User talk:Revanche

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Lady Janella Lakewood birth question

Hi, i noticed that her dossier birthdate was removed from entry. Is there canon problem with original MWDA dossier? Her informational background matches & expands what was published in Ghost War novel. Wrangler 06:10, 14 March 2009 (PDT)

Sorry, I really don't know why it was removed. Did you ask the person who removed it; he would be the best source for your answer. From what I can see, you have a good reference for the date. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 09:08, 31 May 2009 (PDT)

Citation format

Thank you for taking on the task of updating the references in Draconis Combine with links. It's a pretty big project that I've been too lazy to get to. One note, though. If you check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cite#Notes, you will see that when citing multiple pages, the correct format is "pp." I don't know why, but it is. I keep meaning to write an article on citing sources here, but I've haven't gotten around to it. --Scaletail 18:35, 2 June 2009 (PDT)

Roger that. I was actually trying to make it consistent with elsewhere, but who knows where 'elsewhere' was at this point. I'll make the changes. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:08, 2 June 2009 (PDT)

Strick-9

Sorry, for the mistake. My computer skill are, shall we say, lacking. I'll work harder to get the info on the right format. Having hard time understanding some stuff. Thanks for your help.

Strick-9 11:25, 12 June 2009 (PDT)Strick-9

Not a problem. In fact, if the help page wasn't helpful enough, let me know what you'd like to do, and I'll step you through it. It appears hard at first, but I learned by opening the edit files on other articles to see how they did what I wanted to do.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:18, 12 June 2009 (PDT)

Welcomings to IPs

While I appreciate the effort you're going through, I think you should not treat IPs like regular users and give them a welcoming for the following reasons:

• they may have deliberately elected not to register and thereby, not to become a contributor.
• dynamic IPs will likely lead to the same person getting several different IPs, and (possibly, although unlikely) several different people ending up with the same IP over time. Much like treating a phone booth like a private number.
• filling the database with Talk pages for IPs that will likely never be used again.

I don't strongly disagree with what you're doing, but I thought I should mention the above. Frabby 11:52, 30 June 2009 (PDT)

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but for some reason didn't see this until now.

In some cases, where we have someone making a really good effort at improving the project, I'd agree with you on your first point. They have elected not to register. On those that are struggling a bit, as is evident on many first edits, I want to heartily welcome them, so that they see their efforts are not lost in the wind and that there are people they can readily identify to turn to for help. It doesn't cost me anything more than 30 seconds to welcome like that, and if it helps keep one editor (we only have 27 active at the moment), then the project is improved.

Yes, I understand the IP nature. However, I'm sending out my missives to those few that are receptive to it. The others are free to ignore it.

And, yeah, I get that 95% of the time, the welcome is not seen or not acknowledged, but it doesn't cost anything (other than my time) to do it, and I feel it has the chance to provide a little bit of reward. Kind of like casting while fishing: majority of the time I won't catch anything, but its the chance that it succeeds that drives me on.

Thanks, Frabby. I appreciate the interaction.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

"Update needed" tag

• Moved to Policy_Talk:Moratorium#Update_needed for clarity.

{{Yearlist}} template

Revanche, you had a great idea about improving the {{yearlist}} template. Now that the site software has been updated to v1.15, I was able to make the changes. What do you think of the template now, and should I start adding it to all the years? Thanks. --Ebakunin 21:53, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Responding on the Yearlist talk page. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:46, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

BattleTechWikiCount broken?

Well, see headline. The function seems to return an incomplete page with no data or formatting. Frabby 07:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

If you mean Wannabe Kate, then 'yep.' I've asked Ebakunin to take a look at the code, see if we can install it here. It has some good solid information on it. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Use of italics

I've taken the liberty to rollback your last changes to Dual Cockpit. The main reason was a factual error: The source I quoted was indeed the MechWarrior Companion (FASA #1671), a RPG sourcebook. It's not covered here yet but it does exist; I did not mean to quote the MechWarrior Companion.

On the sidelines the rollback reverted the italics you added. I have to ask: Do we have a policy or manual of style here that governs the use of these? Because I tend to only use italics for individual ship names and on BattleMechs, but not for vehicles or anything else. You seem to apply them far more often? Frabby 13:43, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I just finished reading Loren Coleman's Blood of the Isle which has a lot of named BattleMechs, DropShips, JumpShips, etc. It's the perfect source for determining what is and is not italicized. The answer's actually fairly simple: all classes of BattleTech and all named BattleTech get italicized. For example:

• Tamara Duke named her Wolfhound 'Mech Eisenfaust.
• In a battle of WarShips, the Lyrans fielded the Mjolnir-class Yggdrasil.
• The Union-class DropShip Noble Son was one of the few to escape the battle of Ryde.

If (when) we put together a Manual of Style I think Blood of the Isle would be the best place to start. --Ebakunin 16:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm still confused over the book titles, but that's because I've never been exposed to that book, apparently. Thanks for letting me know. As for italics, I picked that up from Scaletail. The old style manuals had books underlined when used as references, but in this modern day of hyperlinks, italics are used to denote publications instead.

Do we have a manual of style? I could swear we did, and I feel Scaletail crafted it, but a quick search doesn't reveal it. I think I will start heading towards policy crafting again, so that these things can be codified and easily found. My end goal is to start a weekly featured article on the front page, but we need to first establish a ranking structure and before that a clear doctrine on what is needed for a 'perfect article' (and now I'm rambling). --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:27, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Well there's also the BattleCorps Style Guide. There's a rules system spelled out there, but I am a little unsure whether or not submission format guidelines should also be applied to this wiki. Frabby 17:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

That's perfect! Thanks Frabby. --Ebakunin 17:13, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Blocked at work. I'm intrigued, however. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Pulled it up on my phone. That seems worthy of stealing wholecloth and plopping on a "policy: italics" page here (maybe as a sub-cat of "policy:manual of style"). We can then adapt it to deal with the issues we have. This would also bring us in line with CBT in a way that familiarity expects. Good find, Frabby. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style. I edited the italics section to be more comprehensive. BattleTechWiki:Project Ground Units#Guidelines also has specifics. --Scaletail 23:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Hah! I knew I saw it. Okay, adding a link to Policy:Italics for greater detail. Thanks, Scaletail. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:37, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Welcome message

Hi Revanche,

One of Nic's new extensions is the {{welcome}} template. I just copied your usual welcoming code over. I'm assuming you'll continue to do the meet-and-greet with all the new users. Thanks. --Ebakunin 22:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I should probably tailor it a bit, so its more suited for a new registrant, rather than all comers (like my standard one). --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Links Remove?

Quick question, I was wondering why you reverted to the previous edit, and removed the links posted on the Free Worlds League Military page? Thanks--S.gage 21:52, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

That is odd! I remember making that mod, but I only remember adding the references tag at the bottom. Those other edits (the wlinks, the deletions), honestly...I don't know how that happened. I didn't do anything but scroll right to the bottom and add the template. I just now rolled it back to your last edit and then added the template. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:18, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I just wanted to make sure I was not stepping on any toes by adding links to the FWLM page. Thanks--S.gage 00:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Definitely not! You're definitely one of the most productive Editors BTW has seen. I'd definitely let you know if I disagreed with one of your edits. Sorry for the confusion. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Plea

Unblock me. IPs should never be indefinitely blocked.

I've seen no such policy on BTW that addresses that. I'll be sure to put it up for discussion, as soon as my time allows. Thank you for your input. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:03, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd say a good rule of thumb is that indefinitely blocking static IPs belonging to non-ISPs is acceptable. It may be a good idea to make a note of the owner of the IP range in this case, so that if someone ever asks to be unblocked it can be easily verified if they're the same person or not. An appeals process for indefinite bans may seem arduous, but until Sarna has about 100+ active users who actually feel like adding their 2¢ is a vital necessity on every single case leaving the appeals process to be guided by "common sense" should be workable. (If it becomes impractical policy could always be written for it.)

Anything else should probably be limited to a year in length at an absolute maximum. Rationale being that "a lot can happen in a year", and people may change ISPs or be assigned a new IP during that time. If you're a potential contributor, finding out that your IP is blocked may turn you away. It's been too long for me to remember the exact mechanics of how IP blocks affect Users, so I'll refrain from commenting until I'm back up to speed. --Xoid 06:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree across the board with you on that one. In this case, doing a little research on our troll there, it turns out he prefers to limit his contributions to several other wikis with threats of blanking and murder and a few (temporarily) altered templates. Saw no reason to care too much about him. I /will/ work on a policy or essay regarding blocks and bans at some point, but it is so far away from interesting to me, I don't see it coming out soon. (Not that someone else cannot put one out; Xoid has a good summary for one in this thread.) --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Sup?

You called? :)

So… what's new? --Xoid 05:52, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Hey, man! Welcome back. I see you're no longer "MIA." I came this close [imagine a finger spread] to putting up a sign saying, "this admin appears to be retired." Still working the zombie angle?

"What's new?" Well, to regular people, a whole lot of new entries to the database, for one. We have about 6 regular Editors/Admins contributing on a near-daily basis, with half focusing on new articles. But possibly only noticeable to a coder like you, Nicjansma has upgraded the site to the latest MW version, as well as brought in a few new extensions; newest admin Ebakunin has made some great additions to our capabilities also, by teaching us how to add family trees and added functionality at the edit stage. He also has some interesting ideas for BTW v2.

Good to see you again. Just poking around for a bit, or do you see some a project that interests you? --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, not too sure, to be honest. I'll play it by ear, so to speak. It's funny, if I hadn't checked my spam box I wouldn't have found your email. No idea how you ended up in there. --Xoid 13:03, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

{{scrollbox}}

I swiped some code from the Star Wars wiki and created the {{scrollbox}} template. I thought you might find it useful for your "List of Important Pages" or "List of Pages I'm Working On". Thanks. --Ebakunin ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:20, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

You're saying "thanks" to me? Its great, thank you. I'll mess around with it in the morning. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:34, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Canon or Fanon

gee, considering how the people who came up with the whole Dark Age plot lines and what they have done with the Story-Arc of Battletech is so completely stupid. Taking a great story line and basically thinking everything they write is golden, there has not been a good Battletech novel since the Fed-Com war series. Every writer on the staff now should be fired, for the dribble they are trying to put out, Republic of the Sphere? Paladins and wanna be "King Arthur??? Story Lines???" I can see how they used the Word of Blake war as a form of Deus Ex Machina because they could not come up with a better story-arc but to keep filling the Battletech Canon with the crap they are at this moment in time, is not gonna win any fans. Even the people that just like reading the Novels are shying away from the books because they are so horrific. so i put in a better story line, and you call it Fanon. — The preceding unsigned comment was posted by 216.115.236.149 (talk • contribs) 11:46, 20 July 2009 .

I'm not judging your fanon as to whether its better or not (I chose not read it, since it wasn't properly marked). Since it did not fall under the definition of canon (or even official), it clearly has no place in canon articles. However, assuming good faith on your part, I'll say I think you may have mis-understood the mission of this site. While we do host some fanon (for now), we're not trying to create it. If you disagree with the mission that the consensus has agreed upon a long time ago, then I invite you to convince us through open discussion. Head's up: it'll take some work, as over 50,000 edits have been made to address this core mission. You'll have to really believe in what you feel about fan-created fiction being considered canon and then show the equivalent effort (as well as draw in like-minded people willing to do the associated work). If this doesn't appeal to you and our rules regarding separating fanon from canon are seen as too conservative for you, I suggest you post your story ideas at one of the two alternative wikias: BattleTech Wikia and BattleTech Fanon Wikia. Thank you for your comments. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:47, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

You Got Mail

I have project I'm working I have question about. Can you check your e-mail? Either Wiki or Forums. -- Wrangler 18:38, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

My personal 'majority' opinion is adamently, "post it," Wrangler. I'd be concerned with drive-by 'editors' dropping off information here, because of the amount of work it would force other Editors to do, but even in those cases, all BT-related material is welcome here. However, in your case, I know you'd be seeking to bring the article in line over time, so I have no qualms at all with it being 'inappropriate' when it first lands. (If you wanted to, you could post a note at the top indicating the article is 'in progress', as long as it did receive constant work.) Does that help? --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, then when i'm done with major body. I'll post then. Thanks -- Wrangler 20:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

PHP Generated Star Systems?

I've noticed that hundreds of planets are not listed with coordinates or surrounding systems much from the periphery and clan space. Though I'm sure I can find them through ISCS and Source Books, and probably has already been suggested and implemented in someway, should a PHP image output complete with an image-map linked to respective planet wiki pages be created for each blank wiki page? At least not server-generated images but generated images and uploaded for those wiki-lost systems. I can contribute to the programming/generation process and then upload outputs for every system not listed.

Also, the 60-lightyear zoom can be confusing as people (including me :p) may not know where in relative to the entire Inner Sphere the region may be. Some current X, Y coords are still problematic by the way. --Dracoix 04:48, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Dracoix, I know there is indeed issues with the planetary DB and interest in both correcting and improving how they are handled, but I am so not the guy ready to handle this. I'm going to ask Nicjansma (the site's founder) and Frabby (probably our most dedicated planetologist) , as well as two of our code-crunching admins to weigh in over here. Please check back, because I think you may be on to something. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 11:31, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

See User_talk:Nicjansma#Other_extension_suggestions :)

The datafile on which this wiki's system data is based was an older version of the ISCS atlas and contains numerous factual errors, omissions and typos. Plus, the bot used failed to transcribe the XY coordinates correctly. Bits and pieces of this discussion are unfortunately spread across many talk pages on BTW, but essentially we need to redo the entire underlying database (that includes re-checking all XY coords where we have them, and provide approximations for where not - and then there's my pet project about unmapped worlds where we don't have as much as a clue to where they are). Once this is done, we need to agree on a proper format to present systems because the current system mixes up system names and planet names. And finally some code wizard would be required to create clickable maps from that database, with the option to alter the maps as new info becomes available. I can help collecting the data but I am totally helpless when it comes to coding. Frabby 10:56, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I actually specialize in image manipulation and algorithms (watermarks, pixel functions, etc) what shall be thy bidding? >:) Except going through every source book and re-entering systems and planets into a new 99.9% error free database would be a pain. I'll get cracking on a star map tool with labeled image output (as well as CSV output) offline. It can then probably be ported into PHP. However, any image function in PHP requires GD2, server CPU usage, and bandwidth to send the generated image to the user. And yes, I'm just a guy that came out of no where, but I think I can help you guys out on this issue.

Also how accurate were the original 2003 ISCS files?