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:
 * Discussions about deleting a page. Use RS:VFD
 * Requests for adminship. Use RS:RFA
 * Discussions about the Wiki's theme. Use RuneScape:Theme
 * Promoting or beginning a project. Use RuneScape:WikiGuild
 * Questions about RuneScape and the Wiki. Use RuneScape:Dragon desk
 * Discussion that is not related to the wiki but rather to the game itself. Use the forums.
 * Anything that does not have a wide impact.

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Entire Dialog for familiars
Is this really needed? To add all the dialog just opens up a can of worms. What is next adding all the dialog for all the quests or NPC's? Atlandy 15:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Now you're starting to read my mind, i was going to suggest we do just that... 00:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * "What is next adding all the dialog for all the quests or NPC's?" Hahaha. Funny you should say that. People have already started. And I am with this discussion (No dialog) 07:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * While we are "everything Runescape" it can go a bit overboard. I think including all of the banter, and non informative dialog is not needed.  If it is part of a quest where you need to ask a certain question, or give a certain response, then it should be includied [[Image:Scythe.PNG‎]]Atlandy 14:02, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually i do agree, however, as a work around (for those editors that really want such) why not start a separate article called Humour or somesuch (category of culture or what have you), then migrate such verbosities to there and let that article go and grow. To me the excessive dialogue and animations are something i'm already getting plenty of as a player of the game, however for some new editors adding such things can be a way of testing the editing waters, thus my suggestion.  15:11, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep; I enjoy reading some of them. They are usually at the bottom of the articles, but a link to a separate dialogue article for each familiar would be an alternative if someone feels they are taking up too much room. It's nice to know what the dialogues are without having to create each familiar plus knowing the ones that are at a higher level than the player's summoning level. It makes our site that much more complete and comprehensive if someone is willing to do it. Chrislee33 17:46, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * zomg no i was not trying to imply making a zillion little articles just one as in the way trivia was in times past 18:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm actually for adding the dialog, for two reasons. First, I think it fits under our granularity policy, and if somebody finds it interesting, then great.  I think it should be under a standardized subpage though, like PageName/Dialog, and we should have some templated way of showing that there is a dialog page for that article.  The second reason is that with quest guides, etc, a lot of people race through the quest dialog, and are kind of curious afterward as to what was actually said.  An extreme example of this is the Ghostly robes miniquest, one of the most bonehead things Jagex has ever done.  Most of the talking in that miniquest is done in areas with aggressive monsters (mostly in the Wilderness), and the dialog is like 30 pages long for each NPC.  If you get interrupted by combat, you have to start the conversation over, making the whole conversation a pointless and completely ridiculous click-race.  Nobody could actually read those conversations, so it's nice to be able to come here and find out what the quest was all about, afterward. There's actually a third reason, too, and that's that it could improve our Google score significantly if we wikify the dialog with links to respective articles.   20:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I should add that part of my response was for Atlandy's "what's next" bit. I think NPC and quest dialog would be more appropriate than summoning familiars, but if the dialog pages are correctly categorized, linked to, and stylized, I see no reason not to allow all dialog to be added.  20:41, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a project to put on the map Enda, and if your projections are right the wiki will score with google, sweet. I think you're the person to lead the project, so i'm nominating you. Once the framework/policies are in place it should be a simple matter to expand/roll it out into the quests and miniquests ( lol @ jagex for putting a miniquest in the wilderness, what's next a real quest in the wildy? ) 00:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * lol, Kytti is a prophet.Careful what u say next Kytti, it may also come true.--216.136.67.145 06:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I would have to say that I enjoy reading the dialogue from familiars, as they tend to be humourous (Is that spelled right?), and being a free player I am unable to read them myself.--Hirushi 20:45, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't go and establish any policies without consensus here first, but I've created some templates to demonstrate what I'm saying. Here's what I've created: And an example of use: We would certainly beautify the templates (an image to catch the users' eye would be nice--I'm thinking an animation of someone's head in the chat box?) but that's the basic standardization I had in mind. Is this an acceptable compromise? I can't really think of anything bad about doing it this way--it doesn't clutter anything, it's consistent, etc. What are your thoughts specifically Atlandy? 23:28, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Template:hasdialogue
 * Template:dialogue
 * Category:Dialogue
 * User:Endasil/sandbox/Sample article
 * BTW, I stuck with the British spelling of dialogue (which is really just a transliteration of French if I recall correctly) for now. If it drives everyone nuts (I'm Canadian, which makes it easier, but I'm also a programmer, which means I use the word about 100 times as much as everyone else, so the "ue" drives me nuts too) we can move the relevant pages to "dialog."  23:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, I should note that I've included a bunch of links in those templates/category to RuneScape:Granularity, which is where I would expect any policy changes to be noted (along with instructions for creating dialogue pages), but haven't created that section itself as of yet. 23:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Point well taken. If thy are moved to some sort of other page, that would def. free up the familiars page.  I guess the entire dialog was taking up so much space on the familiars page...it was annoying to me.  However, I can see the point of keeping it [[Image:Scythe.PNG‎]]Atlandy 14:11, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

We should definitely keep the dialogue. I for one find it amusing, and it's not really worth summoning something just to hear its chat--the Giant Chinchompa, for example, has some very cute conversations, but I wouldn't want to have to go out and get a pouch just to find out what it talks about. troacctid 12:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hopefully keep, I enjoy reading them (I too don't want to bother buying a pouch just to see what it says) and I suspect people enjoy finding something they feel safe contributing.  Peacefulsage 03:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed policies
We currently have proposed policies (RuneScape:Images and media policy, RuneScape:Deletion policy, and RuneScape:Scope) that need some work and consensus whether to instate them after some work. Anyone up for some policy working? 19:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Nope. -- 06:07, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Removing the "User of the Month" feature
RuneScape:Votes_for_deletion

This is a heads up to people like me who don't check VfD as often as the Yew Grove that there is a discussion about removing the Requested Featured User section. Go to the above link to discuss the issue; don't comment here in the Yew Grove as your comment might not be noticed.-- 12:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The discussion should just be moved here; if we decide to stop using UotM, then we wouldn't delete the page, we'd just archive it. 12:04, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I would have to agree that the discussion should be moved here instead of getting obfuscated with the discussion of deleting the UotM page. There are some individuals advocating (not consensus achieved, however) both the discontinuance of the feature *AND* the deletion of anything related to it, but unfortunately the discussion page is muddled with both ideas and it is even hard to decide what position any given individual has on the issue of discontinuance of the feature.  --Robert Horning 15:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Skill-related training
I think the Training section for each skill be transfered to a sub-page (i.e. Fishing/Training and Hunter/Training). This is to unclutter the article from facts about the skill from the guides to training that skill. And since training guides may be long, moving the training section will reduce the article size, making it clear and concise. 12:21, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think this is a great idea, as it would greatly decrease load times of some very large articles. Good idea! 12:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of the training section being on a separate article. It doesn't have to be a subsection, what about Free-to-play Ranged training? We could have 39 different skill guides like those. 13:03, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I would prefer if it is still be linked to the main skill article. (Subpages have links to the main page.)  I guess we could move existing articles to the skill article as subpages.  But, that's just my opinion.  14:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It is a good idea to have some subpages to ease the burden of the main article. But I am thinking that moving the training parts do not sound that effective if we are based on the said aim.
 * And if we are moving out some large content, would there be a lot of subpages produced, like what Teng said?
 * (At least 1 page for each skill, that is ..... 24! )
 * Not only a large amount of subpages are to be produced, how about the original place for the moved content? Shall we briefly write something in point form to replace it or.... some other thing?
 * Taking Fishing as a example, the largest content is the Fishing. Meanwhile, the training part takes only a quarter of the total content. In my opinion, we could list the spots in point form and leave the description far behind those into subpages. This keeps the unity of the article and at the same time saving some space. 02:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I admit several skill pages is getting ridiculously long, and an old browser may take ages to load it. My main concern is load time, and information available in the skill page itself. Some detailed info should not be in the skill page, but rather be in the corresponding article dedicated to the detailed info. My first suggestion does not seem right at the moment, as discussed above. But, somehow, the articles need to be shrunk someway. So, here goes:
 * Information related directly to the skill but do not have an article should be moved to subpages (or appropriately-named articles).
 * Information with existing articles on their own should be moved there, with a summary provided in the skill page, and the used to link to the article.

08:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like it makes a lot of sense, and there is no one saying it's a bad idea.. As long as each subpage gets a 1 or 2 sentence brief next to its link this should prove to really neaten up some articles. --Degenret01 09:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Special:Wantedpages

 * Is there any way that the list in Special:Wantedpages be sorted alphabetically? 18:30, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I would love to have the Special:Wantedpages alphabetical! What a wonderful idea! Also, if pointy is not running his bot, and the link on the bots' page is dead, is there any way I can take over ownership so I can run the bot to generate the chart images?  18:36, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The list would have to be updated manually, but it's fairly simple to alphabetize a list in Microsoft word by highlighting the list and using the "sort" button (more info here). I don't know of any way to sort the updated list, though. 02:19, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * A little off topic, but still in regards to the Wanted pages.. Any idea if pointy can be contacted about the bot? I'd love to either get rid of the Image:GEMH or personally run the bot and create them myself.  02:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:Previous vfd
Not sure whether other people will really consider this necessary, but I have created the outline of a "Previous vfd" template. This is for insertion on the talk page for articles that have previously had a VfD where the consensus was to keep. Repeated nominations may not be that big a problem, or they may be some better way to keep track of this. I just thought that this may be a good idea, and if so then we should encourage editors to check the talk page for this notification before they nominate. It's easier than trawling through the article history looking for evidence of a VfD. 08:09, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * So your going to put a message on the VFD template page that says "Check the articles talk page to be sure it wasn't VFD previously", and then the template goes on each article that stayed? I dont think you need Yew Grove, it makes a lot of sense and doesn't have a wide impact.--Degenret01 09:54, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I just didn't want to go ahead and make changes to the VfD procedure without telling people. ;-)  I will integrate this now.   14:40, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Succession infoboxes and non attackable monsters
Template:Succession was recently added to the Spirit Beast article describing the Spirit Beast to be the strongest monster. I have since removed it because we define monster to be an attackable character. Since the Spirit Beast cannot be attacked in any way, it is not defined as a monster based on that article.

Similar characters include Hazeel and the the dragon from the tutorial: They have levels, but they cannot be attacked and serve more as NPCs.

What we need to decide is whether articles on these characters should be treated as monster articles or NPC articles. If they are to be treated as NPCs, they should follow that format. If they are to be treated as monsters, they should follow the format of a monster article. I personally suggest treating them as NPCs because they cannot be attacked. And if they are to be treated as monsters, they should not carry the succession infoboxes. Dtm142 18:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I would agree. Conversely, some people consider "monsters" to be a sub-set of NPCs.  Personally I think they are separate classifications, monsters being any person or creature that can be engaged in combat, and NPCs being any person or creature that players can talk to.  But consider someone like Sigmund, who is an NPC at most times, and a monster during Death to the Dorgeshuun.  I think there will be exceptions as well as rules, but the Spirit Beast should be called an NPC IMO.   19:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should call these non-attackable monsters as NCMs (as in "Non-combat monsters"). NCMs should have a combat level indicating their strength, but unfortunately they cannot be attacked.  I think NPCs should be reserved to talking characters without any indication of their strength (combat level).  So, Spirit Beast is a NCM, while Sigmund is an NPC.  This should clear-up the disputes over NPCs and non-attackable monsters.  (P.S.: What's wrong in having the succession box in the Spirit Beast article?  Spirit Beast should hold the title of having the "Highest combat level in RuneScape"  05:48, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Annoying registration messages
Here is what the main page looks like to unregistered users:


 * 1) It should be possible to dismiss the first message asking users to register.
 * 2) The second message (the green one) should be deleted entirely.
 * 3) Why isn't the default theme MonoBook?  Most people are more familiar with the way Wikipedia looks, and (though it's just my opinion) MonoBook looks better.

Discuss. --Wowbagger421 07:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

 * I think the green box mentioned at point 2 should be removed. It repeats with the use of the message above it. 13:15, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I personally use Monobook in "My Preferences" and choose to override what admins use for all wikis that I visit. In my opinion, Monobook has the cleanest look compared to all the skins available.  Unfortunately, there is no way of default-ing Monobook, as only Monaco (and its sub-skins) can be used as the default skin for any particular wiki.     13:20, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The first message is in MediaWiki:Anonnotice; IPs can never dismiss messages. Those green messages are MediaWiki messages (e.g. (MediaWiki:ue-VisitN9). And Monaco is the default skin now; you can still view the wiki in Monobook by selecting it in your preferences.--Richard 16:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I like Monobook too but I can't find a way to change it. i did hear there was something you could change but I dunno. Anyway, there should not be 2 points. I'll remove one but we want to encourage new editors so I'll leave the other. Cheers, 06:02, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Which one shall I remove. One is quite detailed and the other is just short and simple. And now that I think about it, we should probably make it dismissable if possible. 06:05, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I like short and simple better. -- 06:08, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * OK I'll get some more opinions. 10:22, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I've just changed MediaWiki:Anonnotice to make it much simpler. There's no need for the spoiler message in there; just link to the spoiler policy in Template:Maintop if you really need to.--Richard 16:57, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

i need a hand
ive een working on new stuff and infoboxes for a project, i need a hand to help finish this new welcome box

if you want to help tell me on my talk or here, thanks Btzkillerv 14:46, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe editors here would be pleased to help if you tell us more about your project. 03:25, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's true, "curious cats want to know" what the project is that is. -- 02:18, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * its on my userpage, the test and evaluation area has the new welcome box im working on, and i think we need a welcoming commiteeBtzkillerv 17:36, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * We already have a commitee. -- 21:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Here's the page: RuneScape:Welcoming Committee -- 21:11, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Translucent interfaces
Now that there is fullscreen and the resizable game window, the interfaces are translucent. Shouldn't the interface images not be translucent, but look like they do on an ordinary game window? There is an image for the Music Player, but the backgrounds will always be different for the interfaces. 12:48, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm a little unclear on what you are asking (double negatives throw me off), but i'm guessing that you're thinking that the interfaces need to be consistently presently on the wiki without random background imagery showing through (correct me if i'm wrong). Here's two examples, the first is a simple capture of the music interface window with an end of the world grey mist background (thus making it consistently shaded) the second is the same but with the transparent parts solidified through a graphical image manipulation program (gimp).


 * Thoughts? Ideas? 09:36, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

New Site
Hi, I was told to move this by two bureaucrats here... Anyway, I currently own the site vindemi.com. I am also a user on runescape. How would your wiki like to move into my server? For example, it will go from runescape.wikia.com to runescape.vindemi.com. The good thing about moving to my server is: All bureaucrats on the site will have access to the server so they can add extensions, add custom skins, get their own email account at vindemi.com and do other things. My site has unlimited disk space and broadband space. Unlike this site, on the new runescape site would have limited advertisement....look at vindemi.com to see how it would look like. Oh yea and there are extensions on MW that would make moving the site easy. For example, there is an extension where the computer will import all the users from this site to the new site. And MW has this tool that will import pages from this site to the new one. Oh yea and if you don't want to move for whatever reason, you can use it as a second site or a runescape test site. Oh yea and I can set up a full forum too. Anyway its your call and its a win-win. Tell me what you think so I can set it up. Regards, --Truetech 22:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Here is what I posted on his talk page previously:


 * I can't speak for everyone, but I think we're just fine here. There's no outstanding reason for us to move, people know we're at this address, and Wikia is a well-known wiki host. I believe, although I've never asked, we could add extensions to our wiki simply by speaking with the Community Helpers. Case in point, I'm almost positive the Ajax checkmark at the top of Recent Changes is an extension, because the other wiki I work on doesn't have it.


 * There are no advantages that I particularly see either, and I personally am completely happy with Wikia's performance. In fact, I think the World of Warcraft Wiki was on its own at first, and actually decided to merge into Wikia. So that will be a no from me. Oddlyoko talk 03:59, 16 August 2008 (UTC)