Talk:Rules and Conventions

Suggested conventions or changes

Post any suggested site conventions changes here for the consideration of all sysops. Final decision will be determined by vote, majority vote needed for implementation. Users Admin & Colin (same person) excluded from vote, but I may enter the discussion. Admin 10:48, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

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The discussion below is undated, I think it's quite old and as there are no objections I have added the agreed convention to the Rules and Conventions page proper and will remove this discussion in a few days.

I would like to propose another convention for naming pic files: If the same figure (and it has to be exact, with no variations) was released in more than one blister, box, or set, then, once known, the file name should reflect the lowest product code, be it ordered numerically or alphabetically. This way, the same pic will show in all galleries to which that figure belongs and there is a better likelihood that the pic will be attached via name to reflect its earliest release. If the editor cannot reach the original uploader, then he can reupload, provided all the information, including the originating uploader's credit is maintained with the new file. Or is there a way to just change the file name and edit in the new code for it without having to reupload? If so, is that only restricted to management (and I can see why it should be), or can anyone do it?

~ Mysticat

I fully agree with the notion that a single image name should be used across the different places that exact same figure appears. This is already the practice in use in a lot of places on the wiki, though it was never articulated on the conventions page, and some contributers probably were not aware of the practice.

> the file name should reflect the lowest product code, > be it ordered numerically or alphabetically

I don't think this is the right approach (if I'm understanding you correctly). I think the file name should reflect the original release. For example, in the Nightmares range, the preferred names should be from the CoC and Fantasy Lords sets since they predate the Nightmares range itself. Ideally, the only figures with the nightmares nm names would those that were unique to the nightmares range.

~ The Grouch

So for Tomb Of Spells, it would be Wizzaards and Warriors numbers, right? -- SGR

Stephengroy 10:39, 10 August 2010 (MST)
How does one comment-out text, images, etc?

As far as I know there is no way to comment out parts of pages like you mean. Just delete it, the changes are left in the page history if you want to 'find' them again later.

You can find the code to comment out text or code in the QuickCode typesetting area in the Help section.--Mysticat 23:19, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm back, Colin... and I have a question for your preference to rules and conventions. A long while back, I began setting up the Metal Magic pages using a minimum of pages for less Category clutter and more see-at-a-glance page viewing through scrolling - this has been the classic way you've set up the wiki... and the code is easy for newbies to do. Here's my point, though... the Metal Magic pages I set up have been rewritten by a new admin that seems to think everyone prefers many little multiple-category pages set up to "turn" using a book-like link system. On top of this, the details (called "Checklists" (which are not checklists at all) are set up in a table format that most people wouldn't be able to code properly or easily. One other problem with this view is that the code info that I require to drop into my Topical Galleries is transferred to the annoying "Checklist" table, forcing me to recode. Also, nesting categories should be shunned unless absolutely necessary... otherwise it becomes a nightmare to manage. I had to sift through all those cats of cats to determine which cats are legitimate manufacturers from the special pages Categories listing in order to update the Main Page listing. Have a peek at the Categories special page and you'll see how much the Metal Magic and Mithril overcategorization annoyed me! Now I like to keep things simple, and though you know I can code fancy as well as anyone, I think we should have some sympathy for our not-so-code-savvy members. If you like the new admin's style, say so, and I'll restrict my efforts to the Topical Galleries, which, for see-at-a-glance ID speed, will continue to be set in your Classic long-page style (to be broken up when the page becomes overlong of course - but not before that!). As for an alternative to the "checklist" tables, I would lean towards the important stuff staying with the gallery coding... and any footnotes to be made in a Framed scrollable Text box as on Chronoscope, where all the dagger symbols jump to the Footnotes box at the bottom of the page. So much easier to code than a Table! On top of it all, the history of the Metal Magic pages was not retained except on one page, which I used to retrieve my code. I don't like not being credited with having worked on a page and I've been guilty in the beginning of not preserving the history once or twice out of ignorance on how to do it. Anyway, it's your choice how you want things to look. Can you narrow down your rules and conventions some, please? --Mysticat 23:19, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

• The Checklist tables were added because of... you. Somewhere on the wiki there is a page where you are talking about using the German language names for the Metal Magic figures because, not unreasonably, that's the only 'official' name we have in some cases. But this is an English language site and other wikis such as wikipedia don't use the German version of the name as the page or heading title. What they might do is mention the foreign language name in the body text and this is the approach that I felt was best here. However, you then went on to make a further point I totally agreed with: having the original German name on the wiki somewhere would allow search engines to index on them. Genius. At the time all I could think of was to add this Checklist table at the bottom of each set page to enable this. But since I've added tha SGIP template, I have now realised that the place to put this is on the base image page. This will do away with the need for the Checklist tables. The extra data in the 'Notes' columns will also get folded up onto the image page.
• I started using tables, again, because of... you. Somewhere else on the wiki there is a page where you have put together quite a funky table with coloured backgrounds and an attempt at making it sortable. I thought this was quite cool when I saw it but when I started using it I realised that all the inline format styling was making the tables quite bloated so I stripped out all of that leaving a very bare-bones table format that worked without sending pages over that 70K limit.
• I originally found that the Metal Magic pages were very, very long. The wiki software itself was complaining about it, so initially I split it into two, still too big, then three, stil too big, then four still big, I then chopped out onto their own pages some other stuff (the Freaky Fantasy bits, I think). But then I was left 4 pages of almost too big wiki code (this without any of my tables, btw) and I began considering going the whole way and being granular down to the set level. This had been done already elsewhere on the wiki. Note this process was done over months. I wavered over doing this for quite a while but things kept growing on those 4 pages and I needed to split it again - I was fed up with this and felt that the best approach was to just split them all on set level and never have to worry about reaching the page too big limit again.
• You appear to like long pages. I don't. Before I started editing on the wiki I was using it to search for unknown lead and there was nothing worse that getting to an endless page and having to scroll on and on past all these completely inappropriate figures - far, far better to have either good indexing, or pages at the set level so I can quickly find the Undead groups without having to scroll by hundreds of Elves. From the way I used the site the granular set pages was a far simpler and efficient way to organise things. Likewise, putting those set pages in their own Category seemed a much simpler and far neater way of doing things.
• Splitting the long Metal Magic pages was, for me, a major breakthrough. I was able to see the data properly instead of a huge wall of wiki code. I disagree that long pages are in any way simple for any user to edit and understand. Without splitting the Metal Magic pages up I probably would have taken much, much longer to realise that all of those Old Version 1 sets in the 'C' Series were not unknown models but were the old 'M' series models carried over into the 'C' Series era. Prior to this flicking thorough the Metal Magic page a user would have got the impression that roughly 40% of all Metal Magic figures were unknown and missing.
• Your suggestion of the footnotes makes much more sense on smaller pages. With large pages of several hundred figures there could easily be quite an extensive footnote section and flicking down to read the footnote and then having to scroll back up to where the footnote was linked would become tedious. Textbooks where the footnotes are at the bottom of each page are far easier to use that those which have an appendix of all the footnotes at the end. I find. I was looking into adding an anchored back-to-top element for these long pages but without jquery the only method I could find was fairly clunky and involved using z-index.
• The History sections of the Metal Magic pages have all been retained - as far as I can tell, if not then that was a mistake. But since you can't Move a Page and turn it into a Category what I had to do was to, fairly randomly, move the original Metal Magic page to one of the new set pages. You can still find all your stuff if you look. I don't think anything has been lost.
• Hmmm... I take it your comment about Checklists not actually being Checklists is because they don't have checkboxes? Otherwise I don't know what you mean. I recall baseball and football card series always coming with Checklist cards that were simply lists of the cards in the set. Seems almost exactly what I have there. But as noted... irrelevant as I am on the verge of removing the Checklist tables.
• I will, of course, respect your wishes to not meddle in your Topical Galleries sections. Although from time to time I will probably send you requests to add things to it. However, I don't think that rest of the wiki should be formatted around making things easier for you to add stuff to the Topical Galleries. Perhaps if you explained what it is you require then it wouldn't be an issue but all I'm getting from what you've posted here is that doing anything at all is wrong.
• For your information my current intention is to finish this pass of the 'C' Series (4 more sets to do), then do a pass over the 'M' Series in order to get the SGIP template in for all the images and then deal with the Checklist situation. EDIT: I'm also going to track down a few orphaned images since I found that log page that lists them.

Cattwister 10:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the formats used in Metal Magic or Mithril categories, in both the information is very well organised and easy to read. I agree the tables in Metal Magic would be difficult for new users to code, but I'd prefer advanced users setting up pages as opposed to newbies who don't necessarily adhere to or even read the conventions. Anyway, as Cattwister already mentioned above, the new SGIP template makes the checklists redundant and I expected them to be removed as the templates replace them. Most users upload their image into the place-holder and move on, it's advanced users who tend to keep the finer details in check.

I like the Topical Galleries, but I don't think we should restrict the structure/coding of other pages just so it fits with the Topical Galleries needs, unless Topical Galleries were the main purpose of the site.

Bottom line is, I don't consider myself an advanced user here, so it would be unfair of me to restrict other users to mine or any other limitations. If someone codes a page in a different way, which still presents the details clearly, then good.

I'm not going to rewrite the rules and conventions page without a majority request from "active" sysops, myself excluded even on a hung decision, though I may enter the discussion. Post any considerations to the top of this page and I'll invite the other sysops to give their views, followed by a vote. If the majority of sysops agree to implement a certain convention, then we add it to the page. Admin 10:46, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe a happy medium here is for the Manufacturer pages to be done short book style and the Topical Galleries to be done long scroll page style, breaking up as required. (Yes, I have some long pages, but that's only because I haven't reduced them down in size yet via making comprehensive sectionings -- note I started doing that by pulling out the Deep Ones as of late.) As for tables, I'm happy to hear the "checklists" will be gone... and moving all the information for a particular figure to the image page seems a very good idea, since anywhere the image goes, the info goes as well. This will be very handy when it comes to the fig's history (independent of the other figs it may have been packaged with), since figs get sold off as individual molds (as Mega has done of late). I've been worried about the gallery individual fig entries becoming overlong due to posting the product codes and names of various manufacturers. So I'm thinking the only PC and name given there ought to be the original's, alongside the sculptor in grey text. This way the birth of the fig is documented and the sculptor given front page credit. The rest of the attendant info can go onto the pic page, but we should encourage the contributors to use the form there... or, if daunted, they can just drop the info in text at the page bottom for a codeworthy member to drop into the form. Let's just not call it a checklist... this is a collector's site where checklist means a gottum/needum sort of lifelist. The baseball card industry misnomers them (Google define: checklist) Anyway, I did not realize Cattwister's MM work was the first experiment - I was under the impression that we had a new coding hotshot on our hands looking to remake the whole site. I remember being like that a little in the beginning (my table play being abandoned after the Commercial Contributors list (I got fed up fixing the mistakes people made on it), but I tried to keep within the established page view standards you set, Colin. If you like the "book view," then okay... but let's convert all the manufacturer pages to that format over time, conserving the page histories (at least on the initial page of a book-set). I only ask that the Topical Galleries be left long-page scroll style, entries unfettered by extraneous info so that similar figs can be compared quickly side-to-side. The different look to the Manufacturer vs. Topical pages will serve to remind people which kind of page they're on. If Cattwister is okay with that, then we're good. Colin, I would like, eventually, to put the Main Page Manufacturer list to its own page as it grows too long... and we can do the same for the Topical Gallery sections, with links to both of those index pages given on the front page as clickable buttons. As for the footnotes box style, I will continue to use it when necessary - check out the Reaper page, Cattwister and you'll see that a click on the footnote symbol takes you to the appropriate footnot in the scroll box - and a simple backbutton click returns you immediately back to the image you were looking at. I think I made a point in telling readers how to do this. I'm not trying to be a pain here... my concerns here are for the usability of the pages, the ease of code for newbies, and reduced work for admins.

If it comes to Cattwister and I having to agree to disagree, then I'll gladly restrict my work to the Topical Galleries and Special Administrative pages (like the Main Page listing). There's more than enough work to be done there to catch up to the volume of the Manufacturing Pages! (and once I've caught up, Colin, you'll see the topicals becoming much more useful for unknown fig ID's... perhaps the most important purpose of the site, because simply listing by manufacturer is as easy as obtaining and reading a catalog. The topicals will be hand-sorted without regard to the manufacturers (who change anyway). Just keep in mind the Topicals are in their infancy, so necessarily long until logical sectioning becomes apparent. What I don't want to see there are a million pages of only a dozen or so figs on them. I will let the data and my time dictate the breaking of pages into smaller ones, so please be patient: they need to be seen side-by-side. I'm thinking it may be prudent to assign a head syssop for each of these two sections of the site, with assistants named to cover for when the main syssop is not available. I would like to nominate Cattwister as main for Manufacturers with The Grouch as assistant, as he is good with code, too; and for the Topicals, myself as main and StephenGRoy as assistant (he is often around and has a great interest in the Topicals... and can follow the coding well enough. Colin of course, you are our boss... and we respect your wishes. Hopefully, you'll not be put often to choose sides. If Cattwister and I respect each other, we can respect the coding style on the type of page we're adding info to. That's much better than making requests for adding info to each other's section of the site! If there were a way to automatically push submissions from one section also to the other via code, I'd go for it, but software can't use good judgement on sorting pics into categories. There's a bit of code wizardry... using a database, make a form for submissions asking anything we want for each fig... then have it autoname the jpg and put it all to the pic page, with a notification sent to each main syssop for insertion to the appropriate section. Doable in Java (which, as an electronics engineering specialist I can write, BTW). Maybe a project page that outlines all the info we wish to know about a fig can be useful for those pic page info forms anyway? Cattwister... want to set up that page and I will add what your "checklists" haven't got in them yet? (See... I can collaborate...)

Which reminds me to ask a question of you, Colin... I just acquired a very large external drive... while it's empty, I would like to temporarily download all the jpgs on the site so that I can sort them into Topical Gallery folders. Do you have a way to let me grab them in a fell swoop, or must I copy pages one by one and toss out all the extraneous files? If I had all the pics, my sorting and coding would go a whole lot faster.--Mysticat 13:03, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Post note: I've created a page for fig info for us to consider... did I miss anything, Cattwister? Fig Info Project (Temp Page)--Mysticat 14:58, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

• There's nothing wrong with any of the above points you've made, Mysticat. I'm not certain we need that formal a hierarchy though - I was never likely to interfere with the Topical sections as, frankly I didn't understand what was trying to be achieved there. I did see how hard they would be to maintain and they did look dormant for a long while since you were largely the sole editor... dormant enough for me to wonder out loud if they were worth keeping. Another user stepped in and said they had found them very useful so I dropped the issue - because, hey, I could be wrong. Since then I have used them to identify at least one figure and I can see their potential. So I was wrong about them.
• On the topic of the Metal Magic pages, part of the reason for their bloat was the addition of blister pack images - a thing that I started doing because, again, one of your comments elsewhere on the website was about the need for absolute proof in the form of product packaging. As well as those images there were often several alternatives of the same figure (painted / unpainted / catalog / magazine) which made the galleries very, very long. Now that I am folding those additional images up into the base-image page the galleries are streamlined (it's one image per figure, click to see more), and once I remove the Checklist tables these pages are going to be very light indeed. It may be feasible to revert to the long page format. We'll have to wait and see. However, I would have struggled to get to this point without taking the page apart in the first place. It kind of how I like to work: take it apart, understand how all the bits work, do a fair bit of maintenance on them and (maybe) put it back together. And I also quite like the book format for use on tablet devices - I find that the tapping motion to move to the next "page" easier than the swipe up to scroll which often causes the contents to go whizzing far beyond the next set down. Cattwister 15:51, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Good point to consider about tablet use... eventually the Topicals might have to go this way, though for now, the pic gathering stage is more useful as a kind of big sorting bin until, like the Deep Ones, there's a fair number of pics to pull out to its own page. The strict hierarchical sorting is quite necessary in order to get posters to put entries in the correct place(s). And, if someone suggests a better change for the hierarchy that I've set up, I'm all ears. Which reminds me... should go put that Well Dweller on the Lizardmen page as well.--Mysticat 18:50, 15 April 2015 (UTC)