Help talk:Contents: "Region Quests" pages

region Quests Reply 1

Note: This discussion has been re-creatred from a Liquid Threads (LQT) discusssion. The original question was not recovered.

That is a very interesting question that has arisen since we began categorizing quests by geographic location. It is one that has not been adequately resolved, to date.

At present, we are manually inserting the geographic location categorization. This is, in general, "not a good thing". We have quest template parameters for the starting and ending locations of the quest. These should be used by the template to place the quests in the appropriate category or categories.

My preference is to create and use geographic categories which will not have name collisions with the categories that we use for the quest folders. The quest folder categories must include the text of the in game quest folder name from the quest log. The geographic categories should include the location name that appears below the radar. To simplify collision avoidance, I would suggest that the suffix we add to the category be different. Instead of making the category name by appending "Quests" when making both names, we should append different text. Here are a couple of suggestions to get the discussion rolling. This might apply to one of the quests where you loot a pendant from a goblin or half-orc.

Description	Folder category	Geographic category
Current	Lone-lands Quests	Lone-lands Quests
suggestion 1	Lone-lands Folder Quests	Lone-lands Quests
suggestion 2	Lone-lands Quests	Lone-lands Starting Quests

I don't like either of my suggestions very much, but they illustrate the idea that the two categories should have unique names.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by RingTailCat (Contribs • User Talk) at 04:22, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 2

First I think we need to look at the definitions for quests. (In the following I omit the trailing "Quests" cuz I am lazy.)

The "quest group" is what is read at the Quest Log -- in this case Reputation. There are also Region, Festival, Special, Crafting, <epic <misc.>>, <class>, etc.
The above categories may contain sub-categories which are not read in the Quest Log, e.g. Spring Festival, Jeweller, etc. Those help as well visitors as editors but are "invented" by ourselves.
Location-categories are our internal way of keeping track of the starting location, to provide localized information (and to make it easier to edit location pages).
The mentioned categories may very well overlap. Example: a quest that is available only during the Spring Festival is currently added to both Festival (by the template) and to Spring Festival (by the editor). (However, Spring Festival is a sub-category of Festivals so it would suffice with adding to just Spring Festival. But that is another story.)

Let's look at the example you gave, Silver. Quest:The Council of the North is added to both Category:Council of the North Reputation Quests and Category:Reputation Quests and the second includes the first category; this quest is doubly included in Reputation (which is not the recommended Wiki-way). Furthermore, it is included in Category:Esteldín Central Courtyard Quests which eventually is included in Category:North Downs Quests, because all local quest categories eventually end up in the Region. So, if your wish is to have the quest in the Region category, that is already done. Maybe some quests still need some editing to make that completely correct.

The previous paragraph implies that the group Region Quests always equal the category for the geographical region. Usually that is the case, but for example [[:Category:The Lone-lands Quests]] is an exception, the group is named Lone-lands but the proper region name is The Lone-lands. The same should be true for as well The North Downs as The Trollshaws but I caved in adding that missing The to make that happen. Either way, we are using the Region group category for two purposes, but I doubt it matters. The display at the quests themselves is correct.

I agree with RTC, we should make the template handle these things. And there are more things that should be added and changed as well. But one step at a time.

Did RTC and I capture your concern? Otherwise I ask you to elaborate.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 05:54, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 3

I'm sorry to say I think you may have both misunderstood me :). I guess I should have been more explicit. I was referring to pages such as North Downs Quests, not Category:North Downs Quests.

I haven't really thought about the categorization problem much so I won't offer any comments on it, except that I hope the problem might be elegantly solved by the use of Semantic MediaWiki should it ever come into use. I'm still in the process of trying to build a convincing showcase on the testwiki, though, so I can't elaborate on that at this point.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Silver hr (Contribs • User Talk) at 06:11, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 4

Thanks for clearing that up :)

When it comes to those explicit pages, I am undecided and perhaps we should get rid of them and rather only make use of the Region category as a page. The less same-content we have spread over many pages the better, and the closer the "page" is to some collected original data the better.

Already today all starting-locations from the starter areas to and including Evendim is presented (nicely in my opinion) at the Category:Area Quests pages. I decided to not make them into the Cat:Region Quests categories since that would be massive transclusions, but I don't know if that really is a problem. If nobody objects about such transclusions anybody could make that happen at the Region Category pages. If anybody thinks we should really keep those Region pages they should rather transclude content but not double information statically.

Regarding your example, Silver, I think it is just some editor who forgot to update the page at some point. This happens all the time. You did it a few hours ago with Quest:Beyond the Ram Dúath ;) You did not update the list in the location-category and thus the Esteldín page was not updated, via transclusion. (I am not overly serious, take it easy, just an example on how easy it is to update at one place but not know or forget to update one or several other pages.)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 06:40, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 5

I have to comment that I do love pages such as North Downs Quests, in fact not long ago this helped me out. I was missing some quests in Eorlsmead for the deed, so I looked at my completed log and compared it to the category on the wiki for the area. I found a quest and clicked on it and noticed it as part of a chain. I then clicked over to the are list and found that I had to do quests in another area to open this one, so I looked at that area and found the quest I forgot to do in the chain.

I could have used the chain in the quest log, but then I would have clicked five times. With the area quests I clicked three times. Ideally all the information should be on one page, but this was still better then if the area quest chains were gone all together. Let's don't throw out the baby with the bath water.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by RingTailCat (Contribs • User Talk) at 18:21, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 6

I did not mean to erase them as feature of the wiki, but as pages with static content that doubles data found elsewhere. They may even be retained but rather transclude from the Category:Area Quests pages. Or redirect to the Category:Region Quests page if it transcludes from the area categories.

Perhaps the best approach is to first find out what use cases we have, right? But I think transclusion from what we have comprises your use case, Pinkfae, right?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 08:03, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 7

I have done some initial job at Category:Regional Quests: moved content from Regional Quests to the category page, added a blurb for that page, and a transclusion-only blurb which now transfers over to Category:Ered Luin Quests as a starter.

I think each region's "all-quests" and "all quest-chains" pages could be moved over to category pages. Or at least their contents and the result is transcluded to pages, if that is necessary. That is basically a good way to keep content at the location with narrowest scope, then editing a quest and its one or two categories is enough to cascade into all pages that transclude from them. And why at category pages? Because they are found at the bottom of each quest, easily found and fixed; any other operation is more time-consuming. NPCs must still be fixed one by one, as well as non-starting locations.

Before I or whoever continue with this, what are your opinions?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 11:54, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 8

Our wiki includes a couple of extensions that allow us to include information from categories into pages.

I have some examples on my Category Test page, along with links to the extension doc.

Both the DynamicPageList and the CategoryTree extensions are extremely easy to use. This simplicity should allow more wiki editors to successfully create and edit content.

In both cases, the lists that appear on pages that use these extensions are automatically as current as the categories they reference; the category content is not cached on the article page.

Facts about the referenced entities are restricted to the source pages, rather than appearing (hard-coded) on referencing pages. While that may not be ideal, it does reduce the opportunity for inconsistent data. If we used either or both of these extensions, when we encounter area releveling, as with Enedwaith, or revamping such as the U7 changes in the first half of Moria, changes are concentrated to the main articles, rather also scattered across the many pages that include static quest lists.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by RingTailCat (Contribs • User Talk) at 11:56, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 9

Since I've been working the stable-master problem (lots of them missing) I've lost track of the Quests issues. (I got side tracked with stable masters because most of the Moria ones were not listed and I was trying to do the Update 7 changes to Moria, which necessitated creating new ones and new quests hubs and adding many destinations... but I digress.

RTC and I did a bunch of "regional" quest pages when we set-up Dunland/The Great River. They are particularly useful because of Turbine's new gating system. (It is no longer "obvious" that there are quests available that you simply don't have the starting points for. (i.e. pre-requisite quests you haven't completed).) However, both setting them up and maintaing them is hard work.

One of the problems with the [Category] listings is that they are simply chaotic. Being alphabetic (according to some arcane naming system -- i.e. "The" vs "no The", Elvis spelling vs English, Tolkien's spelling vs roman letters -- all of those issues are pretty tame and most handled by re-directs Lothlórien Redirected from Lothlorien for example. Some (probably the best) Category pages have the "index" listing of their content as the actual page, which can then be transcluded into other places -- especially to the regional page.

"In theory" each region has a page that describes the "stuff" in that region and contains the list of quests available. Some: Thinglad are better (i.e. more complete) than others Wailing Hills (notice "the" issue).

The basic issue is, to paraphrase Steven Hawking, "All about Time" and the various editor's organizational/ time-managemnt styles.

I think what Zimoon is doing makes sense -- minimally it is a pattern that others can follow. Who knows, it might even be the answer to "Life, (the) Universe, and Everything." :)

Oh well, back into the pits -- Moria that is. LOTS more work to do there, even before considering the implications of this.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Magill (Contribs • User Talk) at 16:30, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 10

I am all for not duplicating data. However, pages that present all quests in a regional quest group in a structured manner (with regard to quest chains), such as North Downs Quests are very useful and should not be deleted. List pages (such as Category:Celondim Quests) offer less information because they don't present quest chain information. Quest chain pages (such as Category:Ered_Luin_Quest_Chains) have only chain quests, and don't include non-chain quests so they also offer less information. There is a greater ease of use in having a single page that presents all quests in a region vs. having to click through multiple pages -- for me at least.

Certain questions do arise:

1. Duplication. Data shouldn't be duplicated, so if the individual components of such pages are independently recorded (for example a quest chain having its own page or an area having its own page with quests), then they should be transcluded into the big page.

2. What should they contain? I haven't seen a definition anywhere, and from appearance I concluded that they only contain quests where the region is the quest group. I'd also like the inclusion of quests where the region is the starting location, even if it's not the quest group.

3. Where should they be, in the Category namespace (e.g. Category:North Downs Quests) or the main namespace (North Downs Quests)? It seems to me that categories should be clearly defined and only contain one kind of thing, so there should be a category for geographically-regional quests and questgroup-regional quests because these two sets are not identical, and they mean different things. So if the quest pages were to include content from both sets (which I think is good), then either of the Category pages would be inappropriate.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Silver hr (Contribs • User Talk) at 16:44, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 11

Have a look at the Category:Ered Luin Quests and Category:Ered Luin Quest Chains and speak out at their talk-pages. I believe the combination of these two categories comprises almost what all players are asking for. But having it all, in a correct way, at one unified page, that is doomed to fail at next update to quests in that area, whether updated levels or moved NPCs or anything else. I also noticed, at the page Ered Luin Quests, that some quest suggests they are chained while they rather are on a natural dotted line but still without prereqs. It is very hard to present these pages in a truly neutral way.

Magill, any prereqs anywhere should be spelled out at Quest Chain info boxes. The simplest form is "Prerequisites: Completed the quest xxx" and then xxx should have a similar box saying "This quest is a prerequisite for quest yyy". I do not see that as a problem. Except that it is harder to convey to category transclusions. I don't mind you creating a quest-chain page (or category) for just xxx and yyy that displays the relation, and including that at a quest-chain page per the example at Ered Luin. If it is wanted to spell that out in detail everywhere?

The basic problem is: how do we attack static pages so they display correct data as much as possible and as quickly updated as possible. The answer is "transclusions" from something that we know for sure is easier to remember to update. Categories are linked to from all quests (easy to find the links) so we just need to remember to follow some of those links. But seemingly unrelated pages that are only found because you are the original author won't be updated shortly ;)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 16:53, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 12

I support the idea of having separate categories for folders vs. geographic location. I also support keeping data in a single location and including it where it's needed, and ultimately I support the least amount of manual labor for all contributors of the wiki.

DynamicPageList and CategoryTree are a good step forward, but ultimately aren't powerful enough. Even though I said earlier that I'm still in the process of creating a showcase for Semantic MediaWiki, I think I've done a bit that could address some of the concerns you raise.

If you take a look at Category:Quests on the testwiki, you'll see that it's a dynamically-generated table of all quests sortable by their property values, or at least the ones I've tagged so far. Since I've tagged starting location in the Infobox Quests template, one can sort or filter or select pages based on that property, as well as any other - in other words, selecting pages for display in the table is not limited merely to categories.

Also, since level is a Property of quests, it can be referenced and included as and where needed. For example, in North_Downs_Quests, the level of the first three quests displayed on the page is not hardcoded; instead it is pulled dynamically via a template (which contains the SMW query) from the respective quest page on which it was declared. The template also displays fellowship status (see Half-orc Schemer) if not Solo and can also be made to display any other datum or note.

Quest chains could also be constructed for display dynamically if the Loops extension were installed along with SMW; all we would need to do to be able to do that is properly specify chaining information in the quest definition template. However, it's not installed on the testwiki so I don't have a demonstration (and that's not a jab at Lotroadmin :), I haven't asked for it yet, I'm just talking a bit about the possibilities here).

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Silver hr (Contribs • User Talk) at 17:44, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 13

As editors we should always use the "What links here" tool. Even after you start editing a page, you can Ctrl-click "What links here" to open a new window or tab with the references. That tools is much nicer to use, now that it shows the pages that link via redirects, as well as direct links.

Index pages, such as tier recipe pages, regional quest pages, etc., are extremely useful, but they are very difficult to maintain. The effort required by these pages must limit the number of such pages we manage. While nice to have, sometimes we need to settle for a simpler organization of pages.

We, the editors much more so than readers, need to remember that the wiki is implemented as a database, even though it looks a lot like a file system. The category system provides a flexible and powerful technique for organizing a web of relationships between pages.

There is a division of labour between humans and their computational tools. We need to do what we do best, and let the database, with a little help, take care of the storage and presentation of linkages, let the browser take care of display, and let the reader learn to use these tools. This means that we, the page editors, create content and assign the categories. The wiki takes care of tracking the categorization of pages, and gives us lists of pages in categories as we need them. The browser presents a display on the reader's media (smart phone, widescreen, paper page). The reader uses the browser's features, like multiple-tabs and the back button, to navigate between wiki pages. This multi-tiered view should guide us in the organization of every level of content and activity in the wiki. (Sorry if this seems simplistic, but I think sometimes we have to step back and review the simple stuff.)

On top of all this, we need to remember that almost everything we know about this game is acquired by discovery. We do not have access to the actual quest dependency rules and other requirements for quests. We only know the facts that we encounter. We do not know that these are working as intended, or when they change (unless Turbine tells us in release notes, or we discover new facts). This means that we are documenting something which is not static. It does not make a lot of sense to document it using mostly static techniques.

I believe it is much better to document the game in a flexible fashion that can change as the game changes. As I said above, I like the index pages and summaries, but they are static. They are expensive in time and effort to maintain. And they become out-of-date too easily. We need to limit the number of those static pages. Where possible, we need to use dynamic techniques.

Looking ahead, we know there will be a second Moria revamp. In the fall, we have another major expansion. I suspect that Great River may get a re-leveling, such as Enedwaith, got at some point. The game is not done.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by RingTailCat (Contribs • User Talk) at 18:01, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 14

Very nice!

Some quest dependencies are fairly complex. E.g.

Quest-A depends on Quest-B and Quest-C
Quest-A depends on Quest-B or Quest-C or Quest-D

Plus there are level dependencies.

For quests started by items, some have no known prerequisites, while others have quest (or other) dependencies before the item is active.

Not only are these dependencies difficult to detect, they might be difficult to document.

Do you have any sense of how Semantic MediaWeb scales? There are currently between 4,000 and 4,500 references to Template:Infobox Quests. Plus there are additional monster play quests and old and/or obsolete quests that do not use that template.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by RingTailCat (Contribs • User Talk) at 18:19, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 15

Thank you :)

I realize some dependencies are complex, but I'm sure they can't be so complex that they couldn't be described formally in some way, when and where we find them in the game.

Unfortunately, I have no direct experience with SMW other than what I've done on the testwiki so I can't say anything about its performance. However, I found a paper describing a SMW installation at the AFIB institute consisting of 16716 pages and 219 templates. It also has a comparative performance test of plain MW and SMW, and the result is that SMW was 13% slower, that is it served 13% less requests per second. However, using a caching proxy web server such as Squid drastically improved performace.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Silver hr (Contribs • User Talk) at 20:01, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 16

There are very few "pre-requisites" of the classic sense in the ROI update. (The ROI update, I believe was a major change to the LOTRO game engine that Turbine has not yet completely exploited, nor explained.)

Pre ROI, you often had quests that truly were A begats B begats C. It was a very linear progression system.

Post ROI, there are many quests which you don't even know are available until certain "criteria" are met. Frequently these criteria involve many quest-givers and quest lines.

As RTC mentions without a flow-chart from Turbine it is very difficult to "SEE" what quests are opened up as a result of completing X. Trying to re-construct them after the fact is quite difficult and in particular, there is no way to tell if you missed something or not, as Pinkfae found out. Quest givers no longer have "grayed out" rings if they have quests which you do not qualify for -- they simply have no rings.

I suspect that this is related to game-engine changes and the Ered Lune quests you mention reflect that. They are "gated," not chained. (Shaken, not stirred?)

How to deal with that, I don't know. I agree, the static indexes we create are extremely useful AND labor intensive, and frequently don't get updated with any kind of regularity. They typically depend upon the "dedication" and "fanaticism" of a single editor to create and maintain.

Even with pre-requisites, we encounter the fact that Turbine sticks-it-to-us regularly. The changes introduced with Update 7 to both Moria and Lothlorien exemplify this. Rightly, Turbine recognized that the pre-requisites of Moria and Lothlorien were going to seriously impact players access to the Great River and beyond. So, those pre-requisies have now been removed -- sort of. I suspect that a player can now "walk through" Moria completely by-passing major areas and need no longer spend any time in Dimril Dale doing any of the quests there.

As the LOTRO world has grown in scope vast areas are really no longer "played," because there really ARE alternatives. If it were not for a desire for "World Renown" a visit to Forochel would be completely un-necessary. As it was, I don't think I had taken a character anywhere near Agamaur, or Fornost for, literally years.

One thing which is true, and which may or may not continue to be true into the future. Unless you follow the EPIC book line, you miss a lot of the gating. This was pretty explicit as the Rangers moved through Dunland -- "help the locals before you continue on."

BTW, WHEN did Enedwaith get re-leveled? I just noticed it last night, MOBS are now 61-62, not 65 as soon as you cross the river!

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Magill (Contribs • User Talk) at 21:40, 26 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 17

RTC nailed the possible dependencies I think. I am not sure if the system also needs a "this quest is prereq for quests A[, B[, C,[...]]]". In normal programming that relation could be found by building the dependency trees backwards up, but a wiki ain't normal programming. I am uncertain if we have quests with dependency "completed" versus "accepted" quest X, do we?

Either way, we differentiate between "officially" named quest chains and "unnamed" chains. Mainly at the quest info-box, not so sure if it matters at the user-friendly lists we try to accomplish.

Could anyone tell me the big improvement of separating geography from quest-groups?

In my view a few such categories overlap, that's all. But that overlapping is neither detrimental nor very much confusing. But adding a "parallel" tree of categories may be confusing, and work overhead work for us. I see that as a step back to the wild-grown jungle I met when I joined our team not long ago, now when we finally have reduced and erased much superfluous categories (or at least marked them as obsolete) I sense we are heading straight back there. That is why I ask for the "big improvement". Because if this is not a big improvement we should strongly avoid it, abide by "less is more".

---

I am looking forward to the possible outcome from your experiments at the test-wiki, Silver. If such tables could be made intuitive in the sense that any (almost) visitor could quickly sort and resort for wanted result that is great. From my daily work I know, however, that very few users understand how to obtain the wanted result by starting at the least important column (which happens if the implementation uses "stable sorting").

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 06:23, 27 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 18

Category:Ered Luin Quest Chains - I believe you wrote the above before I had finished that page (as an experiment). Also, those categories may very well include non-named quest chains, see instructions at Category talk:Quest Chains, but I know some quests have just the quest-chain info-box stating its dependency, and vice versa. This could be improved.

2) You are right. Yesterday I wrote a small blurb at Regional Quests explaining what they are for and what they contain. That blurb is transcluded into Category:Ered Luin Quests, part of the experiment. And your summary is exactly what it is today, the region contains both the "group" and "starting quests (geography)", but the latter within the area categories as all quests start within an area or smaller scope.

3) We have two choices: being fanatic about categorizations, or being pragmatic. I am the latter, having no understanding for programmers who start a religions war about this language or the other. As I wrote above, just minutes ago, in this case the two happens to overlap a few times, certainly at regional level but also at a few other places. As long as we clearly spell out what the category contains I see no cause for confusion.
In the end of the day, Turbine chose to group some quests after their region, which in fact is a geographical categorization. Why should we complicate that? Those groups are indeed geographical regions, and we are also using geographical regions. Right? The two are one.
See a few posts above for my BIG question ;)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 06:39, 27 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 19

I concur 100% -- if we can turn static into semi-static it is a huge step forward. Using transclusion is one way in that direction, but Silver's experimenting at test-wiki is great. I am sorry to say that these days, coming home from work after a hard days of management and coding I no longer have the urge for "home-coding-projects" as I used to have. But I am a happy spectator, and typing wiki-text is relaxing, soothing, almost making me fall asleep at times ;)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 06:47, 27 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 20

Commenting on myself. There are a few regions we could split "for free" and one is already done so. Compare [[:Category:The Lone-lands Quests]] (geography) and Category:Lone-lands Quests (group). The same can be done for The North Downs, The Trollshaws, and if there are more. But they are pretty self-explanatory and is not to be considered "the example that sets a new rule".

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 06:55, 27 May 2012.

region Quests Reply 21

RTC: May I throw in, bordering to out-of-topic, a question. Did you know how to make it so an editor that clicks the Edit link goes into the transcluded category rather than meeting a == Quests == \ {{:Cat:XXX Quests}}? I believe that could also be a way forward in editor-friendliness. (Today the editor may 1) click that link, 2) click preview, 3) find the "used templates" under the edit box, and 4) click the "edit" link there. Awkward!)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 06:59, 27 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 22

In my opinion, the group category, e.g. Category:Lone-lands Quests should contain exactly those quests which appear in the in-game active and inactive quest log folder named "Lone-lands". That is a necessary requirement, and no other quests should appear with that category.

The geographic category, e.g. [[:Category:The Lone-lands Quests]] (and its sub-categories) contain quests which start in (and possibly end in, or cause you to visit) locations in the Lone-lands.

In the Semantic Web world, the quest folder and the geographic locations of the quest are distinct properties of the quest, so this separation occurs naturally as a consequence of the way properties relate to the quest.

I have always thought of quest categories as a less formally structured set of properties of the quests.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by RingTailCat (Contribs • User Talk) at 09:16, 27 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 23

I think you would have to have the heading inside the transcluded article, something that we discourage, as it can disrupt the headings in the transcluding article.

It is not that painful to edit the transcluded section - one extra click.

For example: Go to The Great River Quests#Brown Lands. Click the "Edit" link beside the "Brown Lands" heading.

Look at the list of "Templates used in this section".

The link to the transcluded page is listed first, along with an "Edit" link.

I often use a Ctrl-click on "Edit" to do the editing in a new browser tab, although that requires another extra set as you finish editing.

Your editing preferences may change what you see. On the preferences editing tab, I have checked only "Show preview on first edit", "Enable section editing", "Show edit toolbar", "Mark all edits minor", "Warn me when I leave...".

Both beta features are checked; no lab features are checked.

(I use Firefox almost exclusively. I have Chrome, but rarely use it. I do not use Internet Explorer unless there is no other way to display the page.)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by RingTailCat (Contribs • User Talk) at 09:14, 27 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 24

Thanks, I think I had the edits you made to the Deeds or Title template on mind, to suppress stray editors to edit the template itself. I am fine with whatever as I usually start at the quest and follow its categories at the bottom of the page, so... :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 11:41, 27 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 25

But today the Cat:Region Quests contains just quests from the quest group, nothing else, right? Plus sub-categories for area, and all localized quests go into area or narrower scope. Or do you know any quest that has region as startinglocation? I am still waiting for an explanation of the BIG benefit to why we should add more complexity to the wiki.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 11:44, 27 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 26

Throwing in yet another thing, posted at Template talk:Infobox Quests#Suggestion to add section for transclusion. That one has a lot higher priority than breaking up the current categorization, at least right now as we anticipate lots of adjustments of quest levels.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 11:57, 27 May 2012‎.

region Quests Reply 27

I believe one of the purposes of this wiki is to record game information, exactly as it appears in the game. I might be wrong, but if that's the case, then we need to record the fact that a particular set of quests is in a particularly named folder in the quest log -- nothing more, nothing less.

Now some of these folders have region names, but not all quests that belong geographically in a region are in the corresponding region folder (some are in the Reputation folder, for example). Sometimes this might be intentionally done by Turbine, sometimes it might be a mistake, but that's the fact. And in light of that, we need a way in the wiki to group all quests that belong geographically to a region because that's useful to have as a reference while playing. Hence the suggestion for two categories.

I suppose with SMW, if we were to use it, we wouldn't need the other category (logical grouping by region) because it would be possible to simply generate a table that lists all quests having a particular starting location, or even the union of those quests and quests that are in the starting location's region folder; the only question being the appropriate page for such a table. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Silver hr (Contribs • User Talk) at 22:55, 27 May 2012‎.

Further replies

From what I can tell, "[region] Quests" pages contain quest chains in the [region] quest group. But what about quests that also start in the region, but are not in the region quest group? Such as for example Quest:The Council of the North which is in North Downs, but in the Reputation quest group.

My opinion is that they should be included as well, maybe with some kind of note next to them to state their quest group, because if I'm not mistaken, the purpose of such pages is to serve as a kind of guide to quests, to make sure you get them all -- if that's the case then we should state them all.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Silver hr (Contribs • User Talk) at 03:10, 26 May 2012‎.

Correct, but that is since we have not enforced strictness. Would we do that the disclaimer is moot. Adding that would not take particularly much time, but determination. Not all those static quest-pages are 100% accurate, but they are harder to maintain. Notice that I added the thing as an experiment, not sure that it is the best way forward. As mentioned above, a database-style is better in this regard but I am uncertain how easy it is to generate nice tables of chained quests.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 02:20, 28 May 2012‎.

1. I don't see why you repeat that "there are no quests in the region folder that do not have the region as the group name" when my argument was that "not all quests that belong geographically in a region are in the corresponding region folder" and that if one of the intentions of this wiki is to record game data as it is, that will probably require separate categories.

2. First of all, there is no need for such language. I think we're all mature enough here to have a discussion without calling others' claims desperate. Now, I mentioned that I thought some of the quest categorizations by Turbine might have been a mistake and I gave the example of the Reputation folder. And even though it contains, among others, vector quests that are usually in Region folders, after a closer look they seem to be a special type of vector quests, sending you to reputation factions and awarding reputation. OK, not a very good example. But, what about Quest:Into the Rift? It corresponds to this pattern exactly, and yet it's in The Rift of Nurz Ghashu folder. If that's not a mistake, then it's at least inconsistent. Take also, for example, Quest:Deluros of Rivendell. It takes place entirely in Rivendell, yet it's in the Misty Mountains folder. Maybe that wasn't a mistake either, i.e. it was intentional, but I don't see the logic behind it.

3. In the end, I think the argument boils down to the question of whether the wiki should have game data exactly as it is in the game. I personally think it should, but as a sort of a back end that can be transformed as necessary for presentation to the user. You mentioned complexity a few times like that was necessarily a bad thing. But if it's in the back end and the user isn't forced to deal with it, I don't think it is necessarily bad.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Silver hr (Contribs • User Talk) at 23:25, 9 June 2012‎.

I think, but am not sure, we are talking over each other here. But first I think repeating the definitions is called for. "Quest Group" is used for what is read at a quest in the Quest Log. This means that all quests with region as quest-group ends up in e.g. "Category:Ered Luin Quests", that category resembles the quest-group and it contains all such quests, but should not contain any other quests. However, a quest may very well start in Ered Luin but the quest-group is "Festival" and end up in the "Category:Festival Quests". It will still end up in one of the Ered Luin subcategories, because we simplified the structure and let subcategories contain "geography" information. My argument negated a statement I read (or imagined) somewhere that quests which should not be in e.g. the Ered Luin category where there anyway, but that is not correct, they are in an area subcategory or even more narrow.
Summary: The quest-group categories contain only proper quest-pages but it also may contain subcategories for geography but not any "unclean" quest-page.
I apologize if my choice of words came across stronger than intended. English is not my native tongue and I have made, make, and will probably continue to make mistakes in "values" and "power" of certain words or combinations. --- On to business: I do not know exactly how Turbine considers or uses that quest-group thing. When it is "region contains starting-location" it is pretty obvious, but they also use other groups, such as your example and more. And that Rivendell versus Misty Mnt is really odd, all starters are in Rivendell Valley but many of the quests of the chain take place in Misty Mnt. But again, keep starting locations and quest-group apart and you will be just fine. Those quests will end up under Cat:Rivendell Valley Quests, and its subcategories, in due time, I am doing the entire The Trollshaws region as we speak, even if you see me all over the place on one of my sanitary-cleaning roundabouts I tend to do every know and then ;)
We all agree that the wiki should present the data as it reads in-game. Perhaps not exactly the same looks, but the same data. However, the underlying structure is more up to us. Turbine has not told us exactly how they have structured their data, we cannot even infer it from anything but some may be guessed. Probably they use flat relational database tables and not hierarchical tree-formed structures as we do, but we simply do not know.
The absolute easiest thing would be to dump everything in as few categories as possible. But that is not meaningful at all for the visitor who strays away down the category pages. Hence we try to "invent" more narrow categories, often based on pure logic (such as Cat:Instance Quests) but also based on needs (we add Cat:Duillond Quests to those that have Duillond as startinglocation which helps the geography guys find those quests).
Complexity was rather meant for ourselves as editors than for visitors. And editors come and go, then simplicity is king. Already today we often have to ask each other why certain things are this or that way, because we find a "complex" thing (or maybe a fuzzy blur) and do not know which is the best way to handle them. So, if a future editor finds Cat:Ered Luin Quests and also Cat:Ered Luin Region Quests, one with a load of quest pages and the other one empty of pages but with a load of area subcategories, is it that obvious why we today think we need to split the two? And this is, I guess, not a complex thing, browse around and you will find some categories which I do not yet understand why they are there. But one thing at a time ... did I really say that? ;)

Feel free to ask about. I may have completely misunderstood something, then elaborate on those.

Finally, when it comes to changes to underlying structure and categories it is usually better to rush forward very very slow. I was frustrated my first few months here because I did see certain things that could be improved. While being quite right in my observations I was not 100 % correct in my suggestions, thus slowness served a good thing. Since then much has happened, I have seen senior editors and newcomers doing great things, and this is very much a team job, not a one-editor who conquers the worl...wiki.

This thread has grown wildly, if there is anything more to say, or ask, I suggest starting new threads per each subject. Just for clarity and easy reading/browsing, ok?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zimoon (Contribs • User Talk) at 09:05, 10 June 2012‎.