Doom Wiki:Central Processing

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Archived discussions

 * 2005
 * 2006

Naming conventions
Does someone mind if I rename articles such as E1M1: Hangar (Doom) and MAP01: Entryway (Doom II) to E1M1: Hangar and MAP01: Entryway? It seems redundant to say what games the maps are for, and it's also pretty unnecessary since there's no disambiguation (and even if there were, I think the original levels would clearly be given priority). Edit: I just realized we did this for all PWADs. I still find it redundant and would be happy to move everything and fix all the links, if people think it's a good idea. Sarge Baldy 21:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * See here for the conversation that led to this convention. The goal was to create a method of disambiguating maps (in the same slot) which would update itself automatically as new walkthrough articles were created.  Manual maintenance of disambig. pages would be too big a headache IMHO to justify having short URLs, which nobody ever types by hand anyway.    Ryan W 22:00, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Eh, OK. I don't find disambig pages much of a bother and I guess I just find it ugly listing something in the title that's unnecessary, but if people prefer it this way, it's fine by me. Sarge Baldy 21:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

More on system messages
I think that MediaWiki:Subcategorycount and MediaWiki:Categoryarticlecount should be changed to wikipedia's versions. In their current form, they may be misleading for categories which are neither very small nor very large (it is not immediately obvious that the category takes up more than one page, unless there are no subcategories). Ryan W 22:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Special:Uncategorizedscreenshots
This kind of search doesn't seem to work very well. I pseudorandomly clicked on 20 of the 654 images listed, and found that 12 were in fact categorized.

The problem may have been reported before, however; for those editors who were around then, what was done/decided about it, if anything? Ryan W 11:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This problem is cause by the Uncategorized Images list not recognizing categories added through templates. For example: Image:ArmorBonusP18.png is both on the uncategorized images list and includes a category. But the category is added through the template: Screenshot. The inability of the Special pages to find categories added through templates is a known problem with the Wikia processing. Tjoneslo 03:31, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This was apparently fixed at some point, at least here (it worked for this screenshot, and I assume Ducon is not categorizing his many, many uploads by hand). It's just that there's a backlog.    Ryan W 04:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Addendum: the backlog may be emptying even as we speak. Stay tuned!    Ryan W 04:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandal
User:82.198.250.2 vandalized the Entryway. Ducon 11:26, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Got it, thanks.   Ryan W 12:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection for Entryway?
This thread is not the first to make the suggestion, if memory serves, but I decided to look closer at all the edits since the present section structure was introduced. Omitting changes by admins (which aren't affected by protection) and page moves, we see:
 * 35 edits to vandalize the page (25 from anon users).
 * 19 (9) edits to revert vandalism.
 * 30 (24) spam edits.
 * 10 (4) edits to erase spam.
 * 3 (1) edits to add/remove links with straightforward importance (e.g. Glossary).
 * 18 (12) edits to add/remove links which may or may not be representative enough for Entryway (e.g. Orcs & Elves).
 * 8 (3) edits to fix markup, punctuation, etc.
 * 7 (1) edits to tweak table layout (all in February 2005).

Sum of first, second, third, fourth, and sixth items: 112 (74) edits.

Sum of fifth and seventh items: 11 (4) edits.

I hesitated to agree with oTHErONE at first, since protection seems like a rather cynical habit to take up. (Move protection IMHO is pretty innocuous at this point &mdash; the page hasn't been moved in over two years, nor has anyone seriously proposed a reason to do so.) Now I'm not so sure. Does anyone else have a strong opinion? Ryan W 02:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * (Spell my name as Otherone please, it's only spelled like that in my sig because it's a joke. In my sig, the words "THE" and "ONE" are highlighted, making me look like a self obsessed little twit. But when you get to my page and think about it, Otherone is a pretty bland name. I'm just another one of those wiki editors. Well, now that I got that out of the way...) Yeah, Entryway should probably be semi-protected, as per above. And if vandalism gets really annoying, I won't be biased against full protection either. oTHErONE (Contribs) 04:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * About the name: OK, noted. I guess I've already been doing the same to Jdowland who doesn't like it.  :D    Ryan W 15:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * IMO Entryway should be protected, mostly because it's the number one target for vandals and spammers on this wiki. And besides, if a non-admin user has an improvement idea for Entryway, it can always be suggested and discussed about here in Central Processing or on Entryway's talk page. Janizdreg 04:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Verify template
You can now use if a page contains information / spaculations that has to be confirmed by someone with more knowledge then the author of the article.

--Jobro 07:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I'm nominating this for deletion. See Template talk:Verify if you'd like to debate why this is useful. Fraggle 09:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Doom/Ultima finger-pointing
Hello,

There's these quotes in Ultima VIII's credits:


 * If Origin can do it, so can we. &mdash;id's reason for DOOM shipping late... (Found in DOOM FAQ)
 * If id can do it, so can we. &mdash; U8 Team's reason for Ultima 8 shipping late...

Now, the big question: I believe I've actually read this FAQ, and I don't really think it was an official Doom FAQ, but some kind of collection of Doom humour. A famous one in any case. Does anyone have a pointer? --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 18:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * First item is referred to here. I imagine that FAQs were somewhat less standardized before the game had actually been released!   :>     Ryan W 20:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I suppose I just saw the "Doom Insanity" section separate somewhere, I had no idea it had actually been included in a FAQ. Fascinating =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 17:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. This is also called "Doom Insanity", though I don't know where the original posting was.    Ryan W 09:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Reorganization of map categories
Obviously this is not a pressing issue, since a new WAD writeup is added about once every three months. On the other hand, that's why I'm bringing it up now, before it becomes too big a job for human editors. :>

As has been noted elsewhere, certain map categories (like Category:Levels) are becoming too large to navigate easily. Also, the overall organization within Category:Modifications strikes me as confusing, because the IWAD maps are segregated from the PWAD maps in some places but not in others, and various independent classifications are applied in parallel (e.g. partial/total conversions, WADs with custom monsters, single-level vs. episode). I suspect that this was intended to imitate the idgames archive, but it doesn't seem quite as transparent when maps are only one of several types of objects being sorted.

I propose/re-propose the following general remedies:


 * 1) Create Category:PWADs within Category:Modifications, and move all PWAD subcategories into it.
 * 2) Sort PWAD articles by name and author, by analogy with Category:WADs by year.  I can live with the megawad category, etc., if this is implemented, since we would at least break up the massive pile in Category:MAP01.  I think we should stop short of trying to replace List of WADs with categories, however; the information in the "required port" and "notes" columns would become diluted over scores of pages and therefore very hard to digest.
 * 3) Make sure Levels includes pointers to all levels, like Category:Levels does.

This does not unequivocally address the "segregation" issue, as a single-level PWAD would end up in a subcategory of Category:Modifications on the one hand, yet in a subcategory of Category:Levels on the other. Any alternative suggestions would be appreciated, though I think the existence of Category:Modifications and Levels (which would be silly to eliminate) sort of forces us to treat IWADs and PWADs inequivalently.

Opinions? Ryan W 00:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Policy on small differences between ports
Now, if the above question is too hypothetical, here's an easier one. :>

When a commercial port makes a small change from vanilla (e.g. the secret exit in E1M1 of the Xbox port, or the improved translucency in the Playstation port), not substantial enough for its own page, do we include it in the port article or in the main article? There are IMHO four possibilities:


 * Add a short section to each affected article (mostly the gameplay-related ones) detailing the differences. The monsters and ammo from Doom RPG have already snuck in here, although in fairness it's easy to imagine a very awkward table in the former case.
 * Create long, detailed articles about the individuated features of each port, and keep the vanilla articles "clean" (Ledmeister's approach).
 * Describe the changes in both places.
 * Specify no policy, so that editors who agree with option 1 (2) spend uncounted hours adding material to the main (port) articles, and editors who agree with option 2 (1) spend uncounted hours taking it out again. After several years of this, both groups of contributors are frustrated, and both sets of articles are unimproved at best, if not actually disorganized.

As you might guess, I suggest we avoid the last option. If nothing else, new editors continually show up wanting to add this kind of information at every opportunity, and it would be nice if we could at least cite the policy page after reverting. The same thing happened with Doom 3 before its weapon/monster articles were created.

The third option might be acceptable, since port-specific information tends to be static and therefore would not require maintenance for an open-ended period of time, although it is still a duplication of effort to write it all up and double-check it. The first option seems to have a certain amount of precedent (e.g. Status bar face, Command line arguments), notwithstanding my occasional whining in favor of the second option; the port articles would of course be deficient if they never mentioned the changes, but perhaps a representative summary, too incomplete to demand continual updating, would suffice.

Opinions? Ryan W 03:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: It has been pointed out that the above questions also affect source ports; see e.g. this edit. Ryan W 16:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Further addendum  Some more votes being cast against option 2:. The silence on this page can be pretty loud at times, folks. Ryan W 19:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Editing namespace, revisited
AFAICT these articles (plus a couple of related ones like Architecture and BEX) have not been added to or altered substantially in quite a while. Any objections if I reshuffle them so they're organized by categories, not "namespace"? Ryan W 04:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Addendum:  I really thought we had debated this already (ages ago, and without reaching a consensus), but all I could find was this &mdash; which of course was promptly snowed under by the next thread. Was it ever discussed on IRC or anything, folks? Ryan W 05:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I’ve no problem. —Shidou 17:29, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense user pages
Are users allowed to post nonsense on their own user pages, such as is the case on this user page, or should the page (and all such pages) be deleted? -- Janizdreg 23:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


 * If they only come here to post junk, delete and block. Fredrik 09:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Our policy page seems to agree with Fredrik. If someone is only making nonsensical edits, those can all be cleared out, but the user pages of legitimate contributors are interfered with only when they violate the Wikia terms of use.


 * Since I plowed through all 20+ policy pages on central before responding here, I can also note that:


 * Admins have more leeway for deleting patent nonsense here than they do on Wikipedia, because Assume good faith does not have broad community consensus at this time (see here for some discussion).


 *  [IANAL]  The terms of use prohibit content which is "tortious, threatening, harmful, hateful, unlawful, libelous, defamatory, harassing, abusive, fraudulent, vulgar, obscene, contains viruses, or is otherwise objectionable or potentially damaging".  Anyone who has looked up words such as "obscene", "vulgar", and "objectionable" in a dictionary knows that their meanings are extremely abstract and context-dependent.  Under U.S. law, however (which is the important case as Wikia's servers are located there), this is usually interpreted to include off-color language and images with primarily sexual or violent content.  Having said that, I think User:Romero Dick would have been a borderline case if he/she/it was contributing real content in the main space, and I still believe this to be a borderline case as well (see also this thread).


 * Ryan W 02:12, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hum. I have some nonsense and junk on my user page, but I contribute: I take photographs of my Doom tourist trips. Ducon 18:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * In a more general sense, I think it's probably best to delete the user pages of permanently banned users unless there is some overriding reason for keeping them. Fraggle 08:06, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Compet-N incoming/ demos
There is a huge assortment of demos available in Compet-N's incoming/ directory, many of which break current records and fill in vacant slots on the record tables (especially in the case of the PWADs,) and there have been uploads to the directory made this year, plus there is a stickied thread at Doomworld about them. However, the site has not been updated in three years and counting, and it does not look like it ever will be. Would it be proper to include the aforementioned record-breaking or space-filling demos in walkthrough articles at least under a section marked "Compet-N incoming/ demos," with a description making the status of these demos clear? Kind of like this:

The following demos break the above records or fill in vacant spots in the record table, but are only available in Compet-N's incoming/ directory, and have yet to be processed for inclusion on the site. View these at your own discretion.

Any thoughts? TheGreenHerring 03:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * US$0.02: Maybe make a template saying something like "The COMPET-N /incoming folder contains improved demos of this level, but these are still subject to verification..." and add it as a footnote to "Current records" in every applicable article.  It is probably also valid to employ such demos in writing the "routes and tricks" section &mdash; at the very least, one can give established contributors the benefit of the doubt.


 * We might also mention in the COMPET-N article that submissions are piling up, although... is there broad community disgruntlement about that? From the single thread you linked to, it isn't obvious that people are calling for immediate action.  Or has someone heard from the maintainers that the site is definitely on hiatus?  (Anyone with read access to the COMPET-N forums, feel free to chime in here.  :>    Ryan W 02:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Addendum: I dug through the Doomworld stuff and found these two threads also: .  It seems that people have been more concerned than I thought (though the discussion is still fairly calm if you ask me).    Ryan W 13:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Technically demos in /incoming haven't been checked by the admin, but since on the other hand they've been checked by runners and other people who watch them closely, and some inadequate demos have been removed, there is some unofficial "authenticating". I'd leave the tables with the official demos, but add notes (there's a column for this in the charts) to any with improved demos in incoming. The description of note would link to the newer demo on the FTP. Who is like God? 13:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Walkthrough articles for own levels?
I don't know if this was asked and answered before, but the recent discussion about Thomas Lutrov's self-requested deletion of his article reminded me to ask it here: What's the policy for level designers writing walkthrough articles for their own levels? If I create walkthrough articles for Community Chest 3 after it's released, I will inevitably have to create some for both of my levels (MAP15 and MAP27.) Paul Corfiatis created some for some of the levels in his megawad The Twilight Zone without incident, but I want to make sure it's okay before I do something like that (in the future.) TheGreenHerring 01:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Well. Who'd be better qualified to write a walkthrough than the designer? Fredrik 14:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * As I thought. ;) I just wanted to check. Thanks! TheGreenHerring 19:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * See here for some earlier discussion. IMHO it is a very mild concern in this case, especially for User:TheGreenHerring who has already shown us that he has his head screwed on straight.  Just be prepared, I suppose, for other editors to optimize your route or disagree about which are the hard/easy rooms (when your levels become famous  ;>     Ryan W 19:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Courtesy deletions of person articles?
[Moved from Talk:Thomas "Lutrov71" Lutrov]

I will assume for the moment that User:Janizdreg has a good reason for removing Thomas "Lutrov71" Lutrov even though Lutrov71 clearly meets our notability criteria (by having contributed to several highly visible megawads). However, when an article is deleted without a vote, I would gently suggest that the rationale be spelled out somewhere on the wiki itself, so other people don't recreate it annually. Moreover, if members of the community now have editorial control over their own writeups, the policy page should be updated accordingly. Ryan W 23:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Lutrov himself edited the article to simply read "delete this page." Janizdreg asked him on his user talk page why he wanted the article deleted.  Six days passed without response, so it was deleted.  I, myself, have no idea why he wanted the article deleted... TheGreenHerring 23:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Disregard the above; I misread the post. TheGreenHerring 23:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I admit I was too hasty in deleting the article, but I assumed Lutrov71 had a good reason for requesting deletion of the article. I'm not saying that people should have editorial control over their profile articles in general (as it could lead to biased articles), but I am saying that if someone specifically requests deletion of an article about him/her for personal reasons or whatnot, we, IMHO, should make the rare exception to not follow our policy and honour the wish of the person in question and delete it. Or better yet, maybe we could write this exception down to our policy page. What do you think?


 * Also, as I said, I admit I was wrong on deleting the article on my own whim, and if there will be similar cases in the future, I will wait for input from other Doom Wiki users before acting. Janizdreg 00:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I can certainly see reasons for someone not wanting an article (and we don't have Wikipedia's legal protections for documenting "public figures"), so what you did wasn't wrong in that sense, but I like the idea of mentioning it on the policy page, as it may well happen again. Provided that our other editors agree, of course.


 * Maybe we could even salt such articles with a template saying, "This person meets our notability criteria but doesn't want an article." That way, we at least state that we recognize their contributions to the community, even if we don't describe them.  On the other hand, maybe what they want is not to be associated with the community (although if someone googled their name, they would still get our articles about maps and IRC channels and whatever).


 * Opinions? Suggestions?    Ryan W 20:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that if a person has a problem with an article that mentions them, in that they think it offends them, misrepresents them, or exposes them, they should state why on the talk page. If they don't, a deletion request from them without any justification is no better than anyone else's unjustified request. After a person makes his or her case about the article on them, editors can consider whether it is a good reason to delete or edit the article. In other words, I see no problem in more or less following the normal deletion policy. The persons being defined in the article can also add a deletion tag themselves. If they don't post a reason, admins or other editors would then request one, possibly removing the tag if nothing is said in a timely period.


 * As for "not having legal protection", how are our contributions here much different from ones to the Wikipedia? From what I've read, in the US the Wikipedia is apparently free from libel liabilities because it's a service provider as opposed to a publisher (see here). I guess individual editors could be attacked legally or something, but that's eventually each editor's responsibility for what they contribute personally. Who is like God? 11:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Responding mostly to your second paragraph:
 * If Wikia is a common carrier, that makes the situation more precarious, not less. Wikia as a whole could (perhaps) absorb the occasional nuisance lawsuit, but 99.9 percent of our individual contributors could not.  If one person were forced into a RL financial crisis because of their wiki editing, who would want to hang around here ever again?
 * I'm not sure that analogies to Wikipedia are applicable here. Wikipedia generally bends over backwards to avoid RL legal problems by making its policies more and more conservative; on Wikia, AFAICT, even the largest sites hardly do a thing.  Further, while the cited article sounds like a reasonable analysis, the ISP industry itself has only existed for about 10 years, which really isn't a long time as regards the development of case law.
 * Regardless of the above two points, I dispute any requirement that John Q. Editor know anything about legal issues beyond what it says on our policy page. We can expect them to become familiar with plagiarism, careful copyediting, and (sometimes) encyclopedic style, but not libel.  I am not willing to say "I don't happen to edit bio articles, so the rest of the users can hang by their own scrota."  If we can protect casual users from shooting themselves in the foot, by simplifying the policies to completely avoid the subtleties you describe, I believe we should do so.
 * Ryan W 20:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The policy proposed above doesn't simplify things; it eliminates a procedure that allows articles to be judged in a reasonable and transparent manner. As I see it, in this freely-contributing context such preemptive censorship would hinder and discourage our activity more than any fear of a 1 in 10,000,000 libel suit. Who is like God? 21:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, let's say you're right, and that an actual lawsuit is too unlikely to worry about.


 * if a person has a problem with an article that mentions them, in that they think it offends them, misrepresents them, or exposes them, they should state why on the talk page &mdash; how is that compatible with what Nuxius says below in the Codeimp thread?  Currently there is no policy-based reason the person could give for their disapproval, provided that the existing information in the article comes from a forum post or an IRC log.  A certain small amount of "preemptive censorship" may be necessary to avoid the site's degenerating into a communal graffito.


 * Also, by your standard, the Lutrov article should be restored, right?   Ryan W 22:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


 * What Nuxius says is part of the discussion about the article, which I'm saying is critical in deciding whether the article stays, gets edited, and whatnot. The only thing similar to "preemptive censorship" we can really trust is that this is an open-content encyclopedia and not a discussion forum.


 * I can't judge the article, or whether I would bother to restore it, as I have neither the article nor an enlightening discussion on the worthiness of the contents. Who is like God? 00:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Most recent CodeImp article before it was removed. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts in the discussion under "Uh-oh (NPOV biographies)" on this page. Nuxius 01:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Nuxius, I think he's referring to the Lutrov71 article. My question was, should we allow it to be deleted for reasons known only to Lutrov71?  For the benefit of non-admins, I've temporarily dug out the most recent non-blank version: .    Ryan W 09:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Total conversions
Should we also include map descriptions for total conversions, such as Zombies TC or Batman Doom? I don't see too much reasons why not... Illdo 15:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * IMO we should. In fact, I don't see any reasons why we shouldn't. Janizdreg 17:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, yes, yes!   Ryan W 03:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Doomengine.com
I'm buying the domain http://www.doomengine.com, and I get web hosting for free with unlimited MySQL databases. Should the wiki make a transfer to this new site? 05:19, 05 September 2007 (UTC)


 * You'd lose a lot of Wikia features if you did that and you would probably run into bandwidth limitations since this wiki has a lot of visitors. Many large gaming wikis are moving to Wikia right now because the cost and hassle of maintaining themselves got too great (wowwiki.com for example), so although I'm obviously biased, I would say it's not a good idea! See Why use Wikia? for some of the reasons to stay. Permanent stable free hosting, constant development of the wiki software, being part of a larger wiki community, free cross-promotion from 3000 other wikis, better search engine rankings because wikia.com is a well-linked domain,... etc. :) I hope you stay, though you're welcome to redirect that domain to this wiki. Angela (talk) 14:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a very good idea. I'll set that up if/when we buy the domain. --Evan


 * Would it be possible to link a (sub-)domain to wikia's service? (I don't mean a redirect.) Blzut3 22:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think that "doomengine.com" would be a good domain name for the Doom wiki: "doomengine" implies some kind of technical knowledgebase about the Doom engine itself; the Doom wiki is more than that. If we were to get a proper domain, I'd much rather register "doomwiki.com" or something similar.  I also agree with Angela about the bandwidth requirements of hosting the wiki; I'd certainly prefer to stick with wikia than move to an independent wiki.
 * Finally, I have to make the simple observation that we have no idea who you are! All I see is an anonymous IP address with no past edits, and you have made no obvious attempt to identify yourself.  Not wanting to seem unfriendly, but why should we trust you to host this website? Fraggle 15:25, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it was originally going to be for other stuff too, this was just another idea to tack on. We were going to host mirrors of Doom patches, hacx files, Chex Quest, among other things (ports). Sorry- I had a lot more typed up, including identification, then I closed the window by mistake and had to re-type it, leaving out a lot of information. I'm Evan of Doomworld. I've been playing Doom online since 2002 on Player Connector. I'm currently hosting http://www.sineful.com, my personal site, http://www.kyle-evans.net, and a product site, http://www.gsemaster.com. Bandwith isn't much a problem- my server /pretty much/ has unlimited bandwith. The machine is sitting in the office of the manager of Rock River Internet, stationed in Illinois, with a T3 connection via fiber straight out of the office. --Evan


 * In other words, you want to host everything that Doomworld already hosts?


 * Doomworld is news-oriented. Plus, Doomworld doesn't host much on-site- it's all hosted on third-party servers, which can be an annoyance to get that. --Evan 68.12.92.35 01:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * US$0.02: Angela's first concern needs to be addressed because in the medium term it is far more important than bandwidth (given the Doom Wiki's level of activity), or even than the site title. We would lose the 24-hour technical staff, the team of 50 people who assist with upgrades, the shared infrastructure capital and budget, and the trademark.  The first time we went down and stayed down for two weeks (no offense, but this will happen sooner or later if its maintainers view it as a side project and allocate money accordingly), we would lose half our editors.    Ryan W 00:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Like Evan said, the idea is to host more then just the wiki, which makes "doomwiki.com" too specific. "doomengine.com" also implies not just Doom but all games using the Doom engine (Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Hacx, Chex Quest, etc), which is why I believe the domain is a good choice.  I do understand your point of a technical knowledge base meaning to the domain, but doesn't this wiki already contain quite a bit of knowledge related to the actual Doom engine? Blzut3 22:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * which makes "doomwiki.com" too specific  That's like saying that the name "Lord of the Rings Wiki" is too specific because it also describes Tolkien's other books.  Would you change it to "Codex Ainulindalë"?


 * but doesn't this wiki already contain quite a bit of knowledge related to the actual Doom engine?  It does, but despite our founding editors' infectious enthusiasm for technical topics, it also plans to encompass many other things.  IMHO, while many of our walkthroughs are far above average, once any player goes beyond simple solo missions in the privacy of his own home, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate gameplay issues from technical ones.  (I know that keeps happening in the course of our writing articles.)    Ryan W 00:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Based on the information in this discussion, I consider Wikia a better host for this wiki. I don't really see what we would benefit from the move to doomengine.com compared to staying here at Wikia. Janizdreg 18:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment
Recently, User:Ilovefoxes has made some edits which are (at best) confusing to me. Some seem to be teetering on the edge of "bad original research". This paragraph may be factually correct, but affects so short a span of game time that I can't believe anyone encounters it in real play (I know that I never have).

I realize that, when a new user starts adding material about non-Doom games to established articles, there is precedent for simply shouting and deleting things with no explanation. This however looks less clear-cut than Eidolon et al. (for example), especially since the user is apparently not an asshole but really doesn't understand the site even after reading the policies. Also, the user is clearly not a native English speaker, so I may just be having a mental block and not understanding what he/she is trying to do. Therefore, I ask that other admins please weigh in. Ryan W 06:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Not an admin, of course, but I'd be in favor of reverting the "Wolfeinsteinized" pages to what they were before. In the meantime, I've at least fixed the mangled grammar.--82.224.148.118 09:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * IMO it's quite clear that comparison to other games does not generally belong in the directly Doom related articles. I went and removed the Wolfenstein bits from the monster articles and instead added a corresponding section to the Wolfenstein 3D article. Furthermore, I nominated this, this, this and this image for deletion, since they aren't used anywhere anymore. IMO we could vote for the deletion of them all here at once, since they all are essentially images used for one (defunct) purpose. And I vote delete. -- Janizdreg 10:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Delete. Fraggle 22:37, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've deleted the images, since nobody seems to have any objections. Fraggle 19:04, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The wolfenstein comparisons seem like baseless speculation. I advocate reverting them. Fraggle 22:37, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Bizarre
Entryway now redirects to a nonexistent page titled "Ty." What happened? TheGreenHerring 21:59, 17 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems to work properly now. IIRC the Wikia people have been upgrading their hardware recently, which always causes a few database glitches.  (No, you aren't expected to read the listserv and know these things.   :>     Ryan W 20:22, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Rebldoomer
Who is he? He's uploaded three levels here, but he sounds like he's trying to impersonate Eric Harris. This is pretty worrying... TheGreenHerring 03:33, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I removed his levels since they were inappropriate here. But in his levels' text files he did write the lines "Authors may NOT use this to build additional levels on. Or I will blow you up. And it will be cool." and "KILL 'EM AAAAALLLL!!!!!" (likely referring to the monsters in his map). I guess one could get worried due to comments like these, but unfortunately there's no way to tell how serious he was upon writing them. Also, I don't see what we could do here, apart from possibly informing authorities if he starts making more detailed and direct threats. It's sad, but this type of stuff is very common on the internet. -- Janizdreg 06:00, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Google Analytics
I've gotten the Wikia staff to add a Google Analytics tracker to the site. It generates pretty awesome stats.

Yesterday, we had 263 visits, 2032 pageviews; the average visitor viewed 8 pages and spent 7 minutes on the site. 145 visitors came via Google, 41 by directly accessing the site, 21 came via Wikipedia, 15 via Doomworld, and there were about 15 other sites that sent one or two visitors. The three most popular searches were "doom wiki" (19 visits), "doom monsters" (5) and "doom 'community chest'" (4).

The five most viewed pages were Category:Doom 3 characters (21 views), Entryway, Weapons, Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, Monsters (17 views). In total, 913 unique pages were viewed and around 90 articles were viewed over 5 times. Most visitors came from the US (118), UK (37), New Zealand (18), Canada, Sweden (none of them was me!), Brazil, Finland, Germany, France, Poland (5).

I'll post more stats later, perhaps in a week. Fredrik 09:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Memorial pages
I see that there are six articles in Category:Memorial and with the exception of the Columbine massacre (which I'm not sure even qualifies for this category but I'll let it go), these articles are indeed in a "memorial" format that deviates from Wiki standards.

I have no problem with that. I completely respect how these articles have been put together, and the Talk pages allow people to "visit the grave" so to speak by posting the occasional greeting to the dearly beloved. There is quite possibly a greater sentiment within each of those articles than there is in the rest of Doom wiki combined.

Anyway, I figured there must be a set of rules specifically for pages in this category but I can't find anything. I'm guessing at the moment it's all "common sense" stuff, such as "don't harass people in Talk" and "don't vandalize the article." But I'm not sure what a "Doomgod" is and I was afraid to tamper with that article.

So if anybody knows what the consensus is on editing memorials I do appreciate the scoop. :) Zack 16:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Most rules/guidelines on this site (aside from a few at the very beginning which were mostly format-related) start as "common sense" and are not written down until they cause an argument or become too detailed to remember. Happily, we do not have a huge and expanding number of people to write about in Category:Memorial, but that means that consensus is slow to evolve.


 * The term "Doomgod" is not really used much nowadays, but 10 years ago it meant pretty much what it sounds like: someone who seemed to have no obvious competition in deathmatch, and/or could challenge any COMPET-N record almost at will (a generalization of the DHT designation).


 * Having said that, I really wish we had someone to verify that this edit represented community consensus at the time (User:AdamW, are you here?). If it were solely my decision, I would take it out, because we have already reverted similar edits by the same IP, who also has a history of vandalism.  In my experience, good Doom players try very hard to be realistic about their abilities and can usually name other players they think are better.  (Well, except for Daniel Lindgren, but I think he can be excused.  :>


 * which I'm not sure even qualifies for this category  This does get brought up a lot, doesn't it?  The talk page insists that "Memorial" refers only to the victims, but unlike the Wikipedia article we don't even list their names.  Maybe you're right.


 * Ryan W 02:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"Disambiguation" of game lists
See here for the start of the thread, but basically the questions are these: My answers would be "yes" and "yes" (some months ago when I originally divided the lists, no one protested, not even drive-by editors).
 * 1) When a Doom-related game/port meets our criteria for inclusion, it should be listed in EXACTLY ONE of the following places: Games, Source ports, Fan-made Doom games, Category:Expanded universe.  Is that still the consensus?
 * 2) Should we rename Games &rarr; Commercial games to make that clearer?

The insertion of source ports and fan games into the wrong list is a recurring problem, so if there is no debate here after a week, I'm going to move the page. Ryan W 19:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with this, and as a related matter, the insertion of fan-made source ports into the list of systems Doom was officially ported to is also a common problem in the Doom article on Wikipedia, but activity on that in general has slowed down since the disambiguation page at Doom was put up. Bloodshedder 22:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Special:Uncategorizedimages
Happy third birthday, Doom Wiki!

To honor this anniversary, today I will begin a boring task, in recognition of all the boring tasks that had to be done to get the site started (by Fredrik, radius, Insertwackynamehere, and others).

Background reading:. Basically, due to a bug in MediaWiki, categorized images were sometimes listed as uncategorized. The bug was fixed, but not in such a way that the backlog of mistakes was cleared. There has recently been another MediaWiki upgrade, so I will try one more time to clear the backlog automagically. If this fails, however, I will simply assume that the staff has more pressing tasks to hand (this was 3 upgrades ago after all), and double-check all 600+ tags manually. Ryan W 17:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The cron job has finally run again, and Special:Uncategorizedimages looks empty. My apologies to those generous PWAD authors whose map images I have put into a category marked "Items without confirmed copyright status will sooner or later be nominated for deletion". Hopefully this is temporary, or at least no more permanent than the "cleanup" article tag. Ryan W 15:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Hexen Wiki announced
A wiki about Hexen was founded last week by User:Lordareon. (At the moment its edit history consists of 1 welcome-box template and 2 image uploads, plus the usual edits by bots.) How do people feel about this?

I could see why some Wikians might not want to be associated with the demographic Doom attracts by staying compatible with modern hardware. ;>   In any case most wikis are not in our enviable position of being able to draw on an existing community right from the start. On the other hand, should the Hexen Wiki grow large and active, we would have to rethink any duplicate content (similar to the way Encyclopedia Gamia omits full walkthroughs for Zelda, Metroid, etc). On the third hand, the "infant mortality" of wikis is so high that maybe it doesn't make any difference what we think. Ryan W 20:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Uh-oh (NPOV biographies)
I don't know if anyone noticed me on #zdoom the other day talking about the CodeImp article, but the situation is getting a bit weird. I would really appreciate it if other people could provide opinions, especially people who know CodeImp. (Maybe he thinks we're going to become just another site with unsourced statements about him &mdash; we do still have quite a bit of crap in the bio articles, in general.)   Ryan W 19:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I have temporarily hidden the bio in question until this policy is clarified. Here is the thread from User talk:CodeImp: Let's discuss this, please.   Ryan W 17:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Ryan W, you asked for my opinion on it. I've been avoiding replying simply because I don't want to get drawn into what is probably an inevitable flamewar over the subject. The other thing is that I don't really know enough about the ZDaemon/multiplayer community to know one way or another how significant an event this is.

If I had to pick a side, I'd probably say that this is a significant event worth mentioning, and it should be included in the article. As far as I know, CodeImp has not denied that the accusations against him are true, and we aren't bound by any deals he made with the ZDaemon staff. The ZDaemon article has a pretty lengthy controversy section, but perhaps his side of events for this particular drama is missing.

I think it's important to realise that articles about people don't exist only to portray their subjects in a favorable light. If we're going to decide on a policy, perhaps an "opt out-all or nothing" policy might be a sensible option - ie. people can choose to have their biography removed if they choose, but if it stays, they don't get to choose what is displayed on it. Fraggle 01:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * As an aside, I'd like to ask CodeImp specifically: please clarify what you mean by "Remove your unjustified accusations or remove my whole profile, before I feel the need to retaliate" because it really sounds like you're making some kind of threat against the site. If it is, we should be seriously considering how we should be reacting to this. Fraggle 01:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Let me add real quick that the article is not making any unjustified accusations. The statement "CodeImp has been accused," is entirely true because someone (not a Wiki) has accused him. This statement can be backed up as well by linking to the forum post in which the claim was made.


 * How the Doom Wiki admins handle blatant threats from someone who's been accused of cyber terrorism, well, that's none of my business. Zack 15:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Cyber terrorism?? Please calm down.  This is supposedly about our policy, not about CodeImp, and even so, all he's really said is that he's tempted to add (sourced!) dirty laundry to the ZDaemon article in turn, which may be only fair.    Ryan W 17:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * After this issue is resolved and the appropriate changes are made to the article, will it be possible to lock the article from being edited except by admins? This would prevent possible future biased edits to the article. Zack 15:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It is possible, although the people at the central wikia will try to talk us out of it. They say, "If 99 percent of the edits are vandalism, that's one thing, but is it really worth shutting out hundreds of thousands of new people to deal with four or five troublemakers?"  Although I don't know that our own target audience deserves quite that much idealism  :>  and although this particular article may already be about as long as it's going to get, I do kind of see their point.    Ryan W 18:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ideally I would like to see these type of unfortunate, but obviously notable community incidents documented in this wiki. Unfortunately documenting them accurately in NPOV might prove to be impossible in practice since the subjects are often huge flamebaits and tend to draw people to do biased edits (and often it's even hard to tell which edits are biased and which are not). Because of this I would argue that we should refrain from documenting this and other similar incidents. Plus, even though such drama might in a way be notable community history, I still wouldn't consider documenting it nearly as important as documenting, for example, famous PWADs. In other words, I consider this wiki complete enough even without articles about such things.


 * What we should do about the CodeImp article, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe first remove the controversy part and then lock the article as Zaximus mentioned? -- Janizdreg 01:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I personally think that as it stands, this part of the article on CodeImp should not be on the wiki. Before Zack edited it, it did not fit the NPOV requirements. (I think this part has already been thoroughly discussed, so I'll leave it at that.)

Zack changed this to state that it was ZDaemon that made the accusation, thus altering what the article was about (an article about ZDaemon accusing him of doing it versus an article about him actually doing it). While this made the article fit the NPOV requirement, it brings up a question of notability. An accusation alone does not provide the grounds for notability. In order to be notable, the accuser needs to have at least some form of proof to back them up (which the aforementioned post on the ZDaemon forums lacks). I mean, accusations (without evidence) happen in the community all the time, should we include them as well? Considering the crap that goes around in the various Doom forums sometimes, I'd hate to see the state of the wiki if people knew they could do that and get away with it.

As it stands, in order for this article to remain, at least one of two things would have to happen. One way is CodeImp would basically have to come out and say "Yeah, I did it, and here's why..." However, I don't expect him to actually do that, nor would I ever ask him to, as he himself said they both agreed to drop the issue. Asking him to go against his word would call up ethical and moral boundaries I refuse to cross, even if it provides more knowledge of the subject matter that enables us to draft a more complete article. Other than that, ZDaemon would have to provide a third party with (or post to the wiki itself) the evidence they say they have, and I don't really expect them to do that either.

Anyway, to bring my ramblings to a close, without CodeImp's POV or ZDaemon showcasing concrete proof that he did it, I just can't see this part of the article ever meeting the NPOV and/or notability criteria. - Nuxius 07:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * IMHO this is a very sensible analysis. It also avoids another side effect of courtesy deletions: ZDaemon isn't a person, so we might delete the CodeImp article and add accusations to the ZDaemon article, which makes the wiki as a whole unbalanced the other way.  I endorse your slippery slope argument (and Janizdreg's as well, although so far no one has seriously proposed abandoning NPOV).


 * Note that this would actually be a pervasive change to our current practice about sources. The written history of a gaming community is expressed almost entirely in media with no fact checking: forums, Usenet, e-mail, IRC, BBSes.  This logic therefore strikes out a massive amount of our existing content which seems to have consensus but can never be proven (Anders Johnsen is one of the top 5 players of all time, the ZDaemon source closing was controversial, Plutonia 32 is unusually hard, Controls, Free Hissy, ... )  Even this is really somebody's personal web site &mdash; authoritative, yes, but in need of corroboration.


 * Having said all that, I think your idea is better than any of my three ideas. Readers who like speculation can, well, google the word "Doom".


 * I implore you, please, never to apologize for rambling. If more people here rambled more often, we wouldn't have to re-ask their opinions fifty times before we could more forward with a consensus.    Ryan W 01:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Did someone say "abandon NPOV?" Heathen! Seriously, doing that could turn this wiki into a YouTube thread. We don't want that! :P


 * After reading Nuxius' words on this it occurs to me that we probably are making a big deal out of something trivial. All we know is that CodeImp was accused of something. Is an ACCUSATION really a noteworthy thing to have in a person's article? The purpose of most wikis is to share knowledge, not political garbage.


 * The media has accused Eric Harris, doer of bad things, of having been influenced by Doom. Such an accusation is significant only because a significant portion of the community has felt an impact by the actions, both by the shooting itself and the accusations made. (Which of those two actions has affected us more than the other probably varies from person to person, but that's off topic anyway.) Point is, an accusation CAN be significant enough to document if the accusation itself has had a noticeable effect on Doom or the Doom community.


 * Well, DID the accusations of ZDaemon against CodeImp have a significant impact? Seems to me like it was just a bit of drama on one forum thread, maybe on IRC too, that upset a dozen lusers, woke the trolls and lasted no more than a week. If there was any notieable damage it was on CodeImp as an individual, and all we're doing as a community is reopening his old wounds. Hell, this here thread may very well have gotten more attention than the original drama years ago that started this whole thing.


 * So I'm changing my mind. I think the bad words can go away. Perhaps it can be mentioned briefly (if not already) in a controversy section on ZDaemon. Doens't even have to mention CodeImp. Just "it upset some guys on a forum." :P I'unno.


 * Hillary 2008 Zack 20:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Zack summed my thoughts up pretty well in his second paragraph. What I was saying really only applied to accusations, Ryan W, not everything on the wiki. I personally think that accusations need to be handled differently that your typical information in a wiki article, as they call a person's credibility into line, and without sufficient proof it could be considered slander, and that is no light matter. Nuxius 01:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Level set boxes
For the level articles a box is used listing all the levels of the set the level in question belongs to. For Doom II wads it lists this as either 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, and 31-33 (secret), correspondingly. Since in Doom II the first sky goes all the way to level 11, I think it'd be more consistent to show 1-11 for the first part, and 12-20 for the second. Who is like God? 13:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * US$0.02: This convention is certainly not set in stone (and COMPET-N agrees with your divisions as well).  If you feel like grinding through every navbox and every MAP11 article and changing all the links, you're welcome to do so.    Ryan W 11:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Categories pages
At least as far as the more practical ones are concerned (levels come to mind), these are unhelpful in giving the information any sort of hierarchy due to relevance, bunching PWAD levels, offshoot game levels, and the main Doom levels alphabetically. One solution could be to use a disambiguation page (which could add some more basic info too), giving the category (MAP01 in various WADs, or something) as one of the options to go to. The original PC Doom level would appear as the first option of the disambiguation. Keep in mind that when saying "E1M1" 95% of the time people are talking about E1M1:Hangar (this applies to ExMx and MAPxx levels in general). I think the category system is cool but as it stands doesn't work well as a result for the "Go" button. Who is like God? 14:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The "Go" button could be improved by changing the redirects at "ExMx" and "MAPxx" to point to the id levels (which used to be the case; see Talk:E1M1). You may be correct that there is a clearer way to structure the categories overall, but three or four rounds of discussion haven't produced it yet.  Could you give a couple of specific examples?  It's not supposed to be easy to accidentally navigate to a slot category from a stock map, what with the navbox sitting right there, and Commercial games/Levels linked from the main page.    Ryan W 17:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I agree with making ExMx and MAPxx go to the original levels. At the top each could have a note providing a link for when you're looking for levels in that slot in general, or for a level in that slot in a PWAD or other game/version. I don't really have any ideas on making categories per se clearer, as all I'd thought was using a disambig in the middle in a case like levels (but just redirecting to the original seems better in retrospect). Who is like God? 19:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you saying that each slot category should have a subcategory for stock levels only? That seems a tad overblown, given that most slots will only have two (for ExMx) or five (for MAPxx).


 * If I'm once again misunderstanding you completely, maybe you should make a test case out of the MAP01: Entryway article. If people like your method better than the current one, then I volunteer to copy your changes to the other 67 slots.   :>     Ryan W 20:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * At the top each could have a note providing a link for when you're looking for levels in that slot in general, or for a level in that slot in a PWAD or other game/version.


 * Actually, it's already pretty much set up like this at the top of every map page, see MAP01:_Entryway for example. Unless you're talking about something beyond that?


 * I do agree that the id levels should be easier to find when a user uses the search box, though. Although your method of forwarding E1M1 to E1M1: Hangar (Doom) instead of Category:E1M1 would work great for Doom, things get complicated a bit for MAP01, as there are 3 'official' MAP01s. Perhaps in that case, we could add a note at the top of each category listing giving easy access links to the various maps that occupy that slot in Doom II/Plutonia/TNT, so the user doesn't have sift through all the other PWADS to find that information. - Nuxius 23:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Quite true, I had forgotten the levels already had a template at the top leading to the slot category. I do think the Doom and Doom II levels are more "notable" than the Final Doom ones. While Final Doom has become more popular now by being bundled with the main games it's not id's own work, and references still and almost always mean Entryway when talking about "Map01" in a looser context (e.g., if a demo without a text file is pointed out as a a "Map01" match, that's Doom II's level, or if someone says "like in Map01" while explaining an editing technique without added context, they mean Hell on Earth's as well). That's why I had thought of a disambiguation between the core id level and the category when the user types a level slot (it doesn't decide whether the category or the core id level is emphasized, but lets the user choose). Leading directly to the id level page as I proposed above initially loads more stuff, which might be redundant for anyone looking for such levels in general. Another more economic option is to directly put a link to the core id level at the top of any corresponding category page: This is a general grouping of all the levels occupying the MAP01 level slot, if you are looking for the level from Doom II by id Software, see MAP01: Entryway (Doom II). Who is like God? 22:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I like your last idea because it can be coded in about 10 minutes, reduces the total loading time for people with PDAs and other underpowered machines, and acknowledges the large group of readers who could care less about editing or LMPs and just wants walkthroughs for the Xbox/Collector's Edition maps, which do include Final Doom.   Ryan W 23:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Reference/glossary section
What do you guys think about adding a "dictionary" type section to the wiki? It would be there to define technical terminology, community terms, expressions, and to add useful definitions that don't merit or need articles. Even lump types, file names, and such minutiae could individually be defined. All of which could be linked to articles for clarity. The Wikia team said they could create a namespace for such entries. Who is like God? 01:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * My take: Every term in that "dictionary" should at least be a redirect, if not a whole article.  Therefore, as it says on the main page, this is already a dictionary.  Obviously there are benefits to compiling a self-contained document, but IMHO those benefits would be outweighed by the labor required to maintain hundreds and hundreds of descriptions in two places each.    Ryan W 22:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * A glossary/dictionary and an alphabetical listing of encyclopedia articles are different things. Dictionaries define terms in essential ways, provide origins and uses for words, and possibly usage examples. The encyclopedia gives broad overviews of relatively heterogeneous subjects. Each will vary in its scope of entries and similar entries will generally not be equivalent, as many words or phrases are pointless as encyclopedic subjects and various subjects can't be reduced to a basic set of definitions. What could make a great article may roughly share the scope with eight relatively unrelated definitions in a dictionary, and what could make a dictionary definition may translate to a measly encyclopedia stub or four different articles touching upon subjects related to the basic term. Who is like God? 07:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)