WoWWiki talk:Policy/Subpages

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Proposal proposal vote

Votes

Yes

Yes Wige (T - C) 17:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC) - (Originally proposed)
Yes TeжubԎ Ҩ Ѡ 19:35, 20 March 2009 (UTC) - (no comment)
Yes ( Morph 20:10, 20 March 2009 (UTC) - (I agree if the pages can NOT stand on their own are are just additional information / tables for the maian page then they should be sub pages so all (even new editors) can see that the information is apart of the main page -- as to people using the Special:Random function -- all sub pages have a link back to the main page at the top of the page (so long as it is not deeper than 1 sub page ))
Yes PcjWoWWiki admin (TDrop me a line!•C46,157 contributions and counting) 21:35, 20 March 2009 (UTC) - (no comment)

No

Comments

I believe that having pages which are resources for a single page should be subpages of that single page. I also believe that anything that could be fleshed out into an article should be its own article in the default namespace, and any content that can be used in multiple articles should be placed in the Template namespace. I think this is in line with the ideas behind the {{transclude}} template, the Templates that should have been local project, and established naming policies. Further, I believe this policy would help eliminate naming confusion as more pages incorporate Ajax capabilities. Of course, this policy could probably benefit from a bit of cleanup. -- Wige (T - C) 17:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

This proposal was created before its proper time, and looks more to steamroll (my) the opinion that subpages are illegitimate wiki pages... I will respond fully where I think proper. --Sky (t · c · w) 20:09, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I think both styles are ok. We go both ways (compare Apprentice jewelcrafting designs to Inscription recipes/Apprentice), but sticking with one way makes for a more consistent naming procedure and would hopefully make said articles easier to find from the search box for editors. Arguments of "it looks better" don't mean much, as they both get the same information across in the URL.

We need to a consensus one way or the other so we're not moving articles back and forth over and over. Wheel warring over this is not a productive use of time for any of us.

If I had to vote (you'll notice I have _not_. I could very easily be swayed one way or the other right now), I'd prefer the subpages style. My reasoning being that for most of these articles there isn't enough content for them be fully-fledged articles in their own right and the built-in breadcrumbs are a plus. Breadcrumbs are trivial to create manually, though, so that doesn't count for much.

I also tend to view subpages as part of a directory structure. Would you rather have one directory with 45 files in it (apprentice->gm pages for each of the 9 professions with recipes) or 9 directories with 6 files in each?

Articles on their own (like the JC pages) read better, but it's not like those pages were created for anon readers to read on their own.

One point that Morph brings up on VP that I do agree with is that {{transclude}} should be on the pages if they're subpages.

Anyway, that's my stance for right now. I'll watch the vote and keep an eye out for page moves. For the time being, I'd prefer if articles didn't get moved back and forth one way or the other until a consensus is reached. --k_d³ 21:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I have put {{transclude}} all the Achievement pages that are linked via Ajax (including the 3 that Sky2042 moved) for now until a decision is made on how to prooced -- ( Morph | Contribs | Talk ) 22:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I was distinctly not referring to the address bar, but the actual article name. GNU/Linux deserves a slash, but if there's no slash in the name, there shouldn't be a slash in our naming methods.
A semantic point: Wheel warring is administrative action warring, which there have been none.
I similarly chose not to vote, as I personally prefer a fruitful discussion to "zomg, I can haz yes because this" or "zomg, no you can't haz it!", with usually arbitrary requirements.
I very much agree that they aren't full articles right now, which either means they shouldn't be 'subarticles' [i.e., they should be merged into the main page], or they should be true templates. The former is the option I personally prefer, or if need be, we can split the main achievements page into "Classic raids", "BC raids", and "WotLK raids". I think this topical organization is best either which way. That would keep the page size of the pages down satisfactorily, which I suspect is the real reason for the way Ajax was implemented here.
We aren't restricted to a directory structure with page names, only with categories. And categories are there for exactly the purpose. We should and can freeflow from a page on one of your 45 items to another without thinking anything of the organization, unless we're freeflowing in a topical manner via categories or templates or other navigational aids of that type. It makes little sense to me to be restrictive in the manner of every other website on the planet; we don't have to organize by file name, which is a wiki's strength when organizing information.
Indeed, the transclude template should have been included; this whole thing wouldn't have started if I'd looked at what was really going on with the subpages. I'd have properly been able to remove the slash and keep the main article from breaking, which is what Murph was crying foul about. Part of the problem I did have after he left messages on my talk page indicating that the pages were broken was that I had no clue what he was talking about.
Consider also this specific point, which is probably the best against ever subpaging, even for 'local' templates. Just as the Wikipedia page says against subpages, consider the following case: I can name an article "Achievement/Heroic", or "Heroic/Achievement". Neither is decidedly wrong, but it plays an unnecessary influence on how the page is written, and doesn't allow for the organic growth a wiki encounters. What happens when "Heroic" becomes the more important topic in the first example? Should we rename everything everything of type "X/Heroic" to "Heroic/X"? That's flat out stupid to put ourselves in that position. Also consider the case where "Heroic/Achievement" also fits under another topic? Do we make the articles "Raid/Heroic"? Why not slippery slope and extend the name to "Raid/Heroic/Achievement"? There is no reason to restrict ourselves in this manner.
Perhaps a better example would be the NPCs Quests and such pages that we [rather] recently removed. Why not name them "NPCs Quests/Mob" instead of "Mob/NPCs Quests"?

The split out of information [tabular] pages like here was unnecessary, because we can manipulate how we sort the information. We are not bound to having absolutely everything on one page, in the event that there's too much. In the other case I've seen, as with NPCs quests, there's usually not enough for a subpage, and so they should be merged into the main topic. --Sky (t · c · w) 23:03, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Sky, I agree with your points. Of the content that is subpages right now, 99% of it should be moved into the main article or into public namespaces such as Template. There is only one case where I believe something should be put on a subpage; the content would be included in the main article, but the wikia software does not support that inclusion. There are two scenarios I have seen where this can happen.

A table is created specifically for the article, and the table has advanced formatting but needs to be easily edited. The recommended solution for this is to create a template for the table. Currently, page-specific templates can not be included in the page itself. It isn't really appropriate, IMO, for such a template to be in the template namespace because it is designed for use on only one page. Note: tables should be merged into the main article. I am only saying templates to build page specific tables should be subpages. If such a template is used on two or more pages however, then it should be put in the Template namespace.
Content needs to be hidden for most readers. For example, on a page about rogue mechanics, the editor decides to include some rather advanced formulas to back the information in the page. However, because of the nature of these equations (either the processing power to display the information, or the space needed to show it) it is decided that this information should only be displayed on request through XML. The equations are not of interest to most users, and are small enough to not warrant their own article. There are other examples as well, such as some interlinking tables for Achievement pages. In this case, Wikia software doesn't allow you to hide content on the page itself. It has to be displayed through Ajax. Since this is only used on the current page, and it can't be included in the page itself, I believe it should be a subpage.

Again, I am in no way proposing that content that can be added to a page shouldn't, or that transcluded content that is not page-specific should not be put in a global namespace. I am just suggesting that page resources (and only page resources) should exist "under" the page.

Right now, there appear to be thousands of transcludes that exist as subpages. Only a small subset of these would likely meet the requirements of this proposal to remain subpages. The rest should be merged into the main article or moved to the public namespace. --Wige (T - C) 01:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not parsing your points very well. Can you sum them each up in one sentence each so I can get an idea of what you're saying? --Sky (t · c · w) 01:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I can try.

Most things should not be subpages.

A sub page should only be created to hold content that would be included in the main article, but a limitation of the wikia software prevents this.

Example 1 - Page specific templates used to make it easier for new editors to contribute data

Example 2 - Content that should be displayed on demand rather than by default, but is not appropriate in it's own article.

Better? --Wige (T - C) 02:03, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

To better explain example 2, a situation came up with an API page, where an editor uploaded a massive (over 1MB) list of files that can be used with the specific API. They can't be used with anything else, they don't particularly relate to any other topic or warrant their own article, but they don't need to be displayed to everyone who views the API article, just the ones who click a SHOW link in an Ajax include. --Wige (T - C) 02:03, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

As it were, that situation was settled by splitting the information into several pages. Perhaps you maybe have another?

There isn't actually any limitation in the Wikia software; we can make the pages as big as we want. The problems come with the ability of a network to handle the information. I.e., even broadband dies when pages get too large. As I said before, I think there's a happy medium in this specific case, and that is to split the information out with different organization and a mother page with the more 'notable' achievements, or even with just a list of lists, so-to-speak. This means no pages need to be subpages. If there's a concern that content should be on-demand, the idea should be that the content is located on another page and where it is with other (sub)topical information.
Really, this whole thing was a knee-jerk reaction to a template (in)flexibility. I've been working to remove 'subpages' for a long time, and no-one's had issue with it... --Sky (t · c · w) 22:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Overall I agree with you that the main problem I had was the Inablitly to Edit the new pages that you moved because of the missing paramater |target= that you added to fix the problem - but I still disagree with your Naming of the new pages ( With sub-pages we knew which pages were apart of which MAIN page - I think a better name for the new pages you made would have used ( and ) Example I would have used Duneons & Raids achievement (Lich King Raids) or even Duneons & Raids achievement (Lich King raids) and not what you called it Lich King raid Dungeons & Raids achievements - that way we can still see which pages are apart of the same group as the Main page (in the Dropdown list) -- That is my Oppinion -- (M o r p h | ^C | _T)

22:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

That would definitely be the best choice, though we might want to change "Lich King" to something else; I actually thought it referred to the actual Lich King raid... perhaps Dungeons & Raids achievements (Wrath raids) or Dungeons & Raids achivements (WotLK raids). --Sky (t · c · w) 23:58, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

But I have see a few posts by you or other Admins (when comes to naming of quests or making the Tooltip colors - to always use Blizzards way of doing it ) even if it is gramaticaly wrong - and Blizzard called those sub sections of Dungeons & Raids achievements Lich King Raid and Lich King Heroic Raid etc - that is why we originaly named those groups the way they are back when we were first preparing for

Achievements -- (M o r p h | ^C | _T)

01:24, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, I think it still solves itself rather nicely with something like Lich King raid achievements, if nothing else. Like, it would make more sense to name Player vs. Player achievements/Alterac Valley to Alterac Valley achievements, right? Your point is made though. Hmm... --Sky (t · c · w) 04:02, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Soooo anyhow - how do you want them named ?? I readly do not care any more -- I just want to get back to do them all no matter what page they are on - since the |target= paramater is there they can be any name you think is appropriate - and can be edited easily from the main page because of the paramter ( but again I personaly disagree with your naming only because they do not group the like pages - but again that is my opinion ) - so do I make them A. Main page name with the former sub page name inside of ( and ) ie. Player vs. Player achievement (Alterac Valley) or B. Sub-Page achievements at the end of it ie. Alterac Valley achievements - you decide - so that I can go an make them all uniformly the same - not 3 one way and al the rest the other -- (M o r p h | ^C | _T)

05:39, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Ohh yeah since they wil not be Sub-pages do I need to remove the {{Transclude}} template from them when I name them whichever way you decide? or do I leve the {{Transclude}} template because the pages themselves do NOT make sense as a stand alone page (on their own) linked via the {{ajaxsub}} template? -- (M o r p h | ^C | _T)

05:45, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, the first thing is, will they be fleshed out into full articles, or will we keep them as tables and use them with {{ajaxsub}}? If they are being used with ajaxsub, they should probably go in the Template namespace. Unless this is the only page which is going to be using them, in which case... ugh... we are back at the initial argument. However...

In this specific case, I think we should do both - create an article for each subcategory, and put each table in the Template namespace, transcluded into both the main article and the appropriate subcategory article. Since it will be transcluded into two pages, for this case the subpage argument is moot.

As far as naming, what special characters can be put into a Wiki URL? If our only option is using parenthesis, I'd lean toward "<Category> achievements (<subcategory>)" but that might get messy if we then need to disambiguate between Horde and Alliance versions of the categories or subcategories. I also thing achievements should be plural in the name, since we are talking about a group. --Wige (T - C) 13:22, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Other special cases

I have seen a few other special cases where subpages have been used, which I have only noticed in the last few days. In these cases, subpages are being used to hold tables of items being sold by vendor NPCs, for transclusion into the main vendor page as well as into faction pages. For example, Aldor and Scryer vendors use this method to allow their list to exist on both pages. In this case, the naming remains, to me, natural (<name>/items, or for mobs <name>/drops). The tables don't quite warrant a full page article just for the table, and by having these as subpages they aren't lumped into the default or Template namespace. --Wige (T - C) 15:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Those I've been moving into template space. You are decidedly hitting a slippery slope here; first it was only one transclusion, and now it's two?... The template namespace is allowed to have extra crap in it, with respect to the main namespace. The argument for subpages in non-mainspace is slightly different, naturally. --Sky (t · c · w) 17:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. And as mentioned above, I don't think that this is necessarily something that should be on a main namespace subpage since it is transcluded in multiple places. But then again, putting it in the root of the template namespace might not be ideal either... Maybe something like, for <VendorName>/drops, the Aldor vendor, it would be Template:Aldor vendor items/<VendorName> or something. I don't know. --Wige (T - C) 15:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The association you want doesn't need to exist in the template name, as it already exists in the template itself as well as special:Whatlinkshere. One of the ones I've done is Template:Cenarion Expedition items. Really, it's alright to be chaotic on the backside of the wiki (and on the frontside!); as long as we categorize, we can get where we need to go. Which is a reason (put another way) as I see it to avoid subpaging on the front side. Subpages inject too much order. --Sky (t · c · w) 19:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Could you explain "Subpages inject too much order" to me? It sounds non-sensical without some background. It also seems to fly in the face of arguments used for the whole Category:World of Warcraft ... thing which annoyed the crap out of me. --

Fandyllic (talk · contr) 1:30 PM PST 3 Apr 2009

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