User talk:Argadi

Welcome
Hi there! Welcome to the lab! --mnenyver 02:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I've been making anonymous changes for a while, I thought I'd attach a name to them. Argadi 04:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, and primarily on the most important page in the Wiki (IMNSHO)! Much Grass! — Zarchne 10:39, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's just an excuse to re-read the old strips. But now I need to work on remembering which names go with which faces. Argadi 11:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, yeah, whatever; so you say; nevertheless. — Zarchne 14:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you appreciate my work, and I'm glad you think the chronology pages are important. Argadi 23:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Rollback
I set your rollback bit, more or less for the heck of it. Mnenyver could always unset it... ⚙Zarchne 18:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

"Berta" and "Tina"
Now that the dust is beginning to settle from the "Mad" dust-up, I think it would be best simply to redirect these two names to Eotain and Shurdlu, rather than treat them as valid articles. After all, there's nothing in canon to suggest that the names are valid within the story itself. What say you? -- that old bearded guy 02:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what is best. I left them separate because I didn't want to redirect without an explanation, and I didn't want to put the old names in the new article. I wouldn't object to a simple redirect. Argadi 10:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thank you for doing all of those default sorts and category fixes. I was the last editor on some of those articles and I need to get better about remembering to set those up properly. --mnenyver 19:57, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You are quite welcome. It's a partial payment for the fixes others have made to the pages I've edited. Argadi 20:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * However, categorizing The Works cards under the title on the card, even if the page is a redirect, was intentional. ⚙Zarchne 21:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * (Slow connection this week, so I can't do much.)
 * Is Dr Beetle the only one where I made that change? I think it would be good to have Dr Beetle in works index, but not good if the actual Beetle article doesn't say category: The Works. Argadi 00:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

And I see thanks are in order again for the difficult, and largely unheralded, work of fixing the categories for geography - by splitting it up into cities and towns, natural features, and so on. --Quadibloc 00:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, thanks for following up behind me, and adding basic things like links that I sometimes leave out. I do appreciate the help - even in cases such as the one just now, where I adjusted two of the three example links you gave for fonts. One was for von Pinn - she was speaking quietly, so she wasn't using her usual font. The other, for the madness place, was correct, but since the fonts are hard to distinguish on the online pages, while I was at it I replaced your example by one that used the font at a larger size. --Quadibloc 00:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm glad you appreciate it, and thanks for improving the links. There's a lot to keep track of in the comics and the wiki (too much to keep in mind all at once) and we need to keep building on each other. Argadi 00:28, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Main page
The discussion links on the main page were going to Sun, Tues, and Thurs when I checked them just now. I commented them out for now. Are the templates easily fixed? --mnenyver 03:30, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. When I added the time zone adjustment I didn't add it for all calls to #time.  Thanks for reporting the problem. I set reminders for me to check correctness between 0 UTC and 4 UTC for a few nights and a week from when you noticed the problem, but I think the problem is fixed. Argadi 08:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much! Let's hope that works. *crosses fingers* --mnenyver 13:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

"It's a major award!"
In rekognishun ov all hyu verk, hy present to hyu dis major avard. hehe --mnenyver 22:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the recognition of my work and superor speling. Argadi 00:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

ThankyouthankyouTHANKYOU for responding so fast! I really want feedback so I don't screw up this beloved wiki. BTW, how did I do on the Master Payne page?


 * I want to thank you for your hard work as well. I see that you've been busily cleaning up after minor mistakes I've been making and will need to learn to avoid, such as creating /Mad pages without putting them in the Mad category, ensuring that my page on Madeleines uses the same spelling as the comic, adding links to the relevant pages for characters or items I mention without using the square brackets at least once. This - along with your work on the GG chronology - is work of the "unsung hero" category, and thus deserves great praise. --Quadibloc 17:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the praise, but I can't let it be forgotten that you have fixed/improved many haphazard changes I've made. (And a hint:  When I want to improve the wiki but I don't have time for a significant project, I use the special pages, for example the uncategorized pages report shows me when category:Mad (or something else) is missing, or just use Special:Random and try to add more links to/from the page I land on.)  Argadi 17:41, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Existence
How do I know you exist? Ordinary 09:44, 6 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I edit, therefore I edit saying "I am". Argadi 10:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Image:Mode_2.png
I uploaded Image:Mode_2.png for comparison in the article The madness place, but I'm not sure whether it really depicts phase 2 or phase 3. The font is more normal, but she looks pretty angry... Any ideas? Ordinary 09:24, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * (Sorry for the delay in answering, this message was buried in my mailbox when I was out of commission.) I don't really have an opinion on this, it could go either way.  The comics are drawn from someone who wasn't actually there when Agatha was mad, so it's just a guess of what she looked like anyway.  Argadi 20:02, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Page-By-Page forum links
I noticed the template is creating links in Special:Wantedpages. Can this be changed? --mnenyver 20:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It's because they look for a link for the forums. I don't know of any way to change it.  (If you entered comments on every page the problem went away.  More realistically:  a robot could create the empty pages.) Argadi 23:28, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * On red links: Maybe the link could be removed for now? We could point people at the Page-by-Page forum index instead.
 * --mnenyver 02:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Is there a rush to get rid of the links? They've been around for months.  I'd rather not just have a link to the forum index, as the new entries wouldn't have standard names and wouldn't connect back to the chronology.


 * I'd like to investigate what exactly causes the want links to appear, and see if there's a way around it. If the "want" entry is caused by the create link and not the "if exists", one possibility is to only add "create" links for volume VIII (that page and the main page), or only add "create" links for the past month or so (there must be a way to do date subtraction). That would limit the number of forum links on the want page.  Argadi 02:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Any of those solutions sound doable. I just hadn't looked at the list of wanted pages in a long time, which is why I brought it up now. It's just that having a red link for every single entry in Chronology is making that tool a little difficult to use. --mnenyver 06:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't worried about the entries. I've always figured that if there aren't two links to something then it isn't really wanted.  (Speaking of which, ignore this:   Do not click this) The stuff you ignored is part of my test to see what updates Special:Wantedpages.  Now we need to wait for that page to update (it's one of the pages that gets updated occasionally by the Wiki rather then being constantly up to date). Argadi 09:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC) (Update: wanted user pages apparently don't appear on the list.  Updated the links, need to wait for the Friday update. Argadi 10:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC))


 * Thanks for looking into fixing this. It helps me a lot. :) --mnenyver 19:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Chronology
Also, I'm kinda thinking we're going to need page-by-page articles (for many individual pages, not necessarily all). I'm not sure how to tie this in with Chronology or how having those pages would help or hurt that section of the wiki. I'd like to work with you on a template for those pages and figure out how that should be organized in relation to Chronology.

--mnenyver 20:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd be glad to help. It would be nice to have a way to make a link to the pages from the main chronology pages:  either an optional parameter in the current template, or a new template to make a standard link.  In either case it would be nice if the file names used s generated name like the forum pages.


 * If there are many pages we probably want to make a special sub-category for them.


 * Could you give an example of one such page, the proposed topic to be covered in the page, and why the material is better displayed in the page context than in some other article we already have? That would help me understand the motivation for the pages. Argadi 23:28, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * And yes, I think I'll make a few mockups to convey what it is I'm wanting to do. I have a feeling you'll like it.
 * --mnenyver 02:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Template Maintenance
If you're up to it, in addition to picking a color for the sketch links, could you add a "news" template too? If you want something more challenging, I'm not sure what's wrong with Otwit, but it should be replaced anyway with one to match the others' syntax. ("OT_tweet"? in retrospect, maybe should have called "GG_link", "GG_comic"... that's how it goes.)  Then there's the LJs... ⚙Zarchne 22:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Pardon my density, but I don't quite grasp how the 'Template:GG page desc' set of templates actually works. Would you mind providing a demonstration, please? -- Corgi 22:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, here's a top level overview. I have no idea what your background is, so let me know which areas you would like more details on.
 * There are at least five aspects of the templates:
 * There is a Wikia/Wiki table syntax designed for "easy" table generation. Wikia translates that into the corresponding HTML for the tables.  See Wikia:Help:Tables for an overview.
 * Wikia doesn't redefine everything in HTML tables. In particular you can specify attributes which wikia passes on when it creates the HTML tags.  (Things like style="background:#FFFFCC;".)
 * On top of the Wikia/HTML syntax, we have defined a particular layout for the tables we use for page descriptions. (Suggestions for improving the layout always accepted.)  To get the layout consistent, there is a large amount of "boilerplate" that needs to be placed in every page description.
 * Wikia templates allow repetitive text to be defined once and used many places (with substitutions). The 'Template:GG page desc' (like Wikipedia infobox templates, and many other templates) takes parameters (page id, page number, characters, etc.) and puts them in the correct place in the standard code.  This means a) typos are much less likely, and b) if we want to change the style we can tweak it in one place and all of the places in the wiki that use the template get changed.  When you say "names used = foo, bar", every use of  gets replaced with "foo, bar".
 * In addition to simple substitutions, Wikia also allows "programming". You can compare strings (including string used for substitutions) and make decisions.  For example, 'template:GG_Page-by-Page_Forum_Link' checks to see whether the forum page exists and uses either a "join" or "create" text and link.  Take a look at 'Template:Recent discussions' for some real ugly code to figure out the dates of the last seven comics—real ugly, but it only needed to be developed once.
 * That's the overview. Let me know which of the pieces you want more details on.  Argadi 00:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Finally tripping over this again - I get the purpose, but not how to use that one/that set of templates. I mean, I use the one to set up the infobox and where do I fill in the data?  I guess I should just sandbox this for my answers, really... better way to learn. -- Corgi 23:41, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Another way to learn is through the "What links here" link (on the left side, under "Random Page"). For a template that link will show you which pages use the template, and you can examine the pages to see how they are used.  Argadi 00:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Removing page number from infoboxes
Why are we doing this again? I thought having the dead-tree cross-reference was potentially more useful -- Corgi 20:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Because the online page numbers don't match the xylophthanatic ones? ⚙Zarchne 20:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I just checked one of the pages I changed today, Von Pinn. The page number I removed was the page number from the on-line version, so it didn't match the dead tree version.  Almost all of the page numbers cited in this wiki aren't dead tree page numbers.


 * I could have put in both versions -- I could have used "Volume II, page 34 in the printed version, page 30 in the online version" (that's a bit too wordy), or I could have used the string from the chronology "Vol.II p. 34(030)" (but that would confuse people).


 * If there was consensus of the significant editors that every link to a comic should include page numbers of both on-line and printed versions (and an agreement on how to format the information) I would strive to follow the standard. But my personal opinion is that most editors wouldn't do that, and it wouldn't be much use.  It would also be a pain to change all the references when 1) printed volumes come out (like volume 8 soon) or 2) when printed page numbers change (like volume 6 soon) -- especially because I don't know of any way to search for all the references.


 * It would be very useful if someone could come up with an automatic way to display both page numbers for a link. It wouldn't be that intellectually challenging to build a complicated template and call it from GG_link, but it would be tedious to get all of the cases in the template. Argadi 20:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * If you want to automatically add print and/or on-line page numbers to each wiki link, I have the start of the code to do it in my sandbox. All that needs to be done is put the expressions I made into templates, then build another template that knows how to convert the page ID ranges into page numbers.  (There are probably only about a hundred ranges to worry about so far, and only half a dozen changes when the publish a new volume (or republish as with volume six.) Argadi 09:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah so. Good explanations, if vexing in the cause therefore (the mismatches, I mean). -- Corgi 22:43, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome
Hi Argadi,
 * Thanks for the welcome. Rej Maddog 06:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

'Wanted page' link
I found something in the list called 'Argadi/nosuch' but I can't figure out how to resolve it correctly without messing up your code. Might you take a look at it, please? -- Corgi 23:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I removed it. It was part of research on getting rid of the page-by-page links on the wanted page.  (All I learned was I didn't know how to clean up the links.)  Argadi 00:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Cast List VI
[looks at correction] Meh. I would have thought I'd tried that... there's a couple more visible brackets on one of the other cast pages, for prisoner names. I'll go clean those up now. So, I did it OK, otherwise? -- Corgi 17:44, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't do a review yet, I just happen to catch that one problem. I won't do a review soon, but it's on my list. I'm going to wait until the chronology for volume VI gets finished and then look for inconsistencies between the pages.  (I'd have plenty of time for all my projects, if the clocks didn't keep stealing the time.)  Argadi 18:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Wish: A drop down list for categories
Right now in order to add a page to a category, you have to know in advance what the category is called. And in my fumbled brain case, how it is spelled. You have to do that for each category you want to add. Then if you have a special sort order you have to input that once for each category.

So can add a category have a drop down list or send me to a page with check boxes for each category and input fields that allow me to do gang punch (and judy) the shared parameters?

Wiki's should allow changes wiki wiki. Rej Maddog 00:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Ummm... the edit box will do autocomplete, at least in IE7, if you input [[Category: and the first letter of what you think it is. In fact, all the pages will autocomplete or even give you reasonable guesses most of the time. You could also have the [[Special:Categories|Categories page]] up in another tab or window. -- Corgi 00:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll thing about this. My first thoughts are 1) a drop-down with the categories would be awkwardly long, and 2) Corgi's idea of a separate window seems good.  The autocomplete is nice when it works, but it seems to be slower on longer pages (often too slow).  I try to avoid typing anything, I like using cut-and-paste.  Argadi 00:37, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * We've got some category cruft going on, too. We need a cleaner tree. -- Corgi 06:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)