Category talk:Mods

Cranked out this outline/draft.--Carlthuringer 10:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC) Cleaning up talk. Leave current info in, see history for old stuff. --Carlthuringer 07:17, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Community Guidelines

N is for Names. New pages should be singular nouns wherever applicable with few exceptions. Mod Should probably redirect to Mods which seems to follow well with Creatures, Skills, Buildings as a category comprised of many similar items. Mod currently redirects to Template:Mod.

Main_page has been linked to Mods instead of Modding--Carlthuringer 07:17, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I propose that Modding be copied and moved to 40d:Modding_reference. Modding might then redirect naturally to 40d:Modding_guide, which can link to 40d:Modding_reference.

Then Modding will have sub-category 40d:Modding_reference and also link to 40d:Modding_guide

Unofficial Naming Conventions

Editors have run into a similar confusion with other topics where "theory" vs "examples" tended to muddy each other. The solution was to create "design" articles, pages whose sole function was to act as a repository and showcase for user-created examples, their personal spin on the topic. See trap vs. trap design, or bed vs. bedroom vs. bedroom design, each of which have specifically different content, the game item vs theory vs examples. So that would suggest changing the name of that article from "Mods" to "Mod design", to keep it parallel to other articles. And the search word "mods" could then redirect either to here, or to the Category or the Guide. As a thought.--Albedo 14:19, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment on this, Albedo. --Briess 15:14, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

So you're saying that 'Mods' should be moved to 'Mod design' and contain examples of such? But unlike bedroom design Mods is a rather broad topic with many subjects, like graphics sets, tweaks and cheats, new species, and so on.

Right now I'm actually considering whether we might clean up the rest of the articles left in the 'Mods' category, then try reconciling them with the growing [[Modification:]] namespace and the [[40d:]] namespace. I actually realize that rather than 'Mods' perhaps 'Modification' is a better topic to match up with 'bed' and 'trap', re: this discussion here. Then we might work on knitting together these disparate lists of mods.--Carlthuringer 07:17, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Pages linked to Mods and Modding

Main_Page Links to Modding. (Note all the other categories grammatical leaning: Dwarves, World, Buildings, Modding, Items, Interface. Wouldn't the plural noun 'Mods' fit better, logically, in that table than the Gerunnd 'modding'?) Furthermore, Modding is an index of token references, which won't help new players one bit, IMHO. It should probably link to Mods.

Mods are finished products, not a discussion of "modding", which is what most using that word in the Search function are looking for. "Modding" should link to the Modding guide, which should then, in turn, link users to all the other related articles, like "mods"... (& see comments immed below) --Albedo 13:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

40d:Civilization

The Elf Forest Wiki Huh. Anyways, it's mostly a copy of Main_Page

40d:Wizard Linked by the Gerund form 'modding,' evidence for the redirection argument.

Mods "If you want to know how to create Mods, see Modding." Except that Modding doesnt' tell you how to create mods, so good luck, there!

User:Mason11987/All_Categories A list of all the categories.

User_talk:Briess Part of discussion suggesting a custom namespace, 'Mod' to cover all mod-related pages on the wiki. Sounds like namespace nightmare, what with the 40d namespace beginning to propogate and become standard.

(cont'd from immed above)

...I think the title of this subsection points to one of the current problems - that users might type in "mod" or "mods" or "modding" to Search for a "How to" article, but NONE of those lead to it. When I created that green "M Category:Modding" template, I also created a redirect for the word mod, since that's the word in the template, " {{mod}} ". (It made more sense to me than any other template name at the time, and fewer letters to type).

Similarly (I'm guessing), when the user (Nate879) later created this category (and Thanks to them for doing so!), they created a redirect for the word modding to more easily navigate back to this page, since the article name is " category:modding " and that cannot be used as a link (it turns invisible unless typed as [[:category:modding]], as any category tag does!) That may have made sense at the time, but it doesn't work for users now seeking information on "modding".

And that's what started the problem. When a user types in "mod", they get the template (wrong), so they then type in "modding" and find themselves here. And that's why the (inappropriate) stub article on modding exists on this page. (That, and no one has ever created links TO the Modding guide! HINT HINT!)

So, currently...

• mod redirects to the template itself.
• mods redirects to a list of completed, user-created mods.
• modding (at the time of this writing, but not for long) redirects to category:modding, which lists anything that has been put in this category using the " [[category:modding]] " tag - which is all the mods plus articles on tokens etc., etc.

And that last is what's fueling the problem. So I'm going to Be Bold and fix that, at least, redirecting "modding" to the "modding guide". I suggest that most of that "article" be copied/pasted to the Modding Guide (and/or in part to the top of the mods page, which DESPERATELY needs some explanation and a "How to"), and also that some Disambig-style comment be added to the top of this article (this wiki uses few formal "disambig" pages - see block or brew for what we need here, rather than pike or pool). All that should be here is a comment on how to use the category tag, similar to comments on the del category page. Users who want to help should find appropriate articles to add links to the modding guide, which can now (as you read this) just be linked via the word "modding".--Albedo 13:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

A number of modding articles have already been moved into the Modification namespace; since it's listed as a content repository, any search should bring up those articles if a redirect doesn't already exist. --Briess 15:14, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

To summarize as to what should happen...

• mod and mods redirect to Modification
• Modification starts with a disambiguation block that directs users to Modding_guide or List_of_Mods, if they're interested in those.
• modding redirects to Modding_guide.
• category:Modding contains subcategory category:40d:Modding_reference
• category:Modding_reference has articles about tokens and such moved to it.
• category:Modding takes up all guide-like articles about how to mod various parts of the game, such as graphics sets, cheats, etc. Completed mods don't go here, only guides and reference materials.

--Carlthuringer 07:17, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Modification namespace

I'm gonna go ahead and create a little template box for mods (Name, version, last updated, download link, etc) and then start making pages for everything in Mods. --Syzgyn ^T C 20:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)