UESPWiki:Archive/Other Subpages (And why we need them)

This is an archive of past UESPWiki talk:Style Guide discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Subpages (And why we need them)

Fushi has been looking into templates/subpages. They can do some pretty nifty things regarding uniformity of page look and ease of change over large groups of pages. They do have some limits though (namely they need uniformity in naming schemes). Fushi would like to see all of the quests moved to Oblivion:Quests/Questname. He argues that it will help with disambiguation, bogus namespace issues, and make using templates easier. He also acknowledges that it will make the pagenames slightly longer (7 characters longer, to be exact).

Endareth is wary of the subpage idea, because it leaves much to be desired with the way the subpage trails are formatted. Also, switching everything to subpages of Oblivion:Quests might be construed as overkill, as only a few of the quest names conflict with place names.

Garrett wasn't quite sure why the Quests\Questname\Description subpage needed to exist, and didn't "see using subpages for organising data as any different from {{templatename|meaningoflife=42|animal=llama}} etc", as they both have disadvantages. Suggested moving the conflicting quest names to Oblivion:Questname\Quest, so that we could use relative links within the wiki. After the description subpage idea was explained (so that the description for given quest need only be changed in that one place, and having all embeds of that page change with it), he seemed supportive of at least that.

Aristeo said that he supported the idea, but he wanted to remind everyone not to take it too far. --Aristeo 15:12, 15 May 2006 (EDT)

Fushi then asked for informal voting on the matter:

So, from the muckity mucks, we seem to have 1 yea, 2 nea. I would like to know the official answer of what we're doing here, so I can either undo the changes I made, or continue with them. I'd like to point out as well, I'll make sure that all the links throughout the wiki are redone to the correct pages, so if it's a maintenance issue that you're worrying about, don't. Fushi 17:28, 30 April 2006 (EDT)

I'm in favour of the /Desc side of things, really like the idea actually. It was really only the moveing to /Quest that I'm unsure on, and the two are not (as far as I know) dependent, and I'd like to see the /Desc style continue. I only have a query about the /Quest because we have had various discussions previously about long page names vs. short page names. This is slightly different as by having them longer (with the /Quest) it does provide other benefits. I'm happy to go with the majority, think we need another couple of votes here! -- Endareth^Talk 20:30, 30 April 2006 (EDT)

I'm obviously in favor of it =-). The long page name issue is almost moot, because the only reason to have short names, as I see it, is for easy linking. Template the linking, problem solved. I'd like to hear some more counterarguments now, that way the issues can be solved before (if) we change over. Fushi 20:45, 30 April 2006 (EDT)

Apparently the preference for shorter page names was for people typing in the name in the browser I believe. As I pretty much never do this myself I'm somewhat ambivalent about the need for it. -- Endareth^Talk 20:52, 30 April 2006 (EDT)

Who does that? That's what the search is for. I suppose nesting the pages within /quest would also make the search function more reliable: "fingers of the mountain quest" would probably bring up more reliable searches than just "fingers of the mountain" Fushi 21:16, 30 April 2006 (EDT)

I had a look at some of the pages that you changed into subpages and I have a couple of comments:

• There is now the problem of duplicate crumb trails in these pages.
• You may want to consider distinguishing between the Main Quest and the Mages Guild Quests, e.g. Oblivion:Main_Quest/Find_the_Heir or Oblivion:Mages_Quests/Ulterior_Motives.

As for the rest of what has been discussed already, I agree with the changes, especially the template linking/description trick. --DrPhoton 06:20, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

There isn't a duplication of crumb trails. One is a crumb trail, one is a subpage trail (similar, but not the same). Also, the only reason to move everything into Quests/ is for a uniform naming scheme. Breaking everything down into Main-Quests/ etc would not provide a uniform naming scheme. Unfortunately, you can't remove the subpage trail. Fushi 07:33, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

Maybe the subpage trail can be reformated to substitute the current crumb trail. Is that possible? Furthermore, I don't see your point about uniformity, can you be more explicit? In my view, it could hapen (or not) that two different quests, one from the Main Quest and one from the Mages Guild for example, have the same name. Then, following your suggestion for disambiguation, we could use the names I mentioned. I don't know if this actually happens, so it's just a thought. --DrPhoton 09:59, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

I'm pretty sure that quests don't have conflicting names (As they aren't referred to in game as Main Quest: Escape from Prison). The only case I know of (in oblivion, at least) is Fingers of the Mountain, which is split up (in game) into Part I and Part II. Also, no the subpage trail cannot be reformatted, at least not at the editing level. Probably can be at the php level, but that would require more access than I currently have, and I'm not entirely sure if anyone who has that access has the knowledge (or will to learn) to do so. What I mean by uniformity is this: My current plan is to have ALL quests (every single last one of them) placed as such: gamename:Quests/Questname. This allows a template to ask for just the game and questname, and from there, it can pull information about that specific quest. (Ex: Template:Quest Link). Adding another layer (in this case Main Quest, or Mages Guild) would mean that an editor would need to add that information to the template call. This makes using the template more difficult, as well as makes designing further templates more difficult (and they become more obfuscated). Also,for things like the mages guild, figuring out what quests belong is easy. However, each recommendation quest also belongs in the respective city, and thus, could be categorized that way. All of this added with the fact that some people aren't comfortable with adding 7 characters to a page name, I'm sure that they would be even less comfortable with adding more characters. Fushi 16:19, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

Quick question, how does having the quest in a Quests/ section make it easier to pull the questname? I can see how the Desc/ section works, but not the Quests/ one. Oh, and I agree with you Fushi that it's not worth trying to break it down further into Mage/Main quest sections. -- Endareth^Talk 00:58, 2 May 2006 (EDT)

I'm not sure what you're asking here, Endareth. Putting a quest in Quests/ doesn't necessarily easier to pull, it just guaruntees differentiation from any places or people. I suppose it does make it easier becuase you don't have to know if a quest has been put in Quests/ for differentiation or if it still lies directly in the game namespace. Putting everything in Quests/ means you KNOW everything is there. Fushi 04:21, 2 May 2006 (EDT)

Ah I understand what you mean now, if a page is in Quests/ then we can safely assume that specific Quest related templates can be used without having to manually go and check each page. In theory anyway. I can agree with that as being useful. -- Endareth^Talk 08:18, 2 May 2006 (EDT)

I see what you mean by unifromity now. Then differentiation between quests could be done by categories (Main Quest, Mages Guild, etc..). So my only remaining worry is the double trail. There must be some intelligent way around it. Any ideas? --DrPhoton 07:55, 2 May 2006 (EDT)

As I understand it, the secondary trail (from the /) is very small, and only links directly back to the immediate parent page. It also can only be changed by editing the PHP. While it's obviously preferable to not have it, as this change can only be done by Daveh I think we should be able to put up with it until Daveh can get time to fix it up. -- Endareth^Talk 08:18, 2 May 2006 (EDT)

Actually, the subpage trail links back all the way up the subpage tree. In this case, however, the subpage tree is only two levels deep. Think of it like directories in a filesystem. Fushi 15:58, 2 May 2006 (EDT)

Are we going to hear anything definitive from any of the sysops (other than User:Endareth, who is happy to go with the majority)? I'd like to get to work either flipping everything over, or changing everything back. Fushi 00:27, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

I'm all for uniformity and non-conflicting quest/location names. However, my main concern with :{{/Description}} is that when you try to edit a quest description (to fix wrong info, incorrect link, poor grammar, spelling, etc) all you see in the edit box is:

==Description==

{{/Description}}

and no other text. This obviously makes it difficult to edit the content, since no content is visible. From an editing point of view I find this very difficult to work with (well, that's my point, there's nothing to work with). Is there any way around it so that when using :{{/Description}} the contents of a quest description shows up in the edit section? If that could be fixed I'm all for it. Jondrasar 05:46, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

There's no way around that (other than perhaps altering the "Templates used on this page:" filter to also display transcluded pages). This has also been used for the Oblivion places without many problems. A possible solution would be including an "edit this section" sort of link as part of the transclusion. This would be easily achieved by using a template for transclusion (e.g. changing {{namespace:pagename}} to {{transclusion|namespace:pagename}} or similar). Garrett^Talk 06:35, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, it all looks good to me. As for the subpage it's actually possible to disable it at the CSS level. I'll look into that. Bah, scratch that, I'd have to disable the "(Redirected from wherever)" style too, and that's too useful to lose. It's up to Dave now. Garrett^Talk 06:46, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

I'm looking into it now, but assuming that there are no feasible workarounds (which appears not to be the case, I'm just saying worse case scenario), I think it should be noted on the editors page that "If you don't know what you're doing, ask someone to help explain". That's pretty much the case with tables as is (because any text based interpretation of tables is messy at best, and wiki does an ok job of it, not a great one). Fushi 16:18, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Endareth proposed {{/Description}}^{[[/Description|edit]]}, which is what I'm going with now, templated. Just stick {{Quest Description}} into any quest that's been converted over, and it will automatically display the description, with an edit link. Doing it this way also means if we ever want to change it again, we need only change the template, not the pages. Fushi 16:26, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Ah, much better. :) Garrett^Talk 16:47, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

All of this makes me wonder if we shouldn't put all content in subpages for a quest, then transclude it to the quests page, and lock the quests page. This would ensure stylechanges happened in the templates, yet still allow people to edit content. I myself am a bit wary of the idea, but I thought I'd throw it out there. Also, all of the quests that were changed over to use subpages have now had the description changed to include an edit link. Fushi 16:53, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Yes, much better. I had noticed this in the template: "It should be noted that in order for this to work, the page "Namespace:Quests/Questname/Description" must exist, and contain the description for the quest. To simplify editing, {{/Description}} may be used on the quest page in place of the description, and it will automatically insert the text from Questname/Description." and was going to suggest trying to link directly to the description page. Nice work, looks like you nailed it, heh. Although, it does remove the links on the right to edit the various sections and one must now edit the whole page to edit Details, which really isn't a problem... I kinda like it, cleans up the look with fewer edit buttons and is still fully editable :) Jondrasar 18:13, 3 May 2006 (EDT)

Oppose ":Quest/" - It's ugly and there's no reason to. At least on the ":Quests/" side of things. I'm alright with ":Desc/" and ":Description/", but we really need to pick one and stick with it. I've conducted a vote on UESPWiki_talk:Editing on whether or not we should have quests under ":Quests/". --Aristeo 18:44, 20 July 2006 (EDT)