User talk:Lymaniii

Welcome, fellow piñata enthusiast!

Hello, Lymaniii, and welcome to PinataIsland.info! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• How to edit a page
• Help pages

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I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! FeralKitty (talk) 19:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

The updates and additions that you made are appreciated! --FeralKitty (talk) 19:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Everything but the kitchen sink

It's a familiar concept that bites many of us at times, to creep more features into an application, to add more bells and whistles to some item, to cram more "content" into a wiki article. Being an idealistic person myself, it's easy to imagine having 100% of the details within a wiki article. Having done that, one could also lay that article out so it's viewable at, say, 800x600.

While it's possible to do something, I think the more important question, subjective as it is, is whether or not we should should do something. As an example, let's use the arctic versions and variants, and how I had set out to fit sub-garden species PV cards into the species article sandbox. Certainly, it's species-specific, so the cards are in the right article, and let's say it looks great at any resolution. Do we want to add those images to the article, and its Infobox? Is there a need to cram more visual information in there, to make the Infobox longer, to make the article longer, to give the viewer more information to look at or scroll past? Surely the majority of people come to the species article for the requirements, and the arctic version card is mostly incidental? Images can be worth a thousand words, but in this case, we're not sparing the viewer from thousands of words. I think seven more images bloated the article, and adding a sentence or two would be a better trade-off.

Giving people too much information can lead to other problems. Maybe some viewers are avid or diligent readers, and will take in and appreciate every tidbit of information, but other viewers may overlook what they're searching for, because its buried somewhere in the paragraphs of text and screenful of images. Now, technically, that's not the wiki's fault (since it's supposed to be a reference source of information about the game), and it should be the burden of the visitor to read articles, but experience has shown us that people don't "find" information (that's) at the wiki.

I don't think the solution is to cram more information in, every single place where someone someone might look for or expect it. I think solutions have to do with improving navigation, organization, and presentation. Yes, trick item cards could be added to a challenge article, but then they should be added to the species article too, right? So, we add this in there, and so forth, and the whole thing spirals. It gets harder to search the site, because you get hits all over the place, and it gets harder to maintain the site, because it's got thousands and thousands of images and repeated information in all sorts of different places, and the harder it is to maintain, the less accurate it can become, which interferes with its purpose as a reference. I favor the "keep it simple" philosophy. If it's not broken, it probably shouldn't be fixed, especially if the "fix" is more complex than what existed beforehand.

I guess that's why I get a little leery of adding features like "click on this link to see a PV card for the item to learn a trick," because the mechanism might not be intuitive or obvious to everyone, because it's not consistent across the site (and visitors haven't had to do that before for other images), and because it didn't feel simple (or look ok, back then). To me, the trade-off for trick item cards seems to be between "making the site make it easier for the gamer to earn achievements," versus "making the site easier to use, period."

We're adding cards to make it easier to accomplish 100% of the challenges. Isn't that good enough? I think that the wiki was meant as a reference. Adding trick item cards too just feels like "everything but the kitchen sink," and I don't think we should take articles that far, to cram every possible image into them. --FeralKitty (talk) 22:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

We need to get each other's instant messaging IDs so we can chat better! :-) I just left a long comment on the same topic a couple minutes before you posted this (over on the Langston page). I appreciate what you're saying, but it's a stretch to extrapolate from including directly relevant images that, if executed correctly, are completely consistent with a concise and navigable page to the idea that thousands and thousands of images are going to clog up the flow of the site. Lymaniii 23:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

This site takes up so much of my time as is. I think discussions work better for me, timeslice-wise. Also, wiki discussions will keep everyone (especially Jim) in the loop, and any member can participate in (or catch up) with article discussions that interest them. --FeralKitty (talk) 00:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Mostly I was joking. It does seem an inefficient way of back-and-forth on something. Especially when it's branched out to different locations.Lymaniii 11:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm with you on your explanation of keeping the arctic species details in a separate linked place. That's perfectly reasonable and your rationale makes sense. However, the site *is* broken in the sense of easy navigation, and it does need to be fixed. I have seen many comments from people that *have* searched and scoured and tried to find information that they know is there somewhere, but they're unable to find it. Even BIGsheep has made comments along those lines, more than once. In the case of the arctic tigermisu, a link to the arctic article is good, but a teaser that gives the user some sense that there's interesting information there other than just a list of arctic species is even better. Lymaniii 23:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

All we need is a volunteer with the time/motivation to step up and start to deal with any navigation shortcomings. As for things like the artic details, or finding other information, I proposed the "ten things" article as a way to pull together obscure information. None of the things you're mentioning are new. It just takes time and effort to add content or fix issues, and my to-do list has enough stuff on it. Find something you want to work on, and go for it. As long as we're moving forward (solving problems), instead of sideways or backwards (creating other problems), you'll have my approval and gratitude. --FeralKitty (talk) 00:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

If I could only predict what you believe moves us forward (as we apparently disagree on that with regularity!). :-) Lymaniii 11:42, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have a very specific idea of what makes for good navigation, organization, and presentation, but I'm arguing for the exact same goals with a different idea of what gets us there. You and I can speculate about what people come to the site for and how to make it better suited to that purpose, but what we really need is actual numbers of people that use actual pages, search strings, resolutions, etc. For example, I think we agree that a lot of people just go to the species articles to find out the requirements. But what seems crazy to me is that the TIP and classic species requirements are included on the same page. That makes for *horrible* navigation. And it's unnecessary, really, since the page is really just multiple pages that download together when any individual user only needs one of them. If you want to go from species to species, it takes two clicks since you have to constantly be resetting the tabs. The most prominent search term on the wiki is "pinata vision", but the page that it leads to is a very poorly navigable linear list of many hundreds of text links. If that's the *main* reason people come to the site, surely there's a better way to organize that information (and I don't think progressively longer unabbreviated names is it). Lymaniii 23:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I have no access to logs. If Jim wants to share referrer strings or statistics, you'd have to take that up with him. I hope though that you won't use actual facts to contradict any of my speculations :p

The tabs may make for inconvenient navigation, but the real horror would be splitting every single tabbed article up into a series of articles. You'd have just increased the number of search hits by a factor of 2-5, making it less likely people will find the right page in the results. It also means additional information would have to be duplicated -- instead of answering a question on one page, it would have to be answered on every tab you split off onto a new article.

Frankly, I find the tabs convenient, as it's easier to visually note differences or missing information between tabs within a single article, than different articles' content.

As for the pinata vision deal, there are articles and there are categories, and categories themselves should have their own articles, with catmores to them. If they don't, no one has gotten around to improving them. I can point you in the right direction, if you need an example to follow. Almost every cloud term is a category. Maybe the cloud should filter out (or rewrite) category links, if corresponding articles exist, since category articles are more user-friendly than categories. --FeralKitty (talk) 00:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I recognize that splitting those pages would be a nightmare--it is the real instance of where a particular choice in site design becomes nearly impossible to change (rather than providing a piece of information in two places), and unfortunately this is an instance where it really does matter. While the tabs most certainly make for an easier *author* experience, I can tell you most certainly from my own *user* experience they are a pain. I have finished Classic and no longer need to see those pages, but I am *constantly* being forced back to its pages. Not only that, but the FAQs at the bottom of many pages have answers that apply only to Classic and could easily be giving frankly incorrect impressions to visitors. Now *that's* a problem with site design. Lymaniii 11:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Pointing out site design shortcomings only takes us so far. Do you have any solutions and/or time to implement them? --FeralKitty (talk) 20:33, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Regardless, I brought up that and the PV list only as examples of how the most used parts of the site are the worst designed. How the category and catmores work is unfamiliar to me. I just know the present state of affairs has great potential for improvement, and that preserving the site's search function and clear navigation as a justification for limiting improvements elsewhere is a bit laughable as there's little to preserve. I'm being frank here, as you have been, and no insults to you or the site owner are intended.Lymaniii 11:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, I hope I haven't annoyed you by discussing these things with you. Online communication is notorious for fostering misunderstandings, and I sense a certain edginess in some of our exchanges. I realize it's somewhat presumptuous for me to waltz in here rocking the boat when you've invested unnumerable hours in this site on a near daily basis for years. So, thanks for all you do and please accept all of these ideas as they are intended--just to be helpful and improve things.Lymaniii 23:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the same amount of time, energy, or enthusiasm to tackle some of the bigger issues I used to deal with, myself. There's too much work for one person to do it all, and I'm involved with the forum too, to the wiki's long-standing detriment. I don't care if the boat is rocked, but it does at times get a little tedious going over the same issues, as people come and go. I like ideas -- they stimulate discussions and hopefully lead to ideal solutions -- I think we just need more people to tackle the things that need some attention, as I'm less of a contributor and more of a maintainer, these days. --FeralKitty (talk) 00:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Eliminating tabs

Before we go down this path, do you have the time to fix this?

For the sake of example, let's arbitrarily use the following convention for article names:

• [[Mousezilla]] (A disambiguation page, with links to each of the other pages. One could also make it a redirect to the most popular game's species, but that's no different than having made Classic the default tab -- the redirect would be fine for, say, Trouble in Paradise gamers, but takes other gamers to the wrong article. On the other hand, taking people to a disambiguation page makes them click one more time, which is no different than taking them to the wrong page.)
• [[Mousezilla (Trouble in Paradise)]]
• [[Mousezilla (Trouble in Paradise - Just for Fun)]]
• [[Mousezilla (Pocket Paradise)]]
• [[Mousezilla (TV show)]]

For this to fix the "getting to the wrong page" complaint, all other links that refer to [[Mousezilla]] have to be rewritten. If the link is on a game-specific page, say [[Apple tree (Trouble in Paradise)]], then the link gets changed to [[Mousezilla (Trouble in Paradise)]]. What about pages that aren't game-specific? I'd think that they'd have to be split into their own disambiguated pages, and given game-specific links. If you don't do that, then the "wrong page, need to click another tab/link" issue merely has changed from Classic -> Trouble in Paradise to disambiguation -> Trouble in Paradise. So, you'd really have to split all sorts of articles to rewrite links, such as plants, achievements, and shops. (If tabs should be eliminated, I'd imagine it should be site-wide.)

Assuming all the links are rewritten, once you're in Trouble in Paradise article "space," all the rewritten links should keep you there. Now, how do you get/navigate to Trouble in Paradise space in the first place, and how do you navigate from one game space to another, if someone wants/needs to do so? The navigation would need to be completely rewritten. I'd expect that it would make sense to go with a game-centric navigation to match the game-split article paradigm. So split navigation, using current navigation examples, starts to look like:

• Classic
  • FAQ (Classic)
  • Species (Classic)
  • Tips and Strategies (Classic)
• Trouble in Paradise
  • FAQ (Trouble in Paradise)
  • Species (Trouble in Paradise)
  • Tips and Strategies (Trouble in Paradise)

Let's assume that is done via drop-down or flyout menus, since one certainly wouldn't want to see that as a list of links. So, someone might have to code and support a new menu system, since I don't think mediawiki supports either type of menu. (I'd love to see new menus and have brought up a top bar suggestion several times, but never got around to working on anything.)

So, given some new proposal and an idea of the changes that would have to be made, do we have people who will make all these changes, taking it through to the end, so the wiki isn't left in a part-changed mix of tabbed and split articles?

What are the reasons for splitting the articles, in the first place? What problems are being fixed, besides the "extra click?" (I'm not sure it's possible to eliminate all extra clicks; wouldn't we just be introducing a different extra click, via the disambiguation or navigation? Are we fixing a problem, or did we move sideways?)

What are some of the advantages or disadvantages of doing this? For me, the biggest concern has to do with searching. Does this make it easier to find information? Well, on the topic of searching this new split-article wiki, let's assume someone searches for Mousezilla. The nature of the default wiki search is that if there's an article with that title, they'll be taken directly to that article, instead of being shown all hits. So, they're going to land on the Mousezilla disambiguation page, and have to make an extra click. (Even if results were shown, they still have to make an extra click on the search result link that they choose to visit.)

Let's assume results were shown (either because they clicked on Search instead of Go, or because no named article existed, so occurrences were shown). In a split-article wiki, you get hits from every split article, so they'd have 2-5 times the number of search results. Considering the complaints about searching, I wouldn't think it would be an improvement to generate more results, would it?

To answer your question here, I see moving forward as a solution that solves a problem without making another problem worse. Like you often point out, the wiki has things that need fixing. I think everyone would like to see them fixed, so let's look for ways that eliminate problems. If there's a way to do that by splitting articles as you suggest, I'm interested. --FeralKitty (talk) 20:33, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that thorough response including a number of technical issues related. I don't think there's a feasible way to make changes that would solve the problem without excessive effort, and I don't think anyone has the time or will for that. As a side comment, while search is important, the scope of the wiki isn't so large that search is as necessary as it is for other wikis. Basically, providing a more thorough site map may be more helpful than trying to hedge up the accuracy of search results. Anyway, I've been mulling all these things, because I recognize that criticisms without solutions aren't helpful. My own preferred way to improve the site is to create a new page that includes a brief summary of the most commonly sought information. I looked into it a bit today, and I'll try to work something up for you to have a look at. I do apologize for letting my exasperation show in my comments earlier today (here and elsewhere), but the issues we were discussing are widely relevant, not just to the specific issue then at hand. If you don't like the idea of pages that serve a purpose that is served elsewhere, there's no future for the page I have in mind. Basically, I imagine the existing species pages as remaining the 'comprehensive' article on that species, and it's appropriate that it have the verbiage from the game, etc. But I believe many, perhaps most, people open the site as they're playing the game so they can find the requirements they need for whatever they are trying to accomplish, and that need moves rapidly from species to species. I imagine it would have been wonderful to have a table of all the species and their requirements (similar to walkthroughs I've seen on other sites) including links to PV cards. Because the bulk of the hundreds of PV cards could be linked from such a grid, it would both organize those cards and provide a summary list of requirements that wouldn't require flipping from species page to species page (and tab to tab). So, I'll work on that. And don't rule it out til you see it, please. I see it as a "workaround" for reworking all the pages as you've discussed, and I sense that you are loathe to employ workarounds.  :-) But I genuinely think it will help, and it is an achievable task. Lymaniii 23:12, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

PV crib sheet

I started creating the table I mentioned previously. It is on my user page (since I don't know how to create subpages as sandbox pages, or whatever). I put the requirements into an excel spreadsheet and then used concatenate functions to build the wiki syntax to link to the appropriate PV card. Trouble is that the naming conventions frequently aren't followed and when there are two types of items in a column, the naming convention doesn't lend itself to a single concatenate formula (e.g. creating the filename string for a chili takes a different equation than for a bunnycomb, even though they are both items included in the trick column. So, my questions are:

• Is this a page you would allow to exist?
• What is the best way to address the naming problems--fix the files' names or make the link match the existing incorrect name? Both are a little labor intensive, but it seems best to go with the former. On the other hand, that also means updating all the individual species pages that are linking to the files that have an incorrect name. Maybe there's some nice wiki feature that will update linking references automatically when you update a particular image and replace it with a new image with a new filename? [hoping, although assuming nothing could possibly be that easy]
• I recognize that this doesn't follow the convention elsewhere on the site where these words would lead to an article page rather than an image. But, I would submit that as a unique individual page it could note at the outset that all links within the table are to PV images (as that is the purpose of the page, with a secondary purpose being a shortened cheat list of requirements). Given this irregularity, would you tolerate this sort of departure?