Talk:Main Page

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Rethinking User Groups
well.. since we have had spam problems lately, I've been doing a multitude of quick fixes which are creating a bit of a mess. I'm proposing we rework our user structure (which is something that basically I and Erik do) This will give us a cleaner documentation of who has what privileges, and We can create custom groups such as "Adepts" for normal trusted users instead of "wikian" for example. (for the moment, I'm restricting page creation to admins only (sorry Hungry paperweight) then we can work this all out) ~ dkpat 11:32, 11 July 2011 (CDT)


 * No need to apologize to me. Aside from the occasional redirect, I don't think I'll need to make any new pages until I'm done with my current re-catigorization project, by which point this problem will probably have run its course. At any rate, I don't know much about user structure, so I trust those that do (you, Erik, and whoever else might be able to help) will come up with a workable solution. (In other words, I probably won't be of much help on this one ^_^;) The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 11:43, 11 July 2011 (CDT)

Messed up Categories
We do have a bit of a problem at the root level of our categories. We have two different sets of categories. :Category:Browse and Category:General and there is practically no link between them. Both are intended to be top level category... and both are.. but only one needs to be. I saw we stick with General and merge content in Browse over to it. (I can do it, just making sure everyone agrees)~ dkpat 10:33, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * Well, it looks like the General category has to do with the games themselves whereas the Browse category if for wiki stuff, so I don't know if just plain merging them is the best idea. Perhaps if we first moved all the content in the General category to :Category:Golden Sun Series, then merged the two root categories together, making the Golden Sun series category a sub-cat of the root category. Sound good? The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 13:03, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * Personally, I would rather do it the other way around. The user is much more concerned with content than policies. We have the Category:Golden Sun Universe that could easily be made to hold the wiki related stuff, it already does hold most of it. ~ dkpat 13:06, 17 July 2011 (CDT)
 * Again that is just my opinion, Either way, We do need to get rid of the two separate categories... it makes it hard to find pages for me sometimes ~ dkpat 13:18, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * (Edit conflict) That works too, and makes more sense. I just noticed the "series cat" first and thought it would make a better home for game-related info than the vague "General cat". For that matter, there's nothing stopping us from doing both, but if we have to choose I'd go with your plan ;) The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 13:20, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * That's an odd category really... because under it was have items and such, but above it we have characters... I really would like some consistency there. I think, That The series category could be made to hold Golden Sun Media (games, cameos, etc.) and just move the information about the world to the general (items, for example) It just makes sense to me for thins that are deeply rooted in the world of golden sun to be on the same level as the real world games themselves. ~ dkpat 13:25, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * I guess that would work too, but the name is somewhat misleading. It suggests that it should be the top-level category for anything in the video games. Perhaps if we were to rename it something like Category:Golden Sun media? The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 13:45, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * (This is a change that I will wait to make for sure) The readers of the wiki are just as interested (if not more interested) in the materials from the games as the games themselves. This makes them at least equally important, thus I think how I do. And I don't mind renaming it as such, but I understood the other one fine too. I can see where you might get confusion though. (essentially, I'm trying to get our top level to reflect the links on main page or vice-versa.) ~ dkpat 13:50, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * Trying to make sense of all the stuff being said here... I would have thought there to be no need for any sort of General category at all, and just make all things to do with the games and what's inside them be in :Category:Golden Sun Series, while all things to do with the wiki and its policies be in Category:Golden Sun Universe. That seems to be perfectly reasonable for the common reader to be able to discern the site from the site's Golden Sun subject matter in category terms. It's not like there's any possible page that doesn't fall under either :Category:Golden Sun Series or Category:Golden Sun Universe, right? As for the root issue, if there's some sort of big policy that prevents these two categories from existing as the two separate roots for whatever reason (two roots is what I'd probably advocate), then it seems simple to just make the GSU category the root that the GSS category is contained in. I don't think that would even throw off any of the readerbase in any way because all the wiki's articles about the Golden Sun series are still in a big set of categories belonging to the GSS master category anyway. Erik the Appreciator 14:19, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * To dkpat: When I mentioned that it sounds like the Series cat should be the top-level category, I wasn't suggesting that we put all game-content articles under that cat. I was just explaining why I believe the name to be misleading. I agree with you about most visitors would be more interested in going straight to things like Psynegy, Items, Monsters, and other stuff rather than wading through things like Camelot and Gameplay, which is why I suggested renaming the category.


 * To Erik: I don't know if there's any particular policy regarding root categories, but I'll admit that it's "cleaner" to have a single root category rather than two roots that go off in different directions. However, making either the Series cat or the Universe cat a sub-category of the other comes with it's own problems. In the case of having GSS under GSU, the information on the games would get lost in the sea of technical data. Flipping things around, putting GSU under GSS makes it harder to get to the stuff that keeps the wiki running. The average gamer probably wouldn't care much about that, though, so making GSS the root category might be the lesser of two evils.


 * To everyone: I think I have a new idea: We keep the General category as the root category, but move the majority of its contents to the Golden Sun Series category (and move the Series category's current contents to a new category, like the "Golden Sun media" idea I suggested). The end result will be that the General category will contain only two items, the Golden Sun Series cat and the Golden Sun Universe cat (and maybe the Main Page). The other two categories will then be able to act as two separate root categories while still being connected (think of them as "sub-roots"), which I believe was the original issue. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 14:44, 17 July 2011 (CDT)

Top Level Debate
I didn't intend to make it seem like I didn't agree with you, nor that you were suggesting we put it all under series, It more of a thought that came afterwards to serve as more justification that is easier to understand. I wanted to say it before I forgot about it so I simply put it in my next post. Also, I'm OK with the current plan as a whole, but I'm not sure if "Golden Sun Series" is a quite fitting name. It doesn't seem to properly embody all that we would put in it. Maybe it's just me though. Maybe name it like.. umm... umm... >_> Gameplay Elements.... no.. that conflicts with the game play category that is mechanics like... um... ~ dkpat 14:53, 17 July 2011 (CDT)

I've looked around at other NIWA wikis. and EAch seems to have a different way...
 * Metroid Wiki Does it how I proposed earlier, With Wiki Aspects in a category with Lore, Items, Games, Characters etc.
 * SmashWiki has a Category called Major, under which 4 categories that all relate to the franchise, this Major category is a member of the SmashWiki category.
 * Fire Emblem Wiki has a Top level which has a Wiki, Fire Emblem Universe, Images, and Real world categories underneath it.
 * ZeldaWiki does it very oddly, and has ZeldaWiki as their top level, and about 4 levels deep is their zelda category.
 * WiKirby has a Main category with the major components such as Items, Stages, Games and WiKirby category. The Main is also a member of Wikirby.

I'm sure there are many more with different ways too... just some ideas abound here! lol... ~ dkpat 15:08, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * What if we were to call the Golden Sun Series category just Golden Sun? anyone think that would work? I've sene some wikis do that. ~ dkpat 15:35, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * (Edit Conflict) The SmashWiki is actually a bit a lot more confusing than that: Major is under SmashWiki, SmashWiki is under Websites, Websites is under SSB Universe, and SSB Universe is under both Major and SmashWiki. Anyways, I guess this means there's no "right" way to do this, so we just need to find a way that works for us. And I'll agree that "Golden Sun Series" isn't the most accurate name. I have no problem using it, but if you want to come up with a better name I'll see if I can help. How does "Game content" or "Series content" sound? P.S. I think "Golden Sun" is a bit too vague. And that's ignoring the fact that the first game is just called "Golden Sun"... The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 15:38, 17 July 2011 (CDT)
 * I think I like Series Content more than Game content. It seems to apply better when you consider the 4Koma comic and such. (unless we took a broader approach with real world content separated out like a lot of other do... which might work better, I'm not sure) ~ dkpat 15:50, 17 July 2011 (CDT)

Ok, so to summarize, We have two current options (I think) (Just to make it easier, I hope) ~ dkpat 20:57, 17 July 2011 (CDT)


 * I can't imagine "Real World content" would be very big. It's an idea to keep in mind if, say, a card game or anime is released, but even in those cases it would probably be easier to create sub-sub-roots within the "Series content" category, such as "Video Game content", "Anime content", and "Card Game content". So I'm going to vote for the first plan. P.S. I think the "content" in the cat titles looks better uncapitalized. But that's more my personal style than something worth debating, so whatever works works ;) The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 10:20, 18 July 2011 (CDT)
 * Then Let's do it. :D ~ dkpat 10:34, 18 July 2011 (CDT)

Untitled
I don't know if its just me or the country I'm from but every day from 12pm-7pm, its the only time I have access here. Anything before and after that time, I have absolutely no access. Is anyone else having the same problem or is it just me? This has happened since Saturday. Chinkycandie 19:49, 6 December 2011 (CST)
 * I was informed by our host (User:Aredmoon) that there would be a momentary outage because of a switch of DNS records involving his account, But it shouldn't be anything long term like that. I've pointed him to look at this, perhaps he will have more feedback. ~ dkpat 22:50, 6 December 2011 (CST)
 * That might explain it. I didn't even know about it. Thanks for letting me know. Chinkycandie 23:10, 6 December 2011 (CST)

I really wish I had a full explanation, but I think this might suffice: technology hates people.(Dillion got it right, it's all DNS screw-ups) --Aredmoon 10:26, 8 December 2011 (CST)
 * LOL I still can only access during the mentioned times :( Chinkycandie 22:29, 8 December 2011 (CST)
 * By chance has it fixed itself? --Aredmoon 16:29, 15 December 2011 (CST)
 * No but the times I can log in have changed. Now I can log in from 2-10pm. Chinkycandie 21:19, 15 December 2011 (CST)
 * Chinky, are you talking about logging in specifically, or being able to view the wiki? I have had no problems viewing the wiki now. (and it is possible that this is the case, different areas have different routes they have to go through to get to the website) ~ dkpat 10:44, 16 December 2011 (CST)

^ Viewing the wiki. Sometimes (for me once a month), have to log in to view the wiki :P Chinkycandie 18:30, 16 December 2011 (CST)
 * OK then, lol, I just wanted to be sure since I haven't been having the problem now.(and the only time frame in I haven't checked it between is 4 AM - 10 AM EST) ~ dkpat 23:40, 16 December 2011 (CST)
 * Hopefully it can get better soon (for me anyway). Chinkycandie 02:39, 17 December 2011 (CST)
 * Yay its back to normal :D Finally! After 2 weeks. Chinkycandie 17:38, 17 December 2011 (CST)

New Skin or Update
Hello Everyone! So... MediaWiki Version 1.18 has been out for a while, and It's fairly safe to say we could be set to upgrade, minus one thing. The Current Skin completely fails with it. (http://dkpat.net/skinwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=goldensunwiki) The MediaWiki Team overhauled the Skin system a lot, causing this problem. Don't worry though, It's isn't just GSU, all the wiki Skin's I designed don't work on 1.18 (That's Nookipedia, N-Wiki, WikiBound, and it was Fire Emblem Wiki) But, In the case of Fire Emblem Wiki, I was easily able to update the skin to work with 1.18, and they are now in fact running 1.18 on their wiki, and the updated skin.

So. This leaves us to either update the current skin when we look to upgrade to 1.18, or I could go about making a New Skin. Either way is fine with me. What is everyone's opinions? ~ dkpat 14:25, 6 January 2012 (CST)
 * Well, while a straightforward update is the easy way out, various little issues with the actual design of the site's skin itself might make a new skin with new visuals be the more interesting option. The way the Fire Emblem wiki looks right now is slick, and I don't remember it looking like that the last time I checked it.


 * It's always been a little questionable how the wiki title is redundantly displayed twice up on top, with the square logo on the left and the large gold title right of that. The color scheme of the site is a little overly brown and is somewhat dark for all the article text to be imposed upon. The borders around the main page content, side bars, and user name area at the top right of the page seem a little too thick. And now that it's been over a year since Dark Dawn and all of its "new" impact has passed by, it's probably a good idea for the skin to feature a new arrangement of art that conveys both the classic GBA and modern DS aspects of the series. Erik the Appreciator 18:44, 6 January 2012 (CST)
 * I designed the skin for Fire Emblem Wiki as my latest skin, (I was really excited about it too and love the way it looks) soo... Thanks for the Compliment! :D
 * I'll say that Golden Sun Wiki was my very first wiki skin that I designed, and I built it off of another template that I found and modified (for those who may not remember) Here we are a little more than a year later and I now have a ton of Wiki Skins under my belt, so I'm much more versed with how to do it. I had always agreed the border was too thick, but the way this skin does the border it would be ridiculous to try and modify. (it uses crazy image techniques) Also at this point, the vast majority of browsers (even IE9!) support CSS3 rounded borders, so that would be a much much simpler to implement. I'm looking for tips that anyone may have for suggestions if we doi go with a new skin ~ dkpat 18:54, 6 January 2012 (CST)
 * The Golden Sun wiki could honestly suffice with the FE wiki's centered structure and layout, and just have different colors and not have a transparent main body. The way the FE wiki has a combination of FE promotional images that blend together seamlessly looks like a good concept for Golden Sun to copy, and a fake "draft" I uploaded, which is in the 2000-pixel style we're probably not going to use, shows the three main Golden Sun game promo images I think our own version should incorporate. I threw in a part of the Lookout Cabin view of Mt. Aleph because that could be another "Golden Sunnish" element in our version. Those are my basic ideas, and you could arrange those anyway you want... Erik the Appreciator 21:38, 6 January 2012 (CST)
 * I'm really hoping to get other user's input as well (no offense intended, just want everyone to have the chance to voice their opinion about it) I am currently in the process of making another Skin that is similar to Fire Emblem Wiki at this URL : http://dkpat.net/skinwiki It is a lot like FEW, just some minor changes, So I can easily make a skin similar to either one. But For right now, I'm going to let this sit and wait for some other input. ~ dkpat 22:00, 6 January 2012 (CST)

I'm not too fussed what the skin looks like. I'll probably get used to it in a matter of days and more or less not notice it has changed. If its a major change then I'll notice. But yeah, the double title is a bit pointless. Chinkycandie 00:26, 7 January 2012 (CST)
 * I'm going to look into using Vector as a base for this skin, There is just certain features of Vector that would be great to have. I've got a base knowledge of how to make vector, but not a highly extensive knowledge. Anyways, I'll look into it more and see what I come up with. ~ dkpat 11:52, 7 January 2012 (CST)


 * It looks like we all agree that the double-title is pointless and needs to go. As for Erik's "draft", it's not bad, but looks a bit too crowded. Maybe it's just that the bright colors of the sunset clash with the darker backgrounds behind the characters. I think we should focus on just one or the other. For example, we could cut out the view from Lookout Cabin and just have a collage of the protagonists. Or we could do the opposite and focus on Mt. Aleph and the Golden Sun, which would be more minimalistic than the Fire Emblem Wiki (which is not necessarily a bad thing). I think I would prefer the latter, since it does a better job of symbolizing the series as a whole and wouldn't need to be updated when GS4 is announced ;p
 * Of course, all that is just assuming that we go with Erik's idea. If anyone has any other ideas, feel free to throw them on the table! The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 15:30, 9 January 2012 (CST)


 * So, it definitely seems it is agreed to just go with a new skin. but do we have suggestions for color schemes? I like the 'golden sun' theme idea, just because I like it. lol and the double title has always been pointless to me, I tried to get it removed originally but someone didn't think it should happen. ~ dkpat 12:07, 15 January 2012 (CST)
 * Hmm, this might be a case where you should be the first to put up a draft showcasing your own idea for the color scheme, and then we talk about it. Erik the Appreciator 16:04, 15 January 2012 (CST)
 * I'm thinking we build off of this image (and this is the highest quality I've been able to find of it) Though I think it would be really neat if we could incorporate either the four traditional elements (venus, mars, mercury, jupiter) or sol and luna somehow. ~ dkpat 23:44, 15 January 2012 (CST)

Have that photo with the four djinn from the DD cover photoshopped onto it or something like that. Chinkycandie 23:47, 15 January 2012 (CST)
 * I can look into that. It would turn out to be similar to Golden Sun Realm. ~ dkpat 09:52, 21 January 2012 (CST)

New Skin
(new subsection to make replies easier) Here is a draft header image.Image No where near complete, just the basic idea of where I'm going so that we are all on the same page. feedback? ~ dkpat 12:22, 2 February 2012 (CST)


 * Looks pretty good to me. A few suggestions for future revisions, though:
 * This header is taller than what we currently have. I'd suggest trimming it down a bit. Either that, or everything else on the site will have to be pushed down to make room.
 * Maybe it's just me, but I don't think having the GSU title above Mt. Aleph and the Golden Sun itself is such a good idea. Maybe putting it off to the right would look better? The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 13:07, 2 February 2012 (CST)
 * That's really incredible-looking. Since there's a question about whether the title should be above the mountain or off to the side, though, I suggest you make two versions of your next draft to explore each possibility.
 * BTW, Hungry: I'm not sure the larger header would have to mean the whole site would be moved down to "make room". The idea of the very large header seems to work well with the Metroid Wiki draft Dkpat's currently got up at his site ... Erik the Appreciator 20:12, 2 February 2012 (CST)
 * Well, I never claimed to be an expert on the subject. I'm just trying to anticipate potential problems. Whether or not they actually are problems depends on their execution. However, I do think I see a few flaws in your argument. One: The Metroid Wiki (or at least the one shown in the draft) has more room for their header than we do, which is what I'm saying we might have to fix. Two: The Metroid Wiki is semi-transparent, so the bottom of the header can still be seen even though it overlaps with the main text box. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 22:08, 2 February 2012 (CST)
 * Here is a version with it placed to the side. Header2 the intent of this image is not to be left aligned, so the edge is not the edge. It is an image in the style of FEW and M-Wiki where the website has a centered approach. The placement of the logo on this version fits within 1024 pixels, thus supporting 1024x768 resolution. I updated the original image to fix the bottom edges of it cutting off. Also, the height of this image is not necessarily the final height, I prefer to leave myself room to play with, starting big and going small if needed.~ dkpat 14:06, 3 February 2012 (CST)
 * Hmm, well, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that a centered title would partially cover up the little glowing sun above the mountain, since you can still make out that there is a sun shining behind the title to begin with. And when I think about it, the series has more of an emphasis on Mt. Aleph than any actual sun (the Golden Sun was a one-time big light explosion above Mt. Aleph that infused the world with life energy, and wasn't even anything like the ball-of-burning-plasma an actual sun is). I would use that as my reasoning to use the centered version where the title is above the all-important Mt. Aleph. Erik the Appreciator 15:04, 3 February 2012 (CST)
 * My concern isn't that the title is covering the Golden Sun specifically. It's that I think it looks weird to have the title overlapping either of the only two notable background objects. After all, we have all this empty space to either side of Mt. Aleph. Why not put it to good use by putting the title there? Of course, there's always the possibility that I'm the only one that feels this way, but I'm entitled to my opinion ;p
 * I will agree with you on one thing, Erik: The previous version looks better than this one. I think the main problem is that the title isn't centered vertically. Try bringing it down a bit, so that "Universe" is next to Mt. Aleph and "Golden Sun" is next to... well, the Golden Sun! (It's just a coincidence, don't read too much into it.)
 * P.S. I originally imagined the title being on the other side of Mt. Aleph, but either side will do. I just wanted to clarify my original suggestion. Best to get others' opinions before settling on one side or the other. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 19:29, 3 February 2012 (CST)

Next update to the skin with the direction I am going. Colors are a little bit up in the air. But this is exactly where I was going. Layout ~ dkpat 18:07, 5 February 2012 (CST)
 * Hmmm... Well, if we change to transparent text boxes, then I think I'd be okay with this. I don't know if having Mt. Aleph behind the box is the best idea, but that's probably just my paranoia talking. ^_^; The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 18:24, 5 February 2012 (CST)
 * I really don't exactly want Mt. Aleph behind the content either but I don't know If I can have it not be behind. I cannot have a website with a header height of 450 px. It is far too much "wasted" space. and I have issues with making an image actually work like this (I've NEVER been able to get transparency like this right (referring to the fade out of Aleph image)) ~ dkpat 18:30, 5 February 2012 (CST)
 * The size issue does throw a wrench into many possible ideas. I'll therefore say HP's idea of showing the two objects to the side of the title is more likely to work. (And one can throw in some other image to fill up the other side of empty space, like Djinn, but that's up to Dkpat to decide.) But even so, the image is large enough that you can't really have both objects appropriately display in the top part for everyone to see - the mountain would be behind the transparent part if we're trying to get the sun to show too. If we're forced to cut one object out of mainstream sight for the other, what would be the better object to permanently display at top throughout the site: Mt. Aleph or the sun above it? I'd personally go for the mountain because it has more detail and for the other reasons I laid out just above. Erik the Appreciator 13:41, 6 February 2012 (CST)
 * Thinking from my post above, I predict the main illustrations of the four basic elemental Djinn designs could be useful in filling up empty space and providing "mascots". So, I'll summarize my current suggestions like this: whether we choose to keep the image the way it is and have the sun be at the top, or move the entire image up so that the mountain is visible at the top, there are two ways we can arrange the title and other objects across the top header image. One is to keep the title centered the way it is in Dkpat's most recent draft, and put two main Djinn illustrations on each side of the filled-up center. (The fact the illustrations depict two of the Djinn facing left - Jupiter and Mars - and two of the Djinn facing right - Venus and Mercury - could help us.) The other is to move the title off to the side so that the [sun/mountain] can be shown without anything covering it, and occupy the other side with the four Djinn clumped together. Erik the Appreciator 14:03, 6 February 2012 (CST)
 * Well, if we do have to cut out one or the other, I think keeping Mt. Aleph and ditching the Golden Sun would probably be a good idea. Hopefully we can come up with a way to keep both, but if we can't... As for your other ideas, I don't have any real objections, but I'd also like to mention an alternative: Keep the title centered and move Mt. Aleph over to the side (and probably use the Djinn in the leftover space, of course). I don't know if the image is wide enough to make this a reasonable course of action, but I thought I should toss the possibility out on the table. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 17:26, 6 February 2012 (CST)
 * Just to verify, it is This image of Djinn that you are referring to, right? ~ dkpat 15:55, 7 February 2012 (CST)
 * 0_o Whoa. It didn't really occur to me that really existed! I was actually thinking about these stock images. But now that you brought those other ones up, it's possible your images might work even better. Erik the Appreciator 18:13, 7 February 2012 (CST)
 * Looks like you guys have had a deep discussion about this. I've been off for awhile. I looked at the images so far. I like the title on the right (like how the current one is not centered). I find centered things to be a bit boring. Looking forward to the final product! :D Chinkycandie 04:59, 10 February 2012 (CST)

Here is a updated layout suggestion. Layout2 This takes into account the suggestion to put the logo to the right hand side, and the non-transparent content background which seems to be wanted. Also, I moved Aleph up, and amazingly, both Aleph and the sun fit in the picture! Take a look, I think this one will satisfy most people who have talked here. ~ dkpat 12:08, 16 February 2012 (CST)


 * It does look nice, but something still seems off. I think it's all the empty space on the other side of Mt. Aleph. Unless you have something planned that you haven't told us, we'll want to decide what to do with it. We could still use the Djinn, like Erik suggested, or we could move Mt. Aleph over just a little bit (any farther than the "one-third mark" might be too much). At the very least, we should consider putting a tad more space between Mt. Aleph and the title. Or am I overthinking things? The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 14:07, 16 February 2012 (CST)
 * What he said :P Chinkycandie 03:27, 17 February 2012 (CST)
 * well I'm trying to figure out if I can make Djinn blend in with the header well. (I'm doing some research. lol) and don't forget about the User Bar (Personal Bar/bar with user page, options, logout, etc) It will also have a place up there. ~ dkpat 15:31, 25 February 2012 (CST)
 * ok... after spending nearly the entirety of the time since the I posted the above message trying to rack my brain on how to actually use the four djinn in a way that would not look just... well like the djinn were literally just pasted in for no reason, I came up with no solution. Except for one where the title is centered over Aleph, and there is two Djinn on either side. Even this solution was a pain in my *** because the djinn images just couldn't have been made consistent. So I had to fiddle with it a lot and I now have this. Headercenter1 This is literally the only thing I can come up with after hours of work. lol.  ~ dkpat 20:25, 25 February 2012 (CST)
 * My god, that's unbelievably good. O_O And my original idea totally projected that the Djinn images would have appeared to be pasted in just to fill up space and content, and that that wouldn't have been any sort of actual problem. Erik the Appreciator 20:42, 25 February 2012 (CST)
 * Give yourself a bit more credit. That looks very good! I can't say I have any objections... Okay, I could make one last nitpick (and don't worry, it's not about the location of the title this time ^_^;), but you've been doing most of the hard work on this project so I'm in no position to complain. If you want to hear it, though, ;) The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 21:55, 25 February 2012 (CST)
 * Thanks both of you! Erik, I was having a hard time getting the djinn images that I had to look good when just "floating" there. I couldn't get them to stop looking like djinn that were randomly placed and to look like djinn that actually blended in. Hungry, I'm not 100% sure what it is you are afraid of happening, though I have a hunch. I'm going to say that the content box will have an expanding width (up to a certain point) and start working on an actual working example probably so you can explain it better. Though I can move the Djinn a slight bit, with ease. ~ dkpat 22:14, 25 February 2012 (CST)
 * I like it but the Djinn look a bit too pale or was that your intention? Chinkycandie 23:09, 25 February 2012 (CST)

New Skin Revision 2
http://dkpat.net/skinwiki There is the link to the live test wiki (those astute may recall this is the same wiki I was working on Metroid Wiki on. you're right, and it is still there, I'm using this wiki for all my skin creations) I have the new skin for GSU set as the default skin now, and named it 'Golden Sun Forever', while I renamed the old skin 'Dark Dawn'. It is still very much so in the construction phase, but the major parts of it are pretty much all done. It will be a few days before I can really work on it again so I leave with this link. (Also, Chinky, yes I made them paler so that they blend in with the colors behind them) ~ dkpat 09:21, 26 February 2012 (CST)
 * Yeah, I'm always a bit worried that I don't explain things well enough. It looks like you got the general idea, though ;) The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 16:49, 26 February 2012 (CST)
 * Hehehehe Okay then. I looked at the sample. Looking good. Use either white or the palest blue as the font colour. You can barely read in dark blue. Link colours are fine. Green for clickable and red for non-existent page - similar to traffic lights. Golden Sun Forever is a good title :D Chinkycandie 23:52, 26 February 2012 (CST)
 * Umm Chinky, ignore all the content, it is just test content to fill the page, and those colors are from Metroid Wiki. lol. I'm going to try to make the skin unique in some way. Right now it is practically an exact rip from Fire Emblem Wiki (I did literally copy paste chunks of code from it after all. lol) ~ dkpat 19:30, 27 February 2012 (CST)
 * Ok, take a look at the above link, It is very different. The Color Scheme has changed entirely upon recommendation from Tina (who gave us our current color scheme). The skin was bugging me because it looked highly similar to Fire Emblem Wiki, like ridiculously so. So sought out changes I could make to make it independent from it, and it was suggested to change the colors (which I can't help but agree that it distinguishes it now that I'm seeing it) I'm not 100% sure about the exact shade of the colors yet, and I'm hoping to make a few other slight changes to the layout, but I thought this was a major revision so I wanted to share. ~ dkpat 12:42, 1 March 2012 (CST)
 * Well, no objections from me! I might miss the blue a bit, but that's only because blue is my favorite color. ^_^; The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 14:25, 1 March 2012 (CST)
 * Looks good :D Chinkycandie 22:16, 1 March 2012 (CST)
 * The main thing I'm thinking about now is whether the final skin for the wiki should have some sort of extra image or content at the bottom of the page, the way the Fire Emblem wiki and Metroid Wiki drafts that're on your site have them. Right now I have to say that the bottom part of the skin is what feels oddly flat, just having nothing else other than that color. An image at the bottom might help make the skin feel "closed in" and not "hanging". Erik the Appreciator 23:17, 1 March 2012 (CST)

I made a change that Tina had said to maybe do, just to try it out; I put a cloud pattern in the background. So the brighter yellow that was the background (including the footer area) now has a cloud texture on it, check it out. Also, I should have a good deal of time to finish this up here soon. ~ dkpat 08:01, 10 March 2012 (CST)
 * Excellent, that goes a long way towards helping my concern. There's probably no need for the bottom image I was proposing earlier. Erik the Appreciator 12:01, 10 March 2012 (CST)
 * Considering the "cloudiness" of the original picture, I think that was a good call ;) The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 16:47, 10 March 2012 (CST)

New skin is up
Ok, I think one of the next steps is going to be upgrading the wiki to 1.18 so I can upload the skin for final testing. I tried to upload the skin to the wiki as is, and it just does not work with 1.17 (wonderful backwards compatibility there, MediaWiki.... 1.17 skins doesn't work with 1.18, and 1.18 doesn't work with 1.17 >_>) but, I didn't manage to recreate the current skin in a 1.18 variant which can be uploaded and used as the primary skin for the first bit after the upgrade (and I'll probably leave it as an option) I'll look into upgrading the wiki soon ~ dkpat 22:26, 16 March 2012 (CDT)
 * 1.18 UPGRADE COMPLETE! (sorry for all the up and down today ... >_< ) The old skin is implemented (though missing just a little bit of things... I forgot about them) but the new skin is one of the options under your preferences. It really doesn't look too bad. But, take a look at it and report back your thoughts and anything you find that you think looks wrong or bad! ~ dkpat 20:12, 18 March 2012 (CDT)
 * The skin itself looks good, but instead of the wiki's title appearing in the center we have the old icon with the DD team in it. Is there something you forgot to update? The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 20:32, 18 March 2012 (CDT)
 * I don't get that issue here. I dunno if it means it was fixed right after your post, or you didn't clear your cache... Anyway, I would suggest to Dkpat having the narrow bar for your sign-in at the upper right not be transparent, perhaps filling it in with the new light color of the main section. Erik the Appreciator 21:29, 18 March 2012 (CDT)
 * Yeah, looks like it's been fixed already. I don't know why it was doing what it did, but it stopped, so it doesn't really matter now. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 22:33, 18 March 2012 (CDT)
 * A couple other adjustments I'm hoping for:
 * 1) It might be good to have the page/talk/edit/history/etc buttons at the top of each page be a little more stylized and stand out more the way they did in the old skin, back when they had thicker borders that were rounded on two corners but sharp on the other two corners. It may or may not have to take that exact same shape, but just so long as they stand out a little more.
 * 2) I was always annoyed by that "Here Now" section at the bottom of each page that's always placed just above the article categories. It's unnecessary clutter that isn't useful information for almost everyone who would read the site, but I'm wondering if Dkpat even has the technical means to remove it from displaying. Erik the Appreciator 21:54, 18 March 2012 (CDT)
 * Hungry, I think that may have been an odd caching issue that you were having with the logo, but it's fixed now so not a problem, lol. Erik, with the user bar in the top, I've debated filling it in or not, and I'm not sure if it would be too apparent or not once I do fill it in... though I suppose there is no harm in trying it out for right now. Also, I agree that it would be nice to have the edit buttons stick out more, and I had forgotten about them. I always kinda liked the "Here Now" feature though it is entirely useless on most pages (since it's not like we have thousands of readers who actively read a page, and even then, knowing they are reading a specific page would be useless.) But I do like it on the Main Page. Any other opinions?~ dkpat 10:54, 19 March 2012 (CDT)
 * Well, there is one thing that concerns me. I often keep up-to-date on any changes to the wiki by comparing the differences between revisions (you know, those little "diff" links on Recent Changes). Ever since the update, the section that compares revisions has a very dark background. I suppose that helps it stand out, but it just looks too dark, making it hard to read anything outside of the green box. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 11:29, 19 March 2012 (CDT)
 * Check again, Hungry, I should have fixed that earlier. ~ dkpat 11:33, 19 March 2012 (CDT)
 * Yeah, another cache issue I had to refresh in order to see that. Anyway, I guess the Here Now could and should be restricted to the Main Page; in all the times I've browsed this site, the main page's Here Now is the only one where I've ever seen anything other than my own user name. I don't think I've ever even seen somebody else's name on any other page's Here Now. And yeah, I feel a lot better with the bar being filled in the way it is now. IMO it's now exactly as apparent as it needs to be, and no more than that. Erik the Appreciator 13:40, 19 March 2012 (CDT)
 * Okay, it's gone now. Note to self: Try hitting "refresh" before reporting potential problems ^_^; The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 15:08, 19 March 2012 (CDT)

I agree Erik, I was afraid of nothing with the personal actions bar. lol The background color isn't nearly as bright as I thought it was. Also, I think the Main Page 'Here Now' reports all users browsing the wiki in general, just as it does in the forums (the Here Now is part of the forum software) I'll look into disabling it on all other pages, it would be nice to get rid of useless part. ~ dkpat 13:56, 19 March 2012 (CDT)
 * One more thing: Is there any way to fill the box of the article categories at the bottom of each page with white? So that they look like the custom-placed categories underneath each monster section in Skeleton monster line. Also, looking at other wikis, I think it would be a good idea to also fill in each article's Table of Contents with white. Erik the Appreciator 16:24, 19 March 2012 (CDT)
 * Sorry about those, They are mostly remnants from the dark skin that I completely forgot about changing when I changed colors. heh... If you find anymore please do post it. ~ dkpat 16:39, 19 March 2012 (CDT)

Any final edits before I make the skin the wiki default? ~ dkpat 11:32, 22 March 2012 (CDT)
 * It looks like all of my suggestions have been implemented, except for the one about making the buttons at the top of the page stand out more. Refreshing the page doesn't show any differences, so I guess that job still isn't done yet. Erik the Appreciator 12:13, 22 March 2012 (CDT)
 * Looks good to me! There's always room for improvement, of course, but I certainly can't think of anything. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 15:00, 22 March 2012 (CDT)
 * I'm liking it. Chinkycandie 19:04, 23 March 2012 (CDT)

Ads
http://goldensunwiki.net/Special:AWCforum/st/id40/Ads.html

Never got an answer. Would like one, please~ --Aredmoon 20:09, 23 March 2012 (CDT)
 * Huh, never knew there was an important topic there because I never check the forums. Anyway, I answered and approved. Erik the Appreciator 20:45, 23 March 2012 (CDT)

Petition link
I got an email this morning asking if I could promote This petition for GS4 on the main page. I though I would be at least sorta nice and start a discussion about it. Here is the link: http:// www.ipetitions .com/petition/operation-sunrise/ Opinions? EDIT: You'll have to remove spaces now... it seems our spam filter picked up on that website~ dkpat 13:48, 23 August 2012 (CDT)
 * Might be a good idea. I'm sure there's plenty of casual players out there who haven't heard of it yet, and it might help to get them on board as well. Rolina 15:42, 23 August 2012 (CDT)
 * I don't know if this is the best idea, but I won't object if everyone else is on board. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight 21:41, 23 August 2012 (CDT)
 * I know that I'm not in favor of promoting it to an extreme. The individual did post a link to it in the forums or at least I'm assuming it was them that posted it) I wouldn't mind at all maybe posting it as News or something. ~ dkpat 12:43, 24 August 2012 (CDT)

Public Service Announcement - Numbered lists
Maybe some of you are already aware of this, but since it's not in use anywhere on GSU (that I'm aware of) I thought I'd toss this out here: It's possible to create numbered lists the same way we make bulleted lists. You just have to use a pound sign (#) instead of an asterisk (*). Observe:


 * 1) First entry
 * 2) Second entry
 * 3) Sub entry one
 * 4) Sub entry two
 * 5) Third entry
 * 6) Sub entry three
 * 7) Sub entry four
 * 8) Fourth entry

Just wanted to share this little discovery with everyone. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight (talk) 15:25, 20 March 2013 (CDT)

Social Media
Hey guys :) I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts are on having social media for GSU. The NIWA facebook and twitter recently started being used again, and they'd like any member wikis who have a page to let them know so they can post content from it. Do you think we can really use a facebook page? ~ dkpat (talk) 13:41, 12 August 2013 (CDT)
 * I don't know enough to think about whether I'm for or against it... I might start leaning towards being against it if it amounts to being an extra thing we have to go out of our way to constantly check up on and maintain, when nowadays we generally don't do much active editing on the wiki itself to begin with. Erik the Appreciator (talk) 12:20, 13 August 2013 (CDT)
 * It would be something else to keep up with I suppose. I was more worried about having content to share honestly. (I'm practically always on Facebook, so I don't feel like keeping up with it would be a big problem for me) A suggestion from Archaic (owner of Bulbagarden) is that we could post fanart or something similar, since it is unlikely that we would have news to post.~ dkpat (talk) 12:23, 14 August 2013 (CDT)
 * Mmm. If a main purpose of a facebook page for many sites is being an extra vehicle for delivering news and updates about the site and/or what the site is about, that really doesn't sound like it's something that works out for this site about Golden Sun, because this is not the kind of site that gets news regularly about its subject matter. If in theory Golden Sun gets both Smash Bros. representation and GS4 relatively soon, that could easily end up being the franchise's swan song, and there may not be anything more to say after the potentially-final GS4 is released. Of course it's also possible there may be more even after GS4... Erik the Appreciator (talk) 12:39, 14 August 2013 (CDT)
 * That was basically how I felt about it. I just don't think we would be able to keep a Golden Sun facebook page populated with content. (suddenly I'm wondering about a bigger Golden Sun fan page, a collaboration between various fan websites. but that seems far fetched to me) ~ dkpat (talk) 13:08, 18 August 2013 (CDT)

Hi! I'm performing maintenance
Hi everyone. It's been really too long since I've paid any attention to this wiki (Yay real life!) But Today at least I'm going to take some time and perform various maintenance tasks. If things change or break in anyway, it is likely my doing. Any requests or things you think I should take a look at, please let me know! ~ dkpat (talk) 11:52, 12 July 2015 (CDT)
 * Update: Not performing it today like planned. Gotta wait for some server-side updates to happen before I can proceed. ~ dkpat (talk) 16:21, 12 July 2015 (CDT)
 * I'm going to proceed with the maintenance that I intended to perform now. ~ dkpat (talk) 20:39, 13 July 2015 (CDT)
 * Update Finished If anyone spots problems please let me know! ~ dkpat (talk) 23:12, 13 July 2015 (CDT)

New logo for Golden Sunrise
Just letting y'all know, we've got a new logo. I went to update it, but it appears that I'd need administrative permissions, so for those of you who do, here it is:



MediaWiki Upgrade 1.28.0
Hi guys, I've upgraded the wiki to 1.28.0 (a jump of two full versions!) If anyone sees problems, please comment here and let me know! ~ dkpat (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2017 (CST)

MediaWiki 1.31 - Now installed
I've updated the wiki software to the latest version now, version 1.31.1. If you find any bugs, let me know!

Additionally, I'm looking to add a couple of new extensions, but I've got to make some fixes to our theme before they will work, so look forward to new things soon! ~ dkpat (talk) 22:11, 24 September 2018 (CDT)

2021 Skin Update?
Hello anyone who still may be around.

The wiki has been neglected the past however many years, which I don't think anyone would be surprised by, given the lack of any official information. But I wanted to ask the community at large about applying a new skin. I don't remember when, but I turned on a mobile-friendly site view with a handful of customizations for the site to make it look okay on our phones. Over 50% of the traffic we do get is from a mobile device now. But this skin isn't perfect, and definitely doesn't look as nice as I wish it did.

Why a new skin? Well my primary motivation is really to make the site more maintainable. See, If I'm going to go for a new skin, it won't really be new. I am thinking about simply customizing one of the default skins that MediaWiki provides with on-wiki code to help ensure that when upgrades happen the skin doesn't break the site. This would also give us the ability to enable some newer MediaWiki features like the VisualEditor extension (as seen on Wikipedia and elsewhere). The skin would be changed to a variant of Vector (and keep current mobile view) or Timeless (which has it's own mobile view), as those two seem to have the most support from the devs right now.

So. Given all of that... What does anyone think? ~ dkpat (talk) 19:11, 10 January 2021 (CST)


 * Well, the Vector one sure looks better, and it's the one that SmashWiki looks to be using, so go for that. Erik the Appreciator (talk) 20:03, 10 January 2021 (CST)


 * I can't say I understood all the technical stuff, but I'm not opposed, especially if it makes things easier behind the scenes. The World&#39;s Hungriest Paperweight (talk) 12:44, 11 January 2021 (CST)


 * With Vector, it will likely end up looking about like Zelda Wiki does, just more in our colors. Or any other wiki on the gamepedia platform. If you are so inclined, I encourage taking a look through some of the wikis on gamepedia for any design elements you may like to see. Just let me know if you come across anything you would like. ~ dkpat (talk) 16:36, 11 January 2021 (CST)

MediaWiki 1.35 Upgrade
Hello everyone. Wanted to put out a section to notify that I've upgraded the mediawiki software to the latest version. With this update, I've enabled the VisualEditor extension which allows you to make edits without the need to mess around with wikitext. That is the most notable new feature (though some other things may have also changed) and I wanted to put out a section here in case anyone run into any problems on the website. If you do, please add a note here and I'll try to address it as soon as I can. Thanks!! ~ dkpat (talk)


 * I apologize if this isn't the place for this, or if I'm committing thread necromancy, but I created an account today, and while attempting to preview the different site skins, I discovered that the "Dark Dawn" skin causes an error page to display with the following content: (Note that the "ddd786eaa1194e546fbe05ae" part changes upon each page load.)
 * MediaWiki internal error. . . .Original exception: [ddd786eaa1194e546fbe05ae] 2022-06-14 11:59:00: Fatal exception of type "Error". . . .Exception caught inside exception handler. . . .Set $wgShowExceptionDetails = true; at the bottom of LocalSettings.php to show detailed debugging information.
 * I hit the back button and continued editing my other preferences, but failed to realize that clicking "preview" also selects the radio button for that skin, so when I saved my preferences it broke the entire wiki, including the ability to revert my changes on the preferences page to undo the issue. (In case anyone else runs into this in the meantime, I managed to fix it by manually appending "?useskin=vector" to the preferences URL so I could save the change to a different skin.) I don't know what caused it, but all the other skins work fine for me, it's just Dark Dawn. Clearing the cache didn't fix it, either, so it's probably not client-side.
 * A second issue I've found while making this edit is that even with my timezone being set to the proper location, it shows in my signature as CST, despite Indianapolis being on Eastern Time. (If you look at a timezone map there's a weird cutout for Indiana due to the governor deciding we needed to be on the same timezone as the NYSE. Yes, really.) This isn't exactly a serious issue, but I figured it's never bad to document oddities.
 * (Side note, I'm not familiar with the etiquette of this sort of wiki format; is this considered a major or minor edit?) DigitalThespian (talk) 07:45, 14 June 2022 (CDT)

Upcoming MediaWiki Update + new design?
Hiya everyone! I'm starting to work through an upgrade of MediaWiki to the the latest Long-Term Support version (1.39), but unfortunately I'm currently blocked due to some server configuration. I've reached out to our server admin though to get that fixed so expect that the update will come sometime in the near future. I'll add a note here once I'm able to get that wrapped up.

While I'm working on the wiki anyways, I wanted to once again toss out the idea of possibly changing up the wiki skin. In truth, my idea there would be to use one of the officially bundled skins with some heavy customization as a way of doing less work to maintain the site, while also getting better support for modern web features (like responsive design for mobile). A bonus to this would be better support for extensions and other neat features. So to that end, maybe take a peek at the latest Wikipedia skin and see how you feel about that design and the features it offers. Let me know if you have any thoughts! ~ dkpat (talk) 18:43, 9 March 2023 (CST)
 * Would that have to include how Wikipedia now has the left edge of the screen populate with page section headers that used to go into a Table of Contents in the main article space? I have to admit I feel accustomed to having all the current navigation off to the left the way it is (like how Xeno Series Wiki does it), and I'm sure various articles' layouts were written with where those table-of-contents sections were placed in mind — where, in various cases, they pad out some of the space from the top of the page so that right-aligned images placed underneath infoboxes at the upper-right corners of pages don't brush up against them... Erik the Appreciator (talk) 19:07, 9 March 2023 (CST)
 * I think it does require the TOC to be off to the side. There might be workarounds to revert that change I'm not sure yet. Once I get a few more issues with the update worked out, the skin will be available here ("Vector 2022" in your preferences) so you can spot check with it and see how you feel about it with our content. I should have that done later today I think. ~ dkpat (talk) 12:16, 10 March 2023 (CST)
 * MediaWiki Update to 1.39 is complete Please let me know if you see any issues ~ dkpat (talk) 16:52, 10 March 2023 (CST)
 * As much as I hate just being a follower, if we aren't a fan of the new Vector skin like on Wikipedia, then perhaps something based on the Timeless skin. Some NIWA wikis use a customized version of it; Look at Fire Emblem Wiki, Nookipedia, or Inkipedia for examples. The most important feature of this skin is that is is directly mobile friendly. So I would strongly encourage looking at those wikis on a mobile device to see what it turns into. ~ dkpat (talk) 10:48, 19 March 2023 (CDT)
 * Right, seems like they're all very similar to this site's current skin, save for the search bar running along the top of the screen. If that's unavoidable when transplanting something like the FE wiki's structure, I'd have to call that a fair compromise for the important mobile-friendliness aspect we're looking for. I'm open to opting for how the FE wiki dynamically gets a column on the right to appear and fill with some of the stuff that's otherwise on the left column by default, keeping the center content less stretched out even on wide screens. And the way an FE page's side bar's sections get converted into drop-down menus like "Navigation" and "Tools" when the window's highly compressed seems elegant. Though maybe we'd rather keep the categories at the bottom of the content like on Nookipedia instead of adding them to the side column(s), since there are some pages with a load of long-named categories that I doubt would look attractive crammed into a side column... Erik the Appreciator (talk) 12:10, 19 March 2023 (CDT)
 * FE's design is based on their old skin which I made for them right after finishing our current one, so they looked very similar. Haha. I forgot to mention Wapopedia is also using Timeless, and does do a few things others don't; kind of a hybrid of FE and the other two. You can see what the default Timeless looks like on our site; Just set it in your preferences or use this link to see the main page. But my takeaways so far are try and keep the header logo centered (with our logo being so wide that makes the most sense anyways) and we're fine with the 3 column look on desktops. Keeping a similar light color scheme is probably best for us so that we don't have to worry about fixing template color issues. I definitely want to change out the cloudy background though, and probably fiddle with the header image in the process. ~ dkpat (talk) 14:19, 19 March 2023 (CDT)

New skin is available
It's still a work in progress, but my first pass at new skin using timeless is up and available now. You can use it by changing your skin in your user preferences to timeless (I know there's issues on that page after switching). Please leave any feedback for me here! ~ dkpat (talk) 12:37, 28 March 2023 (CDT)
 * Seems good... I don't think there should be that much padding space between an image and its surrounding text, and generally I think there's a little more extra space and padding across the site than is healthy to add. If "Page Tools" can't be left with "Wiki Tools", then both should be together at the right sidebar. I think the current yellowish-beige background color of the main page content's section is ideal to keep and have as the color of those two side bars. Erik the Appreciator (talk) 14:25, 28 March 2023 (CDT)
 * Definitely a neat concept for a background... I just think it's a little off to have that pattern slide down or up behind the page content as you resize the window screen of the browser. Seems like backgrounds should be more static than that. Erik the Appreciator (talk) 13:27, 3 April 2023 (CDT)
 * That feature was definitely not intended! I think I fixed it just a moment ago. ~ dkpat (talk) 13:54, 3 April 2023 (CDT)