User:Rayanth/SeekritStuff

The feedback that I have received on some 'little games' I've played with the wiki ranges very wildly between extremely good, and extremely bad. I thought I'd take a moment to explain myself a bit, here.

My little "games" on the Wiki, which I will outline below with more background information on how they came to be, are not intended to upset anyone. Furthermore, they are done, generally, with the approval of EVE University Upper Management, and I very carefully consider the ramifications if the changes were to be perceived negatively. The UniWiki is an invaluable resource, both for EVE University as a recruitment tool, and for the player base at large as their primary source of information - I am extremely conscious of that and do not intend to ruin it over a little bit of fun.

However, I would also like to point out that these changes are tests of another sort, in disguise. MediaWiki software is infinitely complex, and contains layers upon layers of old code and patches that are hard to navigate in the source code. As I move forward to a complete facelift for the wiki in the near future, I am using these opportunities for "a little fun" to test the capabilities and limits of what I can do with the MediaWiki software, as well as the extensions that we have chosen to install on this server. Each little trick so far has taught me much, and elements of them (though in less annoying manners) will be utilized in the wiki of our future.

Enough Rambling! Here's some back story on these little games I've played so far:

Triglavian Invasion

In the summer of 2019, one of the UniWiki curators asked if it was possible to put the Triglavian font from the game files into the wiki, so they could demonstrate the language on a new page they were writing for the Triglavian lore.

I maintain a test copy of the UniWiki database on a private server, so I started playing around there to determine the feasibility. In my playing around, I accidentally edited the CSS such that ALL fonts on the test wiki were converted to Triglavian. Quickly realizing my mistake, I went to try and change it back only to realize that the Editor as well was illegible because of the font. It took a little doing to roll back the changes without being able to read anything :)

But the idea had merit. So I played with it some more and the result was only the front page being converted on the testwiki. I showed this to a few people, and the idea to push this to the live wiki was presented.

My original plan was to have this in effect throughout FanFest 2020, as an icebreaker for something to talk about, as it would be my first-ever EVE Community Event, let alone as the Wiki Manager. I was designing a custom t-shirt with E-Uni logos and UniWiki Manager emblazoned, and would have a triglavian version of the shirt as well...

Alas, FanFest 2020 was cancelled due to the Coronavirus, so much of my plans were shelved. The Triglavian Invasion was too fun to pass up, though, so I opted to keep working on it, as an April Fool's gag.

Tests included in this April Fool's gag:

• Utilizing the skin-specific JavaScript file ( MediaWiki:Uniwiki.js ) to add javascript to pages, but also including filters that prevent the javascript from firing on unintended pages (though it will always load on all pages, unfortunately)
• Adding a new feature to the wiki by utilizing the site-wide CSS and JS files, but not impacting other things negatively (There was an unintended side effect for toggle buttons on other pages, which i had to resolve)
• Utilizing javascript-generated and -enabled toggle buttons to control on-page features

Red Dot

Early in 2020, CCP Games added a "Feature" that puts a red dot on your inventory for new items. Unfortunately it was a little over-zealous, and put red dots on darn near everything, whether it was a new item or not. From this, several red-dot memes were born across the EVE Playerbase.

While grocery shopping with my wife and discussing the red dot, the idea hit me to do something for it on the wiki... but it was hard to come up with exactly WHAT to do, until she suggested making the cursor a red dot. My original idea was to make it always be a red dot until you hovered a link, but in testing this turned out to be almost impossible to click on a link, as it was difficult to determine where on the 'cursor' to point from. Flipping it to red dot ONLY on links was much more effective, however, and that allowed me to open it up to affect all pages on the wiki.

Very little was actually planned for the red dot. Between having the idea and implementing it, only about 5 hours had elapsed.

I implemented this meme with no warning to or approval from the upper E-Uni management - better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? But Laura (CEO) approved once she saw it, so all was well. I would have immediately reverted the changes if it did not receive her blessing once she saw it. I did understand it would be controversial, so I decided to only keep it in place for 48hrs. During that time, many comments were made in many different EVE Player community areas, indicating the annoyance level was 'just about right' to be fun, but not something to keep around forever. It was, as planned, removed after 48 hours.

Tests included in this 48hr 'meme' :

• in-line SVG contained within the sitewide css files, and whether it would parse
• whether changes to the mouse cursor would be honored by MW software (I don't plan to actually do this, at the moment, but I have considered utilizing in-game mouse cursor in some new features being planned)
• my own ability to rapidly identify issues and deploy changes to fix them