User talk:Rej Maddog/2009

Talk of 2009

 * This is my archived talk page from 2009.

Original Welcome
Hi, welcome to Girl Genius! Thanks for your edit to the User:Rej Maddog page.

Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! -- Argadi (Talk) 04:41, 30 March 2009

Mathematics
Rej, Othar cannot have been living with Oslaka for 36 years, returned to a Paris abandoned for 27, yet still have been IN that same Paris with a Gilgamesh attending university all in the same timeframe. Gil's only about 20, we know Agatha is 18, please do the maths. -- Corgi 19:23, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Also turns out that Othar knew Gil and Agatha before settling down with Olaska so we are years after the GG Heterodyne story. Headed back to the future no doubt. Or forward to the past. Rej Maddog 22:13, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * *poking her nose in* It seems pretty straightforward to me. I wasn't sure if there was still confusion or not.
 * Othar goes to school in Paris with Gil.
 * Othar meets Agatha, escapes from CW, meets Theo.
 * Othar disappears from "our" story, goes on his twitter adventures.
 * Othar meets Oslaka, goes off to Driftwood Island.
 * Othar returns 36 years later to find that the Other has won.
 * --m 23:32, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yep. Except I doubt the Gods will make this the main storyline. Also significant is that Oslaka when brought back was given 36 hours to live and Othar starts back 36 years after settling down with her. There are time meddlers in GG and Othar's Twitter. So I peg this as an alternate timeline. At least till Gil dies in GG main story. Though this is a persuasive alternative. So I wonder how Othar will save the day, figuratively speaking. Rej Maddog 00:34, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 *  hours. -- Corgi 03:04, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I bow to your superior talents of memory and observation. It was only 36 hours she had to live a day later. Rej Maddog 20:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Self Contradiction
Yep, Othar threw me a curve with that one. Something is very wrong with the current twitter story. If Wulfenbach troups are guarding the city, does it make sense that no one has been in it for 27 years? Indeed, cities make the most sense to defend from the inside. So I find the Autonomous libraries entries to make no sense. And I find no way to reconcile Othar's Twitter with GG's storyline or even with itself. More the pity. It would have been nice to have another source for canon fodder and speculation. Mathematics won't help in the face of self contradiction. Rej Maddog 04:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Nothing is 'wrong', we merely don't have all the data. Here's what I saw, just so you have another point of view to consider: Some nine years after Othar decided to settle down, something went terribly wrong in Europa with The Other.  Whether this was Lucrezia's manifestation in Agatha, or a lack of Milvistle's betrayal, we have no idea yet - insufficient data.  We do know this is after Klaus was able to establish his empire, and it is well-established enough to have built trains and a substantial military.


 * We can infer, however, that The Other was able to do a lot more damage than in the history we know, she was not stopped this time by anybody. The slavers were able to sweep westward from Transylvania into western Europa as well, eventually reaching Paris, where the Master, brilliant Spark that he is, fought furiously - but even with Wulfenbach troops in pursuit and forming an otherwise-unthinkable, desperate, last-chance alliance to try to protect Paris from being overrun, they failed.  All of the Master's resources, all of the Baron's, they simply were not enough.  This also implies that England was targeted next, although Albia's water resources might have made a difference - if they did, England is likely partly occupied, and the Glass City in a state of permanent siege.


 * Now, it is my suspicion, and this is only a guess, because I have negative Moxana points and have learned my lesson therefrom: Othar is going to discover/deduce somehow that some action he took was a linchpin in the defeat and suppression of The Other.  Using the principle of, he will utilise the time-manipulation machinery we've been introduced to and travel back to undo everything in his life from Oslaka on, leaving her just a bittersweet memory in his mind alone.  This will let everything add up normally.


 * But we have to wait for the reveal. -- Corgi 19:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * That's a pretty good imagination you've got there. It's always good to have something in the fire for Moxana. Though if this comes out exactly the way you said it will be a lot of points to award.


 * I still hold the story is inconsistent because of the statements about the troops. I find it hard to suspend disbelief around that.


 * One thing I hate more than time travel stories is time travel stories that change the past. And the ones that make everything that happen never happen are the worst. Still this is an Othar story so one should expect it to be pretty annoying.


 * I did think it was nice of Phil to give Othar and Oslaka a happy ending, if only for a while.


 * But I have written the twitter off as non-canon. Sad, I would have liked it if Othar's twitter and GG meshed.


 * The professors recycle a lot. Which is kinda cool. They are just not big on continuity or consistency. Besides those things are hard to do live. They take lots of rewriting and revision to get strait.


 * They are smart enough to give what they do its own name: Gaslamp Fantasy. So it is what it is and not like anything else. I accept that but my heart feels sad. Rej Maddog 02:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Nah, nah - their continuity and consistency are fine, there are only little mistakes and Kaja runs around trying to fix those when possible. Not sure why you've written it off as non-canon just because you don't like the story.  That's rarely how canon works *grin*.


 * That being said, did you see -- Corgi 00:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about liking the story yet, as you say we will have to wait while its revealed. The other three parts were all fun to read (I came in late so I got to read them as fast as I could absorb them.)


 * I also rate the Phil and Kaja's storytelling as first rate. A good way to judge the skill of a teller is by the show-don't-tell quality of the story. The little bit of business with Agatha cleaning her glasses and fixing her hair before yelling at Gil, for example, shows you everything without having to tell you anything.


 * The other aspect of a story is whether it is a pleasant place to visit or something you take with you to live inside you. GG rises high enough for me to judge it against the ones I have put on that shelf. For me, it doesn't quite attain the shelf. That's okay, I enjoy it for its levity and cool storytelling. I envy some of what Phil can do with a pen and Kaja with a story. They are on my list of authors I want to read all of.


 * There is another level of judgment appropriate for spontaneous storytelling. You don't hold people to the standards of an edited storying if they are telling it to you off the cuff. Things can go wrong and astray. Othar's twitter is mostly off the cuff. Which may be why cautions have been taken not to let it overlap with GG canon. For things like that, you let slips get corrected on the fly. So I'm gonna suspend judgment and just go back to enjoying the entertainment. Rej Maddog 02:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The Madlab shouldn't be a main page
Your new Rej's Madlab page doesn't belong in the main namespace, that's for factual articles. Other discussions should be in a forum section or under your user page. The best place for it is probably User:Rej Maddog/Rej's Madlab. (I don't know if you can move the page yourself, but I or several other admins can move the page for you.) (By the way, the "namesake" link on your user page no longer works.) Argadi 19:08, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sheesh, don't just talk about it, move the thing. *grin* Which I did.  And took out two inappropriate apostrophes just for tidiness.  I left the Mad category, that didn't seem inappropriate. -- Corgi 19:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Madlab is created and blows up immediately. Ha. As Agatha says: I meant for that to happen.


 * Thanks both of you for the assistance and teleportation of the lab. Rej Maddog 19:57, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

May summary
Nice work. Thanks for keeping it current. -- Corgi 07:02, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. And thanks for noticing. Trying to find the right summary for the comic in the right tone is fun. Generally I am shooting for updating once a week (Friday). Rej Maddog 10:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Reverted edits
I am really sorry about that, but it had to be done. The changes that were originally made were for a reason, which we discussed. If you can get consensus to put them back, I will not argue, of course. (Kind debate, yes.) If you'd like a reason for why each line needed to be changed, I'll be happy to discuss that.

If I may suggest -- a good solution may be maintaining your own summaries similar to how I have essays in my own user space. (I noticed you started a backup of your work and I support that.) Edit: I moved these essays to my blog: User blog:Mnenyver. I keep them there because those are just my own thoughts and I recognize that that my personal files are the best place for them.

Again, apologies for the conflict. Feel free to comment back or email me as necessary.

--m 05:07, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Radio theatre
There are two sources you tube has collections of revenge of the weasel queen and death wish dupree

The gg site has links to mp3/podcasts of minor heroes and the sleepy clank.

The sleepy clank contains clues to agatha's relation to her ancestor Iscariot heterodyne and jenka.

It would also be nice if the written scripts of the plays could be turned up. so of the podcast is hard to hear due to sound levels and background noise. -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 05:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if you changed the Radio link because of my Talk statement or not, but Thank you for taking care of it--I didn't know how to really annotate the videos -- Axi 20:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Axi, I'm not sure either. Geniuses tend to think alike. I was surprised to see the Radio Theater link show up when I looked. If that's your doing good work. I had seen the you tube presentations some time ago but the podcasts came to my attention just recently. It feels good to have them all pointed to from one place now. -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 20:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Jotun Brothers
by Selnikov in Passholdt cleanup. Need their own page. Categories include villians, KoJ Strumhalten.


 * If you can write a useful and substantial article, go right ahead. We don't even have an identifiable image of them (perhaps in that group shot, but we'll likely never know) so I can't see how notable they are for inclusion, but that's merely my standards.  Let's see what you can do with it. -- Corgi 23:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Well they got mentioned by name so the name will come up again. I figure to plant a flag (i.e. page for them) Then there would be something to edit. I'm waiting for inspiration. Learning which template I need to use will take some energy. Ditto for using stub templates. So here you have the promise of a stub of a page. Sometime -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 00:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The skyway map
It would be nice to have a free skyway map of Wulfenbachia and all the places relevant to GG circa 1892. I was thinking of something simplified on the order of a subway map except that we don't have subways but airships. Or maybe something like the hub centric maps of boston I saw in the past.

Let's see Mechanicsberg, BettlesBerg, D'omas, Old land castle wulfenbach, paris, England. The danube. Skiff Geister Mongfishia. Zumzum Strumvarious, Passholdt, the wastlands. Othar's island. Then if time permits Zoggletonk

Rollback
...you have been granted. ⚙Zarchne 00:21, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Granted what?
 * What rollback?
 * Totally missing context here.
 * Puzzled! -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 00:58, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * You are now an admin of this wiki, with the ability to make changes go bye-bye. When you look at the change history of a page you should see a "rollback" link for the most recent change.  The intent is to deal with vandalism, editing disagreements should better be handled with "undo" to preserve the history (better transparency).  Argadi 10:05, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, junior admin, see Forum:Administrivia. ⚙Zarchne 16:26, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, senior, us youngsters will remember our place. Argadi 17:16, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * &lt;chuckle&gt; I didn't mean you, of course.⚙Zarchne 14:21, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay. Cool. Solve's the puzzle. Thanx. -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 02:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Correcting people's spelling
Rej, it's already been discussed in a forum or somewhere else relatively public here - as annoying as it may be to look at, it's not kosher to change peoples' spelling in forums or similar areas, just in articles. I've had my wrist slapped once already. -- Corgi 00:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay. That surprises me. I'll stop. -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 01:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:Forumheader/Page-by-Page
Can you explain what you are trying to do withe page-by-page template? I just tried to make a forum topic. and it is much harder to figure out where to put the date with your change. Argadi 17:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

By the way, it would be better to experiment in a new template rather than using the live template. Argadi 17:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Experiment still in progress.
 * Sorry if you are inconvienced. When I checked links it showed Forumheader/Page-by-Page as only linked from Zerachne's list. And listed there as unused. So I thought it wasn't live.
 * So far I've just put in a argument for the date. I'll start a test template instead I guess.
 * The object is to get one template to make date forums.
 * Other object is to learn how. -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 17:51, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Argadi, Forumheader/Page-by-Page now reverted back to your last change. I started Forumheader/TestPage-by-Page fror my experiments.
 * User story: would give proper text header for a page-by-page dated forum. And when the test works I would replace the template with your approval. -- Rej ¿ ¤¤  ? 18:28, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

The file is used about three times a week, whenever someone goes to Forum:Page-by-Page to create a new forum to discuss a comic. Are you trying to change it in that context, or did you have some other use in mind? How were you intending to have the template used? Argadi 19:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Um I've been creating the new templates most days by going to girl genius page. Purging it (after midnite) to force it to show a red discuss link. Following that to create the page. Then hand copying the first two lines of the last comic pages forum and updating the page discussion. Seems to me this could be simplified. And I am experimenting. I have done this in the past via going to the page-by-page link. That has been unsatisfactory because it leaves the girl genius page without the link update. Ideally the red discuss link would generate a page w/ the header in place instead of a blank page.


 * The "red discuss link" used to be a link with the text "create discussion", but it had three problems:
 * All of the pages without discussions (hundreds) showed up as Wanted Pages.
 * The Chronology pages showed up in the category of pages with to many "expensive" functions (because the template was checking each page in the volume to see if there was a discussion page).
 * Because of server caching, the create link stayed around for a while after the forum page was created, confusing anyone who tried to create a page that already existed.
 * I liked the approach (because I designed it), but others didn't like the negatives so I converted it to the current approach. I tried and failed to fix the problems before converting.  You can take a look at the old and new versions.


 * Another way to create: Click the red link.  Copy the page title, and go to Forum:Page-by-Page and put the text in the box.  Maybe a little easier than your current approach.  (Also, copy the date and day of week from the home page, go to Forum:Page-by-Page, paste the text.)  Argadi 20:28, 28 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the pointers. They may come in useful.


 * The red/blue discuss link is a simple and clear mechanism. The girl genius page does a lot so the cache clears out very belatedly on its own. And that is most of the problem. An obvious purge button("refresh") would help. Right now I just click on edit and change the action to purge instead. Works well and I don't even have to be logged in.


 * What I do now is relatively simple. If a red discuss link would preloaded a proper header for the forum that would work just fine.


 * Basicly, right now Axi and I are the most likely to chime in early. So we sometimes interfere with the others efforts.

The forum header is not really important. I am trying to learn so I can invent a way to create OT forums with proper names. I am also, like all good geniuses, very lazy when it comes to routine tasks. Automatic grease trap removers are much more interesting to build than cleaning grease traps are to do.-- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 21:04, 28 July 2009 (UTC)


 * You are asking me questions before I am prepared to give answers. Part of science are the unexpected discoveries made when doing the experiments. I believe something useful will come out of this. Just looking it seems obvious to replace the hand edit with a parameter. I aim to be careful. I expect to make mistakes while learning. That's how ignorance turns to knowledge. I've got a lot of the former at the moment. -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 19:27, 28 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Just make sure to experiment on copies of templates, not the live ones. — m (talk) 19:59, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Noted. -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ?

Results
I've finished my page by page projects. The preload is up and working. The create boxes are now installed in the page by page forum and category. Overall results are satisfying. It's now up to others to prepare pages in advance if they want.

Time functions simplified
Well from my trouble making I've found wiki pages and a way to format time as we wish Gives you a formated date. 20091225 Gives you a formated date of your choosing. Gives you a formated date.

Gives you a formated date of your choosing.

The ugly namespace and template name go away because of the "subst". -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 03:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Sig
Just a minor quibble, but would it impact much if you removed color from your sig? I won't force you to do it, but it is rather long and cluttered in the raw-text view of a page. — m (talk) 06:01, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll think on it. I sort of like the effect. All markup looks long and cluttered. Yet look what you get for it.-- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 12:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Some suggestions for a compromise: Drop the Black (so we can tell the name is a link).  The font doesn't show up much (for my standard view).  Change how the color is specified.  Roughly the same effect with about 25% fewer characters.


 * Beyond that, think about what you are trying to do. I thought it was just a fancy symbol, and never considered using it as a link until I examined the source right now.  You have four potentially useful links, but I didn't see any links because they didn't look like links and didn't have useful names.  Much of the size is from features that were hidden from me.  Argadi 17:42, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, the difference between the magenta and the red is hardly discernable at my screen settings/font weight/etc. Can you maybe cut it down to just red, or just pink? -- Corgi 19:42, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Argadi thanks for your suggestions. Dropping the black is doable and useful.
 * Hi Corgi The contrast is important because the color changes indicate link changes. So I would tend to want to go the other way.
 * As for what I was trying to do, I wanted the visible part of the sig to be short. And I was playing with the linking imitating what others had done with there sigs. I got to a stopping point that satisfied me and started using it. It is a first pass so I don't mind revisiting it. But, I want to wait until I've got other things off my plate first. So if you can have some patience I will get to it later.


 * Later turned out to be sooner. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ?

weighs in around 161 chars. Once I've signed on a page once I can always use --Rej which weighs in at 5 chars. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 22:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Just a matter of curiosity
I know you want to give the tweets titles because you feel it will increase comprehension or clarity of the forum. All things being equal, you're not campaigning to name the pages as well. Why the difference? -- Corgi 19:39, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Which pages? wikia pages or tweet pages?


 * Urgh. I've tried to write this answer twice and its coming out garbled. I'm going to have to wait till things have clarified in my mind before I give you a good answer.


 * Basicly I want something more meaningful than a number as the name of our forums. I suspect this does not stop the number from appearing in the forum title if there were something textual and explanatory with it. I don't want to go into further detail yet. Details will sort themselves out only as I learn more. -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 03:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Agatha's pages as opposed to Othar's tweets. Those are just ID'd by dates.  So... what's the difference? -- Corgi 04:33, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Um. Dates I can understand. The status numbers are more arbitrary. So the latter taxes my understanding and short term memory.
 * So if we have Othar's Twitter with forums named for example "OT 2009-07-31 (Friday)" that would be reasonably understandable as well as sorting order. Even better would be allowing a title or phrase to be appended. E.G. ""OT 2009-07-31 (Friday) Still waiting for the smack." It should be possible to generate a template that does that. (Once we know how.) -- Rej ¿ ¤¤ ? 05:47, 31 July 2009 (UTC)


 * There could, in theory, be multiple tweets in a day—and we would want a mechanism to show the correct order. The comic has a fixed release schedule. Argadi 09:40, 31 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, there is one point somewhere in Paris where the tweet double-posted two minutes apart. They'll have different tweet numbers, but the same date (and the same content, which means the later one can be ignored, but hey). -- Corgi 16:27, 31 July 2009 (UTC)


 * What Argadi said, good point there. But... the forum titles have the date in them, and once again, any title you're going to add would be completely arbitarary, depending on who started the forum or who decided to move it to a new title.  The numbers are sequential within the Twitter system, not arbitrary at all - just not very relevant to us except as references.


 * As far as the mechanism of input - yeah, very likely so. But you're ahead of me on picking that apart. -- Corgi 16:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The best way to sort tweets is to use the tweet id as the sort key. Something like Defaultsort=OT, tweetId.
 * Where tweetid is a parameter containing the number for the tweet. AFAICT the creator of the page would have to give the tweetid, the date for it, and the human readable topic. IMO the date and topic help create the name of the page. The tweetid is used to create the url and part of the sort key. (Once we know how.) --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 19:35, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations!
I found a perfect use for your OT page link template. Let's see if you like it. -- Corgi 04:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Sandbox work
Could I trouble you to mark the checkbox for "Minor" when working on test templates? It would help make the Recent Changes list less spammy. — m (talk) 03:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Err, oops! Noted for the future. Thanks for pointing this out. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 05:12, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Set my defaults to check minor edit. Even so, the pages show on most recent list. --Rej

Tarvek speculation
That's what Mad pages are for. :) See the links to forum topics at the bottom of Baron Klaus Wulfenbach/Mad. Could you move that section on speculation to Tarvek Sturmvoraus/Mad? — m (talk) 03:21, September 13, 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Ditto for Gil. Thanks for your help. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 03:30, September 13, 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Rej. Also, I noticed the mention of me coming around and telling you rules. :P That's sort of what I'm supposed to be doing around here. If I don't leave a note when something is out of place, that means I'm slacking. I really do try to make things easy, simple, and clear. If they're not, please say something. I really don't want to lose your contributions. — m (talk) 03:50, September 13, 2009 (UTC)
 * I accept that that's your job and your role. Our opinions differ. When I have a strong argument against yours, you'll hear. If I don't, I'll comply. Maybe both. (should of seen my first, of the cuff response, to this note.) Besides, wouldn't want to see you slacking. Got to keep those loose canons death rays from wrecking the place. :) --Rej 21:21, September 13, 2009 (UTC)


 * Or you could just ask? "Hey, I'm not understanding X. Could you explain this, please?" Being misunderstood is a major peeve of mine, so I make a lot of effort to correct communication problems.
 * By the way, I get the rss feed for site changes, so all edits show up there. When it's high volume, I don't get to read them all, and I confess sometimes I'm only skimming through and not really paying attention, but it's more likely I'll notice messages in slow times like this.
 * — m (talk) 00:24, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

Who duz vhat?
Hy am still pozzled about vhy Black Heterodyne/Mad vas put on der danjerous liszt as needink to be ein "mad" page vhen it iz ein mad page halreddy. Did Hy mak hit "mad" wrong? Alzo, zeveral points iz not werry valid. Novhere iz der enuf effidenze yet to dezide vhich iz "Knife" und vhich iz "Black" or effen if dey are der zame. Und how did der "assoziatun" betveen "Black" und "Egregious" hoppen? Hy didunt do hit. Hy dunt effen believe hit! Who do Hy talk to? Altgorl 22:37, November 4, 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a good question. I put the box up to call attention to the page. Part of the problem is the use of the word /Mad for the theory page. If the /Mad pages were supposed to be forum format then no cleanup would be needed. Instead they are supposed to be in the supportable theory format. I know you don't like rules that require both learning and following. I don't either. I am in a conflict partnership with Mynerver. . She represents order while I am more an advocate for self organizing chaos. The latter is messier but requires less maintenance. The parnership I watch out somewhat after her concerns until the confilct gets resolved

What this means for you
Your point is a good one. I thought that the guy was Knife because he built the first castle. So I don't think it is also Black. That is only a difference of opinion and we are allowed to have many of them. If you put the mad page in theory page format then that solves m's problem and the page won't need further work from outside. Or if you move it to a Forum: topic and continue as a discussion that works also. Right now its not quite legitimate as either. I don't want to change it. I do want to call attention so others will notice it and figure out what needs to happen.

If you use good sneaky moves to remove the cleanup box, I will NOT put it back. Though I think it is better if we DO attract some attention and see if someone has a brighter idea than we have come up with.