User talk:ZS: Difference between revisions

Latest comment: 20 November 2011 by ZS in topic Game logos
 
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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)
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)

Latest revision as of 14:16, 15 December 2013

You can discuss about changes in articles and other related odds and ends here. Any messages posted here will be replied in this page. Response time to incoming messages varies from time to time.

A Quick Question About the Discussion Tabs

Hey ZS I have a quick question for you re: Discussion Tabs here on Grand Theft Wiki. Is the space left under the discussion tabs a place where we can bring up our opinions about whatever subject matter that a particular entry is all about? Or is it space strictly to be used for the discussion about the entry itself or the edits made to it? For example, take the vehicle entry on forklifts, would it be kosher if I used the discussion area to say something like, "I wish that the actual lift on the forklifts in GTA IV still worked like they did in the older games yadda yadda yadda."? Or is it only to be used to discuss what we think needs to be changed, edited or omitted for a particular entry? Thanks for your time ZS! JJPasadena 20:59, April 30, 2010 (UTC)

That's right, talk pages are mostly used to discuss changes on an article and the accuracy of official information. Opinions like the one mentioned above are otherwise reserved for Forum:GTA (or external forums). - ZS 08:23, May 1, 2010 (UTC)
I gotcha...just thought I'd ask first. Many thanks ZS! Have a good one. JJPasadena 17:39, May 2, 2010 (UTC)

Reply by Gunrunner15

i just find them images all over the web

Have you been able to check if they are modded or not? I'm having a hard time finding the fire chief on the streets. - ZS 08:57, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

thanks

for editing the bullet gt you make it more brighter i had heard it in the police radio while driving it

Thanks. It's basically what needs to be done here. - ZS 13:11, May 6, 2010 (UTC)

Other question

Hello ZS, I'm Niko Bellic.2810, not if I remember, but a few days ago I made an inquiry. Well, here's another question. In Grand Theft Encyclopedia was taking pictures of vehicles in GTA: San Andreas. Well, when not finding the vehicle (not with tricks or anything) came here and took the image. Well, AbbeySP, manager of GTE, asked me to ask if he could get the images as they are quite good. Remove from Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, for your attention, thank you. --{{SUBST:Usuario:Niko bellic.2810/Firma2}}. 16:02, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

Sure, just make sure to credit the images to GTW. I didn't catch your last message though. What is it about? - ZS 16:23, May 13, 2010 (UTC)

La otra pregunta era la del Virgo. --{{SUBST:Usuario:Niko bellic.2810/Firma2}}. 19:49, May 13, 2010 (UTC)

What about the car? - ZS 19:51, May 13, 2010 (UTC)

Image Reply

I scanned that image from one of GTA IV's hidden files. I do agree that the image is not on its best quality but the original file had a worse quality. GTA4LIFE 20:59, August 5, 2010 (UTC)

GTACW Images

All of those images came from the Spanish GTA Wikia, I just forgot to source them. They were PNG, so I edited the shading and saved them as JPEG so that may be why they look like that. Also I resized some of them too.--Gta-mysteries 19:19, May 13, 2010 (UTC)
Doesn't look like a mere image conversion ruined it; it's already ruined when they decided to go ahead screencaping wireframe lights. Anyway, we shouldn't be procuring images with glitchy graphics. The ones without nightlights look acceptable though. - ZS 19:27, May 13, 2010 (UTC)

GTW Forum

Hey. I have created a GTW Staff Discussion Forum here. You will need to Register on TGTAP, and leave me a message on my talk page with your TGTAP username to gain access to the GTW forum. Gboyers talk 13:06, May 31, 2010 (UTC)

Caddy

Hi,

I have recently mod my golf cart in "GTA IV The Ballad of Gay Tony" and the game won't start unless I have the WFT. and WTD. file.

Since you uploaded the picture of the golf cart, is there a way you can email me those files.


Thank You,

Jerry

web-tech@live.com

I'm unable to do this at the moment. The recent patch rendered my data viewer unusable. And thinking about it, isn't it illegal to share game data, let alone ask about it in public? - ZS 10:10, June 5, 2010 (UTC)

Test template deletion request

Hello,

I don't know where the central hub is for asking admins for page deletion and protection, so I thought I'd pick an admin at random and ask.

I developed a little system of templates, through which one can easily insert an Xbox 360 Gamerscore icon in three different sizes. (E.g., {{G}} yields this: Gamerscore.) By the time I finished it, I left over some unneeded templates.

Could you please delete these:

Thanks very much.

--Mondotta 17:57, June 7, 2010 (UTC)

Done. - ZS 10:55, June 8, 2010 (UTC)

what is wrong with my user page???

i went to my user page and there was nothing there, PLEASE HELP!!!

There is an "Edit this page" link in nearly all pages here. Type something there. - ZS 13:08, June 9, 2010 (UTC)

oops

looks like a screwed up but can we keep the image until we find a real one?

paramedics

i just looked over the page you edited and it looks good i was just focusing on the MS paramedics in GTA IV but no big deal thanks it looks good

where is my picture in gta 5 wishlist user gta4bigfan

ijust put a picture about my idea and its gone

I removed that picture, I done so because pictures are not ment to be in the wishlist. Chimpso (Talk) 09:12, June 19, 2010 (UTC)

Emulator Bios

Hey ZS can I ask you another question about the emulators? To get the bios do you have to connect the PS2 to the computer with a USB cable or similar item? I just now got a PS2, and was wondering this. And after you get the bios you won't need the PS2 any longer will you?--Gta-mysteries 10:59, June 21, 2010 (UTC)

You're going to have to extract or "dump" the BIOS from the PS2 using a specialized program. Refer to it here. Once you've dumped it to your PC and have it working with the emulator, there will be no more need for the PS2. And USB transfer is supported, but I used a USB flashdrive to do it, as instructed here; and it's a wee bit complicated. - ZS 11:04, June 21, 2010 (UTC)

Vercetti Gang, a Mafia family

I just looked into the Mafia section of GTA and I'll have to debate if the Vercetti Gang should really be considered a Mafia family or not. In most Mafia societies, they require Italians only. Former WikiPedia editor, Agtax 20:12, June 21, 2010 (UTC).

Go ahead and change it, but expect some opposition, because there are people who have different interpretations of what constitutes a "Mafia family". - ZS 20:17, June 21, 2010 (UTC)
I've noticed that there's not a whole lot of edit warring here like there was on liberal WikiPedia. And I thought I'd let you know what they deleted the List of Gangs section. Agtax 05:16, June 24, 2010 (UTC)

Navbox

How did you get the wikipedia's Template:Navbox --Zibran 1998 08:40, June 29, 2010 (UTC)

We had to duplicate the navbox into this wiki by copying the codes. It's not exactly possible to directly use a navbox across different wikis.
If you are actually inquiring about how to include Template:Navbox into an article, just use {{navbox}}. - ZS 08:43, June 29, 2010 (UTC)

How can i be a part of your community as an admin or anything else?

ZS, Chimpso, and even masterpogihaha a Filipino has a place in this wiki. How can i be like you iam good in wikis. I previously edited Pixar wiki, Harry Potter wiki, Farmville wiki, wikiNation and Singapore wiki and even Wikipedia. I also created a wiki on wikia, Creativity and Arts Wiki which i have no time to edit. I have other accounts on wikia which i have forgot my password. I have an account on Wikipedia. Which is now i want to move on to GTA Wiki or Grand theft Wiki. I have gta games such as GTA2 for PC, GTA Vice City for PC, GTA VCS for PSP, GTA LCS for PSP, GTA III for PC, GTA Chinatown Wars (GTA CW Lite- iPhone) for PSP and iPhone and GTA San Andreas for PC. User:Gta4bigfan Gta4bigfan 14:14, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

Contribute. If you do a good job improving articles for a sustained period of time, you'll be noticed by any of the admins here. We need people with good judgment and some standards on editing. - ZS 20:27, July 3, 2010 (UTC)
I contributed to Grand Theft Auto 5 from my other new wiki giopiagian.wikia.com and maybe i can contribute more. tnx for tthe reminder ZS.
P.S. Have a nice Day! im filipinoGta4bigfan 11:17, July 8, 2010 (UTC) user: gta4bigfan

HELP

The user Ymcfadden is ruining every page he comes to with gramatically incorrect edits and mispellings. Please help, because no one else is helping me correct all of his edits!

Apparently someone else has revert most of them, but they might be unhelpful. Some of the additions he made are legit, but he's probably new to the wiki thing and a poor writer, which explains the quality of his revision. Denying his edit may agitate him and is counterproductive to providing needed growth in these article. The best course of action is to simply copyedit his writing by formatting and spell-checking it. - ZS 13:53, July 11, 2010 (UTC)

RE:

Yeah, I've noticed it. There's no border on the pictures and it looks messy. I'd help with it. It would give me something to do. Although my internet might slow me down a little bit. --Gta-mysteries Talk 19:20, July 18, 2010 (UTC)

And should it be like this? I haven't really used the enhanced galleries since they were made.--Gta-mysteries Talk 19:29, July 18, 2010 (UTC)

That should do. I've also noticed this layout's smaller thumbnail spacing gives captions less room, but it should suffice until we figure out a workaround. - ZS 19:32, July 18, 2010 (UTC)

The galleries we were meant to edit, were those just for the vehicles, or for ALL galleries? The vehicles are done. --Gta-mysteries Talk 22:10, July 19, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort. If I recall, some galleries on weapons and locations appear to follow the same format, but we can go slow on the rest, because most of them default to four images a row, which wouldn't be a problem. - ZS 12:19, July 20, 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Bellissime

Look at this. Krzysiu8020 Dyskusja Wkład 22:20, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

Vehicles Types Categories

Just a quick question, since you seem the active on the vehicles categories. I've been working on the beta category and was wondering. Vehicles that are beta, should they still be categorized by type? --Gta-mysteries Talk 16:23, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

Seems like the logical thing to do. Go for it. - ZS 16:56, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
And for something like the Brickade, if it was put in the Vehicles in The Ballad of Gay Tony category, could that mislead leaders to think it's in the game? --Gta-mysteries Talk 17:01, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
This is where the "Beta vehicles" category comes in. It should be enough to note that it is unused in the final game. Besides, we can't deny that the vehicle is still related to the game. - ZS 17:06, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
To sum it up, keep existing categories while including "beta"-related categories (see ElectroBaton). Dissociating a topic related to a game to said game is not really helpful to readers either. - ZS 17:37, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

Richman Country Club

Hey ZS thanks for helping me edit that page, im sorry if my writing was poor, im playing GTA SA and IV alot, so i barely get any sleep, so im sorry if that page was poorly written, although i do have a question that picture i posted with the Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Sticker was that an ok picture to have, i know everyone here hates pictures with watermarks, so to avoid trouble i want to know if that's ok?, and once again Thanks, Gboyers made a good decision making you one of the admins XD--Claude CJ Vercetti 17:42, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

Official screenshots (with GTA or R* logos) are fine. It's images watermarked by fansites and individual users that we don't usually accept. - ZS 17:37, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

o ok thank you for your help--Claude CJ Vercetti 17:42, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

RE:

I never thought about putting the beta template in with the other navboxes. Perhaps with the vehicles in categories, it would should that they were going to be included in the game. I would like to know how some of the creators came to the names of the beta in GTA LCS, and GTA VCS. Which pages should be merged? --Gta-mysteries Talk 18:12, July 29, 2010 (UTC)

It would help to keep the topic interesting if they were listed in the navboxes, and we got plenty of room to begin with. As for the pages themselves, perhaps we should ask User:Camboisthebest008; he seems to have authored various pages on the lesser known cut vehicles but has been inactive for more than 2 weeks. We can put off the merge until we know whether or not his edits are legit; I must had confused him with someone else of better credibility to suggest a merge earlier. - ZS 18:26, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
I doubt we'd find an answer, since some users making a few contributions, and never return. There was one person that added in real-life photographs, and that really didn't help with the in-game look. It may have been the same user, I'm not really sure about it though. If we doesn't return what about User:Loadingue? He seems to work on beta a lot. --Gta-mysteries Talk 18:34, 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. - 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, 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.--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. --Gta-mysteries Talk 11:17, July 30, 2010 (UTC)
You know, you can always open any file with the Notepad, sometimes it helps, in most cases it doesn't. By the way, I just found the GTALCS "american.gxt" and so, no need to ask Amd64 anymore. His cars were real.--Loadingue 13:46, July 30, 2010 (UTC

Girlfriends in Gta IV page

When I checked the Girlfriends in GTA IV page I saw that there was a note missing from Kate McReary and I put that "...she wasn't dateable after the mission Mr. and Mrs. Bellic(revenge)...". --roaringjohn Talk 16:43, August 8, 2010 (UTC)

JOIN THIS from Gta4bigfan

i have sucessfully created a new wiki gta fan fiction wiki. tell them to others url: http://gta-fan-fiction.wikia.com/wiki/GTA_Fan_Fiction_Wiki

HarveyH92's unsectioned comment regarding forum page

Hey, ZS.....about 2 days ago I posted a new topic on the forums page entitled 'the next game', outlining my ideas for GTA5.....it hasn't appeared and I was logged in. Any explanation for this?HarveyH92 23:29, August 11, 2010 (UTC)

Could you show me the page you created and the forum that you were supposed to put it in? - ZS 02:07, August 12, 2010 (UTC)

thats the thing I don't know to post a link to you

HarveyH92 18:08, August 12, 2010 (UTC)

I see the problem (checked your "Contributions" page). The topic is missing the "{{forumheader|GTA}}" line, which automatically lists your topic in the forum. Seems like a minor slipup though, because another thread made by you was listed into the forums without a problem. Anyway, I added the required line for you. - ZS 18:18, August 12, 2010 (UTC)

thanks man, appreciate itHarveyH92 02:01, August 13, 2010 (UTC)

New Vehicles in GTA San Andreas

Do you know? I have a new vehicles in GTA San Andreas but it's just a modifications.

These are new vehicles I've found but I type a vehicle name myself:

  • Supernova - based on AH-1 Cobra combat helicopter - replaces Hunter
  • Skymaster - based on TU-154 passenger plane - replaces AT400
  • Tsunami - based on Russian Antonov AN-224 Mriya cargo plane - replaces Andromada
  • Apocalypse - based on A-10 Warthog combat plane - replaces Rustler
  • Gatherer - based on CH-47 Chinook - replaces Leviathan
  • Crusader - based on AH-6C Littlebird (similar to Buzzard in GTA IV) - replaces Sparrow
  • Sovereign - based on Boeing 747-400 passenger jumbo jet - replaces AT400
  • Cydonia - based on Concorde supersonic jet - replaces AT400 or Shamal
  • Hurricane - based on Lockheed C-130 Hercules - replaces Beagle
  • Diamondus - based on Boeing B-52 heavy bomber - replaces Andromada or Shamal

These are my new vehicle (planes and helicopters) mod. First I install the CLEO and GXT Hook plugins, then I use FXT Editor and type on the following text.

Open the FXT Editor.

For example: - GXT-Name:GATHERR - Text:Gatherer, then open vehicles.ide file in GTA San Andreas Data folder, and type the word following GXT-Name on the 'Game name'.

Id, Model name, Txd name, Type HandlingId Game name, Anims Class

417, leviathn, leviathn, heli, LEVIATHN, GATHERR, null, ignore. ----Videogamer13(talk). August 13, 2010.

How did you get a picture from Liberty City Stories?

I just want to ask how you got a clear image of the Ballot Van, because I'm not sure how people get these clear images. Fluffy Clouds 03:00, September 4, 2010 (UTC)

Using an emulator or a screencap card. - ZS 07:16, September 4, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Fluffy Clouds 18:04, September 4, 2010 (UTC)

There is a Official Confirmation

There is already an official confirmation of Claude being Claude Speed.


Proof: "GTA Which Character Are You" and http://gta.wikia.com/File:Claude-Artwork.jpg

Gta4bigfan 15:19, September 4, 2010 (UTC)

There is a Official Confirmation

There is already an official confirmation of Claude being Claude Speed.


Proof: "GTA Which Character Are You" and http://gta.wikia.com/File:Claude-Artwork.jpg

Gta4bigfan 15:19, September 4, 2010 (UTC)

Ghost town figure

Hi. I have found the ghost at El Castillo del Diablo on Bone County. Did you found them? --Videogamer13 14:43, September 22, 2010 (UTC)

Do you have evidence? Got a screencap? - ZS 14:47, September 22, 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I forgot to get a camera to take a picture of a ghost. Many users uploaded a video on YouTube that they have claimed to see the ghost on Bone County. --Videogamer13 15:27, September 22, 2010 (UTC)
Provide me the Youtube links in question. - ZS 15:32, 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. --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. - 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. --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. --Videogamer13 08:03, September 26, 2010 (UTC)

Hearse and Romero

Thanks for cleaning up and splitting Hearse and Romero as I was short on time Homerjs 04:02, September 24, 2010 (UTC)

Well, that explains the simplicity of the initial revision. Sorry about that. - ZS 04:05, September 24, 2010 (UTC)

GTA SA mods

I have downloaded and installed a vehicle mods for GTA SA but why the game is still always works perfectly? --Videogamer13 06:53, September 24, 2010 (UTC)

Re: GTA Wikia

  • Galleries should always have the File/Image prefix. Wikia had a modification that didn't require it, so all the galleries on this site have been created the wikia way instead of the correct mediawiki way. There's no easy way to fix it, I will try and create a modification that will allow it to work, but it's more likely to be a manual job.
  • There should be no missing edits - could you let me know where this is happening? Anything that's missing can be exported and imported by an admin easily.
  • Missing images is an unfortunate effect. I had a script to copy all images found in the dump file, but wikia's strange file location and structure has stopped this from downloading every image. I will give this another go, but the guys have been downloading and re-uploading images manually, which is a safer plan at the moment. I will try and get MultiUpload and Upload by URL working, which would make things even easier. The gallery problem also makes it look like more images are missing than actually are.
  • I can stop the interwiki links from working, but my concern would be more about linking to gta.wikia than other wikias. Removing them would be possible with a bot, but could be messy. I can probably remove all direct links to wikia though.
  • One of our staff members decided to stay behind at Wikia and run it as a modding wiki, in partnership with GTW. So they started to remove the irrelevant articles (businesses, stores etc). Wikia saw this as mass deletion and a threat to their advertising revenue, so have hijacked the wiki for a second time, and demoted all staff.

I hope to see you around here :) Gboyers 10:53, 18 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 00:37, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Images

Sorry for uploading the smaller images, I just wanted to get as many of the images back on here as quick as possible. I'll make sure to get the full sized image next time. And I am aware of the URL upload option. A-Dust 10:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Disabling WikiEd

Hi, how has disabling WikiEd using the logo worked for you? For me, it randomly decides to re-enable itself, which is very annoying. So a little tip, you can add this code to your personal JavaScript page (so, if you use the Vector skin (default), User:ZS/vector.js). This is the same code utilised by pressing the logo, but this way, you're forcing it to read that code. JFletcherTalk (formerly User:Biggest gta fan ever) 11:01, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll give this code a go. - ZS 17:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

engine sound

What is the name of the engine sound of the Sentinel XS in GTA Vice City? PK2PK2 22:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea. Never had the time to check sound files. - ZS 03:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Okay, and is the engine sound available in GTA San Andreas and if it is, which vehicles use it? PK2PK2 02:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Em, as I wrote before, I simply don't know what file it is, and I didn't inspect sound data for GTA San Andreas. Or any other GTA game for that matter. - ZS 17:43, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

GTA IV: HQ Screenshot

Hi. I just wonder how to take a HQ screenshot of GTA IV? There's no in-game camera(like GTA:SA) and my screenshot quality (by using program like Paint) isn't good enough, in my opinion. --St42nwpt 08:32, 1 April 2011 (BST)

Use the Video Editor; it has a free aim camera. And you're going to need a proper image editor that can save high quality JPGs to save space while avoiding image degradation; not sure what I can recommend though, because I use Adobe Photoshop. It also helps to have a good computer so you can save in the best graphics possible. I've seen a lot of GTA4 screenshot taken with ugly graphics because people couldn't max out their graphics settings without setting their computer on fire. Some knowledge in camera work (that is picking good camera angles to take pictures) would also be an added plus. - ZS 10:58, 1 April 2011 (BST)
My graphics settings are all pushed to the max and ,luckily, I have Adobe Photoshop in my PC. I'll figure out later. Thanks a lot!!! --St42nwpt 12:10, 1 April 2011 (BST)
I just test with Cluck Norris image and it works. Thanks a lot for your help!!!--St42nwpt 12:29, 2 April 2011 (BST)
Not bad. Keep it up. :) - ZS 05:09, 4 April 2011 (BST)

Interwiki

Glad you spotted that interwiki problem. It's because I removed the interwiki shortcuts to all the wikia sites, so now it doesn't recognise them as nice interwiki links, but as normal red links. I'll add the interwiki links back in, but not sure whether to make them point to Wikia or another page.. Gboyers 09:48, 21 April 2011 (BST)

Schafter TBOGT

How did you get the TBOGT Schafter?--Buoys Ahoy 23:51, 28 April 2011 (BST)

The regular version isn't actually available in normal gameplay, thus being far rarer than the modified version; I had to use a third party spawner to get it. - ZS 04:10, 29 April 2011 (BST)

Thanks--Buoys Ahoy 17:29, 30 April 2011 (BST)

Renaming the Vice City Police Stations

Hey ZS, thanks for cleaning up my Vice City Police Station articles and making them look more appealing. However, I would like to ask, is it actually necessary to rename all of the Vice City Police Station articles from "Police Station" to "Police Department"? There is no proof that the police stations are the headquarters, or part of, different police departments. --MrLanceVanceDance 07:11, 2 June 2011 (BST)

I'm not very well versed in American police terminology, but aren't individual police stations also referred as police departments? What about sheriff's offices/sheriff departments? - ZS 11:04, 2 June 2011 (BST)

I'm not American so I wouldn't (and I don't) know much about American police terminology, but maybe we should do this: we rename the Vice City Police Station articles back from "Police Department" to "Police Station" until either one of us finds proof that the stations should be called "Department" rather than "Station" because so far, there is no evidence that Vice City has seperate sub-divisions of the VCPD unlike San Andreas, which have seperate police departments for each of the main cities.--MrLanceVanceDance 11:19, 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.--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.
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 this logo legit or has someone made it themselves, because it's better quality than ours? Gboyers 00:33, 3 June 2011 (BST)

That image isn't legit. His album also has a lot of custom police badges and logos--spaceeinstein 04:52, 3 June 2011 (BST)
Can't argue about that then. I'll start renaming urban stations to "police stations" and county stations to "sheriff offices" later today when I'm done with Pay 'n' Spray. Well, except the Dillimore Police Department; it's got signs that specifically say it's one. - ZS 04:57, 3 June 2011 (BST)

Hey

Hello!

I've had my account since last December, but I've just started editing.

I don't mean to pester you, but I was wondering if there was anything I could edit, or help out with. I would love to assist the wiki in anyway!

Cheers,

Bacon777

Bacon777 03:49, 21 July 2011 (BST)

Welcome. :) I guess you can start by checking out the first section of this page. It has listings of articles that may need some work, like missing categories or broken links. If in doubt, you can ask a higher-up like User:A-Dust or User:Spaceeinstein, two other contributors who have been active lately. - ZS 16:22, 21 July 2011 (BST)

Ammu-nation

Hi just wondering something. I was looking for at the Ammu-Nation article and saw it was lacking a Shoreside Vale section in GTA III. Should the small garage behind the LCPD station be mentioned in this? --Gta-mysteries 22:51, 24 July 2011 (BST)

It's not related to Ammu-nation in any way (the same way Phil's Army Surplus is unattached to the gun store chain), being more of a backdoor dealer operating out of a police station. We could note this in brief or in the "See also" section at the Ammu-Nation article, but that bit of trivia should be included in full at the Shoreside Vale Police Station article instead. - ZS 05:12, 25 July 2011 (BST)

Problems on GTW

Hey, I thought I would address your list of present problems on GTW.

  • Galleries not displaying properly - random width limit & left-aligning
    • I'll look into this, could be an easy central CSS fix, or it could mean we have to add CSS to every use of the <gallery> tags
  • Title case
    • It's not "plain aesthetics", it's because we regard titles as titles, not sentences; so we use title case, not sentence case. It also makes consistently a lot easier, as we don't have to check whether every single word is a Proper Noun.
  • Aversion of disambiguated titles that employ parenthesis, being justified as being unwieldy.
    • I absolutely believe that parenthesised titles are unwieldy. Yes, I'm sure that expert users such as yourself don't have a problem typing [[Police (car) (GTA IV)|police car]] wherever you go, this would make the code horrible (compared with [[Police Car]] and would make it a LOT harder for less-experienced users.
    • Take a look at Muse Wiki, where EVERY page has brackets, and everything that anyone types in will always lead to a disambig page. Imagine how annoying it is to link on that wiki, having to make sure every link is correctly formatted with the brackets, space, capitalisation and spelling, and is masked with text different to that in the link. We could end up being the same.
    • I am keen that GTW remain a nice place for users of all types. I understand that yourself and A-Dust are very much in favour of a technically-correct completely-factual wiki with everything perfect, but I prefer to be realistic and open to anyone. We still get compliments from people who have left Wikipedia because of the draconian policies and how intimidating it is to new users. Hopefully we can reach a compromise that is the best of both worlds.
    • One specific issue I have with parentheses is the amount of punctuation, grammar and thinking you have to do. You need the common name, space, open bracket, group name (with or without a capital), closed bracket. If you miss the space or mis-type the capital, the link simply won't work, and it can be very frustating for a new or even somewhat experienced editor to figure out exactly what is missing. If you use a normal sentence like "Police Car in GTA IV", it's a lot more simple, even if it's slightly longer.
  • Other Gaming Wikis do it this way
    • I don't agree that just because other gaming wikis and Wikipedia do something, that we have to do exactly the same thing. I pick and choose the things I think suit this wiki, and ignore the things that I don't. I am always open to discussing better ways of doing things, and to justify my decisions so far. Of course I want this wiki to be the best it can be, and for everyone to like it here; but sometimes I do have to make decisions where some people agree and some people don't. Thankfully it hasn't divided the community yet, and by listening to people and explaining the reason for the final decision, we can hopefully avoid that ever happening.
  • Lack of "suggested link" plugin
    • I've been working on this, but have met with some issues. Likewise with category suggestion.
  • Use of "GTA eras"
    • I believe eras to be a very logical and clear way of distinguishing the different sets of games. Everyone understand that something being the case in the GTA III Era applies to all those games and not to others. Saying that something applies to "the series of games after GTA III but before GTA IV" simply is not appropriate for us. It works well for Wikipedia, since they have a LOT less detail than us, but I think eras work very well for us.
  • Many images which failed to be transferred from the GTA Wikia still unattended after more than half a year.
    • I agree this is an issue. I admit I was expecting the staff members who generally tend to images to deal with this. I have no way of fixing this automatically. I suggest we just delete most UnusedImages, then look at WantedFiles and manually import whichever ones we want.
  • Double standards with regards to different vehicles in different games that use the same name
    • This is something we also need to make a decision on. My view is that, where it's roughly the same vehicle AND the same name, it should be on the same page. But if it's different, then they might as well be on separate pages, now that we are big enough to handle it. For situations like Police Car, I think they could be split off into Police Car in GTA Vice City or Police Car in GTA III Era - using the main Police Car article as a collective article. Again, I'd like to hear your opinion on this.
    • So long as everyone can find what they want, AND linking/titling is not very complicated (i.e. parentheses), AND it's clear what everything is for, AND information is not unnecessarily duplicated, I'm happy. If we have a separate article for everything in every individual game (like "Rocket Launcher in GTA III"), that would start getting silly.

If you genuinely believe another way is better, then I invite you to submit a proposal. Let me know what you would do differently, how it should be implemented, and how it will affect users. We'll discuss these amongst other staff to reach a compromise, and invite other users to comment too. I'd rather do that than have unhappy editors or staff complaining on their user pages. gboyers talk 07:16, 8 August 2011 (BST)

Sorry for any misunderstanding, but the list is more of a bunch of notes to self on what could be done (emphasis on "could"), rather than an open rant; as for the more contentious issues (capitalization, use of terminologies and split articles), I'm in no rush to address them, as previous attempts to bring some of these up have been pretty difficult. That said, I'm pondering moving this list away from the main userpage. - ZS 09:02, 8 August 2011 (BST)

Rhino artwork source found

Hi. I have found where User:Nodnarb24 got File:Rhino-GTALCS-artwork.jpg and many of his uploaded LCS screenshots, from GTA-Series.com. I incorrectly guessed that it came from internal files. It seems to be a rare artwork that was meant to be for LCS's multiplayer mode "Tanks for your Memories". All other MP modes have an associated artwork except that one.--spaceeinstein 17:05, 11 August 2011 (BST)

Thanks for the clarification. Good to know this is official art. - ZS 19:43, 11 August 2011 (BST)

Changes to Faggio Article

Hey ZS, if the Faggio isn't the only scooter in the game, not including its delivery variants, what other scooters are there?--MrLanceVanceDance 09:59, 14 August 2011 (BST)

The Mod Scooter. - ZS 10:42, 14 August 2011 (BST)

Re: Navbox

I noticed something was broken a few minutes ago, so I've just updated it. Should be fixed now. gboyers talk 04:56, 15 August 2011 (BST)

oops, that was actually Template:Navboxes (not Template:Navbox), which I forgot to update. Fixed now. gboyers talk 06:22, 15 August 2011 (BST)

Grand Theft Mods

Hey, could I have your feedback on the status of our upcoming Grand Theft Mods site? If you can't access our forum, let me know. Thanks - gboyers talk 07:34, 15 August 2011 (BST)

Screenshots

Hi, I'm just wondering how it's possible for you to get such perfect screenshots of buildings and vehicles in games, like this one: File:LibertyTreeBuilding-GTA3-exterior.jpg

I've tried myself but since the protagonist is always in the way I have to get the screenshot from the edges of the screen which skews them in different ways, and I could never for my life be able to fit a building that big into one screenshot, but yours are just perfect, how is that possible? Please tell me as this is one of the great mysteries of life to me. --Andreaz1 00:20, 16 August 2011 (BST)

  1. Aim in a first-person view using an M-16.
  2. Using the replay, screencap the same view, which is shown without the HUD.
- ZS 04:58, 16 August 2011 (BST)

Thanks a lot for the answer. --Andreaz1 12:55, 16 August 2011 (BST)


Just coming back for an unrelated comment. You said that my screenshots looked a bit squashed, I tried using the Widescreen option but that chopped off bits at the top and bottom. I did some reading and found that VC apparently has some sort of problem with 16:10 resolutions. There are many fixes around for it, so now it works normally. :) --Andreaz1 15:03, 17 August 2011 (BST)

Thanks mate

Thanks for your advice about infoboxes. I really apreciated it.--MrLanceVanceDance 11:39, 17 August 2011 (BST)

However, I need you to clear this up: How do you know what image to put in a vehicle's infobox if the vehicle appears in multiple games?--MrLanceVanceDance 11:48, 17 August 2011 (BST)

This is going to be tricky. The reason more than one lead image is used is to be balanced for both the early renditions that can be radically different from later renditions, and later ones. We could in fact avoid the trouble by having no lead image for the infobox at all, but certain editors insist that an article must have lead images (which isn't fair because it's open to bias towards newer GTA games). My advice is to leave those double image thumbnails untouched until I figure out how to properly allow the infobox to support more than one image. - ZS 18:08, 17 August 2011 (BST)

RE: Article rename and split

Regarding your discussion about the article split between Express Car Service and its depot, yes, I think it is necessary. One article talks about the taxi company while the other one talks about the taxi company's depot. I had to make the split, as the article name was misleading, as it claims to talk about the taxi company when it actually talks about the depot. Splitting the article eliminates the problem. Also, with help from the GTW community, the newer of the two articles will be expanded and fixed up.

Also, about the Washington Beach Police Station being the headquarters of the VCPD, yes, I reckon the police station is the VCPD Headquarters. It is the only police station accessable to the player, and has clothing (Cop Uniform), weapon (nightstick) and hidden package spawns, which implies that this police station has to be very important and is thus, the VCPD headquarters. The interior also looks like the interior of an important office, being tidy and clear. Also, it is considered by some GTA fans to be the VCPD headquarters. Also, if the Downtown Police Station was the police headquarters, then there would be missions held there, just like No Escape?. The only association is has to a mission is the Taxi Driver mission, where it is a destination. Also, it is best not to judge a book by its cover.--MrLanceVanceDance 13:08, 1 October 2011 (BST)

Here's the thing. Express Car Service could be used to discuss both the depot in Hove Beach and that other depot that is never actually seen in game. In fact, the page can still discuss the topic as a business that Roman owns while a section can be dedicated to the Hove Beach depot, without having to force readers to needlessly navigate out of that page. I believe that pages have to be comprehensive about the topic rather than being fragmanted and watered down simply because very minor distinctions exist. I only consider a split when an article is too long to be readable.
But you can disregard the one about the VCPD station. I just messaged you about it on your talk page. - ZS 14:07, 1 October 2011 (BST)

However, here's the thing: Roman's unseen taxi depot already has an article-Roman's Taxi Depot, Algonquin. But I still stick to my descision to split the two pages. There is a very obvious difference between a depot and a depot's tenant/parent company.--MrLanceVanceDance 01:09, 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. - 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).

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 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? gboyers talk 15:58, 2 October 2011 (BST)

Thanks for joining in the discussion. I can understand where you're going with this; the structure of each page has to be determined on a case-to-case basis. Single guidelines doesn't apply in every field, simply because the importance of each subject matter varies greatly. - ZS 17:12, 2 October 2011 (BST)

Eras

Hey. I know you disagree with the Era terminology/groupings, but consistency is important. I don't think half the pages should use one system and half another, and I don't think staff should be reverting each others edits!

I've started a community discussion about the era terminology, so that we can explain our points fully and allow users to comment. Please fill in the "why should we not use eras" section. You can then add your opinion on the talk page. Hopefully we can reach a consensus and make a final decision on this. gboyers talk 22:08, 30 October 2011 (GMT)

Re:Protagonists in GTA 1

In reply to Re:Protagonists in GTA 1

Do whatever you want, I can no longer be bothered to argue my point on the issue anymore. A-Dust 18:26, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

GTA VC: Screenshot?

Do you know how to take screenshots from GTA: Vice City? Because I like to take photos like InterGlobal Studios page that you contribute. - unsigned comment by User:St42nwpt

There are several ways to screencap, depending on the subject matter:
  • First person aim using a M4 or Ruger, then screencap them in a replay, or screencap while looking around in first-person by enabling classic controls (with the HUD and radar disabled). Both methods are best suited when taking smaller subject matters on street level.
  • Switch to first person view on a helicopter (with the HUD and radar disabled). Works best when taking pictures of large objects (large buildings) or entire districts. - ZS (talk) 11:53, 18 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks a lot. I'll figure out later. :) --St42nwpt

Game logos

I've just seen your edit on Ultorultor's talk page and wasn't sure if you'd noticed that Spaceeinstein has uploaded a logo for the game earlier on this morning. I've also responded to the Protagonists in GTA 1 talk page. A-Dust 11:32, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for talk page reply and the heads up on the logo. As for the logo, the help is appreciated but Ultorultor's logos for GTA games from GTA III onwards lack the "Grand Theft Auto" text, so Spaceeinstein's GTACW logo doesn't quiet cut it. While I wait for Ultorultor's reply, I'll also attempt to separate the "Chinatown Wars" text from an image of the logo myself. - ZS (talk) 11:58, 20 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sorry I hadn't actually looked at the logos, I'd just seen that Spaceeinstein had uploaded one. A-Dust 12:11, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
I've also left a message Talk:Liberty Tree articles in GTA III. Sorry for having to edit this page again but I'm currently registered as a bot. A-Dust 16:08, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Absence

Hey, I'm sorry you feel the way you mentioned on your user page. It sounds like there are specific things you're unhappy about. I hate to lose a decent staff member, so of couse I'm prepared to compromise on things to keep you guys on-side (this isn't Wikia!). I'd like to at least know what it is you're unhappy about? Is it the UK/US language thing? Even if you want to stay inactive, I'm happy to shift you over to the Alumni group so you can retain your admin rights and use them whenever you do visit. Let me know. gboyers talk 20:48, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Re:Questions

In reply to Questions

The idea behind the new screenshot category system is to break up the main game categories and to leave the other categories free for articles, which shouldn't pose much of a problem for finding image names if image names are consistent. As for the use of roman numerals, the games names are GTA III and GTA IV, not GTA 3 and GTA 4, so we should be using the correct name. As for the name of Faustin's Bodyguard/Roman's Killer, it was not me who first said about the name. I believe it was Spaceeinstein, so he may be the best person to ask about that. A-Dust 21:08, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The naming of images to you may seem going overboard, but the fact is the games are not named using numbers. With the site being online for six years, we should be looking to make the site as professional as possible as there is no longer an excuse of being new or having recently moved from Wikia. Getting something as simple as the name of the game correct across the site is something simple to do. That's why I've also been going through countless articles to edit out the use of redirects, which likewise doesn't look brilliant.
Where would you suggest the explanation be placed? And if I'm not mistaken there were some categories where the number of images was reducing the amount of articles being listed. It also seems unnecessary to have the same screenshot located in several categories. A-Dust 22:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
The improvement in the category system is that it splits up the main screenshot categories into smaller, more usable categories. The removal of screenshots from other categories is simply because they are not needed there, when they will already be used on the relevant pages. There is also no real point in having screenshots located in, with some, in three or four categories.
And yes the site is less active, less active in general and in comparison to the Wikia site. I'd rather have less but better contributions than more that would make the content worse. However, this can also be expected due to the lack of information and games being released for the series. And so, in this quiet time, I would say now is the best time to get it out of the way before we become more active in the run up to GTA V. We had the opportunity to do it in the lead up to GTA IV and didn't take advantage.
And it may not be the most important thing on the wiki right now, however, it is something that needs to be done at some point. The small things, such as removing redirects and standardising the naming of images, will add up to making the site look more professional and increasingly organised. A-Dust 19:32, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll butt in if I may?

  • Images being in categories is useful, there's no doubt. However, I agree with A-Dust that we shouldn't be clogging up content categories with images. So the simplest solution is to make separate image categories that fit under regular categories. For example, have Category:Brown Streak Railroad Images or Category:Images of Brown Streak Railroad or Category:Brown Streak Railroad/images. This would clear content categories, and keep images completely organised. Finding images by name is NOT the ideal solution, as that would only work for the couple of users that completely understand the naming conventions.
  • Image names should fit a standard. The best standard is the condensed form (GTA1, GTAVC, GTAIV). As well as 'consistency', it means we can automate things a lot more, as we're starting to do with infobox templates. For example - an infobox would be able to automatically know which image to display, just by knowing the games the vehicle/character/mission is in and its name. For example, for Comet it would automatically guess [vehiclename]-[gameid]-front.jpg so it would guess File:Comet-GTAIV-front.jpg and find a working image.
  • I think it is important that we agree our new standards now, before GTA V hits. We already have a lot of new stuff in place, like the character/vehicle infoboxes, which is going to make SUCH a huge difference when we get all that new content. Reorganising the old games to FIT those new standards is less urgent - at the moment we really need to agree it, and get the structures/templates ready. I'd rather we held discussions about things like categories first, rather than having one user spend a thousand hours editing 50% of the images on the wiki if it could be done differently. We don't have much time left - we need to get these things discussed, agreed, and ready to go. gboyers talk 19:40, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
I've been watching this discussion from the sideline, and although this may be pointless, I'll just give my opinion on some of the matters covered here. I mostly agree with ZS, except for this not being a good time for organisational tasks. This is the perfect time to reorganise stuff, while not much new content is being added.
Image categorisation: I completely agree with ZS on this one. There are thousands of images on this wiki, and I'm not going to go through all of the broad screenshot categories to find a specific image. Categories aren't a navigational element of the wiki (for readers), they're an organisational element (for editors) to find all related articles/images/anything else, and categorisation should be specific. Just like I don't go to Category:Missions to find a specific mission from a specific game, the same goes for images. I sorta like Gboyers' idea of sub-categories for images, but that has it's limitations - That only makes sense for categories that have a lot of images, otherwise it's a waste of a category to only hold two or three images. And having sub-categories for some while using the main category for others would be inconsistent and unintuitive.
Image naming conventions: As you all know, images are not my specialty at all, but I can definitely see where ZS is coming from. We don't ever use 'GTAIV', we use 'GTA IV', so the image names are already inconsistent - but I don't think that matters at all. This isn't content, it's code - And code usually follows conventions that are easy to use, rather than reflecting policies that relate to content. I think that 'GTA4' is a lot easier to read than 'GTAIV', and is no more inconsistent or unofficial, considering the official version (at least on this wiki) is 'GTA IV'. To the point of professionality: I completely agree that it needs to be standardised, but I don't think that the standard needs to be based on content-based policies.
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. JFletcherTalk (formerly User:Biggest gta fan ever) 08:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

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 {{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 vehicles in GTA VC or 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! gboyers talk 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 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 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 - gboyers talk 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 still an issue. Needs to be addressed, but any user can put a {{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 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 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. gboyers talk 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 - gboyers talk 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. gboyers talk 15:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


You may like this log to see some of the things that have been warned or stopped. gboyers talk

Re: Game Informer Images

You raise a good point, but as per our Licensing policy:

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 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! gboyers talk 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. gboyers talk 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! gboyers talk 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. gboyers talk 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 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. gboyers talk 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. 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 [[GTA San Andreas]] to [[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas|GTA San Andreas]] - 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 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? gboyers talk 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. --DT-boy (talk|edits) 10:53, 15 December 2013 (GMT)

Problem solved. --DT-boy (talk|edits) 14:16, 15 December 2013 (GMT)