User talk:BadCatMan

To limit the length of this page, content has been relocated to the following archive pages:
 * User talk:BadCatMan/2012
 * User talk:BadCatMan/2013
 * User talk:BadCatMan/2014
 * User talk:BadCatMan/2015
 * User talk:BadCatMan/2016

Bot Requests

 * Replace all instances of  with  . ~ Lhynard (talk) 23:51, January 2, 2017 (UTC)


 * Are you pranking me? Why change? I thought we had the existing system working (not pretty, but working). Devolving it like that will be very difficult and will lose level and multi-class information, as well as the plural names we've worked. I'm not good at regular expressions, so I'd have to do this manually. And I really don't want to do that. — BadCatMan (talk) 00:33, January 3, 2017 (UTC)


 * Actually, this was in direct response to you asking me to post this here: Template talk:Class table. I do not want  replaced! ~ Lhynard (talk) 19:51, January 3, 2017 (UTC)


 * Lhynard, what problem are you trying to solve? Give me an example. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 19:40, January 3, 2017 (UTC)


 * As noted above, this is an old issue the three of us have discussed before that I dug up again as I was sorting through my e-mail Inbox as part of New Year's clean-up: Template talk:Class table ~ Lhynard (talk) 19:51, January 3, 2017 (UTC)

Last year, Lhynard requested: I've since found that  and   were also in common use. I'm running the bot over the wiki again now. This will take a few hours, and already has done. In fact, I also need to check pages starting V or above, since the All Pages option didn't quite do all pages. — BadCatMan (talk) 11:49, February 6, 2017 (UTC)
 * Replace all occurrences of  and   with.
 * Checking now. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:11, April 13, 2017 (UTC)
 * Done! — BadCatMan (talk) 08:39, April 13, 2017 (UTC)


 * Replace  with  . ~ Lhynard


 * Underway. — BadCatMan (talk) 06:17, April 13, 2017 (UTC)
 * Completed. Click "Show bots" from Special:RecentChanges to see, of course. — BadCatMan (talk) 07:37, April 13, 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! ~ Lhynard (talk) 11:05, April 13, 2017 (UTC)


 * Minor:
 * Replace  with.
 * Replace  with.
 * Replace  with.
 * Replace  with  . ~ Lhynard


 * Currently in progress. But I'm not a fan of superscripted ordinal numbers myself. Too much work with maths and powers. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:22, April 20, 2017 (UTC)


 * Done! — BadCatMan (talk) 12:22, April 20, 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks! ~ Lhynard (talk) 13:47, April 20, 2017 (UTC)


 * It looks to me like  was replaced with   not  . ~ Lhynard (talk) 13:55, April 20, 2017 (UTC)


 * Damn. My computer crashed partway through, so I had to redo it and made a typo ([] and {} always get me). Fortunately, it's only a few of the second batch that are affected. — BadCatMan (talk) 14:08, April 20, 2017 (UTC)

Spells: The Zakharan Connection
Hello! Al-Qadim material provides a Realms connection to many spells, but only with the information that they exist in Zakhara (Arabian Adventures) or may exist in Zakhara if it is ok with the DM (The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook), and the respective province. You have marked some of these, like blink as unrelated. Just so that I understand the reasoning: Do you think it is to thin a connection, or do you want to motivate the addition of more Realmslore with the tag, or did you miss the Al-Qadim source, or...? Thanks for letting me know! Daranios (talk) 21:31, February 2, 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, I keep forgetting and missing a chance to respond to this.


 * I think it's a little of all three. Yes, sometimes I miss the Al-Qadim, and sometimes I think that just because a caster class can cast a spell, it doesn't necessarily mean the spell has Realmslore. In any case, a bit of crunch (being on a class's spell-list) doesn't amount to any Realmslore for the main text of the article. But I've been rather inconsistent about applying the Unrelated template, and we also don't have hard guidelines for it. (The discussion on Candlekeep that motivated me making it was a concern that an article might not be worth reading if it didn't have Realmslore.)


 * In fact, my main concern was that Arabian Adventures might not be a Realms source. I remembered looking at it or another Al-Qadim book and not finding a single blip of setting lore, only information for a generic Arabian Nights–like setting (as the name would suggest). But looking again, I see it certainly does reference Zakhara, so I was completely mistaken there. — BadCatMan (talk) 12:23, February 6, 2017 (UTC)


 * I see, partly at least. The lists do give the information that a spell is common or uncommon in Zakhara, but indeed that is quite a small bit of lore. Well, Lhynard and me are very slowly working on the inventions of many spells from the Player's Handbook in Netheril, so this will bring in Realmslore for a big chunk of the spells in question. Daranios (talk) 21:02, February 10, 2017 (UTC)


 * Okay. Being common or uncommon is sufficient Realmslore, if mentioned in the article. Anyway, I'll try to be more observant about Unrelated tags in future. — BadCatMan (talk) 09:15, February 11, 2017 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I have seen I have only applied that info twice (elemental aura and shadow evocation). Maybe a project for the very distant future. Thanks for explaining the reasoning! Daranios (talk) 13:37, February 11, 2017 (UTC)

Asking for deletion
Dear BadCatMan,

I'm sorry but I made a mistake at creating a citation. It's this page. I made the proper one but I can't delete it.

May I ask you to delete it?

Best Regards and again I'm sorry

Saya222 Saya222 (talk) 17:17, February 21, 2017 (UTC)


 * Done. But when you renamed it, you created two pages (the previous page title with a redirect, and the new one), making two to delete. That was no hassle though.


 * Next time, you can put a Deletion tag on it, and one of us will get to it sooner or later. — BadCatMan (talk) 00:00, February 22, 2017 (UTC)


 * Dear BadCatMan,


 * thank you. I'm sorry for the very late reply and for the second page. That one was created because thee first one didn't work as a reference but the second one did. I will recreate that one. Again I'm sorry for the confusion I caused.


 * Best Regards


 * Saya222
 * Saya222 (talk) 17:30, March 4, 2017 (UTC)

DidYouKnow
Hello! Thanks for including Lefeber's mark in the coming DidYouKnow! A doubling has crept in - "created by developed by" - could you please fix it? Thanks again! Daranios (talk) 20:33, March 5, 2017 (UTC)

Laerakond and Ed's stuff
Hi! Here I'm bothering you again (?) I was reading some stuff in Candlekeep, and I've found some notes about Laerakond/Returned Abeir in the "questions to Ed" topics. How much of that stuff can be used here of the wiki? For reference, those are the topics: 1, 2 --Zeromaru X 10:27, March 22, 2017 (UTC)


 * In short: all of it. The fan consensus is that Ed Greenwood's every utterance about the Realms is 100% canon. Our Canon policy discusses this in more detail. You can use Cite web/Candlekeep forum to make references for Candlekeep forum statements.


 * Personally, I don't search hard for Greenwood's comments, and I don't feel like I should be bothering him with questions, nor struggling for answers amidst the noise of all the regular posters in his threads. He's a master of spinning interesting setting ideas on the spot, so asking him questions feels less like getting unpublished lore and more like getting some fresh new fluff. Plus, his Realms aren't exactly the same as the published Realms, but the Laerakond setting probably hasn't had time or opportunity to diverge too much yet. (Or maybe it's because I asked him about an obvious contradiction and he handwaved a resolution.) So, anyway, I'd advise to take it with a pinch of salt, but you're welcome to use it. — BadCatMan (talk) 11:46, March 22, 2017 (UTC)

I just asked because that reason. Returned Abeir not only may have not deviated from Ed's Laerakond, but it also doesn't have enough material, unlike Faerun or other regions. So, even those few scraps in those posts would help to give the land and its NPCs a lot of development. As you said, I'll take most of it with a pinch of salt, but I'll use whatever of it that does not contradict the material in published canon.--Zeromaru X (⌐□_□) (talk) 12:09, March 22, 2017 (UTC)

DYK
Hello, I noticed you "dotted" me for next week's Did You Know. I did write a new article this week, Haroistem, but if it's not up to snuff or you want some variance in regards to source material, let me know. I'll try and write another, better article during the weekend. I've challenged myself to contribute at least one new article per week to this wiki for the whole year, so I'd hate to miss out! --Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 08:01, March 25, 2017 (UTC)


 * No, Haroistem is fine. I'm sure I can find something to say about him. There have been briefer entries. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:06, March 25, 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you. These trading card subjects usually only have a few sentences of information, regrettably. --Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 08:10, March 25, 2017 (UTC)


 * Yeah, there's not a lot of fluff that can be fit on a card. Although I briefly used Hm-boye as an NPC once. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:12, March 25, 2017 (UTC)

Sorry about that
Hey BadCatMan,

Sorry about the Dagon edit: I'm new to this & only skimmed of the "Helping Out" stuff before trying to add (admittedly stupid of me, and something I'm rectifying before trying to edit again).

Sorry again for any inconvenience this may have caused, and I'll endeavor to not type without thinking/copy from source again. JadeSentinel (talk) 05:58, April 18, 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for getting back to me. Yes, as per our Plagiarism policy, we require all text added to the wiki to be rewritten in your own words, while maintaining the meaning, to prevent risk of copyright infringement. So, exercise your creative muscles, and describe it fresh, as a DM would. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:27, April 18, 2017 (UTC)

Category Rename
I have found a utility for renaming categories that was developed by MediaWiki. I tested it by renaming Category:Locations on the Shind Road to Category:Locations on Shind Road and it worked like a charm. To enable this feature, copy the contents of User:MovieBot/common.js to User:UnseenServantBot/common.js. Next, if you haven't already done so, go to your Preferences -> Under the Hood -> Enable Personal JavaScript. Then, when you look at a category page, "Rename" will be an option in the drop-down menu. Unfortunately, this only works in the Oasis skin (I tried loading the same code into monobook.js and it didn't seem to have any affect) so you will have to append  to the end of your URL to see the menu and then append   (note the ? and &) to see the category rename function gadget. I highly recommend that this only be done with bots because this is semi-automatic editing and can affect hundreds of pages which would spam the Recent Changes list. This could also be quite devastating in the hands of a chaotic evil person so I'd like to keep this capability limited to a few people, although I don't know if or how it could be prevented. Thoughts? &mdash;MovieBot (talk) 00:53, April 20, 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Wikia's being weird right now, but I'll try it out next time I have the need.


 * The vast majority of trolls and vandals aren't wiki editors themselves (else they wouldn't do it) and don't have any technical knowledge, only enough to edit and add or remove text or categories. A few know how to rename a page, like in the Toy Eater attack a few years back. So I don't think we have to worry about something as technical as this. Even if one tried, they'd need their own Wikia account, so they can't be anonymous, and need to set custom javascript beforehand, giving us a bit of warning.


 * I couldn't work out why I couldn't see the update to my Talk page, then realised you posted as your bot. I thought Wikia was playing up. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:29, April 20, 2017 (UTC)


 * I am excited about this find! ~ Lhynard (talk) 13:48, April 20, 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, that worked a treat! I used my main log-in since Category:Members of the Akh'Faer had only 5 pages. I'll use my bot for large-scale renames. — BadCatMan (talk) 14:10, May 22, 2017 (UTC)

Miniatures
Hey, would articles on miniatures and similar fare be interesting for this wiki? Something along the lines of the AD&D Trading Cards article. Not all D&D miniatures series are Realms-specific, of course, but Wizkids's Icons of the Realms is, for example. --Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 16:48, May 8, 2017 (UTC)


 * I think it would be within our remit, being a D&D/Realms product that could do with documentation (which might not have been done anywhere else on the net). On the other hand, it's a very minor aspect of the setting and maybe not an essential topic for the wiki. Still, there are some images of miniatures already on the wiki that might need good organization and citation. (Admittedly, I never collected minis, so I don't know much about them.)


 * I imagine this could cover both the named Realms NPCs as well as the generic monsters that have a presence in the Realms. I know the accompanying miniatures wargames had a little crunch and fluff that could be covered as well. I doubt it would produce much or any lore for the wiki, but the artwork could be interesting. Looking at the 3e card and mini online for Alusair Obarskyr, they repeat her stats and give no fluff, but the mini has a distinctly different appearance and pose that would add to the article. I'd prefer images of minis remain in an Appendix Gallery section though, as they're a little too artificial for regular artwork, but your mileage may vary.


 * Of course, the primary criterion for doing a wiki project is if it interests you. :) So, you love the idea, have fun, but don't feel obliged to do it either. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:56, May 9, 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's a minor aspect of the setting for sure. That's part of the appeal for me, documenting the somewhat obscure that might otherwise fall between the cracks and be forgotten. Like you say, there probably isn't much lore to be "mined" from miniatures, but at least we'll have what little there is. I completely agree on the subject of images, as well. I'll see about making a pilot article. --Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 07:09, May 9, 2017 (UTC)


 * Alright then, I'll look forward to it. :) — BadCatMan (talk) 07:45, May 9, 2017 (UTC)


 * So will I! ~ Lhynard (talk) 13:12, May 9, 2017 (UTC)

updates
I commented several years back that I was doing research on influence of Tolkien's works on Forgotten Realms.

Now I realize that it's much more complex than just that.

First, I would need to do research on Tolkien's influence on the D&D and AD&D games as a whole, though, if I understand correctly, what's now called D&D is a continuation of what was once called AD&D.

I need to identify what's unique to the Forgotten Realms setting and what isn't.

I'm curious as to if you've read the The History of Middle-earth series. It's various earlier versions of Tolkien's setting. I've read some of these books, but I feel like I need to reread them. Some of these feature creatures called Gnomes, but they AREN'T what a lot of people think of as Gnomes. They are a subgroup of Elves.

Anyway, I'm still mostly trying to correct grammar and punctuation on here right now. Gringo300 (talk) 15:46, May 18, 2017 (UTC)


 * I archived my earlier conversations; your last post to me was in 2015, here.


 * AD&D is basically the 2nd edition of D&D. There was an Advanced and a Basic, but Advanced dominated, which is why it was commonly called AD&D, especially by the old-timers who played it.


 * The Forgotten Realms was created with stories like "One Comes, Unheralded, to Zirta" by an 8-year-old Ed Greenwood in 1967. From 1975, he used his stories as a basis for his D&D games and for articles for Dragon (magazine), before it was packaged as a D&D campaign setting, and other writers have developed it alongside him. It's always been a grab-bag of fantasy elements, from stock D&D and various fantasy works and real-world mythology and history, so it's very difficult to disentangle these influences. It's also grown to be a huge setting.


 * There are specific things like the Retreat of the elves to Evermeet being reminiscent of the elves going west. But more generally, the original D&D copied many races and monsters from Tolkien for the dwarves, elves, halflings, goblins, and orcs, classes like the ranger, and the Forgotten Realms has ran used these. Tolkien's works heavily influenced modern western fantasy, and D&D has taken inspiration from western fantasy across the board, including the Tolkien inspired stuff, and the Forgotten Realms is a subset of all this. It's not really very significant or interesting a topic to worry about. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:02, May 19, 2017 (UTC)

a little technical (?) question
I've started two wikis.

On them, I'm labelled as a Bureaucrat, but not an Administrator. From what I've read, it sounds like if one is a Bureaucrat, they're AUTOMATICALLY an Administrator.

Am I misunderstanding something here?

Gringo300 (talk) 22:13, May 19, 2017 (UTC)


 * An Administrator is a user with some special privileges (blocking, locking, deleting, etc.). A Bureaucrat has Administrator priviledges and other special privileges, including the ability to make other users Administrators. As you created the wiki yourself, you are automatically made a Bureaucrat so you can fully run it.


 * As you asked earlier, Wikia is the company that hosts all these wikis. You can't change that. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:43, May 20, 2017 (UTC)

Web Mountains
Hello! Thanks for the Web Mountains article, which fills another gap next to my area of most interest! I have two questions/notes: Could you clarify in the introductory section "The mountains served as a pass through the mountains."? Is it the Web Mountains allow passage between the higher adjacent mountain ranges? And were the three different citations of Blood & Magic supposed to show different titles in the references section? - Because they don't. Thanks. Daranios (talk) 07:58, May 24, 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks. It's a bit ironic that the most exotic and mysterious corners of the Realms are filled in by the cheesiest video game content. :)


 * It's not entirely clear what the pass is, where it lies, or what it connects, but the most likely interpretation in that they're a pass between the Wu Pi Te Shao and the World Pillar Mountains, connecting the Utter East and the Sempadan Forest. I've clarified this.


 * I've cited different aspects of the game: the game map, and two of the campaigns. However, the code in the citation template doesn't seem to work for that, so it all comes out the same. Some day I'll have another go at fixing it. — BadCatMan (talk) 08:19, May 24, 2017 (UTC)

Sloppy Pages Issue
Greetings! I see you have been fixing a lot of these sloppy pages that are being created by who we all suspect to be UnknownUser11 when he isn't logged in. He seems unresponsive on his unregistered talk page and appears to be ignoring all of the advice offered. Can you think of anything we can do to help stem the flow of these pages? I cringe every time I see a new one and I know we can all be spending our time being more productive than using it to correct the same things over and over. Artemaz (talk) 12:29, July 6, 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi! Thanks for all your hard work, it's really helped me get on top of them. Unfortunately, there's no apparent way to throttle or limit new page creation, and no way for forcing better quality out of a user, except to keep nagging them or else block them entirely long-term. I've blocked this anon account so I can get their attention. — BadCatMan (talk) 12:41, July 6, 2017 (UTC)


 * Hopefully blocking them will net a response. We all make mistakes, especially when starting something new, but it's just frustrating seeing the SAME mistakes produced repeatedly. Thanks! Artemaz (talk) 13:05, July 6, 2017 (UTC)


 * We discussed this a while ago, but I am still strongly of the opinion that unregistered users should not be able to create new pages at all. ~ Lhynard (talk) 14:14, July 6, 2017 (UTC)


 * Is there a way to enforce that so that someone would need to make an account in order to create a new page? Artemaz (talk) 14:32, July 6, 2017 (UTC)


 * Most new users experiment anonymously before joining, and wikis work on the "anyone can edit" principle. But, I agree, given how many people want to work anonymously and unhelpfully, and passers-by who drop copied text and homebrew, restricting anons is more useful. Unfortunately, it's a hardcoded default that anyone can create a page and everything else. According to Help:Group rights, some wikis require registration/logging in, but it doesn't say how. So this requires some research. — BadCatMan (talk) 15:07, July 6, 2017 (UTC)


 * I am all for "anyone can edit", but to me, "edit" does not mean "create a new page". It might not be possible to make that distinction, but I'd love it if we could. ~ Lhynard (talk) 17:25, July 6, 2017 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I've seen plenty of unregistered users make proper edits on established pages, but creating an entirely new page involves a bit more knowledge on the policies/procedures. Artemaz (talk) 17:40, July 6, 2017 (UTC)

Olodel image
Concerning the Olodel.jpg image, I recently submitted. You changed the description and removed my attribution. While I did use Pro Fantasy's Lake of Steam map as a starting point, references to Olodel and Narruth are not contained in their FR Atlas. Since the base image was altered by changing some of the colors, and new information was added that is not in the original atlas collection, should the image not fall under the category of a derivative work and retain my attribution?

Regards, Esm3x (talk) 01:08, July 8, 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I didn't understand your attribution. I didn't get what "ESM" meant and figured the public domain claim was in error. In future, if you want to upload customize images, it's best to fully discuss the changes so we can approve it (we do need a proper image policy). Fortunately everything agrees with canon maps (Empires of the Shining Sea labels both islands) and we do accept user-made maps.


 * Since the image is originally from the Interactive Atlas and little changed, I would say ProFantasy is the original creator. We don't have existing or standard templates for user's tweaking maps, so I've simply described what you did at File:Olodel.jpg. — BadCatMan (talk) 11:44, July 8, 2017 (UTC)

Slack
Hey, not sure if you're interested, but I'm hoping to set up a bit more of a community feel around the wiki moving forwards, so I've set up a Slack group. Unfortunately it needs email addresses to invite people, so I've set up a form to anonymously collect them. If you are interested, would be great if you can fill out https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfoVCqUNSPCKTp77IxhwMDyIQ4UGVoB1AP0MM15agNUZsU94Q/viewform and leave your email so that I can send an invite! Fw190a8 (talk &middot; contr) 09:42, July 8, 2017 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've sent my email, but I don't know what Slack is what or why we need it. I'd prefer to keep wiki work at the wiki, for all to see. — BadCatMan (talk) 11:19, July 8, 2017 (UTC)