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[zwei]

Edit: AND... God forbid Toady ever makes poisonous stones actually poisonous. Remember, he based his stone off of real world information, and toxicity is one bit of real world information that can, plausibly, make it into the game. Just ask the new HFS.

Thing is, such function is not in game yet. Should he add it, then yes, such infromation should be on wiki.

But if you add is just "in case it might ever be implemented" is pointless and in fact hurts wiki as information source:

For example, player can read on wiki that Lead is poisonous which will stop using him from making lead furniture/barrels/buckets/whatnot and even to melt/atomsmash is if he already made some. But since lead does not have toxic properties he woudl be wasting resources.

Or player can read on wiki that rocksalt will dissolve in water (not true in game) and player would not make use of this layer stone, making him mine unnecesarily to get to more "durable" stone.

Simply put, information that is not part of game does not belong there. Wiki is about current game and future enchancements will get documented as new versions get released (I encourage you to do that!).

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Personally, I find this adversity towards real life information absurd given how Toady One has gone to great lengths to make things realistic. The game itself contains lots and lots of tiny little details that can help players get immersed, so real understanding and immersion in the world of the game is definitely a goal of it (or why would you care about what hair color a dwarf has?). Given that the stones are clearly designed to represent the real thing, the real life information is actually information about what the stones in the game should be like and thus gives relevant flavor information.

In addition providing the information in the wiki itself also gives new players (the most likely to read the articles) a better chance of becoming aware of just how much realism has gone into the game. They can immediately compare the real life information with what the game has already shown them during their first run and in doing so put their experience into place.

Personally, I think that adding real life information to many articles would be useful, but you may wish to have a fixed format (like a light red background box) so that people can see immediately that this is additional flavor/explanatory information.

For instance, details about real life processes of creating steel and how DF compares to it, or information on real life animals could be useful to make players understand WHY things work the way they work in DF.

And that information is definitely more useful than yet another lame joke about elves.

Deathworks

[Locriani]

Personally, I think that adding real life information to many articles would be useful, but you may wish to have a fixed format (like a light red background box) so that people can see immediately that this is additional flavor/explanatory information.

I think this may be the appropriate route to take.  In the morrow (I'm exhausted right now) I'll play around with a "factual" template or something, if there are no objections.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Simply put, information that is not part of game does not belong there. Wiki is about current game and future enchancements will get documented as new versions get released (I encourage you to do that!).

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Elephant
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Carp

But old and misleading information based on previous versions is fine?

I think as long as it is properly labeled, it should be good. Especially since there is so little information already there.

[Cruxador]

I hold no authority whatsoever over this matter, but all this stuff looks fine to me, so long as it's in its own heading that clearly states that it applies to something other than the current DF version.

[Capntastic]

The wiki should have information for the game.   Giving information that is not game related, like explaining animal behavior that does not happen in the game can be misleading.   Going overboard on 'hilarious' flavor text, like describing the elephant's blood gleaming with red blood and that they were named the king of beasts is also misleading.   While there is room for humor and flavor text, if the base article itself doesn't have any useful information, it's worthless.

As always, contributing to the wiki in meaningful ways is a great community service.

[Leperous]

Whichever stance you take, it is still totally rude to remove someone else's edit like this without using the discussion page first.

[Cruxador]

The wiki should have information for the game.   Giving information that is not game related, like explaining animal behavior that does not happen in the game can be misleading.   Going overboard on 'hilarious' flavor text, like describing the elephant's blood gleaming with red blood and that they were named the king of beasts is also misleading.   While there is room for humor and flavor text, if the base article itself doesn't have any useful information, it's worthless.

As always, contributing to the wiki in meaningful ways is a great community service.

Indeed, going overboard is bad. That's so obvious as to not really require stating.

And while that particular bit of text may imply a graphical representation that was not, in fact, present, this is not necessarily the common trend.

[Thief^]

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Carp

But old and misleading information based on previous versions is fine?

That carp article is completely incorrect for this version. It even talks about number-based damage!

EDIT: What's with so many articles being tagged "elven"?
EDIT2: Ah, I see. Who's responsible for choosing what the quality of an article is?

[Justyn]

My apologies, rephrase that as 'information that could otherwise be found on Wikipedia'.

Because Wikipedia isn't all that... friendly to those who don't already have some previous knowledge about the discussed subjects.

For example, player can read on wiki that Lead is poisonous which will stop using him from making lead furniture/barrels/buckets/whatnot and even to melt/atomsmash is if he already made some. But since lead does not have toxic properties he woudl be wasting resources.

Or player can read on wiki that rocksalt will dissolve in water (not true in game) and player would not make use of this layer stone, making him mine unnecesarily to get to more "durable" stone.

These can simply be noted with a small note in parentheses that says (Lead does not have any poisonous effect in the game) or (Rock Salt does not disolve in the game).

EDIT: What's with so many articles being tagged "elven"?
EDIT2: Ah, I see. Who's responsible for choosing what the quality of an article is?

Anyone, as long as it fulfills certain criteria.

[G-Flex]

I definitely think the level of in-jokes and crap like that needs to be toned down severely, and I agree that the "quality levels" are an example of that. The wiki just gets plain embarrassing to read sometimes, and I can't imagine reading it if I weren't an active member of the core fanbase, because I'd be slightly confused by all of that garbage, not to mention I'd feel like I'm reading something written by rambling fanboys as opposed to people who want to add useful information. It's especially bad when, as has been said, the injokes don't even apply anymore. We don't need pictures of killer man-eating carp anymore. We just don't. It's over.


I think some real-world information should be supplied where appropriate, though, since it adds some good context to how things work in-game. The pictures on the material/stone pages are a good idea, for instance, and short blurbs about the mineral composition of a stone and that sort of thing can be good. It just has to be made explicit, one way or another, what information does not apply to the game.

[Demonic Spoon]

I myself have found the injokes amusing and don't see the problem with them as long as they have been rated D for Dwarf. I also feel that some real life information is a nice little addition.

[G-Flex]

I myself have found the injokes amusing and don't see the problem with them as long as they have been rated D for Dwarf.

Because maybe I want to read an article about the in-game concept, not an article about jokes a bunch of fans have created around the in-game concept.

[Warlord255]

On the core topic of minerals, I think real-world images of these minerals would be helpful to the imagination; it's much nicer to know what Microcline looks like instead of thinking "blue stone". Imagination's a large part of the game, and should be coaxed where possible.

On the subject of in-jokes, I've no strong opinion one way or the other; so long as it's in a separate category that clearly labels the information as obsolete or uncommon (i.e. stories like Asax), it should be fine.

[G-Flex]

I just don't see why the wiki needs to even mention injokes from versions that were obsolete two years ago, aside from maybe a single sentence. There's enough bad information going around, and too many people who still think these things are true. We don't need to feed the rumor mill.