Dota 2 Wiki:Discussion

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Regular tournaments
We already have got pages for every tournament and for all tournaments together, but don't you think pages for series of tournaments like Dreamhack, TI or Premier League will be fine? JoinDota Masters for example, 7 were tournaments hold under this name. Such pages would contain stats like number of participations for each team, teams with the biggest number of wins and so on. What do you think about it? Example: User:Kemerover/Sandbox/The_International
 * Yes. But try to not link it from the Tournaments page. Redefining history 22:57, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Semantic MediaWiki vs Dictionary
So a couple of months ago we wanted a system to do as the Dictionary system did on the TF2 Wiki, and we didn't have anybody willing to host a bot to run the dictionary back then so we decided on SMW and that is what we have been using. Well, now we have the choice between the two; so I'm opening a switchover up for discussion. Should we drop SMW and use Template:Dictionary? - RJ 19:57, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Dictionary - I prefer the Dictionary system. I have more experience in it and I think its a frankly better solution.  It would allow us to separate information such as Hero stats away from hero pages, reducing the likelyhood of that information being falsely modified; and removing declarations from pages or other templates gives us cleaner page/template code.  It is also centralised - which means mass-modifications (e.g. store price changes) are easier as they can all be done in one page, rather than the individual pages the values are hidden away in. - RJ  19:57, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It's interesting that you describe putting values on individual pages as "hiding" them; I have exactly the opposite reaction. If I, as a new user, notice that Earthshaker's movement speed is incorrect, my first reaction would be to edit the page to correct it. If we used a dictionary to store that information, I would have to navigate a chain of templates to figure out where that value is stored. As another example, I'm trying to figure out how I would go about adding an item to Scout's Special Delivery item set. Do I have to add it to Item_set_infobox, or to Dictionary/item_set_weapons, or Set, or all three? Does one overwrite the others? Do I have to manually update Special_Delivery/ru, or is that updated automatically from one of the other values? Are there other pages I have to update, like maybe a page with a list of item sets or something? If Dictionary/item_set_weapons doesn't automatically update Special_Delivery and/or Set, then what does it do? How would I even know Dictionary/item_set_weapons exists if I hadn't stumbled across it earlier? In short, I won't claim that Dictionary is more or less logical or intuitive than SMW, but I suspect your experience with Dictionary is largely responsible for your comfort with it. --Kroocsiogsi 22:09, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * If you try to edit one of the dictionary subpages, there's an editnotice that makes it pretty obvious you're not doing the right thing WindPower 00:21, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I saw that editnotice. "Please do not create or edit individual dictionary subpages, e.g. Template:Dictionary/items/flamethrower. Make changes to the main dictionary pages linked above instead." Dictionary/item_set_weapons is one of "the main dictionary pages linked above", is it not? --Kroocsiogsi 01:00, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Dictionary much more convenient than use switch templates--FreeXMan 20:02, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * What does this have to do with anything? - Nickoladze 21:39, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't understand your comment. I don't think anybody's suggesting switch templates, although they appear to be used for the last-mile language translation in both Dictionary and SMW. --Kroocsiogsi 22:09, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * We had this debate a month ago, it's even 3 discussions above. We had already created dictionaries for ability and hero ifo, and we all decided to switch to SMW because it was easier. Anybody who had a voice against SMW didn't say anything, and now we've spent hours of time converting everything that was using ability dictionaries to using SMW and now you want to switch back to dictionaries again? Absurd. I actually find this quite offensive because I was the one that originally spent 6+ hours setting up the ability dictionary and I voluntarily dropped the project in favor of SMW. You say we didn't have anybody willing to host a bot, yet Curse has told me over and over that they will host the bot I've written to manage the Guides listings. - Nickoladze 21:35, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I originally asked Curse back in December to run a bot for the dictionary system, among other things; their response was that they did not have the server capacity to do it. If that is no longer the case then I hadn't been informed (I knew you had a bot, but I didn't know what was going on regarding hosting it).   Looking at The Plan (for SMW), one of the "Decision points" is "We decide to keep Semantic MediaWiki, or to scrap it." - that can effectively be the discussion going on now.  While a lot of work is already done for SMW, is it still the best system now that we have an alternative available? - RJ  22:01, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. It's a bit of an odd question, because they don't have the same functionality, although we probably shouldn't use both. Dictionary has the not-insignificant advantage that TF2 wiki users are familiar with it. SMW has the advantage that it is an established project that has decent documentation and support channels, and does not require a specialized bot.
 * But the killer-app of SMW, and the reason I am so enamored of it, is a function Dictionary lacks: SMW can query from a value, not just from a name. Dictionary can take a Hero and tell you what primary attribute it has; SMW can take a primary attribute and tell you what Heroes have it. This means that we can dynamically generate information about released strength Heroes, or lane-support Heroes, or Heroes with non-standard vision ranges, or all abilities that are UAMs, or all abilities that are spammable because they have a cooldown of less than 20 and a mana cost of less than 75, or all abilities that are partially blocked by magic immunity, or all items that provide bonus movement speed, or all the tournaments that have started but haven't ended, or all the players who play the ganker role, or all items that have abilities that are blocked by Linken's Sphere, or the twenty most expensive cosmetics, or all the immortal strange hats, or whatever other silly thing comes to mind. And equally importantly, these lists or tables or charts will be always up-to-date in all languages, even Hungarian, without manual modification.
 * But, y'know, tee-eff-teu gets along fine without all that, so maybe it's not necessary. ;-) --Kroocsiogsi 22:09, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * TF2 doesn't have nearly as much data to work with to make SMW worth while. Making a list of something such as which classes have a base HP > 120 would be trivial for them, as it would probably include 2 or 3, while a similar query for Dota 2 would return something like 50 heroes. Some of the best strengths of SMW involve the thing we were just trying to figure out last night, listing all heroes that have cosmetic items and list them out nicely. A dictionary would not be able to accomplish this. Like you said, all data in a dictionary is only accessible by name, and not value. That's a pretty big negative if you ask me. - Nickoladze 22:21, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Hm. Excellent points.  I suppose both could co-exist, but have to be careful not have either treading on eachothers' applications...  The dictionary system is a lot better at handling translated strings and/or getting correct strings for things, e.g. what we use Template:Item name for; but it is inferior in its dynamicity of application.  It sounds to me like SMW would be add a ton of functionality to the guides section of the Wiki (the most likely place for obscure queries like "all heroes above 120HP"), which of-course the dictionary system is incapable of, and so for that reason I'm on-board with keeping it; but I do think the dictionary system can still be of value.  - RJ  22:38, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I created the dictionary system as a consequence of Valve not wanting to install SMW (or any extension for that matter). It is much less powerful, much slower, very crufty (why use tons of wiki pages to store data?), and has some pretty bad limitations. SMW is more powerful and can do pretty much everything the dictionary system can do WindPower 00:21, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Updated SkillboxMinimal
I went ahead and updated Template:SkillboxMinimal so it can accept a "source" variable that is a wikilink. The idea here being that you make the Hero or Item name the source, and the actual ability name the name, so it makes a nice wikilink to the source of the ability. The more links the better! Let me know if there are any issues/improvements on this. I'm also going through the articles that use the template and updating them accordingly. --Ten19 20:55, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

3d model on items?
how do you guys feel on 3d model viewing on items? example http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Lugermorph — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wolf (talk) • (contribs)
 * It's a great idea and certainly something we can work on and implement in the future, but right now I don't think we are not ready to distract ourselves with big wiki-projects (those images take a lot of work, and sometimes even require modified models); we have a lot of content, especially after the Dota 2 Store patch, that needs to be improved (i.e. give every page an introduction - even if just one sentence, figuring out how to display things consistently and concisely) before we can take on implementing such new features. - RJ 00:49, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Patrolmen
Faraday suggests adding a new rank below mod, with privileges to see and mark patrols, to help with vandalism, specially in foreign languages (or so I think), they will use patrol red signs system. (ChocolateWaffle) - Faraday  10:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The patrol feature is, on the various wikis I'm involved in, never used. I have personally tried to push people in to using it, but it usually ends up with a day or two's worth of activity and then people just forget about it or give up on it (myself included); so as a feature it is, from my experience, worthless.  Introducing a new user group below staff and above regular contributors is also something I really do not like the sound of; it would split our community into editors we trust and editors we don't - something I think goes against the core ideals of a collaborative platform such as a Wiki.  We should assume every contributor makes their edits in good faith, and trust them to do so unless they prove otherwise.  So, to conclude, I am against the suggestion.  It would unnecessarily split our community all because of a feature that is rarely used. - RJ  20:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it's a good idea becose we havent people who can replace me. No one will see vandalism without me. I am not sure that will i active the next two months. It's a plan how we can replace me. Faraday  20:05, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem necessary, but it wouldn't make life any harder for me. RJackson is really the person who would have to manage this, so I support his decision. --Kroocsiogsi 20:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't really care, but seems a unnecessary to me. Might work in the Russian language section if Faraday is worried about that. -Baloroth 20:13, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it should be done. --DarkAssassin 20:37, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Template:AbilityMinimal
I noticed that the last few days people changing the templates on the pages characters from Skillbox to ABILITY. There is a "Smaller" version of Skillbox ..... so can someone make the choice for ABILITY? or it is'nt necessary and i can continue using the SkillboxMinimal in futur ? LEG 15:02, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe the new way of doing this is using Template:Ability with the parameter "layout = minimal". I'm not sure if it's finished, though, so I'd continue using SkillboxMinimal for now. --Kroocsiogsi 18:15, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Template: Recommended to heroes

 * Special Case: Radiance is a core item in Lone Druid's Spirit Bear

I suggest to make "Template: Recommended to heroes", this template already used to page Radiance and Radiance/ru, i think it cool idea make it for all recommended items.If it is necessary, i can make it itself. Have you some ideas? Medok 08:45, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Recommended items are very subjective content, which is not good content to author on a wiki. The recommended items we list in pages are only there because they're the in game default recommendations, so we justify listing them with the reason were documenting the default state if the game.  With "Recommended Heroes [to use an item]" there us no such default information in the game files, so we would author that information ourselves, and as that information us subjective it would likely attract a lot of edits and potentially cause edit wars.  For that reason I am against the suggestion. - RJ  09:27, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * What? The list will only include Heroes who have the certain specific item be included in their default recommended items. It's not (re)inventing anything, and it is merely listing those who use the item as suggested by Valve's list. If you see the Radiance page now, you'll understand that they all commonly have Radiance as a recommended item. -- Denmax 14:21, 15 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I see no problem with this, so long as it remains clear that these are recommended by Valve and therefore not subject to editing wars (or you will see the people raging about how Radiance is recommended on Enigma, for example). -Baloroth 15:22, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I shown how this might be done via Semantic MediaWiki, on Radiance. (The code I wrote in Radiance would naturally be put into a template to ease deployment.) --Kroocsiogsi 09:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I think Hero images are too flashy for this. Recommended items are disputed, as RJackson alludes, and I don't like the idea of making disputed material the most eye-grabbing thing on the page. If we implement this idea at all, I propose using text. I have shown how this might be done, below Medok's navbox, on Radiance. --Kroocsiogsi 09:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * How about the one I just posted now right below the division? Would this work? -- Denmax 10:00, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It is technically feasible, but I would oppose it. The name of a hero is far more readable than its corresponding mini-hero, especially for new players. --Kroocsiogsi 10:14, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Well my primary concern right now is how noteworthy is that information on an item page; we don't want to clog up pages with every little detail about an item just so we can say "Yep, we have everything." - we aim to provide enough information that a page is helpful and contains the sort of information people want to find. Do people visit item pages to find out what heroes (by default) an item is recommended to?  I can't think of a context where that would be helpful; though it is worth noting I'm a low-level player - perhaps there are some higher-skill uses that I simply cannot think up.  So yeah, that is my concern right now - would that information be of interest to anybody?  - RJ  00:58, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I like the idea, item pages are rather empty except especial cases like Aghanim's Scepter, and if we stick to Valve's recommended items it isn't as subjective, and I sometimes browse items and go like "who would this be good on?", I doubt anyone would take that info too seriously, more like a suggestion, and we could always add a "this are only suggested items by valve, your experience may vary" or whatever -ChocolateWaffle 01:21, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "Starting" items are boring. "Early game" items tend to be pretty boring. "Situational" items are perhaps the most controversial. How about just doing "Core" items (excluding Boots, Wand, Wards, TP, etc.)? There wouldn't be nearly as many, but it might give more reasonable results. --Kroocsiogsi 01:42, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * As long as it's clear that these are valve-recommended, I see no reason not to do this. - Nickoladze 01:49, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

We now have Template:Item infobox wrapper
Template:Item infobox wrapper has been created. Over the next few days I plan to use bots, elbow grease, and volunteers to deploy it across non-English pages, replacing Template:Item infobox. --Kroocsiogsi 05:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * What are peoples' feelings about creating skeleton item pages (like, infobox only) algorithmically for all languages where they don't exist? Useless load on servers, or painless way to seed new languages with lots of blue links? (The same can be done for Heroes, but I'm thinking of dealing with items first.) --Kroocsiogsi 02:42, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd say not to make skeleton pages, it could end up making languages look relatively complete in Dota 2 Wiki:Translation progress but with the majority of articles actually empty; red links serve as a to-do list for translators, I think eliminating them would do more harm than good in the long run. - RJ 03:14, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool. In that case, should we delete untranslated pages? (e.g. Iron_Branch/cs) --Kroocsiogsi 03:44, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes - RJ 14:51, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * a bunch of these. Looks like /cs was the only major offender. --Kroocsiogsi 22:39, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
 * with more bots and less elbow grease than expected. There are probably some stupid bot-edits that I missed, but overall it looks good to me. French items were formatted oddly, so I think I'll patch those up. If you notice anything else, holler at me. Or fix it yourself... --Kroocsiogsi 22:44, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Potential Guide System Discussion
The wiki staff has been working hard on a submitting and rating guide system that is close to completion, but we would like to hear input from the community on what would work, what wouldn't, any suggestions, etc. For starters, should anyone be able to edit guides or should they be user private? -ChocolateWaffle 12:23, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Discussion should happen on Talk:Community Guides, not some generic "discussion" page. -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png ]] talk  12:28, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I put it here because it will be a main feature of the wiki, that page is too obscure and unreachable by most users, and even more by newcomers, so atleast we should leave the link here for others to find it. -ChocolateWaffle 12:34, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I was told to wait for Kaelten in IRC at least twice now and neither time has he tried to get ahold of me. I wrote an amendment to Community Voice that needs to be "inspected" and then installed, as well as a bot that needs to be hosted and put on an automated cron job. I completed those at the end of April, if I remember correctly. - Nickoladze 21:43, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Front page layout compacting
As discussed in the channel I would like to make a change to the front page layout that will better display the important links, namely the hero tiles. With Valve's release of the heropedia I think it's important that we make our pages as visible as possible, since people are more likely to go here first. So what I want to do is move all index links to one row and condense the latest patches box into a height that is about the same as the resized index box. So in other words have a flow with the most important content on the top, and continuing downwards in order of interest/usefulness/importance.

Here is an excellent concept of what I'm talking about made by Waffle. -- Lagg 01:00, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Concept looks great. We would have to scale down the index nav icons though to be more friendly with smaller screens, but I agree with the suggestion. Feel free to work on a sandboxed version of the page, and we can iterate and perfect it together. - RJ  01:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Dota2 not working properly since Luna,Wisp patch.
Since the release of the new patch I've been having problems with dota2 I try to open it and when it goes to the Main Menu it gets stuck there.Instead of letters and stuff its all squares and so you can't read anything and it also crashes after a while bringing me back to desktop if anyone else has the same problem please tell me and let's find a solution. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 188.4.108.116 (talk) • (contribs)
 * We are not a tech support / help website. The Developer Forums would be better suited for your query. - RJ  18:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Adding Dotacinema Introduction videos for all Heroes
I would like to add the Introvideos for the Heroes Dotacinema made for each hero. What do you guys think?
 * Copy a hero page into your sandbox and add a video to it. If it looks good, I agree with the idea. - Nickoladze 20:10, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * First, it certainly shouldn't go where you first put it IMO (not at all the right place for it). Second, I'd prefer it to be a simple link, rather than an embed. Embedding it takes up far too much room on the page overall. Put a link under "See Also" and I think it'd be fine. -Baloroth 20:25, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The size can be changed on the embedded video, I agree that it was too large. Link - Nickoladze 20:29, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, on second though an embed below the abilities themselves (but above recommended items) would look fine, if it was a little smaller. We want the ability statistics to be above the video, since they are more important/looked up more often, but recommended items and below are probably less important information than the video. -Baloroth 20:37, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The Dotacinema videos would add further clarification and visuals to skills, which some people probably prefer over having just a list of notes. About the placement, at the TF Wiki we embed the videos underneath the statistics (example page), and since it's mostly information about skills and the hero, I think it would be best to embed the video underneath the Abilities section, potentially underneath the Recommended Items section. Only the inclusion of a link to it would be fine with me as well. Hefaistus 20:39, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * @Nickoladze I wanted it to make it like on the TF2 wiki. But here because its about the Abilities I wanted to add it above so you get an overall look at it and then you can read what the abilities do and not and so on.
 * I think that most people coming to the Wiki will be looking for the ability info first. People looking specifically for videos on a hero will probably go straight to YouTube. - Nickoladze 21:45, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't mind seeing links to the video somewhere on the page as a footnote or something along those lines, but personally I've always thought that video embeds direct people's attention off the page a bit too aggressively. -- Lagg User Lagg optf2 icon.png 21:47, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Valve did it, videos is very old and good idea, why not? Faraday  00:33, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I presume you're referring to the videos embedded on the TF wiki. That was actually us that did it, and I'd rather not repeat it here because it's brought more grief than good (people have quite the tendency to try and sneak in their own videos of debatable usefulness to get view count bumps) -- Lagg User Lagg optf2 icon.png 06:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No-no, i mean videos on heropedia from Valve Faraday  08:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * If we link to DotaCinema, why not link to 'Purge plays X' or DotaFire or the alt-tab hero guide, or any of the other garbage out there. The content is weak at best and absolutely should not be embedded. Even linking to it isn't an idea I'm fond of, as many of the guides are simply just bad and wiki is supposed to remain objective sources of facts. Decency 02:32, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Well now I'm confused, at first I thought that this was an official thing like Heropedia because I misread the original talk line. In this case I am changing my vote entirely to -- Lagg User Lagg optf2 icon.png 06:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The very same point as Baloroth. Takes too much space on the page and too much attention. Also, embded things generally slow down browser performance - if you have several tabs open and each has a video in it. I recommend adding a link at the bottom of the page, thou. Viperys 08:28, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The wiki is supposed to include information that are as objective as possible. That's the reason the idea of a "Guides" section was introduced, a place where extremely subjective (but useful) information could be allowed and stored. There would be no problem if this was the guide section, but in my opinion DotaCinema videos should no exist in the main hero pages. I also don't think there should be any blatant advertising of DotaCinema on the wiki pages. Redefining history 08:50, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * What if we put up links to the Heropedia videos in the ability notes? For example, we could add it like this to Earthshaker's Fissure ability: Visuals. Hefaistus 12:23, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I like those videos. They're not on DotaCinema's channel and they have no logos or advertisements anywhere in the video. It's much better than us going through and making videos if we ever wanted to. - Nickoladze 12:39, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * i like this idea. Faraday  12:46, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I like this idea. Can't embed them, obviously, since there are too many. One thing is we should make sure whatever we do that we get the makers/owners permission (I don't imagine Valve will mind, but we should make sure, since some of the DotaCinema guys actually made the videos). -Baloroth 18:20, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Hero Model Pictures in infoboxes
This is a project I have been working on and off for quite some time now. People have oftentimes expressed the desire for us to show in-game hero models on their pages. For this reason, I have been working on several infobox variants to showing off those models, as well as pictures of every hero currently (up to Disruptor and Undying) in the game, with the exception of Wisp. The infoboxes can be found here, while all hero pictures can be found here. Be sure to leave behind feedback. Hef aistus 19:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC)