User talk:PsiSeveredHead/Archive04

See also Archive 01, Archive 02 and Archive 03

Re: SEO
Hello Psi. I also track the google rank for the SC Wiki (as well as several others) and for a few months, before December, something weird was definitely happening with google, at least when searching for "StarCraft 2." Our rank has always been very good when searching for just "StarCraft." No one (other than google employees) knows exactly how their algorythms work, but as you can see by the table below, things seem to be fine now. As we get closer to release, I'm confident that our rank for "StarCraft 2" will reach the top 10. To answer your question, I don't think we need to change anything now that google seems to have "fixed" itself. I'm sure you guys have all the important search terms listed on the main page. The only suggestion I have would be to think about working the title of SC2 chapter 1 into the Contents section, since people may search for that as we get close to release. Keep up the good work and let me know if you have any other concerns. JoePlay ( talk ) 19:17, December 17, 2009 (UTC)

"StarCraft Wiki" / "StarCraft" / "StarCraft 2"

Happy New Year's!
Hey Kim, apart from the usual New Year's Greetings (I'm too late for Christmas ones), I thought I might drop a few scanned Starcraft goodies your way:

Hope that's something you can use (and access before they get moved to a non-descriptive filename)!

PS: Sorry for the double message, but I can't wrap my head around that fancy-schmancy message system. I'm old-skool ;) http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/thumb/4/4a/Naglowaa_se.gif/11px-Naglowaa_se.gif Tagaziel (call!) 17:28, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

Reply
Feel free to delete this message. Just letting you know I have a reply on my userpage

--207.161.222.238 20:15, March 13, 2010 (UTC)

Somewhat
The only thing that changes about it is the dragoon distortion, whereas all of the other dragoons sound like robots. Fenix kept his voice but with a little more of a metallic aura around it, unlike the others.K1LLSW1TCH 22:50, March 15, 2010 (UTC)

Mending Fences
Right, so, as you may have noticed, I've effectively reversed my resignation. Guess that deserves an explanation

Anyway, in regards to the timeline, all I can say is that I wish I/you/we had waited a few more days, which might have led to me still being around, namely the month shift in the StarCraft comic (June to February). Combining that with the likes of Nova, Furman's statement and the date given in Weapon War...well, a can of worms has been opened. And while tiered canon could still provide a guide, I've had some time to think. And at this point in time, I think it's fair to say that StarCraft's timeline has become like its Warcraft counterpart, with no absolute correct one, with the timing of the Brood War and Third War respectively shifting via interpretation. So, while I am not in complete agreement with the dates provided, I accept that it's a necessary evil that a timeframe has to be chosen for consistancy. And since the timeline has seemingly entered the realm of personal choice, just like the Year 20/25 dichotomy in Warcraft, I'm willing to conform to it (more or less) for editorial purposes.

So, in light of this, I would like to apologize for my earlier actions, at least with the benefit of hindsight. More in the context of now, rather than then, because even now, I still have some pride. However, the difference is that I can swallow the timeline we have now and would rather operate within it rather than maintain indifference, as I'd rather focus wiki time on a specific wiki rather than drift. In regards to the timeline, I still have a few queeries I'd like to raise/edits to make, but I'd prefer it to be in the context of free use editing rather than letting them be percieved as the start of an edit war.

So yeah. Ok if I come back?--Hawki 02:05, April 18, 2010 (UTC)

Karune Q&A links
I've been pondering how we might render the Q&A section in Karune's article superfluous. Right now, it seems our references point just to the Karune, and not to any subsections in the article, which is good. The bad news is that a bunch of the links to the older Q&A threads on b.net are dead; thus, when using the references you have to go to the Karune article to read the actual Q&A.

Ultimately I think we need to fix those links. Perhaps we should point the links to section of the Q&A article, like:

Then the only place we need to fix links to b.net is in the Q&A article. This insulates us from any more shenanigans from their side (if they do another big upgrade or whatever, we only need to change links in one place.) - Meco (talk, contribs) 22:42, April 25, 2010 (UTC)

That's what I've been doing for the past few months; unfortunately, for the older references, they either went straight to Karune, or to Karune#Batch 15 (along those lines). PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) contribs) 23:09, April 25, 2010 (UTC)

My apologies
Sorry about my mistake. I thought you had removed my comment, and you had not. If I made any other mistakes, please let me know. Anno1404 14:14, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

Second Great War
This may be a forum topic, hence using your talk page instead of a board message.

Back to a discussion I recall earlier, I actually now think it might be a good idea for a "Second Great War" article to cover the events of SC2. Although based on conjuncture, the only alternative is to say "during 2504, x occurred at y." Problem is, the timeline article probably isn't the best place to summarize the likes of WoL in its entirety, given the subjective order. The Guild Wars article has some subjective placings, so another war article could follow suit.

Anyway, thought it best to raise the idea first. You have more experience with war artices, such as GW and BW, and they're not really in my field of editing interest either.--Hawki 11:33, June 2, 2010 (UTC)

I think a bit more depth could go into the war article. At the least, a section could list possible outcomes of battles based on mission choices, while the timeline would simply mention what's definate.--Hawki 11:43, June 2, 2010 (UTC)

Question
Why do some of the SC1 tech boxes, like Wraith Cloaking, Siege Tech, not show the research time needed for them? Doreiku Kuroofangu 18:06, June 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see, blank fields then? Would I be allowed to find out the missing data and fill it in then? Doreiku Kuroofangu 18:09, June 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * My original SC disk won't install so yeah, any stats I get will be secondhand. I can get images of the icons too, since I see them being used. Doreiku Kuroofangu 22:20, June 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * What licensing is used for images of the in-game icons for spells and the like? Not sure of the rules here. Doreiku Kuroofangu 23:23, June 4, 2010 (UTC)

Pagetitle tweak
Just a heads up - there is a new theory that Google is "punishing" sites for putting keywords in their page titles, so I'm testing the theory here for the next 10 days or so. I'll let you know what the result is, and if the wiki's rank drops or stays the same, I'll revert the edit. JoePlay ( talk ) 22:57, June 4, 2010 (UTC)

Templates
I'm curious as to why a lot of the templates use black background coloring. Since links usually show up as purple and blue, it makes them hard to read sometimes. Doreiku Kuroofangu 19:58, June 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Why use a template just to recolor text though? Doreiku Kuroofangu 22:48, June 5, 2010 (UTC)

The entire site (slight exaggeration) is blue-coloured links on black backgrounds. The default link colours only become a problem when you have the non-black background, which occurs in templates (eg. yellow for the protoss templates, etc.).

This can be rectified by some more tinkering in Common.css (followed by more tinkering with the templates). For now, use the colour template. - Meco (talk, contribs) 22:57, June 5, 2010 (UTC)

Re: Caps
Okay. I admit that confused me a bit, because on some pages caps are used. Thanks. Doreiku Kuroofangu 01:47, June 6, 2010 (UTC)

Re: Scan
Done. I only have Vol. 2 at the moment, but I'm on the lookout for the other three so you need anything else scanned, lemme know and I'll grab it for you. Doreiku Kuroofangu 22:52, June 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * Done, though the picture doesn't show much. Doreiku Kuroofangu 00:54, June 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, since I've got the map editor, any in-game images you need? Can't get action shots of course but could get like, units standing around and that. Doreiku Kuroofangu 01:29, June 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've never seen anything about the decals in the editor, so sorry on that. As for the rest, aye aye. Doreiku Kuroofangu 01:38, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

Just a fyi, got Frontline 3 and 4, if anything from them is needed. Doreiku Kuroofangu 00:14, June 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * All sorts of done, also uploaded the full lineart of G-Zero, and the psionic implants. Doreiku Kuroofangu 02:14, June 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * By your will. :p. Doreiku Kuroofangu 02:59, June 13, 2010 (UTC)

Artanis: "Consider it done." Doreiku Kuroofangu 23:35, June 14, 2010 (UTC)

re: Spam
Hmm... try putting just  on a line, then go to the page you want to edit, purge it by adding ?action=purge to the end of the URL, and then try editing. If that doesn't work, then you'll have to wait and see if VSTF comes up with something. Hope you get it sorted out, ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail)

Pagetitle
Yeah feel free to revert the pagetitle to what it was or something close to it. Since I changed it, the wiki's Google rank for "Starcraft 2" has only moved by 2 ranks (went from 23 to 24, back to 23, then to 22, and is now 21). It's my conclusion that removing the few keywords (especially "StarCraft II") does not help. In fact, with the Diablo Wiki, the rank for "Diablo 3" dropped from 15 to 23. Since StarCraft II (2) is what people are/will be googling, I recommend at least putting that back into the Pagetitle. JoePlay ( talk ) 00:31, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Userpage
I really like your userpage with the "add friend" bio, and other information. How did you do that? I wanted to try and do that for my wiki. I'll understand if you want to keep that a secret, it really does make your wiki very unique to other wikis.  Zey pher  19:21, June 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright, thanks! I'll ask them. :D  Zey pher  05:51, June 26, 2010 (UTC)

RE: Welcome bot
Sounds like a technical problem. Report it to the Community Team by clicking the Contact link at the bottom of any page (below the three spotlight images) and filling out the form. They will file a ticket for the tech team to fix the issue. Thanks. JoePlay ( talk ) 15:40, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

Go to my wiki
www. whatchuwant.wikia.com i need people 2 efdit

Images
Just tossing this out there, since in SC2 the icons for weapon and armor upgrades change with each level, for the templates, I could make a simple .gif displaying the three different icons in sequence, if you want. Doreiku Kuroofangu 04:35, July 12, 2010 (UTC)

EDIT - here's an example. Doreiku Kuroofangu 04:40, July 12, 2010 (UTC) http://i443.photobucket.com/albums/qq156/DrakeClawfang/th_ZergAirAtk.gif


 * I'll assume that's a yes then. :p Doreiku Kuroofangu 13:01, July 12, 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Doreiku Kuroofangu 14:20, July 12, 2010 (UTC)

Image Categorization
Quick question, but how do I categorize? I inspected the File:JimRaynorMarine SC2 Head.jpg page and didn't see how you dd it. Mind telling me how?

Thanks -user:Unneta

Achievements
Hi, I'm Paweł from Wikia Gaming team. As you may have noticed on other wikis, such as Red Dead Wiki or SWTOR Wiki, Wikia has recently introduced an Achievement extension.

The goal of achievements is to help encourage people to make more edits and contribute to the wiki. They also help brand new people get a feel for what they can do on the wiki by showing them various challenges. Awards are only available for logged-in users, so they’ll help encourage people to log in when they’re making edits. You can see an achievement leaderboard here. Badges that you've earned and a list of the challenges that are available for you will also show up on your user page. Admins are able to customize the names and pictures used in the achievement awards so that they fit a given community.

Your wiki has been chosen by Wikia as one of the few wikis we would like to enable achievements on. Would you mind this extension being activated? Ausir(talk) 21:57, July 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, the link was supposed to be this one. Ausir(talk) 10:22, July 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Psi. I just activated the achievements. Normally I would make a blog post announcement, but I just realized the SC Wiki doesn't have blogs. Do you know any reason why? Did you guys request to have it removed when it was released on all wikis?


 * Anyway, I made the announcement on the forum instead. Feel free to spread the word elsewhere on the wiki. The Wiki Leaderboard link will automatically be added to the navigation sidebar any minute now. If you want, you can customize the names and images of the achievements at Special:AchievementsCustomize. Detailed instructions are on the right column of the page. If you have any questions or issues, let me know. Keep up the great work! JoePlay ( talk ) 18:18, July 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * About blogs - I think the initial iteration of blogs was included in the social tools package, which you only got a few features of here. Sometime later, blogs were released by themselves on all wikis. It may be possible that because of the social tools being here, the blogs weren't added. If you don't want them, that's fine. However, blogs do make for a good news reporting tool that allows the community to comment on the news. See Red Dead Wiki for an example (right column). If you'd like to have blogs here, let me know and I'll ask about getting them enabled. JoePlay ( talk ) 19:19, July 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * This new achievements system is fun and interesting, thanks for turning it on. I think blogs are a good idea too and you also mentioned we only got "a few features of" the social tools package here. What are the other social tools not enabled here, and could they be enabled also? --The Overmind 16:09, July 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * By the way, if you want, we can help with customizing the achievement badges. I see that you already named them after SC units, I can help out with adding matching images if you want. Ausir(talk) 20:43, July 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * I haven't taken a close look at the new names, but from what I've seen my impression is that a lot of the new names don't mesh particularly well with the achievement objective. And they're a bit dry using just straight object names. We should probably see if we can improve the names them before changing the icons. - Meco (talk, contribs) 20:57, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

Wikia Awards
Hi, PsiSeveredHead. Except for the fact that I wanted to ask you if you know what is with the new wikia achieve ments, which I think that are because of the Starcraft II achievments , I also wanted to get a new achievement , and go by to say hi ! Andra2404 18:29, July 20, 2010 (UTC)

It seems that you ad me are in some kind of achievement competition. Anyway, could you tell me where I could find a blog ?

I don't get the Lieutenant award... It says to make an edit to your personal page, which I have, and it doesn't accept... I know this is sort of a pointless request, but I'm still confused. Any ideas? Tanooki1432 17:04, July 27, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for thanks!
Thanks! :P xDDD

I still have to understand how the achievements work, but whatever, always glad to be of help ;).--Lon-ami 19:08, July 20, 2010 (UTC)

Partnerships with fansites?
Hi again. I know the wiki is in the official fansite program, which is awesome, but with Wings of Liberty releasing next week, I was wondering if you had any sort of partnerships with any other fansites? I know you've been in contact with at least one for a long time, but I don't know the extent of the relationship you have with them. The goal is to maximize awareness of the wiki. If you need any help with reaching out to fansites, let me know. JoePlay ( talk ) 22:15, July 20, 2010 (UTC)

Caption Fun
Something we do over at wowwiki, the admins pick a picture each month and people write a funny caption for it. I'm sure people can come up with some funny captions for a picture like. What do you say? Tanooki1432 12:38, July 21, 2010 (UTC)

http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:Caption_fun Tanooki1432 04:25, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

Matt Horner's intro quote
I put the source as the Ghosts of the Past video, but it's still coming in as unsourced... Any help? Tanooki1432 15:57, July 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Edit: nevermind... Meco sorted it out. Tanooki1432 16:04, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

RE: SEO, blog
That's great news about the google rank for that new search term! As for blogs, in addition to the Red Dead wiki, these wikis are also making good use of the blog as a way to post news - Fallout, Dragon Age, The Old Republic, and Dead Rising. To use it for news, you just create a blog post and add it to. Then on the main page, just use this code:

 News plain date News

That will display a feed of blog posts that are in the News category. A couple notes about the variables: summarylength says display the first XXX characters of each post and count says to display the most recent X posts. I would recommend leaving summary, timestamp, and type as they are. If you want to test drive it, I just setup a mock news blog list at my personal testing wiki. Use Special:CreateBlogPage to make a new post (don't forget the News category), then click the refresh icon on the blog list and your post will appear at the top. JoePlay ( talk ) 18:38, July 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * So, would you agree to blogs being activated here? We've found them very convenient for newsposting on some other wikis that Joe mentioned, including my own Fallout wiki. Ausir(talk) 23:25, August 11, 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: Tightening security around the wiki
With the release date just a few days away, I think it might be a good idea to tighten the ship (no pun intended) a little bit, lest we get swarmed (again, no pun intended) with a bunch of random unregistered users dropping massive amounts of conflicting (and unsourced) bits of information and throwing the whole wiki into disarray. Just a suggestion, but I think if we restrict editing privileges to registered users (at least in the short term), we might avoid a chaotic bum rush Zergling rush of disorganized edits that will only serve to reduce the quality of the wiki while regular users try to sort through the mess and find out what's true and what's not true. Tanooki1432 19:01, July 24, 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea! Grandmaster Trey 06:30, July 27, 2010 (UTC) Sounds too elitist for me. There are many users that wish to remain anonymous while editing that may have a lot to contribute. Forcing them to register is a good way to lose editors. http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/0/08/Personal_Sig_Image.gif Tagaziel (call!) 16:35, July 27, 2010 (UTC)

RE: Tightening the ship
I talked to the Community Team manager about our options for dealing with vandals. We don't lock down wikis in advance of new releases, but what we can do is to have the VSTF (Volunteer Spam Task Force) keep a close watch on the StarCraft Wiki for the next couple weeks. The VSTF reports to the Community Team manager who has already told them to direct their focus to the SC wiki. Those guys are good, so you shouldn't have any major problems. If you do notice any vandalism that doesn't get taken care of in a timely fashion, you can report it at VSTF Wiki. If you use IRC, you can also contact them in the VSTF IRC channel. JoePlay ( talk ) 23:38, July 27, 2010 (UTC)

thanks
heyooo. thanks for the swift reply to my question, psh. thinking i left a mission behind was driving me nuts. before i deleted my file and started over i thought i'd ask those who know. i'll be seeing you guys (wiki) again as soon as i finish the campaign. avoiding spoilers at the moment. 22:19, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

US of A
This is a tiny, somewhat minor/selfish/patriotic/trivial thing, but if you search "USA", it doesn't go to the United States of America article. Tanooki1432 23:32, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

Awkward Position
There's a ton of SC2 info for the single-player campaign I can, am willing and want to add. Problem is I frankly don't know how to source it all due to not knowing the mission names by memory and some of the data taking place out of missions. So...yeah, what should I do? Doreiku Kuroofangu 02:04, July 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * Check the citation index for some of the references. Hawki has added references for the story mode and news reports. The latter two should be supplemented using the ref notes (not regular refs!) feature (say after which mission/branch they're from.) - Meco (talk, contribs) 02:11, July 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * That doesn't help me at all. Some of the stuff I can add takes place in cinematics, and as I said I don't remember the missions by name so I can tell you "this happens in a mission" but I can't tell you which one. Doreiku Kuroofangu 02:29, July 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * Then it may be time to start searching YouTube and other sites for playthroughs. I'm currently looking at the one at gameanyone.com. The playthrough is on casual difficulty, though. - Meco (talk, contribs) 02:45, July 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * Eh, nevermind then, I'll let someone else do it. Too much hassle. Doreiku Kuroofangu 02:48, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

Sidebar
Just a heads up that I added cheats to the StarCraft II submenu on the sidebar, since it's a popular search term. Also, since strategy is such a big part of SC2, it might be a good idea to do a callout (on Sitenotice and/or the main page) for people to contribute to the various strategy articles. A word of advice: from our research, we've found that people are much more likely to add to an article when it already exists (even if it's just a sentence or two) rather than create the article from scratch. So I would recommend creating the articles for those red links using the section headers from the corresponding SC1 pages (Orders of Battle, Early Game, Mid Game, Late Game). Then when people start to add information, you can add a Strategy link to the sidebar and main page. Keep up the great work as always. The wiki is quickly approaching 1 million pageviews per day, which is an awesome milestone that only a handful of our wikis have reached. JoePlay ( talk ) 23:05, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

Okay, will do. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) contribs) 20:19, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Another popular aspect/search term for SC2 will be Mods, so it would also be a good idea to use the same approach for that. If you would rather use a more "official" article title, feel free to name it "StarCraft II custom scenarios" (or whatever they're called in SC2), but be sure to create "StarCraft II mods" as a redirect to it. In addition to having a callout to contribute info for mods here at the wiki, you could ask SC Legacy if they would let you do a callout there too. If you need help with any of these things, just let me know. JoePlay ( talk ) 23:48, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Editor
Its a bit confusing the way they did it but click the "File" tab, go to "Dependencies" add a standard, and add the "Campaign" dependency. This will throw in all the campaign stuff. Be careful though since the editor takes priority on the campaign dependency, and it will overwrite everything with the campaign stuff, basically, all the terran units are reset to campaign mode. Hope this helps. KewlCrayon 23:15, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Q&A forum topic
I'm messaging all wiki admins to ask that you take a look at Forum:Questions and Answers. Thanks. JoePlay ( talk ) 01:23, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Redirects
I think once we get all of the WoL things nice and shiny, we should work on redirects, like searching "Cantina" will bring you to the Cantina section of the Hyperion page, WoL would go to the Wings of Liberty page, and common misspellings (such as Arial instead of Ariel) as well. Tanooki1432 15:09, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Removal
Remove that 4th head please. You seem to know what you're doing; I've searched and unable to do it. In my stupdity I made a different image file instead of updating the old one. (Which I did afterwards. Y'can safely remove the 4th. It's way too big anyway.) Zamoonda 19:05, August 4, 2010 (UTC)

Okay, removed. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) contribs) 18:51, August 4, 2010 (UTC)

Idea
Given all the types of them, could we make a parent page for "Crystal" briefly the various types and their purposes? I know we have a disambig for it but I think a short parent page would be nice. Doreiku Kuroofangu 10:06, August 7, 2010 (UTC)