NexusWiki:Organization Discussion

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Contents 1 Salt the earth and defiler's poison 2 Redirects 3 Templates 4 Item Pages 5 Factions 5.1 Specific Item Pages 6 Categories 7 Locations 7.1 Locations - Utilizing the Hide template 8 Related Games 9 Pending Change size 10 Weapons 10.1 Melee and Ranged 11 Style Guide Questions 11.1 Titles 12 Redirects, redux 13 Nitpicking 13.1 Search and Hide 13.2 Pick up 14 Skill Page Design/Layout 15 Faction Categories

This page is set up to discuss the plan for the overall organization and formatting of this wiki.

Question 1: How do we want to have articles organized? Some have expressed a want for all items and spells to be listed in their own separate articles as opposed to being condensed into a single article such as how swords and spells are currently organized. What are your opinions on this?

• I support the idea of each item having its own article to facilitate searching for exactly what you want. The question is, especially for items, will the listing of all the articles at the bottom get far too large to facilitate this? A possible solution is to remove articles from linking directly to items, but keep the weapons only in weapons and magical items and etc. -Sauth 02:40, 31 March 2006 (PST)
• No. Items that are large and/or complicated can have thier own pages, but I think having a whole page for "Silver Ring" is pointless.--Jorm 16:59, 3 April 2006 (CDT)

Hate it. Too many pages will clutter up way too much space on the wiki, and I've seen cluttered wiki's before. Give really important items thier own pages, everything else should be generalised amongst other things. ralphwiggum

Question 2: Should Barricades have their own page? They seem important and are fairly complex.

• Yes. Absolutely.--Jorm 16:59, 3 April 2006 (CDT)
  • Right. Well they've got one now --Lancensis 10:13, 5 April 2006 (CDT)
  • For sure-- Anyinfo that helps a new player understand the game.--MIdNight Slasher 16:20, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Salt the earth and defiler's poison

The wiki is unclear as to whether or not a player killed by defiler's poison will Salt the Earth if the defiler who inflicted the poison has the skill. Anyone know the answer to this? --Esbon 22:15, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

[edit] Redirects

Redirects are a fun and easy way to get involved in the wiki (Contains 50% truth) Basically, the intent is to cause searches such as "Length of rope" to redirect the page that contains the information on it, like "mundane items". To do this, type in the search term and begin editing the new page. Type "#REDIRECT[[articlename#item]]" to direct the search to the proper page. Bear in mind that the wiki is case, and plural sensitive

To do/aleady done lists can be found on the Discussion page

Just remember that Redirects won't pick up the anchor - They'll only take a person to the top of the page, and won't actually take them to the header specified. Redirects are funny like that... -- Odd Starter 10:06, 5 June 2006 (CDT)

Hmm, my mistake, it appears that this has been fixed in this wiki's version. My bad. -- Odd Starter 10:35, 5 June 2006 (CDT)

Um, no it hasn't. Or maybe I missed something. Lockpicks still takes it to the top of Mundane Items, while it should take it to Mundane_Items#Set_of_Lockpicks, according to redirect. --Brizth 12:06, 5 June 2006 (CDT)

How blatently, patently retarded. Crap. There are like, a zillion of those redirects, too.--Jorm 13:38, 5 June 2006 (CDT)

I've just done some reading on the redirect to section issue on the relevant Wikipedia and bugzilla article, and it seems that while workarounds do exist, they're messy and counterproductive to what we're doing here. Furthermore, it has been stated that it will never be implemented in Wikipedia itself. Should I embark on an immense redirect cleanup? Chriswizard 02:44, 7 June 2006 (CDT)

Note: I've fixed all the known redirect things; now, keep in mind that redirects work /within/ an article, but not when you're going straight to an article. For example:

Pistol Speedload Clip redirects to Ammunition, but not Ammunition#Pistol Speedload Clip.

But if you use [[Ammunition#Pistol Speedload Clip]] as a link inside, say...the Locations article, you'll be redirected properly. --Chriswizard 17:55, 11 June 2006 (CDT)

Should Fort references be redirected to Locations#Fort or Tague Island? --Lint 02:11, 12 June 2006 (CDT)

Locations#Fort --Jorm 02:41, 12 June 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Templates

Moved to NexusWiki:Template Central

[edit] Item Pages

Could someone have a look at User:Brizth/WIP and say what they think? Could something like that be used for Items (instead of the current redirect)? It would obviously need all the other item categories added. --Brizth 09:01, 12 June 2006 (CDT)

I like it. It might also be a good starting point for GUWAST and such not.--Jorm 13:07, 15 June 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Factions

Personally, i dont see any benefit from having the Factions page as a seperate entity to Category:Factions. Wouldnt it just be simpler to move all the contents on this page onto Category:Factions and change the link on the front page? At present its a pain to navigate to the category via links. --Grim s 03:48, 15 June 2006 (CDT)

-Above comment taken from the Talk:Factions page. --Grim s 03:56, 15 June 2006 (CDT)

I think only the front page link should be changed. That is, make it point to Category:Factions. Merging the two would make one extra long page where navigating would be at least as difficult as it is now. Of course Factions would have to be linked from somewhere, top of Category:Factions maybe. --Brizth 04:13, 15 June 2006 (CDT)

Yes, there's a very good reason, mostly to do with separation of organisation and article, but also because of redirect problems with Category pages (and I'm not fond of having people use CategoryHack, and would much prefer that CategoryHack be deprecated. -- Odd Starter ^A 05:00, 15 June 2006 (CDT)

I originally had it that way for all the Object/Category:Object types, but was convinced that this was bad. However, I think that the Category pages should have something more than a oneliner saying "These are the factions!" - if only instructions on how to appear there, or how to create a page, or something. I have no opinion about CategoryHack.--Jorm 13:09, 15 June 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Specific Item Pages

I edited the Swords page to include the important yet basic crafting information; should it also contain links to crafting as well? And should the rest of the pages be done in the same manner?

Furthermore, I did something similar to the Small Bottle of Gunpowder page as well, including a "uses" page for what it is used to create through crafting as well. Should this also be carried across the wiki for all the pages?

[edit] Categories

Any objections to a new category for Tier 3 spells? It will also serve as a subcategory to Category:Spells. --Lint 10:11, 18 August 2006 (CDT)

Great idea. And maybe separate, properly named category for tier 2 spells. Maybe add both tier categories and still place all spells into spells category. --Brizth ^{T A} 10:32, 18 August 2006 (CDT)

What's Jorm's stance on a category for the St. Germaine lore? I love reading it, but I've only been able to find the articles through poking around fairly determinedly. I think it could benefit from categorization unless this is something that he would prefer to be obscure. --Lint 13:28, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

Sure. I don't see why not.--Jorm 16:29, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

Neat. I'm avoiding "Lore" itself to prevent confusion with the Lore of Haldon quest. Is "History of Saint Germaine" fair enough? --Lint 20:14, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

That sounds fine. Or "History", or "Backstory."--Jorm 21:40, 22 August 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Locations

I am. . . disatisfied with the current organization of the locations. I'm not sure it makes sense to chop them up by plane. However, I also note that it might be a pain in the ass to put them all on one page given the size of the page. Anyone have any thoughts?--Jorm 03:25, 4 October 2006 (CDT)

It seems that by plane is the simplest way to do it, and I'm more concerned with the fact that there is next to no continuity for each tile type listed, or a set style guide. There's enough things to be said about each type of tile (In-game descriptor text, large item spawns, search items, hide rates, etc...) that each tile type should be able to have a page of it's own, provided someone set out to make a set style guide for them. – Nubis 04:03, 4 October 2006 (CDT)

I agree with that. Furthermore, because of the way the system is currently set up, it requires three clicks to reach "search items" page if following in-game link (1. to reach top of locations page, 2. to click on TOC link, 3. to click the Details link). With clever use of template functionality (ie you can include any page as template, not just from Template: namespace ) we could keep the old, plane specific pages, but have also a separate page for each and every location. At the same time we could get rid of separate details page, which currently seems to hold only lists of searchable items, and merge them to somewhere, be it the location lists or location specific pages.

Also, the guidelines are an excellent idea. I can put something together tomorrow, or maybe even today, regardless whether we continue with the current system or not. --Brizth ^{T A} 09:59, 4 October 2006 (CDT)

An alternate possibility is to organise the Locations by type, rather than by Plane - Resource, Housing, Landscape, Impassable, etc. If done this way, it may be worth merging "Forgotten" locations and their St. Germaine analogs to conserve headings, since I'm fairly certain that they're not actually distinct in terms of items found. -- Odd Starter ^A 00:22, 5 October 2006 (CDT)

They are, indeed, exactly the same in terms of items found. Type makes a lot of sense. I think of them in terms of Mundane Terrain, Mystical Terrain, Mundane Structure, Mystical Structure, Unique Terrain, and Unique Structure. But those are code distinctions; logically there may be better ones.--Jorm 00:30, 5 October 2006 (CDT)

I was mostly thinking in terms of distinctions of usage. Terrain/Landscape, for example, is not used for much bar infusions, Resource Buildings exist purely for gaining resources, Housing is basically for hiding and finding odd little items, and Impassable Landscape requires specific skills to traverse. Of course, now that I think about it, Resource buildings could be further subdivided, although any subdivision is going to be pretty arbitrary. -- Odd Starter ^A 00:35, 5 October 2006 (CDT)

Isn't it easier just to leave the Locations page organized the way it is, but have individual pages for each of the locations instead of redirects? That way if a person is wondering what is in a particular location, they can either click on the locations link on the main page and select the location they are interested in learning more about, or they can just type in the location's name (with normal mispellings redirecting to the appropriate page) and be delivered to the location's description. This would make it a two/one-click system instead of forcing a redirect to a different style of page. I've been slowly changing all of the direct-links anyways for the various mundane items to be direct links rather than the original redirects, as it takes it to the anchor on the appropriate location's page rather than to the top of the locations page. Regardless, a lot of the items pages need to be fixed as well, in order for the organization to make sense. --Token Black Man 01:35, 5 October 2006 (CDT)

The problem with individual pages is that really, the pages would be perpetually just 2-3 lines of content, which should be avoided if possible, especially for locations, in which there isn't a lot of content you can shove into them (unlike skills which can have a lot of extra content). It is probably best for locations to be sorted on pages, just so the pages look reasonably full. We just need to figure out a way to do so that doesn't make a bunch of massive pages, and has a manageable number of manageable ones. -- Odd Starter ^A 01:51, 5 October 2006 (CDT)

Very true. So here's my suggestion: you keep the Locations page organized the way it is, but under the Harper Island page (for example) you list all of the terrain types that are found on that island only. You repeat this for all of the Islands in Valhalla. This will break up the overly large Valhalla page and you can use it to direct people to individual pages of the islands. This will be expose players to backstory of the world, in addition to informing people of the terrain types in the area. I always felt that the history of the game was being overlooked by the majority of the players, and it would make those pages more centralized, as well as have them make sense as location pages. You'll also be able to place a blown up version of the map in order for people to get a better idea of what is in that area. This might not work as well due to the number of clicks it takes to navagate the pages, but perhaps it will spur more ideas for people. I'll sleep on it and see if I come up with something better. --Token Black Man 02:39, 5 October 2006 (CDT)

Question: I made a template not long ago for the various terrains and landscapes. I was attempting to somehow merge the searchable items list and the locations list so that it was easier to find out where to search for particular items. I ended up with this page: User:Dachibi/WikiProjects. I didn't even think about looking here before I created it, now I know better. Anyways... the template doesn't inlcude Heavy Items, and the difference between the landscape and the terrain isn't very clear (as in does one find same stuff at the same rate on the outside as it is on the inside?). As for the breakdown of locations, I would suggest leaving it under the current setup although Purgatorio has far too many terrains.--Dachibi 18:01, 12 October 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Locations - Utilizing the Hide template

Since we were adding all of the locations for the items, I figured that we should cross-reference that with the item details for the locations. This is if we left all of the location pages as it was, but included all of the items in the detail page: Locations_Saint_Germaine/Detail#Airport. This is what the locations page would look like if we added the detail page to the Locations Saint Germaine page: Locations_Saint_Germaine. This is what the locations page would look like if we added the description and item details to the master location page table: http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/2172/editinglocationspreviewmn9.png. I'm leaning toward the last one, but it would be a big change. What do you all think? --Token Black Man 23:01, 30 October 2006 (CST)

I like the second one, although the last is not bad either. My main problem with it is that while it looks nice, it would be good if in-game links would take one directly to desired section of desired page. With the third one you would have to search the somewhat large list for the desired location. Of course it would make comparing locations easier, but I'm not sure how useful that would be. --Brizth ^{T A} 05:35, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Couldn't we create anchors and direct the links to them? --Token Black Man 06:26, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Yes, that's actually possible. They only need the id parameter added to table cells. Furthermore, it's possibly to make the hidden location details appear automatically for one location if user follows a redirect.

But was your plan to get rid of Locations Saint Germaine (and paradise, stygia, purgatorio) and the distinct /Details pages (except for templates), and use the master table for all location needs? I just wanted a clarification so that I know we are talking about the same thing :) --Brizth ^{T A} 08:27, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Yes it was. I figured a master table would work, and we could rearrange the table so that it is seperated out into four smaller tables on the same page, so that when other planes like the Deadlands arrive, they could just be added on. Jorm said it might end up being too big though. If we don't make a master table, then the second option could work just as easily. --Token Black Man 08:53, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Yeah, the size is a problem. Adding all the items and descriptions would make it gigantic, and all those hundreds template calls might be a bit much for the server. --Brizth ^{T A} 09:15, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Oh, I plan on using the hidden template to take pages such as: Locations_Saint_Germaine/Airport/Detail (which will hide the details of the location), Locations Saint Germaine/Airport/Found (for the items found inside), and Locations Saint Germaine/Airport/Found Outside (for the items found outside), and put them in the table. For details, see the bottom of this image. --Token Black Man 09:32, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Yes, I noticed, but that won't affect how much staff user has to download when loading the master list. They'll all be there, just hidden from user via css/js. Second problem is those templates. If I calculated correctly, there will be about 350-400 templates counting all those outside/inside/details templates. Placing them all into one page probably just won't work. --Brizth ^{T A} 09:54, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Makes sense. So, the second option then? --Token Black Man 19:14, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Yep, if no one else has anything to say. Anyone? --Brizth ^{T A} 06:05, 2 November 2006 (CST)

[edit] Related Games

I'd like to get a listing of "related" or "similar" games up here, with blurbs about them. Only, I don't play every game that's out there. Obviously, we've got Urban Dead, Kingdom of Loathing, Shartak, and Vampires! - but what else should we mention?--Jorm 22:47, 6 October 2006 (CDT)

Well, UDWiki has a small list here. --Brizth ^{T A} 03:04, 7 October 2006 (CDT)

Sure, but I don't want to be stealing everything from there. The list is a good start, but I'd like the write-ups to come from people who have actually played the games.--Jorm 06:52, 7 October 2006 (CDT)

Scroll Wars for sure! ... Am I banned now? Yes? I'll go start packing my things. --Zaruthustra 08:37, 7 October 2006 (CDT)

Nah, we don't ban someone for something as petty as playing Scroll Wars. That would be stupid. -- Odd Starter ^A 12:31, 7 October 2006 (CDT)

What's "Scroll Wars?"--Jorm 14:24, 7 October 2006 (CDT)

Amazing's game. --Maggah 19:27, 7 October 2006 (CDT)

I've started a category (Category:Browser Games) and began populating it with stuff. Mostly stub data, so things can use some fleshing out.--Jorm 00:23, 8 October 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Pending Change size

Moved to NexusWiki:Template Central

[edit] Weapons

I'd like to organize the weapons pages to correspond with their appropriate skills. I would break them down to the following pages: Melee Weapons, Hand to Hand Weapons, Magical Weapons, and Ranged Weapons. This would effectively leave the Hand to Hand and Magical Weapons pages alone aside from punching up the pages a bit and moving the Hand to Hand page to Hand to Hand Weapons. The Ranged Weapons page would combine all three entries on the Bows page, and all five on the Firearms page. The Melee Weapons page would combine all four entries on the Knives and Daggers page, all seven entries on the Swords page, and all eleven entries on the Improvised page. I assume that Jorm doesn't want all of the entries on one general Weapons page, so we could arrange the Weapons page to be like the Armor page, with links to the four sub-pages. I would also recommend the deletion of the Category:Weapons, as we would be using the Weapons page (after updating and punching it up) to direct people to the necessary places. I realize this would be a major change, so I figured I would toss the idea around here and see what everyone thought. --Token Black Man 03:09, 12 October 2006 (CDT)

IIRC, that was the way I had originally put it up there, and somehow it got changed. Feel free.--Jorm 03:25, 12 October 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Melee and Ranged

There appears to be a couple articles which link to Melee Combat and Ranged Combat when they are actually intending to direct to pages which go into greater detail about the types of weapons considered such and what their pros and cons are rather than just the skill. There are currently two pages up that attempt to address this issue - Melee weapons and Ranged attack. Ranged attack is actually well-written, but the title makes it somewhat inaccessible. I would like to request these two articles be moved to the shorthand Melee and Ranged for consistency and accessibility. --Lint 14:23, 27 October 2006 (CDT)

Good idea, and done.--Jorm 15:11, 27 October 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Style Guide Questions

[edit] Titles

Most of the articles use italics to emphasize the subject matter of the article in the lead sentence. A few others, some admittedly by myself, use bold as it used on Wikipedia. Is there any particular preference to what font style is used? --Lint 12:46, 29 October 2006 (CST)

I've been using italics but that was only because I didn't know there was a comment on it in Wikipedia's manual of style. I don't care either way, but we should make a decision.--Jorm 15:06, 29 October 2006 (CST)

I prefer the bold one. Just personal preference, I don't really know why. --Brizth ^{T A} 16:29, 30 October 2006 (CST)

[edit] Redirects, redux

I made a small javascript hack for the redirect/hash problem, and put it in MediaWiki:monobook.js, so it's enabled already. You might need to shift-refresh to see the effects.

Basically it adds the redirect name (for example Rifle, Shotgun Shell, Tavern...) as #REDIRECTNAME at the end of the url, after page has loaded. So, rifle should redirect you to Firearms#Rifle, Tavern to Locations_Paradise#Tavern etc, though the url looks like Rifle#Rifle, Tavern#Tavern etc. But it works.

One good (and bad) point is that redirects don't have to be changed at all, the wiki software still doesn't care anything about the # in redirect link. This means that each and every redirect (like XP, Classes...) will have # placed after them, which might cause some problems. I had a quick look around Special:Listredirects and didn't find any problems. There are some redirects that are not working properly because of different spelling on redirect page name and the header on the final page (Quiver -> Quiver of Arrows for example). But at least all in-game links can be made to work, if they are not all working already.

I couldn't test this with IE6 since I don't have it anymore, so it would be really nice if someone confirmed that it works (or at least doesn't break anything). Otherwise it's tested on Firefox, Opera, Safari and IE 7. --Brizth ^{T A} 19:00, 30 October 2006 (CST)

[edit] Nitpicking

[edit] Search and Hide

Just curious to see if Search and Hide are acceptable as they are at the moment. References to the skill and the action link to the same page, which may be a bit confusing. I was thinking about moving the general information about the action to "Search (action)" and "Hide (action)" and leaving the skill information at Search and Hide. It would require changing the ingame wikilink and I would have no problem going through the wiki and reassigning links to reference the action. --Lint 12:39, 27 November 2006 (CST)

This seems like a good idea. It can also be keyed to the hide and search chances page.--Jorm 14:17, 27 November 2006 (CST)

[edit] Pick up

The enhanced interface links to "Pick Up" rather than Pick up. Although this is resolved with a simple redirect, I was wondering if it really needed a separate article. It seems like "Pick up" could easily be merged with Target Shooting. --Lint 12:39, 27 November 2006 (CST)

[edit] Skill Page Design/Layout

I'm not happy with the way these things are showing up. It isn't any one particular element but is instead the combination. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to create a single "skillpage" template that has a nice, tabulated layout that we can use to control a lot of the weird flow problems (like when the skill box gets too long, or the pending changes banner goes wonky). We can also unify appearance and do some fun stuff like add background colors and the like. Thoughts? --Jorm 13:30, 30 November 2006 (CST)

[edit] Faction Categories

Mac Dre raised a question about faction categories, particularly whether factions in Forgotten Factions category should be kept in Factions category or not. I don't see any problem on removing them and keeping them separated, and Mac Dre has already promised to do it... Thoughts? --Brizth 15:24, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

That sounds like a good idea.--Jorm 23:46, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

Am I waiting on other people to chime in or is this okay to go ahead with? Mac Dre 00:43, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

My word is law; you may proceed.--Jorm 02:09, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

Okay I got that done, except for the Democratic_Armed_Republic_of_Independent_Suburbs page which strangely has no "edit" tab at the top? If someone could remove the category faction tag that would be the end of that. Second thing - would anyone mind if I made a Category:Unaligned Factions and moved everything currently in Category:Neutral Factions to that? Mac Dre 03:56, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

I made required edits to DARIS' page. It has been protected to prevent any vandalism, so only sysops can edit it. I think renaming Neutrals to Unaligned Factions is a good idea. I am not quite sure why I named it Neutral Factions in the first place... --Brizth 04:12, 31 October 2007 (CDT)