Talk:Main Page/Archive1

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This is an Archived Discussion Page. If you wish to comment on any of these threads please do so at Talk:Main Page. All new threads should be started there. Thank you.


Templates

I started to enter stuff and pretty soon I found myself referring to Wikipedia and L-Space and their respective content. So I created some templates. A template is just a way of handling repeated text.

  • If I want to refer to the Wikipedia article on Terry Pratchett, for instance, I type
    • {{wp|Terry_Pratchett|Terry Pratchett}}
  • which is easier for me to type than
    • [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett Terry Pratchett]
  • For L-Space entries I enter
    • {{ls|/about-terry/biography.html|A biography of Terry Pratchett by Colin Smythe}}
  • which is a bit simpler than
    • [http://www.lspace.org/about-terry/biography.html A biography of Terry Pratchett by Colin Smythe]

To refer to Wikipedia I use the template {{wpr}}

To refer to L-Space I use the template {{lsr}}

--Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:03, 3 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Shouldn't one use [[wikipedia:The Librarian|The Librarian]] to refer to the article in wikipedia? Jeltz 22:03, 7 Jul 2005 (CEST)
Yes. Didn't know that would work on this Wiki. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:42, 8 Jul 2005 (CEST)

I'm working on templates using the common abbreviations for the book titles, like this: {{G!G!}} = Guards! Guards! (got tired of typing the full text every time) --Sanity 11:47, 12 January 2007 (CET)


Pictures

I've been browsing through this wiki a little, and noticed there's no pictures! There's three ways I can add pictures to things such as character pages, book pages etc...

1. If they're on Wikipedia, take them from there.

2. Find the character pics in the Who's Who at lspace.org (they're even the right size).

3. Scan them in from the Art Of Discworld / Graphic Novels (I've only got The Last Hero though) and shrink them down.

That'd be alright, wouldn't it? As long as you put a tag on to say where they're from, and they're some silly little resolution! --JaffaCakeLover 15:09, 11 February 2007 (GMT)

Well, (3) sounds illegal, although Terry. Paul and the publishers might not mind that much, not being Disney Corp. Does anyone know where to find a concise set of rules for lay people? Copyright law tends to be made by them with the most lawyers, and even the array of various licenses for "free" internet use boggles me. (There are more ways to get pictures, of course; the ones we have tend to be home-made, or created by acquaintances.)--Old Dickens 19:37, 11 February 2007 (CET)

(1) might not be possible due to different licenses - check that first before copying them over here. Just because something is on Wikipedia doesn't mean there's no copyright. Same for (2), though that might be not as much of a problem. --Sanity 13:33, 12 February 2007 (CET)
I agree. There are copyright images on Wikipedia that have been granted special dispensation to be shown there. Also, the copyrights work differently in different countries so what might be copyright free in the US might not necessarily be copyright free in the UK or mainland Europe. This is a touchy and unnecessarily complicated subject that should be taken with due consideration. In addition, just because they are on Wikipedia doesn't mean that they should be here on this site. Using the same images as Wikipedia makes this site less unique, doesn't it? Or is that just me? --   CelticWanderer      talk        contribs        edits     22:23, 7 June 2013 (GMT)

I've been working on a version of the Ankh-Morpork coat of arms but it may be some time before it's finished.--Teletran 04:47, 12 February 2007 (CET)

This one? de:Bild:Discworld-ankh-morpork-amoswolfe.png AmosWolfe made it for this Wiki and uploaded it on the German one first because there where some upload problems here at that time. Hasn't he uploaded it here since? --Death 14:33, 12 February 2007 (CET)

Actually this one[[1]] is mine, I haven't added the bearers yet. It's less flamboyant but in some cases more accurate. By the way I use two computers one has a realy dark monitor and one has a realy bright one so if my pictures are to far on way or the other let me know and I'll fix it. --Teletran 02:36, 13 February 2007 (CET)

I think we're allowed to put a picture of the book's cover on the book pages and indeed some of the early ones do have one. This would be one way of adding a splash of colour.--Teletran 16:12, 13 March 2007 (CET)

There is a little difference bitween those pictures and uploaded pictures. Content that was uploaded to the wiki falls under some license. Those pictures are part of a template and get loaded from the Amazon.com servers. They are not part of the "content" that you are allowed to copy. --Death 18:53, 13 March 2007 (CET)

Still, the book pages are effectively a review so some small exerts are allowable and quite frankly I can't see any reason why including the book covers are any less objectionable than adding the blurb.--Teletran 23:46, 13 March 2007 (CET)

It's not easy for me to explain this in English but I try again: If we upload a picture to the wiki it becomes part of the license and we would say "we have the right to give you this picture and you can copy it and re-use it elsewhere just mentioning this wiki" (and we don't have the right to do so). But if we include the cover from someplace else and it is not part of the wiki content (you can't click on it and get license information) we shouldn't have that problem (as we do now on book pages). --Death 09:21, 14 March 2007 (CET)

What Death says makes sense but in this case it is too literal and should not be taken as face value. As a rule text and images are very different animals. I would tend to have something like this in the footer that explains: Text and images are available under the [insert your license here] license unless otherwise stated; additional terms may apply.
You can then be more specific on your copyrights page and even more specific on the image page in the summary and, more importantly, by selecting the correct or appropriate license from the drop-down list (which you don't seem to have implemented on this wiki yet). Then, with this in place, you are covering yourself legally.
There is obviously more to it than this but this is the basics of something that can be made simple with a little bit of effort to set up. Just make sure you never use copyright images without prior permission first, but that is common sense and we all know that. I am happy to help implement a selection of licenses for this wiki if admin are happy for me to. --   CelticWanderer      talk        contribs        edits     22:23, 7 June 2013 (GMT)

I notice Wikipedia is using scanned illustrations by Kidby, etc.[2] Are we being too cautious here, or just more respectful of the artists?--Old Dickens 19:53, 28 May 2007 (CEST)
(WP removed that picture of the Fresh Start Club not long after.) --Old Dickens (talk) 19:30, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Characters and other fictional elements

Instead of linking "Characters" directly from the main page, might it be a better idea to have the main page link to a page called "Fictional Elements" or something similar, and then link *that* page to, say, "Characters" (e.g. Rincewind), "Places" (e.g. Ankh-Morpork) and "Other" (e.g. magic)? Otherwise the main page could get a tad long. (Unsigned comment by 203.31.10.1 at 06:14, 7 Jul 2005 (UTC))

Give it a go. My personal feeling is that it isn't a big deal if the main page is long enough to have links to characters, places, science and other aspects, but Wikis are for editing, so do it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:46, 7 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Languages

"How should we handle non-English articles? Are they allowed? How can we arrange it so that, say, a German, Swedish, French, Spanish, Polish or Dutch speaker coming here can easily find articles in a language he can read and write?"

On the note on the frontpage about Dutch, German, etc: I would prefer it if we start out in English. I presume that most Pratchett fans will be able to communicate in English. If the wiki seems to be going well, we can always start adding other languages on demand. As there appears to be a German wiki, it wouldn't make sense to duplicate that effort, but for other languages it could work. I don't know whether there is a special way that other languages can be implemented in this wiki, so an Italian person could get the Italian Wiki by default instead of the English? --Sanity 23:03, 8 Jul 2005 (CEST)

@Sanity have you seen what Tony and I tested on the other wiki? Sandbox This wiki appears as English on the menu (linking to the Rincewind page as a test). Are we going to officially link the two wikis as English and German versions? --Death 17:22, 5 Aug 2005 (CEST)
Bit late, sorry. What exactly have you done? Personally, I see no problem officially linking the wikis. --Sanity 19:29, 16 Aug 2005 (CEST)
Well, we have tested what happens when we add the other wiki in the interwiki table. If you'd added the German wiki as de http://www.thediscworld.de/index.php/$1 1 (and this wiki as en http://www.affordable-prawns.co.uk/wiki/index.php/$1 1, which is not nessesary but cool for self-linking ;-)) we can both add [[en/de:Article name]] links to our articles and they will appear as different languages on the menu as you can see in the German Sandbox. --Death 08:01, 17 Aug 2005 (CEST)
Okay, finally found out how to do this. It should work now, see Rincewind for example. --Sanity 18:03, 11 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Annotations

Before making any changes on the main page I would like to talk about it. I think the link Annotations is not a very good idea, because it is likely that this page will never hold more then a link to the APF. I would prefer to place the link of the APF directly on the starting page. A more interesting page could be a page about you know Stuff. Interesting things mentioned in the books, like the Ritual of Ask-Ente, Morris Dancing, Counting pines, Quantum Butterflies, Headology and so on. --Jogibaer 16:56, 16 Aug 2005 (CEST)

It depends on what you have to say about annotations. One could make a cool portal page about them, linking to pages that discribe an annotation in detail and link to books with many annotations and so on. A Stuff portal would be interesting, too. --Death 08:04, 17 Aug 2005 (CEST)

I added the Stuff portal, however I am not really happy with its name. Does someone have a better idea? Or maybe is this portal not such a good idea after all? --Jogibaer 22:50, 28 Aug 2005 (CEST)

The Stuff portal is obviously a very good idea, it lists things that are not characters or locations (which are numerous enough to warrant their own pages), you can see stuff added to the Stuff just about every day. The name and description can be improved but I don't think it's important.

I've always enjoyed the annonations on APF and have been disappointed there are no entries for the recent books. So it is great that we can now add to them. However the current formatting for them here is just awful and unreadable. Can templates be made, or some style policy made? And a decision about how to reference the quote and how to refer to which published edition without distracting from the text would be good.

(p32) "I was thinking about having the quote from the book like this"
And the associated annotation written like this. Using the 'definition' style, as it is quick and easy to pick up and run with. However the auto bolding might be a bit overbearing with a whole page of them.

Shadeofblue 06:40, 15 June 2006 (CEST)

Registering for editing

After all this spamming how about changing the wiki to "only registered users can edit pages"? --Death 21:30, 18 Oct 2005 (CEST)

Sounds like a good idea, but then people can still just register and then spam? Do we have the capability to, from the other end of the issue, block or refuse entries and edits that contain a large number of links? --Vsl
In theorie they still could. But those are bots at work, not humans and up till now I've never seen such spaming on a register-wiki --Death 09:06, 19 Oct 2005 (CEST)
The recent increase of spam is really scary, but registering always keeps some people away from contributing. Does someone know if there is a plugin for visual confirmation, thus forcing users to type a random sequence of letters after each edit? This usually keeps bots away. --Jogibaer 12:44, 19 Oct 2005 (CEST)
I've never seen that in a wiki and would consider it a greater annoyance for regular posters. --Death 16:19, 19 Oct 2005 (CEST)
Those things are really annoying, I agree. I'll see what I can do about the recent spamming. One option would be to block on user-agent header on server level, but they'll probably use something inconspicuous. Another option could be disallowing more than N urls. But that will probably involve some hacking in the source code, which I really prefer to avoid. --Sanity 17:40, 19 Oct 2005 (CEST)
Blocking user agent is pretty useless. They could just identify themselves as internet --Lord rel 17:02, 20 December 2005 (CET)explorer if they wanted to, maybe they already do. It is just honest bots that would identify themselves as bots. I am not a wiki administrartor so I can't tell for sure but I would be very surprised if the bot owners would be so na�ve that they told the world that they are spam bots. Jeltz 18:39, 22 October 2005 (CEST)

Several registered-user spam now.. --Vsl 23:15, 11 December 2005 (CET) Some that seem to be the same spam from the same user wi anth a new user name. Does blocking a user name also block the IP that that user used? That would be a useful blocking function. --Vsl 01:15, 12 December 2005 (CET)

I don't think that the ip is blocked when banning registred users. To me it seems like it is one person that is responsible for all spam on this wiki. All spam has been very similar. Jeltz 14:39, 12 December 2005 (CET)
All spam is similar. I've installed an extension to limit spam but it doesn't seem to work very effectively yet. As far as the server logs go, the spammers are not coming from the same IP address every time. I'm going to play a bit with the settings in the coming days/weeks, so if you get a warning about spamming when editing contact me if it's wrong. --Sanity 13:14, 13 December 2005 (CET)
Let me know if you find a way. Hm, "a" way would be to couple registration to a valid email address that has to be confirmed by clicking a link in an email send to you. Can't remember if the software supports that. --Death 10:08, 14 December 2005 (CET)
The software doesnt support it. And all the discussion about implementing it into future versions are about vandalism by human beings. They don't talk about bots which seem to be our problem here :-( Maybe they are not aware of the problem. --Death 16:02, 16 December 2005 (CET)

You could Use the mediawiki SpamBlacklist extension mentioned here [3] using the recommended blacklist [4] and that would be more effective then blocking users

I have added $wgSpamRegex = "/ci alis|vi agra|over flow: auto;|over flow:auto;/"; to the German Wiki --Death 15:56, 20 December 2005 (CET)
I've added that one for this wiki now. Added spaces so I can actually update this page. --Sanity 17:58, 20 December 2005 (CET)
Using the complete list from [5] would be better and cover a more effective range as spammers use misspelling and ascii characters to bypass keyword blocking. lord_rel 16:02, 20 December 2005 (CET)
I know but I won't install that extension that is needed to run that list at the moment. By the way: The German Wiki is spam-bot free by now. --Death 17:46, 20 December 2005 (CET)
I thought about changing the source code to count the number of external links and not allow pages with 5 or more links but than I remembered yesterday where I made a help page explaining how to link from the German Wiki to this wiki and linked here 5 times de:DiscWiki:Andere Sprachen ;-) but I think that I can use [[:en:Mainpage]] instead. The remaining problem with changing the source code is that there are so many updates to the wiki software :-( --Death 09:45, 24 December 2005 (CET)

Listing of books

When writing an article on a character, when we list the books in which a character appears in, should we list them in alphabetical order, or in chronological order (older books first)? Some advantages of each method I can think of are: when books are listed in chronological order, events described in the article without quoting each book may make more sense, as the chronological list of books can serve as memory refresher; when books are listed in alphabetical order, the list looks neater, and it's easy to check whether a book is already listed, if the person who wants to list that book momentarily can't remember the chronological order in which the books were written.

Same question about listing, in an article on a book, the characters who appear in that book. In order of appearance, or alphabetical order? -- Vsl

I vote for chronological order for the books and alphabetical order for the characters (most of them will be added from the memory. (everybody can remember Esme, Magrat and Nanny in WS but who can remember whose name was mentioned first without checking? And is it important?) --Death 11:13, 11 November 2005 (CET)
Seconded --Sanity 15:44, 11 November 2005 (CET)
A few more votes? I've been trying to wikify more links in the bibliography as well. After we got a few more votes, I'll go through the character listings and book listings in articles. -- Vsl
Chronogical order for books and alphabetical for chars, as above. If someone can't remember where a book is in the chronology, someone else will add or correct it.--Silaor 01:05, 13 November 2005 (CET)
Soliciting opinions and votes from Jeltz, Jogibaer, Cheezewizz2000, and anyone else who will kindly give an opinion. As I said I've been adding links to the bibliography articles; most of them contain only blurbs; I intend to list characters but not locations, so in the blurbs I linked locations and stuff like species, types of magic, etc. It would be nice in the book article to have a list of locations appearing in the book, I am just skipping it because I am not good at it. If one day a list of locations is to be added to the book article, same question applies: alphabetical or chronological? -- Vsl
Hum... I'd say alphabetical like the characters. But with spoilers warning :) --Silaor
If there are enough users who remember the cronological order of the locations it could be more interesting than a mere alphabetical list. Think of books like "Witches Abroad" or "Jingo". Here a cronological ordering of the locations tells (almost) half of the story. Of course, this might not be the case for other books. Oh, and yes, we should definitely state that an article about a book might contain information about the book.  ;-) --Jogibaer 08:47, 16 November 2005 (CET)
The order of places should be there in the summary of the book anyway. --Death 10:07, 16 November 2005 (CET)

Summary of voted approaches so far:

1. In character or location or stuff etc articles, books are listed in chronological order, properly linked, and italicized. If a specific point written in the article paragraphs requires reference to a specific book (ex. a really interesting piece of information that people probably don't know where it was written but will like to look up), it'll also be added in the form of (book), (in book), (see book), etc.
2. In book articles, characters are listed in alphabetical order, one section for major characters and another section for minor characters.
3. In book articles, in addition to blurb and list of characters, a summary could be written, and the summary should include major plot points, which include the important places that the story takes place in. In this approach, locations will automatically be mentioned in order of appearance (then whether there's a separate section for list of locations is secondary matter).

Other stuff I thought we should do but weren't done in all instances before:

4. Wikify links in book blurbs.
5. Same thing in book summaries.

Summary of progresses on these approaches so far as I can gather:

1. Book listing chronological, linked and italicized; I checked all the locations and stuff articles I could find, and Jeltz got the character articles fixed. Thank you Jeltz.
2. Only a few book articles have listing of characters, and the one for Thud! isn't divided between major characters and minor characters, or maybe the minor characters aren't listed yet. More books need listing of major characters and minor characters; for new listings as well as old lists that are already done, they need to be checked so that they are in alphabetical order, with the links to the more interesting characters wikified.
3. Only a few book articles have a summary other than the official publisher blurb. More books need a summary, with major locations mentioned in order of appearance and their links wikified along with other things of interest (guilds, businesses, species, magic, etc).
4. I wikified stuff in blurbs except for Diggers, Wings, A Hat Full of Skies, Thud! (I haven't read them), Johnny Maxwell series, and other stand-alone books unavailable in the US.
5. I wikified links in the few book summaries in existance.

--Vsl

Skinning of the Wiki.

When I'm not logged in this wiki uses a style that resmbles L-space but when I'm logged in it uses the default mediawiki stylesheet. A quite surprising behavior. :) Is it supposed to be like this? Jeltz 14:47, 20 November 2005 (CET)

No, it isn't ... at least, not on my computer. Try going to Special:Preferences, maybe you aren't using the default skin.--Silaor 14:51, 20 November 2005 (CET)
Ah, thanks. I should have checked that before asking. For some reason (maybe because I joined pretty early) the skin was set to Monobook (default wikipedia skin) instead of the default skin of this wiki. Jeltz 16:07, 20 November 2005 (CET)

In the very early days, the Monobook skin was default. I then started to work on an L-Space skin, after lspace.org asked me whether I'd like to become part of them. When it was kind of good, I made it default, but the early joiners will still have monobook as their skin.

If anybody has experience with skinning (quite simply: how do I get "L-Space" in the list of skins? and advanced: helping to improve the current LSpace skin), please help. There's also a discussion on the lspace-users mailing list starting here. --Sanity 22:37, 20 November 2005 (CET)

I know little of administrating a mediawiki wiki, but I found something that if I read ti correctly should add a skin to the list http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_look_and_feel. As for the second more advanced question I think that most of the skinnig is done in css and there I might be able to help a little (just thinking of small fixes now). Jeltz 00:06, 22 November 2005 (CET)

Okay, some odd things on the wiki today because I've been busy with it, but, it works now and you can select the "LSpace" skin which is now default for new users. I recommend to all users to change their skin to LSpace, as the MySkin skin will not be maintained anymore. --Sanity 19:13, 22 November 2005 (CET)

Note: LSpace skin is being updated for this version of Mediawiki. Please report errors and annoyances --Sanity 17:14, 11 January 2007 (CET)

Layout of Main Page

Now that the wiki seems to have left the kick off period I suggest a new layout, that is a bit more flexible. Please comment on the suggestion on Main_temp. --Jogibaer 22:55, 16 December 2005 (CET)

In my opinion it is about time to give the Main Page a more sophisticated look. This layout is only an idea. (It is very similar to the German Wikipedia Main Page, but it is all under the Common License, isn't it?) Please feel free to comment on the layout, to change it, or to propose a totally different one. --Jogibaer 22:51, 16 December 2005 (CET)

I like it, as it has a lot more information without getting crowded. My main objection is the colours. They don't fit with the beige L-Space look. --Sanity 17:36, 17 December 2005 (CET)
I like it, too. The choice of content is much better than the one on the German wiki and I'd like to use some of those choices there, too. Colour is always a problem. The wiki is much more dynamic than the rest of the l-space web and those dynamic should be reflected by the colours used. --Death 09:46, 18 December 2005 (CET)
I agree with Sanity, but I haven't yet found any colour which would fit the l-space look. –Jeltz 14:07, 18 December 2005 (CET)
I find this tool useful: http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/tools/color-blend/ - it is a "colour blender" - just enter any two values and it will create the codes for the colours in between. Give it a try, it's pretty good! -=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 14:45, 18 December 2005 (CET)
Looks quite good now. Shall I put it up? Then it'll be easier for other people to contribute or at least discuss the main page. --Sanity 14:49, 20 December 2005 (CET)
I like the darker colors but the whiter ones are a bit too bright for my eyes. Otherwise I like it. –Jeltz 15:07, 20 December 2005 (CET)

What's up with wiki.lspace.org?

wiki.lspace.org has been down for some time now. Why isn't the wiki reachable from the lspace domain anymore? –Jeltz 15:50, 4 January 2006 (CET)

I have e-mailed the Cabal (TINC) that the IP address has changed. The modem broke down, so I relocated the server to my own flat. I'll e-mail them again. It was a bit hectic as it broke the day before Christmas. Update: it will hopefully be fixed before end of the week. --Sanity 17:01, 4 January 2006 (CET)

Whats up with http://wiki.affordable-prawns.co.uk? I only get an error message by a hoster. --Death 09:02, 12 January 2007 (CET)

I considered that it wasn't used that much anymore, and so I changed the IP address for it because wiki.lspace.org is a CNAME for that. I arranged it that way so I could make changes without bothering the LSpace folk. --Sanity 10:19, 12 January 2007 (CET)

Spoiler Policy

I've just started reading some of that material on this wiki, and I like what I've seen. However, I think there needs to be a major change to its spoiler policy. There are some articles that are filled with so many spoiler warnings, or things that are left out out of a fear of spoilers, that they become ineffective. I think that the whole wiki would be much more sucessful if the begining of each page, or even section, but after that not restricting content. There are links about Angua that say "w-" insted of werewolf. Angua's species is revealed very early in the first book she appears in... this seems like excessive protection. Putting spoiler warnings is very nice for people who havent read the book, but if alot of content is going to be omitted (see bottom of the page on Golems), then it defeats the purpose of having a wiki. - Sean St.

I second that. --Death 13:49, 26 May 2006 (CEST)
Thirded. --Sanity 17:02, 26 May 2006 (CEST)
Yeah we badly need a spoiler policy. I'm not sure what that policy should be but we must have a policy for consistency. –Jeltz 17:31, 26 May 2006 (CEST)

I've created a "Discworld & Pratchett_Wiki:Spoiler policy" page to put a spoiler policy on. Let's continue the discussion there. --Sanity 12:44, 27 May 2006 (CEST)

Can anybody reconstruct the spoiler policy? It seems that it has been lost... --EinFritz (talk) 17:00, 1 October 2013 (GMT)

No, apparently it wasn't copied over from the original and Sanity has taken down his archive of the old version. There never was a policy, except that we don't use spoiler warnings: spoilers are pretty much what we do here (you'll get spoilers for the Bible in a Concordance, too). The site notice used to contain a warning that articles might "contain nuts and spoilers for the plots of books". Perhaps we should restore that in some form. --Old Dickens (talk) 22:36, 1 October 2013 (GMT)
Now that you mention it I kind of miss that thing. --Zdm (talk) 05:22, 3 October 2013 (GMT)

Discworld Wiki and Wikipedia Discworld

I was recently checking out the Discworld information at the Wikipedia site. There is a lot of information there and some good layout ideas. I particularly like the Ankh-Morpork page with the floating box on the right, which has some good summerised info about the city.

I'm not totally sure how all this Wiki stuff goes but would it be wrong to 'borrow' some of those ideas and incorporate them into this wiki? -- Mike

You can incorporate ideas and facts but not texts and images. --Death 09:04, 18 July 2006 (CEST)

Some more thoughts

After looking some more at the Wikipedia Discworld site I have some more questions...I hope you don't mind me being upfront!

By the looks of it the Wikipedia Discworld has been around for quite some time, thus the content is somewhat more mature. I am a little confused...should not the two sites complement each other? i.e. The Wikipedia version be more like a summerisation of the contents found in this Wiki, where as here we can go to town on the more finer details? (I would think this is what most people believe is).

Yes, it should be like that but this wiki needs to be filled with enough information before it is like that. It's still quite young. --Death 09:04, 18 July 2006 (CEST)

However, it seems that the Wikipedia infomation get's updated far more regular than this site. Why is this? Is it because people don't know this Wiki exists? After doing a search on the the Terry Pratchett Message Board I notice there are only a handful of 'passing' references to this Wiki, at least half those are to the Wikipedia content.

Do we need to need to go on a Discworld Wiki advertiseing compaign? Maybe a little cheeky but, can we edit the main Wikipedia pages so that the link to this Wiki is at the top of the external links. Is there a method for linking subjects to their external counterpart Wiki's within the WikiMedia environment? (I'll have to look into that.) -- mikecook 18:21, 17 July 2006 (CEST)

I think that it is simply the number of editors that make the differnce. I'm not sure about linking from Wikipedia here. It could count as link spamming. I have been active in the Wikipedia project for some time but I'm still not sure of what would be seen as spamming. –Jeltz 23:44, 17 July 2006 (CEST)
That linking should only be possible if this wiki is included as a language at the wikipedia. Normal linking in the text would be easier if this wiki is added to the interwiki list, like we did here with the German and English wiki. --Death 09:04, 18 July 2006 (CEST)

Lots of relevant links have been added to appropriate Discworld-related pages on tvtropes and Facebook Pratchett fan-sites. Should get a few interested visitors. AgProv (talk) 14:44, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Slow Slow Slow

Why is this Wiki so slow? I have tried a number of other wiki sites and they all run at a fair speed, here we have to wait what feels like eons just to load a page. Can this be fixed? Would this not affect visitor numbers and the number of poeple willing to participate?

Because sanity hosts this wiki on his private computer. The German wiki is a bit faster but still slow and it runs on an expensive rented server. The wiki software takes it's tolls... --Death 09:04, 18 July 2006 (CEST)
I wonder what resources it drains most. I suspect it is CPU cycles. Myabe we should consider getting better hosting or just a faster server. I'm not demanding anything of Sanity or anyone else, just thinking that it might be a good idea to discuss future server hosting. –Jeltz 12:41, 19 July 2006 (CEST)
When I first found this Wiki I was a little surprised at the speed and was finding myself reluctant to contribute. Alas I have too much research to do so I need other peoples help, will they be as patient? What will happen if traffic gets heavier...will it become unusable? I certainly agree with Jeltz on this, a faster server may be needed. Can I say, I wholly appreciate Sanity for setting up and hosting this Wiki. --mikecook 19:37, 19 July 2006 (CEST)
The software runs on my own server indeed, basically because it was set up as an experiment and the main LSpace servers don't do all the fancy stuff like mysql and php. Speed is influenced by both CPU and memory, I think it boils down to CPU mostly. A faster server is always needed, but obviously that's an expensive affair. It may get a little better if the strain on other websites hosted on the same machine gets less, but if it really gets popular a better machine is inevitable. It'd be great to reach that popularity though. The wiki is currently serving about 470 requests per day on average since the beginning, more recently about 600: stats. --Sanity 03:49, 21 August 2006 (CEST)

I appologise for the forwardness, admittedly these questions are purely selfish in nature. I have been doing some time consuming research into various aspects of Discworld (Particularly the buildings and georgraphy of Ankh-Morpork). I believe the information I am aquiring from this is worth sharing on the Wiki. I just don't wish to have to enter it twice. -- mikecook 18:21, 17 July 2006 (CEST)

Considering the steady growth of the wiki the experiment seems rather succesfull, so I don't see it disappearing anytime soon. So don't hold back in contributing! This wiki should eventually have much more and better articles than Wikipedia in anything DW/TP related. --Sanity 03:49, 21 August 2006 (CEST)

It seems to me the problem is not speed, but capacity. The longest article isn't a very big file to send. I find I can be cruising along and then suddenly have no access, getting timed out repeatedly. I suspect it's because another user has joined in.I think it's more reliable when Europeans have gone to bed. Old Dickens 15:35, 30 July, 2006.

Naming conventions

Having come accross a few messy variants in page names for characters, I'd like to propose the following:

The page name is the full common name (First name + Last/Family name) of a character. Middle names can be skipped for practical purposes. Titles should preferably be left out of pagenames. So, not Sybil Deirdre Olgivanna Ramkin but simply Sybil Ramkin (as it already is), not Casanunda but Giamo Casanunda.

To be fully consistent that would also mean using Lord Winder instead of Lord Winder, for example.

Doubles and other logical options could be caught using redirects and disambiguation pages.

In some cases it would be clearer, in others it might be more the pureness than an advantage, but at least we'd have some consistency throughout the wiki, so it wouldn't be necessary to look up links every time.

Your opinions? --Sanity 23:13, 11 January 2007 (CET)

Fully ACK. In the German wiki we always use the full names as the page name and have some redirect of comon used formes and also no titles or ranks in the the page name. If somebody is known as Mrs. Something the article will be called only Something. It's not always what people expect but consistent. --Death 09:00, 12 January 2007 (CET)

Misc pages

I was thinking that it might be a good idea to group together items that don't yet warrant individual pages. The most obvious case of this would be the UU faculty most of whom are not likely to have their own page until someone rereads every book and takes notes. However it would be the work of a moment to create a page outlining the basic group dynamic and listing the major players with a short description of each i.e Dean: fat man says Yo a lot. The same thing could be done with topics such as 'spells and rituals' or 'magical objects'. I'd like to hear what people think of this idea.--Teletran 17:55, 3 February 2007 (CET)

Many of the major ones already have individual character pages. There is a list of them already in the List of Pratchett characters. Adding to that list would be preferred first and them may be broken into it's own page. There's also a Wizard Category who's main page can be added to.
Fhh98 18:52, 3 February 2007 (CET)

Ok that's essentially what I meant. What about magical objects, I haven't been able to find pages on staffs, wands or seven league boots and I don't think there's a category, should I make a list as detailed above or give each one it's own page. I don't mean to be difficult I'm just trying work out if there's an official policy on this kind of thing--Teletran 20:05, 3 February 2007 (CET)

The best is to start off with a page on magical devices. If something gets large it can be broken off into it's own page.
Helpful Information:
  1. All Categories
  2. All Pages

Devices are listed under Discworld Stuff.--Old Dickens 22:35, 3 February 2007 (CET)


Book information

I've had an idea for expanding the Book: pages, see Equal Rites for more information. --Teletran 09:11, 17 February 2007 (CET)

Q about editing

I'm new here, but and old DW reader....I've edited a few things...but I was wondering...is there someone(s) I should be telling?

I think you just have told people. The only thing I'll say is don't get offended by people editing stuff you've put in. Everyone does a typo now and then, and what looks like a sensible sentence structure to one person doesn't to another person. If you want to avoid offending anyone else then make sure any edit summary you put in is along the lines of 'spelling' or 'sentence change', rather than 'correcting gibberish' for example. Also try to avoid getting into a sequence of change and revert with another person, even if they have been impolite enough to suggest your edit was nonsense irrespective of whether what they are complaining about was actually edited by you.
Oh, and if, like most sensible people, you have java disabled then use --~~~~ to insert your signature. If you have Java enabled, it's apparently the second button from the right above the edit box. I wouldn't know, as I like not having viruses on my machine. As you may have guessed, I'm not a big fan of Java. I mention the signature thing, as you haven't put your name after your question so, if I hadn't come here via the 'Recent Changes' page, I wouldn't have a clue who you are. --DJones 11:50, 19 March 2007 (CET)
It's not using java, you can use the entire wiki without java. Really. It does use a little javascript though, which for most users is on by default. If you worry about security or viruses, consider using any other browser than Internet Explorer, or even any other OS than MS Windows. --Sanity 15:51, 19 March 2007 (CET)
Javascript, fundamentally, is Java. Admittedly a cut-down version, but the exploits are possible either way. That's why I don't turn it on. Given that, as you have said, the entire wiki can be used without it then what would be the point in turning it on? The browser doesn't matter (although IE is, quite clearly, rubbish) when it comes to Java/Javascript problems. --DJones 22:28, 19 March 2007 (CET)
Javascript is only very distantly related to Java. Not a cut-down version. I use a secure browser with frequent updates, so I feel safe enough with it turned on. It makes a lot of websites a lot easier to use. I admit that browsing the web with javascript off is safer, but so is wearing a helmet on a pushbike and neither is what I call comfortable. So that's why I have it turned on. Despite that, I always manually type the signature dashes and tildes :) --Sanity 23:06, 19 March 2007 (CET)

Mottos

I found a page on Lspace [6] that has translations of most (if not all) of the mottos used by characters and guilds in the books. Also I note that we've adopted a pretty standardised way of presenting mottoes on this site maybe someone should make a template to do it automatically.--Teletran 08:11, 20 March 2007 (CET)

If you have any trouble with the Dog-Latin, this program is pretty nifty -[[7]].--Old Dickens 15:23, 20 March 2007 (CET)

Semantic Wiki?

Has anyone considered adding the Semantic MediaWiki extension to this Wiki? It would make generating many of the "list" pages a lot easier. Kellyterryjones 01:32, 22 April 2007 (CEST)

I love the idea of a semantic wiki and have had a look at an beta version some years ago. I didn't know that it is available by now. I'll have a look on it for the German wiki. --Death 15:13, 23 April 2007 (CEST)

Search Engine

Not sure if this is the right place to "complain": when an unregistered user searches for "Lackjaw", he gets no results, because the only match is in Book:The_Light_Fantastic, and the Book: namespace is not searched by default. It's probably OK that the Talk: namespace + a few others aren't searched by default, but I'd think Book: should be? Kellyterryjones 01:02, 5 May 2007 (CEST)

Book categories

The general attitude here seems to be "categories are good", but I thought I'd ask this anyway. I've seen some articles popping up with just a book title on a new line. IMO it's better off as a category, so each book could get a category with articles that are strongly linked to that book in it.

Good idea? --Sanity 19:38, 24 September 2007 (CEST)

Community portal and Current events

I'm considering removing them from the navigation menu as they have no real function right now. Objections? --Sanity 13:45, 31 October 2007 (CET)

When I first got here a few months ago, I looked at them and thought "Boy, these are a bit stale." If others have the same reaction it might make them think the rest of the place is too. So as long as the main page is kept current and any thing special is announced there, I think your idea makes a lot of sense. But I am a bit of a newbie, so take it for what it is worth. - PragmaticCynic 18:37, 31 October 2007 (GMT)

Links

May I suggest adding both the UK and US publisher websites to the links section. Both have active forums and up to date info about publication of new books? That section of the Main page appears to be locked. Here are the links: UK website: http://www.terrypratchett.co.uk/ US website:http://terrypratchettbooks.com/Plad2 06:29, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Added to Fandom and Bibliography (HarperCollins was there already.) --Old Dickens 14:14, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Renaming of Book pages?

I know it sounds like a ton of work to re-link the pages (unless you use redirects), so i'll be brief... listing the novels as "Book:Soul Music" looks ugly to me, like a broken template. Couldn't they be named "Soul Music (Book)" or "Soul Music (Novel)"? JaffaCakeLover 19:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I'm just used to it: I can't see the advantage of Soul Music (book) over Book:Soul Music (which usually appear as Soul Music and Soul Music.) I surely can see the difficulty of changing all the titles and the links and the templates though. --Old Dickens 19:53, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
It's too big an operation, I think, without a clear advantage. The (minor) advantage of the current system is that it's possible to search just the book namespace, instead of all the articles. It doesn't look aesthetically pleasing, but the (book) suffix does neither, IMO. Moving all the titles and changing the templates would require quite some work though. --Sanity 15:11, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't we be using the templates such as {{SM}} to link to books anyway? Fhh98 16:59, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, obviously, but in many places there's still the manual links. --Sanity 18:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
You may be able to clean that up with a search and replace on the DB itself. Just try it on a backup first --Fhh98 20:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

translations

One of my favorite pastimes is thinking up dutch translations for the puns and wordplay that are so typical for the Pratchett books. Another is cringing, crying or generally displaying extreme unhappiness whenever I read a dutch translation: sometimes I even wonder if the dutch translator is a native speaker of the language. His or her name, Venugopalan Ittekot, does not sound dutch, but I realize it may be a pseudonym.

To give an example: dutch does have two pronouns, 'jij' and 'u', where the english only have 'you'. 'u' is an honorific; 'jij' is used for people that are considered equals, unless you meet them for the first time, or if you want to create distance.

Over the years 'jij' has become more common, but if one thing is absolutely unthinkable, it would be a policeman addressing our prime minister with 'jij' when giving him a ticket for a defective headlight. Yet that is what Carrot does in GG. It would be as if a London traffic warden would say 'lassie' to the queen...

Another whopper is translating lord Veterinari with 'Ottopedi'. Yes, it sounds italian, but the reference to the Medici family is totally lost and for no good reason at all.

Paai


That's interesting, as in the first edition of the The Discworld Companion, there's an essay on translating Pratchett out of English that holds the Dutch version up for analysis as a sort of "how-to-do-it" example.

Essay: The Language Barrier (It's All Klatchian To Me), by Stephen Briggs.

Published in 1994, this identifies the Dutch translator as one Ruurd Groot, who by inference did at least the first six Discworld books.

The whole essay is too long to quote here, but mijnheer Groot notes that some things are relatively straightforward - ie, Granny Weatherwax becomes Opoe Esmee Wedersmeer (the mechanics are explained for English speakers). But her broomstick is described as being a Morris Minor.

Now this make of car, to a British reader, instantly conjurs up a picture of something old, clunky and essentially reliable, once you manage to get it started. But how to get the cultural reference accross in Dutch?

Groot begins from the "opoe" idea - an alternative, alightly archaic, word for "grandmother" - and links it to the opoefietsen - which British readers are told is a sort of old-fashioned ladies' bike which is slow and reliable once you get it started... I thought this was quite neat!

Then there's Death, a lover of curries. Now Holland had a different colonial empire to the British and it didn't cover any part of India. So the curry, a great British staple, is unknown. Death therefore has to go to a differnet part of Roundworld for sustenance at the end of a long night's work.

{{death| IK WEET NIET WAT JIJ ERVAN VINDT, MAAR ENN BORD ROTTI ZOU ER WEL INGAAN]]-

And Death, of course, can no longer use the English idiom "...I COULD MURDER A... as it's unknown in Dutch. so (so far as my limited Dutch takes me) he just has to call by or go into the Curry Gardens (Rottigarden?) to satisfy his craving.

The Rotti, we are told, is the native spicy dish of the former Dutch Surinam in South America, whose eating houses are not unknown in Holland and take the local place of tandooris in Britain.

All very clever stuff!

I assume Ruurd Groot no longer does the Discworld translations? A shame, as Pratchett is quoted as speaking highly of him. --AgProv 12:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Found this. It's a Dutch-language Pratchett discussion forum, it might already be familiar to you, where as far as I can make out issues of translation, plus the reliability or otherwise of Venugopalan Ittekot is being debated:- [8] I've put the link here in case it happens to be new to anyone, although what's the betting several members of this community may already know about it and even contribute...

My limited Dutch (actually more Afrikaans, long story) got some of the gist. Mild amusement at the way de Tsae Dran Fiegels are treated and translated, also slight consternation at the way our Captain Carrot becomes "Biet" in Dutch. OK, it still allows him red hair, although a far deeper red than Terry might have had in mind, but surely the thing about a beetroot is that it evokes a wholly different body shape? --AgProv 19:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)


This is a fan discussion on the mechanics of translating Pratchett into French, if anyone's interested. Anilori, who is most knowledgeable on these things, is very active on the French Pratchett fan site VadeMecum. For admission to this chat forum, please contact Adorah. [9]--AgProv 12:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

What is up with the left-side menu?

Is it just my browser that renders the left-hand-side menu dropped down below the level of the main text? It's been like this for a couple of days now? --Iron Hippo 11:01, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks the same as ever in my Firefox 3.5.7 - --Old Dickens 15:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
I use Chrome and for the last few days the navigation column on the left drops below the main text. --Iron Hippo 21:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Quick check with (bleugh) Explorer and no problems. Really odd. --Iron Hippo 21:55, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Pratchett on the Dimbleby Lecture

Hey guys, I'm not sure if any of you saw this, but Sir Terry was recently on the Dimbleby lectures and I thought you may want to include that on the latest upcoming stuff on Terry and discworld. Full transcript of what was a highly emotional speech located here.--Frosty 03:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(There were a link and two mentions already.) --Old Dickens 23:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Replacement for top-left image

I don't like that picture of Terry Pratchett, up in the top-left. OK, I like his steepled fingers, but it looks dark & cramped. I made a new one. This one here is a different pic of Sir Terry, that I played about with to lighten the colours and add a fancy transparency "leaning out of the frame" effect to as well. He looks jolly, and you can see the shape of him and his hat. It's the same pixel height as the current image: Wiki God can just swap the images and it should work! JaffaCakeLover 14:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I like it. But only Sanity can make the change. --Fhh98 15:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Only, I think he got permission to use the wizard picture. --Old Dickens 19:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Television Adaptations

Maybe it's time for a re-think on stories adapted for TV (like Hogfather or Johnny and The Bomb). I don't think they need their own pages yet, as the only other thing to add would be differences between the screenplay and the books (to be fair, that fluff could easily add hundreds of words, making it worthy of its own page). Perhaps an extra category on the appropriate book pages - suggestions for the name of this category welcome. JaffaCakeLover 18:32, 1 October 2010 (CEST)

Change protection level for Main Page

Why is the Main Page only semi-protected, why isn't it fully protected, and why is this talkpage also semi-protected? Myrtone@ 14:30, 13 December 2010 (CET)


Discworld Cake Link

The link to the discworld cake on the main page now leads just to advertising. If someone can find another link to it that would be great but if not there are a lot of other versions we could link to, I personally like this one. What does everyone else think? --Zdm 07:36, 16 August 2012 (CEST)

It looks much as I remember the old one. You could just have replaced it. Old Dickens 14:27, 16 August 2012 (CEST)
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