Difference between revisions of "Doom Wiki:Central Processing/2013"

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First half of 2008

Special:Uncategorizedimages

To honor this anniversary, today I will begin a boring task, in recognition of all the boring tasks that had to be done to get the site started (by Fredrik, radius, Insertwackynamehere, and others).

Background reading: [1] [2] [3].  Basically, due to a bug in MediaWiki, categorized images were sometimes listed as uncategorized.  The bug was fixed, but not in such a way that the backlog of mistakes was cleared.  There has recently been another MediaWiki upgrade, so I will try one more time to clear the backlog automagically.  If this fails, however, I will simply assume that the staff has more pressing tasks to hand (this was 3 upgrades ago after all), and double-check all 600+ tags manually.    Ryan W 17:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The cron job has finally run again, and Special:Uncategorizedimages looks empty.  My apologies to those generous PWAD authors whose map images I have put into a category marked "Items without confirmed copyright status will sooner or later be nominated for deletion".  Hopefully this is temporary, or at least no more permanent than the "cleanup" article tag.    Ryan W 15:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Hexen Wiki announced

A wiki about Hexen was founded last week by User:Lordareon.  (At the moment its edit history consists of 1 welcome-box template and 2 image uploads, plus the usual edits by bots.)  How do people feel about this?

I could see why some Wikians might not want to be associated with the demographic Doom attracts by staying compatible with modern hardware.  ;>    In any case most wikis are not in our enviable position of being able to draw on an existing community right from the start.  On the other hand, should the Hexen Wiki grow large and active, we would have to rethink any duplicate content (similar to the way Encyclopedia Gamia omits full walkthroughs for Zelda, Metroid, etc).  On the third hand, the "infant mortality" of wikis is so high that maybe it doesn't make any difference what we think.    Ryan W 20:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Uh-oh (NPOV biographies)

I don't know if anyone noticed me on #zdoom the other day talking about the CodeImp article, but the situation is getting a bit weird.  I would really appreciate it if other people could provide opinions, especially people who know CodeImp.  (Maybe he thinks we're going to become just another site with unsourced statements about him — we do still have quite a bit of crap in the bio articles, in general.)    Ryan W 19:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I have temporarily hidden the bio in question until this policy is clarified.  Here is the thread from User talk:CodeImp:

Let's discuss this, please.    Ryan W 17:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Ryan W, you asked for my opinion on it. I've been avoiding replying simply because I don't want to get drawn into what is probably an inevitable flamewar over the subject. The other thing is that I don't really know enough about the ZDaemon/multiplayer community to know one way or another how significant an event this is.

If I had to pick a side, I'd probably say that this is a significant event worth mentioning, and it should be included in the article. As far as I know, CodeImp has not denied that the accusations against him are true, and we aren't bound by any deals he made with the ZDaemon staff. The ZDaemon article has a pretty lengthy controversy section, but perhaps his side of events for this particular drama is missing.

I think it's important to realise that articles about people don't exist only to portray their subjects in a favorable light. If we're going to decide on a policy, perhaps an "opt out-all or nothing" policy might be a sensible option - ie. people can choose to have their biography removed if they choose, but if it stays, they don't get to choose what is displayed on it. Fraggle 01:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, I'd like to ask CodeImp specifically: please clarify what you mean by "Remove your unjustified accusations or remove my whole profile, before I feel the need to retaliate" because it really sounds like you're making some kind of threat against the site. If it is, we should be seriously considering how we should be reacting to this. Fraggle 01:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me add real quick that the article is not making any unjustified accusations. The statement "CodeImp has been accused," is entirely true because someone (not a Wiki) has accused him. This statement can be backed up as well by linking to the forum post in which the claim was made.

How the Doom Wiki admins handle blatant threats from someone who's been accused of cyber terrorism, well, that's none of my business. Zack 15:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Cyber terrorism??  Please calm down.  This is supposedly about our policy, not about CodeImp, and even so, all he's really said is that he's tempted to add (sourced!) dirty laundry to the ZDaemon article in turn, which may be only fair.    Ryan W 17:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

After this issue is resolved and the appropriate changes are made to the article, will it be possible to lock the article from being edited except by admins? This would prevent possible future biased edits to the article. Zack 15:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It is possible, although the people at the central wikia will try to talk us out of it.  They say, "If 99 percent of the edits are vandalism, that's one thing, but is it really worth shutting out hundreds of thousands of new people to deal with four or five troublemakers?"  Although I don't know that our own target audience deserves quite that much idealism  :>  and although this particular article may already be about as long as it's going to get, I do kind of see their point.    Ryan W 18:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Ideally I would like to see these type of unfortunate, but obviously notable community incidents documented in this wiki. Unfortunately documenting them accurately in NPOV might prove to be impossible in practice since the subjects are often huge flamebaits and tend to draw people to do biased edits (and often it's even hard to tell which edits are biased and which are not). Because of this I would argue that we should refrain from documenting this and other similar incidents. Plus, even though such drama might in a way be notable community history, I still wouldn't consider documenting it nearly as important as documenting, for example, famous PWADs. In other words, I consider this wiki complete enough even without articles about such things.

What we should do about the CodeImp article, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe first remove the controversy part and then lock the article as Zaximus mentioned? -- Janizdreg 01:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I personally think that as it stands, this part of the article on CodeImp should not be on the wiki. Before Zack edited it, it did not fit the NPOV requirements. (I think this part has already been thoroughly discussed, so I'll leave it at that.)

Zack changed this to state that it was ZDaemon that made the accusation, thus altering what the article was about (an article about ZDaemon accusing him of doing it versus an article about him actually doing it). While this made the article fit the NPOV requirement, it brings up a question of notability. An accusation alone does not provide the grounds for notability. In order to be notable, the accuser needs to have at least some form of proof to back them up (which the aforementioned post on the ZDaemon forums lacks). I mean, accusations (without evidence) happen in the community all the time, should we include them as well? Considering the crap that goes around in the various Doom forums sometimes, I'd hate to see the state of the wiki if people knew they could do that and get away with it.

As it stands, in order for this article to remain, at least one of two things would have to happen. One way is CodeImp would basically have to come out and say "Yeah, I did it, and here's why..." However, I don't expect him to actually do that, nor would I ever ask him to, as he himself said they both agreed to drop the issue. Asking him to go against his word would call up ethical and moral boundaries I refuse to cross, even if it provides more knowledge of the subject matter that enables us to draft a more complete article. Other than that, ZDaemon would have to provide a third party with (or post to the wiki itself) the evidence they say they have, and I don't really expect them to do that either.

Anyway, to bring my ramblings to a close, without CodeImp's POV or ZDaemon showcasing concrete proof that he did it, I just can't see this part of the article ever meeting the NPOV and/or notability criteria. - Nuxius 07:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

IMHO this is a very sensible analysis.  It also avoids another side effect of courtesy deletions: ZDaemon isn't a person, so we might delete the CodeImp article and add accusations to the ZDaemon article, which makes the wiki as a whole unbalanced the other way.  I endorse your slippery slope argument (and Janizdreg's as well, although so far no one has seriously proposed abandoning NPOV).

Note that this would actually be a pervasive change to our current practice about sources.  The written history of a gaming community is expressed almost entirely in media with no fact checking: forums, Usenet, e-mail, IRC, BBSes.  This logic therefore strikes out a massive amount of our existing content which seems to have consensus but can never be proven (Anders Johnsen is one of the top 5 players of all time, the ZDaemon source closing was controversial, Plutonia 32 is unusually hard, Controls, Free Hissy, ... )  Even this is really somebody's personal web site — authoritative, yes, but in need of corroboration.

Having said all that, I think your idea is better than any of my three ideas.  Readers who like speculation can, well, google the word "Doom".

I implore you, please, never to apologize for rambling.  If more people here rambled more often, we wouldn't have to re-ask their opinions fifty times before we could more forward with a consensus.    Ryan W 01:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Did someone say "abandon NPOV?" Heathen! Seriously, doing that could turn this wiki into a YouTube thread. We don't want that! :P

After reading Nuxius' words on this it occurs to me that we probably are making a big deal out of something trivial. All we know is that CodeImp was accused of something. Is an ACCUSATION really a noteworthy thing to have in a person's article? The purpose of most wikis is to share knowledge, not political garbage.

The media has accused Eric Harris, doer of bad things, of having been influenced by Doom. Such an accusation is significant only because a significant portion of the community has felt an impact by the actions, both by the shooting itself and the accusations made. (Which of those two actions has affected us more than the other probably varies from person to person, but that's off topic anyway.) Point is, an accusation CAN be significant enough to document if the accusation itself has had a noticeable effect on Doom or the Doom community.

Well, DID the accusations of ZDaemon against CodeImp have a significant impact? Seems to me like it was just a bit of drama on one forum thread, maybe on IRC too, that upset a dozen lusers, woke the trolls and lasted no more than a week. If there was any notieable damage it was on CodeImp as an individual, and all we're doing as a community is reopening his old wounds. Hell, this here thread may very well have gotten more attention than the original drama years ago that started this whole thing.

So I'm changing my mind. I think the bad words can go away. Perhaps it can be mentioned briefly (if not already) in a controversy section on ZDaemon. Doens't even have to mention CodeImp. Just "it upset some guys on a forum." :P I'unno.

Hillary 2008 Zack 20:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Zack summed my thoughts up pretty well in his second paragraph. What I was saying really only applied to accusations, Ryan W, not everything on the wiki. I personally think that accusations need to be handled differently that your typical information in a wiki article, as they call a person's credibility into line, and without sufficient proof it could be considered slander, and that is no light matter. Nuxius 01:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I see this discussion has continued here and stopped. Although the content has been removed, my page still exists and it still has all the biased opinions and accusations in my talk pages here and here. Please choose to either remove the garbage or the pages completely, thanks. --CodeImp 20:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You mean the history? It's still going to be there if the article is changed and put back, but history is always questionable; it's discarded material editors have found unsuitable. Keep in mind that you are also an "interested party" in this. I agree that controversy part could go from there, as it's just for an incident, not properly documented, and ends up representing you improperly on the whole, but the known facts about the hack/exploit, put in context, would be convenient in an article about online port controversy (from Doomserv to the present). Who is like God? 22:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, MediaWiki allows individual entries in the history to be deleted (a daily occurrence on Wikipedia, in response to cease-and-desist letters).  Presumably, however, Codeimp's name would be included in your hypothetical article, along with the links to the forum threads.  Given that Codeimp objected to those links even appearing on the talk page, I assume that this wouldn't satisfy him.

In your hypothetical article, the burden of proof would still be on that editor to show that the controversy was more notable than the average weekly forum drama.  Does this generalize to the cases I described above (we can't say that Anders Johnsen was a really good player unless we can agree on an authoritative citation)?  I am not certain, but I find the possibility depressing.    Ryan W 01:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I never mentioned the history. Read my writing again, carefully. Why does the conversation have to start over again? It was a length discussion and the consensus was to remove the slander, but none of these administrators steps up and actually fixes these pages. --CodeImp 06:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the history part stemmed off of when you said Although the content has been removed, my page still exists.... And then you go on about how you want it removed (if this isn't what you meant, then I would suggest a rewording of your post). Well, the actual article itself on you is currently removed, and the only thing that is on your page right now is the box explaining why it has been locked and a link pointing to this discussion, so there is nothing there to really take objection to, so it was naturally assumed that you were referring to the history of that page.

So, now that I know you were not referring to the history, either you are saying that you do have a problem with your current bio page being used as place to inform wiki users over what is going on, or I am still misunderstanding you. Nuxius 09:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

CodeImp, reading the previous statements on this discussion, I don't see a consensus. But in my opinion you're overly concerned about this, it just kind of makes you look bad. Why not let people decide what they think about what Raider said about you back then? it's history anyway and the ZDaemon forums will still be available regardless of whether they are linked from here. And if people read that the link is missing from here because you complained, what will they think? "Does this CodeImp guy have something to hide?" Then they'll Google around and find the ZDaemon forums, a page bitching at the wiki for deleting that content, or whatever.

Ryan W, I'd say you just went out on a limb there. It's better to wait till articles are actually written, before making assumptions about them. I could mention the controversy in ways that CodeImp might not mind, or he might not be so concerned if they're not on a page directly about him. Who is like God? 12:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Nuxius, there is a temporary page here which was supposed to be there until it was to be removed or cleaned out depending on the discussion above, and I already linked to the other two pages.

I'm getting a bit sick and tired of this. Those people have obviously used these pages for slander whereever possible. Myk if I were to write a bunch of shit about you on wikia and moderators would not remove it, would you like to see that? Please, you are being ridiculous now. Gives the impression that you are just as biased as those who wrote that shit on my pages. --CodeImp 13:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I know about that temp page, hence why I made the statement "and the only thing that is on your page right now is the box explaining why it has been locked and a link pointing to this discussion, so there is nothing there to really take objection to".

So are you trying to say that you want your page completely blank, with absolutely no information on it whatsoever as to why it's locked and why users can't edit it? You don't think that some future editor might be interested in why they can't put anything on your page? You don't think that they're going to go ask somewhere here (either on the associated talk page, your talk page, or here in CP) as to why they can't edit it? What then, delete that without an answer as well, and have them get pissed (and rightfully so)?

Although I personally hope it doesn't end up with your bio being deleted, the fact is that if it does come to that, some information needs to remain on your page so future editors know why it has been locked in the first place. Nuxius 03:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but such information wouldn't have to be in any way specific, as courtesy deletion would also apply to other articles.  I was thinking in terms of a protected redirect in place of the original article, which pointed to a generic message saying "this bio has been deleted at the request of its subject" (redirects aren't indexed by google).    Ryan W 03:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

As I said before, unsourced slander would be removed, no matter who it was about.  The discussion here is not an attack on you or anybody else; it is an attempt to determine whether the historical incident is/was important enough to write about.  If you don't like this page, you can always erase it yourself (there is a rule about that on Wikipedia, but not here).

To respond to your other post, I have consulted the Wikia people, and I am also trying to track down some of our regular contributors on IRC.  If all that comes to naught, well, we have to respect people's right not to participate in the discussion.  myk, I think there is insufficient consensus right now for a general bibliographic policy, but in this case there is probably enough agreement to remove that last paragraph from the Codeimp article.  I guess we'll just have to wait for more cases and see if a consistent precedent emerges.    Ryan W 23:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Ryan, it seems to me that you are the one who's particularly concerned about a "bibliographic policy", and as a result you blocked this article, stalling any editing proposals. And by "unsourced slander", what do you mean? A source for the accusation itself, or a source backing the accusation? In this case, there is a source for the accusation. The wiki is not making an accusation, just reporting an opinion on the exploit incident, as it properly attributes the opinion. Who is like God? 03:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

O.K., let's hypothetically assume there is a page about you on the wiki for a second; basically you're saying that you're O.K. with say, me adding "Myk has been accused of going over the top and being batshit insane. It has also been said that he likes to nitpick at everything, and generally talks a lot but doesn't say much. He has also been compared to a Escher painting, in that the world which he sees is completely backwards from reality."? (these are a couple of accusations made towards myk from Scuba Steve, Danarchy and others on Doomworld, in case anyone is curious)

I've already made it pretty clear where my views stand; if I saw something like I just described in a persons bio, I'd take it as vandalism and delete it in a heartbeat. Nuxius 07:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

If it is that simple, that means I could make my own website or forum, write some accusations on it and cite them here because "they have a source to cite" and the wiki is not making the accusation, "just reporting it". --CodeImp 06:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you couldn't post it, as it falls under original research. However, you could make the webpage and I could post it on the wiki (if we traveled down the road myk suggests, that is). Nuxius 06:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

An aside: the Doom Wiki is not Wikipedia. We don't have a "no original research" policy. It is, in fact, specifically allowed. Bloodshedder 21:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I left a response on your talk page. Nuxius 03:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Because this was the second time someone had asked for deletion of content in their bio article, it seemed reasonable to pool opinions on a general policy.  We haven't achieved that, so we move on and at least try to decide what to do with the Codeimp article.

I protected the article mainly to show Codeimp that someone was actually listening to him.  Given what goes on at a lot of gaming sites, I can understand people being paranoid if they don't hang out here a lot.  It doesn't prevent content-related proposals because the page history is still there, but IMHO a specific tone and wording can be chosen later anyway; the current question is whether the incident is worth mentioning at all, and if so, whether Codeimp's name really needs to be included.

Finally, the important part: But in my opinion you're overly concerned about this, it just kind of makes you look bad.   Let's think about that for a minute.  For the next 20 years, whenever someone types his name into Google, our article will probably come up (feel free to test this with our other bio articles).  Do we therefore cause future employers in the IT field, and blind dates, and everyone else to see the word "DDoS" next to his name?  Because somebody said things about him in a *forum*?  Good grief.  More than one person on the Wikia listserv couldn't see how this was even a discussion, and I'm starting to agree.

For Codeimp, and anyone else who's been on forum sites long enough to have large disputes, this is a very real issue, which arguably should not be decided with the kind of abstract logic that we (and especially I) tend to use on the wiki.  I complained to Janizdreg when he deleted the Lutrov71 article out of hand, but now I completely see his point.    Ryan W 08:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

If those comments above about me were used in an article (with a proper link to the threads) where for some reason they made sense in context and were notable, and the article were written in a balanced (neutral) way, I certainly would not complain.

Considering "offensive material" represents allegations of crashing online servers, of stealing some textures, of copying source code lines, of using a cheat program, or just being called an asshole or moron online, we are in pretty safe ground compared to wikis that deal with real stuff. Thus, strong a concern over legal reprimand or other fear mongering is really unnecessary. Most people that are prominent enough to talk about are known online (this is a case in point) and discussion with them to help ensure the neutrality of the wiki is our main instrument in cases where someone is directly offended by any content. Who is like God? 09:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"and were notable" I guess this is where we'll just have to agree to disagree; I don't believe that this is notable, whereas you do. Nuxius 03:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussion with them?  But you have already rejected Codeimp's version of the article as a vanity page (which doesn't make sense, since it is little more than a list of his major projects; it could have been written by anyone who follows the Doomworld news page).  Then, when we discuss content of borderline notability, you advocate broad, deductive criteria for deciding whether or not Codeimp's life is affected, rather than letting him tell you himself.  Really, under your proposal, what could he contribute?    Ryan W 21:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

You just put words in my mouth (it's not the first time). I rejected nothing. I pointed out he practically wrote the whole thing; that leads to a lack of NPOV (it's pretty straightforward; the object of the writeup has selected the main contents, even rejecting stuff that does not suit the vision he has of his article). What other people would write is not up to you (or me) to decide. And some stuff that people do seem to be inclined to write gets removed. He could contribute tons of things given his technical knowledge (and in fact he does contribute), but as far as I'm concerned it's wiser to let others add articles directly about oneself, and then do little more than correct and tweak, if necessary and convenient. The User page is a perfect place for a personal perspective or a blurb on oneself, instead. I didn't say it may not affect people's emotions or conceptions of their lives. And how is his opinion of the effect of information here the only thing to consider? It's pretty subjective. In fact, I told him in my opinion he's just hurting himself by taking the information as a problem (with the need to hide it). I said there's little to worry about legally, so that should not interfere with editing here. This preemptive attitude towards potential controversy or supposed legal danger that some people are proposing is a closed-content tendency. Also, your removal of content is skewing the conversation, since decisions should depend on the comments you hid. Who is like God? 06:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

"Also, your removal of content is skewing the conversation, since decisions should depend on the comments you hid." I'm not sure whether you're referring to the talk page CodeImp recently deleted or the content removed from his bio, but either way, both pieces of info can still be seen.

The stuff CodeImp removed from his talk page is the exact same stuff that is in the green box at the top of this section.

As for CodeImp's bio itself, here is the page before Zack edited it to fit the NPOV requirements, and here is the page after Zack edited it to fit the NPOV requirements. Nuxius 06:51, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It has become quite clear by now that we can't reach a consensus on what the CodeImp article should include. Therefore, my suggestion is to apply fraggle's suggested policy, which was: "people can choose to have their biography removed if they choose, but if it stays, they don't get to choose what is displayed on it". CodeImp has made clear that he wants the article deleted if the accusation reference isn't removed and as we can't reach an agreement on whether the reference should stay or not, we should delete the article and protect it from being created again. Does this sound like a reasonable compromise to you? -- Janizdreg 18:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Your scenario seems reasonable in the sense that it leaves the smallest number of contributors permanently pissed off.  However, it needs to be said that this first sentence is a judgment call; the assertion that the normal editing process has already failed can be questioned.  The arguments for courtesy deletion, including mine, are basically based on events that *could* happen, someday, but haven't, except maybe on other sites.  On the other hand, if people later agree that the ZDaemon incident itself is notable, ZDaemon#Criticism will still be here.    Ryan W 00:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: actually the idea of talking about ZDaemon in the article was first introduced in October 2005, so maybe there has indeed been ample opportunity to settle the issue normally.   :Z     Ryan W 03:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Calling these "biographies" is quite misleading. They are articles mentioning what people contribute to the community. Proper biographical information is minimal, if any, and usually provided by the person publicly anyway (though they may still have copyrights on their pages, which may justify the removal of some info). So what will happen is that CodeImp's article may disappear, but he may later end up mentioned as part of some controversy on another page. Particularly the one in question, which left a mark on the community. That doesn't make sense. CodeImp's complaint was that the controversy mention on his article was giving the wrong impression about him as it merely noted he was accused of that and not his position in the controversy which he didn't want to dwell on. In fact, back when he did say something on his page in 2006, it was by posting some chat logs he received, which is only a bit less unacceptable than posting a private message or an email online. Thus it is understandable that he would not like to host that page again. People have read it, though, and know what it says (it exists just like any out-of-print book does, aside from any other conversations or disclosures on the subject). I think we should just remove the controversy from CodeImp's page and talk about that exploit and any relevant people involved in some way in a more suitable place such as a page about online controversy, or on the ZDaemon or Skulltag pages, where it would not be out of place.

actually the idea of talking about ZDaemon in the article was first introduced in October 2005, so maybe there has indeed been ample opportunity to settle the issue normally.

I agree instead with your implied questioning at the beginning. Discussing the inclusion or exclusion of data, even for a long time, is normal in a healthy wiki. There is no need for a terminating conclusion of any sort, especially if it generates generalized policies that may have bad effects on future editing. To boot, we could decide one thing now and then revert it some time later. Any consensus is arrived upon when it matures interactively, not because of a sense of urgency in some of the participants or because a definite amount of time has passed. Who is like God? 09:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well then, is it ok with everyone else too if we simply restore the CodeImp article (likely as this version) and refrain from including the accusation reference in it? -- Janizdreg 22:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Obviously that is something that I definitely agree on. Nuxius 23:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

As there have been no objections for over two tweeks, I have done as I suggested and restored the CodeImp article without the controversial part and unprotected it. If someone will later readd the questionable content without discussing it here first, please remove it from the article. And if people will continously try to readd the content, we can consider protecting the article. -- Janizdreg 21:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking back at all the edits, if it does come to having to protect the article, I think that only allowing logged in users to edit it would be enough. If you look back, pretty much every single edit done that added this information was from a non logged in user, and logged in users were usually the ones to remove it. Nuxius 23:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Level set boxes

For the level articles a box is used listing all the levels of the set the level in question belongs to. For Doom II wads it lists this as either 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, and 31-33 (secret), correspondingly. Since in Doom II the first sky goes all the way to level 11, I think it'd be more consistent to show 1-11 for the first part, and 12-20 for the second. Who is like God? 13:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

US$0.02:  This convention is certainly not set in stone (and COMPET-N agrees with your divisions as well).  If you feel like grinding through every navbox and every MAP11 article and changing all the links, you're welcome to do so.    Ryan W 11:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I did it for Doom II. I'll be doing the rest soon enough. By the way, Compet-n doesn't agree, and I believe that may be what caused someone to start it with 1-10. But Compet-n tables here don't depend on those navboxes, so there shouldn't be any incompatibilities due to the difference. Who is like God? 08:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

You're right, COMPET-N doesn't agree.  Not sure what I was remembering there.    Ryan W 23:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Categories pages

At least as far as the more practical ones are concerned (levels come to mind), these are unhelpful in giving the information any sort of hierarchy due to relevance, bunching PWAD levels, offshoot game levels, and the main Doom levels alphabetically. One solution could be to use a disambiguation page (which could add some more basic info too), giving the category (MAP01 in various WADs, or something) as one of the options to go to. The original PC Doom level would appear as the first option of the disambiguation. Keep in mind that when saying "E1M1" 95% of the time people are talking about E1M1:Hangar (this applies to ExMx and MAPxx levels in general). I think the category system is cool but as it stands doesn't work well as a result for the "Go" button. Who is like God? 14:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The "Go" button could be improved by changing the redirects at "ExMx" and "MAPxx" to point to the id levels (which used to be the case; see Talk:E1M1).  You may be correct that there is a clearer way to structure the categories overall, but three or four rounds of discussion haven't produced it yet.  Could you give a couple of specific examples?  It's not supposed to be easy to accidentally navigate to a slot category from a stock map, what with the navbox sitting right there, and Commercial games/Levels linked from the main page.    Ryan W 17:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with making ExMx and MAPxx go to the original levels. At the top each could have a note providing a link for when you're looking for levels in that slot in general, or for a level in that slot in a PWAD or other game/version. I don't really have any ideas on making categories per se clearer, as all I'd thought was using a disambig in the middle in a case like levels (but just redirecting to the original seems better in retrospect). Who is like God? 19:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that each slot category should have a subcategory for stock levels only?  That seems a tad overblown, given that most slots will only have two (for ExMx) or five (for MAPxx).

If I'm once again misunderstanding you completely, maybe you should make a test case out of the MAP01: Entryway article.  If people like your method better than the current one, then I volunteer to copy your changes to the other 67 slots.   :>     Ryan W 20:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

At the top each could have a note providing a link for when you're looking for levels in that slot in general, or for a level in that slot in a PWAD or other game/version.

Actually, it's already pretty much set up like this at the top of every map page, see MAP01:_Entryway for example. Unless you're talking about something beyond that?

I do agree that the id levels should be easier to find when a user uses the search box, though. Although your method of forwarding E1M1 to E1M1: Hangar (Doom) instead of Category:E1M1 would work great for Doom, things get complicated a bit for MAP01, as there are 3 'official' MAP01s. Perhaps in that case, we could add a note at the top of each category listing giving easy access links to the various maps that occupy that slot in Doom II/Plutonia/TNT, so the user doesn't have sift through all the other PWADS to find that information. - Nuxius 23:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Quite true, I had forgotten the levels already had a template at the top leading to the slot category. I do think the Doom and Doom II levels are more "notable" than the Final Doom ones. While Final Doom has become more popular now by being bundled with the main games it's not id's own work, and references still and almost always mean Entryway when talking about "Map01" in a looser context (e.g., if a demo without a text file is pointed out as a a "Map01" match, that's Doom II's level, or if someone says "like in Map01" while explaining an editing technique without added context, they mean Hell on Earth's as well). That's why I had thought of a disambiguation between the core id level and the category when the user types a level slot (it doesn't decide whether the category or the core id level is emphasized, but lets the user choose). Leading directly to the id level page as I proposed above initially loads more stuff, which might be redundant for anyone looking for such levels in general. Another more economic option is to directly put a link to the core id level at the top of any corresponding category page: This is a general grouping of all the levels occupying the MAP01 level slot, if you are looking for the level from Doom II by id Software, see MAP01: Entryway (Doom II). Who is like God? 22:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I like your last idea because it can be coded in about 10 minutes, reduces the total loading time for people with PDAs and other underpowered machines, and acknowledges the large group of readers who could care less about editing or LMPs and just wants walkthroughs for the Xbox/Collector's Edition maps, which do include Final Doom.    Ryan W 23:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

References

I noted numbered references (as the used in the Wikipedia) aren't used. Is that more or less a policy? I need to know since I'm panning to add more references to some articles. The advantage of references only at the bottom is that they are easier to maintain, on the other hand they aren't as accurate. Who is like God? 14:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no actual policy that says to use or not use inline references.  In practice they are rarely used, unless for some reason it is important to carefully specify which particular ideas came from where.  I'm not sure what you mean by "accurate", since in either case the person adding new text still has to make sure he/she lists all the sources that are relevant.    Ryan W 17:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Accurate in respect to what the reference is for. They do also fill the text with link numbers that look kind of cruddy (especially considering there are already many wiki links on the page), on the other hand. Book encyclopedias don't really use them, generally (putting them at the end or even in a separate references volume), in any case. I think, in fact, they're better for annotations than for references (unless in something like school/university work maybe). One thing that can be done, especially for articles that can take many references, is to group the references into subjects or sections, for clarity. Who is like God? 17:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I think there are many possible conventions depending on the format and purpose of the article (which is sort of implied by what you just said), and that's why we don't have a detailed policy.  It would also be hard to write a detailed policy which allows for a great deal of non-cited material (we don't require a citation for things that can be easily checked by playtesting or in an editor), so it might end up so confusing that no one would follow it anyway.  And of course most of our articles are still too short for it to really save time.

A paper encyclopedia doesn't necessarily need endnotes because 99 percent of the bibliography is existing secondary sources, each of which addresses every topic the article is going to include.  When writing a paper for a class, on the other hand, you do use endnotes because the reader is interested in the details of how you construct your argument (IIRC this has occasionally been done here too, for controversial topics).  To avoid "looking kind of cruddy", some authors of monographs use footnotes keyed to text excerpts (James Gleick for example); on the other hand, Wikipedia apparently values being taken seriously over transparent typesetting.  In an intermediate case, as you point out, an editor could organize the references by section.    Ryan W 18:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Reference/glossary section

What do you guys think about adding a "dictionary" type section to the wiki? It would be there to define technical terminology, community terms, expressions, and to add useful definitions that don't merit or need articles. Even lump types, file names, and such minutiae could individually be defined. All of which could be linked to articles for clarity. The Wikia team said they could create a namespace for such entries. Who is like God? 01:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

My take:  Every term in that "dictionary" should at least be a redirect, if not a whole article.  Therefore, as it says on the main page, this is already a dictionary.  Obviously there are benefits to compiling a self-contained document, but IMHO those benefits would be outweighed by the labor required to maintain hundreds and hundreds of descriptions in two places each.    Ryan W 22:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

A glossary/dictionary and an alphabetical listing of encyclopedia articles are different things. Dictionaries define terms in essential ways, provide origins and uses for words, and possibly usage examples. The encyclopedia gives broad overviews of relatively heterogeneous subjects. Each will vary in its scope of entries and similar entries will generally not be equivalent, as many words or phrases are pointless as encyclopedic subjects and various subjects can't be reduced to a basic set of definitions. What could make a great article may roughly share the scope with eight relatively unrelated definitions in a dictionary, and what could make a dictionary definition may translate to a measly encyclopedia stub or four different articles touching upon subjects related to the basic term. Who is like God? 07:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we could add a Glossary or Definition category? Another possibility is to add "related definitions" as a section in articles, either defining stuff on those suitable articles or pointing to sections on other articles that provide the appropriate definition (when a related definition pertains to more than one article or subject). Who is like God? 21:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

If no one objects I'm going to try to get this going. The idea is to provide a definition for any (reasonably notable) term related to the DOOM games, perhaps with notes on how the term originated, where it is used, and relations to other terms. This can then be used in the wiki, either directly linking to the glossary page, or maybe just noting "related terms" in a section of a wiki article. It would be a namespace (and associated talk) with a front page of its own and its own specialized search inputbox. Kind of what the Wiktionary is to the Wikipedia. Who is like God? 23:07, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

How this would work

A namespace would be added for it (I have special cool name for it up my sleeve :p), and on its main page there'd be a brief description of what the "dictionary" is and a search bar adjusted to search the namespace in particular (maybe it could appear on all the pages in the namespace). Any terms related to the games could be covered in a concise manner (even names of lumps, code tags, properties, whatever), but this would exclude people or "places" (web sites, forums, &c) which are better treated in "encyclopedic" articles, if at all.

Notability for some things may be more strict than usual (it's pointless to define most WADs because there is little to say about them in few words, but stuff like Aliens TC could show up; it introduced the term "TC"). Terms can have various definitions or acceptations, if applicable (DOOM is the game, the franchise, &c) as well as links to offshoot terms (like "The Ultimate DOOM" would appear linked to in the DOOM entry), and links to related encyclopedic articles in the main space. Eventually we could add a "dictionary" link from some main space articles to their "dictionary" counterparts, like they do at the Wikipedia. I think it should be fun, useful, and not too work intensive (most basic definitions are easy to make). Who is like God? 10:15, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

One small note (since this is not documented anywhere AFAIK): the new namespace cannot be identical to the "short title" of any other Wikia wiki, or internal links to it will be interpreted as interwiki links.

IMHO this is a really good idea because it makes the project more newbie-friendly.  In the above, myk and I disagree as to whether it is "not too work intensive".  I hope I am wrong about that.    Ryan W 18:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Lower case template

Does anyone know how the lowercase article name template in the Wikipedia works and if it can easily be implemented here? See their id Software article for an example. Who is like God? 01:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The source is here, but it does seem to include other templates and a magic word in it, so I don't know how easy it would be to implement it here. Who is like God? 19:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, wikipedia markup is getting convoluted these days.  Let's see.

{{lcfirst}} is a parser function, not a template.  The other two transclusions are purely bureaucratic and don't need to be imported.  All the magic words should work because they are listed here.  Therefore, the relevant issue is the condition $wgAllowDisplayTitle=true, which we can't check ourselves; you'll have to ask the staff/janitor people about that.    Ryan W 04:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Monaco skin

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

We are switching over all the default skins (for anon users) to our new skin "Monaco" this week. Most of the big wikis have already switched (i.e WoWWiki, Wookieepedia Dofus and FFXIclopedia.

It is now the main actively developed Wikia platform. As a successor to Quartz, it comes with even more customizability - you can find out more on w:c:inside:Monaco Skin Customization, where you can also find out info about the new features and widgets available. I have taken the liberty of already creating your MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar, but you can customize it much further with more links.

An admin can set the default site skin via the skin section on Special:Preferences, or by editing MediaWiki:AdminSkin. If users wish to see another skin than the default, they can untick "See custom wiki skins (recommended)" on the same page.

We really want wikis to move on to Monaco partly because it's more awesome than Quartz and Monobook and partly as it is where the bulk of our resources are currently aimed :) Please report any problems or questions with Monaco here

Thanks for listening! Kirkburn (talk) 13:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that as Doom wiki did not previously have a skin set, I have set it to monaco-slate. If there are major objections to the change, it is okay to change it back, but you must be forewarned that Monaco is "Wikia's default skin", and you may miss out on future developments. Kirkburn (talk) 18:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

We need to do some work here, as Monaco seems kind of outdated/less robust, compared to MonoBook. Who is like God? 21:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Outdated and less robust? In what ways do you mean? Kirkburn (talk) 17:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm wrong in part, as before I couldn't find my preferences, for example, but I see they're on a pull-down menu. Aside from using the old flat logo, the sidebar contains some stuff that clutters things a bit (game series, gameplay, etcetera), especially since some of those things are fine just being on Entryway (the main page), and "Central processing" (general Doom wiki discussion) isn't so accessible. The current sidebar and top arrangement on MonoBook is simpler, highlighting the more important stuff without redundancy (user page is both by itself and in "more" on the top right). Who is like God? 17:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, myk, all those things have always been in Quartz AFAICT, so they probably reflect the consensus among large gaming wikis.  My guess would be that, unlike large gaming wikis, we don't purposely try to attract new players or form a social network within Wikia, because Doom is so old that we assume the community is fairly static.  Therefore, we have no reason to work intensively with the staff to develop new MediaWiki customizations (see the Wikia listservs for everything you could ever want to know about that), so we shouldn't expect new features to make sense to us immediately.  I know I'll keep using Monobook until I seek the Havens — if it ain't broke, don't fix it.    Ryan W 19:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

More specific suggestions for the sidebar menus:

Gameplay:  Either remove the submenu for "Hazards" or add submenus for the primary topics also (e.g. weapons and monsters).

Top Content:  Put "random page" back in, which according to the listserv is used 10 times more often than any other toolbox link.

Top Content \ Editor's pick:  Name is misleading since it really means "edited the most times", not "hand-selected for quality" (e.g. allmusic.com).  Probably redundant with Special:Longpages anyway.

Doom Community:  Submenus should be entered by hand, if that isn't screamingly obvious.

Doom Community \ Websites:  Redundant with the "related communities" box below; a link called "Doom Community" should definitely lead to major Doom sites, not sites about other FPSes (the two do NOT overlap much, no matter what the staff says).

Wiki Community \ Featured users:  Inappropriate for this wiki, since it is primarily an encyclopedia, not primarily a social network (e.g. wikifur, travel, Star Wars Fanon).  Maybe replace it with a link to the gaming hub.  A tool for listing users by edit count is fine, but hardly important enough to link from every single article.

Ryan W 23:58, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

How about voting on which skin Doom Wiki should use by default? And if one of the "old" skins happens to win but Monaco or some other skin improves a whole lot in the future, we can always do another voting at that point, right?

And in case you happen to agree a vote is a good idea, I'll state my own opinion. After thoroughly testing the Monaco skin and comparing it with MonoBook, I'm still voting for MonoBook. IMO it currently is a more functional and clutter-free skin than Monaco. -- Janizdreg 03:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

If we do keep the Monaco skin for some reason, I hope that we can change it to the Sapphire theme, as that most matches with the look (color wise) we had before. This Brick one is hideous, and it clashes horribly with the content sections style.

Personally, I find the Monaco skin to be a slight case of style over substance, and plus I'm a minimalist at heart, so it's an easy vote for MonoBook for me. Nuxius 09:50, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm setting the default skin back to MonoBook for now, since it was solely Kirkburn's decision to switch over to Monaco. We should first reach a consensus on what the default skin should be before we actually change it. -- Janizdreg 18:14, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE:  We need to discuss/work on this soon, because all skins other than Monaco are about to be discontinued. [5] [6] [7] [8]    Ryan W 15:55, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Chex guy

I'm a little concerned about the user Chex guy. About 80-90% of his edits end up being reverted, deleted or otherwise undone. He's not a vandal though (his edits are more of the harmless but out of place -type), and a few of his edits have actually been slightly constructive and helpful. Unfortunately, overall he's doing this wiki a lot more harm than good.

I have no idea how these types of situations are usually handled, which is why I'm asking your help on deciding what to do. Personally I'm thinking about asking him politely to stop editing this wiki. On the other hand I'm not sure if we should simply let him continue editing and keep cleaning up his unworthwile contributions in the hopes that he might at some point make another useful edit. But yeah, penny for your thoughts. -- Janizdreg 06:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not so much that he contradicts consensus (people do that when they're new) as that he doesn't explain himself: he uses no edit summaries, he never posts to talk pages when adding something unprecedented, and, if he joins a discussion at all, it's a monosyllabic restatement of his previous position without any line of reasoning.  In a scholarly project, it's difficult to give someone the benefit of the doubt when we have no idea what his plans are.

Logistically, also, given the level of activity on this site, one user creates a noticeable burden if all his edits have to be double-checked.  Common sense says that this is more likely to burn out a known good editor than to educate a dubious one whose RL life experiences have already failed to do so.

Absent evidence to the contrary, I tend to assume that User:Chex guy is like most computer users on Earth, and therefore that a given edit reflects only his personal opinions.  If this hasn't had any effect, then it may be time for stronger measures, as Janizdreg says.    Ryan W 02:21, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

CSS stuff

I imported Wikia's Common.css here since it improves the style/layout of this wiki a good deal (an example: before/after). If you notice any new style related issues that haven't occurred before, please report them here so I or some other admin can modify the CSS file accordingly and fix the problem. -- Janizdreg 23:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

New bureaucrat(s)?

Since Fredrik is the only user with bureaucrat priveleges here and since he has been inactive for quite a long time now, I'd suggest that one or more of our active admins could very well be "promoted" to bureucrat status. IMO this would be useful because active sysops have more insight on which user would make a fine admin. Plus personally I believe the currently active and well-established admins would do a fine job at evaluating users and nominating them to sysops where appropriate. My personal suggestions for new bureucrats would be fraggle and Ryan W, in case they are willing to accept the responsibility. Also, I myself am willing to become a bureucrat, but I'd like to hear if anyone has anything against it first. -- Janizdreg 23:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Very flattering, but I must refuse, at least at present.  I am unhappy with the recent decline in my mainspace edits, and therefore have declared a freeze on new mop-and-bucket projects (even intermittent ones).    Ryan W 17:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to not see this as a reaction to Fredrik granting me sysop abilities. In any case, time served is not always the best guarantee for a promotion. You also incidentally proposed a group you belong to. Regardless, I think fraggle would be up to it, due to his even temper, affinity to neutrality, knowledge, and community experience. If this were really necessary, I don't think more than one addition would be convenient, due to the size and traffic of the wiki. It's ultimately up to Fredrik, anyway. Who is like God? 03:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually I meant to start this thread quite a long time ago, put it was postponed for various reasons until now (plus I didn't even notice your promotion until yesterday). I suggested fraggle and Ryan W mostly because I've witnessed their reliability and efficiency as wiki editors for several years now and I appreciate their experience (Ryan's experience with wiki editing and fraggle's experience in both wiki editing and in Doom related things in general), wisdom and, as you mentioned, affinity to neutrality. As for you, myk, you certainly seem like a fine candidate for a bureaucrat. The only reason why I didn't suggest you myself is that I don't know you and your editing habits as well as I do Ryan's and fraggle's. I assure you it's nothing personal. -- Janizdreg 12:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I assure you it's nothing personal.

I believe you; I apologize for the rash implication or speculation. Who is like God? 19:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was going to say that Ryan W would be the ideal candidate for this role and express my strong support for him, but he's already declined the offer. If it's felt that there is an actual need for a second bureaucrat alongside Fredrik, then I'd be happy to accept the role; however, I'm not yet convinced that there is such such a need. The meta.wikimedia page on bureaucrats says that they have the rights to promote other users, control bot flags and rename users. Does Wikia give any other powers beyond these? There aren't really any bots on the Doom wiki and renaming/promoting users are things only done incredibly rarely.

By the way, I'd like to thank the both of you (myk and Janizdreg) for your kind words. Fraggle 16:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not yet convinced that there is such such a need   I was about to say the same thing.  Fredrik doesn't edit frequently nowadays, true, but he did find the time to create a new admin this week, which AFAIK is the only one of these tasks that has ever actually arisen hitherto.  We should remember that the Doom community sets a very high standard for hiatus. [9] [10]   :D    Ryan W 18:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a note: I don't check the Doom Wiki every day, but edits to my talk page get sent to my email. I try to reply as soon as possible (but this week, for example, I've been away and have only had intermittent internet access).

The reason I didn't hesitate to grant myk sysop rights is that 1) he has been a Doomworld Forums moderator for years and in my experience he has done a great job with that, 2) he gave me a good reason ("being able to make these minor deletes and moves myself would be more economical"). I wouldn't have expected this to be controversial. Did I miss something important?

I'd be happy to make fraggle a bureaucrat. I'm not personally convinced this is needed, since I'm hardly getting flooded with requests for bureaucrat action. But on the other hand, the lack of requests could just be a consequence of my own inactivity. Fredrik 19:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone here is against the adminship of myk. If there has been any related controversy, it's most likely just a misunderstanding (such as the one in this thread). -- Janizdreg 21:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Skin and main page

Can I draw your attention to User talk:Kirkburn/Dev - it's a fairly important note regarding the main page. In addition, I was just thinking about the theme of the site - currently it's not really set to anything in particular, and I wondered if this (monaco-brick) takes your fancy. Kirkburn (talk) 13:17, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I personally actually like the new main page look; it has a more organized feel to me for some reason. One thing I do think that could use some changing is making the Resources for visitors and Guides and how-tos a sub-category under Helping out, instead of by themselves, over to the side, like they are now.

As far as the theme for the Doom Wiki goes, most of us have made our opinions known in the previous Monaco skin discussion further up this page. Nuxius 04:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Cool, I'll make a few more tweaks to it. Kirkburn (talk) 11:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've reorganised User:Kirkburn/Dev, merging some sections, and collating similar links. Kirkburn (talk) 11:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Anyone got opinions on the current version of User:Kirkburn/Dev. It keeps everything from the current page, and adds more. If no objections, I would love to be able to put it live soon. Are the colours okay? Thanks! Kirkburn (talk) 16:09, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Assuming no objections, I would like to put this live by the end of the week. Kirkburn (talk) 21:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The new main page is live! I hope it is to your liking! Kirkburn (talk) 11:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I need to bring up the skin again, as we need all wikis to switch to it as a default for anon visitors - we can only support one skin at a time, and we feel Monaco is the most beneficial to visitors and to the continuing livelihood of Wikia. Anyone who is logged in can choose their own skin, and we have no plans to remove monobook as an option. Kirkburn (talk) 15:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

First of all, Kirkburn, thank you for putting so much time into this.  Clearly the original plan was for the Wikia staff to provide no design help at all [11].

I personally feel that suggestions and tweaks to the Monaco layout are best provided by people who actually use it (IOW not me).  Examining a few articles in Monaco with  &useskin= , I don't even see the new ads, so maybe my browser setup is grossly atypical somehow.  Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, it can be difficult to start a conversation on the Doom Wiki until after a large change has been made.

Admittedly, I was amused that the example "featured media" was a disputed fair use image.  Having a featured image might be kind of boring anyway since 99 percent of them are Omgifol maps or Doom/Doom II screenshots, but that's a judgment call, and others might disagree.    Ryan W 22:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It did take me a while to find a nice screenshot, but I think it's better than nothing. It doesn't need to be changed that often. Pity it's disputed, but it's a Doom website, so I don't think you'll have a problem :P

Regarding ads, logged in users no longer see any ads, except on the main page. We were always planning on helping out wikis (especially the big ones) - but it's hard to announce that as then everybody might expect us to do it for them :)

If you were to make the change, know that it's still your choice as to what skin you see. The default Doom skin was (and still is) uncustomized, so I think you might benefit from a new skin to help you "stand out" a bit. Kirkburn (talk) 12:14, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

IMO, now that we have to switch over to using the Monaco skin by default, we either need to redesign the main page to fit one of the Monaco base skins, or design a custom Monaco skin to fit the current main page, or both create a custom Monaco skin and redesign the main page to fit one another.

Actually I'm currently trying to learn how to customize Monaco, and I might try to create a custom Monaco skin based on the Fallout wiki's custom skin. If I'll do that, I'll probably redesign our main page as well. I'm still not promising anything, and we'll just have to see what comes out of this, if anything. -- Janizdreg 00:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I got the restructured front page draft finished just now. I tried to make it more logical and easy to read, I removed (I think) all duplicate entries and generally tried to clean it up. I didn't really touch the eye candy department yet though. And oh yeah, I also removed the featured article & featured media thingies, since I don't think they are all that handy for a small wiki such as this (in addition to being hard to maintain properly and with a consensus). But anyway, feel free to comment. If there aren't any objections, I'll likely put this into use after a week or two. -- Janizdreg 05:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Good morning. I like! Even more organised than my draft (which is unsurprising, given that I'm not a huge horror game fan :P ). Regarding the features - I like them because they can make the wiki seem more "alive" to visitors, even if it's a tiny snippet of an article. I just made that Fallout skin with only a few little tweaks to their MediaWiki:Monaco.css - it's very easy. The most important page to look at is w:c:help:Help:Customizing Monaco. To test, it's probably easiest to put the changes in the monaco.css file, and then view it using a URL like [12]. Monaco.css doesn't get used until the site default is set to "Custom". Kirkburn (talk) 12:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by "objection".  All of the logical inconsistencies in the sidebar are still there (Special:Random has been put back).  Also, instead of the "top users" box, how about a list of *active* users who have volunteered to get lots and lots of messages like this?    Ryan W 16:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Umm, those aren't exactly part of Entryway, and all my changes so far have only dealt with its design. I haven't touched other site elements such as skins (including their sidebars) at all, at least yet. -- Janizdreg 20:57, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

To edit the Monaco sidebar, it's MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar. For the toolbox, it's MediaWiki:Monaco-toolbox. More on w:c:help:Help:Customizing Monaco. Kirkburn (talk) 23:13, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I need to reprod about the Monaco Skin - have you moved any further with a custom skin? Kirkburn (talk) 12:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but not yet. I'll try to get to it ASAP though. Janizdreg 01:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi! It's been a couple of months now, and we're kind of in crunch time now. As we have discussed before, Monobook will still be an option for individual users to select; however, we are discontinuing Monobook as a default skin. We need to flip the switch on the default skin some time around Friday. Check out how the homepage looks in Sapphire, Jade, Slate, Smoke, Beach, and Brick, and let me know which one you like best. Assuming the custom skin isn't ready by then, we can use that one in the interim. Thanks! --KyleH<staff /> (talk) 23:12, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I would like to re-propose deleting the "top users" box in the sidebar (which, correct me if I'm wrong, is a matter of cutting one line from here).  As soon as the new ad layout was implemented, there was a sudden increase in traffic at User talk:Ryan W, which I assume is because I am the first item in the box.  I don't really mind answering the questions when I have time but, whereas none of these editors actually volunteered for this:

• some of them are inactive and might not respond to posts, which I suspect will become more common as the years pass;
• I have no idea what our other active editors think of my being marketed as their representative to the new anons; and most importantly
• my thousands of gnoming edits do not in themselves give me deep expertise, or indeed any knowledge at all, about the relatively specialized topics new readers tend to bring up (because they've noticed incomplete coverage in the articles).

Ryan W 18:32, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I went ahead and nuked the Top Users section. We can revert it back if people feel like the section is helpful, but I tend to agree with your assessment. --KyleH<staff /> (talk) 18:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The deadline is upon us. Because there hasn't been much discussion, I went ahead and set the theme to Brick because it seems to match the logo well. If you would like to change it to something else, an admin can do that via the option at the bottom of the Skin tab in Special:Preferences. --KyleH<staff /> (talk) 18:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Second half of 2008

Happy non-birthday, Doom Wiki!

Our 2000th article is Jeremy Wagner. [13] [14] [15]    Ryan W 20:34, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

First half of 2009

Map Walkthrough Template.

I guess, it would make create a map walkthrough more comfortable, if we had a template for it. This way users would have an easy way to make a walkthrough without copy and pasting too much stuff from other walkthroughs, over and over again. Plus, this could define a kind of standard for walkthroughs. Maybe we need to discuss, what should be included in the template, cause not every point is needed. For example, my walkthroughs for The Lost Episodes of Doom don't use stuff like speedruns, for i have not found any of this. On the other hand, i added one point trivia for the second map E1M2: Fusion Power Plant (The Lost Episodes of Doom), to fill in some additional information about the map.--Cybdmn 15:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

You mean this?  :>   For an example of how the various sections can be used in an article, see E1M4: Command Control.    Ryan W 20:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. I haven't found that, so i used another walkthrough (i think it was e1m1) as a base for mine.--Cybdmn 09:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Names

As i told at another page here, i think we should use complete names of persons throughout the whole wiki. To give an example: Here the creators are called Chris Klie (Christen David Klie) and Bob Carter (Robert Kiana Carter). I think the usage of complete names would made the wiki more consistent, otherwise we sure need much redirections.--Cybdmn 07:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

No objections on typesetting grounds (and redirects don't affect the performance of the site one way or the other; Wikipedia has had megabytes of discussions about that).  The only tricky case might be when a person contributes to the Doom community using a handle, doesn't want their real name publicized, but then someone discovers it.  Perhaps some of our web forum veterans can comment on how that is typically handled.    Ryan W 21:19, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The privacy is a good point, and it should always be handled with care, no doubt about it. I can remember a case at our games database, where a developer from the old amiga days contacted the webmaster to ask for removing his name, cause it seemed to be a stopper for his further career. Such cases are really delicate. Who knows, if a certain community member want to stay anonymous? And, it is a well known fact, that a information in the internet is not easy to pull back, not in times of the internet archives and the google cache. Maybe real names should just be used, if the name is already widely known, for the user spread it itself. But that problem wasn't really what i meant. I told more about consistency, and for the example i used, these names can be read on the mentioned book.--Cybdmn 00:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

DOOM 1 @ 2 ARMY MEN mod n or WAD ideas

This is a request for any doom wad n mod makers to help me make a old school ARMY MEN conversion using the DOOM engine. I have the idea written down n all the game information is also written n ready to go. I need help wit this for 2 reasons. 1 is that i don't have a computer n nor do i have that ability to do it my self, I would also like if someone can teach me how to make wads n mods for DOOM. Any one in IL. or IN would b preferable. This game will b the 1st game in my future company called Neo3DO. This is a attempt to bring back the former glory of the earlier 3DO games. NOTE this will be a promotional game only. We r using IDs software n thus we cant sell it for personal profit. If u r interested please contact me by email at Tomek507@Yahoo.com.

This isn't an appropriate place to advertise your project. I suggest you join the Doomworld forums and look for help there. To be honest though, unless you already have something to show it's unlikely that anyone will be interested in contributing to such a project. Fraggle 12:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

2008 traffic report

Now that we are well rooted in the year 2009, it's time to take a look at our first annual past year traffic report. These statistics are based on traffic counted by Google Analytics from January 1, 2008 all the way up to December 31 of the same year.

All in all the site had 813 372 visits by 548 224 visitors. The clearly highest peak in traffic occured from January 23 to January 28. During this time segment the wiki had more than 6 000 visits a day, the absolute highest peak occuring on January 26 when the site had 9 136 visits (more than 4 times than on an average day). Otherwise the traffic was pretty steady all year round, with on average around 2228 visits a day.

The top 20 pages with the most pageviews were Entryway (with 298 702 pageviews) , Monster and the Monsters redirect page (with a combined total of 261 331 pageviews), Doom 3 (120 979), Doom II (82 274), Doom (77 478), Doom 4 (75 339), Cyberdemon (58 046), Heretic (48 073), Hell Knight (Doom 3) (44 988), Cacodemon (42 407), Knee-Deep in the Dead (40 036), Cyberdemon (Doom 3) (38 013), Sabaoth (34 107), Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (33 833), Demon (Doom 3) (33 237), Doom RPG (31 698), Mancubus (Doom 3) (31 405), Arch-Vile (Doom 3) (30 834) and Thy Flesh Consumed (30 809).

On average users spent 6 minutes 48 seconds on the site, visiting 8.90 pages on average.

Top 10 countries by the amount of visits were United States with 373 385 hits (45.91% of all visits), United Kingdom with 71 775 hits (8.82%), Canada with 46 434 hits (5.71%), Australia with 31 152 hits (3,83%), Germany with 24 969 hits (3.07%), Finland with 19,967 hits (2.45%), Brazil with 14 988 hits (1.84%), Poland with 14 500 hits (1.78%), France with 14 099 hits (1.73%) and Netherlands with 13 747 hits (1.69%). Of these countries, Finland clearly stood out in the average usage statistics, with most pages/visit (11.41), the highest avg. time spent on site (8 minutes 38 seconds) and with the most loyal visitors. Finland also strongly dominates in amount of visits adjusted per population. Among the few countries that gathered zero hits were Turkmenistan, North Korea and around 10 African countries.

62.41% of the traffic came through search engines, 18.99% via referring sites and 16.87% was direct traffic. Top traffic sources were Google (55.01% of traffic), direct site access (16.87%), the English Wikipedia (8.02%), Yahoo (5.38%), and Doomworld (1.85%).

In addition to these Google Analytics provides a shitload of all sorts of detailed stats, so if you have any further statistics questions, feel free to ask. -- Janizdreg 00:04, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki welcomebot

This account has recently begun making postings to IP talk pages, and signing them with our admins' names.  I don't know what the other admins think, but I took the liberty of turning it off for now, partly because I already post quite enough repetitive things with my own keyboard, but mostly because the message seems more confusing than helpful: it contains no links to our existing help resources (as in the first paragraph of Entryway), congratulates people for vandalism or vanity postings, and of course inherits all the usual issues with dynamic IPs.

What do other admins think?  Will anyone volunteer to be the "contact person" for this bot (as it says in the documentation)?  If so, what do you think should be linked from the welcome post?  Even if no one responds here, I'll try to draft a more robust welcome post within the next few days.    Ryan W 20:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi! I saw this discussion, and I'm dropping by to see if I can help... I'm the staff person who's working on the welcome tool. There's a lot of customization that you can do with this, so hopefully I can help you make it work the way you want it to.

You can customize the default message to match your existing welcome template, with links to the help pages and everything. Pretty soon, you'll be able to turn off different pieces of it -- you can set it to just leave messages for logged-in users and not anons, if you want. As an alternative, you could also change the anon message so that it doesn't thank people -- just encourages folks to log in. So far, we've seen a lot of people logging in as a result of getting the welcome message -- having the message left so quickly catches them before their IP changes.

So -- we're trying to build in all the customization folks need, so that it works the way the community needs to work. Let me know if I can help! -- Danny<staff /> (talk) 20:47, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

My action was not meant to contradict any of these statements (I've misplaced the link to your original announcement, but I did read it).  Customization is an extremely slow procedure with this wiki's level of activity, however, and the tool could easily have made 2,000 edits before we updated any of the messages.  Given that scale, I thought it was best to err, temporarily, on the side of human-vetted welcoming.    Ryan W 21:19, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, absolutely! I agree, that was the best thing while you're figuring it out. I'm just going around and making sure folks on the active wikis know how to do the customization, since we're adding more parts, and it's getting kind of complicated. :)

So we actually just released the new changes -- now wikis are able to enable the user page, the anon welcome and the log-in message separately. (You use MediaWiki:Welcome-enabled for that.) You can also set the bot flag, if you want the edits flagged as bot edits, to take them out of Recent changes. We'll post info on the new settings on User:Wikia later today. So that's all available now, and you can use 'em whenever you like. -- Danny<staff /> (talk) 21:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)