TaRapedia talk:Formatting

Lets make sure to add something in all of these about adding categories. -- CV 22:01, 2 August 2007 (EDT)

Molding some Templates
o.o right, seems Imper1um wants to talk about the needed changes to templates here so I'll kick it off.. From what I've seen so far, the templates we have now are for the most part great on actual layout, the main problems are 2..


 * 1) they seem to want you to include (PAGENAME) in whatever category the article is in for the location ones and will note the page as not having one if you leave it off (example: you mark it as a continent, the format expects you to then add a listing under what continent its in anyway, which most put (PAGENAME) in), mucking things up a bit if you didn't realize this was expected (I had to compare to pages to understand that it wanted it, the template didn't really outright indicate)
 * 2) The templates as they are are adding the pages to every single possible semi related category, causing categories to have tons of junk links and making it harder for new users to know what certain pages are. o.o that is to say, with a good category structure, its obvious that say.. The painting Starry Night would be under the root category of Images, just in the category Van Gogh, which would itself be in the Post-Impressionist category (or Images -> Post-Impressionist -> Van Gogh). Adding Starry Night to all 3 categories (as we do now, except we seem to add to 5-10 cats) is just silly. o.o yes, it technically could be dumped in any of the three, but that makes the categories look like my anime folder... (which is to say, @.@ needle/haystack) --Sleepy Kitty 01:00, 27 August 2007 (EDT)
 * (Imper1um 14:06, 27 August 2007 (EDT)) Which is why we REALLY need the TemplateTree Extension. If we get Tony to install that extension, we can have just the lower level Categories for it (Alia Das in Category:Towns, Category:Wilderness), and leave it at that, and the top level will automatically drip down to the lower level (Foreas will have Subcategories> Concordia> Wilderness> Alia Das). That will solve like ALL of our Category issues. I agree it looks like crap right now.
 * Bal 05:56, 28 August 2007 (EDT) So, if we 1) stick to adding things to it's lowest-most cat (or cats in some cases), even without the TemplateTree Extension, we should have the trickle effect. See Category:Logos by location for example.  So this would mean to NOT add a individual Logos to it's planet and continent cats, just it's zone OR instance cat, correct?  The zone/instance thing is probably a seperate discussion.  So let's not debate that one in this thread.
 * Bal 06:02, 28 August 2007 (EDT) Additionally, I don't know about anyone else, but I think having a Logos listed in the "Foreas Logos" category directly is kind of nice. I dunno.  I like to be able to see what logos are on any given planet/continent.  I don't know if only catting to the zone/instance would no longer display them here, but I'm guessing they would not.

--(IceNeko 01:20, 28 August 2007 (EDT)) (sorry for any bad English, I should be getting to bed but I saw this post and hate to say something :P) I personally hate how some of these templates work very well in some cases but terrible for others. Or maybe I mean like kinda how they are used should be standardized before hand. I'm not a good template maker but I can help say what works and doesn't. Wilderness = Good example. Thanks to the overkill of the location template we now know that wilderness is in Foreas/Concordia 4 times. It makes it cluttered and well just plain ugly. So a separate template for locations of weapon vendors/instances/points of interest and so on would be far better...more like a template just for Zones and then Continents and Planets. The location template itself though works really well on lets say Attack. It tells us where the logo is located in a general sort of way and then has the nice hidden coordinates for people who don't want to see that. Now back to the wilderness page, sorry if this bashes any of you, I didn't check to see who actually made this...but...we have hidden coordinates again. Why? People can look at their map...or even the wiki's screen shotted map to find the instances...so why would you hide the coordinates? Do you see what I'm saying? For armor vendors lets say, why even have the coordinates? Tell the people there is one in the Alia Base or the Twin Pillards and that's it. When they get into town they are just going to open their map anyhow to see where it is. I know we don't want to have 100 different templates but like in cases like this, there needs to be separate templates and they need to be standardized so that no matter where they are placed, they will work, can be easily readable, and easy to maintain. I can see that the Location template is basically build by your hands but since there is no solid standard template or setup on how to make a Zone look with locations to like towns, armor vendors, and so on, they will all look different. Maybe I'm just argueing with myself here, ignore me if you want. ^^


 * Bal 05:56, 28 August 2007 (EDT) I think like having coordinates for everything, but that's just me. I'm a numbers kind of guy.


 * o.o that is a good question.. why are the coords hidden? They weren't for most of the articles when I came on but they seem to have been changed in the last week or so (or maybe I just was only looking at the ones that weren't..). I do find them useful since they help pinpoint spots on the map when I have the big full screen one up...--Sleepy Kitty 06:51, 28 August 2007 (EDT)
 * Bal 09:50, 28 August 2007 (EDT) I know I've been hiding all the ones for the logos shrines. I have no idea on the other pages though.  Generally, I think that things like vendors, trainers, npcs, and other things labeled on the in game map should not be hidden.  Things (like logos shrines) that are not labeled on the map should probably be hidden.  Walkthroughs, of course, probably should remain hidden (or become hidden).  It's really a blurry line as to those however.
 * (Imper1um 11:15, 28 August 2007 (EDT)) A few things:
 * As for the coordinates on Wilderness. How about I tweak the Location template so that the first three columns do not show? I agree that it is very annoying.
 * As for the coordinates being hidden, I have only been hiding the Logos and walkthrough information. I may have been hiding some others in my fury of edits (I frequently edit 20-50 articles at a time), but I agree that HiddenCell should not be used in the display of NPCs, except in the situation that they are quest locations. If a location is showing for a NPC that belongs to the middle of a quest (such as a Dying Forean Warrior you have to talk to in the middle of the battlefield), it should be hidden.
 * How about I remove the high level links for Categories in all of the Templates? I will put them as hidden for now instead of removing just in case they need to be added later.

Random open issues
Gonna throw out a few things here because we haven't got any projects up and running. - Dashiva 01:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Generic mobile pages
These are of the kind Linker, Boargar, Polarity Gunner. Generic mobiles, meaning they can fight, and are not named.


 * Do we need a separate infobox template for enemy, neutral, ally?
 * Right now we have Enemy, Creature, NPC (not a good fit)
 * Many pages use content from playtr.com. I don't really see the point in having an exact copy, we could just as well link the playtr page from the infobox.
 * Per above, I suggest nuking Playtr and /Playtr
 * I think it would be worthwhile to include "name progression" for a generic type as its levels increase.
 * Caretaker Butcher, Caretaker Healer, Caretaker Intern, etc

Let's hear it. - Dashiva 01:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Named mobile and non-mobile pages
These are of the kind Thrax Overseer Treshk, Shahrbaraz, Outpost Commander Rogers, Operations Mainframe. Named mobiles and non-mobile interaction points.


 * Should these use the same boxes are the generic types?
 * Should they share boxes with each other?
 * Right now we have Enemy (not a good fit), NPC, nothing for statics.
 * This also links into NPC classification: What factions are we using, what types are we using?

Let's hear it. - Dashiva 01:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Weapon pages
I don't see any real use for having separate articles for weapon subtypes, e.g. EMP Rifle. Suggesting we redirect these to the main weapon type article.

Hidden text
We're using the Walkthrough and /Walkthrough templates some places and not other places. We also have Table/HiddenCell. I'm not particularily fond of these. If we're going to use this (at all) it should be limited to "plot" points, in my opinion.

Enemy weaknesses: no, that'd be part of planetary briefing. Logos coordinates: no, they're just numbers, and nobody's going to remember them if they didn't mean to read them. NPC coordinates: Same thing, except there's hardly a NPC in the game you don't get a mission pointer to anyhow.

Now, location details (comment, description) I can see being worthwhile. This could describe some particular trick, or special place to look or walk into. Same for pretty much all the text in every single mission article. Hoo boy. But why would anyone be checking up a mission article if they didn't want information about the mission? So nix that one too. Those DPL maps we're planning will be a much bigger worry as far as spoiling goes.

So in summary, the only thing I see that's worth hiding is the details section of the location tables. - Dashiva 01:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)