Difference between revisions of "BattleTechWiki:Masthead"

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I don't know what is going on, but I don't like it. [[User:DragonoftheRust|DragonoftheRust]] ([[User talk:DragonoftheRust|talk]]) 04:28, 22 November 2017 (EST)
 
I don't know what is going on, but I don't like it. [[User:DragonoftheRust|DragonoftheRust]] ([[User talk:DragonoftheRust|talk]]) 04:28, 22 November 2017 (EST)

Revision as of 04:27, 24 November 2017

Post in the section Admin Help Requests to get proper attention to the issue/problem. Please be specific and sign your request (by adding ~~~~ at the end).

Contents

Current Sarna.net Wiki Administrators

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Auto-updated list found here.

About Spam reports

Please report Spammers here only if they have not been dealt with after a day, i.e. no sooner than after 24 hours.

Admin Help Requests (Outstanding)

Make your request here (and sign with 4 tildes (~~~~))

Victoria Rangers and Victoria Commonality Rangers are articles on same subject

Hello. The Victoria Rangers and Victoria Commonality Rangers refer to the same brigade. I request that they be merged and/or deleted. Also... the 1st and 2nd St. Ives Sentinels already exist.Henryjones000 (talk) 11:08, 12 April 2017 (EDT)

Problems

Hi Nic, do you make changes in the background, the Home page looks odd, here is a image, when i go the Recent Changes page File:Problems.jpg that show what i mean. Oh and to open a plant page or other page i need 10-15 seconds, can you look in this two things.--Doneve (talk) 02:14, 2 December 2015 (PST)

Strange. I'm also from Germany and I can see no such change nor do I have any problems with loading times (beyond my connection being a bit slow anyways). I think the problem must be on your end Doneve. Frabby (talk) 02:48, 2 December 2015 (PST)
I checked when you originally posted this; I have not noticed it on my end. Perhaps try using a different browser or clearing your cache and/or cookies. Sometimes stuff get dusty and requires a little tinkering. -BobTheZombie (talk) 19:12, 2 December 2015 (PST)

MPBT

I noticed the MPBT page is still deleted and was about to recreate it, but then thought I should ask here first about it. Is this something I can start working on or was it deleted for a reason I couldn't make out? Thanks Rjbass3 (talk) 08:08, 20 January 2015 (PST)

Sorry... MPBT? What's that? Frabby (talk) 09:18, 20 January 2015 (PST)
MPBT was Multi Player Battletech, an online Battletech game popular in mid 90's to early 2000's. Rjbass3 (talk) 09:47, 26 January 2015 (PST)
Realy, can you give us a link or another source that discripe this.--Doneve (talk) 12:41, 26 January 2015 (PST)
There is reference information in the 25 Years of Art & Fiction to the old Genie Multiplayer Battletech EGA and other version of the Online game, Rjbass3 is talking about. There maybe also a reference information found in the history of video games. This Entry on a website, talks about it too. This site here claims to be the home of the original programs of MPBT. I believe i read in a book entry for MPBT, but i need figure out what the name it is to be able use it as actual reference.-- Wrangler (talk) 13:38, 26 January 2015 (PST)

Anonymous Edits to Check

I've started gathering some contribution pages of anonymous users that have added or changed content that I can't confirm. I'll update this list and hopefully some of you with the proper sources/knowledge will be able to help. Thanks. Here's the list, from oldest to newest; please remove them when you deal with them:


I'm confused: What do you want us to do with these?--Mbear(talk) 10:57, 26 May 2015 (PDT)
When I go through the recent changes I am especially careful about anonymous edits because though they usually are harmless, they can occasionally be destructive or be flat out plagiarism. This is a list of anonymous users that I am unsure if they are adding legitimate information, so if others with the sources/know how could check them, that would be great. I'm just trying to not let anything slip past us. -BobTheZombie (talk) 11:37, 26 May 2015 (PDT)
Ah. I see now.--Mbear(talk) 12:26, 26 May 2015 (PDT)

More Video Game Work

Would it be okay to include this at the top of pages that have a "see also" section on them (includes weapons and battlemechs, possibly vehicles later)? The line is as follows:

This article covers the canonical tabletop version of the weapon. For the various apocryphal video game versions, see the video game section at the bottom of the page.

If there would be a better solution to this then please tell me. It is quite hard to find these pages in their current state. -BobTheZombie (talk) 19:20, 14 October 2014 (PDT)

I've said elsewhere already that the article for a given weapon should contain all game stats for all rulesets that cover this individual weapon, be they tabletop or computer games. As such, I'd advise against a "Video Games section". Also, how can game rules be canonical/apocryphal regarding in-universe fluff? Within their respective games, all rules are "canonical" and there is no crossover between games, i.e. tabletop BattleTech and MWO are distinct rulesets that couldn't care less about each other's rulesets. Instead, they both build off the overarching BattleTech fluff.
My suggestion for an article about a weapon would be to have an intro section detailing the in-universe role of the weapon - when it was designed, put into production, who fields it, etc. - and then there should be a "Game stats" section that has a subsection for each and every game putting stats to that weapon. Frabby (talk) 00:37, 15 October 2014 (PDT)
I finally decided to remove all of them. Tell me if you happen to stumble across any that I may have missed. -BobTheZombie (talk) 19:30, 9 January 2015 (PST)

Side Link

Could someone with the permissions change the sidebar link destination from "MechCommander" to "MechCommander (Video Game)"? It always sends you to a disambiguation,. -BobTheZombie (talk) 05:46, 24 August 2014 (PDT)

I think that's something Nic would have to do - I've had a look, and I can't see a way to access the code for the link, although I'm not a wiki-coder type person. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 23:40, 25 August 2014 (PDT)

Font

Hello friends, hopefully I'm putting this suggestion/complaint/request in the right place. Without using the 'font smoothing' or 'cleartype' or whatever it's called Windows option, the default font of this otherwise wonderful wiki looks rather ugly - with some strokes two pixels wide, but others just one. Wikipedia itself dealt with the exact same problem a few months ago when it had undergone a design change, but the issue was resolved rather quickly (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29/Archive_125#Cleartype.3F), presumably just by making the site use a different font for users without this particular setting. Would it be possible to consider applying a similar solution here as well? 89.176.87.169 00:01, 11 August 2014 (PDT)

Thanks for the suggestion. This would be something the site owner, User:Nicjansma, has to look into. This may take a few weeks. Frabby (talk) 01:13, 11 August 2014 (PDT)
I realize this is a bit ridiculous seeing as it's been a year, but literally out of nowhere I suddenly remembered my complaint and decided to provide a screenshot of the issue: http://i.imgur.com/90NTGfp.png 89.176.87.169 03:55, 18 July 2015 (PDT)
Hey all, wasn't aware of this request until now. Is there a reason you don't use ClearType? MW's solution appeared to be removing their custom font. We're using Open Sans on the site (which is very popular). Are you seeing the same issue on other sites using Open Sans? Nicjansma (talk) 05:57, 17 February 2016 (PST)

Video Game Stats

The following request was copied from here

I want to add all the stats from each of the games to all applicable weapon/BattleMech/vehicle pages, and wanted to know if I could go ahead with that; I have an (unfinished) proof-of-concept example in my sandbox for you to see what I mean. I own MCG, MC2, MW3, MW4 (every edition), and could get MWO. For the weapons, a table would be inserted after all the canonical info, and for the Mechs/vehicles, they would all be listed in the variants section with clear apocryphal tag markings. For the games that I don't own, I'm using online references and what info any of you could help give. What do you think? -BobTheZombie (talk) 21:47, 19 July 2014 (PDT)

I'm probably being a bit dense, but a lot of the rows have the same entry in throughout - does that signify that it's a placeholder, or something else? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 23:56, 21 July 2014 (PDT)
I'm willing to help, if this can happen. I have access to MW:LL, as well as MWs 3, 4 (not Pirates Moon, though), and MC2 (along with some of the mods). Also, Bob, I can get you most of the data specific to MW:LL. Data for MC2 and its mods will be very variable, as many values are different depending on the mod. --Raven 2C (talk) 09:34, 22 July 2014 (PDT)
BM, yeah, the rows have the game abbreviation across because I haven't taken the time to fill in the data. The question I wondered was what other games should be included? MW1? MWT? MW Tactical Command? Crescent Hawks? NetMech? MechWar? Neveron? I dunno. I think the ones people will want to know (the halfway more recent ones), as well as ones with confirm-able information should be added. I'd say that MechAssault shouldn't be included because from what I can tell, they don't have specific weapon types (i.e. instead of Large Laser they have a certain colored laser). Mech Commander has somewhat the same problem, but it can be converted ("laser" = med laser, large laser = LL, srm pack = SRM2, etc.).
Raven2C, the MWLL would be very helpful. I too only have the original MW3, but what version(s) of MW4 do you have? Also, I dunno if we should go as far as to include the different MC2 Mods, but you probably could if you wanted. I guess since I'm wanting to add the MekTek MW4 mod's info, the MC2 mods could also be added; we just need to see how huge the table would get then... If we get consensus on this we can start and get the chart figured out, then we can place it on each weapon page and go from there. -BobTheZombie (talk) 10:05, 22 July 2014 (PDT)
I have MW4: Vengeance and Black Knight, as well as MekTek's mod of MW4: Mercs. There used to be another mod for MW4: Mercs under the name of NetBattleTech-Hard Core, I believe, but its not around any more, and I haven't seen a download for it anywhere. There really are only two MC2 mods active, and they share mostly the same equipment and weapons, but I think damage and maybe a few other values are different. We'll see...--Raven 2C (talk) 10:19, 22 July 2014 (PDT)
That reminds me that we need to compare the original Mercs stats with the MekTek ones. -BobTheZombie (talk) 11:25, 22 July 2014 (PDT)
I'm very much a completist - if we're including stats for BattleTech weapons from the various electronic properties, then we're taking on the responsibility of including all of them. It doesn't feel right to only record the stats for certain games and not others. I think the caveat that I'd add though is that if the detail is going to result in huge tables that would take up the bulk of the article, we should look at instead somehow generating them as discrete articles in their own right and then include links in the articles for the tabletop equivalents, because the tabletop game is still the primary focus of the wiki. That might make coralling some of the information together easier, because you could have an article on lasers in the various electronic properties, with subdivisions as needed, and then link to the relevant subdivision from the tabletop weapon article. That's just my opinion, though... BrokenMnemonic (talk) 00:43, 23 July 2014 (PDT)
I agree with BrokenMnemonic. If you want to take on this task, that's fine, but IMHO it should be a separate page that we link to. I'd be willing to put a new row in the Weapon infobox that links out to the Video Game Weapon table (if it exists). I'd just like to keep stuff that is apocryphal out of the main article if we can.--Mbear(talk) 05:06, 23 July 2014 (PDT)
Okay, that makes sense; should we keep the comparison tables but have them on a huge page, or have stats on a subpage of each video game page? -BobTheZombie (talk) 09:15, 23 July 2014 (PDT)
I think the information needs to be with each and every weapon system, under the relevant article page. There would have to be a rundown of the stats of a large laser in boardgame BT and various other games (Sarna isn't about one particular ruleset), and for each computer game there should then be a synopsis page showing all weapons codified in that game, with their stats. In the latter case, I reckon the article might be bloated so subpages like "MW4 weapons list" would be okay imho. Frabby (talk) 09:24, 23 July 2014 (PDT)
I'd suggest that each game gets a weapons article showing the details for the weapon for that game, all together in the same category. Then, where a weapon system is shown in a game - like the Large Laser - a link could be included in the tabletop weapon article in a "See Also" section. BrokenMnemonic (talk)
Should we really go with single pages for each weapon? It'd be easier to keep them separate and have it organized, but that might lead to a lot of stubs and sub-stubs. I understand keeping them off the canonical main weapon/mech/vehicle pages, but can't decide which way sounds best... -BobTheZombie (talk) 19:10, 23 July 2014 (PDT)
I was thinking more a single page for each game, with the weapons being sub-sections to themselves within that page, so that you can redirect to a sub-section without having pages that're too big. So, as an example, there's one page with all the weapons from Crescent Hawks Inception, the weapons are individual sub-sections within that page, and the medium laser "See Also" section has a redirect link to the medium laser (or just laser) sub-section of the Crescent Hawks Inception weapons page. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 23:59, 23 July 2014 (PDT)
Okay.... I definitely misread that; I actually had that in mind and really like that idea. Should there still be a chart for each one, or an infobox? -BobTheZombie (talk) 08:52, 24 July 2014 (PDT)
Sorry, I didn't notice you'd posted a response. Do you have an example of each? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 02:04, 11 August 2014 (PDT)
Here I made an example of what one (sub)page would look like. Does that work? -BobTheZombie (talk) 14:33, 15 August 2014 (PDT)
That looks good to me - the tables are nice and clean, and the sub-sections will make it easy to link directly to the individual weapons. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 14:38, 15 August 2014 (PDT)
Awesome; Raven2C and I will be starting this soon and feel free to join in if you have any games by going here and putting your username by whichever ones you have; that way we can decide who'll do which games. Thanks for hearing me out guys! -BobTheZombie (talk) 20:36, 15 August 2014 (PDT)

Page Ratings

I was trying out the new page ratings feature, and there was something I notice that could probably be re-worded. When checking the box "I am highly knowledgeable about this topic (optional)", you get four additional boxes to check: "I have a relevant college/university degree", "It is part of my profession", "It is a deep personal passion", and "The source of my knowledge is not listed here". The first two options really don't apply to this BattleTech Wiki like they do to for Wikipedia. I would suggest dropping them or replacing them with something more applicable an editor of this wiki.--Seth 11:00, 16 March 2012 (PDT)

I am with you Seth, i found the new box unconformable for us users, i don't know if we need this first version of the rating box, we are a BattleTech Wiki and not the Wikipedia.--Doneve 11:16, 16 March 2012 (PDT)
Gentlemen, the survey extension has only been successfully installed, not modified for BTW. The admin team has been working on much more appropriate questions, so please don't worry. There are also several behind-the-scenes things we'd like to be able to do, if we can modify it. In other words, it is still very much a work in progress and if we could have kept it out of the public eye until it was ready.
BUT...we do want this feedback, so keep it coming. We'll respond as we can. Thanks, guys. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 12:30, 16 March 2012 (PDT)
The Shadow admin caste give use a little bone Smiley.gif, but i must say great response Rev., i LOVE sarna.--Doneve 18:49, 16 March 2012 (PDT)

Call to Admins: Is this still open or has it been resolved?--Mbear(talk) 07:48, 14 February 2014 (PST)

Suggestion:Transclusion

one thing that might be useful is mastering/implementing wiki transclusion (it scares me too much to try at this point, but its the only thing that appears to fit the bill)... --Cameron 14:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC) main question is whither or not transclusion works here... if so, what things could be transcluded?--Cameron 14:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Mech variant Pages

(Transcluding the "Overview" and/or "Battle History" Fluff from the Mechs Main Page) with the stats on the side being for the specific variant, This would have the advantage of transcluded Text being edited in one spot and the rest being page specific. --Cameron 14:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Best handled in Project_BattleMechs#Variant_Pages--Cameron 14:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I see what you're saying, but I think the very concept of transclusion is baffling to the majority of users, so it would be difficult to /require/. I guess I'd have no problem with an expert back-adapting an article to transclude, but I wouldn't make it part of the 'how to start' templates we have for beginning editors (and I still use those templates, myself).--Revanche (talk|contribs) 17:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
i've been more looking at transclusion with an "ohh my, that looks easy to do but hard to learn" perspective.. ::bugging eyes::, wonder if it would be easy enought to put into transclusion specific weapons or mech templates. Is there any one here with experience?--Cameron 15:03, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Xoid can do so rather easily, but he is more of a Colonial Marshal admin and isn't here too much. In the end, this project would have to be undertaken by someone who wants to work thru all affected 'Mechs and is willing to learn transclusion to do it. I've got the latter skills, but am too widely focused to deal only with 'Mechs. And, it sounds like some consensus on variant pages needs to be reached, before picking up that scale of a project, anyhow. I believe Scaletail is the acting project head of BTW:PBM at the moment; I recommend you try and pitch your concept to him over there. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 15:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure if anyone is still looking for this, but transcluding a section of existing mech pages is easy to do if the person who runs this wiki adds this extension Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion. Basically, if you take the Atlas article for example, you enclose the description paragraph with this tag, <section begin=description /> and end it with <section end=description />, then any page where you add {{#lst:Atlas (BattleMech)|description}} will have that paragraph displayed. Easy right?--Seth 05:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Weapon Variant Pages

Transclusion would Also be useful in Weapons, granted, on the BattleTech Scale, an Autocannon/20 is an Autocannon/20... But I am planning to do/have done some manufacturer / brand specific subpages for the weapons that would transclude the Macro/BattleTech Fluff from the main page for the weapon, and have Manufacturer/Brand specific RPG Stats, Eventually planning to do page and book references for where the information comes from.--Cameron 14:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)


Scripting attacks?

While editing the Magpie, Munnin, and Drake (Individual Whirlwind-class WarShip)‎‎ pages, I recently received 3 messages along these lines.

NoScript detected a potential Cross-Site Scripting attack

from http://www.sarna.net to https://www.facebook.com.

Suspicious data:

(URL)

I don't know what is going on, but I don't like it. DragonoftheRust (talk) 04:28, 22 November 2017 (EST)

Strange. None of these articles has any conspicious edits in its history, so the problem seems to lie... well not in the articles themselves anyways. Can't speak for the Like button though, these things have become somewhat ill-reputed as of late. Frabby (talk) 06:10, 22 November 2017 (EST)

Admin Help Requests (Completed)

Please move help requests here after the request is answered, with the latest (according to last answer) sorted to the top of this section.'

Note: Requests pertaining to specific spambots/spam users/spam edits are not archived. Please simply delete such requests here after dealing with the problem. The same goes for other minor requests such as the move or deletion of a misnamed article page.


Block Request

Could an admin please block User:Jesustree for the personal attack he edited into the Anthony Scroggins article on 16th January. Cheers --Dmon (talk) 00:46, 17 January 2016 (PST)

I should have blocked this user and also blocked the IP. Unfortunately, since I'm still a bit dense this morning, what I did was to merge & delete the user account. Hope that settles it either way. Frabby (talk) 01:07, 17 January 2016 (PST)

Please block User:Body1rings‎ spamming links to external sites and delete the Pros from Norton Help Australia Make specific page, i blanked the page when i saw this, thanks.--Doneve (talk) 12:53, 19 February 2016 (PST)

contact

Hey, I cannot for the life of me find a contact page, but I just want to say thanks a ton for hosting this website, and everything. I have a question about, if there is a way for me to save the website incase it ever goes down? a personal backup. Lalaladean@yahoo.ca 198.91.147.250 15:58, 16 August 2015 (PDT)

Hiya, and welcome. The person you want to contact about this is the site owner and Sarna.net BattleTechWiki bureaucrat, Nic Jansma (User:Nicjansma). You can either email him or contact him via his user talk page.
I did bring the issue of backups up with him at one point and his answer at the time was that there are four backups of Sarna around; I also trust he's keeping the backups up-to-date (or has an automatic backup system), given that he's a software engineer and hopefully knows what he's doing. :) Frabby (talk) 00:00, 17 August 2015 (PDT)

Article to Look At

I'm no sure what to make of this article: Warner Doles (person). -BobTheZombie (talk) 19:05, 17 July 2015 (PDT)

Even without checking its veracity/references, that last paragraph doesn't belong on Sarna. I'm travelinng right now with little internet acess so can somebody else moderate please. Frabby (talk) 01:07, 18 July 2015 (PDT)
Update: I've taken a look at the link that was given as a reference for the content in question, and there's no proof that it's even about the same person. In any case, it's not something Sarna seeks to cover. Thanks for taking care of this guys. Frabby (talk) 02:39, 22 July 2015 (PDT)
In deleting the information, I took the view that the only way I could see a criminal conviction for a BattleTech writer could be relevant to Sarna was if that criminal conviction was the cause of the writer no longer being employed by the current IP holder/licensee, with the caveat that even then, I could only see it being relevant if it had a direct impact on the product line. As in, if person A was convicted of an offence, and CGL as the current license holder dismissed person A and permanently stopped work on a sourcebook as a result, causing that sourcebook to become vapourware, then I can see a reasonable claim for relevance being made. Other than that, I'd need to be convinced of the reason for including the information, and the article in question seemed to be little more than a statement that "this person worked on BattleTech, won a charity auction with a very minor in-canon consequence, and is a convicted criminal". The last point had nothing to do with BattleTech, and I can't see a public interest argument applicaable to a product line fan wiki. I didn't write all that up at the time because I'm lazy (and I subsequently forgot) for which I apologise. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 03:09, 22 July 2015 (PDT)
Oh, I feel exactly the same way about the issue, though I felt it was prudent to point out that we can't even be sure if it's the same person. The less is said about the issue, the better at this point. Frabby (talk) 03:29, 22 July 2015 (PDT)

Forum Errata, Chapter 2

Here's two yet unresolved posts from a while back:


Record Sheets have been tweaked several times and i have to admit, that i lost track on it.
Another example (and by the way another mistake on Sarna.net as long as i am up to date... ) is the Mauler MAL-1K.
The first sheet fielded it with an endosteel frame instead of ferrofibrous armor giving it optimized armor and an additional heat sink but needed a small cockpit and no lower arm actuators to shoehorn everything into it.
The second sheet showed it once again with ferrofibrous armor, only 11 double heat sinks, a standard cockpit and just a bit more armor than earlier models.
To be honest, i don't know anymore which one is still the official one, but regarding to the battle value of 1622 points listed in the MUL it should be the model with FF armor (a quickly recalculated record sheet for the ES model indicates a BV of 1678 points).


And another post:


This is a bigger one:
The problem is based on the rework of the Record Sheets 3050 (first edition with a Cataphract in front of a grey background, second edition with the same Cataphract but in front of a white background). The entirely new record sheets included in the second edition have been implemented, but as it seems noone controlled the existing sheets for modifications, erratas and redoes. Based on this observation, there are 18 (!) entries that need a correction.
Javelin -10N: This is the -11A now. When it was first presented, it was declared to be the -10N. No other differences.
Firestarter -9B: This model is totally different. Improved jumpjets, giving it 6/9/8 movement, but only 3 flamers. BV2 differs as well.--Updated by Mbear(talk) 05:06, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Firestarter -9S2: far more modified than only ER-medium lasers. It got DHS and light ferrofibrous, too.--Updated by Mbear(talk) 05:06, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Firestarter -9S3: Duplicates the -9S1 with the chassis of the -9S2.--Updated by Mbear(talk) 05:06, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Panther -10KA: No mention at all. It is a field modification with a standard PPC instead of the hot ER-PPC.-- fixed. Mbear(talk) 05:10, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Assassin -99: Now with a sword instead of the Artemis IV guiding system. As with all other designs BV2 needs a check.-- Mbear(talk) 05:16, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Whitworth WTH-K: No more with Endosteel, so it lost its M-laser backup, too.--Mbear(talk) 05:16, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Hunchback -6N: The second set of record sheets fielded the necessary record sheet for this missing machine.--Mbear(talk) 05:21, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Trebuchet -8B: The addition of endosteel has not been mentioned. Otherwise it seems to be corrected.--Mbear(talk) 05:21, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Axman -4D: It lost not only one of the three med lasers, it lost its large pulse laser as well. The idioty of the first record sheet with its CASE placed in the opposite torso side of the ammo has been corrected, too. --Mbear(talk) 05:28, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Catapult -K3: Like the Hunchback -6N, this one got its record sheet with the second edition of the RS 3050. Thus there is an official BV2, too.--Mbear(talk) 05:28, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Caesar -3S: The small laser faces rear now and the inclusion of CASE is a big issue in a light fusion engine powered mech. It also got the 3 tons of missing armor as well.--Mbear(talk) 05:28, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Caesar -4R: the CT mounted ER-medium-laser faces rear now. Might cause a difference in BV2.--Mbear(talk) 05:28, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Cataphract -5D: BV2 increases massivly due to now implemented stealth armor (which was missing in the first set of sheets).--Mbear(talk) 05:41, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Zeus -10WB: Big diffence is a light fusion engine instead of the standard model. This frees enough weight for 6 additional heat sinks, thereby creating a far more dangerous enemy.--Mbear(talk) 05:41, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Mauler -1K: The first record sheet gave it endosteel, a small cockpit, a 12. heat sink and massive armor. The now actual sheet degrades this design massively. No endosteel, no small cockpit, no 12. HT. Only ferrofibrous armor and just a few armor points more than earlier models.--Mbear(talk) 05:41, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Annihilator -3A: The compact reactor has not been mentioned. This change reduces the ammo storage from 8 tons to 5 (still ample?) and the number of heat sinks from 14 to 12 (no longer a cool running machine). Still the BV2 climbs to more than 1700 points!--Mbear(talk) 05:41, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
Lancelot 25-08: This model appeared in the second set of record sheets and should be what the misguided 25-07 should have been. It has no entry so far.--Mbear(talk) 05:41, 24 June 2015 (PDT)
I have not checked, if the RS 3055 got a similar ton of modifications, when they got their second edition.

If someone could help with resolving these that would be great. -BobTheZombie (talk) 18:01, 23 June 2015 (PDT)

Virus installation

Your advertisements are pushing me to this link (DO NOT CLICK!) "https:// softwareupdaterlp com / campaign/ ..."

I only get this from this site. I'm running on chrome in ubuntu 14.04 so I think it's safe to say I'm not getting this from malware on my machine (which I check for regularly, so that's beside the point). You need to get with your advertiser to have this removed from the rotation asap.

Example of when I got it: 11:55a EST when accessing the http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Goliath page.

I have contacted the site owner, Nic Jansma, about this and he'll look into it. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Frabby (talk) 01:46, 29 January 2015 (PST)
Hi there! It sounds like your computer already has malware installed. This malware is known to inject "softwareupdaterlp com" ads into existing ad networks. Please read here for more info. I've verified that in Google AdSense, which serves the ads on Sarna, that no "softwareupdaterlp com" ads have ever been served, which is why I'm thinking your computer is already infected. Best of luck. Nicjansma (talk) 08:23, 29 January 2015 (PST)
I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm running unix. There's no known variants of the specific malware in question available for this particular operating system. All the same I approached the hosting provider of said site and got it shut down (cloudflare obliged very quickly). You can treat the issue as resolved.
It's happening again. I had AdBlock disabled for Sarna, but the injected ads are seriously annoying. Kobura (talk) 10:06, 30 January 2015 (PST)
You can choose to have no-ad skin if your logged in on Sarna. I used to have similar problem when ads for the site got bad. -- Wrangler (talk) 11:42, 30 January 2015 (PST)

Addition to the Mech/Combat Vehicle Infoboxes

Hello, I received a rather good suggestion to add a "Tech Base" entry to the Mech and CV infoboxes, as the BA and ASF ones both have it, and sometimes it is hard to tell/mixed. It would not be hard, and I'd be willing to do most, if not all of the work required. I don't know what I'd have to change on the infobox templates to get it to work, so help with that would be very much appreciated. -BobTheZombie (talk) 15:04, 25 August 2014 (PDT)

Are there any instances where this could cause confusion? Do we have any 'Mechs or CVs where some variants are using a different tech base from the original in the info box? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 23:42, 25 August 2014 (PDT)
There are several cases where 'Mechs and CVs are using a different tech base than the original model. Those variants are listed in the Variants section though, so I'm not sure it'd be a large problem.
But as I think of it, what do they mean by "tech base"? Clan vs. Inner Sphere?--Mbear(talk) 10:36, 26 August 2014 (PDT)
Yes, they mean IS vs Clan (vs Mixed). -BobTheZombie (talk) 10:54, 26 August 2014 (PDT)
Well, the main production facility in the infobox could provide that information. Or the category list at the bottom of the page. Or it might be listed in the article.--Mbear(talk) 06:13, 27 August 2014 (PDT)
But the tech base isn't always listed in one of these places, especially when it is mixed tech; plus, that makes it hard to find for people who don't know where to look. I'd be willing to add it all myself if you're worried about who will do it. -BobTheZombie (talk) 15:30, 27 August 2014 (PDT)
So as a part of the change, to try and make sure that all the information is available and reduce the chances of someone getting confused, we'd need to make sure that the tech base of every variant is also listed within the subsection for that variant? Am I right in thinking that the tech base for a lot of those variants will only be listed on the record sheets, as a lot were only quantified in recent years by having a record sheet produced for them? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 00:14, 28 August 2014 (PDT)
I honestly don't know the answer to your question BrokenMnemonic. Adding the row isn't difficult, but I'd suggest we make it optional. IMHO, it's kind of silly to put it in there but I'm willing to do so if we really want it.--Mbear(talk) 05:08, 28 August 2014 (PDT)
I dunno, perhaps the whole thing is a waste of time after all; each tech base can easily be found on the MUL, so it may be completely pointless and superfluous. Perhaps we should save the time and energy and focus on more important projects. What do you guys think? -BobTheZombie (talk) 15:24, 9 September 2014 (PDT)
EDIT: It looks like I might as well go ahead with it. It couldn't hurt and shouldn't take too long, but then again that's what the Clans thought on Tukayyid... -BobTheZombie (talk) 22:56, 24 September 2014 (PDT)
The new row has been added to the infoboxes. It's optional, so if it's not included nothing should be displayed. This means that existing BattleMech and combat vehicle articles are not affected. How this will work with 'Mechs like the Scarecrow remains to be seen.--Mbear(talk) 06:10, 9 September 2014 (PDT)
I'd say you just put "Mixed"; that is a type of tech base, right? It would make sense and get the point across. See my above comment. -BobTheZombie (talk) 15:24, 9 September 2014 (PDT)

Forum Feedback

If anyone could confirm the following, that'd be great:

"I think I found some faults on the page of the Mjolnir battleship.

Source: TRO3067 Mass: 1.250.000 tons Safte Trust: 4 Max Trust: 6 BV: 271,638

On Sarna: Mass: 1.350.000 tons Safte Trust: 2 Max Trust: 3"

The German forums have so far been the most helpful in this regard... -BobTheZombie (talk) 14:58, 20 November 2014 (PST)

I haven't checked the mass issue yet, but thrust is given in the TROs in terms of thrust points, but on Sarna it's given in terms of g. 2 thrust points = 1g. Although that is something that keeps catching people out (it certainly caught me out the first few times). BrokenMnemonic (talk) 23:26, 20 November 2014 (PST)
I've checked TRO:3067 and the MUL. The mass is indeed 1,250,000 tons and was probably a typo in the article; I've corrected that. The ship's thrust rating is 4/6 movement points, and is depicted correctly as 2g thrust / 3g max. thrust in the article. It even states "g" in the infobox. Frabby (talk) 03:08, 21 November 2014 (PST)

Errata

Someone was wondering about the Delacruz page and I wondered if you could help (I don't have the source):

"I do not know, if there might be another souce stating ownership of planet Delacruz to Draconis Combine.
But in the battle history of the Cyclops (p. 118 TRO 3025 FASA #8603)
the planet was attacked by Kurita forces in 2796 and Davion forces retreated.
So it seems, that the planet was owned by Davion before.
Sarna.net shows an owner history of Draconis Combine, only."

Can that be addressed? -BobTheZombie (talk) 15:03, 16 April 2014 (PDT)

The maps we have of the region are limited to 2765 (Historical: Liberation of Terra, Volume 1) and 2822, post First Succession Wars (H:LoTv2, Handbook: House Davion). Those show Delacruz as being a part of the Draconis Combine.
Historical: Liberation of Terra, Volume 2 has details on page 118 of the various worlds annexed by the Great Houses during the waning years of the Hegemony, which are a mix of Hegemony worlds, worlds that were jointly administered by the Hegemony and a member state and seized by Amaris' forces, and member-state worlds seized by Amaris' forces outright. It also lists those other worlds that were jointly administered by the Hegemony and one or more of the member states as a result of the Hegemony's peacemaking efforts, which weren't annexed while the Hegemony still existed, but which became battlefields during the First Succession War. Delacruz is one of the worlds listed as being contested by the Combine and the FedSuns, along with Deshler, Fellanin II, Homam, Huan, Kesai IV, Misery, New Mendham, Sadalbari and Valentina.
Sarna is correct in that it lists the affiliations as per the maps - I don't think it's an error, so much as nobody picked up on the TRO: 3025 entry, and no-one's worked through the H:LOT volumes yet. I made a start on the first one, but other projects keep getting in the way. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 01:24, 17 April 2014 (PDT)
Sorry, I didn't see this until just now; so to clarify, the Sarna article is correct in its current form? -BobTheZombie (talk) 16:23, 18 April 2014 (PDT)
From what I can tell, the detail already in the article is correct, but is also incomplete. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 06:48, 19 April 2014 (PDT)
So what should I tell them then? -BobTheZombie (talk) 08:46, 19 April 2014 (PDT)
Well, I'm guessing the only thing that will satisfy whoever reported the error is if the page is updated with both the information from the TRO and the detail from H:LOTv2. I'm busy tomorrow doing prep work for a convention, but if nobody else gets to it, I'll try and update the planet entry with references on Weds or Thurs. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 14:14, 21 April 2014 (PDT)
Makes sense; if you could do that that would be great. I don't mean to just task you with random crap all the time, but I'm so tired and busy that I can't do these things alone. I promise I'll come back and start cluttering up the recent changes again when June rolls around... Wink.gif -BobTheZombie (talk) 15:00, 21 April 2014 (PDT)

Defensive Equipment Category

I was thinking that a category dedicated to the equipment carried by mechs and vehicles that are not directly related making the other guy go "boom."

I'm not completely sure how to go about doing it though. Categories are added to a page by the string, [[Category:Defensive Equipment|{{PAGENAME}}]]. How do I then create the page that lists all the items in that category?

I was planning to include Null Signature, Void Signature, Chameleon Light Polarization, Stealth Armor, AMS, Chaff, CASE, Blue Shield, and ECM. My thinking was to include only equipment that prevents, or reduces or mitigates the enemy's ability to inflict damage.

I did not include other types of armor because, A: armor has its own category and B: Stealth Armor gives To-Hit penalties in addition to being plain old armor.

So what is my next step?

Grimlock (talk) 05:42, 14 July 2013 (PDT)

Categories are auto-generated (in a fashion) but their category pages are not. When you include the string you mentioned above in an article, it will appear as a redlink category at the bottom of the article page. You can omit the pipe and Pagename, btw; just naming the category is enough. Follow that link to create and edit the category page.
Oh, and to provide a text link to a category (as opposed to putting the article at hand into the category), put a colon after the opening brackets ([[:Category:Defensive Equipment]]). Frabby (talk) 14:45, 14 July 2013 (PDT)
Thanks --Grimlock (talk) 08:54, 22 July 2013 (PDT)

Logging in

This morning, for the first time ever, I've not been able to log into Sarna via my work PC. (It's BrokenMnemonic, btw). I suspect something has changed at the work end, but currently whenever I try and log in, the login process fails with a message stating that I can't log in because cookies are disabled. Given that cookies being disabled is probably a standard work process in areas beyond just the one I work in, is there any mechanism by which users can log in without needing to use cookies? 82.109.66.146 02:52, 4 October 2013 (PDT)

Morning BM (Doneve), i have the same problem, i think Nic make some changes in the background or server updates!--84.58.23.75 03:23, 4 October 2013 (PDT)
Looks like you guys weathered thru it.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 11:34, 14 October 2013 (PDT)

Updating/expanding Manual of Style

Hello. To be frank, Sarna is very hard on the eyes. The font size is too small, the default skin is difficult to look at (or maybe I'm just not a fan of yellow), and the page formatting is a little lackluster.

While font size and default skin are probably another ballgame, I'd like to explore updating and expanding the manual of style to improve the formatting for (at least initially) the 'Mech articles. I've made a sandbox page at the moment to experiment with an improved style (at the moment testing bolding, alt. configs in infobox, etc). However, I don't know if there is any real possibility of implementing such a change, so I figured I should ask about it before I commit too much time to it. If there is any chance of updating the MoS, I would of course invite other editors to comment and contribute. Some Guy (talk) 23:26, 7 March 2013 (PST)

Hi. Welcome, and thanks for your input. I tend to agree with your analysis. A few points to be made:
The site owner, our Admin User:Nicjansma, has mentioned his feeling that the site's "dated" appearance needs an overhaul; but that's probably besides your point because it wouldn't affect article formating. Still, you may want to contact him if you have a proposal to make.
Regarding article content, I fear a new format would require manual implementation. Given the sheer amount of work involved, I reckon this would have to be a community project involving a detailed planning stage, i. e. first a new format needs to be established and agreed upon, then implementation has to be planned and then carried out, with some supervision to ensure any problems that creep up are identified and solved quickly without derailing the process.
I think you should check in at BattleTechWiki:Project BattleMechs for coordinating an overhaul of the 'Mech articles.
Finally, there is a style guide for BattleCorps submissions. I think we should formally adopt it for BTW, as this is as official as it can be for BattleTech. There are other documents but they're not publicly available; I'll see if I can get permission to use them here. Frabby (talk) 00:32, 8 March 2013 (PST)
Thanks for your suggestions. However, the manual of style applies generally to all articles. The 'Mech article format is covered under the BattleMechs WikiProject, which Frabby linked to above. I'm certainly up to expanding the Manual of Style; I think it needs it. Frabby, I like your suggestion. I definitely had some of those guideline in mind with the MOS, so incorporating more of them would be a good idea. --Scaletail (talk) 16:43, 8 March 2013 (PST)
Frabby: "Dated"? Anyway, certain things like bolding section headers should be a single wiki-wide setting, rather than something that needs to be done for each article. The other changes could be executed by a bot or at least automated with software. I could probably write a program in C# or Java that could make the desired changes to the page (i.e. paste in the text from the article's Edit textbox), but I wouldn't know a way to make that function on the web.
Scaletail: I don't see a reason not to include formatting for a specific page type in the Manual of Style, e.g. BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style/BattleMechs. MoS's for many topics at Wikipedia are subpages of the general MoS, but some of them are also delegated to WikiProjects. Also, as someone new - it's not obvious how to get to the Projects (I missed the section at the bottom of the main page) - it might be nice to link them in the navigation page on the left somewhere? Anyway, the BattleMechs project page focuses much more on content than formatting, but I'll bring it up there. Edit: Also, notably, the little bit of formatting listed there isn't being followed. It gives an example of how variants at Hatchetman should be formatted, but they are not formatted in that way at the article. Some Guy (talk) 18:48, 8 March 2013 (PST)

Spammers

We're starting to get inundated with spammers again - is there anything that can be done to update/alter the account registration security to choke them back a bit? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 04:21, 11 January 2013 (PST)

I had the same problem a while back on the MWOwiki I work on and switched the captcha system to use Asirra. Image identification seems to be something that bots can't easily do and is pointless to pay someone in asia 2cents to figure out because it's always random. I know it seems silly to choose cats out of a line up animals, but it's very effective on my site as well as the stowiki. --Seth (talk) 18:57, 4 February 2013 (PST)
I brought this to Nic's attention in the Wiki Admins forum. One thing I noticed was that the extension appears to be part of ConfirmEdit. Can you confirm that ConfirmEdit has support for Arissa? Thanks!--Mbear(talk) 05:41, 6 February 2013 (PST)
The number of spam accounts being registered seems to have increased pretty sharply over the last 2 or 3 days - is it time to change the questions again? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 04:02, 20 March 2013 (PDT)
Iam with BM, i notice in the last 2-3 weeks, so many spambots float sarna, is there a way to stop this problem?--Doneve (talk) 07:58, 6 April 2013 (PDT)
New spambot, Jikmal, please block.--Doneve (talk) 14:33, 14 April 2016 (PDT)
Nuked, thank you. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 23:49, 14 April 2016 (PDT)
New Spammer Happy - -Dark Jaguar (talk) 12:50, 14 May 2016 (PDT)

Vandalism Attempt

The IP address 2.223.227.92 attempted to vandalise the Direct Neural Interface article in a profane and grammatically incorrect manner. It may be worth blocking the IP address for a few days, and pointing them to a website giving instruction in basic grammar (your vs you're). BrokenMnemonic (talk) 09:52, 2 December 2013 (PST)

Blocked the IP for 3 days. Thanks for spotting it. Frabby (talk) 09:39, 3 December 2013 (PST)

Please take a look on this guy User:86.156.7.189 and this Dave McCulloch, thanks.--Doneve (talk) 12:38, 19 April 2016 (PDT)

Make Tables Sortable

I tried to make the tables on DropShips#Manufacturing sortable but it doesn't seem to work. Maybe an admin could have a look. ArtB (talk) 16:32, 8 September 2013 (PDT)

  • Hy ArtB, i am not a admin, but i jump in, iam long enouth here. The sortable table looks great and works very well, i don't know where is your problem, i pook also around with semantic wiki stuff, and created some Timetables like, Battle Armor Timetable, Combat Vehicle Timetable etc., good work.--Doneve (talk) 16:52, 8 September 2013 (PDT)
  • Hi, ArtB...I too tried out that table and was able to sort on each column. Are you still having the same problem? What about on a different table (like BattleMech Timetable or those that Doneve suggested)? What about on a different browser?
One suggestion would be to make sure you click on the arrow on the table, rather than the column title. Please let us know your results.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 17:43, 8 September 2013 (PDT)
I've just tested your table in Firefox, Internet Explorer 10, 9, 8 & 7, and Chrome, and I can sort the tables. Looks like you're good so I've moved this to the Solved area.--Mbear(talk) 05:54, 4 October 2013 (PDT)

Awards Boards

I've given Casual Edit Awards to a couple of our new members in the last couple of days - Mattiator and Nuclear-Fridge. Could someone modly please add awards boards to their user pages, so that they can display them? Many thanks. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 09:41, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

I'm on it. Thanks, BM.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 12:29, 25 April 2013 (PDT)

Vandalism: ‎ClanJadeFalcon

We've got a newly registered user named User:‎ClanJadeFalcon running around vandalising various pages. Doneve and I have both posted requesting that he stop, and the two of us are reverting vandalised pages, but if he doesn't stop I think someone modly needs to punt him for a bit until he stops acting up. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 15:23, 27 March 2013 (PDT)

Looks like he got tagged. Thanks, BM. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 04:45, 27 April 2013 (PDT)

Spambot

I just spotted a Spambot from late last year who slipped through the deletion net: User:Yorkkat50. Can someone delete it, please? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 04:42, 21 March 2013 (PDT)

Deleted.--Mbear(talk) 05:02, 21 March 2013 (PDT)

Total Chaos out of Moratorium

I just saw the street date on Total Chaos was 8 August 2012 see this page. Two months have passed since that date so I've removed the Moratorium tag. Will update the main page.--Mbear(talk) 05:45, 9 November 2012 (PST)

Spam Accounts 10-19-2012

I wish there was way to fend off these attacks bots more effectively. -- Wrangler (talk) 20:14, 19 October 2012 (PDT) User:Bracelet39y1
User:5mu17x5j5k‎
User:Tpgucciszt
User:Yshoganvhw
User:3rhp3hg38i‎
User:Ljcoachocy‎
User:Ukscarpehg‎
User:Xescarpewm‎
User:Handbags6fx
User:Scguccirey‎
User:Bqguccivwd‎
User:Evhoganicj‎

Spam Accounts

I had a quick look through the User List, and all of the following user accounts are at least 3 days old and look like spam accounts to me - you may want to take a view on purging them with fire. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 03:26, 12 October 2012 (PDT)
User:018gvp08kw
User:1z96z7r649
User:22gj56ihj
User:63281uhsn
User:9rs6rxgy1o8
User:AZ12345690
User:AZ12345697
User:AZ12345703
User:AZ12345704
User:Ajhip40yy
User:Ansqingt
User:Bnngguaj02
User:Cilkhvhwb
User:Cuguccivdl
User:Dgaotivjsw
User:Dgrererte
User:Ekguccieiy
User:Erhuogu5d
User:ErmfhajpaU
User:Eruftqqymz
User:Faguccijuu
User:Geesd71p56
User:Hcemyfu617
User:Hgazlff
User:Hsysz192
User:Ilaciedu82i
User:JPhuong59Peterson
User:JRollandSkinnerj
User:JaWill70zd5r
User:Jerseysdok7w
User:K73ok94s4
User:KEliswersa
User:KEliswersl
User:Kaningt9
User:Lbradsaundersa
User:Lmopiuy2
User:Lnum8564t3
User:Mzg0ze33y
User:Nallanowenj
User:Oxhoganssw
User:Pnevilleduffyx
User:Q8z7idf05
User:Qklnh85w
User:Rgguccixcj
User:Rsgogod3
User:Rtg6761c
User:S67pns8974
User:Sammycmu9
User:Schreurs28663
User:Smithdv9f
User:Swh11oc8
User:TefopuWopoxo
User:Telloobersserda1966
User:Tstnnoiutr
User:Tve8236y
User:Tyus28315
User:Uengieodfl
User:Uhuyhtydha
User:Uicqsswuc6j
User:Vvfl745sda
User:Vxofficaltl
User:Vydqyfin54
User:WixuveDuyiqe
User:WiyecaMakezu
User:Wkarenmatthewsp
User:Wqmhgqr54
User:Wsscarpeca
User:Xapdg8177
User:Xayuivau
User:Xayusqvp
User:Yiwxzht9j
User:Yjcyberia
User:Yougw7d6
User:Youryouoj91
User:Yxba8dtu81
User:Zaguccifwy
User:ZijuveSetuju
User:几分快乐的
User:画画课哥哥

There's a small problem with the user database that's preventing us from deleting these guys. We're working on fixing the problem.
User:Dgewuzpf needs to die as well.--Mbear(talk) 07:16, 12 October 2012 (PDT)
I believe I fixed the Merge & Delete problem now. Let me know if there are any future errors. Nicjansma (talk) 18:29, 18 October 2012 (PDT)

Vandalism

In addition to all the spammers, we've got an anonymous IP vandalising pages - they've hit the UrbanMech and Mackie pages so far, deleting paragraphs and replacing them with profanities. The IP address in question is: 152.26.69.36 - Doneve's already repaired the damage. BrokenMnemonic 07:24, 26 September 2012 (PDT)

Good on Doneve for fixing it and you for reporting it. ClanWolverine101 07:28, 26 September 2012 (PDT)

Spam Overload

Guys,

These are all spam accounts registered and/or posting between the 21st and 24th of September: [snip]

That's a lot, and that's just the ones that've avoided being deleted by one of the admins already. In the same period, we've not had a single legitimate new user register, and I think I only spotted a half dozen edits made legitimately by anonymous users. I don't know if Nic's already working on a more effective spam filter, but at the rate spam is proliferating - we seem to be getting a new spam account every few minutes, and faster at certain times - it may be worth blocking new user account setups for a few days until something more permanent can be done, in my opinion. BrokenMnemonic 07:02, 25 September 2012 (PDT)

BrokenMnemonic, thanks for listing these guys. I thought I had deleted most of them but I missed quite a few. I've asked Nic to update the "Prove you're a human" questions for the registration process and informed him about some of Seth's suggestions below. I'd add the stuff myself but I don't have permissions to do so. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.--Mbear(talk) 07:49, 25 September 2012 (PDT)
I'm happy to help - I find these spammers really annoying. I'm afraid you missed two or three off the list though (they're the ones still in blue, above) and I'm pretty sure I didn't catch all of them - there have been so many spam accounts that the list above was as many as I could pull out of the last 500 user events, so there are probably more further back. BrokenMnemonic 09:38, 25 September 2012 (PDT)
Those IDs give me "Invalid Old Username" when I try to delete them. In the meantime I've deleted their user pages, so hopefully they'll give me something I can use to delete them in the future.--Mbear(talk) 10:41, 25 September 2012 (PDT)
Taken care of with extreme prejudice. I think what happened is that these spambots had an active connection and were editing at the time they were deleted. The edit to their userpages was already going on but only registered in the database after the user account in question had already been zapped, deleting the previous userpage in the process. As a result, a user that was technically already blocked at the time edited in a new userpage for himself when trying to add stuff. Frabby 03:26, 26 September 2012 (PDT)
I spotted these three spambots via the active user page: User:Ttkwtpmnpy, User:Llzwtjmfcz and User:Klngnwta - looks like they registered last week or the week before and then went quiet after a few days. BrokenMnemonic 03:50, 26 September 2012 (PDT)
New Spam bot attacks take a look on the recent changes page, please block all for unlimited, thanks.--Doneve (talk) 09:56, 18 May 2016 (PDT)
Please block User:46.18.183.34, he blankt some pages, violation.--Doneve (talk) 06:56, 19 May 2016 (PDT)

Rampant Spam

I suggest that Nic change the question and answers for the captcha. Changing them every once in a while seems to really help. I'll look into addition ways to fight spammers too.--Seth 18:09, 25 July 2012 (PDT)

Nic has updated the captcha.--Mbear(talk) 12:32, 15 August 2012 (PDT)
That's definitely a start, but unless he stays on top of that and keeps changing it, then they will figure out the new answers and spread them out among their scummy spammer databases. Here are a couple of other things to do as well: First blocking IP address from China made a huge difference on my wiki, but at the cost of my Chinese audience. (Not that I had one!). You can also add an extension called Bad Behavior for mediawiki. It allegedly makes a huge difference. Nic or someone with FTP access will be necessary to do either of these though. --Seth 14:45, 17 August 2012 (PDT)
Thanks for all your advice Seth, much appreciated. I enabled BadBehavior for the wiki, and it's looking good so far. We're going to discuss blocking Chinese IPs as well. Nicjansma (talk) 18:31, 18 October 2012 (PDT)

Spammers

Despite Mbear's purge yesterday, there are still a handful of seriously spammy accounts left over from about 36 hours ago - the five of them account for more than 150 spam entries in the recent changes log:

User:Jolin4624dW‎ User:Cqajwwt70b92‎ User:Bisfhhmb53‎ User:Dijin17d90‎ User:Ellove777‎ User:Katty039Qle‎

Could someone delete them, please? BrokenMnemonic 00:23, 25 September 2012 (PDT)

Done! Die Spambots Die!--Mbear(talk) 04:29, 25 September 2012 (PDT)

New Spambot User talk:Rafealandrande, and please delete his uploaded image, thanks.--Doneve (talk) 05:31, 2 June 2016 (PDT)

Thudgun Omni Config Image Upload Request

I may just be new at this, but I am not sure how to add files to the downloads section. I have received a zip archive of all the 3050 omnimech configurations that were formerly hosted on thudgun.com (which has apparently been shut down). This has been a great resource for many people and I thought that posting these images on BTWiki would be the best possible place for them. With that, how do I upload these files, or if necessary, who do I send them to get them uploaded?

Stinger07 06:48, 12 March 2012 (PDT)Stinger07

Nic will need to upload that ZIP File to the Downloads section, I think.
However, if you're willing to do a little work you can upload them to the generic files section of the site yourself. I mean, you can upload each individual file to Sarna and include it on the relevant page. Interested in doing that?--Mbear(talk) 08:11, 12 March 2012 (PDT)

Hiding user creations and deletions on the Recent changes page

Is it possible to hide user creations, deletions and mergers on the Special:RecentChanges page? It is annoying to see the log flooded by those messages, just now there is one real edit in the last 50 changes, the rest are all related to user management. --Neufeld 02:44, 16 July 2012 (PDT)

Neufeld, in the RecentChanges page there's a drop down list with various Namespaces in it. By default it shows everything. To just see real entries (updated/modified pages) select the (Main) namespace from the drop down list and hit the Go button. That should give you what you need.--Mbear(talk) 07:39, 16 July 2012 (PDT)

Potatoe

We've got a little bit of a problem that I think has come across from the Mechwarrior Online forums. A new user has logged in, created a BattleMech article for some sort of custom mod or joke image of a mech named the Potatoe, and uploaded it with an image into the BattleMech category here. Another new user account was created and flagged it up for deletion, with a comment indicating that it was something they felt belonged in a user's sandbox or the like. A third new user account has just been created, which has been used to rewrite the second users comment, add a comment, and then add a third comment with an attempt at spoofing the user ID. I don't know what the sarna policy is on this, or if there is one yet for Mechwarrior Online and the like, but I've rolled back the edits on the comment page because it seems at the least disrespectful to another editor to overwrite their talk comments while retaining their tag - not to mention childish. BrokenMnemonic 09:12, 22 June 2012 (PDT)

I saw the Potatoe just before I had to pack up and leave over the weekend (currently sitting in a hotel room with internet access), otherwise I would have dealt with it already. In short, fanon (even jokes) doesn't belong on Sarna anymore and is in clear violation of at least one policy. I won't do anything about the comments and user registrations you mention, though I have to say I don't seen why you rolled them back. Disruptive editing in the main section (articles) is the one and only criterium for me, and I don't see that here. But what's done is done. Anyways, I'm on the case now. Frabby 14:37, 23 June 2012 (PDT)
I rolled them back because my understanding was that editors here should treat each other with respect, and deliberately attempting to spoof another user in talk pages or rewriting a user's comment to change what they've said - putting false words in their mouth - seemed completely contrary to that idea. If what I did was inappropriate, then I won't do it again. BrokenMnemonic 15:42, 23 June 2012 (PDT)
Thanks for the clarification. If what you rolled back amounted to personal attacks and/or producing questionable content under another editor's name then rolling it back was definitely called for. Frabby 23:45, 23 June 2012 (PDT)
That's basically what the original edits amounted to - one edit changed a user's posted comment to something diametrically opposed to what they'd said, the second edit posted under the vandal's own ID mocked the original editor, and the third edit spoofed a third users' ID to post a fictitious comment agreeing with the opinions expressed in the falsified first edit and the vandal's second edit. I hope this was just a one off, and not something we'll see a lot more of as the Mechwarrior Online fandom expands. BrokenMnemonic 02:12, 24 June 2012 (PDT)

Edit Counter Stuck

Looking at the User Score page, the edit counts seem to be stuck - and the entry for each user doesn't seem to record the number individaul of pages edited, either, although the text string indicates it should be. BrokenMnemonic 00:34, 13 June 2012 (PDT)

That's actually not an error. The User Score page is now built weekly instead of daily for performance reasons. The Wanted pages page is the same thing.--Mbear(talk) 03:52, 13 June 2012 (PDT)
Ah, that explains it, thanks. Although I notice it gives an overall edit count still, but doesn't tell you how many individual pages have been edited, although it still reads as if it should? BrokenMnemonic 09:12, 22 June 2012 (PDT)

Sarna has become very slow

Sarna seems to have grown very slow, with loading and editing pages taking tens of seconds. It is not my connection, since I have no problem with other sites. Could you please looking into the issue, sinced it makes it a pain to edit stuff here. --Neufeld 07:16, 19 March 2012 (PDT)

It has, this morning. My last two edits I didn't think made it, as the page timed out (after 3 minutes), but it turns out they did. It might be because of something Nic may be doing at this time, as I noticed it before when I think he was uploading the page ranking extension.
I hope it isn't Semantics-related.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 08:48, 19 March 2012 (PDT)
Looking at the Firebug NET panel, it looks like it's related to the Google Plus stuff. I've seen weirdness like this before at work where we use Google API hosting. Every so often the Google servers apparently get reset and you have to download all the stuff again.
The strange thing is that it looks like the plus one button image is being downloaded twice. No idea why.--Mbear(talk) 09:18, 19 March 2012 (PDT)
Okay, so what i understand is its beyond our control and we'll just need to ride out the storm. Amazing: Google has had more of an impact on my daily routine with this than the Sun's CDE did last week.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 09:46, 19 March 2012 (PDT)

Catalyst Labs Errata/Ask The Writer/Ask The Lead Developer Questions and Answers

I apologise if this is the wrong place to ask this question, but I couldn't think of another place to ask that made sense - if it is in the wrong place, please feel free to tell me to take it to another page.

One of the things I've found myself doing lately is asking a fair number of questions over on the Catalyst Game Labs forums in the Ask The Writers/Ask The Lead Developers areas where I'm trying to pin down answers or details relevant to work I've been doing here. Sometimes, I'm asking for clarifications, other times, I'm asking about things I believe to be erroneous. I then include the responses to the questions in articles on here if it seems appropriate; to be precise, I normally quote the specific text of the response into the article within the notes section of the article. You can see examples of that in the article on the Magestrix Guard and the article on the SLDF VII Corps.

One of the reasons I've taken to quoting the relevant part of the response from the writer or developer is that I know that the Catalyst Labs forum goes through periodic bouts of archiving, where old posts are removed. I know that Catalyst Labs tracks errata and incorporates errata into new editions, when new editions are released... but I'm a little concerned that while we're all trying hard here to make Sarna a valuable tool for players and others, a lot of information that supplements the published information that comes up in areas like the Ask The Writer/Ask The Lead Developer forums isn't captured here unless the person asking the question is a Sarna editor and purposefully updates the relevant articles here.

So, I was wondering if one of the things we should be trying to do here is keep a track of information released via the Catalyst Labs forums so that it can be incorporated into articles here. A lot of the questions in both forums aren't of any use or relevance to Sarna, but a lot of them are - they clarify or expand on detail in books, sometimes books that are extremely unlikely to see a reprint - and whenever Catalyst do an archive wipe and backup, the information is lost. It may be that the information over there isn't really of interest to editors here currently, but it strikes me that it would be useful to have some sort of page or area here where we can log questions and responses, with links back to the appropriate thread on the CGL site while it exists, so that editors here can see what's around and incorporate it into articles as they feel inclined. There's already a page running here for minor mercenary units that strikes me as serving a similar purpose - it logs mentions of units that may end up being expanded later, citing the original source. It feels like we're potentially losing relevant information, and while I don't know quite how it would be best to get that information across here, I do think we should try. BrokenMnemonic 03:28, 14 February 2012 (PST)

Whenever I refer to something that was put up on the Forum (especially official rulings), I usually copy the relevant parts to the article's talk page for reference. Check Talk:Kaznejoy, for example. It's not a rule or policy, just something I do. But it does make sense imho, given that the forums are prone to being moved and losing data. Frabby 03:59, 14 February 2012 (PST)
I've noticed you doing that, and while it works, it's not really what I was thinking of. I don't have an issue with people copying the relevant details into Talk pages instead of incorporating it into the text - whatever works for you as individual. What I'm concerned about is that I think that as basically the only BattleTech wiki of note out there, we should be trying to capture all of the relevant points raised within the Ask The Writers/Ask The Developers areas on the CGL website and preserving them here. At the moment, we only catch those that either have been raised as a result of someone here asking a question, or someone here reading something that catches their eye - rather than an organised effort to try and consistently capture the responses to questions raised by others and at least record them over here, even if they don't get incorporated into individual articles right away. BrokenMnemonic 06:12, 14 February 2012 (PST)
Ah okay, so you're suggesting that BTW should actually archive and store all canonical rulings and statements from the Forums. That, I'm not subscribing to. Mind you, I wouldn't speak out against it, but this feels like doing CGL's work for them and is kinda besides this wiki's purview imho. In the past, they used to have a document called "Rulings by the Precentor Martial" or somesuch for download, a PDF compilation of rulings from Randall Bills from when he was Line Developer. That kind of documents could be hosted on Sarna in the download section (but not on the wiki) if CGL agrees. But I don't see us in a position to compile the file in the first place. What we can do (and are doing) is to find the relevant articles which are affected by a given ruling, and edit them accordingly - so while we're not neccessarily listing those rulings, they are present on BTW through their inclusion in the relevant articles. At least that's how it should be imho. (Hope this makes sense.) Frabby 12:35, 14 February 2012 (PST)

BattleMech sub-page

Can a Sub page be created to sort the BattleMechs by availability and mortality dates. Say broken down by 10 or 50 year spans. I don't know if that is part of the data base or not.. Imrie Staffson 02:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

A sub-page would not be able to "sort" in the way a database does. A category could serve the purpose, but would be bad at it. We tried categories to sort battle values but eventually did away with them because they were ineffective. A wiki just isn't a database. --Scaletail 00:54, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
A timeline extension like this one Extension:EasyTimeline would be an effective way to visually represent the availability of each mech. It would be a very tall timeline, but it would work. It would however require the admin of this site to install it, and it's a huge P.I.A. I tried on my wiki and gave up.
Now that Nic has added Semantic Wiki to this wiki, it is very easy to create a sortable list of mechs and be able to sort them by production, extinction, or reintroduction dates. You can see this new BattleMech Timetable page lists all the Mechs. Specific instructions on how to add information to this table is included on that page, but basically instead of editing that page, you instead edit the specific BattleMech page. Once a BattleMech's page is edited, the information is automatically added to the timetable page. It will require quite a bit of time to research the dates for all the Mech's though, so it won't be complete for quite a while.--Seth 15:05, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Deleting Spambot accounts

Spambots currently get blocked and deleted, but their accounts remain registered. This gives a warped look on active members on BTW. Is there any way to empower Admins to delete registered users? Frabby 11:43, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I'm waiting to hear back from Nic on several other issues, plus I have a number more to introduce. This ties in well with other access questions; I'll ask.--Rev (talk|contribs) 13:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Nic will need to install the "merge and delete users" extension. After that, normal admins will be able to delete all the registered spam bot accounts.--Seth 06:32, 2 February 2012 (PST)
Now that the merge and delete extension has been installed, admins on here can go to the Special pages and use it. I would suggest creating one single spam bot account, then merge all spam bot accounts with that name. As you do that, you can delete their current account and any contributions they might have made.--Seth 15:33, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Blocking Spammers

I've noticed a recent trend where spammers are creating User pages in which to hawk their links. Administrators, please block the IP before deleting the page, so that we can start to cut down on these site attacks. Steps:

  1. On Special:RecentChanges, click on Block first.
  2. Select a term length (my default is one year) from Expiry.
  3. Select Spamming links to external sites in the Reason field.
  4. Make sure Prevent account creation and Automatically block the last IP address used by this user, and any subsequent IPs they try to edit from are checked.
  5. Click the Block this user button
  6. Go back to Special:RecentChanges and click on the User page.
  7. Delete it with fervor.

Thanks. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 13:52, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully the ReCaptcha plugin will help a bit with this. Nicjansma 23:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
Adding a request to users who are not Admins: Please do not edit spam pages, not even blanking/inserting a deletion tag. That just adds unneccessary edits and I'm not sure if spambots monitor activity in this way. The admins are patrolling the recent changes on a daily basis and will take care of spam by summarily deleting it. Frabby 09:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
I suggest editing the reCaptcha extension that is already installed to require users to enter the captcha if they add external links to their pages. Whoever is the admin simply needs to open the LocalSettings file, find the "$wgCaptchaTriggers['createaccount'] = true;" line which is already there and add "$wgCaptchaTriggers['addurl'] = true; ". Only takes a few seconds.— The preceding unsigned comment was posted by Seth (talkcontribs) 00:14, 8 December 2011.
Seth, I am responding on your talk page. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 15:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Unable to Log In

I don't know what's going on with the wiki today, but I'm having a lot of problems accessing the site. Pages are taking 3-4 minutes to load; I attempted to do an edit of the 2nd Canopian Light Horse entry, and despite trying to preview the changes half a dozen times and save the changes several times, every single time I got told that session data had been lost and I should try again. I've had the site fail to load, with an error page popping up announcing that there's some sort of problem; I've tried logging out, only to find that I now can't log in again - even when I use IE with internet cookies enabled, I get an error message announcing that I can't log in because I have cookies disabled. I notice from a comment just after midnight on Doneve's talk page that Neuling also appears to be unable to log in. BrokenMnemonic 81.105.60.101 06:09, 8 January 2012 (PST)

Neuling posted a similar problem. Myself, I was logged on and could access pages, but found it impossible to edit or create new articles. The site was also extremely slow. No idea what the problem was. As of writing this, the problem seems to be resolved, so I am moving this to the Completed section. Frabby 10:26, 8 January 2012 (PST)

Deletion Request

Can someone please delete this file? File:OA RW 2583.png‎ - it's one of a series of maps I've produced for an upcoming article on Operation UNION HOLD, the Star League invasion of the Outworlds Alliance during the Reunification War. Having made and uploaded it, as I prepared notes for the article I discovered a couple of mistakes; I considered uploading a revised version of the map, but then decided that the map was entirely too cluttered to be particularly helpful, and have instead replaced it with two new maps. Whereas this map tried to cover all of the combat actions in 2583, the replacement maps cover actions up until March 2583 (the invasion of Cerberus) and then the remainder of 2853. That makes this original map both inaccurate and redundant. Many thanks! BrokenMnemonic 07:49, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Done. Frabby 08:00, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Add MWLL to sidebar?

As there is now a decent article written on Mechwarrior:Living Legends, could it be linked in the sidebar under Homebrew Game Systems? --Cygma

Ähm, i canot see any link, and i think you have not the permission to do this, please talk to a addmin to have a permission to do this, and as second Living Legends is allway added as BT product and ís not need a link in the sidebar. --Doneve 17:01, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
Oops, link fixed. Talking to admins is exactly why i am writing here? If there is a specific admin i should contact feel free to tell me...
And why should it not be added to "Homebrew Game Systems"? Other non-commercial projects are already linked there... --Cygma 03:25, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
I may be wrong, but I believe all of the games under that listing allow you to play Classic BattleTech. I don't know anything about MW:LL, but if it's based on Crysis, then I can't imagine that's possible. --Scaletail 22:11, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Seeing how the "Official Game Systems" lists Mechwarrior games i thought the "Homebrew" part was similar for non-official releases etc. based on CBT (which MW:LL is too). If it's only for tabletop-like sytems, my misunderstanding ;) --Cygma 00:20, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

New project for BT technology

I have been looking through some of the pages on technology and there seem to be some missing while many pages that do exist have cleanup tags on them. Additionally work is ongoing to clean up the Jump Jet Page and some pages such as the ones for fusion engines would use a similar cleanup to their manufacturers lists. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to make a new BTW project focused on improving and maintaining the pages on technology and equipment. If that is acceptable how does one go about getting a project started and gathering a team of people to help out with it? --BirdofPrey 18:58, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

  • Very good idea, i want to help you by this project.--Doneve 20:29, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
  • BirdofPrey...not hard at all. And I think you've identified an area that would definitely benefit from such coordination. What most people do is copy an exisiting project page and modify it to meet their objectives. As for getting people, direct contact would be the best bet: notify those that you know have interest or have made significant edits to technology-related articles. However, I will be glad to post both the project and a news announcement to the front page, when you have the site ready. Let me know, ok?--Revanche (talk|contribs) 21:03, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
I started on writing a project page, but I have no idea how to create templates. I was hoping to get what the other projects have that say 'this page falls under our project' and was thinking we need infoboxes for equipment like what weapons already have (I was also thinking the boxes for weapons could be expanded to list rules level and the availability rating) Can anyone help me in that regard?--BirdofPrey 22:45, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Use the search function and type Category:Infbox templates, i think this helps you :).--Doneve 22:54, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Tried copying another projects banner and editing it to link to the tech project, but I'm not sure I know how to work it right.--BirdofPrey 23:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
I think Revanche can helps, talk to him.--Doneve 23:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
So after looking at other info box templates, I have determined that have no clue how they work. Can somebody who does know how they work make one for equipment or expand the weapons infobox to be able to be used for all equipment whether it does damage or not (or point me in the direction of some instructions on how to do it myself)?--BirdofPrey 01:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
The weapon IFB template has been so modified. --Scaletail 01:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. That also gives me insight into what pieces of code accomplish what. I have a couple of additional questions, electronics have their own category, does that have to be listed on the template page to show up properly or can I put it in the copy on the equipment page. Also, since weapons fall under the purview of the tech project anyways, would altering the list of categories in the weapon infobox template's type section to follow the equipment types in the latest rulebooks be appropriate? (it lists ballistic and energy but TW prefaces both of those with direct fire, missiles are listed as explosive which is a different type entirely according to the table in TW, a few types such as anti-infantry and heat causing are missing, etc.)--BirdofPrey 02:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
I am probably going to spend the next 5 days being totally anal about the project page, but you can go ahead and announce it now.--BirdofPrey 04:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Done: Newsburst and placement on Current Projects.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 14:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
If you want categories for direct-fire weapons and such, I would just create new categories for them rather than trying to migrate all weapons to all-new categories. Since it sounds to me like you want to create new categories, that's probably something you should discuss on an appropriate talk page. --Scaletail 23:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Republic of the Sphere

Hello everyone, i noticed something odd about the The Republic of the Sphere, there are advertisement inserted into the wording of the article that non-Sarna.net related items. Words that are effected "special" "administration" "the planet". I tried edit remove them, but they don't appear (from what i can tell) in the normal coding a editor usually can see. My time online is limited, so i can't rebuild what was effected. I can't even tell how it happened or if this a site issue. I haven't looked at older articles to see if this non-sense is happening else where. Help? -- Wrangler 02:17, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Wrangler, at first I was really confused (and obviously concerned) by what you reproted here. I've checked into it, but don't see anything in the normal view, nor the coding. However, I do recall being irked by certain (other) sites that embed advertising links into words, as if they were wikilinks. I don't see them here (on this site nor in my IE6 work browser), but suspect the problem may be on your end. Its very possible you have some sort of 'addition' to your browser that creates HTML links on-the-fly, leading you to bogus search engines that sell advertising per click. In other words, as you load up a page, the script now attached to your browser scans the page for words and chooses a few that have been pegged by their clients as advertising search terms. Question: do the links display differently for you than the typical wikilinks we use here?--Revanche (talk|contribs) 13:33, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
They did look differient, they lead to out-side websites. However, i just looked at them now and their gone. Their like ads that hidden in the text of webpages. Taking words of the original fluff and making them links should the user click on them. I recently had a problem with my browser and cranked up my security which may explain why i'm not seeing them anymore. I think they maybe coming from internet ads sarna advertises. I don't enough about web codes to explain it better. It maybe randomly happening to articles and vanishing from them. -- Wrangler 23:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Weapons infobox

Has gone haywire. Since I don't know how the infobox code works I don't want to muck with it further. Take a look at Autocannon/10 for example, or I guess pretty much any weapon page... -- LRichardson 17:30, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

What does "gone haywire" mean? What should I be seeing on the Autocannon/10 page that isn't correct?--Mbear 17:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Hmm... Well, when I look at it right now the box has disappeared and has turned into a text only list at the top of the article, justified left. Now, I use one of the alternate themes when viewing the site, perhaps that has something to do with it? <pokepokepoke>... Sure enough, the issue is only occurring when I am using the "Modern" skin on my preferences page, the box looks fine when I use the Sarna skin. Hmm... -- LRichardson 18:26, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Mbear, I don't see what LRichardson reports, but other than the infobox, the page is bleached of color and the sidebar is occluded from under the site logo all the way to 'MechForce (Amiga)', with the exception of the search box. I'm using IE7 (at the moment) and 'Sarna' skin.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 14:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I was the last one to edit the Weapons Info Box, and any mistakes i made would have shown up well before now (i checked), i have not made changes to the format of the imfobox... what else could be causing it? are any other templates getting funky?--Cameron 19:21, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
OK. It looks like Nic's removed the "modern" skin and left seven Sarna-related skins in it's place. When I change to the "Classic" skin, all the infoboxes are set at the top of the page, as are the category links. Some investigation showed that this was due to the fact that the wikistandard CSS file doesn't contain any positioning information for those page elements. In short, LRichardson will have to use one of the other skins to get the infobox correct. Sorry about that answer, but it's the best I can do. :( --Mbear 17:49, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Naming of Weapons/Equipment Variant Pages

Which would be preferred for these? Currently i am doing "Manufacturer or Brand"/"Model" (with disambig style weapon type) so it is General Motors/Whirlwind (AC-5) for the Marauders weapon. but I wonder if it would be more (useful/in keeping with the nomenclature here) to do Autocannon/5/General Motors/Whirlwind--Cameron 14:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem with using "/"s is that the wiki interprets that to be a subpage. As it is now, the Whirlwind article is a subpage of General Motors, not Autocannon/5, which I assume to be your intention. Of course, there is also the problem that MediaWiki thinks "Autocannon/5" is a subpage of "Autocannon". --Scaletail 23:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
not really a problem... would be better if WikiMedia interpeted SRM-4 as a subpage for SRM as it does Autocannon/5 as a subpage of Autocannon - this would better fit BattleTech Nomenclature. the essence of my question was whither {Manufacturer/Brand (disambig)} would fit or if it was deemed better to do {Weapon Type/SubType/Manufacturer/Brand}. I like the {Manufacturer/Brand (disambig)} style because it can get away with doing the brand name or add the disambig for equipment type if necessary as opposed to using the larger name space required for the page to branch off the Autocannon/5 page (less typing is always better)--Cameron 16:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

PDF files not acceptable?

A while back I composed myself a PDF of a blank mapsheet. It is a vector graphics based file suitable for high resolution printing. I wanted to link to it on the mapsheets page I created but I cannot upload it. Rasterizing the image would make it huge as the file is referenced at 600dpi x 27" x 22", as a PDF it is a managable size. Any suggestions? -- LRichardson 04:52, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

A while ago we deliberately limited the file formats that could be uploaded. The wiki format is unsuitable as a file repository and (iirc) our Bureaucrat and site owner Nic said it generated too much traffic. We do have a download section on this site, and I would suggest you contact Nic Jansma (User:Nicjansma) and ask him to put your PDF there. (Admittedly, the download section is sort of a stepchild on this site and has not been upgraded for years - one of the many things on the to-do list... :) ). Frabby 05:59, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Makes sense. Thanks for the direction.-- LRichardson 17:27, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Quick-Strike Rules Article Request

Hello there. Since were getting a bunch of products for the Quick-Strike Rules, i think we may need have a article dedicate it. Unit Cards are for use of the new version of Battleforce, but their intended for Quick-Strike. Is possible to find someone write it up? I'm not that savy writing up game system type articles. I can try, but they don't not always write up good articles on game rules as i would like. Would there be someone out there would could write this article? It seems becoming bigger thing since these rules and products are also linked to BattleForce as products like unit cards go -- Wrangler 18:00, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Go ahead and try (aka, "Be Bold"). Even if the wording doesn't come out good, another editor may eventually clean it up. On big subjects, I personally prefer badly-worded content to no content at all (YMMV). However, that only applies to high-profile topics. Everybody contributing on BTW should generally try to write good articles so as not to tie up other editor's time for copyediting the sloppy work of others. Frabby 11:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Removal of an article

I made a minor error and created the page "Branth (species)" by accident. I have created a correct page "Branth" that can stay so do not delete the incorrect one. My apologies! CungrVanck 00:35, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. Consider using the "move" button next time (this will also create a redirect from the old article to the new one). Finally, please add new requests to the top, not the bottom, of the list. :) Frabby 06:47, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Crybaby throwing a tantrum

Maybe I'm just being dense, but I can't get the front page display the reworked news section correctly for the life of me. Now I somehow messed up the front page (not too badly luckily). Help appreciated in getting the formatting back on track. :( Frabby 09:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It looks like you accidentally deleted the table row that holds the Chatterweb stuff. I put it back and I think we're all good now.--Mbear 12:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
"Assistance Appreciated" (as in, Award 2nd ribbon given, plus Problem Solver award) :) Frabby 12:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Davion Brigade of Guards

Hy guys, i found a problem in the Davion Brigade section, i cant see the unit insignia images, is it a wiki problem, then the images are uploaded.Thanks--Doneve 14:08, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

? Looks fine to me - the insignia are all there where they belong. I guess there's been a connection problem on your end or something like that. Frabby 18:21, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup Template

Hello Admins, can we make the Cleanup Template a little bit, (the words are in my head, but my english writing :()...i think he needs a new outfit ;), it looks very sterile and and, any ideas or response.--Doneve 02:53, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on what you feel is wrong with the template? Personally, I like short and concise wording and I think the template conveys exactly what it is meant to say in a sober, matter-of-fact way. Frabby 11:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Category: Dark Age Mechs

I've been looking at the category that currently exists with that name, because it always bugs me that it doesn't fit in with the naming conventions used for other BattleMech categories. In my mind, it should read Category:Dark Age BattleMechs, but it isn't just BattleMechs, as IndustrialMechs are included in the category too. I'm thinking it should then be Category:Dark Age 'Mechs (with the apostrophe), but then it still seems like it is different than what the name suggests. Help me wrap my mind around this?--Revanche (talk|contribs) 13:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

(Using heavy duty scotch tape for wrapping of Rev's mind) Hi there. I have not been involved with the new Dark Age 'Mech. However, i've noticed mis-labelling of sorts. Carbine for instance resemble the ConstructionMech, but its not same machine. I believe what defines a mech is dark age is something constructed after the During or after the Jihad. Were starting to see alot age old Succession War 'Mechs as well Clan Era machine show up. Xanthos for example is Age of War design, yet it was resurrected during the Jihad, but it appeared in MWDA game system first. How do you define such large era machine? I think best way to keep it simple. Since the at moment, Dark Age Era for Battletech starts immediately after the Jihad <3081>(which i don't agree it should.) Were going see alot of the old fan favorites end up in the Jihad. Dark Age mech used to only exist in its own time period. Original, Dark Age ment it priemer and was used in with MechWarrior click game or was something related to it, like characters. Were going have alot dublication with category if were not careful. -- Wrangler 14:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Watchlist

Why does the option show all doesn't work? I can only see changes from the last 7 days but the option show all should show me changes from the last 30 days. --BigDuke66 10:31, 11 August 2008 (CDT)

I'm not sure. Nic? --Scaletail 19:06, 20 August 2008 (CDT)
The default "max days" is 7 -- but I've bumped this up to 30 days for you. I couldn't verify it was working properly -- please let me know if you still only see 7 days. Nicjansma 17:40, 1 March 2009 (PST)
Still strange, in my preferences I tried to set the "Days to show in recent changes:" higher then 7 and also set the "Maximum number of days to show in watchlist:" higher but anything higher then 7 will be set to 7 and when I use the "all" option on my watchlist I get about 10 days. --BigDuke66 07:43, 3 March 2009 (PST)

Fan Fiction Category

I was checking out the fan fiction page, and it seems to have a lot of images in the fan fiction category. I would suggest making a sub category for fan made images. I created a Category:Fan Made Art which is a sub-category of Category:Fan Fiction. I also made a Template:Fanon Art page. Adding the {{Fanon Art}} tag to those images instead of {{Fanon}} will add the same red fanon tag at the top of the page, but add it the subcategory instead. --Seth 23:27, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the idea solely based on the wish to remove the images from the main category. But I wouldn't want to differentiate the plethora of existing Fan Work beyond that. Also, suggest to rename the sub-cat "Fanmade Images". Frabby 11:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Import Image Award Nomination

I'd like to nominate Doneve for an Import Image Award (the third, in this case), for the work being put into the reference gallery of map images for the Planets Project. Doneve is doing far more than just cropping images and uploading them; each of the images is being adjusted by hand to show only the subject nations, with borders, arrows, legends and other such devices removed. There are more than 30 images already created and uploaded by Doneve, and in the vast majority of cases they are the first dedicated map of that region uploaded into the general maps gallery as well. While there's a lot of work still to be done, I think Doneve has already made a big investment of time and effort into producing legible, high-quality maps for use by the project team and the wiki users in general. Thank you for your consideration. BrokenMnemonic 16:42, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot BrokenMnemonic, for your nomination, and nice to have you on sarna.net, and specially to have you on our three combo team, to overhaul the planet pages.--Doneve 17:02, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Nomination received. Thank you. --Rev (talk|contribs) 17:13, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


Help Request in labeling a non-canon image(s)

Howdy, someone uploaded a non-canon imagine of the Terran Hegemony Map. There no label stating it is fan-made and not a product of canon source. Does anyone know what were suppose to do about this? I've not dealth with a direct png image before. Usually these things have page that gives direction of the imagine. Someone thought that image that was uploaded was canon. -- Wrangler 02:34, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

OK. What you have to do is put in a link to the image like this: [[Image:2750th.png|Terran Hegemony Map]]. This will include the image on the page. From there, you can click the image and you'll be taken to the image's wiki page. Then you can add the tag you need.
In this case it looks like someone has beaten you to it.--Mbear 17:46, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
It was me, I stumbled onto the source of the image. I was able track the non-canon image from person whom uploaded them. I've labeled it non-canon long with bunch of others that were uploaded as well. I'm sorry for cause a fuss, but i hated to see Sarna.net rep possibly damaged. Making people think we have unorganized non-canon stuff looming around possing as canon material. -- Wrangler 18:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Update to DropShip and WarShip infoboxes

Doneve and ClanWolverine101 made a request on my talk page to make these modifications:

  1. Update the DropShip infobox to include an Escape Pod/Life Boat line like the WarShip infobox.
  2. Update the DropShip infobox to include an AeroSpace Fighter capacity line.
  3. Update the WarShip infobox to include an AeroSpace Fighter capacity line.

I've taken care of the first request. It won't show up until an editor puts in the Escape Pod/Life Boat information so existing DropShip articles don't break.

On #2 and #3, I pushed back a bit and suggested that we consider Small Craft capacity instead of AeroSpace Fighter capacity. Ships like the Nekohono'o class can carry 6 ASF + 9 Battle Taxis for example, but they can also swap out the taxis and carry 15 ASF if required.

Any thoughts on this?--Mbear 13:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Since I haven't heard anything, I went ahead and implemented the new lines. They're in place now.--Mbear 14:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
add both small craft and asf capacity... The masses of the bay are differnt--Cameron 05:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Moratorium Periods

Hey guys - what's the easiest way to find out if the material from a particular work is fair game to be cited in an article? ClanWolverine101 21:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Usually, the moratorium tag in the article about a given work will state when the moratorium expires. See Historical Turning Points: Galtor as an example - it says the moratorium on this publication expires after 1 April 2010. Frabby
Hy falls Record Sheets: 3060 Unabridged under the moratorium phase or it is done.--Doneve 09:36, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
According to http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27_35_208&products_id=2417, the moratorium period expired. --Scaletail 15:26, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Request for Article Review

I was wondering if I could get a review of my Battle of Mars article. I'm always interested in feedback. ClanWolverine101 18:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Requesting template When?

Now that we are working on year pages and trying to improve date info it would be very useful to have Template:When to mark need of more info. See: Template:When --Neufeld 19:47, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Done. I would suggest adding some language to Policy:Year Pages about making sure that dates in articles are unambiguous. --Scaletail 01:51, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

SturmFeur(Update))

The SturmFeur(update) is directly from 3039 which I now understand is copyrite infrengement. I do not want to claim ownership for someone elses work. How do I create this page and keep it cannon?

Also the orginal article SturmFeur article for 3026 is completely different from the article in 3039. I'm not sure how to merge them.

I have removed the content from the SturmFeur(update) page until we can get the copyrite resolved. --jherbert2 15:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)jherbert

Thanks for being so proactive on this, jherbert2. I commented on the SturmFeur(update)'s discussion page. Don't give up; its not easy, but each of the existing articles are labors of love. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 19:27, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Greetings

I wish the Admins and other user's a merry christmas and a habby new year.Lets roll on. Doneve 08:07, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!--Revanche (talk|contribs) 18:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Subcategory for C3 equipped unit?

Hi, I haven't contributed much but I have found the site to be very useful so thanks for all your work. I've used BTW a lot lately as I have recently started to build up my mini collection and BTW has helped me with selecting ones I want to buy. I have a Tai Sho and since it has C3 Master capability, I would like to pick up some compatible Slave-equipped Mechs. I was wondering if it would be possible to set up a subcategory of units that have C3 equipment? That would be helpful in picking lances as well as buying minis. If I can help, please let me know. Maddog3025 05:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

For all of the other Editors here, thanks for the appreciation. I'm not too heavily involved in the BattleMech Project anymore, but its gratifying to hear that people are using our work in such an involved way and get feedback on it.
As for the Category, I think it is a great idea. If a category has a perceived need and it can be filled with more than a minimum number of articles, then it is, frankly, needed. So, don't feel like you need approval to build it, ok? Now, the issue will be in finding someone who has the interest in doing so, if you do not. As editorship on BTW is open to everyone, it is no one person's specific responsibility. My suggestion would be to look at Project:BattleMechs and find someone listed there who is active now and approach them. Or, if you let me know, I can start the category for you and show you how to tag one such article, so you can go in and find the others. (It'd be relatively easy, using C3 as a search term, I'd think.)--Revanche (talk|contribs) 12:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I've created some new categories to do this. I'll be adding them to the appropriate 'Mech pages in the future.--Mbear 18:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Of course it would help if I had put the link in place: Category:C3_Equipped_BattleMechs--Mbear 18:12, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
All done.--Mbear 00:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Wow, that was quick! Thank you Mbear. Revanche- you are welcome for the compliment. I've been using the site a lot and its been handy on many occasions. This format is so great as it allows you to sort things in so many ways. I looked through the vehicle list and noted some missing ones, so I'll be glad to create a few of those and you guys can tidy up my crude efforts. Have a good weekend, all! Maddog3025 01:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Hi again, I guess I won't quite let this thread die. I apologize if I leave this request in the wrong place. I have created the Bandit hovercraft and I am working on the Plainsman. I think I've done a bit better than my previous attempt on the Alacorn. However, if you have any tips for me to improve my work (and maybe reduce the amount of bugs you guys have to fix, please shoot me an email. Thanks again. ```` — The preceding unsigned comment was posted by Maddog3025 (talkcontribs) 11:37, 31 January 2010 .
I'll take a look. Look at the article history to see my changes as an idea on how to step in the right direction. Also, just a tip: its a nice idea to wikilink to articles you mention in your post, to make it easier to have people look at what you'd like, such as Plainsman and Bandit. Glad you're onboard. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 18:57, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I have added similar categories for C3 equipped combat vehicles since I found the categories for mechs so useful and wanted to expand that usefulness to vehicles. Any hep with adding vehicles to the new categories is appreciated. BirdofPrey 08:03, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Plagiarism

I noticed that most of the content on the Free_Worlds_League/History page is taken directly from the 20 Year Update section on the Free Worlds League. (The military ranks and history sections appear to be new.) I went ahead and put the Plagarism template on the relevant sections. (I'm not able to get to it right now.) --Mbear 01:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Mbear. It doesn't require fixing by the discovery, just tagging, such as you did. The To Do List will count and track such tags, for Editors seeking something to improve upon. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 12:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Updated Weapon InfoBox Template

Not a help request, but I wanted you to see this. I put together a lot of information about Capital Weapons, which include an extreme range bracket. Since the current weapon infobox doesn't have the extreme range data field, and not all weapons have it, I created a new InfoBox that will include the extreme range bracket info if it's present. This will allow the Aerospace fighter ranges on the appropriate weapon page, without breaking the existing content.

I named the sample infobox Template:InfoBoxWeaponMB so I wouldn't overwrite anything. You can see it in action at User:Mbear/Infoboxtest. If you like the update, it should be easy to copy to the existing template. Have a good one!--Mbear 18:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Good job, man. Great addition. Feel free to replace the exisiting with that one. I can't see how consensus would not be in approval. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 19:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

MWDA Dossiers: How do I link to local copies?

You may remember that Wrangler pointed to the MWDA dossiers on Warrenborn.com and I separated the multipage PDF files into a set of single page PDFs (listed here). My question is how to update the reference links to point to these local resources. The Atlas page uses a complete URL for the link, and I'm wondering if that's the best solution or if I should use a File or Image tag. Thanks! --Mbear 18:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

For this specific instance, I think linking to them as is done now works just fine. --Scaletail 05:27, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, linking to them like that fails. For some reason, URL links don't need a pipe between the address and the link title, only a space. I've removed the piping from the Atlas examples. Oh, and I agree: I like linking to them as you have done, also. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 05:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
OK. I'll just use the standard link type [[URL Linktext]] Thanks!--Mbear 22:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I think you mean [URL Linktext] (i.e., one open/close bracket each), but saying so, just in case.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 22:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I wasn't incorrect; I was testing you. Wink.gif You passed! Congratulations! Go get yourself a cookie.--Mbear 14:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
"Nom, nom nom." While it's the thought that counts, now I have to re-log into Sarna to replace my cookie. Thanks, anyway. Wink.gif--Revanche (talk|contribs) 15:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Question:Uploading Pictures

Currently Engaged in creating pages for infantry weapons, wondering how/where to upload images. Main issue beyond my ignorance is Whither or not to Upload the Weapon images which for the first batch would be Sourced from TR3026. I Make the Assumption that this would be OK since we have Mech Images Here. The Other Alternative is to use WikiMedia Commons images from Real World Weapons that resemble the TR3026 artwork. --Cameron 15:03, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Completed and moved--Cameron 14:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Product scans are fine. --Scaletail 15:37, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, is there a Help/Procedure article for how to upload images? --Cameron 15:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
DOH Never Mind, Found it in the Menu Bar on the Right under Tools... Now, how do you alter the name of an Image File? Wasn't Thinking when I uploaded the First 10 or so. --Cameron 17:50, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Just click 'move' at the top tab menu. It works that way for articles, too. --Scaletail 20:51, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
"Move" does not appear to be available on the image page, the only tabs that i see are "File", "Discussion", "Edit", "History", "Unwatch".--Cameron 22:50, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Move is actually only for Admins Tongue.gif. I can move it for you if you give me the exact name. The easiest thing to do, though, is to upload the image again with the correct name and place a delete request on the old image. It's what I do on a lot of other wikis. --Ebakunin (talk|contribs) 03:28, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Was wondering if that was the only way, will do. Thanks all.--Cameron 14:19, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Completed and moved--Cameron 14:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Question:Naming Pictures

What is considered "Best Practices" when naming image files, IOW which File Name is Preferred for a filesourced from Page 123 of Technical Readout 3026 depicting a Dart Gun.

  • A: "Dart_Gun.jpg"
  • B: "Dart_Gun-TR3026"
  • C: "Dart_Gun_-_TR3026_p123.jpg"

PRO for C is that the Book and page from the origin is included in the file name, the CON is that it is an aweful lot of typing. PRO for A is that it has less typing, CON is that does not allow for multiple pictures from different sources. PRO for B is that it allows for multiple named sources while also having a reduced name. --Cameron 17:23, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I use "A", then use the description to list to rest of the information. Check out File:Atlas_II.jpg for an example. --Scaletail 00:24, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
the first 10 or 15 I uploaded used *C (search for TR3026), I would appreciate renaming (since both renaming and uploading again w/deletion of old would require Admin Intervention)... then i came to my senses... Question still remains for Duplicates w/Newer sources, such as weapons that had artwork published in each of MechWarrior: First Edition, Technical Readout: 3026, MechWarrior: Second Edition, MechWarrior Companion, MechWarrior: Third Edition or Classic BattleTech RPG, LosTech: The MechWarrior Equipment Guide, and Classic BattleTech Companion. One thing that I am thinking of is weapon pages w/images of each iteration similar to what I saw on a page for a BattleMech. would it be
  • A: Dart_Gun.jpg, Dart_Gun(1).jpg, Dart_Gun(2).jpg
  • B: Dart_Gun.jpg, Dart_Gun-LT.jpg, Dart_Gun-TR3026.jpg, Dart_Gun-3e.jpg, etc with the most up to date being the main undifferenced file as well as having a file name diferenced for the source.--Cameron 17:49, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
To be honest, I rarely give it any thought. I generally leave it the way it was originally named, if it came from another online source or name it appropriately if I scanned it myself. If it conflicts with another already named pic, the page will tell you before uploading.
The problem with a naming convention is that it adds another level of complexity to adminship, as it cannot be as easily solved as page names. Plus, I don't know of any Editors that will be policing for that. I agree, it would be very nice to have source included -in fact, I think it should be required- but it doesn't have to be in the name, as it can easily be found in the pic summary. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 18:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Question is more about Preference than Requirement. If the parenthetical number style is preferred then I could do that. Main thing is that I plan to raid all my books for images of RPG weapons and plan to name the files to fit the "Best Practices" here as I do so for easy uploading. I know of many weapons that are in at least 3 different Sources. Went A ...little... Overboard with having the page number in the file name, but other than that what best fits?--Cameron 18:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I'd say whatever scheme works best for you. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 19:51, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Thaaaanks... As my fiancee would say if asked, I positively suck at making decisions :)--Cameron 21:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
No problem. You actually pay me to make decisions (and I pay you back here by doing it for free). Smiley.gif Personal note: I still have your SL 'book' (following two tours since you loaned it to me). Once I unpack it (again), I'll have a (free) offer for you to put it back in book form. More later. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 21:57, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Category Page Cludge?

To the coders of the bunch: some categories (such as the Characters one) don't display all of the sub-categories, due to some setting that limits the number per page. Can we force it to show all sub-categories on the mother cat's main page?--Revanche (talk|contribs) 19:07, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. This is a problem with the wiki itself and would require rewriting some of the essential code. Very large wikis like starwars solve the problem by not placing all individuals in the individual category but only in the related subdirectories. --Ebakunin (talk|contribs) 19:59, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm, yeah, I see the point. So, in order to get people to see all available categories -so that they use the proper categories- we'd have to categorize everyone not yet in a sub-category. Okay...thanks for the tip, Ebakunin. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 21:53, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Admin To-Do List

Locis' comments got me thinking about how we've been handling policy creation. I know that some policies that need to be written have fallen through the cracks. I would like to suggest that admins update the To Do List with policies that need creating when a discussion reaches consensus with a link back to the talk page in question. I know that policy writing is a pain, but it needs to be done. I'm probably the most guilty party here, but I think if we can get better organized, it will make the process easier. --Scaletail 17:58, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll start considering needed policies, look around WP for inspiration. Would like to stress, though, that policies are the purview of all Editors, not just Admins. This isn't aimed at Scaletail, at all: every visitor here gets a voice on BTW, and staying silent implies endorsement of the consensus. Readers that haven't edited are just as responsible for the direction of the wiki as the most industrious Editors and Admins. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 18:35, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I've spent a lot of time reading various Wikipedia policies and found subject areas I think we should address. However, we've got a lot more narrow scope than WP and I'm fairly certain that these policies won't address all of our needs. All Editors (not just admins) are free to suggest ideas (and even to write policy). --Revanche (talk|contribs) 14:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Community 'Forum' Name

I think its time we had a page where quick questions & answers can be asked, that don't necessarily relate to editing or admin requests. Things like:

  • "What was the name of that one non-Mark that became Captain-General in the war against the Sarna Supremacy?" --UserDude
  • "Hey...working on the article for Masters and Minions. Anyone have the production code for it?" --KuritaFan
  • "So...anyone think LAMs as ground vehicles, like maybe support vehicles, would be cool? I have some killer ideas." --LadiesMan217

The idea would really be to provide quick answers, not so much conversations (in spite of that subtle last one), which would be directed to the Sarna forums. We'd archive it every quarter or so. This would be something similar to the Research Desk on Wikipedia. The question is: what should it be called? Chatterweb is already taken...ideas?--Revanche (talk|contribs) 02:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, due to lack of overall interest, and based on my forthcoming essay about the 'character' of the site (i.e., a portal for research at the University of Sarna), I'm going to call this 'forum' the Research Desk. Please find it on the top right of the Main Page.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 01:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Banned Vandal attempting to get a new account?

I think you have a banned vandal attempting to get a new account. But this wiki has no where shown to send the information, and edits don't seem to be leaving any trace that they have been successful. http://www.fixya.com/support/t2634796-blocked_from_editing_www_sarna_net — The preceding unsigned comment was posted by 72.183.119.36 (talkcontribs) .

Thanks. Responded to them at Fixya. --Xoid 23:00, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

CCG Artist Randy Asplund

Just as a notice, in return for no objection to the use of his art on BTW, I said I'd provide a link back to Randy Asplund's website on the image pages and Randy Asplund article. I don't imagine any Editors will have an issue with this arrangement. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 05:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Custom 'Mechs in Regular Categories?

Would like to get a feeling for consensus here: should fanon units be listed under categories (I had presumed) reserved for canon units. For example, Gatling is added to the BattleMechs | Medium BattleMechs | 45 ton BattleMechs | Free World's League BattleMechs categories. To be honest, I'd shy away from that and lump them under the catchall category of Category:BattleMechsCustom. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 21:35, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

According to our Policy:Canon, this wiki expressly tolerates custom/Fanon (fan-made non-canonical information) content under the premise that it is clearly marked as such. It think that, by extension, this requires Fanon articles be kept out of the categories.
Personally, I even feel strongly against but as you may know I am of the opinion that Fanon content is detrimental to the image of this wiki anyways. (I've been overruled on this issue and I can live with that. BTW still rocks.) Frabby 00:14, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
As do you, Frabby. Thanks for the guidance. I'll fix this one now and hopefully the established templates for custom units will help prevent this categorization overlap. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 00:23, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

InfoBox template broken?

The infoboxes for 'Mechs and fiction (books, BattelCorps fiction) seem to be broken but there was no recent edit to the templates - anybody know what happened? Frabby 10:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Nic upgraded the MediaWiki software to 1.15. Good, quick catch, Frabby. Okay, let's all try and identify any other unanticipated (negative) changes that came as a result today and I'll pass those on to Nic. Hopefully, it'll just need some php tweaks and not a rollback. Report those found on this list. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 11:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Looks like all infoboxes are broken; state units, weapons, customweapons, aerospace fighters, dropships, you name it. So it looks like the software update did something to the way templates work. Onisuzume 11:53, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Strick-9

I screwed up again. I don't get or understand how to edit/create here and I messed up the custom weapons list and can't remove what I did. So, I hope it can be fixed. I'm going to have my son show me how to use this system so, I don't mess it up AGAIN. Sorry for the mess. Strick-9 13:35, 13 June 2009 (PDT)Strick-9Strick-9 13:35, 13 June 2009 (PDT)

No problem. You edited a discussion page and almost anything goes on these.
I guess, you want to create that PPC-article, so my advice is:
  1. Open the same page again via "edit" and copy the source-code for your article (to get the code for the chart).
  2. Insert the name of your article in the search-box to the left and "go". (Not standard method, but easiest way.)
  3. A page will show up, saying that no article with this title exists, providing a red link to your "PPC something". Click on the link and an edit-page will open.
  4. Insert your text and "save page". Voilà: new article.
In general: Do some training in the "sandbox" (link on the left), before approaching a major task like new articles. --Detlef 13:55, 13 June 2009 (PDT)
Thank you for the help. When I started playing BattleTech there were no computer games so, I'm a generation behind most of you. LOL. By the way does anyone know if a supercharger and TSM can be used together? If so, what is the rules on that. Thanks for the help and info. --Strick-9 14:31, 13 June 2009 (PDT)
Detlef wrote some really good guidance there. I was tempted to correct the article's place myself, but you really did most of the hard work already in writing the article and if you follow his steps, you'll learn the whole process. Call for help if you need it, tho, ok? --Revanche (talk|contribs) 19:57, 13 June 2009 (PDT)

Notable Pilots

Hi there, I've been going through some of the mech profiles. They look like most of them are done. I was wondering if it cool for me to add notable pilots that are both published in past TROs (original 3025 example) and from the novels. Would this be acceptable? I would be listing page, book, etc. where these characters profiles are listed. I am uncertain however, how far it be allowed. Example: Pilot of a Archer from TRO Notable Piltos. That can't be put in word for word, but apprievated version what is written. Example 2: Is duable to list pilot such as Conner Rhys-Monroe, a antagonist character whom is Rifleman RFL-8D in novel Sword of Sedition & Fortress Republic. Like notable pilots, be short listing for this character. Would this be allowable? Thank you. -- Wrangler 14:24, 3 March 2009 (PST)

You can add articles for the pilots. In fact, it would be great if you did that. And please do add as many references as you can, and as precisely as you can. I have done so myself for two characters that were notable pilots in TRO3025 and re-appeared in Starterbook: Sword and Dragon. Check out Terry Ford and Melinda Carlyle for examples. In fact, I suggest you use these articles as blueprints for your character articles on people mentioned as "notable pilots".
I would not, on the other hand, add them as notable pilots in the entries of the respective 'Mechs, in accordance with our Policy:Notability. The reason is that they are not actually notable, but virtual nobodies in most cases. Very few of these "notable" pilots have ever made an appearance elsewhere in Canon, and if we listed everybody who ever piloted a given 'Mech type in a canon source then the lists would be very, very long.
If you read the conversation members of the Project BattleMechs team had concerning the addition of the "Notable Pilots" section to the BattleMech articles, you will find that adding the pilots from the TROs was specifically cited as something we did not want to happen unless they were otherwise notable. I would like to stress that one precondition (not the only one) for including a pilot as "notable" on the 'Mech article is that they have their own article on BTW, per that same discussion. While Connor, specifically, is probably notable enough, he needs to have an article written about him that asserts that first. --Scaletail 16:51, 3 March 2009 (PST)

Uploading Self-Generated Images

Hi, I suggested generating Unit TOEs for the Military Commands project, and others suggested I put up an example to demonstrate what I mean. I now have a PNG file, but no idea of how to upload. Can anyone walk me through the procedure, please? Alkemita 16:11, 25 February 2009 (PST)

As you have since uploaded and used the Waco Rangers TOE I take it this request is done? If not, please drop me a note. Frabby 06:42, 27 February 2009 (PST)
Yes, it's done - thanks. Alkemita 09:42, 27 February 2009 (PST)

Weapons, Character Pages

I have two questions. First off, if a character in BattleTech is already in the "BattleTech characters list", should redirect pages be made so people get pointed straight to that location? I was thinking you would just use the context indicator so it would go straight to that person, but I thought I'd ask because you may decide to give major characters (like Sun-Tzu Liao) their own articles.

I'd actually prefer we split up "BattleTech characters list" and make pages for all of the characters in there. --Nicjansma 16:14, 7 January 2007 (CST)
Agreed. Most people are going to go for specific names, or type them in directly. Apart from being neater, and circumventing various technical limitations (both server- and client-side), it'll reduce the amount of bandwidth used on outbound traffic. --Xoid 05:54, 27 January 2007 (CST)

Secondly, shouldn't the weapons articles have more information than just where the weapon is manufactured? Isn't just having only where its made kind of odd? I was wondering for two reasons: 1) starting to put summaries on ALL the weapons pages would make a huge difference, and I wasn't sure if doing that would be against the BTW beliefs on the layout of said weps-articles. 2) If someone who knew very little about BattleTech wanted to find out more, here would be a great start. However, if they try to understand how a PPC or Gauss Rifle works, they would ahve to look at 'Mechs articles to (hopefully) find out.

Yes, we do want to get more data for the weapons besides just their locations of manufacture. However, when I started this wiki I pre-generated lots of pages, including using all of the manufacturing data I had available. Since some of these weapons haven't been filled with the other stats and fluff yet, all that is in them is their manuf data. --Nicjansma 16:14, 7 January 2007 (CST)

Also, you guys should mention in one of the 'good-formatting' sections that people making new articles should see if they are spelling the linked weapons correctly. Many of the weapons listed on the Wanted Page are because a lot of people didn't use hyphens. Just saying. --~Malithion~ 13:54, 7 January 2007 (CST)

I also agree with this, however, creating redirects for simple spelling differences is easy as well. We'll never get everyone agreeing on a spelling for all items, and new people won't know about a policy like that either. It's easier, in the end, to do catch-all redirects so people get to the pages they want. --Nicjansma 16:14, 7 January 2007 (CST)
I believe that the names of the actual pages should be standardised, but there should still be redirects from common alterations (e.g., since SRM-6 is the most prevalent 'version' so far, it would be the primary page and 'acceptable variations' would redirect to it). Ease-of-use, and a unified feel. --Xoid 05:54, 27 January 2007 (CST)

Also, now that we have a heat sink article, should we just redirect to that from double heat sink? I can't think of many differences between them that warrant two articles but, hey, that's just me. Additionally, I noticed that there is a weapons template already set up (like the BattleMech box). I was wondering if any of you guys might have orginal BT data on the weps, or if its the same as the video-games. 'Cuz that's all the data I have. --~Malithion~ 18:34, 7 January 2007 (CST)

Canon data (from the board game) is what is being used. The video games tend to vary a lot (especially if you start reporting what their statistics actually are, instead of what they say they are). As far as I'm concerned, I believe specific pages (e.g., 'Medium Laser', 'Large Laser', etc.) should exist, with either relevant text be transcluded or linked to from beefy articles on the 'overall' aspect of a given technology (e.g., 'lasers'). Same thing with heatsinks, etc., etc. Nic and Revanche may have other ideas though. --Xoid 05:54, 27 January 2007 (CST)
No, I agree with you that the board game is the origination point for all data. Everything else can be referenced, but generally starting off from the article on the board game version of the item in question. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 23:15, 7 February 2007 (CST)

I was curious as to whether or not we would honor labnames on this wiki. It's just a minor edit, but I was looking through the Character pages and I noticed that Peri was under the "P" section. I recall the scientist caste of the Clans being a bit more daring about the use of surnames, and adopt what they call 'labnames', surnames taken from doctors throughout history. In 'Freebirth', Twilight of the Clans Book Four, she has adopted the labname Watson. Just a simple question. Thanks for your time. Jacen Pryde 20:10, 10 September 2008 (CDT)

Since they're not official, I would say "no," though it should be included in the article. --Scaletail 21:31, 10 September 2008 (CDT)

MechFormations

I thought about making a category called "MechFormations" that lists all brigades, regiments & battalions.
And with that in place I wanted to replace the brigade descriptions from the main military article of every house with a list of links to all the brigade articles of that house & also move the descriptions that some already have to the corresponding brigade articles.
And there again I wanted to add all regiments of that brigade again only with a link so that an article can be made for every regiment.
Problem is:

  1. Can a user create a category?
  2. How do I make a template for a brigade info box & regiment info box? Those looks more than complicate to me especially with the help page for creating brigade & regiment articles and with a doc page for that template.
  3. Furthermore what should be listed in those infoboxes? For brigades I thought of: brigade symbol, name, formed, status & parent formation. And for regiments: regiment symbol, name, nickname, formed, status & parent formation. Anything else?

BigDuke66 11:36, 20 July 2008 (CDT)

I was actually thinking about this subject today, so let me give my thoughts. I was thinking of creating different categories for each faction, "AFFS Units", "AFFC Units", "DCMS Units", "Clan Jade Falcon Units", "MAF Units", and so on and so forth. I was considering breaking it down with different categories in the same way that BattleMechs are broken down by tonnage. For instance, Category:Regular Units could take you to Category:CCAF Units, which takes you to Category:Victoria Commonality Ranger Units. Each category along the way would list all of the units therein (a la Category:BattleMechs, Category:Heavy BattleMechs, Category:70 ton BattleMechs). I think it is still appropriate to leave the descriptions of the brigades that are present on the military organization articles there, but expand upon them in full articles (in the same way that Handbook: House Steiner gives some info on them, but Field Manual: Lyran Alliance gives them a more complete treatment).
  1. Yes, a user can create a category. It works the same way as an article.
  2. Use other infoboxes as a model (Perhaps Template:InfoBoxMercUnit would be a good one to base this off of) and use the "Show Preview" button often.
  3. All of your suggestions sound good, except that I'm not sure what you mean by "status". The only thing I can think of to add would be an optional line for "destruction". --Scaletail 18:22, 20 July 2008 (CDT)
Well "Status" should show what the state of the unit is, active, destroyed, disbanded, deserted etc..
More Categories sound good but I don't see how much different it is to what we will see in the articles.
Faction>Capellan Confederation>Capellan Confederation Armed Forces>Victoria Commonality Rangers>Kingston'S Rangers
Category:Regular Units>Category:CCAF Units>Category:Victoria Commonality Ranger Units>Kingston's Rangers
Of course those categories would be better then just on big with all formations. I just counted the regiments of the 20 Year Update and came out with 577 and that ist without Brigades and without the Clans. We could do it like the BattleMech category, one big with all of them und some sub categories that are more specific starting with what you have suggested "Category Regular Units". And maybe "Mercenary Units"? What else? --BigDuke66 10:11, 21 July 2008 (CDT)
Actually, the reason I suggested "Regular Units" was because "Units" sounds like it could encompass BattleMechs, vehicles, etc. as they are "units". "Military units" is too broad (although it sounds better to me now), while "House units" is too narrow. I suppose we could integrate Mercenary units to a broader category that includes House, Periphery, and Clan units; but I think that's too much sub-categorization.
On another note, when we create sections for the brigades, in addition to having a link to the main article for the brigade, we can have a link to the appropriate category that lists all units within that brigade.
I like the idea for "status" now that I understand it... instead of having a separate section for date or destruction, we could just put the appropriate date next the status. By George, I think we might have it! --Scaletail 19:30, 21 July 2008 (CDT)
Yes "Military units" sounds good but your right it also sounds to broad, I would expect to see units like Death Commandos or maybe dropship/jumpship fleets under such category too. Maybe "Ground Units"... na, or "Army Units"... na, maybe... look at the main page with the point "Unit Categories" and all the sub-points, what about making in similar.
The "House Formation" category shows subcategories like "AFFS Formations", "CAAF Formations" etc., those can show the related brigade/milita/academy articles and subcategories like subcategory "Davion Brigade of Guards", subcategory "Draconis March Militia" and subcategory "Academy & Training Formations" etc., and each of those subcategories could show their related regiments & battalions articles like "Davion Heavy Guards", "Addicks DMM" and "1st NAIS Cadet Cadre" etc..
I think I wasn't clear enough about the brigade & regiment articles. What I want to do is to add links in the main military article to brigade/milita etc. articles. Then in these articles there should be some major points covered besides the data in the infobox. I thought about "History", "Officers", "Tactics" and "Composition" and under “Composition” I wanted to list & link all regiments/battalions that are or were part of that brigade/milita etc.. So all together you can go down the ladder till you are down to a regiment article.
Now that I read my post again I wonder if we need those categories at all. Their structure is very similar to what the military & brigade level articles will host. So do we really need them?--BigDuke66 10:06, 22 July 2008 (CDT)
Sure. Things need to be categorized, so we might as well put them in categories that make sense without being unwieldy. With the categories, we don't need to put a dozen links in brigade articles. We need only throw in a link to the category. Of course, that means its another click away, but I think its useful to avoid clutter in the articles themselves. --Scaletail 18:24, 28 July 2008 (CDT)
I see that we now have also a link to the State Units on the main page or was it already there? Seems new to me. Anyway how about another for clan units? I think they are in many aspects far away from states and even further from mercenarys to justify that. BTW where do we put the units from the Bandit Kingdoms & Pirates, ComStar & WoB and Deep Periphery & the not-named-clan?--BigDuke66 18:52, 22 August 2008 (CDT)
You're right: it is relatively new. I put it there, since I felt there was a dearth of unit articles and wanted to jumpstart interest in it. However, I hadn't followed thru by reading this thread. I like your idea for a Clan units category (and will add it now). A: And, I think you're also right about the need to represent the other 'factions.' I personally would consider units with Bandit Kingdoms as state ones (such as I do for the Brotherhood of Randis, being a unit of the Fiefdom. However, acknowledged stateless entities such as ComStar and WOB might need to be discussed. Both have held (or presently hold) planets, so I'd prefer to see them under state categories. B: What about all of these being in more specific sub-categories? I cannot imagine all the Great House (plus assorted other lesser Houses) all having their units mixed up together in one broad category (Cat:State Units). It seems to me, that Cat:Marik Units should be a sub-category of Cat:State Units. Discussion? --Revanche (talk|contribs) 00:04, 23 August 2008 (CDT)
Sub-categories? Absolutely YES! I was about to ask the same today. A Sub-category for every state in the Category:State Units would help to keep the overview and articles of the brigades(Lyran Guards, Davion Guards, etc.) could link to them directly so you can get a clue of what units are in a specific brigade. --BigDuke66 10:17, 23 August 2008 (CDT)
Ooh, good idea. Cascading categories. I'm not very knowledgeable regarding the various levels of organization, but anyone can create categories, so please...feel free to start those examples. Any ideas, however, for the Main Page namimg scheme above? We have State, Clan & Merc. I don't necessaily want to create Pirates, since there are so few articles that would be built for those, so a category that would incorporate pirates and others would be best. Cat:Misc, maybe? --Revanche (talk|contribs) 10:37, 23 August 2008 (CDT)
Cat:Misc sounds good. Regarding ComStat & WoB I think they would fit here better than in the state category. When I think of state factions I only think of the 5 houses and minor states like Rasalhague, St. Ives, Andurien, Magistracy of Canopus, Outworlds Alliance and Taurian Concordat maybe also the Bandit kingdoms and the smaller Periphery states too but not Comstar & WoB, especially ComStar is present everywhere and much more an Organization then a state. So I think they would fit here best, maybe Chaos March & Arc-Royal Defense Cordon too?--BigDuke66 11:11, 24 August 2008 (CDT)
New Main Page cat created and added. BigDuke, I think you're probably a bit more qualified than myself for defining what goes where in this case. If you start the standard now with units in each category, then it'll be that much stronger for it. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 13:52, 24 August 2008 (CDT)

Years

I have decided I have no real purpose in life, and give the years a consistent format. What tag do I use if I am unsure if the data included is accurate? 2016 is my basic template idea — The preceding unsigned comment was posted by Moosegod (talkcontribs) 20:31, 19 August 2008.

"{{Verify}}" would be the one I would use. --Scaletail 19:06, 20 August 2008 (CDT)

Clan Jade Falcon changes

Excuse me, I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but there seems to be no way to e-mail the admins of this site. I recently edited the Jade Falcon page, correcting some historical innacuracies and general anti-Jade Falcon bias which was present on the page, and I was messaged by the administrators that my posts were unhelpful and I was going to be charged with VANDALISM. I thought that this was a wiki in which everyone was free to contribute, not a "members-only" club in which outsiders are not tolerated. I am extremely upset by this discrimination, and will neither contribute nor endorse this discriminatory site.— The preceding unsigned comment was posted by 66.18.240.88 (talkcontribs) 13:40, 18 March 2008 .

The information that was added was extremely biased towards Clan Jade Falcon, that was why it was removed and you warned that the information you added might be considered vandalism. The current article can certainly be improved, but "Kerensky, in his hubris, decided that to have his name associated with the word "wolf" would be better for his image, and sided with the haughty and unworthy Clan Wolf [my emphasis]" is not the way to fix it. Moreover, some information was incorrect, such as the fact that more members of the Clan that Khan Crichell were involved in the downfall of ilKhan Ulric Kerensky (saKhan Chistu trapped him, for Pete's sake). "Clan Jade Falcon was the FIRST clan to allow freebirth to compete for a bloodname" is also completely untrue, as that person was actually Khan Phelan Kell of Clan Wolf.
The above reasons are why the information you added was deleted, not because of a desire to be exclusive. The warning was given because these edits violated BattleTechWiki policy, and informed you which policy it violated so you could read about it and understand why your edits were reverted. I still encourage you to read Policy:Neutral point of view so that you can better understand the reasons behind my decision. If, after that, it is still unclear, then please ask and I, or any other admin, will be happy to help you to the best of our ability. --Scaletail 17:44, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

CCG Cards

I noticed that the mission cards from the CCG section have no text in the text box. The main text shows up fine when I go into edit mode, but not on the page itself. I was checking out the Death from Above card and saw it. Just thought I'd point it out. Haruspex 15:13, 8 February 2008 (CST)

Great catch! I fixed the template (it lacked the "Text" parameter), so all should be good now. --Scaletail 08:01, 9 February 2008 (CST)

Recent Spam

What can we do about this recent spam? It appears that bots are pre-pending articles with special keywords they will later search for so they know they can edit that page. Which probably won't work because we don't allow anonymous users to post external URLs. What do other wiki's do about this? Nicjansma 22:18, 10 October 2007 (CDT)

While it's not something I wanted to do, how about banning all IP edits? I don't know how other places handle this, but I don't think asking people to register to edit is too much. We will miss a few here a there, I would imagine, but if it stops this vandalism, I'm all for it. We could also look at it as a temporary measure until we come up with something better. Scaletail 10:51, 16 October 2007 (CDT)
Better idea. How about changing the already-in-place captcha parameters to include all non-registered editors? Scaletail 10:45, 18 October 2007 (CDT)
I'm opposed to this. Vandalism-by-bot will continue, with or without blocking anonymous edits. The only thing that blocking anonymous edits does is tend to cause problems; you get a flood of user accounts taking up space in the MySQL database -- making location of legitimate registered users more difficult (we are hoping we'll eventually get enough editors that Special:Listusers might eventually become a necessity, right?). Blocking anonymous edits also tends to scare off those who make once-off typo fixes. They may not contribute much, but sometimes they come back. I know that's how it was with me and Wikipedia. If I had to register an account just to fix a typo I'd never have bothered.
You'll also get the odd disgruntled user who'll make an account at BugMeNot to get around such mandatory registration, and you'll then be forced to fight a war against otherwise legitimate users. (Since there'll be no way to verify that HelpfulUser7 is always going to be the same person -- he may be a vandal one day and useful another.) Better to avoid that kettle of fish altogether, methinks. I don't particularly like your newer idea either. CAPTCHAs are seldom perfect and they are a burden on legitimate users. Considering that almost every legitimate user is registered though, it's a fine interim solution. --Xoid 23:56, 22 October 2007 (CDT)
I agree with you in that I don't particularly like either of my suggestions, either (for much the same reasons), but I also don't see anybody else suggesting anything. I have no doubt that if there was a good, simple solution it would have already been implemented. I had meant for the CAPTCHA suggestion to be temporary, as I (perhaps incorrectly) assumed that it was something that could be done fairly easily while a more permanent solution is sought. Scaletail 17:31, 23 October 2007 (CDT)
There's an extension that allows for this. ConfirmEdit. Permanent solutions are, in my opinion, impossible. The various botnets responsible for this stupidity consist of numerous infected PCs, many with dynamic IP addresses. If there is a spate of vandalism from a specific IP address or range, we'll block it. Apart from that? The most that can be done is to minimise harm and remain vigilant. The scumbags responsible for these botnets aren't going to close-up shop any time soon. --Xoid 05:19, 24 October 2007 (CDT)
I guess it's just a little frustrating for those of us who are patrolling for it. So far, Kittle, Scaletail, and I have been doing it almost constantly and at the cost of other real work. The temp-bans seem to be having some kind of impact as I only needed to edit about 5 articles this time instead of the normal 10-20. I have found that we are missing some of the vandalism, though, as I occasionally find an article that's been recently vandalized and it has some remnant of a previous attack. I don't know that there's much more that we can do, but it does make the whole experience less than satisfying. Bdevoe 15:48, 25 October 2007 (CDT)
It definitely sucks, I agree. I'll try to remain on IM (check my user page for communication avenues) so you can nudge me if you need an admin to ban someone/thing. I'm seriously considering asking Nic to bestow someone with SysOp status purely so it's possible to provide better ban hammer coverage over the day. I know Scaletail the best and would recommend him, but I've been out of the loop for too long and it'd be unfair to other editors to simply assume Scaletail is the best suited to the job. --Xoid 01:01, 26 October 2007 (CDT)
With great power comes great responsibility. Scaletail 20:31, 27 October 2007 (CDT)
Can articles be protected? Some articles on WP are frequent targets of vandalism (like when Stephen Colbert tells people to), so the page in question can be protected from edits by all but an admin (or whatever the WP equivalent is). Can we do the same here with some of the most frequent targets? Scaletail 19:14, 21 November 2007 (CST)
Unfortunately, the articles hit seem too random to be able to protect any. I've found another extension, CommentSpammer that seems to address our very problem. However, it requires MediaWiki v1.12, which isn't officially released yet (we're on 1.11). I'd rather wait until v1.12 is officially released, then I'll add this extension.
I also agree with Xoid that we could use another SysOp -- Scaletail, I think you're a great fit, as you've contributed a ton to this wiki. Nicjansma 16:08, 2 December 2007 (CST)
After months of wasting time reverting these 'gibberish' edits from spammers/vandalizers (having personally reverted 300+ gibberish edits so far), I'm leaning towards enabling the CAPTCHA for all anonymous edits. I know this will cause legit anonymous users a small bit of hassle, but we're still not requiring them to register and it should stop all this vandalism. Any opposition? Nicjansma 01:19, 27 December 2007 (CST)
Not from me. --Scaletail 07:06, 27 December 2007 (CST)
Nor I. I would welcome it, honestly. It would actually allow us to get back to some real work. ;) Bdevoe 08:15, 27 December 2007 (CST)
I have made the change. Nicjansma 10:02, 27 December 2007 (CST)

Main Page Sidebar Problem

Is it just me or does the sidebar get pushed far down whenever the BTW icon or Home links are selected? --Revanche (talk|contribs) 10:15, 9 December 2007 (CST)

Just you. --Scaletail 11:47, 9 December 2007 (CST)
Seriously? That sucks. I get it on IE at home and Netscape on my ship. I wonder what could be causing it. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 12:18, 9 December 2007 (CST)
Gross, I see that too. I'll take a look. Nicjansma 12:28, 9 December 2007 (CST)
There was a missing </div> on the mainpage -- seems like fixing it fixed the problem. Let me know if not. Nicjansma 13:07, 9 December 2007 (CST)

Uploading Program files

How can I upload program files for others to download? I've tried the "upload File" link, but is this only for images? Please Help :o) Clemmensen 04:35, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

The Upload File link is only for images. For other files, please email me (nic [at] nicj [dot] net) with what you want to share and I can upload it to the file archive. Nicjansma 16:08, 2 December 2007 (CST)

Drive-by deletes?

There's been 4 articles in the last day that have had 2/3 of their article deleted by random IPs. Is this a form of vandalism? Nicjansma 12:50, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

It certainly sounds like it could be. What were the pages? Scaletail 18:26, 13 April 2007 (CDT)
This has obviously been happening a lot - I've reverted probably 20 pages in the past couple of weeks with this problem. It seems odd as it's not an adbot and there doesn't seem to be any real rationale beyond just being annoying. Bdevoe
I haven't seen this recently -- very strange. Nicjansma 16:08, 2 December 2007 (CST)

Plageurism

On the Thanatos and Lao Hu entries I had to delete the text from the articles due to the fact they were directly plageurized from another source by their original author. CJKeys 13:28, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

Category:People

I started added the characters to Category:People because it is on the main page when I realized that there is also a Category:PeopleFictional. Since I'm sure nobody wants two identical categories, which one should we use? My vote goes to People because it's shorter and easier to find. Scaletail 14:58, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

I vote for People as well. Nicjansma 11:40, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Wikilinks as non-case & Mercenaries category

Two things. First, is it possible to make wikilinks non-case sensitive, or do we have to set up redirects? So many things in BattleTech have an extra capitalized letter in the middle, it's often hard to get it right. Second, would it be possible to create a "merecenaries" category? That way all those merc units can have their own category, since they're really not factions all on their own. Scaletail 22:28, 26 December 2006 (CST)

Ugh...I know what you mean (regarding all of those midword capitalizations). I'm gonna leave the response for this one to Xoid.
As for a Mercenaries category, I think that's a great idea. Specifically, however, are you referring to the Main Page, under the Factions bullet? --Revanche (admin) 10:10, 30 December 2006 (CST)
From what I've read? There's no practical way for MediaWiki to implement it without causing severe interoperability problems with foreign language versions, more processing, etc., etc., you can find specifics at meta's page on case sensitivity.
I will say this though: I prefer it this way. By making sure that SRM-6, SRM 6 and srm 6 are all different? It allows me to hunt down style inconsistencies in articles and clean them up, making for a more unified feel to the BattleTech Wiki. --Xoid 05:39, 27 January 2007 (CST)
Sorry about the delayed response. I had forgotten I put this here.... I requested a category before I opened up the section on the main page, but I would envision it as two different things, though I'm not sure if the redundancy is necessary. While I'm here, can I make a request for a "people" category. Since it is on the left-hand toolbar, it would make sense to have a category for it. Scaletail 12:07, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Spam

I just recently had to fix the Board Game page from a spammer, IP is 202.212.58.10 in case you want to block or take whatever action you need to. --CJKeys 11:11, 6 November 2006 (CST)
Thanks CJKeys. I think I'll try to implement a captcha system for new changes that include outside URLs like wikia.com does. Nicjansma 15:32, 6 November 2006 (CST)
Had to fix it the Board Game page again, the IP for the spammer this time was 200.31.148.46. I dont know if you can block IPs but I thought I would let you know it happened again. Thanks. --CJKeys 00:24, 8 November 2006 (CST)
Also, thanks, CJ. I blocked both IPs for 3 months. --Revanche (admin) 01:10, 8 November 2006 (CST)
This looks like a minor annoying problem right now, but I could see it getting worse. Should I spend time investigating captcha for external links in edits? Nicjansma 21:42, 21 November 2006 (CST)
I had to look the term up, since its the second time you've suggested this. How would you envision it working? Would everytime someone made an edit, they'd have to translate the image? Or, would we limit wiki editing only to registered users, who had to pass this test to register? The latter would be preferable to me. --Revanche (admin) 00:17, 22 November 2006 (CST)
Well I still want to allow anonymous edits. The captcha prompt would only occur if 1) The user was not logged in (not registered) AND 2) they posted an edit with an external link. This would avoid 90% of the 'referral spam' that spambots want. It wouldn't block vandalism, but we're only trying to curb spam-bots with captcha.
I like it. It is not restrictive for 95% of any edits, as how many times will an unregistered user seek to post links? Is this something you think you can turn on? --Revanche (admin) 10:21, 22 November 2006 (CST)
There may even be a way to get around needing that. The nastiest stuff is usually the div style="display: none" and similar crap that adbots love to toss around. You can also try setting a spam blocking RegEx similar to the one Wikipedia uses. It's one of the settings that is heavily documented on either Meta or MediaWiki.org. --Xoid 11:49, 22 November 2006 (CST)

I've added a captcha system for BTW to combat SPAM. It will be triggered under the following conditions: Nicjansma 18:39, 14 February 2007 (CST)

  1. New account creation or
  2. Editing an article under all the following circumstances:
The article contains a new link to an external website
The user is not logged in
The external link is not to wikipedia.org or mediawiki.org

I hope this will be agreeable and adequate. Logged in users will never see the captcha, nor will anonymous users see it unless they post an external link. Nicjansma 18:39, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Thank you! It was starting to get bad in the last few days. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 19:21, 14 February 2007 (CST)
Bad? This was nothing. When you are reverting five adbots, all of which are active at the same time, while you're on your own, and all of them use a myriad of proxies and sign up under new usernames… these bots haven't even started the long road to being annoying… they're not even hiding their garbage with non-displaying <div>s. --Xoid 00:36, 17 February 2007 (CST)

I noticed that there's been a lot of spam bots making user accounts almost daily. The captcha system seems to be ineffective on its own. MediaWiki has a number of anti-spam features you could implement in addition to the captcha system Anti-spam Features. Hopefully a combination of a few of those will make the number of spam bots making accounts more manageable. --Seth 19:42, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Since it didn't ask me to fill out the captcha when I added this url to my last edit, I would suggest adding "$wgCaptchaTriggers['addurl'] = true;" to your localsettings.php file beneath the line to add reCaptcha;
require_once( "$IP/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ReCaptcha.php");

Copyright Infringement

Greetings. I have recently become involved in contributing to BattleTech through the Wikipedia end. I submitted one article over there, "Chaos March." I came over here, only to find that my article had been copied verbatim. By itself, this is fine, because I know Wikipedia articles are public-domain, however no credit was given on the part of the person who 'ported the article to MechWiki. I would appreciate it that, for all articles taken from Wikipedia, credit be given to the original author and/or a link be provided to the original article (as provided in Wikipedia's copyright, which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights). Since the only article of mine in question I have found is "Chaos March," that is all I am concerned with, however, I am sure the other authors from Wikipedia would appreciate it if you gave them the same consideration. — The preceding unsigned comment was posted by 4.234.144.246 (talkcontribs) .

Great. Just. Great. *sigh*. Alright; damage control. Nic: can you tell me exactly which pages were auto-generated? I'll run kdiff against a list of all articles with your list of generated articles so we know which ones to exclude from our inquisitorial purge. Revanche: a list of all articles you've imported would be appreciated.
Note that I could go through the 'Mechs and see if I can find any parts that are copied verbatim, though for obvious reasons that would be a PWOT (I know everything I've submitted is my own work, Daniel's 'articles' are next to non-existent and its rather obvious from CJ's fractured English that he wrote his articles himself (no offense intended CJ)). From there we've got two options here; nuke the lot and start over, or get cracking on providing appropriate licensing information. For obvious reasons I'd prefer the latter, but if you're antsy about getting sued go for the former. --Xoid 13:13, 13 December 2006 (CST)
My apologies for not signing up and signing earlier. My bleary eyes couldn't find the "create an account," button, even though it's in the same place as Wikipedia's. Apologies are certainly accepted. Lord knows I've made mistakes in the past. I'm not going to sue, I was just upset at not being credited for my work. I think this project is a great idea that can contribute a lot to the BattleTech community. Moreover, I have trolled on sarna.net for around a decade, and I would do nothing that might harm it. I think I have somewhat of an idea of at least some pages that were 'ported over and, if you all don't mind, I'll assist in linking them back to Wikipedia. Scaletail 21:17, 13 December 2006 (CST)
Sure, any assistance is appreciated. I wasn't worried about you per se, I'm worried about the 'we'll sue your pants off' type; we all know they exist and it's better to be safe than sorry. Once upon a time we ran into legal troubles at another wiki I work on. I do not want a repeat here. I hope that explains my somewhat panicked reaction. --Xoid 00:01, 14 December 2006 (CST)
I'm assuming your reffering to the name change of a group on UD?--The GeneralT 20:33, 14 December 2006 (CST)
Yup, that's the one. --Xoid 02:04, 15 December 2006 (CST)
Scaletail, any assistance you could give us in this matter, such as pointing out articles that may be infringing would be much appreciated. We are dedicated to making this wiki legit, as well as not upsetting others who have contributed to BattleTech :) Nicjansma 13:35, 14 December 2006 (CST)
I apologize, 4.234.144.246. I had not realized that article was copied verbatim.
Most of the 3,000 pages here are autogenerated (Planets, etc). We can use DynamicPageList (DPL) to get articles not in categories we've autogenerated and or created (mech articles).. try BattleTechWiki:SuspectPages. We can use that page list to review articles to see if they've been copied. We should also setup a template to link back to Wikipedia for articles that have been copied to give credit. Nicjansma 16:46, 13 December 2006 (CST)
Okay, guys: things are well-in-hand already, as long as we have wikicitizens helping the whole community with the procedures already in place. First of all, efforts have already been initiated to deal with this via the {{wikipedia}} tag. As 'ported articles are rediscovered, they can be linked back there. Back then, when I did much of the importing, I didn't have actual admin priviledges to do so, so it had to be exactly as it was seen, a cut & paste from wiki. The intent was clear: a different audience was being addressed. Where Wikipedia reaches out with encyclopedic info for the world that 'knows nothing' and wants to be educated on a subject, BTW is a source for fans/players of BattleTech who would not necissarily beturning to Wikipedia for source information. I 'needed' to do something quickly to show the relevance of BTW to people dropping by to check it out and I was also trying to keep the BattleTech wikiers from being fragmented between two BT-centric wikis (the other being the MechWikia).
Since then, I have alternated between using the import function granted to admins and/or stating that the article was imported in the initial summary line. There was no intent to claim ownership of the articles written, and that's the purpose of the {{wikipedia}} tag. (Point-in-fact, similar work is supposed to be pointing back to the same article over here from Wikipedia, by contribs over there.) Now, I'm not going to go back thru my contribs and hit each one up, as I'm close enough to calling a wikibreak as it is. However, as is true with every other article here, each is a work in progress and no one person will ever be able to claim "that's my article" if the wiki is successful (i.e. many editors). The Help page (and Help:Tags specifically) is very clear one how things are done here at BTW and all someone has to do is paste that tag on a page as it is re-discovered, and they'll be able to instantly see who the primary contributors of the article's history are over there.
No offense was intended nor expected, as wikipedia works under the same 'no-ownership' policy. I understand that Scaletail does feel pride in writing a well-crafted article, and my intent was not to claim writing ability (where none exists, frankly). The article, however, has served an important article here by adding legitimacy and important information for the player base. I'd reccommend Scaletail make some minor alteration to the BTW version of the article (while its still young) with a summary note as coming from a primary Wikipedia contributor of the article. And also, feel pride that it has transcended from being an introductory peice for non-BTers, to a base article for a dedicated source of BT information.
I, myself, am pretty much done with importing articles (or even editing the ones here) from Wikipedia, as there are so projects that I'd rather work on and the core material is completed. However, as Wikipedia has plenty of more material over there that really needs to be over here, importing by the cross-decking community is not a done-deal. If someone wants to address a policy page to this subject, please feel free. I do want to state to Nic, however, we don't need to be apologizing for the importing of articles from Wkipedia. Its open-source material and we already are trying to avoid the whole copyright dodge ball, as it is. We don't need to make it any harder for the few of us currently building this site. An apology for improper attribution to Wikipedia as the source is understandable and is being addressed with the cross-deck tag project. --Revanche (admin) 11:50, 17 December 2006 (CST)
Xoid, no offense taken. I was always a thespian, not a wordsmith and my grades in the fine arts (drama, chorus, etc.) vs English in high school would bear that out. As for my articles each of them are an original work. I will admit I have some articles that have sister articles on mechwikia but that is because I started there and when I came here I brought them with me. I woudl hope to hell I dont have to give myself credit for my own work just because it is in two places. --CJKeys 06:06, 15 December 2006 (CST)

Fannon Purge Q

Is there any way I can keep my stories I'm writing (Shockers_CH1, Shockers_CH2), or the story's Merc Group (Shockers)?— The preceding unsigned comment was posted by Shockeray (talkcontribs) .

The best place for them would be over at the BattleTech Fanon Wiki. Alternatively you could also put them on your user pages. Really though, Sarna is not really meant to be a place for narrative fan-fiction. The BTW here at Sarna is a reference source for information about BattleTech as it is published. This is why all fan-fiction that has ended up here is being removed. -- LRichardson 04:21, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
BattleTech Fanon Wiki isn't set up like this wiki so I cant add links to mechs or planets. And another thing, do I have to move it or will they? --Shockeray 13:12, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Two things: yes, they will move it for you. And, you can link back to articles here. Instead of creating wikilinks ([[ ]]), put just one set of brackets around them ([ ]), and no pipe (|) between the url and the name of the article. For example, if you want to link to the Fafnir, you'd add this: [http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Fafnir Fafnir]. It would look like this, when closed: Fafnir. Hope that helps.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 13:40, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Another thing, is it possible to make sub pages under my user page? if so I could put my stories on those... --Shockeray 15:33, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
It's very easy to do, Shockeray. I've created a step-by-step guide at Help:User Sub-Page Creation. Give it a try and get ahold of me if something doesn't work right.--Revanche (talk|contribs) 15:52, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of Manufacturer subsection

Copy from Doneve's talk page

Hello doneve, please explain your intention for the deletion of my work. I think many user find it usefull to know from were the single variants are coming from. Further its give the reader the possibility to use the links to go directly to the manfacturer related sites. Another opinion for me to show that many more production lines/sites exist as on Sarna.net shown. All entries have their corresponding reference and nothing important from the article was changed, only one subsection adde (and not my prefered tables). What have I do wrong? Neuling 09:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Hy Neuling, we don't need this section in 'Mech articles, we have the Manufacturing Center category, and when i take a look, you can find all models added to the various companies, oh and i think circa 98% of manufacturing lines (435 pages on sarna) are added to the wiki, only 2% are missed.--Doneve 10:55, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Tnx for your responce. When you wrote we don't need that content in the mech articles. Is that the opinion of the overall majority of the users or only of a few? Because it is for myself difficult to jump from manufacture to another and to get an overall overview which modell is produced by which manufacturer. And let me some time I will show you that some production lines could be added. I need the time to sort them after manufacturer and modell. I think I can incorporate those infos by the individual variants to. It takes longer but the info is an enrichment to the sites. The original text will not harm only one or two sentence will be added. Neuling 11:12, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Can you provide me an example, that was very cool.--Doneve 13:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Take a look at the Lightning - aeropace their you can find an example how I can added the information without changing anything important. Neuling 16:31, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Hello Doneve, I removed the entry which contains Objectives FS material, please don't remove Planets with marker of the faction, because it is usefull to know where the vehicles are produced, in my opinion. Let's dicuss that issue with the others admins? What are your thoughts about it? Neuling 20:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I see you doesn't agree with the material. Your right that the informations is on the Quickcell page. One thought the puplishers include the production sites in the normal TRO to and in my opinion is a good idea. Again let us discuss that with the other admins. Neuling 21:00, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I disagree, we don't need planet links in the infobox, hit the manufacturer link like Quickscell Company and you have the info that the Heavy APC was manufactured on Ares by the company, yeah talk to admins, i think they talk the same what i talk to you.--Doneve 21:00, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm patient about the outcome of such an discusion. Where can I start it or how is responsible for such task? You wrote that most produtions sites are available, I will search after them and will include the missing. At the end it wwill be interesting how many missing are add to the sites.Neuling 21:04, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
At first take a look to this Help:References, as second go to the admins page and stard a discussion about your task, i don't agree with you but this is my personal view of thinks, i was very interesting what some admins talk to this and to you.--Doneve 21:10, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I think it's good to add relevant information to articles, even if that information is on a different article (except in certain circumstances). In this specific instance, I think adding the production location of specific variants of military vehicles is a good addition. I have had a couple of concerns about this that I have raised with Neuling in the past. First, be certain that the information is supported by canon information; sometimes it can be tempting to add something for the sake of completeness, but we have to be certain that the information is stated somewhere rather than creating our own conclusions (for example, there may be no information about where a specific variant is produced; it can be tempting to state that the variant is produced at the same place as the standard model, but this may not be the case). Second, I would prefer to see the information integrated into existing sections, as with the above example of the Lightning, rather than creating an entirely new section for it. Did I miss anything? --Scaletail 00:22, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Hy good catch, but i give you this example, we don't need it on some BattleMech, Combat Vehicles pages, we have the Heavy Tracked APC page, in the infobox we add the manufacturer, at this example Quickscell Company he is added on the vehicle page, you go to it and found the vehicle is produced on Ares, you hit the Ares link then you come to the planet page and se Ares is a Capellan Confederation planet and was produced on it, i don't want merged content on the 'Mech, Combat Vehicle sites that don't follow the Project Template. Neuling have good ideas but the problem is, he don't follow any policy, project or ref. policies and follow the right formating, take a look on Wars of Reaving - Timeline, iam really sadly to say this, i don't fix or correct any contributions that he provide in next or future time, iam to tired, i talke to often to the problem, he is as a long time contributor (circa 1-2 year) on sarna and don't follow anything, this is my opinion, please talk to me when iam wrong.--Doneve 01:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Neuling - Respectfully, some of your changes might be more agreeable if they were "cleaner". Specifically, if there weren't so many typos. Both Doneve and I have had to cleanup the Lightning. Thanks. ClanWolverine101 07:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

MechWarrior Online

Can an admin add a link for MechWarrior Online to the sidebar under official game systems? Eventually, MechWarrior Tactical Commander should be added too, but that's just a stub of an article right now.--Seth 00:48, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. --Revanche (talk|contribs) 23:59, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Oops, they were added, but to get them to work right, you have to add the link to the name. Gotta make them look like this:
** MechWarrior Online|MechWarrior Online
** MechWarrior Tactical Commander|MechWarrior Tactical Commander
Can we have one for MechWarrior Tactics aswell please :-) --Dmon 10:17, 12 March 2012 (PDT)

Request for reference

I have a short question. I'm working to update the various sldf corps with the corresponding references. Can I use the deployment maps of the SLDF Field Manual as an reference, because the maps show the garrison status of many planets. What is your opinion as admins about. With best regards Neuling (talk) 13:51, 18 April 2014 (PDT)

I'd say you should quote the SLDF Field Manual as a reference source, with the page number of the deployment map. Add a sentence explaining the "quoting" of a map, e.g. "Field Manual SLDF; map on p. XX shows (unit) to be stationed on (world)". Hope this helps. Frabby (talk) 14:15, 18 April 2014 (PDT)
Tnx for the quick response, I helps me alot because for most SLDF units no garrison planet is mentioned. I hope I can change that. With best regards Neuling (talk) 14:17, 18 April 2014 (PDT)

Block Request

Hello Admins, please block the following user:User:PartyPlanJewellery‎. Because he post only spam at his user page. Tnx Neuling (talk) 11:22, 21 April 2014 (PDT)