User talk:PsiSeveredHead

See also Archive 01

I'd like to help
I'm new to StarCraft Wiki, but I've been on Wikipedia for a while. While editing Damage types, I noticed that this wiki has very little in terms of CSS. For example, the wikitable class is not defined. Furthermore, the categories are rather disorganized and some may need to be merged/deleted. I'd love to become an admin on this wiki to help out with these things, and to improve StarCraft wiki in general. Thank you for your consideration. SigmaEpsilon 00:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Scans
I've found scans of weapons and veichles from SC: Ghost at SC Legacy. However, they've been pasted and copying them may be plagerism. To avoid copyright infrignements, I haven't acted on them. Still, it's your call.

--Hawki 01:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Starcraft wiki logo
Hi there, Do you have a high-res version of the starcraft wiki logo? you can email it to me if the file is to big to upload We are making t-shirts for you guys for BlizzCon. Also I noticed there are two logos on the wiki.png file. The green one might be better for a t-shirt.. what do you think? angies (talk) 21:45, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The link for the green one is here: link and for the current one is link - I don't think the current one comes any larger/higher res than that :(

I'm currently using the "white skin" so the current one looks better for me, but the green/black logo might look better with the "default" black skin. I can switch them if that's the case (and that seems to work better with the shirt). PsiSeveredHead 22:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

DO you know who created the logo? Maybe they have high-res file somewhere? if not, is there someone here that can create a larger one? If not I can ask someone else to just wanted to ask you first. angies (talk) 21:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Xallium put them up. PsiSeveredHead 22:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Images
Hi, I am new here so just got a question: Are we allowed to upload any screen shot? What are the rules for uploading images here? Thanks Addictgamer 14:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Yooo, I wanna edit the starcraft II page. What do you suggest. Addictgamer 02:11, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I noticed you have a 4 day waiting period to edit some articles. why is this? I think make keep you from gaining new editors? Are you worried about vandalism? seems un-wiki like to punish all the potential good editors for the few bad apples..

I don't know exactly how long the waiting period is. I heard four days. The policy only applies to a few pages, and I don't have any control over the waiting time. If it weren't for the waiting time, I don't think it would be bad at all. Signing up is easy and free, after all. PsiSeveredHead 22:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

On another note, the Starcraft wiki is now on www.curse.com too. We just announced a partnership with the where we are going to power their wikis..http://mashable.com/2007/07/24/curse-2/. The URL is http://sc2.curse.com/wikia/Main_Page. Everything (edits/user accounts, etc) is staying on Wikia's servers, so nothing should change for you (except hopefully you will get some new contributors!) angies (talk) 17:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Ooohhh... shiny. It looks like its another place to store our pages. PsiSeveredHead 22:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Loading
Why does this wikia load slowly? It's quite annoying (and I got fast speed internet - I can't imagine how it would be for those that have a slower internet!) Addictgamer 21:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

It loads slowly for me too, and I don't know why that is. Is it just this wiki, or other wikias as well? PsiSeveredHead 22:21, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I donno, I suggest you ask angie or angela for more info on this. Addictgamer 12:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I spoke with the wiki people. It's not just this wiki. Part of the problem is the Wowwiki, which is so big that it takes up two servers, and the problem is only getting bigger because it's joining wikia (it was separate until very recently) and will need three servers - or more with the new expansion. It's growing pains for wikia. PsiSeveredHead 20:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello!
Dear PsiSeveredHead,

Long time no see! =]

Well, I'm sorta back here...with the flood of StarCraft II information, I hope to organize all our new articles and appropriately reference them with the correct syntax.

However, a quick question - Why are all the Terran weps/equipment in a large list? IMHO, they should be seperated into their own articles, especially since some are notable, esp. the Gauss Rifle and the Canister Rifle, but it's your call, sir. ^^

Best Regards,

RelentlessRecusant 'o the Halopedia Team http://images.wikia.com/rainbowsix/images/7/73/GDI2.jpg TALK • MESSAGE 20:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Predator
Dear sir,

It's the first unit that can be produced by the Starport...unless our images are different or something. =]

It was also confirmed by Gamespot.

Best Regards,

RelentlessRecusant 'o the Halopedia Team http://images.wikia.com/rainbowsix/images/7/73/GDI2.jpg TALK • MESSAGE 01:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

SilentDragoon
Alright, I added the link. Thanks! SilentDragoon 22:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Right on the front page, I should think. There is some free space in the lower right so it would easily fit. Otherwise, could it appear as a link whenever a page is edited? For example, it could be placed where it currently says "you can switch to old editor in preferences here, for editing with CategoryCloud, use this link". I don't know how much control you have over this, but it would be convenient. SilentDragoon 22:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Phoenix & Warp Ray cleaned up
Dear sir,

I've cleaned up the two aforementioned articles...do they look OK? Shall I proceed with the rest? =]

Cheers,

RelentlessRecusant 'o the Halopedia Team http://images.wikia.com/rainbowsix/images/7/73/GDI2.jpg TALK • MESSAGE 06:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Characters and Capitalisation
Two things I'd like to ask you about. Firstly, I was wondering if you could tell me which units the heroes in StarCraft: Insurrection are, namely the ones that I haven't made articles for yet (eg Demioch, Charlie Vane, etc.)

Secondly, I've begun to wonder about capitalisation, how Terran, Zerg and Protoss are always capitalised. Truth be told, such capitalisation has always made me uneasy; protoss and zerg are species like humans, "human" being a common noun. Why should xenomorphs such privilages?

Granted, a case can be made for such capitalisation, as they're capitalised in the original manual and early novels. However, such capitalisation is lacking on the SC2 website and recent novels have ceased capitalisation also. Heck, even the dark templar lack capitalisation on the website.

Perhaps not the most pressing issue, but it would be good to have an official policy (eg wowwiki has official policies on race capitalisation also). Thanks.--Hawki 01:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

"A policy sounds like a good idea. Do you have a link for Wowwiki's policy?"

Admittedly it's not a policy so much but it was put to a vote...or something (it happened before I joined). You can find a core page here and an example of it in practice here.

"When putting up images, they should be referenced. Referencing many images are difficult, and obviously many of the images here aren't referenced, but if possible, please include a link. (Even if the page isn't working now; internetarchive.org exists for that purpose.)"

I'll try and remember in the future. If it helps, the images came from sclegacy.

"Second, are you British or Canadian? I was going over the Shadow of the Xel'Naga edit and wikia likes the American spelling. Probably 3/4 of the "spelling errors" were just using the King's English."

I'm actually Australian but it's the same as being a pom or k'nook for spelling purposes. Anyway, I'll try and keep it in mind; I usually manage (I think), but the edit was mainly a copy and paste effort from the timeline I did, hence why I forgot about the errors. I wanted to put the page up and get away from it as fast as possible ;) --Hawki 02:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Level 4 Headlines
While fooling around with the suburbs of the Gutter I used level 4 headlines, something which, as far as I can tell, doesn't feature on this wiki. It admittedly got me wondering-level 4 headlines in some cases would make easier reference for things like the suburbs, the minor members of Raynor's Raiders, etc. Still, trying them out, it looked 'messy' on the reference box and it would admittedly seem odd to have headlines for characters in organisations such as the Terran Dominion Marine Corps.

Basically, I'd rather get your say before doing what could be a bad move and thus incur a lot of re-editing. Do you think such categorisation would make better reference? Or should we stick to asterisks? --Hawki 10:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Ideas
May I suggest on putting Quotes on all pages and sections? I'm not willing to do it.(Assaulthead 21:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC))

I got a better idea called putting images everywhere. Like on this article of Cloaking lets put up a picture of a Wrath, Banshee or even Mothership on pages like that.(Assaulthead 19:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC))

Sysop?
It's close to midnight actually. Anyway, thanks for the promotion, although I'm curious as to what duties/abilities it entails. I've noticed abilities such as "protect" and "rollback" which seem to be self explanatory to a degree, but I'd rather have clarification before actually using them.

Thanks again.--Hawki 13:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification.--Hawki 13:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I've outlined some 'principles' in 69's user talk that should hopefully keep him in line. BTW, I also think the flagship article should be deleted. A category is one thing, but if done, it would probably be too similar to the List of Terran Starships.--Hawki 21:38, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Terran article's background story
Well, yes, I might have overshot, making it too long. But mind you, I was not directly "copying" the manual, as I I had to tralsnate those parts of the manual that I used. Regards, --Argus Wryn

"It (translating) amounts to the same thing :)" Well, I can't really agree with this. If this would be Finnish site and I would have directly have copied the text word by word then I would agree. And when it comes to my translating skill, I'm pretty good at English although I make grammatical errors and misspell from time to time and I don't say that I am native speaking level. In any case, translating is not straightforward. I get your meaning though, "raises memories of what I read back then from my version of the manual".

In any case, what was this issue you raised exactly about? I do not belive that I am breaking any policies. Regards, --Argus Wryn

"Simply that you "went overboard" in putting the material there, as you've admitted." I admitted that I might have overshot in making the article too long. If that it the problem it still is not an excuse to revert my edits like you did. I actually felt a bit offended by that,as it took me some effort (it wasn't exactly minute or straightforward thing to do). Elements of my version should still be used and not just reverted, as parts of the article are flawed Lorewise. Regards, --Argus Wryn

"Could you please reduce some of the extraneous material in the article?" What do you mean by this? Regards, --Argus Wryn

Well, I did what you suggested, and you were right, it's better that way. Perhaps you would like to consult me with the rest of the article (I have done quite alot of edits to the entire article now) now?

Another thing, could you help me with this problem I have while playing StarCraft? The game's CGI-movies do not seem to like my computer. During CGI-movies the pixels are not "smooth" as they should be, leaving visible "marks" (more or less coloured the same way as that particular area of the CGI-movie should be, but they clearly stand out) on parts of the screen during the movie (I hope you understand what I am saying. Technical terms like this are not exactly my speciality :P). Do you know what is causing this and what I can do to about it? Cheers. Regards, --Argus Wryn

I'm sorry for messing up on quotes over and over again.(Assaulthead 19:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC))

Terran article reply
I would discuss it with him, but he appears to be one of the stubborn fanboys who are unable to accept that they may be wrong and are too quick to infer facts from anything, no matter how unreliable. My main objective for coming here was to attempt to make this place a good add-on to the Wikipedia information to which I am currently renovating, sort of as the same symbiotic relationship that Memory Alpha has with Star Trek articles, but when faced with uncompromising moronity (I'm sorry, there's no other word for it) from someone who is synthesising facts based entirely on circumstantial grounds I wonder if it is worth the effort. I may return at a later stage, when I've finished my work redoing the StarCraft articles over at Wikipedia.

In the meantime, might I recommend cleaning up the presentation of this place? In addition to a more suitable skin preferably based on the monobook skin (see if you can't make it like a Terran computer interface), you'd do well to get some policy and style guides up: define how the articles are meant to be read: as "us", or maybe as Memory Alpha does: as someone inside the universe looking at an in-universe database. Likewise, referencing stuff would be good, especially to get that symbiotic relation with Wikipedia. When people start attempting to put the burden of (dis)proof on other contributors who try to get rid of unfounded assumptions, it doesn't say much for the factual accuracy of the place. 90.202.37.174 22:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * It's nice to know that someone has sympathy and that you too feel that policy is needed. It's a shame you can't work a new skin up, but I'll keep my eyes open for any information that could be of help to you in that regard. You are right, registering certainly gives better authority, I'm not entirely sure why I didn't use my account, especially as I had created one before that edit war. I've reverted those changes to my userpage as well: they were by me, I was just stressed out and annoyed that day anyway - not really like me, but it can happen. I'll stick around, do some minor clearups and so forth: I want to get Wikipedia in order first before doing major stuff, and although its going well (Characters of StarCraft is now classified a good article) there's masses of work still to do: namely the species and locations.


 * As an aside, why is the Terran Confederacy article protected? Other than I've got an entirely in-universe article that was from my early Wikipedia days that with some edits and better referencing would be at home here, I had to wait several days until I wasn't classified as a new user before I could add the accurate insignia to the article. -- Sabre 10:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Story
Hey. I'm a complete StarCraft nerd now that I have been involved in the wiki for a while. I read two of the books and one WoW book and I am hooked. Jesus, those books are good. I can't remember the name of the latest one, like Firstborn or something, but I read it and its really great. my point. If you havent read it yet, you should. starcraft is one of the only games with good storylines. cheers ChaoticNeutral 04:47, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I've not only read it, I've read all the StarCraft novels and short stories and wrote articles on them. PsiSeveredHead 17:51, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Templates and Terrans
The upload log will tell you this but I've come across a stack of SC: Ghost screenshots, all of them (hopefully) sourced correctly (although I used some pom date systems at times). Given the confirmation of all these units, I think that it may be a good idea for a SC: Ghost unit template to be created, if only for units. Maybe some structures too, and screenshots exist also, but perhaps not.

While on the subject of querries, I was also wondering about the Minor Terran Characters article, how none of them have the same unit box as major characters. Is this an intentional omission? Granted, characters such as the scavengers at the beginning wouldn't really need it but given the definite alliegances of characters such as Tom Kazansky and Ulli Trey, they could probably benefit from this.--Hawki 05:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

"Such a unit template would have to have very limited information. What would you put in them?"

For at least Terrans and Zerg, it might be wise to seperate them primarily along the lines of player units, vehicles and NPCs, eg;

Terrans


 * Player Units: Marine/Firebat/Light Infantry/Ghost
 * Player Vehicles: Vulture/Grizzly/Stinger/Siege Tank
 * NPCs: SCV/Dropship/Goliath/Seeker Droid/Battlecruiser

Zerg


 * Player Units: Zergling/Hydralisk/Mutalisk/Infested Marine
 * Player Vehicles: N/A
 * NPCs: Overlord/Ultralisk/Lurker

Protoss


 * Player Units: N/A
 * Player Vehicles: N/A
 * NPCs: Zealot/Dragoon/High Templar/Vindicator

Obviously this is problamatic considering the discrepencies of development between Terrans and Protoss. Still, it may have potential.--Hawki 12:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Avatars and Avians
I've been wondering about Taldarin and Morris, about their avatars. Are they of a Dragoon and Firebat respectively and hence able to be added to their profiles? Or are they special to the N64 game? BTW, you were right about the yellow bird. Maybe an entry in Alpha Squadron would be good.--Hawki 21:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Guns and Gauss Rifles
You can probably tell that the Gauss Rifle article probably isn't the most well formatted in the world. Anyway, I was thinking about the scaled down Gauss Rifle, how it might actually be a sub-machine gun that Light Infantry weild. It may be good to remove it from the article and put it in a list article, not to mention the added bonus of clutterring up the article less.. Seemed best to get some feedback on the issue beforehand though.--Hawki 01:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Space reserved for MikaelGrizzly
MikaelGrizzly, I noticed you had a huge problem with spam on the C&C wiki caused by a single "contributor". There's no need to put up with all the stress of continually reverting bad edits. I'll say more if you respond. PsiSeveredHead 02:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Why, hello there. Damn, I should lurk more and edit more here too, being the geek I am. Anyways, it'll be good to hear advice from you, since I'm sometimes so... annoyed, I'm seriously considering using the block option. Shaur M. S. Grizlin 10:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Ghost Articles
Quite a few of the 'letters' may have come from the referances, as the full referances would have to be used quite a few times. I also added some extra info at the start of the article.--Hawki 05:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Main page overhaul
The current main page, at least in my opinion, is a little big and unwieldy. If you agreed, could I prepare a concept for a new main page? Shaur M. S. Grizlin 15:19, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Character Articles
Going by the 'self sufficency policy', albeit not official, it seems to work best to give characters their own articles if enough info can be scrounged up. Concerning the minor Protoss characters, there's basically two scenarios; they're either left as articles and require no maintanance or are attatched to unit articles and make them look unexpanded. Should Blizzard revive them by some chance, if they exist as character articles they're easy to update. Simply attatched to main articles, it's not as easy to make the shift, especially when it comes to referancing and sub-referancing.

Granted, there are some REALLY minor Terran characters that probably don't deserve this treatment yet. Best to leave the small fish until last. Still, it's much easier to create a character article and be done with it than simply create referances and expand them later IMO. Still, if you want me to stop and/or modify this approach, say so.--Hawki 00:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Boo
Dear PsiSeveredHead,

Hiya there! =] Back-ish. Anything you want me to be workin' on? ^^

Cheers,

RelentlessRecusant 'o the Halopedia Team http://images.wikia.com/rainbowsix/images/7/73/GDI2.jpg TALK • MESSAGE 05:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Zergling
"Have you noticed the picture in the upper left corner going missing? It's above the navigation panel. I asked elsewhere, and was told that other people could see it (so maybe my computer is just messed up)."

Hate to say it, but the Zergling is still there.--Hawki 08:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Episodes
Can't quite remember, but I think that there may have been a cleanup of the episode pages at some point. Regardless, I think it may be good to do some expansion on them, along with the issue of sections. For easier clarification, I think it would be good if mission titles were interwoven more fully into the narrative. Not that current titles are lost (as that would be hell for redirects) but by breaking it down furthur/alternating between Level 2 and 3 headlines, it could become more distinct. An example of this is in Episode III, where mission 3 is simply mentioned as part of the Second Battle of Antioch. If anything, Scion should have the spotlight, given its place in the campaign.

Also, especially considering that the Episodes may have been based after Star Wars, their titles should perhaps reflect this (eg. StarCraft Episode I: Rebel Yell). The names feel like part of an overall title rather than simply addons.

Anyway, just a few ideas.--Hawki 01:10, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Cleaning up the Episode entries are on my to-do list... right after Daggoth, Zasz and (probably by the time I'm done with them) Shadow Hunters. And then the secret project I'll have to email you about. *Sigh* Well, at least I could clean up the titles. I'll see if I can hack at the sections tomorrow, but the real clean-up will have to wait a bit. PsiSeveredHead 03:13, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Assaulthead...
...is at it again: http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Contributions/64.58.144.10

His grammar is too unique ;)

Shaur M. S. Grizlin 08:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Need I prove more, Psi? :) Shaur M. S. Grizlin 09:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Talk and Templates
In all honesty, the chances of me getting up at 5am are next to nothing.

Also, I've wondered about the templates for SC2 in light of cancelled units and structures. Such articles probably shouldn't go in categories for those that appear in the game, but perhaps cancelled lists could be added to the templates for easier reference. Just a thought.--Hawki 12:29, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Listing the units/structures would probably look and operate better.--Hawki 12:50, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

RE: Fanfiction
Dear PsiSeveredHead,

Roger that. I founded it a week or so ago. ^^

How do you think we should begin moving the fanon? =]

Cheers,

RelentlessRecusant 'o the Halopedia Team http://images.wikia.com/rainbowsix/images/7/73/GDI2.jpg TALK • MESSAGE 04:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Problem user
Hi PsiSeveredHead! I'm Catherine, from the Wikia Community Team. Thanks for all your good work here!

I wanted to touch base with you about Assaulthead. He has been globally blocked, and informed of the reasons for it, and we are encouraging him to find another community on the Internet where he would be more welcome. I suggest that your best course of action now is to allow his exit to be a quiet one. Talking about him on the wiki only encourages him to come back and keep reading and "retaliating", instead of moving on and getting involved elsewhere. You may of course continue to delete his edits, and to block the accounts or IPs he uses to evade his block, but please use neutral, boring edit and blocking summaries.

Thanks, best wishes, and let me know if there's anything else I can do to help this wiki out! — Catherine (talk) 05:20, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Alternity?
I've stubled across a rather interesting site that has the list of attributes for a StarCraft D6 game. Is this a copy of Alternity and therefore info we can use? Or simply fanon? Either way, it still has some good images.--Hawki 11:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, its fanon based.--Hawki 11:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

RE: Cobra
You're probably right about the Cobra, that it was a misreading on my part. Many in the thread seem to think so and it's been 'confirmed' to have been binned here. Not sure as to its overall validity, but there was a direct there from the forum. Has some good pictures too.--Hawki 23:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Checking In & Fanon
Hiya, Just wanted to check in and see how things were going. The wiki is looking great! I noticed Starcraft Wiki pageviews have been steadily increasing. Congrats! I noticed that are a lot of people creating fanon content around Starcraft. I know this wiki is focused on canon, but I was thinking it could be complementary to add a Fanon Section (perhaps as a new namespace) for this wiki. If the section gets really big you could always spin it off to a separate wiki.. Thoughts? angies (talk) 19:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

A small question...
Hi there. I'm new to the whole Wiki thing (at least in the sense of taking part in the wiki process), and I have a question about editing...well, sorta about editing. >.> When someone has made an edit, on the "Recent Changes" part of the site, it shows either a number added or a number subtracted next to each edit on the list. What do those numbers represent? Sorry to take up your time with such a noobish question, but it'd help if you could answer. =D      Aeres 01:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: A small question...
Ah, that does make sense. Thank you, Psi. =)          Aeres 02:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Speculation
Sorry, I meant the Star Relic looks like the Nullifier. I believe that the Star Relic was just re-named three times. First the Star Relic then the Stasis Orb and now the Nullifer. I think the Star Relic in the Starcraft II article should be removed from the canceled units section and merged to the Nullifier article.

Greetings
Hey Psi. The wiki looks good, and you're doing a great job as (presumably) the lead admin. If there is anything I can do to help (mainly from of a technical/design standpoint), let me know on my talk page. One thing I did see that needed some attention is MediaWiki:Navlinks (a set of links that appear next to the title banner on all Quartz skins). I added some important links to it. Feel free to edit it as you see fit. One other thing I would suggest is to consider changing the backgrounds of the sections on the main page to transparent. As it is now, a lot of the text is invisible (white on white) to anyone using the Gaming skin. JoePlay (talk) 22:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and changed the backgrounds on the main page to transparent. I see you noticed and made the backgrounds of the headers transparent as well. I was going to ask you about the header colors after I made my edits, but had to run an errand for a bit. No worries now though, since you've already taken care of them. Good job.


 * If there is anything else you need help with or have questions about, don't hesitate to message me. I am a Wikia Helper after all. =) JoePlay (talk) 00:45, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello.
Yes, I'm the one who you welcomed yesterday. I'm asking who are the sysops here? (I'm asking who has admin rights here, not what do the admins do because I know that through 1800 contribs on en.wiki. with Kfc1864.)&#91;&#91;User:Worker of Doom&#124;&lt;font color=&quot;blue&quot;&gt;SCV&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font color=&quot;green&quot;&gt;&#39;s&lt;/font&gt; &#91;&#91;User talk:Worker of Doom&#124;&lt;font color=&quot;red&quot;&gt;report&lt;/font&gt;]]]] 03:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

StarCraft Wiki on Gamespot
Wikia has partnered with Gamespot to let them link to our some of Wikia's game wikis. This is a great way to promote our wikis to Gamespot's readers and recruit new readers and editors. We launched four of them in November (Halo, Call of Duty, Mass Effect, and Tabula Rasa) and we are planning to add a bunch more in February, including StarCraft Wiki. They are interested in adding a StarCraft Wiki tab to their Gamespot StarCraft gamepage. This tab would look identical to the Halopedia Tab. The content (Featured articles, Recent Changes, Popular Articles) is generated via a content feed that Wikia sets up.

For this to work for StarCraft Wiki, I would need your help setting up a Featured Content templates similar to how Mass Effect does it. This allows the Wikia feed to send Gamespot featured content snippets and images. There are instructions for how to do this on w:c:inside:Featured Article System. Please let me know if you can help out getting this set up? PS. Can you pass this onto the other admins and users, please? Thanks! Kirkburn (talk) 06:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * PsiSeveredHead, I have taken the liberty of cobbling together the necessary infrastructure. Meco 07:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess this is somewhat stating the obvious, but it seems most logical to have most, if not all of the featured articles being units. Considering that gamespot is a game site (obviously), StarCraft units are what its users can identify with the most. IMO, the most iconic units for each race are;

Terran


 * Marine
 * Firebat
 * Ghost
 * Siege Tank
 * Battlecruiser

Zerg


 * Hydralisk
 * Mutalisk
 * Ultralisk
 * Infested Terran

Protoss


 * Zealot
 * Archon/Dark Archon
 * High Templar/Dark Templar
 * Carrier

Game characters have a place too I guess, though this isn't as clear cut. Raynor and Infested Kerrigan can generally make the cut without effort, though the rest are generally subjective. Still, that's just me.--Hawki 13:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The 'cool' units are pretty much the ones I mentioned above. I generally measure units' 'coolness' by how iconic they are.--Hawki 07:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Template Issues
Hey Psi. All you have to do is change the background setting to transparent for each section of the template that is displaying white text on white background. In the example of the Template:Unitbox, I made those changes so that you could see exactly what I did by looking at the history. I hope that helps you for fixing the other templates, and any other white-in-white occurances you find. Let me know if I can help with anything else. JoePlay (talk) 23:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm... after I made those changes, I looked at the template in use on a couple pages and noticed that the line created by section headers (Overview and Game Unit) visibly passes thru the infobox. If the wikis' visitors who use the Gaming skin don't mind those lines, then go ahead and apply those changes to the other templates. If, however, those visible lines are unacceptable, I think you can go back to the white background and force the template to use black text. Leave me a message if you want to try that option. JoePlay (talk) 23:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I rolled back the changes I made and specified the text to be black by adding color:#000; to the table's style (see history). So essentially, the Unitbox now looks the same on the Gaming skin as it does on every other skin. And no, this won't have any impact on non-Gaming skin users. For all other skins, the default text color is already black, whereas the default color on the Gaming skin is white. Let me know if you have any questions. JoePlay (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, the color of the links can only be changed by editing the wiki's formatting.css file, which we don't have access to. I would suggest trying out background colors (perhaps a gray?), by making a similar edit to the one I did when I changed them to transparent, until you find a color that works well for the dark blue and light blue link colors. Let me know if you need any help with it. JoePlay (talk) 01:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Overhaul of the mainpage
I did it! Sorry for keeping you waiting, life prevented proper work... anyhoo...

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/User:MikaelGrizzly%5CMPDraft

Here it is. It's better in my opinion, I'll reply to any questions. :) Shaur M. S. Grizlin 14:56, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the new header and WikiaGaming sections (much more compact). I like the featured article being in the top-left (text needs some padding from the cell sides), and the headers filling the widths of their columns (although perhaps the "StarCraft Universe" header could be in a box too.)

I think the StarCraft Saga column looks too bloated with the centered text and the long "Amazing Stories" text. I'd rather have the points in basic indented lists and slim the width of the column as much as possible. This would make possible putting more pictures in the left column. (One thing I like about the current main page is that it has more pictures/eyecandy. This one's a bit barren.)

For each race, perhaps it'd be more useful to have something like:

Terrans
 * Characters
 * Organizations
 * Units

If we slim down the width of the right column, we might still have room for blurbs and pictures, as in the current main page. Although I think we'd need to find some better pictures. That's all I can think of for now. Meco 18:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Halfway through rejigging the right panel... like it? Shaur M. S. Grizlin 18:42, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Overall, the draft appears ok. However, I think it could be scaled down a bit. Given the abundunce of SC literature, it would probably be easier to simply have a Category: Novels. Also, instead of listing species (Terran, Zerg, etc.), maybe just a Category: Races link? True, some species have far more relevance to the storyline than others, but considering that said species comprise the majority of SC's races at this point in time, a link to a category page wouldn't be that detrimental.--Hawki 22:21, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, on 1280x800 it fits perfectly. Can't tell about lower resolutions though. About the races, I was thinking of something like this:
 * Terrans
 * Characters &middot; Units &middot; Structures
 * It's a rough draft of an idea. Shaur M. S. Grizlin 22:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Most other wikis display the names of all races and novels on their main pages. I think we should keep that.

Is it possible to limit the width of the top section? PsiSeveredHead 22:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

RE: Scroll box
After looking at the code for the sroll box template, I realized that there was nothing else that can be done to it to fix the white text in the section headers (since you already had text set to black). Then I looked at the Karune page and noticed that you used the simple font color html code to make some text appear blue, so I tried doing that with the text in the section header and it worked. Huzzah!

Batch 1
I only applied it to Batch 1. I'll let you fix the rest of the Batch headers. If the scroll box is used on a lot of pages, and you want some help applying this fix to some of those pages, just let me know. I'd be glad to help. JoePlay (talk) 18:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Skin and template changes
Overall, the current skin probably works better, although will take some getting used to. The problem however, is the gray sidebar, which runs the risk of 'merging' with the gray unit boxes. Overall, I generally prefer the all white version more, though it's probably less efficent.--Hawki 09:39, 27 January 2008 (UTC)