Forum:Returners' Conclave/Archive I

Admin Situation

OK, I've had a look around, and here's what I see with the admin situation. Your most long-standing active contributor is Seancdaug. He's been around since October 2005 and has over 500 edits. His last visit was in February (no email set, so I can't ask him to pop in to have a look at the situation). Crazyswordsman is your most active editor at the moment with over 1000 edits. He's been around since early February. There are several other active users, with Roy Al Blue, Ryu Kaze and Thai420 all having over 50 edits and having been in since Feb 1st. See Special:Activeusers for more.

That not to say these are the only possibilities though - you know this wiki better than I, so may have better ideas. So, it's over to you. Who do you, as a community, want to add as admin(s)? I'd suggest that the main criteria are some good sense, some good knowledge of this wiki, and good knowledge of the subject. Experience using the admin functions is nice, but by no means required, it's very easy to pick up. In the mean time, please let me or Mindspillage know if you need any admin-type tasks done. -- sannse (talk) 14:41, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Withdrawal from Running: I have not been here all that long, and I would prefer that a more experienced user (such as Seancdaug or Crazyswordsman) become admin. Of course, we could use more than one, perhaps, but I do not at the moment view myself as having sufficient experience to become an admin. In addition, I have only played four of the games in question: Tactics, Tactics Advance, FFI and FFII (Dawn of Souls versions for the last two). Therefore, I withdraw my username from consideration. Roy Al Blue 15:49, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Oops, forgot Mystic Quest, but that still only makes five, and only two of those are from the main series. Therefore, my withdrawal remains in effect. Roy Al Blue 15:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler Stuff

As was pointed out earlier, there are some interesting things that happen when spoiler tags are squished between two image boxes. I've gone through many of the pages and fixed most of the spoiler tag stuff, but I'm sure there are many that I've missed. If you see any pages like this (or if you want to create new pages that has a spoiler tag that may come between two image boxes), all you have to do to prevent it from happening is move the spoiler template code above the image box code.

This is a page that shows all the articles that use the Spoiler template, which will make it easier to find pages that may have this problem. B 006 06:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't it just be easier to fix the Spoiler template..? I mean, it's the choice between spending half an hour on fixing one template, which then automatically fixes all the articles, or fixing all the articles manually, one by one, and not really solving the problem, because the same thing will just happen in the future.

• Hecko X 20:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I have now made a whole new spoiler template that changes according to its surroundings. Do not attempt to give it a border or a background color, as this will screw it up. The new template works with Internet Explorer as well as with Firefox. The reason for me making it completely different, is because while someone was "fixing" the templates for Firefox, he/she completely screwed it up for Internet Explorer, as one can see here. All of this should be fixed now

• Hecko X 21:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Forum will be down as we try to get a new server for it

Just bare with us. Thanks. You can try clicking on the link from time to time to see if it's back up again. Crazyswordsman 21:17, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It's back up. Crazyswordsman 23:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I will be gone for several days

I'm moving back to college, and I have to set up an apartment. I asked Saanse to admin TA, and I'm sure she'll get around to it. But until I'm back (Sunday or Monday), I trust all of you guys with this. This is our Wiki, let's keep it vandal-free! Crazyswordsman 03:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

TacticAngel is now an admin, and I have given Crazyswordsman bureaucrat rights. This means he can make admins for the wiki in future. Of course, the community team is still here any time you need a hand :) -- sannse (talk) 06:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I KNEW IT! I figured this had something to do with a vacation, but this is close enough. --TacticAngel 10:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Saanse. Crazyswordsman 11:22, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

CSM vs CSM

TacticAngel wins. This really doesn't pertain to anyone who makes positive contributions to the site, but while the real CSM is out of town, all fake CSMs will be immediately temporarily banned. CSM can sort this out if he feels different, but I don't feel like reverting a lot of vandalism and potty-talk. More honestly, I'm just not as nice as he is. --TacticAngel 04:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

All fake CSMs must DIE!!!! Crazyswordsman 18:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm baaaaaack!

I'm back and ready to edit! I'd like to thank TacticAngel for his resillience in reverting vandalism and blocking vandals. Now that I'm back, TA and me will be running a two man show around here. If we need another admin, I will post a message saying so. We don't need to ask for outside rights for adminship, as I now have the power to admin and de-admin. Crazyswordsman 18:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello pals

I have an important announcement to make:

Userboxes are finally here!

You can find them at Project:Userboxes. I have a small (three of them) collection now, but this weekend I plan to make a lot more. If you want to make a userbox about anything, and I mean ANYTHING, feel free to. Just save it to the directory like I did. If you don't know how to make a userbox (it's pretty easy to learn if you know how to copy/paste), you can request one on the talk page of the directory. Oh, and this should be common knowledge, but no pornographic or racist userboxes, please. Crazyswordsman 22:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Excellent idea. I can probably make a couple during my paperwork breaks, if it's okay with you guys. Though, as a rule of thumb, never use a red background for text, but if you do, never use overly bright colours, overly dark colours (except navy/black) or any colour close to red, i.e. orange, pink, etc. (it's just not easily readable). If you must use a red background, here are the best font colours to choose:

White, black, navy blue (but only when bold), some shades of yellow, this shade of blue and this shade of green. The shade of green you have chosen right now for fighter and red mage is too hard to read on a red background, as you have probably noticed, while trying to read this

• Hecko X 09:17, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

It should be fixed now. Crazyswordsman 17:12, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Fan Art

I was just wondering, if I could get the consent of some talented artists, who have made execptional drawings of FF characters/figures/whatever, would it be okay for us to actually use them? I mean, do we have an "all pictures must be either in-game screens, sprites or Amano (or what's his name) artwork"-policy? --Hecko X 20:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course, but they should be kept out of the main namespace and in a Fanart namespace. Fanart is always welcome, especially from our contributors! Crazyswordsman 21:01, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with CSM, for the record. Though I personally draw TONS of Final Fantasy inspired images, I don't really think they belong in main articles and if they are there, they maybe should be sectioned off... plus we get into the ugly business of people wanting to contribute and then someone has to tell them they can't draw the broad side of a barn. Who decides really? Because if Amano was unemployed like he should be, and he was banging down the doors of this wiki... if it were up to me it'd be < I'm sorry. > < I'm not up for it. > --TacticAngel

TA, calm down. We can't be overly restrictive on what we can allow outside main namespace. *Bites TA for dissing Amano* Crazyswordsman 16:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking more along the lines of, in case no better picture presents itself, we could use an artistic drawing. Like, I haven't been able to locate any good Zorn & Thorn pictures, except for fan art, so I would have liked to use fan art to illustrate how they look (do I make sense?). With consent from the artist, would this have been alright? P.S. In exchange for using their art, we should probably name the artist and make a link to their art-site profile (e.g. if they have a profile on DeviantArt), in the little "summary"-box, when we upload the drawing. --Hecko X 21:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Google image search and [1] are your friends. Also, you need to find the artist, email him or her, and get his or her permission.Crazyswordsman 21:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I did google image search, but apart from the fan art and cosplaying, I came up empty. The FF Compendium was somethin I wasn't aware of though. And I already know about the e-mailing stuff, I mean, it's common courtesy, right? :P Which by the way reminds me; if I don't get an answer from the artist of the Vincent Chaos-drawing by monday, we'll probably have to remove it. --Hecko X 21:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

If that's the case, I won't even bother asking the artists I found for permission, since their drawings aren't going be used (a shame really, among them were the talented Vincent Valentine artist, who drew http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Vincentchaos8qc-1-.jpg, the other, also very talented, had various good drawings of FF characters [2]). Oh, and the Vincent Chaos picture should be removed immediatly, since it's fan art. Hey, at least I tried :) --Hecko X 11:37, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I've always seen wiki's as impartial and encyclopediaeque. Of course we're dealing with fiction here, but the "fact" of Final Fantasy is determined by Square(/-Enix). Ultimately, I'll defer to CSM if he really thinks it belongs here, but I don't want to be the person giving the thumbs up or down to images and I don't think accepting all comers is the way to go either. --TacticAngel

We're both a Wiki and a fansite. Therefore, we should have the features both Wikis and fansites offer. We need to in order to maintain our "By the fans, for the fans" feel we have here. Crazyswordsman 16:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking that if this had "gone through", that we would install some kind of "Don't call us, we'll call you"-policy, which would basically mean that only pages/artists officially stated as "affiliates" or whatever, would be eligible to have their art shown here. Like I said, it's just for if not better option is available, like official art or something. I mentioned earlier, about Zorn & Thorn, that it was hard to find a good picture of them, and though CSM did succeed where I failed (he found an Amano-rendering, which can be seen in the Zorn & Thorn-article), I would have prefered using the fan-renderation by no421[3], maybe in conjuction with the official one, had it been found later on. The thing about Amano art, at least for me, is when you look at the art, and then the finished product, it looks somehow distorted/abstract, due to "lost in translation"-issues and such. That's why I thought fan-art would paint a better picture of the character's appearence (no pun intended). Also, many times, fan-art has renderings of situations official art don't, e.g. the Vincent Valentine transforming into Chaos drawing we had. Of course, some renderings are better than others, which is why you have to actively scout for these artists and renderings, but I pretty much already volunteered for that duty. --Hecko X 17:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, anyone who joins can upload their own fanart, like I said, but all fanart should be kept out of the main namespace. I AM willing to make a compromise and link from the main namespace to fanart. Crazyswordsman 17:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That's where the documentation comes in handy. When crediting the artist and linking to their page in the Summary-part of "upload file", you're also documenting that you got it from one of the profiles/sites you [the administrators] have given permission to be used in articles. Repeatedly violating this and uploaded fan art not from a profile/site that's been okay'ed can result in a warning or something (There are 6 levels of warnings, as far as I recall, and it requires repeated offence to get even level 1,so...). In my head, all of this seemed like an okay plan, but did I miss something..? --Hecko X 18:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll have some of my own fanart up really shortly. Crazyswordsman 15:38, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

We now have an official message board!

Please join us at http://ffwiki.ffproject.net Our good friend Renmiri was kind enough to let us do this! Come join! Crazyswordsman 03:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I tried, in vain, to access the forums for I had interest to know what the others thought of Final Fantasy XII. Were I to again try tomorrow, t'would I meet a better end or has this been blown to the four winds? --TacticAngel 21:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The server blows. Crazyswordsman 21:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Time for a banner contest!

I want to have a banner and an 88 X 31 button for external sites to link to us. Unfortunately, I have NO photoshop skills whatsoever. If you know how to do this, make something and upload it! Crazyswordsman 16:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Here is my suggestion (I tried keeping with the FF logos). The Japanese characters actually spell "Final Fantasy Wiki" like it would be said in Japanese (Fainaru Fantajii Uiki), again like the game logos:

I uploaded a large version, in case we'll ever need it for something (who knows?)

Below is the banner again, but in the 88x31 pixel size, as required.

Hope we can use it. --Hecko X 20:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Those look good. I was hoping for some pictures of characters (both old and new) on them as well. Crazyswordsman 21:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that would be over the top. Remember, you want to use it as a banner, and a small one at that, so a collage is generally a bad idea, as you won't be able to see anything. Had it been 550x110 pixels banner, then yeah, maybe, but for small banners, simplicity = better results. If you want I can make a banner for the wiki, which of course will be larger, but will also have more features. However, due to that fact, it will take me a lot longer time to make, then this small banner did --Hecko X 21:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if character portraits are going to register at that size, but I think I'll try my hand at it as well. Hecko good work as well, though picky people will wonder why its not the final fantasy font. --TacticAngel 19:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's a very simple explanation as to why I didn't use the proper font... I have no idea of what it is :P If you know, please tell me, and I'll update in a matter of minutes (if I haven't turned in for the night) --Hecko X 21:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Made a dynamic banner, which can be seen here: http://www.freewebs.com/hecko_x/dynamisk.swf (due to bad coding in the FFWiki, you have to copy/paste the link, else, you'll just get transfered back here). It's a default setting on freewebs that .swf files stretches to fit the browser, so the banner isn't that big/small. In reality, it's approx 155x95 px. --Hecko X 04:27, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. But what do those letters in the book say? I can't understand it. Crazyswordsman 07:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

It's this new slang version of Al Bhed and... okay no, it's just mumbo jumbo. It's random letters I wrote to make it seem like the book had content. I made it late at night and didn't want to bother with having to actually write something, especially since it was gonna be too small to be readable anyway, so I just tappa-tappa-tappa'd on the keyboard. --Hecko X 12:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks ok. Still a bit 'Paint-ish' if you my drift though. --Auron Kaizer 14:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello

I couldn't find a kind of place to get introduced to this wiki so I thought this would be the best place. I love the FF games and I think I could be of a lot of use here. I've been a member of good share of wikis, including being a SysOp at StrategyWiki, a Bureaucrat at SporeWiki, and just one of thousands of lowly wikipedia members (as well as wikibooks, wikisource, and some others I don't remember). It'd be great if someone could give me a basic rundown of how stuff works here, some general consensus things I should know, how stuff is organized and so on. My first task when I come across a wiki I want to be a part of is going through and dealing with categorization and making everything easier to find. I haven't looked through a lot of this wiki yet but I'm sure all help like that is good help :). If there are some useful links, or maybe a welcome message you folks use, just throw it on my talk page. If not, then I'll probably make one myself once I figure out what is useful to tell new people about here. Mason11987 18:10, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, we just write about what needs to be written. I really can't explain how things are done, but I should probably direct you to our Final Fantasy VI section if you need help. This is a section I wrote, and it should probably be a model for the other sections. This is one of those things you have to learn through an example. Crazyswordsman 18:23, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Special:Uncategorizedcategories

Why is this cached? Is it something that Wikia forces? It's not nearly as useful that way. Mason11987 23:31, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Most special pages are non-negotiable... whats worse is if you start actually reading all of them, like I did when I was admined, you'll see just how aweful the user list is... and 90% of all of those are wikia editors of something else, not FFWiki. --TacticAngel 08:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, they don't keep them separated, which kind of sucks. O well. Mason11987 14:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

adding articles to categories and sub-categories

Where do we stand on adding articles to shared categories?

Such as Cloud

There are these categories that it is in:

• Category:Final Fantasy VII player characters
• Category:Main characters

But it also falls within

• Category:Final Fantasy VII
• Category:Characters
• Category:Final Fantasy VII characters

Should we put the pages that fall within one of the main categories (Games - Characters - Creatures - Locations - Items - Abilities - Personnel - Music) and in one of the main game categories (FF I, II, III, ...) into game specific "main categories" like has been done in some cases already? (such as FFVII characters, and FFXI abilities). If so, should ALL the games get categories underneath the main categories? Such as FFVII Abilities, which doesn't exist.

I think that we should have EVERY (character/creature/location/item/ability) in category:(character/creature/location/item/ability) I think that we should have EVERY page related to FF(whatever) in category:Final Fantasy (whatever) I also think that all pages that are characters in particular games should go within category:Final Fantasy (whatever) characters

That way Category:Characters would contain several Category:(Game Name) characters, and Category:(Game Name) would contain Category:(Game Name) characters, Category:(Game Name) items, Category:(Game Name) locations, ect.

While the rearranging would create some empty categories, it would also make everything quite a bit more accessible (since you could find pages in their "main" category, as well as within their game category).

I'm up for doing the category creating and category tagging if people think this is a good idea. If they don't then let me know why. The main reason I posted this as a question instead of doing it myself was I wasn't sure if you guys have a problem with having a page in a category, as well as it's subcategory. Mason11987 01:05, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Please use the subcategories. They're here because they help keep bulk out of categories. If every enemy was in Category:Enemies, think of how big it would be. Crazyswordsman 01:40, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. I figured the same, but I've seen different preferences in different places. Mason11987 01:44, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

---

Now, would I be correct in my assumption that no articles should be in the "main" categories (Characters, Abilities, Items) but instead in their subcategories (Final Fantasy VII characters, FFVII abilities, ect.)? Unless it was something that was more about items in general or characters in general. Although characters that belong in several games should be categorized into all of those cats right? Or should we just leave those also in Category:Characters? I suggest the former because I expect to see a Biggs page in cat:Final Fantasy VII characters when I go looking. Mason11987 19:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Image Categorization?

Is there/Should there be any kind of image categorization scheme here? We do have Special:Uncategorized Images after all. :) Mason11987 01:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want to make one, go ahead. But there's about 500+ images on the Wiki. I'm personally fine without the images. Crazyswordsman 01:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm with CSM, I just think it would be too much of a hastle, and you can usually search for the picture you want with a simple keyword, if cleverly uploaded. However, should you decide to make one anyway, just tell me what to do and I'll volunteer to help out whenever I have some time to spare. I should warn you though, I might strongly disagree on how they should be sorted, so if you decide to go through with it, I suggest we talk it through. --Hecko X 01:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it might be useful, for example to be able to see all the Final Fantasy VII pictures, I dunno. But it's a backburner project (at least for me) for now. Not a big issue. Mason11987 19:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

New discussion on going through with this here. Mason11987 19:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Final Fantasy (video game)?

Shouldn't this be moved to Final Fantasy I? It seems kind of silly to parenthetically disambiguate a page for one of the most important articles on the wiki. If FF I isn't the "official" name and we can't get past that, then I think a better option would be to move Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy series (since that's what it is about, the series, not "Final Fantasy"). Either way it'd be better then having (video game) in the titles of one of the main articles here. Mason11987 19:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it would seem more logical. --Hecko X

I disagree. We don't say "Super Mario Bros 1" or "Donkey Kong Country 1" or "Halo 1" now do we? Crazyswordsman 20:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed the "1". I agree with the current article named "Final Fantasy" should be moved to "Final Fantasy series", and that Final Fantasy (video game) should take its place, being called simply "Final Fantasy". That's how I understood it the first time, which I would think seems logical. --Hecko X 21:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I offered up both the suggestion of moving Final Fantasy (video game) to Final Fantasy I or the suggestion to move Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy series, and Final Fantasy (video game) to Final Fantasy. I can't move a page over a redirect (since I'm not a Sysop), so one of you admins will have to do the two moves: FF to FF (series) and then FF (video game) to FF. Mason11987 01:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Can something be done about this? Such as moving Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy series? Mason11987 23:05, 22 October 2006 (UTC)