Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:General formatting/Archive 3

Plurals: Staves/Dwarves/Foci or Staffs/Dwarfs/Focuses

English dictionaries allow for multiple plural spellings for Dwarf, Focus, and Staff. I've seen numerous reverts going back/forth. I'd like us to come to a consensus for which to use going forward, so that we can be consistent across the wiki.

Plurals compared

Term	Dictionary.com	Wikipedia	American Heritage
Dwarf	both	(mostly) Dwarves	Dwarves
Focus	focuses	foci	both
Staff	either (see #6-8)	staffs	either

(Please add to the list above if there are other terms with ambiguous plurals.)

Discussion

I don't have a strong preference for any of the choices above: each seems reasonable. Normally, I'd prefer to rely on ANet to decide on "official" terminology, but they are notoriously lackadaisical about jargon (i.e. I think their usage tends to be accidental/incidental rather than intentional). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:16, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Keep context in mind. "Dwarfs" and "dwarves" may both appear in texts, but "dwarves" is generally used to refer to the fantasy race archetype, where "dwarfs" is more often used to refer to real people with the dwarf condition. Same goes for "staves", common in fantasy but otherwise seldom used. Similarly, "foci" is a term more often found in the formal sciences than in common language. This being a fantasy game, my preference would be for "dwarves", "staves", and "focuses". However, since "focus" is most often used in the context of a singular object, I suggest considering the use of noun phrases such as "focus items" or "staff weapons" rather than being fixated on nouns like "focuses" or "foci" or "staffs" as all are pretty awkward to me. 65.87.26.122 00:31, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

ArenaNet vs ANet

Do we have an established consensus about how to type the dev company's name in mainspace articles? Personally, I feel that once we've referenced ArenaNet once in the article, it's fine to use ANet the rest of the time since everyone knows what we mean and it's the term everyone uses. For me, insisting on the formal spelling is like requiring us to type out Non-player Character, Rytlock Brimstone, or Logan Thackeray each time it appears.

On the other hand, I can see the other point of view, i.e. that the wiki can (and perhaps, should) be more formal than people are otherwise. Plus, near as I can tell, in their official blog, the GW2 team is careful always to spell out "ArenaNet."

Either way, I'd like to establish a clear community preference going forward. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:41, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Well since no one has replied, I'll offer that I think ArenaNet should always be used in article prose. Anet is more like shorthand slang, the way a WoW player might refer to Blizzard as blizz. (Whereas Blizzard is an acceptable abbreviation for Blizzard Entertainment or Activision Blizzard.) Even though the understanding is fairly obvious, it looks unprofessional to use slang in articles. 65.87.26.122 00:14, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

More sorting - Item rarity

I've come across a lot of tables with the "item rarity" denoted in them, and yet when you sort them it puts them in alphabetical order. I don't think this order makes much sense when you clearly have defined "junk" as the lowest + "legendary" as the highest grade.

I've suggested an easy implementation at Template talk:Rarity which could allow the weapons to be sorted in the order: "junk, basic, Fine, Masterwork, Rare, Exotic and legendary." Chieftain Alex 15:41, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Implemented. Chieftain Alex 18:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Weapon family pages

← moved to Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Weapon formatting

Achievement tables

I'd like to use something like User:Relyk/Achievement to make those achievement tables slightly cleaner to read and edit. The multitude of br tags and apostrophes gets distracting for me at least. It would be great to abbreviate it to {{ap|<Title>|<Points>}} although that's reserved for the icon right now.--Relyk 03:59, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

We could just add the parameters as optional to the ap template. I don't see an issue with doing that. Chieftain Alex 08:06, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

What I personally dislike about our achievement lists are the separation of the actual list, and the acquisition section. While the table looks good, the acquisition sections are really bad. If possible I’d rather see some different format that actually combines both the listing with information on its acquisition. poke | talk 22:20, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Showing achievements a little love

While GW1 had just titles, GW2 has proper achievements, but I've noticed that how they are treated is a bit inconsistent, and sometimes fuzzy between the achievement and its related entities in the game, like putting a guide to an achievement in the item required to do it instead in the achievement. I think it'll be nice if we streamlined how achievements, their links, their guides and their infoboxes are treated:
There could be some kind of guideline of how to treat them, as there's lots of small pages with almost no info for many achievements.
For example, I think that when there's little info for an achievement, its page should simply redirect to its achievement category. For example, searching for "Centaur Slayer" would redirect to the Slayer achievement category page, as there's little to it other than "kill centaurs". Dive Master? Explorer. Sword Master? Weapon Master and so on. Then, in the table the entry of that achievement would link to more info about it, Centaurs, Swords, and Diving Goggles in these examples.
Why not directly to the Centaurs, Swords and Goggles? Because they are the entities required to do the achievement, not the achievement itself, and in their achievement category page there's a general explanation for the achievements. If you look for a a kind of entity, you should get that kind of entity as a result, not something related to it. Look for achievements, get achievements.
But the achievement should have its own page when it is more complex, and may have a walkthrough explaining things like how to get there and how to do it, like jumping puzzles, mini-dungeos, other exploration challenges, special events, several boss achievements.
Some people used area infoboxes for those achievements named after the area (there's unevitable fuzziness here), and jumping puzzles have their own infobox, but there's others like Goff's Loot that are not an area, neither a jumping puzzle, neither a mini-dungeon, but just a general exploration achievement, and the page just has an explanation of where to go and what to do to get the achievement, with no infobox, and that makes them look a little dull.
For that it'll be nice if there was a generic achievement infobox usable for all of them. That way, if they were to add some other kind of achievement that may use its own page, we'll be ready with an achievement infobox instead getting game entity pages with no infobox. MithTalk 06:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Achievements don't need infoboxes because there is no information to put in one. You'd have achievement category and amount of Anet points and... that's it. There's no point to having a nearly empty infobox. —Dr Ishmael 14:16, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

No. You see the achievement as simply the entry in the list. Those are the first ones I meantion. Those are just 'kill centaurs' or 'kill stuff with a sword'. There's no info to put in those. But then you have more complex achievements like jumping puzzles, min-dungeons, exploration challenges and such. What are you oing to do for those? Separate infoboxes for each kind of things that gives you an achievement? That's unpractical. MithTalk 17:15, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons are locations, so they use the location infobox. That's not the same as having an infobox for the achievement. —Dr Ishmael 00:29, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

No. Maybe you don't get what I'm saying because I'm calling them 'achievements'. But I can't think of a better word for them as a whole. I could have made up a name like 'map challenges', but when players refer to them in in general they say achievements, so I'm just doing the same.

There's sub-types (jumping puzzle, mini-dungeon, exploration achievement, boss achievement, etc), but they are basically the same thing: A page named after the achievement you get when you complete its related 'challenge'. They are not locations, they are actions. Here are some examples so you get what I mean:

Sector Zuhl is a location, Only Zuhl is an achievement; Morgan's Spiral is a location, Morgan's Leap is an achievement; Earthlord's Gap is a location, Goff's Bandits is a poi that marks a location, Goff's Loot is an achievement; Beggar's Burrow is a location, Bad Neighborhood is an achievement, Heart of Corruption is a point of interest that marks a location, Svanir's Bane is an achievement, and so on, and on, and on, and on... ...ahem.

Anyways, if you see the trend there, you'll notice that an achievement, like events, personal story quests and meta-events, it's something you do, not somewhere you go to. They are not locations. It may be confusing when the action you have to do is "going to a location" or "reaching a point within a location", but if you stop and think about it, you'll see that "A place you go to" and "Going to a place" are two be different things, even if where you are going is that same place. Using one of the previous examples, "Morgan's Leap" is jumping in the rocks at Morgan's Spiral until you reach the spot at which the achievement is unlocked, and that's absolutely not the same as Morgan's Spiral itself.

They sometimes share names like with Flame Temple Tombs, Mad King's Clock Tower and Griffonrook Run, which only adds to the confusion. And it's that 'fuzziness' between names of locations and names of achievements what has caused the issue I want to address. But we all know that two things having the same name, and being tightly related, yet still being different things isn't unusual, that's why we have disambiguation pages, like with Mad King's Clock Tower, that is properly separated into achievement and location.

The problem surfaced because currently we have no way to treat exploration achievements like Bad Neighborhood. They added new exploration and boss achievements that are not jumping puzzles or mini-dungeons, or something else. Yet they are all subtypes of the same thing: Map challenges that are not simple enough to be just an entry in a table, just like jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons are.

So now we have several pages that are mostly walkthroughs for those achievements with no navigation box for them like jumping puzzles have, and pages having the achievement and the location merged as one, when they are not the same thing.

There's even worse cases: Matrix Cube Key is an item, Thaumanova Reactor is a location, and Cleanup Crew is and achievement, but we have the guide in the item, and the achievement page is just an ugly stub. It should have been like with the Energy Crystal. In that case, the item page tells you its uses, and links you to the event. Then in the event page you get info about where it happens, and what to do with the item.

And that's why I'm trying to fix by creating general guidelines and a common infobox for all these achievements, or 'map challenges' or whatever you want to call them, instead getting pages with no infobox that follow a logical pattern.

The other issue I'm mentioning is what happens when a player searches for a separate achievement entry of a simple achievement that doesn't need guides. They'll often get nothing or search results, when they should at least be getting the page for its category of achievements (e.g.: search for "Sword Master" -> get redirected to Weapon Master). Talking about both things at the same time may have made things more confusing, they are two separate issues related to achievements. MithTalk 03:56, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

In all of that, you still haven't explained why these achievements/map challenges need infoboxes. What info are you going to put in the box? I can't think of anything, that's why I don't think they need one. —Dr Ishmael 05:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Currently many of those that can be confused with locations are using location infoboxes. But location infoboxes do not fit those that can't be confused with locations. All that's needed is an infobox that will work with all of them. Something like:

{{ example infobox

| name = Name of the achievement

| type = (Optional) Type of challenge. Some have specific names like Jumping puzzles and Mini-dungeon, those types without specifically coined names could get a type named after the category of achievement: boss achievement, exploration achievement, etc... or simply left empty, at least until ANet or the community come up with a name for those types.

| category = Category under which they appear in the achievement panel: Jumping Puzzles, Exploration, Bosses...

| location = Where the achievement is done, it'll be the most specific landmark. For example: Windy Cave has a point of interest, Demongrub Pits occupies an entire area of the map, and Mad King's Clock tower occupies an entire map. Those are their locations.

| level = (Optional) Recommended level to attempt the achievement. Several of them sometimes get slightly more level than the rest of the map, like demongrub pits, which has level 16 creatures while being next to a level 14 area within a level 1-15 map, so many guides recommend to level a little before going there.

| map = (Optional) Map to the location showing the little path dots from the nearest waypoint to the exact starting location.

| maptext = (Optional) Small text for the map

}}

Then the rest of the page would be like they are now, with explanations about how to get there, prerequisites to attempt it like items required to do it and what to do to get the rewards.

Just name, category and location could be enough to have a bery minimum of info. And there's pages with less info than that in their infoboxes. MithTalk 14:32, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Is it just me, or are Mith's wall of texts totally incoherant? Are you trying to say you want a guide to each achievement that can't be summed up with "go kill foes in x" / or that already have descriptive pages? (If its a small page with just an empty infobox and a one line description, I'd rather it was a redirect to the achievement list instead ). --Chieftain Alex 16:58, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I didn’t look too closely on the topic now, but it seems that there is only mention of jumping puzzles. I think it is obvious that those types deserve an own page as there is always something to document about (general information, location, solution, trivia). This has already happened and those pages use a jumping puzzle infobox. Everything’s fine there.

The other achievements are usually just a short and simple “do X, Y times”, so there is really no need for them to have a separate article, and even less an infobox (there is just nothing more to say about it). As mentioned in the section above, I would really like to clean up our achievement lists though so the list-part and the solution part is more linked and nicer. poke | talk 17:04, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

As for normal locations that reward an achievement when getting there, a simple note or even subsection (if it’s worth) on the location page would be more than enough. Like “Visiting this location for the first time rewards the explorer achievement <foo>.” poke | talk 17:06, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Grenth, give me patience... I don't know If I can't explain myself, or you are dismissing me without reading, or if you are just hazing me or something.

I'll try to go step by step, and avoid using the word 'achievement' altogether.

* First we had 'jumping puzzles'. Many of them were named after their location, and their achievement was also often named after the location, and since they are done in a static area, people just noted them as a type of location, named after the achievement.

* But then, people started finding places that were challenging and had a treasure chests at the end like jumping puzzles. But didn't have achievements related, so they just got named them after their location. And they were sometimes treated as a jumping puzzle with no related achievement, and sometimes as a mini-dungeon. Since they still seemed to be locations, the current method of treating them as location still worked.

* Then, in the Halloween update, they fixed that. Jumping puzzles all have a related achievement and their own category of achievements, while many other challenges (not all of them, though) that didn't have a related achievement and thus an unique name got one. For example, Windy Cave's challenge was named Windy Cave Treasure. "Windy Cave" is the location, "Windy Cave Treasure" is the challenge. With many of these, treating them as location still works as the location and the challenge are closely related.

Now, what brings to light that these challenges are not locations? Challenges like Cleanup Crew, The Long Way Around, Beaker's Empty Belly and the achievements related to the Skritt Burglar. In these, you will have a number of tasks like finding an item, competing small jumping puzzles, events, activate items, doing things within time limits, and fighting bosses, and doing them isn't as simple as reaching a point, and they sometimes are not even linked to a location. They are are all basically the same thing: a challenge with a number of steps that leads to getting an achievement unlocked, and we refer to them with the name of the achievement.

The challenge is not the location, but the things you have to do to get the achievement.

Although all of them are basically the same thing, since the previous challenges were noted as locations, as challenges that can't be noted as locations are added, things get random and ugly stubs with no common structure to the other challenges are created. Challenges are sometimes treated as a location, sometimes the guide is in an item required to do it, and sometimes there are noted with no infobox, like we can see in many new challenges whose achievements are listed under the Explorer tab.

There should be a single layout for all pages of all these challenges, and a common infobox for all of them would greatly help with that. MithTalk 19:33, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

These are called "Explorer achievements", not "map challenges", "challenges", or otherwise. A jumping puzzle is a physical entity in the zone, they do not "seem to be a location". These are places in a zone that have platforming elements that provide an award upon completion. The name used to denote the jumping puzzle is the name of the achievement as you noted. Arenanet uses achievements to name the jumping puzzles, they clarified this by finally putting the puzzles in their own achievement category. Minidungeons are also something Arenanet has referred to explicitly and most of them have a related Explorer achievement now. You are trying to work backwards and assign an achievement a physical existence in the game when there is none. If we have an article for the activity (jumping puzzle, minidungeon, zone, food, diving goggles, etc.), we can link it there for information relevant to obtaining the achievement. If we don't, we will have to describe the achievement on the achievement page; the achievements are just that simple.--Relyk 02:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Guild Wars 2 name

I've seen a bit of everything when it comes to writing "Guild Wars 2". I've seen Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars 2, GW2 and GW2 (and I if I recall correctly, Guild Wars 2!).

I propose to edit the bold out of Guild Wars 2, and avoid GW2. Ideally (imho) I would also suggest using only "Guild Wars 2", no style, because I don't see the real plus value of italicizing every "Guild Wars 2" on this wiki. "GW2" could be used in article where "Guild Wars 2" is used extensively (even though I would first suggest a rewrite, or using synonyms like "the game.") Myth0s 13:04, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Italicizing the name is the proper way to write it, as it is a published item similar to a book or a movie. Synonyms would definitely be a useful way to avoid the issue, though. This is a wiki about GW2, there's no need to reference the game's name all the time (unless, for example, it's in a comparison to GW1). —Dr Ishmael 13:13, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it matters, whichever way is fine with me. pling 16:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Names as seen in-game (NPC names, items, skills, traits, locations, achievements, UI windows) name formatting

I never know how to properly address it when puttting them inside a text, like trivia or description. I'm always using t he same capitalization as they appear in-game, and I think it's okay. However, I never know whether I should put them inside "quotes" or should I make them italics or should I leave them without alteration? The latter one could leave a (confusing) big letter in the middle of the word, for example:

Anomaly:

Unlike other achievements, the first tier of the Daily Events is grammatically incorrect: it says "X / 1 Events" instead of "X / 1 Event", even if achievement can have different plural and singular objective description, which can be observed with World vs World achievements.

The problematic ones are:

• Daily Events (this is an achievement name as-seen in-game)
• X / 1 Event (this is an achievement description as seen in-game)
• X / 1 Events (this is an achievement description as it should appear in-game, but it's not)
• World vs World (it's an achievement category name, as seen in-game)

I can't seem to find a policy about using italics and quotes, and I think it would be nice to have a policy about this to follow - unless there already is and I can't find it.
—Faalagorn☎/✓ 13:37, 24 December 2012 (UTC).

I wouldn't bother formatting text. Any words that get italicized tend to be the same words we can wikilink. For "X / 1 Event", that will only ever exist in achievement tables to reflect in-game, it would be represented differently in prose. You can do whatever you like as far as bug descriptions and talk pages.-- _talk 12:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Listing skills and traits

Is the formatting for listing skills carried over from guildwarswiki or can I find discussion on it? Some of the sections are pretty ridiculous, like fear. Some sections like "Downed skills that cause <x>" or "Elite skills that cause <x>" is like calling a section "Sources you don't care about 99% of the time". The "Skills that remove x condition" have maybe 2-3 skills total and further dividing into section by skill type or the lovable special condition and combo section. Traits have a similar problem, where they are split into traits that do one thing or another.--Relyk ~ talk > 04:23, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Updating dialogue format

Unless anyone has any objections, I'm going to change the example used on this page to the one discussed here: Guild_Wars_2_Wiki_talk:Projects/Quotes_and_Dialogues#Dialogue_format (option 1), because the majority of the dialogue I've seen added has been using this format anyway. Any objections? Vahkris (talk) 18:55, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

My only objection is that I personally think the italics/normal text should be reversed.Elementalmen (talk) 19:58, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

In-game the NPC has the normal text, and your options are italicized. Seems fitting the wiki is documented the same way, even if it would save us a bunch of apostrophes when writing it out. Vahkris (talk) 20:06, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Recipe section names

Current

== Recipes ==
{{recipe|
...
}}

=== Recipes requiring <PAGENAME> ===
{{recipe list}}

Proposed

== Recipes ==
{{recipe|
...
}}

== Recipe list ==
{{recipe list}}

Recipe list sounds a bit ambiguous, but "Recipe list" or "List of recipes" implies recipes requiring the item when we already have a section for recipes for creating the item. Either way, it shouldn't be a subsection.--Relyk ~ talk < 21:31, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I don’t really think that “Recipe list” or “List of recipes” (I prefer the latter btw) implies that the item the article is about is required in the list. A “list of recipes” does not seem much different to the previous section “recipes”; it sounds more or less the same just that one is a list and the other isn’t.

Maybe it’s the first section that really needs a different name, because that’s the recipe which gives you the item. So maybe that recipe should be listed under the “acquisition” header instead. poke | talk 18:19, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

== Acquisition ==
{{recipe
 | ...
}}

== Used in ==
{{recipe list}}

-Chieftain Alex 18:30, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

That seems good, yeah. poke | talk 08:40, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest using {{Recipe list by discipline}} as default instead of {{recipe list}}. It makes the page much more organized. - Yandere 08:52, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

If the list is really short, like on Gold Doubloon, the extra organization seems unnecessary. I would prefer having a single table if there are fewer than 10 recipes. —Dr Ishmael 12:35, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Can we automate this? Show one table when recipe count < 10 else do the normal thing? Edit:Forgot to log in. - Yandere 14:27, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

We possibly can, but I don't see any point in doing so. If we feel it's necessary to change formats, we would simply switch the template. the number of recipes for a material is relatively static.--Relyk ~ talk < 14:43, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

It was only a idea if we say we want one template for 9 or less recipes and the other one for 10 and more. You basiclly need to know how many recipes there will be before you apply this standard. A template that does it right regardless of how many recipes there are seems helpful... At least to me. - Yandere 15:12, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

You shouldn't take 10 as a hard limit anyway, it was only a recommendation. Start with the plain recipe list, then make a judgment call as to whether the table is big enough that it needs to be split by discipline. If all the recipes are in the same discipline, there's no benefit to using the "by discipline" template, and you'll make the wiki do a lot more work for nothing. —Dr Ishmael 16:49, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, it doesn’t hurt to keep some manual work in the article design. poke | talk 18:01, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I'm not sold on the proposed headers. They feel too generic without mentioning "recipe" or at least "crafting" somehow. —Dr Ishmael 23:06, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I think acquisition is a bad choice for the recipe header because I feel like being crafted is a fundamentally different process than all other methods of acquisition. It could be an issue if there's an item which you can either craft or get as a drop or something. I can't think of any off hand, but I'm sure there are some out there somewhere. I think it should stay as "recipe" and that, if applicable, there should be a separate "acquisition" header with other methods of getting it. I'm not sure what the recipe list header should be. I don't really like "used in" as I feel like it should at least mention crafting or recipes, but I can't think of a way to phrase it that doesn't sound awkward. Psycho Robot (talk) 23:32, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Sort order for NPCs and locations

1. Shouldn't lists for ==Locations== on NPC/object/event/etc pages order by level before alphabetically? This just seems like a better organizational system for areas because they're differentiated from one another primarily by level.
2. Shouldn't lists for ===Foes=== under ==NPCs== on area and event pages prioritize rank order before alphabetical order? The proposed version below looks more organized and it puts the important bosses/mini-bosses before (mostly) generic enemies.

Current

Example:

;[[Plant]]
*[[Champion Rotting Ancient Oakheart]]
*[[Oakheart]]
*[[Veteran Oakheart]]

Proposed

Example:

;[[Plant]]
*[[Champion Rotting Ancient Oakheart]]
*[[Veteran Oakheart]]
*[[Oakheart]]

Personally, for 1, I don't really mind either way. Some pages are already sorted by level, like Ascalon and Locations (which is quite convenient), so checking for consistency across the wiki might be useful. For 2, it makes more sense than the current setup and I like it. Vely^►t►e 20:16, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I think it should stay alphabetical. Sorting by rank introduces a new sorting scheme when most lists are already alphabetical. I'd expect the tougher monsters to be at the bottom if we did it by rank, so there may not be a universally intuitive way to do it, either. Manifold 16:41, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I would think listing the champs/veterans in a separate subsection would be better. There are few enough of them that they wouldn't have to be grouped by race/type. —Dr Ishmael 17:42, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Linking to external guides

As I brought up here, I think a big gap in the current wiki is that there are very little guides that help you achieve certain things. As an example: the Nicholas the Traveler page on the GW1 wiki acts as a central hub that redirects you to all the information (builds, farming routes, etc.) you may need to complete his request this week. On the other hand, take Super Adventure Box on GW2: if you follow the link to the specific zones, some (but not all) feature a walkthrough, but other than that there is no information to be found that helps you with the achievements (or I can't find it). Say you want to know which 10 upgrades you need for Major in Enhancement, then you're kind of at a loss. Meanwhile all this information is out there in detailed guides on sites like Dulfy. I think it would help a great deal if the wiki would again act as a central hub for this information.

I want to help with this, but I have no clue what the policies are regarding this. Taking the Major in Enhancement example: do you link the guide directly in this table or do you link to a new page 'Major in Enhancement' where you link the guide? --Ki (talk) 10:30, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

There are no policies, really. The actual problem is that most of the people who write walkthroughs don't want to do it on the wiki anymore, they'd rather post it on their own blog or whatever to feed their own egos.

However, I don't think we need separate pages for each achievement - simply make each zone's walkthrough fully comprehensive, so that it covers the baubles, secrets, and upgrades all at once. That's what was done for world 1, anyway. —Dr Ishmael 12:49, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I can respect people wanting to write walkthroughs their own way so people don't "mess it up" or change the style, it's not only to feed their ego. As far as individual achievements, an in-depth walkthrough works for anything zone-related. We have options for how to cover world-based achievements like Minor/Major in Enhancement where reading through walkthroughs is cumbersome, like linking to Super Adventure Box#Items.--Relyk ~ talk < 20:18, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Notes vs Trivia?

What's a good rule to use when deciding if something should be included under the ==Notes== section or ==Trivia== section? Some things, such as lore or minor similarities to other pages (X uses the same staff skin as Y), obviously belong in trivia but it's usually not that simple. The line between significant and insignificant is usually quite blurry and very subjective. Any suggestions? -Somohexual (talk) 16:22, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Trivia is pretty much anything not in the game itself. I prefer to move trivia to the notes section when possible.--Relyk ~ talk < 20:20, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Notes should be anything that affects gameplay. If it doesn't affect gameplay, then it's trivial. —Dr Ishmael 20:35, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

So, what do you think these examples should be classified under?

* Tequatl had its boss fight mechanics overhauled with the [[Game updates/2013-09-17|September 17th, 2013]] update, as part of the [[Tequatl Rising]] [[release]].

* This item was added to the game with the [[Game updates/2013-09-17|September 17th, 2013]] update, as part of the [[Tequatl Rising]] [[release]].

* This event was added to the game with the [[Game updates/2013-09-17|September 17th, 2013]] update, as part of the [[Tequatl Rising]] [[release]].

Tequatl getting reworked by the update clearly affects gameplay and I suppose an event in and of itself is literal "gameplay", so both of those would be under Notes. On the other hand, adding an item such as an accessory or mini has no direct affect on gameplay, so that would be Trivia. Would this be the correct way to categorize them?

-Somohexual (talk) 21:03, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Stuff related to the past of the game and what has changed in patches go in trivia, from what I've seen. Manifold 21:15, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Correct, anything historical is Trivia, because how something worked in the past has no relevance to how it works today. In my opinion, historical notes aren't even worth adding to trivia, but it doesn't matter. —Dr Ishmael 21:41, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

It's valuable for returning players, lots of reddit threads asking about changes; especially for undocumented changes. Trivia notes about soulbound items being changed to account bound are cringeworthy and I'd rather people avoid adding those...--Relyk ~ talk < 23:38, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Dialogue template - NPC Repair

I would like to have a template for the NPC service Repair. Especially for the dialogue that look the same everywhere in the world. Saves us a lot of space. I'm not sure how to compile one from scratch. Shall we use like:

{{dialogue|repair}}

Could be useful later on if we find some other dialogue that are common throughout Tyria. Hencovic (talk) 21:42, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Storage space, especially of relatively short text strings like that, is a non-issue - the wiki servers have plenty of storage. We try to avoid using static copy/paste templates like that. —Dr Ishmael 22:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing interesting in the dialogue anyways. I don't believe its worth documenting at all. Psycho Robot (talk) 22:45, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Seems that the "wiki philosophy" is to record everything, however trivial and "uninteresting". Although I don't disagree with Ishmael as to the non saving of space, it makes it easier for writing up the still undefined repair characters. --Claret (talk) 00:04, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Agree with Claret, this would make repair NPCs much easier to write-up on, why say no to convenience, if it doesn't harm anyone? --Ventriloquist (talk) 00:13, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Because copy/paste is just as easy whether it's multiple lines or one? —Dr Ishmael 00:28, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Instead of having a template, I would add it to Guild Wars 2 Wiki:NPC formatting if people want convenience for creating the page quickly.--Relyk ~ talk < 01:43, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Then why have any templates at all? Why do people spend large amounts of time and effort writing elaborate formatting templates? The reason for using a template in the situation quoted is painfully obvious and I am staggered that it's not obvious to some. If ANet, in their wisdom, change the standard chat of Repair NPCs then this can be changed in one place. Honestly, it seems a fairly standard thing to do. Not trying to be contentious but it seems that it was decided, presumably by those who decide these things, that " We try to avoid using static copy/paste templates like that." Maybe it's time to revisit that decision. It seems a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Even if it offends some people's idea of "The right thing to do", it does not detract from the value of this idea. Like so many things, if it's there and you don't want to use it, then don't. But don't stop those of us who may well want that ease of use from having it. Thanks. --Claret (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Despite claret being my sworn nemesis, I agree. Who cares if its a static template? If it makes things easier for people who want to edit the wiki and improve it for free then why let some arbitrary reason get in their way? We have Template:Exotic weapon text anyways. Psycho Robot (talk) 03:17, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I care if it's a static template. Using a template doesn't necessarily make it easier. {{Precursor weapon text}} is meant to be temporary.--Relyk ~ talk < 06:01, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I supported "precursor weapon text" so I support using a template to display a block of dialogue. Remembering the name of a template is probably easier than remembering the name of an npc from whom you can copy a block of text. -Chieftain Alex 09:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

{{Dialogue/repair}} has been created. If anyone wants to use it then do so. Maybe leave it for a short while in case there are some things that need changing. Apologies to those who don't like such things. --Claret (talk) 15:46, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Great, thanks. I think it will be useful. Normalization is a good thing after all. Doesn't hurt to have it there. --Hencovic (talk) 17:59, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

That's not really their point alex because you can subst the template then. they want to make it easier to modify text, but the text hasn't changed in years.--Relyk ~ talk < 00:09, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

That was just one point they raised, but the primary point was that it would be easier to type {.{repair dialogue}.} than to open a page where its already typed out, copy it, then paste it in. You could subst this template, but what's the point, really? Its 5 extra letters for editors to type every time, and it accomplishes basically nothing. Psycho Robot (talk) 00:41, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The point is not to use a template. Some basic reasons are that new users will have to refer to formatting, they won't know what the template is doing, they won't know how to add text if it doesn't follow the template, they won't know how to edit the template if the text does change. It's the same issues for sbust, which is instead for the convenience of the power users. And even then, it's easy for power users to copypaste or, if the text changes, a bot can make the repetitive changes. Someone can also use the template to vandalize pages. I don't see a reason to use a template and deal with its drawbacks when we have other tools to handle relatively static content.--Relyk ~ talk < 01:07, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The chances that a new user would want to find dialogue formatting to copy and wind up at a repairer page where they would be flummoxed by the fact that it has a template instead of raw text is extremely low, and even then, they would understand why it was a template. And they would simply go somewhere else to find formatting. Yes, its easy for power users to have code stored somewhere on their userpage, or on a subpage, but why make them bother with it? You're very nearly making an argument against every simple time saving template out there, like {{karma}} and {{coin}}. If editors could be expected to have code for repair dialogue stored on a subpage of their userspace, then why should they not be expected to keep File:Karma.png on their userspace as well? If someone wants to help with the wiki and if a template like this would make it easier, then I think its silly to deny them that. Psycho Robot (talk) 01:36, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Inline icons are a completely different topic - they need to be in templates in order that we can apply uniform formatting to them and update that formatting when we need to. Static dialogue will never change. That's the difference. —Dr Ishmael 02:13, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand the distinction. When will we need to change the format of how much something costs? Number space currency symbol. That's it, isn't it? I don't expect anet will suddenly put letters in there, or a picture of some sort. Psycho Robot (talk) 02:32, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Formatting the image Psycho. You don't need to format text. (Also the non-breaking space)--Relyk ~ talk < 02:57, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

This is just going in circles. The ultimate point is that if its more convenient for editors and doesn't really cause any problems, then I think they should be allowed to have a static template. And in that respect its just a matter of opinion, not able to be backed up by facts of any sort. Psycho Robot (talk) 03:04, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Saying this is going around in circles doesn't automatically negate all arguments. I don't agree that "its more convenient for editors and doesn't really cause any problems". It's not a matter of opinion, you are arguing to have the template and I'm arguing against and I can most certainly back it up with evidence. I also gave some alternatives instead of a template; another option is to use the form to generate the dialogue automatically when creating NPC pages.--Relyk ~ talk < 03:38, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I ain't saying the arguments are invalid just because its going in circles. I'm just saying that at the root we just disagree on what a template can/should be used for. I am of the school of thought that static templates are fine for producing repetitive text, and you disagree. You can say "they can do X instead" but I'm always going to retort "yes, you can, but I don't think they should be forced to when they (clearly) would like to use a template instead." Psycho Robot (talk) 18:09, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Second person

I see sometimes texts written casually addressing the reader directly. "You" to refer to both players and character. Maybe because I'm used to it from other wikis and encyclopedic articles in which the reader is not addressed directly, but it feels a bit off to me. So when I edit a page and see those, while I'm at it I also change those second persons to third person, specifically indicating "player" or "character", like "players may change this configuration in the options panel" or "characters standing in lava will suffer burning", so the wiki talks about them instead to them. I can't find any policy on addressing the reader directly, so I was wondering if it was ever brought to attention before and if there was any stance on that. MithTalk 04:57, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it's usually better to phrase articles in the third person, using terms such as "one" or "player." It's more "encyclopedic" and often more accurate. I confess that while it's my intent to write this way, sometimes I forget.

Partly, it's because some situations would require grammatical acrobatics that would make the article harder to read. Therefore, I'd support a general principle to write or amend to the 3rd person, as long as it leaves room for second person, when appropriate. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 08:54, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I remember GuildWiki had a policy called "We are not Wikipedia." To summarize, it stated that what works for one wiki doesn't necessarily work or even make sense for this wiki. Because we are describing a video game and how the player interacts with said video game, it becomes extremely cumbersome ("grammatical acrobatics") to use third person all the time. The worst part is the pronouns - using "they" is still considered grammatically incorrect by many people, using "he" is politically incorrect, and using "he or she" repeatedly just sounds ridiculous.

Thus, I don't see anything wrong with using second person on this wiki. I use it to refer to the player only, and "your character" when referring to characters. —Dr Ishmael 13:12, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree. There are places on the wiki where using third person is good and makes sense. However, there are also large portions where it would be very cumbersome to enforce that. Walkthroughs are one major part; being able to use imperative makes it a lot easier both to write and to read. poke | talk 13:43, 5 October 2014 (UTC)