[Goober5000]

Yeah, I'm beginning to see why Wikipedia doesn't like trivia sections.  People are starting to treat Veteran Comments like blogs.  And hardly anyone adds a Veteran Comment appears to qualify as a Veteran.

I'd be in favor of moving the Veteran Comments off the ship and weapon pages wholesale, and putting them in their own separate page, just like we did with the FS2 Inconsistencies.

[Shade]

That I disagree with, at least for ships. The idea behind veteran comments is sound, it's just that they're being abused. Good veteran comments really help to point out the good and bad points of a ship well beyond what the simple stats and tech description show, and I think that kind of comments should stay. For the rest though, I think we should just ditch the "everyone is entitled to state their opinion" policy that has been in effect so far, and start aggressively weeding out the garbage... that's one Jihad I can fully support.

Some stuff I think is good (with examples):
- Info on special gun placements and which banks corrospond to which guns (Ursa's top-right gun, useless versus anything small)
- Warnings about any problems with the ship (Tauret can't really use Kaysers due to energy constraints)
- Weaknesses (weapons system on the Erinyes is extremely exposed. Think 95% hull and no weapons working)

And for capships:
- Blind spots (in front and ever so slightly above a Moloch, only a single blob turret can reach you)
- Special issues (the Azrael is effectively impossible to disable due to the engine placement)

There's more, I'm sure, but stuff like this is where it's at. Not comments like "this is the best/ugliest/fastest fighter" or other subjective things. It has to be about facts you have to deal with in-game if you fly or face that ship.

For weapons though, removing them altogether might be just as well. Unlike the ships, the listed stats really do show everything you need to know about a weapon. Well almost everything - We'd have to add energy drain to the stats listed, but if we do that, everything is covered.

[CP5670]

Yes, that kind of information is quite useful and is often not obvious at all.  Some of the hardpoint placements in particular can have a big effect on how effective various ships and weapons are against different kinds of targets.

[IceyJones]

I do not know where to post and i don´t want to open a new thread for it. so sorry in advance....

but i just want to mention, that you - of course - might use any picture i made during the cutscenes-wips also freely for the wiki if you want. the german wiki is already using them....

i.e.
http://wiki.freespacegalaxy.de/doku.php?id=gtm-9_interceptor

br
icey

[Mustang19]

There's a German FSWiki? Bad ass!

There's some nice high-res pics in the Marines article (as in Terran Marines you see in Hallfight). Also the ship articles are nice- they list the armament of every turret on the ship.

Oh, and as for your original question, I'll say, good idea. The Wiki could use more pictures. There's no shortage of pics we could add, just a shortage of people willing to post them.

Marines

http://wiki.freespacegalaxy.de/doku.php?id=marines&s=marines

Colossus article

http://wiki.freespacegalaxy.de/doku.php?id=gtva_colossus

Terraner Ash- "Zu Spat! ... AAAH!"

http://wiki.freespacegalaxy.de/doku.php?id=terraner_ash

Terran Command- "Multi-Tasking fähigkeit"

http://wiki.freespacegalaxy.de/doku.php?id=terraner_command

Hey thanks, Icey Jones. Interesting stuff.

[WMCoolmon]

I do not know where to post and i don´t want to open a new thread for it. so sorry in advance....

but i just want to mention, that you - of course - might use any picture i made during the cutscenes-wips also freely for the wiki if you want. the german wiki is already using them....

i.e.
http://wiki.freespacegalaxy.de/doku.php?id=gtm-9_interceptor

br
icey

Is that model in-gameable?

[Shade]

Ok, time for a veteran comments redux. Over the last week or so as I've skimmed the latest additions, I've seen comments added that do nothing more than praise the sound of a weapon or add a lengthy metaphor to describe something that's already described in plain language. It has to stop, and frankly I was tempted to delete them on the spot, but the truth of the matter is that we don't have a real policy for them. Sure, we've discussed them and pretty much agreed that useless comments suck, but how many of the people editing the wiki are likely to have followed that particular discussion, let alone find it later by reading through this lenghty thread? So I'm suggesting two things:

1: Make a protected wiki page that has guidelines for editing and adding to the wiki, most definitely including the fact that veteran comments should include information that's useful to the player either flying/facing/using the ship/weapon.

2: Add a prominent link to this page to both the login screen and the edit screen, or perhaps .- if we feel really draconian - even have some kind of confirmation page after login where you have to acknowledge that you've read the guidelines.

Once we have that, we can actually defend wiping out the comments that violate the guidelines, and people will not be able to plead ignorance when making bogus edits. I can take care of point 1, but 2 will probably require an admin.

[Snail]

Motorized rickshaw. Complete piece of crap.

Some ships in this game have comments referring to bombers sneezing on them to kill them, all a wounded GTF Valkyrie or PVF Anubis has to do is look at it and this thing dies.

Ever wonder what those weird little pods on the side are for? They look like tiny containers. Maybe Shivans live in waxy cells, like bees

These are the sort of Veteran Comments that should be retained. They are very useful and tell you a lot about the capabilities of certain ships.

[Mustang19]

Is that model in-gameable?

Looks like the ship loadout render or something. In any case, odds are that but Volition has it lying around.

Got the ball rolling. Critique. Discuss.

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Veteran_comments_policy

Also changed the VC template.

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Template:Comment

[Shade]

Good start We can use the talk page for the policy article to iron out the details (note: I actually think it looks fine as it is, but others may disagree), and once it's done I'll protect it so we won't have any bogus edits there.

And then... then we can go on a crusade againt useless nonsense in the comments.

[Edit] And great idea adding the policy link to the comments template itself. That's a far more elegant solution than what I suggested.

[NGTM-1R]

And then... then we can go on a crusade againt useless nonsense in the comments.

The Jihad is already underway.

[WMCoolmon]

The blog thing is an interesting point (Veteran comments). It'd be interesting to see something like that, but with veteran comments. However it's probably impractical for the wiki.

Other than that, I'd like to add that I don't think that a solution will be found through codified rules. I think it's just going to have to be a consensus thing. And I strongly disagree with Snail's first and third comments. The first has a complete lack of explanation - it doesn't explain why the thing is a complete piece of crap. It's nothing more than an utterly subjective outburst of opinion. The third is wild speculation. The second has some value, but it's put in such vague and artistic terms that you can't really tell what it's getting at beyond restating the obvious. The third is unsubstantiated speculation.

[Shade]

Yeah that's the sort of thing we're trying to get away from. Snail just lives in opposite-world so you have to reverse the condition on everything he says. Anyway, it won't be any sort of codified ruleset, just some very general guidelines and examples for what's good and what's bad, in order to force people to exercise some common sense and avoid comments like the above.

[CP5670]

I think Snail's post was sarcasm.

[Snail]

I went on an edit spree marking all of ITA Master's stuff for deletion. Thought you'd like to know.

[Zacam]

If I could suggest, from a stand point of assisting modders, for the Weapons Database and Ships Class List, include the Model name somewhere in the generics, otentially with the ShortName or Table reference name.

[Sandwich]

...aaaand since it's a Wiki, what's preventing you from doing just that?

[Zacam]

Nothing at all. :-)

Correction: Uh.....image uploading of PNG files is not supported? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

[Sandwich]

Hmm... I'll get someone to look into that. But why do you need to upload any images at all for this?

[Zacam]

Part of the "Modding Resources" section I put in. Basically, to be able to contrast the Retail model/textures with/against what is in the MediaVP's to show a history of progression.