Forum:Uncommon World Drops category

Moved from Category talk:Uncommon world drops
This category could easily consume 98% of Category:World of Warcraft uncommon items. Do we really want to support it? --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 20:02, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * 98% huh? ... world drops are not items rewarded by quests, provided by quests, dropped in instances, drop in only one zone, crafted by players, sold by vendors... if anything this will help clean the uncommon items category up as both categories should not be on the item's page. 20:39, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd wish you didn't make posts here, and then make a forum topic... do one or the other, not both, so we can keep the conversation on one page. 20:43, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * Do leave me room to change my mind, please... --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 21:13, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * The Uncommon world drops category has existed for over a year, yet only 330 or so items have been moved to it. I don't argue at all whether it would be useful.  I argue, Will it be maintained?  We already have Uncommon quest items.  That has been maintained.  This has not.  The least I can do is point at it and howl.  How you react is up to you. --21:13, October 7, 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, once the changes to the tooltip template is done and everything is thrown around into its proper category, when can then decide to delete or keep. 21:16, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * My friend, that strategy assumes that tooltip template changes WILL be "done" in any significant meaning of the word. Asking for a minimum functionality estimate would likely turn this topic into a referendum on Tooltip/Dev, so I'll stick with "So, got an estimate of when that will be?"  I don't intend to be offensive, but I would like to know whether, for instance, to continue moving things from Neck items to various "(rarity) Neck items" categories.  Leaving things "between stages" is unpleasant. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 22:00, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * Most wikis, including this one, are perpetually "between stages", they are constantly being edited. As far as the category, I think it would be fine to make it a subcategory of the larger uncommon items category. -- 22:08, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * Judging by comments on Template Talk:Tooltip, world drops was a category type that some of the people working on Tooltip/Dev are planning on. As for "constantly being edited", there are certainly degrees, and allowances to be made.  However "editing" is a crucial component of it.  Starting a project and walking away from it leaves a patchwork for whoever follows to try and guess what the "right answer" is.  And that is the appearance of the current Uncommon World Drops category, the neck items category, etc.  --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 00:27, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

Continued
I recently stumbled upon Category:Uncommon world drops while playing with tailoring patterns. (There are sister categories for Rare and Epic, but not for Common or Poor.)

As this category could easily consist of 80% or more of Category:World of Warcraft uncommon items, I would like to know folks' opinion on whether we should keep the category at all, or throw the contents back in the vast pool that is Uncommon Items. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 20:37, October 7, 2009 (UTC)


 * Are uncommon world drops really 80% of uncommon drops? Where do you get this data? -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 6:33 PM PST 8 Oct 2009


 * FWIW, I just did a search on wowhead. 8755 uncommon items, 4847 are considered "drops", which includes world drops & zone drops. So that's roughly half. -- Harveydrone 20:00, October 8, 2009 (UTC)


 * I did the same, so that's why I questioned the 80% figure. Unfortunately, Wowhead doesn't have a way to filter for world vs. zone drops. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 8:27 PM PST 8 Oct 2009


 * Pulled a number out of my head. 50% of a Large Number is still a Large Number (a statement that breaks down a bit once you stop dealing with infinites...).


 * If you're going to separate out "uncommon world drops", I think that yeah, it does become appropriate to drain the "uncommon items" category entirely. Not something I'm really prepared to take on.  But you're looking at, what?


 * For each quality,
 * Q quest rewards, Q quest items, Q quest starting items (already existing categories, I think)
 * Q world drops, Q instance drops, Q crafted items, Q sold items (categories that I don't think yet exist)
 * Q instance X drops, Q Boss X drops (categories that may be too small/specific to be justified, but nonetheless apropos)
 * Anything else? --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 20:41, October 8, 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe there are also zone drops that aren't instance drops or world drops. Ultimately, I believe WoWWiki should never have tried to be in the business of having pages for every item. I'd much prefer a partnership with a good database site and only have pages for items that someone wants to add interesting or helpful additional lore, notes, source info, tips, and trivia. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 11:57 PM PST 8 Oct 2009
 * I somewhat agree with that, though I would rather automatically pull in the item data for all items as a non-user-editable part of the page, including source info, with the rest of it addable later. -- 00:28, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * A nice dream, but it would require a quite intimate relationship with the database site. That is, we'd be locked in once we chose.  ("Forever will it dominate your destiny.")  As well, there are peculiar limitations inherent to database sites;  I've been known to harp on WoWwiki's aping some of those limitations from time to time, I won't bore you with them.  You might examine EVE-Online's corporate wiki (as opposed to independent wikis) for an example of just the sort of thing you are talking about.  In that case, both the wiki and the database are under management by the same entity (in this case, the game publisher).


 * I'll point out that the EVE-Online wiki has several limitations that may or may not be required by its nature: They require an active EVE account, and rigorously moderate edits.  These may be necessary due to the fact that they have corporate governance, and thus attached (legal?) responsibilities. --Eirik Ratcatcher (talk) 17:43, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * Nah, we could implement it pretty easily (and with a fair degree of ease of switching to another DB later) if we wanted to start from scratch on all the items - we would probably need to incorporate the item id in the article's properties. And the ability to edit the pages wouldn't change, just the item data would be from another source and not editable.  -- 18:12, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, I prefer your suggestion, Pcj. I was just thinking that if we pulled data from another site, but our version of the page didn't have any additional info it might annoy people. From an advertising standpoint, it is better to keep people at WoWWiki. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 12:18 AM PST 10 Oct 2009