White Wolf Wiki:Paw Prints

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Moving to WW?

Okay, so White Wolf now has their own Wikis for Exalted and for the World of Darkness (both new and old). However, they're really not giving the Wikis any structure, they're just leaving them up for the fans to do with what they will.

Should we stay our own seperate entity? Or should we start moving our WOD/AOS articles over there? Maybe keep to the Trinity Universe, Sword & Sorcery and Arthaus games for now? What do you guys think? --Ian 01:07, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm...I'd say let's wait and see at this point. If people start adding a decent amount of stuff to the new wikis, then I say we join in the fun. If things remain quiet and/or low quality, keeping to ourselves for the time might be a better option. Ultimately though, I leave it your hands, fearless leader. ^_^ BebopKate 03:09, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing. For one thing, the White Wolf wikis don't support user accounts; how are we supposed to keep track of who's changing what? Presumably IP addresses can be blocked, but if user accounts can't be created that makes tracking changes on pages in which you're interested, and attributing good or bad work, pretty difficult. I'm with Kate, we should wait out here and see what happens. -- Guybrush 03:43, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Methinks we should wait as well. Unless of course people start adding lots of stuff. Of course with a Wiki like that people are going to add a lot of fancruft. Me I'd rather stay here were the options and moderators are rather dandy. Whispering 04:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

White Wolf's Wiki seems to support user accounts, I've made one and the the history seems to be working fine. All in all, its somewhat obnoxious for them to make their own without consulting this project. I'm in favor of us moving our stuff over there, and using the opportunity to cleanup what we can. But I think Ian should talk with whoever runs their wiki to make everything as smooth as possible. Moogle001 06:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to agree with the others in saying that I'd like to wait. I can't be too confident about the future of that wiki, and if it does prove to be a decent piece of work, transferring articles will be as easy a year from now as it is today, right? PalominoMule 00:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts, all. Looks like the consensus is to take a wait-and-see approach, and keep doing what we're doing. If the time comes, as PalominoMule mentioned, it'll be just as easy then as it is now. --Ian 01:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

As Moogle mentions, they have had user accounts for just under a month now. I moved over all our help files initially, just to help get some sort of basic framework for people to work with, to try to help them out. The response was immediate: a flurry of activity to rename files, move them to a more appropriate place, and report pages on the Votes for Deletion page.

In response, I've been made a moderator over there, too. ^_^ Their nomenclature is a bit different (i.e. clan (Vampire: The Masquerade) rather than clan (VTM), but for the most part things are getting rather tidy. So if people want to start moving stuff over, that's fine by me. They cover the old WOD and the new, as well as fanon stuff and pages for their official chats. So someone can make a page for their character on the chats if they want. I'm happy to go into more detail or whatever if people want.

And no, I haven't abandoned this place. Don't be silly. :D --Ian 15:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Just wondering: I flipped around a bit over there and didn't find my answer...how are they going to keep fanon clearly marked away from canon? I don't have any issues with mixing the two, I just want to know if there's a clear way I can distinguish between them when using the wiki as a reference. BebopKate 19:32, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

That's one of the things I'm discussing on the Community page over there. Right now I'm thinking of attaching a {{fanon}} template to everything, which marks it and adds it to the appropriate category. See the template. --

Ian 22:59, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I've been messing around with adding cannon, totally didn't notice they were two separate places to put info. I have found no way to separate Fanon and canon, i like the tl attachment, may i use it as well Jarons 2:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey Ian I don't know if you have any power over there but is there anyway to talk them into making a separate wiki for the fanon stuff? It's really overcrowding the wiki. Whispering 18:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Pre-2000BCE Time Periods

In the timeline, I'm dealing with some fairly ancient dates - like a rough date of 5000 BCE - and I'm considering something about the time periods currently used. The oWOD timeline main page lists back through the 2000c BCE century; beyond that it only lists 3000s, 4000s, and 5000s BCE. AS linked, though, they're to 3000c_BCE and the like - centuries. Considering the very rough nature of dates so far back, and the relative scarcity of the same, should we treat them instead as millennia? So, for instance, 3000m_BCE?

Furthermore, there's a listing of "Prehistory" there as well. I'm curious about that, but it gets into some very...confusing things. I can't speak for other gamelines, but past around...2000BCE, things get very murky and conjectural in W:tA. Is there any particular way in which Prehistory is supposed to be used? PalominoMule 00:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Using a millennial nomenclature is an excellent idea, and I'm sorry I didn't think of it. Good idea.

Prehistory is for all the murky stuff that we know happened, but have no real idea when it happened. It would be listed in rough chonological order. So, fr'ex, from Vampire: God creates Adam and Lilith, Lilith leaves Adam, God creates Eve, Caine kills Abel, and so on. There aren't any defined dates for these events, but we know (sort of) that they happened. So that's the sort of thing that would go under Prehistory.

A link from that page to the Exalted timeline wouldn't be out of order either, come to think of it. --Ian 01:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Nomenclature change

Apparently, people have historically gotten confused over the "Wikicities" name, believing it to be a Wiki specifically for cities. Obviously, this isn't the case. So starting next week sometime, Wikicities.com will be changing to Wikia.com. The old URLs should still function for a while, but everyone should update their bookmarks and such. --Ian 23:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

(book) or (supplement)?

I want to create a few more entries for books in my collection, but I want to clear up which convention we prefer for books whose titles that match game concepts. The most obvious example is Gehenna, which is the first book I'll be doing, since it's in the most wanted links list. Most of the links for it point to Gehenna (book), but I've seen at least one (and similar ones for other books) which uses Gehenna (Supplement). Personally I think book is better because its short, but then you run into trouble with ambiguity for things which are both fictional and real world books, like The Book of Nod (I've seen The Book of Nod (Supplement)) or Revelations of the Dark Mother.

Do we have a standard for this? For that matter, do we have a standard for differentiating the core rulebook of a game from the game as a whole? I think they're mostly along of the lines of Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Rulebook, but I thought it best to check before I create a bunch of articles. -- Guybrush 13:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

No, we don't have a standard, but we should.

For my part, I tend to use (book). But in the case of the Book of Nod, I use The Book of Nod for the supplement, and simply Book of Nod to refer to the in-game book. Ditto for stuff like Ordo Dracul and The Ordo Dracul. That's probably not as explicit as it could be, though.

Yeah, the game line is Vampire: The Masquerade. The first rulebook printed for a game line is always in the form Vampire: The Masquerade Rulebook, and then Vampire: The Masquerade Second Edition and Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Edition.

As always, happy to entertain suggestions on alternate nomenclature. --Ian 11:33, 5 April 2006 (PDT)

Citations

I'm going to start getting a little more hardnosed about citations, and I encourage everyone else to do that, too. In the end, I feel it makes for a stronger article and strengthens the validity of the Wiki as a resource. Mark relevant pages with {{pna-cite}}. Thanks! --Ian 13:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Rather than just randomly mark pages as uncited as we come across them (as there are a lot of them), perhaps we could make it a wiki-wide focus for the upcoming month to work on citations for pages? I know not everyone can cite everything because they don't have access to all the books, but if we can concentrate on areas we do have the information for, we could knock out a good many of the pages and then just mark the ones that we really don't have anything on. BebopKate 18:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! I'm gonna name this the Month of Citation, if everyone's amenable. --Ian 18:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for it. We should probably have a link on the front page to the reference notes above (in place of the usual Year of the Lotus or whatever), or better, create a page something like White Wolf:Citations. Having read over the guidelines here again, I'm going to overhaul the Blood Sorcery references to something that more closely matches the (new) Discpline layout. -- Guybrush 00:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

RE:Moving to WW?

I'd like to revive this conversation and propose that this project fully join with White Wolf's Wiki. Though I may be wrong, it feels like things have slowed down here, while at the same time the WW Wiki needs some more smart people. And though it may be a little silly, I feel torn between whether I should write things here or there.

The WW Wikis could benefit from some things done here, like joining the World of Darkness Wiki and Exalted wiki into a general one or the addition of a timeline, but in the end I think it has the advantage. Moogle001 03:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we have the advantage just in terms of support for the Trinity Universe and Sword & Sorcery, as well as being able to cross-link articles, but I can see your point. I certainly haven't stopped people (and will never stop people) from copying articles from here to there, or vice versa. --Ian 15:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I find the official Wiki harder to navigate through right now because most of the fanon stuff hasn't been marked as such. I certainly have no issues with any of the articles I have written or contributed to being placed over there, though. BebopKate 03:11, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

This might be a little late to contribute, but from what I've noticed the offical World of Darkness wiki is designed for storytellers, while this one has everything the otherone doesn't. I would say we keep this seperate from the offical one. --Shaoken 00:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

If that's the case, I'm not sure it's intentional. I tried my damnedest to apply various chat/fanon tags to as many articles as I could, but it's hard. There are literally dozens of edits a day, and nearly all of them are for chat characters or whatever. And many chat players don't have a concept of the Wiki as a whole, so they'll have a link on their character page to Equipment, and then on that page they'll list their character's equipment, despite the overly generic and vague nature of the article title.

I tried, I really did, but it's just too hard to keep up with. I had to constantly be adding fanon tags or moving pages so they didn't interfere with the Wiki as a whole. The lines are far too blurred and most of the people editing it have no interest in making it useful to anyone except themselves. It's basically been commandeered by the chat crowd. The Exalted Wiki is much better. I haven't seen the "White Wolf Wiki" (covering Trinity Universe, S&S and ArtHaus stuff) since it opened, but I think we've probably got the advantage there too.

I'm proud of this place. I think it stands very well on its own. It's great when I need to look something up, and I can find the answer on the Wiki I started. (: It's also good when, for whatever reason, I'm doing a Google search for a name or term, and one of the first hits is a page here. We're doing a great job. I'm never going to prevent people from editing the WW pages, copying from here to there, or copying from there to here. But, I've decided, neither should we take this place down. We're doing something no one else is doing, because we're the only people who are trying.

Keep up the good work, everyone. I'm proud. --Ian 21:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I think our own Wiki stands head and shoulders

House icons and a template suggestions

Hola, everyone. You may have noticed that I recently uploaded a slew of icons for the Houses of Hermes (viewable from {{MTAhouses}}). I got all the founding Houses 'cept Diedne.

I didn't, however, add the {{imagewhitewolf}} tag, because I don't know where the images come from. They were available freely on several websites online, but I don't know if they're from any books, what books they're from, or who owns the copyrights (if it turns out to be post Ars Magica 3rd, they should be removed). I don't have access to any of the Ars Magica books: if someone could check that for me, it'd be appreciated. Also if you have better versions you can replace these with, that'd be cool too. :D

This brings me to another idea I had... a "design evolution" navigation template. Let's say I go to Image:LogoHouseTremere.gif. In addition to whatever information is available about that particular image, there'll be a small navigational bar showing Image:DATremere.gif as the earlier version of that symbol, and Image:LogoClanTremere.png (and maybe Image:LogoTradOrderofHermes.png) as the evolution of that symbol.

It'd be a neat way of showcasing the ties between seemingly disparate groups, such as the modern Hermetic usage of the Tremere circle/square in the logo, or the Nagaraja symbol clearly having design evolution from the Euthanatos omega.

Thoughts? --Ian 02:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's more or less what I was thinking, in the format {{DesignEvolution|DATremere.gif|LogoClanTremere.png}}:

File:DATremere.gif

This image is part of a series displaying a design evolution. An antecedent can be seen to the left, and a successor can be seen to the right.

Antitribu

I'd like to hear thoughts on this. I've got a bunch of antitribu symbols ready to upload, but I was wondering what form our articles should take. Should we have an antitribu section on each individual clan page (so, fr'ex, Gangrel antitribu would be found at Gangrel (VTM)#antitribu), or should we treat them like bloodlines and give each one their own page (such as Gangrel antitribu)? --Ian ^talk 02:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for as concise pages as possible, and considering the antitribu share much of their clan's history and such, I think its best made a subsection for each clan. Moogle001 05:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. (Sorry, computer logged me out.) BebopKate 07:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree they don't need their own pages, but I do think clans with signifcant or distinct antitribu branches (like, say, Tremere, Setites or Gangrel) should have separate Bloodline and Antitribu sections (at present, most have a single "Bloodlines and Antitribu" section). -- Guybrush 10:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, all. The antitribu page now links to various antitribu articles, such as Gangrel antitribu, but all the antitribu links themselves redirect to the antitribu sections in the parent clan articles. So Gangrel antitribu will redirect to the antitribu section on the Gangrel (VTM) page. All those antitribu sections now have their respective "clan" icons. Some are a bit lower-quality than I'd like, but I'll fix that once I get my Xmas scanner and I start digitizing the graphics in my WW books. (:

As it is, I believe think we're currently one of the best spots on the 'Net for getting good-sized images for a lot of the WW splats. Nowhere else I've found has all the Dark Ages or Sorcerer's Crusade stuff, fr'ex. Keep up the good work. (: --Ian ^talk 04:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Some disambiguations that need names...

I note that we have several terms which are used in the Storyteller, Revised Storyteller and Storytelling Systems (like Willpower, Humanity, various Merits, etc.) which currently cannot be correctly disambiguated because we don't have appropriate abbreviations for those systems. They don't need separate entries for each game line, and using nWOD and oWOD doesn't work either since we need to include Exalted, the Trinity Universe games and probably Scion as well.

What can we use? I was thinking (SrS), (RSrS) and (SgS), but those aren't very obvious - or pretty. Any ideas? -- Benjamin 02:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right, this isn't terribly helpful. Um... (ST1), (ST2), (ST3)? Also not very obvious, although somewhat prettier than RSrS and the like. --Ian ^talk 17:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, we could go with (ST), (RST) and (ST2), or we could go the whole hog and use (Storyteller), (Revised Storyteller) and (Storytelling). The second one may be a bit cumbersome, but it is the most useful and readable. Anything else means we have to devise acronyms for the site, though that probably just means adding whichever abbreviation we choose to the main article for each system (and the reference pages, of course). -- Benjamin 22:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

As long as they are, I do like the idea of using (Storyteller) et al; even though they're long, there's no question as to what they are. We can get away with the abbreviations for the game lines because they're fairly easy to decode, but since these aren't so easily abbreviated, it might be aggravating for someone looking up information. BebopKate 22:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Name Space problem

I also note that the template for starting a discussion doesn't work correctly on this page, because there's a space character in the name of the namespace. (Ha! Nice terminology, Mediawiki.) How can we fix it? -- Benjamin 02:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it got broken in one of the last upgrades. I've been poking at it periodically, but haven't yet been able to do anything with it. I'll keep at it. --Ian ^talk 17:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Apocalyptic Forms

I was thinking of making a nav template for the Apocalyptic Forms of DtF as there are quite a few of them and it is hard to navagate around. So any objections? Whispering 18:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Anything that makes navigation easier is alright by me. Sounds like a plan. Just curious, do you have any particular way you're going to organize them, or will it be a simple list? BebopKate 22:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Well we already have a list I was thinking of a nav template like we have for clans something that we could put at the bottom of the articles to make finding the others easier. Whispering 23:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)