User:Magill/talk-archive-6

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Magill/talk-archive-6

Previous Talk Page archives can be found at:
file name covers date range
Archive 1 May 2011 to August 2011
Archive 2 August 2011 - November 2011
Archive 3 Liquid Threads (LQT) stuff - no data
Archive 4 September 2012 - December 2012
Archive 5 January 2013 - December 2013
Archive 6 January 2014 - December 2014
Archive 7 January 2015 - December 2015
Archive 8 January 2016 - December 2016
Archive 9 January 2017 - December 2017
Archive 10 January 2018 - December 2018
  • Being the Archive of my Talk page - January 2014 to December 2014

LOTRO Mac

I have been looking at the Mac info page, it was quite useful in several instances, though I think the organization could use some improvement -- I basically had to read the whole thing to extract the useful bits.

One thing I've noticed since Helm's Deep came out, the Mac client seems more stable. I had to turn all the graphics setting *way* down on my recently-bought high-end Macbook Pro -- I kept getting some kind of "use after free" error with a corrupted heap until I did that. Since my machine is so fast, I suspect there was a thread race condition that Turbine normally didn't notice on slower hardware -- my daughter's iMac wasn't having any problems with the game on similar graphics settings.

Since 12 came out, I've been turning the graphics back up, slowly, and am not seeing anything like the kind of problems I was having with the previous release. So perhaps Turbine is paying attention at least a little....

WMilliken (talk) 03:03, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Skills Pages

Do you think it's appropriate to mark them all as "obsolete"? They certainly need updating, but we all do still have skills that need listing, many of which aren't tied to any trait tree at all. Sethladan 21:51, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I was basically trying to collect/capture all that had been done and what still needed doing.
I suppose I could have use the Expansion stub, but didn't think of it until I ran into it on the class pages. -- one of the problems with having a large number of stubs/tags.
  • In the process, however, I noticed that Template:Stub/Expansion doesn't have a "nocat" parameter. Which, I suspect is probably true of a large number of those tags -- especially the stubs. Yet another "deviation." :)
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 22:09, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Okay, as long as you weren't angling to delete all those pages down the road or something. Yes, we definitely have too many stub tags, too poorly documented, and not standardized in their interfaces. Always more to work on. :) Sethladan 22:15, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Privacy Policy, About, and Disclaimer

Scroll all the way down to the very bottom of any page on the wiki and you'll see three links. I trust you can connect the dots from there. Not everything you see is "broked." Sethladan 22:45, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Aha, thanks. That explains things. All I could find was the link from the Welcome template and the little disclaimer box.
I must say, I had never noticed them before.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 02:09, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Crafting - Changes coming in 12.2

That's sooo cool! Matthew.zellmer (talk) 17:18, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Bots, the future of Awesome

I took a look at some of your bot stuff. Pretty neat, I am looking into it for simple "find and replace stuff". From what I can tell I really need access to the API so I am heading down that road now. Any words of wisdom before I get to far into it? WhiteAlaska formally matthew.zellmer (talk) 19:21, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Pywikipediabot is the "official" bot for the Wikis... Its' main issue currently is that it has recently switched from using SVN to using GIT; consequently finding the "current" or "latest" distribution is difficult, if not impossible. (There are philosophical differences between SVN and GIT on this issue. SVN being Linear and GIT being non-linear.) The "conversations" on the mailing list are "interesting."
Probably 90% of the pywikipediabot distribution is "not relevant" to Lotro-Wiki. A lot of it is very clearly aimed at the main Wikis and Language issues, etc. The basic problem is that documentation is poor at best. I had to completely re-write the Mac installation instructions to get it working, and they are again out of date.
Other than that, "I think," either User:magill-bot or the Talk page contains pointers to the Media Wiki information, somewhere buried in that is the API.
As I recall, the API is not a big deal -- the major issue is finding, reading, updating and then re-writing the page(s) involved.
The problem I had with pywikipediabot is that the "supposed" query-response activity was not happening as I expected it to. That could have easily been my lack of knowledge/experience in the actual configuration process as much as anything. However, I was expecting proposed changes to be displayed and approval requested before they happened -- that was not happening.
Consequently, So while I could easily modify single pages, I was more than slightly reluctant to make any "global" changes -- i.e. changes on all pages in a category, for example.
Beyond that, the primary "trick" to using a bot is your familiarity/comfort level with regular expressions.
User: Amphoras is still around on occasion and will also answer questions.
I should add that it is simple enough to set-up a Bot account/Id -- they are just normal accounts. Then the ID gets added to group "bots." Convention says -- "<name>-bot" just to make it obvious whose Bot did the dirty deed in the log files.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 21:25, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I am knee deep in API action query's and now have a working version of Python (for Windows) and PWB (got it from Mediawiki Pywikibot Installation. I am doing a lot of local testing right now just working with the scripts and understanding the API and how the scripts accept the API query data, manipulate it and POST it back to the site. WhiteAlaska formally matthew.zellmer (talk) 16:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

  • When I am finally proficient, my goal is to be able to:
    • remove from creatures pages the old Has Location::
    • switch from creatures all the old lootitems for lootbox


Can I get you to add my new bot acct User:Matthew.ZellmerBot to the bots group? I will NOT, repeat NOT use it, without a very long discussion and testing.Matthew.zellmer (talk) 16:19, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Done.
Almost forgot... I don't know if you are aware -- we also have a test-wiki, where you can try-out various things. -- testwiki.skunark.net - lotroadmin will have to give you bot rights on that. I also don't know the status of the test-wiki currently, as it was "munged" as part of the Server switch/upgrade last month.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 17:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
FWIW
  • remove from creatures pages the old Has Location:: -- deleting a parameter is easy to do; very straight forward.
  • switch from creatures all the old lootitems for lootbox -- this one may be more difficult that it first appears. There are some pretty substantial formatting changes necessary. Trying to think about it without looking -- I think the Lootbox can take a Vertical format, not just a horizontal one. That being the case, then it should be much easier to insert the Lootbox header then do a line by line change from item to Lootbox; then insert the Lootbox trailer.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 17:19, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Ill check out the test-wiki next week, once I get a script or two that's useful. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 15:16, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Update! I have now finished building PHP scripts to query the API and I am going to start working the API edit scripts! Super scary. I have created an acct on the testwiki.skunark.net server and ma starting to use it for testing query scripts. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 22:17, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
Update I have the POWER of the BOT! I have been testing API query and edits all week on the test server! I can do execute find/replace edits for any page I want. My edits are man-in-the-middle so you have to do a key word search first, then specifically select (checkbox) each page to make changes too after a quick review. Im pretty happy with it. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

My promotion

Thanks for promoting to Ninjas. I've been uneasy whether you whould like my massive changes to your pages. :) But looks like I cannot patrol nor rollback. And I whould really appreciate these features. Can this be fixed? DoomMaster (talk) 07:55, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Skirmisher of Middle-Earth

Just something small and insignificant, but was wondering why you redirected Skirmisher of Middle-earth to Skirmisher of Middle-Earth-old. Was this hidden deed removed from the game? I cannot find anything about it on the social media indicating such a thing. --Ravanel (talk) 13:53, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Not to mention the two now-dangling redlinks from Emote and Commands. (Actually, whose bright idea was it to transclude A wholesale into B? Argh.) Sethladan 14:22, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Interesting one -- It (history) says I did it, but I have zero recollection of doing it -- Looking back in my "contributions," it appears that it was related to User talk:Tomatensaus -- which is to say, he was going (supposed) to create the actual deed using "Create new deed" instead of simply creating a page with one line of text in it -- which he apparently never did. Sigh. What I get for trying to get people to fix/learn from their own mistakes instead of doing it myself.
It looks like Emotes has been transcluded into Commands (or at least the full text was previously included) back in 2007. Can't tell exactly, but it was definitely transcluded in 2010.
  • Which is also to say -- one of the annoying things I find with many different "Special Pages" -- it routinely "double counts". All of the "what links here" references are treated as "unique" even though most are the result of transclusions. This is a good example -- if you check "what links here" on Skirmisher of Middle-earth it shows two LINKS, one for Emotes and one for Commands. However, as you pointed out, "Commands" has "Emotes" transcluded into it. I have seen thinks marked as "transclusion" in the past, but I don't recall what, and don't see (can't find) any right now. Was that a recent change to MW which simply changed the nomenclature?
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 15:21, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for your quick reply and page-fixing! As for the other topic, I'm really not the expert on transclusions as you all know, but emotes seem a bit out of place on the Commands page. I'll leave you guys to it. --Ravanel (talk) 15:36, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Re: Transclusions and links, try this for a What-links-here that includes both (and a bonus: redirects). This is neither new nor gone from MediaWiki. And the reality is that both pages do link to the deed page - transclusion is equivalent to template expansion, so when the MediaWiki software looks over the pages and compiles links, it just sees the substituted text (or so I imagine). Sethladan 17:05, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

EULA/TOS

Hi Bill. Regarding Game Terms#Turbine Legal, since there're already links out to the official Turbine EULA/TOS pages (and everyone gets them when they install the game), do you mind if we dispense with the local copies? Sethladan 02:38, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

makes sense. Off hand, I don't know anymore why I actually copied them at the time. :)
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 03:24, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
It's understandable, what with all the info that got lost when Lorebook went down and the rush to document everything. Plus I know you're being extra meticulous with the Mac client stuff. :) I just happened across them while doing some housekeeping and figured it wasn't really interesting enough to copy over (unlike, say, Patch Notes). Thanks! Sethladan 03:45, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Moors Keep Templates

Just to let you know that on my User page there's a quickly-made example template (not that good with complex template codes, just copied the Landmarks infobox for now) as a prototype for a Keep Template. The template shows the Tyrant and Captain-General in command, the area (Coldfells etc.) and a link to the control buff (I've renamed all of the buffs I can find to the correct names). Don't want to make the template just yet as it'll probably have a lot wrong with it, but that's an idea of what it might look like.

MoorsUpdater (talk) 21:18, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

On Spam

Hey Magill! When you delete a spam page, mind deleting the content so that the message content doesn't show up on the deletion log? For example, this shows up "(Spam: content was: "" == Very best blah blah blah.)" If you don't delete it, part of the spam still appears on the site. It would be easy to verify what was deleted through the history logs anyways. Starbursty (talk) 15:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Never considered that -- Yet another "undocumented" SOP item ... :) I'll have to add that to my list of "stuff" to add to some place... I also wonder if what you are referring to is actually not the Page content, but rather the content of the "Reason" box. I usually blank that box, but I know that I did not in this case.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 19:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Deed farming locations

I was going thru old page submissions and found one that is a bit redundant now. the Deed farming locations is captured via the Category:Slayer Deeds so I am thinking I would move all the important creature location data to the individual deeds and remove the page; putting a redirect to the Category itself. I can fix the individual links to Deed farming locations, there are less then 20. What say you? Matthew.zellmer (talk) 20:00, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Can't say I ever noticed that page... but then I've only been "patrolling" for a few months. :)
I've always been of the opinion that such pages and information are more trouble than they are worth; rarely accurate, and never updated, and poorly linked to.
I also object to the term "Farming." While it is popular MMO jargon, it does have severe negative connotations, normally associated with exploits.
Note also, ALL Slayer Deeds (should) refer to DEFEAT xxx entities, not "Kill" them.
So, in short, be my guest. (I just "unlinked" this section.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 05:27, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
Ok, then I will grab the useful info off the page, and move it to the Category:Slayer Deeds page or any particular deed if its useful. I can then change all links to it so they goto the Category:Slayer Deeds instead. Once complete I will ask you to delete the page.
What did you mean by you just "unlinked" the section? Matthew.zellmer (talk) 14:26, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
1- You can delete any page yourself -- see the drop-d3own next to the Star, next to "View History" at the top of every page.
2- "Unlinked" -- "De-Wikified" -- removed the [[ ]] around the page name
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:15, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
1. Your mean! Dangling the awesome Admins power to delete in-front of a lowly Editor.
2. Ok I get it. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 18:11, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
Ok, its ready to be removed at your convenience. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 20:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
All gone... Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 21:03, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Images

Heya Magill - trying to clear out some old unused images and came across your trout File:Rainbow trout.png 8) Any reason you want to keep it around? --Savi (talk) 20:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

He's from when "fish-slapping" was a "cute" thing on Wikipedia. Never got around to completing it here :) Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 21:01, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
Heh, alrighty, I'll let you throw him back in the river then ^_^ --Savi (talk) 21:03, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Another image related question...I saw you recently deleted the evade rank pages due to being obsolete. Do you know if the icons that were used on those pages are also obsolete, or did they get renamed? --Savi (talk) 21:39, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, good question. I was basically simply going through Category:Articles for deletion (they were tagged with Delete Page as well as obsolete) and did not think about corresponding icons. In general, all of the new Trait Tree skills apparently have new Icons, but I have not verified that fact. If the Icon is not linked to, I would just go ahead and delete it. It can always be added back later.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 23:07, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Adding new users

Ah ok thanks. SjsharksBoy (talk) 03:41, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Re: Item: Class Trait Point

Are these really items? Sethladan 13:42, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

No. -- I guess I should have made it a template like Steed Experience or Legendary Item Experience ; but {{XP}} and {{TP}} are not -- hmmm.
What I was thinking in terms of was a tool-tip.
However, I also got side tracked trying to figure out why the various Rune-keeper Deeds are not generating pop-ups! The Skills are "poping-up" but not the deeds.
All while working on Rune-keeper Deeds.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 22:03, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Deeds don't have tooltip popups and never have, that I know of. We'd have to redesign the template (and the standards) and come up with an original "visual" for a little black box - like effects, skills, items - before it made any sense to implement that. Sethladan 22:35, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm... for some reason, I thought that when skill/trait/effect got tooltips, so did deed. Well, that explains that.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 22:38, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Comments related to User talk:Matthew.ZellmerBot#Possible issue with your last bot run

I am closing out the Bot Issue, I think its fixed, pending your comments. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 17:02, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Templates

Cleaned out a lot of old templates tonight, will keep at it and see what else I can organize, document, and refactor whenever time permits. Thanks for your prodding on the subject. :) Sethladan 04:40, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Careful with your categorization copy/paste. Fixed that one, but don't know how many other tags you've been working on. Sethladan 02:11, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Looks like I missed that one. :(
Did update "all" of the Article Management Tags (See the lower half of the page, marked with "nocat=".
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 11:07, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Sweet, way to go. :) Sethladan 13:09, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

The Block user page's link to the Lotro-Wiki.com:Policy is dead

A while ago you had moved the Lotro-Wiki.com:Policy, it looks like an attempt to consolidate several policy pages but it broke some links (e.g.Special:Block), but I don't think the policy page had useful information that the block page used anyway. I am guessing this is a work in progress. What was your underlying thought here, I want a useful policy statement as well, can I help you with it? Matthew.zellmer (talk) 11:37, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Hoom ... Hum ... this is an interesting one.
A) at the time, no mention was made of any such reference to Special:Block. I.e. Lotro-Wiki.com:Policy doesn't show up in the "what links here" page, and no one indicated that there was a reference.
B) That I am aware of, there has never been any "block policy" -- like most all of the other "policy" statements
C) The only discussion reference I have found to actual policy "stuff" discussion is this one, from User:Magill/Project-Documentation - I thought we had discussed stuff someplace, but I can't find it. (Our "flirtation" with LiquidThreads does make some portions of the archive no longer accessible.)
Lotro-Wiki.com:Policy -- Renamed Help:Policy; content removed to Help:SOP for Editors
::: This page needs to be renamed/eliminated as part of an expanded Policy section, probably in guidelines.
  • That particular "consolidation" I was attempting was basically stopped/reverted when it was pointed out to me that the 3 links at the bottom of the page existed. From what I can tell, the Special:Block entry is ALSO a MediaWiki "boilerplate" reference. i.e. the link is part of the standard MediaWiki distribution, like the 3 at the bottom of every page. It is then up to the "site" to "fill in the blanks." I keep telling myself that someday I should RTFM and install Media Wiki on my MacMini, but I did that for 30+ years and have no problems "finding excuses" not to do it :)
D) The only reference I have found to "policy statements" goes back to the beginning -- 2007, when the need for them was expressed.
E) All of that said, one of the aspects of the Great Documentation Project is "Policy Statements". (And I suppose I should stick this paragraph into these two)
In general, "policies" are integrated into various other documents rather than attempting to create a "rule-book" type listing. The three polices on Help:Policy are pretty much the only formal policies defined as such. Other "policies" have been described as "guidelines" if for no other reason than the simple fact that there is really no "policy making" process other than "User: Lotroadmin."
Over recent time, User: Sethladan and I have "chipped away" at the documentation problem. Writing/re-writing, etc. documents which currently exist (most of them were from "the beginning," 2007, and things both on the WIKI and in-game have changed dramatically since then) or which need to be created. The {{Template:Tips for New Editors}}, {{Template:Tools for Editors}}<nowiki>{{Template:Tips for New Editors}} and Help: Patrolling are a couple of recently created documents.
Help: Patrolling was one document in specific which was an attempt to capture the "oral tradition" of the Wiki. The Tips document is similar, but not as "policy oriented" -- more "how to."
So, in conclusion, Yes, feel free to "jump in." I would suggest starting out by drafting a new page and then figure out where to put it later. I have found in working with this sort of stuff that the original outline morphs quickly as you are writing and discover more questions and points which you wish to cover; frequently resulting in splitting one document into multiples.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 23:32, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Wow. Ok ... kind of overwhelmed here. Well.. I umm.. ok. So ... lets see. ahhh, ... I can and should help.... got that part. start simple, ok got that. guidelines, not policy, sure. O! The link was part of the original mediawiki and it probably should be linked to a guideline page, which already exisits somewhere or I should create. There are lots of documentation issues and this is just one of them. OK.
  • Immediate plan: to remedy the policy link in the Special:Block page, I will add a sentence that says something about spam (since that is what I was after) and links to the Patrolling spam section and I will unlink the policy statement for now.
  • Long term plan: I will endeavor to start working on the documentation overhaul as well. Revamping docs as necessary in corporation with you guys. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 14:09, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Give me some time and I will approach lotroadmin with the new wording for the Special:Block page. I am also going to a bit of documentation work on the Patrolling and add a Spam section so it stands out a bit more.


I suspect the "reverse" may be easier to do. I.e. create Lotro-Wiki.com:Policy to point to the Help:Patrolling#Spam Removal and Spammer Account Block. Simply because the "Special Pages" text may not be easily modified, and especially because such modifications would be issues when upgrading from one release of MW to the next.
BTW, the text looks good.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 23:39, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
I just added a redirect to the patrolling page. It should be fine, but perhaps updated to either a category page of all policies or perhaps to help:policy in the future. --Lotroadmin (talk) 18:43, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
It's strange the number of hidden pages within MW, even key variables are pages too. There's probably a page were we can just add the guidelines right in the text on the block page, but MW makes it difficult to go find sometimes. I understand whey they are excluded from what-links-here for most folks, but maybe there could be an extended mode for the admins on thinks like that. --Lotroadmin (talk) 18:47, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Incramental

Hi there, I've just noticed the "Incramental" page you created and all 3 Entwood quests. Great jon explaining, but did not you mean Incremental?? Tiberivs (talk) 12:19, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, "Incremental" is the term Turbine used to describe them.
The details on that page are (or were) my notes from the Twitch feed with the Devs. I just re-wrote them to be a bit more in "complete sentences."
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 14:20, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Typo in page name has been fixed by moving the page from Incramental to Incremental and changing references everywhere. --Heuer (talk) 13:22, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Monster Play Article

Monster Play is surely the most important MP article. Newbies are most likely to come here looking for reasons to head to the Moors. For this reason I'm considering re-writing the article almost entirely, with no outdated information and taking into account the Moors changes for U13. What do you think?

MoorsUpdater (talk) 18:00, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Shifting this to Lotro-Wiki.com_talk:Monster_Play#U13_-_update_to_the_Moors
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 18:46, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Moria Revamp

I noticed your Moria revamp User:Magill/Projects-Update 07-Moria Revamp is still in progress. I am working at the deeds portion of it right now. Please read Talk:Moria Deeds and User:Matthew.zellmer#Mines_of_Moria_revamp. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 19:26, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Regions

Hey Magill; saw you added Entwood as a Rhovanion region; isn't that an area within the region of West Rohan? --Savi (talk) 16:59, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing... :)
Was playing with one thing and updated the wrong page. --- too many pages open at the same time!
Thanks.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 17:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
General hazard of wiki editing 8) Of late I have multiple wiki tabs, google docs, excel, and word open at the same time, heh --Savi (talk) 17:14, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Template:The_Great_River_Deeds

Saw your Template:The_Great_River_Deeds and mistook it for a static index page until I opened it. Was this a test case or are you actively working on regional deeds? I am systematically organizing all the regional deed categories. During this process I move the regional-static-deed-pages (e.g. Moria Deeds) to the region-deed-category-page (e.g. Category:Moria Deeds), so it actually gets updated and removes duplicate information. If your not using this template I would like to move its contents to the Category:The Great River Deeds, thou... I think it would be duplicative. If you ARE building an awesome template let me know and we can work together. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 18:36, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Interesting --- I'm guessing that this was basically a "first attempt" at creating what was actually a Boilerplate, not a Template. This was back when RTC and I were trying to "create" the overall Great River structure. When I barely knew what I was doing, and was trying to "write down" as much as possible of how the WIKI was organized, because the "how to documentation" was badly incomplete and even further out of date. In any case, that was long ago... :) From what I recall, the attempt was to capture/create a layout and codify some of the oral-tradition that existed.
Feel free to move/use the contents. And while you're at it "update" Lotro-Wiki.com:Deeds and/or Help: Deed to capture the "instruction" part of the page:
  • All Slayer deeds are tracked by Region
  • All Lore deeds are tracked by Region
  • All Reputation deeds are tracked by Faction in the Region
This was the part that RTC and I were "confused" about -- at that time, we were the two "senior editors" and neither of us had ever done deeds before!
So, since you are now the Official Deed Editor, you get to write-up the explanation of "how things should be! ")
  • And while you're at it -- don't forget. The Paths of the Dead will be hitting Bullroarer in probably about 2-3 weeks. (It is June already.) How much else of Gondor will be at the same time I don't know. Paths of the Dead are the LINK to get from West Rohan to Gondor according to the Last comments from Rowan. Talk: Gondor. Minimally we will be creating a whole new Region -- Gondor and some unknown number of new Areas. I've barely started to create the new Category structure. I didn't catch today's TTHTI run, so I don't know if anything else was said about U14. Have to wait for Fric's transcription!
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 00:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Sure thing! This is my first hack Template:Deed/doc#Categorization. Lots more to do, I have added a major change, bringing the Social and Event deeds to the Deed-type level. Hope you don't mind, I am going to remove the Template. Matthew.zellmer (talk) 20:49, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Sub page listing

Remarked on page User Talk:Lotroadmin#Sub page listing Matthew.zellmer (talk) 21:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Update 14

Yeah....All I can say right now is IT'S BEAUTIFUL ;) --Tharondir (talk) 19:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

West Gondor

I added the Treasure Hunter of West Gondor Title. :) Looks like your having fun with the beta Matthew.zellmer (talk) 13:41, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Screenshots & Replacements

Hello, I was wondering what overall graphic quality you are playing on - some of your recent uploads (e.g. Calembel screenshots) seem like they were taken at low or medium quality. I ask this because I was wondering the following: What is our policy on replacing low-quality images with images taken at ultra high graphic settings? I use SweetFX which also adds a lot to the quality, sharpness and resolution of LotRO. --Tharondir (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Multiple issues/answers. Working backwards -
First off SweetFX is for DirectX only, it has no impact on OpenGL i.e. the Mac Client -- Guess which client I use? :)
Other than that, I have overall conceptual issues with SweetFX. If you look at Sweet FX's own website, https://www.guru3d.com/files_details/sweetfx_shader_suite_download.html you see how much image information is lost when it is used by comparing their two examples -- Look at the Campfire and the rock in front of it.
The campfire smoke is gone in the SweetFX example, as is the detail on the Rock. Also look at the sky color -- it is blue without SweetFX, and pale and washed-out looking with SweetFX. What SweetFX has done is to increase the CONTRAST in the image (compare the darkness of the trees), not improved its sharpness. It is an old photographic trick to make you think that the image is "sharper, it is not really. Post Processing, or "image enhancement" cannot really change the resolution of an image (that is controlled by YOUR display device), all it can do is increase or decrease the contrast between one pixel and another (usually adjacent ones) thereby "increasing" the "sharpness" - the distinction between light and dark - of an image.
So much for my dumping on SweetFX :) The basic issue with "image quality" discussions is that they are VERY subjective; and most involve "tricking" the human eye into seeing what is not there (via interpolation) just the way consecutive still images are "thought to move" by the human eye and brain.
My system is 2560 x 1440 resolution - a 27 inch monitor, with a 16x9 aspect ratio, which tends to generate "stretched" images when compared with the native resolution for LOTRO of 1280 X 720, a 4x5 aspect ratio, which besides the image "quality" difference caused by the different aspect rations (16x9 vs 4x5) there are the differences between DX and OpenGL.
I should add, OSX is OpenGL native and does not support DX at all. Similarly, the LOTRO Mac Client is native OpenGL, and does not "convert" -- how Turbine generates the two different sets of graphic information, I do not know. This is one of the areas of "modern graphics" I would love to know more about. (I've been retired from the University since 2003, and graphics technology, especially, has changed a lot since then -- GPUs are now the fastest processors around beating main CPUs by 2-3 times, if not more!)
The three Calembel images I posted are both simply place-holders and "artistic." The three images were all taken with a very light rain "still" falling, which you can see if you look at the individual images independent of the text page (i.e. full size, not shrunken), and in that "funky light" found after a storm. Off hand I don't recall if they were just after dawn or just before sunset, but the ambient light was quite "different." The image at the page top is different from the other two in that the light, such as there was, was falling on the face of the walls. That is also one of the reasons why I prefer images with "thumb" descriptions to identify what they actually are.
Other than that, as I mentioned, the images are basically place-holders "to get the page layout working." This is especially true this early in the Beta. For example, I have images of Dol Amroth with all of the Fountain Square vendors lined up in rows :) The Devs had not yet placed them. Others of the Beacons with Corsairs in bright pink jumpsuits. Clearly, landscape "long shots" are not likely to change as much as the close-up "peopled" shots.
One last point, yes, the Calembel shots are "artistic" (i.e. not in full noon light) and there are MANY other shots on the wiki that suffer from the same Lack of Brightness... especailly proably well over 50% of NPC illustrations.
So, in short, no, there is no specific policy other than that at Help: Images - feel free to replace them with other images if you see fit.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 21:39, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
OK! Thanks for the massive amount of information; I think I have gained a deeper understanding of what's going on on my game screen now, which is awesome. I went ahead and looked at some files that were pretty low of quality and replaced them (e.g. Stable-master (Dagoras' Camp) and replaced them. If you (or other) come across any replaced image you deem unfit, feel free to revert my changes - I surely won't hold that against you. I think we'll have no problems here. :) --Tharondir (talk) 21:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

more powers

I've promoted you to full powers, you may hide edits :) .. Thanks again for all of your effort! --Lotroadmin (talk) 06:18, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

you are SO patient with me, Thank You

i play the game to mellow out due to work and don't visit the forums for game research. i've noticed that when i try to help on the wiki it's basically once in a while and intense. thank you for not 'bashing me'...for a lack of a better phrase. i'm very novice at inputting data/wiki editing but if you see any miss-ups i've done, by all means, correct it and tell me on my talk if i'm totally off base in what i'm doing. sorry for having you reply to every discussion i've written on. again. you're very patient, direct, and kind in your responses. :) --JaqlinLeFleur (talk) 14:02, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Who me patient? Naw... I'm just full of hot air. :)
At any rate, since I'm retired and spend far too much time on-line both in LOTRO and here on the Wiki, I have become one of the few "senior" Editors at the Wiki who are both on-line regularly as well as "at all." (A Tolkien fan since the first US publication and a Founder and Lifetimer at LOTRO as well.) As a result, one of the tasks I have assigned myself is that of Patrolling and maintaining a particular "list" which updates the "Recent discussions" reports. Consequently, I tend to be one of the first to see new "changes" made on the Wiki.
This, plus a background in a variety of "teaching type" situations lends me to try to encourage new writers and prospective editors in a specific effort to attempt to keep the Wiki alive and flourishing! Noticing and responding to new comments is part of that effort.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 20:06, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

City of Dol Amroth

Hey -- thanks for taking the time to change all the links from Dol Amroth Settlement into City of Dol Amroth. You're awesome. :) --Tharondir (talk) 18:52, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Mac Client PMB Installation

Hi Magill. Found this page while working through those stub templates and wondered if it was something you wanted to keep around since now Turbine's switch to Akamai. Thanks! Sethladan 17:27, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it can go.
I haven't really gone over the Mac Client stuff for a while, and there is probably other "crap" in there that needs to be cleared out. Right now it all hinges on Update 14. Turbine broke the Mac Client on Bullroarer with Build 4, so I probably won't know until U14 goes live if there is a working Mac Client anymore. I doubt there will be a Build 5 next week as the go live date is the following Monday. (They broke the patching process for the Mac Client) Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 19:11, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Yuck, that's a shame. Almost seems like anyone who wants to play on Mac had better have a Windows installation as a backup since the Mac client could go down in flames at any given moment. (And there goes my thought of downloading on my MacBook to see how smooth or not the process is...) Sethladan 20:48, 6 July 2014 (UTC)


Working on Reputation Deeds, require your input

Please see discussion Template talk:Deed#Reputation Faction template change Matthew.zellmer (talk) 15:32, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Kitty Kills Keyboard...

Oh no! Just can't look away for a minute, can you? Congrats on the excuse to upgrade, at least. My friend has been raving about the superiority of mechanical keyboards, but a hundred and fifty bucks for the G710+ seems like it'd be a little much. And I'm used to having wireless keyboards now... Well, enjoy your new toy when it comes in! :) Sethladan 22:42, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Finally back "in-game" with my new G105. My son found a source for it for $40, $10 less than on Logitech's website, and no shipping charge - on Amazon.
Of course I had to spend a a day or so "figuring out" how the G105 works on a Mac: Mac Client Keyboards
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:30, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Sucamarto asks...

18 August 2014

The infamous apostrophe problem

Same issue again -> https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Bronze_Northman%27s_Mace_%28Level_100%29 Once a page is created how do you introduce either of these fixes?

The easiest way to solve this problem is to use: | disambigpage = {{subst:FULLPAGENAME}}
Otherwise you need to manually change the single character apostrophe to the HTML string & #39; (with no space after the &).
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sucamarto (Contribs • User Talk) at 16:59, 17 August 2014‎.

15 August 2014

Can you check this page - https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Orophin%27s_Watch Also same issue here as well -> https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Wall%27s_End

Could it be the ' in the page name or is it somethign else?

For some reason it is showing an earlier Level 65 Tirithgarab and the panel is not showing right aligned> Cheers Suca

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sucamarto (Contribs • User Talk) at 23:28, 14 August 2014‎.

U14 Moors barter NPC updates

Thanks for your efforts. I have been on vacation in the last weeks, so I could not get to that yet. --Tharondir (talk) 07:06, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I have expanded upon and continued your efforts to streamline the armour barterer's page by including collapsible tables and re-sorting up-to-date and retired items. I also added the Beorning Trader and updated the overview page. Level 100 Sets for all 10 classes are in (except for the Rune-keeper's, which will follow today or tomorrow), and I went ahead and added all the legendary weapons for lvl100. In short, all the Glân Vraig NPCs should be up to date (U15). --Tharondir (talk) 10:06, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Flint Rune-stone of the Second Age

I marked the page Item:Flint Rune-stone of the Second Age for "Delete Article" because there is a merged Article in Item:Rune-keeper's Stone of the Second Age (I updated this Article). Barny (talk) 09:21, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Good catch. I was noticing as I was completing the new page that Turbine has gotten really sloppy with their item names and the like with Update 14.
Concurrent with that, I "created" the index for Category: Legendary Icons and noticed the icon issue.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 14:33, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I created the template Template:Legendary Icon for solving this problem, but it needs an update for Lvl 95 and Lvl 100 Icons. Barny (talk) 15:40, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Have to run, but one thing which immediately jumped out at me -- the difference in parameters between the two templates -- Template:Legendary Item Damage uses "LM-RK" -- Template:Legendary Icon uses "Rune-Keeper"; most references are "Rune-keeper" (keeper in lower case).
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:49, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
For every template: it doesen't matter, if you use "Rune-Keeper" or "Rune-keeper" or "rune-keeper" (example: Template:Trade-info has "annuminas-50-1" but Item:Boots of the West-tower (Level 50) use "Annuminas-50-1"). By the way Template:Legendary Icon don't use the first parameter for Player class till now, it only use the Bridle weight for Bridles and the Affinity for rune-stones. So "Rune-Keeper" is not used. Barny (talk) 08:45, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Duplicate Warband Pages

Thank you for responding to my question. I've added my reply to User_talk:Snarpel#Duplicate_pages. Should I have directed the quesyion to you in the first place? I'm never sure who to contact first when I have questions and don't want to step on toes OR bother people the wrong people. I prefer to aggro only targets I specifically choose. Gwilliwen (talk) 08:24, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't matter all that much where you ask a question as the question will appear in the recent discussion list anyway so it's visible to everyone. Hence Magill answered the question in my talk page and I'm answering one in his. ;)
Just asking the question in your own talk page is probably the simplest answer, or you can ask in several peoples pages as well if it's urgent Snarpel (talk) 21:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
But do keep your discussions unified so that someone else coming along later on can follow the thread of conversation. ;) And don't worry about aggro - all admins drop advice as common loot, otherwise you should file a /bug report. Sethladan 13:45, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Changes to Coda

I'm not sure how but something broke when Coda was edited. It's visible in several pages and has to do with the parameter mode=imlink not being there. Since I don't know what the common thing here is, I'll leave it to someone else for now.

You can see it in Anthem of War (Effect)#Notes and Anthem of Composure (Effect)#Notes.

Mogafi (talk) 02:45, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm guessing someone else fixed it. Probably Sethladan as I note that he added the "<noinclude>" Wrapper around the category entries.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 02:54, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Saw my name, so poking my nose in: mode=imlink's job is to enable the link to have a tooltip popup, but Coda doesn't actually have any skill templates to "pop-up" - Lovestar split the various skills out onto their own pages, so you're just transcluding the whole page (minus the categories which I did noinclude out). Solutions might be to just link to the page without making it a template call (plain wikilink - [[Coda]]) or - if you want the icons and pop-up action - call each coda separately: {{:Coda of Fury|mode=imlink}}, {{:Coda of Melody|mode=imlink}}, etc. Sethladan 04:54, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Aha! Totally mis-understood the original problem. Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 00:59, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
Great! I've started fixing things. In some pages I use solution one and in some other pages solution two or even both solutions at the same time.
Mogafi (talk) 22:17, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation of the name of 2 quests

There are 2 quests named "Legacy of Strife", they are from the same NPC/region/etc. They are in this chain: Category:Lebennin_Quests. Do you have any suggestions for the name of the second one?

Mogafi (talk) 03:50, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I assume you mean another quest in addition to the one already on the Wiki: Quest: Legacy of Strife?
Or are you just looking at the listing in the Category? i.e. is it really a different quest with the same name or simply a quest listed twice?
If they are the same name, I would probably just tag the second one "Part II" as it is probably a continuation of the first one.
Reading the quest on the Wiki, it would seem that there could be a second part. If you have both in your quest log, check to see what Turbine has really called them.
I don't think that it is possible for Turbine to name two different quests the same in their database, but I don't know for certain.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 05:23, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
That category list is based on my quest notes from my first pass of Central Gondor, and it's possible I goofed on the name. The first Legacy of Strife quest involved speaking to NPCs in Ost Anglebed, and the second has an instance involving a traitor. Turbine has reused names for quests before (e.g. Quest:In Too Deep (Moria) and Quest:Blinding the Enemy). -Laineth (talk) 17:29, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
You got the name(s) right. :) They both have the same name (plus the instance quest); they are shown in the log with the exact same name.
I'm sure that to the game engine what matters is some quest ID assigned to each quest, and that is the uniqueness of the quest.
Ok... The work is done. Thanks for the ideas and pointers.
Mogafi (talk) 21:29, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
The first "Legacy of Strife" quest was renamed to "Blood of the King" at some point. Haven't gotten to the second one yet. -Laineth (talk) 04:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Second quest is still named "Legacy of Strife". I already moved the first quest and corrected the quest list, but I can't delete the redirect page so that Quest:Legacy of Strife (Part 2)|Legacy of Strife can be moved there. Could someone with greater powers do that, please? Thanks! -Laineth (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Done! I didn't see any dangling links, so I'm guessing that means Laineth did all the clean-up work in advance. Three cheers for tidiness. :) Sethladan 23:50, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
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