User talk:Toughpigs

Please start new headings at the top.

Big Wikis
Oh well, maybe someday. Sorry to give you extra work to do ;)  Phil.e.   [Talk to me] 15:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * No, I'm glad you posted -- it reminded me to check on how everybody's doing! -- Danny (talk ) 17:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Forum question
Hi Toughpigs, wondered if you might have any thoughts re the Forum question just posted: Forum:Where is the right place for mid-level stuff? Cheers Philralph 07:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

return to Oz
what happened? Today I went to the oz wiki and there were no recent changes, its a ghost town! Did you abandon it? Are you convinced its over? answer please! Random123 01:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC) can and will do. Also, A question; i just found out that mythbusters wiki exists. I suggested that wiki several months ago. Am I an admin or normal? Random123 18:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

OtherVerse
That change for the hubs is great! Thanks for your help and advice! --Stamp 16:23, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Great, I'm glad you're happy with it. -- Danny (talk ) 16:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Hubs
Toughpigs, for the Hubs. What do you think about moving the More Hubs button inside of the Box it is above, and then removing the title for the page? It would look cleaner, having a big header like box, a title bar, and a button in the way of the top together doesn't look right. It probably also be worth it to put the More Hubs button inside of a template. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) tricks Jul 24, 2007 @ 11:54 (UTC)


 * Hi, Daniel -- The template idea is great; I'll do that now. I'm interested in your idea about how to change the header, but I can't picture it -- could you make a sandbox version so I can see it? -- Danny (talk ) 12:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I fixed the class so that it won't break the centering or affect centering or positioning in any way. You can rollback the changes in the template and move them back inside the headers. If the link colors match backgrounds to much I can add a background or change the link colors. Just tell me which to do and what colors to use, and tell me which pages to change. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Aug 1, 2007 @ 21:21 (UTC)


 * The white background has been added to the class. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Aug 2, 2007 @ 13:53 (UTC)

I have a little idea on the Hubs, it's for the list at the bottom. As you'll see here, through a complex process using parserfunctions and DPL I can automatically turn a DPL list into a 5 column list. Which gives a potential idea. It's actually possible to use DPL to create the list of wiki there. And if we changed from using titles, and added a special HUB template to the pages which are organized into hubs we could use that to draw out the name, link, and also the size of that wiki to determine if the star should be shown or not. What do you think? Don't worry about long repetitive tagging tasks. I can have a bot do that for us. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Aug 20, 2007 @ 06:16 (UTC)


 * That's cool that you figured out how to do that, and I appreciate the offer. I'd rather not lose the "editorial" control, though. You've probably noticed that some of the existing wikis aren't listed on the hubs. Some wikis are abandoned so early that it's not worth anybody's time to click on them.


 * The hubs are supposed to help users find good content on Wikia. There are so many "dead" wikis right now that if we included them all on the hubs, then new users who are browsing through the hubs might think that there's nothing but dead wikis here. So I don't think it's a good idea to automate those lists, and lose the ability to remove inactive wikis.


 * But there is something that I'd like to ask you, if you know how to do it -- is it possible to automate the page counts on Big wikis? It would be great to replace "over 19,000 articles" with an actual count of how many pages are on the wiki. It would also be good to automate the bottom part of the list, so that stars show up when the wiki reaches 5,000 pages. Do you know how to do that? -- Danny (talk ) 14:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The hub listing doesn't need to list all the wiki in a category auto be automated. The truth is, it's actually easier to list a limited number of wiki through the automated methods than list all of them. The difference is that instead of making a static list of wiki, you'd add something like <-- ^_^ Though I have a feeling we have less pages than that, rofl. And that would put the wiki into Category:Cartoons and Comics Hub. Then DPL would use that category to list the wiki on the Hub page, and it would extract the needed information from Hub wiki by redirecting it to Template:Hub wiki.item which would create an item in the list. ^_^ So we can automate it making it cleaner, but still only list wiki we want to.
 * Sorry, unfortunately there is no way to grab the stats from another wiki. I was actually thinking about that before you mentioned it, automating that star to show up without user input when the wiki reaches over 500 pages would be nice. But we can't do it with the current stuff... What would be nice is a set of Magic words on central which basically use the stats data from the Magic words on other wiki instead of locally. Something like  . Shouldn't be hard to modify Magic Words to do that on another DB, but I don't know about finding what DB is used for a Wiki, I don't know enough of Wikia's DB structure. ^_^ Maybe we should poke the techs to help... ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic)  Aug 22, 2007 @ 18:23 (UTC)


 * I just found a site called Wikindex today, which seems to be pulling current stats on wiki activity and number of pages. Do you know how they're doing that? -- Danny (talk ) 19:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Web spider... But using a spider is something completely different than data querying that can be put into a ParserFunction. Plus this is in Wikia stuff... We can get functions which grab data from the DB directly. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Aug 22, 2007 @ 19:50 (UTC)

Take a look at Sandbox/3 again... It's been tuned up. It works for staring something after a number greater than 500 pages is put into the pages param, and It only lists the pages you use. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Aug 23, 2007 @ 09:27 (UTC)

Human Science listing on hubs
I appreciate the need to give fair representation to as many wikis as possible in the hub listings. Since most wikis fall cleanly into a single hub category they do not present a problem, whereas in fact HumanScience spans many categories -- especially spirituality and philosophy (as you noted), social sciences (for which I believe there is no hub at present), literature & cinema, and personal accomplishment (The Secret, personality, accomplishment), etc.

The greatest advance which the WWW provides over traditional linear forms of knowledge is the capacity for cross referencing and linkages between subjects which is the essential objective of Human Science, i.e. to show that from a deeper level spirituality, literature, accomplishment, social development are related and governed by common principles. We are trying to go to the depth where things are connected rather than the surface where they are divided.

All this said, Danny, I don't know how to resolve the dilemma, which will become greater as we develop more parts of the site. But looking at it as it now stands, in addition to spirituality, we believe we have one of the two top sites on the Internet today for Pride & Prejudice. We wanted to list it under books because many visitors who are not at all interested in spirituality may find out original content extremely interesting. It applies to other subjects as well, but we cannot claim the same depth in those fields at this time. garry 05:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Garry -- It's true, Human Science touches on many different areas. It's a very interesting site!


 * However, the balance on the hubs is important, to be fair to the other wikis -- especially in the spotlights. Over the last couple of days, you and Rlakshmipriya added Human Science to the spotlights of three hubs. Right now, there's only a few wikis that are spotlighted on two major hubs, and those are some of the largest and most established wikis that we have. I don't think it would be fair to have a relatively new wiki like Human Science spotlighted on three hubs -- or even four or five, if your other hub suggestions were created.


 * I have a suggestion, which is to spotlight Human Science on Philosophy and Religion, where it currently is, and then to list it without a spotlight on a second -- either Books or Science and Nature, as you choose. In a little while, as your site grows and becomes more established, we can revisit the question, and maybe list it on a third hub.


 * I'm just throwing that out as a suggestion, to see what you think. It would also be good to get other people's input on the question. What are your thoughts? -- Danny (talk ) 11:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

More Hubs
Danny, may i suggest you create additional hubs for


 * 1) spirituality and personal growth -- which is different that religion & philosophy
 * 2) social sciences

rename Books Hub as Books and Movies or create a separate hub for Movies

garry 05:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Garry -- Those are good suggestions, thanks! Right now, Movies and TV are both included in the Entertainment hub. -- Danny (talk ) 11:33, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Hubs
Great work on the hubs! I think they'll be very helpful for navigation and finding appropriate wikia. And typical of your work, they are visually attractive. -- CocoaZen 22:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I'm glad you like them! I have a few more on my list that I'll be making over the next day or so. If you happen to notice any active wikis that are missing from the hubs, please feel free to add 'em to the list. I'm trying to only include wikis that are currently active, or that are inactive but have 100+ pages. But there's new wikis starting all the time, so I'm sure there are going to be some that are left out... I know you're on top of these things. -- Danny (talk ) 23:19, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Logo
You recently posted an article on the Wikia Logo Forums about how you needed a logo for the Superman Wikia. I have made one and it can be found on those same forums. Message me on my User Talk page if you need anything else on it! --Bucketruck 13:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Please work on a test page first
When you are going to mess a page up as a intermediate step, please work in a sandbox first (or only preview and not commit the messed up stages), and only apply the changes after you are completely done. GulidWars is NOT about Sora, Donald and Goofy, Lord of the Rings Online Wiki is NOT the best game cheats for PC and console games organized for easy use, etc etc. -Afker


 * Dude. I know. I'm still working on it. It should be done in an hour. Relax. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe you should consider in reverting your changes for now, work in a sandbox, and put them on the hub in an hour after you are done. How would you like it if I go to the muppet wiki, mess up a portal page (say, the main page or soemthing) for an hour, just to experiment with some changes? -Afker 21:56, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Alright, place-holder text is much better than mix-matches. Though just to be nitpicky, Guild Wars is simply Guild Wars, not Guild Wars Online. d-: -Afker 22:26, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, like I said, still working on it. :) I'm writing cute text as we speak. By the way, you took out the center tags on the "Start your own" and "gaming.wikia" sections. I'd actually like to have those centered under those columns. If you know a better way to do that without using center tags, that's cool. -- <font color="Blue">Danny  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, you did it already. Thank you! -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Priorities
One Life to Live before Fluffy Bunnies -- where are your priorities, Danny?? --CocoaZen 23:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I know... It's terrible, isn't it? Fluffy Bunny just wasn't the same once Jason told me that he'd gone over to the other side. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikia Mentoring Project
Hello. Can I sign up there or it's only for English-speakers for now? Szoferka 23:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That would be great! What language do you speak? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm a Polish native speaker, there's a bit of Polish wikis, but hm... what's the promotion of this initiative? How do poeple can know something about it? However I'm signing up. :) Szoferka 00:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Great, it's nice to meet you! My name's Danny -- can you tell me yours? (I'm terrible at remembering screennames, and I'm much better with names.) I'm still working on that page -- I'll add more details very soon. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * So hi again, I'm Karolina (en. Caroline). I'm looking forward to increasing this project. Szoferka 01:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Danny, You deleted my request for a mentor, but I'd like to stay posted in case other mentors take an interest. Please revert. Also, I think it will be good to keep a list of maybe 5-10 mentored projects there, so people can see the benefits and progress of your Mentoring project. Thanks; Leo|Talk 12:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I didn't delete it -- I moved it down to the next section. Robin signed up to be the mentor for your wiki, and I believe she's helping out there now. That next section is supposed to be the list of projects that are currently being mentored -- I'll change the heading so it's a little more clear.


 * The idea is that you just get one mentor -- there's so many new wikis that need help, and there's only a few of us so far who are volunteering to be mentors. If you feel like you need more help, talk to Robin about how to attract more contributors to your project. You can also check out the pages at Will Wikis Work? for more help. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 13:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I see what you're trying to do. Thanks for clarifying; Leo|Talk 13:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Added your article to Will Wikis Work
Hi Danny,

I think your article is really good, and deserved more than a little, See Also link at the bottom of the Will Wikis Work article. I've added it to another page on Wikia, making it part 3 of a 3 part article. Have a look at the Will Wikis Work article again and you will see what I mean.

Perhaps we can write part 2: Attracting Contributors together? with the help of some other Wiki admins? Let me know what you think.

Tom
 * <font color="Blue">Mostly Zen [[Image:Baby_tao.jpg]] (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, cool! That's a good structure to keep building those pages, and I'm proud to have my piece become a part of that. I just posted a note on the discussion of page 2... I'll definitely be working some more on that stuff later on. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Small wikis
I just read your survey answers and your user page. You are so right about making the smaller Wikis work! I found your Beginners Guide for the Muppet Wiki, and changed it around a lot to use on the Psychology Wiki (where I'm an admin). People seem to think that Wikia wikis will all work like Wikipedia and they are wrong. You beginners guide has helped us a lot, thanks, and the Muppet Wiki is great.

I was wondering if you wanted to have a look at this article I started on why some wikis are working and others have died. Your perspective on making small wikis work would be valuable in improving the article: Will Wikis Work? thanks Mostly Zen 14:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey, thanks for saying hi and (unintentionally) kicking my ass to finish that piece I was writing on my user page. I've been meaning to get to it for a long time, but knowing that someone was actually reading the thing got me working on it again! So I just added a bunch of stuff to that page -- if you get around to reading the new version, I'd love to know what you think.


 * I also just posted some additions to Will Wikis Work?, and some comments on the talk page. It's cool that you're getting some discussion started on these issues; I think it's really important, and fun to talk about.


 * So if you read my user page thing, you'll see that I have a thing about knowing people's actual first names -- can you tell me yours? :) -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Danny, my name is Tom Michael. I like the contributions you've made to the Will Wikis Work article.  Honestly I'm amazed that more people aren't asking this stuff, considering how many dead wikis there are.  I am thinking of asking the Admins of all the active Wikis to read/contribute to this article and make related articles on how to make things work better.  You idea of making small communities is spot on.  I made the analogy of a thriving village compared to a dead city.


 * Our wiki (Psychology) is 5th largest in terms of content, but we dont have that many contributors, I think you are 4th largest and then its the Starwars and star trek wikis. We really need to work on getting the critical number of contributors for our wikis individually.


 * If i get tired of editing my Wiki, I will pop by and clean up/add to some muppet articles, because your project looks like so much fun, ours can be too serious sometimes :) <font color="Blue">Mostly Zen [[Image:Baby_tao.jpg]] (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, Tom, it's nice to meet you! I think people are getting more interested in talking about the "will wikis work" issues -- there's been some related discussion on the Central Wikia mailing list, and I know that there's going to be a lot of that at the Wikimania conference in August. I think you started writing about this just at the right time -- it'll be interesting to see how other people add to and comment on your piece.


 * I looked at the Psychology wiki -- wow, I can't believe you guys have put together 7500 articles! That's awesome. I'm a little confused by the site indexing -- it seems like you've built a big extra index infrastructure, instead of just using the category tags. I've found that categories can be a really helpful navigation tool; you just have to be thoughtful about how you set up the category structure. Is there a reason why you guys are using categories the way that you are?


 * And yeah, absolutely, come hang out at Muppet Wiki sometime! It would be cool to see you there. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I added a small video about Cookie monster (see the bottom of that article) that I found on Wikipedia. He is on some womans cookery show causing havoc.  Shame I can't make it to Wikimania because it would be great to meet all you people.  My friend Joe is going there, he is the founder of the Psychology Wiki.  If and when I find anything funny and muppet related, I will post it on the Muppet Wiki... in fact, I think I may have found something. <font color="Blue">Mostly Zen  [[Image:Baby_tao.jpg]] (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 10:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

User survey
Hi. I moved your survey to Wikia Brand Audit User Survey/5 since the numbering on the index page was wrong and we ended up with two 4s. Thanks a lot for helping with this survey. Angela (talk) 18:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for helping with the branding survey
Thank you for completing the Brand Audit User Survey. We really appreciate your responses. Lots of improvements and new features were suggested, and I hope you'll see these being implemented over time. The results are now being analysed by a PR firm, so you might see some interesting changes to the design of the site as a result. If you have any more feedback, we always welcome that in the Wikia forums. Angela (talk) 17:33, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

help plz
Could you please help me with my new wiki American Football wiki I need a logo I cant do that because i dont have any program that will edit pictures i also dont know how to make new pages and please could you tell people about this wiki Trefmawr 00:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi there! It looks like Chad has already offered to help on your wiki... Check out your user page there, or leave a message on Chad's page. Good luck with your new wiki! -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 14:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Need someone to hold my hand
I am a novice wiki user and I need someone to hold my hand.

On October 24, 2006 I created a mini wiki using the Scratchpad. It's called "Hometown: Haddonfield NJ." Already, I've got a couple of problems, the most frustrating of which is that I cannot access "Live chat and support." I keep getting an error message that says my nickname is invalid. The system won't let me go any further. I don't know if this – User talk:Toughpigs – is the appropriate place to ask for this kind of help, but it's the only place I could find.

Problem #1: I have created a number of pages (articles?), all beginning with the letter "A." One of them is titled "Alumni Society." But "Alumni Society" also shows up on the ""Hometown: Haddonfield NJ" home page (category page?). It doesn't belong there and I don't know how to get rid of it.

Problem #2: I wanted to create a page (article?) titled "Adult School" but I accidently created something else, somewhere else, instead, and now the system won't let me create a page (article?) for "Adult School" within "Hometown: Haddonfield NJ."

Please help! Thank you. (To the extent possible, please reply in plain English. It's taking me some time to learn the wiki language.)

Oz
The Oz wiki is abandoned,and on Vovat(the creators page) you said you wanted to help. Since your cofounder of muppet wiki i think you are talented enough to adopt it(i would,but im not good enough yet). Please help out Random123 03:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

education wiki help
Thanks for your input over there. I am curious if the double exclaimation marks can cause a problem, or if it was a stylistic matter (I happen to agree with the stylistic choice if that is what it was). As you may have guessed, we are a bunch of newbees over there. My first attempt at using wikia was in January, and I blindly lead 20 students into the project. Kirk has been very welcoming and helpful. It is nice to have that level of support from somone I have never met. There will be six new pages in the next couple of weeks.Dmccabe 14:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Image use
There do not seem to be standard templates for images here as there are in Wikipedia. I have established three over in education (based on Wikipedia templates and properly attributed). Are there any that are general to Wikia?Dmccabe

Template:Maintop
Hi Danny. Is there a reason you're adding confusing HTML to new wikis instead of leaving the maintop template there? The idea of the templates is to keep the main page free of confusing code for new users so they can more easily find where to type their content.

Imagine seeing an edit box for the first time and seeing this instead of simply

{|width=100%|
 * valign="top"|

Please can you let me know if there was any reason for that, and which wikis you have done this on? Thanks. Angela talk 00:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Angela -- I'm sorry, I was just trying to help them out a little. I didn't realize that there was a specific rationale behind the maintop template. I just thought that that box looked nicer. I didn't think about how confusing the HTML would look; you're right. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

thnx!
StinkFly wants to tell you something... thank you! You should get into it, in the uk, there is a marathon this weekend. :) I am so happy!

Big wikis punctuation
Hey, Toughpigs. I noticed you have been reverting my edit(s) on the Big wikis "hub." What's your reasoning for removing the spacing surrounding that em dash? As far as I know (and both The Chigago Manual of Style and The Oxford Guide to Style agree with me), em dashes should not be surrounded by spaces. --Imperialles 22:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)