User talk:Carlthuringer

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B is for Bold

Welcome. Saw your comments on Category talk:Modding and wizard discussion pages...

 was led astray a long while as I looked for information on modding before I found 40d:Modding guide...
Messy, messy. Delete/merge. Furthermore, link the surviving category to 40d:Modding guide

What, you talkin' to me? ; D

You see the need, do it! Of all the topics, "modding" is clearly and literally outside vanilla DF, yet also clearly(?) intended to be part of it. Bringing those articles together would be both a challenge and a great help. I agree, this needs to be done, and is a worthy project. I'd tackle it, and certainly have done larger such "cat herding" before here, but I don't mod much. But I can give you some general pointers...

The text on is merely a courtesy and an explanatory footnote (or should be nothing more than that) - that page is created automatically as part of the wiki engine, to show every article that has been added to the category "modding" (simply be adding the code " [[Category:Modding]] ". Every page that fits under the loose umbrella of "modding" should have this added to it, at the bottom.

The List of mods appears to simply be a series of links to pre-fabricated, downloadable mods. Script kiddy stuff, by any other name. It needs a "how to" at the top, among other things, and maybe a comment on how to combine downloadable mods. And links.

Links... links are what make a wiki work, what lead a user from one article to another related or even more useful one.

And links are why the modding guide is tragic and almost pointless atm, because it has only 2 article links that lead to it - one from other weapon and one from building destroyer, and both of those are buried and very minor - which explains why, for instance, I don't remember seeing the Modding Guide article ever before! But that's the page that should be center of "How to", and the page that others direct users (like yourself) to read. Maybe some additional search redirects, perhaps look over the ones that currently lead to the "category" or "tokens" articles and change them.

The [[template:mod}} goes above anything that fits the text in it - (almost) anything that is not vanilla DF or that changes the code as downloaded (cat and init.txt being notable exceptions). Anything with that template could be helpful.

(I think Tokens, because it actually has been well-linked, also has some commentary about Modding and has had more links to it - they tend to feed off each other. A footnote-quality comment there is fine, but better to have all info centralized and linked than redundant articles that may or may not grow in parallel to each other.)

So - think about it, read all of what's there and what's linked to and from (see auto-link in left-sidebar, "What links here"!), make a plan, and tackle it logically, one step at a time. Read the above DF Wiki community guidelines. Make some notes. Change article names if you really are feeling confident. Cross link everything - that's what makes a page useful and connected. Link to vanilla DF articles as you see relevance, perhaps working in a comment, footnote or separate line toward the bottom. In short, be Bold. And your edits will bring those pages to the attention of other editors, who will make their own contributions. And we will thank you for it!

(Oh, and for the wizard, you could start with that to get warmed up. Make sure to test and re-test before you post "facts". The verify template is if there is a question/challenge/concern that you want to add on a discussion page.)

(If you feel this is too big a project for you alone, and/or want to "stake your claim" to give you time to finish a multi-day project, start a discussion on the modding guide talk page and get some like-minded editors to help - see this discussion for an example of how such grew into a complete teardown/rebuild of a similar mishmash of articles (and note that that particular article title no longer exists!). And hit my talk page if you want - I'll be around.--Albedo 15:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)