The Vault talk:Policy and guidelines project

=Project organization= It'd be ideal if all admins participate in this project. We really need to get some proper guidelines and policies in place, too much is left up to personal preference (which in turn results in conflicting messages sent from admins to users). -- Porter21 (talk) 17:34, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm in. --Sentinel 101 17:38, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Me too, just put a subject forth. http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/thumb/5/5c/Scribe.jpg/15px-Scribe.jpg Tagaziel (call!) 21:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Great. I'll draw a few rough outlines tomorrow, I'm simply too tired to do it tonight. -- Porter21 (talk) 22:02, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Are we going to move the proposed ones I created over here?--Kingclyde 16:50, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * We can always do that later. They're fairly specific and I'd like to start with general stuff first (which might then already include what you proposed on a more general level) if you don't mind. -- Porter21 (talk) 17:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm putting the different policy proposal on sub-pages so this one does not get too cluttered. Please make sure to leave your comments (whether you think it's good/bad, whether you disagree with something, whether something needs to be added/changed etc). The first one is now up, see link below. -- Porter21 (talk) 17:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Next ones up. -- Porter21 (talk) 20:05, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've now posted drafts for the majority of items which needs guidelines or policies from my point of view. Please leave your feedback at the respective pages. I'm hoping that we can get this done fairly quickly. -- Porter21 (talk) 03:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry I wasn't able to come earlier (camping trip), but I'd be glad to help. Most of the stuff posted is great, but I think we should also mention how to post walkthroughs for certain scenarios. Too many people post over-specific (applicable to only to a few character types) walkthroughs. The general outlines should be rather vague, and not include stuff like "Use the Lincoln Repeater to shoot...". If you want, I'll add that to the general editing page. --Clean Up 14:18, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the late reply, it's getting hard to keep track of all the projects I'm involved in :P Feel free to add whatever suggestions you have to the page; just put it in a seperate section on the respective page. If there's consensus it can then be added to the guidelines.
 * By the way, that's really addressing all of the participants, not just Clean Up. You know, you guys can add stuff, too - it doesn't all have to be done by me ;) -- Porter21 (talk) 21:49, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Reorganized
I've moved the various subpages to their proper names in the "The Vault" namespace. There are basically two reasons for this:
 * 1) It's easier to interlink the policy pages if they are already at their proper names.
 * 2) Maybe it'll generate a bit more discussion and feedback on all the stuff I've written. One can always hope I guess.

Links to the policy pages: either The Vault:Policies and guidelines or The Vault:Policy and guidelines project. -- Porter21 (talk) 15:05, September 21, 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes
This is a list of changes I made to the guideline pages starting on 22/9. Its purpose is to avoid people having to read all the guidelines again to find changes I've made since they last read them. -- Porter21 (talk) 07:24, September 22, 2009 (UTC)


 * 07:24, September 22, 2009 (UTC): Added section "Project tags" to The Vault:Article layout guideline.
 * 07:59, September 22, 2009 (UTC): Added "Use full sentences where possible" to The Vault:Editing guideline.
 * 19:29, September 22, 2009 (UTC): Added some additional banning reasons to The Vault:Administration policy. Also added "Most pages should remain unprotected and allow editing by anonymous and registered users alike." (merge from current policy page).
 * 16:49, September 24, 2009 (UTC): Added section about section-ordering in multi-game articles to The Vault:Article layout guideline and slightly rewrote section about layouts for specific content on the same page. Added "See also" sections to all policy pages.
 * 17:18, September 24, 2009 (UTC): Changed section about blocking at The Vault:Administration policy according to discussion. Also made some minor layout changes.
 * 17:48, September 25, 2009 (UTC): Rearranged and slightly rewrote The Vault:User conduct guideline. Rewrote section about rules for administrators at The Vault:Administration policy. Rearranged The Vault:Article layout guideline; now using table.
 * 01:41, September 28, 2009 (UTC): Finished The Vault:Article layout guideline and sub-pages (character layout, item layout, location layout, quest layout). Merged naming and categorization with The Vault:Content organization guideline; page still incomplete.
 * 02:04, September 28, 2009 (UTC): Added point to "Bugs" section of The Vault:Content policy regarding notability of bugs.
 * 17:35, October 7, 2009 (UTC): Added spoiler policy to The Vault:Content policy. Added section about merging and splitting to The Vault:Content organization guideline.
 * 18:15, October 7, 2009 (UTC): Extended content criteria in The Vault:Content policy to include incarnations of the SPECIAL character system.
 * 17:13, October 11, 2009 (UTC): Rewritten Merging and splitting section in The Vault:Content organization guideline.
 * 19:10, October 11, 2009 (UTC): Slightly altered intro section of The Vault:Policies and guidelines and extended section about changing/proposing policies and guidelines.

So...
When do we put all the policies in effect? I think most of them look pretty much finished and will require at most only some tweaks. Ausir(talk) 20:43, October 8, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, my plan was to finish the merging/splitting stuff until tomorrow evening and then put all of them into effect on Sunday (we could mention them in the weekly digest to make people aware of them). -- Porter21 (talk) 08:50, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * That sounds good to me. Shadowrunner56 23:10, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me as well. Ausir(talk) 21:31, October 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm concerned, if the current version of VA:MAS is approved the policies and guidelines can go "live" and this project can be marked as finished. If it's approved, I'll remove the "not in effect" headers. I'd appreciate it if someone could proof-read them for spelling mistakes etc though :)


 * We'll need to add some details regarding multi-game layouts to VA:LAYI later on but in my opinion that can be done once we've finished the discussion in the Unified page layout project. -- Porter21 (talk) 17:45, October 11, 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm concerned, I think all policies can go in effect already. If some disagreements arise later, we can always amend them. Ausir(talk) 20:06, October 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * Feel free to. I'd do it myself but I just spend the last hours in hospital because I've hurt my right hand. I can still type with the left one as you can see but it's taking ages :| -- Porter21 (talk) 23:12, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

Finished
Project done :) -- Porter21 (talk) 04:53, October 12, 2009 (UTC)

=Comments on proposed policies and guidelines=

Banning
Might I suggest that it be changed to three days? Most of the vandals need only to be told once that we try to have a zero tolerance policy, and three days is the amount of time all bans are set to by default. Nitty 21:26, September 17, 2009 (UTC)
 * I think 7 days is fine, not that it matters, as vandals and trolls will be discouraged enough by the banning itself. http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/thumb/4/4a/Naglowaa_se.gif/11px-Naglowaa_se.gif Tagaziel (call!) 21:32, September 17, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, in my experience 3 days is too short - it's a timeframe the more persistent vandals are willing to endure. That said, I don't really mind what timeframe is agreed upon, I'm mostly interested in all admins being on the same page. -- Porter21 (talk) 21:38, September 17, 2009 (UTC)
 * I have found no matter what the time frame, persistant vandals are not discouraged by the block. I have seen people come back after a month-long banning. I feel 3 days is a good benchmark, because as Grizzly says: "as vandals and trolls will be discouraged enough by the banning itself".


 * I only use a week long ban when there is more than one offence in a short space of time.


 * Hmm, this post of mine makes little sense... Spoon Leave me a freakin' message 16:44, September 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it should be 3 days for the first offense so that the random people that just joined know not to do it again, but if it turns out to be a troll who will persist to do what ever he was doing then we move the time up to 7 days and so on after that if he persists further on. Shadowrunner56 01:41, September 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * I usually ban anons for 3 days unless their vandalism has been extreme. In that case it will be one week. Banning anons indefinitely is not recommended due to changing IP's. Named members I treat the same way. But depending on the severity of the vandalism (supreme racism, massive page deletion etc.), it can go from 1 week to 1 month.--Kingclyde 02:22, September 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, if the vandalism is extreme it should be a 1 week or month ban depending on how much vandalism has been done, and if the person had done racist posts and page deletions on a wide scale a permaban should be looked at for punishment. Shadowrunner56 02:45, September 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * Permbans are a bad idea due to many vandals having dynamic IPs. Ausir(talk) 03:06, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

Alright, how about: 3 days for first offense, 1 week for second, 1 month for third? And then permban for registered users for fourth? The policy itself states that bans are generally up to the discretion of the administrators, so you can still deal with extreme cases as you see fit. -- Porter21 (talk) 08:48, September 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm simply going to apply "qui tacet consentire videtur" since nobody replied. Changed admin guideline to what I said above. -- Porter21 (talk) 18:16, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Bugs
On the bugs section, we need to make sure that they note which platform the bug came from.--Kingclyde 20:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Added. -- Porter21 (talk) 03:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

IMO, specific instructions on how to cause or perform the bug should be supplied as well. Like, "If you do X, Y". Not just "Y". Fixes and reasons why it occurs should be covered too where applicable and/or necessary, but console command fixes should try to be avoided. For bugs that can easily occur without warning (i.e. Big Trouble in Big Town Protectron issue), they should be on the page itself instead of in the main bugs page. System Error 07:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, an important one is that people are to make sure the bugs are specific to the place or person. I'm seeing too many general bugs in the locations pages, so much so that I had to remove the entire section (8 bugs) that were not specific. Spoon Leave me a freakin' message 16:49, September 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, if you want to be picky you can say that's covered by "Only information that is directly relevant to the subject of a given article should be included in that article." and "New information added to the wiki should not repeat or be redundant with other information already on the site.". I can see that a specific clarification may be needed but I'd like to hear other opinions first. Generally, I'm trying to stay away from making too many small "special case" rules. -- Porter21 (talk) 18:05, September 21, 2009 (UTC)
 * Alright, I understand. Spoon Leave me a freakin' message 18:11, September 21, 2009 (UTC)

Collapsable content
Would it be possible for some of the longer-wided pieces of information (i.e. getting both costumes/weapons in The Superhuman Gambit) to be put into collapsable sections on pages, rather than hid somewhere obscure? I was thinking this would be better in a few circumstances than, say, putting them on the talk pages (where they could get buried). We could even have things like a general runthrough that is uncollapsed and a more complex one (not on the level of a hand-holding walkthrough, but still detailed) for missions. Of course, it wouldn't be always done, but it's still something I thought could work. After all, being too organized can be just as messy and hard to navigate as being too unorganized. System Error 07:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * They are NOT hidden. There is a link. I've stated this before and I do not know why you can not see that. Collapsible menus should be reserved for certain things such as the catagories (weapons, locations etc.) and not used for bugs. Getting both costumes is NOT required to complete the quest and therefore should NOT be in the general article. It creates clutter.--Kingclyde 17:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This should not go on discussion pages either, though. These should be moved to the new Fallout 3 exploits page now. Ausir(talk) 18:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Should I move them to the exploit page and create a link to the exploit page?--Kingclyde 18:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. Ausir(talk) 04:44, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Dude. I didn't say it should be applied for bugs or exploits specifically. I just said it could be a general addition to the formatting of all pages, and that keeping everything too organized can be just as annoying to sort through as when it's too disorganized. Chill out. System Error 06:04, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, and it wouldn't necessarily be used for everything. Just the things that are somewhat important, but are inconvenient if placed on a separate page. Getting both costumes could be looked at as an alternative method to solving the quest, but something like screwing up dialogue wouldn't be. Regardless of what is ultimately done, the only other thing I'm worried about are the pages for bugs and exploits becoming too cluttered themselves. Any ideas on we'd deal with that? System Error 06:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not a fan of overusing collapsible boxes. It's okay for navigational devices but using it for other content is just a way of getting around tidying up cluttered sections which are way too lengthy for their informational worth. If the pages for bugs or exploits becomne too cluttered themselves, they can always be split up further (e.g. into Fallout 3 quest exploits etc). -- Porter21 (talk) 07:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Strategy
We should also note the strategy being placed in discussion thing added to this.--Kingclyde 17:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think "My favourite"-style additions should be avoided. covers not adding it to the article. I don't think specifically telling people to move such info to the talk page is necessary; you can also just remove it entirely. After all, talk pages are not "waste bins" in my opinion. -- Porter21 (talk) 08:50, September 18, 2009 (UTC)

Image and video guidelines
You'll probably notice that the criteria for images and videos are given as "to be discussed". I left these blank because especially videos appear to be a point of contention. There is a forum topic about this as well but it's kind of getting nowhere fast. Feel free to post your ideas for these sections here. -- Porter21 (talk) 03:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

With this one, there appears to be some people not sticking to the "Videos for user pages may not be uploaded to the wiki; please use the YouTube extension if you wish to place videos on your user page." rule. But that would be simple to fix.

The "Images for user pages may be uploaded to the wiki. They are to be named starting with "User user name", for example "User Porter21 image 1"." thing for the images would take a while to fix, and in my opinion seems a bit pointless really.

Other than that, this is fine.

Spoon Leave me a freakin' message 16:40, September 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * Fixing it for past uploads is not really necessary. The image naming rule is a tie-in with the general "descriptive name" policy, and frankly it's mostly there to reduce the workload on the ones who categorize uncategorized images (i.e. me). -- Porter21 (talk) 18:01, September 21, 2009 (UTC)
 * I thought a general 'be sure to categorise images' thing would have been better, but I simply misunderstood. Also, I have no problems with anything else in here. Spoon Leave me a freakin' message 18:05, September 21, 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course, "categorize images" would be preferred but I've pretty much given up hope on getting people to do that :P I just think in general the image name should describe what the image shows (I've seen too many "12753.gif" and "Image 93423423.jpg" I guess), and in the case of user images it's not that important for the wiki to have it describe what it shows (since it's in 80% of all cases not Fallout-related) but simply who it belongs to. -- Porter21 (talk) 18:20, September 21, 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. :) Spoon Leave me a freakin' message 18:24, September 21, 2009 (UTC)

User conduct
My take on it:
 * Be polite - we're all in this together, so treat others like you want to be treated. Cooperate and assume good faith - not every bad edit is a troll or a vandal.
 * Be efficent - don't vandalize pages (as in, do not mess them up or insert lies), use edit summaries to help others understand your edits and sign your comments.
 * Have a plan to edit everything you see - the Edit button is there for a reason, do not fear editing, learn to love it.

Might be useful as a condensed form. http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/thumb/5/5c/Scribe.jpg/15px-Scribe.jpg Tagaziel (call!) 19:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Team Fortress 2 Sniper.


 * On the "Be polite" subject, we really need to make some sort of guidelines for blog comments. It seems that every news topic will devolve into a flame war, be it Interplay v. Bethesda, Xbox v. PS3, etc. Nitty 20:55, September 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, what sort of guideline would you suggest other than "be polite"? I doubt "don't be a fanboy" is enforcable ;) -- Porter21 (talk) 21:33, September 21, 2009 (UTC)
 * Grizzly could make it work. :P


 * In all seriousness, I'm just not sure what to do about it! We can delete and block all we want, but they'll just keep posting away... that, and there's the simple fact of the ungodly amount of effort it takes to type "lol ur a fag" and hit "post comment". Nitty 04:20, September 22, 2009 (UTC)


 * That's what I was getting at - whatever rules you may come up with, anons won't obey them anyway. It's like that in most places where people can post comments. -- Porter21 (talk) 06:23, September 22, 2009 (UTC)


 * I usually just delete whole sections of discussion pages if it's devolved into a flame war. Most of these kids either lack the intelligence or effort to try to restore these sections or start new ones. Of course they can go and start another argument, but I don't think we have enough of these idiots here to cause a serious problem. --Clean Up 00:46, September 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * We could just make the disobedience of these rules so severe that people might start to listen to them. Shadowrunner56 02:08, September 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, deleting portions of talk pages which are not relevant to the article is a bit of a given. I think I'll add a sentence about talk pages being for the discussion of the respective article and not for general chatter. Other than that, this was mostly about blog comments, wasn't it? I don't know how we could feasibly "make the disobedience of these rules so severe that people might start to listen to them" in this case (plus I don't think being draconian helps the wiki much) since most of the flame wars are either started or conducted by anons. All we can do is delete those comments or disable commenting completely in my opinion. -- Porter21 (talk) 08:54, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

General feedback
Wow, excellent work, it's very well formulated and written, well done !

I just 1 word change and some other stuff :

In The Vault:Editing guideline, the sentence

"American English is preferred at this wiki as it is the spelling most Fallout games use." To not have problem, it might be better to write mandatory.

And, for the rule "Images should have a descriptive name." in The Vault:Image and video policy Always or sometimes? I found that when the description is not necessary, better not to put.

And for video, it would be nice to be able to still put some gameplay video of some weapons or situations.

Apart from that, I think it's really excellent and I hope this guide will be adopted (I think yes, there is no reason, it's almost perfect)

Good late afternoon and remember to take care of you ! =) Itachou 16:42, September 21, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, currently our policy is that while American spelling is preferred, British is fine as well. I was simply writing up the current standard - if people want it changed, fine with me (although it may be hard for people who are used to British spelling).


 * "Descriptive name" for images does not mean they all need to have a description - it simply means the image names should describe what the image shows. Simply put, images should not be named "Screenshot 239.jpg" but rather "Elder Lyons.jpg".


 * Regarding videos, there's a lot of varying opinions. I simply put down what seemed to be the jist of the previous discussions. As with all content in the guidelines, it can be changed if we can settle on a different standard. -- Porter21 (talk) 17:46, September 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * I've got no problems with the new guidelines. Porter21's done a great job (once more). --Sentinel 101 17:51, September 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks :) -- Porter21 (talk) 21:33, September 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree, great job as usual. Ausir(talk) 03:07, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

guidelines
If we are going to make this the main policy and guidelines page, we should move the various recommended layouts here as well. Most people will not manually search to find the actual layout recommendations. Plus I agree with Porter, we need to finalize this by the end of the week.--Kingclyde 17:48, September 21, 2009 (UTC)


 * The sample layouts for specific types of articles will be included later, mostly because half of them are still under discussion. There's even already a section where they'll be linked on The Vault:Article layout guideline ;) What I've currently written down there is the general ordering of all the typical stuff which applies to all articles. -- Porter21 (talk) 17:58, September 21, 2009 (UTC)

Feedback needed: Headlines vs tables
Should the Article layout guideline rather be structured with subheaders for each part of the guideline (as it is currently) or would a table-style setup (like the ones most current projects use) be better?

Personally, I find the tables to be clearer. What are your opinions? -- Porter21 (talk) 18:14, September 24, 2009 (UTC)


 * You know, trying to have a discussion with you guys is a bit like trying to talk to a brick wall. -- Porter21 (talk) 09:39, September 25, 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'd prefer a table too. Ausir(talk) 11:06, September 25, 2009 (UTC)
 * I've put it in a table now - is it clearer that way? -- Porter21 (talk) 17:48, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

weapon variants
I think we should only leave it to a brief description on the base page and then expand on the variant on the page the variant is on. Example is the Chinese Assault Rifle. It currently has the Xuanlong Assault Rifle listed as a variant but it goes into detail about how it is the best small arms weapon. That should belong on the Xuanlong Assault Rifle's page and not in the base model. In my opinion. Thoughts?--Kingclyde 03:56, September 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * I just added that as a brief description of the weapon. Which I did to all of the other weapon pages. Highlighting what makes the unique version worth using. Because some of us need to sell these weapons to get interest away from Lincoln's Repeater. Nitty 04:00, September 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * Simply apply the general rules "Only information that is directly relevant to the subject of a given article should be included in that article." and "New information added to the wiki should not repeat or be redundant with other information already on the site. Generally there should be a single page (or a section of a page) where a given topic is presented in full detail. Other pages should not repeat the details, instead they should link to the page with the details."? -- Porter21 (talk) 06:25, September 22, 2009 (UTC)
 * Other than that, this question is far too specific to realistically be covered by this project to be honest. I can only tell you how I did it with the armor articles, I simply linked the unique variants (because they have own articles) under a "unique variants" header and only described the variant(s) which were the subject of the respective article. See Glasses, for example. -- Porter21 (talk) 06:44, September 22, 2009 (UTC)

Merging/splitting
As you may have noticed, the only non-finished guideline is the content organization guideline. The final issue that's holding up that one is finding a good guideline for merging and splitting pages, i.e. when pages should be merged and when they should be split.

The general rule is pretty clear - if an article subject does not provide content for an own article, it should rather be merged with similar pages if possible. Exceptions would be "named" characters which should always have an own article. Not sure whether this should be extended to all kinds of "named" subjects (like locations or items) though.

What's not so clear (at least from my point of view) is how to treat multi-game articles. In my opinion, things like perks or skills should only have one article for all games. There's usually not that much to write about a perk for every game it appears in. Skills are already a bit borderline; Strength as an example borders on getting unwieldy but is still bearable. In general, one article per subject for all games seems doable although I'm not sure how that will hold up as more games are added to the Fallout series. The more recent info (i.e. the info the majority of readers is actually interested in) wanders deeper and deeper down the page. New Vegas info will be added below Fallout 3, and Fallout 4 probably in between FO3 and FNV.

That aside, there are types of subjects where merging the info for all games is rather unpleasant and confusing for the reader. From my point of view, this mostly concerns item pages. An example would be Combat Armor. In general, I dislike articles with multiple infoboxes; in most cases they cause a lot of whitespace and infoboxes should always be at the top right of an article in my opinion. My approach would be to split the articles if the item works differently in various games; one article for each game in which it works differently. This would mean FO1/FO2 info would still share an article (since items usually work the same in both games), for example. So instead of one unwieldy "Combat Armor" article we'd have "Combat Armor" (with background info since that applies to all games equally and comparisons between the games; call it a "lore" article), "Combat Armor (Fallout)" (with gameplay info and stuff like locations for FO1 and FO2) and "Combat Armor (Fallout 3)" (with gameplay info and stuff like locations for FO3 - and FNV, if it works the same in FNV).

The tricky part is finding a general rule for that, i.e. for when articles should be split. Please feel free to share your thoughts (and/or give feedback on my suggestions). -- Porter21 (talk) 19:08, October 6, 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, I guess I agree in general. BTW, when Fallout 4 comes out, I think it would make more sense for FNV to be between FO3 and FO4, since it's based on FO3's engine and will generally use the same gameplay mechanics, so it would make sense to keep them close. Generally, I'd keep all Fallout cRPGs chronologically, and move non-RPG spin-offs (FOT, FOBOS) below them. Ausir(talk) 19:26, October 6, 2009 (UTC)


 * Was simply applying the current scheme of "by canonicity" (atm it's the same as what you describe, FNV might mix things up a little) - guess we still have plenty of time to see where FO4 will go either way :) -- Porter21 (talk) 00:57, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * New Vegas will be just as canon as Fallout 1, 2 and 3. Ausir(talk) 00:59, October 7, 2009 (UTC)


 * Probably. I prefer to wait until it's out before judging that though - technically it's still a spinoff, even if it's a RPG one. -- Porter21 (talk) 01:03, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, numbering aside, it will be more of a sequel to Fallout 3 than Fallout 3 is to Fallout 2. And both Bethesda and Obsidian are more concerned with continuity and consistency of the setting than Interplay was during the FOT and FOBOS days. Ausir(talk) 01:07, October 7, 2009 (UTC)


 * I know, which is why I said "probably". I'd simply prefer to have more info about the game itself before judging its canonicity. At this point we know next to nothing about the game other than that it's going to be in the same "gameplay style" as FO3 and that it's going to take place around New Vegas. We're getting a bit sidetracked here though, the canonicity of FNV and FO4 is not really that related to merging/splitting articles :) I was just using these as examples for more recent games wandering deeper and deeper down in multi-game articles; whether FO4 would go above or below FNV doesn't really affect that point much. -- Porter21 (talk) 01:14, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

First attempt

 * Alright, back to merging and splitting. I've made a first attempt at writing down guidelines for merging and splitting (see VA:MAS). Is it understandable? Anything I've forgotten? Any disagreements? -- Porter21 (talk) 17:24, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd say that even if an item works differently in different games, I wouldn't necessarily always split it - I guess yes for weapons and armor, but not sure about other items, like drugs or books. I'd also keep skills and perks as they are now, given that information from multiple games can easily fit in one infobox in their case. Ausir(talk) 18:21, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll try to think of a different criterium - feel free to come up with suggestions. I agree about skills and perks. Not sure about drugs either, books don't really work differently in the various games in my opinion. -- Porter21 (talk) 00:52, October 8, 2009 (UTC)


 * By the way, one fear of mine is that we'd end up having to constantly move information added by new users from one article to another, given that they'll still probably going add game-specific stuff to the central article and general lore stuff to the game-specific articles instead of where it belongs. Ausir(talk) 18:29, October 7, 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, new users are always somewhat prone to adding stuff in the wrong place - the only difference is that info is moved from article to article rather than from section to section. Not really that much of a difference from my point of view. -- Porter21 (talk) 00:52, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

Instead of splitting into Lore and Game articles (ugh, UESP...) I wonder if you can create a single, tabbed infobox that will contain all the game infoboxes, Porta'. That way, we can merge the game relevant information into one section, whilst retaining completeness of information. http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/thumb/4/4a/Naglowaa_se.gif/11px-Naglowaa_se.gif Tagaziel (call!) 20:45, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not really like UESP, since it won't be in different namespaces. And this idea would only apply to infobox, not to the rest of the game-specific info. Ausir(talk) 20:53, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's not really like UESP. I don't want to split every article (like they do) and I'm trying to avoid repetition (which their model encourages in my opinion). I'm not a huge fan of tabbed infoboxes (although it is an interesting idea) and the infoboxes are not what this is mostly about. The simple fact is, in most multi-game item articles it is not clear which game what part of the content refers to. To bring up the inexperienced editors Ausir mentioned above, they add stuff without regard to the proper game-specific section or even mentioning which game their info applies to, resulting in general "notes" or "bugs" (as an example) which nobody really knows which game they apply to. Then you have articles where items are merged because they are the same broad type; it's not even clear whether it's actually the same item. In addition, I for one don't really look forward to having to scroll past all the FO1/FO2/FO3 info every time I'm looking for FNV info; and I doubt readers will like having to do that. These are (some of) the issues I'm trying to address, the infoboxes are just the "icing on the cake" :) -- Porter21 (talk) 00:52, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

Second attempt
Been thinking about it some more - how about making a merge depend on the subject having a generic "type" name? This would cover most of the weapon/armor pages and seems to make sense to me. The only article (I can think of) which wouldn't be covered by this is T-51b Power Armor. "Works differently" could still be a special criterium for weapons and armor to cover articles like that one. Another possible criterium I can think of is "you need another infobox", although this is somewhat ambiguous and not really my favourite.
 * It won't cover the weapons that appear in Fallout 1/2 and in Fallout Tactics (e.g. Wattz 1000 Laser Pistol. Ausir(talk) 20:54, October 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * Although I guess having these two together is still manageable, as will be having FO3 and NV versions together, even if there are some differences in stats. Ausir(talk) 21:26, October 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, you're right that it's probably not much of an issue for FO1/FO2/FOT weapons. I think it's an issue for FO1/FO2/FOT armor though, since Tactics has slightly different resistances; you essentially need another infobox for that. It's potentially also an issue for FO3/FNV weapons, since the new infobox for gamebryo weapons relies on auto-calculation; you can't really put " stat (FO3) stat (FNV) " in most of the fields since that'll screw up the calculations. Maybe we should err on the side of caution and add "different stats" as an additional criterium. -- Porter21 (talk) 21:48, October 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * FO1/2/T armors don't have specific model names, unlike the weapons. And I don't think having two infoboxes for one item on one page is that bad anyway - with the above rules it will be 2 at most - FO1/2 and Tactics, and FO3 and NV. BTW, what if the calculations for NV are slightly different than for FO3? Ausir(talk) 21:52, October 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * The calculations being different for FNV isn't really a problem; I can make the calculations depend on what's entered for the "game" parameter (one of the many reasons why I'm working on standardizing the input for that field), i.e. it's fine as long as there is only one game per infobox.


 * FO1/FO2/FOT and FO3/FNV are different cases from my point of view. To me, if the stats are different it's a different item. Differences between FO1/FO2/FOT weapons in terms of stats are minor. Add the possibility for multiple images to the weapon template (like the armor one has) and you can easily combine the infoboxes. FO3 and FNV use the same engine - if the stats are different here, you are looking at different items in my opinion. I doubt they are going to do large engine reworks considering the development timeframe. I.e. if you'd need a second infobox, it's a different item and should have an own article. Hope it's clear what I've written, I'm a bit tired.


 * Just to mention other options: I've been researching other multi-game RPG wikis to see how they deal with multi-game items. Usually they use one of two approaches: Either they generally make one article per item per game instance with an infobox, or they put the stats into tables in the article body with no infobox at all. I don't completely like either of these, just to mention it. -- Porter21 (talk) 23:41, October 10, 2009 (UTC)


 * Some differences between FO1/2 and FOT are smaller, some bigger. The AP cost is almost always different, as can be the damage and range, e.g. in P94 Plasma Rifle, which is supposed to be the very same weapon setting-wise. Ditto for Avenger Minigun and Vindicator Minigun, which use different ammo in FO1/2 and in Tactics. And according to JE Sawyer, he's rebalancing the FO3 weapons for NV heavily, so there will be stat differences like that there as well, even for the very same weapon. Ausir(talk) 23:37, October 10, 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm still not sure what exactly the issue with splitting the articles is. Maybe it's because the concept I'm trying to employ is a bit theoretical - I'll make a sample setup with the various laser pistols, maybe it's easier to see then. If it's because there isn't much to write about Tactics items, I'd pose the question whether that alone is really worth foregoing a systematic approach which avoids confusing readers. If it's to avoid repetition, separating the background information largely addresses that from my point of view. If it's to make cross-game comparison of stats possible, I'd pose the question of how much use that is between games of different genres and/or engines.


 * To be honest, I'm starting to get a little frustrated. I've come up with various suggestions and mostly they are rejected because of "I wouldn't". I can work with reasons and facts but I can't really work with gut feelings. -- Porter21 (talk) 09:04, October 11, 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not rejecting your proposals, just pointing out the FO1/2/T and FO3/NV thing - from my point of view, the two situations are very much analogous, since they feature/will feature identical items, which are supposed to be the same model setting-wise, but with different stats. Ausir(talk) 10:45, October 11, 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right in pointing it out, it's a genuine issue. I made another attempt at rewriting it. I guess you've already seen my sample article for the type of setup I'm aiming for; I've opted not to make sample for the game-specific articles right now since they'd basically be like any other item article. The only differences would be a "for" template linking back to the overview page and the "Background" section being transcluded from the appropriate section in the "main" article (i.e. from the Wattz 1000 section for the FO1/FO2 and FOT articles etc). Personally I think it's a clear and understandable setup, but that might just be me :) -- Porter21 (talk) 17:35, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

For other items, I think Grizzly is on the right track - we'd simply need combined infoboxes. While this would be somewhat awkward to do for weapons/armor due to the number of values you have for each game-instance, it should be possible for misc items/drugs/books since they only have a handful of values (at most) per game. Are there multi-game subjects I've forgotten? Perks/skills/traits have combined infoboxes anyway, and char infoboxes don't have many game-specific fields (plus there aren't that many characters who appear in multiple games). -- Porter21 (talk) 18:57, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, I think. Another thing, for multi-game infoboxes like the current perk one, could we, instead of having just one image field and then extra images in the extra field, could we have separate image fields for each of the games the perk/item/etc. it appears in, above the stats for the game/games in question? Ausir(talk) 20:43, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure about the image thing, I think it might blow up the vertical size quite a bit if you add an image above every game section. I could try adding them to the right of the info rows. In any case, they'd need to be smaller - otherwise you get too much scrolling to get at the actual data for later games in my opinion. -- Porter21 (talk) 22:47, October 9, 2009 (UTC)

Person infobox

 * Moved to Template talk:Person. -- Porter21 (talk) 08:22, October 10, 2009 (UTC)