GTA Wiki talk:Community Portal

This is the general talk page for the Grand Theft Wiki community. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please list them here. Don't forget to sign your name with ~

Previous discussions have been moved to Grand Theft Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive1.

Category Tags
I noticed that there are already some pages in Category:San Andreas Missions... is that the tag I should be using? --GuildKnightTalk2me 21:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There is a bit of a mess with categories, as both the sets from GTW and the old gta.wikia.com are in here. The categories you should use for most things are "Category:Somethings in GTA San Andreas", eg Category:Radio Stations in GTA III. Category:Characters in GTA Vice City, Category:Missions in GTA San Andreas, Category:Vehicles in GTA IV - all other categories with the same purpose (eg Category:SAVehicles) should be deleted (with all the contents copied across to the proper category) - this is the same structure as page names (Missions in GTA San Andreas). Also,   is the "Propose Deletion" template. Gboyers (?) 08:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. That's what I'd started using, but got a little confusion. Oh, and thanks for the prod tag.  --GuildKnightTalk2me 19:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Updates
Some of the stuff on the portal needs updating, like mentions of the merge :) I have a stock CP page which I will post on User:Kirkburn/Dev which you may wish to take some stuff from. Lots of useful links! Kirkburn (talk) 16:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay posted it on User:Kirkburn/Dev - some of the links you already cover, but I would especially recommend adding the link lists at the end. Kirkburn (talk) 17:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I've merged in the changes and moved the page back to the "normal" location. Kirkburn (talk) 20:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikia Gaming IRC channel
Hullo! I am Kirkburn, your friendly local Wikia Gaming Helper!

You may be interested to know there is a Wikia gaming IRC channel, #wikia-gaming on chat.freenode.net, where you can hop on, ask for help from users of other gaming wikis, or offer your own experiences. If you are not familiar with IRC clients, you can access it from http://irc.wikia.com/gaming.

Different people may be on sporadically, but we organize weekly chats at a fixed time so we can get the most number of people online at the same time to ask and answer questions, or just to hang out. The admins of some of Wikia's biggest gaming wikis (e.g. WoW, Halo) often attend them. You can find the time for the next chat by following this link.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me! Kirkburn (talk) 21:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Profile tools

 * Discussion moved to: Grand Theft Wiki talk:Profile Tools

Social tools codebase merge
As you may have noticed, the wikis with social tools are not on the same codebase as other wikis - we are planning to merge them very soon, so you can have the benefits of all the current code updates on Wikia, plus the latest version of MediaWiki. We plan to do this next week at the earliest (23rd June onwards). Regarding the skin changes, this is also likely to be the moment when you switch to Monaco 3.1 and get the new main page tags.

The update may affect the functionality of the social tools, but we are hoping to make sure everything runs smoothly. Thanks! Kirkburn (talk) 11:10, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Just an update. This was completed today. If you see any issues with any of the social features, or anything acting different please let me know! angies (talk) 21:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Style Guide
I've been working on a page I intend to place at Grand Theft Wiki:Style Guide. I think I've got it to the point that I'm ready for it to be moved... I just wanted to get a few people to take a look at it first, let me know if there's anything I overlooked. It's on User:GuildKnight/Sandbox/2|my sandbox 2; discussions on the talk page, please. Thanks in advance, --GuildKnightTalk2me 19:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * There are no arguments voiced, so I'm going to go ahead and move it. Any further conversation regarding the new Style Guide should take place on its talk page.  --GuildKnightTalk2me 22:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Standardized vehicle article layout
As I've been working on the vehicle articles in an attempt to tidy them up, I've gradually developed a consistent layout that I've been applying to them. The problem is, nothing is accepted as standard and everyone has their own ideas of how things should be done, so if I run through a list of articles that need improving and apply my ideas to them, by the time I'm finished half of them have been changed yet again, my edits have been reverted without explanation, or something. The bottom line is it's impossible to maintain consistency without some kind of established style guidelines for each type of article, and I think it's time that was rectified.

So I've put together an example of how I think a vehicle article should be laid out, with an in-depth explanation of my thinking behind it on the associated talk page. Please take a look and give your opinion on it, and hopefully we can agree on a standardized design for vehicle articles, preventing disagreements. --MattyDienhoff 19:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That layout would work well. I agree that there needs to be a standard... every GTA IV vehicle page I come across is either poorly worded, redundant, disorganized, or just a stub. Thevictor390 17:53, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

UserRights
Hi all, a quick note for Bureaucrats on a change made today. Instead of the specific special pages for making admins, giving rollback etc. please use Special:UserRights. This now allows you to set the following rights:


 * Add bureaucrat
 * Add admin
 * Add and remove rollback
 * Add and remove moderators

Please let me know if there are any problems or if you don't feel this is the right selection of rights for this wiki. Thanks -- sannse (talk) 09:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Vehicle page consistency: Defining 'Variants'
I've got a lot to say, and I've spent a lot of time thinking it through so please, hear me out.

In all past GTA games, there have been only minor variations within the confines of each vehicle model (pickup trucks might come with different cargo in the back, for example, and convertibles would come with or without a soft top, etc). Therefore, when writing vehicle articles in the past (for those games), I'd consider a variant of a vehicle to be another vehicle that's clearly based on the vehicle I'm writing about (Example: the Taxi is a variant of the Premier in GTA:SA). The problem is, GTA IV introduces a large number of 'special' versions of vehicles that are quite different to their respective stock models, and are sometimes even badged differently with appendixes like 'GT' or 'XS', but go under the same in-game names as the original models regardless.

To draw a contrast; In GTA VC, as we all know, there were two Sentinels, the stock Sentinel, and the souped up Sentinel XS. Those are clearly defined as two seperate vehicles, yet in GTA IV both variants also appear, but under the same name, Sentinel. Simiarily, in the earlier games unique gang-driven variants of existing vehicles would have a seperate name. In GTA SA this was irrelevant because gangs didn't drive unique cars, but that's not the case in GTA IV. Gangs drive unique vehicles, but they're uniformly referred to the same names as their stock equivalents (Examples of unique gang vehicles are the Mafiya Schafter, the Mafiya Rebla, the Irish Mob Contender, and the Spanish Lords Primo and Cavalcade).

Okay, so what am I actually getting at? I'm trying to figure out how to distinguish between 'variants' as in other vehicles based on this one and 'variants' as in different versions of this vehicle, and I can't think of anything, so I'd like to hear what you guys have to say. --MattyDienhoff 17:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Make vehicle pages game specific?
While I'm at it, a similar subject I've been thinking about recently is this; in the case of vehicles that appear in multiple games, would it be worth splitting those articles into different ones for each game? Or, alternatively, split such an article into one for each significantly different rendition of the vehicle? (Like Perennial (GTA III Era) and Perennial (GTA IV)?) My train of thought here is that:

A: Of the vehicles have been featured in almost every game in the series so far, most have changed at least a bit and some have changed a lot in recent times (The Perennial and the Manana are two classic examples that have changed a lot in GTA IV, and the Emperor is a more recent one - the Emperor went from being a modern sedan to a 1970s Cadillac clone) and it's becoming very difficult to keep tabs of what each version of each vehicle looks like and how it works in each game without making the article confusing and contradictory.

B: This is also an issue with the other points of data, like car modifications (SA) and manufacturer (IV). Things like these are only applicable to one of the many appearances of those vehicles, so each article gradually becomes a mixed up collection of facts that all apply to different games, with the parts discussing the appearance and handling of each rendition of the vehicle coming to resemble something of a changelog.

Then there's things like 'variants' which I discussed above. Since designs are always changing, the relationships between different vehicles varies wildly between games. For example, in GTA IV the Ambulance is related to the Burrito as the front bears a striking similarity and it's manufactured by the same company, but these two vehicles bear no such relation in any of the earlier games. Similarily, in GTA III the Rumpo referred to an ordinary van that looked a lot like the Burrito, while the Pony was a tall roofed van. From Vice City onward, the tall roofed van formerly called the Pony was renamed Rumpo, a new van similar to the tall roofed van was created named the Pony, and the Burrito was created, looking a lot like the former Rumpo. Try explaining that away all in one article and you've got yourself a problem.

This might seem unnecessary at first glance, but some pages are getting very complicated and awkward detailing all of the differences, so I think we should at least consider splitting them. Thoughts? --MattyDienhoff 17:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I can understand your frustration with some pages getting long and complex. For most articles splitting things into clearly-defined subsections is enough. Use  to force a new line before each section, which keeps images and text together properly. Here you just outline the differences for each game, and you can say what they resemble and add an image, and it all stays togehter. The advantage of this is that everything is in the same place, and if there is anything common between more than one game, it can go at the top. Also this helps every page stay the same, rather thaan having some pages split, some not, some long pages, some very short pages etc. However, I appreciate that some pages may be too long even for this process.


 * The current (unwritten) policy on that is to split it into subpages (like /walkthrough on missions) - you could do that for a lot of details about the same vehicle, such as Ambulance/handling. If a vehicle is totally different inbetween eras, such as the Police Car or Bus, then I wouldn't have a problem moving the less-important one to another page, such as Police Car in GTA 2. However I don't think we should do this by standard, certainly not for every page. There would be far too much repeated content, and that is hard to update (as most people would only edit one of them, not every copy). And people would get mixed up and link to the wrong one etc.


 * So try and use the first method wherever possible (see Comet or Moonbeam for half-examples). If you aren't sure what I mean, show me a page you think needs splitting the most (where there are lots of differences), and I'll edit that as an example. When we need to split stuff into pages, then we can, but we HAVE to maintain links between them all at all times, which is more important than an easy-to-read or massively detailed page. Hope that all makes sense - Gboyers talk 19:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Game Pages
As I've been wandering around the wiki, I've noticed that some of the game pages are rather messy and unorganized. Following the examples set by Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, I've rewritten a few in my sandboxes: You'll notice, in the "Game Information" sections, that most are links to "Things in GTA #". The ones linked to subpages of the main article are articles about the game itself, not about playing the game. These are subjects that would normally be on the main article, but due to size and ease of use considerations have been split from the main article.
 * Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
 * Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
 * Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
 * Grand Theft Auto III

So... Love it, hate it? --GuildKnightTalk2me 20:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Login Time
Is there any way at all to show if a user (particularly staff and friends) is online/logged on? So that if you want to ask them something, and you need an urgent answer, you would get an answer right away. Just suggesting. Masterpogihaha 10:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Check Recent Edits and see if they've been editing. Staff are easier to locate because of the colour, as for friends, just read the names. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 10:51, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry
I, Gstancourt accidentally rejected two friend requests when I meant to accept them. Please resend your requests.

Adverts
Just to clarify the situation on adverts. If you are logged in, you will ONLY see adverts on the Main Page. If you are not logged in, you will see adverts on other pages. If you don't have an account, just register! Gboyers talk 02:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Is it allowed to talk about hiding the adverts from view?--SpaceeinsteinTalk 04:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think so. But what you do on your own computer is your own business, and Wiki can't stop you. Gboyers talk 09:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Bot Flag
Just to inform that the bot flag has been applied for User:Wikia, which is only used for the automatic welcome messages when someone joins the wiki. This will hide the edits from Special:RecentChanges, but this only applies to that user's edits from today onwards (previous edits are still visible as normal). If you want to be able to see these, just click "show bots" on Recent Changes, or look at that user's contributions. Gboyers talk 18:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Staff Promotions
There are a few promotions to staff going on. All users are invited to ask questions, and give their opinions. The following users are up for promotion. Click on the first links to see the discussions - Gboyers talk 13:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Unofficial Grand Theft Wiki Quiz
For all of you who want to be known King of GTA, than take my quiz. For all of you who want to say your an of encyclopedia GTA, take my quiz. For all of you who want a fun quiz about GTA, take my quiz. Take my quiz on the link below:

Unofficial Grand Theft Wiki Quiz

Copying of WikiGTA
I have noticed that some of your users is copying images of WikiGTA.nl. The moderator GTA4PC for example;, , , , , , etc. I have renderd them, so I can say, I've even took the screenshot used for the Machete. Which is really hard, since it has no spawnpoint. Even when they have a logo on them, he uses them. But instead of the hole image, he just cuts a piece out of it;,. Hell, almost all images of your Beach Patrol are ours; Our page vs. yours. But wait, by the rewards you get linked to Sunshine Autos.. But wait again, of the Vice City Stories version.. Where do I have seen that before? Ohyeah;. This one has been stolen by Mcanmoocanu. Who has also stole a lot. Look for example on the Characters in GTA Liberty City Stories page, and our page; Characters (GTA Liberty City Stories). I can live with one image, but this is just insane! --ASPHALT 12:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your message. Category:Screenshots of GTA games are copyright to Rockstar Games, not the person who saved the screenshot. Using those screenshots on this wiki qualifies as Fair Use, regardless of who took them. It is not possible to simply re-copyright a screenshot and claim owenership. To this end, we are happy for our users to use existing screenshots on this wiki. However, where there has been significant artistic alteration to the screenshot, then we would usually not allow that to be copied here without permission. This could include labelling maps, or collaging several images together. On top of this, we have a specific agreement with the German GTA Wikia which means we can share all our images. If any of the images you link to don't qualify as fair use, and WikiGTA owns the copyright, and permission is refused (from staff) to use them, then I can ensure they are removed. I hope this makes sense, but let me know if you have any questions. Gboyers talk 18:08, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Dialog scripts in mission articles
Every one of them seems to have one, but I find it absurd that some of them overshadow the actual content of articles, as I have seen in Keep Your Friends Close, Riot, End of the Line, The Sicilian Gambit and Last Stand. When a typical reader looks up the articles, they are more likely to want information on the missions themselves rather than the things characters talk about. Would it be sensible to separate the scripts into a "(article name)/Script" section? - ZS 17:50, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree entirely. I try to get people to put the dialogue into a "Transcript" subpage, and just link to it (not transclude the subpage). For missions with only a small amount of dialogue (under 10 lines) then it doesn't take up too much space. However longer than that should definitely always be in a subpage. Perhaps there could be a which links to the subpage in a consistent and noticable fashion? Gboyers talk 18:40, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Sounds good, although I was thinking about using instead. I'm also with you on dealing with this on a case-to-case basis. It's the longer scripts that needs this sort of treatment, but the shorter ones are generally less intrusive. We might want to note this if we go for it. - ZS 19:12, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It might be easier to create a consistent one that says something like "click here for the full transcript of the mission". However, you could use, like if you keep one important/funny quote in the main article (just a couple of lines), then link to the full transcript subpage. I'll help once I get internet access sorted out. Gboyers talk 19:44, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Any way of compacting the length of the article should do for me. I'm interest to know how you'll go about it. :) - ZS 19:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Well that's several weeks away, so could you start and just do it your way? I was just suggesting that as well as doing it your way, maybe include one important/funny line in the main article, as a teaser of the full transcript (which may encourage people to read it). Gboyers talk 19:54, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll test it out with a few GTA3 articles first, but it'll be done later. I need to go to bed. - ZS 19:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

We Need to Edit Major Articles
I look at the newly edited arrticles and do you know what I see? I see little tiny edits. We need to start editing the main projects that have nothing or barely anything and that there is so much to add. Everytime we finish doing a major article I will add a new one on this board. Today I want us to focus on Secrets and Easter Eggs in GTA Vice City which has nothing but one link. No words and a link. Thats it. Please I can do some stuff, but I need your help. If we all worked on 1 word one this article we could complete it in 5 minutes. Knowing that this is almost impossible I ask just a couple people to add one sentence per day and we will have it done in a week. Thank you. Peter13


 * We do already have Cleanup Projects where a number of people sign up to complete big tasks. I sort of disagree that lots of different people can add one word or sentence to an article - it just needs one person to go through it, then another person to check it. There are thousands of articles on this wiki that need this treatment. One article at a time is not really enough to get the whole community involved in, but if (for example) you suggest Category:secrets as as task, then we can assign a few people to that, and other people can help out where they can. Gboyers talk 11:58, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I knew it was impossible for one word. I just wanted to be philisophical. I meant that people should do more clean up projects rather than adding something small to a very large article. P.S. Do you add the time you entered that automatically because I want to have my name a nd date without writing the whole thing. Peter13


 * Just add four tildes ( ~ ) to the end of your comment, and that will automatically sign your name and the date. I agree we need more cleanup projects, but I don't want to flood the community with them - just keep them for when they're really needed. Your best option is to add a Cleanup Template to the top of the page (such as, or  ; so that people know it needs work. Gboyers talk 02:59, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

Images Not Showing Up
I'm not sure if this is just me, but I find recently that many images don't seem to load in articles. Article images themselves are fine, but examples or SS's don't appear. And it doesn't look like a link to an empty page, because no red text appears, just the text explaining what is in the image, but no image. Is this just something on my browser, or an issue with the site? Vhazhiphor 06:47, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't seem to be having any trouble viewing images, it sounds like your browser might be configured not to show certain images (as the software isn't telling you of an error, it's just not showing up). Does it happen on any other sites? Other wikis? Specifically on Wikia? Also, what do you mean by examples and SS's? Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 07:07, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I guess one way of putting it is images that are contained within the text of the article. Mostly ScreenShots, such as of vehicles. For example, the following SS from the FCR-900 page, which should show three images; I looked at the source, searched for the image pages, and I could see them fine there. But on the FCR page itself...


 * And it's like that on just about every page. Also, I checked on two other wikia hosted wikis and I can see that kind of images on them just fine. Vhazhiphor 07:28, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ahh, yes, the above images don't show for me either... Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 07:33, August 2, 2010 (UTC) EDIT: I use Google Chrome, but also tested IE8 and Firefox on Windows 7. The above images show up in none of them.Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 07:41, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * The ads could have caused the images to not show up. I blocked all ads on this site when using Firefox and have no problems seeing images but on IE7 some images are not showing up on this site.--spaceeinstein 08:04, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm using FF, too; didn't check IE, to be honest. So... is there a way to fix that? Vhazhiphor 08:44, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * (Biggest gta fan ever pinged me) I'd report this via Special:Contact, our team there are best suited to help out. Kirkburn (talk) 11:55, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

I see a big empty screenshot. Where is that at? --Uberfuzzy 13:13, August 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * The screenshot above seems to be from FCR-900. Gboyers talk 13:54, August 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * Works for me. Its possible that our servers were just being slow when they were creating those thumbnails. GtaWikiNonBrokenScreenshot.png --Uberfuzzy 19:23, August 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't seem to have any problems with the image in FX and Chrome, but in IE7 the images seem to not appear depending on the size of the window.
 * Odd1.jpgOdd2.jpg--spaceeinstein 20:38, August 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I tried a couple of solutions I've seen around the internet. I tried deleting cookies from this site, and checking the firewall, making sure all images load automatically, but it's still not there. Now, if I log out, I can see them (at least on FCR-900, since we seem to be using that for reference now), but logging in they're not there anymore. I looked around in my preferences but nothing seems to indicate why this happens. I even tried increasing image size limit but it didn't fix the issue. Hope that info helps. Vhazhiphor 01:50, August 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Doesn't work on Apple Safari either. --Gta-mysteries Talk 18:17, August 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks more like Wikia servers managing thumbnails are on the fritz again, because other Wikias are suffering the same problem. That's what can be assumed for now. - ZS 09:15, August 7, 2010 (UTC)

Removal of Social Tools
Hello GTA community,

As many of you are probably aware, we will soon be rolling out a new skin on all of Wikia. While designing the new look, we did a thorough assessment of all of the features we offer on Wikia. This wiki was one of those trying out the “social tools”, which for this wiki were: profiles, userboards, awards, gifts, friends, userboxes and gamercards. These are now quite out of date and so will be removed when we flip your wiki over to the new skin. Some of these social tools have similar extensions that are available, such as achievements. We have created a new version of gamercards, which is now available on this wiki. Please contact us via Special:Contact if you would like achievements, or other new features enabled.

You can view the timeline of the new skin rollout on our recent staff blog post, and more information on our FAQ. Our current schedule to remove the social tools on October 13th, one week after the initial release of the new look. We will update you here as that date nears.

We will be reassessing all the tools to see if any should be developed more fully in the future, so please let us know if there are any that worked particularly well for your wiki --Sarah (Help Forum) (blog) 01:27, September 30, 2010 (UTC).


 * I think that social profiles have worked very well on this wiki for as long as I've been here. I woulden't see the sense of removing them. As for achievments, I noticed that some wikis who do have them have "Editing Limits" where you can only edit a page a certain amount of times so you are not editing just to get the achievments. As it encorages a lot of unesessery editing. An "Edit Limit" is really un-democratic in my opinion. Sometimes pages need huge amounts of edits, often by the same users to be completed. Personally, I edited this page over 80 times to get it up to speed. I guess the choice is up to User:Gboyers though. Chimpso (Talk) 02:17, September 30, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've always hated the user board, I much prefer my talk page, so it would be good to force users to use talk pages. On the other hand, I find that gifts, friends and awards encourage new users to edit and remain part of the community - and social profiles are good instead of having a red link for most new users who haven't made their own userpage... I also agree with Chimpso that there should not be an edit limit, even (especially?) regular users and staff need to make alot of edits to a single page from time to time. Biggest GTA Fan EverTalk 09:24, September 30, 2010 (UTC)