UDWiki talk:Suburb Style Guide

Sorry if this the wrong place to write this (I'm rather new) but another thing to add would might be the where the mobile phone tower is. I've seen it put right before the news, after the resource building template, in some of the suburb pages and that seems to work well, just a little tidbit about the name of the building, the GPS coordinates, and who/if anyone is maintaining it. (I looked at the style guide and I like it, just think that this could be added) thanks for hearing me out --Leo Howard 03:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Max, I like it. It means I can effectivley withdraw my policy from discussion, one thing I would like to add and I'll put it here to see if you agree. For the news and history, I feel it should be stated that the news should not be signed to allow users to correct errors and/or biased comments. Something like that. Pillsy ^FT 12:02, 11 October 2006 (BST)

Please! Add anything you like. I just started it as an outline and it still needs a lot of work. I think I will add it to the project page and see if more folks would like to sign up to help out. No one needs to sign up to help. All you need to do is make the changes you think need to be made. I do think the project page could still be a good way to advertise that we need help. It (the project page) used to get a lot more hits but seems to have been forgeton itself. Meh, there are a lot of pages that need help. I myself want to start focusing on the many lists of good things editors can do instead of focusing on what not to do. Just my way of trying to keep things positive. Enjoy, and thanks for any help you have time to contribute. I know you have been looking at and contributing to the suburb pages a lot over the past weeks. Keep it up. Try to describe anything you notice going right in one suburb here and maybe the joy will spread to more and more suburbs. --Max Grivas ^{JG / M.F.T.} 20:28, 12 October 2006 (BST)

Inclusive Edit Suggestion, Signed and Timestamped News

This is an attempt to stimulate interest in standardizing the look and feel of all suburb pages and to recommend procedures to potential contributors in maintaining these pages. At this early stage, nothing here is intended as anything more than a suggestion. The initial suggestions are meant to be descriptive of existing consensus practice.

Now Gage, notably, considers this styleguide a policy, or has at least used it to "enforce" what he thinks suburb pages look like. Remember the NPOV Suburb policy was withdrawn in favor of this style guide, which itself does not claim to be a universal law or policy. That said, I am offering, per Max Girvas's open request, the following:

On the other hand, timestamps and signatures have been proven valuable and become the practice in some high activity suburbs because some news reporters have earned a higher degree of credibility and stylistic appreciation than others. Further, in particularly dynamic situations like a siege, timestamps are almost essential in gaging a piece of information's value at time of reading (i.e. what was being reported 8 hours ago may well be reversed by time of reading). Further, if there is any question of an news posts violation of POV, a byline signature stamp would give informed readers an inkling as to what bias the poster may be holding.

This would appear after Pillsy's suggestions for unsigned news. It's not arguing or refuting the suggestion, rather it offers another productive model for suburb editor consideration.

--The Envoy 15:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Both models are practiced. I think the NPOV versions have shown the least drama and conflict resulting. You could always include GMT information within your NPOV presentation with out posturing the snippet as an unalterable signed entry. That would encompass part of your concerns about time sensitive information. --Max Grivas ^{JG / M.F.T.} 05:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Style Guide Role Clarification

Could we also make stronger language asserting that the style guide is simply a suggestion of suburb wiki page conduct, not a standard authorizing mod enforcement powers? The page read completely clear to me, but as I noted in my suggestion request, some mods, at least Gage, may be trying to read policy where there is none.--The Envoy 15:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Its only a draft and an outline at that. I hope no one mistakes it as a policy. Like the location style guide, I hope it develops into a respected document. I'll say it again though ... All you need to do is make the changes you think need to be made. If that turns in to edit conflicts try to discuss your positions here on the talk page first before going to arbitration. --Max Grivas ^{JG / M.F.T.} 05:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Suburb Group Categories

I have a habit of organizing everything, and I like to make information as straight-forward and to the point as possible. Towards that end I was always bothered by the suburb group list. When a new survivor enters a suburb and wants to know what the situation is they would certainly want to know how many groups would be hostile or allied with them (based on whether they are survivor or zombies or PKer). But instead they simply see a list of group names. In order to determine what groups are aligned with each type a player would need to check each one. Therefore I suggest a better solution is to create header categories for the suburb groups, namely:

- Survivor Groups -

• Survivor Group #1
• Survivor Group #2
• ect...

- Zombie Groups -

• Zombie Group #1
• Zombie Group #2
• ect...

- PKer/GKer Groups -

• PKer Group #1
• PKer Group #2
• ect...

Also, as a possible addition to these categories I would suggest that each group organization (i.e. an organization composed of several allied groups) be listed under a category header named after the organization. For example:

- Dulston Alliance -

• Dead vs Blue
• DDDS
• Palytoxin Gang
• ect...

The current method by which organizations list their member groups is:

• Main Group
  • Sub-Group
  • Sub-Group
  • ect...

But the problem with this is that if a group has a very long group name it causes word wrap to the next line, which does not suit the formatting very well. For an example see Pescodside, and you can see under the Dulston Alliance is listed the Friends of the Featherstone Library. Bleh. Better to have not indent the group's name further. In the case of the Dulston Defense Death Squad in Dulston the group's name had to be shortened to it an acronym DDDS, where before under the header system I had described that was not required. Anyway, I wouldn't mind hearing everyone's opinion on this matter. --Mobius187 February 24 2007, 11:32 PM (EST)

It would be helpful for the obvious groups, but who do you see deciding which section to put each group into? Who has the fun job of telling someone they are a PKer group when they contest the claim? -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 03:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it should come down to the Category tags they post on their group wikipage for starters. If a group of PKers/GKers has no such tag (i.e. St. Valentine's Cherubs) claim otherwise because they do not tag their group as such it could always come down to arbitration based on their group's wikipage contents (again St. Valentine's Cherubs initially deny, but later start listing PKer content in their group page). The only other option would be to list them under Survivors and remove the controversial PKer/GKer Groups category. That would mean only having the Zombie and Survivor Group headers. Obviously who is a PKer is a touchy subject as even bounty hunter groups have been labeled as such. Other PKer groups, like DORIS or Red Rum, revel in the fact that they're PKers, so in their cases I couldn't see them contesting the issue. --Mobius187 February 27 2007, 9:52 AM (EST)

why don't you just allow the groups to define themselves, within reason? there would be Survivor Groups, Zombie Groups and "other" categories. such as PKer/GKer groups, Mixed Survivor-Zombie Groups, etc.

i too really hate coming into a burb where everyone is lumped together indisciminately and having to go through every group, figuring out who is who...

there is also the option, which i have seen a lot, of a seperate section in the main text giving a brief description of the active groups and a link to their pages.

yeah, it could get a little complicated and lengthy, but i'd personally have it be a complicated than just totally confusing.

really... the SSG is a template, a style guide. guide being the operative word here. it can and IMNSHO shouldbe adapted and modified to fit the needs and desires of the people who actually use the page and who operate in that location.

i hope my comments have been at least a little constructive and helpful. thanks.

--WanYao 18:16, 25 July 2007 (BST)

Your comments are constructive. I have worked on this idea and recently started Phase 2 of deployment. After discussing the matter it was decided that the third category "PKer/GKer Groups" was too definitive so it was instead generalized to "Hostile Groups". In the case of a co-op group (survivor/zombie alliance) I have actually opted to list it twice, once under Survivor Groups, and again under Zombie Groups.

There is also a fourth category, "Historical Groups", but as not every suburb has such a group associated with it I did not include it in the standard template, but since other users created this category I felt remiss to remove it. Also Santlerville has two sets of category lists, one for local and the other for adjacent suburbs. Personally I think this is redundant, but felt reluctant at this stage to delete the 2nd list. Phase 3 will start after I have organized all the groups under the appropriate headings, at which point I will merge the template I created (SuburbGroups) with the Suburb template so there is only one template involved, not two.

On a final note, what I would really like to discuss a group icons, or the small image next to each group's link. I originally liked the idea and if each group conforms to this style it looks nice, but I can also see how it can be viewed as clutter, causing text wrapping. What do you guys think? --Mobius187 July 25 2007, 10:00 PM (EST)