User:Aldyron/Sandbox/Monster Manual experiment

Reasoning
Personally, I'd much prefer a Monster Manual in single table form, rather than multiple tables form. In fact, I have a spreadsheet on my computer laid out that way. That makes certain browsing patterns more practical. Let's see if wiki tables could fit the bill as well. I'll explain how I use it if and when I get it in shape.

Moreover, I'm a big fan of "a single source" wherever and whenever possible and practical. This comes from theory and practice: whenever any kind of database gets duplicated even partially, the (possibly multiple) duplicates soon start misaligning. That leads to people (say, me) often finding out-of-sync data, usually without even realizing it, and the efforts to maintain the several copies of the data likely becomes too onerous. I consider this the zeroth law of database handling: always strive for single-source, never duplicate unless indispensable, always consolidate if not unpractical.

Finally, as a wikibeginner, I need practice in a lot of fields. I'm going to use this as a starting/stumbling point in order to find out what I need to learn about wiki software. :-) That's why I'm doing this by myself instead of making requests to my senior fellow editors. As soon as I have something resembling publish-ready, I'll tap people on the shoulder.

Current state
What follows is my experimentation to reformat and expand Mm export by hand (for now) into a shape more suitable to me and, I believe, to anyone else. I'm now pretty much satisfied with the result, as far as both (minimal) aesthetics and end-user functionality go. Now the hard part: I'll try semi-automatic compilation from single-monster pages.

'WARNING! You're in my sandbox. This is *not* the Mm export, it's just an experiment. You are advised *not* to rely on the data you find here, which I could purposefully alter (even making it wrong) in order to experiment with formatting, coding and other wikiful things.'

'WARNING! You're in my sandbox. This is *not* the Mm export, it's just an experiment. You are advised *not* to rely on the data you find here, which I could purposefully alter (even making it wrong) in order to experiment with formatting, coding and other wikiful things.'