RuneScape:Yew Grove

The Yew grove is a page where community members can discuss larger changes to the wiki, such as policy proposals. It serves as a way for anyone to get involved without having to find the relevant discussion page. Messages should be left on this page, not on the talk page.

What this page should be used for:
 * Policy proposals or changes
 * Discussion of community processes (such as RS:AOTM)
 * Changes to significant wiki features.
 * In general, anything that the community at large would be interested in.

What this page should not be used for: __NEWSECTIONLINK__
 * Discussions about deleting a page. Use RS:VFD
 * Requests for adminship. Use RS:RFA
 * Discussions about the Wiki's theme. Use RuneScape:Theme
 * Discussions that belong on an article's talk page.
 * Anything that does not have a wide impact.

GEMW annoyance
As probably a lot of people have noticed, many other users are updating only the current price on Exchange: pages, and not the times and last price. I think we should discuss if we should employ a policy saying that if it's done wrong, we just revert the edit. I've been fixing other peoples' incorrectly added prices for a while now, and it's rather annoying. This (Nothing meant towards this specific user. Just an example.) is what I'm talking about, and it's happening a lot.

I vote Neutral on such a policy I mentioned earlier. I'm fine with fixing others' incorrect doings, but it's getting annoying.

So, yeah, discuss, vote, whatever. 16:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Oppose Uh, I don't know if I understand this correctly, but it took me about 5 seconds to fix that mistake. I think reverting is just counter productive. =P 22:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment - I admit I'm still new to wikia format and templates, so this may be a dumb question: Is it possible to simply update the GE Market Watch template to automatically add the current time of the edit, and the price of the previous version, to their respective fields? Or is something like that just no possible/viable? Regabuh 22:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Neutral It would be easier to just use the current price and date and leave out the last price and last date now that Runescape is introducing the GE price database. I would update the prices more if I only needed to update price and add 5 tildes and not copy old price and copy old date. I'm more interested in the current prices in the various articles that utilize the GEMW data which depends more on the current info and not on past prices. I can always go to RuneScape if I want to know the up-to-date price trends; I don't trust the trends arrows in GEMW anyways because they are not always updated or may be in error. Chrislee33 23:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - I think that if your already taking time to revert the edit it wouldn't take that much more time time to correct it, now that the GE database has been released couldn't someone create a bot to pull the prices for each item off of there once a day or something? and does anybody know why the wanted pages are full of exchange pages that have been created? Reddo 01:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment It's funny Reddo should mention bots - I'm doing just that very thing with User:PointyBot at the moment. Give me a few days and I should have something up and running which will be able to update GEMW prices automatically from the Grand Exchange Database on the RuneScape site. Pointy 01:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Oppose I'm not sure if this is true, but from what I've heard, rollback reverts are only for "simple vandalism". Those who update the price are usually trying to help the wiki, and it is our policy to always assume that at first. So, if we consider it being done incorrectly "simple vandalism", wouldn't that be against the policy? Butterman62 (talk) 21:19, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment Would be possible to Automate this with the new Grand exchange thing on the RS frontpage. Blazel 17:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

"LOL NOOBS GO **** YOUR MOM"
Special:Log/block

In other words, there's been a huge amount of vandalism lately. Unlike the usual 1-3 blocks a day, admins are dishing out 7+ of these a day. I'm suspecting that it's a Total Rune, Buck Nell, or www.4chan.org invasion, but that's just me. Seriously, what the hell is going on?


 * Out of the 18 IP addresses blocked today ("today" being the day in my time zone):
 * 11 North American
 * 5 European
 * 2 Australian


 * 13 appear to be residential/business ISPs
 * 5 registered to schools/universities


 * None of them look like open proxies... in other words, this is a product of our growth recently rather than an attack by one or two persistent vandals. (Over 200 accounts/IPs made 5 or more edits last month.) I notice there have also been a dozen or more blocks given out for each of the last few days, as well, and if I were to check their locations, the results would probably be similar to those above. Skill 04:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've always wondered why some IPs are just registered as "residential/business"... don't these things have a country? 06:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The databases I use (the ones linked at the bottom of IP talk pages) all seem to have registration addresses... not sure what you mean. Skill 07:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, nvm, I misread, I didn't notice you made the same list twice (1st, the 18 IPs by country, and 2nd, the same 18 IPs by school vs non-school). 13:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm curious about the security system on the wiki. It seems that the majority of vandalism is perpetrated by anonymous editors, so why do we allow anonymous edits? I know that the wiki is open to everyone to edit, but if we do it by account, the kiddies who vandalise may be less inclined to do so if they have to set up an account, as I imagine most of them have the attention span of a gnat. I'm sure that this has already been discussed before, but it would be nice to hear the reasoning. Hurston 14:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is that there are plenty of anonymous users that make positive edits, as well. Especially in the past few months, I've noticed, there are quite a few more anons that add content. I'm sure it would eliminate most of the vandalism to disable anonymous editing, but we would probably lose all those other anons, as well as the fact that it's highly unlikely that Wikia staff would do it for us (none of us can). Skill 23:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't really see a huge problem in this.. there are plenty of admins and regular users reverting it and blocking the offenders. Like Skill said, it's a product of our growth. Vandalism is vandalism. Just because there's a lot of it in one day, doesn't mean there is an attack or invasion. 02:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Exactly. I don't think vandalism is the biggest of problems right now. I have never seen live vandalism on the wiki. That's because the admins do such a great job reverting it. Keep up the good work admins, Cheers, [[Image:Kandarincrest.gif|25px]]  C  hicken  7 [[Image:Kandarincrest.gif|25px]]  talk  support-the-namespace 05:20, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Chicken, cheers to the admins, to the bearaucrats...but what about regular users like me and ben? Its really not just the admins reverting vandalism. Just something to refelct on., 04:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, Regular users do a lot of the work as well. I just meant like blocking other users and stuff. Cheers, [[Image:Kandarincrest.gif|25px]] Chicken7  >talk>sign 06:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Resurrecting an ancient topic, I'm not concerned about vandalism in the mainspace (anyone with a brain realizes that chickens do not drop d chains). What I am worried about is vandalism towards the GEMW: It's very difficult to detect, and compromises the GEMW's credibility as a reliable price guide. I have no opinion over what should be done to protect the GEMW, but it's an issue that really needs to be solved.


 * One thing we could do is semi-protect the GEMW pages. I am very hesitant to do that, as I've also seen some useful anon edits there as well... but the GEMW pages (especially the individual item pages) are rather technical for the new wiki user to understand.


 * Once a useful bot is made for extracting the data from the Jagex pages and at least transferring the more useful data to here is done, the requirement for anon updates on the hard price data is going to be significantly reduced. They certainly aren't doing anything more than simple vandalism, and other than the item pages I haven't seen them doing something like hacking into the templates.... which could do significantly more damage.


 * BTW, while I'm wading through some of the bot scripts... is there anybody currently working on a 'bot right now for extracting the Jagex price data? I would prefer to make something cooperatively than to spin my own in "competition".  --Robert Horning 22:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * PointyBot's got a list of 3200 items in an Access database it scraped from the Exchange site, and 7000 prices points for those items, but I've hit a problem with how to upload those prices in a way that allows it to work with more than one person running the bot. I don't want to be a critical point of failure on the GEMW prices so I need to make it so multiple people can run the bot and it 'just works' without flooding prices and charts all over the show. I'm trying to make progress, but I'm stuck for time at the moment, so I can't make any promises I'm afraid. If someone else beats PointyBot to the punch that's fine with me :-). In the meantime, if you want a data-dump of items let me know and I'll post it somewhere in table form if that helps. Pointy 00:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've never written a bot before so I'm not sure if this is possible but what about making it time dependent? like from 1:00 to 1:15 would be the only time of day that it would check the ore prices, then from 1:15 to 1:30 it would check the food prices. Just an idea anyway. Reddo 05:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Judging by some of the recent vandalism I'm seeing, and the reasons, such as the pools closed thing, my educated guess says most of the vandalisms from 4Chan. 70.49.204.107 04:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Explicitating who may participate in RfAs, AotMs, VfDs and the like
This RfB has brought forward a disputatious issue in regards to whether the applicability of one rule found in UotM is or can be blanketed to those other areas where opinions of support and oppose are found. There are some that argued that it did however, after having researched past RfAs which took place after the policy change found in UotM, I did not find a single example of someone being denied a vote due to lack of mainspace edits and to the contrary, found examples such as this one (that took place six months after the UotM rule was initiated) where someone with less than 50 mainspace edits was challenged but ultimately allowed to participate in the disucssion. So as of right now the reality is that de jure and de facto, the only place where one must have a minimum of 50 edits is UotM. Despite this, we have some users and at least one administrator who believe that this policy should or is extended to other areas. And so I have created this discussion so that we may finally clarify and crystallize the rules.0 Let me clarify now that this discussion does not include UotM since the rules was already publically discussed and had been developped exclusively for that area and additionally, the 50 edit requirement in a situation where only support votes are allowed and no negative vote can be expressed makes sense. So now as to who may participate.

So who should be allowed to participate in these discussions? I'd like to start off by reminding everyone that these requests for admin, for an article of the month even the vote for deletion is not simply a question of getting a democratic majority but of a general consensus formed between those people participating so though while 60% of the people may think an article should be deleted and 40% think it should be kept, they can come to a concensus of a merger. As a corollary, in a situation where 70% of the people voice a support opinion without cause and 30% of the people state that they oppose but provide then first and foremost, there is an evident lack of consensus and second, it is not the vote that matters but the argument behind it and so a strong, reasoned and persuasive minority vote will determine the end result over a weak and generic majority vote. We don't bring votes here, we bring arguments and no argument should be nfor reasons that go beyond the breadth of the argument itself. So if a new user or an anonymous IP or an administrator or a bureaucrat gives a unique position or a good idea either in support of a position or person, in opposition or to form a consensus, their voice should not be nullifed and striken out simply due to the mistrust of others. This is probably why there is no rules banning them and why we should explicitly state that yes they can participate. To buttress this, I'd like to quote other official policies.

First of all, we find these truths to be self-evident, that all editors are created equal: "Editors come in all shapes, sizes and powers; from the bureaucrat, to the admin, to the standard editor, to the unlogged IP address. It's also possible that although you do not know it, the editor you're talking to is a player moderator, forum moderator or even a Jagex staff member. In addition, a member may have very high levels in some skills, and specializes in them a lot. An editor's status, popularity, attitude, demeanor, or in-game experience may influence the way we think about them. However, there is no person on this wiki that has more authority than another, no matter what, because all editors are equal."

A good contribution is a good contribution, a good idea is a good idea and so if someone gives a good reason why an article should be deleted or a person shouldn't be an administrator, their "title" should be irrelevant. I also know that a concern of some people would be sockpuppets. Well first, I would say that all editors must assume good faith in others: "Assume that when an editor makes an edit, it was to help the wiki, not to vandalize it. Since anyone can edit, we must assume that most people who work on the wiki are trying to help it, not hurt it. If you are positive someone made an unconstructive edit, then feel free to correct it." Remember, we aren't really "voting" since the majority will not automatically mean that something passes or fails. If there is reason to believe that an editor may be a sockpuppet such as being the single edit of an IP or having come back after two months of nothing to vote, then you can note that in subscript without striking out their comment and if the proof is incontrovertible, then it may be removed. Regardless, ideas are what reign in these fora and if you provide a good idea to support your position and indicate that a particular person or persons parrot someone else or don't even provide any reason, then in the forming of a final concensal agreement, they would not have any particular influence.

Finally, let's remember what the Runescape community is not:

"a democracy: Community decisions are based upon consensus, not polling. When contributing to a discussion, an argument should be given for your point of view, instead of simply voting. Others will then respond to your argument, and eventually a consensus should be reached one way or another. Once all arguments have been made and responded to, the discussion may be closed by an administrator or bureaucrat, regardless of the time elapsed since the nomination. Closing administrators are given limited discretion in determining whether a consensus has been reached in a discussion. If you feel that the decision made was poor or did not reflect consensus, you can appeal the decision on the closer's talk page, or at another community process. Decisions should never be made simply on the basis of majority vote."

"a bureaucracy: Wikis are not intended to be run by a cabal of administrators, or for that matter, experienced editors. Policies and guidelines should achieve a consensus before they come into effect, and should be written down in project space for all to see. They should be designed to improve the wiki, but can be ignored in cases when they are not accomplishing this task. All users should be able to participate in the development of policies, and in other discussions.  There is no power structure of any sort. Administrators are not "higher" than regular users in any way, other than having access to administrator tools. Likewise, bureaucrats are not higher than administrators, except again that they have access to bureaucrat tools. All editors are equal. "

Our policies say so, the spirit of Wikia asks so and so far this place has shown so: all editors are equal, there is no hierarchy and everyone should be able to participate in discussions. Let's make this clear to all.-- 23:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Support the idea of allowing newer users to vote - Ok, first off, that was one of the longests posts I've ever seen on the Wiki or on the Wiki forums. Second, isn't the same thing happening in the U.S. with voter ID cards? Third, it's "we hold these truths..." not "we find...". Anyways, to get back on topic I'd like to back up what you said earlier in your post. Indeed, since many people say that we are not a democracy and that we aren't actually "voting", I find it very interesting that some of the same people are trying to limit who can vote. Like you said earlier, if we really aren't voting then what difference would a sock puppet make? If someone just comes in and says "support - so and so is my friend irl" and that person joined yesterday and has 2 edits, it doesn't really matter since it's a consensus. If their "vote" doesn't contribute to the discussion or doesn't counter a previous arguement then it means nothing. If a new person who has been here one day and has 2 edits comes in and makes a wonderful point and supports it with links, their opinion SHOULD be considered, as it contributes to the discussion. I really don't think these "rules" are helping the Wiki at all... 00:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ilyas, none of the supporters have listed ANY links to validate their argument. Because a large number are new and know nothing about why Chia would be be good, because they don't know the community at all. Christine 01:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Support unrestricted voting. In any discussion where we get a load of spammy 'me-too' votes the closing admin can simply note that these were treated as such when writing up the summary. It would only be a problem if we counted votes and used majority rule, but since we look to consensus instead I don't really see it as an issue. Putting a restriction on voting would, however, prevent 'unqualified' editors from making positive contributions to the discussion and that is A Bad Thing. Pointy 00:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I suggest an OBJECTION keyword to respond to comments which really should be taken with a grain of salt:
 * Example:
 * Support Endasil is my best friend, he would make a great sysop! Signed, SomeNoob
 * OBJECTION This user has only made 10 or so edits in the last year and clearly is voting in the interest of Endasil and not of the wiki. Signed, SomeDenizen
 * This would allow us to clearly mark points to which we take exception while not removing their intrinsic right to have said it.  14:44, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * @Ilyas: I think the reason Christine (whatever, I'll name names) is so adamant on clearly marking those votes is because the process is so dependent on one person: the presiding bureaucrat.  We know that Dtm will always look at the arguments, we trust him to do so, but what if an inactive 'crat stumbles upon the decision, sees all the supports and less opposes, and without really reading the whole discussion decides the result?  I think a few of us are kind of nervous that all of that would rely on one person's discretion (all the more reason to be very picky with choosing a new bureaucrat) and so we want to make certain things clear to any presiding 'crat.  That said, I agree with diberville, and to clarify my stance, I don't think we should be striking-through new users' comments.  It's not a vote, and so clearly inlining an objection or a comment to a Support/Oppose vote that doesn't have a shred of reasoning behind it is sufficient.   14:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * To Christine - But what does "assume good faith" mean? It means not to assume everything is bad and to at least give people a chance. We wouldn't be doing that if we put a ban on ALL new users would, in fact, NOT be assuming good faith. 15:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * To Endasil - All the more reason we need crats who are neutral and not on one side or the other. 15:41, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment - I've been involved with two other fairly largish wiki communities (Wikibooks and Wikiversity), and the long-time precedent that has been invoked in those communities was in regards to not vote counts, but the quality of the argument being presented. This keeps out sock puppetry... which is from all appearances the reason you are trying to exclude new contributors.  Or am I mistaken about this? This shouldn't be an issue that "majority rules", but to look at intelligent discussions about the various issues that are raised.  In other words, a VfD discussion that has 25 votes in support that are mostly "Yeah, ugly page...needs to go", and one very well thought out and reasoned reply that demonstrates policies where it fits within the scope of the project and why such a page is desperately needed within the project.... I think the reasoned reply should outweigh all of the other essentially meaningless votes against.  In other words, improve the discussion, don't just count votes.  Or simply put, don't rely simply upon the vote totals. Along this line of thought, it is much more likely that a brand-new user could come up with a substantially coherent argument for one side of an argument... or perhaps even come up with a truly novel solution that might even resolve the issue in some way that all parties can agree upon.  I know this takes maturity and it is much easier to simply count votes.  But this attitude can help resolve issues without having to worry about such petty problems like how many edits one of the participants in the discussion has made or not made to represent how valuable their ideas are in the discussion.  --Robert Horning 17:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That's what he's trying to say. 17:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * As a note, this no-voting precedent was made quite a while before RS:NOT, where RFA's were mostly decided by vote count, and the issue was raised when real-life friends of the nominee would vote. Since RS:NOT was made, and has been trying to move RFA's and the like into a consensus with disscussion instead of a voting booth, I think the precedent is redundant now (I feel I can safely say no one here wants to prevent IPs and new users from partaking in disscussion). Of course, we still have the issue of people going "Support - name", but that's a different issue entirely. =) 17:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * True, but now that it is a consensus, it would make no sense to deny new users the right to "vote", or really just add to the discussion. 17:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Right, that's the point I was getting at.
 * And as I said in my somewhat sesquipedalian speech, so far the rules and actions of most people do follow this ideal but a small minority spuriously claim that only some may participate (as seen in the above linked discussion) and so that's why I created this— to explcitate, that is make abundantly clear, that everyone may participate and that an opinion, good or bad, can't be thrown out due to arbitrary non-existant rules that throw good faith and the Socratic nature of Wikia out the window.-- 17:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone is saying that only some may participate...I think we all agree that a valid point is valid no matter who said it. But the problem is that most of the new people "voting" don't even have a point!  If I could think of the ideal (not saying it would be possible or practical) we would have a discussion where nobody really supported or opposed, but only said some valid premise with a link or two to prove its validity.  If we could get to that point, signing comments wouldn't even mean anything...either the premise would be true or it wouldn't, end of story.  00:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I can tell you from discussions in IRC that at least two users are under the imprsession that IPs or new users are not allowed to participate in these discussions, valid point or not and that these are the rules despite all the contradictory evidence I showed them which is why I think it absolutely necessary to state that anyone can participate. As you can see in the discussion, one even restored the strikethrough "per policy" which doesn't exist anywhere but in the user's mind. And as an addendum in suport of your paragraph below this one, it is a sysop and crat's responsibility to look over a discussion to find a concensus or maintain the status quo in the case that one is not present; strikethroughs are unnecessary.  If one believes they are required for the closing admin, then it means one of two things: either the sysoping of the admin was a mistake or more probably, the strikethrougher does not assume good faith in the ability of the crat or sysop.  In either case, the person contributing to the discussion should not be punished because of the shortcomings showcased in others.-- 00:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Anyway, at this point, I think we all agree that this wiki is NOT a democracy, and therefore newbie votes don't really have a theoretical affect. The only argument I've seen to strikethrough such votes is that it provides a visible note to any presiding 'crat or sysop.  But, I think I've demonstrated we can achieve the same thing by objecting or adding comments to an invalid point, a sheep vote, etc.  So is there any other reason that justifies removing a new user's intrinsic right to participate in these vital wiki discussions?   00:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'm not sure about using the word "objection" though - it's a bit over-formal and it's kind of confrontational as well. I think "comment" is more appropriate, and it avoids adding new 'special words' to the process. Pointy 00:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you've contradicted yourself here Endasil. Yeah, this isn't a democracy in the sense that we don't have to strictly count votes.  But what is being suggested here is that new users do in fact have a voice... based on the quality of their argument.  I know this is a bit much to ask from a bunch of fans of a game that is admittedly strongly biased toward the teen-age demographics (and asserted to be largely a pre-teen game by some harsh critics.... I don't want to flame this point any more), but maturity and an air of compromise is something that needs to be made in order to let the whole wiki concept work.  Writing a massive document (you can call this wiki to be a player's handbook for Runescape) collaboratively is a very difficult task and can push differences to the front if you let them.


 * For myself, I find strikethroughs to be offensive and a deliberate attempt to squelch a conversation. If a decision has to be made and action taken (presumably by an administrator), the person taking the action can be expected to be intelligent enough to be able to discount votes on their own.  Let the words written stand on their own.  There are exceptions to this concept, but that should be an exception rather than the rule.  --Robert Horning 12:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, where did I contradict myself? I've said that we're not a democracy, and that everyone should have the right to speak their piece.  I've said that strikethroughs tend to remove a user's right to speech and that instead we should be simply responding to comments with no weight (Support Endasil he's my cousin) with deliberate rebuttals.  If you're confused about the way I used "newbie vote", I meant that specifically to refer to the type of voting that's been happening on Chia's RFB--that is, a vote by a functionally inactive user with no useful argument--NOT to mean any comment left by a newbie.  So, if that's not what you think is contradictory, please tell me what was.   21:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Though I expect this conversation to continue, based on the pre-existing rules, everything said here and on parts six, seven and eight of RuneScape:Gaming_the_system, I am immediately removing the strikes from the RfB since they are effectively currently breaking the rules and gaming the system right now even if we all immediately change out position on this issue. If you see anyone restoring the strikes, please revert and inform them of their mistake.-- 21:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Asking for clarification The heading of this topic is clear in stating that AOTMs are part of what we are talking about, the discussion appears to have been predominately about RFAs and RFBs. I agree wholeheartedy that all should be allowed to participate in those discussions. But I also think that for AOTM the 50 minimum edits needed should remain for a vote to be cast.--24.195.240.91 18:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * To somewhat reiterate what I said above and what I noted in the AotM, the insertion of the "50 edits" in AotM was done by one person unilaterally by copying and pasting the rules from UotM without any discussion a long while ago and since we can support or oppose in AotM and not UotM, like RfAs, RfBs and VfDs, raw votes of support will not be the ultimate deciding factor when selecting the article. Moreover, you are an Anon IP; why should I deny you your right to voice your opinion in support or opposition of an aritcle simply because you did not create an account?  Does that somehow undercut the quality of your argument or make your opinion worth less than mine?  Does that seem right to you, especially considering the cornerstones of Wikia being the assumption of good faith and the equality of all editors?-- 01:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * To stop sock puppets is the only reason I think we need the edit count. If someone with less than 50 wants to comment or discuss I do not say they can't have a valid arguement. I would just hate to see someone making a bunch of accounts just to get "their" article as AOTM.--24.195.240.91 01:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Well as has been noted several times above, it is the responsibility of the closing admin or crat to look not at the number of supports or opposes but at the quality or even the existence of the argument made. Also, if one AnonIP's single edit is a vote of support for someone's article or request for adminship, this would raise dubious questions as to the true nature of that particular AnonIP and others may raise the point that the voice of support or opposition is the first and only thing ever stated.  If one dozen virgin AnonIPs happen to vote one way or another with no new substantive reason of why they voiced their opinion in such a way, these votes would be subsequentally ignored in the admin or crats search of a concensus.-- 02:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

There have been some recent things that took my eye with Skill's RFB that I want to address. This has to do with some people assuming that the fruit of this discussion was that vandals or sockpuppets could vote. In my opinion, this discussion has agreed that because we are not voting per se, any member of the community should be allowed to voice their opinion. I do not see, however, where this should have any effect on the rights of a banned member. There are numerous problems with allowing input from banned users, these being two: I think the bigger problem is coming from a misconception that some of you have with consensus. I believe some people think along these lines: "well, because we need consensus, everything is objective, and so only the argument matters, not who said it."" This is completely wrong!!!  Consensus is in NO WAY objective, it is still, and should be, completely subjective!  The role of argumentation in consensus decisions is to sway the opinion of dissenters when dissension occurs, however, it is perfectly possible for everyone to be at a valid consensus with no arguments given.  When you're on a board of directors, and you have a consensus vote, you don't think they go around the table and make everyone justify their opinion, do you?  No!  it's only when they're at an impasse that arguments or debates are needed. Before replying to me, please read this: Consensus.  13:33, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We are saying that it is perfectly acceptable for a user to create sockpuppets when they're banned to continue to try and be part of the community. I don't see any way that we should be allowing this.
 * Our decisions are made out of consensus, but consensus is about a general agreement between the members. Just like a shareholder from HSBC shouldn't be able to vote in consensus decisions in shareholder meetings at Citibank, neither should vandals (who are no longer part of the community) be able to voice their opinion on decisions which affect the community which they are no longer part of.
 * In regards to your first point, I agree and part of that is my fault. I was in a bit of a rush and trying to do my daily patrols as quickly as possible so while going through the dozens tabs I had open, I saw a strike and removed it.  The next day when I went back, I saw the person was another sockpuppet of a banned vandal, fortunately, someone had already restriked the vote but others may have seen my edit reason and believed then that even users who attempt to be detrimental to our community can also participate in it.  As to your second point, I'm not sure I understand.  Are you saying that you think that the argument doesn't matter as much as who said it?  Because though I agree with your larger point about not needing an argument or having to make sure everyone is in agreement for the right reasons if there's already a natural consensus but it is of paramount importance that when there is an impasse, the final consensus gets reached because of the more well-reasoned and persuasive arguments, not because "the important people" made them.-- 16:13, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, take what I said for what you called the "larger point." My point is that consensus is not the same as a courtroom, and we are treating it like it is.  We don't just form an argument, provide evidence, etc, and then let the judge/jury (a bureaucrat/sysop) make the decision based on the argument.  Consensus is still subjective, in that you can have consensus if everyone agrees the same way.


 * If you put 12 Republicans in a room and tried to reach a consensus on the future of public health care, you could probably reach consensus without an enormous debate, whereas if you put 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats into the same room, some argument would be bound to take place before a consensus were reached. This is because Republicans are typically inclined to think in the same direction.  They are subjectively similar.


 * So consensus is still dependent on who the people in the community are, and what their opinions are. Consensus can be reached without an argument, but argumentation will often be needed to reach consensus.  What this means for us is this:


 * A vote from a banned user cannot keep us from reaching consensus. The community's consensus does not require the consent of someone who is not part of the community.   17:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Right, so... do you have a worry that people will argue to convince the closing admin rather than the community at large or is it something else? If so, I'm missing the sticking point you have.-- 17:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My original post was meant to get across two points:

17:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) It's a misconception that consensus requires argumentation.
 * 2) Only members of the community may participate in discussions requiring community consensus. Thus, block evaders may not participate in community consensus discussions, because a "no" vote would imply the consensus hasn't yet been reached, when in fact within the community proper, it has.
 * I see and I agree. We have achieved consensus!-- 17:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Drop table/Input and consensus NEEDED
Because I do not want an edit war or something (or to get blocked) I say we need a discussion regarding a drop table. A drop table would have the average number of charms someone could expect to get by killing 100 of any of the listed creatures. This is not the same as a drop log because its' numbers will be based on the experiences of 2 or more people. More whenever possible. When the table was up I referred many people ingame to it and it was greatly appreciated by them. I further state that the table should stay based upon RS:IAR for any who would like to argue that it violates a rule. People, we need a consensus on whether it should happen. Please input.--Degenret01 02:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I know I am new as a registered user, but I have used this wiki for about 6 months now. So I am not a total noob. (Just a minor one). I am not sure that the table can be called a lot different than a drop log (isn't it like a SUMMARY drop log?) but the point regarding RS:IAR looks very valid. Even the statements of Butterman seem to suggest he would have not done so had he been aware of that. But shouldn't this be on Yew grove to get consensus? --Varthlokkur 03:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Not really Yew Grove appropriate. It's only affecting one page, and IMHO that should stay on this talk page. However, as to the drop log point, as far as I'm concerned, it IS a drop log. As far as I'm concerned, it DOES help the article. I'd rather a list like that then a T/F thing over which monster drops charms. Although, I'd prefer more than just 2 people killing 100 monsters each. So we'll need to work on that. =P Add at least 5, and probably at least 500 monsters, averaged out to be charms per 100. 04:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Degenret has a point with RS:IAR. I also told him on his talk page that I disagreed with the RS:SG policy, and that we could attempt to change it (I've initiated a policy change before, specifically RS:AEAE). And to be honest, I didn't know this policy existed on the RuneScape wiki before (but I've seen it on Wikipedia). Also, I realize the table's potential benefit to the wiki. However, also, it could also cause a lot of problems. For example, let's say a user did some testing, so he changes up the table a bit to say "20 gold charms" for so and so instead of 15. Then, someone disagrees, he says it's 10. Then another person does it, and he gets lucky and says it's 40. And on and on and on. However, the table could help and as everyone says, "anyone can edit" and "if you don't want your contributions to be mercilessly edited, then don't submit them". So, maybe it wouldn't be a problem, but then who knows.
 * Also, to another point, I think this should be on the yew grove, because maybe it's only affecting one page now, but it might will affect more later. Some day, someone will come along and try to do the same thing for, say, abyssal whip drop rate from abyssal demon. Then someone changes the rate, and someone disagrees with that rate, and someone disagrees with the table altogether, and here we go again. [[Image:Bloodbarrage.png|20px]] Butterman62 (talk) [[Image:Icebarrage.png|20px]] 21:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, and Varthlokkur, your opinion is valued just as much as everyone else's. All editors are equal. [[Image:Bloodbarrage.png|20px]] Butterman62 (talk) [[Image:Icebarrage.png|20px]] 21:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Since this is a Yew Grove topic because we are talking about changing board wide policy, I'm going to move it over there so to those who wish to add their two cents, please go here: RuneScape:Yew_grove.-- 21:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yet another skin thread

 * See RuneScape_talk:Theme

When is an edit minor ?
Hi. I'm a pretty new member here on the wiki and am trying to feel my way around without messing anything up. I was looking at RuneScape:Requests_for_adminship/Nq2h and got to wondering, when does this button get checked? For punctuation? Ok. Fixing 1 or 2 spelling errors? Ok. Rewriting 2 or 3 sentences so they make more sense? Maybe not. So I was looking at Edit help and Style guide and couldn't find any information on it. So I asked User_talk:Robert_Horning about it because I saw he knows a lot about the wikis. And he tells me there is no policy so go ahead and start a proposal here to get one. I don't know about all the different edit types yet so I am hoping experienced users can come up with some ideas.
 * For me, I mark edits as minor if it's a small thing, like fixing a few typos, punctuation (as you said above), a link, a redirect, bolding a title, one of those small things. There's really no standard median among users. It varies for everyone. 04:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * All my edits are marked as minor automatically by wikia, and I don't think a policy makes any sense. It's too easy to forget to check the box, or uncheck the box for those who use it automatically, and what are we supposed to do, punish those who forget...? I don't think a policy is even needed or sensible. Christine 22:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I've seen you mark a lot of major things minor, like signing talk pages, and adding a section to an article? Why? 01:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Christine, you can change that in your preferences. Under the "editing" tab, there is a selection for "Mark all edits minor by default".  Just make sure that's unchecked.  It's usually off by default, but maybe you checked it by accident some time :) - sannse (talk) 09:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I want it like that, sannse.. =\ Christine 02:07, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * My rule of thumb is, if I'm adding, removing or altering content, that is, if after my edit the information found on the page is different from what it was before, it's a major edit. Anything else, such as the stuff Chia enumerated, I consider minor.-- 01:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The main issue I have about the "concern" over if an edit is minor or not is how it may be perceived in terms of discussions for adminship (what started this whole conversation) or if a user may be considered a "difficult user". I do agree that some nefarious users can take advantage of the situation where most people consider a minor edit to be something to avoid reviewing when pressed for time in either doing a recent changes patrol or looking at their watchlist. It can be an indication for if somebody is being systematically damaging to the project or not. In a broad sense as well, you can gauge the use (or lack thereof) of the minor edit flag to determine how seasoned the editor is in terms of how they apply the flag on what they edit.

But at the same time, don't think this is an issue that should even be raised at all in terms of granting administrator rights. The minor edit flag is a very deep and personal issue, and something that varies considerably from one user to another. While it may be an indicator of problems, it certainly shouldn't be used ever as the "prime" evidence that somebody isn't fit to become an administrator or to get their account blocked. Furthermore, I would consider it to be very rude behavior to be highly critical of another user's pattern of using the flag if otherwise they are making useful contributions to the wiki.

I support continued discussion about what constitutes a minor edit or not, and that is something that certainly would be useful to the newer wiki users among us. Heck, I would like to learn a little bit more about what others do with this flag. But I rank its use as something akin to somebody using the spelling for the word "color" or "colour" and should be treated the same. --Robert Horning 12:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I use the minor checkbox for, like Diberville said, pretty much anything which does not change the information contained in an article, and for which I would not want to waste the time to be peer reviewed. An exception to this is that I will mark heavy restructuring as major (drastically changing the organization of a page, etc). I will use the minor flag if it's simple rewording without changing content.

I'm against the idea of using minor as a default, because one of the main uses of the minor flag is to filter out what you want to see on recent changes or your watch list. For this reason, I think we should always err on the side of calling a minor edit major, rather than the other way around. It's better for another editor to check a "major" edit on their watchlist, only to find out that it's a spelling correction, than have another editor avoid checking a "minor" edit on their watchlist (because it's marked as minor), and perhaps let a factual inaccuracy slip by.

I do think we should have a note of this in the Style guide or something, just for new editors and consistency. I don't think it's something that should be rigidly enforced, however. It wouldn't be there for the sake of being a rule, but rather as a guideline for curious new users. 17:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

"zomg it's not perfect"
Take a look at the deletion log. http://runescape.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&user=&page=

While a good portion of image deletions are to remove personal images, one type of deletion keeps standing out: "Low quality image". I've seen images that were serviceable--not perfect, not terrible--but were deleted anyway.

Our expectations for images are way too high; when a new editor's work is deleted, generally scares them away from from contributing here, anyhow. I can understand an uber compressed 50x50 screenshot being deleted. On the other hand, taking out images because they are JPEGs or not "cropped"/edited 100% to RSW "standards" is unacceptable.

Thoughts?


 * These "low quality images", were they actually in use in an article and adding to the article? And are the replaced before they are deleted? I think if the pic is decent enough AND the only one we have of something, then it should stay. Where are the criteria set for what is high or low enough quality? Is this a personal judgement done by each sysop on thier own? --Degenret01 02:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Nothing in RuneScape:Images_and_media_policy addresses those questions.
 * I agree, all images, no matter what quality, should be kept until a replacement can be found. 01:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Speaking of which, I've had some of my uploaded images deleted for no reason whatsoever. For example, a while back, I uploaded pictures of the blessed d'hide components. Chaoticar put them under speedy delete, my pictures were removed and he uploaded his own versions! The same thing happened more recently with Kytti Khat when I put up a picture of the updated Summoning and Smithing level up message pictures. Look on the history of Summoning and Smithing for proof! None of those pictures had any problems but were taken out and deleted anyway. -.- 01:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sometimes this has to do with making images transparent (Kytti khat explained this in both edit histories, if you look). Users on Monobook or a white-background skin often won't notice that an image has a white background, but those of us who have an off-white background sure do.  Often times we'll simply take the white-background image, download it, photoshop the background out, and reupload it under the same name.  In the case of Smithing and Summoning, the old ones were deleted--instead of being reuploaded to the same article space--to be consistent across all skills (Anvil Updated.png vs Smithing detail.png)   11:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

This topic has been up for a bit and not generated enough discussion. In the cases referred to by Arias Knight, I see it very easy for people to get annoyed or their feeling hurt and then edit wars erupting over versions of images. (I am NOT saying Arias would, just saying those are the types of cases that could cause it). I believe we should generate a policy stating if the current image suits the needs, then a different version should not be uploaded. With certain exceptions. Such as, if we are switching to the new skill icons, then all should be updated. (although this particular case could have it's own particular discussion, as the old icons are still used on the display, and the new icon only comes up when its clicked on. So which to use?)--Degenret01 02:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to add my two cents worth: Is a policy on the matter really needed? The only reason (as Endasil pointed out above) that an image would usually be replaced is for a transparency issue or because the file is out-of-date, both of which are perfectly legit and shouldn't be a problem. If, on the other hand, the file is replaced with one of equal quality, I still don't think there is any reason to worry. It has the same overall result. The only reason I could see for the need to curb this would be if someone (for some reason) was doing this excessively, and I think that in that case a simple talk page message should be enough to sort it out.  12:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thats all good enough as far as it goes, but we havn't addressed the original question. I got away from it too. Regarding in use images the do NOT get replaced and are just deleted. Ok, C Teng didn't get away from it. So what's to stop a sysop from just deleting images they feel are not good enough even when they are in use? And there is not a current replacement? So we prob do not need a policy, a general guideline would be fine.--Degenret01 13:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"Ask the community" page
I'd like to set up a community page that would be a question/answer type page (or even eventually a series of pages) with one fundamental rule:

No question is too stupid or out of place to ask... especially if it is related somehow to Runescape.

Eventually I'd like to turn this into a sort of FAQ page for questions about the game where they may even be sorted into questions about different skills or perhaps other kinds of categorization. The goal here is that a new player can check out to see if a similar question has been asked before, and to use the wiki interface to help sort through these FAQs. *NOTE* this is not a forum in the traditional sense, but rather a way that new players can ask a question in a non-threating environment.

Those of us who have been playing the game for a couple years or more can (hopefully) come up with a sound answer to the questions.

I'm thinking something like "Who is Andrew Gower?" or "What is the little cross swords that I see on the bottom right side of the screen?" (The multi-combat indicator, FYI)

Why I'm posting here is that I'm trying to come up with a good name for such a page. A few come to mind, but I'd like to find something as fitting as "Yew Grove" that captures the spirit of the game. "Lumbridge Tutor", "Noobs 'R' Us", or "Castle Chronicles" are some suggestions, but I'm fairly certain some better names for such a FAQ page could be suggested. Any ideas? --Robert Horning 04:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I constantly see the question "WTF is that?", but maybe it's not very appropriate lol. Noobs 'R' us sounds ok, or maybe "Help, I'm a noob". I'm sure in the end lots of people here will say noob is too negative, but I like it anyhow. I call myself a noob all the time. It's just a funny word to me.--Degenret01 06:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Good idea. I remember it took me forever to figure out what those little cross swords meant and why some NPCs stopped attacking me after a while.  If you're looking for name suggestions, how about Mr. Mordaut's classroom?  I mean, the dragon is already smart enough to pick out the featured articles in here.-- 16:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Summer School at Tutorial Island, maybe? (no offense meant, at all) Diber's works too... Hmm... or maybe "Adventurer's Training Grounds?" There's alot of name potential...


 * Regardless of what the name turns out to be, I like the idea. --Pikaandpi 17:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Wise Old Men? :P Nah I don't have any good ideas for the name, but I do like the idea of the page.  Being probably the longest-playing player here, I could see myself being able to help out a bit with some answers, too.  I have a couple of comments.  First, I think that it's really important that this should be able to teach people how to search smartly for answers on the wiki.  Even if we're answering FAQs, the answer is probably somewhere on this Wiki, and by providing links to where that information is stored on an FAQ, we should be helping newbies better use this site.  Second, I think it's important to have a "post anything" page separate from an "FAQ" page.  Basically, we should have a mechanism for "promoting" a question to a (or the) FAQ page.  22:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Would this sort of be like the Wikipedia Reference Desk? If I understand this right I think it's a good idea. I would like to consider having it in the forums, since that's where a lot of RuneScape-based questions, and it would help reduce the number of one question threads that are answered and then fall to the bottom of the forums. 22:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The reference desk is very close to what I was thinking about, but to also link it to a sort of FAQ list that would be built up over time based on the kinds of questions that would be asked. In other words, a genuine "Frequently asked questions" list.  I'm not against linking this into the forums as well, although it should be noted that the forum community and the wiki to seem to be different communities even if they are both hosted by wikia.  The overall goal here is to make it easier, not harder for somebody new to this community and website to ask a question.  If the forums can help with that overall goal, I'm 100% for it.  There will still be an article page that would help explain the forum and contain links to the FAQs.  If the user is more into wiki editing, I don't think that should be discouraged.  This doesn't have to be an either-or situation.


 * BTW, I completely agree with Endasil here in terms of linking to articles and encouraging answers that point to specific sub-sections. This could also help us out in terms of writing better articles, as occasionally I've even been a little bit puzzled by a particular quest or stumped about some game feature that simply wasn't clearly explained as well as it could have been.  Often those of us who are veterans forget some of the details of this game that we take for granted that are bewildering to new players... or we've adapted to the changes over time.  --Robert Horning 01:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Quest guide policy
I want to add a supplement to our Style guide to dictate how guides (Quest mostly) should be written. There have been recent changes which I find particularly appalling from a readability/grammar standpoint.

My draft is found at User:Endasil/Quest style guide. Here's a few examples that summarize the article:

Bad: Slightly better (Bulleting): Slightly better (2nd person): Better (Imperative):
 * Reldo is located in the Varrock Library. The player should talk to him.  Reldo will warn the player that Manbearpig is about to attack!
 * The player should talk to Reldo. He is located in the Varrock Library.  Reldo will warn the player that Manbearpig is about to attack!
 * You should talk to Reldo. He is located in the Varrock Library.  Reldo will warn you that Manbearpig is about to attack!
 * Talk to Reldo, located in the Varrock Library. Reldo will warn you that Manbearpig is about to attack!

The main theme of the guidelines are that, even though we are an encyclopedia, we are also a player manual. That means that some articles will not be encyclopedic in nature, but rather manual-like in nature. All these changes from "you" to "the player" are not written with a user in mind. You wouldn't write a manual to assemble an Ikea chair, saying "The customer should now screw in screw D9 into hole A7," would you? Comments please, there's been enough edits that I've wanted to undo recently due to bad style, but we don't have a very good style guide for this. 23:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right, it is a lot better that way. I've noticed that users sometimes change to what you say is good to what is bad. I say add it to the Style Guide. 23:43, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

In the imperative sentence can't you just totally remove the word "you" in this case? to say "Reldo will warn that Manbearpig is about to attack!" I think it works well, but I haven't taken an english class in....ummm, omg, like 20 years lol.--Degenret01 00:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I've seen some articles that simple replace the word "you" with the words "the player", and it sounds awful when I'm reading through the article after such a revision. In fact, the earlier indefinite article works much better.  BTW, I do agree that a better style guide can help, but it isn't quite so easy as a cut and paste, but rather requires some serious editorial skills and command of the English language.  For example with the above sentence:


 * Speak to Reldo, who is located in the Varrock Library. Reldo warns that Manbearpig is ready for an attack!


 * I'm not even saying this is perfect, but it does away with the "you" or "The Player" and allows the sentence to flow better. I've noticed that in many places where "the player" is used, it should be a more indefinite article such as "a player" or "players" as well.  Modern English doesn't use a hard article such as "the" all that often, particularly compared to other germanic or for that matter even latin-derived languages.  --Robert Horning 06:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally, the only time I've ever thought that saying something like "players" was acceptable was when it actually referenced players. Such as "players often find this boss difficult."  Give me a sentence where you ever use a singular player, and I'll make it better (IMO) without.  I think we should always use second person over "player".  12:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I always wondered why there were so many different styles of writing. 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, etc.  I had been using 2nd person tone for editing articles, until I was told not to use the word "you".  Then, I started using the "3rd person" style ("the players should, they could, they may"), and the article got "undo-ed" for bad writing style.  Admins, can you guys make up your minds? LOL. I really like to clean-up articles.  Especially messy ones, like quest guides. I add sections, make them neater, etc. But at the same time, I editted the style: removing "you"s, and introducing "better" substitutes ("they", "the player", etc.) In my opinion, most articles should use the third person tone (i.e. NPCs, Monsters, Items). However, when it comes to Quest guides, I'm at a blank. Using third person tone make the guide seem more serious/professional/encyclopedic, but can be an eyesore. Using 2nd person tone, with "you" make it seem personal, and un-professional. I agree we're helping players with quest (by writing "manuals"), but we should distinguish ourselves from other fansites. After all, we are wikians. -- 14:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

My quick two cents: Aren't the things that are supposed to make us different from every other fansites are that 1) anyone can edit and 2) we're an encyclopedia? If we're an encyclopedia, shouldn't we use an encyclopedic tone, which at the very least requires the third person?-- 15:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it sounds better. We want to be the best encyclopedia for RuneScape, even if it's different from other encyclopedias. If you look on armour, there's even a tag that says it should be in the third person, which I think we all disagree with, too. 20:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This was added to the Armour article by one user, and I disagree with it completely: "Strategies should be in 3rd person tone ("The player should...") instead of 2nd person tone ("You should..."), and should not sound commanding ("Do this/that...")". We have nowhere stated this as policy, and it should not be taken as such.  In fact, we recently featured Kennith's Concerns, which used only commanding tenses.  22:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * To Diberville: even if we strive to be an encyclopedia (which isn't necessary for a Wiki...just because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia doesn't mean Wikis are supposed to be), when we add guides or strategies, they are unencyclopedic by nature. There's the reason that Wikipedia has a policy against things written like a user manual...they aren't encyclopedic!  So we are already differentiating ourselves from an encyclopedia, in that we are more acting like a game manual with encyclopedic tendencies.  You have to ask yourself:  what is the virtue of writing quest guides like an encyclopedia entry?  If there is no virtue, by RuneScape:Ignore all rules, I say we write it in a way that is digestible for English speakers.  The whole idea of writing "The player" all over the place makes us look like illiterate fools.


 * I do have some experience in writing technical documentation. I'm in an engineering program.  Here's a document that backs me up: .  While almost everything in that document applies directly to our quest guides, there are a few paragraphs labelled "Writing style" which I'd like to quote directly.  The first and second paragraphs convey exactly what I'm trying to say.  The last paragraph seems to counter what Robert was suggesting.  Bolding was my addition, for effect.

22:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll admit that I even "break" my own rules here. I got involved with writing Perils of Ice Mountain on the day the quest came out, and it was a sort of fun experience writing a quest guide when such a guide didn't already exist... and proof of where the power of a wiki can be over a more static website.


 * Most technical writing is incredibly dry and to be honest, is something seldom read by anybody in part because it is so dry and boring. As an engineer I was also a part of a successful proposal with my former employer to hire somebody with an English Literature degree and a strong basis in liberal arts to help write technical manuals, explicitly because most engineers don't even know how to write a good memo to their immediate supervisor much less to any customers.


 * In one case, just to see if anybody was even bothering to read the manual, we put in a postcard that even had a business reply mail postal mark (so they didn't even have to pay postage) and a promise of a $100 drawing if you sent the thing in. We got a flood of one post card out of about 3000 manuals that were sent out to customers (on $100,000+ products, which is why there was a relatively low volume).  Based on most phone calls I had to answer when doing technical support, I would say most people don't read the manuals even when they are comparatively well written.


 * More to the point here and going back to my experiences with writing the quest guide as I was playing it, a more informal style seems to be the natural way to write things. The quest guides certainly need to be something that others would want to read, and it should flow as if it is written from one friend trying to speak to another and help you through the quest.  The goal is that it should be read and not necessarily something to impress an English professor.  The real question then is how can the quest guides be improved to achieve this goal and not necessarily sound like a poorly written recipe for Apple pie.  I'm also more than willing to admit that I'm wrong here, as long as we can achieve this basic goal.  --Robert Horning 04:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Regardless of the tone or style that should be used, whichever one we do use should be used uniformly throughout the Wiki for cohesion and uniformity. As long as it's not a "u should go up to McGrbrs wood l8tr to get red worms, lol" style, I'll be fine with it and I don't find that the quality diminshes or increases whether it be second person indicative or imperetive or third person using definite or indefinite articles.-- 13:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Bland?
Another thing that bothers about our (or any other fansite's) quest guides is that it lacks details and sounds bland. It's sad to see that the guide's only goal is for players to complete the quest, not to enjoy and cherish the quest itself, and "live" through the quest. To me, everything seems robotic as I'm instructed to "Walk here... jump there.." just like a robot. Some quest guides I've come across even has talk options to choose from: "Choose this option when you talk to him:" Since we're given the answers to these options, we just obey them blindly, without even reading the conversation that takes place between the NPC and the character. I admit, I've done it myself. I always wondered what would happen if I chose differently, or if I took the other path. Even as a manual, we should include the "WHY", not just the "HOW". That's what makes an article complete. I found this walkthrough quite easy to read: Tomb Raider: Anniversary - Qualopec It provides the details, and has a nice flow to it. (I wonder what style is being used? Imperative, 2nd person or 3rd person?)

02:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. Quest guides should be more about the "WHY". 01:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Copyrighted by Jagex Ltd.
We don't really have a policy on images directly from the RS site. Should we go about deleting these or does doing this not infringe? I've seen quite a few taken from the main site and I'm not sure what to do about it. Removing these pictures would be detrimental, but photos by users look better anyway. 21:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * To the best of my understanding, the use of screenshots etc. from in-game are treated exactly the same as any images found on the JaGeX site.


 * From this, I'm assuming that the use of any JaGeX material (which includes screen-shots and images from the website) "may not be used except for personal (non-commercial) use". Again, I'm assuming that as part of wikia we are non-commercial and therefore we are allowed to use any of the images on the site in addition to the images that come directly from in-game.
 * In regards to actually using website images, I agree that user-generated screen captures of items/places etc. in-game do often look much better. There are a few cases, however, when the knowledge base may provide a better image (although I can't think of any off the top of my head). In these cases, I don't think we should be making a policy to prevent ourselves from using them.
 * If I'm on the wrong track about the whole free-use deal, maybe it's our Copyrights policy or similar that is what we should be looking at expanding.
 * 05:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The only problem with this sentiment is that the terms of the GNU Free Document License explicitly contradict the non-commercial nature of what you are trying to suggest here. While I will openly suggest that nobody that participates in developing the content of this wiki earns any body, there isn't anything that stops somebody from taking the content and publishing a for-profit printed manual that uses content from this wiki.  That is explicitly permitted by the GFDL.


 * Indeed, content added here that can be distributed via a non-commercial use only license is incompatible with the terms of this content license.


 * BTW, Wikia is far from a non-commercial enterprise, and in fact they are very much a for-profit entity that primarily earns their money from sidebar advertisements. Relying upon the non-commercial nature of Wikia isn't something that would hold up to close scrutiny in the long run, and could be potentially damaging to this wiki and community.


 * The relationship between this website and Jagex is a very interesting one, and at best the only real rationale for using the screenshots is what is called Fair-use doctrine under United States law... and interpreting this as broadly as possible in a fashion that normally wouldn't be permitted under UK law. I say all of this because on this website we very much go over the top on fair-use and can be largely considered a derivative work instead... deriving the content from a copyrighted work called the MMORPG game "Runescape".


 * Ideally it would be best if we, as a community, could get formal copyright permission from Jagex to use screenshots from the game to help illustrate the contents of this website. It certainly is very helpful and adds some flavor to what would be otherwise a rather bland set of webpages.  I'm not saying that any of the other wikia gameing wikis are any better or worse than we are, but this issue isn't nearly so cut and dried.


 * BTW, in all of this I'm not trying to suggest that we should go in some sort of administrative rampage and delete all of the images copied from the game via screenshots. All I'm suggesting is that the potential exists for Jagex to make a formal cease and desist request to Wikia under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  If such a situation did occur, it is possible we would have to delete all of these images from this website and may even see this website temporarily (or even permanently) shut down.  A little forward thinking on the part of the participants to this website could avoid this potentially terrible situation.


 * I don't know the solution to this issue, and I don't even know if there is one that could avoid this potential legal bombshell. Screenshots by users or images copied directly from the Jagex web pages are irrelevant in this case, as both are potentially infringing on the copyright of the same company:  Jagex.  In-game screenshots potentially have more rationale in terms of fair-use, but it is a rather weak excuse.  This is certainly a situation that the participants of this website need to be very much made aware of, and mis-information like what is above needs to stop.  The information on this website can be used in a commercial manner, and indeed it is being used in a commercial nature even now.  BTW, I don't know how much "profit" Wikia makes each year, and I rather suspect it isn't all that much, but that is also irrelevant to this discussion.  --Robert Horning 10:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't give legal advice of course, but maybe I can clarify a bit (for those that don't know, I'm part of Wikia's Community Team).


 * The text of this wiki must be under the GDFL, which explicitly allows commercial use. Wikia provides database dumps of the content, as part of our commitment to the GDFL and freely available content.  So that means that text needs to either be original, or taken from a source that's GDFL compatable (in most cases that also means attributed).


 * Images have always been considered separately, and "with permission", "fair use", "Creative Commons licensed" and other rationale are allowed. In fact, for a lot of fan-based wikis, the biggest rationale is "the game/show/whatever owners don't mind fans using this on a fan site, because it all promotes their work anyway".  That seems to be what JaGeX is saying in the quote above.


 * One important part of this is that this is your wiki. It belongs to the community, hosted by Wikia.  It's a similar situation to many free web-hosts, who show ads but may have non-profit groups using the space.  Of course... we do considerably more than a web-host.  And because we are hosting for a community rather than individuals, our conditions for hosting include social rules (no, you can't run amok and ban everyone, the Wikia Community Team will step in if that happens! ;).  But the situations are similar enough to make this all work.


 * So, use images fairly, label them with license or permission information to make it easy for everyone to know the situation, and don't worry about Wikia's (one day!) profits - they aren't the key to this :) Hope that helps! -- sannse (talk) 19:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't worry about it; none of the other fansites have been taken down over using Jagex's images.--Richard 20:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * My point was that this isn't a "non-commercial" or "non-profit" situation here. Some of the fan sites actually are, so comparing this situation for this wiki to what other fan sites are doing is irrelevant.  I will say, like I've said above, Jagex isn't prosecuting here or actively trying to enforce copyright.  As a matter of fact, this lack of enforcement is a positive thing... so far as Jagex will eventually lose copyright standing on these images over time.


 * I will say that the images on this website (Runescape Wikia) generally haven't had fair-use rationale established other than as a general site-wide status. In fact, when I've tried to upload free images to this wiki, I've had them deleted as not relevant to the game or the article in question.


 * BTW, in regards to the text of this website, it isn't nearly so big of a deal. Nearly everything I've seen is more or less original content, or legitimately quoting referenced passages from the game or some other Jagex publication.  I'm certainly not worried about that, but the issue with the images is a little bit more of a concern.  Also, the courts have been far less forgiving about allowing fair-use for non-textual copyrighted material... particular music and video but images have also been prosecuted.  All I'm trying to say is that this is a legal grey area, and something that some other websites... notably Wikipedia but also a few others... have legitimately been quite paranoid about.  --Robert Horning 01:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, alright. It's given me a bit of food for thought. Maybe it's an area we (and by 'we' I mean someone who knows what they are talking about =D) could think about clarifying. As it stands the only thing I can find on the matter is
 * , which seems to contradict what's just been discussed. If we've established that in fact JaGeX doesn't seem to have a problem with us using screen captures and the like (which are pretty important for the Wiki), is there something that could be added to this 'guideline' that could clarify this and what our legal position would be when we do use these images? 02:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My only concern is the new CEO of Jagex. He comes from a non-gamer background (he used to be a senior VP at Paypal Europe) and shows at least the potential of getting nasty with fan websites.  He has a lot on his plate, so I'm certain he isn't worried about what the fan websites are doing right now.  But he has hired lawyers to look after intellectual property rights, and has take steps for the new Mechscape game to keep current fan sites from using similar names when adapting to the new Jagex game (like Mechhq and a few different top level domains being owned by Jagex itself).  My point is that it is in his hands, or a corporate attorney for Jagex to go nuts and we may have to delete these images, as it is a sort of copyright violation.
 * My only concern is the new CEO of Jagex. He comes from a non-gamer background (he used to be a senior VP at Paypal Europe) and shows at least the potential of getting nasty with fan websites.  He has a lot on his plate, so I'm certain he isn't worried about what the fan websites are doing right now.  But he has hired lawyers to look after intellectual property rights, and has take steps for the new Mechscape game to keep current fan sites from using similar names when adapting to the new Jagex game (like Mechhq and a few different top level domains being owned by Jagex itself).  My point is that it is in his hands, or a corporate attorney for Jagex to go nuts and we may have to delete these images, as it is a sort of copyright violation.


 * I've also downloaded the official fan image package that Jagex has (it can be found on this link to the official website) and it is pretty limited. Mainly a bunch of ad panels and some logos to help with advertising Runescape.  This seems to be the extent of what Jagex is officially saying we can use.  As I said, I don't know a "solution" to fix this either, other than to carry on and hope Jagex doesn't really care.  There is a statue of limitations in the USA that requires active enforcement of the images, which means the older images which have been uploaded onto this server are grandfathered in.  It would be under American law (not UK law) that Jagex would have to request these images be removed, although that isn't completely clear either.  It is a grey area, and for now it seem unlikely that Jagex is going to make a big deal about it.  --Robert Horning 17:39, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Just rummaging around the wiki and I found this User:Oddlyoko/jagex, which sadly states we can't use screenshots. It's an old piece of information, but it's the only thing from Jagex that I have seen.--Degenret01 06:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Didn't read far enough . There is also this User:Oddlyoko/jagex2 which kind of says go ahead for now but no guarantees, as I read it anyhow.--Degenret01 06:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Win a trip to PAX
Hey guys. In case you didn't know, Wikia Gaming is sending two editors to Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) ! For all the details, see this page at Wikia Gaming.--Richard 17:39, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Anyone on our wiki doing it? 05:50, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Nope, they discriminate against non-USA citizens. Sagarmatha 18:17, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Welcoming Committee
I've added a page that attempts to organize those of us who often welcome new users to the wiki. I also revamped the welcome template (which is visible on the Committee page) to be more user-friendly. Anyone who has  on their userpage should consider signing up- it's ridiculously easy. -- 18:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have my own template that I welcome users with, so I signed up. Is that ok, or do I have to use the "official welcome template"? I mean I've had my template before the welcome template came out and so I just decided to keep it..

I'm going to throw in 2 cents here and express a hope that those on the "committee" keep in mind that it is unofficial, and also keep in in mind that All editors are equal. Anyone who wants to welcome someone can do so. I am adding this just as a gentle reminder, not to start something.--Degenret01 16:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ilyas: Using the "official" template is just a suggestion, not an order. As Degen said, the committee is more or less an unofficial thing, and you won't get banz0red for using your own template. -- 21:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a great idea. I have two small suggestions, however. Firstly you might want to add a link to the welcoming committee in the Community Portal, it's a bit hard to find otherwise. Secondly, (this is a bit picky :-) ), I'm personally not too keen on the background colour for the new template. What does everyone else think about it? I'd prefer a green or a blue as opposed to aqua, maybe something that matches the standard skin, but that's only a personal opinion. Cheers, 09:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Link is now added. As for the color, well, it's reeeal easy to change. The reason I picked light cyan was because I was aiming to make the template more friendly towards those who are being welcomed, and light cyan seemed to be a mellow, "We are professionals and will take care of you" color. If anyone has any better ideas, by all means, try them out. -- 15:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Possible secondary blackout (server)
I noticed that this morning there was a server blackout but now, at about 4:00PM BST, all of RuneScape and FunOrb went offline.

Anyone got any more news about this?
 * Yes, it was called the Third server blackout of 2008. 12:42, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Image Policy
I think we need a nice big clickable link on the main page that leads our current users to the image policy, because while going through the new image gallery, I'm seeing alot of personal images, most of which are those ugly stat sigs. The members of the RS Wiki need to be reminded that uploading personal images for their userpages isn't allowed, and that they need to upload them to imageshack. Hell, even a tutorial would suffice. All you gotta do is explain how to upload an image to imageshack, then to use that image here, just put the image's URL. It's not hard to do. No tags are needed to put ImageShack'd photos on the wiki. Just copy the URL of the image into your page and you're done. Anyone with me on this? Maybe we could add it to the sitenotice, like Due to frequent uploading of personal images, we'd like to remind you of our Image Policy and link "Image Policy" to the image policy page. 70.49.204.107 22:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Abit offtopic, but thank you Skill for deleting the items I had tagged :) 70.49.204.107 23:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * What kind of "personal images" are you referring to here? In going through the recently deleted images, I'm not exactly sure that such a policy needs to be so strictly enforced as it is here.  I certainly am allowed considerably more latitude on Wikipedia where nearly everything I've casually looked at with the deletion log would have been accepted (in the context of that wiki).


 * What is wrong with stat sigs anyway? We could set up something that would allow a "preference" to be able to turn off loading those sigs if you don't want to see them through templates or something similar, and I personally find the current enforcement of this to be a bit too aggressive.  That plus screen captures of your own character that would (presumably) be put on your user page.


 * I would agree that perhaps there ought to be some sort of general limit to this kind of activity, and certainly it should all be Runescape-related (aka no image repository for other websites), but please.... what is wrong with allowing somebody to show off their favorite costume or a picture of their P.O.H. on their user page?


 * From my experience, I would rather that they be managed locally by admins here and not have to rely upon admins at ImageShack.... unless they are completely unrelated to Runescape in any way shape or form. I certainly haven't heard any complaints from Wikia about running out of image server storage space, or that somehow this project is abusing that option with the current load of images.


 * If the stat sigs have a copyright issue that needs to be addrerssed... OK, that is something worth discussing. But I don't see that as an issue here or why it such a big deal to you.  If this is genuinely a bandwidth issue on the part of Wikia (aka users are loading up stat sigs here and using them on BBSs that are non-Wikia) that is another issue as well.  But show that is a problem first before throwing them out.  --Robert Horning 01:26, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't even know why uploading personal images to the wiki is against the rules if Wikia has unlimited media space. But if it is against the rules, I believe we have a problem. Users are always uploading personal images all the time and then they are clueless when they are deleted. Once they realise they're not supposed to upload personal images, they look for the article about their image and add it to the article as well as their userpage (even if it is a duplicate). I think there is not much we can do about it though and a link on the main page could maybe do a little difference but users tend to just create an account, make a userpage and then upload all their personal images here without looking at policies, main page, rules, etc. [[Image:Kandarincrest.gif|25px]] Chicken7 >talk>sign 01:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a policy that has been established by the "community" here on this wiki, not necessarily something that is being forced upon us by Wikia. What I'm taking issue with is the interpretation of what is intended by Wikia.... that this not become an image dumping ground like imageshack or Flicker.  I'm not even advocating for such a thing either.


 * I'm just trying to raise the issue here that perhaps we don't have to be so hard-nosed about a certain class of "personal images" that certainly can be considered related to the topic of this wiki: Runescape.  Keep in mind, it isn't Wikia that is deleting these images, it is admins that are working on this project.  This is a community decision, and I'm raising the issue here to see if there may be support to "changing" the current policy, or at least clarifying what a "personal image" might be in terms of this policy.


 * No, I don't think it is appropriate to upload gigabytes of images from your last vacation, pictures from your birthday party, or having dozens of other random images that have nothing to do with the game. But that isn't what I'm talking about with a good many of the recently deleted images.  This is a policy that can be changed, and it certainly isn't engraven in blood with Jimbo Wales' finger.  I'm talking something reasonable here, and suggesting that perhaps we are being too hardnosed about the whole concept of personal images.  --Robert Horning 01:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Exactly. That's what I've been trying to say for a while. The only "problem" with personal game screenshots is that "it will clog the servers", when we have unlimited space. Besides, deleting an image will just take up even more data (even though something is "deleted", all revisions are still stored on the Wikia servers, so all it does is conceal it from all non-sysops. On top of that, there's the aspect of the deletion being logged.).
 * With taking out the whole data subject, why delete them? Some people (like me) get "omfg this site is super-unsafe leave and never come back!!!111one" notices whenever going to an image holding site, so this is not only a good option, but a final option.
 * I mean, come on. They are only 100KB at the most, when most are less than 10KB. My talk page is 21.2MB, and you don't see any restrictions or anything on that. It would take 212 large personal images to equal the data in a talk page. But what about a few reasonably sized images? Maybe 30KB. It's no big deal. 02:24, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, so the discussion has changed to whether personal "RuneScape" related images are welcome on the Wiki. I would have to put a Neutral/Pending on such a policy/rule because I think we'll be bombarded with images and if we have thousands of users their all going to want to upload like "The first time i killed a Tz-Tok-Jad" or "My POH Kitchen", "My POH Bedroom", etc.... With all the users doing this we will have thousands of personal images. And if we ever change our minds there will be heaps of deletions. And Wikia might get annoyed with the amount of space we are using. They must have a limit to storage space. Robert and Chia have brought up good points though. But people won't come here to make a talk page. They'll come and uload their armour outfit and their POH, make their userpage and then disappear. Maybe I'll support if there is a limit to the number of personal images you can have but it would be hard to keep track of. [[Image:Kandarincrest.gif|25px]] Chicken7 >talk>sign 02:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well yes, then it would be a problem. I think a limit would have to be put in place, maybe 10 images, or something? 03:00, 16 June 2008 (UTC)~
 * I would support a general limit like that in terms of images per person, and those images must be on an actual page, not just uploaded somewhere and forgotten. In other words, those images must be used on the wiki somewhere, even if they are of a personal nature.  A limit of 10 such personal images is quite reasonable, with strong encouragement to keep it well below that.  --Robert Horning 04:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. I like that limit as a policy. [[Image:Kandarincrest.gif|25px]] Chicken7 >talk>sign 04:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That sounds pretty good. And thinking long term, would there be a way to track if someone logs on every 6 months or so? Because if they leave for 6 months, we might as well delete those pics (if they are only being used on that persons user page). And maybe find a way to ensure users name the pics about the costume, so the same pic is not uploaded 600 times. How many do we need of someone in full dragon with a Santa? Could we list all the "personal pics" so people will be able to check if the one they are uploading is already there?--Degenret01 07:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

< --- resetting tabs for ease of discussion

Certainly there is a way to scan user contribution logs to check if they have been active for the past six months, and I suppose we could develop a tool that could scan through user contributions to find out when the last time that the user logged in.

Mainly, I see this as a way to be doing a recent changes patrol and notice somebody who is uploading a whole bunch of images all at once. By setting a limit, you can either tell the (presumably new) user that they need to slow down and not go overboard, and point to the "official policy" as a reason why they can't have a couple dozen "personal images" about their character. This would be particularly if the person uploading the content has just created the account, uploads the images, and never contributes to the wiki again.

As for long-time users that contribute to many other parts of the wiki and only upload a couple images every other month or so.... I wouldn't be so paranoid about the issue. If you happen to come across somebody like this who has gone past the limit, a more gentle reminder may be in order to keep things under control but I would find it unlikely that they are going to go past the limit anyway. It is likely that the user is going to be disruptive and have attention placed on them if it becomes a serious problem (see the discussion in the previous section), and have a great many other issues as well.

Again, I don't think we need to get aggressive here. I certainly was a user who came in, made a couple of edits, and then left for six months only to come back and become a significant contributor. I'm willing to assume good faith and presume most users have the best of intentions when trying to add content.

As for scanning to see what other images a user has uploaded (if you think it may be excessive), I would suggest checking Special:Logs and entering the user's name. For most users, this is usually page moves and image uploads.... again, I seriously doubt that a major contributor is going to be a problem here. It would likely be somebody who is trying to upload a whole bunch of images all at once and/or be a vandal anyway in other ways that would be a problem. --Robert Horning 12:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Zezima's Password
Can we have a meeting about the ads being displayed on this Wiki? Some of them disturb me. Planeshifted 05:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If I'm not mistaken, you can always take it up with the Wikia staff, or something like that. They'll blacklist the ads for us. 05:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why was this called "Zezima's Password?" Is there an ad that mentions Zezima's password? -- 05:58, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed there is. I'll screenshot it and upload it for you.
 * I can't seem to make it come up for me. Just cycle through "Random page" and eventually you'll see it.  It'll say "Zezima's Password" and it'll be a link to www.prontos.com I think, whatever that's about... Planeshifted 06:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Planeshifted 06:00, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing it... the only ads I ever see are little square ads for various wikis and a big one for something called "Rokkit Ball." (I use the monobook skin, if that helps.) -- 06:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We cannot really decide on them but User:Angela does handle them and takes requests for ads to be removed (But usually they are gold farmer ads). [[Image:Kandarincrest.gif|25px]] Chicken7 >talk>RfA 06:04, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Here it is: [[Image:Zezimas-wtf.PNG|thumb|right]] Planeshifted 06:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * So is someone going to do something? Planeshifted 16:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I've seen said ad myself (I use the default skin)... -_- It needs to go, really. --Pikaandpi 16:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hey all! I have reported the bad advertisement to the appropriate people.  If any of you see it again, could you please follow the instructions located at w:User:JSharp/reporting_a_bad_advertisment to capture the full URL being advertised?  That would help me ensure that it doesn't pop up again.  Thanks!  --KyleH (talk) 18:24, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * ok, so it looks like I need the URL of the page that the advertisement links to in order to remove it. I'll be poking around trying to get it to pop up for me, but if one of you see it again, please grab it for me and post it here please.  Instructions on how to do that are here.  Thanks! --KyleH (talk) 18:53, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I win (first try). I think this is what you need (linkified so as to not be humongous) : .  21:37, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I've sent the information along, but it may take a little while before it disappears from the rotation. --KyleH (talk) 21:47, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's another bad advert I found. 19:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

GE Price "Live Feed"
I am interested in programming a web application that would query information from the official Runescape GE Price database, so that all prices could be current and accurate. No other fansites have this, although it has been done with the hiscores. I haven't looked into it too much yet but I believe it is possible. Is anyone interested in having this as a feature of the wiki? (if not I'll sell the patent to tip.it =P). I could also implement the type of thing Reddo suggested way up at the top. Quote: "now that the GE database has been released couldn't someone create a bot to pull the prices for each item off of there once a day or something?" Excalo 01:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Having a bot to edit those pages would be much more convenient and efficent, it would be great if this was done in my opinion. --<font style="background:Lime"><font style="background:0 255 0">   <font color="Red">Azaz129      <font color="#211 211 211">Talk     <font color="#211 211 211">Edits     <font color="#211 211 211">Contribs    03:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think Pointy said something about this a while back. Let me try to find the link, it might still be on this page actually. Skill 05:11, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, it's under the first two headings at the top of the page. Skill 05:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've not really had time lately to make any progress on a price-scraping bot, and it looks like it wouldn't be allowed to run anyway based on the bot talk page. I'm still running the chart updates once a week or so, but thats about all I've got time for at the moment I'm afraid. Pointy 15:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Did your bot get to the point where it could retrieve the prices from the database? Excalo 18:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

From our discussions here, Jagex rules state that we can't send an automatic repeating request for updated information and so if a bot gets created to update the prices, a human would have to be responsible for sending the request.-- 14:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, I was wondering if there was a rule like that. Perhaps a button next to each price, named "refresh price". Only when it is pressed would the application pull the info from the database. Excalo 14:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I also posted this above but what about a bot that only grabbed the prices once every 24 hours? I believe that this falls within the rules that jagex has stated. Reddo 02:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * "It must not automatically make repeated page/content requests from our website or otherwise make excessively bandwidth intensive requests from our servers (each page/content request should only be in direct response to a user request each time)."
 * The way they worded it suggests that they don't want us doing even that. However, it would probably be feasible to have a refresh price button on every page and hope that people click on them often. In fact, there could probably be links that would allow simultaneous updating of groups of pages (for example, headings on the GEMW pages) without violating this rule, as long as we don't go overboard. The rule is a bit ambiguous as to what constitutes "overboard", though. Skill 04:04, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The whole "direct response to a user request each time" kind of puts an end to a bot getting them for us. I like the idea of having a price refresh button on each page but I don't know how we would create something like this (maybe a bot that is activated by clicking on the button).  In the response to the "hope that people click on them often" we could add a parser function like this to all of the exchange pages




 * This would put all exchange articles that haven't been updated in the last 2 days into a new category, (GE articles needing price updates) this could help us keep a little more update with the current prices without having to assign particular articles to people to update each day and without having a bot to do the whole thing for us. Reddo 05:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Within the guidelines they layed out, saying that requests have to be activated by a user, we could allow users to update all the prices at once. However, I don't think that this would be a very good option. Querying 4,000 of their pages will take a while. Perhaps in the Category:GE articles needing price updates, an option to update all articles needing price updates. Excalo 18:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Pages in need of attention
Hi i know I'm kinda a nobody and no one has heard of me but I hope you will listen to me. I find that i have a lot of spare time i.e. when i can't play RS and I'm on the wiki. Scrolling through random pages doesn't always guarantee tha you will be able to find an article than needs attention. Let’s face it, we have some rubbish articles on the wiki. Most of them are newly created article by people who want to help but don’t know how. I find that a lot of these articles come in batches usually in the new addition of a missing part it a series/category or when new quests are released (not exactly necessary since they all get jumped by B’crats admins etc.) But I was just thinking could we have something like Wanted Pages except that it doesn’t show links but shows pages that need attention. I suppose that it would be similar to articles in need of attention but I feel nobody really cares about it. This might simply mean having a people sticking the cleanup template on such pages and more people actually tracking these pages. And btw would it be possible to have a system that automatically capitalises i? Freefall333
 * I know it might not be exactly what you are looking for, but here are a few places to check for articles that need a bit of work.
 * New pages
 * Short pages
 * Dead-end pages -> although you won't find too many articles in here.
 * Orphaned pages
 * Articles in need of cleanup
 * Articles to be merged
 * Regards, 10:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you looking for something like this?-- 14:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Talking of things needing attention, the wanted pages page is a bit of a mess, mainly because it looks at pages outside mainspace, such as userpages (e.g. User:Mr_webster6) and talk pages (mainly discussing pages that have since been deleted). Both of these we are not supposed to edit. Would it be possible for someone to raise this with the Wikia people, to see if there could be some way of filtering out anything outside of mainspace? If that is not possible, something that would help is a change to users POH pages. The template creates links from whatever people decide to put in, e.g. 'My Bedroom', 'Torture Chamber'. If this link could be removed from the template, a couple of dozen items would disappear from the wanted list. Hurston 12:44, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Annoying ads?
These annoying ads pop up all over the place, like "zezimas password", and "free runescape hacks". Also, these may put adware on your computer. Is there something that can be done? 16:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I hate the new ads. They are very distracting and take up a lot of the space on the page. I don't like monobook's ads, either, they cover up some of the words. That's why I use quartz. 18:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * For me (a monobook user) the words tend to cover up the ads. Which is fine with me. And I don't get the "Zezima's password" ads from Google or whatnot, either. Monobook ftw? -- 18:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * So we should all switch to monobook, then? Planeshifted 23:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Monobook and the old wikia skins are best then, because the Monaco skin's search bar is annoying. You have to wait for the "Search RuneScape...." thingy to load or else if you type there, it removes your text. 11:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Advert Policy / Reporting Bad Adverts
Alright, I propose a newb page called RuneScape:Report Bad Advert or somesuch where we can report inappropriate adverts on the Wiki. Something similar to the vandalism reporting area. Planeshifted 16:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That sounds good. It could be like the advert reporter in RuneScape. Do we get a lot of bad advertisement here? 17:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Well the problem used to be much worse, however every now and then theres a bad one. Great idea though.--<font style="background:Lime"><font style="background:0 255 0">   <font color="Red">Azaz129      <font color="#211 211 211">Talk     <font color="#211 211 211">Edits     <font color="#211 211 211">Contribs    18:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I reported a bad advert a couple of days ago and now there's a new one. Image to be posted...Planeshifted 18:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Behold: [[Image:Rsarmory.PNG|thumb|right]]
 * Wouldn't it just be easier to contact Wikia and tell them the ad?--Richard 18:33, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't suppose you'd care to post the instructions for gathering advert information to collect and send to them? Someone deleted them a day or so ago...Planeshifted 18:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Just mention how the ad is inappropiate, like if it says "Zezima's password", then say that, and then they'll check out the ads to see which ones are saying it and take it out.--Richard 19:13, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We already are supposed to report them to Wikia, usually on a Staff's talk page like User talk:Angela. I think we should have such a policy or page because as you can see, many are in the dark. [[Image:Kandarincrest.gif|25px]]<font face="Kristen ITC"><font color=#B22222> Chicken7 >talk>RfA 07:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Crowns
I talked to Skill about this and he said that this would be a topic to discuss. I want to change the crowns look. When I helped make the Janitors crown, I suggested changing the 'M' to a 'J' for janitor. I thought it would be a good idea to change all the crowns to match that format. I have already done so, but haven't uploaded them yet because I want feedback about it. I have also created new crowns for the Helpers and Staff (even though they're probably not going to use them). This is a good idea because it will help new users to tell the crowns apart from eachother. Please tell me what you think. Thank you. 02:14, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it's a great idea and the images look good to, I saw you're discussions on this earlier and agree.--<font style="background:Lime"><font style="background:0 255 0"> [[Image:Helm_of_neitiznot_(charged).png‎]]  <font color="Red">Azaz129   [[Image:Crystal_shield.png‎]]   <font color="#211 211 211">Talk     <font color="#211 211 211">Edits     <font color="#211 211 211">Contribs    06:06, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure. 22:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Calling them "Crowns" makes them sound synonymous with Jagex and Player mod crowns. I say we call them "badges" instead.Planeshifted 23:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This would be a good idea. A while back I changed the colours to match user levels because there was only the blue crown. But this would make it even more easy-to-understand. [[Image:Kandarincrest.gif|25px]]<font face="Kristen ITC"><font color=#B22222> Chicken7 >talk>RfA 07:31, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * So, should I upload the new pics and add them to the admins page and userbox templates? or should the discussion continue? 18:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Do away with neutral votes
I don't see the reasoning behind a neutral vote, and I propose we do away with it. It doesn't actually help bring the community to any sort of consensus, since it doesn't lean towards support or oppose. More often than not, it's used because the user doesn't know the nominee (in which case they really shouldn't be voting until they do know the candidate, but that's a not why I'm posting). Comment would do just fine for this purpose, as it serves as a clarifier or lets the nominee know what the user posting would like to see. Opinions? 06:27, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd have to agree, Commment does the same thing, Neutral votes just make more confusion. 06:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * So would it be valid to just change anything marked "neutral" to comment? 09:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why does it matter or what harm is there in this sort of situation? The "reasoning" behind such a "vote" is perhaps the person trying to make a remark isn't really committed one way or the other (aka supporting a deletion or endorsing a proposed administrator) but has some information that may be relevant to others casting their vote.  In this case, they are genuinely "neutral".  I suppose it is a comment but the term "neutral" does carry with it the context that they haven't yet come to a decision on the matter.  Bureaucrats and administrators shouldn't really be "counting votes" anyway on such pages, but should be reading into the depth of comments and the strength of the arguments in favor or opposed to such an action.  I just don't think we need to be paranoid about such votes, as it really isn't as important the exact format of such a vote but rather that people are participating.  I'd rather have these neutral votes than to turn away people from making comments.  --Robert Horning 11:21, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I know that sometimes they don't always help, but I don't think we should do away with them. Maybe we should change the neutral votes to just comments, so we don't have both littering up pages. But i think that people should have the option to express their opinions and give advice without having to vote. Neutral/Comments provide a great to give opnions and feedback without having to flat out Oppose or Support. [[image:Prayer.gif |25px]] Sir Lenehan [[image:smite.PNG|25px]] 12:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree with Robert on this one, for slightly different reasons. A Neutral vote does have an effect on the result of a discussion.  Take this as a situation: there are two strong support arguments for a decision, and one oppose.  It would be hard to see a consensus there, but you might say that the decision was toward the supports.  However, given the same 3 votes, what if you had 2000 neutral votes?  It would be obvious that "Support" was NOT at a consensus, as 2001 people had declined to support the decision, even if only one openly opposed it.


 * I do think that we can do away with "Pending" and "Not yet/Wait a little". If your vote is pending, don't write anything, or use Neutral.  It just clutters things otherwise.  "Not yet/Wait a little" are just oppose votes; you can explain your reasoning or intent for future support in the accompanying comment.  Both of these seemed like they were added by the one or two people that use these keywords, and they tried to make them global for no real reason.   14:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think we need Neutral vote because they don't count towards anything. It's either a "yes" or "no". Like Sir Lenethan said, we should just put that under 'Comments'. 17:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Save the orphans!
It seems that many new users tend to have a habit of uploading a new image into a new namespace, then turning around and editing the article containing the image to point to their newly uploaded image and leave in their wake an orphaned image. Often times these orphans contain historically relevant information as to how things once were on the face of Gielinor and as such I do not feel they should just be deleted into non-existance. Is there a policy regarding this sort of thing? If not i believe there should be. Already lost includes been lost to CityYanille.PNG and more are on the way including Image:Brimhaven.PNG which is becoming orphaned by Image:CityBrimhaven.PNG. Personally I'm at a loss 09:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * In such situations like you are describing here, such "images" perhaps ought to be merged for historical reasons. Article and image histories can be merged together by deleting the "new" page, performing a page move (or image rename), deleting it again temporarily as an administrative action, then undeleting the whole thing.  I would have to agree that preserving the historical images in something that can be scanned by ordinary users does have some relevance, such as what you have described above.  It isn't "easy" to perform such actions, and IMHO the "newer" images that are the dupes ought to be the ones viewed with a jaundiced eye in terms of if they are the duplicates or not.  Yes, I do realize that the game does change and update, but historical information ought to be preserved as much as reasonably possible.  --Robert Horning 11:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Images
Well forgive me if someone already created a section on this (in which case you can delete this) but when Jagex adds the new detail mode in July we'll need to add thousands of more images to the database. Taking all of these screenies will take lots of time (although I'm sure there are many users up for the challenge here) and we'll need to add a new image section to all ncp and item templates. That way, we could display the old detail image and the new high detail image, since the current detail will still be available. Thoughts? Perhaps we could put together a whole team of users willing to do this. Again, I'm sorry if this has already been discussed or added to the Yew Grove (I read over it, maybe I missed something) but this is something we'll need to take care of. 15:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * What Iylas said. I know it will take along time to update the pictures, but it will be for the better. I will try to help as much as I can. (but only the f2p pics) 17:59, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was thinking that too. It will be a lot of work to replace all the images that will become low-detail soon. 18:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My name is Ilyas not lylas... And we're not replacing them we're just uploading new versions, so there'll be two versions of each image. 18:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why would we want two versions of an image? Unless we're comparing high and low detail in an article, two images on the same page would only take up space. 18:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A different aspect to consider is how hard it's going to be to capture from the new system. It's going to use anti-aliasing, which blurs the edges of all items, objects, etc.  Therefore, replacing the background of an image with transparency will be more difficult, either requiring a lot of time or leaving an undesired outline around the whole image.  I almost feel that it might be easier to stick with capturing all graphics from the current high-detail mode.  But we'll have to wait and see on that; maybe we'll just be able to disable anti-aliasing and it will be just as easy.  I don't think we need duplicates, though...I mean, we don't have both low-detail and high-detail images right now, even though both game modes exist--why would the new game mode by any different? Let's always work to reduce redundancy and clutter.  18:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not establish a standard for image uploading; i.e. all images should be captured from (Low/High/Full) detail mode only? Planeshifted 18:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree; I just think we need to wait until the full detail mode comes out before we have enough information to set that standard. I'd definitely argue for either High or Full though.  19:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)