Difference between revisions of "User talk:Xenocidic/Archive 1"

Revision as of 00:05, 24 August 2008

Discussing naming conventions

Category:Arctic - :Arctic species ?

Do you think it's worthwhile to make a subcat? Will there be vegetation that is confirmed to the arctic, for example, that might also need to be categorized? –xenocidic (talk) 02:30, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

There will be arctic (and desert) plants, and we'll most likely do categories for them -- we already have an old Category:Water Flower, for example. At the moment, arctic is a sub-category of species, and the plants are sub-categories of Category:Garden Piece. If there were enough arctic articles for a top-level, then it may be worth doing a top-level category, as we've done with/for Species. (Species used to be the category for the Classic species, when there was only one game in existence.)

Navbox-wise, though, we treat the plants as a single collective {{plants}} Navbox and that will probably remain that way at the bottom of their articles. I don't think we're going to break them down by game, as we now do species.

In general, I think I'm trying to stick to the KISS principle, not overcategorize, and mostly just fix things that need reorganizing to support multiple games, instead of trying to fix everything at once.

Since the time we've known about the new games, we've talked about reorganizing things, and a lot of changes that are being made are a result of that long and continuing reorg discussion. There's an old User:FeralKitty/Reorg document that hasn't been updated in ages. It mostly lists what we want to fix, but not what has (exactly) been decided, since then. --FeralKitty 03:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok. {{VP2}} will add the article to Category:Trouble in Paradise, which should help us focus on the new stuff once the game hits. {{div}} can be used to more easily do those different tabbing boxes. basically if I start doing stuff that is running counter to how you guys have already planned, just let me know. I'll go over that reorg doc now. could you tweak your sig to include a link to your talk page? also, feel free to reply wherever a conversation starts rather than bouncing back and forth. –xenocidic (talk) 03:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

template - cat - contents

• TIP - Category:Trouble in Paradise - top level stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere i.e. Couch Social and all child cats
  • TIP-species - Category:TIP-species - 2nd level for subcat purposes, could also house every species if we want
    • TIP-species-normal
      • TIP-species-normal-aquatic
      • TIP-species-normal-flying
    • TIP-species-arctic - Category:TIP-species-arctic
    • TIP-species-desert
    • TIP-species-evolved
  • TIP-vegetation - Category:TIP-vegetation
    • TIP-vegetation-flowers
    • TIP-vegetation-bushes
    • TIP-vegetation-trees

stopped there - there will be so many categories... what about instead of breaking it up like that we just include many categories like Aquatic - then we can include plants and species, and they get their own category for terrain, etc? or do you really want categories to be so specific?

so a species could have category:aquatic category:arctic category:tip .... not sure. –xenocidic (talk) 20:05, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Outline of needs

Let's break the problem down into its components. We have:

• What do we call the templates? (a naming convention topic)
• What are the articles that need to be categorized? (a hierarchy topic)
• What are the categories that the templates will hold? (a namespace/hierarchy topic)

We don't need to solve the naming convention first, so let's set aside the template name for now.

As for the articles, they're mostly categorized already:

1. People can ask to see species by any type or by any game, so we probably have the species adequately categorized, even though the category names might need some tweaking.
2. People can ask to see everything about TiP, so we have that covered.
3. As for asking what's new about TiP, what are you asking?
   1. What species are new? Covered in the Navboxes, for now. Not sure there's a good reason why we'd want to make a category for new TiP species.
   2. What's new about the game? This is pretty much asking to see everything about TiP, since I'm not sure anything that is categorized there isn't new.

What do you think so far? Are we missing any other category queries that we couldn't answer with the existing categories? --FeralKitty (talk) 20:51, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I suppose not. I'm kinda thinking that broad categories might be best. If someone wants to build an arctic garden, they can pull up category:arctic and see what plants and species can go in that garden. what do you think? likewise for aquatic and desert. –xenocidic (talk) 21:59, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's the way people generally approach garden design, and that's the way the types are organized. It wouldn't make sense to do combinations of types.

Do you feel that any articles don't fit into the single top-level TiP category? --FeralKitty (talk) 22:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

well at the present time arctic and desert are exclusive to TIP so they belong as subcats but in the future in theory they'd get pulled. are flowers such going to use tabbed browsing as well? –xenocidic (talk) 22:26, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

naming conventions

Should we move {{VP2}} to {{TIP}} then? If we want to not use VP2 in favor of TIP... –xenocidic (talk) 19:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

As I just wrote elsewhere, let's hold off on renaming things, and get the spec done. Once we agree on something that's uniform and robust enough to support both our needs across all namespaces and for classes and idents, then we'll have the answer for the correct template name to use. Sound good? --FeralKitty (talk) 19:34, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

moving on

Can we start discussing stuff mostly on wiki? –xenocidic (talk) 17:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Just please let me reply instead of pasting my replies from elsewhere. It's a bit bothersome to try to save and find out that you've replied for me in the meantime :) --FeralKitty (talk) 18:44, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Italics would work to highlight the new species in the navboxes. –xenocidic (talk) 17:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, you're talking about Template:Species ? i like the "Types" division ... i think it's ok. I'm wondering exactly why we have to seperate "just for fun" species. won't they behave basically the same except not getting sick and such? –xenocidic (talk) 17:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Just for Fun is also meant for younger gamers. It has fewer pinatas, and their requirements are simpler/easier to complete than the same species in Standard mode. -feralkitty (forum msg)

k, that explains why we need the two different tabs and navboxes then. –xenocidic (talk) 18:28, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd still like to categorize all new gameplay elements and mechanics. What if we rename "{{VP2}}" to {{New in TIP}} and it categorizes things into Category:Introduced in Trouble in Paradise or something like that ? –xenocidic (talk) 17:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's try out the italics to start, and hold off on a new category for now. Perhaps a simple solution of just listing out the "new" ones in the cat's article would work just fine, for curious folk. -feralkitty (forum msg)

k, sounds good. –xenocidic (talk) 18:28, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

We actually wouldn't have to list anything. Not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that, as the cat's art has the Navbox, which has the italicized names. Wouldn't that be clear enough? --FeralKitty (talk) 18:44, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, yep, that should be enough. Should I go ahead with tweaking the navboxes with the link template? –xenocidic (talk) 19:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

OK

OK everything is cleaned up. VP2 was renamed to TIP because we shouldn't use VP2 as an acronym. I also think we should discourage camel case in all cases, either "TIP" for the start of a category or template name and "tip" when it's in a class, as it is now. "TiP" should never be used and we should also not have "Tips" for gamers, we should have "Hints".

anyhow, rather than working at cross purposes how about you tell me what is high on our priority list and I can work on that. –xenocidic (talk) 12:59, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You'd have to speak with Jim, if you feel "TiP - Standard" is an inappropriate tab label. I think it's been conventional use on the forum, though, and that people recognize the meaning of TiP in a forum post.

Since I already use tip for styles and TroubleInParadise for template names, that's not a problem. I do think, though, that a template name should be spelled out full, as I'll explain. To be frank about using tip in classes (instead of spelling it out), there's much more likelihood of future game conflicting with those three letters, than if we used the full name, however, it's a reasonable trade off so the class names aren't absurdly long.

I'm more concerned about using TIP outside of classes, alone, as in {{TIP}}. I think acronyms will run into the same problem as JfF (or JFF as you prefer). We should avoid using terse names for categories or templates that might conflict with future terse names.

I think template names should be "sortable/groupable," similar to a list of image names. If we start all Quackberry pics with "Quackberry"..., then it's easy to spot all of them, and/or see if any are missing or misnamed.

So, my suggestion would be to do {{Category-TroubleInParadise}} for a template that transcludes the "Trouble in Paradise" category. It would make it easier to both spot all the category-transcluding templates, and also recognize what the template did. Surely that would be easier to maintain, edit, and/or organize than a variety of {{TIP}}, {{Arctic species}}, {{VPC}}, ... templates throughout the template namespace.

I think there's a difference between a tip and a hint. A tip is an outright piece of information or advice, where a hint is an indirect suggestion without necessarily giving the full details. But, I'm going to leave that up to Jim if he wants to change the sidebar wording.

As for something that would be very helpful, and based on your idea/contribution, I would love to see all the hardcoded categories get replaced by transcluded categories. I think that's an excellent suggestion/approach that you're recommending. How do you feel about making templates for every existing category (but with slight adjustments)? I think the types like Category:Evolved should end up in a template called {{Category-EvolvedSpecies}} instead of {{Evolved}} or {{Category-Evolved}}. I'm not suggesting we also change the category names at the same time, just that we use better-qualified template names to match what the categories probably should have been called. That way, we can support a future {{Category-Arctic}}, as you had suggested, if we decide that a top-level category is needed to hold arctic articles and sub-categories.

If you could make them up, but let me know before you transclude them, I'd like to take a quick glance at them first, please.

How's that sound? --FeralKitty (talk) 13:53, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good. Can we shorten it to just {{Cat-}} like {{Cat-EvolvedSpecies}} or something? or {{CAT-}}?. –xenocidic (talk) 14:03, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there a significant advantage to the shorter name, besides being easier to type? It just seems less readable to me.

We didn't abbreviate the classes -- it's species-tip-content, not spec-tip-cont -- or other template names, so I'm not convinced yet that we should abruptly switch to a different style mid-stream. --FeralKitty (talk) 14:18, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you look at User:Xenocidic#Div codes for tabs/formatting and tell me if I'm missing anything? Is there a jff article div code? –xenocidic (talk) 13:25, 22 August 2008 (UTC) Never mind - I'll pull the necessary codes from MediaWiki:Common.css

Sure, I can glance at it in a bit, but I need to get back to the plants stuff and make some more progress first. Those articles need to get done by today, so most of my attention needs to be there. --FeralKitty (talk) 13:53, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok. I've re-purposed div, by the way. It should be more useful and less resource intensive - instead of a switch it just accepts the class name and puts it in. defaults to a TIP article so you can just use subst:div to create the tab for a TIP article. As it is now, it will only create tabs though, perhaps it should be renamed to "tab". –xenocidic (talk) 14:03, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but I don't really understand why we need it. We don't tend to create a lot of articles, and I know the ones I create I just copy-and-paste from a similar article, or the "blank" species and plant templates. It may be a neat thing, but it seems like a lot of effort working on it, for little reward. Got to get back to the plants. --FeralKitty (talk) 14:13, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

True enough. I mainly plan to use it to convert articles that already exist that need tabs. –xenocidic (talk) 14:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

categories

Here are the proposed templates, example being the evolved one that's already created

[[Template:CAT-Species-Arctic]] [[Template:CAT-Species-Aquatic]] [[Template:CAT-Species-Cryptid]] [[Template:CAT-Species-Domestic]] [[Template:CAT-Species-Evolved]] [[Template:CAT-Species-Flying]] [[Template:CAT-Species-Nocturnal]] [[Template:CAT-Species-Sour]]

This way they can be sorted properly and it's easier to type rather than Category-EvolvedSpecies. I also think typing category out in full could lead to confusion - is it a template or a category? Let me know before I go ahead though, rather than having to rename them if you still want them to say Category in full. –xenocidic (talk) 14:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

That's a much nicer sort order, and also fits much better with the -qualifier convention. Awesome suggestion!

I think I still would like to spell it out in full, please. Human-readable names are simply easier to read than something like CAT-Spec-Fly. --FeralKitty (talk) 14:37, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

• Template:Category-Species-Arctic
• Template:Category-Species-Aquatic
• Template:Category-Species-Cryptid
• Template:Category-Species-Desert
• Template:Category-Species-Domestic
• Template:Category-Species-Evolved
• Template:Category-Species-Flying
• Template:Category-Species-Nocturnal
• Template:Category-Species-Sour

K, they're ready to roll. just give me the go-ahead. –xenocidic (talk) 14:54, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed that Category:Desert is missing. Other than that, everything looks great, so go for it :) This is very helpful and useful to the Reorg and future-proofing, thanks! --FeralKitty (talk) 15:06, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, doing now. I must apologize, I am starting to see the big picture and understand where you are trying to go with all this. I just like complicated templates so much but yesterday was definitely pretty nonproductive! =) –xenocidic (talk) 15:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

renaming the species categories

OK, pretty sure the species are all taken care of. the categories themselves should probably be renamed to Category:Species - Evolved or something of the sort but no rush on this because it's just 1 change in the templates. Do we want a top level template {{Category-Species}} to put onto the categories, or is putting Category:Species enough?

The platform categories should be renamed in line with the above, i.e. Category:Species - Classic, Category:Species - Trouble In Paradise. Thoughts? –xenocidic (talk) 16:41, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks for taking care of them! As far as actually renaming them, I think there are a couple of things to consider:

1. The readability of the Category footer. I'm not sure we want it to get too wordy, too long, or too "backwards." Species - Evolved may work find for a sort order, but it's probably not something that a human needs to see, when reading the footer. I don't even know if I'd want to flip it in readable order, and force people to read "species" repeatedly (e.g. Sherbat would be Categories: Classic species | Trouble in Paradise species | Pocket Paradise species | Flying species | Nocturnal species | Sour species). While I like consistency, it's also a bit long and a bit repetitive. It would be a tough call, and I'm definitely going to let Jim decide that one, if he'd want to change them.
2. Consistency elsewhere. We'd have to go through everything -- templates, articles, etc. and change old visible references to new references. (Sure a #REDIRECT would handle that but I'm not keen on leaving wrong visible references out there. Still, not a big deal, but we've got more important things to do still, and editing articles to "fix" category names would take time away from others issues that require more attention.)

I think the important thing, like you said, is that they can now be changed, easily, if they had to.

As for doing Category:Species or the platform ones, I'd say they're not worth the overhead, and there's no benefit. I don't expect us to change any from one name to another, so I wouldn't do anything with/for those categories. I think they should definitely stay in readable order, so the sub-categories on Category:Species match the articles, and everything is intuitive. (We don't call the article Species - List of Classic or List of Species - Classic, so why flip the categories?)

Again, if Jim happens to feel differently, they could be done later, but why do them in advance, if it turns out that there was no need to change them. --FeralKitty (talk) 17:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

plants

moving onto plants, they should probably be organized hierarchically the same way. so the top level would be simply "Plants"

• Template:Category-Plants
• Template:Category-Plants-Tree
• Template:Category-Plants-Bush
• Template:Category-Plants-Flower
• Template:Category-Plants-Weed
• Template:Category-Plants-Vegetable

, with additional categories for terrain , if necessary

• Template:Category-Plants-Aquatic
• Template:Category-Plants-Arctic
• Template:Category-Plants-Desert
• Template:Category-Plants-Temperate (is that the right word?)

Thoughts? –xenocidic (talk) 16:21, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the plants should be ordered the same way, and since the new Infobox and div container is plant, it all works well. Why don't you go ahead and set those up, please. --FeralKitty (talk) 17:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Excellent points above on the renaming of categories. Question, then, what should the plant terrain categories be called (or are they necessary)?

how about

• Category:Aquatic plants
• Category:Desert plants
• Category:Arctic plants
• Category:Temperate plants (and I don't know if we should be using "Temperate" it's technically correct but our readers might not know what that means) –xenocidic (talk) 17:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

We already have a very poorly named Category:Water Flower which I will happy to see renamed, even if merely to change it to Water flower. :p Honestly, though, this is a bit of a harder question. As much as I hate to say pluralize it, technically the others "sound" plural (i.e. arctic species) :p Still, even if it's a bit improper to do, it "reads" better. If I had Arctic, Arctic species, and Arctic plant on a page, the last would stick out like a sore thumb. Anyway, it's inside a template, so it's not like we're locked into one thing or the other. If Jim or you or I come up with a better idea, we can change it easily. Let's just go with the plurals for now.

As for temperate, if you're not sure about it, maybe ask Jim when he's back. I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other, and he might have a better feeling as to whether it's useful and/or what you might want to call it. (It's really an "odd" category, since it's more of a non-arctic/non-desert set, but I don't know if it would be confusing or not.) --FeralKitty (talk) 17:56, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, will "temperate" plants work in the arctic or the desert? if so it might just be best to call the "Normal plants", or something. –xenocidic (talk) 18:01, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Possibly not. Plants have a specific terrain type where they want to be planted, so you may not be able to plant a non-arctic seed in the snow.

Again, temperate is more of a collection/set, as opposed to a type, which is what the rest of the plant cats are. Let's just let Jim decide. I can't give you a good answer as to whether it should be a category or not. --FeralKitty (talk) 18:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going ahead with the rest, I won't bother with adding the temperate template for now. I guess we can just let readers know that if it's not an arctic or a desert plant, it goes in grass or soil, and it won't go in the arctic or the desert. –xenocidic (talk) 19:02, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Please trust me when I say that we don't need a Template for Category:Plants. There's already a mechanism in place to handle this. --FeralKitty (talk) 19:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

• Do we still want them categorized in "Garden piece"? –xenocidic (talk) 19:32, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, because plants are a subset of Category:Garden Piece. I think Jim wants to overhaul that category/article, although I can't remember what his specific complaint was. Why don't you go ahead and add your new top-level category and its sub-categories to the Site Map (below the species please). --FeralKitty (talk) 19:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Like this ? What's next? –xenocidic (talk) 20:04, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's great, thanks! --FeralKitty (talk) 20:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Next

Thank you for tabbing the shops. It's appreciated. Perhaps check for other articles with missing tabs (besides the plants), or see if we've overlooked any other things that need to be done for the game release.

Outside of that, write some cat art or other {{stub}} content? Make proposals for improving existing templates? Design a better-looking (but not more complex) Infobox? --FeralKitty (talk) 03:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

What about deprecating the tree/bush/flower infoboxes and moving to PlantInfobox? Is that ready to be done yet? –xenocidic (talk) 10:55, 23 August 2008 (UTC)