UDWiki talk:Style Guide

Regarding Philosophy of Page creation

Recently, there's been something of a shift in winds regarding the philosophy of page creation. While it has typically been the case that we have preferred larger pages with broader content to smaller pages with narrower content, a few Wikizens have been challenging this preference, and I thought it would be useful to get this out in the open.

There are two schools of thought on how pages should be created. The first is what has been the status quo here recently - We create new pages on the expectation that considerable content will be added reasonably quickly. In the event that a page becomes too big, content is then split off into separate pages, with the previous page used as a summary page.

Recently, some Wikizens have been espousing a different school of thought. In short, it is that if a page can be created for a specific point of content, then it should, regardless of whether there is enough content currently for the page to be a reasonable size. This has extended to Categories as well - even if the Category is currently empty, it should be created now, as at some point we'll probably be able to fill it up.

Now, in reality these two schools have always existed, and in many ways they have both been responsible for a great deal of content. Suburb Page Creation was built in direction to the second school of thought, as was the various Mall Pages. On the other hand, the various item pages and class pages were built more to the first school of thought, keeping several disparate but related pieces of content on a single page.

What I'm asking the community now, is what school of page creation should we be encouraging? Should we be creating bunches of nearly-empty pages on the expectation that eventually content will appear for it, or should we try to encourage a minimal length to pages, and fill those pages with more content? -- Odd Starter ^{talk | Mod} 12:22, 5 Dec 2005 (GMT)

Regarding Group Pages

Nearly every Talk: page for each group has some kind of prattle about what was appropriate or innappropriate, and for a general discussion about it, this seems a better place to talk about it.

I see the following goals for group pages:

• Provides some information about the group, much in the same way that you can look up information about skills, districts, or weapons. Each group page should have a clearly delineated section at the top which is purely informational. This is what most people who are browsing the Wiki are probably interested in, first and foremost.
• Cheap, easily findable/editable web page for that group. I'm all in favor of allowing groups to use the Wiki as a (small) source for whatever they are practicing, whether it be killing all zombies, killing all humans, pure wackiness, or whatever. Or for listing members, dispersing news, etc. I don't care if they use dumb jokes in this section, or are totally unfunny to everyone besides themselves. That is, I'm willing to consider everything that isn't supposed to be strictly informative to largely exist on its own. Almost separate from the rest of the Wiki, as long as that distinction is very clear.
• Just to be clear, I'm not in favor of letting groups use more than a single Wiki page. If a group really needs more than that, that's when they should probably get their own website somewhere else. (Linking to it from the Wiki page is fine, of course.)

-- John 19:08, 15 Sep 2005 (BST)

Typically, non-NPOV information has been crammed into a "statment" or "declaration" or such which has it's own section after the NPOV header. But yeah, these are good rules.--Milo 19:52, 15 Sep 2005 (BST)

I lean towards NPOV for the top section and in-character POV for the remainder, but I'm not married to the idea that you can't have OOC in-jokes flying around if that's what you're into. Pages that just take up space or are virtually incoherent are the ones I have a problem with. --otherlleft 20:30, 15 Sep 2005 (BST)

Regarding the comment about Daris on the "about" page: Don't DARIS themselves claim to be PK'ers... they have a whole list of players they have killed... so wouldn't that be fact, not just opinion? Tiger Striped Dog

DARIS the entity has killed them. Many members of DARIS have not killed a non-zombie. Saying "DARIS are PKers" would be akin to saying "Americans are all murderers" - which plainly isn't true. --Katthew 01:16, 16 Sep 2005 (BST)

Merely to pick nits (I don't really give a hoot how DARIS is described), it seems obvious that "DARIS are all PKers" is analogous to "Americans are all murderers", which is apparently different than "Americans are murderers" (were they not different, presumably one wouldn't have added all). And Americans are murderers, like pretty much all sufficiently large groups of people. But no matter, anyone reading the DARIS page should realize the potentially fatal dangers associated with confronting DARIS as either a survivor or undead. --John 05:34, 20 Sep 2005 (BST)

Style Guide Updates

Well, since this is the standard article Style Guide maybe it is time to expand it some. Don't link me to Be Bold, because this is a consensus article so I'm going to wait at least two weeks to make any changes listed here. We need some limits on images, for example when are they useful, how big should they be(probably 300px), and how much of an article should consist of images. We also need to address when portals are and are not acceptable, for example the buildings portals really aren't. --Karek^maps?! 04:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The fate of locations portals is being discussed, now, on the LSG talk page. This article should reflect the outcome there. If you don't agree with locations portals, make your thoughts known there. As to images, yeah, some limit is probably wise. When uploading an image, you get a message suggesting you keep it under a certain size (250kB?), but a suggested dimensions limit is probably a good idea too, as long as it's not a hard and fast limit (if someone can show a good reason for a larger image, it should be allowed) -- boxy ^{talk • i} 07:07 29 January 2008 (BST)

I don't mean location portals, I mean in general, pages like Skills, Zombie Skills, Building Types, and Items. And for images, I meant like what we have in sigs, but a file size might be a good idea too. But yeah, it would be a standard guideline, none of this stuff is technically a limit.--Karek^maps?! 07:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah. I agree, the equipment pages are frustrating at times, and Zombie Skills too. Was just looking for info on what the new Scent Death display was supposed to be showing, and having it link to the Zombie Skills portal page seems to gives very little leahway for expansion -- boxy ^{talk • i} 07:31 29 January 2008 (BST)

Yup, a few of us on the irc have been discussing changing the skills page to follow along with Brain Rot. You can find the info you want on Zombie Skills/Scent Death where if is currently being researched by Swiers and some others.--Karek^maps?! 07:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)