User talk:Fenyx4

Archive

Bug cookies?

I am not sure if this is a bug, but the pages of a picture or gif does not look like you're logged in or something. (The rest works perfectly) Now when you log in there it will say 1) you already logged in. 2) "log in error" and "Ultima Codex uses cookies to log in users. You have cookies disabled. Please enable them and try again." However, I have my cookies enabled. (sorry if I am a bit unclear. I'm not sure how to say this) --Arthgon (talk) 15:57, 12 December 2016 (MST)

I also found another bug. If you upload another GIF/picture and insert it in an article it will still say that there are no pages that link to this file. --Arthgon (talk) 09:00, 13 December 2016 (MST)

The logout thing is happening on the UnderWiki too. Something to do with the new host. I'm digging into it. I'll look at the "no pages that link to this file" problem once I have the login thing fixed. (Who knows maybe they are related.) -- Fenyx4 17:08, 13 December 2016 (MST)

I think the login problem on images should be fixed. (Probably a few days ago but I'm not sure when the fix propagated to us). Let me know if you see further problems. Thanks! -- Fenyx4 07:47, 18 December 2016 (MST)

Problems with the picture manager

There's trouble with the picture manager. It does act like I'm not logged in (even though the edit is correctly attributed to me), even though I am logged in on other pages as normal, thus I also can't replace the pictures with a new version (it says I'm not allowed to), apart from manually replacing them with the uploader. Even then, the new version is not displayed correctly. Something must be broken in the code.--Tribun (talk) 15:33, 13 December 2016 (MST)

Sounds like the logout problem is the same as Arthgon's above. Can you give me an example of the new version not displaying correctly? Thanks. -- Fenyx4 17:10, 13 December 2016 (MST)

The new version did come in the end, but it took over half an hour before it got displayed. That leaves the other problems.--Tribun (talk) 11:52, 14 December 2016 (MST)

I think the login problem on images should be fixed. (Probably a few days ago but I'm not sure when the fix propagated to us). Let me know if you see further problems. Thanks! -- Fenyx4 07:47, 18 December 2016 (MST)

Broken Picture

http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/File:Ad.gif is broken in that the picture does not appear, despite being there (goes only for the current version), strangely enough, it does work in tables. Any idea what's broken?--Tribun (talk) 14:28, 13 January 2017 (MST)

Odd it looks fine to me. Could you try in a different browser or computer? Maybe something is cached badly in your browser? -- Fenyx4 18:39, 13 January 2017 (MST)

If you use an ad blocker, that might be the cause. I couldn't see it either until I disabled mine. --Terilem (talk) 22:50, 13 January 2017 (MST)

Maybe it's because of the name? "ad" could be the cause. (could also go for some others)--Tribun (talk) 05:21, 14 January 2017 (MST)

Yep, was the adblocker. It does have a problem with the words "ad", "advertisement", "-advertisement" and "_advertisement" when they stand on their own. It's the naming of the files that causes the problem.--Tribun (talk) 05:31, 14 January 2017 (MST)

Installed ad blocker and I had the problem. Changed the filename and it is all good now. -- Fenyx4 17:36, 18 January 2017 (MST)

Image/page load issue

Hi,
I have some problems loading the page Martian_Dreams_Monster_Data of the wiki (http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Martian_Dreams_Monster_Data) because of the last image in the table: Dust Devil.
The image (http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/images/6/6b/MD-dust-devil_anim.gif) seems corrupt or something because it half loads and then hangs and blocks the completion of the page loading.
The loaded half of the image is nonetheless shown.
The behaviour is shown also loading the following link: http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/File:MD-dust-devil_anim.gif
Question is: can you check, please, if this is my fault or if there is a problem? And in the latter case can someone fix it please?
Many thanks

P.S. Other pages/thumbnails seem to show the same problem, for example:
- the thumbnail of SI's back cover (page http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Ultima_VII_Part_Two:_Serpent_Isle)
- Ghost thumbnail in Monster Data of Ultima IV (http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Ultima_IV_Monster_Data)
There may be others. I mentioned them because it may be a clue of a general problem, not limited to a particular image.

---

P.P.S: After some trial I found that the issue doesn't show up changing the type of web connection I use.
So thanks anyway and, please, pardon me and ignore this post.

Thanks for the update. Sorry that I didn't respond sooner to your earlier messages. -- Fenyx4 10:04, 22 August 2017 (MDT)

Page Refresh

Since you are the only admin... For someone not logged in, numerous new pages neither show up in the counter nor their categories, meaning the wiki needs some sort of refresh to register ist. Maybe you can give administrative powers to others to avoid situations when you are not available?--Tribun (talk) 14:55, 8 March 2019 (MST)

Where are you seeing these counters that aren't updating? I am available and others do have admin rights. -- Fenyx4 21:46, 15 March 2019 (MDT)

OK, then I wonder no one noticed. Still, while the counter now finally has updated for someone not logged in, categories with new pagesand image sites where a picture got updated did not show the changes. Categories don't include new pages (like here) and pictures pages where a pictue got updated don't show the newest one in preview and sometimes spazz (here here and here).

Please note that only goes on for someone not logged in, a logged-in user sees everything fine. It makes me wonder what is going on.--Tribun (talk) 04:46, 16 March 2019 (MDT)

Thanks for the examples. Looks like a caching issue but ?action=purge isn't clearing it up. I'll dig into it. -- Fenyx4 07:14, 16 March 2019 (MDT)

Yeah, turned out to be a bug with file caching. I've disabled it and turned on a different kind of caching instead. Things appear to be working now. -- Fenyx4 10:20, 17 March 2019 (MDT)

As long as we're talking about stuff that's borked, so is Special:PopularPages The Ultra-Mind (talk) 09:25, 18 March 2019 (MDT)

No "thank you" just a "fix something else" I see how it is. Brain the size of a planet... Pain in all the diodes down my left side... ;)

This was removed in Mediawiki version 1.25. -- Fenyx4 21:47, 18 March 2019 (MDT)

We <3 you, Fenyx. No h8. T_T --Terilem (talk) 22:33, 18 March 2019 (MDT)

Interesting... When I updated a map [1], the picture itself got updated, but the thumbnail in the version history didn't. Even more interesting, when I updated another map, that one made no problems in that regard, but I had to change the thumbnail size in the article Ultima II Map of Earth (change the thumbnail back to 300 to see the effect), since that one refused to update (and when changing it back, it changed back to the old one as well). No idea what's going on, I see no pattern. I did these while logged in, by the way.--Tribun (talk) 09:35, 19 March 2019 (MDT)

Now the history of the first map is OK again. Is there some sort of time delay involved?--Tribun (talk) 09:41, 19 March 2019 (MDT)

And now iot again switched back to the old version in the history and new images list. I wonder what's going on.--Tribun (talk) 18:18, 19 March 2019 (MDT)

That is more regular cache behaviour. Either in your browser or on the wiki's side. If it is your browser you should be able to force a cache refresh. If it is mediawiki cache just waiting a bit should do it. -- Fenyx4 19:41, 19 March 2019 (MDT)

Nothing against you, you are doing a great job, but the image uploader is starting to frustrate me. I was updating the reagent images at Necromancy when the uploader decided at random if the new picture shows at all, shows it on the picture page but not the article, or screws it up altogether. I can remember this happening before and that the picture date code is somewhat wonky. By now most of it has fixed itself, but [2] still looks shot. Could you please look into this?--Tribun (talk) 14:05, 21 March 2019 (MDT)

I'm not sure. When I go to look at the Executioner Hood image it just looks like you've uploaded the same image 5 times. Each of the 5 times looks fine to me. What are you seeing? Have you tried doing the forced refresh while on that page? -- Fenyx4 22:52, 21 March 2019 (MDT)

Strange. What exactly is it with this force refresh?--Tribun (talk) 06:10, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

Addendum. I did notice a strange behavior. Emptying my cache and forced refresh work, but when using the normal refresh button of Firefox, some pictures (not all of them, the reagents of Necromany seem especially prone to it) revert to their broken state, until forced refresh is used again. There's no rhyme or reason to it and it certainly is not due to my cache after erasing it.--Tribun (talk) 09:08, 22 March 2019 (MDT)

Log In desn't work

Hi, Tribun here. Currently there's a weird bug in the login. This morning I saw I somehow got automatically logged out - nothing unusual at all. But logging back in doesn't work. While the system does accept the username and password, it just returns to the normal page and does not log me in. Not even an error message. I waited six hours before reporting, to see if it was a fluke or not. Can you take a look what is wrong with the system?--31.18.99.186 09:58, 7 April 2019 (MDT)

Very odd. I'm still seeing your user in the system and I am able to log in myself and as FenyxBot. I'll ask around and see if anyone else is having an issue. Maybe you could try resetting your password? -- Fenyx4 22:55, 7 April 2019 (MDT)

Yes, pleae. It's next to impossible to contribute under such circumstances. What do you exactly mean with resetting the password?--31.18.99.186 05:01, 8 April 2019 (MDT)

Update: Now it works! After checking on my laptop, where it works, I decided to flush all cookies from the browser and now the login works again. It seems due to the automatic logout, something got confused in bowser memory. Really annoying, if you ask me. Sorry that the problem was on my end.--Tribun (talk) 05:16, 8 April 2019 (MDT)

No worries. Glad it got sorted out. -- Fenyx4 06:52, 8 April 2019 (MDT)

Hi, Tribun here. The login again seems to have gotten broken, only this time differently. When trying to log in I only get the message: There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Go back to the previous page, reload that page and then try again. . However, even after several tries and cache cleaning it doesn't work. Something seems to be wrong. I've read topics about that here and here. Don't know if this is a trivial thing or not.--31.18.99.186 14:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC) EDIT: It seemingly fixed itself, but perhaps it's still worth looking into?--Tribun (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

This is reminiscent of the server error codes I get frequently that last anywhere from 30nseconds to 10 minutes. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 15:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Abacos here. I am experiencing the same log-in problems, too, since last night. --Abacos 14:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry all I missed these messages. sotawiki was experiencing the same problems but I got it cleared up by getting it fully switched to https. Updating to a new version of mediawiki and getting https on all the wikis has been high on my todo list for awhile not but finding a chunk of time big enough to do it in has been difficult. I'll try to do better and get to it soon. Are people still experiencing login problems? -- Fenyx4 14:02, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

I haven't had this login problem at all, but I've been using https for over a year now :)

Is there anything we can do to lighten your burden? The Ultra-Mind (talk) 15:41, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer. But unless you can do childcare... :)

Trouble is that if the update goes well it would probably only take a couple hours which I could do after the kids are in bed. But I need to have, like, a 5 hour block of time on the off chance something goes wrong and I need to troubleshoot problems. And 5 hour blocks of time are hard for me to come by these days. -- Fenyx4 02:37, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Going all the way w/SSL

I just made a startling discovery (on my own initiative)! It seems that this domain now works on https! However, when I go that way, Firefox gives me this little yellow triangle telling me that not all parts of the page are secure. When I look at the page, the only thing that appears insecure is http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/88x31.png. But when I paste https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/88x31.png into my browser, it works. Can we do something about this? I think any insecure element renders any other security next to useless. BTW, Google doesn't seem to have made the startling discovery I have: when I Google this wiki, it gives http links. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 13:40, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

I will look at it. -- Fenyx4 15:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

What template tools can we use?

I have some more ideas for what we can do w/templates and I want to break into their more advanced features. Unfortunately, all my attempts are failing. I get the feeling that extensions aren't installed or aren't enabled. Can you tell me what we have install/enabled and what you'd be willing to do if I didn't have what I need? Right now I've been trying to figure out string manipulation. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 19:41, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

If that's too daunting a challenge, can we start w/just what the wiki is capable of currently? Like can it do substring abstraction? The Ultra-Mind (talk) 19:18, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Special:Version lists the extensions that are installed. What "advanced features" are you looking for? Yes it can do substrings; https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:StringFunctions -- Fenyx4 05:39, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I visited there. And I already tried that stuff but w/no joy. Here: User:The_Ultra-Mind/Sandbox#Extensions_demo. In any case, that page on StringFunctions says that stuff is obsolete and pointed to ParserFunctions. I also tried sandboxing around w/that, but was given every reason to believe that we didn't support it.

What I wanted to do w/templates was parse certain parameters for "Ultima" followed by a space and Roman numeral, then proceed to format it as necessary. (Ideally, this would require something crazy powerful, like regex.) But it seemed you were gone fishing, so I applied a dictionary attack to them and that seemed to work almost as well. Still, I'd like to know if there are more powerful tools and if they are available to us. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 18:59, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

*sigh* Yes StringFunctions is obsolete and points to ParserFunctions. But also note that ParserFunctions then points to StringFunctions for instructions on how to use substring which is what you asked about.

Thank you for provided an example of what wasn't working for you. It works now. P.S. This is a hobby for me not a job. There is no SLA on my response times. -- Fenyx4 18:06, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, well, we all appreciate whatever you can do, when you can do it.

BTW, I may have hit upon something more important: I had to delete some spam. I remember we took measures against this which seemed to work rather well. Might those be failing or do you think this is just a 1-off? The Ultra-Mind (talk) 20:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Ugh, hopefully that is a 1-off. -- Fenyx4 20:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

User pages/spam grey areas

I've been seeing a few of these which are ostensibly just user pages, but seem like they may have been created for the sole purpose of spam, possibly by a bot. The above is the most blatant example of spam I've seen among user pages. Do we have a clear policy on this? I'd hate to accuse an honest-to-goodness editor of being a spammer just because he used his user page for a bit of self-promo. What do we have in terms of CAPTCHA again?--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 17:45, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Bugger. That definitely looks like spam. We use https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit#QuestyCaptcha at the moment which has been the most effective so far. I'll swap up the question and see if that stops 'em. If not we can go with more draconian methods. -- Fenyx4 04:27, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Strange artifacts on image pages

Recently, a strange bug appeared when looking at an image page. Especially with small pictures (like item icons) strange garbage artifacts appear at the edge (even when looking at the picture at full resolation), which however do not appear when the picture is displayed in an article or gallery. Since this bizarre behavior is restricted to the image pages, it has to be some kind of bug (And I don't think it's my browser (I use Firefox)). That bug is worse when an image has transparancy.

Here an example of this strange behavior (The space around the glass sword should be pure white):

--Tribun (talk) 14:33, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Sorry to have annoyed you with this. As it turned out, it IS a bug in the Firefox hardware acceleration and not with the site.--Tribun (talk) 13:40, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Phew. Glad it wasn't with the site. :) Thanks Tribun. -- Fenyx4 17:40, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

U9 screenshots

I want to redo a lot of the U9 screenshots, but there's some disagreement on how to do that, so before I spend a lot of time on it please join us at Category talk:Ultima IX Screenshots#How to make a good u9 screenshot to give input.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 14:43, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Facebook previews of our articles

Gotta another PR issue. When a URL from Wikia/Fandom/whatever-else-they-call-themselves-these-days is posted on Facebook, it gives this beautiful preview of the web page--makes me want to go back and resume editing there. But ours is... well, see for yourself

.

Is this because Facebook is already aware of Wikia and will recognize a URL to it and format it accordingly or is it because Wikia is setup to properly respond to Facebook queries? I.e. could ours be configured that way?--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 20:24, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Heh, everytime I click on a "Wikia/Fandom/whatever-else-they-call-themselves-these-days" and get bombarded with ads I am reminded why we moved. :)

But of course you are welcome to go back there and edit.

Facebook tries its best to guess what to preview. But we can add metadata to help it along. https://meetedgar.com/blog/facebooks-new-link-previews-need-know-2018/ -- Fenyx4 14:12, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I had a look at that OG stuff and I take it that our version of Wikimedia can handle it. As always, I'd be happy to help you w/the heavy lifting, but I imagine, like always, you're going to tell me there's not a whole lot I can do.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 23:20, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Updated Lich Graphics

Howdy. I updated my Shapes.Ega to make the lich look respectable, rather than like a giant, mutant turnip. Stupidly I misnamed the update as simply File:SHAPES.zip instead of something that made sense, like "File:Uniblab's Updated Lich Shapes.Ega". Anyway, since you're big on the hacking and seem to know your way around this here wiki, I was hoping you might possibly do two things.

1. Encourage others to take a look at my updated Lich sprite and offer comment
2. Help me rename the Shapes patch from something stupid to something smart

Cheers! And thanks so very much for the Hythloth patch! You truly are a prince among we peasants. Uniblab (talk) 04:55, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I like it! Really good job making it match the original art style!

Thank you for noticing; that was my intention. Uniblab (talk) 00:16, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I'll throw out some links to this in the Ultima Dragon's channels. Want me to do that before or after you do the name change?

"Uniblab's Lich Art Patch"? Or are you planning on updating other monsters? "Uniblab's Monster Art Patch"?

I'm not married to any particular name, but I think the danged thing certainly should be renamed before any promotions so people know into what they are getting. Do you have any suggestions? I don't think any other changes are necessary except for removing the waves from the squid sprite, but I can live with it as-is, so I don't expect any further enhancements. Uniblab (talk) 00:16, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Hrm, no other ideas other than the one I listed above. -- Fenyx4 02:37, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad you like the Hythloth patch! If you like that you may be interested in my recent project https://github.com/Fenyx4/U4DosRandomizer. Although it is named Randomizer the Randomizer parts aren't required and it has a lot bug fixes for the original game. -- Fenyx4 14:51, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

It looks pretty neat. I'ven't tried it yet, but I would most humbly suggest the --diagonalAttack switch accept an integer parameter, --diagonalAttack [0|1|2]. 0 means no change; 1 means all weapons attack orthogonally as normal except halberds may attack 1 diagonally; 2 all weapons may attack orthogonally as normal, as well as full range diagonally (1 for swords, 2 for halberds, 11 for spells/bows). Default is 0. I hope you don't think I'm too forward here, especially concerning a product I'ven't tried. Uniblab (talk) 01:16, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Suggestions are always welcome! I've created an issue with your suggestion. No promises. The halberd doing different ranges may be the trickiest part... Thank you! -- Fenyx4 02:37, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Please tell me more about --sacrificeFix Uniblab (talk) 01:17, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

The shrine says "To give thy last gold piece unto the needy shows good measure of self-sacrifice!" but giving your last piece of gold doesn't give any sacrfice. --sacrificeFix makes you gain sacrifice if you give your last coin. -- Fenyx4 02:37, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Oh yes, GIVE does not impact one's Sacrifice so I see where you are at now. An excellent idea. Uniblab (talk) 00:46, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I really like it and it looks pretty nice. Looks better than the sprite in the actual game in my opinion. TigerBlazer (talk) 17:37, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Now I just need to find a decent name for the graphics patch and update the wiki. ;) Uniblab (talk) 00:47, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Chest Drops

Hi. I wanted to share some thoughts since you are trying to document chest drops in the numerous Ultimas.

1. In Ultima IV it appears chest are randomly trapped with no weight based on contents; i.e., a poor chest is just as likely to be trapped as a rich chest. Ernest Adams makes wry comment about this common "feature" in his Designer's Notebook column[3]
2. In Ultima IV chests appear to yield 10-100 at uniform distribution; i.e., one is just as likely to get 11 as one is to get 55 or 99.

Thanks for your amazing work!

Thank you! And thanks for the kind words! -- Fenyx4 14:48, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Spam filter gave false positive

Do you know what's up w/this. I was trying to update Ultima_Codex:Research_tips_and_resources#Maps and when I went to save, it said it didn't like this portion of a URL that is part of the existing page (not my edits). I managed to outsmart it by replacing the 0s w/"%30"s but can the filter be safely tweaked?--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 22:13, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

We were getting absolutely hammered by spambots that were spamming images with links like that awhile back. I'd rather leave it in place. But let me know if you run into it again and I can try removing it and see if the spambots return. -- Fenyx4 05:05, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Again? Well I was devious enough to be able to work around it this time, but I'm not sure how it's going to go next time. I'll tell who is devious enough: spammers. If I can game the system w/url encoding, they could probably get all our credit cards w/it.

One thing that would have worked for me: is if the filter just triggered on new material in the end, not stuff that'd been there for years and persists in the editor w/the new material.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 21:22, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

New MediaWiki

Apparently the new MediaWiki doesn't have the ability to click "Thank You" for edits, like the one announcing the upgrade to 1.35, so: thank you.

I went through MediaWiki 1.35 (including every other version down to 1.28) looking for:

• New features I might find interesting
• Breaking changes

Just about all the changes don't seem to be editor-facing, so I didn't find any. I just thought I'd ask if you'd noticed anything different.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 20:46, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Biggest changes I've noticed so far is much better mobile support and how the filter works in https://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Special:RecentChanges. RecentChanges also has a Live Update which would be more useful if our wiki was more active. :) -- Fenyx4 21:58, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, maybe w/a more mobile-friendly MediaWiki it will be more active!--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 12:56, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Yay! -- Fenyx4 13:16, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

The Ultra-Mind Dragon's Nitpicker's Guide to Breaking MediaWiki Updates

ISBNs

I've found a few already. One is that the engine no longer scrapes the code and identifies ISBN numbers. That's not so bad, but if we go to things like Special:BookSources, the links to sites seem to have changed. I don't remember exactly what they were, but one was Amazon. I think another was Barns&Noble. Could we get them back? I don't think I have the permissions. While we're at it, isbnsearch.org might be a good one.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 19:03, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Good catch! Okay, the ISBN scraper is reactivated. They turned it off by default and suggest using templates for it instead. But I am fine with just activating it again. But the links to sites are hardcoded and I'm not willing to mess around in actual code. More info; Manual:ISBN -- Fenyx4 03:19, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Hmm... yes, I see it's deprecated. I guess we should start phasing it out. It recommends using {{ISBN}} but that one doesn't seem to be working. I guess we could make our own, but it probably makes more sense to take one off the shelf rather than make one up w/the same name.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 13:13, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Broken anchors due to collating their names

Check out Bi-Plane. That used to jump to the "Ultima II" section, and the anchor used to have the &nbsp; as part of its name. But now it's collated the &nbsp; and just using the underscore like it was an ASCII space. Broken anchors aren't the end of the world, but it would be good if we could at least find all the ".C2.A0"s and clean them up.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 19:20, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Fenyx4 19:50, 3 November 2021 (MDT)

Searching

This is more like a grapefruitpick: have you noticed the search is off? I looked for "map" and got 3 hits. But if you look at Category:Maps you see a couple of dozen that should have listed.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 13:31, 6 November 2021 (MDT)

Blew up the search index from orbit. That seems to have fixed it. Good catch. -- Fenyx4 21:57, 8 November 2021 (MST)

Editing Toolbar Missing

I realized that the editing toolbar over the editing window has gone missing. Was it scrapped or is it just deactivated? I see no option to re-enable it. The toolbar was useful to access things for which you don't have the formatting in memory. -Tribun (talk) 06:37, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Hrm, no idea why that woulda disappeared. I enabled the default one that now comes with Mediawiki now (maybe they removed the old one because this one was added?). I never used it so don't know what the old one was like. Does the new one fulfill your needs? -- Fenyx4 03:47, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Change the default Skin?

The current skin for the site is Monobook which was the default skin when this wiki was created however long ago the default skin for new wikis was changed to Vector. Monobook is still supported and I've always been a fan of it even though people say it is "old-fashioned". With the most recent update Monobook now supports mobile and I have mixed feelings on how it looks in mobile. I also need to make changes to the main page to make it look good on mobile (hopefully without changing how it looks on desktop). So before I do all that work I thought I would ask what people thought about changing the default skin to Vector which has also added support for mobile. You can see what it looks like by going to a page and adding ?useskin=vector to the end of the url. For example; https://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Skitle?useskin=vector. Below are some screenshots and links to see how things look in mobile. -- Fenyx4 04:19, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Current/Monobook - https://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Skitle Vector Top - https://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Skitle?useskin=vector Vector Bottom - https://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Skitle?useskin=vector

Based on what you're showing us old faithful looks foul compared to the vector one. If we want to be relevant going forward, I think we should be more mobile-friendly.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 16:00, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Okay, let this sit for 10 months. Cuz, um, I wanted to give time for people give their opinion. Totally not because I forgot about it. Yeah... Anyhoo I've now swapped it over to Vector now since if we do wanna dive into CSS then we should be using the skin we want before doing a bunch of stuff that might break when we switch skins. -- Fenyx4 22:24, 13 September 2022 (MDT)

Scripting

I've long been reformatting stuff (like tables) and saying "gee, I wish I just deliver this data as JSON and have a script figure out the formatting". After doing this for a while it occurred to me to consider that someone else has had that idea. I found https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Lua. I don't suppose this is the sort of thing we can do..? I've tried to figure out if regular users who can edit articles can create these scripts. Considering how expressive programming languages are, I can see how this could create a security hole.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 07:43, 22 August 2022 (MDT)

Seems like overkill. Have you looked into CSS and giving the tables a class? https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables -- Fenyx4 20:40, 6 September 2022 (MDT)

But if you do want something you can drop json into and get a table out of I'd recommend looking into gomplate. https://docs.gomplate.ca/ You can use it locally and then copy paste into the wiki. No need to install something on the wiki. -- Fenyx4 20:56, 6 September 2022 (MDT)

I have looked into CSS, but as I understand it, it requires admin privilege to write one. Also, it wouldn't have this all-important looping that iterating over data would afford.

This gomplate sounds like the right idea, but the way you describe, I'd:

1. Make my JSON
2. Make the script
3. Run the script on my own system
4. Write the output to the article
5. Include 1 and 2 in the article as a comment or the talk page, then hope that next editor that comes along is prepared to loop back to 2.

Is that right?--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 09:52, 7 September 2022 (MDT)

You do need increased privileges to write to the CSS that would effect all users. But you can try the CSS out on yourself first by editing User:The_Ultra-Mind/vector.css and then if you get your desired results you can ask me to promote (i.e. copy/paste) it up to the MediaWiki:Vector.css or MediaWiki:Common.css that effects everyone. Or if you want you can send me an example of one of your formatted tables and I can dust off my CSS skills to see what I can do.

For gomplate I was thinking you would only do steps 1-4. After that it would hopefully only be minor changes by other people so 1-4 would not need to be repeated. -- Fenyx4 22:53, 13 September 2022 (MDT)

If there were only minor changes to the tables, there wouldn't be much point in doing this. The idea is that fundamental changes can be made relatively easily.

Ok, I'll think some more about CSS, and maybe there are a few things it can do that I'm not aware of, and let you know when I want my work published.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 08:48, 19 September 2022 (MDT)

I think misunderstood what I meant by "minor changes". After you make your "fundamental" changes my hopes would be that people, say, adding a row to a table would be "minor" as in they would just need to copy/paste a row and add their new data. If other people working with the tables is hard after your changes then I don't think you should make the changes. -- Fenyx4 23:37, 3 October 2022 (MDT)

Well someone is misunderstanding someone. What I'm thinking of is making fundamental changes to the structure; not the data (although fundamental data changes wouldn't be all that more challenging either). For instance, I've been updating tables to professional standards by doing things like right justifying cells with numbers that represent magnitudes. Thus, if structures were generated programmatically and read from JSON, the pseudocode would look like:

for i=1 to row_count

output << '|-'

output << '| ' << json[i]['cell0'] << ' || ' << json[i]['cell1'] << ' ||align="right"| ' << json[i]['cell2']]

which would make maintenance very easy. And if someone were to add a row, then they'd just add it to the JSON.

The practicality of this becomes more apparent when you look at the tables I've been splitting. I found a lot of table where a group of cells in one row had no relevance to a group of cells in the same row. Now I'm splitting the tables, but I was dithering on that before. Before I was putting in thick or double borders to separate them. But if we were later to decide that one of my earlier dithers were the best one, then it would be an easy matter to change them. But, the way things seem to be now, we'd have to oblige editors to use that scripting platform on their own systems and post the output.

Speaking of table splitting: at the moment the only css I can think of I put in User:The_Ultra-Mind/vector.css but how do I get my edits to recognize that? I tried in User:The_Ultra-Mind/Sandbox and not surprisingly, it couldn't find the css.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 08:43, 5 October 2022 (MDT)

I understand that your fundamental changes would be fundamental. But AFTER your fundamental changes people might need to make minor (i.e. non-fundamental) changes. I would not want people to have to go through complex steps to make minor changes. In that spirit let's not make any changes that would require people to enter tables differently than they would on a standard MediaWiki since that would be confusing. CSS would be best for formatting tables and would immediately effect the whole site instead of having to make changes to each page piece-meal.

That is surprising that it couldn't find the CSS. Did you follow the instructions at the top of the page for bypassing the browsers cache?

When I edited my own page User:Fenyx4/vector.css to match yours and bypassed my cache it worked;

But it didn't visibly change the tables in your Sandbox because your css change had no visible changes to it. When I changed the background color I got this;

Try making your css file match mine and following the instructions to bypass the cache and see if that works. -- Fenyx4 01:15, 12 October 2022 (MDT)

Oh yeah... I see I made the CSS wrong. I gave it one try, then took it for granted that the sandbox edit couldn't find it, since I didn't give its path name anywhere.

After reviewing CSS, I don't see how I can improve that edit any more than it is now, unless you think the class name could be improved. In fact, I'd bet good money that it could be improved. What do you think of "outer-table"? "table-splitter"? "table-shell"?--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 07:55, 13 October 2022 (MDT)

I've put together a couple of CSS classes that will provide some relief: User:The_Ultra-Mind/vector.css

1. "supertable": this is the kind of invisible table that arranges nested tables horizontally
2. "blue-header": used for the kind of table that has that "lightblue" header and a bunch of other attributes we never seem to question

--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 09:08, 9 December 2022 (MST)

Can you change the name of "blue-header"? Right now it describes what it does instead of what it is for. So, if we ever decided "Hey, we should really question why the merchants are headers are lightblue" and changed it to lightpink then we'd have a weird css class named "blue" but it makes things pink. Perhaps it could be named "shop-table-header"? -- Fenyx4 21:39, 3 January 2023 (MST)

Yes, point taken. But I'm in the process of overhauling the weapon and armour values. Calling it "shop-table-header" would pose the same problem... unless we can alias CSS classes, then we could give it a bunch of names and seamlessly change contents as we saw fit. Can we..?

Yep, it seems they can be aliased. Now I guess we just have to come up w/names for them. I wouldn't have "header" in the name, because it's a table-based class. So I guess "shop-table" would do as would "weapon-values-table" and "armour-values-table".

Oh and in case you haven't noticed, it doesn't seem to matter where the CSS is saved. Even in my sandbox it affects the entire wiki! Check it out:

Header 0	Header 1
cell 00	cell 01
cell 10	cell 11

--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 09:41, 5 January 2023 (MST)

Ugh! I don't know what Weapon values looks like to you, but it looks just fine when I go to it using my account. However, I just visited it in incognito mode and it looks like the CSS doesn't load! I'm guessing it is because the CSS in my sandbox won't load for everyone. So do you think we could agree on styling sooner rather than later and get it published?

.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 11:01, 7 January 2023 (MST)

It looks like that to me as well while I am logged in. Perhaps it's a browser issue? (had trouble like that with table widths in the past).--Tribun (talk) 13:32, 7 January 2023 (MST)

I don't think it's a browser issue. I think it's just a matter of me being the only one who can benefit the CSS in my sandbox.

I've replaced the class invocations with literal styling until we can get the CSS published.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 12:51, 8 January 2023 (MST)

Hi Fenyx, it's been about a month since I made my last change to User:The_Ultra-Mind/vector.css, but it's yet to be published. Is there a problem?--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 12:31, 8 February 2023 (MST)

Just been busy elsewhere. I'll take a look soon. -- Fenyx4 00:24, 15 February 2023 (MST)

Loaded up. -- Fenyx4 22:06, 19 February 2023 (MST)

Great, thanks. Also note that I've poisoned the css in my sandbox to ensure it won't affect my browsing of the wiki, so keep that in mind if you're going to refer back to it.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 07:59, 21 February 2023 (MST)

New spam technology

I don't know if you've noticed, but we've been getting spam from guests lately. So far it isn't that bad, but I'm expecting we'll be up to our armpits in it before we know it, so we should probably get ahead of that.

Considering that it is probably AI-driven I don't think quizzes are going to work anymore. So ideas:

1. What about a proper CAPTCHA w/obfuscated text? Something tells me that they are also vulnerable though and commercial social media is going to get out of that technology.
2. Could we do something like put a prohibition on creating new pages by guests or on guest account saving to articles w/out a category?
3. Something to consider: what about the vulnerability of non-core pages, like talk page, user pages, forum pages, etc.? So far these bots only concentrate on new pages, but maybe that's because search engines only crawl core pages?
4. An approval process before publishing?
5. No, I haven't overlooked the fact that it's just a matter of time until AI is able to make user accounts and fool the nerdiest of us fanboys into thinking they are flesh-and-blood Ultima fans :(
6. Now here's an idea: AI-driven monitoring 😁

--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 08:59, 13 March 2024 (MDT)

Thanks for the heads up. In the past changing the question has helped so I've given that a try. If not I shall take more drastic steps. -- Fenyx4 22:34, 22 March 2024 (MDT)

Some user named Temlix has registered and and the stuff on the user page already is highly suspect. You think we honestly have to make registering non-automatic?--Tribun (talk) 04:30, 29 March 2024 (MDT)

The stuff on Temlix's page is just modifying their personal view of the wiki. Doesn't effect anyone else. But we are still getting spammed so I'll dig in further. -- Fenyx4 00:50, 2 April 2024 (MDT)

Seeing the newst wave of spam, it's a pity the page can't be set up in a way that new pages have to be in a category (and a valid one at that). While I'm sure it only would be a temporary solution, it would be one for some time.--Tribun (talk) 07:42, 16 April 2024 (MDT)

Policy on non-core page spam?

I feel a little gunshy on this gray-area spam like what's on user's pages, such as User:Bytespired. What should I be doing about this?--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 09:26, 15 April 2024 (MDT)

The Philistines are upon us!

Just dropping you this note before the hard drive fills up and we have to retreat back to Fondom: THE AI SPAMMERS HAVE BEGUN THEIR FULL DEPLOYMENT PHASE! And I'm going to have to go to bed eventually 19:51, 20 May 2024 (MDT)

OK, I fear we do have to block new user creation (at least the one without human confirmation) and only allow registered users to edit or create new articles. Otherwise I fear we'll never get rid of that crap.--Tribun (talk) 10:39, 21 May 2024 (MDT)

Nitpicky Ultra-Mind 1.39

Thanks for updating MediaWiki. I take it that it was to deal w/a certain security issue that's reared its ugly head.

Now onto the problems:

• The Special:RecentChanges doesn't work anymore. I think the filters I have in place are normal, but I can't see anything after the delete you made last night. For all I know, we could have been flooded w/spam since then! (Though unless Special:UncategorizedPages is also broken, we haven't.)
• The release notes brag about how 1.39 improved mobile support, but have you looked at any page w/a phone? I thought it might be a cache issue, but I looked at it using a browser I don't usually use, and it was just as bad.

--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 10:49, 4 June 2024 (MDT)

Indeed it is for the spambots.

Huh, hard for me to diagnose because RecentChanges works fine for me and I'm not seeing anything in the error logs.

1.35 added some good mobile support but I never properly fixed the Main Page to work with it. Most other pages worked fine... But now everything is busted on mobile. Fun. I'll poke at it. -- Fenyx4 11:21, 4 June 2024 (MDT)

Huh, now recent changes is broken for me. Double fun. -- Fenyx4 17:16, 4 June 2024 (MDT)

And now it's working for me. What a gas!--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 17:30, 4 June 2024 (MDT)

I poked it. Hopefully it will keep working. -- Fenyx4 17:33, 4 June 2024 (MDT)

Lol. Nice way of letting me know. But hey it stopped the spam pages. -- Fenyx4 20:53, 6 June 2024 (MDT)

Does this work again? Good, the editing bug is fixed. However, there still is the bug that imagines uploaded in 2024 do not display at their full resolution (however, the thumbnails do). That one is pretty crippling as well.--Tribun (talk) 05:21, 7 June 2024 (MDT)

Any details on it? I looked in Special:ListFiles and it only seems to be effecting 6 files uploaded on May 7th by you. Were they immediately broken after upload or did they break afterwards? Did you do anything different when uploading them? Are files you upload now effected? -- Fenyx4 10:20, 7 June 2024 (MDT)

I do know they did work when I uploaded them. They only broke when the new 1.39 was installed. Updating the images with the same image, despite an error message, does fix them. But since not all images were uploaded by me, it means some are still broken.--Tribun (talk) 13:04, 7 June 2024 (MDT)

Possibly overzealous spam filtering

I just tried to save an article that had a link to "youtu.be" and was blocked for that. I had that because it was the one that YouTube gave me when I clicked "Share". I didn't mind having to rework the URL so much, but a lot of articles have that format, so does this mean that every time an editor tries to save an article w/that kind of URL, they're going to be hit w/the same error? What would it take to remove that restriction? And how many spammers have been stopped because of that measure?

Using the URL format that YouTube gives you is probably the most sensible measure.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 15:01, 19 July 2024 (MDT)

Should now be allowed. -- Fenyx4 22:27, 24 July 2024 (MDT)

Spam blocking very short strings

If you look at Talk:Console ports of Ultima IV#Additional Master System Changes you'll see that entire articles are now locked down because of certain strings. I tried myself to edit my own bio page and put the string "mouse-over", as a compound word, not a hyphenated word, but it objected to... sierra echo oscar. I also tried writing the Console ports of Ultima IV article in my sandbox, and indeed, it was spam blocked.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 13:11, 7 September 2024 (MDT)

Honestly, what kind of system was implanted into the site during an update? It's utterly ridiculous and makes editing many pages virtually impossible.--Tribun (talk) 13:59, 7 September 2024 (MDT)

Let's be reasonable: remember all that spam we were getting? Well we haven't gotten any in months and I for one am a bit impressed that the breaking-in period has been this easy.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 14:23, 7 September 2024 (MDT)

OK, but it still is too aggressive if it causes such issues and needs to be finetuned.--Tribun (talk) 17:07, 7 September 2024 (MDT)

SMS and mouseover are now allowed. [space] sierra echo oscar [space] is now blocked instead (it was a really popular one with the spammers. Letting me know when you run afoul of the spam filter so I can finetune it hopefully isn't too onerous in comparison to dealing with dozens of spam posts a day. Thanks for bringing them to my attention. -- Fenyx4 20:43, 7 September 2024 (MDT)

So discover a blocked string in legit text and then we tell you about it? If you think that's the best way...

One thing that would be a slight improvement is if a bot could run through all the existing articles and tell you which ones aren't editable in the current form. As the Console article demonstrated, some existing spam-free text is now not allowable. Would that be possible?--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 07:58, 9 September 2024 (MDT)

Best way I know. I am open to other suggestions besides removing all the blocks. Feel free to run that bot and let me know what the results are. -- Fenyx4 22:29, 9 September 2024 (MDT)

"Feel free"? "Run that bot"? I... didn't know I could do that. And now that I've poked around a little, I don't know where to begin.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 08:08, 10 September 2024 (MDT)