Forum:ToC overhaul

< Forum:Watercooler

Since the release of NetHack 3.6.0 there has been a push to update all of the version-specific articles to be consistent with the 3.6 series. Many features have not changed, so not all pages need changes in content. However, if you wanted to make any general improvements to all articles on the wiki, this would be a good opportunity.

Earlier this year I tried out ADOM for the first time and, while I am still fond of NetHack, I'm impressed by the amount of organization in the other roguelike's wiki. All pages for objects and monsters (that I have seen) have a consistent table of contents. For example, every monster has a section on what happens if you eat its corpse, even the monsters that don't leave corpses (in that case, it simply says that the monster doesn't leave one).

Many NetHack features already have essential information like this in their articles, but there is a lot of variation in the names and contents of the sections, so unless the information is in the infobox or clearly signaled by a subheading, you may have to search through the body text to find it. I think it would be helpful to have a standard organization scheme for feature-centered articles on this wiki.

There is a proposed standard table of contents on the NetHackWiki style guide, which I think logically organizes the contents of many articles:

• Generation
• Map(s)
• Messages
• Strategy
• Mythology / Origin
• History
• Encyclopedia entry
• See also
• References
• External links

Obviously not every section will be used in any given article—"Maps" is not usually relevant to articles about items or monsters—and some articles might require additional sections and subsections for completeness. But I think this is a good start.

I'd like to propose a few tables of contents that tweak this basic framework to fit different types of features (items, monsters, special levels). I've put some of these section headings in articles I've edited, but this is my first attempt to standardize them into an organization scheme.

What do you think? --Cherokee Jack (talk) 20:37, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

A standard style for every page is an excellent idea - the wiki tends to be all over the place at the moment. For many monsters, this kind of structure would be overkill though. Consider the grid bug article.

• Generation would be empty: the monster is generated with frequency 3 which is already noted in the infobox and there is no special generation of this monster

  Inventory would be empty

  Messages would have "You get zapped!" along with the explanation, but this may better fit under the Combat section

  Combat, i.e. the attack the monster has, is already listed in the infobox so this is unneeded

  Death Drops will be empty

  Strategy would mention the orthagonal movement of grid bugs and the and would probably contain the meat of the existing article

  Mythology would mention Tron

  History would be mostly empty

  Variants - I'm not sure what would be here but I suspect nothing

  The rest would remain largely as-is

I think that an infobox re-think is needed. A lot of the information can be conveyed easily via the box rather than via text under headings. For monsters, I suggest the format as follows, with all the rest moved to the infobox

• Short introduction

  Combat

  Strategy

  Messages

  Mythology

  History

  Variants

  See Also

  References

  External Links

--LinkVanyali (talk) 17:37, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Another thing to consider is pages that contain lists of several related but discrete things, for example Canine or Container. Unless these would be broken up into their own pages, you would have the same repeated sections on each, most containing little or no useful information. For monsters like the wolf, all it needs is the info box, a short general paragraph, and the encyclopedia entry, because it simply isn't that interesting of a monster. Maybe the solution is to move these info boxes and individual information to their own pages, I don't know.

I do think that some restructuring is needed, but I also agree that forcing everything into those sections is too much. Would it work to use standardized sections and simply omit sections for which there is nothing to say? (In the case of e.g. death drops there would always be something to say.) --Phol ende wodan (talk) 23:33, 14 November 2016 (UTC)