Inkipedia talk:Ink Pump

The Ink Pump

Welcome to the Ink Pump. Similar to Wikipedia's village pump, the Ink Pump serves as a general place for the Inkipedia community to discuss the wiki as a whole, whether it be ideas, proposals, technical issues, or notices.
Note: for proposals, Ink Pump should only be used for any discussion and brainstorming that precede a proposal; the actual proposal should be created according to the consensus policy, with major changes proposed at Inkipedia:Proposals, and minor changes proposed at the talk page of the relevant policy.

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Retiring wall of fame

Should Inkipedia:Wall of Fame be retired? It has been 4 years since someone was inducted, and no nominations have been made during that time.

If retired, the wall would remain, but it would be made clear that nominations are no longer allowed, and the page would be locked to prevent editing.

It's possible that the lack of nominations is caused by the page not being linked anywhere, so a possible alternative course of action would be editing policy pages to link to the wall of fame process. Heddy (talk) 08:44, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, there are a lot of current editors that deserve to be in the Wall of Fame as much as the few ones that are already there.

I think that it should either be maintained and updated or entirely removed, but leaving it like that would be a bit unfair for other editors that deserve it as well.

Alternatively, I think (altrough it may be just my perception) that a Request for Rights is not suited for nominating someone to the Wall of Fame.

Requests for Rights are requests that have a dedicated page and that are generally used for voting things that affect the wiki somehow, while adding someone to the Wall of Fame doesn't really affect the wiki in any way and that's why I think creating a dedicated page for such request may seem a bit redundant or unnecessary. I personally think if maintained, voting should take place on the Wall of Fame's subpages or even at the bottom of the page and then archived when finished.

That's just my perspective tho. It's moon [Talk!] 10:07, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Knew this would get pushed here before I was ready eventually. I swing the opposite, I'd actually prefer to see it removed if not conceptually retired. I fundamentally disagree with the purpose of a board like this, truthfully. I think all four or five members on there have been great, to preface—This isn't a dig on them by any means. I think it can cause issues with morale and how edits should be respected across the board. We have seen hundreds to thousands of editors come and go, and had quite some notable ones leave prior. They are noticably not on this Wall of Fame. Should we try and go back and add users to the list, we them have to play what ultimately leaves a bad taste in my mouth of "who's contributions stick out more than others", which could boil down to extremely subjective criteria like popularity, where edits were made, general online presence, or just that being staff inherently makes you WoF; otherwise, the prime takeaway from "grading" contribution to the community for WoF is that it implies that some edits are better than others (as they are being memorialized through their creator) or worse, that some editors are better than others. This is obviously not the case but I doubt that will stop people from feeling like it is. This functionally IS a quality analysis, as the community must look at the nominee's edit history and say "what makes this stick out over other edits to be considered noteworthy and significant?" which seems petty and pretentious. What if they're not nominated to be on the board when they decide to retire after 4, 5, 7 years of writing on the site? Wouldn't you be kinda peeved by that? What about if a request to be added to the WoF fails despite some obvious merits still being present? I don't want people leaving an extensive time on Inkipedia feeling like their edits mattered or were valued less than people who are on the WoF because they are NOT on the WoF. This also goes for smalltime contributors, those that might only make ten spelling tweaks and never touch the site again: I think those edits are just as valid as a WoF editors' changes and shouldn't be celebrated any differently. Looking away from the past and towards the future, it poses the forever challenge of people only making edits to be p o p u l a r in an attempt to be on the Wall of Fame board. It also increases the staff workload, managing another time based countdown with page archival systems and having to manually update some pages each time. My solution? If you like what someone is doing or recently done, tell them directly. I think it'd brighten a lot of folks' day to open a talk page notification to see a compliment on their work, and it's far more personalized and meaningful than a bulletpoint on a page. Userboxes might be fun to mess around with too, if you're feeling like going the distance. I want Inkipedia to support and respect all edits of all sizes, of all quanities, of all name spaces, with care and pride that it's towards a great cause, and I simply think that the Wall of Fame board can do nothing but detract from that. Trig - 12:45, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

@Trig Jegman: Just to clarify, when you say you prefer removal over retirement, that means you want the WoF page to be deleted entirely?

I can agree with deleting the page, though I would want to copy the current WoF induction reasons to the respective user talk pages, so that the compliments and recognition these users received is not totally lost. Heddy (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Fully nuke the thing is preferred, or if that doesn't fly, making it abundantly clear that its no longer a thing or supported and is strictly there for archival purposes if that does not work. I think copying content to user talk pages is more than appropriate to preserve support. Trig - 21:34, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I see no opposition, and per the consensus policy no formal proposal is needed if consensus is reached on minor issues, so I have deleted the Wall of Fame process for being unused and unnecessary. I have preserved the content by copying it to the respective user talk pages of the four inducted users. Heddy (talk) 07:46, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Making things consistent

I found that some points for special changes have the words "Points required for special" and others have the words "Points to fill special gauge". I would like all weapons to have the "Points to fill special gauge" wording. The Thing (talk) 13:38, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

If there's no opposition to this idea, then I will use the ReplaceText tool to automatically change all instances. Heddy (talk) 13:55, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

No opposition here. But I was wondering, what is the ReplaceText tool and how would I access it? (In a hypothetical sense of course) Lastly, don't forget to Stay Fresh! NewSquidbeakSplatoon (talk) 18:10, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Hypothetically you'd have to become an administrator on this wiki and then type Special:ReplaceText in the search bar. It's somewhat difficult to use and capable of destroying the entire wiki so it's in the hands of very few. Heddy (talk) 00:24, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

The text replacement is complete. Heddy (talk) 00:11, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank You! I am glad a tool like that exists! The Thing (talk) 01:34, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Weapon icons

I have been putting weapon icons using the Template:Weapons template on my user page whenever I mention a weapon. I was thinking that could be cool to put on other pages.

I was also wondering that if this did happen, would we use the 3D or 2D icons? The Thing (talk) 18:58, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

This would be in violation of the Manual of Style and as such not viable to implement. Gallium![Talk] 15:06, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

As Gallium said, there's a variety of reasons we generally prefer not to use inline icons in text. Thank you for your suggestion though (and you're more than welcome to continue doing so in your userspace if you like)! Driftin Soul [Talk!] 15:11, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Good to know, I don't really know the ins and outs of policies or other things like that on Inkipedia. I just joined to add version history improvements for weapons, and sometimes adding extra interesting Trivia for weapons. I even have my own Version History on my user page detailing my favorite weapons. The Thing (talk) 17:10, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

If you're interested in knowing more about our policies (I would definitely encourage giving them at least a light browse) you can find them at Inkipedia:Policy or click the "Policy" link in the sidebar on the left! Driftin Soul [Talk!] 17:18, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

The wiki's paragraphs were absolutely stuffed with icons at one point. Icons for weapons, buttons, currency, brands, gear, abilities, characters. It looked very messy and not fresh, among other issues, so we agreed to limit in-line icons to infoboxes, tables, and bulleted lists. Heddy (talk) 21:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Splatoon 2 x Sanrio

I've noticed that there's no section for the merch this collab had, and I'm wondering if there's been an agreement to simply not add it; or if it just hasn't been discussed. I'd be willing to fill out info on the page/section, if it were to be added. If I have to do it myself, how would I go about it? Miragetheultra (talk) 00:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

It probably wasn't added in due to copyright regarding Sanrio, as they are quite restrictive as to what content they do and don't allow without permission, but I am not a site dev so I have no clue if what I am saying is correct or not. AnnakiAnarchist (talk) 00:57, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

At this time our merch coverage is a bit messy and lacking a lot of documentation. Please feel free to add information to our S2 merch page. We could also do with a page dedicated to the collaboration as a whole, once our collaboration pages are set up. Yoshifan52 (talk) 01:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

We should make this a downloadable app

I was looking through the play store and I thought "wouldn't it be nice to have an app that I could use even if there is no internet. So I propose we make this an app as well as a website, like bulbapedia. VAGABOND 13:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello, there is not much need for a dedicated app. It's unreasonable to expect this volunteer-run website to pay the annual account fee for Apple and other app stores (100 USD per year, last time I checked).

You can get an identical experience to an app by selecting the "Add to home screen" (or similar) button in your smartphone's web browser. This will create an app icon on the home screen that looks like the other app icons, and opens Inkipedia.

As you mention, one thing apps are good for is they sometimes have offline functionality. MediaWiki-based wikis like Inkipedia can add offline app-like functionality by using the Progressive Web App extension. However, this is probably the first time someone has asked for offline features, so offline functionality might be rarely used if we went to the effort of setting up the Progressive Web App extension. Heddy (talk) 22:04, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Any interest in more pictures for stages or models?

Hiya! I've considered bringing this up in the past, but it was recently suggested to me by others, so I figured I might as well!

I run the blog splat-details on Tumblr, where I post a bunch of different screenshots I've taken using flexlion. I'm not sure if pictures like these are something that the community thinks the wiki could benefit from, but if so, I'd be happy to offer my help! My blog doesn't contain all the pictures I've taken, and I've also recently fallen behind in taking screenshots of new things being added to the game, but that's an easy fix.

I'm sure the site is very busy with the Grand Fest and all, so I apologize if this is a bad time to bring this up. If there is interest in this, feel free to reach out to me about it. Thank you for your consideration! Mchi22 (talk) 02:50, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

@Mchi22: The use of freecam screenshots in video game wikis can be a bit of a gray area. Using mods/cheats for screenshots could create some neat images, but could also hurt the image of the wiki as a place for documentation of official content. According to Inkipedia policy, unofficial content is generally not allowed unless it receives media coverage or editor consensus. So, it's probably best to not upload those screenshots to Inkipedia. However, you are welcome to visit the Inkipedia Discord to start a wider discussion on the issue, as ultimately gray area screenshots could be allowable if there is a consensus among Inkipedia editors discussing the issue. Heddy (talk) 04:10, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Completely fair! I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask seeing as some gallery pages include rips from The Model's Resource. Thanks for your feedback! [: Mchi22 (talk) 04:57, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

At this time we don't have a solid policy on modded screenshots; a handful of currently uploaded images fall into this uncertain category. The same applies to screenshots taken via the use of unofficial emulators. I'm working on a new image policy proposal that would formally allow using such for wiki screenshots/videos, with the caveat they are kept to a minimum (prioritizing "legitimate" screenshots) and never detail leaked upcoming content. The only cosmetic alteration allowed with mods would be the removal of UI.

Before adding anything from your blog we would first want to verify your screenshots were taken at the correct resolution, with correct color output etc. which is the process we follow for all capture card screenshots. We would also want you to upload to the wiki directly rather than for us to download the images from Tumblr, as there's some compression at play even if we ripped from Tumblr at maximum quality.

I've looked through your blog's contents a bit, I think quite a few of your screenshots would be useful to us. Most of your photos are a bit too niche as details that wouldn't really fall within reasonable documentation territory, but it's worth examining and discussing. Images from posts such as this one for example, while definitely interesting to a Splatoon fan, wouldn't particularly aid documentative wiki text description of the area; with how intricately detailed every single Splatoon area is, screenshots of every single nook and cranny would become cluttering for a wiki space. However the images from a post like this one demonstrating the Octo Expansion background details would be great to have on the related station pages, as those details are something very noticeable in game yet impossible to get a clear chance to photograph well. At the moment I believe we have minimal photo examples of the station details. Ultimately there's a balance between how much detail we would want to include; tonally important reference details like those seen in the Octo Expansion is one example towards "this is noteworthy for the wiki yet impossible to photograph without the use of mods".

In my opinion, disallowing modded screenshots would be like disallowing glitch coverage; seeing as we're not documenting anything about the mods themselves nor sending users off to download them, instead simply using them as tools to aid in wiki documentation, whether or not Nintendo allows modding is irrelevant so long as those using the mods are doing so in ways that don't involve piracy, or outright derisive rulebreaking (ie. using the mods in online play). We currently very openly allow things like using dialogue datamines, datamined weapon specs and such to aid wiki editing. Using similarly tamper-y tools to tweak the game's screenshot output to fit our purposes is not overstepping a new boundary for the wiki. Yoshifan52 (talk) 05:01, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure, that makes sense! I absolutely understand not needing all the images, I know that I'm way more thorough than I need to be in that regard. The backgrounds of Octo Expansion are actually what made me start this project in the first place, since I wasn't able to find many good pictures of them elsewhere.

Should the new policy be put in place, I'd be happy to have a more in-depth discussion on the topic regarding the specifications of the screenshots. Thank you for taking the time to respond! Mchi22 (talk) 09:13, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

About Missing Links and Redirects.

While scrolling through the list of wanted pages, I noticed that a lot of missing links seem to be just links that were improperly typed out, and that made me wonder: what links should be removed and what links should be turned into redirects. For example, Dash Track and Dash tracks both seam like they are supposed link to Dash track, but are incorrectly typed and therefore do not work, I was wondering if any wrongly typed link should be made into a redirect, or if they should more often be fixed on the page they are on. TheYoshiGang (talk) 13:34, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

In a lot of cases the correct answer can be both of those things: fixing the link in question, but also creating a redirect at the same time. This means that problem links are both fixed in the short term and also set up a failsafe for any incorrectly-formatted links later down the line, so that they can at least point users to the proper target page until someone is able to fix the link to a direct one.

(Of course this obviously only applies to minor formatting or reasonable spelling differences similar to the ones you've mentioned here and not just simple typos and the like. Plural redirects like "dash tracks" are also usually unnecessary, as even if a link needs to be pluralized, that can be accomplished by simple formatting, e.g. [[dash track]]s producing dash tracks .) Driftin Soul [Talk!] 15:55, 13 September 2024 (UTC)