User:Stephane Lo Presti/News/February 2011-December 2013

Wiki (minor) update on Thursday November 7 at 10 AM Pacific Time - November 4, 2013

Hi everyone,

We're going to push an (minor but important) upgrade to the backend software on Thursday November 7 at 10 AM Pacific Time. We'll be installing a new extension (called RecentChangesLogFilter et created by GW2 Wiki bureaucrat poke) that will add a new option to Special:RecentChanges to hide the account creation log (on by default).

There should not be any downtime, apart possibly from a few intermittent errors (usually returning 502 or 503 errors). If you experience any problem with the wikis, please let us know via Twitter, Facebook or the Guild Wars 2 forums.

Thanks.

Wiki update on Thursday October 24 at 10 AM Pacific Time - October 21, 2013

Hi everyone,

We're going to push an upgrade to the MediaWiki software on Thursday October 24 at 10 AM Pacific Time. We'll also update a few extensions (AbuseFilter) and some software configuration (user groups, other general settings to make them consistent across all 5 wikis).

There should not be any downtime, apart possibly from a few intermittent errors (usually returning 502 or 503 errors). If you experience any problem with the wikis, please let us know via Twitter or Facebook.

Thanks.

Wiki technical questions - September 4, 2013

Hi everyone,

I've got an important set of questions to share with the wiki community today. Please hop on my talkpage to share your thoughts and answers!

We're currently working on an upcoming to the wiki software (upgrade to version 1.20.7). We've cleaned a few things on the wiki backend, including configuration files, and want to make sure that we're not changing something incorrectly. So here are a few things, including questions that need to be asnwered by the wiki community:

• Could you please let us know what a good value for the variable $wgLogo and $wgLocalInterwiki should be?
• The variable $wgRightsUrl will be set to http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Wiki:Copyrights , let us know if this is not the good one
• The variable $wgAutoConfirmCount will be set to 10
• The variable $wgAutoConfirmAge will be set to 1 day
• The variable $wgShowIPinHeader will be set to True
• The variable $wgCaptchaTriggers['create'] will be set to False
• We're going to switch the captcha system on the English GW2 wiki to QuestyCaptcha (at their request) as the account creation spam is continuing to be an issue; if this is something that this wiki would like to do, you'll have to let us know as soon as possible and provide a configuration file for the extension (see en:Guild_Wars_2_Wiki_talk:Requests_for_technical_administration#Question_CAPTCHAs for more details);
• It looks like the InputBox extension is not enabled here (this may be due to it failing during a past upgrade, I'm not sure); is this something we need to enable?

It's also the time to ask us for any subsequent configuration change! We need the answer to these questions as soon as possible, so that we can then test the changes and push these updates to the live wikis. Thanks for your help!

Maintenance of all the wikis on Wednesday May 8th - April 26, 2013

Hi everyone,

We're close to final tests completion regarding the upgrading of the wikis to MediaWiki version 1.20.4. This upgrade is planned for Wednesday May 8 from 9 AM (Pacific Time, GMT -7) until 5 PM. The English wikis (GW and GW2) will not be available from 9AM till 10AM and they'll be in read-only mode for the whole duration of the maintenance. The non-English GW2 wikis (German, French, Spanish) will be in read-only mode for the whole duration of the maintenance.

I'd also like to explain why the schedule slipped several times: first, I was just too busy with other Community Management tasks; then, once our plan was set in action, we hit a few technical issues that delayed us (this is when I posted my last update about the upgrade); and then we discovered that MediaWiki was going to release version 1.20.4, which happened on Monday April 15th. I'd also like to add that this whole process that we've gone through behind the scenes includes setting up new processes and technical elements, with the goal of allowing us to better manage future upgrades.

If you have any question or comment, feel free to jump on my talkpage.

Thanks.

Backend work on Thursday 11th April - April 9, 2013

Hi,

We're going to perform some work on the server backend of the wikis this Thursday April 11, between 9AM (Pacific Time) and 6PM. If you notice any unusual behavior, please let us know either on my talkpage or via the Guild Wars 2 Twitter. This work is done to help us prepare for the upgrade of the wiki software to the latest version and I'll be giving more information about this once we've finalized our plans.

Thanks.

Further update on the News, information & questions and a question - March 25, 2013

Hi everyone,

I don't have much to add to my last update apart from announcing that we will not make it the initial estimate of March for the upgrade to MediaWiki version 1.20. We're trying to be more careful than usual with this build (in addition to setting new processes on our end on how to handle things like upgrades) and testing is taking more time. The upgrade is currently planned for mid-April but this date may change depending on test results and further adjustments. We're currently planning for a day of maintenance as this is a massive operation (similarly to what we did in October 2012).

I'd also like to ask this wiki community a question: currently the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 wikis shared the same user table. This means that accounts are shared between these two wikis. However, from a community and technical perspective, this seems like an unnecessary link at this point during the lives of these 2 wikis. What does the community of this wiki think about separating the user table in two? (so current accounts would not be changed but new accounts would be specific to a wiki; this could also mean that some aspects of wiki preferences would not be shared too, I'm not sure).

If you want to answer this question or have other questions, please let me know on my talk page (or the relevant discussion page based on my previous updates). Thanks!

Update on the News, information and questions - March 11, 2013

Hi everyone,

I posted a quick update on the big post I wrote a month ago: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Stephane_Lo_Presti#Update_on_the_News.2C_information_and_questions_-_March_11.2C_2013

The only 2 relevant things for the Guild Wars Wiki are:

• Update of the wikis to MediaWiki 1.20: We’re in the final stages of testing this. If we don’t find any major issue, we think we’ll be able to deploy this in the coming weeks. I’ll provide a more detailed update as soon as I know the date and details.
• Default skin: I only got 2 pieces of feedback from the German wiki in favor of this. Would people be opposed to changing the default skin?

As usual, let me know if you have questions or comments my talk page (or the relevant discussion page).

Very brief downtime at 4PM (Pacific Time) - February 22, 2013

A quick note that we're going to restart the wiki servers this afternoon at 4PM (Pacific Time; that's 12AM GMT and 1AM CET). This is to fix a small configuration issue on the servers and should only make the wikis unavailable for a few minutes (hopefully less than one as it's a quick fix). The expected impact is minimal as pages may be unavailable and edits may not be saved during that brief window.

I'm also opening the floor (i.e., my talk page) for suggestions about the best way to relay these issues. Once the Global changelog page, this could be an option. Another one would be to modify the wiki's site notice, but I'm not sure if the community feels it's impinging on its space or if it's too disruptive? Let me know your thoughts, opinions and ideas!

News, information and questions – February 8, 2013

Hi,

I just posted a ver long update for all our wikis on my English wiki journal:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Stephane_Lo_Presti#News.2C_information_and_questions_.E2.80.93_February_8.2C_2013

I'd like to highlight here that this does apply to the GW wiki, but a lot of these topics are probably irrelevant. For example:

• Quality of articles: this is already something managed well on this wiki, but some of these ideas may be reused, if the community feels it's interesting/useful;
• Attract (and retain) editors: it is actually much less important here, given the low need for update;
• Masthead redesign: this is not relevant;
• Youtube and the wikis: this is not relevant;
• Fansite list: this is not relevant;
• New wiki for the pictures: this is not relevant, because the bulk of GW pictures are already uploaded here;
• Page counters: this is not relevant;
• GW2W twitter bot: this is not relevant;
• Default skin: this is relevant to this wiki so please let me know what you think!
• Global changelog page: this is also relevant;
• WikiChat: this is not relevant;
• GW2 wiki mobile application: the people who developed this will need to clarify, if needed, if this is relevant to this wiki.
• Last but not the least: this is absolutely relevant to this wiki; although updates to this GW are not as important as on the GW2 wikis, the work of all the volunteers here is important to us and the GW community. I'd like to thank you all on behalf of ArenaNet for that!

Note that we're looking for testers for our wiki test environments and you can apply on the relevant subpage of my GW2 talkpage. Feel free to discuss all of this directly here on my talkpage. Thanks for your work here!

Quick maintenance today - December 11, 2012

We're going to run a quick maintenance today to fix the issue of the Captcha extension not working on the Guild Wars Wiki, causing issues with account creation in particular. The maintenance will happen at around 4PM PST (12AM GMT / 1AM CET) and should take no more than 30 minutes. There will be no interruption of services but it may affect page access and edits intermittently. If you have questions, concerns or issues, please jump over to my talkpage.

Thanks.

Post-maintenance feedback - Thursday, October 25, 2012

Hi everyone,

We're back from our maintenance which was a success and I'm happy to report that Semantic MediaWiki is now available on the Guild Wars 2 wiki. As this was a rather long, complex and important operation (and I may not be very responsive on the wikis during the next few days), I'd like to make sure that the wiki community can report bugs and provide us feedback. If you observe a strange behaviour on a page, a feature not working, or have comments about any aspect of the wiki following this maintenance, please use either of these means to report it:

1. Edit the page Post-10-25-maintenance feedback and give us as much information about the issue you're describing; we'll very probably not be able to reply to you on that page, so make sure that no information is missing from your message;
2. Send a tweet at the Guild Wars 2 twitter account if there's any emergency, make sure to mention it's about the wikis and point to the relevant information about the issue.

Thanks everyone for your collaboration!

Possible long wiki maintenance on Thursday - Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Hi everyone,

I'd like to give you an early warning that we will possibly run a long maintenance on the English wikis this Thursday October 25 from 10 AM PDT, for an expected 8 hours period. I'll confirm (or infirm) this as soon as I have all the pieces locked down, which I'm hoping is going to be in the next few hours, or possibly by tomorrow morning (Pacific time). If this maintenance is not happening on Thursday, it'll have to be rescheduled to sometime later, in 2 or 3 weeks (due to the unavailability of key staff).

This maintenance will put the wiki in read-only mode for the whole duration. We'll be working on making the maintenance period as short as possible.

This maintenance is the last phase of our operation to bring the English wikis into a new technical environment (closer to the ones of the German, French and Spanish Guild Wars 2 wikis) where we'll be able to bring updates to the backend, MediaWiki and its extensions in a more streamlined way. This is going to bring the Semantic MediaWiki extension to the Guild Wars 2 wiki (but not Guild Wars wiki as it wasn't requested). This will also allow us to work, starting next month, on upgrading the MediaWiki software.

We're very sorry about such a long interruption of services and that we could not confirm/infirm it to you earlier than now, but this is the final piece of a complex operation that will help us and our wiki community to move ahead with some cool projects and ideas.

Let me know on my talkpage if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks.

Logs, summary and follow-ups from the First WikiChat on June 13 - June 14, 2012

Hi everyone,

(note: all of the links will direct you to the Guild Wars 2 wiki)

Now that the first WikiChat is over, I'd first like to point everyone to the logs from the 3 chat sessions:

• gw2:User:Dr_ishmael/IRC_wikichat_20120613a
• gw2:User:Dr_ishmael/IRC_wikichat_20120613b
• gw2:User:Dr_ishmael/IRC_wikichat_20120613c

I've got a few action items that I need to process as soon as I can. My overall conclusions about the 5 topics on the agenda are: - ITEM1: we (ArenaNet) needs to follow up on these requests; - ITEM2: no questions/issues, a draft of the legal text under the edit box will be circulated; - ITEM3: everyone very happy (some follow up questions about font, currently under discussion); - ITEM4: we agreed to start discussing this (see link below); - ITEM5: I think there was not strong support for this, it's definitely a low priority request (see follow-up link below).

Two follow-up discussions were created, please free to participate (after having read the chat logs):

• gw2:Talk:List_of_fansites#ArenaNet.27s_input
• gw2:Guild_Wars_2_Wiki_talk:Community_portal#GW2W_for_mobile

Overall the WikiChat is definitely something that I'd like to do again. I may propose only two sesions (morning, afternoon, PDT times) if the idea works for most of the people. I'd also like to try something different from IRC next time to see whether more people can show up (I don't think that the relatively low number of participants was a bad thing).

Feel free to leave your questions or comments on the talkpage. Thanks again to everyone who participated in this first WikiChat.

First WikiChat on June 13 - June 7, 2012

Hello everyone,

Now that the one-week discussion period on my previous news is over, I'd like to propose that move ahead with the first "WikiChat".

1) Date and time

We'll meet on Wednesday 13 June and will have 3 discussions, all on the same agenda so that everyone has an opportunity to comment (whatever the time zone). The first 30 minutes of each discussion is for the Guild Wars Wiki community, the next 30 minutes are for the Guild Wars 2 Wiki community.

Times are:

• 10AM - 11AM PDT (19h - 20h CEST)
• 1PM - 2PM PDT (22h - 23h CEST)
• 5PM - 6PM PDT (2h - 3h CEST, next day)

2) IRC instructions

The discussions will take place on the #gw2wMeetings channel on the Gamesurge IRC server. It's actually very easy to log in from any browser, just go to this page: http://webchat.gamesurge.net/

You could just type in a Nickname and enter "gw2wMeetings" in the "Channels" field, then type on the "Connect" button to be in the chat room. However your host name will be used to display information about you and I strongly advise against you doing this. The alternative is simply to create an account on the gamesurge server, please see instructions below (I'll advise you to do this well in advance): https://gamesurge.net/newuser/

We can always discuss details of this on my talkpage. If people think that it's too much trouble for a WikiChat, I can try to work on simpler alternative. And if this does not work, we could always try to do this on a wikipage. (but feedback from my initial news seemed to indicate that IRC was ok)

3) Agenda

This agenda is assymetrical, leaning more towards the activities on the GW2 Wiki, but this will give more time to discuss those on the Guild Wars Wiki.

• ITEM1: Status of administrative requests

See Guild_Wars_Wiki:Requests_for_technical_administration and gw2:Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:Requests_for_technical_administration

• ITEM2: About the few legal questions that were asked

See Feedback_talk:Stephane_Lo_Presti#Copyrights, gw2:Guild_Wars_2_Wiki_talk:Community_portal#Copyright_text and gw2:User_talk:Stephane_Lo_Presti#Non-English_wiki_support.3F

• ITEM3: GW2 Wiki interface redesign

See gw2:Talk:Main_Page/editcopy#Implemented

• ITEM4: List of fansites

The current list of GW2 gw2:Fansites has been trimmed down but I'd like to discuss the possibility to take a new route, which would include us linking to this list from our sites.

• ITEM5: Mobile version of our wikis

Someone mentioned installing an extension to make the wiki easier to access from mobile/smartphones and I'd like to assess whether: 1) there's a lot of people interested; and 2) there are major arguments AGAINST it. (This is by the way not an acknowledgement that we'll be doing that or that we're working on related projects, please no second-guessing ^^)

4) Let me know if you have questions, comments or suggestions!

Thanks and I hope that the WikiChat will be the great opportunity to talk to you "face to face"!

(also, wishing you a great Beta Weekend Event 2 if you're playing ^^)

Meeting with the wiki community - May 31, 2012

Hello everyone,

Now that we released the brand new German and French wikis, I'd like to spend some time with the GW and GW2 wiki community. I'd like to propose that we meet on an IRC channel for a quick chat about the few important topics I've got on my list (status of administrative requests, a few legal questions that were asked, interface redesign, etc.). I'd prefer to use this method rather than set up a page and have a long discussion so as to keep the focus on the topics at hand and simplify the process of decision making.

The basic format of the chat I'm proposing is the following: have 3 discussions at 9:30AM PDT (18h30 CEST), 1PM PDT (22h CEST) and 5PM PDT (2h CEST, next day), ideally on a Wednesday (June 13 if possible). This would happen on an IRC channel I've reserved for the occasion and I'd give precise details on how to do this. Note that this would not require any special program, it'd use this website. I'm thinking of inviting both wikis to these discussions, let me know if separate meetings make more sense.

Since it's a first, I'm going to give the community a week to discuss this idea on my talkpage. Take it as if it was a wiki page: everything can be edited in this proposal, well almost since we still need to make this happen, one way or another. ^^ Feel free to contribute constructively to the discussion here:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback_talk:Stephane_Lo_Presti#Meeting_with_the_wiki_community

Thanks and I hope to get in touch with many of you soon! Stéphane

Content of the GuildWars.com websites - March 12, 2012

Hi everyone,

We've just announced the launch of the redesigned guildwars.com website.

We'd like you to know that much of the old content on all versions of the GuildWars.com websites (that is: www/eu/de/fr/es/it.guildwars.com) will be deleted once the new website is launched by the end of March.

We thought we’d give the wiki community some advance notice regarding the retirement of this legacy content so that those who are interested have the opportunity to archive the material if they wish.

Thanks.

Happy New Year 2012

Hello to all the wiki-ers, Whether you're from GWW or GW2W,

I'd like to wish you a very happy New Year. I hope we can continue to do excellent work together!

Thanks for being fantastic fans and growing (or shrinking ;) the wikis every day.

Stéphane.

Summary of the Community Open House by Tanetris - Monday, July 18, 2011

Tanetris wrote a very nice and personal summary of his experience at the Community Open House, don't miss the chance to read it now ^^

Tanetris' Community Open House experience

Network maintenance on Thursday July 7 2011 - Wednesday, July 06, 2011

On Thursday July 7 2011, we're going to conduct a network maintenance at 5 AM PDT (7 AM CDT / 8 AM EDT / 12 PM GMT). We expect the work to take up to 2 hours. Guild Wars, the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 website and wikis could be affected by the maintenance, including possible disconnections and login errors from the game.

• Start time: Thursday July 7 2011, 5:00 am PDT (7 AM CDT / 8 AM EDT / 12 PM GMT)
• End time: Thursday July 7 2011, 7:00 am PDT (9 AM CDT / 10 AM EDT / 2 PM GMT)
• Impact Duration: Two hours, intermittent

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and we thank you for your patience and understanding.

Guild Wars Wikis and the Guild Wars Support Forums - Monday, June 20, 2011

Hi everyone,

With now the Guild Wars Support Forums officially announced, I would like to talk about a few related topics. There are a few pages on the Guild Wars Wiki that are or may now be irrelevant because of our rolling out of the Guild Wars Support Forums. For some pages, we've got a clear idea of what should happen and will propose several actions to the wiki community, while for some it's up to the wiki community to ultimately decide what will happen. So here's the list:

1. The Feedback rules
   The sections on "Support" and "Bug report" should be modified to reflect the changes below. [1]
   
   
2. Bugs on the Feedback portal
   All the bug pages should progressively be closed, in favor of the Game Bugs sub-forum on the Guild Wars Support Forums, with the exception of the Localization bugs (see below). The current list of bugs should stay on the wiki and not be migrated to the Guild Wars Support Forums. [2]
   
   
3. Game Suggestions and Localization bugs
   These pages of the Feedback portal should stay as they are on the wiki.
   
   
4. Gaile Gray’s support pages
   Gaile Gray is our Support Liaison at ArenaNet and maintains two wikipages: Support FAQ and Support issues. She will modify these pages, when appropriate, to point to the relevant parts of the Guild Wars Support Forums.
   
   
5. Ask an account question and Game-content questions
   For these pages, it's up to the wiki community to decide whether you want to keep the pages, or redirect to the Guild Wars Support Forums (possibly summarising the existing content in a FAQ). [3]
   
   
6. GWW Bugs and GW2W Bugs
   These will stay on the respective wikis and I'll continue to monitor them. However we will encourage people to report any significant wiki-related problem on the Guild Wars Support Forums, e.g., the wikis being down or not working.
   
   
7. We're also proposing to add a new Suggestions page on the wiki about the Guild Wars Support Forums. [4]

Feel free to post your feedback on these various points on my talkpage, or let me know if I forgot anything. I'm going to be in touch with the wiki community to plan our next moves on actions [1], [2], [3] and [4]. Thanks!

Wiki maintenance window, no downtime expected - Tuesday, June 14, 2011

On Wednesday June 15th 2011, we're going to upgrade the DPL extension to a recent version on the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 wikis at 8 AM PDT (10 AM CDT / 11 AM EDT / 3 PM GMT), to fix the problems caused by the recent MediaWiki update. This maintenance shouldn't cause any major downtime but we'll be monitoring the situation closely.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience and understanding.

Wiki maintenance - Monday, June 6, 2011

On Tuesday June 7th 2011, we're going to run a scheduled maintenance on the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 wikis at 8 AM PDT (10 AM CDT / 11 AM EDT / 3 PM GMT). This maintenance should run for about 1 hour.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and we thank you for your patience and understanding.

Wiki maintenance - Friday, May 27, 2011

On Tuesday May 31st 2011, we're going to run a scheduled maintenance on the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 wikis to update the MediaWiki software, starting at 8:00 AM PDT (3:00 PM GMT). The estimated downtime is approximately two hours. During this time, the wikis will not be available.

We'll upgrade MediaWiki to version 1.16.5, install the ReCaptcha extension, put a new logo on the Guild Wars 2 wiki, plus a few other tweaks.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and we thank you for your patience and understanding.

Call for opinions on four topics - Tuesday, April 19, 2011

There are 4 topics that I'd like to discuss with the wiki community (I use "wiki community" to point to the users of both wikis, although I'm using GWW to host my page solely because it's easier for me to manage). So here are some links of where the action is:

- topic 1: A new logo for GW2W, although we should be close to finished with this one;

- topic 2: A new background picture for GW2W;

- topic 3: Reorganizing the feedback space, I'm reading through this and will soon attempt to push for a consensus;

- topic 4: as a subtopic of topic 3, I'd like to ask whether (and, if so, how) we should move the GW2 Game suggestions from GWW to GW2W. UPDATE: this topic is probably on hold until a later date as it looks like there are deeper issues (technical, license) underneath.

Feel free to contribute on the relevant discussions and propose how to move forward each of these 4 topics.

Thanks and ttys!

Wiki maintenance - POSTPONED - Thursday, April 13, 2011

UPDATE: Ok, it seems that our asura technicians found a cog in the machine that requires further work. So the maintenance announced below is postponed to a later date, which we'll announce here, on the wikis and on the MOTD.

On Thursday April 14th 2011, we're going to run a scheduled maintenance on the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 wikis to update the MediaWiki software, starting at 8:00 AM PST (3:00 PM GMT). The estimated downtime is approximately three hours. During this time, the wikis will not be available.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and we thank you for your patience and understanding.

New Role on the wiki - Thursday, February 24, 2011

Hello everyone ^^

I am happy to inform you that, from now on, I'll be monitoring the wiki-related requests of the wiki community and relaying them to the studio, and in particular to the technical team handling the wiki. My focus will be on the technical requests which concern administrative elements of the wiki, as well as general availability and performance of the wiki. I'll use the relevant wiki pages to assess the situation, and in particular the page on wiki bugs that you can edit to report these kinds of issues.

However I will not take care of game-related requests. It doesn't mean that I won't from time to time participate to discussions, but it's not going to be my main focus. Here are a few links with regard to game-related issues which you should primarily use, if you don't already know them:

• The Support page of the Guild Wars website contains all the main links, including how to contact our Support team;
• To report feedback about various aspects of the game, including Support Issues, please use the relevant section of the feedback portal;
• Last, but not the least, you can talk to other fans on one of the Guild Wars fansites, see this list.

One important thing to note: as French Community Manager, I maintain some pages in French (and they're labeled accordingly). I'll kindly ask all the players to talk on the the labeled pages in the relevant language, so that everyone can talk in only one language.

As a first "visible" modification to wiki, I'll ask that the Guild Wars 2 logo on the GW2 wiki is updated with the correct picture. ^^ I'm also talking to our team about the technical administration.

Thanks a lot to all the wiki contributors who meticulously collect data about our games day-in and day-out to build this comprehensive wiki for all to use. We really value your contributions to our games and wish to establish a strong relationship with this part of the Guild Wars community!

Cheers,
Stephane Lo Presti talk 23:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
ArenaNet French Community Manager