User talk:Taohinton/Archive02

You are Gamepedia Editor of the Month!

[1] Congratulation :-) Karol007 (talk) 21:40, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Haha thanks! :D Sorry for the delay, totally forgot to reply :P -- Taohinton (talk) 18:34, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Congrats and well-deserved! - jerodast (talk) 02:34, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much! :) -- Taohinton (talk) 03:26, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Delete

Hey, can you delete this article Unrevealed Harpy Minion please? Thanks Senescalzin 17:49, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Oops, thought I had done already. Done. -- Taohinton (talk) 21:26, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Question

Just wanna to know, how is the proccess to become Administrator in this wiki? Thanks. Senescalzin 20:43, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Card Data Page Updates

Do we need to manually update all of the card data pages for Grand Tournament, like adding the Flavor Texts and such, or is there an automatic update process? --Beanchagbear (talk) 17:24, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I posted an overview of this at Hearthstone_Wiki_talk:Community_portal#Data_import. Short version, we don't need to update the card data any further. An import should be coming soon, and that will bring the flavor text, gold images, hearthpwn links, corrections and other stuff. -- Taohinton (talk) 18:18, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, it had already started to come in. I should have checked around before asking, but I just wanted to get a quick answer before I started manually updating if needed. --Beanchagbear (talk) 18:44, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm manually switching all the data pages right now, so it's probably easiest to just leave it to me :) -- Taohinton (talk) 18:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Could you please let us know when can we start to review the TGT import? If I understand it correctly, a bunch of data pages should be removed first.

How come e.g. Searing Totem says it deals damage? Data page seems to be correct wrt to abilities, but lacks info about the cost. -- Karol007 (talk) 23:36, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I haven't had a chance to go round checking things yet, but the heavy work is now complete. Feel free to check it over. Anything particularly weird, feel free to let me know. Searing Totem was merely a setbacktypo. -- Taohinton (talk) 23:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Spell-related missing cards

Hi there! I wrote something in the Spell discussion page; could you check it? Maybe Im wrong but I think there're at least three cards which needs the "Spell-related" tag to be in those lists and I don't know how to add such tags (and don't want to touch the template XD don't want to explote anything). Thanks! :D FeliasSnape (talk) 19:21, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I've responded there :) Many cards are lacking various tags, so feel free to add them if you're confident they're appropriate; if not we can always revert the edits. Btw, in case you're unaware, you can sign your comments by typing ~~~~ (four tilde symbols). It's a lot easier than typing it manually or copy-pasting it :) -- Taohinton (talk) 20:41, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Departure

Hey I just wanted to mention that I've kinda gotten sick of Hearthstone lately and, with the decline in time in-game comes the related decline in motivation to do wiki stuff. So, probably won't see much of me going forward. Just wanted to reassure you it's nothing wiki-related - me and Hearthstone have much bigger beef haha. (What beef, you ask? Well, seeing about 8 Murlocadins in a row in arena was probably what put me over the edge...)

Keep being great! Peace out. - jerodast (talk) 03:22, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay - busy week! It's definitely a shame to see you go. You've been one of the strongest editors in the history of the wiki so far, and you've made a great contribution to the site. As discussed elsewhere, I've always appreciated your friendliness, diligence and enthusiasm for getting things done, even when that meant taxonomical walls of text ;) However, I sympathise with the need to follow your passion as well as the lack of time for projects. I hope you feel proud of your contributions to the site, and that you know that you're always welcome back, even if it's just the odd edit! It's been a pleasure editing with you (mostly :P).

Take care, man :) -- Taohinton (talk) 23:55, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Stacking images

This isn't that difficult to do with a little CSS, though it's the kind of thing you'll probably want to template since extra styles are needed to make it line up and look right. A quick example would be something like:

<div style="display: inline-block; max-width: 200px; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: top; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
[[File:image.png|200px]]

<small>Caption here</small>
<div>

As for each part of the CSS:

• display: inline-block is what will make it line up side-by-side while still letting it contain mutliple lines of content and take styles like borders and such (normal inline will ignore many styles).
• max-width: 200px will keep the caption from forcing it wider than the 200px image.
• word-wrap: break-word is for dealing with really long "words" that might force it wider even with the max-width. This tells it to go ahead and break up things like long links and so on across multiple lines.
• vertical-align: top will align the top of the box to the top of the line, so if they all have this, their tops will be lined up. By default, they line up by the bottom, which doesn't usually look right for this kind of thing.
• margin-right: 10px and margin-bottom: 10px just puts a little spacing between each block. Or maybe just margin: 5px to put a 5px margin on all sides.

If you want to blocks to look like the table cells, the CSS for this is:

border: 1px solid #d3b88a; border: 1px solid rgba(64, 40, 12, 0.14); background: #e3c790; background: rgba(146, 95, 0, 0.09); color: #2c2c2c; padding: 4px 8px;

This approach has some limitations, though. Since the boxes are independent and just sharing the same line, they won't automatically be made the same height like a table row. In some situations, you might get away with just setting a specific height, but a lot of times, there's too much variation to set a sensible common height. And vertically centering within the boxes themselves can be very tricky depending on what's in them. It's not easy with inline-blocks like it is with table cells. — oOeyes 01:48, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll experiment with this when I get some time. -- Taohinton (talk) 02:10, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Card artwork template

A while back I made the {{Card artwork}} template. It's super useful to automatically categorize full card art and give some metadata about it. Could you use it when you upload yours? Adys (talk) 09:34, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

I already do. User:Beanchagbear does most of the art uploading these days anyway, and uses it too. Is there a reason you mention it? -- Taohinton (talk) 16:58, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Hm are you sure? Every time I checked I saw it missing. Most recently from Elise Starseeker. Adys (talk) 08:08, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Speaking of that page, how come you reverted to the smaller version? Adys (talk) 08:10, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Eh, yeah I don't usually upload images these days so I guess I don't even think to use it. I had just used it on the most recent upload when you asked, which is why I responded as I did ;) I reverted bc the wiki sometimes has troubles with the big file sizes and we don't really need a 2.55 MB version of that image for the gallery. Re: the template, I'll try to remember to use it when I do upload images. -- Taohinton (talk) 19:12, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Golden image

Hi there. Can you fix this page a bit. I've uploaded some more golden images on different pages and they're all fine but that page had an image uploaded with a solid background by mistake and I have no idea how to delete that specific image. A different image without any background is set as current but for some reason the image on that page still has a solid background. The image on the page for that specific CARD looks fine though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GabyEm (talk • contribs) 02:09, 16 November 2015‎

It looks fine now. It sounds like the wiki has been having a caching hiccup, which can result in the currently displayed image on some pages not matching the most recently uploaded version. You can try to fix this by opening the edit page and then pressing 'Save', without making any changes. Sometimes this will solve the problem. Other times it won't work, but in any case the problem will resolve itself before too long. It can be a bit confusing if you don't know what's going on, though.

If I've not understood you properly, or there's any other problem, do let me know. -- Taohinton (talk) 19:19, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Redirect equality

What happens with when this feature is on is this:

• Say A is a redirect to B.
  • If you end up passing A to a template that then stores it in a page-type property, let's call it Has related card, it will check if A is a redirect. Seeing that it is, it instead stores B, the redirect target, in the property.
  • Now let's say you want to pull up anything that has A in Has related card. With this setting on, SMW assumes you want the redirect followed. It automatically instead looks for B in the property.

I can't turn those off separately. Whether this is a problem or not depends on why a redirect is set up. If it's because A is exactly the same thing as B, then this feature is helpful. If there is any other meaning, like our problem with redirecting "Health" to "Attribute" because Health is an attribute, SMW is not smart enough to understand that distinction. It assumes Health is Attribute and Attribute is Health. Since there is more than one attribute, this is a problem. The redirects tell SMW that "Attack", "Health", "Attribute", etc. are all the same page (via the redirects) and therefore all the same thing. Now it thinks "Attack" is "Health" because they are also both "Attribute". (And no, redirecting to "Attribute#Health" is not any different. "#Health" isn't part of the page name. SMW ignores it.) I had to solve this by changing properties for tags, abilities, and so on to text so it wouldn't assume those had anything to do with pages at all because with the old version, we couldn't disable the redirect equality feature.

Now, the only page-type properties left should only be dealing with card pages, either the main card page or the data page, or the card images. And for the most part, I think you're only looking things up by the main card page. Probably any redirect to a main card page is because the two titles do mean exactly the same thing. But not knowing the game, I don't feel secure making that assumption. Maybe there's a card with two unique effects and there's a redirect for each effect name?

There was a similar problem on STOWiki because the editors wanted to have one page for unjoined and joined Trill because there was a lot of content to share between them, but they are technically different playable species with different available traits. But with "Joined Trill" redirecting to "Trill", when I tried to assign a trait to one through a property, it was also assigned to the other because of the redirect, because SMW decided the redirect meant they were exactly the same.

That's why I personally don't like the feature; it may save you some typing at times, but when this kind of problem comes up, there usually isn't an non-awkward solution. And because few editors understand this idea, they don't tend to think about what the redirects mean. There probably aren't any issues like this with card pages and maybe there never will be, but if there's even one case where there's a A-to-B redirect where A and B aren't exactly the same card (or aren't both cards), it may turn into a big headache. — oOeyes 07:48, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Okay, so what it sounds like (correct me if I'm wrong) is that turning the feature on will only be an issue if we want to have multiple separate entities (effects, cards, whatever) within a single card page, data page or card image? For the most part we don't do this, since we have separate pages for enchantments, generated cards, etc. Lord Jaraxxus and Majordomo Executus are kind of exceptions (cards + heroes), but we don't host the hero data there, that page just serves as a centre for info about it. So we have redirects like Ragnaros the Firelord, but this is literally a re-direct to the card which generates the hero, not to a separate hero entity. We also have boss pages like Baron Rivendare where the encounter name is different from the boss name/data page name (Baron Rivendare (boss)); and boss pages like Nefarian which call two different data pages, but that's also a little different. Would any of these cause problems?

If none of these are problematic, I can't think of anything current that would be. In terms of possible future directions, one question I should ask is which templates do actually store page titles in page-type properties? Obviously we use plenty of redirects, but that's not the same as storing properties. -- Taohinton (talk) 04:12, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, what I'm saying is that's the issue I tend to come across. I'm not absolutely certain there aren't others. Any case where a redirect isn't implying the two titles aren't for the same thing might be problematic in the future. I don't see any of the stated cases causing problems.

It occurred to me recently that there's a third option we could take, though it wouldn't be available immediately. I'm in the process of testing and updating my extensions for MediaWiki 1.26, which we are tentatively planning to upgrade to in January. I wouldn't be surprised if that gets delayed, though. If we had something like, say, {{#redirect:title}}, then we can control exactly where this happens in the templates. I could then, for example, add something like an exactpage parameter that wouldn't follow a redirect should we run into this kind of trouble. I'm not aware of anything like this being available, but that's probably because it'd have the same caching issues as SMW. But for this wiki, that adds no new issues; it'd be exactly the same pages needing refreshing anyway.

I could add such a function to ParserPower. Worst case, it may have to wait for the 1.26 upgrade if I can't keep it backwards compatible, but I doubt that will be a problem. Otherwise, I can rearrange my testing plans, work on ParserPower next and see if I can have it ready by our next deploy. (Not sure if that will be next week or the following week.) — oOeyes 06:37, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

That third option sounds like a good plan. It doesn't sound like we should have any problems (at least not immediately) but as you say it's hard to predict. There's no real rush for it to happen here, so that would be fine. Would it alter what editors have to write to create redirects, or just add an extra option in case of problem pages? -- Taohinton (talk) 00:28, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

There would be no change in creating redirects. This just gives us the ability to add alternate parameters on the templates that wouldn't use the new redirect function. Whether it's done preemptively or if we wait for a problem to show up to build it, setting up an alternate for a specific parameter on a specific template would take a minute or two. The redirects themselves will not be affected in any way. — oOeyes 18:41, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Open PNG of the golden cards

Hey, just wanna tey you how to open the PNG version of the gold cards: If you are in Google Chrome, press the F12 button to open the developers tool, press Control+F to open the search box in the developers tool and type the cards numbers.png (ex: 34.png for Ancient of Lore), then press ok two times, give two clicks on the first link ([2]) and you get the golden PNG image! --Senescalzin 02:41, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much indeed - that will definitely come in handy! Also good job on adding all the new stuff! :) -- Taohinton (talk) 02:47, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

RE:Whispers from Beyond

Yes, they are the quotes that are used when C'Thun is buffed, I labeled it as Whispers from Beyond because of the LFP video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMsKuBkEXB8) --Senescalzin 00:26, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

I posted this weeks ago.

Could you kindly take a look at http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Talk:Hearthstone_Wiki ? --JordiTK (talk) 16:15, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi there. Nice timing - I actually found these last night and drafted replies, planning to post them today. Sorry you've had to wait so long - I'm normally on the wiki most days but I've been away for quite a while due to an injury. -- Taohinton (talk) 23:31, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for replying. It's indeed hard to manage a wiki of a game played by millions, when only so few help contribute. --JordiTK (talk) 06:21, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome :) Sadly this always seems to be the way of things, but you'd be surprised how fast the contributions layer up; throw a stone in the bucket once a day and it soon fills up. Sometimes you just have to try not to think about the mountain of work that remains to be done! -- Taohinton (talk) 04:30, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Vandalism

Reverted User:Mickyvinsce's vandalism: [3] (next edit as well) - jerodast (talk) 15:45, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Small corrections

I just wanted to thank you for correcting my mistakes at editing: I am glad to contribute to this wiki, but I'm a newbye at editing and English is not my mother-tongue, thus I sometimes make grammar or spelling mistakes, or am not aware of conventions like "refs go after punctuation". I hope to get better as time goes by!

I also want to apologize for the cut&paste references to Loatheb on non-spell cards: that was a "macro" mistake I should have avoided.

Finally, I am not sure this is the right place and procedure for a message like this one: feel free to remove it or move it to a more appropriate place.

Elekim (talk) 04:46, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

No problem! Conventions take a long time to learn, and your English is very good. It's helpful to know it's not your first language though, since this makes me feel a little less bad about altering it in places! You also do a good job of making technical notes clear and easy to understand, which can be tricky to achieve. Don't worry about the Loatheb error, we all make mistakes; the good thing about having a community of editors is we can correct each others' :P In terms of talk pages, this is indeed the right place to contact a specific editor. -- Taohinton (talk) 21:20, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Advanced rulebook vs ...

It is not surprising that article looks like your original advanced rulebook, since it's basically the way I would've written the advanced rulebook :) This is the level I would keep it at though. I personally think the current AR is essentially unusable to anyone who isn't deep into rules experiments already. It's become a notes page for the specialists rather than a reference for the general Hearthstone audience. I think starting any given topic with the general process, then proceeding to the slightly more involved rules that explain the uncommon interactions, and finally referring to individual card notes is the most natural way for a player to understand it, as opposed to a programmer/reverse engineer. Splitting topics up makes it less overwhelming and easier to navigate, and people can choose to stop after the basics if they don't need the extra trigger info. My goal is to make it detailed, but plainly presented enough that an an experienced Hearthstone player can understand it without memorizing an unofficial glossary of terms or referring to a dozen unofficially numbered "rules". ...obviously this is all the stuff I would've said if I wasn't getting distracted by life last year haha - although seeing what the AR has developed into has helped me clarify what I'm looking for, for sure.

(None of this is to criticize the hard, intelligent, and useful work the HearthSim/experimenter people are doing, I just think the presentation has drifted away from the purpose of a general-audience gaming wiki, and I think there's a need for a more accessible version.)

Long run, I'd like all the major game actions to have this kind of info without having to dive into the Advanced Rulebook. Those pages can all end with a "Sequence of events" or similar section (I would like to find a better name that mentions triggers yet isn't clumsy and 5 words long), and I'll probably put together a template to introduce those sections, which explains the level of detail and links to the corresponding AR section. The rulebook info is valuable but it needs to be exposed in a more focused way.

IMO. - jerodast (talk) 07:00, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I have to agree with your perspective on the AR's style. Accessibility is a concern for me since those with an advanced knowledge of the underlying mechanics of the game are probably at least as rare as Legend players, and certainly far from our core audience. This can make the AR inaccessible to average players, but also the notes based upon it and its terminology can spread that to the individual card pages, too, or at least fail to translate things into language the average reader can understand. One upside is the AR and the community Patashu and the others have built up for it on reddit are probably bringing a lot of people to the wiki, even if they are a separate and more advanced crowd than our main audience.

There is a conflict between the two approaches: a detailed and technically accurate description of the underling programming interactions vs a top-level "what the player sees" version of events. Unfortunately I'm not sure there's a single style that works for both audiences: the advanced crowd will want all the underlying details and technical terms, while the average player will just want to know what it means in terms of the visible game, following the rules the game appears to go by (but technically doesn't). At times it's a bit like Newtonian vs Quantum mechanics.

Like you, I applaud the unflagging efforts of Patashu and the others in assembling and maintaining the new AR, but I agree that something more accessible is needed for the average player. Your solution sounds like an excellent approach, and the stuff you've done so far is just right. It's also a great solution to the 'two different approaches' problem, and makes the info even more accessible by keeping it on individual pages.

As a general note I haven't commented much on your big projects, but I've appreciated the work you've been doing lately - good stuff! -- Taohinton (talk) 19:01, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Very kind of you to say! I expect there will be much to edit after my first drafts but glad we agree on approach. I've just had a long lull in time available for wiki stuff but I may be about to get back into it...if the call of a new WoW expansion doesn't claim me first :(! - jerodast (talk) 02:05, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

/sigh likewise, except I tend to burden myself with responsibility to the wiki first and foremost >_< I'd definitely like some time to focus on WoW for a bit, but I smell an adventure on the horizon... -- Taohinton (talk) 18:59, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Play A Friend quest as a daily quest ^__^

Do you have a source that says "Play A Friend" is actually a daily quest? I know everyone will find out eventually, but just for completeness, and maybe my sanity, I want to look at the source ^__^ (so to calm myself, OMG FREE GOLD) Aegonostic (talk) 15:06, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Haha sure: https://twitter.com/ywoo_dev/status/754782771759845376 (Yong specifically says "the latest addition to daily quests"). I nearly added it as a reference but guessed everyone will be getting it themselves before long, so it would probably be unnecessary :) -- Taohinton (talk) 15:10, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks :) Aegonostic (talk) 13:17, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Maybe keep the card pages simple?

Hi, yesterday I edited some of the WotOG card pages, mostly by adding some strategy. Today I saw you slightly bettered some of my edits by changing the sentences to more common English, which is totally fine. However, you also added some more information to some of them. For example https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/index.php?title=Spawn_of_N%27Zoth&type=revision&diff=245835&oldid=245685, where you widely expanded the Strategy.

I am wondering, isn't it better to keep the Strategy and Notes on those single card pages simple with only one or few sentences? I mean, I know you want to share Strategies and all, but personally when I search as a new player for Spawn of N'Zoth, all I need to know is that I should have minions guaranteed to live when that minion dies, so they get the buff, and that I have written in one sentence. And for instance, I don't think people are fully going to read https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/index.php?title=C%27Thun&type=revision&diff=231432&oldid=231204, when you can simply summarise this in two sentences; "This minion is hard to deal with without removal spells, some of which can remove C'Thun without killing him (Polymorph, Hex, etc.), and some of which can even steal C'Thun (Entomb, etc.)." and "While the main type of related cards grant buffs to C'Thun, the other type gain effects from C'Thun, provided its Attack is 10 or higher, which is easily reached.".

So I think, if you want to attract more people to this Wiki, you should keep things simple, surely on single card pages. --JordiTK (talk) 11:59, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

In terms of the wiki's style, no, we don't aim for especially short and succinct strategy info. This is standard in my experience on other wikis, like Wowpedia, and fits with the more "in-depth" tone of many wikis, including Wikipedia. That isn't to say the idea isn't worth considering, but in terms of what we've been aiming for the emphasis is generally more on being comprehensive, clear and well-written, rather than succinct and to the point. I do take your comment seriously though, which is why I've responded (appropriately!) in some depth.

New players are a major focus of the wiki's style, but I don't agree that a very short explanation is always easier for new players to understand. Actually a lot of the elaboration on card pages is due to making things explicit for newer players who might not yet be familiar with basic strategy, game terms or the underlying rules. We could save a lot of space by not providing examples of cards, or suggesting good combos, but many new players especially would likely not think of those cards or combos; these suggestions can be very handy for those learning the ropes. New players especially need advice and reminders of the basics. We can give the nuts and bolts briefly, but covering all the bases and offering alternative perspectives often takes a bit more elaboration. Explaining ideas in-depth also helps concepts to sink in, which terse explanations can fail to do; new players especially need to go over basic concepts repeatedly and in-depth as they learn the ropes.

The Spawn of N'Zoth article for example had no mention at all that it was a good card to feature in a deck with lots of minions, or even that it was best to play it when you already had minions on the board. An experienced player might know this as soon as they see the card text, but new players can benefit from having it pointed out. This info is definitely worth adding, but again bulks out the page.

The Notes sections are even clearer for me; they're the right place for explaining the detailed mechanics of the cards, which are often quite complex. Adding that information definitely increases the site's value, and is often necessary to even understand the basic function of complex cards. Removing that information from card pages would definitely be a step backwards, and in many cases result in a lot of confusion.

None of this is to say that we should intentionally take a lengthy approach to writing strategy and notes; but I don't think paring it down to a minimum is the best way, especially for new players. Every editor also has their own style, each with their pros and cons, and the wiki is a real mish-mash of styles; there has to be a lot of tolerance for different styles, not to mention the myriad different approaches that can be taken toward any given article. A few articles probably could be reduced in length, but a huge amount are in need of expansion. In practice, editors like to add information, and trying to impose a terse style would also involve deleting a lot of good content each time it gets added.

Overall the wiki is a repository for Hearthstone information. While we do want to present the information in a way that is accessible, we're not a quick-start new player guide; we go into detail on every subject, which is great for those wanting a bit more substance than you tend to find in the guides. This is actually one of the biggest strengths of wikis compared to sites like Hearthpwn or Hearthhead. The good news is that our articles are not mandatory reading; they're there for those who want to explore subjects. Many players may want to skip a lengthy explanation of how a certain card fits into a Miracle Rogue deck, but for those who are interested, that info is valuable and worth knowing. -- Taohinton (talk) 15:56, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I understand that you prefer this wiki to contain much information, even for new players, by giving many examples of combinations you can do with the cards. Yet this information seems a bit repetitive on some pages and those are mainly the ones that should be shortened. If for example there is a card page that says This card works well in decks with many minions and later Don't play this card without other minions and later Try to summon as many minions as possible before triggering this card's effect (referring to Spawn of N'Zoth, as example), then it gets really repetitive and hard to read through.

I am not saying shorter text is always a better idea, but a few sentences can give as much information as a full page can give, and I already gave that example with C'Thun's page. If you want to describe every single possible card combination one by one, it's going to take up a lot of space, when you can also give few to one example(s). And only give examples if it might not seem clear why or how a player should use a card, for example, why should a player use Novice Engineer instead of Loot Hoarder, when the latter has 1+ attack? This is exemplified on the card's page by a combination of Questing Adventurer, Edwin VanCleef or Shadowstep. More information is negligible and thus isn't added. Another example is Cold Blood's page, where the Strategy couldn't be any shorter, and shouldn't be any longer.

So if you want to add information, you don't need to write as much as you've doing so far. Try keeping it short, simple and easy for other future editors to edit it, or for yourself at another time. --JordiTK (talk) 17:08, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure how to reply except to say we're definitely not in agreement :) Cold Blood is an example of a card where short is really fine; it's such a generic effect it doesn't really need anything more. Novice Engineer is likewise quite sufficient. That said, as perhaps the most basic example of a card draw effect many new players could probably do with more of an explanation on that page of why you would want to include card draw in your deck; your preference for brevity actually makes this less clear for new players, not more. For C'Thun you've picked one of the longer strategy sections on the whole site, but I still don't agree that it should be reduced to your two sentences - the fuller discussion provides additional and quite pertinent information, which not only adds value but is notably lacking in your shortened version, such as any discussion at all of the actual strategy involved in including C'Thun in a deck - especially worth explaining seeing as C'Thun of all cards defines not only a card but in fact an entire deck type.

The writing on Spawn of N'Zoth feels natural enough to me, but as I've said, every editor has their own style and preferences. I don't think that just because it says This card works well in decks with many minions the article should conspicuously avoid mentioning the number of minions again; I think this would lead to some very forced and cryptic phrasing, and topics being 'off limits' since they used words which had already been used in that article. In this case they're separate points, despite being related. Telling a new player "this is good in decks with lots of minions" does not at all convey to them that they should A) never play it unless there are minions already on the board; and B) intentionally summon as many minions as possible immediately prior to trading it. A more experienced or competent player might know all this at a glance from the card text itself, but for new players these tips are helpful.

I also don't agree with your assessment that more than two sentences is hard to read. It takes seconds to scan a strategy section and decide that you have no interest in it, while the content contained in it can be very useful for those who are interested. Extra info is easily bypassed, and I don't believe it places any special burden on other editors, either, unless it's because they wish to get involved in conveying that information. The strategy section on C'Thun, for example, is as large as it is partly because of other editors expanding it beyond my own write-up; editors continue to expand similar sections on pages across the site, entirely by their own choice. Clearly we're not discussing describing "every single possible card combination one by one" (a couple or at most few examples is the norm), and even your own texts use examples.

I get that you have a preference for minimal information, but that's not a preference I share, nor one I think is best for the wiki. -- Taohinton (talk) 21:11, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Uhh well, first of all let me say, I came here to say thank you to you Taohinton for simplifying the English in the articles and employing fluent reading. As for this topic of whether to shorten or lengthen the Strategy section on pages, I want to chime in that the Strategy section on C'Thun's page is actually kind of pretty long :\ , and the Strategy section on Cold Blood's page is way too short :\ . You guys should try to keep that section (Strategy section) a bit on the mediocre side, not overly lengthy, and not overly terse. My 2 cents in the arbitration. Aegonostic (talk) 21:51, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Haha I would actually be fine with that assessment :) I do agree C'Thun is a bit long, but if I had to choose between the two I would still prefer a full if over-long discussion of such an important card to JordiTK’s two sentences. Most pages also aren't that long, making it a fairly odd example. To be clear I was never proposing lengthening anything, simply disagreeing with the idea of shortening and removing valid information from the current sections. Condensing strategy info is absolutely fine by me, as long as it makes it more clear and not less, and as long as too much useful information isn't removed. As I say the sections are usually composed of contributions from multiple editors, resulting in a mish-mash of styles and overlapping sentences which could often do with some tidying. However as I mentioned given the number of card pages on the wiki which have little or no strategy information, I consider adding info to such pages more useful and important than working to reduce existing write-ups in length. -- Taohinton (talk) 09:14, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

The example I gave on C'Thun was just an example, and it actually could be shortened to (those) two sentences but that would merely give any information, only the complete basics. However, its current state is too long and with too many examples. Also I agree with Aegonostic that Cold Blood's page could indeed be expanded slightly by adding the combo with Conceal, for instance.

And Taohinton, you can compare a wiki with a library. People prefer a small tidy library (like you mentioned Hearthpwn and Hearthead), to a large library with a lot of information but which looks messy. If you want to make a wiki that provides a lot of information, maybe you should first work on the uncompleted pages, before adding a ton load of information on other pages that already contain enough information. Another page heavily edited by you, which I recently reduced in size; Unleash the Hounds. Is this "a couple or at most few examples", or is it more like "every single possible combination"? A wiki should be edited and contributed to by different people, and not just one. It sounds rude, but the plain truth is if you keep changing useful edits made by other users or override them with the amount of additional (and often unnecessary) information you give, just to make the wiki like you want it - most detailed with tons of examples, but long and messy -, you should make a personal wiki named "the Taohintonwiki" where you can be top contributor of every month. --JordiTK (talk) 14:17, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

It's a shame that you seem to want to make this personal. I've responded reasonably and patiently to your suggestions. We have a difference of approach to the subject, and I've discussed that with you respectfully, but it seems you can't manage to do the same. You have every right to disagree with my opinion, but that doesn't mean your opinion is necessarily right either, or that you should therefore get your way just because you think you're right. I've already responded to the technical points you keep raising, so I won't bother repeating my replies again.

As shown in my reply to Aegonostic, I'm quite happy with condensing much of the strategy info on the site. What I have disagreed with is your desire to reduce all card page note and strategy content to "only one or few sentences". Again as I have already stated, I agree that there is a lot of content that could be tidied up. But I do not agree that most of it should simply be removed. I do not agree that good points should be removed. I do not agree that more than two sentences is confusing to new players. Perhaps I should have made my openness to condensing clearer, but your proposal seemed so drastic it didn't feel like my more moderate suggestions would satisfy you. In short: condensing, yes; deleting/removing large amounts of relevant content, no.

Unleash the Hounds was indeed huge, and I have no problem with paring that down. As to my contributions, I wrote them more than 2 years ago (as you will have seen), when the wiki was still quite young, and I was coming from quite a different place (the card was also cheaper and infamous at that time); that page isn't a good example of the current style. I also suspect that to be the single largest strategy section on the entire wiki by quite a long way - again, you have chosen the most exaggerated examples by which to judge the rest of the wiki. This feels unhelpful to the discussion, and avoids the actual matter in hand, which is dealing with the hundreds of far, far less lengthy card pages - but which you apparently still find too long.

Everyone's edits get edited - including mine, frequently - that's just the nature of a wiki. It's nothing personal, nor any weird obsession by myself. Editing bad English and improving the readability of contributions improves the site, and I don't agree that I should leave broken grammar and hard to read sections as they are rather than attempt to fix them, or that adding additional information to the same page another editor has recently edited somehow "overrides" them. And as we've covered, I disagree that most of the information I add is "unnecessary", and the same type of information is added by many other editors. I contribute to improve the site, not out of any personal obsession. As the site admin, this is literally my job.

I've never claimed my writing is perfect, nor would I ever suggest that. I try to write something useful, and usually to fill a gap where a subject hasn't been mentioned at all, sometimes even after months or years of the card being in the game. You can criticise my writing endlessly, I'm sure, but the same is true for any editor, including yourself.

I don't appreciate your self-appointed position as arbiter of the style of the wiki, or your instructing me how I should write. I welcome a lot of different styles on the wiki, and contrary to your apparent beliefs let a lot of things be written all sorts of ways I don't personally agree with, as long as they're not bad for the wiki. You seem to want to be the judge for the length and quality of all strategy information on the site, on the basis that you think you're right, and believe you can speak on behalf of all readers. In your own words, perhaps you should consider starting a "JordiTKpedia" ?

I am always happy for editors to improve the site, and as long as your edits at least don't make it worse, they are welcome. However, you need to recognise that you are not the only editor on this site. I am happy to compromise, but you will have to compromise too. Try to bear in mind the opinions of other editors when adjusting pages, and don't expect to always get your way - none of us do. -- Taohinton (talk) 17:26, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Come on you guys, I'm sure both of you guys are great editors, and I think both of you now have a sense of how to continue editing. Not too short sections, not too long sections, as per my advice. Thumbs up! Policy on wikipedia strongly discourages hostile and personal attacks, since it is offensive and not in our best interests to facilitate discussion. If you guys still need to dispute it out, however, continue to talk it out in a friendly manner and/or seek out third-party advice/opinions/arbitration. Wikipedia link for resolving content disputes. Have a nice day and let's all be friends! :) Aegonostic (talk) 20:39, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts at mediation :) I think JordiTK's most recent edits are good, and don't have any problem with them. I've made minor edits to few of them mostly just for adding bullet points and fixing typos, but I'm in agreement with the content. Hopefully now that we've established our differing viewpoints we can find a way to work together without conflict. -- Taohinton (talk) 10:06, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I've actually noticed that many of your edits are actually very verbose. :\ JordiTK does have a point. Aegonostic (talk) 23:46, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Actually I might take that back. Iono. Aegonostic (talk) 01:37, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd really rather not start this whole topic up again, after we seem to have reached a more amicable state of affairs. As I've already stated, I have never claimed my writing is perfect and am quite open to condensing and indeed improvement in general. Collaboration and improving each others' edits is what wikis are all about. -- Taohinton (talk) 03:33, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. Aegonostic (talk) 05:55, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Wondering about Free rarity

I think Free cards are the ones your hero used originally in the tutorial. I noticed while watching a video of the Hearthstone tutorial that all neutral free cards are in your deck at some point. There is one common minion in your deck in the tutorial (Goldshire Footman), but it's possible that he was added to it in an update but stayed a common card, or was removed in a recent update and then was changed to a common card. Right now the Rarity page says that the rarity of Basic neutral cards has no known significance. Do you think the page should be edited to suggest a correlation between the tutorial and free rarity? — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnchantedRaven (talk • contribs) 00:35, 12 August 2016‎

Good job! That's something I've been wondering about for some time :) I've made edits to the various pages. Interestingly Arcane Missiles is the only one of the neutral and mage free cards not to appear in the tutorial. -- Taohinton (talk) 09:49, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Arcane Missiles does appear in the tutorial; it is the reward for the last boss, Illidan Stormrage. By the way, I just changed "featured in the tutorial" to "made available to your hero in the tutorial" because some bosses use common cards other than Goldshire Footman. I also think the phrase combines the cards used by and rewarded to your hero well. -- EnchantedRaven

Good point(s) - I've changed the note on Tutorial, and your edits look good :) -- Taohinton (talk) 17:30, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Do you want to test out the tutorial to see if Goldshire Footman is still in it? -- EnchantedRaven

That's a good idea, but I'm not a good position to do it right now. You're welcome to, or else I'll add it to my list of things to get back to! Also, you can sign your name using four tildes (~~~~), which automatically adds the standard signature and timestamp for you :) -- Taohinton (talk) 10:14, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Just tested out the tutorial. You draw Goldshire Footman on turn 8 of the King Mukla mission (or turn 7 if you play Novice Engineer first). EnchantedRaven (talk) 18:45, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Cool, sounds like it is still as recorded then. I checked videos from the very start of the beta and Goldshire Footman was already in there, so if it did change it must have been in alpha. -- Taohinton (talk) 19:48, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Interesting Storming Stormwind question

In the Storming Stormwind page, you made a footnote:

City of Stormwind destroyed its own Majordomo Executus on its own turn, and immediately reverted to City of Stormwind. Later on, I killed its Majordomo Executus (after it was Resurrected) and the Ragnaros hero was able to replace it successfully, however when I killed Ragnaros it was replaced by the City of Stormwind.

Reiterating, to see if I got it right:

1. Majordomo got mirror entitied by Stormwind and got killed.
2. Stormwind city transformed, but immediately transformed back into City of Stormwind.
3. Later in the same game, Majordomo is resurrected and killed again.
4. City of Stormwind changes to Ragnaros with his hero power and everything.

Did the score tally stay the same / get reset?

1. When Ragnaros was killed, he reverted to city.

Did the score tally stay the same now / get reset now?

Aegonostic (talk) 18:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I've clarified and expanded that section of the article a fair bit, and also my reference. I've also added a couple of video references since they're better as evidence (if not as accessible). You should find the answers to your questions there, unless you mean one of the bits which I'm still unclear on. If so, you might be able to find the answers on reddit or YouTube somewhere. -- Taohinton (talk) 22:28, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes! Thank you very much for the video. Aegonostic (talk) 10:17, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Short message.

Could you please check if the notes on Ethereal Peddler are true? I can't find anywhere about Rag and Jaraxxus... --JordiTK (talk) 21:31, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I can't find any actual confirmation online, but I would agree the first note should be correct. In terms of Jaraxxus it's correct that he counts as a warlock hero.

In terms of Ragnaros, I don't think we can confidently predict what will happen: he might retain the previous class as you've suggested, or he might make all class cards get discounted, since he doesn't count as any class. Given his effect on cards like Nefarian and Burgle it seems he does modify the player's current class identity in some way (they no longer generate class cards), which suggests the latter possibility, but Hearthstone is far from consistent. I've modified the notes to make it clear we're guessing rather than stating as a fact, but ideally we need some testing. I've also revised some of the phrasing on this page and several others to make the "class of the player's current hero" rule clearer. -- Taohinton (talk) 03:52, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Silverware Golem, policy on deleting info on past bugs?

I'm curious, what's the reason behind the policy on deleting past bugs?

http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/index.php?title=Silverware_Golem_(boss)&curid=39407&diff=250363&oldid=250272

Aegonostic (talk) 13:03, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

In this case it's not a matter of deleting past bugs, but of keeping the strategy section relevant and accurate for the current version of the encounter. We've done the same following updates to bosses and the addition of useful new cards. Strategy sections are for info about strategy, not past bugs.

The bug itself was active for many of the bosses in the adventure, and because of that is already noted in the main One Night in Karazhan article's Trivia section. -- Taohinton (talk) 15:07, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I added a ref to the ONiK article, let me know if it works. Aegonostic (talk) 17:21, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Oops, thought I'd replied to this. The ref works fine. -- Taohinton (talk) 14:50, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Temple Escape "card not found"

Hello, I found out that all the cards from the Temple Escape encounter have the "card not found"-card in the Bosses section. I can't find the problem in the source codes, so I just wanted to let you know. --JordiTK (talk) 14:25, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll look into it. -- Taohinton (talk) 14:30, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

As I suspected, this seems to be a new variant on the usual caching issues. Normally you can just refresh the page to fix the problem, but recently they've required making actual edits to the text. At any rate, the issue appears to now be fixed. -- Taohinton (talk) 14:53, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Portals

Could you please make a page about the Portals when you have the time? I mean Silvermoon Portal, Unstable Portal, Party Portal etc. It could be useful for later :) --JordiTK (talk) 20:31, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, we already have a section on the One Night in Karazhan article which addresses these cards. I wouldn't normally make a page for Portal cards since they're not an ability or trigger type, just a rough cosmetic theme. Did you have something else in mind? -- Taohinton (talk) 05:33, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, I thought it could be a nice sub-section to Generate and Summon to describe how to obtain any minion through a random effect. Maybe something as a "Portal Art" page, because it is indeed not an ability, but we do already have other art pages such as Pandaren art to describe all Pandaren. --JordiTK (talk) 15:46, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Sure, an art/lore page is reasonable enough I guess - I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page :) I'm not sure I agree re: the ability pages though, since there are numerous other cards with pretty much identical effects that don't depict portals - Piloted Shredder, Mounted Raptor, Murloc Knight, Faceless Summoner, Hungry Dragon, Effigy, etc - so singling out portals doesn't make much sense gameplay-wise. The approach that seems like it would make sense for the page itself would be to focus on cards that represent portals, regardless of the effect.

At any rate, I'm pretty busy right now with real life work, but I'll take a look at making a page when I get a bit of time. -- Taohinton (talk) 01:12, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Twitter info, you might know where to put this

You probably know where this Twitter reference belongs, posting it here for ya :

https://twitter.com/PlayHearthstone/status/781181458333532160

"Yes! Non-Basic Cards that have been changed will be disenchantable for their full dust value for a limited time." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aegonostic (talk • contribs) 19:52, 28 September 2016‎

Thanks. This is standard for all card changes, and we already have the info up on the relevant pages :) I'm never sure whether it's worth adding a reference since each only refers to a specific instance; arguably I should round a few up. -- Taohinton (talk) 08:09, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hey, I have a new suggestion. What about have an audio of the card's quotes like in the Confessor Paletress and Ragnaros, Lightlord articles? Senescalzin 00:26, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Great idea! I wondered about this back at the start but it didn't seem so possible at the time; I think it would add very nicely to our card pages. I'll look into creating a template, so we can just enter a few bits of info and it will (in theory) automatically find the files.

In terms of the uploading work involved, I've asked oOeyes if it would be possible to get all the sound files imported from Hearthpwn (now they use them). If so, we could add them for all minion cards. It might still be a bit of trouble matching up the filenames though, based on those used on the site. -- Taohinton (talk) 06:21, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Heroic Tavern Brawl page question

Your quote in Heroic Tavern Brawl:

As with Ranked play, a match that ends in a draw (both players being defeated at the same time) will not count as a win or a loss for either player.

Is this really what happens in Ranked play? I thought it was a loss for both players if it draws for both players in Ranked. Just requesting a confirmation. Aegonostic (talk) 18:47, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I honestly don't know, but that's what more informed editors added to Gameplay:

Both heroes' health reaches zero at the same time. This causes a draw, although both players will see the Defeat screen. Neither player will win or lose a star in Ranked play, and neither player will be awarded a win or loss in Arena mode. If you were on a winning streak, it will end your streak.

Other info online seems to confirm this. -- Taohinton (talk) 05:17, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Interesting, ok. Aegonostic (talk) 23:26, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Recent statements on Hearthstone canonicity

Hello! If you haven't seen them already, I thought you might want to know about these two recent statements from Six Gamers on reddit and Jeremy Feasel on Twitter, respectively, since they could have some ramifications for Hearthstone's canonicity or lack thereof, as well as for how pages like Hearthstone lore are treated on this wiki and how pages on Hearthstone-only characters and concepts (like Aya Blackpaw) are treated on Wowpedia. You seem far more knowledgeable and experienced in how to handle these matters than I, so I thought I should let you know. -- DeludedTroll (talk) 10:55, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing these to my attention! This fits with the general idea we already had, which is basically ambiguous: we don't know what's made up (like most of the silly stuff) and what's actually 'real' (like the WoW devs later decided Finley was). But I'll definitely incorporate these into the article. The Muffinus ref is also neat since it appears to confirm the innkeeper himself as canon!

In terms of our own content, we basically have to work in the bubble of "Hearthstone lore" in that for our purposes, Aya is real. She might only be real in the whimsical story of the game, or she might be real in the actual WoW canon, and of course she may be real or somewhat real but also exaggerated in the innkeeper's stories. Perhaps Gadgetzan really has been redeveloped but the crime is an exaggeration - Aya could be a shady dealer of some kind, or even a perfectly nice young pandaren - or maybe the whole setting is imagined, but Aya might still be a crime lord somewhere else. Plus of course the minion card itself is just a card, etc. Ultimately we can't reiterate this on every page, and it's also not that relevant to Hearthstone. We're writing the story of Hearthstone, with a little background info - and in that story, even the silly characters are real. Luckily even the silly cards fit into a reasonably consistent universe (as opposed to the flavor text, for example), even if it isn't considered part of the wider Warcraft canon. So it seems like the simplest and best approach for us is to describe original characters as they exist in Hearthstone, plus any WoW lore if and when it appears. -- Taohinton (talk) 14:55, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

New user adding link at end or in heading

Hello! I would like to add to the patch note pages with external links to the Blizzard blog pages. When I was editing the first page, I got the following message:

This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and therefore disallowed.

If you believe your action was constructive, please inform an administrator of what you were trying to do. A brief description of the abuse rule which your action matched is: New user adding link at end or in heading

Please help. Troggnostupidhs (talk) 04:21, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I just noticed that the patch notes are linked at the top of the articles. I think fixing my account is still helpful. Also, would it make sense to add the external link? That's the first place I looked for the link. Troggnostupidhs (talk) 04:42, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I think the error is caused by your having only a few edits to your account (only 1 previous edit at the time you first tried). As a result the wiki automatically prevented you from adding an external link, as an anti-spam precaution. This should therefore fix itself once you've made a few more edits. As to listing the official page twice, it isn't really needed there since it's already listed in the lead section, but I think it's a matter of taste. Feel free to post the idea on Talk:Patches. -- Taohinton (talk) 22:31, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Bot to import new cards?

I don't know how the process works, but I'm interested to know if there is a bot that imports new card data from Hearthpwn when an expansion hits? Thanks! Aegonostic (talk) 17:48, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm actually in the process of writing up a guide to the import process, hopefully I'll post it before too long. Yes, we should be getting one following the patch itself (probably April 3/4). However, this could be anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks after the patch is released, so it's usually better to get on with making the cards ourselves rather than wait for the import. Also, the import only imports the data pages and the images, so we will still need to make content pages either way. -- Taohinton (talk) 22:23, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Ah ok, thanks for that info. :) Aegonostic (talk) 22:41, 1 April 2017 (UTC)