User talk:Fw190a8/Archive/2008-07-14

Shar edit
All I did to that article was remove that one bollocks line of text about Shar's Chosen. I don't know how the template got changed. -hash
 * I would, but it doesn't appear to be there, nor does it show up in the revision history. I must say...I'm more than a little confused. -hash

Ashaba
Damn. I thought I'd caught all of the broken links. I went through every page I could find looking for them. Oh well. Thanks for the heads up on that little problem. -hash

German Forgotten Realms Wiki
As a reply to your last comment: There already is a small German Forgotten Realms Wiki called Faerûnpedia. It's administrator asked here, if the wikis could be linked. I think it would be a great idea, if one could just add a de:article name to get a interlanguage link the way it is done in wikipedia. But I, like said admin, User:Paffdaddy, don't know how wikis can be linked like that. Maybe you know more about this? Daranios 13:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * With regard to that, yes it's very possible to have multiple languages here at Wikia. See Languages to read about it. I will go over to that site now and let him know about the possibility of having it hosted here instead! Fw190a8 22:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The Faerûnpedia will change to Wikia, i have registered it and I only need the confirmation from Wikia.--Paffdaddy 13:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I made a long time ago a Forgotten Realms Wiki at Wikia, but I haven't made a lot there and worked by the old Faerûnpedia. Now I decided to work on the new Faerûnpedia again. I have the person who said at that time she will help me (it was User:Rieke Hain) asked, to make Interlanguage Links, but she didn't answered me and the other User who wanted help. I hope she will react this time. --Paffdaddy 12:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi!
I'm glad to see you're still editing. :) Quietdrive 05:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Template:Person
It has warped alot of pages, e.g. Karsus. Zerak talk 21:02, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I thought carefully about the change to the template before making it, knowing it would break some pages, but I think that because the pages are fairly easy to fix, and this change should improve the template a lot, I thought it was worth it. Age is now calculated automatically, even for deceased people, so there will be less errors and a more consistent look. Fw190a8 22:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

RE: 1st vs 2nd edition
I also changed it back once I'd realised what I'd done. -hash

From the Great Library of Greyhawk
Thanks for stopping by--I was inspired to move all the Greyhawk infomation on Wikipedia when I noticed that you guys had created an all-FR wiki! Good work!--Robbastard from the Great Library of Greyhawk.

Images
FW190a8 where did you get this image from and can you edit it. I would like to use the right side of the Savage Frontier to show where Delimbiyr Vale is! or be lazy and get you to do it for me :-> Hurtzbad 04:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I created this image myself using the 3e map of the Realms as a guide. I was only planning to make these for the regions of Faerûn (northwest, north, west, etc) and the "subregions" of these (savage frontier, sword coast north, silver marches, etc). If I created one showing the location of the Delimbiyr Vale, I would need to create one for places all over the Realms to maintain a consistent look, and that would take a very long time, so I'll have to say no. Fw190a8 13:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Palarandusk
The only reason I was trying to keep Category:Dragons clear of articles about specific dragons was because it has Dragon aging and Feint of honour. I thought the category should either have articles about dragons or be the category that lists all the specific dragons, but not both. Looking over it more thoroughly I see now that info Feint of honour can be moved to feint of honor (how'd that duplicate get by us all?) and Dragon aging can be moved to Category:Dragons by age.

As such all the articles about specific dragons I think can be put in Category:Dragons as per your example. I hope my reasoning made sense even if it was flawed. Johnnyriot999 18:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I see your thinking there. I'm not sure that the feint of honor and dragon aging articles should be in Category:Dragons. That category should be for articles about individual dragons, or categories containing articles about individual dragons of a dragon subtype (like Category:Red dragons). I am very much of the opinion that "blanket" categories should not exist. For example, the "Drow" category used to contain all kinds of articles like individual drow, drow cities, the drow languages and things that are only partially related to drow. This leaves quite a messy category, and I believe that categories are intended to be more specific than that. We now have the Category:Drow settlements category so that people can find only settlements that are inhabited by drow.


 * I think that having "feint of honor" and "dragon aging" in the "Dragons" category made it into a "blanket" category. Personally I don't believe that "dragon aging" should go in the "Dragons by age" category, because this category should be used for individual dragons, but I do believe that the "dragon aging" article should be linked in the descriptive text at the top of the article. As for "feint of honor", perhaps it would be appropriate to have a "customs and rituals" category, within which there would be a "dragon customs and rituals" category, containing this article? Fw190a8 05:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree about not wanting to use blanket categories. But to different dragon aging from the specific dragons in that category the "| " method could be used to differentiate like putting the wizard article in category:wizards. I'll mkaew the edit to show you what I mean and I'll revert it if it doesn't work. Johnnyriot999 01:57, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Addition to CGI:IRC gateway
Done. -- Nef (talk) 03:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Lording it over Candlekeep
We now out-Googlerank Candlekeep! ;) Would victory laps be appropriate? Also, where ya been? Haven't seen you around much lately, hope things are just busy, and nothing bad has happended Zerak talk 22:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

More stats! ;)
Special:WebTools, and here I thought we'd have more hits for everyone's favorite lavender-eyed fellow.. Zerak talk 15:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for the Catch, FW190 (nice taste in a/c, btw) BlackAce 19:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Wolfgang Baur
Hello! There is a Category:Works by Wolfgang Bauer, which should be Category:Works by Wolfgang Baur (one "e" less). I have moved the content and I think now the page should be deleted. Could you help? Thanks! Daranios 20:14, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've deleted the category as requested. Good spot. Fw190a8 20:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to report a troll.
I am reporting a troll on #fr-wiki. His name is N00B-TASTICAL. He comes in, "N00B C0MB03S EVERYBODY", calls everyone in the room a "N00B", and then leaves. You can contact me at Halopedia. --GravHammer Lover 21:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC) SPARTAN-984

Just touching bases
Hey man. I just wanted to touch bases with you. I'm a huge fan of the Forgotten Realms and I had no idea there was a Wiki for it or I would've been here a lot sooner. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi since I intend to spend a lot of time here. Quick question though...which things are considered canonical here? I assumed the books and video games and the D&D books. Am I correct? Zekkie 01:36, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Always good to have some extra help around here. You're right about the D&D sourcebooks and novels being canon, but the games are not, because of the wide range of actions the player can take and possible multiple outcomes. Also, some of the video game developers have taken certain liberties with places and details in order to make the games more fun. That's why you'll see a non-canon warning on a lot of the video game articles. Fw190a8 15:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Please also see Forgotten Realms Wiki:Canon. And while video game events are not canon, they may become canon if a novel/source book is published around the product - i.e. all the events of the Baldur's Gate novels are canon, even though the game events are not. The original Neverwinter Nights game was supposed to have a novel tied to it as well, but it was canceled, so the events of that game are officially not canon. However I've noticed that the Grand History of the Realms refers to an event from the game, the Wailing Death, so apparently some of it is canon.
 * Bottom line, canon can be confusing (even for the good people at Wizards), if in doubt, try and ask around what others think. And again, welcome to the wiki : ) Zerak talk 15:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Mmm yeah that's a good point. Alright thanks a lot. See ya around. Anwar the Unseen, Master Thief of Shadowdale 19:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia project
Hello, and thanks for your message on my Wikipedia talk page. First let me say that you were not the only project to receive the notice about articles of unclear notability; I posted that canned message to all WikiProjects with at least 10 articles in the notability backlog, based on an analysis of the maintenance categories.

Now looking at the articles of the Forgotten Realms project, the particular problem seems quite clear to me. What you attempted, in good faith, was to create a detailed coverage of the fictional universe – or, so to speak, to describe the plot elements of the game. This is however outside Wikipedia's scope. In my opinion (and many editors seem to agree), Wikipedia is rather supposed to cover the real-world aspects of the game, as described by uninvolved parties. That's not the type of content you intended to provide, for all I can see. Therefore I think your move to Wikia was very reasonable.

I also noticed the deletion of your templates that linked to the Forgotten Realms Wikia. I think there is a thin line between linking to additional external information, and advertising an external Wiki; and apparently many editors felt that you went beyond that line. This seems a very controversial point, so let's put the details aside for a moment.

As to the current situation of the articles: Most of them, almost 90%, are marked with cleanup tags of the various kinds, usually including the “notability” warning. I've had a look at some of these articles, and my impression is that most of them will get deleted sooner or later, for failing Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, as mentioned above. Given the current maintenance backlogs, this will happen only gradually, and rather later than sooner. So the as-is situation does not really fit well for anybody, I think. However, perhaps we can find some kind of consistent solution that is reasonable for all editors involved.

I would propose the following target scenario, roughly described, and I'd be interested what you think of it.


 * Any Forgotten Realms information on Wikipedia is copied to Wikia, if that has not already been done. (Is there anything worth copying?)
 * All Forgotten Realms in-universe articles (fictional places etc.) are then removed from Wikipedia. This may actually apply to almost all articles of the WikiProject, except for the main wikipedia:Forgotten Realms article and a very select number of others.
 * We leave a prominent note on the talk page of wikipedia:Forgotten Realms, asking editors not to create articles about plot details on Wikipedia, and advise them to use other Wikis dedicated to the topic instead (giving Wikia as an example).
 * Each remaining Forgotten Realms article on Wikipedia (probably very few) receives an external link to Forgotten Realms Wikia, in the External links section. Actually this link already exists on wikipedia:Forgotten Realms; one might think of upgrading it to a box like wikipedia:Template:Muppets. These boxes are somewhat controversial, see wikipedia:Wikipedia:Linking to other wikis, but I'd be willing to be bold and create the box.
 * The Forgotten Realms project on Wikipedia is marked as historical.

If you agree with those points, at least roughly, I'd volunteer to create a more detailed proposal at the Wikipedia Forgotten Realms project, and invite editors to comment. As you are aware, the topic is somewhat controversial, so it would be crucial to give many editors the opportunity to voice their opinions. --B. Wolterding 08:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I have now set up a proposal at wikipedia:Wikipedia:WikiProject Forgotten Realms/Closure. There has not been much feedback yet (no wonder if the project is inactive); I will wait basically wait until end of May for people to weigh in, and then send it to a larger forum, as described on the page. As to the search results, people would still find Forgotten Realms related terms, through the full-text search, if they appear in the main Forgotten Realms article. One may also set up redirects for terms that are described there. Otherwise, I think it is consistent that, if a topic is not described at all in Wikipedia, one does not find it in the search. (In the end, Wikipedia is not meant as a replacement for Google, Wikia Search or others.) --B. Wolterding 17:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant
Best article (if it's only a redirect) yet! :p Zerak talk 22:11, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I was contemplating making that  ;) Fw190a8 01:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Touché.. -Zerak talk 07:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello from Spelljammer Wiki
I just saw your message to Robbastard over on his GHWiki talk page. I thought I'd pop in and say hello.

I'm the Cloakmaster...ahem - I mean Sysop...at Spelljammer Wiki. The SJ Wiki has only just started, so it is still a bit of a mess. But I do want to work with other D&D wikis (and non-wiki encyclopedias like Dragonlance Lexicon and Encyclopedia of the Planes).

I intend to use Forgotten Realms Wiki as a resource for further information on Toril. You lot are far further ahead than me, but I hope that in the future the Spelljammer Wiki will be a useful resource for further information on Realmspace.

I would also be interested in taking part in any sort of D&D campaign setting cross-wiki working group if people on the different D&D related wikis wanted to find ways to help improve cross-wiki navigation and share things like templates. I'd be more of a 'cheerleader' in the begining, but would hope to contribute more later on.

Please feel free to pop over to my Spelljammer Wiki talk page, if you want to say hi, or have any questions.David Shepheard 11:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * (This is a reply to something on my user page on Spelljammer Wiki) Thanks for the offer of letting me grab your templates here. I'll have a look around at some point, as I'm sure you have solved a lot of problems I haven't even gotten to yet.


 * Forgotten Realms does have some SJ references in its products and I hope I can help out with those articles. You are also welcome to grab anything Spelljammer Wiki does about the SJR2 Realmspace product or sub-articles about parts of Realmspace.

Category questions
After our discussion I have now replaced all Category:Kara-Tur links by the respective Category Jump, so that one is up for deletion, as far as I am concerned. I have a little more trouble with Category:Al-Qadim, however. Into which category should Al-Qadim go in your opinion? Debbi is a monster from the Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix. Should it somehow be put under Category:Inhabitants of Zakhara? Do you see any benefits in a categorization of monsters by source? Or should that just be left out? There is now also List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters (for other editions, too). Do you think it might be interesting to incorporate them here? If so, under what category? Thanks for looking over those details :-). Daranios 16:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Forgive me but I can't see the purpose of Category:Al-Qadim as it currently stands! I think it would be a great idea to categorize monsters by source and edition, so the Debbi article would be in Category:Creatures from Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix and Category:2nd edition creatures, but having done that, I don't see why it also needs to be in Category:Al-Qadim too. The inhabitants categories are really for individuals, rather than types of creatures, so the Debbi article wouldn't fit in Category:Inhabitants of Zakhara. This does raise the question as to whether there should be a category like Category:Creatures found in Zakhara or similar. Fw190a8 05:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with you. By including a newly created Category:Creatures from Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix in the category jump Zakhara, my goal to have an easy access to all information related to Al-Qadim would be satisfied. The last remaining item in Category:Al-Qadim would then be Al-Qadim. Where to put that, so that this "blanket" category can be deleted? Daranios 07:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The Al-Qadim article could just go in Category:Campaign settings. Fw190a8 11:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. Category:Al-Qadim is empty and up for deletion. I am not completly sure about the names for categories for creatures by source. Maybe you want to look over them here and here. We also have some trouble with format with the category jump here, which I do not know how to solve at the moment. Daranios 12:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Hardcover and MMP issues with citations
I've noticed that Template:Cite book/Evermeet: Island of Elves now has a Hardcover and a MMP version. This causes problems on articles that just want to cite the book, and produces the following warning:


 * Warning: edition not specified for Evermeet: Island of Elves

This is a useful warning if the content is different, for instance if someone says "DMG" and you're not sure if they meant 2E or 3E. But it's not very useful when trying to do a book citation, since the content is the same -- whether it was hardcover, MMP, reprinted once or twice... none of that usually matters in a book citation.

Is there someway that we can devise a practical solution to this? Can we include all the different "releases" of the same content on the same page (or at least the same book citation)? I notice that this is already done for the articles themselves that cover the books, for instance Evermeet: Island of Elves. Since we only have one article for both releases of the same book, perhaps we can find a way to have only one book citation as well?

I'm open to ideas. Let me know. 16:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The reason for citing a specific edition is that different editions have different information on different pages. Suppose I say to you, "Pikel Bouldershoulder has green hair." That is a totally unsourced statement. It might be true, it might not. Only people with existing knowledge can verify this. If I said, "Pikel Bouldershoulder has green hair because it says so in The Thousand Orcs" then it's better because I have given a source, but it is still unrealistic to expect the reader to go through the entire book looking for the bit that says he has green hair. This leads to doubt over the factual accuracy of the wiki as a whole. It would be much better to say, "Pikel Bouldershoulder has green hair because it says so on page 45 of The Thousand Orcs" because it is easy to scan the page to verify the claim, but what if there is more than one version of the book? Page 45 of my hardcover might not contain the same text as your mass market paperback, and although most editions of novels have the same text, there's no requirement for this to be the case, so a statement might be present in one edition and absent from the others.


 * I accept that, in splitting novel citation templates off into different editions, there will be a lack of editions specified at first. However, I believe that this small annoyance is outweighed by the benefit of eventual accurate citations for the wiki. I am very open to suggestions as to how this process can be streamlined! Fw190a8 20:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm... is there someway to just provide a default (always the Hardcover, if available) if no page number is specified in the book citation? It's fairly common practice to have book citations with no page numbers, as they're used to direct the reader to more info on the subject for further reading.  This is actually what happened on the Evermeet page that I fixed in regard to the Evermeet: Island of Elves novel.  22:41, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a good idea to provide a default, for sure, but I am concerned that editors will never realise the significance of citing a specific edition. Suppose we make the hardcover of Evermeet: Island of Elves the default. Someone who is not aware of the different templates will just use Cite book/Evermeet: Island of Elves regardless of which edition they are citing. By having a warning as the default, the editor is aware of the problem and (hopefully) will correct it. Personally I would rather have a few warnings on some pages right now than have potentially hundreds or thousands of ambiguous references. Fw190a8 17:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Right, for citations that mention a page number, I can see why you want the warning. But for those citations that don't have a page number, there's really no need to distinguish between the first printing or the second printing (for example).  It's all the same content :).  Would it be possible to have a default if they don't cite a page number, but to show the warning if they do try to cite a page number?  Unless you're worried that the content changes between the Hardcover and MMP (for example)?  02:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * A sensible idea! The way I see it, page numbers should be provided. If you are referencing a specific phrase, sentence or paragraph, then surely you have the page number in front of you. If you don't know the page number, surely you can't be sure that what you're referencing is correct! I do recognise that people will continue to add references without page numbers, and these are better than unreferenced articles. I will look for a way to provide the warning only if the page number is specified. Fw190a8 00:17, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Spoiler Response
Copied over from my talk page to respond:
 * Hi and welcome to the wiki. I reverted your addition of spoiler templates because a while back, we decided it would be better to simply put a spoiler warning on the front page of the wiki. Almost anything on the wiki could be considered a spoiler! Fw190a8 17:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Gotcha, getting up to speed with the policies. And by the way love the wiki. Have been frustrated at becoming more acquainted with Realmslore and the wiki (and wikipedia) has helped tremendously. Will try to give back as I am able. As useful as this wiki is, there is a lot of data out there that is yet to be represented here. (Feel free to delete this section after you read of course.) Thanks again! -- Barfubaz 16:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Question about Years
Hi, I want to ask if you know how I can make a list of a category site in a way, that the numbers are sorted in the right way. for example your years beginn with -8000 and are counting upwards. In our german version its still a mess and I'd like to change it. Greetings (Historicus 09:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC))


 * In order to keep the years in the correct order, we use a category sort key. We always ensure that the sort key for each year is a positive number, and that it increases by 1 for each year, because this will keep them in the correct order. We simply add 35,000 to each year and use that as the sort key, so, for example, 1372 DR + 35,000 = 36,372. We would categorise this as . The blank space between the pipe ( | ) and the number makes sure that all the years stay grouped together instead of being split into headings according to the first letter (or number, in this case). Fw190a8 10:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Mystra's death
Hi, I noticed you removed my paragraph on Mystra's death, despite clearly labeling that it occurs in 1385 DR and I provided references :-(. We should probably be consistent across our articles.  Elsewhere, others have already updated other gods' demise with their year of death, such as Vhaeraun, Selvetarm, Kiaransalee, and mentioned in several articles such as Dark Seldarine.  These are all canon, and note that none of these later edits were done by me.  No doubt, soon the deaths of Eilistraee and Helm will be added by other editors.  What's your stance on these edits?  Should we discuss it here or someplace else like the Forums?  22:39, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. I have no idea how I deleted it. I was only trying to add a main to link to Mystryl! I have now restored it. What you added to the article is ideal in my opinion. It does not detract from the existing 3.5 (and earlier) material, but is clear enough to indicate itself as 4th edition for readers not interested in it. I'll try not to eradicate sections of articles by mistake! Fw190a8 20:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Renaming vs. Moving Articles
Regarding the Lheshayl article, I knew I could move it. My desire was to have the article renamed from Leshayl, since now it means we have an article called Leshayl, which is simply a waste of space. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough in my request. Take it easy dude. Gabeth 17:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if you realise this, but renaming and moving are the same thing. When an article is moved from one title to another, the old title becomes a redirect to the new one, so that any articles still linking to the old title won't have their wikilinks broken. Fw190a8 22:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)