's merely an extension to what we've been doing all along: refining code. Look at the history of the Bar template to see what I mean. - –Dr. AgentChieftain Flag of the Crescent and Star PPP! B / C / D / F / P / S 18:10, 13 January 2009 (EET)
+1 On restricting it to User ns, where it would be "safer", because
 Seriously, how many times have I {{sausage|fucked}} up a template because I thought I knew what I was doing? 
(QJ)

this applies to me also, the difference is I caused massive job queues, Q J usually reverted in time or discovered the error earlier :) --Mini "Template boy" Bill Italian in the deep core have a biscuit 22:26, 13 January 2009 (EET)

I'm thinking at one interesting use: on new contributors when they create their account - MediaWiki:Confirmaccount-welc, I think that will get their attention on reading what is there. :D --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 00:16, 16 January 2009 (EET)

That might help. But what happens to the message when the user has been here a while and people start leaving messages on the talk page? Will it just become an annoyance? --QJ Lincoln Talk To Me 21:23, 22 January 2009 (EET)
Put it into a template and just edit confirmaccount-welc like "{{Templatename}}<!-- just remove this line to clean welcome message -->" --Mini "Template boy" Bill Italian in the deep core have a biscuit 23:17, 22 January 2009 (EET)
Any ideas how the template should look and the content of it? --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 08:29, 23 January 2009 (PST)
No :) --Mini "Template boy" Bill Italian in the deep core have a biscuit 08:46, 23 January 2009 (PST)

Community portal

What happened with eRepublik Official Wiki:Community Portal? We noticed now that there is no link in the Bar to it and that no one has updated/improved in a while. The "Wiki Community" dropped the idea? --Admin 18:18, 13 January 2009 (EET)

I've noticed that it's not in the sidebar either. Want me to add a link to it to the top of the bar? - –Dr. AgentChieftain Flag of the Crescent and Star PPP! B / C / D / F / P / S 18:33, 13 January 2009 (EET)
Personally, I would love a link to Help:Common templates there, but people probably would ignore it there too :(... --QJ Lincoln Talk To Me 18:41, 13 January 2009 (EET)
That page would require people to use it :) --Mini "Template boy" Bill Italian in the deep core have a biscuit 22:28, 13 January 2009 (EET)

Wow. So many useful pages I am oblivious to.--~✭βƓЪ✭~ 23:05, 13 January 2009 (EET)

Nice to see that "portal" is alive and kicking. --Geo "Talk Pages" Belea 00:19, 16 January 2009 (EET)

"Ball Flags"

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Policy change and Updates

Based on discussions in eRepublik Official Wiki:Bar/Debate 7 the following policies have been updated and clarified:

The following policy is new and has been created to give clear guidelines on what is acceptable behavior in the wiki:

Other pages have been created to explain the different administrative groups:

Please take a look at these pages! Thanks. --QJ Lincoln Talk To Me 03:11, 22 January 2009 (EET)

New Uber Editor

I would like to introduce a new EREP:UBER to the wiki, User:nevugila aka Modu Shanyu. He has done a lot of work on the Turkish language pages and has been helpful to other users. --QJ Lincoln Talk To Me 01:57, 18 January 2009 (EET)

10 eRepublik Rules

Rules changed. (an eRepublik Insider article will be published in a few moments) --Admin 13:03, 22 January 2009 (EET)

Template:Biography

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Snow (By AgentChieftain)

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to have you review this page. - –Dr. AgentChieftain Flag of the Crescent and Star PPP! B / C / D / F / P / S 18:26, 17 January 2009 (EET)

We will review the page as soon as possible. Until then, maybe you should ask other contributors what is their opinion about it. --Admin 10:54, 21 January 2009 (EET)
Hello AgentChieftain,
We would like to know the opinion of other contributors regarding that page before we state ours.
Regards,
The eRepublik Team. --Admin 01:52, 29 January 2009 (PST)