Dota 2 Wiki:Discussion/Archive4

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 HeroEquipmentNav as a trial run for HeroNav. 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 HeroEquipmentNav. 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. HeroEquipmentNav is itself localized, as are the templates to which it links, like Equipment Axe. But Equipment Axe is technically an "English" page. Huh. Is there an easy workaround? We could put Equipment Axe or Axe 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 HeroEquipmentNav. I'm just asking about the removal of faction affiliations (Radiant/Dire). --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 18:33, 4 July 2014 (UTC)


 * HeroNav is . Still need to do Hero infobox 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)


 * Removal of hero categorization is . --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 01:47, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Removal of icons is . I don't have better icons, and I agree that such icons are useful. I encourage any editor to make new, small-display icons based on the in-base emblems and flags. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 01:47, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Use of Cosmetic Item infobox on pages that are not cosmetic items
This needs a solution. Cosmetic Item infobox 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)

Duplicate, Sorry, new to this. SneakySniperGaming (talk) 00:30, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Acronyms Page
My suggestion is to add a page for new players with a list of all the acronyms. With the recent addition to the Newcomer stream teaching it, it would be a valuable resource to the new people to see what BKB means or what other Dota1 names are like courier being called chick or crow mean. Streamers could also point to the page to allow their users who are just joining to understand the jargon as well. SneakySniperGaming (talk) 00:27, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion, we already have something like it! It's called Glossary. It's sort of hidden, though. Who's going to think of typing "Glossary" in the search bar? - LingoSalad (talk) 03:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Hero Responses in Trivia Section
I'm seeing a lot of entries in Hero trivia section that contain something about hero responses. While I think they are fine in and of themselves, in many cases there are just too many (Sand King's Page is a good example of this). The trivia section is meant to contain interesting tidbits of information about a hero, and having 5+ different responses explained out to the reader just seems like too much. I'm thinking a good thing to do is either allow for another section of a hero's page just for some of the response explanations (or a subsection of trivia itself) or limit the amount of trivia related to responses to just the 2 or 3 most interesting/funny lines. Let me know what you think.--Beef Supreme (talk) 00:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Good point. I've been noticing that for a while, and that info could go better on either Abaddon Responses or on a new article Abaddon References. There would be a link to these references under the See Also section on each hero page (or something similar) &mdash; LingoSalad (talk) 19:43, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Bring back the cosmetic items in the Equipment part of a Hero's page
Hi. I know this is a long shot, but I would like to propose bringing back all the items in the Equipment part of a Hero's page, instead of only sets and non-set items like now. The rationale is that people browsing cosmetic items on a Hero's page (for ex: Dragon Knight) now have to do so many extra clicks to look at the components of a set. Before, they could look at ALL the swords available, not just the non-set ones like now. I like to mix and match cosmetic items from different sets to get what I think are best, so the current arrangement is super annoying.

Again, just a long shot. Maybe the current version is much more convenient because of technical issues. But still I'd like to voice my opinion for consideration.


 * I'll think of a way to make both views available in the future. Lemoncake  (talk) 23:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Perhaps add a link to (expand sets) in the header of the navbox, leading to a version of the navbox similar to with all the slots expanded. If it gets to the point in the future sometime where a hero has so much gunked up equipment that it can't even fit on a single template, we could make a page for each slot) &mdash; LingoSalad (talk) 19:43, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Done! See Template:Equipment Abaddon for an example. &mdash; LingoSalad (talk) 20:20, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Target Point / Target Unit
I have, in the past, noticed that Lion's Q and Lina's Q are categorized on the wiki as "Target Point/Target Unit". Accurate, yes? The problem with that is that it is not recognized by the template as a valid targeting type, so it renders the icon as a Passive ability. I modified the template to support this function, and added boolean for all languages. Now, on Lina, Lion, and Nyx's articles, you can use "Target Point / Target Unit" for skillshots.

However, it occurs to me that maybe we don't want this. It seems to me that the Ability template uses only Valve terminology, and I'm not certain Valve describe these abilities as such. So, if someone wants to make the executive decision to roll these changes back, they are on Template:Ability, Lion, Lina, Lina/ar, and Nyx Assassin. GurubashiBerserker (talk) 22:54, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion for game modes classification
Good day, I was thinking that, with the arrival of all-random deathmatch (aka -ardm), we got ourselves a game mode that modifies the "normal" rules of the game and even adds a new winning condition (getting 40 kills on the enemy). Also, while ability draft (aka -ad) works mostly like -ap, it's also worth getting it's own explanation since the differences between this and other modes is very deep and not easily noticeable since it heavily depends on the ability's interactions.

My proposal is to add a "game mode" tab on the index in the main page, together with a style revision of the game modes page (and possibly give each game mode a dedicated page with extended explanation of the rules).

This is specially important since custom game modes are just around the corner and it's expected to get a ton of mods so the creation of a proper classification is very important. I suggest something similar to the actual heroes' index page.

EDIT: I could do this on my own, but I'm not sure if it's ok for a non-admin to modify the main page, if anything an "it's allright" response would sufice and I could get to work on it right away.

--Dashpyro (talk) 18:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC)


 * We do not plan to cover non-official custom game modes on this wiki. There will be a System tab in the future that links to game modes and other things. You can however, expand or fork the existing games modes page if you want. Lemoncake  (talk) 19:25, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Listing notable players on hero pages.
I would suggest adding a small section on the Hero Pages that would list a few "Notable" players. There is a similar suggestion above which mentions video guides and such, but as someone pointed out this will get outdated fast. However, even with minor changes to a hero's abilities a small list of notable players is unlikely to go out of date very fast. With the exception of total reworks, which would change the whole page anyway, a list of players would remain relevant for some time.

As an example, for SF: MuShi, Dendi, Arteezy. For Anti-Mage: BurNing, Black^, XBOCT. Unless the heroes are totally overhauled I can't see these changing much. If you want I can do quite a few pages myself.

Player pages already list signature heroes, shouldn't heroes list signature players? Who thinks of Dark Seer without thinking of UniVeRsE? Wisp without EGM or BigDaddy? It just makes sense to me, it's potentially valuable information, and it shouldn't take much effort compared to things like equipment or item lists.
 * Wiki isn't fan site, there writes all needable info about article subject but heroes and competitive scene - can't be merged. If player want look how play for pudge or sf, they can use YouTube, reading community guides and just try to play with bots. Heroes pages just about heroes, they lore, abilities and update history, so don't need write that your friend or anyone other mega player for pudge, and need look at him, and he is GOD of the Dota 2! Sry if i so angry :) Medok  16:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

That [fanboyism] isn't the intention even slightly. Players are integral parts of the heroes, and if the wiki player pages include signature heroes why shouldn't the hero pages include a few notable players? It's useful information. Saying if someone wants to learn something about a hero they should google it, is totally counterproductive to what a Wiki is for. When someone googles "Earth Spirit" they end up here. They look at the list of sites, see some pages about Jerax (who they don't know), see a Wiki, and click the Wiki.

There is already a "Trivia" section, which contains far less useful or relavent information than naming who is good at the hero.

The point of a wiki is to compile and provide information, and this is relavent information. Can you raise a valid point as to why it's NOT valuable and relevant information to a hero? I could see that you could argue it's subjective but rules like "no retired players" or "no non-professional players" could easily be set up.

If it sounds too much like hard work I would be perfectly willing to implement it myself, as I said.

I was looking on the hero difficulty page, and noticed that terrorblade is not listed in the correct spot. The page is organized alphabetically and terrorblade is placed between sniper and spectre. I am not authorized to fix this mistake so I just wanted to let someone who is know.

Category:Equipment
This category is overcrowded, over 5k articles. I think we need to split it on subcategories. But if there is need of 1 category for all equipment, then we can create main subcategory like "Category:Equipment by alphabet". Admins please tell what you think --Dark2Eagle (talk) 14:48, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Update Dictionary/heroes.
It seems like bot only update radient strength hero in Dictionary/heroes, how often may bot works?. --Lycsjm (talk) 07:28, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Change Hero ID
Hero ID will still display english name in other language's page, It should make some change. Here's my suggestion:

change | to |]
 * Hero name version:

change | to | --Lycsjm (talk) 07:39, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Dictionary/heroes version: （Dictionary/heroes now can't update properly, should update Dictionary/heroes first）

Pseudo-Random Distribution rewrite
I've recently taken a look at the Pseudo-random Distribution page and after some studying I would like to propose a rewrite (for which I am consequently volunteering my time) of the page to cover how random effects are handled in DOTA2 in general.

I propose the new page to be retitled 'Proc Chance' or something to this effect, and contain a description of how/when classical (independent rolls) random numbers are used, a description of how/when the Pseudo-random Distribution is used, a description of why the two different forms of random rolls are used, and relevant figures, links, and lists of abilities/items/heros that use these effects. All of the current links to the Pseudo-random distribution page can be recast as links to the new page, skipping to the portion describing the PRD.

However, I am new to Wiki Editing, so I'm not sure how to begin this task >.>--TheKman0 (talk) 22:21, 4 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Feel free to make a new page for "Proc Chance", and then either copy or rewrite the current content from Pseudo-random distribution to a section in the new page. Don't worry about naming or redirects, I can do all that later. You can just edit plaintext into the article space if you're not familiar with MediaWiki, and I will format/copyedit it when you're done. However, Dota2Wiki is supposed to be definitive, therefore your math and conclusions must be correct, preferably tested in-game or cited from an official source. Lemoncake  (talk) 17:21, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Add Collision Size thread
Every status has already it own thread, Health, Mana, BAT, Int, Str, Agi, Armor, Cast time, movespeed, attack range, vision. So can we have a section explaining about Collision Size, and have a table by order per hero. Ty. - Added by Pablogelo (talk)
 * If you want, you can create it. Medok  16:53, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Recreate Ability name.
Although Ability name suggest us use Dictionary/ability rather edit Ability name, Dictionary/ability lack lots of name, and User:WindBot have problem for update dictionary template. So I want to establish this template again. Lycsjm (talk) 18:51, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Hero responses - "Purchasing a specific item"
I've noticed that there is a lot of inconsistency in the formatting of the Hero responses pages, particularly in "Purchasing a Specific Item". Here are some examples:

Lycan responses This page has good formatting, with all the items in a single section, and pictures of the item/links to their wiki pages. In particular this is relevant for the line "Wolf King Bar", since without the picture it is ambiguous whether it is for BKB or MKB. But even in the other cases, it is useful to have a link to the page.

Nyx Assassin responses This page has three sections instead of one (Purchasing Aghanim's Scepter/Purchasing Blink Dagger could be put in the same section as the rest), and it doesn't have links to the items. This means that some of the information here is pretty useless. The line "Nice" could be for any item in the game, but the article doesn't tell us which.

Phantom Assassin responses Another example; this time we also have a section for lines for getting Battlefury, which for some reason isn't counted as "Purchasing a specific item". (Also, this time the section for Blink Dagger is before the one for Aghanim's Scepter.)

I think that all responses pages should have the formatting on Lycan's page. That seems like the most concise way of providing the most information.

Another thing I've noticed (which isn't as big a deal as the items thing, but could still probably be cleaned up) is that almost every page seems to have its responses listed in a different order. For example, looking at the pages I've already mentioned, PA starts off with Spawning/Beginning the battle/Drawing first blood, but Lycan doesn't have Drawing first blood until much further down the page. I think if we chose some kind of order and applied that to every page, the lists would be much easier to navigate.


 * Voice responses pages will be redone in the future. Just don't have the time right now. Lemoncake  (talk) 05:22, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Cleaning Up the Hero Articles
Currently a lot of them look like a mess to me, simply because of the gameplay, recommended items and tips sections. All of these are highly subjective categories and often contradict each other. The wiki's take on heroes should be solely based on their abilities, not on the current meta nor popular ways to utilize a character in general. The Nature's Prophet article used to mention that he can be played as a support for example and know only mentions jungling, ganking and the offlane. If anything, there should be a distinction on what a character can do on paper judging by his skills and how people usually play him. We should encourage the players to explore the full potential of the hero pool rather than cementing preconceptions.

I also want to remind everyone to check and improve the spelling in articles based on the style guide; none of the sections in the hero articles should be fully capitalized for example.---De-Könisch- 12:11, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * It takes lots of time to clean articles up, especially the hero articles, sense everyone can edit it. It took me like a month to clean up all ability sections (they had many wrong notes, some notes belonged to tips, many traits about the same thing had different wordings, etc etc). And after the clean-up, you/someone has to make sure that they stay clean, which can frustrating sometimes. The reason why I did that was because I got soo tired of people using the wiki notes as a "proof" for something, blindly believing what was written there. And it worked. Suddenly, the amount of wrong reports in the devs forum got way lower than before.


 * I also started to clean up the balance changelog sections and complete them (mainly due to own interests. It's funny to find out weird stuff in the decade old dota maps).


 * I imagine this being way harder for gameplay/tips/items section, because, as you said already, many of the stuff written there is subjective, as opposed to the ability notes/changelogs, which are to 100% facts. Bu3ny (talk) 14:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

That is why I propose to remove the "Gameplay" and "Suggested items" sections completely. It's probably best to leave the "Tips" be, as people will feel the urge to add their own ideas anyway. And nobody really cares if that section is a mess or not as far as I'm concerned. -De-Könisch- 16:43, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Removing is bad. The gameplay section is supposed to be a short summary of how the hero plays (best would be describe after the roles Valve gave them). Same for the items. The recommended items show the default items suggested by Valve. Bu3ny (talk) 21:15, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

For the tips section, we could move the advanced/opinionated/dependent on current meta tips to their own article, and keep the Tips section to be simple tips about how the hero's abilities interact with each other, or general tips about gameplay strategy, like a tip you would see on the loading screen. Here's a quick example:

Tips

 * Electric Vortex allows Raijin to pull his target close enough to his Static Remnant, triggering its damage.
 * Ball Lightning can be cast at minuscule ranges to trigger Overload.
 * Using Ball Lightning, Storm Spirit can travel behind enemies, forcing them to turn around to attack him. Dance around an enemy with Ball Lightning to confuse them even more.

where Community Storm Spirit strategy would contain tips like:
 * If you are going to build a Bloodstone, it is advisable to build Arcane Boots first. This will give you a good mana boost early, and you can disassemble Arcane Boots to finish Bloodstone once you have all necessary components.
 * A very common combo Storm Spirit uses to nuke down lone heroes is to ambush them with: Ball Lightning > Attack > Vortex > Attack > Remnant > Attack > Ball Lightning through them to dodge their retaliation > Attack > Escape if enemy has not died. This will greatly injure most heroes, and kill those foolish enough to be walking around alone with weakened HP.

for example. &mdash; LingoSalad (talk) 16:06, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Can someone explain, why has two Tips sections ?

Cosmetic Item infobox wrapper
I need help to make Cosmetic Item infobox wrapper fully. It's have problem to show next properties: setname, setitem1-11, tradeable, marketable, nameable, releasedate and creator. I already ask for this, but noone help me with that. If someone know how to do that, write here please. -_- Medok  17:26, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Photos of Abilities
Hello all. I have an idea about the heroes page, adding photos for every heroes skill. It can make this wiki more interesting and attrack another reader read the pages. Much reader curious want to know all effect and graphic for every heroes skill. This photos can be GIF like cosmetic items page. Or we can use PNG for slow internet connection. Thanks for hearing my ideas. i hope you can mind this. I am sorry for the simple of the text because I am a beginner editor. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mawanrah (talk) • (contribs)

Maintenance
There are a few Special:Doubleredirects that are semiprotected and some Special:Brokenredirects that need to be deleted or changed. 173.189.65.199 14:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * How embarassing to see my user redirect on there. I guess all the red links just needed time to update after I joined. --LoneScoot (talk) 15:24, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Done. The remaining redirects are ment for articles which don't exist yet. Bu3ny (talk) 15:53, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Article regarding models/hitboxes
I haven't found an explanation on how they work anywhere in the wiki and I don't know anything about the mechanics involved. It would be great if someone able made an article.-De-Könisch- 13:51, 22 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I can tell you the main use of hitboxes in Dota2. Mainly, they are needed to make you able to click on units. If your mouse pointer is on a unit, it gets highlighted, means you can select it. Other uses of them are, every projectile hits as soon as it connects with the hitbox. However, aoe spells do not care about hitboxes, they instead check for collision size. This includes unit searching spells like meat hook. Same for targeted spells. This is why for example riki is affected by spells just like how Doom is, both with significantly different model and hitbox sizes, but both with the same collision size of 24.
 * Yes, an article for that would be not bad, but it's complicated. It shouldn't be done without investigating. Bu3ny (talk) 16:05, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there used to be a "cast point time" attribute in the tables detailing each hero in the hero pages. It seems to have been mistakenly replaced when adding the collision size attribute. Also, I'm not sure if the Table of Hero Attributes included a column for cast point time but I think it should.

If I have time, I can try adding it myself, but I'm not sure if the deletion of it was intended so I'm asking first.


 * No, they got intentionally removed from the table. As I said already, cast point is NOT an attribute of heroes, it is an attribute of abilities individualy. It does not belong in the list. Its removal was not a mistake. Bu3ny (talk) 20:39, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm new to this. How did you directly reply to what I wrote? Also, I did not know cast point is ability slot specific. Has it always been like that? I've always thought it was individual hero cast time + exceptions for certain spells. And wouldn't what you say mean playdota.com's cast time information is wrong?


 * Playdota's information is for DotA1 exclusively. Dota2 works different in many aspects. While in DotA1 cast points are unit traits, in Dota2, they are ability traits. It was always like this. Bu3ny (talk) 20:52, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Inconistant article names for HUDS
I noticed that the article names of the HUDs is quite inconsistant. Some examples.
 * Azure Constellation HUD
 * Donbass Cup HUD
 * Black Monolith
 * Brawl Basher
 * I-League Season 2 HUD Skin
 * Tombstone (HUD Skin)
 * Surge (HUD Skin)
 * HUD of the Burning Scale

I think it would be better to make them all consistant, best way would be *name* HUD imo. Some of the huds have such basic names that they probably will cause conflicts with future stuff, so just using their names only wouldnt be good.

This is probably also a "problem" on other cosmetics. Bu3ny (talk) 19:36, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Achievements
Curse provide Wiki Achievements, and I propose to add new special achievements to our Dota 2 Wiki, which will have Dota 2 theme and our contributors will like them. But I bad in painting(I can't make images for achievements), and want to hear your opinion about my proposition, maybe someone have idea about this or can help with images :). Medok  16:42, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello, i have wandered around the wiki for quite some time and i made the decision that i will help in what i can, im a spanish native spaker and even if it looks hard to do i want to translate as much as i can of the wiki to spanish for my fellow language speakers, but i have not managed a wiki at all so it will be quite useful if i could get a good rundown of how does this platform operates.

I will do my best and any question from this side of the world (South America) will be awnsered.

Have a good day guys.

Need Help ; Just joined the wiki
I just joined the wiki recently. Now I have been using the wiki a lot, and I owe a lot from it. Seeing that how much I use and how effective it is. I hope to help it. However I just joined and I have no idea what to do. Any advice or tips?

By the way. The trapping of the galloping avenger is bugged. The picture shows the War Helm of the Galloping avenger and the slot is wrong (I think).
 * Check Help:Contents ; Help:Translation ; Template:Main Page Bulletin -- KennyTHPS 17:58, 4 October 2015 (UTC)


 * You could help us make pages for new cosmetics whenever there's an update. We could also use help updating tournament results, and if you're good with workshop tools, someone to update the Unreleased Content page with more stuff. - Lemoncake  (talk) 23:19, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Now, can I add GIFs or comparisons? I noticed that some GIFs are missing and adding comparison for heroes like Sven (Blue or Red) would be nice. -Zennock, 7:57pm 5.Oct.15 UTC+06:30


 * Yes, but try to keep them fairly high quality please - Lemoncake  (talk) 13:40, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

By the way. Is the steam group used? I recently posted suggestion for a avatar change for the Steam Group. -Zennock, 7:57pm 5.Oct.15 UTC+06:30

Sample of GIF I made. http://gfycat.com/GenuineIllustriousAmphibian. Will this be acceptable? -Zennock, 9:00pm 5.Oct.15 UTC+06:30


 * That'll be fine - Lemoncake  (talk) 14:35, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Stonehall Royal Guard Set I edited it to include the portrait. Is it acceptable? I am allowed to make more GIF edits? -Zennock, 9:33pm 5.Oct.15 UTC+06:30


 * It's fine, this is an open wiki, you don't have to ask for permission to do everything. Though we try to make gifs include the full animation so it looks like it's looping forever, here's an example - Lemoncake  (talk) 15:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I tried to do that but the tool I used is not very accurate. If possible. Can you tell me what tool you used? -Zennock, 9:51pm 5.Oct.15 UTC+06:30


 * I used a free program called Fraps to capture in-game video, then I import the frames into Photoshop and edit them there - Lemoncake  (talk) 15:27, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I thought that there was a watermark on the free version. Did you use photoshop to remove it or bought it? -Zennock, 10:04pm 5.Oct.15 UTC+06:30


 * I have a registered version. There's probably other free ones out there, but you'll have to look for them. - Lemoncake  (talk) 15:38, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

So I see. Thanks for helping me out. If you need me to upload a GIF/Picture/Etc, give me a call. I will try to be active as much as possible and will try to add GIFS/Comparisons/Etc to lesser known items. Caio. :) -Zennock, 10:17pm 5.Oct.15 UTC+06:30


 * You can sign your posts in talk pages by adding ~ at the end of your edit. It automatically puts your name and a timestamp. Bu3ny (talk) 17:05, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for the heads up. Zennock (talk) 09:48, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

events
i just wonder if we have a new year event in dota this winter

Missing Custom Ability Icons on Category Page
Hi, I am new here. I found that custom ability icons from Collector's Cache sets are not displayed in Category:Custom_ability_icons. But, I don't know how to edit them. --Hartonopeng (talk) 04:01, 7 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello there. I am Zennock and I welcome you to the Dota 2 wiki. I am also new here but due to pressure from exams, I cannot devote much time to the wiki. However, today is a exception and I have time to help you out with some basics of the wiki. Note that I am also a new member and I may make mistakes when I am explaining about the wiki. Well, here I start.
 * First of all. You should know how to edit pages. Since you are a member, you could see the buttons "VIEW, EDIT, EDIT SOURCE, HISTORY,* I can explain what VIEW, EDIT SOURCE, and HISTORY does, but not EDIT. As I mention above. I am still a newbie.
 * View. View is to simply look at the webpage. You can change the webpage using the EDIT and EDIT SOURCE buttons.
 * Edit Source. As mentioned above. You can edit the page by using the button EDIT SOURCE. More on that later.
 * History. The entire change log of the webpage is given in history. Note, history button helps to revert the webpage to it's past form if there's a mistake.
 * If you need more help. Try to contact the older members of the group. I am sure that a lot of them would be willing to help you. Note that you can contact me too. On the topic of the custom ability icons not displayed in "Category:Custom_ability_icons" I will try to fix the problem. In the meantime. Try to experiment with webpages (Remember that you do not need to save the webpage). If you made a mistake, give us a call and we will patch it up. (I believe)
 * Thank you and have a good day. --Zennock (talk) 04:47, 7 December 2015 (UTC+6:30 Yangon)


 * They should all be in there now. Bu3ny (talk) 11:41, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Skillbox Minimal
Currently the Template:SkillboxMinimal is the way to go if you want to display greater amounts of skills while being able to add notes directly. The lite version without notes has already been accepted and introduced called Template:SkillListLite.

As the next logical step, I came up with a new approach called Template:SkillListRich, that works identical to SkillboxMinimal. It uses translation switching, a minimal div layout with outsourced CSS opposed to the blown-up table layout, has custom amounts of columns and doesn't disrupt the pages when adding/removes entries. The according CSS can be found on User:Molldust/common.css if you want to investigate it further on Template:SkillListRich/doc.

I noticed both skill lists (rich and lite) break on mobile view, because it disrespects the Common.css. I suggest to NOT use the exact same CSS, but force the columns to have 100% width in every case:

div.skilllist-col1 ul li, div.skilllist-col2 ul li, div.skilllist-col3 ul li, div.skilllist-col4 ul li, div.skilllist-col5 ul li { width: 100%; flex: 1 0 100%; }

Right now Template:Ability wrapper is nominated to be the successor of SkillboxMinimal. But because the loading times are so high, it's still advertised to keep the SkillboxMinimal. Furthermore I read that it causes the pages to mess with the semantics functions if used incorrectly. So can anybody point me to a page, where the minimal is actually in use and has superior function compared to SkillboxMinimal?

Todo steps in short:
 * Add skilllist-rich CSS to Mediawiki:Common.css
 * Add skilllist-lite and skilllist-rich CSS to Mediawiki:Mobile.css
 * Add translation switching to Template:SkillListLite.
 * Port features from minimal to SkillListRich where it makes sense.
 * Replace SkillboxMinimal with SkillListRich on the pages.
 * Get rid of the minimal layouts in Ability wrapper and Ability.

Molldust (talk) 09:10, 24 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Health/zh-hant is the only article which uses the minimal. But it is in no way superior to skillboxminimal. Editing the page is almost impossible due to timeouts thanks to the template and it simply shows too much unnecessary stuff. So best would be to scrap the minimal part of the wrapper and update skillboxminimal instead. The reason why the ability wrapper causes timeouts is, the template is huge, since it must be able to display everything the Ability template can display, because it is used for the hero/item pages in other languages.


 * I've been using skillboxminimals for a long time now, and I can't think of anything they are lacking.  Bu3ny  (talk) 15:24, 24 December 2015 (UTC)