Talk:Quest:Field Duty

Not Identical quests, but Very Close
See Quest:Gnome Engineering for another example of my changes. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 00:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

It is correct that the TEXT of this quest differs between Alliance and Horde. This page does not supplant the relevant separate pages, it provides a common point of reference. AND a page that is useful upon first glance, instead of having to then go to the disambiguated page. If you feel quite strongly against the Questbox, then remove that - but leave this page in Category:Silithus quests. The purpose and results of this quest are identical between the two varieties. Discussion and notes about either quest should have a united location.

The only element unique enough to go on the individual pages are the stats of the monster.

Yes, IMO. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 00:06, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not about the questbox, it's about the whole trying-to-make-it-a-quest-page deal - you condensed the information from both quests into something that just doesn't look good. Quest articles aren't for condensing information from other versions of the same quests but with different texts - it's been done before and it should not be done again. 00:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * As may be shown by this particular edit war, I disagree wholeheartedly. The purpose for pages describing quests is to describe the quests.  The one-to-one correspondence between 'blizzard data object' and 'wiki page' was maintained.  Even the fact that Quest:Field Duty was a disambiguation page remained blazingly obvious.


 * What remains are two possibilities:
 * 1) What I added offended your sense of what a disambiguation page was. I can do nothing for you here.
 * 2) You are offended by my writing. This can be changed compare favorably with your expectations.  You would be the best guide for that.


 * Simply saying "it should not be done again" is an opinion. Please flesh out your opinion with facts. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:26, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Functional Disambiguation pages
I contend that disambiguation pages in general should server to describe the similarities and differences of the items being disambiguated. This provides two advantages:
 * 1) It allows for easier maintenance.  Particularly with WoW, and even more particularly with certain quests and certain items, the pages have been disambiguated because of small details:  A reputation group that differs by faction but whose rewards are the same; the same NPC but located in different zones; an item whose statistics differ by the level cap on the item (or the level of the purchaser).  Often, these disparate pages will not be uniformly maintained.  The disambiguation page is a natural location to perform in-depth description between the several disambiguated pages.
 * 2) It may well provide the information that the visitor to the page was looking for, instead of requiring they click off to a different page.

My esteemed colleague, Gourra prefers the disambiguation page not to combine descriptions of quests that, while parallel, are not identical. It is not my place to speak for him regarding my other points, on which his comments are yet unvoiced.

My proposal specific to this page is simply this:
 * As of this writing, the [this] prevails.
 * Should this page instead be expanded to include details common to this pair of quests? One possible example is [this] revision.  Other formats are possible (and acceptable to your not so humble author).

I ask for comments on the topic of disambiguation pages, as well as votes on this particular page.

Votes

 * Yes :


 * No :

Comments

 * I'm not going to vote, since I don't mind sticking with option #1 (just links), but I don't really like option #2 (with details) as it is shown. I would like the disambig area to be more distinct from the details and the only thing I really would like to see is a questbox that would make popups work.
 * I made User:Fandyllic/Field Duty as an example of the changes I'd like to see. --[[Image:gengar orange 22x22.png]] Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 2:04 PM PST 26 Feb 2009


 * Your changes would be welcome, but I am pretty sure that it would make no difference at all to those who have voted 'no' so far. More, since it's been called to a vote, this page is likely to remain 'No'd until someone simply removes the voting booth in the night, years hence.  --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 01:16, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that the current "click your faction" disambiguation page is a good solution. At the same time, maintaining an additional "similarities" page would require extra work (and, faced with an ever-increasing number of quests, extra work isn't appealing). I propose simply redirecting some faction's version, and adding a ":Did you want Quest:Field Duty (Other faction)?" flyer on top of both pages. -- foxlit (talk) 10:19, 27 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem with this plan is that when people use Field Duty they would get a bogus tooltip or a red link. Also, the number of quests that fall into this category isn't that big. --[[Image:gengar orange 22x22.png]]  Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 5:44 PM PST 2 Mar 2009


 * It wouldn't be that bogus -- the worst case scenario is that they'll simply see the wrong faction, which is easily fixed by inserting the faction disambiguation into that quest link. What do the quest tooltips display when pointed at a disambiguation page -- surely not magically detect the viewer's faction interest? -- foxlit (talk) 13:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree with this idea -- the choice of which version to redirect to is arbitrary, and other pages almost always need to link to one of the specific quests (from what I've seen). A link to a disambig page shows the error tooltip. (At least this one does.)-- Harveydrone 21:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that "disambiguation pages in general should serve to describe the similarities and differences of the items being disambiguated." I like the Gnome Engineering disambig page in that respect. I think pretending that there is one "Field Duty" quest, with the full quest page boilerplate (as in the specific proposal here), is more confusing. (Is this a real quest or not?) I think a short narrative describing the common elements and differences is better. I like the questbox/tooltip on the disambig page as well. As someone familiar with database normalization, I see how it's tempting to create some system where the common elements for the two quests (in this case) are maintained in one place, rather than on the two independent quest pages, where they can get out of synch. But the proposal here actually seems like introduces a third element that could get out of synch with the other two (and it seems more likely that this disambig page would get overlooked if there some reason to update the quest pages). (Unless I'm misunderstanding and there would be some transclusion going on.) -- Harveydrone 21:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You're quite right that it COULD get out of synch with the other two, Harvey. Which was a major reason why I intended this to be the go-to page.  ... aside from it being the first up when searching on "Field Duty".  I considered a transclusion solution; but that only works well if you have a single section to transclude, with no interior sectioning.


 * It does appear that I initially proposed the vote as "my way or his way". As Gourra offered no hint of compromise, I felt it made no difference to him what I put on the page.  To date, I've still seen nothing on those lines.  However, I feel you have a good (implied) point.  To that end, I've reworded the vote issue and will request all parties reconsider.  Perhaps a less threatening example I could make is Legionnaire's Sword vs Scout's Blade.  Both serve as disambiguation pages, but one provides infinitely more information than the other.  At least one of the voters, though, seems to have preferred the 'scout's blade' option.


 * The question, "Is it a real quest or not", is quite relevant, because it presents the question "What is a quest?" (How a quest is defined), as well as "What is the best way to present a quest to the user?". And challenging the predefined concept of a quest (as one database object = one page) creates some controversy.  I am happy to leave that issue for another battle.  --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Despite the change in wording, my vote stays the same. All the other disambig pages are in this format - this quest is really no different, as far as I'm concerned. -Howbizr (talk) 23:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I will concede your preferences will not have changed. However, I fear you may have misunderstood the vote.  The point I have intended for this vote is not to create an exception, but to decide whether the standard for disambig pages should be changed.   The Legionnaire's Sword page I linked to above, as well as Quest:Gnome Engineering do serve as current counter-examples to the minimal disambig page.  Such examples are few and far between currently, and you may well not have tripped over them before.  --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 00:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Eirik et al, a few points: The Legionnaire's Sword page I think is ideal, and it calls to mind the fact that the typical ability page is technically a case of combining several distinct database items (different ranks of an ability) into one page. The sword example is a lot like an ability, with different "ranks", and it also shows that the "similarities and differences" there are easy to encapsulate into a rank table. For quests (Field Duty anyway), the amount of information that is different is too large to manage in a similar table, I think. For instance, what the NPC says upon offering the quest. But it's probably worth looking at keeping some of the differences in a table format. I still think paraphrasing the similar (but not identical) quest text into quest page boilerplate is more confusing than helpful. Having said this, I'm going to change my vote. -- Harveydrone 17:20, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Either way Eirik, I prefer the current standard. To Fandyllic's comment, once you realize you've hit a disambig page and your mousever doesn't work, pick one of the pages, and use an alternate name if you want to mask the "(horde)" or whatnot part of the page title. -Howbizr (talk) 18:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I expect that the parties currently interested have voted, and that a year might pass before a vote comes to a decision. Having already participated in the start of an edit war on this page, I must recuse myself from further editing until either a decision is reached or someone else takes it in mind to change the page in a further fashion. (And then only in related edits, not to resume the war with a one-edit break.) --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not voting yet, but I'm inclined to vote no after having read more comments. The main issue for me is maintainability. A merged set of quest info would probably be too hard to maintain if Blizzard starts to make several changes to these types of quests. I would like it if the tooltip error could include more infomation (possibly the list of possible links). -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 7:26 PM PST 4 Apr 2009

Tildy: In its core, the proposal does not require that this page look at all like a quest page, or to be categorized as such. The point of it is that many of the details and notes used for the two separate quests cover the same material, yet the two pages get maintained separately. Thus, one or the other will be neglected on a regular basis. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 20:58, October 5, 2009 (UTC)