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)

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)