Forums: Index > Watercooler > Standardization of Infobox location/Linked to and Navbox locations/Landmarks
As suggested, making this a forum topic. There are two distinct issues to be solved here:
- What is the standard for inclusion of a location under "Linked to" in the Infobox location?
- Development of a standard for the listing of locations in the Navbox locations.
The second one of these already seems to have found a solution pretty quickly, with the creation of three categories:
- Towns: Any area map containing a settlement where the name of the map (shown when clicking a portal leading to it) matches the name of said settlement.
- Wilderness: Any area map (or set of area maps) containing mobs that isn't a town.
- Minor maps: All other area maps.
- Landmarks: All other locations.
From this arises another issue: What is the standard for inclusion of a location under Landmarks? This bears resolution since presently only the Crystal Kingdom Hospital is listed here.(changed) I spontaneously developed a suggestion in response to a random page comment, but for reasons of practicality I shall duplicate it here. In my opinion, the following should should be eligible for inclusion:
- Buildings that are large enough to have portals to other parts of themselves. Presently these would be the aforementioned Crystal Kingdom Hospital, Cantermore University, and Cantermore Castle.
- Buildings that are at the end of either a long path or a shortcut portal leading to them exclusively, presently this would include the Cloudoseum, the weather factory, and Cloudopolis Flight School. (I have reconsidered including Cantermore airship terminal in this suggestion, as an equal branch of the path also leads to the Wonderbolts HQ. Either both need to be included, or neither. I believe classifying this as a split path, thereby removing eligibility for inclusion, is the wiser choice here.)
- Any location that has it's own article, but on a case-by-case basis. Articles about locations that do not particularly stand out from their surroundings (such as Cantermore Library) should not bear inclusion. Suggested inclusions under this rule: Midway Village, Crystal Kingdom Armorer.
Update: It seems NNW has independently updated the Navbox so that it happens to fully comply with this suggestion. Great minds thinking alike? I would hesitate to call anything official without McClaw's agreement. Silver Scroll (Calmevir) (talk) 04:37, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
- Update: Without my agreement? Wow. The one issue I can see is Sweet Apple Acres, which might qualify as a Town. We should also reserve the option to exclude qualifying landmarks if there's a suitable reason. --McClaw (talk) 13:05, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
- Okay, you're right about Sweet Apple Orchard. Suggested rephrase: "(...) a settlement having the appearance of a town or city where (...)". Less than optimal, but any possible future cases where that is unclear should probably be discussed when they appear anyway. Agreed on the exclusion option. Silver Scroll (Calmevir) (talk) 13:57, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
Regarding Infobox location (aka what actually started this whole thing)[]
Under consideration of the above, the question of what should be included in the "Linked to" of an Infobox location needs to be considered in dependence of what article the infobox is on:
- A landmark: No question here, the map the landmark is on should be listed.
- A minor map: This should also be beyond discussion, listing of the destinations of all inter-area portals inside the minor map.
- A town or wilderness area: See, here's the inconsistency that started this all: Directly accessible towns and wilderness areas should obviously be listed, but what about minor maps? Ponydale lists several minor maps, including Ponydale Library, but not Sugarcane Corner. There are multiple options on how to proceed:
- Identical ruling to minor maps: Include everything. This could lead to clutter should towns ever gain more accessible buildings that are their own areas. Even now the already long list in Ponydale's infobox would need to be extended.
- As above, but exclude buildings. This would mean removing the library from Ponydale's infobox, and avoid unnecessary clutter while still listing accessible locations that don't necessarily show up under the points of interest.
- Update: Listing buildings as a collapsible is an excellent idea NNW! I wholeheartedly support this! Silver Scroll (Calmevir) (talk) 05:53, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
- Updating the update: Apparently, the introduced collapsible as is collapses away all minor maps, not just buildings. (This currently only affects Sweet Apple Orchard.) Thoughts on this? It does promote consistency across templates. Silver Scroll (Calmevir) (talk) 09:21, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
- Do not list minor maps. Not recommended, as this would remove all mention of Sweet Apple Orchard (except one mention under "Description") from Ponydale's article, complicating wiki navigation.
I apologize for the pedantery above, but as the number of locations in the game grows, getting the disorganized status quo into a coherent system is only going to become more difficult - meaning we should now establish a robust set of standards that are hopefully going to last us quite some time. Do you agree? Disagree? Please discuss below, I'm only making suggestions here. Silver Scroll (Calmevir) (talk) 04:14, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
- I'm just thinking here: The number of maps linked to might seem to create two categories (major and minor), but already there are situations where a map accessible to players through portals in a single map (and is thus "dependent" to it) has within it portals to another dependent map. Examples include the Ponydale Library (to the bedroom) and the Evershade Forest (to the deeper forest containing the ruins). So how to define dependency in a way that is clear and useful? And what does that do to categorization? --McClaw (talk) 13:05, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
- While my suggstions above intentionally sidestep the entire dependency issue, it is an interesting one to consider, should it ever become relevant. The closest my system gets is when it counts several maps as being a "set" when they together only link to a single town or wilderness area without being a town themselves (currently Ponydale Library and the Evershade). Unless it's obviously stupid, sets only get one article and are treated as one map for all intents and purposes, except within their own article.
- I tried for a while to come up with an intuitive dependency definition, but failed to find one that wouldn't easily break. I think we should wait with defining dependency until we know what the hell we'd use it for. No point in worrying about it now. Still, an interesting thought exercise. Silver Scroll (Calmevir) (talk) 13:57, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
- I actually suspect the reverse is more likely, that the devteam will add what should be a major map (town or wilderness) that only connects to one other major map. We can always make exceptions, though, and should include the reasons for such exceptions in the Trivia section of that article. --McClaw (talk) 16:04, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
- This is exactly why my definitions completely ignore connections between maps - except the "set" definition, and that won't lead to trouble either. Why? Case A: major map connecting to only one other map is a town. Cannot be grouped into a set because it is a town. Case B: major map connecting to only one other map is not a town, but contains mobs. Could possibly end up grouped as a wilderness set, but this is where the "Unless it's obviously stupid" comes in. It's still technically a set per definitionem, but we're free to ignore that if it makes mores sense that way. Not really necessary to note under trivia, as these are wiki interna. Case C: A major map that's neither a town nor contains mobs. This would need a new category anyway, no matter how many maps it's linked to. --Silver Scroll (Calmevir) (talk) 16:22, September 2, 2015 (UTC)
- I actually suspect the reverse is more likely, that the devteam will add what should be a major map (town or wilderness) that only connects to one other major map. We can always make exceptions, though, and should include the reasons for such exceptions in the Trivia section of that article. --McClaw (talk) 16:04, September 2, 2015 (UTC)