SotAWiki:Wiki Merge

To organize the move of pages from http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/sota

Method
I've just been going through All Pages alphabetically and occasionally haring off on groups of similar things (like Skills).

For working together we should probably break things out by Categories. (Although we could just grab sections of the alphabet)


 * Pages
 * Skills
 * Required is now in the template.
 * Copy description text directly from Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills here
 * Air Magic Skills - Fenyx4
 * Blades Skills
 * Bludgeon Skills
 * Chaos Magic Skills
 * Death Magic Skills - Fenyx4
 * Earth Magic Skills - Fenyx4
 * Fire Magic Skills
 * Gambeson Combat Skills - Fenyx4
 * Life Magic Skills
 * Ranged Skills - Fenyx4
 * Shield Skills - Fenyx4
 * Sun Magic Skills - Fenyx4
 * Water Magic Skills
 * Items/Recipes
 * Most or all are probably already here. But worth giving a look over.
 * Get familiarized with Template:Crafting_Box.
 * Need to add something to Template:Infobox Item that ties the item to the skill it uses. See Bludgeon Combat's use of Template:Query item
 * Bestiary
 * Haven't looked at this yet. Check out Category:Monsters.
 * Developer Info
 * Blade of the Avatar
 * NPCs
 * Locations
 * 'Infobox Location' instead of 'Infobox Locations'
 * Category:Locations isn't automatically added by the template. You'll have to add it manually.


 * Files
 * Files are hard. Not sure how to easily check if the file already exists over here.\
 * Concept Art
 * Illustrations
 * Images will warn if they are exact duplicates, but if they don't match exactly then we will have to do a pass through the files list to de-duplicate. Shouldnt be too much of a hassle yet.--Browncoat Jayson (talk) 19:36, 7 March 2014 (MST)


 * Just to be clear, all the pages from http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/sota/ are being merged here and this database will be moved to the ultimacodex host? --Alianin (talk) 17:06, 10 March 2014 (MST)
 * Oops, much belatedly, yes this is what will has happened. -- Fenyx4 (talk) 04:47, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Problems
Things I'm not sure how to merge; Not sure if sotawiki has these under different names or not.
 * Housing
 * It looks like there are only a couple topics for this here: a general Housing topic, and a catch-all Backer Houses with just images. If there isn't an issue, I'd be happy to break them out for each house, with the walkthrough videos and links. --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 18:30, 6 March 2014 (MST)
 * Sounds good to me. -- Fenyx4 (talk) 19:58, 6 March 2014 (MST)
 * I added Tower Village Home as a test. Looks like the YouTube media add-in and Interwiki linking are not installed yet (or I don't have access). These might be broken until the server move. Otherwise, I think they it looks good! --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 22:42, 6 March 2014 (MST)
 * And of course, now I find it in the Add-on Store category as Tower Village Home (digital). Argh! --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 22:46, 6 March 2014 (MST)
 * Tower Village Home (digital) is very reward/add-on centric and, I think, does a slightly better job of communicating stuff about that. But Tower Village Home has a lot more information about how it will be used in game and with the infobox 'n' all matches the format of the rest of the wiki. (And I don't understand why it needs the '(digital)' appellation in the page name.)
 * I don't claim to understand details on rewards and add-ons so take this with a grain of salt. But I feel like grab additional information from Tower Village Home (digital), put it in Tower Village Home and then make Tower Village Home (digital) a redirect to Tower Village Home. -- Fenyx4 (talk) 08:42, 7 March 2014 (MST)
 * We were using the (digital) and (physical) for the different items because of backer rewards. Some things will be the same such as town lot deed (digital) and town lot deed (physical) and then town lot deed... all should be pages because they're all different based on the conversations I had with some of the other wiki editors.  If we want to change that and do it differently we can but that was the reasoning behind it. Violation (talk) 17:46, 7 March 2014 (MST)
 * Additionally, the items match their add-on store description that way as well. Violation (talk) 17:48, 7 March 2014 (MST)
 * Oh, for videos there is a different extension on here. See Template:SotaWiki_Featured_Video for an example. I haven't used it yet but it will probably work about the same. Interwiki will be something I will add once it has moved servers. -- Fenyx4 (talk) 08:45, 7 March 2014 (MST)
 * I can see matching the Add-On Store descriptions, but then they won't match the in game descriptions. So, I guess I would have assumed the in game trumping, but we can do it either way. Just something that needs to be decided on. --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 19:36, 7 March 2014 (MST)
 * My suggestion is to create the Tower Village Home which matches the in-game name on the For Sale signs and include links to the digital version from the addon store and vice versa. Disambiguation is good, but we need to make sure we create the base pages with links to the disambiguations. I'll write up a couple of templates and include them here. --Alianin (talk) 17:06, 10 March 2014 (MST)
 * I spoke too soon. Fenyx4 already created Template:Disambig and Template:Otheruses. --Alianin (talk) 17:21, 10 March 2014 (MST)

Similar problem to housing. Old wiki treated it as an item. This wiki treats it as an add-on. We should do both. We can probably do it the same as houses above. -- Fenyx4 (talk) 13:05, 7 March 2014 (MST)
 * The XXX of Prosperity
 * It is both an add-on and an item, infoboxes or sections might include add-on related information like purchasing the item, but the page should look like the other pages of its type, so if it is an item, the page should have the standard item page contents with add-on related information included in appropriate sections or templates. So I think Tower Village Home is a good example on how a specific object (house, item, mobile, decoration, etc.) that can be purchased from the add-on store should look like. Gordias (talk) 13:09, 8 March 2014 (MST)
 * I agree. --Alianin (talk) 17:06, 10 March 2014 (MST)

Pretty sure all this info is already here. I'm not gonna dig through it but if anyone else wants to... -- Fenyx4 (talk) 09:25, 10 March 2014 (MST)
 * Digital Reward
 * I'll dig through that as I can. --Alianin (talk) 17:06, 10 March 2014 (MST)

Logo
To symbolize the merge, perhaps we could combine our logos? https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8241566/Logo2.png
 * I like it! But I might be biased.
 * Do you think Terilem's dark version would fit better with the dark theme? -- Fenyx4 (talk) 19:58, 6 March 2014 (MST)
 * I think you're right, the dark version would look better! --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 22:42, 6 March 2014 (MST)
 * I'd rather keep the SotA wiki favicon that is to the left and remake the sotawiki.net text... but honestly I'd be fine changing it if it helps it feel more like home for everyone. I would like to get this done (the logo change) as soon as we transfer so more conversation on this would be nice.  Branding is important for people to know they're on the right site.  Whatever we end up with lets get it and keep it through at least episode 1. Violation (talk) 17:52, 7 March 2014 (MST)  (p.s. there's a chance we won't be dark forever so making a logo that looks good on both dark and light might be good).
 * Either is fine; it looks odd now because it just says "SotA Wiki" twice in different fonts, so I thought the icon would set it off. --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 19:36, 7 March 2014 (MST)
 * So lets see about getting some feedback from a few others... I'm going to want to change the favicon to match the icon and not the text (if we do decide to go with that icon). I might try my hand at making a new logo for us too... to throw another option on the table. Violation (talk) 22:48, 7 March 2014 (MST)
 * The current SotA Wiki logo is Logo.png, side by side, they look like:
 * [[File:Wiki logos.png]]
 * I like them both (the darker one of  version too), I don't like the text version (sotawiki.net) though. Maybe we can find a way to use the two logos above together.Gordias (talk) 13:09, 8 March 2014 (MST)
 * how about this? Violation (talk) 19:09, 10 March 2014 (MST)
 * [[File:SotAicon-alpha1.png]]
 * post feedback from College of Arms on 18:19, 11 March 2014 (MST) by Violation (talk)
 * [[File:SotAicon-alpha2.png]]
 * I like the light one, but I agree that the sotawiki.net text needs some work. Maybe an opaque SotA stamp on top of the shield? --Alianin (talk) 17:06, 10 March 2014 (MST)
 * I'm spending some time on this... I think the logo is actually fairly important so let me see what I can come up with. I will let you guys know when I have something I'm happy enough with to present to the group. Violation (talk) 17:17, 10 March 2014 (MST)
 * Okay guys... here's the concept (image 3) I started with the game's slate concrete that was broken for both arms. I took the image snake and cross from LB Arms and overlayed it on 3 layers of the slate stone (border in slate, left 50% in yellow, right 50% in blue)... I then recreated the SotAwiki.net text with the concept from the website using a font that drew to a 50% bevel and hard shadow on one side creating a good contrast... I threw a slight touch of texture on it (not nearly as much as they have but I will likely work on that more later) and then highlighted it with a gradient of the lighter gold and darker brown from the official site.  Finally the Darkstarr arms was created with the slate concrete from the game, filtered an artistic blur to distort the LB b&w stencil, then overlayed the DS Chaos Starr from the 3.25m stretch goal image.  Let me know what you guys think... the goal here was to take the LB Arms image that was being used as an icon and then push the game feel to it heavily... also draw in some of the Darkstarr influence because he does appear to be 50% of the customer facing (although LB is the Ultima celebrity so his arms obviously go first). Alternatively (image 4) I offered the updated SotAwiki icon with the wiki text cleaned up and centered better (that's bothered me for months actually) as the right icon.  Let me know what you guys think would be a better option to pursue! Violation (talk) 18:56, 10 March 2014 (MST)
 * I just updated the text to look a bit more how the game official website text appears. Violation (talk) 19:20, 10 March 2014 (MST)

I like how the text looks in (3). But I wonder if we could just lift the characters directly from the official header. It is lacking 'w' and 'i' but a bit of photoshop might be able to construct those characters from others.
 * I like how the DarkStarr crest makes (3) symmetrical. And, by itself, it looks really good. However when I look at it in situ I feel like it would have to be centered on the page to look right and that, imo, doesn't look very good.
 * The silver serpent crest may be used for Lord British (as it is Richard Garriott's crest irl) but it is also the "Shroud of the Avatar Crest", the official site's favicon, the game icon, installer icon, etc. And that is why I like its use here because it is a symbol for the game not because it is a symbol for Lord British. (As this isn't a Lord British wiki or a DarkStarr wiki.)
 * I think I like the concept of File:SotAicon-alpha1.png but I think your source for the crest doesn't work very well at that size. Maybe try with this? And should we update with characters from their new header too?
 * My favorite right now would be the crest with  from (1) with the text from (3). -- Fenyx4 (talk) 09:07, 11 March 2014 (MST)


 * I agree, I don't see the need for anything tot he right, and it would look odd left aligned. Here is a concept of the combined crest and gold text: Logo --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 10:32, 11 March 2014 (MST)
 * I made a couple new concepts after talking to a few people from the college of arms... they saw all the images on this page and commented with me after an hour of live "move it left, size it up, change this color" comments I decided to post here what they came up with (with me at the helm). Violation (talk) 18:19, 11 March 2014 (MST)


 * Ha! I'm really liking 7. The Chaos symbol hiding in there is so cute. I'd like to try to get some time with photoshop after work today and see if I can get one more version up that is kicking around in my brain. We should probably look at voting soon though. -- Fenyx4 (talk) 11:08, 13 March 2014 (MST)
 * Here's my (hopefully final) suggestions; 8 and 9. I included screenshots of how they look in situ. (I like the crest breaking the horizontal line). I took the letters from the official logo so it should match perfectly. I incorporated a lot of Baron's work but used the old brackets cuz they match the text really well. Here is a psd if it needs tweaking. -- Fenyx4 (talk) 16:52, 13 March 2014 (MST)
 * I like 8, although there is a bit of a dark edge on the last couple of letters (the right side of the k, and the circles of the i's). That can probably be easily fixed by someone with Photoshop skills, which I unfortunately lack. I'm not a fan of the Chaos/Darkstarr symbol being in the wiki. By definition, a wiki is an organized collection of trusted material, which is basically the opposite of chaos. (Sorry I've been away for the last week or so; my computer died so I'm finally getting one that can play Star Citizen! Should be up and running soon.) --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 19:01, 13 March 2014 (MST)
 * As much as I like keeping the Darkstarr logo with the branding of the game I think #8 looks more official. My vote is we go with #8 and I'll try to get some love from Stephen or one of the other artists with their original PSD and ask them to clean up our lettering a bit. Violation (talk) 20:50, 13 March 2014 (MST)
 * It would be great to have Stephen do it! :) But I also hate to bother them.
 * The 'i' and 'k' I lifted from "Forsaken Virtues" but, as Browncoat noted, they don't quite match. I'm trying to rebuild them from pieces of other letters but I'm having problems with the '.' above the 'i' and the forwards slash part of the 'k'. I'll keep messing around with it but here is the current psd of that if anyone else wants to mess with it. My vote is also for #8 (slightly cleaned up). -- Fenyx4 (talk) 07:18, 14 March 2014 (MST)
 * Does this look any better? I tried to kitbash a "k" out of the PSD file (which I can open, but apparently not save as, so here is a PNG file). The dots for the "i"s didnt seem to be in place, so I couldn't remove the shadow. --Browncoat Jayson (talk) 10:47, 14 March 2014 (MST)

We will also need a compact icon as favicon. (testing the outdent template) Gordias (talk) 20:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Ashlynn: "I think I mainly prefer something along the lines of logo 8 (I think the double square bracket motif is a nice touch) but I prefer the light blue on the Lord British shield as in logo one. I also think perhaps the text could be a bit bolder. I think the colours need to stand out because the overall colour scheme of the site seems fairly dark." Gordias (talk) 01:15, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I've made another using the 'k' Browncoat made. See here.
 * I believe Violation prefers the current shield. Ashlynn prefers the original one. Anyone else have an opinion? -- Fenyx4 (talk) 14:46, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Manual of Style and capitalization
First off, I like to suggest creating a Project:Manual of Style (see Wikipedia: Manual of Style for reference). We don't need to go that in depth, but at least hit the high points so everyone is on the same pages and we have consistency across the wiki. I'd also like to suggest following the standard wiki styles for the most part though there will be variances due to our unique content.

For capitalization specifically, article names for items, titles of people and works, factions, and proper nouns should use title case. This applies to section names as well. Everything else should be sentence case. --Alianin (talk) 17:06, 10 March 2014 (MST)


 * Second. I also think that we should follow standard wiki layout with minor exceptions like referencing: the game itself will be the main source of information, so we don't need to cite the weight of an item or the allignment of a mobile. We do have a very basic layout here together with some of the rules but we definitely need to expand it. Gordias (talk) 11:19, 11 March 2014 (MST)


 * Thirded. :) -- Fenyx4 (talk) 11:08, 13 March 2014 (MST)