Leading Article Discussions
Forum page
this wiki
| Forums: Index > Planning Forum > Leading Article Discussions |
Post
|
DECISION
Based on the consensus shown here and the discussions that have taken place on the IRC page, we will be moving forward with the plan to match game names exactly in all aspects. An official policy is being drafted at present and will be linked off the main page and the help pages (currently also undergoing revision) to clearly spell out what this implies. Thankyou to everyone who helped make this decision.-- Kodia 17:25, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm all for designing a comprehensive and consistant naming scheme, and would be happy to help out in making the necessary changes! I also have a long-standing professional track-record for designing and implementing organizational standards and systems, so I'm also willing to help in creating the system. I can 'whip up' an example scheme if you'd like as a sort of starting point. Just gimme a holler!
Melf 19:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
To me, a wiki is ideally constructed when it best serves those who use it. I don't think users are best served by having to guess at a page's title. Typing in, "Heavenly Cheesesteak" should get me the info on that quest just as reliably as "The Heavenly Cheesesteak". The fewer times I end up on a search page, the better, especially in EQ2i because if I'm looking for help, I'm in an EQ2-embedded browser window that is slow to respond, and either I or my wife are often under time pressure to get an answer.
The auto-match feature that pops up under the search box is great, except that it doesn't work in my EQ2-embedded browser interface, AND it will only give choices to select based on the first word of the page (e.g. if I type "The", I will see "The Heavenly Cheesesteak", but if I type "Heavenly", I won't because it's not the first word).
We've had similar discussions during the initial development of another wiki, and the basic philosophy we've evolved/decided on is:
- Make article titles match the actual topic, person, company, etc. as exactly as possible.
- Create as many #REDIRECT pages as needed so that people can get to the right place when they type common acronyms or common partial names of the full and complete thing.
The second point provides some forgiveness for the first, too. If you've got a quest page right now titled "Heavenly Cheesesteak" (and the actual quest starts with "The"), don't bother to change it. Just add a #REDIRECT for "The Heavenly Cheesesteak" to the existing page. If you move the page to a new location, you'll just end up creating a redirect from the original page anyway, so the impact on the database's efficiency is about the same.
This philosophy serves the user. In my "real life" project, no matter whether users type "The Chicago Board of Trade", "Chicago Board of Trade" or just "CBOT", they will go immediately to the page they want to read. There will not be a single content seeker who will care whether the official article naming standard required a "the" for the company name. They WILL care, though, if it's a hassle to find what they seek.
Anyway, a lot of "blah blah" to suggest something simple: Be consistent going forward, add redirections liberally, and don't worry about re-doing all the existing article titles solely to make a consistent wiki. If the wiki lets people quickly jump to what they need, it's serving the user community.
-- Whyff 19:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
If I'm understanding all this properly... and I'm not sure I do... then, I'm wondering just what exactly the massive overhaul will entail.
Having said that, I think I'm leaning toward what Whyff said above. Maybe the answer is more redirect pages? I mean, would they show up in the re-alphabetization? Because, if they don't, then we can "rename" an article as needed (with or without the preceeding article "a, an, the", and create the redirects as needed, but still have the pretty and shiny new listings, yeah?
I'll post more thoughts once I've had some more time to think...
-- Mysterious drake 21:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Just as an observation: a number of UI mods (eg. ProfitUI) put links on quest and item windows based on the in-game name of the quest or item. Having article titles match that'd be an advantage. I make use of those links a lot when I need quick info in-game.
-- Tknarr
My 2cp... Go with how it looks in-game. I know that makes some things inconsistent, but it makes searching via aforementioned in-game devices easier/better and reflects the way SOE is doing things. That way when I go looking for "The blah blah" I get exactly that, but if I go looking for "yada yada" it finds that as well, since thats the way they are in game. 'Artificial' rules would change that and require more effort than it's worth, I think. -- Lordebon 23:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I am also in the as-it-is-in-game camp. Things like "The Wards" as a POI would be very confusing without the article (especially to shaman) and I certainly wouldn't want to see a redirect from "Wards" since that immediately leads to the need to disambiguate it from "ward".
I do understand that this can mess up category ordering; however, we can solve that problem with an optional field in the various Information templates.
-- SwordMage 01:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
- Now that I got here by way of the first page and not the recent changes page, I have the context to respond more fully.
- I am still basically in favor of in-game naming; however, in the context of MoB names I would certainly not recommend that we make a huge project of moving all the current pages (it would require a whole lot of in-game time to verify for each MoB whether there was a prefix article and verify the capitalization of the first real word). Going forward, I would like to see us use the in-game names and encourage people to move the old articles as they come across them while working on quests and such; I would certainly be happy living with the redirects created with this since fixing every link to get rid of them would probably introduce many errors as people are into their 5th and 6th hour of updates.
- I am not sure what to do about this new search box that we have been subjected to over the last few months (it was here before I got back). The original search gave us the option of actually searching for text that matched a page name, which allows much more flexibility in finding information. I only use it when truly desparate and don't see how the initial articles can make it any worse for me.
- -- SwordMage 02:55, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I think you are asking for a world of hurt if you try to redo it all now. If we HAD the preceding a, an or the, it would be a different matter but long ago, before uber came up with template:AAnThe to strip them in the sort, I decided to remove them from mob and zone $names only so they would sort better. In retrospect I wish I had not, but since I did not come up with AAnThe I made the best choice I could at the time. All that being said, I vote NOT to change it now. -- Florence Sopher ( talk / contribs / my templates ) 06:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I think that since a lot of contributors are non-technical [not programmers], and they are being asked to make entries, the opportunity to create errors should be as small as possible. Therefore, I believe the literal approach is the best. If we ask for a mob/equip/quest names, they should be exactly as they appear on the screen we are referencing in-game.
Another consideration is, do we have any examples of two items that are identically named except for the "prefix article"? If such a collision exists, then it seems we would have to go with the literal naming.
Is it possible, once the correct name for something has been identified, to update the text, mark it as "validated", and have all references to it automatically updated? -- Skuuby 20:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I created a template to deal with this, you just have to use it. This way, you can name the articles correctly, but in catagory lists it'll ignore the preceding preposition for sorting. Contact me at lucutious@twistedp.com for more information. --Lucutious of Najena
