User talk:Nicjansma/Archive2017

MechWarrior V link inclusion

Hello Nic, can you add the link to the MechWarrior V: Mercenaries?--ManganMan (talk) 09:28, 5 December 2016 (PST)

Good idea, added! Nicjansma (talk) 20:56, 29 January 2017 (EST)

Linking/Merging IPs to users

Hi Nic, I've been wondering: Is it technically possible to link changes made by an unregistered IP to a given user? This would obviously require bureaucrat or at least admin level privileges to avoid abuse, but it is possible?

The reason I'm asking is a new but prolific user who forgot to log in occasionally, creating a series of edits that registered under his IP but not his registered user name. I was wondering if I could (and should) somehow edit the edit logs to link the edits to his user account instead of that IP adress. Is that even desirable? Frabby (talk) 00:59, 9 January 2017 (PST)

Frabby, I've looked into this a bit, but I haven't found any way of doing this. If you can find a MediaWiki extension that might help out, we can take a look. I think it would be a good option to have -- there may be some users who forget to log in, and would like the "credit" for their edits later. Nicjansma (talk) 21:03, 29 January 2017 (EST)

Problem with Categories

Hi Nic, can you take a look at the article for the DropShip Stonehenge please. The article has category links for three categories, all of which are duly listed at the bottom of the article. Problem is, the article doesn't appear in any of the categories when you click on them. Problem with the latest update perhaps? (The article was written after the update.) Frabby (talk) 04:34, 17 January 2017 (EST)

I've also noticed that with the planets articles, the categories generated by the Planets Project header template aren't changing when the article phase changes - articles updated from phase 2 to phase 5 are still displaying as being in the phase 2 category listing. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 06:21, 19 January 2017 (EST)

As far as the Stonehenge is concerned, it does now show up in its categories. I guess the categories don't update immediately, but rather once a day or so? Frabby (talk) 07:50, 19 January 2017 (EST)

This may have been broken for a while, but I believe it's working now. I've tested it with a few categories. Please note, it may take up to 1 minute for a new or updated article to get added to a Category page (before now, it may have taken up to 5 minutes). BrokenMnemonic, I've also checked a few Planets updates and they look correct now. Please let me know if you see any issues. Nicjansma (talk)

In the case of Stonehenge the categories hadn't updated after 14 hours, or I wouldn't have posted this problem report. It was not until about two and a half days later that I saw they had updated, though I can't tell when in the 14-65 hour timeframe it happened. Definitely not a matter of minutes though. I take it that it's working now, and will report back if it happens again. Thanks Nic. Frabby (talk) 01:28, 30 January 2017 (EST)

Something is definitely still up with the planets. I updated the articles for Esteros and Esztergom about 2 weeks ago, changing the project planets category from 2 to 5 in the process; when you look at the articles, they show up as being in Category:PPO_Phase_5, but if you look at the category listing for phase 2 (Category:PPO_Phase_2) they're both still listed there. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 04:32, 30 January 2017 (EST)

Good find. When I did a minor update on these categories and made a new save, they're now moved correctly. I think there were a few bugs last week preventing the categories from updating. Should be good now. Nicjansma (talk) 20:04, 30 January 2017 (EST)

Here is another item to put under this issue. I created the article Great North with the Category: Organizations. However, it is not showing up in the Organizations article. Attempted a repair, but still not working.CungrVanck (talk) 14:18, 6 March 2017 (EST)

I have fixed that for you CungrVanck - Dark Jaguar (talk) 15:52, 6 March 2017 (EST)

Internal error

Dear nicjansma, I have noticed that multiple drop ship articles have redirected me to a page titled "internal error" the page dropship did not redirect, but the page template: drop ship did. This situation has led me to believe that the internal error is from the drop ship template. Pleas fix this.

You user, Calebmccormick

Sorry about that, should be fixed now! Nicjansma (talk) 21:57, 18 January 2017 (EST)

User Score Problem

This has been out of action for a few days now; whenever I look at it, I just get a big red error message...Nuclear-Fridge (talk) 05:26, 20 January 2017 (EST)

All set now! Nicjansma (talk) 20:44, 29 January 2017 (EST)

Idea for timeline

Dear nicjansma, I have a special idea to present events and time periods with the wikipedia timeline script. I try to use it on my user site but nothing happend. What are you thinking about that topic. A good example how it works is [[1]]. Tnx for your great work for the community and the Sarna.net site project to. User:neuling

Image summary template

Hi Nic, why is the image summary template gone when i uploade new images? In the past the template was automatical shown on the uploade page!--Doneve (talk) 04:29, 17 June 2016 (PDT)

I've noticed this as well; I originally thought it was only removed from the "upload new version" option but it seems that all forms of file uploading do that now. -BobTheZombie (talk) 13:00, 17 June 2016 (PDT)

I'm sorry, I'm confused on what you're talking about. Are you talking about the text box called Summary when you've selected your file? Or was there another form that was shown after uploading your image that is now gone? Nicjansma (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2017 (EST)

Edit Counter

Nic - Do you know when the Edit Counter list updates? This one? Edit Counter Thanks. ClanWolverine101 (talk) 16:56, 6 March 2017 (EST)

Good catch, fixed! Should be updated daily. Nicjansma (talk) 19:46, 30 March 2017 (EDT)

Planet Maps

Hi Nic,
It's only taken me about four or five years to think of asking this question, but... rather than us creating new maps for all of the planet articles from the published maps, if I gave you the updated list of correct coordinates, could you respawn new map images the way you did when first creating the planet articles? BrokenMnemonic (talk) 18:46, 18 March 2017 (EDT)

Absolutely! With the X/Y fixed this time :) Do you currently have a better list of images and X/Ys? In addition, I could create "expanded" images, so when you click on a 2-jump image, it could grow out to 5 jumps, or more. Nicjansma (talk) 20:53, 30 March 2017 (EDT)

Cool! But if this is going to happen, we need a solid database to work from. Not only X/Y coordinates (which in and of itself could be problematic enough!), but we need to decide on which system name we want to display on the maps (e.g. Hesperus II or Hesperus? Klathandu or Klathan? Norn or Verthandi? Carver, Carver V or Liberty?) and we'd also need to adress the question how to deal with the individual Mica Majority planets, nebulae, or special cases like Flannagan's Nebula.

I guess we're all aware of user gruese's map project thread over at the HBS forum? There's some notes and corrections concerning the Sarna data in there that I've not yet come round to checking and working into Sarna.

And while it's a long shot, we might just try and ask Øystein Tvedten if he would kindly offer his "official" system position database for our project. I'm not sure if he and CGL would be cool with that, but it's certainly worth a try to see if a miracle happens. Frabby (talk) 05:30, 31 March 2017 (EDT)

There are a lot of points here, so I'm going to try and tackle them in order - let me know if I miss something...

1. Thanks to Volt and Bad_Syntax, there is a spreadsheet that contains accurate X/Y coordinates for every system that's been shown on a map, and which was calculated using some kind of ArcGIS software that Bad_Syntax's conversations with Øystein indicated were generating X/Y coordinates that were within decimal point value accurate to those used by Øystein. Whilst it's still a case of working backwards from the maps rather than forwards from the source data, if something's accurate to within 0.15 LY (which I think is the value Bad Sytanx quoted) then I think it's good enough for our work. Unfortunately, while I have a copy of the last version of the spreadsheet Volt generated, neither person is currently working on any BT stuff, so I don't think it's likely to get updated. That does mean that new planets are starting to appear that we won't have coordinates for - Jasmine in First Succession War is the example that springs to mind.

2. I really like the idea of the maps as described - two jump radius in the small maps, jumping to five jump radius in the larger maps. I think that'll be useful to a lot of people looking to use the maps casually.

3. I think that where names are concerned, given that this is maps, rather than articles, we should use the names that are going to be most recognisable to a majority of users. If we don't auto-generate maps, then the alternative is to use cut-up sections of published maps, and those don't use system names. Players generally know the notable planet names, not the system names, where there's a difference. A player looking for Alula Australis is going to look for Alula Australis because that's how it's referred to almost everywhere - they aren't going to look for (or consciously recognise) Xi Ursae Majoris 99.5% of the time. Where we can't autogenerate maps, we're going to have to use published maps, which also won't be using the system names but rather the well-known world name format currently in use, which means we'll end up with dissonance between visual sources, which is a bad thing. I'm all for using system names in the articles, and I'm the one updating all of the articles and creating redirects to make sure all of the articles work, so I'm committed to it, but switching our maps over to use the system names as well feels like a step that will only make life more confusing for the vast majority of users.

4. For multi-world systems (Niops, etc) I think we should do what the system articles do - pick the coordinates of the most notable and use that for the map, and only include the one entry. There aren't that many, so I can go through a list manually and create the single entries. I remember seeing the conversations about how the Niopian planets technically being 1.4 LY away from each other was an artifact of how the maps had been done historically, not a reflection of reality, so I think that's a case of tidying up more than anything else. I don't think that a region like Flannagan's Nebulae should be on the map, because it's not a defined astrogeographical point - it's a nebula. We don't have a centrally-defined point around which to base it, unlike something like the Chaine Cluster. Where there's a crossover - and the Pleiades and Pirate's Haven clusters are the two I can think of - the map/article should simply use the coordinates of the most well-known point, be that Badlands or whichever one of the three names Pleiades worlds are in the middle. There are other stellar features that have articles but no coordinates, either already in place or due to be worked up - things like the Orion Nebula - and in general, I think those are better served through using extracts from existing published maps to highlight their location, rather than trying to shoehorn something into a mathematical/coding construct intended to work around defined points.

5. I'm not aware of greuse's work - I haven't any particular interest in the HBS game, and there's a limit to the number of internet forums I have the headspace to engage with, I'm afraid. I've started reading through the thread, and from what I can see of the errors picked up, the coordinates ones are typoes from when Doneve and I were updating the articles the first time around. Those coordinates are being updated, but it takes a while - either Doneve is catching them when he generates the new system neighbours tables, or I'm catching them when I update the article format, but I'm 2-3 years into that and only 40% of the way through, so there's a ways to go yet. Greuse indicated that he'd fixed the ones he'd found though, so I'm not sure that's still much of an issue?

6. I'm all for using the source data that Øystein used to generate the maps - first generation data is much better as a source - but I'm leery of contacting CGL because of the whole potential can of worms over Sarna's status as an unofficial fan wiki. I suspect that any data Øystein has is covered by NDAs or the equivalent privilege relating to his time as a CGL employee, so he may not be allowed to provide us with a copy. I don't want to be the one asking, though, for various reasons.

I think I've weighed in on everything? I'm in a bit of a rush today... BrokenMnemonic (talk) 04:30, 3 April 2017 (EDT)

I'll provide as much support here as I can for you guys. Everything you've said sounds reasonable. I think the best way I can help is to take the output of a curated list someone creates, and generate some beautiful jump-maps from them. If there's something else before we get to that point that I can help with, let me know. Otherwise I'll just plan on being the "jump image generator" :) Nicjansma (talk) 22:00, 22 May 2017 (EDT)

Awards

Nic - No rush, but should the awards for 2016 be processed? Thanks. ClanWolverine101 (talk) 18:58, 30 April 2017 (EDT)

My bad it took so long! (Newborn at home!) Was happy to give out the awards today. Nicjansma (talk) 21:55, 22 May 2017 (EDT)

No problem and belated congratulations! ClanWolverine101 (talk) 07:17, 24 May 2017 (EDT)

Yeah - congrats for the newborn! :) Frabby (talk) 07:33, 24 May 2017 (EDT)

Congratulations on the newborn! I'm now an uncle four times over, and all my nieces are below 19 months in age - and it's great getting to spend time with tiny humans. BrokenMnemonic (talk) 02:59, 25 May 2017 (EDT)

Congratulations on the new baby Dark Jaguar (talk) 21:28, 27 May 2017 (EDT)

Admin promotion

Long-time user User:DragonoftheRust has inquired about how to become an admin. For what it's worth I support him in this, as he's demonstrably a diligent worker and contributor here. Frabby (talk) 04:36, 20 November 2017 (EST)

I totally agree. Welcomed DragonoftheRust to the Admins! - Nicjansma (talk) 22:51, 19 January 2018 (EST)

MechWarrior 1 download suggestion

Hi Nic, wanted to bring your attention to this user request for adding stuff to the download section. Frabby (talk) 05:40, 15 February 2018 (EST)