DDO wiki talk:Category policy

IRC Discussion
08:09:12	ShoeMaker	Okay, I'm mostly here, and I have about 40 minutes to discuss categories before I have to go to work, then I should be back within a couple hours. 08:57:40		--- joenuts is back 08:57:41	joenuts		just now getting in to the office. timing less than ideal 08:58:34	ShoeMaker	Yes, I'm just heading out to log in and start work. But, once I am settled, I'm sure I'll be available again. 09:42:26	joenuts		going to draft what I think would work best for item category tree, get some fundamental design rules written down, and put it up for criticism 09:44:37	ShoeMaker	Yeah... I think of the cat structure as a tree, which has 4 parts... 09:45:19	ShoeMaker	Root, Trunk, Branches, Leaves... Root & Trunk should have nothing on the cat pages except for further categorization connecting them. 09:45:38	ShoeMaker	Branches should have nothing but an NCL style list of the things the go there. 09:45:58	joenuts		i think we're in agreement there 09:46:06	ShoeMaker	Leaves should have a detailed list of the populators of the cat. 09:46:24	joenuts		i'm putting verbage together for when the term 'items' is warranted in the category title. just something straight forward 09:46:55	ShoeMaker	The only other thing that I would consider acceptable for root, trunk, and branch pages is transclusion of what the page is about... 09:47:24	joenuts		i think susalona's comments about content in category pages is off topic from BlackSmith's comments about category name definitions 09:47:53	ShoeMaker	So, on Coublestrike items, I could see adding as long as  had the correct inclusion limiters to only include the content and not the extras. 09:47:56	joenuts		I'm mainly putting together a structure list with some basic rules about naming / category location in the structure 09:48:11	ShoeMaker	That is what I think of the structure in a nutshell. 11:45:00		*** Susalona joined #DDOwiki ************************************** 11:45:33	joenuts	Good morning, Susalona 11:45:43	Susalona	Hi guys 11:46:53	joenuts		I mentioned to Shoe earlier this morning that I believe your comments concerning content in categorization page was slightly off topic to the category naming / classification discussion BlackSmith brought up. 11:47:25	joenuts		As far as actually (not) having content on category pages, I believe everyone seems to be in agreement that content should NOT exist there. 11:48:02	joenuts		Shoemaker : Root, Trunk, Branches, Leaves... Root & Trunk should have nothing on the cat pages except for further categorization connecting them 11:48:11		--- ShoeMaker is away (Auto away) 11:48:14	joenuts		Shoemaker : Branches should have nothing but an NCL style list of the things the go there. 11:48:30	joenuts		Shoemaker : Leaves should have a detailed list of the populators of the cat. 11:48:45	Susalona	That seems to make sense to me 11:49:08	joenuts		At some point he mentioned that if details WERE desired on the category page, that the category page should transclude the actual content page 11:49:17	joenuts		which I think is the exact point you made in your post 11:50:31	joenuts		I'm working on getting a concrete structure for the item category documented, guidelines, etc so that we actually have something visible to work towars 11:50:37	Susalona	Although I don't believe it was off topic, since BlackSmith was the first to bring it up....even if it was all the way back in November 11:51:06	joenuts		( that might help in peeling out content off the category pages, etc etc ) 11:51:10	Susalona	I do like visual aids 11:51:43	joenuts		yeah, shame on me, I didnt really read any posts prior to what was current 11:52:12	Susalona	It's not a big deal, I just wanted to make sure it was adressed 11:52:40	joenuts		as far as i'm concerned, its a no brainer. 11:53:09	joenuts		The category pages BlackSmith was originally talking about contained only ncl listings of cat elements, which I dont really consider "content" 11:53:47	joenuts		the pages you pointed out are so full of information that the cat page is definitely not the place for it 11:54:46	Susalona	Yeah I think you could make that argument forthe NCL stuff, although BlackSmith still seems to think that is unhealthy for the cat structure and stuff like the semantic mediawiki. 11:55:02	Susalona	I don't know enought about that to say if he's right or not 11:55:38	joenuts		indeed. hopefully what I put together will be something everyone can agree on is valuable / useful 11:55:44	Susalona	He might just be saying that isn't the way things are "done" on a wiki 11:56:45	Susalona	Well I think that having an agreed upon structure can only improve things 11:58:46	Susalona	After thinking about it some more, I'm under the impression that people may have starting putting stuff on the cat pages to use then as kind of a quick and dirty substitute for building an actual TOC 11:59:35	Susalona	Stuff like Category:Quests make it seem kinda obvious. There are no navigation links on that page other thank the cat pages 12:07:29	joenuts		Yeah, BlackSmith made the point that the category pages are lacking in links, which is another ball of wax completely, not ready to even think about that one 12:20:48	ShoeMaker	Well, I step away for a few minutes and WALL of chat... just aminute. 12:20:48		--- ShoeMaker is back 12:21:04	Susalona	LOL 12:22:32	joenuts		Let me ask what you think about this, Shoe. 12:22:42	ShoeMaker	Okay, so Joe shared the nutshell in my head.. 12:22:44	ShoeMaker	Ask. 12:23:19	joenuts		I >>believe<< that BlackSmith is (one of ) conerns is about item / group overlay / overlapping 12:24:00	joenuts		**IF** we have an item trunk that is designed so that an item can exist in ONLY ONE leaf node of that trunk so we have a definitive location for every item (or item type) in the game 12:24:25	joenuts		and then we have "something else" that is used for grouping items with similar properties outside of the item trunk 12:24:46	joenuts		I dont see why that something else should be anything other than more categories, because of how convenient they work 12:25:06	joenuts		So i'm thinking base trunk "items" and another base trunk "item groupings" 12:25:31	joenuts		where an item may exist in only one leaf of items, but can exist in multiple leaves of item groups .. items by durability, items by material, items by effect, etc. 12:26:11	joenuts		I'm kind of mapping out the structure, but I think that may satisfy BlackSmiths concerns, and also give options for end users to be able to drill down to find what they want 12:26:44	ShoeMaker	I'm going to need a visual aid... I can't picture what you just said. 12:27:18	joenuts		yeah. working on it, but i'm at work so time I can dedicate to it will be spread across next few hours 12:27:35	ShoeMaker	Yeah, I'm at work too.. I take lunch in about 30 minutes. 12:55:31	ShoeMaker	Okay, close enough to lunch.. 13:37:19	ShoeMaker	Soo... Now that I am here, no one is talking? lol

Restore nested category structure.
Okay, so I've put some thought into this, and the complaint with the nested structure that we were using was that it looked horrible to see "Cat_A > Cat_A/Cat_B > Cat_A/Cat_B/Cat_C" and so on. I agree with this. However, using that type of structure and substructure is more efficient for the actual purposes of categorization. So, for my compromise, what if we used that more efficient structure, but it isn't displayed for users to have to look at? A simple little chunk of code in MediaWiki:Common.js that looks like: would do the trick as to hide the redundancy. I know that and others have put a lot of time into rebuilding the category tree without the cat/subcat structure, but I just don't think that it is working very well. It is harder to find and figure out what belongs where in my opinion. If the majority are all right with this change, I have no problem going through and updating all of the categorization myself and implementing this. What do you think? ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message) 14:49, March 15, 2014 (EDT)


 * To be honest, I was not even aware that anyone considered it horrible to see the " Cat A > Cat B > Cat C > Cat D " structure at the bottom of the item pages.
 * As far as I can tell, it only shows when a user is logged in. I personally prefer seeing the tree, because then I can click on any parent category I wish.
 * The only thing I dont like about it, is that there is a redundant " Root > Hidden categories " at the beginning of each line.
 * Joenuts (Contributions • Message) 13:48, March 16, 2014 (EDT)


 * I think I'm being misunderstood as perhaps my example wasn't clear enough. Let's try with this more defined break down:
 * , it's not:
 * Cat A > Cat B > Cat C > Cat D
 * that people were complaining about, it was:
 * Cat A > Cat A/Cat B > Cat A/Cat B/Cat C > Cat A/Cat B/Cat C/Cat D
 * Or more specifically:
 * Items > Ability modifying items > Wisdom items > Exceptional Wisdom items > +2 Exceptional Wisdom items
 * Which my proposal would allow the actual tree to look like:
 * Items > Items/Ability modifying > Items/Ability modifying/Wisdom > Items/Ability modifying/Wisdom/Exceptional > Items/Ability modifying/Wisdom/Exceptional/+2
 * Which would display to the user (using the JavaScript code above, which could be made a default optional gadget that could be turned off) as:
 * Items > Ability modifying > Wisdom > Exceptional > +2
 * Hopefully this example is better prepared and you can see what I mean (it removes the redundancy, including modifying words such as "items"). ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message) 11:13, March 17, 2014 (EDT)
 * In building this example, I'm seeing I'll need to think this out in a little more depth and adjust the code. While this works for the result shown as the nested tree structure in the bottom half of the category box, the top half (the wmf core version) shows only "Category: Items/Ability modifying/Wisdom/Exceptional/+2" which using the existing code I have will just show "+2".  I could exclude all "#mw-normal-catlinks" from the script, which will show the full path, but that isn't very clear... We could hide the list in this id and use just the tree listing... I'm thinking that is the best option (we really don't need to have it listed twice).  Let me research this, I may have to get  to make some adjustments to the system itself, but it is entirely doable. ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message) 13:44, March 17, 2014 (EDT)
 * Ahhh, yes. Category injection using Sub Pages. Very ugly indeed.
 * My position is more along the lines of this.
 * Keep the "DDO Library > Items" category static, and rigid. As parallel to in game as possible ( using action house categories as starting / reference point )
 * The "DDO Library > Item Groups" category is more free form, items can live in multiple categories, categories can have multiple parents, etc.
 * I see no problem with
 * DDO Library > Item Groups > Items by effect > Exceptional Wisdom items > Exceptional Wisdom +2 items
 * DDO Library > Item Groups > Items by effect group > Ability bonus items > Exceptional Wisdom items > Exceptional Wisdom +2 items
 * I'm not a fan of using slashes in pages, as mediawiki has a special purpose ( see Mediawiki Subpages ) for that.
 * (off-topic below)
 * I also believe that the "Item groups" category should not be a direct child of "Items", because in and of itself, it's not a category of "Items".
 * If the parent becomes something like "Items domain" or "Items related" something like that, which has children "Item groups" and "Items" that would make more sense to me.
 * Joenuts (Contributions • Message) 15:47, March 17, 2014 (EDT)