User talk:JeffLane

Leave a new message.

Archives

Please don't edit the archives.

• Archive 1 -- October 10th, 2006
• Archive 2 -- February 2, 2008

Team Fortress 2: item_teamflag

There has been an issue brought up here which drew my attention. My question would be that is there a not-in-FGD input which instantly returns the flag to its base position, and if not, is it possible to do this otherwise? --Baliame ^(talk) 14:40, 30 Dec 2007 (PST)

No, there is no input like this on item_teamflag. It may be added at some if there is a specific need. --JeffLane 18:48, 2 Jan 2008 (PST)

By the way, is there any chance valve will fix up and release a flag model? I realize you guys left in the tfc flag model, but not sure if it can be used at the moment. --Frostbite 19:26, 2 Jan 2008 (PST)

We would release a different flag model other than the briefcase if we shipped a specific new game type that required it. --JeffLane 18:12, 3 Jan 2008 (PST)

Aww, come on >.> could you at least add support for flag model replacement? >.> --Frostbite 18:03, 4 Jan 2008 (PST)

I want it too but we should pester Robin about this instead of Jeff. --wisemx 18:38, 4 Jan 2008 (PST)

While I do agree with that, Jeff is the more or less the only Valve representative I see online. (unless the others are stalking in the shadows) --Baliame ^(talk) 04:15, 5 Jan 2008 (PST)

Moving a "Category:" page

I've noticed that the "Move" button is not available in any Category page. Is this an "admin-only" option, or does it not exist altogether? I'm asking because there are some categories of other languages that could (and should) be moved to their "proper" page: Category:<page>:<lang>, to help documentation maintenance. Other than that, would the only solution be a plain-old nasty copy/paste to the new page? --Etset 15:42, 18 Jan 2008 (PST)

Categories are not real pages. If you add the [[Category:Something]] to any page, the category is automatically created if it doesn't exist. Likewise, if you remove it from all pages and the category doesn't have any custom text, it will disappear. --Baliame ^(talk) 08:57, 19 Jan 2008 (PST)

Yes, I am aware of that :) What I would like is a suggestion as to how to move the content in one of these Category pages, without doing it through an ugly copy-paste method (which, as we know, kind of ruins the point of the "History" section of a page, etc). I though there might be some "admin-side option/button/tool" that could accomplish this. If not, well copy-paste will have to do... --Etset 09:07, 19 Jan 2008 (PST)

PS: Found this at Wikipedia: "To change the name of a category, one needs to change all category tags, and copy the editable part." Seems like copy-paste it is then... --Etset 09:41, 19 Jan 2008 (PST)

Yes, I believe the feature was omitted from Wiki to avoid confusion. --Baliame ^(talk) 15:20, 19 Jan 2008 (PST)

Alyx gravity gun choreography

How was the scene at the beginning of Episode Two with Alyx using and handing Gordon the gravity gun choreographed? Were the elements put together in Face Poser or burned into the animation? Specifically, was Alyx holding the GG one single animation or was it the Alyx model holding a separate GG model? Noclip 08:25, 19 Jan 2008 (PST)

Well I do know Valve animators work in XSI where they use multiple models to animate the most of the scenes, so they probably used a prop_dynamic and have that being animated along with alyx, and then once she hands it the gun to you, it turns into weapon_physcannon. --Frostbite 12:42, 1 Feb 2008 (PST)

I did not work on that particular scene, but I believe it was done with a bodygroup on Alyx for the grav gun. I will ask the animators and get back to you. --JeffLane 13:54, 2 Feb 2008 (PST)

Try decompiling the Black Mesa East map to see how it's done (that's what I did) When you look at the vortigaunts cooking dinner, (elevator scene, as you pass with Judith) each has a chef's hat and cooking utensils. Those are both dynamic props, and can be attached using a special form of SetParent. Unfortunately, they need to be dynamic props, but if I'm correct an upcoming update will allow just about anything to be used as a dynamic prop.--Katana314 12:34, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

So will prop_dynamic_override. ;-) --TomEdwards 13:01, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

Need your attention

Could I please direct your attention to the following issues/posts/stuff (just give it a quick look, please):

• SDK Docs in other languages: links need to be updated.
• Shaders & Parameters: help needed!

I believe that would be all, for now. Thank you in advance! --Etset 12:23, 24 Jan 2008 (PST)

Here I am to bother you once more... and once more...

• Talk:Source Engine Features: this (protected) page has "duplicate" content with another article (& btw, what about deformable terrain?)

* More users are getting a Loading problem with the Source SDK (see Talk:Loading problem#More Information)!

Again, 2×thanks in advance! --Etset 05:08, 13 Feb 2008 (PST)

• The Source Engine page is information for engine licensees and will remain protected.
• Deformable displacements is an engine feature available to licensees.
• Regarding Loading problem, I'm not familiar with this error and this is not my area, but I will see what I can find out. Questions like these belong in the SDK Forums. Because of the decentralized and unstructured nature of talk pages, a wiki is really a inferior tool for individual questions and answers. That's not what it is designed for. Discussion forums work much better in this regard. As a separate issue, "Loading problems" is also far too general of a question to provide a reasonable answer. I've moved it to a more specific page title. --JeffLane 12:43, 15 Feb 2008 (PST)

Gotcha, and thank you. About the Source Engine Features page, I'm not asking if it could be unprotected, I'm only saying that...

1. It lacks all of the links that the Source article page has.
2. Both pages have (almost) the same content (there are some discrepancies), which is redundant. (I suggested using the {{:PageName}} "trick" to load the Source Engine Features article's content to the Source article page., since no one has though up anything else to put there...)

...and that this could be "fixed". Not a pressing priority of course, just pointing it out. Cheers! --Etset 17:10, 15 Feb 2008 (PST)

I understand. The other Source article was created by a VDC user as a duplicate of this page and edited. The original page is linked from numerous external sites and we wish to retain pages like this in their current state without editing and extra links to other sites. I don't think the duplicate content causes any real problem. --JeffLane 18:00, 15 Feb 2008 (PST)

Okie dokie! That's all for now, thanks! :) --Etset 11:32, 16 Feb 2008 (PST)

And again it comes to pass, I'm here to ask:

• Could you please categorize this category under Category:Page protection, please? Many thanks fly out in advance! Thank you! :) --Etset 16:21, 18 Feb 2008 (PST)

Confess, you haven't missed me one bit :)

• Suggestion to update the Source logo on the SDK_Docs page. It was uploaded by TomEdwards.

As usual, many thanks in advance! --Etset 04:07, 1 Mar 2008 (PST)

Releasing Shaders

I don't know if you've gotten this request before, but we're having a dicussion (Talk:Shader_Types_and_Parameters) about the possibility of Valve releasing at least the names of all the currently working shaders/parameters to the community (so we don't need to guess at them anymore). I'm referring to parameters like (but not limited to) "$decalscale" and "$selfillumtexture" (not included in the released code, but still used in official materials), and shaders like "alienscale", "jellyfish" and "jojirium" if they exist (because as it is now, we can't tell if they do). (You can answer at Talk:Shader_Types_and_Parameters.) Thank you. --Andreasen 07:03, 25 Jan 2008 (PST)

Repeated spammers

What do we do with spammers that haven't been blocked before, but already have a spammer tag?

1) Leave them alone, with the risk of being overseen.

2) So far I just inserted some spaces with the point being that I can add an edit summary which is then visible in the recent changes.

3) List them here (on this talk page).

4) Add a line to the user page stating the number of times the bot spammed. (Again the point is to have an edit summary visible in the recent changes.)

--Pizzahut 04:19, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

Number 1 is "too risky".

Number 3 would be one helluva job! If you take a look at how the bot nicknames are being chosen, considering 26 alphabet letters plus 10 digits (36 characters total, considering that nicknames are case-insensitive which I'm not sure about), that gives a total of 36^10 = 3656158440062976 combinations. Now if you presume that half of these have already been banned (which is a very conservative estimate), you still have 1828079220031488 combinations to go (i.e. what I'm aiming at is that this page would be unnecessarily "flooded" with usernames while there are already categories for listing spammers). Adding the spammers nicknames here would have to be done manually anyway, so I present a better solution below.

Number 4 would require either

1. Changing the {{spammer}} template or
2. Manually add in a small sentence that states how many times the spammer has struck.

Either way it's a part from what we've done so far to mark these spammers. In fact, a better alternative would be:

1. A "new" spammer is marked with the {{spammer}} template, which automatically places him under the spammers category.
2. When an admin wants to ban spammers, he simply visits the spammers category and bans every user that is listed there and changes the {{spammer}} template to the {{banned spammer}} template, which places the spammer under the banned spammers category. Now the spammers category would be empty, so there would be no more "hidden spammers" left to be banned.

Note that even if the admin doesn't wish to go through all the spammer's user pages and change the template, regular users can spot when the admin bans spammers and help by changing the template themselves. Also, if we keep doing this on a regular basis, it will be fairly easy to just visit the spammers category and (using the ban list) quickly determine if spammers have been banned or not.

At the moment this alternative would require some work to be done in cross-checking those spammers (in the spammers category) with the ban list. Until then I believe I would go with option number 2. --Etset 04:47, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

A bit off-topic, I saw Tom Edwards mentioning Akismet and Bad Behaviour at Template talk:Spammer. Perhaps these tools would help. --Pizzahut 05:53, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

Bad Behaviour stops almost all spam dead for me: 746 comments in the past week, but when I was more active it's been as high as several thousand. I've only ever had one complaint sent through the error page it sends when it blocks a submission, and that was from somebody using a beta browser that sent wonky HTTP headers. It supports MediaWiki out of the box now - there's no excuse any more! :-p --TomEdwards 08:56, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

In the next few minutes I'm going to "flood" the wiki with edits. I went through the ban list and changed the templates of all spammers under the spammers category, so that they are categorized under the banned spammers category instead. At the moment, all that's left is to press (around) 200 Save page buttons to submit this. Couldn't have done it without the fox of fire!

Like I said earlier, the idea is simply to turn the spammers category into the place where spammers "rest" before being banned. This makes things easier for an admin: if he wants to see if there's any user left to ban, he simply goes to the spammers category and every user there is to be banned (and have its template changed to banned spammer instead).

I also believe this was the way it was initially intended, since all of the first bans of the wiki are under the banned spammers category.

I'm also going to change the Minor Spammer template to point to a (newly created) minor spammer category, so that my idea can work without problems (because at the moment minor spammers are being categorized under the spammers category as well...).

TLDR:

1. If a spammer is spotted for the first time, apply the {{spammer}} template.
2. If a spammer is banned by an admin (and if the admin hasn't already done so), apply the {{banned spammer}} template
3. If a user is considered to be a minor spammer, apply the {{minor spammer}} template. If that user gets too troublesome, apply the {{spammer}} template instead.
4. Admins: all that is necessary is to check the spammers category periodically and ban the users that populate it. An empty spammers category means there are no spammers left to ban.

Here it goes... --Etset 14:52, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

Done. Here are some facts:

• We currently have around 615 users marked as having been banned.
• We currently have around 1000 users marked as spammers. Correction: most of these users are under the banned spammers category which means this category hasn't been "updated" yet (on my end), which in turn means that we must currently have around 1000-615 = 385 spammers (I think...)
• We currently have around 15 users marked as minor spammers (at the moment, at least on my end, the category is not showing any users, but you can check the {{minor spammer}} template and see the user pages that link there).
• Took me about 11 minutes to submit all the 263 edits (according to the Recent Changes page. Also took me a few hours just to edit the lot ...
• And no, I'm not crazy... just trying to help! --Etset 15:31, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

Several comments:

• Though the work involved is appreciated, whether an account is marked as Spammer or Banned spammer isn't so important at this point, as long as they're marked as one of the two for later reference (when they will be acted upon en masse). We've learned that banning accounts that haven't spammed recently is more or less a waste of time. The spam bot will just use a name that hasn't been used previously, and they can auto-generate and infinite number of new ones. The purpose of banning is primarily to reduce their effectiveness and by reducing consecutive edits and to create auto IP blocks, which slows them down further.
• The anti-spam extensions currently available are not designed to work with our version of Mediawiki (which is based on 1.4.12).
• We are actually working on upgrading our Mediawiki software. The upgrade is not trivial and we've run into multiple snags (both hardware and software) that is making it take much longer than we originally intended. I'm told this will be worked out soon so we can do the needed site upgrades, but I can't give an ETA at this point. You can trust that no one is being "lazy" or making excuses, this is something we'd like to solve soon. We appreciate everyone's patience.

--JeffLane 17:42, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

Well then if you don't mind, I'll keep marking those that are banned as banned spammers since it helps in keeping things organized. Otherwise, we wouldn't need two different categories (spammers & banned spammers).

As for the Mediawiki software: two thumbs up! :D ! --Etset 02:59, 27 Feb 2008 (PST)

Adjudication needed

I created Think() the other day, but Etset thinks contends that the ()s are bloat and should be removed. I contend that they mark the article as being about a function (like $ does for material commands) and, as long as they aren't filled with arguments, that makes the extra two characters worth having. Keeping the ()s also makes linking to the articles a little easier, as you don't have to worry about redirects. What do you think? --TomEdwards 09:02, 26 Feb 2008 (PST)

Jigglebone...I love you.

Seriously now, thanks a lot for updating the jiggle bone article. I've always had problem with this, hopefully now I can get my Team Fortress 2 Flag model to not collide with the pole. --Frostbite 18:47, 28 Feb 2008 (PST)

Glad to hear you find it useful. We have more QC command documentation that should be coming online soon. --JeffLane 22:08, 28 Feb 2008 (PST)

PNG scaling

I keep hitting the problem of PNG scaling on this server. It's awful! Would you look into it, please? --TomEdwards 05:44, 1 Mar 2008 (PST)

I would suggest using JPEG images as a workaround for now, as they will scale correctly (yes, I know they are lossy). --JeffLane 11:49, 3 Mar 2008 (PST)

Request For Technical Administration

Hi Jeff, I am new here to this wiki. But I do have tons of experience in setting up, administrating, and organizing wikis. I'd like to bring some of that here. A way that some of us non-admin users have handled technical administration (plugins, mods, addons, etc) in the past was to create a page in the MediaWiki namespace that allowed them to make, reason, and even explain the installation process, for such requests. This wiki, in my opinion, has a of great content, but is lacking in organization, and more to the point, it's outdated. I tried to use a rather common, but simple, function to start organizing the notice templates here on the wiki, but I found that the MediaWiki version is too old for even that. There are many things that could be added to this wiki to improve readability and connectivity...but like I said before, the version is a bit outdated. What do you think about having a page of this nature set up in the MediaWiki namespace? It would help the web admins to administer this wiki. (I'm sorry if I hit the wrong talk page, but I saw your name tossed around a bit in the talk pages.) Matthew Dryden 09:52, 24 Mar 2008 (PDT)