DIGITAL_DEVIL_DATABASE Community Forum

I thought, as long as you're in town Bluer, we could talk about some stuff Wiki wise...

For starters, I just noticed someone uploaded a new Orthrus graphic (on our front page feed)

The graphic was a pretty cool one I've never seen (I'm a bit of an Orthrus fan)

http://megamitensei.wikia.com/index.php?title=File:Orthrus.png&diff=21524&oldid=prev


But on your Orthrus page (http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Orthrus)

The graphic on the top of the page says it is from SMT, and I'm pretty certain that is MT2 style artwork... though we were eventually able to confirm that is indeed Kaneko Kazuma's handy work. I'm also not sure that is Orthrus frankly. Orthrus plays a key role in that game and doesn't really look like that (it's my favorite game actually)

Anyway, so wikis can be wrong. It's not the end of the world. But, also stuff like the...

"Disclaimer: All fair-use images found on this Wiki are the property of Atlus Co., Ltd."

...disclaimer on your front page. Megaten media is copyrighted by probably at least 10 different entities I can think of off the top of my head, and probably plenty more. So it's just silly to say your images are bar none property of Atlus Japan. For instance, the graphic atop the Orthrus page, at the time of it's doing would've been property of Namcot, which was a home console subsidiary or division of Namco. It now might also be copyrighted by Kaneko himself, but probably is not the property of Atlus. And even if it was by some dealing, that information would not likely be public knowledge.

Just saying, you should at least change that disclaimer, and also have people source where they're finding their graphics and the logic behind them. Also try to trackdown copyright info for images on an individual basis.


PS: The wiki is great. And this thread for now is fine for discussing anything about your wiki. I just had to get that off my chest real quick :rainbow:

Here is an unlisted page I threw together in a half an hour or two (http://www.digitaldevildb.com/wiki/)

^Had to add some basic functionality to the website.

It will take me a long time to parse the wiki pages so they will look right on this website. I will remove any editing links and stuff because this is a readonly version of your wiki. I also gotta figure out a way to rewrite the links before Wordpress sees them... I think a plugin that handles a small part of our translation code might reveal a way to do so without messing with the Apache rewrite rules.

Speaking of translations... does Wikia have any translation services you can use with your wiki? Usually wikis are not translated, but instead have a whole other wiki for each language that evolves at it's own pace. But I think translations would probably be better for game/trivia wikis. If it's evern needed maybe we could offer some translation services in return for "mirroring" your wiki one day. I'd really like to see everything on this website be translatable.


PS: For now the links back to this site are all bogus. I just have it showing the Orthrus page by default. The front page of the wiki as is is a little too unwielding to fit into our 800px format I'm afraid.

Once this is fully functional, I'm thinking we could either give it a top-level page called "Megami Tensei Wiki" ...or make a top-level page called "Partnerships" and file it under there. For the first option it can be at digitaldevildb.com/wiki/ and for the latter it would be somewhere like digitaldevildb.com/partners/wikia/ or digitaldevildb.com/partners/megami_tensei_wiki/.

But those pages could just be introduction stubs, and the articles would still most probably be under /wiki/.

Either way, once Google starts plumbing the pages they should show up in any searches from our sidebar.


PS: Personally I lean towards Partnerships, but that would make it harder to find.

I spent a ton of time doctoring the wiki layout (http://www.digitaldevildb.com/wiki/)

I hope someone agrees with it. The links still don't work, but you can do something like (http://www.digitaldevildb.com/wiki/?title=Kerberos) for fun for now. It still needs some work down in the gallery section.

Just need to add the title of the article to the window and page title and a grey border around images, and alternating grey rows in tables.


PS: That graphic of "Pascal as Cerberus" is probably inaccurate. That is presumably a version of Pascal concept art that didn't make it into the game (unfortunately)

^You gotta admit, it's pretty cool to see the wiki without all that gaudy advertising and distracting widgets :rainbow:

Come on, doesn't any one else think this is rad?

I'm a little disappointed in the lackluster [checks to be sure] non response so far.

I changed the subject line anyway to open this up a little more...


If/when this turns into a full-fledged feature, I might move the discussion...

Come on... I could use a little positive reinforcement.

FYI: On this page (http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Orthrus)

The first two tables, with the black rows, then the yellow/blue rows alternating. The non-black rows are actually generating th (table header) elements, which is extremely confusing. For instance in the other two tables on that page, the same method is used to demark the name of skills as the first cell of each row. That is a correct way to use headers. But you should never be using headers for variable data (as in Arcana=Hanged Man, "Hanged Man" is variable data, and should be tr, not th)

I'm just pointing this out. I dunno if it's possible for your community to easily rectify, but it's definitely bad form. And we don't really have anyway to clarify it for our pages.

PS: Even though the skill names are variable data, they're more like a set / the subject of the rows, so that is not a problem. That's basically how row headers should be used.

PPS: I don't have a problem with the way the wiki looks. Just technically the html should be generating tr instead of th for these cells. The first two tables are basically a table of all headers. So with our tables (http://www.digitaldevildb.com/wiki/?title=Orthrus) everything is bold/ambiguous :sweatdrop:

Well if you want to read my opinion: It looks neat, really cool to have the wiki with the same layout as the site. But then again, I guess it would be a lot of work to port the wiki into the D3 "style". Good work though. :smokin:

For now, wonderful job. Really. It's really wonderful to see the wiki's content appearing there.

I'm sorry but if you have any technical issues like all the html coding you pointed, it's best you contact Wikia staff on the website. They're in charge of the more technical aspects of the wiki. As far as I'm concerned the wiki coding works fine, and the pseudo-wiki here looks fine too

If you could tell me about how the presentation of your wiki works (like do you pick out a skin-cum-layout / can you edit it / or what?) I might be able to take some action about correcting that table header element abuse problem.

PS: Glad you are cool with this...

I'm not sure what you're saying, but I'm assuming it's supportive/inspirational :wink:

Basically this website just reads the webpage like a browser, then some programming Im responsible for picks out the incompatible parts and sticks in some other stuff to make it look best as can be. The web pages are cached on our server for a little while the same way the rest of the website is.

It's not supposed to be the biggest draw of this site, but it's just a supplemental fallback for people looking for info. A wiki is really outside the philosophy of this website, so it's actually best it's phrased in terms of a partnership. Basically people will find useful links to these "pseudo" pages when using our search feature, and can also use our site to browse the wiki if they prefer a stripped down reading-only experience without ads (well only ads that meet our guidelines)

^Probably we won't fold ads into the wiki content, but might slip in an avatar at the top of the page eventually if not a problem (there's no rule that says all our pages gotta have ads -- though different page content help stir up different ads, and helps google better target our ads site wide << I think)


PS: Plus it's good to form a unified front I think. Solidarity and all :rainbow:

Oh, er, lucyinthesky yksehtniycul? The last response to your query in my talk page at the wiki wasn't directed to you, honest to goodness, no. It was something of a general statement, just in case you thought I was chastising you: which I do believe you did not.  :sweatdrop:

BTW, is Maken X a MegaTen game?

I was just trying to bring some closure (after heading a little offtopic) ...you really don't want to make sections that long on a talk page (that's what forums are for!!)

Personally, I think all information is good information, and the goal of the internet should be recording all information and making it accessible in different levels of "granularity". When it comes to original material, any translation or whatever is just a tainted facsimile. It makes much more sense to document the original material by default, then put the various translation notes to an aside. Even if you feel like that seems overkill, just imagine the possibility of changing course down the line... it might not even be an option. Frankly the community makes the wiki, and my hands are full with this dive. Just some words of warning. Building a wiki on translations just seems like building a house of cards on sand.


Edited: Oh, no Maken X is very much not Megaten. But it often gets included just because Kaneko Kazuma has rarely ventured outside the confines of Megaten. One of his artbooks has illustrations from X and Megaten titles, but that's about as close as I'd let Maken X onto this website as long as I had any technocratic clout.

PS: ^We will eventually have a Media Library section where people can upload/share stuff remotely Megaten related, where someone can shove all the Maken X crap they want... but this is clearly a Megaten exclusive website.

There is still a lot of work to be done, but the links and stuff are working now:

http://www.digitaldevildb.com/wiki/Shin_Megami_Tensei_III:_Nocturne_Maniax_Chronicle_Edition

Only thing to do is make the links go to the right language page, and fix the language links at the top of the page, which will take you to the right place, but are not so pretty atm. I don't want to put these pages in a place Google can find them until I have this done at least.

I'm a little uncertain about making the wiki links go to different language pages. That could really balloon the number of language pages google sees. I'll probably compromise and make the foreign languages invisible to google (so they won't get listed on google likely, but hell, I don't expect the content on these pages to be translated any day soon)

BTW: For some reason the front page just doesn't wanna play ball (http://www.digitaldevildb.com/wiki/)

And I'm in no mood to try to unwind it. I was hoping maybe you guys could make us a special launch page that is like a normal article but with some options?? Nothing fancy :sweatdrop:

Well, thanks for your concerns. As far as I know, we're not building a wiki solely on translation - we have coverage on the Japanese-only materials as well so I think we're balancing it out well. Glad to hear opinions, though, I'll keep that in mind.

I actually would like to have the "Digitaldevildb.com Launch Page" off the wiki mainspace. Wiki mainspace is reserved for articles, no exceptions, sorry.

I propose moving it to the wiki projectspace instead, pages with the "Megami Tensei Wiki:" prefixes. Say... "Megami Tensei Wiki: D3" or something to that effect.

I don't think the page will show up anywhere if it is not listed in an article. A wiki is really like a microcosm of the WWW. I've administrated wikis on occasion. Anyway, I was just seeing how much of your front page I could maybe salvage. Truth be told, wikis are really not very good for doing front pages. I just wanted something up quick so anyone trying out these new pages could have a place to start clicking. It makes no diff to me what that page is called. It will probably not be used for long. Feel free to rename it, if you want. I'm not sure I have the privileges to do that on your wiki. Just leave it as a redirect until I know where it's moved to.

In general wikis are open books. Anyone can make a page anywhere in your wiki at anytime. So it's not worth getting worked up about them popping up.

I will probably just setup a custom page (on our site) that might query your front page and pull info from your daily feature type stuff. That would be much more practical than expecting someone to update the features on both pages :wink:

The pages on this site are technically ready to go as far as I can foresee atm...

However, I'm a little wary to just go hog wild with this stuff without at least asking for the support of your wider community.

So I've setup a preliminary page here (http://www.digitaldevildb.com/partners/megami-tensei-wiki/) in the meantime. I'd like to post about this development in your wiki somehow to ask for support (or at least consent)


Could you (Bluer) please recommend a "Portal" type area of your wiki to pop the question?

PS: Weren't you guys using the Devil Busting Jack Bros. graphic from the MIP game manual for your logo at one time?

You know the one... where the Bros. are decked out in swords and guns and other devil fighting paraphernalia?

Edited: Actually, that was probably the Revelations: Persona game manual. I'm not sure where that image originated to be honest...

Decked out with swords....? I saw one in the Revelations:Persona Manual, but I don't remember seeing that image on the wiki. Curious.

I'm not sure where the current logo's image is from as well. Our founder created that image.

^Maybe your logo graphic was just so small that's what I imagined it was. You seem to have the same graphic this site is using for some avataars / the one the old site used in it's front page banner.

PS: I'd like a scan of that image if anyone can find it.

(As fate would have it, both my Revelations and MIP games were basically stolen by loathsome Megaten fans over the years... Megaten fans are not so big on the whole morality thing I've noticed :sweatdrop:)

Slightly random/off-topic but is THIS (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/Jessicat_715/temp/bkrmn2000-img326x514-1184879779a004.jpg) the pic of the Jack Bros. you're talking about?

Unfortunately I hate wikis, and I'd probably suck at coding it if I tried [I get so up with everything for it to all be right and in the end nothing much gets done ^^; Add to the fact that anyone can blow up your hard work with spam and it's not really worth it. Too much handling, I hate that XD]
I do have a big list of links [and a few recent atlus newsletters/stuff] if press/retro game news is any help? ^^; [It's a big WIP though ^^;]

I think wikis are truly awesome, but not the end-all be-all solution I'd like for Megaten. I didn't think I would edit the wikia wiki... but I made an account to see the alternative theme, and happened to stumble over/add some to YHVH's page (in fact he was being called YHWH!? :rainbow:)

I added a Megami Tensei II section and clamped down on the "appearances" section which had YHVH speculatively in almost every game (on top of changing the name/page)

http://www.digitaldevildb.com/wiki/YHVH

I guess I also added stuff to the opening paragraph (but mostly I deleted stuff) ...I encourage Bluer to look over my changes.


PS: I will try to reply to rest of the outstanding junk in this thread before everyone wakes up in the morning....

That is definitely the composition. I love high saturation psychedelic colours as much as anyone... but I'm wondering if we can find a version with a more normal tone somewhere??

But yeah, I was thinking a version of that graphic would be a lot more interesting in the Megami Tensei Wiki's logo spot (then I could make a unique avatar for the wiki pages on this website)

Google seems to have finally gotten it's hooks into these pages. That is I'm seeing a lot more of them via the google search form on the main site pages.

I wish there was a better way to make them more prominent from the front page, but I've listed them in a new "special features" page, basically a hilights roundup. And you can get there from a few clicks from the new "partnerships" page as well. Once there though you just get the category index. So really the easiest way to get started is via a search. Speaking of which I need to work on techniques to keep google from indexing crap like the rss feeds on the main site pages, because they just generate mostly a bunch of almost useless search links.

Anyway, all the content in the wiki almost makes this site seem informative for a change!