User:Sukie/Wiki Cleanup Project

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The great wiki changes spamming initiative.

Contents 1 About this Page 2 Make things readable and consistent 2.1 Adding New Info 2.2 Readable (and Accessible) 2.3 Consistent 2.4 Categorization 2.5 Professional 3 Older Things Along the Same Lines as this Page

About this Page

This page was initially to make note of goals for improving the wiki, stemming from talking with Benerius at one point, and resulting in a jumbled mix of general impressions of the existing representation of information, my interpretation of Benerius's opinions, and personal opinion-- all mashed together.

Hopefully this can be more useful than that first version.

Things that either appear to be a divisive minority opinion, or which aren't currently represented in their relevant pages, are (hopefully) tagged with (Opinion); though for the time being this page is primarily my opinions mixed with inferences on the current state of the wiki, and a few instances of putting words in other peoples' mouths.

I also believe that Article Creation and Editing Suggestions needs a more fleshed out, and helpful, overhaul. This page might be useful a useful precursor for that.

To either end-- Cleanup Suggestions, or Editing Guidelines-- this page would benefit greatly from people adding opinions, or things they feel are missing, or whatever.

~Sukie

Make things readable and consistent

Worst case, or in the case of naturally sparse subjects like materials or unplayable cultures, this might just mean a paste of the in game help for the subject, with an organisational category tacked on.

Adding New Info

Don't stress out over adding new information. If the information wasn't here before then adding it is automatically a step up in readability. (Though on the slight chance you've run into something whose help says "TOP SECRET DONT SPOIL OR ELSE", well.. don't)

Readable (and Accessible)

Important note: when updating when updating/adding an explanation to an old data dump or whatever, make sure the new version isn't missing anything for which the absence outright removes information.

• Some stuff is broken from searching because reasons and could use useful redirects made.
• disambigs for topics with helpdoc collisions and such
• "see also" links to closely related pages
• "see other" headers for stuff like race -> race (bond)

(Opinion) Information duplication on each relevant page is a net gain for usability.

• The problem of keeping duplicate information in sync across multiple pages can be reduced through careful use of page transclusion and the <includeonly> and <noinclude> tags.
• (Opinion: Xaolyn, Sukie, Guardas, Gildelelle, ...) Include speedwalks onto individual area pages for overworld travel between them and Losthaven.

Consistent

For subjects that for the most part are more fleshed out, there is (hopefully) a useful style in general use which can be copied over. E.g. Locations, NPCs.

In most cases these would benefit from the development of wiki templates to aid consistent formatting and ease of updating. For the time being, creation of comprehensive templates is stymied by all the useful default preprocessing commands being inexplicably disabled. That said, small templates such as {{Template:Trainedskill}} are still hugely helpful.

(Opinion: Xaolyn, Sukie) Make individual pages for things that can be.

• Examples:
  • Category:Materials
  • Category:Armour Types

(Opinion: Benerius) Make single aggregate access pages for meaningful sets instead of a page per helpdoc. Make redirects for components where relevant.

• Examples:
  • Good
    • Ordo Ignis Aeternis Spells
    • Aedarene Benisons
  • Ok
    • Ancient Artifacts
  • Bad
    • Category:Aligned Forms
    • Category:Ringwielder Runes

Categorization

Categorize things so they can be found based on relevant organization.

• Examples:
  • Category:Athleticism Trainer (automatically handled by updating trainers and using the trainedskill template)
  • Category:Affiliation types
  • Category:Cultures
  • Category:Ringwielder Guild (could use a consistency pass for its subcategories and relevant pages)

(Opinion: Sukie) Hierarchical categorization for all the things!

• Example:
• Category:Planes > individual planes > worlds in each plane > regions in each world > areas and landmarks in each region
• Category:Skills > %attribute skills, %class skills > relevant skill pages

Professional

(Opinion: Benerius, Sukie) Don't use anecdotes in mainspace articles. Convert known facts to statements where possible, and move useful but uncertain stuff to talk pages. Also talk about such on talk, not on the article page. (rip informal style of old pages)

• This doesn't apply to guides and user stories and such, although as far as wiki organisation goes they could use their own categories or namespace at some point

Older Things Along the Same Lines as this Page

• Article Creation and Editing Suggestions - old guidelines
• Wiki Formatting Poll - attempt at standardising article formats