Talk:Main Page

Navbar Suggestions

This is a Talk Section for anyone who would like to offer ideas for how we might better improve the site, or any issues you might have.

So, just click the "Edit" link, for this section, just above, and let us know your thoughts!

Be sure to leave your name with the note, so we know who to offer thanks and credit to, if we are able to incorporate your suggestions.
If you're signed in, just type "~~~~" (without quotes) and it will leave your signature timestamp. If you're not registered, just leave your screenname/avatar/handle!

Your suggestions HERE!!!

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Site doesn't load on mobile

Has anyone experienced weirdness on Mobile (Chrome & Safari)? New to the wiki & loving it. Invaluable resource for me running Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Weirdness = the site hangs when trying to search for pages (search engines but also the top right search bar) and won't load. If I reload, the page will usually appear. This only occurs on mobile. --DeathBlinder (talk) 12:24, 7 December 2022 (CST)

DeathBlinder, we do have an issue with the "Mobile Frontend" that creates the version of the wiki which comes up on phones and tablets. It's the https forwarding that causes it, because the site shows an "unsecure" symbol, the little unlocked padlock, and it prevents use, at all.

It essentially depends on the browser one uses whether it will reload or not.

We're working on it consistently to find an extension which will make it work in all browsers.

—Jawal Severnain (talk) 13:59, 7 December 2022 (CST)

Lua error

It appears that no Lua modules are functioning (e.g. Module:Citation shows an error code). This isn't an immediate problem as nothing on the site currently uses Lua modules, but I've been working on a Greyhawk date conversion module that I think will be useful. Rexidos (talk) 20:02, 16 May 2020 (CDT)

Yep, you're not wrong.

The CS1 Module: Citation has had some difficulty being implemented. There've been numerous efforts to attempt to reconcile the errors and figure out why that is, but, CS1 is notoriously difficult to have function properly and has numerous subpages and such required to make all the citations work properly. We've discussed it on the GreyhawkOnline Discord server, and we're attempting to find someone who can help us iron out the problem ... with little traction thus far.

- Icarus (talk) 08:48, 19 May 2020 (CDT)

Perhaps you can add $wgShowExceptionDetails = true; to the end of LocalSettings.php. This may show a more useful error message. Rexidos (talk) 14:10, 19 May 2020 (CDT)

Aha. Try setting the executable bit on the file (i.e. go to the directory where the lua binary is located, as mentioned in the error message, and chmod +x lua). Rexidos (talk) 15:05, 20 May 2020 (CDT)

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Wiki is not appearing on Google results

• I googled for "Greyhawk Wiki" earlier and noticed this site does not appear at all. I suspect this is because the greyhawkonline robots.txt file blocks hits to *.php, which results in this wiki not being indexed by Google at all, due to "index.php" appearing in the URL structure. I suggest either removing that line from the robots.txt, or improving the URL structure to remove "index.php?title=". (My personal suggestion would be to use greyhawkonline.com/wiki/PAGENAME as is generally the standard for wikis, but anything that removes ".php" from the URL would resolve the issue.)
• Are site staff keeping up to date on server security updates?
• How reliable are this wiki's backups? Suppose, for example, that technical malfunction or human error caused the entire server to fail, and the data was non-recoverable; or even, unexpectedly, the site admin is killed in an accident. How recent is the latest backup, and how certainly could the site be restored in case of such failure?
• I suggest an editing drive to focus on the articles on the kingdoms and history of the Flanaess, which would be particularly useful to someone running a campaign set in Greyhawk.

Rexidos (talk) 11:29, 5 May 2020 (CDT)

Thank you so much for these recommendations! The feedback is a good thing, and we've made a couple of updates in response to them.

• The robots.txt was completely in error and shouldn't have had *.php there! The issue has been corrected!
• We would much rather have page addresses read in the more common greyhawkonline.com/wiki/PAGENAME format. Unfortunately, it's currently at greyhawkwiki and there's some concern that moving the wiki to a different folder in the site structure would break parts of the wiki. We're actually trying to find someone who would be able to help us with the change to make the page titles work better. If you (or anyone) happen to have knowledge about the process, we'd be greatful for any assistance you might offer.
• The site staff does try to stay up to date on server security.
• The wiki is generally backed up offline and in a cloud-based service on a weekly basis.
• We do have a monthly drive on the front page. Honestly, it is in need of more social media awareness to encourage wiki participation.

Icarus (talk) 14:35, 5 May 2020 (CDT)

I've signed up an account now. Although I have set up a Mediawiki before, it's been about 15 years and I've forgotten the specifics. There is official documentation covering Nginx and Apache. Rexidos (talk) 20:02, 16 May 2020 (CDT)

Link Request

Icarus, can you link the new Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index entry to the blurb on it in the main page? Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index

Thanks, Saracenus

Done! --Icarus (talk) 16:26, 14 December 2018 (CST)

Suggestions

Some suggestions to improve the wiki:

• It would be elegant if the wiki URLs omitted the "index.php" section, similarly to how it works on Wikipedia.
• Increase the font size to match the standard font size of Wikipedia. Small fonts were trendy in 2002 but nowadays readability on big screens is more common.
• A domain like wiki.greyhawkonline.com would be more elegant, I think.
• The general greyhawkonline page uses a very bright red which I think could be improved.

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- I want to take a minute to say thanks for adding suggestions. I apologize for the week in between from your post. We have been working on some really great things for content for GaryCon2019, and we've had to schedule a lot of things.

Let me respond to your great suggestions in order:

• We are definitely looking at changing the "index.php" portion of URLs. Unfortunately it is a very difficult change to make in the code and we're having to work on finding a proper solution that doesn't break the website (which it has briefly done twice).  :)
• The font size will absolutely change! We weren't actually even aware of the very small difference in the sizes of the fonts. Thank you for bringing it to our attention!
• You're right about a URL like wiki.greyhawkonline.com, but, unfortunately for site analytics, that's technically a different site we want all of our SEO and site analytics to be reported to a single domain without reporting to subdomains. But, thank you for noticing it, because it was a very difficult decision to choose which way to do it.
• The shade/value of that particular shade of red is a little on the bright side. We agree that it could be toned down just a little to lower the saturation of it, and have just a pleasant of site. We're going to try a few options and see if we can make the color theme better.

Thanks, again, for all of your help!

Icarus (talk) 16:35, 20 February 2019 (CST)

There's a tool which may help at https://shorturls.redwerks.org/. A problem may be that you have the shorturl the same as the actual directory, which isn't usually how you want to do it (e.g. Wikipedia's "real" directory is /w/ rather than /wiki/).

Personally, I'd place the wiki URL at /wiki/ since Greyhawk is already in the URL.

Other suggestions: 1. The title heraldry appears twice (once in the title image, once in the main page), and the greyhawkonline image is very large, and these take up a lot of room "above the fold"; the front page ought rather to be dominated by a tidy content index. 2. A wiki lives or dies on its user and contributor base. 3. Hopefully the site will make and distribute regular backups so editors can feel confident data won't be lost if the site goes down due to unforseen technical failure, as has happened multiple times with the Canonfire wiki.

Thanks for your work! Greyhawk books are mostly out of print so a strong wiki would be an invaluable resource for the setting. 208.77.22.180 21:42, 25 February 2019 (CST)

Thanks for the link to the ShortURL tool. It does seem to be fairly complicated, since it's presuming several defaults like using /wiki/. There's a great del os difficult in it, though I am fairly good at eventually working through code, often by just learning to parse the code by "deciphering it", sort of. Unfortunately, the "greyhawkwiki" portion of the URL can't change. That was a deliberate choice to help ensure over time that searches for "Greyhawk Wiki" lead more and more to our site.

• I definitely agree that a wiki lives or dies on its user and contributor base.
• Yes, the wiki is backed up, and we plan on allowing distribution, whenever contributors are interested in having one. Please feel confident that your edits will not be lost. The problem with other versions was often that they were intended to be temporary. On May 28th, 2019 GHO will have been around for 16 years. We're not going anywhere - and in the unlikely event that something did happen, backups can and will absolutely be distributed then, as well.
• I appreciate that! While GH books are technically OoP, did you know most are available for Print-on-Demand nowadays through websites like DMsGuild and DriveThruRPG?
• I notice you're not registered … I was wondering if both entries here are by the same person at a different IP address, or are both by the same person?

-Icarus (talk) 06:14, 3 March 2019 (CST)