HammerWiki talk:Style and formatting

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So I thought I'd put something here before we started filling the place up with too many articles.

BTW, this has been shamelessly ripped off from the GW:GuildWiki:Style and formatting article, mainly because I thought it made a lot of sense and was well put together. With the changes I've made to it, it at least us gives something to build on, to make our own. --Pendrako 19:28, 18 February 2007 (CST)

Good call, formatting is key to having an accessible wiki.

Small point of objection, however, I do not agree with the section on ordering. In my opinion, whenever something is listed, for whatever reason, it should be sorted according to basic english alphabetization, ie special characters first, then numerals, then a->z. While there may be certain cases where there is good reason not to follow this best practice, I think a very good reason is needed in each case before abondoning such an integrated part of normal language structure. After all, sorting things "the way they are usually sorted" really makes sense because, well, that's how everyone else does it. People immediately understand it, and can even do it themselves without knowing anything besides basic english. --Bishop 19:35, 18 February 2007 (CST)

(Ooh, btw, I've always thought the GuildWiki notion of not correctly sorting the character classes was insane. It's caused nothing but revert-wars through the times, either.) --Bishop 19:36, 18 February 2007 (CST)

Good point. Definitely agree that alphabetical order should be used where no other ordering standard exists, but where there is a standard we should use it. A clear example is zones... these are ordered according to tier, starting with tier 1 and ending with the capital city. I'd like to see if any ordering standards are introduced as the game develops, and I'd like to see those standards applied in the wiki, according to the situation and context. But it's definitely something that could do with more discussion ;) --Pendrako 15:31, 19 February 2007 (CST)

Had some thoughts about gender-neutral language in articles. They as opposed to he/she etc. Makes better reading. Have a look at the Wikipedia[1] article for ideas. They seem to be firm believers of all men are created "they". I'm not going to touch you manual for fear of messing it up. --Reiksguard 08:11, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

In my personal opinion, it makes for contrived reading. Changing basic literary premises on the whims of political correctness doesn't sit too well with me. And I don't think gender-neutrality is very much in tune with the Warhammer setting... but I'm still interested in hearing what others think. » Bishop · talk « 11:09, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the use of 'they' for a single person is contrived, and I also know it creates confusion as to whether, for instance, a spell may have only one target or many if the singular target is referred to as 'they' rather than 'he'. I have never experienced any confusion over unspecified gender restrictions (that is, never thought that if a Priest were referred to as 'Priest' and 'he' that female characters couldn't fill that class) nor ever, overall, felt slighted by the use of the masculine gender to refer to the generic person in English. If anything, it would be more politically correct for individual English-speakers to assume that the generic 'male' identity included female persons unless the exception was specified than to strive for gender neutrality through the use of a plural as a non-plural. The first is a change in thinking, and the latter is a mangling of the language. It would make more sense to use 'it' for a single Greenskin than to use 'they', but one might as well use 'he'. Najwalaylah 21:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm for it if it prevents confusion on whether a class is gender restricted or not. And as long as the article doesn't sound redundant (ie: the use of "they" over and over again). Obviously gender restricted classes should still be referred to as he/she depending on which sex they are. As most of the career names are gender-neutral (White Lion, Witch Hunter). There are a couple of problems however:

• Sorceress is the official (and slightly more accurate lore wise) name, however male Sorcerers will probably be common. We haven't actually seen any male Sorcerer screenshots or videos though.
• Warrior Priest is the official name, yet the career is dual-gender and I have never heard mention of a Warrior Priestess. Probably because Priest is slightly more sexually ambiguous.
• All the Greenskin careers are obviously neither gender, though they appear masculine. I'd support being gender neutral for these (I think they mostly are, anyway) to save people being anal in the future about the Greenskin situation.

Overall I personally think saying '"The Marauder is a melee..." and "Marauders utilize their crab arm" sounds better than he/she. But he/she works occasionally. Just my two cents, though. I also added a note on the project page about emboldening the first mention of an article's title too. Feel free to get rid of it. ~ Revoran 17:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm currently writing an article about Battle fatigue and how player characters are affected by it. As we all know they come in two genders I will refer to them as a they.--Reiksguard 17:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Standard Colors

Are there any standard colors yet? If so, they should be documented here. It might also be a good idea to update some of the css classes with the colors (like the wikitable class) so there is more consistency in the wiki. This would also help people who are creating templates do so with a consistent color scheme. -- Bincho 22:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, we should come up with something to use throughout the wiki. We've got tables and templates, infoboxes and navigation bars, many of which are using different color schemes. It looks very unprofessional, and there's not really any reason for it.

Are there any plans to modify the site's default skin? If not, we should probably play off the reds, grays, and black that we're using now. We might also want to think about using white text against them, as is seen with the skin. -- Heaven's Agent 17:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PQ layout guideline/template

'ello, I was wondering, since I had in mind to fix as many of the PQ pages as I could, if it would be possible to come up with some sort of base for how the PQ pages are set up? At the moment, there isn't much consistency besides those pages that I copied from the Forlorn Isle PQ article a while ago, but I thought it would be best if I left a note here so it can be discussed first isntead of me just going ahead and creating something that ends up incredibly bad.

What I was thinking for layout would be something like the following (and is based entirely on Forlorn Isle (see Nimosar for... "undiluted" example)):

• General, technical description of the Public Quest, including its name, area, realm, tier, difficulty, in-game recommended number of players. Before the table of contents as per this talk page's article.
• Info-box on the right side with an image, name, area, realm, tier, chapter, difficulty, responsible rallymaster, whatever else...
• Lore. What is the history of the PQ area? Quote from the Tome of Knowledge and/or a different kind of background/history description.
• Objectives. Either written as is in-game, or fleshed out to make more sense. Some current ones have notes added, such as when there is a sudden spawn or similar, but those may be obsolete if one was to thoroughly explain. Three objectives seems to be the most common number, as far as I have noticed. I vote for explaining thoroughly.
• NPCs, perhaps with a note as to who or what they are, their importance, or something? Or not...
• Mobs, with the subzone "named mobs/bosses" for those worthy of note.
• Rewards, using the loot bag template that exists on the Forlorn Isle page. I don't know where it's from or who made it or how it works, but it looks like a really good idea to me.
  

So yeah, pretty much what's already there, but I thought we could discuss it here and perhaps someone has a suggestion or objection and we could set something in stone so I could go ahead and make the pages and then fill them in as I go along. It would also be nice to have the code somewhere so it can easily be copied.
--Sacropedia 19:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Well gosh, now you're making me blush; most of the formatting you mentioned, as well as the infobox and loot bag templates, are stuff I've added off and on over the past months. My intent was to establish a consistent format for such articles, and the Forlorn Isle article was one of my testing ground, so I'm just glad someone appreciates the layout. I've tried doing the same with other types of articles (quests, mobs, NPCs, items) with varying degrees of success.

I don't know how successful attempting to establish an official format would be, exactly, but I would be all for doing so if it was possible. That being said, this is one instance where we will probably have to establish a format by example; the more PQ articles that boast this style, the more likely it will be that future contributors will use it as a basis in their own work. -- Heaven's Agent 22:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Well then, I'm going to go ahead and add whatever PQs I come across and add as much info as I can, using the above mentioned format. I would be very happy if you could perhaps tell me how the loot bag code works? I added it to my Sandbox but I haven't had time to give it much thought except that initial failed try. If you could put a note there when you have time we could set it up for all careers so it will all show up as soon as the linked pages are created? I'm looking forward to this, but I hope my spare time will be enough becuase of school lately. Oh well. --Sacropedia 23:05, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I probably should have added a use description before now, but I always get tied up with things to do; I'll start work on that now. Judging by what's in you're Sandbox you especially need a Destruction version of the template, so I'll see about wipping one of those together as well. -- Heaven's Agent 23:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I've added usage instructions to the template, though the example is underpopulated (I was unable to find an instance of the template being fully utilized at the moment). Let me know if you have more questions or need additional clarification. -- Heaven's Agent 03:34, 24 January 2009 (UTC)