User talk:THE OWL

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This user has been previously banned for repeatedly making disputed edits and/or involved in an edit war.
Additional notes: This user has been previously blocked for 3 days according to user reports of damaging the wiki beyond repair.

Should we use the original engine branch or current engine branch on software page template?

Hey there, I was wondering whether or not we should use the current engine branch for the game on the software page template or the original. For example, should we use src04 or hl2 or src13?
— Equalizer5118, an idiot who cant spel (talk) 12:13, 28 March 2023 (PDT)

{{Src13}} and others don't give exact information about what exactly the game is based on. If you specify {{Src13}} for the conditional Half-Life 2, it turns out that the game is based on both versions at once – Singleplayer and Multiplayer.

I don't see any problems in using {{Src13}}, {{hl2}} and others if it will give enough information to understand what a person should use to create a similar game.

— THE OWL (talk) 22:49, 28 March 2023 (PDT)

Aight, cool. Thanks man!

— Equalizer5118 (talk) 8:12, 29 March 2023 (PDT)

hidden categories for Software page template

Hey there, I have a question about the hidden categories for the Software page template. The current links that you have in the section link to categories with the abbreviations in the title (eg Ps3) instead of the full name from the /strings subpage (PlayStation 3). When I added automatic categories a little while back, I used the strings for the titles instead of the abbreviations. Should we use the existing full name categories or should we use the abbreviated categories?
— Equalizer5118 (talk) 13:46, 7 April 2023 (PDT)

It would be more correct to use full names. Wiki should not take abbreviations as a basis, but it can use them for redirects.

— THE OWL (talk) 14:26, 7 April 2023 (PDT)

Hmm, interesting. Your time zone is displayed incorrectly (I see UTC+7 instead of UTC-7)

— THE OWL (talk) 14:39, 7 April 2023 (PDT)

Yeah, I noticed that as well. Thought it was a slight mistype on the user settings page that I fixed yesterday but apparently not. It displays correctly on my settings page though...

— Equalizer5118 (talk) 16:09, 7 April 2023 (PDT)

Restoring Template:Param to the Wikipedia import from revision 230178

Hey c:
This is an inquiry as to why Template:Param has regressed first and a recommendation for revertion second.

As of this message, Template:Param has regressed significantly from revision 230178:

• {{[safe]subst:param}} will substitute in the wrapping tag (here, <code>);
• the template always uses <code> instead of allowing the editor to specify a tag via {{{tag}}}, which may be semantically incorrect in some situations;

• a noticeable side-effect is that most template documentation pages specify parameters with the invocation {{code|{{param|foo}}}} which could be simplified to {{param|foo|tag=whatever}}, where tag is optional

• this saves space and reduces template expansion depths

• specifying the parameter value now requires a user-specified pipe character (e.g., {{Param|2=|text}} or {{Param|2={{!}}text);

• this is unintuitive behaviour since this template is used to describe template parameters and not other WikiText syntax
• because the pipe character is no-longer transcluded, editors can misuse this template to notate non-template parameters (e.g., {{{

1. if|:syntax abuse}}})

• nesting parameters becomes tedious and potentionally unmanageable (e.g., {{param|foo|{{param|bar|{{param|baz|derp}}}}}} results in {{{foo|{{{bar|{{{baz|derp}}}}}}}}}; needs {{param|foo|{{!}}{{param|bar|{{!}}{{param|baz|{{!}}derp}}}}}} to produce {{{foo||{{{bar||{{{baz||derp}}}}}}}}})

• there is spurious functionality inappropriate for contexts outside of template documentation (selection, bold styles)

• this situation-dependent and should be left to the editor’s discretion

For these reasons, I would recommend reverting the template to revision 230178 (already tried; you’ve immediately reverted it). Understandably, editors have already updated other pages with these regressions in mind, so a revert will need tooling to maintain backwards-compatibility until all pages can be sanitized.
— 結衣 (talk) 09:16, 29 April 2023 (PDT)

Max34 told me that he is already improving the template taking into account what you said. Perhaps he has already finished his work :]

I can't work on these templates right now, so I'll ask you to talk to him about it. You can also talk to him about {{Code}}, which seemed broken to me after your changes.

— THE OWL (talk) 10:39, 29 April 2023 (PDT)

Project:Moderator elections

Hi: You have been denied moderator in elections; there is clear consensus against making you a moderator.
— PabloS (talk) 11:58, 17 June 2024 (PDT)

All righty then. Thanks for telling me about this and for starting the moderator elections. At the very least, it got people to speak up who were silent before.

— THE OWL (talk) 12:08, 17 June 2024 (PDT)

Project talk:Moderator elections#For the dear administrator

I've responded to your comments.
— PabloS (talk) 12:50, 18 June 2024 (PDT)

Адаптация упоминания названия сайта на русском языке

"Valve Development Community" это не русский перевод, это не заморачиваться, примерно так обстоят дела с "энтитями", "мешами" и прочими "брашами" на этом сайте. Суржик это к соседям... Предложения должны читаться на русском языке, и так как сложные составные имена собственные не переводятся, то в предложение переносится смысл на языке перевода, а имя оставляется на исходном языке в кавыках. Мало того нужно учесть применение этого словосочетания в других местах на сайте... и это было сделано.
Сейчас это выглядит как: Добро пожаловать в lgslreghnwliertughwvoreiughw. и заметно отличается от уважения родного языка: Добро пожаловать в Сообщество разработчиков "lgslreghnwliertughwvoreiughw".
— Clash (talk) 11:49, 25 June 2024 (PDT)

Не вижу смысла сохранять полное название в духе «Добро пожаловать в Сообщество разработчиков "lgslreghnwliertughwvoreiughw"». Если уж переводить, так полностью — «Добро пожаловать в сообщество разработчиков Valve», либо «Добро пожаловать в „Сообщество разработчиков Valve“». И не нужно говорить, что переведённый вариант отражает не ту суть, что это якобы сообщество которое состоит из самих Valve сотрудников. Это буквально дословный перевод, поэтому и на английском это может подразумевать тоже самое, но сайт же из-за этого не переименовали. Его название как было таким, так и остаётся по сей день.

— Max34 (talk) 00:00, 26 June 2024 (PDT)

Не вопрос, где этот перевод? Причём везде, где упоминается VDC, а не в одном месте с объяснением типа "какого чёрта".

— Clash (talk) 00:25, 26 June 2024 (PDT)

В английском варианте для русского читателя нет ничего неправильного, так как мы годами многие инностранные названия произносим и видим именно на английском. Также, я не вижу смысла в переводе названия без замены логотипа в шапке сайта. Если переименовать всё в статьях, носитель русского языка получит одно название на понятном ему языке, а также второе название уже на другом – английском языке. Это может сбить с толку.

Я поддерживаю идею с исправлением подобных моментов, но в данном случае, насколько я понял, мы ограничены технически.

— THE OWL (talk) 00:39, 26 June 2024 (PDT)

Minor edit misuse

I assume you set minor edit as default in preferences but I recommend turning that off. From this article w:Help:Minor edit "A check to the minor edit box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the current and previous versions. Examples include typographical corrections, corrections of minor formatting errors, and reversion of obvious vandalism. A minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. An edit of this kind is marked in its page's revision history with a lowercase, bolded "m" character (m)."
— Nescius (talk) 09:04, 25 August 2024 (PDT)

I had a slightly different understanding of this feature. Now I've turned it off.

— THE OWL (talk) 01:46, 26 August 2024 (PDT)

While you're at it, please start adding edit summaries to all your edits. Yes, sorry, but I also mean your mass edits across multiple pages. It's cumbersome for other editors if they must look into every single edit of yours, sometimes finding that you only added newlines with effectively no change at all, sometimes finding large visual changes, and all those edits have the same edit summary: "". So, please describe your changes. And I would be even happier if you are also able to provide a reason for your changes.

--popcorn (talk) 18:18, 13 March 2026 (PDT)

Yeah, I get it. Since I do everything manually, I don't always feel like spending time explaining the reason for my edits. However, since this is so annoying, I'll try to explain what I'm doing more often in the future.

Here are some of the notable changes:

• Removed {{Delisted}} from all Global Offensive pages, since the game was almost always available and was an outdated version of Counter-Strike 2, not some other game.
• WIP: Cleaned up the code on some game pages and introduced a hierarchy of Gallery > See also > References > External links > Navigation at the bottom of their pages (e.g., Half-Life 2 § Gallery).
• WIP: Started fixing Navbox templates (e.g., Half-Life 2 § Navigation).
• WIP: I am also removing {{csgo|1}}, {{valve|name}}, and similar things from many English pages, as this is an excessive use of templates (e.g., {{titanfall|1}} > [[Titanfall]]).

Right now, almost all of my edits are focused on cleaning up the source code of articles and templates, fixing excessive use of templates, reducing the impact of colors and icons where they don’t make sense, and so on.

--THE OWL (talk) 01:37, 14 March 2026 (PDT)