User talk:JoePlay

Rangers of Mirendil page
Hi JoePlay, i would just like to thank you for editing our Darkfall clan page. I have only one question: We changed our forum host, and everytime i try to edit it in the edit panel it says that the spamfilter removes the new link to forum. Hope you can help. Thank you!

This is the new link: http://www.rangers of mirendil.free forums.org/

Diseases Wiki
Could you make me a 155px logo and heading for the Diseases wiki? I would like a pic of a bacteria and DISEASES WIKI on it. Thanks,  Mobutu4  :|   My Talk   02:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Blargipedia Logo
Good job with the Blargipedia logo. Could you remove the green background from the Blargipedia logo and then shrink the image down, so it fits monobook skin too! Lombax Jerk | My talk 05:54, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

wiki question
I'm not sure if you noticed, I am guessing you have probably been busy with other things, but the bureaucrats of the City of Heroes/City of Villains wiki on Wikia seem to have decided they are all going to move to a fansite and have changed all their userpages to say they have left also.

They have pasted a link diverting people away from Wikia on the front page and if you look at Recentchanges in the User_talk namespace, every person that attempts to contribute to the Wiki is getting told to go elsewhere to this other website "cohtitan".

I don't agree with this I think the Wikia site should still be allowed to keep alive even if they want people to go to their own website, I don't want to contribute to some fan website because having been on the internet since I was little I know how fleeting those are despite initial passion, I think Wikia is more secure and less likely to disappear wasting time and effort.

I figured you might be the best person to contact having read around, I did see your edit on the backend pagetitle mediawiki page about marketing and hope you might also agree also that people traffic shouldn't be driven deliberately away from Wikia... I'm not sure what can be done though really, with the admins not acting as real admins but staying on the website it seems a bit of a loophole that the wiki won't ever be able to be "adopted" by anyone, I have been doing some work trying to update thigns a bit but thinking about it if the wiki's just going to be forcibly closed down and people continuously driven away there's not much point spending time contributing:|

Thanks for any information or help, Sarah

--Kittenofdoom 12:12, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * PS. I read your page, but please don't reply on my talk page if possible reply here? I watched the page... Sorry to maybe break routine or protocol but I think it'd just probably make me get trouble for "telling on" them to Wikia.. --Kittenofdoom 12:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey Kittenofdoom (awesome name!). The Paragon Wiki began using a new host nearly 4 months ago, so none of the old admins should be directing people away from Wikia's CoH/CoV wiki this long after the fact. Someone will be contacting Eabrace soon asking him/her to stop. JoePlay (talk) 20:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That's cool! Is there anything that can be done about the site to go through the process of appointing new admins or something? The current ones all have "this user has moved" stuff on their pages, so the site is basically being kept forcibly dead now - they are just staying in order to keep new users under foot (and divert them to their own website) it seems. I'd like to help out but just about anyone would be better than the current situation where they are just using it as a tool to increase their google results or whatever (you don't see this if you are logged in, but they have an admin-edit-protected big banner on the front page telling people not to use CoH Wikia too, getting people to go away before they are even registered)


 * Thanks for reading (and thanks about the name too, lol)! --Kittenofdoom 00:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Just noting: We're not telling people that they have to move with us to the new site.  We're simply making sure that users are aware that the original project moved in the event that they followed an outdated link, nothing more.  We genuinely wish anyone who wishes to remain on wikia the best.  --Eabrace 00:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, just the messages you were leaving on every users' talk page once they registered gave a different impression... With misleading statements like "This wiki is no longer being officially updated" when it was never ran officially by NCSoft in the first place and the new one you made on your website certainly isn't either!


 * Also stuff like telling people to change their bookmark for the CoH wiki to the one on your website instead wasn't helpful... --Kittenofdoom 03:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * o.o I'm a bit offended honestly.. I didn't change my userpage to say I moved on with the site. And for the most part it isn't the admin that have been pointing ppl to where we moved to, it was your fellow users. Your just as welcome to encourage them to stay rather than more on. (I'm actually a bureaucrat for both the coh wiki and the TR one, so I am still here, but no one's shown any need for a bureaucrat to do anything in the last couple months..). If you want to apply to be sysop or burea, you could have always petitioned on the forums, they're checked quite regularly. (pls at least fill something in on your user page first though, having a blank user page isn't a good way to get a promotion) --Sleepy Kitty 02:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I must have missed you then sorry :o looking at your userpage I actually remember you now cos of the cute powers thing:3 Actually no it was mostly Eabrace I actually had a look in the history earlier to try clean up the mass linkspamming, there was another user doing it but yeah.


 * I didn't know the forums were still checked regularly sorry, I assumed it was dead, I actually saw that yesterday I think but the page wasn't loading it was timing out, and paragonforums.com says page in construction :s oh and as for user page I was meaning to do that anyway just never got around to it sorry, I did do a lot of editing before and after tho - it exists now I'll try make it more "pagey" tho --Kittenofdoom 03:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey all, as the creator and an admin and editor of the Paragon Wiki, I just wanted to clarify a few things.

The Paragon Wiki has existed since February 2005, long before it was a site on Wikia. In November 2007, we transferred all content to Wikia based on the premise that it would be able to better sustain such a community site better than we could. However, certain promises were broken which led to us making the decision in August 2008 to re-host it ourselves. One key point to realize is that the vast majority of the content of Wikia's City of Heroes wiki was created before the move to Wikia and after the move from Wikia. We have been a very strong and thriving site completely independent of Wikia. While I appreciate the effort by Tor and some others while we were at Wikia, though, I ask that everyone please keep in mind that Wikia did not create the City of Heroes wiki as it exists today, and Wikia most certainly did not write and edit the articles on the site here. We did. Wikia was merely a temporary hosting provider that, for various reasons, didn't work out.

There are some practical truths of the matter, though, that probably confuse the issue some. First of all, all of the content in the Paragon Wiki is made available according to the GFDL, except as specifically limited by the City of Heroes Terms of Service. Plus, I personally am a very "share and share alike" kind of guy. The simple fact is that I do not have any right to request that Wikia stop hosting a City of Heroes wiki, nor would I want to even if I did. They have just as much right to publish the content as I do. However, as you can imagine, the other administrators of the Paragon Wiki and I have no interest in maintaining two copies of the wiki. We discussed at length re-hosting the site ourselves, and the unanimous consent of every single administrator was that our re-hosted wiki would be the one that we would build and maintain going forward.

As hopefully other administrators of the Paragon Wiki can attest, I have personally discouraged any activity that could be considered vandalism on the Wikia site. However, another practical truth of the matter is that when we left, no one stepped forward to maintain Wikia's copy of the wiki. As a result, this site isn't maintained nearly as well as the Paragon Wiki is. When players go looking for City of Heroes information, the Paragon Wiki is simply the best place to get the latest high-quality up-to-date version of what's going on in the game, not Wikia. I won't deny that we have tried to steer people to the Paragon Wiki instead of here, but I have tried my best to emphasize doing so non-destructively. We do not edit the site's articles, and any notes placed on user talk pages are intended as personal communication to that user with the sole motivation of providing City of Heroes players with the best information about the game possible, and that includes what we consider the best resource for game information, the Paragon Wiki. With all due respect, my experience has been that players who come to the Wikia site get here by mistake while looking for the Paragon Wiki, not just a City of Heroes wiki, and the reason I haven't discouraged putting notes on their talk pages is because I honestly believe that it is simply informing them of something that they would probably want to know. We want to avoid someone coming here because of a Google search and spending hours painstakingly editing a bunch of articles only to find out that this site is, for most practical purposes, dead. I do not regard this practice as "link-spamming," I just don't know of any other way to say, "Hey, the best copy of the information is at paragonwiki.com" without saying paragonwiki.com.

I would have assumed by now that since we have re-hosted the wiki at a different site, Wikia would take away our administrative privileges. I know that I haven't done anything administratively since last August; in fact, I think this is the first edit I've made at Wikia at all since then. I'm pretty sure that the same is true of the other administrators, with the possible exception of a site notice just after the move. If they haven't taken away my administrative rights, they most certainly are more than welcome to, as I won't be working with the Wikia City of Heroes wiki in an administrative capacity in the future.

If someone wishes to step forward and become an administrator of the Wikia City of Heroes wiki and compete against the Paragon Wiki, we are perfectly okay with that. However, I would like to point out that it is hard work, something that can be extremely overwhelming for a single person to handle. Fortunately as the Paragon Wiki, we have a really good crew of ten dedicated administrators that are constantly writing, editing, building, and improving the site. Also, even though I'm willing to pay the site's cost out of pocket as a fan of the game, we are lucky enough to have a fan support base that has, so far, completely sustained the site's cost through donations, resulting in what I consider a much more friendly, completely ad-free site. In fact, I have received compliments on our site actually being faster and better than Wikia's, since we have dedicated resources hosting only our site instead of our wiki server hosting dozens or even hundreds of wikis. Wikia's Monaco skin does have some nifty bells and whistles, but in general, the comments I've received about the Paragon Wiki have been extremely positive when comparing the two sites.

Last, but not least, although I can't really stop one from doing so, I would like to avoid a "fork" of City of Heroes wikis, with some players updating one and some players updating the other. It would be a royal waste of time and effort, and neither wiki would be as good as it could be if we combine our respective efforts. If there's ever anything that you feel we can do to improve the Paragon Wiki, please feel free to visit our forums or drop me an e-mail at [mailto:tonyv@pcfreepress.com tonyv@pcfreepress.com]. I assure you that we do our diligent best to stay tuned into what the community wants, and if there's something you would specifically like to see that Wikia has and we don't, let us know. I can't count the number of times someone has suggested, "Hey, I think this way would be better..." and we've rolled out new features, templates, standards, or policies as a result. None of us are in ivory towers, we don't dictate things from on high, and I genuinely feel that our wiki is kind of unique in that we have such a high level of community involvement not only in writing and editing content, but changing the very ways we do things to be better.

If you have any questions or comments, by all means, let me know. --TonyV 06:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

More Witcher wiki stuff
sorry to bug you again, but the language links don't seem to work for chinese (at least for me) on the witcher wiki. Game widow 00:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

another thing i wondered about is flushing cached information, specifically about images. When i have uploaded a new version of an image, often (but not always) resized versions of it do not display properly. if i change the image size it tends to fix the image, but if i change the size back, the image reverts to the previous version -- or better still! some stretched out or compressed version as sometimes the images sizes i upload change as well. Also, the reports that are refreshed nightly, can a refresh be forced? Thanks for any info / guidance you can provide to fix that! Game widow 12:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi again JoePlay :) ... is there some sort of equivalent for wikis to these "tag clouds" i'm seeing everywhere ? one of my personal goals is to make the Witcher wiki as easily searchable as i can ... i think it's not bad right now, but there can always be improvement, so if anything of this sort exists and you know of if, please point me in the right direction! ... and thanks for your answers to the previous quesions Game widow 11:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * OH! and... is there some way to tell easily if other witcher wikis are using images from the english wiki via the common store? i do a lot of switching around of images and tracking down if i've messing things up for anyone else is kinda tedious and long right now (not to mention far from fool-proof, but if some sort of index exists that i can consult, that would be great help Game widow 11:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * And another thing i keep forgetting to mention -- again with images. I can't see any image that was uploaded with diacritics in the filename (example), so a lot of the stuff on the polish site is unavailable to me. Is that a local setting for me or another problem with the image servers ? Game widow 14:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

ParagonWiki
This is in response to your comment above. When the ParagonWiki left for a new host, we were given permission to retain the use of the ParagonWiki name and Wikia agreed to stop using it. Wikia did follow through on returning the domain name to our community, which we appreciate. However, Wikia still has not fully followed through on ceasing to use the name on their website. While references to ParagonWiki have been removed throughout much of the editable wiki, the project namespace and wiki's sitename are still "ParagonWiki". Until Wikia fixes that, the Wikia site is still misleading people into thinking that it's the ParagonWiki. Thus, it is not at all inappropriate for Eabrace or any other user to let people know that we have in fact moved. Someone looking for ParagonWiki may well still end up at Wikia, and since it says ParagonWiki all over the place, they may well think they're actually at the ParagonWiki when they aren't.

If you have the power to do so, please get Wikia to fix that problem on their end. Thanks! -- Sekoia 04:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey Sekoia, much thanks for bringing those details to my attention. The higher ups at Wikia may already be aware of them, but I'll pass on your requests and ask that it gets taken care of. JoePlay (talk) 19:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Joe, I appreciate it. I used my bot to try to update as many links referring to the ParagonWiki and ParagonWiki talk namespaces to reference Project and Project talk instead, so that should help ease the transition some when they do change the namespace. If there's anything else I can do to help ease the process, please let me know. -- Sekoia 02:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I see the namespace and sitetitle have been changed. Thanks again for following up on it, I sincerely appreciate it! -- Sekoia 16:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

More ParagonWiki stuff. GFDL violations this time
I would like to ask for some assistance in dealing with another situation of ParagonWiki (PW)/COH Wiki (COHW). Recently, a couple of users have begun cut&paste copying of material from PW to COHW. This material is GFDLed like most all wiki material, and when the last version of a chain is cut&paste copied, all GFDL required attribution is lost. This is being done with quite a few pages, and by two users in particular, Balistic Pve and Kittenofdoom. I was particularly irritated when I noticed some material I wrote in an article here, copied over without any attribution whatsoever.

I'm not sure what could/should be done about this. I was an admin while PW was with Wikia, and still retain my admin bit. So on a technical side I could still act as an admin. But given PW has moved on, it just does not appear kosher for me to use admin powers on COHW at this point.

There is also the general thought of the idea of whether COHW should continue to be a copy of PW. I know for me, I have moved on. My work now is intended for PW, not COHW. And even if it was moved over in a GFDL compliant manner, it would still leave a bad taste in my mouth to see my work taken. COHW is now a separate entity, and IMHO if it wants to continue to exist, it should do so with it's own work, not by copying the work of PW. But that's just my feeling. If the GFDL requirements are met, then there's nothing I could do about the copying.

But the current situation, with my work, and the work of others, being cut&pasted in violation of the GFDL.... that needs to be dealt with, one way or another. - Sister Leortha 14:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This issue is now sorted, I made a GFDL template like Wikipedia uses and on the very few pages with material from the new incarnation of paragonwiki/titanwiki, there is now credit in the same way that any other website receives! I'm sorry, I thought that since they were both under the same thing that it would be fine to share content (as no doubt users on Paragon Wiki will do the same with things here) but I took a look at how they did it on Wikipedia to do it properly under the licence and now it should be ok.


 * Ironically, mentions of Paragon Wiki were just what one of the other admins were asking to be removed, but obviously copyleft/right law must take the higher priority and you're trying to stir up a fuss, so be it. It's disappointing though that you seem to see the need to blatantly lie about Balistic's contributions to get your way though, since he has never so much as edited an article with the same name as you! Others can check this very easily like I did by visiting any of the pages on titanwiki with the same name as his contributions on City of Heroes and Villains Wiki via http://wiki.cohtitan.com/w/index.php?title=PAGENAME&action=history - I checked them, even contributions to the main page (which isn't really content mostly just lots of other pages embedded in one anyway)...


 * It's also very hypocritical of you considering Paragonwiki has never had any kind of attributation for copied text and images (in the same way most non-professional/fan websites don't)! --Kittenofdoom 02:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * First of all, Balistic Pve copied several news articles from ParagonWiki: 20081008 and 20081030. He may not have copied Sister Leortha's work but he did copy work from the ParagonWiki, so Sister Leortha is correct.


 * Second of all, you seem to have completely misunderstood what was being requested in terms of "mentions of Paragon Wiki" being removed. The problem wasn't that ParagonWiki was mentioned. The problem was that the Wikia wiki was still doing things that made it look like it WAS the ParagonWiki, the biggest of which was the fact that its sitetitle (which shows up in hundreds of places in the interface) was still "ParagonWiki". Fortunately, that has been fixed now -- the site title is no longer ParagonWiki, so that concern is resolved. There was never any concern with the Wikia wiki making references to ParagonWiki, so long as those references properly refer to ParagonWiki as an external site.


 * Third, you seem to lack an understanding of attribution and the GFDL. Attribution does not necessarily require that you put a permanent banner at the bottom of the article. That is sometimes required if the material is licensed under something more restrictive than the GFDL, and it is also the polite thing to do if you're copying an entire article wholesale from another source (which is where Wikipedia uses it -- though they try to actually write articles in their own wording instead of wholesale copy/paste as much as possible). All you have to do to give proper attribution is make sure your comment in the edit history credits the source of the article. If you look at the history for an article, all of its authors and contributors are listed, along with their edit summaries. Thus, when you copy and paste without making any edit summary (like you recently did), you end up giving the appearance that you authored that article all by your self. If you just simply put an edit summary that says "copying article from original at ParagonWiki.com", you'd be giving attribution. (If you wanted to do a step better, you could instead list out all the contributors from ParagonWiki instead -- or use the site export/import functionality to retain edit history, though you'd need to be an admin to import it.) When ParagonWiki copies other sites' content wholesale, we do our best to cite the information and present it as a quote, or make a note in the article that indicates where the text originally came from. When we originally split from Wikia, I made sure that all edits that I ported over either retained their edit history (via the export/import mechanisms) or were credited as coming from Wikia in my edit summary.


 * I think the aspect of things that probably upset people the most wasn't simply that you copied ParagonWiki content without attribution. It's that you did so after expressing such rancorous animosity towards us. It's extremely hypocritical to act so negatively towards our community and then turn around and copy our content without so much as an acknowledgment. If we suck so badly, you shouldn't even want our content.


 * If the Wikia City of Heroes community wants to copy ParagonWiki's content instead of authoring their own, then they're more than welcome to do so. The content is licensed under the GFDL and our community has stated many times that it's freely available for others to use. If you're going to do so, though, we'd appreciate the courtesy of attribution and, more importantly, would really appreciate if you would stop acting so negatively towards us.


 * As you seem set on breathing new life into the Wikia City of Heroes Wiki, I wish you luck. You have a large task ahead of you. There's no need for your community and ours to be disagreeable with one another, so I wish you well and hope to see you succeed in making the Wikia City of Heroes wiki a worthwhile resource for the community. -- Sekoia 16:57, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the tips about the edit history, I thought it might've been something like that might've been ok when I edited in the GNU templates (hence my first comment "you are now credited in the edit history" [by stating that they wrote it] but I just wanted to make sure.


 * As for "rancorous animosity" [a phrase itself full of nasty tones when you use it this way] you seem to have totally got the wrong end of the stick, as there was only this AFTER the article merges not before, and this originated from Sister Leorthia not me in her very confrontational post that she made on this Wikia administrator's page with the intent to cause trouble, phrases like "needs to be dealt with" - without any attempt whatsoever to talk to the people involved! And if you mean "rancorous animosity" before was my discussions with Eabrace and such above I think you really need to re-read it! I'd hardly say referring saying that "wasn't helpful" is anything approaching what you seem to be trying to make out it was. By the way sorry JoePlay for us dragging all this silly drama out on your own personal talk page, I know it's not the right place really!


 * But anyway thanks for the wish you luck bit, even if the rest was rather insulting. I do agree that there doesn't need to be all this arguing and it's not helpful for either website when our writing time could be spent on more productive things. --Kittenofdoom 03:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Front Page
(About The Third Turn)

Yeah, the resolution size has been the biggest issue I have had. First, maing the logo look slightly more professional would be greatly appreciated. I am graphics illiterate. As for the actual design of the front page, I am still unsure of what to do about it. I am very fond of the arrow design, and I think in context (many other NASCAR websites are designed in similar fashions), most of the people I am looking to have contribute will be more drawn than distracted. But yes, I have few ideas about how to fix this issue. Perhaps just two columns instead of three? Feel free to share your opinion and thanks for the concern! --DaNASCAT 01:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Gearspedia staff
Hi Joe. I have just had a request from ODST Joshie for admin rights. I am of the opinion that three active admins is about right of a wiki of our size, and so was wondering if he could have rollback rights. He has experiance as an admin of Gears of War Fanon, and is frequent user of Halopedia and Halo Fanon. I trust him not to misuse this, and he is also generally trusted and liked throughout the community. In addition, I was wondering if Gearspedia might be ready to have its own bureaucrat, so that we don't have to bother you all the time of this kind of thing. Thanks for your time, --EightyOne (talk) 01:48, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Everything seems to be going really well. We have a pretty solid user base, and we get quite a lot of IPs doing little edits. The little vandalism we get seems to come in peaks, and is reverted quickly. Thanks for all you help, --EightyOne (talk) 18:18, 18 February 2009 (UTC)