The re-PSUPedia:Raffon Field Base

Welcome to Raffon Field Base, the page where you can discuss and ask questions about PSUPedia!

• This page is for general discussion about the PSUPedia.
  • Unlike the actual Raffon Field Base, it's not for chit-chat, trading or anything else that has nothing to do with PSUPedia, or its contents.
  • If you have a question about a specific article, it's better to make a comment on that article's talk page, rather than posting it here.
  • Things that can go here: general suggestions about the 'Pedia, content that needs to be added, errors and bugs, etc.
• When raising a new topic of discussion, please use a header (=== Your Discussion Title Here ===) and place it at the top of the 'Current Discussions' section.
• Finally, when making a comment, sign it by using 4 tildes (~), this will add your username and the time and date of your comment. In addition, if responding to a comment, please use the summary box on the edit page to let others know what you have responded to.

Enjoy! - the PSUPedia Staff.

To help save space and make browsing this page easier, older discussions will be archived here.

Current Discussions

Categories?

• I've been noticing lately the lack of categories for most pages. For example all the *_(Offline) pages are left alone without category. Same with the scripts, and various others. There is a good bunch of categories already, but a lot of pages still haven't any. I don't think I have to explain the benefits of doing this: easy navigation to pages with similar contents. Is there recommandations for categorization, and do you mind if I have fun categorizing when I happen to stumble on one of these numerous lost pages? Same sort of question with orphaned pages. Essen 22:00, 9 March 2008 (CDT)
  • Go to town if you want :P First of all though, it might help to explain the blurred line that some categories would provide. For example, what separates Swords from Category:Swords when the former should already provide a comprehensive list? - Miraglyth 22:07, 9 March 2008 (CDT)
    • It's mostly not needed for online items as long as they link back to the Swords-like page. Unfortunately that's not always the case. It's also possible to process everything with a script if you are using categories. For example, generating a list of drops for all the items by running through the category and its childrens. If you change the template for the items, there's only one change needed to the script. If you change the pretty page, 0 needed. Without category, you need to change the script each time you change any pretty page. (And I might do that for various reasons, not only for psutools but also for making reports on what's missing in psupedia for example.) Anyway right now I was more thinking of that poor Units (Offline) page that gets linked only from Units. Meaning if you search for infos about offline, you need to go through online pages first. And if you need something else about offline (like, a weapon), you need to go back through online. Also worth noting that for the scripts, for example, there isn't really a place in the page where you can add a link back to the index (except the bottom, like categories do). Finally, and that's probably the solution to the difference between category and pretty page: you can probably make the category redirect to the pretty page. That way all users will get redirected to the page you want, you'll get links at the bottom automatically, and automated scripts can still parse the categories by adding "&redirect=no" to the URLs. Essen 23:05, 9 March 2008 (CDT) (and sorry for the lengthy comment lol I wrote as I thought about it)
    • Most of that actually makes sense, heh. On the offline thing though: Once upon a time it was suggested that we try something like offline.psupedia.info to create a distinction between Network Mode and Story/Extra Mode. Nobody really responded to the idea, indicating a general lack of interest in offline modes. If one/some people took an interest to the offline modes then that'd be another idea on top of this, though the offline modes are a confusing mix themselves - Story Mode "v1" is different to Extra Mode "v1" is different to Story Mode AOTI. The latter two of course aren't even available to the 360. - Miraglyth 07:48, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Update section overhaul

We had a little discussion going on this a few months ago, but it kind of fizzled off. I'd like to get it going again since, as it's been noted on numerous occasions, our current updates section is getting ginormous. Jubei put together an example of one way to prettify our updates (User:JubeiSaotome/Sandbox/Updates) which I'm quite pleased with. However, one thing we didn't come to a decision on is how to break up individual pages. Should it be broken up by update, by month, by quarter, or what? Also, I'm thinking that maybe we don't need to document the exact time the servers go up and down. The up time changes constantly from what I've seen, and the 00:01:00 the official site gives doesn't seem to be accurate at all. (Actually, that looks like a default time for pretty much all announcements that go up on the main site, no matter what time it was posted.) Just stating the day the servers go back up should suffice. Anyway, let's discuss. I'd like to make some progress on this project so we can at least get new updates in this format. We can always save the conversion of older updates for later. - EspioKaos 11:18, 25 February 2008 (CST)

• Suggestion one: sort them by season (e.g. March to May = Spring 2008)
  Suggestion two: Newest updates go at the top of the page, not the bottom.
  - Sekani 12:10, 25 February 2008 (CST)

Yeah, so, um...

Apologies in advance if it looks like I was trying to start some kind of site war with this comment. The whole looking like a jerk thing I don't mind as much though. Please don't hurt me. - Sekani 01:07, 25 February 2008 (CST)

P.S.: Happy birthday Espio

• The evidence has since been removed. D: Ah, well. I saw the post in question before it was deleted, but kind of laughed with it. Nothing to worry about, though.
  And thanks for the birthday wishes.  :) - EspioKaos 09:29, 25 February 2008 (CST)

Old template pages

I know this is probably asking for a lot, and I really shouldn't be so picky with it. But would somebody be able to compile a list of enemy, weapon, whatever pages that haven't been changed to the new standard template? I'd like to fix those, but really don't know where to start. - Saiffy 12:35, 12 November 2007 (CST)

• After I made a similar list for the mission articles, I was considering doing the same for weapons, enemies, etc. It will take a boat load of time to do, but it's still possible. I'd suggest in the meantime to not worry about enemies, as I still need to make a few tweaks (in the way of a new infobox like what we're using for the mission articles) to the standard before mass-implementation. As for weapons, for now just select a weapon category from the list and work your way down (or up) checking each link to see if it's been converted over. Actually, I think that might be better than compiling a list since there would probably end up being hundreds of entries on that list. So, I guess enemies would be the major workload for something like this. Anyway, I'll see what I can do when I've got a chance. I'm at work right now, but will have to go shortly as I've got a project coming in very soon that I'll have to get started on. And thanks for your help! We really appreciate it!  :D - EspioKaos 12:47, 12 November 2007 (CST)
• Enemy list! Didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. I still need to work out a few things with the infobox we'll use, so let's hold off on these articles for the time being.  ;) - EspioKaos 13:16, 12 November 2007 (CST)
• Oh Christ, I did my own one. Enemy Article List. Still I forgot about Espio's new infobox, so his one is the correct one. - Mewn 13:48, 12 November 2007 (CST)
• While on the topic, the PA pages have been long neglected, and I know we shouldn't be trying to put too much on the table at once, but I made(Or stole) a possible template that I think is much easier to read for each PA here. Now, I don't think each PA having their own page is really neccesary, but I think maybe each weapon type should have their own page for skills, rather than the cluttered mess we currently have. And, of course, anyones free to make a different template, or edit mine. It's not very original, obviously. But I somewhat like the consistently. --Saiffy 23:58, 12 November 2007 (CST)
  • I like the idea of each PA having its own page.  ;) Something very similar to what you have would be nice, but I think we should make some adjustments to the table designs to accommodate PA-specific info. (That one tiny table just looks a little funny.) When I have enough time, I'll try to run some ideas through my head. If I come up with anything I like, I'll throw together an article for it. - EspioKaos 11:45, 14 November 2007 (CST)
• Seems good to me, although PP cost does increase at level 11 and 21 for all PAs, I think. Might be better to put that under Att./Acc. mods. - Mewn 03:23, 13 November 2007 (CST)

User pages

Gonna make it quick. A lot of people have been making user pages for themselves, and not contributing at all to the site. It gets annoying having to sort through all the recent edits when theres a bunch of user page edits in. This isn't directed at anyone really, but I doubt anyone who does it even checks RFB or recent edits. It's really not that big a deal, moreso a personal irk, but eh, I thought it can't hurt to bring it up -- Saiffy 03:05, 6 August 2007 (BST)

• They could always be seperated from the main wiki, much like EspioKaos mentioned about having offline.psupedia, maybe there could be a matchup.psupedia? could work for guilds/teams. Guild wars has started doing this with their wikis and guilds. Guild list & Guild example --JubeiSaotome 22:29, 28 December 2007 (CST)
  • It almost takes no effort to set up your own site just to recruit for your guild or clan or brag about elitist nonsense or whatever, and it does bug me to see people using PSUP for this purpose, especially when they have to intention of contributing to the site. This Ace guy for example. - Sekani 12:03, 6 March 2008 (CST)

Site overhaul

Correct me if I'm out of line. But I think the site is getting ready for an overhaul. May aswell, it's a new version of the game. Here's some things / projects I have in mind to improve the place;

• Mission center - A hub page for missions; Online, Offline, Story mode, Extra mode & ETC.
  • Mission strategies - Not for online free missions, because they are a sinch. Moreover for Network Story Missions, which seem to annoy people to no end. These pages could include mission data, points and rewards. I don't see a point in having 2 pages for one mission. That would be giving the users an extra step (Or more finding the page).
• Main Page / Navigation - Self explanitory, the navigation is out of date and needs links to AoI related changes, story missions, monster pokedex and ETC.
  • Main Page / Picture of the day/week - Wasn't this going to be implimented at some point? I don't see why it shouldn't be done, it will keep people coming back to see new images. This could even allow for image contests, improving site hits.
• Guides section - There's a category for guides, this MAY overlap with strategies within the mission center idea, but all it would need in that case would be links to each story mission. Aside from that, guides could range from; PM builds, Synth guides, Strategies for fast leveling and so forth.

Comments? --JubeiSaotome 04:03, 4 December 2007 (CST)

• I'll go through the points one-by-one:
  • Mission center - we could use one, certainly, all we have right now are temporary pages. We could use pages for lobbies as well, though they might be a bit sparse.
  • Mission strategies - agree, but I feel they should be links to another article (specifically marked as a guide) or an external link to another site.
  • Main Page Navigation - yes, this does need an overhaul, and that's been the general consensus for some time. No-one has really designed anything satisfactory though. Design isn't my forte, so if you have any ideas I'll leave it to you.
  • PotD/W - I think it's unnecessary, it's frivolous and nowhere near being objective information. If it gets support it can be done, but I'm just going to flat-out state that I will not be involved with it, since I have more important things to do on the site.
  • Guides - I wouldn't be opposed to having more guides as I did make special provision for them, but they have to be written, we can't just pull these things out of our asses (or from other sites). See above comment about more important things. - Mewn 10:38, 4 December 2007 (CST)
• My thoughts:
  • I'd like to come up with a more effective way of displaying all of the game's missions on one index page to have linked out to the individual articles. Ultimately, this would replace our current mission page.
  • Strategies could be put in pages such as Illuminus Ambition 2 (guide) and similarly indexed in the guides section.
  • I've been trying to think of a new main page navigation system, but can't seem to come up with something I like. One idea I had completely replaces the sidebar with our navigation links. Of course, all of our categories would have to be thinned down from what we have now. Wouldn't be a problem, as far as I see it. (It could use it, to be honest.)
  • Picture of the day/week. Like Mewn said, it'd be an unnecessary addition. I'd only see it as something else for us to try to keep up with updating, taking away from valuable time we could put to use for more important features.
  • Guides and strategies would do well lumped together. - EspioKaos 11:30, 4 December 2007 (CST)

Another main page idea I had was;

• New missions & Locations - The recent hill of spores set has been a bitch for common players to find, why not have something like this on the main page?--JubeiSaotome 00:14, 15 December 2007 (CST)
  • The details on things like where to find new missions used to go in the Updates page, but then I fell behind on that and the slack never got picked up. - Miraglyth 01:22, 15 December 2007 (CST)
    • I picked up where you left off; only, I haven't been making the tables like you used to that show where to go to get to each mission. (The only thing I haven't added is yesterday's update, which I'm going to get to soon.) Of course, now with individual mission articles linked to in the updates, these tell you exactly where to go. But, I suppose for the sake of the lazy people who don't want to click an extra link, I can use the table format in my next update. - EspioKaos 09:43, 15 December 2007 (CST)
      • Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like nobody had updated the page because that's clearly not the case :P - I'd just meant that the quick-find "Where to go" wasn't being done anymore. But like you say, it shouldn't be much of an issue, especially once navigation with missions becomes simpler. - Miraglyth 15:46, 15 December 2007 (CST)
        • It's no problem.  :) Actually, this brings up something that you've mentioned many times before: an overhaul of the updates section. It's gotten huge (like Xbox). I'd like to go back over each update and redo everything to pretty things up some. I was thinking we could either make a page for each content update (Update_002, Update_034, etc.) or sort them out by months. Of course, we'd still keep everything cataloged on one page; perhaps sorted by months there. Ah, just some ideas to toss about for a later project. - EspioKaos 17:15, 15 December 2007 (CST)
          • That's a decent idea, provided it had a navigation table template to go with it. Maybe a "to be released" list or a list of japanese updates also? --JubeiSaotome 02:28, 16 December 2007 (CST)
            • JP updates would require much digging through their official site's now-messy log of updates, maintenances, events and notices. That said, a long-overdue re-standardisation of our updates page would be much desired. As for splitting the article... by month would be my preferred of the suggestion because per update results in many small articles. Perhaps take it a step further and split them by quarter? - Miraglyth 08:37, 22 December 2007 (CST)
• With a new sidebar navigation list in place, would it be out of place to have more social data on the front page? Like new missions OR most populated lobbies? --JubeiSaotome 21:43, 25 December 2007 (CST)
  • I like the idea. I think it'd be nice to have a little more detailed info directly on the front page stating what new missions have just been released or what special events are going on or will be happening in the near future. More than what we've got with the news box thinger, at least. - EspioKaos 22:21, 25 December 2007 (CST)
• Might as well post a few suggestions here for the sake of putting them into this discussion. Here are some front page and navigation ideas I came up with and here's a new front page layout by Propagandist. - EspioKaos 19:00, 26 December 2007 (CST)
  
• So, I finally found something good for a logo. The image could use a little touching up still, but I don't have time at the moment. Leave feedback/complaints here. Oh, and 5 points to whoever can tell me where I got that design. --Qwerty 23:23, 8 January 2008 (CST)
  • I'll guess Episode 3, since it's the game I never played and I don't recognize the logo at all! Or is it some evil community-harming reference I don't get? D: --Beatrixkiddo 00:51, 9 January 2008 (CST)
    • No points for you. I never played PSO Ep. 3 either; this is from PSU. But really, looks good? Terrible? Horrendous? Spectacular? Shitacular? --Qwerty 00:53, 9 January 2008 (CST)
      • Tell me what it's from and I'll tell you what I think :D --Beatrixkiddo 01:01, 9 January 2008 (CST)
        • It's from PSU. Now tell me how shitty it is. --Qwerty 01:11, 9 January 2008 (CST)
          • Only think I dislike is it's a little pixelly, but I'm sure that's due to the source image and nothing you could have avoided. --Beatrixkiddo 01:24, 9 January 2008 (CST)
            • I was wondering what logo you guys were on about, as I saw nothing uploaded or linked or anything. Then, all sudden-like, it appeared in the upper-left corner after hitting refresh about 10 times. XD It's from the GUARDIANS Colony Linear Line. It's seen on the signs that says "GUARDIANS Line" or something. Personally, I love it. I don't know if we really need the exclamation point in the title, though. ;) - EspioKaos 06:18, 9 January 2008 (CST)
              • Espio wins the points. --Qwerty 08:24, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Backpacker girl??!

Backpacker girl is lost.

* So, when we gonna get backpacker girl back on the main page? --JubeiSaotome 20:41, 22 December 2007 (CST)

Spoiler hide / unhide plugin

Are there any MediaWiki plugins for hiding and unhiding information with a button or switch? This would be useful for character and story related pages. This way we could have spoilers and they could only be revealed if the reader wanted it spoiled or if they already knew what happened. --JubeiSaotome 21:43, 25 December 2007 (CST)

• The one time I've needed to hide a spoiler (which wasn't really, but doesn't hurt to play it safe with this many whiners about) I've used <font color="white"> to hide the relevant text. It wouldn't be a plugin or clickable element, but if there was any significant need for regular spoiler hiding, a simple quick solution would be to use {{Spoiler}} and {{EndSpoiler}} templates to repeat the above, the latter of course being </font>. - Miraglyth 08:29, 26 December 2007 (CST)

Video embeds

Wow, this is coming off as IDEA after IDEA. But Video could be pretty useful, especially on pages such as; Individual Photon Arts pages, Rare monster sightings, Guides and other pages with demonstrations. All you'd need is to allow for the embed tag for video or whatever. Anyway, thought I'd throw the idea out there. --JubeiSaotome 22:25, 28 December 2007 (CST)

• I'm almost completely certain that the wiki system doesn't allow for such tags to function, lest they be used maliciously by unscrupulous editors. But, I may be wrong. --Qwerty 23:23, 8 January 2008 (CST)
• There's no way to embed video in a wiki at this time. I just finished running around the mediawiki main site, and they're trying to figure out how to make it work. Only suggestion I can offer is linking a youtube video in the relevant articles for now.
  --Kit 10:33, 19 January 2008 (CST)

Drop Templates

I keep seeing drop templates being given numbers (the latest I saw being Template:Dark Falz 90). Why do we include numbers? Why can't we just call it the monster name and add a parameter to it specifying levels? ie the Template:Dark Falz page I made. Simply use {{Dark Falz | lvl=90 }} to get the same result as {{Dark Falz 90}}.

Or...is there a reason that I completely missed? So many extra pages (and database entries) being made that can minimized into single pages..
--Kit 17:46, 18 February 2008 (CST)

• I think Espio just likes doing extra work, makes him look important and keeps him from being bored at his job doing... whatever he does.
  
  Just kidding. Probably.
  
  On a more serious note, I think it's time to start actually archiving some of these discussions here. It took me almost a full minute to scroll all the way down the page to where this comment resides. -Sekani 18:30, 18 February 2008 (CST)
• Primarily, I think no one ever thought of it. To be honest though, I find that rather confusing, but I can see its worth. Oh, and Sekani, I agree. The problem is that the topics aren't ordered by date. New topics are supposed to go at the top, but that only seems to happen half the time. --Qwerty 18:38, 18 February 2008 (CST)
• Curses! You've got me, Sekani. XD

Seriously, though, a template like that is a very good idea, but considering how incredibly deep into use the current templates are, we'd be looking at creating a ridiculous amount of extra work for ourselves just to create the new templates and change all of the existing uses in articles and drop charts and what-not to the new style. Time like that would likely be best spent on more important matters around here. ;) - EspioKaos 19:57, 18 February 2008 (CST)

• Well, let's just start using new kinds of templates from now on. Phasing out the old one can just be done like, one monster a day or something. It would be slow, but it'd get done eventually. :)
  --Kit 09:15, 19 February 2008 (CST)
  • I'll be completely honest with you: I'd prefer we not. I appreciate the idea, but I'd much rather we stick with the current, established templates than have multiple styles about the site that mean extra clean up later. Again, the time that would be spent creating and implementing the new templates could be put to much better use with the numerous other projects about the site. Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to be an ass, just trying to avoid extra work for everyone. XD - EspioKaos 09:47, 19 February 2008 (CST)

Audio Files

Files with the extension MP3 or OGG cannot be uploaded; why is this? All of the currently available samples in the Jukebox discs section are really awful because of their encoding and there's no way to reasonably change them. DOS 10:20, 29 February 2008 (CST)

• I haven't enabled those file types yet. I may do so soon, if we decide to install an in-wiki audio-player extension. However, we do not intend to host the entire file for the jukebox disks, but rather only a low quality preview so that you know what you're getting before you buy the disc. --Qwerty 17:18, 29 February 2008 (CST)
  • Yes, I understand that these are meant to be samples but the ones that are currently available are poorly encoded. Also I don't understand why you would want an in-wiki media player when users can download the files and listen in their player of choice? DOS 21:50, 29 February 2008 (CST)
    • The "poor encoding" was intentional. The samples do what they were intended to do ("What does Disc 77 sound like?") while not running up unnecessary bandwidth bills. I honestly see nothing to be gained from using a high-bitrate sample. We're not here to cater to audiophiles or people looking for free music. - Sekani 22:50, 29 February 2008 (CST)
      • Maybe try encoding at 64Kbps? At least something that doesn't make listening to these files totally unpleasant. 32Kbps is way too low. I don't think this is an unreasonable increase; I wasn't planning on asking for lossless clips or anything. DOS 09:57, 1 March 2008 (CST)
        • They sound fine to me. --Beatrixkiddo 10:01, 1 March 2008 (CST)
        • 32Kbps hurts to listen to..to me at least. :( --Kit 10:07, 1 March 2008 (CST)
          • Try turning the volume down then. Your ears will thank you. All jokes aside, the orchestrated clips in particular actually are pretty bad, so I'll try uploading them in a different format this weekend. WMA is the only other near-universal format I can think of, and it should provide some improvement in quality. - Sekani 12:00, 6 March 2008 (CST)

XBOX Gamertag embeds

The Microsoft XBOX site allows you to add your Gamertag Card to anything that accepts the code... I haven't figured it out how to get it to display on the PSUPedia pages (probably a coding issue) but anywhere else its something groovy to show off, and a nice easy link to see how the online gamer is acutally doing. Just a thought.

Wolfmist

• Judging by your edit history, it appears to use some non-standard HTML tags. Unfortunately, a wiki only accepts tags for simple things such as bold, italics, etc. The best thing you'll be able to do is throw up a simple link. --Qwerty 13:15, 2 March 2008 (CST)
  • I already tried this a while ago when I first started messing around here. No dice. I don't think wikis are designed to accept dynamic content like Gamertag info. - Sekani 11:39, 6 March 2008 (CST)