User talk:ImperfectMitten/IMBoilerTaskItem

ImperfectMitten's First Comments

By the time a user is looking up a specific Task Item page, what is it they want to know? 'I have it, what do I do with it now,' or, 'I want it, where do I go get it?' This format facilitates both of those goals.

• I would like to come out of this conversation with a good boilerplate specifically for Task Items.
• Something is not correct in this preview, and I suspect it's because this is a personal page and not a page in the Item namespace. Please pay more attn to the underlying code and how it would look if it were real. Edit Mar 24 - Drono solved this!
• Related: Adding the double-curly Quest Rep tag to this page was going to slot it as being an actual page in the category of 'men of bree' rep and 'pelargir' rep, which is obviously isn't, so please pretend that code would be correct on a real page. Edit Mar 24 - Drono solved this!

The goal of this layout is to:

• permit all Quest:Task pages to be consolidated into 'Quest:Task: Item' formats, and no more 'Quest:Men of Bree Task:Item Name' formats. Edit Mar 24 - Drono filled me in. New goal: shift all 'Quest:Task' pages into 'Quest:Repname Task' pages.
• allows users to see the associated reps and levels for turning in the items for task quests, without having to click through to see the actual quest page; ultimately shaving hairs off bandwidth usage (but who doesn't like saving pennies?).
• I posit all pages should have the 'questbox' template in use under the Drop Info section, with a guideline in place about how many line items must be in place before the 'collapsed' tag is used.
• I posit all Drop Infos should have a zone link, under which is slotted the appropriate mobs -- even if there is only one zone and one mob listed. (My personal jury is out on if mob level info should be included on these pages. I invite feedback on this point.)

A point to be considered and dealt with:

• A Task Item page should not be slotted into, say, a 'Category: Men of Bree Reputation Quests'. It's not technically a quest, and therefore doesn't belong in that category. I don't think there's any value to trying to create some kind of Catg:Subcatg for 'this item is for Men of Bree rep' and also 'this item is for Pelargir rep' and also 'this item is for no-rep turn ins in Cardolan.' Who would look up information from that angle? If you want MB rep, you'd probably go to some other page and start from there. Sure. So by that logic, that line of code I have up there for the ((Quest Rep|Name|300)) isn't what I should be using in the first place. Sure.
• Is it worth making a second template for the purpose of easily generating that nice little icon and the text 'Increased Reputation with Men of Bree ( 300 )', without tagging that Item page as being part of the 'Catg: Faction Rep Q'? Maybe like
• ((Quest Rep nocat|Name|300)) ?
• ((Quest Rep item|Name|300)) ?
• I would suggest 'nocat' rather than 'item' because maybe someone somewhere would want to use the template in a capacity that has nothing to do with an item.
• In the event that it's worth making a new template, do.. I do that? Or someone higher on the editing chain? Like, I'll figure out what I need to do, if that's a thing I need to do. I just also don't want to be the New User completely overstepping my bounds.

Edit Mar 24 - Drono solved this! And I'm failing at putting grey italics on this whole paragraph so whatever.

So the next question -- or possibly, the first question -- is: I recognize that a fair degree of what I've suggested here requires changes to many, many Quest:(Stuff) Task pages. There's already a pretty decent 'boilerplate' in place for those. And I will go through and make all those edits as needed. I just mostly want to actually discuss this with at least one high-enough-level editor before I start altering a significant corner of this wiki. This is several changes to sevvvvvvvvveral pages at, functionally, the same time, and I am, again, new. I think this is a preferable way to streamline similar pieces of information. I just want to be clear and upfront about my goals before I start on an ambitious project. -- ImperfectMitten, late evening, 23 March 2023

Drono

Hello,

i fixed your proposition so it would display properly.

Most template that handle categoriation should be able to take nocat=y as parameter to suppress categorization.

Also it would probably be better to keep only the idea on the page and use talk page for comments.

About the quests themselves. Currently still some of them have old names and havent been converted to the new ones. Pages on the wiki should be named exactly as in game, to make it easy for users to search for them. In past, it used to be the quests did not have the rep names in them. In result of that there were several quests of same names, but different levels and rewards. Later they changed it to include the reputation names in the quest names. I have fixed/move some easier cases on the wiki, but there are still some that need changing. Unfortunately they span over different reputation and is not as straightforward to change them and update the backlinks in one go as it was with the others. --Drono (talk) 07:39, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

ImperfectMitten

Yay, thanks for fixing that! I am learning and re-learning every moment. The nocat=y in the Quest Rep temp already exists to do the thing I wanted! Awesome.

So, the 'Quest:Men of Bree Task: Item Name' is the preferred format, and all those pages will need to get shifted over. Ok. If I'm crawling through the Task Items, I can crawl through that as well.

Questions re current boiler formatting:

* I plan on putting the 'Drop Info questbox' in every page, even if there's one mob in one zone, just for standardization of presentation, unless someone tells me I shouldn't. Any feedback?

* I plan on having the DIqb be uncollapsed until there are 12 lines of text, including zone name(s), at which point I will have it be collapsed. Any feedback? Higher number?

* I plan on not specifying mob levels on the Task Item page. That feels like too much unneeded editor work for no user gain.

* Anything else anyone think I should change?

--ImperfectMitten (talk) 12:52, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

More questions/thoughts/things I should probably say out loud for referencing:

* I'm running on the assumption that, in the Drop Info box, the zones should be listed in alpha order, and either I'll list the mobs in alpha order or I won't mess with the mob list, if it's very long. Mostly I mean here: I don't plan on trying to figure out mob level, to sort by mob level or by zone level (which would probably be the same anyway...).

* Item:Bent Claw has '__NOTOC__' right after the /onlyinclude. Should I be making sure that's always there, in other pages?

* This question is drifting from 'Task Item boilerplate' question into 'Quest Task page boilerplate' area, but I guess I should get this set, too, while I'm at it.

So I see in Quest:Mathom_Society_Task:_Bent_Claws, that top questbox says 'Related Quests'. But,

Quest:Thorin's Hall Task: Broken Daggers, the top box says 'Quest Chain.' Seems 'Related Quests' is the preferable label? Or something else?

* When I'm splitting up the 'Quest Task' pages into 'Quest: Name Task' pages, I am wondering if I will sometimes (frequently?) not have access to the info to specify the {{#lst:Thorin's Hall Reputation Tasks|Gondamon}} part. Should I, at that time, add one of the Article Management Tags? Possibly {{Stub/Other}}? The others don't seem right.

--ImperfectMitten (talk) 14:02, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Stargazer

I will try to answer some of your questions and give some additional feedback. :)

First off, could you perhaps elaborate a bit on the rationale for using a collapsible box under "Drop Info"? Especially for the case where it's just a single entry – or even just a few entries?

You mentioned "standardization of presentation" above, but something to then consider is that we have a standardised boilerplate for all item pages – which naturally includes Task Item pages as well – that is meant to provide a unified 'look' for such pages. That boilerplate does not include a collapsible box under "Drop Info"; meaning other Item pages don't have that, so the Task Item pages would then stand out from those in that regard. In my opinion, a reasonable compromise here would be to add a (collapsed) QuestBox under "Drop Info" when the list of entries there is long enough to warrant its use (for example in the case of Broken Dagger), but otherwise not add any box at all. My thinking here is: If the list is short enough to fit onto the page without having to scroll down, then why would there be a need to hide it away inside a box – or even to wrap it in a box at all? What would be gained from that? This is just my personal opinion though; others may disagree. :P

Here's another idea as well: Have you thought of maybe using a {{Div col}} to split up a long list into several columns instead, as an alternative? The result may or may not look hideous – particularly in the case of several different regions – depending on how it's implemented. I don't know, but it might be worth thinking about. :)

Secondly, about including the {{Quest Rep}} next to each quest on the Task Item pages; so as to not have to click through to the quest page, as you put it. Well, the flip side of that 'convenience' is that this information is then duplicated and spread out over several places, which makes it harder to (find and) update as and when needed, which might then lead to different places stating different information for the same thing. In general we strive to consolidate information in one, or as few, place(s) as possible, and either link to it or transclude it as applicable, to avoid duplicating it or end up with conflicting information in multiple places. Consider also that it is not the item that gives the reputation, it is in actuality the reward for completing the associated quest. That's what this template is for and why it will auto-categorise the (quest!) page into the appropriate category by default. ;)

This is not to say "don't use this on Item pages"; it is certainly possible to do so if suppressing the categorisation of it. This is just to highlight the trade-off involved and the possible implications of it – as something to be aware of and to think about. =)

Regarding __NOTOC__, that's useful to have on certain kinds of pages – e.g. Item pages – that do not need a table-of-contents; i.e. pages which have very few headings and/or those headings are so close together that you can see them all without having to scroll (much), and thus don't really have to 'navigate' the page as such. However other pages, such as e.g. Quest pages, should not have that tag added. Most pages should already be correct in this regard, but if you happen to come across an Item where this tag is not included but you think it should be, then feel free to add it. It's really not a big deal though, in most cases. :D

Yes, "Related Quests" is a much more appropriate box header than "Quest Chain" for Task Quests, since the latter isn't relevant at all.

Sorting mobs alphabetically, by zone (where applicable) and then by name, is probably the most straightforward way. Levels (mobs or zones) need not be included, since that info is pretty irrelevant for the Item page.

As for your last bullet point, I'm not quite sure what you're referring to specifically or what you mean when you say "not have access..."? Could you please elaborate a bit more on this, so that we can hopefully help you further?

I think that covers most, if not all, of the questions and concerns you had. If I've missed something, please ask again and we will try to answer it if we can. :)

Finally, I'm sure you've already found the Tasks Bulletin Board page; I just thought I'd link it on the off chance you haven't. It should list all of the Task Quests and the associated factions, by location. Hopefully it will help. :)

--Stargazer (talk) 18:01, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

ImperfectMitten

Yay, thanks for comments! I am learning more every moment. Let me see if I can knock the small things out first.

---

First: Should I be moving this conversation somewhere more 'main'? I started this, a page under my username, because I just didn't know where else to put it. (I'm not great at figuring out the right place to go when communication is decentralized and I feel like I'm talking about a specific subset of a larger concept...) Now that a lot of more nitty-gritty discussion is happening (which is good, I feel!), I don't want to feel like I'm... I dunno, trying to force some thing or other to happen, just because I've started this here, on 'my' page. I want to get these things properly laid out such that anyone would see this info and do the same thing, because that's... how wikis work X D.

---

NOTOC: I saw the NOTOC on one of the early item-lvl-8 pages I was editing, said 'hmm guess that's a thing they want in their pages' and I've been adding it in as I go. I did notice on the Item:Well-kept Mathom that there is a TOC, even though it is a very short page. Now I am not fully sure which way to go with this. Once I get a good pattern down for what to add to a Task Item page, I will make sure the pages get that info added and patterened in the desired order. Boilerplate:Item doesn't say anything about when to not specify a NOTOC, or when to avoid specifying NOTOC such that a TOC appears. I wouldn't have thought on my own to add that, you know? I started because it was already in one of the pages. So, as you've said it's not bad to put in, I will continue to put them in; but if yall want them out, I'll take them out. (Or does this mean I should go add it to the wkMathom page?)

---

'Don't have access' was strange wording to throw out so short. Sorry. And now I've re-written this section like four times, trying to make this thought make linear sense, so hopefully this version works.

* I mean, one, I don't turn in Tasks in the landscape. I go to the center of my housing neighborhood. By that metric, I very much don't see what Tasks are on what board.

* So, as I'm thinking about the actions I might be doing in order to de-knot these joined-Quest:Task pages into single Quest:Name Task: Item pages, one of those actions is, 'do I have to make sure, at page creation, that the correct thing similar to {{#lst:Thorin's Hall Reputation Tasks|Gondamon}} exists in every single quest page? (Note to self, find the name for that template, so I can stop calling it the 'thorin thing' in my head...) Do those things already exist, like all of them, and I just have to get the right one? If it doesn't exist, do I have to build that too? Do I know what needs doing to make it work? Will I have to go find the in-the-landscape board in order to get the right info to build the whatever-that-template-is-called thing?'

* If I need to go to an in-game non-neighborhood Task Board in order to make a Wiki Quest page contain all the info it needs to in order to be correct, I will eventually work my way out of level of what my characters can reach.

* So like, maybe things won't be so bad, once I get there. Maybe all the those-templates already exist and I just plug in the right thing, without needing to visit an in-game location to get it right. All I mean by this section is, that's what I meant by 'don't have access.'

---

The potentially-but-not-always-collapsed Quest Box around the Drop Info mob list:

* The very short summary: I did it because I saw it done in a few places, and the Boilerplate doesn't say to use zero Questboxes. I don't actually care about the presence of QBs on Task Item pages, I just guessed that that was a more correct choice, based on some existing page code. What I do care about is getting to the point where I, nor any other future editor, am not making guesses about how to be correct.

* Interjection: While it's great to know about DivCol, a quick glance makes me think that trying to implement that on Task Item pages would be... potentially a worse solution than Questboxes. At least Questboxes look... the same. DivCol makes me fear that a zone label could be at the bottom of one column and then all the mobs would be starting at the top of the next. Without some kind of ability to control 'chunks', this sounds like... not a solution I'd want to pursue.

* Back to the main thought. And probably I've done the thing where I've used too many words. I do that. Apologies.

* You mention and link the Boilerplate:Item page. Yes. You say that is meant to provide a unified 'look' for such pages. Sure. That boilerplate does not include a collapsible box under "Drop Info"; meaning other Item pages don't have that, so the Task Item pages would then stand out from those in that regard. Absolutely, understandable. I am on board with that sentence.

* The next sentence contains, a reasonable compromise here would be to add a (collapsed) QuestBox under "Drop Info" when the list of entries there is long enough to warrant its use. This is a great point to start the talking. 'Long enough' isn't... measurable. What is 'long enough'?

* If the list is short enough to fit onto the page without having to scroll down -- Short enough according to whose monitor? (Have you seen those ridic super huge curved screens that are like a mortgage payment to purchase? I almost wish I could sit down at one for five minutes, just so I could stand up again and time myself on how long it takes me to focus my eyes on a point more than two feet away.) I have one monitor on another computer that I have oriented to be Portrait, not Landscape, and do use it in this orientation 100% of the time. I could fit an awful lot of mobs on that monitor ( * slaps roof of memecar * ). 'Short' and 'long' are... value judgements. Numbers are measurable.

* In the most broadly general sense, there are three choices: Always QB around mobs in the Drop section; QB past a certain number of lines in the Drop section; never QB. The BP says nothing. You even say the BP says nothing. So when I see some live pages that contain QBs, my thought is, 'oh, they're changing this, they want QBs on all pages, and just haven't updated the BP.' My initial reaction to 'code exists on some pages but not others' is 'I should add this code to what doesn't have it, not take it away from where someone made an intentional, and for all I know correct, decision to add it.'

* (I mean, the Item Boilerplate needs some sprucing up anyway. The section that says 'Reputation Details,' the examples given are a Mathom and a Barrow item, neither of which's pages contain the Reputation code mentioned in the example on the Boilerplate. So, silence on the part of the BP regarding QBs under Drop isn't, to a new editor, the most immediate element that's going to clue to me in to guessing rightly when QBs show up on some pages but not others. Or else: what I should have guessed is to take out the QB on all pages, which would have resulted in us having this conversation from the other direction X D .)

* So what's happened is, I looked at a Boilerplate page that didn't say no, I saw code that said yes, and guessed yes.

* And now -- not unfairly -- an established Editor is feedbacking to me... and saying in the same paragraph: 'BP says no QB,' 'but sometimes QBs are ok,' 'but not like how you've done them.' So, ok. I accept that I have made the choice that isn't the choice that should be made (and it's not even a choice I have any, what, 'emotional attachment' to in the first place). Where to go from here is:

* Seems like now is a great opportunity to polish the Boilerplate on this issue. Either what should be true is,

* The Boilerplate page should specify something akin to, 'do not use a Questbox or any other (I dunno) shrinking mechanism in the Drop Info section on Item pages.'

* Or: "If the number of lines of zone and mob links in the Drop Info section is less than (I dunno) 11, do not use a Questbox. If there are between 12 and 15 lines, you can insert {{Questbox| Item is dropped by:| uncollapsed | . At 16+ lines, definitely use a Questbox." Maybe you want those numbers a little higher, or just slightly different in some way or other.

* And again, I truly have no opinion on whether or not there should be Questboxes on every Task Item page. I did it on the pages I've done because that was my best guess based on what I'd seen (and what I hadn't, here meaning, the lack of info on the BP page re QB in Drop). If that choice needs to change, I'll change it, and be in line with the correct pattern going forwards. But... 'long enough' / 'short enough' is... that's not patternable. Give me a number, or give me always-zero, and I'll do it right from here on out.

By which I mean: I will absolutely fix the pages I've done. But now I don't want to touch them without a number, because how can I know what right is without a number? So tell me the number and I'll get back to doing the actual work X D. (Well, I guess the pages with '4' or '2', I can take those out. Those are guessable. But the rest... Please let me know the number, and I'll get back to work on that.)

---

Ok, typing the above plus all this stuff I'm trying to get out of my head re 'quest rep temp on item page'... I've been working on all this for a... significant amount of hours, trying to make sure I don't say it wrong. So I'll at least post this part that I've gotten so far. I don't know why it's not simple for me to get this stuff out of my head about 'QRt on item'. It's so simple in my head, and I just keep editing and editing and making it worse. So I'll post this part, and then get back to trying to accurately vocalize the rep-display thoughts.

--ImperfectMitten (talk) 19:43, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

IM Quest Rep on Task Item Page Pitch

Quest Rep temp on item pages: I absolutely see what you mean, about the item not being what gives the rep, so showing the rep gain on the item page feels weird/wrong.

(I redacted this on March 28th. My spouse knocked some sense into me, pointing out that I frequently care about things a lot of other people don't, and assume that my caring is obvious and averagely standard and not an outlier. And if the feedback is, 'quest rep gain does not belong on item pages,' I should just handle that and make my own lil chart.)
--ImperfectMitten (talk) 23:48, 25 March 2023 (UTC)