Talk:MS Paint Adventures Wiki

Archives

Archive 1	May 2009 - July 2010
Archive 2	June 2010 - March 2011

2013

Main page improvements

There are some minor issues on the main page, I have been steadily dealing with them but I would like the input of others.

The contents table - The articles listed under each section should probably be ones that deal with a lot of general and important information. The adventures and characters sections are fine, rather it is the locations, items and concepts that need to be revamped.
For example: Just a couple of months ago the locations for Homestuck were; John's house, Land of Wind and Shade, and Skaia, as of the present, Land of Wind and Shade has been replaced by the general article on planets, being as it is more general and has a broader scope. So an opinions on further additions, or outright replacements, for locations in Homestuck and Problem Sleuth?
The inventory sections was worse for Homestuck, the items a couple of months ago were; fake arms, smoke pellets (both of which were redirects to the magic chest article), and hammer, as of the present they have all been replaced. Any opinions on the replacements, plus further replacements, or additions, including the Problem Sleuth inventory?
And of course concepts, no changes yet but any ideas?

Helping out section - I've removed some stuff from here because it was more stuff to help when starting up a wiki, but any thoughts or opinions on removing, adding or rewriting the section so it may actually help people find ways to help the wiki?

- The Light6 (talk) 12:22, March 19, 2013 (UTC)

It may be worth considering rearranging the main page entirely, and putting a more thorough contents section in the main column. We could have things like the news in the sidebar (since entries are usually pretty short). Hell, if we wanted to, we could have additional features like a quote generator or featured image actually I dunno about a featured image we have enough trouble getting input on featured articles.

As to the helping out section, the single most useful thing I can think of to be included in that is a link to the projects thread. That is, after all, a pretty solid list of what things are in need of improvement -- Sorceror Nobody, 13:02, March 19, 2013 (UTC)

Gigapause Countdown

I think that the gigapause countdown should not show up if you don't have javascript. Otherwise, it just looks weird saying "the last update." I think a way to do this is by using a different countdown code below, and by typing in the other code below that.

// **************************************************
// Experimental javascript countdown timer (Splarka)
// Version 0.0.3
// **************************************************
//
// Usage example:
//  <span class="countdown" style="display:none;">
//  Only <span class="countdowndate">January 01 2007 00:00:00 PST</span> until New years.
//  </span>
//  <span class="nocountdown">Javascript disabled.</span>
 
function updatetimer(i) {
  var now = new Date();
  var then = timers[i].eventdate;
  var diff = count=Math.floor((then.getTime()-now.getTime())/1000);
 
  // catch bad date strings
  if(isNaN(diff)) { 
    timers[i].firstChild.nodeValue = '** ' + timers[i].eventdate + ' **' ;
    return;
  }
 
  // determine plus/minus
  if(diff<0) {
    diff = -diff;
    var tpm = '';
  } else {
    var tpm = '';
  }
 
  // calcuate the diff
  var left = (diff%60) + ' seconds';
    diff=Math.floor(diff/60);
  if(diff > 0) left = (diff%60) + ' minutes, and ' + left;
    diff=Math.floor(diff/60);
  if(diff > 0) left = (diff%24) + ' hours, ' + left;
    diff=Math.floor(diff/24);
  if(diff > 0) left = diff + ' days, ' + left
  timers[i].firstChild.nodeValue = tpm + left;
 
  // a setInterval() is more efficient, but calling setTimeout()
  // makes errors break the script rather than infinitely recurse
  timeouts[i] = setTimeout('updatetimer(' + i + ')',1000);
}
 
function checktimers() {
  //hide 'nocountdown' and show 'countdown'
  var nocountdowns = getElementsByClassName(document, 'span', 'nocountdown');
  for(var i in nocountdowns) nocountdowns[i].style.display = 'none'
  var countdowns = getElementsByClassName(document, 'span', 'countdown');
  for(var i in countdowns) countdowns[i].style.display = 'inline'
 
  //set up global objects timers and timeouts.
  timers = getElementsByClassName(document, 'span', 'countdowndate');  //global
  timeouts = new Array(); // generic holder for the timeouts, global
  if(timers.length == 0) return;
  for(var i in timers) {
    timers[i].eventdate = new Date(timers[i].firstChild.nodeValue);
    updatetimer(i);  //start it up
  }
}
addOnloadHook(checktimers);
 
// **************************************************
//  - end -  Experimental javascript countdown timer
// **************************************************

<span class="countdown" style="display:none;"><div style="padding-bottom:10px">
{|style="border:ridge 4px #000; background:#fff; text-align: center; color:#000; font-size:125%; border-radius:15px; padding:5px; line-height:1.50em" width="100%"
|<span class="countdown" style="display:none;"><span class="countdown" style="display:none;">'''HOMESTUCK GIGAPAUSE duration tracker:'''<br /><span class="countdowndate">16 Oct 2013 07:32:27 UTC</span> since {{HS|8752|the last update.}}.</span></span> </span>
|}
</div>

I made a version on a wiki that has this code enabled, if you want an idea of what it would look like. I had to remove the MSPA quote part on that version, however.

**EDIT** FUCK I FORGOT MY SIGNATURE Ylimegirl (talk) 20:30, February 2, 2014 (UTC)

2014

Redundancy

"The wiki about MS Paint Adventures that anyone can edit. You put the redundancy of "wiki that anyone can edit" out of your mind."

Can we just remove this part? It isn't redundant. Some wikis have limited editorships, a wiki is simply something designed for collaborative, but wikis are not inherently universally collaborative. It is even possible to have wikis which are editable by only 1 or 2 people. +Yc 02:54, March 20, 2014 (UTC)

I second this idea. There is an awful lot of sarcasm-like comments on this wiki, frankly (See: image captions on articles), and honestly, its just unneeded. Ylimegirl (talk) 03:06, March 20, 2014 (UTC)

I was suddenly reminded of this due to another recent thing where a person seemed to be a bit confused on what a wiki is. But yeah, it isn't a redundant statement, so I'll go ahead and remove it. As for the sarcasm-like comments, most of them come from previous eras of the wiki's history. Unfortunately just because the way things are done changes it doesn't change what is already there unless you want to put in heaps of effort to change everything. - The Light6 (talk) 06:52, March 30, 2014 (UTC)

What's your problem with sarcasm? It was funny, not to mention the fact that the adventures are written by a very sarcastic author . Still, if you must root out and delete every lighthearted comment in this wiki, go ahead, I'm not stopping you. I'm just here to let you know this is not a scientific essay. And by the way, there is some redundancy involved, since you need to learn how to edit before you do, especially on pages where you must edit on the source code(I know it's not that hard, but still there's that). And also there are pages not anyone can edit, because they are 'protected'.--201.79.202.191 19:02, December 1, 2014 (UTC)

Should we include some kind of spoiler alert?

Should we include some sort of spoiler alert or spoiler warning somewhere on the main page? I've seen that sort of thing on a few other wikis. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:12, May 14, 2014 (UTC)

Not on the main page but definitely in the articles. Whiles its a given there will be spoilers on a wiki it may not be known where the spoilers are. 69.14.52.136 15:15, May 14, 2014 (UTC)

While some Wiki's do continue put disclaimers in articles, even Wikipedia did it once; however like Wikipedia, most wikis it is no longer do it of the obvious reasons of the purpose of what a wiki is and the obvious fact that anyone who decides to look something up on these matters should already be aware they may expose themselves to spoilers. Because that is what the purpose of a wiki is, to provide comprehensive information on a subject.

Because really if you go to a character's page and decide to read the section titled "Biography" the title of the section is already in-itself a spoiler warning.

However, if people really want a spoiler warning I have no objection to a disclaimer page written up to add to the Project namespace which could then be linked on the main page, a disclaimer page can cover various topics not just spoilers, but also the MSPA's Wiki's use of language and other age sensitive content. - The Light6 (talk) 15:52, May 14, 2014 (UTC)

A lot of spoilers aren't easy to hide. For example, seeing Callie's face reveals a major plot twist for A6A3, and seeing the names or faces of any of the alpha kids or alpha trolls reveals a major plot twist of A5A2. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:53, May 15, 2014 (UTC)

With comics/tv shows/what have you, these days, it's best to just get completely caught up and then check the Wiki out. Even when I was just catching up in 2010 I understood that and didn't visit the Homestuck wiki until I was all caught up. For archival readers, I always saw the Wiki as sort of a reward for getting caught up with the current story. Rabbeseking (talk) 21:41, May 15, 2014 (UTC)

The Countdown

Shouldn't the timer be counting down to the one-year anniversary of the Gigapause, not the three-year anniversary of Cascade?

The one-year anniversary of the Gigapause is nine days sooner than the three-year anniversary of Cascade. Warlord Fred (talk) 18:40, June 15, 2014 (UTC)

We had discussed it, but given we already have a gigapause counter, we felt it was redundant as the counter is already counting up to a year. - The Light6 (talk) 18:51, June 15, 2014 (UTC)

Plus we're gonna have to change it pretty quickly for 11/11 if 10/25 doesn't pull through, and I'd rather change the countdown timer once in the span of a few weeks than twice. Aepokk Venset 05:03, June 16, 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, it would be entirely possible for us to pre-code a multitude of timers, and have them only be visible on the page within certain date-time spans... but doing so is 1. a bit of a pain, and 2. subject to the whims of Wikia's cache when it comes to them becoming visible at the correct time – if it failed to update correctly due to cache delay, we'd have to perform an ?action=purge on the page, thus reducing (though, granted, not eliminating) the benefit of the automation -- Sorceror Nobody, 18:08, June 17, 2014 (UTC)

Gamzee's page

Moved to Talk:Gamzee Makara#Vandalism.

2015

Shibemarine's frontpage edits

So... Is this admin endorsed or some kind of Vandalism?

I'm confused.

Hemerythrin (talk) 13:13, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

Looks like it. It was a new user who bragged about vandalizing the main page over on Twitter. Anyway, it's reverted now. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 14:12, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

Y'know, without condoning it in the slightest, there's a plus side to that vandalism: I always like collecting new markup, and I've not encountered rotation control before -- Sorceror Nobody, 18:18, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

2017

Suggestion - Revive featured article section?

The wiki is still being expanded, but the featured article on the main page hasn't updated in a couple of years. Perhaps we should vote in a new featured article and bring it back? Problem Sleuth has had its time in the limelight! :P BlackholeWI (talk) 03:07, October 14, 2017 (UTC)

We'll get tired of it again and stop updating at a point. Mamaopapaya (talk) 14:28, October 30, 2017 (UTC)

Homestuck.com - Add it to the useful links?

Now that there's an official homestuck.com created by Viz media, I think that be added to the useful links under Andrew Hussie. Not to mention homestuck.com links to this wiki. Also, on an unrealted note, should the link to Hussie's Tumblr still be there? It's completely blank and it has been for a while. CrowdControlOS (talk) 22:34, October 28, 2017 (UTC)

Yooo, Homestuck.com links to us? I feel honored as hell. Yes: we should link to it, but we'd need a cool icon thingy. Should bother User:Sorceror Nobody about making one. Also I'm surprised you pointed out his twitter being inactive when his tumblr has literally deleted every single post. Ylimegirl – Hero of Hope – 21:47, October 29, 2017 (UTC)