User talk:MrBlonde267

Vamps
I'm not that well versed (yet) on how to deal with newly released collected issues (what links to what, formatting, etc.). I was hoping you could upload info on this collection of Vamps so I can follow your efforts. The Paradox 17:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I searched around, I believe we actually already have a page for that, uploaded by Brian (naturally). It's headed at Vamps (Collected) Vol 1 1, but all of our collected editions are titled sort of weirdly now, the naming for that is still in flux. Although some people like to organize our TPs (trade paperback, not toilet paper) by including all of the different included issues as their own stories, on the Forums, we're thinking about switching it to every collected edition being listed within the page as one story, with pooled information of all of the issues inside of it.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 17:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Silly me. I figured that because it didn't show up in Vamps, Category:Vamps, Earth-Vamps, Category:Earth-Vamps, or Vamps Vol 1 or then it didn't exist. Now you understand why I wanted to follow the process. There are just too many ways for comics to be categorized, and far too often I'm discovering things that have fallen through the cracks, even when handled by some of the most experienced editors around.
 * Perhaps you can explain to me why Category:Vamps Vol 1 and Vamps Vol 1 exist as separate pages? A lot of the discrepancies I find are (I think) a direct result of that separation. Is there a reason they couldn't be combined, providing a dynamic listing instead of something that has to be hand-edited? The Paradox 18:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Although in cases like Vamps, where a category like that is sort of pointless, I think we keep those things around for the larger titles, like Detective Comics Vol 1, where there are loads of issues we don't have information on yet. Category:Detective Comics Vol 1 shows all of the information we have on Detective Comics issues, but without those numerous red links. I don't know if those categories are completely necessary, but they're also useful when sifting through the Comic Categories just to see what we have. Those things are sort of before my time, actually. I don't think I've ever really even been in those categories. I hate to pass the buck, but you might want to take this particular one up with a more experienced editor. + :::It's complicated, as most fun things are. - :- Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 18:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's complicated, as most fun things are.
 * We started doing that very thing with the /Appearances pages on Marvel, for the exact same reason as you just stated. There are some people that don't like seeing namespaces in the pagename, ie 'Comics:' or 'Category:', and Category pages don't actually get counted as article pages for the wiki's 'Total number of Articles' thing on the Main Page.  So every time we move a page to it's Category: alternate, we're actually losing a page in our total count.  Not that size is all that matters. . . but it does help.
 * I believe we also do this very thing on the /Quotes pages now on both sites, so that a listing of all the pages where a character has a quote is right below the mostly auto-populated page of quotes.
 * It is a valid point, though. You might want to bring it up in the forums and see how others feel about it.  The old Comic List pages is how the sites began listing volumes of comics way back in 2005, I believe.  So it's still evolving into what everyone wants and thinks is best.
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 19:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Visiting
Just thought I'd let you know I've updated my User Page. Stop by and check it out. Right now I'm trying to find a topic for a brand new Database Page. I'll take any suggestions. Vibe85 15:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Astro City Vol 1
I deleted this page since it wasn't DC. Was there some weird reason I shouldn't have? :)

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 16:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's complicated, and I don't remember where, but I believe I brought it up on the forums. Astro City has had multiple volumes, and it's like a Wildstorm thing. Wildstorm used to belong to Image, so the first volume of Astro City was published underneath them, but I believe the characters all belong to DC. It certainly was a controversial page, and I guess it's a moot point until one of us actually buys some Astro City and starts uploading the information, but... yeah, we were wondering that also. Does that information belong on the IDP or the DCDP? Is it worth making people have to switch over from Database to Database if they're looking for Astro City?
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 17:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Silly me, didn't even know about the aquisition. One day DC will buy Marvel, and then all hell will break loose around here.  I've bought and read a couple of the Astro City series, but the stories are written from the perspective that the characters have been around for decades and the reader knows who they are and such.  It could honestly be an entire wiki on its own.
 * It's hard to say what's best, having two sets of information on two different wikis to update or keep track of, or having to figure out how to interwiki-link them all the right way. If only we could inter-wiki redirect without having it stop at the redirect page. ..
 * The only reason I'm inclined to have things like Wildcats and Astro City on the other ones is so that we generate some more traffic over there. As it stands, I believe there's only been a handful of editors on both, with little to no growth.
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 17:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been trying to buy more Dark Horse comics for exactly that reason, but I realize I only even vaguely have a handle on the Frank Miller stuff. Hmm... I wonder if Brian has a brother...
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 17:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Or one of those evil twins with a goatee, using his powers of evil to fill in databases opposite of his good twin.
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 17:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Dark Horse / Image / Marvel
Sure. Let's just try to refer to the other databases as much as possible, and maybe refer to these pages as a hub for when the two companies interact. Does that make sense?

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 17:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course. I refer to the other databases on all character things, and with the exception of controversials like Astro City, I don't think we should have any other company's comics on the site (I still don't know what the solution is to that one). However, as it stands, inadequate thought it might've been, our Marvel Comics page included some history of the Marvel Comics company, whereas linking to it on the MDP just gets us to MDP:Comics:Contents. And unless you guys would like to make a page mirroring our DC Comics page over there, I feel better saying that people worked for a company than that they worked for a list of comics by title and date.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 17:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It looks like Marvel had a page like that for a long time, but it was deleted back in 2007. It seems like the way it was laid out made it difficult to keep updated.  (They had lists of heroes and teams, as well as staff members).  Maybe we could remake it using the formatting you guys are using. ..
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 17:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If there's a Marvel Comics page over there, I would wholly support the new linking. And thank you for reinstating the company pages, I promise I will use them for good and not for evil.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 17:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll try to get to work on it. Maybe I'll just swipe your copy here and tweak it there.  Same for Image and Dark Horse?
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 17:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Marvel now has one, albeit small. FYI.
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 21:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 21:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:History Needed
If you think it's possible, I'd like to merge this template and the main templates into something we can all agree on. We could easily put in exactly what you have so that it shows up automatically if the history is blank, but I'd like to either have it show up at the end of the page, or remake it to be less "This page is kinda broken", and more "You can help the site by adding a history! :)".  What do you think?

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 17:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a very good idea. I don't use it so much anymore, I've also been trying to let the autocategorization take care of tasks we need to do and straying from the neon signs pointing to our inadequacies, but yeah, I would definitely be supportive of that.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 18:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've been making use of it to separate out the articles that are lacking a history section from those that need copy editing. Copy editing, according to virtually every professional editor I've encountered, usually indicates that there is copy to edit. Right now, Category:Copy Edit seems to be a catch-all that has very little to do with actual editing of copy. The Paradox 22:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Haha, very true. Yeah, we should probably include that into the templates.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 22:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yea, I just changed over most of the templates here on DC to use the History Needed stub instead of Category:Copy Edit. So try saving the page with a blank history first, and if it doesn't show up at the bottom of the page, holler at me, cause I probably missed a template.  (But they should all be working now).
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 22:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see that now. The change to the template was so far down the Recent Changes page that I hadn't gotten that far yet. Yay, I don't have to input it manually any longer! Yay, Category:Copy Edit may not be the largest category any longer! The Paradox 00:39, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks
Thanks for catching that. Bad bot! Whap! Bad Bot! No!

I'll train him right. . . &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 23:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

New Templates

 * Template:Downgrade and the companion Category:Template Downgrade - for those characters that just don't warrant the full thing
 * Template:CBDB - since they've got the best index of appearances I've seen (still needs some tweaking from Nathan)
 * The Paradox 20:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Beautiful. Thank you very much.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 07:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Clarify
What do you mean by "pipe those links", and how do I do that? Vibe85 17:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, sorry, my bad. The pipe is just that neat little vertical line: "|" and when you're making a link piping it makes the words on the page show up differently than what the link is. i.e., I can make person who should clarify things better link to my page. But more importantly, you would use it if you were like linking to Spiderman so that it would show up as just the regular text without that ugly MDP: thing showing up on the page.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 17:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Care to help write some of this up at DC Database:Citation? The Paradox 18:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Image Category
Wow, you guys are incredibly thourough over here. I've never seen so many Image Templates so fully filled out! It looks like the only reason the incorrect categories are being created is either a lack of a '#' in the Issue field, or putting the issue into one of the Subject fields. I started going through those, but I'm in the middle of a couple other projects, so I may wait to go through the rest until I clear up the other ones. The only adminy thing about the situation is deleting the empty categories once the images that used to be in them are corrected. So if you felt like it, you could make the corrections to the images, and I'll go back through and delete the empty categories, but don't feel like you have to. :)

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 20:27, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds cool. Yeah, I can get this one. Speaking of, I think it's about time also that I made a... oh, never mind, we already have a Template:Delete. I guess I just never see it anywhere because all of those articles are gone. Don't worry about it, you have to have a lot on your plate, I can get this one.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 20:50, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Great. If you run into trouble, or have a batch that need deletion, I'll be around. :)
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 14:25, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Image uploads
Would you mind sending a message towards User:BA$ about naming conventions for images and how to fill in the template data? I've tried but it doesn't seem to have done any good, and I'm getting frustrated at all the totally bare images with really bad names being uploaded. Category:Unlicensed Images and Category:Image Subject Needed are growing faster than I can add data, and I'd really like to do things other than clean up after clueless newbies. The Paradox 02:47, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you. The Paradox 03:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * My pleasure.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 03:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Seven Soldiers
All done. There was a missing  in that template, so I fixed that too.

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 14:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Flash Villain template
So I'm wanting to personalize the Flash villains template a bit. As you've probably figured out, I find the virgin comic covers to be too detailed for the purpose; I can't really see anything on most of them. Anyway, I uploaded a Reverse-Flash logo and changed the background color to a yellow, which with the red border fits the whole Reverse-Flash theme. It's a crappy pic but the best I could find on short notice. I've got a sample of it at Eobard Thawne (New Earth) on which I'd like your opinion. The Paradox 13:50, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * AFter looking at the Kid Zoom pic I'm thinking that a clean shot of his logo would be perfect for the yellow-on-red color coordination. Got one? ;) The Paradox 13:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally I kind of like the virgin covers, but whatever, I'm not attached to them. As for that Kid Zoom costume? Unfortunately, Inertia only wears that for like the second half of, shortly before his demise. So if you want, I can crop the picture that's already up, which I just scanned in, but other than that, I just flipped through the whole issue, and couldn't find a single shot where he isn't bent down running or arched back to stab somebody or something. I'll alert you though if I ever find any good posthumous images, or any flashbacks with the logo that would be suitable. Because there are always flashbacks to recently deceased characters.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 14:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I like the idea behind the virgin covers, it's just the execution that is eye-straining. Too bad about Kid Zoom (love that name), his logo would have been perfect. Really, though, any clear image of a Reverse-Flash logo would work, be it Prof Zoom, Zolomon or Kid Zoom. I don't do scans, so all my resources are web-based and there's not a lot that's easy to find. What about the color scheme? It's quite a departure from the standard blue. Does the yellow-and-red work for you? The Paradox 14:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I'm all for different color schemes on the stubs. It makes them stand out more, which was the original purpose. I would've customized more of them myself when I was making them, but I don't really understand the color schematics that well. As for the Reverse Flash logo, I'll go check my archives right now. I think I have the Rogue War in trade paperback, there should be something good in there. If not, I've been meaning to collect the Rogue Profiles anyway, and I'm sure that there would be a good image in the Zoom issue.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 14:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Kewl. Once you have something, the template can be updated. I found http://html-color-codes.info/ invaluable for color codes. The Paradox 14:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I figured might as well get both while I was at it. Feel free to make use of either one.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 15:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. I used a slightly cropped version of the Black Flash logo - trying to compliment the Reverse Flash yellow was too difficult. See the results at Flash Villain. The Paradox 15:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Tables in templates
So there's two ways to create tables, Wikia's short-hand way, which involves {|, |-, ||, and |}'s, and the html long-hand way, which involves 's , repsectively. For some reason, the short-hand way doesn't work inside templates. (No idea why really). So I went through and changed over to the long-hand version, and your table worked just fine. :) I just recently learned about tables too, since we don't use that code much ourselves.  We have so much stuff pre-layed out for us it's easy to let things like this go. I learned a ton from the Wikia Help: Tables page, if my changes are tough to understand.  You were almost there! :)

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 21:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Awesome! It looks excellent, thank you very much, and those links are going to be mad useful to me in the future. Fantastic.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 22:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Title
FYI, I've suggested merging the Comic List and Infobox Title templates. I don't see any reason to have two templates when they both are exclusive to the same pagetype; it only increases the chance that one or the other will not be included and readers will miss out. The Paradox 17:56, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I saw that. We had a discussion about that on the forums awhile ago here, but it never really got resolved or went anywhere. I am if anything more than positively supportive of that idea, I've always wanted to see those two joined.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 18:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Guard Award
Hey Billy,

I put a guard award on your user page for taking care of that Frankenstein (New Earth) -> 'poop' edit. I'm working on getting the IP address edits switched back off, but it's taking some time. Thanks for being on top of things over here. :)

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 14:02, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yay, I feel special. My pleasure, Nathan.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 14:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Page Moves
I went through the move category, and most of the pages don't have a name to move them too. The bot is pretty much set up to do character moves with the move tag at the top of the page in this format: Unfortunately, it doesn't handle other situations than that, and will just skip the page. Bob the Monitor is all done, and Kara Zor-El (DCAU) was moved too.

There's also a few random pages in there, an appearances page, an Image, etc. But I don't know the situation with those. I know you guys have a move tag that says something like "This guy doesn't have a universe yet, so we're waiting to move him until we know what universe he's in", and the page just sits in the move category, which doesn't really do anything for the page or the category, IMHO. There should be a separate sub-category for that kind of thing, maybe specifically spelling out what the problem is with the page, other than "It should probably be moved sometime in the distant future".

Don't know if that makes sense. :)

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 04:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Oooh, I think I just understood your request. You'd really like to have all the old-name appearances of these characters fixed, right?  I'm not sure I can distinguish what the old names are, for pages like Damian Wayne (New Earth).  Could you point me to appearances categories that are wrong, maybe?  Maybe I'm even more mixed up now. ..
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 04:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Double oh, the move tags are at the bottom. Maybe I can tweak the bot to see those too, it really only looks at the top atm.  I'll manually move the move tags for the pages you mentioned so the bot can understand them.  ;)
 * &mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 04:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

God, I love it when my problems get solved while I'm not here. I didn't know the Move template had to be at the top though, that's good to know. I always put stubs at the bottom of the page as a rule of thumb, but I will now not do that when I am moving things.
 * - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 23:37, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Please offer your input at Category talk:Move. The Paradox 00:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)