Doom Wiki:Central Processing/2010

Doom Fan Wiki Companion?
Just tossin out an Idea.... A Fan Doom Wiki for Fan fiction stories, like the Star Wars Fan Wiki, or the Indiana Jones Fan Wiki, or the Jurassic Park Fan wiki, So on and on... I would like to create it mysef, but I got the JP Fan wiki and the Ice Age wiki already created by my hands. So if someone else thinks this would be a good idea, I would greatly contribute. 65.30.143.155 17:00, March 13, 2010 (UTC) (Clonehunter, not signed in)


 * My personal opinion is that this wiki's blogs section combined with Doomworld's fan fics forum is plentiful for the fan fiction output needs of this relatively small community. -- Janizdreg 19:31, March 13, 2010 (UTC)

Problem with Thing Type / Monster "ID #"
I have noticed an inconsistency between articles which has become a dire mess - some articles are listing the doomednum, or Editor Number, and others, such as D'Sparil, are listing the DeHackEd number, or internal ordinal. It's going to be nearly impossible to clean this up. If an attempt is made, I would suggest transitioning the articles to call this the Editor # explicitly, so as to avoid confusion with DeHackEd numbers. --Quasar 21:54, March 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * It's even more complicated when you take into account Hexen actors (which have a spawn number as well, and the accompanying ACS constant such as T_ETTIN_MASH; and for some a puzzle item ID) and Strife actors (which have a conversation ID too -- three if you count the different values from the two teasers). I think something like the Actor template I made on the ZDoom wiki could be useful. --Gez 22:24, March 30, 2010 (UTC)

Question about the trivia in Doom 3
I asked the same question in the talk page some time ago but I didn't get any reply, so I'll ask here.

From the "Trivia" section:


 * A terminal after returning to Mars from Hell displays a red screen. An email can be downloaded from this terminal, containing a rather tongue-in-cheek message written by the Hell demons on proper human sacrifice techniques.

I couldn't find that. Can someone give me more detailed instructions or/and screenshots? Thank you --Kyano 21:53, April 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * If it's not in Grawl's walkthrough, then it probably doesn't exist.   Ryan W 23:54, April 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yep, it's there. Seems that I didn't do a very deep research ;-) For those who are interested, it's the 21st easter egg in this list, and here there are 1, 2, 3 and 4 screenshots. Thank you very much for that valuable link, Ryan W. --Kyano 00:40, April 2, 2010 (UTC)

Maggot doom 3
Something has to be done with Maggot doom 3. I think that it should be deleted since it does not add any relevant information to Maggot. --Kyano 13:06, April 15, 2010 (UTC)

Reorganize policy page?
I would like to propose splitting Doom Wiki:Policies and guidelines into three pages: a list of policies, a list of guidelines, and a FAQ. Trying to cut a long story short, I believe that:
 * it is confusing to have inflexible policies and infrequently heeded recommendations listed together;
 * we should have a FAQ (for the same reason any project does);
 * the FAQ would be read more often if it could be linked to without mentioning "policies".

Drafts are here, here, and here. The last time I made major revisions to that page, it was controversial, so if I get little or no feedback then I won't do anything. Please record questions/criticism here, not on the talk pages, so the discussion remains visible, thanks. Ryan W 08:05, May 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * I definitely support your proposed threeway structure and in my opinion it definitely adds to the clarity of our policies. -- Janizdreg 19:23, May 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Forgot to mention that I also approve the tweaks and additions you made to the content itself. -- Janizdreg 19:31, May 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ugh, I hope I did not make tweaks unless a statement was very obviously out of date (like the one about notability of unreleased mods).   Ryan W 05:13, May 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * It all looks sound from here, and I agree with Janizdreg that our policies are now much clearer than before. (It does make me feel bad for creating my own article, though. ;) ) &mdash; The Green Herring (talk) 02:59, May 9, 2010 (UTC)

Attempted to upload map in SVG
I tried to upload a map for Hexen's Winnowing Hall as File:MAP01-winnowing-hall.svg. It is in the SVG format. Unfortunately, it doesn't render. The NetHack wiki can render SVGs server-side;. I conclude, then, that the Doom wiki is capable of rendering SVGs, and that either:


 * I've uploaded a broken SVG file, and it needs to be deleted;
 * the Doom wiki does not have SVG enabled, and an administrator needs to enable it; or
 * the Doom wiki does not have SVG enabled, the adminstrators don't want to enable it, and my map file needs to be deleted.

Whichever one of these is true, I need administrator assistance.--Ray Chason 03:21, June 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Your new version renders for me (WinXP, Firefox 3.6). But that does not establish that your first hypothesis was correct: we don't have any admins who devote a lot of time to site customization, so our config files may be wonky.    Ryan W 15:56, June 8, 2010 (UTC)

Source port template?
I'm thinking that source ports could have a template that creates a nice little information box that would show at a glance, in a standardized way (maybe with icons for a more efficient use of space) important data like whether it's still active or abandoned, which systems are supported, which games are supported, and other relevant data. (This template could do the categorizing automatically by the way.) Any idea about what there should be? Opinions? --Gez 15:56, June 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * I like this idea a lot, and if you have the motivation to create such a template, definitely go for it. Though before we start adding it into actual port articles, it should be thoroughly planned and tested first.


 * My initial vision of what the template could look like is basically a table at the top right of the port article, structure-wise similar to the Wikipedia's general info table seen at the top of game articles (as seen here), with content based on what is presented here, perhaps with the addition of the source port's rough year of origin (usually best measured by the release date of the first public version of the port). -- Janizdreg 05:38, September 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * If anybody wonders whether the /Version and /Date subpages I've added to several ports are part of the infrastructure upon which to build this port template, the answer is "yes". :) --Gez 12:20, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

Alright. You can take a look at GZDoom to see a live example. This is not the definitive, final version of the template. I want it to handle categorization automatically, and I'd like to use icons rather than text for supported games and platforms. There are other things that could be listed in the infobox too, such as for instance important links such as download (ideally would be lumped in with the platform so a "Windows" icon would lead to the Win32 binaries for example), dedicated documentation site, SVN/CVS/GIT/etc. repository, dedicated discussion forums, and so on. Tell me what you think. --Gez 18:09, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

Classic Doom hi-res logo
Does anybody know where can I get a hi-res classic Doom logo? Everything I found is this but I think it's not enough for making a T-shirt (that's what I want). And yes, it's not legal, but it's for my personal use, I won't sell it, I promise :-) --Kyano 11:58, July 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * The biggest image with the logo only that I've ran into is this. But if that's not big enough, you'll probably need to crop it off the big cover art scans yourself (or ask someone to do it for you). If you crop the logo off (for instance), you'll get the logo in a resolution around 3200x2000. -- Janizdreg 21:52, July 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much, Janizdreg. I cropped the logo from that poster, the result is 3330x2100, which is perfect for a T-shirt print. --Kyano 11:03, September 26, 2010 (UTC)

New Wikia skin
I hate it and probably you do, too. You can select Monaco again at your preferences panel, but it will be deleted on November 3, according to some users at the IRC #wikia channel. Thoughts? --Kyano 16:25, October 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I hate the Monaco skin, so I use MonoBook and have set it to override everything else. Granted, Wikia loves making your preferences "forget" that you want MonoBook instead of Monaco or now Oasis, but they always end up repairing it after enough people bitch about it on the wikia central forums. I have not yet actually seen Oasis, but nothing I've read about makes me feel like I'll be missing out by sticking to MonoBook. --Gez 19:56, October 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, both Monaco and Monobook (which I prefer over Monaco) will be deleted on Nov 3. That's the point of my complaint: I don't have anything against freedom of choice, but this is not freedom of choice. They are imposing the new skin. There had been lots of complaints, so I hope that the Wikia team will allow any wiki to use Monobook or Monaco, if they want to... I guess it depends on the number of wiki admins bitching about that :-) --Kyano 23:37, October 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * No, Monobook is staying. Just Monaco is going. (See (1), (2)). So long as Uncyclopedia stays on Wikia, is it likely that Monobook will stay. Considering how little Wikia cares about their userbase though, nothing is certain. Nuxius 04:07, October 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, then I misunderstood it. And: "However, many of the new features we will be creating for the new design will not work in Monobook", so we'll be able to avoid all the new useless features by using Monobook. Great. --Kyano 09:40, October 8, 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on which skin is the best and IMHO all of them have pretty balanced sets of pros & cons. However, it seems that the Wikia staff have made their choice and the new skin is here to stay, which warrants a few changes to our wiki as well.

Required changes on this wiki that I can think of off the top of my head include a new logo and a customized theme for the new skin, cleaning up the new skin's navbar and making sure wide pages fit the new, solid-sized content area. Currently too wide pages include at least Comparison of Doom source ports and List of WADs. The source ports comparison should be easy to modify accordingly (perhaps by splitting the features table after the Games supported column into another features table), but the WADs list seems like a trickier one. Any ideas, especially on the former?

I can take care of building the new navbar and optimizing the source ports comparison myself. I also designed a new custom theme for the new skin using the new theme designer tool. You can view a screenshot of the theme here, and remember to give feedback on it while you're at it. If it's received well and no other designs are proposed, we can use my theme as Doom Wiki's temporary new look. Once the new skin & theme designer go live for everyone, I was thinking about posting a news item at Doomworld, calling for help of web and graphic designers who can hopefully help us get a new well-designed theme and logo. -- Janizdreg 02:36, October 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't like the background color, it's too dark. Did you try with white? --Kyano 21:47, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

Wad template
In the same idea as the source port template I proposed earlier, and maybe as a prototype for it, I've ported the wad template from the ZDoom wiki to here. I've used a recently added page which has been flagged for cleanup, Stronghold: On the Edge of Chaos, to test it. Tell me what you think about it. The advantage is that deploying it would allow to sort all mod pages quickly into the different existing categories, plus allow to have categories by targeted source port and IWAD. --Gez 17:33, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * See also Epic and Epic 2. --Gez 11:43, November 29, 2010 (UTC)

Possibility of fork
Because the possibility of forking the Doom Wiki onto a new host has been raised at Doomworld, in the face of the recent changes to Wikia, I think we should open up discussion of the idea here, just to get a feel for the desires of the community. Please note this is not a vote or election. The number of respondents is not ultimately meaningful, but feedback with regard to the idea is still useful/helpful to those considering this action. No matter what happens, as you probably know, the Doom Wiki here on Wikia will remain open to editing. This cannot be changed, and perhaps even shouldn't be even if it were possible. However what we do have the opportunity to do is decide for ourselves, as a community, what path we want to take in the future with our precious heritage of information. --Quasar 06:37, October 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm in favour of a move / fork. My personal opinion is that Wikia has become increasingly intrusive, both in the adverts and the new styles that have been introduced. They're deeply offputting and I've found that I've become much less inclined to contribute to the site as these changes have been introduced.
 * I would much prefer that the wiki be hosted autonomously by a member of the community. Fraggle 15:42, October 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * I approve of this. Adding links to the Doom Wiki's main page and some of the popular pages alerting people of the move would also be really helpful. Abyssalstudios 20:04, October 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * Um, that isn't going to happen &mdash; see the Doomworld thread.   Ryan W 18:57, November 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * I fully support the idea of creating a fork or even moving. Fraggle already covered everything I wanted to say on the matter, so I see no need to repeat it. --Xtroose 19:27, October 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * For future reference, is a link to the related discussion at Doomworld. I also express my personal thoughts on the matter there, which in a nutshell is that after reading people's thoughts and suggestions, I now fully support the fork idea. -- Janizdreg 23:20, October 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * A year or two ago, I decided to propose this myself, as soon as I'd found a hosting/admin arrangement I could trust. According to the dwforums thread, Quasar and Manc have solved that problem, so when I get back to editing I'll go where that group goes.  Thanks to all who are helping to get it organized.  (And for the record, there is no way in hell this will create the same backlash as the GTA case.  There simply aren't enough Doom fans nowadays to make it worth anyone's while.  Transformers wiki and Marathon wiki broke away from Wikia fairly cleanly at a certain point IIRC.)    Ryan W 00:48, October 26, 2010 (UTC)

DOOM 64: Original vs. TC - Levels
I just started adding walkthroughs and secret lists for DOOM 64 -- but using the Doom 64 TC (Absolution) based on Doomsday for PC. Now that I realised my limits (investigating secrets just out of the gameplay), and found possible differences, I also realised that I edited the level descriptions for the original Doom 64 (Nintendo 64) game... Now I wonder: Is it suitable to continue, assuming that the TC was as exact a copy as possible, or shall I pause adding details and move my additions once someone capable added a similar map TOC template for the TC? Remember, the map numbering is different. And the difference (has MAP04 a secret level exit at all?) needs verification. --LigH 12:48, November 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * The TC is not "as exact as possible". It might be a better idea to make these articles for the TC's own maps (nothing says they can't have their own articles, separate from the articles of the originals) to avoid confusion. The Dooom 64 levels have their own bugs, too, which aren't necessarily required in the TC; for example Staging Area has a switch indentation sector flagged as secret (the one to lower the lift in the soulsphere room), meaning that you can't get 100% secrets at all in that level. --Gez 18:02, November 3, 2010 (UTC)