User talk:Cronje/2012 archive

User talk:Cronje Archive 2010 &bull; 2011 &bull; 2012

Kisonraathiisar
I thought the image was wrong, as it is obviously not a dragon, but it is labelled 'Kisonraathiisar’s slow demise' in the book. :/ Thomaslove92 13:14, February 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I thought the same for a while, before I happened to come across a thread over on the Candlekeep forums. Not having known anything about Kisonraathiisar before, I'd had no clue. :P Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 13:27, February 2, 2012 (UTC)

Building Infobox
Hi again, just occured to me whilst adding the infobox to a page, that 'caption' 'source' and 'page' titles would be great! Sorry to keep bothering you, but i'm still learning how to write wikia code.

Cheers, Thomas Thomaslove92 15:57, February 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * No worries, coding is one of my passions, no matter what the language. I'll add the 'source' and 'caption' parameters now (page can be included in source). Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 18:45, February 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * Heh, looks like I had already coded the caption functionality, but forgot to include it in the syntax/explanation section. Woops! Anyway, both parameters are now available. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 18:50, February 2, 2012 (UTC)

Infobox Coding
Hi cronje, I've been studying the dwarven script dethek recently, and an idea came to me.

I think it would be cool if famous characters had their name in their native script in the info box. Similar to the signature section in wikipedia.

I've created Bruenor Battlehammer's name in Dethek and uploaded it (with transparent background), and been messing around with it in my sandbox, but to no avail.

Can you help? I'm thinking it would look cool just under the name (in the header box), it wouldn't even need a title that way, as it would appear as a translation to the name.




 * I think the existing infobox code could handle it (in the name/title parameter, add something like:






 * If you'd prefer, it'd be simple enough to create an Alternate Spellings parameter. Let me know. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:04, February 24, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick response, I tried your suggestion (User:Thomaslove92/sandbox) but i got nothing, unless i did it wrong!


 * If you dont mind adding a native spelling parameter that would be awesome! Cheers mate :)
 * Thomaslove92 01:17, February 24, 2012 (UTC)


 * Done. Use the alt_spelling parameter. I would've gone with native_spelling, but there may be other alternate spellings. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:27, February 24, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks Tom, just what I wanted!

Generic infobox
Hey, any luck getting that standardized infobox template official yet? I can't wait to start neatening up pages with it. Thomaslove92 21:36, February 24, 2012 (UTC)


 * Still waiting on word from Fw190a8, since he's needed to edit the wiki's CSS file. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 21:39, February 24, 2012 (UTC)

Writing mediawiki
Hello again, I'm just wondering if you know any good sites to help me learn how to write in wikia code. I've learnt the basics, but i'd like to take it to the next level.

Cheers Thomaslove92 14:20, March 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the best sources are the two sites run by MediaWiki: MediaWiki.org for the everyday users (us) and WikiMedia.org, for the behind-the-scenes coders. There's also MWUsers.com forums for asking for help on either aspect, but I've seen (and created) several threads with zero replies. The Wikia help wiki might also be useful, since the Wikia code differs a small bit from the base WikiMedia code and comes standard with several extensions that can come in handy. Hope that helps! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 14:37, March 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that should do it! :) Thomaslove92 18:25, March 2, 2012 (UTC)

Sandbox
Cronje, your sandboxes are looking fantastic... just wanted give you a boost of encouragement :) Darkwynters 03:40, March 5, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Done with most of the major infoboxes so far, but still have a bit to go. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 04:00, March 5, 2012 (UTC)

Is it just me on this ancient MacBook, or are the alignment grids all messed up now? I see the page I'm editing has the problem as well as the one in your sandbox. The left column of the alignment grid is stretched out to fill the available space. And right-aligned text looks weird when it wraps to the next line :-/ I hope this is only weird on my machine :P Moviesign 05:14, March 5, 2012 (UTC)


 * They are messed up, but I'll be fixing that once I update the rest of the infoboxes. I think the alignment grid doesn't have a fixed width, which is causing the problem. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 05:20, March 5, 2012 (UTC)


 * Cronje, it appears the inhabitants, settlements, and organizations links in the infoboxes are not showing up on the Location template... have a look at Settlestone?? Darkwynters 18:43, March 25, 2012 (UTC)


 * It looks like those parameters were removed in a previous revision of the code, so when I updated that infobox, I didn't include them. I've just reimplemented them, and they (and locations) should work now. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 19:47, March 25, 2012 (UTC)


 * Awesome! Darkwynters 21:55, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

Cronje, for some reason, the languages section in the Person infobox is not working. Check out Old Night and see what I mean. Thanks, Darkwynters 02:06, March 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Please let me know if you find any other missing/malfunctioning parameters. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 02:37, March 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * Cronje, of course and thanks for fixing that!!! Darkwynters 03:04, March 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * I just thought of something... FW added the formerhomes line, which works, if you look at Malchor Harpell, but the Person template does not have this line shown on the template? or the person doc? Darkwynters 03:14, March 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 14:22, March 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * Hey, Cronje... I noticed the TYPE section is not appearing... check out Seatower of Balduran and you will see the Tower does not show up? Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this used to be displayed :) Darkwynters 03:39, April 6, 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 04:17, April 6, 2012 (UTC)


 * Sweet! Very minor thing... since we are now adding citations into the infobox... does the Person template need the source line? Darkwynters 17:18, April 6, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm still waiting for Forgotten Realms Wiki:Infoboxes to be changed from a proposal to an official policy to do that, as it's not official yet. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 17:37, April 6, 2012 (UTC)


 * Cronje, I see what you mean... it is still a proposal :( You might want to send FW a note to remind him, since he is the most regular admin... If they elect for another one, you have my vote! Darkwynters 17:59, April 6, 2012 (UTC)

Sylune
Cronje, I am not completely sold on the Anastra Syluné Silverhand page, because there are no individual characters in the Inhabitants category or Inhabitants of Faerun... and the Inhabitants of Toril does not exist... so I guess my question is... are we to move all the characters to these categories... because there is a lot of people who fit into these categories, if not EVERYONE... I'm just giving you my two cents... and will not fix your recent edit, because I feel if someone changes back your edit... leave it alone :) Darkwynters 22:15, March 21, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm simply following the policy as it's laid out, though technically I could've gone on to add something as broad as (or even something broader, to account for creatures from other spheres, like - I forget which - one of the deity pantheons). I agree that it would be a lot of work to broaden each of the various Inhabitants categories so that they are in each of the correct parent categories, but it might be worth it someday. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 22:53, March 21, 2012 (UTC)

Cool... I think I'll wait until FW gets on before making a bunch of Inhabitant additions to the pages... but I understand what you are saying about the policy... I even reread it last night and it is not very specific... could have used a few examples :) Darkwynters 23:34, March 21, 2012 (UTC)

WOW
Cronje, I bow my head to you... I thought I was OCD... and this is a compliment :) You have organized the Inhabitants categories from smallest to largest!!! For example, on the Thoyana Jorgadaul I can see... first fighters... then 8th level fighters... then inhabitants of Still Waters, then Inhabitants of Elmwood... etc. I have actually thought about doing this... but now I have too :) A bit crazy, but great meticulous work!!! Darkwynters 00:54, March 24, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. :) Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:31, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

Dragon template
I changed the month year, so that once filled in the infobox could categorizes the article into so seperating them had a purpose. Thomaslove92 08:52, April 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * I can accept that. However, I would like to point out that that is contrary to how almost every article on a body of work acts. Every single article in Category:Books and its children categories has the category added manually. It might be easier to have the template itself categorize the magazine articles, but if (for example) we decide to use a sort key to order the articles by month ( for articles published in March of 2012, for example), we would have to go back and manually add them.


 * Still, if you decide to change it back, I won't revert it again. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 09:14, April 7, 2012 (UTC)

Tower of Twilight
Actually Cronje, you are correct... it is from page 9 of the City of Splenders Web Enhancement: Environs of Waterdeep, but I was trying to get to school and just saved the page... So if you want to fix the citation... please do... or I will... Sweet, I just found it!!! Darkwynters 17:50, May 21, 2012 (UTC)


 * This brings up an important point, Cronje, I usually place the eariest known date and the last known date in the ruler/owner section... meaning, Malchor Harpell met Drizzt Do'Urden in 1356 DR in Streams of Silver... in the City of Splendors Web Enhancement: Envions of Waterdeep (set in 1372 DR) Malchor's name is mentioned in connection with the Tower of Twilight... as for his retiring... I have not found that... I guess my question is... is this the correct way of citing the time period a character is at a known location? If I am not doing this correctly, let me know :) Darkwynters 18:01, May 21, 2012 (UTC)

Cronje, this is one of those things I hate to confront, but I actually take working on this wiki seriously... so I'm going to be honest... I need a few of my pages deleted and then reloaded... when I started editing in July 2011, I thought we were suppose to keep the info intact and just rearrange data from different sources for easy reading ... in September, I learned this was wrong and went back and fixed most of my posts... now, I see I should have them deleted :( My main question is about sandboxes... how do we create them or set them up... because I have gone back to my first edits, such as the Tower of Twilight and started saving my completed, uncopied work... but at least I will feel better after cleaning my beginner messes ;) Darkwynters 04:13, June 6, 2012 (UTC)

Plagiarism
I can't remember what I was doing back in '07 when that help page was written so I can't remember signing off on it. It does make sense from a legal perspective but I guess it just seems like unnecessary hassle. Having to delete and restore a page every time some lazy fool decides that they can't be bothered to write something similar but different.

Edit: I've gone ahead and made you an administrator so you can put your vigilance to better use rather than having to wait for one of us to catch up to you. hashtalk 15:01, June 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * Congrats Cronje :) &mdash;Moviesign 15:10, June 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * Congratulations Cronje ^^! Terrorblades  - This is recorded live at  15:50, June 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow, awesome, Cronje... couldn't have happened to a nicer fellow!!! You are the new watcher in the dark, and I bend my knee to ye :) Darkwynters 17:56, June 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow, thanks! And thank you all for positive feedback. I'll try not to screw up too badly! :p Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 18:18, June 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * Easy as that, is it? :) Well done, and thanks for the clean-up. -- BadCatMan 10:00, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Picture categories
Hay! I have a small question! I was wondering about the categorization of images on the wiki! Like should images that feature a race/creature be under that category even tough that's not the main focus of the image. Like this: should Nightcloak image Be under the Genasi category? or should Forest master image be under Gray render? Terrorblades - This is recorded live at  19:21, June 26, 2012 (UTC)


 * If only one picture exists of the race, stick it in Category:Images by race. If there are multiple images, stick it in Category:Images of RACE NAME and then stick that category in Category:Images by race. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 20:29, June 26, 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'll try this when i get to it... I think i understand. Terrorblades  - This is recorded live at  20:53, June 26, 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok so i have put a ton of images in categories but i was wondering... how do i stick a category in another category? Like Making images of goblins and then having hobgoblings in there? Or maybe putting thief and druid categories in the classes categories? It took me while to notice that i have no idea how to do that :/, sorry should have thought about it before hand... Terrorblades  - This is recorded live at  12:00, July 5, 2012 (UTC)


 * Easily done! Just edit the category page and add the parent category as you would a normal. Keep in mind that if a category is a child of another category, all the images in that category should also be a member of the parent category. For example, every image in Category:Images of hobgoblins should be a member of that category and Category:Images of goblins. Hope that helps! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 12:34, July 5, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank's i have tried this now and it seams to work fine :D! Oh and i made a "Goblinoids" category... Dont know if that was good or bad... should i change it? Oh and should there be a illithid and mind flayer category and if so witch should be the parent directory? (Seams like in articles about other "mind flayer races" they are refereed to as offspring of illithid but still aren't mind flayers :S. Am i reading something wrong? And should the drow category be child of the elven category as the moon elf is? And how many images are needed for there to be "many"? Becourse i have seen categories that contain 1 image... Oh oh and last question that i am going to bother you with is how do i make one of those really neat "Gallery" things bellow a article as there are in articles like Manshoon. Sorry if am just throwing a bunch of other questions at you :S! Oh and thanks for being so active :D! Terrorblades  - This is recorded live at  18:01, July 6, 2012 (UTC)


 * Don't worry about asking too many questions. I'm glad I can help. Though my new job prevents me from getting much editing done (aside from cleaning up Category:Articles nominated for deletion), I still want to help out as much as I can, and this is a good way. :)


 * In order:
 * Mind flayers/Illithids: I can't remember which sourcebook defines a mind flayer as a type of illithid (Drizzt Do'Urden's Guide to the Underdark, maybe, or Drow of the Underdark? I'm not sure.), but I distinctly remember the mind flayer => illithid relationship being similar to that of a wood elf => elf one. I'd definitely stick mind flayers inside their own category and in Category:Illithids.
 * Drow/Elves: That's a bit tricky to answer. While dark elves were originally an elven subrace (I think Lost Empires of Faerûn states this explicitly), they're so different now - culturally, religiously, and even physically (their infravision, for example) - that I'm not sure they belong as a subcategory or not. You may want to create a Forum page for it.
 * Minimum image count: So long as there are at least two images of the creature, giving it its own category is warranted. If you know for a fact that there's more than image out there (having seen them yourself, that is, in the past), but the category only has one image, it's possible the images not yet uploaded to the wiki are copyrighted; if not, please hunt them down and upload them!
 * Galleries: It took me a few minutes to find it, but Help:Galleries_and_slideshows/wikitext (and Help:Gallery, I think, but not sure, since I don't use the visual editor) has a step-by-step guide on how to create galleries.


 * Hope that helps! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:24, July 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * 1: Yay ^^! Aww but it's still great that your able to help :)! Ok so it goes "Illithid => Mind Flayer" got it. And wood elf in elf (And all the other sub races)
 * 2: Ok working on the forum post soon!
 * 3: Ah ok, Well i have tons of images from games that i can use and post :D! I'll try and start getting on that! Btw should i put the screenshot or game-screenshot license on the images from games? I'm a bit confused about that :S!
 * 4: Oh sorry! I said it wrong, i meant the gallery under the image in the info box just like in Scyllua Darkhope! I cant find the code for the tiny gallery thing under there!


 * Oh it helped allot ^^! Thanks allot! But Ill have to fix this in the morning... Am sorta pushing 24h with bad sleep now :(! again thanks for the help Ill start sorting things out soon!  Terrorblades  - This is recorded live at  02:50, July 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * Mind flayers should be in the illithid category, not the other way around! The link to the gallery page is generated automagically if a Category:Images of [name] page exists, where [name] is either the name parameter for the template or, if the name parameter isn't set, the page name. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 03:19, July 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry that's what i meant! So in order to the the categories in to some of the pages they have to be changed from plural to singular, guessing that means that its only soposed to be characters that have a gallery under there image, ok. Thanks! Terrorblades  - This is recorded live at  10:42, July 7, 2012 (UTC)

Cleaning
Cronje, I was just reading the edits of User:96.11.67.201 aka P... Man... anyway, I wonder if you could copy those pages and delete the history, so his comments would be wiped from the page History... it just got me thinking... BTW, you're doing an excellent job deleting pages... good job, admin :) Darkwynters 22:32, June 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately deleting the pages he edited would erase the history of others' contributions, not just his. I wonder if there's a way to simply hide his contributions/comments... Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs)

Hmmm, ask FW... I mean it is not a problem, but it seems like anyone can say something stupid and it becomes permanent :( Darkwynters 03:34, June 30, 2012 (UTC)

Item infobox
Cronje, this completely up to you... but what do you think about an item infobox... like the magical item one, just with maybe price, weight, location it is sold... it just would be cool... tell me what you think :) Darkwynters (talk) 18:04, July 16, 2012 (UTC)


 * I've modified what was the Magic item template and renamed it Item, as it was a viable infobox for non-magical items in addition to enchanted items. I've also added the weight and location parameters (price already exists as the value parameter). Let me know if you think it needs more work! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 00:46, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

Toril
Hey Cronje, I was trying to create the broad categories for Inhabitants of Toril and Locations on Toril... can you check to make sure I have organized these correctly... you posted a talk on 4/3/2012 about how all settlements are also suppose to be locations as well... do you still think this is true? Plus, can you take a look at the Template:Planet page... it does not work correctly. See the Toril page. Any help would be fantastic!!! Darkwynters (talk) 21:28, August 2, 2012 (UTC)

Citing
Can't figure out how to Cite and Reference the Magister pageConanx100 (talk) 02:51, August 8, 2012 (UTC)


 * All of the details on citing a reference can be found at Help:Citing sources, but the basics are as follows:


 * In-text citations (that is, the links that appear like [1][2][3] ) are the preferred method for citing references because, generally, the details of an article can be found in multiple sources. You create them with the &lt;ref&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; tags, with a in the middle, where the first ... is something like book or web and the second is the id. For example, &lt;ref&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; . The details of the reference would then appear wherever the &lt;references /&gt; tag is in the article.
 * If the entire article can be cited from a single reference, you can just put the under the References section.
 * In general, all references go under the References section, which can be created with == References == . This usually goes at the very bottom of the article, above the category links (which, unless you're using Basic Edit mode in your settings, you won't see in the edit box anyway).


 * Hope that helps! I'm going to copy this information on your talk page to make it easier for you to find. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 03:55, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

Question about rewriting plagiarized pages
Hey, I was wondering about something. All those pages that are marked for deletion due to plagiarism... I know they have to be deleted, and since a lot of them are short, I've been thinking that I could rewrite them easily enough. If I were to rewrite the content (using the plagiarized content as a reference), save the rewritten information in the sandbox (without saving the plagiarized content), and then recreate the pages with the new content after the ones with plagiarism have been deleted, would that be acceptable? Or would that be considered dishonest, as I don't actually have the books to look off of?  Vely ►t ►e 20:19, August 11, 2012 (UTC)


 * By all means, use a sandbox; that's what I do when I know I'm going to be editing something a few times or for future use, and I know a few of our users use it for just the purpose you've described. As for using a previous revision as a template for a clean copy, but not having the cited references, I wouldn't worry about it. Eventually someone will find any errors and correct them or add a Fact template. Keep up the great work! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 04:23, August 12, 2012 (UTC)

Western Heartlands vs. Sword Coast
Cronje, would you care to put you two cents in about the regional borders... maybe even create an official policy on what map to use for organization of regional categories... please check out Talk:Western Heartlands... thanks, man... any advice would be awesome :) Darkwynters (talk) 17:22, September 6, 2012 (UTC)

Reference Template
Hello Cronje. I have recently encountered a problem with reference templates. See pages Urshula, If Ever They Happened Upon My Lair, and The First Notch. When using the the appropriate template for citing a reference from a book, the link for the book does not appear. On many of these references I have added the external link template to create a link for the book. The link appears however the code still reads incorrectly. On the page Urshula, I have left the first reference as it should be and altered the next two references with the external link so that you can see the difference. I would deeply appreciate if you would look into this issue.


 * I edited the references for the Urshula page, Drow2626. --Jandor (talk) 13:27, September 9, 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem was, as Jandor's edits have shown, the way in which the template was called. You want to always just use one set of double curly bracers ( 🇦🇩 ) when calling a template. Thus,, rather than  . Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 14:59, September 9, 2012 (UTC)

Guidelines
Posted by Jandor... this is a great idea :)

"Are you or others (Cronje,FW, BadCatMan, or other actives, etc) considering creating a page with basic (or more vast - expert) guidelines for editing this wiki? I don't mean a page like Forgotten Realms Wiki:About or | Category:Policies. (Not to mention that most unregistered contributors wont' read the about, but will start editing straight away after browsing the main page). I mean a page where some things will show all gathered in one place. Those things might be the (some are already mentioned, like Forgotten Realms Wiki:Infoboxes): This could be place in a page named as e.g. Basic Guidelines - Advices for Editing just under the section Helping out in the main page. A page like that would surely help not only us (considering that everyone of us will edit it and add even more proposed ), but new members or random contributors as well." Darkwynters (talk) 00:20, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
 * Cite always if possible.
 * Writing in past tense.
 * add info, which is more in the past than the presented as present, using time reference if possible.
 * Try to standarise a layout for a page you have just created:
 * Using infoboxes
 * add categories
 * put the stub, non-canon or other notations.
 * If for a place, try to part the given info in headlines such as Geography, Description, History, Notable Places (If we can we can propose a certain sequence, not as an obligation but as an advise). For people, History, Physical description, Equipment, etc....
 * Rules for categorising.
 * Don't use strange letters - symbols. (non-hyphen symbols)
 * Avoid adding too many details about the core D&D rules of various elements(crunch).
 * Write in physical language or alternate phrases - words of given info (source), so as not to copy original info as it is.......

CSS Conflict
If you have time, could you look at World Tree cosmology/imagemap and see why there is a CSS conflict with the captions of the images? User_talk:Quinsareth reports they look fine in monobook. I had to stick in a dummy tag (See User:Moviesign/Sandbox/imagemap to get the whole caption to show up. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.&mdash;Moviesign (talk) 19:56, September 11, 2012 (UTC)
 * Woot! Thanks Cronje!&mdash;Moviesign (talk) 00:38, September 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, it looks like something is still amiss. The first sentence of the caption is becoming the link text for the image info icon, or something like that :-/ See my imagemap &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 00:45, September 12, 2012 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, that's a problem with the Wikia code. I have no way of fixing it. :( You should file a bug report at the Wikia community site. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 00:51, September 12, 2012 (UTC)


 * I submitted a bug as you suggested and here is the response:

"Thanks for contacting Wikia. We appreciate you letting us know about this problem with imagemap captions. I can confirm this is issue from our end and it appears this was introduced during the MediaWiki 1.19 upgrade. I will pass your report directly to our technical staff for investigation and review."

&mdash;Moviesign (talk) 16:59, September 12, 2012 (UTC)

Deletion master
Wow... that was Bracers of the blinding strike fast, Cronje... I just marked the Thistle page and *slash* you killed it :) Great job!!! Thanks for the "undos" as well. Darkwynters (talk) 03:10, September 12, 2012 (UTC)


 * Hehe, I just happened to refresh the page when I saw your deletion tag, so I figured I'd knock it off the list. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more work done tomorrow between class and work. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 03:15, September 12, 2012 (UTC)

They are calling to you... "Cronje... Cronje... we want to play, too!" :) Darkwynters (talk) 03:19, September 12, 2012 (UTC)

Infobox editions
Hey, Cronje, I was wondering if you could take a look at the Drizzt Do'Urden page and see if you can fix how the 2e and 3e look... I was noticing on wikipedia they show the different levels of the characters this way... if you have a better way, please try it or see what ye can do about the look, that would be fantastic :) Thanks!!! Darkwynters (talk) 21:50, September 16, 2012 (UTC)

Copyright Questions
Hi. I am looking at helping out but am feeling my way through the hows of contributing to a wiki. A couple of questions:

1. I understand the issues with copyright but historical year entries can be short in the source and so practically impossible to rewrite. Does the direct copy rule still apply?

2. A while back WOC had a bunch of older material available for free download off their site. Do copying rules apply to these materials given they were available for free at one time?

--Ijkay (talk) 19:19, September 20, 2012 (UTC)ijkay

Rulertype
Cronje, please take a look at Template:Location, at the "rulertype" stat of the infobox and how it shows up at an example page e.g. Lonelywood or Caer-Konig. How should it show up in your opinion: a) Type of {Location's name}'s Ruler, b) Type of {Location's name}'s Ruler {as it is now}, c) or just Ruler's Type? Jandor (talk &sdot; contribs ) 09:56, September 21, 2012 (UTC)

Hmm.. However, that implies that we change (it's not difficult) the stats: "ruler1, ruleryear1, ruler2, ruleryear2, etc.." to showing "Leader" in Infobox, cause the rulertype has a connection to previous stats.. so i think they should either show up, both as Ruler's Type/Title --> Council Spokesman Ruler --> Cassius in 1351 DR

or

Leader's Title --> Council Spokesman Leader --> Cassius in 1351 DR and not mixing Leader - Ruler. Eventually we will find the best one... Jandor (talk &sdot; contribs ) 14:40, September 21, 2012 (UTC)


 * Cronje, having the city name is cool, but I think it also clutters the infobox :( Darkwynters (talk) 17:45, September 21, 2012 (UTC)

Infobox dates
Cronje, one thing I wish we could change is date line not allowing multiple dates, such as 1368 DR - 1372 DR... for example, in the Template:Building under owner year... it allows only one date... it would be nice to have Moonstone Mask Owner Ophala Cheldarstorn... owner years 1367 DR - if she is killed, then 1367 - 1472 DR... if there is nothing ye can do, that is okay... If I have already asked this of you, I am sorry :) Darkwynters (talk) 17:45, September 21, 2012 (UTC)


 * Agree with this.."Owner year" and "ruler year" as a period. We should look at it. Jandor (talk &sdot; contribs ) 02:42, September 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * I just finished altering the infobox so that the owneryear and staffyear parameters no longer exists. From now on (I've updated the documentation for the template to mirror this change), you should use "XXX ( YYYY DR )" or "XXX ( YYYY DR - ZZZZ DR ) (without the quotes) if there is only the one known owner; otherwise, use the Split table template (what used to be the 'class table' template) -, for example.


 * If you happen across any articles using the old parameters, please update them! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 03:10, September 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks Cronje. We will update them. Jandor (talk &sdot; contribs ) 11:11, September 23, 2012 (UTC)

Cronje, excellent work... please check out the Old Skull Inn page... I want to make sure I have done the infobox correctly, before working on other pages :) Darkwynters (talk) 18:04, September 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks great! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 21:23, September 23, 2012 (UTC)

Hey Cronje, what to think about fixing the Template:Location to be the same as the Template:Building for dates... so dates are added to the ruler lines (I think the population lines are fine having one date), so if Azoun I ruled from 391 – 425 DR, you can place this on the line... I think the Old Skull Inn is an okay example... I believe Eli had a similar thought recently... what do ye think :) Darkwynters (talk) 15:36, October 12, 2012 (UTC)

Method
Yet another question. I would like to muddle through one source at a time. I have everything FR pre-4e stacked in lots of boxes. I don't have the time for playing anymore. But although it may seem wierd I do enjoy going through sourcebooks. What I would like to do, is pick out the relevent info as I go, adding to the wiki where appropriate. Rather then diligently researching one topic. This may mean generating lots more short stub pages. Is this okay? --Ijkay (talk) 17:56, September 21, 2012 (UTC)

Crunch
Sorry if this appears twice but it seemed to disappear the first time. I am wondering about the minimal crunch rule. There are pages for classes and prestige classes but there are only a handful of feats. There are some weapon qualities and lots of spell pages. Seems inconsistant. I get that you can create a spell entry and leave the cruchy numbers out. But I am just wondering if that falls within the intended scope of this wiki. Just wondering about the correct action in both creating and editing.

--Ijkay (talk) 18:02, September 21, 2012 (UTC)

Capital the
Cronje, do you think the "the" should be capitalized in categories... for example, should it be Inhabitants of the Nether Mountains or Inhabitants of The Nether Mountains... maybe this should be added to the Forgotten Realms Wiki:Use lower case policy :) Darkwynters (talk) 20:48, September 24, 2012 (UTC)


 * Unless the most recently-published source referencing the location capitalizes the "The," you should use lowercase. In the case of the Nether Mountains, that isn't the case. I'd go with "Inhabitants of the Nether Mountains". Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 21:05, September 24, 2012 (UTC)

To delete or not
I have found that the text for most of the spells from LEoF have been directly copied. Before I go about rewriting them, should they be deleted and redone from scratch? For example Aura of the sun --Ijkay (talk) 20:24, September 26, 2012 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, yes, all articles copied verbatim from the source must deleted, per our plagiarism policy. What I would recommend is to add the Deletion template to the relevant pages and create a sandbox page (for example, User:Ijkay/Sandbox/Article_Name) with the redone, not-copyright-violating version of the page. That way, when the page gets deleted (which I swear I'll get to soon!) it can be remade with the cleaner version. Then you can just put the Deletion template in the sandbox page for me or another admin to delete. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 21:51, September 26, 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry more questions about the deletion of pages. I have been going through various year pages checking references. There are a large number of year entries that are copied from GHofR or other sources. What's the best way to tackle these? Just wondering if it is any thing different from what we discussed above, as a lot of the entries are very short. Is it better to make the changes and let the admin cut and paste to a new page once the deletion occurs, or just mark for deletion and wait and recreate the page myself? On those years where there are a lot of entries with one copied entry, is total deletion still merited or can it just be edited appropriately? Also the pages for some of the earlier Ages have consolidated timelines contained within them. When adding a timeline entry are individual year pages to be created in addition to updating the appropriate Age page?--Ijkay (talk) 18:35, October 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * Sadly, even those pages need to be deleted and restored with non-copyrighted material; Darkwyners has already made some progress with this. If the entry is only 3-4 words long, that's fine, but any longer than that needs to be in your own words. It would also be better if you could expand shorter entries. For example, if it's something like "The Moogooboozoo War ends," you could find more details on the war and change it to something like "The Moogooboozoo War ends with the destruction of the capital city of Arkanabanama at the hands of the corn monsters."


 * It would be best if you saved "clean" copies of the pages yourself, assuming the copyrighted material hasn't already been changed when the article gets deleted. If that's the case, I or another admin will restore the clean copy after we delete it. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 06:57, October 2, 2012 (UTC)

1st level cleric spells
Noticed the category '1st level cleric spells' has a redirect to prayers where as other levels don't. Error?--Ijkay (talk) 19:28, September 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * In 4th edition, Wizards of the Coast began categorizing different classes' abilities with different names. Wizards got spells, clerics got prayers, assassins got hexes, rangers got exploits, etc.. I think at one point we're going to have to put into policy whether or not we are going to use the generic "spells" or the more specific categories. For now, just use either one. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 20:51, September 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * I thought that's where the prayers and whatnot must have come from. The problem I had was that I was trying to double check whether the spells I was working on were entered or not by going down through the category tree from Spells. 1st level cleric spells doesn't appear while the other levels do. Given that none of the other levels are like that can we take out the redirect and put this category back in the cat tree like the other levels?--Ijkay (talk) 14:46, September 28, 2012 (UTC)

New user here, trying to figure out proper procedure on an article. The Dracorage mythal page references the spell, Abate dracorage in the Reversal/Healing section. It was (briefly) changed so that the link connects to this wiki's page on that spell. It was changed back, causing the page to no longer link. Earlier attempts to write the article also got edited to where the Dracorage mythal page no longer linked to the spell it was referring to, and the reason for the edit was cited as a spelling/grammar/uppercase policy. It seems to me having the article's referenced spell link to that spell's page would contribute to the wiki. Is there some other coding format that needs to be followed, or do I simply need to cite a source stating that the spell Abate dracorage and the abate dracorage cited in the Dracorage mythal page are one and the same? Or is there another issue I'm misunderstanding?

Question regarding an edit on the Dracorage mythal page.
New user here, trying to figure out proper procedure on an article. The Dracorage mythal page references the spell, abate dracorage in the Reversal/Healing section. It was (briefly) changed so that the link connects to this wiki's page on that spell. It was changed back, causing the page to no longer link. Earlier attempts to write the article also got edited to where the Dracorage mythal page no longer linked to the spell it was referring to, and the reason for the edit was cited as a spelling/grammar/uppercase policy. It seems to me having the article's referenced spell link to that spell's page would contribute to the wiki. Is there some other coding format that needs to be followed, or do I simply need to cite a source stating that the spell abate dracorage and the abate dracorage cited in the Dracorage mythal page are one and the same? Or is there another issue I'm misunderstanding?--Jchaffin (talk) 21:18, September 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * A number of pages do not follow the wiki's policy on using lowercase, so occasionally links like that will be broken. I've just edited the Dracorage mythal page so that it properly links to abate dracorage (note the lowercase 'd'). Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 21:51, September 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * Understood. Thank you. Might I follow up that with a clarification on what is meant in the Forgotten Realms Wiki:Use lower case policy under the exception for canon material? The example given is the Time of Troubles, in Title Case. Does this exception extend to spell titles? Because Dragons of Faerun lists the spell several times as "abate Dracorage," with an uppercase "D," and the word Dracorage is capitalized throughout the book. Sorry, I'm not trying to nitpick, I personally could care less, I just want to understand where I went wrong so I can try and correct it, and not have to correct links in the future. I originally wasn't sure if the spell was improperly capitalized, the article, or both. --Jchaffin (talk) 22:28, September 27, 2012 (UTC)


 * I understand. That gave me a lot of trouble in the beginning too. You should only use uppercase names in a spell name if that name contains a proper noun, such as Srinshee's spell shift or Nezram's sapphire screen of shielding. The Dracorage in Dracorage mythal and abate Dracorage (woops! looks like that was supposed to be capitalized; fixed now!) are capitalized because the Dracorage is the name of an event.

Feel free to use title capitalization in name parameter of the infoboxes (the Spell template, in this instance). Hope that helps! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 22:46, September 27, 2012 (UTC)

Karatin/Category:Settlements in Shou Lung
Sorry, Cronje. I tried to get the mistaken Category:Settlements in Shou Lung page fixed by suggesting it be renamed to Karatin, here at Category talk:Settlements in Shou Lung. I couldn't rename it myself, but thought an admin might be able to. I don't know if it's possible or not.

If you restore the page, or copy over the article text, I'll create a proper Karatin stub article for the anonymous user to look at, and work on a proper "Category:Settlements in Shou Lung" to sort it out. -- BadCatMan (talk) 07:11, September 30, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. -- BadCatMan (talk) 08:49, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

Butcher of Myth Drannor
I was told to speak to you regarding moving a page to my private pages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by AlphaPack (talk • contribs)


 * I've read the Butcher of Myth Drannor spell and its talk page, as well as your talk page. Darkwynters is correct - per our canon policy, only materials published by Wizards of the Coast for the Forgotten Realms is allowed in the main wiki. However, feel free to move the article to a private page (go to the article, click on the arrow next to the Edit button, and click Rename. then, in the second input box, change the article name to "User:AlphaPack/Thamavelrath Vyshaan" [without the quotes; I used the character's real name because it's better not to use nicknames/titles in the article title]).


 * Then, when your friend's novel is published by Wizards, you can move it back to the main namespace. Hope that helps! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 07:06, October 2, 2012 (UTC)

Removing deleted images on pages
Hey Cronje, for some reason articles are not appearing in Category:Pages with broken file links... I have been removing deleted pics from pages... but noticed today they say the category, but are not in the category... this is not a great example, but User:AlphaPack/Thamavelrath Vyshaan has a pic FW deleted... but it is not in the cat??? Darkwynters (talk) 17:23, October 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * I think it has something to do with how the wiki's internal code handles adding categories by itself. Categories added manually or through templates seem to appear in the category immediately, but I think we need to wait for the cache to update for the automatically-added ones. It shouldn't be more than a couple hours. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 19:03, October 2, 2012 (UTC)

I thought that might be the case... thanks, man :) Darkwynters (talk) 19:41, October 2, 2012 (UTC)

Strange
Cronje, I was hunting down copycats when I came across the Andora page... I looked it up on Google and found this: []... I thought this was strange until I found this: [] and compared it to the Spine of the World... maybe this is nothing, I just felt I should share it with another admin... what do you think? Darkwynters (talk) 05:43, November 9, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks :) So there is nothing wrong with copying material from the wiki and posting it on another wiki? Darkwynters (talk) 17:41, November 9, 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't see why not, unless that other wiki considers the copying plagiarism. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 18:00, November 9, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, man... I was just making sure :) Darkwynters (talk) 18:27, November 9, 2012 (UTC)

Person template
Hey, Cronje... I just noticed two strange errors with the template:person... a 1. appears when the template is used... and a # is on the deathnotes line... hmmm... I just used the template on Cobble... the # is there, but not the 1. ??? Okay check out the Tristan Kendrick and see if you can find my error Thanks :) Darkwynters (talk) 20:49, December 13, 2012 (UTC)


 * It looks like someone (probably me, sorry!) left a hash symbol at the end of the if-then check for the death parameter in the template. It should be fixed now, but if not, let me know! Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 03:59, December 14, 2012 (UTC)

Sweet, ye fixed the #... and now the 1. is gone... awesome work!!! Many thanks :) Darkwynters (talk) 04:42, December 14, 2012 (UTC)