User talk:Zeal/Proposals/Format

Policy ratification vote

 * Yes :


 * No :

Comments

 * In general, I like it, but it needs a fair bit of tweaking to be feasible :) My first comments are on namespaces for now ... -- 15:06, 3 January 2007 (EST)


 * Just want to comment on voidvector's comment. Are you saying it's too much of large change so you want to see it done slowly in small steps or you jsut don't want more namespaces period? if the former, i'm in agreement, this policy mentions that, and it's merely a goal to workd towards, not one big instant change. -- Zeal  talk   contr  web 15:37, 25 January 2007 (EST)


 * Yes, we are in agreement on principle, but the current proposal has 27 namespaces, we do not need that many. There are a few namespaces that we definitely should have, such as Items and NPC/Mobs. There are thousands of articles on those alone right now. I would support creating those namespaces in a heartbeat. Other stuff like "Class", there are only 9 classes in game. Even if we add all the lore classes and the related articles, it would probably be less than 30, so there is no point in creating such namespace. I don't have the vision that main namespace being used exclusively for Game Terms. --Voidvector 15:53, 25 January 2007 (EST)


 * Can't really say much to change your mind there then i guess :p And it would probably be more than 30 fyi ;) Just incase you haven't read it, read the stuff at the bottom on here, otherwise no worries. -- Zeal  talk   contr  web 16:03, 25 January 2007 (EST)

It has been a bit over 2 years since this was originally proposed. Please reexamine the proposal in light of the current organization. How much is it still needed? What elements of your proposal currently exist, which would be added?

In light of this proposal's age, I have not reviewed it thoroughly, but I do find myself distressed that skills and abilities (racial, class, tradeskill, other) would appear to fall into several different namespaces. I think this proposal would do better if... a) split into incremental changes, put forth by perceived priority, and b) publicized each in turn, rather than trying to push the current proposal. Having a goal of a large number of namespaces is good to know up front, but landing the 'big fish' first would make sense.

Feel free to reexamine, rewrite, and restart this proposal, if you like. ("without prejudice") --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 19:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Namespaces
First of all, many people navigate by just typing in the article name. This CANNOT be jeopardised. So a whole lot of redirects may be required. Second, this should be done in stages. One namespace at a time, and certainly not more than two or three at once. Just some early thoughts there :) -- 15:06, 3 January 2007 (EST)
 * Wiki should become WoWWiki
 * I don't see the need for 'Source'
 * Mod should be AddOn
 * We already have a policy for PC articles going under user pages. Hard to revert.
 * Race I don't think is needed at all


 * Part of the proposal is to aid in navigation, so people will be either searching, or navigating to what they want, not typing. However, yes, redirects would probably be needed. Something i had wondered if possible, is if 404 articles, coyld include top 5 search results for the article name you typed as standard. possibly need to be hard coded, i'm not sure. but it's a simple peice of coding anyway. Does seem to be a more desirable result than manually redirecting.
 * I agree with one at a time, sure.
 * Well i know i'm merely arguing semantics on that change, but i'm unsure if it has any impact on cross-wiki stuff. If it doesn't, i don't see why it shouldn't be changed. We know this is wowwiki, all the namespace is needed for really is to indicate things that aren't about the content, but about how to use/contribute to the content, specific to wowwiki. Given that wowwiki is the only wiki being run on this install, no need to differentiate in my view. I'd easily go with whatever gets decided on this though, has very little impact unless it's needed cross-wiki functionality.
 * Mod renaming to AddOn, i'm happy with really. I merely kept it short to save typing, and because i've never liked or felt the need for the WoW only term of addon, when it's really just the same as a mod for any game. :p
 * I'm sure PC is going to be a debated namespace in itself, i've learnt there's differing views on the need and justification of PC pages themselves. Clearly i'm in favour of them to the point i feel they deserve it.
 * Race and Source are both need imo, but this is more for category sake. Race is needed to show racial off-shoots (do away with the origin of the races page for example), in both directions and grouping them together. Otherwise it's writting up static lists to include again. Source is needed imo, and this is what the wiki fails on in the eye of many non-contributers, especially with lore. It will be much easier to add citation, group things specific to certain games (units, characters, show appearances of characters in novels, show where events take place in novels etc) -- Zeal ( talk  -  contr  - web) 15:36, 3 January 2007 (EST)

First off - good start I guess. But...: -watchout 06:58, 6 January 2007 (EST)
 * You're right, there are too many namespaces, you will end up wondering what content would fit into namespace 1... Also using so many namespaces may bring up the question where to put an article.
 * Help: Where is it?
 * Race: will contain only 20 pages or so - merge to namespace 1, there shouldn't be disambiguation problems anyway
 * PC: but no Guild: ? Sounds a bit weird, there are clearly more guild articles than PC articles
 * Groups: really isn't needed, it wouldn't contain more than about 10 pages, best merge to wowwiki
 * Source: no.
 * AddOns: (or Addons:) would easily fit into UI:
 * Card:, Set: wow, come on now. make it TCG: and you can put TCG rules etc. into this too.
 * Items: why plural? make it Item:
 * Battlegroup: one is a list of realms so it would fit into Realm: namespace


 * Watchout, no offense, but you don't seem to grasp the meaning of a namespace. It is there to distinguish certain things from one another. If you are going to merge them in 1 name, the whole point of it becomes destroyed. Race: per example is greta, even though it would contain 30 pages (at least, not 20 unlike you said, guessing numbers is fine, but guess right) Rememember, this namespace is not only meant for the currently playable races (and it shouldn't be) This would seem a very feasible Namespace for everything explaining a certain race. This is just an example of how important it is to use namespaces. The simple fact that you can easily distinguish what the page is about is very important. Guild: is not on the list, however the naming of guildpages is currently already up for major discussion. --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 09:50, 6 January 2007 (EST)


 * Namespaces are for content that is absolutely different like Help: and Main:. And races are a fundamental part of WoW lore, game, quests, even items, they can only be in main. -watchout 17:00, 6 January 2007 (EST)


 * Kirkburn as a side note, PC do NOT have to be under the User: Pages. I urge you to read up on the writing policy on it. http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:Policy/Writing/Player_character_pages in case you do not know it. As it stands now, PC Articles do NOT go under User: Pages, in fact they shouldn't go under it. If you are referring to another policy, keep in mind that the linked policy is the right policy for these pages! --Patrigan  - Talk - SH (EU) 09:50, 6 January 2007 (EST)


 * Back to you Watchout, the TCG could be put into one header, however, having 2 different headers does not hurt. If you use Card: it's easier for players to udnerstand that the link on the Warchief Thrall page refers to his card version. By using TCG, a not so commonly known acronym btw, people will not immediately realise what it's about. --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 09:50, 6 January 2007 (EST)


 * Well as a WoW gamer seeing Set: I would think of item sets and not of TCG sets. Same for Card:. Also as stated above you could neither put rules and other general TCG info into Card: nor Set: and a common namespace would absolutely solve that, you can name it WorldOfWarcraftTradingCardGame if you dont like TCG, but -watchout 17:00, 6 January 2007 (EST)


 * I understand that, I see that Zeal did the same on the page linked below. Though, itemsets should be named to what they are: ITEM sets. I always bothered with the "sets" simply because it doesn't exactly show what it is. What abut a set of tailoringrecipes? Not really a set, but as a recipe collector, I see it as a set. That is why a distinction has to be made between the 2, thus set and itemset. Adding TCG: Is great too, because there will still be many pages not Card or Set related. --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 05:52, 7 January 2007 (EST)


 * It's a possibility, one i've decided not to propose for yet because i wasn't sure on a few things. But i would never suggest to create a namespace of a source, too much would fit under it. Guides are the first thing that jump to mind, and given the nature of their possible titles, it seems they deserve their own namespace rather than be included in the namespace of what the guide is written about, yet make an appearance in the category of the page as Category: /Guides-- Zeal  ( talk  -  contr  - web) 06:31, 7 January 2007 (EST)


 * The sources shouldn't get a namespace, that one is unneeded, howver battle groups do need a namespace. It's a lot easier to work with. Atm, Cyclone can mean lots of things, but adding Battlegroup:Cyclone makes things easier for everyone. --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 09:50, 6 January 2007 (EST)


 * Really, realm and bg are so close together its almost blasphemy separating them. Instead maybe its best to throw all player socializing relevant stuff together (Chars, Guilds, GoGs, Realms, BGroups,..is there more?) though I cant come up with a name for it. -watchout 17:00, 6 January 2007 (EST)


 * Lastly, I wanted to bring up a very stupid remark of you. Help: is exactly there where it should be: Help:Contents . Why you are asking for it too be on the list, remains a mistery to me. However, without any offense, it occurs to me that you are just too badly informed (either by others or by yourself.) I hope with this I proved that most of your current standing points are too weak to actually stand up against such an important policy which can alter the whole wiki and become the decision between Chaos and Order. Ofcourse, we all want Order, so don't go fighting against it. I thank you for your time --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 09:50, 6 January 2007 (EST)


 * You added Special: and Main: namespaces to your list, and I don't think anyone else could understand it otherwise. -watchout 17:00, 6 January 2007 (EST)


 * Somehow some of my sentence above has disappeared... What I wanted to write is about:
 * The namespace list looks like a complete list to me, otherwise there would'nt be main: (1), special:, category:, etc. declared. Namespaces that are an important part of mediawiki itself and really don't have to be added, since they are already there. -watchout 08:04, 8 January 2007 (EST)


 * Ah I stand corrected then. Good point, didn't realise you meant that :) --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 14:12, 8 January 2007 (EST)

Categories
Could you clarify what that huge list means - I don't know what to make of it -watchout 07:01, 6 January 2007 (EST)

Articles
Actually I don't like the (...)(...)(...)... style of disambiguation, (..., ..., ...) is cleaner and easier to read IMO. Thats nothing I would persist on (i.e. keep me from voting yes) though, just wanted to point this out -watchout 07:11, 6 January 2007 (EST)

Appendix
I though i'd just answer everything under a new header. Let me just briefly state this proposal is it's initial state, more a proposal for a ideas i put forward, not the exact details, this is why 've yet to split it up into smaller peices, along with the fact that these all link up. I've already been testing these out in my own userspace as you can see, i've realized in places things need to be cahnged/added or only suggesed as a guideline. I don't know how i missed Guild: and any namespace with a plural was a mistake, all the namespaces should be singular, disambigation singular (open to it being plural instead though), and categories plural.

The chosen namespaces are there to be used to seperate article types. This means what sort of data and content to expect to find in the given article. Yes it has the benefit of reducing disambiguation, but that is not reason for them. This also fits into category naming, which i realized i didn't got into enough. The logic behind that is to achieve a relationship between two different article types.

example:
 * Set:Heros of Azeroth and Card:The Love Potion

resulting structure:
 * Category:Sets
 * Contains Set:Heros of Azeroth
 * Linked to from Set:Heros of Azeroth as "See other sets" (Category auto-link)
 * Category:Set:Heros of Azeroth
 * Contains Set:Heros of Azeroth and any articles/splits for it
 * Linked to from Set:Heros of Azeroth as "See articles for this set" (Category auto-link)
 * Category:Set:Heros of Azeroth/Cards
 * Contains Card:The Love Potion
 * Linked to from Set:Heros of Azeroth as "Cards in this set"
 * Linked to from Card:The Love Potion as "See other cards in this set" (Category auto-link)
 * Category:Cards
 * Contains Card:The Love Potion
 * Linked to from Card:The Love Potion as "See other cards" (Category auto-link)
 * Category:Card:The Love Potion
 * Contains Card:The Love Potion and any articles/splits for it
 * Linked to from Card:The Love Potion as "See articles for this card" (Category auto-link)

This, as you can see, is a very neat, logical, and easily browsable category heirarchy, which we currently lack. Race needs such relationships to show off shoot races and races within factions, zones they can be found in, zones they rule, NPCs that belong to them, so on and so forth. UI is really a grouping of namespaces i wasn't sure of. AddOns are similar, but it has no relationship to those namespaces, and in fact has no relationship to any other namespace at all that i can think of. i've revised this namespace into what i feel are appropriate off shoots, in my sandboxed version of the main page i was working on. I'll link this when i've finished. Afaik Help: is a default namespace of a wiki. It overlaps with WoWWiki:, which bugs me, so if it isn't, i'd rather see it gone tbh.

I had neglected to mention the justification for Source:, being rather special and less obvious, and that's because its has 3 possible uses. I want to push for 3, but either 1 or two would be enough for improvement.
 * 1) As a replacement for the citation index. Source:Rise of the Horde for example would be used instead of Wowpedia:Citation index, so that the information is better cited. This extends, and allows other media to be used as a source, even unofficial, where they might never receive an article, and therefor not explanation or need to be mirrored into the wiki needlessly. The WoW site, WoW itself, a fan site, a magazine, a radio interview.
 * 2) The Source: also could be used to initially categorize the sources used on a page, rather than citing every few words/sentences/paragraphs on the wiki. Not only does this make the job of contributers easier, but it has the added ability of grouping articles to their source and making navigation by source (WoW, WC1, TCG etc) possible. (Note: You might notice this is one of the lines your draw for namespaces, the line between source and article type. A source is not a type, at least not for the sake of the wiki, so it's not a namespace.)
 * 3) Both of the above.

The category syntax, which i neglected to go into, was to follow the following format:
 * Category:

and
 * Category: /

eg:
 * Category:Realms (European)

and
 * Category:Realm:Lightning's Blade (EU)/Players

I realize after some IRC chatting, the relation would sometimes be desirable to be extended between 3 namespace relations, which is why i was steering clear of this idea for the userspace, but it may be needed arter all. I'm currently using this system for my own userspace. IIRC the example was as follows. need:
 * From the realm page, display a list of craftable items, and a list of players that can make each item.

result:
 * Link on realm's page - Realm craftables
 * Category on player's page -

However, i dislike the above usage, it limits the spread of the relationship and reverse lookup (in this case the item's page), but although the following is a better alternative, it becomes messy due Mediawiki displaying categories as links at the bottom of the page (not a desriable feature imo, and hinders good use).. result2:
 * Link on realm's page - Realm crafters
 * Category on player's page - [Category:Realm:Lightning's Blade (EU)/Players (Craft)]]
 * Link on player's page - Items this player can create
 * Category on player's page -
 * Link on item's page - Players that can create this item
 * Category on item's page -

Onto disambiguation, i said in the chat a few days ago, there is really the option of the follow: While i was originally proposing 1, 2 is perfectly fine. 3 however i dislike, due to there being no distinction between a secondary disambig, and a disambig with a space (eg: PC:Garlthala (EU Lightning's Blade) vs. PC:Garlthala (EU, Lightning's, Blade) without prior knowledge of the disambiguation variable.

If you've made it to the end of this, congratulations, and i apologize for it's awful appearance. I'm not back home yet, and it's just not the same on someone elses PC :P

Revised possible namespace (thus category) list

Comments
It would have been easier if you had just answered below the headers above, thats why Kirkburn (I guess so ;)) and me created those...

On Namespaces: I think now I know what you want, you want those namespaces and naming rules so that you can automatically add categories to pages? Thats both redundant and against exactly that what you say you want to achieve: You are creating a virtual list using the article naming thus making it extremely unflexible because if anything changes you would have to move the page itself. (Btw: its a bit funny to write of "static lists" in a wiki...)

On Categories: I think the main problem of many current categories is that articles are added to "root" categories and some of their subcategories at the same time. E.g. Category:Items is a good category, Category:Quests is a bad category. the first is browsable, the 2nd not. Some of those have a policy related that requires this unbrowsable state, thats why I will propose to change those soon (eg. WP:GUILD where Category:Guild is required but shouldnt be) as I understand the whole category idea is just so that it works together with the auto-categorizing in namespaces.

Well actually this is not all I wanted to write but my notebook battery is running low )so I stop for now with a really short summary of what I think about all this: I think you take all this too far and to restrictive to authors -watchout 21:03, 7 January 2007 (EST)


 * Well i dunno what to say to all that, i can't fathom how you came to any of those conclusions. For a start, new header because there was too much to address and it wasn't aimed at any of or all of the comments.


 * Namespaces
 * No? Kinda fail to see how this really applies to namespaces actually, sounds more like categories, so i'll address it under that.
 * Categories
 * Of course it would require a change, it should do. It's not against what i'm trying to acheive or redundant. It is extremely flexable, and the whole idea is it's browsable and actually usefull to articles to link to. Nothing would be changing name anyway, nothing ever should except for disambiguation, and even that's limited. I do not see why Quests is intentionally ever going to be unbrowsable, thats bloody retarded tbqfh.
 * The whole category idea is make using categories worthwhile to authors and to users. Currently, they are a mess and slapped around as authors see fit, unusable by users, and not made use of in linking from articles. Static lsit is one that has to be edited and maintained, and copied to redistribute and redisplay. Categories are dynamic, don't need maintance (you merely declare any new categories to add themselves to it on creation), and can be linked to from articles with purpose and logically to allow users to find and browse other relevent articles.


 * Its not restrictive, it's enforcing better pratices to improve the quality of the wiki. It's not any different than what authors should be doing already, it's just that this places constraints on naming and categorizing (and rightly so, otherwise you have this unstructed mess as the wiki currently is in) to maintain consitancy and quality. -- Zeal ( talk  -  contr  - web) 21:24, 7 January 2007 (EST)


 * Ok first. Stop insults at once, I have overlooked the other from Patrigan, but its really nerving, so I write it down clearly. This behavior is absolutely not something that fits to a wiki.


 * On Namespaces:
 * Then either I still don't know what you want to achieve with ~20 new categories, you described it wrong, or you got me wrong.


 * On Categories:
 * "I do not see why Quests is intentionally ever going to be unbrowsable" - Well, to be browsable only a minimum of quests (not 1000 and more, I didn't want to click through it and count) should be added to Category:Quests, almost all should be in subcategories. For an example: Try to find all Warlock Quests. (thats not user-friendly)
 * Category on item's page - Category:PC:Garlthala/Items (thats from your post above) is not something I would suggest doing, you would end up having 100's of categories on a single item's page and its really hard to maintain that. So that won't do any good, its better having a "static" list at PS:Garlthala/Items. Same goes for Category on player's page - Category:Item:Mana Potion/Players. E.g. My alchemy char can create more than 30 pots, imagine a list of those on the bottom of this page, how could you use that? Some things just can't be replaced by categories, thats why wikipedia:Category:Lists exists.
 * -watchout 09:04, 8 January 2007 (EST)


 * Watchout, cool down, noone meant any offense. I admit I sometimes write offensive, however, it 's not meant offensively. Zeal didn't show anything offensive at all, he's just pointing some things out. Ofcourse it is possible that you don't get the categories plan. I agree, it isn't very clear and took me some thinking aswell. However, if you don't get the idea of the categories, are you really in a position to comment on them? Still you have written quite a lot about your general category feeling.


 * I agree, some of the proposed things are a bit over the edge, however, I feel that you can't know for sure with these thigns if you don't test them. A category sounds dull at first, but before you know it, it's a really good idea, simply because suddenly more things pop-up. This is a very important change to WoWwiki, it's something that will create a lot of order in the current Chaos we have. Admit, the wiki was in no way prepared for the amount of information it will hold. Everything is everywhere, same problem occured with the Guildpages. If we don't handle things now, it will never become cleaner.


 * That's why I voted yes, with the note that some things can be discussed later. 90% of this proposal is a must, something even you should be able to admit. the proposal is not 100% perfect, some things miss and some are redundant. However, those details can be fixed later. At this very moment, the wiki needs cleaning and order. If people appear to be in favor of a chaos, things can become quite a fight. That is why I propose to ratify this proposal and make those changes to it afterwards when we have seen everything in work.


 * as an example: A redundant Category will appear empty and will eventually be deleted. This does not in any way alter the wiki, just this proposal. This way, the more important things will be handled and those things which are redundant can be fixed afterwards.


 * However, I am actually against doing these changes through a long and dreaded proposal like this, we should do this through the IRC and have a big discussion day on how to create order in the current wiki. In the end we cna all agree, the wiki as it is now, is a big Mess, A complete CHAOS even. It needs fixing, this propsal can do that. Allow it to happen and attack afterwards. --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 14:24, 8 January 2007 (EST)


 * I didn't insult you watchout, though i did insult the wiki itself if that is what you mean. In which case, i do not apologize.
 * Anyways, I'm not sure how to make things any clearer with namespaces sorry. I'm not a great writer, and i'm not good at expressing myself and getting these ideas out so others can understand. : /


 * I'm undecided about sub categories and putting a page into both tbh with you, and it's not something easily predictable, so i do want to test it out eslewhere, or just get this proposal done and have it decided later. That easily solves the Quest issue, both ways.
 * I did actually say that item's example was too messy because of category auto-linking, even though it is the better option. So yes, in cases like that (Where it would be undesrisable to show all those category links), a static list (or no list in this case) is a better option. However, the reverse, on the player's page, it would desriable to display them as category links (certainly not preferable though) over a static list. So Category:Player:Garlthala/Items would never be used either as a category or a link, but Category:Item:Mana Potion/Players would be used still as a category on your player's page, and linked to on the Item's page. It could however, if people choose to later, because policy what is desirable to link to, to determine if such a circumstance is needed. If people decide linking what player's can make an item from the item's page is not desirable, then you would drop that category and create your static list.


 * It's all about determining when a category is more desirable and feasible over a static list. -- Zeal ( talk  -  contr  - web) 15:12, 8 January 2007 (EST)


 * Maybe I'm a bit too careful, but I normally decide what to do before I do it. If you mean you decide to start taking actions against chaos in wikis and clarify the details or even some major stuff later, then IMO the proposal should state exactly that. Really, I think that some actions should be taken too, but I also think you're taking it way too far and that your proposal is more like a draft actually.
 * With the quests category it's easy: just remove all quest articles from the quests category, because all will fit into at least one subcategory (there are some articles in that category that are not quests, but lists of quests (yay static lists ;)) or similar stuff that would still stay in the quests category). When you did that you will actually realize that there already are two sub-categories for warlock quests, that's a bit funny but understandable since it's actually quite stressing to one's fingers to find the 2nd one... I will start that soon anyway. -watchout 19:16, 8 January 2007 (EST)


 * I never would have made a wiki unless this stuff was in palce before hand, but that's me. I know this proposal is poorly written, structured and too big a reach, there's so much i need to go back and explain add or change, but i wont. This was more a proposal for the whole lot as one idea to bring navigation, consistancy, and quality to the whole wiki, the specifics can be worked out later, but new proposals for each part needs to have it own cleaer and specific proposals before any of this gets put into action. And yeah, that quest stuff i agree with, it's want i want actually but was still exploring all avenues at the time of writing.
 * Basically, this is a proposal for these ideas, to gauge opinion and know this is what we should be aiming for in the next wave of proposals. Then, we can start moving towards it and write up the porposals for the policies and guidlines need to make it work.
 * I dunno if that changes your opinion or not, but i hope it makes you rethink what i've said a little. -- Zeal ( talk  -  contr  - web) 19:31, 8 January 2007 (EST)