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Is there a way to look up all images that are used in articles, sorted by oldest?
I would like to look for old images, that need to be updated.
There is a list of unused files (313 total): https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/index.php?title=Special:UnusedFiles&limit=500
and there is a list of all files, sorted by date: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/index...=100&ilsearch=&user=&sort=img_timestamp&asc=1

But the former excludes files used anywhere, not just in regular pages. The latter contains a lot of icons and flags.
 
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Is there a way to look up all images that are used in articles, sorted by oldest?
I would like to look for old images, that need to be updated.
I queried the files from the wiki API, creating this list: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/User:Bitmode/Used_images

The page upload timed out when using internal links to the images, which is why they are external now. Those are all images used in pages in the Main: namespace which don't have Category:Mods.

Btw, shouldn't mods be in their own namespace anyway?
 
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@Mister Analyst there are a bunch of entries in [[Hotkeys]] which don't actually have a hotkey. Shouldn't they be in [[user interface]]?

@bitmode ,
  1. Are you proposing to orphan the "non-hotkeys" by splitting them between the two pages? I am not in favor of this proposal.
  2. Are you proposing to combine the two pages and have a redirect for one of the pages? I would support this proposal.
  3. Are you proposing something else?
With respect to the Hotkeys page, by my count there are only 13 entries that do not have a hotkey while there are 90 operations that do have a hotkey. Reference the table below. At the time, it made sense to have each section be as complete as possible so the user would not have to jump between multiple pages even though not all operations had a corresponding hotkey. I still favor this approach.

SectionHotkey Count Per SectionNon-Hotkey Count Per Section
Top Menu100
Map hotkeys90
Map mode interface hotkeys167
Army hotkeys20
Battleplan hotkeys112
Division management hotkeys74
Naval hotkeys160
Air hotkeys190
Totals9013
 
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Much respect to the dedicated people doing their best to maintain the HoI4 wiki, but I'm just chiming in here with another "I really, really think if Paradox is serious about ensuring players can have a reliable guide to how their games work, that the wikis are a poor way to do it".

At no point - not once, since the launch of HoI4, have I seen the wikis in a state where I would consider them adequate as a guide to the game. Many sections are, and some sections are excellent, but relying on volunteers to cover everything, often with insufficient info from the devs, is a system that's designed to fail. Much credit that the volunteers in this thread have held it together enough that it's not a complete waste of time visiting. I stopped visiting them regularly many moons ago for this reason.

The particular trigger for this visit was finding out that someone had removed accurate information I'd put on the wiki, replacing it with inaccurate information (through reading the notes in the defines and assuming they were accurate) - which due to notifications being broken, I never heard about, so was unaware. Bitmode has since put the accurate information back up, but it's in a different place, so now there are two bits of the wiki that say different things about the same mechanic (I've let you know in a different thread where this is @bitmode - and again, this is not a criticism of you - you're one of the key people, along with the others in this thread, ensuring that the wikis aren't near as bad as they could be - if you're not already, you should be receiving some kind of thanks from Paradox).

The game is just too large and complicated, and changes too often (with the changes often subtle and not always well-advertised in the way that people maintaining the wiki are going to find out about them), for volunteers to effectively maintain in their spare time. I'd argue, strongly, that they need to be "professionalized up", with a paid person in charge of coordinating wiki maintenance, who is also responsible for filling in the gaps and resolving issues as they arise. Without this, they'll just continue to be what they are now - a lucky dip where you might get exactly what you need, you might get something that tells you inaccurate information, or you may well not find what you need covered at all.

Edit: Sorry to sound crotchety. I've recently got a bit a more "HoI4" time, and getting back to contributing to the wikis was one of the things that it could have potentially been spent on, but the experience of finding past accurate information replaced by inaccurate stuff, and that notifications clearly aren't working, was a bit deflating, and I think I'll just go the full modding. Big props to all who continue to keep the wiki afloat - keep up the great work :)
 
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@Axe99 This is good feedback and I do agree with a lot of what you say. I am only a volunteer and do not have the time, nor the love for HOI4 to be a truly dedicated editor. We do have one person who's paid for their time but their time budget restricts them to do the behind the scenes infrastructure work on the wikis.

We are actively looking for ways to optimise editor's time on the wiki. Something we're very keen on, is scripting the large tables so that when patches drop we can merely rerun scripts and have chunks of the wiki up to date. This will hopefully free time for people to work on the mechanics pages.
 
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We do have one person who's paid for their time but their time budget restricts them to do the behind the scenes infrastructure work on the wikis.
So broken down per wiki that is one part-time job maintaining a website. No different than e.g. what any free community wiki on fandom.com has. And just as a reminder, the wiki is not just linked from the game in some external resources list, the tutorial repeatedly points players at it - in a game actively selling millions of copies!
which due to notifications being broken, I never heard about, so was unaware
They have been broken for well over a year. Status from January:
Been reported to DevOps.
They handle company-wide issues so it's low priority I'm afraid.
Imagine notifications on the forums weren't working for over year. I think the level of inaction on Paradox's part speaks for itself.

I've recently got a bit a more "HoI4" time, and getting back to contributing to the wikis was one of the things that it could have potentially been spent on, but the experience of finding past accurate information replaced by inaccurate stuff, and that notifications clearly aren't working, was a bit deflating, and I think I'll just go the full modding.
Sad to hear it, but understandable. :(
We are actively looking for ways to optimise editor's time on the wiki.
So how about looking for instance at the actual points @Axe99 brought up? Have you followed up on the notification issue at all? You probably don't follow the general hoi4 forum (seeing that you moderate its wiki despite not caring much about the game), but we probably don't have even a dozen potential contributors with the level of insight Axe99 has.
Something we're very keen on, is scripting the large tables so that when patches drop we can merely rerun scripts and have chunks of the wiki up to date. This will hopefully free time for people to work on the mechanics pages.
Outside of the moderator team, who subscribes to this hope? Editors are already free to work on whichever part of the wiki they like or are most competent at. I doubt Axe99 was looking at https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Chinese_events to arrive at their conclusion.
 
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@Axe99 This is good feedback and I do agree with a lot of what you say. I am only a volunteer and do not have the time, nor the love for HOI4 to be a truly dedicated editor. We do have one person who's paid for their time but their time budget restricts them to do the behind the scenes infrastructure work on the wikis.

We are actively looking for ways to optimise editor's time on the wiki. Something we're very keen on, is scripting the large tables so that when patches drop we can merely rerun scripts and have chunks of the wiki up to date. This will hopefully free time for people to work on the mechanics pages.

Thanks for your reply, and sorry to be a bit crotchety. As per my comments, my gripe is in no way, shape or form about you or the other volunteers, but rather the system. The volunteers are tops :) But the system they have to work with has serious issues. As you'd hope, when Paradox did their survey sometime in the last little while (last 12 months?) I was sure to raise this.

Some thoughts below, in case useful, but if not please ignore - not trying to have a go, I promise all comments are of the "here are some thoughts, because I want the wikis to be the best they can be, because I think they're an important part of HoI4's ecosystem" (and, as the game gets new mechanics over time with DLC, more important than they were in June 2016). So, knowing you've been warned... :)


I'd argue that getting the notifications system back is essential to having it run smoothly. If I was a troublemaker (I'm not, but the trolls I'm talking about are real) I could go on the wiki, change a bunch of stuff in unhelpful ways, and there's no small chance no-one would know until a volunteer swung by. It also means that people who make inaccurate changes may never be told what they've done, and be given the feedback necessary to help them improve their work.

At this point, given how long it's been waiting, I'd strongly suggest that if there is a volunteer capable of looking into it, seeing if it's possible to give them permission to at least look at the code and see if they can spot the error, and suggest a fix, so that it could be sent to DevOps to "verify" - that way, it'd take a lot less Dev time, and perhaps get a solution.

My concerns about the system stand without notifications, but at least from my angle the notifications are important - had they been working, there wouldn't have been erroneous data sitting in the ships section for however-long, and it makes it much more feasible for a "core volunteer" to "curate" a section, but others to chip in and help, as they can keep track of what's going on. Without notifications, it adds a whole 'nother overhead of communication, or just means less happens.

For the system more broadly, the first thing I think the wikis need is some proper data analysis - a comparison of what's in the game, vs what's in the wikis (as well as how up-to-date what's in the wikis is). This kind of analysis needs to be maintained over time, and would provide insight into which parts are effectively handled by volunteers with little or no assistance or motivation, and which bits are neglected.

Then, there needs to be some kind of "order of priorities" - if it were me, the first thing I'd prioritise is that ensuring that even if the wikis are patchy, that they're accurate - a new player coming to a wiki and getting further confused creates a negative emotional association between the game and the player, and will (at least on the margins, and potentially totally) reduce engagement with the game, which is the opposite of what a wiki should do.

Then, armed with a plan and the data on the state of play, the person managing the wikis can assess where best to focus resources (ie, their time and where to motivate volunteers), and over time the plan plus data will enable the wiki manager to assess whether the plan is too ambitious (ie, are the plan's goals being achieved), and either have a good case to lobby the powers that be for more resources, or change the plan to at least ensure that what is provided does the job.

Note - I'm not suggesting my approach is necessarily the best approach - just that it feels like the system is missing effective project management, or that there was a good plan put together, but the resources don't match the plan, so the end results aren't what was envisaged. Once again, this is not a reflection, in the slightest - on the volunteers - given the current system, the wiki is in far better shape than if it was just maintained by "average people" - so the volunteers need a big pat on the back and whatever else can be done to thank them for serious time, effort and expertise.


Sad to hear it, but understandable. :(

Your comments about my insight are far too kind :). If notifications come back again (and I am following this thread on-and-off - I've had a fairly average 12 months health-wise though, so it's been more off than I'd like) I'd be up for at least doing bits and bobs as capacity allowed. Without notifications, though, I just don't have the spare energy to do a good enough job of looking after "a spot". I'm in awe of what you do (here and elsewhere) :cool:
 
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@Axe99, thank you for your words and the feedback. We try to do our best even if at times it may not seem to others as enough.
I can't elaborate at this time on why notifications was not fixed, but if all goes well the wikis should have it fixed along with other requested improvements by the end of the year.

@bitmode , as I am getting tired of dealing with the HoI4 saga I have gone ahead and, per your previous request, updated the whole wiki to the latest version. If you spot a mistake then feel free to fix it.

----

To clarify, since it seems some refuse to acknowledge the fact, I have a full time job on my hands and instead of spending most of my free time with friends and loved ones (or even playing a game for that matter), I dedicate them to maintaining all the wikis along with the wonderful team of volunteers. This is not a "part-time-job" -- the HoI4 wiki gets, at best, a couple of hours a month.

As always, if any of you would like to take care of the HoI4 wiki project on as part of the wiki team feel free to mention it.
 
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An anonymous user has been (wrongly) changing the country leaders and party names of countries over the last few days. They are going through them alphabetically and currently at Italy. To save them and us a bunch of work, maybe we should temporarily restrict the next few countries for anonymous users?
 
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An anonymous user has been (wrongly) changing the country leaders and party names of countries over the last few days. They are going through them alphabetically and currently at Italy. To save them and us a bunch of work, maybe we should temporarily restrict the next few countries for anonymous users?
It might be that they use a mod and are unaware of it.
Regardless, next pages have been protected and they have been blocked. If it continues I'll opt for a range block.
 
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@Axe99, thank you for your words and the feedback. We try to do our best even if at times it may not seem to others as enough.

Please don't take my comments as anything directed at you (or anyone else) personally - I think you do a great job as well, and I'm well aware that you're not near enough resourced for the job that (appears to be) required. You put in sensational work :) It's just clear that there's just not enough of you to go around (ie, my issue is that the system underlying the wikis isn't up to the task of providing reliable player guides, which is what I see as the goal for the wikis - ie, you need more resources, be they more volunteers or more paid people).

In terms of getting more volunteers, efforts to develop more of a "team ethos" might help - as could other rewards.

I can't elaborate at this time on why notifications was not fixed, but if all goes well the wikis should have it fixed along with other requested improvements by the end of the year.

This is great news - be sure to let us know when it is, and I'll start getting back into things. Going forward, the notifications issue may be a situation where PDX being in charge of the wikis may have slowed down the speed required for them to be fixed (as if it was still run by volunteers, they'd have had the access to sort it, depending on what the issue was) or it may be something that without PDX in charge, it would have been broken permanently (ie, it might be something that without DevOps resources, the issue couldn't have been sorted).

To clarify, since it seems some refuse to acknowledge the fact, I have a full time job on my hands and instead of spending most of my free time with friends and loved ones (or even playing a game for that matter), I dedicate them to maintaining all the wikis along with the wonderful team of volunteers. This is not a "part-time-job" -- the HoI4 wiki gets, at best, a couple of hours a month.

As always, if any of you would like to take care of the HoI4 wiki project on as part of the wiki team feel free to mention it.

I definitely wasn't meaning to suggest that you (apologies, I didn't know who the paid person was, and up until now thought you were another volunteer - to someone reading this thread, it's not always clear - or I'm really thick (not implausible...) - noting that I haven't read every post) weren't putting in a top effort - you do a top job, and being spread over all of the wikis clearly means you're limited in what can be done. My concern is in no way focussed on your work (you're doing a great job at making the best of what appears to be a very tough situation), but that perhaps the job is bigger than one paid person (or, as per my thoughts above, that the job needs to be smaller - or PDX accepts that the wikis will always be a bit "rough").

I'm afraid I'm not well enough to take ownership of anything right now (well, and get anything done), but once notifications are back I'll do my best to contribute to the pages again, as health allows. In terms of "taking care of the HoI4 wiki project as part of the wiki team" though, what would that involve, and would that provide the capacity to do things like fix the notifications? Given the issues with people changing stuff incorrectly (no small number of my changes when I was involved were changing things back when someone messed something up), if someone put me in charge of running things, I'd:

  • Look at how useful anonymous contributions were - if they're super-helpful keep them, but I suspect most of the volunteer benefit is from people that are active in this thread, or at least registered on the wiki. I could be wrong though - I wouldn't know how to get a report that gives some idea of this.
  • If, as suspected, anonymous contributions weren't helpful, I'd gate contributors to those who had applied and then approved, and set up a private sub-forum for wiki contributors. This way different parts of the wiki can be managed in different thread or sub-forums, rather than one 25-page (at time of writing) long thread.
  • People that apply to contribute on the wiki are then vetted via this sub-forum before they get the nod to make changes. This also creates a place where all contributors have a place to run things past other wiki contributors before they make changes.
  • Having a forum as a way to manage things would enable forum members to be given mod permissions for those forums, and help look after things (pin threads, organise the structure of forums, etc.,) keeping the load on volunteers rather than yourself.
  • Keep this thread for expressions of interest in being a wiki volunteer, and for suggestions for changes from people that don't actually want to change the wiki themselves.

This kind of approach could crash and burn (and if bitmode, Mister Analyst and other key contributors suggest it's silly, then it's a non-starter), but the "wiki-only" engagement approach leads to at least a noticeable amount of "make-work" entries that need fixing. I'm sorry I'm not in any state to do more than spitball ideas for managing things at the moment, and obviously given that, don't feel like you have to respond if the ideas are silly.
 
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Please don't take my comments as anything directed at you (or anyone else)...
No offense taken -- I meant the community as a whole.

To be clear, my full time job is not related to Paradox. However, I do assist them with the wikis' administration as much as my time permits me.

Your past contributions to the wiki are fully appreciated. The best you can do is keep yourself healthy. The rest can wait.
 
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@Axe99 Now and then I'll do some contributions to the wiki unregistered, meaning "anonymous". Mostly updating out of date information, for example in the research article I changed all the base research times to the new values after everything got reduced by roughly 10% once.
Stufd like that.
 
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Given the recent string of edits of the various political parties. A script scraping the files and dumping this into wiki format for the political party page with transclusion elements will save a lot of time. Furthermore we can edit the country pages to pull from the political party page and prevent duplication. The secondary bonus is this makes the political party page a high traffic page and we have reason to semi-protect it, preventing vandalism.
 
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Given the recent string of edits of the various political parties. A script scraping the files and dumping this into wiki format for the political party page with transclusion elements will save a lot of time. Furthermore we can edit the country pages to pull from the political party page and prevent duplication. The secondary bonus is this makes the political party page a high traffic page and we have reason to semi-protect it, preventing vandalism.
I'm liking this idea. More generally it might make sense to semi-protect fully automated pages even if they are not high traffic. Switching back from automation to manual should probably not be done anonymously.
I'll give it a shot later, but some columns might prove tricky. Party names can change based on cosmetic tags, i.e. GER_neutrality may be "Militärregierung" or "Deutschnationale Volkspartei" which often coincides with who the active leader of the ideology is.
In the same vein, the "In Power" column mentions event chains or focuses to come into power which are not easily scraped.

It might be easiest to leave these aspects out of the table itself and describe them in prose in the respective [[<Country>#Politics]] section. E.g. "{{icon|wtt}} Completing the national focus Oppose Hitler makes August von Mackensen the leader of the non-aligned party and changes its name to 'Militärregierung'" or "Selecting Alf Landon during the 1936 election changes the name of the democratic party to 'Republicans'".
 
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I think for the major powers and Spain which is a tricky case you can legitimately require they're put together manually. Beyond that I'd set everything as per the files in the 1936.1.1 timepoint. I understand the cosmetics change but that is the Initial setup of the game which is what's recorded on the wikis.

Beyond the political parties, applying the same logic to the starting technology, staff and designers and economy vastly reduces further editing overhead too.

I have no problems protecting automated pages, as long as the script used to generate the information is linked to on the talk page.
 
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What I'd like, is that such automated system would be open. Would be cool if modders like people of Kaiserreich could use such a tool for their wiki aswell.
 
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