User talk:Dswxyz

Hi David, thanks for your edits. The howto:tads kind of syntax was because I was confused about how categories work, thanks for fixing it.

On tutorial vs howto, I was assuming tutorial meant longer, more comprehensive articles that tried to cover a language as a whole; while howto would be more like individual faq answers on common tasks. But if you think that the smaller topics fit well in tutorial, I won't argue. :-)

When I start putting things in, I'll use the naming conventions you have suggested.

-Stollman

Accreditive PC

Hi Dswxyz. Regarding your edits to Varicella I would like to know what an accreditive PC means. Is it a neologism or something? I was not able to find its definition anywhere. Thanks in advance! :) -- Cassandra Palop 04:01, 28 November 2006 (EST)

The term is actually "accretive PC", and it's from Paul O'Brian's review of "Lock & Key". "Like Primo Varicella, the PC of Lock & Key is what I'll call an accretive PC, meaning that he becomes more and more himself with each iteration of the game, as the player's knowledge accretes." -- Mcmartin 05:29, 28 November 2006 (EST)

Thanks a lot, McMartin. I will correct the typo in Varicella -- Cassandra Palop 06:30, 28 November 2006 (EST)

DreamPath

Hey, I have just released DreamPath - a new authoring system. I got a page about it in ifwiki.org, so I tried to add it to the "Authroing Systems" page. I found out it's locked to me. I'd appretiate it if you could add it.

Many thanks, Ido

Username change

Hi! I'm an idiot!

As you can see, I managed to incorrectly capitalize the first two letters of my username. Could you posibly change it to the proper "Marvose"? (minus the quotes, of course)

Thanks, MArvose 16:06, 12 September 2008 (PDT)

um, I don't have the foggiest idea how to fix that. I'll forward the quest to baf, see if he knows. -- David Welbourn 04:35, 14 September 2008 (PDT)

Inform 7 code examples

I was looking at Category:Examples of code and noticed that there is only one full Inform 7 example, which you wrote, at Smell restrictions (Inform 7 example).

First, there is a minor issue that prevents that example from compiling as written: if noun is yourself or the spacesuit is not valid. Presumably at one point I7 did allow that.

Second, I wasn't happy with the way the example mixes before and instead rules so I made some changes and plopped it at smell_example.txt. I didn't edit the example directly because I didn't want to step on any toes.

My changes use a few more lines of setup but the payoff is that it's much easier to add new smells which behave much the same way as descriptions do. Also the smelling action then behaves and can be changed and have rules added like the other actions instead of having to use before rules.

I believe it's a better showcase of how achieve the desired effect in Inform 7 and I'd like to make the changes to the wiki if you have no objections (with the appropriate <br/> &nbsp; formatting of course).

Speaking of formatting... I assume for Inform 7 code you chose not to use <pre> tags since Inform 7 source is more like a narative and you want paragraph wrapping and what-not. The problem with that is the need for explicit <br/> formatting occasionally which makes pasting in a working example marginally non-trivial. If continuing this way is what is desired how about adding a little bit of CSS to syntax highlight comments and strings as well?

Finally, if no one objects I may try my hand at providing the (currently) three missing Inform 7 examples. Thanks, --Peskie 16:35, 1 June 2009 (PDT)

• Feel free to edit my I7 example, especially if it's no longer working. I haven't used CSS in IFWiki because of ignorance -- I have yet to learn how to define a CSS class within a MediaWiki. I'd love to know how to be able to do <span class="i7com">...</span> around some text to make it green. So, I'm sensing this is an opportunity for you to teach me (and maybe other IFWiki editors) some new tricks, and make us better editors. And yes, please feel free to supply new example I7 code. I'm a rank beginner with Inform 7 and I could use the help. Thanks. -- David Welbourn 02:55, 3 June 2009 (PDT)

Hey

Why did you block me for a week that one time? I just want to know. - Another n00b 12:26, 9 June 2011 (PDT)

Captcha's

Captcha's here seem completely broken. I attempted to update the links on the IFM page and was asked to enter a captcha that wasn't present. I then searched the ifwiki for "captcha" and tried adding a note to talk:Main Page and even if I tried adding a new section there I was incorrectly told I had added new links and asked to enter a non-existent captcha. :( —Peskie 23:19, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I've just added you to TrustedUsers; I hope it'll solve your problem. I don't know how to solve it for everybody, though. --Eriorg 00:49, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

It did. Thank you! (And apologies David for using your talk page, but it was one of the few places I tried where it let me do an edit). —Peskie 02:06, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Backups

Hi David,

It's good to see you back! Thanks so much for all the work you've been doing.

I have been unsuccessful thus far in getting in touch with Carl Muckenhoupt about sending IFWiki backups to IFArchive. I don't know if the email I have for him is just not current, or he's not inclined to discuss it with someone he doesn't know (me), or what.

Do you ever see him on ifMUD (or Twitter)? Is this something you'd consider asking him about? I'd rather not have to join and learn ifMUD for the sole purpose of getting in touch with someone, and I'm not on Twitter either.

Sorry for putting this on your talk page. I tried sending this to you through the wiki email system, and got an error message "Unknown error in PHP's mail() function."

-- bg (talk) 09:46, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

• It's not much easier for me to get in touch with him either. He's sometimes on IFMud, yes, but I prefer to contact him via email; he tends to overlook mudmail messages. His email is baf .AT. wurb.com. -- David Welbourn (talk) 09:54, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

• Re: being back, I'm afraid this is temporary. I normally now have horribly poor internet which really makes doing IFWiki work impractical for me, but this week I borrowed a hotspot from the local library, letting me have more normal levels of bandwidth. When the hotspot goes back, I'll be mostly absent again. -- David Welbourn (talk) 09:59, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, it's very helpful, even if it's only temporary. :)

Hmm. That is the email address I've been using. I also tried commenting at his blog. I am not sure what else to try at this point. :/ Apparently there's a way to back up a wiki without shell access: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Backing_up_a_wiki. I suppose that means it's possible for someone to back up IFWiki totally independently of Baf. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that though; we don't even know if it is redundant with what is already being done. :/ And I'm not sure I want to try backing it up myself. -- bg (talk) 13:22, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Update: I used the "export" special page to export an XML dump from a handful of categories (including "People"), one by one, and submitted them to the IF Archive. This feature is not designed to handle large numbers of pages. When I did too many pages at once, it didn't work--it just didn't export anything. I don't think this is a good long-term solution. But it's a start, and better than nothing, I guess. -- bg (talk) 19:06, 21 June 2016 (UTC)