TF2 Wiki:Discussion

From TF2 Wiki

	Help center • Editing • Images • Language translation • Policies and guidelines • Helper program • TF2 Wiki discussion

TF2 Wiki Discussion Add this page to your watchlist and stay on top of things.

Please read the following rules before asking your question: Please sign your question by typing -- ~~~~ at the end of your question. To ask a new question, click the "Click here to ask your question" link below. You must fill out the Subject/Headline field. Please do not include your e-mail address. This is to prevent you from receiving spam emails. E-mail addresses may be removed from existing comments. Please search for your question; perhaps it has already been asked and answered. Avoid posting the same question twice. If you have any follow-up question, add it by clicking "edit" at the top of the section that has your question. When referring to a specific article please clearly mention it and type the title like this [[Article name here]] in the edit window. If your question is about proposing a new wiki idea, please visit the Proposals page instead. Click here to ask your question.

Contents 1 Servers 2 Patches list on main page 3 Tournament Information 4 Facial expressions 5 Now where do we put this 6 Just a quick Aesthetic thing... 7 New Spy Image 8 Map formatting 9 The Main Page is overly sized. Doesn't even fit a 1280-wide screen 10 Hmm 11 Regarding class pages 12 A tiny question 13 Creating additional language 14 Competitive Articles 15 Advertising 16 Nintendo Wii AD 17 New Firefox 3.5 and TF2 Wiki 18 Competitive article jargon 19 New proposed main page 20 Some suggestions for the wiki 21 -- How can I save my achievements Mld051 16:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC) 22 I don't Wanna loos my achievements 23 Spammers 24 RED and BLU sites: Fallen into Disrepair 25 Stepping aside/back 26 Admin Guide Page 27 Improper Conduct 28 Hadoken 29 Strategy and Match-Ups 30 Bizarre Formatting 31 [Major BUG] -- Search is not working for other languages than English! 32 Valve developers/voice actors

Servers

Recently, I thought it would be good if the TF2 community had server listings they could use to find new servers outside of their favorites lists that are tailored to their style of gameplay. At first, I was going to make a TF2 Servers wiki on Wikia, but then I realized that there's a chance I could just start it up here. Would it be alright with you guys, or should I take this elsewhere? G-Mang 07:14, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

yea it would be better if it was elsewhere .(by Gin Ginster)

Patches list on main page

I think there should be a list of the most recent patches on the main page because that's the sort of info you'd be interested in if visiting for not the first time. Humbug 09:51, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Done and done.--Wilsonator 13:54, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Tournament Information

I was interested in writing some information on class tiers that I have collected data on from multiple high end tournament communities.

(Its similar to information found from SmashWiki's tournament listings.)

Who should I talk to about this?

I say go right on ahead. Just thing of a good page title and present a table and whatever you've written. Could be interesting.--Wilsonator 19:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Facial expressions

I think it'd be neat to collect information on what makes the Heavy change facial expressions, in addition to other classes. The Heavy is the most noticeable, so I'm tempted to put it on his page, but I've heard snipers also get changed expressions after headshots, etc. So I'm not sure if this belongs on class pages, or if it deserves its own page. Traveller 21:44, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Now where do we put this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEvACpQa3Js --mark"d"davis 15:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick Aesthetic thing...

In the General Topics table, there is no leading dash (-) but there is a trailing dash.. Just thought you might wanna remove it.. =) Smashman 11:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Good eyes, I killed it. --Wilsonator 17:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Cheers. Smashman 18:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

New Spy Image

It's a nice idea, however, in my opinion, at that resolution, it doesn't seem to work as well as hoped...
Smashman 17:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Map formatting

I suggest this kind of formatting on the map section:

Well (CP) / (CTF) / (ARENA)

Be changed to this:

Well (CP | CTF | ARENA)

It looks more modular, and will decrease the horizontal space difference. MK 15:25, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. We're working on revamping the map section of the main page entirely to cut down on vertical space too but this'll help until we get the code running.--Wilsonator 15:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

We were planning on moving the map articles and redoing the main page. We'll take your idea into account. thx Smashman 15:36, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The Main Page is overly sized. Doesn't even fit a 1280-wide screen

The Main Page needs to be redesigned. The page doesn't show up correctly on 1280-wide Firefox window. 02:43, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Mmm, indeed. I didn't notice since my monitor is 1440x900, but he brings up a good point. Perhaps the maps could be re-aligned as three columns instead of 3 rows, for example? -- Balphezar 03:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi there. I am the local admin. We are aware that the main page needs a redesign. We also need more admins. But that's a discussion for another time. Just know this, we are working on it. Smashman 09:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I did some work, and modified/simplified the internal layout at the same occasion (because everyone hates colspans and rowspans for a design). If you think appropriate, feel free to eat the cake : The Main Page on my discussion page . If not necessary, I'll just go and blank my Talk Page. 17:09, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm

For the new classless update I'd thought we should add to the class pages their cowering positions sort of like the hats or taunts--Mishulover69 21:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is unlike the hats and taunts, the animations aren't a gameplay 'feature' per se. Some of them have popped up in the hat page images though.--Wilsonator 22:06, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding class pages

Thought this would be best for here.

I like how there's been some stuff done to reduce stretching and the new frontpage layout is great. I don't know about anyone else, but the small grey 'bio box' on the class pages stretch the page out slightly making me needing to scroll to click to see the meet the team video. Simply putting in some line breaks would sort this easily, though I don't know if this is something which is uncommon for most and not worth the bother. Ta. --Pyrit

A tiny question

Everyone, gimme an opinion, or a joke.

How can someone be on fire and covered in pee at the same time? --TIGERmedic 22:08, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Because that's flamable pee --Aurum481 11:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

That Australian liquor is some strong stuff.--Wilsonator 21:11, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Creating additional language

I translated Main Page to Lithuanian language. Is it simple to create another Main Page with another language ? --Aurum481 10:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Competitive Articles

The competitive community is looking to grow while maturing its strategy discussion and information consolidation, and it's looking likely that they (myself included) will want to add a series of articles related to competitive TF2 gaming. For example, it'd be likely that there would be competitive versions of each class, weapon, and map article (such articles would probably have "(competitive)" written at the end of their names). I don't think it's likely that they'll want to be doing this all on the existing general TF2 articles (I personally wouldn't), as common public play and competitive play function very differently and have different audiences; this article separation would mean you won't have to worry about encroachment or excessive competitive information on existing articles.

Hopefully, this plan will expand the audiences and depths of both the TF2 Wiki and the competitive TF2 scene as a whole. My two main questions are A) are there any objections to this? and B) are there any specifics you want us to keep in mind (in terms of styling, organizing, or the like)? Thanks. G-Mang 14:47, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Talked to Wilsonator directly and he gave the go-ahead. G-Mang 02:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Advertising

I'm finding the ads are getting more and more invasive with each passing day. I didn't know where to mention this, but the Main Page discussion seems to be as good a place as any.

The top, bottom, and side banners I don't mind so much. But the pop-ups and links inside the article texts start to get under my skin. I've got Firefox's Adblock Plus running to keep the text and pop-ups at bay, but I begin to worry just how invasive the advertising is going to get.

Can the admins/bureaucrats do anything about the ads at all? - Balphezar 06:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, us mods are having a little trouble contacting the new admin, HarriL. He seems rather elusive at the moment.--Wilsonator 17:47, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Nintendo Wii AD

I made an account just to post this that nintendo wii ad with the girls voice absolutely rapes everyones ears please fucking remove it. I mean there is no way to stop the voice and everytime it plays I just close the page. I want to fucking kill whoever created that fucking ad.

-Thank you and for the love of god just fucking get rid of that shit

See just above. There's really not much we can do until we can make contact with one of the site owners. For a temporary solution, I suggest using the firefox browser along with AdBlock Plus and/or NoScript addons.--Wilsonator 14:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

New Firefox 3.5 and TF2 Wiki

Has anyone got the new Firefox 3.5 yet? The reason I'm asking is because strange things are happening since I upgraded.

1. The TF2 Wiki logo (top left hand side) is no longer showing.

2. Looking at pages the [edit] link on the sections is now showing on the left hand side instead of the right, example:- [edit] Win/Loss

I thought it was a bug on the page I was reading but I've scanned round and all the TF2 Wiki pages are the same, but not on IExplorer. Also other wiki pages like Wikipedia and Mediawiki are fine, confusing. --Aurora 11:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Scratch that, it's just corrected itself without me doing anything, bizarre :$ --Aurora 12:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Competitive article jargon

Originally posted on the Talk:Demoman (competitive) page, reposted here for clarity

The original plan was to go with common competitive jargon, and while I initially put demoman under "demo" because "demoman" is almost never fully said or written casually, in hindsight it is still used in formal competitive writing, so that's fine. In keeping with competitive norms I was also avoiding the roleplaying aspects of classes, referring to them as genderless, inanimate, non-unique, improper nouns ("a soldier" instead of "the Soldier," "it" instead of "he") and forgoing all setting-related information, though the gender part I might revise. Moving demo to demoman is completely fine with me (I was sort've split when I wrote it on which to go with), though I'd like clarification on the topic in general. There are a number of phrases that are almost never used in competitive discourse but are part of Valve's nomenclature. For example, "airblast" is the common term for "compression blast," "bonk energy drink" (or some variation thereof) is almost always used instead of "Bonk! Atomic Punch," "sapper" instead of "Electro sapper," "sandman" instead of "The Sandman," etc. Is it okay to go with widespread competitive jargon on these, or am I obligated to name them according to Valve canon? Perhaps I should start a discussion elsewhere for style guides on competitive articles. G-Mang 08:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've done a little research and from what I can gather various terms are used on competitive sites. Taking your example of "Compression blast", so far I've seen "airblast" "compression airblast", "comp blast" and just "blast". There really isn't any standard terms, it's like any other websites on the net, they use whatever term the author uses. So, to answer your questions:-

Jargon

For the TF2 Wiki terms I would vote in favour of avoiding any jargon (as per Wikipedia:Explain jargon), use the standard Valve naming conventions and any other terms be added to a disambiguation page.

Improper nouns

This point seems familier because I looked in to this when discussing the style guidelines back in 2007 (see Help_talk:TF2_Wiki_style_guide). Basically "a soldier" uses a common noun and refers to any member of the class of objects, whereas "the Soldier" uses a proper noun and refers to an individual entity. As far as I know (and I barely passed English) it's incorrect to write "a Soldier". In the case of "the Soldier", you are talking about an individual character so in this case the use of improper nouns is incorrect. Think the Saint, the Green Lantern and the Blob. It would be easier for people if there were several types of the same class that had different names, Valve certainly didn't help the cause by using "Soldier" as both the name and the class.

Gender

You are partially correct on Gender usage, it should be avoided if possible, but in this case the referent is always of one gender (for the moment at least until Valve bring out female characters).

If in doubt, have a look through the Wikipedia:Manual of Style; we should be using the same principles, in these cases I believe its covered in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Gender-neutral language and Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Having said all that, I could be entirely wrong, your welcome to read through the massive Wikipedia:Manual of Style and correct me :p --urora (talk | contribs) 19:49, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. :)

Jargon

I'm not trying to suggest there is or can be any standard, per se, but that there are norms that go against Valve canon (to the extent that Valve terminology would be more rare). Indeed, I don't think citing Wikipedia's jargon thing is the best example, the reason being that the very uncommon usage of Valve terminology itself makes official item names an even more obscure form of jargon. As an example, if you asked the average player to talk about "Atomic Punch," they would probably be less likely to know what you're talking about than if you asked for them to explain "energy drink." Not only would I say that Valve canon is its own form of jargon, but the idea of using Valve canon wording instead of what is most common (and therefore most accessible) speaks more in favor of the roleplaying aspect of the game, something I don't think belongs in competitive discourse. Specifically because these articles are about competitive gameplay and metagame and not about TF2 itself, I'm don't think that official nomenclature is most appropriate, and it's certainly not most relevant. I don't think I've ever heard a competitive (or even noncompetitive) player say the phrase "Electro sapper," and using the full phrase sounds like it would only be for the sake of following the game setting, not clarity.

That said, this isn't a terribly important issue, and if you want to put the admin hammer down on just using official terms I'd understand. If we're actually trying to reach consensus, though, my vote is for nomenclature based on most common usage, because in the end, articles will be most readable when applying common phrases, and if you use Valve terminology, it will just end up forcing more instances of hotlinks using different words than their destination articles, something I think goes against preferable readability and consistency stylization. For example, if I were to write a scout article in a manner that is more readable to the most people, I would be using "bonk energy drink" or a variation thereof, and making all of those link to "Bonk! Atomic Punch" seems unhelpful. Maybe that's just me.

Nouns

I'm not exactly sure which you want to go with, but it sounds like you're okay with "a soldier." If that's the case I'll keep on using it. As a quick aside, "a Soldier" might actually also be considered correct, similarly to "an American," though I care about this one even less than the jargon one. :P

Gender

All classes are male, so the reason I went with "it" instead of "he" wasn't based on gender--it was based on whether we treat them as characters or tools. This goes in line with the roleplaying thing. However, upon reflection, I'm not sure if it's worth it, as using "it" instead of "he" makes writing more restrictive. For example, if I'm using "it" instead of "he" and I wrote "when a soldier uses rocket launcher, caution must be exercised because of its low speed," there is ambiguity in regards to whether I mean "soldier's speed" or "rocket launcher's speed." Using "he" would make this come up less, so I feel like using gender pronouns might actually be better for us in the end. This was not something I had originally considered, so the competitive articles currently use the "it/its" setup.

G-Mang 21:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow, nice response :) Before I go on to try and clarify my opinions, I must first say there is no "admin hammer". In general I never act without discussion unless an action has no consequences, such as deleting a file that hasn't been used. I try to keep things tidy and simple but every single user has as much say in these matters as I have. It's the consensus that matters, and why users should contribute to discussions such as these.

Now, to clarrify my points-

Jargon

It is important to note that jargon shouldn't be used in article titles but it's fine within an article as long as it's explained.

Valve officially named the items which makes them common names. This is the reason I go by Wikipedia's naming conventions for common names for article names. There is however, no reason why you can't start the article "Bonk! Atomic Punch (often shortened to Bonk or referred to as bonk energy drink)" and then go on to use Bonk or bonk energy drink within the article, because you have previously explained it. However, you shouldn't then use Bonk within the Scout article unless you either link back (ie Bonk) or explain it on that article (ie "the Scout can use Bonk! Atomic Punch (often shortened to Bonk)"); linking back on the first mention being my preferred option.

Nouns

I would say "the Soldier" is correct and easiest to use.

I really need to do an advanced English course, or find someone who's fantastic with grammar for stuff like this. If someone is reading this and knows for certain, please tell me once and for all. From research I've done - "a soldier" and "the soldier" is correct in the context of a military profession; however, in the context of "Soldier" being the characters name then "the Soldier" is correct because "Soldier" becomes a proper noun (or proper name). It would still be correct to refer to him in text as "a soldier" because that is still his profession or just "Soldier" or "The Soldier" as that's the characters name, although it is slightly confusing. But, it is incorrect to use "a Soldier" or "the soldier". I think.

Gender

You answered that neatly yourself :) He is a character, as in the point above.

I hope that is clearer than my original post (probably not on the noun thing though, that's still difficult to explain for me). --urora (talk | contribs) 15:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Heh. What if the discussion ends up just being us two unable to come to consensus? :P

The jargon thing, to me, is the exact opposite. The first sentence of the "common names" article illustrates it nicely: a common name is a name in general use within a community. It is not necessarily the first name something receives, nor the name some official body gives to something. The community doesn't mimic everything Valve does in terms of nomenclature. If anything, Valve giving something a name would be best likened to giving it a scientific name. The common name for "electro sapper" is certainly not the Valve name, but simply "sapper." Valve naming something doesn't automatically make that name a common name.

When a certain group of fish was dubbed Amphiprioninae by an official governing body, that didn't stop people from calling those fish clownfish, and that didn't convince people to name the article something other than "clownfish." Likewise, when Valve names something, that doesn't mean people will commonly use it.

The idea of the competitive articles was to provide something that was fully conducive to competitive discourse with the most usability and readability possible. If it's up for discussion I'd still vote for going with what's most common and most simply understood, because the articles are about competitive gaming and metagaming, not the game itself; the Bonk energy drink (competitive) article would not actually be about the item itself, Bonk! Atomic Punch, but about the competitive usage and metagame of that item, and part of that metagame is the vernacular. If that makes sense. :P

It sounds like we're both okay with "a soldier" and "he/him/his," so I guess we're done with those. :) G-Mang 20:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, just the naming of articles to clear up. There usually isn't just two people discussing things, its just that we're responding to each other rather quickly, some people won't have even seen this yet, others might not even log on for a few days. I was probably incorrect in saying "Valve naming it made it a common name", if anything it just makes it the official name. I've been searching through Wikipedia's naming conventions articles (there are bloody hundreds of them!) and something interesting I came across was that when multiple common names are used, they do what they call a search engine test. This intrigued me so I used Google and that would suggest you are correct - "bonk! atomic punch" has 41,200 hits, whereas "bonk energy drink" returns 410,000 hits. Now, that doesn't mean I'm changing my mind, it just adds more weight to your argument.

I'm still of the opinion that using the Valve given name is the right choice, so your going to have to wait until we get some more opinions from other users, I'd like to hear what Wilsonator has to say for one. One thing I will say I'm definitely not happy with is using common names in articles that are misleading or ambiguous, which was the reason for requesting the change of Demo to Demoman (competitive). I would also strongly avoid using 'demo' within articles because of it being a very common shortening of demonstration.

Also, I would just like to stress to others reading this that we are only talking about Article names not the use of words within an article. --urora (talk | contribs) 02:24, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, demo to demoman I was fine with. :) I know people say demo more often than demoman in mumble and regular forum posts but for documentation writing I think demoman is more appropriate for clarity. As for the discussion, I'd like to point out that the competitive articles I started were part of an ongoing movement to get competitive players more willing to share information and collaborate on getting lower level people up higher, so it seems like it'd make most sense to use vernacular that they will encounter more in competition and competitive discourse. In addition to that, we should keep in mind that if the articles do start bringing more competitive contributors, they probably won't be able to voice their preference before the articles are all named (unless I get people over here now, but most aren't nerdy enough to work on the wiki foundation, especially to debate about article names :P). I understand that the wiki should be designed for anyone to navigate--I was just pointing it out as something to consider. ;) G-Mang 04:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Just my few pence on all this, a little below the rather daunting masses of text.

• Jargon: There isn't really so much of this, and where weapons work as jargon the problem can be easily solved in most cases (such as removing the 'the' in Huntsman) and shortening the bonk atomic punch name to simply 'Bonk' with a link to the weapon page to clarify. As for other jargonish words, although the articles are about competetive play, they're still part of the wiki so it's a little jarring if the style is inconsistent with the entirety of the rest (such as using 'Demo' for Demoman) and other things noted below.
• Improper nouns: While the classes are mostly named after their job descriptions, they are also commonly and officially used as proper names by players, Valve and the characters themselves in game (This is Scout, rainbows make me cry!), though to tone down the roleplaying elements in the article, it would be prudent to refer to them as, for example, 'the Soldier' (as in 'the soldier class') and referring to them in other contexts as 'a soldier' (e.g. If you meet a Soldier, you will be kabomed.) To summarise, 'The' Soldier is the soldier you're playing as, and other players are 'Soldiers', 'Scouts', 'Pyros' etc.
• Gender: Again, for the sake of consistency let's refer to the various characters as 'hes'. Removing the 'roleplaying' elements associated with acknowledging a character as being a (fictional) being with their own gender sounds a little strange here and doesn't really add to the article as a competetive guide.

On a seperate note, the addition of how much health is given by various health packs doesn't seem to make much sense included in the Demoman's specific competetive article. On yet another tangent, while some abilities have many different names among players, their official names can be gleaned through patch notes. Within them, the alt fire on the flamethrower is referred to officially as the compression blast[1]

Other than that, they look a promising set of pages, despite my nitpicking- keep it up!

--Wilsonator 05:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

It maybe the long text but I'm not quiet sure where you stand on the one point we have left :$ Article naming. On one hand G-Mang's opinion is that common names should be used, ie "Airblast", on the other, I would prefer to keep with the Valve official naming, ie "Compression blast". You touched on it in the last section but I'm not sure what your preference is. --urora (talk | contribs) 13:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

We should stick with the Valve naming for the sake of consistency with the rest of the wiki, even if it doesn't roll off the tongue as much. Things like the compression blast could be shortened to 'blast' or suchlike. --Wilsonator 17:07, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

New proposed main page

I like the main page but I think it needs some rearranging. I've been constructing a proposal on my user page, it's done yet however, so if anyone would like to suggest changes to it feel free. I've designed it with the featured article being one of the main focus points when a user first visits the page (like wikipedia). I've also added the weapons template so that users can find the mass of info we have on weapons. Seb 02:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Some suggestions for the wiki

• There's a huge chunk of whitespace at the start and end of each page. Is this on purpose? If it isn't I think it would be good if we could remove it.
• We need to work on a template for the main page so each language keeps the same design. I've had lots of experience designing templates with MediaWiki, as I've adminned on Wikipedia for a while, so it shouldn't be too hard.
• Need to have some sort of Index with branches to topics.

All I can think of at the moment. Content-wise I think the TF2 wiki is great, everyone here does a great job :) Seb 02:41, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe the whitespace is because you have some form of ad blocker in your browser, causing the space where they would have appeared to show up blank. We're working on getting the ads removed entirely but are having a little trouble contacting the new site owner currently. As for your suggestions, they're all great ideas and we'd be happy to offer you and other capable users increased editing priveliges once we get the aforementioned business sorted out.--Wilsonator 04:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh right, lol, forgot about that. Thanks very much, that'd be really helpful. Seb 06:29, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep, adblocker, I get the same thing. Experienced wiki editors is what we need, theres no reason why anyone can't get stuck in, I noticed you already added some and changed a few others, good stuff. I might call on your experience next time I get stuck with a template (which often happens :p).

One thing I will mention though regarding the Main Page; its not because the layout of the main page is difficult, in fact I made it a lot simpler last time I updated it, it's because we don't have enough dedicated, long term translators. Once in a while someone comes along and with the best will in the world, translates a few of the pages, usually starting with the main page, then for whatever reasons gets bored with doing it. The German and Russian pages are the most updated I would say, the Japanese Main Page/ja hasn't been updated since 17 March 2008. It's just that the problem is most noticable on the main page because its updated fairly often and the layout has changed most dramatically.

Not sure what you mean by the last suggestion? Do you mean some form of Nav/Infobox on articles, some sort of Portal, Index on the Main Page, or are you refering to Categories?

Oh, by the way, there is a TF2 Wiki:Proposals page for stuff like this, just for next time. Good to have you aboard. --urora (talk | contribs) 19:08, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

By Index I mean a page where almost every article is linked off it, like this. You can visit this page and have every topic available right there. For example, to find the information on unlockable weapons you could visit the Index, then click on weapons, rather than going to the page for the Scout, then to the page for the FaN, then to the page for all of the weapons (if that makes any sense). It's also a good way of showcasing all of the information we have here in one place.

Hopefully with a main page template it should make the work for translators easier when they do come and translate, and it will allow pages to continue to have the same design consistency. I'm going to ask on the TF2 community on reddit, there may be people there who could help out a little. Seb 06:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh I see, a contents List, fair enough. We don't currently have a Portal: namespace though, so I would suggest creating them in the TF2 Wiki: for the moment. We're currently waiting for the new owner to get back to us on a few things, and adding some namespaces was one of my requests so I'll ask for a Portal at the same time. That is if he ever gets back to us :$

Regarding the Main Page, don't create a full page template for it, at least not in the same sence as the Class full page templates. I'm trying to get people to move away from them and move to individual articles with templates translcuded to them. Full page templates are too restrictive and cause flexibility/extensibility problems. --urora (talk | contribs) 13:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

-- How can I save my achievements Mld051 16:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't Wanna loos my achievements

guy do u know how can i save my files and achievements bcuz i want to reinstall my Windows and i don't wanna miss any files and saves from the game that i achieved them

• Your achievements are stored with your steam account. --Cloud 12:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Spammers

There have been a hell of a lot lately i suspect the pop up ads and referals leaving this site are leaving a trace, is there anymore than patrollng recent changes that we can do ?--mark"d"davis 16:30, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

No, unfortunatly not, it's really becoming a pain and the only way to solve it is to install the authorise plugin so new accounts have to confirm via an email address. But, as with alot of other things we're waiting for, unless HarriL replies to our requests there's nothing we can do about it. It's becoming a bit of a joke now, I don't want to bother Nos because he has his own stuff to deal with and the wiki is no longer his responsibility. HarriL hasn't even said hello to the community and I'm seriously questioning if it was a good decision for him to become the owner of something he clearly isn't interested in. --urora (talk | contribs) 14:05, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

RED and BLU sites: Fallen into Disrepair

Not that the BLU site has much to repair.

I noticed that the RED site has been left out in the cold to die and wondered if it couldn't be expanded under new management. The TF2 Wiki community being the intellectual types that they are I thought might be interested in taking up the reins should this be at all a possibility.Piggie 23:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you talking about the RED wiki pages or the [2] site itself? If you mean the site, that's owned by Valve and as far as I know was only put up as a joke. I'm not sure if there's any need to maintain/expand it, let alone by the community? --urora (talk | contribs) 00:34, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I think if Valve had posted it they wouldn't have been so partial to RED. And as for expanding it, of course there's no NEED, there's no need for Team Fortress 2 to even exist; it's for fun.

This topic rather confuses me. The sites are held by Valve, so we can't really add them, and the pages here have all the info we need. I'm also pretty sure Aurora wasn't implying anything needs to be changed under threat of electrified piranhas in acid V.A.T.S. Those would still be a useful asset to the wiki though, they're just cool that way.

Also Valve are always partial to RED, see official art and every Meet the Team video. They get no love at all.--Wilsonator 03:00, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

With Valve's usual social conscience, especially in regards to Team Fortress, I'm surprised they wouldn't have updated those sites in years. And if I had to hazard a guess in regards to the partiality of RED one could argue that RED's aesthetic style does offer a bit more in the way of creativity and variety, and I did just realize that the game's mascot-color is Orange which the color red partakes in quite a bit and the color blue is actually the complete opposite of. Ironic. Well, there's also the fact that RED has a bomb on their logo. They should make a special Yellow team someday...could work well with games like Assault with a larger defending team and two smaller attacking teams, with the attacking teams in turn competing with each other to be the first to take out the defending team. But alas, the Guard Dog should suffice for now. Well, for then. Piggie 22:32, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Stepping aside/back

After the past few days of discussions on the Crafting discussions I've decided to step aside and back. That is to say I'm not stepping down or stopping helping out, merely leaving the day to day running to others. I've always believed that the community should be self maintaining and that general consensus should be reached by constructive discussions. However this is unfortunately not the case, after two days of discussion the only contribution was from a new account which is (to me at least) of dubious validity if we have not had similar comments from long running editors. Decisions on how a community is run are important and it saddens me that only a select few speak up. This may well seem like I'm basing it only on this one discussion, however over the years that I've been an editor here I can tell you it isn't. The wiki is not and should not be run or governed by a select few's opinions. Without editors being bold and contributing toward decisions or experienced editors helping to make new contributors lives easier, it goes against wiki ideals and also my own sense of community. I will still be around to help anyone or set-up new designs, but the general day to day running and responsibilities will be up to others. --urora (talk | contribs) 14:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

And I was just going to suggest today that we organise a group mod/admin discussion to discuss all these issues about site improvement. No one is happy about the lack of site autonomy (I've been manually changing the featured article for about a year), but just stepping out and blaming people for not being bold enough solves nothing. Please respond.

On an additional note, the key thing is approaching these important issues one step at a time. The reason I've been doing comparitively smaller edits at the moment is because they're approachable and I haven't had the time for the larger and more important ones, which do need a proper time investment. We still haven't had a proper discussion regarding all this, a heated discussion on a talk page shouldn't be a basis for you dropping out of day-to-day activity. In summary, we should: organise a proper discussion with the staff, work out what we're going to focus on first (by importance), do it and present the consensus to the community so that it can be discussed there too. --Wilsonator 15:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

As I am an admin I would naturally attend but my decision was a personal one and not based on any specific discussion. --urora (talk | contribs) 18:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Well fair enough, it's your own decision in the end. A break would probably be a good idea at this point anyway. --Wilsonator 21:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Admin Guide Page

I was wondering if it would be possible to add in a admin guide, with common commands for TF2 server monkeys. I would contribute some of my useful commands, but being a Wiki newb, I don't know the first thing about creating a page. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheGooglePlex (talk) • contribs) 23:48, 24 December 2009

Generally I would say it's a good idea. The only issue is which commands are you referring to? rcon, sourcemod, beetlesmod, and manimod all have diferent commands. We do have a Dedicated server configuration page with links to each of the admin mods, some of the basic commands, and links to sites which have detailed guides.

To get started on creating and editing wiki pages, check out the Help section (can be accessed on the left navigation panel) or Wikipedia's own How to edit a page. If you still need help, drop a message on my or one of the other Administrators talk pages. --urora (talk | contribs) 01:32, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Improper Conduct

What procedure(s) do we have for behavior like this? ~G-Mang (T|C) 13:31, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I did notice that.. We'll give him another chance I guess. He clearly wants to help out, he's just going at it the wrong way. Smashman 13:39, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

None, I thought that was blatetly clear after the Crafting discussion. --urora (talk | contribs) 00:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, just like I asked in the crafting discussion, I'd like to help create (or participate in) creating such policies, but I don't know how to start/what process(es) we use. If anyone can redirect me I'd be grateful. If we don't even have policies for policy creation, I guess we could just start a discussion and agree on some things to start with. ~G-Mang (T|C) 07:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a beast of a task to get things up and running, that's why I was so concerned that the little things were being addressed before the basics. It will take a lot of discussion and feedback until things are settled, something that I'm not convinced happens on this wiki. A good starting place is Wikipedia's Wikipedia proposals pages but the amount of bureaucracy and red tape is more than likely not needed on a wiki of our size. Having said that, the simple things still need doing like all the Policy and guidelines header templates and the Category structures. Generally for a wiki this size, TF2 Wiki:Policy and TF2 Wiki:Guidelines portals are created in the main Wiki namespace (similar to this Discussion portal) to give users a frontend starting point and then all draft policies or guidelines are subpages of those portals. Drafts are created, tagged with a {{Policy}} or {{Guideline}} "proposal" and discussed before being approved by general concusses. Once approved, the draft is moved into the main Wiki namespace and tagged with a {{Policy}} or {{Guideline}} "approved" template.

At least that's my interpretation of it, but as I have mentioned before, without active contributions and discussions, the whole process is pointless. Well, maybe not pointless but the wiki would be governed in a hierarchical or authoritarian manner. Something which I've stated before, that I don't agree with. What's really needed is a decent sized group of contributors that care more about building and helping the community than being the first person to post a "fact" about a new update. --urora (talk | contribs) 15:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

At some point in the near future I'd like to go ahead and set up some proposal and guideline portals, categories, and templates to get things rolling. I've started with a small template for proposed policies, Template:Policy proposal. Should we start a new page or discussion for how we approach this? ~G-Mang (T|C) 10:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Hadoken

As much as I don't want to appear excessively perfectionist as this is a Wiki and meant to be a place of trustworthy information I would like to call attention to the multiple misspellings of "Hadoken" as "Hadouken." This is a common mis-transliteration of the Japanese language and as I currently have the Street Fighter IV manual in front of me the spelling "Hadoken" is indisputably correct. The reason I bring this to the discussion page rather than simply go through the page for Hadouken and edit it myself is because this change affects the pages name and therefore all links to that page, and I was wondering if there were a way that this could be done easily with one change that would affect all subsequent appearances of the word. Otherwise, it would probably make more sense to just put a note at the beginning of the Hadouken page that would explain the correct spelling. I know it seems like a small detail but I think I speak for all editors when I say that our goal is to have this Wiki as accurate and reliable as possible. Piggie 21:41, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe it's either Hadouken OR Hadoken therefore we can use either across the Wiki. Wikipedia's article is named Hadouken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadouken) with Hadoken redirecting to that page. So I think we'll stick with Hadouken. Smashman 23:23, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

You can probably add a trivia note to the hadouken page. In every patch note in which the attack is referred to, it is called a 'hadouken'. It's more likely Valve aren't going for a totally straight reference, since the projectile itself isn't an actual hadoken and just decided to change the name slightly to reflect that. --Wilsonator 23:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a neologism so it doesn't have a 'correct' spelling. Neologisms should be avoided for reasons such as this, but in this case it can't be. Even staff at Capcom spell it in differing ways and it's been a running debate ever since it appeared in the original Street Fighter game. Personally I think just adding it inline would be adequate as in - "the Pyro unleashes a Hadouken (or Hadoken) in the form of a spectacular burst of flame". There are arguements for and against but as Smashman has pointed out the Wikipedia article is labelled as Hadouken and as Wilsonator poited out, Valve always spell it Hadouken. --urora (talk | contribs) 00:19, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The Japanese is 波動拳, which is はどうけん in kana and "hadōken" romanized. When one cannot use "ō", the correct way of romanizing it is using "ou". "Hadouken" is therefore the more "correct" transliteration of the Japanese term. I should also point out that Street Fighter omits those long vowels on a number of other names for the sake of making them look less foreign; Ryu's name is リュウ, which would be "Ryū" or "Ryuu". The same applies to Shouryu(u)ken, Tatsumakisenpu(u)kyaku, Zanei where the correct romanization would be "Zan'ei", and a number of others. MK 03:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Strategy and Match-Ups

I vaguely remember Wilsonator talking about improvements to them, but it seems like a major issue for the wiki at this point that we should probably discuss. Do we have plans for restructuring these, or is the plan to just rewrite them using the foundation we have now? How're we gonna begin? ~G-Mang (T|C) 23:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Bizarre Formatting

I've been noticing that the last few times I've visited they've been using some completely bizarre version of Wiki formatting that I've never seen before (weapon articles especially) that I can't edit at all without causing it to fall apart. What's going on? (I haven't been here in months) Asdfzxc920 02:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Someone had the awful idea of parsing the entire article's contents thru a template. I'd redo all the articles myself if I had the time. MK 13:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

[Major BUG] -- Search is not working for other languages than English!

Hi, searching the Wiki in languages such as e.g. German does not work. The way this wiki changes the language is by adding a /xy (xy=languange). Now that /xy is actually always deleted when you start searching. Also I'd like it if you include the language in a subdomain, like Wikipedia does :)

OK, I hope you read this soon and I'll try to find some time to expand the German Wiki :D --Senkus 21:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Valve developers/voice actors

Is there any reason there aren't pages for the voice actors, developers over at Valve, and other people who worked on TF2? It could be very informative and I wondered why not even Robin Walker has his own article. --Tinker 16:05, 2 February 2010 (UTC)