Scratch Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive 16

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Community Portal Archives

The Removal of Something I Edited

A while back I added something to the Community Moderator article about the mod forum and dustbin, but it was removed because apparently people aren't supposed to know about it. But if people aren't supposed to know about it, how come lightnin just mentioned it?

“	We've recently been talking about transparency in the moderator's forum	”
– lightning

He said it here, first line of the post. If it's allowed to be mentioned on the forums, why not on the wiki?
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 07:43, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Odd... I suppose it could be added back.
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 07:45, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, to my best judgement I think we can add it back... And I remember coolstuff mentioning the dustbin I think. :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 20:17, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite sure they'll say it's ok but let me ask the Scratch Team for their opinion first please :) I'll leave a message with their response here.
JSO (talk | contribs) 09:13, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, the mods and Scratch team agreed it's fine to write a bit about the Mod forum and Dustbin and stuff, but there's no need to go in high detail (like the interface) only because only very few people are mods xd
JSO (talk | contribs) 21:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Ooh, someone that can see the mod forum and dustbin :P
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 00:09, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

"See also"

In my opinion, the wiki is rather lacking in them - they allow users to easily see relevant articles, making them want to read more. Should we focus on them some?
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 04:20, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Sure! That would be an improvement, I'd say. Definitely try to only pick out articles if it's interesting and fairly similar. But that doesn't include for example, on the Move () Steps article having a link to the Turn () Degrees. Well maybe. But what I'm trying to say is to not just pick articles from the same category. JI felt like mentioning that, just in case.
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 04:27, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeppers. ;D
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 04:32, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea :) We should try to make it easy to "explore" the wiki, currently you can only easily look up something. And this is certainly a step in the right direction!
JSO (talk | contribs) 09:40, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

:D I'll start with the block articles. ;)
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 09:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Wiki Tutorials

Hey Lucario. I was wondering how far in depth you think we should go with the tutorials on the wiki. Should we only be doing interesting and unique tutorials or could we include tutorials like How to make a sprite follow the mouse?
Dazman (talk | contribs) 00:18, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I think we should focus on the advanced stuff like scrolling instead of basic stuff like making a sprite follow the mouse - having tutorials on a basic subject would be odd.
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 01:47, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Im not saying that we should have a lot of simple tutorials, I just think that maybe we should have more than we already have and on a broader scale.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 02:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Tutorials of any type are allowed! Advanced to simple. Making a sprite follow a mouse - sure! Anything that you think would be beneficial to the viewers :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 02:29, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Exactly, the more tutorials the better, from very basic to extremely advanced. Once we have some tutorials, we could even rate the difficulty like some PC magazines do :) Just create what you feel comfortable with! Basic tutorials aren't less valuable then advanced tutorials, because one of the goals of this wiki is to be a guide learning Scratch from the beginning to the point where you're the extreme Scratch master :p
JSO (talk | contribs) 09:10, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Good :) !!! I'll get working on some tutorials soon!
Dazman (talk | contribs) 09:29, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

And maybe I should create a rating system:

• 1 out of 5 (A one out of five shouldn't be on the wiki)
• 2 out of 5 (requires basic logic)
• 3 out of 5 (requires basic logic and an understanding of the scratch program)
• 4 out of 5 (Requires advanced logic and/or advanced math functions. Requires a moderate understanding of the scratch program.)
• 5 out of 5 (Requires advanced logic, mathematical functions, modifications to the scratch program, and/or a complete understanding of the Scratch program).
  Dazman (talk | contribs) 09:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

It's easier to think about a rating system once we have some tutorials to rate :) So let's first create some tutorials and rate them afterwars :p
JSO (talk | contribs) 09:36, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Got it. We need a template for the rating system once we come up with it. I'm already working on tutorials. WeirdF made one about math so i made a few more about math too.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 10:24, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

By the way I've created 10 out of the 16 tutorials at this point. In other words i'm making over half of the tutorials here :)
Dazman (talk | contribs) 11:00, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Good job making the tutorials. I don't think it's necessary to rank them by difficulty. It's better to organize them by theme. For example, you could have these themes: Game making, Animation, General Purpose, Math, etc
Andresmh (talk | contribs) 18:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Should we create new categories for the ones we have?
Dazman (talk | contribs) 19:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC).

We could organize it by type as Andresmh suggested or we could go by difficulty like JSO suggested.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 19:59, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe both :P
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 21:38, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

For the TOC, I'd say we should order them by type.
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 18:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Scratch Connections

Hey everyone,

For those who remember it, there once was an active Scratch Connections Wiki. However, due to excessive spam, it's locked now. We talked with the Scratch Team members who ran that wiki, and we are moving its content over to here. Please do not make any edits to pages about Scratch Connections, Scratch Connections Protocol and stuff like that as we're in the process of moving stuff over. I'm just posting this because there have been some problems in the past with people removing essential information from those pages. No offense to anyone involved at all, the pages were incomplete :) I should have told you back then.
JSO (talk | contribs) 09:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Pictures of Scripts

A lot of articles require a lot of pictures of scripts, and getting rid of the background can be really annoying, because the scripts area is coloured in two shades of grey in really thin lines. Does anyone know of a free program that can remove two different colours at the same time using the fill tool or something to that effect?
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 15:15, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

You can right-click on the scripts area in a project, then slect "save pictures of scripts" from the menu that pops up. Hope this makes it easier for you. :)
Aidan (talk | contribs) 16:54, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

:O I forgot about that button! Thanks for reminding me! :)
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 17:00, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Glad I could help. :D
Aidan (talk | contribs) 17:05, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

It exports to GIF though, which is a lossy image format.
Veggieman001 (talk | contribs) 21:07, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Is image quality THAT important? I don't think its worth the trouble.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 21:47, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I just make the script, take a screenshot (Control + PrintScreen), bring up GIMP, paste it in, select the fill tool, set it to BG color fill, set the bottom-right (I hope you know what I mean) color to #ffffff (if it isn't already), and click on the script area until it's all gone (it only takes a second). Then I drag over the script and 'select it', copy and paste it into a new place, save it as a .png, and done! :P (That was complicated ^_^)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 00:01, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Really, just use the script export tool. If you use it together with cleanup, all scripts are aligned exactly the same in their image, so that when many scripts are shown below eachother, like in tutorials, everything is still properly ligned up :)
JSO (talk | contribs)

You can see my tutorial page that I made on exporting images of scripts by clicking here. Oh by the Way JSO you forgot your signature. But don't worry i added it for you. I prefer to just save the image of the scripts in scratch by right clicking the Scripts Area. Although *.gif* is a low quality file format, the Scratch program is not written in a high quality resolution.

Therefore, the images are so similar that there is almost no noticeable difference at all. If scratch was in like 12 Megapixels, then maybe we would want to use image editors,but by checking the link to my tutorial, you can see a comparison of 2 identical scripts. I don't see what the fuss is right now. We should just export it the easy way. Not by exporting from image editors. The only time we would do this is if the background color behing the image was anything other than white. (Which will never happen). Then we would need to remove the background with a *.png* format.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 19:58, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Are we allowed to edit articles from the Connections wiki?

Just wondering...
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 08:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The stuff you did is ok ofcourse but please do not yet make changes to the content of the articles. Please don't remove info that seems irrelevant to you etc. :)
JSO (talk | contribs) 16:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

How about categorizing the articles?
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 00:09, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Definitely :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 01:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Why Can't We Edit the Table of Contents

Hey Lucario and JSO! I really want to work on the Table of Contents. I know you don't want us working on it, but I can see the format that you are using and the TOC isn't moving along to quickly.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 14:53, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Eh, things never seem to get done. :P But I wasn't working on it either... I'll go do some. And you really deserve to be able to help - you're a good editor and I know that you have the dedication (unlike the rest of us :P). :)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 05:03, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! And I was sorta wondering, is the table of contents like a site map or is it more of a navigational reference. I want to know how we will implement the TOC into the wiki.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 05:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

It's sort of like the category tree - click on the categories to go through the tree. :)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 05:12, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Jonathan, but I was more concerned with how this will be implemented into the site. Will this simply be transcluded on the front page. That would be pretty awesome.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 05:15, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I think they'll be putting the stuff in Scratch Wiki:Table of Contents on the main page.
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 06:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

You know guys, the table of contents isn't very organized... Please let me help!!! If I can work on it, this TOC will probably done in a few weeks
Dazman (talk | contribs) 20:08, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Sure, you can edit :) Go ahead. But keep the structure...
JSO (talk | contribs) 20:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

THANKS JSO!!! I'm getting to work. One thing I did however notice is that we still do not have the outline. Once the administrators have the outline, I can fill in all of the content. Ill continue work as we go.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 09:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry guys! I know I said I would work on it, but im on vacation and haven't been internetting alot. I will try and keep working on it!
Dazman (talk | contribs) 05:32, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It's fine... I don't even know what part of it we're supposed to be working on next xD
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 05:57, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Adding the Welcome and Guidelines pages to the main page (for real :P)

Instead of just discussing it like before, I actually made a 'mockup' of how we could do it - look here. Is it okay?
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 06:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

What about this?
Dazman (talk | contribs) 14:39, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Your mockup is good Johnathan, but I don't think that its noticeable enough. I might be wrong, but it seems really important that everyone knows how things work around here.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 20:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Ooh, nice mockup :D But when we implement the TOC, it'll be a bit big. :P
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 21:41, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

DAZMAN YOU PWNNNNNN
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 21:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

That's a really good mockup! Do you think we could add it now or shall we wait for Lucario/JSO/Andres?
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 21:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to make sure you don't get me wrong this is not a veto, lol. Welcome and Guidelines are for wiki editors. Most visitors of this wiki are guests, looking for information. Would the main page be the best place to show these two links? We certainly need the main 3 categories of the ToC on the main page. I'm thinking, it would be nice to have a little extension that shows some parts of a page to wiki editors only. Let me look up some stuff :)
JSO (talk | contribs) 21:55, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Eh... where should we put the Welcome and Guidelines pages? They should be really easy to find. :P But if you can make something appear only for editors, could it be put on the main page too? :)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 23:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah! This sounds great as long as we can get it so that it only shows for contributors. I'm not sure how you would do that though. Maybe cookies!
Dazman (talk | contribs) 10:20, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Problem with some Images

I just noticed that quite a few images have sort of disappeared, like this, this and this. What happened?
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 21:51, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

O_o I thought that was fixed a few weeks ago...
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 23:15, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

What next in the table of contents?

The block section is done...
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 07:28, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Well I had an idea for improvement, when we have something like this:

TOC > Program > Blocks > Shapes > Hat

I think it would be more useful if it was this:

TOC > Program > Blocks > Shapes > Hat

That means people can go back to what they were just on, instead of having to click < Scratch Wiki:Table of Contents every time.
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 09:05, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Ooh yesh!!! :D :D :D That would be so awesome!!! :D :D :D

Oh, can we work on the sections for the block shapes?
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 09:19, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Ofcourse, go ahead :) I'll do some too. BTW, I think it would be nice to have images of every block instead of the text, I'll try to do a page.
JSO (talk | contribs) 09:42, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

An image of every block!?? Do you understand all the files that would take!!!??? *pauses* Oh, we already have a picture of each block. xD
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 10:11, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

HEY This was my idea!!!
Dazman (talk | contribs) 10:03, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I did that for every single one... Remember from now on, when creating new TOC pages, do the box at the top in the same way...
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 11:31, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

One thing I was wondering about was the Turn () Degrees block, and the Clockwise/Counter-clockwise situation. Should we display them as one link, or two? Also, should the counter/clockwise in parenthesis be bolded? I personally think it should not because it's not a link like everything else bolded on the page, but I'm ok with it either way... :).
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 14:38, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I think we should have two separate links, but I don't think that it needs to be bold.
Dazman (talk | contribs) 18:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it's fine however we do it. :P
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 22:24, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The TOC is looking great. I'd suggest linking it from the front page already. --
Andresmh (talk | contribs) 04:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Woo!!! :D :D :D Lucario come here :O
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 05:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Yay! :D *visualizes it*
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 05:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Should we also have a link in the navigation box? I think that would be quite useful...
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 11:36, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Ooh yes!!! :D
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 22:29, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no bureaucrats have seen this yet... >_<
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 10:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Can't Upload Gifs

About a week or maybe two ago, there was a problem with uploading images, apparently this was fixed, but every time I try and upload a .gif image, it gives me this error message:

The file is corrupt or has an incorrect extension. Please check the file and upload again.

But .png images work fine...

Also, some images have suddenly "disappeared," and look like this:

What's going on?
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 13:26, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

HALP JSO :O
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 23:47, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I moved the files over by downloading them from the old server, to my pc, then uploading to the current server. And Windows doesn't allow annoying characters in filenames (and they shouldn't be used on UNIX systems either ... ) The ? in this example was replaced by an _. I fixed this one image and I'll do the few others you showed soon. Please leave a message when you come across another missing image :)
JSO (talk | contribs) 21:48, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Here's one:
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 05:15, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

And I have no idea what's causing GIF's to glitch. Allow me some time to figure out.
JSO (talk | contribs) 21:56, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Block Templates

In the templates for all the different types of blocks, do you think that where it has the link, "more blocks" it should link to Scratch Wiki:Table of Contents/Block Types?
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 18:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the whole Block Types page of the ToC should be moved over to Scratch_Wiki:Table_of_Contents/Blocks, in the Block Types box :) It's a bit less click through work :p . But Yes, the more blocks link should link to the ToC I guess :)
JSO (talk | contribs) 21:55, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'll go do that. :)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 04:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Wait, do we move the page yet?
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 04:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)