Scratch Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive 4

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Community Portal Archives

Does anyone except us view the Wiki?

The editors and members of the Wiki love the Wiki, that's for certain, and a lot of members are on every day, looking at articles and editing them and creating new ones and stuff. But do other people ever look at the Wiki? Do normal Scratch users ever actually think, "I need to find something out, I'll go to the Scratch Wiki?" Because I don't reckon they do. I am worried that the Wiki has loads of hard work and effort put into it, yet nobody actually takes any notice of it except those who work on it. Does anyone think I am right with this hunch?
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 15:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello?
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 07:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Currently, we have about 1000 pageviews per day and about 130 visitors per day. As we grow in reputation, that number will grow too ;D JSO 14:55, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

We do? Well that's awesome! :D
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 15:19, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Awesome! :D
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 01:28, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Stub messages at the top of articles

I'm up for a proposal to have all of the stub messages at the top of articles - not at the bottom. This way, it is more immediate to the user that the article is uncomplete, especially in the situation that the article is long, so the person will only see it if they scroll down far enough. What do you guys think?
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 15:52, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea! :D
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 05:43, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

There's another 'unviewable' file

I was going through the Maintenance Reports part of Special Pages, and... I found the file "Set () to (Variable ()).gif". When I tried to view the page, it said it didn't exist! This has happened before (look here) - so... JSO, can you delete it from the database? Yeah, it's an unused file...
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 07:09, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Just in case you were wondering, the previous time it happened, it wasn't fixed by deleting it from the database - that would crash the wiki. I had to change the URL a special way to make it work. (I'm working on the problem ATM)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 20:54, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

OK - deleted! Just please remember (everybody) to not use plus signs in the names of pages. Thanks!
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 21:12, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Problems With Users Creating Block Articles

I just got back here, and I already see a bunch of new block articles being created by users that are missing many things, such as templates, proper descriptions, and categories. Do any of you know how to fix this? (*cough* Remember my suggestion way back at the old wikia to create a model for future block articles *cough*) --mkolpnji 21:08, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Nice to see ya back! :) Yes, the articles aren't complete - but that makes a wiki a wiki! There's plenty to improve on, so you should just keep on editing to make it better! I personally don't think there should be a model/template for future block articles because most people probably wouldn't know about it, and getting them to learn about it, especially with the ever-increasing members, would be fairly difficult, considering a good amount of the current members haven't even seen this Community Portal talk page yet xD
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 21:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm going through the block articles - I'll be rewriting and completing those articles. ;)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 08:02, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I've been editing and improving a few as well... I did three or four yesterday, and I should be on for the rest of the day to see if any more pop up...
WeirdF (talk | contribs) 08:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Just make sure to add the {{Scratch Blocks}} template and the block type category it's in. :P --mkolpnji 22:02, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Please categorize everything you share

Any articles, files, redirects, templates, categories, etc. should be categorized. To categorize something, place [[Category:CATEGORY NAME]] at the bottom of the page. If you don't know what to categorize something under, look here - it's a list of categories.

Please categorize everything you make! :)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 08:13, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Signature Doesn't Show Up

This is Aidan. Whenever I post one of these things, my signature doesn't work! help! ~Aidan 01:12, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit: Yay! It worked! Another edit: Sorry for all the editing. Experimenting with my sig.

To post your signature, at the end of your message, you have press the signature button above the editing bar (to the right of the 'W' that is crossed) which will automatically add ~~~~, or you can simply manually type ~~~~ in. Nothing too complicated :) Then once you save the page, it will turn it into your signature.
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 22:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

If you want to play around, you can use the public sandbox (here) or create your own at http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/User:Aidan/Sandbox. :)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 09:17, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Scratch Connections needs a new home...

Hey - this is awesome you guys! :) Brilliant work. Its come to my attention that the Scratch Connections wiki needs a new home for its content. They seemed to like the idea of moving it over here, so I thought I'd see what you guys think. Do you have room for the pages that used to be over there?

It's currently here: http://scratchconnections.wik.is/ (But it's a wee bit hosed right now, so you can't really browse it. But some of you will remember the gist of what it has - not too many pages I don't think.) Lightnin 21:56, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't have an account on it, and I don't think I should create one... ^_^

What's the wiki about? :)
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 07:28, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

OOH IT'S LIGHTNIN LIGHTNIN LIGHTNIN :D :D :D

I can't view the wiki... and I don't think I should create an account. :P

I don't see what's bad about moving its pages into this wiki though, as long as the articles are reasonably related to Scratch and not too crazy. :)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 09:15, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I can import the articles, I made an account over there (JSO) but I need permission to use the Special:Export and Special:ListFiles pages so I can export all files and pages :) JSO 10:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Cool - I think its sorted now, JSO. :) Thanks everyone for making this awesome site!! Lightnin 19:46, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Colored Signatures?

Sometimes, I see signatures in different colors and different fonts. How do I do this? ~Aidan 21:17, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Use the code below:

<span style="color:#color_code_goes_here">text goes here</span>

I think that's it... I don't know wiki code that well - I just studied Lucario's signature and copied the code. xP
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 09:10, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Here's an example - it's what I use in my signature, you can tweak it for your needs:

[[User:Jonathanpb|<span style="color:#275275;">-Jonathanpb</span>]] [[User talk:Jonathanpb|<span style="color:#5b7d9f;">(talk)</span>]]

Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 09:40, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

But what about different fonts? ~Aidan 16:41, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

To do different fonts, you need to do <span style"font-family:FONT">text goes here</span> :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 22:57, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't get the font working, but how's this? ~Aidan 01:19, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm - it's nice, but it looks too close to a red link - so it might confuse some people :P. Also - you shouldn't make your signature directly on the page - it's very inconvenient, and takes up more space. The better alternative is here. :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 03:13, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I got it working. How's it now? It's in Comic Sans MS Bold and some shade of green.
Aidan (talk | contribs) 16:53, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Awesome! :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 02:22, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I tried to make it distinctive. Is it?
Aidan (talk | contribs) 02:54, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Yep! :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 14:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Case Sensitive?

Sorry for posting two in a row, but I've noticed that the wiki is case sensitive. For example, Scratch team does NOT redirect to Scratch Team. Is there a way we could make it non-case sensitive? That would make it easier. ~Aidan 00:40, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

About posting twice in a row - it's perfectly fine. :)

If you're searching something, it doesn't matter if you capitalize things or not - but yeah, links are fussy and need to be capitalized correctly. :| So just remember to get your links right... ;)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 09:10, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah - I have to say that's not really something we can change in the MediaWiki system. You'll just have to go with it and get used to it - either way, that's what the "Preview" button is for - to make sure everything is correct ;). And at the first letter isn't case sensitive.
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 00:13, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Adding "See Also" sections to pages?

That's used in Wikipedia a lot, so can we do it here?
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 09:11, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Definitely! :) It might increase page views and such :D
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 22:17, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yayz! :D
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 06:58, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Someone did it again Dx

Another file with a bad name... Lucario, can you get rid of it (or teach me how :P)?
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 09:37, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Look in the uncategorized files. ;)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 09:38, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Done :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 22:54, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

We need to make some pages more visible

The Welcome and Guidelines pages aren't easy to find... actually, I don't think anywhere links to them (except here and some talk pages maybe). :/ Any ideas on how to make them more visible? (I don't think the Contact Administrators page is that big of a deal, but people might not know who to report a bad user to if they can't find the page.)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 08:49, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do...
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 02:35, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

What are you planning to do? :)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 08:10, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

User Icon page?

I want to make a page for user icons, but I don't know what to call it. They go by so many names. I'll make the other names redirect to it. What should I call it? Avatar, User Icon, Profile Picture, or something else? Is there another page already about this?
Aidan (talk | contribs) 17:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Sounds like a good idea for an article! My opinion is to have "User Icon" - but don't necessarily create it yet. Perhaps some others might have some opinions :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 02:37, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I was leaning towards as well.
Aidan (talk | contribs) 02:41, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

If you check the url of those user icons, part of it says "icons". So that's what they're called, I think. :) And of course, we should put user on the name - that gets "user icons"! And we all agree on the name to be "user icons"... :D
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 06:48, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll start making the page, then.
Aidan (talk | contribs) 15:03, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I finished. It's here.
Aidan (talk | contribs) 15:03, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Giving a Summary

I have noticed a lot of users who make edits to an article but never leave a summary. It is very useful to other editors to leave a summary about what changes you made, but not many people seem to do it. So next time you edit an article, remember to summarise what you have done. It is very useful, thanks! ;)
WeirdF (talk | contribs)

Yeah, I noticed that too - and I agree with you! I'll add it to the welcome page :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 02:38, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I do it sometimes - but in edits that would be silly to explain (or would take up a lot of words), I leave it out. ^_^
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 06:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah... I added that to the guidelines page. :P
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 07:15, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Pages for the individual forums

So, I noticed Andres created a page for the Collaborations forum. It seems a little out of place to have just one article on the individual forums, so maybe we could make pages for each of the individual forums? I made a page for the I&M forums in general. Coolstuff 20:50, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems a bit silly to have an article on each forum to me (especially the language forums :P) - but meh, we'll get to explain a lot about each forum! :D

Should we have all the language forums share an article?
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 06:50, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, writing an article about each of them would be silly. :P But I think the "Translating Scratch" forum could have its own article... :/
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 07:19, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I used to think it was silly, but now I like it. :)
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 07:19, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

We could have pages for each of the main forums and the I&M forums, and then a page for all the language forums - and another page for "Translating Scratch." Sounds like a plan! Coolstuff 16:31, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, you guys can create articles on each of the forums! As for the language forums, I suppose they could all be combined into on page - except for Translating Scratch. And of course, make sure to have (forum) at the end of each one :D.
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 22:59, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

What "minor edit" means

There was a question and answer about this in one of the archives, and the answer implied that checking the box is just shown to anyone looking at the edit history, but that's not quite right. It actually does something: When you add a page to your watch list, you can specify that you don't want to be notified about minor edits.

It's supposed to mean that you are only changing formatting, or correcting a spelling error, or something like that, not changing the actual content of the article. —Brian Harvey (talk) 20:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks for clearing that up.
Aidan (talk | contribs) 21:04, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Yep. I forgot about that - probably because I don't really use watch pages (though it's definitely handy).
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 22:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I can imagine that you’d be inundated if you had a watch list! :-) —Brian Harvey (talk) 00:47, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Articles on blocks in mods?

There are articles on individual Scratch blocks, so what about articles about individual blocks in mods? Of course I'm thinking about BYOB. And of course if we do have such articles, they go in a different category, not the Scratch blocks category. But maybe it would still be confusing? What do people think? —Brian Harvey (talk) 20:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. I don't agree. The wiki is about Scratch, not Scratch mods. I think one article about each of the mods is enough. That's my opinion.
Aidan (talk | contribs) 21:05, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd have to say no... mainly because it could get very confusing, adding very much hassle, and some readers may become confused because perhaps they don't know about all of the different mods. For example, with BYOB, I know for instance that there aren't that many new blocks (ignoring the custom blocks you can make on your own). However, in Panther, there's a lot more, from what I know. And we can't simply add blocks only for BYOB, and not Panther - it would simply be unfair.

I'd definitely like to see what everybody else things about the situation though :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 22:55, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't really agree... :( Users could get confused about what blocks really are in Scratch, and... well, what the others said...
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 00:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't be sorry; I was just asking, not advocating. But speaking of Panther inspires me to make a slightly different proposal that I think does make sense, namely, articles about broad added features. For example, there could be an article "Reading and writing files (Scratch extension)" in which a bunch of blocks would be described — more than one bunch, if different mods do it different ways. "First class colors (Scratch extension)" would make an interesting article. Eh? —Brian Harvey (talk) 00:41, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree... this is sort of like having articles on blocks from Scratch modifications, but (sort of) for a group of them.
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 00:50, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree... if we had articles on every block from Scratch modifications, new Scratchers might wonder why the blocks aren't in Scratch.

It's sensible to have articles on every Scratch block, since this is the Scratch Wiki - articles on BYOB blocks belong in a BYOB wiki.

Of course, this is just my opinion... and sorry for a late response - I hit two edit conflicts.
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 00:47, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, you talked me out of it. :-) —Brian Harvey (talk) 00:53, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Naming the multiplication and division blocks article

The addition and subtraction article is named "() +/- ()", which make sense. Unfortunately, the division block uses the "/," instead of "÷," so the name of the article would be "() *// ()," which isn't too pretty, if you ask me... I suppose we could just use the "÷" division sign, but that might be confusing, since there the actual block isn't named that. The other solution I thought of is to have separate multiplication and division articles, to avoid the slash, but the two articles would be very similar. Actually, in my opinion, it is unnecessary to have separate addition/subtraction and multiplication/division articles, and it might be good to rename the +/- article to include all four operators, but then we run into the same naming problem. () +/-/*// () seems silly to me... Any thoughts? scmb1(talk) 17:54, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

"() +-*/ ()" ? —Brian Harvey (talk) 23:40, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I personally think they should be separated - every block deserves its own article, no matter what.
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 01:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you go by that rule, then the () +/- () article needs to be separated... scmb1(talk) 04:22, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

What if we used a backslash to separate them? () *\/ ()
Aidan (talk | contribs) 02:04, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Eh - that would just be more confusing IMO. Usually in any situation when you're mentioning two different things or words to express something, you use a forward slash. But good idea! :)
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 02:20, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there's a sense in which they're all the same block — you can control-click an arithmetic block and change it to a different operator. [Similarly for the relational operators (<, =, >).] So you can think of it as a single "do arithmetic operator" block with a hidden pulldown menu of operations. :) [Just like the pulldown menu in the one transcendental-operation block!] Seriously, maybe the name of the article should be "Arithmetic operations." —Brian Harvey (talk) 03:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Nice argument. :) I agree that they should be one article. If the articles were to be separated, there would most likely be only a word or two difference. I guess that wouldn't really matter though...

At first, I thought your suggested name for the combined article would be confusing, but if there are redirects, I don't know if it would really matter. Although, so far all block article names are the name of the block, and maybe the inconsistency would be bad. scmb1(talk) 04:22, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

A while ago, it was decided that each block should have their own article... we split most of the articles - but that one remains. :P

I think that if each block had their own article, it might be easier for people to read about those blocks. :/

That block article should have been split ages ago... :P
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 07:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense. I tried to move the page, but I couldn't figure it out. Is moving pages beyond my powers? scmb1(talk) 12:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

OK. So, remember that moving pages is just changing titles. So you guys will have to create two pages, and move the other two.
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 14:17, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that any time an argument like this comes up, the right answer always is to have all the suggested names, by way of redirects. So, for example, if for some reason I wanted to look up the addition block, I would look under "+" in the index, not under "("! So I think there should be a "+" page that redirects to "()+()", and I think there should be an "arithmetic operators" page with four links, etc. But this isn't the most important case -- nobody's going to look up addition anyway; it's too obvious. (Someone might possibly look up division to find out if there's a way to get the integer quotient of two integers.) But I can easily imagine someone looking up "sin" (does it take its argument in degrees or radians?) or "ln" (what on earth is a ln?). (No, you don't have to answer those questions here -- I know the answers. They're just examples.) Whereas I can't imagine how anyone really trying to find out something would ever think to look under "() of ()"! :) —Brian Harvey (talk) 16:09, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we should avoid using special characters on the titles of articles. They are hard to parse and search engines (i.e. Google) do not know how to handle these symbols very well, so the articles become harder to find. I would suggest using letters and numbers only. If you want, use redirects. --
andresmh (talk | contribs) 20:56, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll keep that in mind. Does that mean no parentheses either? Most block article titles have parentheses, so that would involve a lot of changing. If parentheses are allowed, do you think "() plus ()," "() minus ()," etc would be good? scmb1(talk) 15:42, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

In that case, we could put "() plus/minus/times/divided by ()" with LOTS of redirects!
Aidan (talk | contribs) 01:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Parenthesis is ok. But guys, as I mentioned before, I think it would be best to have a page for each article...
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 01:43, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I now agree that we should definitely make separate articles. I was just wondering if you thought writing out the symbols using "plus," "minus," "times," and "divided by" would be alright. scmb1(talk) 02:06, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

If Andres's reason for avoiding punctuation is that those symbols have special meanings in Google search, that's true of parentheses, too. So calling it "() plus ()" isn't really better than "() + ()". In both cases, to search for the article you'd have to put the title in quotation marks in the search bar, just as I've done in this paragraph. —Brian Harvey (talk) 15:32, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

The main problem with pluses, is that it makes the article impossible to find. If you create a file named "() + ()" (ignoring quotations), than when you type it in the url after /wiki/, it doesn't work. Instead, confusingly you have to change it to /index.php?title=()_%2B_() . So that's why it has to be "plus".
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 15:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Using Talk Pages to Chat

Would it be all right to talk to somebody about something completely unrelated to the Scratch Wiki on their talk page? I'm not thinking of doing this, I'm just interested. For example, could I ask Bharvey on his talk page if there will be a BYOB 4? Things like that, I was just wondering...
WeirdF (talk | contribs)

:O Good question! :O :O :O
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 07:35, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm personally fine with it - but I'd prefer users not to do it much. Talk pages are created for the sake of wiki collaboration - not chatting. I'd recommend doing it by commenting on one's projects, or something similar, rather than taking advantage of the talk pages.
Lucario621 (talk | contribs) 13:57, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I hate it when I see comments under a project that aren't about that project. It's confusing and makes it hard to pick out the comments that really are about that project. So I vote yes on talk pages, which aren't intended for third parties to read anyway. (Not that they're secret, just that nothing is "off-topic" on a talk page.) —Brian Harvey (talk) 16:13, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with using projects to chat, actually; projects aren't for that, unless the project is designed to be a message center. But anyway people can always go to Miscellaneous and chat there... :D :D :D
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 06:24, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

How loud does the noise have to be for the Loud? block to consider the sound loud?

I tried to find the limit, but it seems all varied... :/ Anyone know the answer?
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 08:26, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I tested it, and it seems to be 30. scmb1(talk) 15:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I looked in BYOB's "edit elements" for the block, and anything above 30 is loud. scmb1(talk) 19:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! :)
Jonathanpb (talk | contribs) 07:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

The link to recycle49's "congratulate him here" goes to KalinaStar's thread

Yeah, the link doesn't go to a place where you can congratulate him. This would be a better link. scmb1(talk) 17:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

That's weird... :/
Aidan (talk | contribs) 20:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Oops! ^_^ Fixed.
Chrischb (talk | contribs) 10:06, 7 July 2010 (UTC)