Difference between revisions of "LGPedia:Lucy's Balcony/archive"

Latest revision as of 19:14, 20 August 2009

This is the archive of discussions from Lucy's Balcony that are no longer active or have been resolved. To revive an old issue, please start a new thread at Lucy's Balcony.

Finally, for discussions deader than Bree's dad, please visit the older archives.

OpAphid mess

Silver recently tried to unify the OpAphid bloglines, and the situation currently is kind of a giant mess. We need a consent on how we're going to treat the series and all connected blogs.

• Before, we had separate templates and "series" strands for Brother, Tachyon and OpAphid. The only thing crossing over was Miss Me?, which used Template:Blog rather than Template:Aphid. Apart from that, all bloggers were independent from each other, using their own templates.
• Now, all pre-canon and parallel videos, including Brother's and Tachyon's, use Template:Aphid, up until Miss Me?, which uses Blog, and all following ones use the brand new Template:Redearth88.

I was tasked with deciding whether to revert this change or not. In theory, Silver's system does make more sense. We do not have separate bloglines for Daniel and Jonas either, and neither do we do that in series like Maddison Atkins. However, since this is a rather drastic departure from our previous (year-old) system, which, among other things, means that videos by OpAphid use three different templates by now, I'd like to hear everyone's opinion on this before I go through and revert dozens of videos, when it's actually a logical change.

On the other hand, it's rather unfortunate that Tachyon's vids have the look and feel of OpAphid now, so if we do keep it the way it is, we should go all the way and create a "neutral" theme for the Aphid template, just as we have for other series. (Not to mention that the transformation wasn't 100% pretty, and all videos would need a post-change checkup of the links and variable settings.)

In addition, I just heard that it's, for some reason necessary that the new vids use the RedEarth template, so changing the post-canon vids over is kind of out of question.

Even though I loathe the work, I, personally, vote for a cleaned-up unification, including a new template theme, simply because we're doing it everywhere else as well, and it actually makes sense to have Brother's and Tachyon's videos, which are more or less a back-and-forth in communication, lined up next to each other.

Still, the old system is over a year old, and it's a rather drastic change, so...what's your opinion?

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 14:29, 5 November 2007 (CST)

It seems like nobody has replied to this for a while, so I thought I'd chime in with my thoughts. After thinking this through, I agree with the cleaned-up unification that Ren proposed.

Since it has been so long, if no one objects in the next day or so, I'd say you can go ahead and go for it :) --Zoey 00:03, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Okay, I changed the template and marked the other three for deletion, but it's been so long, I forgot what I wanted to clean up :/

I checked all pages, and the template was applied correctly, the numbers go through, they're linked correctly and all have bloggers. Lookin' good to me.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 23:55, 15 January 2008 (CST)

The new favicon

Who the fuck is responsible for the new favicon and how can I punish him?

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 15:59, 16 November 2007 (CST)

• sorry to be dense, renegade, but what's a favicon? --Milowent 16:05, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Favorites Icon - the ugly black thing in your browser's title bar/tab row, next to "LGPedia:Lucy's Balcony".

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 21:11, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Ah, i see it now. Thanks. --Milowent 22:10, 16 November 2007 (CST)

It's Ugly....With a capital "U" ... I mean....What were they thinking?! Nasty :( --free2liv4evr 17 Nov 2007 00:08 (PST)

I completely agree. We need to start a protest or something.--Jonpro 14:28, 17 November 2007 (CST)

Image Redirecting

At first, I was willing to put up with it... but now, I am finding image redirecting OUT OF CONTROL. The idea is to use it on pages like Characters or something.. when someone could click the image, because they'd think it would take them to that character's page. We do NOT need to redirect every single image is uploaded.

Redirecting makes everything harder to keep track of... harder to see what images have been categorized and what haven't... harder to read any image descriptions or whatever, etc. Plus, plenty of times images are used in more than one place, and if they redirect to a certain page, it may not take you to the page you want to go to. And.. also, it's a lot harder when trying to snag an image for use on a page if you have to go to the page they redirect to, then unredirect yourself back to the image and snag the URL, and yeah... I could go oooon and onnnn.

Image redirection used to be the exception, not the rule. And ever since that has changed, it has been a nightmare for me. So please, can we please go back to making it the EXCEPTION again? Pretty please? --Zoey 01:36, 17 November 2007 (CST)

I've never really like the idea of image redirecting although I do see it's usefulness. You'd think there would be a way of having an image link to a certain page rather than the image page itself. I'm sure I'm not the first person to bring this up. Has anyone heard if this is possible, or if not, why this functionality hasn't been added?--Jonpro 14:28, 17 November 2007 (CST)

If there is a way to do it, I haven't yet figured it out. We do not, however, have the latest version of MediaWiki, so it's possible the functionality has been added, but that we do not have the ability to use it. I agree, there is a time and a place for image redirecting, but I really believe that redirecting every image that comes up on the pedia is WAY overkill and ultimately does more bad than good. --Zoey 17:55, 17 November 2007 (CST)

}:::There is no such feature in MediaWiki; there would be a more or less convenient way if this installation supported embedding of "external" images, but whoever made the config turned that of. Should we get FTP access to the installation, I could change that, and one could use the image path instead of a descriptive text in normal external link code. (At least theoretically. And practically, I'd probably write a template to do that.)

We do have Template:Imagelink, though, which superimposes a link area over an image.

@jonpro: I assume the reason for the lack of this feature is that the MediaWiki software is developed for Wikipedia, which primarily uses free licenses - these often include an attribution clause, and that attribution wouldn't happen if a click on the image didn't lead to the image page.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 18:24, 17 November 2007 (CST)

A good way to take care of the problem is to install the ImageMap Extension, assuming we can. All of the templates would need to be updated, but it would be probably be trivial to do so. - Shiori 10:19, 24 November 2007 (CST)

I don't know why I labeled that as a minor edit, but I thought I'd mention that that's the only way (other than the template Renegade mentioned) that I've found to do that without redirects. - Shiori 10:28, 24 November 2007 (CST)

I didn't mention the extension for a simple reason: Even if we could install it (which we can't until we get FTP access), the syntax is hardly something you'd want to impose on a casual user. Simply being able to use the address of an image as the link text would be a lot easier to comprehend. We're talking about

<imagemap>
Image:Foo.jpg|200px|picture of a foo
rect 0 0 199 199   [[Foo type A]]
desc bottom-left
</imagemap>

vs. [page address image address].

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 15:28, 24 November 2007 (CST)

Would that really be that difficult to put into a template, though? For instance, for the character listing just plop this into the code in place of the current image call:

<imagemap>
Image:{{{image}}}|{{{imagewidth|{{ #expr: {{{width|240}}}/2 }}}}}px
rect 0 0 1000 1000   [[{{{charactername}}}]]
desc none
</imagemap>

It was just a suggestion, though. The other stuff would require template changes anyway. The image address being able to be used as the link description would be awesome, but it still doesn't exist... :/ - Shiori 18:19, 24 November 2007 (CST)

Hmm. Actually (again, if uploading an extension were possible), the ImageLink Extension is a lot better. - Shiori 18:29, 24 November 2007 (CST)

Also thought I'd add that we probably shouldn't use Template:Imagelink, as Wikipedia is phasing it out due to many problems it creates. - Shiori 18:44, 24 November 2007 (CST)

Jumper/watchyourjack/whatweird

I'm starting a discussion on what type of exposure the Jumper videos should get. Keep in mind that the watchyourjack videos have a separate storyline from lonelygirl15, but are considered canon. In My Opinion, The Jumper Series should be organized like Redearth88 (but using the lg15 person template and the lg15 and whatweird categories). What does everyone else think? --FH14 11:52, 24 January 2008 (EST)

I'm disagree, for a very simple reason: It won't be important. Forget the canon thing for a moment, and view this realistically: It's a commercial. Nothing more. Yes, it has been included in a few canon videos, but the truth is, the moment the advertising contract is over, we'll never hear from Jack again, the Creators won't including "jumping" of any kind, nor will whatweird ever play a role again. On my talk page, you brought Nikki B. as the closest example - but as you yourself noted, Jack is not LG-based. Nikki B. is an important, if minor, influence to the universe. Hell, she even saved the kids' asses in the last season finale. Whereas this advertising campaign has no influence on the plot whats-o-ever. Think about it:

• Whatweird.com was mentioned a dozen times, yet it has never played a role in the plot
• Jack has been mentioned and shown several times, yet has never played a role in the plot

If it was something or someone like Nikki B. or Spencer, that/who leaves a lasting impression on the plot or the community, I'd agree. But the important point is, Jack doesn't. Jack will vanish, and it'll be like he never existed. The sole purpose of his appearances is drawing hits to whatweird and the Jumper ARG. He has nothing to do with LG15. He is basically living Ice Breakers Sours Gum. Just like all product placements, he's somewhat noteworthy. But not noteworthy enough to create a whole array of pages for him.

Jack's story is totally and entirely irrelevant to LG15, and, as such, there is no reason we archive it at LGPedia. Now, one might argue that Redearth88's story, for example, is not relevant to the plot either, but a) such thoughts are exactly the reason we're currently doing the fanfic revamp (to determine what's notable enough to stay), and b) Redearth is at least lg- and community-based. Jack is neither. Jack has a totally independent universe that only crosses with "ours" because it needs exposure. Nothing more.

Give Jack one summary page where everything is explained, with a whatweird section, a jumping section, an episode list with links to youtube, and link to the Cs admitting it's advertisement. And then be done with it. We're LGPedia, not JumperPedia.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 11:41, 24 January 2008 (CST)

I'm agreeing with Ren on this one. The current sections used for the Jumper stuff seem more than sufficient. - Shiori 07:48, 29 January 2008 (CST)

I just thought I'd add that I don't even think the Jumper page is necessary; it just seems superfluous. - Shiori 09:11, 30 January 2008 (CST)

Renegade said: "He is basically living Ice Breakers Sours Gum." Haha. It does feel a bit weird to work too much on fan-run pages for advertising, now that the mystery behind jack's connection to lg15 is over.--Milowent 16:12, 31 January 2008 (CST)

Okay guys, I think it's about time we reached a conclusion on this thing. I moved all the Jumper-related pages (unless I missed some) into Category:Jumper. Here's a rundown of each page:

• Whatweird.com - I think this page should stay since the site was mentioned in several lg15/km videos and there is also an obvious connection to Jack.
• Suzie - After scanning this page, it seems to contain a nice narrative of the goings-on at the whatweird site. There might be a better place to put this information, but I don't think that's too big of a concern.
• Jumper ARG Characters - This page seems excessive to me. As has been stated, the purpose of LGPedia is not to chronicle the Jumper stuff to any large extent, so I think this page has to go.
• Jumper - Okay, right now this page is modeled off of the other ARG pages (Redearth88, AphidPedia), but that doesn't really work for Jumper. Again, this has been stated, but Jumper is not based off of lg15 (like those two are) and therefore doesn't deserve the same kind of treatment. Also, information about the story is found on other pages. So we should be able to use this page to talk about the crossover between the Jumper story and lonelygirl15. So far this has taken place through Taylor, so information about those videos can be found on this page. Also, if not included elsewhere, other references to Jumper-related things can be here. Basically the point is that we're not chronicling Jumper like we are Redearth88 and OpAphid (or did, I should say) because they aren't the same type of thing.
• Jack - This page seems pretty good as it is, although we may have to work on where we're going to keep all the aspects of the story somewhat.

Okay, that's what I came up with (with Zoey's help). Feel free to add your opinion about it but as this seems to be pretty close to the general consensus, we'll probably end up doing something like this. Thanks!--Jonpro 22:37, 1 February 2008 (CST)

I must preface this with an "I'm very tired so forgive me in advance if what I'm about to say doesn't make sense :P"

Anyways, I agree with the way Jon laid this out, but I wanted to kind of explain the reasoning behind it. There are three different aspects that make this whole crazyness up - lonelygirl15, the Jumper promo stuff (Jack, Suzie, Whatweird.com), and the lonelygirl15-Jumper integration.

So to look at these one at a time:

• Lonelygirl15 - lonelygirl15 is its own show. It has nothing to do with any of the happenings in the Jumper movie or any of what's going on with Jack/Suzie/Whatweird.com. Any mention of it in the series itself should go on the integration page (see below).
• The Jumper Promo Stuff (Jack, Suzie, Whatweird.com) - This is something that can be covered, but does NOT need to be covered in depth. The lonelygirl15 people are running a nice story over there, totally seperate from lg15.. .just related to the Jumper stuff. A FEW pages to track the happenings there are fine, which is what we have in pages for Jack, Suzie, and Whatweird.com. We do not need to get too much into it, though, as it is not relevant to anything beyond the promo.
• The Integration - Like Jon said, the page that covers the integration (which I actually think should be moved from "Jumper" to "Jumper Integration") should be used to talk about the crossover between the watchyourjack and loneylgirl15 stories. It can mention Taylor and Jack.. and include links to other pages that might provide more information on both of their stories repsectively. It can also include the full list of videos in the Jack-Taylor crossover, if you'd like. There can also be a section where we keep track of when other characters (in either LG15 or KM) have made shoutouts to the whatweird site, etc. I think that would make it a really great page that would keep it much more in line with the kind of information LGPedia should be covering.

I think the treatment of these pages as Jon and I laid out will best keep with the needs and goals of LGPedia in covering this story. Hopefully this all makes sense.... please let me know if you're confused about any of it.. I'll try to check in on this page when I'm a little less tired :) --Zoey 00:49, 2 February 2008 (CST)

I think I understand what your saying Zoey (I had posted an earlier comment in this discussion on how I was a bit rash about proposing that Jumper be covered in so much depth, but it seems that the school computer I was using didn't process it). I think you're right. If everyone else agrees, I'll restructure the Jumper/Jumper Integration page in the way you and Jon proposed. (Also, I marked that massive Jumper character page for deletion, that was a mistake on my part. However, I re-created the pre-existing Paladin page I had dirived it from for organizational/informational/it's-info-that-is-difficult-to fully-integrate-in-any-other-article-in-a-way-that-makes-sense purposes.) --FH14 12:45, 02 February 2008 (EST)

I think the Paladin page should be integrated with the Jack page, or the crossover page. It'll never be more than just a stub anyway, so I see no reason for it to exist. - Shiori 13:22, 2 February 2008 (CST)

FH14, I think the fact that the paladin info doesn't fit any other page is exactly the point of this whole discussion - it doesn't fit anywhere because this is lgpedia, not jumperpedia.

I vote for integration rather than a standalone page as well.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 03:03, 3 February 2008 (CST)

I just redid the Jumper page, to be more of a "how the movie has integrated into the series" page. It's kind of crappy, though, so feel more than free to modify it. The paladin page is going to be merged with the Jack page, since it a) has nothing to do with Whatweird, which is being featured heavily on the redone page, and b) paladins aren't playing that big of a role. - Shiori 09:26, 5 February 2008 (CST)

Buckshot

OK, i created a page on Buckshot. What level of treatment should he get? Seriously though, if there are more behind the scenes vids coming out, we probably want to track them some way. Including the 2007 holiday video. --Milowent 12:34, 31 January 2008 (CST)

I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that, assuming Zoey allows the page to stay, it should only be mentioned on the Yousef Abu-Taleb page. I already did that, though I don't know whether I should have put it in the Portrays part of the template... - Shiori 13:04, 31 January 2008 (CST)

well, who cares what zoey says!!! :-) but if the majority is against it, away it will go i guess. i do feel that we should see what other behind the scenes vids are released before Season 3 debuts, and then figure out a way to cover them all. The Buckshot page has already been viewed 200 times in a few hours, clearly its in demand! --Milowent 16:09, 31 January 2008 (CST)

Page/Category naming conventions

Maybe this isn't the best time to bring this up, but this has been bugging me a little bit for a while now. When KM joined our ranks here, we ended up with a variety of different variations for KM versions of pages. For example, we have:

• Characters / KM Characters
• LG15 Soundtrack / KateModern Soundtrack
• Notable Details / KateModern notable details
• Category:LG15 videos / Category:KateModern videos
• Category:Behind the scenes / Category:KM Behind the scenes
• etc.

Not to mention that some of these also have capitalization inconsistencies and deviations from convention. So my point of this is that I'd like to go through all of these pages and clean them up. First we have to decide what we want the conventions to be. Right now, we seem to have a bias toward LG15 simply because it came first. So there was no reason to name the Cameos page, for example, "Lonelygirl15 cameos". Now, since we cover both series, I think they should be treated equally. My proposal is to use prefixes of "Lonelygirl15" (not "LG15") for lonelygirl15 pages and "KateModern" (not "KM") for KateModern pages. The same would apply for categories. Capitalization should also be standardized: the first word must be capitalized, but all others should be lowercase unless they are normally capitalized in a sentence. Using the same examples as above, these would be the new names:

• Lonelygirl15 characters / KateModern characters
• Lonelygirl15 soundtrack / KateModern soundtrack
• Lonelygirl15 notable details / KateModern notable details
• Category:Lonelygirl15 videos / Category:KateModern videos
• Category:Lonelygirl15 behind the scenes / Category:KateModern behind the scenes
• etc.

I think it's important to leave redirects in tact for these pages instead of deleting them, not only to keep links here working, but also links from external sites. So, what do people think of this proposal? Any suggestions, alterations, etc? If not, I'll go ahead and start working on this in a few days (presuming I have enough time).--Jonpro 18:32, 16 March 2008 (CDT)

Honestly, seeing all that, I vote for just adding LG15:, KM: and Portal: namespaces. Way easier to have separately searchable LG15 and KM namespaces than to always have to type out L - o - n - e - l - y - g - i - r - l - 1 - 5 in front of all important pages. You'd just have LG15:Videos, KM:Videos, and if any new series gets added, you can just add a TS: (Third Series) namespace, and happily add TS:Videos next to them. The Portal namespace could be co-used by Tier 5 UGC, so we'd have Portal:Lonelygirl15, Portal:KateModern, Portal:Redearth88, Portal:MaddisonAtkins and so on.

For categories, we should settle for LG15 ... and KM ..., 'cause some pages get automatically put in loads of categories, and an entire "Lonelygirl15" everytime would cause half a dozen of lines just for the categorization area.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 00:05, 17 March 2008 (CDT)

We should keep in mind that LG15 is probably not the best abbreviation for lonelygirl15, as it currently means the entire Breeniverse. (Remember when Miles posted this?) If we end up choosing to not use the full spelling of each series in the new official naming convention, we should use "LG" and "KM" under the greater the "LG15." --Pheon 02:37, 17 March 2008 (CDT)

If we don't go with Ren's idea of namespaces, I need to emphasize the fact that most of these pages typically ended up just having "KM" tacked willy-nilly onto the front, so you get weird variations of capitalization. (Product placement makes sense, but why is it KM Product placement, not "KM product placement"?) Ren's idea would eliminate my complaint, but we need to keep this in the back of our minds on any decision we make (I can't TELL you how much that product placement page's naming convention bothers me.)

Also, I think LG15 for the namespace is still the best thing to use. I know it technically encompasses both lonelygirl and KM, but we can't make a namespace lg15 because of the naming constraints, and most people are familiar with the acronym applying to lonelygirl. We can even put an explanation on the categorization pages, if you want.

I don't know if I like the idea of Portal areas for anything other than the official series, though... - Shiori 06:49, 17 March 2008 (CDT)

Figured I'd add that, for the categories names, I prefer having Lonelygirl15 and KateModern. I know it's silly, but I think a good percentage of the people would be confused by a usage of "KM", and having them actually spelled out makes figuring out categories easier. Maybe that's just me, though. - Shiori 06:54, 17 March 2008 (CDT)

The namespace idea sounds good to me, and I think I prefer "LG" over "LG15" for the lonelygirl15 namespace. Miles did explicitly say that "LG15" meant the entire universe, although it is true that it's often used as an abbreviation for lonelygirl15 (and of course, that's where the abbreviation comes from). However, I think "LG" would be just as recognizable as an abbreviation for lonelygirl15 and wouldn't result in any confusion for people. For the categories, we might as well use the same abbreviations as we use for the portals. Really, KM (around here at least) is recognizable enough as meaning KateModern (I mean, if we're using it for the namespace, I would hope so).--Jonpro 00:38, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

I just took care of (hopefully all of) the category naming convention issues, so the only thing that remains is the page naming issues. - Shiori 13:15, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Okay, having thought about this, I think I'm leaning toward my original suggestion the most. The thing with namespaces is that not everything about the series would be included there, so it's inconsistent. I mean, we wouldn't move Charlie to KM:Charlie because that would make things even more difficult. And when you think about it, we're talking about a rather small number of pages here, so having "Lonelygirl15" or "KateModern" in front really wouldn't be that much of a hassle. (And if we wanted to, we could even create redirects for LG:Characters and the like for easy access.)--Jonpro 15:01, 1 April 2008 (CDT)