User talk:Ensign Phillips

Welcome (2018)

Welcome. Happy to have you. Please write any of the moderators including myself if we can help you get started.

• Forum:Mains and Clusters
• Forum:Astrography - Mains... and such
• Maksim-Smelchak/Disambiguation Pages

- Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 18:55, 28 August 2018 (EDT)

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Thank you for the warm welcome! I do have a question. I am very interested in the concept of Mains, Traces and Clusters. I know it is an obscure topic but I always find it fascinating to look at the Imperium from the perspective of trade, commerce and colonization. Mains assist me in doing that. I am slowly working my way through the Daibei Sector cataloging the various mains, traces and clusters at a subsector level (I have always loved the idea of the Sons of Craig from Traveller: TNE so I have a soft spot for Daibei).

I am using information obtained only from the Traveller Map or the Wiki. While I love the Wiki and peruse it often I am computer illiterate when it comes to coding the information for entry on the Wiki. I also want to insure I am entering the data correctly so I do not muck up the entry and make more work for yourself and the other moderators correcting my mistakes. I am currently storing my data in a Word document. I would love to contribute and my question is; is this something that would be helpful to work on and enter?

FYI I am keeping the data VERY general to avoid any non-canon entries (I am naming the main/trace/cluster based on a feature or world in the subsector per information in the Wiki. I am providing the total number of worlds and their names by each subsector they lie in on the main/trace/cluster. I am listing the highest and lowest population world on the main/trace/cluster and finally listing all worlds on the main et al in alphabetical order. Please let me know if this would be of interest to you and again many thanks for the warm welcome.

- Ensign Phillips (talk)

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You are in luck as you are not the only person with an interest in Mains, clusters, and traces. Please read Forum:Astrography - Mains... and such, part of the discussion of both the ideas behind and technical discussion about working on your idea. You may also want to put a note on User talk:Ssteve as the person leading the effort.

There are three pieces of advice for working with the wiki. First is to read the source of several pages and use the "Show Preview" option. You should be able to see the relationship between the formatting and the results in the page.

Second would be to set up a sandbox page like User: Ensign Phillips/sandbox and simply try things and see how they come out. Be bold and experiment.

Finally, keep in mind the rest of the Traveller Wiki community can, and will, help with the pages as you enter information. If you don't get the formatting, layout, templates, and tables exactly correct, please ask for assistance on the article talk page, and we'll point you in the right direction.

Tjoneslo (talk) 06:50, 30 August 2018 (EDT)

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I'm glad that Tjoneslo. He and I share most of the admin duties.

• Let's chat over at CotI. I have ideas.
• We'll help you with any coding and you'll learn as you do it.
• It made me chuckle when you brought up your interest in Mains, Traces and Clusters. They were one of the biggest reasons I came to the wiki and started pulling the story together. The early sector and subsector pages from about 2015 forward were mostly my attempts to track that stuff.
• We could definitely use help tracking the worlds in each formation. Please.
• Again, welcome!

- Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 07:42, 30 August 2018 (EDT)

Dates pages

I'm curious about your ongoing effort to create the dates pages. Can you explain further what your project is regarding this work. Thanks. Tjoneslo (talk) 06:08, 25 June 2020 (EDT)

I noticed the large number of blank dates listed in the Fixing Existing Articles/Wanted Pages section of the Main Page. At first I just started to create basic entries in job lots in a rather arbitrary manner based on the date or date range popping up in the afore mentioned Main Page section. I then discovered that there were existing links where these dates are referenced by other articles. So beginning yesterday, in the 13th century, I began running down the links and including a brief recap of the link in the year and decade articles. A lot of people have gone to a lot of effort to make interesting notes about the history, both canon and non-canon, of the Traveller Universe. Thought it might be fun to work for a while on referencing these notes in a place where more people might find their work and read some of the fascinating entries people have produced. Ensign Phillips (talk) 08:01, 25 June 2020 (EDT)

Some of the new users had brought up a discussion of empty article (like these that contain only a empty template) vs leaving them un-created so they appear as red links in the articles. The red links are important part of the system to let people know there is something of interest but no article with further information. The idea is to ask contributors to create the articles and add the relevant information. The Special:Wantedpages tries to rank those by number of references, meaning there is more interest in having an article with information. The upshot of this is asking if you could spend the time to add the interesting historical notes into these pages. Tjoneslo (talk) 17:02, 25 June 2020 (EDT)

I am sorry if I messed up anything. I will leave the Special:Wantedpages entries alone then and put on my thinking cap about some historical detail. Thanks for the heads up.Ensign Phillips (talk) 17:02, 25 June 2031 (EDT)

You have not messed anything up at all. We always appreciate contributors who are willing to jump in and handle a task like you have. I'm just trying to make sure everyone agrees on scope of projects. If you have ideas on how to make the experience of the wiki better, either as a reader or as an editor, please let us know. Thank you for your hard work. Tjoneslo (talk) 07:13, 26 June 2020 (EDT)

Thanks for fixing the Cluster articles

Getting all the TBDs resolved is really big help. Thanks a lot. Tjoneslo (talk) 17:38, 28 June 2020 (EDT)

My pleasure Sir. Ensign Phillips (talk) 17:56, 28 June 2020 (EDT)

I have it down to 14 links I cannot determine where those remaining links should be posted so I think that is the end of my data entry for Clusters and Traces. I made sure to reference the sector the Cluster is in and append the Cluster name to at least one planet associated with the Cluster. Hope this is of some help and take care. Ensign Phillips (talk) 23:04, 29 June 2020 (EDT)

Subsector Edges

You must be made to tackle that job - 250 pages is loads! BackworldTraveller (talk) 09:46, 15 July 2020 (EDT)

• Thank you for the kind words. Just pecking away at it a little at a time. Simple repetitive tasks appeal to me for some odd reason. Ensign Phillips (talk) 10:17, 15 July 2020 (EDT)

• WHEW! All done, Elvis has left the building!!! Ensign Phillips (talk) 09:03, 23 July 2020 (EDT)

• Heroic. Is the MPOD awardable? BackworldTraveller (talk) 13:55, 23 July 2020 (EDT)

New world article layout template

There has been some brief discussions about the "input-programmed" text at the head of the world articles, and I would like to know your opinion. Tjoneslo (talk) 08:46, 28 July 2020 (EDT)

• I don't know how much help I may be given my horrid programming skills but I would be happy to take a look. Where do I go to see what has been discussed so far? Ensign Phillips (talk) 11:58, 28 July 2020 (EDT)

• • The discussion's been on Discord, about removing "This is a world-system under construction and is currently being input-programmed into the Traveller RPG Wiki." from a bunch of world articles, since it is misleading at best. Do you know of a reason to keep that header? Atymes (talk) 21:20, 28 July 2020 (EDT)

• • • There is no reason to keep it that I am aware of. I added it to my world articles template long ago in coordination with Maks. Maks, if you have your ears on, might you shed soem light on this question? Ensign Phillips (talk) 08:33, 29 July 2020 (EDT)

• • • If it is the consensus of the group I will certainly remove that clause from the template I use. Please just let me know what you would like me to do. As always... thanks. Ensign Phillips (talk) 14:09, 29 July 2020 (EDT)

The question of did it serve a useful purpose anymore. So the question to you was; Did you have a reason or know of a reason to keep it? And the answer appears to be no. Therefore, please remove the clause from the template. If you have any ideas about how the rest of us can make your process easier or better please let us know. Thank you for all your hard work. Tjoneslo (talk) 11:06, 31 July 2020 (EDT)

• • • • • Will do and thanks for letting me know. Ensign Phillips (talk) 12:02, 31 July 2020 (EDT)

Removing the header from Worlds

tjoneslo may be able to get this automated using AB-101 BackworldTraveller (talk) 14:34, 31 July 2020 (EDT)

• No worries. He has enough on his plate as it is. Now that I'm done w/ the big volume issues in the wanted pages section I am going back to my favorite sector (Daibei) and slowly updating the world entries. I'll remove the clause as I go along. Hope all is well Sir and sorry for the tardy reply. Ensign Phillips (talk) 21:50, 1 August 2020 (EDT)

Empty articles

Where are all of the empty articles coming from? We're trying to discourage the practice, as we would like to have content before more articles. Tjoneslo (talk) 09:18, 6 August 2020 (EDT)

• Good morning Sir. Just moving through the Wanted Pages section and making stub entries for all of the listed things there in except the dates (which we discussed previously). Since we have a stub section listed in the Articles Requiring Work section just wanted to move the listings from one location (Wanted Pages) to the other (Articles Requiring Work).

A side effect is that the links move from Red to Blue - so it is no longer obvious what still needs to be done. So all the ranks (for instance) now look complete from the included sidebar! BackworldTraveller (talk) 14:29, 6 August 2020 (EDT)

• Yes and no, if you look at the Articles Requiring Work/Stub section you will see all of the changes I made. I stopped in any case and will focus my efforts on the stub articles section from this point forward. As always, hope you are well and take care. Ensign Phillips (talk) 14:46, 6 August 2020 (EDT)

This is an ongoing policy discussion between the catalogers who want to rely on the Category: Stub Articles or Category:Incomplete Articles to find the articles that need expansions. And the Wikipedians who feel articles should have a Notability requirement, with some minimal amount of content beyond the templates and boilerplate. We are all still finding the best way to encourage contributors while respecting the readers desire to see good content. Tjoneslo (talk) 00:08, 7 August 2020 (EDT)

• Good morning Sir. I understand and will comply. If it is ok I will go ahead and shift my focus to updating world stub articles to cut down a bit on the minimal content articles that are already on the books as it were. Hope all is well and take care. Ensign Phillips (talk) 08:13, 7 August 2020 (EDT)

Thank You!

Good morning Ensign. I saw you've been editing in details of the Daibei sector recently, and wanted to thank you for that. Rje (talk) 10:28, 15 March 2022 (EDT) My pleasure Sir. Sorry I disappeared for a year or so but I am back and once again slowly picking away at my favorite Sector. Thank you as always for the kind words and please take care.

Removing the StellarDataQuery templates

These are used in the worlds in the Spinward Marches, Dagudashaag, and Knolertz. Please do not remove or update them. The data is generated form an internal data set and updated periodically. Removing these breaks some of the wiki automation. Thank you for you work. Tjoneslo (talk) 12:26, 21 March 2022 (EDT)