The Vault talk:Unified page layout project/multiitemsample

Principle
This corresponds to method 3.
 * If an item appears in multiple games, there should be
 * A general article about the item (at the non-disambiguated name) with background and other cross-game information.
 * One article with gameplay and other game-specific information per game.
 * If the item is identical in terms of stats and usage for multiple games, the "per-game" articles may be merged into one for the games it is identical in.
 * Simplified, if you'd need to insert a second infobox to present the stats, the article should be split. If you only need one infobox across multiple games, a combined article for these games should be made.

Method 1

 * Make one header for each game the item appears in and repeat the sections between "Variants" and "Notes" for each game.
 * (starting with "Characteristics makes no sense as it is the same in all games by definition; see principle above; if it weren't, they'd be in seperate articles)

Method 2

 * Use the sample layout and divide the sections on a per-game basis where necessary.

Example
I'm going to use three fictional items and describe what articles you get according to the principle and what the section setup looks like. "In the games" is a section which simply links to the the game-specific subpages.


 * Example 1: The item appears in FO1, FO2, FO3 and FOT. It is identical in FO1, FO2 and FOT; it works differently in FO3.
 * Example 2: The item appears in FO1, FO2 and FO3. It is identical in FO1 and FO2; it works differently in FO3. In addition, the item's variants are identical in FO1 and FO2.

Articles
Both scenarios result in three articles for easier comparison:
 * "Item 1", "Item 1 (Fallout)", "Item 1 (Fallout 3)"
 * "Item 2", "Item 2 (Fallout)", "Item 2 (Fallout 3)"

Section setup
{| style="text-align: center;" 
 * - style="background: #0D592F; color: white;"
 * colspan="2" | Example 1
 * colspan="2" | Example 2
 * - style="background: #CCC;"
 * Method 1
 * Method 2
 * Method 1
 * Method 2
 * - style="background: #EEE; vertical-align: top;"
 * Item 1
 * Item 1

Appearances

 * Item 1
 * Item 1

Appearances

 * Item 2
 * Item 2

Appearances

 * Item 2
 * Item 2

Appearances

 * - style="background: #EEE; vertical-align: top;"
 * Item 1 (Fallout)
 * Item 1 (Fallout)

Background
(transcluded from "Item")

Appearances

 * Item 1 (Fallout)
 * Item 1 (Fallout)

Background
(transcluded from "Item")

Appearances

 * Item 2 (Fallout)
 * Item 2 (Fallout)

Background
(transcluded from "Item")

Appearances

 * Item 2 (Fallout)
 * Item 2 (Fallout)

Background
(transcluded from "Item")

Appearances

 * - style="background: #EEE; vertical-align: top;"
 * Item 1 (Fallout 3)
 * Item 1 (Fallout 3)

Background
(transcluded from "Item")

Appearances

 * Item 1 (Fallout 3)
 * Item 1 (Fallout 3)

Background
(transcluded from "Item")

Appearances

 * Item 2 (Fallout 3)
 * Item 2 (Fallout 3)

Background
(transcluded from "Item")

Appearances

 * Item 2 (Fallout 3)
 * Item 2 (Fallout 3)

Background
(transcluded from "Item")

Appearances

 * }

Summary
Now you can see the arguments I was making:
 * Easier merging of game-specific sections: With method 2, you can more easily merge the game-specific sections if you do not have enough content to justify an own one without altering the overall structure (overall structure = h2 headline setup). With method 1, you have to alter the overall structure to merge property sections. For example, you want to merge "Variants"; now the article has a h2 headline called "Variants" and the h3 headlines of the same name are gone. The overall structure will be different for each article.
 * No repeated content: If you do not merge game-specific sections when applying method 1, you get unnecessarily repeated content. No risk of that with method 2.
 * Consistency across single-game and multi-game articles: With method 2, the overall structure stays the same for multi-game articles and single-game articles (the h2 headers are always the same) - you can see that if you compare the section setups of "Item (Fallout)" with "Item (Fallout 3)". With method 1, the overall structure varies depending on the games and what you decide to merge.

Just to repeat my main points for the item layout talk page. -- Porter21 (talk) 11:08, September 25, 2009 (UTC)