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[Particleman]

If I want real-world info on something, I go to Wikipedia. If I want info on something in the game, I go to the game's wiki. I want something concise and relvant. ("Cobaltite is a blue stone found in veins and sometimes contains more interesting things, but in game its only real use is for making pretty blue stone works" and such.)

I'm going to the wiki dedicated to the game to learn about things as they apply to the game.

Yes, it's real nifty that in real life cobaltite contains trace amounts of iron and nickel. Can I do anything with cobaltite in-game besides make blue stuff out of it? No? Fine, that's really all I wanted to know. I don't give a shit about it's real world applications, so therefore as far as I'm concerned any extra real-life info about it on the DF wiki is a waste of time, space, and bandwidth.

[G-Flex]

You seem really angry about this for someone who obviously hasn't even read the counter-arguments to your position (which has been stated repeatedly) yet.

[Zironic]

For a bunch of people that demand player accesibility, removing the real life properties of these materials from these relatively pointless - and boring articles, is a crying shame.

The DF wiki encourages the player to explore the game. If you tell them how these metals apply to real life it makes it that much more absorbing. Instead if you just offer the blank slate articles, it looks like you just don't give a shit, and prefer making mega structures instead of playing a game.

[G-Flex]

It helps you play the game, too, if you learn what things are what and how they're correlated, in realistic terms, since the game tends to reflect them.

Here is an example of the template in use. Personally, I think it worked better when it was on the bottom, centered, and less wide than the body text, especially since it makes the body text too cramped like this (and messes up formatting when you "show" it), but the concept is good.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Someone doesn't know how to click the clearly marked buttons to view old versions of the articles

There are no clearly marked buttons, by the way.

"Clearly marked" in this case, should ideally mean something atleast as clearly marked as the previously mentioned statement that "certain portions of the wiki are missing or empty."

Not saying I'm not atleast partially responsible for not thinking to look at the Archives, but it still could have been made a lot more obvious.

It can be solved easily enough, which I'll probably do myself after work, but it's not entirely a case of people simply failing to pay attention.

[G-Flex]

Archives? Huh? Did you miss the big green box on top of the article with the version numbers in it?

[SirHoneyBadger]

Archives? Huh? Did you miss the big green box on top of the article with the version numbers in it?

G-Flex: I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'm talking about the DF Wiki main page.

[G-Flex]

Yeah, but you can easily get to the old wiki from any article on the new one. I guess putting the version template on the main page makes sense too, but it's not exactly that serious an annoyance.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Maybe not to you, but it's been a major PITA to me. 

[Locriani]

Archives? Huh? Did you miss the big green box on top of the article with the version numbers in it?

G-Flex: I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'm talking about the DF Wiki main page.

Archives:   v0.23.130.23a Wiki(archive.org snapshot), v0.28.181.40d Wiki

that's at the bottom of the main page.  Perhaps the placement is bad, but that's where archive links have been since the v0.23.130.23a Wiki was archived.

[SirHoneyBadger]

That's fine, Locriani, and there's nothing wrong with the placement. All that's needed is something to point people to them.

And I think that was the problem--they've been there, as you say "since the v0.23.130.23a Wiki was archived.", which means that a lot of people haven't really looked there...since the v0.23.130.23a Wiki was archived.

[Locriani]

Oh, I agree.  The 2D wiki was archived as well long before I came along and started playing DF, much less started hosting the wiki - it just happened to be where the link was, so we used it for the 40d archive. 

[SirHoneyBadger]

You can think of me as a blind oblivious idiot that needs to be led around by the nose if you want. Maybe you already have  and maybe you should, because that's part of traffic the Wiki is going to attract. It's probably the closest thing Dwarf Fortress really has to a game manual, outside of the in-game help (unless I missed the manual, too???), and it's one of the first places people who are completely new to Dwarf Fortress are going to stop*. In a lot of cases, before they ever approach the Forums.



*Right after Boatmurdered.

[Locriani]

One of my primary goals (I won't deign to speak for every other editor) is to simplify the wiki's navigation and content flows so users can find the content they're looking for, and find it quickly.  So, all of these suggestions are very useful, in my opinion.

[G-Flex]

That's one reason I'm trying to bug VengefulDonut about getting the mineral/gem inclusions back into the stone pages. Those were pretty damn useful!