Forum:Weapon overview page revamp

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Overview page revamp overview

OK, so some of you may have noticed that I've been working on the weapon overview pages in my sandboxes. In a nutshell, here's why: This page: Weapon, in a word, sucks. It's outdated, incomplete and almost useless. We can make this into a useful page with a little bit of work. Here's what I envision doing:

1. This page mostly links to individual weapon pages that are grouped into different weapons categories, e.g. energy rifles, brass knuckles etc.. I think we should revamp this page so that it ONLY links to these weapon overview pages (see most of them here: Category:Weapons, remove all the individual weapon links from the page and make all the overview pages that it links to consistent in their content. We'll leave (and improve) the content at the top of the page about related skills, but on the bottom of the page list links to all the weapon overview pages.
2. These weapon overview pages I consider to be more lore pages than pages about stats. They're there to give an overview of the similar weapons found in the universe. Right now, these kinds of pages fall into two categories: pages where weapons are grouped by the type or sub-type of weapon, e.g. Assault rifle; and pages where weapons are grouped by model or manufacturer series or family, e.g. SIG-Sauer or Tommy gun. This to me is too inconsistent. I plan on converting all overview pages to the weapon type or sub-type kind of page and either removing the pages for weapon families or in the case of the Sig page, converting it to a lore page about the manufacturer itself, rather than a weapon overview page.

You can see the scope of this work in progress at User:The Gunny/sandbox, where I'm listing all firearms and what kind of overview page they are linked from or none (orphaned). You can also see a list of these overview pages separated into two categories at the bottom of the page, with my suggestions on what to do with them. At the end of the day, I want every weapon to be linked from an overview for that weapon type, accessible from the main weapon page.

What's happening is I'm running into a bunch of questions related to this work that I'm gonna need answers to or a consensus on before I can go any further. What I will do is list these questions in their own section here to get feedback and create consensus on what we do. The Gunny   17:41, January 18, 2015 (UTC)

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Question #1: Treatment of cut, non-canon and mentioned-only content

The treatment of this kind of content is wildly inconsistent, even on a single page. Take for instance the Assault rifle page. It has a section for cut and mentioned only content at the bottom of the page, yet Wanda is listed in the canon section along with the Assault rifle (Fallout 3). We can either list cut, non-canon and mentioned-only content up with the others, which would make the pages more concise, or we can create sections like this for all overview pages and place all non-canon content at the bottom.

The problem with placing non-canon content with canon content is that the {{Gamearticle}} template can not parse any of the cut content, mentioned-only or non-canon content templates. It can parse the cut content icon, but that's it. The problem with placing all this kinds of content in a separate section at the bottom of the page is that the info in that section will be almost a repeat of the info in the base weapon section, e.g. see Wanda. We'll have just about the same info there as we will in the FO3 assault rifle section.

So, how should I progress? I want to get this nailed down before I create or alter any more overview pages. Please leave comments about this question below:

Questions, comments and suggestions on Question #1 only

I believe I've found a reasonable workaround for this. If you look at User:The Gunny/Shotgun, you'll see the cut or non-canon content placed in a bullet in the list with the base weapon. This keeps the page length manageable, but allows us to clearly mark this kind of content. I'll format the pages like so: All models will be listed first in canonicity order, then alphabetically, using game lore names where possible. All models that are cut, mentioned-only or non-canon that fall under the same model that is canon will be placed in the list with the canon model, but will be tagged with the appropriate source template and only linked in the list, not in the gamearticle template. Sound good? The Gunny   21:27, January 18, 2015 (UTC)

Seems the best solution to me. - ^Greets Peace'n Hugs (talk) (blog) 22:58, January 18, 2015 (UTC)

Question #2: Page name conventions

This one is simple. Currently we have all the weapon-type overview pages named in the singular. Should it stay that way? For some reason, plural sounds much better to me when I read the page title. I understand that an overview page like Assault rifle sorta serves as a disambiguation page for the term "assault rifle", but it just sounds odd to me since the page lists assault rifles, not just pages named some version of "assault rifle (<insert game>)".

Questions, comments and suggestions on Question #2 only

Actually just answered my own question:

“Overview articles should be named "<full game name> <subject in plural>" (e.g. "Fallout 2 organizations").”— Our fine policies

The policies make a clear distinction between overview pages (which these are, they say so right at the top) and disambiguation pages (which these ain't, it don't say so at the top). Looks like even the page names are screwed up. We'll be moving all exsisting weapon overview pages to titles that are plural and leaving redirects behind. The Gunny   21:32, January 19, 2015 (UTC)

Pluralizing is for total overview pages, like Fallout 3 holodisks and notes, Fallout 3 weapons etc., not for sections of these pages, like you just did for the Needler pistol. I have my reservations with your plans which will affect important pages on a large scale. I agree that the weapon page needs to be looked at, but with these new overview pages I have serious doubts. I'm rather happy with how are they now, and you are planning large scale renaming, making the pages less recognizable for the common reader. Also the background will be more difficult to implement. I don't like several seperate Gamearticlelists on 1 page, making these very large and confusing. Just one gamearticlelist should be there. This is the view from my end, it needs another look and some more input from the community. Jspoel 16:17, January 20, 2015 (UTC)

I've asked for input and gotten little. These pages are an inconsistent mess. While you may be happy with that, I'm not. As I said above about the renaming, I'm on the fence. All I have to go on is the clear policy that overview pages must be named with the item in question in plural. The policy doesn't make any exceptions for what kind of overview page, just says overview pages. If you can give me a reasonable reason to ignore that policy other than that you don't like it, I'd be happy to. It'll make the use of the gamearticle template easier. Same goes for the gamearticlelist template. I can use just one, but it will be huge. But that's not a problem, if you're OK with that. As for the rest of your concerns, I'd like more detail. It's confusing to me the way the pages are now, and I can't see how they'd be less confusing to the "common reader". They're not disambiuation pages, e.g. 10mm pistol page only lists articles named 10mm pistol (some game), they're overview pages. And the way the weapons are grouped make no sense at all to me. Some by the broad type of weapon they are, e.g. assault rifle, some by the narrow type of weapon they are, e.g. 9mm pistol, and some by manufacturer or even a particular make and model. This inconsistency makes no sense to me at all. If we want to have lore based overview pages, that's great by me, but they should be consistent from topic to topic, and all weapon classes should have them, not just a few. If we need a page to disambiguate between 10mm pistols, then we should make a 10mm pistol (disambiguation) page. I'm trying to improve these pages to the point that they are actually usefully coherent, from one page to the other in form and function. If, for some reason, people don't want that, I can stop all this shit and waste my time somewhere else, leaving the wiki full of inconsistent crappy pages. Just say the word. The Gunny   21:16, January 20, 2015 (UTC)

I rather like what Gunny is suggesting. Naming the overview pages in the plural form of the weapon type makes perfect sense to me. I find the old overview page format to be confusing at times. One looks for the individual game article on "assault rifle" and ends up on the overview page for assault rifles, and then has to do further seeking to actually locate the page one is looking for. Naming the overview pages in the plural would remedy this ambiguity. Turning the manufacturer/model pages into lore pages outlining the weapon manufacturer or model's history, offshoots etc in the Fallout universe also seems a sound idea to me. --Malebiped (talk) 13:33, January 21, 2015 (UTC)

If it's policy to make them plural, it would be weird to start a project and then ignore the positive law. I mean, I wouldn't mind to have it singular, but then it's better we change that rule so we don't have to start breaking rules while starting off new projects. For the concern of not finding stuff: maybe some extra redirects, disambiguation and sub-oveview-pages can do the trick here? - ^Greets Peace'n Hugs (talk) (blog) 21:19, January 21, 2015 (UTC)

I will try to clear up what I think the structure of weapons pages should be. I hope I'm concise and clear here:

• Obviously, every individual weapon will have a game article, e.g. 10mm pistol (Fallout).
• As they already are, every weapon will be listed on a page listing that game's weapons e.g. Fallout weapons.
• For every weapon that has the same name, but multiple articles, the names will be disambiguated, e.g. 10mm pistol (Fallout), 10mm pistol (Fallout 3) etc. like they already are, and a disambiguation page will be created. I checked. We do not have one single disambiguation page for any weapons with like names, in spite of the fact that wiki policy states we must have one. This will allow users that search for "10mm pistol" without any other modifiers to be directed to the disambiguation page, where they can quickly find the specific game article they desire. Please note the emphasis. Disambig pages are there to quickly help a user find what they meant to get to without wading through a bunch of sections and text. See: Wanda and notice the difference between that and the page Assault rifle.
• The Weapons page, which has a fair number of links, will be reworked as an overview page for all weapons in all games, as it's name implies. It will list all weapons skills (like it already does) and have a list of weapon overview pages that cover broad classifications of weapons, e.g. assault rifles. This page will act as a link farm for links to more specific pages of weapon types.
• Weapon overview pages will no longer be used as a poor substitute for disambiguation pages. There are a number of these pages already on the wiki, e.g. Assault rifle, .44 magnum revolver, etc. These pages work poorly as disambiguation pages because they hold so much background information that it is difficult to quickly find the actual game article of the weapon you want if you end up there. What I envision these pages to be used for is an overview of similar type weapons across the Fallout universe of games. There should be a lore based background description for each weapon that can then be transposed in the background section of individual game articles as appropriate. I personally believe that the best way to structure the organization of these pages is to group these weapons into broad classifications of weapon type, e.g. assault rifles, grenades, laser pistols, swords, etc. At the end of the day, every single weapon in the universe should be listed on an overview page for that specific weapon's type. I believe these pages should be named, per policy for overview pages, in the pural, e.g. Needler pistols, so that they will not contradict with any of the above mentioned mandatory disambiguation pages. Right now we have no clear criteria for how to select a group of weapons to put on an overview page.
• Each of these overview pages need to be organized and formatted consistently. We have to determine what each broad classification merits it's own page, which weapons fall into that classification, how to structure and format the page, how to utilize the templates we have available for overview pages, how to deal with non-canon, mentioned-only and cut content and how to group each weapon into sections on the pages. Current overview pages an completely inconsistent in how they are organized and formatted.
• TL:DGAF? A quick example of page distribution:
  • Individual game article: Assault rifle (Fallout)
  • Game specific weapon list: Fallout weapons
  • Disambiguation page (where needed): Assault rifle or Assault rifle (disambiguation)
  • Overview page for lore background of similar weapons: Assault rifles

I hope this makes more sense and informs everyone of the inconsistencies we have and the solutions I propose to correct them. The Gunny   01:49, January 22, 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Richie9999 (talk) 02:04, January 22, 2015 (UTC)

Sounds swell. JASPER//"Do you like hurting other people?" 02:17, January 22, 2015 (UTC)

Clear as Crystal. Sounds good Agent c (talk) 09:02, January 22, 2015 (UTC)