Classic WoW Wiki talk:Policies

=Current Discussions and Open Votes=

Disambiguation pages

 * Proposal:


 * If a possible article name is common to two or more topics, and
 * if the page's name is unambiguous, and
 * if it can be assumed that anyone who is searching on a particular article name will be looking for one particular article,
 * then the article most likely to be searched for should have the appropriate title; any other article that might take that title will be given another appropriate title. If there should be enough topics that could use this title, a disambiguation page should be named with that common title, plus "(disambiguation)".

But
 * If the article name is common to two or more topics
 * but neither article is predominantly referred to (see Special:Whatlinkshere/ )
 * then the disambiguation page should not have "(disambiguation)"; the articles that could carry that name will be given an appropriate title as is mentioned above.


 * Yes:
 * 1) Schmidt talk 09:10, 7 Oct 2005 (EDT) (originally proposed)
 * 2) Powerlord 21:50, 7 Oct 2005 (EDT)
 * 3) Aeleas 15:03, 28 Oct 2005 (EDT)
 * No:


 * Suggestions:

Categories and articles

 * Proposal:


 * Category pages should have a link to an article that contains the primary information at the top, that page should have (for that category only, and any other categories for which it is the primary article) a sort key that puts that page at the top of the list. Therefore, the only information on a category page will be links to relevant articles, but not any significant information.


 * I have discovered that LAISREN had already put forth Category on July 2, 2005, which covers this topic but not quite this proposal. This other article was mentioned in Talk:Main Page. If this is acceptable, this should be mentioned at the former article. Schmidt talk 00:32, 27 Oct 2005 (EDT)


 * Yes:
 * 1) Schmidt talk 09:10, 7 Oct 2005 (EDT) (originally proposed)
 * 2) FeldmanSkitzoid 16:29, 9 Oct 2005 (EDT) (see comment below)
 * 3) Aeleas 00:18, 25 Oct 2005 (EDT)


 * No:
 * 1) Powerlord 21:48, 7 Oct 2005 (EDT) While I'd like to agree with Schmidt, I think that the sort key part is redundant. It would make more sense to simply have a normal link to the relevant page(s), which would appear above the Article or Subcategory lists.
 * So if the main page was simply linked (not as a category item), you'd agree? I'll agree with that, except that the category link will place a link at the bottom of the page listing what categories it belongs to, and it might be helpful to see that it's a member of the relevant category. Schmidt talk 01:10, 8 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Comments
I'm starting to come around to this idea, to a certain extent. I think pages like Engineering are too long, and most of the sections (as divided by headers) should be put on their own lists. I threw together an Example of what I think that page should look like. Basically, if a Category has its own Table of Contents, it's probably too long.

However, some pages are about as short as they can get, for example the Shaman page. Its contents seem about as brief as they can be.

Regarding the Category:Organization page that kinda started this whole thing, I threw together another example of what that could look like.
 * --FeldmanSkitzoid 16:29, 9 Oct 2005 (EDT)


 * As for the brevity of category:shaman, to me, even that seems too long for a category page. Note that I have no qualms with a normal article being that long. (Sure, some articles are way too long, and it could be good to break those articles apart.) But category pages are already an assembly of articles pertinent to a particular subject.


 * Take for example category:demigods. This category has warrant, but it's clunky. It has all the demigods listed in the top portion in some odd order (certainly not alpha), and then at the bottom, in alpha order. The top list also includes links to uncreated articles. No problem IMO, because since those links are already there, they set a precedence. And since those broken links are there, it would be awkward to leave out the rest from the list. It's a clunky page, but virtually incorrigible. At least, to someone who doesn't know much lore. This is why it would be better to have an article called Demigod (preferred over Demigods, for easier linking if you're just saying someone is a demigod, you don't have to pipe to make it singular). And under demigod, you could have this same list instead of here.


 * I think category:newbies is a great example of a category page. You may want to see my comments on the discussion pages for both of FeldmanSkitzoid's examples. Schmidt talk 01:42, 10 Oct 2005 (EDT)

I definitely agree that any substantive content on Category pages is 'clunky'. A separate page, for example, for /Engineering, which has a link to (and is a member of) /Category:Engineering would be much clearer to both the novice and wiki-experienced user. I do agree with Powerlord that the sort key is not necessary. A single sentence of standarized text at the top of a Category page can direct users to the main content page, and would be brief enough so as not to invite any further content additions on that page. --Aeleas 00:18, 25 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Project Page
Implementing this policy should probably be accompanied by the creation of a project page which outlines a standard for doing the moves, and lists which category pages still need to be looked at.

I wanted to create some lore pages for the classes, and while I was doing that I used a common naming system, e.g. Druid, :Category:Druids, Druid (lore), for every class.

Unfortunately the move function won't work if there is already a page with any history at the destination. D. F. Schmidt pointed out some useful tips on my talk page. I put in the Edit Summary of both pages that the content was moved from the category page to an article page, though I didn't include a direct link, which I will do in the future. I've also moved the discussion from the couple of class category pages that had it. --Aeleas 12:28, 26 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Capitalization of Race Names

 * ''Pulled this into a separate discussion from the Category Name discussion.

As for Night Elf and Blood Elf, should they be capitalized? Should we say that saying Night Elf and Human and Gnome and Troll and so on are similar to saying American and British and Italian and German and so on, or like saying white or black or engineer or banker or farmer? I rather think they should be capitalized in the same way as a nationality. (This is a departure from my thought on it some time ago.) And (although it doesn't relate to article names) what should we say about classes? The only class I can think of that might be capitalized in normal English (as opposed to "titular" English – and if that's not a word, I mean when appearing in a title) would be Druid. And should we even try to get a concensus on this? Schmidt talk 22:40, 28 Oct 2005 (EDT)


 * In earlier games, Blizzard always capitalized them, e.g. "The Orcs invaded,", but in later games and works they usually don't. In WoW quests, for example, it would say something like, "I have no doubt you love the night elves and their allies as little as I."  I would recommend that we don't capitalize them, just to stay as consistant as possible with Blizzard.
 * --Aeleas 12:21, 29 Oct 2005 (EDT)
 * Looking at the most current official Blizzard usage of race names (on www.worldofwarcraft.com), they always capitalize the race names. I believe the correct usage is to capitalize them. Pureblade 23:03, 30 Oct 2005 (EST)
 * Race names are capitalized in the race description pages, but not in the "History of Warcraft" section, or generally within the game itself. The preview of the blood elves uses capitals on the main page, but not on the page specifically about them.  They seem to be alternating between treating them as species names, which would not be capitalized, and ethnic groups, which are.  I guess staying consistent with Blizzard means having no consistency at all, which I'm content with. --Aeleas 15:24, 31 Oct 2005 (EST)

Definite and Indefinite Articles
I added a section on definite and indefinite article use from the Wikipedia standard, as well as a statement on not capitalizing parenthetical text and using the singular form for page names. They are just explicit statements of the general Wikipedia standard which was already mentioned in the article, but if anyone finds anything controversial, please move it to this page for discussion.

Regarding articles (the part-of-speech variety: "the", "a", "an"), they should generally not be included, but there is an exception for situations in which you would capitalize the title in running text. This includes the titles of works, e.g. The Last Guardian.

Proposal:

In our case, I think it should probably also apply to guild names, since they seem to follow the model of band names like The Who rather than organizations like the Catholic Church. In-game organizations, like the Scarlet Crusade, wouldn't fall under this rule.


 * --Aeleas 10:38, 28 Oct 2005 (EDT)


 * Yes:
 * 1) Aeleas 12:24, 29 Oct 2005 (EDT)
 * 2) Schmidt talk 22:40, 28 Oct 2005 (EDT), as stated above
 * 3) Powerlord 17:18, 29 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Money templates
I have noticed that there is a ridiculous amount of money templates. I propose that we eliminate all but four of those:, , , and. I think that this will help reduce confusion and standardize the templates more. Pureblade 23:06, 30 Oct 2005 (EST)

Support
 * Pureblade 23:06, 30 Oct 2005 (EST)

Oppose

Comments

 * We might change the Templates article to eliminate the others from being listed, and we might change each article that refers to those others, but there's no need to really delete them. However, you could add the tag to their talk pages (but not to the template proper, as that would screw it up). It might be wise to note that these others are deprecated in favor of the others that you mentioned.


 * Further, and  are useful when only two denominations are relevant. For that matter, whenever you have gold involved, there's no need to even mention copper. That's like mentioning the number of cents involved in a $100+ transaction. So I am in favor of keeping each of those three, and gs and sc; gsc is next to useless, as well as . Ultimately, there's no need for concensus on this, but I assume that no one would be offended if you changed each article you come upon. Schmidt talk 00:41, 2 Nov 2005 (EST)

Concise Articles and Source Text
Proposal: Lore articles on characters, places, and events should be kept reasonably concise, summarizing and cleanly presenting the facts and events directly relevant to the topic. Large sections of copied source text are discouraged, as they tend to make articles overly long, create repetition, contain much information that isn't directly relevant, and are problematic to update. Citations to an official source should be included where relevant as a link, preferably an internal one to a complete transcription of the source. This should also allow for easier verification and citation of sources.


 * Yes:
 * 1) Aeleas 18:42, 2 Nov 2005 (EST)


 * No:

=Old Discussions= For an archive of the preliminary conversation, see Policy/4 Oct 2005.

Capitalization of Category Names
For many articles, however, the name to be chosen is debatable. I recommend going by the rule of thumb as mentioned before. If it reduces typing and piping (the use of the | character for linking), then that name should be used. BaldMonkey agrees on this point mostly, but disagrees as much to say that he would prefer categories to be capitalized according to the common method in English, keeping major words (not necessarily proper nouns) capitalized and other minor words lowercased.

The reason BaldMonkey has for using capital letters in category names it to allow them to stand out from a normal article when viewed as a link. Such that it should be easier to see that Alliance Guilds is a category containing various pages related to guilds on the alliance side while alliance guilds is an article that talks about guilds on the alliance side.


 * ''I moved this from the main page, since it doesn't represent a clear directive to the user, and could use some further discussion. --Aeleas 10:44, 28 Oct 2005 (EDT)

I think it's okay to leave categories capitalized, or not. Most categories won't be linked from within articles; only at the bottom of each article it belongs to. So capitalization should have little effect on any given category, as far as linking goes, and if you were to link it in an article inline, and wanted to put it in a sentence, say, you'd most likely make the cosmetic portion of the link something at least slightly different from the category name anyways. Like, say, On Earthen Ring, there are x guilds on the Alliance side, and y guilds on the Horde side. (Not a very good example, I know.)

In conclusion, I don't feel the need to be adamant that they should have standard English rules applied (rules regarding normal sentence syntax, not titles). And Alliance should be capitalized because it's a proper noun, and Horde likewise. Schmidt talk 22:40, 28 Oct 2005 (EDT)


 * I agree that there is really no problem with category names being capitalized. If no one objects, I'll put a less equivocal version back on the main page.

--Aeleas 12:21, 29 Oct 2005 (EDT)