Encyclopedia Cytherica

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Encyclopedia Cytherica

#1 Pallas Athene

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Posted 27 June 2012 - 11:19 PM

In the previous thread, "Does UrSylph identify with Tavara on some level?", TwoJacks mentioned the lack of a good resource to find out information about Tavara. Generally, the resources we've put together are indexed by mechanism ("spoken by UrSylph"), not by topic ("about Tavara").

What we really need is some kind of encyclopedia. One that's free for everyone to edit.

453 may not like where I'm going with this.

Anyway, I started one; see cythera.wikia.com. It's mostly stubs, but the infoboxes are pretty good, along with the categorization of pages.

Some sample articles:

I'd be much obliged if anyone here would be willing to edit information into the stub pages. Also, in the course of filling out pages, I've come up with a bunch of questions that I don't know the answers to:

Can you cheat with Fetch or Remote Manipulation to get the second or third Crolna piece out of order?
How much does the Crolna weigh?
On Wizard's Time and Location page, what areas correspond to which images? The list isn't completely clear.
Where did the information about monster classes come from?

#2 Jehezekel

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Posted 28 June 2012 - 06:55 AM

*hates Wikia*

Wikia has a script that bogs my computer down majorly. Makes for a very unpleasant user experience. I'd almost rather use Windows 3.1 :gasp:

My Cythera Boards characters:
Silverfish: 1.52ft/46.3cm Tall
Mitsos/Pirro: Canonically statted
Don't forget to write Cythera Chronicles!

#3 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 28 June 2012 - 03:15 PM

I have the same problem as Shorty with Wikia. It runs a script that bogs my computer and refuses to let me to anything else for a long time and often crashes my browser. Any idea how to fix this problem? Even my attempt to block the website didn't work.

I may be able to help you with the questions though.
1) It's definitely possible to get the third Crolna piece without the second piece, by fetching away a lot of Seldane force fields. It takes a lot of mana, but it's the only way to get the third Crolna shard in the unregistered version.
2) I don't know right off.
3) What is unclear about Wizzy's labels? o.O
4) Do you mean the monster stats? They're from this thread.

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#4 Pallas Athene

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Posted 28 June 2012 - 03:41 PM

BreadWorldMercy453, on 28 June 2012 - 03:15 PM, said:

Do you know what script it is? What browser do you use?

Quote

I may be able to help you with the questions though.
1) It's definitely possible to get the third Crolna piece without the second piece, by fetching away a lot of Seldane force fields. It takes a lot of mana, but it's the only way to get the third Crolna shard in the unregistered version.

OK. What about the second without the first? (the one Sabinate gives you)

Quote

2) I don't know right off.
3) What is unclear about Wizzy's labels? o.O

It's things like: is Dryas's hideout a cave or a sewer? Do the Flax Farm and Abandoned Farmhouse use the Cythera or Vineyard landscape? Do any of the fierier caves (UrSylph's prison, Eioneus's smithy) use the Land's End landscape? What does the Iron Mine (not the shaft) use? Are Maayti and the Kosha Grotto underground structures or caves? Do areas under cities (Catamarca cellar, Omen's test) use "Underground Structure", even though they don't look at all like that? What does the Cult of Scylla temple use?

Quote

4) Do you mean the monster stats? They're from this thread.

Ah, interesting. They looked clearly like they had been pulled out of the data files verbatim, and I was wondering if anyone but gandreas could have done that.

#5 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 28 June 2012 - 05:51 PM

I don't know what script it is. This is the message I get: "Safari is no longer responding because of a script on the webpage "Cythera Wiki" (http://cythera.wikia...ki/Cythera_Wiki). Do you want to stop running the script, or let it continue?" I'm not sure if there's any difference between telling it to stop or letting it continue. It locks up for a minute or two and then asks me the same question. Occasionally it lets me browse the page, but it's laggy. I run Safari 4.

Sabinate doesn't give you a Crolna shard, do you mean Timon? He won't have anything to do with you until you show the first shard to Lindus, though it isn't necessary to have it in your inventory while you're talking to Timon (even though he says he's looking at it).

I weighed the Crolna, it only weighs 1 grain (each shard and any completion).

Here's what labels go to the areas you asked about:
Dryas hideout: Sewer
Flax farm: Cythera
Abandoned farmhouse: Cythera (Underground Caves for the cellar)
UrSylph's prison: Underground Caves
Eioneus: Underground Caves
Iron mine camp: Cythera
Maayti: Underground Caves
Kosha grotto: Underground Caves
Catamarca cellar: Underground Caves
Omen's test: Underground Structures
Cult of Scylla: Underground Structures

Are there any others you're curious about?

This post has been edited by BreadWorldMercy453: 28 June 2012 - 05:55 PM

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#6 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 28 June 2012 - 06:04 PM

I am having much better luck browsing the Wikia site in Firefox (bleh), but I still think Wikia is an obnoxious laggy bandwidth-intensive website :P And that's with all the ads blocked!

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#7 Pallas Athene

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Posted 28 June 2012 - 06:38 PM

BreadWorldMercy453, on 28 June 2012 - 05:51 PM, said:

Ah, that's right, I was confused.

Quote

I weighed the Crolna, it only weighs 1 grain (each shard and any completion).

Here's what labels go to the areas you asked about:
Dryas hideout: Sewer
Flax farm: Cythera
Abandoned farmhouse: Cythera (Underground Caves for the cellar)
UrSylph's prison: Underground Caves
Eioneus: Underground Caves
Iron mine camp: Cythera
Maayti: Underground Caves
Kosha grotto: Underground Caves
Catamarca cellar: Underground Caves
Omen's test: Underground Structures
Cult of Scylla: Underground Structures

Are there any others you're curious about?

Oh, one more of course: the Tree of Life.

Quote

I am having much better luck browsing the Wikia site in Firefox (bleh), but I still think Wikia is an obnoxious laggy bandwidth-intensive website

And that's with all the ads blocked!

Hmm. Well, I think a wiki is a good idea, but I don't care about Wikia in particular. wikkii.com seems to offer a more vanilla experience, for example.

#8 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 28 June 2012 - 07:19 PM

I agree about a Cythera wiki, I think it's exciting ^_^ I'd like to help with the articles too (if I can figure out how). I feel guilty now for whining, because obviously you've already put a lot of effort into starting the Wikia page. A less laggy site is appealing though. I'm reminded of the TS-characters wiki that Valy started a long time ago, http://cytherarp.wikispaces.com/

This post has been edited by BreadWorldMercy453: 28 June 2012 - 07:20 PM

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#9 Pallas Athene

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Posted 28 June 2012 - 08:56 PM

Well, I put effort into formatting articles for Mediawiki, and wikispaces looks like it doesn't support templates or categories, which are really useful. But any other Mediawiki host works fine, and we could move it.

#10 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 29 June 2012 - 09:28 AM

The Tree of Life has the Cythera location pane (as does the messed up area you access by entering the "cave" in the Tree of Life zone).

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#11 Selax

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Posted 29 June 2012 - 02:36 PM

Very nice work, Pallas

. I don't know if I'll have much time to contribute, but I will help if I can.

Long Live Cythera! Long Live the Cythera Web Board!

I now run a TS Character Killing Service.

Selax

#12 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 29 June 2012 - 04:13 PM

I'm scared of editing the articles. They must need some kind of formatting, and links, and quotes, and images, and it's all so very scary. *Hides*

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#13 Pallas Athene

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Posted 29 June 2012 - 05:50 PM

BreadWorldMercy453, on 29 June 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

I'm scared of editing the articles. They must need some kind of formatting, and links, and quotes, and images, and it's all so very scary. *Hides*

Nah, don't worry about the formatting. Just post a link here after you edit a page and I can clean it up if necessary.

Also, if you want easy work, see Special:WantedFiles. I didn't bother uploading all of the images as I went.

#14 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 04 July 2012 - 02:31 PM

I think I ought to understand something about it before I try to post an article. I don't even know how to post those wanted files :x But, I haven't put any effort into trying to figure it out yet.

How in-depth do we want the wiki to be? For example, I think it would be cool if we could link to specific books or to specific prompts in a character's dialogue. Would that be practical?

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#15 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 04 July 2012 - 02:43 PM

I'm afraid I'll make quite a mess of the Wiki while I try to learn how to use it. Sorry :\

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#16 Buzzzzy

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Posted 05 July 2012 - 11:19 AM

This seems like a really cool project if it gets enough content. I went ahead and uploaded all the wanted images, with the exception of the template pictures and the nonexistent Canachus portrait.

453, you can start by just adding brief summaries of characters or something. Anything’s better than nothing, edits can always be reverted if necessary.

#17 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 05 July 2012 - 08:13 PM

Wow Buzzy!

I'll try editing again when I work up the courage.

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#18 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 05 July 2012 - 09:20 PM

Okay, I made my first attempt at editing an article. I decided to start with Tavara because he kind of inspired this project. Let me know what you think of this type of article and what you think I should do differently in the future (if I can figure out how).

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#19 Pallas Athene

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Posted 06 July 2012 - 09:03 AM

I edited the article. Mostly what I changed was to add more wikilinks, to add citations, and to move the sections about the Cult of Scylla and Tavara's Fortress into their own article. Maybe the more speculative parts (Book of Foundation, Magical Creatures, Crystal Balls) should be in their own articles, too, so alternative theories can be presented in the same place.

(the text itself was good)

You don't need to learn the citation stuff, but it would be helpful if you gave sources in parentheses after using them, instead of in one long list at the bottom.

This post has been edited by Pallas Athene: 06 July 2012 - 09:05 AM

#20 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 06 July 2012 - 11:53 AM

Thanks Fiery! It's pretty cool to see the article edited overnight - this Wiki thing is exciting when you're on the right side of it.

I'll try to figure out how to do those little number in bracket citation thingies. I still don't know how to upload images, I tried to a few days ago but I couldn't figure it out.

Theory articles sounds like a practical idea, but maybe messy. Is there a limit to how many pages we may have total?

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#21 Pallas Athene

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Posted 06 July 2012 - 12:50 PM

The citations are a little difficult. The easiest way to do them is to change the edit tab from "Visual" to "Source" and add one of these:

{{book ref | Journal of Tavara}}
{{dialogue ref | Omen}}
{{dialogue ref | UrSylph | Undine, Sense, History}}
{{hintbook ref | 12}} (p. 12)
{{hintbook ref | 12 | 13}} (pp. 12–13)

But really, I don't mind fixing these things up myself if you leave notes where I should fix them. I have less to contribute on the content front, so I'm happy to do more on the make-wiki-look-better front.

There's no limit on the number of articles. I agree that starting an article just to discuss theories probably doesn't make sense. But it makes sense to have a Tavara article and it makes sense to have a Sapphire Books article, and if we have both, we might as well put theories on the latter.

#22 BreadWorldMercy453

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Posted 06 July 2012 - 04:06 PM

Oh dear, I don't understand that at all. Thank you doing it for me :x

I could maybe add the other Foundation theories that were discussed a bit ago to the Sapphire page. I think it would be cool to mention that weird Kabbalah tree of life that the books seem to be named after, but I don't really understand it.

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