Talk:Scroll of punishment

I don't think iron ball should redirect to scroll of punishment. Where would we put facts about iron balls (such as their weight)? In my opinion, scroll of punishment should just talk about the effects of reading the scroll (and other such scroll-of-punishment-related information), iron ball should describe methods to remove the punishment. Also, you can be punished (chained to an iron ball) in other ways, such as by praying repeatedly with an angry deity, so perhaps punishment also deserves its own article. Finally, the style guide (though I'm aware that it's still being thought out) says "Redirect acronyms like YAFM to pages like Yet Another Funny Message. However, identification, scroll of identify, and spellbook of identify can be three separate pages." Eidolos 21:39, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, my justification was that when one gets punished by the scroll, they will search the spoiler (this wiki) for a way to undo it and they'd start by looking at the "scroll of punishment" entry. Thus I thought it would be a bit silly to make them read another article, especially since the link "iron ball" doesn't really tell that in that page you can learn about removing the chain. You are free to revert my changes, but I wish the amount of duplicated information is kept to minimum. If both of these pages and then a page called punishment tell, how to remove the chain, well, you know it's hard to update many separate versions of what should essentially be the same text. --ZeroOne 18:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm also against information duplication. However, I'm not against asking users to click another link, otherwise information duplication would be difficult to avoid. A simple "for information about how to remove the iron ball, see punishment" would suffice. I won't revert your edits, I'll leave that for the other folks to decide. Eidolos 18:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Eidolos. A good test for whether two articles should be merged is to ask whether the first article relates to anything other than the second article. The concept of punishment arises from prayer as well as a scroll of punishment, just like shock resistance has a life independent of the ring of shock resistance. The iron ball, on the other hand, exists only in conjuction with punishment. So there should be two articles: scroll of punishment and punishment, the latter including info on iron balls. --Jayt 19:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

So you are against an article called iron ball then? I guess we could have the article to describe the basic properties of the ball. It's just that it becomes so short, like studded leather armor. --ZeroOne 20:01, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd say iron ball deserves an article for the basic properties, also its uses (like throwing it at enemies? shrug). Nothing inherently wrong with articles like studded leather armor; though it be expanded if someone wanted to do it. --Eidolos 20:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I recreated the iron ball article. Feel free to add anything you think is appropriate. :) --ZeroOne 23:06, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Without meaning to clobber the other edits (I think I merged them all), I've refactored all the punishment information into scroll of punishment and punishment. There's nothing wrong at all with short articles, but the iron ball can't be adequately explained except in the context of punishment. I hope seeing semi-finished articles makes it a little clearer why I've reorganised them this way. --Jayt 17:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)