Talk:Main Page

From KeenWiki

Contents 1 On game engine names 2 Colour vs Color 3 User list 4 Hazard pages 5 Buying Keen 6 Wiki info 7 Sandbox 8 MediaWiki upgrade 9 Personal images 10 Unofficial names 11 Templates 12 List of fangames 13 Articles on Keen fans 14 Keen News on Main Page 15 Dates 16 Non-game articles

On game engine names

In the modding tools section of the main page, it is stated: "Other (Keen Dreams, non-Keen engines)", but we are all pretty sure Keen Dreams engine and Keen: Galaxy engine are almost the same! Both share the EGAGRAPH and GAMEMAPS format, and the game engine technology such as goplats (minecart in KDR seems to be one), poles, hanging onto ledges, etc. So, in my opinion, the K: Modding tools classification should be fixed as this needs to be discussed before breaking all existing links. There are already three Keen Dreams modding tools, which are unofficial ModKeen 2.0.1 hack by MultiMania, KDRPatch by MultiMania and TED5 by John Romero. --Shadow Master 17:53, 5 July 2007 (GMT)

The engines are indeed similar, but as far as I'm aware you can't take a Keen 4-6 modding tool (like the original ModKeen for example) and use it unchanged with Keen Dreams. That's why the categories are separate. A Keen4 modding tool will work with Keen5, but not necessarily with Dreams. -- Malvineous 09:29, 10 July 2007 (GMT)

Colour vs Color

Game Boy Colour should, I think be spelt Game Boy Color, in the American spelling. (Or am I just being an ignorant American?) -- CK Guy

I don't know, over here in Australia that's the way it's spelt, but I guess you could argue it was an American invention so it should be spelt its native tongue. My argument is that the wiki generally uses British English, so it should remain as is. -- Malvineous 23:49, 9 February 2007 (GMT)

Game Boy Color is the official name, you should edit it. It is called Game Boy Color everywhere, also in my country (Germany). --Grandy02 16:01, 20 February 2007 (GMT)

C'mon,everybody says change it,unlock the page and change it!--Xterra1 18:24, 4 July 2007 (GMT)

Excuse me? Who is everybody? I'll do it anyway, but not unlock, just edit. I'm not giving anyone the possibility of vandalizing the main page in Malv's absence (till some hours later).--Shadow Master 18:27, 4 July 2007 (GMT)

I thought that you had to unlock the page to edit it.--Xterra1 17:19, 6 July 2007 (GMT)

Sysops can edit protected page without unlocking them if they desire. --Shadow Master 17:52, 6 July 2007 (GMT)

Might be really nitpicking, but could also someone change the "Gameboy" to "Game Boy", the official spelling, please? --Grandy02 14:29, 23 March 2009 (GMT)

Done -- Malvineous 22:14, 23 March 2009 (GMT)

It's SPELLED, people. :P Not SPELT. --Fleexy 17:53, 5 June 2009 (GMT)

Says who? -- Malvineous 00:59, 6 June 2009 (GMT)

User list

I think there should be a page with a list of all the people in the Keen community, each linking to a page about them. -- Genius314 23:54, 07 June 2007 (GMT)

Try Special:Userlist -- Malvineous 01:27, 8 June 2007 (GMT)

Thanks. I couldn't find that before... On the same topic of user pages, I think there should be some more guidelines for them. Right now, a lot of user's pages are written from the user's POV ("Hi, I'm n,..." etc.), but I think that they should be written more like every other page. --Genius314 21:41, 11 June 2007 (GMT)

That's the real purpose of user pages though, you're supposed to write them yourself in your own style. They wouldn't really suit the article style, as there are people in the Keen community that don't have a user page on the wiki. From a different angle, can you think of any reason why we'd need a specific article about someone? I tend to think most of the content that would end up in there could be put onto other pages instead. -- Malvineous 11:51, 12 June 2007 (GMT)

Hazard pages

Could someone do hazard pages for Keen Dreams, 4, 5,& 6?Thank you kindly.--Xterra1 13:18, 30 June 2007 (GMT)

Could you help to get things started? Just go to the Keen 3 hazards page, click the edit button to bring up the wiki code, then copy it to the clipboard. Go into one of the empty hazard pages, edit that, and paste the code in. Then just change the names and descriptions to reflect some of those found in the other games. Don't worry if you don't know them all, just put a note in saying you're unsure and someone else will come along and fix it (or remove your note if you were actually right!) -- Malvineous 00:05, 1 July 2007 (GMT)

Jeez! My brain isn't enough to handle all that! I can't do templates!--Xterra1 17:39, 3 July 2007 (GMT)

Fair enough, but we'll need a hand coming up with the list of hazards, I can't remember them all off the top of my head :-) -- Malvineous 11:37, 4 July 2007 (GMT)

Nor can I, but I started some stubs for the Keen 4 and 5 hazard pages. Needs pictures and such. Feel free to complete those articles so the stub template can be removed.--Shadow Master 14:39, 4 July 2007 (GMT)

Buying Keen

You know,you can buy Keens 1-5 for only $10 US on idsoftware.com.--Xterra1 16:32, 10 July 2007 (GMT)PS-it allows other currencies

You can get them for $5 through Steam at http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=app&AppId=9180 (it'd be nice if Keen 6 were made available through Steam as well.) --Leandrotlz 04:28, 2 June 2008 (GMT)

You're kidding! Whoa... I know a place where Keen 6 can be aquired,but I can't post the link cuz it's free. Even Keens 2,3,and 5 are there. It's also got a wealth of games besides Keen. It even has a full version of Keen Dreams. Again,I can't post the link for it.--Xterra1 14:43, 28 July 2008 (GMT)

Wiki info

Hey,when was this wiki started?--Xterra1 00:53, 17 July 2007 (GMT)

It went live some time during the last few days of January 2007. I was "preparing" it before then, getting the basic layout set up, and that began as far back as August 2006. -- Malvineous 09:46, 17 July 2007 (GMT)

Cool,thanks!!!--Xterra1 03:38, 18 July 2007 (GMT)

Is everybody gone?--Xterra1 00:10, 24 July 2007 (GMT)

No -- DHeadshot 19:15, 10 October 2009 (GMT)

Sandbox

I would like to propose a sandbox for testing. Hey,a LOT of wikis have sandboxes,why not this one?--Xterra1(talk)(work)(?) 19:25, 11 August 2007 (GMT)

For precisely that reason - most wikis have a Sandbox, why do you need another one? Just use one of the others. If you need to test something that's specific to this wiki, that's what the Preview button is for. -- Malvineous 01:35, 12 August 2007 (GMT)

Hey-new-to-wiki users need a place to test. The Preview button makes no difference.--Xterra1(talk)(work)(?) 02:53, 12 August 2007 (GMT)

Give me one example where the preview button doesn't work and you need to use a sandbox. New-to-wiki users can easily go somewhere else to learn how to use a wiki - we're not here to teach people how wikis work, we're here to document Commander Keen. Adding a sandbox wouldn't bring anything useful to the wiki. -- Malvineous 02:59, 12 August 2007 (GMT)

Oi! A sandbox would be great,Malv,If you comsider testing templates.--Xterra1(talk)(work)(?) 03:08, 12 August 2007 (GMT)

How? The preview button works fine when you're testing templates, that's what it's there for. -- Malvineous 07:11, 12 August 2007 (GMT)

Preview buttons are used to preview edits,not templates.--Xterra1(talk)(work)(?) 13:27, 12 August 2007 (GMT)

And precisely how would a sandbox help you test templates? They have to be made in the Template namespace, so you can't put them in a sandbox anyway. -- Malvineous 21:58, 12 August 2007 (GMT)

If a new template was created by,let's say,Grandy02,he/she might wanna work out the little kinks in said template.Xterra1(talk)(work)(?)

Okay then, let's pretend for a minute that we've got a sandbox. How would Grandy02 go about using it to iron out the kinks in a template? -- Malvineous 08:06, 13 August 2007 (GMT)

He'd/She'd look at the template first. There's a bug in it. Grandy would then find that bug and then put it in the sandbox again. Yet another kink. Grandy would try to sort it out is the sandbox. They finally did it.--Xterra1(talk)(work)(?) 12:15, 13 August 2007 (GMT)

The thing is, unless it's an experienced user who has learned some wikicode, nobody should edit and/or create new templates. That should be so because of (for me, at least) obvious reasons. Besides, as this wiki is powered by the MediaWiki software, is the preview button doesn't work for templates, it's them (the MediaWiki developers) who you should complain to, not us, mere users of the software. --Shadow Master 15:42, 13 August 2007 (GMT)

And the flaw in Xterra's explanation? Templates only work when they're saved in their own article (you can't put template code in a Sandbox, it doesn't work.) You can fiddle with the wikicode using the Preview button (of which I'm beginning to suspect you don't know how it works), so even if we did have a Sandbox you couldn't use it when developing templates (trust me, Grafix and I developed and tested the Infobox templates on this wiki using the Preview button, with a few unavoidable edits, which wouldn't work in a Sandbox anyway since you can't include the Sandbox in the same way as you include templates.) I suggest you learn how the Preview button works, because then you'll realise that anything you can do in a Sandbox can be done by just previewing an edit. -- Malvineous 22:21, 13 August 2007 (GMT)

You are very persistent-True Aussie-But think. A sandbox is cleaned out regularly. That could well be a point,but what do I know? I'm just a dumb American.--Xterra1(talk)(work)(?) 01:42, 14 August 2007 (GMT)

Haha :-) Don't forget that you can't really clean out the sandbox, because all the edit history will still be there on the history tab. At any rate, anyone who needs a sandbox is probably too inexperienced to contribute meaningful information - they can learn on one of the hundreds of other wikis out there and then return when they no longer need a sandbox. -- Malvineous 10:49, 14 August 2007 (GMT)

MediaWiki upgrade

I have at last upgraded the KeenWiki to the latest version of MediaWiki. I have also included some additional JavaScript to force people to use edit summaries, so because it hasn't been extensively tested please let me know if anyone runs into problems. I've also included a basic Captcha when signing up for a new account, to hopefully reduce the number of spam accounts. I'll also be deleting any accounts that look like spam soon, so my apologies if I delete a real person's account :-) -- Malvineous 04:01, 6 October 2007 (GMT)

That forced summary thing. It's kind of annoying on talk pages. Would this be easy to change? (Would you find it desirable to change?) -- CK Guy 21:26, 1 November 2007 (GMT)

That's a fair point. If you can see this message then the summary is now optional on Talk pages. -- Malvineous 01:04, 3 November 2007 (GMT)

Why is there a captcha when a template is added? It gets on my nerves.--Xterra1 14:38, 28 July 2008 (GMT)

Upgraded to MediaWiki 1.13.0. Testing the ConfirmEdit extension will works when adding external links -- Malvineous 07:08, 25 October 2008 (GMT)

Personal images

I want some personal images. Is there a limit to them? I'm asking because I love "LOLcats".--Xterra1 14:45, 28 July 2008 (GMT)

This is a Commander Keen wiki, not MySpace. -- Malvineous 07:08, 25 October 2008 (GMT)

Unofficial names

Is there a reason why we use the unofficial names Vortimom, Vortikid and Vortininja rather than the official ones Vorticon Woman, Youth and VortiNinja? --Grandy02 14:41, 23 March 2009 (GMT)

Because nobody has been able to show where the official names come from... If you can find an official source that states what the names are then we can rename the articles accordingly! -- Malvineous 22:14, 23 March 2009 (GMT)

The source is easy: the Vorticons Hint Sheet that came with the game. But I think we should stick with the current names, because these are much more commonly used by keen fans. One could mention the original names in the articles though (and they already are as far as I can see. Tulip 23:29, 23 March 2009 (GMT)

Can you provide a scanned copy of that? I think it's still better to use the official names if we can (accuracy is always good), so usually we just put in redirects for all the unofficial names so they still show up if someone uses one of the more common names. Gnosticene Ancient is a good example of that. -- Malvineous 11:43, 24 March 2009 (GMT)

The hint sheet can be found here. --Grandy02 14:18, 24 March 2009 (GMT)

I also noticed that several mods are found under their "common names" rather than the actual titles (e.g. the XkyKeens). But even the official Keen games are addressed by slightly abbreviated names. Either it should stay as it is or all topics should be addressed by their official and full names for the sake of consistency. For alternate names there can be always redirects. --Grandy02 17:59, 5 November 2009 (GMT)

Everything should be addressed by its official name wherever possible. It would be good to have redirects so the common names still work, but yes, please feel free to rename any incorrect mods so they are called by their correct name. Make sure you can back this up though, for example with the docs included in the download! Also remember that whenever you rename a page you should update all pages that link to it to point to the new name rather than the redirect. There is a link in the toolbar ("What links here") to tell you which pages to change. -- Malvineous 22:23, 5 November 2009 (GMT)

Templates

How do I make/add/edit templates? --Fleexy 17:56, 5 June 2009 (GMT)

Check the MediaWiki docs. -- Malvineous 00:59, 6 June 2009 (GMT)

Oops, I mean infoboxes. I know templates. --Fleexy

List of fangames

Please add this to the main page. I also plan to make one for mods in the coming days. Snortimer 10:18, 24 July 2009 (GMT)

Articles on Keen fans

I noticed that sometimes there are articles on members of the Keen community (e.g. Andrew Durdin, Levellord and Xtraverse), but in most cases there are links to the respective user pages. Is there any policy on this issue, should there be articles on Keen fans (given that they contributed something, e.g. a mod, fan-game or utility)? I wouldn't be against it. --Grandy02 16:32, 30 July 2009 (GMT)

Keen News on Main Page

You know, Wikipedia and many other wikis showcase news on a topic on their main page. What about doing the same for KeenWiki? For example, when a new mod or fangame has been announced or released, or when there are news regarding the KeenWiki itself, users could read it on the Main Page, with links leading to the topic if available. Any opinions? --Grandy02 20:10, 4 November 2009 (GMT)

I think it's a great idea. I don't know how difficult it would be to implement, but it sounds like it would help the wiki.--Sega381 23:53, 4 November 2009 (GMT)

The problem would be figuring out what's newsworthy or not. I originally intended the KeenWiki to be a reference rather than a 'current events' portal, as we probably don't want every little thing featured. I'm also not sure how many people actually look at the main page after their first visit. In many ways I think it would be better to link to some of the other fine Keen sites that keep track of news rather than trying to do everything ourselves! -- Malvineous 11:20, 5 November 2009 (GMT)

Of course, I don't want KeenWiki to become a news portal. Maybe we could only cover news on topics that are already article-worthy, e.g. when a mod or fangame has been released (and not just announced). True, every "little thing" isn't noteworthy. But I think the releases of mods, fangames, and notable tools that (will) have articles anyway are worth mentioning on the Main Page. --Grandy02 13:37, 5 November 2009 (GMT)

I don't know, I feel this is not really necessary, we would need a person assigned to do that, and I think it would help more if the same guy just created the needed page for the new mod/program/fangame Tulip 16:58, 5 November 2009 (GMT)

I just mean that a few lines can be read on the Main Page about recent (the last three or so) releases. Of course there should already be articles on them. Like this not so recent example:

• 2002-06-30: The Keen 1 mod XkyKeen1 by Xkylyr Rauh has been released.

Maybe in a box that is aligned to right, there's enough "blank space" on the Main Page. The Main Page is protected, but one could store the news text in a simple template for the Main Page that every registered user can edit, so we wouldn't need a person assigned to do that. Of course, I'm also fine if everything stays like it is, it's just a suggestion. As said, I just mean a few lines on recent releases, nothing more and nothing less. --Grandy02 17:51, 5 November 2009 (GMT)

I'd also be worried that it would stagnate, after a while you might only have old news like the Xky one from 2002 and it makes the wiki look out of date when it's really not (see Planet Keen for instance.) The recent pages link will already tell you what has been changed on the wiki itself, the mod lists can be sorted by release date if you want to see what's new, so unless there's some other sort of important news not captured elsewhere on the wiki I'm still not convinced it's really necessary (sorry!) -- Malvineous 22:23, 5 November 2009 (GMT)

Well, it's okay. :-) I already regularly look at recent changes and have no problems finding the "news" this way, but not everyone might be well-versed with this common tool in wikis. --Grandy02 20:12, 6 November 2009 (GMT)

Maybe an outside app would do the trick? Some way of embedding in an automatically updting news box. The obvious solution in this respect is a dedicated Twitter account, but that might not be ideal. -- DHeadshot 19:07, 7 November 2009 (GMT)

Dates

There is a lot of inconsistency where dates are used in articles. Some use the computer/Japanese format om YYYY-mm-dd or yy-mm-dd, some use the American mm-dd-YYYY or mm-dd-yy or MMMM dd YYYY and some use the international dd-mm-yy. Also, decisions like short or long dates and 2 digit/4 digit years need to be made. We need a standard for date formats. -- DHeadshot 19:12, 7 November 2009 (GMT)

Wherever I add something I use the YYYY-mm-dd format, that would be my favourite as a standard. Tulip 22:39, 7 November 2009 (GMT)

yyyy-mm-dd is an international ISO standard and should be the format used where a short date is required (e.g. in a table.) dd-mm-yy is not international as it is primarily European and conflicts with the US mm-dd-yy (if you see 02-01-09 is it Jan 2nd or Feb 1st?) yyyy-mm-dd is the only format that is clear and removes any confusion, plus (in the case of mod lists) it has the added advantage that if you sort alphabetically it will also sort from oldest to newest, something that none of the other date formats will do. If a long date is required, I would suggest the format used by the automatic signatures in these talk pages: -- Malvineous 01:23, 8 November 2009 (GMT)

Non-game articles

So far, we generally create articles on the official games, all their creatures and objects, the mods (and the creatures from there as well), the fangames, and the level packs. But what about non-game articles? For example, there is an article on Blegd and Smeeg, but Commander Keen: The Comic Strip is nowhere mentioned. Also, there is not any page but a user page that would link to Blegd and Smeeg, since we don't have lists of fan creations besides game-related ones and remixes (actually there is a list, but with only one entry). Furthermore, we have articles on the Public Commander Keen Forum, Cerebral Cortex 314, PlanetCK, but, as far as I know, not about any other website. And what about the Shadowlands animated series (briefly mentioned in Foot) and Too Much Spare Time's cartoons and comics? And should those non-game characters also have articles (Blegd, Smeeg, King Lick and Duke Mushroom are surely not less worthy than the Mod Monsters)? Last but not least, there are articles on a few community members, such as Levellord and Andrew Durdin, but in most cases, there are links to user pages or there isn't a (working) link at all. Most users haven't created a user page, and probably never will do so, regardless whether there is a link to it or not. Is there any policy on non-game fan creation articles? What is notable and what isn't? I think there should be more organization regarding non-game articles at KeenWiki. --Grandy02 20:37, 10 November 2009 (GMT)

In most cases, those pages don't exist simply because nobody has created them yet. If you have the time then by all means start creating them. Personally I don't think Mod Monsters warrant pages of their own, but as the names usually don't conflict with official ones it doesn't really do any harm. For characters like Blegd, you probably wouldn't create an page on its own unless you had a lot to say that wasn't relevant to Blegd and Smeeg, in most cases creating a redirect would be enough. Given the 'vanity' of pages for people I prefer to link to their userpage if one exists, especially as this gives people a way to contact that person (via the wiki's e-mail feature.) Some users have dedicated pages because they do not have userpages on the wiki. If you do want to go ahead and create a new set of pages (e.g. Keen Websites) just think through a set of categories that would suit and we can then use those as the organisation system. -- Malvineous 23:59, 10 November 2009 (GMT)

Thanks for answer! The Mod Monsters articles are often very short (example), but personally I have nothing against them. About notability of fan creations: Are there any guidelines or do we simply decide on a case-by-case basis? Of course, not any random comic made in MS Paint is worth an article. --Grandy02 14:26, 11 November 2009 (GMT)

It's one of those things where there are no clear guidelines. If you think it's noteworthy enough that it warrants a page of its own then please create one, but if it's too short then it may eventually be deleted, or combined with another page. You can also create one page that lists a whole bunch of things, when there is not enough to justify each thing having a page of its own (e.g. the keen remixes page.) You could, for example, create one article called "Random MS Paint comics" and list them all there :-) -- Malvineous 22:52, 11 November 2009 (GMT)

Okay. Another question: Regarding the Foot article, is the appearance of an official creature or object in an unofficial work noteworthy, the Shadowlands animated series in this case? If it is, it would take some time to add all appearances in fan-games and mods for Commander Keen ;-). --Grandy02 11:42, 17 November 2009 (GMT)

If you're talking about Cameo Appearances then I think it's safe to say that it's restricted to official releases generally unrelated to Commander Keen. Fan-produced items are not official releases, so rarely count in this respect. I realise you are trying to establish some concrete rules, but generally you will just have to use common sense when deciding whether something should be included somewhere or not. It's not really worth making a set of rules for things like this because there will always be exceptions. -- Malvineous 13:12, 17 November 2009 (GMT)

Okay. I wouldn't have asked this if there weren't the Mod Monsters articles. Since those exist and one wouldn't make a separate page for Keen in any mod or for the Shikadi in Revenge of the Shikadi and Return of the Guardians (just examples), one might assume that information on these incarnations can be found as well in articles. Just because of consistency. --Grandy02 18:55, 17 November 2009 (GMT)