TROLLS

This is just too good. Enjoy the laugh!

PART 1

== Toes stepped on ==
Since you asked: yes, I've been quite irritated at your rewrites of several of the pages I'd previously rewritten (I noticed UFO Incursions and Tactical Combat Missions; I don't know if there were others). I appreciate your enthusiasm, but your excited, rambling tone makes the pages much less readable than my more clinical format. I originally thought this might be just bias on my part, so I had a friend compare the versions blind (i.e. without telling him that I wrote one of them or what to look for); he said "1A [your Tactical Combat Missions] reads like a poorly compiled strategy guide, whereas 1B [my Tactical Combat Missions] reads like a wiki".

I've been strongly considering mass reverts, but I haven't been on much recently and didn't particularly want to start a giant fight (was also concerned that reverting some of your edits without tracking down all of them might leave information out, if you'd moved it from one article to another). But since you asked - this is where I sit. 

(I have no issue with adding information or moving it around, to be clear; it's the prose issue that's driving me nuts.) <s>User: 1 CENSORED</s>

== Criticism ==

I've had a look at the Organizations page and noticed you have given it a comprehensive re-write. While you were right to remove the Relations section because it has it's own page, I'm not cool with some of the other edits. Especially the section about guards - your edits have made it *less* accurate.
:1. Most glaringly, the "guards" don't just defend the organizations' buildings, but are also used to raid others, including X-COM.
:2. There is no unit that's actually called "Guard" in the game. "Building Security" is a specific type of unit used by most organizations (all except Megapol, the Cult, and the Gangs) to defend their buildings. You seem to have confused this. Look at the Population page, it clearly states which unit appears in which mission. 
:3. More generally, some of the section titles aren't good - for example, "mercantile services" - "mercantile" means something that pertains to merchants or trading. Government funding or taxi services, for example, don't fit.
:4. Avoid writing like this: 
:"Note:
:Note:
:Note:
:Special note:"
:If there are so many things you have to "note", either re-write the section and incorporate the notes into the text, or use a separate section for the notes.

I'll re-write the page when I find the time. But, in the future, please don't do this sort of major surgery if you're not absolutely certain that the information you are removing/changing is actually wrong.

The only other pages I've looked at are a few of the weapons. These edits seem better, at least at first glance, so here's just a few observations:
:1. "Explode-on-impact when thrown. RMB on grenade image in agent's hand." I assume the first full stop was supposed to be a colon? In any case, this information is placed in an awkward place, and writing it as a full sentence would make it easier to understand. It may also be better to place it on the Controls page rather than listing it under every single explosive weapon.
:2. "Flame Time Effective = burning well, will damage units, set fire to torso, spreads if possible.
:Flame Time Extingushed = flames are dying down until no more.
:On Fire Time = flames on torso."
:I have no idea what most of this means, and the way its stuck at the end of the article makes it even less understandable. Again, it would certainly help if you used full sentences. 
:3. Descriptions that are directly quoted from the in-game UFOpaedia and other official sources should be clearly marked as such (Source: X-COM Apocalypse Ufopedia). <s>User: 2 CENSORED</s>

:YES... I agree with you ''censored''. Those weapon equip articles are a bit repeatative text, which was going to be changed. Looking at my quick jotted down list, there was on there.

:: I have seem to have gotten two at once: ''censored'' and ''censored''.
Replies will be forthcoming.

==General Reply==
Most of the pages written are formatted in such a way to have a:<br>
1. relevant but humerous bolded one-liner at the start.<br>
2. a basic definition/description of what it is, using (mostly) the article title as the first heading (or "In General", which i'm avoiding).<br>
3. a step further in description 'working our way' through to get to the proper 'meat and bones'.<br>
4. detailed description in a <s>template</s> format style which will '''look''' similar to other pages.<br>
5. if needed, highly detailed information relevant (facts) to the specific article.<br>
6. cautions, warnings and '''notes''' to get the readers attention as something important.<br>
7. and any other wip version since no page is ever finished 100%.<br>
===The Hive===
'''logical format for each page, uniform layout, removing fluff, pub-talk, weasle-words, incorrect stuff'''.
: I generally agree that these should be removed. I don't think Trivia sections are bad, however - I mean things like "this alien is likely inspired by the Creature from the Black Lagoon". However, I do think they could be moved to a separate, combined page. Something like this: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_pop_culture_references_in_Warcraft
<s>User: 2 CENSORED</s>

:: Thanks for the swift reply. Trivia not connected to apocalypse (chuck morris) but the other one in [[Valkyrie_Interceptor_(Apocalypse)|Valkyrie]] is good. The cultural references or "other fandoms" link probably should be at the bottom of pages with such info. [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]] ([[User talk:EsTeR|talk]])

===The thing about copywrite.===
If every 'official text' needs the disclaimer: "Source: in-game Ufopedia", then <u>every single picture, word-for-word text</u>, no matter how acquired, '''must''' have the disclaimer immediately after (something like this): "Source: in-game asset illegally de-compiled from ''insert filename'' using editing programs, displayed/copied here without exclusive permission".<br>
Is that silly? of course it is!

: I agree that it's not necessary for every single bit of "official" material. But I do think it should be done for those quotes at the beginning of many articles. Not because of copyright reasons, but <u>to clearly mark it as in-game text</u>. This is important because <u>the in-game text is sometimes vague or misleading</u>.<s>User: 2 CENSORED</s>

REPLY: quite a few (all the weapon links if i remember) did not have the official text prominent, but was buried into the article, and NOT attributed as being official, but there it was!:<br>
some random old weapons pages to explain:<br>
* https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Megapol_Lawpistol&oldid=104677
* https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Marsec_M4000_Machine_Gun&oldid=106672
* https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Marsec_Proximity_Mine&oldid=24919<br>
...essentailly all weapon equipment pages had the official text but was it was not attributed to ufopedia!<br>
It is a bit harsh to complain about removing "source: official text" from some articles but many many more (the majority format. ie: a wall of text, then pic, wall of text) had the exact same thing as above examples (ie: no source blurb as noted in the three examples above).<br>
Most, if not all, of the weapons pages I changed to a 'middle ground' format which I knew the official text should be prominent. Removing the large boxed+picture plus "source: official text" from the few pages reduced the <u>visual</u> page size. Large pictures when added increased that boxed 'source: official text' box and pushed the text down. Removing those 'boxed source official text' boxes allow a format of having two pics either side... that's why all (probably missed some) were changed to have uniform format.
example (which needs more work):<br>
[[Metro_Roadhog_(Apocalypse)]]<br>
instead of this example which the bigger the pic, the bigger the boxed section becomes:<br>
[[Talk:Metro_Roadhog_(Apocalypse)]] [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]] ([[User talk:EsTeR|talk]])

=Disinginuous Criticism=
Entry within "Populations"<br>
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Population_(Apocalypse)&oldid=106830#Building_Security
 Security guards' armament and numbers depend on which organization employs them (starting Tech Level can be as low as 1 or as high as 4, and there can be anywhere between 5 and 17 of them). In particular, the Government, Marsec, Solmine, Cyberweb, S.E.L.F. and the Mutant Alliance use better-equipped and larger groups of guards.<br>
and 
 Security guards' Accuracy is a little poorer than average.

"Security guards" which can be <u>shortened</u> to "Guards". Yey, I get blasted because I called them guards elsewhere ...yet, here in that example old-edit above, security '''Guards''' word is used instead of the specific "Building Security".

...example in old-edit:<br>
 Megapol will use Police. The gangs will use Gangsters. The Cult of Sirius will use Cultists. Everyone else uses Building Security."<br>
and<br>
 Guards will also pick up loose and valuable goods such as..."

 'censored''': "You seem to have confused this. Look at the Population page, it clearly states which unit appears in which mission."

No no no... YOU seem to be confused. You fly off the handle about building security this, building security that, and thats what they are called (guards), yet the edit exactly before mine when I started, used the words '''Security Guard''', which you blast me for, for continued use and trying to keep the same wording?

...and<br>
Wherever I've made the choice to use the word "guards", I've tried to make the distinction that they are seperate entities, ie:<br>

[[Tactical_Combat_Missions_(Apocalypse)#Battlescape_Mission_And_Tactics]]
"...on the population of: aliens, civilians, security guards (cultists, gangsters, police and guards), and X-Com units.

[[Tactical_Combat_Missions_(Apocalypse)#Search_And_Investigation]]
"...are detected, [[Organizations#Corporate_Security_Forces|security guards]] will only appear if..."

and bulleted explaination for those readers that missed the first two:<br>
[[Tactical_Combat_Missions_(Apocalypse)#Raid]]<br>
 A raid will contain security guards to defend the structure:

    Company buildings and the government will contain Guards.
    Gang buildings will contain Gangsters.
    Temple buildings will have Cultists.
    Any buiiding owned by Megapol will have uniformed Police.

TO say that I '''seem to have confused this.''' when it is written within the building security old-edit which i kept using as "security guards"...

yes... damn right I'm angry.

:There are five types of "guard": Police, Building Security, Corporate Hood, Cultists, and Gangsters. You completely left out Corporate Hoods, and you even omitted them from the quote you use to supposedly prove you're right. Pathetic!
:Here's the whole quote: 
:"Megapol will use Police. The gangs will use Gangsters. The Cult of Sirius will use Cultists. Everyone else uses Building Security in their own buildings and Corporate Hoods when attacking yours."
:Your edits completely ignore the fact that most organizations use Building Security to defend from your raids, but Corporate Hoods when attacking X-COM bases. So using "Guards" to refer to both of them is incorrect. THAT is the problem.
:I'm sorry to hear you're angry, but that's not my problem.<s>User: 2 CENSORED</s>

=Mercantile word use=
''censored'': "... "mercantile services" - "mercantile" means something that pertains to merchants or trading..."

Merchants: the thing/person/company et al. that sell/barter/trade to others. eg: marsec sells a prox mine for cash.
Trading: buying something with money/credit/IOUs/"other" services. ie: the swapping of something valuable to someone for something else in mutual agreement. eg: X-Com buys a prox mine for cash.

so...
"...means something that pertains to merchants or trading..."

Thanks for clarification that I'm correct with vocabulary. I won't bother trying to explain "services" as in "Mercantile Services".

:Once again, government funding isn't a mercantile service. Neither is having Androids or Hybrids available for hire. <s>User: 2 CENSORED</s>

=I have no idea what most of this means=
 Flame Time Effective = burning well, will damage units, set fire to torso, spreads if possible.
 Flame Time Extingushed = flames are dying down until no more. 
 On Fire Time = flames on torso.

What happen when a IN (round or grenade) is has impacted and started burning? What does fire do? 

IF you don't understand it then it is obvious you haven't played the game enough to be suitable in editing ufopedia apocalypse section.


yes... damn right I'm angry.

:You know what, you can fuck right off with that attitude. I'm certainly not the best editor in the world, but I am a veteran player (completed the game at least 5 times) who's spent ages testing game mechanics and editing these pages, and most importantly *keeping the information on them accurate and understandable*. And you know what? Sometimes I was wrong (especially when I was just starting out), but I didn't cry like a bitch every time somebody corrected me.<s>User: 2 CENSORED</s>


===The thing about "reads like a strategy guide"===
(Which I think is pertaining to "Tactics" section in some pages).<br>
Well, if a subjective description for, (eg:) tactical battle, is prohitited because it is not 'facts', then it will only ever read like this:<br>
eg:<br>
1. Land at crashed UFO.<br>
2. Find aliens.<br>
3. Netralise aliens.<br>
4. End Turn(TB) or Wait(RT).<br>
Thats it! That is the absolute maximum that can be on the page according to you because it is only fact.<br>
I know its ridiculous, you know its ridiculous.

Thinking about it later: I don't understand your myopia. You complained about one page specifically and complain that other pages I've edited to (roughly my) same format aren't your "clinical format". Well... why didn't you back up your 'clinical format' ideals by fixing up '''every page''' that needed fixing over the years? (need examples? look at my profile: "Pages Changed" for many more to the same format). I've made a large effort to making this apoc section of ufopedia have -all- the information possible. Read all pages that have "tactics" within them - which the bulk of which does not say how to play the game but '''what to expect''' when playing the game. However, riculous things like blocking dimension gates will need step by step explaination, which will be <s>how to play</s> how to do it. [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]] ([[User talk:EsTeR|talk]])

Notes for part 1: copywrite thing is fixed, guards thing has been fixed, note: thing is heavily reduced, mercantile is fixed

PART 2

==Taking stock==
EsTeR says he's gone away. I want to do some reversion/rewrites here (I didn't particularly want to wage full-on edit war, but if he's left then there's no reason to leave UFOpaedia Apoc in this state), but I wasn't around for much of this so I don't have a good idea of which pages he did and didn't affect and ''in particular'' which pieces of information he actually full-on moved from one article to another vs. newly added vs. duplicated (in the case of stuff he moved, there's the question of which page it belongs on and we need to make sure we don't lose it, but in the case of duplications we generally want to remove one of the mentions to help undo the bloat).

Do you have some idea of the shape of things? <s>User: 1 CENSORED</s>

Sorry for replying so late, I wasn't active here for a while. Frankly, he changed most of the pages. Among other things:
a) redoing the main page at https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Apocalypse. I haven't compared it to the older version, so I guess this is where any major work on the Wiki should start.
b) pretty much all the pages under "Battlefield Tactics & Gameplay" have been extensively changed and information shuffled around. I've lost track of what happened. It will take a *lot* of work to rewrite this.
c) the pages on Damage Modifiers, Vehicles (the general pages, not the ones about specific vehicles), and Buildings have been significantly altered.
d) at least the 4 pages on unused features have been consolidated into one. I don't think the old ones have been deleted though, but at least they aren't on the main page anymore.

Other than that, I see several issues with the Apocalypse part of the Wiki, of which I would highlight:
1) his writing style was very different from the one used on most of the pages, far more suited to a fanmade guide than a wiki - though, admittedly, some of the old pages also had a very "pub talk" style with lots of "you should do XY" which isn't really suited to a wiki, either. Some pages got "trimmed" yet had IMO superfluous info added (e.g. do we really need to describe what explosive damage is?). Spelling/writing standardization would also be nice - e.g. is it X-COM or X-Com? It would also be good to refer to things consistently - e.g. not talking about Security Guards in one article, Building Security in another, and just Guards in a third. Flying vehicles or airborne vehicles? And so on.
2) there is still quite a bit of information that hasn't been verified. This is made worse by the fact that even the OpenApoc team seem to disagree on some things. For example, a lot of info on Organizations can be found floating around their Discord, but after consulting Skin36 and doing extensive in-game testing, I have found some of this info is just outright false - most glaringly, despite what some of the team claim, the Tips Book is outright wrong on the effects of allying with certain Organizations. Skin did mention he found there are quite a few places in the code that the "allied" flags are checked - but it's not obvious what they do.
3) images are often not being displayed correctly. This appears to affect the entire wiki, but is especially visible in the Apocalypse part because so many new ones were added. <s>User: 2 CENSORED</s>

'''Hello, I'm still around.''' 
First off, read -every single page- through the whole Apocalypse section. You will have a better understanding of what was done. 
1. Most pages were not uniform with many missing pics. The alien buldings pages in particular were needing extensive work and uniformness. I think 99% of the alien dimension anything is complete beside spelling mistakes and minor formatting. 
2. A wiki will become shallow and basically useless if you want to make the apoc section like wikipedia's "what not how" format and since there already is such a page, copy and pasting it here is redundant ...but is that what you both want? The whole point of these pages is concrete information which I have added to in a massive way. I have added many 'tactics and gameplay' to pages where it is useful. Expanding those sections would be the way to go and not sterilizing the page to make it like other pages (to other games) found on the internet. 
3. Orgs with false information from the hint book has been mentioned in the relevant page. 
4. The only pictures which do not display correctly are the title pages within the cut section and one in the citywall section. Every single page has the pictures displaying correctly. 
5. Moving pages within the Apocalypse title page was done to organise topics to be together as subtitles. I think I've done a good job but the "Combat Format" should be more integrated into the "Battlescape Tactics And Gameplay" section. I haven't re-written those pages but have dumped information into them to consolidate into one section only... and not like three sub-standard pages dealing with Cut Content as was before. I didn't look good. Old pages are still around - I have not deleted moved content but chose one of the three cut content pages to become the only one. 
 
 
Finally, consider this thought... if the apocalypse section has been added to heavily and cleaned up massively by me, then why are you both complaining that the work which needed to be done, has been done? If you cared about this as much as your demeanor implies then you would have made an effort to fix this section 'years' ago. [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]]

:We did make an effort to fix it, ''CENSORED'' especially so. Check the edit histories of the Apoc pages and you'll find one or both of us on most of them. Much of the stuff you did is not "work which needed to be done"; it's actual disagreements between us and you. The only thing I recall as truly ''needing'' cleanup prior to your bull-in-a-china-shop act is ''CENSORED'' pseudo-blogging, which admittedly I did let slide mostly because it was confined to a few pages that weren't otherwise in use.
''DELETED'' ....and undoing your damage is a much bigger project than telling you to stop since you've made literally thousands of edits and ''some'' of them are actually okay so simply writing a script to globally rollback everything you've ever done on UFOpaedia would not be the best idea.
:I did actually try to get an admin to intervene last year (I wasn't really looking for you to be banned, just warned with teeth to stop doing the objectionable stuff), but he's mostly absentee as well and I didn't chase it up because I thought you'd left and admin rights are only useful for stopping you rather than for reverting you. <s>User: 2 CENSORED</s>

:: ''DELETED'' but some choice of words you choose go too far. Damage? If you think what i have done is damage then you go away from here. [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]]

::: EsTeR, what you did here isn't doing "what needed to be done", it's basically hijacking the whole Apocalypse section of the wiki and turning it into your personal FAQ, which it is not - there are sites like GameFAQs for what you're trying to write. I have little free time and no wish to spend it on edit wars, especially since the admins - and the site in general - seem to be pretty much inactive, but you on the other hand seem to have hours and hours to spend here, and have no problem using them to remove anything done by me or ''CENSORED''. That is why I stopped trying to fix things long ago, as I know you'll just change them the moment I turn my back. But I am hurt to see the pages I worked on so long butchered by you, and I have no wish to communicate with you further. <s>User: 2 CENSORED</s>

::::'''If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.''' [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]]

==Examples==
...of what needed to be done (links below):

continued...
Honestly, If you think what I have done is damage to few example given above, then you are a troll and should just go join your friend.<br>
aka: '''you go away from here'''.<br>
[[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]]

I love it!!

Its a case of arrogance with a heavy dose of spitting-the-dummy.

I'm User:EsTeR trying to make this the be-all-and-end-all of X-Com Apocalypse knowledge on the internet, yet I've got ~~sour-puss~~ detractors who think they know all, of how it should look. Before I started editing proper (~Mar,2022), this mish-mash of pages with bad writing style on the Apocalypse section, minimal stick-to-the-topic conversational type wording, repetative information on multiple half-arse pages, bad comprehension, minimal amount of pictures, illogical format and missing data is somehow supposed to be "undamaged".
I cannot fathom it...!
For a 25+ year old game it may seem my motivation may be misplaced. Of well, massive amount of pics unloaded but at the very least, almost 50% of bugs have been (ongoing) found by me and that I invented Stun Raiding ...so stick that where the sun...
EsTeR

User:EsTeR

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