TheKolWiki:Proposed Standards/archive2

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Second archive of Proposed Standards:

Vanity Pages

  • Don't use the wiki to host your personal website.
    • This includes completely Un-KOL-related images, and stuff like that.
  • Don't be a bandwidth-vampire in some other intentionally vague way.

Terminology

  • Use official terms instead of player/gamer/slang terms when describing an aspect of the game.
    • Use "Normal" to describe a Normal ascension rather than "softcore" - the former is the 'official' term for that style of gameplay. Referring to Normal gameplay as "softcore" refers to gameplay in oppositive terms to "Hardcore" rather than referring to the gameplay. It is much like calling a "donkey" a "not a horse" instead of "donkey." (If that made sense, give yourself two points.)
    • Try to capitalize instances of "Hardcore" as they apply in reference to that Ascension type; "Hardcore" is the proper, official name for that style of gameplay. The only exception should be when mentioning the chat channel "/hardcore" or "/c hardcore" on a page.

Clan Links

  • Use {{clan|clan=CLANNAME|link=http://WEBLINK}}, rather than creating categories or pages for individual clans.
Proud member of CLANNAME

Heading Hierarchy

Sometimes, on some pages, the sections are in different orders. To be consistent, we should make a list of all possible sections, and list them all together, so there is no question what sections go in what order. I usually stay away form zapping templates and weapon-type templates, so I'm not sure where they look best. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 21:58, 21 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)

  • Header(battletop/itemheader/etc.)
    • Header
    • Description
    • Basic Item Information
    • Enchantment
  • Drop Location(s)
  • Recipe
  • When Consumed/Used
  • Uses
  • Zapping
  • Notes
  • References
  • See Also
  • {Categories)

I can't decide where "Uses" should be, besides somehere between "Drop Locations" and "Notes". I probably left a few others out. Hmm--JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 21:58, 21 December 2005 (Central Standard Time)

I updated your list to match the info currently in Established Standards. --RyokoYahagi 13:26, 22 February 2006 (Central Standard Time)

Date Formats

This may have come up before, but just in case it hasn't... Could we standardize the use of dates in the wiki? This is mostly for notes and references and things, but some pages have the American style "December 12" or "December 12th" (with or without a year), and some have the more usual "30th January" or "30 January" (again, with or without a year). I'd like to suggest "30th February, 2010", although "30 February 2010" seems good too...

I would prefer American style (since I'm American). But I also want to propose that we make it a standard to add the dates certain locations came into being or when they changed. This will make the wiki more interesting for newer people or people interested in the way the Kingdom has changed (like me). --Pandalet

The dd-mmm-yyyy format is ISO standard. It would also be nice if a date was added for when new item became available. I know some are native from the game's inception, or are so old, they may be hard to date, but it would be nice to know if something is new, or just new to you. --Stanley 15:56, 11 August 2006 (CDT)

If it's a date format you want, I'd recommend yyyy/mm/dd [hh:mm:ss] - absolutely no ambiguity there, and it's more logical anyways since it puts the largest units first and the smallest units last. In fact, it's also an ISO standard (8601). --Quietust 16:18, 11 August 2006 (CDT)

  • This is just a personal preference, but I like writing dates how I read/say them, for example, "December 12th, 2006". Does anyone actually say "12th of December, 2006" or "2006, December 12th"? I don't like having to interpret a date. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 19:30, 13 August 2006 (CDT)
    • Yep, I say "12th of December", as do the majority of other Australians... or, at least, the ones I've met. Same as we have the whole dd/mm/yyyy thing going. Technically, in school I was taught to write it "Tuesday, 12 December, 2006", pronounced "Tuesday, the 12th of December, 2006". Personally I like yyyy/mm/dd, but only because I use it a lot... unfamiliarity would make it hard to read. I think any format that spells out the name of the month would be fine. Phlip 10:23, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
  • Well, KoL headquarters is in...Arizona, USA, I think?--Dehstil (t|c) 23:00, 14 August 2006 (CDT)

Player and Clan Pages

It might be nice to standardize player and clan pages so that instead of just creating a page titled as the player's name or clan name, we would instead use Player:playername or Clan:clanname. Thoughts? -- Turias 15:10, 9 March 2006 (CST)

  • Allowing player pages turns the wiki into a KoL player myspace/livejournal. All current player pages are being moved (back) to wiki User: pages. Clan pages may also be removed (or at least thinned), since people can just link to KoL forum threads and their clan website directly, without the need for a mediary clan page on the wiki. A clan may be listed in the Clan Directory (if it has a website/forums, etc. to list). So if your in clan Google, it'd be better just to say "I'm in clan Google" and link offsite, than to create a [[Google]] clan page on the wiki. You can do whatever your want on your own external (clan) website. A better category name than "Players" would end up containing the Jick page, and other developers, or extremely important people (with useful/interesting pages), which is subjective, so it'll be tricky to regulate. Fun, eh? Otherwise everyone and their grandma is going to create player and clan pages on the wiki, making the database extra large, and stealing bandwith from those trying to use the wiki as reference, or adding useful content to the wiki. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 20:47, 10 March 2006 (CST)
Also see Category talk:Players

Depth of Information

All sorts of people from all over the world read the pages on this wiki. I can appreciate that the vast majority of users here are from the US, and as such you choose to spell certain words differently, i.e. colour, organise. However, it should not be taken for granted that everyone knows what may seem to be "obvious" phrases and parts of the US vernacular actually mean.

For example, I, as an Australian, did not understand what Groundhog Day meant, but understood the pun relating to spanners and wrenches Striking Factory-Worker Elf. It seems that for the majority of users the Groundhog Day reference did not need spelling out, but the spanner joke did.

Therefore, I propose that now matter how obvious or trivial a possible reference is, it be added, as surely the only thing that this will do is add to the depth and quality of information in the wiki. --rkMerafel 05:01, 14 March 2006 (CST)

{{click}}

I discovered a nifty little template on Wikipedia that allows an image to link to an article page rather than the image description page; however, it may have some accessibility/display issues in versions of Safari and possibly the latest version of Firefox. I have (warily) applied the template to {{Toymaker}}, but await feedback on any breakage that this template may cause/have caused (I'm using Firefox 1.07, and don't have access to other browsers to test it in). If it works, and doesn't needlessly ruin any pages, then it may be worthwhile to use this in crafting templates. If it does damage page layout or in general cause serious accessibility issues, we'll just have to get rid of it. --Aardvark (Talk | Contribs) 05:54, 20 March 2006 (CST)

  • Works on FF 1.5.0.1 on windows for me, we just need a mac-y to try it ;-). --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 22:31, 20 March 2006 (CST)
  • I'm not really sure what problems there were? It seemed to work really well when I checked it out, and this would be a very welcome feature. --SomeStranger 10:56, 3 April 2006 (CDT)
  • Works for me with both Firefox 1.5.0.2 and Safari 2.0.3 on OS X 10.4.6. --Mediaboy 22:24, 16 April 2006 (CDT)
  • Have tested {{Toymaker}} in Safari 1.3.2. The picture of the crimbo hat links to the image description page. --Fleurione 09:02, 9 May 2006 (CDT)
  • Good god! It works in IE 6!!!! If it works in IE, it works in everything. For completeness, does anyone have IE 7, Mozilla, or Netscape? (And I guess AOL Explorer....yuck)--SomeStranger (Talk | Contribs) 08:00, 29 May 2006 (CDT)

This used to not work, now it does. I would once again like to propose using this for all the recipe templates, as it is far more useful than clicking the image and seeing the image. (Only use it for those templates though.) I assume the reason this now works has something to do with wiki version 1.6.--SomeStranger (Talk | Contribs) 14:53, 28 May 2006 (CDT)

  • In case anyone did not notice I went ahead and put this on all the crafting templates.--SomeStranger (t|c) 08:46, 19 June 2006 (CDT)
    • I really like this template. If no one opposes, I'd like to go through the locations with pictures that are clickable in-game, such as Market Square. I think it is sometimes confusing for users who don't hover over links to check the location - they click the picture because they're used to clicking it in game, but it links to the image file. I tend to feel that this meets the needs of more users than leaving it as an image link since those who want to know the location of the image will generally have the knowledge to be able to find it in just a few more clicks. I'll leave the links that are listed below the area in case someone does not have a compatible browser. Is there an existing reason this shouldn't be or hasn't been done? --LucySpace (Talk|Cntrbs) 17:29, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

Zapping

  • I propose that the zapping section of each page comes before the collections but after the references as any other location just looks hideous. --SomeStranger 18:13, 4 April 2006 (CDT)
    • Agreed - I'll change the standard. --Gymnosophist 16:09, 6 April 2006 (CDT)

Item Groups

  • Many item types have templates on their pages which link to other items of their same type. I propose that it should be explicitly stated that these templates should go after Collections on item pages and should have one space in between each of them. --SomeStranger 18:32, 8 April 2006 (CDT)
  • Sounds good to me. However, in the actual wiki code, there have to be TWO spaces in order to get the ONE to show up on the page itself. I guess I should add collections to the established standards.... And explain the surrounding bits too... --jin 19:42, 8 April 2006 (CDT)
  • Actually I realized that awhile ago and everytime I see a mis-spaced template I fix it.--SomeStranger 07:54, 9 April 2006 (CDT)

I think collections should come after the navigational templates. Navigation templates actually have a use, and collections info is pointless, bandwidth-sucking spam. --RyokoYahagi 23:23, 16 April 2006 (CDT)

  • Sorry, this is a done deal. Personally, I like the collection info (and where they're positioned). --Gymnosophist 23:42, 16 April 2006 (CDT)

Special Characters

  • I've noticed that some users are going through pages and replacing Unicode characters with HTML entities (i.e. &#NNNN; and &charname;). The purpose behind using HTML entities is to encode characters that do not exist in the document's character set (and to escape characters that have special meaning within HTML, namely & and < and >, as well as special formatting characters such as &nbsp;) - since UTF-8 can encode all special characters from all character sets, HTML entities are entirely unneeded on this site and should not be used.
    They can even cause other problems, such as causing searches to not return results properly - for example (for now, anyways), try searching for "jabañero" (copy and paste it) and observe that the page Skills by number does not appear anywhere in the results (even though it appears to contain the text "Jabañero Saucesphere") because the ñ is stored in the page as "&ntilde;" instead of encoding it as UTF-8 like it should be. --Quietust 22:23, 22 April 2006 (CDT)
    • Several months ago, in the forum, I suggested adding the feature that Wikipedia has, where there's a table at the bottom of the edit screen that has all the UTF-8 characters, and you simply click one to insert it into your edit box. That would make using real UTF characters much easier, as there's no easy way to create them otherwise. I stopped putting in &charname; entity codes at that time, hoping that this addition would make them unnecessary. Never heard anything further on it, though. Maybe we can spark some discussion on it this time. -- Old Ned 21:04, 3 June 2006 (CDT)
    • The only outstanding html entities left on the wiki is is JRSiebz's sig *shakes fist* :P.--Dehstil (t|c) 12:44, 19 October 2006 (CDT)

Adventure Footer

  • Anybody else think it might be a good idea to put a little shortcut as to what the elemental nature of a creature means to the player, offensively, on each individual monster page? That was confusing, but for example, somewhere on the page (maybe right underneath the "occurs in" line): "This is a spooky monster: spooky attacks only do one point of damage, but take double damage from hot and stench attacks." Of course this is redundant information, but it might be nice for the noobs and those of us too lazy to either remember or spend an extra click. What do you think? --Iason 20:23, 23 July 2006 (CDT)
    • That's a good idea - maybe not with the long description you included, but at least indicating the elemental alignment (with a link back to that element, which explains those details) would be sufficient. Perhaps an adventure footer template of some sort to include the encounter locations, elemental alignment, and any other vital statistics would be nice. --Quietust 21:10, 23 July 2006 (CDT)
    • Yes, I was wondering why only the location pages had this information but not the pages themselves.--Dehstil (t|c) 21:54, 23 July 2006 (CDT)
    • Looks like another project, but first, consensus on this new standard? Monster pages need hp, monster level, etc.--Dehstil (t|c) 21:19, 22 August 2006 (CDT)
    • YES! I would greatly appreciate combat adventure pages having stats. In fact, I wouldn't mind having pretty much all the information from the {{Combat}} template on the location page repeated on the adventure page, possibly as high as right after the description. --Jonrock 22:27, 11 September 2006 (CDT)
      • As long as we're on the subject, I think the repeated expansion and addition of combat messages is pushing the "I need to know this because I'm playing this adventure right now" game-mechanic information further and further down the page. I would find it useful if the combat messages moved to their own section, below "You gain/acquire" and "Occurs at". The only game mechanism the combat messages contain is when, say, a spooky monster has an off-element sleaze attack, and this could be summarized in just one line of the monster stats instead. On the other hand, in my mind this is now repeating basically everything from the location page, so maybe what I really want is for the "Occurs at" link to be moved to the top of each adventure page so that I can quickly click back out to the summary page. --Jonrock 22:27, 11 September 2006 (CDT)

Navigational Templates

It should say somewhere what should and shouldn't be in a navigational template. Rares shouldn't, but what about special event(holiday)/ascension reward items? See #Template talk:Clubs. Also if an item isn't included in the navigational template, should the rare item include the template?--Dehstil 20:22, 24 May 2006 (CDT)

  • I'd like to see many of them dissappear, especially long items ones, like clubs. All weaspons have 3 main parts of their type, so should be part of three weapon subcategories.
    1. It should be in Melee Weapons or Ranged Weapons (both which would be subcats of Weapons)
    2. It should handed 1-Handed Weapons or 2-Handed Weapons or 3-Handed Weapons (all 3 which would be subcats of Weapons) (I know 'handed' is lowercase in the game but for a category 1-Handed Weapons looks better than 1-handed Weapons)
    3. It should be in its weapon subtype (Axes, Crossbows, Clubs, Maces, Umbrellas, Staves, Utensils, etc.) (all would be subcats of Weapons, would be subcat of ranged or melee, but many subtype's items are not all melee or ranged.)
  • This is how it'd like to see it and all weapon related nav templated which were replaced by a subtype category be axed. I swear I've whined out this on another page somewhere. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 20:59, 24 May 2006 (CDT)
  • That's the gist of what I had thought. I was wondering if a 2-handed category should be created and whether a 3-handed was particularly necessary (I don't think they differ mechanics-wise). Actually adding the weapons in question should probably be boted. As for the existance of navigational templates, I honestly don't know. I don't think my question was answered though...get rid of them?--Dehstil 21:11, 24 May 2006 (CDT)
  • I think that if there is a category (or should be), you don't need a nav template. Nav templates are best for odd associative groupings that don't warrant a category. We are down to very few now (comparatively to before). The custom item nav should be removed, since custom items is a category. All current footer templates are in Category:Footer Templates. I think that Category:Explosion Exclusives should be removed. They are listed on the chef-tender in a box pages and on each item age there is already a line like "XXX can only be obtained from the explosion of a XXXX in a box." Maybe a nav grouping for chef ones and one for btender ones is appropriate instead. Or maybe just overkill. Or maybe "Explosion Exclusives" should/chould be a page??? --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 23:24, 27 May 2006 (CDT)
  • I think {{Hilarious Objects}} is way too big, it should be axes for a see also page, like either under the See Also or Notes section. Then Hilarious Objects would just be a page, no a randomly assorted category of usable items, equipment, undrinkables, etc. Oh wait is already a page.. haha consisting of just the template, how crude! --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 23:40, 27 May 2006 (CDT)
  • What about items that exist in a larger category but don't exist in a quantity large enough to warrant their own category? For example, Mafia wines are listed in Category:Mafia Items. They're related and users who are looking at one type of wine are probably interested in other wines (especially since all of them don't have consumption information), but there probably aren't enough of them to have a subcategory. --LucySpace 22:46, 18 June 2006 (CDT)

Template talk:Clubs

(Moved from deleted talk page) I noticed that the Especially homoerotic frat-paddle, Fetus-smashing club, Heteroerotic frat-paddle, and Unionize The Elves sign are missing from this template. I recall a discussion about navigational templates and I'm not sure on whether that issue was resolved. Established Standards: Item Pages#ItemNavT doesn't say what should and what should not be in a navigational template. I understand that the aforementioned items are unique and probably shouldn't be added. One discrepancy though: I'd argue that the unionize the elves sign ought to be included maybe and that the mafia violin case shouldn't then. Stainless steel shillelagh is borderline, but I'd keep it included (unless the idea of navigational templates has been ditched).--Dehstil 18:33, 24 May 2006 (CDT)

  • Navigational templates are rather stupid devices that just take up a lot of room. There have been discussions about whether or not there should be categories for weapons types with tons of items in them. Personally I believe there should be, but in response to your question, it was my understanding that rare/ultra rares (and by that I mean less than 50 or so in existance) were not to be put in the navigational templates.--SomeStranger (Talk | Contribs) 18:49, 24 May 2006 (CDT)
  • The above rare items (except the unionize the elves sign) happen to include the template. Should those pages include the template even though they're not part of it. And also, to be clear a Mafia violin case is rare and an elves sign isn't...maybe?--Dehstil 19:01, 24 May 2006 (CDT)

Categorization

There seems to be some indecision as to whether things should be a category or not. Based on my time on the wiki I've seen two general trends:

  • There are many many of items that fall under the grouping.
  • Items regularly join and leave the grouping.

These two trends both cause one overall trend: it's difficult to keep track of the items in the grouping.

Examples: Epic Hats (listed in an article); rarely updated

  • There are only 6 items.
  • There will always be 6 items.

Hilarious Items (listed in an article); rarely updated

  • Relatively few items.
  • With 2 exceptions early on, there will never be any more additions.

Explosion Exclusives (listed in a category); rarely updated, easy to keep track of, probably should be an article

  • Relatively few items.
  • No additions have been made.

Azimuth Tables (Category); in retrospect, it could have stayed as just a listing, but there seemed to be a large number of them.

  • There are many (36) items
  • The tables are dead now, but it would stay at a constant 36.

Weapons (Category); otherwise very difficult to keep track of.

  • There are many many weapons and weapon subcategories.
  • There will probably be more weapons and subcategories in the future.

Should the standard be based on that? Also, I think that if an item is in a subcategory, it need not be listed in the category above because that's just redundant.--Dehstil 13:54, 3 June 2006 (CDT)

Page Header type Templates

Yeah, so we've got a bunch of special header-type templates for common types of pages - {{Battletop}}, {{Effect}}, {{Familiar}}, {{Fighter}}, {{Itemheader}}, {{Skill}}, and perhaps some others I missed. All of the pages using these templates also happen to be included in matching categories. It'd be nice to simply put the category tags in the templates themselves (though this would require performing null edits on all pages including each template), but then a bunch of inappropriate pages would be included in the categories - the sandbox, the various sections of Established Standards, and numerous user pages. Is there any way to suppress categorization via templates in specific instances, or perhaps disallow using these templates anywhere other than the pages for which they were designed (which would require removing the previews from Established Standards), or are we going to have to live with always manually adding the category tag each time? (the same would apply to any new page header type templates we might add, like one for non-combat adventures) --Quietust 15:54, 8 June 2006 (CDT)

  • The only header-type template with its category (Category:Skills) in it is {{Skill}}, and it's set as "includeonly". So it isn't in the skills category but EVERY page it's included on will be. It prob should be taken out and manually included on all the skill pages. What do you mean by null edit? If you want a page refreshed just use .../index.php?title=PAGENAME%action=purge and viola, the page refreshes. So the estab. stnrds: skills page is undesirably in category skills. I like manually adding the category to pages each time because it's easier to hunt down why a page is categorized like it is without having the sort through a bunch of templates. You can see them all together at the bottom of a page (when editing). There are no "hidden" category includes. PLus when they do not have the cateogry in them, they can be used on talk pages, the established standards pages, etc. without forcing that page into the category by inclusion. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 16:52, 8 June 2006 (CDT)
    • A "null edit" is the action of editing and saving a page without actually making any changes - it doesn't add a history entry, but it forces the page to be recategorized. It is the only way to recategorize a page when the category tags are coming from a template [1]. --Quietust 17:02, 8 June 2006 (CDT)
    • Also, one other comment that seems to have gotten lost is that, right now, only some types of pages have standardized headers on them - combat adventures, items, skills, and effects. Would it be worth it to make a header template for non-combat adventures, even if it's just the same as itemheader but with different argument names? --Quietust 08:51, 9 June 2006 (CDT)
      • No objections? Good - {{Adventuretop}}. See Noob Cave for examples. I'll be taking care of every other noncombat adventure page later. --Quietust 21:27, 11 June 2006 (CDT)
        • I could have my bot nulledit its way throughout the entire wiki in about 1 hour if you wanted...--SomeStranger (T | C) 21:31, 11 June 2006 (CDT)
          • The null-edit stuff won't be needed, since it's apparently been decided that we aren't going to put category tags inside the templates, so that they can be used in places other than the pages that would normally use them (i.e. example pages, talk pages, user pages, etc.) --Quietust 21:51, 11 June 2006 (CDT)
            • We can just use some if statements and the magic words {{NAMESPACE}} and {{PAGENAME}} if you want to accomplish that. We can exclude talk pages with {{NAMESPACE}} and we can exclude individual pages with {{PAGENAME}}.--SomeStranger (T | C) 22:01, 11 June 2006 (CDT)
        • Everything within Seaside Town now makes use of {{Adventuretop}}, as well as consistent location backreference formats. ("Occurs at [location name].") --Quietust 15:03, 12 June 2006 (CDT)
          • ...and now, every non-combat adventure in the entire wiki uses it. If you need me, I'll be sleeping for the next 36 hours. --Quietust 00:17, 13 June 2006 (CDT)
          • Updated Established Standards to include this (as well as a few of the changes from above). --Quietust 08:34, 13 June 2006 (CDT)
  • Meh, you have my vote. Use "subst:" for talk pages, etc.--Dehstil (t|c) 21:57, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Vanity Comments

Okay, so MaxDemian insists on pointing out to everybody that his door code solver was the original as well as being the one who first obtained jewelry-making pliers and ring settings, citing the fact that if BoozerBear got vanity credit for hacking the floral print shirt, then he deserves it too. How about we disallow it altogether and remove all existing vanity comments so we don't have to put up with these edit wars anymore? --Quietust 16:03, 16 June 2006 (CDT)

  • seconded. is there any way to disallow maxdemian altogether? --Evilkolbot 16:16, 16 June 2006 (CDT)
    • He's been temp-banned by Jinya twice before (3 days each) for doing this exact same thing, once in January and again just a week ago. I would argue that he's been warned enough times and that "three strikes and you're out" should apply to give him a permanent ban, but I'm not the site administrator (rather, I see myself as a moderator) and would prefer to have a consensus among the rest of the staff before taking that sort of action. --Quietust 16:37, 16 June 2006 (CDT)
  • See also the discussion of this issue in Discussion#Item hacked out of database by (user). -- Old Ned 04:56, 17 June 2006 (CDT)

Recipe

  • I rewrote the old outdated (dead page walkin') page recipe, which is now a "key" to reading recipes. Should we link the "Recipe" heading on pages to be a link (like the heading above) for easy access to recipe help? If not, at least, it should mentioned in the standards, to be used as a reference for recipe authorers. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 16:23, 16 June 2006 (CDT)
    • That page is really, really pretty now, thanks :D And yes, I think it'd be nice if it was linked to in the recipe headings (nice though if it was liked through the crafting logos but I suppose that is complicated to do AND unituitive in MediaWiki). --NewZorkBat 07:18, 17 June 2006 (CDT)
      • Maybe it should be linked to in {{equals}}, like the more specific crafting pages? Phlip 03:32, 24 June 2006 (CDT)
  • I say we should linkify the recipe header to recipe. We do could do it simulatenously when we roll out {{Consumable}}, if it's set to go.--Dehstil (t|c) 21:33, 8 July 2006 (CDT)
  • This information explains how to read those tables and thus the recipe tables should link to it. As of now, it's obscure,and unnoticed. Any objections to linking it?--Dehstil (t|c) 21:58, 23 July 2006 (CDT)
  • I'll take that as a no, despite the huge number of recipes placed and read on this wiki and lack of links to this page.--Dehstil (t|c) 22:00, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
  • Take it as a yes, if you get no complaints, leave it. If you get compliments, definatley leave it.--SomeStranger (t|c) 22:52, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Equipment

  • in some (but not all) of the outfit pages there is a heading Equipments. i would say, not being a grammarian, that equipment is generally uncountable and can't, therefore, be pluralised, although i accept i could be wrong. is this more of a US english thing? howsoever, it should be standardised either way. --Evilkolbot 14:50, 18 June 2006 (CDT)
    • I agree. It should be "Equipment". --LucySpace 14:52, 18 June 2006 (CDT)
  • well, if no-one disagrees by this evening (~7pm BST June 19th) i'll set to changing all the pages in category:outfits. --Evilkolbot 06:45, 19 June 2006 (CDT)
  • i've just checked out the pages, and there doesn't seem to be a standard for this type of page. i would make the following suggestions.
  1. the order of sections should be as ordinary pages with the first three sections as Ability, Equipment, Notes.
  2. the "tattoo" note should be a note.
can you think of anything else? --Evilkolbot 07:03, 19 June 2006 (CDT)
  • thinking further, the Ability section will always only have one line in it. unless anyone objects i'll delete this section and move it to the more standard Notes section. --Evilkolbot 08:25, 19 June 2006 (CDT)
    • Trick-or-treating candy listed in the notes below Tattoo and Ability. The only outfit that doesn't is radio free gear and it's important to note that on the page. I agree that the ability should be listed in the notes-- the first thing you see should be the avatar followed by the outfit components and then information on the tattoo. The ability should be moved down. For example, someone who wants to know how to deal more damage to pixel monsters will look on the Inexplicable Door page before going to the 8-bit finery; anyone looking at the outfit is likely looking at it for other reasons. Outfits with abilities should be checked to see if their ability is listed on a page with more visibility. The pixel outfit not listed on The Inexplicable Door but perhaps it should be. I don't think it's important to list how to make or acquire the outfit since that is typically listed on the item pages that are linked from the outfit. That's open to opinion, though. --LucySpace (Talk|Cntrb) 12:30, 19 June 2006 (CDT)

Minor Talk Page Thing

Every once and a while I'd stumble across a talk page that discussed a template, but the template changed since then, making the discussion make less sense or, even worse, breaking the talk page (like Template talk:Code, the discussion page (a floating crimbo hat, was it?), or User talk:JRSiebz did). I propose that whenever a template is used in a talk page we could try to substitute evaluated wikicode instead, well for the most part. Instead of:

Check out this item standardization template: {{Test|item=Blah}}

we do:

Check out this item standardization template: {{subst:Test|item=Blah}}

because the test template or whatever would likely change.--Dehstil (T | C) 16:58, 18 June 2006 (CDT)

  • I like this proposal. I knew I was going to change the Test template while I was editing JRSiebz's talk page while asking a question and probably should have gone back to edit it, but I haven't yet. Also, he'd then get a new message notification when all I did was remove or change the link to the template. I wish there was more documentation on templates (how to cite, how to use existing utility templates in another template, how to call to parameters, etc.) I feel that I don't have enough knowledge to write a general guide on these sorts of things; I only have knowledge gleaned from existing templates and really only things that were relevant to results I wanted to produce. Is anyone ambitious enough to produce this? Or would anyone less ambitious be willing to add in any content to something I could produce based on basic knowledge? I believe the Help page currently refers you to MediaWiki help, which is cryptic, jumbled, poorly organized, and full of broken links to templates that no longer exist. I don't know if we need anything when there already exist users who have the ability to make and modify templates as well as incorporate other templates that exist on thekolwiki, but I feel it would be a good general idea. --LucySpace 22:15, 18 June 2006 (CDT)
    • Pretty much all of the help section is in dire need of editing. Originally, there wasn't ANYTHING on making templates, only using them. I added the link, then considered writing a how-to section. Then I thought maybe the general help should get some attention before I go all specific on this one part about wiki-editng. Also, I guessed that the best way to learn how to do this stuff and eventually understand how works was through playing with it, so I copied a few comments from the sandbox and made a template sandbox. Voila. So, I say a general move to fix up our on-site wiki documentation, including templating, if so inclined.--Dehstil (T | C) 22:44, 18 June 2006 (CDT)
      • I actually made a pretty detailed explanation of how to make an infobox on the main wikipedia using parserfunctions. I suggest doing something like it--SomeStranger (t|c 07:07, 19 June 2006 (CDT)

ParserFunctions

Apparently they work. Do we replace everything in the templates? Also, an addition to parser functions are MetaWikiPedia:DynamicFunctions one of which is rand which could replace RandomlySelect, which currently generates errors in many of the places we've tried to use it.--Dehstil (t|c) 00:40, 20 June 2006 (CDT)

  • Alternatively, RandomlySelect could just change the way it's hooked to mirror the way parser functions work.--Dehstil (t|c) 01:02, 20 June 2006 (CDT)
    • I don't think we should be installing anything that uses Parser::disableCache()... mainly because random stuff is everywhere on this wiki... <elbow> Fortitude Wizardliness Cheek Argh! THWAPP!... if every page that used random stuff had to be removed from the cache it would mean a lot of slowdown re-rendering all those pages every time they're viewed... the wiki is slow enough already. The current setup where it's cached with one random thing, which only changes when the cache is purged (on an edit or explicitly with action=purge) is fine. That said, if the disableCache() line was removed from the #rand function, it would be a reasonable addition... though I just don't see any use for any of the DynamicFunctions here besides #rand. Phlip 09:11, 20 June 2006 (CDT)
      • Everything that is not related to randominity should be replaced with parserfunctions as they are far more efficient. I am going to start replacing things.--SomeStranger (t|c) 10:32, 20 June 2006 (CDT)

Please see my questions about all this stuff over at Discussion -- Old Ned 22:55, 20 June 2006 (CDT)

Missing Page-Types in the Established Standards

  • Trophy, Tattoo, and Outfit Pages. None have templates either (and can sometimes be inconsistent). --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 01:13, 21 June 2006 (CDT)
    • It's because that silly Alpaca ran away from us before he finished :(. Ah well. I think I will do it.--SomeStranger (t|c) 06:48, 21 June 2006 (CDT)

<collection>

  • the "collection" template links to a search page if the name of the linked item occurs more than once in the database (eg Boris's key). to link directly to a page use "&match=exact" on the end of the url. i'd do it myself, just i have no idea where to look for it. --Evilkolbot 06:02, 1 July 2006 (CDT)
  • while i'm at it, why doesn't this template (which is otherwise delightful) use curly rather than angle brackets? --Evilkolbot 06:02, 1 July 2006 (CDT)
    • 'Cause it's not a template, it's a custom extension - specifically a parser extension... This also means that only one of the admins of the site can actually change the way it works... Phlip 07:16, 1 July 2006 (CDT)
  • Wasn't sure where else to put this, but the collection extension needs to be changed, so that the title and the player name links use the new URL for the site. I know that the collection data itself is a direct feed from the database server, but all those other links still point to epeterso2.com. The new URL is at http://www.jickenwings.org/collections/index.cgi --Fryguy9 22:21, 5 September 2006 (CDT)
    • It seems that ALL of the collection links are not working at this moment. This may be in part to the troubles on the collection data base with the newest items (read their latest news), but is it possible that it's also caused by my point made above? --Fryguy9 15:12, 28 September 2006 (CDT)

Redirects

There seem to be a lot of redirect pages being created where the only difference is capitalisation. isn't the idea that the redness of the link show up that you've made a mistake, and encourages you to fix it. ballooning the number of pages to include every possible miscapitalisation doesn't seem to be that smart an idea. --Evilkolbot 11:10, 1 July 2006 (CDT)

  • I agree, they cause little more than tons of clutter AND encourage people to link to incorrectly capitalized page names without realizing it, leading to more inconsistency within the wiki (which I hate, since I'm a strong proponent of standardization). --Quietust 15:11, 1 July 2006 (CDT)
    • Sorry, didn't know about that. I was just aiming to make it easier to link directly to the item page via the search. Did you want me to go back and revert them all? Bagatelle 15:10, 1 July 2006 (CDT)
  • Well, maybe I'll go thru Special:Listredirects and compile a list of what I see.--Dehstil (t|c) 16:22, 1 July 2006 (CDT)
  • Alright, I compiled a partial list. Leave commments on the deletion page.--Dehstil (t|c) 18:53, 1 July 2006 (CDT)
  • Many redirects were created for searching. I call them "easy search redirects". The wiki search functionality really isn't that smart, so redirects of common mispellings or abbreviattions were useful. Some obvious search queries were returning no results (the wiki search also ignores all search of 3 or less characters unless there is a page with that specific name), just becuase of capitalization differences. Mediawiki searches now seem to be a little smarter (when it comes to case), and typing in a misscapitalized search will send you to the correct page [example, just search for 'red'.. nothin']. We may not need many of the (leading capitalization) redirects if the wiki search operates well enough without them now. Other redirects are just left over from page moves. Others are just plural redirects, like Outfits->Outfit, etc. People aren't suppossed to link to redirects ever anyway, ans people still miscapitalize pages, especially items pages when the first letter shouldn't be capitalized. Many user page/talk redirects are left over from page moves, I personally don't care if people have their name redirected to their user page, assuming no kol term trumps it. No one ever goes to user: pages anyway. No one ever searches for players on the wiki either. The only time user pages are viewed are through page links and when their name shows up in edit histories and talk pages. So I never understood the fascination with people creating their user pages but never doing anything else on the wiki, no one sees it but them. I still hate it when people list ever damn ascension, trophy and familiar they have in their user page. I mean who the hell cares? If I really cared, I'd /whois them in game and view their profile. Hmm, this was kinda long, grammar/speeling errors will increase exponentially as length increases. Why does everyhting I say end up being a rant on player pages? [mumbles under his breadth about clan pages] --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 19:09, 1 July 2006 (CDT)
  • Ok, I figured it out. The search engine's "go" function is only case insensitive if your query doesn't have any words (except for the first word because the wiki treats that special) that have three letters or less. This function triggers pages along with redirects. So that's why queries like "estaBliShed standarDs: item paGes", "the cRotChety wizaRd", and "wizzArd" bring me to the page while "the council of loathing" and "history of loathing" do not (search results work though). So, I was wondering why some of those redirects haven't been deleted yet.--Dehstil (t|c) 19:57, 29 July 2006 (CDT)


I propose a redirect for anything purposely misspelled in-game (The Gnomish Gnomads' Camp, Misspelled Cemetary, Cyrpt).--Dehstil (t|c) 16:26, 17 July 2006 (CDT)

Order

I propose that any list on the wiki should be alphabetized. It has pretty much been implied, but it's not there in places like Established Standards: Location Pages when it mention the drops of an adventure. I'm sure there's other places too.--Dehstil (t|c) 15:13, 6 July 2006 (CDT)

  • You know not what you ask for. :^) I think you want every unordered list to by alphabetized, not stuff like Skills by number. I have no preference on this matter. --Club 19:11, 17 July 2006 (CDT)
    • Yeargh no response, I don't see "Arena Messages" in there anywhere. In other news, we seem to be sorting "See Also" in the order they appear in the description: if it says "muscle +2, 2x critical hit" in the enchantments part, we list it in that order in "See Also". Anyone against it being added to the standards?--Dehstil (t|c) 14:53, 16 August 2006 (CDT)
  • Hmm, alpha sorting is a difficult standard to implement in a broad fashion - there are just too many exceptions. Generally speaking, you're right, many things should be alpha sorted, but it's probably best considered on a case-by-case basis. On your first point, I've belatedly clarified the standards to explicitely incorporate the historical standard of alpha sorting the item drops. On the See Also, I'm not sure what's best. I think there are a few things in there that aren't enchantment related, and I suspect there may be more in the future. For now, I think I'm in a wait-and-see mode. --Gymnosophist 16:54, 1 September 2006 (CDT)

Categorization via Templates

Up in the Page Header type Templates section, I suggested putting common category tags inside templates in order to avoid having to manually place them in every page. However, the idea was shot down on the grounds that a bunch of people use the official templates in their user pages to make wiki-looking content which has absolutely nothing to do with the game. Is there any reason why we can't just include the categories in the templates and, say, put checks into the various templates so that they either exclude the categories when put on user pages (or Established Standards) or simply display a big warning box telling users not to dynamically include the standardization templates (and instead use {{subst:...}} and manually remove the categories)?

Also, the bit I mentioned back up there about having to do null edits can be ignored, as it is no longer necessary with MediaWiki 1.6.x since adding/removing category tags from a template now automatically updates the category listings. This means that we could, for example, edit {{Item}} and put a [[Category:Meatsmithing Component]] right after the "(Meatsmithing component)" tag generated by the 'smith=1' parameter, and every meatsmithing item would be properly added to the new category.

--Quietust 16:46, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

It stinks when using a template on talk pages or somewhere else where a template's example uses are shown, and having those end up getting categorized, but maybe templates could get a new variable introduced like "autocat" for auto-categorize. It could default to a "no" when not specified: ...|autocat=yes|... may be ok, it seems "intuitive" enough for people do figure out what it means. Weapon categorizations could be tricky though, sure handedness and ranged/melee could be fugured out/categoried, but weapon subtype could cause a problem, b/c subtypes which pertain to only a single item (like "implement" for example) get chucked together in "Other Weapons", all others (if two or more) have their own subcategory (swords, knives, etc.) There are also wierd categories like reagent potions, candy, etc. which are not in-game (which I don't think should be categories, i mean all reagent potions are listed on many other pages (nav template?, eh? maybe not?) , and the difference between "candy" and other "usable items" is subjective based on what people think they would "eat"). Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Heh. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 17:05, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

  • It would make sure all gift items and gift packages are cat'd right. And things of no mentioned type would outmatically be placed in "Misc. Items" (items of no type), many items are missing this now. And then there's the Pixelated Items/Toymaking Components/Toys categories, which are kinda forced, but "kinda" exist in-game. Lots of gray area ;-) --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 17:10, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
    • I'm not proposing that it handle all possible categories, just the common ones - cooking, cocktailcrafting, meatsmithing, and jewelrymaking components were the main ones I had in mind, but stuff like food, booze, spleen items, combat items, and familiar hatchlings could also be handled using {{useitem}} (spleen items are all "usable", but the useitem block specifies type=spleen). This'll take a bit of planning if we want it to work smoothly. --Quietust 18:29, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
      • It just should be consistent for all items, if either type categorizes all items or none across the board. For example, it should cate all items as booze, food, usable item, etc. or none of them. I mean if the usable template categoried spleen items but not food or booze, that's inconsistent and makes it hard to track down what template is categorizing what. Of course this isn't a problem for Meatmsmithing/Jewelrymaking/Cooking/Cocktailcrafting Components/Ingredients, which would be fine. Unless the item template doesn't "type" categorize (yet?), but only does ingredient/component caterizing for now. It's kinda of odd in-game that spleen items aren't obviously spleen items, they are placed just like restorers and some other usables. --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 16:23, 25 July 2006 (CDT)
        • I'm fine with just doing meatsmithing/cooking/cocktailcrafting/jewelrymaking components for now, since those will work for all items. Anyone want to run a bot to clear out the existing categories and then readd the category tags to {{Item}}? --Quietust 10:53, 31 July 2006 (CDT)
      • Random idea: {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|{{ns:0}}|[[Category:Whatever]]}} - would solve the "people using it on their user page" problem - it would only include the category on pages in the main namespace. Phlip 19:38, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
  • As stated in #Minor Talk Page Thing, we really shouldn't be using templates on talk pages anyways. Use subst: as quietust said.--Dehstil (t|c) 22:11, 24 July 2006 (CDT)
  • Also, various templates like {{combine}} could have categorization added to them for quick category renaming, creating, removing, what have you.--Dehstil (t|c) 23:22, 2 August 2006 (CDT)
  • So, is anyone against using categories the crafting templates and in templates like {{item}}?--Dehstil (t|c) 17:28, 8 August 2006 (CDT)
    • Ok, how about templates have an "example=true" parameter for when you want to display an example of the template but not really use it. It could box it as described below at #Use of this template yields: and do other things in the future (conditional substitution or who knows what).--Dehstil (t|c) 16:15, 16 August 2006 (CDT)

"Are you sure" footer

  • on the update page there is a footer that asks people to check if they have effects or other things which might affect the number of stats or adventures from food, booze, etc. could this be extended to include a brief warning about the eleven message? i know the longer it is the less likely people will read it, but it may stop a few newbs from making very short-lived edits. --Evilkolbot 12:48, 27 July 2006 (CDT)
  • Also, it should be revised to be static and just list the other things that could harm your consumption data.--Dehstil (t|c) 23:20, 2 August 2006 (CDT)
    • Done. --Quietust 11:13, 6 August 2006 (CDT)

Pulverize Information

Where should we include the pulverizing information; incredibly dense meat gem already has one.--Dehstil (t|c) 21:46, 30 July 2006 (CDT)

  • Whats that you said? Nowhere? Should the info on incredibly dense meat gem be removed?--Dehstil (t|c) 23:19, 2 August 2006 (CDT)
  • I moved the info to the notes. By the way, we don't nescessarily need pulvering info on every page because they're probably based off a formula, but these are the exceptions.--Dehstil (t|c) 17:34, 8 August 2006 (CDT)
    • could we have some guidance on how to mark items which don't follow the formula. e.g. the autoplunger, which used, because of its +myst, to smash to twinkly powder, but now, I suspect because you can buy the constituents, only gives useless powder. --Evilkolbot 08:58, 8 October 2006 (CDT)


Use of this template yields:

How we start enclosing those in boxes; at Established Standards: Familiar Pages, I tenatively added one to show what it looks like. Otherwise, template output can be confused other body content.--Dehstil (t|c) 15:23, 16 August 2006 (CDT)

  • Go right ahead - anything to make Established Standards easier to follow. --Quietust 15:31, 16 August 2006 (CDT)
    • On second thought, I've already done it myself. :) --Quietust 15:44, 16 August 2006 (CDT)

Variables

  • There have been various ways to delimit a variable: $class, <class>, [class]. Personally, I'm siding with <class> because we already say <name>, <skull>, and <substat> or could that get confused with future wiki extensions?--Dehstil (t|c) 15:23, 16 August 2006 (CDT)

Section Order

  • For item pages, see also comes after references, and for skill pages, see also comes before. How about, in both cases, we have see also after references?--Dehstil (t|c) 22:27, 25 August 2006 (CDT)
    • And so it is changed.--Dehstil (t|c) 17:30, 27 August 2006 (CDT)

Critical / Fumble

We do need a way to tell critical and fumble messages from regular hit or miss. A simple Critical: or Fumble: before the message could do, what do you think?--Worthstream 06:13, 30 August 2006 (CDT)

{{battle}}

  • I like it! Small point - what do you think of changing the message tags from bold to italic (as per the Knob Goblin Assistant Chef example). That way the message tags don't dominate the page as much, plus it better matches the conventions that we use for contingent outcomes (like the Frozen Mob Penguin example). --Gymnosophist 16:56, 5 September 2006 (CDT)
    • How's that? --Quietust 19:37, 5 September 2006 (CDT)
  • How about the "occurs at"/"occured at" part? It could automatically categorize "occured at" adventures into "Category:Obselete Adventures". Also, we need to add the other monster info at some point (hp, monster level, element); I don't see why they'd be on the location page but not on the actual page for monsters. See Proposed Standards#Adventure Footer.--Dehstil (t|c) 20:56, 5 September 2006 (CDT)
    • This would require adding tags to hold other sections of the page - special combat messages (Boss Bat/Sorceress MP drains, Bonerdagon/Sorceress item+skill+maneuver blocking, Sorceress level restoration), meat/item/stat drops (possibly with stat drops added automatically by specifying the monster level, but with an override for stuff like the Tower monsters, Shadow, and Sorceress), and any other special information we'd want to include (physical resistance, scaling level). If we really wanted, we could go all out and handle noncombat adventures too, renaming this template to {{Adventure}} and renaming the old {{Adventure}} to {{Noncombat}}, but that would be a rather major undertaking and would probably overcomplicate things as well, so let's keep it simple for now. --Quietust 08:53, 6 September 2006 (CDT)
      • I agree - let's just get the combat tags done for now. I vote to make this a standard - let's do it so we can roll out the new template. --Gymnosophist 21:15, 6 September 2006 (CDT)
      • Alright, agreed. This time we could use Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Battletop instead of Category:Test unless you guys feel more comfortable with the other way.--Dehstil (t|c) 22:38, 6 September 2006 (CDT)
  • Any opposition to deploying this template? I've run out of other stuff to do... :) --Quietust 08:48, 8 September 2006 (CDT)
    • Sometimes I get the impression that people only read Discussion and not this page. I'd very much appreciate it if somebody were to prove me wrong in this respect - I want to roll this out, and so does Gymnosophist, but after the post-rollout argument over {{useitem}}, I don't want to seem like an impulsive person who ignores the opinions of other users. --Quietust 09:43, 11 September 2006 (CDT)
      • I support this template too, if it wasn't implied in other places.--Dehstil (t|c) 20:13, 11 September 2006 (CDT)
        • Since we're effectively the 'active' admins for now, I suppose this is sufficient consensus to commence rollout. --Quietust 09:30, 12 September 2006 (CDT)

One time/Clover

Any objections to putting "special=clover", "special=once", or "special=only under some certain condition" into {{adventure}}? --Quietust 14:01, 18 September 2006 (CDT)

  • Not necessarily, but implementing it cleanly in all circumstances may be more complicated than anticipated. In addition to "clover" and "one time", there's "really, really one time", "ultra rare", and perhaps "Torso Awaregness". Additionally, some of these occur in Combat and Choice as well as Adventure. Finally, some of the "one time" aren't really "one time" - they reoccur until some condition has been met, usually requiring an explanation of a sentence or two. If you'd like to do this, could you put together an example showing, say, Oot to Lunch, Sewer Luck! and Ouch! You bump into a door!/Mimic (Cloak) (some selections were diabolically chosen to be difficult!  :)) --Gymnosophist 14:38, 18 September 2006 (CDT)
    • That's why I also had the "special=only under some special condition", meaning it'd be a freeform text input which would auto-translate a few common options. --Quietust 15:24, 18 September 2006 (CDT)
      • Well, I guess that sounds dandy then. The template change would be just a behind-the-scenes change that wouldn't change the current look? --Gymnosophist 16:03, 18 September 2006 (CDT)
    • "really, really one time" sounds really, really bad. What's wrong with (Once)/(One per Ascension) or (One Time)/(One Time per Ascension)? It sounds so much better than "It's really, really one time... I swearz0rs". --JRSiebz (☎|§|‡) 17:40, 18 September 2006 (CDT)
  • We could change it, sure. I just thought it sounded... KoLish. But I think "one time" is best used for the one-time-per-ascension meaning for a couple of reasons: Firstly, because it's been the historical de facto definition, one that has gained traction. We shouldn't try to alter it's meaning at this point - it will cause too much confusion. Secondarily, because it's shorter and will be used much more frequently than whatever we use for really-really-one-time. (seeing "One Time per Ascension drop" sprinkled throughout the item pages doesn't really work for me). How bout "One time. No, seriously, ONE TIME!"? Err, perhaps not. I think that whatever we chose for really-really-one-time will be something of a neologism, but offhand, I can't think of any corking good ones. --Gymnosophist 18:10, 18 September 2006 (CDT)

New Category?

With the induction of the hideous task of creating the misshapen animal skeleton, it may in fact be worthwhile to categorize Dusty Animal Bones as per the Category: tag I've been adding to the new pages I've been creating. Would having 100 seperate items (101 if we count the dusty animal skull, 102 if we count the pile of dusty animal bones constitute having a proper Category?--Katarani 05:05, 20 September 2006 (CDT)

This has been handled by creating a master dusty animal bones page instead of a category. --Jonrock 16:48, 10 October 2006 (CDT)
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