TUG wiki:Feedback

__NEWSECTIONLINK__

Frontpage Design
I've updated the frontpage with an initial design that is inspired by several different other game wikis. Although I'm garnishing my teeth over how to categorize the content... Anyone have any suggestions regarding how to lay it out? --Tyrx (talk) 09:42, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I could see how you're having trouble categorizing the content at the moment. You've done a pretty good job so far considering how little information we have, and I doubt we will be able to figure something out for the "Lore" and "Modding" categories until much later into the games development. The only thing that springs to mind is adding the nutrition/food system under the "Character" link in the "Game Basics" category. --Nazzy (talk) 03:27, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * There's also the magic system and the fact that the game (I think this is true, but my memory is a little fuzzy) the game generates worlds. --Densetsu (talk) 06:32, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll add in those suggestions today, but I think we might be able to fill in the "Lore" category if we get creative. I do agree that actually writing information on the lore will be difficult though, Nerd Kingdom is keeping those details awfully close to their chest. --Tyrx (talk) 11:01, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

(Change made to front page, still question about tools) There's a new crafting page: Crafting Materials. (Added because some recipe ingredients have to be crafted, not just found or harvested naturally, so they didn't fit on Resources.) Please add a front page link for it. (Red Agliator (talk) 15:22, 4 September 2014 (UTC)) Would you mind adding the Farming page to the Crafting list under the Gameplay section on the main page? What would also be super awesome is getting all of the tools into one handy dandy list, similar to what we see over in the Minecraft wiki.
 * I can rearrange lists. (No admin privileges to edit the front page, though.) How would you like the tool list shown differently than they way it's shown on the Tools page? -Red Agliator (talk) 14:07, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * (Oh, and thanks to Ender for updating the front page!)

(Resolved) There's a new crafting page: Crafting Materials. (Added because some recipe ingredients have to be crafted, not just found or harvested naturally, so they didn't fit on Resources.) Please add a front page link for it. (Red Agliator (talk) 15:22, 4 September 2014 (UTC))

Help Available
Hello, I've begun moving things around on the front page to fit into categories that made more sense. If anyone has a proposition of a page they feel is important to be included under one of the subjects, let me know and I'll add it. Just tell me what page, and what category it should go under. I'm also thinking, should we have a more clearer crafting recipe guide? We can make a page solely for all the recipes, separate into categories on the one page. So that if anyone wanted to quickly find a recipe, they can go there, instead of having to hunt through pages to figure out what makes what and how to get this and that. I can do it myself if anyone else is too busy. &mdash;Pamcakes 12PM 12 October 2014 (EST)


 * Please see User:LoonWoof/Sandbox/Recipe Lists regarding your suggestion for a "browsable" list of recipes.
 * &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Is this discussion page the temporary "discuss everything related to the wiki" place?
The Community portal doesn't seem to be up yet, so are we just supposed to use this discussion page as a temporary "hub" when it comes to discussing aspects related to the planning of the wiki? --Densetsu (talk) 06:36, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That's the plan! I'll be installing a proper minimalist forum extension to MediaWiki to makeup the Community Portal, and if possible I'll transfer the existing discussions over. I'm still looking over the options available, so it might take two or three days before it's actually up and running. --Tyrx (talk) 11:01, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Confirmation email is landing in my spam-box
I've noticed that the confirmation email which is sent to you upon signing up to this wiki gets flagged as spam. I was scratching my head over why the email wasn't appearing in my inbox, and lo and behold I found it lurking in my spam folder. --Densetsu (talk) 12:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Usually looking at the "original" message will show you all the technical stuff in the header of the email. Some email providers put the spam ruling in there as well, mostly RFC numbers. You can look those up and discover what feature about the email caused your provider/client to consider the email to be spam. This could be anything from missing reply-to headers to using bad characters in the title.  Just made an wiki account myself and it seems that the server that relayed the email to gmail is caramelslice.talkbeta.com, which... does not exist. But this is just one of many causes.--Vernes (talk) 12:20, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This is my fault, it appears that I've accidentally screwed up while I was setting up the box that this wiki is hosted on. I'll have the problem fixed by tomorrow as it's nearly midnight here. --Tyrx (talk) 13:01, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Logo suggestion
(Resolved) unless further discussion is requested Quickly put something together - what do you think? Will it be problematic that it is modifying the original logo?

Had to use two Vs because the original W looked odd.

(Also, the home page content might need to be updated; the (Kickstarter) campaign is no longer running, and it was funded.) --TUG (talk) 22:13, 17 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Good work with the logo! I was going to create one eventually myself, but I thought I'd be lazy and wait until they released the official font pack. I'll change it around when I get home from work tonight. --Tyrx (talk) 06:10, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

New wiki design
I've decided to push the new design I've been working with onto the wiki production server. I'm aware that there are a few problems with it, such as the sidebar links being hard to see, or the tabs at the top clashing with the sky background. These issues will be fixed before Nerd Kingdom launches the alpha for TUG. In the mean time, please suggest any improvements here or report any other issues with the new design that haven't already been listed. --Tyrx (talk) 13:13, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I've applied some slight updates to the theme. The links on the left are now behind a transparent grey box so they're more visible, the padding of the main content area has been slightly reduced and the background won't repeat anymore. --Tyrx (talk) 22:28, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The text on the bottom (copyright, access amounts, etc) are a little hard to see. You might want to consider changing the color of the font down there. --124.171.96.108 14:03, 28 June 2013 (CEST)

Modding SubCategories
I wasn't able to create a new page under the Modding section, so I posted a process we use at Nerd Kingdom under the 'Soft Modding' portion of Gameplay. I created a graphic to illustrate this as well, but the Embedded file system would not link it appropriately. -NK-Rik 7/18/2013
 * Sysops and above are the only accounts that have access to modifying the main page, so I'll fill in the modding section with proper links when I do some re-arranging of the main page tomorrow. I'm not sure about why the server would reject the embedded file though. Trying to input an off-site image into an article using the insert file system on the toolbar won't work as has it has to be an internal images. Not sure if that is the case, but it might explain why it didn't work. --Tyrx (talk) 12:49, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Grammar Nazi section
I would like to start this section as a debating area for anything regarding grammar on this wiki. I'll post anything on here I can't edit myself or am not sure about, and I request you do the same, if the need arises. -Joe (talk) 04:37, 31 August 2013 (UTC)


 * (Resolved)
 * Regarding the front page, I'd like to inquire as to who owns the Wiki. On the front page under About TUG there is a sentence that reads: "...but what makes TUG truly unique is its ability to help us learn what you as players enjoy about the game...". The reason I am mentioning this is because I am not sure if it is Nerd Kingdom who own the Wiki, or an outside source. If it is Nerd Kingdom, then I see it as being fine, but if not, it reads as if they are the owners. Just a small issue of context as to who is 'speaking' in the About TUG section. The next paragraph then states who made the game, from the perspective of an outside viewer, as in, it is not Nerd Kingdom writing.-Joe (talk) 05:50, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reporting that. The misleading wording with regards to the wiki ownership has been fixed. --Tyrx (talk) 09:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Factions and ingame societies
Could we have a subsection for the currently emerging social groups from the TUG forums, such as the Lemurian Empire, under History, Culture and Lore?

Proposal for flagging wiki information as "needing verification" or "out of date"
(Resolved) unless further discussion is requested There are going to be a lot of game versions between now and release. During alpha, especially, each release may make sweeping changes: the information on many pages may suddenly become outdated at once.

I think it would be nice if:
 * Pages were marked as "potentially out-of-date", so readers would know to be careful of the content
 * There was a category to list "pages needing verification", so editors would have a to-do list of pages to check after a new release
 * Flagging was automatic: it didn't require an editor to add "potentially out-of-date" to every possibly-changed page

I spent some time poking around at this, and have come up with one way to solve it, using two templates: The basic idea: have a single place to store/edit the currently released game version, and have a spot on each page to store/edit the game version from the last time it was verified / updated. Then a check at the top of a page could put up the notice automatically if the two versions don't match.
 * User:Red Agliator/My Sandbox/Out Of Date
 * User:Red Agliator/My Sandbox/VersionInteger

Is this a problem other folks would like to see solved? Are these two templates a good-enough way to solve it? Are they documented clearly enough? -- Red Agliator (talk) 14:21, 12 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and added the 'needs updating' templates to some wiki pages (for example, Resources). The templates are now live at Template:Out Of Date and Template:VersionInteger.
 * --Red Agliator (talk) 15:19, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Let's discuss boulders, trees, saplings, bushes, etc.
(Resolved) unless further discussion is requested Update I've done more research on what you get when harvesting different environment objects, so I'm going to start putting this in place. I'll start with the in-game names of the objects, but we can rename as we want. And of course, this doesn't have to stay. --Red Agliator (talk) 14:47, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd love to be able to support a particular semantic-enabled feature:
 * 1) Create a new page for an environment object with what resources it yields
 * 2) Open the pages for those resources and have the lists of sources automatically update to include the new page.

You can see the idea in a sandbox: An Environment Object Page has several  properties, and a connected Resource Page. If you want, add a new "Fake Object" page that, and you'll see how the Jagged Stone page changes.

However, that feature requires a separate page for each environment object, or at least for each subclass of object, such as saplings vs. narrow trees vs. trees. If we want to go this way, we'll have to figure out what those dividing lines are.

As an example, I've seen three classes of rocks in v0.6.4 gameplay: the things labeled "boulders" give sword rocks and spear rocks. The things labeled "large rocks" give one each of axe rocks, pick rocks, and hammer rocks (but not sword/spear rocks). There's another potential subset: some rocks give only one type of resource each. In 0.6.4, they're labeled "Axe Rock Source", "Hammer Rock Source", and "Pick Rock Source." Thinking about the  property, it would make sense to divide that up into two (maybe three categories): one for the things labeled 'boulders', and one for the things labeled "large rocks". Why? So the page for the sword stone resource would show only boulders as a source, and not all types of rocks. (If we had only one rocks/boulders page, that page would show up on all those rock resource pages.)

Differences I've seen so far are: plants that give large leaves vs. ones that give just vines; plants/trees that give sticks vs. ones that don't; saplings/narrow trees/trees that give wood shafts vs. ones that don't; boulders that do and don't give each of the rock resources. I'm sure there are others, or at least there will be by the end of alpha.

TL;DR. First question: do we editors care how we divide and name the various types of plants and boulders? Second question: is everyone ok with the idea of separate pages for separate subsets of plants, and separate subsets of boulders? (Or do we want to avoid that like the plague, and what are the downsides?) (Forgot to sign: originally written September 4, 2014, by Red Agliator (talk))

Discussion request: Tables of tools/weapons
The various lists (tables) of tools and weapons around the wiki all look a bit chaotic to me: row heights are all over the map, and often too tall for the table to look tidy. To see what I mean, look at the lists on the Stone Age page. If people want to change this, I can think of several ways to fix it. (And I'm sure there are many more. Feedback please: Do you like the tables the way they are? Do you want to see this different change, or maybe a different one? Or are you indifferent? -Red Agliator (talk) 18:14, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) Change the image policy to request that tool and weapon pictures be closer to a square aspect ratio. (I think the row heights are because some images are some, some are wide, and some are tall.) If we go this route, let's do it sooner rather than later, so we have fewer screenshots to redo.
 * 2) Change those auto-updating tables to use the item's inventory icon instead of a screenshot of the item. The Crude Hoe page gives a good example: the first image is tall and skinny, and the second image is what you see when the item is in your toolbar or your inventory. Those inventory icons all match in size and shape. If we go this route, it'll require a two-word change on each of the item pages, and then we can use the icon files from the game folders to upload, instead of making screenshots. And going forward, the boilerplates will be changed so the fix is automatic.
 * 3) Other ideas?

I agree that something should be done with the format of these tables. Too much scrolling is needed to view the page contents for one thing; primarily caused by the problems Red Agliator pointed out. I think option 2 (use inventory images) is best, since a click on the image should take users to more information (including more images) of the specific item. It seems to me that another reason the table itself is so tall is that currently there is only a single instance of each tool type within a tech level (not so for weapons), which makes for a bunch of (well, six) short rows. Is it likely that there will be multiple versions of a tool type added in the future (in either existing tech levels or new tech levels)? Will there be "multi-tools" available later (a single "cutting" tool for example that works as an axe, knife and perhaps pick)? Can we place all the tools in a single row and then group the weapons into rows based on type?


 * Tools - Axe : Hammer : Hoe : Knife : Pick : Shovel
 * Blade Weapons
 * Blunt Weapons
 * Thrown Weapons

Hopefully, using inventory images, the rows won't be too long.

Re: Aspect ratios in general; originally, I intended to submit images of long tools/weapons shown at a 45 degree angle to keep the aspect ratio as near to square as possible, but found most existing images oriented vertically, so I continued with that "tradition". Another possiblity (to further muddy the waters) is to display long objects horizontally. This would probably be bad for tables (especially if the entire tool is display instead of just the head and some of the handle), but may look good at the top of item pages...

--LoonWoof (talk) 19:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The vertical tables are left over from when recipes were displayed on the list pages (making the tables much wider). Now that most have only two columns, a gallery might make more sense. See this example in action: each object has a clickable image and a clickable caption, and the images are in a grid instead of vertically.

--Red Agliator (talk) 19:39, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Your example looks good to me; I think it would work well for the tech level pages. Would it be very difficult or time-consuming to create a version of the Stone Age page in this format that I could view?

[edit: Okay, I've been messing about with things I don't understand and I was able to get this page set up. I can't seem to get Inventory images to work. And I can't remember the code to return just the last part of the PAGENAME. (How does differ from  ?)]

--LoonWoof (talk) 19:56, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Nicely done! The inventory images work fine when I look at that page. Maybe it was a matter of waiting for the wiki to update itself properly? (I think you can force that to happen immediately by choosing Refresh from the arrow menu next to the search box.) As for the page names,  includes the namespace, and   returns everything but the namespace. I try to use  for anything the users don't see.

--Red Agliator (talk) 00:32, 29 September 2014 (UTC)