A (more or less) formal proposal to standartize descriptive articles (Units, Buildings, etc.)
A (more or less) formal proposal to standartize descriptive articles (Units, Buildings, etc.)
So, I had this talk with Mythril Wyrm about trying to come to a consensus about article formatting. I'll just copy it for you guys to say your 5 cents:)
Hey Mythril,
I see you worked on this article and added the 'Game info' section heading. We need to talk about this, because earlier I've been discussing formatting with ZeroOne and he says he really dislikes whole sections which only consist of couple of sentences (OK, this is not the case here, but imagine the Monument building: it will say:
The Monument is a building in Civilization 6.
Game info
Requires blablabla
Provides +2 Culture
... And that's it.
So he thinks such info doesn't need a heading at all, or it certainly shouldn't have this sort of solitary statement in the first row, then a Heading, then some info which you can find in the Infocard anyway. I must say I mostly agree with him, so I've been re-formatting some articles lately, removing the Game Info heading.
But regardlss of wether or not I or You agree on this or that, we need to decide upon some sort of uniform formatting of the articles for CIv6. If not, someone will constantly be adding something, and then the other will be deleting it. So.... What do you think about that?
I can't remember if we didn't have this exact same conversation with you some time back (about Civ 5, I think), or maybe it was with someone else. My personal opinion is that the leading lines in the article should state what it is about, and some essential info, such as:
"The Monument is the earliest Cultural building in Civilization VI. Can be built without any research."
And then have a more serious section such as Strategy, where people leave their own experience at using the thing the article is about. And then Civilopedia entry, or Historical Info, or whatever.
If we stick stuff like +2 Culture, +1 Gold, etc. we just end up repeating the Infocard. I mean, why do that, since the very puprose of the Infocard is to provide these basic stuff? We should write about stuff which will be too long if stuck in the Infocard.
Geez, I hope I[m not boring you to death! Anyway, I expect to hear your opinion. We may even start a more formal discussion in another place, if you want, where everyone will be able to drop some cents.
Cheers!
Soltan Gris 17:29, November 11, 2016 (UTC)
Good to hear from you, fellow editor! Let's see if we find a compromise.
In regards to formatting, it hasn't been consistent across the board for the unit, building, improvement, and district articles. Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, Civ4, and Civ5 articles for each of the above look very different, but so do the infoboxes for each game. I originally wrote most of the Civ6 articles as stubs that included an intro blurb before the first named section, though I'm not so wedded to the idea that I want to keep it at any cost.
If we want to use one of the existing article layouts as a foundation for the Civ6 articles, I'd go with the one we used for the Civ5 articles. It's aesthetically pleasing, it makes it easy to edit individual sections, and it places the most important information close to the top of the article so readers don't have to dig for it, and it makes sure the table of contents (if present) doesn't disrupt the formatting of the article. Yes, most of the information in the Game Info section is also written in the infobox, but the text is larger and it can be reorganized or rewritten to make it clearer and more concise (much like you and I did with the Civ5 social policy articles).
Here's what I suggest as our layout:
Game Info
Strategy
Historical Context
Trivia
Gallery
This way, the Game Info section will have all the relevant information about the topic in a larger, easier-to-read font (and possibly in more direct terms), and everything else in the article will be arranged in relative order of importance (though we can switch the places of the Gallery and Trivia sections if people have strong feelings one way or the other). What do you think? -Mythril Wyrm (talk) 01:19, November 12, 2016 (UTC)
OK, I could agree to that. Let me go ahead and try to copy this discussion into a more formal place, to see if the others agree as well.
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