STOWiki talk:Community portal/Archive03

Retrofits
Retrofit articles are starting to run together with redundant info. Should the articles be filled with the redundant info or should articles link back to an article with the info already there?

For example, Long Range Science Vessel Retrofit and Long Range Science Vessel. Both have much info that is the same. Should the retrofit article match the regular article info wise or just remove redundant sections? --Omega X 21:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Retrofit vessels have many differences, and I think its worth keeping the articles separate. One issue I still dont have an answer for, though, is which article to link specific classes to. E.g. should the article 'Exclesior class' redirect to the T3 or T5 retrofit? Should the USS Kirk be listed in 'Vessels of the class' in the T3 page, the T5 retrofit page, or both? Still unsure. --Zutty 13:55, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Possible dupe?
Just came across this:

Skill:_Spacial_Anomaly

Skill:_Spatial_Anomaly

Not sure how folks want to deal with it. I did want to point it out though.

Thanks --Drmike 00:19, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I took care of it. --MatthewM 01:24, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the follow up --Drmike 13:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Broken links in the NPCshipinfo
Greets again:

Can someone show me how to do the two broken links in the NPCshipinfo box in the U.S.S. Kirk article? I fiddled it for a bit and couldn;t get them to work.

Thanks, --Drmike 13:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. I hope thats what you meant. --Zutty 13:52, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, thanks. I could have sworn I had tried those....  --Drmike 19:10, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Consolidated Starship and Space-based gameplay Section
I've alreday done some work (without asking permission!) on the playable ship type pages, but I'd like to take this further. I note that there are currenly SEVEN pages on starships... These pages contain largely similar information, which readers could find consufing. There are also many pages that pertain to space combat, items, skill, abilities, etc...
 * Starship
 * Starship tier chart
 * Starship (classes)
 * Starship (types)
 * Starship (Power and Subsystems)
 * Starship equipment
 * Starship defenses

With permission from an admin I'd like to consolidate all the pages that relate to starships and to space-based gameplay into a more cohesive and structured set of articles. The work I'd like to do is mainly:
 * Create or adapt an overarching article that introduces space-based gameplay and that leads into the other articles
 * Create a nav for starships and space-based gameplay
 * Merge a number of pages that relate to the same topic
 * Standardise many of the existing articles

I believe this will be beneficial to readers, and will make this part of the wiki eaiser to digest. Ofcourse I'm not going to go ahead with this if people dont want me to. If there is already a planned project for this, or if someone else has ideas, then I wont get in the way of that. However, if its ok for me to organise stuff as I see fit, I'll get started! What do we think?

Thanks --Zutty 17:50, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I take it that there are no objections, or simply that none reads this page!! Either way, I'm just going to go for it. If I do something wrong you can shout at me! Cheers --Zutty 18:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * As an admin, I'd say your proposal sounds good and I think a lot of the material could be unified into a cohesive unit, but I would suggest leaving Starship tier chart as its own entity for now. --MatthewM 18:55, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Thanks --Zutty 21:06, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Another pair of dupes
Greets:

If someone wants to look at these please:

Federation Escort and Escort (Federation)

Thanks --Drmike 19:13, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

edit: Another pair: and

Thanks --Drmike 15:58, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Character Planner offline?!
Um... Not to be a pain, but... Did I miss an announcement about the CP going offline? The link to it right along the sidebar navigation is coming up 403 Forbidden... Has it been removed?

Thanks for answering --Ishaka 18:10, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * There is this: http://sto-builder.binarybit.ch/  Not sure if it'll help you or not. --Drmike 23:16, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Showcase featured episodes
I think the main page should showcase the featured episodes much more prominently! The tribble additions are only minor information compared to that. And it might help getting some information into these articles. -- Backyardserenade 10:31, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm a bit reluctant to redirect visitors to unfinished articles in the hope that they become writers. According to stats on Wikipedia and such, 95% of visitors onle visit a page to consume, not create content themselves. Encouraging these folks to visit articles under construction might damage the reputation of the wiki. But I'll see what I can do focus our efforts better. Maybe an individual "Under Construction" category on the home page with weekly changing content, so all writers know, where help is needed? I'm a bit hesitant to do this, because I don not want to "order" you guys around. It's a wiki, and everyone should feel free to contribute in the way they are most comfortable with. --RachelGarrett 14:10, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand that, of course. Still, I think it would be a good idea to reserve a more prominent place for featured episodes (and maybe other recent large-scale content additions). At the moment they aren't particularily intuitive to find. -- Backyardserenade 15:05, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Skills versus Stats
Bridge officer and captain abilities have both an entry for skills and stats, however I'm not sure why. It seems to me the stats entry is completely redundant. The skills that you train are the same as the ones that are boosted by consoles. When I fill out skills I find myself placing most of the same skills in the stats section (because I have interpreted it to mean skill boosts from consoles).

So far I have been listing all the skills in skills and only those that are known to be boosted by equipment in the game in stats. Is this what is intended? For an example, see Beam Overload.

I'm not sure how helpful it is to list the information again. It seems like instead it would be better to list the actual name of consoles that affect the ability. Does anyone have any feedback on this?

--Nagorak 03:41, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

STO Wiki Skin Update
I'm currently working with RachelGarrett to update the STO Wiki skin.

The preview site is available here. Please be aware that occasionally the database is cleared when I push up changes from my local copy.

Sample Articles

Faction Portal

Earth Spacedock

Marik

Exploration Cruiser

Assimilated Borg Technology

Mission: Stranded In Space

Bajor

If you have any comments, suggestions or notice anything wrong, please leave a comment below and I'll try and fix it.

Carl 20:20, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'd really like to hear some thoughts from the rest of you, guys. I think, Carl is doing amazing stuff, and I think we could really use a face lifting. --RachelGarrett 20:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Design-wise it's mostly a good job. :)
 * But I think the skin might be a bit too blue. It could use a bit more contrast and color - either you turn some of the darker blue areas into black or gray or you use an occasional yellowish/orange font to highlight things.
 * The quick links box on the main page is not as clearly laid-out as the current version. The links on the left side could use a bigger font. -- Backyardserenade 21:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks impressive. I like that there are functional buttons looking in-game style - nice feature. Concerning the font of the left side, I agree with Backyardserenade. I'd also like to see this section in another color shade, maybe orange as was suggested (however, I'm probably very subjective here as orange is currently one of my favorite colors). Markonian 21:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Edit: By the way, where is the Edit sign on these pages going to be? I can't find it on the examples. Markonian 21:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * All the header buttons appear at the top where the "View Source" button is. It's currently setup to block anonymous edits though. Do you want me to setup a demo account? Also, my current todo list is located here Carl 21:43, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow, really impressive job. Just one thing; the font for the item infoboxes is slightly small and thin. Karika 15:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick heads-up: Carl and I think, the skin is ready to move over to the wiki for testing purposes. You should be able to select it via your profile settings sometime soon (need aproval from the guys and gals at Curse, who host our page). When the skin is live for testing, I'll make a front page announcement. Regards, --RachelGarrett 22:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've created the page Project:Skin_Update - could you protect it so people can only submit bugs to through the discussion page? Thanks. Carl 15:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick update - the address for the Skin Test is now http://sto.feedidy.net Carl 14:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Would it be possible to make it so that when you clicked on the Wiki's Logo it took you to the Main Page, like 90% of the websites out there?PerRock 23:15, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Please go to Project_talk:Skin_Update for any Skin Bugs/Suggestions. Your logo-click idea is already on the list. Thanks, --RachelGarrett 07:31, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I was wondering if there is a version of the new site logo that's not part of a background image, so I can update the logo at Memory Alpha. - Archduk3 19:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll read through the skin update page, I didnt realise it was so busy Carl 19:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

File Upload Broken?
I was trying to add some of the missing power icons (specifically the Klingon Engineering RA/VA ones) and I keep getting errors when trying to upload.

Could not rename file "/tmp/phpGqJ5Gy" to "public/a/ac/Engineering_Fleet_icon_(Klingon).png". (tried 3 times, all errors were of similar nature)

Anyone else getting this something like this? If not let me know so I can post these icons elsewhere for someone else to upload?

--Lord Trekie 23:58, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Can't confirm. Uploaded a lot of pictures today, no problem. When in doubt, try a differnt file sub-format. E.g., png interlacing is sometimes bad mojo for MediaWiki. Regards, --RachelGarrett 23:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, seems fine now, guess it was just some sort of temporary hiccup on my end.

--Lord Trekie 14:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Using Placeholder Pictures?
A general note. It would be cool to use pictures of ships to illustrate articles like U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) or U.S.S. Voyager. Even though, of course, those ships aren't seen ingame (yet). Could we use a general picture of a Galaxy or Intrepid class vessel in these cases? What do you think? Myself, I'm a bit torn actually. -- Backyardserenade 12:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, and while we're at it: How about promotional images like the one for Spock? -- Backyardserenade 14:48, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't use any footage other than what you can capture in STO or create yourself. We make some exceptions for c-store items, when there is no editor, who can provide us with original screen shots. Other than that, feel free to update the articles and pictures. --RachelGarrett 23:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

New "Under Construction" section on Front Page
Hi, as suggested, I've added a "Under Construction" section on the front page, so we can coordinate efforts to bring the wiki up-to-date after content updates. This is not meant to "order you around", but to provide shortcuts to articles, that are likely to need attention due to recent updates. If you feel annoyed by the section (or Matthew and I prove to be unable to keep it up-to-date), it will disappear as quickly as it has come into existence. Regards, --RachelGarrett 09:29, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I like the idea - it's useful. So far, so good. There's a typo: It says "Colliseum" instead of "Coliseum". Thanks Markonian 23:16, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Long Mission titles
Hello, is there a way to split long titles so they don't go beyond the name section? There's a number of missions with this issue, e.g., , , etc. I dimly remember there is a way to deal with it by adding a | long or sth. similar under | name, but I can't recall it exactly. Any help is appreciated. Thanks. Markonian 11:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've found the Missioninfo-Template and it says to insert the line "long = yes"; however, this has no effect on the title. Markonian 19:38, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've updated the template code so that it respects the "long" parameter now. Karika 16:40, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! It works fine now. Markonian 16:49, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Navigation Templates not updating automatically?
I've created a navigation template for the pages containing information on wildlife in STO. And I'd like to create other nav templates, as I think they come in handy when browsing through different topics. However, I've noticed that they do not update automatically. I created the template and included it in some pages. When I made a few enhancements to the template, those were not automatically included in the articles. Those pages had to be faux-edited (edited and saved, without actually changing anything). Did I miss something? Or is it really necessary to manually edit each page containing the respective template when changing the template itself? That would somehow defeat its purpose. :( -- Backyardserenade 14:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It should work as you expect it to. Two possible explanations for why it is not:
 * Your browser is caching an old version of the articles. With Firefox, hold Shift and click "Reload" to force a complete reload.
 * The wiki mysql database is currently processing other stuff and needs some time for the template change to take effect. Usually this should take no more than an hour.
 * Regards, --RachelGarrett 10:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Featured articles?!
what do you think about a new section with "featured articles". there are so many good articles on this wiki, i think it would be a good way to "honor" good work for the wiki. --Duckman 20:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The request is already a bit old, but actually I like it. It's a standard of many wikis. And we could do a featured image, as well. Of course it mostly depends on whether the staff can keep up with that. (And whether enough users are interested to nominate and vote for articles and images and so on). -- Backyardserenade 14:27, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm interested in that, too. Featured articles can also set a good example for other articles. But before it is decided whether to implement this feature or not, we could make a list of candidate articles so see how many are suitable for the "Featured article" title. /my two cents --Markonian 15:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea, also regarding images. :) Any space where we could collect them? And any criteria that could be applied? -- Backyardserenade 18:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've looked at Memory Alpha (Nominations for featured articles and its talk page) for inspiration. I suggest making a list with featured articles and candidates for the interim. If you're okay with it, I'll start a list and then we can add those page we find suitable. Criteria for articles may include: length, structure, images, usefulness(? - like guides), criteria for images: well, the look? Once we've found a modus operandi, we can work with the Admins to form policies. Btw, it's absolutely okay to put one own's article for to vote. So far, so good? --Markonian 18:56, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. :) -- Backyardserenade 19:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It's up and running. When you consider articles suitable, put them in the candidate list - whether you contributed to them or not. Let's see where we get with it. And feel free to improve the page: STOWiki featured content. -- Markonian 19:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I wonder what the admins' thoughts on this idea are? Is there actually any interest to pull this off? -- Backyardserenade 08:54, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd like to bump this. The page itself is set up. We probably need some admin input to decide how (or if) to continue. Any thoughts? -- Backyardserenade 09:04, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know the wiki policy on bumping topics. But I'll try one last time to bring some attention to the topic. Would be cool to just get some directions from the admins. :) (And please don't get me wrong. No intention to annoy anyone. I just want to avoid that this project just withers away because noone talks about it. After all it took about three monts for someone to bring attention to the original proposal. If it would take that much time for someone to react on this, I'd probably loose interest in the project.) -- Backyardserenade 09:04, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Backyardserenade. I am interested in this, but I'm afraid I've been rather busy lately. I'd like to get a clearer picture of what were going to do, and a consensus amoung the community on how to proceed before putting this up on the front page.
 * Selection criteria? Not everything will be appropriate for the front page, so admins may need to use discretion.
 * How many featured at a time? Just one article, or a short list?
 * How often its updated? Once a day probably too often as we'd run out of articles quickly!
 * What should it look like? Wikipedia style, with a single image to head it and then a snippet from the article, or do we re-write part of it to fit on the front page?
 * Who will select or re-write copy crop/reformat/make images for the front page?
 * Is there a way to automate this? (I'm not in a position to install server mods, but if anyone knows some celver transclusion tricks then say so!)
 * It would be good to get this moving, but I want to make sure we do it properly! --Zutty 00:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Depends on what kind of automation we're talking about. If we had an extension like DynamicPageList, it would be trivial to set up a query on the Main Page that lists the most recent articles added to a featured article category.
 * To transclude part of the page without any extensions at all, we can use this (which I believe works with DPL queries as well):
 * DPL provides a lot of other options for partial transclusion]. In some cases, we might even keep the featured article "clean," adding nothing but the featured article category, but I think in many cases, we'd need to use tags to mark off the part to include.
 * If I'm not mistaken, this wiki is on Curse, and on GuildWiki, they enabled an option in DPL that only allowed its queries to be run on protected pages. This is no doubt because of the big security warning about DPL (which apparently isn't an issue in its newest version).  Might not be a problem here since only registered users get to edit anyway.
 * The same thing could be accomplished with Semantic MediaWiki as well, though to do the "transclusion," we'd have to assign the part to be transcluded to a property. This is a bit uglier for this purpose.  My example below would assign the text to be transcluded to a property called "Has preview text."
 * This would also require the property to be set up, but that's trivial.
 * The problem is, of course, neither extension is installed, so the limit of "automation" we can currently do is use  tags to grab some of the article by treating it like a template, i.e.  .  &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 11:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This would also require the property to be set up, but that's trivial.
 * The problem is, of course, neither extension is installed, so the limit of "automation" we can currently do is use  tags to grab some of the article by treating it like a template, i.e.  .  &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 11:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

@Zutty: I'd just like to point out (as a beginning) that there already is a discussion on the project page that covers some of your questions/points. -- Backyardserenade 15:27, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Featured content on main page
I don't know about others, but I think the featured content boxes (currently STF guide and MVA mode) could be updated a bit more regularly. Both seem somewhat outdated by now. Maybe you could (in general) use one box for in-game content and one to highlight wiki articles/guides and so on? Candidates right now would be season four or maybe remastered episodes/episode replay.

Disclaimer: I've created the remastered article, so I might be a bit biased. However, it contains some important, on-going changes to STO. And I personally use STOWiki mainly to get information about new updated to the game (even before I look over to the official site and forums). Don't know about others, of course. -- Backyardserenade 09:16, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Your idea sounds good to me. We could present articles both concerning current issues (what's on the offical STO page/calendar/new in the C-Store and so on) and the newest well-written articles. Seeing an articles written by oneself on STOWiki's main page is good for one's ego and incentive for create more of those, Imho. --Markonian 15:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Glad you like the idea. :) It just seems so useful to promote these kind of articles more. -- Backyardserenade 18:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know if there's a use for it, but I've created some conceptual boxes. They're a bit smaller than the current ones, which might make sense so the other content is more visible. Tell me what you (and others, of course!) think. -- Backyardserenade 21:15, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Great work, Backyardserenade. I've incorporated the remastered one to the main page and as we get more info for the other articles (probably in early June when Season 4 hits Tribble) I'll be adding those too. --MatthewM 21:27, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :) And cool that you've incorporated it so soon. If you want to highlight another topic that isn't covered (or maybe replace the fleet action walkthrough, it's also been there a while), let me know. I'd love to help out, if needed. -- Backyardserenade 21:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Quick links pictures (and icons in the future?)
I've changed some of the quick link pictures. I think the new ones look a bit better and on-topic. Might think about doing some actual icons (similar to what Memory Alpha uses). What do you think? -- Backyardserenade 11:42, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I like that you've taken the initiative to update this, however by changing the 'STO Portal' image you've also changed the main page and all the other pages that use that image. It kind of breaks a few templates that rely on it having a black background. Perhaps for now create a new image with a different name, and we can change the front page at a later time after we've all had a chance to discuss it. --Zutty 15:22, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't realize that the image is used by other templates. Just thought about the main paige - where I'd still argue that the new version fits well. Re-uploaded the original picture, however. The (possible) new main page image can be found here. But again, my apologies. -- Backyardserenade 15:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No worries. TBH I agree that it looks better on the home page, but that image is used all over the place. As for updates to the homepage, I've been planning to do this for ages, but real life always gets in the way! The page you made for an updated version looks good, but I'd make some alterations. Do you mind if I have a play with the updated version you made? --Zutty 15:34, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, be bold. :) -- Backyardserenade 15:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Quick links need update!
The quick links really need an overhaul. Many of them seem to link to very similar or not-that-useful content. Especially the "Expanding Universe" section is utterly outdated as it is. I've created an updated version. What do you think? -- Backyardserenade 11:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I like it! I've made a few changes and uploaded it to the main page. I've tried to keep the STO Wiki top section relevant to current (release notes) and longer term (upcoming content) while The Expanded Universe section would be more about the main areas for Season 4 (and until we have more info on Starfleet Academy, the Borg Invasion, etc., some Season 3 material). This means ground combat will need a major overhaul and I'm sure once its on Tribble people will have lots to write about it. --MatthewM 12:07, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Just a quick note that the forum link is broken. It needs to link to forums.startrekonline.com. -- Backyardserenade 08:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it is now fixed! --MatthewM 08:29, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Upcoming Duty Officer System
Has anyone yet spent any thought how to add the ~6000 DOffs and ~1000 assignments to the wiki without creating a mess?

Assignments apparently can be categorized per location (each sector) and commendation category (which each have 4 tiers currently). that should give us some framework to deal with.

But what about the DOffs themselves? --Dukedom 14:14, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest that when the system arrives on Tribble, we create an article for on DOff and play around with it until we have found the ideal format/template. These will probably cut&paste-articles that we can modify for each DOff (in terms of name, species, abilities, rarity, etc.). In short, we go step by step instead of trying to create hundreds of new articles simultaneously the moment it goes live. It's not too hard - the only issues I can see is that the system may change rapidly and enormously while on Tribble and basically the huge number of articles required to cover all of them. Just an idea. Markonian 14:26, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * With 6000+ DOffs we should find a way to merge them somehow. There are two ways that come to my mind. Either you put all DOffs of the same species/class on one page (i.e. all andorion engineers) or you put all DOffs on one page who share the same passive ability (i.e. all DOffs who increase flaming kitten juggling). --Dukedom 15:27, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I see, so instead of one article per DOff we have them in tables grouped together. Sounds good to me. If it works out well, we could make several articles/lists/tables - DOffs by species, DOffs by passive abilities, etc. Markonian 15:35, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that it would be a massive mistake to try to have an individual article for every duty officer (number of all articles on stowiki is just over 3000 right now). A single page would be quite large and would probably need to be all-text for loading concerns. It'll be important to figure out just how many dimensions each doff will have (e.g. race, sex, rarity, passives, etc.). Perhaps something like in Accolades where there are two fairly plain lists of all Federation and Klingon doffs, but then these are subdivided into other pages based on race, rarity, passives, etc. --MatthewM 20:32, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I really don't see any point in detailing each of the 6000+ DOffs individually. I most certainly would not be in favour of creating an article for each one, but even having them all in one article seems excessive to me. I don't think it would add much (we don't have articles for every BOff or every item), and it will just create work for people maintaining the wiki in future.


 * We certainly need to know more about the DOff system first, but I think it would be more useful to document the way the departments work, or the types of bonuses granted. --Zutty 16:21, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It sure would be useful to start talking about how we want them included in the wiki before someone jumps the gun when the system hits tribble. The more I think about it the more I favor doing pages for the passive abilities. That probably splits the amount of needed pages into something we can manage. --Dukedom 16:28, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I created a mockup to illustrate my thoughts. Splitting the assignment pages into seperate fed and kdf versions for each sector block 'should' keep it managable. I discarded my previous approach of splitting per passives since not all duty officers will have one of those, the next obvious approach is choosing specialization then.

Upload icons request
Greetings! I do not know how to extract icons from the game files, therefore I would like to ask someone with the know-how: Please, may you upload the icons for the traits Spirit Walk, Feline Instincts and Pounce? (Or else explain me how to do it myself) Thanks in advance! -- Markonian 14:26, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not at my home PC right now, but I'll see if I can extract them for you this evening --Zutty 16:21, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. If you spot any more, let me know. If you want to be able to do this yourself, I could write-up a quick guide (assuming its not in violation of Cryptic's terms of use). Cheers. --Zutty 02:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I'd appreciate such a guide but I'm not sure whether its a violation or not. On the other hand such knowledge has been put to use on the Wiki already. Markonian 03:41, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The EULA doesn't exactly clear it up.
 * "3. Restrictions. You may not (and You agree not to permit another person to):"
 * "3.8 use any unauthorized third-party software that intercepts, 'mines', or otherwise collects information from or through the Game or the Service, including without limitation any software that reads areas of RAM used by the Game to store information about a character or the game environment; provided, however, that Cryptic may, at its sole and absolute discretion, allow the use of certain third party user interfaces;"
 * Extracting icons, though, is merely a tool for fair use under copyright, and I think Cryptic would tolerate it, but you never know for sure when a company will be unusually uptight. &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 10:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Extracting icons, though, is merely a tool for fair use under copyright, and I think Cryptic would tolerate it, but you never know for sure when a company will be unusually uptight. &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 10:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

How do you extract icons from the game files ? Thanks in advance ! -- Elril 15:08, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Could someone please add the six new dual pistol icons (only on Tribble at moment, coming with Season 4)? They look like. --MatthewM 06:45, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Downtime
Welcome Back STOWiki! Wow that was a harrowing few days! Just out of curiosity, during the downtime was there any thought put to moving the STOWiki to one of the public wiki providers like Wikia? BrooklynKnight 11:14, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikia has shown a pattern of enforcing changes on their wikis, such as the switch to their Oasis skin. I believe most other public wiki providers don't use MediaWiki, which would make copying the content very difficult.  All in all, I don't think downtime caused by a bizarre series of hardware malfunctions is worth leaving Curse.  Judging by GuildWiki's experience so far, Curse has been a better host than Wikia is (very responsive, only enforced change being the addition of unobtrusive footer).  &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 11:39, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that Wikia in general forces too much upon their wikis. However, I understand BrooklynKnight's concern. While the server issue itself was likely "bizzare" and unforeseeable, I still think that the communication by the provider was less than exemplary. For two to three days I had no idea what was going on, it was not until then that the error page talked more about the issue itself. That's a bit unfortunate. Dunno, I would at least like to get some explanation from the provider, but I guess the admins need to decide on that. -- Backyardserenade 08:03, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Might I suggest a "backup" news page somewhere that people can link to if the site is ever down. I am lucky enough to be in the Accolades Channel with Mathew but I'm not even sure how much information he had about what was going on. It could be a Facebook "Fan Page" or a separate page on another host. Whatever you guys want... Oh, Also, I'm not sure if you guys (Eyes and Rachel and any other admins) are also Accolade Hunters, but all of us in the Accolades Global channel are BIG fans of the wiki and many of us contribute a bit here and there too. I'd love to invite you to come join us there! BrooklynKnight 19:22, 27 June 2011 (UTC) 19:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Speaking of backups, would it be possible to have an actual backup of the Stowiki site? If Curse ever did go down permanently or became unreliable it would be nice to have even a copy of even the monthly backup. --Aoav160 0213, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure. How easy it is depends on the level of access the admins have to the server.  There's Special:Export, but it's a little annoying for exporting everything.  Being able to connect to the database directly makes things easier.  On GuildWiki], they used a program called MediaWikiDumper when they forked from Wikia.  FTP access might be required to get the images; those aren't in the database.  So if somebody wants to do it, I'm willing to check more into the various options and recommend the best way, but I'm not an admin, and I'm not planning to host the backups myself.  &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 04:42, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Tab Template and Spoiler Templates
I've been asked if I can do something like this (specifically, setting up a template that uses tabs like that). I do have a general idea how it can be done if other users are interested in something like this, but there are things to consider, as I discuss on my talk page.

My idea is based on something similar I did for hiding spoiler text while providing links to reveal it. Generally, the same issues apply here. If the community in general is interested in having either at its disposal, let me know. For either, I'll need admin support, and a configuration adjustment by Curse might be nice (if I'm right about what settings we're using, anyway). &mdash; Eyes   13:49, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't believe it's consistent with policy to block spoilers, or have any other content disclaimers in articles. --MatthewM 19:00, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I developed and tested a tabs template elsewhere. If the community is interested in proceeding it with it, the template is currently in my userspace at User:Eyes/Tabs, with documentation at User:Eyes/Tabs/doc.  It won't function yet because it relies on CSS and Javascript; the necessary code is posted on User:Eyes/Tabs/Code and would need to be placed on MediaWiki:Common.css and MediaWiki:Common.js as indicated. The caveat of this approach is that, in order to deal with the way MediaWiki provides security against random people inserting nasty CSS and JS, the Javascript would get run on every page load, searching for a tab control.  This kind of thing is pretty commonly done on many wikis, though, so the overhead shouldn't be a problem.  &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 09:33, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Very cool! As I said on your user page I think the tabs template is a really neat way to include a lot of information in nav templates. I'd love to do some on missions and systems, because these are missing from the wiki (and navigation through these topics is a bit awkward at the moment). So I think it would be great if the admins would be willing to include the code. (BTW, I don't see the need for spoiler templates either). Thanks a lot, Eyes! -- Backyardserenade 10:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * With the new skin, I'll need to tweak some of the code in User:Eyes/Tabs/Code (and split it up differently to better support different skins--gotta spread out the CSS to get a look consistent with the skins we want to support). So if we want the tab functionality, let me know, and I'll make the necessary adjustments. &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 20:07, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I've taken the initiative to deploy Template:Tabs to support a demo of the proposed feature at User:Eyes/Sandbox. Comments are welcome. (Note that it can do more than just hold images; any type of web content should work in there. I only chose to use the Odyssey class pictures as a pretty demo.)  &mdash;  Eyes   15:43, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Oh, and please put any bug reports for it on Template talk:Tabs. Thank you. &mdash; Eyes   15:47, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I love you. :) I'll play around with it soon and give some feedback. One thing that jumps to my mind right now is that there probabably should be a way to give the entire tab a headline. Thanks a bunch! -- Backyardserenade 19:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Email Features
Has anyone been able to get their email address confirmed in their user preferences? I've seen no sign of a confirmation email sent out to me, not even in spam filters, for any account I've used. If no one else is having any luck, I'll assume this is a configuration issue and try to get it fixed. &mdash; Eyes   13:21, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Skin Problems
&rarr; moved to Project talk:Skin Update

Wiki Extensions and Configuration Changes
I'd like to gather the thoughts of the community on these proposed changes and new extensions on a a talk page in my usersoace. I apologize as it is a little long, but DPL and SMW (in particular) aren't the easiest things to those who haven't used them or seen them used. &mdash; Eyes   18:02, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Allowing UGC missions
Hi,

recently I was contacted by Kirkfat from starbaseugc.com. They consider shutting down their UGC wiki and asked us to allow Foundry authors to add their missions to our wiki. Considering past decisions we made on canon/non-canon issues I do not think this is likely of getting many thumbs up, but I wanted to open the matter to discussion anyway. Please let me know, how you feel about UGC authors adding their stuff to STOWiki (of course with disclaimers, special categories, and such). I'll give this vote a week and then report back to Kirkfat, so the SBUGC-folks can decide if they still want to shut down their wiki.

Regards, --RachelGarrett 22:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi everyone,


 * I just wanted to explain the proposal from our point of view. Our site has become a hub for Foundry authors who learn the toolset, collaborate, and advertise their missions on the main blog.  Our site has not really developed into a place where the general player-base can browse missions.


 * It would be really beneficial for the Foundry community if the users of this site could also browse UGC content. These missions would get more exposure among the general player-base, rather than just among Foundry authors at our site. I think it would also benefit the players. Although Foundry missions are certainly not for everyone, I would strongly agree with Jeremy of Stoked.  A big part of STO is now the Foundry, especially during long periods of content droughts.  There is a significant portion of the general player-base who plays Foundry, rather than rolling another character and replaying the same game content.


 * So, I only ask that you consider allowing a place for the "other half" of game content. Thanks for the consideration.  Thanks for all that this website does for the broader STO community. --Kirkfat 00:54, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * With the already stated provision of special categories and disclaimers, I have no issues with this. Therefore, you may consider this a vote for.  &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 10:23, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I Vote Yes, but it needs to be done correctly. Firstly, English Only. Second, there needs to be a primary directory page and Foundry missions should only be linked from this one page and NOT from any other legit articles. Lastly, each foundry mission page should be clearly marked on top with some banner. -- BrooklynKnight 11:06, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I really like STOwiki and how the information on it is accurate and a good source of reference for me when I want to look up STO information. I agree that the Foundry missions should be listed under a special category and not be linked to FROM canon information pages. But I hope that we will be able to link from a foundry mission page TO regular STOwiki pages. E.g. if your mission takes place in Regulus Sector Block we can direct people to the Regulus page so they know where to go; or if the mission has Orions in it we can direct people to go read up on Orions. -- Galactrix 19:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I can't think of any reason whatsoever why a link from UGC to our more conventional content would be considered a problem by anyone. I sincerely doubt there will be any objection, or even thought of objection, to that.  &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 19:29, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * My two cents: Imho, linking to conventional content is okay but I suggest "quarantining" Foundry-material into their own category, e.g. not having the Category:Vulcans cluttered with non-Cryptic made Foundry-NPCs. Furthermore, if/when we allow Foundry mission articles these will include Non-English-missions. In short: Include e.g. German missions, but have the STOWiki articles on them written in English (or bilingual). I do not know excatly what BrooklynKnight meant by "English only" - but I disagree with his/her opinion if that meant to exclude the German/French/etc. community members. -- Markonian 22:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * If we include foundry missions, I agree with everything Markonian said - especially about non-English missions. I would even say that characters, ships and locations should probably only be described in their mission's article. No seperate ones.
 * However, just a thought: If there is actually a demand for foundry mission wiki articles, why not create something similar to Memory Beta? A seperate wiki that cooperates with STOWiki. Especially, since there seems to be the notion that foundry stuff should be secluded from the main content, anyway.
 * This would also free "our" staff from having to deal with all the issues foundry articles might bring with them (moving sites, content in violation of whatever, wrong categories,...). They seem a bit short on time as it is now. -- Backyardserenade 22:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I know that Dave, our wiki admin, would be very willing to help in any way that he can. In general, I'm pretty sure that if stowiki admins gave the foundry community clear guidelines and a place to edit, then the foundry community would do most of the work.  There would be incentives for them, since having pages for their missions that the general player-base can browse on THE wiki of the game is great exposure.  We would do most of the work for you guys, if we had guidelines and a section of the site to work in. -- --Kirkfat 00:19, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that the Foundry is an additional support to all the official cryptic missions. They may not be 'official' or 'canon' in terms of the STO story but they are still a big part of the content in the game. In my opinion STOWiki just on this principle should have dedicated areas where foundry missions and general foundry-related information (Such as a space to report the current issues that were caused by Season 4) should be included. Though I have a question regarding linking. There are a number of missions which form together to create arcs. What would the policy be on these arcs and what if a mission doesn't create an arc but does have some story links between missions? Would cross linking these missions be acceptable?
 * Bazag 23:47, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * My only Foundry mission, a three to four hour long behemoth known as "The Second to Last Outpost", has been referred to as a "touchstone" mission, as it links back into established Trek canon in various ways. I wouldn't mind someone looking up the Tkon Empire and being able to link back to my mission wiki, for example.  All of my future missions will continue to tie into Trek canon as a backdrop, to help our universe "live" just a bit more.  As an author, I promise to adhere to the guidelines that this wonderful community sets forth, should it be decided to let this idea blossom.  Thank you for your time and consideration.  --OldLordSkull 02:00, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I would like to briefly add to this. Not to sound immodest, but I feel that my mission, "The Return to Terra Nova," is a very canon-rich mission that shows the full potential of what Cryptic's diplomacy missions could be like.  I have added much to the STO universe.  If there is space here for patrols generated almost randomly and half-heartedly by the genesis system, then many of these ugc projects warrant far more consideration, because they deeply contribute to the Star Trek Online universe in ways that far exceed the official Cryptic content. RG's mission is also a great example of this. Playing his mission and other ugc missions are some of the most memorable aspects of being a player in Star Trek Online.


 * Let's enrich this universe together. --Kirkfat 03:27, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Whoah. That discussion went pretty rapidly. Alright then, since we have a clear indication that we want to support UGC missions in some way, I will try to whip up a new policy regarding UGC-stuff. Please leave any suggestions on this talk page. Regards, --RachelGarrett 08:54, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow. Thanks.  That is exciting.


 * As Kirkfat has said, I will help in anyway you guys deem fit. Although, you'll have to bear with me for a bit, as I get used to your wiki, and how you do things here. @davejl_99 20:39, 29 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hum hom, touchy subject. If I had the mad skills like Eyes I would probably use that semantic mediawiki thing to autogenerate a list of UGC missions. Maybe limit that list to only show missions whose pages have been 'updated' in the last four weeks or have been flagged as 'superior missionwriting' by an admin. --Dukedom 09:54, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * One of these days, we can hope the authors of DynamicPageList and Semantic MediaWiki get together and either combine their work, or failing that, that the authors of DPL can give it the ability to query properties. Because unless I missed an major update, I can't use anything other than user-defined properties and categories to query pages with SMW.  DPL lets me query by age and time of last edit, and that would be fine if we don't need to pull anything from the infobox.  &mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 11:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Klingon version of STO skin
Topic is at Project talk:Skin Update. <font color="#999999">&mdash; Eyes   08:18, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Faction page
Keep Faction as is or change it to look like User:Eyes/Faction? <font color="#999999">&mdash; Eyes   10:24, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Your colours are SHINY! Change it. --Dukedom 10:30, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, please. Thank you so much for restoring the colors. After the skin update, everything went blue, but I didn't have the time to take care. Great work. --RachelGarrett 22:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Link Broken
http://www.stowiki.org/Skills, the STO character planner tool weblink keeps saying this:

403 Forbidden

nginx/0.7.65

Also, I'm new and this is a great site. I'm so glad to find documented information about the game.

```` (why isn't the date and time showing? Saturday August 6, 2011@11:34PM EST) Residentx 03:35, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I had thought I had removed the links. I'm not sure what's wrong with it.  I hope to investigate further once we're (hopefully) granted more access by our hosts.  <font color="#999999">&mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 19:47, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Semantic Preview: Traits
I have set up a few traits with properties on my sandbox wiki and also set up the appropriate templates and queries to automatically generate the rows of the Federation trait chart. No doubt this is only part of what we can do with these properties once they are set up on the trait pages.

But, of course, this has to wait until we have Semantic MediaWiki installed. Until then, you can poke around at what I've done so far to see how it works. <font color="#999999">&mdash; Eyes   19:47, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * One small problem I see on the horizon is how its going to deal with traits that share the same name but have different effects. Currently there is only one example /  but with duty officer traits there ought to be more instances of that. Idealy we don't want multiple entries for traits that are just a permutation between captain and boff but keep Telekinetic apart. Does the Traidheader template account for that? --Dukedom 20:40, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, well, so far I had only considered situations where you'd be querying only character traits or only boff traits or only doff traits.
 * For querying them all, I could probably have the traitheader template set a property to make one the "master" or something based on if there's a character one available. Depending on how I end up doing it, the code could end up being a bit annoying, but it's definitely possible; just need a little time to consider my options to choose the easiest, most reliable, and efficient way.  That would allow us to get the character traits when they're available, fall back to the boff traits when there's no character version, and then fall back to the doff if there's no other.
 * Then we can have a separate property called, say, "Has unique effect", assigned through a parameter to the template, like "hasUniqueEffect". Then the query for all traits would go like this:  get pages from Category:Traits and from that, get only the master trails and unique effect traits.  I'll probably set something up for this early in the morning.  <font color="#999999">&mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 21:00, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The structure I chose when redoing the traits looks similar. Captain trait > boff trait > doff trait. If there is no Captain trait available with that name the boff trait migrates from their /boff subpage towards the 'mainpage'. On a slightly related note, would you mind expanding the trait template for an additional third parameter? 'bo' and 'do' to link directly to traitname/boff & traitname/doff? It would not be prudent and very messy if I had to pummel it into submission while you simply can shake the neccessary code out of your left arm. --Dukedom 21:23, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean. The traitheader already produces a link to the boff and doff traits if the pages exist.  Are you saying you want to have a parameter to produce a redlink if it doesn't exist yet?  Or you talking about a different template?  <font color="#999999">&mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 06:09, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my train of thoughts jumped to the original Template:Trait. --Dukedom 07:02, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * My web host was being on the slow side, so this took me longer than expected, but the properties to support grouping traits by name (with the exception of those that have unique effects) are in place. I also added a property to contain the game description.  That one isn't set by a template because the code for that is so simple.  Update is [here.  <font color="#999999">&mdash; [[User:Eyes| Eyes ]] [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 14:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

When I previewed User:Eyes/Trait:_Creative/boff I noticed that the alignment to right for Name: and Details: looked a bit awkward. Center alignment is more pleasing to my eye.

Another thing that might need some adjustment. The way the templates handle the transition between each other. With three or more lines of details it actually looks quite good, with two lines of details you might be a bit confused until you figured out how the table is supposed to work and with only one line of details it looks pretty fugly. Maybe add a 'closing' line below the details?

And last but not least. We might want to review the underlying colours for possible and required. When I did them for the trait table I was in a hurry and didn't bother much because they were only for one page. If they are going to turn up on more pages that might bite me in my lower back every time I see it. --Dukedom 08:37, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks nice now, I'm going to fiddle with the background colours a bit later. --Dukedom 09:56, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Please take a look at the updated colours. In my opinion the first blue is still to bright, I would choose the second or third blue for the possible background colour. --Dukedom 11:51, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Middle colors look best to me. <font color="#999999">&mdash;  Eyes  [[Image:User-Eyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:Eyes]] 11:59, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Subpage issue
Before anyone tells me, yes, I know there's a problem with subpages. Hopefully, this will fixed quickly enough that you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. :) <font color="#999999">&mdash;  Eyes   13:06, 18 August 2011 (UTC)