User talk:Montagg/Master Plan

Please use this page to discuss your opinions on WoWWiki's future development plans and to comment on my ideas.

Stubs
Tbh, I find this the most unrealistic of the item asking-fors. It's virtually impossible until we have someone do a wowhead for us to have every item, and then we wouldn't even need the stub. xD. The rest I can agree with.--Sky 23:23, 7 March 2007 (EST)


 * I don't think it's unrealistic, just really, really hard. Nigh impossible to do manually. So yes, I agree we would need something like a WoWHead information gathering mod to do something for us. But, if we are going to strive to be a resource for items, we have to either have something the other sites do not, or match them. 11:10, 8 March 2007 (EST)
 * This has become easier with and . I think this could be possible now. --Sky (t · c · w) 05:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Item namespace
I think this might make more sense than having a quest article namespace, but I'm still not quite sold on it. What are your reasonings (not just Sky, anyone else who thinks so, too) for having an item namespace? 11:36, 8 March 2007 (EST)
 * Post this on Zeal's talk page. He'll be here in a flash to have a discussion on Item namespaces. I guarantee it (of course, he'll give his opinion on everything else too... <3 ya zeal).--Sky 17:05, 8 March 2007 (EST)


 * No problems there. I want reactions and discussion. 20:00, 8 March 2007 (EST)
 * Zeal has left, so that's moot. -_- --Sky 15:11, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Item Categories
Ok, this is my biggest "Category" hatred. Currently, we have an absolutely -cruddy- system of categorizing an item; it certainly isn't conducive to comparing items.

My suggestion: Scrap how part of it is done. The Indents are to show sub-categories of each, and not all are listed (most are merely examples):

User:Sky2042/Sandbox2

A quick summary:
 * Items
 * Plate Armor
 * Head Plate Armor
 * Head Plate Armor at level 70
 * Head Plate Armor at level 69 (if this is too small of a category, then it can be such that "Head Plate Armor at levels 66-70, or somesuch).
 * Weapons, Shields, and Relics
 * Swords
 * One handed Swords
 * One handed Swords at level 70
 * One handed Swords at level 69

I left quality out of this system because that would subdivide -too- much for the good of the system-. A separate system for quality going as far as the "Category:Legendary Swords" would probably work.

So the end result categories-wise for would be "Category:One handed swords at level 60" and "Category:Legendary swords". Someone who clicks on the first category will be able to see and compare other level 60 swords. etc. --Sky 15:28, 10 March 2007 (EST)
 * Don't think it's too hard to make a bot and change it to this. However, look at this. It's too large. Obviously, we could remove the unused sections (Polearms at level 1? Heh). Regardless, I suggest using the following system for items:

etcetera.
 * Cloth Armor
 * Chest Cloth Armor
 * Chest Cloth Armor at 70
 * Chest Cloth Armor at 61 to 69
 * Chest Cloth Armor at 60
 * Chest Cloth Armor at 50 to 59
 * Chest Cloth Armor at 40 to 49
 * Chest Cloth Armor at 30 to 39
 * Chest Cloth Armor at 20 to 29
 * Chest Cloth Armor at 10 to 19
 * Chest Cloth Armor at 1 to 9


 * Yeah, that's why I left it open-ended; I do however feel that 10 levels per item set is a little expansive. We'll get it ironed out. :)--Sky 18:48, 10 March 2007 (EST)


 * I rather like this idea. I thought there might be an issue with items that don't have level requirements, like quest rewards, but then we could just sort it by the level of the quest. 4-5 levels seems like a good spacing for level ranges, but still might result in too many categories. But whatever. It'd still be better then what we use now. --Mikaka 17:57, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

Boss Articles
In general, I think this the most difficult overall to achieve. By the nature of bosses, only the most cutting-edge guilds are going to have strats (that work) at the very beginning. This also means that we'd have to have someone from those guilds actively editing the wiki. Which I'm fairly certain we don't. Otherwise, the majority of this is already existent (definitely not all of it), especially with the newest bosses (if not the older).--Sky 23:23, 7 March 2007 (EST)
 * Also a lot of people consider that releasing strategies for bosses too early spoils content. So I think it's ok that we don't always have cutting edge strategies. --Psyker7 03:57, 8 March 2007 (EST)
 * While I agree it's a possible content spoiler, I don't necessarily agree we should avoid writing up guides because of that. One of the advantages we have over many other sites is our ability to pool a lot of information that's already out there. So, while we don't have to have the strats the first time someone kills a boss, we should certainly strive to have our own well written versions the first time someone publishes a strat. I think a good bit of what I listed is already well underway, but I think we still have a ways to go until the goal is met. 11:18, 8 March 2007 (EST)


 * I agree with Psyker7...knowing everything before you start it just turns the game into paint by numbers. If it wasn't so nearly impossible with some of the quests, I wouldn't even look stuff up, usually. (Things like being told that something is north when it's actually northwest, or 'go talk to someone' with no indication of where they are...basic things that make this an online adventure game, not role playing. :-p) That being said, the guides are good fallbacks when all else fails. Maybe make them separate pages, or at least put a spoiler warning, maybe? --Azaram 02:50, 10 March 2007 (EST)


 * I agree. I enjoy the mystery when I play these games, and I get more reward from something if I figure it out myself. At the same time, I don't think it's our place to say someone can't get a little help. On bosses, for instance, we have a separate page for tactics, which is perfect. You can learn all you want about the lore without touching the strategy. But if you've tried two or three times and you just can't down the guy, a guide helps. ~


 * I think it's our job to have the information available and let people decide for themselves to look at it or not. 11:09, 10 March 2007 (EST)


 * I'm with Montag on this one. And for the most popular pages (such as Kel'thuzad), it's already occurring (who made that policy again? I remember seeing a comment about it on a talk page, I think...). But again, good that you bring that up... We'll see what Monty says. :]--Sky 03:00, 10 March 2007 (EST)


 * I should clarify my meaning. I agree there should be boss strategies on the wiki. I do not believe that we need people from HC raiding guilds on cutting edge content. It is fine for the strategies to only appear as the bosses start being taken by the majority. I very much doubt that the people from the cutting edge guilds would do boss research on wowwiki anyway. --Psyker7 19:09, 16 March 2007 (EDT)


 * But to increase the quantity and quality of our contributors, I would think it'd be important to keep those articles as up to date as possible. It doesn't have to happen immediately, but I think one of our goals should be to have those articles be attractive places for high end guilds to at least start their research. 22:36, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Example of the kind of quality I'm thinking of :. 14:37, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Quest Namespace
No. If anything, there should be an item namespace, but that's a discussion for "Item Articles"--Sky 23:23, 7 March 2007 (EST)
 * I'm not a fan of namespaces because we're supposed to be an encyclopedia of sorts, and having a namespace is like having something in the appendix. It's already an accepted convention, so I haven't said anything about it much, but if our structure is going to be uniform, we should address it. In my opinion, the quest namespace unnaturally separates quest articles from the rest of the wiki. If you look at what we do have in namespaces, they tend to be meta-information about the wiki (categories, policies, help pages, guidelines for writing articles) OR community pages (users, servers). Servers are also a different namespace for a practical reason: every single one overlaps with an article in the global namespace. Quests, on the other hand, are as much a part of the game as the bosses, locations, and lore. My model for this is OblivioWiki, a wiki on the game Oblivion, whose quests are organized only in categories and are just as easily navigable. 11:34, 8 March 2007 (EST)
 * Which brings up the category issues that we have... Ugh. xD. And the non-standard naming policy. Maybe it would be appropriate to bring up "Categories" in their own section...--Sky 17:03, 8 March 2007 (EST)


 * Well, overall its about navigability. The quest namespace provides some, but Categories are really where it's at. As an amendment to my original suggestion, I think we should keep the Quest namespace and focus on making a category structure that provides for easy searching for quests. 15:19, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Quest lines
Perhaps we should have all quests part of a quest line link to an article discussing that quest line (Like Quest:Varedis Must Be Stopped --> Varedis Must Be Stopped questline). A bad example indeed, but it gets the point across :p


 * Actually, Hobinheim already implemented something along the lines of what I was interested in. By listing the quest line in a subpage of the root quest and then transcluding it into all the following quests, you get a very nicely formatted quest line with the current quest bold due to the link. Once I have a link to it, I'll post it here, but I definitely think it should be our model for keeping quest progression straight. 15:12, 9 March 2007 (EST)
 * oooo... I've seen the pages, but I think they can be expanded on with the use of noinclude tags. Put the quest "Tooltip" (Little blurb with link to it + the actual quest) outside the noincludes and inside add sections like "how long this quest should take", etc.--Sky 15:43, 9 March 2007 (EST)
 * Ok, this is a rough draft, but how about User:Sky2042/Questlines?--Sky 16:41, 9 March 2007 (EST)
 * I kind of prefer the angled presentation, over numbered. Makes multiple quest lines from the same person more obvious. --Azaram 02:53, 10 March 2007 (EST)
 * That's part of why we give each a little blurb at the beginning: To show the difference in questlines. But it's good you bring that up; I had completely forgotten :X--Sky 02:57, 10 March 2007 (EST)
 * How does this look?
 * Both look cool. I personally prefer the increasingly indented version. Just gives me more of a sense of how long it is. But looks perfect for what you guys are proposing. 09:55, 10 March 2007 (EST)
 * The problem with the indented version is that quest chains can become very long, after about 10 to 15 quests it just looks awful.
 * True...maybe indent them less, or have a 'reset' marker, a line saying 'resetting indent' or something...or call it 'next half of quest line'...--Azaram 22:10, 10 March 2007 (EST)
 * I wonder how many quest lines actually have more than 10 quests. Apart from stuff like the Cipher of Damnation or Varedis Must Be Stopped (a lot of the Shadowmoon Valley quests are very long), I can't recall any. Guess we'll have to see how bad it'll be.

Uniformity
Isn't this solved by making every quest article follow the boilerplate? I guess we could just apply everything we discuss here to the boilerplate, and then apply the boilerplate to all the quest articles.
 * Exactly. Certainly not impossible, but it has to happen at some point. 15:13, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Map of important locations
What kind of map? The in-game map or this? Personally I say a combination of the two, but that'd require a lot of work considering the amount of quests in the game. Maybe make the map for the entire quest line (if applicable)?


 * Our overall goal should be to have information like this for every quest in the game. However, because that's insurmountable, I would focus first on the most traveled quests and fan out from there. As far as the actual format for the maps, it could start with a link to WoWhead or Thottbot, or someone could make one themselves in Photoshop, or we could get a plugin for MapWoW.com (if one exists, and personally something I would love to see). Any number of things can be done, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. But to make our quests attractive, they have to have this information in some fashion. 15:16, 9 March 2007 (EST)

List of quest rewards
Perhaps just slap a tooltip of the quest rewards at the bottom of the page?
 * I've seen that done in a few articles... not that I can name any off the top of my head... :x. I guess we'd have to add that to the boilerplate...--Sky 15:12, 9 March 2007 (EST)
 * Something like ? --Mikaka 18:01, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
 * Yeah, that's what I was thinking; though I suspect that Jeoh was thinking we put the rewards on a transcludable page, then transclude -that- page to the quest. I would personally prefer my version better... =x--Sky 18:05, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
 * Actually what I meant is making use of the undefined template to paste it in. You can do it like on The Violet Eye.

Server Articles
Strongly agree here. I have seen some server pages that look quite amazing, particuarly when compared to my own. Having a boilerplate would be great. --Psyker7 03:58, 8 March 2007 (EST)
 * That server just needs help. ;P Maybe you can steal a little from mine.--Sky 17:00, 8 March 2007 (EST)
 * Server:Mal'Ganis US. I love that template.
 * Yeah, but it's a little expansive to people who don't usually visit the wiki, imo.--Sky 15:13, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Guild article armory integration
I think it would be possible to create a template that executes ajax/javascripts that fetch data from the armory and display it on guild pages. Don't know how blizzard would like it though. Also authors would have to supply a valid armory link ofc. What do you think? -watchout 18:11, 18 March 2007 (EDT)
 * Assuming Blizzard would be okay with that, sounds like a great idea. What kind of things could it fetch? 19:35, 18 March 2007 (EDT)
 * Everything, that's in the xml can be read. -watchout 13:27, 19 March 2007 (EDT)


 * That'd be cool to make a sidebar with the guild's specs. We could also possibly edit the guild tag to display some information pulled from the armory. This could also tell us if the guild still exists at all. 16:32, 19 March 2007 (EDT)


 * It might make sense to simply make a bot that checks the XML on a daily basis for all guild pages (Assuming all the Guild Pages adhere to certain guidelines, so they can be identified), and then updates a template for that guild.  16:36, 19 March 2007 (EDT)


 * We might want to do that weekly, so it doesn't overly pollute the RC list. The numbers don't need to be accurate to the minute -- that's what the armory itself is for. 00:23, 20 March 2007 (EDT)


 * No, that would create a huge load on the wiki - Using javascript/ajax does not affect the wiki at all since it only runs on the client and accesses the armory directly.-watchout 09:56, 21 March 2007 (EDT)


 * Why did nobody tell me that wikipedia ignores  tags :-/ -watchout 10:15, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Fan-fiction
This I don't quite understand (except the Boilerplate and promotion). We don't have any control over any of these factors for the most part. We can suggest that people edit more into their articles. But that's about it.--Sky 23:23, 7 March 2007 (EST)


 * This section is largely tied to the guild and server suggestions. Ultimately, it's about community building -- adding to the WoW community at large and making our own site's community stronger. While I don't suggest we control the minds of creative individuals to force them to post here, I do think WoWWiki should be an attractive place for people to publish their work. To do that, you need to give people 1) a place to publish (user pages, a separate namespace, or other organizational structure), 2) a place to talk about their work (talk pages, or a village pump for fanfiction), and 3) rewards for good work (contests, graphics, being featured on the main page). This will promote creativity, but it will also draw in more editors with good writing skills. 11:22, 8 March 2007 (EST)
 * Ah, ok. :) That makes sense.--Sky 16:59, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Project structure
What are people's thoughts on the Project structure I've outlined? It's obviously very rough right now, but do you see any glaring problems with it? We currently have teams to do constant jobs on the wiki. These would be like temporary teams created to fulfill one goal. Am I going in the right direction with this? Is this something we could consider implementing in some project now? 00:57, 20 March 2007 (EDT)