SupraKarma

Image thumbnails

You seem to have gotten confused due to the long delay until the thumbnail of a new version of a image appears, but it does get refreshed/updated after about an hour (or half?). And since you're new, it may be useful for you to read this page and look for templates here, to know how to tag the scans you plan to upload. If you have any questions feel free to ask around (PS: to add a signature, on talk pages, click on second button from the right or simply use --~~~~). --AllisonKidd (talk) 21:21, 27 June 2017 (CDT)

Thank your for your help, and for being kind. I clearly don't know what I'm doing. I've never used a wiki before, and I have to say, the way things are done seems unintuitive. For example, if you hadn't told me about those two pages, how would I have known where to look? You linked me to a 'manual' page that has no link anywhere that I could find. The 'help' page doesn't take me anywhere useful. I got lucky and figured out on my own how to make the images appear, but I could see a lot of potential contributors just getting frustrated and giving up. Of course all this isn't necessarily the fault of segaretro staff/volunteers, because again, I'm new and don't understand how things work. All I'm saying is an effective interface is one that is easy for someone of average intelligence to figure out for themselves, and I really don't think that's the case here.

But since you have so kindly offered to help, I do have questions and would like to learn. These 'templates' you mentioned, these are more or less guidelines for naming files? I'm looking at the following page: http://segaretro.org/Template:DCBox

What are you supposed to enter if the image is less than 300 dpi? More than 300 dpi?

I have scans of the entire Hello Kitty no Waku Waku Cookies manual, but I don't know how to turn images into a PDF. Think you can point me in the right direction (something free)?

A good tool do turn images into a pdf http://retrocdn.net/File:JPEGtoPDF.7z . Don't forget to add your signature after a comment (the second button from the right) --Asagoth (talk) 03:42, 28 June 2017 (CDT)

Thanks. I tried to upload the instruction manual, using the 'crazy taxi' page as an example, but the image isn't displaying properly. --SupraKarma (talk) 05:02, 28 June 2017 (CDT)

It's not your problem if the image isn't displaying properly,it's some wiki problem,don't worry... don't forget to tag your files before uploading... in the upload page,in the box that says "summary" example: ( DCManual|JP ,between curly brackets)... this is for not losing track of things in the wiki...--Asagoth (talk) 05:20, 28 June 2017 (CDT)

PS:Im just a user like you im not from the wiki staff... there is no "Scan Nazis" here , but they prefer the scans with cropped pages and well arranged (without margins,no watermarks) it makes the wiki look messy...but don't worry it's your first time... just be patient... it's just a tip... im not an authority here--Asagoth (talk) 05:30, 28 June 2017 (CDT)

Cool thanks.--SupraKarma (talk) 06:00, 28 June 2017 (CDT)

Regarding the "manual of style", I believe it was never finished (or linked at the main page) because life got in the way of whoever was writing it, and I unfortunately am not an admin/sysop so I can't edit the main page myself. There are more helpful pages sort of lost around the wiki (possibly outdated as well) like here and here, they were a good start for me back when I joined the wiki.

In the case of files, templates are used both to categorize them and add an informative text. For images that are not to be tagged as "good", you simply use {{Template Name|Region}} and if it's good you add "quality=good" ({{Template Name|Region|quality=good}}). After a while you'll get used to several other templates which are used to simplify all sort of tasks.

As for PDFs sometimes not working, it usually have to do either with very high resolution (MediaWiki seems to only really work well with PDF's generated with images at 96dpi) or with metadata in the images themselves (mainly in languages with non-English characters such as Japanese). Also, like Asagoth already said above, we prefer manuals and magazines with split pages rather than double pages (and we have a tool to do that automatically), and we also crop the blank/black edges etc. You don't have to worry too much about that though, we'd rather have scans needing retouch than not have any (every now and then I work on those).

Lastly, you may have noticed other wikis mentioned at the main page, most importantly Retro CDN which is a repository with "shared files" that are directly linked here (e.g the "Vertical Image Splitter" I linked). I know all of this is confusing at first, but as you spend some time exploring all the wikis you'll get used to it. --AllisonKidd (talk) 12:27, 28 June 2017 (CDT)