Thank for the quick responses on this, guys.

Deep, I know most won't be interested in the older squadrons. The pages are very outdated, but I feel we should at least honor the contributions that got us to the point we are today. I'll be proposing a formal outline in the next few days to show what I am ultimately planning for that. And it's also good for new recruits to see the changes we've gone through over the years; why we're a notch above the rest of the clubs in existence.

Avvie, thanks for that clarification. Not sure if finding a formal date is possible, but I will be looking.

As for the matter regarding Dunny's actions... I personally think it should be NHC's decision on how to handle the Chlovi wiki page. I'm not sure if there's anything else he tampered with as of yet.

Sounds good, Trick. I'll PM a few details on the page I'm drafting up that sparked this little deliberation a bit later tonight.

Until then, we wait for Serpent for the decisions regarding Chlovi's existence and wiki page.

I've gone ahead and undone his change. It was one click, but feel free to overrule me if we feel Chlovi needs to be swept into a shadowy corner

Edit: Frankly, he is not the only one who worked on Chlovi and just as I'd not expect it of DeepSix to destroy Vornskr's wiki page (even though Vornskr has solely been him) I don't think it's right for anyone to be able to effectively erase something more than just one selfish SCO has contributed to.

To the extent Chlovi is concerned, I think it best for any unpleasantness to be left out and we implement a type of FTB - fade to black - note at the end.

I.E. After their actions in Counterpunch, Chlovi-Cat Squadron was closed due to VEN-wide changes.

The rest of this wiki idea looks intriguing, albeit outside of my domain.

/me blows some dust off this

I'm assuming, looking at the Blade Wing wiki page, that it was never updated. I'm going to update the things pertaining to Strill, and leave the rest untouched, as Fishhead's post was never answered.

Also, I had an idea, as dangerous as that may sound. The Navy character template does not show what certification each person has passed. There is space for it, however. For example, my wiki page says this:

OOC:

Naval Certifications
First Certification
Cert 1.1:   
Ace 1.gif - Experienced Pilot
Cert 1.2:   
Ace 2.gif - Elite Pilot
Cert 1.3:   
Ace 3.gif - Top Gun

Whilst it is not essential, and it is fairly obvious what one is studying for, I feel as though it would be nice to at least give the option to show what cert is which.

Thoughts?

Oh. And forgot about the Blade Wing stuff.

I talked to Deep a while back and I'm waiting on Serpywerpy to finalize some details before I update those pages...

I think Gurlanin means the certification section of the infobox, where you show your certs. Note that there's no title, only a name for each tier - not the overall cert.

Oh... To circumvent the lack of indication of what cert has been passed, I typically put an "achieved" or "not yet achieved" comment to the right of the cert...

And as to the info box having no title for each cert track... That's very easy to fix, which does sound like a great idea.

As long as you didn't save the changes, no worries...

I've had experience with creating and modifying templates. But this change should probably go through NHC first, as it would require most everyone to alter their pages... I'll contact them as soon as I get back from class today unless someone comments here and gives me approval to modify the hybrid table regarding the cert section.

Honestly, I don't see the big deal... the present table allows plenty of flexibility, no?  Gurlanin, take a look at the table on my wiki page (access through signature): it's clear, isn't it?

Whoa!  Do not fear the Admiral title! 

I'm not attacking; I just wanted more insight as to what, specifically, you saw as lacking, from the current system.    I'm amenable to suggestions!  I just often need some hand-holding, to see the necessity of making changes. 

Okay. That escalated quickly.

Trick, to clear things up, this is our current table, yes?



What Gur is talking about is adding a row below the "xth certification" row.

I see where he's coming from. Looking at the certifications themselves, it's obvious which track is being shown. But a quick glance, especially for newer recruits, it's not as quickly identified, perhaps.

Plus, there is the "SCTP" column. A specific cert listed. It might flow better if it utilizes the same type of formatting, being adding in a row to specifically show which certification track it is.

Does that help in explaining this? It's a very minor edit, not necessarily needed, but it could end up being useful.

Assuming I recall correctly, using a variable instead of the actual text would create the table but only weird brackets would show up in place of the text in that specific column. That's easily solved by filling in the certs in question but that would imply knowing from the very start all 4 certs you can currently take, and I doubt everyone will stick to such plans for such a relatively long period of time. I'm mentioning this because it could be used as a con to such an implementation. Then again if someone can implement it by finding a way around this small issue then awesome! If not, I think the only other choice is personalized templates. At least that's what I went with in order to accomplish a somewhat similar goal...

Ah, very interesting topic. (I originally created the template for the Certifications.) I'm totally open to suggestions for improvements, just as Trick is, but I do want to explain some of the thought that went into how the template is currently designed.

First, as a point of reference, the Certifications system was always meant to be organic by nature so that new Certs could be developed and implemented with a minimum of fuss (especially given how few people can code these things).

As I understand it from a quick read-through, one of the main ideas that's been expressed is that every Cert should have a pre-dedicated section that maybe just won't appear if that Cert isn't in use. That's great as far as it goes, but it does necessitate another update of the template when, at some point, the system is updated or expanded. It’s also a good bit of work and data intensive.

The other main idea I picked up on was having it so that the Certification's name appears in the header box or in a secondary header box that would go directly above the stages. This is pretty doable, and if that's the direction everyone wants to go I'd be happy to edit the template (I figure it will be easiest for me to do it, since I already understand it).

As an overall note regarding template design, the primary theory behind how I've built my last several templates for the VE is to balance appearance with streamlined format. Everyone wants good looking templates, obviously, but the streamlined format side of that isn’t as obvious unless you’ve spent a lot of time playing with these things. The wiki has a recommended limit on how big a page can get, which is 32 kb. It’s not a hard line by any means (Bacredi’s page, for example, is 219 kbs) but there is the possibility that a large page may not load for someone with an old or weak computer- or possibly even become a burden on the admittedly geriatric (read: old) wiki itself. Templates, by their nature, are pretty data heavy as page components go. Thus it’s a good idea to make templates as modular as possible. It puts a bit more responsibility on the person building the page, but it’s better for the page’s and the wiki’s performance.

Edit: Also, a brief explanation on why the Ship Captaincy cert is specifically broken out: It's due to the design of the Certifications system itself. Basically, one of these things is not like the others. If you check out the Naval Certifications wiki page itself, you'll see that the Ship Captaincy cert actually isn't even mentioned...which is an actual oversight that I need to fix. Whoops. Anyway...the point is that the other Certifications are "earned" based on rank while this one is not. Therefore I felt it merited its own section during the creation of the template.

Final Note: I think I'll take a look at this system overall, if Trykon's willing. It's high time that it get a re-evaluation and possible revamp. In the short term, at least, the Bridge Officer Cert may need to be shut down. We've naturally developed a good, working system for that outside the Certs system and the two don't need to be interfering with each other.

-Drac

Two Mon Calamari working in concert.. I feel there's something fishy going on.