User talk:Sigilbaram

China Wiki
Hi there, Sigilbaram!

There is a request from China on the MTG Salvation Wiki:Administrators' noticeboard, that's more your expertise than ours. I think there may be copyrights involved. Can you give an answer? --Hunter (talk) 07:24, 29 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Whoops. Bit delayed. >.< We are able to spin up a language copy of the Wiki here if they would be interested. That would allow them to share directly images, kind of like MediaWiki Commons, and avoid the hassle of setting up their own hosting and installation. As far as copyright this wiki is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA, so as long as they attribute this wiki, are none commercial, and release our content under the same licence there isn't a problem. I think MediaWiki defaults to either no licence or BY-SA so they might have to change that setting. Do you know their address? --Sigilbaram (talk) 17:46, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Scribuntu Version
A technical request on the same page, about the possibility of the Lua Scribento Extension. Can you comment? --Hunter (talk) 06:00, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi again Sigilbaram! I've got a followup on this. I'm working on importing some utility templates from other wikis, and running into some unexpectedly hairy errors bubbling up out of Scribunto (in particular, the mw.html library doesn't seem to accept empty strings or nil for many parameters). Judging by its behavior, I'd place an educated bet we're on something like REL1_19 from last summer, but I can't see a version number on Special:Version. Would you mind checking that we're on a current build and updating it if necessary? --Corveroth (talk) 07:24, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry I missed this before. I'll ask about our Scribuntu version. --Sigilbaram (talk) 17:27, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * So the Scribuntu extension doesn't use version numbers they just have rolling releases that are branched for each version of MediaWiki, which is why there is nothing in Special:Version (though I kind of wish they put the REL in there as a version number just for easier reference). We are currently still on MediaWiki 1.23 for various reasons, though we are looking into upgrading, and our Scribuntu is also on REL1_23 (the MediaWiki 1.23 branch). There was a security patch for Scribuntu that was just installed, however, so you can see if that helped the errors you are seeing? You mentioned it seemed like we were on REL1_19, but that doesn't appear to match our servers. If you're still having problems and REL1_23 shouldn't be seeing these kinds of errors, then something might be out of sync somewhere. --Sigilbaram (talk) 18:13, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what to think, then. I just created Module:Test, which should output nothing (or perhaps an empty div or other content-less piece of HTML). I invoke it on User:Corveroth/TestPage3, which chokes and insists that the argument to mw.html.create must be a string. However, it looks like that behavior got patched out | a while ago, and in fact, several Wikipedia-sourced templates rely on that behavior. While it's trivial to address that functionality for the mw.html.create function (e.g. mw.html.create('div'), a dummy wrapper), other functions that should accept nil present larger difficulties. Going by the line numbers in the error traces, it appears that this is our version of the relevant library. --Corveroth (talk) 18:38, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I'll pass this info along to our server team so that they can take a closer look. It sounds like maybe our Scribuntu install has some config issues or some files held over from an older version despite supposedly being up to date. It's not a widely used extemsion on gamepedia, which is probably why it's remained unnoticed, or it could possibly be specific to MTG's LocalConfig. --Sigilbaram (talk) 19:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No idea why. Even without inter-wiki content, it's hugely useful! We've got Module:CR built entirely in house and used on several hundred pages. But anyways, thank you for your time and attention. I'll find some way to keep busy until I hear more. =) --Corveroth (talk) 19:12, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

(reseting indent) Gamepedia draws a different crowd than Wikipedia. A lot of our users don't ever touch template code or only dable in it, so a lot of wiki's don't use the generic 'infobox' or 'NavBox' templates and instead code each template directly, cutting down on some of the bloat. At some point I could see Gamepedia moving to using Lua more, esp if we match MediaiWiki versions with Wikipedia. We tend to lag behind a bit on version upgrades, which as you can see is sometimes an issue for Scribuntu modules. We also don't shy away from the string parser functions which was one of the drives on Wikipedia for Scribuntu in the first place, that and their vastly larger page load. We still survive with Template:NavBox instead of Module:NavBox on most wikis for example. We might start adopting new MediaiWiki versions faster than in the past, so maybe adopting the Lua scripts will make more sense than it does currently. We do have a few larger wiki's that might benefit from the performance gains. Having the lua scripts might help more new users get into the basic templates as well. I'll talk to some of the other Wiki Managers about this to see what thoughts are about adopting Lua on a wider basis if versioning becomes a non-issue. --Sigilbaram (talk) 19:36, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * While Module:CR couldn't have realistically been done without Lua (it was the reason I asked initially), I'll admit that a good part of my preference stems from prior experience with Lua rather than any special concern about performance. I find parser functions and nesting/escaping templates a painfully tedious and error-prone approach to building content. --Corveroth (talk) 19:46, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki code is what most of us know and Lua hasn't become a necessity on the grand scale. That and the version issue and it was mostly left up to a per-wiki choice on the part of that wiki's community. We had a few templates, like NavBox, on Mincraft that were Lua for a short time but then the community there decided to use simplified MediaWiki code over the generic templates or the Lua modules... haha


 * Personally I find the generic Infobox and NavBox templates bloated yet lacking in fine control, or they always need just one more row, so I always just hand code each Infobox. It's those overly complicated templates that can benefit from looping and improved performance are the place Lua would shine most but they aren't used much on Gamepedia. I've had a couple requests for them lately, though, so learning Lua sounds more tempting, esp if we are able to get modules from MediaWiki Foundation with version missmatch errors. --Sigilbaram (talk) 20:16, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * So I checked the commits for REL1_23 and this patch which you mentioned is not included in REL1_23. It looks like it was a couple months too late for that branch. >.< --Sigilbaram (talk) 19:07, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, drat. I might try to build a shim to intercept all of the invalid calls until we upgrade. Again, thank you for looking into this. --Corveroth (talk) 20:20, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Bot attack
Hi Sigilbaram. We are experiencing multiple bot attacks and downtimes from the site. Anything you can do to help us out? --Hunter (talk) 17:23, 17 February 2016 (UTC)


 * We've had some spam network wide. I'll check the status is on the global abuse filters or if there are some local filters we can put on MTG. Abuse Filter should be catching most spam, but a rather stubborn spammer found a way to work around the existing ones right after the upgrade to 1.26 and has been playing hide and seek going from wiki to wiki. --Sigilbaram (talk) 19:47, 23 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Has this continued in the last few days or did it stop? I was checking the logs and I'm not really seeing anything recently. I see the long named spam pages that were happening and then stopped back on the 17th. It looks like the updated global abuse filter is working for you guys? --Sigilbaram (talk) 23:29, 23 February 2016 (UTC)


 * After the first attack, we had a smaller second one, but it looks like it stopped. So kudos on your abuse filer update :) - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 00:32, 24 February 2016 (UTC)


 * It was actually some of the other Wiki Managers that came up with the filter, I'm just spreading the work. heh --Sigilbaram (talk) 23:11, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Advertising
I know advertising is important because it keeps the wiki alive, and I am not even sure if you are the right person to address this.

The add I crossed out in red is just really really bad add placement. This is a crucial spot for many wikis, because it is usually where the infoboxes go. It is annoying on a big screen, but on a tablet it becomes really intrusive. When you want to put adds in the articles, why not banner add before level 2 (==) titles. Like I marked in blue.

I just wanted to address this. Because I figured when nobody gives feedback then nothing changes. :) - Yandere Sliver 18:24, 24 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the delay, I wanted to check where things where with this. There's been a lot of renewed discussion about this ad lately and Curse is currently looking into some options to make that ad less disruptive. There isn't anything definitive yet, but it's being looked at. I do know what you mean, though. That ad drives me crazy too. XD --Sigilbaram (talk) 00:10, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Scribunto redux
Finally got around to following up on your notice about the upgrade. In digging to fix up Template:Ambox, I can state with absolute certainty that we're still running very old code here. Error messages correspond to this version of the HtmlBuilder library - a commit from Jan 2014. --Corveroth (talk) 06:04, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It should have been updated with MediaWiki, but evidently it got missed. I'll let dev know and they should be able to fix it pretty quickly unless there is some sort of comparability issue. --Sigilbaram (talk) 23:59, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thank you for keeping on top of things for us. --Corveroth (talk) 00:30, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Set Symbol Icons
Keyrunes looks like a really good solution to get all set symbols we currently have flying around in the wiki clean and make them available in all rarities. It is in essence a font which makes it so great. However, I have no idea how to install fonts into the wiki. - Yandere Sliver 10:12, 30 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the delay. I was running around for the holidays and such. We can install fonts for you provided there aren't issues with licencing or the like. I'll ask if this one can be installed or not and let you know. --Sigilbaram (talk) 02:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)


 * No worries it was the same on my side. There is also the question, how to update the thing. Ideally that could be done from an wiki admin account, because the keyrunes update quite frequently (more or less quarterly). - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 03:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)


 * We'd have to have to go through a similar process to update it, because fonts aren't handled on the wiki itself. Updates should be a lot simpler, though, because the holdup now is that they haven't seen the license this font uses before, so they have to make sure it is one we can use. --Sigilbaram (talk) 06:43, 10 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Just an update, they are still looking that this. It's weird because of the various copyrights involved (the icons are copyright Wizards) so they want to make sure. --Sigilbaram (talk) 18:36, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The font is in place and I added it to the CSS. Let me know if you need anything further. --Alianin (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Appreciate that as well. Do you expect we'll need to prompt Gamepedia staff when the font updates (likely twice per year at a minimum, judging by Wizards' recent reveal schedules)? --Corveroth (talk) 23:27, 2 February 2017 (UTC)


 * We can update whenever it's needed. You can ping me or Game widow and either one of us can update it. --Alianin (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Added the .ss classes to the common.css and it works as you can see here - Yandere Sliver H09 symbol.png 00:45, 3 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Glad it works! --Alianin (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Card linking
Checking in once more on the issue of card links, as previously discussed on the admin board, Fenhl's page, and probably elsewhere over the last year. At the bare minimum, we want to change the site we're searching away from magiccards.info. Further functionality, like the capacity to transclude a card image or tooltip by name alone, would be excellent. Basically, we want the MTG Salvation Wiki to reach feature parity with the MTG Salvation Forums, rather than being left behind as we have been. --Corveroth (talk) 20:01, 6 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Still discussing this with dev, sorry with the delay. --Sigilbaram (talk) 18:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

User creation log
Will there be a day without any new bot user register? 😊 --Tuamir (talk) 21:57, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, that day is coming. ;) --Alianin (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Editing the footer
Is it possible for us to have some edits made to the page footer? At a minimum, I'd like to change the image source for the Creative Commons badge to HTTPS (it's the only thing keeping this wiki in mixed content mode). I'd also like to tweak the alignment of the elements because it's oddly offset right now. I'd handle things myself, but it looks like the MediaWiki pages that normally form the footer were deleted in 2008 - I assume it's all handled over in PHP somewhere now. --Corveroth (talk) 21:38, 26 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I fixed the CC badge, but I'm not seeing issues with the footer. Can you provide specifics and maybe a screenshot? --Alianin (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that! My complaint with the footer is simply that these elements don't line up. --Corveroth (talk) 23:21, 2 February 2017 (UTC)


 * How does that look now? --Alianin (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I'd been thinking to alter the nesting in the HTML, but I suppose that's probably the better solution. Thank you for outsmarting me. =) --Corveroth (talk) 03:04, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Overly aggressive block filters
A user on the MTGS Forums posted a complaint that their edits were being blocked. I investigated, and found that the cause was a filter triggering against an unregistered user attempting to add a link. That's great - I posted a reply explaining the issue. However, is there anything we can do to highlight that problem for unregistered users when they make such an edit? I spotted a pair of recent edit attempts (here and here) where a user tried to make the edit several times before giving up. I note also that those edits are actually triggered a second filter, Global AF - disallow certain words, as well, and that the latter is the error that was reported on the forum. I wonder if those users are perhaps being misled as to the cause and don't see that the link is the problem that needs to be fixed?

Beyond that, I found two other edits that were blocked for no obvious reason, here and here. I could argue that the second of those is actually a link problem as well, but the link is created at a sufficient layer of abstraction from the user that I don't think it's appropriate that the edit be blocked. --Corveroth (talk) 23:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)


 * We had a misbehaving global abuse filter. The issue should be resolved now, but please let us know if people are still having issues with the filters. --Alianin (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2017 (UTC)