Guild Wars Wiki talk:Content over presentation

Discussion

It's mostly similar to what Tanaric previously wrote. Any additions? I wanted to link to examples but I guess that would have to wait until we get more articles up. --ab.er.rant (talk) 18:14, 8 February 2007 (PST)

At first glance I'd agree with this policy, but there's more to it than meets the eye... I think the part that interests me most is the 'style and formatting policies'. At GuildWiki those were mere guidelines, not real policies. If this new Wiki will have s&f policies, then this 'Content over presentation' is unnecessary imo, because the presentation-part should be covered then already.

About redundancy: let's take the Factions Skill trainers-table @ GuildWiki for example. It was decided that the skill trainers pages shouldn't list all the skills that the trainer offered, to avoid redundancy. Now, if you want to know the complete skill list of a particular trainer - e.g. Zytka - well, you just get an empty table 'cause the info never got collected, lol.
None the less, what I would expect to see is a table with ALL the skills he offers instead of a vague line saying 'Skill Trainers offer all skills that are offered by the Skill Trainer(s) listed before them.', and I'm not even certain that is 100% correct.
Bottom line is, redundancy isn't always a bad thing, it's just not easy to define what an 'certain important detail' is.
Also, the look of those tables is (again: imo) horrible. We have the possibility to make tables that are more pleasing to look at with just basic Wiki markup, so why not use it ? Of course, 'content' should come first but presentation shouldn't be neglected entirely.
Maybe this can be a guideline, rather than an actual policy ? --Erszebet 10:41, 11 February 2007 (PST)

If this policy means the removal of quick references and such, then I disagree with it. If we have a bunch of plain white info pages it will be quite dull and thus inferior to what guildwiki has set up --FireFox 10:47, 11 February 2007 (PST)

Hmm... I may have worded it in a misleading manner. Basically, the gist of this policy is that presentation style should never take precedence over content. Meaning that someone shouldn't reject contributions or information simply on the grounds of it not "fitting in" with t6he style of a page. Meaning the actual content quality and accuracy is much more important by how beautiful the page looks. --ab.er.rant (talk) 17:18, 11 February 2007 (PST)

Nope, that's pretty much how I interpreted the policy. Still not convinced. You see it happening here already: people starting to write articles and uploading stuff but we don't even have guidelines/policies on formatting those articles. Take a look at Urgoz's Warren (Mission) and Gate of Desolation (Mission). Sorry about the sarcasm, but those are abominations in my P.O.V. We're still presenting articles here, aren't we ? I do agree on the fact that articles shouldn't be formatted 'too much' - just basic wiki mark-up realy is all you need. If someone doesn't want to learn wiki code or is just a one-time-contributor or whatever reason they have; the content can be placed in the discussion page. I just don't like the idea of encouraging people to slam some information on article pages, hoping somebody will clean it up for them afterwards. --Erszebet 02:32, 12 February 2007 (PST)

But that's exactly what a wiki is...? Unless I've gotten the whole concept of a wiki wrong. People add what they know. Those who have fine grammar and spelling check it and correct it. Experts refine it. Wikicode-savvy people format it. Design-savvy people add in style. --ab.er.rant (talk) 03:23, 12 February 2007 (PST)

Sorry, now that I've re-read my own words I must correct myself. Of course everybody should add useful information on article pages. Maybe I'm too biased for this one. Guildwiki has this policy (although outdated imo) and I'm currently cleaning up the Prophecies mission pages there. I was kinda hoping that this new wiki would place the Formatting a bit more on the frontlines. But noticing that Formatting policies are still being discussed and new articles are posted every minute, this policy is already active, so I'll just shut up :p --Erszebet 15:05, 12 February 2007 (PST)

We shouldn't throw out articles because they look bad, I agree. The final product, however, should look good. A nicely-organized table is better than a hard-to-read list, a cute skill box with some visual flair is better than just writing out skill info, a mission article with a few helpful images is better than one without. Et cetera. — 130.58 (talk) 19:00, 12 February 2007 (PST)

Agree with you there. That's where the formatting guidelines come it. We need to make it more visible this time. --ab.er.rant (talk) 19:05, 12 February 2007 (PST)

Do we actually need this as a policy at all? I see nothing here that couldn't simple be included in editing guidelines, you are valuable or some such. Seems a bit like policy overkill to me, there's already too many of them about. --NieA7 12:17, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Hmm, it is more of a guideline/mini-manifesto than a policy per se, I guess. I think this belongs on some kind of Welcome page together with what used to be YAV. — 130.58 (talk) 12:49, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Yes, since YAV has been rejected (and I'm proposing that Guild Wars Wiki:Assume good faith should also be rejected) as policy, this is pointless too. We have alot of users who'd rather things be not spelled out so clearly as rules but rather as guidelines that can adhered to or not as the user wishes. And yes, I'm being sarcastic. But yes, I'm serious that this is not policy as the accepted definition of policy currently is. --ab.er.rant 19:01, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Unlike YAV and AGF, which I think have merit as guidelines (not that such talk is even relevant without a formalized use of policies AND guidelines), I think this isn't beneficial as a policy or a guideline. Perhaps if I understood the problem it was trying to solve. Oblio 12:09, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Did you read my explanations above? In short, do not revert/reject contributions on the grounds that the contribution is badly worded, trivial, or breaks formatting. You reword it and make presentation fit content, not make content fit presentation. --ab.er.rant 18:00, 14 February 2007 (PST)

Of course. But this policy doesn't say "do not revert". There are times when red links are better than stubs. I don't see why we need a policy that says "don't remove information" as it is pretty much common sense. In general, my position on policies is: "don't create one unless you are solving a problem", and I don't see the problem this one is solving. Removal of pertinent information is essentially a revert, and needs to be done following the reversion policy (Guild_Wars_Wiki:Three-revert rule? Guild_Wars_Wiki:Only revert once?). Anyway, I think this policy is fully extranious. Oblio 11:00, 15 February 2007 (PST)

The reason why it doesn't say "do not revert" is because this wasn't meant to govern revert policies. It just means that you do not sacrifce content for the sake of style and beautification. But since nobody really likes the guideline and behavioral policies, this is moot. -- ab.er.rant -- 23:14, 15 February 2007 (PST)