Talk:Create new location

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Templates for Instances

Wondering if we need an additional template(s) for Instances, Raids and Skirmishes? I just added the Location section to The Grand Stair and noticed that their is no template for these entries. If they are using some other template as a guide, there should be an comment added to this page to clarify the page structure. -- DoIHaveTo (talk) 14:40, 5 December 2011 (EST)

We are working on that, but because any such change might be very intrusive it must have its time. Most probably we will improve the Area template and add features for just that, and some other oddities that were not anticipated for when that template was created. Moria is in fact a mess, there must have been a summer internship doing some of the stuff because it does not at all look like the usual pattern with a Region and its several areas, but these areas have sub-areas in turn. And then there are dungeons of all sorts.
I am not certain how to treat skirmishes and raids from a strictly geographical point of view. Yes, they take place somewhere so they are bound to a location. And they are at the same time a certain game mechanism. How to distinguish the skirmish in Tuckborough from the town? Or should we? Etc.
Perhaps the location should just mention that a certain skirmish, raid, instance, or whatever use to take place there. But then have certain templates for exactly what you ask for, which are not at all about the location (more than mentioning it) but about walk-through, tactics, bosses, rewards, etc., the game-play so to speak. Then we have location such as Garth Agarwen which is a large World Instance and one chunk of the article is location specific but for the rest it is game-play. There should definitely be a location article (for GA an area article) but I can happily see most of the game-stuff into a separate specified article, and not the mix we have today. This is much to think of, but yes, it needs to be thought through. And again, we are amateurs, players, and have just so much time, hence it will take time, even if every day is progress :)
For now, create the article as if it is a location and add to something under Category:Instances so it will be sorted in due time. Thanks in advance.
Just a quick note: The page issues I'm noticing most are either: 1) The template is changed but pages using it are not. 2) Turbine added functionality which requires a new section to be included in an existing template. Only thing I could suggest is to merge all of the page templates to create a universal template with an appropriate hierarchical structure (excluding the info boxes appearing in the upper right of a page - although you could try creating a universal info box too if you wanted). Then you can cut things down to recreate the Region, Area, etc pages as needed. If everything is already in the "master page" their is less chance of needing to expand it later. (Note that I am not saying the Universal / Master Page would actually be used. It's more of a schema allowing you to compare page requirements against.) -- DoIHaveTo (talk) 21:51, 6 December 2011 (EST)
Believe me, I feel your frustration, I felt something the similar not too long ago when I joined the team and begun editing. I often call myself a map-oholic, somewhat of a geography nerd, and found so many articles in need of a makeover. In hindsight I find it good that the admins held me back, not that any suggestion was really bad and some are now in progress of being realized. The thing is with a wiki like this, editors come and editors go, not seldom going in the middle of one of their "great improvements", leaving loads of stuff in a mess. Hence, and not judging or weighing anything of your ideas, it is better to stick to a formalized boilerplate (the templates are actually just the info-box in this case) until we have something that really works, than to rip the same work up over and over again and never reaching the destination.
Now about locations. Yes, they are not too nice, but they were in an even worse shape before Rogue and others straightened up that section. I begun to walk over hundreds of location pages but found that I wanted a better strategy (on my own side) so now I do one region at a time and just finished the Shire and am doing Ered Luin as we speak. And then I mean from bottom up: quests, NPCs, landmarks, areas, and finally the region and top-level articles.
The different kinds of locations are very different, hence the different boilerplates justify their existence. A landmark for example, it almost never has "services" nor vendors. Neither does areas, though some areas have locations with very interesting services and others do not. Some boilerplates could be merged, yes, but as they also serve as the help and information page for the template (info-box) that pertains to that page I think it is better to have them all as-is. And finally, I am not in the mood to undo what admins (which I am not) have suggested after long and hard thinking. However, each of them may be improved, with a very cautious hand though. The experiences from the Shire made me in the end not strictly follow every section of the boilerplates, especially when it came to NPCs where I begun using same-looking and easily-browsed tables that are transcluded from the category pages (rather than using several-headers and harder-to-read lists).
Indeed the geography section has lots of improvements to be done, but the main part is to adapt existing pages to the boilerplates (and often also adding the template) to existing pages. Many many articles were quickly added as stubs once upon a time. People added to whatever category they happened to find, without thought of order or hierarchies. But today we feel that category-wise we have a good system (have a look at the Shire) and that we are in progress. What takes the most time with locations is finding and correcting other pages that should be linked to and fro each location, quests for example, NPCs, etc., some are now obsolete or are moved, quests have been reworked, and whatever.
I have not actually found a need to "expand" any of the boilerplates, only to tweak them (such as using NPC-tables rather than lists, but the reason for that is not only that lists are harder to read but the looks of it when transcluding from many categories into one and having them lined up ;)
The current work is to improve the area template (the navigation box). I will not dive into that discussion here but refer you to Template talk:Infobox Areas. One reason is that Moria looks like nothing else in regards of Region->Area but areas have sub-areas. And we have noticed the need of certain places that could benefit from being split into sub-pages, such as Michel Delving. This improvement will also address dungeons, the geography part of them that is. ::: Elsewhere you mentioned having some template for raids, instances, etc. We believe you rather want a skeleton for the format and people can fill in the details. Very similar to for example a settlement boilerplate, right? Go ahead and suggest one and we'll discuss it at Category:Instances talk page. OK? There are indeed a need for more walk-throughs and tactics for these. Having the geography lesson in one article and the game-stratagem at another would be a great improvement for all parties.

Templates/boilerplates need to include Task Bulletin Boards

I noticed tonight that the Templates for Settlements in particular make no mention of Task Bulletin Boards -- which now, with Update 7, exist in virtually every settlement in Middle Earth.