Talk:Pirates of the Burning Sea Wiki

Most Wanted

I greatly extended the page about Target Tracking - how do I submit something to remove it from the Most Wanted list? (Assuming it adequately describes the topic now.) TheMaster42 23:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I removed it, thanks for the contribution. --Mopster 08:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

DING!! Various milestones in here as they happen! :)

A million page views - grats all, and here's to the next 10 million ;) -- Ailar 21:32, 27 January 2008 (CET).

Aaand, Past the Point of Subtlety has just become our 3000th article! -- Ailar 13:30, 11 February 2008 (CET)

Main page layout

Anyone else think the main page could use a makeover? The layout of the links to the information (guide, atlas,...) could be bigger and occupy a more central part of the page. Just my two cents :) --Psykobob 10:44, 21 January 2007 (CEST)

It has crossed my mind. You're free to make a sample which we can discuss/improve and when approved replace it with the current main page. :-) --Mopster 09:39, 22 January 2008 (CET)

I copied the main page from www.gw.gamewikis.org to Alternate mainpage with it's original content. What do you think of that kind of layout guys? (We should change the colors a bit before posting that though :P --Psykobob 17:50, 22 January 2007

I thought it looked familiar. Not that I play GW, but seen the wiki. :-) Looks good, time to make it potbs related. --Mopster 09:21, 23 January 2008 (CET)

I agree. That looks a bit better. I suggest we use the Alternate Mainpage to develop a new face. And when it is 'finished' we move it to the current Main Page. Gonna throw in a few thinsg myself. --Lord Alderaan 12:28, 23 January 2008 (CET)

Well, here it is! :-) Thanks for the initial draft, reworked it and it looks great. --Mopster 14:49, 24 January 2008 (CET)

This alternative homepage should replace the existing one? Its much better. CheesePlant 22:51, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Consider the timestamp of this discussion - that "alternate" mainpage was already implemented and is actually the one we already had before the change to the new Monaco skin (which was a Wikia-wide change - we've been nudged by the admins to make the switch). Now that Monaco skin unfortunately imposes some restrictions on the layout - like one wide main (left) column and a smaller right column. I tried to convert is as closely as possible to the new format, but admittedly it still could do with some work --Ailar 06:32, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Any objections against switching to Monaco skin? -- Nef (talk) 13:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to keep the Monobook skin as the default one. People can still change the skin in their preference settings when they find a more suitable skin according to their needs. So far is Monobook, in my opinion, the most neutral skin and everyone knows it from Wikipedia. --Mopster 14:32, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

So you did it anyway? --Mopster 08:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Nope. Here is where you set custom wiki skin: MediaWiki:AdminSkin. It empty. People should see whatever skin they have in their user prefs. -- Nef (talk) 09:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

That's strange because I visited the wiki this morning not logged in and I got the Monaco skin. --Mopster 10:47, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I see. Anon users have no preferences, they see Wikia default settings. Wikia is gradually switching all wiki to Wikia default=monaco. (It used to be MediaWiki default=monobook.) Probably PotBS code was just upgraded. -- Nef (talk) 11:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Monaco has a lot of benefits over monobook, such as widgets, a (per-wiki and per-user) customizable sidebar menu system, a cooler design, and more. You can find out more about customizing Monaco on w:c:inside:Monaco Skin Customization, whilst Widgets are covered on w:c:inside:Widgets. Also, note that Wikia does most of it's development on Monaco. Anyway, I would really recommend trying it out. :) Kirkburn (talk) 12:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice Job all ClericTaven 22:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Current Patch Notes

Should probably be plural Notes (not Note)
Drakenya 04:15, 21 July 2007 (CEST)

Yeah, ye right. I'll fix that right away! --AdTheRat 16:31, 22 July 2007 (CEST)

RSS

Uh, the RSS feed on seems broken. It shows the <rss> and </rss> tags.
Drakenya 21:02, 22 July 2007 (CEST)

Updated MediaWiki and it stopped working, trying to find another extension for it. --Mopster 21:47, 22 July 2007 (CEST)

Fixed :-) --Mopster 22:14, 22 July 2007 (CEST)

Headings

The headings (==Heading==) for the patch notes section doesn't seem to work right. They don't look like they should. But the ones in the latest news part works. Also, if you add in a __TOC__ for the patch notes it shows the headings for the latest notes section. Is this supposed to be happening?
Drakenya 23:42, 22 July 2007 (CEST)

This is most likely because of the way the Main page handles the ==Heading==. Right now it's set to __NOTOC__ so by default all the templates have notoc as well. So when you set TOC, it overrides the setting for that section on mainpage. I think I understood you on the toc. --AdTheRat 13:26, 23 July 2007 (CEST)

But would that cause the headings not to display right? On the news part they look larger and bold. On the patch notes, they are not bold nor are they as large. ---Drakenya 14:22, 23 July 2007 (CEST)

Yes, it does. Let me make a few changes, let see how this looks for ya --AdTheRat 14:30, 23 July 2007 (CEST)

Done, how does that look for ya? --AdTheRat 14:36, 23 July 2007 (CEST)

Yup, looks normal now. ---Drakenya 15:30, 23 July 2007 (CEST)

England vs. Great Britain

This is general, so that's why it's on the main page. Anyway, should we standardize between using England and Great Britain? In the ships, it's England. In the cities, it's Great Britain. Should we either link them, or agree to use just one of them? It's starting to confuse me and it'll start to mess with the templates a little if it can be either / or. ---Drakenya 22:59, 30 July 2007 (CEST)

What's used in the game ? We'll use that then. --Mopster 09:15, 31 July 2007 (CEST)

In game, you are either from England, or you are British. There is no Great Britain or English. ---Drakenya 15:18, 31 July 2007 (CEST)

Issue has been resolved for now. The British nation is known as Great Britain here on the wiki. Which is historically correct. All things England have been redirected. --Lord Alderaan 19:34, 28 November 2007 (CET)

Today's main page update

I fixed a lot of the problems with the main page (spelling, etc.), protected the components, and moved the pieces of it into subpages of the main page. New locations of the components:

• Main Page/Header
• Main Page/Latest news
• Main Page/Help wanted
• Main Page/Current patch
• Main Page/Server victory

I'll add redirects to the old templates in a moment to help people find the new locations. Another new change, the page Main Page/Editcopy has been created to allow users to suggest changes to the main page. Since the main page is so high-traffic, it's protected from editing - any changes to the editcopy will be moved over periodically by an administrator =) Zuerst 10:12, 31 July 2007 (CEST)

Cannon Ammunition

I have created the page Cannon Ammunition which describes what ammunition is and lists a table of comparison for easier look up is it possible to change the cannon Ammunition link on the main page to be this insted of the category MafooUK 08:30, 3 February 2008 (CET)

Yeah, looks great - and for this type of info, it might really be better having it all in one table instead of in a category. It means one click less to get at the numbers. -- Ailar 08:41, 3 February 2008 (CET)

Reputation

A link to the page Reputation is missing. I suggest to change "[Factions]" at Game Basics / Guides to "[Factions] and [Reputation]". --Yoxx 13:22, 11 February 2008 (CET)

I've removed Factions and added Reputation as the actual guide. Factions is pretty much only linked from Reputation for now until we find a better spot for it. --Lord Alderaan 17:12, 11 February 2008 (CET)

Single Sign On

When i switch to another language i need a second account. Please implement it as SSO. --Yoxx 13:22, 11 February 2008 (CET)

I've looked into this matter a few weeks ago. I failed to implement this or there were certain issues which made me decide not to go through with it. This might change in the near future. --Mopster 13:26, 11 February 2008 (CET)

Extensions

Is there any chance of getting the dpl mod installed so I can automatically generate the list tables(like Cannon Ammo) instead of manually doing them each time DPL --MafooUK 17:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm told this is installed already. --Mopster 18:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikia!

Hullo! I am Kirkburn, your friendly local Wikia Gaming Helper!

I've got several things to mention, so I'll split this into sections:

Wikia Gaming IRC Channel

You may be interested to know there is a Wikia gaming IRC channel, #wikia-gaming on chat.freenode.net, where you can hop on, ask for help from users of other gaming wikis, or offer your own experiences. If you are not familiar with IRC clients, you can access it from http://irc.wikia.com/gaming.

Different people may be on sporadically, but we organize weekly chats at a fixed time so we can get the most number of people online at the same time to ask and answer questions, or just to hang out. The admins of some of Wikia's biggest gaming wikis (e.g. WoW, Halo) often attend them. You can find the time for the next chat by following this link.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me! Kirkburn (talk) 20:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Main Page design

You may be interested in stealing some code from the Wikia Starter wiki which is the current new wiki base design. It makes content a bit easier to add and is easily expanded.

Can I also suggest that this is added to the end of the page:

As part of our aim to produce a community spirit amongst our gaming wikis, we add these boxes to allow them to easily interlink. You are free to change the links to whatever you wish, and of course go to other related wikis and add a link to here :)

MediaWiki stuff

I would also suggest adding some links to MediaWiki:Navlinks, as seen on w:c:masseffect:MediaWiki:Navlinks.

I'm sure I will be able to think of more, but if you have any questions whatsoever, don't hesitate to ask me! I am posting this on the wiki rather than the forum as it's easier for me. If you'd prefer this was posted elsewhere on the wiki, please feel free to move it. Again, welcome to Wikia! Kirkburn (talk) 20:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Would it be possible to add ventrilo:// as a valid link URL redirect? ClericTaven 23:42, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Try out the new CreatePage tool

Kirkburn again :) Now I'm here to tell you about something new we've enabled on your wiki - a new version of the Special:CreatePage tool!

"The latest incarnation of the create page tool introduces a brand new feature – createplates. These are predefined layouts for certain types of pages that will enable users to quickly and painlessly create pages adhering to the wiki's style and formatting guidelines."

We've been working on it for a while, and I find it pretty useful and easy to use. Some wikis already use "preloads" and similar techniques to do this - this is essentially an interactive and fully integrated version of that.

The all-important links

• Special:CreatePage - This is the main page of the interface. You can display this link anywhere you want users to create new pages (on the Main Page, on category pages, or in the Mediawiki:Sidebar).
• MediaWiki:Createplate-list - the list of createplates (which you can edit). You can change these to match you existing templates, delete or create new ones.
• MediaWiki:Createplate-Character - one of the createplates (such pages are linked by MediaWiki:Createplate-list).

Help and feedback

• A more detailed walkthough of this new product and how to use and customize the createplates can be found on Inside Wikia at w:c:inside:CreatePage.
• As this is a new product we are actively seeking your feedback - both bug reports and suggestions for improvements. Please share your thoughts on the Inside Wikia forum thread.

If this is overwhelming, don't worry. Start small, try testing it out with some deletable sandboxes so you get a feel for how it works (you could even try recreating already existing articles with it). Next, try editing the createplates to see the effect - e.g. change section names to better fit the wiki. Feel free to remove createplates that your wiki will never use.

Createplates do not need to be complex - if certain pages don't need an infobox don't feel you need to keep one on the createplate. Their most important function is to make creating new articles much easier and allows articles to be kept much more standardised, meaning less work for others to clean up

Enjoy! If you have any questions, please leave a message on my talk page and I will get back to you :) Kirkburn (talk) 13:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Createpage in use!

Hullo! As an update on this so you can see it in action, I have tried it out on the Metal Gear wiki. I took an article, Mei Ling, and attempted to recreate it with Special:Createpage.

I did this by editing MediaWiki:Createplate-Character to use an existing character template, and by copying the text into the various boxes on Special:Createpage ... the result was User:Kirkburn/Mei Ling, which required a fair bit less typing and tweaking than normally.

However, speed and consistent formatting is not the only benefit! If you look at http://metalgear.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Kirkburn/Mei_Ling&action=edit you can see it uses something called "multiedit" which uses some extra info from the page to help present it better.

It would be awesome if this could be set up in a way that more people use it - it shouldn't require much work from an admin to get a basic page layout sorted - any help is appreciated! Kirkburn (talk) 00:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Loot Item

I have done magic to Loot Items this is still based of the category loot Items but uses DPL to separate items up based on additional categories thinking it might be better to link to this on the main page instead of Category:Loot Items MafooUK 15:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. I agree. --Lord Alderaan 14:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Main page protection

Hullo! May I suggest that the Main Page (and other such pages) are unlocked so they can be edited by registered users, as per the Wikia:Protection policy. Pages should only really be completely protected if they are the focus of active vandalism, otherwise you can do more damage by only allowing one or two users to keep it up to date, which may not be enough. Kirkburn (talk) 09:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I want to avoid having to undo a lot of changes, people can suggest any changes in the Main_Page/Editcopy. (Which I should update to resemble the current front page) --Mopster 09:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

On that note, I added the info on Cutthroat/Buccaneer to the Editcopy of the Main Page. Any admin around to merge the changes into the primary main page? --Ailar 19:40, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

It's been a while since any changes have been made, so I've lowered the protection to semi-protection to encourage updates. Kirkburn (talk) 17:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Didn't even notice that yesterday... :) --Ailar 07:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Could we include a section for ship upgrades?

There are literally hundreds of ship mods/upgrades and most people really have little to no clue what they do or where to get them or even that some really cool ones exist. Could we please get a section to start posting in the various ship upgrades. Would probably need to be divisible into sail, hull, cannon, and general and may also need to be sortable by collosal, huge, large, medium, small, and general. If the basic templet could include if it is trade able, where it is obtained from, and any positive and negative stat adjustments, that would be great.

Erch 17:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)erch

Do you mean Outfittings? They're there - under Economy :) Although I guess we could put them under "What's Hot" too. If they actually are among the most read pages - don't know if that's true... --Ailar 18:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops, my bad, was expecting to see them under ships. Could we get a second link to that area under ships maybe listed as "ship outfittings"? 20.137.18.53 14:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)erch

Wenden?

The wenden page seems to be having issues. Erch 19:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean 'Wenden' Third Rate? Looks fine to me. Mcgreag 21:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Working now but for at least two hours yesterday clicking on it anywhere returned that the wiki reference page did not exist. Tried it on two different computers also just to be sure. Fixed now though, was odd. Erch 14:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Patch Notes

Hi,

The linked patch notes are now out of date in the Whats Hot section. I just added the last two patch pages (30 and 32).

It may also be a good idea to link to the major patch notes (30) and the later, but minor, 32 patch notes. Seeing just 32 would look like little has changed...Hellman109 01:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Again there are new patch notes out that need linking too Patch_Note:1.3.51.0

Thanks for posting the Patch notes! I changed the CurrentGameBuild template, so the new patch should be visible on the main page soon. Although the game itself hasn't been patched yet - is 1.3.51.0 supposed to come today? --Ailar 05:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Its coming out Wednesday from what the main page says, thats for US servers anyhow, we the poor Aussie red headed step child still doest have any version of 1.3... Hellman109 06:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Another day, another patch notes... Also, can anyone think of a better way to show the patch note version details? I want a link in the minor updates to the major update, but the current update is a minor update to a minor update to a major patch... which is hard to explain. This patch isnt live on the US servers AFAIK but should be what goes out Wednesday your time. Hellman109 23:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

okay, first, to have the patch show up on the main page, you have to edit the Template:CurrentGameBuild page. Just enter whatever patch you want to set it to in the first section, on top of the page. Note that this will set the {{CurrentGameBuild}} variable Wiki-wide, so any templates that use version numbers and are not set to this value will show as Outdated. In this case, I suggest we wait with setting it to 1.3.53.0 until the patch is out :)

Second, and to the question you really asked: I know what you mean, major patches should show up more clearly. What if we had a section on top of every patch note article that identified the major landmark patch it is an update to? I see you did just that in the latest patch note already (or was that part in the original notes?) Maybe put it in its own section to make it really clear? --Ailar 05:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

screenshots for all ships!

Please, someone needs to go be a hero and get a picture for every vessel. It's the game's strongest point after all.

Well, you could argue if it's the game's strongest point ;) But I know what you mean - I like the sheer variety a lot as well - and having screenies of each ship would definitely be desirable for us.

So here's how I think we could do this:

• first we'd have to make a list about which ships are still missing screenies
• then we can put the word out asking for people to send us their screeshots for those ships - post on the forum, ask society mates and friends, whatever else you can think of
• wait for screenies to start rolling in (I hope...) and put them up

I'll add "make a list of missing ship screenshots" to my to-do list, and hopefully I'll get started with that on the weekend. Just don't expect me to do it all by myself ;) --Ailar 07:43, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Pleas change the background of the wiki it make all the text hard to read making info for us new people to Potbs hard to get.