User talk:Green Dragon/Archive 29

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Pantheon, Featured Article Concerns

I know it has been a while, but I felt I should notify you that the concerns you had explicitly mentioned on Talk:Pantheon_of_Tirr_(Tirr_Supplement) have been addressed. Please notify me on that page or on my talk page of any additional concerns you may have. Jwguy (talk) 04:52, 20 January 2015 (MST)

I'll look over all the revisions soon and see how it is. Thanks for letting me know! --Green Dragon (talk) 06:35, 23 January 2015 (MST)

Done 'n cool Homebrew Article Template?

I'm sure I'm not original in this idea, but I'm sure you can shoot it down if it's unreasonable. In a similar vein to the homebrew notice things thread above, I get the feeling one of the biggest gripes of users of this wiki is that it's hard to find homebrew articles that can reliably be used in their campaign, and not be unexpectedly unbalanced/not fun/ccccraaazy.

I was wondering what your thoughts would be on a {{totallycool}} template, just a small notice saying "This article is complete, and likely to be suitable for standard campaigns of this setting", obviously nothing like those words, but you get the spirit of the idea. Far be it from me to encourage an elitist attitude, but some sort of recognition for good articles that are below the Featured Article candidates, but definitely worthy of attention to people trying to find worthy stuff to put in their campaign seems like it wouldn't go amiss in this sea of content. Swishy. --SgtLion (talk) 15:45, 28 January 2015 (MST)

I agree. Maybe make the adding of the template something that only an admin can do, or something. --Salasay Δ 19:00, 28 January 2015 (MST)

Something comparable to {{April Fools}} but for articles which are great to add to one's campaign? A better name than " {{totallycool}}" would be {{recommendedpage}}. This could work just fine as a user-reviewing process. I don't think that it should be an admin-only derived list, however. We could also add something along the lines of "recommend by: USERNAME" also into the final list. This would be good so that if a certain user finds that another user finds interesting pages that compliment their own campaign well, they can find that more easily. I would go ahead and make {{recommendedpage}} and then it can be added to Meta Pages as appropriate, if there are enough users willing to start adding recommended pages right away. --Green Dragon (talk) 05:06, 29 January 2015 (MST)

Well I mean sure, if you're into meaningful wording, I guess. That's cool stuff, I agree with GD's take on things. Thing is, I don't think there wouldn't really be any way to like,create a list of pages recommended by a certain user, right? At least not with any wiki magic I know of. --SgtLion (talk) 07:48, 29 January 2015 (MST)

I think that it is possible. If you have a sortable dpl then you should be able to sort the information at least vaguely. If someone uses "--" before some of the templates, and others they do not then it may not work so well. If users keep it the same, however, then it should carry through and work just fine. I don't know if this is a neccssary aspect of this template though. --Green Dragon (talk) 07:52, 29 January 2015 (MST)

Thanks

Thanks for updating all the 4e racial feat list templates! Marasmusine (talk) 15:05, 4 February 2015 (MST)

No problem! Updating all the races and making sure they use the updated preload is still a major task, but I hope that that will help the races too. Also, do you know why Template:Design Disclaimer still shows a {{{2}}} even though it is an #if function? --Green Dragon (talk) 15:30, 4 February 2015 (MST)

Solved that {{{2}}} issue, by the way~ -SgtLion (talk) 08:53, 14 August 2015 (MDT)

Good catch. --Green Dragon (talk) 07:51, 15 August 2015 (MDT)

Regarding a recent IP ban

Hello Green Dragon,

I was recently contacted via email regarding the following:

Hello J. Wright,

I've recently had my IP address blocked, and can't seem to get a hold of Green Dragon. I figured out why it was banned after speaking to my son, he tried to make a new page and having failed he tried editing pages. Feeling he was doing good, he decided to overwrite an existing class to get his made, and felt it was a good change. It was changed back the next day, and he was very angry about this and erased all the class information and saved the page.

I just found out this morning, I am starting to DM again, which I haven't done in almost 7 years. I broke out my books, my minis, and my customized board, and my friend told me I should make a account on the wiki and read up before diving back in, so I tried. My son is 14 and plays in a small group with my neighbors and wanted to make his own class, which I can understand. Though the class he made has no balance, it's op and beyond, friggin munchkin. I have blocked his ability to access the site, I know it harsh to be out the reference material for a player but after what he did I don't see any other choice, his DM agreed.

I would very much like it if my IP address could be unblocked, but I understand if this decision stands, after all the wiki can not afford to have people damaging other peoples' works. Even though it wasn't I, it still came outta my house. Please, if you could talk it over with Green Dragon for me and let me know either way. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Halo M.

I looked into the issue and determined that this happened fairly recently, and was due to an edit of the Deadly Blade (3.5e Class) page, and the blocked IP was 96.39.187.48, and the block ID is #2989. It would appear you implemented the block, so I wanted to seek your perspective on this rather than act unilaterally. Jwguy (talk) 06:22, 18 February 2015 (MST)

That IP was blocked since it ended up blanking the page after I had reverted the edit. In addition the edits to Deadly Blade (3.5e Class) made the class into some Sparten-esque class, but it removed most of the page. The class had thus also become a feat-build type class without even linking to the feats or displaying the correct formatting for such a class. Although the Swordfighter (3.5e Class) was better, I was worried that it would also degrade into a feat-based class (its hard to make that one worse though). I will unban the IP if you trust the IP, and we can further see if his edits are made with good intentions. --Green Dragon (talk) 06:29, 18 February 2015 (MST)

We'll see. I was just asked to speak to you about it. I'll relay your decision back to them. Thank you for your time. =) Jwguy (talk) 09:46, 18 February 2015 (MST)

Making a new template?

Are regular users allowed to make new templates? I want to use a template I made for d20 Modern explosives and splash weapons. The regular weapons template does cut it for these types of weapons and it'd be easier to use a template than a regular table because those things can get long and hard to read and I have like dozens of explosives/splash weapons to make.

And while on the subject, I'd like to make a variant of the standard d20 Modern weapons template that changes "Purchase DC" to "Price" and "Restriction" to "Scarcity" but again, I am not sure if regular users are allowed to make templates. --GamerAim (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2015 (MDT)

Of course! If the template can be applied to a certain preload then that would be even better. Immersing yourself more into the possibilities of d20 Modern is not something that we frown upon! I look forward to the template, and let me know if you know of a good preload that can use the template. --Green Dragon (talk) 14:48, 28 March 2015 (MDT)

Per your suggestion, I integrated the template into the d20 Modern Equipment preload because I misremembered your reply and thought you gave me permission ahead of time to do so. If not, I apologize. Go ahead and check it and if it's not fine, I won't hold it personally if you undo my edit. Anyway, if it's good, then thanks for the suggestion and permission! --GamerAim (talk) 16:42, 28 March 2015 (MDT)

Editcount

Good afternoon, oh most emerald one. I'm wondering what my edit count is? (There doesn't seem to be a Special:Editcount.) Marasmusine (talk) 09:34, 1 April 2015 (MDT)

You can now find this information under "preferences → User profile → Number of edits:". Hope this helps! --Green Dragon (talk) 12:51, 1 April 2015 (MDT)

Thanks! (So I have over 20,000, feels like a million.) Marasmusine (talk) 14:37, 1 April 2015 (MDT)

Vandalism

The IP 50.175.5.162 just recently blanked the Boneshaper and the Black Flame Evocator pages randomly. I already reverted the edits, I'd just like to bring it to your attention. --Salasay Δ 08:34, 10 June 2015 (MDT)

And he just blanked Boneshaper again--Salasay Δ 20:07, 10 June 2015 (MDT)

I've blocked the IP for vandalism. <3 --SgtLion (talk) 08:04, 11 June 2015 (MDT)

Paizo Community Permissions

G'd eve, GD. Marasmusine was schoolin' me on OGL licensing in terms of Pathfinder content earlier, got me thinkin'.

Though there's no immediate requirements, and it'd be best we have the actual OGL material done and structured properly first - I was lookin' at Paizo's Community Use Terms. Is it plausible that we could eventually sign up to this? My main concern is how I should currently be structuring our PFSRD articles and templates, as their images are not under OGL licensing, it'd be easier to plan, knowing if we might eventually have images in the articles. --SgtLion (talk) 06:51, 15 July 2015 (MDT)

I don't think that we want to deal with changing licensing, and I think that our current structure is just fine. If there is a page, or even all Pathfinder pages that should be under a different license or terms of use then we can make that work. Images, of course, can be under a license that is supported in a MMC (Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Website) website format already. --Green Dragon (talk) 10:53, 8 September 2015 (MDT)

It wouldn't teeechnically be changing licensing, but sure that's fine. Paizo's images are only available under that agreement, so I don't think there are other options for the PFSRD specifically. Now I don't have to add in image support, whee~ --SgtLion (talk) 13:18, 8 September 2015 (MDT)

Stickin' Pathfinder homebrew on sidebar

Hi Greenie, you must be getting sick of me bringing up pathfinder everywhere by now. Pathfinder Homebrew is basically in a state for people to start contributing to some level - I've been actively working on the pages/preloads for a while now. I came to pitch the idea of stickin' it, and maybe PFSRD on the sidebar, though I'm fully aware that neither are done yet. I won't be expecting a giant influx like our 5e stuff, so it won't even be much pressure, it'd just be nice to open the floor, 'specially as Pathfinder things like creatures tend to be more neatly formatted, I'm naively dreaming it won't be much work to neaten new stuff up. Yes/No/Thoughts/etc? (Plus then I can access them to work on 'em easier :3) --SgtLion (talk) 07:10, 8 September 2015 (MDT)

Does the sidebar suite you now? I don't know if it should go below 3.5e, but since it was released later I think that it is okay where it is. --Green Dragon (talk) 10:50, 8 September 2015 (MDT)

That's beautiful, thank you. It might be worth considering splitting that list into homebrew/OGL things sometime, or I guess if we end up getting any more OGL content. <3 --SgtLion (talk) 13:18, 8 September 2015 (MDT)

Don't you just love seeing your baby grow up and go off to a good sidebar?--Salasay Δ 19:56, 8 September 2015 (MDT)

I fear for it's safety out in the sidebar world, but I must stay strong ;( They grow up so fast. --SgtLion (talk) 02:46, 9 September 2015 (MDT)

I am a little worried since both of the Pathfinder lists have few pages, but I justify it when I see the 2.5e option there too (there are probably more people looking for Pathfinder even though 2.5e has more pages as of now). I hope that people will improve the Pathfinder lists too so that it is more useable and easier to add Pathfinder pages. --Green Dragon (talk) 09:52, 9 September 2015 (MDT)

Ability Score Increases

I'm struggling to find a definitive answer to this, so I was wondering if Race Traits that effect Ability scores were counted as a +(number) to the roll number (For example, 17) or the Modifier number (For example +3). Thanks for the assistance.

Roll number. For example (3.5), an Elf who rolls a 14 (+2 modifier) for Dex and a 12 (+1 modifier) for Con is instead given a 16 (+3) Dex and 10 (+0) Con. --Salasay Δ 17:48, 21 October 2015 (MDT)

Magazine format

Hi GD, I need your feedback before I can continue with the magazine. You said you wanted links to page histories, this is what it looks like: http://1drv.ms/1Q7p0kw (not the trinkets, but everything below that), is this how you want it? Marasmusine (talk) 05:39, 6 November 2015 (MST)

I find that very intrusive. I think that it is better at the back with just a shortened http link saying "page history". I don't think that it is nice how you currently have the layout. --Green Dragon (talk) 08:02, 7 November 2015 (MST)

I don't like it either, I just wasn't sure where you wanted the links. When you say "at the back", you mean in an index (like the author index I had before?) Marasmusine (talk) 10:18, 7 November 2015 (MST)

Okay, having the history links in the index will significantly increase the time it will take to edit the magazine. Word doesn't transfer hyperlinks from marked entries to the index, so I will have to do this manually, and I will have to do this each time I rebuild the index :/ Marasmusine (talk) 11:36, 7 November 2015 (MST)

Yes, I meant moving the links to the index. Since you cannot shorten a link in word it is probably better to just include the whole link with the author's names in the index together. --Green Dragon (talk) 09:17, 9 November 2015 (MST)

Oh, I can shorten the link okay. How it worked in issue 1 and 2 is that as I added the content, I can "mark" each heading with some text (in this case, the authors names), and tell Word to build an index from that. I've found that if I include hyperlinks (shortened or not) in the mark, it just becomes plaintext in the index. The only thing I can do is add the links manually as the very last thing I do before publishing ... but if anything gets added or changes page number, I have to rebuild the index, and all the links have to be added manually again.

Leave it with me though and I'll figure something out! Marasmusine (talk) 09:42, 9 November 2015 (MST)

Unexpected Absence

GD I will be away for a while where at best my internet connection will be spotty at best. I have no time line on when I will return as of yet. I would like you to suspend my administrator permissions for the time being, so I won't have to worry about someone possibly getting into my account and doing something stupid. While it is unlikely in these cases I like to be overly cautious. Tivanir (talk) 09:55, 13 December 2015 (MST)

Okay, no problem I have changed your user group. Just let me know when you are back to make some edits. --Green Dragon (talk) 13:00, 13 December 2015 (MST)

I have returned from my medical abscence. Tivanir (talk) 17:28, 20 January 2016 (MST)

I have added back your user rights. Thanks for letting me know! --Green Dragon (talk) 09:19, 21 January 2016 (MST)

Domains in Deity Stat Blocks

Hey, was just perusing some deities and discovered that the domains are not showing up in the visible stat blocks. Not sure how to fix that. --Calidore Chase (talk) 17:47, 20 December 2015 (MST)

I can take a look, too. Which ones were you concerned with? Jwguy (talk) 07:17, 21 December 2015 (MST)

Any deity that uses the preset form for deities. Such as Alinia (3.5e Deity) - if you edit the item and look in the form you will see a line labeled Dom and information in that line does not appear in the displayed page. --Calidore Chase (talk) 19:38, 26 December 2015 (MST)

A user, Shadowpriest, seemed to have edited the Deity template. I have rolled back his edits. Should we protect that template? --Jwguy (talk) 00:16, 27 December 2015 (MST)

Doubt it will be an issue in the future. Glad it is working again. THanks for lookinginto that! --Calidore Chase (talk) 01:40, 27 December 2015 (MST)

Demon Lord and Archdevil Deletion

I would ask that you please reconsider adding the Demon Lord and Archdevil sections. They should have their own section because they do not fit in any other section. Both the Book of Vile Darkness and the Fiendish Codex (1 & 2) state that like Hero, or Quasi, deities, Demon Lords/Archdevils are not true deities and thus, cannot be labeled as demigods. But, they are not quasi deities either. What separates them from quasi deities, is that they have the ability to grant divine Domain Powers to their worshipers, making them more powerful than quasi deities but weaker than demigods. They have their own label because they need one, otherwise they would have been labeled as gods who live in the Abyss of the Nine Hells, rather than demon lords and archdevils. To further my point, the Libris Mortis and Serpent Kingdoms has Orcus, the Demon Lord of Undeath, and Sess'innek, the Demon lord of Serpents, listed in the deity sections of their respective books as Demon Lords, not a demigods or a quasi deities. Given this information, I seriously hope you reconsider the deletion of the Demon Lord/Archdevil sections. Please & thank you for your time.

Sincerely, Shadow Priest (talk) 22:57, 6 January 2016 (MST)

I have restored these pages. Is it okay if we first test it out on 3.5e Rules to see how many deities get added to these sections? If there is enough then adding a link on 3.5e Deities to them would make lots of sense of course. Do you know how to make it work with 3.5e Rules? --Green Dragon (talk) 14:21, 20 January 2016 (MST)

Request for assistance.

Hello, Green Dragon. I seem to have somehow accidentally logged myself out of the site before saving two edits. Tactical Commander (3.5e Feat) & Strategic Commander (3.5e Feat) Now my IP address is visible. Is there some way you could remove that from public sight? I seem to recall this happened once before. Sorry for the trouble. --Sir Dinadan (talk) 14:18, 18 February 2016 (MST)

I hope that the pages are fine for you now. Let me know if you run into more troubles. --Green Dragon (talk) 14:41, 20 February 2016 (MST)

Thank you, Green Dragon. Much appreciated. --Sir Dinadan (talk) 16:01, 21 February 2016 (MST)

LotR Setting

Hi, some time ago you restored Shelob, LotR (3.5e NPC) after I deleted it during a removal of the abandoned LotR setting. The reason I deleted it is that it was a copy of SRD:Colossal Monstrous Spider with the HD bumped up. There's nothing novel about it, and no description, so in my opinion not worth keeping. This time I will propose it for deletion with the usual 2-week buffer in case anyone wants to do something with it. Marasmusine (talk) 05:08, 28 March 2016 (MDT)

I was just wondering why the Lord of the Rings campaign setting should get deleted. Why not keep it? Unless you want to link to the SRD for each of these entries, or what did you have in mind? --Green Dragon (talk) 05:11, 29 March 2016 (MDT)

As the Campaign setting page history notes, it looks like it was deleted because for 2 years, there was no progress on the setting, that was already nowhere near enough content to be playable. A lot of the content was indeed largely SRD-borrowed, which I thought is contrary to the OGL license if its not meaningfully different. Anyhow, any content that stood up as good in its own right was transferred to the normal namespace. --SgtLion (talk) 15:53, 5 May 2016 (MDT)

I know, but I am talking about how the moving of pages and the like made every link on this CS a red link. Its just that if someone wants to use a LotR theme in their campaign, then its nice to have a CS with blue links not red ones. For me, its all the same since someone needs to put the work into it. But I am just commenting on that if someone is putting the work into deleting the pages, then why shouldn't we fix the link to the SRD instead of deleting it? --Green Dragon (talk) 11:04, 6 May 2016 (MDT)

Review Request

(For this topic, all posters, please follow example, and only post links directly to what needs to be reviewed and once they are submitted and accepted as legitimately usable in a particular edition, please remove the link. This it to keep unnecessary clutter from filling the page.)

Anansi-Salticidae_Arachnomorpha-Greater(5e_Race) Simplified version.

Stick_Men_(5e_Race)

Hi Peter (GD)...

This site you have is VERY useful! And in most ways VERY entertaining when it comes to the home brew parts of the site! I enjoyed seeing creatures like Gizmo & their dark spawn gremlins! I half expected there to be a description for Stripe or his"gang members. But I was in tears when I came across "Barry Wight"! I envisioned a pack of them pouncing on my unsuspecting players! Playing snippets of his SMOOTH & SOULFUL voice in his songs when one of the creatures special Attacks were used! That being said, I have found SOME creatures descriptions either slightly confusing or in some cases absolutely baffling. Now I HAVE put a comment in some of the discussion areas. But when looking over some of the members activity. I fear some questions will NEVER be answered. Is there a way for you to email creators to get answers to some inquiries? If they are sent to you? Also, I've ONLY sent mostly questions or corrections. I fear I MAY get a bad reputation. I do try to be PC, as I KNOW the world has become VERY sensitive over the years. But I hope that I do NOT come off as a know it all, or an elitist. I'm something of a perfectionist and a spelling Nazi. So, when I see misspelled words or grammar issues. I want to fix them. Now, I'm NOT saying my grammar is perfect. But, I'm sure you have seen worse. I KNOW I HAVE! So I'm apologizing now if I ruffle any feathers! I guess I should have been an editor or a proof reader or something. LOL! Well that is my 2 cent speech! Thanks for any info about contacting collaborators to clarify their creations! I will NEED your input & assistance when I FINALLY unvail my own creations. But for now, I will just thank you for an EXTREMELY helpful resource! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grymmlocke (talk • contribs) 08:23, 15 May 2016‎. Please sign your posts.

Are you not able to email the contributors that you are talking about yourself? If you go to a userpage and look at the "Tools" toolbox, then you should see an "Email this user" option there. Is there anything else that I can help you with? --Green Dragon (talk) 04:59, 28 May 2016 (MDT)

Licensing Options on Upload Page

Green Dragon,

I wanted to see about adding an option to the list of licensing options available on Special:Upload.

Specifically, I would like to add the {{Cc-by-Nc-Nd-3.0}} template, as many of my own images (as well as several that come from Deviantart, in general), use this license, instead of a simple Cc-by-3.0 license.

Unfortunately, I am having difficulties locating the page in order to do so. --Jwguy (talk) 11:50, 16 May 2016 (MDT)

Have you tried to add the option on MediaWiki:Licenses? It seems to be working just fine for me. --Green Dragon (talk) 04:57, 28 May 2016 (MDT)

Harassment

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/User_talk:Blue_Dragon#Harassment

Thank you for your assistance.

hi and need of help

hi

i just posted a doomhammer artifact weapon and i wish to get some help with finishing it so that it is posted on the weapon category.

Sincere greetings

Ghostdude123

Hi Ghostdude123, I fixed this for you and you'll find it at Doomhammer (5e Equipment). Be aware that it still needs some work! Marasmusine (talk) 01:04, 4 June 2016 (MDT)

Speedy deletion on TierArea's pages

I am deleting the remainder of TierArea's pages immediately, per their request, so this can be done with. Most had already been deleted: The only pages that were remaining were the ones that I had spend some time revising. I have now moved my revisions to different page names: nothing of TierArea's original text, history or naming remains. The exception is Trolling (5e Race), since the name of the race has context (but again, none of TA's original text is on the page). Just wanted to let you know so that you don't think I'm just deleting random pages! Marasmusine (talk) 03:03, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

If you so wish. Of course I don't know where he even mentioned that he wanted everything deleted, and also I don't know if this was said in a rage of pressure – but there is not much there anyway and if you are okay with your assistance then I guess its okay. Of course one thing of the GNU FDL v1.3 is that the content can be licensed further so we do not need to cater to users wims. Rather, wims are to be further refined into a serious discourse on content, what people have already put into their D&D games, and also even into the realm of publication procedures. --Green Dragon (talk) 06:02, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

Briefly, the issue was the TA didn't see the small print about the license, wanted to retain ownership, then threw all the toys out of the pram when they saw others could edit and criticize the work. The request was made in the form of deletion requests, as a courtesy I allowed this as they were the only contributor, and in my opinion the pages were not worth keeping. As a further courtesy I have renamed the pages that I made the effort to rewrite into a playable state, that's as far as my courtesy will go. Marasmusine (talk) 06:42, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

I understand the license misunderstanding. But, when I mentioned that we willingly work with people TierArea just put deletion up on everything. This shows a rage of pressure, which we should not reward and work with. Its like saying "we will do whatever you want!" which is really only something that a prison police officer can say in all reality. --Green Dragon (talk) 06:55, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

Acknowledged. Marasmusine (talk) 07:00, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

I've no intention to reignite any licensing issues, I'm quite happy with the current system. I fully acknowledge that in the case of long-established content, high quality content, etc. we wouldn't want to delete content on request no matter the disposition of the contributor. But are you saying we should punitively withold courtesy in regards to license misunderstandings, if the contributor isn't being nice and polite? Surely we should just prioritise sorting things out for the betterment of the content of the wiki - Otherwise we'd probably still be arguing with TierArea about this, rather than having it done and dusted. --SgtLion (talk) 07:19, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

I am not saying that we should punitively withhold any courtesy. Foremost, I am fine if we delete this content.

Secondly, I am stating the disposition that we do not offer users differing levels of courtesy. How we treat one page, needs to be fair and applicable 1) to D&D Wiki 2) to the content and 3) to the community supporting this page. Doing something from a users whim is not applicable to 1) or 2) and thus should not actually be done. Unlike a prison, we do not have checks between users and authority, we do not have a strict time schedule between users and personnel, and we also do not have a differing disposition between users and security. Thus, we do not have the power to do anything anyone wants since this administrator task can easily slip out of our grasp and be misused. Thus, it is better to not even consider this type of structure and rather consider the merits of a request based off the 1-3 options I stated before in a 3:0 or 2:1 winning ratio. Does this make any sense to you, or should i try to explain it more thoroughly? Maybe there are some more things I am not thinking about when we consider how a page should be treated? --Green Dragon (talk) 07:30, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

No, that makes sense to me. I think I just misread the meaning of your initial explanation. Thank you!~<3 --SgtLion (talk) 14:34, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

Vandal Troll

I'm sorry for posting this here, I'm new to the site and didn't know where else to put this. There is an anonymous editor who keeps deleting large swaths of other people's content. The editor is 80.1.30.76. I would clean up after him, but every time I do, he merely reverts the fix. Selfawarebot (talk) 18:14, 12 June 2016 (MDT)

Great catch! I have now blocked this IP and reverted its edits. If you come across more misbehaving IPs please let me know. --Green Dragon (talk) 22:05, 12 June 2016 (MDT)

Sure thing! I quite like this wiki and would like to see it flourish. Selfawarebot (talk) 13:54, 13 June 2016 (MDT)

Where is the line on deletions/abandoned/leave?

What's chill, yo? I noticed I've done quite a number of deletion proposals recently, as it's nice to continue the generally positive trend of increasing quality. I've come to you because I've done many 'n many, and I'm not sure where to draw the line, really. I've seen general guidelines we've outlined in the past, but nothing enormously helpful. Following is where I stand on these things at these moment:

• If an article is being actively updated (As in meaningful edit in the last 2-4 weeks or so) then I don't put deletion templates. Improvement templates might be added, though.

1. Obviously we apply delete templates to articles with little/no content, those are clear cut.
2. Fairly clear we apply delete templates to half-finished and unplayable articles. These are generally unsaveable.
3. If an article has a more meaningful issue: Unsaveably unplayable/Meaningfully incomplete/Unbalanced to its core/Novels' worth of poor wording. I generally add an abandoned to it - Is that right?
4. If an article has moderate issues: Mechanics not quite complete/needs a few paragraphs to be actually playable/meaningfully, but saveably unbalanced/a half hour of word checking is needed. There aren't too many articles I think fall into this category, but there do so seem to be a significant amount. What should I be doing with these? Sometimes I'm harsh and send them for abandoned/delete, sometimes I leave them, in the hope that a passing user will save them, if it's a simple enough job then I will try save it, but I don't have the time to do that with every article I come across.
5. If an article has had a minor issue for like, 1+ years: Generally playable, but some unclear mechanics/terrible wording/no formatting/not balanced for normal campaigns/no lore. These also don't sit right with me. These make up a decent amount of articles that I imagine people come to dandwiki and see, then find unuseable, and then don't come back. As far as I understand, policy here is to sort of, let these lie. Again, if I think I have time to save these articles, I will, but more often than not, I will give them my mercy, and they will go on to tarnish our reputation for quality for another few years until I see it again.
6. If an article has had a minor issue for a few months: I generally give it benefit of the doubt, hoping its owner or someone else will come by and fix a relatively new article.

It's those points 4/5 and occasionally 3 that I have sticklers with, usually. Articles living on the border between life and deletion. On one hand, I like the idea that we're accomodating to contributors, I don't want to be mean and reject their hard work just because it's an hour's work from perfect playability. On the other hand, these articles are standing around, not being useful content, in their hundreds - Complete with hundreds of improvement templates that have spent years unaddressed. And they make it a lot harder for users to find the actual good stuff. I know content is subjective, but this void is not at all conducive to a good result.

I would also like to hear other people's view on this, so please do share. --SgtLion (talk) 08:11, 12 August 2016 (MDT)

Hi SgtLion, a few years ago I made some notes at Category_talk:Candidates_for_Deletion#Rule of thumb. Marasmusine (talk) 09:11, 12 August 2016 (MDT)

Also, if the decision is fuzzy/grey area, then I am biased towards keeping interesting ideas, and biased towards deleting unoriginal material (what I call "yet another cat/wolf-folk race syndrome") Marasmusine (talk) 09:17, 12 August 2016 (MDT)

You have written some good general remarks on deletion. Since this area has such a general nature, I have been hesitant to work with these type of rulesets.

My advice on 3 and 6 is that what you are advising works well.

My advice on 4 is to check the history. If it has a good history with involved users then they may have plans for these pages, and I would first add other reviewing templates. If the history is not really noteworthy, or the page does not deal with the reviewing templates for some time, then I would change It to {{abandoned}}.

My advice on 5 is to use those rules of thumb.

Do you think it is a good idea if we add these general remarks as advice on {{delete}}? I imagine that there are more users that come across this same type of misunderstanding and give up often enough to make it useful. --Green Dragon (talk) 18:22, 12 August 2016 (MDT)

I wonder how I missed those guidelines. Shame on me. Thanks for clarifying it - I'm in agreement with what's been said.

Alright, so I'm glad I've pretty much been along these lines thus far. I realise deletion isn't the solution to our swathes of 5s (Although referring to them like that already makes me feel like I'm a dystopian sci-fi: "DELETE THE CAT FIVES"), but they are frustratin'. I'll keep goin' as I am for now, then.

I think it might be a good idea to better emphasise on the delete templates that the proposed article is perfectly saveable - As contributors have a tendency to panic, I think, when they see their articles being lambasted. How exactly we put that across though, I'm not sure. --SgtLion (talk) 14:04, 13 August 2016 (MDT)

Echo Warrior

Hi, You have a character/type called "Echo Warrior" on your web site... Just as a heads up... There is a guy who is trying to trademark the words "Echo Warrior" and if he does a search and sees your site using his trademarked words it could cause a great deal of financial and legal headaches for you... Submission 87121789 July 29th 2016 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.248.10.37 (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

Thanks for the notice - I've looked up the application (here, for interested people). This trademark application only applies to entertainment media, anime, video productions and similar categories. As such even if this application is accepted (Not a lawyer, but I'd deem it unlikely), the restriction on the term will only apply to articles that 1) Are in a similar category (TV Show/Anime/etc) and/or 2) That general public could plausibly see a meaningful link (or be confused) between our article and the owner of the Trademark. Even then, if we were deemed to be infringing on that trademark, any legal issues would only arise if we actively refused to desist in use of the term.

So thanks a lot for the notice! I will keep an eye on it. But legally speaking, we should be okay for the moment. --SgtLion (talk) 04:00, 18 August 2016 (MDT)

Homebrew/SRD differentiation concerns

Hiya, GD. Big rant right o' here, if you wouldn't mind weighing in - Sorry~. And I know we're also sorting tavern stuff, but there's really no rush. Respond when you feel like it. --SgtLion (talk) 16:11, 24 August 2016 (MDT)

What are my boundaries?

OK, so lately I've kind of been doing a lot of work that I'm worried may be overstepping my limits as an admin. I understand that this is, ultimately, your website, and it really should grow and operate the way you see fit. Just because it's a wiki does not mean it must belong to the users like a runaway freight train, (like wikipedia). I respect that. However, that being the case, I want some kind of guidance. How far can I go with this kind of work before I've gone too far? I want to make the wiki, and the associated community, grow and prosper. I want this to be the fun, exciting, wonderful thing that I know it can be- what it is right now in some places! And I am willing to spend sleepless hours working towards that end. However, I also want the wiki to stay within its creator's vision. I don't want to start derailing things and have a bunch of work reverted because I overstepped somehow. I also don't want to start some ridiculous fight like that nonsense that supposedly spawned spin-offs. I know that most of that fight centered around copyright/authorship issues, and debates over quality. These are both still big issues on the wiki today, and part of what I want to do is eventually get the wiki up to a point where it can tackle those issues responsibly, rather than leaving it all to you and BD. I am annoyed that it feels like I am mostly alone in the effort though. Other users provide a few comments here or there, or add in a useful paragraph to a guideline or something, but by-and-large, I'm basically writing a bunch of rough-draft policies alone, with very little guidance. That seems inappropriate to me. There should be community consensus behind that kind of stuff... But most of the time, the community for 5e is you, me, Marasmusine, and sometimes Azernath or Salasay, and it feels like the community is very slow and quiet. I don't know whether to take silence as a vote of confidence, or just a sign that nobody noticed or cares. I want to see actual progress- I don't want improvement projects to stagnate in obscurity and silence and ultimately go nowhere, like so many pages on the wiki. Here is, by my understanding, what this wiki is, and what my boundaries are. These are the assumptions I have been using behind all of my work for the last few weeks. Please correct me if I am wrong.

• dandwiki is an inclusive, open, easily accessed community, with a focus on collaborative homebrew. We do not especially value individual authorship, instead deferring to community consensus about how best to develop a concept. As a consequence, any given piece of homebrew may have the combined efforts of many users, without necessarily representing any of their personal visions of what it should be, but rather the most effective compromise between them. It is a courtesy to respect the spirit of the original poster's creation, but otherwise, "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here." This is distinct from DnD-Wiki, which strongly values individual authorship, and opposes collaborative design unless it is explicitly concented to.
• dandwiki does have quality standards and tools for regulating its content. It is intended to be self-regulating by an active, interested community, in the format of a quality-assured system. Instead of dedicated inspectors who "sign off" on content and face consequences if their judgement is wrong, (a quality-guaranteed system), here every user is assumed to be an inspector, and is expected to actively make changes to improve/assure quality. The standards of "quality" are supposed to be based on community consensus, such that it can reflect the ambiguous and subjective nature of the concept in gaming. (I have been taking some steps to codify, in general, what that seems to mean in most cases, but I want to leave the policies more open-ended, so they aren't restrictive of creative design)
• OGL and SRD content is hosted on the wiki primarily as a benefit to the creation of homebrew, allowing us to create and use links as references, rather than cluttering our pages with clunky page references, or a citation system as seen on wikipedia, which would make dandwiki less accessible to new users, due to the sudden jump in technical learning curb. The SRD/OGL's use as a reference in general, though accepted as being useful, is not its primary intent. We also lack the licensing necessary to create pages containing officially published content, and so long as WotC is making money off their publications, we'll probably never get it. As a consequence, dandwiki is not, and can not be, an encyclopedic project. It has more in common with those old play-by-post roleplaying wikis than it does with wikipedia.
• The main objective of every editor/contributor should be to improve the wiki in some way, to make it a better, more useful place on the internet. This goes doubly for administrators, who also have the responsibility of monitoring and regulating the social environment, dealing with problematic users, arguments, criminal activity, (like copyright infringement or harassment) and vandalism. To this end, every user should be able and willing to participate in the creation, maintenance, and improvement of guidelines and policies by which the community self-regulates, under the guidance of the wiki bureaucrats.

Considering I haven't been reprimanded for anything yet, I'm guessing I'm not far off the mark, but I'd still like some clarity on just what my limits are here. --Kydo (talk) 20:08, 6 September 2016 (MDT)

The boundaries for you mostly come from w:Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list. Its not my role to tell you "yes!" and "no!" anywhere really. You are using words like "your website" and "creator" but I am simply the "person ultimately in change", and this is meant in the most correct of senses. In this role I work to stop edits which are not done with censuses, any logic, and/or in a democratic method. In addition upholding community norms is highly important, and also making sure that community norms are not misguided is part of this too. Keeping new policies and meta within a structure is also something I look at. I also make sure that the website physically operates and has all the physical needs to continue working.

If there is something that you are really timid about, just let me know and I will take a look at it, so that I do not have to oversee its correct implementation from the position of one "ultimately in charge". Don't be timid though, you wont start a runaway train! Most of your concerns above seem to come from a policy or so, but which one and where is your angst coming from? --Green Dragon (talk) 14:33, 7 September 2016 (MDT)

The guidelines outlining what, specifically, constitutes complete, flavorful, and balanced content for the wiki in a given area. I mean, I straight-up wrote the entirety of the 5e Background Design Guide! In particular, Precedent (DnD Guideline) worries me. It's a useful way of packaging a complex concept into a single word for technical discussion, (I've been using that word in that way for about 5 years now) but I also worry that some people may read it too strictly, thinking "balance" is only relevant to the core rules, and not an independent abstract concept, rather than understanding precedent as simply a foundation, a rule-of-thumb to avoid power creep and maintain compatibility with the game.

I am also concerned about template:Design Disclaimer. I kind of took a vague concept and hijacked it into something only somewhat similar to its original purpose. I did so primarily with the intent of clarifying its purpose and function, in order to make it more useful in a practical sense. I worry that I changed it too significantly, and too quickly, based on observations of its use and vague intuition, rather than actual discussion.

In general though, the usual lack of input from other users concerns me. Consensus matters when you're doing things which could impact we way people interact with the wiki and each other. --Kydo (talk) 16:05, 7 September 2016 (MDT)

I shall hop in here and say that I think the changes you're making are broadly great things, Kydo. The fact of the matter is, as we are now, we're overstretched, this does make it hard for active users to actively pitch in on ideas and things. What I tend to do, if I'm making a change I'm not 100% sure about, and nobody has pitched in about it, is just mention it to GD or Marasmusine or someone else, and see their thoughts on it. Though I agree, the ideal situation is that everybody actively discusses every change, I fear that's just too much work (certainly for me, at the moment) to be getting on with. If you're comfortable with it, then please, keep going with what you're doing. I do think you're actively making a positive change, and that's pretty obviously good. If anyone has a significant objection, they'll likely raise it, even if takes years to get 'round to it. --SgtLion (talk) 05:57, 14 September 2016 (MDT)

I agree with what SgtLion wrote, and I just want to stress that it is important to respond to a critical discussion. It helps to also look at what other users are doing, and if you feel that this may influence your work then by all means take that into consideration. Also be critical and look at what you and other admins are doing from various views. For example some users may see your work on Template:Design Disclaimer and say Wow! no way am I going to understand all those rule nuances! I am just going to stick with letting an admin do it now!" Looking at your work through the eyes of a child could help a lot, but maybe it would also make it incomprehensible. If you supplied a set of pre-written templates, maybe people would pay more attention to this template.

For 5e Background Design Guide it maybe would be best to start the page with a large bold box like Template:Adult Theme stating "Don't like how you are playing your character, who you are, or fed up with the DM? Make your background!" --Green Dragon (talk) 09:56, 14 September 2016 (MDT)

I did supply it with a selection of pre-scripted templates. For example, the fly template says,

This material makes a character capable of unrestricted flight before level 5, so DMs should take note of that fact. Obstacles and traps reliant on falling/gravity/height may not be significant challenges to a character using this material. Obstacles of these sorts are, however, an excellent tool to highlight the character's advantage. If you are using obstacles of these sorts to restrain the players to the intended play area, it will likely be ineffectual at containing such a character. Additionally, throwing in ranged or flying opponents with most of your encounters is advisable, but not to the extent that it would punish the player for their character's ability to fly, so much as to give them something meaningful to compete against. Be careful about who is allowed to use this material, as immature players will likely abuse flight to derail the campaign. As should be standard, such players should be dealt with outside-of-game through open communication, but it is often best to avoid the situation in the first place. New players often have difficulties visualizing themselves as another person, let alone another creature capable of moving in ways that they themselves will never experience. As such, if a new player is allowed to use this material, they may need some degree of guidance to remember that their character can fly indefinitely without limitations, though it should only take a few sessions to really drive the point home.

Which is an awful lot to say, but unrestricted flight is kind of a big issue in the balance debate.

You are right though. I can see a greenhorn looking at that template and going "I don't even know what balance is yet, and now you're telling me it's wishy-washy?" But the sad part is, yeah, that's exactly what I'm telling you! It's complex and subtle, and it takes like a decade of experience and interaction with the community to really build a good sense of when something is designed outside of balance but is still OK, as compared to something that is actually just broken. And even very experienced gamers with a thorough, deep understanding of the game can have DRASTICALLY opposing views of where those boundaries lie. (Just look at what happened with Races of War, or the endless debates over whether SGTs are even valid measurements) Yes it's complex. Yes it's over a lot of peoples' heads. Yes it's important that even newbies be aware of it, even if they don't fully understand it. Because, if a noob accidentally makes such a thing and sparks a debate, we need to have a tool that can be used to protect their work. It makes this wiki a safer place for people to be creative, while still maintaining a clear standard for balance. So, in a way, it really is kind of for admin and high-functioning design-minded editors. You're not supposed to just slap the thing on every page you make so you don't need to achieve balanced design, it's to protect unique works from restrictive and dogmatic opinions of balance. (And I say opinions, because sometimes balance isn't just numbers, it comes down to how you play the game, and that's where things get muddy)

I didn't even know we had an adult content disclaimer! How neat! I can think of a few pages that should be put on right off the top of my head! I tried to be as PG-13 as possible with that guideline though... What was it that could be construed as offensive? Maybe we should make a page which compiles all of these disclaimer templates together, like with the improving templates, and presents them somewhere readily accessible to everyone, like under meta. Right now, there are a lot of useful templates floating in a weird sort of wiki-limbo where you need to know to search for them in order to even find them. That makes the wiki rather opaque and difficult to use, very unfriendly for users who are new to the wiki interface. --Kydo (talk) 12:12, 14 September 2016 (MDT)

I am not saying that people cannot use these templates, but that most people will not use them since its not first explained and then presented. Instead, its just presented. This is why if you included an example for each usage (or just the code), then people may use it. For example: Weird fly rules being used somewhere? Slap {{fly}} on that page! Unfortunately it is not usable in this way now.

Since you have been wondering a lot about the standard procedures this one goes like this: If {{Adult Theme}} is to get a special page then it should first somehow be mentioned on Help:Portal. I agree though that we are missing a lot of templates by doing it this way. If you want to make a big difference correcting this policy void would make some sense. --Green Dragon (talk) 13:58, 14 September 2016 (MDT)

OK. Let's start fixing the mess that is our help pages then. Because if in going to that, such a page needs a logical structure to fit within. That particular portal has a lot of cobwebs. Please take a look at the following pages.

Help:Introduction did not exist.

Help:Portal had multiple links to the same page for headers which do not exist. It also contained links to individual 3.5e design guidelines, rather than a link to the full multiple-editions guidelines page.

D&D Wiki:About should be cleaned up to reflect the wiki's history to this day, and to have a more professional tone of voice. It should be linked to in our welcome message. It should include a mission statement, either in its text directly or as a link, as discussed at the end of Discussion:Homebrew 'n SRD Differentiation and other issues at the moment.

Help:Contents and D&D Wiki:About should be merged. They cover the same subject matter, both in an incomplete form, so both are redundant.

Help:Editing is a stub.

Constructive Editing (DnD Guideline) is a little wishy-washy and unprofessional in tone. It also links directly to the 3.5e Class Design Guide, showing it was clearly made prior to the inclusion of other editions. If updated, this could be a good place to include an overview of disclaimer templates, or at least link to such a page.

The D&D Wiki:Things to do should contain links to the individual edition to do lists.

Help:Standards and Formatting (DnD Guideline) contains a reiteration of Help:When to Italicize and Capitalize rather than linking to it directly.

Help:Article Naming is a wandering, muddled page, some of its attitudes are out of date. Others are poorly explained. It needs revision. In particular, its section on the design disclaimer is a policy form that, as far as I can tell, is not followed, is not enforced, and has been replaced by the creation of variant content categories.

Help:Behavioral Policy includes a link to the mature content disclaimer. I'd like to see disclaimers collected on a single page, and have the help pages link to that instead.

I have noticed that, at no point did I ever encounter the improvement templates compilation page. That's a pretty important thing for new users to have access to, and is a likely topic of interest from the help portal. It should be there. --Kydo (talk) 18:11, 14 September 2016 (MDT)

I have updated the scripted design disclaimers so that they can function independently. --Kydo (talk) 22:20, 14 September 2016 (MDT)

I would like your input on Help talk:Improving, Reviewing, and Removing Templates please. --Kydo (talk) 23:34, 14 September 2016 (MDT)

So, a while ago I wrote Precedent (DnD Guideline) because it was necessary to have some sort of basis in order to write design guidelines at all. I used compatibility as the baseline for balance, because that seemed to be about the only thing the entire administartion team consistently pointed out when criticising a page for balance. Since it was the only balance issue we had clear consensus on, and because it's pretty wishy-washy in any case, I felt pretty safe in just adding it to the wiki. I have been writing two other articles about balance and quality though, and I am not as confident about them being acceptable standards. Do you mind reading User:Kydo/A Good DM and User:Kydo/Spirit and Intent and sharing your thoughts about them? They're kind of long, so I can understand if you don't have the time. (Also, if anyone lurking GD's talk page sees this, yes, I would appreciate your opinions too.) --Kydo (talk) 20:37, 16 September 2016 (MDT)

Netbook of Feats

Hey Green Dragon, since it seems to be that you're the one ultimately in charge of everything, was wondering if there was any guidelines here that I should be made aware of in regards to my cleanup of The Netbook of Feats Version 12.4 of the Netbook of Feats page. I have spent quite a bit of time working on it already, having trimmed it down greatly in size already through just general wiki related fixing and am continuing to work on that page but wish to know if there is something I should know in regards to that document that I may be unaware of, or wiki guidelines that may affect how it is cleaned up. I also have made a comment on that pages talk page if discussion of the cleanup wants to be taken there instead. Thanks, Kalbintion (talk) 14:52, 15 September 2016 (MDT)

I hope I answered your question on that page. If you need some formatting help or anything, just drop me a message! --Green Dragon (talk) 15:03, 16 September 2016 (MDT)

Hey I've since replied to what you put on that page but haven't heard anything back from you. Looking forward to working with that page. Thanks. Kalbintion (talk) 16:48, 25 September 2016 (MDT)

Legality of reposting content from dandwiki elsewhere

Please, please, please do not crucify me for asking this- I am merely curious, and want to understand our policies better such that I can enforce them more effectively as admin. (Which I am currently doing by writing them down in an easily accessible format.) At the bottom of every edit page, it says "Please note that all contributions to D&D Wiki are considered to be released under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 (see D&D Wiki:Copyrights for details). If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!" I have taken that to heart when editing here, it rather gruffly expresses the true, honest nature of what a wiki is. Now, I try to understand legalese whenever it is important to my activities, (I have a pretty strong grasp of Canadian copyright law regarding artwork in the professional fine arts scene, for example) but it's usually pretty far over my head in most cases. Now, I'm not asking about any specific details regarding the GNU FDL, but doesn't the phrase, "redistributed at will" rather imply that the content has absolutely no copyright protection whatsoever, and therefore allows anyone to copy material from here to anywhere else? I know that isn't a legal document, but that is the implication. I also know that, in the past, you were of the opinion (again, I haven't read the document thoroughly, so I'm not making any definite statements about it) that copying material out from dandwiki onto other websites was illegal according to the licensing of this wiki. If the implication of the edit page disclaimer is incorrect, I believe it should be altered, or removed from the form, so as not to mislead users.

In any case, I would like clarification of what the policy regarding reposting of content elsewhere actually is, and why, so that it can be written down for all users to know, understand, follow, and enforce. It is very difficult to do any of those things without any tangible material (in a state that can be understood by a lay-man) to justify it. Writing such a policy from observation alone is, at the moment, very difficult, considering the precedent you and the other current admin have set, (Do not copy content from here to elsewhere) which seems to be contradicted by the dandwiki magazine which explicitly publishes wiki content in a new format, technically on another website, with authorial attribution. Because of the massive positive potential inherent in the magazine project, I believe it would be best for this community if its existence is somehow validated by policy, regardless what it says about any other form of redistribution.

I'm guessing it has something to do with this,

"You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3. "

followed by people making copies under a license which does not include the GNU FDL, and are also failing to replicate the GNU FDL on the copy. Am I correct? That would make the most sense, and seems the most likely problem, though it'd be pretty hard to legally enforce with derivative work like the content of this wiki. Frankly, I don't even care if this wiki's policy on redistribution is validated by the GNU FDL. I just need to know what it is so I can put in writing.

I know there were a lot of hurt feelings over this topic in the past, and that's why it matters that we be very clear and open about the subject from now on. It is to the benefit of everyone on this wiki that those kinds of destructive arguments do not occur ever again. I am trying to help this place grow and flourish again. I want our bad reputation to at least be wrong, if not reversed. I want the wiki to be an equal to the other D&D communities, rather than the butt of a series of D&D meme jokes. I want the wiki to provide a valuable service to the D&D homebrewing community, rather than spreading frustration and anger. To do that, we need lots of dedicated users and good, active administrators. To get them we need clear, obvious, useful policies. That's all I'm trying to do here, my intentions are good. --Kydo (talk) 12:13, 20 September 2016 (MDT)

Well, I made an attempt anyways. Help:Legal is my stab at putting our legal policies into a very loud and easily accessible form, and explaining how this community interprets and uses those licenses. I based the text off of the results of the various arguments regarding the license that I have read. Please make any corrections where my assumptions were flawed. --Kydo (talk) 05:51, 22 September 2016 (MDT)

You're getting a little pre-emptively worked up over this, keep it chill. The last argument happened because a decent number of admins seemed to believe that contributors kept full rights over their content (And they don't). - GD and BD are sometimes absent for some days, too, because life.

It's hard to fully see what you're asking, so I'm sorry if I'm not hitting the point you wanted. As far as I've ever understood, everything here is licensed under GNU FDL, unless otherwise marked. We have no policy on content rights or management that is separate from that. 'Redistributed at will' does mean 'Redistributed at will as much as is allowed under the terms of GNU FDL 1.3', in this case.

Copying content to outside Dandwiki is legal under the terms of GNU FDL, I don't think GD disagrees with that whatsoever. But the terms of GNU FDL means that others can't relicense the content under anything else, and this was another point of confusion back in the day. We live in an odd void of this legal world, because our finished articles don't really have a single 'author', as such, so it's hard to say whether any single contributor has legal rights to relicense work (Unless they are the sole author of given thing). I don't know how that bit works, sadly, as I am no lawyer. I'm not sure where this idea has stemmed from, but as far as I've ever talked and seen - Content from dandwiki can be copied to another website, under GNU FDL terms.

So, while 'redistributed at will' might not be the most precise term, I think it best represents the idea that whatever you contribute to this wiki may be changed and copied to places you don't want it to. In which case don't put it here. Thanks yet again for the effort you're putting in to make these things explicit. --SgtLion (talk) 05:52, 26 September 2016 (MDT)

I actually got worked up over the arguments I've been reading in various page histories. Even with specific insults removed as per policy, there is some very hurtful phrasing mixed in with a lot of that. It was painful to read a lot of those arguments. Poorly worded replies, and poorly justified opinions all around. Immaturity and hostility. But I was reading them because I felt it was important to do something about it. A misunderstanding happened, a very big misunderstanding, and it had some pretty significant consequences for this community... and it looked like nobody had done anything to resolve the situation. The licenses were still not easy to find through help. (In fact, they couldn't be found through help.) There were no stated policies based on those licenses. There was no explanation. Ostensibly, the same damn argument could happen all over again. In fact, it has been, in isolated, individual, non-admin cases. Each of those users who left in a huff because they didn't understand what we do here or how we do it could have had a better experience, if only we'd made more of an effort to talk to them about it first. I then had to go on a guy's talk page and tell him to take down his attribution templates... Without having any policies to justify my actions. The license doesn't say anything about how we should do things here on the wiki, and it would be unreasonable for us to expect newbies to somehow divine what that license means for social protocol here. He kept posting more stuff, so I had to do something, so I wrote help:Legal.

Also, it is worth mentioning that, as I work 12 hour night shifts, my sense of time is... err... distorted. A lot. A single day to you guys is two days to me, divided by two 4-hour nights in the morning and evening. So I can get pretty impatient with things which, to me, seem to be dragging on forever, but to others have only sat for a day and a half. --Kydo (talk) 08:24, 26 September 2016 (MDT)

Geez, yeah, that schedule sounds confusing, fair enough indeed. And aye, I'm guessing that everyone involved doesn't feel those discussions went as well as they could've.

And I fully agree, actually - we should make our content policies and licenses very clear and explicit to users, to avoid misunderstandings. Though the thoroughness with which we display our policies would certainly hold up in court, it would work better if we could use clarified explanations to make life easier for everyone. In that quest, your work on Help:Legal is hella good, I'll make sure to go over it with a fine-toothed comb soon. This was actually probably a much bigger issue than I had previously thought, nice stuff. --SgtLion (talk) 06:40, 27 September 2016 (MDT)

I'm having trouble finding my way around the wiki

Hi I was trying to make a new class vehicle a air ship That is for end game in campaigns that the levels are extended it is supposed to be a extreme end game unit and not very common in the world very few and far between a country might have as many as five mostly used against strong holds or castles/navy and other air ships but whith human players you never know as my game the political process of countries can be manipulated by the players and as such a player could become a king and could only save it to my user page and was wondering how I would go about having it moved somewhere that others may see or improve it my username is dwarik forge hart it's also my character name for my dnd homebrue game I've been building on paper for about a year and came across your wiki and really like it so I joined and would like to build custom items/vehicles/creatures/spells and was wondering how to work the site better so I can contribute when I have a idea and thank you for your time sincerely a d&d player named kaylin

Hey there, I'm not GD, but I do lurk his page, and am a little more active. Welcome to the wiki! I have delivered the welcome message to your talk page. I have found the page you are talking about, D&D Wiki:Air ships by dwarik forge hart. It appears you actually added it to your user page, then tried to move it, which turned your userpage into a redirect. Then you moved it again, creating a double redirect. Ok. That's interesting and totally fixable. Here's what I'm going to do for you.

1. I'm going to move that page to a user subpage under your user name for now, and call it "sandbox". Lots of users have a sandbox subpage to work on stuff before posting it to mainspace. It's pretty useful.
2. I'm going to delete all those needless redirects, as page deletion is an administrator action.
3. I'm going to put links to the help pages most relevant to your issue on your talk page.
4. I'm going to find out where that content is supposed to go, and link you to it.

Sound good? --Kydo (talk) 10:15, 3 October 2016 (MDT)

OK! Done! How's that looking? --Kydo (talk) 10:40, 3 October 2016 (MDT)