Forum:Organization
I've recently gotten back into this game after Sunless Sea, and I've been struck at how much more difficult both FL wikis are to navigate and read compared to the official Sunless Sea wiki. Is there a reason for this? I've been tempted to start restructing pages to make it more obvious where events and items lie within the game. Consider the Tale of Terror page from Sunless Sea verus this wiki's. To be perfectly blunt, the wiki page is all but useless unless you already know the name of the storylets it's found in - and then, you're probably familiar with where they are and what they do!
I understand it's a large undertaking to reformat pages, but the data is already there, it would just require structuring for readability. For such an opaque game as FL, an accessible wiki might do a world of good for keeping new plays sent over by Sunless Sea's success. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.51.41.214 (talk • contribs)
Currently, you have sources linked at Category:Tale of Terror!! Sources and actions that either require the item or uses it at Category:Tale of Terror!!. This is mentioned at the Tale of Terror!! page (but perhaps not clearly enough?).
I totally agree that we should have more user friendly lists (e.g. for some of the best sources, akin to Category:Nightmares Loss) — Aximillio (Message Wall) 22:34, March 4, 2015 (UTC)
I understand that there's a list through the categories pages, but they're a list of storylet titles organized alphabetically. To make any meaningful sense of them, one either has to already know what storylet they want, or click at random! Going through and organizing that category into area and yield would do wonders. I'm tempted to start myself, but it seems an institutional choice as much as anything, and I'd like to make sense of the way things are before pushing too hard for the way things should be. 96.51.41.214 23:19, March 4, 2015 (UTC)
To be fair, there's a lot more information in FL compared to SS. This is a significantly larger undertaking than it would be doing this for SS, perhaps we can somehow make some of the guides more obvious? Link to them on obvious pages? Or for larger storylets, display them like Duelling the Black Ribbon?
Actually, if we went the Category:Nightmares Loss route, but to a more through measure, what if various pages were assigned to those willing, so the individual in question would only have to work on those pages bit by bit as opposed to having to worry about undertaking the entire wiki all at once? (how do I make these little signature things without doing it manually..?=>) — Fickilty 6:45, March 5, 2015 (UTC)
It wouldn't all need to be done at once. By starting with some core lists, like items and the storylet lists for each area, you could quickly take care of most references people are looking for. Once the ball gets rolling and the most visible pages are spruced up, with some templates made available, editors will naturally start to fix up articles they're editing or reading a lot. Even in a worst case scenario where it never gets more than a handful of people putting in a few hours, this place can end up a lot friendlier to new players. Ilurker (talk) 07:26, March 5, 2015 (UTC)
Duelling the Black Ribbon is actually ideal. Does anyone more experienced than me know how I'd get the blessing to start overhauling pages to match? Ilurker (talk) 07:28, March 5, 2015 (UTC)
Some items are more important and demanded than others. Correspondence plaques might be a good example. There are also different kinds of sources. One-off rewards aren't quite as interesting for resources you need to grind, unless they give a lot of items. People also usually want reliable ways to get an item, in favour of unreliable ones. Curiosities that either aren't really used, or curiosities with only a single source probably don't need links either. The same might go for item sources that give negligible amounts of common items like jade and rostygold.
We could also do some item categories each - then it'll be much easier to see progress.
If you want, I could also make a list of items that need to be fixed on the front page? It doesn't need to be limited to this project, obviously; but having a list of places where people can contribute could be beneficial in many ways.
As for the blessing to do stuff like Duelling the Black Ribbon, please go for it. Wikipedia has a slogan called Be bold, and the same could be said for wikis in general. If you have a good idea that will make a page better, you should go for it. For big decisions you can always ask me or someone else.
@Fickilty, use 4 tildes like this: ~~~~ (other amounts only give timestamps or only give a signature) — Aximillio (Message Wall) 22:27, March 5, 2015 (UTC)
everybody feel free to check out my user page as i, if i remember, list all my 'visibility' and guide edits. you can get some ideas and steal the source code for your own projects. making the information on here more accessable is the logical next step, so please go ahead. --mfive (talk) 09:55, March 9, 2015 (UTC)
I have a basic layout mocked up at Template:Area, but am hitting a bit of a roadblock with editable tables. Does anyone have any experience that way? I'm beginning to think 100ish if statements are the only way to make sure enough rows show up. Ilurker (talk) 14:04, March 9, 2015 (UTC)