UDWiki:Open Discussion/Current Status

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Since approximately forever, I've been standardizing location pages. This includes changing a variety of things when they turn up, such as removing (EP) from the minimap, making all headers ===level three===, and, as this discussion is about, removing the "current status" section.

The Style Guide states that it should be there, while the guide template does not. It's hard to tell due to loss of edit history, but I believe that "current status" was conceived before the DangerReport template seen atop most location pages today, and was never removed due to the effort that would be required relative to the reward. I see "current status" to be nothing more than an antiquated distraction and source of confusion for newbs. I thought that the general consensus was that it should be removed; Hence my on-and-off removal of it.

However, my removal of "current status" has recently been questioned, especially since I was doing it with primarily assumed consensus. Thus, I'd like the community to weigh in; should "current status" be removed from location pages, or let sit? --VVV ^RPMBG 21:59, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Having no prior experience in this, here's my suggestion. Seeing as the DR (DangerReport) and CS seem dupes of themselves I tend to agree. However, what about changing CS into a "History" section where all old DR's are placed. Because that is the advantage of Current Status, the fact that it is archived unlike the DR's if I got it right. --Thadeous Oakley Talk 22:11, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

We don't need a cluttered up section with mostly irrelevant danger reports from yesteryear. That's what the page history of the Danger Report is for, if one is hit by the urge to read up on it. -- Spiderzed▋ 22:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

That's not actually true, because page histories are wiped from time to time. You can't have a page history as an archive.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 07:57, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Current Status is indeed redundant where there is a danger report. In these cases I'd like to see a news archive for the location if there are any meaningful outdated "current status" entries. This would preserve the history for some of the reasons listed below, while streamlining the page and removing unneeded clutter. I'm thinking about certain users that spammed every location page in existence by copy pasting the in game description or something similarly useless to the current status area. Also, please don't remove EP from suburb maps - it adds useful information to the map at a glance.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 12:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Barricade plans already show EPs and are a more appropriate place to show them anyway. Otherwise, however, I agree. Create an archive section for those pages that have useful information. Delete the section if it doesn't have any useful info. —Aichon— 13:42, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

All of the history is useful. Don't cherry pick it.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 15:53, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree to 100%. Current status is a relic that has been clearly succeeded by the more versatile and less clutter-happy Danger Reports. We should mercilessly drive them, crush them and hear the lamentations of... uhm, no one mourns for them. Scratch that part. -- Spiderzed▋ 22:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I hate people who just delete stuff off pages. As thad suggests, if theres some old current status comments, change the header to "Ingame history" or the like. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 22:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Yep. Linkthewindow  Talk  05:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm for the removal of them. They're obsoleted by the DangerReports in a bad way, and don't serve any notable function whatsoever. In the interest of streamlining and ease of use, it makes sense for them to go. 05:31, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

WTF? You take away "EP" from the suburb maps? You bastard! -- LEMON #1 07:04, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Not on suburb maps, just the minimaps of location pages. --VVV ^RPMBG 23:53, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

oh phew :*( -- ϑ^anceϑ^anceℜ^evolution 05:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not at all in favour of this, as Danger reports provide an entirely different function. Current Status gives you a backlog of what a building was like however long ago, which danger report can't be relied upon to do.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 07:56, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

My tuppence worth - most of the "Current Status" reports are anything but current, they add nothing to the page or the UDwiki in general and quite frankly look shite. I mean, what use does a copy and paste report saying "You are in a building. There is a generator here. There is some graffiti on the wall." written two or three years ago serve? I certainly wouldn't mind getting rid of the lot of them, but if they are to be kept, the heading must be changed to indicate that these are NOT current but historical (as Ross has already suggested). ~~ Chief Seagull ~~ ^talk 09:28, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who is massively anal, they're also randomly useful. In the past current status copy and pastes have helped me track down historical, zergers, plot groups movements around the city and look at the overall safeness of many a suburb. Plus, although everyone here knows how to use a danger report, hundreds of wikiers dont. I would be willing to change my stance if Danger report included a link in the template saying (building history) linking to the editing history of the page. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 10:31, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I just read the wall of text that is UDWiki talk:Location Style Guide. It's a good read if you are suffering insomnia, but something early in the conversations there stuck out to me. It really never should have been called "Current Status" to begin with. In fact it looks like it was changed to just "Status" so that it conforms to the UDWiki Style Guide. At some point it must have been changed back. Anyway. I guess I'm for removing the word "Current" from location pages but I can see where having a status section on pages would be helpful. ~ 17:54, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, now I see why I liked it so much, Mobius came up with it.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 18:44, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Vapor also deserves a prize. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, stating "All information here should be time stamped. Older reports should be move to a news archive as this section grows." in the Style Guide is about as helpful to newbs as throwing a drowning man both ends of the rope. Newbs don't check the style guide before updating. If "Status/Current Status" is to be kept, perhap a blurb about timestamping and news archives should accompany it. ~ 19:48, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

This may not be the discussion for a suggestion like this but this is sort of what I had in mind:

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Update the Danger Report for this location whenever possible. See the Danger Report history for a history of danger reports for this location. More detailed information about location status should be added below. All information here should be time stamped. Older reports should be moved to a news archive as this section grows.

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Simple, to the point. Offers a link to history of danger reports. This would go right under the section heading currently labeled Current Status which should be changed to something like Status History. ~ 06:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

CAN EVERYBODY WHO KEEPS INSISTING THAT WE CAN LINK TO THE HISTORY OF DANGERREPORTS PLEASE READ THIS - If there is a history wipe, we won't have time to re-edit the 10,000 pages to fix the links. Also, the DangerReport history still shows vandalism, jokes, and everything else of the sort. We can't rely on the DangerReport history to provide a reflection of a building over time.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 08:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

So let me see if I have Vapor's idea right...

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The Devonshire Building

(83,5) (bic) (statuses) (update) The Devonshire Building Ruined, dark. AndyMatthews (talk) 04:07, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Page info, blah blah blah

Status History

Update the Danger Report for this location whenever possible. See the Danger Report history for a history of danger reports for this location. More detailed information about location status should be added below. All information here should be time stamped. Older reports should be moved to a news archive as this section grows.

July 3rd 2010 Whitlock Wizard appears to be our new Dudly. Be sure to give him a Devonshire welcome, all. Tec7890 ^{T RCDC NW} 05:11, 3 July 2010 (BST)

May 20th 2009 25.96 MHz: "... reporting from Rhodenbank, I've got about forty active ... mostly just stragglers, no organised groups ... a lot of lights on, looks the area's been reclaimed ... infrastructure looks intact too ... some survivor activity in the Devonshire ..." (2 days ago) (Yay, we're on the radio). Anyway, the ExMil is a lie, but if you're at Devonshire, you're safe. EHB atm. Tec7890 ^{T RCDC NW} 09:43, 22 May 2009 (BST)

March 10th, 2009 - We've been having some trouble lately with Generator smashing and PK'ing. Recent culprits include zomburrito and A yellow anus fruit. Caution is advised, please report any sightings of these two or other troublemakers so they can be brought to justice. --Red Hawk One 06:22, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

etc.

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If he's talking about something like this, then I don't see how referring to the danger report history is an issue. As it is, the current status tab is patchwork at best (especially more recently). ~ Red Hawk One ^{Talk | space for lease} 19:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Because there's a link in there to danger report history?--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 20:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the harm in linking to DR history. True it might get purged but that doesn't necessaryily mean it will have to be adjusted later. The url for danger report history will be the same before and after a history purge and since it is templated, if something were to change it would mean only editing one page. As far as vandalizing and improper updates, why wouldn't we want to see history for that as well? ~ 20:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Because if someone wants to see the history of a location, and somebody puts something blatantly not true there, it'll look to a common user like it actually happened. Also, saying "the url won't change" is completely beside the point. The fact of the matter is, if there's a history purge it will be completely useless.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 21:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

That can be true for any update, honestly. Anyone can mislead anyone else just by putting misleading info in the Current Status section. What happened to "All of the history is useful. Don't Cherry Pick"? Also, I was responding to your above statement that if history is purged we'll have to change links on 10,000 pages. That isn't true. You're right that because history is occasionally purged that it won't be the best source for status history. I don't agree that this makes it useless, however. ~ 21:21, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, all history is useful, not all vandalism. And no, it can't be true for any update. Vandalism to current status is, and always has been, immediately reverted. With current status, people won't be delving in to a page history where they see the vandalism. Not to mention the fact that most newbies and casual users don't even understand how to navigate page history. And my 10,000 comment was also made a considerable amount of time before the issue of templating even arose.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 21:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't his solution handle both approaches though? It gives a purpose to the section that not many of us think is working well, it points newbies to where they actually should be posting reports, and it links them to all relevant locations while providing simple instructions. Worst case scenario, and I think it's a stretch since there hasn't been one in years, is that there's another wipe and we'll want to remove the link, which is made simple by the template solution. Aside from the possible issue of confusing newbies by linking them to page histories, which I think is a non-argument, I don't see where his idea has any problems. —Aichon— 22:35, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Aichon. This is pretty much precisely what I was coming back to post. If we're to change the section heading to Status History as a compromise to removing it entirely, it seems prudent to include DR history. The risks involved don't seem earth-shattering to me and the reward is a nice little link in an appropriate section that won't be difficult to maintain.. ~ 23:12, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I still think vandal edits in the history could be a problem.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 12:18, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

That's it, Red Hawk. I was thinking of using {{FULLPAGENAME}} to simplify the fullurl when placed on location pages. ~ 20:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I concur. Helps keep pages clean.--Cited Literature Critc, Mead Sheaffer. 19:43, 21 January 2011 (UTC)