Template talk:ModActorImage

Missing "Link" parameter

On a few image pages a "Link" paramter is used, such as File:XkyAndroidDummy.png ("Link = Android Dummy (Keen X)") and File:XkyTankBot.png ("Link = Tank Bot (Keen X)"). However, the paramter doesn't exist in the template's code. On the Episode X page, the Android Dummy link points to the Keen 3 Android Dummy rather than the XkyKeen1 one. And there is no link for the Tank Bot at all. Could this be fixed? --Grandy02 (talk) 12:51, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

This is intentional! To avoid having a thousands of tiny pages, it was decided some time ago that actors from fan-made mods should not have their own page - they should have all the relevant info on the single page for the mod itself. If we add a Link option, that will just encourage people to create more pages! If you find any pages for mod actors, it would be great if you could move the content back to the mod's main page. We do make some exceptions for "notable" mods, however it would probably be better if we treated all mods the same way, sticking to one page each. -- Malvineous (talk) 04:21, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Aha, thanks, I was not aware of that. Well, there are more than 200 "Mod Monster" pages at the moment. Very short ones like Doblu or Alte, but also longer ones such as Moley or Krodacian. How to decide which mods are "notable"? And what about articles for individual mod levels and items? --Grandy02 (talk) 18:33, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

If I had the time I would be deleting all those "Mod Monster" pages and moving the content back to the main mod article page. The two short ones are a great example of why, and Krodacian is borderline - things like the help text don't really belong there (you can download the mod to read it, that's part of the experience). "Notable" is a difficult one to define (see Wikipedia's definition) however Krodacian could stand because the mods involving them are so well known. But I would personally still delete the page and transfer the content, to avoid people asking "why can't my mod have its own pages for each actor", which is a pretty fair question.

The levels are a bit more complicated. Because they can often assist people who are stuck, uploading images of the full levels is encouraged. Giving them their own page is, again, something I consider unnecessary as it doesn't add much value to the mod by doing so. Again it probably comes back to the size of the page - if there is a lot of useful information then a dedicated page is probably fair, but if there's not much meaningful content then I think the articles should be deleted and the information moved back to the mod page.

As always, I am happy to be persuaded to do things differently if there are good enough reasons for doing so, so if you think this should change feel free to explain why. I think my biggest issue is that I don't like the way the mod pages pollute the main wiki namespace, where all the pages are for the official games. If the actor/level pages were created as subpages of the mod itself then I probably wouldn't have so much of an issue with them. -- Malvineous (talk) 10:07, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

"Link" parameter for replacement info

Would it be possible to have a "Link" parameter for the name next to "replacement"? For example, in the article The Perilous Pursuit I'd like to have the term "Ice Cannon" rather than "Keen 1 Hazards" under "Shocky". --Grandy02 (talk) 15:01, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Unnamed Actors

So, in the past, when I upload an image of an unnamed actor, I name them "(Name of mod) Actor". However though, I thought of using the name "Unnamed Actor" or something like that instead. What do you people think? Quinton (talk) 20:34, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Not sure what you're aiming at. If you could, please be a little bit more specific about what you have in mind.

-- Nisaba (talk) 14:38, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay, so not all actors have names available. When I use ActorImage on such actors, I name them with the name of the mod followed by "Actor". Look at the Garg replacement of The Four Golden Crystals or the Skypest and Bounder replacements of XkyKeen4, and you'll see what I mean. However though, I wonder if there's an alternative that would be better; I've been thinking of something like "Unnamed Actor" or "(unnamed)". I'd like to get this figured out before I upload images of the unnamed actors from Episode Y. Hopefully this makes much more sense to you now! Quinton (talk) 20:00, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I have to admit that I added names for a few unnamed actors based on their appearance. More specifically for actors from the mods Lego Keen (the two "Bricks") and Bad Dreams ("Hopping Candy Cane" and "Walking Marshmallow"). Should these names be changed? --Grandy02 (talk) 14:42, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

@Quinton, your objections seem reasonable to me. I agree with you that we should be equally consistent with unnamed actors/objects/items and the like. "Unnamed actor" seems to be the right description IMO.

--Nisaba (talk) 09:02, 14 March 2023 (GMT)

Yeah, "Unnamed actor" sounds good to me too. It might be possible to make it so that Template:ModActorImage will display "Unnamed actor" if the name field is left blank. Quinton (talk) 09:32, 14 March 2023 (GMT)

This would indeed be ideal.

--Nisaba (talk) 10:05, 14 March 2023 (GMT)

Well, I tried to see if I could do that, and I kinda did it, but at the same time it wasn't quite all successful. So, if you leave the name field in an actor's image blank, you'll now see Unnamed actor in place of the name (see example). The problem, however, is that it won't show up in the actors list in its respective mod page. So, for now, I decided to put back in the name field and replace the names "<name of mod> Actor" with "Unnamed actor" for some of our mod actor images (see example). That way, we can at least use the mass editing tool more easily if needed, like if we wanted to change the "Unnamed actor" thing or remove it. My only problem right now is that the unnamed actors are listed before the ones with proper names; I feel like it should be the other way around if possible. Any changes to these actors templates, however, is perhaps beyond my technical knowledge and thus someone else may have to do them instead (like Malv, maybe). Any thoughts so far? Quinton (talk) 06:46, 17 March 2023 (GMT)

Have you spoken to Malvineous about this? He might have a solution for this issue.

-- Nisaba (talk) 10:29, 30 August 2023 (GMT)

I think I might have gotten it to work - have a look and see what you think. I used File:XkyK4 Poison Slug.png as my test case and it seems to show properly on XkyKeen4. -- Malvineous (talk) 14:42, 8 March 2024 (GMT)

The sort order might still need some work. Have a look at the docs and play around with Template:ModActorList. I added a preview to that template page, so you can mess with the query and use the preview button to see your results, without having to save the page permanently until you're happy with the result. It seems that if you include the main actor name in the sort order (as it was originally), it causes actors without a name to disappear. -- Malvineous (talk) 14:47, 8 March 2024 (GMT)

I removed the name field from all actors that were named "Unnamed actor" and it seems to work well. However though, sorting the actors by who they're replacing appears to remove those who don't have a replacement listed. This includes actors that don't replace anyone but were instead patched into the game (e.g. the Store Robot from Keen 2 Gold Edition). I'm starting to wonder if it really is worth having a default actor name... it'd be easier to just fill the name field with "Unnamed actor" (or even "(unnamed actor)") like it was before, wouldn't it? Quinton (talk) 11:07, 9 March 2024 (GMT)

I think the problem is that Semantic MediaWiki needs the field to be present in order for the query to work. Rather than display the name exactly as is, it might work better to use something like Name = None and then in the rendering templates replace "None" with the italicised unnamed actor text. Only drawback is that they'd all sort under N for none, same as how before they were sorting under an apostrophe because that was the first character in "Unnamed...".

You could perhaps add {{DEFAULTSORT:xxx}} to Template:ModActorImage to tell it to sort by Name if present, Replacement if not, and something else (like ZZZ) otherwise to put them all at the end. -- Malvineous (talk) 01:17, 10 March 2024 (GMT)

I really like the idea of using {{DEFAULTSORT:xxx}}. Name -> Replacement -> ZZZ seems like a good order to me. I'm not exactly sure on how to implement that DEFAULTSORT thing, though. Nothing on KeenWiki seems to use that. Would you like to implement it, please? Quinton (talk) 18:27, 14 March 2024 (GMT)

Done, but not tested - please test! -- Malvineous (talk) 05:47, 17 March 2024 (GMT)

Eh, it doesn't seem to work. I left the sorting field in Template:ModActorList blank. It seems to work fine when every actor has a name (all sorted by name), but when some actors don't have names (e.g. XkyKeen4), the sorting is all out of whack. I was expecting it to have the named actors listed first, and then the unnamed actors afterwards. Quinton (talk) 06:15, 17 March 2024 (GMT)

Looks fine to me - it picks the name if there is one, or the replacement character if not, and then sorts based on that - XkyKeen4 is sorting: Mad Mushroom, Ozark, Poison Slug, Security Statue, Skypest, etc. If you don't like those rules you can change the DEFAULTSORTORDER to whatever you prefer. -- Malvineous (talk) 07:14, 17 March 2024 (GMT)

Oh, I see now! Now it makes sense! With that in mind, I guess it looks fine. Quinton (talk) 08:34, 17 March 2024 (GMT)