GTA V images

Please refrain from adding images of or mention of GTA V vehicles in articles on vehicles which haven't appeared in GTA IV (i.e. Skimmer, Pheonix, Cropduster, Tornado, and Mesa Grande). While we can be sure that many cars from GTA IV are going to be in the game even though their names aren't confirmed, that's because they're very much unaltered visually from their GTA IV form, strongly hinting that they'll retain their GTA IV name. Vehicles that haven't appear since GTA Vice City Stories or earlier haven't appeared for nearly five years; anything similar to these vehicles will need to be completely remodeled from scratch but may also receive completely different names in the process. For examples, compare the Sentinel and Oracle for example, or the Emperor, Premier, Enforcer, or Dinghy, which are very different in GTA IV compared to earlier versions. - ZS (talk) 11:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Account on Wikia

Hey Gtajesus, do you, by any chance, have an account on Wikia's GTA Wiki called Tom Reed?--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 12:27, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I am asking you this question, because it has appears that you have plagarised the Bulgarin Family and the Rascalov Family articles off Wikia.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 00:33, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

If you compare the Rascalov Family and Bulgarin Family articles on this wiki with the ones on Wikia's GTA Wiki, you can see that they have very similar wording and layout. Also, the Grand Theft Wiki versions of those two articles were made after the Wikia versions were created.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 01:09, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

In fact, if you compare the Bulgarin Family articles on both wikis, you can see that they are about 98% the same as each other. As your revision was created on August 27 while the Wikia version was created on July 15, that is clear proof that the article was plagarised.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 01:12, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Those two articles, if they have been confirmed to have indeed been plagarised off Wikia's GTA Wiki, they will either be deleted or, if you are lucky, the articles will be kept, but completely rewritten by the Grand Theft WIki staff so that they no longer resemble the GTA Wiki versions. You may be blocked for your offence, but that is the decision of the admins of this wiki. I am just an inspector, appointed by this wiki to keep it clean.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 01:18, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

But seeing that you are a first time offender, you will most likely be given a reprimand.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 01:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, just as I said, you may be blocked for your offence, but that is the decision of the admins of this wiki, not me. I am just an Inspector, designed to keep this wiki clean and trouble free. But seeing as you are a first time offender, you will most likely be given a reprimand or warning.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 01:22, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

A reprimand is just a fancy word for a warning.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 01:22, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

If the Grand Theft Wiki staff decide to block you, you will be informed by one of the GTW admins that you have been blocked, what your offence is, and how long you will be blocked for. That message will be sent to you on your talk page. Bust, like I said, that decision is the decision of the wiki admins, not me. I am just an Inspector, appointed by this wiki to keep it clean and trouble free.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 01:28, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Just don't copy/upload stuff without credit/attribution next time. The same goes to the images of real-life guns you're uploading. You have to provide source from where you have obtained those images. Most likely they are copyrighted and are not allowed to be uploaded anywhere without permission. On this website, stuff can't be simply uploaded or typed without restrictions. Please read this page and understand what it means.--spaceeinstein 05:22, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

And Gtajesus, please bear in mind that the reputation of this wiki will be badly hurt if our users kept plagarising content from other GTA sites and if our users kept uploading copyrighted images without providing a source and licence. Also, please remember that plagarism from Wikia is just going to create unnecessary hostilities, which are not necessary at the moment. I understand that you might hate Wikia as much as the Grand Theft Wiki community and I do, but there are other ways of venting your anger and improving this wiki.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 05:37, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

So, Spaceeinstein, what do you propose we do with those two articles?--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 05:34, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Was the entire page plagiarized? The page can be wiped completely and be redirected to Russian Mafia until someone can rewrite the entire page.--spaceeinstein 07:37, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Both the Rascalov family and the Bulgarin family articles haven been completely plagarised off Wikia's GTA Wiki with no attribution provided.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 08:00, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Licencing images

Hey Gtajesus, I would like you to please remember to give your images a licence, source and a description. The vast majority of your uploaded gun photographs have no licence, source and/or description provided, which makes it hard for us to determine where they come from and if they are legal to use. As you images have potentially breached copyrights and would most likely land this wiki in trouble, I have put your images on death row. If those images are to be saved, you have to quickly give them licences, sources and descriptions before they get the chop. Thank you for your consideration and co-operation.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 01:42, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

This is how to licence new images, the next time you choose to do so: just above the "upload options" section of the image upload page, there is a drop-menu that says "licensing". when you click on the drop menu's arrow (on the right hand side), you will be given a large supply of licensing options to choose from. some cover screenshots, some cover logos etc. If however, you do not know what the license for your image is, just click on the "I don't know what the licence for this image is" option provided on the drop menu, and just include the website where you got the image from on the image's summary, which is basically the description of what ths image is about. If you choose to do that option, the Grand Theft Wiki staff will help to find the licence for the image. Never leave the licence field blank, and never say "i don;t know the license for this image" but not provide the website you got it from. If you do, then the GTW staff will think the image has breached a copyright and they will delete it. I hope this makes sense to you.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 02:03, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I perfectly understand that you need time to work on that matter. I can see from the recent edits page that you are already starting to give licences to those images. I will track your movements, so that as soon as you add an image licence, I will remove the prod tag, therefore taking it off death row. Also, please do not take this matter personally. This death-row matter is nothing personal. I am just trying to keep this wiki out of trouble.--MrLanceVanceDance (talk) 02:07, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Things To Do

Hey - I saw your edit summary saying: "is it just me or is there nothing to edit anymore???" Although we aren't missing any huge chunks of content, there are still a lot of Tasks to do on this wiki. In particular, going through Category:Cleanup and fixing all the crappy/broken pages around the site. Are you up for helping with that? gboyers talk 07:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Good question. We don't have any specific statistical requirements (such as X posts or X length of time). However, we require all admins to have a good working knowledge of this wiki. That means understanding things like how content is organised, how content is presented, how wikitext/code works, how complex templates work, and how the wiki is operated (staff etc). Involvement in discussions and community projects will prove this, whereas someone that just edits pages would find it harder to prove their understanding and usefulness. Also, the job of an admin is different to that of an editor - so getting involved in discussions and disputes lets us see how you handle disagreements and difficult situations, which is vital if we wanted to make someone staff. Looking briefly at your edit count, you don't have many edits outside of the main content and files areas, and not many edits to talk pages, so it would be difficult for you to say you had a good knowledge of the inner workings of the wiki at this stage. If you got involved in more things, proved your expertise, proved your usefulness, and gave us evidence that you'd be a good admin (not just a good editor), then that's when a promotion would be suitable. I hope that helps! gboyers talk 00:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikitext or 'wiki markup' is the name of the code we use on pages of this wiki for things like formatting, adding images, categories etc (usually we just say 'code'). templates can be quite simple bits of code (like {{community}}) but others can be more complex (like {{infobox character}} or {{ambox}}). Into both of these there are the more advanced magic words and parser functions. You'd need a general grasp of how they worked to be able to use all the different pages on this wiki, and to be able to check other users' edits. If all you could do was bold and images, a lot of the wiki's code wouldn't make sense. I don't expect you to be an expert or coding massively complicated things yourself, but it would be very useful! gboyers talk 22:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit Wars

Hi. There is nothing in the rules that says "real-life photos are not allowed" - however there ARE rules against edit wars. Our Behaviour Policy clearly states "If a staff member reverts one of your edits, and you disagree, discuss it with them first. Do not start an edit war. If you can't agree, escalate to a Manager." Do not go around reverting edits and having arguments in the edit summary.

This wiki is built on the idea of community discussion, consensus and openness. If anyone disagrees with something, they have the right to discuss it. That might result in people explaining why they did something, or staff pointing out what our rules/expectations are, or it may result in other people changing their mind because you brought up a good point.

In this situation, you should leave a talk page message on the articles, or if there's a specific user (or staff member) who disagrees you can speak to them directly, explaining your point of view. They'll respond, and hopefully you'll come to an agreement, or at least a compromise. For example, a compromise in this situation might be one specific article covering what GTW weapons look like in real life.

Please do NOT undo other users edits without discussing them first, unless they are vandalism or a mistake such as a syntax problem. If you do revert it, tell them why, and be prepared to explain your actions (at least to help them understand why, so they won't make the same mistake again).

Before you make any further edits to these pages, please discuss them either on the article talk pages or the users' talk pages. Thanks - gboyers talk

Thanks for your apology. An edit war is a back-and-forth of undoing/redoing edits, but here we consider undoing edits angrily to be starting an edit war. I'm sure the users who removed your images believed they had a good reason, so it's probably a good idea to find out what it is, and then come to an agreement for what is best for this wiki. Thanks - gboyers talk 16:26, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
While I would echo Gboyers in so far as remaining civil through edits, my lack of edit summary does not exactly help the situation. I've been very busy behind the scenes, editing as a bot, doing very tedious work. The last thirty days has seen me make 2,199 edits prior to this one, so I've not been using the summaries even when it is more helpful to do so. Now to the reason I removed the images, I just see them as not being needed on the site when he could, for example link to an image of the weapon, much as we with Wikipedia articles for what things are based on. I can't imagine having images of every vehicle that people believe is what something is based on, and the same for weapons really. A-Dust 19:15, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Re: Permissions

This should be fixed now - thanks for letting me know! gboyers talk 23:16, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Re: Community Event

Community events are good, although Rockstar host a lot of them, what would make ours different? We'd need some staff or volunteer users to run and promote them, but it'd be cool to see the community getting together for something like this. If you have a solid idea about how it could work, make a project page about it, and I'll put it out on the Facebook/Twitter for people to get involved with. gboyers talk 22:27, 24 September 2012 (UTC)