Dota 2 Wiki:Discussion

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Dota2Wiki giveaway
Good day, gentlemen. I'm here to offer some event (or serie of events) to increase Wiki popularity. As far as I know, for the moment moslty admins edit and create new pages. TI4 is almost here, and with launching Compendium + League itself there will be a lot of new articles to be written. I'm dota-trade.com admin and would like to offer keys/sets/items for such giveaway. Each week you will pick users made hugest contribution to Wiki, to distribute prizes among them. Ofc it's just an offer. We would like to give items to popularize Wiki among editors. Maybe you had already other ideas of giveaways. Will be much appreciate for your reply! — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Panishev (talk) • (contribs)
 * I agree with this. I'm only contributor on Russian side of wiki, and ofc, updating that lang-pages took a long time. --eЯmac.hdp (talk) 16:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've been planning to put a module on the main page that says "Help Needed" to recruit editors, with links to our Steam group, IRC, promotional event info (like this one), an editing guide, and a list of pages that need attention. Except I don't know how to do create modules! ): - Lemoncream (talk) 22:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * If you will add this module, let me know, pls. We will provide items for it. Or maybe you will find some easier way to inform users. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Panishev (talk) • (contribs)
 * Agreed. This wiki need much contributors. Medok 17:11, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove community guides
Community Guides have gone exactly nowhere in the past year. I suggest that we are not an appropriate platform for community guides. In the interest of a clean wiki, I propose removing community guides pages and uninstalling CommunityVoice and its dependencies. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 01:11, 22 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Agree - Everybody's using Steam guides anyway - Lemoncream (talk) 02:29, 22 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good idea. I agree - LingoSalad (talk) 20:56, 22 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Agreed, opinionated guides seem out of place in my mind. The "Tips" sections for hero pages have become a sort of guide as is. My only question is whether the removal of the community guides will affect the Hero Difficulty guide? It's constantly being changed by people because everyone's opinion about hero difficulty is different. It was supposed to be a direct copy of R.B. Economy's PlayDota post, but has quickly become something else entirely. I vote it be rolled-back to version 508671 and locked to keep it's integrity. That, or remove it along with the other guides. --PimpadelicX (talk) 11:02, 24 June 2014 (UTC)


 * . Sole remaining page in Guides namespace was Guides:Hero Difficulty, which I have moved to Hero Difficulty. This is an odd duck. It really belongs in userspace, I think, but I respect Pigbuster's decision to dissociate himself from it. I think linking to it from the front page is a poor idea. The idea behind community guides was that the creator exercised total control, but with a single officially blessed hero difficulty guide it's not clear how disagreements should be arbitrated. Should it be a free-for all? Should R.B. Economy have the last word forever? What about the fact that R.B. Economy hasn't updated his guide since 2011? There are no good answers except to remove the guide entirely, which I'm reluctant to do unilaterally. Until consensus is reached on a solution, I think I'll take up PimpadelicX on his proposal to revert and lock, and add a disclaimer to the top of the page. I don't feel strongly about this, so feel free to overrule me. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 00:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the information is not objective enough to be presented as an article. If we keep it and protect it, it's the same as having a guide, since it's not really any sort of official information. I vote delete - LingoSalad (talk) 03:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I've always thought it should be deleted... too subjective, prone to pointless editing, etc. Let's reserve this wiki for official content, opinions can be found elsewhere. - Lemoncream (talk) 03:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove several semantic properties from cosmetic item pages
Cosmetic items currently have semantic properties for creator, releasedate, availability, tradeable, nameable, and strangecounter. I believe these were created with neither consensus nor purpose. To the best of my knowledge these properties are used nowhere on the wiki. Because they are poorly formatted, they are also responsible for some SMW errors. Many properties are out-of-date. I propose removing these properties. To be clear, I do not propose removing the information from the infoboxes, but only removing the semantic information from the pages. Please correct me if anybody knows of any usage of these properties. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 01:16, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree - been thinking about removing outdated properties for a long time, I just have no idea how to do it.... does it involve editing the template? - Lemoncream (talk) 02:29, 22 June 2014 (UTC)


 * . I checked for usage by doing queries like this this. This affects a lot of pages. I don't know how long it will take to complete. Hopefully no side effects, but you never know for sure. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 01:57, 25 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Sorry I forgot to bring this up before, but the "Nameable" property is also quite useless - just about everything is nameable. Also, "Tradeable" and "Marketable" may as well be merged, as pretty much anything tradeable is also marketable. - Lemoncream (talk) 09:18, 4 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Cripes, really? What a mess. So you're saying we should actually remove "Nameable" and "Marketable" from the infoboxes themselves? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd like to note that "Tradeable" is not the same as "Marketable", as evidenced by the new Weather compendium items. They can be traded, but not marketed. Ividyon (talk) 19:03, 4 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The "Creator" property really is just there to show which workshop artist contributed what; and for the past week I've done nothing but include the creators in the cosmetic set pages that lack them. My bad I guess, sorry. Should have checked here first. --Missing Username (talk) 09:36, 4 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Not your bad at all. That's great. As I said above "I do not propose removing [Creators and other information] from the infoboxes". This was a Semantic MediaWiki change that should be invisible to wiki users. Keep on rocking, Missing Username. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Audit and remove unused MediaWiki extensions
We should not keep unused MediaWiki extensions. Some may introduce unnecessary security vulnerabilities. Some create complexity. Some unmaintained extensions might eventually cause maintainability problems. I'm not sure that the following are unused, but it would be good to check.


 * W4G Rating Bar
 * CommunityVoice and ClientSide, if Community Guides are removed
 * StringFunctions, since it's almost entirely replaced by ParserFunctions and magic words
 * FlashMP3
 * Either MediawikiPlayer or EmbedVideo

--Kroocsiogsi (talk) 01:35, 22 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Audit is . My notes are at Dota_2_Wiki:Technical_requests. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 00:52, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Equipment lists are getting ridiculous
First we had all equipment on one page. Yes, a page with images of and links to literally every piece of equipment in Dota 2. Unsurprisingly, the page broke. Then we had Hero_equipment_A_through_J. It also broke. (Check the bottom of the page.) Now we have Hero_equipment_A_through_C. As soon as it gets so big it breaks the wiki, it gets subdivided. This solution is unsustainable. Does anybody even use this navigational system? Do people like looking at giant galleries of equipment arranged alphabetically by hero? It's burdensome, and it's bizarre. Can we pretty please ditch it? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 08:50, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I must say I did use those pages a very long time ago, well before I began editing the wiki, but that was only because I wanted to count how many heroes had equipment at the time. Now the 'Categories' section of the Equipment page has it built in, listing 92 heroes. I'm all for removing clutter, so I vote delete.
 * --PimpadelicX (talk) 09:16, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Replacement system is . Visible at Equipment. Improvements welcome. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 00:54, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Treasure Key infobox versus Cosmetic Item infobox
Template:Treasure Key infobox is a lightly customized version of Template:Cosmetic Item infobox. Some keys use one, some use another. I don't care which, but it should probably be standardized. I'm not sure why keys have their own infobox. What about chests, etc? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 21:50, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Might as well just use the cosmetic item one... Valve has phased out most of the treasure keys except for the original one anyway. - Lemoncream (talk) 22:26, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * . --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 01:06, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Radiant and Dire icons
A long time ago, boys and girls, there was a game called "Defense of the Ancients". DotA had two sides, Scourge and Sentinel, and each hero belonged to one faction. That was then. This is now. The idea that each hero is "aligned" with one faction has been eroding in Dota 2. You will notice that the hero cards no longer have identifying Radiant and Dire  icons. You will likewise notice that the factions are unnamed on Heropedia, and factions are not even specified on hero pages. The ingame hero picker does not support filtering by faction, and likewise the "factions" (accurately: "the left and right sides of the grid") are unnamed. They appear to be in a bisected grid only for the sake of tradition and for spatial continuity.

The icons are simply obsolete. I propose removing them from the wiki, and replacing them with nothing.

Moreover, I propose that the classification of heroes by faction is obsolete. Thus, I propose removing entirely our classifications of heroes as "Radiant" and "Dire". I would appreciate evidence that suggests Valve still view, e.g., Anti-Mage as Radiant-aligned. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 07:23, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I think it's always better to retain as much information as possible, even if only for archival purposes. If you remove the icons, there should still be some way to know the faction they used to belong to. The current grid with its separations and green/red lines should be fine without the icons and faction labels. I hope you don't delete the icon files though, they might be useful for something in the future. - Lemoncream (talk) 08:24, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * My claim is that the information ("affiliation", as PlayDota calls it) is actually false. That is, I claim that Anti-Mage is not affiliated with Radiant. Do you have evidence that Anti-Mage is affiliated with Radiant? And why, should the need arise, should we use Radiant icon.png to designate Radiant instead of an icon that appears in the game, such as Radiant_logo.png? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 08:55, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * If there are new icons, then that's just fine. But I still think the bisected grid should be kept, if anything just to reflect how it's shown in-game and to avoid a big clump of heroes. - Lemoncream (talk) 09:08, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I prefer the aesthetic of the current images. They seem easier to distinguish and look like a custom icon, not just a square picture from the ground in-game. But if you think it would be more official, I suppose it might be for the best. --PimpadelicX (talk) 09:06, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * While I'm all for keeping information, Valve does seem to be trying to remove the distinction between factions and heroes. When I started playing Dota 2 a couple years ago, I did thought that perhaps only Radiant icon.png Radiant heroes could be chosen on the Radiant side, and vice versa for Dire icon.png Dire. While that idea was very quickly proven wrong, the fact that I (and many others) thought that is exactly what Valve wants to prevent. Similar to how Anti-Mage was "Magina" in W3 DotA, that information should not be part of a wiki about Dota 2 (except when referencing trivia of some kind). The removal of this distinction seems like a good idea. Though keeping the icons might be useful for typing Radiant icon.png Radiant and Dire icon.png Dire the way I did in this paragraph, or even for future use. --PimpadelicX (talk) 09:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I am becoming increasingly convinced that hero affiliation should be moved to a trivia section or otherwise marginalized or removed. The only in-client trace found so far is the Captain's Mode pick screen, which hasn't got a revamp yet. It is clear to me that Valve is trying to kill the distinction between Radiant and Dire heroes. I have changed as a trial run for . You can pop those two templates up in side-by-side windows to compare. Opinions? Objections? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 04:08, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Not bad, but it can't be used on other lang pages. Need change . This template just includes all hero equipment templates, but when i try open any template on russian page, it sends me on english default page of template. Medok  09:30, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's right. is itself localized, as are the templates to which it links, like . But  is technically an "English" page. Huh. Is there an easy workaround? We could put  or  on Category:Axe equipment/ru, and then link to Category:Axe equipment/ru instead. Any other ideas?
 * In any case, I'm not asking about the functionality. I didn't change the functionality of . I'm just asking about the removal of faction affiliations (Radiant/Dire). --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 18:33, 4 July 2014 (UTC)


 * is . Still need to do and figure out what to do with the former affiliation. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 23:48, 5 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Lemoncream said: “I think it's always better to retain as much information as possible, even if only for archival purposes. If you remove the icons, there should still be some way to know the faction they used to belong to.” My own preferred solution would be to remove the “archival” information completely, and add it to Factions and/or Changes from DotA. I think the only reason to retain this information would be historical curiosity. If it's to remain on the hero page, where would it go? Is there any other obsolete non-gameplay non-trivia information on hero pages? Is adding the information to Changes from DotA sufficient? Looking for input from Lemoncream and others. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 23:24, 7 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Actually a good place to put it might be in a trivia section on the Radiant and Dire pages. Consider it "lore". - Lemoncream (talk) 02:36, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * We should remove all official reference to it, since Valve is doing the same (let's see if they forsake the two-column layout soon!), and there's no actual mention of it in the game (save Captain's Mode), but I do think the information about faction affiliations is interesting and notable. It belongs in Changes from DotA, but it's been a part of Dota 2 for so long that it deserves a mention under Factions, Heroes, or a similar article, noting it has since been removed, under "History" or a similar heading. There's probably no good place for it on each hero's page. I think the icons are okay to keep since they are stylized versions of Radiant and Dire's ancient, and are not a new symbol that exists nowhere else in the game. They can still be used to indicate Radiant icon.png Radiant and Dire icon.png Dire as fun little icons next to the name (see Game modes), or on said Factions article, but if they are removed, it's not a big deal. - LingoSalad (talk) 01:01, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Use of Cosmetic Item infobox on pages that are not cosmetic items
This needs a solution. is used on many pages where it is not appropriate. It should probably be split into multiple infoboxes. Keys should not have an infobox that specifies a hero or a slot, for example. This will be a big job, but the current misuse is dreadful. I don't want to fix it. Anybody else up for the job? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 04:29, 2 July 2014 (UTC)


 * This seems like a lot of work just to remove a couple of "N/A" of "Hero" tags. While I agree it would look slightly better without them, but the current version looks fine. Plus, whatever specific chest or recipe version of the template that gets made will look extremely similar. Leaving redundant values such as 'creator' blank (because it will alway be Valve) will already remove the line from the final product. The only noticeable difference will be the lack of 'Used By' & 'Equipment Slot' lines, which can be changed in other ways. I agree using "Heroes" sounds incorrect, but changing that to "Players" would be a simpler fix. As for Equipment Slots, very few items do not have slots (such as recipes, chests, or the few tools in the game), but having "N/A" already makes that clear. --PimpadelicX (talk) 09:03, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

suggestion for heroes
I suggest adding a list of known players usually playing the hero/videos showing how to play it for every hero


 * A good idea in theory, but there are many heroes which do not have a single play style and would be very subject to change. Plus, new updates would outdate the videos quickly. DotaCinema has a large catalog, but they do not have every hero, with most being out of date as well. It's far easier to keep text updated than audio/video. A brief text description would be helpful, but for many heroes, the "Tips" section offers a semi-tutorial on how to play that hero. --PimpadelicX (talk) 22:15, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Error creating new pages/uploading images
Hi, I'm not sure if this problem is on my end or not, but it seems that whenever I create a new page for a cosmetic item and try to save it I end up being redirected to a blank page. Hitting refresh asks me to confirm resubmission and only then am I brought to the new page I just created. This also happens when I try to upload images, however once I hit resubmit it lists the image uploaded as a newer version of a blank image submission. Is this happening to anyone else? I've tried switching browsers but end up with the same problem. --Missing Username (talk) 13:18, 7 July 2014 (UTC)