Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

v0.31 Talk:Skill

2011-04-30T18:12:37Z

Sheepify: /* Skill level impact */

== Migrants ==

You can get migrants at any skill level, in any skill. I've got strand extractors before discovering adamantium, and legendary migrants before they've done any work.

== Teacher/Leader/Student ==

Are these related to the new military training system, or are they something else, like a general ability to learn? Or is the dwarf's learning ability based on his attributes? Would a dwarf with high leader skill be better at running a fortress, or is that for running a squad? --Kydo 14:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Toady said something about them being able to only teach weapon skills, and the general combat / dodging sort of abilities, so I don't think they have any other impact.

== Skill levels ==
Ok, I just took this from the 40d version, as I assume most of this wouldn't have changed, but I don't know how to check for the appropriate xp values. So far I think the order remained unchanged, except "No label" got replaced by "Adequate", and I'm relatively sure Dabbling through Competent are still correct, and Great through Legendary. I just put this here to reflect the "Adequate" change, and so anybody who knows how to check for the rest can update and put it into the wiki page, as it's lacking at the moment.
I added the question marks so people can remove them once they confirm the levels, and change the order if it is found to be different. --[[User:Ramperkash|Ramperkash]] 16:17, 6 April 2010 (UTC+2)

{| style="margin: 0 auto; border: 1px solid black; border-spacing: 0"
|-
| width="33%" style="border-right: 1px solid black;" |
{| width="100%"
! Level !! XP
|-
| Dabbling || align="right" | 1??
|-
| Novice || align="right" | 500??
|-
| Adequate || align="right" | 1100??
|-
| Competent || align="right" | 1800??
|-
| Skilled || align="right" | 2600??
|-
| Proficient || align="right" | 3500??
|-
| Talented || align="right" | 4500??
|}
| width="33%" style="border-right: 1px solid black;" |
{| width="100%"
! Level !! XP
|-
| Adept || align="right" | 5600??
|-
| Expert || align="right" | 6800??
|-
| Professional || align="right" | 8100??
|-
| Accomplished || align="right" | 9500??
|-
| Great || align="right" | 11000??
|-
| Master || align="right" | 12600??
|-
| High Master || align="right" | 14300??
|}
| width="33%" |
{| width="100%"
! Level !! XP
|-
| Grand Master || align="right" | 16100??
|-
| Legendary || align="right" | 18000??
|-
| Legendary+1 || align="right" | 20000??
|-
| Legendary+2 || align="right" | 22100??
|-
| Legendary+3 || align="right" | 24300??
|-
| Legendary+4 || align="right" | 26600??
|-
| Legendary+5 || align="right" | 29000??
|}
|}
:I can now confirm that the skill levels remained the same (up to Legendary at least), except that the "Adequate" prefix replaced the "No-label" one, and I still don't know how to test the xp values, might be able to check them in adventure mode. --[[User:Ramperkash|Ramperkash]] 17:26, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
::They appear to be unchanged when I look at them in Dwarf Therapist. [[User:Garanis|Garanis]] 17:42, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
:::This would not go on this page, it would go on [[experience]].--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 21:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

A list of skill descriptors on this page would be useful and this table is as good as any, though perhaps the numbers aren't needed here [[User:Cpad|Cpad]] 02:32, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

==Quality Skills==
I've been trying to compose a list of skills where level affects quality modifiers, versus skills where level is otherwise important, versus skills where level only affects speed.

Affects Quality:
Architect (cannot have mood)
Mason
Engraver (cannot have mood)
Mechanic
Carpenter
Bowyer
Siege Engineer
Cook
Trapper (for making traps)
Weaponsmith
Armorsmith
Blacksmith
Metal Crafter
Bone Carver
Stone Crafter (though, who cares, amirite?)
Wood Crafter (even more useless)
Leatherworker
Weaver
Gem Cutter
Gem Setter

Otherwise Important:
Miner (get all them gems)
Planter (for fat stacks)
All medical
All military
Judge of Intent
Appraiser

Just speed:
Organizer
Record Keeper
Soap Maker
All others

This seems pretty final now, so I'mma go figure out how to make a table on this wiki. --[[User:Zombiejustice|Zombiejustice]] 17:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

==skill penalties==
I'm pretty sure I've seen my legendary miners not dropping stone (or rough jewels, or ore), if they're exhausted, so it does seem to be a straight penalty. I'll add it to the article provisionally. Could someone else verify?

* Toady commented that as of 31.08, this should only apply to "starving" people (and presumably dehydrated) (comment at http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=8). What have your mining experiences been in 31.08? -- [[User:Creidieki|Creidieki]] 05:34, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
**I was pretty confident that it was exhaustion, but it's entirely possible I mistook a brown arrow for a gray one.[[Special:Contributions/75.164.146.98|75.164.146.98]] 02:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

===Layout===
Could someone please edit the layout so that the skill levels is side-by-side with the skills available? Would make a much better page layout and easy reference at a glance. -[[User:Dezbro|Dezbro]] 03:02, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

== Skill Rust ==

I believe that Skill Rust should be incorporated into the Skill article of this Wiki, rather than having a separate article. -[[User:Kogan Loloklam|Kogan Loloklam]] 14:02, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Example of negative effect of skill rust: adept metalcrafter (very rusty) produces items of basic quality only. "Only" as in 15 or 20 in a row. Also dwarf with rusty skill gets less XP per job. I saw numbers as little as 14 XP vs 30 XP for not rusty skill. [[User:Elfy|Elfy]] 22:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

:I think this holds true. My Expert Armorsmith (Very Rusty) produced a basic copper mail shirt and at rusty he produced only a well crafted. --[[User:Egodeus|Egodeus]] 19:45, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

::I have observed that dwarves with rusty skills won't do work in workshops that have their profile set above some minimum, probably dabbling, even if the skill to be used is of a sufficiently high level. It could mean that (rusty) and (very rusty) skills temporarily set the skill level to dabbling until the (rusty) and (very rusty) tags are removed. --[[User:Teddy|Teddy]] 22:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I *think* that skills out of use for an extremely long time start to fall in levels - my bookkeeper was a High Master Fish Dissector when he turned up a few years back, he's now a Master Fish Dissector. I'll keep a better eye on this and report back.--[[User:Nimblewright|Nimblewright]] 21:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

: I think it's true. I have a bunch of stonecrafters from Master to Grand Master levels which could only be formerly Legendary from mood as I don't do much stonecrafting. [[User:Elfy|Elfy]] 00:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
:: I'm just starting the Autumn of my first year in-fortress, and all my unused Novice and Adequate skills among the starting expedition are already listed as Rusty. This is particularly worrisome since my Doctor and Appraiser skills were at Novice. [[User:Romeofalling|Romeofalling]] 21:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It looks like rust comes off in layers. I just watched as my Proficient (very rusty) architect designed two buildings. After the first he was merely rusty, and after the second he was simply Proficient. It's a single sample, but still. --[[User:Oddrune|Oddrune]] 22:56, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
:Again I think this is true, since my expert (very rusty) armorsmith became just rusty after making one mailshirt and the just expert after a second. --[[User:Egodeus|Egodeus]] 19:45, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I didn't notice any affect on my medic staff due to "rusty" skills, They still worked as though their skills were normal. I didn't think to check xp earned, I have noticed atrophy(loss of skill lvl) in my other fortresses after reaching "very rusty". I'm Incorporating a "danger room" and I'll monitor xp earned. --Nordak

Do legendary skills rust? I usually disable mining on my legendary miners, but haven't seen any rust yet.--[[User:Droid|Droid]] 16:41, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
:They certainly do - I've had dwarves go moody and become legendary wood crafters, and they eventually rusted below legendary. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 17:54, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I have noticed that higher level skills seem to rust faster in some way than lower level skills. My Proficient Diagnostician/Adequate Wound Dresser/Novice Suturer/Surgeon/Bone Doctor Chief Medical Dwarf gained the (very rusty) tag on his Diagnostician level pretty quickly, while the rest of his medical skills remained at (rusty) until they started to be used three years after arrival. The same applied to my Skilled Weaponsmith/Competent Armorsmith/Metalsmith. --[[User:Teddy|Teddy]] 22:37, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

== Bugs? Mainly with modding ==

Would putting in a bug section be out of place if the bugs are solely on the modding side? Like warning modders that if you disable one skill in a metaskill group the whole metaskill group disappears? [[User:KaelemGaen|KaelemGaen]] 14:59, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
:I don't think it would be worth it... just put the bugs in the discussion thread and if somebody feels like it maybe they will transpose them in the main page. [[User:Speed112|Speed112]] 16:32, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

== On Wrestlers and Bronze Colossuses ==

I had a fresh recruit fighting a Bronze Colossus for some reason. Obviously, without any skills to his name, he immediately began wrestling the thing. The next instant, he was an Elite Wrestler. I imagine that trying to wrestle a gigantic living bronze statue can be an extraordinary learning experience. Although he was pummeled into a pulp despite his new elite-ness, does anyone know exactly why this happened?--[[Special:Contributions/162.83.223.4|162.83.223.4]] 02:54, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

: Yeah, this happens in any combat now. Before (or after?) dying military dwarf is promoted. It looks very funny. --[[User:Elfy|Elfy]] 01:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

: Colossi. :P -- [[Special:Contributions/192.203.222.78|192.203.222.78]] 02:56, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

== Managing Skills ==

A general page or section on managing skills of dwarves would be helpful. what labor preferences (and therefore skills) are good to give in combination? A table summarizing which skills allow operation of what buildings or other activities would also be helpful, they're not all obvious, and the summary could be one line, instead of going to a nearly blank page to find out. (Animal dissection allows what now? I go to the animal dissector page, which is almost entirely empty, to find out.)

Is there any way to find which dwarves are the highest in a skill? list them by skill level in a selected category?
my best woodcutter committed suicide, now i need to find someone else and transfer the axe to them...
but i have no idea how to do that, other than painfully going through the entire roster. -- [[Special:Contributions/192.203.222.78|192.203.222.78]] 02:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

: The first part, the table, is a good suggestion. The second part: In the nobles screen, when replacing nobles dwarves are sorted by most skill related to that position. Other than that, I think you need something like Dwarf Therapist to compare stats easily. [[User:Calite|Calite]] 03:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

== Immigrant combat Skills ==

When looking for dwarves to draft in Dwarf Therapist, I noticed that dwarves immigrating with relatively high military skills mostly have high civilian skills. Can anyone verify? --[[User:Blur|Blur]] 13:47, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

== Adventure Mode Skills vs. Fortress Mode Skill Categories ==

A search for "skill" or "skills" points to this page. Yet this page is categorized for Fortress Mode according to dwarf jobs. I think this arrangement can be slightly confusing for newbie Adventure Mode players.

Also, I do realize that a page for {{L|Knapper}} does not exist yet. But the {{L|Knapper}} link is currently listed under "Other Jobs". There is no Fortress Mode job that uses the Knapper skill... is there? If not, perhaps {{L|Knapper}} should be moved to the "Miscellaneous" category?

Finally, I could not seem to get the {{L|Knapper}} skill to work in vanilla DF in Adventure Mode. I tried holding a small stone in each hand, with nothing else in my hands, but there was no option to knap with them from the "x" perform action menu. I did put 5 points into Knapper at character creation to start out as "Novice". Is there some other requirement? Does it require certain types of hard stone, such as flint or obsidian? --[[User:Thundercraft|Thundercraft]] 22:28, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

:The {{L|Knapper}} skill is not used in Fortress Mode as of current, and neither is the {{L|Alchemy}} skill which also is listed under "Other Jobs". The "Miscellaneous" category, however, is reserved for skills that aren't jobs.--[[User:Teddy|Teddy]] 22:47, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

== Traits Changing In-Game ==

There's a Verify tag on the statement "Traits can not be modified in-game", so I thought I'd throw in Toady One on the subject from Oct 2008:

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/spoilers/101908.txt

"... most of the personality facets are have range of values without a notion of improvement or betterness necessarily being included".

Obviously this is ancient in DF terms, and only shows state of mind, not iron law. Cf. the first statement in the text, "The names are preliminary or even known to be crap in some cases", and all nineteen are exactly the same as today. XD --[[User:Knaveofstaves|Knaveofstaves]] 06:24, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

== Skill level impact ==

A rather major piece of information appears to be either completely missing, or vaguely mentioned in various places - namely the effect of each skill on the labor outcome.

Since I have no idea how to edit a wikitable, and neither a complete understanding of the issue (just started playing, which is how I came across this omission in the first place), I would appreciate your help with rectifying this situation. So far I've gathered the following information (though cannot guarantee it's accuracy) - please review, edit, and merge with the labor table on the info page once the listing is completed and verified.

The results of my digging through (I apologize for the poor formatting, complete novice at this). I tried to refrain from assumptions and base the below only on clear statements in subsequent pages or discussions:

*Category: Labors: Affects Work Quality: Affects Work Speed:

Mining

* Mining Chance of ore/gem drop Yes

Woodworker

* Carpentry Yes Yes
* Crossbow-making Yes Yes
* Wood cutting ? ?

Stoneworking

* Masonry Yes Yes
* Stone detailing Engraving only Yes? (Both Engraving and Smoothing?)

Hunting/Related

* Animal training ? ?
* Animal care ? ?
* Hunting ^Skill level impacts the speed of a hunting (Ambushing) dwarf
* Trapping Created Traps only? ?
* Small animal dissection ? ?

Healthcare

* Diagnosis ? ?
* Surgery ? ?
* Setting bones ? ?
* Suturing ? ?
* Dressing wounds ? ?
* Feed patients/prisoners ? ?
* Recovering wounded ? ?

Farming/Related

* Butchery ? Yes
* Tanning ? Yes
* Farming (fields) Produced Stack size Yes
* Dyeing Yes Yes
* Soap making No Yes
* Wood burning ? Yes
* Potash making No Yes
* Lye making No Yes
* Milling No Yes
* Brewing ? ?
* Plant gathering Produced Stack size? ?
* Plant processing No? Yes?
* Cheese making ? ?
* Milking ? Only milking vermin-type creatures?
* Shearing ? Yes?
* Spinning ? Yes?
* Cooking ? ?
* Pressing ? ?
* Beekeeping ? ?

Fishing/Related

* Fishing ? Yes
* Fish cleaning ? ?
* Fish dissection ? ?

Metalsmithing

* Furnace operating No Yes
* Weaponsmithing Yes Yes
* Armoring Yes Yes
* Blacksmithing Yes Yes
* Metalcrafting Yes Yes

Jewelry

* Gem cutting Large gems & gem crafts only Yes
* Gem setting Yes Yes

Crafts
(I read it somewhere that skill level affects both quality and speed of "all crafts," but thought this could use additional verification)

* Leatherworking Yes Yes?
* Woodcrafting Yes Yes
* Stonecrafting Yes Yes?
* Bone carving Yes Yes?
* Glassmaking ? ?
* Weaving Yes Yes?
* Clothesmaking Yes Yes
* Strand extraction No Yes
* Pottery ? ?
* Glazing Yes? ?
* Wax working ? ?

Engineering

* Siege engineering Yes? ?
* Siege operating ? Speed of reloading
* Mechanics Yes? ?
* Pump operating ? ?

Other Jobs

* Architecture "Low" impact on value? No
* Alchemy - N/A
* Cleaning - not a skill per se

Hope this makes some sense :)
--[[User:Sheepify|Sheepify]] 03:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
:Thank you for the !!SCIENCE!!, this is awesome. Watch out for items that might have a quality level invisible to the player, they were believed to exist in 40d. See [[DF2010_Talk:Brewer]] for a few lines of discussion. --[[User:Knaveofstaves|Knaveofstaves]] 04:17, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
: I wonder at the decision to move this to Skills when the Labor page already has the table (unmodified), the issue is similar to something already discussed (http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Dwarf_Fortress_Wiki_talk:Redundancy) and it would be '''helpful''' to new players such as myself. It was far more likely to be completed where the data partially existed. Frankly, I cannot see any issues with having this information duplicated in both main Labor and Skill page (again, text above is from Labor page), as well as included in the side tables summary for each individual skill... but, in the best NewYawk tradition, "whatever." Reminded me why I don't do wikipedia edits, either.
:--[[User:Sheepify|Sheepify]] 18:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC) the (briefly) !!SCIENCE!! Guy

Dwarf Fortress Wiki talk:Manual of Style

2011-04-30T03:15:03Z

Sheepify: /* Labor pages side table suggestion */

Discuss points of style, a few "threads" have been started to hit on some major issues. Please feel free to add new topics.
:Links to those threads would be helpful, since you're apparently referring to pre-existing discussions.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

== Spelling ==
Do we use British or American spellings? Whichever we use, we should at the least be consistent. [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:No, we shouldn't. This is neither a specifically British nor American game, it's an ''international'' game and so an international site. The ''only'' time such spelling needs be consistent is when it matches (or conflicts with) a game-term, or such that it's consistent within a single page.

:I don't feel it's the job of the Admin to tell users to read and write either American or British exclusively, and thus alienate the other to any degree (however unintentionally that may be!). Quite the opposite, we should welcome all - [[Dwarf_Fortress_Wiki:Community_Portal#X|X is for Xeniality]]! More, it's no editor's job either - as that can lead to cultural edit wars and just plain, dull petty jingoism. I know that color and colour, flavour and flavor, and all the rest are the same - it's a wide, wide web - it's time we all get used to it. ; ) --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::By consistency, I was referring to how the game uses Armor, thus we probably shouldn't use Armour. [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 05:47, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:::I agree. If the game says "Armor," then the page and all references to the concept should read "Armor," not "Armour." However, I don't think it's appropriate to get up in arms  about "Armour" if it's not referring to the in game concept -- this is a terrible example. Flavour, if it's written somewhere, does not deserve an armed attack on all instances of the word to change it to Flavor, nor vice versa, since they're not arms. Or something. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 19:40, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:Writing in English is hard enough for me. :) – [[template:unsigned|unsigned]] comment by [[User:Kummahiih|Kummahiih]]
::::<nods> If the term is found on the [[armor]] page, then of course it should all match - as I said above. Likewise something's referring to armor as a game concept, the item "plate armor" for instance. But if a tangential line on the article on [[beak dog]]s reads something like "''they're dangerous, and can quickly mangle an unarmoured dwarf"'', there is no need (nor just reason) to change that. It's not referring to the game term, it's not linking to any page, it's simply referring to the abstract strategic concept, which is the same in either spelling. Slavish enforcement of spelling where it makes no diff is not the way to go. This wiki is not that rules-centric, and most users like it that way.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 23:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Repetitive Intensifiers ==
Does "very, very yellow" offer any useful information over "very yellow"? [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:Does asking this question offer any, any useful information over not asking? A rather specific question for a "Manual of Style", especially without a specific reference or more general point to be made. But I would hazard the guess that that particular editor found that particular phrasing both useful and mildly entertaining in that context - this wiki is not as sterile as some, nor as formal.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::These questions were mainly a starting point, to give people an idea of the sort of things that we mean when we say 'style'. And you're right, it is very specific, but I think it's a decent thing to consider, along with the use of 'literally' as a generic intensifier, etc... [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 05:52, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:::I know what you're saying, but to try to regulate such would be a literally endless deathmarch. "Style" is personal, and some works and some doesn't, and some very cludgey stuff works when it shouldn't. I have a very wordy style, others have a very pithy, terse one, and neither is better or more or less "appropriate". Any literally unclear or broken usage will get cleaned up on its own without our enforcement, but very, very personal style should simply be overlooked so long as it works in context. (We have better things to do, really!) ; D --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 06:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::::Well, not right now I don't, EmiBot's current tagging job is going to take all night I think. She has to go to each page, load every link until she reaches a no page exception and then tag the page. She'll end up loading lots of pages per each actual page processed. [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 06:06, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

== Humor ==
Does humor belong in informative articles? Where is humor acceptable? Is humor (or "humorous prose") within an article like [[40d:carp]] useful, or does it only serve to confuse and make solid information harder to find? [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:Yes, depending. So long as the humour is ''either'' separate or clearly a side-product, it's fine. When a user decides to rewrite an article as their own stand-up routine, that's usually not acceptable. Adding the '''<nowiki>{{D for Dwarf}}</nowiki>''' template above a comedic rant is often acceptable, but not if the sole purpose seems to be for the amusement of the editor, rather than the reader, or if it's just not relevant. In the end, it's no diff than any other edit - some efforts are generally appreciated and accepted, and some are just "wrong-o".

:In short, you can't define it, you can only know it when you see it. But Carp, in specific, have a long and highly honoured history in DF culture. And cheese. And fire, and magma, and beards, and microcline, and elephants, and cats, and migrants, and nobles, and losing, and... --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::I know that all those things have such a history, but if you're a new player reading the article on carp, you are very likely to be confused and come out unsure of what was solid info and what was hyperbole, or comedic. I think in general, the sort of stuff {{tl|D for Dwarf}} describes is what shouldn't be in informative articles, or at least not such a broad marking -- perhaps it would be better used in sections rather than at the top of an article like it often is placed? [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 05:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

:::Actually, the current community standards suggest that "Wit" be kept to a minimum. Missed that.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 21:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:::Having discovered this game only a year ago I'd like to say that '''every single inside joke''' on this wiki was both entertaining and part of the game experience. I relied on this wiki so much I even feel stranded a bit. Mark it with D-for Dwarf template for it to be found and I think that everything will be fine. My two cents. [[Special:Contributions/90.191.16.52|90.191.16.52]] 19:26, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
::::As another person who has recently found Dwarf Fortress and the wiki, I love the D-for Dwarf stuff. It provides a clue to what other players consider interesting or historic for the game, and usually gives some information on how the topic of that article can provide 'fun'.--[[Special:Contributions/66.207.88.49|66.207.88.49]] 11:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

:::When I first picked up DF about two years ago, I distinctly remember actually using the D for Dwarf category as my primary point of navigation through the wiki, and several times lamenting the lack of further pages in that style. Much of the flavor of the game comes from the (frequently absurd) conclusions that the player base draws from observed behavior, quirks and bugs. Generally it is easier to come to grips with the fact that your fortress has crumbled to an end after an out-of-control fire incident when you are able to chuckle to yourself about dwarfs who think there's nothing about a glowing !!sock!! that isn't totally cool and worthy of being stored in their wooden chests. Take that away and (unless our hypothetical new player is able to independently reach the same conclusion) and all you have is yet another reason to be annoyed that the game is still in alpha. --[[User:Johntor|Johntor]] 19:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

::It should be fairly easy to distinguish fact from hyperbole/rant etc. if you use the '''<nowiki>{{D for Dwarf}}</nowiki>''' tag correctly though, for example, adding the 'humorous' bit at the bottom of a page, preceded by the tag. If used correctly, I believe it's acceptable. I started playing after the carp days, and still found those types of articles hilarious. --[[User:Ramperkash|Ramperkash]]
::: The occasional humorous bits included in the wiki here have always been one of my favorite things about dwarf fortress. I would be very sad if these were removed from the wiki. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 01:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:I don't think (hope not) that anyone is going to delete "all humour" - that would be lame indeed. But there are recent examples where some self-appointed site Wit has added reams of quips into an article - and that's just not going to work very often. The yardstick, I think, is multifold: 1) will it muddy/confuse the facts to a newbie? And/or is the humour "funny" to the Users as a whole? It's not like the Quotes page where if one person likes it then it's pretty much there to stay. Just as with any style, it's subject to editing.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 02:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:Perhaps we should revise the D for Dwarf template so it boxes in the D for Dwarf material? Such as <nowiki>{{D for Dwarf|My Funny Jokes About Plumbers Here}}</nowiki> -- that way we still have our humor, but we make it significantly obvious what is meant as silliness and what is serious / factual. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 19:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
::If you can get it to work (style-wise) on [[40d:carp]] and [[40d:fire]], then I think you've got a winner. (Those are two of the more "muddied" articles I can think of.)--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 23:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:I believe humour has it's place on the DF wiki. That place is not everywhere, but it's definitely in the [[40d:carp]] article. I can't think of any hard rules on where humour is appropriate, but I'd say if the subject is a major source of [[Fun]] then it's probably okay. A more mundane subject like [[Well]] is probably best left completely straight. [[User:KFK|KFK]] 14:28, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
:The absence of wit/humor in relevant-to-the-game articles would make me sad. There's barely a single feature in this game that can't lead to [[Fun]], and a witty phrase or sentence concerning that outcome (either how to get there, or how to avoid it) is quite effective at conveying the nature of the Fun to be had (or not had, as you choose). --[[User:Greycat|Greycat]] 18:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
:Humor doesn't seem like a problem to me as long as it isn't causing some sort of confusion. For example, sarcasm where the sarcasm may not be apparent. --[[User:Ral|Ral]] 01:15, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

== Page Format ==
We should have some sort of general format for pages, so that like-information appears consistently in the same spots on different pages. This might be a little harder to figure out. [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:We currently do within like pages. Every creature, every stone, every workshop, every skill... um... pro'ly some other stuff, is parallel. Truly parallel items ( [[40d:armor piece]], [[40d:trade good]]s ) are grouped under a single umbrella article, and some (like [[40d:gem]]) even listed in a table. If an editor gets excited and confident, they can suggest/establish a format for a new category of page. But a stone and a workshop do not have the same sort of information that needs to be communicated, so trying to establish a single format for all seems counter-productive.

:When formating a page, you want:
:* A clear Intro (if the article is long).
:* '''Bold key words''' - anything that redirects to that article should be clearly noticeable early in the article. If in a lower section, mention it and add an internal subsection link.
:* Use a Table of Contents if necessary
:* Use graphics - tables, images, templates - ''especially'' if templates exist for that page type! (spec creatures, workshops, etc.)
:: --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

:::Along the same lines, I think it might be good to look at how some of the existing templates are designed. Specifically [[Template:Buildings]], [[Template:Creatures]] and [[Template:Workshops]] to name a few. Buildings and Creatures are both large (maybe excessively so) and none of them seem to follow the same formatting rules. I would be happy to play around with it, but I'm much more of a 'code' person rather than a 'style' person, so I'm not sure what would be a good way to reformat them. Any thoughts?--[[User:Soy|Soy]] 00:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
::::"Creatures", for one, is going to need a work-over, as constants in 40d seem to have become variables in 31.01 - let me cogitate on it, I'll leave this page open and get back to you on it.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 20:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::I'm confused on the "constants in 40d seem to have become variables" comment. Could you clarify please? --[[User:Soy|Soy]] 21:00, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::Re creatures? Did you play the prev version? There are only a few "constants" in a creature's template - most answer "what do you get when you butcher one?" Used to be 100% predictable - now it seems highly ''un''predictable. Meat, fat - even bones. Look at any cv creature page - [[dragon]], for instance - see all those ? marks? ''That's'' what I mean.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 02:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::That's what I wanted to clear up: you're talking about [[Template:CreatureInfo]] and I'm talking about [[Template:Creatures]]. I was thinking it would make sense to break it up into sub-templates for the categories contained in [[:Category:Creatures]] e.g.: one for humanoids, animals, megabeasts, etc. For [[Template:CreatureInfo]] (the one you were considering) it would be an extremely simple process to remove those static links and allow each editor to propagate them with whatever is appropriate, maybe even a range of numbers? I'm not really sure as I wasn't considering that particular area, sorry. --[[User:Soy|Soy]] 04:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:Oh - ''that!'' Yeah, no doubt - we'll need a new template, since the redirects go to diff creature articles. The style format should relate to how we present diff creature articles - the [[creature]] page is not to my satisfaction, and it's all inter-related. "Humanoids"? Aren't some animals half/half? In-game distinctions might be best, sim to how they're listed in the RAW's - "domestic animals" is one from 40d, and so on. Easier to list, too, since only one RAW file needs to be addressed at a time. Other approaches are certainly valid and possible.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 18:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Image Use ==
Where should we use images, and how should we include them (where on a page)? [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:Wherever they are helpful, and however they look best. Again, no single rule fits all. On the right, usually (but not always), and matched up with relevant text as much as possible. Thumbnailed down to a reasonable size (big enough to be visible/useful - if still too big, then that requires either a new pic or a text that encourages the user to "click to expand").

:The guidelines for image use are simple:
:* Use .PNG format.
:* Use one of the default graphics packages, the tileset or ascii. ''(Note that the Mayday download is NOT one of these!)''
:* Use the default [[colour scheme]].
:* Make it look good.
:* No copyrighted material, etc etc.
:That's it.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

::No copyrighted material, is a hard thing to do though. Because in theory, any screenshots of the game are considered copyrighted, or are at the very least, in a very gray zone. [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 05:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

:::I assume it means no material that cannot be freely reproduced, i.e, either you own the copyright or it is under a creative commons license, etc. --[[User:Bombcar|Bombcar]] 20:11, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::::Let's please NOT get into an amateur discussion of copyright laws. Put 50 experienced copyright lawyers in a room, and you'll have ''more'' than 50 opinions on what the law actually states for any particular situation - and we're amateurs, and from different nations with diff laws, and this is international and national issues. Common practice is that screenshots are kosher on this wiki. And we can leave it at that.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 21:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::Actually, this is something we need to discuss. in the US, any images of a copyrighted game are considered copyright by the holder of the game's copyright. All we can claim is fair use, which is fine -- I doubt Toady One is going to sue us for using DF images. The other consideration is that of tilesets: the creators of the tilesets still hold exclusive copyright unless they release it into the public domain or into a free license. This brings up international considerations, however; some countries do not allow a author to release material into the public domain, and others allow third parties to pursue litigation and compensation on behalf of the copyright holder. So, in summary, we can require that images are released into the public domain AND a free license, or just a free license if they are not images of the game itself; otherwise, we have to require that the image is fair use for the topic at hand. Alternatively, we could request that Toady One loosens his license in regards to screenshots of the game. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 22:40, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

== Handling template breaking of redirects? ==

<s>How do we want to handle this? For example, {{L|Furnace Operator}} doesn't work; nor does {{L|pearlash}} - you have to use {{L|ash|pearlash}} to get it to go to the right place. Note that these examples don't work on this page; see [[40d:kiln]] for examples.</s> --[[User:Bombcar|Bombcar]] 17:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:''(This is not a style question - reposting on Current Events.)''--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 21:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

== Vanity articles ==

What to do about pages like [[Asax|this]], which have no value to the game or to any other player, only to the one player (or a very few at most)? Almost like a [[bloodline]] page. On one hand, not hurting anything, ''and'' it's good practice if that editor ever wants to actually contribute something, you know, "useful". But on the other, it is hurting, because it's more bandwidth for the next version change. Meh. Maybe just not worth the trouble to worry about either way, cost/benefit-wise. Thoughts?--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 01:16, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
:I was actually thinking about this the other day but didn't know where to discuss it. I'm all for a Community Legends category or something similar, as I believe there's a [[Cacame_Awemedinade|Cacame]] page, [[Tholtig]], [[Morul]], and I imagine Ironblood or Nist Akath will get their own page sooner or later considering their massive reputation. Obviously we'd have to watch for people arbitrarily adding tons of stuff, but I'm certainly not against it so long as it's patrolled and kept 'rare' so to speak. --[[User:Retro|Retro]] 01:33, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
:Oh, and for reference, the Asax page spawned from [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=52295.90 here]. --[[User:Retro|Retro]] 01:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
::This page exists and can exist for the same reason that [[Boatmurdered]] can have a page. The community decides that some things are epic - those things become community lore and thus part of the meta-game. This is the kind of thing that the D is for Dwarf tag is for. (Also, no extra bandwidth because he should remain unversioned, and thus never need to be moved). --[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 02:29, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
:::While there's nothing inherently unacceptable about vanity articles, and the occasional well written vanity article now and then can be a good thing (within reason), well... the Asax article in particular is just not very good. There's nothing there that's extraordinarily interesting, and there's certainly no actual content worthy of including on the wiki. It needs to be either significantly expanded (if there even is any more material to expand it with - I've not yet read the forum thread), or else deleted entirely. And I'm leaning distinctly towards the latter, as it stands. This article feels to me like the aforementioned "arbitrarily adding tons of stuff", and that's certainly not something to be encouraged. --[[User:Morlark|Morlark]] 09:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, it seems these are natural expansions from the [[forums]] - an area that I've largely dropped due to time constraints, and so remain (blissfully?) ignorant of. And even then, some of the subforums were always of far less interest than others for me, or for any reader. Unfortunately, there is no fair-handed way to legislate what is "interesting" and what is not. When [[planepacked]] hit the wiki, I was bored beyond description - someone had a glitch in their game (or maybe abused the hell out an exploit for personal bragging rights), so effin what?! But here we are. So, looks like they stay, and the only option is to add <nowiki>{{D for Dwarf}}</nowiki> and/or edit them so they read better. : \ --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 16:02, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
:I think the solution to this is an umbrella page, to be frank. Not sure what all of your positions are on that, but someone could reasonably go through the D for Dwarf articles and decide which ones could just go in a 'Community Stories' page. [[User:Sensei|Sensei: Last seen somewhere in the Basic Jungle of Terror]] 00:24, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
::Personally, I don't really see a reason for having this kind of stuff here. I find it interesting, sure, and I like reading about stories like Asax and some of the other historic figures, but I just don't feel that they have any business being here, on the Wiki.

::It's a community subject, rather than a game subject. As such it should be kept within the community (E.G., the Bay12 forum). The same could be said about most of the "D for Dwarf" articles, in my opinion. I don't really think they contribute a whole lot to the ideals behind having a Wiki, and they can actually serve to confuse a point rather than clarify it.

::I like having those little fields on the home page for quotes and pictures from the community, but I think that's about as far as the "flavor" really needs to go here. It was my understanding that this was supposed to be a repository for information pertaining to the base game itself, not the community that sprung up around it. --[[User:Kagus|Kagus]] 00:40, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The thing though is that if people hear about something on the forums, or any other DF community that is more about "the DF community" then about DF itself, then there should be ''someplace'' where they can learn about it. I think having that sort of thing here serves that good for little to no cost. Just segregate that sort of thing in some way (even a "community" category/box shoudl be sufficient) and then let people have fun. Even better, put it in a separate namespace (with a redirect from mainspace). Zero problems, plenty of value. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] ([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]]) 13:16, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

== in-article Capitalization ==

Articles are all capitalized - but that doesn't mean that they're all Capitalized. In an article, we should refer to a dwarf's [[armor]], not to their [[Armor]]. This gets exceptionally annoying in, for example, lists of plants, like [[Plump helmet]]s and [[Pig tail]]s, but also when suddenly [[Gold]] appears as if it's become some sort of sports team, or perhaps we're referring to someone's lawyer by last name. Even the "see also" at the bottom of a page? Altho' on one level it just doesn't matter, it reinforces that capitalization twitch. For example:

:'''See Also:'''
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|Plaster powder]]

vs.

:'''See Also:'''
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|plaster powder]]

I'd rather use the latter. It's not a proper noun (not even as an article name), and we're not speaking German (which does capitalize random nouns).--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 20:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

:Links should be capitalized according to standard grammatical practices. So don't link <nowiki>[[Like this]], link [[like this]]</nowiki>. Of course, if the word should be capitalized, like if it's at the start of a sentence, capitalize it. Proper nouns, like [[Urist]] or [[Toady]], should of course also be capitalized. Plant names aren't proper, unless it's the plump helmet Vendorblood the Menace of Crafting, and so shouldn't be capitalized.

:Since we can't have any simple rules, though, I think your '''See also''' example should be the former. Items in a list are treated grammatically like a sentence, and a '''See also''' section is a list of other articles to visit, even if it's only one item long. So it should be
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|Plaster powder]]
: not
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|Plaster Powder]]
: or
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|plaster powder]]
: or, god forbid,
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|plaster Powder]].

:Also to further complicate things and draw this conversation into areas it probably shouldn't go, section headers should only have the first word capitalized, so it should be '''See also''', not '''See Also'''. This is neither here nor there, however, and is just a rule I picked up from Wikipedia. In general, I defer to Wikipedia practices when editing any wiki, since that's kind of the norm. --[[User:Mikaka|Mikaka]] 21:43, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
::Agreed, I think Wikipedia should be a general standard, unless there's a reason to change it, like our version namespaces. --[[User:Aescula|Aescula]] 21:40, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

:It's generally considered correct for bulletted/numbered lists and tabular data to be capitalised. Obviously, if people are capitalising article titles in non-lists, or in in-line lists within a sentence then that isn't correct. But for the specific example you gave, the correct capitalisation would be:

:'''See also:'''
:[[DF2010:Plaster powder|Plaster powder]]

:--[[User:Morlark|Morlark]]

== Footer ==

Fixed footer at bottom obstructs found items if you use seach in your broswer. For example, look at [DF2010:Creature_tokens] article in firefox, hit ctrl+f and type "MEGABEAST". String is found, but footer overlays its position, making it look like searching is broken. Suggestion: get rid of fixed position of footer, nothing on it needs to be visible all the time. [[Special:Contributions/85.207.18.54|85.207.18.54]] 11:31, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

== Dwarfs vs. Dwarves ==

I have seen a bit of a conflict of plurals throughout the wiki. For example on the [[Military]] page in the "Current Reported Military-Related Bugs" section both terms are used in separate instances. From a grammatical standpoint both forms are correct plurals, but it seems a bit inconsistent to see them both used within a line or two of each other. Which is correct?
:Spellcheck might not think so, but every noun ending in one "f" (calf, leaf, wolf) has it's plural form ending with "ves" (calves, leaves, wolves). I would argue that ''"dwarves"'' is the correct way to write it. --[[User:DUMBELLS|dUMBELLS]] 00:49, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
:Tolkien wrote it "dwarves" as do most fantasy authors. I don't think I've ever seen "dwarfs" anywhere but this wiki. I've actually been changing it to "dwarves" in any document I do any extensive editing in. Also, it is written "dwarves" in the game. --[[User:Ral|Ral]] 01:10, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
I do believe there is a growing tendency to differentiate between "dwarfs" (people suffering from dwarfism) and "dwarves" (fantasy race group). Even the Great Compendium of All Undisputed Knowledge (aka Wikipedia) mentions this in a footnote.
:As Ral mentioned, "[NAME:dwarf:'''dwarves''':dwarven]" - I'd say that's definitive enough. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 02:39, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

== Labor pages side table suggestion ==

I think it would be immensely helpful to include in the side table on all labor-description pages what the associated skill's level actually affects - whether it is the quality of the resulting item/work, speed of completion, both, or whatnot.

I would gladly do so, but I have just begun playing DF - which is possibly why people longer affiliated with it may not even realize this is quite a big consideration for a potential reader of the wiki pages. Needless to say, but included for the sake of completion, I am not fully certain which labors fall under which aforementioned category.

--[[User:Sheepify|Sheepify]] 01:37, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
:I assume you're referring to '''Skill''' pages, since there are no labor pages (aside from Cleaning) for version 0.31.xx or even 40d (23a does have them, though, and I've been planning to create them for the sake of completeness). --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 02:38, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
:: The page at http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Labor
::With

::DF2010:Labor
::From Dwarf Fortress Wiki
::(Redirected from Labor)

::in caption.

::Decided to make an addition to the discussion, though my suckage at wikiediting is of the highest... Myeah.
::--[[User:Sheepify|Sheepify]] 03:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
::P.S. Hah. Yes. The '''Skill''' pages that the Labor page links to. I'm slow, but I get there... occasionally :D

Dwarf Fortress Wiki talk:Manual of Style

2011-04-30T03:12:52Z

Sheepify: /* Labor pages side table suggestion */

Dwarf Fortress Wiki talk:Manual of Style

2011-04-30T03:11:22Z

Sheepify: /* Labor pages side table suggestion */

v0.31 Talk:Labor

2011-04-30T03:04:08Z

Sheepify: /* Skill level impact */

Aside from the menus being moved around there seems to be something very different going on with labors. Woodcutting for one cannot be done by an unskilled dwarf, and I expect many other labors will be the same way. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 19:45, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:Are you quite sure you've enabled it? I haven't tried woodcutting yet but wood burning, smelting, weaponsmithing, masonry, carpentry, animal training, mining, architecture, plant gathering, brewing, cooking, and growing are all good to go. Yes, I embark with unskilled dwarves <g> [[Special:Contributions/70.240.148.81|70.240.148.81]] 19:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:: As far as I can tell, there's nothing to enable. Woodcutting is moved to {{k|g}},{{k|b}} and if a dwarf doesn't have at least one point in it there's just nothing there. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 19:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
::: Woodcutting is in labor preferences (p, l from the (v)iew-menu). There, go to "woodworking" (select with arrow keys, "enter" to go to submenu) and you'll see carpentry, crossbow-making, and wood cutting. --[[User:Syndic|Syndic]] 20:03, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:::: Aye, under {{k|v}},<select dwarf>,{{k|p}},{{k|l}}, and press enter on Woodworking, Carpentry Crossbow-making and Woodcutting should be present to enable/disable. [[Special:Contributions/70.240.148.81|70.240.148.81]] 20:05, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
::::: Above anon is me in case anyone wants to snipe at my talk page :P [[User:Freeze|Freeze]] 20:16, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::: Okay, something very odd is happening here then since woodcutting is not in my {{k|p}},{{k|l}} menu at all. I'm going to restart with some unskilled dwarves and see if the menu is different. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:22, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::: Riiight... Okay, it's something buggy. For some reason my {{k|p}},{{k|l}} menu was only showing four things. Restarting and now I see a much longer list with both skilled and unskilled dwarves. Now to try to figure out why it happened. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::: This same thing happened to someone on another forum - it only showed four skill groups. I think they were Miner, Healthcare, Hauling, and something else. --[[User:SirPenguin|SirPenguin]] 20:32, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::::: Same, I restarted and it's fixed, for now. I've made several attempts to recreate it but no luck so far. Not sure if it's relevant but when I only had four labor groups, I also had absolutely nothing showing in the nobles menu. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:45, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

So is there a way to toggle an entire labor group on or off? I tried several different keys but couldn't find one. It would be really useful to, for instance, turn off all the hauling labors on your important dwarves. --[[User:Valdemar|Valdemar]] 21:14, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

<s>I'm not sure if this is a bug or something. Just started my second fortress after screwing up my first royally, but I'm still learning. The labor screen, when I go to any dwarf appears to be missing most options. The only options I can toggle are Mining, Hauling and Other. The only work they do is that which I trained them for on the embark screen. I don't remember this on my first fortress, but I only learnt about it after several months so I'm not sure if there are any requirements for it</s> Nevermind, found someone in the bugs discussion suffering the same problem, so question answered--[[User:Sepheris|Sepheris]] 09:49, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Profession pages seem to exist for most of the categories. Should those categories link through to the matching profession page when available? I think it would aid navigation some. --EpeeGnome 2:33am 27 July 2010 (UTC)

== Skill level impact ==

A rather major piece of information appears to be either completely missing, or vaguely mentioned in various places - namely the effect of each skill on the labor outcome.

Since I have no idea how to edit a wikitable, and neither a complete understanding of the issue (just started playing, which is how I came across this omission in the first place), I would appreciate your help with rectifying this situation. So far I've gathered the following information (though cannot guarantee it's accuracy) - please review, edit, and merge with the labor table on the info page once the listing is completed and verified.

The results of my digging through (I apologize for the poor formatting, complete novice at this). I tried to refrain from assumptions and base the below only on clear statements in subsequent pages or discussions:

*Category: Labors: Affects Work Quality: Affects Work Speed:

Mining

* Mining Chance of ore/gem drop Yes

Woodworker

* Carpentry Yes Yes
* Crossbow-making Yes Yes
* Wood cutting ? ?

Stoneworking

* Masonry Yes Yes
* Stone detailing Engraving only Yes? (Both Engraving and Smoothing?)

Hunting/Related

* Animal training ? ?
* Animal care ? ?
* Hunting ^Skill level impacts the speed of a hunting (Ambushing) dwarf
* Trapping Created Traps only? ?
* Small animal dissection ? ?

Healthcare

* Diagnosis ? ?
* Surgery ? ?
* Setting bones ? ?
* Suturing ? ?
* Dressing wounds ? ?
* Feed patients/prisoners ? ?
* Recovering wounded ? ?

Farming/Related

* Butchery ? Yes
* Tanning ? Yes
* Farming (fields) Produced Stack size Yes
* Dyeing Yes Yes
* Soap making No Yes
* Wood burning ? Yes
* Potash making No Yes
* Lye making No Yes
* Milling No Yes
* Brewing ? ?
* Plant gathering Produced Stack size? ?
* Plant processing No? Yes?
* Cheese making ? ?
* Milking ? Only milking vermin-type creatures?
* Shearing ? Yes?
* Spinning ? Yes?
* Cooking ? ?
* Pressing ? ?
* Beekeeping ? ?

Fishing/Related

* Fishing ? Yes
* Fish cleaning ? ?
* Fish dissection ? ?

Metalsmithing

* Furnace operating No Yes
* Weaponsmithing Yes Yes
* Armoring Yes Yes
* Blacksmithing Yes Yes
* Metalcrafting Yes Yes

Jewelry

* Gem cutting Large gems & gem crafts only Yes
* Gem setting Yes Yes

Crafts
(I read it somewhere that skill level affects both quality and speed of "all crafts," but thought this could use additional verification)

* Leatherworking Yes Yes?
* Woodcrafting Yes Yes
* Stonecrafting Yes Yes?
* Bone carving Yes Yes?
* Glassmaking ? ?
* Weaving Yes Yes?
* Clothesmaking Yes Yes
* Strand extraction No Yes
* Pottery ? ?
* Glazing Yes? ?
* Wax working ? ?

Engineering

* Siege engineering Yes? ?
* Siege operating ? Speed of reloading
* Mechanics Yes? ?
* Pump operating ? ?

Other Jobs

* Architecture "Low" impact on value? No
* Alchemy - N/A
* Cleaning - not a skill per se

Hope this makes some sense :)
--[[User:Sheepify|Sheepify]] 03:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

v0.31 Talk:Labor

2011-04-30T03:01:52Z

Sheepify: /* Skill level impact */ new section

Aside from the menus being moved around there seems to be something very different going on with labors. Woodcutting for one cannot be done by an unskilled dwarf, and I expect many other labors will be the same way. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 19:45, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:Are you quite sure you've enabled it? I haven't tried woodcutting yet but wood burning, smelting, weaponsmithing, masonry, carpentry, animal training, mining, architecture, plant gathering, brewing, cooking, and growing are all good to go. Yes, I embark with unskilled dwarves <g> [[Special:Contributions/70.240.148.81|70.240.148.81]] 19:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:: As far as I can tell, there's nothing to enable. Woodcutting is moved to {{k|g}},{{k|b}} and if a dwarf doesn't have at least one point in it there's just nothing there. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 19:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
::: Woodcutting is in labor preferences (p, l from the (v)iew-menu). There, go to "woodworking" (select with arrow keys, "enter" to go to submenu) and you'll see carpentry, crossbow-making, and wood cutting. --[[User:Syndic|Syndic]] 20:03, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:::: Aye, under {{k|v}},<select dwarf>,{{k|p}},{{k|l}}, and press enter on Woodworking, Carpentry Crossbow-making and Woodcutting should be present to enable/disable. [[Special:Contributions/70.240.148.81|70.240.148.81]] 20:05, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
::::: Above anon is me in case anyone wants to snipe at my talk page :P [[User:Freeze|Freeze]] 20:16, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::: Okay, something very odd is happening here then since woodcutting is not in my {{k|p}},{{k|l}} menu at all. I'm going to restart with some unskilled dwarves and see if the menu is different. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:22, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::: Riiight... Okay, it's something buggy. For some reason my {{k|p}},{{k|l}} menu was only showing four things. Restarting and now I see a much longer list with both skilled and unskilled dwarves. Now to try to figure out why it happened. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::: This same thing happened to someone on another forum - it only showed four skill groups. I think they were Miner, Healthcare, Hauling, and something else. --[[User:SirPenguin|SirPenguin]] 20:32, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::::: Same, I restarted and it's fixed, for now. I've made several attempts to recreate it but no luck so far. Not sure if it's relevant but when I only had four labor groups, I also had absolutely nothing showing in the nobles menu. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 20:45, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

So is there a way to toggle an entire labor group on or off? I tried several different keys but couldn't find one. It would be really useful to, for instance, turn off all the hauling labors on your important dwarves. --[[User:Valdemar|Valdemar]] 21:14, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

<s>I'm not sure if this is a bug or something. Just started my second fortress after screwing up my first royally, but I'm still learning. The labor screen, when I go to any dwarf appears to be missing most options. The only options I can toggle are Mining, Hauling and Other. The only work they do is that which I trained them for on the embark screen. I don't remember this on my first fortress, but I only learnt about it after several months so I'm not sure if there are any requirements for it</s> Nevermind, found someone in the bugs discussion suffering the same problem, so question answered--[[User:Sepheris|Sepheris]] 09:49, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Profession pages seem to exist for most of the categories. Should those categories link through to the matching profession page when available? I think it would aid navigation some. --EpeeGnome 2:33am 27 July 2010 (UTC)

== Skill level impact ==

A rather major piece of information appears to be either completely missing, or vaguely mentioned in various places - namely the effect of each skill on the labor outcome.

Since I have no idea how to edit a wikitable, and neither a complete understanding of the issue (just started playing, which is how I came across this omission in the first place), I would appreciate your help with rectifying this situation. So far I've gathered the following information (though cannot guarantee it's accuracy) - please review, edit, and merge with the labor table on the info page once the listing is completed and verified.

The results of my digging through (I apologize for the poor formatting, complete novice at this). I tried to refrain from assumptions and base the below only on clear statements in subsequent pages or discussions:

*Category: Labors: Affects Work Quality: Affects Work Speed:

Mining

* Mining Chance of ore/gem drop Yes

Woodworker

* Carpentry Yes Yes
* Crossbow-making Yes Yes
* Wood cutting ? ?

Stoneworking

* Masonry Yes Yes
* Stone detailing Engraving only Yes? (Both Engraving and Smoothing?)

Hunting/Related

* Animal training ? ?
* Animal care ? ?
* Hunting ^Skill level impacts the speed of a hunting (Ambushing) dwarf
* Trapping Created Traps only? ?
* Small animal dissection ? ?

Healthcare

* Diagnosis ? ?
* Surgery ?
* Setting bones ? ?
* Suturing ? ?
* Dressing wounds ? ?
* Feed patients/prisoners ? ?
* Recovering wounded ? ?

Farming/Related

* Butchery ? Yes
* Tanning ? Yes
* Farming (fields) Produced Stack size Yes
* Dyeing Yes Yes
* Soap making No Yes
* Wood burning ? Yes
* Potash making No Yes
* Lye making No Yes
* Milling No Yes
* Brewing ? ?
* Plant gathering Produced Stack size? ?
* Plant processing No? Yes?
* Cheese making ? ?
* Milking ? Only milking vermin-type creatures?
* Shearing ? Yes?
* Spinning ? Yes?
* Cooking ? ?
* Pressing ? ?
* Beekeeping ? ?

Fishing/Related

* Fishing ? Yes
* Fish cleaning ? ?
* Fish dissection ? ?

Metalsmithing

* Furnace operating No Yes
* Weaponsmithing Yes Yes
* Armoring Yes Yes
* Blacksmithing Yes Yes
* Metalcrafting Yes Yes

Jewelry

* Gem cutting Large gems & gem crafts only Yes
* Gem setting Yes Yes

Crafts
(I read it somewhere that skill level affects both quality and speed of "all crafts," but thought this could use additional verification)

* Leatherworking Yes Yes?
* Woodcrafting Yes Yes
* Stonecrafting Yes Yes?
* Bone carving Yes Yes?
* Glassmaking ? ?
* Weaving Yes Yes?
* Clothesmaking Yes Yes
* Strand extraction No Yes
* Pottery ? ?
* Glazing Yes? ?
* Wax working ? ?

Engineering

* Siege engineering Yes? ?
* Siege operating ? Speed of reloading
* Mechanics Yes? ?
* Pump operating ? ?

Other Jobs

* Architecture "Low" impact on value? No
* Alchemy - N/A
* Cleaning - not a skill per se

Hope this makes some sense :)
--[[User:Sheepify|Sheepify]] 03:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Dwarf Fortress Wiki talk:Manual of Style

2011-04-30T01:37:36Z

Sheepify: /* Labor pages side table suggestion */ new section

Discuss points of style, a few "threads" have been started to hit on some major issues. Please feel free to add new topics.
:Links to those threads would be helpful, since you're apparently referring to pre-existing discussions.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

== Spelling ==
Do we use British or American spellings? Whichever we use, we should at the least be consistent. [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:No, we shouldn't. This is neither a specifically British nor American game, it's an ''international'' game and so an international site. The ''only'' time such spelling needs be consistent is when it matches (or conflicts with) a game-term, or such that it's consistent within a single page.

:I don't feel it's the job of the Admin to tell users to read and write either American or British exclusively, and thus alienate the other to any degree (however unintentionally that may be!). Quite the opposite, we should welcome all - [[Dwarf_Fortress_Wiki:Community_Portal#X|X is for Xeniality]]! More, it's no editor's job either - as that can lead to cultural edit wars and just plain, dull petty jingoism. I know that color and colour, flavour and flavor, and all the rest are the same - it's a wide, wide web - it's time we all get used to it. ; ) --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::By consistency, I was referring to how the game uses Armor, thus we probably shouldn't use Armour. [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 05:47, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:::I agree. If the game says "Armor," then the page and all references to the concept should read "Armor," not "Armour." However, I don't think it's appropriate to get up in arms  about "Armour" if it's not referring to the in game concept -- this is a terrible example. Flavour, if it's written somewhere, does not deserve an armed attack on all instances of the word to change it to Flavor, nor vice versa, since they're not arms. Or something. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 19:40, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:Writing in English is hard enough for me. :) – [[template:unsigned|unsigned]] comment by [[User:Kummahiih|Kummahiih]]
::::<nods> If the term is found on the [[armor]] page, then of course it should all match - as I said above. Likewise something's referring to armor as a game concept, the item "plate armor" for instance. But if a tangential line on the article on [[beak dog]]s reads something like "''they're dangerous, and can quickly mangle an unarmoured dwarf"'', there is no need (nor just reason) to change that. It's not referring to the game term, it's not linking to any page, it's simply referring to the abstract strategic concept, which is the same in either spelling. Slavish enforcement of spelling where it makes no diff is not the way to go. This wiki is not that rules-centric, and most users like it that way.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 23:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Repetitive Intensifiers ==
Does "very, very yellow" offer any useful information over "very yellow"? [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:Does asking this question offer any, any useful information over not asking? A rather specific question for a "Manual of Style", especially without a specific reference or more general point to be made. But I would hazard the guess that that particular editor found that particular phrasing both useful and mildly entertaining in that context - this wiki is not as sterile as some, nor as formal.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::These questions were mainly a starting point, to give people an idea of the sort of things that we mean when we say 'style'. And you're right, it is very specific, but I think it's a decent thing to consider, along with the use of 'literally' as a generic intensifier, etc... [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 05:52, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:::I know what you're saying, but to try to regulate such would be a literally endless deathmarch. "Style" is personal, and some works and some doesn't, and some very cludgey stuff works when it shouldn't. I have a very wordy style, others have a very pithy, terse one, and neither is better or more or less "appropriate". Any literally unclear or broken usage will get cleaned up on its own without our enforcement, but very, very personal style should simply be overlooked so long as it works in context. (We have better things to do, really!) ; D --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 06:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::::Well, not right now I don't, EmiBot's current tagging job is going to take all night I think. She has to go to each page, load every link until she reaches a no page exception and then tag the page. She'll end up loading lots of pages per each actual page processed. [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 06:06, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

== Humor ==
Does humor belong in informative articles? Where is humor acceptable? Is humor (or "humorous prose") within an article like [[40d:carp]] useful, or does it only serve to confuse and make solid information harder to find? [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:Yes, depending. So long as the humour is ''either'' separate or clearly a side-product, it's fine. When a user decides to rewrite an article as their own stand-up routine, that's usually not acceptable. Adding the '''<nowiki>{{D for Dwarf}}</nowiki>''' template above a comedic rant is often acceptable, but not if the sole purpose seems to be for the amusement of the editor, rather than the reader, or if it's just not relevant. In the end, it's no diff than any other edit - some efforts are generally appreciated and accepted, and some are just "wrong-o".

:In short, you can't define it, you can only know it when you see it. But Carp, in specific, have a long and highly honoured history in DF culture. And cheese. And fire, and magma, and beards, and microcline, and elephants, and cats, and migrants, and nobles, and losing, and... --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::I know that all those things have such a history, but if you're a new player reading the article on carp, you are very likely to be confused and come out unsure of what was solid info and what was hyperbole, or comedic. I think in general, the sort of stuff {{tl|D for Dwarf}} describes is what shouldn't be in informative articles, or at least not such a broad marking -- perhaps it would be better used in sections rather than at the top of an article like it often is placed? [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 05:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

:::Actually, the current community standards suggest that "Wit" be kept to a minimum. Missed that.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 21:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:::Having discovered this game only a year ago I'd like to say that '''every single inside joke''' on this wiki was both entertaining and part of the game experience. I relied on this wiki so much I even feel stranded a bit. Mark it with D-for Dwarf template for it to be found and I think that everything will be fine. My two cents. [[Special:Contributions/90.191.16.52|90.191.16.52]] 19:26, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
::::As another person who has recently found Dwarf Fortress and the wiki, I love the D-for Dwarf stuff. It provides a clue to what other players consider interesting or historic for the game, and usually gives some information on how the topic of that article can provide 'fun'.--[[Special:Contributions/66.207.88.49|66.207.88.49]] 11:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

:::When I first picked up DF about two years ago, I distinctly remember actually using the D for Dwarf category as my primary point of navigation through the wiki, and several times lamenting the lack of further pages in that style. Much of the flavor of the game comes from the (frequently absurd) conclusions that the player base draws from observed behavior, quirks and bugs. Generally it is easier to come to grips with the fact that your fortress has crumbled to an end after an out-of-control fire incident when you are able to chuckle to yourself about dwarfs who think there's nothing about a glowing !!sock!! that isn't totally cool and worthy of being stored in their wooden chests. Take that away and (unless our hypothetical new player is able to independently reach the same conclusion) and all you have is yet another reason to be annoyed that the game is still in alpha. --[[User:Johntor|Johntor]] 19:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

::It should be fairly easy to distinguish fact from hyperbole/rant etc. if you use the '''<nowiki>{{D for Dwarf}}</nowiki>''' tag correctly though, for example, adding the 'humorous' bit at the bottom of a page, preceded by the tag. If used correctly, I believe it's acceptable. I started playing after the carp days, and still found those types of articles hilarious. --[[User:Ramperkash|Ramperkash]]
::: The occasional humorous bits included in the wiki here have always been one of my favorite things about dwarf fortress. I would be very sad if these were removed from the wiki. [[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 01:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:I don't think (hope not) that anyone is going to delete "all humour" - that would be lame indeed. But there are recent examples where some self-appointed site Wit has added reams of quips into an article - and that's just not going to work very often. The yardstick, I think, is multifold: 1) will it muddy/confuse the facts to a newbie? And/or is the humour "funny" to the Users as a whole? It's not like the Quotes page where if one person likes it then it's pretty much there to stay. Just as with any style, it's subject to editing.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 02:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:Perhaps we should revise the D for Dwarf template so it boxes in the D for Dwarf material? Such as <nowiki>{{D for Dwarf|My Funny Jokes About Plumbers Here}}</nowiki> -- that way we still have our humor, but we make it significantly obvious what is meant as silliness and what is serious / factual. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 19:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
::If you can get it to work (style-wise) on [[40d:carp]] and [[40d:fire]], then I think you've got a winner. (Those are two of the more "muddied" articles I can think of.)--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 23:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:I believe humour has it's place on the DF wiki. That place is not everywhere, but it's definitely in the [[40d:carp]] article. I can't think of any hard rules on where humour is appropriate, but I'd say if the subject is a major source of [[Fun]] then it's probably okay. A more mundane subject like [[Well]] is probably best left completely straight. [[User:KFK|KFK]] 14:28, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
:The absence of wit/humor in relevant-to-the-game articles would make me sad. There's barely a single feature in this game that can't lead to [[Fun]], and a witty phrase or sentence concerning that outcome (either how to get there, or how to avoid it) is quite effective at conveying the nature of the Fun to be had (or not had, as you choose). --[[User:Greycat|Greycat]] 18:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
:Humor doesn't seem like a problem to me as long as it isn't causing some sort of confusion. For example, sarcasm where the sarcasm may not be apparent. --[[User:Ral|Ral]] 01:15, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

== Page Format ==
We should have some sort of general format for pages, so that like-information appears consistently in the same spots on different pages. This might be a little harder to figure out. [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:We currently do within like pages. Every creature, every stone, every workshop, every skill... um... pro'ly some other stuff, is parallel. Truly parallel items ( [[40d:armor piece]], [[40d:trade good]]s ) are grouped under a single umbrella article, and some (like [[40d:gem]]) even listed in a table. If an editor gets excited and confident, they can suggest/establish a format for a new category of page. But a stone and a workshop do not have the same sort of information that needs to be communicated, so trying to establish a single format for all seems counter-productive.

:When formating a page, you want:
:* A clear Intro (if the article is long).
:* '''Bold key words''' - anything that redirects to that article should be clearly noticeable early in the article. If in a lower section, mention it and add an internal subsection link.
:* Use a Table of Contents if necessary
:* Use graphics - tables, images, templates - ''especially'' if templates exist for that page type! (spec creatures, workshops, etc.)
:: --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

:::Along the same lines, I think it might be good to look at how some of the existing templates are designed. Specifically [[Template:Buildings]], [[Template:Creatures]] and [[Template:Workshops]] to name a few. Buildings and Creatures are both large (maybe excessively so) and none of them seem to follow the same formatting rules. I would be happy to play around with it, but I'm much more of a 'code' person rather than a 'style' person, so I'm not sure what would be a good way to reformat them. Any thoughts?--[[User:Soy|Soy]] 00:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
::::"Creatures", for one, is going to need a work-over, as constants in 40d seem to have become variables in 31.01 - let me cogitate on it, I'll leave this page open and get back to you on it.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 20:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::I'm confused on the "constants in 40d seem to have become variables" comment. Could you clarify please? --[[User:Soy|Soy]] 21:00, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::Re creatures? Did you play the prev version? There are only a few "constants" in a creature's template - most answer "what do you get when you butcher one?" Used to be 100% predictable - now it seems highly ''un''predictable. Meat, fat - even bones. Look at any cv creature page - [[dragon]], for instance - see all those ? marks? ''That's'' what I mean.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 02:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::That's what I wanted to clear up: you're talking about [[Template:CreatureInfo]] and I'm talking about [[Template:Creatures]]. I was thinking it would make sense to break it up into sub-templates for the categories contained in [[:Category:Creatures]] e.g.: one for humanoids, animals, megabeasts, etc. For [[Template:CreatureInfo]] (the one you were considering) it would be an extremely simple process to remove those static links and allow each editor to propagate them with whatever is appropriate, maybe even a range of numbers? I'm not really sure as I wasn't considering that particular area, sorry. --[[User:Soy|Soy]] 04:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
:Oh - ''that!'' Yeah, no doubt - we'll need a new template, since the redirects go to diff creature articles. The style format should relate to how we present diff creature articles - the [[creature]] page is not to my satisfaction, and it's all inter-related. "Humanoids"? Aren't some animals half/half? In-game distinctions might be best, sim to how they're listed in the RAW's - "domestic animals" is one from 40d, and so on. Easier to list, too, since only one RAW file needs to be addressed at a time. Other approaches are certainly valid and possible.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 18:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

== Image Use ==
Where should we use images, and how should we include them (where on a page)? [[User:Emi|Emi]] 04:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:Wherever they are helpful, and however they look best. Again, no single rule fits all. On the right, usually (but not always), and matched up with relevant text as much as possible. Thumbnailed down to a reasonable size (big enough to be visible/useful - if still too big, then that requires either a new pic or a text that encourages the user to "click to expand").

:The guidelines for image use are simple:
:* Use .PNG format.
:* Use one of the default graphics packages, the tileset or ascii. ''(Note that the Mayday download is NOT one of these!)''
:* Use the default [[colour scheme]].
:* Make it look good.
:* No copyrighted material, etc etc.
:That's it.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 05:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

::No copyrighted material, is a hard thing to do though. Because in theory, any screenshots of the game are considered copyrighted, or are at the very least, in a very gray zone. [[user:Emi|Emi]] [[user_talk:Emi|[T]]] 05:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

:::I assume it means no material that cannot be freely reproduced, i.e, either you own the copyright or it is under a creative commons license, etc. --[[User:Bombcar|Bombcar]] 20:11, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
::::Let's please NOT get into an amateur discussion of copyright laws. Put 50 experienced copyright lawyers in a room, and you'll have ''more'' than 50 opinions on what the law actually states for any particular situation - and we're amateurs, and from different nations with diff laws, and this is international and national issues. Common practice is that screenshots are kosher on this wiki. And we can leave it at that.--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 21:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::Actually, this is something we need to discuss. in the US, any images of a copyrighted game are considered copyright by the holder of the game's copyright. All we can claim is fair use, which is fine -- I doubt Toady One is going to sue us for using DF images. The other consideration is that of tilesets: the creators of the tilesets still hold exclusive copyright unless they release it into the public domain or into a free license. This brings up international considerations, however; some countries do not allow a author to release material into the public domain, and others allow third parties to pursue litigation and compensation on behalf of the copyright holder. So, in summary, we can require that images are released into the public domain AND a free license, or just a free license if they are not images of the game itself; otherwise, we have to require that the image is fair use for the topic at hand. Alternatively, we could request that Toady One loosens his license in regards to screenshots of the game. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 22:40, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

== Handling template breaking of redirects? ==

<s>How do we want to handle this? For example, {{L|Furnace Operator}} doesn't work; nor does {{L|pearlash}} - you have to use {{L|ash|pearlash}} to get it to go to the right place. Note that these examples don't work on this page; see [[40d:kiln]] for examples.</s> --[[User:Bombcar|Bombcar]] 17:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:''(This is not a style question - reposting on Current Events.)''--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 21:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

== Vanity articles ==

What to do about pages like [[Asax|this]], which have no value to the game or to any other player, only to the one player (or a very few at most)? Almost like a [[bloodline]] page. On one hand, not hurting anything, ''and'' it's good practice if that editor ever wants to actually contribute something, you know, "useful". But on the other, it is hurting, because it's more bandwidth for the next version change. Meh. Maybe just not worth the trouble to worry about either way, cost/benefit-wise. Thoughts?--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 01:16, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
:I was actually thinking about this the other day but didn't know where to discuss it. I'm all for a Community Legends category or something similar, as I believe there's a [[Cacame_Awemedinade|Cacame]] page, [[Tholtig]], [[Morul]], and I imagine Ironblood or Nist Akath will get their own page sooner or later considering their massive reputation. Obviously we'd have to watch for people arbitrarily adding tons of stuff, but I'm certainly not against it so long as it's patrolled and kept 'rare' so to speak. --[[User:Retro|Retro]] 01:33, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
:Oh, and for reference, the Asax page spawned from [http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=52295.90 here]. --[[User:Retro|Retro]] 01:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
::This page exists and can exist for the same reason that [[Boatmurdered]] can have a page. The community decides that some things are epic - those things become community lore and thus part of the meta-game. This is the kind of thing that the D is for Dwarf tag is for. (Also, no extra bandwidth because he should remain unversioned, and thus never need to be moved). --[[User:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]] 02:29, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
:::While there's nothing inherently unacceptable about vanity articles, and the occasional well written vanity article now and then can be a good thing (within reason), well... the Asax article in particular is just not very good. There's nothing there that's extraordinarily interesting, and there's certainly no actual content worthy of including on the wiki. It needs to be either significantly expanded (if there even is any more material to expand it with - I've not yet read the forum thread), or else deleted entirely. And I'm leaning distinctly towards the latter, as it stands. This article feels to me like the aforementioned "arbitrarily adding tons of stuff", and that's certainly not something to be encouraged. --[[User:Morlark|Morlark]] 09:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, it seems these are natural expansions from the [[forums]] - an area that I've largely dropped due to time constraints, and so remain (blissfully?) ignorant of. And even then, some of the subforums were always of far less interest than others for me, or for any reader. Unfortunately, there is no fair-handed way to legislate what is "interesting" and what is not. When [[planepacked]] hit the wiki, I was bored beyond description - someone had a glitch in their game (or maybe abused the hell out an exploit for personal bragging rights), so effin what?! But here we are. So, looks like they stay, and the only option is to add <nowiki>{{D for Dwarf}}</nowiki> and/or edit them so they read better. : \ --[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 16:02, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
:I think the solution to this is an umbrella page, to be frank. Not sure what all of your positions are on that, but someone could reasonably go through the D for Dwarf articles and decide which ones could just go in a 'Community Stories' page. [[User:Sensei|Sensei: Last seen somewhere in the Basic Jungle of Terror]] 00:24, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
::Personally, I don't really see a reason for having this kind of stuff here. I find it interesting, sure, and I like reading about stories like Asax and some of the other historic figures, but I just don't feel that they have any business being here, on the Wiki.

::It's a community subject, rather than a game subject. As such it should be kept within the community (E.G., the Bay12 forum). The same could be said about most of the "D for Dwarf" articles, in my opinion. I don't really think they contribute a whole lot to the ideals behind having a Wiki, and they can actually serve to confuse a point rather than clarify it.

::I like having those little fields on the home page for quotes and pictures from the community, but I think that's about as far as the "flavor" really needs to go here. It was my understanding that this was supposed to be a repository for information pertaining to the base game itself, not the community that sprung up around it. --[[User:Kagus|Kagus]] 00:40, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The thing though is that if people hear about something on the forums, or any other DF community that is more about "the DF community" then about DF itself, then there should be ''someplace'' where they can learn about it. I think having that sort of thing here serves that good for little to no cost. Just segregate that sort of thing in some way (even a "community" category/box shoudl be sufficient) and then let people have fun. Even better, put it in a separate namespace (with a redirect from mainspace). Zero problems, plenty of value. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] ([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]]) 13:16, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

== in-article Capitalization ==

Articles are all capitalized - but that doesn't mean that they're all Capitalized. In an article, we should refer to a dwarf's [[armor]], not to their [[Armor]]. This gets exceptionally annoying in, for example, lists of plants, like [[Plump helmet]]s and [[Pig tail]]s, but also when suddenly [[Gold]] appears as if it's become some sort of sports team, or perhaps we're referring to someone's lawyer by last name. Even the "see also" at the bottom of a page? Altho' on one level it just doesn't matter, it reinforces that capitalization twitch. For example:

:'''See Also:'''
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|Plaster powder]]

vs.

:'''See Also:'''
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|plaster powder]]

I'd rather use the latter. It's not a proper noun (not even as an article name), and we're not speaking German (which does capitalize random nouns).--[[User:Albedo|Albedo]] 20:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

:Links should be capitalized according to standard grammatical practices. So don't link <nowiki>[[Like this]], link [[like this]]</nowiki>. Of course, if the word should be capitalized, like if it's at the start of a sentence, capitalize it. Proper nouns, like [[Urist]] or [[Toady]], should of course also be capitalized. Plant names aren't proper, unless it's the plump helmet Vendorblood the Menace of Crafting, and so shouldn't be capitalized.

:Since we can't have any simple rules, though, I think your '''See also''' example should be the former. Items in a list are treated grammatically like a sentence, and a '''See also''' section is a list of other articles to visit, even if it's only one item long. So it should be
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|Plaster powder]]
: not
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|Plaster Powder]]
: or
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|plaster powder]]
: or, god forbid,
:*[[DF2010:Plaster powder|plaster Powder]].

:Also to further complicate things and draw this conversation into areas it probably shouldn't go, section headers should only have the first word capitalized, so it should be '''See also''', not '''See Also'''. This is neither here nor there, however, and is just a rule I picked up from Wikipedia. In general, I defer to Wikipedia practices when editing any wiki, since that's kind of the norm. --[[User:Mikaka|Mikaka]] 21:43, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
::Agreed, I think Wikipedia should be a general standard, unless there's a reason to change it, like our version namespaces. --[[User:Aescula|Aescula]] 21:40, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

:It's generally considered correct for bulletted/numbered lists and tabular data to be capitalised. Obviously, if people are capitalising article titles in non-lists, or in in-line lists within a sentence then that isn't correct. But for the specific example you gave, the correct capitalisation would be:

:'''See also:'''
:[[DF2010:Plaster powder|Plaster powder]]

:--[[User:Morlark|Morlark]]

== Footer ==

Fixed footer at bottom obstructs found items if you use seach in your broswer. For example, look at [DF2010:Creature_tokens] article in firefox, hit ctrl+f and type "MEGABEAST". String is found, but footer overlays its position, making it look like searching is broken. Suggestion: get rid of fixed position of footer, nothing on it needs to be visible all the time. [[Special:Contributions/85.207.18.54|85.207.18.54]] 11:31, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

== Dwarfs vs. Dwarves ==

I have seen a bit of a conflict of plurals throughout the wiki. For example on the [[Military]] page in the "Current Reported Military-Related Bugs" section both terms are used in separate instances. From a grammatical standpoint both forms are correct plurals, but it seems a bit inconsistent to see them both used within a line or two of each other. Which is correct?
:Spellcheck might not think so, but every noun ending in one "f" (calf, leaf, wolf) has it's plural form ending with "ves" (calves, leaves, wolves). I would argue that ''"dwarves"'' is the correct way to write it. --[[User:DUMBELLS|dUMBELLS]] 00:49, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
:Tolkien wrote it "dwarves" as do most fantasy authors. I don't think I've ever seen "dwarfs" anywhere but this wiki. I've actually been changing it to "dwarves" in any document I do any extensive editing in. Also, it is written "dwarves" in the game. --[[User:Ral|Ral]] 01:10, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
I do believe there is a growing tendency to differentiate between "dwarfs" (people suffering from dwarfism) and "dwarves" (fantasy race group). Even the Great Compendium of All Undisputed Knowledge (aka Wikipedia) mentions this in a footnote.

== Labor pages side table suggestion ==

I think it would be immensely helpful to include in the side table on all labor-description pages what the associated skill's level actually affects - whether it is the quality of the resulting item/work, speed of completion, both, or whatnot.

I would gladly do so, but I have just begun playing DF - which is possibly why people longer affiliated with it may not even realize this is quite a big consideration for a potential reader of the wiki pages. Needless to say, but included for the sake of completion, I am not fully certain which labors fall under which aforementioned category.

--[[User:Sheepify|Sheepify]] 01:37, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Dwarf Fortress Wiki talk:Manual of Style

2011-04-30T01:29:08Z

Sheepify: /* Dwarfs vs. Dwarves */