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  1. #1
    Ridill
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Posts
    12,469
    BG Level
    9
    FFXIV Character
    Septimus Atumre
    FFXIV Server
    Gilgamesh
    FFXI Server
    Bahamut

    Current Project: The Plus Project.

    When BGWiki first started, one of the limitations of MediaWiki was that the symbol "+" could not be used in page titles, and thusly our naming convention for the pages required the substitution of the word "Plus" any place where a + would be found. There have been various improvements to MediaWiki software since then that now allows + to be in a page name.

    The Plus Project has been an on-going venture over the last few months. The first stage introduced a series of redirects to pages from the shorter "+" nomenclature to the existing longer -named "Plus" pages. This was then incorporated into a larger "Redirect-O-Rama" project that sought to create redirects for long-form names (i.e. the names that you see in item description boxes) as well as Plus names. For example, Pair of Lucid Wings I will take you to the page Lucid Wings I.

    Some time has passed and I feel that the server will not be wrecked by the existence of + titled pages (because Ragns would murder me), so now we have come to the second phase of the project. Over the next several days, all pages with "Plus" in the title will be renamed with a "+" leaving redirects from the "Plus" titles. Until this process is completed, long-form name links with "+" will be temporarily broken. They will be repaired after all pages have been shifted to the "+" nomenclature.

    After this is done, all new pages added to BGWiki will be shifted to the "+" nomenclature. The existing redirects with the "Plus" nomenclature will be left for archive purposes for the foreseeable future, but new pages will not receive "Plus" redirects.

    What does this mean for people who browse BGWiki? After a few days of minor inconvenience, hopefully a smoother browsing experience where it will be easier to find what you want to see. This along with improvements in the search bar that show search hints based off of what you type and links to FFXIAH are to help make BGWiki a more user-friendly experience.

    Should you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, or find any problems with the redirected pages (or anything else for that matter), please feel free to leave a comment or send me a private message.

  2. #2
    Melee Summoner
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    41
    BG Level
    1
    FFXI Server
    Valefor

    Quote Originally Posted by Septimus View Post
    Should you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, or find any problems with the redirected pages (or anything else for that matter), please feel free to leave a comment or send me a private message.
    Hmm... how to start. I'll skip the long winded story about the crap wiki moderation team being crap at life and not being uniform with their redirect policy and ask.

    Basically, what are the rules on redirects? With a policy on redirects I'll feel more comfortable adding them as I see fit knowing I won't attract the ire of a admin that actually deserves respect.

    • Should common abbreviation redirect to the proper page?
      For example, WHM currently redirects to White Mage, but stuff like NM, VW, and VV don't redirect, should they?
    • Should there be redirects for slang?
      Should Toci's redirect to Toci's Harness?
    • Should common misspellings redirect to the proper page?
      For example, should Elixer redirect to Elixir?
    • Should capital lettering different then the standard redirect?
      One of the most annoying features of wiki software is capital letters actually meaning something. This is better solved by the search function then misspellings and abbreviations, but still worth asking about.
      For example, should White mage redirect to White Mage? Should White MAge redirect? What about miscapitalization of abbreviation such as Whm?
    • What is the policy on redirects not covered here?


    I can think of several dozen redirects I could add right now, but if there is a policy on them, I'd like to follow it alongside other BGwiki editors. I'm sorry to ask such a dorky question too, but crap moderation at crap wiki has led to my bitter resentment towards undefined redirect policies.

    Thanks in advance for helping clear this up for me.

  3. #3
    Ridill
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Posts
    12,469
    BG Level
    9
    FFXIV Character
    Septimus Atumre
    FFXIV Server
    Gilgamesh
    FFXI Server
    Bahamut

    Quote Originally Posted by Economizer View Post
    Hmm... how to start. I'll skip the long winded story about the crap wiki moderation team being crap at life and not being uniform with their redirect policy and ask.

    Basically, what are the rules on redirects? With a policy on redirects I'll feel more comfortable adding them as I see fit knowing I won't attract the ire of a admin that actually deserves respect.


    • Should common abbreviation redirect to the proper page?
      For example, WHM currently redirects to White Mage, but stuff like NM, VW, and VV don't redirect, should they?
    • Should there be redirects for slang?
      Should Toci's redirect to Toci's Harness?
    • Should common misspellings redirect to the proper page?
      For example, should Elixer redirect to Elixir?
    • Should capital lettering different then the standard redirect?
      One of the most annoying features of wiki software is capital letters actually meaning something. This is better solved by the search function then misspellings and abbreviations, but still worth asking about.
      For example, should White mage redirect to White Mage? Should White MAge redirect? What about miscapitalization of abbreviation such as Whm?
    • What is the policy on redirects not covered here?



    I can think of several dozen redirects I could add right now, but if there is a policy on them, I'd like to follow it alongside other BGwiki editors. I'm sorry to ask such a dorky question too, but crap moderation at crap wiki has led to my bitter resentment towards undefined redirect policies.

    Thanks in advance for helping clear this up for me.
    On BGWiki, we really don't have a stringent policy when it comes to redirects, but we do have three basic guidelines.

    First, Inventory and key items are capitalized in the manner in which they are listed in game. This means that all words in an inventory item (with the exception of articles, prepositions, and conjuctions) are capitalized, whereas only proper nouns are capitalized in key items. Key items very rarely have redirects (unless there are multiple of the same name that are used for different things), but the singular long versions of inventory items are redirected. But these are generated automatically, so it is not something that you have to worry about.

    Secondly, common abbreviations generally do have redirects if they are common enough. We do have redirects for things like Vw (note that this is lower case, probably should have an uppercase version as well), VNM, Sky, Sea, ZNM, and Magians. As for why things like NM and KI don't have redirects, probably because no one ever got around to making them.

    Thirdly, our search bar has an auto-suggest feature, so we need to limit possible confounding results. For example, if we make redirects for "White mage", "White MAge", WHite Mage", WHite mage", etc it will push out other possible relevant results, such as "White Mage's Testimony" or "White Mage Die". So things like slang or misspellings may cause more issues than they solve. For example, if you type in "Toci's" into the search bar, "Toci's Harness" will pop under it as a suggestion. With something like "Elixer", I am a little shocked that "Elixir" is not brought up as a relevant result ("Did you mean:") when you do a search for it. Not to mention having to add in for all of the various HQ versions, Hi-Elixir, Vile Elixir, etc.

    But just because we have guidelines it doesn't mean that they have to be followed blindly, everything can be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Every month we look at our top search results and adjust redirects according to what the prevailing traffic patterns demand. (We also prioritize content based off of what people are searching.)

    It really is not a dorky question, I believe if it needs to be asked it deserves to be answered. It is better to move ahead with confidence than to inch around with uncertainty. And sometimes asking about policies will give people the opportunity to reevaluate them to make sure that they are working properly and make changes as needed. Also, contrary to my popular perception, I am very nice to people who work on BGWiki and will answer any questions asked as quickly as I possibly can. We also give a lot of leeway to our editors, many of the people working on BGWiki have been playing the game for a very long time and/or are very respected in their fields of expertise. We place a lot of trust in our editors, and we have yet to be disappointed by that.

    Anyway, I hope that this answered your questions. If you have any more questions, need something clarified, or would like to go over any possible redirects, you can post them here or send me a PM.

  4. #4
    BG Content
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Posts
    3,303
    BG Level
    7
    FFXIV Character
    Slycer Ilerion
    FFXIV Server
    Excalibur
    FFXI Server
    Fenrir

    Because of the auto-search feature, I strongly disagree with misspellings being created as redirect pages. For example, if I type "elix," I shouldn't see "Elixar," "Elixer," "Elixor," "Elixir," etc., etc. It would drive me insane rather quickly. Similarly, I don't think that something like "Toci's," which will bring up a fairly obvious search result, should have its own page.

    As far as commonly accepted player-created acronyms and abbreviations, I certainly do support redirects in those cases. For example, I feel that VW and VWNM should certainly redirect to Voidwatch. Similarly, "sky" should redirect to the appropriate page, "relic" should redirect to a disambiguation, etc., etc. I think in most cases it's actually pretty clear, and in the cases it's not, well, that's one of the reasons this area of the forum exists.

    As far as capitalization goes, I don't know if someone has recently tweaked the way it works, but I haven't had any problems with capitalization whatsoever. For example, "white mage," "White Mage," and "WhItE MaGe" all refer to the same page without redirects. In the not-so-distant past, it didn't work like this (I know especially because of those key items that have the first word capitalized and the following words lower case).

    If I had to say concretely one way or the other for now, I'd say no redirects for capitalization, no proactive redirects for misspelling or for lazy shorthand ("Toci's"), but yes redirects for commonly accepted player-defined (or game-defined) abbreviations/acronyms. I'm fine making exceptions for misspellings or shorthand that start popping up in the top 10 or 20 wiki searches for any given month, like "Dynamis - Valkrum" for instance a couple months back.

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