User talk:A morris

Moving Things
Hey can we move aspirations under The Sims 2 since they are not included in The Sims 3?

Wiki Chat Room
They should make us a chat room so when we get bored of updating wikis we can always talk to each other. Like we can talk about either sim stuff or things that are going on. Or things we are doing today.

So we dont have to talk on here all the time, this place is more for getting work done as far as chatting. Oh yeah i had to get a root canal in my teeth it was fun. I told my dentist that well we had our fun but now its time to leave. The dentist spent 30 mitunes on another patient while I was sitting there my mouth dry the whole time, they had some kinda of plasic over my mouth in a way.--Sprite7868talk 9:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

New skin + logo
Hi A morris. With The Sims 3 about to release, I though it would be a good idea to give the wiki a new look. I spent a few hours today working on a new skin and logo. I uploaded a preview here. I intentionally chose a short page for the screenshot to show more of the background. Take a look and let me know what you think. If you'd like me to make any changes, please say so. If you like it as is, let me know and I'll go live with it. Thanks. JoePlay (talk) 18:02, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. I just uploaded it here at this wiki. JoePlay (talk) 21:31, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

AWESOME! If I ran the wiki, I'd change it to that! But, sadly, I only have rollback.PepterPepper


 * I'm glad you (and Pepter) like the skin. =) As you suggested, I added my logo to the contest page. I wasn't aware of the contest, so I hope no one objects to me (a Wikia employee) entering it. I guess it would be better to wait until the contest is over before going live with the skin. What do you think? JoePlay (talk) 18:27, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the late reply. I agree that it would be better to implement the new skin before the logo contest, since that won't be finished until after Sims 3 releases. So let me know exactly when you want me to go live with the new skin (using the wiki's current logo of course), and I'll "flip the switch." JoePlay (talk) 19:53, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Version labeling
Hello.

I'm not very knowledgeable on the technical side of wikis, but from what I've seen from Wikipedia, a labeling system can be implemented through tags. Up to four types of tags may be needed: inline tags, section tags, article tags, and image tags.

-Inline tags are used within a paragraph, at the start of a sentence of a paragraph. It should be unintrusive, something like the small superscript like "citation needed". It can be an abbreviation (e.g. "TS2:OfB" for "The Sims 2: Open for Business"), possibly colour-coded. For clarification, it can show the version's full name upon mouse-over or some such. Alternatively, it can show the game icon (e.g. the green diamond with academic square for TS2:U)". Personally I've found those icons to be very indistinguishable, so at least a floating text would be needed.  Otherwise, some kind of shrunk logo or any original icon that clearly shows the version would do.

-Section tags are used for each section, saying something like "this section contains info on TS2:U". This may be redundant as the sections names often specify the version already. However I believe that it is technically possible to automatically show a message on top of the section when an inline tag is present within the section (similar to how citations work, except they show up in a different section entirely). In this case section tags would be completely unnecessary. Idealy, of course, this message would also adjust appropriately to the content, such as "...contains TS:Unleashed, TS2:Pets and TS2:FreeTime". But if not separate messages, probably in the form of concise boxes, similar to userboxes but even smaller, will do.

-Article tags: ditto section tags. Probably redundant and unnecessary.

-Lastly, image tags are for, well, images. Image tags are easy enough to make, but I'm not so sure how this should show up since, I believe, image captions are independant from image files themselves. So perhaps we'd need to make people tag each image within an article? As I said, this hadn't been all that necessary, but I find screenshots of TS2 and TS3 quite similar without the interface.

Anyway just my ideas. I'm sure someone who knows more about wikis can come up with better designs. Uly 04:13, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Snooty Sims
Just a heads up A Morris. I was a forum on Snooty Sims and somebody got some wrong info about the Sims 3 from wiki. It was about Mama Lothario being in the Sims 3. Now everyone on Snooty Sims is giving the Sims wiki a very bad representation.--Bella Goth 19:21, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

What am I doing?!
Amy has not been feeling like herself latly. Please be nice to her, since she won't wanta talk for awhile due to an incerdent that happened on another wiki. Emilyc 13:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that
I thought she started it and I was up all night with insomnia. Chaos Shepherd 14:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Premade Families
Hello A Morris, I have been legally playing the Sims 3 and the only premade families from the Sims 2 are the Goth, Crumplebottoms, Landgraabs, and Langeraks. Will it be okay to delete Sims 3 info from families not appearing in the game? Thanks!--Bella Goth 03:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)Bella Goth

Biotech Station fix
Thanks for the link on the Biotech Station fix. I wasn't sure about the policy on linking to or mentioning hack/mod sites such as MATY. Dharden 18:32, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Segregating versions
Hello a_morris. I want to start working on some of the career and skill pages, but I think the current structure for these pages is a bit messy. I suggest segregating all career and skill pages between TS1, 2 and 3. Merged pages for individual sims, families and such are meaningful because their stories are coherent and carry across versions. But skills and careers are essentially "practical" info that only matters to one game -- putting them in the same page just adds to the clutter. We can name separate articles like "Fishing (The Sims 3)" or "The Sims 3: Fishing" or "The Sims 3/Fishing", as long as it's consistent.

What do you think? Do we need a concensus on this before proceeding? I'm quite glad that people are contributing to the TS3 collectible page very nicely, but ultimately I think the info contained there should be broken up into appropriate pages. I think the sooner we set up the TS3 career and skill pages, the sooner people will start contributing. Uly 03:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, and for the career table template (which I don't know how to make), we'd need:
 * Level, Branch, Position, Description, Work Place, Work Days, Hours, Base Pay/h, Promotion Bonus, Performance Factors, and Notes/Perks/Rewards Uly 03:12, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The career template looks good. Just a few things:
 * You're right, work place seems to be constant.
 * Perhaps combine Level and Branch in one column?
 * Instead of "Days Off", I think "Work Days" is more appropriate in the TS3 mentality. Salary is earned hourly and not weekly, and many advanced jobs have more days off than on.
 * I'm not so sure how we should go about the pay and promotional bonus, since they seem quite variable. Better idea?
 * And I take "promotional bonus" to be the one time pay bonus upon promotion? Should there be a separate column for the special perks and rewards, or do they go in this column?

As for skills, I wonder if we need a template for the challenges?

Anyway I'll go ahead with the pages. Oh, can you make those category boxes? Don't know what they're called exactly; those quick links like "TS2 Skills" and such. Uly 14:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Block (not another mess-up...)
Sorry what happened, I'd like to be blocked indefinitly on this wiki, thanks. YOWUZA TALK 2 ME! 11:14, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

We give you forgiveness, Yowuza. Sorry about everything. Amy Cotton 11:17, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Part-time jobs and Career template
Hey, the new pages are progressing nicely. A few things:
 * If you try applying for the Burial Specialist part-time job, you'll see that "Burial Specialist" is just the starting rank, not the actual PT job category, which is "Mausoleum Clerk".
 * Similarly, the "Spa Receptionist" category is just named "Receptionalist" -- without "Spa", even though it is at the Spa. This could possibly mean that, in the future, there could be other places for the receptionalist PT job.
 * I still think there needs to be a "Perk" or "Bonus" column in the career template, as the perks are plenty in TS3. Just to think of a few of my head:
 * At a certain level, a Business sim can schedule meetings, in effect decide his own work schedule.
 * Military sim learn to salute, and above a certain rank will get saluted
 * Medical sim get a pager later on that adds extra work hour
 * Culinary sim can eat at the workplace
 * Journalists can interview people and write articles
 * Law Enforcement officers get a police car, pager, and can go dump diving for various objects

Unfortunately I didn't make good note of these perks, but they are certainly many and significant. Uly 21:29, 6 June 2009 (UTC)