Talk:Main Page


 * Archive 1 | Archive 2

United Nations is not there!
just to say that UN.wikia.com in nor real, and Unitednations.wikia.com in not up, and if you are here you like history and politics, and i wan your suport to get up a new wikia, you enjoy us?--Fero 03:14, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * unitednations.wikia.com is here now, and your work in tere is welcome--Fero 04:02, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Uh -- Fero, I appreciate your zeal to share and contribute, but I'm utterly confused by what you're trying to say here. Louisiannan 22:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Major Problems
Even though I'm not a very important user, I still think I have the right to say this. Without Max Sinister anymore, the TL is getting lax. Pure ASB TLs are running around on our website now, and we automatically welcome ALL editors, even vandals. Why don't we do a system where you need a username first, and not even welcome all users. We need to lay down the law. Mr.Xeight 22:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is that we don't have as much control over this wiki as we do at Frath, or I wouldn't mind implementing a system similar. If you'd like to police the ASB timelines, that works for me too -- what's happened to Max Sinister? Louisiannan 22:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I talked to him 1-2 months ago on an alt-hist forum much like that one. I was actually ridiculed for one of my TLs, so I had an emotional breakdown and some very choice words for one person, so I haven't been back. Anyway, when Max was really the only one to try to help with the TL, I asked why he hasn't been on this site in awhile. His answer was understandable, he decided it wasn't really fun anymore for him to make alt-hists after he finished his Chaos TL.
 * Can't we petition Wikia to let us decided what to do. I find it quite annoying some Islamic Fundamentalist who cleared the page of PS-1's female PM of Afghanistan, and seconds later was given "Hi, welcome to AltHist Wiki! I noticed your edit on "So-and-so (PS-1)" and I liked it! Have fun!"


 * As for ASB timelines I know the "Sino-Roman" and "Zhou" timelines are pure ASB. The user, Ladon just creates random countries by closeness, some nations that have never been in union in our world, and have little to do with each other. To add even more insult to insult, he makes random nations monarchies, republics, communist republics, etc and then makes their leader a name that has literally nothing to do with the nation he/she rules (such as he'll make a woman president with a Hungarian name for Indonesia or something). On top of that, the peoples of his TLs only have pages saying "So&So is leader of South Austria and Slovenia"-that's it. I remember one of the nations that was centered around Chicago, it's national languages were "native Hawaiin". Good luck finding any sort of native Hawaiin immigrants or restaurants in Chicago. Finally, one more problem I have with this ASB central Tls is one of them has the whole continent of Africa divided into "North, South, East, and West", something that would never fly in our world due to ethnic tensions and so forth.

I'm sorry I gave such a wall of text, I've been carrying that around with me for nearly a year now. Mr.Xeight 23:05, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I fear you may have jumped to conclusions, Mr. Xeight -- From what I gathered as I glanced over the Sino-Roman timeline, it's a vastly different world than ours, and that could very well explain why it varies so much from our world. Louisiannan 19:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

You can see what I mean at Queen Chantal Maugham (Zhou) Mr.Xeight 23:09, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree with Louisiannan. Isn't this supposed to be a place for creativity? 24.49.35.99 03:24, January 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * A suggestion to fight vandalism would be to create a page where users could report vandalism. The admins would check the page regularly, investigate, and take the necessary precautions (protect the page, block the user/anon, or just tell everyone to play nice).
 * As for ASB TLs, personally I don't have a problem with them...up to a point. Some of the best published works of alternate history have ASB PODs or setting.  Its when some authors just start to use it as a crutch that it becomes annoying.  Mitro 01:17, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Well how about a compromise then. The main problem I have with the Zhou and Sino-Roman TLs is they only contain the character's lineage. He's not going to come back to them, only create blank pages. I understand if the person makes a tasteless, ASB Timeline, but if he/she works with it, cares for it, and makes it one-hell-of-a story, who are we to criticize. If you all remember that "Celtic Tibet" page and its respective TL, that was only nation templates with random ethnicities in the wrong country and with really, really weird flags. So I propose a great compromise; as long as its fleshed out, I personally won't say a thing about it. As for the vandalism page I like the idea, but some people might abuse it or just be complete wankers about it and flood the page. Some people (like me) will now begin to systematically hunt down vandals and sysops like Marc or Bo might be frustrated by it to having to check it every minute for another minor vandal I see. I wouldn't want to make their time at AH a living Hell. But if we can find a way to balance, I'd love a page like that. Mr.Xeight 01:29, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Well this is wiki has only 90 active members and I doubt there would be that many abusers either currently or in the future, and they would be making themselves obvious targets for blocking if they attempted to. As for annoying the admins, well the final decision on having such a page is there's of course, but no one wants to see pages get vandalized and the work necessary to fix it would be easy.  Especially since the vandalism itself could be reverted by anyone, the protecting/blocking is the only real work.  Mitro 02:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

T.S.P.T.F.
Sounds like we need to have some sort of group that polices things. What I'm thinking is this:


 * 1) I don't have time to go through every time line.
 * 2) I don't want to spend the time going through every time line.
 * 3) I don't think any of the other admins, bureaucrats or else want to do it either.
 * 4) If we split up the work, we'd be much better policed.

With all that said, I think we should create the Time Stream Protection Task Force, a group of wiki members who've proven to be fair in their dealings with others, who won't quash a time line because they feel like it, and who are willing to work with a larger group to help keep things otherwise in check.

With that said, I'd like to open nominations to this Task Force. You may nominate someone else. If their nomination is seconded, the nominee will be considered, accepted or rejected by the Administrator-Bureaucrats of the wiki and if accepted may then be awarded their badge and their Quantum-Tachyon Rectifier. If you have any questions let me know. I'll be in contact with the other Administrator-Bureaucrats (Ben, Sikulu, Nik, Marc, Villa Cruoniga) about voting.

Nominations will be open through the end of August.

Be forewarned that nomination to the T.S.P.T.F. does not give you all-power, but it gives you the task of bringing troubling behaviour to the attention of Admins and Bureaucrats.

Nominees
''Enter the Username preceeded by a # when nominating, followed by your user name and date ( ~ ). Enter a : followed by your user name and date ( ~ ) when seconding a nomination. You cannot nominate yourself. You must be nominated by others. A nomination must be seconded for consideration.''


 * 1) Xi&#39;Reney, -- Louisiannan 16:25, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Mr.Xeight, -- Mitro 18:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC) :Xi&#39;Reney 10:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) User:Mitro, -- Mr.Xeight 16:40, 25 July 2009 (UTC) :--Xi&#39;Reney 10:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) User:Benkarnell, --Marcpasquin 13:51, 25 July 2009 (UTC) :--Xi&#39;Reney 10:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion?
The basic idea is agreeable. Just to clarify: Which rights will this TSPTF "badge and Rectifier" give one?? Any formal wikia rights? Or will this be more a "bloodhound group"?? Being kept out of the wikia admin-sysop-etc. system completely? --Xi&#39;Reney 15:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I've been thinking about any "formal" rights. I'll be discussing it with the other Admin-Bureaucrats to be sure, but I think I would extend rollback rights, to start with.  It will also depend on who gets nominated in.  It's that whole, "to whom much power is given, much is expected."  I want to make sure that the folks in the TSPTF will not abuse their powers, you know?


 * Otherwise, it's going to be a bloodhound group to somewhat help police the wiki, make sure that everyone's playing nice and following the rules. As for being "kept out of the wikia system", I think that I'd be more inclined to pick new admins from amidst the TSPTF unless someone showed real value otherwise.  Does that make sense?  Or does it just add more confusion? Louisiannan 16:26, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The more I think about this the more I think the TSPTF will be like "those that have been around for a bit." Meaning people that we know and are accepted, cooperative members of this community. Louisiannan 17:31, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Well I'm totally not into doing this and would never like to be considered. *hint hint* Mr.Xeight 18:40, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Mitro :) Mr.Xeight 19:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

How much sense does it make to nominate an admin? Isn't the TSPTF supposed to help the admins by reverting and reporting vandalism? If the majority or all are admins then what is the point? Mitro 15:18, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

You're right, Mitro. That's why I rescinded my nominations for a new person, sorry everyone. Mr.Xeight 16:41, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI, Louis has recently made Ben an admin. Mitro 16:26, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Nominations
Well, here are the nominations:


 * 1) Xi&#39;Reney
 * 2) Mr.Xeight
 * 3) User:Mitro
 * 4) User:Benkarnell

Given that Ben and Mitro already have admin rights, I've gone ahead and extended rollback rights to Xi'Reney and Mr. Xeight. We'll see about full admin powers a bit further down the road, but welcome aboard gents. Kindly take your TSPTF badge and display it with pride on your user page! Louisiannan 17:46, September 8, 2009 (UTC)

Apology
I apologize for any trouble and/or stress I have caused anyone in my 1 year and a bit I've been here. I made a major mistake, I eschewed quality, and replaced it with mere quantity. The complaints about my quality are of course, completely accurate. I am only sorry that I am a cause of any stress to others. I will freely admit that I was ignorant of the standards that were expected of the work I created, this is wholly my fault, and I do apologize. As you can probably tell, English is not my first language (I am a teen-ager learning it at school), I was using this wiki to practice making readable sentences. As this is not, and never was, the purpose of this wiki, I misused this public idea-sharing space. W̙̝ͧ̃͗i̢̖̰̝͙͖̺̟̼̿̽͐́ͅt̥̥̪̼̰ͯ͒̄̊̀ͬ͗̂h̴̡͍̹̺̃ͫ̈̌̀ ̖͚̓̾ș̛̞̫͙͇͉̾͐̎̀̂ĩ͕͍͖̦ͭ͌̀ͯ̕ͅn̖͈ͩͣ̄̋̋ͤ͡c̵̛̘̞͆̓̐̀̓̍̏ḙ̵͔̬͔͚͈͎̑͆ͪ́̑̋̆̓r͕̣͚̅͛͐̇͌̚e̷͕̓ͤͭ̈̌ ͔͚̯̰ͯͧ͐̀ả̋̓̔ͬ̓̀̀ͅp̨̩̗͔̈́̈ǫ̗̥̰̥͈̾̃̕l̦̙͙͍̗͌̆ͨ̏ͪ̈́̚͝o̸̶̳̙̰͙̘̥̤ͮ͋ͪg̪̹̝͔ͤ̊̊i͍̐͘e̸̿͂̂͗͏̬̹̦̼̫s͚͕̩ͥ̃̌̿͐̽̊́,̶̯̫̣͇͉̹ͧ͑̓͛ͬ̌ Ladon 23:12, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ladon -- There were a few that referenced your pages in particular -- but from what I could read about the Sino-Roman timeline, I saw no problems with how you set it up. The bulk of the complaints were related to pages done by others - pages that were not coherent in their story, that completely ignored the intent of this wiki -- to show creative alternate histories.  Your three timelines looked to be very creative, and frankly, worthwhile.
 * The sole complaint was the naming of characters in your timeline -- however, from what I understand, there was a melding of cultures between China and Rome -- is there any wonder that names spread east and west?


 * Your English, for that matter, is very legible, very understandable, compared to others I've read.
 * As for the "standards", as we said, as long as you were serious about your timelines, be they a little "out-there" or not, we don't mind -- if you're serious about them. I see nothing wrong with keeping your stories here, and improving them.  In fact, I ask you to reconsider -- I think you could make a valuable input here. Louisiannan 14:01, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Likem96
Why hasn't anyone done anything on Likem? All he's doing is importing articles from wikipedia and putting them into pages. Even if those are pages he made up, he's still not following the naming convention of putting what TL the page belongs to after the title's name. Can't someone do something? Mr.Xeight 04:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Huh, I missed this whole discussion. Thanks for adminning me, Dan.  And I'll take a look at Likem's stuff... tomorrow.  It's late.
 * And PS, I'm starting to really tire of AH.com myself. It's definitely more rigorous than this site, which is good, but it's also very cliquish and full of people who can only be described as "internet bags of a certain sort," if you follow me - which is bad.  I just looked over the response to your TL idea back in the day and was pretty embarassed to see such incivility.  Benkarnell 04:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It's like you read my mind. Though I do admit, my response was uncalled for. I will however not apologize. I do enjoy the ASB section now, the story about how Hitler uses Alien-space-bats and demonc-seals I actually think is funny. Mr.Xeight 13:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Featured Alternate History
So last month’s Featured AH was chosen by just one user and this month’s is the same one as in August 2008. I still feel we need a new procedure for choosing a featured alternate history instead of just allowing users to act unilaterally or just reuse past year Featured AHs. I realize now though that my original proposal might have been too complicated, so I propose this new version that can be found on my Sandbox: User:Mitro/Sandbox. I got the idea for the format from the Honorverse Wiki. I think it’s a lot less complicated and easier to use. If its acceptable I can add a link to the month templates used for the Featured section so that it will show up on the main page. I also still have my original proposal in case anyone rather use that. Mitro 15:49, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

European Federation
I'm pretty new to althistory, but i find it all facinating. I was wondering if any of the althists out there were about the european union forming into one nation, and becoming a world superpower rivaling the USA and China. cheers, scott.


 * to get a united europe by 2009, you would probably need a point of departure following the second world war.--Marcpasquin 19:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * hmmm, good point. Well i was thinking that the Allies reached berlin first, after invading normandy earlier than 1944. This allowed the whole of western europe to be under allied and capitist control, and to combat the eastern bloc, they formed the european union, which sometime later formed into the european federation.


 * I've decided to create an althistory on the European Federation and would appreciate any help from anyone who is interested in this subject. My e-mail is scott12398@hotmail.com ust incase anyone would like to contact me.

thanks

Byzantine Empire
Can we rename the TL most generically called "Byzantine Empire"? I like surfing the site to find pages involving my most humble ancestors (if that wasn't a blatant lie), but when I search "Byzantine Empire", that particular TL comes up. Mr.Xeight 22:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It hasn't been edited since February so I think its ok to rename it and turn the page into a dismbig. Any suggestions? Mitro 22:55, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe something like "Byzantine Empire Triumphant, or even something unimaginative like "Byzantine World", but I do like the idea of the Roman Kingdom being made into a disambig. Oh and I've finally found time to create a page for F'sW's Greece. Mr.Xeight 22:57, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll go with the first one ([EDIT] especially since I just found out Byzantine World is already taken) and then use the original article to create a disambig page (I like doing this because I stumble on so many good articles I never knew existed). Cool on FW Greece as well, can't wait to read it.  I'm working on Japan's at the moment myself.  Mitro 23:17, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Almost... there!
There's 7987 articles on the wiki! 13 more until 8000! Sorry, just thought I'd mention it. --DarthEinstein 20:53, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

In other languages
What is up with the "In other languages" section? The red links are spilling out of the square. Mitro 23:00, November 27, 2009 (UTC)

Help!
Someone has my password to this account. As of today I've had two people asked why I've been reverting edits on their pages. The first time I thought it was simply an accident. The second I know it hasn't been; I've been watching Me, Myself, and Irene since 10 AM Central Time!
 * What I'm afraid of is that literally no one I know knows that I'm involved on this site. It's not a friend playing around who I have my password to. Something terrible is happening and I think the best thing to do after this is to ban my account for a day once I change my password. I'll write another message once I'm ready.

Mr.Xeight 19:43, December 5, 2009 (UTC)

I've changed my password, I'm ready. Dan I'll email you the password. And Mitro if you could email me at mr.xeight@gmail.com. Mr.Xeight 19:49, December 5, 2009 (UTC)

Althist of an althist?
Would it be possible to take one of the existing timelines and make a POD within one of them? Is it allowed? Bob 13:13, December 8, 2009 (UTC)

Infobox problem
Hi,

For some reason the infoboxes on the Step in a Different Direction began to fuck up today (example) - does anybody have any idea why this happens, if this is only a problem in my end, or whether it is temporary or not?

Thanks in advance, Realismadder 12:33, December 23, 2009 (UTC)
 * Its not just on your end, I have seen it on a lot of other articles as well. Mitro 14:45, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Problem
The page World 1970-1980 (Chaos) has been edited so many times by a vandal anything after the last edit I get a message saying that it can't be undone because there are other edits before it. Can anyone fix the page? Mr.Xeight 22:20, January 5, 2010 (UTC)

There. I just copied in the last reasonable edit over the page. That's kind of brute force way of doing it, but I think that works. Red VS Blue 22:27, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * I blocked the two anons causing the trouble. FYI, next time report any vandalism on TSPTF page.  Mitro 00:27, January 6, 2010 (UTC)

Vampire
Check out this article: Vampire. Apparently this article is currently locked from editing until a decision is made on whether it should remain with the wiki...but that was done in 2006. So what does everyone say? Can it stay or should it be deleted? Mitro 08:25, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

to start this article is well written and could be part of an OTL I say keep it Owen1983 11:55, January 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Owen I believe you mean to say "ATL" not OTL. Read the article we have on OTL, I think you will find you have been using the acronym wrongly.  Mitro 16:21, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

Is it just me...
or has there been a sudden spike in users who don't understand this Wiki doesn't cover future history.? As of lately, I've seen an increasing number of TLs marked for deletion because they covered future events.Jack Vexx 01:18, March 31, 2010 (UTC)
 * Funny you should mention that, especially since the sentence "While Future Histories are interesting, as is Science Fiction, these are not within the scope of our wiki" shows up on the main page itself. Mitro 03:24, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Locked Out
Hi everyone, I'm back from a (failed) period of fasting from electronics!

To make sure I wasn't tempted to log into the wikis and break my vow (which I did nonetheless), I had another person reset my password to something only they knew. Now (no surprise to me), they forgot the password, and I'm locked out from my account. The person originally made an error when typing in the password, and forgot what the misspelled word was. Things only get worse...

I have three emails, one for business, the other two for pleasure. Apparently none of the three are the ones I registered to this account, so I receive no message to reset my password. Is there anything perhaps the people at Central Wikia can do? Is the only thing I can do is make a new account?

71.239.255.38 01:48, April 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * I would try finding the email you used when you originally registered your username. If you really can't find it then I would contact someone at Wikia and see what they can do. If that still doesn't work just create a new username. Mitro 14:13, April 5, 2010 (UTC)

I contacted them last night, but I'm worried with the quality of my computer that the message might not have gone through. I didn't have to send it from email address, my help message was sent through their website. I'm unsure if it got there successfully since I've been having problems sending out messages recently. Is there anything I can do now besides wait?

71.239.255.38 04:53, April 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * You could always create a new user name so you can edit under a name for the time being. Mitro 18:41, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

It's good to be back :) Mr.Xeight 23:42, April 8, 2010 (UTC)

Watchlist
Is anyone else pissed that Wikia ended the watchlist feature? Mitro 01:53, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Pissed off might be a little strong. But ya I'm definitely upset. I have to either scroll all the way down to my widget or go through a bunch of menus to get to an update of the pages I'm following. I'm guessing there's no way to restore it here, eh? Red VS Blue 02:08, May 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * If you type in "Special:Watchlist" in the search bar, it will bring up the old watchlist. Mitro 03:11, May 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * You can change your skin under preferences - that's what I'm using - monobook, I think it is. I still have my watchlist in the upper-right corner. Louisiannan 20:26, May 6, 2010 (UTC)

Current events and althistory
How recently can a fork start? Thus, for example - the UK general election being won by a single party/going into a more complex situation at present, or the Polish plane crash causing disruption between Poland and Russia/the plane crash involving participants in the earlier event at Katyn? Jackiespeel 21:57, May 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * We discourage any timeline from progressing beyond the present day. So if you started a timeline with the polish plane crash, or the UK election, it would have to only go up until 5/9/10, and so it would be a very short alternate history, but it could unfold more real time.  1983: Doomsday goes along this route, with the discovery of history and the exploration of current events.  Louisiannan 23:00, May 9, 2010 (UTC)

Could a mention be made on the Conventions page/future history section?

Both suggestions could, of course be backdated (ie any UK historical election, hung parliament apart from 1974, and Katyn 60th anniversary plane crash(es) - which might inclued Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II and/or Lech Walesa - I am referring to the April 7 2010 event in my previous posting). Jackiespeel 17:36, May 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * To be honest I was thinking of doing a UK 2010 Election althistory where the Lib Dems get their 100+ seats they were expecting :p the "role" of that kind of timeline would be largely reactionary (ie the moments afterwards) so it wouldn't really need to go into future issues. Mikebloke 21:44, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

9/11 Alternate History exemption act
Why is it that, in nearly every timeline I see, no matter how far back the POD is, we always end up with a terrorist attack on September 11th 2001 against the dominant superpower? I don't have quite as much an issue with the abundance of WWIs and WWIIs all starting at the same time across countless AltHists, as they involve large geopolitical trends, but why would a change back in 12th century Rome result in a terrorist attack by a tiny cell of people who probably wouldn't even have been born in the ATL hijacking the same number of planes and crashing them into the same targets as OTL? (I don't think that there is an ATL involving a POD in 12th century Rome, I'm just using it to illustrate my point.)

I'm just wondering if anyone else is as mildly frustrated with this as I am. Fegaxeyl 13:34, May 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * The phenomenom you are referencing is called "parallel history" and is generally a sign of poor alternate history, usually done by beginners. Harry Turtledove is well known for this actually.  Despite the implausibility of it, I would not reccomend banning it completely as the title of this topic suggests.  Such a thing smacks of censorship and would discourage new editors.  Mitro 16:15, May 16, 2010 (UTC)