Team Fortress Wiki:Discussion

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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)

Maybe we could set whether the wiki displays Imperial units vs Metric units as a preference. That way you can display whichever unit of measurement you prefer. GoodMudkip (talk) 15:43, 20 October 2021 (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)

Synth: This thread is specific to adjustments of Trivia policy and process. I don’t intend to discuss unresolved examples here. Any removal of a contribution is a de facto open invitation to the contributor to discuss it on the remover’s talk page (unless the remover starts a discussion with you elsewhere). GrampaSwood’s talk page would be the place for your discussion or you may take this subject to my talk page and invite GrampaSwood.

M I K A D O 282 ⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 18:59, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

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)

What with all the new stuff found in the source code leak (as well as some of the reslist leak stuff), I think the stance on speculatory content in general needs to be changed a tad to not be so anti-speculation. I try to refrain from getting too speculatory in some of the cut/experimental content articles I've been creating based on things in the source code, but sometimes all you have to go on is a single string (see Throwable weapons#Snowball for example) so in cases like that I feel like some speculation on intended functionality wouldn't really hurt provided it were properly labelled as such. Something like "The following information is purely speculatory based on the existing evidence we have at this point in time", just as an example. 404UNF ^(talk) 01:44, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Something found in the source is not speculation, but guessing why something is in the code is speculation, and unnecessary. We have places and style for Unused Content. Speculation is not the only constraint to apply here. Candidate content for Trivia and Unused Content still must also be notable and generally interesting. M I K A D O 282 ⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 12:53, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I suppose this type of thing would be better suited for a more cut-content-focused wiki like TCRF instead of here. 404UNF ^(talk) 03:58, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia vs fandom

If wikipedia can be used, but so can fandom. Which one is preferred? It's been changed on the Tsar Platinum and Starboard Crusader twice now, but I don't know which one is better to use. I personally prefer wikipedia, as fandoms might not be kept up-to-date.
GrampaSwood (talk) 07:24, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

That and wikis maintained by and for a fandom have a tendency to start crawling up their own butt with fanfic at some point as the Silent Hill wiki's weird ass has proved on at least one occasion. Wikipedia is the one with citations and accuracy checked by people that care purely about those things for their own sake. If it were me I'd go with wikipedia unless the reference was so obscure it's not anywhere but fan wiki. Pretty much what I do anyway. -- Lagg 23:37, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I would prefer to not have outbound links in the middle of the article besides to wikipedia (and even then there would ideally be some type of indicator), even if jojowiki.com is better than fandom, it should be treated like any other external link Naleksuh (talk) 07:06, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Cut content update note question

Regarding articles I've created for the Jungle Inferno weapon leaks such as Viewfinder; In the update notes where I've listed their removal from the game files, I've added a little "wink" of sorts with the addition of "Oops." to the end of the note "[Undocumented] Files for the Viewfinder were removed from the game". as the files for these leaked weapons were pushed accidentally by Valve with the moving of many weapon models to their new models\workshop directory in the update. There was no actual patch note from Valve about the removal of these files to my knowledge so it is an undocumented change and I feel a little wink like this doesn't hurt but it's been contested I guess you can say, so I'd like to get some consensus on this. 404UNF ^(talk) 07:29, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

•  Remove "Oops" is absolutely non-encyclopedic editorial commentary, and possibly a bit speculative. It should be left to Valve to say that. I try to hide such in comments or talk. M I K A D O 282 ⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 12:27, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

•  Remove Pretty much what Mikado said here. I also doubt that many readers will be able to understand the allusion, and as already stated it is non-encyclopedic commentary and adds no value whatsoever.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 20:47, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

•  Remove I'm usually pretty positive when it comes for suggestions and such, but I have to agree with the others here. I'm fine with a patch stating that the unused content was removed, however the "Oops" is not necessary, in a way, it ends up being an opinion from someone who has written on the article/item itself, however most readers doesn't associate individual users on articles, so most will probably think that it's an opinion by the Wiki editors as a whole, I think... - ▪ - 20:59, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

 Remove Naleksuh (talk) 22:34, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

{{achievement name}} template?

The game has 520 achievements. How about an {{achievement name}} template to easily translate an achievement's name on a page instead of having to go through files and pages to find the localized names? - BrazilianNut (talk) 23:08, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

 Done See Template:Achievement name for more info. — Tark lm(pt-br) 12:04, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Speed table changes

Can we please change the speed table to be a more normal template? For some reason it's very confusing and uses maths to calculate the speeds (At least, that's what it seems like). And uses imperial on the English page exclusively. This makes it very hard to add anything new or change it. Can this template just be changed to something like the {{Class health pack and overheal table}}? It's much easier to add something.
GrampaSwood (talk) 19:18, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Not completely unrelated, but, speaking of speeds... I made this topic on Talk:Medic#Medic.27s_speed. - ▪ - 22:22, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Deleting Account

Don't know if this is the right place to ask, but is there a way to delete my account? Thanks. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by [redacted]

Unfortunately we can't delete accounts, but I can rename it to something like "DeletedUser####". — Tark lm(pt-br) 22:31, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

That will be fine. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by [redacted]

 Done. No need to reply. — Tark lm(pt-br) 22:48, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Someone did something

'| item-level =' shows now in infobox, instaed of only item type and level. Looks like it happens on every page: Bushwacka, Familiar Fez, Pool Party. Denied (Talk) 06:35, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

   Should be fixed. — Tark lm(pt-br) 06:50, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Double name of item type

Was it intentional? Now it looks like in game, rather than how it looks on SCM. In-game version looks like it wasn't something intentional, but rather a limitation after system with graded cosmetics was intruduced. Denied (Talk) 16:18, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this was intentional. I've been working to make the backpack item template function more like it does in-game, as that's the primary source for all information regarding styling for the template. -- Boba 02:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Should the line break in the Backpack item template be removed?

The Backpack item template has had a weird line break between the item information and description for years now. This isn't accurate to the how the game does it. With that being said, should I remove the line break on the template? The goal of the template is to provide an infobox as similar as possible to the ones seen ingame, and this seems like a no-brainer. Give me your thoughts. -- Boba 02:41, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

 Yes. — Tark lm(pt-br) 11:55, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

 Yes
GrampaSwood (talk) 16:09, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

 YesFiatSeicento 18:48, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

 Yes yeah Goodjob (talk) 18:49, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

 Yes most certainly VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 18:50, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

 Yes definitely Zeklyn (talk) 20:23, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

119th Update Nav?

I'm in the middle of an update page/navbar renovation project to promote easy reading, and flow of gameplay-affecting things down to cosmetic stuff and ancillary media, but while I was doing that, I noticed the 119th Update doesn't have a navbar at all. And while the update itself did just add the employee badges, the update the day before added Crit-a-Cola, and Freight, and a bunch of other weapon changes not currently listed on that page; however, Crit-a-Cola and Freight are mentioned the "update progress" section on the 119th Update article. So as it stands, there are three options here, and I'm having a hard time deciding which one to pick. We can either:

1) Leave the update as the only major update that doesn't have a nav.
2) Create a nav with just the employee badges.
3) Create a nav with Freight and Crit-a-Cola in it too, and add the stuff from the April 28, 2010 Patch to the 119th Update page formally.

What are our collective thoughts on this? -ThatHatGuy (talk) 04:13, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I like 2 and 3, but I can't decide on which I prefer. :B - BrazilianNut (talk) 04:15, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made a basic nav for the 119th Update, after having made ones for the Hatless Update and Community Map Pack, so as to give everything navs that didn't have any. What remains to be discussed now is if we should also include the stuff the day before that update, if anyone would like to discuss that. -ThatHatGuy (talk) 12:24, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

The TFWIKI update.

Do you think the wiki needs some update? (ex: Dark mode, New editor, etc.) For me (my opinion.) the wiki looks obsolete.

MaxwellWagner (talk)

Then I suppose Wikipedia's design is obsolete. Danimations (talk) 00:53, 17 March 2021 (UTC) Danimations (talk)

Adding Unusual effect previews to cosmetic pages

I have an idea that could improve the wiki (And I'm willing to do all the work) GREATLY. My idea is to add previews of Unusual effects on cosmetic pages with the cosmetic in question. Now this would be kind of a chore to do with all the effects, but worry not! My idea is to ONLY include Unusual effects that the cosmetic has been confirmed to be opened with (For example if I want to include previews for the California Cap's effects, instead of making previews for every Unusual effect that exists, I would just go to https://backpack.tf/unusual/California%20Cap, check the effects that the item has been unboxed with then make previews for that item.) While you may think this would slow down making new pages, it would not! Instead of doing all the Unusual effects that exist right away, I would wait for about a month or two to THEN be able to make previews. (Of course, I won't always be 100% up-to-date in case an Unusual will be unboxed with a new effect/effect that it was never unboxed right away with, but I would at least try) This will require a lot of time to set up for all the existing Unusual cosmetics, true, but I'm up to the challenge. -Roebloz

Hi there,

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

This is an interesting idea, however, this is simply too much work. You might think you'll be up to the challenge, but I've personally said that with a lot of things and I can see in hindsight that I would not be able to. Loadout.tf serves this purpose already, and doing only existing unusual effects would be very inconsistent. If you were to do all the unusual effects, it would simply be too much work.
GrampaSwood (talk) 17:07, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I can relate to Swood. I wanted to do a few things that would take a lot of time and work, but at the end, I simply didn't (there were other reasons why, but nowadays, I'm happy I don't need to do what I was planning to do about a year ago). Players can inspect someone's else item in-game, to see details of the Unusual and other stuff. Yes, it is broken in-game (inspecting someone's item does nothing), but that's Valve's fault and not us. - ▪ - 19:46, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Blurry images.

Some infobox images have been showing blurry, despite the image itself being fine. Derangement Garment is an example of one of them. I have seen other pages/infobox images with the same issue before. I use Vivaldi as my web browser, but pretty much any other infobox picture out there works fine (especially from old cosmetics), so I doubt it's something with my browser. - ▪ - 21:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

This should fix it. Just add | imagewidth = 261px.
GrampaSwood (talk) 21:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Link pages for notable persons/content artists

I have noted inconsistency, instability, and maintenance issues in links from the names of real persons who are particularly notable in the Team Fortress contexts. I think there is opportunity to both increase and standardize the information and experience the wiki provides users with respect to notable persons.

The proposal is to created standardized pages similar in format and content to the pages in the Category:Topics covered better by other wikis. The pages would provide both links to multiple other pages that better cover the person's biography and works in and out of Team Fortress and to pages about works they have contributed to Team Fortress.

Examples of what is proposed:

• User:Mikado282/Sandbox/Heather Campbell
• User:Mikado282/Sandbox/Robin Atkin Downes
• User:Mikado282/Sandbox/Rick May
• User:Mikado282/Sandbox/Jim Murray
• User:Mikado282/Sandbox/Robin Walker

It is important to understand that notable persons/content artist pages must not be developed into biographies. This wiki’s policy is no biographies of real persons, living or otherwise.. These notable persons pages are intended only as augmented disambiguations, indexes, and redirects. Strict adherence to limited content and format policy (here) should be enforced.

It is open for discussion whether the existing Voice actors page should be replaced by these new notable persons pages or that the existing page should be expanded to have multiple person links and multiple links to their collective works (e.g., non-wiki art galleries).

"Wall of text" Policy text moved to User:Mikado282/Sandbox/Category:Notable persons 17:06, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Please comment, especially for any expansion of the list of Valve staff.

M I K A D O 282 ❄❄❄❄❄❄ ❄❄ ❄❄ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 00:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

P.S. I just wanted to see what it could look like done up into a table that could eventually be templated and translation switched:

• User:Mikado282/Sandbox/Table of notable persons

I don't know. This may be neater being just one GD Big file, but it doesn't look as sharp as the single pages. A real problem with such a table would be getting the text to look good at various zoom.

M I K A D O 282 ❄❄❄❄❄❄ ❄❄ ❄❄ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 04:27, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

 Support. I really like this idea. — Tark lm(pt-br) 01:07, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

 Support VasyaTheWizard ^{(talk) • (contributions)} 06:20, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

 Support Sure. Goodjob (talk) 12:08, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

 Support Fine proposal and well-thought-out, would indeed serve well as an index for those in need of a quick reference. I do find the table expansion more ideal for replacing the Voice actors page since it could just be redirected, however, that would defeat the purpose of having their own individual page. Of course, the Voice actors page could simply be made into a disambiguation and then provide links to each VA from there, and the same goes for notable persons.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 21:54, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Wait, Wok, individual pages or one GD Big table? Each Comic page links to the creative person, each individual page would link to the category, each category list everyone in the category. Voice actors and Artists could redirect to the automatically alphabetized category or, yes, they could be manually maintained list of links to the individual pages. M I K A D O 282 ❄❄❄❄❄❄ ❄❄ ❄❄ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 01:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

The former - it was merely a suggestion to the Voice actors page replacement if we were to go with the table idea instead, as you did bring it up. But yes, I suppose the table would be a bit clumsy in the end due to all the info and links each cell would need to contain.

Not entirely sure what you mean by: "..each individual page would link to the category" - I'm assuming you mean having each page categorized under Category:Notable persons and then have both Voice actors and Artists redirect to said category? Never seen a redirect to a category before but it would indeed make maintenance easier.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 21:29, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

OK, launching Category:Notable persons. M I K A D O 282 ❄❄❄❄❄❄ ❄❄ ❄❄ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 02:34, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion: Redundant Categories Bot

I'm not sure how hard or easy it'd be to do this, but I think there should be a bot that trawls the wiki for categories, files, and pages that are part of both a category and a sub-category, then removes them from the redundant super-categories. For example, an image of the Spy doesn't need to be in both [[Category:Images]] and [[Category:Spy images]], because "Spy images" are categorized as "Images" -- it already effectively is an "Image" by virtue of being a "Spy image." So the bot would remove the [[Category:Images]] markup from the page. Kestrelguy (talk) 22:08, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

 Yes. Solid idea. I'd like to work on it. — Tark lm(pt-br) 00:02, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Zombies

The wiki main page now shows the zombie versions of the mercs. Error? Mikere (talk) 09:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

It's full moon. Please use the talk page for the main page next time.
GrampaSwood (talk) 09:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

adding a Rewards item section

This section would cover items like the Professor Speks, or Mann Co. Cap. Items that are not unlocked through achievements, but rather though tasks that a player would happen to do. By doing this it would not only give newer players another reason to play, (completing tasks in exchange for a reward), but it would also let older player who might not know about certain things a chance to learn about something new. (not to mention the fact that to get the Professor Speks, you need to be upgrading your account to premium and you will have to be recommended by a friend, the player might hear about this and want to get the hat themselves, then telling THEIR friends about TF2, making more and more people know about TF2).

I feel like this could be a good addition, and I already wrote some of the hats down! (even though I accidentally did it on the main page lol).

Regards, Ears4you107 (talk) 20:41, 29 January 2021 (UTC)Ears4you107

These are already listed on the promotional items page, don't really see a need for a separate page unless there are a significant amount of items.
GrampaSwood (talk) 23:02, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Topics to get you a wiki cap?

What do you do that gets a high moderator to notice your profile and start a pole on whether or not a user can get a wiki cap? Ears4you107 (talk) 17:48, 12 March 2021 (UTC)Ears4you107

See this page for more information.
GrampaSwood (talk) 17:54, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Subclasses in the community strategy pages?

I think some "subclasses" deviate a lot from the standard style of play (E.g. Ninjaneer) and have many different combinations of weapons that they can't be put inside of the weapon combo section without an unreasonably long paragraph next to it. Something similar perhaps to Demoknight?
GrampaSwood (talk) 16:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I think that this should happen, there are definitely certain subclasses such as: the "Ninjaneer", or the Trolldier..., all of these subclasses deviate significantly from there original class, so giving them they're own sunsection in the community strategy for them is justifiable?Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 16:51, 20 March 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

 Support I also like this idea. Kestrelguy (talk) 22:17, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Do we do anything for April Fools?

Like maybe changing all the text to the comic sans font and changing the logo to a horribly made recreation in ms paint? Danimations (talk) 18:51, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

We did that back in 2019, actually. See TFW:April Fools' Day/2019/Main Page. You may take a look at User:GrampaSwood/AprilFools2021 for further details on our latest preparations. We do have some behind-the-scenes changes in the works, but that won't be revealed to the public until release.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 19:12, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

That's even better then I expected it to be. Danimations (talk) 20:00, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

KoTH Slaughter?

Custom maps are a pretty tricky topic to cover, but would Slaughter be a good candidate for a page? After all, it's what Laughter is based on and is favorable among players in Creators.tf. ShadowMan44 (talk) 00:40, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Sure, if its Halloween map was already added in my opinion · Ashe (talk) 02:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Weapons' Shot Type and Damage Type

In the recent zh-hans project, we solved multiple translation problems and improved translation accuracy of the zh-hans side of TF Wiki. A pretty big problem was found in this project by User_talk:ApertureLab and can not be solved only through that project, I reworded and rearranged them in English and put it here for discussion:

• All kind of Flame Throwers' Shot Type is currently "Particle", but the Projectiles page have a "Flames" sections. Flame Throwers indeed throws "particles" but technically they are just "Projectiles". The Shot Type of all Flame Throwers should be changed to "Projectiles".

• Short Circuit's Primary Fire Shot Type is listed "Area of Effect", which is false, it is actually "Hitscan" but with limited range.

• Short Circuit's Secondary Fire Damage type is "Projectiles", which is false. "Projectiles" is not Damage Type, it is Short Circuit's Shot Type. And this leads to a bigger problem: Short Circuit is a dual Shot Type weapon, it is both "Projectiles" and "Area of Effect". Is there anything look alike? Flames from Flame Throwers? Rockets from Rocket Launcher? Furthermore, in the Projectiles page there is a "List of projectiles"; The Short Circuit's Secondary Fire electricity orb is not included in the list, and it should be.

• Along with the above questions, we do not have a page that talks about the whole thing of "Area of Effect". The Mad Milk, Gas Passer and Jarate all has a "Area of Effect" Effect. The baubles from Wrap Assassin can also deal "Area of Effect" damage. And heck, What about the Compression blast? It is also a kind of "Area of Effect" but with limited angles. Also the explosion of Rockets from Rocket Launchers that can deal "Area of Effect" splash damage. Maybe some taunts can deal "Area of Effect" damage like Gas Blast. We don't have a "Area of Effect" page that talks about their affect range or "How big exactly is the area of 'Area of Effect'?", their effects or "Is there any difference about the Rocket explosion and Sticky explosion?", and things like effect fall-off factors of different "Area of Effect", etc.

I have a extra question:

• Flying Guillotine have a "Untyped" Damage Type. What is it exactly? Isn't it like Sandman's baseball that cause 0 damage and just gives effects? Why the obvious ranged baseball is listed in "Ranged or Melee damage?" as "Melee" damage?

These are some serious problems that can take significant amount of times to fix and affects lots of the weapons pages. For reference, I put a list of all Shot Types and Damage Types currently used in the TF Wiki here:

Shot Types	Example Page
Projectile	Rocket Launcher
Hitscan	Shotgun
Melee	Bat
Impact	Thermal Thruster
Untyped	Flying Guillotine
Area of effect	Huo-Long Heater
Particle	Flame Thrower

Damage Types	Example Page
Bullet	Shotgun
Explosive	Rocket Launcher
Fire	Flame Thrower
Dual-type (fire and bullet)	Flare Gun
Projectile	Short Circuit
Falling	Thermal Thruster

---

Alex┋T 17:33, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Add Falling to the Damage Types list, fix typos. Alex┋T 02:44, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm just going to paste what I said in IRC here: as far as I recall this is a problem we've had in english even and I'm not personally sure how to deal with it. Especially because I'm more code oriented and don't do loc. There's not much we can do about it besides try to be contextually appropriate when discussing engine-behavior versus user-facing behavior. (i.e. when dealing with users, you want to describe particle effects that behave as projectiles as projectiles, and use the full technical term when dealing with documentation relating to Source). Sorry if I'm not understanding the issue fully. I saw someone note this in IRC and was annoyed no one else responded. -- Lagg 22:30, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Maybe we should do this:

• Make a clear line on the damage caused by the "weapon" itself and the "projectile from the weapon":

• If the weapon itself causes damage, like hitscan, melee, impact, don't change "Damage and function times" template.
• If the projectile from the weapon causes damage, break the template to 2 parts:

• The weapon itself part: Shot type is projectile, and include the projectile it shoot, the initial speed, the attack interval and reload time etc.
• The projectile part: The damage type, the damage it causes, the area of effect it causes, maybe the effect it give.
• Here are some concepts:[1]

• If we doing above, then most of the problem can be solved easily:

• No more Flame Throwers' problem. Flame Throwers' Shot type will be Projectile, and the damage type of the Projectile "fire particle" will be Fire.
• Short Circuit's Primary Fire Shot Type is "Hitscan" but with very limited range.
• Short Circuit's Secondary Fire Shot Type is "Projectiles". The damage type of the Projectile "electricity orb" will be something to discover, the "electricity orb" has an Area of Effect to destroy some Projectiles.
• All other projectile weapons can be listed the same way as above: Cleaver from Flying Guillotine, Baseball from Sandman etc.

• A "Area of Effect" Page is something still need to be discussed. Do we really need it?

--Alex┋T 05:52, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Updated the concept link. If this solution is OK, maybe I can make a new template and replace the Template:Damage table in all the pages.--Alex┋T 06:08, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Again really testing the limits of my specialization here. But I *personally* like the concepts. So long as we make sure to verify that it's in line with the actual behavior. Also we'll want to make sure to standardize it so that the damage / particle types match how many of each there are in the engine. As far as AoE goes. I'm not sure what would go on such a page. Valve's own docs don't even go into that much detail on projectiles (or much detail at all really, which is annoying). Keep in mind though the sort of behavior being documented is super-subtle and very often irrelevant to the user.

Before trying to add a whole new system of categorization, I'd suggest first making sure there's no way to localize this stuff such that it fits your lang taking into account that developers tend to make puns and informal language in engine code/docs. I sure as heck appreciate the desire to be precise, but we're not doing technical documentation on the related pages. It's okay for example if there's a degree of ambiguity for what "particles" mean as related to the game-development concept versus "particles and debris from fire" sort of particle. Because as far as the **end user** - who is the main reading audience of the wiki - is concerned. Particles mean the visual effects from the game model. -- Lagg 11:19, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

On the Fire page, the "particle" is the name for the projectile produced by flamethrowers, and the visual effects is not connected to it directly. This can be easily observed by using sv_cheats and tf_debug_flamethrower commands. For end users of this wiki, these are just not the same thing. And I do know that on VDC the flame entity uses a different name called tf_flame which is different from the other projectiles entities; however, just as you say, the end users of this wiki, which I think are common players, will still feel the flame particles are similar to the traditional projectiles. ApertureLab (talk) 15:05, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

to make things more complicated, check out the patch notes for the October 14, 2021 Patch. specifically, the third change for Erebus: "Changed damage type from shock to bullet in underworld." I don't know what to derive from this. Kestrelguy (talk) 00:57, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Please don't use quotation on talk pages, it messes up the layout of the rest of the page. What this means is that the damage you receive in the underworld is affected by vulnerabilities and resistances. I.e. vaccinator bullet resistant means you take less damage.
GrampaSwood (talk) 10:20, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

"Helpful overview" not fitting with the wiki

I've seen a good addition to the map articles: the helpful overviews. However, they look confusing and doesn't fit with the Wiki style in my opinion. So, i'm proposing using this template from comp.tf to the overviews, with some additions (color of the marker for specific locations, etc). Also, this will require some changes on these images (removing lines and replacing them with coloured areas only for bases and etc). This would need a change in the common.css page.
This is an example of how it would look like · Ashe (talk) 02:45, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Dereko strongly support your idea, Ashe. The template would provide a better overview, also make it easier to apply changes.

The current way we present is not flexible at all (imagine one should remake and reupload an overview image only to make changes for one location). 13:24, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

 Support Solid idea! I'll set some time aside and work on it sometime next month if this is what we're going with. I'll probably make some improvements to the visuals as well. Also, on a little side note, I'd advise you to link large images instead of embedding them into the page as it take up quite a lot of space and can be somewhat distracting. I'd suggest merging the two images together and link them as one.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 19:30, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

 Oppose Come one man...I've spent the whole previous week just studying the layout of the maps, drawing the lines and making them as accurate as they could be and then uploading the images, categorizing them and finnaly inserting them into the article they were supposed to be in (And also adding all the neccesary details which come with the image such as that peice of text next to the image which explains everything on the overview) Who now has the time to go back to those 70+ maps I just finished with and do the whole process again!? Look, I can understand that the overviews aren't...perfect. They look a bit...janky, but still, give them a try atleast and see how they work out insted of immidiently removing them after they're fresh out of my gallery. I think that they are quit fine, they show everything that needs to be shown, spawn locations and how they change, objectives, key locations and etc, and they are quit consistent too! Spawns are always marked in diagonal lines correlating to the teams colour, objectives are marked in coulurful circles and key locations are encirceled in white or red (depending on the background) doted lines which are marked by a number. This means that you can quickly find what your looking for. Looking for the location of the objective? Simply search for the coulered circles on the map. Want to know the position of each teams spawn and how they change? Red/Blue diagonal lines are all you need to keep an eye out and ignore the rest.Now, I might be a bit biased considering that these helpful overviews are my creations but still, I don't see anything seriously flawed about them. They are simple to understand and also simple to update. If someone wants to add another location to the map article, all they have to do would be to take the map overview with lines of that map, go to the ms paint with it, and add another series of white/red doted lines with a big number.Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 22:22, 12 April 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

Dereko appreciates your good work, Lolimsogreat. But Dereko insists the flexibility is not so satisfactory. An easy way of editing shouldn't include off-site work, like editing and reuploading the image. Also, if there are other people who are willing to cooperate with you on this project, the style, line, colour combination of his/her image may be different with yours, which is not helpful to maintain the consistency between map pages. 09:41, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for appreciation, I do admit that these overviews aren't the most flexible ones in the world, and that having to "do offsite" work isn't very convenient. But one advantage that my types of Helpful overviews would have over the ones Ashe demonstrated would be reader friendliness. Lets take a look at on of my Helpful overviews, the Upward Helpful overview to be specific: (Click on the small image to enlarge it.) As you can see, the C hut on Upward (or how Uncle Dane calls it: the shithouse) is marked by the number 16, now this is isn't shown here but on the actual Upward page there is a small line of text near the image which explains all the numbers, circles etc... Now, if a reader were to want to search for the C hut (shithouse) all he would have to would be to take a look at that line of text which is displayed next to the image, see under which number is the C hut listed (number 16 in this case), and then take a quick glance at the Upward overview itself and easily spot the number 16 standing out in its own encirciled area. Now, lets see how would Ashe's Helpful overview work out, In her overview, locations aren't marked by numbers which are encirceled by markers, but by "waypoints" which you have to hover over or click in order to display the name of the location they sit upon. Now, i do admit that marking the locations with waypoints makes it look a lot more "cleaner" and professional then using markers to mark the area in a rather crude and janky way I did it, but here is the problem with Ashes overview: If the Reader wants to see where is the position of an area he, mind you, has no idea about, he would have to basically click on every single waypoint marker until he finds where the area he is searching for is. If the reader is lucky, the first marker he clicks on will display the area he is looking for, in this case, the C hut of Upward, however, if he is unlucky, he will need to go throughout the entire map, relentlessly clicking on every single marker until he finally finds that one marker which displays the area he is looking for...after wasting how much time exactly? Unlike in my overview where the reader simply needs to find a number which I always make sure to make as outstanding against the background as I can, in the Ashes overview, the Reader is forced to play a game of "treasure hunt" just so that he can find whatever he is looking for. Now I might be just exaggerating this problem, maybe the Reader being forced to put a bit more effort into finding what he desires isn't that big of a deal and is worth sacrificing "reader friendliness" for more flexibility but im still sure that the Ashes overview will lead to at least some users being frustrated or annoyed at having to torture there mouse 1 button and the finger which rest on it. This isn't too bad considering what we are getting in return with Ashe's overview (more flexibility and consequently more consistency) but the problems don't stop here. Another problem is that the Ashe's overview has no borders which mark the limits of the area, there's just a waypoint thus leaving the reader to decide where a location begins and where it ends, this can lead to a lot more serious issue of confusing the Reader who, mind you is using this overview in the first place because he doesn't know anything about that specific map and trusts the Helpful overview to help him and not confuse him even further. The way to fix this issue would be to add borders, but if you add borders to the Ashe's overview, do our overviews become even that much different? Look, im not saying that my overview is better, I can clearly see its problems, but neither is the overview made by Ashe any more perfect then mine. Now, we will have to decide, what to sacrfifice: Reader friendliness or Editor friendliness... — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lolimsogreat21 (talk) • (contribs)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  Info To note it on here as well, comp.tf staff has previously given us permission to use this template and an example can be found on User:TidB/Map locations though the CSS for it isn't yet activated. Also, while colored markers could be a good idea for some cases, we could also just use the {{tabs}} template to put all those markers on different pages. An example can be found on User:TidB/Community_strategy#Callouts (again, you need the custom CSS from the template page to display it at the moment) { TidB | t | c } 06:43, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Alright, i wouldn't like to scrap entirely the work of Lolimsogreat, so i'm proposing this overview, that is a merge between the editor and the reader friendliness. It will require a bit more of work to implement. Now, for the border areas (that i think is a good idea), with more complex implement (maybe), this should happen. It should overlap the image of the overview with the overview with lines · Ashe (talk) 20:51, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Lolimsogreat21 I can perfectly understand why this is upsetting to you, but please do not see this as an attempt to discard the work you've been doing so far — your contributions are appreciated and this has merely been brought to our attention after so long. Do note that this idea has been proposed before (as stated by TidB above) and was simply cast aside, until now. Now, I'll openly admit, that map overviews as well as competitive guides aren't exactly my area of expertise. However, I do see your points in regards to easier readability, but even so, some of these issues can be fixed or worked around. For instance, a fix for the 'treasure hunt game' as you described it as could be something as simple as adding a parameter which sets a number with the marker along with a color such as black/white for specific scenarios. We won't be able to add borders around specific areas as that would be too complex (circles would be possible, however) though one could argue that such markings be necessary in the first place. Being met with an image of all these markings, lines and whatnot could be overwhelming to some readers, and even somewhat 'intimidating', I guess you could say. Knowing the exact zones and limitations of an area is irrelevant; we should really just be focusing on displaying the locations of certain areas with most relevance, for the sake of simplicity. What Ashe just proposed is pretty much what I had in mind: It's simplistic and clean yet still somewhat retain the current style format.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 21:28, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Alright guys, you managed to get me on board with this idea. To be honest Ashe, I was sceptical of you finding the solution to the two previously mentioned problem i brought up, but you managed to did it. What you did is really good, not only does it solve the problem of borders but it also does a good job of making a compromise between reader friendliness and editor friendliness. And as hard as it is to admit, your work looks a lot better then my ms paint sposored map overviews. Only question now would be: How do you plan to implement this "interactive map overvies" in the Tf2 Wiki and how can i help with scrapping my... well, outdated work?Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 21:43, 13 April 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

How should we make these new helpful overviews? - Danimations (talk) 21:54, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Well Dan, we two better get to learning on how to do what Ashe did because it seems to me that Microsoft Paint ain't gona cut it this time around :D Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 22:58, 13 April 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

Dan attempting to say "Ok" - Danimations (talk) 23:06, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Lolimsogreat21 The images will be deleted once they have been replaced. If you'd like, I can move them to your user space instead. You guys don't need to worry about the implementation process as I'll be taking care of that part since the styling need to be inserted into the wiki's global CSS, which only administrators can do. I'll start working on it by the end of the month or sometime next month and then report back once it's ready for use.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 20:00, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

(In Demoman voice) Ay, thanks! hahaha :D. Anyway, thanks Wookipan for helping us by finding the way to insert these "Images" into the Wiki. Also, thanks for offering me help in moving my "old" overviews to my user space but there's no need, I don't want them now that i realize how crappy they truly are. Also, no haste, you don't need to get the implementation process ready so fast, I first have to teach myself how to actually make map overviews the way Ashe did them, and then replace every single map overview with the new one which will take two months at least, (This is assuming that Ashe doesn't help me which would be weird since she kick started this New Helpful overview project by herself.) But thanks for the help and having understanding, I do admit that I aren't proud of my first discussion edit on this section, it just sounds like I was to bitter for there being a possibility that my work could be replaced by something else which turns out to be way better. Anyway, good night.Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 21:02, 14 April 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Sorry for the long wait, but I've now created the map overview template and added the global CSS. It is currently in my user space, and I've yet to do some more testing and improve the documentation before I'd consider it fully ready for public usage, and maybe add some more features. I'd also like to optimize the code sometime as it's quite clunky right now, but MediaWiki is not exactly making that an easy task with its limitations.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 23:21, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Hallelujah! The CSS implementation is finally done. Thank you very much Wookipan for the effort of yours, its greatly appreciated :D. The template looks amazing! Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 08:45, 12 July 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

Glad to hear it. Mind you, this wasn't just a simple CSS implementation, and coding the CSS was probably the easiest part I'd say. The template was actually a lot easier to make than I thought, but I still ended up spending almost an entire day on it, and yet it's still incomplete.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 19:51, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Number format for templates

I've seen a problem with number format in the templates, the number needs to be changed for every language the template needs and in their correct local format, i.e. the decimal separator (e.g. "1.5" is 1.5 in english, and "1,5" in spanish). I've tried to create a template but i think is kinda complex for my understanding, so i looked in internet and there's a extension for mediawiki. Wit this, it will be more editor-friendly, mainly for new editors · Ashe (talk) 03:33, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Use {{Dec}}. — Tark lm(pt-br) 05:10, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Improving pages that haven't been edited for years

I have seen many Items descriptions that are out of date (too many to say)

Reasoning

Like stat changes not added to the description and lack of detail and it will be up to everyone to really try to improve the quality of the descriptions of Items and improve the website

Furthermore a few subjects have been neglected and unedited for years and I would like to fix that

Request

So I would like to request to help improve the quality of page descriptions

Final Message

Thank you

Hoping the best for the longevity of the wiki,

CodingIsFun

Donor medals and Category:Tournament Medal images

Should images of donor medals for charity tournaments (such as Tournament_Medal_-_Heals_for_Reals) be included in Category:Tournament Medal images or not? Memayz (talk) 17:46, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I think so, yeah, it might be an idea to make a "Medal images" category and turn that into a subcategory and add "Charity medals" to it. If you wanna link to categories btw do it like this [[:Category:Tournament Medal images]].
GrampaSwood (talk) 18:20, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Got it. Category:Medal images already exists, so adding a sub-category won't be too hard. The question is now if the charity medal images should be categorized as both tournament and charity medal images? Memayz (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Just charity.
GrampaSwood (talk) 18:29, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

See ya'll

Been fun contributing while it lasted, it's weird how there's no way to deactivate your account. ShadowMan44 (talk) 23:10, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Goodbye, Pardner. I wish you luck and a merry life.

Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 09:41, 4 July 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

Random questions regarding the Wiki

I have a couple questions regarding the wiki:

1. With the Template:Steamid template in Item infoboxes, should there only be a profile ID, or should there be a set name for each creator? From what I've seen, some pages have only the ID as a parameter, others have and ID and a name. Personally, it seems like having WindBOT update the names seems ripe for abuse by scrupulous creators seeking to put inappropriate names onto the TF2 Wiki.
2. When tournament medal pages only have one medal, is a tabs gallery really necessary? Would it be sufficient to just have a normal gallery like cosmetic pages do? (Example of a page which could have just a gallery)
3. Some tournament medal (and other pages) seem to have Template:clr placed in place where it wouldn't make sense, though I'm wondering if there happens to be a reason I'm not aware of.
   • Example 1
   • Example 2; other game modes with only one map do not have clr on the same page

Memayz (talk) 00:53, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Template:clr separates two floating elements. Just preview how it would look without clr in the example 2: In the example 1 however, not sure why it is there.

In order to keep consistency, it would be better to keep tabs gallery only in tournament and community medals pages · Ashe (talk) 01:35, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate your input, I look forward to see what others think. I think page consistency is important, but in edge cases where only one medal is displayed, I personally think a regular gallery looks much better. Memayz (talk) 03:12, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

"Disambiguation" for names of weapons used in several languages

I propose this kind of "template" for redirects that are used in more than 1 language.

El nombre que estás buscando es usado en varios idiomas. Por favor, selecciona el idioma del artículo que desea ver.

O nome que você está procurando é usado em vários idiomas. Selecione o idioma do artigo que deseja visualizar. (USED GOOGLE TRANSLATE)

TRANSLATED: The name you are looking at is used in several languages. Please select the language of the article you wish to see.

• Español (Spanish)
• Português do Brasil (Portuguese of Brazil)

· Ashe (talk) 22:03, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, language support was an afterthought. While it's allowed, creating language redirects is a bit troublesome. It confuses users and (translated) names change way more often than English.

Take this search for example: 9dXnvZi.png - They are perfectly valid for Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish. I speak Brazilian Portuguese, so the expected behavior is a pt-br redirect, but they're all for Spanish pages.

I personally dislike and disagree with this suggestion because it clutters the search bar to the point of rendering it useless and unhelpful. Languages with different alphabets and writing systems (Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean) are the only ones that are able to make good use of this feature. — Tark lm(pt-br) 22:21, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Alright, i didn't consider the search bar, but my idea was for people that use the url bar for search articles, like https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Pistola. What did I proposed isn't a language redirect, is basiclly a disambiguation.

In fact, if someone search via the search bar "Pistola" and opens the article Pistola expecting to find the article in his language, then he would see this disambiguation and would click in the article in his language · Ashe (talk) 22:39, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

List of Self-Made item owners revival

The List of Self-Made item owners page, part of a group of other lists, was recently deleted outright for being too outdated and too much of a hassle to deal with. Before this, I started drafting a remake of the page on my userpage.

I would really like to see this page get remade, but the format has to change at least in some capacity. There's a few issues, and I'll list them along with possible solutions.

• ISSUE 1: There's way too much to document, and some of it changes a lot
  
  • Right now, you have to get backpack links for every single person and every single Self-Made item they hold. That's a lot to document.
    
  • An item's backpack link will change if the item's state is changed. This includes, but isn't limited to, things like changing the name or description, painting, or adding a killstreak effect.
    
  • Inventories can go private or unprivate at any moment.
    
  • This applies to every list, as well.
    
    

SUGGESTED CHANGE:
Remove the backpack link section altogether. It feels like way too much of a hassle and not many people come to check them out anyway.

• ISSUE 2: The page is too big, loading and saving changes takes too long
  
  • Due to the page's size, even in the currently incomplete state that my remake is in, takes long to load and to save changes when editing.
    
  • This will become even more of an issue as updates to the page go on.
    
    

SUGGESTED CHANGE:
Split the list into multiple pages. This is necessary at this point, considering my remake hasn't even passed the 2012s yet. There's multiple ways we could split it. Currently, the list is everyone in one page, in order of when they first had an item added into the game. This means there's no duplicate entries of people. There's a few ways we could split it up:

• Alphabetically (No duplicate entries, could still be a lot to handle)
  
• By year (Duplicate entries, would be easier to handle)
  
• By update (Duplicate entries, not recommended as some items were added in completely random patches)

Me and a lot of others would like to see this page alive and updated. I want that to be done as efficiently as possible. Please discuss. ~ Boba 19:50, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

The rework of the list documenting the self made item owners was a long time coming, its very nice to see someone taking the initiative. I think that the idea of sorting it by year is the best one out of the three given, at least I would say so...Anyway, I'm quit busy right now, but I would certainly like to help you with that project of yours. Care to give instructions? Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 20:23, 10 July 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

Right now, I just need a general idea of what should be done here. I'm waiting for more people to reply. Thanks though, I'll let you know. ~ Boba 20:44, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I have considered a lot of possibilities, including the ones you suggested above, before accepting the delete proposal. The page barely had any traffic, it just wasn't worth it.

First things first: Why should we restore this list? Apart from being outdated, the page was deleted because it was useless and because there are dedicated websites for item lists out there, such as tf2tools.net. — Tark lm(pt-br) 21:41, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

First off: by that logic, all the other item list pages should be removed as well. TF2Tools chugs far behind by months, sometimes provides incorrect dates, and even just skips certain people entirely (you'll especially notice that with the few recent updates, there's quite a few people missing). There’s no doubt that the low traffic of the page was in no small part due to how outdated it was. I genuinely believe this page can still be salvaged. If all the other lists should stay up, which I believe they should, then this should come back up as well. The point of the TFWiki is to be a one-stop-shop for all TF information, rather than just being a hub to point you to other sites which can't be as reliable. I have the intention to spearhead this and get it to a point where it will never become as outdated as it was again. I’d need others, including the staff, to back me on this. The majority of the technical work is already done - I remember you specifically even helped me with building up the template it uses to make it more suited for the rework. All it needs is approval and a decision on what to do in terms of the issues, and then I can chip away at it until it’s done. With that being said, I want people to contribute to this discussion giving their opinions on what should be done with both the backpack links and splitting up the page. ~ Boba 22:41, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I accepted the delete request because it wasn't useful and a burden to update. I still fail to see a reason to keep and maintain such a page, especially considering its low access rate, ever-increasing size and lack of proper maintenance in the past. — Tark lm(pt-br) 03:27, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

All of the issues you've just mentioned would be fixed with this rework, and I've even said so before. I'm sorry you view it that way. The very least you could do is give the feedback that I requested. ~ Boba 04:58, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

It's good to know that someone is fixing these. Personally, I support remove the backpack link section and change them all to alphabetically sorted. I do check these pages sometimes, but it's more of just for fun like just to see "who contributed the most?"
From the readers' view, what's their purpose to visit these list? If I have to actually to find who made the item, I could just open that item's page and there's contributors list in the page. If I have to find the person's all contributions, I know their name and I could easily find the person in the alphabetically sorted list. Break them into year or update could make doing these more harder because you have to figure out the which year or update first.
With that said, what about the {{Backpack Item Link}} in most of the item pages? They also contains backpack IDs, It's painful to update these and you have to do it in all the languages' pages. Do we have to also remove the backpack IDs from it? or is it possible to somehow merge them, like make a dictionary or "database", so the item page can automatically read the contributors from there, and all the item list also read the data from there? --Alex┋T 03:49, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

You bring up some good points, but by that logic things like the List of Electric Badge-aloo owners should be removed as well, because the Electric Badge-aloo has all of the contributors on the workshop page.

{{Backpack Item Link}} is simply just an easy way to display backpack links and nothing more. It will not automatically update when backpack links inevitably get updated. ~ Boba 04:58, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

As you said above "The point of the TFWiki is to be a one-stop-shop for all TF information", pages like "List of Electric Badge-aloo owners" could still exist so people know who has that item. Maybe there's situation that a contributor listed on steam workshop did't get the item? Or someone not listed on steam workshop contributor list get the item too?
Oops it looks like that breaks what I said above, you can't reliably find the contributors from the item owners list. How the lists is gonna be sorted is down to what purpose people visit these lists. Since these lists are owners of special items, people will more likely want to know 'who' owns one items' self-made version from this lists, then sort from the items' name instead of contributors' name alphabetically may be better (and also solves problem of contributors changing their name and mess up the list). --Alex┋T 07:31, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

some template use italic to indicate title name is wrong in some language

Meet the team video is linked in every classes' nav template, such as Meet the Medic in the Template:Medic_Nav. It uses italic to indicate the title name of a video.

In Simplified Chinese, however, uses “Guillemet” or “double angle brackets” to indicate the title of a book, video, article, song. Use italic to indicate these things in Simplified Chinese is wrong. Many other language uses different way to indicate similar things too.

 Meet the Medic
 拜见医生
 《拜见医生》

Should we make a template that can display appropriate marks depends on language in these places? Or such template already exists in this Wiki? Or should we just fix them by using {{lang}} in every template that have such issue?

--Alex┋T 10:02, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Seems like a template similar to {{dec}} is sufficient.
GrampaSwood (talk) 10:17, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Made a template, I only added support for zh-hans and zh-hant, By the way, I'm not sure if other language follows the same rule, what if one language uses different punctuation to indicate book title and video title?--Alex┋T 11:16, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Translated meet the team videos

So recently I noticed some pages use an unofficially translated (subtitled, not dubbed) video on their meet the team videos. I recently changed this, however I thought it may be possible to replace this with a video on the wiki channel that has subtitles for several different languages (All taken from the transcript on the pages, for example). For any users that we do have that speak the language, they could verify it. Not sure how the other languages could be done (Perhaps STS could assist, not sure if they want to though). This seems like a way better option than replacing them with unknown people's translations.
GrampaSwood (talk) 17:35, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

 Support ~ Boba 18:23, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

 Support · Ashe (talk) 18:36, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

 Sounds great. Maybe we should only add the languages that someone verified, and leave others until someone did so. Looks like a pretty big project there.--Alex┋T 03:11, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

 Support Dereko supports, with concern that how we will execute it in terms of action. For Simplified Chinese, translated videos (which are qualified in my perspective) from personal channels have been inserted on video pages since resources from Bilibili became available, for the cause that those videos have never been officially uploaded on Bilibili. Of course the only "official" for the trailers should be those who originally created them, but inserting videos translated and uploaded by us still means something -

What I am more worried about is the example brought by the use of personal sources, which may produce unwanted results without proper principle. Thus, translated videos uploaded by Wiki channel may not provide more help to viewers, at least for most Chinese players, but it will make a lot of sense for our content management. 10:01, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Unused content policy

Should there be an unused policy content? I personally think content that wasn't publicly released by Valve, or at some point available through TF2's files, should not be hosted on the wiki. It's very hard to verify that these are actually legit without directly linking to the hosted stuff itself which Eric Smith has said should not be done. An exception for this is referencing the recent 2020 code leak, as we've also gotten permission to say "This is from the 2020 code leak" (but nothing else).
GrampaSwood (talk) 18:10, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

 Support code snippets, leaked models, etc. should not be allowed. ~ Boba 18:12, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

 Strongly oppose It should stay, and you should provide proof of that email with Eric S. The content is verifiable and has patch date information for when it was found and added. The reslist stuff was recently found to be added when cp_degrootkeep was for example. It's literally not hard at all to verify this stuff. Just because you two have some predisposition against a user that doesn't edit here anymore (but does write up edits for me to make on his behalf, yes I saw your not so sneaky tfwiki-staff discussion) doesn't mean an entire subsection of already well-documented and verified info should be removed. Grow up. Thefixer2021 (talk) 18:16, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

No need for the aggressiveness and this is nothing against 404, however, this is ban evasion. Eric mail, it wasn't a sneaky discussion either because it is a publicly logged channel.
GrampaSwood (talk) 18:22, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

This only covers leaked source code, the June Build is a leaked pre-release build, as such it would not fall under these restrictions K1ngD3D3D3 (talk) 18:28, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

No aggressiveness intended. Intonation is impossible to get through text alone, mind. And I fail to see how having someone else write edits and pass them on to me is ban evasion. I was not the one banned. The logic fails. Thefixer2021 (talk) 18:27, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Are you sure 404UNF is coming to you to make edits here? Because from his contributions on TCRF, it sounds like you came to him to make edits. Your story's logic fails. ~ Boba 18:33, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Most of the stuff that Thefixer2021 was posting is coming from TCRF which is a site that documents cut content in video games, unfortunately, most of the TF2 articles are written by 404UNF. K1ngD3D3D3 (talk) 18:35, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Following the original thought on this chain -- a leaked model (to use a concrete example) feels very similar to leaked source code. Sure, it's not text and can't be opened by a simple program, but it's just data that was extracted from the game.

If it enriches our understanding of the game (e.g. by shedding light on design decisions or showing the development of a map) then I feel that it has a place on this wiki. However, much like the guidance we have on leaked source code, the content should not be hosted on this wiki.

Also, much like content that is readily accessible in the game, this wiki is not trying to re-host all of the game's content. In my opinion, cut or unused content is no different from regular content in that regard: it should not be uploaded "just because we have it".

Regardless of our decision, I think we should have a TFW: page documenting the policy (TFW:Unused Content Policy sounds good to me), and also a template which we can use when citing said content (that links back to our decision).

Darkid « Talk — Contribs » 03:14, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

 Strongly oppose This shouldn't apply to builds which have game assets such as the June 2007 build, it was leaked after the 2020 code leak and the email, and should not fall under these restrictions. The email only mentions code assets cannot be posted. K1ngD3D3D3 (talk) 19:23, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Damm, this discussion quickly derailed into something not quit related to unused content.

Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 19:34, 4 August 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

This applies to anything that is not released by Valve itself or not accessible through the in-game files (Old or new). The e-mail did not specifically mention anything else but it also goes without saying that this stuff that wasn't put out by Valve shouldn't be here. Unless Valve specifically mentions it's allowed to be posted here and to what extent, it should not be hosted or linked to in any way here (and anything that is on the wiki that falls under this should be removed).
GrampaSwood (talk) 19:36, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

This is derailing the discussion, if either of you want to continue this I'll gladly do so on my own talk page. But keep this on-topic. I'll open up a topic there.
GrampaSwood (talk) 18:35, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I wish to have some clarification. Just what is "unused content" in this question?

* I first thought you were asking about unreleased content? (The more I think, no.)

* We have several Category:Unused content pages about Valve's abandoned developmental content with its own Template:Unused Content Nav; these seem to be long acceptable to the wiki.

* Then there are the many unused content sections in serveral different types of articles:

* e.g., Botkiller_weapons#Unused_content, Stahlhelm#Unused_content, Engineer_taunts#Unused_content, Mercenary_Park#Unused_content, etc.

* You are probably not talking about Category:Cut content; but, which has some overlap with Category:Unused content, and Category:Beta and unused content.

To me, unused content has specifically meant content found in game files that are not present in any form of game play, regardless of the reason it it is not present in play. But from your openting sentence, you seem to mean something very different.

Even so, such coverage of the above sorts of unused content hasn't been a problem, as far as I understand.

Really, do you specifically mean Valve Intellectual Property that Valve did not publish with intent of making available to the Community under terms of use? All patched game content is Valve IP, but it is published IP. Even if it is in the published game files, it is published IP; even if unused. It is unpublished IP if it is found in anything besides Valves intended publications, whether someone leaked images, video, memos, or source code, stole development configurations of game files, or snuck some phone video; each of these is broadly illegal, as I understand, as least in my business.

Would the term non-free content be useful here? We have applicable policy on that.[2]

However, whether or not any unused content of any particular type, fair or illegal, is covered as a topics in their own right is completely separate from the question of using published or unpublished material (especially unfree material) to speculate about the pre-release development history and the obvious fact that maps change in during development, and listing any evidence (published or leaked) of such changes is essentially XofY. This could be a separate discussion.

M I K A D O 282 ⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ (talk | contribs) (Help Wanted!) 04:18, 5 August 2021 (UTC) 13:14, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

It would really be any kind of content, unused content is just the broad name of anything that has gone unused in the game. This includes unused content in the game's files, hence why I made the separation for content that is, or has at some point been, in the game's files. Unused content such as unused voicelines that remain in the files are therefore perfectly okay to use. Content that has been gathered from a build of the game from 2005 (for example) would not be okay to use, because it's content that Valve did not intend to get out. Unless Valve says so otherwise, any of such content should not be hosted on a Valve-endorsed space.
GrampaSwood (talk) 13:22, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

 Agreed ^^ with this last statement ^^ · Ashe (talk) 20:29, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Mikado has got the right idea. The primary concern about leaked content here is that hosting licensed, private (non-free) source code and/or assets are essentially a form of redistribution of paid software and/or to publish a trade secret, both of which are considered an illegal act, and Valve could take legal action if they deemed it necessary. Yes, unused/unreleased content that exist in the game files are fine to document, and beta content should be fine as well, so long as it is under published IP. The TF2 source code is a trade secret, and we've only been permitted to reference it, as cited by Eric S. in that email.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 21:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Wookipan (and therefore, with Mikado). As much as I love unused content, it's not supposed to be here. This is the official TF2 Wiki, afterall. This Wiki is also hosted by Valve themselves (as far as I know), leaked content should be (and is) a big no-no. - ▪ - 23:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

 Switzerland Sorry for being neutral here but my open source bias is known and incompatible. I will say that Valve expects us to document as fans are wont to do. And they only ever say what is required to mitigate their legal risk and therefore profit. My opinion before has been more or less that we should abide by their requests in good faith, but don't go overboard to make them happy. They pay lawyers to figure out exactly how to mitigate their legal risk about these things while also staying sane in their instructions to us. My personal view on it is: Documenting historical content is important and useful. So long as we can verify that it came from the game itself and was in fact in the dev pipeline at some stage. Can't staff hold a quick consensus meeting on such things to cleanroom verify that the content does exist and in the game? It's the usual wiki-thing to do. Valve themselves probably appreciate it too. Or at least they damn well better unless they don't like keeping memory of their own accomplishments and growth. Like some kinda dweebs. *looks pointedly at no one in particular* -- Lagg 05:58, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

(Forgive the not voting because I have trouble parsing the proposal.) About the time I encountered a moose on the trail (OK, maybe it was miles and maybe a day before I was within a few meters of a momma moose and her calf) I think I figured out what Grampa Swood was after. As far as I understand this, under the broad term of "Unused content", there is content that is acceptable for use in the wiki (typically publicly accessable in the Patched game files) and there is content that is not acceptable, but this distinction is not clearly defined in our policy. We do have relevant policies on the subject, but because these policies are on narrower focus pages, the edit-lawyer may claim that they don't apply to such-and-such. For example: 

• Image policies describe exclusion of non-free images, but the same rules should apply to all uploaded content.
• Trivia policies expressly exclude speculation; but, generally all of this wiki should avoid speculation.
• Unreleased content policy / prerelease content is already excluded from Cosmetics and Trivia. 

So, just carefully write the policy to define exclusion of non-free content, particularly everything and anything of Valve's IP that could never be accessed by users under either Premium or FTP license.

@Lagg: Wikipedia has something of open source underpinning AFAIK, but with the realization that assuming a fundamental right to self-ownership. So, if I may vamp, only the self may free what is self-owned; from which follows the concept that anyone may free what they own, but only what they own. I may free what is of my self, but I may not free anything that is of Lagg's self. M I K A D O 282 ⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ (talk | contribs) (Help Wanted!) 01:24, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

OK, but what should we do with Invasion? In fact, all the information, with the exception of concept arts, we have from a huge leak in October 2003. The developers mentioned this only in passing when they mentioned the creation of the TF2 style.

PrisonShift3r (talk) 19:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Interesting question. I've never really questioned the ancient page, but never really looked deep into it; it is enough for me to know that Invasion existed for a while, and, especially, that the particular appearances and personalities of the TF2 classes originated in Invasion.

We have established that leaked content may be referenced, but, I am concerned with the sparse sourcing and citation. I think it is possible to find and cite more developer comments.

My concern is about proper licensing on the images. The many class images that were copied from Valve's official TF2 gallery are fine for us to use, but their description files probably don't correctly cite that attribution. Also, without researching in detail, I suspect some are screenshots of leaked content, which were are not supposed to use.

Perhaps you could invite Darkid to comment.

M I K A D O 282 ⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ ⊙⊙ (talk | contribs) (Help Wanted!) 02:36, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Volunteers for First Cloakening(TM) now accepted

I don't want to put anything on the IRC channel page until I know what actually happens once I send Libera staff a cloak request. I've never actually used a cloak myself despite literal decades of IRC because I like my domain. So kind of new to this bit.

If anyone wants a cloak (the thingy that makes it so you have tfwiki/editor/lagg instead of your IP address) put me the name you want here. Try to keep it close to the wiki name since that's the whole spirit of project-namespaced cloaks. -- Lagg 06:34, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I volunteer as tribute -- how about darkid? Darkid « Talk — Contribs » 03:28, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I volunteer as the most active TF Wiki contributor atm, name tidb { TidB | t | c } 14:51, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Sent and IRC / cloak request sections restored. -- Lagg 15:02, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I volunteer as the man who "lives and breathes the wiki" (Quote I saw in a Discord once), name grampaswood.
GrampaSwood (talk) 15:04, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Additional templates for punctuation

I would like to propose templates for opening parenthesis, closing parenthesis, and colon - something like {{op}}, {{cp}}, and {{colon}}, respectively.

Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese have their own characters for parenthesis and colon. While French uses the same characters, colons are isolated in sentences (unlike other languages that have it stuck to the end of the word right before it).

- BrazilianNut (talk) 03:09, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

 Agreed. Also, for example, "5 seconds" is «5秒» in japanese, without space, so {{space}} should exist too · Ashe (talk) 03:26, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Combine parentheses templates to one could be easier to use, like {{Title}}. About a space template I don’t think that’s necessary. There’s not much place we could use that template, and most of time we could ignore that or could be manually fixed. --Alex┋T 03:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Launch Options

I would like to elaborate on certain launch options so I have a request: Would it be okay to start making pages dedicated to certain launch options like:

 -insecure - Disable Valve Anti Cheat (VAC). 

The insecure part would link to a page that would:

1. Lead to a page about insecure mode

2. Would provide helpful info on how to use it

3. Have proper formatting and links

Can I create pages like these for people who want more info on something? CodingIsFun (talk) 16:01, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

It sounds like they'd be very small pages that wouldn't really be worth all having an individual page.
GrampaSwood (talk) 16:41, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Could I still add pages that I definitely think need more detail?

CodingIsFun (talk) 16:46, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

The best thing would be to make the pages on your sandbox and then we can see how large the pages approx. are. However, that can lead to a lot of wasted effort if it turns out to be not worth it.
GrampaSwood (talk) 16:52, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm relatively new to customising my account, how does a sandbox work? And how do I make custom pages on the sandbox?

CodingIsFun (talk) 17:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Simply take your user page URL (https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/User:CodingIsFun), add a / and type whatever. For example, https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/User:CodingIsFun/Sandbox. Internal links work too, User:CodingIsFun/Sandbox. "Sandbox" can be anything, such as User:CodingIsFun/insecure. Just create the page on there, and that's a user space page.
GrampaSwood (talk) 17:05, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Can I turn that into real page once I'm done?

CodingIsFun (talk) 17:34, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

It's better to link them here once done so people can take a proper look at what the pages would look like. Like I said, it may result in wasted effort.
GrampaSwood (talk) 17:46, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Creation of "Boss" category

I've been surfing through the pages for the Halloween map bosses, and I find it a bit weird that they're all labelled as "other" in categories instead of having their own dedicated category for bosses. Does anyone else feel like this would be necessary/helpful at all? GoodMudkip (talk) 16:05, 21 September 2021 (UTC)GoodMudkip

  Sure! Feel free to create it. — Tark lm(pt-br) 17:25, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the go-ahead. However, I'm still somewhat new here, and I don't know how to create a new catagory. Is there anywhere on here that I can look that will teach me how to make one? GoodMudkip (talk) 15:47, 22 September 2021 (UTC)GoodMudkip

Simply add Category:Halloween boss to the appropriate pages, then go to this page and simply create the page with something such as "A list of all Halloween bosses".
GrampaSwood (talk) 15:52, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for elaborating. I'll get right on it! GoodMudkip (talk) 16:23, 22 September 2021 (UTC)GoodMudkip

In ancient times our pioneers established a category for this: Category:Halloween bosses, with boss articles you may want to edit included in its subcategories, thus a new category shouldn't be added. Dereko thanks you for pointing out this anyway. 11:19, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I totally missed that! Thanks for noticing it, Dereko. — Tark lm(pt-br) 04:46, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Dereko´s plans to cleanup Halloween category

Based on findings from topic "Creation of "Boss" category", Dereko considers Category:Halloween bosses a bloated template, as there are too many pages inside making it difficult to have a convenient search.

Dereko believes the source of the problem is that we have put a lot of articles into the main category and its sub categories at the same time, while doing so would make main category more swelling and subs less useful.

In light of this, Dereko suggests making a cleanup to the category, that is to keep those pages in sub categories only. For example, we could remove Cauldron from Category:Halloween while keeping it in Category:Halloween maps.

If approved by people, when the school network conditions turn better, Dereko would be happy to handle the task as a valuable change to go practise medicine experience. 11:56, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, it's just a mess of collapsible categories.
GrampaSwood (talk) 12:39, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

  Let me know if you need any help. — Tark lm(pt-br) 04:45, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Mobile Support

as anybody who's opened the wiki on mobile will notice, the wiki is... not well-suited to mobile browsing. there's a limit to how good it can be, but at the very least, we could implement something along the lines of what Wikipedia has. I'm willing to personally put in the work to make this happen (though I doubt I'd be quick about it). thing is, I doubt I have the necessary permissions, and I don't really know where to start even if I do (though [3] seems like a good bet). I guess I'm just starting a petition to get somebody to implement a mobile version of the wiki. Kestrelguy (talk) 15:09, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Maybe you should put your request at Team Fortress Wiki talk:Technical requests. --Alex┋T 03:36, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

you're right. it just didn't occur to me. Kestrelguy (talk) 02:07, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this issue. Mobile support is something I'd like to improve as well, but introducing new extensions is a challenge, partly because our server administrator is quite busy.

Until a proper extension is installed, we could implement a few CSS and JS changes to better accommodate mobile visitors. Assuming you are familiar with using the wiki on mobile, can you provide some examples of what works and what doesn't? We can't do a complete overhaul right now, but we can at least try to improve the experience.

Thanks! — Tark lm(pt-br) 04:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Here are some suggestions I have:
1. Device without a mouse cannot see the information under the {{tooltip}}. TF Wiki uses this template in various places. Potential plugin to fix this.
2. Left sidebar cannot be hidden and takes up huge screen space on small vertical screen.
3. Text/web content won't resize automatically on my iPhone with Safari. It shows the whole desktop style page with small content, you have to zoom in and constantly move the zoomed web page to see the contents.
--Alex┋T 14:14, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

As Tark said, I don't think we're going to install any plugins, but we can definitely look into alternative sidebar styling, and fix {{tooltip}} -- both of these should be addressable with just CSS/JS. The overall page rendering (text size / mobile layout) is not something we can easily change without a large overhaul.

Darkid « Talk — Contribs » 11:15, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

That's at least something that will improve the experience on touchscreen tablets. I enjoy browsing the TF Wiki on my iPad, but there's {{tooltip}} in many charts, that the information under it is invisible without a mouse to hover on. Hope you could tap on it and do the same thing instead. Sidebar hiding is also useful in every vertical screen. Page resize is pretty critical to phone browsing, I don't like that mediawiki mobile plugin either, it changes almost everything and looks bad. Most of the people only browsing the Wiki on the mobile. I think some simple text auto resize, and picture or chart auto rearrange is enough for browsing the Wiki for now. --Alex┋T 06:13, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

the sidebar isn't a huge problem for me on Android with Firefox, but the whole lack of page resizing is a problem for me, too. this also results in a lot of buttons that are too small for fingers to click on. I can't go to my watchlist, for example, without zooming in like 600%. Kestrelguy (talk) 01:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I'll only say that I'm not a fan of Web 2.0/"modern" web design in general. Most sites' mobile forms are frankly trash or mediocre-at-best, and have an annoying aesthetic; often the mobile theme is slower than desktop (even when using a browser like Brave that stops ads etc.)! On Wikipedia itself I use an alternate theme for editing with a "vintage" (without looking primitive) aesthetic, since Wiki's mobile theme isn't terrible but is still kind of queasy and irritating. If TFWiki adopts a real mobile theme, please please please keep the "feel" of desktop mode, with all its sharp edges and shading, and don't over-simplify it. I promise I don't mean to sound abrasive, it's just sickening to see so many sites follow the leader of flabby rounded minimalism, when a mobile theme ought to inherit its philosophy from the source (desktop site structure).-- Akolyth (talk) 01:25, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The "modern" design shouldn't matter tbh. Even TF2 has changed its design in the main menu. The TF2's 2012 main menu looks way different to the 2021's main menu for example · Ashe (talk) 04:37, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not a huge fun of the modern rounded design that some modern programs force more and more either. I fully support more mobile TF wiki support, however I do, also, wish the style was kept the same as desktop. I'd also like to add that I haven't really had a problem with the current mobile wiki and the buttons (even really small ones) are surprisingly clickable I also main Sniper, so maybe I'm just accurate.
GrampaSwood (talk) 13:58, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The wiki need's an update.

i know this can be a bit repeating subject, but when will our wiki get updates? eg dark mode, wikipedia style (more modern in my view.), what do we need to do to does this happen?

MaxwellWagner (talk) 14:08, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

If you'd like to request anything specific, try Team Fortress Wiki:Technical requests. I don't really see what needs updating on the wiki other than cache servers. The styling looks fine and nothing outdated about it, besides the mobile support which has already been discussed above.
GrampaSwood (talk) 14:20, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia Manual of Style and Hyperlinks as Section Headers

recently I happened to be reading Wikipedia's Manual of Style on hyperlinking, because I'm that sort of person. one element mentioned was that section headers should never be links when possible. instead, a "see also" or "main article" template should be used. this wiki follows that rule occasionally, but in some cases, such as "related achievements" sections, it breaks it with abandon.
the Wikipedia Manual of Style is only relevant in the first place for two reasons. obviously, it sets a precedent for other wikis. additionally, though, Help:Contents says to check Wikipedia's Manual of Style "when in doubt."
I suppose my question is, dœs this wiki intend to follow Wikipedia's Manual of Style? if it dœsn't, should it? Kestrelguy (talk) 16:06, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

I think we should follow Wikipedia's manual, yes. — Tark lm(pt-br) 10:24, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Backpack Item Links

I don't think this has been discussed yet :P Almost all of the cosmetic pages use {{Backpack Item Link|steamid|itemid}} -an example: Classy Capper, the 3rd contributor has their inventory set as private as I am writing this... if any of the contributors decide to private their profile/inventory, it doesn't update automatically and will likely take a while for someone to update. So, should we just use {{Steamid|x}}, like in the Steam Workshop (the links just lead to the profile)? This wouldn't require someone to update backpack links/change to {{Steamid}}, and would make the articles more -consistent-? In the other hand, it's something that could take a while/not worth to change. What's your opinion on this? Thanks :) Mgpt (talk) 20:20, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Is it worth updating every existing article? No.

Should we use this format from now on? Yes. — Tark lm(pt-br) 20:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Although I'd like to say, if people do general edits to pages (Like BrazilianNut does) it could be updated and with that slowly update them all.
GrampaSwood (talk) 20:34, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, if we're going to change it, I'd recommend creating a new tracking category for it. That said, it is nice to have a direct link to the item... Darkid « Talk — Contribs » 21:43, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

While a direct link would be nice, it's pretty impossible to keep track of everyone's inventory by hand. Needless to say, the wiki is multilingual, so while English may be updated quite frequently, most languages are forgotten.

We could, in theory, scrape this data automagically and generate a dictionary with item ids. This would pretty much solve this issue, but I personally believe it's useless effort. — Tark lm(pt-br) 22:59, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I added the SteamID template to all the SF XIII cosmetic pages. Mgpt (talk) 00:17, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Higly against removing bp links. Even if someone set their backpack or profile to private, then the link will still correctly redirect to the correct owner, the reader just won't be able to directly see the item in the backpack. There's no reason to remove them as this happens rather rarely and even if so it still fills its purpose. Also, anyone can just change bp link to steamid if they want, but again, its not necesarry. Denied (Talk) 07:39, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Denied. I don't see a point in changing this format if it works with both public and private backpacks. - BrazilianNut (talk) 08:54, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

The main concern here is that people can modify their items (changing their ids) or private their backpacks and both yield the same result: an useless link.

As much as I'd like a better solution, we don't have the manpower to keep them up to date. — Tark 20:25, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  Support. yes.... daddy likes.... ~ Boba 01:09, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

 Keep. We are going to continue using {{Backpack Item Link|steamid|itemid}}. — Tark 17:40, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Changes to the wiki design to be more compatible with dark mode

Due to the recent trend of "i want my app to have dark mode", the design the wiki has interferes with the "Dark mode" option that some browsers have (mainly Opera GX, but it is very probable that other browsers may want to add it too).
Examples:
Not edited, dark Main Page
Not edited, dark random weapon page
Also, the current color of the body is too white
I propose: 1. Change the default design to have less gradients (which is done by using some images), make the body less bright, and keep current as "classic" in preferences (PREFERABLE). or 2. Add an option in preferences with dark mode option.
Why first is preferable? Because most of the visitors don't know about preferences.
Examples. This is what i've been using by changing my own common.css page:
Edited, normal Main Page
Edited, normal same random page
Dark Main Page
Dark, same random page
· Ashe (talk) 20:28, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I think it would look cool if we used similar colors from the achievement icons. Primary background color is dark grey, and have the elements on the page being white or orange. - ▪ - 22:12, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I like the idea, but updating the CSS for a feature outside our control is not something I'd like to deal with. — Tark lm(pt-br) 10:23, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

About adding every language to 'Updated localization files' changelogs

Is it really necessary? Does anyone even care about that? If so they can always check diff or tf2 tracker to see what was changed. Denied (Talk) 07:33, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Don't see why it shouldn't be on there. In the same way that you could say the items that were added in a case aren't necessary to add, because they can always check the TF2 case in-game for the cosmetics or go to the case page.
GrampaSwood (talk) 10:24, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Except people actually care about about items from cases. What language was updated for localization files is not even close to be this important, in my opinion (localization files are just a big meme at this point for the community). Denied (Talk) 16:50, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

How the community sees a patch note is completely irrelevant though, translators can be interested in which languages are updated so they don't have to check if theirs is updated on the diff or tracker every time. I don't see much harm in keeping this stuff either. For translators, it's simple one extra line of translation work.
GrampaSwood (talk) 17:03, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I honestly don't think this discussion is necessary at all. Going by this logic, people can just check the TF2 Blog to read patch notes, and I don't think we're going to remove them anytime soon.

It's an improvement, there are no downsides in adding more information. This is a wiki. — Tark 20:18, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Alrighty. Denied (Talk) 06:21, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Adding item filenames to the Basic Information tab for all items?

It may be useful and more informative to add one more tab to the Basic Information section of items that shows their internal filenames. This would make it easier for modders to locate items and overall let people know about items that have slight differences between their titles and filenames.

For example, Gifting Man From Gifting Land is known as "generous" in tf2_misc_dir. Demo's Snapped Pupil is internally referred to as "eyephoto." So on and so forth. The three issues I can see with adding this are:

1: It would require an edit on basically every item article on the wiki. Doesn't mean it's not possible, but it would be quite time consuming (I'd love to help, though! Browsing with GFCScape is quite fun for me.)

2: There would need to be some way to refer to items that have multiple, separate internal filenames. This usually applies to the multi-class items. The Earbuds exist in each class' items folder separately (demo_earbuds, scout_earbuds, etc.)

3: The wiki's "Item infobox" would need to be changed to accommodate the new descriptors.

Here's an example of how this could be done, using an abbreviated infobox:

For items like the Snapped Pupil:

| type = cosmetic | used-by = Demoman | directory = demo | filename = eyephoto

For multi-class items like the Earbuds, which exist in each of the class' folders separately:

| type = cosmetic | used-by = All classes | directory = Something conveying that it exists in all class folders, yet not all_class | filename = (class)_earbuds

Finally, for all_class items like the Gifting Man From Gifting Land, which exist in the all_class folder, but have separate models for each class.

| type = cosmetic | used-by = All classes | directory = all_class | filename = generous_(class)

Sloeber (talk) 22:26, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Way too much work that would be useful for way too few people. - BrazilianNut (talk) 22:47, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Agreed with BrazilianNut, too much work that's not really beneficial to a majority of people.
GrampaSwood (talk) 23:04, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

If you are having trouble finding items, I suggest looking for an "internal file names" list. Here's something from the Garry's Mod Guides section that may help you. As for what others said, I agree, it's something very little people would use. Aditionally, you can look up in tf/scripts/items_game.txt. Open the file, press Ctrl+F, write/paste the name of the item, and check the "model_player" string to know where the item is located in the game files. - ▪ - 23:51, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

It's not particularly hard to do, it's rather easy actually,. But could you elaborate on why and how this information could help modders?

I assume if you're a modder you already have the basic knowledge to find this information on your own, so I'm not sure if the trouble is really worth it. — Tark 15:22, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

What exactly constitutes a "Community Strategy Stub?"

I've seen a number of strategy articles labelled as stubs that are incredibly detailed and seemingly complete, such as https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Community_Gravel_Pit_strategy. While I'm aware that there are a number of other articles that are nowhere near complete, the fact that such articles can be so fleshed out and still be labelled as stubs begs the question: What exactly constitutes a Community strategy page to be labelled a stub? How much information does it need? How well organized does it have to be? I feel like having a better grasp on what determines if an article is in desperate need of additional information can help me figure out how best to contribute to the progression of the Project. GoodMudkip (talk) 15:40, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Eh. The reason why these stubs are present are not because the strategy in question is incomplete, but because the stubs are outdated. You see, once someone plasters a stub onto a page, they usually don't bother to go back and revert that stub, even if the page in question gets updated. Hence, why there are so many useless stubs lying around everywhere. If you want to see how "complete" a strategy page actually is, you should visit Team Fortress Wiki:Community Strategy project page, which contains a table tracking the status of every strategy page known to man.

Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 16:07, 3 November 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

Thanks for elaborating. Though if the reason so many of these pages are still considered stubs is that no one's bothered to re-evaluate their stub status, then someone needs to get on that and remove the stub blurbs on some of them. I'll make sure to check out the project page though. GoodMudkip (talk) 20:06, 3 November 2021 (UTC)