User:Geyser/STFUn00b

On second thought, I'm backing up this discussion for future reference. That way, when another shitstorm threatens, we can save everyone a lot of trouble by linking to User:Geyser/STFUn00b#Moral_closure early on. This page can be used for backing up other topics than the one already covered, like wiki management or OBD knowledge for example. Whatever you do, however, be sure to provide a suitable - concise and explicit - moral closure to the topic: try to put the problem in a nutshell, so that discussions referencing this page can go straight to the point.

geyser 03:37, 28 August 2008 (CEST)

Flag browsers etc

BSL talk

Maybe I'm just stupid, but I downloaded the version of OniMenu from your site, under the Tools folder in the OTA folder. I need to find flags to use for some scripting I need to do to record some video. Urg. Anyway, I successfully used a past version (also labeled 3.0, strangely, but with fewer .bsl files), and I thought that I could put the OniMenu scripts in the global folder, add "func pre" to the main function for each level, and do the reverse-flipping kick and the menu would come up. Has something changed? Also, I may be blind, but I searched the forum and didn't see any recent threads devoted to explaining how to use it, and this wiki has no documentation for OM either.

What's happening when I insert "func pre" is that the level fails to load past the point of that code. I also tried putting the OM scripts right in the "compound" folder (the level I want to browse) but no luck. No enemies, nothing goin' on. I'm probably making a simple mistake but I'm out of ideas. --Iritscen 02:39, 24 August 2008 (CEST)

What I do is run Oni in window mode, then look at the flags listed on the pages found here: http://zdlo.oni2.net/Items/Flags/ and then use chr_teleport 0 flag# to find locations I could use. EdT 03:54, 24 August 2008 (CEST)

Okay, I guess I'll take that approach, although I'd like to find out at some point what I did wrong with OM. Thanks, Ed. --Iritscen 04:46, 24 August 2008 (CEST)

Apart from the global folder not working on the Mac, there should be no problem. If in doubt, provide a snapshot of your IGMD folder. Also consider using the PC version, for which you can use THIS. More generally, I'm looking forward to some follow-up to Talk:Running_PC_versions_of_Oni_on_the_Mac, and I'm curious why you're not using the PC version for recording. --geyser 11:40, 24 August 2008 (CEST)

Lately I've been browsing flags in a simplified manner, by repeatedly entering "my_flag= my_flag+1; chr_teleport(my_flag); chr_facetoflag(my_flag);" from the console and occasionally setting my_flag explicitly (when there are large gaps between flag IDs). Of course during this process I keep an eye on the lists found HERE or HERE. --geyser 11:40, 24 August 2008 (CEST)

Has anyone considered making an OniMenu-type script that actually lists a level's flags with descriptions of their locations in the level? You could drill down the menus, maybe starting with choosing what level's flags to look at if there's no way to find out the current level through BSL, then in a submenu choose the area of the level to go to, then choose the specific spot. In other words, scriptifying ZDLO's flag tables. It seems like a fair amount of work, but it would be easy work, mostly copying and pasting BSL code (wow, that guy in the Bungie West tour video was right, programming is cutting and pasting!; what was his name?).

Re: running Windows Oni, I anticipated having to do that to capture some of the modding work sooner or later, but nothing so far has required doing so; the fact that certain mods, like OTA, are more functional on PC really doesn't matter when all I'm showing in the trailer is a few seconds of mayhem. However, you have pointed out that I completely flaked out and never made a response on the PC Oni on Mac page. My bad, I'll fix that in just a little bit. --Iritscen 16:35, 24 August 2008 (CEST)

choosing what level's flags to look at if there's no way to find out the current level through BSL You're forgetting that the global folder doesn't work on the Mac, and so the menu you suggest would have to be level-folder-resident anyway. and even if it had a global component, flag-related information would just go in level-specific BSL files: the global core wouldn't "detect" the level, it would just load the currently relevant level-specific script (see THIS for an example). --geyser 01:37, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

I suppose your method would work fine. But I wasn't forgetting (this time) that the Mac couldn't do global scripts, I was actually imagining that one monster script would cover all 14 level files' flags, and that single script could get put in each level's folder so the user wouldn't have to worry about matching up a script to each level as part of some 15 folder-spanning network of BSL (plus it makes more work if there's a 1.1 release and they have to replace a 1.0 core script and then all the level-specific scripts (in case the 1.1 core doesn't support the 1.0 level scripts)). It's just more efficient that way. --Iritscen 04:42, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

I was actually imagining that one monster script would cover all 14 level files' flags That would have a chance of overloading the BSL engine, which can only load this much logic at a time. I wouldn't know about the "efficiency" of a moster script, and I'm not sure what the file-buffer limits of BSL are, but it's typically more sound to provide only the logic relevant to the current level. As the designer of OTA, I know what I'm talking about ^_^ --geyser 15:26, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

In other words, scriptifying ZDLO's flag tables. SHORT ATTENTION SPAN ALERT! Didn't I link to THIS above? It actually works on the Mac, except you're not able to read the healthboxes. You can easily make a version where you can review the IDs of the group of flags being shown and cycle through them. --geyser 01:37, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

MISSING MY POINT ALERT. I am now using ZDLO's tables in the way that Ed suggested, but it would be even cooler to meld his grouped, descriptive approach with your OniMenu system so it's all in-game and you can try each flag out by teleporting there. That's what I was saying. Right now OM makes you use an outside flag-number reference and you have to laboriously type in flag numbers by punching and kicking, so my idea is a landmark improvement for modders. That being said, how many people would be using such a script? So I'm not suggesting anyone jump on it. Just thinking out loud (I know you love it when I do that).

P.S.: Healthboxes? What healthboxes? --Iritscen 04:30, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

It seems like a fair amount of work, but it would be easy work, mostly copying and pasting BSL code. That'll be a "no comment" for me. Same for the words of wisdom about the essence of programming... --geyser 01:37, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

I think if anyone ever asks me, "Does geyser have a sense of humor?", I'll use the same response: "No comment." --Iritscen 04:30, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

I am now using ZDLO's tables in the way that Ed suggested You're the one who missed my point. I've been telling you that ZDLO not only wrote up the tables mentioned by Ed, but also came up with a series of menu-like scripts (hosted HERE). Those scripts have a new core tailored for the job, much lighter than OniMenu: a level's flags are displayed one group at a time, roughly following the groups established by ZDLO himself. By design, you don't even have to teleport anywhere, because all the information (every flag's location, facing and ID) is displayed by means of dummy characters: you just walk around and see the info. "Healthboxes? What healthboxes?" - precisely. The ID of the flags is displayed as the health of the dummy characters - this is enabled by ai2_showhealth=1 and takes the form of black text in a white box above every character's head (there is also a health bar extending upwards by 1 world unit for every hitpoint). The only problem is that on the Mac the health box above the characters isn't displayed, so you can not read a flag's ID directly. One workaround is to complement ZDLO's scripts with a mini-flag-browser that works within the currently displayed group of flags. A simpler solution is to list the IDs of the current group of flags, so that the user can explore them with chr_teleport. Finally, someone who can see the healthboxes can take a few screenshots and post them somewhere, as a complement to ZDLO's tables. Along with or instead of ZDLO's scripts, you can also use Neo's OniBrowser, which displays stuff like FLAG or TRGV right in the 3D view of a level. --geyser 15:26, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

how many people would be using such a script? The main point here is that developing such GUI-like tools (the term you use is "landmark improvement for modders") amounts to empowering lamers. A fluent modder typically won't limit himself to the range of flags (or other OBJC) available in the original levels. And if that modder does want to review some original flags, then the available lists, tables and browsers allow him to do so efficiently enough. In that sense, ZDLO's set of flag viewers are a gadget that may seem nifty to the lazy and clueless, but are definitely not a revolution for those who can actually use the knowledge to create great mods - those people know better than to ask or wait for point-and-click nicicles. If anything, they've been using OniBrowser to review that kind of stuff for the past few months... --geyser 15:26, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

---

Shitstorm

Okay, I was totally ignorant of ZDLO's flag browser, so thank you for explaining it. I also didn't realize that PCs could display text above character's heads, but it sure explains this.

Also, you might be interested to know that I figured out why we disagree on the basic idea of making user-friendly modding tools; it came to me in a flash of insight. I'm a Mac and you're a PC. The guiding principle behind the Macintosh was that if you provided a well-designed GUI, creative people could be more creative. It would empower them. For years, even after Windows was released, there were DOS stalwarts who insisted that it was better to have to do the hard work from the command line than to have 'frivolous' things like mice and windows. Even though no one still adheres to the command-line-is-better school of thought, that way of thinking has a hold on many of the technically-smart Windows users to this day. Once a person switches to Mac, they realize that making basic UI tasks intuitive, and making multimedia work easier encourages the user to actually be creative. There's no need to pull oneself over a technical hurdle like, say, using OniSplit from the command line (and oddly enough, you seem to support the idea of a GUI for OniSplit) in order to get things done so it's easier to let your initial enthusiasm carry over instead of getting mired in stuff that should be behind the scenes. A recent exchange from the forum (names have been changed to protect the innocent):

OniVirgin: I think I should add some new moves to Yosemite Sam because he doesn't have as many moves as other characters.

Burt: OniVirgin: You might be interested in this page: http://wiki.oni2.net/OBD_talk:TRAM.

OniVirgin: That page looks useful. But... my new semester is coming and I must focus on my study. Maybe other time I can modify it...

What happened here? Our new and enthusiastic modder is thrown off by having to absorb 10 screenfuls of technical stuff that's not in his native language (and really, who does speak hex fluently? ;-). Now, imagine if we had a visual 3D TRAM editor, or even a GUI for OniSplit that basically said, "What parts of the TRAM do you want to focus on?" and there was a pulldown menu for "knockback", "damage-dealing bones", etc. and it would highlight those in the actual Oni binary data for an animation, and they could type a new decimal value in for damage, or pick a new bone from a popup menu, and the GUI would convert it to hex. That's just a random example of the philosophy of "enabling creativity through user-friendliness", and it's essential to the mindset of anyone who loves Macs. --Iritscen 17:31, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

Iritscen, love_Oni is not a fool: http://oni.bungie.org/community/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=9103#p9103. He may not be the best modder out there (like anyone is just starting out), but he is not an "OniVirgin" who is put off by a hex editor. At one point or another most of the modding community is "Busy" for one reason or another with real life.

1. Do you know how much of a pain in the arse it is to create a good GUI?
2. Is it really worth it to spend the time required to make such a GUI? There aren't even a dozen modders at this point, and most of them are at the point where they don't need a GUI (Unless you count OUP as a GUI, but it is really only a glorified hex editor). Would the time spent on creating a superb GUI be more than the time that it would save for the people who use the GUI?
3. Running Onisplit is not a "technical hurdle". "Onisplit.exe -import:nosep *copy* *paste* *copy* *paste*". There, I'm done. If I need to do the same action again, I can just hit the up arrow. In the end, I think hex editing through OUP and doing things the "hard way" actually enables more creativity. You learn exactly how things work out. If I need to make a small change, it takes me about 20 seconds to open up OUP and do it. If I need to make a large change, I can export the file to .xml through Onisplit and do changes there. For many things, the level recombining (level0) is the longest part. A GUI would not speed that up!!
4. Back on topic: What kind of GUI would you create for a simple flag browser anyways?! What we have seems about as good as it is going to get. (And you can run the Windows version through Bootcamp anyways. Why aren't you?) Gumby 18:55, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

0. I never called love_Oni a fool, that was your choice of wording. I respect love_Oni's intelligence, but he is a "virgin" to many aspects of Oni modding (I am too in some areas, but this was a matter of providing a real-life example and it just so happened that I saw a post that fit my needs; was it necessary to point out to geyser, who doesn't browse the forum, who I was actually quoting?). Also, "Virgin" was a pun on his adoration for Madonna. I can assure you that he is not alone in being put off by having to dedicate to memory the material on the TRAM page. That's stuff that should be turned into an intuitive program so end-users don't need to know it.

1. No, I don't. It doesn't seem that hard to me.

2. I've already explained my views on this so I won't bother repeating anything, except to say that there might very well be more modders if we had a GUI. Why are you pissed at me when I already acknowledged that there weren't many modders who would use the tool? I was the one who said that first.

3. Making changes via a command line and XML bloody well is a technical hurdle. Why was the GUI invented, otherwise? No disrespect meant to Neo, who I think is awesome. He's like the frontline hacker who publishes his discoveries, and then others start from where he leaves off to bring his hard work to the masses.

3.5 "doing things the "hard way" actually enables more creativity" Crap, did I call this one, or what, geyser? Some people are impervious to progress, it seems.

4. Huh? I already outlined what I would do for a flag browser, then I found out that ZDLO has already done it. End of story.

Sorry, spoke too soon. ZDLO just cut-and-pasted (there it is again!) the code geyser wrote for entering flag numbers. My answer to your question, then, Gumby, as to how I'd design the flag browser was still already answered up top. Let me... cut and paste it! an OniMenu-type script that actually lists a level's flags with descriptions of their locations in the level? You could drill down the menus, maybe starting with choosing what level's flags to look at if there's no way to find out the current level through BSL, then in a submenu choose the area of the level to go to, then choose the specific spot. In other words, scriptifying ZDLO's flag tables.

4.5. "Why aren't you?" But, I am.

P.S.: Mac users are in an inferior modding situation because we can't use every program (OUP, OniBrowser e.g.) that you can. That doesn't mean that Mac users should be expected to do all their Oni work in Windows. But ultimately, why are we having this conversation? Gumby, any GUI that someone wrote for Windows would have to be written by someone else for the Mac, right? So this discussion does not entail any work on your part. Really, at this point, it would fall to Ed (who is already doing related work) and myself to do something nice for Mac users. And perhaps that's just as well, if we're the only ones who appreciate GUIs. I can guarantee that the other Mac users would lap our work up eagerly and modding on our side would outpace the Windows side. For the time being, of course, I can only talk about it because I won't have the time to act until a couple other Oni projects are done. --Iritscen 22:13, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

0. Define end-user? Modder=/=End User. End user is the guy who installs the mod. If you are making a mod, you should know what you are doing. Modding isn't for the lazy.

1. Then don't complain about not having one. Make it yourself.

2. Because it is easier to fine tune things with hex and a command line program. "You can't do everything in point and click apps".

3. Making a GUI for editing every single part of Oni is also a technical hurdle. :)

3.5 See point 2. Unless the same guy who makes the underlying program makes the GUI (not true here), the GUI's features will not mirror the program's features. And at some point, the program will have more features than will properly fit on a GUI. See point 1. This will either lead to a messy\unfriendly GUI (bad), or a GUI with features removed (also bad). Gumby 22:45, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

0. The modder is the end-user of the mod-making process, just not the mod-using process. And modding should be available for the lazy. I demand a retraction of your statement :-) Seriously, though, just because someone wants to "mod", that term could mean anything from changing one parameter of one TRAM, to making a whole new scenario. So is it worth it to learn all these technicalities when you just want to mod small-time stuff? Arguably not, with the way things are right now. But here's the point I want you to remember: I agree with the stetement "If you are making a mod, you should know what you are doing." But only if you define "what you are doing" as "how to make quality modifications to the game", not your apparent definition of "what the changes you make are doing at the hex level". My definition focuses on the creative skill of the modder, yours focuses on the ability of the modder to learn nerdy geek stuff; I still maintain that those are almost opposite skills. Once again, this is the whole point of the GUI; to not know what you are doing at the lower level of the OS as long as it produces reliable results at the upper level. Many OS X users couldn't care less about the Unix layer of the OS, and the beautiful thing is, they don't have to.

1. Well, maybe I will *sticks out lower lip poutily*. But as I indicated, that's gotta come after the trailer and the HD models. I think that if I find a compelling way to present a total Oni-modding package as a GUI, you'll come around to my way of thinking soon enough and want a Windows version :-)

2. If I knew what you meant by "fine tune", I would respond to this, but I don't, so I won't. :-p But whatever you mean, I probably don't agree. :-P x 2

3. Yes, quite true. But it's only a hurdle for one or two people who have to make the tool, as opposed to every single person who comes along wanting to mod that has to learn hex and endians. If you question the act of programming an interface because it's "hard", you call into question millions of dollars of software that's sold every year and decades of common practice. I'm sure that's not what you intend to say.

P.S.: I genuinely want to apologize for spamming geyser's page with this stuff; it all started with an innocent question about OniMenu and just snowballed from there. The basic problem I have is that I keep thinking for some dumb reason that if I suggest something, others might actually agree with me and do the work I described. Instead it looks like I can only see something done that I think should be done if I do it myself. Talking about it beforehand only makes unnecessary arguments. I'm starting to see that now. --Iritscen 23:32, 25 August 2008 (CEST)

Ok, I am quickly tiring of this argument, it isn't going anywhere.

Might I add that this is not the software industry where millions of dollars are made every year? This is a roughly open modding project, where nobody gets paid. If anything, the project on the whole loses money due to webspace costs (thank Alloc for keeping oni2 up) and time that could be spent doing other things. :) Gumby 00:21, 26 August 2008 (CEST)

---

Moral closure

PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY

Thanks everybody, and special thanks to Iritscen who started this, er, whatever it is: for the sake of the argument, let's not call it a flame war. Overlooking the existing flag-browsing tools was forgivable, but the generalization that followed annoyed me deeply, all the more as it gravitated to the infamous "wouldn't it be cool if modding was at every fanboy's fingertips" topic, with brief excursions into PC-VS-Mac territory. I hated every bit of it (including my own comment on the matter), and I will be deleting this whole section in a short while.

If I wanted to participate in the debate or give it some sort of moral closure, I could say things like:

"Oni's models, levels and animations were done in 3D Studio Max and AutoCAD, and Windows at that time was nowhere close to today's OS environments - OS X or Vista or Ubuntu or whatever - in terms of point-and-clickety-friendliness..."

or:

"Speaking of AutoCAD - a highly professional tool if there ever was one - did you know it is mostly operated through a command-line interface? Another contemporary 3D application that features a command-line is Softimage|XSI - used among others by the creators of Half-Life 2... and by certain fluent Oni modders."

or:

"Creative people are creative no matter what the OS or GUIs at their disposal, and have always been. If this is not the case today, then our potential creators have been swallowed by the point-and-click generation, and we're pretty much screwed."

or:

"If a modder's idea of upper-level modding is messing around with Oni's animation system one parameter at a time, that modder probably sucks really bad. Hordes of such people picking at Oni by means of an ideal GUI is not a pleasant perspective. Or is it?"

or, making things slightly more personal:

"If you think you're the one who'll bring that ideal GUI to the community - note that this typically requires low-level thinking rather than point-and-click enthusiasm - by all means don't talk of it "beforehand" - that little word actually doesn't make any sense in the absence of subsequent delivery. We'll see about awesome in due time, but why doncha produce something that doesn't suck, first?"

and:

"If you're in fact trying to hype other people into designing the ideal GUI, I assure you that those other people all understand the amount of programming work and raw binary knowledge that was put into OniTools and OniSplit/OniBrowser, and they also understand the appeal and potential of future developments of Oni modding (no thanks to you). Thus, making levels and animations conveniently moddable are Neo's top priorities on planet Oni ATM, thanks for asking."

But since all I want is get this over with, I'll just say these few things to Iritscen:

You are making a reasonably good point in your diatribes, which is that complex entities such as animations and geometry should be authored in a GUI environment rather than in raw hex. OK... That kind of trivial statement is damn hard to disagree with: likewise, it doesn't take a Male Scientist to know that I, geyser, wouldn't spit in the face of the one who'd hand me the equivalent of Bungie West's authoring pipeline on a silver platter; a set of modding tools reasonably close to what Oni's developers were using can't be bad, now can it?

Why aren't we agreeing with you, then? Sure your point is trivial, but we could at least give you a half-hearted "Yeah, you're right... I guess" - and we probably would... But then you go and bury your one trivial point in a landslide of rhetorics, sarcasm and verbal onanism, and to make things worse you consistently shove the obvious in our faces as if it was an all-new initiative of yours. That's typically the situation where I'm no longer in a position to agree, and all I feel like saying is STFUn00b.

Probably that "initiative hi-jacking" I mentioned is just part of your hey-mom-look-I'm-a-developer act, and I can try and turn a blind eye on it; after all, I used to be like that too. However, what I can hardly understand or tolerate is that you never drop your high-level end-user philosophy even when you're talking about programming. To focus on the GUI is OK for a salesman or consultant or beta tester, but if you're serious about that developer hat of yours, you have to get down to earth from time to time. Development is work. Modding is not for the lazy/clueless, and programming even less so. A GUI for Oni modding is everything but abstract, so you can forget all the guru talk you've picked up in computer science shool or wherever: you're interfacing with real-world data structures; you're doing 3D graphics; you're generating content for engines and tools that you didn't code yourself: you need to think on the low level and to pay elementary attention to every single thing you see or do. So it's OK to be a point-and-click enthusiast, but I assure you: you have to drop that enthusiasm a bit and pick up something else before you can actually sit down and code the point-and-clickety GUI you're dreaming of right now.

P.S. "ZDLO just cut-and-pasted (there it is again!) the code geyser wrote for entering flag numbers." You couldn't be more wrong here, so I think you didn't actually read or test ZDLO's scripts at all. These assumptions of yours are yet another thing that can get an actual programmer very cross, as in STFUn00b again. ZDLO used his own code for the most part, and no, BSL is definitely not about cut-and-pasting. You need flawless attention and awareness, and you better get used to thinking of programming that way.

P.P.S. "geyser, have you ever thought about making the change to an uppercase G? You should totally go for it!" Just because you have nothing to say doesn't mean you should tell me how I should capitalize my nickname. I chose it to be lowercase for several reasons, one of which is a permanent note to self about humility; that one never gets old. Also note that in many circumstances capitalization wins, e.g. here on the wiki (user names are capitalized everywhere except in signatures) or on YouTube. So, STFU forever.

P.P.P.S. This is unrelated to the above, but I have come to a point where I absolutely have to break virtually all contact with Oni, or else I'll never pick up the pieces of my PhD. I'll post an update when I delete this section, but basically that means: read-only access to the wiki at the most, maybe some updates in the form of links to freshly uploaded stuff, and definitely no chat.

geyser 17:54, 26 August 2008 (CEST)

Well, I'll miss our lovely chats, geyser . Obviously I won't spend the time to rebut any of the above accusations since it's going to be erased soon (and I won't miss it). I will just say, re "initiative hijacking", that I am not guilty of that per se, only suggesting something and then finding out someone was already doing it. And you're really daring me to go to town on that Oni modding tool, aren't you? I'm not saying I will, but we'll see what happens when I get to a stage where it's possible. I'd also love to write a manifesto about how programmers usually epically fail at interface design and how they need to think more about the end-user to move the profession forward, but that is really something that, as you point out, I need to demonstrate through action or else shut up about.

P.S.: If you can't tell that my edit summary ("you should totally go for it!") was a blatant and silly trap to provoke your annoyance, which you fell squarely into, then you have my condolences .

P.P.S.: I appreciated your speech on humility that ended with "STFU forever", clearly your plan to stay humble is working. By the way, I'd like to announce that I am changing my name to IRITSCEN.

P.P.P.S: I didn't plan these addendums to match yours in number, but I bet that, even being a coincidence, you find it somehow annoying. I'd just like to say that I hope your whole doctorate thing goes well, if that is indeed the stage you're at. I can hardly say that we're best friends... or even moderate friends... but I think I can call you my worst friend. So I wish you well in your endeavors while you're away. --Iritscen 22:44, 26 August 2008 (CEST)

It's provoking people gratuitously that's sad, not pointing the finger at gratuitous provocations. IMHO.

I didn't ask for any rebuttals. I just asked you to read all of the above carefully, and I hope you have.

"only suggesting something and then finding out" - in our case, that's often an attention span issue.

"I'd also love to write a manifesto about..." - right, as if that hasn't been done before, a dozen times.

"we'll see what happens when I get to a stage where it's possible" I wouldn't have put it better. Bravo.

I wish myself the best of luck, too. As for you, remember to exercise restraint. Think before you act.

geyser 03:37, 28 August 2008 (CEST)

Cherry picking

P.S: ... and what about replacing "serendipity" with "cherry picking"? I think it would be more intuitive. [User:Guido|Guido]] 10:00, 26 October 2008 (CEST)

Well, the meaning of "cherry picking" was really not intuitive to me, so I had to look it up. And it's still not clear to me what exactly it means as applied to this wiki (biased sample? WTF?) or why it's more appropriate than "serendipity". Eventually I meant to replace this with a link to the OniGalore_talk:General_disclaimer, which would be a sort of condensed site map. --geyser 11:10, 26 October 2008 (CET)

It's true that I don't think "cherry picking" is the right phrase to replace "serendipity", but the more important question is what "serendipity" is supposed to mean in the first place. You should be aware that, as fond as you are of "serendipity", geyser, I can confidently say that a lot of native English speakers do not know its meaning, and those who do, like myself, are still at a loss as to what it means when used here. When I first saw that the word was a link, I assumed it would link to Special:Random, not a dictionary definition of the word that still gives it no context....

"a link to the OniGalore_talk:General_disclaimer" o.O ...Come again, geyser? --Iritscen 17:57, 26 October 2008 (CET)

Clicking "Random page" has less to do with serendipity than following intrawiki links. The idea is that beyond a certain amount of cross-linking, the wiki virtually "navigates itself", and allows casual/curious readers to end up in unexpected places, through a set of more or less loose associations with what they were initially interested in. Maybe I'm the only one who reads wikis like this (starting with Wikipedia) and enjoys it... Anyway, "serendipity" in the context of our wiki (casual navigation powered by intralinks) is not meant to be self-explanatory right now. The actual thing that's supposed to be featured on the main page is the disclaimer: I used to link to it without the serendipity label, and I will re:link to it eventually, probably without calling it serendipity either. Thus thee serendipity thing is just a placeholder, or at least you can think of it that way. Of course, you can decide to kill that initiative (and delete the disclaimer while you're at it), but I wouldn't do that, or if I did, I'd expect unexpected retribution. My advice is to ignore everything you can ignore, and I'll do my best to ignore bureau-cats and other uncyclopedic spam that is only funny to certain people while on certain drugs --geyser 22:04, 26 October 2008 (CET)

<sigh>Because the Disclaimers page is so much funnier to such a larger audience :rolleyes:. The fact that you use the words "uncyclopedic spam" simply blows my mind when you were just talking about this page in the same breath. Anyway, what I was trying to ask above was, How is the Disclaimers page in any way connected with your concept of browsing the wiki by serendipity? And don't get jumpy, I never said I was thinking of killing any initiative, I don't attack what I can't even begin to understand :-3. --Iritscen 01:39, 27 October 2008 (CET)

Quite simply, a list of ill side effects is a nice place to start browsing; every ill side effect linking to an article, ideally. Seen that way, the disclaimer has the potential of becoming a condensed site map (and I already told you that). Not in the present form, of course (remember that I was young and stupid when I stole SOW's disclaimer, so comparing your own silliness with it is not to your advantage), but as outlined in the footer and on the talk page (which I also linked to, for Mukade's sake). My own brainstorming and Gumby's should give you an idea of what's cooking. Just don't tell me we have to explain the meaning of every single item, because we all have better things to do right now. --geyser 02:16, 27 October 2008 (CET)

Okay, now I get it, at least as much as I'm going to get it, I suppose. But if you think this plan was in any way clear before your last post, hate to tell ya, but it wasn't; don't act like you explained anything on the Disclaimers talk page, it's an incomprehensible list of gibberish right now. Whatever, have fun with it.

P.S.: By injecting humor into official wiki pages such as Policy, I am *trying* to preserve fun while adding functionality, sorry if you don't see it that way, but I daresay most people will; heck, even Wikipedia has joke pages as part of their system of policy articles. --Iritscen 02:28, 27 October 2008 (CET)

The functionality added by those official pages is nil, and the humor is IMO fairly tasteless, so in a way it's "worse than nothing". You know as well as I do that there's more than enough places on the web that cultivate that kind of humor; no need to develop it here as if our wiki was Yet Another Weak Hu--Iritscen 04:27, 27 October 2008 (CET)mor Site. If you can relate your humor to Bungie or Oni, that will already be more creative, if not better (I mean, since Bungie humor is already not very tasteful, either make the weak s##t part of the Bungie strain or leave it out). That's just my opinion of course, you're a big boy and I wouldn't want to tell you how to run an Oni wiki. <-- NOT ASKING FOR A FORMAL POLICY, OF COURSE; JUST TRYING TO APPEAL TO COMMON SENSE: THE WIKI IS NEITHER A SELF-INDULGENT BLOG NOR A PORTAL TO UNCYCLOPEDIA; SO LET'S AT LEAST TRY TO KEEP THE CRAP OUT

"don't act like you explained anything on the Disclaimers talk page, it's an incomprehensible list of gibberish right now" Let's not play dumb and dumber, please. Care to go and read it again? Here's what it says at the bottom: <-- OOPS! MISTAKING THE DISCLAIMER FOR THE TALK PAGE WAS A VERY BAD IDEA

The above masterpiece was outrageousy stolen (by me, geyser) from Science of War and Oppression. I am looking forward to making a more Oni-oriented variant (you're welcome if you want to help), but for now it's SWO's original version, with a few original entries by myself. No, I don't have permission to redistribute their disclaimer. I'll try to keep it clean :)

You have had the ample opportunity to check out SWO's original disclaimer (incomprehensible list of gibberish? riiiiiiight <-- OOPS! SAME MISTAKE AS ABOVE, LOOKING AT THE WRONG PAGE), as well as the talk related to ours, and the recent contributions by Gumby and myself have made the initiative all the more explicit. Sorry if you didn't get the picture, but I didn't want to insult your intelligence. <-- THAT ONE STILL HOLDS, I GUESS. I MEAN, GUMBY GOT THE IDEA ALL BY HIMSELF AND EVEN ADDED THE FIRST HYPERLINK...

geyser 03:27, 27 October 2008 (CET)

Non-Oni-related humor... is that what's been burning your biscuits all this time about my jokes? Sorry, I didn't think we had a Bungie-only humor rule here. Let's try not to be so insular and snobbish, 'kay? Let's also try not to be insulting, although it's too late for that today -- having an Editing Policy page, a Copyrights page, or any page defining user rights and roles is a hell of a lot more useful than your original Disclaimers page. And I certainly read that note at the bottom a while back... how on Earth do you think that wording conveys your plans to make a Site Map out of random Oni phrases on a Disclaimer page? The longer you continue this back-and-forth, the more ridiculous you look. --Iritscen 03:35, 27 October 2008 (CET)

P.S.: In response to your point about not making the wiki a portal to other crap, I don't plan on doing regularly what I did with the Editing Policy page. But to clarify what I meant above in case you missed it, I don't think we need to be insular as a community, where anything that's not Oni or generally Bungie-related is automatically "crap". I specifically put a note in my Talk page about how a community can go too far in that direction and become a barricaded fortress of in-jokes that only the community elite actually understand. I prefer a more approachable take on humor, personally. But I will try to keep the external links to a bare minimum. --Iritscen 04:27, 27 October 2008 (CET)

stop bitching or my ninjas will come and find you! guido 18:47, 27 October 2008 (CET)