Forum:Lists

Forums: Index > The World that Never was > Lists

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Eric Ryan Jones — 05:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I am having an odd problem. I am trying to watch for certain types of changes, namely new things being added to certain categories (characters and games). Two possibilities, I am given: I could constantly (daily or so) look at the respective categories, or I could subscribe to the Recent Changes feed. Neiter is something I want to do. The perfect situation would be lists of said categories, much like list of titles that was on the main page, as well as how the Final Fantasy Wiki does its "List of ... characters" articles. In a perfect world, these lists would make it easier to work on projects like a recently concluded one I did at the FFWiki:

finalfantasy: user blog: Eric Ryan Jones/Final Fantasies by US release date

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KrytenKoro - "It's always best when the other chap is willing to die for his beliefs; you both have the same goal in mind."
TALK -

What are you actually trying to do by watching those categories? And if it's only two, why can't you just check them every day?

User:Eric Ryan Jones/random image

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Eric Ryan Jones — 05:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

My actual goals, one brings to question, eh? 'Tis in fact an ongoing project of mine: I keep track of game releases and character information in a database. This aids me in creating tables of ordered lists like the one I linked to above (which includes Kingdom Hearts titles). In return for that information and its sorting, I add information of that subject I find outside of Wikia to the wiki, and I watch the list pages and the pages they list for vandalism and such. Don't just think on me here, though! Wouldn't you expect others to want a place to see the exact titles and their order of spoilage and storyline? What about a place to see which characters appeared in each game in which other subcategories do not muddle your search?

Of your other question, many more than two are there if one thinks on it: there are subcategories. Also, there is the added challenge of keeping and comparing to an external list of what was already there. This challenge is not necessary if I keep watch over a list, as the additions are always in red on the diff pages.

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KrytenKoro - "An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on."
TALK -

Seeing as Kingdom Hearts only has six games so far, which have a clear order, the storyline isn't exactly hard to keep track of, plus we have Timeline. We also use subcategories to keep track of who is introduced or appears in each game. I don't see how other subcategories would confuse this - if you want to see who appears in Days, go to "Category:Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days characters".

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking for, but if you're trying to make it possible to do a table like the one you linked - well, I've got to say that while that's something it's possible to do for KH, I can't see how it's useful to do for KH, and it would require a large amount of work to create, and a continued amount of work to continuously check both the category and list, and correct either as the need arises.

Generally, a list article is useless if all it accomplishes is to duplicate a category. If it was something like Magic card or Gear, well that would be a situation in which a list is actually useful.

User:Eric Ryan Jones/random image

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Eric Ryan Jones — 06:47, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The timeline looks useful, I admit, but the rest of your first sentence is a little flawed. See, at one time, Final Fantasy had only I, II, and III. Then people realized it was actually I, IV, and VI; and by then VII was out and VIII was on its way, but numerous spin-offs were coming first. It was then we realized that some of the FFs (the Legends) weren't really FFs. As Tactics and Crystal Chronicles began to see popularity, they were given their own sequels, but alongside the rest of the main series, which saw one sequel, X-2. XI became an online game with four expansions. Oh, yeah, and VII got a compilation bigger than the KH series.

The point I'm trying to make is that, even if there are only six games, there will be more, and may already be, as far as we know. It's best to put in a stronger system of organization before a million sequels and spin-offs force us to.

Also, you mentioned checking both the category and the list. This is not true. Categories never need checked. They are automated. That is the nature of the category namespace. Its corrections are done from the individual pages themselves, which, by the way, takes more time than simply adding to a list.

A list has at least one other advantage over a category. You can order a list. A category is in alphabetical order, unless you apply a numbering scheme by editing every single page. Once again, editing a list is easier than updating a category system, and a category system shouldn't need to be updated that way, anyway.

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Azul81677 - "Ebil minds think ebily alike." - A collaboration between 2 very ebil minds
TALK - 06:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you can add it to the current timeline page, or make a subpage.

User:Eric Ryan Jones/random image

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Eric Ryan Jones — 07:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Since the timeline actually already solves part of my problem, I am left with the issue of main characters. Speaking of subpages, do you think anyone (sane) would mind adding a /characters subpage to each game article; it would be to list characters under headings of playable and non-playable and applicable subheadings, much like the FFWiki.

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KrytenKoro - "It's always best when the other chap is willing to die for his beliefs; you both have the same goal in mind."
TALK - Glorious CHAOS! 08:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Nooo...Kingdom Hearts only has four games, and two to be released. When and if it gets unwieldy, we can deal with it then, but it's impractical and unnecessary to do it now.

Categories always have to be checked, otherwise there isn't a point to having categories. We'd have to check to make sure people weren't adding false pages to the category, with the only other option being checking through every page in the wiki. If you make a list - if something is added to the list, you have to check if it's in the category, and if not, find the page and add it. If something is added to the category, you have to check and add it to the list.

What useful way would there be to order a character list than alphabetical order? The games themselves provide no ordering system beyond "World", and we already have all characters ordered by that on the various world pages. So, a world-ordered list would be redundant to the World articles.

Judging by the amount of work that would have to go into this, along with the constant upkeep, and the current lack of any actual use for such a page, my opinion is that it would be a waste of time; reorganizing data we already have in a relatively done way, with no uniquely informative nature to the list beyond its table of contents. Articles should be uniquely informative, whether they are lists or not - if a page only serves to organize, it should be a category.

User:Eric Ryan Jones/random image

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Eric Ryan Jones — 08:06, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

That is a strong opinion, and I respect it. I do, however, await an hour at which the sun is risen over other users, so that their opinions on the matter may be heard.

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User:ILHI/Talk

Azul81677 - "Ebil minds think ebily alike." - A collaboration between 2 very ebil minds
TALK - 04:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you can make a.... rough draft? Just so we can see what it'll look like.

User:Eric Ryan Jones/random image

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Eric Ryan Jones — 21:53, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

One need only see the lists on the FFWiki. (List of Final Fantasy X Characters would suffice.) I am merely suggesting that we do similarly here.

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KrytenKoro - Pinocchio with his nose attached to the trigger of a rifle, which points at his face as he says, "I want to live!"
TALK -

That still seems to be completely redundant to the templates, categories, and articles we already have in place. I'm really having trouble seeing any benefit to this suggestion of yours. For example, I check over 200 pages every few hours monitoring for vandalism and bad edits; it's not at all too much too ask for you to just skim over a few categories scanning for names that don't belong.

User:Eric Ryan Jones/random image

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Eric Ryan Jones — 23:52, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

You can simply put the pages on your Watchlist. "Watching" a category does nothing.

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KrytenKoro - "Because I knew something he didn't. I knew that I was lying. Seriously, sir. 'No silicon heaven'? Where would all of the calculators go?"
TALK -

..except I don't use my Watchlist. I go through all the pages and review every change done since I last edited, which is usually around 700 or so a day.

User:Eric Ryan Jones/random image

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Eric Ryan Jones — 02:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I have something called a job and full-time college. After those two things, I like to actually play the games in question. Don't expect me to spend my day sifting through all of that to find the two or three pieces of information I care about.

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KrytenKoro - "An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on."
TALK - 06:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

...yeah, I have a job and full-time college too, and I find time to take care of my family as well. Seriously, no one ever wins pissing contests.

I really, really can't see any point in doing this besides making your personal project editing incrementally easier, while putting strain on the rest of us to keep the lists and categories in sync. If you could make an example page in your userspace to show us how this could help, maybe, but as far as I can tell you've not been able to demonstrate any profit from this endeavor.

User:Eric Ryan Jones/random image

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Eric Ryan Jones — 06:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The first to piss isn't trying for a contest. I have given reasoning, and your only counterargument seems to be the work involved. "A wiki doesn't have a timeline." Isn't that what Wikia's staff has been saying? Like many others, I hope Kingdom Hearts is around for a while more. That while is plenty of time to work on something like this. I find myself finished pissing, so you can keep the contest going without me. I can see that fear of change is all I can hope to run into on this wiki, and I am no longer watching this forum. (In other words, a reply will not reach me.)

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KrytenKoro - You should have figured out whether bodies age without their hearts, Nomura.
TALK -

Claiming the wiki doesn't have a timeline isn't relevant to this though - as far as I understand it, your reason for wanting the list is only to make the day-to-day work of cleaning the categories easier for yourself. "A wiki doesn't have a timeline." would actually suggest the opposite of what you're asking for, as it would suggest "Why worry so much about the time spent keeping them clean?"

If I've misunderstood your goal, please make the example page several of us have asked for. Without it, you make it look like you're asking for us to do a lot of work, on our own, for something that is only useful to you.