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Information

Here you can post updates on what you're working on or a notice to others 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.

Special:UnusedFiles is being faulty

It has been a while that I noticed Special:UnusedFiles has been listing images that are actually used somewhere in this wiki erroneously. I've noticed this for long, and I thought it would fix itself some time in the future, but no. It hasn't been fixed and it's still being faulty. For example, this file File:CamrynMcGaw.png is said to be unused, while it really is used on Camryn McGaw. Even the file page says it's not used anywhere in this wiki. If you try to clean up the unused files in that page, please be careful with this, as you might accidentally delete used images. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 09:59, May 24, 2014 (UTC)

I've had (and as I last checked, currently having) this problem on my other wiki. I emailed Wikia and was informed that "A server might've lagged behind". Though when I got the response the page had already updated, so the issue wasn't investigated any further. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I just checked Special:UnusedFiles and it was updated not too long ago. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 11:09, May 24, 2014 (UTC)

It was updated not too long ago, but the issue is still there. There are still many used images that are listed unused, even if the pages that use them are never touched. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 11:35, May 24, 2014 (UTC)

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Threadcromancy, but it seems like the issue is still happening. Special:Contact it? --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 01:30, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

Well that sucks! :( -- C.Syde (talk | contribs) 01:49, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

Might as well report it. Can you give some examples of images that are currently used that are listed on UnusedFiles? - LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 01:56, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, nevermind, the issue seems to have resolved itself. I got mixed up with a bunch of duplicate images with very similar filenames! --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 02:10, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

Trait categories and pages for TS4 vs TS3 traits

A couple weeks ago Trait (The Sims 4) was created. It only makes sense that we would have separate articles for traits in the major releases, so my issue isn't with the creation of that page. However, I renamed Trait to Trait (The Sims 3), since the content of that page deals almost exclusively with TS3 traits. I have since been having LiRBot fix a lot of the redirect/bad links left over from the page move, after which I intend to re-write Trait to be a generic article not focused on traits in one particular game.

My question is, are we going to have separate categories for traits in TS3 vs TS4? For instance, Hopeless Romantic is (IIRC) a trait that will appear in TS4. So, do we create a new page for Hopeless Romantic (named Hopeless Romantic (The Sims 4)) and a new category for Sims who are Hopeless Romantics in TS4? Or, do we use the same pages and categories for both? - LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 04:01, May 26, 2014 (UTC)

For categories, I think it's okay if we combine both games. Many games share the same categories, like zodiac sign and appearances. Careers are a good example for this, since many careers in different games have similar names, are described differently, but share the same categories. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 15:39, May 26, 2014 (UTC)

Ok, that sounds alright. But what about the trait pages themselves? Taking the example of careers, we tend to keep careers from different games on the same page if they have the same name. So, would we continue to do this with TS4 traits that duplicate TS3 traits? -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 15:43, May 26, 2014 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure. Every TS3 trait page is pretty much individual, and has consistent layout. Combining it with TS4 trait seems like it will mess up the layout (some trait pages are for TS3, some for TS4, and some for both). Personally, just for the sake of the consistent layout, I'd rather separate the trait pages. It's not really a strong reason though, as it's just a personal preference. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 16:10, May 26, 2014 (UTC)

If we take that approach, we'll have to rename all the pages with traits whose names are shared. So if Hopeless Romantic is a trait in TS4, we'll have a page named Hopeless Romantic (The Sims 3) and Hopeless Romantic (The Sims 4). So there will be a bit of work involved in making the pages separate. - LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 19:08, May 26, 2014 (UTC)

Also, if we go that route, wouldn't we have to create a new navigation template for TS4 traits? That would mean renaming {{Traits}} to something else. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 17:10, May 27, 2014 (UTC)

I prefer separating the page that way. But I think we don't need to hurry to rename these articles right away. We hardly have any detailed information about trait system in The Sims 4, so it's better to stuff the information we have in Trait (The Sims 4) at the moment. We're not sure if the system is as simple as The Sims 3 either. There are things called "unlockable trait" or "bonus trait based on Aspiration" for instance. Once we have detailed enough information to sort things out, renaming is in order. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 14:15, June 3, 2014 (UTC)

New users not being welcomed

‎73.190.48.34, ‎68.45.246.114, 50.156.12.84, etc. are new editors to the wiki. The only problem is, for some reason Wikia hasn't sent them a welcome message yet.

I asked on Community Central Chat and was told that the bot was "sometimes slow", so I let it slide. It's been several hours and still no welcome message. Think this is another Wikia issue, probably broke some code or their bot is down. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 11:47, May 27, 2014 (UTC)

Note: Welcome messages aren't appearing for any other wiki too. This isn't related to just our wiki. Hopefully Staff has figured it out by now and will have a fix ready soon. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 11:49, May 27, 2014 (UTC)

This has been happening since few months back when I was still active in the wiki. The welcome messages will still appear in next few hours though and waiting for almost half a day is normal to me. Nothing we can do exactly about them right now. --Frostwalker ^{Talk - Read} 11:57, May 27, 2014 (UTC)

Okay, sent in a bug report to Wikia. Will hopefully get a response soon. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 19:52, May 27, 2014 (UTC)

While the Wikia had this problem, should all of the users give a welcome messages to the contributors and the registered users or admins only? ThePeculiarMe | (talk to me) 11:11, May 28, 2014 (UTC)

The MediaWiki settings always sign welcome messages with an admin's signature. If there are no active admins it is signed by a Staff member. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 11:47, May 28, 2014 (UTC)

The bot signs it with a member of the administrative team or staff, but there's no particular reason why regular users wouldn't be allowed to give welcome messages themselves. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 14:39, May 28, 2014 (UTC)

I mean that a normal user would've give a welcome message to the new editors, however, the sign must be an active admin or a Wikia Staff (if that particular user knows the staffs and the admins well) and not themselves. ThePeculiarMe | (talk to me) 15:25, May 28, 2014 (UTC)

If a user is posting a welcome message, they should use their own signature. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 15:33, May 28, 2014 (UTC)

Got the following response from Wikia:

Hello K6ka,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention - it does appear the tool has broken down. I'll flag it up to the technical team, and we'll investigate what has gone wrong.

Apologies for this issue, and best regards,

George Marbulcanti (Kirkburn) Wikia Community Support

--k6ka (talk | contribs) 21:57, May 28, 2014 (UTC)

Bringing this up right now - users can welcome new users with the {{Welcome}} and {{WelcomeIP}} templates. Be sure to read the documentation at the bottom of those pages. Monitor recent changes and look for users that have a red "Talk" link (meaning they do not have a talk page). If they do not have "STAFF", "HELPER", "WIKIA STAR", or "VSTF" next to their username in the user header box, then you can add a template. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 17:09, May 29, 2014 (UTC)

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Update: Bot is back up and running. Thanks guys. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 11:00, May 30, 2014 (UTC)

I think the bot might be delayed. As the contributor (which it is vandalizing) isn't being welcome. ThePeculiarMe | (talk to me) 11:21, May 30, 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, it made like a few edits on my other wiki. It also made a couple of edits on the Developers Wikia. Not sure about the other wikis. Oh well. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 11:40, May 30, 2014 (UTC)

So far, the bot's very unstable. Sometimes it welcomes, sometimes it doesn't. If the user is manually welcomed, sometimes the bot will pop up out of nowhere and leave a duplicate welcome message. If the user is not welcomed, the bot won't edit at all and it looks silly. Until Wikia sorts this out, I have thoughts of disabling this feature, at least temporarily, and go back to manually welcoming users by changing MediaWiki:Welcome-user to "@disabled", until Wikia can sort this out. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 13:59, June 4, 2014 (UTC)

Resurrecting this cause it seems the bot is down... again! See User:K6ka/What to do if the welcome bot is down for instructions on what to do. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 12:43, June 28, 2014 (UTC)

Issue is resolved

At long last, it appears that the bot is working again and is welcoming every new contributor to the wiki! --k6ka (talk | contribs) 00:42, September 4, 2014 (UTC)

Multiple neighborhood parameters in {{Lot}}

I've copied {{Lot}} onto my testpage (see here) with the intent to modernize it, so it looks like our other main infobox templates. While going through the template, I noticed that there's a spot for multiple neighborhoods, if a lot appears in more than one neighborhood. Since the template ultimately uses the neighborhood name to determine what color the template itself is, it's important that each lot be from only one neighborhood (or, at the very least, from only one game or game generation). So if those extra neighborhood parameters are actually used, then I'll have to come up with another way to give color to the templates. Does anyone know if {{Lot}} is used for any lots/houses that appear in multiple neighborhoods? -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 08:16, June 4, 2014 (UTC)

Introducing {{Outdent}}

You may have noticed the weird lines I occasionally add in talk pages and forum posts. It looks a bit like this:

┌───────────────────┘

That's called an outdent, and no, the idea for it was not original. It was used on Wikipedia as an interesting (and fancy) way to reset the indents on a talk page. When a talk page was indented to an incredible length, the template was used to signify that the indents were "reset" and users should start from number 1 again. For example:

Blah blah blah --User 1

Blah blah blah --User 2

Blah blah blah --User 1

STOP SPAMMING --User 3

Blah blah blah --User 4

Meh --User 5

Blah ... blah blah! Haha! --User 6

Jeez, you guys are annoying. --User 3

Yeah, I'd have to agree with User 3 with this one --User 8

┌─────────────────────┘

You irritating little children! --User 9

Blah blah blah IDC --User 2

lolwut --User 4

Something like the above. It's not strictly required, but seeing that I was getting tired of copy 'n' pasting the outdent, I decided to steal the template code from Wikipedia and use it here. Details are in the documentation. You can also just use {{Od}} as a shortcut. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 11:51, June 10, 2014 (UTC)

I've never used this outdent thing before, but it looks neat and tidy when you use it. Making a template for it is quite practical. I'm going to try to get used to it! Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 12:17, June 10, 2014 (UTC)

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Colors for infoboxes

I've updated the Game color templates so The Sims 4 finally has some color. You can see the colors in action on my test page (here). I took the colors from screenshots of the new in-game Gallery feature, since they seem to be indicative of the palette that is being used in the game. The colors strongly resemble the colors we've picked for The Sims 2 and, even if they didn't, I'm not entirely sure I'm a fan of the colors I have now as they seem very subdued. But, it's a start and we can build off of it. I'm going to play around with the colors a little bit more, but I wanted to open it up to comments and discussion, so we can make improvements. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 23:49, June 11, 2014 (UTC)

I originally planned to use white color scheme based on the UI we've seen in the trailers. It's not too similar to The Sims 2 color scheme, but it is for The Sims Social. Probably we could change The Sims Social color, considering the only usage is in its own game article.

Also, I see that the {{Vgsecondaryfontcolor}} for The Sims 4 is black instead of white that's used in most series. While black is more contrast to the background color, I think I prefer white as it has no major problem with the readability and it's consistent with other schemes. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 16:24, June 13, 2014 (UTC)

Looking back now, I actually like the colors for TS4 as they are. I do think we should make the TS2 colors darker, possibly to match the darker blue UI in the game. As for font color, that should always be decided on a case-by-case basis as it relates to how easily the font is read; just because the other schemes use a white color, it doesn't necessarily mean this one should too. - LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 17:00, June 13, 2014 (UTC)

I agree with making the TS2 colors darker, especially if that would affect object descriptions in infoboxes. I think that would help readability, especially in articles with several infoboxes. Dharden (talk) 20:58, July 16, 2014 (UTC)

I've tweaked {{Object}} so that it uses bold+italic for descriptions instead of just italic. IMO, that's easier to read -- at least it's easier for me to read. I think that's because the bolding darkens the text so it stands out more. Dharden (talk) 21:21, July 16, 2014 (UTC)

No Must Watch Videos gadget

This does not appear to be working properly. At least, I am still getting the module, even though I have set my preferences to use this gadget. Dharden (talk) 15:00, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

The gadget is broken - you'll need to click here and save Lab's code into your personal Wikia .css file. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 15:06, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Dharden (talk) 17:02, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

I was just wondering about this myself. Does it mean this module isn't disabled entirely in this wikia? Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 14:51, June 30, 2014 (UTC)

The module is enabled on this Wikia, and Wikia forces us to keep it enabled and visible. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 14:54, June 30, 2014 (UTC)

Ah, Wikia and its policies... Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 15:03, June 30, 2014 (UTC)

Can some users have the JS/CSS page? Because I want to remove the gadget too, it's bugging me out. Hehe. ~~.ThePeculiarMe | (talk to me) | (my mistakes) 11:52, July 1, 2014 (UTC)

Yes, all users who are logged in can have their own personal JS/CSS pages. Just click here and hit Save. Here's a help page on this stuff. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 12:32, July 1, 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the info! ~~.ThePeculiarMe | (talk to me) | (my mistakes) 12:42, July 1, 2014 (UTC)

Era template

I did some tinkering and I think I got {{Era}} to display correctly again. Please let me know if you notice any problems stemming from it. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 12:53, June 25, 2014 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for taking care of it! Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 14:52, June 30, 2014 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Wiki-navigation error

I want to add Blog:The Sim's Pen to the navigation under blog posts button, but the editor doesn't allow me. It says the level 1 menu is too wide. It's odd, because it will say so even if you preview it without making any changes. Sooner or later if we need to edit the navigation, we need to shorten the level 1 menu name as well. I tried to change "Interact" into "aaa" and the editor allowed me. Any ideas which menus to shorten? Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 14:46, September 18, 2014 (UTC)

I'm getting the glitch on my other wiki too, which is strange, because it fits just fine. Looks like Wikia broke something here. Special:Contact it, maybe? --k6ka (talk | contribs) 14:47, September 18, 2014 (UTC)

Well, the error tells us to go to w:c:community:Help:Navigation. The "error" seems intended, meaning it's more like they changed the limit (while keeping the preexisting navigations intact so they won't be broken). Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 15:03, September 18, 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, it seems like the error has been fixed. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 14:03, September 19, 2014 (UTC)

...only to be broken again! What's going on here, Wikia? --k6ka (talk | contribs) 14:28, September 20, 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I have reported the issue at Community Central. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 21:38, September 20, 2014 (UTC)

Alright, there are two solutions to this that I have tried on my test wiki and has worked.

1. Move the page MediaWiki:Wiki-navigation to another title, make your changes, and then move it back. This, however, will break the navigation bar while the original navigation page is a redirect, but it works.
2. Copy and paste the following code into your user CSS file:

/* Special thanks to User:452 for this! Original taken from http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User:452/global.css?diff=prev&oldid=1343313 */
/* This thing fixes the broken width check in MediaWiki:Wiki-navigation */
.ArticlePreviewInner .WikiHeader li.nav-item a {
  /* Because the width check is broken. */ 
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}

This code works by reducing the width of the tabs in the preview window. It looks horribly squished while previewing, but it will fool the check into thinking that it's of the right size and will let you publish the edit. Just be careful! This could potentially allow you to save an invalid layout into the page, which can result in unpredictable results! It's best to test your changes on a test wiki to make sure nothing is out-of-place or broken before you save it on a real wiki.

You can also put this in your global CSS file so it loads on all wikis, which is useful if you're an admin on other wikis. See Help:JavaScript and CSS Cheatsheet for details. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 01:59, September 21, 2014 (UTC)

The issue only appears to occur when using Google Chrome 37... other browsers and older versions seem to work without the fix above. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 11:58, September 21, 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Sorry I was a little late to follow this up. Nice workaround! Thank you for reporting and finding a workaround for this issue, k6ka. :) Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 11:54, September 22, 2014 (UTC)

Introducing {{Edit conflict}}

Sick of running into edit conflicts while editing a talk page? Are people starting to think that you're an ignorant pig for not reading the comments right above yours?

If we could develop a magical extension that automatically resolved talk page edit conflicts, that would be wonderful. But we obviously can't do that -- talk pages are essentially the exact same as any other page. Really.

So here's another solution. If you ran into an edit conflict while editing a talk page, you can defend yourself against "Y U NO READ MY POSTS??!!" comments by adding {{Edit conflict}} in front of your comments. For example:

I'm not sure if this is the correct way to do it... --User 1
:Oh for sure, it is! --User 2

Let's say you were typing a response right underneath User 2's comment. As soon as you click "Publish" you are told that there was an edit conflict. The current page looks like this:

I'm not sure if this is the correct way to do it... --User 1
:Oh for sure, it is! --User 2
::If you read the manuals at MediaWiki.org, you'll see it's correct. --User 3

You would normally go to the bottom of the page, copy your changes, and then paste them under User 3's comment. With the new template, however, you can now easily tell the world that there was an edit conflict and that there is no need for finger-pointing if your comment is the same as User 3, or if it tries using an argument that User 3 had just knocked down.

I'm not sure if this is the correct way to do it... --User 1
:Oh for sure, it is! --User 2
::If you read the manuals at MediaWiki.org, you'll see it's correct. --User 3
::{{edit conflict}} According to the MediaWiki.org manuals, yes, this is how you do it. --You

Which comes out as:

I'm not sure if this is the correct way to do it... --User 1

Oh for sure, it is! --User 2

If you read the manuals at MediaWiki.org, you'll see it's correct. --User 3

(edit conflict) According to the MediaWiki.org manuals, yes, this is how you do it. --You

If you have experienced multiple edit conflicts you can also add an optional parameter to the template that indicates how many edit conflicts you endured. For example, if you encountered three edit conflicts, you can add {{edit conflict|3}} to show for it, which comes out as:

(edit conflict × 3)

You can also use the shortcut template - {{Ec}}, which does the exact same thing.

Have fun! --k6ka (talk | contribs) 15:01, September 27, 2014 (UTC)

This is a good concept, although I don't encounter edit conflicts that often. And even if I did, I would change some things in my post. u.u Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 12:19, September 29, 2014 (UTC)

Category:Families / Sims by neighborhood and world

While we've had resolved the issue to distinguish world from neighborhood by terminology, there's one thing I have in mind. Categorization has organizing purposes, and I believe that having two distinct categories, i.e. Category:Sims by neighborhood and Category:Sims by world, is redundant. We know how worlds and neighborhoods work differently, but we also know that these two are essentially the places where lots, in which Sims live, are situated. This means that worlds and (non-TS4-wise) neighborhoods are actually on the same level. Hence, I propose that these categories to be merged just for the sake of simplicity. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 08:35, October 5, 2014 (UTC)

ETA: Other things that regard worlds and neighborhoods remain unaffected. I only want to discuss about these two (three, with Category:Families by neighborhood) in particular. Categories like Category:Worlds and Category:Neighborhoods should stay that way, I suppose. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 08:36, October 5, 2014 (UTC)

I'm changing my mind. Now I'm starting to think that distinguishing worlds and neighborhoods in the category seems pointless and convoluted. They're deemed to be distinct in the main content, but I don't think it's very important to do that in categories. Therefore, I propose that we just combine the "Category:X by world" into "Category:X by neighborhood" for simplicity. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 11:24, October 10, 2014 (UTC)

Fixing a link

Moved from The Sims Wiki:Administrators' noticeboard

---

I've been struggling to figure out how to fix the career parameter for Tiffany Burb. It's supposed to be categorized under fashion, but instead it's categorized under "Sims who work in the career". Also there is no link to "fashion" in the career parameter. It simply says "[[|Department Store Clerk]]", but without a link.

I've been trying to resolve the issue by myself, but I just can't locate the cause of the issue. And I can't find any template documents that may appear broken. -- C.Syde (talk | contribs) 03:58, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

It appears that this problem has been solved. For some reason, fashion wasn't included on the list of careers in Template:GetCareerCat and Template:GetCareerLink. We're missing an in-game icon for the fashion career from TS1, but if someone can find one and upload it, it should be added to Template:GetCareerImage. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 04:22, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

Additionally, it's worth noting that the Sim/Simbio templates are among the most complex templates on the wiki. All of them ultimately are based off {{Sim}} which in addition to being a massive and complicated template in its own right, has dozens of secondary/auxiliary templates that feed into it. The best course of action in these cases is to determine what the issue is, and to find where in {{Sim}} the problem may originate. Most of the time if there's an issue in the bio template, it's an issue in {{Sim}} itself or one of its auxiliary templates. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 04:25, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

@ LiR:Post1 - Oh, okay. I certainly would never have found that link by myself, without being tipped off first. As for the missing in-game icon, I guess we'll just have to wait until someone who owns The Sims: Unleashed uploads an icon.

@ LiR:Post2 - Well that explains it. While I do know how the Sim/Simbio templates, they are proven to be really massive compared to the other templates I use/edit. -- C.Syde (talk | contribs) 04:29, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

I have The Sims: Complete Collection but I have no idea how to extract the information from the files... not to mention the icons. I've tried several tools with no luck. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 11:54, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

Same here. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 17:51, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

The only way I can think of extracting the icons is to go in-game, take screenshots of them, and then process it. The game files themselves are not well documented by modders and there is no "Sim1PE", or at least none that is free. --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 19:28, October 6, 2014 (UTC)

Static headings

As part of the Halloween theme, we changed div.headingblue and div.headinggreen in the wiki's css page so that the headings would be purple and orange, respectively. While this solution is simple and effective most of the time, there are a few instances in which we would want to continue using the standard blue and green headings even if we implement a new temporary theme. So, I've added div.headingbluestatic and div.headinggreenstatic to the css page. If there is some need to use a blue or green header, and you wish to ensure that the header remains blue or green even if the wiki temporarily changes theme, you can use the static versions of the headings. This is useful on, for example, our new user welcome messages, since those messages are substituted and the colors chosen will never change once they're added.

-- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 19:26, October 16, 2014 (UTC)

Eliminating Simbio

This is something that has been brought up several times in the past, but I'd like to start a discussion specifically about this topic. Right now on the wiki, we have two "biography infobox" templates for each game - the "Sim" and "Simbio" templates. For example, for The Sims 3, we have {{Simbio3}} and {{Sim3}}.

In Forum:Organization for TS4 timeline, a particular issue with the Simbio system is mentioned, specifically regarding {{Simbio-start}}. Simbio-start lists a Sim's name and significant familial relationships. The problem arises when a Sim has a different name or different relationships between games; which information, if any, should Simbio-start display? Take for example Bella Goth. Her Simbio-start lists her name as Bella Goth, even though her name is Bella Bachelor in The Sims 3. It lists her marital status as "married" even though she is not married in The Sims 3. It lists her children as Cassandra and Alexander, even though she has no children in The Sims 3 and only Cassandra as a child in The Sims. Ultimately, it would make more sense to include this information on each Sim template.

On top of this, when you start looking at it more in-depth, it becomes obvious that Simbio-start is redundant; everything that the template does is already done by the Sim templates. Another item of note is {{Simbio-end}}. At one time, Simbio-end included links to player stories and player theories pages. But, those pages no longer exist or are deleted, so Simbio-end no longer serves any meaningful purpose.

Phasing out Simbio would not be difficult to do, since Simbio is actually based on the Sim template. It would only be a matter of moving the information from simbio-start onto the other Sim templates, and changing the template used on the pages (a task which could be handled by a bot). No syntax would need to be changed, to my knowledge, and no changes would need to be made to the Sim templates. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk • blog • contribs} 17:49, November 9, 2014 (UTC)

I'm aware of the problem where the information stored in {{Simbio-start}} may be inconsistent with the rest of the series and it uses the latest of the "main timeline" of the series, i.e. The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 Store worlds, but the problem gets even worse with The Sims 4. This is also apparent in Ruby Broke, the sister or Skip Broke. It's said that Skip and their parents are deceased, but that's following to the series in TS2, even though they're very much alive in TS3, and she's not even present in TS2.

For that reason... I would actually support this change. But before that, do you think any change is needed for {{Familybio-start}}? Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 03:08, November 12, 2014 (UTC)

Overall I support this change, but I did initially have a few concerns about it.

• Will this mean, that we'll be seeing a huge surge of edits in the process?
• Will fanon writers have to edit their fanon Sim info-boxes during this change?

If the answers to those questions are yes, then I might initially have opposed this change. But then I re-read LiR's message about the task being handled by a bot. And I also decided "Maybe it would be best if I just supported this change, assumed good faith (as I always claim to do), and trusted that the "highly experienced" editor responsible for making this proposal - in this case LiR - knew what they were doing, and doing it for the benefits of the community. -- C.Syde (talk | contribs) 04:42, November 12, 2014 (UTC)

Assume Good Faith is an assumption that another person is contributing positively. AGF doesn't require you to assume that they are correct or that their ideas are any more valid than yours just because they've more experienced. You are totally free to agree or disagree with me or others for whatever reason(s) you want.

As for the handling of the task and other incidental issues... Changing Simbio to Sim could be handled by a bot, or it could be a gradual process. For starters, We can look into simply keeping the Simbio templates as redirects to their corresponding Sim templates, until the template links can be corrected. The same is true for Fanon pages. It's worth noting that the syntax for Simbio and Sim are nearly identical (in fact, all Simbio templates already use the base {{Sim}} template, and have for some time). The task of moving information from Simbio-start to the Sim templates would be a manual process, but we don't necessarily need to be in a rush to change everything and delete Simbio-start. Regarding Familybio... the idea had not actually occurred to me, but since family pages may encounter the same issues as Sim pages, deleting the Familybio and Familybio-start templates (after a transition period) would make sense as well. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk • blog • contribs} 05:28, November 12, 2014 (UTC)

Well yes. I assumed that you were contributing positively as usual, and I didn't think your ideas were any more valid than mine for any reasons. I can't really tell what most of the reasons are except that I assume that this proposal is correct.

---

P.S. I actually do know what assume good faith means. It is when one person assumes that another is contributing positively, whether or not they believe that person's contributions are correct. I'm just not the best at proving that I understand. -- C.Syde (talk | contribs) 05:31, November 12, 2014 (UTC)

We could opt to put Familybio at the 2nd priority while handling the Simbio issue first. It's better to focus on one thing before taking care of another. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 14:17, November 13, 2014 (UTC)

wikitable heading-blue

These two table classes, wikitable and plaintable (aside from prettytable), are commonly used in this wiki. They're pretty much alike:

class="wikitable heading-blue" table Header Header Text Text

class="plaintable heading-blue" table Header Header Text Text

Both tables use heading-blue class to make the headers blue. At some point, heading-blue no longer worked on wikitable class. This issue had lingered for years. I'm still unsure what's wrong, but my guess is that wikia's own wikitable settings succeed some elements this wiki's wikitable customization in MediaWiki:Wikia.css. Some elements are like background-color and padding.

So anyway, I figured that by adding

table.wikitable > tr > th, table.wikitable > * > tr > th {
   background: #BFD7FF;
   text-align: center;
   font-size: small;
}

to the css, it will change the header background to blue. It still doesn't fix the issue where heading-blue doesn't work on wikitable, and this will change all tables using wikitable class into blue header. I personally never like the gray header, but what do others think? Should we add this to the css? Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 14:26, November 16, 2014 (UTC)

Funnily enough I brought this up on IRC a week or two ago and I tried to code something to fix it but I never got around to finishing it. I'm curious to see what the tables would look like with green (specifically, I think I was testing with #CCFFCC) in the header instead of blue given the prevalence of green in the wiki's theme, however. As for implementing it feel free to do so given that this is better than the broken version you're saying we have now. ―ฬђ ^talk 22:48, November 16, 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I've added the lines to the css. If there's any issues regarding this, please report here.

This is what the green header looks like. I'm feeling indifferent about this. I'm content with the current blue header, but if we are to change the header theme to green, that's fine for me too. Nikel _{Talk – Vote!} 04:44, November 18, 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it's early in the morning, but it took me a while to distinguish the table on the left from the right. The green's not very visible. --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 11:49, November 18, 2014 (UTC)