User:Relyk/sandbox/infobox revision

So why do we not want multiple infoboxes on one page? When we talk about multiple infoboxes, this is exclusively for infoboxes on item pages.

Item articles

The purpose of an infobox is to list properties and information related to the item article. There is a long-established practice of having a item article for each unique item. This keeps formatting consist for all items since they will all use the same template for creating item pages. Sticking multiple items on a single item article is inconsistent with almost all other pages.

Infobox

The infobox was not designed to be used multiple times on a single page. The infobox is designed around the premise of the item being the article subject. This is used for parsing the the icon, category, and other automation. Multiple infoboxes require these parameters to be constantly overrided, ignoring much of the purpose of the infobox in the first place.

Querying

DPL and SemanticMediawiki use templates heavily to make queries. DPL does not have the ability to differ between parameters in individual infoboxes, instead it grabs all occurences of that parameter. This makes it impossible to make any useful queries. SMW has tools that allow the implementation of multiple infoboxes on one page, but this complicates the query and only bandages the issue described in the infobox section.

Formatting

The infobox templates must use the {{clear}} template to separate the sections and just look terrible when used multiple times. When representing a group of items, the preferred option is the use of tables, where players can then navigate to the individual item articles. Using a single item article makes this impossible as well as having information common to all items in that group.

Recipes

Many runes and sigils have recipes only related to individual items, superior versions of runes being the prime example, hitting the point of splitting into individual item articles. As described in the querying section, this would make it nigh impossible to query for properties about the individual items on the item article because you would be coding for the format used on other item articles and then have to complicate the code to address multiple-item articles. This is especially important for how {{recipes}} template is implemented.

Potions

The main problem with potions isn't just the use of multiple infoboxes, the item article used to group them together is actually a unique item article itself. This is because unlike runes or sigils, potions don't have a guaranteed prefix to describe the item. This is a mistake due to contributors following how runes and sigils were formatted without complete understanding of wiki guidelines.

Navigation and redirects

By having all the items on a single page, all the related pages must be redirected to the page. The primary disadvantage is that the redirect will lead the user to a page containing information about the item they want along with information about all the other related items they don't give a shit about. This is an abuse of the redirect, as otherwise the wiki would be forced to create individual item articles, so bypassing a common practice for the wiki. Navigation between related items is done easily through categories, item group pages, nav templates, and tables. Implementing navigation through redirects is a very poor method to provide this navigation as articles themselves are hard to manipulate and not designed for such a purpose.