IFWiki talk:Works (style guide)

Icons, intro summary and version info

Hmph. I suppose it's fortunate that we haven't added many pages about individual games yet, since I think I want to completely rethink how a game page should look like. I want them to look at least a little bit sexy, and without any obvious graphics per game, it seems like the best way might be to have some colorful info boxes similar to those used at IF-Review.

Also, although I wanted to encourage adding pages for games not in Baf's Guide, I didn't want to discourage them entirely. Geez. Obviously we should have pages for Christminster, Curses, So Far, Galatea, etc. I just didn't want games like Zork I, Trinity, Mystery House, King's Quest I, Mindwheel, Eric the Unready, Softporn Adventure, The Coveted Mirror, etc. to be forgotten either.

I also want to see an intro summary for each game. What I mean by that is a summary of who the PC is, where he or she is, what the PC is carrying, and what immediate goal the PC has in the very earliest stage of the game. Try to keep this summary limited to information that the player would get in the first ten turns of the game so as not to be spoilery. However, one must take extra care with this. 9:05 (Adam Cadre; Z-code) has a major secret that can be revealed in the first turn of the game, but you shouldn't reveal it on its page. However, we could also have a 9:05/Spoiler page, should we want to say more about it.

I suppose I'll think about how I want to redo the Photopia page, and when done it will serve as an example of what I hope to do. Thoughts? -- David Welbourn 05:46, 4 Sep 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

• Clarification on the version info: I assume we're only going to list versions still on the Archive and hence Baf's, right? Trawling down information for defunct versions would be difficult, to say the least. -- Maga 06:27, 27 Oct 2005 (Central Daylight Time)
  • You assume correctly. I'm not planning to make superhuman efforts to get version info, and I doubt anyone else is either. We can't document info we don't have. Only one game I would consider going all out with version info on, however, is Adventure aka Colossal Cave. There's so many different versions of that game, that it seems plausible that someone would be interested in extended version info, and there's plenty there to be confused about. -- David Welbourn 07:43, 27 Oct 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

• Another thing: where will cruelty scale ratings fit into this, assuming we're trying to include them as a standard element? Icon row, infobox? -- Maga 22:01, 19 Nov 2005 (Central Standard Time)
  • I was planning for cruelty scale to be part of the infobox. An optional part, if I can figure out how to make a template do optional things. -- David Welbourn 22:10, 19 Nov 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Non-IF platforms

I'm not sure I understand this:

We probably don't want to bother adding similar categories for games that target non-major or non-IF platforms, such as Apple II, Commodore, MS-DOS, etc.

Why not? Would it waste too many kilobytes? That seems unlikely. Would it be too complicated? I can't see why.

After all, the Apple II, Commodore, etc. were major platforms in the 1980s, with lots of IF games. And it seems a bit arbitrary to me if some games are in a Category:Games by platform subcategory and others are not... Also, I think it's rather useful to see all the games released on a platform just by clicking on the "[Platform name] games" category -- maybe even especially if it was a minor platform with only a few IF games.

The only little problem I can see is that the "Subcategories" list of Category:Games could become too long. But that could be solved if the "[Platform name] games" pages were only in Category:Games by platform category, and not directly in Category:Games. (By the way, we could do exactly the same thing with "Games by genre", and create a "Games by language" subcategory for the "French games", "Spanish games", "Translated games", etc.)

But maybe there are problems I didn't think of! I had already begun to create categories, actually (I should have asked before; sorry for that!). Should we delete them, or continue? --Eriorg 10:32, 14 August 2006 (EST)

IMHO, creating new categories or pages that I either didn't think of or didn't particularly want to bother with can be seen as a vote that those categories or pages are something that is wanted. I'm not going to delete them because they don't fit some grand design of mine. However, you may well assume that my eyes rolled on seeing Category:Oric games and I asked myself:

• What the heck is an Oric?
• Are there any IF Oric games?'
• Is anyone planning on authoring enough pages about Oric games that it warrants a category?
• How likely is it that someone will actively search IFWiki for info on Oric games?

I'm perfectly willing to just wait and see on this issue. If, however, a year goes by and the category is empty, or is better served by an ordinary Oric games page (not a category), then expect deletions or revisions. Other people, of course, might not wait so long. -- David Welbourn 04:47, 17 August 2006 (EST)

SPAG Reviews

Does anything think it would be worthwhile to establish a format for linking to SPAG reviews on game pages? Here are some of the formats in current use:

• SPAG review by Laurence Moore.
• Review by Neil Butters for SPAG #42.
• Muse: An Autumn Romance at SPAG, reviews by Duncan Stevens, Adam Cadre, Brian Blackwell, and Paul O'Brian.
• Aayela reviews at SPAG by John Wood and C.E. Forman.
• The Gostak - at SPAG; review by Duncan Stevens.

Here are a few things to keep in mind. First, we should probably use a template, rather than manually linking to sparkynet. Second, we can't (or at least, it's nontrivial to) link to specific reviews on SPAG, only to the reviewed game section.

Here's my proposed format:

• Flatfeet at SPAG - reviewed by Neil Butters.
• Aayela at SPAG - reviewed by John Wood and C.E. Forman.
• Muse: An Autumn Romance at SPAG - reviewed by Duncan Stevens, Adam Cadre, Brian Blackwell and Paul O'Brian.

Would anyone prefer mention of which issue these reviews appeared in? (as in the second example three blocks up)

Here's how you'd use Template:Spag review:

{{spag review|a|aayela}} - reviewed by [[John Wood]] and [[C.E. Forman]]

Any other ideas?

--Mara 07:03, 8 September 2006 (EST)

Yes, I think it's a good idea to make this template for linking to SPAG reviews on game pages. Not only for standardization, but also because the SPAG website will probably be modified soon (see the editorial of SPAG #45)... If the web addresses of the SPAG reviews change because of that, I'd prefer to change only the template, rather than changing hundreds of links! (By the way, maybe we could also make templates for other webzines or IF reviews websites: IF-Review, SPAC, Baf's Guide, Reviews Exchange, Interactive Fiction Reviews Organization, etc. ?)

I also don't think it's really necessary to mention the issue (SPAG #xx) in links to reviews. (For links to interviews, it's different, because they're sorted by date.)

However, there's a problem: I prefer, especially when there are many links to reviews of a game (or competition), that these links are sorted by the name of the reviewer (see IF Comp Reviews, for instance). Anyway, that's better than having lots of links which are not sorted at all ! But I do understand it's not too ideal with SPAG reviews, because we can only link to the reviewed game section, with several reviewers... (Maybe it'll change with the new website? Could somebody ask Jimmy Maher?)

--Eriorg 08:02, 8 September 2006 (EST)

For now I've created Template:ifro review for IFRO reviews:

Usage: {{ifro review|328|Andrew Plotkin}}

Result: Review by Andrew Plotkin

I've also created Template:rgif and Template:raif to shorten links to r.*.i-f.

--Mara 10:33, 8 September 2006 (EST)

This all looks good to me, but I do have two cents to throw in the pot: 1) Mara, could you please point me to where I can read about <noinclude>, <nowiki>, etc.? And class="noprint"? Believe it or not, I had no idea those existed. 2) I think we need some page that summarizes, or at least lists the templates in use. If there's a way to make a Templates category, I don't know how to do it properly.

Oh, I already had an IFRO game template, but that merely links to the main game entry at IFRO, not an individual review. -- David Welbourn 13:23, 8 September 2006 (EST)

Yes, and I also think it's a good, or at least sane, idea to keep a link to the IFRO main game entry since it lists ratings, in addition to reviews. Also, by definition, the list at IFRO will be more up-to-date compared to the wiki.

On the topic of noinclude and includeonly: have a glance at this page over at Wikipedia. The funny thing is, I have no idea what it says.

Basically, text between includeonly tags is only inserted when you're viewing a page that includes the template; in other words, such text won't appear when viewing the template directly (which is why Template:Drama isn't listed under [[Category:Drama]], but pages that include the template are).

OTOH, text between noinclude tags is never inserted when viewing a page that includes the template; it's for text that's only relevant when explicitly viewing a particular template. It's usually used for documenting a template, from what I can tell.

AFAIK, class="noprint" is only useful for identifying text passages that are inappropriate for being printed to page (too unwieldy, won't fit on Letter/A4, etc.)

I can't find any documentation for nowiki, but it basically prevents Wiki syntax for being interpreted.

Listing templates: Good point. I believe putting [[Category:Templates]] between noinclude tags should do the trick. Haven't tested this, though.

--Mara 13:57, 8 September 2006 (EST)