User talk:Seth

Welcome

Welcome, Seth, to BattleTechWiki!

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Again, welcome to Sarna's BattleTechWiki!

*******Be Bold*******

Tags

Welcome, Seth, to Sarna's BattleTechWiki and thanks for helping to beef up our fan fiction section. I would ask you to do two things, please. 1) Add the fanon tag to the top of each story by typing {{fanon}} above the story itself. 2) In order to increase visability for your story, please add it to the fiction category, by typing [[Category:Fiction]] anywhere in the edit field (though usually at the bottom). (Edit: #2 has been taken careauto-magically.) Again, thanks for contributing, Seth. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:54, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Fanon tag

--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

reCaptcha

Seth, at first look I didn't understand the value of your suggestion, but as I dozed on it, what you're suggesting would cause the editor (including the targeted spammer) to complete two reCaptchas, right? One at registration and one again when ever attempting to post a url?--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

In short, yes. Anytime anyone adds an external link to a page, they will be asked to enter the captcha in addition to the one everyone has to enter when registering. I understand that it may add an extra step for legitimate editors, but you can move trusted editors to another group with the same rights as a normal user, but not be subjected to entering the captcha ever again.

The first thing I would suggest doing is changing the following from false to true:

"$wgCaptchaTriggers['addurl']        = false;" //true requires reCaptcha when adding external URLs.

That line should be found beneath the line:

"require_once( "$IP/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ReCaptcha.php");". 

Keep it that way for a day or so and see if it even slows the bots down from adding links to their talk pages. I'm not 100% sure it will work because they're obviously able to register in the first place and that requires entering a reCaptcha too.

Seth, what about existing URLs? If an article gets editted, with no changes to the url (but it previously exists), must the reCaptcha be completed?--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

No, you only have to complete it if you add a new url link tag. Technically, you can even edit a current url to something else and it won't ask you to re-enter the captcha. You can test it here in this sandbox. --Seth 21:18, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, first, thanks for the test ground. It did require a captcha test when the url was added and when it was edited. However, further changes to anything else on the page did not. That was a great test.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:25, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I guess being an admin lets me edit them without having to re-enter the captcha. I added you to the group "editors" so in the future you won't have to deal with the captcha at all. But you guys have a lot more people to move into an editor group than I do.--Seth 20:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

New User Group

If it does prove to be effective, you can create a new user group for legitimate editors. To create a new group called "Editors", do the following;

Create page "MediaWiki:Group-editor" and enter "Editors" to the content of the page.

Create page "MediaWiki:Group-editor-member" and enter "editor" to the content of the page.

Create page "MediaWiki:Grouppage-editor" and enter "Editors" to the content of the page.

Add the following lines beneath require_once( "$IP/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ReCaptcha.php");

$wgGroupPermissions['editor'] = $wgGroupPermissions['user']; //Initializes the editor group
$wgGroupPermissions['editor']         ['skipcaptcha'] = false; //exempts the group editor from having to deal with the captcha again
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']          ['skipcaptcha'] = false; //exempts system operator 
$wgGroupPermissions['bureaucrat']     ['skipcaptcha'] = false; //exempts anyone you have already added to this group
$wgGroupPermissions['bot']            ['skipcaptcha'] = true; //not the same as spam bots, you only have one bot in this group NicJBot

Go to to your page "Special:UserRights" and enter the name of people you want to add to the editor group. Simply check the box for editor and press save.

To sort through your list of users, go to "Special:ListUsers" and sort by users with edits. That's where you'll find the users you want to add to the editor group. The bad thing is, you have over 900 members with edits. So that's gonna be a project. But if you decide to take that on, you might as well create the user group "spambot" as well. As you go down the list, as the known spambots to that group. After you're done, whoever has access to the database can look for the spambot table and delete those users periodically.

Other ways to fight spam bots

I've been running a MWO wiki since the beginning of November, and I haven't dealt with a spam bot yet (quite unlike the MW4 wiki I made). Right now I am using the following mediawiki extensions;

• Extension:SpamBlacklist
• Extension:SimpleAntiSpam

Sorry about the wall of text!

Overall response

No, this is excellent material. The active admins here have no way to institute this (don't have the access), but I'll share this with Nic. He's responsive to our requests to improve the site. Thanks! --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I follow this at the stard of Seth's discussion on the Admin page, and he provide a greate tool to handle this problem on sarna, thanks.--Doneve 21:40, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the Semantic Wiki

Hy Seth, at first great work to bring the Semantic Wiki to sarna, ok i must a little bit experiment with it how i can use the full scale of it, when you have any tips i was appriciated, at first i want to use it on the Mech, Vehicle, AeroSpace Fighter, etc. pages, i see your example on the Sandbox, i think we need a seperate Mech Timetable page, the Sandbox is not the right place for it, sorry for raw writing, greetings.--12:11, 15 February 2012 (PST)

I'm in the process of creating a few examples of how this can be implemented with current mech pages. I'll post on the Contact an admin shortly and explain how it works.--Seth 12:13, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Ok thanks.--Doneve 12:15, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Hy again i saw you follow the main production years, but how can i include the hell of variants of some 'Mechs like the CPLT-K5 Catapult variant as example.--Doneve 12:52, 15 February 2012 (PST)

I could make a similar function for that, but that would work better on the Catapult page instead of the overall mech timeline page.--Seth 13:10, 15 February 2012 (PST)

I cant see any introduction year on the Alfar page?--Doneve 13:52, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Lol, you're getting ahead of me. I'll post on the contact admin page when I'm at a point that I'm ready to show you guys how it works.--Seth 13:54, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Lol, bang, no problem.--Doneve 13:55, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Ok, I'm at a point where it's ready for other people to contribute if they like. I don't have a whole lot of free time myself, so it will take while for me to finish this list myself. --Seth 15:07, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Semantic MediaWiki

Seth, I've been semi-following your experimentation on the sandbox and just read the above thread. I hadn't expected you to be throwing yourself into this program, but since you've indicated you'd post your explanation on the Admin page, could I ask you to re-shape BattleTechWiki:SemanticMediaWiki instead? I'm all about one-stop shopping for guidance and help and I'd be glad to edit behind you, as necessary. Frankly, you are THE expert on BTW when it comes to Semantic MediaWiki and you're input would go a long way to jump-starting the transition and make the rest of us conversant.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 13:12, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Ok, I have added instructions on how to edit the current mech timeline project and added ideas for future projects as well to that page.--Seth 15:08, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Thanks, Seth....your (visible) work should hopefully generate some ideas with others.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:51, 15 February 2012 (PST)

Dates

The dates from Archer ect. are not shown on the Mech Timetable.--Doneve 10:18, 16 February 2012 (PST)

As Mech pages are updated, the time table page takes a bit to catch up to changes in the database. It will reset itself automatically after a few hours, or you can manually do it by pressing the refresh tab button next to the watch tab button at the top of the page (not the same as the refresh button on your browser).--Seth 10:21, 16 February 2012 (PST)

New problem

Hy Seth i found a new problem, when i use on the BattleMech infobox your semantic code and add a <reference> to the year the code was broken, can you fix this problem, thanks.--Doneve 13:37, 18 February 2012 (PST)

I replied with the solution on User talk:S.gage's page.--Seth 20:35, 18 February 2012 (PST)

Year Reference

Hey Seth, so far I have used the year reference tool for MUL citations only (i.e. if I cited the MUL, I use the year reference, otherwise, I cite a source in the text). I guess this is mostly because if I can avoid it, I alway try to cite books and .pdfs. How are you using this tool?--S.gage 16:00, 8 March 2012 (PST)

I had been citing years in the text, but it's simply been faster to just cite MUL since I can paste in both lines and just edit the years. --Seth 16:04, 8 March 2012 (PST)

I see that your way is a lot faster! I'll go through and try to find the print references, good luck on your end!--S.gage 19:43, 8 March 2012 (PST)

Good job

I want to say I'm really a fan of how you're both improving the 'Mech articles and using the SemanticWiki code you got us to install. Once I'm rested up, I'll hit you up with an Editor's award.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 10:33, 10 March 2012 (PST)

I'm happy to help!--Seth 10:37, 10 March 2012 (PST)

Tell you what: none of the Editor awards is appropriate for your project. Do me a favor and let me know when you've achieved a milestone in your work and I'll set you up with the right recognition, ok?--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:10, 10 March 2012 (PST)

Sure thing.--Seth 19:39, 10 March 2012 (PST)

Question

Hy Seth, i see you set up a talk to Nic about timeline, can you take a look on the Manufacturing Timeline, i don't know how we can this integrate this on the semantic wiki some dates merged with the introduction dates etc. can you take a look on this, i think dates there added in the manufacturing timeline are added in the whole artilces, remove we this from the Manuf. Timeline or or or, this give me some headache.--Doneve 17:05, 13 March 2012 (PDT)

My God that is a lot of information. Despite that, setting up would be no different from setting up the BattleMech Timetable page. In fact, the work that has been done already for the 'Mech introduction dates simply be applied to that page. There will be a considerable amount of work needed to add the correct properties to each of those pages (Vehicles, Ships, Aerospace Fighters) though. I don't envy the person who decides to take on that project. But if you want me to set it up, I can do that and explain what needs to be done to add introduction date properties to each of those pages.--Seth 17:22, 13 March 2012 (PDT)

I know, it's a hell, my view is we go step by step, and remove the data there includet, add first from the 'Mechs, i think this was ok, i don't found references on the manufacturing timele also in the articles, makes this sence, sorry for raw writing ;).--Doneve 17:35, 13 March 2012 (PDT)

Doneve is the man for mass edits. You just explain clearly what you want done (often by several examples) and cut loose his chain.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 20:00, 13 March 2012 (PDT)

Can you set up the missing semantic pages, then i can move the most things from the manufacturing timeline to the various pages, thanks.--Doneve 06:02, 14 March 2012 (PDT)

I see you create separate mech model articles, i don't know if this is usefull we work with redirects to the mech models like Atlas (AS7-CM) and so on, i hope this helps.--Doneve 12:20, 14 March 2012 (PDT)

I've run out of time to work on this now, but the results of what I'm working on will show up on the Manufacturing Timeline Temp Page. I'll let you know when it's ready for you to work on. The reason I have to use separate pages for each model is because individual results on the table shows up as the page name. For example, I can't simply edit the Atlas (BattleMech) page and add the dates for each model, because you wouldn't see the model name on the resulting table. I can't add a redirect to each of the model pages because then none of the content shows up (Feel free to try though). I did add links back to the main 'Mech article, but that's the best I could do with that. I'll do some research, but don't see an alternative to get this work without using separate pages for each model.--Seth 12:55, 14 March 2012 (PDT)

Ah ok i understand, thanks a lot.--Doneve 13:03, 14 March 2012 (PDT)

BattleMech model pages

Hi Seth, I appreciate the work you're putting into this, but, ugh, I'm not sure if this is the way to go. We're looking at literally thousands, probably tens of thousands, of individual articles that have to be created, for the net result of effectively only mirroring the MUL data. Is that worth it? Mind you, I'm not opposed to the project. But it seems to be a very large undertaking with very limited usefulness to me. Frabby 15:06, 14 March 2012 (PDT)

Like I said earlier, I would not envy the person who wanted to take that on. I was happy to provide the ground work for it though.--Seth 17:44, 14 March 2012 (PDT)