UESPWiki:Archive/CP User Boxes

This is an archive of past UESPWiki:Community Portal discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Userboxes

Okay, so I've been going a little whimsical adding Userboxes. Previously, we only had two:

This user is an Administrator on the wiki.

This user frequently visits the official UESP IRC chatroom.

So I added:

This user is a Recent Changes Patroller.

This user is a Mentor.

to represent the new ranks we have around here. Additionally, I added some game-specific ones:

This user is knowledgeable about Morrowind.

This user is knowledgeable about Knights of the Nine.

This user is knowledgeable about Oblivion.

This user is knowledgeable about Shivering Isles.

Mainly because I already had the icons available from when I made the new stub tags the other day. (Wasn't sure if KotN was big enough to warrant a Userbox, but hey, I had the icon already.) We still need them for the older games, and possibly Tribunal and Bloodmoon, though most people who know about Morrowind are likely knowledgeable about those as well by now. Other ones I was considering were, "This user is knowledgeable about Elder Scrolls lore", and possibly a few other wiki-specific ones, like people who know about making templates or working with images, charts, or are willing to engage in boring, repetitive tasks (e.g. Adding all the Oblivion NPC Summary templates, etc.), people who just go around making small spelling/grammar corrections (WikiGnomes) or people who just go around making things look pretty (WikiFairies), etc. Additionally, I was considering adding categories to these Userboxes, so that adding them to your User page would automatically add you to a category of other users who have also added the same Userbox, so if you wanted a list of users knowledgeable about, say, Morrowind, you'd go to Category:Users Knowledgeable About Morrowind or something. Any thoughts? Suggestions? --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 21:35, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Wow, I'd been thinking almost the exact same thing :) I think the patroller user box and the game boxes are great, and adding more boxes that describe what types of things editors like to do and/or know how to do on the wiki would be even better. My impression from wikipedia is that user boxes are pretty popular if they're available. Having more available here would it make it really easy for everyone to advertise what they're interested in.

And your idea about automatic categories would make the boxes even more useful, and could potentially augment/improve the mentor program. For example, having cross links between the user boxes, the categories, and the mentor page would make it easier for editors to find out about the mentor program. It would also make it easier to find (and provide) assistance at a less "formal" level than mentoring. --Nephele 22:09, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Random selfish/whimsical idea: how about a user box for editors who are actively avoiding learning about Shivering Isles until they get a chance to play it? It could use the SI logo with an "X" over it, for example. Although I might be one of the few editors to use it ;) --Nephele 22:42, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

If you want to make Userboxes that will be used only by you, feel free to do so ;) Anyhow, before I add categories, is there a way that you know of to display a list of available Userboxes without having their categories appear on the page? Because it's just occurred to me that if I added categories, then the Community Portal page would suddenly be added to all those categories where it doesn't belong. (Incidentally, I was considering starting a UESPWiki:Userboxes page, just so there's a single place with a catalog of all available Userboxes. That would also suffer the same problem. Only thing I could think of would be to subst: all the templates and remove the categories when they're used in this way. If you've got a better idea, let me know. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:40, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

One idea is to have the template check the namespace, and only add categories if it's in the "User" namespace. I could set up a template ("Userbox Category"?) that takes care of the details for all the userboxes, so you could just add {{Userbox Category|Users Knowledgeable About Morrowind}}, for example, to the userbox template. <grumble>You'd think one little userbox wouldn't be too much to ask for in exchange for creating a fancy new template</grumble> ;) --Nephele 00:02, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Voila: Template:Userbox Category. I tested it on the Oblivion userbox, and it seems successful: AlbinoMudcrab, Lurlock, and Ratwar are now in the category, and Community Portal isn't. (I haven't created the category yet, in case that's not the correct category name... update as you want). --Nephele 00:24, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, on the up-side, I brought in a snazzy new template from Wikipedia, which makes it a snap to make your own Userboxes. Take a look at the changes I just made to the game-specific ones. One easy way to do it would be to simply change the colors around on the existing one, like so:

This user is actively attempting to avoid learning anything about Shivering Isles.

Feel free to change it as you see fit. Enjoy. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 00:29, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Cool. Been meaning to make use of something like this... Heh, heh, heh... --Wrye 03:30, 10 April 2007 (EDT)