Wiki discussion

[Nimphy]

I need to get your opinions on something, fellow wiki editors!

KenoSarawa made nationality-specific categories for Characters like "Dane" and "Icelander" etc... I personally don't see the reason to further subdivide the pages this way, but I wanted to ask what everyone else thinks before I get rid of those categories.

Heh, you beat me to it, dang it! So what do you think, Solovei? I have mixed opinions on the subject, personally, and as we live in democracies (except for Norwegians, but who cares, their opinion will simply not be asked ;P), let the people vote!

[ThisCat]

Heh, you beat me to it, dang it! So what do you think, Solovei? I have mixed opinions on the subject, personally, and as we live in democracies (except for Norwegians, but who cares, their opinion will simply not be asked ;P), let the people vote!

Hey!

[Solovei]

Heh, you beat me to it, dang it! So what do you think, Solovei? I have mixed opinions on the subject, personally, and as we live in democracies (except for Norwegians, but who cares, their opinion will simply not be asked ;P), let the people vote!

To me, if there's only one page in a given category, then we do not need that category. I understand if we had a main cast of 40+ characters and they each needed their own page, but as it is, only the main characters get individual pages so subdividing them further makes no sense.

[Nimphy]

Hey!

If you're not alright with that, 2014 needs another referendum. Let 1946 happen for Norway, too.

Hehehe, just kidding, I hope I didn't offend you or anything. Of course we'd love to hear your opinion!

[ThisCat]

If you're not alright with that, 2014 needs another referendum. Let 1946 happen for Norway, too.

Hehehe, just kidding, I hope I didn't offend you or anything. Of course we'd love to hear your opinion!

Not offended, just being playful. I'm sure you can figure things out fine.

[JoB]

To me, if there's only one page in a given category, then we do not need that category.

Actually there are more pages in those categories (I just grabbed Norway for an example, it contains three) and I still think it's more of a burden to lug those dependencies around whenever you edit pages than it'll be worth anytime soon.

However, let me add some more detail: Before, we had two pages on individual Norwegians (Sigrun and Trond), categorized as "characters" (and maybe "people", I don't quite remember when that got introduced), a page on Norway (categorized as "countries" and "locations") linking to those two Norwegians, and links to the Norway page for all purposes of nation, populace, or language.

Now there's a category "Norwegian", a page "Norwegian (people)" (marked as a stub) in that category, in addition to Sigruns and Tronds pages, and redlinks (e.g., in the infobox of the "Norway" page) to a "Norwegian (language)" page that hasn't been created yet. While all the information about Norway as a whole, including a list of known Norwegians, is still snugly sitting in the rather short "Norway" page. (And chances of the comic providing more information about SSSS Norway anytime soon are rather slim, as the expedition's currently heading out into the Silent World.)

While I'm rambling: I think we have two options here, either we keep the categories trimmed down to what we can memorize and handle manually when we edit and categorize pages, or we lay down a systematic array of categories once and for all the foreseeable future and have pages auto-assigned to them by way of sophisticated templates (you tell the template "it's a character, he's male and a Norwegian, ..." and the page pops up in categories ranging from "characters" and "SSSS storyverse" to "male Norwegian characters that Minna hasn't gotten killed yet").

[Nimphy]

Actually there are more pages in those categories (I just grabbed Norway for an example, it contains three) and I still think it's more of a burden to lug those dependencies around whenever you edit pages than it'll be worth anytime soon.

However, let me add some more detail: Before, we had two pages on individual Norwegians (Sigrun and Trond), categorized as "characters" (and maybe "people", I don't quite remember when that got introduced), a page on Norway (categorized as "countries" and "locations") linking to those two Norwegians, and links to the Norway page for all purposes of nation, populace, or language.

Now there's a category "Norwegian", a page "Norwegian (people)" (marked as a stub) in that category, in addition to Sigruns and Tronds pages, and redlinks (e.g., in the infobox of the "Norway" page) to a "Norwegian (language)" page that hasn't been created yet. While all the information about Norway as a whole, including a list of known Norwegians, is still snugly sitting in the rather short "Norway" page. (And chances of the comic providing more information about SSSS Norway anytime soon are rather slim, as the expedition's currently heading out into the Silent World.)

While I'm rambling: I think we have two options here, either we keep the categories trimmed down to what we can memorize and handle manually when we edit and categorize pages, or we lay down a systematic array of categories once and for all the foreseeable future and have pages auto-assigned to them by way of sophisticated templates (you tell the template "it's a character, he's male and a Norwegian, ..." and the page pops up in categories ranging from "characters" and "SSSS storyverse" to "male Norwegian characters that Minna hasn't gotten killed yet").

...

"Delete categories" it is.

[JoB]

(... I probably should've mentioned that the {{Characters}} template KenoSarawa created already includes the [[Category:Characters]] categorization label, so if the template's being used on a page, it doesn't need to be explicitly put into the category anymore.)

[Solovei]

(... I probably should've mentioned that the {{Characters}} template KenoSarawa created already includes the [[Category:Characters]] categorization label, so if the template's being used on a page, it doesn't need to be explicitly put into the category anymore.)

I'm kind of confused about how templates work... do they designate a given page as, like a character page as opposed to any other kind (e.g. a location page), or does it just pre-load certain sections like an infobox?

[JoB]

"Delete categories" it is.

The single-populace-related stub pages ("Dane", "Icelander", "Swede"), too?

[Solovei]

The single-populace-related stub pages ("Dane", "Icelander", "Swede"), too?

I think I got rid of most of those already. Didn't seem any point in keeping them since we already have "Known Danes/Icelanders/Swedes" on each country's page.

[JoB]

I'm kind of confused about how templates work... do they designate a given page as, like a character page as opposed to any other kind (e.g. a location page), or does it just pre-load certain sections like an infobox?

(How did I miss answering this one so far ... ?)

Templates are, well, templates that you can include into a page. By and large, the page will then be rendered as if the content of the template had been inserted into the page in the place of the "call" to the template.

Note that I said "content", not "text". With some limitations, template can contain code (Wikitext), and the "Characters" template contains the Wikicode to mark whatever-it-winds-up-in as a member of the "Characters" category. (Wikia insists on having you edit templates in the code editor because the visual editors trying to interpret the partial Wikicode in some templates would result in utter gibberish.)

Now for the fine print, a.k.a. exceptions:

• Templates can have parameters. (That's how the visual editors are able to deal with pages with templates in the first place: You insert or open a template in the page and a list of possible parameters with text fields with the current values pops up.)
• You can explicitly mark parts of the template's content as "only goes into the page including this template" or "only shown when someone views the template itself" (<includeonly>...</includeonly>and <noinclude>...</noinclude>)

[JoB]

On a different note: I think I'm finally getting somewhere with hidden content, but in order to work for all readers, an admin needs to insert a bit of JavaScript code into places a mere mortal like me cannot touch.

If you want to have a look at what I'm doing, please proceed as follows:

• Log in, go to your user profile, then edit the URL in your browser's location bar. If your username is XYZ, change the part that reads "/wiki/User:XYZ" into "/wiki/User:XYZ/common.js".
• (That's a page where you can enter JavaScript that will be used only for yourself, only for pages from the SSSS wiki, and while you're logged in; If and after agreeing to deploy these functions, the admin action to take is to make the same change to the SSSS wiki's global settings, either Common.js or Wikia.js. See this help page.)
• Insert the below Javascript so as to have the ShowHide module from Wikias "dev" section loaded.
• After doing so, have a look at the examples in my profile's scratchpad section. Note that the templates offer some control over the colors used; I adapted them to the SSSS wiki's color palette for the moment.
• If you're wondering why I'm fiddling with that topic again, have a look at the post-Rash calendar page I wrote today.
• (If you don't see functioning "spoilers", you might need to flush various caches; see this help text.)

The JavaScript:

Code: [Select]

importArticles({
     type: "script", article: "external:dev:MediaWiki:ShowHide/code.js"
 });
P.S.: Actual templates and pointers to ShowHide shamelessly stolen from the Sryth Wikia, which was referenced from a Wikia support discussion on the topic of "spoiler templates", if you're interested. Use of importArticles and the specific JS pages mentioned above are adaptations to newer developments on Wikia, especially the Wikia style supplanting Monobook after all those discussions took place. Oh, and note to self: Will need to provide documentation for the templates I added, too. (Doc is still part of the template itself in Monobook-based Sryth Wikia, while SSSS supports separate doc pages for templates ...

[Solovei]

That wiki you linked to, I like that thing it has on the front page that says how many pages there are and when it was started... can we have something like that?

I don't know, there's just... so many cool wiki's out there and I want ours to be one of them Then again, there's only so much we can put in. Like, we're kind of at Minna's mercy here.

[JoB]

That wiki you linked to, I like that thing it has on the front page that says how many pages there are and when it was started... can we have something like that?

The start date will need to be typed in manually (once) IIUC, but the counts are available as "magic codes". Lookie here and here.

I don't know, there's just... so many cool wiki's out there and I want ours to be one of them Then again, there's only so much we can put in. Like, we're kind of at Minna's mercy here.

That's the aspect of content, and then there's the same thing with technology. Some of the Wikias have nifty spoiler templates with icon images that scroll open and close and whatnot, but I don't think we have enough JavaScript etc. etc. knowledge assembled on the SSSS wiki (yet?) to be able to maintain such beasts ...