The Sims Wiki talk:Community Portal

Public Relations
Hi there, I made a forum post about getting some banners to other sims sites. Say we create a page for their site on the wiki and we kindly ask them to link to us in return. Forum:Site banners

What I need from the community is taking a look at the banners and maybe jazz them up with mad paint skills. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 23:08, June 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm gonna try and formulate an email which we can send to potential affiliates.

How do you like it? Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 02:17, July 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * Two suggestions. One, add a link to the page for that particular site - for example, if this message were sent to Carl's Sims 3 Guide, somewhere in the message give a link to the article page. Second, 'aswell' should be 'as well'. Otherwise, it looks awesome to me. --Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog) 22:45, July 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's already there, I added color for emphasis and fixed the spelling. Maybe this should be signed and sent out by an admin? I'd wait for a handful of thumbs ups before sending anything. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 01:20, July 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * It needs a link to our main page where The Sims Wiki is first mentioned and then the url under the salutation. Great job! --a_morris (talk) 14:35, July 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Added urls and gave the link to their site a lineskip for emphasis. I assume people accept HTML emails these days. The microbanner should probably get a new name, something like File:The Sims Wiki Microbanner.png. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 20:12, July 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think most email programs and web-mail interfaces will parse a URL into a clickable link even if it's not HTML-ified. Dharden 07:40, July 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm gonna go ahead and assume we all like the microbanner and will use it as an offical micro-banner for The Sims Wiki. Also, should an admin send this out or is it ok if it's just a user? And does everyone think it's ready? Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 14:53, July 16, 2010 (UTC)

Alright an update. My email (hotmail, I know I know) apparently has had some brute force hacking attempts on it and now it's lost in the support hell of Microsoft. Not sure when/if I get it back, I wanna see if it can be salvaged before I make a gmail account. But in the meantime I need someone else to send out some affiliation emails. I reconfubulated the standard email abit:

Duskey ( talk ) 17:02, July 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * I created The Sims Wiki talk:Affiliates. Duskey ( talk ) 17:18, July 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've begun to send out email. Hang on. Duskey ( talk ) 20:25, July 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * Future discussion should be taken to the affiliates talk page. Duskey ( talk ) 14:53, July 24, 2010 (UTC)

Wikia
I'm confused with the whole wikia login thing... So, my wikia account can be accessed from any wikia but are my discussion page and userpage the same on every wikia? --Nman649 02:20, June 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * Your login works for wikis in Wikia, but your user page and talk page is exclusive to each wiki. So your pages on this wiki will be different than pages on any other wiki. (Someone correct me if I have this wrong). LostInRiverview (talk)(blog) 02:26, June 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks correct to me. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 03:57, June 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * That is the default, but notice of new messages on your talk page notfied you on any wiki regardles which one it was left on. AND you can make you Community Central user page show up on a wiki you edit by change the contents of the local page to transinclude it. Naming by changing User:Nman649 to  --Roguebfl Talk 09:10, August 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd hate to split hairs, but transclusions outside the template namespace must be prefixed with a colon, so the correct example would be  Duskey ( talk ) 10:30, August 24, 2010 (UTC)

'Did you know...' section
How about a 'Did you know...' section on the frontpage similar to on the Harry Potter wikia, it should contain information such as on Snooty Sims' 'Did you know...' page Did you know... and so on and so forth. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 13:20, July 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Examples
 * that you can free a burglar after he has been caught by the police?
 * that drilling with the Miner near the police station will trigger a prisoner escape?
 * Astronauts only work 1 day a week?
 * Good idea. It can go up when there isn't a poll. I like the idea of having the community suggest dyks but do you think it is necessary to vote on them? Also, I was thinking they should be change randomly instead of manually. --a_morris (talk) 16:08, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
 * I like the idea... how often would it change? Would it change every so often (once a month, week, etc.) or would it change every time someone visited the page? -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog) 16:15, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
 * I like it. They should mention which game(s) they're for. For example, "Astronauts only work 1 day a week?" is only true for TS3, even though the job title also exists in TS2. Dharden 17:03, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, they should obviously mentioned which game they're from. Either 'Astronauts in The Sims 3 etc...' or use vgversion. Ideally the wiki should select 3, 4 or 5 lines from a long list, but I have no idea how to set this up. They should be rigged to change automatically once every week or month. I vote for every week. CAN you even set that up on wikia? As for when to display it: Shouldn't is be always? The new bi-monthly contest thing either presents a vote or a featured article doesn't it? Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 19:47, July 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've set up The Sims Wiki:Sandbox/Did you know to add facts to a list before we implement it. There's still abit of discussion and development to do, but now we can add facts if you've already got some ideas or some across something interesting you don't wanna forget. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 20:03, July 11, 2010 (UTC)

Should we sneak in some stuff about the wiki? Like 'Did you know can create and participate in competitions?' Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 07:19, July 12, 2010 (UTC)


 * I poked around on the HP wikia and found that their template is quite manual, it just links to 5 lines. On the talk page they nominate, vote and discuss new DYK's. They also have subpage called archive to store the old ones.


 * Personally I'd love ours to be randomly selected though. Doing it all manually seems like an administrative waste of time and I don't think we can stretch our admins much more. I also don't like their archive, it means some people won't see most of the DYK's without looking for them, but I DO like their idea of people being able to see the full list if they wish to do so.


 * Now, how to set up a template which fetches 5 random lines is another matter. I have no idea how, but I'm sure it can be set up using the parser functions. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 12:27, July 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * I must say, this gets very complicated very fast. After digging around a little bit, I found this extension on MediaWiki... but that's as far as I can really go on my current level of technical knowledge. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog) 15:22, July 15, 2010 (UTC)
 * After poking around a bit more, I've found something else which is already installed into this wiki. Let me display an example....
 * All choices are from The Sims Wiki:Sandbox/Did you know. I've numbered all options as well (1-7 currently). Hopefully, this function will select one of the seven options at random. I don't know how often it will re-randomize, or if it will do so automatically.
 * Below is a random 'Did you know':

* Astronauts in The Sims 3 only work one day a week. (1) * The Ecological Guru in the Natural Science career in The Sims 2: University has a 21-hour workday, though they only work once a week. (2) * Ghosts in The Sims can't climb stairs. (3) * Any user can create and participate in a contest. (4) * You can talk to any user, even unregistered ones, using a user's talk page (5) * You can discuss changes to any article using that article's discussion (talk) page (6) * We're always on the lookout for new articles. If you have an idea for a page that should be on the Wiki (and isn't yet), you should create a page for it! (7)

That looks awesome, almost what I was going for. Once it's ready to launch I say we slap a template on the front page (eg. DYK). This template then has all the DYK's on The Sims series. We then add another template named DYK-wiki. New additions once the initial list is complete can be discussed on the template talk pages. If the can be set to display a number of lines, then we're pretty much there from a technical standpoint. I suggest 4 sims series DYK's followed by a single sims wiki DYK. At the moment the chooses a new once every time you load the page, but not on an update (F5), at least that my test experience. Once all the technical mumbo-jumbo is set up, we can create a news article asking the community for help on adding sims DYK's and have them add them in the blog comments or a talk page. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 14:24, July 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Also where did we get the from? It doesn't look like regular HTML, I can't see it in Special:Version nor is it available on Wikia's Extensions or Wikipedia's. I don't see anything in Common.js either. Where did it come from? It'd be nice to have it display a number of options instead of just being locked on one. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 04:54, July 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I don't quite remember. I found it named on Special:Version; this is a link to the extension (RandomSelection from MediaWiki): -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 05:03, July 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * That one still can't output more than one line. It'd be code nightmare if we include more 's and then we could end up with the same one being chosen. I say we test RandomArea it looks like it's up for the job, it's even easier to keep a list then with the already mentioned alternative and can produce more than one output AND has support for alternate namespaces. (btw no inter-wiki link to mediawiki.org?) Duskey ( talk ) 06:15, July 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * I sent wikia an email, asking if they were up for adding RandomArea as an extension, let's see what they say. Duskey ( talk ) 14:51, July 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * Bang bang, they shot me down, bang bang, that awful sound (Bleeh won't get the reference). Request for the other extension denied. I see two possible solutions to this if we want the discussed format of DYK's:


 * Make 4x with different DYK's on all of them to prevent the same ones being chosen and add one choose with the wiki DYK's.
 * Do it manually, sort of like monthly featured stuff. Maybe put it to votes similar to how they do it on the HP wikia which I linked to earlier, but someone will have take responsability for it I think since it needs to be updated at least once a month or it'll die.


 * Not it. Duskey ( talk ) 16:00, July 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * I prefer option one... but we'd need to make sure we have a LOT of DYKs to choose from. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 16:12, July 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, when all the technical stuff was out of the way (which it is now) I was thinking we made a news post, encouraging players to add their DYK's to a big main list. When we feel there's enough, we can split the list in four pieces and implement it. We will then still encourage people to add more DYK's and update the lists from time to time. Duskey ( talk ) 16:52, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

I've created The Sims Wiki:DYK where people can start adding their suggestions, have at it. Duskey ( talk ) 03:03, July 31, 2010 (UTC)

Well the additions to the list are slow to say the least. I twitted about it. We should probably remind people again soon. I'm thinking some time after FLS and Barnacle Bay are out.

One thing though; where on the main page are we gonna put this? We're running out of space. Duskey ( talk ) 15:14, September 1, 2010 (UTC)

Changes to galleries
I thought the galleries looked abit different. Seems the standard max width or height of gallery thumbnails were increased abit, standard grey background color was removed and a blue border has been added to gallery thumbnails. This means we might have to customize our galleries. Can we fiddle with our site CSS to make it look abit more like the standard galleries? I do not like the larger thumbnails nor the blue border. Makes it look like a page from 1992 before people learned the border=0 HTML command. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 14:13, July 16, 2010 (UTC)

Additional: This is what one of the staff had to say about changing the standard gallery:

We are listening to your feedback, but we are unlikely to reduce the default width down again. It's not as if 120px was ever a magical "correct" number. Images are cool, there's little need to restrict them to be so small (and within giant grey boxes).

That being said, we recognise the issues with mixed orientation sometimes producing very tall galleries (due to there being no height restriction). We're looking at reintroducing some kind of limit at the moment. Apologies if your wiki was particularly badly affected (it works pretty well if you have a images in a generally similar orientation, which most wikis have). Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 14:16, July 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Created Gallery tweaks. Thoughts on implementing this as standard? Duskey ( talk ) 14:09, July 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * It looks like there won't be coming anymore gallery changes from wikia now. How do we feel about the new galleries now? I'd still like us to discuss the changes we can make through CSS as displayed to the right. Images with white or transparent backgrounds will look much nicer and losing the blue frame for portrait and landscape images is neglible in my opinion. Duskey ( talk ) 16:55, July 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Since no one has seconded this and no users have started screaming, I suppose this subject is moot. Duskey ( talk ) 10:27, August 1, 2010 (UTC)

Changes to the logo
Added voting on the file talk page. Duskey ( talk ) 08:25, July 28, 2010 (UTC)

Logo has been changed. Duskey ( talk ) 22:24, August 11, 2010 (UTC)

Proposed change to Featured Articles
I think that having the Featured Article change monthly is too long. I think we should consider bumping it up in frequency; something like once a week or once every other week. I've done some very rudimentary number-crunching:


 * According to Special:WikiaStats, this wiki has about 3,000 articles as of June. Even if we assume that only 10% of articles on this wiki are of "Featured Article" standards, 300 articles (and growing) is enough to last for over 5 years if the article is changed weekly; if the featured article is changed every other week, there will be enough "good" articles to last for over 11 years!

My hope is that increasing the rate that the article changes will keep interest in the Featured Article, will attract more attention to more pages (which is the point of the feature, isn't it?), and will focus the feature more on selecting quality articles over articles related to their favorite Sims, or articles that aren't worthy of receiving a Featured Article title.

Thoughts? -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 00:47, July 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well featured stuff is a manual task, so the admin team will have to be up for it. It's true larger wikis even have articles/files of the day, 'of the year' and 'of the month' in portals. I have to be honest, I'm not quite sure our wiki is large enough for that. And I also thinkg that people will always nominate and vote for sims/stuff they like instead of voting based on the usefulness of the article. Duskey ( talk ) 10:03, July 19, 2010 (UTC)

Close to the 5k
We're getting awfully close to the 5,000 content article mark, thanks to JM9193 who's been creating pages on Twinbrook sims WITH pictures like crazy.

I wanna suggest we do some sort of event or thing or something for the community once we do hit the 5k. Let's spitball some ideas:
 * A contest of some sort
 * Reveal something when we hit it (wallpaper, custom content, made for the sims wiki)

Keep the ideas coming. Duskey ( talk ) 16:46, July 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * I created Slidedown I think it's pretty neat myself. Took me some time to make those tables behave, but it was worth it. I'm aware there's a little white space in the red line, but I can't fix that. It's not in the image and borders & cellspacing are turned off. I tried feeding it some other numbers and it works when the number of articles increases. It looks like it'll stop growing past 5k since the table has a fixed width, so that's cool. Any objections to putting this on the front page soon? Duskey ( talk ) 23:43, July 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Awesome! What about adding it to MediaWiki:Sitenotice as well? Can you change the message when we hit 5,000? --a_morris (talk) 00:05, July 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Adding the slidedown to sitenotice? Hmmm, I'm not sure if it'll popup again everytime a new article is added of it requires us to save the sitenotice again. About changing the text, I was thinking we'd just leave it and write: Yay! We did it! below. But let's keep throwing out some ideas on how we can celebrate and reward the community when we hit 5k. Duskey ( talk ) 00:37, July 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've read up on the sitenotice some more, it only pops up again if we change the sitenotice_id. I say we throw the template in sitenotice then, soon'ish. I don't want it there for 3 months, blocking all other messages :p I also suggest that we change the ID once we're close (~10-20 articles missing) to the target 5,000. Bleeh is working on some goodies for the community when we hit it. This is no rush really, 88 content articles is still many articles. Duskey ( talk ) 03:01, July 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * I put up the twitter notice for now, but will change to the 5k countdown friday or so. I also created The Sims Wiki:5000 articles and encouraged creative people to send in previously unreleased stuff they may have for The Sims series. Duskey ( talk ) 07:45, July 28, 2010 (UTC)

Post 5k discussion
In my opinion the celebrations as an experiment proved some interesting results. With the announcement of hitting 5k soon, the shoutbox was used extensively and many pages with "this sim is from pleasantview" was added with no additional info, stubs or other templates. I think it would be unwise to create similar events in the future and the next time we hit a milestone it should only be announced once we actually hit the number and make no bigger fuzz over it. That is my opinion. I know LIR has expanded on similar thoughts on his blog. Duskey ( talk ) 14:35, August 10, 2010 (UTC)

The Sims Wiki on other Wikis
I'm in the process of creating a page on The Sims Wiki on Wikipedia, but I'm gonna need a hand with it. It needs to have more content or look less like an advertisement. Here's the link, feel free to edit on it, but WP requires registration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Duskey/The_Sims_Wiki Duskey ( talk ) 21:30, July 28, 2010 (UTC)

Once it's on Wikipedia, we can put it on these wikis as well: Duskey ( talk ) 20:57, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * http://wikiindex.org/The_Sims_Wiki
 * http://www.fanhistory.com/wiki/The_sims_Wiki


 * Moved the 'other sites' discussion to the admin portal talk page. Duskey ( talk ) 14:42, August 14, 2010 (UTC)

The Sims: Medieval
Are we gonna cover this game? Is it part of 'The Sims' series? http://www.simprograms.com/the-sims-medieval-first-screens-and-preview-by-tsr/ Duskey ( talk ) 15:19, July 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * The link is bad; here's one that works (currently): http://www.thesimsresource.com/news/view-post/post/18586/The%20Sims%3A%20Medieval#comments


 * As for your question, if the game is confirmed by EA, then yes for the time being. We should have a page for it up to and until it's proven that the game isn't in line with other titles in The Sims series. So, my feeling is that we should create a page for it (once it's confirmed), and resolve the issue of whether or not it belongs here, at a later date after the game is released. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 21:24, July 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think our The Sims game rumors page is the only working link now :p I agree with LIR above. We should report on it when it is announced and after that we can decide whether it belongs here or not. Who knows, someone else might make an independant wiki about it. Duskey ( talk ) 02:50, July 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * Discussion is resolved; game is officially announced; will hold off on final decision until after release. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 19:02, August 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * A game magazine revealed some 'professions' or 'positions' that Sims can be in in Medieval. There's Doctor, Blacksmith, Wizard etc. How do we handle that if people start adding these pages? In my opinion, anything about the Medieval Doctor, doesn't belong on the same careers page as the Doctor or Medicine. It should be 'Doctor (medieval)'. Duskey ( talk ) 14:31, August 5, 2010 (UTC)

Families with one member
I'm beginning to see some family pages with one family member. Wolfe household & Curry family to name a few. Perhaps it's time for a policy or guideline stating that these pages aren't neccesary npr do they hold any information that cannot be added to the one Sim in the family. What do others think? To me they're just articles with no info on them, wasting space. Duskey ( talk ) 02:52, July 31, 2010 (UTC)

I think we should keep them anyway. I don't think it matters if its one person. They're still a family. Jason   Talk To Me!   02:56, July 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * There's nothing on the family pages that can't be included in the sim's page, unless that sim is the only person left living in their family (and the other members are visible on the family tree). I say delete the pages. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 02:58, July 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's exactly my point, Jason. If it's just one person there is nothing you can add to that page which you couldn't add to the Sim page. If these pages weren't family pages they'd get merged or deleted due to lack of content. Duskey ( talk ) 10:29, August 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * redirect. --a_morris (talk) 23:54, August 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Alright, I did it to the Steel family -> Christopher Steel. I made sure to move the info on the family page to the Sim page and also moved player stories. I also remember to delete the family picture (which wouldn't add anything to the Sim page and was of poor quality). Do you agree that this is the right way to do it? Duskey ( talk ) 16:17, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Achievements
Achievements are a new feature on Wikia. What are your thoughts on adding them to The Sims Wiki? (The blog post) --a_morris (talk) 21:18, August 6, 2010 (UTC) I say it will be a great addition to this wiki because i feel it will make users edit more to achieve the Achievements.--(Danny)Monster2821 (talk)(random page) 21:23, August 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm less than enthusiastic. I think we would have to seriously look at the program and how we can customize it for this wiki before we implement it. I don't think we should adopt something if its primary emphasis is on increasing edit count, but if it encourages activity within a community setting, rather than just having more edits than the next person, I'll probably support it. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 21:25, August 6, 2010 (UTC)

also,another wiki already has the Achievements put in,and the wiki is doing great.--(Danny)Monster2821 (talk)(random page) 21:29, August 6, 2010 (UTC) http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Leaderboard here's a link to the leaderboard.--(Danny)Monster2821 (talk)(random page) 21:32, August 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * So, it involves a point system? Would there be a way to disable the points and just have it give out badges? I'm not sure a points system is the best idea... -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 21:36, August 6, 2010 (UTC)

yes,it involves a point system,and the only thing to disable is the achievments system on your account.-- Danny (Monster2821) (talk)(random page) 21:42, August 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I guess I don't mind it as much if we choose not to place an undue amount of emphasis on edit count. For example, I don't think points should be awarded for having a certain number of edits (except maybe giving out points for a person making their first edit). I think there are a lot of other things that may warrant awarding points - creating and participating in contests, writing and commenting on blogs, participating in community discussion on portal talk pages or talk pages for articles, Sorting and categorizing articles, creating new categories or templates, or doing work on projects. In short, I don't think we need to award points to reinforce the thought that edit count is important. However, I do see this as having some possible positive benefit if implemented well. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 21:46, August 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm against it since I believe it will promote micro-edits and a lot of 'spam' in the form of 'Cool post bro!' comments. The many micro-edits will flood the history page of an article. Duskey ( talk ) 17:38, August 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Fun fact of the day, the wiki linked to (Call of Duty) has removed the achievements and even enforced 'punishments' for people who were abusing it I've read the comments on the main page about achievements and the opinions are quite mixed. Those declaring themselves admins were generally against it though. At least from what I could gather. Duskey ( talk ) 14:55, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

Newsletter
Seeing as how TheDataMonster is... well, not really around, I'd like to test the waters for a newsletter of sorts. Basically I think of it as an article where editors can add tiny bits of information about the Wiki, stuff which doesn't deserve it's own posting. When it has accumulated enough news or some time has passed without a news update, it will be posted in a blog article to the front page. That's basically it. We can include stuff like winners, nominations and new user created contests, maybe interesting blog posts if we find any. Those are just fluff pieces at the end. The body of the newsletter would be new pages on the wiki, new layout of pages or new templates/userboxes and so forth. Again, just wanna get a feeling about what the community would think of this. Duskey ( talk ) 20:45, August 11, 2010 (UTC)

Added stuff to The Sims Wiki:Newsletter. Duskey ( talk ) 14:45, August 15, 2010 (UTC)

Copyright candidate for speedy deletion
Just because I don't think anyone's checking that page. Duskey ( talk ) 19:45, August 15, 2010 (UTC)

By that I mean I posted something on the talk page there and wouldn't mind a commenti :p Duskey ( talk ) 18:36, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, I added it now :) Duskey ( talk ) 17:42, August 25, 2010 (UTC)

Community lot type categorization
Where do we put categories like Category:Bookstores and Category:Market shops? Do we put them in Category:Community lots or Category:Types of lots or both? Duskey ( talk ) 14:57, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

Mandatory new wikia skin incoming
& Duskey ( talk ) 16:35, August 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't seem like there's any way around this. Apparently this isn't the first time Wikia has transitioned, so I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later. The best we can do is to create or keep a style that is uniquely TSW while still adhering to Wikia's requirements. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 16:40, August 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * For me, one of the primary issues is readability and usability. Reducing the amount of space available for content will affect that, especially here, where infoboxes are the norm. IMO, the extra bells and whistles Wikia wants to add will also affect that. Another issue is that a wiki such as this isn't just a community of regular editors and readers, but is also a resource for a larger community, many of whom may have little or no knowledge of or interest in Wikia. Someone who finds an article through a web search may not care how many photos are on the wiki, much less want to wait while a slideshow of all photos loads. Dharden (talk) 15:58, August 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Personally, I think it should just stay the same as it is now. I can already forsee the negative impact the new skin will have and even though this may sound crazy, I have a feeling that users with slower internet connections and lower end computers will have difficulty loading up the Wiki. It's happened with websites before. GEORGIEGIBBONS 11:40, August 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, we can all agree that we do not like this idea very much, but as LIR put it earlier: We just have to make the transition as smooth as possible when it comes. That means customizing the new skin when it comes out, before they remove Monaco. Duskey ( talk ) 20:31, August 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Bad news for the few low resolution people with us: W:Forum:Wikia’s new look - User questions. 1000px article space + menu = Screen width overflow. Duskey ( talk ) 08:04, August 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * Created Project Skin. Duskey ( talk ) 21:11, August 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * The project contain links to all the important Wikia pages on this new skin and the discussion and questions should be taken there. Duskey ( talk ) 13:00, August 26, 2010 (UTC)

The Sims Wiki Battles
We are already in the midst of creating a Sims Wiki Battles feature. These battles will work like the battles at the Final Fantasy Wiki and the Kingdom Hearts Wiki. Users can vote for or nominate a fight between two things in The Sims series. These things can be Sims, Objects, Life states, anything like that. After a fight is chosen, users can then vote for which of the two things they want to win. After the fights time is up, the thing with the most votes wins, and a new fight is chosen from the nominations. We have already created the Battle layout and are considering the Sims Wiki page it will be on. Please feel free to tell us what you think about this new feature. Thank you. --Random Ranaun 22:18, August 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've added my take on how to implement this. I made a template Simbattle and you can see it in action with three examples here: The Sims Wiki:Sandbox/SimBattle. Duskey ( talk ) 03:45, August 22, 2010 (UTC)

Affiliation with non-Sims sites
Sparked by a message left on AM's talk page, I wanted to start a discussion whether we should allow affiliation with non-Sims sites/wikis. The pro would be more traffic I suppose, but if we do allow it, where does it stop? Do we need a link to every wiki here on wikia? Duskey ( talk ) 06:19, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't want too much traffic here and there, but this wiki should help sponser some run-down wikis that need urgent help, such as the Spyro wiki and Bandipedia. I am the admin at the former wiki, and I am really asking for more help, y'know! Uxie   Lover  1994 06:30, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't really agree with non-sim affiliation. This is a wiki site for information about the game, it's simply not relevant to link to other sites or other wikis that aren't in any way related to the Sims genre. I know we want to build a community, but it really doesn't make sense to start linking to every other wiki. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 14:09, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with LIR for the same reasons. Duskey ( talk ) 05:28, August 24, 2010 (UTC)

Disney wiki request
I reponse to Sundogs' forum post here on the Wiki, I requested more information and this was the message I recieved on my Community Central talk page:

Basically saying that:# I like to be affiliate with you, This is what I tried to ask in the forums at the Sims wiki. Please understand that these listed things are direct and to the point, and at the time of the posting; all the requested needs to cover in meeting. Thanks. Sundogs American Law Wiki • Apple Wiki 12:42, August 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) note that we are more commercial use; i.e. like the Disney's Online World Wiki site (their wiki site). I want it to be both Disney's' Online Worlds Wiki and your Sims Wiki combined.
 * 2) Willing to make the Sims Wiki admins be admins to our site until we have our own admins.
 * 3) Use templates from your wiki,
 * 4) note that I like all your templates and I would like to use them at the wiki site that I am at.
 * 5) Reword our text to match yours or better sounding from your wiki,
 * 6) note I don't want our articles sounding or looking or sounding like the Wikipedia's pages or anyone else in that matter.

I know as much as you do at this time. This seems related to the "non-sims affiliation" discussion. What are your thoughts and questions? Duskey ( talk ) 13:43, August 23, 2010 (UTC)

He has added some clarification to his request on the Community Central forum. Duskey ( talk ) 05:28, August 24, 2010 (UTC)

Spyro Wiki
So this means you are not going to help? We need the help ASAP, and it would be great. I disagree with linking to every wiki, but the Spyro wiki is in need of urgent help! Please don't leave it to only ZACH, Aura and I! We need more help. Uxie  Lover  1994 08:19, August 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * I believe many of us are here because we have a passion for The Sims games, I believe this to be true of most wiki's; you contribute because you have an interest in the subject. The question of whether we're willing to link to your wiki as an affiliate is still being discussed here. In the meantime I suggest you check out Advice:Building a Community at help.wikia. There's other good articles there on how to attract visitors (and subsequently editors) to your wiki. Duskey ( talk ) 10:38, August 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess you are right. We are very upset with you guys due to your refusal to say something about us that could help us. Uxie   Lover  1994 07:03, August 25, 2010 (UTC)

Cars & Vehicles
How should we list and categorize cars & vehicles? With FLS incoming we'll need to sort it out. Duskey ( talk ) 16:23, August 26, 2010 (UTC)

Once FLS hits I have half a mind to make an extra menu item in the main menu, pointing to the page and associated pages. Duskey ( talk ) 19:05, August 26, 2010 (UTC)

Child userbox
Template:User child. Isn't it a bit iffy we have a child userbox when you're legally not allowed to edit here unless you're 13, which would make you a teenager. Duskey ( talk ) 16:41, August 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * I have noticed that Wikipedia have no objections to children editing there. Seeing as some of our policies are similar to those of Wikipedia (such as assume good faith), I think the template creator had taken the rule from WP. GEORGIEGIBBONS (talk) 17:17, August 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Regardless, Wikia ToS require that users are at least 13 years of age, so the child userbox really isn't needed. Even if a user were under age 13, adding the child userbox to their page would be as foolish as listing their actual age, since doing that would show that they were clearly in violation of the ToS and they would be subject to a cross-wiki block until they reach 13. -- Patrick (LostInRiverview) (talk)(blog)(random page) 17:30, August 28, 2010 (UTC)

Any artists among us?
Do we have any artists among us who are semi-good at making wallpapers? I "borrowed" a wallpaper from The Sims Supply and inserted a greyscale logo in the table (it needs to brighter, I know), but this is what the portal COULD look like. However, I'm not very keen on ripping off The Sims Supply so if anyone can create a similar wallpaper that'd be awesome. There are some requirements however.
 * Needs to be at least 1680px width (Article space with Monaco skin at 1920x1080 resolution)
 * If it's a 1920x1080 wallpaper we'll just resize it and then we also have a TSW desktop image :D
 * Needs to fade out to white at the bottom, or it's gonna look funky.
 * Light colors are preferred, nothing pitch black.
 * Should contain the TSW logo (File:Wiki.png) if you put in the middle it'll be hidden by the table, that's a good thing.
 * Must be FLS and/or LN themed.
 * No video caps, they look horrible. Promo images and renders only.

If you wanna do something similar to The Sims Supply's picture, I believe they're using a toned down neighborhood picture and then some promotional images from the game. See also their current LN background for inspiration.

I'd you're interested it could be nice to do this for all future releases and maybe the non-game portals too. Duskey ( talk ) 17:03, August 28, 2010 (UTC)