Discworld & Pratchett Wiki talk:Mended Drum

• I would suggest starting in English only, this possibly being a Wiki analog to afp, or more probably abp, which of course are in English.
  Once a structure has evolved, the suitability, or not, of a many language approach will be easier to assess, I think.
  Thomas =:-)
  • I wasn't suggesting anything else, I was just talking about the Wiki I am working on ;-) --Death 21:11, 3 Jul 2005 (CEST)
    • And thats the point of CC licensing isn't it? (And everyone is surley working on a good Pratchett page in their own language, isn't that the meaning of it all. (i.e I got to the point where I wanted a characther index (not a full wiki) on the one I'm building, but then I get stuck developing a good system for building it. (Much more fun that way)). And for else the need of non-english Pratchett sites is quite big, espacally as bad as some translations is --Virre 12:54, 15 December 2006 (CET)

Spoilers ?

How should we handle spoilers ? For example, do we put all information on a character, or do we just describe them on their first appearance in the books, or something in between ? Or should we make "sections", adding info book by book ? --Silaor 02:20, 20 Oct 2005 (CEST)

I think sections by books will be too complicated. I think we can put general info widely-known in the more recent books in first few paragraphs, and then important spoilers in a separate section. For example, Carrot as Heir to the Throne is spoiler only for Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms, so that can go to general section. Another example, the entire article on Dorfl probably should be marked as a spoiler, seeing as it's mostly about Feet of Clay, and Dorfl hasn't had much more development in the later books. There is a "stub" template, is there a "spoiler" template saying something like "spoiler below"? In fact, I think a good way is how 210.54.8.253 handled Carrot's spoiler with a "rumours" section. Once Sanity remarked that it is unlikely that innocent readers will stumble across the spoilers in this wiki, but, for example, if I do succeed in getting my sister to try and read Feet of Clay, she'll finish reading all the articles here in a week, and then become very annoyed with the spoilers. --Vsl

I have created a spoilers template: {{spoilers}}

This article may contain spoilers for the plot of this book. If you haven't finished this book, proceed with caution. --Sanity 12:08, 20 Oct 2005 (CEST)

A point of.... Etiquette? Protocol? Needing guidance.

As posted in discussion on Victor Tugelbend

Is it proper to speculate on what the future might hold for Discworld characters, as I have some strong ideas about what profession Victor might have gone into after the events chronicled in Moving Pictures. I don't want to write down any speculative thoughts here as (i) anything said about the characters has to be supported by evidence in the books; and (ii)I read that Terry Pratchett himself visits these sites, and it puts him in a difficult position if he reads ideas originated by the fans - either it interferes with his train of thought, or if he's come up with a similar idea himself, it could present complications if a fan pops up and claims it as theirs. (Could also be viewed as cheeky or presumptuous, and I don't want that)

Ideas? Opinions?

thanks!

--AgProv 12:55, 27 April 2007 (CEST)

Also, not really the function of a Wiki. Some creative licence in explanations is often useful or necessary, but actual fiction belongs on another site. --Old Dickens 13:47, 27 April 2007 (CEST)

As with other places like a.f.p., this should be a speculation-free zone. This is more of an encyclopedia of little facts from DW, not a place to speculate on what might happen next. There are plenty of other places for that. --Sanity 15:01, 27 April 2007 (CEST)

As said elsewhere, thanks! I'm glad of the suthoritative correction, as it ocured to me I was in danger of letting my creative enthusiasm run away with me and carry me to a place it's not easy to come back from...points clearly noted, fully accepted, and hopefully any errors will be honest and minor ones that will soon be spotted and corrected. Great site, though, and thank you for all help and guidance rendered!--AgProv 15:13, 27 April 2007 (CEST)

New Books and divergent release dates - a proposal

Now On Sale in Britain; not in N. America until the end of October. Worse, it's ₤10.19 there and ₤12.40 in Canada! Usually I find the US cheapest, Canada more, but the UK even worse. Now we're getting screwed from both sides. --Old Dickens 21:13, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Thinking about it, what if we ask for a moratorium on anyone making Wiki entries on "Nation" or "Folklore" until the end of October, to give everyone who's interested a chance to buy and read the book? Feels a bit unfair that we have the book at the start of September, but North America won't see it till nearly November. What about Europe, Australia, et c? (Otherwise - for the next six or seven weeks or so, people in your position are being bombarded with spoilers for a book they haven't read yet, with every temptation to read them... thinking about it, if the circumstances were reversed, I'd be frustrated as Hell!

(Just for the record: have made three entries solely relating to "Folklore". Two on the page about the book itself, and only one on a character covered, who is new and original to that book. I've posted nothing related to "Nation" as yet.)--AgProv 09:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if we can fight the British advantage in publishing, or access to televised Pratchett, or the background in the minutiae of British culture in the post-war environment. Even such an old English movie and TV hand as myself won't know many of the minor celebrities and phenomena who color the stereotypes. We have certain disadvantages (maybe worse in the U.S.), so we'll have to pick other specialties. Sometimes there are North American stereotypes and lots of references are international. As for "spoiiers", I don't suffer from them, myself. I read books six times without "spoilage"; what can you do to me? Publish And Be Damned, I say! --Old Dickens 23:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

How can I put Greek and Russian characters into the Wiki?

Working up an entry on the Cornucopia, which really deserves mention of the Classical Ephebian characters written around the rim. I was able to transcribe these OK using the Greek "Symbol" font in Microsoft Word, but they transfer here as a series of "having difficulty accepting these characters" squares:-

’’‘’

There's also the Wintersmith's joyous singing in "Far Überwaldean" (Russian?)

СНОВА ПОХОЛОДАЛО!

Hey, that worked!--AgProv 22:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

& (Ampersand) + English Name of Greek letter + ; (Semi-colon)

Α Β Γ Δ Ε etc.

Fhh98 23:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

& + "english name of greek letter" + ;

α β λ ω for lower-case Ephebian Iron Hippo 15:12, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I just paste them in from Windows character map. Maybe that's only easier if you can't type. --Old Dickens 23:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

A related question: How to get runes? (In 6th grade I could read runes straight up but that skill has faded. Sic transit gloria mundi...) Iron Hippo 20:02, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Got it. Hmmm, works on main wiki but not here. Or?

ᛁᚱᚭᚿ ᚽᛁᛕᛕᚱ ᚽᚪᛌ ᚪ ᚽᚢᛄᛖ ᛑᚭᚿᚵ Iron Hippo 18:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "main wiki"? I tried one in Wikipedia; it didn't work there either. I can't think why we need runes, mind you. --Old Dickens 22:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Odd. It worked on Swedish wikipedia article Runes but not the English Sandbox or Swedish Sandbox. Needs investigating.

Why Runes? Because! Iron Hippo 08:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Stupid stupid stupid stupid. Forgot an x

Mind you need a font with proper unicode-codings thingy aswell but NOW it works -- Iron Hippo 08:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

[EnWikipedia] goes on at length about the difficulties. You seem to need Unicode thingies that everyone else has too, but those don't exist. --Old Dickens 18:30, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

For those who REALLY want to: Fonts are available at junicode.sourceforge.net [1] -- Iron Hippo 15:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

As for the original greek - I don't have the book, but I was able to decode from your squares to "ΠΑΝΤΑ ΠΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΕΙΣ ΧΑΠΙΖΩ ΕΊΟ ΈΝΑ ΌΝΟΜΑ" - is that correct-ish?

Searches

Any reason why the search will no longer give me a "pages that link to" option? I found this good for finding and correcting dead links - thanks BOZZ 14/10/2010 12:57

I don't think I understand the question. Every page comes with the "What Links Here" function; the search shows broken links too. Pages that link to what? --Old Dickens 00:20, 15 October 2010 (CEST)

Example "Ankh Morpork" (no hyphen) is currently listed in the "wanted pages" list and is therefore a dead link. on the search page when I used to search an option would come up for "pages that link to Ankh Morpork", this is far quicker and easier to locate so i could correct the problem than going through the search results for all pages containing the words Ankh and Morpork.

However i had not realised that the "what links here" function also works for dead pages. Different method works as good, Thanks. BOZZ 15/10/2010 07:47