Shifti - User contributions [en]

User talk:ShadowWolf

2009-08-28T01:58:47Z

GreenReaper: /* Links on archived pages */ new section

how do you delete a page that has no content? I've had to modify a title of a story page and removed it's content, but the title still appears on my author page.
:Please sign with the <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> - but generally you have to remove all content and then kill any links to it you've made. That'll "orphan" it and then an admin can go and do the actual delete. [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:43, 3 October 2007 (EDT)
:Page deleted, Oberon. (Recent Edits is a wonderful tool!) - in the future, though, please sign all entries on a talk page using the <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> specifier - it's what gives the nifty user link and timestamp. (and in requests for deletion, could you please include the page name ?) [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:48, 3 October 2007 (EDT)

==Sitenotice text==

Where did you put the text for the donation sitenotice? Normally it'd be at [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]], but I'm assuming since it's not there you've inserted it into the source code somewhere. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 20:46, 3 January 2008 (EST)

Never mind, I found it - MonoBook.php, right? I should move it out of that and into sitenotice, it won't appear for anyone who's using a different skin otherwise. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 21:01, 3 January 2008 (EST)

:Didn't know about the Sitenotice bit, so yeah, I did a bit of hacking and dumped it straight into the code from the primary skin. I actually had thought about dumping it directly into the Skin driver, but decided not to. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 21:08, 3 January 2008 (EST)

:There, fixed up. I pulled the code from the source and added a version to the [[Mediawiki:Sitenotice]]. "A Version" because I had to use the same custom tag I created for [[Shifti:Site support]] to do the button. (PayPal kinda requires it be a form with a crapload of hidden fields) — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 21:16, 3 January 2008 (EST)

::Heh. I was just working on that myself. Good to know I was on the right track. :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 21:20, 3 January 2008 (EST)
::This is odd. It appears that integral.org is in the spam protection filter, I can't save [[Main Page]] now. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 21:37, 3 January 2008 (EST)

:::Not in any of the spamfilters I installed. It's not in the central MediaWiki list or in the site-specific list. I'll look deeper. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:00, 3 January 2008 (EST)
:::[[Special:Version]] doesn't have any spam-blockers besides [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SpamBlacklist SpamBlacklist] and none of its lists have "integral" anywhere in them. So I don't know what the problem could be... Everything I've installed is hacked to not bug people that are in the Admin group about '''''ANYTHING''''', so I'm at a loss as to what the problem could be. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:04, 3 January 2008 (EST)

::::Well, whatever the problem was, it seems to have passed. I should have saved a copy of the error message but I suppose it's moot if it doesn't come back. BTW, I hope you don't mind the little tweaks I made to the sitenotice banner. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 23:38, 3 January 2008 (EST)

:::::Nah, it works. And I've reverted the changes I made, since it wasn't the cause of Felix's problem. He saw the Captcha, but apparently either 1) Didn't know what it was or 2) Couldn't read it. So I've just gone and given the "Author" permissions group a Captcha exception. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 23:49, 3 January 2008 (EST)

What do you think of the notion of putting a progress bar in the donation request, as demonstrated in [[Shifti:Sandbox]]? Wikipedia does it that way, and it might give people more incentive to donate in order to get rid of the banner. :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 01:23, 4 January 2008 (EST)

:That's pretty nifty. Maybe have the bar in red, though :) [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 01:30, 4 January 2008 (EST)

::There, added a color parameter. Red's a bit garish, though, maybe something a bit more pastel? [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 01:43, 4 January 2008 (EST)

:I hate that banner!! It offends me, I must destroy it by donating! *snicker* :)

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 23:59, 4 January 2008 (EST)

== Broken Discussion pages and Captcha errors ==

Not sure what's going on. When I click on the Discussion link on a page that doesn't have a discussion, it takes me direct to that page's edit frame (NOT the Discussion page), and I seem to have full edit rights on it. Something seems to have gone wonky along the way.

Pre-existing Talk pages seem to work fine (as evidenced here), though when I was trying to post it gave me an "out of captcha" error (When I tried to post it on the Current Events page that is.).

Oh and for the TF Types, you may want to add "Plant" (for TF's that are not animal based, but not quite Dryad based for the mythical category), and "Inanimate" (and maybe even Robotization or however you want to classify it).

I'm not quite sure if inanimate would be good enough as a catchall for a "living material' type TF (think X-Men's Colossus, and Ice Man, who turn into living steel and living ice respectively), or if we might want another type for that as well.

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 13:33, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

:I'm working on this, but apparently the 'title' parameter isn't being properly set. When it's a red-link PHP is getting a URL that looks like 'index.php?title=XXX?title=XXX_talk&action=edit&redlink=1' and it's seeing that first 'title=' and not the second one. I'm trying to figure out how to solve that.
:--[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:26, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

::Turned out to have several causes, all related to various problems with a code upgrade and several other problems that cropped up. Since I have yet to see this problem re-occur, I'm going to call it 'fixed'. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 20:38, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

== Story submission captcha? ==

I just went to post a new story and after I hit the 'save page' button, it took me to an edit screen that had:
Your edit includes new external links. To help protect against automated spam, please enter the words that appear below in the box
at the top. I looked and looked again and couldn't find any external links in my story. In fact there was no markup at all once I removed all the tab-indention on the paragraphs.

I'm all for automated systems blocking automated systems, but this sort of struck me as odd. -- [[User:Leasara|Leasara]] 08:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

:The regular expressions might have triggered on a non-link URL. But I cannot be certain, as this is the first report I've seen of it. (and sorry for the lag in the response) -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 20:33, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, as long as I'm bugging you guys, any chance of getting an inverted color scheme skin? Dark text on a light background seems to be more difficult for me to read for any length of time than light text on a dark background. -- [[User:Leasara|Leasara]] 08:10, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

:The new 'shiftimin' skin took a while to get fully functional, but you could, likely, use "user CSS" to get the same result. Give me a bit of time and I'll see if I can get a "map" together for the CSS behind the "monobook" skin so you can override it easily. Alternatively you could poke at the CSS yourself, but...
:There is a page giving a minimal explanation of CSS at [[Help:Custom css]] and we have a page open to user additions about CSS hacks at [[Custom CSS Hacks]]. I've been planning to do up a page explaining the various classes of the primary 'MonoBook' skin for a while. Guess it's about time to actually get to work on that. (and again, sorry for the lag in the response) -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 20:33, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

== Question ==
...from a nubcake guy. Just asking, is a story allowed to be set in a video game universe ([http://halo.wikia.com/The_Halo_Universe Halo]: w00t!)? 'Cos I wanna write a TF story set in there, but I'm not too sure if this is allowed on Shifti. Hope it's yes, 'cos it's already in progress. Thanks! --[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]]
:We have no restrictions on fan-fiction, but if we receive a take-down notice it will be removed. (I run the server and would be the one facing the legal actions - so I will not fight a DMCA notice unless I am certain it is invalid) -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 13:54, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
::Great! Well, I'm pretty sure Bungie, the copyright holder, encourages fan fic, so I think it's ok...Note "I think". I'm not sure how they'd react to TF fan fic. Thanks for confirming (and once again for the fave I can't tell you how much that means to me)! :) --[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]]
:::Most companies are open to fan-fic, because it helps with the popularity of their product. And you got the "fav" because I saw real promise in the original and in your willingness to take constructive criticism. Every other author in my "new authors to watch" section has shown the same promise, though they haven't all been available to take the constructive criticism that could be offered. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 20:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi there! This is the noob writer, Drake, again, here for a fresh wave of bother-the-administrator. Sorry to bother you, but here I am. Bothering you. Anyway, I was hoping you could help critique my new story, [[User:WolfyDrake95/Finding Himself|Finding Himself]], which I uploaded a couple of days ago. I got comments from Guvnor of Space and Concerned Reader, but I thought I'd ask for your opinion since you were the only one who seemed actually care about my first, and admittedly not-so-good, story. I do hope you can drop a critique and a comment to help me improve.

The above was an email that I sent to you but received no reply for. And also, about the fanfic that this section was initially about: can I upload screenshots? Halo features a Theatre mode in which one can take screenshots of players or NPCs, so I think I could use screenshots to illustrate characters, etc. Anyway, thanks for reading so far! :) --[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]], 23:43, 27 June 2009

:Hey there, ShadowWolf, it's Drake again. Hope you could look through my [[User:WolfyDrake95/Letting Go|new story]], in case you haven't noticed. Yea, it's not very good, and it took a strange direction halfway through writing (becoming all wierd and sappy), but I hope it would merit, at least, a critic. Of course, if you're too busy, it's okay, I'm fine with that. I'm pretty sure critiqueing new writers isn't exactly the only thing you do ;).

:And by the way, if creating new info tags were possible, a "Critique Requested" one might be more effective in garnering critiques than the "Comment" tag that's provided. And in regards to my Halo-fanfic, is it okay if I put screenshots from in-game to illustrate? It'd be useful for people to understand what I'm saying, since Halo isn't as well known as Star Wars. —[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]] 12:48, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

::Sadly I'm going to have to decline a critique on that story. I have tried reading it and found that it did not interest me, sorry.

::As to the images... I am unsure about this, as there is content in the texture-maps and such that will wind up as part of the image that are copyright MS/Bungie. However... This would appear to be a case covered by the "Fair Use" exceptions, so unless a lawyer that uses Shifti can answer otherwise, go ahead and upload.

::The 'critique requested' template itself should be easy. I'll have to see about that at some point today. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 16:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

:::All right, I understand if you don't want to critique. I do know that this isn't exactly my best story...I suppose every writer has times when he writes bad. Just that I get these times more often. I sorta knew it was already bad, but I guess I needed someone to tell me that it was lousy, right to my face. Ah well.

:::As for the pictures, thanks! And for the template, another thanks. You're one hell of an admin! --[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]] 04:10, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

::::It's not that it isn't a good story, Drake. The problem is that when I tried reading it I was not able to get more than a few paragraphs in before I said "this is depressing"—I do not read anything that I can say that about because I suffer from bipolar disorder. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 11:41, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

::::Um...then I guess I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. And yeah, I guess I shouldn't write so many depressing stories; it certainly gets a little boring after a while, and I suppose you're right in that when people read stories, they probably won't like those that make them all depressed. I should put a warning on that story one of these days! Anyway, I think I should start on my more normal stories soon.
::::I don't know what to say about that last bit of what you said because I'm just a kid, and I'm not very smart and I'm terrified that I'll say something insensitive or insulting or whatever. I do that a lot of times, and the people on the receiving end tend to take offense. Sorry.
::::On the upside, I'm thinking of writing a PaW story soon. It's a cool story setting, the Pig and Whistle. Looks like a good setting for assassinations!
::::Still, thanks for taking the time to clarify the issue. I suddenly feel happy. :) —[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]] 13:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

:::::I don't offend easily—and if you ever do, you'll know it. Depressing stories can be good, too, but I stay away from them for medical reasons—bipolar disorder means I have massive mood swings and reading depressing stuff just feeds into that. There have been several times when I've read something really depressing and it had a very bad impact on me.
:::::On another note… You are a lot more intelligent and mature than most of the "kids" these days (IMNSHO). Most "kids" these days have almost no idea how to put a sentence together and you are one of the few that I have run into that can take criticism.
:::::As to a PaW story… The setting was created, as it says in the description and rules, as a "reboot" of the "Tales from the Blind Pig" setting. Within the last couple of years the "Blind Pig" setting has had numerous arguments over what is and is not "canon" between authors who have seen the setting grow and contributed and people just finding the setting. Because the creator has left it behind it has become something of a "lawless waste" with no real controls and people changing it from what the creator said is actually the reality of the setting. To solve this and make the setting much more internally consistent I asked around and a small group formed to generate the new setting. There is a lot more to the setting than has been revealed or is likely to be openly revealed to anyone anytime soon.
:::::And we tried to define only what was needed to give the setting its own identity so that the people actually interested in writing a story set there could create the setting itself. We only ask that you not set the story outside of the NAR/RoT/Quebec area unless you are actually from that other area. The reason for that is simply that we wish to allow people from those other regions to have control over what, exactly, happened to their regions after the collapse. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 13:45, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

{{Green|Well Wolfy is from Singapore, so he could open up that side of the world. On a side note, all 14-19 year olds I know on the internet have trouble with basic grammar and spelling when talking normally, so I wouldn't quite call your writing juvenile.}} --[[User:Concerned Reader|Concerned Reader]] 14:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

:Well, actually Singapore is pretty boring. Nothing's really cool or fun here (maybe I'm just used to it?), and society feels very...suppressed. There's no space for individuality. If you try to be yourself, you get mocked and stuff (like when my friends discovered that I was on Shifti). Bad story material. And as for deciding what happens to my region...I dunno. Best I don't, I have terrible imagination and my mind only circles around video games that I play.
:If I might refer you to the [[User_talk:WolfyDrake95/Letting Go|talk page]] of Letting Go, you'll find the rough plan of this PaW story.
:As for my writing, I won't deny that I'm very, very proud of it (my downfall), which is why I hurt a lot sometimes when criticized without knowing why (thus why I seemed so upset when I replied to ShadowWolf's declination). I also have a somewhat existant superiority complex (I got really jealous when ShadowWolf commented that Rabbit was impressed by CR's Rebuilding. Puberty? I dunno.)
:Even though I know I'm not that good a writer, I like to think that I write depressing stories because of my "painful experiences in life". Actually, it's because I read a lot of Michael Bard's work (both the sad ones and the happy ones). Both of which are awesome, by the way. I'll admit that I'm a fan of his. <3
:Oh, and thanks for the compliments, you two. I can feel my ego swelling already. :) —[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]] 14:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

== RSS Feed? ==

Not sure if there's much you can do about this or if I'm using it wrong or expecting the wrong things. But I've signed up for the RSS feed on Shifti, and I'm not only getting the new changes soon after they occur, but I also get a bunch of changes that were already reported to me, often multiple times.
--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 11:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

:That's the way the RSS feed works. It works similar to how the 'Recent Changes' page works by default. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 16:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

:: True but it seems to be picking up changes it has already reported that haven't had any actual new changes done. For example, when Bryan was adding/updating the separator graphics, the RSS feed repeated it twice for each change he did, and that seems to happen a lot.
::--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 17:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

:::I'd look closer - there were, in most cases, two files uploaded/updated - and yes, there is a bug somewhere in the system that is double-logging some events. I haven't been able to track that one down, though. It's about time to take a look and see if there is a new version of the code available, however, so I can see if an upgrade fixes the problem. (Most notably it is the new-user stuff that gets double-logged, but I have no idea how this is impacting the RSS feed) -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 18:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

:::: I meant that as a general example thouhg; not that in particular.

:::: Another example, I just got an RSS update now. I've been watching the feeds and had no recent updates from Shifti since this morning whence I'd gotten Jon's latest update and a few hours. The update I JUST got says there are 8 new changes, including Jon's After Hours addition again, Wolfy's New world addition and 4 entries for the RSS Feed discussion. (Despite this being the 4th entry now). All of the entries have a time of 4:03PM ADT. --[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 19:21, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

::::: Odd... And I'm not really that knowledgeable about the MediaWiki code-base (yes, I can hack on it, but...) I have a feeling that the problem lies in how the system works. I think that it might be compiling a list of all changes within a certain period and sending it out. And if it isn't keeping a proper time-stamp on the items, that is a violation of the RSS spec, IIRC - since it is then pushing out duplicates without a way for readers to determine that with any degree of certainty. I'll sign up to the RSS feed myself and see if I can track the problem. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 19:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::: Okay - I've got my client signed up to the RSS feed for the [[Special:RecentChanges|Recent changes]] page. Let's see what this edit does... -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::: Now I've seen the problem and it sucks. That one previous edit led to a major flood of '31 new edits' in my feed reader. Looks like I was right - it isn't properly date-tagging the entries. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:35, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::: Looked at the raw XML of the feed and it doesn't look like there is an error in it - though there might be. Let me go take a look at the RSS specs to see if I can figure out what is missing and/or not being set properly. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::: Ooooh... I think I just found the cause. Apparently the feed is claiming to be RSS 2.0 but it isn't putting a stable <guid/> tag on any of the entries. This tag is the method by which most RSS readers decide whether an item is new or not. The feed here does not have them. This is probably an oversight on the part of the person that wrote the code, but I cannot say. I'm going to go check Wikipedia to see if they have it there - because if they don't then the only reason that feeds of Wikipedia aren't getting overwhelmed is because of the volume of edits there. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:48, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::: Changed it to include the link-url as a guid - it should be genuinely unique to a specific page revision. Lets see if this fixes the problem... -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 23:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::: Okay - I give up (for now) - because that last edit showed up with a massive number of others and the added <guid> tag doesn't seem to have helped any. Unless, of course, those <guid/> tags need a bit to start showing up... I really don't know. Might be time for me to look into cleaning out the cache table of the database. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 23:20, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::: And that looks like it did do it after all. Bug report being marked CLOSED/RESOLVED. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 23:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
::::: Bug not completely resolved. On restart my RSS client has shown a singularly massive flood of repeated messages. This does not make sense to me, as it was not doing this during the testing yesterday - and I am willing to bet it will not show such action today. However it might be that the text I am using to generate the data for the GUID tag is not as stable as I once thought - this bothers me and makes me think I might have to go much deeper into the code for changes. Perhaps as deep as altering the 'feed item' class so that it requires the actual ID of the revision so that said ID can be used for the GUID. --[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:39, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
::::: Sadly... It looks like utilizing the Date of the edit might be the only way to uniquely identify them - in combination with the page title, that is. However, I shall not be making those changes at this time. What I shall be doing is finding a way to interact with another developer so that I can be certain this will permanently and fully squash this bug. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:48, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

: Not sure what's going on, but the problem seems to be cropping up again. I've gotten RSS feeds telling me of changes that I've already gotten before (and before and before)... --[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 17:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

::Has to do with how the URL's are generated. Since I'm using the URL as the GUID, it looks like there is a periodic shift in them. I have zero clue how to fix it, because I'd have to come up with something that is genuinely unique as an identifier, and I can't think of anything that would work there. (at least, nothing that is actually available to the feed generator) -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 18:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

== ShiftiMin-related stuff ==

I expect to be poking at the new theme with sharp sticks during the [[TSA-Bash]] anyways, but in the meantime I discovered (largely by happenstance) that if you're not logged in, there's no "log in / create account" link in ShiftiMin! I'd say that's a bug - unless we want to become a really exclusive club. ;) 
Looking pretty decent otherwise; we just need to figure out how to handle the menu organization. (Plus about eleventy billion other pet peeves with which I intend to drive you TOTALLY BATS**T INSANE. Mua ha ha.) --[[User:Viqsi|Viqsi]] 15:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

:I thought I'd gotten that bug (GAH! Must be related to me changing the user-options bits to a drop-down from the long list it was)
:Since Shiftimin does not work on versions of IE prior to 8 without a massive javascript hack it is not meant to be used as the primary skin for Shifti. This means that the 'missing login/create link' is a very low priority bug.
:I am currently poking at ideas for another design that is as (or more) minimalistic but is also designed to take full advantage of modern browsers CSS3 support and HTML5. That redesign is not public yet, since it is currently little more than an image in the GIMP.
:Oh, and I already am 'TOTALLY BATS**T INSANE' - I just hide it well. So driving me there is a very short trip... And... If you have any ideas at all for changes, just dump them here. I'll get on top of the ones that are fast/easy to implement immediately.
:And if you have Fx3.5 available, look at Shifti using the Shiftimin skin. All kinds of nifty little hacks I've added that target it. (Okay, so they could probably target Safari/WebKit and Konqueror/KHTML as well... but I'm not going to try and support all the alternative browsers until they agree on the format for the CSS. And Opera '''STILL''' does not support even the 'border-radius' property or the 'box-shadow' or 'text-shadow' properties)
:--[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 16:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey there, ShadowWolf. Just poking in here to point out what seems to be a bug. The SiteSearch function isn't working; I believe it has something to do with the server crash and tech replacement the other day. If I click the Search button it shows

:A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:
::SELECT page_id, page_namespace, page_title FROM `shifti_page`,`shifti_searchindex` WHERE page_id=si_page AND MATCH(si_title) AGAINST('' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AND page_is_redirect=0 AND page_namespace IN ('0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','12','13','14','15') LIMIT 20
:from within function "". MySQL returned error "145: Table './shifti/shifti_searchindex' is marked as crashed and should be repaired (malfoy)".
I guess this isn't normal, but I'm also guessing that you might have already noticed. Anyway, sorry that I can't donate. I don't have PayPal or MasterCard or anything. —[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]] 13:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

::Thought I'd run the "check and repair" before bringing the new server live. Guess it didn't actually do the repair... It's fixed now - sorry for not spotting it myself :) -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:03, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

== Redirects ==

Just a heads-up, I noticed that [[PAW General TimeLine]] was linked to from [[Talk:Rebuilding]]. I didn't check all the redirects so there might be others. In general I think it's best not to delete redirects left behind by page moves, especially not when the redirect's name still accurately reflects the content it's redirecting to - even if you fix all the internal links there's still the possibility that other pages out on the web point there. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 06:01, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

== Links on archived pages ==

Hi ShadowWolf! Thanks for the welcome. :-)

I made the edits to the archived page because, well . . . posterity is nice, but if you don't actually get to the site intended, that's not very useful to readers! At WikiFur we either update outdated links, replace them with a link to archive.org, or remove them altogether; leaving them broken tends to results in linking to spam sites sooner or later. And WikiFur's old site is going down imminently. [[User:GreenReaper|GreenReaper]] 01:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

User:GreenReaper

2009-08-28T01:12:00Z

GreenReaper: Founder of WikiFur (user page), and a Wikipedia editor.

Founder of [http://wikifur.com/ WikiFur] ([http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/User:GreenReaper user page]), and a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GreenReaper Wikipedia editor].

Current events/2007

2009-08-28T01:04:39Z

GreenReaper: Update WikiFur link

Seems I've forgotten at least one more person new to Shifti that deserves to be mentioned - [[User:Nikon|Nikon Raccoon]]. She's long been a friend of [[User:ShadowWolf|mine]] and while she denies being an author, the stuff she has written is very good.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:05, 14 December 2007 (EST)

November seemed to go by slowly, with the mass of the traffic being limited to people just reading. And there is '''''NOTHING''''' wrong with that — Shifti was setup so that people could find a good place to read transformation fiction, since the original [http://tsa.transform.to Transformation Story Archive] hasn't been updated in such a long time.

But I was stunned by how people had stopped contributing and thought that the protection that was added in response to the spammers had been the cause. I'm happy to report that I was wrong, since both readership and authorship has increased, with [[User:Slyfordtrabbit|Sly]] – who once went by the name "Sly Squirrel" and created the wonderful squirrel-morph wrestling coach in TBP and has recently confessed to being of the [[wikipedia:Rabbit|lapine]] persuasion – joining us here on Shifti and a number of stories, [[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]] and [[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]] has been adding more stories, [[User:MintzBuck|Mintz Buck]] is another newcomer who has added a story or two, [[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]] has been steadily continuing her [[Revan Saga]] and while the [[Pig and Whistle]] [[PAW Collab|collaboration]] has been on something of a hiatus while some of the authors finish up with prior commitments ([[User:FelixSagittarius|Felix]] has his marvelous TBP epic "At the Ranch", [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] has been pre-occupied with [http://anthrozine.com Anthro], etc...) but with the posting of the last part of "At the Ranch" to the TSA Talk mailing list, the micro-hiatus is hopefully at an end.

And most of all, [[User:Fish|The Eponymous Fish]] has been slowly adding a [[User:Fish/CYOE|"Choose Your Own Path"]] type of story - actually, series of stories. If you're familiar with his work, you'll know just how much fun he's having, and how much you'll have reading it when he's finished with it.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 21:48, 14 December 2007 (EST)

Well, we had a minor performance problem earlier today, and it wasn't the fault of the server. Nope, the good folks at Verizon, who maintain the phone lines and equipment in the area where the server is located decided to screw up the internet for a large number of people in the region. It was a pain in the ass, and we apologize for the problems, but this is what happens around here. The Telco screws over the ISP's by not doing maintenance while having backup-systems online. So thank you, Verizon, for being a massive pain in the ass.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 16:02, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

For those of you who never know what to read, just look at [[Main Page|the front page]] – with a little bit of research and a lot of coding skill we've added a box delivering random pages links on every reload. And, in the same vein, we've brought back the [[Special:Random|Random Page]] link in the navigation box, but fixed so that it will look pages in the main namespace and user subpages. As an added bonus we've heard your cries for help and have done the work needed to have the Category pages (like [[Category:Story]]) display the pages by their sort key instead of the page-title text.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 02:08, 22 October 2007 (EDT)

Well... Shifti is really booming. Still around two weeks left in the month and we are already just 100M of bandwidth shy of matching last months usage. And while following the bandwidth use isn't a good way to track if the site is doing well, the other numbers also match up pretty well. In other news Shifti has managed to blow past 300 stories and the recently created PaW universe is taking off. [[:Category:Pig and Whistle]] is where you can find the stories but if you're looking to write in the setting (c'mon it's like... well... being a God of sorts!) look at [[Pig and Whistle]] for an overview of the universe.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:58, 19 October 2007 (EDT)

The username anti-spoofing system has been temporarily disabled. Apparently the installation instructions that came with it forgot to mention some steps and it was causing problems with new account creation. If anyone has hit this problem, I'm sorry! I am, however, going to go look over the instructions so it can be re-enabled.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:22, 13 October 2007 (EDT)

Problem fixed. Like and idiot I'd forgotten to run the one SQL script that comes with the system to install the anti-spoof database table. Silly me. Anti-Spoofing module has been re-enabled.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:40, 13 October 2007 (EDT)

And we've seen yet another spammer. But once more they got caught - this time by the hard-working [[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]. However, we, the admins, have discussed this situation in the past and come up with several plans. The problem is that those plans will all add yet another step to the process of posting. What we've decided on is using a [[wikipedia:Captcha|Captcha]] that must be passed to post. However, there may be a way to have that only needed for users that haven't signed in. We'll stay on top of things, but we do need to do something, because spammers will always take advantage of an open system like a Wiki.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 16:39, 12 October 2007 (EDT)

The spammer came back from a new IP and has been banned yet again. Remember, we are never without an online admin watching Shifti. Anyway, I'm ready to start making some massive changes to the architecture so it will provide us with more information about people - spam is illegal and I will begin prosecution as soon as I finish making the in-depth logging changes.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 18:55, 12 October 2007 (EDT)

To help prevent further episodes of Spam Shifti now has a Captcha system. It isn't as restrictive as I made it sound earlier - unless you're working in the main namespace (ie: no 'User:', 'Talk:', 'Shifti:', etc... in the URL) you'll only run into it if you are adding a new URL (Link) to a page. (Or if you flub your login) In other words, there should be very little impact.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 20:46, 12 October 2007 (EDT)

Okay, last bit of news for tonight. Following in Wikipedia's footsteps I've installed an anti-spoofing extension to stop people from making usernames that look alike but use different unicode characters and a pair of blacklists, one for usernames and one for specific URL's. All total we have 4 provisions for stopping spammers, so we should once more have very few problems and, if I can figure out how to do it, there will be a "bot" patrolling to look for spammers in action.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 21:15, 12 October 2007 (EDT)

A minor period of downtime happened tonight. It wasn't planned, but it was with a purpose. Shifti now has a "[[wikipedia:Favicon|favicon]]"! The downtime was because Apache didn't want to acknowledge some of the localized configuration changes needed to make it work. Anyway, just had to let people know!
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 00:40, 3 October 2007 (EDT)

We've recently had our first fight with spammers. Basically the spammers lost - because I don't think Shifti is ever without an admin online. Anyway, Shifti is growing by leaps and bounds. We've been online for approximately three months and for a few weeks it looked like we would be an "also ran". Then the TSA page on [http://en.wikipedia.org Wikipedia] was updated to mention Shifti and I modified a few pages on [http://en.wikifur.com WikiFur] and we started seeing traffic. Not long after than we were indexed by Google, but still the traffic was light - by the time Shifti had been online for 30 days we'd only hit about three thousand unique visitors. But then [[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]] decided to move all of his stories to Shifti and replaced his site with a simple page pointing people here. Now, as we near the end of our second full month we've had our best month yet. While not a single one of the above events can be said to have caused this months explosion in traffic, the statistics speak for themselves. With the massive number of visitors (nearly 500) from Google set aside, [[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck's]] redirection is our single biggest source of traffic (short of direct access from bookmarks). Anyway, I guess the point of this little bit of talk is to let everyone know that Shifti is growing up. We've had more than 1300 unique visitors this month - more than we have for the last two months combined. And it holds true for the other stats - including bandwidth use. Before the end of the month Shifti will have used at least a half a gigabyte of bandwidth.

However, there is no need to worry about availability yet. Shifti isn't yet getting the amount of traffic that will cause problems with the server and it's network connection. The traffic is a lot when taken as a whole, but so far Shifti hasn't seen more than thirty megs of traffic in a single day. When Shifti gets to the point that it is pushing the internet connection to fifty percent of available bandwidth, then we'll worry. (However, long before we reach that point donations will start being requested so we can be sure that Shifti will be able to be moved without worries or emergency "donation drives")
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:41, 28 September 2007 (EDT)

Sorry about the down-time everyone. There was a blackout here - seems the local substation blew a main bus-bar in the distribution side. (I heard it go and originally thought it had blown a transformer!) Looks like the worried about "donation" system is going to have to be finalized and brought online sooner - a UPS is desperately needed to help make sure this doesn't happen again.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:14, 23 September 2007 (EDT)

Shifti is growing exponentially. Already this month we've hit almost 200M of bandwidth use and over 500 unique visitors. If this keeps up there may be a problem with the connection serving the site won't be able to keep up. However, there is no need to worry - Shifti is not going to be moving, adding advertising or asking for money to join. Why? Because until it becomes clear that the growth trend is going to continue I see no need to do anything drastic. Even then there is an option that has worked for other sites - donations. So if Shifti keeps up the wild, rampant growth look forward to seeing the Donations page filled out so that a separate server and much higher bandwidth hosting can be paid for to keep the site running.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 18:09, 11 September 2007 (EDT)

Ever looked at the "Blind Pig" universe and decide not to write a story in it because there was some facet that you didn't like? Well, [[User:ShadowWolf|myself]], [[User:Bryan|BD]], [[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]], [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] and [[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]] decided to do something about the sometimes annoying holes in the TBP universe. (Most notably is the consistent violation of the Conservation of Mass/Energy and the broken 'neo-luddite' nature of the world that van Sciver didn't have in place but others have later written into the setting)

Anyway, we set to work on modernizing the setting—bringing the science up to date and fixing the holes. The result is the '[[Pig and Whistle]]' universe—a version of the TBP universe stripped of the morass of the history that universe has and corrected to be more realistic. If the setting interests you, there is a 'quick and dirty' intro to the setting called '[[User:ShadowWolf/Little Things|Little Things]]'. And if, after reading that (in my own opinion) horrid hack of a story, you are still intrigued, then write away!
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:23, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

<nowiki>{{title}}</nowiki> has been updated—you can now specify a list of "coauthors" instead of (or in addition to) the 'author' parameter. Though using coauthors means that you'll need to add the links yourself, it also allows for doing things like acknowledging the illustrator and such. And there is a brand-new template you can use—<nowiki>{{byline}}</nowiki>. The[[Template:Byline|Byline Template]] is meant to be used instead of the [[Template:Title|Title Template]] on pages in the main namespace. Enjoy!
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 04:33, 24 August 2007 (EDT)

Had a power failure that took the server oflfine momentarily while I was asleep. Unfortunately this meant that the rather unstable hack I had to implement to bring my setup inline with what the ISP expects had to be re-established. Of course, I have no idea when the problem happened or how long the server was offline, but from some circumstantial evidence it looks like it was around two hours. The only way that I could correct this would be to coloc the server, and I do not have the money to do that. If there are no complaints I'll be setting up a pay-pal account to accept donations to make the co-location possible and actually happen. Of course this means that Shifti will be entirely donation driven, but I'm sure that the community will help us keep it online. Any comments can be made on my talk page or on this pages talk page.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:40, 17 August 2007 (EDT)

Lots of interesting stuff has been going on behind the scenes here at Shifti. With the recent explosion of stories (we've passed 100) the administrators have begun adding "Transformation Type" categories. While they aren't mandatory – the category could give away a twist in the story – it is going to be one of the main ways for people to find stories on the site. Another bit of news is that [[User:ShadowWolf|I (ShadowWolf)]] have added the "[[ShadowWolfs Pack|ShadowWolf's Pack]]" as an alternate to [[Bryan's picks|Bryan's Picks]] for finding high quality stories. It has three sections — a [[ShadowWolfs Pack#Rated Stories|rated section]], where I will rank the stories from 1 to 4 stars; an [[ShadowWolfs Pack#Unrated Stories|unrated section]], where I have been putting stories that rate more than four stars and a [[ShadowWolfs Pack#Promising New Authors|small section]] where I'm highlighting the first one or two stories from authors new to Shifti who show great promise.
::::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 16:03, 14 August 2007 (EDT)

The template <nowiki>{{part}}</nowiki> has been deprecated and is planned to be removed as soon as the admins get around to removing it from use. The reason is that [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] discovered a subtle ''feature'' of the MediaWiki parser that would generate links into sections of a template if the template used the header markup <nowiki>=== text ===</nowiki>. Since [[Template:Part|{{part}}]] does this, it was creating a subtle breakage of the sections in articles.
:::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 04:22, 5 August 2007 (EDT)

Nothing to see here folks, move along...

In all seriousness we are trying to make Shifti a great place to find stories. To do this we have been developing the policies regarding categorization as we go along, such that, recently, a change was made to institute [[:Category:Stories by author]] so that stories are sorted by author and changed the original [[:Category:Author]] so that it is a place to find a list of authors that have contributed stories, so you can find a list of all stories by a given author.

:::[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:35, 22 July 2007 (EDT)

Transformation Story Archive

2005-08-27T04:22:23Z

GreenReaper: /* External links */ story archive, not stories archive

The '''Transformation Story Archive''' (TSA) is a website that [[archive]]s stories that feature a personal physical [[Shapeshifting|transformation]], or feature its aftermath. It is the nucleus of a small community of [[amateur]] writers and [[Fan (aficionado)|fans]] of transformation stories.

Due to the prevalent [[plot device]], most of the stories are [[science fiction]] or [[fantasy]]. The stories are categorized by the type of transformation, sometimes by the method of transformation:

* Animals
* [[Mythical]] Beasts ([[unicorn]]s, [[mermaid]]s, etc.)
* [[Furry]] Creatures ([[werewolves]], [[Anthropomorphism#Common_usage|anthropomorphic]] animals)
* The Other Sex ([[transgender]])
* Strange Changes ([[plushie]]s, cars, misc.)
* Worlds ([[shared universe]]s)

Though there aren't enough for their own category, some age regression or progression stories are also archived. Sometimes they are lumped with other categories, such as the transformation of a middle-aged man into an equine [[Horse#Words relating to horses|foal]].

One may distinguish two broad patterns in the role transformation or shapeshifting plays in the stories in the archive. In some, an unexpected but welcome transformation (especially various forms of [[lycanthropy]]) plays a thematic role similar to the plot device of the [[protagonist]] being a commoner who finds out they are actually royal, or have unsuspected magical talent, or have some other wonderful secret destiny. In others, a transformation imposed from without by a hostile entity is a challenge to be overcome; the protagonist seeks a way to reverse the transformation and regain their original form. In many such stories, the final resolution involves the unwillingly transformed protagonist coming to terms with his or her new shape and turning it to their advantage rather than finding a way to return to "normal".

Most of the stories are written in either [[first person]] or [[third person limited omniscient]].

The website was started by Thomas Hassan of [[Austria]], who has since passed on the duties of maintenance to others. The archive has a high proportion of [[transgender]] and [[furry]] wish-fulfillment stories because they were the most numerous at the time of its creation. Its stated goal is to become the premier Internet archive of transformation-themed fiction, and a showcase for amateur authors. It does not accept [[fanfiction]].

At one point, the TSA accounted for a significant portion of the Internet traffic of Austria. The main server has been moved to the [[United States]], and there are now [[mirror (computing)|mirror servers]] in [[Australia]], and [[Europe]].

== See also ==

* [[Shapeshifting]]

== External links ==

* [http://tsa.transform.to/ Transformation Story Archive]
* [http://tsat.transform.to/ Transformation Stories, Art, Talk] - Online magazine
* [http://www.tfcentral.com/ TFCentral] - A portal dedicated to TF. Hosting, forums, image gallery, story archives, and chat. (Down/Taken down as of July 25, 2005)
[[Category:Shapeshifting]]
[[Category:Websites]]