User:Stephane Lo Presti/News

Archive January 2014-December 2015 January-December 2013 May-December 2012

Thank you for another year of Wiki Editing – January 5, 2024[edit]

Hi Editors,

Before I officially welcome 2024 to the Wiki, I hope you all had a rejuvenating Holiday 2023. 2023 was full of excitement and challenges, and I wanted to thank you on behalf of the ArenaNet Studio for being an important part of it!

Now let's take a quick look back at the Wiki in numbers in 2023:

15,139 pages created, including 5,221 articles
156,465 edits
8,118 images uploaded
In average 330 editors (between 222 and 690)
Due to Google Analytics changes in 2023, I'm unable to get a clear picture of the entire year, but for the second half here are the top 20 pages (the Event Timer article appears 3 times in the top 100):
Also honorable mentions to a few popular pages down in the list:
The Special Award for article that is Most Viewed by User goes to: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lord_Joshua
The Special Award for article that is Spent Most Time on Page goes to: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/HOPE_IV:_The_Catalyst
In average, players spent 5.4 sessions of 1 minute 35 seconds (for a total of 13 minutes 54 seconds)
And this is a Wiki Lifetime Achievement Award: the 100,000th article was created at the beginning of April 2023!
The Wiki contains 14,774,556 words of content, which is equivalent to 164 books. That's probably an entire library section!

Looking forward, you know we're working on the next two SotO updates, and another expansion for this year. For the Wiki infrastructure, we're trying to roll out the MediaWiki 1.39 update (we started months ago and it's taking longer due to technical challenges), with a minor update to Semantic MediaWiki. After that, we'll focus on the next Long-Term Support (LTS) version of the software, which should be 1.43 in the first half of next year (2025). We will stop releasing non-LTS versions of MediaWiki, unless they provide important value to the Wiki community. We had a request from the French Wiki admin to see if we could deploy the WISIWYG MediaWiki editor and we'll try to find time to test it this year.

Last but not least, please enjoy this little card:

Happy editing this year and see you in Tyria!

A heartfelt thank you from ArenaNet to the wiki editors – April 4, 2023[edit]

Hi everyone.

I'd like to share a special message with all of you. Today, I briefly talked with ArenaNet's Art Director, Aaron Coberly. He shared with me his experience of navigating the wiki recently. It led him to want to share with all editors that the wiki is an amazing site and values your contributions a lot. It's a sentiment I've heard from ArenaNet developers many times over the past ten years. Everybody here at ArenaNet has used the wiki at some point, either to find some information easily or to read about some of the details of Tyria that they didn't know. The Art Team often checks the wiki as a reference.

It's also a sentiment that all of you may lose sight of as you share your time selflessly to contribute edits, pictures, templates, and other things to one of the most incredible gaming wikis in the world! Although I cannot share the traffic numbers, you should be very proud of the wiki and community you've all helped create and keep improving, updating, and pouring your passion into.

On behalf of ArenaNet, I'm sending a heartfelt thank you to each wiki editor.

--Stephane Lo Presti talk 16:26, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

State of the Wiki – September 27, 2022[edit]

Hi editors!

It's been a while since I communicated here, so I wanted to take a moment to talk about the state of the wiki following the maintenance on Monday, September 12. We plan wiki maintenance months in advance and test them, but our tests did not show some of the issues that have happened this time. While the wiki was functional, the content of articles was (and still is) inaccurate due to the state of the Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) data. SMW is an extension of MediaWiki that is heavily used on this wiki, requiring particular processes to be updated. After this maintenance, those processes took a long time to stabilize, making the data inaccurate. A lot of the issues are gone now, but we’re continuing to discuss the situation of the remaining problems with editors and wiki administrators (on the Wiki Discord, where it's easier to do quick back-and-forth and dive deeper into those issues).

Over the years, the content of the wiki has grown tremendously. We passed the 100,000 articles milestone earlier this year (congratulations, everybody, we made it!). The technical infrastructure behind the wiki has also been updated to help us better support this environment that grew in size and complexity. A principle that guided us over all these years was to leave the content to editors while we handled all the backend (where a lot of things are happening!). But SMW is an area of the content that made the backend gradually more complicated for us because the evolution of that content had practical implications for the backend work, for example, making some SMW scripts run a lot longer.

While we discussed different approaches to wiki maintenance a few update cycles ago, we haven’t felt the need to change a system that worked until the issues we observed this time. To better understand these issues, we need to take several steps back and explore parts of the wiki, like SMW, to understand how the content works to improve the backend procedures. We will contact various editors and administrators that modify SMW content to ensure we work with the wiki community!

We will then redefine our maintenance processes to be more predictable and manageable for us and smoother for all of you. This may mean that we do things differently, such as put the wiki offline for extended periods or in a read-only state. While we’re aiming for the next maintenance to be MediaWiki 1.40 sometime next year (and the public SMW roadmap is not updated yet), it may take a bit longer to figure things out. If you have questions or comments, feel free to leave them on my talk page, any relevant wiki page, or the Wiki Discord.

Thanks a lot for your patience and for being an amazing community of wiki editors.

--Stephane Lo Presti talk 21:18, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Maintenance on Wednesday March 25 – March 11, 2020[edit]

Hi everyone,

It’s been a while since we updated the MediaWiki software to generally keep things up-to-date, so we’ve worked on a huge upgrade and I wanted to share details ahead of time.

First, the most important: we’ll be taking down the wikis for approximately 12 hours on Wednesday 25 at 4:00 AM Pacific Time (click here for local time). This window may be shorter or longer depending on how fast the upgrade is going.

We’re moving to MediaWiki version 1.34.0 and also Semantic MediaWiki version 3.1.4. The latter will break a few pieces of content that can then be fixed once we’re live, and in case you’re interested you can read about the changes here: https://github.com/SemanticMediaWiki/SemanticMediaWiki/blob/master/docs/technical/migration-guide-3.0.md#migration-guide

These upgrades are big version jumps so we tried our best to test it to see what would break. Hopefully it’s only a matter of fixing the Semantic MediaWiki code! We’ve also adjusted extensions to unify them across all wikis. Oh and we’re also adding the much-requested extension to make the wikis mobile-friendly! We’ll post release notes with the full list of changes.

Let me know if you have any question! Thanks a lot for your patience, your passion and dedication to this wiki.

On behalf of everyone at ArenaNet /salute

Stephane Lo Presti talk 17:06, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

List of Voice Actors for the Living World Season 4 - September 16, 2019[edit]

Hi,

I've been working with our Narrative Team to give you some cool information and since I'm note sure where to dump it, here's the official list of Voice Actors for the Living World Season 4! Feel free to use it in the appropriate articles :)

LIVING WORLD SEASON 4

Actor	Role
Afi Ekulona	Archivist Rhadha / Primeval Queen Dahlah / Primeval Queen Nahlah / Additional Voices
April Stewart	PC Human Female
Brandon Bales	PC Sylvari Male / Additional Voices
Cherise Boothe	Zafirah / Wurmmarshal Osa Ekolo / Key of Ahdashim / Additional Voices
Claudia Christian	PC Norn Female
Colleen O'Shaughnessey	PC Asura Female
Courtenay Taylor	Ellen Kiel / Almorra Soulkeeper / Additional Voices
Dave Fennoy	Zaeim / Elder Sazeer / Snaff / Additional Voices
Debi Derryberry	Taimi
Debra Wilson	Ambassador Sianna / Additional Voices
Fred Tatasciore	Ogden Stonehealer / Kralkatorrik / Additional Voices
Ike Amadi	Gorrik / Additional Voices
Jason Spisak	Agent Kito / Additional Voices
Jennifer Hale	PC Sylvari Female / Queen Jennah / Additional Voices
Jocelyn Blue	Eir Stegalkin / Glint / Additional Voices
John DiMaggio	Canach / Additional Voices
Kari Wahlgren	Caithe / Dessa / Desmina / Gwen Thackeray / Additional Voices
Kate Miller	PC Charr Female
Keston John	Koss Dejarin / Sazeer / Dhuum / Additional Voices
Kimberly Brooks	Boticca / Additional Voices
Lex Lang	PC Charr Male / Additional Voices
Liam O'Brien	Additional Voices
Mara Junot	PC Charr Female / Lonai / Additional Voices
Matthew Mercer	PC Norn Male / Additional Voices
Megan Hollingshead	Glenna / Additional Voices
Misty Lee	Rox Whetstone / Additional Voices
Nika Futterman	Aurene
Nolan North	PC Human Male / Palawa Joko / Rhoban Orestriker / Additional Voices
Rachel Robinson	Rox Whetstone / Additional Voices
Rick Wasserman	Kossan / Zommoros / Additional Voices
Sam Riegel	Braham Eirsson / Evon Gnashblade / Qadim / Additional Voices
Sean Schemmel	Archon Iberu / Additional Voices
Sonya Leslie	Beastmarshal Oluwa Eranko / Additional Voices
Steve Blum	Rytlock Brimstone / Additional Voices
Steve Staley	PC Asura Male
Sumalee Montano	Sayida / Marjory Delaqua / Additional Voices
Tommie Earl Jenkins	Blish / Grand Vizier Utumishi / Additional Voices
Troy Baker	Logan Thackeray / Additional Voices
Yuri Lowenthal	Lord Faren / Additional Voices

--Stephane Lo Presti talk 00:09, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Migration of the Wiki Servers on Wednesday, November 8 – November 3, 2017[edit]

Hi everyone,

On Wednesday November 8, starting at 6:00 AM Pacific Time (2:00 PM UTC, 3:00 PM in France and Germany), the official Wikis will be unavailable for 4 hours while we migrate them to new servers. If there is any deviation from the expected end time of 10:00 AM Pacific Time (6:00 PM UTC, 7:00 PM in France and Germany), we will post updates on the English twitter account.

This migration should have no impact on the functionalities of the wiki, apart from a minor improvement: you’ll be able to use in article’s names the special characters that have not been allowed for a few years, namely the ampersand “&”, the hyphen “-“ and the question mark “?” (this one was only limiting the editing of articles). If you see bugs, anomalies or any other issue, please report them on my talkpage or any other page to report wiki bugs.

--Stephane Lo Presti talk 20:57, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Access Statistics for the English Wiki for the month of September - October 10, 2017[edit]

Hi everyone,

I haven't shared statistics about players reading the English wiki for a while and thought it'd be a good time to share a great statistics, now that we're almost 2 weeks after the release of Path of Fire: the number of weekly visitors last week has been the highest it's ever been in almost 2 years! The amount of page viewed is also at the highest level during the same time period. And here are the top 25 most accessed articles for last week:

/wiki/Event_timers
/wiki/Main_Page
/index.php?title=Special:Search&go=Go
(other)
/wiki/Griffon_(mount)
/wiki/Mounts
/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Path_of_Fire
/wiki/Jackal
/wiki/
/index.php?title=Special:Search&profile=default&fulltext=Search
/wiki/Legendary_weapon
/wiki/World_boss
/wiki/The_Desolation
/wiki/Crystal_Oasis
/wiki/Soulbeast
/wiki/Domain_of_Vabbi
/wiki/Desert_Highlands
/wiki/Supreme_Rune_of_Holding
/wiki/Chest_of_the_First_Spear
/wiki/Firebrand
/wiki/Specialization
/wiki/Pact_Supply_Network_Agent
/wiki/Priory_Historian_Elisa
/wiki/Pulsing_Brandspark
/wiki/Profession

Here are the top 25 most accessed articles for the month of September:

/wiki/Event_timers
/wiki/Main_Page
/index.php?title=Special:Search&go=Go
(other)
/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Path_of_Fire
/wiki/Legendary_weapon
/wiki/World_boss
/wiki/Mounts
/wiki/Griffon_(mount)
/wiki/Pact_Supply_Network_Agent
/index.php?title=Special:Search&profile=default&fulltext=Search
/wiki/
/wiki/Soulbeast
/wiki/Firebrand
/wiki/Specialization
/wiki/The_Shining_Blade
/wiki/Legendary_armor
/wiki/Aurora
/wiki/Weaver
/wiki/Profession
/wiki/Jackal
/wiki/Gift_of_Fortune
/wiki/Crystal_Oasis
/wiki/Holosmith
/wiki/Equipment_acquisition_by_stats

Let me know if you have questions! --Stephane Lo Presti talk 17:54, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

On Wiki of Gold is now officially supported by ArenaNet - April 20, 2017[edit]

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I last posted, but today I've got a great news: I worked with User:Dashface on adapting his Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:Projects/On_Wiki_of_Gold so that we (ArenaNet) can officially support it and I'm happy to report that today is that day! The technical changes are that we've put Contribution Terms in place and they do not add or remove anything to the project, except that we'll provide the gold. User:Dashface continues to administer this program the way he's done so far. We'll wait a few weeks to make sure that everything works as intended under this new banner and will then make a big push on our social media!

Let me know in my talkpage if you have comments or questions. On behalf of ArenaNet, thank you to each and every one of the wiki editors that contribute to make this wiki the wonder that it is! --Stephane Lo Presti talk 19:04, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Wiki maintenance on Wednesday November 30 at 9 AM Pacific - November 28, 2016[edit]

Hi,

We’ll be performing a pretty big upgrade to the wiki servers on Wednesday November 30th 2016 to upgrade not only MediaWiki (to version 1.27.1) and Semantic MediaWiki (version 2.4.3) but also the Operating System layer of these systems. The details of this maintenance are:

Starting at 9 AM (Pacific Time), we’ll take 2 of the 4 wiki servers outside of the rotation to upgrade them; during that period, wikis will work with degraded performances (e.g. pages could load slower)
At around 11:30 AM (Pacific Time), we’ll take down all the wiki servers to upgrade the dabatases; the wikis will be unavailable for about 45 to 75 minutes
When this is finished, we’ll bring back online the 2 upgrade servers while we upgrade the last 2; wikis’ performance will again be degraded

We’re sorry about the need to take down the wikis, but we’ve worked out the least impacting plan overall, for an operation of this complexity. A newer version of the Operating System layer was needed to be able to upgrade the MediaWiki software and this is something quite rare (we last did it about 4 years ago). We’re hoping, without any guarantee, that this upgrade will help with the situation or 502 errors, and will be monitoring the situation. Please continue to report feedback on the Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:Reporting_wiki_bugs#502_and_503_errors discussion.

Let us know in my talkpage if you have comments or questions. ArenaNet would like to thank all the wiki editors for their work!

UPDATED: Wiki maintenance postponed - November 14, 2016[edit]

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the maintenance has to be pushed to Wednesday 11/30 in 2 weeks (tentatively). We’re very sorry about that and thank you for your understanding.

Hi,

We’ll be performing a pretty big upgrade to the wiki servers on Wednesday November 16th 2016 to upgrade not only MediaWiki (to version 1.27.1) and Semantic MediaWiki (version 2.4.3) but also the Operating System layer of these systems. The details of this maintenance are:

Starting at 9 AM (Pacific Time), we’ll take 2 of the 4 wiki servers outside of the rotation to upgrade them; during that period, wikis will work with degraded performances (e.g. pages could load slower)
At around 11:30 AM (Pacific Time), we’ll take down all the wiki servers to upgrade the dabatases; the wikis will be unavailable for about 45 to 75 minutes
When this is finished, we’ll bring back online the 2 upgrade servers while we upgrade the last 2; wikis’ performance will again be degraded

We’re sorry about the need to take down the wikis, but we’ve worked out the least impacting plan overall, for an operation of this complexity. A newer version of the Operating System layer was needed to be able to upgrade the MediaWiki software and this is something quite rare (we last did it about 4 years ago). We’re hoping, without any guarantee, that this upgrade will help with the situation or 502 errors, and will be monitoring the situation. Please continue to report feedback on the Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:Reporting_wiki_bugs#502_and_503_errors discussion.

Let us know in my talkpage if you have comments or questions. ArenaNet would like to thank all the wiki editors for their work!

User:Stephane Lo Presti/News

Contents

Thank you for another year of Wiki Editing – January 5, 2024[edit]

A heartfelt thank you from ArenaNet to the wiki editors – April 4, 2023[edit]

State of the Wiki – September 27, 2022[edit]

Wiki Maintenance on Wednesday March 25 – March 11, 2020[edit]

List of Voice Actors for the Living World Season 4 - September 16, 2019[edit]

Migration of the Wiki Servers on Wednesday, November 8 – November 3, 2017[edit]

Access Statistics for the English Wiki for the month of September - October 10, 2017[edit]

On Wiki of Gold is now officially supported by ArenaNet - April 20, 2017[edit]

Wiki maintenance on Wednesday November 30 at 9 AM Pacific - November 28, 2016[edit]

UPDATED: Wiki maintenance postponed - November 14, 2016[edit]

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