User:Zai Lynch/Talkpage Archive 03

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Map maker

Yes, I noticed that right after I posted it. I posted it after seeing that it compiled, without actually using it in-world. Now I know better. I posted the fix, but seems we were making an edit at the same time. More good stuff to come as fast as I can dig it all out of my inventory. -Cow Taurog 21:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yay, lookin' forward to! :-) Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Mega Prims

As you seem not to understand English very well, I will try to explain why this edit makes no sense using small words.

What you wrote is: Linden Lab announced and discussed plans on using methods to prohibit the use of mega prims greater than 256m in one dimension, but then decided to only limit them to 64.000m, since they found legitimate use for the 256m prims (for example in horizons and skies).

What that means is: At first, the people at Linden Lab said that they would allow only megaprims that were up to 256m in any direction. However, they decided that there are good uses for megaprims up to 256m. Therefore, they decided that only megaprims up to 64m in any direction may be used.

Aside from being false, no part of this makes any sense, even by Linden Lab logic. Samantha Poindexter 14:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah... I think I see the problem. It was really a translation problem:

What I wrote was: 64.000m.

What I meant was 64,000m, beeing 64km. (We use the dot to seperate thousands in German.)

In office hours discussions it had seemed that no one was using megaprims over 256m in general ways, but Andrew had the good idea to scan the grid just to check… What we found surprised us. There are over 80 regions using larger than 256m megaprims, in almost all cases in order to generate an artificial horizon - either sky or water.

Given the number of these completely legitimate builds that would be affected, and the ability to implement megaprim clamping code essentially on a moment’s notice if it seems appropriate, we reached a new and somewhat different conclusion. In addition, I will be doing some performance and capacity work to determine specific overhead for this amongst other cases so that we understand the real impact of these on region design.
We have now decided that the best path will be to not restrict megaprim size to 256m as we had previously discussed at length (for months), but to only limit them to 64k meters, and have an upcoming project create better tools for managing large prims, both in terms of tracking them and providing methods to prevent mis-use that create problems for residents in overlapped parcels (where a megaprim overhangs their property, for instance).

Best regards,

Sidewinder Linden
Program Manager

– Sidewinder Linden, 2008.03.27, SL Blog

Thx for the heads-up! Fixed it in the article.

Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:00, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Ahhh. Makes sense. I apologize for the confusion! Samantha Poindexter 14:26, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh no need to! I consider myself beeing the root of mentioned confusion, so your edit and comment lead to get rid of the false information in the article. Much appreciated! =)

Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Mentor Linguists Group Invitation

Hi Zai,

I just recalled that I haven't got the invitation of the in-world Mentor Linguists group. I think you were too busy or SL ate your invitaion. XD Anyway, could you send me another invitation, please?

^___________^ Pandora Igaly 10:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Eeeps, thought I sent it ^_^ Sorry, sorry, sorry! But it's sent now.

Btw: The group might not exist much longer, since we decided to merge with the "Second Life CT Projects" group, which is the official Linden Lab group for the Community Translation Project. I'm still in contact with Lexie in order to decide if it will be an automatic merge (my preference) or if everyone would have to go through the sign-up process.

Thx for all the wonderful translations!! :-)

Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 10:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hahahaha, that's ok. Then I think it's SL ate your invitation. :p Thanks anyway.

^_______^ Pandora Igaly 12:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thx for Login screen page tweaks!

You're always so fast! I'd prefer the image to be non-centered, tho, so it's flush with the left margin (content box et. al). Incidentally, that makes it also more consistent with the Knowledge Base style. - Torley on 2009-04-06 @ 2:07 PM PST

Heyas =)

I see... I'm symmetry loving (always goes *itch* when stuff is out of line) so I'd also change it in the KB if I could ^^ but that's just personal preference so do it like you prefer.

I saw you changed something in the Editing Guidelines. I had written a proposal for a change there but got no feedback yet. Could you look at this discussion and see if it fits in?

Would be much appreciated :-)

Also heard that the L10n Lindens are trying to invite you to a Linguists Office Hour. Lookin forward to! ^_^

Greetz, Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Haiiii! I know there are some times when centered images are desired and it does take some aesthetic judgment, but since the text itself isn't centered, this is simplest.

Yeah, I clarified the Editing Guidelines to provide better expectations because some peeps understandably get confused as to what is actually provided by LL.

I'll definitely take a look at yours, then merge changes — I know you excel at the boxy look but I think regular headers are fine. (Boxes are great to call out things like the ToC, templates, and when there's a definite graphical layout, like the Main Page sort of looks like a NetVibes thing. But for "usual" text, I don't think it's necessary.) - Torley on 2009-04-07 @ 4:12 PM PST

DELIGHTFUL! I am back and THANK YOU GRACIOUSLY for your awesome freshening of Project:Editing_Guidelines. I further revised your great revisions and tightened up the flow some, it was in need of a good bath. :p

We don't have to have a rigid, consistent style all over the wiki (that would be boring) and I've adapted/changed conventions over time — so keep having fun and remember, I appreciate you. - Torley on 2009-04-07 @ 4:50 PM PST

Yay, thx!! :-)

Yeah, my English is sometimes a lil bumpy so it's good when a native speaker improves my scribbling. Maybe you can replace {{multi-lang}} with {{Help|Wiki=*}} on top of the article (or just categorize it with [[Category:Help/Wiki]] if the header isn't desired).

Also thank you for linking to my userpage! (^_^)

Have a great day! Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 11:07, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

We help each other, that's how it goes. Added {{Help|Wiki=*}}! And you're welcome. - Torley on 2009-04-08 @ 8:25 AM PST

Recommendations for wiki superusers

Zai! Quick, casual question, takes one to know one — feel free to share it around to others who'd be interested: who do you feel are the most prolific and useful Resident contributors to the Second Life wiki? Can be in any topic from LSL to internationalization, and list as many names as you know. I'm looking at various contris to get a better feel for who's really been active and making our wiki an awesome one lately. Thx!

Also, anyone seeing this, feel free to self-nominate. - Torley on 2009-04-16 @ 11:22 AM PST

If you lookin for someone who can handle non-English terms, count on me too. I'm doing admin of http://ja.secondlife.wikia.com already. -- Nock Forager 23:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Heyas Torley :-)

I'd say: Strife Onizuka, SignpostMarv Martin, Gally Young, Asuka Neely (Japanese translations, inactive lately), eva Nowicka (Spanish translations, inactive in the wiki lately, takes part in the CT Project), Nock Forager yuss ;-)

younger but active contributors: Pandora Igaly (translates articles to traditional Chinese!), MasterOf Perl (translations to Japanese and corrections in English articles).

Hm... I hope I didn't miss out on someone but I guess these are the most active who are contributing to the wiki. Dunno if you've seen my wiki spammer ranking so far.

I'll ask Strife if I missed someone... Greetz :-)

Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

hmmm, I'm not coming up with any but i'm tired. -- Strife ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:22, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

No worries about missing out anyone, we can keep adding to this. I didn't see your Spammer Ranking, thx for the heads-up! - Torley on 2009-04-17 @ 10:24 AM PST

I did forget people ;_;

There are a few more who need to get a thank you in this context.

Kuraiko is the one who's responsible for the Help Portal's design (searching icons suiting the needed licenses and the neat round corners!). He also made Template:TVT and Template:Hint. I think - no matter how good a documentation is - when it looks ugly, hardly anyone will read it. So this part is important to me. Thx Kuraiko!!!

People who do documentation work:

Gordon Wendt is very busy with compiling Bug Triage agendas, so is Harleen Gretzky when he isn't around. Both are also very busy JIRA contributors. Then there are a few, working on their own projects (private LSL script libraries, the LSL Protocol/Restrained Life Relay, the SL Certification, their own viewer skins or volunteer databases in their own userspace (e.g. Daniel Voyager)). I won't start to drop names here since there are to many. And since everything stored in the own userspace is somehow still private. Nevertheless: Thank you for sharing and making it publicly available to the ones who know how to find it!!

You know who you are.

Greetz, Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:12, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Damn straight. Great to have these names, all noted for future reference. Also glad to have a diversity of specialties from the hardcore scripting to internationalization to aesthetic/design. So another followup question, how easy is it for you to get a list of the current "Top 50" for User:Zai_Lynch/Wiki_Spammer_Ranking? I'd appreciate such a list if you have time to make one, since it's not automatic. OH THANK YOU. - Torley on 2009-05-11 @ 9:08 AM PST

Hm... I'd love to reply something like "sure, no problem!" though I can't >.>

I wouldn't be able to guarantee that I cought everyone. There would be much guessing involved... I chose the 1000 edits as a cutoff since I was kinda sure I'd notice everyone who edited so frequently to reach that count. Though I almost even missed Giggs, since he made most edits before I even joined the Wiki. Same with Morgaine. I'm taking notes when I notice someone getting close to reach it and check the count of them every month. I do so by browsing to Special:Contributions/Torley Linden (for example), setting the count on top to 500, clicking through how many full pages with 500 edits are displayed, multiplying the pagecount by 500 and then counting the missing edits on the last page. There's no way for me to see it on first sight.

I know that people over at the Wikipedia set up toolservers to do the counting. Maybe I can ask someone from there for the PHP(?) code and ask Kuraiko or Marv to deploy it at a server for this wiki.

An alternative would be Extension:Contribution Scores though it's not giving the count but a score (depending on edit type and namespace and stuff...).

-- Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

No worries! Just exploring possibilities here; it's not a MASSIVE priority but a "nice-to-know". Going to mention Contribution Scores to other Lindens. - Torley on 2009-05-13 @ 9:04 AM PST

Default breadcrumbs

Howdy Zai,

I asked Rob to assign WEB-971 to me because he's likely to be too busy to handle it. I think it's a good idea for cases in which article titles DO have slashes, though as we discussed my feeling is that such titles are not appropriate for ALL articles. IAC, he's out on vacation this week, so it may be a while before he responds; and I don't want to do it without his approval.

On a related note, I was going to use your Template:DefaultBreadcrumb2 in our internal LL wiki, where it would be most helpful. However, I see that it makes use of an L10n lookup, which we don't have in the internal wiki (it's English only). Unfortunately, my wiki-fu is not quite up to figuring out that template and I was wondering--if it would not be too much trouble--if you could send me a version of that template that doesn't use the L10n lookup. That would be a big personal favor to me, as I work extensively with our internal wiki. I would be very grateful!

Thanks!

--Rand Linden 23:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh kewl! :-) Yeah, it's not much of a hazzle. The L10n lookup only translates the name of the Main Page, so replacing that part with "Main Page" does the desired change. I also kicked off a not needed variable for this implementation. It looks like this:

{{#vardefine:bcname|{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}}}[[Main Page]] > {{#ifeq:{{#var:bcname}}|{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|1|-1}}||[[{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|1|1}}]] > {{#ifeq:{{#var:bcname}}|{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|2|-2}}||[[{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|2|1}}|{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|1|2}}]] > {{#ifeq:{{#var:bcname}}|{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|3|-3}}||[[{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|3|1}}|{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|1|3}}]] > }}}}}}

Greetz, Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:16, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

THANK YOU, ZAI!! You rock!

--Rand Linden 17:24, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

very welcome! ty (^_^); -- Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 11:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Cite Extension

Someone might have told me about us getting the Cite Extension. I wonder why I didn't notice it before, I'm sure I've been to the Special:Version page a dozen times since February. I only just learned about it because I wanted to refresh my memory on using my Footnote template and someone had left me a box... with an exclamation point in it. I'll be updating the template to use the extension instead. -- Strife ^{(talk|contribs)} 13:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Someone still considered the code of Template:Footnote to be awesome and inspiring (honestly) and used it instead of Cite on a collection page. Was/is great work :-)

--Someone ^{(talk|contribs)} 13:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Hehe true true, I didn't mean to come off sounding like I'm blaming anyone. Yeah I tried to use ref in footnote but it didn'a wanna go captain. I might try again though. Congrats on sysop btw (only a little envious).-- Strife ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ty :-) though it won't last long. Maybe until all German KB articles are imported, though I currently got even doubts that it'll survive this night and hope it didn't bring Simone to much trouble :-S

Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

FlaggedRevs?

Zai, are you familiar with the FlaggedRevs extension? I know it's been used on the German Wikipedia. We (Lindens) are looking for ways to improve the wiki editing process with a minimum of overhead; this includes the possibility of having more of an official presence here with quality.

Details are forthcoming but wanted to give you a heads-up. Any experience you have with this, or broader, your ideas for making more use of your and fellow wiki "supereditors'" talents would be lovely. Lemme know! ^__^- Torley on 2009-05-13 @ 10:35 AM PST

Looks useful. -- Strife ^{(talk|contribs)} 20:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Heyas!

Yeah, I'm an occiassional editor of the German Wikipedia and we're currently Wikimedias Guinea Pig for it (as far as I understood it). When people edit pages, these are only saved as drafts ("Entwurf") and people can navigate to these "unsecure" versions via the navigation bar on top. Common visitors (who aren't editors themselfs) don't really notice the drafts. They only notice the reviewed articles. The root page displays a little eye-icon when some editor with the needed rights reviewed and approved the version. It could be useful for some articles here (maybe something like Limits) but I guess the vast majority of pages wouldn't need this. Depending on how frequently the reviewers work, this slows down the time between commit of content and publishing. It might discourage some contributors to see their contribution in a long queue. I guess that might not be an issue while Strife and some other are arround though. We're reviewing the stuff anyway. Tho when we're on holidays...(?)

The Wikipedia doesn't suffer much from this, since there are way many editors. However, we don't have a huge pool of them...

It's in particular a defense against vandals. The people who review it (at least at the Wikipedia) aren't neccessarily checking/validating the info. Of course, we could handle that in a different way over here. In this context, I'd want to remind that this wiki hasn't had to deal with much griefing. I'm particularly only aware of three wiki-griefers, while one of them had/has several obvious sock-puppets. So that is a very very low griefing level and doesn't justify much paranoia.

It might be useful for sensible information, though I'm not aware if it's possible to apply this feature to specific pages only. I'll read up on the documentation...

However, in case you're aiming to the currently controversial way of dealing with KB translations, I'd suggest to have a seperate KB namespace and make this namespace only editable for members of the CT Projects (or find other criteria to import people into such an editor group). In case you're considering to go this way, please don't forget to include such a namespace in the default search! And/or follow the suggestions to swap to/add a Google search. That is, in case the pages are supposed to remain in sync with their English root. Otherwise - in case you'd like to welcome community contributions over there -, the FlaggedRevs extension might be the better solution. Also in case you're considering to move the English KB and would like to have this tool as a way to replace the current ticketing system to suggest improvements. Just a guess of mine, since Rand's Title Test for Pilot smelled like that (or it was just for an indexing tool to get the KB somehow visible for a search engine... hm).

So far my input on that :-) Thx for the heads-up!

Greetz, Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: Just had a look at the doc and a big red warning box tells me that a per page configuration isn't possible. Seems to be an "everything or nothing" deal. At least for a particular namespace.

-- Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

For the love of the content, could we please get a better search engine for the wiki? The default is terrible. It performs the search on the code of the article, not the article itself. It already caches articles, I wish it would use it for the search. A google site search would be a godsend. I think the two biggest complaints I hear are that the wiki is slow and that the search is useless. -- Strife ^{(talk|contribs)} 10:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Yuss, exactly. Lead me to WEB-1104. Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

THANK GOODNESS for the above input. I'll share it with fellow Lindens who wanted to know. Re: better search, I want it too. LL's internal wiki has a Google search, and it's definitely on our wishlist.- Torley on 2009-05-26 @ 9:51 AM PST

Epic template

I wrote an epic template... Template:JiraSearch, it has 200 parameters. And I only stopped there because I didn't want to have to tweak it with each SL release. If you want to use it, don't do so directly, make a page like Template:JiraSearch/1 and hardcode the search (I wasn't feeling inspired when creating the subtemplate name as you can see). -- Strife ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:53, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks useful! I'm considering to use it for the kbl10n stuff, though I'm not yet sure about the best search query... And this will most likely be postponed to next week. I'm planning another import/update session for tomorrow night and will then be on holidays till Monday. Although I'm not really sure if I can consider it beeing "holidays" since I might be completely offline during that time *ugh*.

Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

template:Stub

Zai, I just wanted to let you know that I reworked Template:Stub into something that can hopefully be used to tag articles that need expansion since the current system seems a bit fragmented. Using the category system for tagging and finding stub articles I'm hoping this will be useful. GW ^(T|C) -- 21:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, nice! Yeah the template hasn't been much in use. I think it's somehow related to Template:Vital-info and Category:Articles_in_need_of_expansion. Maybe registering all stubs to that category would be a good idea as well. Lynch ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:53, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Knowledge Base to Wiki pilot!

http://tr.im/pilot <-- easy link. :) This evolved partially out of the inspiring ideas you, Strife, Gordon Wendt, and others have shared with us to make the Wiki better. So much better I find myself capitalizing it on a regular basis. But seriously, have a look and chime in the discussion thread there, or add to your talk page. I'll be back. - Torley on 2009-05-26 @ 9:52 AM PST

The watermeloner strikes I guess, he'll be baack!!! :) GW ^(T|C) -- 17:27, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind me breaking etiquette and hijacking your talkpage a bit Zai, despite the concerns I expressed on the blog about organization I'm really psyched about this and think this will be something productive and fun for everyone to collaborate on. GW ^(T|C) -- 17:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)