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)

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)

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)

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)