Talk:Main Page

From BluePlanet
Jump to navigation Jump to search

I suggest we use this page to discuss how we want to develop this wiki. One thing I would encourage doing right away is developing a system for citing the BP source books. Also, I encourage anyone interesting in creating or editing pages to create a username. It's fast and easy and it makes it easier for us to learn about each other's work. --Peter 12:17, 15 Mar 2005 (PST)

One suggestion I'd like to make, Peter, is that when adding topics or pages to a list (such as the main page) that the titles are listed alphabetically. I feel that this will make it much easier for all users to find the information they need. --User:TomCusworth 21:18, 15 mar 2005 (GMT)

Sounds good. I had just listed things in order of relevance (in my opinion). --Peter 13:25, 15 Mar 2005 (PST)

Here's my suggestion for citations from the sourcebooks:- Title (BPv) ppx-y. Translation: Title of Sourcebook (Blue Planet Rules Version number) pages x-y. Example: (Using the Travel Cradle for Cetaceans) Fluid Mechanics (BPv2) pp44-45 That should be simple enough to stay reasonably consistent. However, if anyone else has another idea, I'm all ears. User:Tom Cusworth 21:47 15032005

I think we should drop the rules version ID, the reason being that when a reader follows the link she can read about it. It just add clutter to the text IMHO. For the rest I think it is OK. I also think that we should have a look at how to add Access Denied material. E.g. I would like to add some material to NRM that most definetely is Acccess Denied. Should we have a seperate header at the end or a seperate category? For the time being maybe the former is the best, least amount of work and still easy to find but when when the Wiki grows I think that the latter is best. (Besides, I hope to be able to add some material later this week and during the weekend. I will focus on NRM, Zion Islands and Biogene.) One last note; how do we distinguish betweeen offical material and user added? E.g. I would like to write up some new material for NRM and Biogene, but how do you think that I/we should mark it? Steverud 01:42, 16 Mar 2005 (PST)

Good point about the versions. However, as of right now this is a minor thing and one we can easily change as things evolve. I wouldn't worry too much about it either way right now. As for Access Denied, I would recommend seperate pages, with the name format 'Name (Access Denied)'. There should also be a main introductory page to Access Denied to explain what it is, warn about spoilers, and link to the individual articles. As for official materials versus later additions, I would say that the main pages should have the official versions. If some fan additions are very popular to the point of being semi-official (I would include answers Jeff and Jim have given on the mailing list in this, as they're (obviously) accepted, though not in the books) they could also be listed on the main page, though in a seperate section and a clear notice that the info isn't in the books. Individual developments should go into seperate pages , which could be linked from the main, official, page. --Peter 08:47, 16 Mar 2005 (PST)

Sounds good to me, I propose the following structure:

  • Main page
    • Official material - Anything that Biohazard has approved.
      • Access Denied
    • Gamer Contributed Material - Anything that "everyone" agrees is good.
      • Access Denied.
    • Optional Material - Anything. Period. Cross-overs like Poseidon in a Star Wars universe, specific campaigns etc.
      • Access Denied

What do you think? Steverud 11:01, 16 Mar 2005 (PST)

I've done some reading and think that the way of doing this is by using Categories, I can't say I completely understood Templates. I propose the following:

  • (None) - Official material
  • Access Denied - Official Access Denied
  • Contributed - Gamer Contributed Material
  • Contributed Access Denied - Guess what...?
  • Optional
  • Optional Access Denied

For instance, I plan to use Farnsworht (located on Apache in the Zion Islands cluster) as the base for my campaign and most of the material I add there would be under the Contributed category. If I don't see any objections I think I will use it rather soon, probably this weekend. :-)

Should we have separate sub categories for NPCs etc.? How to handle them? Is this a problem at all for the foreseeable future? Steverud 11:56, 17 Mar 2005 (PST)

Steverud, great suggestions. I like the categories, though I would say avoid sub-categories for now, as it could easily get out of control. =) --Peter 00:00, 18 Mar 2005 (PST)

Added Category:Blue Planet Books. Blue Planet Books should probably be merged into the category page. --Peter 11:29, 21 Mar 2005 (PST)

Added a stub template. Just put the following in the article: <pre>{{stub}}</pre> --Peter 07:00, 23 Mar 2005 (PST)

Hey there Peter & Steverud (Steve?), Tom here. The Wiki is looking good so far (mainly due to our efforts). I've concentrated so far on adding the index from the Moderator's Guide to the main page. I fully intend to contribute to the pages that spring from them, as well as add some of the stuff I have (only in my head at the moment) when it's in a decent form.

Question? Can you add graphics to the wiki pages?? If so, I feel maps & floorplans of vessels, settlements, habitats or even small islands might be an idea when we're more established with the body of the thing.

It's just occurred to me that this is a HUGE peoject (even without going into a lot of detail) but well worth it. I'm playing in a BP game at the moment which is absolutely fantastic, my Silva Warden character has just lost a foot during a narrow escape from a Lesser White (Praise Kong for multiglands & anti-shock!!), the attack happened when we were attempting a rescue of some Atlas scientists in El Mar Del Sur...two words NASTY BEAST! I LOVE this game, a lot. User: Tom Cusworth

I was called Steve in College (or the equivalent, we have a different system here in Sweden), but Jonas is my first name in case you don't want to use my last name. :-) It sounds good, I will focus on Apache and everything I create from my campaign. When it comes to graphics it is all up to Peter do decide, it is his hard drive. MediaWiki can handle graphics, just read the editing help, it is fairly simple. Most of the graphics I will include will be included as links to other sites due to copyright issues. See Apache for an example. Steverud 13:20, 24 Mar 2005 (PST)

Nice page, Jonas. I look forward to seeing it develop further. I will write up and enter the details of my Moderator's plot, characters and setting (I've gained his permission to do so) when the campaign is finished The basic premise is we're working for a team of scientists on a remote island in Elmar del Sur (located approximately at the bend in the 'R', I will formalise the coordinates when detailing the setting). We each have two characters, either a security type, when action is required, or a administration/transport type for when thinghs are a little less fraught.

The main problem is that my Silva, Joseph, has an uncanny knack for being pounced on by nasty beasties. He was jumped by a marsh devil on the island & survived only due to (extremely lucky) dodge rolls. He lost his foot when rescuing some shipwrecked sailors who had been attacked by marauders. He was just about to connect the last survivor up to the jumpcraft's winch apparatus, when he was chomped on by a Lesser White (again saved from death by a fortunate dice roll).

Tom Cusworth

I have about 10 GB of space free, so as long as you don't upload more than that, it'll be fine. Once you upload an image you can follow the "Special Pages" link in left bar to a page that has all the photos uploaded. If you have anything, please do upload it! --Peter 10:10, 25 Mar 2005 (PST)

Ok, no problem. I think that the only uses for pictures will be for player/moderator contributed maps, flora & fauna etc. Anyway, that's how I see it. Ten gigs is quite a lot for this wiki, I should think more than sufficient for the purpose. Am I right in thinking I read somewhere that the wiki uses 1 byte per character? That's a LOT of characters in 10 gig!

Let's have a brainstorming session as to how we can get more members of the Yahoo! Group to contribute. I get the sense that there are a couple of members, swithering on the verge of contributing. I don't know if it's unfamiliarity with the interface/commands for a wiki (at least that's the impression I get from the posts so far).

We need to, I think, put a link to the wiki in the links section of the group. Also, a post per day to remind people to contribute to the wiki. That's my ideas - thoughts? Tom Cusworth 11:47hrs, 26 Mar 2005 (GMT)

If Jeff and the others approve we could also scan in some art from the books. As for getting people involved, I think posts highlighting progress would be good. I wouldn't have them everyday, as that can get annoying. Maybe every two or three days or once a week... Putting the wiki in the links section is a great idea. One thing I'll do when I have time (I'm on vacation in Paris right now) is develop a detailed help page telling people how and why to contribute (of course, if anyone else wants to get working on this that would be great). --Peter 08:58, 26 Mar 2005 (PST)

I think we're getting enough content now that we can clean-up our main page, with users able to follow links and use the search tool to find articles. Comments? --Peter 20:11, 30 Mar 2005 (PST)

AOL Mode: Mee too. Isn't it also about time to replace the Wiki-logo with a BP one? As for art I think we should add the maps - if Biohazard approves. Steverud 22:25, 1 Apr 2005 (PST)

Ok, then I'll go through later today (Saturday, 2005-04-02) and create an new, cleaner main page. As for a logo, sure, but I don't have any graphic skills. =) As for maps, that would be HUGE. I'll send an email to the mailing list about it right now. Even if they don't want official maps on the site we can still put user-created ones, whether for official or unofficial locations. --Peter 00:22, 2 Apr 2005 (PST)

Ok, the new main page is up. Also, check out the help documents, as I've done a lot of work on them. In addition, I created templates for referencing BPv1 and BPv2. Use the following code: (BPv1) <pre>(BPv1)</pre> (BPv2) <pre>(BPv2)</pre> This makes page references slightly shorter and makes potential future changes to the way we reference book versions much easier. --Peter 00:19, 3 Apr 2005 (PST)

I cannot make up my mind of which is the best for links; The A or A, the. What does people think. I am currently working on Bluedive's MG Index and this gives me a bit of a headache. I think we should be consistent throughout the Wiki. Steverud 07:14, 4 Apr 2005 (PDT)

Is it a good idea to create categories for creatures? Category:Natural Selection (Flora) and Categories:Natural Selection (Fauna)? I can't come up with a good category, but I think we should have one category for both flora and fauna.

On a related note, I'll guess we have the Most Wanted category as well for NPCs? In that case I am going to create Contributed Most Wanted rather soonish. Objections? Is there a good place to describe which categories we have and what they are used for? Steverud 13:07, 4 Apr 2005 (PDT)

The more categories the better! You can always go to Special:Categories to see all the categories that currently exist. --Peter 16:51, 4 Apr 2005 (PDT) 

                                                                             ----

Hey guys! It looks like we've been the victim of a spammer (I'm not sure of the correct term). Basically someone stuck a bunch of links to one of these online pharmacy sites onto this page. I've removed them. --[User:Tom Cusworth] 19th May

Hah Hah Hah, so someone has nothing better to do with their time than cut & paste a bunch of pharmacy links on this WIKI? Please try to get a life. We don't want that crap here, we'll only delete it. So ask yourself, is it really worth it? For those of you who don't know, I just deleted a whole bunch of others, tagged onto the previous message...witty, I don't think.. [User: Tom Cusworth] 20th May

Tom, I believe they're bots that do it. I'm going through and cleaning up pages and banning their IPs for 2 weeks. I believe you should also be able to ban people. If you don't see that option on "Special pages" tell me and I'll make you an admin. Steverud, you too... --Peter 15:18, 21 May 2005 (PDT)

Thanks, Peter. That would be helpful. I don't see that link on the Special Pages section. Sorry I haven't been around for a while; I've been busy with exams - still 18 days to go & my essay should be complete & handed in. Then I'll be able to devote more time to the wiki. You guys have done a fantastic job so far - it's really starting to take shape. Is it still just the three of us that've been contributing, or has anyone else posted things? It seems a shame if it is the work of only three people (well, mainly two!!), but you should be proud. Has there been any feedback from the Biohazard guys, or any indication when it might be able to be put on the BHZ website? Should we be reminding people on the BP list that the WIKI is out there? --Tom 23rd May 05

It appears you have two accounts, Tom Cusworth and TomCusworth. Which one should I make a sysop? As for work, I'm graduating in 3 weeks, so I too will have more time to work on the wiki after that. The mailing list has been pretty quiet, but maybe we could send another email out encouraging people to contribute. I haven't heard anything new from the Biohazard guys. --Peter 22:07, 24 May 2005 (PDT)

I don't see any banning link (I relly don't know where to look either), but I've been thinking that we maybe only should permit edits by logged in users? My campaign haven't started yet and I don't think I will add very much before that. There is some talk about a player locator in the BP list, is that something that we should have here at the Wiki? I don't know if a offical Wiki would increase the contribution rate but it is worth trying - and any copyright issues would resolve themselves by automatic. ;-) Steverud

Steverud, you are now an admin. Tom, just tell me which account you plan on using most in the future and I'll make you an admin too. Oh, and I discovered this: Special:Wantedpages. Very handy. --Peter 22:50, 26 May 2005 (PDT)

Hmmmm, sorry, don't know how that happened... I'll go with Tom Cusworth, please. The campaign my Moderator is currently running should be ending soon and there are some comprehensive notes. He's given me permission to add it to the wiki (I've tried to persuade him to contribute himself, but no dice!). It's been really good fun. It was my first, too. I'll appraoch him and the other players form his game last year, too. That one sounded like a lot of GREAT Fun, (pharium deals gone wrong, theft of Long John shipments, the mob got involved & the incorporates were out to get them..... - really wish I'd played in that one). Anyway, thanks Peter Tom Cusworth

Cool. You are now an admin. --Peter 22:57, 29 May 2005 (PDT)


Guys, I'm having a little difficulty adding stuff to the "Category: Contributed" page. I want to add the entry "Home" under H, but when I try to add to the "Category: Contributed" page by clicking on the "EDIT" tab, there is no alphabetical list... I'm stumped, please help. Tom Cusworth

You don't edit the category page; that list is auto-generated. Rather, you edit the Home page and put NaodW29-pre488f7b42632d2a4d00000001 at the end of the page. --Peter 00:30, 9 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Thanks very much, Peter. I'll get to work on that ASAP! Tom Cusworth


I've added Home the island base for the campaign I'm currently playing in and Joseph Young to their respective categeories (Contributed Places) and (Contributed Most Wanted). --Tom 20:45 GMT, 13 Jun 2005.


Added a few more pages & personalities to the Home information - find them under the link below Category:Contributed Most Wanted. Thanks Tom 1945 GMT, 17 June 2005.

I've just blocked my first link spammer and I must say that I think it is over due to requuest edits to be made by logged in users. How many contributions have we got from real non-logged in users and how many from spammers?

BTW, I hope I will start to add material about Apache in September-ish. --Steverud 10:13, 18 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Thanks for doing that. I locked the main page; you and Tom, as admins, should still be able to edit it. I don't know how to disable anonymous editting. If you find a guide, let me know. I've been quite busy this summer but if I get some free time maybe I'll sit down and create some more stub entries, especially from the mailing list archives. --Peter 13:42, 19 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Welcome to the new server. It looks like the server move was successful. --Peter 03:58, 2 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Ok, it now looks like I'm getting up to speed... I've added several new items but I really cannot make up my mind if Haven Institute for Science and Technology should retain its long name or be renamed to HIST. What do the rest of you think? What do you think about the other things I've added? BTW, should we add a category where we note which contributed items that are tied to a specific campaign? I'm thinking of ChrisTheS' Efan Orm Radashe et al and everything I describe around Apache? E.g. Category:Storm in Paradise for my part (that is the name of my campaign). Will it just make things complicated or will it make things better? Any opinions? Steverud 15:27, 1 Nov 2005 (EST)

On HIST I would say go with whatever is most common, as that is what the average newbie is likely to search for. For example, normally one talks of MIT, not the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That being said, since the search engine should pick up either one (I noticed you used HIST in the text), there's no pressing need to change it. As for contributed campaigns, I think that would be quite nice from an organizational standpoint. Perhaps you could make the category a sub-category of Contributed? Unfortunately I don't know how to do this. Maybe the MetaWiki documentation covers it. --Peter 18:25, 2 Nov 2005 (EST)

I'll have a look at the docs later this week, but how about "Category:Campaign - Storm in Paradise" instead of "Category:Contributed Storm in Pradise"? I.e. have a paralllel "top category" to Contributed that is named Campaign? I'll have a look at the docs if we can solve this in a good way. E.g. the Cochise Station should IMHO then be in both the Campaign and the Contributed categories. Steverud 11:51, 3 Nov 2005 (EST)

That sounds fine. --Peter 04:54, 4 Nov 2005 (EST)

I think that we should have a category named "Category:Campaign - name of campaign" and have that being an subcategory of "Category:Contributed". This is archived by adding "Category:Contributed" to "Category:Campaign - ..." I don't think we should have "Campaign" and then "Storm in Paradise" since that will become a mess. See [1] for details. I will implement this during the day so you can see how it work (i.e. see the Cochise Station soonish.

BTW is there anyone that understands how to change the look of the site including the logo? It seems to require editing of the CSS (fine by me) but I cannot see/understand how that would be applied to the entire site and not only my own look when I surf the site. I think we should change it. But how? Steverud 04:31, 5 Nov 2005 (EST)

The easiest way to change the logo is just overwrite the file. I can do this very easily if you give me the graphic. --Peter 13:02, 5 Nov 2005 (EST)

I am no artist so I wait (as you probably noticed) with the image. I've started to experiment with templates to get a better format for the links to the books.

The idea is that the template can be used for formatting the link better and help in the referencing. Should the page be a parameter or left outside the template?

Please let me know what you think... Steverud 13:46, 5 Dec 2005 (EST)

Steverud, I like how you did it. I think taking the page as a parameter is good, as it allows us to easily to change the template easily. Can each template be defined as {{book_template}} pp.[param]? That is, generalize it even more, so that we change one template and the formatting of all pages references change? Related to that, I think only the number range should be the parameter, with 'pp.' part of the template (granted, you may get 'pp.1'; one solution is to just use 'p.' always). Anyway, do whatever you feel is best. Thanks! --Peter 19:17, 5 Dec 2005 (EST)

Just a quick answer, our BP gaming session will soon begin (still awaiting two players), but the template syntax does not support what you suggest. The parameters has to be within the curly braces and my experimenting yesterday did not reveal a good way of getting around the mandatory pipe symbol. Investigation continues.

I plan to do some templates for Access Denied etc. so we can get a black/yellow striped background to red text that states "Access Denied" at the top. I don't have time to play around until next weekend. Steverud 12:12, 6 Dec 2005 (EST)

I've created a AccessDenied template, see Aborigines for how it looks, I couldn't archive to get the Image:AccessDenied_BG.png image to work as an background. On the template page there is a comment in the source of the page on how I would like to have it to work. Comments? Steverud 04:04, 11 Dec 2005 (EST)

I've also added a new category for Article stubs so we see which pages are stubs. All pages won't list on the category page (the category is used inside the stub template) until the server cache has been updated/reset, e.g. when a stub page is edited. Steverud 05:00, 11 Dec 2005 (EST)

Just looking very quickly, you're using a javascript call: 'url(image.png)'. This should be just 'image.png'. However, changing that didn't fixed it. I'll be out of town for a few days, so I won't be able to play around with it more until Saturday. --Peter 11:53, 11 Dec 2005 (EST)

Eeek! No Javascript on my pages please! The url() us actually CSS and not javascript. :-) It looks like the Wiki removes the background-image style tag. :-( (Please note that the url() part is part of a commented out div paragraph. I.e. only for our reference and not part of the markup.) I hope background-image is not part of some forbidden list of includes/parser.php (or similar file) at the server? (This is not a big issue but bugs me a bit.) End of wiki-editing for this weekend for my part. Steverud 13:55, 11 Dec 2005 (EST)

I've succeeded in creating the background for Access Denied as I wanted. I had to use table due to lack of support for vertical alignment in CSS (see [2] for details) and I had to edit MediaWiki:Monobook.css, but I hope that is all right? :-) I will do some more editing of Monobook.css to make the site more Poseidonesce, but it will be very slow progress. How about the rest of you folks? How are your editing of the wiki going? ;-) Steverud 05:10, 17 Dec 2005 (EST)

Looks good and feel free to edit the file all you want. Sorry I haven't contributed, but well, I'm busy. ;-) --Peter 09:43, 17 Dec 2005 (EST)

Thanks. :-) I've replaced the logo by editing the Monobook.css (by adding the p-logo id) but sadly there is a bug at the time of this writing; The logo is not clickable to reach the Main Page. I will try to solve this but I have not (yet) found any good documentation of how the Monobook et al really works.. :-( I will have a two weeks vacation during X-mas and New year and I plan to do a lot of planning of my campaign and hence contribute to the Wiki. Steverud 18:30, 17 Dec 2005 (EST)

I think we should join the Blue Water Circle webring but it requires registration etc. and I think that you Peter should be the one that registers the site since you actually owns it. Steverud 14:12, 4 Feb 2006 (EST)

Looking at their stats (which are quite nice), I see that over the last 14 days the entire ring averaged 3 hits and 1 page view. That doesn't sound worth doing to me. I think we'd be better off getting our name out to RPG websites. That'll raise our profile and, secondarily, raise our ranking in Google. That being said, if you think it's worth it, I have no objections. --Peter 05:15, 9 Feb 2006 (EST)

I see your point and agree, my idea where that a Webring will continue to be small as long as no-one adds anything to them. Do sas you see fit. Any ideas on how to promote the site on other sites? Steverud 07:29, 10 Feb 2006 (EST)

Anyone have any idea why the pre tags aren't working anymore? The Help:Editing page is now a mess because of the problem. Also, would there be any objections to whiping a lot of the older comments on the page, so that it's easier to read? The old messages will still exist in the previous versions of the page. --Peter 11:45, 10 Mar 2006 (EST) Oh! I should use the nowiki tag. Of course

Regarding blocking edit of non-logged in users; I've found some documentations/FAQs:

The first one contains all info, the latter is just more detailed. Just add $wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false; and $wgShowIPinHeader = false; # For non-logged in users to LocalSettings.php. The latter variable removes the ip number in the header (see the latter link above for 'details'). Steverud 08:47, 21 Mar 2006 (EST)

Done. Now only logged in users can edit pages. I will make note of this on the main page. --Peter 08:24, 28 Mar 2006 (EST)

Sadly, I have bad news for you. I am currently unlogged in and can write this. Is there some cache that needs to be flushed for the changes to take affect? :-( Considering how things works I think so. I'm googling for the answer right now but so far no success. /Steverud

The problem was that we are running v1.3.1 and wgGroupPermissions is only for v1.5 and higher. I enabled whitelists, the solution for previous versions. --Peter 04:04, 29 Mar 2006 (EST)

Arg, so much for that. If you can figure out how to get this whitelist working that'd be great. --Peter

I think we have two possible sources for error. 1. Syntax and 2. the server does not detect the change. For 1, would you mind email me LocalSettings.php to my mailing address? I currectly working in the dark. :-) For 2, it seems like the server should autodetect the change, maybe a restart of the webserver, if that is an option? Who owns/runs the server? Steverud 07:52, 29 Mar 2006 (EST)

Retrieved from ‘http://bp-rpg.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&oldid=1068’