Forum:SH:Cleaning up after the Jedi Council Forums move

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Master JonathanCouncil Chambers
03:35 UTC TueMay 6, 2014

In 2012, the Jedi Council Forums moved from IGN's servers to their own servers, changing to XenForo forum software in the process. This unfortunately broke all of our links to the forums. The purpose of this thread is to create an organized effort to fix all of the links, of which we have slightly over a thousand, 666 (ugh) of which are in the main namespace. In February and March 2012, I led a successful project to add data to all mainspace JCF links, and that data will now be useful in constructing new links. Thankfully, thread and post numbers from the IGN database were retained, greatly simplifying the process of fixing the links.

Below is an alphabetical list of all main namespace pages that contain one or more links to the Jedi Council Forums. I am asking all users to, when they have a little bit of time to do so, go through a few articles, locate JCF links, and follow the instructions below to convert it into a XenForo link. Additionally, I have updated {{JCFcite}} to better handle the new format and de-clutter the article wikitext; please read the new usage instructions on the template page. When you have completed checking and converting an article, strike it from the list and sign under it so we know who did it.

  1. Basic instructions on how to convert links can be found here and here. Note that these instructions will return you to page 1 of the thread, so make note of the page number in the URL (probably the number after the "p", i.e. "p26" for page 26). Alternatively, if you use Firefox, an automatic converter/redirector can be found here; this will retain the page number if present in the URL. However, please do not simply insert the links generated by these tools into the article. Follow the instructions below to use the new parameters of the JCFcite template.
    • Some links may already be in XenForo format. These links should be adjusted anyway to make sure they point at the correct post and take advantage of the new {{JCFcite}} parameters.
    • If the URL contains /xentemp/, you are looking at a link to the temp boards. These links require an extra parameter (|temp=yes) to be added to the template to work, but otherwise are handled exactly the same as the regular boards.
  2. Once you have a working link, if the link points to a specific post, proceed to step 3. However, if it points to a page rather then an individual post, then you need to locate the exact post before continuing. The IGN boards displayed 15 posts per page (ppp) to logged-out users, while logged-in users saw 25 ppp by default with the ability to change it to anything from 5 ppp to 50 ppp. XenForo, on the other hand, displays 25 ppp to all with no option to change it. As a result, many links may point to the wrong page. All citations should have username and timestamp of the post in question, so you can use that to locate the correct post. The timestamp should be Pacific Time, which is the time zone shown to logged-out users, but due to possible differences in how daylight saving time is handled, they may be off by an hour. If the post is not on the first page that comes up from the converted URL, try these quick tips:
    • First, you're probably looking at a 15 ppp URL. To find the intended post(s), take 60% of the page number that the converted URL pointed you to and try that page. Check the previous and next couple of pages as well. Most likely you'll find the post somewhere around there.
    • If you can't find the post there, the next most likely possibility is that you're looking at a URL intended for 50 ppp. In this case, double the original page number to find the post (again, check two to three pages on either side to be safe).
    • Failing that, you can try reading through the whole thread if it's not too long, or give up and post your problem under "Discussion" below so someone else can give it a try.
    • Note that long posts from before the move are currently truncated at 10,000 characters due to a technical issue, so the cited information may not be present in the post because it has been cut off.
  3. Once you have located the post in question, obtain the number of the post. Locate the gray number in the lower right corner of the post (do not use that number) and click on it. You will get a JavaScript pop-up with information on how to link to the post. Look at the URL in the top box and take the number from the end of the URL, after #post-; this is the post number. Replace the "url" parameter of {{JCFcite}} with |postnum= followed by the post number.
    • Some citations may be to a series of consecutive or near-consecutive posts. In this case, obtain the number to the first such post.
    • Additionally, a few links may be to a whole thread and not any particular post within that thread. In this case, provide the thread number, which can be extracted from the URL in your browser's address bar by taking the number at or near the end, immediately after the thread title and a period. Use |threadnum=number instead of |postnum= when citing entire threads. The same thing applies to entire boards, which should use |forumnum=.
    • If the link is a quote source, obtain the post number using the instructions above and then use the URL http://boards.theforce.net/posts/number/ replacing number with the post number.
    • For all non–quote source links, if the link does not already use {{JCFcite}}, then please convert the link to {{JCFcite}}. This is for standardization and ease of updating should the boards ever move and break all the links again.
  4. Repeat for each IGN-style link in the article. While most will only have one, some may have a dozen or more. Don't forget that JCF links may be present in quote templates and other places in addition to references. Don't strike and sign off on an article until you're sure you've gotten all of them.

I will be working through these slowly myself when I have time, but I can't do them all, so any and all help is appreciated. —MJ— Training Room 20:38, January 24, 2013 (UTC)

The list

Round 1

Progress as of 09:51, December 1, 2013 (UTC) : 494 of 494 complete (100%)

0-9

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

WXYZ

Round 2

Special:LinkSearch reports that the following four articles still have IGN links. —MJ— War Room 16:23, December 1, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Any general discussion belongs here.

Bot

Why can't we get a bot to do this? Stake black msg 23:40, January 24, 2013 (UTC)

Because a bot is incapable of checking to make sure that links point to the right place or converting links to a page to links to an individual post. Or if it is possible to do by bot, it's almost certainly beyond the programming skills of anyone on Wookieepedia. —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers 00:30, January 25, 2013 (UTC)

Abbaji

As I'm slightly confused here, could you please check Abbaji and Abbaji (Kalee system) to see if they are properly fixed? The updated links and template were added like 2 months ago by Tinwe. I think they're good, just want your output. Winterz (talk) 21:06, January 27, 2013 (UTC)

Both need to be converted to the new "postnum" parameter, as the "url" parameter will eventually be removed from the template completely. The same is true of any working link that uses the "url" parameter. —MJ— Holocomm 21:09, January 27, 2013 (UTC)
Could you check Abbaji now and let me know if it's good? Thanks. Winterz (talk) 11:08, January 29, 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that's correct. Note that changing the format of the accessdate does nothing, as the template automatically converts the date to American style, but it doesn't hurt anything either. —MJ— Comlink 18:47, January 29, 2013 (UTC)
Good, now that I comprehend it, I'll try to contribute to this project whenever I'm available. It's pretty simple actually :p Winterz (talk) 19:03, January 29, 2013 (UTC)

Temp forums

The post numbers on the temp forums just lead to an error page if you use them with the template. I've been leaving them to user url. Do we need to modify the template to allow for these or am I missing something? See Hurst Romodi for an example. Green Tentacle (Talk) 19:07, January 29, 2013 (UTC)

I just hadn't gotten around to modifying the template yet. I've done it now. —MJ— Council Chambers 20:12, January 29, 2013 (UTC)

Cite web

Hey, there are articles which are still using the Cite web linking to the Jedi Council Forums. I think it is best to ask this instead attempting and failing all over it. Could you guys translate me the following for the JCFcite format. It's beyond my knowledge :c. Thanks in advance. Winterz (talk) 23:34, January 29, 2013 (UTC)

<ref name="JCF">{{Cite_web|url=http://boards.theforce.net/literature/b10003/21938930/r30380546/|title=The Essential Atlas and Galactic Cartography: Official Discussion (Literature board)|accessdate=2011-10-29|author=Dan Wallace|authorlink=Daniel Wallace|coauthors=|date=[[August 26]], [[2009]], 10:09/10:11am|work=Jedi Council Forums}}</ref>

The URL should be converted into a post number per the instructions above. The other fields go as follows: the |title= field of cite web should be split into the thread title, which goes in |thread=, and the name of the board alone, which goes in |board=; the |author= and |authorlink= fields become |user=[[authorlink|author]]; and |date= is transferred as-is to |PTtime=. In this case, {{JCFcite|postnum=30380546|board=Literature|thread=The Essential Atlas and Galactic Cartography: Official Discussion|user=[[Daniel Wallace|Dan Wallace]]|PTtime=[[August 26]], [[2009]], 10:09/10:11am|accessdate=2011/10/29|archiveurl=https://archive.is/YMLle}}. —MJ— Training Room 00:43, January 30, 2013 (UTC)