User talk:BadCatMan

To limit the length of this page, content has been relocated to the following archive page:
 * User talk:BadCatMan/2012

Did You Know
BadCat, awesome template on the User:BadCatMan/Main Page... does it randomly add pages or just recent pages... just curious :) Darkwynters (talk) 16:44, January 13, 2013 (UTC)


 * It doesn't. :) Template:DidYouKnow is entirely manual, a user has to add and move information by hand. As even Wookiepedia doesn't have an automatic system, I figured that it wasn't worth the effort trying to develop one. We'll need to keep it up-to-date, like every week or fortnight. I'll go add something else to it to demonstrate.


 * I've only taken trivia from recent new pages as that was the policy at Wookiepedia and other wikias. However, we could change that to whatever we like, such as recent, significant edits or random information from whenever. Another approach would be to develop a sizeable backlog of trivia and have some code cycle through it each week as other wikias do with their featured articles and images. -- BadCatMan (talk) 03:23, January 14, 2013 (UTC)

Towns
BadCat, I noticed a number of settlements in the Category:Towns, but two admins have (in the past) deleted this category... what do you think? I decided it was best to talk to ye first before organizing... checkout Category:Locations by type... as suggested by User:Zerak-Tul and get back with me :) Thanks! Darkwynters (talk) 22:00, January 28, 2013 (UTC)


 * Yup, they're all my articles. :( I hadn't actually noticed a problem with the category, and thought it was already in use.


 * Well, we have Category:Small towns and Category:Large towns, sorted according to their DMG 3e classification. But some places described as towns don't necessarily have their population or size given, such as those I created here, like Maerstar. These can't be put in either "Small towns" or "Large towns". So I think we need a wider category to include those places, i.e., "Towns".


 * As well, people looking for examples of towns in the Realms will search for, say, "Towns". That should bring up the category. Searching for "small towns" and "large towns" is less obvious, and more effort.


 * So I think we should have the category, and arrange them thusly:


 * Towns
 * Large towns (subcatg)
 * Small towns (subcatg)
 * Unclassified towns
 * Towns that appear in small towns
 * Towns that appear in large towns


 * That's my idea anyway. — BadCatMan (talk) 00:02, January 29, 2013 (UTC)

"Towns that appear in small towns"?? BadCat, before I add Category:Towns, which has been deleted twice... take a look at the Category:Settlements... I know you like the Towns category, but maybe Settlements is all you need... likewise Category:Villages is a population category, but many settlements are called villages in the sourcebooks... but the cat is based on population... or I could just create the Towns cat again and link it to Small Towns and Large Towns... OOO, wait I guess we could make a Settlement by type cat... and link Villages, towns, etc to it, because they are a type and also distinguished by population :) What do you think? Darkwynters (talk) 18:08, January 29, 2013 (UTC)


 * The current Category:Settlements by population is based on a set of definitions in the DMG 3.x according to population. It's really only valid for settlements statted out in 3.x (and doesn't really match reality). Before that, maybe after too, and for those settlements in 3e not clearly defined, the terminology is much vaguer: writers forget about hamlets and thorps, any small place is called a village; towns and cities can be any size; and villages can be called towns and towns can be called cities; and population figures don't play into it. Population figures also fluctuate with edition.


 * For example, Sevenecho is called a "small town" in the FRCS 2e, a "hamlet" in The City of Ravens Bluff, and "a small town, little more than a hamlet" in Dungeon magazine 75, but it only has a population of 70, a thorp in 3e terms. That's quite a range, and it skips the village size. (A poisoning of the wells possibly reducing the population was only by coincidence.)


 * So, I think we need a more general set of settlement categories that can include older and more general descriptions such as these. Of course, "hamlet" would be a slightly different thing from "hamlet (81–400 people)", making sorting these out to be quite a chore.


 * Settlments by type would be nice. That could also include alternative kinds of settlement, such as dwarf holds, nests, warrens, etc. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:43, January 30, 2013 (UTC)

Main Page
Nice job on the main page. It's cool to see it live! :) Wanderscribe (talk) 20:38, February 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * Much belatedly, thanks! — BadCatMan (talk) 10:17, March 15, 2013 (UTC)

Stubs
Wow, BadCat nice work on the stub layout... they jump out at me now :) Fantastic!!! Darkwynters (talk) 17:35, March 14, 2013 (UTC)


 * Good to hear. I hope to have all the notices and tags in a uniform, noticeable format, eventually. — BadCatMan (talk) 10:17, March 15, 2013 (UTC)

Captured troll
Hey, BadCat :) Boo fought off an bullying Troll User!!! I blocked it for a week, but I wanted to hear your advice on how long the troll should be blocked. Thanks :) Darkwynters (talk) 01:04, May 9, 2013 (UTC)


 * Gods damn it. They're never as funny as they think they are.


 * A week is too kind. I changed it to six months, to give them time to either forget about us or grow up. Six months to a year is what I've seen used at the Memory Beta wikia for this level of trolling and vandalism. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:56, May 9, 2013 (UTC)

Nice, thanks for using the hammer of Moradin, BadCat :) Darkwynters (talk) 02:05, May 9, 2013 (UTC)

Code/template changes
Hey DW.

I noticed some odd changes to template codes in your recent edits. Take a look at The Jaded Unicorn and Happy Hippocampus. The templates have been exchanged for their raw code. Did you do that, or is Wikia doing something funky? — BadCatMan (talk) 07:32, May 16, 2013 (UTC)


 * hmmm, nope I just copied the Building infobox... no wait, I just added those cats without even opening the page... so I have no idea what happened??? I seem to have fixed the issue... Thanks, BadCat :) Darkwynters (talk) 16:41, May 16, 2013 (UTC)

Sarkenaegal & Drow City
Sorry about that. I didn't realize there was a shadow magic page initially and then I forgot to go back and change the other links. I think they should all be "Shadow Magic". I would go in and change them tonight but we are under a severe weather warning & could lose electricity so I'm on iphone. I'll try and change links tomorrow if no one else does.

The drow city is more of a castle belonging to a single clan, Chumravhraele (sp). There is a sunken, abandoned city in the same cavern but I don't believe it's name was ever given. Will log on tomorrow to create pages for the drow info. Boo Too - &#34;Go for the eyes!&#34; (talk) 02:24, May 21, 2013 (UTC)


 * No rush, especially if there's some danger. Take your time.
 * Thanks, looking forward to it. :D — BadCatMan (talk) 03:09, May 21, 2013 (UTC)

Venom Links
Thanks for fixing the "Venom in Her Veins" links. When I set up the citation template, I copied an existing Kindle template and changed the info but something went wrong and I wasn't able to find the error. Boo Too - &#34;Go for the eyes!&#34; (talk) 13:59, May 27, 2013 (UTC)


 * No problem. Everyone breaks a citation template at least thrice. :) (I made some last year I still haven't fixed. When I work out how...) Your template itself was lacking the "Template:" prefix so it didn't function as one. Another page had an extra space in the title. — BadCatMan (talk) 14:04, May 27, 2013 (UTC)

Archtassel edits
Some day, I will add a page that doesn't need anyone to follow me through fixing stuff. Some day. In the meantime I'd like to pat myself on the back for remembering to add categories this time. Baby steps. :P Wanderscribe (talk) 06:16, May 28, 2013 (UTC)


 * Don't worry about it. Using past tense is the important thing. Building a web of links is also nice (assume a page can exist for everything). The dashes were just a stylistic thing. — BadCatMan (talk) 06:22, May 28, 2013 (UTC)

Noble houses
Hey, BadCat... I wonder if we could set a rule about families or houses... such as Category:Members of House Kendrick... which sounds better the "Members of the Kendricks"... ekkk, that sounds like Members of the Kardashians... so I propose all noble house begin with "House"... but I am cool with seeing what others think... right now the Category:Drow houses and Category:Noble houses is pretty much divided... consistency is all I am asking for... what are your thoughts, me friend :) Darkwynters (talk) 17:42, May 28, 2013 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, noble families tend to have different names in different cultures. Some are "House Kardashian", others may be "Kardashian House", or "Clan Kardashian", or just "the Kardashians", and so on. For example, Clan Battlehammer and so on for the dwarves. Changing them to a certain style would lose the flavour.
 * So I think it would be best just to use the official names given in the sources, if they are given, or the standard format for the culture. Say if most drow noble families of Menzoberranzan are House Do'Urden and so on, then a new noble family called the McSweeneys ("very old established family") could safely be assumed to be called House McSweeney. If there's no official name given, then say "the Kardashians". — BadCatMan (talk) 01:52, May 29, 2013 (UTC)


 * Cool... as per sourcebook... sounds good :) Darkwynters (talk) 02:30, May 29, 2013 (UTC)

About page
Don't forget to add Cronje to your list of admins, or get him to add himself. :) &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 01:21, May 29, 2013 (UTC)


 * I was just adding tidbits to the history. I couldn't remember when Cronje was elevated. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:53, May 29, 2013 (UTC)

Promotion
For all the sterling work that you've done this year (and because Fw hasn't been around since Christmas), I'm promoting you to Bureaucrat. In terms of User Rights, the only new abilities (of note) that you have now are the ability to promote other users and getting complete access to the Admin Dashboard. However, in a more symbolic sense, if I can't weigh in on a potential change to the wiki's policies, etc. you now have last word on the issue. Thank you BCM. -hashtalk 15:10, May 30, 2013 (UTC)


 * Congrats!&mdash;Moviesign (talk) 16:57, May 30, 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't think "sterling" works... more like mithrilian work... *bows to the Great BadCat* :) Darkwynters (talk) 17:23, May 30, 2013 (UTC)


 * Well Done BadCatMan, definitely deserving of your new position. Here's to another year of continued success *Raises flagon of Whelunian Spruce beer*--Eli the Tanner (talk) 00:37, May 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * Congrats! :D Wanderscribe (talk) 14:12, May 31, 2013 (UTC)

What? Huh? I'm still speechless. Wow! Thank you very much. I feel like I've knighted. :D Clearly I've been working too hard. ;) Well, I hope to keep doing so around here and hope to do able to do more now to make the FRW even better (uh, after work, that is). — BadCatMan (talk) 01:22, May 31, 2013 (UTC)

Tarrasque of a vandal
High Admin BadCat... we were just hit by a very skilled vandal: Toy Eater... I tried to fix his devastation... but I am not sure I completely corrected our Main Page... I have protected the Main Page so only admins can edit it... and I think this is a very good idea... Just wanted to let you know :) Darkwynters (talk) 22:16, June 4, 2013 (UTC)


 * Ugh, what a thing to wake up to. Half an hour of this, and I haven't had breakfast yet. I've undone all his page moves. When you restored the main page, you copied the text, but lost the history. I also checked your protection option: it appeared to me as "allow all users".
 * Wikia advises against protecting the main page for some reason, with this in the main page code:
 * "Please note that Wikia protection policy advises against the protection of this page unless it is the active target of vandalism.
 * Protecting the main page can do more harm than good, for example by preventing links being added.
 * See http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Protection for more info.
 * Though that link is dead. Main page protection was lost when I rebuilt the page. After the last vandal, I only protected it against anonymous users, but didn't expect someone with a log in to do the same. I'll try to report him to Wikia. — BadCatMan (talk) 00:03, June 5, 2013 (UTC)


 * I reported him here. We weren't the only ones attacked. — BadCatMan (talk) 00:24, June 5, 2013 (UTC)

BadCat, sorry about taking out the history :( If you get a sec, check out []. Nest of trolls. :) Darkwynters (talk) 01:31, June 5, 2013 (UTC)


 * The hells? Well, it's already been reported. Hopefully Wikia will clean up these losers soon. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:47, June 5, 2013 (UTC)

Ravenloft
Hey, BadCat... I just added links to the Lord Dhelt page... we probably need a tag like the Icewind Dale one on the Erevain Blacksheaf page... which brings up a good question... where would Ravenloft fit into our canon policy??? Thoughts? Darkwynters (talk) 17:32, June 11, 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't know much about Ravenloft. I understand it's a demiplane of some kind of that connects to the FR in some places with some crossover modules (Castle Spulzeer (adventure)), places (Glorming Pass) and characters (Jander Sunstar), though not how. I'm not sure how the whole of Elturel popped up in there.
 * As a different setting, we shouldn't accept the whole of Ravenloft, only those things from there that appear in FR, things from FR that appear there, and any links between the two. Since these references appear in sourcebooks, modules, novels, and video games, I think it would be best to slot the FR references in these other settings at those levels. (This mainly applies to my proposed revisions to the canon policy.) — BadCatMan (talk) 00:25, June 12, 2013 (UTC)

Creature past tense
Hey, BadCat... do you remember if we decided to make creature pages past tense... Blades has been loading some very nice images, but he also put Brass dragon into past tense... I just want make sure we decided on this policy :) Thanks, Darkwynters (talk) 20:27, June 14, 2013 (UTC)


 * I believe all pages should be in past tense for consistency, including creatures. Some people believe that real-world concepts (swords, gems, slavery, etc.) should be in present tense where reflecting the real world. We had a discussion about this last year in the Forum, but it didn't conclude.
 * Either way, both sides would agree that dragons should be past tense. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:07, June 15, 2013 (UTC)

Miniatures
BadCat, what would your take be on including D&D Miniatures on the wiki... I guess they would fall under the general D&D canon... check out the balor page, thanks :) Darkwynters (talk) 21:35, June 14, 2013 (UTC)


 * They'd mostly be core D&D, except where they show FR characters. But there's not likely to be much contradiction between them. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:10, June 15, 2013 (UTC)

Source Editing
Hi! Thanks for picking up my question.

What I mean Is that with most wiki's when you edit an article you can edit in two modes; Visual & Source. Source being the basic code version.

Comparison image here.

This wiki doesn't have an option to edit in Visual mode - which I like. Visual mode is sloppy.

I'd love to know how this Wiki has removed Visual mode editing. Thanks -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 01:27, June 15, 2013 (UTC)


 * Huh. I've never seen that before. Weird. But then, I always use the Monobook skin for regular wiki-ing, which doesn't allow visual editing anyway.
 * I assume visual editing is something that has to be switched on, because this wiki hasn't really had a lot of technical adjustments made to it. I can't find where though. Sorry. — BadCatMan (talk) 02:10, June 15, 2013 (UTC)


 * On this page: Wikia Help:Preferences it says "Some wikis do not have the Visual Editor enabled due to overall community preference. Even if you have this preference checked, you will not see the Visual Editor on those wikis." I believe it takes an admin of higher rank than myself to change this setting, because the Preferences link only allows me to change my prefs, not the ones for the whole wiki.&mdash;Moviesign (talk) 02:39, June 15, 2013 (UTC)


 * Community Central is, ironically, a terribly organized and unhelpful wiki. I can't find a thing about the Visual Editor except a lot of complaints. See Fix the Editor!
 * As near as I can tell, it's on by default, with no way for an admin or bureaucrat to change it. It seems you have to contact Wikia to have it specially turned off, via Wikia Support - Wiki features. You may need to get community agreement first. Someone must have gotten it turned off here ages ago. — BadCatMan (talk) 03:20, June 15, 2013 (UTC)


 * Aaaah, cool thanks for all the info guys. Really appreciate it. -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 03:29, June 15, 2013 (UTC)

Infoboxes
Hey BadCat, what do you think about making FW's proposal into a policy: Forgotten Realms Wiki:Infoboxes, plus this was discussed on Forum:Sources in infoboxes... Most editors have been using this, so I think we can make it official... thoughts :) Darkwynters (talk) 18:43, June 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that's all reasonable, and pretty much how we do things now. Personally, I don't bother putting refs in the infobox if there's only one source of information in the article, to avoid cluttering it. I only do it there's multiple sources and/or conflicting information. That's my only quibble. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:35, June 24, 2013 (UTC)

I, Robot?
Just out of curiosity, how did my signature get put on the welcome message posted to User talk:GuilhermeNaldis?&mdash;Moviesign (talk) 13:26, July 3, 2013 (UTC)


 * The welcome message thingey is set to give the name of the last admin to make an edit. That way, we all get our names put out there, and have to deal with newbies more or less equally. :) — BadCatMan (talk) 13:32, July 3, 2013 (UTC)


 * Clever!...disconcerting, but clever.&mdash;Moviesign (talk) 13:51, July 3, 2013 (UTC)

Revisionist History
Speaking of clever, what is the correct way to wipe a page's history, say to remove copyrighted material? I believe I understand the checkboxes next to the history list in the deletion tool, but what if they all need to go? Is the page ever completely gone?&mdash;Moviesign (talk) 13:51, July 3, 2013 (UTC)


 * To restore certain edits and forget the history for the rest, you tick the checkboxes corresponding to those edits, and click restore. Clicking none or all will restore the page and the entire history.
 * If you want to get rid of the whole history, then there's nothing to restore. You leave it deleted, then just create a new page over the top of it, creating a new history. The previous history can still be recovered if you delete the new page then recover it; the entire revision history is preserved. That helps you lose some history by mistake. I believe Wikia forgets deleted edits after some period of time, so they should eventually disappear from the system.
 * One thing to keep in mind is that if you restore an edit made after an offending, removed edit, then the offending material (copied text, vandalism, lot of mess you want to forget) will still appear in the page, and in fact be attributed to the next editor. So, when restoring a clean history, it's always a matter of keeping the older stuff and losing everything after the bad edit. I don't like that, as it loses good edits and editors lose credit for their and reduces their edit counts (and how then will we know who's best?). — BadCatMan (talk) 14:15, July 3, 2013 (UTC)

Drizzt
Hey BadCat... I just wanted to tell you: Great work on the Drizzt Do'Urden page... you have done a fantastic job cleaning it up :) Darkwynters (talk) 01:03, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

Bots!
Hi BadCatMan! Excellent work you have done both as an Admin and as an Editor, and also the Bot idea with creating the UnseenServant was more than clever. (i might post at a Golem's sandbox some days later the xml settings code for StoneGolem, in case someone needs it.) It's nice to see all the work u and all other editors have done so far. Jandor (talk ⋅ contribs ) 07:19, July 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Everyone's working very hard on lots of issues.
 * Now we'll have two bots to work with. But what are XML settings? I'm still unfamiliar with the mechanics of it. — BadCatMan (talk) 07:38, July 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm assigning golem to do basic spelling check and other like what you have mentioned (e.g. faerûn fixes :) ) at first. As far as i'm quickly learning, when using AutoWkiBrowser, under file tab, you can save your settings. Those settings are saved in xml file. So it is probably possible for one to easily copy them so as to "load" them in his machine. Jandor (talk ⋅ contribs ) 10:42, July 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah, okay. I haven't really bothered saving any settings anything yet. — BadCatMan (talk) 10:44, July 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * Really? I'm wondering what changes your bot is applying.. Mine is doing really awesomly great with typos and spelling. It checked so far nearly 200 pages and probably will try to check all 12.000 at some point (i'm using it in semiautomating mode, so as to check every change it will eventually apply). I will post comments on how-to and other tips i learned. Jandor (talk ⋅ contribs ) 13:47, July 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * I've used mine to add categories, sorting, and other mechanics to a lot of Category:Years pages, as part of my effort to clean up and rewrite those. I've also used it to update parts of the Spell template (recently upgraded by User:Moviesign).
 * Don't forget to get your bot flagged as a bot by a Wikia so its changes can be hidden (especially if you plan to go automatic on large-scale edit runs or something). — BadCatMan (talk) 14:44, July 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * I would like to know how it does those things, but not right now as it has already some work to deal with. I also noticed both from "recent changes" and AWB that it needs to be flagged so i contacted the wikia (it will be answered in 2 days, so i will cease its household duties).
 * Can i copy this dialog in the forum page were you said first about the bot, so as for everyone to know of its existance and duties and eventually, write a sort tuturial-documentation of how it is managed (and maybe spesific settings for Editors like you, which would further help them)? Jandor (talk ⋅ contribs ) 22:12, July 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * If you want to mention your bot to the others in Forum:Using a bot on FRW, then go right ahead.
 * I don't think a bot manual here on FRW would be particularly useful, as few users here have or use one (just you and me). There may be a decent bot manual floating around somewhere on Wikia that would be more generally useful (if we can find one). — BadCatMan (talk) 12:06, August 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * If you want to learn RegEx as I did, I advice you to start with http://www.regular-expressions.info/quickstart.html, expand later on links on that page and later either check some already written regex code or take a peek at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/az24scfc.aspx ορ http://www.rexegg.com/regex-quickstart.html.


 * As it seems, all those misspellings are not that common, but they might occur at some point in the future or be found hidden-camouflaged in pages of lesser web traffic. I first made most of them and I encountered tham later. Most commons are those with the û or similar characters. But still I have encountered more than once misspellings for: Eilistraee, Aganazzar, Vhaeraun. I had met Palischuk long time ago. I'm of the thought that if I want to believe that BasicClean (for Typos, misspelling, etc) I do and intend to do to all pages with Golem, is of any use, I have to raise the possibilities to find and return mistakes (that are indeed mistakes) so as to correct them. By the previous means that someone of us or an unregistered viewer would meet one and correct it, we would need more than a year as I calculate and some of those mistakes would never even be encountered.


 * I have coded Mystra but only for "Mistra", "Mitsra" and "Mytsra" (Will write the code on my Lab page sometime later today or even tomoroow). "Mithra" is easily confused with mithral's misspelling or even Mitral Hall's. So does for "Mystery", as mystery word exists and I would need far better RegEx rules knowledge to write something like: Find "Mystery" when there is near a word like "magic, chosen, etc", but even that has a possibility of returning falses... Jandor  (talk ⋅ contribs ) 11:45, August 9, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the links!
 * Fortunately, I think anyone who knows enough about the Realms to edit here will know enough not to call her Mystery.
 * One other point to watch out for is official misspellings, those that are commonly misspelled even in the published material. Mithral/mithril and Ylraphon/Yrlaphon are two examples. I think it would be best not to change words like these, as they are legitimate variations, and may affect proper names (is it Mithral Hall or Mithril Hall?). — BadCatMan (talk) 12:35, August 9, 2013 (UTC)

About me not being around so much
Hey everyone. With a new job and more work, I'm finding less time to devote to my hobbies, and with so much going at FRW these days, I'm having a hard time keeping up and on top of things here. I'm not leaving or stopping, I'm just going to be a bit more limited. Fortunately, everyone else here has things well in hand. Contact me here if you really need something from me. — BadCatMan (talk) 12:37, August 23, 2013 (UTC)