Cunnan:Village pump: Difference between revisions

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In [[Medieval]] [[village]]s people would gather at the '''Village Pump''' to discuss those items that were important to their lives. On [[Cunnan]] the Village Pump serves a similar purpose: Giving users a place to meet and discuss current events, policy and content.
In [[Medieval]] [[village]]s people would gather at the '''Village Pump''' to discuss those items that were important to their lives. On [[Cunnan]] the Village Pump serves a similar purpose: Giving users a place to meet and discuss current events, policy, and content.
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==Projects==
Here is a list of some of recent projects in [[:Category:Project Current]].

<DynamicPageList>
category = Project Current
order = descending
addfirstcategorydate = true
shownamespace = false
ordermethod = lastedit
count = 6
</DynamicPageList>


== Announcements ==
== Announcements ==
Line 7: Line 19:
** [[Cunnan:Old Village pump discussions (moved 2004)|Moved during 2004]]
** [[Cunnan:Old Village pump discussions (moved 2004)|Moved during 2004]]
** [[Cunnan:Old Village pump discussions (moved 2005)|Moved during 2005]]
** [[Cunnan:Old Village pump discussions (moved 2005)|Moved during 2005]]
** [[Cunnan:Old Village pump discussions (moved 2006)|Moved during 2006]]
** [[Cunnan:Old Village pump discussions (moved 2007)|Moved during 2007]]
** [[Cunnan:Old Village pump discussions (moved 2012)|Moved during 2012]]
** [[Cunnan:Old Village pump discussions (moved 2014)|Moved during 2014]]


== Topics ==
== Topics ==


===Broken Links ===
=== Policy Page ===
I have been looking for broken links and have found a few please post any broken links here so they can be fixed. - [[user:drenferalis|Dren]]<br>
[[Hinduism]]
* Please define what you mean by a "broken link". If you are meaning wiki links in pages that link to pages that have not yet been created (e.g. [[Hindu]], [[feudalism]]), then IMHO that is not a broken link, just a heavy suggestion by someone like me that someone who has more time and knowledge needs to write the page because we feel it would be appropriate to [[Cunnan]]. To me, a broken link is a link to an external url that consistantly doesn't work. Those are hard to find sometimes as the link may just not be working due to a server being down for a while. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 03:04, 18 Dec 2005 (CST)
===Request for Guidance===
I hope one (or more) of the sys-admins can assist. Working through the Scottish kings, at some stage I will have to deal with the interregnum between Margaret and the English-imposed John Balliol. I do not want to list this as a specific period on the king-list, but it could so to be covered, with ''inter alia'' a list of the contenders. I can see that it can be linked to from Margaret and to John B, but what ought I to title it ?
*Scotland - Interregnum
*Scotland 1290-92
*Scotland -- The Contenders
Suggestions, please.
--[[User:Simoncursitor|Simoncursitor]] 02:27, 7 Jun 2005 (CDT)

:I assume you are thinking of adding a table to the bottom of the page similar to the one on the pages for English Monarchs. '''The Scottish Interregnum''' sounds like a reasonable name for an article to me. [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 07:21, 7 Jun 2005 (CDT)
:: Thank you -- I have followed your titling suggestion. --[[User:Simoncursitor|Simoncursitor]] 03:08, 8 Jun 2005 (CDT)

===Main Page alteration===

I'd like to have a more interesting front page for Cunnan, which adds a bit of variety. To this end I have edited [[Cunnan:Main Page]] with an idea for a monthly edit. This does make the front page rather full, but it does have the advantage of directing readers to some of Cunnans better pages. Other categories that might be added are ''Historical figure of the month'' (mainly to highlight Simon's Scottish kings) and ''SCA group of the month''. Feedback please. [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 05:41, 27 Jul 2005 (CDT)

* I like it. Even larger changes might be a good idea. A "current projects" (e.g. the Form of Cury redaction) section might be a nice replacement for the "News & updates box". I'll try some of my ideas later today and will post the results. - [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 23:47, 7 Aug 2005 (CDT)
**I have been a little presumptuous and added [[Cunnan:Projects]] to the main page under ''Community''. This is very much a first draft, and will need a fair bit of improvement to become truly useful. In the medium term I would foresee specific project pages (e.g. [[Cunnan:12th Century life]]) where the ideas of any project can be thrashed out. At the moment though Cunnan is a little too small to necessitate this. [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 03:40, 10 Aug 2005 (CDT)

* Can someone who knows how shrink the frame for the Ypotryll pic a bit. Otherwise, there is a lot of blank space left on the lefthand coloumn under the Page of the Month details. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 19:09, 1 Mar 2006 (CST)
**I changed it to a thumb, which is suboptimal but probably looks better for the overall page layout.

===Barony Template Added===

I so liked the idea of the Kingdom box template that I created a Barony one. See [[Barony of Dragonsspine]] for example of use although its pretty straight forward. Let me know if you'd like to see them for the other locality types (i.e. Canton, Shire, College, etc.) Feedback on it appreciated. Tobin & Co., you have a great wiki here, I love it!--[[User:ThorgrimrGunnarrsson|Thorgrimr of Dragonsspine]] 09:04, 2 Aug 2005 (CDT)

:Having been partially resopnsible for the Kingdom box (Tobin did most of the work) I quite like your adaptation. The one problem with both the Kingdom and Barony boxes is the way devices are depicted. Ideally the device will have a transparent background, but even then IE 5.5 and earlier won't display them properly. A white background is the usual wy images come to us and this creates a problem (for me at least) when the Knigdom box metal is yellow. I'm not sure that there is a real solution to this, but feel free to try your own ideas.

:Good job though, and I don't see why the boxes shouldn't be used for other locality types. They are a useful way of representing vital statistcs, and look pretty too.

:On a related note see [[Barony of Stormhold]] for the Lochac Barony navigational aid template. Something similar for other kingdoms may also be worth considering. [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 09:21, 2 Aug 2005 (CDT)

I added a Shire box as well for folks to use. The template looks the same, but you only add a Seneschal instead of two people. Also, I added an image to the [[Device]] article since it was in [[Cunnan:Requested_pictures| Requested Pictures]]. --[[User:ThorgrimrGunnarrsson|Thorgrimr of Dragonsspine]] 11:49, 2 Aug 2005 (CDT)

Any way to modify it so it doesn't put up a quasi-error message if you don't have both a Baron and Baroness? [[User:Donovan Ravenhull|Donovan Ravenhull]] 09:59, 9 Oct 2005 (CDT)

There is a way to modify the template to use a portion if it isn't empty, but I'm not sure if functions on 1.4 versions of the wiki software. Two new templates are needed, [[Template:HideIfEmpty|HideIfEmpty]] and [[Template:IfEmptyDo|IfEmptyDo]]. I'll add them and see if I can help out with this! [[User:ThorgrimrGunnarrsson|Thorgrimr of Dragonsspine]] 19:37, 22 Feb 2006 (CST)

:UPDATE--I got the hiding code to work. To use it in an article, you still need to have the variable name (i.e. ''baroness= |'') and it will provide the label in the infobox, but you won't get the triple-bracketed stuff after it so it's much cleaner. To implement this functionality in your own templates, you must first enclose the transclusion info in a span or div tag with a call to the "HideIfEmpty" template (i.e. <nowiki><span {{HideIfEmpty|{{{baroness}}}}}>{{{baroness}}}</span></nowiki>). Just send me a note on my talk page if you have questions on this, I'm no expert, but I might be able to help![[User:ThorgrimrGunnarrsson|Thorgrimr of Dragonsspine]] 19:52, 22 Feb 2006 (CST)

=== Welcoming new users ===
For whatever reason, we seem to be picking up new users quite quickly at the moment. Old users, new users, admins and anyone else that feels like it can, and in my opinion should, welcome people to Cunnan and help them feel as though they are part of the community.

Of course, no one is obligated to do this.

[[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 00:05, 8 Aug 2005 (CDT)

* Does anyone know where all these new users are coming from? There certainly seems to be a lot of them. - [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 23:46, 10 Aug 2005 (CDT)
** You could ask Del to check the referrer logs. [[User:Morgant|Morgant]] 01:38, 11 Aug 2005 (CDT)
*** I might do that. I suspect that we may have been mentioned on one or more of the larger Kingdom mailing lists. - [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 02:54, 11 Aug 2005 (CDT)

Well, I came in from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/SCA Wikipedia] site. [[User:Donovan Ravenhull|Donovan Ravenhull]] 10:03, 9 Oct 2005 (CDT)

So did I. [[User:Seth Woodworth|Seth Woodworth]] 10:01, 18 Dec 2005 (PST)

I don't remember where I first learned of Cunnan but I've been a lurker here off and on for a while. Recently I got a job transfer which allows me more time to spend on my hobbies(SCA and HTML) so I created an account here and have started making some edits and articles. [[User:Greylond|Greylond]] 14:09, 22 Nov 2005 (CDT)

=== Format for Kingdom Pages ===

Looking at the history file some of you may have noticed I have been fiddling about with the [[Kingdom of thelmearc]] page. Because there was a decent amount of information up there already I wanted to try and create a format that could be used on the other kingdom pages. Could other regular users take a look at the page and reformat as they think appropriate or leave comments here (is trying to standardise kingdom pages a good thing?) [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 08:20, 8 Aug 2005 (CDT)
* IMHO I think trying to stardardize category-related pages is a good idea albiet a lot of work unless commuincated well. I think if the Kingdom pages, for example, all have the same look and feel, it is then easier to find the info you want because its in roughly the same place as the last kingdom page you were at. I'm also wondering if anyone has a problem with the amount of graphics I'm contributing to Cunan? --[[User:ThorgrimrGunnarrsson|Thorgrimr of Dragonsspine]] 09:04, 8 Aug 2005 (CDT)

I quite like more graphics, I think many users, like me, just haven't bothered learning those commands yet. I guess if the ammount of graphics is likely to significantly slow page loading for little explainatory benefit, that would be a problem, but i think we are nowhere near that point yet.<br>
I do have one late comment on the kingdom box - perhaps where rulers are given some way of indicating when this information is out of date could be added, since they change at least every 6 months, and updates may be overlooked, and even if they aren't I might be uncertain if that is so. For example a "reigning until" field. This is less of a problem with other groups, since barons/esses and senechals tend to last for a couple of years on average.
[[User:Tiff|Tiff]] 10:49, 8 Aug 2005 (CDT)

* Would this page be useful for upkeep? [[Cunnan:Maintenance]]

Yes, it looks useful, but If i was a casual user of cunnan, but used to webpages, I'd be used to (other) webpages being out of date, and would still doubt the updatedness of such a page. Besides I think it's not a bad piece of information to have - I'm always interested if a set of royalty is newly invested or late in their reign anyway.[[User:Tiff|Tiff]] 11:16, 9 Aug 2005 (CDT)

=== New regional point of view tag ===
With the influx of new people (Hi, everyone!), we're going to have more problems with regional points of view - articles that are only applicable to some of the kingdoms. Those of us from Lochac are as guilty as the rest - what wacky archery rules we have! I've been presumptuous, and added a new template and category to help us deal with the load. It's easy to use- all you have to do is put the following text<br> <nowiki>{{rpov}}</nowiki> <br>in an article, and it will automatically mark it for review [[:Category:Regional point of view|here]]. - [[User:Morgant|Morgant]] 01:14, 12 Aug 2005 (CDT)

=== Muslim / Moslem / Islam ===
I have unified the references (or the '''links''' at least) by making all the [[Moslem]]s into [[Muslim]]s. Is it now worth making [[Muslim]] a re-direct to [[Islam]] (since, as I understand it, Muslim is a religious specificator rather than a national or racial one), and commissioning an expert to write the [[Islam]] article ? --[[User:Simoncursitor|Simoncursitor]] 05:29, 15 Sep 2005 (CDT)
* Well [[Christianity]] is a redirect to [[Christian]], so I can see [[Muslim]] and [[Moslem]] both being a redirect to [[Islam]]. For start, the Islam article just needs dates for when it started, what are the major branches, where was it a major religion and where and when did it expand. This should link to the [[Moor]]s, the [[Crusade]]s, the [[Spanish Wars]] and famous Muslims like [[Sal al'Adin]] (sic). And later, someone can start a persona bit. And Muslim/Moslem/Islamic are proper adjectives (like Chinese, Soviet). Muslim/Moslem can also be used as nouns (like "an Australian" but not "the English"). - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 19:03, 15 Sep 2005 (CDT)

===Midrealm wiki===

I see that there is a new midrealm wiki ([http://www.midrealm.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Midrealm wiki]). Any ideas on how we best share information with them and avoid duplication of effort? [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 20:27, 5 Oct 2005 (CDT)
* How about asking them to redirect their wiki to this one? The only real problem I could see would be the fact that Cunnan seems to default to UK/Australian spelling (duh, see the URL ending in .au?), but that's easy enough to fix with a simple redirect from the US spelling to UK/Aus (ie, redirect "authorize" to "authorise," something I do as I find the need to ;-) ). This wiki has more information, it's in the Midrealm's best interest to try and not duplicate Cunnan's efforts :) [[User:Thomas|Thomas]] 20:33, 5 Oct 2005 (CDT)
* I'll update the [[Cunnan:Interwiki]] stuff to include their wiki when I have time. It does seem a bit silly to double up on articles like [[period]] and [[authenticity]]. On a note that is only barely related we seem to have passed 1,200,000 article views some time ago (see [[Special:Statistics|the statistics]]).- [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 22:19, 5 Oct 2005 (CDT)
*But also remember that they are trying to be Middle-centric ... (cf. [http://www.midrealm.org/wiki/index.php/Presence Midrealm entry for Presence]). Our pages for general terms would not always include specific regional interpretations or regional ways/rules of playing that aspect of the Game. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]]

=== Spam flood ===
As anyone who looked at [[Special:Recentchanges]] today probably noticed Cunnan was the target of a group of spam bots who touched a large number of pages. The domain the bots were spamming has now been added to the antispam filter.

I've been through all the touched pages and have edited and saved the most recent useable version of each. Unfortunately, the spam bots unwittingly hit a bug in the software which means that the the page revisions before each of their edits have most probably been corrupted. If anyone feels like spending an hour helping to cleanup then they should go through my edits for the day and check that the page revision I restored each article to was optimal (i.e. the second most recent revision in most cases).

Cunnan's software has been upgraded so that the database corruption wont occur again even if the spam bots return.
[[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 23:35, 8 Oct 2005 (CDT)

* Hmm, it just happened again. I believe I have got rid of the spam, but it was done using multiple "machines" so it wasn't worth my time blocking everyone. Also some pages were hit multiple times. Rollback only works for the last action on the page, including rollbacks, so some of the fixes had to be edits. Nasty! I understand Tobin's problems the first time. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 09:53, 22 Oct 2005 (CDT)
** Three cheers for Cian! Thanks for doing the dirty work Cian, the fact that you and Tobin have done this is much appreciated. Given that this is the second time this has happened maybe it's time that we adopted a policy of only allowing editing for people who have logged in. It's not a foolproof defence I know, and it makes us feel less welcoming, but it would save a lot of aggravation. [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 20:55, 22 Oct 2005 (CDT)
*** The most nasty wiki spam bots use a mixture of accounts and anonymous edits (the attack today and the first major attack are both examples of this). Forcing people to register only inconveniences humans. I've updated the anti spam filter to include the <nowiki><div></nowiki> id that the recent spam attacks have all included. Hopefully this will catch future attacks from this bot. - [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 04:57, 5 Nov 2005 (CST)
*** The two attacks I have "cleaned up" today all targetted the same files but the second one created blank pages. I wonder if they were doing so for a purpose? I blocked the repeating URLs which sometimes actually used a username. [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 19:40, 11 Dec 2005 (CST)
**** I've added some things from today's spam flood to the anti spam filter. If things stop working someone should tell me. -- [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 05:51, 12 Dec 2005 (CST)

*FYI the [[France]] page is currently showing up as uneditable due to the spam filter --[[User:Simoncursitor|Simoncursitor]] 02:41, 8 Dec 2005 (CST)
** I know, I'll remove ''that site'' from the anti spam filter when I've got time to do a general cleanup -- [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 05:51, 12 Dec 2005 (CST)

*I'm getting sick of not being able to properly use the word special-ist (without the hyphen) because it includes cial-is (without the hyphen). I seem to use the word (and it's relatives) quite a bit. Is there any way we can still exclude the pharaceutical (because that trick is working nicely thankyou), but allow certain words that contain it? special-ist special-ism, special-ists, special-istic etc. [[User:Tiff|Tiff]]
** Oops, my bad. I'll change the anti spam filter to require a non-letter character on either side for a match. Should happen after I'm back from work today. Have people noticed any other false positives? -- [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 13:15, 12 Jan 2006 (CST)
*** Should be fixed now. The new rule for c*alis is '''<nowiki>[^A-Za-z]c*alis[^A-Za-z]</nowiki>''' (with the * replaced by the appropriate letter of course). -- [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 01:43, 13 Jan 2006 (CST)

* I was unable to add a link to the Bordescros website hosted by www . freewebs . com / bordescros because of the spam filter. Can this be made an exception please.--[[User:MasterWill|MasterWill]] 06:49, 16 Mar 2006 (CST)
** I've removed freewebs from the spam filter. - [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 00:15, 24 Mar 2006 (CST)

=== Notable Persons ===


I've added [[Cunnan:Policy]] so we can have somewhere to list Cunnan's Policies.
I am wondering, since I am new to here, but what are the guidelines about articles about specific people? While I don't see any reason that we would need one for every Baron/Knight/et al in the Known World, but there are a few individuals who's efforts and actions helped form the SCA. [[User:Donovan Ravenhull|Donovan Ravenhull]] 06:20, 10 Oct 2005 (CDT)
:- [[User:Yvesdelyle|Yves de Lyle]] ([[User talk:Yvesdelyle|talk]])


=== Mediawiki updates ===
:As of yet there are no guidelines. In fact a few of the older pages are for SCA individuals who are not noteworthy at all. If you thnik they're worth mentioning that's probably a good start. [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 08:24, 10 Oct 2005 (CDT)
I've added additional Extension to the mediawiki setup here. See [[Special:Version]] for the current technical setup.
:- [[User:Yvesdelyle|Yves de Lyle]] ([[User talk:Yvesdelyle|talk]])


=== Reorganising Cunnan ===
::Personally, I would leave it to a few. First Crowns, a few super-dukes, the Queen-Soveriegns, notable artisans. We would have to be careful though. [[User:Donovan Ravenhull|Donovan Ravenhull]] 17:43, 10 Oct 2005 (CDT)


Moved to [[Cunnan:Organisation]] Project
=== Server move, heads up ===


-[[User:Yvesdelyle|Yves de Lyle]] ([[User talk:Yvesdelyle|talk]]) 18:36, 6 February 2013 (EST)
The server that this wiki is hosted on will be moving at some point in the next few months. What is basically happening is that I have two new servers in my usual data center (Paddington, NSW, Australia), which will replace this server (Dallas, TX, USA) and the old http://www.sca.org.au/ server (Paddington). The two new servers have quite a bit more grunt and will be more reliable (dual CPUs, 2.5GB RAM, SCSI RAID arrays) than either of the current ones (single CPU, 512K / 1GB, IDE drives).


=== Style guide ===
The www.sca.org.au server has already moved onto one of the new machines.


It appears that Cunnan could use a style guide for how to set out particular pages. For Example the Kingdom Standardisation Project could be adapted to be an SCA group standard style guide. Any thoughts or comments? [[User:Yvesdelyle|Yves de Lyle]] ([[User talk:Yvesdelyle|talk]]) 15:52, 1 February 2013 (EST)
The second machine is being used for a major client project at the moment but will become available in a few months' time, probably around xmas/new year. When it becomes available both cunnan and www.sca.org.au will move on to it, along with a few of my other client sites.


:The unofficial style guide tended to be me in the past. Others would write the page, normally rare editors who would not have any notion of style. I would make sure all branches started off with something like "The '''X of C''' is an [[SCA]] [[group]] in the [[Kingdom of Y]], mundanely in CITY, COUNTRY". Then I broke the text up when I could, sometimes rewriting it and made sure the homepage link was under External Links, since it wasn't within Cunnan. The actual content depended on what the original author gave us. Things like History and Events were rare or too small to make their own section. Occasionally I had to remove regional point-of-view or change it to third-person perspective (ie. change "we" to "they").
There will probably be a bit of disruption going on when that does happen -- Fedora Core 3 (or maybe 4 or 5) new kernel, newer version of PHP, newer version of MySQL, etc. So far there appears to have been a few problems converting international/multi-byte characters between the older and newer systems so that's something to look out for. There will also probably be at least a few hours of downtime.


:So yes, you can try and establish a formal style, but other than a sidebar that will be out-of-date very soon if includes seneschal names etc, you probably won't have much to play around. After all, some branches are stub articles with only have one or two sentences that just say their location.
More information closer to the date.
:- [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] ([[User talk:Cian|talk]]) 23:18, 1 February 2013 (EST)


:My main thought would be to list the elements that should be included in a page (ie the stuff that is unlikely to change quickly). So a side bar with name, device, location, link to homepage/website. and the main part of the article having an overview, history, events (if any), rulers (K&Qs, P&Ps, or B&B), and external links. Other info like current seneschal, current members, current events, etc. change too quickly and would be best placed on the groups homesite.
[[User:Del|Del]] 21:13, 22 Oct 2005 (CDT)
:- [[User:Yvesdelyle|Yves de Lyle]] ([[User talk:Yvesdelyle|talk]]) 10:07, 2 February 2013 (EST)


===New admins===
=== On the use of Categories===


Where should categories be used?
We keep saying this every time, but we should figure out some guidelines for adding new admins. Say, at least 100 edits and 1 month's activity. There are a couple of people we should look at adding to our admin list, but they haven't been around very long. [[User:Thomas]] and [[User:Paul Matisz]] have both been doing good work, and are in timezones that would be useful to help stem the spamfloods that are coming in. What do other admins think? [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 17:58, 7 Nov 2005 (CST)


For example; does the category [[:Category:From the Peerless Kitchen|From the Peerless Kitchen]] need to exist, but can it be a page ([[Peerless Kitchen]]) pointing to a bunch of recipes. I ask this because there are currently 5 Unused categories, 182 Uncategorized pages, and 153 Uncategorized categories... Whatever that means. There are categories for people to note the recipes they have redacted, which works against the idea of a wiki. It also appear that most of the articles in [[:Category:Songs]] are in fact [[:Category:Filk]]. [[User:yvesdelyle|Yves de Lyle]] 21:16, 30 Jan 2013 (EST)
They're doing great work, and more admins is good. [[User:Tiff|Tiff]] 20:50, 7 Nov 2005 (CST)
:Categories work in two directions. If there is a new recipe, the categories help a reader find related recipes. The reader can then move from the category to these other recipes. All that is required is [[:category:From the Peerless Kitchen]] on the recipe pafge. [[Peerless Kitchen]] can be a page instead, but that would need to be updated, and each recipe page would have to link back to it.
:The recipes are a an awkward point. They are an ongoing project outside the wiki, but their inclusion in the wiki is another project. By indicating which have or haven't been redacted, I imagine it makes the people concerned make sure the two projects can be kept in synch.
:The inclusion of recipes is also very much in tune with the aim of Cunnan - to help medieval reenactment and recreation. Being able to read the original recipe is great, but some may need the help of a redaction. Therefore, having a list of recipes that have been redacted is helpful.
:Some categories are made but no pages have yet been placed in the category. Some categories were started but no description was made of the category. Some categories were started, described but have few entries. Each of these must be evaluated on its own merits, like any page in a wiki. People had ideas and projects that these categories may be part of but may never have been finalised.
:- [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] ([[User talk:Cian|talk]]) 19:15, 6 February 2013 (EST)


===Laurel Sovereign of Arms===
* The one thing that time does give new Cunnan users is an idea of what is the "norm" in entries (e.g. humour vs serious, brief vs in-depth, local vs. general) and what admins do in Cunnan. That is one reason to wait a couple of months even if they have been entering lots of good entries. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]]
I was looking at the page that redirects for [[Laurel]] and noticed that the [[Laurel Sovereign of Arms]] is in a page bound with the [[College of Arms]]. Might it be more beneficial to do a dedicated page for Laurel instead of being tied in with the College? [[User:Donngal|Donngal]] 16:37, 22 July 2010 (EST)
** I'll echo [[User:Cian]], I'd say a couple of months of activity (or a ton of edits/additions!) makes sense before making someone an admin. That being said, I'd be happy to help stem spamfloods whenever possible -- is there a sub-admin position that'd allow for that? Either way, I'm flattered at being told that I'm doing good work, and will be happy to help out :) [[User:Thomas|Thomas]] 08:41, 8 Nov 2005 (CST)
* Sure, since the [[Principal Herald]] page is now more substantive. I would make sure that [[Laurel]] redirects to [[Order of the Laurel]] with a disambiguation at the top for [[Laurel Sovereign of Arms]]. The page for LSofA should mention the [[SCA]] [[College of Arms]]. One of the pages should mention any historical links to similar ranks/titles in the RL Colleges, e.g. [[Garter King of Arms]], [[Lyons King of Arms]]
: - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 10:35, 23 July 2010 (EST)


=== The Illegible Vandals ===
*Thomas - note that there are also rankings above admin. We're just worried that you might be finding the inabilty to rollback pages, or move them, chafing. Especially [[user:Paul Matisz]], who I think has been around a little longer.
First it was the Ampersand Bandits. Now we have new class of vandals with a different MO - the Illegible Vandals! We have been getting unknown people adding just one word consisting of 8-10 characters to a range of pages. I believe the choice of characters is random because I don't recognise anything that I would find in any of my dictionaries. So the vandalism is pretty pointless. As far as I can work out, the same "user" has never struck more than once. Wierd. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 13:39, 27 September 2007 (EST)
*It sure would be great to spread the time zones a little - we seem to have more sucess keeping locals, and i don't think my semi nocturnalism counts.
:Alas, we're now seeing several articles vandalized by a single IP. It's the sheer volume of IPs involved that concerns me -- we've been hit pretty hard over the last week. Kudos on everyone helping to stem the tide! [[User:Paul Matisz|Paul Matisz]] 19:05EDT 02 Oct 07
*On the other hand a month or more sounds normal for deciding on admins - so we know they are going to stick around.
*While we are adding admins - I just noticed user [[User:AuntieNic]] is not an admin, and I'm sure she'd find it usefull to be able to delete accidental pages and change recepie names more easily.
[[User:Tiff|Tiff]] 10:39, 8 Nov 2005 (CST)


:Yeah, I have since noticed repeat offenders. The thing that gets me is the fact that there seems to be no reason for these attacks. If they were all concentrated at particular times, then I could believe that it is was just an attempt at "denial of service" but there aren't enough of them at any one time for that. Other than restricting editing to logged in members, I can't see how any system can automatically prevent the Illegible Vandals. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 09:19, 3 October 2007 (EST)
OK, How about [[User:User 144|User 144]]? He's been around a couple of months, been contributing fairly heavily and has been cleaning up after vandals. [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 05:23, 16 Mar 2006 (CST)
*I support that. [evil grin] Can we make it a condition that they own up who they are? He/she should know now that we won't bite.... much. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 16:36, 16 Mar 2006 (CST)
*I'd support that too. Any objections? - [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 17:52, 21 Mar 2006 (CST)
It has now been a week, and seeing that there are only yes votes here, [[User:User 144|User 144]] is now an admin. [[User:Conrad Leviston|Conrad Leviston]] 18:42, 23 Mar 2006 (CST)
* Thank you all. I shall try not to let it go to my head. 8) --[[User:User 144|User 144]] 01:00, 24 Mar 2006 (CST)


:On 04 Oct between 10:39 and 17:08 some twenty articles were vandalized by these jerks. In some cases, the same article was vandalized numerous times. Given the randomness I suspect this may be some kind of bot or virus... is there any way to defend against them? [[User:Paul Matisz|Paul Matisz]] 17:15EDT 04 Oct 07
=== New Kingdom ===


: Attacks today from three different IP addresses from 87.101.244.* . I think we might be able to put a filter on that for a few months. Tobin? Unfortunately, there seems no clear pattern to any of the other addresses. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 13:09, 9 October 2007 (EST)
* As many of you know, on 11/5 [[AS XXXX]], a new kingdom was created, [[Gleann Abhann]]. However, the "SCA Kingdom" box (within the curly brackets) doesn't reflect it. How does one edit the box to make that work out? [[User:Thomas|Thomas]] 18:02, 14 Nov 2005 (CST)
* Should now be fixed - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]]
=== Use of information from Wikipedia ===
An editor has just added a lot of information into [[Norman]] and [[Saxon]]. From the acknowledgement at the top of their edits and the [[:special:categories|categories]] and links given on the resulting pages, I believe that the entire of the content was lifted from the relevant [[Wikipedia]] pages. While I believe the citation is exactly as Wikipedia would want and the information is relevant to [[Cunnan]], my memory and experience tells me that this is not quite the way Cunnan's pages are normally done. My reasons are:
* Cunnan is not intended to include encylopaedic pages, which these edits were.
* I do not like cutting and pasting large amounts of information from other sites
* Cunnan's primary aim is to provide snippets of information on things that are useful to a [[re-enactment|re-enacter]] (primarly [[SCAdian]]s). These two pages should IMHO say what Saxons and Normans are, link to associated pages about their kings and regions, and then describe how a relevant personna might live.


=== Applicability Question ===
I haven't rollbacked the pages yet becuse I would like to hear what others think and/or linked to the page that actually has the policy on these matters.
- [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 03:21, 18 Dec 2005 (CST)


See these Caidan Tourney results: http://wiki.caid-commons.org/index.php/Results
===Question about Languages===
First off, I'm new, so this may already be answered.
Well, I was just wondering if the pages about specific languages, (for example [[Greek]] or [[Old English]]) should have information on the languages themselves, rather than just background and examples. IE, a list of pertinent vocabulary, or a short grammar? The articles would be, in my opinion, more informative.[[User:Ridan|Ridan]] 17:44, 12 Jan 2006 (CST)
* Most of the pages on [[language]]s were written by me as stubs. I was mainly using my own linguistic knowledge and David Crystal's "An Enclyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages". Details on the languages in depth is for external pages IMHO. The key things that I think that [[SCAdian]]s and other [[recreationist]]s would like to know about languages are:
**Where were they spoken?
**When were they spoken?
**What [[alphabet]] did they use?
**What other languages do they relate to?
**Major manuscripts written in the language.
**How they played a major role in the history of a region, e.g. [[Anglo-Saxon Chronicles]], Church [[Latin]]
- [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 23:37, 12 Jan 2006 (CST)


Has Cunnan evolved so far away from its St Monica/Lochac roots that setting up a section under Kingdom of Lochac to support something like the above (but for Lochac) would be a no-go these days? I refer to Village pump discussions mid-2007 on culling some SCA-specific stuff that was seen mainly as ego-boo.
*Actually I'd be interested in some basic info on how the language was spoken, were anyone skilled enough to write such. But it definately needs the background data Cian lists too. (what use writing about ancient Livonian, if no-one knows where Livonia is) I can see the following reenactor uses:
**basic prononciation (eg how do I pronounce that name, how does the pronounciation differ from it's modern decendants/modern english)
**basic phrases (how can I say something groovy in persona. Things like counting, time words, etc seem cool too)
**reading simple words from a manuscript (eg labels above a persons head in a picture, headings of a section)
**interesting concepts unique to the language translated (eg battlecries, drinking shout words, proverbs, things that give insight into the people, etc)
**basic grammar and vocab can probably be explained using the above as examples
**we don't need to re-invent the wheel - where other guides exist (especially online ones), it is appropriate to give a brief summary (and info a non-academic might need to know) and a link.
*The above is just a discussion of my thoughts on what i see as useful - we welcome all kinds of info.
*My discussion has been based on the assumption that when you say eg. greek, you are talking about a form of the language used pre 1600. For modern greek my discussion would be limited to how it relates to ancient forms, and phrases to help you translate modern academic papers or webpages.
[[User:Tiff|Tiff]] 08:41, 13 Jan 2006 (CST)


Or would it be fair enough? A wiki is a very good way to maintain this sort of thing; the question is whether we need to set up a whole new one, or use the resource that already exists, but which may no longer be appropriate. (Or, indeed, whether Cunnan would be open to any Kingdoms which wished to use it so).
*I'm talking about any language relevant to the SCA. The articles ''would'' need to have the background information, but I think the additional material Tiff hath specified would make the articles more informative. [[User:Ridan|Ridan]] 19:09, 15 Jan 2006 (CST)
===Piccies===
I think that this site needs some pictures of items, (particularly) on the more oft visitted pages.


- [[User:Bartholomew|Bartholomew]] 15:02, 9 June 2008 (EST)
What size (dimensions and file size) is considered appropriate for the site?


: A similar idea has come to me, but instead why not merge the wikis and mirror them across the web.
BTW The new section/question link at the top of the page didn't work for me.--[[User:User 144|User 144]] 21:20, 3 Feb 2006 (CST)
:* This would reduce the duplication of pages covering the same basic content. Also why would people from any of the following ([http://www.midrealm.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Midrealm wiki], [http://wiki.caid-commons.org/index.php/Main_Page Compendium Caidis] (aka the Caid wiki), [http://wiki.antir.sca.org/index.php?title=Main_Page An Tir Culturewiki]) support the efforts that Cunnan is making or vice versa.
:Make diagram as large as they need to be (and if you scan a diagram aim for 72dpi). If a diagram is going to be really large then convert it to a PDF and upload that instead. Images can be resized dynamically by the wiki software so it's not important to aim for an exact size but most images shouldn't be more than 300KB in size. A good guide would be around 800x600 pixels for a photograph of a person or object. I can't remember what the technical limit on file uploads is but if you're uploading something that is more than 1MB you should seriously start thinking about ways to reduce it down. - [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 22:56, 3 Feb 2006 (CST)
:* The main Medieval & SCA content would fill the main section.
:* Each Kingdom could have a Portal:<Kingdom> to it's own unique flavour
:- [[User:Yvesdelyle|Yves de Lyle]] ([[User talk:Yvesdelyle|talk]]) 10:27, 2 February 2013 (EST)


=== Templates ===
===Discussion on Local Group pages===
Greetings all. I have been working with learning the language of templates in MediaWiki and have copied one over from Wikipedia, [[Template:Information]] for image files. However, there seems to be a bit of markup that isn't working correctly, as can be seen in <noinclude>[[:Image:Thomas_Hawley_Clarenceux_King_of_Arms.jpg]]</noinclude>. If someone can fix this and explain in detail how they went about fixing it, I'd like to be able to fix broken templates myself. Thanks! --[[User:Averykrouse|Tobias Morgan]] 13:45, 24 September 2008 (EST)
''Moved from [[User:MasterWill]]'s discussion page and edited for formatting''
* I'm sorry but I don't know what error you are talking about. How about you use the [[Cunnan:sandbox]] to set up some examples and describe what you were expecting to happen and what has happened. I suspect it might be that Cunnan's MediaWiki version hasn't been updated for 3 or more months. - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 09:14, 25 September 2008 (EST)
** The problem using the sandbox is that the template is primarily used in the Image namespace. If you clickthrough to the Image page listed above then go down to the information section, you can see that it looks odd and cluttered, with bad markup. Whereas if you go to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Thomas_Hawley_Clarenceux_King_of_Arms.jpg original image on Wikipedia] and look at the information section, it's much cleaner. --[[User:Averykrouse|Tobias Morgan]] 12:10, 25 September 2008 (EST)


=== Wine ===
* What happened to the [[Arrowsreach]] [[Wiki]]? I'm surprised you aren't doing all this page-of-links and festival planning on it, rather than an [[Cunnan:What isn't Cunnan?|summary-style]] wiki like [[Cunnan]].
I want to make my own home made [[wine]] ,, were do I start ??? this will be my first time and I want to know how to start from being to end with [[fruit]]s
::-[[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 16:53, 20 Mar 2006 (CST)
- gilpaulrod@yahoo.com, 12 Nov 2005


* Try C.J. Berry's books available from any good wine making shop or online. - [[User:Bcholley@btinternet.com|Bcholley]], 14 June 2010
* I thought that by creating Arrowsreach centric wiki pages on [[Cunnan]] that cross references into other pages on Cunnan I would be able to encourage more of our members to use and contribute to Cunnan as a whole. For example, I am amazed that Mistress Margie has not been introduced to Cunnan as she would be an avid user if she could get over her initial fear for the complex and arcane computer arts. Cunnan is also incredably handy and useful, and I can see such "group centric" use increasing as more and more people find out about it, at that point we should create a seperate category for Lochac group pages rather than splitting it off into a seperate wiki.
=== Herbs ===
::-[[User:MasterWill|MasterWill]] 00:26, 21 Mar 2006 (CST)
Would it be possible to merge the [[herb]] pages (e.g. [[borage]]) with their page of historical quotes (e.g. [[borage (Maplet)]])? I think having all those extra pages is superfluous especially seeing as most of the quote pages are only a few lines long. Could they be added to the end of the original herb page with a new heading instead?


* The idea with these entries is that they can be accessed either via the herb, or through the book title, so that one can browse the entries as one would a book. If you look at [[A Greene Forest]] and [[Askham's Herbal]] you will realise that merging these pages involves an awful lot of work for dubious benefit.
* This is adresses to everyone in general:
:Is it possible to have a subwiki? What I'm thinking is a change in page colour, indicating that certain content related to a limited group, and a small automated disclaimer, that not all the info on such pages will be totally intellegible to people outside the group. The Krae Glas hall hire directory (happy to make it the melbourne hall hire directory if we got entries) seems one such thing to me, and st monicas occasionally has such things (eg festival planning), although it is easier with our smaller group to get people to read emails, than visit a wiki.
:Maybe technically, I'm talking a second wiki, but one open to all lochac groups, that uses the same software as cunnan, and meshes seamlessly with it? It is one of the constant conflicts we have, and I too would like to have somewhere I don't feel worried about havign the two concepts of useage warring against each other.
::-[[User:Tiff|Tiff]]


=== New Spam Vandals ===
* This is sort of why I wrote to you Will. [[Cunnan]] has pages that supposedly define its purpose (i.e. [[Cunnan:What isn't Cunnan?]], [[Cunnan:What is Cunnan?]]) but I suspect they were written a while ago by the [[College of St Monica|St Monicans]] who set Cunnan up. However, the "rules" have been pretty well followed so far. The regular editors have been trying hard to [[Cunnan:Regional_point_of_view|delocalise]] the content of the entries, and not limit them to solely [[SCA]] details. The one exception has been the [[KraeGlas hall hire]] directory, but since that was written by Monicans and their locals, it is easy to ignore.
I have killed off three spam vandal user-pages today. If I have erred, please revert and let me know. I am unable actually to delete the pages as I lack the authority-level.[[User:Simoncursitor|Simoncursitor]] ([[User talk:Simoncursitor|talk]]) 22:27, 1 September 2014 (MIST)
:IIRC it was previously decided that Cunnan's pages weren't going to be substitute webpages for branches, nor was Cunnan going to be a repository for documents like newsletters, manuals etc. The servers have shifted from St Mon's to [[Del]]'s machines.
<br> Another 4 today -- [[User:Simoncursitor|Simoncursitor]] ([[User talk:Simoncursitor|talk]]) 17:27, 8 September 2014 (MIST)
:While I think its great that you are encouraging Arrowreachians to use and contribute to Cunnan (especially Margie.... we need stuff on period [[theatre]] added), I am just worried that the recent edits will set a precedent that contradicts the existing norms. Tiff's idea is good. Having a distinctly separate area for SCA (and other groups) to have their own pages with their own styles would be better, but I fear that it will hard to manage as the server may not have the resources, and it will be harder for [[special:Listadmins|us]] to moderate. A separate wiki for [[Lochac]] [[groups]] might be the best way to go on that.
::- [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 17:03, 21 Mar 2006 (CST)


My Spambot kill count is currently at 14. Is there anything we can do to prevent the creation of all of these ghost accounts? [[User:Hastilude|Hastilude]] ([[User talk:Hastilude|talk]]) 13:44 15 September 2014 (EST)
* Having a second "area" within one wiki would be tricky the software we're using really isn't setup to handle that. What ''might'' be an option is to have a second wiki, a Lochac wiki, setup. Someone would need to ask Del, it's his server. A couple of changes to the interwiki link scheme and we'd have <nowiki>[[Lochac:some page]]</nowiki> and <nowiki>[[Cunnan:some page]]</nowiki> working to "pass" users between the two.
:I'm not volunteering to approach Del about this but I'd support and help anyone who did.
::- [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 17:39, 21 Mar 2006 (CST)


There are limits on a created account, which appears to be why we have many ghost account that do not create or add content. I am working on a way to remove the accounts that do not create content, but since there are over 15,000 of them I do not want to do it by hand. Most of the spammers/spambots are creating User:Talk pages, which are the only ones left open. I'll close that shortly.
* Before I started contributing to the Cunnan I went looking for [[Cunnan:Policies and guidelines]] on content, and I came to conclusion that what I intended to add was acceptable. Now that you have pointed out the '''other policy''' pages (i.e. [[Cunnan:What isn't Cunnan?]], [[Cunnan:What is Cunnan?]]) I have found quite a lot of pages that seem to break the [[Cunnan:What isn't Cunnan?]] rules, for example, the [[Holy Roman Emperor]] and [[Guard]] pages have very little to do with re-enactment and read more like an encyclopaedia entries. The [[Cunnan:FAQ]] states that the local intrest pages have not been deleted because ''they don't conflict with what anyone else wants to write''. There is a need for local pages, and dividing the wiki seems like such a waste of time and ends up reducing it's overall value. So to clear this up, we could create a page template that has a different background colour for local pages.
-- [[User:Yvesdelyle|Yves de Lyle]] ([[User talk:Yvesdelyle|talk]]) 13:05, 17 September 2014 (MIST)
::-[[User:MasterWill|MasterWill]] 17:57, 21 Mar 2006 (CST)


Blanked 7 userr-pages today which look to be bot-created -- an occupatiuon, some personal notes, reference to a holiday or location, followed by a spam-link which appears to be in a Malaysian typography. -- [[User:Simoncursitor|Simoncursitor]] ([[User talk:Simoncursitor|talk]]) 17:46, 14 October 2014 (EST)
* The point in the FAQ about articles that only concern a small group was more for regional/local point of view type things not for event planning, etc. If we allow one instance of this then we have to be prepared for all groups involved in the SCA to start using the site as a place to jot down notes for running events and organising who's doing the cooking on a particular day at a particular camp. Cleaning up after the events are over would be a real pain, and I don't think that a record of what a household had for lunch at last years Rowany is the sort of thing we want to have to keep track of. I'm also not sure Del would be keen on us hosting these kinds of things for groups that have nothing to do with Lochac.
:I don't think that dividing the wiki would reduce it's overall value. I think it would help better define what the wiki is for and the interwiki linking I mentioned is an easy and clear way to get users moving between the two sites. If we were really keen we could abuse the wiki software's ability to have links related pages in other "languages" to make the relationship even stronger.
:Altering the site's CSS to have a different background is easy but getting the software to use it is a problem. I understand the code but I refuse to make changes like that since they make upgrading a real pain. You could do it by placing the content of the entire page within a table with a coloured background but that'll break when you start adding right aligned images, etc.
:If people really insist on using Cunnan in this way then I'll suggest they move the pages out of the article namespace and into <nowiki>[[Cunnan:</nowiki> ''page name'' <nowiki>]]</nowiki>.
::- [[User:Tobin|Tobin]] 18:27, 21 Mar 2006 (CST)


Trying to block the adding of external links for new users, but need to upgrade first. Planned for the weekend.
* I'm afraid the arrangements of the policies pages are just a classic victim of this being a [[wiki]] -- disorganisation. If someone has time, they might get them structured better and put meaningful links on other pages.
--[[User:Yvesdelyle|Yves de Lyle]] ([[User talk:Yvesdelyle|talk]]) 10:06, 17 October 2014 (EST)
:As for the encyclopaedic nature of some pages, I suspect what is meant is that editors shouldn't include everything that is ever known on a page about a subject. Just keypoints that explain what the topic is on about and items that may be relevant to it. Some editors like to write a lot (cf. [[User:Anton]]). I as a moderator chicken out of editting those pages, partially because of the individual style in which they are written (hard to edit! easier to rewrite which takes time!). But I do personally feel that some pages say too much for Cunnan.
:As for [[Guard]], IMHO it does contain entries for senses of the word that doesn't really add to anything you would find in a dictionary. But since the author is so good at writing pages, I left it alone in the hope that he/she would expand those entries further at a later date with more medieval-centric data. I also mean to add links to pages for certain guards e.g. [[NVG]], [[Mead Guard]].
:But a page that is mainly a list of links really needs to justify why it doesn't deserve to be chopped down. The list of [[Other re-enactment sites]] is a classic (but messy) example. The key thing that saves it (for now) is that all the links are for one topic.
:: - [[User:Cian|Cian Gillebhrath]] 20:50, 21 Mar 2006 (CST)
:::I believe that the page of links was just lifted from the Wikipedia, anyway. I think that some of the major links are valid and should remain. A better idea would be to keep the links to those that the authors know directly, thus being able to then give a relevant entry for that link as has been done with the [[NVG]].
BTW Sorry about the [[guard]] entry. Cian was in many ways right but I also think that Cunnan should be a resources that reenactors/SCAdians can access that includes topics that directly related to them. In addition, a page needs to start somewhere.
--[[User:User 144|User 144]] 00:18, 22 Mar 2006 (CST)

Latest revision as of 10:06, 17 October 2014

In Medieval villages people would gather at the Village Pump to discuss those items that were important to their lives. On Cunnan the Village Pump serves a similar purpose: Giving users a place to meet and discuss current events, policy, and content.


Projects

Here is a list of some of recent projects in Category:Project Current.

<DynamicPageList> category = Project Current order = descending addfirstcategorydate = true shownamespace = false ordermethod = lastedit count = 6 </DynamicPageList>

Announcements

Topics

Policy Page

I've added Cunnan:Policy so we can have somewhere to list Cunnan's Policies.

- Yves de Lyle (talk)

Mediawiki updates

I've added additional Extension to the mediawiki setup here. See Special:Version for the current technical setup.

- Yves de Lyle (talk)

Reorganising Cunnan

Moved to Cunnan:Organisation Project

-Yves de Lyle (talk) 18:36, 6 February 2013 (EST)

Style guide

It appears that Cunnan could use a style guide for how to set out particular pages. For Example the Kingdom Standardisation Project could be adapted to be an SCA group standard style guide. Any thoughts or comments? Yves de Lyle (talk) 15:52, 1 February 2013 (EST)

The unofficial style guide tended to be me in the past. Others would write the page, normally rare editors who would not have any notion of style. I would make sure all branches started off with something like "The X of C is an SCA group in the Kingdom of Y, mundanely in CITY, COUNTRY". Then I broke the text up when I could, sometimes rewriting it and made sure the homepage link was under External Links, since it wasn't within Cunnan. The actual content depended on what the original author gave us. Things like History and Events were rare or too small to make their own section. Occasionally I had to remove regional point-of-view or change it to third-person perspective (ie. change "we" to "they").
So yes, you can try and establish a formal style, but other than a sidebar that will be out-of-date very soon if includes seneschal names etc, you probably won't have much to play around. After all, some branches are stub articles with only have one or two sentences that just say their location.
- Cian Gillebhrath (talk) 23:18, 1 February 2013 (EST)
My main thought would be to list the elements that should be included in a page (ie the stuff that is unlikely to change quickly). So a side bar with name, device, location, link to homepage/website. and the main part of the article having an overview, history, events (if any), rulers (K&Qs, P&Ps, or B&B), and external links. Other info like current seneschal, current members, current events, etc. change too quickly and would be best placed on the groups homesite.
- Yves de Lyle (talk) 10:07, 2 February 2013 (EST)

On the use of Categories

Where should categories be used?

For example; does the category From the Peerless Kitchen need to exist, but can it be a page (Peerless Kitchen) pointing to a bunch of recipes. I ask this because there are currently 5 Unused categories, 182 Uncategorized pages, and 153 Uncategorized categories... Whatever that means. There are categories for people to note the recipes they have redacted, which works against the idea of a wiki. It also appear that most of the articles in Category:Songs are in fact Category:Filk. Yves de Lyle 21:16, 30 Jan 2013 (EST)

Categories work in two directions. If there is a new recipe, the categories help a reader find related recipes. The reader can then move from the category to these other recipes. All that is required is category:From the Peerless Kitchen on the recipe pafge. Peerless Kitchen can be a page instead, but that would need to be updated, and each recipe page would have to link back to it.
The recipes are a an awkward point. They are an ongoing project outside the wiki, but their inclusion in the wiki is another project. By indicating which have or haven't been redacted, I imagine it makes the people concerned make sure the two projects can be kept in synch.
The inclusion of recipes is also very much in tune with the aim of Cunnan - to help medieval reenactment and recreation. Being able to read the original recipe is great, but some may need the help of a redaction. Therefore, having a list of recipes that have been redacted is helpful.
Some categories are made but no pages have yet been placed in the category. Some categories were started but no description was made of the category. Some categories were started, described but have few entries. Each of these must be evaluated on its own merits, like any page in a wiki. People had ideas and projects that these categories may be part of but may never have been finalised.
- Cian Gillebhrath (talk) 19:15, 6 February 2013 (EST)

Laurel Sovereign of Arms

I was looking at the page that redirects for Laurel and noticed that the Laurel Sovereign of Arms is in a page bound with the College of Arms. Might it be more beneficial to do a dedicated page for Laurel instead of being tied in with the College? Donngal 16:37, 22 July 2010 (EST)

- Cian Gillebhrath 10:35, 23 July 2010 (EST)

The Illegible Vandals

First it was the Ampersand Bandits. Now we have new class of vandals with a different MO - the Illegible Vandals! We have been getting unknown people adding just one word consisting of 8-10 characters to a range of pages. I believe the choice of characters is random because I don't recognise anything that I would find in any of my dictionaries. So the vandalism is pretty pointless. As far as I can work out, the same "user" has never struck more than once. Wierd. - Cian Gillebhrath 13:39, 27 September 2007 (EST)

Alas, we're now seeing several articles vandalized by a single IP. It's the sheer volume of IPs involved that concerns me -- we've been hit pretty hard over the last week. Kudos on everyone helping to stem the tide! Paul Matisz 19:05EDT 02 Oct 07
Yeah, I have since noticed repeat offenders. The thing that gets me is the fact that there seems to be no reason for these attacks. If they were all concentrated at particular times, then I could believe that it is was just an attempt at "denial of service" but there aren't enough of them at any one time for that. Other than restricting editing to logged in members, I can't see how any system can automatically prevent the Illegible Vandals. - Cian Gillebhrath 09:19, 3 October 2007 (EST)
On 04 Oct between 10:39 and 17:08 some twenty articles were vandalized by these jerks. In some cases, the same article was vandalized numerous times. Given the randomness I suspect this may be some kind of bot or virus... is there any way to defend against them? Paul Matisz 17:15EDT 04 Oct 07
Attacks today from three different IP addresses from 87.101.244.* . I think we might be able to put a filter on that for a few months. Tobin? Unfortunately, there seems no clear pattern to any of the other addresses. - Cian Gillebhrath 13:09, 9 October 2007 (EST)

Applicability Question

See these Caidan Tourney results: http://wiki.caid-commons.org/index.php/Results

Has Cunnan evolved so far away from its St Monica/Lochac roots that setting up a section under Kingdom of Lochac to support something like the above (but for Lochac) would be a no-go these days? I refer to Village pump discussions mid-2007 on culling some SCA-specific stuff that was seen mainly as ego-boo.

Or would it be fair enough? A wiki is a very good way to maintain this sort of thing; the question is whether we need to set up a whole new one, or use the resource that already exists, but which may no longer be appropriate. (Or, indeed, whether Cunnan would be open to any Kingdoms which wished to use it so).

- Bartholomew 15:02, 9 June 2008 (EST)

A similar idea has come to me, but instead why not merge the wikis and mirror them across the web.
  • This would reduce the duplication of pages covering the same basic content. Also why would people from any of the following (Midrealm wiki, Compendium Caidis (aka the Caid wiki), An Tir Culturewiki) support the efforts that Cunnan is making or vice versa.
  • The main Medieval & SCA content would fill the main section.
  • Each Kingdom could have a Portal:<Kingdom> to it's own unique flavour
- Yves de Lyle (talk) 10:27, 2 February 2013 (EST)

Templates

Greetings all. I have been working with learning the language of templates in MediaWiki and have copied one over from Wikipedia, Template:Information for image files. However, there seems to be a bit of markup that isn't working correctly, as can be seen in Image:Thomas_Hawley_Clarenceux_King_of_Arms.jpg. If someone can fix this and explain in detail how they went about fixing it, I'd like to be able to fix broken templates myself. Thanks! --Tobias Morgan 13:45, 24 September 2008 (EST)

  • I'm sorry but I don't know what error you are talking about. How about you use the Cunnan:sandbox to set up some examples and describe what you were expecting to happen and what has happened. I suspect it might be that Cunnan's MediaWiki version hasn't been updated for 3 or more months. - Cian Gillebhrath 09:14, 25 September 2008 (EST)
    • The problem using the sandbox is that the template is primarily used in the Image namespace. If you clickthrough to the Image page listed above then go down to the information section, you can see that it looks odd and cluttered, with bad markup. Whereas if you go to the original image on Wikipedia and look at the information section, it's much cleaner. --Tobias Morgan 12:10, 25 September 2008 (EST)

Wine

I want to make my own home made wine ,, were do I start ??? this will be my first time and I want to know how to start from being to end with fruits - gilpaulrod@yahoo.com, 12 Nov 2005

  • Try C.J. Berry's books available from any good wine making shop or online. - Bcholley, 14 June 2010

Herbs

Would it be possible to merge the herb pages (e.g. borage) with their page of historical quotes (e.g. borage (Maplet))? I think having all those extra pages is superfluous especially seeing as most of the quote pages are only a few lines long. Could they be added to the end of the original herb page with a new heading instead?

  • The idea with these entries is that they can be accessed either via the herb, or through the book title, so that one can browse the entries as one would a book. If you look at A Greene Forest and Askham's Herbal you will realise that merging these pages involves an awful lot of work for dubious benefit.

New Spam Vandals

I have killed off three spam vandal user-pages today. If I have erred, please revert and let me know. I am unable actually to delete the pages as I lack the authority-level.Simoncursitor (talk) 22:27, 1 September 2014 (MIST)
Another 4 today -- Simoncursitor (talk) 17:27, 8 September 2014 (MIST)

My Spambot kill count is currently at 14. Is there anything we can do to prevent the creation of all of these ghost accounts? Hastilude (talk) 13:44 15 September 2014 (EST)

There are limits on a created account, which appears to be why we have many ghost account that do not create or add content. I am working on a way to remove the accounts that do not create content, but since there are over 15,000 of them I do not want to do it by hand. Most of the spammers/spambots are creating User:Talk pages, which are the only ones left open. I'll close that shortly. -- Yves de Lyle (talk) 13:05, 17 September 2014 (MIST)

Blanked 7 userr-pages today which look to be bot-created -- an occupatiuon, some personal notes, reference to a holiday or location, followed by a spam-link which appears to be in a Malaysian typography. -- Simoncursitor (talk) 17:46, 14 October 2014 (EST)

Trying to block the adding of external links for new users, but need to upgrade first. Planned for the weekend. --Yves de Lyle (talk) 10:06, 17 October 2014 (EST)