User talk:Spaceeinstein

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See the archive for old discussions.

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Archiving talk page

Good to see you back! Just a quick note on archiving pages (such as your talk page). It's best to move the page, then make a fresh talk page; rather than copying the contents. This is so that it maintains the edit history and we can easily see who did what, rather than having to dig through a huuuge history where most of the stuff has been wiped since. Could you move your talk page instead? Or I can do that for you? Gboyers 19:24, 10 October 2010 (BST)

Sorry, I can't find a way to move pages. I added a link in the archive that will direct to the last revision made instead.--spaceeinstein 19:29, 10 October 2010 (BST)

Sorry - that's because I hadn't upgraded you back to staff yet. Fixed - Gboyers 20:30, 10 October 2010 (BST)

Thanks for sorting that out, helps us keep everything in order. What do you think of the new place? Gboyers 22:54, 10 October 2010 (BST)

I like the resemblance to Wikipedia, much more sleeker. It's very good to not have those ads that obstruct the view and not relate to gaming. The option to style the wiki to anything we want is much better than having to follow a set template from a corporation.--spaceeinstein 00:21, 11 October 2010 (BST)

Glad you like it! I'm glad we moved, but we don't have a choice now that we've been banned from Wikia. Gboyers 00:31, 11 October 2010 (BST)

Galleries

Do you know why the images aren't rendering correctly in the galleries? I tried re-uploading the images and it doesn't work. --Gta-mysteries ^Talk 08:00, 21 October 2010 (BST)

Are you talking about this issue?--spaceeinstein 08:03, 21 October 2010 (BST)

I think so. Even with the "file", and "image" prefixes they won't show up. --Gta-mysteries ^Talk 08:10, 21 October 2010 (BST)

Which pages are you having trouble? If the images do not exist, they need to be reuploaded.--spaceeinstein 08:15, 21 October 2010 (BST)

I started with ones on the Kaufman Cabs page. I think they didn't exist, though after I re-uploaded some of the missing ones, they appeared. --Gta-mysteries ^Talk 08:17, 21 October 2010 (BST)

Preview

Preview does work, but now it shows up below the edit box. If you go to Special:Preferences > Editing and enable "Enable side-by-side preview" at the bottom, you get a preview button above that lets you preview it without having to reload the page. I'll try and make this default. Gboyers 14:44, 27 October 2010 (BST)

Oh, somehow the "Show preview before edit box" was unchecked. Checking that makes the preview work again. The side-by-side preview doesn't seem to work for me. It will always show a loading message.--spaceeinstein 18:25, 27 October 2010 (BST)

Staff Roles

Hi, could you please fill out your section of the table at Grand Theft Wiki:Staff/Roles? That page explains the reasons, but we're just trying to assign staff some responsibility and ownership of their own sections, and give you a bit more room to do what you want to do. Thanks - Gboyers 00:38, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

The Dodo in Grand Theft Auto III

Does the Dodo in Grand Theft Auto III fit two people or does it only fit the pilot? PK2PK2 22:08, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

GTA Wiki

no that you have moved from wikia what about the old site are you the admin because there is not any staff around I don't mind taking it over as a caretaker but I don't want to be an admin --Owen1983 21:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

"GTA Era" categorization

We need to talk about this (and maybe a few other guidelines Gboyers set up). It may sound crazy, but I came up with the "Era" categorization years back at Wikipedia when I was working on the navbox for the GTA series; I didn't imagine people would take that as official terminology. In time I just felt it's really fanspeak-ish to refer to a generation of GTA games as an "Era"; if any, it projects too much (unwarranted) self-importance on something as trivial as canons. Wikipedia itself has now abandoned the "Era" term and categorizes the series based on the game that pioneered a canon (GTA 1, GTA 2, GTA III and GTA IV). - ZS 09:12, 12 April 2011 (BST)

(sorry to butt in) I really like the term 'era' - it's a nice short, simple way of grouping everything, and it does the job. The games in each era are very similar; they share characters, storylines, locations; and are visibly different to other eras. "Generation" and "Series" are equally valid terms, but it would be silly to go around replacing every instance of Era with those. I think we have a neat little way of describing everything, I think everyone understands it, and I've not heard anyone complain. I don't see any reason to copy Wikipedia on this - what do you see the problem being? Gboyers 10:33, 12 April 2011 (BST)

I don't like the term "era" but it's the way the term is used on this website so I just stick to it. I prefer "series" because era means time period and series means the games are connected with each other, which makes more sense to me. I think saying series could clear up major confusions about the discontinuity of the storyline between the GTA III series to the GTA IV series. Era sounds like one era should follow another era, in time and in story.--spaceeinstein 16:58, 12 April 2011 (BST)

You have a good point. At the moment, I don't think it's worth changing everything. I think 'era' is nice, particularly since it has a single meaning on this entire wiki, whilst the word 'series' could mean multiple things (the whole GTA series, an era, or just a group of things). Definitely something we should discuss more publicly (before taking any action). Gboyers 19:28, 12 April 2011 (BST)

This only raises other questions. Why the aversion towards using disambiguation, especially bracketed ones? We could categorize a topic just as easily by the game that established a canon (i.e. Liberty City (GTA 1), Liberty City (GTA III), Liberty City (GTA IV)), or, as an alternative, the game it debuts in full form (Vice City (GTA Vice City) as an alternate title for Vice City (GTA III)). They're a little more complicated to type out, yeah, but a lot of gaming wikis do this these days, and it's a pretty solid system.

Secondly, why capitalize all article titles? The reason capitalization is used is to indicate that it is an official name, especially if it's capitalized in the game itself (Luis' Apartment, Rocket Launcher, Tow Truck...). Otherwise, any terminology that is informally invented by fans is meant to be written in lower case; using capitalization on informal names (i.e. Tattoo Parlors, Vending Machines, Spray Shop...) implies it's an official term, especially when these article names are used in wiki links. It's even worse for article names which were created because a bracketed disambiguation (which would have been appropriate) wasn't favored (as is the case with Police Buffalo, SWAT Tank and Love Fist Limo).

The reason people don't complain about the use of "era" here (or the GTA Wikia for that matter) or other abovementioned problems is because the general demographics of their readers tend to slant towards those who are unable to comprehend accuracy in a wiki, often unquestionably accepting information on these wikis, no matter how informally coined or inaccurate they are. Wikipedia's users on the other hand tend to be a little bit more aggressive; editors of the GTA series' article seem to be better acknowledging problems and attempt to work out solutions for the sake of accuracy; while I'm not implying we should be strictly adherent to the way Wikipedia works (I don't like Wikipedia all too much myself), we can still learn a thing or two by the way they function.

If any, we're long overdue for a little reassessment of naming convention (the use of "era" is just as old as GTW's history); the longer we put it off, the harder it is to fix when it does become a big pain in the butt. We should have bots ready to do this, and readers will get used to the changes anyway. We just need to sit down and talk about how to go about it. - ZS 03:43, 13 April 2011 (BST)

While I see your point, I don't like series. I think the general assumption would be that series would refer to the GTA series; every game. JFletcher^Talk (formerly User:Biggest gta fan ever) 02:11, 13 April 2011 (BST)