RogueBasin talk:Community Portal

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Game Announcements

If you have a new game/version/release to announce to the world, Make an edit to the News page, and please follow the existing format. If you want to generate discussion and receive feedback and comments, make sure to head over to RogueTemple and use their forums, as well as rgrd. Stu 14:21, 16 May 2008 (CEST)

Link breaks wiki, News at 11

The following link (from 'dead-end pages') fails to display anything other than nasty error messages. Possibly due to illegal characters in title?

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Hansj%3F%84%E2%80%9A%3F%82%C2%B6rg_Malthener

Other 'bug'ish news. SDL exists, but searching for SDL will return zero hits. PaulBlay

The error with Hansjoergs page are not because of illegal characters in the URL. They should be valid even though they look like at least twice encoded in Unicode. There seems to something terrible broken recently with non 7-bit characters. Database update maybe? Try searching for any special character like e.g. '????' (U+00C4 "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS" if it gets mangled). Even the db search bails with an error. --Bhaak 15:58, 23 March 2009 (CET)

Spambots

There was a small spambot attack recently, dunno how they overrid the spam protection (what is the current spam protection)? I had no luck blocking them via the sysop special pages. Is there any way to delete user accounts?

--Slash 01:08, 12 Apr 2007 (CEST)

I think it may be useful to update MediaWiki software to the latest version. The one that's currently installed is so old, the mind boggles. The current version has captchas and other stuff, and it's much easier to revert vandalism. Grue 10:23, 12 Apr 2007 (CEST)

IIRC Bj????rn set up the latest version when the server translation was performed? Also, this is plain vandalism, not even spam (deleting '+' and everything after a '&', what use would that have? --Slash 17:19, 12 Apr 2007 (CEST)

It can't be the latest version. For example when you look at the diff between two revisions, there's no link to edit the revision. This feature was in Wikipedia since I joined it, probably, and that was very long time ago. So, to revert vandalism one has to click three times instead of two, pretty annoying. I don't know, maybe it's configured incorrectly, but it definitely looks very outdated. Grue 10:52, 13 Apr 2007 (CEST)

It's definitely an old version, the Special:Version page shows as using version 1.3.9 (The 1.3.x line was last updated in November 2005). The newest release is 1.10.0 although most modern versions of MediaWiki require PHP5 though (since version 1.7). The latest version that still supports PHP4 is 1.6.10 available here. 1.6.10 was released on 20th February 2007. -- Pucechan 01:18, 28 May 2007 (CEST)

THe Wiki is currently running MediaWiki 1.6.10. Hopefully we won't see any more spam attacks. -- Bjorn 09:50 3 Jul 2007

There was another spammer, although it could be a person doing it, rather than a bot. It was this account doing it, and this was was what he did.

Here we go again, looks like the spambots are returning? Three new pages filled with.. something. Here, here and here, created by three (new?) users in a short succession. Are there any anti-spambot guidelines somewhere, since I'm not sure of what to do, except for reporting? Solarnus 23:48, 8 January 2009 (CET)

Wonder if there is any way we can give rights to some users to approve new users so we dont have these spambots sign up, or we need to modify the captcha code to stop this crap. Stu 14:31, 12 January 2009 (CET)

I would suggest try giving a selected few, trusted users the rights to approve new users. The use of CAPTCHAs is kinda useless as of today (well, except for scaring off scriptkiddies), since it's an out of date "security measure" and there's some various techniques to bypass it. It's also a problem for ie, visual impaired people having trouble reading the characters (more info over at wikipedia, for those of you not being convinced it's a crappy technology..). Solarnus 15:50, 23 January 2009 (CET)

Remove the news?

I was wondering if it is a good idea to keep the news box on the main page. My thoughts:

• We have three main news sites: RGRA, Temple of the Roguelike and the RogueBasin. That's a lot of duplicating.
• I feel that the RGRA and Temple of the Roguelike are way more suited to displaying news. I see the RogueBasin as a resource of articles, guides and information about roguelikes.
• The news box could be used to display other things. Such as new articles here, articles that we would like to improve and featured roguelikes.

What do people think? Icey 14:45, 27 May 2007 (CEST)

I agree, both RGRA and TotR seem better places for sources of news (But saying that I do have TotR as a Live Bookmark in Firefox) although I have no problem having a smaller box with the last couple of items. I'd sooner see the space taken with new articles, articles for improvement and featured roguelikes as suggested. -- Pucechan 01:18, 28 May 2007 (CEST)

RGRA and Temple are moderated, which means the news don't appear ASAP. For example both of these mediums haven't covered The Sewer Massacre 1.0 yet (and not for my lack of trying ;)). The main principle behind news is that they are new. A day later is already old news. Imagine if JADE is released, and the news don't appear anywhere for a day. Wiki solves this problem perfectly. Grue 23:09, 28 May 2007 (CEST)

That's one of the cons of a moderated media :) also, RGRA is moderated, but moderation commonly takes less than 1 hour in my Experience --Slash 16:35, 4 Jun 2007 (CEST)

That is a good point, I hadn't really thought about the moderation aspect. Perhaps having a slightly different main page design would accommodate having sections for articles and featured items? Pucechan 18:36, 29 May 2007 (CEST)

I've made a quick mockup of an idea, so colours and content (especially the top-right links) are just placeholders, this uses the fairly "traditional" block wiki format. The content is just copy-pasted but you get the idea. The news would be for each month (probably in a smaller font). See it here User:Pucechan/MainIdea. What do people think?

I like it a lot. I've expanded the idea a bit: User:Icey/MainIdea. It's more wikipedia-like, has a little tag line so people know what the RogueBasin is, added the links to the top, added a featured article section, added a bit of colour and changes a few other things. Icey 02:12, 2 Jun 2007 (CEST)

I like the changes you've made, the little splash of colour helps. I prefer your simple set of links rather than my bundle (I didn't really sort them in any way but your way is much nicer). I really like it. Pucechan 11:19, 2 Jun 2007 (CEST)

Thanks Pucechan. Let's wait a few days to see if anyone else would like to improve/approve it and then decide what to do from there. Icey 13:19, 3 Jun 2007 (CEST)

I like it a lot too... I have always thought roguebasin needs a better front page... perhaps changing "Current news" for "News for June 2007"?

Also, it is pretty wordy, some images may help.. probably :P

Thanks! --Slash 16:35, 4 Jun 2007 (CEST)

Images would be good, but uploading images is disabled :P A little cropped screenshot of a roguelike would be nice to go with the description. Like this or this. Icey 20:14, 7 Jun 2007 (CEST)

I have enabled uploads for a trial period. Bjorn 09:50, 3 Jul 2007 (CEST)

External community links

One thing I think is missing from the main page is a list of external community links. The existing Roguelike_Links doesn't have Temple of the Roguelike, @ Play and other current resources like forums for various roguelike games listed (and dare I say it Ascii Dreams ;) )

Are people happy for me to tidy up the Links section, to include the above, a 'Press' section within Links for listing where external media have talked about roguelike games, and a Forums section within Links for listing the various game specific web forums such as the Angband forums, Angband variant web forums and others (Live Journal, other variants and so on)? I'd like to see more ways of people getting in touch with fellow roguelike players/developers listed somewhere convenient...

That's an excellent idea. Perhaps we could use Links as a comprehensive list and then do a cut down version for the main page?

Perhaps the Links page could have a Roguelike Blog section (or a name like that) for your site and others like [1] [2]

Icey 18:52, 5 September 2007 (CEST)

All those guides!

Where did all those good guides at http://www.roguelikedevelopment.org/ go? according to the news, the content has been moved to this wiki but I can't find any of those guides! me want's 'em badly! Solarnus 11:28, 16 January 2008 (CET)

Sorry, I meant of course that alot of guides are missing, as least most of the map algorithm stuff previously found on the old site is missing here at the wiki. Anyone got copies of those guides, please? Solarnus 14:28, 23 January 2008 (CET)

And you looked in the map section of Articles? All the ones I recall are there. Perhaps you can use the wayback machine to calculate which ones seem to be missing? Duerig 17:12, 23 January 2008 (CET)

lol, the wayback what..? No, realy, I know there's alot missing from the site. Some examples are the guides written by Mike Anderson (Dungeon-Building Algorithm, Fractal Landscapes) and Radomir "The Sheep" Dopieralski (Recursive LvL Generation) Solarnus 17:52, 23 January 2008 (CET)

Look at this URL. It is from www.archive.org, the wayback machine for the Internet: http://web.archive.org/web/20060114055601/http://roguelikedevelopment.org/ but before you go adding all of the articles to the wiki, you should know that there was some effort to move them over, but only if the original authors could be found to give permission. So you should check with an admin here about what to do. Duerig 08:50, 24 January 2008 (CET)

Oh crap, I thought I could just go and add what I managed to find, since it had already been released on the site o.0' Pardon me, I'm too quick sometimes, doing stuff without thinking first.
But, IMHO, not moving over all that stuff just because the original author couldn't be found kinda buggers me, that's just wast of time and good knowledge, stupidlly forcing to "reinvent the wheel". And it buggers me even more, since obvisiouly (spelling?) it can still be found on the web thanks to that wayback machine you're talking about (thanks for that link btw, would've never thought of that).
Thanks for telling me dude, I'll try slowing down/backing off and poke an admin about it before doing anything else.

Anyway, should the "previously missing" Dungeon-Building Algorithm article I dug up yesterday be removed, or just leave it for now and hope for the better? Solarnus 13:50, 24 January 2008 (CET)

Is there any chance of the articles being reposted on the original site until they can be ported here? They're only text documents, and a number of them were very good references. Most of the original files are not stored on wayback machine, so forn ow they are lost for good. lapoubelle 30 April 2008

I have spent most of today searching for and collecting all of the articles that were on the old system but not on roguebasin. I was able to recover all but two. Those two and links to the archives are at User:Duerig. That way they should be safe until we can decide how to handle them. If the admins have a problem with this, I'll host them on my own domain if I have to. Let me know if you can find information on either of the two remaining articles. Duerig 21:53, 1 May 2008 (CEST)

THIS IS NOT A GAME ANNOUNCEMENT PAGE

Don't post game announcements here, there are other pages for that. Stu (I forgot to sign my edit..)

Probably would have been a little nicer and a whole lot more helpful to give a link to the appropriate location and to not all-caps/scream the header, especially since the Help section is completely blank (the most important part of any wiki that wants new contributors and knowledgeable editors), and the main Community Portal page just redirects straight here, making it totally useless as well to direct such notices to their appropriate location. Personally, I can't find a page that really matches what Caeonosphere appears to have been looking for. News seems to be the closest thing, but not really much of an announcement page for game developers so that they can get feedback. The site is a bit of a mess organizationally. Unfortunately, because of this, errant notices such as the one that you deleted are to be expected. Kiefer 13:44, 15 May 2008 (CEST)

You seem to confuse the idea of a wiki vs a forum. This is not a place to post and get feedback and comments and criticisms. Thats what rec.games.roguelike.development or RogueTemple is for. Game releases go on the News page, preferably linking to your game info page, but that is not required. RogueTemple also does game announcements, and takes comments in return on its front page and forums. Stu 14:54, 15 May 2008 (CEST)

I think it's pretty clear that I'm not confusing anything. I didn't say that the announcement was correctly placed. In fact, I described it as an "errant notice." However, a Community Portal often does include a spot for the wiki's community to get together and discuss things that relate to the subject of the wiki. Sometimes that involves requests for feedback like the one you deleted. I'm guessing that Caeonosphere put the request in the most likely place he thought it should go, since (once again) there was no main Community Portal page to direct him.

I think instead that it's pretty clear that my point was: You didn't treat the user with the respect that they deserved. You should have guided them in the right direction, instead of assuming that they should already know what to do. (But, once again, how should they know?) Instead of helping, you deleted their message, added a header that shouts at the user should they return, and then said that "there are other pages for that" without leaving even a clue as to what that might mean. And, apparently from what you just wrote in your reply, there aren't other pages for that here - the developer would have to go someplace else entirely. (A user can't even ask an admin for guidance or help, as there isn't a list of sysops posted on the Main Page from which to get help!)

It's a matter of treating the users with respect, and helping them out instead of essentially saying "bugger off." Kiefer 07:35, 16 May 2008 (CEST)

I agree, I was an arse, and after looking around it really isn't very clear where to go or what to do. I tried to edit the help page but dont have rights to do so. I think the front page needs a revamp to make things clearer. It is too cluttered. I added a little blurb to the top of the community page that might help. I also added the two games I deleted to the News page. Stu 14:21, 16 May 2008 (CEST)

You da man! My flying monkeys of death have been recalled and sun is shining again across the land. So, who do we have to bribe to get the help pages started and a non-redirecting Community Portal page created? I've worked on similar elsewhere, but everything is protected, and I don't really know what the "vision" of the site is. Ah well. Kiefer 17:54, 16 May 2008 (CEST)

I get an SQL error if I try to unprotect those pages. Thus, I've gone with the simpler answer of redirecting both to user-editable pages. I really don't know what a community portal should consist of, so left that page blank with a link back to this talk. The Help page I spliced together from existing stuff. Please let me know if there are other needs. --JeffLait 18:02, 28 July 2008 (CEST)

Game or project?

Template Template:Angband-variant asks for status field. Then game entry is added to "status games" category. This works well for stable games and defunct games but fails for alpha, beta and talkie talkie *projects*. Thus any Angband variants which classify themselves as having alpha or beta status do not get included in proper category. Any ideas how to correct that without destroying too much existing work? I would opt for removing status field and adding all variants to categories manually. Other choice is to spilt template into several like it was done with Template:Gameinfo. What are others opinions on this? –Michal Bielinski^Talk 16:18, 19 August 2008 (CEST)

I think the best bet is to split the template like the Gameinfo did. I presume there was a good reason to do that split rather than use the status field cleverly. I don't like people having to manually add the category tag as that will result in people forgetting to categorize the variant at all. --JeffLait 05:21, 21 August 2008 (CEST)

Foundations are lain. I am going to wait some more time before proceeding to change all Angband variant pages in case better ideas show up or someone has objections. –Michal Bielinski^Talk 15:03, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

1krl

We should add this to the wiki, but I'm not sure where. http://1024brl.googlepages.com/ (and a link to the rgrd posts of course. --Soyweiser 02:00, 22 August 2008 (CEST)

Rule of thumb for new -> old news?

How many months (or how many posts) should be in News before you should move some to Old News? I would suggest that four months or so is enough as the 'News' section is currently longer than the rest of the Main page. PaulBlay

I think that we should move all news from 2008 to Old News. We actually don't really need the News page to show news older than a month, as it is intended to show new releases. I will move all news from 2008 now. Nathan Stoddard 22:34, 22 March 2009 (CET)

More bug-ish behaviour - support for unicode/multi-byte characters

I've just noticed that Japanese text typed in my user page spontaneously changed into gibberish (technically 'mojibake' ;-). The interesting point is that initially it displayed properly, only after a day or two did it turn into unintelligible characters. Similar behaviour can be seen at POWDER/Russian translation. For test purposes I will now write something in Japanese. ??†?‚??????®????‚???«?—???¬??ž??§ä?•??‹é?©??“??«?›¸??„??¦??Š????????™?€‚ PaulBlay

talkie = pre-alpha / planning ?

The 'talkie' category appears to be a little off compared to the line-up of "alpha, beta, stable". Should I understand it to include games that are pre-alpha / planning or should "pre-alpha" be a new category?

A significant number of 'alpha' projects include no download. I was under the impression that 'alpha' meant that you could run it and see something even though it might not be a playable game yet. PaulBlay

Yes, I think that games that are in 'alpha' but have no downloads should be moved to 'talkie'. Nathan Stoddard 23:23, 12 April 2009 (CEST)

Image uploads?

I see that file uploads are disabled. I'd like to be able to upload a few small icons for alpha/beta/stable/defunct (after I find/create them ;-). If I can't do it myself, is there an admin who I could email or something? PaulBlay

It's not possible to upload files, but you can use images from other sites. Put the image's URL on the page, without any special formatting (look at Downfall for an example). If you need a site to upload to, I recommend Imgur. Nathan Stoddard 23:26, 12 April 2009 (CEST)

RGRD Wiki Project

I see this hasn't had any new names added since August 2008. As such perhaps it shouldn't be so prominent in the Contribute section. Maybe ...

Contribute

If you'd like to contribute to RogueBasin, simply create an account and log in. Feel very free to edit! We especially need more information added to the games pages and the lists - if you're a developer, consider updating your game's page, and making sure that it (and you) are included in the relevant lists.

If you're an experienced developer, consider writing articles about creating Roguelikes. There are many people new to Roguelike development, and they often need help. It's especially helpful to write articles about problems you have experienced yourself. Also you can add your name to the RGRD Wiki Project (directly, or by posting a message on rgrd saying how you want to participate). If someone sees a relevant post by you, they'll upload it to this wiki as an article.

PaulBlay

I think this will be fine. You can go ahead and change it if you want. Nathan Stoddard 23:27, 12 April 2009 (CEST)

New main page

I like the appearance of the new main page :) --Slash 05:32, 13 April 2009 (CEST)

I like it too, nice work! I'd like the contribute part to be blue though, User:Colonp/maintest.. Not perfect right now. Colonp 04:17, 17 April 2009 (CEST)

STATUS in game templates

A number of games have |status= lines in the info box, but it does not display anything on the screen. The content is generally a duplicate of the type indicated by the template name (e.g. game-beta is status Beta, etc.)

Are these lines left over from an earlier set of templates? Can the STATUS information safely be called redundant and removed? PaulBlay

'roguelikes' section of Main page.

I think that influential would be clearer (and less controversial) than popular. There are arguably many recent roguelike games that are more popular than ToME, but few (if any) that have been more influential.

I suggest that Major Roguelikes, Roguelike Reviews, Tree of roguelike evolution, and Recently Updated Roguelikes be added to the 'inclusion' page Lists of Roguelikes, and the text changed as below:

Roguelikes

Many Roguelikes are freely available online. The most popular influential are:

ADOM · Angband · Crawl · NetHack · ToME

Since the control systems of these Roguelikes are geared towards "expert" players, the novice player may be interested in trying a 'lighter' game like some of the coffeebreak roguelikes or just dive in at the deep end and find a game to suit you.. The following may help you find out more:

• Categorized Roguelikes
• Lists of Roguelikes
• Major Roguelikes
• Roguelike Reviews
• Tree of roguelike evolution
• Recently Updated Roguelikes

Also ...

See Talk:List of roguelikes for possible replacement for the content of that page. PaulBlay

Featured game section?

How about a 'featured game' section (bottom left of main page). Suggested content: Short description, mini-review, link to RogueBasin page and main review (if present). I'd suggest choosing games that have been updated in the last month and are at least 'beta'. PaulBlay

Location instead of Nationality?

In the developer info, I think it would be more fun to have a Location option instead of a Nationality option. With location, people can put in however much information on their location they want. They could type things like "Sacramento, CA, USA" or just "Arizona, USA" or even "France". The Nationality field limits this information purely to the country where the person is from, which in many cases might not be as interesting as the state in that country that the person lives in.

So, the advantage with using the word Location instead is that it provides people the flexibility to put in however much or little information they want, and it can still contain the exact same information that Nationality does. Also, upgrading is easy because we can just replace all instances of Nationality with Location. Although this might be considered a minor issue because people can enter their state and so on into the Nationality field, the Nationality field still encourages new contributions to contain as little information as possible on the location of the developer. Renaming it Location would encourage them to put in as much information as they wanted to. - elig

I'm not hard against it, but it doesn't sound that great a move. I doubt the excitement would keep you awake at nights if I told you that I live in Wiltshire now but Berkshire before I moved. ;-) States are mostly only going to be interesting if you happen to live in the same country. That said, go ahead and do it if you want, it's no big deal either way. PaulBlay