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:::Loadingue is cool. He seems to be pretty knowledgeable when it comes to hidden gems in game data, but I'm not sure if he covers GTALCS/GTAVCS, because these games sure hell aren't PC based and thus are more difficult to take apart. Wouldn't hurt to ask him though. - [[User:ZS|ZS]] 18:42, July 29, 2010 (UTC) | :::Loadingue is cool. He seems to be pretty knowledgeable when it comes to hidden gems in game data, but I'm not sure if he covers GTALCS/GTAVCS, because these games sure hell aren't PC based and thus are more difficult to take apart. Wouldn't hurt to ask him though. - [[User:ZS|ZS]] 18:42, July 29, 2010 (UTC) | ||
::::Thank you for soliciting me. By checking the history of the Beta Vehicles page, I've found out that [[User:Amd64]] is the one who first wrote about the [[Bullion]], [[Tommy ( | ::::Thank you for soliciting me. By checking the history of the Beta Vehicles page, I've found out that [[User:Amd64]] is the one who first wrote about the [[Bullion]], [[Tommy (vehicle)|Tommy]], [[Skoiloine]], etc. Perhaps a few questions should be asked to him. To get back to your enquiry, I only cover the PC version, as ZS explained. However sometimes I get my hands on some PS or Xbox files. But that occurs very rarely. If you need some pieces of information about something in particular, I'll do everything I can in order to obtain them.--[[User:Loadingue|Loadingue]] 11:11, July 30, 2010 (UTC) | ||
:::::Interesting. I thought it be near impossible to look at PS2, and Xbox files? I haven't found out what to use for the stories games. Although the PS2 TXD Viewer, and TXD Workshop works for GTA III, GTA VC, and GTA SA. --[[User:Gta-mysteries|Gta-mysteries]] <sup>[[User talk:Gta-mysteries|Talk]]</sup> 11:17, July 30, 2010 (UTC) | :::::Interesting. I thought it be near impossible to look at PS2, and Xbox files? I haven't found out what to use for the stories games. Although the PS2 TXD Viewer, and TXD Workshop works for GTA III, GTA VC, and GTA SA. --[[User:Gta-mysteries|Gta-mysteries]] <sup>[[User talk:Gta-mysteries|Talk]]</sup> 11:17, July 30, 2010 (UTC) | ||
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:Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0SCHkDWPos. You also need to watch a related videos of the ghosts in GTA San Andreas. --[[User:Videogamer13|Videogamer13]] 16:24, September 22, 2010 (UTC) | :Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0SCHkDWPos. You also need to watch a related videos of the ghosts in GTA San Andreas. --[[User:Videogamer13|Videogamer13]] 16:24, September 22, 2010 (UTC) | ||
::Well, they did specify that it's a myth. If I wanted to verify something like that, I'll rather dig up game data that proves that such a "myth" was intentionally inserted into the game rather than only relying on gameplay, when in-game elements and one's perception can muddle the reality of it. And since I can't be bothered with myth hunting, I haven't seen anything like this. - [[User:ZS|ZS]] 19:03, September 22, 2010 (UTC) | ::Well, they did specify that it's a myth. If I wanted to verify something like that, I'll rather dig up game data that proves that such a "myth" was intentionally inserted into the game rather than only relying on gameplay, when in-game elements and one's perception can muddle the reality of it. And since I can't be bothered with myth hunting, I haven't seen anything like this. - [[User:ZS|ZS]] 19:03, September 22, 2010 (UTC) | ||
:Here I have a picture of the ghost town figure. This is real truth. So creepy, they always appear between 23:00 midnight to 5:00 morning. --[[User:Videogamer13|Videogamer13]] 09:17, September 25, 2010 (UTC) | :Here I have a picture of the ghost town figure. This is real truth. So creepy, they always appear between 23:00 midnight to 5:00 morning. --[[User:Videogamer13|Videogamer13]] 09:17, September 25, 2010 (UTC) | ||
:Its possible to recruit the ghost by first type 'SJMAHPE' cheat code then recruit her. Its too difficult to recruit, but she's disappear before the player recruits her. --[[User:Videogamer13|Videogamer13]] 08:03, September 26, 2010 (UTC) | :Its possible to recruit the ghost by first type 'SJMAHPE' cheat code then recruit her. Its too difficult to recruit, but she's disappear before the player recruits her. --[[User:Videogamer13|Videogamer13]] 08:03, September 26, 2010 (UTC) | ||
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:I think "station" should refer to the structure and "department" should refer to the entity. Like the VC police department has four police stations around the city. Or the sheriff department has only one office in this small town.--'''[[User:Spaceeinstein|spaceeinstein]]''' 22:21, 2 June 2011 (BST) | :I think "station" should refer to the structure and "department" should refer to the entity. Like the VC police department has four police stations around the city. Or the sheriff department has only one office in this small town.--'''[[User:Spaceeinstein|spaceeinstein]]''' 22:21, 2 June 2011 (BST) | ||
A police department is a police force/agency in its own right, a whole organisation rather than just part of a bigger organisation. So [[VCPD]] is a police force on its own, not a department of the Vice State police or any bigger police force, but it is still called a department because they are departments of the city's government (as in Vice City, Department of: Police). In the US, the city is in charge of whatever level of policing they decide to pay for, unlike in the UK where it is much more standardised and separate from local government. In [[San Andreas]], each city has its own police department (LSPD, SFPD, LVPD) reporting to that city's government, the state also has a Sheriff's department, and there could theoretically be county police departments too.<br>A police department is split up into boroughs, precincts, squads, bureaus, sections, divisions, units etc. The guys above are correct that VCPD will have several stations, and apart from the headquarters, each will probably be the police station for a certain borough/precinct (but we can't invent what those might be). So the overall organisation (VCPD) is called a department, the buildings are just police stations, and one of the buildings is probably the VCPD Headquarters. Also, is [http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg31/EliteTerm/Designs/ViceCityPoliceDepartmentLogocopy.png this logo] legit or has someone made it themselves, because it's better quality than ours? [[User:Gboyers|Gboyers]] 00:33, 3 June 2011 (BST) | A police department is a police force/agency in its own right, a whole organisation rather than just part of a bigger organisation. So [[VCPD in GTA III Era|VCPD]] is a police force on its own, not a department of the Vice State police or any bigger police force, but it is still called a department because they are departments of the city's government (as in Vice City, Department of: Police). In the US, the city is in charge of whatever level of policing they decide to pay for, unlike in the UK where it is much more standardised and separate from local government. In [[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas|San Andreas]], each city has its own police department (LSPD, SFPD, LVPD) reporting to that city's government, the state also has a Sheriff's department, and there could theoretically be county police departments too.<br>A police department is split up into boroughs, precincts, squads, bureaus, sections, divisions, units etc. The guys above are correct that VCPD will have several stations, and apart from the headquarters, each will probably be the police station for a certain borough/precinct (but we can't invent what those might be). So the overall organisation (VCPD) is called a department, the buildings are just police stations, and one of the buildings is probably the VCPD Headquarters. Also, is [http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg31/EliteTerm/Designs/ViceCityPoliceDepartmentLogocopy.png this logo] legit or has someone made it themselves, because it's better quality than ours? [[User:Gboyers|Gboyers]] 00:33, 3 June 2011 (BST) | ||
:That image isn't legit. His album also has a lot of custom police badges and logos--'''[[User:Spaceeinstein|spaceeinstein]]''' 04:52, 3 June 2011 (BST) | :That image isn't legit. His album also has a lot of custom police badges and logos--'''[[User:Spaceeinstein|spaceeinstein]]''' 04:52, 3 June 2011 (BST) | ||
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:The contents of that page can be summarized in a paragraph or two in a section about the physical presence of the depot in the [[Express Car Service]] page. We don't need separate pages for the same reason mentioned above; it forces readers to navigate across multiple pages to read about a subject matter, and adds extra workload to the editors when links need to be added or information needs to be corrected. It's like creating a page for ''every'' [[Pay 'n' Spray]] outlet, despite each varying only by location. - [[User:ZS|ZS]] 12:34, 2 October 2011 (BST) | :The contents of that page can be summarized in a paragraph or two in a section about the physical presence of the depot in the [[Express Car Service]] page. We don't need separate pages for the same reason mentioned above; it forces readers to navigate across multiple pages to read about a subject matter, and adds extra workload to the editors when links need to be added or information needs to be corrected. It's like creating a page for ''every'' [[Pay 'n' Spray]] outlet, despite each varying only by location. - [[User:ZS|ZS]] 12:34, 2 October 2011 (BST) | ||
Interesting discussion. You're right that there is a difference between the company and its outlets. However, in this situation they are so closely tied together that anyone who looks at one would ''expect'' to find information about the other. With [[SAPD]] etc there are many police stations, but there can be quite a lot of information about some of them, so individual pages are useful. Whilst for [[24/7]] there are lots of outlets but they are almost identical, so having 13 identical articles for all the different 24/7 shops in San Andreas would be silly - a list/table is much better (and you can add a bullet point for every difference in each store, if any). | Interesting discussion. You're right that there is a difference between the company and its outlets. However, in this situation they are so closely tied together that anyone who looks at one would ''expect'' to find information about the other. With [[San Andreas Police Department|SAPD]] etc there are many police stations, but there can be quite a lot of information about some of them, so individual pages are useful. Whilst for [[24/7]] there are lots of outlets but they are almost identical, so having 13 identical articles for all the different 24/7 shops in San Andreas would be silly - a list/table is much better (and you can add a bullet point for every difference in each store, if any). | ||
With Romans Taxis, I don't think there is ''much'' information that would belong on the individual outlet pages. Most of the info on both [[Express Car Service Depot]] and [[Roman's Taxi Depot, Algonquin]] is about the storyline, not the building, which all should be on the company's [[Express Car Service]] page. Unless the articles have useful detailed descriptions of the buildings (like [[Washington Beach Police Station|this]]), then we don't need articles about the buildings. With the information that exists at the moment, it all belongs on one page. Make sense? [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 15:58, 2 October 2011 (BST) | With Romans Taxis, I don't think there is ''much'' information that would belong on the individual outlet pages. Most of the info on both [[Express Car Service Depot]] and [[Roman's Taxi Depot, Algonquin]] is about the storyline, not the building, which all should be on the company's [[Express Car Service]] page. Unless the articles have useful detailed descriptions of the buildings (like [[Washington Beach Police Station|this]]), then we don't need articles about the buildings. With the information that exists at the moment, it all belongs on one page. Make sense? [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 15:58, 2 October 2011 (BST) | ||
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::'''Redirects:''' Not that this has actually been discussed as such, but I still have an opinion. I have never agreed with the movement to abolish the use of redirects. I ''definitely'' agree with A-Dust that they aren't the nicest sight in the world (referring to the 'Redirected from' text), but either are piped links. And unlike that small link under the page title after following a redirect, piped links make the wiki more difficult to use because they make articles take longer to write, and make editing more confusing. Redirects also allow users to make links without knowing the exact title of an article. I always use redirects to simplify code, and if I link to something only to find that it's a red link, I don't change the link - I find the correct title, and create a redirect at my link. '''[[User:JFletcher|JFletcher]]<sup>''[[User talk:JFletcher|Talk]]''</sup>''' <small>(formerly User:Biggest gta fan ever)</small> 08:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC) | ::'''Redirects:''' Not that this has actually been discussed as such, but I still have an opinion. I have never agreed with the movement to abolish the use of redirects. I ''definitely'' agree with A-Dust that they aren't the nicest sight in the world (referring to the 'Redirected from' text), but either are piped links. And unlike that small link under the page title after following a redirect, piped links make the wiki more difficult to use because they make articles take longer to write, and make editing more confusing. Redirects also allow users to make links without knowing the exact title of an article. I always use redirects to simplify code, and if I link to something only to find that it's a red link, I don't change the link - I find the correct title, and create a redirect at my link. '''[[User:JFletcher|JFletcher]]<sup>''[[User talk:JFletcher|Talk]]''</sup>''' <small>(formerly User:Biggest gta fan ever)</small> 08:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC) | ||
== Re: {{tl|gameselect}} in {{tl|Infobox vehicle}} == | |||
You didn't give a specific example of a page that this problem is occurring on, but I'm aware of the issue. | |||
The point of the new template system for game names (as outlined on [[Grand Theft Wiki:Games]] and accessed through {{template|gameselect}}) is three-fold: | |||
*To allow any input to be converted into a game name (whether they type "5" or "GTA V" etc) | |||
*To allow a consistent output (showing "GTA V" but linking to [[Grand Theft Auto V]]) | |||
*To automatically add the semantic information (as seen on [[Special:Properties]]) | |||
If any pages still use the old-style 'Appearances' section for the infoboxes, where they list several games with links and line breaks, those pages ''need'' to be changed to use the new format. That's one of the biggest jobs we have now - making sure every mission/vehicle/character properly uses the infoboxes. [[:Category:Fix Games]] is ''supposed'' to automatically apply if the games part of the infobox isn't filled out properly, but that is empty so I'll check it out. | |||
This new system has been in the works for a while, so simply going back to how it used to be wouldn't solve anything. This gives us the ability to automate lists and tables - like we already do with characters - for example, country pages like [[United Kingdom]] automatically show a list of all characters from that country per-era. This is already up-and-running so any GTA V characters will automatically show up as soon as someone adds the infobox to their page. This will extend to vehicles and missions, subdivided automatically. This means we won't have to go around editing 10 pages with lists/tables every time we add/alter content or rename a page or change something. The idea is once you add the content and fill out the infobox, everything is done automatically from there. See the automatically generated tables [http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAsk&q=%5B%5BType%3A%3AVehicles%5D%5D%5B%5BAppearance%3A%3AGTA+Vice+City%5D%5D&po=&sort_num=&order_num=ASC&eq=yes&p%5Bformat%5D=broadtable&p%5Blimit%5D=&p%5Bsort%5D=&p%5Boffset%5D=&p%5Bheaders%5D=show&p%5Bmainlabel%5D=&p%5Blink%5D=all&p%5Bsearchlabel%5D=%E2%80%A6+further+results&p%5Bintro%5D=&p%5Boutro%5D=&p%5Bdefault%5D=&p%5Bclass%5D=sortable+wikitable+smwtable&eq=yes vehicles in GTA VC] or [http://www.grandtheftwiki.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAsk&q=%5B%5BType%3A%3ACharacters%5D%5D%5B%5BAppearance%3A%3AGTA+Vice+City%5D%5D%5B%5BNationality%3A%3AUnited+Kingdom%5D%5D&po=&sort_num=&order_num=ASC&eq=yes&p%5Bformat%5D=broadtable&p%5Blimit%5D=&p%5Bsort%5D=&p%5Boffset%5D=&p%5Bheaders%5D=show&p%5Bmainlabel%5D=&p%5Blink%5D=all&p%5Bsearchlabel%5D=%E2%80%A6+further+results&p%5Bintro%5D=&p%5Boutro%5D=&p%5Bdefault%5D=&p%5Bclass%5D=sortable+wikitable+smwtable&eq=yes British characters in GTA VC]. We're just getting started, but this will be really cool when it's all working. | |||
Let me know if you have any questions! [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 23:10, 6 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
== Re: Vehicle Infoboxes == | |||
;Why we need an image at the top | |||
The point of having an image at the top of the page is to provide a quick-reference view of what the page is about. On a character page, you see a picture of the character and instantly go "Oh yeah, him." On a vehicle page, you see the vehicle, and know we're talking about a flashy sports car rather than a truck or boat. | |||
I understand the concern of choosing one image over the others, but the alternative is having no image at all there, except for the gallery lower down the page. This would mean the only thing you have to rely on at the top of the page is the opening sentence (The XYZ is an ABC in GTA 123 based on the PQR) and the data in the infobox. | |||
The difference between vehicles in different eras is not ''usually'' that great. The [[Coach]] always looks like a coach, and you can instantly tell it's different to the [[Bus]]. So having a picture of a coach in ANY era gives a pretty good idea of what the page is about. Likewise if you were looking for a character named 'Coach' (as in a coach of a sports team) you'd immediately realise you were on a vehicle page and go hunting. | |||
Having no image at all (near the top) forces people to read, which does not give the same immediate feedback that a lot of people rely on. That's why our error messages and warnings are now in big red [[Help:Message Boxes|mboxes]] rather than just a line of text. | |||
One thing I always try to cater for is the many different reasons that people use the wiki. Let's say just for vehicles - there are many different user cases. Someone might just be idly browsing ("oo that's interesting"). Someone else might be looking for a very specific piece of information ("I wonder what vehicle the [[Cheetah]] is based on"). Other people might be trying to find the name of that sports car they like ("Hmm, was it the Cheetah? No. Was it the Comet? No. Was it the Turismo? Aha, yes"). We have to cater for all of these users and more. The image at the top caters for the idle browsers ("Oh yes, I remember that plane") and the hunters ("Aha, that's the one I wanted"). Does having an image of a Cheetah in GTA IV or V really ruin the experience for them? I don't think it does. Having no image at all until you scroll down (which could be a long way if the vehicle is in many games) does ruin it. | |||
Most people do not read walls of text, it scares them off and makes them NOT want to scroll down - that's why we need SOMETHING at the top of the page to give them an idea of what we're talking about, just a clue, spark that memory, and then they have the rest of the page to find whatever specific information they require for each specific iteration. | |||
;What to do about the different images available | |||
If a vehicle is ''completely'' different between eras - as in ''totally'' unrecognisable or a totally different class - then it should have a separate page as it would be classed as just a separate vehicle. [[Ranger]] might qualify for that, as although both vehicles are a 4x4 (with one in police livery), and there's a chance the vehicles would look the same, they are not really recognisable as the same vehicle. Because the police Ranger is actually a marked [[Rancher]], it should probably be on its own page such as 'Police Rancher' even though that is not its correct name - like we do for [[Police Buffalo]]. | |||
For the special cases you mention - if you are truly concerned that one image cannot at all give a rough idea of what the page is about, that one vehicle is unrecognisable from the other, then you can create an image montage, like the one on [[Los Santos in GTA III Era]]. However, I would expect this only to be used in special situations where there are totally different renditions of the same vehicle, NOT as a regular thing. [[Bus]] might qualify for that, because although it's clearly the same vehicle, the 'modernisation' of it over the in-game decades has changed its appearance dramatically. | |||
What do they do on Wikipedia? For pages like [[wp:Chevrolet Impala|Chevrolet Impala]] they have a main infobox+image at the top, then a separate infobox+image for each generation. The first one still gives you a pretty good clue of what the vehicle looks like, even if the generations are quite different. I'm NOT suggesting we need to copy/ape Wikipedia, there is a huge amount that I am proud to do differently. But if you don't like our method, what would you suggest as an alternative? | |||
;Semantics | |||
There is another reason behind all this. The vehicle infobox isn't ''just'' an infobox, it also gathers semantic data. See [[Special:Browse/Admiral]] to see all the data we collect from that page (so far) - title, images, games, categories etc. This means we can output that data in other formats across the wiki. | |||
To see that data in action, check out [[Vehicles in GTA IV/All]] and [[Characters in GTA IV/All]]. Once we add 'class' of vehicle we will be able to separate these out much more logically, and I plan to have that in place for the release of GTA V. But obviously, for this to work, every vehicle needs to have all of that information - and you can see from those tables which vehicles have images missing. | |||
(Now, there is one issue in the tables above. The image associated with the vehicle article is not necessarily from the correct game/era that we want. The only way to fix this would be to add multiple image links on a page. This could be done through the infobox code, although the images wouldn't have to show up in the infobox. Alternatively, we could make a new gallery template where you specify an image from each game.) | |||
I hope that explains everything in more detail. I do understand that you don't like the idea of choosing one image to take 'priority' at the top, but we need something there, and I'm not sure what you're suggesting as the alternative to that. As always, hit me up if you have any questions - [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 14:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
== Issues v2 == | |||
Hi ZS. I'm going to respond to your list of issues again, just to catch up and explain where we are: | |||
*Galleries not displaying properly. | |||
**Need to look into this, and I will let you know the result (remind me if I don't) | |||
*Title case in titles | |||
**I've explained the reasons behind this as being mostly for ease of use, not aesthetics - it's easier to remember to capitalise everything except a/the/in rather than having to sit and figure out which words are proper nouns and which are not. I know you hate typing [[Police Car]] when it is not a proper noun, but in my mind the proper name of a page IS a proper noun, just like the proper name of a car would be. | |||
*Aversion of parentheses in titles | |||
**I've said many times these are ugly, unwieldy and of no value. Police (car) is a horrible solution to a simple problem, that in NO way advantages users and makes the wiki messier and harder to use. | |||
**To use a random example, think of a domain name for an IRL company - if there were two companies called "Megacorp", one was a TV studio and one was a bank. You wouldn't expect the domain to be something like Megacorp(bank).com (but that would be the name of the Wikipedia page). They would probably be MegacorpBank.com and MegacorpTV.com. Even though that isn't the official technical correct legal name of the company, it's what it's known as, and the simplest way to disambiguate, creating better brand recognition and easier access to their site - it solves many problems. Calling them both Megacorp with no disambiguation, or using an unwieldy method such as parentheses, serves no value at all. | |||
**I remain completely convinced that we should avoid parentheses in titles wherever possible. Where the disambiguation is about games, use the now-standard "in GTA III Era" which is used all over this wiki to very good effect (particularly in categories and lists). | |||
*Regarding the title case and parentheses, just citing Wikipedia or Wikia as examples is not a persuasive argument. I have already pointed out that MuseWiki use parentheses for EVERY page title, and MeatballWiki use CamelCase (without spaces) for their pages - and they are both big. | |||
*Many images which failed to be transferred from the GTA Wikia still unattended after more than half a year. | |||
**You're right, this is [[Special:WantedFiles|still an issue]]. Needs to be addressed, but any user can put a {{template|delete}} tag on an empty image, or fetch the required image from Wikia, or even take a new screenshot to replace it. | |||
*Double standards on splitting vehicles between different games | |||
**You're right, this is an issue, and it's one we're combating at the moment. My rule-of-thumb is that if they are completely different vehicles, they should have separate pages. To clarify - I am happy for you to split vehicle articles into different eras *IF* they are completely different vehicles with the same name (eg Bus/Coach/Police Car). If they are simply new renditions, updated with better graphics quality and altered styling to fit into the game's setting, then they should generally stick on the same page. | |||
**However, certain vehicle pages should have central collection/disambiguation pages. For example [[Police Car]] should show all the different police cars we have, whilst the detail for each of them should be on separate pages (Some named [[Police Cruiser]] and others either [[Police Car in GTA III Era]] or [[Police Car in GTA Vice City]] etc - depending on how much content we have). | |||
*"Petty" use of roman numerals & unnecessary capitalisation in image names | |||
**See [[User talk:Andreaz1#Re: Image naming conventions|this discussion]] for a detailed discussion on image naming conventions. | |||
**Roman numerals is simply an issue of accuracy and consistency. Except for GTA 1, we always call the games by whatever Rockstar called them - using the number or roman numeral assigned. That means we use 1, 2, III, IV, V. That is the same regardless of the [[Grand Theft Wiki:Games|game name fomat]] - long, short, condensed or just the game ID. It's not 'petty' it just doesn't make any sense to go against convention and accuracy to use 'GTA4' in images, there's no reason why we should. I admit the decision to use 'GTA4' a few years ago was a mistake, and I think we have corrected it. | |||
*As for capitalisation, I believe we should just be consistent with the rest of the wiki and treat titles of articles as names & proper nouns, and thus show them in Title Case. Just like an author of a book on police cars would call it 'Police Cars of America' - using Title Case. That's what we've always done, it works for us, it's been justified, and I don't see any reason at all to change it (except 'Wikipedia does it'). I don't believe it has any negative effect on the wiki or its users, except being weird for those people who prefer to use Sentence case exclusively. Equally, I would feel weird using Sentence case in titles - perhaps it's just personal preference, but I have explained my justification. | |||
*Mandatory use of images in infoboxes | |||
**As I explained in the above reply, it is mandatory that all articles have an image at the top. This is for a the simple reason to help people quickly identify what the page is about. Additionally, it helps with aesthetics, and using images in infoboxes allows us to do clever semantic things (as mentioned above). This mandatory requirement for an image will not change, and for 99% of cases using a single image in the infobox is sufficient. Yes, that will automatically "favour" one game's image over the others, but that's tough - it helps people quickly identify that that page is the one they are looking for. The detail and separate per-game images come below. However I am happy for us to think of better ways of doing this for the 1% of cases where the vehicle looks totally different throughout eras (like [[Bus]], perhaps). However if it genuinely seems to be a completely different vehicle, then it should be on a separate page (as above). | |||
I think you really have something against the 'latest' games, and I'm not sure why. Just because people are more familiar with them, that doesn't make them wrong to focus on them. I agree entirely that this wiki is about ''all'' GTA games and now we have the "in GTA III Era" naming convention widely-used, I'm happier for us to use disambiguation pages and split articles up between eras. Yes, a lot of (younger) people will ''only'' know about GTA IV, but keep an open mind. I'm happy for you to take responsibility for the 1+2 era games to ensure they have fair representation and the articles are looked after. | |||
I know your list is just a personal 'things to keep an eye on' but as I've said repeatedly I'd rather we talk it out and end up on the same page, whatever that is. I am willing to change where there is adequate justification and it would have a net positive effect on the wiki - and with splitting vehicles per-era (ONLY where they are different enough for a split to be required) I think that is justified, so I'm happy to change that. [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 03:35, 25 August 2012 (UTC) | |||
:Fixed the category thing - was not meant to show up like that, user preferences were meant to override it. Thanks - [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 20:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC) | |||
== User Registrations == | |||
Yes, we do get a lot of spam registrations, but we have a range of measures in place to monitor them all and stop them from spamming. I won't discuss our anti-spam or security measures here in public, but feel free to email me (my name @ this site) if you'd like me to go through it. Other than clogging up Recent Changes (which I'll stop it from doing), they don't cause us any issues. [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 15:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC) | |||
:You may like [[Special:AbuseLog|this log]] to see some of the things that have been warned or stopped. [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> | |||
== Re: Game Informer Images == | |||
You raise a good point, but as per our [[Grand Theft Wiki:Licensing|Licensing]] policy: | |||
{{quote|We believe it is fair to use screenshots of games to represent games and the characters, vehicles and locations in those games. We also believe that it is fair to use existing screenshots for that purpose, since we (by default) allow images to be reproduced elsewhere. Credit will be given where due.}} | |||
This means that (as shown in our [[Template:Gtav_screenshot|copyright templates]]) we believe all GTA screenshots belong to Rockstar, not the person who takes or distributes them. Game Informer may have been given the screenshots, but we believe they are ultimately Rockstar's to allow or refuse anyone to use. | |||
I absolutely agree we should not lift chunks of text (or the whole article) from the magazine, any any custom artwork or other content they have produced themselves. But game screenshots are not theirs to regulate. If Rockstar would like them to remain exclusive, by all means they can ask us to remove them, but whilst the exclusivity is lucrative, I don't believe criminalising the dissemination of that information is to the benefit of any party. | |||
That said, they do need renaming as I realise I got the image naming structure wrong, again! [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 23:01, 8 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
:Of course, if the copyright holder asks, we will remove any offending material. For screenshots of GTA games, that means Rockstar Games. [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 23:14, 8 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
== Monstrosity == | |||
Yeah I had a brain fart when I forgot the Insurrection was an Imponte (despite having the page open in front of me). I think ad transcriptions are useful, as they give information plus a feel for the image/message the company is giving off. A video or audio file would be better, though. A "waste of space" isn't important here, what would matter would be having useless information that either detracts from the quality of other content or dilutes the wiki to the point that we can't look after the content we do have. I'm not saying we need to have full transcriptions of every mission, pedestrian and radio/tv media, but it's a start to covering more than just lists, trivia and screenshots. I hope we can cover GTA V in more detail than any previous game, and continue to improve the games we already have on here. That's the plan, anyway! [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 21:54, 19 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
== Re: ZS == | |||
I'm aware of your dissatisfaction with a number of policies, which is why I'm trying to hold constructive discussions to resolve them. When different users and admins so fiercely disagree, I can't just go "okay then" and reverse our policy, forcing tens of thousands of pages to be changed, if then two weeks later JFletcher comes along and makes an equally valid point and I reverse it again. This discussion on Eras, for example, would go on for months or years if it wasn't resolved now. That's why it will be resolved soon. | |||
I don't think it's a waste of manpower when each admin contributes only a couple of paragraphs on each discussion every few weeks. To be honest, I think the staff should engage more in that decision-making. If they don't, then it will just be me making decisions without input from anyone else, which is not the best way to do things. I need people like you to point out the flaws and work out the exceptions and provide ideas or fully-grown suggestions to ensure we have the best possible wiki. | |||
I have to correct you - the GTA Wikia is ''active'' rather than popular. The quality of the edits and content on that site is laughably low, just see their GTA V page. You don't see users going around saying "this wiki is the best site ever, go check it out". Whilst the users are still bickering about SA myths, The staff spend all their time beefing up their own egos and shamelessly deleting or reverting images and edits that don't explicitly meet their draconian policies. Admittedly it's not quite as bad as when Jeff was running the show himself, but since I've been looking through [[Special:Patrol]] I've not seen a single edit that has had to be reverted. | |||
You're right that we need to increase our exposure and popularity, but so far I'm the only staff member who has ever worked on that. Despite having a full-time job and performing all the technical admin of this wiki and our servers, I run all our social media campaigns and work to increase the exposure of GTW on other sites. If you're willing and able to help with that, that would be incredible! | |||
I'm sure it will be disappointing for you if the consensus is to use the LCD system (games/eras/universes) rather than your GTA III - GTA Vice City Stories system. But if that's the consensus, then that's the consensus. I've not seen an alternative proposal that will benefit the wiki or its users, and I'm sure you know that "because Wikipedia do it" is not going to swing it. If you have further to contribute to the discussion, please do. I want this decision to be as wide a consensus and as final as possible. Yes if things radically change we can always revisit it, but we shouldn't have to for GTA V. | |||
Yes, this wiki is a great platform, but there is so much more to do! Let's do it. [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 08:45, 21 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
:I'm sorry my replies are long but I think you'd rather me explain than just go "no". | |||
:Our policies are not definitive, restrictive, proscriptive rules at all. We try to make systems that can be applied to articles, to cover all eventualities. The LCD system I propose gives editors MORE freedom for what articles can be about, and it just specifies what the title should be for each possibility. So you could make an article about "Missions in GTA 2" or "Plot in the HD Universe" and they're all equally valid - we just think about making a good, useful article, and simply pick the name that fits. Nothing more sinister than that. | |||
:As for the tedious chores with no breathing room, I dispute that. Yes, as the wiki becomes more 'complete' (at least before GTA V), there will be less blue-sky broad-scale article creation to do, and as a result there is more cleaning up to do. I do not think big reorganisations are necessary, except when we change something like, but we do have [[User:Gtabot|Gtabot]] to do a lot of that stuff. | |||
:I know you go around changing all redirect-links to piped-links, but I do ''not'' think that is necessary. I've certainly never asked anyone to do it and there is no policy saying that's what we should do. Yes, we should fix broken links, and some links do need to be piped, but there is no real benefit to going around piping every link on the wiki to a different page when a redirect serves that purpose. If this is the tedious work that you don't want to do, dont do it! Redirects are there to help editors as well as users who are searching, and they solve the problems with capitalisation etc. | |||
:With regards to Benson, I don't understand the problem. They are two completely unrelated articles - with nothing in common except sharing a name. Don't think of it as "reasons to split" - it's not as if we have all articles on 1 page and split them when it gets big. We have one page about each distinct thing. The Benson sports car is one thing, the Benson truck is another thing. So they should be on separate pages. | |||
:However, the actual naming of the pages is open - in fact if we adopted the LCD system, that would suggest we name them "Benson in GTA 2" rather than "Benson (car)". The idea of forcing the two articles to share the page is harmful to the content, confusing to the users, and there's no good reason for it. I can not see one single benefit of them sharing a page, except the fact that both cars would be on the same page. This has nothing to do with page size at all. | |||
:This wiki is made up of lots of different editors, that's how we have always worked. Some like writing content, some like editing content, some like organising pages, some like building templates, some like making things pretty, some like taking screenshots and adding them, some like selecting and using images, some like proof-reading, some like fact-checking. This wiki needs all these different people to work - I do not expect one person to do everything. Even in the staff, some like organising the wiki, some like inspecting and fixing content, others like to get involved in some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. If there are things you really hate doing, things that make you want to leave, then I'd rather you spent your time on things you did enjoy and someone else could pick that up. [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 21:56, 22 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
Yes, cleanup is tedious, but I'm not sure there's a reasonable solution to that. We could require all users to be approved before they can edit, or semi-protect all content articles, or make the wiki invite-only, or require all edits to be patrolled before appearing; but I think all of those would have a negative total effect on the content - relying even more on our small number of committed users and pushing new editors further away. Of course I kno | |||
"Bots" covers a few different things. There are the automated command-line tools we use for mass editing such as adding/removing a category. However, there are others intended to ''assist'' editors in their daily activities. [[:wp:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser|Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser]] is really useful for finding articles to edit (automatically loading categories etc) and then for doing things like syntax/spelling/grammar checks ''whilst'' you go about your editing, I'd suggest giving it a try, as it can help cut out the most tedious parts of editing. | |||
With regards to redirects, I think we're talking about two different things. I meant that you and A-Dust seem to be putting in a lot of effort going around changing <code><nowiki>[[GTA San Andreas]]</nowiki></code> to <code><nowiki>[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas|GTA San Andreas]]</nowiki></code> - whilst that is ''right'' I don't think it should be our priority to seek those out and change them, particularly when you're complaining about all the tedious editing. The fact that a link goes to a redirect is ''not'' a problem that affects the wiki or its users. The load on the server from a redirect is non-existent - there is more load for each template on a page. But yes, double redirects do need fixing in every instance, but we have an automated tool that can do that automatically daily. | |||
With regards to capitalisation of titles (eg SWAT Tank) that is actually the next discussion planned. Definitely worth a discussion, and I'm open to changing that. | |||
With [[Benson]] - the split was the important part, the names were not. Feel free to move them as I mentioned earlier. | |||
The TOC is there as one option for navigating within an article, but that's not a reason to merge two unrelated articles. Why not have [[Tommy Vercetti]] and [[Tommy Francovic]] on the same page and just use the TOC to distinguish the sections? Why not [[Introduction (GTA VC)]] and [[The Introduction]]? Because they are completely separate, unrelated articles that only share a name - they should not be on the same page. Name them whatever you want, but the two Benson articles should not share a page. | |||
You're absolutely right that not many users bother with the 2D games, and that is a shame. I'd like to know how we can encourage more people to edit those sections, but I don't know many people that still play those games, and we struggle enough finding new editors to edit pages about the new games! However, I don't believe that is going to suddenly change because of filling infoboxes with a low-resolution 2D overhead image of a vehicle instead of a 3D rendering, or forcing people to see content they don't want. | |||
The things that will really help is promoting 2D games through the [[FA|featured article]] and social media channels, but so far absolutely no staff members have assisted with either of those things. Each post on the GTW Facebook gets a thousand views, and we have a thousand followers on Twitter. With a couple of retweets, some of our posts can been seen by 20,000 people through Facebook+Twitter alone. | |||
If you would be willing to curate the 2D era content, provide some excerpts that I could post, that would be awesome. Things like just highlighting a different cool vehicle, mission, feature or screenshot, and posting one a day. We could have a big "2D Week" event where we show off the best things this wiki has relating to those games, and encourage visitors to download and play them. That would be way better for the wiki, its editors and its users than just going around fixing redirect links. I challenge you to work with me do something like that. Interested? [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 22:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC) | |||
== Need to see a deleted template == | |||
Hello ZS! I'd like to know if there's a way to get to see a version of the deleted "[[Template:Gtaiii era radio stations]]" template. I need to look after some reference (mainly the in-game order of the radio stations) which was written there. --[[User:DT-boy|DT-boy]] ([[User talk:DT-boy|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/DT-boy|edits]]) 10:53, 15 December 2013 (GMT) | |||
:Problem solved. --[[User:DT-boy|DT-boy]] ([[User talk:DT-boy|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/DT-boy|edits]]) 14:16, 15 December 2013 (GMT) | |||