Help:Obsolete

All games evolve and Lotro is no exception. And sometimes content is removed from game, or made unavailable.

Removed means that content no longer exists in any form or fashion.

Unavailable means that characters already having that content have not lost it. But neither old nor new characters can obtain it any longer. Accepted quests remain in the quest log and can be completed but other characters cannot obtain them. Etc.

In other words, some contents become obsolete.

Guidelines

Articles on Lotro-Wiki should reflect the current state of the game. Hence we provide the following help to editors for the process of making an article obsolete. Yes, it is a process!

1. Insert the {{Obsolete}} template topmost to the page
   • Select appropriate "type" for the template
   • Add "patchlink" to the update page
2. Add nocat=yes inside the standard template of the page
3. Remove any manually added category tags
4. Apply <nowiki> around utility templates which add category tags
5. Find and remove incoming links from other pages

Use the Obsolete Template

See Template:Obsolete for its documentation on usage, "type", "patchlink", and other parameters.

Disable Standard Templates

The nocat parameter will disable category tagging made by our standard page templates, if put inside such a template. For example:

{{Npcbox
 | nocat = yes

Remove Category Tags

Remove manually added category tags from the page source, if any. For example [[Category:Bree Quests]] that could have been added to a quest. Even if category tags should be added to the bottom of a page, many exceptions exist. Use preview to check if any unexpected category remains. However, see also next paragraph.

Disable Utility Templates

Disable utility templates that add category tags by embracing them with <nowiki>. This most often applies to quest rewards where e.g. faction points are nicely rendered by such a template but it also tags the quest for the quests category of the faction. We want to show the old values but without category tagging. Use preview to check if any unexpected category remains.

Remove Incoming Links

Find and remove incoming links by using the "what-links-here" link in the left-hand column. With some exceptions (see below) current articles should never link to an obsolete page, or transclude from it.

• Tips: Start category pages, pages meant for transclusion, and alike. Chances are that many incoming links goes away when transcluding pages no longer display those links. Sometimes it takes a while for it to take effect though, then wait or open the transcluding page for editing, click preview(!), and save (without any changes that save does not show in the page history, but this routine "kicks" on the wiki-engine to update its cache).
• Exception: Items that are still available in-game. Usually that is an item that was a reward from a now obsolete quest, it may link to the quest but should be updated to instead read something as "... was a reward from the now obsolete quest...".
• Obsolete articles can freely link to each other, since neither of them are current.
• Obsolete articles can link to current pages. Indeed, they bloat the what-links-here feature, but because the article is clearly marked "obsolete" it should cause no problems.

Philosophy

Why not deleting obsolete pages? Because at Lotro-Wiki we want to provide players with content about what was, if possible. Hence we rather "move" obsolete articles to the collection of obsolete stuff (compare with the definition of Mathom). There archaeologists, etymologists, and whoever, can freely research, or simply enjoy the older lore.