User talk:Bigred

test new server

Looks like it's up, though I'm getting some certificate errors on my browser. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 07:37, 7 December 2016 (MST)

Thank you for the notice, we are working on that currently. Server migrations always take a bit longer than you intended.. Bigred (talk) 10:38, 7 December 2016 (MST)

Just an update, while I (Virginia) am able to access it fine so far, reports from Canada (Montreal) have had intermittent to no access, getting a 404 Error. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 22:38, 7 December 2016 (MST)

Thanks Eiji-kun. Any people seeing a 404 are attempting to connect to the old server that is down. Either the DNS changes haven't reached them yet as they propagate across the web, or they should clear their browser cache and web history and try the site URL again. Many times when a server is moved, regular users will have the old IP address/DNS setting cached on their local machines from repeated visits. Bigred (talk) 23:38, 7 December 2016 (MST)

Did you also purchase dndwiki.com? If you did it is still not accessing the wiki (giving certificate error). I am looking forward to continuing to work on the wiki. --Rlyehable (talk) 17:42, 10 December 2016 (MST)

Hi Rlyehable, we do not own dndwiki.com, it has been owned by a third party for some time. We have reached out to them to forward the domain to the new server. Glad to see you made it back, and I'm hoping you can help with some of the new sections we want to open up on the site (see my user page). Bigred (talk) 18:01, 10 December 2016 (MST)

Frontend refresh

Actually, you guys are the experts on this one. The frontpage has admittedly been kinda stagnant...mostly because I personally don't have the design expertise to come up with anything better. I'll implement any sort of design or template you can give. Surgo (talk) 17:34, 7 December 2016 (MST)

Here's the first initial frontpage design refresh if any admins want to take a stab at updating the upper right rotating article list.

• 2 column ( as we have now)
• (DONE) Left column upper section - Introduction section (as we have now, moved to left column)
• (DONE) Left column lower section - "Explore the Wiki" section, that has prominent links, and a sentence of description for our major wiki content subject, (Encyclopedia, Publications, Homebrew, SRDs, etc.).
• Right column upper - Featured Articles (a variation of the Community Favorites we have now) This section displays a random article summary from a set of 10 that can appear, to give people a taste of all the wiki's major section. Each of these summaries should include a single image. The ten suggested topics are:

• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Primeval_Dragons_(3.5e_Monster)
• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeonomicon_(3.5e_Sourcebook)
• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Ranger,_Tome_(3.5e_Class)
• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Canon:Dragonlance
• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Canon:Forgotten_Realms
• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Canon:Spelljammer
• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Canon:TSR
• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Publication:Dungeon_Masters_Guide_(1e)
• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Publication:Unearthed_Arcana
• https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Publication:Player%27s_Handbook_(5e)

• (DONE) Right column lower - Community News (as we have now, moved over to the lower right column)

Updated with updated frontpage progress Bigred (talk) 14:56, 10 December 2016 (MST)

So I actually had this weird idea. As much as I despise Windows 8 and 10's setup, I could almost see it useful for being a wiki's frontpage. That is, you have whatever blurb on top, and then 4-6 random small windows/icons leading to various articles on the wiki (or favored articles on the wiki rather). I have no idea how viable that is.

Also, since I see this coming up a lot and we are expecting new users, I was thinking of ways to make things more user friendly with formatting. I wasn't sure if it was better on the front page or in the editing pages on top, but I'm thinking a big red button (figuratively speaking) above saying "Don't understand the formatting, click here" and giving a simplified summary of how to work the wiki. Like "don't delete your title" and "remove the comment tags or your stuff won't show up". That's unrelated, but I figured I'd mention it just in case that is front page stuff. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 17:42, 7 December 2016 (MST)

The above was edited, so I'm replying to the latter part of that. I had a question about the tiling backdrop; wouldn't that be distracting to the eyes and for any text placed upon it? Then again I can't really tell until I see it, but just noting this concern. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:46, 8 December 2016 (MST)

Not to worry Eiji-kun, the tiling background is very subtle and designed to go behind the main content area of the wiki. So the light creme main area of the page where the articles are is unaffected. The background would only appear in the header, left navbar and footer areas, which are that darker tan. Bigred (talk) 01:57, 8 December 2016 (MST)

Fair 'nuff. That sounds like it can work. I will await to see what comes forth. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 01:59, 8 December 2016 (MST)

Firstly, welcome Bigred! Looking forward to seeing what directions you take us in.

Am I right in my understanding that you want to replace the Community Favorites entirely with these hand-curated Featured Articles? I'm a little leery of that – I've always been very proud of the community-driven process by which we pick our front-page articles. --DanielDraco (talk) 08:50, 10 December 2016 (MST)

Oh no, we are keeping the Community Favorites page and will be sure to add a prominent link to it on one of the 4 frontpage sections. The list of 10 rotating summaries is simply meant to highlight all the major sections of the wiki, so new readers will know we are about homebrew, canon, and SRDs. We want to show off everything folks can find on the site. Bigred (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2016 (MST)

Fair enough! I do like the idea of reinforcing the breadth of our articles. I wonder if we might be able to find a way to combine the concepts and created a community curation process for non-homebrew articles. --DanielDraco (talk) 14:53, 10 December 2016 (MST)

One thing I do like is this frees us from the need to write summaries for the community favorites to get them to appear on the front page. I like what you've done with the front page (sorry I'm not able to get to it, but I'm quite busy). One thing I did notice is the tabs on the top of pages are butt ugly. They were colored for the old background scheme, not the new textured parchment background. While the active tab can and should retain the current color, the inactive tabs do not work with this at all. I know what knobs need to be tweaked, but I'm not sure what they should be replaced with. Surgo (talk) 21:39, 10 December 2016 (MST)

Thanks Surgo, Regarding the top tabs, if you can let me know what images they are I can take stab at updating them with something better. I've done what I can on the frontpage, but the current system of randomly selecting the featured articles is a bit complex. I will probably need an existing admin who helped to set that up in the first place to update it with the ten desired stories for that section. Bigred (talk) 22:25, 10 December 2016 (MST)

https://dnd-wiki.org/w/skins/Vector/images/tab-normal-fade-dnd.png. That's the one that starts dark and fades lighter upward. It should match the background to look good. Surgo (talk) 13:18, 11 December 2016 (MST)

Pre-existing Links

So, noticed today that links to the site get redirected to the main page, potentially because the "www" is no longer in the web address, not really sure. Not sure if this is intentional or not, but it basically means that any link to the wiki anywhere that's been up just gets redirected to the main page instead of the article it originally linked to. So, what's up with that? --Ganteka Future (talk) 00:11, 10 December 2016 (MST)

Worse, it's a 301 Moved Permanently – that's going to mess with some caches. --DanielDraco (talk) 08:59, 10 December 2016 (MST)

The site is currently living at https://dnd-wiki.org Any www URL should redirect to it's corresponding URL. You did find a bug in our forwarding and we are correcting that, so thank you for catching that. The 301 redirect is the proper way to move a site to preserve it's link profile and will not result in any loss of linkjuice. The site should soon start to see the link benefits of being part of the BoLS network. It is now actively bing linked by a couple hundred thousand new links from our other sister sites. Bigred (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2016 (MST)

Bug Reports

Ran into this at the bottom of the page a couple of times now, wanted to make sure it was reported somewhere.

• "Notice: JobQueueGroup::__destruct: 1 buffered job(s) of type(s) HTMLCacheUpdateJob never inserted. in /var/dnd-wiki.org/w/includes/jobqueue/JobQueueGroup.php on line 420"

Is there an alternate place you'd prefer bug reports be sent in the future? - Tarkisflux ^Talk 20:11, 10 December 2016 (MST)

Thank you - we're taking a look to see what's up with that. Bigred (talk) 22:25, 10 December 2016 (MST)

I have noticed that some parmaeters on new articles are not updating/indexing. I.e. I added the following 5e SRD5 monsters: SRD5:Triceratops, SRD5:Tyrannosaurus Rex, SRD5:Doppleganger and SRD5:Balor. However they do not show up in a SemanticWiki query (see:SRD5 Monsters) and for some it has been over 10 hours. I have tried a manual refresh of each page to no effect. --Rlyehable (talk) 07:50, 11 December 2016 (MST)

Wait, what...?

Out of curiousity, why did you move some of the old community favorites to the new page, and move the new ones to the old page? --Ghostwheel (talk) 06:33, 11 December 2016 (MST)

With how infrequently we've been getting new CFs, it probably doesn't make sense anymore to just keep the most recent in rotation. That said, if the process is going to be changed, that needs to be a community decision. --DanielDraco (talk) 12:47, 11 December 2016 (MST)

That's an incomplete process, I was trying figure out how the current system worked and alter the rotation the have more in depth articles that featured images feature more prominently than the current set. But in any case, it's just a stopgap towards the set of ten survey articles up above that we want to have show up there. The community favorites page is now permanently on the "Explore the Wiki" section readers can go find them all if they wish. Bigred (talk) 13:07, 11 December 2016 (MST)

Isn't the hand-curated set supposed to be complementary to the community favorites, not a replacement? I understand the complete list still exists, but the whole point of it is to be pulled to the forefront.

Maybe we can instead go find images for all the existing CFs, and require in the future that new blurbs include an image? In the meantime, while we're working out these changes to process, would you mind reverting the CF changes? --DanielDraco (talk) 13:19, 11 December 2016 (MST)

For what it's worth, I'd be happy to find pictures for my commfav articles as a sign of good faith if that helps. Going to sleep tonight, so not soon, but I can get on it tomorrow. --Ghostwheel (talk) 13:26, 11 December 2016 (MST)

Requested pages reverted. Please ad some appropriate images to the blurbs where possible to help main page appearance. Then we can start to figure out how to get the additional requested blurb pages created and added into the rotation. Bigred (talk) 15:07, 11 December 2016 (MST)

I uploaded an Enchanted Pouch image for you to use Ghostwheel. have fun. Bigred (talk) 15:50, 12 December 2016 (MST)