User talk:Sethladan

For older conversations, please see the /Archive.

Deleted Items

Well, it pained me to do it, but I wiped out all those never-wikified items, heh. Thanks for hunting those down! While there's definitely something to be said at times for keeping things "for history" or "just in case," I think all the ones you found were definitely fair game for the trash. :) Sethladan 08:17, 6 April 2011 (EDT)

Thanks! I thought I shouldn't just wipe them all out myself, hah. What I hadn't realized until yesterday was how long ago those quest rewards changed! I hadn't planned on deleting so many until saw that - 2009 was long enough ago that I couldn't really justify keeping gray items. There are actually a few more that I wanted to double-check weren't in-game before I marked them for deletion, haha, I know you want to delete more! There are "only" fifteen or so more, though. Rubyctook 10:51, 6 April 2011 (EDT)

Tier2

Hey. I saw that you implemented this Tier1/Tier2 here. Seems to be quite nice, except that there are errors on non-creature pages. At least on my FF4:

document.getElementById("tier2") is null
http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php?title=User:Sethladan/Changetier.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript
Line 2

--EoD 01:16, 18 April 2011 (EDT)

Hiya! Thanks for noticing that - is it coming up on the page itself, or only when you do debugging? I haven't seen anything of the sort (or heard from anyone else). Maybe using classes instead of IDs would solve that error. It's not fully implemented yet - just tested to make sure it works here and on Testwiki. Sethladan 12:19, 18 April 2011 (EDT)

Made a small change based on Rav's feedback, and tried to work around the error you mentioned. Take another look when you get a chance, please? :) Sethladan 12:56, 18 April 2011 (EDT)

Hey EoD and Sethladan. Good job on the tiered creature template! There is still a little bit to be done. I tested it on Matumáth and as you can see, the Combat Effectiveness, Resistances and Mitigations don't show up, although they have been filled in. It would be great if you two could find a solution to that. Of course I might have filled it in the wrong way, too. Please tell me. Another small funny detail: if you click from Tier 1 to Tier 2, the page jumps up to the top. If you swap back from Tier 2 to Tier 1, this doesn't happen. I would prefer no jumps, but of course it's just a minor detail, so you can also just ignore it. Well, I hope you can find a solution for these matters and thanks again for working on this! --Ravanel 07:39, 19 April 2011 (EDT)

1. I can't say what's wrong with those values, as they seem to work fine on testwiki while the same page doesn't work here.
2. I know a hack to fix the "jumping". The "toggle()" just toggles the show/hide tag which means in one case it removes the Tier1 before it adds the Tier2, so there is nothing on that page (for a very very short time frame) which "jumps" you to the top of the page. If you add a minimal delay in the toggling, this can be avoided. But if you add a time delay you can get distortions like on testwiki.

--EoD 09:12, 19 April 2011 (EDT)

I think I fixed the first issue - it was a matter of me updating support templates on Testwiki (Analysis-quality/Q) but not doing so on Lotro-Wiki. Whoops! I'm not experiencing the "jumping" that Rav mentioned (although and I can understand why it happens - as EoD described), but I'll test later on with different browsers and screen resolutions, and give EoD's fix a try. Sethladan 14:34, 19 April 2011 (EDT)

Number Run-offs

lotro-numberrunoffs.jpg

Check this out. The numbers are off the pics! -- Starbursty 10:10, 3 May 2011 (EDT)

Yeah, I saw that. There are a couple of weird things going on with Icon since EoD tried to clean up the code. Working on an idea to fix it - thanks for nudging me into action. :) Sethladan 15:07, 3 May 2011 (EDT)

Item Tooltip's moving

I was cleaning up broken lines on some pages, so on some Items I was replacing the disambigpage from Item:{{PAGENAME}} to the actual name. On some items it was fine and ended up exactly the same as before Item:Strange Flowers, Item:Gondorian Sapphire, but on others the tooltip moved to the left for some reason Item:Istûm's Head, Item:The Skull of Thorog (Barter) and Item:Rift-defender's Shoulders. Any idea why this is happening or what I could do to fix it? Amphoras 19:09, 9 May 2011 (EDT)

• Item:Istûm's Head,Item:Rift-defender's Shoulders: replace ' with ' like here
• Item:The Skull of Thorog (Barter): the disambig page should be Item:The Skull of Thorog (Barter) and not Item:The Skull of Thorog

--EoD 05:34, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

Thanks very much. Amphoras 07:17, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

Yeah, we've been working on getting rid of {{PAGENAME}} for a while, but it's sort of...everywhere. Instead of trying to remember the code for an apostrophe, I usually just replace {{PAGENAME}} with {{subst:PAGENAME}} - I think there's a blurb about it further up on my page - which does the same thing. As far as I know, apostrophes are the only characters that cause this problem. And, as EoD also said, an item's disambig page needs to be the same as its actual page on the wiki [including (Barter) or (Level xx)] - that way it shrinks when it's displayed on other pages (mob/dungeon drops, mostly). Doubtlessly, you've figured this all out already and I'm just talking to the wind, hahah. Thanks for working on that, though! :) Sethladan 08:16, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

Data from Pages

Hi Seth. I remember you were saying you were trying to get raw info from pages before. What was it you wanted to do with it again? Amphoras 19:57, 17 May 2011 (EDT)

Hiya! If you're talking about what I think you mean, then it might have been Deeds that I wanted to apply this to (although there's no shortage of places it could be useful). For instance, Hunter Deeds: I envisioned the tables pulling text/numbers/etc from the individual deed pages so any changes that Turbine made wouldn't have to be updated in two or more places. This in line with what you were talking about? Sethladan 20:32, 17 May 2011 (EDT)

Yep thats the kind of thing I meant. I think I found a way to do it, it works for the modified items here anyway. Basically, last night I was wondering how imlink etc worked. After looking at the Tooltip and Loot templates, I made a modified tooltip template. Combining this with the equivalent of loot, you can then use this to set the items you want, and generate an output which is displayed here. In theory, it should be able to be modified to work with at least any pages using templates. The main problem is that it would involve a lot of work to set up in the first place. You'd need to change the template page obviously, but possibly all the individual pages you wanted to access as well. For example you would need to edit every item page for my current idea to work. A bot might be useful if this needed done, depends on how exactly you can direct them. I suppose really whether or not its worth doing all comes down to how much work it would take to set up, and how much it would reduce the future. Amphoras 06:00, 18 May 2011 (EDT)

Quick example of linking into deed rewards: template, deed page and Hunter Deeds copy. Amphoras 12:47, 18 May 2011 (EDT)

HAH! Brilliant. :D What you're working on with items looks like an absolute nightmare, but this definitely fits in very nicely with what I had in mind for those deed tables and really neatly avoids the whole < includeonly > deal we'd been fighting with.

Regarding application to items, there's a lot of potential there, and if we had a bot to do some of the automatic work it might even be feasible. I've been thinking about setting up an HTML form or something (not on this site, but somewhere else) where you could just enter data into the fields and it'll spit out a block of code for you to copy and paste into here; might make item entry/update easier - that's something that could work hand-in-glove with what you're trying to do. Thoughts? One thing that I'm not sure about is that, if we wanted to keep the order of the attributes consistent with the in-game tooltip, we'd have to enter the information twice - once for the display and the other into the "data" fields (|might = x, |agility = y, |will = z, etc.). Sethladan 16:45, 18 May 2011 (EDT)

I think I'll probably do a little more on the item stuff just to set up the framework, but I don't think it will become usable until there's a better way of getting the data or editing the items. EoD also made a good point that people generally prefer smaller templates to work with. To make the items work properly using this method, I would need to add another 32, possibly 38, parameters to the item pages. Wouldn't need most of them on any single page, but its still an awful lot. As you say, we'd need to keep the attrib field as well if we wanted to show them in the correct order.

Deeds should be easy enough to sort out. There's probably <100 class deed pages, so it shouldn't be too bad to add the {{{mode}}} parameter to them. Should be easy enough to convert it to work with any other template too, as long as similar issues to items don't come up. Amphoras 17:49, 18 May 2011 (EDT)

slot vs. type

Do you guys think we need both slot and type? It's been bugging me for a while because some people use one, some the other, and then there're the category parameters, as well. For armour pieces, I've tried to put Light, Medium, or Heavy Armour in type and chest, hand, foot, etc in the slot, even though that's not how it's displayed in the game tooltip. I figured I would eventually move everything to "type" and then change the template so that "slot" wasn't displayed, but you guys are doing more item work, so you may have better ideas. Sethladan 18:15, 2 June 2011 (EDT)

No "the" on the setting. I do not think we need the slot parameter. It was needed before the revamp of items, but now it just doubles as the type parameter. -- Starbursty 18:56, 2 June 2011 (EDT)

I'll do the relics then. -- Starbursty 18:58, 2 June 2011 (EDT)

I don't think we need both slot and type, no, as long as that doesn't mess with the template. "slot" often confuses people anyway, since it sounds like it's asking for head, legs, etc. as well; it confused me when I started editing items, haha. The only thing I can think of that might be affected is items that have "Main-hand" or "Off-hand" on the tooltip. I can think of one cosmetic item that makes using "slot" necessary . . . ah yes. Bullroarer's Tankard & Long-handled Shovel. Some have been using slot to make legendary weapons display "Main-hand" (Hunter's Axe of the Third Age), which all legendary weapons display, but I am guilty of leaving it off on the crafted ones myself. There might be a way to accomodate those items w/out using slot, though - there used to be an off-hand parameter, I think, something like that? Rubyctook 20:35, 2 June 2011 (EDT)

I'm back

I'll be on more often now if you want to chat in IRC. :) Rogue (talk) 21:27, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

Hiya! Missed you. :) Haven't been very good about popping in IRC lately, heh. Will make more of an effort to do so now. Sethladan 21:28, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

non-quality items

Hey
Why is it so bad to have items with no quality parameter specified? (We should not default to common at the moment, as all IE users can't see the common colour+background) --EoD (talk) 21:44, 4 July 2011 (EDT)

Hiya! Feel free to change them to rare (never mind, Magill already did) or something - I forgot about the issue with IE not showing the shadows that you put together. The reason I wanted to add qualities was because with that field blank, the item tooltips at the bottom of Jewels of the Defender were displaying blue links like plain old hyperlinks (now they're purple for "rare") and I found that unattractive, hahah. Nothing major. :-P Sethladan 22:25, 4 July 2011 (EDT)

hehe, ok. It seemed that there are issues when there is no quality specified, but then its fine. ;) --EoD (talk) 22:58, 4 July 2011 (EDT)

Linking to Items with the "+" sign

Is there a way to change the item template to include the "+" sign? A la Item Talk:+25% Skirmish Marks (30 min) Item:+25% Skirmish Marks (30 min). Seems to delete the "+" in the first link but not in the second... -- Starbursty (talk) 10:45, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

Hmm, that's annoying. I was able to make the link work - Item:+25% Skirmish Marks (30 min) - by using an escape code instead of the plus sign (&#43; - like we do with the apostrophe sometimes) in the link, but that's awkward to do each time. Probably the best way is to just create redirects without the + sign in the name (like you already have a page for Item:25% Skirmish Marks (30 min) ); that way we can just link to the pages without + in the name and only have to worry about the escape code on the redirects. MediaWiki - always keeping you on your toes. :-P Does that help at all? Sethladan 14:33, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

Yes, thanks! I'll keep that in mind. -- Starbursty (talk) 23:52, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

A double question - questline

1- Search for "questline" (click search)... result is a broken page -- only search string I've had do that. (i.e. left frame is misplaced). ... never mind, it's correct again (but has different results!) Weird.

More importantly: 2- The Infobox Quests has an entry "questchain".

If you fill it in, it generates a box on the top of the stack, "Quest Chain" AND an entry for whatever value you add in the Category string. at the bottom

I"m working the quest chain "Category:Dim Memories of the Dark Quests" and I have no idea what template/boilerplate to use here...

Quests are:

1. Passage to Darkness [48]
2. My Dwarf Friends [48]
3. Preparing for the Dark [48]
4. The Undiscovered Path [48]

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 22:41, 11 July 2011 (EDT)

No idea about #1, but I don't understand your problem about #2. You have to fill in the name of the questchain (if you open your quest log and click on a quest, there is a smaller title below the quest name which is called the quest chain). It then generates a category with all quests of your questchain. In that category, you fill in all quests like you did. For an example see Intro: Strider's Charge. --EoD (talk) 23:55, 11 July 2011 (EDT)

Glad to hear that "broken" page isn't coming up consistently. Could have been just a hiccup with your browser at that particular instant? I'll keep an eye out for it, though, and if it happens again or predictably, we can bug Lotroadmin.
Regarding the quest chain bit, seems like you got it figured out - I think that |questchain parameter was EoD's way of cutting down on some of the lengthy (and error-prone) quest lists, especially when you get to the longer chains (like Epics and Helegrod stuff). Still pretty new and not widely implemented as far as I know, but I guess we'll get it there...eventually... (EoD is aware that I'm less than enthused about the resulting preponderance of "Category:X Quests" pages, but even I have to admit it's better than no solution at all.} :-P Sethladan 00:35, 12 July 2011 (EDT)

And I may have totally misunderstood your second question, d'oh. Regarding what format to follow, the page EoD suggested is as good a place to start as any - or take a look at the page for any epic quest. The "preferred" style for those quest chain category pages seems to be a numbered list, including quest levels in square brackets before the name, and no other text. (I would personally rather bullets as numbered list then quest levels seems like too much to me, but it is what it is.) Sethladan 00:45, 12 July 2011 (EDT)

I think we use numbering for quests where one comes after the other and bullets for quests which can be completed in parallel or for instances during the quest. Although the following page is not yet converted to use the questchain parameter, it shows what I mean: For not ordered bullets and for Instances --EoD (talk) 06:19, 12 July 2011 (EDT)

I can see the reasoning behind using bullets in some cases and numbering in others. My gripe was just about the "visual" of numbers after numbers (after numbers sometimes, with book chapters) all on one line. :-P Sethladan 06:23, 12 July 2011 (EDT)

Lets see if I can make sense of my own question...

• - the Infobox, makes a clickable link out of "questgroup" and (I assume) "region1"... but apparently not out of any of the other parameters, including "questchain".
• - using "questchain" does put entries on the [[questchain-PAGENAME]] (I made that one up... lol)... see: Dim_Memories_of_the_Dark_Quests
• - looking at the Quest:Intro: Strider's Charge - questchain page -- Category:Bree-land_Introduction_Quests -- It has only one entry.

1. So, does that simply mean that none of the other quests in that "line" have the "questchain" parameter existent and/or filled? or is something else happening.

2. Can a bot insert the two "new" parameters into the Quest items... "questchain" and "questgroup"... then it would be much easier to insert the missing info.

3. The Riddle quests in Rivendell appear to be in need of the same "edit", so I'll do that and see what happens.

[Been leveling my Lore Master (now lvl 47) so I'm back in areas I haven't been through in "Years!"] Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 19:20, 12 July 2011 (EDT)

1. Correct - the other quest pages in that line are linking direclty to Quest Chain:Bree-land Introduction which redirects to Category:Bree-land Introduction Quests. If/when those got updated to use the |questchain bit, they'd all be in the appropriate quest chain category and Quest Chain:Bree-land Introduction could get scrapped.
2. You could ask Amphoras about that - should be pretty easy to program his bot to do, as he did something similar with all the item pages.
3. Cool - feel free to comment further if you run into more difficulty. I think a lot of the quest chain info is already in the wiki in one form or another - it's not absolutely necessary that everything get converted to use |questchain, though, more of a secretarial sort of thing, I guess.
And enjoy your new trip through Middle-earth! I dunno what-all has been changed much lately post 40s (Evendim), but there's always something new to see, huh? :) Sethladan 20:38, 12 July 2011 (EDT)

Regarding your clickable link: I just added a link to the questchain parameter. This was long overdue ;) --EoD (talk) 05:31, 13 July 2011 (EDT)

Thumbs up. :) Sethladan 09:33, 13 July 2011 (EDT)

Regarding questline and questgroup

Yesterday I tried to update and clean up the early introduction quests for Hobbit/Man which today refer to Quest Chain:Bree-land Introduction. That name misleads any user as the questgroup should be Introduction and the questline should tentatively read "Introduction -- Hobbit/Man". Once the character is let out of Archet (and can join a kinship) that is another story. However, I failed and marked my tries for deletion, thanks Sethladan.

However, there are a few things before I move on:

1. Why did not "Introduction -- Hobbit/Man" work? Is it maybe that "/"?
2. Why are TWO quest-chain boxes generated per quest? One for the questgroup, and one for the cuestchain?
   I imagine only the questchain is relevant when it reads a value, otherwise the questgroup?

Thanks in advance --Zimoon (talk) 03:55, 4 September 2011 (EDT)

I saw your work on this yesterday, and was going to leave a note to see if you needed help, but it seemed like you got it straightened out. Guess I was wrong, heh. Lots of different questions to deal with here, and Turbine's flair for inconsistency doesn't help much.
To begin, "Bree-land Introduction" is listed as the quest chain for some quests in this Hobbit/Man introduction. Looking on a low-level character that I just completed the chain with two weeks ago, Instance: Jail Break, Intro: Honing Your Skills, Intro: The Assault on Archet and a couple more say "Bree-land Introduction" at the top (on my completed quest log) and then "Introduction" in smaller text below.
"Introduction," as you're correct to point out, is the "questgroup": This is the category the quest falls under on the left side of your quest log, so that's fine. I'll venture a guess that Turbine updated these Hobbit/Man quests at some point and didn't correctly label them all with the right quest chain. That said, where the game uses a quest chain in this case, it is "Bree-land Introduction" (it takes place in Bree-land as opposed to Ered Luin), even if "Introduction -- Hobbit/Man" might seem more informative.
About your specific questions:

1. Introduction -- Hobbit/Man didn't work for the |questchain parameter because that parameter looks for a Category page (Category:Bree-land Introduction Quests, not just Bree-land Introduction Quests. Category:Introduction -- Hobbit/Man Quests should have worked if you added |questchain = Introduction -- Hobbit/Man.
   Right now that whole quest chain is a bit of a mess (as are a lot of others) because some quests use the |questchain, some transclude a "Quest Chain: " page, and some just have the whole quest chain typed into the box. I don't blame you for being confused!
2. The |questgroup parameter doesn't generate a collapsible quest box, it only adds a line in the infobox (the one on the top right of the page) and places the quest in a category. |questchain, however, does create a questbox automatically. This means that you should either use |questchain or {{Questbox | Quest Chain | collapsed | ... }} , but not both. The purpose of |questchain is to replace the first {{Questbox}}. When it works, it's simple, but sometimes this sort of thing only makes sense to the editor who developed it. :-P

Summary: The game uses "Bree-land Introduction," so let's keep that. Don't worry about |questchain if it doesn't make sense; you can use the {{Questbox}} with no problem.
That's a lot of information - feel free to ask more or let me know if it's not clear. Thanks for all your hard work! :) Sethladan 13:41, 4 September 2011 (EDT)

Thanks, yeah, I hope I learn a bit and piece every here and there.

I think I got the hang of it in the end, and also that fullblown quest-chain pages can be avoided for two-three step quests for that code repeated code-chunk. At least it is easier to understand when they are held within the pages themselves ;)

About Turbine inconsistencies I get the idea, just shoot me down if I do something stupid. As long as this site provides what visitors look for I am happy with that, and I am that kind of a person that easily spend too much time updating/polishing a wiki than playing the game itself :P

Thanks --Zimoon (talk) 16:08, 4 September 2011 (EDT)

Welcome! Glad my longwinded answer helped. :) And, hahah about spending more time on the wiki than in game...I haven't played my real characters in probably about a month - just hopping on once in a while to check something (like quests), or playing alts on different servers to get skill tooltip screenshots. I'm right there with you! Sethladan 16:12, 4 September 2011 (EDT)

Found a wierd "bug"

with Coldfells Provisioner I was trying to get {{Item:Infused Lhinestad Salve|mode=imlink}} || align="left" | {{worth|s=19|c=50}} to work. It worked for the Draughts, but not the Salves!!!

After a bunch of trial and error... I finally figured out the REAL difference -- I was updating the Salves to the new item format, and using {{Subst:PAGENAM}} for the entries when I did the update. When I did the update... the tooltip magically worked!

I finally looked "closely" at the "old" version -- it had an entry for the disambig item which was "{{PAGENAME}}" -- I changed that to {{Subst:PAGENAM}} saved it and bingo the tool tip worked!
Phew... Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 02:42, 20 July 2011 (EDT)

Glad you found and fixed the issue! That's partly the main reason why we're trying to remove {{PAGENAME}} (replacing it with {{subst:PAGENAME}}) wherever possible. As you might have figured out, {{PAGENAME}} always equals the name of the current page, even if it's written in the code somewhere else. This becomes a problem when we start transcluding item pages - in your case, the disambig = {{PAGENAME}} was becoming "Coldfells Provisioner," and there's no such item tooltip with that name, hence redlinks and no tooltips. Sethladan 03:48, 20 July 2011 (EDT)

On a somewhat related note, is there a reason you're deleting qualities from those MP items? Sethladan 03:48, 20 July 2011 (EDT)

Just had an idea, I think I might set the bot loose on {{PAGENAME}} on Items. I don't think there's any intended {{PAGENAME}}s on any item pages, so it shouldn't do any/much damage. Amphoras (talkTalk to me!) 11:31, 20 July 2011 (EDT)

Hah, seems like you've already started it ("Die PAGENAME die"), so good on you. :) I'd been doing it manually recently because it's easy, mindless work and a cheap way to pad my contribution scores, heh. Hopefully we'll see things a little cleaner around here once the dust settles from the botting. Thanks! Sethladan 14:01, 20 July 2011 (EDT)

Moving an Image

How do you move an image file like you did with File:The Tree of Suffering.jpg? I'd do it myself, if I knew how. RingTailCat (talk) 19:19, 23 July 2011 (EDT)

Seems like it's restricted to Admins and up at this point - it works the same way as moving a page, but you need certain permissions to do that. I've been holding back on promoting people until I get a chance to sit down with the user rights list and bug Lotroadmin about changing some of them. That gives me an idea, though... Sethladan 20:09, 23 July 2011 (EDT)

Created a template in the event people need/want to flag an image for movement. It'll probably be mostly unused until a better guide to working on the wiki is put together, but at least it's there. Might that help at all? Sethladan 20:18, 23 July 2011 (EDT)

Thanks. The template will make it easier to deal with the inevitable mistakes, and the more common situation where an image should get renamed to match the new name of its referencing page. RingTailCat (talk) 20:41, 23 July 2011 (EDT)

could not get a replacement image to "take"

I just tried to upload a replacement image for File:Glân Vraig.jpg but it wouldn't take.... the file uploaded but the current image would not change. "Current" kept trumping my upload with a new time-stamp.

I had to click "revert" to get the new image to take. Don't know if this is related to Rav's problem uploading stuff the other day. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 21:53, 26 July 2011 (EDT)

After fooling around with this a bit myself (uploaded a copy of your old image and then reverted it to test), it looks like you might have been having cache issues. I had to do a hard refresh (Shift + F5 on my browser) to get the "new" image to display on File:Glân Vraig.jpg each time, and similarly on Glân Vraig.
Looking at the update history for the file seems to indicate that your first upload (at 21:41) actually did "take," but I'm guessing the page didn't show that to you at the time - you just saw it "claiming" you had uploaded the same picture that was there before, which is what happened when I tried it. Doing the refresh set everything aright, though...not sure what would cause the cache to be finicky like that - out of my depth, but at least you did get the right picture up. Sethladan 23:48, 26 July 2011 (EDT)

Occasionally I have had problems with uploaded images not showing up right away. If you try to upload them again, the 2nd try fails. If I waited a while - perhaps 5 minutes - I found that the first uploaded image shows up. I am guessing there is some asynchronous process on the server that gets delayed. After it completes, the new image shows up. It sometimes happens for new images as well as new versions of an image. RingTailCat (talk) 00:34, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

Thanks for chiming in, RTC - that's usually my approach with anything technical, heh. Let it "think" for a while before trying to jam it again. :-P Sethladan 00:58, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

The interesting thing I saw was ... the "verbiage" at the bottom of the page indicated that I had successfully uploaded the file ... but the original file" was still marked Current....It had 2 entries -- the original upload at the bottom,my newly upload image, and at the top of the list a new entry of the old image (labeled "current"), but with a time-stamp NEWER than my uploads. Similarly, I had no problems re-uploading the image... it appeared with a time stamp newer than my first upload... but again, the original image, was marked as current, with a time stamp newer than the second upload! It wasn't until I selected "revert" that my "newer" image was correctly marked as current.

Except for that time-stamp on the "current" image, I would agree with the browser cache "solution/explanation." However, RTC reminded me of something that ?Amphoras?or ?EoD? mentioned to me a month or two ago... something about changing timers on the server. I didn't pay a great deal of attention, and haven't seen any strange behavior other than this. However, and I don't know how this server works, if there is a "commit timer" -- that pages are queued to be processed once every cycle, and that cycle is shorter (or would it be longer) than the list of pages committed for change, I could see where pages were "not yet processed for update." As RTC mentioned... "some asynchronous process on the server that gets delayed." Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 17:22, 28 July 2011 (EDT)

Names with multiple uses

There's an NPC page for Valtteri, in Forochel. However, there's also a Guaradan rare that patrols Emyn Uial in stealth by the same name, Valtteri. How do I make a page for this creature? I managed to get a picture of him, but he was killed before my loremaster could get stats. His placeholder appears to be a patrolling Gauradan weald with a fierce wolf ally. Iorothiel (talk) 20:51, 2 August 2011 (EDT)

This happens a lot, unfortunately - guess Turbine isn't all that creative, heh. If multiple mobs or NPCs (or items or locations) share the same name, we start adding some sort of extra info in parentheses to distinguish. So the Gauradan you found would be Valtteri (Evendim) - using location to differentiate. I went ahead and made the page for you, so go ahead and add the image that you managed to get.
The other part of this process is to let people know where to find the other pages with the same name. You can either type this in manually or use {{Other}} which does the same thing. Take a look at how I use it on Valtteri and Valtteri (Evendim) and see if it makes sense.
Hope this helps, and thanks for pitching in! :) Sethladan 21:03, 2 August 2011 (EDT)

Tasks (quests)

Greetings! I'm new here, and don't want to step on toes, so I'm hoping to get approval before I do anything that might be seen as a significant change. What I'm looking at are the task quests, bulletin board page, etc.

1) I don't have any high level characters (my top toon is 18 currently), so I can't verify a lot of the task system by first-hand research. So there are some tasks that *seem* to be wrong (singular/plural confusion), but which I cannot directly compare. Item:Studded Sword Sheath is an example.

2) It offends my sense of order to have multiple links (eg on an item page) that link to the same quest page, particularly when they don't declare any difference between the quests aside from the level of the quest. My preferred solutions would be either to change the links to the quest page to a single link with a level range indicated, or maybe to insert differentiation between the quests.

3) While the task quest pages list all the text of all the comparable quests for that task item, they do so in a way that a) confuses and confounds anyone trying to match the text bits to each other, and b) IMO does a very poor job of expressing the commonality and differences of the quests. I would prefer to rearrange the task quest pages so that the page summary/overview/infobox indicate the common elements (you need to turn in X of Y), and the separate elements (you can turn it in at place A for rep 1, B for rep 2, etc), followed by collecting the text for each individual quest/location as a section of its own.

Wikis are big on "be BOLD" as a goal, but individual wiki editors are known to get their noses out of joint when someone radically changes their babies. ... and BOLD wiki editors may be trying to do something that was rejected in a heated discussion that they weren't privy to.

So... could you advise me? Am I proposing something bad? Good? Meh? --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 15:17, 18 August 2011 (EDT)

Hi yourself, and thanks for a) your thoughtfulness in checking before breaking out the edit hammer and b) summarizing your thoughts so clearly, hahah. I popped over to your WoWpedia page when I edited your user page and dropped the {{Welcome}} on you, and saw that you knew your way around wiki things. Was looking forward to seeing where you'd start. ;) In order:
1) My only characters are level 11 and level 65, so I can't help you much with the corroboration thing. I agree that it seems pretty inconsistent between the singular and plural, and suspect that all the quest names are plural. With Turbine, though, you never know...
2) This offends my sense of order, too, hahah. I think when the task system first came out, I suggested the possibility of having a separate quest page for each task, but the preference seemed to be to keep those that used the same items consolidated. One thought might be to distinguish between them (somewhat) on the item page by following each quest link with a location, if that makes you feel more organized at all.
3) I don't have any easy answers for you here, although I agree that the pages are a little convoluted as they are - cf. my comment in 2) - so you may have to wait for Starbursty to respond and compromise with him/her on a solution to implement across all the task quest pages. Short of reconfiguring all the sections as you suggested, one possibility might be to add a "Notes" box, which most quests already have anyway, that's uncollapsed by default so users can see it, and add some sort of summary info there.
Overall, I think you've got a good handle on what's up and what can be done to improve our coverage of tasks. It's not an area that I've worked closely in, so you're partly on your own there. I think Starbursty is pretty good about taking others' ideas, though, so you'll be fine. There are definitely a few...sacred cows around here, so while being BOLD is great to bear in mind, asking why things are the way they are is an excellent strategy. :) Sethladan 22:51, 18 August 2011 (EDT)

Hmm...not certain what you mean by the singular plural issue... basically each item drop is a singular, what shows up on the tasks board is typically plural. Turbine, however, is not known to be terribly consistent here. "Fine Fur" is one item that seems to be consistently singular, except where it's plural ...  :)

Also, at the moment (i.e. until the Level cap is raised with Isengard), tasks end at level 54. Similarly, "most" task boards give "rep" -- but not all. Unknown if that will change with the update. I do know that, from a mechanical point of view, the Task's BB system is "centralized" much more than it appears. Also, I don't know if you have noticed... a given Task Board "will change" what tasks are offered based on your level... I believe it just eliminates lower level ones and adds higher level ones, but I've never really verified that. The Board at Himbarg in the Misty Mountains, is one that seems to work that way.

also, I just noticed... the Ost Forod Task Board now gives rep (as of the most recent Evendim update).

At any rate, back to the Sword sheaths (your 2)... one thing is true. The "items" themselves are not location dependent, so sheaths from Evendim can be turned in at Aughaire and vice versa. Other than the dialog, the quests are not differentiated.

and I suspect that "sharp claws" really are "razor sharp claws," and "more" Soft Skin/Leathery Fur.... a misplaced adjective from a repeatable quest.... although "bumpy scales" I believe are unique.... then there are the "Variations on a Theme by Weaponsmith".... "Broken" -- Great Swords -- Greatswords -- Greatsword... although, I suppose, one could argue that Dwarves make two-piece swords and Loosoth, one piece swords. :)

and one final comment... not in the FAQ... one can purchase an additional number of tasks (I think it is up to a max of 15, hmmm lorebook claims 10) AND THEN reset that 15 level 5x daily (for a total of 75 tasks/day). And the titles are awarded based on cumulative counts 100 then 100+200 then 100+200+300 etc... not just an additional 100 tasks.... Turbine fixed that bug a long time ago, and I think the Lorebook is wrong on the issue... and the 10vs15 is inconsistant in the lorebook article...:( my one toon that I did quests on when they first came out ... has a daily limit of 13 quests and still has an "increase daily limit" button.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 17:38, 22 August 2011 (EDT)

Skill Values Table

Hi, I just saw your new table for Cunning Attack and modified it a bit to use the altRowsMed (and I didn't know there was a centerTable!), just a bit weird to have 2 white lines at start, I guess it does that when there is no table header only... What do you think? --Goingbald (talk) 23:12, 2 September 2011 (EDT)

Re: centerTable, I just added it tonight, so that's why you've not seen it before. :) I tried the altRows bit when I was experimenting with the table, but left it plain because of the issue with the first two lines. Otherwise, it looks so much better with the colored backgrounds, hahah. I hadn't thought of adding that to the header table - definitely a step up there, so thanks!
I'd asked Ravanel for her feedback because she's been hard at work on Lore-master skills and I didn't want to yank the rug out from under her by changing the formatting of the values table. I'm also concerned that my idea (with or without your revisions) is "too much code" and is bound to put-off people who try to add/edit/update. Thoughts? Sethladan 23:36, 2 September 2011 (EDT)

Ah-HAH! I knew I'd seen a reverse altRows class in MediaWiki:Common.css. Got that part straightened out, at least. Sethladan 23:41, 2 September 2011 (EDT)

The hybrid looking good! :) --Goingbald (talk) 09:54, 4 September 2011 (EDT)

Thanks! I use Chrome and 800x600 resolution, so it's always a relief to know something works well for others, too. I wish I had a cleaner solution that were easier for others (not so fluent in that combination hackslash HTML/CSS/wikicode) to work with, but it seems to be doing the trick. I'll probably start rolling it out across skill pages en masse once I finish my "check-against-in-game-tooltips" run-through. Feel free to continue tinkering and experimenting on Cunning Attack in the meantime! :) Sethladan 13:54, 4 September 2011 (EDT)

New Table on Lore-master Skills

I just wanted to thank you again for inserting the new table on all those Lore-master Skills. I know it must've been a huge job, but saw you actually came as far as I am now! So from now on I can just start with adding the new table for the skills I still have to do, awesome! Many cheers! Hip hip hurray! --Ravanel (talk) 19:54, 15 September 2011 (EDT)

Pages for Deletion

Hiya! Haven't talked to you in a while - hope you've been well. :) If you mark a page for deletion with "wrong name," could you just add which page is the "right" name so I can double check before doing the delete? Thanks! Sethladan 20:41, 22 September 2011 (EDT)

Sure thing, boss~ -- Starbursty (talk) 12:49, 25 September 2011 (EDT)

RoI Minstrel Skills

I've been trying to update some of the Minstrel skills. Some are simple, others less so. I made Major Ballad to include both versions of the skill, depending on stance, following the example of Anthem of the Third Age, but it still looks a bit clumsy to me. The tooltip for the skill, especially in its Melody form, does not end up looking much like its in-game version. Some of the tooltip entries didn't fit into the template so I instead explained them in the text section below. Several skills might have the same issues, especially the Coda. If it's important that the tooltip matches in appearance, I think the skill template will need some changes. I'm not sure how much of a priority that is. Elinnea (talk) 17:34, 27 September 2011 (EDT)

Thanks for the heads-up! Yeah, it does look a little clumsy, and we may have to put our heads together to come up with a more elegant solution, as this "clumsy" thing crops up in a few places.
Re: the formatting, feel free to make a note of what looks "wrong" on Template talk:Skill - Ravanel already has a comment there about spacing. If you describe how things should look (or add a screenshot!), then I can try tinkering with the template to bring the visuals more in-line to how they are in the game now. Ditto for any extra "parameters" - info that the skill template doesn't take into account - we can add those as well. Sethladan 20:10, 27 September 2011 (EDT)

Bug in Stubs/Beta Stubs/Construction

I think I've found a bug in "Stubs/Beta" that you created and consequently in "Stubs/Construction" that I copied from yours.

it looks like some sort of closure is missing...

• {{Stub/Expansion}}

• {{Stub/Quest}}

• {{Stub/Construction|[[User_talk:Magill]]}}

• {{Stub/Beta | I am (not) Magill!}}

Template:Stub/Beta —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Magill (Contribs • User Talk).

EoD created Stub/Beta, so you may wish to check with him. I notice that Expansion and Quest have an extra linebreak in the code (just above where the "ambox" starts), so that may have something to do with it, along with MediaWiki's odd treatment of tables (i.e., they need to start on a new line, weird alignment issues, etc.). That said, by bumping the construction and beta stub boxes down to a new line, the alignment seemed to straighten out on this page. Not sure where else you're seeing the problem, but give that a try. Sethladan 06:34, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

Ah, ok.. thought I remembered you as the culprit :) I'll post a note over on his talk page. I first noticed it on my page: User:Magill/Sandbox-6 (a bunch of editing reminders) where I see that apparently one is cleared on that page, but not the other. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 21:27, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

Heh, yeah. Just bump the template call {{...}} to the next line and that should straighten it out. My fingerprints tend to be all over the place, so I don't blame you for thinking it was me - it's the sort of thing I would do (and vaguely recall doing something like it, actually?). Even I had to look at View History to confirm that it wasn't my own doing. :-P Sethladan 21:55, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

more on those "hide" "show" issues with the man Eregion page

Take a look at the bottom of the page: User:Magill/Projects- ROI-update Those two boxes continue to show up as "hide" even though the "collapse=no" parameter is set. They look correct (expanded) on their own pages... but not when transcluded. I haven't been able to guess the "culpret." Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 00:38, 28 September 2011 (EDT)

Oy. Fixed - Template:Land Navigation Box wasn't accepting a |collapse parameter. It should now be correctly passing |collapse to Template:Navigation Box which does all the actual work. More unnecessary layers with these navboxes; will definitely look into collapsing (in the sense of unifying functionality) them in the future. Thanks for the catch! Sethladan 06:43, 28 September 2011 (EDT)