Guild Wars Wiki talk:Formatting/Unique weapons/Archive1

Discussion

Like it? I feel that the way it was done on guildwiki was great, this is different, yet the same Qanar 05:35, 14 February 2007 (PST)

The example needs to be chosen better. Most uniques reuse a skin and have collector counterparts, so the formatting should demonstrate how to document these. The collector counterpart is important to standardize. S 05:41, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Things I'd change:

• Any article should preferably start with the article name as the very first word.
• Unique item should be linked to in the text description.
• The boss who drops the icon should be given first, not the location.
• Attribute requirement should be stated after damage, just like ingame.
• Counterparts isn't just crafters, but also collectors.
• On forums and auctions the "counterpart" is commonly called "replica". I think that term fits better.
• Categories should be lowercase, i.e. "Unique staves".
• Categories are redundant. "Unique staves" should be a sub-category of "Unique items", so there should be no need to add it to both categories.
• I'd split categories by campaign, i.e. "Unique staves (Nightfall)".

That's it for now. I'll try to come up with more. --Tetris L 06:09, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Edit conflict. Tetris pretty much said what I was going to say and more. I will add the one thing that has not been said. The weapon stats should reflect the exact text found in the game, format-wise. It would be more user-friendly for users to know they are looking at the same stat format found in-game. — Gares 06:16, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Go ahead. I just wanted to stir up the discussion on some formatting guides so we can actually DO something Qanar 06:44, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Do we have to have the replica bit? I think it's a waste of space, especially on quick reference tables. Something like Perfect Stat lists is much more useful, not to mention easier to update (everything in one place). --NieA7 05:20, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I believe that replicability is relevant, particularly for trade. It definitely belongs in the individual item articles. As for the quick references, I would be okay with keeping replicability out of the main quick references and having separate, replicability-based quick reference lists (for example "irreplicable unique items quick reference", "PvE replicable unique items quick reference" and "universally replicable unique items quick reference"). We could also mark PvE-replicable and irreplicable greens with footnotes on the quick refs rather than a separate replicability column or separate replicability-based quick refs. -- Gordon Ecker 20:52, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Drop the replicability column from the tables then. There's no rule that we have to include them. -- ab.er.rant 05:43, 23 February 2007 (EST)

There's no rule saying that we can't include them either. I can make the formatting changes after the style guide is formalised. -- Gordon Ecker 20:11, 23 February 2007 (EST)

I thought we were trying to work out a style guide based on a series of examples? --NieA7 09:36, 27 February 2007 (EST)

I cleaned up the template to include all the discussions included herein. Two issues appear to remain unresolved: 1.) Keeping damagetype in the weapon info box. 2.) Whether stats should be bulleted or not. In the edit I just made, I added damagetype back in, as I think its every bit as relevant to a summary as the weapon type or required attribute. I left the bullets because I think both options look good so it seems irrelevant.

I'm hoping we can reach consensus and officially adopt this template within the next few days. I've added about 40-50 uniques over the past few weeks, and there are about 150 left to do. In addition, there were dozens added under several older versions of this template and they all need to be updated. If any new items are added under a final template version, then my redo work will be substantially reduced. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 10:58, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

I think adding the bullet points is superfluous and unattractive. People weren't happy with the br tags, but someone suggested indentation as a compromise. I'm fine with indentation, br, or other formatting, but no bullet points please! That's not what they are meant for! - BeXoR 11:57, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

*sighs* FWIW: In typography, bullet points are used to highlight lists of related items. As the technical stats are a list relating to the item in question, then bullet points are an appropriate application. Just as they are for the list of weapon components required to replicate the weapons. Personally, I don't really care what decision is made for the stats, because aesthetically they both look fine to me. The question is can you live with it, if we move forward with bullets (as I've already done on about 40 items)? I know that User:Rapta seems to be equally insistent about their inclusion and I just hate like heck to have a difference of opinion between two editors over what is seemingly a small issue delay and/or create dozens of man hours of work in having to update the current (and possibly) new articles to the approved template. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 12:36, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

I am well aware of what bullet points are used for, and this situation doesn't befit them. Weapon stats aren't a list, but a description. There's a difference between saying:

• Does 15 to 28 damage
• Steals 5 health each hit
• Gives -1 health regeneration

and

Piercing Dmg: 15-28

Life stealing:5

Health regeneration -1

One is a list, one is a description. The description may be formatted with line breaks, but that doesn't make it a list! - BeXoR 14:07, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

And as for the work, changing the pages is a breeze, especially with categories to help. I changed hundreds of skill pages when an infobox location was changed. - BeXoR 14:08, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

I suppose you are right regarding the work. I have the time frame for the initial creation of the pages on my mind, as that's what I've been working on. Going back for an easy update won't be so bad. Again, I'm just hoping we can get a consensus, sooner than later. I'm not planning on going back to the articles posted before 4/1/07 until we all agree on what we want to see.

I'm new to the wiki community so I don't have an internalized understanding of how situations such as this usually get resolved. I know its frustrating dealing with noobs, so I hope you guys can all bear with me for a while. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 16:34, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

You're not a noob. :P - BeXoR 00:29, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

Weapons Stats

Regarding the stats on the wiki reflecting the ingame stats, shall we try to give this another try? That template was a text created by myself, and it has never really been used, but I think with a bit of tweaking we could get it to work fine. --Tetris L 06:46, 14 February 2007 (PST)

I like it, but I have some suggestions. Do you want to port it over and I can comment here? — Gares 06:54, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Go ahead, and do whatever you deem best. --Tetris L 08:15, 14 February 2007 (PST)

I noticed your changes to weapon stats. The in-game format is innate energy goes before damage. I'm confused as to why you placed damage before energy. — Gares 07:53, 14 February 2007 (PST)

I goofed. Consider it corrected. --Tetris L 08:15, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Whatever we do for greens ought to be equally applicable for collector and crafted weapons. Getting a consistent method of formatting across all weapon types would make putting stuff like Perfect stat guides so much easier, plus it'd be easier for readers to switch from one reference to another. --NieA7 02:52, 19 February 2007 (PST)

Guild Wars Wiki:Content over presentation — Skuld 03:05, 19 February 2007 (PST)

What about it? --NieA7 03:33, 19 February 2007 (PST)

GuildWiki:Template:WeaponStats is unsightly and useless — Skuld 05:04, 19 February 2007 (PST)

No idea where that's used, but if you're talking about the weapon quick references I find them incredibly useful. The style can be improved, but if the content's good I don't see why Guild Wars Wiki:Content over presentation should stop us, quite the reverse. --NieA7 06:05, 19 February 2007 (PST)

Crossed messages, I was refering to the link in Tetris' first post ([1]) :) — Skuld 06:11, 19 February 2007 (PST)

Oooh right, my mistake :) --NieA7 07:54, 19 February 2007 (PST)

quick reference color proposals

I've got three color proposals for the quick reference color scheme. The quick refs are nearly finished and the color schemes can be changed fairly easily with search & replace, so this isn't urgent.

Proposal 1: White

every background

white

Proposal 2: one-handed / two-handed / offhand

axe sword spear wand	lightblue
hammer bow daggers scythe staff	lightgreen
shield focus item	palegoldenrod

Proposal 3: one-handed melee / two-handed melee / one-handed ranged / two-handed ranged / off-hand

axe sword	orange
hammer daggers scythe	palegoldenrod
spear wand	lightgreen
bow staff	lightblue
shield, focus item	thistle

Feel free to submit your own proposals. Right now I prefer proposal 3. Proposal 2 might be problematic, as it's very similar to the GuildWiki one and I'm not sure if it was started by a GFDL user. -- Gordon Ecker 02:27, 22 February 2007 (EST)

While I can see that the information is already grouped and that white would be ok on the page, the colours really split it up and make the page more visually appealing. If there are copyright concerns with the 3 colour scheme then the 5 colour scheme (where only 3 of the colours are seen at any one time :) ) is just fine.

I have a bad habit of going off topic; For the last box you do find you'd be more likely to click on the arrow for boss or the area information? I realise that it might be consistency thing with the skill reference, but here I think the bosses name (if it is applicable) is the more interesting bit of information, so could be given the text link and the arrow used for the location. --Aspectacle 03:05, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Prefer proposal 3 conceptually, but I don't like the colours much. How about:

hammer daggers scythe	lightsalmon
axe sword	peachpuff
bow staff	powderblue
spear wand	lightcyan
shield focus item	palegreen

(on a side note, who the hell came up with these names? Although part of me loves calling axe's and sword's Peach Puff...) That way there's a visual link between melee and ranged weapons, with the two handed versions being darker shades than their single handed counterparts. --NieA7 05:20, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Anybody else have an opinion on this? --NieA7 09:36, 27 February 2007 (EST)

I prefer my third proposal and NieA7's proposal. -- Gordon Ecker 18:04, 27 February 2007 (EST)

If we use these, I would like to wait for ParserFunctions to be installed. With the "switch" control in templates, we could create a template like template:Weapon-qr (or whatever name works), then select the colors by using {{Weapon-qr|axe}}, etc. This makes inclusion of the correct color easy, and makes it easy to revamp all articles using it if/when the community decides to update the colors.

Per Guild_Wars_Wiki:Requests_for_technical_administration#Requests_pending_install, the ParserFunction module was approved today, so the functions should be available soon.

BTW: instead of "peachpuff", we could just use "#ffdab9", or any of the others shown here. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:32, 27 February 2007 (EST)

I'd rather use "peachpuff". It's easier to remember than the hex code. (was it ffdab9 or ffdbb8... hmmm...) -- ab.er.rant 20:51, 27 February 2007 (EST)

But if you use a template, it doesn't matter - hex or not. {{Weapon-qr|axe}} would result in that color.  ;-) --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:32, 27 February 2007 (EST)

But... but... what if I want to copy the color somewhere else? I'd have to go look up the template... (don't mind me, I'm just adamantly coming up with weak points because I just happen to not like hex codes :p ) -- ab.er.rant 23:53, 27 February 2007 (EST)

It probably isn't of great concern, but I would try to avoid using colours that are already being used as reference colours. LordBiro 05:49, 28 February 2007 (EST)

What colours are already being used as reference colours? --NieA7 08:22, 2 March 2007 (EST)

None that are fully confirmed. So far, we have the orangy color for creatures, and lavender for the locations, afaik. -- ab.er.rant 08:41, 2 March 2007 (EST)

Lightcyan seems a bit too pale. What about powderlue as the light colour and aqua or skyblue as the dark colour? -- Gordon Ecker 23:31, 2 March 2007 (EST)

I don't mind the cyan colour personally, although it is a fair bit brighter than the others. Aqua doesn't look right but sky and powder blue go nicely together:

hammer daggers scythe	lightsalmon
axe sword	peachpuff
bow staff	skyblue
spear wand	powderblue
shield focus item	palegreen

I think that's a pretty good selection of colours overall, anybody disagree? --NieA7 08:49, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Yeah, it's a good color scheme. -- Gordon Ecker 22:46, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

I agree aswell. --Torins 10:54, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

Looking at the quick references, rather than at the tables, I find the colours very confusing because certain colours are associated with certain professions. I would rather see the colours as ranges of the profession colours. - BeXoR 22:31, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

Example

Stuck good ol' Victo's in as an example - had to fudge the image line (as usual, I'm a total noob with the XML stuff (or whutever)) - but I assume if I'd left it as it was, it would be searching for an image called Formatting/Unique_Items.jpg - right? And why did the image end up THERE; breaking the section lines? I seriously need to read a book about this stuff ^^ (I had the same problem with the GWWikignome on my userpage) --Snograt 09:14, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Also, I had to pipe Slashing Dmg to Slashing damage, as a page of that name already exists. If we stick with in-game exactitude (is that a word? o-O) then we'll need to have a dmg page to redirect to the damage one. Sigh - why do my notes take up more space than my articles? --Snograt 14:33, 5 March 2007 (EST)

Categories

The current categorisation system works fine for martial weapons, but seems pointless for shields and caster items. A category like unique focus items (Factions) can contain items for 5 different professions and 22 different attributes. I'd prefer the following sets of categories:

• Martial weapons (other than bows): <profession> unique items, unique <weapon type>s, unique items (<campaign>)
• Bows: Ranger unique items, unique bows, unique <bow type>s, unique items (<campaign>)
• Shields: <profession> unique items, unique items (<campaign>), unique shields, unique shields (<attribute>)
• Caster items: <profession> unique items, unique items (<campaign>), unique items (<attribute>), unique <item type>s, unique <item type>s (<attribute>).

-- Gordon Ecker 22:38, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

Looks good. Added the note on the main page. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 22:33, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

The profession categories were recently removed. I'd prefer to keep them, so that they can be used as alphabetical lists. -- Gordon Ecker 00:26, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

Curious -- Is there some particular usage for an alphabetical list at this level, as opposed to a non-alphabetical list or alphabetical lists by type? --Rezyk 01:03, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

I can't really think of any use other than having all the names on a single page. The main reason I suggested it was because there were already categories for all unique wands, all unique staves and all unique focus items, and it made sense to also include categories for all of a given profession's unique items as well. -- Gordon Ecker 01:41, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

I think we'd still have those categories -- it's just that the uniques wouldn't be put in them directly, but rather indirectly, through the attribute subcategories. Consider Category:Elementalist unique items: It could eventually show 5 subcategories, one for each attribute, and one link to an article, List of elementalist unique items. If you click on that list article, you get all the names on a single page. Maybe it'll even allow for alphabetical sort (considering that there's some progress being made on sortable lists now). How does that sound? --Rezyk 16:00, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

Weapon infobox template

Why not use the weapon infobox template in these pages also? I think it looks odd not using an infobox considering almost all other articles on this wiki have one :P — Anja 11:06, 18 March 2007 (EDT)

Updated. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 22:51, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

Bullet points

I cant stand the bullet pointed item stats that was brought over from gwiki. Can we please stop using them? There's no need for the stats to be in a bullet list, they aren't in-game. - BeXoR 02:45, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

How else would you like them? The bullet list feels rather intuitive doesn't it? -- ab.er.rant 06:57, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

I think the bullet list is weird when you put the stats next to it, plus they are big and square and ugly. I think the formatting should resemble what you see in game. I'd rather people just use a br to force a new line. - BeXoR 07:50, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

I honestly don't see any reason why formatting must resemble what you see in the game. Otherwise, we would have quest dialogues that should be colored appropriately, and crafting tables be very long. But in this case, I actually find that the bullets give a more organized feel (Swiftspell's Staff vs Ghial's Staff). Then again, I have no real objections for it either way. -- ab.er.rant 12:18, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

I'd prefer indentation or bullet points to the <br> tag. -- Gordon Ecker 20:03, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Indentation would also be acceptable. Stats aren't a list of information, and shouldnt be presented as such. - BeXoR 00:21, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm not sure what the problem is with bullets. The stats are indeed a list of modifiers which the weapon provides the user with. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 20:46, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Can we also remove the item type from the stats section and put that in the infobox instead (if it isn't already). The information is redundant as it is, seeing as most weapons have their type in the name or description. - BeXoR 10:36, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Rapta, please don't revert to bullets without discussion first. - BeXoR 22:41, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

The change wasn't necessary, really. The item pages simply look better with the bullets rather than without the bullets. Bullets look fine (the bullets were removed within 1 day of the discussion to remove them anyways). — Rapta (talk|contribs) 16:50, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

The bullets dont look better. It's a stupid thing that has been copied from Guildwiki. - BeXoR 03:54, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Trivia

Any stance on trivia in this wiki, I have yet to see any, but some shouts to be noted down, like Vera dropping from a monsters named Jayne *cries for all the firefly lovers* --Lemming64 21:27, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

I <3 Vera. :) I added some trivia to the Eye of Argon article yesterday (have you read that story?!?!). Don't ditch the trivia! --Aspectacle 21:45, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Added a Trivia section. --Dirigible 15:14, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Equipped Appearance

I'd like to add the Equipped appearances heading to the template. I think that it will help to encourage users to upload their screenies, and we'll populate those images faster. I've been placing the following as the last heading on each of the items I've been editing.

==Equipped appearance==
{{weapon gallery|{{subst:PAGENAME}} male.jpg|{{subst:PAGENAME}} female.jpg}}

--Rohar (talk|contribs) 14:19, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

Is it me or are these just being filled up with vanity shots... --Lemming64 14:22, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Correct. Anet is going to supply rendered images of all the items, but we're looking for screen captures of them equipped. You can view my talk page to see what Fox proposed. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 16:54, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Unique counterparts

Many of the unique item descriptions already posted have a "Unique counterparts" section to include other identical, and/or related unique items. These were originally included in the "Notes" section on Guildwiki. The Example on the project page lists the Unique counterparts in the Notes section. Which direction do we want to go? --Rohar (talk|contribs) 14:39, 30 March 2007 (EDT)

damage type

why was this removed, every unique has a damage type ... --Lemming64 12:54, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Since uniques have mods attached to them, plus there being a stats section and a corresponding mods section that shows the mods affecting damage type, the Damage type isn't needed. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 14:28, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Isn't needed, yes, however, could be used, and from a sense of completion we might as well if you ask me. --Lemming64 15:36, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Even if the template doesn't use it, it might make sense to include the parameter in the actual inclusion, as the damage type parameter might, for some reason, be added in the future. LordBiro 15:59, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

I think the damage type is every bit as important as the Campaign, attribute type, or weapon type. Since all 3 of those categories are also clearly defined in the item description, one could follow the logic and remove all the headings from the weapon box. I think we should keep the damage type in unique items since its part of our weapon item guidelines. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 09:17, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Push for Consensus

Its been weeks since anyone has commented on our current unique items template. Its been tweaked with minor changes (most of them were smarter people than me correcting my grammar), but I feel its been discussed long enough, and maintained stability long enough, that we can declare it "official". I'll wait a few more days for rebuttal, but I intend to remove the under construction tags early next week. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 13:04, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Looks good to me! --Dirigible 15:04, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Been kinda busy, but I'm still strongly against the indents and not the bullets. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 18:59, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

And I'm still strongly against the bullets. I made minior corrections to the guide today because some information wasn't matching up, etc. - BeX 03:21, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

I vote for indents as it has stronger roots in accepted typographic industry standards. Aesthetically, I think they both look fine, but its just as easy to present ourselves as professionals. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 14:07, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

Indentation looks more professional in my eyes, so my vote is to indent, no bullets. - Anja (talk) 01:59, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm voting for indents, they look so much better than bullets, bullets just look plain ugly. It's not that much more work to force a line break anyway. -- Scourge 02:12, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Force a linebreak? When do we have to do that? - Anja (talk) 02:17, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

To split up a single bullet point or numbered list item into two lines, although there's no point if the list only uses indentation. -- Gordon Ecker 03:18, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

I think he meant using br tags instead of the indent. - BeX 05:11, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

I vote for consistency. If the "Stats" section is indented, the "Replica" section should be indented as well. -- ab.er.rant 08:07, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Replica is a list of individual items, Stats is a description = two different formatting rules. - BeX 08:15, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Vote count update Condensed indication of preferences by users with an opinion: 5 for indents Bexor, Dirigible, Rohar, Anja and Scourge; 2 for bullets Rapta and Ab.er.rant

Voting = bad. :P - BeX 08:52, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Oops. Especially since we don't have consensus on the election policy ;) --Rohar (talk|contribs) 08:53, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

If I may be as bold as to proffer a layman's opinion... I like bullets (but hey, I still think digital watches are neat^^) - but it seems to me that the people here with the nous in graphical excellence are opposed to them. I say go with the pros - not my preference, but that's how you move towards consensus. (Hey, if we keep bullets, can they be green? hehehe) --Snograt 10:17, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

(ri) Suggestion?:

Slashing damage: 6-28 (requires 9 Axe Mastery)

Damage +15% (while Health is above 50%)

Armor penetration +20% (Chance: 20%)

Health +30

I don't think this'll make it, but hey, it's a fresh opinion. :) Personally: no bullets, but I don't really fancy the whiteness of it all as it is at the moment (with indents). -- CoRrRan (CoRrRan / talk) 10:37, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

That does look nice, CoRrRan. I'm not against using that ;) - Anja (talk) 13:08, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I just posted Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Unique items/Temp so you can see the box in context. I really like the way it looks! --Rohar (talk|contribs) 15:44, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Eh? By voting for consistency, I wasn't specifying preference for bullets. I'm fine with either, I just prefer consistency. BeX, I disagree that they are two different things. The replica section is a list of different items and item upgrades (so two different types of things), whereas the stats section is a list of item stats each either inherent or offered by an item upgrade. It's only a matter of perspective if you think Stats is a description. A description to me is wordy, a paragraph of sentences. Stats is just a list of bonuses. -- ab.er.rant 20:59, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

Oh, one more thing. When you're proposing formatting styles for the stats, you might want to make it more browser-independent :) -- ab.er.rant 21:00, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

By the way, I'm also not favouring either of these, so it's unfair to put my name on either side of the argument; that "Looks good to me!" was directed to the formatting guide in general. I honestly don't see much of a difference between indents and bullets, so either is fine with me. If all this discussion hadn't taken place, I doubt I'd actually ever even notice if the stats section uses bullets or indents. Right now I'm trying to remember how GuildWiki does that and I just can't find an answer in my head, I've never really paid attention to it. --Dirigible 21:25, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I didn't realize I was putting words in peoples mouths. My sincere apologies. I was trying to summarize where I thought everyone with an opinion, stood on the matter. The good news is that some of the opinions expressed were clarified. As it stands I think we are getting to a point where someone should make an arbitrary decision so that we can move forward with this format. There are two strong opinions that have been expressed back and forth with several others (including myself) that thing either one looks fine. We could certainly continue to debate the same arguments back and forth for quite sometime. Does anyone have a suggestion on how this issue might get resolved? --Rohar (talk|contribs) 22:34, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

(ri)I totally disagree that the stats are a list. You mouse over your weapon for a description of the stats. We don't bullet point armor bonuses. We don't bullet point item descriptions. We use br tags. But for some reason people won't allow that here. Indentation was a compromise, because someone refused br tags - I would much rather we used br. As for the little border around it: if you're going to do that, don't bother indenting it, and it would look at lot better thinner I think, like this:

Slashing damage: 6-28 (requires 9 Axe Mastery)

Damage +15% (while Health is above 50%)

Armor penetration +20% (Chance: 20%)

Health +30

Still though, I think it's a bit silly to use that when we could just use br tags... - BeX 23:07, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I updated Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/Unique items/Temp to show this in context. I think it looks great. --Rohar (talk|contribs) 23:38, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

As I said, I don't care about whether bullet points are used or not. It was just my opinion that the page would look better when both the stats and the replica are similarly formatted. Why not? Most of them is a one-to-one or one-to-two match for the stats.

And also personally, I feel that a "description" is an explanation, a statement, an account, or a representation of something. But then again, some people do consider pictures to be a "description" of something, I suppose that since we're basically duplicating what's shown in-game, you'd be justified in saying that the stats are a description (although personally, I feel that such a usage of "description" is reserved for artwork). Anyway, it was just my perspective on things, so it's all very trivial. It was just how I see it.

Going back on track, I'd say ditch the border and table formatting, unless we plan on adding borders to all the in-game descriptions and stat boxes seen in-game. It'll look weird if this is the only place we frame text we copy from the game. I also think that wikicode (indent, bullets, whatever) should be used where possible, and not br tags. Not to mention that colons are easier to remember and type than br tags :) -- ab.er.rant 23:45, 2 May 2007 (EDT)

I think it's silly to say that we shouldn't use br tags. There are used all over the wiki. Even with weapon stats in collector boxes. Asking people to learn one html formatting tag isn't that difficult when you consider that if they are adding color templates to a table they need to know how to use style=. - BeX 00:06, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

I agree that it's silly to say that we shouldn't use br tags too. There's also nothing wrong with asking people to learn and use wikicode in preference over html. Similar to the convention that seems to that CSS should be used in preference to HTML attributes. But then again, we do have proponents for div tags over wikicode tables... so I guess I'm wrong. My comments seem to be getting on your nerves so I'll shut up now. -- ab.er.rant 00:22, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

Quick refs

Currently, the formatting of quick refs is being discussed here. -- Gordon Ecker 20:06, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Make official

If there are no objections, I propose that we make this official. The only argument of note is whether indentations should be used instead of bullets, and since it's purely aesthetics and has no impact whatsoever on the information being presented, I'd say that's a trivial discussion that can be restarted/continued at a later date after this becomes official. -- ab.er.rant 01:40, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

I think everyone knows I'm for it ;D -- Rohar (talk|contribs) 07:55, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

No objections here. - BeX 08:40, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

Let's gooooo! — Rapta (talk|contribs) 22:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

notoc

Most unique pages are so short, but have so many headings. Can we do notoc on them? - BeX 00:31, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Most are short, but some are long, such as Wayward Wand (unique), Golden Boar Scepter, etc. Also, a few others have longer replica constructions than some. I don't have a problem with __NOTOC__ing any article that is shorter than one page though. -- Rohar (talk|contribs) 07:30, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Back to Bullets?

Since we have this finalized, the only problem I'm having with changing all of these Bullets to Indents is that the sheer number of Bullets, and how much more they are used than indents already. Why not just leave the pages at bullets? Unless we can get a bot to update everything, it gets incredibly tedious switching 90% of the unique pages from Bullets to Indents. As far as I see it, the only "problem" that's being mentioned is a few users saying they don't like lists. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 02:13, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Using laziness as an excuse isn't going to work. I'm happy to switch them over and if you're already editing articles to standardise them, changing bullets to indents isn't that much extra work. - BeX 06:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Add it to Guild Wars Wiki:Projects#General community To-Do list :) -- ab.er.rant 07:15, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

That would be great if you contributed to this, Bexor, but as I said, if there's a bot that can be used to do this, it saves a lot of time better off used to update other pages. Thanks Aberrant. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 03:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

DPL

For DPL's sake, it would be better to have more tags into the {{Weapon infobox}} than there currently are. Any thoughts on this? I know the pages are there already, but they are just made for DPL. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 19:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the entire weapon infobox thing was a mistake, based on conceptual misunderstanding. Uniques are compound items than need an infobox of their own. But I'd be very happy if unique lists could be DPLed. Backsword 11:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Damage links

Why are we deviating from general formatting and linking to redirects instead of using direct links to the damage types? Is it because it's a hassle to type out, and, if so, can't we use something shorter, like {{subst:fire}} or {{subst:cold}}? -- Gordon Ecker 08:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Direct links and redirects have technically next to no difference so I don't know what use that sentence is in genform, especially for this situation. - BeX 08:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Unique Item lists

They look quite unintuitive to me. Someone used a different color for a headline of List of Eye of the North unique items#Warrior, so I added the color the other headlines in the table and it looks much more accessable to me now. How does everyone think about this? --Xeeron 12:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It's the overuse of background colors that bothers me. -- ab.er.rant 13:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The colours on the existing tables are very useful for differentiating at a glance between one and two handed weapons. If the table is going to be divided up by the weapon type anyway there's no point using background colours especially, other than to make it prettyful (profession colours perhaps).

What really needs to be done with the tables is updating the weapon template so we can use DPL to list them, rather than messing about with backgrounds. Too much of a job for me though :\ --NieA7 14:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

i'd give it a try if i knew what exactly DPL means... :S - Y0_ich_halt 14:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Dynamic Page List or something. This is a job for User:CoRrRan ;) I keep putting off trying to figure out how it works. :p -- ab.er.rant 14:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Before a list can be generated by DPL we need to put the information in a readable format. This could either be the weapon infobox or maybe an additional template which generates the Weapon stats for example. poke | talk 14:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I had a go at a DPL weapon list a while ago, the result is still hanging around: User:NieA7/DPLSandbox. The difficulty is that if we're to use sorting properly (good thing) we need to have the prefix, inscription and suffix upgrades listed separately in the template (least as far as I can see). While that's a big job in and of itself, the real problem lies with unique weapons that can't be recreated (for example, technically Tanzit's Defender has two inscriptions and no shield handle) and therefore can't be divided up into their component parts easily. There are a lot of these knocking about, unfortunately - just check the lists and count up the number of items that can't be recreated. --NieA7 14:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Dmg vs damage

Taking Victo's Battle Axe as our example, in the info box we say "Slashing damage", it has Damage (not dmg) +15% while Health (not HP) is above 50%, it has Armor penetration (not AP) +20% and it gives Health (not HP) +30. There's not a single acronym or abbreviation on the whole page, except one - Slashing Dmg: 6-28 in the main body of the text. Why? The weapon details page should have any abbreviations (they should be reserved for quick reference lists), and everywhere else it doesn't, what's so special about the second occurrence of the damage type that it deserves to be hacked about in this cruel and unusual way? Surely it's much better to be consistent throughout the page? --NieA7 13:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Verbatim from in game. - BeX 13:15, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Not good enough on its own, look at ULC for example (ironically I disagree with ULC, but there you go). --NieA7 13:37, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

A lot of things are copied verbatim from the game, for instance location descriptions or quest objectives. If it wasn't copying something from in game, but rather describing something, then I would probably agree to use "damage".

We don't have a ULC guideline, just a guideline about article names and then a line in genform about using case in general. In both situations, formatting is a guideline, not a policy and I would believe that anything that is being copied verbatim from in game would be exempt from that specific genform guideline. - BeX 13:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Getting old, could've sworn there was a ULC here. I remember disagreeing about it if nothing else, but it could've been a component of something else. Anyway, it still seems rather arbitrary to me: there are limits in game due to the designers presumably not wanting vast windows popping up when you hover over a weapon. Here, on an otherwise large page, it looks rather silly to be abbreviating just that and nothing else. I think we should be consistent - we're not changing the meaning of anything, we're simply displaying the information in the best way possible within the confines of our layout. It's a fine point I admit, but after having done the Axe pages the "Dmg" sticks out like a sore thumb to me. --NieA7 14:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

well, they use "Dmg" ingame, too :S at least in weap descrips. - Y0_ich_halt 14:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I know, that's what I was talking about when I mentioned the need to abbreviate text when it will be shown in small pop ups. That need does not apply to us here. There's a limitation on ANet that forced them to adopt an abbreviation under some circumstances - why should we use that abbreviation rather than the full word when those circumstances do not apply? --NieA7 14:19, 26 September 2007 (UTC)