Talk:Main Page

Front Page Revised

Front page is going under revision. it's cluttered and sloppy, and i'm going to try and fix that in the next few days. Help where you can, especially with putting character/game pages in their proper categories. Hope to have this settled soon enough...--Jacob 17:24, 6 Mar 2006 (CST)

Front page is continuing to be revised. This talk page has also been cleared of old discussions...--Jacob 10:35, 31 Mar 2006 (CST)

Could we do something with the front page to make it look more exciting? It's looking a little empty at the moment and it's a shame it doesn't reflect the quality of articles that is now offered at the NeoDex.--Yukio 13:44, 29 May 2006 (CDT)

I know what you mean. Will look into the next few days and see what can be done. really should take a look at it, as i already made a promise to revise it, at least to myself that is *whaps head*...hmmm...--Jacob 15:22, 29 May 2006 (CDT)

Okay, I think I'm going to put in a news/FAQ design similar to http://www.tmbw.net/ except with a FAQ instead of that "Getting Started" section. Just an idea for you guys. Thoughts?--Hermioneelovesron 06:12, 26 Jun 2006 (CDT)

How about we have some sort of Frontpage Sandbox page where we can all mess around and tinker with how maybe the front page should look? --NeoEva88 21:34, 24 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Alright, I sorta took it upon myself to create that sandbox idea I had on a sub-userpage here. I think it looks good, of course I'd still love some suggestions though. I personally think it's kinda short, but I dunno what other content should be put on there. --NeoEva88 22:38, 24 Jul 2006 (CDT)

I like it, good work. It is a bit short, I would just put a bit of whitespace beneath it so it seems to not end so abruptly, at least in the meantime... --Macbeth 04:35, 25 Jul 2006 (CDT)

I Like it too. Much more appealing to the eye than what i've had on the front page. :D Shall the "blah blah blah" section be random links? Also, should it be a featured article in the box on the right? it would require to edit the main page every week, which really isn't a big deal though. just wondering what it is we want, as this does seem promising. *thumbs up* --Jacob 12:24, 25 Jul 2006 (CDT)

We could use a Template:Featured, and copy the text into it each week... Or move it there, or something... --Macbeth 16:05, 25 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Yeah, a Template:Featured or some equivalent would work better. That's how the Uncyclopedia front page works. Also, the blah links were actually just space fillers because I thought there might be more Special pages or navigation pages we should link to up there, but I didn't know them. --NeoEva88 16:24, 25 Jul 2006 (CDT)

I thought maybe to lengthen the front page design we could have a quote of the day section, I got the idea from Wookiepedia. Maybe there aren't too many good quotes for Neopets though, I dunno. I have a little filler box on the bottom of the page that can be used for something. Any other suggestions? --NeoEva88 10:25, 27 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Dance Party!? I'm not quite sure how to respond to that :P! I hope it's only a temporary feature... :S --Macbeth 23:20, 29 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Yeah...Dance Party...I was bored. :S *ahem* And i've actually made it a permenant feature via template. I thought it would be a fun thing for the front page, as it serves two purposes: filler, and fun. will be changing every week along with the featured article...at least that's my intention. --Jacob 11:44, 30 Jul 2006 (CDT)

I had an idea for a bit of filler... having a row of 100x100 px images, 'snapshots' of each world, with a link to their respective NeoDex page... One thing I think we should avoid would be a list of 'dailies' and links to them... Every fansite, guild homepage, etc etc seems to have them on their front page :P. --84.13.33.212 13:36, 30 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Ohh nice idea for the front page.--Yukio 09:40, 31 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Should be mentioned that the Wishing Well text in bold doesn't actually link to the featured article, it should. --NeoEva88 20:31, 6 Aug 2006 (CDT)

"Wockypedia"?

Whereas Wookieepedia is the name of the Star Wars Wiki, could we rename the Neopets Wiki to "Wockypedia"? --Shultz IV of Wikipedia 21:11, 3 May 2006 (CDT)

At the moment, NeoDex is the current name, and will stay that way for the unforseen future.--Jacob 15:44, 4 May 2006 (CDT)

Funny, I was actually thinking about that name recently - but I thinks the NeoDex has started to become a name synonymous with a Neopets Encyclopedia ;)--Yukio 13:44, 29 May 2006 (CDT)

I say it should stay NeoDex, because it's just a whole lot easier to type than Wockypedia. --LifetimeMembership

I've said it before, I think, but I'm all in favour of 'In-depth Neopedia'. --Macbeth 04:35, 25 Jul 2006 (CDT)

You know, I like name too - it reminds me to keep departments naming consistent - but that would mean I would have to re-name all the departments such as neopool to in-depth colours and avatar catalog to in-depth avatars arrgh @_@--Yukio 18:29, 27 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Oh, I don't know. 'In-depth Trophy Catalogue' has a certain ring to it, I think (:P). Well, 'in-depth rainbow pool' and 'in-depth avatar guide', perhaps... Eh, maybe not :P. Those are both topics which it isn't really possible to get 'in-depth' about, is it? Were you to rename the NeoDex (in that fashion), you could always move the neopool and avatar sections down from full 'department' status to more of a sort of 'guide' level, as they are not so much as a collection of guides (as IDNQ, IDB, and, of course, the NeoDex are) rather a guide in themselves (if my overworked memory serves me correctly, I believe that the avatar catalogue, at least, used to be just a page in the guides section - although I do not recall whether it was actually listed in the guide section: I remember there used to a link at the top of the PPT main page, or rather, above the news entries, not exactly the top of the page)... Although, having said that, the approach to the site designs of the neopool and avatar catalogue does have some element of a... hierarchy, if you will - their own sections - that would be difficult (although not necessarily impossible) to integrate within the main body of PPT (I suppose it would really depend on the limits of how your CMS structures the guides themselves, presuming you use a CMS rather than do all the modifications by hand - the PPT NeoDex article is blank on the issue). They could remain 'separate' from the core of PPT but just be listed in guides, I suppose. Mind you, if these sections are headed by two volunteers (other than yourself, Yukio) in much the way Jacob heads the NeoDex, they could become a bit... Miffed, at having their distinction curtailed, if you follow. Of course, another way to go about it would be to divided the departments into two sections, not necessarily a formal boundary per se, but possibly one. Or you could integrate the Neopool and Avatar Catalogue (and trophy catalogue, I suppose) into one bigger section... In-depth Collectibles, perhaps? Sorry, I appear to be blabbering o_O --Macbeth 23:20, 29 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Phew! Long paragraph, but worth of course :) Constructive ideas always appreciated of course as it only betters the site. I'll read this through closely and then see what I can implement.--Yukio 09:41, 31 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Article Suggestion

Item Registry. Y'know, a huge list of all Neopia's items sorted by type (neohome, food, faerie quests, toys, etcetera etcetera). I'd be willing to undertake the majority of it, with some help. -LifetimeMembership

There is already an article titled Item, where wiki links to each of type of item can be talked about, and there is also a category for items, but the NeoDex, will not be a place for listing all the items of Neopets. maybe in the future, but at this time i see no such thing. articles for items can be made, but only noteable items, as i'm sure an article titled "Bread" as in the food item bread is a waste of space. And if one really wants a list of all the items of Neopets, all they have to do is go to NeoItems.net. --Jacob 20:54, 9 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Oh, okay then. -LifetimeMembership

Perhaps a page for each of the hidden tower items? Other that that, I agree wholeheartedly with Jacob.--Macbeth 04:35, 25 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Neodex logo?

What should we do for the Neodex logo? Is the general consensus that the Blumaroo stays? I don't happen to like the Blumaroo much, and it's not a good logo to put in other places. Just a thought. --NeoEva88 10:23, 27 Jul 2006 (CDT)

I think the Blumaroo writing on a paper is fine, and doesn't need to be updated. If it should recieve more negative feedback though, i'm wondering what it would be changed to. --Jacob 11:57, 27 Jul 2006 (CDT)

I'm happy for a change, if we can get in a better logo :)--Yukio 18:27, 27 Jul 2006 (CDT)

How about a Blumaroo sitting at a desk with a quill, constructed entirely of pieces of a jigsaw a la the wikipedia/uncyclopedia logos? Or virtupets space station constructed of such. It's almost spherical, so it could be identified easily with the wikipedia logo, and being spherical it would not be too difficult to create the logo to a high level of precision for it to be identifiable, and the Vitrupets space station is a recognisable icon of Neopia. --Macbeth 23:20, 29 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Now that is a really good idea! Anyone here do graphic artistry by any chance?--Yukio 09:42, 31 Jul 2006 (CDT)

Yeah, I was thinking about Virtupets a bit too, something round at least. I don´t like the idea of it being made out of jigsaw pieces though, it doesn´t need to be that much like Wikipedia. I just think something round that would seem a bit suggestive would work. (The Wookiepedia logo being an excellent example.) --NeoEva88 11:49, 1 Aug 2006 (CDT)

I think it should be one faerie from each type... that would be cool. Who agrees? --unsigned by 71.92.99.181 03:37, 5 May 2007

At the moment, a new logo isn't in the works, but ideas are always welcome. :) --Jacob 23:08, 4 May 2007 (CDT)

I've added a new logo to the NeoDex --> It's an Ixi readin a big dusty book / tomb. You know how cool those tombs get. :) At least now there isn't the default image that use to be there. --Kym 14:25, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Front Page Revamp 8/1/2007

Can we revert to the old version while the page is being overhauled? And have possibly new versions on subpages for a later editor review? --Macbeth 00:41, 1 Aug 2007 (UTC)

I don't know...I'm kind of smitten with the new look (duh, it's mine ;P ). But if there are some tidbits to go over before it goes fully up, I suppose it's fair. All the same, what do you think of what I currently set up? I took out a lot of links in the summariezed TOC, seeing as it was originally random. Where would you like the "testing zone" for the new front page look to be? --Jacob 01:04, 1 Aug 2007 (UTC)

It's nice, yeah, although the way the featured template is much longer than its adjacent box detracts from it a bit. I just think that if we are going to overhaul the front page, the change could be a bit more drastic, hence would probably need general consensus ;¬). --Macbeth 19:02, 1 Aug 2007 (UTC)

NeoDex coding updated

It would seem the NeoDex coding has been updated...wh00t? :D Though it seems a lot of things have changed, along with some things that seem broken. It will be dealt with in due time I am sure, but for now, I'm glad to see progress is being made for this. What does everyone else think? --Jacob 10:29, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Yup, the PHP and mediawiki are now updated ^^. New wikicodes are now accessible (We can finally resize image without modifying the original image). --SwordFire ^{( talk | contrib )} 10:34, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Image URLs no longer form the embedded image, though. This is going to take a lot of work to fix, as it's quite a widespread issue, but hopefully it'll pay off in the long run. It's worse on pages such as Altador Cup II where the images not being displayed in line are causing some layout issues. --Macbeth 02:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I've enabled the upload function again which was disabled when the back-end was upgraded. Should be working again. I'll also get a graphic designer to design a new WIKI logo. --Kym 04:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately the upload feature is still disabled at the moment. As for the embedded image, we do have a choice of enabling it again if required. --SwordFire ^{( talk | contrib )} 16:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to fixing the code. I've enabled embedding images again so that should fix up a lot of the issues right there. :) The uploading feature has also been enabled again. (Upgrading the code had some slight code changes which set a couple of things to their default values. If there is anything you guys ever want switched on/off, just leave a note here. :) --Kym 08:10, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

They're working now, thank you. :) But for some strange reason, some articles still do not display the embedded images even though their history do. We'll just have to manually re-save those articles again to bring back the embedded images... --SwordFire ^{( talk | contrib )} 09:55, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The one thing I do miss is the necessary log in of users in order to have them even edit articles. Now we're back to the age of having IPs edit articles. What's everyone's view on this? Has it been good or bad overall? --Jacob 07:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Nominating this page for protection?

I'm not really sure how to request this or anything, so I'll just post it here and see what people think. It seems this page (Talk: Main Page) has been the target of a lot of vandalism. Maybe you guys could semi-protect it? I don't really know how it all works, so feel free to critique my idea :P Siouxper 21:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Requesting such a thing can be done here on on an admins talk page. I've made the necessary protections in either case. ;) --Jacob 07:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick response :) Next time, I'll be sure to do it in the right place :P Sorry for posting it in the wrong place Siouxper 14:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Oldddddddddd Wiki

Wow, this place hasn't been edited for a while, like if it was abandoned. I mean, the Main Page hasn't been edited for 1½ years!!!--Ogrin 23:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, really. The featured article hasn't changed since the wiki was founded. -- 10-Volt 01:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I can assure you it's not abandoned, changes are taking place all the time. And the featured article has changed a lot... --Macbeth 03:25, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Seriously

Why are we inline linking from Neopets? Just want to steal the bandwidth? 4Ply 23:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The point of wiki images is so that we don't use their bandwidth. If you see any normal images, upload them onto the NeoDex: Special:Upload, NeoDex:Image use policy --Dizzy 23:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

leddle leedel lee

Admin Change Coming

The status quo is changing in the admin department, and we want your thoughts and opinons! Head over to the talk page of the community portal to have your say, and see history in the making! There will be cake. --Jacob 08:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

2009 revamp

I'm looking to remodel the front page and a bit of how the wiki works over the next few weeks... Part of some of the things I've been talking about with Kym to link in better with the Pink Poogle Toy community, and hopefully to make everything look a bit fresher and more accessible to new editors. So, heads up, intention in writing. ;) --Macbeth 20:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks very nice!  :) I thought PinkPT was dead (seeing the boards), but I'll perhaps contribute here now. --207.177.111.34 17:23, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Image Upload Broken?

Is anyone else having trouble uploading images? I get an "Internal error: The upload directory (public) is not writable by the webserver. " error everytime I try to upload something. Who do I even talk to about these kinds of problems?- emeraldosprey

Same problem here, dude. User:Journey to the Lost Isle-er 19:33, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

New-new layout

So good they named it twice. This new version (the version as of 8th November 2010) is meant to look a bit cleaner and fresher than the last version (which had been essentially unchanged for 18 months). It was born out of a need to make the layout sturdier (the boxes had started going different sizes), and I decided to incorporate some aesthetic changes as well. I think it's a bit tidier.

Also, clever though the obubble and ibubble templates were, they made it damn hard to maintain, so I've not reused them for this layout. I want to leave them on the system for a bit so the page works in the history, though. For comparisons, you know.

Questions, complaints, and comments, as always, discuss below. =) --Macbeth 17:42, 8 November 2010 (CST)

Hi guys

Sorry, I'm not really a member here, but I noticed that there was some missing info on the 2 gruslens Jhudora owns, Sarah and Daisy. Again, sorry if I'm not allowed to do this, but here's the link to the page if anyone wants to edit anything. http://www.pinkpt.com/neodex/index.php/Sarah_and_Daisy -- This comment was left unsigned by 68.121.165.176 (talk | contribs)

If you find some info missing, please feel free to add it anytime! :D --Dizzy 19:17, 5 July 2012 (CDT)

You do not have permission to create this user account

As I completely understand the desire to eliminate the threat of spam bots, I find it rather odd that the option to create user accounts have been entirely disabled. I'm eager to contribute, but at the same time not liking that I'll forever be bonded to an IP Address as my name. Is there some sort of approval system, or perhaps a basic usergroup? Being a fan of the site myself, I'd love to contribute. I understand that non-logged in users basically have the same rights that a regular user would, but at the same time I'd like to have an account. --24.119.228.163 05:47, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey, if you send an email to either me at photonpuppy at gmail.com or to neodexhelp@gmail.com containing your desired username one of us will sort you out. I'll be on for the rest of the day so I should pick it up pretty quickly. CrimsonFox ^talk 14:43, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Lack of proper tables & co

I attempted to copy over a template I had created on another wiki here, on this page Template:Sandbox. I've already run into several issues, such as missing classes and proper table/expand & collapse support. Who has the authority to install and modify wiki addons & co? My goal was to give characters and land more formal layouts using a table as such. --Puma 04:52, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I have a request for whoever has access to the wiki's Common.css. Could you possibly merge the data in this CSS with the Common.css on this wiki? That should have everything working fine and looking great. I give full permission to this wiki to use the CSS on that page, as I wrote large portions of it. I can merge the two and supply a file if needed. --Puma 05:07, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

See?
Told you so.

We do have collapsible tables on this wiki, although it looks like it's called in a different way to what you are used to. It's just "collapsible" and "collapsed" here, not "mw-collapsible" and "mw-collapsed". =) --Macbeth 01:35, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I've updated common.css. I'm not sure how I feel about having a skyscraper of css in their when we don't have a use case for most of it currently, but I'm willing to let you play around with it for now. --Macbeth 01:49, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, thank-you so much! I'll toy around with it a bit and let you know what we may not need (Though things such as ratings & YouTube videos probably won't do much here). Thank-you! --Puma 22:50, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, in general I think it's better to have styles information in the template where possible, because (as we have discovered) most users can't edit commons.css. I appreciate that it may be more parsimonious to have it in the style sheet, though. --Macbeth 22:32, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I was unaware that templates could contain CSS, research suggests that all Template functions must come from either the Common CSS or JS. I'll experiment with it and see what happens. You can start removing what seems un needed from the CSS if you feel you need to. --Puma 03:16, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

MediaWiki Cite extension - Could it be added?

Hi guys! I have a request for anyone with access to the site's filesystem, if you're willing to help. With my work on this wiki lately, I've come to realize that it's quite difficult to just 'state' something without saying why it's so. I;d like to know, if this extension 'Cite.php' and can installed? It's that thing that you see on Wikipedia, the little number next to a sentence. It "connects" that section of the article to a link at the bottom (Usually a source), which tells readers where the information posted came from. It's used by most wiki these days, and would be a great way to connect this wiki to several fansites, as well log & events posted on Neopets.com. Could it possible be added? --Puma 06:37, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey Puma. The short answer is... maybe. I just tried to install the Cite extension, but the current Wiki version installed here is 1.16. Adding the extension callout in LocalSettings.psp (require_once( "$IP/extensions/Cite/Cite.php" );) along with adding all files to the (new) Cite directory under 'extensions' causes blank page(s) to load. This may take some more investigation to get it installed. --Blue 08:00, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Sure, thanks for trying Blue. The page specifies that the needed version must be 1.13 or higher, and given the problems the past few days, I can only guess that 1.16 has long term errors. Maybe if you updated to 1.22.2? Before even trying, you should try to see what's causing the error in the first place. Enter this line of code before the opening tag - ini_set('display_errors', 1);, and this within the opening tag - ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL); to index.php. That should reveal the problem right away. It may be a good idea to install the latest version anyway, there are several other extensions I feel that should be added, and they're not compatible with 1.16. Let me know what happens. --Puma 17:51, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I thought briefly about upgrading the Wiki to the latest version (Cite has been built-in since 1.21), but can still clearly remember the nightmare when the forums were updated. It took weeks to fix the problems. Maybe months. While I'm not opposed to upgrading the Wiki , I need a bulletproof backup first - both for the files as well as the databases. Its not hard, but takes time that I don't really have at the moment. For now, I'll look at getting Cite installed here now because it supposedly works on 1.16, and will theoretically take less time to implement. FWIW, I know a lot more about phpBB than MediaWiki. --Blue01:00, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and built a pseudo-cite feature Template:Cite. What do you think of it? I can use that until you have things figured out. It should work, but I wouldn't want to use it forever. --Puma 03:56, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Upgraded the Wiki to latest... Cite is now built-in so you should be able to use it natively going forward! Blue (talk) 21:19, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

MediaWiki Upgraded to 1.22.2

I just upgraded the Wiki Software to 1.22.2. Please let me know if you have any problems (that I can fix), and/or any extensions that need to be added/upgraded. I noticed right away that the main picture at the top of the left-most column is gone... I'll let y'all fix that :) --Blue (talk) 21:19, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

It seems HTML support has somewhat fallen off the chart: Neoboards. The HTML tables for displaying board icons no longer functions like it should visually. --Puma (talk) 22:54, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Puma. Fixed now? --Blue (talk) 23:20, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

It seems it was looking for more literate CSS and HTML terms. Yes, if you did anything, it's working now. --Puma (talk) 23:22, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes. The HTMLTags extension directory missing, along with the files therein... I installed the latest version :) --Blue (talk) 23:24, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

It also seems that the apparently built in Cite function with this update does not operate either, if you could look into that. --Puma (talk) 23:48, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Oops. I hadn't enabled it... I read that it had been bundled in 1.22, so I didn't check. I have added the needed code per mediaWiki instructions, including turning on the nifty pop-up option.. Please let me know if its working for you now. --Blue (talk) 00:38, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

It works perfect from what I can tell, all cites working on the pages I've tested them on. There's one other thing, if there's anything you can do about it. Would it be possible to change '?' (That was the arrow, but upon pasting it turned to '?') to '^'? Some computers can't display Unicode/non-basic symbols, instead displaying a square or '?' (The hexadecimal value for '?' is '00', meaning some systems won't display it). On the other hand, ^ has a normal value of 5E. I'm not sure if you can modify extensions (Never tired), but if you can, it would be helpful. --Puma (talk) 00:52, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

To clariffy, the numerous '?' symbols you see would be the Cite reference's arrow, which appears as a '?' on several computers. My question was if whether it would be possible to swap the arrow for a '^'. --Puma (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Yep. Gotcha. This one made my brain hurt to figure it out, but once I got it, it was remarkably easy. Arrows are now Carats! DONE :) --Blue (talk) 01:29, 5 February 2014 (UTC) P.S. The page needs to be rebuilt (internal cache needs to purge) before you see the ^ instead of the arrow. I manually did it on this page. Should be good for all new edits. --Blue (talk) 01:30, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Good work! And just in time: Neopets App. Now it seems there's a third problem: Captcha for external links is missing, and as a result, two spam-articles have appeared already. Here's what I think you should do:

• Disable Captcha requirement for external links
• Enable Captcha requirement for users-not logged in
• And use this instead: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit with QuestyCaptcha

QuestyCaptcha allows you to create custom CaptCha questions, like "What to Myncis eat?" Here are some good suggestions, obviously you'd know the answer: What's the name of Dr. Sloth's Faerie enemy? - What snack does snarkie like to eat? - Who caused Faerieland to crash to the ground? - Things like that, it would make external linking easier for logged-in users and make editing hard for bots. --Puma (talk) 02:12, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

QuestyCaptcha installed and configured. I have not yet found the external link/not-logged in settings. If you have a link, please provide. --Blue (talk) 02:51, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Test: http://www.google.com