Team Fortress Wiki:Discussion

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The Wiki has issues loading images with special characters.

Hey. So, a while ago I replaced the image for Brütal Bouffant, and noticed that neither the direct link of the image, or the image on the page is being shown. Upon close inspection, the error code "Error creating thumbnail: convert: unable to open image `/var/www/html/w/images/0/03/Brtal_Bouffant.png': No such file or directory...", shows that it's trying to find for the "Brtal_Bouffant.png" file, showing that it's not being able to read the "ü" part of Brütal Bouffant. I don't know if this gets fixed by itself over time, but the Brütal Bouffant page looks pretty messy with the error code. ▪ - 23:56, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting this! I've deployed an update to the servers to fix this (exact commit, for interested parties; our new hosting doesn't have the en_US.utf8 locale). Should be all sorted across the site now! -RJ 02:27, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Inclusion of Steam Workshop's original name for the Cosmetic Item / Weapon / Map

Hi. I want to make a small poll and know what people think about this subject. I'd like to know your thoughts on this. Do you...

•  Support keeping the original Workshop names on "...under the name", on the main summary?
•  Or you'd prefer the exclusion of the original Workshop names on the page, removing the "...under the name" section.

Please leave a small insight and thoughts about your vote decision. Here mine:

•  - I think we should remove the name from the pages. We had previously decided to remove information regarding trivia to old workshop names (as well information about unreleased styles or other content). There's some Workshop names which are just codenames (Crone's Dome being "Loss of witches (Bastinda_2012)"), and some of them having phrases on the name (such as Insulated Inventor's "Insulated innovator: V wow this keeps happening"). Most of the time, the original names serve no real purpose, as trivia regarding the name are no longer being supported, and these are left just occupying unnecessary space on the page.

Hopefully, with this discussion, we can decide in either keeping them or not, and resolve the confusion we are having at the moment. ▪ - 16:26, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

•  - I never saw aby purpose in mentioning their original workshop names, as ultimately Valve decides to keep the name or not of items (save for maps), and the name of the item on workshop is like really not that important - besides that, the viewer can check the original name himself, by checking the workshop page, so it's quite redundant to note that in the article. Goodjob (talk) 16:33, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

•  Equivocating 2 Specific to mentioning the development name in the Lead. I wondered if the practice was grandfathered. I did some checking, the form was established two months after the Workshop opened with the release of the first of the Workshop items.

From the December 22, 2011 edit of BFD: 'The Big Elfin Deal was contributed to the game via the Steam Workshop, with the name "The Elf".'

So, actually, its not like it is a new thing, in spite of my impressions or questionable recollections, or suggestions, otherwise. It really has "always been done that way." But, Gabrielwoj makes some great points, some of the "names" are really unimpressive at best. I don't think the old names are important, but maybe someone thought they were. But, we've chatted about this on and off for a few months, at least since it got cold, and no support for keeping them. M I K A D O 282 oOOOOo oo oo (talk) (Help Wanted!) 04:03, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

 Equivocating 3 A candidate for keeping, which was deleted, was Monster Mash, it is a notorious name IRL, but Valve had copyright reason, so thought, but maybe there real issue was style. IMO, much of the time, I don't care about the pre-release name. But I also don't care about detailed descriptions in the cosmetic leads, or detailed recapitulations of comics int their supposed Synopses. 23:52, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

•  Strong support for keeping the original workshop names in the main summary This change is so tiny it barely affects anything, and I like seeing the original names; sometimes having their own little references or just giving an example what the name could have been, which is enjoyable to me as a reader. If we truly wanted to remove this small addition, all those sentences would be 'This item was contributed to the Steam Workshop' which seems lifeless and is just saying what's already in the infobox, which actually makes readability worse. The arguments above, the names sometimes being codenames or having phrases in them are pure cherrypicking and don't portray accurately what the original names usually are - we could always remove such names on a case-by-case basis. And of course, the argument 'just occupying unnecessary space on the page' is pointless as we are literally talking about just a few words here. { TidB | t | c } 10:39, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

There's pros and cons on keep the original workshop names. The pros being: Sometimes it can be interesting, older names can be better than the new names, and it's also useful for those who make images (as most of the time, the folder name for a cosmetic is based on the original workshop name). Although, there's a few cons, such as: workshop names being changed after being accepted in-game (so it would require removal of the name in a future edit), workshop names with codenames (like Crone's Dome), or workshop names with actual phrases in it. Other issues that comes with Workshop original names is that it makes new users include trivia regarding the old name, which we decided to drop these types of trivia (I'd say the same for the publicity blurb, but that was discussed before, so). I kinda stopped removing the workshop names (I did for like 15 items, then someone asked to me why, and then I halted my edits), but I know some editors are removing when making improvements to the page. It's something that is still debatable, nonetheless. ▪ - 14:18, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

The cache system is way too slow.

Hi. The cache system on the Wiki, ever since it was migrated to MediaWiki 2.0 (I think, I just know that it the main framework was updated), has ever since been very slow. I tend to upload a lot of images, and a lot of times, I have to wait for days for an image to catch up, I almost can't ever check if my work looks good on the page, requiring me to check only when the image is finally fully cached. Here's an example, an image I recently updated.

The problem is that the old image size from the previous revision gets used for the new image, and so it stretches very poorly on the page. Other times, the image seems to be properly sized, but still appears blurry in the page, as shown here on Weight Room Warmer, which in case of that image, it was uploaded in 14:07, 22 January 2019, almost 1 month later and the image is still not fully cached.

And other times, the images doesn't properly update at all, as seen on Assassin's Attire, some paint variant tables (that were uploaded around 16:37, 7 July 2018) show up the previous version instead. I'm not sure if this is a case of the cache or something else, but even when I attempted re-uploading the file, it didn't worked.

I remember I didn't had these issues on the previous MediaWiki. Would there be a way to improve the time for the cache system, or perhaps optimize it somehow? I've worked and been into other Wikis, and this is the only one which I see this problem happening. The Weight Room Warmer pic was just an example, but there's other images around the Wiki having the same or similar problems (some from old uploads, other from recent modifications). Thanks. ▪ - 20:25, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Documentation about Abuse Report and Bug Report on the Wiki?

Hi. I think the Wiki should have a page related to the Abuse Report system ('F7' key). I started to wonder if something was already covered, but apparently, the only mention of it seems to be on List of default keys. I also think we should document Bug Reporting as well. The addition to Bug Reporting could facilitate users who wants to report a game-breaking bug (for the Finder's Fee hat), although, I really don't know if in-game bug report system works for that. As for the Abuse Report system, we got pages for Coaching, the Workshop button on the main menu, Options, especially sprays, as well many other stuff. I think a page about it should be documented. ▪ - 22:00, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, since the wiki has articles for Coaching, the Workshop button on the main menu, and Options, then, for completeness there should be Report Player (Abuse Report) and Report Bug/Bug Report articles.

Technically, while there is a Workshop button on the Main Menu, the Steam Workshop covers the whole Valve interface rather than the MM button. And I don't see any broad "Options" article.

That said, Report Player (Abuse Report) and Report Bug/Bug Report do seem to be long-missing articles, as long as they focus on the Team Fortress 2 interface, especially as a how to.

M I K A D O 282 oOOOOo oo oo (talk) (Help Wanted!) 00:19, 14 March 2019 (UTC) 23:47, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I attempted writing a page for it, it's currently on my sandbox. I named specifically "Abuse Reporter", that's how the game calls it by the in-game tip that is shown on the loading screen. I haven't taken any screenshots related about it, but please let me know what you think. You may edit the page if you see any mistakes or that you think section should be rewritten. The page is currently a "stub", even though I haven't actually added the template. I was thinking about adding the information that the rules applied to the report has to be followed from the Steam Subscriber Agreement, but I couldn't find any info regarding if these reports are really complied by those same rules. - ▪ - 23:19, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

As far as content, I have no idea of anything to do with abuse reporting, so keep going. M I K A D O 282 oOOOOo oo oo (talk) (Help Wanted!) 23:58, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

The new talk page layout

I've noticed that some talk pages, mostly new ones, have this new, weird layout style which is way more different than the normal talk page. Example: Talk:Operation Memes vs Machines. Not only is this talk page laggy and annoying to deal with, but it also doesn't show replies half the time. I wanted to reply to a reply, so first I had to do some weird refresh magic to get the reply to pop up, but then when I finished my reply, the layout asked me to do "the captcha below," but no matter how many times I did it, there was no captcha. Does anyone know how to disable this, or are we just stuck with this? BeingAwesom (talk · contribs) 03:10, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

It should be removed soon. See TFW:Technical requests#StructuredDiscussions. — Tark lm(pt-br) 04:49, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, BeingAwesom, I did respond the Shadows topic that prompted this topic, my original response didn't show then showed until I fix a typo and hasn't been seen since. You can see my response if you search through the history. M I K A D O 282 oOOOOo oo oo (talk) (Help Wanted!) 17:40, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Promotional or Distributed?

With the recent addition of the new templates for availability (great idea btw), I think it is about time that we 'clear up' the usage of "promotional" and "distributed". These terms, at the moment, seem to be used almost interchangeably on a lot of pages.

For example:

These are apparently promotional: Jaunty Globetrotter, Jaunty Explorer, Conspiracy Cap

While these are apparently distributed: TF2Maps Ray of Sunshine, TF2Maps Charitable Heart, Spectral Snowflake, Gift of Giving 2016, Public Accessor, Thought that Counts

Personally, I feel that 'promotional' refers to something that got used for promoting something (duh) and acquire money from players. This includes mostly donation medals. 'Distributed' (for me) refers to something that was distributed to the player for doing something specific (event, etc). For example, Titanium Tank Participant Medal 2017 is a clear distributed item as it got distributed to everyone who completed the tour.

I know one could argue that "the player buying the medal is something specific" and "donation medals also gets distributed" or, on the other hand, "event medals always promote the event they are from", but why have two terms for the same thing? We should really make a line of some kind so it means something.

Exception could exist (as always), but if anyone has any other strong opinions on what should be what - speak up :o

And also: why are the words for 'distributed' so much different between pages for a lot of languages? That should really be streamlined, unless they are some weird languages that change on a case-to-case basis (even for single words, somehow).

Should we include the Item Kind twice on Graded Items?

Hi. I was noticing something in game... Graded items contains both the Item Kind + Grade on their descriptions, but these items also have an additional Item Kind right below it. Take for example this [picture], we can see "Commando Grade Guitar" and "Guitar" right below it. Should we include this on each Graded Cosmetic Page? Additionally, this isn't the case while viewing an item on Steam Community, as seen [here], only mentioning "Commando Grade Guitar" and nothing else. This looks like a bug, rather than a feature, but anyway, it's how it's in the game. - ▪ - 14:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Does this count as mentioning it twice on the SC? GrampaSwood (talk) 14:09, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Maybe. Also, good point. These Graded items doesn't have level in-game, but apparently show up in SC. The "Guitar" on TF2 is on the same string color as the Level in SC, now I know why it's mentioned twice, because the Level [#] doesn't show up in-game. Now we have two things to discuss, one the addition to the Item Kind, and this situation with Item Level and viewing on SC. - ▪ - 16:31, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Addition to "Community Market" under the Infobox Picture.

Hi. I've made a mock-up of what could be possibly added to several cosmetic/tool pages: i.imgur.com/z2edATE.png. Clicking on that blue button will redirect the user to "Steam Community Market :: Showing results for: Team Fortress 2, "Diplomat"".
Additional thoughts: I've made the button blue to be different to the one's seen like here, which allows to buy directly from the Mann Co. Store (via browser). I've made a "simple fix", but it may be possible to technically include the price too, backpack.tf shows the price in the Community Market, so I believe it's somewhere on the TF2 API? Although, with this method, we would need to include buttons for all the different marketable qualities (the Diplomat, for example, has listings for both Unique and Strange versions of the item).
The button can also be worded like: "View available listings for the Diplomat on the Steam Community Market".
I find it lacking that we don't have a direct link to Market Listings for marketable items. Thoughts? - ▪ - 21:56, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Additionally, we should include "Marketable: Yes/No" on the Basic Information as well, no? - ▪ - 21:59, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

 Agree Great idea, that's my favorite feature on Dota Wiki. Alternatively, we could use the item's defindex (from GetSchemaItems) to return the listings instead (like this: appid:440 prop_def_index:416). Also, even though it's somewhat possible to return the item prices, I don't think it's a good idea, Market prices tend to fluctuate from time to time. — Tark lm(pt-br) 23:49, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Nice, I was trying to figure out if there was an "index" or code that could be used. We can possibly obtain this info from a list of indexes or something, and the infobox directly grabs that information on the template (not requiring to, for instance, having to search by the item's name, like "&q=Diplomat"). - ▪ - 00:09, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

{{defindex}} already exists, so it was simple to create a {{Buy now}} button that redirects to the Market (see User:Tark/BuyNow). Changing the background image requires additional permissions, tho. orz — Tark lm(pt-br) 18:00, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Looks nice. I suppose you dropped the "the" on "View listings on Steam Community Market" because it wouldn't fit? Also, we could just create another image if that's the case. I think it's really important to distinguish both Steam Community Market links from direct TF2 Purchases, as I believe there's going to be pages with both. - ▪ - 22:08, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Should be "View listings on the Steam Community Market" now, thanks! Could you make a slightly different version of this image? — Tark lm(pt-br) 22:44, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

How different? I can make the 2 Steam Logos blue. I say blue as it's the predominant color on Steam Community. - ▪ - 23:18, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

How's this? - ▪ - 23:21, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

 Done. — Tark lm(pt-br) 16:32, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Nicely done. Now, we just need two things: Add the string "Marketable: Yes/No", No shows up when there's no "| marketable", and Yes shows up when there's "| marketable" on the item's infobox table. The second thing is, we should add similar type of buttons for each Paint Can, currently there's no option to purchase them (or to view listings on the Community Market). - ▪ - 17:11, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Also, with the inclusion of the string above, we need to find a way to specify which qualities are Marketable and which ones aren't. For instance, we can have the Marketable Listings on the Scattergun page, but that only applies to Strange and Killstreak variations... I don't know exactly how can we specify each... - ▪ - 17:25, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

About plurals.

So, about plurals... how do we specify when an item's name or kind should be pluralized? Robin Walkers are both shoes, and the name is also pluralized, so I can see why it was pluralized here. I've recently made an edit to Blizzard Britches, to make it plural, as it's a pair of pants, and the name is in plural. However, I'm still unsure about the rest of the summary. In Robin Walkers, it's mentioned "They are...", while in Blizzard Britches, I still kept the traditional "It".
So, what can I do here? Should all pluralized names receive the "are/were/they" treatment? I can see pages like Shin Shredders still mentioning the item in singular. Also, should all items that are "a pair of boots", "a pair of pants", "glasses", be pluralized, despite if their names aren't, due to their kind? - ▪ - 16:06, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Cosmetic Item floating "Bugs"... I think we should get rid of those.

Hey. So... in some pages, there are bugs like... "When this item is equipped upon the Spy, it visibly floats in front of his lapel.". I wouldn't consider these as bugs, it's just how the model is positioned on the class. These type of "bugs" can be seen in pages like Operation Gear Grinder Badge (as well all the other Operation Badges) and a few others (I remember seeing on Power Up Canteen, but it looks like it was removed already). I think we shouldn't list these are bugs, rarely this has an unintended effect (mostly when the hat bone goes to prp_hat on Sniper, which causes the hat to re-position a bit, but even so, it's very few Sniper hats that actually has this issue. As an example, the Wiki Cap on Sniper clips on the top of his head, most likely that the bone was transitioned from hat to prp_hat, so he could grab while doing his Melee Taunt, and the only hat I can think of now with an issue like this, is the Toadstool Topper on Sniper).
So, yeah, I vote  No. - ▪ - 23:13, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Definitely not a bug, it was specifically requested for our Cap that Cup medal to be floating in front of the person so it doesn't clip with stuff like the Veteran's Attire on Soldier. It might be unintentional that it's so far, but it's definitely not a bug. I vote removal too
GrampaSwood (talk) 08:35, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

I will keep an eye on and remove any "bugs" related to this. I've seen other medals which were also made to "float" so it reduces clipping with shirt items. - ▪ - 16:37, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Mann Co. Store extra descriptions

Hey. So, I was looking around the Mann Co. Store, and some items have an extra description on them. For example, Something Special for Someone Special has this, while any decalable item has this. Other examples come from paint cans, Backpack Expander, Name Tag, Desc Tag, Decal Tool and so on. Should we include these more-detailed descriptions somewhere? If so, where? - ▪ - 00:08, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Issues with Scream Fortress 2018 Item Icons.

Hello, could someone please investigate why some icons for Scream Fortress 2018 are not updating accordingly? As some of you may know, I've been making new Item Icons, and for the majority of the SF2018 items, none of the icons are being updated with the latest revisions. The following icons has been updated, but their icons never refresh to the current revision:

• 

  Hephaistos' Handcraft

• 

  Athenian Attire

• 

  Olympic Leapers

• 

  Dressperado

• 

  Gaelic Glutton

• 

  Mann-O-War

• 

  Defragmenting Hard Hat 17%

• 

  Deadbeats

These icons are the ones I noticed since I've updated them recently, but other SF2018 items may have been having the same issue (the only one so far with no issues was the Vampire Vanquisher).
As a side note, the Gaelic Glutton icon on the Demoman Cosmetic Items table is also stretched, this is due to a previous revision for the icon which was smaller. Ever after 2 changes (the first one to fix the size, and the second one which is a complete new icon), the icon is still having issues showing the current revision.
Thanks. - ▪ - 14:05, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Seems to me that it's cache issues again. Similarly to this, some of the painted variants on Assassin's Attire aren't updating. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 18:18, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Updated once again. Highway Star seems to not even show the thumbnail, regardless of the revision. - ▪ - 16:14, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Highway Star fixed itself, but Deadbeats is another item with the same problem. - ▪ - 20:41, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, Highway Star is again not working, as well two new icons from the Summer Pack 2019:

• 

  Hephaistos' Handcraft

• 

  Athenian Attire

• 

  Olympic Leapers

All the rest of Summer 2019 items are working just fine, it's just those 2 (+ Highway Star) that doesn't seem to be refreshing. While the Highway Star appears fine in here, it doesn't refresh on this page, and possibly others. - ▪ - 17:47, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

More icons:

• 

  Tournament Medal - Pugiklander

• 

  Tournament Medal - EuroLander

• 

  Tournament Medal - TFArena 6v6 Arena Mode Cup

- ▪ - 23:00, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

I've meant to reply months ago, but I forgot (mlz!).

Unfortunately there's little we can do to "force-fix" these issues: even if we delete them, the cached versions will likely re-appear whene you upload a new version, or sometimes the page will be deleted but not the file.

Rj is working on this, but he's busy with work and stuff. :/ — Tark lm(pt-br) 14:59, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, thanks for letting me know that the fix is on the works. Good thing I don't need to be a moderator anymore just to try deleting the images and reuploading them back. - ▪ - 18:03, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, looks like it's fixed, all the icons I posted on this discussion is showing up fine. I heard that RJ "purged" the images recently, well, thank you for that. - ▪ - 01:35, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Changing the titles and the name of certain items and item sets.

Hey there everyone! I'm new to the translation section of the Wiki. I have a problem with the translation with the titles of some pages and items. The translation guide only says to add a DISPLAYTITLE on the top of the page, but the item doesn't change name. I noticed that if i add a

| name = NameExample

in the item info section, I can change the item's name. But sometimes it says Template:Dictionary/items/nameexample Same thing goes for item sets. Is there someone who can explain me how it works please?

I would be really happy! :D D-ray Ent. (talk) • (contribs) 29th of June 2019 20:18 CEST

Hello,

The wiki works with the Dictionary, here you can find all translations for items and other things. If you want to edit it, click on the "items" section, scroll down to the appropriate subsection and then edit it.

At the bottom of the page I linked is the documentation on how to use the dictionary. If you have any more questions regarding the dictionary and editing is, feel free to post it on the talk page.

Also please sign your comments using ~~~~

GrampaSwood (talk) 18:35, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Regarding recent consistency edits

In recent times, there've been some edits by Denied and Hinaomi to improve the consistency of pages, but I'm don't quite agree with both the methods and the way of how these edits are made. For one part, the main three consistency points seem to be

1. Changing 'This item' to the actual item name
2. Removing the 'under the name' part in the community-created sentence
3. Removing the second Steam Workshop link in the community-created sentence

While I agree with the last point, I still find the first two confusing and don't agree with them - the usage of 'this item' avoids the repetition of the item name which also improves the visual aspects of the article, since the sentences are usually placed vertically adjacent to each other. They also make it harder in languages such as German because it can be awkward to use the {{item name}}-ified versions all the time. For the second point, just refer to the the discussion above.

What I still don't get though is how these consistency edits are appearing out of thin air, especially the first point. The only source of doing these edits is this talk page entry and it provides no reasoning for why to do this kinda thing, just mentioning 'consistency' which could always go both ways. The second point is even weirder, because there's the discussion right above, there's no consensus being reached and apparently it's still getting edited in (or rather, out)?

Because in the end, I think we might actually create more inconsistency because I don't see all the pages getting updated, and especially not the translated versions of them. I'd love to hear your input.

{ TidB | t | c } 20:37, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to keep "This item was awarded" instead of full name. I was adding them from the begging, but at some point Hinaomi started adding full names, and becuse he's here longer than, I assumed he knows better than I. That's it. If it's neccesarry I can revert them back to "This item". About the "was added under 'name'" I think it's not necesarry to add them, because Valve was changing almost every Workshop item added, and now they're adding pretty much unchanged names straight from the Workshop, so adding them is kinda pointless. Denied (Talk) 07:48, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think reverting will be necessary, these kinda edits can be done when other parts of the article have to be edited as well, but I agree. For the 'under the name' thingy, I'd say that when the name is the same, we could either use 'under the same name' (as it's been used before), or just omit it. As I said in the discussion above, of course it doesn't make sense to always include the original workshop name, but generally it could be a good idea. { TidB | t | c } 07:55, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

@TidB : I would have thought Denied's question to Hinaomi was rhetorical rather than supportive of the change away from "This item". I have always felt the abstraction serve the purpose of readability. As for mentioning Workshop names, I've participated in a couple of discussions on this, but I am not going to try to locate them during my lunch walk. In them I think I was probably supportive of not mentioning the Workshop name unless it was actually notable, exceedingly rare cases to be sure, IMO. M I K A D O 282 oOOOOo oo oo (talk) (Help Wanted!) 17:31, 24 July 2019 (UTC) M I K A D O 282 oOOOOo oo oo (talk) (Help Wanted!) 19:55, 24 July 2019 (UTC)•

Sorry for the late reply, and I don't have much time so I gotta say this real quick. I don't mind if it changed to either way, just make them consistence with others. 02:07, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Please help me with Categories.

Hello. Soon, I'll be doing Item icons for (hopefully) all Decorated/War Painted weapons. While I was checking categories for existing Item Icons, I noticed some inconsistency. In some icons, the following categories are set:
== Summary ==
[[Category:Item icons]]
== Licensing ==
{{ScreenshotTF2}}
But in some newer icons, the following are set instead:
== Summary ==
{{ExtractTF2}}
== Licensing ==
[[Category:Item icons]]
[[Category:Cosmetic images]]
So, I have a few questions. One, because those icons will be completely new, they should be "ScreenshotTF2", right? Because they won't be extracted from TF2's game files or anything, and will be, instead, made from scratch using HLMV. Two, should I add "Weapon images" category for the Decorated Weapon icons, too?
If "ScreenshotTF2" is the right license for that, I'll be doing a cleanup on some of the Item icons where it's marked as "ExtractTF2" instead, from all the Item icons where I made a newer consistent version (in Shugo Style). - ▪ - 21:14, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Crate Depression

What do we do with the Crate Depression? I've heard the following options:

1. Do nothing.
2. Mention it as a note on the unusual page or the crate page.
3. Make its own page.

From these suggestions, I would personally go with number 2, because I don't think it's enough to warrant its own page. Maybe make a redirect to said note. If you have any other suggestion feel free to bring it up.
GrampaSwood (talk)

I select the second one. My idea is mentioning that some Unusuals are Untradable (on the Unusual page), and explain the reason why. I don't think we need to mention the title "Crate Depression", but at least explain why the Unusuals are untradable and perhaps include an external link to the TF2 Blog post explaining it. - ▪ - 19:15, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

It was officially dubbed the crate depression, so maybe just a mention like "Dubbed "the crate depression" as a play on the great depression".
GrampaSwood (talk) 19:18, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Still, I don't think we need to mention about the name. The name could be included on the "References" list as the title of the blogpost "Update on The Crate Depression of 2019", and that would be enough. The wording of the Note could be something like this: "Some Unusual items are untradable, as a result for a fix of a market-crashing bug that affected the game in July 25th, which resulted in some Crates having 100% Unusual chance drops upon unboxing them. Due to the sheer amount of Unusuals unboxed in that day, Valve has decided in marking all Unusual items that were unboxed from that day and from those specific crates as untradable, with the exception of the first one unboxed per Steam user.[1]". And then [1] redirects to the References section for the Unusual page, containing a link with the title "Update on The Crate Depression of 2019". - ▪ - 19:35, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

UserTalk "Topic" pages are very broken.

Hi. The new comment system, that were implemented for UserTalk pages (as well Talk pages), is really broken. Sometimes it's impossible to see the replies that people make. I just made a comment on a Topic which I can't view my own post. Another issue is that you can't put URLs on these posts, otherwise it'll ask to complete a CAPTCHA that does not appear on the page, so I had to replace the dots into "(.)", just to bypass the URL detection. - ▪ - 23:20, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

I believe the solution to not seeing new answers is to go to the talk page itself (usually it's just looking at a topic, just click "read" or "discussion") then refresh, this worked for me. But yes, we've all already voted to take this new system away. It seemed better, but it ended up being worse. You can't even use "show preview" either. RJ should be removing this asap, but it's tricky because it might delete stuff.
GrampaSwood (talk) 23:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

"Main article: Item set" under == Item set ==

Is it possible to add "Main article: Item set" under == Item set == like it's done with == Painted variants == that adds "Main article: Paint Can" under it? Denied (Talk) 18:43, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

{{main|Item Set}} I guess? Turns into

Main article: Item set

GrampaSwood (talk) 18:53, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Yeah but you need to add it manually. Denied (Talk) 05:18, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Discuss it on the talk page I guess?
GrampaSwood (talk) 10:34, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Inaccuracies regarding beta content?

I'm a sucker for TF2's beta content. I love it, but there is a ginormous amount of inaccuracies regarding them. Stuff like Demoman's Beta Head, which in reality is just Marphy Black's Blu Demoman Head from a Beta Demoman mod he made in 2009. Can we please also add stuff like the Trigger, the Incendiary Cannon particles, the Badlands Models and more?

About Discords on tournament pages

A Discord server requires an account to visit, personally I think it shouldn't be included on tournament (medal) pages, but rather have other sources like Steam or a reddit post. There might be an exception if it's linked in the "External links" section, and mention that you need an account for it. I don't think it falls under advertising (because the entire page is basically advertising then). Options I can think of are:

1. Remove all Discord links, no exceptions
2. Remove all Discord links, except the ones in the "External links" section of the article

Personally, I go for 2.
GrampaSwood (talk) 10:49, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd vote for option 1, but option 2 sounds good aswell. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 10:53, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

2, yes. We could possibly add something similar to {{citation needed}} but it's "account needed" instead. - ▪ - 13:19, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

So just like, ^{account needed}?
GrampaSwood (talk) 13:27, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Option 1. — Tark lm(pt-br) 15:35, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

1st option. As I stated on Talk:ARG, all external sources should be accessible at all times without the need to register in order to view the content. I'll write a policy in regard to this sometime in the future.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 17:31, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Should we note when Cosmetic Items fall on the ground?

Heya, so... I've been thinking for a while, I don't think we have any information regarding Cosmetic Items falling to the ground when a player is killed, do we? Not all Cosmetic Items fall from the ground, mostly hats are the ones that does, however, there's some exceptions, like the Cold Case. Should we add a line saying that, for example: "The Cold Case falls from the player upon death, and remains on the world for a few seconds", or even a more simple route, just a "Category" on the page for "falling cosmetics", huh? For Cosmetics that does not fall to the ground, we don't need to explain anything, if anything, a category for "non-falling cosmetics" could work. At the moment, we have category for Paintable items, Jiggleboned items, and so on, so I wouldn't see an issue with "falling" cosmetics too. - ▪ - 19:47, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Regarding pages on custom maps, competitions, MVM missions, and such

Discussion moved here from Talk:Custom maps. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 11:25, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Seeing as how the question of custom maps being included has caused nothing but vulgarities and personal attacks, I would like to put forth a discussion about whether or not unofficial custom maps should stay on this Wiki at all. We have no ways to determine whether a map is to be considered worthy of having its own article or not. On the other hand, they also don't have much significance to TF2 itself other than their usage on some community servers. Most of them have their own pages and such whereever they're uploaded anyway, be it GameBanana, TF2Maps, or something like that. Personally, I'm for removing all the custom map pages on the Wiki. Please leave your thoughts below. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 19:07, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm unaware of the vulgarity or personal attacks, but I can see this happening (I saw a while ago someone who was banned for adding offensive content to their UserPage, but I'm unsure on what was that about). In the topic of personal attacks, the Trivia on WelcomeToMyMine (mission) regarding the two Mann Up players could be classified as an attack to them, regardless if you see them as "toxic" or not. In any regard, I don't think the Wiki should specifically mention users for their actions, as it's done on WelcomeToMyMine page.

Because these maps are custom made, it's very easy for someone to add a reference on the map for something, just to be featured on the "Official Wiki".

In conclusion, I vote for removal of custom maps. Since we are in the topic of "user-created content", we should also remove user-created wallpapers from this page. - ▪ - 19:56, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree to removing the unofficial wallpapers as well. The userpage that was deleted for offensive content was throwing shade at our admins/moderators and some other editors (if I recall correctly, please don't take this as a fact). The reason they were so upset was that the page for their custom map was deleted or something like that, for which they held a grudge for over three years. Custom MVM missions should also be purged, along with pages about TF2Maps contests and community events (like Canteen Crasher), as they are of no relevance to TF2 in the Official Wiki. If a map was made official because it won a contest (as is the case with Mountain Lab), it can be mentioned on the page of the map itself. Custom map pages and MVM missions can be moved to the userpages of their creators, if they wish to keep them.

The trivia you mentioned, "GuYs lOOK i CaN CaRrY" and "The carrier's pocket slave" references the user BrutalPizza and Trickstabber. They are known for their toxic behaviour and are notorious for kicking new players frequently. At times they can be seen in the tour Two Cities when in Mann Up. Experienced Mann Up players encourage players that aren't close to them to never play with them, is definitely overboard. There is no room for personal attacks on the Wiki, especially not for personal attacks that link to their Steam profiles. I have removed it from the page. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 06:07, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

It seems that the discussion isn't only about custom maps anymore. Please move it to the main wiki discussion.

I'm not against removing bad "articles", but this approach of deleting everything seems harsh. I've personally seen articles on custom MvM missions used to help coordinate players on some Potato's servers.

One thing we can't deny is that Valve's support isn't here anymore, you can't use "this is community-created content" as an excuse anymore. Whether we like it or not, community content is what's keeping the game "alive". — Tark lm(pt-br) 10:44, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

If we are to keep articles on custom content, how do we decide whether something is worthy of having an article or not? Many custom map pages are nothing more than an infobox, a few images, and a line or two of text. Do you think we should keep those? What about pages like Construction Theme that are of barely any significance? I agree that custom MVM mission pages can be useful, but I don't see any reason to keep custom map pages to be honest. Perhaps we can keep the custom MVM missions if the pages adhere to certain guidelines, to avoid ending up with unfinished low-quality pages, like we have with custom maps. Keeping some articles and deleting others without coming up with a set of requirements for them might come across as picking favourites, in my opinion. Please excuse me if my messages look like an angry rant, I didn't get much sleep and I still haven't had my morning tea. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 11:25, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

There's been a lack of solid guidelines in regard to custom content on the Wiki, and it appears that those guidelines never were written down and that the current criteria is inconsistent. To my knowledge, such guidelines weren't needed at the time as it wasn't of much importance, but due to the recent highlights of the subject something needs to be done about it.

I wouldn't be entirely against removing all custom maps, though it would be rather unfortunate, as some of them (like Tark mentioned) does have some sort of value in terms of coordination/documentation. Perhaps if we were to write a policy on custom maps we could determine whether a map has enough significance to be allowed to stay/removed, though this would send us back to square 1, so it needs to be done right this time.

While the page for user-created wallpapers doesn't contribute much besides being a place where users can share their wallpapers with the rest of the community, I don't see any reason to delete it; it's merely an easy-to-access page that provides the users of the Wiki (or outside the Wiki) with high-res wallpapers, and yes I'm aware most of those wallpapers can be found on TF2's website as well.

Regarding that trivia entry, I'm honestly surprised that no one has caught up on that until now. Naming and shaming is definitely not allowed here on the Wiki, and I sincerely apologize if any witch-hunts occured against anyone mentioned in the entry.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 14:57, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Basically what Wookipan said, except that I don't know of any maps that should be kept. There's also the comp wiki for any comp players out there looking for competitive maps info, and they can probably cover it better than us. I'm all for custom stuff on the wiki, but it does need some guidelines. (Also the criticism directed at the wiki for not deleting Netherlands was completely unjustified as I'm 99% sure it just wasn't noticed)
GrampaSwood (talk) 15:18, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, now knowing a bit more on what happened, I'll give my thoughts regarding custom maps being on the Wiki or not. I vote for keeping only custom maps that has been from a community-contest, a campaign (like potato.tf ones), or has been mentioned on the official blog (such as tr_walkaway), as well maps that are the "non-halloween" version of official maps, such as Gravestone's original map Rumble. Maps that haven't been in any competition, community-content or anything, discard. For example, I don't know why we have this map on the Wiki. However, there's some pros and cons. I think we shouldn't remove all the custom maps because of the vulgarities and the events that happened recently, but we should take an action on the most logical decision, this is an Official Wiki, so having a Custom Maps section is sure questioning for some. - ▪ - 17:11, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Keeping some custom maps wouldn't hurt, I guess. As long as we make sure that we write down a set of requirements for the maps that are to be kept on the Wiki, and stick to them. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 17:41, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

In patrolling, I have seen a few pages about unreleased Custom maps deleted for non-notability (I use the qualifier "unreleased" out of necessity, since the wiki uses the term both broadly and narrowly to mean released Custom maps). Among the comments was the argument that an unreleased Custom map needed to have at least placed in a map competition; a problem here is that the only competitions that can result in a Custom map winning but remaining unreleased are unofficial, and so, arguably out of the scope of the official wiki. That said, I accept other editors (seemingly?) accepting such maps from such competitions.

There are a few non-competitive maps that are more notable and influential than "contest winners" in so much as not only are they played much more often (at least historically) than the "contest winners", they have spawned many variants in the community. I am thinking specifically of Achievement Idle, Trade Plaza, Orange X, and, maybe, Trade Minecraft (popular, but no article, yet). If we have accepted articles discussing Achievement servers, Idle servers, and Trading servers, we could justify having articles about popular maps on those servers.

A personal issue I have with the state the unreleased Custom maps pages is that many if not most of them are Stubs that have remained so for years. IMO, these stub tags pollute the Stubs category, possibly discouraging work on higher priority articles. This is why I created Category:Custom maps unreleased stubs, which I need to finished populating (I was hoping a new editor would pick it up). These are the general rules I have applied or seen applied:

Criteria for accepting articles on unreleased Custom Maps: Should qualify under one or more:

• Exceptionally notable in its own right; e.g., Walkway, Trainsawlaser(?) (There was another one I thought I saw mentioned, that was sort of a prototype for some game mode or other) IMO, there is nothing wrong about having discussions on notability on individual maps like these. Mind you, I could imagine that what is notable to the present set of active editors could be quite different from other player.
• Very popular, presently or historically, both in playtime and derivative maps; e.g., Achievement Idle (Map Statistics as a measure? Is there an archive?)
• Normal versions of released Halloween maps, Invasion maps, etc.
• Contest winners; e.g., Canteen Crasher stuff, but then there is the matter of which contests are worthy ...
• Mention in multiple "game journals of record"; (I have no idea what those journals may be, just spit-balling here)

and be reasonably complete/stable (placing in a competition is a reasonable measure of completion): the map should not be just something that someone is working on. M I K A D O 282 oOOOOo oo oo (talk) (Help Wanted!) 22:03, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

and conform to Maps style. M I K A D O 282 oOOOOo oo oo (talk) (Help Wanted!) 01:46, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Surprised this topic has come up again. It's probably worth noting that we've been stuck on this for a while now. Also for other third party content entirely like 3rd party websites. I gave up and started the discussion that lead to the Team_Fortress_Wiki:Policies#Community_websites policy. If it's becoming a problem again it might be worth considering something similar. I have no input on the matter personally because I'm only experienced with custom maps in the sense of server rotations and numerical/prop related stuff. My suggestion with things like this - and kind of more in line with the wiki mission - is if you go this route, prefer to translate the pages into useful general documentation of the modding support where you can, and note omnipresent community stuff where needed. -- Lagg 19:57, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Regarding mechanics that are only found through community-made stuff.

So... a while ago, I added a mechanic featured on the Huntsman that, when upgraded with Projectile Penetration upgrade, it can penetrate enemy's Projectile Shielded Medics (a trait that only happens with the Huntsman, as other weapons, upgraded or not, does not go through the shield). While this is true, I don't think there's Robot Medics with shields on official maps or missions. So, what can we do about this? Should we detail as an Unused content on the Projectile Shield page? And explain from there what can or cannot penetrate the shield from there?
I think the latter should be the more ideal way to explain on the Wiki. We already have information regarding the unused Vaccinator shields being unused only on official maps, but they still work 100% on community-made missions. - ▪ - 21:29, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

That's actually quite interesting, and I feel like explaining it in the Unused Content section would be the best course of action. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 14:56, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Categories for translated picture files

Here are 2 translated pictures which are used on Mechanics/zh-hans. But I don't know if I should add "zh-hans" to their categories as well.
Please let me know which way is correct or better, and I will do the same for other translated pictures in the future.

• 
• 

10:03, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

The Language Translation Guide says that the language code should be added to categories, but it doesn't mention anything about files. I think it's ok to add /zh-hans to their categories for now. If it turns out that it's not supposed to be done with files, then we can just remove it, no problem. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 10:07, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

“

Thank you! Click to listen — Dereko is thanking Vasya for help, with good cheer.

”

Madness vs. Machine content on the wiki

With the imminent launch of Madness vs. Machines, I suppose it's time to discuss about this project that involves adding Madness vs. Machine content. Currently, several people (also from Potato's Custom MvM Servers), including myself, are making mission infoboxes such as this one this mission (which is of course, made by yours truly), as well as their respective pages (be it missions or maps). This is why for the past few weeks, there's been custom MvM-related activity going on.

As of writing, over half of the mission infoboxes (which is one of the most tedious tasks in making an MvM mission page) are already finished (and hopefully matches the quality of those used by official missions), which is significant compared to previous events hosted by Potato's, where their pages on the wiki are incomplete or missing. I personally intend to complete this project before 2019 ends, despite its large scale. I am also aware the dispute of whether or not custom MvM content should even be included in the wiki in the first place, but since too much progress has already been made, the project is better off being continued.

Since this project wouldn't go unnoticed, I do want to ask any guidelines or advice regarding the implemention of custom MvM content, as simply putting all of it here without a word will certainly cause misunderstanding, one way or another. One possible issue that I do want to focus on is whether or not custom MvM content should be separated from official MvM content in regards to categories. --Bot Rot (talk) 15:52, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

This is related to the custom content on the wiki stuff, we can't speak for that yet because staff are still discussing it, but it's best to keep it on your user space for now so you can reference it anywhere you want. And if it turns out it won't be allowed, you can simply keep it there. If it will be allowed, we move it there.
GrampaSwood (talk) 16:35, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Two weeks have passed, and while we've ignored what you said, there has been no interference on the ongoing addition of Madness vs. Machines content (which are actually done by content creators for Madness vs Machines including myself). If possible, I would like to hear the final decision regarding custom content on the wiki, along with advice on the do's and don'ts. --Bot Rot (talk) 09:48, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I can't speak for the wiki, because I am not staff. But the discussion about custom content was going on before Madness vs Machines happened, so I'd suggest you just wait for that to finish instead. Or ignore what I say again if that's what you like to do
GrampaSwood (talk) 09:53, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@Bot Rot; Honestly, I haven't assessed the Madness vs Machines, barely having time for the little participation in the SFXI. I have no idea of the quality or notability of the Madness vs. Machines content, assuming others with more activity have been monitoring this. I haven't seen admins active on this (may not have seen it), so it may mean they tolerate it. So, maybe I don't get a say. But, this should be a policy for any unreleased Community content, not just MvM.

"which are actually done by content creators for Madness vs Machines" That is a mixed blessing. on one hand, who knows the content better than the developer? But on the other, the ideal situation is that a second or third party doing the editing would reduce the self-promotion concerns.

"One possible issue that I do want to focus on is whether or not custom MvM content should be separated from official MvM content in regards to categories." Definitely, custom MvM content must be separated. Consider how basic class, mechanics, and weapons articles would appear if they try to cover not only all the contexts of of the official game but all of the Community mods. Consider if Environmental Death included all of the Community maps. I have felt that Category:Stubs once illustrated the problem, before I started tagging more map stubs, the category was clogged with unreleased maps so I made Category:Custom maps unreleased stubs. I get that this can be problematic, sub-categorizing Categories as released and unreleased could be unwieldy. I have created Category:Custom maps unreleased to split off unreleased maps from released "Community maps" (Valve's term), but no one has commented or taken up the effort. See Category talk:Custom maps#Split. M I K A D O 282 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃 🎃🎃 🎃🎃 (talk) (Help Wanted!) 12:18, 28 October 2019 (UTC) 02:13, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Inconsistency among Halloween cosmetic/item set pages

• On the page of Squid's Lid, there is an addtional line in "Item set" section leading to Item sets, while on Vampiric Vesture there isn't.

• Different descriptions for the image in "Gallery" section:

• 

  Steam Workshop banner for the Dr. Acula set.
  (from Dr. Acula)

• 

  The image that accompanied the item set on the steam workshop.
  (from Cursed Captain)

• 

  Steam Workshop thumbnail for the Sun King set
  (from Sun King)

Dereko thinks it's neccessary to unify them , what's your opinions?

08:27, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Personally I think it should be only "Steam Workshop thumbnail for the [set name]", because that's what the regular pages follow too.

The first point is because it got recently updated in the Item set template itself, so just remove any instance of that.
GrampaSwood (talk) 08:56, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Broadening the definition of Event

... or something like that; maybe "Holiday".

Folks on IRC seemed reluctant to start an article to cover the on-going Halloween celebration. Generally, IIRC, the opposition was that we can't start an Update article until the Update is released. I was never proposing writing anything about the expected Update. (Why would I suggest that? There is nothing to write about.) Others suggested that there was no event yet because there was no Update yet (cf. Scream Fortress IX?).

As far as an example of us starting an article to report activities before any actual Update, I offer the example of the Jungle Inferno Update; that article was started with the first Blog Post on the 16th, the Update didn’t occur until the 20th. All of the Halloween update articles cover both the Update Patch and the Event. I am not saying to report on anything that has not happened yet, only report on what is actually happening. I am not saying to have some half-ass incomplete article, I am saying to have something that completely covers what is known, rather than ignoring it because it is different than what we expect. We seem stuck on calling something an Event only if it starts with a Patch (admittedly very clean and convenient definition), in spite of knowing features of Events can start and stop without Patches.

What we know:  ·  There was an in-game announcement.  ·  Halloween-restricted cosmetics were activated immediately (We used to call that a Holiday!) (That used to be all we had for Halloween!)  ·  Soul Gargoyle kill counting started.  ·  Past Halloween maps were added to the Casual menu.  ·  There was an assurance made that there will be an Update with contracts and new community content.

What we don't know:  ·  When the Update will happen  ·  What valve will call the Update  ·  Whether the content will be maps or cosmetics or anything else.

We also know people have come to the wiki looking for some idea what is going on (why haven't I gotten a Soul Gargoyle yet?) and only see us ignoring the Event.

This pattern of Holiday is likely to be repeated, and we should consider how to handle it.

I say, pick a title, knowing full-well that Valve can pick its own later. I suggest Scream Fortress 2019 simply because that is close to the pattern of recent event. Maybe you prefer the title of the announcement? You know what, if that title doesn't work out after the actual Patch, we just change it, this is a wiki, wikis work like that.

All the content it needs is just the facts, especially details we have seen that were not covered in the announcement. Nothing more than "On October 2, Valve announced in-game that "Halloween has begun!" On that day, Halloween-restricted cosmetics were activated game-wide and Soul Gargoyles started counting souls on all maps. Past Halloween maps were also added to the Casual Mode menu. Halloween Contracts have not been activated yet and Soul Gargoyles have not yet dropped to new players. No date has been indicated for the Contracts or content Update."

M I K A D O 282 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃 🎃🎃 🎃🎃 (talk) (Help Wanted!) 02:11, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Major updates and content packs

Hi, I'd like to bring a new topic - as the title says, it's about major updates and content packs

TF2 is in a cycle where the only updates it gets is holiday-based updates, and their features are as it follows - New cosmetics, few bugfixes, and in case of halloween some non-permanent maps and the same set of contracts with minor changes to it.
The issue here is that any holiday update - be it Smissmas or Halloween (or even last summer "update") is considered a major, when it is clearly not, even if Valve may say otherwise - I've also wanted to add that I'm mainly speaking of recent updates (those being from Meet your Match update in 2016 up to now) but not all the other previous holiday updates and such necessarily, as say Smissmas 2010 could be considered a major update, and this is where I get into another thing I want to bring up - just what should we consider a major update and a content pack?

First, let's start off by defining major update - In my view it is an update that fullfills the following criteria:
a) Impacts or changes gameplay/an aspect of it
b) Adds new permanent content that is not necessarily cosmetic (ie it can be maps)
c) Adds new features (given that major updates almost exclusively add new features or quality of life improvements, for example minimalized viewmodels) or change already existing features

What constitutes a content pack in my view (and which could be a good starting point)
a) New cosmetic items or addition of other items that can be considered cosmetic or part of customization (skins, hats, taunts)
b) (Exclusive to holiday content packs) Non-permanent content (ie Halloween maps that are only available for duration of the event or contract set that is locked for a time peroid; although the latter is also sort of an exception if we'd be speaking of old contracts that were time-limited before JI reworked the way they worked, but it is fair to presume that any new major update with new contract set would make them permanent at a later date, akin to JI contract pass.)

There are of course some exceptions to this: Blue Moon Pack could be considered major since it did impact gameplay via its balance changes, it did introduce several new features/quality of life improvements and reworked an entire competitive mode, at least certain aspects of it. However it did not add permanent content, other than cosmetics. Other exception would be old Smissmas updates, for example Smissmas 2010, as it did add new gamemode + map (so new permanent content), weapons and some balance changes (which impacts gameplay), added new features/quality of life improvements (itemtest and associated things with it, an ability to expand backpack).

And to finish - I would and we should not define an update off what Valve says, as in actual reality what Valve considers major is not really reflected in what the update in the question features.
tl;dr: We need to start marking updates as content or major update by their merit/features and not by what Valve says; We should change/reevaluate recent updates (starting with Halloween 2016 up to now) to whether they are major or just content packs, as well as clearly define as to what we consider content pack and a major update. Goodjob (talk) 14:14, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I would also want to add how [Patches#MU]] and Patches#CP are categorized differently than Template:Major_Updates_Nav (both Nav and patches page should show same things). If we want to categorise updates like Valve does we can use [1] and then put every other update in Content Packs. Also about newest "Major updates" : Smissmass 2018 isnt considered major by Valve and it added same ammount of content as normal content pack (1 case, that's it). Scream Fortess XI is even worse, it wasn't even mentioned on TF2 Blog (only in updates tab). Every "major update" since Jungle Inferno added ONLY community made content (excluding 2 Valve made taunts) such as temporary-Halloween maps, cosmetics, unusual effects and warpaints.
FiatSeicento 14:33, 12 October 2019 (UTC)Fiat Seicento

I think y'all have seen me circling around the same topic on a different tack. Distinguishing Holiday, Halloween event/Scream Fortress, <o>Halloween mode</o>, and Major Updates. Valve, on occasion at least, calls Halloween an Event.

To the definition I would add "on or more of the following features" and add the following points:

d) Storyline media

e) Promotional ARG

f) Promotional lead up, whether Update Pages, blog posts, or in-game announcements (@FiatSeicento< IMO, the SFXI in-game announcement and lead-in Halloween "mode" activation count at least as much as blog posts. I think active players are more likely to see the in-game announcements.)

We have overloaded "Major Update" with "Event" because past Events came with significant Updates. Even in 2017, Halloween was a major Event in that it was widely anticipated and spiked severe activity. But as an Update, it looked like nothing, unless you see SFIX as an extension of the MAJOR Jungle Inferno -- if you look at it that way, SFIX is, by association, mush less trivia.

But if you don't see it that way, and say that there should be no Update page for SFIX, then you would not have the default place to describe the Major Halloween Event of SFIX.

I have been slowly working on the Halloween Event/Update pages to clearly express that they cover both the Event and Patch aspects of how Valve and the Community play on Halloween.

gtg, my College-age daughter wants to watch a movie with Daddy!!!

M I K A D O 282 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃 🎃🎃 🎃🎃 (talk) (Help Wanted!) 18:10, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I think we need to make Event or Events page to straighten things up. My definitions:

• Holidays (imo) are certain types of Events that happen annualy in certain time of a year such as: Halloween (not to confuse with Scream Fortress which is update that happens usually at the beginning of Halloween, proven this year its not same thing), Smissmass and Birthday. I didnt counted Saxxies, because they happen annualy (excluding 2017) but not in certain time of year.
• Events are uhhh. Certain time when somethings work, but wont if event ended? I dunno. But heres list of events: Holidays ofc, Saxxies, campaign related events (Jungle inferno campaign (contracts still work, but badges were event-exclusive), Invasion (Invasion Community Update Coin worked for some time), Duck Journal event, Gun Mettle and Though Break campaigns and exc.)
• Halloween mode is uh mode of server? Like Birthday mode its enabled by deafult at certain time and can be forced by commands. Also that Halloween enabling item.
• Major updates and Content Packs. Content Pack is ofc anything other than normal update that adds new thing(s). Major update is (technically) very big content pack that usually has something released along with it. But wheres the border? First 3 major updates are size of content packs. Smissmass 2018 added only 1 crate but despite this on page and Nav it shows up as major update. Blue moon pack added 1 crate, tweaked weapons and reworked competetive but is still listed as content pack. We need clear definition telling us when update is content pack or rather major update.
  FiatSeicento 21:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)Fiat Seicento

Holiday may be in part a wiki construct; but, the Valve term is Holiday Restriction, as appears in the item descriptions. Valve has three Holiday Restrictions, "Winter Holiday", "TF Birthday", and "Halloween / Full Moon" (Valentine's Day doesn't count?). So, Valve identifies 3 + 13 annual Holidays, give or take. On this basis (specifically) I see no need to change Holiday.

Event: Valve additionally applies the term ""Scream Fortress event" to the collective Halloween activations, which over time have become much more than just activation of Holiday Restriction. But, practically, Valve uses "event" for any special time-limited variation in the game including community activities.

Campaigns are (were?) events with Contracts with premium buy-ins?

Halloween mode as a term is mainly a wiki construct. Essentially, the present content of the page is covered between Holiday#Halloween and Halloween event. IMO, the only reason to keep Halloween mode as a distinct page is to change it to an article devoted to tf_forced_holiday and expand it to cover all of the holiday settings.

Content Packs: I really don't know the history of the Content Packs section of Patches; I wonder if at one time these were all under Major Updates until Valve started calling certain content Patched "Packs" and "Content Packs".

Major Updates: It only thing that seems to be a distinction from Content Pack is that a "Major Update" was also (usually) an "Event", that is, there was something different and time-limited going on in the game OR there was some ARG, Storyline, or Update lead up (pages, announcements). It looks like the wiki calls it an "Update" if either Valve Calls it an Update or it is a Holiday content patch. "Event" activation aside, SFXI is a bigger, more major content update than either the Haunted Hallowe'en Special or the Pyro Update (if those two are "Major", then so is SFXI). (but Summer Event 2013 was an "Event"?)

Maybe a partial solution is to Move the Holiday Patches (because they sometimes minor but are always Events) into into Patches#Halloween, Patches#Winter Holiday, and maybe Patches#TF Birthday -- then no one will ever care again about whether they are "Major" or not.

M I K A D O 282 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃 🎃🎃 🎃🎃 (talk) (Help Wanted!) 17:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I think that both "Major Updates" and "Content Packs" should be merged into one group just called "Updates". They may be major or not, they may be content packs or not, but in some regard, they are Updates, more than your regular "Patch". Maybe the name "Updates" could be something else, but I think we should consider merging them into something. - ▪ - 18:18, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I think we should remove the "TF2 server" link on Special:RecentChanges

Because the server is long dead. i cri - ▪ - 00:58, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Dereko never knows there is a server. 03:31, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Change wiki user name

Is it possible to change your wiki user name? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by [redacted]

Hi, what would be the reason? Since your account has no other edits, I'd suggest you to create a new account instead. — Tark lm(pt-br) 00:15, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I would like my current username to vanish, therefore i am looking to change it. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by [redacted]

Right. In this case, do you want a specific name or I can just assign you some random one? — Tark lm(pt-br) 01:09, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Just a random one is fine.

 Done. — Tark lm(pt-br) 02:27, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Guidelines

1. Guidelines for stuff like the Glossary of player terms. Something simple like decently known video(s) about it (E.g. Shpees), or easily findable examples of it (First page of google/TF2 subreddit) would be enough.

2. Disambiguations. This one is a bit more complicated, pages like Frontier Justice have three hat notes, but something like Dapper Topper has only 2 entries which can be condensed into hat notes. Then you have a page like Bat that links to a disambiguation in a hat note. It would be nice if there was some kind of guideline on these 2 topics.
GrampaSwood (talk) 10:20, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Quality names not appearing.

Pages like Vintage and Community is missing the "Vintage" and "Community" prefix on the loadout examples. As such, the Wiki Cap page doesn't have the "Community" anymore on its name, which should have... - ▪ - 21:33, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Should be fixed. Thanks e Feliz Natal! — Tark lm(pt-br) 22:16, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Merry Christmas/Xmas/Smissmass to you too, thanks. - ▪ - 22:23, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

HUD Icons

I believe there should be an article dedicated to HUD Icons of the classes. As it is currently, there is no source for all icons, and it's a grab bag on what icons you can find online or not.

Look at this image of the Red Soldier HUD Icon. Let's say I am looking for the Blu Soldier HUD Icon. There is no source for that and I will never find it. I want to add more to this but I feel as though I've made my point. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Theru66erduck (talk) • (contribs) 05:38 CET 12/01/2020

Hi there,

First of all, please sign your comments using ~~~~.

Second of all, you can extract them all from the game and put them on the respective class pages or HUD if you so desire. There is no need for a new article, as this article would not have sufficient information.
GrampaSwood (talk) 08:26, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the error, I'll try to keep that in this next edit.

I actually fully agree with putting the icons in the already existing HUD article. However, I personally do not know how to do this, which is why I suggested it rather than do it myself. If I learn how to do it I might in the :future but as of right now I do not. Sorry.

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Theru66erduck (talk) • (contribs) 00:40 CET 13/1/2020

I'll get it on it soon, thanks for bringing it up. You don't need to include the nowiki tags, those were just to not make it my own signature.
GrampaSwood (talk) 08:41, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Class templates on item pages

Taken from IRC. How should we keep class navigational templates at the end of cosmetic items pages?

Current state: on the articles for items added prior to ~2015 templates are opened by default, except multiclass items, where they are collapsed. On the articles writen after 2015 Nav templates are closed even on single-class items.

IMO, this template should be keeped as it is now: opened on single-class, collapsed on multiclass pages. That's not too big 'wall of text', painted variants template is even bigger. Irvitzer (talk) 19:47, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd rather keep them collapsed.

They occupy a good portionof smaller screens and there's no benefit in showing links for unrelated cosmetic items by default. Update navs, for example, are useful because the items are usually related (same update/set/crate/event). — Tark lm(pt-br) 17:12, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I would prefer keeping them collapsed as well. They would otherwise just take up unnecessary space on the screen. VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 17:15, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

IMO Keeping them opened on relevant nav templates or those connected to the item would serve a purpose - an user once they get to end of the article will be able to immediately see further articles, that may be of interest to him since they were related to the item he just read on about. Goodjob (talk)

Alright, then I'll revert this on pages that I've edited already. Btw, if class template should be collapsed on every cosmetisc page, maybe it can be setted up for bots? Irvitzer (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and another question: what about Nav templates on tool/action item articles (example: Soviet Strongarm) and weapon pages? Irvitzer (talk) 21:43, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

See also

Is there any policies, rules or guidelines about 'See also' section of the item articles? Like, what should and what shouldn't be listed there. I've recently had a discussion on this topic and just want to clarify it.

IMO, items shoud be included in 'See also' only in few cases:

• They were made by the same author(s) and contributed to Workshop as an item set (example: Heer's Helmet, Gaiter Guards and Heat of Winter). This should also include the items that were made together as set, but were added to the game not at the same time, sometimes with years in between (ex.: Archers Groundings were added with Strongbox Pack, 2014, but Archer's Sterling and Guilden Guardian got their way only with Rainy Day Pack, 2017; all three items were contributed together as parts of the Stronghold Show-off item set).
• They were parts of promotional for same game or event (ex.: Heavy Artillery Officer's Cap, Combat Medic's Crusher Cap and Heroic Companion Badge) and weren't added as big patch, so there's no special navigational template just for them.
• They are related as one of them is derives from another (ex.: Lieutenant Bites and Lieutenant Bites the Dust). However, it should apply only to a directly-related items, and if there's a few items based off of one, they should not be crosslinked (ex.: Archimedes should have links to both Medimedes and Mecha-Medes, but later two should not be crossinked).
• Links for disambiguaton pages like Bird head or Pocket Buddy should be added too, unless they're already covered with categories.

And that's it. I don't think that we need to put every similar-themed items on this section just because of similarities, as the criteria could be blurry and dubious, and thus will turn the page to the endlessly growing list. Irvitzer (talk) 15:10, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

There is no internal policy/guideline on this.

As with many other wikis, we inherit the style guide from Wikipedia. It is purely a matter of editorial judgment, as well as common sense.

The fact of the matter is, that any article with enough relevance could be eligible as 'See also' material. This of course doesn't imply that one should link a bunch of WWII items on a WWII-related item page, but rather as the editor decide whether or not it would benefit the viewer of knowing more about the specific item(s). For instance, Pocket Buddy is linked on all 'pocket buddy' related pages as a form of quick access to the rest of the collection, and of course, due to its significant relation.

The general rule of thumb in regard to 'See also' is to ask yourself this: "Would this make sense to link? Would this benefit the viewer and further their knowledge on the linked content, or just be a waste of their time?"

When in doubt, try to refer to the Wikipedia page I linked, or start a discussion and ask others about their opinions.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 18:48, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

A small space after 'See also'

Is it possible to auto-add a small space under 'See also' section, like it looks here? A related topic can be found here. Denied (Talk) 15:17, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

You could just add a double line break between content if you'd like some more spacing, it would serve the same way as the <br> tag.

I've noticed a few inconsistencies in relation to this. Some new and older articles would have spacing while some would not. Personally I wouldn't mind a little whitespace between content, especially at the bottom.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 18:48, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

So is it possible to auto-add it like it works with 'Painted variants', 'Gallery' etc.? Because it only happens to 'See also' section when it's right above some nav template. With double line break or <br> the space between 'See also' and template is way bigger than a normal space already auto-created in other sections. Denied (Talk) 19:13, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

It is temporarily fixed for now, however we are now facing a new issue. See User talk:Irvitzer#Spaces for a more in-depth explanation.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 23:43, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Imperial vs metric

I've noticed that a bunch of pages, it only mentions imperial. I think the standard should be metric, then imperial. On the English speed tables metric is excluded altogether, and I don't see a reason why. I've asked Tark to look at this but he didn't understand the table. Might be a minor topic, but this is what I think.
GrampaSwood (talk) 09:12, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd support the metric system over imperial anytime :> VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 16:05, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Setting a standarized response to events of enormous importance?

Hi! Context - So, it's been a day since the now historical and infamous leak of source code for TF2 (the leaked code is from around late 2016 or early 2017), and as a consequence of it there has been a massive amount of rumors and misinformation regarding whether the live build of TF2 had its security compromised, specifically the remote code execution (RCE) exploit being possible (as we thought at the time). As it turns out, the RCE was false information (that we had learned about several hours later and didnt know at the time of adding/discussing banner) that was claimed by many people and we were alarmed by it, in response putting up a banner informing users of such possibility. In my overlook - it was a good decision, albeit it might be considered to be a rushed move.
My questions here are two - 1 - How do we response in the future? Do we, for example, accept speculation that entails potential security exploits/risks as facts for sake of "Better safe than sorry", until we get an official word OR someone with an engine knowledge to do an "expertise" for us or do we simply stay quiet on the situation? We could alternatively word any banners in safe way so that we show we lack confirmation for any information, but we're putting a warning just in case?
2 - if it isnt a security-risk exploit, but an exploit or any other event of high importance (remember Crate depression of 2019?) do we also put up an informative banner? excuse poor formatting
EDIT: also forgot to mention that another factor is of course how severe the situation is and how much time should be taken to make a decision - in this instance of potential RCE, the decision had to be taken immediately given how dangerous it is/was. - Goodjob (talk)

Discord vs IRC

So to settle this discussion, because it keeps popping up, we might as well make a discussion on it so we can point to other users.

I see no reason to step over, the only real thing that it has is a better UI that's less scary for new users. The support team for Discord is garbage, if you have a problem (E.g. someone posting illegal content or people starting a witch hunt) they just tell you to ignore the problem. I've reported both of the examples I gave, and got the response to block the user and/or leave the server. The situation we had with a user constantly coming back to harass us is one that wouldn't have been resolved as quickly as it had been on IRC. The only feature I can think of that would be more useful is an embed feature, which can also happen in a client. I find that Discord is less stable with servers, as there are the occasional outages that I have never experienced in IRC (Only time I get disconnected from IRC is when my own internet fucks up). Furthermore I think that Discord requiring a phone number to sign up now (If you don't have an account yet, you HAVE to include a phone number otherwise you can't get access) will limit access unnecessarily.

TL;DR: Discord doesnt have any features I see needed, and it's just more of a hassle.
GrampaSwood (talk) 17:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I think we should move to Steam when Valve fixes the history auto-deletion bug (if that's really a bug, I dunno), it's kinda-like Discord but you don't need to register it, and most (if not all) users on the Wiki have Steam. What you said about Discord needing a phone number to register may not be true, I just entered on their website, clicked on Register and it haven't asked for a phone number (unless it's after I input an e-mail and password), unless that's a planned future "feature". Personally I don't like Discord, I only use it to talk with close friends, so it's most likely that I wouldn't enter the Wiki Server either, but that's just me. - ▪ - 20:08, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

After you create an account you go into the software and it tells you to put in a phone number with no way of removing it.
GrampaSwood (talk) 20:10, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I guess it's even worse like this since it doesn't ask prior to your registration (like how it "should" be, but honestly it shouldn't need to write a phone number to begin with). - ▪ - 20:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Also, I didn't mentioned, the only downside with Steam (other than the chat history deleting itself) is that Steam servers are very unstable. I've lost count how many times I had conversations interrupted with someone (on Direct Messages, not even on a Group) because of Steam servers. - ▪ - 20:25, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Some of us can't access Steam or Discord at work. — Tark lm(pt-br) 20:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. - ▪ - 20:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Very Strong Oppose To Discord -- a platform constantly issuing false bans at random and worsening their software with every update is completely unreliable, not to mention the extra points Grampa put up. I can expect there's a reason many wikis still use IRC.
I am neutral on Steam, it has a couple differences from Discord but is ultimately really similar in terms of features (and we can also guarantee a Steam account when the wiki is for a Steam game). I already own a Steam Chat containing several other people on the Wiki, so it would be easy to simply add more people as segue. However, Garbielwoj I should tell you that the message deletion is not a bug, as Steam is intended for regular conversations and not archives, you should not be holding out for a "fix". However, this would not be much of a downgrade as IRC does not archive either so we could continue logging to the website.
Ultimately, I don't think there's any huge glaring problems with IRC. Sure, you can't post images and such, but it's easily workaround, we've been using it for years, and there's no glaring problems/micropurchases/proprietary other problems. In short: either Steam or IRC is fine with me at least. Naleksuh (talk) 21:17, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

"IRC does not archive either" - IRC does log chat. It has since the start. However, I initially thought it archived everything. Upon checking, it seems you can only go about 3 years back in the archives at any time. The site won't load anything past a certain point in 2017, so for example you can still view May 1st, 2017's logs. Unless this is just a technical issue with the site or something? I swear you used to be able to go back way more before. 404UNF ^(talk) 00:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

As Naleksuh said, logging is done by us, it's not an IRC feature. It should't be a problem if we ever decide to move to a better service.

You can't see pre-2017 messages because the database got corrupted. — Tark lm(pt-br) 04:42, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Naleksuh and Swood here, very strongly opposing Discord. It's a closed, proprietary platform that is extremely unreliable with its constant outages, the likes of which I have never experienced on IRC myself (could depend on the client's internet connection?). Somehow they manage to make it worse every update and it's already starting to look and feel Facebook-ish. At any point in time, they can decide to do literally anything to your accounts/servers (remember how it didn't use to require a phone number?), and you'd have no choice but to comply and bend over. What if they locked your account and started requiring photos of your ID? Not to mention their constant controversies - remember that youtuber guy getting banned for personal drama with a mod? Remember how they said that they don't consider pedophilia a violation of their ToS? With just that alone I personally consider Discord a disgusting service to stay away from. A modern IRC client beats Discord in every aspect - it's free, open source, anonymous when necessary, decentralized, you can self-host servers, run your own custom clients, and you don't risk getting booted off the entire network because a mod disagrees with you or something.
/endrant, please excuse any strong language I used here. I promise I'm not Richard Stallman's alt account :> VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 05:17, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Pedophilia has been against their ToS since the start, but it was specifically furry cp (called "cub") that they would allow (Their staff is known for being almost all furries, the guy who responded saying that cub was fine had a furry pfp as well). That, in my opinion, is worse. Also to add to Discord's bugs: Sometimes sets already read messages to unread which is very annoying/confusing (Did Discord bug out again or did someone delete their message?), muting certain categories and collapsing them will randomly make them uncollapse and add a read message notifier. If we were to switch to Discord, I'd expect a lot more users because people join all kinds of Discord for stuff they might be interested in, this might lead to the server slowing down (If the Subnautica Discord announces anything in their announcement channel you can't see it because the channel won't load due to an overload of users trying to go there).
GrampaSwood (talk) 09:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Changes to where SCM links should be

Some cosmetic items can not be marketable in their unique form. (ie the Team Captain) Most of these do not have SCM links in their infoboxes. However, some items which can not be marketable in their unique (non killstreak) form (ie the Conscientious Objector) do have SCM links. Should all items that have a marketable quality have this, or only items that can be marketable in their base form? InfernalShroom (Talk) 03:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

We've added the market buy button just a while ago, so it's normal that some pages weren't updated yet (as we don't have many editors actively checking them). — Tark lm(pt-br) 04:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Source code on the wiki

With the recent source leak, how do we handle source code on the wiki? I've generally accepted it as being allowed as long as there is no link to download it and it's just a picture, but I don't know if there are any legal troubles with this. If we do allow it, how can we verify that it is real TF2 source code and not just something that looks like it quickly written?
GrampaSwood (talk) 08:46, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

The problems start and end when you redistribute code with a proprietary license. There's no trickery or technicality around it. I don't want Valve's lawyers putting their spiel on our talk page cause both them and us knows that would be the silliest thing. So avoid putting any of the code on the wiki, even if alleged, even if screenshot of monitor displaying screenshot. Thank you for bringing up question though. Probably needed addressing. -- Lagg 18:42, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Reverting image deletions

I don't know if this is a bug or a limitation of MediaWiki, but I attempted to restore some deleted files (images), and it seems that these are not coming back (I checked the pages for it, and the images are not showing up), it only restored their page, but not the file... Looks like they were deleted forever:
Looks like the only way we could get those images back are hoping for Google cache or WayBackMachine. - ▪ - 19:21, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I think it's because RJ recently did a purge of images. Pretty sure it deleted any images that could be rolled back I guess.
GrampaSwood (talk) 19:36, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Well I managed to get the pictures back by visiting https://dev.wiki.tf/wiki/Killstreak_Kit, I didn't even knew dev.wiki.tf was a thing, I found out searching on Google for Killstreak Kit images, then I went to someone's UserPage on dev.wiki.tf and searched Killstreak Kit from there. - ▪ - 20:00, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Featured pages in other languages

How featured pages work in languages other than english? Only english pages gets featured, but theres featured article section on every main page? Are we suppose to update local main pages to match same features article as english one? And even then, the featured page is sometimes outdated in different language. Do translated fetaured pages are also featured? I propose complete removal of featured page section on main pages other than english, and replacing it with something else. FiatSeicento 09:36, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Dereko is not sure about "Do translated fetaured pages are also featured", however, it's possible to update them in Template:FeaturedArticle (for example, Template:FeaturedArticle/zh-hans ), and there is no need to remove them. Like you said, featured page is sometimes outdated in different language, you can keep an eye (by using watchlist) on it to keep updating, if you'd ilke to.

09:57, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Change to trivia guidelines

There's been multiple instances in the past where I've undone trivia which broke the "no speculation" guideline. Personally I think this guideline is a good guideline since it prevents false info, however I believe it needs some changes. I've undone trivia which I personally did see the connection with (See the Mercenary Park fiasco. TL;DR: helicopter looks like a real-life one, but because no source I removed it). A change to include very obvious things or pointing out similarities with what something may be based off of (E.g. like the helicopter examples. Maybe include a {{cite}} or similar notice) or just allowing them to be moved to a "notes" section would suffice. I personally wouldn't mind either or maybe both. I do think something should be done regarding this. GrampaSwood (talk) 19:28, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Note that loosening criteria for what qualifies as good trivia is a floodgate as it is. After a while it'll just end up being cloud watchers putting their favorite pet notion into the game. -- Lagg 19:40, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Loosening criteria for what qualifies as good trivia can't open a floodgate if you know what to let through. For example, before the eighteen RED and BLU UberCharged avatars were released by Valve (nine for each team respectively), two users ::on the FacePunch forum, Occlusion and Fearlezz, created a set of avatars very similar to what Valve would later release. Some things to keep in mind are:

• For every Valve title that was given a set of avatars, Team Fortress 2 was the first to ever be given three avatar sets. Every other Valve title has only ever received one set of avatars (L4D being the exception with special infected avatars).
• Before Valve even ever rolled out these avatars, Robin Walker was seen using one of the avatars created by Occlusion and Fearlezz.

Do you think this was an intentional addition to the avatar pool to show Robin Walker's appreciation for the avatars created by Occlusion and Fearlezz? Or do you think this was all purely coincidental, and thusly, should be thrown out under ::the tense that since Valve never made an official statement on the matter, it's all speculation and theory crafting?

Synth (talk) 20:07, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

(OK, I lied overprommised)

Rather than presently loosening the speculation criteria, I have been wondering if the speculation criteria has been tightened over the last 3-5 years, especially in cases where an item has close resemblance to notable and/or historic items.

I think the common sore point in Trivia submissions and reversions is the question of speculation. "Guesses" and "conjecture" are rather easy to define, but the speculation is confusing to many; to both clueless posters and "subject experts" (generously speaking). The clueless posters really haven’t contributed anything, and their post may be reverted with gentle explanation, but the contributions by subject experts (assuming notability and relevance) can be a positive contribution. The challenge is for the reviewing editors to figure out which is the case for each contribution. The clueless poster may rant about the revert, even with gentle explanation; that is the simple nature of the beast. The subject expert gets a different impression, especially those that are on only going to make one post ever on the subject of their joy, if not profession. The subject expert is not going to understand how their practiced, maybe even professional, knowledge is speculation. In short, the word "Speculation" in the edit summary alone is very insufficient in either situation. The noob will not know what speculation means (yet), and the expert will know they are not speculating. The clueless posters, ideally, should be led to an understanding of the wiki’s processes. But, IMO, the subject expert should be engaged to provide substantiation to the reviewer. Moreover, if there is nothing in the edit summary (except "Speculation") or the OP’s talk page, there is no way for the patroller to know if there was any other collaboration.

So, rather than suggesting loosening of the criteria, I suggest a focus on process. The published "Removing trivia" guidance is rather binary, either keep or remove immediately. What if it might not be Trivia? Maybe it is not necessary to remove every non-Trivia (almost Trivia) immediately?

My Personal Trivia Patrol Practice is to first to assess the contribution for any virtue and either leave it in the Trivia if it is good and fitting or adapt it for inclusion elsewhere, collaborating with the OP if currently active. The present heading "Removing trivia" pretty much says that removal is the option, but I envision more of a Reacting to Trivia Posts toolkit, including the practices GrampaSwood suggests, or maybe a section or annex on how to "fix" a contribution that is missing substantiation.

M I K A D O 282 ⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 18:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)