User blog:Nobellion/New Game Mode!

Happy Friday Users! I, Nobellion, welcome you to the 2nd Weekly Update of the year! The News Team is slowly forming up and it is honestly, an excellent position at this Wiki. The final copy of the newsletter is amazing, considering we only had a couple days to work on this. It gets pretty lonely here, so we encourage you to showcase your writing skills here in the Team.

I'm extremely overjoyed that Zeach has finally blessed us with an update, I do hope that these updates occur more often. We've had a lot of changes this week, which we've explained in detail in the newsletter.

I should stop ranting now but anyway, have fun and enjoy your weekend. ;)

Cheerfully, Nobellion
 * -|Changelog News=

New Game Mode
The News Team is exceedingly overjoyed to announce that the Diep.io has a new update at last! For those who have been watching the Changelog Page, they shall already know that just this Wednesday the new Survival Game Mode was added to the game. Be sure to visit & help out that page to get up to steam with the other Game Mode pages, but in the meantime, here is a brief description of the mode: After hitting enter, the player enters a queue to wait for other players to join up; once enough are ready, a ten second countdown begins. At its end, the game begins, with an extremely rushed gameplay session kicking off immediately as each player tries to level up quickly enough to stay alive & defeat their enemies. The match lasts usually a few minutes at maximum, with the Map shrinking more & more with each player death, until only one player is left alive; the winner. After all others are dead but one, the match ends & the Arena Closes.


 * -|Wiki Event News=

Sandbox
The first Sandbox will be in the Chat next Saturday, February 25th, at 6 PM Eastern Time (EST). The forum session will last from 6 PM EST to 7 PM EST, & the Sandbox gaming session will last from 7 PM EST to 8 PM ESET (participants can stay longer if they wish). If anyone has a topic or question for the Sandbox, be sure to put it on the Sandbox Talk Page so that the Administrators can get to each person’s Topic one-at-a-time. The Administrators guarantee that each person’s first topic will be addressed; after they have all been addressed, then secondary topics can be addressed for the remainder of the hour. There will be other Sandboxes later on if a topic is missed.

Wordmark Contest
The Contest will close on Sat, 25 February 2017. The Contest is slowing its pace, with only a week left to go. The submissions look sensational and it will be interesting to see what our users have to offer next. The News Team wishes the best for all contributors.

Ghost Battle Tournament
Unfortunately, the tournament isn't moving as smoothly as we would have liked. It seems like this was a terrible time to schedule a tourney.

There are some participants that still haven't battled. If you are a participant, please appear at your scheduled times. Remember, there is a Medal at stake.

Hopefully, by Wednesday, the Qualifiers will be completed and the tournament will move on to the semis.

Themed Tourneys
SuperRobot created a thread for new tournament ideas. The thread is expanding everyday and is filled with interesting suggestions for future tourneys. The current Ghost Battle tournament was suggested by Queen Aysha

Chat Changes
The Chat module was reset to the default settings because the added JavaScript were causing instability for several users. Fortunately, the Chat emotes were restored after some of the bugs were fixed.

Script Changes

 * Installed LockForums Script sitewide; threads now close themselves after 30 days.
 * Installed Lock Old Blogs Script sitewide; blogs without comments for over 60 days now have their comment sections locked.
 * Installed Signature Check Script; saving a talk page without signing it will cause a reminder to pop up with a reminder to sign (not yet available on User Talk Pages).
 * Installed Floating Table of Contents Script sitewide; tables of contents can now be made into a floating, dragable box.
 * Installed Interlanguage Flags Scripts sitewide; interlanguage links at the bottom of each page now have flags next to them, & the Flags Template can now be used to produce flag images without uploading any. An example usage would be  which produces this:.

Miscellaneous Changes
Dominator Page in Monobook Skin
 * External Links no longer have the small link image next to them; external links & normal links are now effectively indistinguishable.
 * Monobook.css is being expanded, & a new infobox style has already been completed.
 * Announcements Board was closed; its threads have been sent either to the new Tournaments Board or to the General Discussion Board.


 * -|Wiki Policy News=

News Team
The News Team is now ready to accept new members. Nobellion is the first, & we are willing to take up to two new members this week.

What the News Team Does

 * Main Article: News Team

In essence, the News Team writes the News. Each member takes responsibility for one of the five tabs, & they keep any eye out for any newsworthy events under their topic. The patron of the Changelog News Tab watches for new Diep.io news to place in that tab; the patron of the Wiki Event News Tab keeps up to date on all tournament, project, & code changes so they may report the necessary information; the patron of the Wiki Policy News Tab watches for Staff promotions, demotions, rule changes, new rules, et cetera, & writes about those; the patron of the Future Plans Tab keeps track of the progress of each current project in addition to scouting for new ones, placing them in that Tab; & lastly the patron of the Opinion Polls Tab drafts polls about each piece of news & organizes them into collapsible sections for people to vote in. Members help each other with their Tabs as well, helping to spell check & to share information. Once a Weekly Update is finished, it is copied wholesale onto the blog of one of the News Team members’ blogs, which then shows up in the Wiki Staff Blog for all to read.

Perks of being on the Team
A five person maximum group (Administrators not included), each Member receives the following:
 * 1) Content Moderator rights on the RotM Wiki, so that they can work on the sensitive news topics without other editors interfering.
 * 2) A designated page on the RotM Wiki for their individual Tab.
 * 3) Cyan colors (which override any existing Staff colors) on the Diep.io Wiki as well as the RotM Wiki.
 * 4) A cyan News Team Tag on their profile, again on Diep.io as well as RotM.
 * 5) The honor of hosting Weekly Updates on their personal Blog (one member at a time).
 * 6) Special consideration when attempting to join Staff.
 * 7) Their signatures show up at the bottom of each Tab, so everyone will know who writes what.

Team Captain
The News Team is designed to be as independent an organization as possible; for this reason anyone can join, not just Staff, & once there are three members on the Team, the Senior Administrator will choose one of them to be Team Captain for a period of one month (or until they step down), after which point in time another member will become Captain. The Captain is solely in charge of appointing new members to the team & with finalizing the Weekly Updates each week. In addition, the Team Captain may eject one single member from the Team during their tenure, & shall receive administrator rights on the RotM Wiki so long as they lead the Team. Members may become Team Captain as many times as they are able, but they must wait at least one month after leaving office before re-taking the position.

How to Join
Members are invited to join; applications will not be accepted. If someone wants to join the News Team, they must show that they are worthy of doing so. This is done by writing personal blogs. These blogs may be advertisements for other Wikis, helpful guides, petitions, most anything; they simply must be well thought out, well written, & show off a user’s literary skill. These blogs will be noticed, & if they are high quality, then the Team Captain (or the Senior Administrator if a Captain has yet to be appointed) may extend an invitation to the user to join the News Team.

Demotions
Sadly, the Wiki will be letting go several individuals this week & possibly more in the next. Without further ado, they shall be enumerated.

Interns
After reviewing the activity of the current five Interns, the Senior Administrator has chosen the following four to be rejected:
 * Tonn Lenk — inactivity.
 * PhilTrapper — inactivity.
 * PredatorSkillz — not enough activity.
 * Underslime — very nearly made Staff, but not enough activity.

Staff
No Staff will be demoted this Week, but there are a few lower-level Staff whose activity has sharply dropped. If they remain inactive by the next Weekly Update, one may be demoted.

Invitations for Promotion

 * Tonn Lenk; though you have been rejected from joining Staff due to inactivity, your recent blog post was very well made. If you can increase in activity once again, we are formally inviting you to join the News Team. Talk to Nobellion if you are interested in joining.
 * Jimmy; more activity would have been preferred, but due to your past experience on Staff & acceptable level of recent editing, you are formally invited to rejoin the Diep.io Wiki Staff on the promise of increased activity. Talk to Ursuul if you would like to rejoin.


 * -|Future Plans=

New Infobox Theme
The current Infobox Theme is quite plain. A new archetype is already available in Monobook, which will be ported to Oasis & restyled to match the blue theme we have. Check it out on the right

Franken Forum Board Rules
The Franken Forum is largely ready to go, but the Profile Pages for each board have yet to be turned into Board-Specific guidelines. We already have the more general Forum Rules, which serve decently, but soon there will be a more precise & simplified board-specific ruleset for the Franken Forums.

Repurposed Community Corner
The Community Corner is currently undergoing reconstruction, & once finished will serve as a New Editor’s Guide.

Community-To-Do-List
The current Community-To-Do-List for the Community Page is quite sparse; sometime in the future that shall be rectified, perhaps taking after the Elder Scrolls To-Do-List or Kung Fu Panda To-Do-List.

Revamped Main Page
This project is taking a backseat for now, due to a greater focus on infoboxes & Monobook; any other Administrator interested in this may take it up if they wish.

Monobook Theme
The Monobook theme will receive further focus in the future; it is currently not nearly as ugly as once it was, but it still needs several overhauls including but not limited to:
 * 1) Monobook Wordmark
 * Sidebar Overhaul
 * 1) Button Restyles
 * 2) Hover Restyles
 * 3) Table Restyles
 * 4) Tabber Restyles
 * 5) Comments Section Bug Fix

New Oasis Theme
The New Theme is still far off, & will not likely be initiated until most if not all of the aforementioned plans have been completed or at least started.


 * -|Opinion Polls=