Archive/1

From WarCraft3

Contents 1 Starcraft II 2 Content besides JASS content 3 Citation and References 3.1 Citing Internet Sources 3.1.1 Explanations 3.1.2 Examples 3.2 Citing Maps 3.2.1 Explanations 3.2.2 Examples 3.3 Citation and References Discussion 4 Help Pages and Official Pages 5 JASS Capitalization!

Starcraft II

I want to set up a thehelper wiki for SC2. However, currently the wiki is placed under a wc3/ folder, which doesn't really make sense... Creating a new folder for sc2 would mean that I had to maintain two different copies of the same code, and two different databases with very similar content, ect... I'm open for suggestions ^^ Phyrex1an 13:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd move the wiki from wc3/ to / and move the WC3 articles so they'll have wc3/ at the beginning of their locations, meaning e.g. natives would have wc3/jass/common.j/ at the beginning instead of the current jass/common.j/. That way the existing links to the articles wouldn't even break, rite? —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 16:27, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Content besides JASS content

Currently, the wiki only contains jass stuff mass imported GUI things. This is mainly because jass is really the only thing I know stuff about. We could import things like complete ability, unit, buff ect list (mirroring the info that is in the world editor) but we would need some sort of format to import too. So, is there someone that is interested in writing some sort of import plan for all kinds of content besides JASS? I can write the tools necessary to do the actual importing but I need to know what to import, where to get it from (eg, where in the mpq's I can find it) and the format it should the imported as. Check howto:imports for a starter. Phyrex1an 13:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Uh, I can get started on this, I guess, though I'm probably not going to do it right > > —ToolTipError 17:45, 1 June 2010 (CDT)

Citation and References

An article with references must have a references section at the end, created with ==References==, and all citations must be put inside the references section. The references section should not contain anything other than the citations. If there is a notes section or see also section in the article, they go before the references section. Portals for categories are created below the references section, and should be the last thing on the page.

You can not use another wiki.thehelper.net page as a reference, or just copy paste the reference from that page, instead you should find the source they use and recite it on the new page.

Citing Internet Sources

In order to cite a web page for the wiki, you should use the following format.

  # <Author>. <Source>: <Date published>; cited <Date cited>.

Explanations

• #: The wiki-markup for ordered lists.
• Author: The name of the author (either nickname or real name, whichever is available in the source). Should be a link to the author's wiki.thehelper.net user page if they have one.
• Source: A link to the source. If a title is available for the source, the title should be added as the link's text. If no title is available, the link's text should be the link itself.
• Date published: The date the source was published in format "monthname day, year." Can be left out if not available.
• Date cited: The date the source was cited in format "monthname day, year."

Examples

1. FooUser. How to Create an Awesome Map: December 7, 2009; cited January 8, 2010.
2. John Smith. http://www.example.com/123abc: cited April 1, 2008.

Citing Maps

Citing maps is slightly different. The template is as follows.

  # <Author>. <Map>: <Date published>; cited <Date cited>. <Source>.

Maps should be leak free and efficient unless that a problem with the map is being shown or you need the leak or error there for teaching purposes or for good reasons. If you are just citing a normal map, there should be no leaks or errors in the coding.

Explanations

• #, Author, Date published, and Date cited: See above.
• Map: The name of the map as a link to the map file. Note that the map file must be available for download without registration, so for example many forums' attachments won't do. If the source is such a place, the map should be uploaded to the wiki using the Upload File page and linked to using the [[Media]] wiki-markup.
• Source: If the map was uploaded to the wiki, the original souce should also be included as a link to it.

Examples

1. FooUser. Awesome Map 6.11.23b: December 7, 2009; cited January 8, 2010.
2. John Smith. MyMap 3.0: cited April 1, 2008. http://www.example.com/mymap.w3x

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Citation and References Discussion

I don't exactly understand in which cases citing a map would be handy. Could someone with intelligence enlighten me? —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 15:08, 11 April 2010 (CDT)

If you are using a map as evidence for anything. -Love your favorite Tool Tip Error.

I just can't come up with a scenario where using a map as evidence would be needed. The only candidate I can come up with is a benchmark, but even then I think it'd be better to link to the source of the benchmark map, as it usually contains lots of useful information about the benchmark (for example how to run it and how the results will be displayed). —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 16:23, 11 April 2010 (CDT)

And the examples should be once as they will appear, once without wiki formatting, the other with Wiki Formatting. -Love your favorite Tool Tip Error.

The source for the examples is there: just click on the 'edit' button next to the "Examples" title. The reason I chose this over embedding the source to the page is that this way is already used on every article on the wiki: just click on 'edit' to see how it was done. In my opinion the source should be explicitly embedded only when teaching to use a specific element. —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 16:23, 11 April 2010 (CDT)

I prefer using the real examples because they show actual examples. And I think the other format was much nicer, and that's the way I've been taught to cite online sources for school. -Love your favorite Tool Tip Error.

Yeah, the other template is nicer. But only if you can't use fancy HTML stuff such as links (like for example in school where you often need to write by hand or have your work printed). There's only two things that are really different in my version:

1. author name is "firstname lastname" instead of "lastname, firstname", and
2. the source is linked to in the source name instead of at the end.

The first one doesn't matter IMO, and I'd be totally fine with it being changed back. I just couldn't be arsed to type all that extra stuff in the explanation to tell it should be "lastname, firstname." ^_^

The second one, however, I find way more convenient. First of all, having "Web Link" at the end of each of these is just useless. I mean what purpouse does the text "web link" really service? If we weren't able to make the source name a link to the source, the link should be (in the link form, meaning http://...) at the end, as you've been taught. But since we can, it's completely unnecessary. When the source name is a link, it's fairly obvious the link leads to the source, and this approach increases readability by reducing the amount of text and attention points (links shout for attention). And making it a link removes the need for quotation marks, as the link having a different style already makes it clear where the name starts and ends.

Just to make the changes clearer, example 1 with previous and current template:

1. FooUser. "How to Create an Awesome Map": December 7, 2009; January 8, 2010. Web Link

1. FooUser. How to Create an Awesome Map: December 7, 2009; January 8, 2010.

Please do tell if I missed some difference or you have some reasons why the previous template was better. And just a side note: the wiki formatting for indentation is ":", not blockquote. ^_^ —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 16:23, 11 April 2010 (CDT)

The FooUser up there is good, but I prefer the link at the. ToolTipError 19:38, 11 April 2010 (CDT)

Instead of manually adding references to the end of the article we could use a plugin such as Cite, this is what wikipedia uses. As for the citing format, we could either adapt an already existing one (eg Vancouver) or use our own. If we use our own then I think it should be as simple as possible (url and description for example, or just free text), if we want something more complex then we might as well use what already exists instead of inventing our own. Phyrex1an 13:49, 12 April 2010 (CDT)

I disagree with using a minimal template, as I think all the information in the current template is pretty necessary. And I'd otherwise agree on using something like Vancouver, but at least Vancouver seems way overkill for our needs. I can't imagine anyone quoting a book, conference, journal article or anything like that. And the web page template seems kinda bloated for just citing forum posts and such (I'd imagine those being the main sources for the wiki). I also doubt any existing one having a template for citing maps. x)

Furthermore, the currently suggested one (for online citations) kinda like is an existing template already (seemingly at least both I and ToolTipError have been taught to mention those things in the cite), only slightly modified to fit the web. Cite seems pretty good, though. Beats inserting the references and the [1] things manually. —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 15:30, 12 April 2010 (CDT)

Well... For example Publish Date is either hard to come by or completely obvious if you lookup the source (which is easy for web content), the same thing can be said about author. Date Citet is already built into the wiki (edit history). My opinion is that we don't need a rigid citing structure, we're not wikipedia nor a science paper. Citing here is for showing respect to the original author/discoverer or providing the reader with background info that for some reason isn't on the wiki. What about using Triggers first alternative (I prefer spelling out the "cited" text), but making dates and author optional?

User:FooUserInWiki. Any kind of reference description

Related: "seemingly at least both I and ToolTipError have been taught to mention those things in the cite" I don't think a school type citing format suits the wiki, no matter what my teachers tells me :)

Phyrex1an 05:00, 13 April 2010 (CDT)

Hmm, you're right. When I was typing that "all the information in the current template is pretty necessary," I was kinda forgetting all that info is just one click away for the reader. ^_^ Now that I think about it it does seem enough to just link to the source. I can't really come up with any kind of useful description, though. I mean if we're not stating the author, dates, etc. because they are just one click away, why should there be a description of the content if the content is just one click away? x) I might be a bit biased with this description thing, though, 'cause I think it'd look pretty if the references part was just a list of links (in the http:// forms).

Rethinking this, I also can't see a reason to link to the author's wiki page. What's the reader gonna do with that? Nothing, methinks. —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 05:32, 13 April 2010 (CDT)

The purpose of the description is to give the reader an idea of what awaits them on the other side of the link, urls can be somewhat cryptic and not very helpful for someone browsing the references list for additional reading. I guess the author isn't really needed either, perhaps for some credit if anything :P On the whole, I think the rules on what you're allowed to link to is more important than the format. Only linking to content that is available without registration is a good start. What will be our policy on linking to "hacker" sites? TH forum has a 0 tolerance policy but I don't find that very constructive for a wiki that is supposed to document all wc3/sc2 knowledge. Linking to dedicated cheating/cracking sites should still be disallowed imo. Phyrex1an 18:08, 13 April 2010 (CDT)

I could throw together a page on forbidden sources, with a blacklist and rules. Not only should we have a list of sites that are not allowed, we should also have a guideline for what kinds of sites are also not allowed.--ToolTipError 10:01, 23 April 2010 (CDT)

Help Pages and Official Pages

I was thinking, it might help to have a logo for 'official' pages that we could throw on the side. Or the wiki logo in a box with a caption, 'Official Page'. --ToolTipError 10:01, 23 April 2010 (CDT)

Could you define the term "official page?" —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 11:54, 1 June 2010 (CDT)

Pages like, this sounds weird, but like how-to-cite and any how-to's we create. edit: tee hee, signature, ToolTipError 16:45, 1 June 2010 (CDT)

I don't think there will be any how-to's. They are all just conventions, and if you look at this project page (not the talk page, but the WikiWorkingGroup page), it says all finished conventions shall be on that page. So in that sense this is the only "official" page. Besides, I can't imagine us having any unofficial how-to's or such here. If we get any, we'll just move them to this talk page as suggestions. —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 17:05, 1 June 2010 (CDT)

Alright, sounds good. By the way, our convention should be JASS not Jass or jass —ToolTipError 17:42, 1 June 2010 (CDT)

Then make a suggestion about that Jass capitalization (in its own section titled "JASS capitalization" or something). It's not gonna become a convention if nothing is done to make it one. :) —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 03:44, 2 June 2010 (CDT)

JASS Capitalization!

Yeah, so, it really pisses me off with the use of Jass, not JASS, since it's an acronym. To keep the wiki consistent, we should make it a convention to use JASS —ToolTipError 18:45, 4 June 2010 (CDT)

"it's an acronym" Source? And from Blizzard.j:

// Blizzard.j ( define Jass2 functions that need to be in every map script )

Note the capitalization of "Jass2." —Artificial (Without Intelligence) 01:08, 5 June 2010 (CDT)

Are you suggesting that Jass is just a word, and doesn't have some sort of meaning? —ToolTipError 16:38, 9 June 2010 (CDT)