Talk:Main Page/Archive

Discussion/talk page proposed format

Ok folks, we all seem to have our own ways of adding comments to a discussion page. The way it stands now, it becomes really difficult to follow a discussion when it is broken apart with different formats. What I suggest is this: when you leave a comment use a horizontal line to separate your post from the one(s) above it. In this manner, everything is left justified and the comments are separated. The reason why I do not support the colon as comment separation is that as the discussion progresses you are going to be adding more and more just to get the indenting correct. It also makes it confusing. Another side effect is that once you have a lot of colons present it pushes the text off the page itself and forces a scroll to the right to view. That isn't good.

I suppose if we really want to use colons as separators, we could alternate the use. If a comment is indented above yours, do nothing. If a comment is not indented, use a colon for your submission. Still, the constant zig-zagging isn't really the best idea either.

My vote is therefore to stick with the horizontal line (four dashes). If the discussion veers way off course, or if you have a couple questions/comments, break it apart into different headings. And always sign your post too as that makes it easier to follow.

Discuss.--Zombie 20:46, 9 March 2007 (PST)

Works for me, Zombie. Another problem with indentation is that one isn't necessarily addressing only the previous comment, but it could be about the previous one, and tying together things that are 4, 6, and 12 entries back. Colons are fine for quick rejoinders, but not as a requirement. A potential alternative is to leave two blank lines, as I just did after your sig. This is a fairly clear delineator for folks scanning quickly. However, the horizontal separator is more clear, in general. So I guess I'd vote for the hor-sep for all except quick comments thrown in, which can use colons. And anything that's a new topic or big break should get a new topic, using = signs. - MikeTheRed 21:10, 9 March 2007 (PST)

I've reformatted Talk:Exploits#Extra_Ammo_Exploit to demonstrate how the indentation style can work, if done consistently. I think it's somewhat better than the line-separator style for very long discussions, making the structure a little clearer. However, if it's sometimes-used and sometimes-not things get messy, as you've noticed.

I'll codify the rules right here (surprisingly, they're not well-codified on Wikipedia itself, despite the fact that it's used quite consistently throughout the site):

Add an indent for each reply
Reuse your prior level of indentation if it's a back and forth:

First person's comment

:Second person's comment

::Third person's comment

:Second person again

::Third person again

::Third person's afterthought

:Second person again

::First person jumping back in

:::Third person once more

::First person again

If you get to 5 or 6 indents, just "reset" (start without indents for the next reply).
If you have an addendum to your own comments, use the same indent level and re-sign.
If somebody doesn't know/doesn't use the right indent level, fix it when adding your next reply so the rules become clear during the course of conversation.
Likewise, if someone adds a new comment to the top or fails to add a heading when starting a new subject, fix it when replying.

The problem we've had lately is the mixing of styles, neither being used correctly. So far it seems that myself, Sf, and NKF have been using indents, you (Zombie) and Mike favoring dashes, and most newcomers failing to use either. No clear winner just yet. ;-) --Ethereal Cereal 23:56, 9 March 2007 (PST)

What if you're addressing several and various issues raised before, not just a comment on the previous statement? (And it runs on for four or six paragraphs?) - MikeTheRed 00:14, 10 March 2007 (PST)

If you're consolidating a bunch of replies to several earlier points, that's a good time to reset the indent.--Ethereal Cereal 01:07, 10 March 2007 (PST)

Works for me, Eth - MikeTheRed 16:47, 9 November 2007 (PST)

Game Editors

I was going to add a link off the Main Page to the Game editors section that I wrote, under Misc. I still have a nagging feeling there is another list of them somewhere, but I can't find it. Any comments?

Also, any additions to the Game editors section are welcome.

Spike 03:40, 15 March 2008 (PDT)

I don't think we've ever had a particular listing of editors.

Tell you what, I'll throw these changes in, and we'll see how this works out.

I'll put the new game editor section onto the UFO main table (I've also renamed the page to stick to the first capital letter naming convention the other articles use).
I removed XComutil off the main table, since it'll be under the game file section.
Removed the UBK - it's just a tool for wiki editors and not something that would interest players of the game.

I might also add the Command Prompt to the game editor section for its notes on using MS-Edit as a binary file editor.

- NKF 04:46, 15 March 2008 (PDT)

While I see the validity of adding XComUtil to a page regarding editors won't it make sense to keep a sublink to the page which deals on how to use it, together with MSEdit? I mean, the other editors only have links to them on that page and I think that at least XComUtil deserves main page status because of its notoriosity and complexity. What do you guys think? - Hobbes 14:08, 15 March 2008 (PDT)

a good idea to include the Command Prompt help. How about broadly dividing it into 2 sections: X-COM-specific tools and general purpose tools? Spike 07:08, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

Newb questions

Hello good sirs. Sorry for my bad non-native english. While in total noob in wiki, im relatively for long playd this great games. Great thanks for you for this great site, it really helped me with some ideas, especially with Funding Nation, even dont know how i played it before without it. Now more close to point, i realized what TFTD section here are, say, unperfect, if not somewhat wrong. As i readed somewhere not all play TFTD much, UFO1 instead, so it maybe be the point. Id edit something on it, but im totally dunno how to do it, and my language will have too many mistakes to be proudly presented to people. So id be glade to hear what you may propose for me to do. Again big thanks. Ill wait for answer.

PS Or im searched too badly, or its differ in TFTD (i play only it now) from UFO1, but i cant find here about stunned persons behaviour. Cant find what they awake only if theyr stun is lower then HP's and if only they have awaken person in theyr tile during end of turn. IMHO its important thing to know off, at least for me.

PPS. My friend made great tiny changes to one tiny file, what make FundingNations game way more easy and elegant then described in issue. I can upload it if you need this, tho its for TFTD im sure he can do UFO1 also if its needed. Anyway this game too easy even on FN to play it without it :).

Eh PPPS. Dunno how to properly log on :(.

Do not worry about the language barrier - sometimes it's harder to understand people who speak English natively! ;) In any case, There'll be other editors who will be able to help fix the article for you if you can get the idea across.

To get started editing pages, check the Community Portal on the left sidebar. That has links to articles that can help you get started - more or less. One good way to find out how some text is formatted (or anything else you'd like to duplicate) is to edit the page and see how it's done in the source.

If in doubt, or if you're unsure about editing the article, feel free put your ideas or suggestions in the article's Discussion page.

Because TFTD and UFO share a lot of the same mechanics, there would be a lot of unnecessary duplication if we were to write up articles for it that are already available in the UFO articles. Therefore we mainly include articles that cover topics that are unique to TFTD, like the weapons, door opening, aliens, etc. General mechanics like how damage works or how experience is earned is identical to UFO's, so there's no need to duplicate them. What sections do you think need improving or what sections do we need to add? The more input the better.

Regarding consciousness, have you checked the Unconscious article? I think we might need to redo that article bit and perhaps add a few illustrations. One note about the difference between UFO and TFTD with the visual appearance of a unit recovered with a medikit needs to go in there too if it hasn't already. Oh well. - NKF 22:54, 22 May 2008 (PDT)

PS, to sign your messages in the discussion pages, put four tilde's ~~~~ anywhere you want to insert your name and the timestamp.

same questions

Thank you for answer. I been somwhat incorrect in my english. I didnt mean what TFTD pages are bad or what they lose reduntand UFO1 information. All they lack are only slightly wrongly described alien's dangers levels (one of most dangerous creatures cant be low treat, and least dangerous one medium) and lack of mission types what only TFTD have. Also i readed "Unconscious@ article few times, stiil cant find only how to use medkit and no word about what generally need for stunned person to rise. From that follow advices to grenade stunned chryssalids and so on.

PS. Oh, yes, and whats wrong with door openings? Derrida 08:59, 23 May 2008 (PDT)

A unit falls unconscious when the stun bar is equal or greater than the unit's remaining health points. If it's under that, the unit will be awake.

To wake a soldier up, you have to reduce the stun level by either waiting for the stun to wear off, 1 point per turn, or use stimulants on a medikit. Looks like the TFTD section doesn't have its own medikit page, but UFO's Medi-Kit section explains how to use it, as they are identical. Basically, if the unit is unconscious, the medic must stand on top of the unconscious unit and use stimulants (the second choice) until the unconscious soldier wakes up. When the unconscious unit wakes up, they'll appear to the north of the medic.

TFTD's stun weapons are much more powerful than in TFTD, so you often have to use a lot of stimulants to wake a person up.

TFTD's unique because it allows you to open doors by right clicking them - and it's a free action so you won't spend any TUs to do it. UFO cannot do this (except the Playstation version).

As for the threat levels of the aliens - I agree, some should be reclassified. Personally I'd move the Gill-Men and Calcinite up to medium threat - all the current medium level threats look just about right though. What are your suggestions?

Hang on, why are there so many references to vibroblades in the overview article? That can't be right. I'll have to update that later on. - NKF 15:05, 23 May 2008 (PDT)

Nonono. I mean what if unit's stun damage falled below it's HP, and no one stand in tile it lying, it will never rise. Medkits not the point. No stunned aliens or soldiers will rise if no one will end turn on it, or take it to inventory/hand. I tried to say this. Maybe it been different in UFO1 (as with doors, i thought what doors always open by right click, and in UFO1 too (btw cant find about door opening anywere in wiki)), but in TFTD it means what you dont have to bother with stunned tentaculats etc to rise after stun if you do not stand on it, or try to move it in backpack/hand. Same with soldiers, you can click zillion turns, but they will never rise until someone stand on it. Without this game must be horrible with all this undying lobsters awake afer you pass them. With danger level id suggest this: Harmless: hallucinoid; deep one; Low: gillmen; aquatoid; Meduim: zombie; calcinite; bio-drone; lobsterman; xarquid; high: tasoth; triscene; What really matters: tentaculat. In line of growing dangerness. Derrida 16:30, 23 May 2008 (PDT)

Regarding image file formats

I'd really like to add a note somewhere obvious about using GIFs for screenshots in the wiki, rather than JPGs. For 256-color images like X-COM uses, GIFs are no larger than JPGs and generally look much better. For example, see the nasty compression artifacts on the terrain maps in the Terror Ship article. PNGs might work just as well, I'm not sure, but we should really avoid JPGs.

Where would be the best place to mention this? I'm thinking near the top of the main page for visibility, but that might be more clutter than people want. Phasma Felis 23:59, 11 June 2008 (PDT)

It's been dealt with here that PNG is the preferred file format of the wiki; however, where to note this...I honestly don't know. Arrow Quivershaft 00:37, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

PNG's reduced to 256 or less colours can be quite the space saver for X-Com screenshots. You can go the extra step and run them through PNG compression programs and somesuch - but they're pretty good as-is. Jpgs should be reserved for images with a broader range of colours. One place the note could go is in Guidelines to writing articles. In fact, that section could do with a few extra additions in any case to expand is to that it's not just covering the composition of the language of the articles, but to cover the creation of the articles. - NKF 03:04, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Hosting move.

Hi guys. It appears I'm still hosting the UFOpaedia - I did discuss moving it to StrategyCore with both Zombie and Pete a while ago and I think I gave them copies of what would be required.

Anyway, I'm moving hosting servers so the UFOpaedia is going to move too. I'm aiming to carry out the transfer on Sunday September 28th at about 8pm GMT+1. Any changes made between this time and the time that the transfer completes may be lost, but hopefully not. Just thought I'd give you guys a bit of notice.

I should point out that I still have no objection to hosting the UFOpaedia on my servers, it's a great project and you guys have done a bang-up job with it, it's far surpassed my original intentions :) However, if StrategyCore want to take over hosting to remove the potential "failure point" (i.e. me) then that's fine and we can give it another shot?

GazChap, 25th September 2008 12:50 GMT+1

Thanks for the heads-up Gaz-Chap! Sure, StrategyCore is still willing to host the UFOpaedia. Sorry things didn't quite work out the last time we talked. Pete needs to be constantly reminded to do things as he's easily distracted. I'll try and start a fire under his bum to get the ball rolling again. --Zombie 07:14, 25 September 2008 (PDT)

Hosting has now been moved to StrategyCore. Cheers to Pete and Zombie for sorting it out. GazChap, 11:28, 1 October 2008 (GMT+1)

There may be a slight problem with caching of the temporary holding page ("coming back soon". On some browsers I'm using (not all), the temporary page is still up and you can't see the UFOPaedia site. Spike 17:48, 1 October 2008 (CDT)

The new website address is quite likely still propagating out through DNS, since we moved hosts. So that's just the nature of the internet and should be gone in a day or two. Arrow Quivershaft 19:06, 1 October 2008 (CDT)

Most browsers seem to allow a full page refresh via Ctrl + F5. There's also an option re caching under the Misc section of your Preferances - I had to disable it ages ago 'cause it was always failing to show me page changes... - Bomb Bloke 21:54, 1 October 2008 (CDT)

Sorry about the downtime everyone. The bandwidth limit wasn't set high enough after the recent change in hosting and basically didn't allow access. I contacted Pete and he fixed the issue. Good to catch these issues earlier rather than later. --Zombie 15:11, 15 October 2008 (CDT)

14 March 2009

Zombie mentioned that Pete may be moving the server this weekend. I'm getting lots of errors and more or less unable to make updates to the site. Probably this is to do with the server move. Spike 19:14, 14 March 2009 (EDT)

Apparently the move has been complete most of the day. So if you guys continue to have problems, please contact me and I'll relay it over to Pete. I'm not experiencing any problems though. --Zombie 21:34, 14 March 2009 (EDT)

500 Internal error

This seems to occur whenever I edit a subsection on a page, and I click the edit button on the TOP of the page instead of the edit button next to the subsection title. So, if you wanna avoid this error, try using the button which only edits that subsection... Jasonred 05:40, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

Already been tried. Doesn't work any better. UFOpaedia admin is on it, I've been told. Arrow Quivershaft 12:05, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

Pete's finished his latest round of changes. Give it another go. - Bomb Bloke 22:12, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

Humor and Flavour Text

GEH!!! This whole issue is taking on a life of it's own. On one hand, yes, I can see the allure of ufopedia being a serious informative site. On the other hand, there's the "fun" factor... When you get right down to it, Xcom is actually a rather simplistic game in terms of storyline, and storyline interactivity, so we REALLY have to make up our own, otherwise the game degenerates into "capture this technology, research research, shoot shoot. MC = win game". The ingame UFOpedia is great, but it's limited to several paragraphs to describe an entire race of creatures, and 2-3 lines to describe the horror of Blaster Bombs and such. ... I vote that this online UFOpedia becomes everything that the ufopedia in-game was missing... let's have something that ENTERTAINS as well as giving good accurate information!

I'll wait for the votes to come in before touching anything else. I agree with you guys, the Lobstermen and other aquatic aliens getting eaten is something that is VERY much a part of the X-com community's culture... it should go into the UFOpedia. Jasonred 04:00, 13 March 2009 (CDT)

I've nothing against humour. All for it. In fact I'd very much like to see more of that so that definitely gets my vote. A few light hearted moments in between all the seriousness does wonders. Perhaps not when you're getting into the particulars, but the descriptions or opening paragraphs that don't get into deep detail could be livened up a little. In moderation, of course!

However, the hard part is deciding on the line between being humorous within the confines of what's available (yes, funny discussions amongst the troops about eating lobstermen after battle instead of selling it could count towards that), and then there's making stuff up. Apologies to Morken for borrowing an example from his on-going graphic novel: explaining the alien's general idiocy/sportsmanship through their strong belief in the tenets of Amgoth. Highly amusing, but not part of the story. Granted, I don't think we've got anything like that on the wiki, but you never know.

In any case, a good mental exercise for the writers. -NKF 05:14, 13 March 2009 (CDT)

My two cents then: I like the humour, anecdotes, flavour and fan fiction but I think the main purpose of UFOPaedia is informational and that should not be compromised. I like the little touches of humour, and I've been known to attempt them myself. But humour and anecdotes should be kept brief and supplementary - e.g. one-liners and wry observations at the end of a section. Non-canonical flavour text and fan fiction (especially) should be kept clearly separate and distinguishable. Someone reading the site with no prior knowledge of XCOM should be able to tell right away what is factual vs what is humour or speculation/imagination. Not quite sure how to do that - maybe by using sidebars, the Humour category... ok ran out of ideas there already. Maybe we need an "official" font for reproducing canonical, in-game flavour text, so it stands out. Not sure.

Also, humour, anecdote and flavour are much more subjective than fact. What one person thinks is funny, others may not. So non-factual content may just get edited out unless a lot of people agree that it's funny/cool/interesting etc - in fact that's probably already happening. Maybe a good idea is to make the jokes on the Talk pages, and if they are found to be universally funny, move them on to the main articles later - pretty much the same as factual content in fact? Spike 05:19, 13 March 2009 (CDT)

I'm certain that we would all agree that the wiki is first and foremost an informative site. We needn't go so far as to point out to the readers what is or isn't. That would be overdoing it. A dash of humour anywhere we can get away with it without compromising the message, facts or turn it into fan fiction is really all that's required and can be more effective. Like spices, the right amount can add to the flavour of a dish. Too much and it just ruins it.

Now a little creative writing to make the articles (with or without the humour) more captivating to the reader and less like text-books will certainly go a long way. But then again, I believe that we've always attempted to do this. -NKF 06:04, 13 March 2009 (CDT)

I agree with NKF's point here regarding humor. But, concerning fanfic, to make up and add things that aren't on the original UFOPaedias or the History distributed with Interceptor is to take too much liberty with the original material (in regards with fan fiction). Just because it gets discussed in the forums at strategycore or xcomufo or that it is mentioned in someone's fanfic doesn't mean that it should be taken as a fact, regardless of the argument that the game story belongs to its fans/players. The game belongs to all of them and quite frankly we are quite a minority (although a very loyal one) regarding that. Hobbes 21:58, 2 April 2009 (EDT)

I personally hate the in-game perspective of some articles. I come to this page mainly to get information, not cheesy stories somebody made up. How about splitting it into two wikis? A serious one in the style of a guide book and a fan-fic one full of funny stories and made up background information? RedNifre 07:55, 10 May 2009 (EDT)

That's why we've got the Field Manual, which is all fiction. The rest should be as fan-fiction free as possible, and any light hearted bits in the non-essential text shouldn't affect the game mechanics explanations (which I feel is the wiki's star aspect). Much of what fiction there (all the non-canon stuff) is a throwback to when we first started and were populating the wiki before we started developing article standards. If you think there's anything that can be done better, we can easily sort that out. -NKF 08:53, 10 May 2009 (EDT)

XML dumps available?

Hello guys! Kudos for creating this amazing wiki!

I have some ideas and I'd like to test them on an XML dump of ufopaedia, since it's a small but interesting wiki. Do you offer the dumps for download somewhere (like wikipedia does)? That would be absolutely fantastic. :) RedNifre 10:23, 2 May 2009 (EDT)

Do you mean Special:Export? --Zombie 20:31, 2 May 2009 (EDT)

I'm not sure if that export page does the job. It seems that it only allows downloading a list of articles I have to type in. What I want is ALL articles of Ufopaedia in XML, be it one file per article or one file for all articles(which I would prefer, since that is what Wikipedia provides and I'd like my software to work with all wikis). You can see what Wikipedia offers here [[1]] and here [[2]]. Thanks! RedNifre 23:19, 2 May 2009 (EDT)

Never mind, I just entered all the relevant categories into the export page and got the XML file I was looking for (Downloading only the files relevant to playing X-COM 1 results in 1.5MB of XML). Thanks! RedNifre 11:21, 4 May 2009 (EDT)

More problems! Since "Special:Export" seems to only allow categories it is impossible to download articles that have no category (e.g. "civilian"). I see two ways how you could fix this: Add an option "Include all uncategorized articles to export" to the export page or put every article in categories. Or run a script that puts every article without category in a "Other" category. RedNifre 07:26, 10 May 2009 (EDT)

Copyrighted Materials from Official Sources

I've read a post concerning this and I suddenly couldn't remember if there's any guidelines regarding this, so I decided to ask your opinion about it. I've been transcribing quite a few descriptions from game manuals and game UFOPaedia's for the articles about Apocalypse that I've been adding because I worked under the assumption that this site is basically an online resource for players and it already uses a lot of copyrighted materials, especially images (and also to save some work in creating articles for the pages I've been adding). Another thing that I've been putting into practice is some special editing to differenciate canon material from official sources, I can't remember how to describe but just check any the page of any organization from Apocalypse. Likely there's a better way to it but the most important would be to add something regarding this matter to the UFOPaedia's guidelines Hobbes

I've been thinking that official quotes of in-game text should be clearly defined as such and left unmodified. Perhaps a formatted table with a note at the end stating its source (or title/author/publisher/ISBN if it's from official printed material). Perhaps even have the quotation in italics.

(Example removed)

Would something like the above, or along similar lines work? Could be done by way of two templates (open and close), and you just sandwich the text in between them. The open/close templates could take one parameter each, the title/source. Leaving it out will obviously leave a blank. -NKF 21:56, 28 February 2010 (EST)

Something like this would do rather nicely. I think the important part is for the source of the copyrighted material to be clear. Hobbes 12:36, 6 March 2010 (EST)

These could use some adjustments if anyone has any feedback to offer, but I've converted the previous example into a pair of templates. We now have {{Ref Open}} and {Ref Close | }} to wrap around quotations.

UFOpaedia entry

Celatid Autopsy Official Entry

"The core contains a small bio-mechanical device which appears to be a naturally evolved anti-gravity propulsion system. The sac of venom is the largest organ and there does not appear to be a separate brain structure. There is no discernible digestive or reproductive system. A small organ contains embryos which can grow rapidly into a new being."

Source:

The pipe symbol is very important for Ref Close - you put the list of references right after it. Check the source for the above example. The text is set to display one size smaller than the current font and is right aligned, but you can also use links and simple text formatting in the reference list. -NKF 22:15, 6 March 2010 (EST)

Awesome stuff - thanks for the great work NKF. Spike 4:57, 7 March 2010 (EST)