Pathfinder Wiki:Community portal

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Math

Mathematical formulae are broken at the moment. I'm working on a fix, but it's kinduva big upload, and it's taking a while. --Jomegat (talk) 18:23, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Well, that's fixed now, but is was kinduva nightmare. For future reference, I was able to get it going by installing the SimpleMathJax extension, abandoning the Math+MathJax extensions. What a tangled web that was! If anyone notices any badly rendered math, let me know. It looks good in Physical Fitness and Electricity. --Jomegat (talk) 22:46, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Upgrade

Our service provider will be upgrading the wiki software sometime next week. This is necessary so that we can install the translate extension and then begin to offer the wiki in more languages. I will back up the Wiki on Thursday evening (EDT) just in case. I would also back it up over the weekend, but... duties to my local club call. I will then begin making backups as I have time starting Monday-ish and continuing daily (as time allows) until the upgrade begins. Hopefully, the backups will turn out to be a total waste of my time, but I'm not willing to take that gamble. If something goes wrong, the wiki may be down for a little while. If worse comes to worse, I will at least have a backup of the database and can restore it on another machine. If the wiki goes down, look for info on the Pathfinder Forum. --Jomegat 23:04, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

Very nice, looking forward to it. -- w126jep 23:28, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

Translation Issues

The upgrade is complete. I will begin working on getting the Translate extension installed this week. --Jomegat (talk) 17:45, 29 September 2014 (EDT)

The Translate extension is ON now, and the Wiki is once again read/write. Let the fun begin! --Jomegat (talk) 12:43, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

It looks like I don't have permission to translate or am not a translation administrator. I'm not sure what needs to be changed to allow access to others to translate. --w126jep (talk) 17:48, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

I have now given you "administration" rights, which should give you translate admin rights as well. It also allows you to do other things that you need to be very careful about, including deleting pages, importing pages from other wikis, and blocking users. Use the tools wisely, and there is no penalty for NOT using them if you are not comfortable with them. I have also given JadeDragon admin rights. --Jomegat (talk) 18:15, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Thanks, I will attempt to use it wisely. Is there a plan or a way so that the translation doesn't have to be done by approved administrators? We're just starting with translation but I imagine the idea is to eventually be able to have all cultures and languages working on the wiki. There would be a serious limitation problem if everyone has to be approved as a translation administrator. --w126jep (talk) 18:22, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Once a page is prepared for translation (i.e., add the translate tags and click the "mark for translation" link) then anyone who want to can create a translation in any language. --Jomegat (talk) 21:16, 17 October 2014 (EDT)

Just a few things I'm realizing as I play around and experiment with the translation extension that maybe you have knowledge about:

1) It seems like all the templates will need to be translated as well, or new ones created into their respective languages. While I can change the names for the honors and their category, things like "skill level" and "year" still come up in English.

2) Once there are some translations made, I've gone back to the original page in English, but from there I have no idea how to get to the translated page. Is there a link somewhere I'm missing? Where can I click to get the translation already completed?

I'll keep researching and practicing, maybe I'll figure out some of these things.

I noticed the Zoo visit list is picking up /en and /es pages as well as the no /page. That could get out of hand. Ideas? JadeDragon (talk) 14:30, 16 October 2014 (EDT)

Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Zoo Visit

I realize now that I've been inadvertently creating pages to be translated to English, which has the language code "/en". This would make these pages show up in the Zoo Visit as well. I went ahead and set the Creationism/en page for deletion, so hopefully it will not show up in the Zoo Visit list once it's completely removed. I also removed the Zoo Visit template from the Camelids/es page, but I'm not sure why it continues to pop up in the list. In the future, this should not be an issue, as the translated pages will work with the translated templates, and shouldn't show up in the English version. --w126jep (talk) 17:23, 16 October 2014 (EDT)

Yeah, I think I can fix that. I'll just need to exclude honors that are not "primary" the same way we do that with the honor counts. --Jomegat (talk) 17:37, 16 October 2014 (EDT)

I believe the template takes some time to catch up to changes. Jomegat can you do the same exclude thing on the Master Award count main page - the translations have the count up to 27 Master awards now. JadeDragon (talk) 19:48, 17 October 2014 (EDT)

Didn't need to (I think). I just deleted the Master Award pages that had been accidentally translated into English. Waiting for the database to catch up right now. --Jomegat (talk) 21:16, 17 October 2014 (EDT)

I'm wondering if I should even bother trying to mark templates for translation. The translate tags continue to show up in the English versions of the honors (honors such as Backpacking are riddled with them) but will not show up in the Spanish versions. I do not know how to get rid of them and it doesn't make sense to me why they're there. I think what I'll do is simply create new pages, copy the code to translate, and slap the Spanish extension on it, instead of marking the templates for translation. I'll only mark for translation the actual requirements and answers. I've done this for several templates and it seems to work fine. Any thoughts or ideas? --w126jep (talk) 19:29, 29 October 2014 (EDT)

I have been playing around with that too, but have come up empty-handed. I tried marking a page for translation, and terminating the translate tags before a template, and then turning it back on afterwards, but that didn't seem to help. I think the idea of creating new pages probably is the best we're going to do for the foreseeable future. --Jomegat (talk) 21:09, 29 October 2014 (EDT)

OK, maybe I've got something. In "transcluded" files (and perhaps on templates), we can surround the translate tags with <noinclude> like this:

That way the tags will be active when the content is translated, but not when it is transcluded into another page. The noinclude tag means "don't include this part in the pages that includes this." I tried it on the Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Camping/Take pictures leave footprints page, and that killed the translate tag litter in the backpacking honor. --Jomegat (talk) 21:33, 29 October 2014 (EDT)

Excellent. I'll go around and clean up and put those tags in. Thanks, as always, I'm still kind of illiterate when it comes to wiki. --w126jep (talk) 00:26, 30 October 2014 (EDT)

I know what you mean. There's a lot of wiki stuff I don't know either, but somehow, I muddle through. I'll experiment with the behavior of this approach on templates too - maybe it will solve some problems. When I get some time, I'll start marking pages for translation so you can concentrate on the actual translation. I know you can mark them yourself, but I can't translate content, and that would seem to be the best use of our skills. Any "translation" I do will be with the help of Google translate (and thus highly suspect) - that will only be for testing the markup. Thanks for your efforts here. --Jomegat (talk) 08:51, 30 October 2014 (EDT)

i dont understand the purpose of the translate tags at all. Let me know if I can help though. JadeDragon (talk) 14:03, 30 October 2014 (EDT)

GC vs Division

With all these division honors mixed into the Category pages it could be confusing as to where to get the patches. There seems to be two types of Division Honor

a) approved and listed by the GC on their website & publications as Originating in XYZ Division. AdventSource or local conf should carry these patches. In my view these have been adopted by the GC while preserving the "originated by" status.
b) approved at a Division level but don't expect the patch to be stocked outside the division.

We have no clear way of distinguishing the two varieties right now.

I propose we split the Category pages into two lists (like we did in Outreach for ADRA/ACS) - General Conference and Division sections. Since there are only 3 Div with their own honors, we can further arrange NAD, SAD, and SAD honors into the three alpha columns with subheadings, like on the Regional index page. We should also consider leaving the "group a) (above)" honors in the GC list and dropping the Div icon as these honors are no longer truly Div honors. Where honors have multiple versions, link from each Div area the right honor. JadeDragon (talk) 17:55, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Very good suggestion. I think this would be one of the better ways to rearrange the main index. I'm not sure what you mean by "group a) (above)" honors, though. --w126jep (talk) 19:08, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I would like to explore one other option before acting. There is Yet Another Extension called "Semantic Wiki" which would allow us to turn this site into something more akin to an application than a repository of Honors. We should be able to allow users to customize what honors they see. By default, it would be the ones they can get in their division. For this to work, we would want to tag each honor as "available in the NAD" and that would include all NAD and GC honors, and some SPD, TED, and other division honors. Users who create an account could customize these, and there would always be a link available to list the honors that are available outside the division.

I would rather not break the index into sections as proposed though, as people don't always read the introductory paragraphs (shock!). Instead, they skip straight to the first index they see and if they don't find the honor they're after there, they give up and assume we don't have it. By default, I would list them all, and maybe add a graphic along with the honor insignia if the honor has limited availability. But let's get the Translate stuff going first.

That said, I do support dropping the division icons from all honors that have been adopted by the GC. --Jomegat (talk) 19:20, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I don't think users will create an account to filter - too complex. Would we need to tag each honor as available in the SPD etc? That is a lot of tagging. If I am sitting in New Zealand, can I get the NAD approved patches? I hope I am understanding this correctly. I'm going to go do a sample page now - we can always undo the revision. JadeDragon (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I agree that users would probably not create an account. And I also agree that users don't read introductions and skip straight to the list. Also, I believe it's true that the honors adopted by the GC and are sold at AdventSource no longer belong exclusively to their respective divisions, but just shows where they originated from. While we continue to brainstorm, if in the end nothing really changes, I think it'll look just fine with all the honors listed in the front page. I don't think worrying about where to get the patches is an issue, since a page was set up for just that. --w126jep (talk) 19:54, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

This past investiture, myself and several other directors from the FL conference had questions and some issues with ordering patches. After many phone calls and e-mails back and forth with the FL Conference Director, we learned that AdventSource is being promoted as the official source and provider for Investiture supplies throughout the NAD and the GC. Except in FL (because for some reason, they have to do everything more difficult here), where the FL Pathfinder Online Store is the official resource for clubs in the state and clubs from FL don't have a code to access AdventSource. The FL Pathfinder Store is actually a branch of AdventSource where they specifically service the state. What I mean to say is, there is a clear way to distinguish between the two categories mentioned previously: if AdventSource sells it, it has been adopted by the GC. If it's not there, it can only be obtained from the respective division. --w126jep (talk) 20:07, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Ok that fits with what I guessed. I used to order stuff from FL but they posted that after Aug 1 no more orders allowed for out of state, except for FL specific patches and we had to go through AdventSource. I don't have an AdventSource code (I am not in a Pathfinder Club, and my conf sells direct) so I can't even see what AdventSource lists for honors. So currently I can write a complete answer key for world-wide use but can't get the patch. Here is a sample page incorporating my thoughts http://www.investitureachievement.org/wiki/index.php?title=Adventist_Youth_Honors_Answer_Book/Outdoor_Industries_Div JadeDragon (talk) 20:45, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

That link isn't active yet. As for not being able to get the patches, I understand your pain. The NAD's intent was to protect the integrity of the insignia. They were afraid that people were just awarding themselves the patches without doing the work, so they asked FL to quit selling outside of FL. Can you talk to your conference youth director and explain your situation? Our conference gives the code to club directors so we can order directly from AS. Maybe yours would do the same for you. --Jomegat (talk) 20:56, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Cool. It's active now. Love the made-up honor names BTW. :-) --Jomegat (talk) 20:59, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I guess I should address the proposal too! I like it. I had missed the concept that this would be limited to the category pages, and not applied to the main index. In the old days when we used the 3-ring binder printed version, I never liked that they separated the division honors from the rest (including NAD honors!). I don't know how many times I had counselors tell me that the answers to some honor were not in the book. They were, of course, and as with the wiki, they only looked at the first index they saw. :-/ The more that things change, the more they stay the same. --Jomegat (talk) 21:02, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

One more thought. Maybe we should turn the index on the main page into a sortable table so that people could see them alphabetically, by division, by category, or even skill level. See here for info. I always liked the 3-column approach as I thought it was easier to find honors that way (and more compact). Maybe it's time to abandon that. --Jomegat (talk) 21:08, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I was talking about category pages only, W126jep may be suggesting the main index page too (I don't have an opinion on that yet). I think on the main index we should use the icons for Div specific (group b) but not Div initiated (group a) honors. Feel free to tweak the working page.

Sortable would rock - maybe even eliminate the need to have the Skill Level grid at the bottom. Alpha - Category - Approving Entity - Skill Level - 100 px patch? however the more info the more room taken and its a long list. I think removing the whole alpha list and having people use the category pages would also be appropriate. Scanning 600 entries for the one you want, even if alphabetical, is tough.

I'm working on a mock up in my userspace.. I also had the idea of installing Yet Another Extension to automatically populate the skill level, intro year, originating institution - basically anything we throw in the honor_desc template. I'm also thinking that originating institution and authority are two different things, so maybe we should add them separately. The robot could make the initial edit, and then we could go through and make a list of honors that originated in a division and were later approved by the GC. The robot could then edit those pages to make adjustments. --Jomegat (talk) 21:44, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

We need an honor for wikibuilding and advanced and (for you) super advanced. Would NH pioneer it? LOL

JadeDragon (talk) 21:18, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

The sort list is spectacular. It would help unclutter the main page and keep information "above the fold". The only issue I have with demoting to only category pages is that I assume most directors and Pathfinders don't know how or where an honor is categorized and might spend unnecessary time searching or become frustrated. And I would be the first in line to try to earn a wikibuilding honor. --w126jep (talk) 21:40, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I wanted a wiki trading pin featuring the "keys" image on the front page. It would be cool to be able to send those out to anyone who makes a constructive edit. But those cost bucks, and I am but a volunteer. Maybe I'll ask the NAD to invest. It might attract more editors. --Jomegat (talk) 21:44, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Sortable List

Last night while the wiki was read-only, I experimented with my own copy of the wiki on my laptop, basically implementing the sortable index. I guess I spent three hours on that, but the result looks pretty good. When I get home from work, I will upload the new index (and associated templates). As of now, there is a column for "year", but it's not filled in yet. I am exploring ways to make that automatic, by extracting it from the honor's page. I also did work to add the development stage (0-100%) to the honor_desc template, and will auto-extract that into the indices as well (so we don't have to update it in the main index and in the category indices). I've got a proof-of-concept working on the skill level column, but... I'm not sure I like it. The approach I took might make the site substantially slower. But it's a start. Since I am monolingual, I am happy to work on that sort of thing instead of translation. --Jomegat (talk) 12:43, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Sortable list on main page looks awesome. How do we control the stage icon? JadeDragon (talk) 19:44, 5 October 2014 (EDT)

I'm glad you like it. The stage data is extracted from the honor's honor_desc template (I added a "stage" argument). Just update it in the honor, and the index will get it. Whenever we're ready, we can switch the category indices over to use the honor_entry template too. I don't mind working on that, as it could be something I can program the robot to take care of. But I have to tend to non-wiki things this week, so I might not get around to it for a little while. Feel free to step in and try it out. I will eventually try to extract the year from the honor_desc template too, but the way I'm doing it now does not scale well. It's OK for only five stagesw, or three skill levels, but for 85 years of honor intro dates... that's going to be a problem. I will want to think about that some more before acting. --Jomegat (talk) 21:36, 5 October 2014 (EDT)

I dont see the year as a really useful thing to sort by except maybe to find new honors. Does anyone say "I'm going to earn honors from 1968 now"? I did some checking and everythings seems good, just the first honor I checked must have had different % between the Category and Front pages due to me not updating it. WAY easier to do the % update on the honor page instead of the really hard to read list! I'll keep working toward getting honors to 100% since I can't translate. JadeDragon

Getting the year on the index page is definitely a low priority. The thought was that being able to sort by year would be a good replacement for the "new" icon. Actually... that could be automatic now, just by checking that the honor is in one of the categories for the past two years, and then adding the new icon. Hmm. --Jomegat (talk) 21:34, 6 October 2014 (EDT)

OK, that was easy. I usurped the "Year" column and made it the "new" column. "New" is any honor made in 2013, 2014, and getting ready for next year... in 2015. Sometime next year we should update the Template:isNewHonor template. --Jomegat (talk) 22:11, 6 October 2014 (EDT)

I notice that you're making some changes to the Category pages, so just let me know when you think youŕe mostly done so I can start translating. I assume the plan is to use the sortable lists on all the Honor Category pages so I'm going to see what templates really do need to be translated and which ones can be left alone and still work. --w126jep (talk) 20:44, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Yes, that is the plan. I'll let you know when I'm done. --Jomegat (talk) 20:48, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Arts & Crafts through Outreach are done now. I'm working my way down the list, but I'm done for the evening. --Jomegat (talk) 21:15, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Nice. I have to manually go one by one with each honor and translate the name, so it takes a while. I'm also adding the names of the new SAD honors, even though I've only added the requirements to a handful. The Spanish lists will sometimes be almost twice as long as their English counterparts. --w126jep (talk) 22:10, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Regional Honors Variations

When a local conference has an honor with the same name or subject matter as a GC/Div honor - even if the requirements are different, I propose we exclude the regional honor or clearly mark it as obsolete. Examples include Florida's Adventist Heritage,, Ukraine's Feltcraft, Backpacking & Adv, Camp Cookery. If a Div creates a variation, I propose we include it with a disambig page as has been our practice so far. SPD has a few variations we have not covered yet.JadeDragon 00:21, 25 September 2014 (EDT)

Is it possible to include the different insignia image with the disambig pages? Ukraine has its own images and the FL Heritage Award does too, for example. -- w126jep 00:33, 25 September 2014 (EDT)

Sure we can just add the image. would make the page look nicer. JadeDragon (talk) 15:51, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Once the Translate extension is up, we could select an image based on language. That's an imperfect solution, I know, but it might be pretty OK-ish. FWIW, I'm uploading the extensions now. They won't go live until I can get our service provider to run the update script though. How I wish I had shell access! --Jomegat (talk) 20:17, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

i don't see how selecting by images by language helps anything - maybe I don't understand. JadeDragon (talk) 14:31, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

I was thinking that in the case of the Ukranian honors, we could use the Ukranian version of the insignia in the Ukranian translation. I guess there's no en-fl (English for Floridians), so my suggestion doesn't make sense for that case. BTW, there is an en-ca. If you want to Candianize any of the honors (or just play around with the Translate extension). --Jomegat (talk) 18:20, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Eh, Canadians are not that different! I'll stick to content creation. JadeDragon (talk) 15:28, 11 October 2014 (EDT)