Dab1001's board

Hi Daniel,

Could you take a look at issue #5 on the Onyx GitHub repository? Thanks in advance!

Yeah thanks. "whether or not your page was actually used as reference during its creation, but either way, it's a useful resource for us to cite anyway." I'm pretty sure my guide was the only source for the most part since all of the singular nameplate images are downloaded from my guide along with the descriptions, but no bad vibes.

Hey, I stumbled on this wiki page https://www.halopedia.org/Nameplates/Halo:_The_Master_Chief_Collection and just wanted to thank you about putting my guide in the sources since it looked very much like plagiarism in my eyes with no mention of my guide.

Also I forgot my password, is that something an admin can tell me?

Hey man, thanks! I was not aware of this project and will keep it in mind. Sorry if I have caused trouble for you guys.

Thank you very much. I still have a long way yet.

Hello. I know I am no where near ready, but what qualities does a patroller need? Becoming a patroller has been an ambition of mine, but I feel like being a patroller is more than just making good edits. Thank you for your time.

Thanks for the explanation. I unfortunately haven't had the time to engage with the community aspects of the wiki as much as I'd like, but I wanted to make sure there was consensus on this, and that the link changes hadn't been forgotten.

Hi Dab1001, congrats on being voted an Administrator! I just wanted to discuss your project of renaming levels and location pages, and ask whether you'd discussed this with any of the other Admins before going ahead on it. The Manual of Style states that the in-universe subject should take precedence unless the real-world version is "considerably more notable". What that means isn't defined, but the example given is Long Night of Solace, with the ship taking precedence over the level. Yet you've already gone ahead and moved New Alexandria, which I would argue is on the same level of notability. For those pages that have been discussed and approved, or which are clearly much more notable (i.e. Kizingo Boulevard), remember to update the links to those pages. Right now, all of the links that are supposed to be leading to the location pages are going to the level pages, while the new location pages are orphans with no other pages linking to them.

Congratulations on becoming an admin, Dab!!

I appreciate your investigating!

Regarding the Silent Cartographer, there is another conclusion that we could come to,

We could say that Sergeants Marcus Stacker and Waller were BOTH present at the LZ, and Stacker was able to make it off the Island alive, since it is technically possible.

Or alternately, we can without doubt confirm that CE depicts only 1 Sergeant present at the LZ, and that no more Marines are deployed to the LZ after the initial storm. We can without doubt confirm that The Flood specify Sergeant Waller was in charge of the LZ. If we take the most obvious decision with the least assumptions, it would mean the Marine Sergeant in that level is Waller. Would you agree that this is a less of a reach than making the assumption that they were both there?

What springs to mind for me, is what CIA391 said the other day on discord "Canon till reason to doubt." I think he (or someone) also said something like "the most obvious explanation is usually the best" but I couldn't find it.

Do we have enough reason to doubt here? If we prioritize the compatible information between the two sources, and commit the Stacker Model in The SC being Waller, is that a lesser evil than assuming they were both there and Stacker wasn't killed with the rest? I would like to hear your thoughts on this, once your schedule is more free of course :D

In a similar vein, it's technically possible that Marcus Stacker somehow made it on to the PoA after participating in the Siege of New Alexandria (August 18-23rd). But is it too much of a reach? (heh)

The PoA was recalled to Reach on August 30th, participated in the battle in Orbit, and then landed briefly in Aszod, also on August 30th (the date of Carter & Emile's deaths) to retrieve Halsey's Excavation data. While technically possible, is it not heavily improbable that Stacker made his way on board during the very brief time the Autumn was down on Reach?

Furthermore, Marcus Stacker is confirmed to be a Gunnery Sergeant at the time of Halo Reach, and we know Johnson was a Staff Sergeant during CE. Marcus Stacker would have been the ranking NCO aboard PoA, which is evidently not the case in CE & The Flood, as despite being a very recent addition to the PoA's marine complement (picked up from Reach's orbit, not assigned for Operation Red Flag) Johnson is evidently the senior sergeant aboard the PoA.

(There is no problem with Marcus Stacker serving under Johnson in Halo 2, as Johnson is promoted to Sergeant Major at the beginning of the game.)

You agree that 2/3 of the Sergeant Stacker marine models Halo CE appearances are questionable when it comes to a narrative appearance of Marcus Stacker. I'm hoping you'll consider my proposal that the third one is also questionable enough, when taking into account the information stated above.

I would also take into consideration the increased spotlight Bungie put Marcus Stacker in during Halo 2, as opposed to Halo CE where he appears a maximum of 3 times. Halo 2 had him accompany Johnson & Miranda through Cairo station, lead the second pelican in Outskirts/Another Day at the Beach, have a solo encounter with John-117 in Metropolis, and be rescued by The Arbiter alongside Johnson in The Great Journey. This seems much more like a canonical character than Halo CE, where it seems much easier to consider him a placeholder for various distinct Sergeants. Bungie doubled down on this by including him in Reach Firefight, which back in the day, was the first legitimate source we had that "Pete Stacker" (as the article called him in those days) existed in the Halo universe as a character.

So in summary, I propose we consider the Marine Sergeant in The Silent Cartographer Waller, - just as we consider The Marine Sergeant in Truth & Reconciliation (Johnson's model) canonically Sergeant Parker https://www.halopedia.org/Parker (Avery Johnson's Installation 04 section contains no mention of his in-game role of leading the force that helped John rescue Keyes from the TnR, should it not be the same with Stacker/Waller?)

Oh and thanks! A clear-up from 343 would be ideal. ':)

"As for him not being in The Flood, the lack of any mentions isn't necessarily proof that he wasn't there."

What you say is true, however the the thing that brings me to considering him "not there" is that his exact (in game) appearances and dialogue are replaced in the book by other, named characters such as Sergeant Waller. It's not just that he wasn't there, other people were there speaking his exact words.

To me, this would suggest that when the writer was sent the ingame script, Marcus Stacker as a canonical person didn't exist. This is also suggested by CE's credits, which don't include any credit to Pete Stacker as the Sergeant's VA, despite Johnson, Bisenti, Mendoza, Jenkins and Dubbo all being named in the credits.

On The_Silent_Cartographer level page, it mentions Waller throughout, as we are certain this was Waller. There is the following note: "The Sergeant Stacker NPC appears in Waller's place in the game, although due to the character's establishment as a separate character in Halo: The Flood, this particular appearance of Stacker is not considered canonical." I would say that the same should apply for all of the "Sergeant Stacker NPC" 's appearances in Halo: CE, as it is just that, an-ingame NPC, which is used to represents many UNSC Sergeants from the PoA's crew.

I'm sure you know all this already, I just really think that his Installation 04 appearances are canonically comparable to his appearance on Kizingo_Boulevard, or as one of the Sabre Pilots on Long Night of Solace - purely gameplay appearances that can be referenced in the Trivia section. It would make Halopedia more internally consistent.

Hey Dab, regarding your edit on the Marcus_Stacker page - "Not being assigned to the PoA on-screen, and not being seen in FS is not evidence that Stacker was not on I04. There have been other I04 survivors besides the FS ones - Chips Dubbo and Thomas Chang."

While I agree with your above statement, I would argue that his Halo CE appearances being retconned in Halo: The Flood, combined with the fact that Bungie named, modeled, and included him in Halo Reach participating in the Planet's defense (at a time when the POA was in orbit) is enough to conclude that Bungie didn't consider the Marine Sergeant in Halo CE to be the character Marcus Stacker. Thus I believe there's enough evidence to establish Halo Reach/Halo 2-onwards Marcus Stacker as a canonical person, and removing the whole installation 04 section. Your thoughts?

nerd

Hi Daniel,

First of all, apologies for the somewhat delayed response! It's been a while since I've been to Halopedia (I know, I really should visit this great wiki more often!). Nic would be correct, given that I've been working on MediaWiki and all things related to MediaWiki since 2008, and as one of the few people who knows a lot about the skinning system, I've written and maintained as well as contributed to a variety of skins. (If you're interested, a super outdated list can be found here -- I really should update it one of these days...)

I haven't yet had the time to play around with Onyx or submit patches, but believe me I certainly intend to do both. :-)

Sidebar parsing code and such in general is a glorious mess. Some years ago I attempted to submit a nested sidebar menu parser (currently used by the Bouquet, DeskMessMirrored and Gamepress skins, based on older Wikia code; Nimbus -- and certain other skins, like Monaco which we have available at ShoutWiki do the same in a slightly different fashion, nevertheless achieving pretty much the same output); this failed as people felt it was too messy to be included in MediaWiki core. While I don't deny that, I felt it would've been an improvement over the sad state of MediaWiki skinning, which is basically now "if you want something more complex than MediaWiki:Sidebar and its parsing logic, you're on your own". And by that I mean you'll either end up 1) copying unholy chunks of code (which is what I've done with Bouquet & friends) or 2) writing a meta-extension and having your skin depend on that; both options are not ideal as we are really talking about the sorta functionality that should just "be there".

As far as using the MediaWiki namespace goes, be bold! Customizability and extensibility is what MediaWiki's all about, so go for it! (Just make sure to escape everything appropriately before outputting anything.)

If you would like to talk more in real time, I'm often around in the #mediawiki IRC channel on the freenode network as ashley (though I'm not always online even though I'm connected 24/7; ping me and if you get a reply, chances are I'm around ;-). I'll try to submit some patches to the Onyx repository hopefully later this week or the next week!

Welcome to Halopedia Dab :D You're my favorite Halo Nation mod!

Go ahead. Just make sure the mediawiki used by Wikia is updated. If it isn't, chances are the template won't work.