Messages

21

NIWA Discussion / Re: WiKirby History Hole

« on: January 05, 2011, 02:33:07 PM »

If anyone is willing to help restore everything, This download contains everything Vellidragon was able to find through Google's Cache pages. It's unformatted, so there's some work to be done, just leave in the edit summary that you "Restored from cache" or such and we'll know.

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Membership and Affiliate Requests / Re: Fire Emblem

« on: January 05, 2011, 05:18:19 AM »

Just a suggestion, but I'd say to let Amy come around at her own pace. She's trying to do several things and I'd hazard to not overload her. I also recommend any site/wiki with an affiliates section to add FEW. This would give them an incremental increase in traffic/editors. Lastly, I have offered to talk to the Wikia people about a merge and she was pretty adamantly rejecting the idea.

[11/25/2010 10:05:06 PM] Axiomist: yo! There's talk of wanting to know when FEW will want NIWA membership
[11/25/2010 10:05:53 PM] Yusei/Eliwood: We still have a lot of stubs right now.
[11/25/2010 10:06:07 PM] Axiomist: The good thing is, NIWA has been running strong. ACWiki totally pwned WK in visitors for their launch 999 in one day
[11/25/2010 10:06:15 PM] Axiomist: We still haven't reached that
[11/25/2010 10:07:14 PM] Yusei/Eliwood: Heh.
[11/25/2010 10:07:28 PM] Axiomist: But the next few will probably put ACW to shame I've been busy recruiting, and am willing to talk to the Fire Emblem Wikia people if you want to see if they'll merge
[11/25/2010 10:07:55 PM] Yusei/Eliwood: I don't like the Wikia counterpart.
[11/25/2010 10:07:59 PM] Yusei/Eliwood: I'm sorry.

23

Kirby / Re: Kirby's Epic Yarn

« on: January 03, 2011, 05:45:24 PM »

I found hidden images in levels with the Digger, I need to get a screenshot or something bc they are cool. It has like some cave drawings of like Kirby dreaming about a steak meal among several others

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NIWA Discussion / Re: WiKirby History Hole

« on: January 01, 2011, 03:09:30 PM »

Remind me again why MarioWiki has an article on Snake...?

I swear, MarioWiki's coverage of Smash will always seem suspect to me.

Because it is an extended part of the Mario series, and we cover everything related to the mario series, that includes Super Smash Bros. And because our Coverage says so, we are a wiki covering the Mario series, and being Nintendo's mascot, they have sub-series, and series related, and cameos and all that. So we cover them all. Even Banjo and Conker. In some way. People have complained, but we aren't changing it

If you don't mind me asking it, why not?

I mind! Like I said in the "Self-evaluation/NIWA team" thread, topics are going haywire from the original discussion. At some point, some one will have to bring the new topic to another thread. That's now, bc I'm not interested in seeing a debate on Mario Wiki's coverage, which would no doubt bring up DK coverage.

Back on topic, we're moving mid-January.

25

NIWA Discussion / A self-evaluation

« on: December 30, 2010, 03:47:13 PM »

I'm doing it now, so bear with me. I got sidetracked last night, but I'm going to go ahead and pretend I left it open for some opinions.


-Done, replies still have the subject as "Self Evaluation". forumnoob here, so one of you will need to fix that.

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NIWA Discussion / Re: Project Starchart

« on: December 30, 2010, 03:34:56 PM »

WikiIndex, S23, and Dmoz. Dmoz is an open source directory program that catalogs sites by human review rather than a metatag search. It's meant to help real sites show up higher in the search engines that factor in dmoz reviews. I've submitted several wikis to them but haven't seen them added. I'm guessing we'll need someone to join dmoz and add the NIWA wikis. Any takers?

27

NIWA Discussion / A self-evaluation

« on: December 29, 2010, 10:42:17 PM »

After reply #5 this thread becomes focused less on people's self evaluation post and more on a NIWA team discussion. This is the only real complaint I have with the forums, few topic titles match the discussion in them. At some point, someone will have to see that the thread took a turn from the topic and just begin a new one for that specific aspect. I like the team thing idea, and would try to find a little userbox for members on WiKirby. But I'm splitting this topic up to a new thread.

28

NIWA Discussion / Re: Interwiki Transclusion of content

« on: December 29, 2010, 11:18:27 AM »

Wouldn't this eat bandwidth from the transcluded wiki?

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NIWA Discussion / Re: WiKirby History Hole

« on: December 28, 2010, 04:47:42 AM »

Cool, We're back! About SSB, I've never played any of those games But I do know the only thing I really want covered on WiKirby is:

• A series page, full of links to SmashWiki
• Article covering each game and how Kirby elements are used, Internal links in the article body, external links in the footer, and a template offering more coverage at SmashWiki, and the link for strategy at StrategyWiki.
• Mentions of SSB placement of characters/items/powers below Kirby series sections and above anime sections (where applicable)

What I don't want is full SSB documentation like ZW once had. So no Snake articles, etc...

What about Master/Crazy Hand both are from SSB but were bosses in KatAM.

Those are fine. We also have a Mario article, which is legit since Mario keeps popping up in Kirby games, that could have an SSB section. But more as a brief summary recommending further reading at Mario wiki and SmashWiki.

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NIWA Discussion / Re: WiKirby History Hole

« on: December 28, 2010, 04:35:36 AM »

Cool, We're back! About SSB, I've never played any of those games But I do know the only thing I really want covered on WiKirby is:

• A series page, full of links to SmashWiki
• Article covering each game and how Kirby elements are used, Internal links in the article body, external links in the footer, and a template offering more coverage at SmashWiki, and the link for strategy at StrategyWiki.
• Mentions of SSB placement of characters/items/powers below Kirby series sections and above anime sections (where applicable)

What I don't want is full SSB documentation like ZW once had. So no Snake articles, etc...

31

NIWA Discussion / Re: NIWA improvement Idea (PLEASE READ)

« on: December 25, 2010, 02:29:38 PM »

I'm interested in enabling OpenID on WiKirby, I just haven't had time to do it. But that's the only real way to simplify the login for the enduser. It works on Wikia bc that's just one website with several subdomains. The only way I can imagine NIWA wikis being able to do it is to have one central user database for all of the wikis. But what bothers me the most about it is that I've always seen Wikia as a liar on this matter. EVERY Wikia wiki's stats page reports ~2 million users. WiKirby may only have around 300, but if we had a functioning universal log in, our stats page would report the sum of all NIWA wikis---Am I the only one that sees that as dishonest?

32

Pikmin / Re: Pikmin 3 ideas

« on: December 24, 2010, 06:06:21 PM »

A weak, but realistic expectation: Nintendo will offer online benefits, but not full Online Play. I expect something like Kirby's Epic Yarn's sharing screenshots, and a Leaderboard or something where peoples' game data would be ranked.

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Pikmin / Re: There is still hope for the Pikmin series!

« on: December 24, 2010, 05:45:08 PM »

I flipped through the new Nintendo Power while in a looooong line at Walmart last night and the "featured character"-like page has Captain Olimar this month.

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NIWA Discussion / Re: WiKirby History Hole

« on: December 24, 2010, 05:32:09 PM »

Nope, Vellidragon and I worked in tandem, she added KDL3 articles, mostly enemies. And I worked on Epic Yarn ones, mostly levels. One sub-game, "Going Out". And all affiliate work such as the sidebar, Interwiki links in the MediaWiki:Edittools, etc disappeared. I just tried to edit and got a message that another database restore is being attempted. It must be from the server guys, bc I didn't do it, and Adam hasn't mentioned anything.

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NIWA Discussion / Re: DAWN - Developmental Alliance for Wikis on Nintendo

« on: December 24, 2010, 05:23:24 PM »

AAW= Ace Attorney Wiki

I do encourage you to continue your project. Seeing that your last post even invites private discussion proves the point you aren't acknowledging. Secret discussions are going to be a part of any project. You'll realize that one day.

...it's up to NIWA whether they want to work in cooperation with or in spite of...

There isn't anything (that I know of) that NIWA is operating in spite of. Some may say we operate in spite of Wikia, but I believe NIWA was inevitable, even if Wikia never existed, we would. Unlike forums, blogs, and other general websites, wikis are a collaborative project revolving around the same core software. Most significantly, wikis don't command loyalty like forums do. Most forums allow discussions for any game, even outside of the home theme. Wikis stick to their theme, so Zelda Wiki editors went to Mario Wiki for Mario content. It was just a matter of time before we got together and made it the official site companion.

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NIWA Discussion / Re: DAWN - Developmental Alliance for Wikis on Nintendo

« on: December 24, 2010, 04:47:34 PM »

On the issue of secrecy then...

Can I ask what website out there does not operate in exactly that same manner, with a clear deliniation between staff and regular members? How are we supposed to come up with fun and exciting surprises that will excite and delight everyone if we tell everyone what they are months in advance.

I'm not saying either way is better. I'm just saying DAWN will try it out and see how it works. If it works, then great; maybe NIWA can follow its example. If it doesn't work and DAWN crashes and burns as a result, then at least we know for sure it doesn't work. For that point, think of DAWN as a smaller-scale test subject. It will be open to new ideas that NIWA may not be ready to implement. If I were in NIWA's shoes, I would be reluctant to enact major changes without seeing it succeed on a smaller scale. This doesn't only apply to secrecy; it applies to any new idea that someone may have for an alliance.

Remove mention of it from your posts. That happens to be my wiki and I don't recall affiliating with DAWN in any way.  That wiki is in no way included in your "we", especially before you even consult me ln that matter.

Done.

As soon as you pulled the link, you assisted in secrecy and user aristocracy too. Since you know at least that one thing that isn't totally public knowledge, that puts you in the AAW owner's circle of contacts and not just in the general public sphere. That's all we do, but on a much larger scale and often involving many more people's secret projects. So while on the outside of some things, it may seem so horrendous, it's generally trivial and necessary to ensure anything we have planned isn't undermined by some trolls from Wikia. There's really nothing to bemoan about what you can't see in NIWA.

37

NIWA Discussion / WiKirby History Hole

« on: December 24, 2010, 04:37:46 PM »

On 12-22-10, WiKirby experienced a server glitch. The glitch erased all of our changes over the course of 1 month. You can read the report I sent our hosting provider:

Customer Service-We're Uberpissed
When Mr. Moody informed me that we needed to upgrade our hosting plan from shared hosting to a node 4 VPS plan; the WiKirby staff and I interpreted it as an accomplishment. We were thrilled to have reached that point in our first year. The plan for our hosting budget had always been to upgrade incrementally to ensure we weren't under-served nor overpaying.

Our first month on VPS seemed to be off to a rocky start, as pages were loading extremely slowly or not at all. We convinced ourselves that the caching we enabled should ease this issue in time. Our focus became less on whimsical cosmetic improvements to the site and more on a goal to reach 600 articles before New Year's Day. As of 12-22-10, we were at 595. Then the glitch that took the website down occurred and during my review of the submitted technical tickets and responses; I noticed the issue still hasn't been clearly explained. All we know is that we didn't make the site crippling change in the cpanel.

Once the site came back online, all of the editor's work done since the move to the VPS plan has disappeared. The database seems to have been wiped to just before the move took place. So basically, I paid $47 for a month of work that we didn't even get to keep. Insulting to say the least. All previous times this was worked around by using our the database backup restore from our cron job. Immediately we attempted this and discovered that our cron job schedule was deleted from the cpanel, leaving us with absolutely no up-to-date backup. The technician handling the tickets I submitted seemed to either avoid admitting data was lost or was unable to grasp that my site has a permanent hole blown in it's history from 11-25-10 to 12-22-10, which is exactly our time on VPS.

One such edit lost in the time on TMD's VPS was done by a frequent WiKirby visitor. A young girl made a list of her favorite things in life. Much to our surprise, at #3 she listed WiKirby and this was the only website on her list. In my view, it isn't the customer (me), nor WiKirby staff that TMD failed, but the undemanding regular visitors that hold WiKirby in such a high regard. She clearly would not understand what is and isn't in our control and may believe we callously deleted her expressed feelings towards the site.

While I'm paying for the next month of service, out of inconvenience with the amount of time between the bill and time needed to move; I'm sure the WiKirby staff, editors, and visitors could agree while the latest server glitch wasn't the largest, it was the most devastating. We and our affiliated network of MediaWiki sites (http://niwanetwork.org/) may not see a future with TMD

Given that they've yet to explain how this happened, and seem to avoid acknowledging that data was lost, I'm forced to draw my own conclusions. I'm guessing this was the result of extreme ineptitude on their end, and not a deliberate design to sabotage our work. But it still hurts us as WiKirby's history is now missing a huge chunk!

We can turn this around, mind you, we can make it so that the missing piece is not the heart and spirit of the editors, but just some number of views, dates and times in the creation logs. The 70ish articles can be rebuilt. Many of them are temporarily existing in Google's cache. If anyone has any free time to find even one thing lost, and resubmit it to WiKirby, you have my appreciation. The casual reader or occasional wiki editor may not fully understand what a server glitch is and how that's out of our control. I fear they may believe we made the deletions or something. It's up to the NIWA elite to show WiKirby will still be vibrant.

Also, NWiki, Strategy Wiki, and Smash Wiki offer great potential for strong cross-wiki ties. We haven't been able to fully work as we were trying to get Kirby's Epic Yarn content covered. If any one of you can document one Kirby Game on NWiki and link to WiKirby, or even document one console and link to NWiki-You can help both of these wikis. Create a Strategy guide for your favorite Kirby level and link to WiKirby, or offer the link to levels covered on SW in WK articles. Implement SmashWiki links to indepth Smash Bros content in relevant pages on WiKirby. All of those things can help other Kirby fans find WiKirby and the associated wikis. Our staff team has primarily been me and Vellidragon so we haven't been able to do those things ourselves as much as we'd like.

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NIWA Discussion / Re: Dealing with wikis about companies, brands, or whose series have sub series

« on: December 24, 2010, 03:49:52 PM »

I've given this some thought before, specifically on Egglerland and Kirby games. (More recently if Prince Fluff starts having his own games). I figured we'll allow content on WiKirby even though that's not going to be our primary focus, if say new Eggerland and Prince Fluff games became the norm, I could always create a new branch-off wiki to WiKirby. But that would really be a last resort, since so many things like policy pages etc would need to be duplicated when its easier to have it all on WK. Fluff would need more than 5 games for this to seem feasible to me and Eggerland would need full coverage on the pre-existing titles plus a slew of 3 or more NEW releases, not remakes.

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NIWA Discussion / Re: Improving NIWA

« on: December 20, 2010, 03:07:41 PM »

Here's a question that I've often pondered, but never really got clearly explained:
What is NIWA?
I understand it's a sort of affiliation of sorts, but is that all that it is?

Its a little harder to tell what it is now. But if you were around at the creation, you'd have noticed some things about the four pre-existing members that have been heavily improved. Thing is, we stuck to our wikis and fandoms since say ZeldaUniverse Forums offered a place for all of our Zelda discussions, ZeldaWiki offered a place for all of our wiki editing, and so on for each community. With this organic, wild growth plan, each wiki specialized in specific areas and underwhelmed in some others. When we first started talking, we dealt with promoting our wikis to a wider Nintendo audience, tech issues that each wiki was dealing with, and suggested new ideas to one another.

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Kirby / Re: KEY under attack!

« on: December 18, 2010, 11:56:40 PM »

terrible. Who would do that to a game getting high (nearly perfect) reviews from just about every critic?