Proposal: Changes to some conventions in the new wiki

weldon · May 6, 2010

Here's what I'd like to go ahead with...

PC: - for player character sheets
SET: - for setting pages (we can use categories to group by areas and regions. NPC's that belong to the setting - the Five - would go here.
ADV: - for adventure pages (NPC's that belong to an adventure would go here. They could be moved to SET: if they become of interest to the shared world.)
L4W: - for admin pages. I would actually use the project namespace here, {{ns:4}}

Any comments on moving forward with the extended set of custom namespaces?

covaithe · May 7, 2010

Late to the party as usual...

What do we get from a custom namespace? I mean, what's the difference between creating a custom namespace called ADV for adventures and just having a convention that pages relating to adventures are named with something like ADV:My_Adventure_Name?

I'm in favor of moving the pages named L4W

C:whatever to be named PC:whatever, especially if someone is willing to do the donkey work. I'm not sure I see the point of imposing a structure on the rest of the pages, especially if it involves work. I mean, I see the point that the L4W prefix is redundant now, and next time I go to create a new page I'll name it without the prefix. And next time I work on an existing page with the prefix, I'll probably try to use the move function to remove the prefix. Unless someone automates the process and takes away the L4W prefix from all pages, of course. That would be fine.

One other thing: I suggest we avoid using L4W as a meaningful name for a while, just in case any pages get missed, or someone doesn't get the memo and makes a new page using the old rules. That would get very confusing. If we need a collective name for admin pages, just use Admin or Tracking or Meta or something like that.

weldon · May 7, 2010

covaithe said:
What do we get from a custom namespace? I mean, what's the difference between creating a custom namespace called ADV for adventures and just having a convention that pages relating to adventures are named with something like ADV:My_Adventure_Name?

There is little difference to the casual user. The page titles actually look the same.

There is a big difference when trying to do something programmatic with the wiki. The character table page is a great potential replacement to the character status page because it is driven by the character sheets themselves, you don't have to go to two places to make an update.

As an example, I could make an "adventure table" page that would list all the current adventures as long as DM's updated their own adventure page. They wouldn't have to go in and edit a shared page with the info on their adventure(s).

It requires a different way of doing things and creates some work up front, but in the long run I think it makes a more reliable system.

covaithe said:
I'm in favor of moving the pages named L4WC:whatever to be named PC:whatever, especially if someone is willing to do the donkey work. I'm not sure I see the point of imposing a structure on the rest of the pages, especially if it involves work.

I'm trying to be cautious about recommending huge changes that would require tons of work. I think the pc, adventure, and setting namespaces would be just enough light structure to do some really useful things without becoming burdensome.

covaithe said:
One other thing: I suggest we avoid using L4W as a meaningful name for a while, just in case any pages get missed, or someone doesn't get the memo and makes a new page using the old rules. That would get very confusing. If we need a collective name for admin pages, just use Admin or Tracking or Meta or something like that.

For other reasons, the L4W would not be used for a while. I will have to remove "L4W:" from every page title before I could create the namespace anyways. This will be something that I will bring up again later.

I'm ready to move ahead with "PC:", "ADV:", and "SET:" though.

weldon · May 9, 2010

duplicate post

weldon · May 9, 2010

All of the player character pages have been moved. I had wikia support create the "ADV:" and "SET:" namespaces as well, but I have not moved any of those pages.

Thanks to everyone for the support. There's still a lot of work to be done, but I am really looking forward to having everything organized and the semantic structure in place to make browsing and linking a lot more useful.

Can I ask a judge to please change the character creation instructions to remove the "L4W:" from the recommended page name for new character pages?

Thanks!

Lord Sessadore · May 13, 2010

weldon said:
Can I ask a judge to please change the character creation instructions to remove the "L4W:" from the recommended page name for new character pages?

Thanks!

Done. Thanks for your work, weldon!

I also updated the link to the Character Status page in the character creation guide, since it still pointed to the ENWorld wiki (which of course makes it a broken link). Not that that has anything to do with this thread, really.