The Sims Wiki talk:Development Portal

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Information

Here you can post updates on what you're working on or a notice to other concerned with the development of the wiki. For general discussion see the Community Portal talk and for minor news see the Development Portal main page.

Header image 'broken'

Issue	Browsers affected	Cause	Severity	Resolution
Top menu bar (A.K.A. the 'Sims faces mosaic') image is broken and repeating.		The top menu bar appears to be wider than usual - unknown reason	Minor

As stated above, the mosaic image is broken, at least in my browser (Firefox). If any other users see this issue, please chime in here. If you see this issue and are using a browser other than Firefox, please include it on the table above.

As for solutions, I'm thinking, if this was a Wikia-wide change to the menu bar width, that perhaps we can rig up some css code to re-narrow the bar (hopefully this doesn't violate TOS)... or we can maybe contact JoePlay, the person who designed the original, to have him re-do it with the new, wider setting. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog} 05:42, January 21, 2012 (UTC)

Quick report script

I've implemented a system on the reports page to allow users to easily report a user by typing the user/IP address on the first field, the page that was vandalised, which is an optional requirement - the Report template has a link to the user's contributions. Finally the reporting user only has to click "Report user" and it's done.

The JS used for the system can be found here with the corresponding removal script (which the form won't work without) can be found here. Both of these are listed as "importScript" functions on MediaWiki:Common.js.

Currently the system is basic and only accommodates a link to one page (with a history link) and no signature from the reporting user. While I do feel that we can live without these, it would be nice if we could try and implement these.

The scripts/form are still in testing (with the removal script still requiring reports to be manually removed) so if you come across any bugs, feel free to list them down. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 12:44, April 22, 2012 (UTC)

Broken HTML tags

Issue	Browsers affected	Cause	Severity	Resolution
HTML tags, namely <choose> tags, appear broken.		Possibly due to the MediaWiki upgrade/HTML5 switchover	Minor

So I've noticed that some HTML tags on the Community Portal mainpage seem to be broken. I noticed that (overnight?) we have been upgraded to MediaWiki 1.19 as part of Wikia's global overhaul. Despite HTML5 having native backwards compatibility with older versions of the HTML standard, a lot of tags have become obsolete. This is noticeable in Chrome and I haven't tried any other browsers. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 10:22, July 6, 2012 (UTC)

This issue also exists in Firefox, so I've added that to the table. In fact, the page won't even load for me, it dumps me on an error page instead. However, I do know that before the upgrade we were having problems on that page, specifically with the randomized Sim pictures and the <choose> tags. *edit* If it is those tags, then it's worth mentioning that we use them on other pages as well, including on the Main Page in multiple templates. At last check a couple weeks ago they were still working, but I'll check again. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 21:52, July 6, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah I just saw the error message too. Seems like a problem with the MediaWiki installation that's out of our control. I didn't see anything about HTML5 not supporting choose tags so I don't know what Wikia did to them, if anything, though I've noticed that the choose tags still seem to work on a few userpages... Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 22:00, July 6, 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps there's some other code on that page that conflicts with the tags? I honestly have no idea.-- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 22:07, July 6, 2012 (UTC)

Update: I get an Internal error every time I try to edit the page, even if I'm trying to remove the tags. My guess is that we're somehow missing the actual problem. Are there any other pages with a similar issue on the wiki? -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 22:10, July 6, 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly I just tried to copy that page to my Sandbox to try and solve the issue without breaking anything else and I got the same "Set $wgShowExceptionDetails = true; at the bottom of LocalSettings.php to show detailed debugging information." error message. I'm yet to encounter any other pages with that issue but I'm now thinking that there is something in the code on that page that Wikia doesn't like. All we can really do is try to find out what but this is weird. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 22:17, July 6, 2012 (UTC)

Update: I've managed to copy the whole page into my sandbox and it seemed that the Activity Feed HTML tags were causing pretty much every issue, including the internal errors. Everything that's in the Sandbox now (at the time of writing) is working as it should be. For now I've copied my sandbox to the Community Portal mainpage as it seems to be in working order but it's worth keeping an eye on things. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 22:27, July 6, 2012 (UTC)

Borders on templates rounded vs not rounded

Issue	Browsers affected	Cause	Severity	Resolution
Some templates' corners that were once rounded are now not rounded, while others are.		Presently unknown (Likely MediaWiki update/HTML5 support issue)	Minor

I'm not sure if it has to do with the recent MediaWiki upgrade, but now some of our templates have lost the 'rounded corners' that they used to have, at least in my browser (Firefox). I've noticed that if I change the template over to use {{Parthenon}}, then the problem is fixed, at least for that template (for example, {{Nutshell}}). -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 00:29, July 22, 2012 (UTC)

Added Chrome to that list too. Before going on holiday, I filed a bug report to Wikia as the Abuse Filter seems to be missing the filter navigation bar, the check syntax option is broken and the optional dropdowns were appearing even if they weren't selected. I'm guessing they are to do with the MediaWiki update which pushed HTML5 support, which could have caused the issue here. Sad thing is I don't know any HTML5 :( Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 11:10, July 22, 2012 (UTC)

I think, specifically regarding the template issue, the best thing to do would be to find the un-rounded templates and re-work them so they load directly through transcluding (and not substituting) the Parthenon template. That way as well, if we choose in the future to update Parthenon, all those templates will be auto-updated along with it. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 18:25, July 22, 2012 (UTC)

I've expanded on the above point, in detail...

I think it would be best practice, from now on, for the admin team or anyone creating or updating message templates to transclude {{Parthenon}} directly into the template coding. This obviously does not apply to userboxes, main page templates, bio templates, or other templates that wouldn't otherwise use Parthenon.

This has a couple advantages. Firstly, Parthenon appears not to be affected by the aforementioned issue involving non-rounded corners that are affecting some templates following the MediaWiki update. Also, using Parthenon allows a cohesive theme across multiple templates used on the wiki. Using direct linking to Parthenon (by transclusion, not by substitution or 'copy-pasting') has the added benefit of allowing adjustments to the Parthenon and all templates that use it without needless edits to those individual templates.

I will probably be manually changing over those templates that manually use Parthenon over the next few days, so that they use Parthenon. Most templates by now have been updated to use Parthenon, even if they were created before Parthenon debuted. Any assistance on this project would be appreciated. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 04:50, July 25, 2012 (UTC)

A tip for anyone wishing to help is if you see a squared template and the source code says "-moz-border-radius" and/or "-webkit-border-radius" then it is meant to be rounded. I've just ported the {{Info}} template at the top of this page to Parthenon and I'll be on the lookout for more as I see them. Besides, it seems easier to write in Parthenon anyway as the framework is already there and if configured correctly it won't mess up any already existing templates. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 20:39, July 25, 2012 (UTC)

Gallery licensing

It was pointed out by TheSims23 that, when users upload images via the gallery button, there is no option to license the images. Currently, one particular user is doing this, which is leaving many newly-uploaded images uncategorized and unlicensed. I have no idea of how to fix this, but could it be something related to Media Wiki? Thank you for reading. --RoseGui (talk here) 18:24, July 29, 2012 (UTC)

Some time since July 13 or earlier, the issue has already occurred. I told Wogan about it, but claimed the next day that it had somehow been fixed. Or maybe I was hallucinating at that time, so I just left this issue like this. :/ Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 18:39, July 29, 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, uploading images via the Gallery/Photo function on the edit page has never included any form of attribution and users haven't compensated by manually licensing their files. Personally I'd like it if uploading via Gallery was removed completely and users either had to use Special:Upload or Special:MultipleUpload but unfortunately writing an Abusefilter to stop anyone from using it or using Javascript to block is is highly likely against Wikia's TOS. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 19:02, August 18, 2012 (UTC)

Well, using the add gallery doesn't... but the add photo button actually does. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 07:35, August 20, 2012 (UTC)

Countdown Template Broken

Issue	Browsers affected	Cause	Severity	Resolution
{{Countdown}} no longer displays on pages		Unknown, likely Javascript issue	Moderate

I noticed today that Countdown is no longer functioning. GG says he was editing javascript for the wiki, but he has reverted his edits and the template still doesn't work. I've marked this as a moderate issue due to the fact that this template is heavily-used. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 19:05, August 15, 2012 (UTC)

Chrome too. Initially I thought it may have been down to the MediaWiki upgrade but now I'm thinking it may be something else which is specific to TSW. FWIW, the script which I was trying to add came from a wiki using the upgraded version of MW which we also have and where it worked there, it failed here. Granted, the newest version of MediaWiki still has numerous bugs so I'm not sure what the issue really is but it's rather strange... Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 19:10, August 15, 2012 (UTC)

Odd, It's working now. We'll keep an eye on this. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 19:13, August 15, 2012 (UTC)

I know this seems a bit unrelated but having conducted further tests with JS, it seems there is definitely an issue with adding new JS (like what happened here) and even replacing JS. I've sent a bug report to Wikia to see if there's something up. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 20:44, August 15, 2012 (UTC)

Issues with article naming

The conversation below has been copied from Talk:Downtown (The Sims), as it is relevant to multiple articles.

---

Personally, I prefer the precision of the title, even if it's not that simple. Still, there are some other pages that are based on this precision as well, such as Spells (The Sims: Makin' Magic) and Spells (The Sims 2: Apartment Life), and Downtown (The Sims 2: Nightlife).

If we had to simplify it however, I guess using the title of the EP, e.g. Spells (Makin' Magic) or Downtown (Nightlife) sounds better, with the only exceptions to Pets, Seasons, and upcoming University, which the title The Sims 2/3: should still be kept. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 15:32, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking more about Vampire (The Sims 3), for example, which technically should be Vampire (The Sims 3: Late Night) when I moved this page. It seems that the issue of titles in these cases should be decided universally, not just article-by-article. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 15:42, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

(Added more). Ok, our Manual of Style does touch on this issue a bit:

Articles should be named in such a way that each has a unique title. Articles' titles usually indicate the name of the topic. When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. This can be done by adding a disambiguating tag in parentheses (or sometimes after a comma); however in certain cases it may be done by choosing a different form of the title in order to achieve uniqueness.

Now the unique titles issue is obvious enough and no matter which approach we take, it's apparent that the articles do have different names. My concern with Downtown (The Sims: Hot Date) (plus the other examples) is that it's overprecise. We generally don't quibble over which expansion introduced a particular feature when we refer to the features included in a particular game, for example on Comparison between The Sims, The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 or similar pages. I think breaking the pages up by base game only is clear and specific enough to meet our needs. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 15:49, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I see your point. But still, I guess it'd be rather confusing if we say Spells (The Sims 2) as one might say, "What kind of spells can we cast in TS2?? Oh, it's from Apartment Life..." Okay, I guess I overrated this one example, but perhaps it's still worth pointing out the pack it came from...

I'm thinking we could just omit "The Sims X", though it will be problematic with the similarly-named EPs... Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 16:04, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I can see that as well. Either way, I'm going to relocate this conversation to The Sims Wiki talk:Development Portal, so we can sort this out wiki-wide. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 16:26, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

---

To boil down what's written above... presently we have multiple pages on our wiki that have the 'same name', like Downtown for The Sims: Hot Date and The Sims 2: Nightlife. In some instances, the articles are given a disambiguating addition which includes the name of the base game and expansion pack (e.g. Spells (The Sims: Makin' Magic) and Spells (The Sims 2: Apartment Life)), and in some other instances the names are given for the base game only (e.g. Vampire (The Sims 3) and simply Vampire), regardless of whether the feature was introduced in a specific expansion or not.

We should reach a universal standard for how these articles are named. As I quoted above, the MoS isn't necessarily as specific as needed to resolve this matter; it stipulates that a name should be specific enough to be clear but not over-specific. To that end, I do believe we have three options (please let me know if there's something I'm missing).

• Option 1: We rename the articles so they are all listed as "Article name (The Sims #: Expansion Name)". This option is very specific in all cases, but can tend to be somewhat lengthy and can be over-specific in some cases.
• Option 2: We rename the articles so they are listed as "Article name (Expansion Name only)". This option yields a shorter name, except that there are several examples of repeated expansion pack names between two base games, so there would end up being confusion if the same feature were included in both same-named packs.
• Option 3: We rename the articles so they are listed as "Article name (base game name only)". This option is not specific to the expansion pack the feature is introduced in, but creates a short and simple article title.

Additionally, we could try a hybrid of the options above if we wanted to. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 16:26, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

I'd stick with option 2. As for the title with the repeated expansion names, we don't need to stick with the complete "(The Sims 2: Seasons)" for example; we could just use the base game name for that as a shorter alternative. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 15:10, October 12, 2012 (UTC)

In terms of simplicity, option 2 seems like the best one in my opinion. AsherÉire I'm a lonely person, so please talk to me... 15:23, October 12, 2012 (UTC)

I would also go with Option 2, because I believe it would make the article name seem less overpowering, in a way, and could even make them look neater. When we run into the problem of expansion packs with the same name as their prequel counterparts, I propose we name them something such as "Article Name (University 2)", and "Article Name (Pets 3)". It's just a thought I had. ~ Waikikamukow [ Talk - Blog ] - 05:36, October 16, 2012 (UTC)

Option 3 sounds like the best option to me purely as I can't see EA adding a neighborhood named "Downtown" twice in one generation. Plus, although this is yet to happen, it would avoid the potential dilemma with EP names carried across generations (e.g. Seasons, Pets) featuring neighborhoods with the same name (like Downtown). Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 19:30, October 16, 2012 (UTC)

If potential EP names get used the second time is to be considered, I'd like to see until The Sims 3: University is officially announced... I really wish EA would've had a cleverer name for that! Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 12:41, October 18, 2012 (UTC)

I've been rethinking all along... and I changed my mind for Option 3. I think we need to put more simplicity on that. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 08:45, February 20, 2013 (UTC)

Problem with references?

It appears that, while reference-links are going to the proper reference, the links from the reference back to the main text are all going to the first reference in the article. Has anyone else noticed this? Dharden (talk) 00:15, November 19, 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, you're right. I noticed that glitch while cleaning up some broken references, and I thought that was what caused it. Apparently it only happens to the reference that's only used once. Named references that's used multiple times aren't affected, and seem to work properly though. I assume it's wiki-wide bug? Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 14:51, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, named references used multiple times aren't affected, but named references only used once are. I tested this with Aspiration benefit. I'm not sure if it's wiki-wide -- or Wikia-wide. Dharden (talk) 15:14, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we could contact a staff if this problem persists...? Frankly, I'm a little bugged with the change on viewing revision comparison. It used to be full-page wide, but now the width is the same as regular page view. There are just some times when we need to see how the page looks like in a full-page width. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 15:29, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

Mosaic header issues

From this tech blog, it seems that Wikia have killed the CSS module known as "WikiHeaderRestyle" and replaced it with just "WikiHeader". I've gone ahead and made the changes accordingly to restore the mosaic but it's come at a price: the translucent tab background which was present before now ceases to exist, causing the non-highlighted/selected text to be possibly difficult to read for some users. I don't know how to reapply the background as that was part of WikiHeaderRestyle but if anyone has any ideas of solving this then please fire away. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 22:03, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this has to do with what you just did, or with the Wikia update, but the topnav menu has a visible break between the tabs and the dropdown menu, when you're on Special:Recentchanges. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 23:29, November 28, 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what happened here as now everything is back to normal.

As for the break between Topnav and the mosaic, Wikia added that in their recent skin update which added the extra width to the skin. It's used for ad space. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 20:00, November 29, 2012 (UTC)

Disregard that last part, I've just noticed what it really is and I'm assuming this has something to do with Wikia's CSS changes. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 20:21, November 29, 2012 (UTC)

Facebook 'Like box' is missing

Issue	Browsers affected	Cause	Severity	Resolution
Facebook 'like box', displayed on the Main Page, Community Corner, etc. no longer appears, despite the Facebook page still existing.	Unknown	Unknown	Minor

I've marked this issue as 'minor' since it doesn't impede the function of the Wiki. However, I don't foresee any growth in the Facebook page until that box is returned to working order. I wanted to bring this to everyone's attention; I would attempt to fix it now but I need sleep, and I probably won't be online much tomorrow to fix it either. Post here if the box still appears for you, or add your browser to the template above if it doesn't appear to you. -- LiR ^{speak ~ read} 09:36, December 29, 2012 (UTC)

Zombie Skin

(Note: This was originally posted by Tiezel in Talk:Skin. Dharden (talk))

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I was wondering why there was no zombie skin for The Sims 2in the {{Sim}} templates. Probably because there are no pre-made zombies? Does it make sense to put it in there? (for the fanons I guess).

The icon in-game shows somehow the University logo, so I also uploaded one without the logo.

Tiezel (talk) 13:27, March 7, 2013 (UTC)

Never really paid attention to this. Seeing that there's no good reason why not to include it, I think it can be added in the template for fanon purposes. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 15:30, March 7, 2013 (UTC)

Forums broken

Issue	Browsers affected	Cause	Severity	Resolution
Forums do not display correctly, due to a presently unknown coding issue.	Unknown	Unknown	Major

I know very little about the cause of this problem... but I'm hoping someone here does know about it. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 18:32, March 7, 2013 (UTC)

I'm seeing "Invalid tag extension name: forum". I suppose it couldn't hurt to ask Wikia staff if they changed something. Dharden (talk) 18:38, March 7, 2013 (UTC)

I'm not really experiencing any issues... Cavia (wheek • speak) 18:40, March 7, 2013 (UTC)

Ok, now it looks normal for me. It might've been a temporary bug. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 18:42, March 7, 2013 (UTC)