Doom Wiki:Central Processing/2013


 * For the current discussion page, see Central Processing.

Future of video embedding
During the relaunch, I tested our video embed tool and found a lot of holes in the functionality. Specifically, for service values of I argued against installing this extension at all, but other people love it, so I would like it to be less frustrating (also, our longstanding policy requires media to include a link to licensing info). Therefore, I propose disabling the unusable services.
 * dailymotion: OK.
 * divshare: Videos not viewable unless the user is logged in to the other site.
 * edutopia: Does not work as stated in the documentation.
 * funnyordie: Only one of the two site logos takes you to the info page.
 * googlevideo: No link to info page (the link to the main page doesn't even seem to work).
 * interia: Does not work as stated in the documentation.
 * interiavideo: Does not work as stated in the documentation.
 * revver: Site went bankrupt, currently down.
 * sevenload</tt>: Does not work as stated in the documentation.
 * teachertube</tt>: Site no longer exists.
 * vimeo</tt>: Not supported.
 * youtube</tt>: OK.
 * youtubehq</tt>: OK.

Thoughts? Ryan W 21:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Seems like a no-brainer to me. Plus honestly I don't expect anyone to use something other than youtube or dailymotion here. --Gez 12:51, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

People category
I've been thinking about revamping Category:People into strictly a parent category, and there would instead be subcategories (like some already exist): People who fit multiple categories would be in all that apply. What do you think? --Gez 12:49, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Mappers (or level designers): people who create maps: anybody who has a Category:Levels by author category belongs there.
 * Composers: people who create music: Mark Klem, Tom Mustaine, Jimmy, etc.
 * Graphic artists: people who create or edit sprites and/or textures (maybe separate spriters from texture artists?)
 * Speedrunners: more generalized version of Category:Compet-n players
 * Programmers (or coders): people who write source ports and/or utilities
 * Scripters: people who write game mods code above and beyond the needs of a single Hexen/ZDoom map, like isle (Action Doom II)
 * Community managers: (not sure how to call that category): people who own, operate, administrate, or moderate community sites. Multiplayer clan leaders might go there as well?


 * That sounds great. The people articles have proliferated greatly since we established the current categories, and this would make it easier to find things (and also resolve the debate over whether, e.g., Anders Johnsen belongs in Category:Speedrun).    Ryan W 19:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It's an interesting idea, however what about the people who somehow don't fit into any of these categories? Justice ∞ 23:52, 24 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Then who are such people and do they actually have wiki pages? If there is a need for categories beyond those I listed, then they can be created too. It's pretty much why I put this on Central Processing. --Gez 12:34, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


 * This looks pretty comprehensive IMAO. Perhaps the only exceptions are non-technical employees of commercial organizations (like Donna Jackson).  Otherwise, even if someone is only remembered as a community gadfly, seemingly they've always released a few non-notable maps, or served nominally on some development/siteadmin team.    Ryan W 16:18, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Over one year later, I have begun. So far I've covered all the composers I could think of, adding categories as needed. --Gez 22:49, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

SEO technicalities
Sorry if this is another noob question, but should we care about non-mainspace links to wikia.com, like diffs and revision links? I've removed the hotlinked images (except in CSS which I dare not touch), since those were never allowed even before the move. For that matter, do we know which namespaces are automatically NOINDEXed by our MediaWiki config?)   Ryan W 19:42, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * What hotlinked images are in CSS? The only traces of wikia I've found in the CSS are some element names in the (horrible) Monaco skin (that personally I never use). --Gez 06:08, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * From MediaWiki:Wikia.css:


 * http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/central/images/thumb/7/73/Hubstar-orange.png/12px-Hubstar-orange.png
 * http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/central/images/thumb/e/ea/Hubstar-red.png/12px-Hubstar-red.png
 * http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/central/images/thumb/e/e6/Hubstar-yellow.png/12px-Hubstar-yellow.png
 * http://images.wikia.com/central/images/3/31/Gradient24.png
 * http://images.wikia.com/central/images/9/96/Bullet_plain.png
 * http://images.wikia.com/central/images/9/96/Bullet_plain.png
 * http://images.wikia.com/central/images/a/aa/Silver_taskstar.png
 * http://images.wikia.com/central/images/e/ec/Bullet_star.png
 * http://images.wikia.com/communitytest/images/3/3b/Greenheader.png
 * http://images.wikia.com/communitytest/images/7/7f/Blueheader.png
 * http://images.wikia.com/communitytest/images/e/ed/Purpleheader.png

</tt>


 * There's also this link in a comment, which I assume doesn't do quite what it did in 2010:


 *  check w3c validation </tt>


 * Ryan W 06:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * There shouldn't be any such things. Point them out explicitly so they can be fixed. Please don't expect me to search for them manually if you already know about them. --Quasar 17:54, 17 June 2013 (UTC)


 * No, of course I didn't expect that. I'll clean them out &mdash; no problem.    Ryan W 06:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Should be all set now. Per this thread, I didn't change links to other wikia.com subdomains.  Any remaining situations (e.g. redirection in templates) can be dealt with individually if deemed to be issues.    Ryan W 19:24, 7 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't think MediaWiki:Wikia.css was used by anyone or anything, since it would have required people to use the Wikia skin. Monobook uses MediaWiki:Monobook.css and Monaco uses MediaWiki:Monaco.css. I've removed the offending lines, then figured I might as well just delete it altogether. --Gez 12:00, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * LOL; if that works for you, then it works for me too. Many thanks.    Ryan W 22:21, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Glad that got worked out. IIRC, I determined before that this file wasn't used; it was just a dead import from Wikia. --Quasar 01:12, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, Quasar, ''' still usable, even though I recall you saying on dwforums that you disabled them.  :Z     Ryan W 00:44, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Should edits be published if they cannot be verified?
These pending edits have bothered me for long:, and. Last time when similar additions were made, I published them purely out of good faith but thought afterwards if the content should have been verified again before publishing. I couldn't do a re-check back then because I didn't own the game in question. The same problem is here now.

This time I'd like to ask about the policy on the matter. I noticed that the fourth edit of the same quality was approved lately, but one cannot tell to what extent it was examined. --Jartapran 22:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)


 * There isn't a policy right now, only the opinions of the verifiers, so here is mine. Ideally, yes, technical changes would at least be spot checked, because the average reader can't or won't do so.  I personally don't publish such edits unless I have time to do the research.  I can understand, however, why people don't want to leave an article in draft form for years just because it's about overflow handling in an Atari ST port or something.    Ryan W 01:26, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

id Tech 2 and 3
I would really like to make id Tech 2 and 3 articles, to bring us full circle on the technological path from the Doom engine to id Tech 4 (in which there are direct inheritance relationships the entire way). I know the 2 and 3 engines are not directly related to our mission, and would thus be on the fringe of coverage material, but I feel like, with Doom 3 and especially Doom Classic being in the mix, they become important for understanding the progression.

I had already done this write-up for a possible Technical Details section for the Quake article but, due to the later enhancement of id Tech 2 for Quake 2 and its various licensees, I could add a lot more and very easily end up with an article's worth of material.

I am opening this for public comment before I one-sidedly make the decision to create these two articles. My chief arguments in favor: --Quasar 17:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Allows genealogy table links to lead from Doom engine all the way to Doom Classic via either inheritance path.
 * Information relevant to the long road of development that lead to Doom 3.
 * Information is all relevant to the greater "id" world of which Doom is a part, as well as the FPS genre in general, as licensee lists would definitely be included in both articles.
 * I have all this stuff in my brain and need a place to put it! :)


 * Your argumentation seems reasonable. While the relevance of this matter is marginal indeed, it should fit perfectly fine into our great scope of technical articles (which is, as I am aware, your work in no small part). Personally I am kind of fond of this genealogy topic too. I think it's remarkable how quite a lot of engine features were being carried on to their later iterations (and licensed derivatives), all the way back from idT1 (idT2 was way more venerable in this sense, however). Additionally, it could be useful to show how certain source ports implement code from either of id engines. Unmaker 15:15, 7 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Tangentially to this, the genealogy aspect makes me wonder if it'd make sense to have an article for ECWolf. It's a Wolfenstein 3D engine port, developed by Blzut and borrowing many things from ZDoom. --Gez 09:56, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

New AbuseFilter
Guys, I have added a restriction so that anonymous users cannot create new Talk or User talk pages without having made 5 successful edits. I feel this is perfectly reasonable, and will stop the recent and seemingly increasing rash of bullshit pages getting created. Feel free to argue against, but for now the filter is active. Also I removed one filter that was too specific and has never gotten any hits. The more filters we have, the longer the processing takes, so that's important to keep in mind. We have limited server resources at our disposal, as everybody probably knows by now. --Quasar 14:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Since we had a false positive against this one, which discouraged constructive editing, I've relaxed the action to Warn, Tag - hopefully that will confuse bots and they won't submit a second time, but, we'll have to wait and find out. --Quasar 15:10, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Asdfsfs got blocked by AbuseFilter?
Thought this would be worth bringing up. I noticed that the latest action was triggered by an edit to User:Asdfsfs. Now, if it was done by a spambot, I ask that Asdfsfs would write to this topic to announce that it was the case.

But, if the contributor was Asdfsfs who tried to create a user page without logging in, the block was gratuitous. I mind because I think his contributions have been constructive, and it would be a shame if he got blocked for good because of such a reason. I'm not the one to make decisions here, though. --Jartapran 21:52, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The block log summary says "anon only", so I assume that if Asdfsfs logs in, he can still edit as he did before. (If he has a dynamic IP, he could even edit anonymously by rebooting his computer or router.)  I'm less excited about AbuseFilter than some people, but we used to get these attacks daily, which is almost too much at our current activity level.    Ryan W 22:42, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks for informing. EDIT:</tt> It was a spambot. Later there was a try for User:Soner du who also has contributed here. AbuseFilter is very helpful, only thought there was a reason to pay attention to that specific block as it seemed to be the first of its kind. --Jartapran 00:03/10:40, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

I encourage everyone to continue posting about these situations if/when they arise. It was known from the beginning that we might have to install more of these tools after we "fired" the Wikia support staff, but they are still fairly new to us, and we can't always predict what will happen. :>   Ryan W 22:27, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Just to be sure, I have hopped on SpiderMastermind to use CheckUser. Asdfsfs has only ever edited from one IP, and it's not in the same geo-region as this one. (Quasar) --SpiderMastermind 14:30, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Not entirely sure what this is about, but since I'm referred to here I figured I let you all know that I wasn't even aware of any changes being done to my user page. :P But as I understand it, the issue has been resolved anyway. Asdfsfs 21:42, 20 July 2013 (UTC)


 * A spambot was trying to create your user page. It was prevented from doing so. --Gez 09:52, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Request for Reviewer status
Since Quasar has encouraged me, here goes. Let's make this thorough.

I've had Editor rights since March 1, 2012, when Gez gave me them for my request. While my main intention was to decrease the work of present Editors/Reviewers who had to check rather complicated edits by me (thing tables, for example), I also thought to participate in checking new edits as a compensation for the promotion.

Since then, I've had quite a regular role as both an inspector of new edits and as a critic of unreviewed pages. When it comes to the former thing, I've tried to verify each edit myself before publishing. Back in March 2012, I learned soon that certain regular, non-Editor, users make especially good edits. I admit that I lowered the bar for the examining of these specific changes. Then again, I think it was okay to do, considering that some of the content the mentioned users added I knew to be true.

The fact that I reacted strongly to the review requests of PolicyNonsense  affected a lot. Probably it was because I wanted to show that I was serious with Editor status, and regarded the requests as customer feedback to which I need to respond. On Talk:IRC, I then learned that there are actually two ranges of approvals for the pages, checked that Editors and Reviewers can set and quality that only Reviewers can set.

Afterwards, I attempted to keep the page of outdated reviewed pages as clean as possible. As I couldn't do anything for the changes on quality pages and saw that they would not vanish from the page, I became anxious and started to write these request messages to the users who could review the pages. Later, I went overboard and wrote the message I've regretted the most; I've still felt bad about the bullshit I wrote on TheGreenHerring's talk page. Probably I should have left an application back then as I'm doing now but thought that the message didn't really improve my chances and let the matter be.

By accident, I then found this message by Ryan W. (see the very last paragraph) I learned that keeping an article in its draft form is, if not desirable, intended; a reader can check the draft and believe the information there at own risk. Back then, I was active at the Finnish Wikipedia that also uses FlaggedRevs. The policy there seemed to be that if the draft isn't approvable, the whole edit will be undone and the draft will become cleared (basically, the same as PolicyNonsense suggested). This difference had distracted me, but it definitely isn't an excuse. I should have read the discussion and help pages here more properly. If I had done so, I would have informed PolicyNonsense correctly and all my complaints would have been skipped. I'm sorry about what happened. Since then, I've let the page of outdated reviewed pages have draft pages, although I've tried to get it shortened when I can.

Although I relaxed, I still needed to write requests to Administrators to get my own changes published on quality pages. ,, If there's something in my post on TGH's wall I stand behind, it is that I wouldn't like to bother admins if I didn't have to. Maybe I took Gez's words about "bugging" Administrators too seriously, but I acknowledged them, and thus tried not to stress a single admin too much with these requests. This is one of the important reasons I would like to receive Reviewer status: not to bother with things I could do myself.

Another thing are my productions values. I take care of them, whether it was about reviewing present content or writing new. For instance, when it comes to these six level pages of Doom II, 01, 02, 05, 08, 23 and 29, I didn't review them until the pages followed the map skel template, Compet-N records were updated and the content was checked thoroughly. Maybe the pursuit of such quality is exaggerating but I want to do a good job with page reviewing.

When it comes to trustworthiness, there's someone else who might help you to answer the question. Alongside The Doom Wiki, I'm a database editor at fx's Compet-N site and have made a lot of accurate work there (checked that the information of over 1,000 files is correct and fixed if something is wrong). Please contact fx (Zvonimir Bužanić) if you wish, and I'm quite certain that you won't hear anything negative about me from him.

Here's the complete logs of my reviews for anyone to check: , In my opinion, I've been active enough as Editor.

I hope that the previous paragraphs have shown that I want to help the wiki, and since I haven't misused Editor status, I wouldn't misuse Reviewer status either. Editing The Doom Wiki has been my dearest hobby for long and, although I cannot tell, how long my life situation allows me to be a regular member, I'll continue for as long as I am able. --Jartapran 14:34, 20 July 2013 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I'd be in favor of this. Jartapran and I sometimes disagree about content, but I respect the honesty and thoughtfulness of what he has written here.  We need to support editors who want the wiki to look consistent and polished, and who understand the unusual importance of technical data (because hundreds of people might read it before anyone checks the calculations!).    Ryan W 17:33, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Date problem with Compet-N records
According to a new policy at Compet-N, the official dates of the new Compet-N records are the days they were uploaded to the site. Previously, the official date would have been the day that the speedrunner had announced in the txt file or, if such data wasn't available, the last modification date of the lmp file.

The change may cause problems here, as each run has only been given a single date. Which system would we use from now on? Drew DeVore's new E1M6 UV speed demo may work as an example.

A) Recording date

B) Uploading date

C) Both, with emphasis on either one
 * 1) The official Compet-N listing date of the run is 2013-07-16 as it is the date the record was uploaded to the database.

If the recording date is used, the data can be questioned because it may not be the same as in the official listing. If the official date is used, the data may be considered wrong as well as the run may have been recorded on an earlier day. Thus, to remove unclarities, it would be a good thing if there was a written rule for date marking here.

As a result of the new date policy, Compet-N speedrunners will most likely start to upload their runs more quickly to the database. Problematic cases may, however, occur in the future, because of which I think it is relevant to bring this matter up. --Jartapran 15:03, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * How about putting both dates in the table?

!Run||Time||Player||Record Date||Upload Date||File||
 * UV speed||00:56||Drew DeVore (stx-Vile)||2013-07-12||2013-07-16||||
 * }
 * --Gez 08:21, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * --Gez 08:21, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Why didn't I think of that? :D   And definitely document the change and backstory in Compet-n or Speedrun.    Ryan W 10:52, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * As I've explained to Jartapran, rule is not written yet since it will be forced on "new compet-n". I just don't have time to fix dates in database, so if that's the problem for old records on wiki you can "fix" dates in compet-n database and that will solve it. For "new database" upload dates will be forced as there will be no "news updates". Demos will be uploaded and automatically will appear in current database as current records. I'll just check them later whenever I can. Additional rules for new database will be added "when" I release new client. Hope I'm clear :) fx


 * OK, then I misinterpreted. I'll edit the dates at both sites for consistency. --Jartapran 17:00, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Strife level navboxes
I wrote something for starters.

After thinking about the groups I had selected for the navboxes, there was only one other choice I could think of. I list both here:

Subpage version:

Tarnhill
 * MAP01: Sanctuary
 * MAP02: Town
 * MAP03: Front Base
 * MAP04: Power Station
 * MAP05: Prison
 * MAP06: Sewers
 * MAP07: Castle
 * MAP08: Audience Chamber
 * MAP09: Castle: Programmer's Keep
 * MAP10: New Front Base

Borderlands and temple
 * MAP11: Borderlands
 * MAP12: The Temple of the Oracle

Bishop's fortress (forgot a wikilink)
 * MAP15: Administration
 * MAP16: Bishop's Tower
 * MAP17: The Bailey
 * MAP18: Stores
 * MAP19: Security Complex

Commons and factory
 * MAP13: Catacombs
 * MAP14: Mines
 * MAP20: Factory: Receiving
 * MAP21: Factory: Manufacturing
 * MAP22: Factory: Forge
 * MAP23: Order Commons
 * MAP24: Factory: Conversion Chapel
 * MAP25: Catacombs: Ruined Temple

Loremaster and Entity
 * MAP26: Proving Grounds
 * MAP27: The Lab
 * MAP28: Alien Ship
 * MAP29: Entity's Lair

Bonus levels
 * MAP30: Abandoned Front Base
 * MAP31: Training Facility

Alternative suggestion:

Tarnhill
 * MAP01: Sanctuary
 * MAP02: Town
 * MAP03: Front Base
 * MAP04: Power Station
 * MAP05: Prison
 * MAP06: Sewers
 * MAP30: Abandoned Front Base

Order's castle
 * MAP07: Castle
 * MAP08: Audience Chamber
 * MAP09: Programmer's Keep
 * MAP10: New Front Base
 * MAP31: Training Facility

Borderlands and temple
 * MAP11: Borderlands
 * MAP12: The Temple of the Oracle

Bishop's fortress
 * MAP15: Administration
 * MAP16: Bishop's Tower
 * MAP17: The Bailey
 * MAP18: Stores
 * MAP19: Security Complex

Commons and factory
 * MAP13: Catacombs
 * MAP14: Mines
 * MAP20: Factory: Receiving
 * MAP21: Factory: Manufacturing
 * MAP22: Factory: Forge
 * MAP23: Order Commons
 * MAP24: Factory: Conversion Chapel
 * MAP25: Catacombs: Ruined Temple

Loremaster and Entity
 * MAP26: Proving Grounds
 * MAP27: The Lab
 * MAP28: Alien Ship
 * MAP29: Entity's Lair

Despite the alternative version, I would personally stick with the original. It's clear:
 * Tarnhill and the Order's castle are located to the south of MAP11: Borderlands.
 * Bishop's fortress is found in the north.
 * The commons and the factory are located to the east.
 * MAP12: The Temple of the Oracle is alone in the west.
 * The "Loremaster and Entity" section is good to be regarded as a whole since it consists of levels that are visited near the end of both branches.
 * The two unofficial secret levels have been isolated from the rest in the fashion of Doom II navboxes, although both levels are located in Tarnhill.

My two cents were there, but I would like to have opinions or completely new suggestions from you. I don't currently have time to start creating Strife map articles, but simply thought that if someone wishes to begin working on them, there's one object less in the process if the navboxes have been made already. --Jartapran 15:04, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I prefer the alternative version; and I'd be tempted to put Borderlands and Temple of the Oracle in the same section as Order's Castle. Call it Castle and Temple. --
 * That would balance the groups, and the Castle and Temple section would have a sensible content. I have nothing against the suggestion. --Jartapran 17:10, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Range blocks
The BFG has been brought out. Already blocked a /24 in Russia the other day; I have now added 3 out of the 12 IP ranges under the control of China Telecom FUJIAN. The ranges they own are so large (/14 and /13 subnets) that MediaWiki won't allow blocking them all at once. I am making these range blocks temporary (1 year) and not preventing account registration. Additional ranges will be added if we continue to be swamped with these spambot attacks. --SpiderMastermind 04:50, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The maximum range is a variable in LocalSettings.php, $wgBlockCIDRLimit. I once proposed changing it to 0 so that in case of a large-scale attack, anon editing could be disabled quickly (to prevent damage to the server) until you or Manc were available to investigate.    Ryan W 20:51, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * A great idea but, there's a bug filed against the current version of MediaWiki indicating that ranges larger than /16 are broken anyway because at some point in the software, the IP range gets clipped to a short int (<= 65535). As long as that's the case there'd be no use trying to set a larger range. In the event of massive attacks it'd be easier to deny all in the .htaccess file, or just shut off Apache to the outside completely. --Quasar 22:45, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * A note about recent range blocks - we're getting hit by Philippino human spammers who had obtained the list of answers to our QuestyCaptcha questions. As a result I have changed all of them yet again (3rd time this has had to be done) and made some of them more difficult (one of them requires you to actually visit a page on the wiki to get the answer to it, for example - unless you're a walking doomwiki copy). However that being said, I'm making an exception to my policy of waiting for 3-4 hits out of an IP range before blocking it for these sons of bitches, because this kind of stuff really gets under my skin. Bot spam is one thing. A human sitting there answering the questions off a list to post junk about shoes and designer purses and dog training is bullshit. --Quasar 16:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Pending changes
I ask that the edits on arachnotron and Guardian of Hell  would be reviewed by someone else. I couldn't find online material to support the BFG addition, and I don't understand Doom's source code. Thanks in advance. --Jartapran 07:19, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe this helps. --Unmaker 00:04, 19 December 2013 (UTC)