Forum:Forum:Content namespaces -- and you
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This page or section is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. This thread was archived on 25 May 2020 by IsobelJ. |
Hi guys, welcome to another compelling meta thread from Cook Me Plox.
I recently realized that our four RuneScape wikis are inconsistent about what does and doesn't count as a content namespace.
What's a content namespace, you might ask? You can read the MediaWiki docs about it for more, but the main idea is that certain namespaces (other than mainspace) can be reached from Special:Random, and contribute to the {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} count that we use on the main page.
The relevant namespaces here are Update, Exchange, Transcript, Calculator, Beta, Map, and Poll. I've mapped out the current state as follows:
- Yes means it's currently a content NS
- No means it's not
- Mainspace means we have content there that kinda assumes a namespace exists here, but it actually doesn't. (Example: osrsw:Poll:Old School Achievement Diary Rewards Poll)
Pretty messy, huh?
I propose that we make these consistent across all the wikis. We definitely don't *have* to do this, and if each wiki feels strongly about doing things individually, that's okay. But here's my proposal:
Besides the obvious move of fixing the mainspace pseudo-namespaces, this would mean:
- changing Transcript to content for OSRS
- changing Exchange to non-content for OSRS (I don't see a reason why Special:Random should take you here, they're not really articles)
- changing Calculator to non-content for OSRS (the calculators themselves could be nice, but the templates? Not so much)
- changing Update to non-content for OSRS and PTBR (debatable)
I'm happy to go either way for Update counting as content, but it doesn't make a ton of sense to me for that to come up, since it's just a repository for what Jagex wrote. Happy to discuss further, but I'd rather be consistently either way rather than split.
This would have a net change of around:
- -3700 "articles" for OSRS (-2000 if Update is content),
- 0 for RS (+4200 if Update is content)
- -200 for RSC (0 if Update is content)
- -650 for PT-BR (0 if Update is content)
Discussion
Support - Yes -- SpineTalk 02:30, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Support - hot STAR the coolest bean (talk 2 me xoxo) 02:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Support - and update in content namespace OR transcript removed. Badassiel 02:54, 2 May 2020 (UTC) (edited for clarity on 03:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC))
- Comment - Transcript and updates are both, in essence, utility spaces, just as modules, some templates, GEMW, and calculators are utilities. As such, I feel they are different from other such content spaces. Granted, they're more prose oriented than other utilities, which is why my argument is for both or neither to be counted as 'content.' Badassiel 18:12, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Support - There are too many obscure os transcript pages that are oppressed under the current system. Andmcadams (talk) 03:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
- Clarification on transcript pages - There are quite a few people opposed to transcripts being moved to content space (esp. compared to updates) so instead of responding to each person individually, I'm just going to put my reasoning for why I think they should be. I think that it's a bit of a misconception that transcript pages and update pages are similar. To me, a large difference is that updates can usually be found easily outside of the wiki by players (directly from the RS website). Therefore, the wiki is not really providing new content, but more of an archive. On the other hand, the info found on transcript pages cannot be easily found in a digestible format in places other than the wiki, not even in-game. The content of transcript pages is usually not completely verbatim, nor can it be for most NPC dialogues that make heavy use of wiki control flow constructs (tact/qact). There is a surprising amount of work involved in getting the in-game dialogue in the first place, in addition to processing it to be in a digestible format. So much so that it is unreasonable to expect individual players to be able to easily see all of it simply by playing the game, as quest NPC dialogues can be one-offs that depend on a variety of factors. While the dialogue itself is verbatim from the game, the way the dialogue is collected and processed provides content that Jagex itself does not provide in the same way it provides update page content. If the dialogue were given to us directly in this format by Jagex, I would agree it shouldn't be considered for adding to the content namespace. Andmcadams (talk) 18:17, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Support all except transcript - To me, Transcripts are as you said referring to Updates, "a repository for what Jagex wrote", so it doesn't make much sense to me to consider Update not content and consider Transcript content. In a literal sense, Updates are transcripts lol. 
Crow 08:53, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
- There was a time (and in some places, still is the case) where we'd include entire dialogue/book texts on mainspace articles, and they fit just fine. It's hard to conceive of any situation where the same could be said about updates. ʞooɔ 09:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
- I'm aware of that, but they're now mostly on their own page and namespace which imo aren't content pages and shouldn't be included in Random or our page count. I'd agree that I can't think of any reason to transclude an entire update page onto a mainspace page, but we do include parts of updates on mainspace, such as our Changes sections. I'd actually like it if we could find more consistency with transcripts on pages at some point too, currently it's kind of random if we have the entire transcript or if it's just a link imo. Crow 09:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
- I'm aware of that, but they're now mostly on their own page and namespace which imo aren't content pages and shouldn't be included in Random or our page count. I'd agree that I can't think of any reason to transclude an entire update page onto a mainspace page, but we do include parts of updates on mainspace, such as our Changes sections. I'd actually like it if we could find more consistency with transcripts on pages at some point too, currently it's kind of random if we have the entire transcript or if it's just a link imo.
Support - I don't see a reason to include Update or Transcript as I don't think it's expected to search for a word in a transcript and get that transcript. Similarly, I don't think we have a need to expose what is basically an archive of updates.
What doesn't seem to be mentioned here is the actual creation of namespaces where articles technically live in the main space today assuming I've read the proposal correctly. How is that being organised? cqm talk 10:46, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
- I would say searching for a word in transcripts is actually pretty common, but also not really relevant here -- which namespaces are searched by default is a different part of MW config than the content namespace stuff.
- For the mainspace stuff, we're just going to create new namespaces, and then run a MW maintenance script against it that moves the pages to the correct namespace. This has already been done for Transcript/Update on RSC, and Poll on OSRS. ʞooɔ 17:43, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
- Didn't know there was a maintenance script. Wikia always made you empty the to-be-namespace before they'd create the namespace (with mixed results). Guess the devs didn't like running scripts.
- I didn't realise the searchable namespaces was separate. In that case, I don't see a reason to include Transcript in the number of content pages. It's not our content in the strictest interpretation of the word, same as updates aren't our either. cqm talk 09:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Support - As transcript and update seem to be the contentious namespaces, I view Transcript a collection of ingame content that we are collecting and displaying, the others are not really in-game content/or good for displaying directly. Update is just logging of the updates so that we have local copy/backups, not collected in-game stuff. That's all i can come up with FjaraTalk
18:32, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Support - Consistency is good. I don't see any harm in transcripts showing up in the places it would if it were a content namespace. Maybe we can make Calculator a content namespace in the future if we migrate the templates to the template space. -Towelcat (talk) 19:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Support - Legaia 2 Pla ᴛ · ʟ · ᴄ 18:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Support all but transcript - As long as searchable namespace includes Transcript - agree per cqm. Standardization makes a lot of sense given the similarities unless users from the respective namespaces disagree in practice. If possible, we should try and get feedback from users from all four listed namespaces to make sure we don't enforce a standard on a community that hasn't provided input on it. Hephaestus 19:23, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Support - MitcheII (talk) 09:17, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Support - Makes sense to me Elessar2 (talk) 10:33, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Support - But because this is de facto "force OSRSW to use the RSW" standard I'd really like more input from OSRSW people to make sure they're onboard with the changes. I don't want this to be a bunch of RSW people passing something that doesn't affect RSW. --LiquidHelm 04:11, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
- Hey man we finally got a Poll namespace out of this conversation anything else is just gravy. BigDiesel2m (talk) 04:22, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Support all, soft support on Transcript - per Andmcadams. Habblet (talk) 15:20, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
Closed - there is support to implement the proposal as set out. IsobelJ (talk) 10:32, 25 May 2020 (UTC)