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Messages - FlyingRagnar

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61
Nintendo Gaming / Re: 3DS Price Drops To $169 AUG, 12th
« on: August 03, 2011, 06:58:05 PM »
I'm one who definitely thought the 3DS was over-priced from the start.  Nintendo has been releasing updated DS hardware every few years without huge price increases.  I think the general public didn't view this any differently.  Unless you have played one yourself, it sure looks like just another DS.

62
Wiki References / Re: Best MediaWiki Hosts
« on: August 03, 2011, 05:13:22 PM »
I've done some research and performance tuning.  The hostgator support people tell me that my shared server is not being overloaded.  It seems to be significant that hostgator offers no PHP accelerator such as APC. 

So, for those of you on BlueHost and Linode, did you manually install some sort of caching accelerator?  I'm experimenting with the file caching mechanism, but I'm skeptical that it will help. 

What are your wiki's config settings to improve performance?

63
Wiki References / Re: Best MediaWiki Hosts
« on: August 03, 2011, 03:07:49 PM »
I have been really annoyed with hostgator as of late.  dragon-quest.org seems to be slow all the time.  I'm really starting to contemplate moving to a better host.  I just don't envy having to everything again.

64
Wiki References / Using lots of templates
« on: June 15, 2011, 04:21:12 AM »
I'd like some opinions on whether it is a good idea or a bad idea to use lots of templates to hold content.  I've found that there is a lot of content on the wiki which is duplicated in many places.  Rather than try to maintain all of them, it makes sense to dump it into a template, right?  Well, that results in a LOT of templates and subtemplates.  I'm wondering if following this strategy will end in performance issues with all the transcluding. 

For example, here is a template I recently redesigned:  http://dragon-quest.org/wiki/Template:DQIXQuest/3.  Each quest has a separate subtemplate identified by its number (1-184).  And here is an example of bad design: http://dragon-quest.org/w/index.php?title=Template:9E&action=edit.  This template holds all of the content which then gets transcluded each time it is called.  I know it needs fixed, but is creating 200+ subtemplates really the best design? 

Where is the line between using templates for repetitive content versus not having too many?

65
NIWA Discussion / Re: I'm taking some time off
« on: June 14, 2011, 04:30:58 PM »
Time off is good.  :)

66
Nintendo Gaming / Re: A new Nintendo console at E3?
« on: June 07, 2011, 06:50:51 PM »
The wikipedia page has been updated some.  You can see what it looks like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U

Big emphasis on the controller.  No specs yet, probably won't get any for a while.  They did announce big 3rd party titles, so has to be on par with 360 and PS3.

67
NIWA Discussion / Re: Whatever happened to SEIWA?
« on: June 05, 2011, 12:31:06 AM »
Apologies.  I do not know where I got that there were on Wikii.  I must have misread one of the discussion threads from the past months.

68
NIWA Discussion / Re: Whatever happened to SEIWA?
« on: June 02, 2011, 06:01:19 AM »
I've been reading the discussion regarding SEIWA over on the FF wiki. (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Forum:Proposal_to_Leave_Wikia).  I'll post my comments here as apparently the admins over there did not see fit to continue the conversation despite the fact that others might add to the discussion at a later date.

After reading the complete discussion, I have to say that with the attitude many of the contributors at the FF wiki have, I would not want them in SEIWA anyway.  There is a clear difference in their longterm goals and the goals of folks in NIWA.  I don't understand why they seem so fiercely defensive of a wiki they neither own nor make money on.  

Everyone knows what Wikipedia is.  Everyone knows that it is free.  Why is it that way?  Because the people that control it believe that information should be freely shared.  No one owns it.  Information should be used for the good of everyone.  Video game wikis contain information that is (arguably) less important than information on Wikipedia.  Yet, it is still information that should be free.  Most Wikipedia contributors do so in the interest of society as a whole.  I share the same view.  I contribute to video game wikis because they contain information which I both enjoy and consider important in preserving for the good of society.  I would say that NIWA seems to be pretty much inline with this view.  

Not so the FF wiki folks.  They seem concerned with "traffic", "hits", and "search engine rankings."  They care about convenience and whether someone will take advantage of their old wiki if they move.  They care about how much their wiki is worth.  

People have made a big deal of the changes Wikia has made over the years, most notably the different "skins" offered.  However, I think the real reason for all the issues with Wikia is one of principle.  Wikia exists to make money off the information they have.  This is their goal above all else.  Wikipedia, on the other hand, believes that the information itself is what is most important...and they have enough people that share this view to ensure it stays that way.  

Anyone who contributes information to a site with goals of making money, when it could just as easily be on a site where the information itself is most important is misguided in thinking they are doing what is best for both preservation of the content and the good of society.   Apparently the FF wiki doesn't mind helping Wikia make money, rather than taking a stand and saying that the content is too important to them to allow Wikia to be manipulating it for profit.

69
NIWA Discussion / Re: Whatever happened to SEIWA?
« on: June 01, 2011, 07:52:57 PM »
Bump. 

I've been doing some research to catch up on where the discussions about SEIWA left off.  Here is what I have gathered:

  • Kingdom Hearts moved from Wikia to Wikii.  They can now be found at khwiki.net
  • Final Fantasy Wiki decided not to move from Wikia.
  • Chronopedia, and Final Fantasy XI Wiki, despite showing support for SEIWA, have not moved away from Wikia

tacopill has done a great job of starting conversation between all the parties.  Unfortunately, it seems to me that FF Wiki staying has been a step backwards in the process.  If anyone has more information to share, please do so.

70
Wiki References / Re: Best MediaWiki Hosts
« on: May 31, 2011, 04:45:49 PM »
Thanks to all for posting good info.  For those of us on cheap hosting, it seems like linode is the best choice for improvement.  Unfortunately, most cheap hosting costs between $5-7 per month; That means a price increase of 300%.  I can't imagine ad revenue can be that good, so are you simply paying out of pocket for most of that?  

I'm not complaining; Good web hosting is gonna cost something.  :)

71
Nintendo Gaming / Re: A new Nintendo console at E3?
« on: May 26, 2011, 08:12:06 PM »
It definitely needs some power.  I can't stand those titles for Wii which are the "weak" versions of the 360/PS3 version.

72
Wiki References / Re: Robots.txt
« on: May 20, 2011, 10:16:08 PM »
No problem.  The tough part of changing robots.txt is that you then have to wait around for google or whatever bots to visit again.  I think I have mine sorted out now, but I'm still waiting for google to pick up all of our images.

73
Wiki References / Re: Robots.txt
« on: May 14, 2011, 04:33:02 AM »
Yes that's exactly right.  Your post led me to realize that Bulbapedia is storing media in a location outside of /w/, which is why their rules are similar, but images still get crawled.  I guess the solution is to move the media somewhere else.

It looks like almost all the other NIWA wikis are doing the same.  All except Lylat and Nookipedia.  Nookipedia lets crawlers go everywhere, I would assume Lylat does as well.


74
Wiki References / Re: Best MediaWiki Hosts
« on: May 14, 2011, 04:17:42 AM »
Great post Tappy.  While I love the possibility of not sharing a server, I'm not sure it will ever be financially viable for many of the NIWA wikis or the Dragon Quest Wiki.  I don't even put ads on our wiki because I simply don't think there will ever be enough revenue to be worthwhile.  As a result of the shared server, there are definitely times when a page load seems to stall for no reason.  I attribute this to the shared server getting slammed by some other site. 

Our wiki was moved from Wikia, so now that I have access to viewing the monthly visit stats, I can make some better judgements going forward based on our visit numbers.  Moving from Wikia was a pain in the @#$, because I had no access to the server at all.  They release free database dumps on request, but were using an older version of MediaWiki than the one hostgator would auto-install.  So I ended up installing the older version of MediaWiki myself (pain), then importing the database (more pain), then upgrading MediaWiki (even more pain). 

Then for the media, I had to write a script to scrape all the images and import them into the new wiki.  I'm sure than any future host changes will HAVE to be easier than this one was.  But we are months beyond that now and everything has been pretty good. 

Shell access is pretty important because I know of no other way to run maintenance scripts.  I don't think there is a way to do that unless you can install something to the server (probably can't).


75
Wiki References / Robots.txt
« on: May 13, 2011, 05:28:53 PM »
Here's something I don't understand.  I have done some searching but have to yet to find a good answer.

If I google "Pikachu site:bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net" I get lots of articles.  If I switch to image search, I get lots of images.
If I google "Hero site:dragon-quest.org" I get lots of articles.  If I switch to image search, I get nothing.  What gives?

Does this have anything to do with the robots.txt for a site?  I'm not sure because the 2 sites really are similar.

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/robots.txt
http://dragon-quest.org/robots.txt

76
Wiki References / Best MediaWiki Hosts
« on: May 12, 2011, 01:20:53 PM »
What web hosts do NIWA wikis use? 

Over on Dragon Quest Wiki, we are now using hostgator.  I chose it because of the ability to have access to a shell login (although it is a jailed shell).  I did have problems installing MediaWiki, however.  They have a quota on the amount of time any one site can use the CPU on shared servers.  The installer seemed to have problems finishing the install because of this.  I managed to get things sorted out manually, but I don't envy having to do it somewhere else.  I would expect that these sort of quotas are typical of shared server setups.

Do most NIWA sites do an install using the web installer?  Or using the command line version?

77
Membership and Affiliate Requests / Re: New Alliance Requests
« on: May 12, 2011, 06:14:00 AM »
Bump.  Just wanted to stop by and say that I have made some major updates to the Dragon Quest Wiki recently.  Most were to make things more visually appealing. 

http://dragon-quest.org

Now I just need to find some more users.  ;)  Lately it seems like most of our regular contributors have been on hiatus. 

78
Membership and Affiliate Requests / Re: New Alliance Requests
« on: January 13, 2011, 11:15:51 PM »
Dragon Quest is owned and developed by Square Enix.  To be more specific, Dragon Quest is basically what made Enix well known and successful prior to the merger with Squaresoft.

79
Membership and Affiliate Requests / Re: New Alliance Requests
« on: January 13, 2011, 06:17:48 AM »
Greetings all, I thought I might chime into the discussion.  My thanks to Axiomist for pointing me to these forums.  

I am an administrator at dragon-quest.org, an independent Dragon Quest wiki which split from Wikia back in October 2010.  I have seen Dragon Quest mentioned in several other threads, and I thought I might re-open the discussion regarding our status.  Note that I am not yet asking for admission into NIWA.  I thought it would be good to first introduce myself and our wiki into the discussion.  

To be honest, we really are relatively small.  We have a large number of articles but a small articles/active editors ratio.  However, should the conditions be right in the future for a collaboration, here would be my arguments for the Dragon Quest series.

  • Aside from a brief stint with Sony, it has been exclusive to Nintendo.  This brief time period can be attributed to the general abandoning of cartridges which happened with virtually all RPGs in the late 90's.
  • Nintendo has begun publishing Dragon Quest titles.  Dragon Quest IX was published last July.  Dragon Quest VI will release next month
  • Since 2005, there have been no releases on non-Nintendo systems, nor plans to do so.
  • There are rumors/plans that future Dragon Quest games will be on Nintendo consoles (Dragon Quest X on Wii, another title rumored for 3DS).

Despite these reasons, Dragon Quest is not owned and operated by Nintendo.  They are pretty much as close as you get though. ;)  I look forward to reading your thoughts/responses.

http://www.dragon-quest.org
http://www.dragon-quest.org/wiki/User:FlyingRagnar


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