WikiLore planning and discussion

[FreelanceWizard]

*poke* No thoughts on the above?

 

I've also gone ahead and moved everyone to the new Vector-based skin. If you run into any weirdness that isn't caused by a page's design (I know some pages do some funky stuff with divs that can implode the skin), let me know.

[Melkire]

I like the idea of using theater nomenclature in place of clunky/unwieldy titles ("Player-created", "Unofficial", etc.) but I'm a little concerned that folks new to the lore wiki will take one look at those names ("Props," etc.) and not immediately grasp that those categories service unofficial elements not canonized by Square-Enix.

[Maril]

I like the idea of using theater nomenclature in place of clunky/unwieldy titles ("Player-created", "Unofficial", etc.) but I'm a little concerned that folks new to the lore wiki will take one look at those names ("Props," etc.) and not immediately grasp that those categories service unofficial elements not canonized by Square-Enix.

 

How about including a small disclaimer (possibly one people can make poof once they have read it) that explains it on the articles they would affect?

[FreelanceWizard]

Hmm, that's an interesting point. I'm hoping that we can reduce confusion a few ways:

1. Lore pages all have a blue background and the flagged revs stuff at the top.
   
2. All the non-lore categories will have text indicating they're player-created in the category description.
   
3. There'll be a new sidebar panel for player-created things. (Generally, I plan on reorganizing the sidebar. I think there's too many options and too much mixing of lore and non-lore.)
   
4. The non-lore categories will be in a different category structure than the lore categories.
   
5. Everything in the main namespace is player-created and looks the same (white background, no flagged revs interface, no Lore prefix to the page).
   

I can set up dismissable notices on a per-namespace basis with an extension, but that would get a little tricky since all of the player-created items are in the main namespace, whereas all lore is in the new Lore namespace. So, the notice would pop even on player character pages, which I don't think is what we want.

[ansemaru]

I might have something that's of use for this.

 

Or, rather, several somethings.

 

Over the past month, I've undertaken an effort to compile all lore-related text from disparate sources in the game- various logs (minion, mount, sightseeing), leves, fates, item descriptions, npc dialogue, etc.- and distill it into a resource organized around lore information rather than un-networked gameplay description such as in the cases of the Gamerescape wiki and xivdb. It's incomplete as of now and done wholly independently of actual wiki projects, but I can lend you the efforts I've made to compile, double-check, and cite these texts under the umbrella of Operation Raimdelle.

[Dat Oni]

While we're all discussing the lovely wiki, I couldn't help but notice that the layout of the main page remains untouched.

 

Maybe we should pretty it up a bit?

[FreelanceWizard]

What would we like to see on the main page? I'm certainly amenable to making adjustments.

 

If anyone else wants to try their hand at creating a new main page, I recommend doing a "sandbox." To do that, create a subpage of your user page (such as, say User:FreelanceWizard/MainPageSandbox, if I were to do it), do your edits there, then tell us what the page name is here.

 

For example, http://wiki.ffxiv-roleplayers.com/pages/User:FreelanceWizard/Sandbox1 is my sandbox for a tabbed version of L'yhta's page.

[FreelanceWizard]

I spent some time today building the Stagecraft categories and moving pages out of Category:Literature and into appropriate Stagecraft categories. I've created some initial subcategories, such as Tavern, Free Company (yes, you can now have a page for your free company in addition to the LS Hall post!), and Linkshell, but if anyone else has other subcategory ideas, feel free to create those categories and put them in the appropriate Stagecraft category.

 

I'm still going through some of the existing sidebar content and combining/moving pages as appropriate. I want to shrink the sidebar down so that it's more useful for primary use cases (finding characters, finding lore, and finding groups) and so that all the lore is in the Lore namespace, properly tagged, and ready for editing and review.

 

Speaking of... if you want to get involved with wikilore, this is a good time! Be Bold and start editing those Lore pages! Don't worry if it's not perfect, because that's the greatness of a wiki. Do, however, be sure any content you include is referenced in some way. If you don't know how to do citations in wiki format, that's fine; just note the source and someone else can wikify it later. If you just want to find and note references, that's great, too! The wiki desperately needs reference finding, especially for old 1.0 content.

 

I'm still open to ideas for main page designs...

[ArmachiA]

Oh, so we can start adding lore then?

[FreelanceWizard]

Yep! If there's not a page for it already, go ahead and create a new one in the Lore namespace (just prefix its title with "Lore:") and be sure to add it to one or more of the lore categories (Category:Lore and its children).

 

I'm going to be working on moving the NPC, Grand Company, and race lore over the Lore namespace over the next few days, but feel free to start adding new stuff and references now.

[ArmachiA]

I'll start adding, but I'm going to start small I'll leave the giant articles about the Allagan empire to the professionals.