Talk: Guild pages policy

Votes

Yes:

1. Yes Ralthor 17:37, 24 May 2006 (EDT) - (I wrote it so I like it, but I am sure some people can find some improvements)
2. Yes DarkTichondrias - (no comment)
3. Yes Mikk 06:42, 7 June 2006 (EDT) - (I love it!)
4. Yes Zonkk 07:31, 7 June 2006 (EDT) - (Looks good)
5. Yes Aeleas 11:05, 12 June 2006 (EDT) - (Looks perfect.)
6. Yes Schmidt 11:37, 12 June 2006 (EDT) - (See below.)
7. Yes Emcepticon 11:19, 15 June 2006 (EDT) - (It's silly to have pages that are nothing more than redirects, I agree wholeheartedly.)
8. Yes Kirkburn 07:53, 17 June 2006 (EDT) - ()
9. Yes Kitsunei 07:46, 18 June 2006 (EDT) - ()
10. Yes Muffinman 18:19 30 August 2006 (EDT) - ()

The YES votes are currently winning by 9-1. This policy will become ratified on June 19 unless the situation changes. --Mikk 13:56, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

No:

1. No Fandyllic 4:34 PM PDT 13 Jun 2006 - (I think these rules are overly restrictive... by this standard we should have even more restrictive policies for player pages.)

Comments

• If this goes into force, remember to touch up Template:Tlink and create Category:Stubs/Guild. --Mikk 07:04, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

• I added a link to Template:Tlink to the article. This one should be brushed up A LOT if this goes into force. --Mikk 17:36, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

• Oh, and the Template:Tlink template should probably get a <small> pointer to the policy to make it easier to spot for people setting up new guild pages. --Mikk 18:20, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

• I strongly believe that guilds should be able to post recurring activities, such as "We go to BRD every weekend" or "We go to some high level each weekend: First weekend of the month, BRD; second weekend of the month, LBRS", etc. And I think upcoming activities that aren't normally recurring are fine, because it kind of gives you an idea of what they're planning so you can see whether you'd be interested. Everything else looks fine to me. Schmidt 11:37, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

Phrased like that, yeah, I agree. I think we all agree that WoWWiki shouldn't be the guild calendar though, i.e. a replacement of their own site. Perhaps we can just rephrase the policy to reflect that better? --Mikk 13:55, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

Accordingly, I added a "periodic events, if weekly or monthly periodic" as allowed on the project page. Restate as necessary. Also, I just rethought the events that aren't normally recurring. I'm not sure that's such a great idea, or at least I couldn't think of a way to word that idea, so I didn't edit that in. Anyone else can, if you want. Schmidt 14:23, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

I rephrased it in somewhat more general terms (didn't like the precise weekly/monthly requirement), but added emphasis on the fact that we want things that are useful to people outside the guild, not just existing guild members. ( = Don't wikisquat please). --Mikk 15:48, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

• I don't understand why upcoming events can't be posted on a guild page. For the the smaller guilds who occasionally participate in raids with larger guilds you can't always know on a regular basis when an event will happen. Someone please explain. BTW, I will probably try to start a recall vote of this policy if it gets passed as is, but only if many makers of guild pages complain (which is unlikely). --Fandyllic 4:40 PM PDT 13 Jun 2006

Because continually posting what's going on ("hey peeps, I just talked to the GM of <foo> and we're going to ZG with them tomorrow, so get online!") means they're Wikisquatting and should get their own server? --Mikk 17:46, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

Yea thats my thought. The difference is using the wiki as your means of communicating with members and using the wiki to record information about your guild for the benefit of others. While I can see the benefit of posting the current schedule as an information source for others it seems to much like Wikisquatting for me and only really targets their guild members. I would probably make similar restrictions on player pages if I designed a policy for them because both player page and guild pages have the same problem. There are a bunch of pages with no/almost no links to them, uncategorized, and they don't provide enough information to be considered the least bit useful. Useless guild pages, however, far outnumber player pages, and with player pages you don't have to worry about wikisquatting. Someone could pottentially use their player page as a blog, but guilds are much more likely to wikisquat. --Ralthor 18:00, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

Perhaps we can just tweak the text a wee bit to actually say what we don't want rather than try and beat around the bush? I personally wouldn't have a problem with e.g. a guild posting "We will open the Ahn'Qiraj gates on <server> on <date>". It IS kind of inter-guild communication, but it's a WIIIIDE audience. --Mikk 18:13, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

Ok I removed the part about upcoming events and replaced it with the sentence below (slightly reworded) so it now has on it, "In general terms don't put any material on the page that requires it to be updated frequently or is only meant for members of the guild." --Ralthor 18:35, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

That seems better. I still don't like this as a policy. It should be a guideline. --Fandyllic 4:43 PM PDT 19 Jun 2006

A guideline doesn't let us omfgdelete pages that are utter useless bullmanure without having deletion votes running for half a year. :-(   --Mikk 18:03, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

lol Mikk. I guess you really want this place cleaned up. I feel that it should be a policy – enough to vote – but if it get's the Template:Tlink, I can live with it. It would make the world a better place if all the guild pages were better constructed. But such a wish doesn't lend itself directly to policy. A firm guideline might be in order, where if we see a guild page with "bullmanure" in it and nothing of value, how about having a policy where we just clean that sucker up and get it out of here? How do you like that idea, Fandyllic, and everyone else? Schmidt 01:31, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

Yep. I can live with a policy that only consists of the "required information" that's currently here (I doubt anyone has a problem with that bit?!), and move everything else to a guideline. The "Don't Post" however I guess is an expansion of the old DNP section that basically said "don't wikisquat". I suppose Rustak should chime in here since he's the one paying for the bandwidth; it's not my problem =)   --Mikk 05:28, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

Well I am not sure what you would move, required information needs to be policy, DNP stuff is an expansion of another policy. You could move the allowed, but I think that information, while obviously more 'guideline' material, helps to clear up the difference between providing information and wikisquating. We could move that to guidelines, but it seems that that would mess up the flow if it just pulled out that part and tossed it into a guideline. One thing I keep forgetting to bring up here is a definite guideline type item. In Help:Guild_article, which I used as a base for this policy, there is a line in bad info that says, " Don't make a page for a dead guild – If you want a guild remembered, put it in the guild page of the live guild where members went. " If people agree with this we could add something like that to the guidelines since it is pretty much unenforcable.--Ralthor 08:58, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

• Whoop de doo. 200+ pages in the wastebin, err, sorry, Stubs/Guild category. The amount of pages that were nothing but 3 category tags with no content was staggering. As was the number of pages that was just an URL. I haven't been trying to count sentences (hah! only 2! in the bin you go!), but I've been a bit cranky about guilds not saying what server they're on. Makes the page a bit pointless imo.   Anyway, I foresee lots of work in 30 days (July 29). --Mikk 17:48, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

• Stating the Guild pages to be posted here should be geared towards prospective guild members. Listing of recurring battles or meetings should then only be shown for new member meet and greets, this would help the guilds and limit the guilds from posting their full page on here.

User:Muffinman 30 August 2006

Implementation details

• When old guild pages are found to violate policy, I assume that the reasonable thing to do is apply the 30-day limit to their violations (counted from tagging the page with Template:Tlink)? --Mikk 18:20, 7 June 2006 (EDT)
  • Violation can just be fixed, they don't need to be deleted... I made a check list here of implementation items.

• [√] Add Policy page to its proper place. (I'm actually not sure where this proper place is, either leave it here or add it to Policy/Writing and remove this page, where ever it should be consitent with where we plan on putting specific rules for page types i.e. WoWWiki:Policy/Writing/FanFiction & WoWWiki:Policy/Writing/Lore.

This seems right to me. --Mikk 11:29, 18 June 2006 (EDT)

Done. --Mikk 17:21, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

• [√] Remove link on WoWWiki:Policy/Writing that says it is a proposal

Done. --Mikk 17:30, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

• [√] Update Template:Tlink with the 30 days deletion policy

Done (by Fandyllic ~5 minutes before I went to do it. Effin mindreaders =)) --Mikk 17:30, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

• [√] Add reference to WoWWiki:Policy/Deletion#Speedy Delete explaining that a guild stub can me marked for speedy delete if it has been marked as a stub for more than 30 days with no improvement. (None should be marked speedy delete until 30 days after this policy takes effect)

Done. I didn't specifically reference this policy, but rather said that violation of other policies can result in speedydelete. I specifically did not want to mention timeframes since it becomes a pain to update duplicate information. --Mikk 17:54, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

• [√] Update Template:Tlink to point to this page (or whever it ends up going)

Done. --Mikk 17:21, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

• [√] Deprecate WoWWiki:Policy/DNP#Guild pages and have it point here

Actually, DNP should explain that there are several "Do NOT"s in the writing policy and point at that in general. --Mikk 11:29, 18 June 2006 (EDT)

Done. --Mikk 17:21, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

• [] Update Help:Guild_article to reflect the new policy

Imo, it needs to point at the policy a lot more often. It's a bit too specific about things to put in the page and not. People might take it for policy. --Mikk 03:33, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

• [] Ensure Boilerplate:Guild is still a good starting point for a guild page and conforms to the new policy (I think it does)
• [√] Notify New Page Patrol Team of changes so they can ensure new pages conform to the policy.

Done. --Mikk 17:54, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

Thats all I can think of, the hard part will be enforcing those pages that already exist. In general probably do these things:

• When you find a guild page, ensure that it meets the required information. If it doesn't: add the content required. If you can't add the content: mark it as a stub.
• If you find a guild page in violation of policy, fix the violation and leave a note on the talk page. Or: if you don't have the desire to fix it or are not sure how to do it, mark it with Template:Tlink and explain the violation on the talk page.

--Ralthor 18:30, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

• All the quick stuff done. Only the tedious jobs left now. All yours, Ralthor :-)   (Well, ok, or anyone else. Not me =))   --Mikk 18:01, 19 June 2006 (EDT)

Implementation check

I was updating the Gilneas guild list and raid progression and ran into several duplicate guild names. For example, the stub on two different server lists pointed to Storm which had text for a guild on a third server, but not the first two. Per the instructions here, I created Storm (Gilneas), Storm (Firetree) and Storm (Icecrown). The first two are now compliant Guild pages and the third is a Guild stub. Storm is now a disambiguation page. Does it need to even be there or can it be a candidate for deletion?

On another note, though, I was also tooling through the list of uncategorized pages and categorizing guild articles, and applying the policy seems to be pretty straightforward. There is still plenty to do (I did not find this Policy until I was partway through, so I fear some of my work will have to be gone over again) but it should not take a long long time. Luci 06:04, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

Whoot! Great work! And yeah, the "Storm" page should be a disambiguation page; especially since a guild used to have its page there (ok, it was a stub but still =)). --Mikk 07:03, 29 June 2006 (EDT)

Policy Adjustment Suggestion - Article Naming

With the increase in actual and potential naming conflicts between the variety of Guild names and in-game terms and abilities, I'd like to suggest looking at modifying the policy to enforce Guild article naming to be within a certain namespace. I would suggest:

• Guild:Our Guild

or preferrably

• Server:Our Server/Our Guild (suggested by DarkRyder)

I understand there would be a bit of work involved if the change was accepted, and would be willing to assist in moving the related articles. I think it is important to continually be improving the methods of organizing as the Wiki grows and more users use it for both Guild-related purposes and in-game information. --Tusva 11:54, 7 November 2006 (EST)

I'd prefer [[Guild:Our Guild]] over the other suggestion. Tacking a guild onto the server name just gets too unwieldy. However, [[Guild:Our Guild]] doesn't solve the problem with guilds on multiple servers, so the current system seems good enough for now. I'd have to say that game terms and abilities have precedence over guilds, in most cases. --Fandyllic (talk) 9:25 AM PST 7 Nov 2006

As an extension of that, Guild:Our Guild could become Guild:Our Guild (Burning Blade US). And though I've definitely seen that normal terms and abilities have precedence, I'm concerned that the amount of manual disambiguation implementation that will have to be done down the road could be avoided by organizing them a bit better. Considering we also give name spaces to Quests as well, I guess I'm looking for a bit of continuity. --Tusva 12:32, 7 November 2006 (EST)

I agree with Fandyllic. I'm more in favor of the Guild:Our Guild format because some guilds do span multiple servers, although this is more the exception than the rule. I think the Server:Our Server/Our Guild format implies an inaccurate relationship between Server and Guild, since entire guilds do sometimes exhibit more complex behavior (multiple servers per guild, for instance). Guild:Our Guild (Our Server) looks better and allows for more flexibility. We could also use disambig pages to quell any confusion, or simply tack a tag at the top of the page, For the many guilds named Burning Legion, check Guild:Burning Legion (disambig).

Of course, there's always the nightmare of Guild:Burning Legion (Burning Legion US), but any of these schemes are going to have fun articles like that. User:Montag/sig 14:27, 7 November 2006 (EST)

I disagree. The relationship between server and guild is absolute, because that's how the game works. You can have a guild with the same name and the same players on another server, but it's not the same literal guild. Setting up a redirect from [[Server:New Server/Our Guild]] to [[Server:Old Server/Our Guild]] in the rare case that a guild conceptually spans servers seems like a lot less effort and confusion than trying to disambiguate all the popular guild names. --DarkRyder 12:39, 8 November 2006 (EST)

I'd just prefer having it like it is to be honest. The wiki way just names articles straight up as they are without complicating them, making linking easy, and guessing articles easy. If there's ever a conflict, disambig pages work just fine imo.   --Mikk (T) 16:12, 7 November 2006 (EST)

Second that. User:Montag/sig 02:11, 8 November 2006 (EST)

I guess I'm just a bit confused by the implemented naming conventions of Quests and Servers, as it would appear there is an effort to further organize article names by type, yet there is a lot of resistance to doing the same for Guilds, especially so since the names of the guild articles are completely arbitrary (meaning, whatever the GM decided to call it) and will obviously result in disambigs. Further, the confusion with the guild Conviction (Conviction (guild) Conviction (Guild) exemplifies the problem and would directly benefit from a new naming scheme. (Guild:Conviction (Doomhammer) & Guild:Conviction (Steamwheedle Cartel) for example, regardless of the former guild now being closed apparently.) --Tusva 02:30, 8 November 2006 (EST)

Creating a disambiguation is the easiest there.. People will find the guild they're looking for anyway :) --Tinkerer 03:06, 8 November 2006 (EST)

Is it really worth trying to disambiguate so many popular pages? The server I play on most frequently (Draenor US) already has guilds named Chimaera (mob), Destruction (talent tree), Illuminati (PC), Instance (!), Maelstrom (location), [Relentless] (guild on another server), [Valor] (talent tree), and Triumvirate (bosses). Eight conflicts on a single, backwater-ish server sounds to me like we have a potentially serious problem developing here. It would be nice to do what we can to resolve it sooner rather than later.

There's also the issue of how easy it is to find a particular page. If there's a policy that guild pages are found at [[Guild:GuildName (ServerName US)]] (or [[Server:ServerName US/GuildName]] or whatever is decided upon), then there is only one place to go looking for a guild page. Right now, that guild could be found at [[GuildName]], [[GuildName Guild]], [[GuildName guild]], [[GuildName (Guild)]], [[GuildName (guild)]], [[GuildName (Server)]], or [[GuildName (Server US)]]. (I've seen most of these variants already.) --DarkRyder 12:39, 8 November 2006 (EST)

Instead of re-linking every main article to a disambig page just because there happens to be a guild with that name, we can stick a tag at the top For other uses of Chimaera, see [[Chimaera (disambig)]], and include the guild on that page. It becomes a trade-off between strict organization and intuitive linking. However, standards are important for any sort of organization to take place. I think the [[Guildname (Server)]] pattern is best for linking purposes. It also clearly defines the article as a guild, since no other article needs to be followed by a server name. There are some out there titled [[Guildname (guild)]]; they would have "guild" changed to their server name to conform to this standard, should it be adopted.

As far as finding guilds, Category:Guilds lists all pages with the {{guild}} tag. Categories are much better as a navigational tool than namespaces. User:Montag/sig 13:12, 8 November 2006 (EST)

This is what we're doing already.

* If only guilds conflict, we use a disambig page at MyGuild which links to MyGuild (Server A) and MyGuild (Server B)

* If a guild page conflicts with WoW content, we put a "See also MyGuild (disambig) at the top of the article, which lists the guilds, and also the main article

  --Mikk (T) 05:54, 10 November 2006 (EST)

I like the idea of a Guildname (Server) format, it would at least do something to address a future of heavy disambigs. Any further input? Is this something that can be voted on in any degree? --Tusva 08:54, 9 November 2006 (EST)

Namespace them. I'm in support of namespacing guilds. Guild:Our Guild works best, I think. This problem stems from the fact that some guilds are named after Warcraft artifacts or terminology. It's confusing. In the event that two guilds share the same name, they should probably both be renamed to Guild:Our Guild (Our Server).--Hobinheim 21:24, 12 November 2006 (EST)

I don't quite like the namespace idea because it's somewhat redundant. If it's standard that every guild article is followed by its server, then we know the article is a guild page just by looking at it, which is essentially the problem the namespace solution would solve. You do away with the need for disambigs by putting notes at the top or bottom of main articles that coincide with guild articles, because the main articles are more important anyway. User:Montag/sig 01:07, 13 November 2006 (EST)

Bringing this up again, considering it still isn't very clear what the policy is around this. Either way, for the sake of sorting the guilds in the guildscategory, make sure the name starts with the guildname followed by the server (this means no Namespacing). Wether you put the server between brackets, or use a guildname/Servername with a disambiguation (hate that word ><) on the mainpage (the one called guildname) If it was already decided, then make it clear somewhere what the exact policy is. Don't make it something vague like "If it coincides, then add...". One rule which all guilds have to follow! That means that the ink must start with the guildname and end with the servername (with a distinction between US and EU) This was my 2 cents, now handle it! ^^ --Patrigan 21:24, 24 December 2006 (EST)

Guildnames and their WoWwiki space!

Just making sure it doesn't get forgotten, made a note on the Village Pump as well. We REALLY Must make it a rule in stone that a guild should ALWAYS be followed by it's server. At the moment, people just need to do that when it collides with another article. That can just give us extra work in the occasions that Blizzard decides toi do something with that word. Per example, Storm has been brought up. Those guilds have been changed and the page is now a disambithingy page, with the server between brackets behind it. Imagine that this disamthingy wasn't done, then we would most probably be facing a problem, seeing that the BC brings quite a lot of "Storm"s. So we have to change the Guild Policy article into saying that ALL Guildpages must be followed by a Servername in Brackets (what the guild policy page tells us to do now WHEN it collides). No more vague thingy aboutwhen colliding this and colliding that. No, it's simple to me. EVERYTHING must follow the Guildname (Servername) rule. Sorry, if I sounded harsh btw, but it's getting quite important now --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 19:19, 26 December 2006 (EST)

I support this. -- Kirkburn (talk) 19:55, 26 December 2006 (EST)

As with all proposed policy changes... If you follow the WoWWiki:Policy votes process, pretty much anything you want can become policy. You'll even notice they even take effect when some important admins (like me) disagree. --Fandyllic (talk) 9:50 PM PST 26 Dec 2006

Change to the Policy: Naming

This proposal is to make a change to WoWWiki:Policy/Writing/Guild_pages#Naming .

See also a slightly different version (though written in a better way than mine) down below this page: Additional Options

• Update: Changed See Also in Were you looking for...?

The Policy

Current Version

We should change:

The guild pages should be the complete name of the guild, i.e. The Mighty Guild

* If the guild name conflicts with another article that article has priority, the guild page can be disambiguated by adding guild or the server name in parenthesis. i.e. The Mighty Guild (guild) or The Mighty Guild (Doomhammer).

* If the guild name conflicts with another guild article then the articles should both contain the guild name followed by the server in parenthesis. A disambiguation page can be created.

* If there is already a disambiguation page (because the guild name conflicts with articles that are already being disambiguated, then the guild can be added to the disambiguation page.

To:

Option 1

---

The guild pages should be the complete name of the guild followed by the server in parenthesis i.e. The Mighty Guild (Doomhammer)

* There should be a disambiguation page at the page of the guildname, i.e. The Mighty Guild should become a disambiguation page. Guilds with the same name, but on a different server, can then be added to this page.

* If the disambiguation page collides with another article, the article gets priority and the disambiguation should be written at the top of the article in the form of: Were you looking for the guild The Mighty Guild (Doomhammer)?

---

Reasoning At the moment, it's just too vague. The rules must be slightly stricter. With the current policy, we are just creating more work for us, as I will show in the following example:

Storm has been brought up in a previous discussion. Those guilds have been changed now and the page is now a disambiguation page, with the server in parenthesis behind it. Imagine that this disambiguation wasn't done, then we would most probably be facing a problem, seeing that the BC brings quite a lot of "Storm"s.

This small example already proves that it is important to change the proposal. However, another problem has risen aswell, the current vague rule is creating a gigantic Chaos. A chaos which will keep players away from using the Wiki. A good example of this is the following:

As some might know, I have been working on Server:Shattered_Hand_Europe. I have asked many players to add their guild to the list. Many of them also wanted to work on their guildpage on the wiki. Sadly enough, there have been 2 guilds who have gotten a problem, Skull Squadron and Grand Crusader. Skull Squadron has the problem of colliding with another guild (a Guild on Blackhand_US). Grand Crusader collides with a small fact of lore, not big, but lore nonetheless. Consequences are that both are reluctant to start working on their guild page, which means in a smaller player flow for the wiki.

Confusion should be avoided at all costs. We, the mass editers, are used to the wiki. Many new persons aren't. Imagine if one of those actually has superior scripting and writing abilities. If he gets addicted to the wiki, it would be a great add to WoWwiki. Also, we want the wiki to attract persons to look things up, but if they can't create their guilds on it, they will be reluctant to check up other things aswell. This alone is a reason to make clearer and stricter rules regarding the naming of certain pages, both userpages as Guildpages. Today we are handling guildpages!

Notes: This change can still get a few small changes, concerning what happens if it collides with another real article. To me it looked as if putting a "See also" on the bottom was the best choice

Option 2

---

Guild page name

The title of an article on a World of Warcraft guild should always be the complete name of the guild followed by the realm and two letter location abbreviation in parentheses (e.g., The Mighty Guild (Doomhammer US)).

Disambiguation pages

Use the rules below to determine when and how disambiguation pages for guild articles should be created. As always, wherever a disambiguation page is created, it should be linked at the top of all articles it lists. As well, guilds with similar names should link to each other. For example, on The Mighty Guild (Doomhammer US), include "Were you looking for Mighty Guild (Shadowsong EU)?"

No conflict with non-guild article

If the guild name (without the realm and location information, e.g. The Mighty Guild) does not conflict with the name of an existing, non-guild article, then it may be either:

• made into a disambiguation page for all guilds sharing that name, or,
• if there is only one guild of that name, redirected to that guild's article.

Conflict with non-guild article

If the guild name is the same as the name of an existing, non-guild article, then:

• If a disambiguation article already exists, add the guild page links to that article (e.g. add the link to The Sundering (Cenarius US) to the disambiguation page Sundering.)

If a disambiguation article does not exist, create one at Articlename (disambiguation). Include links to the original article and any guilds of that name (e.g. create Conviction (disambiguation), with links to [Conviction], Conviction (Steamwheedle Cartel US) and Conviction (Suramar US).)

Near conflicts

If a guild's name is slightly different from, but likely to be confused with, a non-guild article, redirect Guildname to the non-guild article, and create a disambiguation page at Articlename (disambiguation). For example if the guild name is "The Brotherhood of the Horse", which could easily be confused with the article Brotherhood of the Horse:

1. Make the page at The Brotherhood of the Horse a redirect to Brotherhood of the Horse.
2. Create a disambiguation page at Brotherhood of the Horse (disambiguation) linking to Brotherhood of the Horse and The Brotherhood of the Horse (Cenarion Circle US).

---

Reasoning

This is generally similar to the above version, but requires the location ("EU/US" etc.) to always follow the realm name. This will provide greater consistency, and make guild article names easy to determine without having to check whether there is a US and European version of the realm.

Votes

Option 1:

1. Yes Patrigan 10:05, 28 December 2006 (EST) - (Nothing to comment, but considering I wrote it, ofc I'm pro!)
2. Yes Jeoh 16:28, 31 December 2006 (EST) - (Excellent idea.)
3. Yes Luci 03:32, 6 January 2007 (EST) - (I ran into this with Storm in the first place, and this allows alphabetization within a category or other list. I also support disambiguation by region only when there is a conflict, for now, since a majority will be US by default.)
4. Yes Montag 04:31, 6 January 2007 (EST) - (Absolutely support this. Clear naming policies are a must for writing articles with correct links.)

Option 2:

1. Yes Aeleas 13:19, 6 January 2007 (EST) - ()

No:

1. No -watchout 15:38, 3 January 2007 (EST) - (Will not eliminate disambiguation problems with "normal" articles, I see no reason to implement the change in its current form)
2. No --Zeal 04:46, 6 January 2007 (EST) - (see comments)
3. No --Linkan 11:20, 11 January 2007 (EST) - (see comments, hopefully changed to yes soon)

Comments

• Not sure about the last bit. Rather than 'See Also' links, I would prefer this style:

  Were you looking for the article on the expansion World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade?

  -- Kirkburn (talk) 11:10, 28 December 2006 (EST)

  That actually does sound better >.> allow me to quickly edit it --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 11:24, 28 December 2006 (EST)

  I honestly dislike the the idea of using a server name as the initial disambiguation. I would rather use a constant such as it's region, (EU) and (US) etc. If it needs further disabiguation after that, then just append the server too (EU)(Shattered Hand). It's more than likely not going to be a server conflict, but a region conflict anyways. Region is a fixed variable to disambiguate by, where as the server could be changed by the guild transfering, meaning you'd have to go back and edit article titles for the sake of a conflict across regions. I'll vote yes if i see that change, otherwise it's a no. --Zeal (talk - contr - web) 12:52, 28 December 2006 (EST)

  I would to prefer to have region and server in the disambiguation of a guild. It makes it alot easier, since people from all arround the world use wowwiki, not just people from US. I like the suggestion, but to vote yes, I would like Zeal's addition. Linkan 11:18, 11 January 2007 (EST)

  Well, there are at this moment a lot of guilds with the same name on the Europe servers. If we then realise that there are quite a lot more american servers... I think you know where I'm getting at. Thus, in my honest oppinion, it seems better to use both and just apply a move when a guild moves (or worse when a guild splits over 2 servers as we have had for a short while...), usually when a guild migrates, it becomes a completely new guild, so even the guildname would change then. Keep that in mind. --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 14:35, 28 December 2006 (EST)

• I think this new policy proposal needs to be expanded to cover as many variations as we can think of for guilds. Here is a list of the variants I can think of:
  • Guild name, unique, no WoW item/name/term conflict
  • Guild name conflicts with a WoW item/name/term
  • Guild name exists on US and EU realm
  • Guild name exists on multiple realms
  • Guild name has an article, but is otherwise the same as another guild name (i.e. The Mighty Guild vs. Mighty Guild)

  --Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:57 AM PST 1 Jan 2007

Yes, that is why the best option is to actually use anything in the like of: guildname (server)(Regioncode). Keep in mind that this will require changes to nearly every servername aswell. It is in fact better to use the regioncode (US / EU / CH / KR). If you then make the servernames like Shattered_Hand_EU and Shattered_Hand_US then you have covered servername and regioncode in the same. This way of writing is already one of the most common ways in nearly every transregional webpage. (example: http://www.warcraftrealms.com , they add EU in front of every europe server.) Remember that in my honest oppinion we also MUST add US to the american, to make ZERO distinction between the 2. Many europeans take offense to the fact that EU gets the EU tag but the americans don't, even when their realm came AFTER the europe realm. This is ofcourse a whole other discussion, but a discussion nonetheless.

Back on topic, if we just add the server + regioncode in some way to the guildpages, we will NEVER have to bother with this problem EVER again. People might dislike disambiging every single guildpage, but allowing some not to do it and some to do it, then we're just creating more work for us. I get the arguement "yes, 5seconds of moving work" but that is 5 seconds that can be prevented if we treat EVERY guild equal. There will never be a need for more than realm and region, because that is as far blizzard allows guildnaming. There can not be 2 guilds on 1 realm with the same name (not even crossfaction).

Lastly, this is also a very practical solution, considering it also adds 1 of the most important facets of a guild to their pagelink: Their realm and region. This way, you can always be 100% sure that you are looking to the right guild. This might seem silly, but sometimes it can be hard to find a certain guild. Also for creation it is very practical. No testing wether the article itself already exists is needed, no testing wether there are other guilds with the same name is needed. Every GL (or another member) knows exactly: "I need to create guildname_(servername_regioncode) this already takes a way a big trouble for creators (and prevents the ignorant for editing an existing article and reforming it to their guildpage >.>) With this I have added a loot of extra arguements for this idea. --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 19:38, 1 January 2007 (EST)

I don't think the same. The only option to solve disambiguation problems with "normal" articles is having a pseudo namespace "Guild:" like "Server:". Then you can create clean disambiguation pages only for guilds if you need to. Also, being one of those closely watching new guild pages, I can tell you that only one of 100 authors of guild pages ever read the policy before hitting the save page button, and often fail to even provide server and faction information.

So I don't really think there will be many guild pages named the right way and from the NP-Patrol point of view - what would you do if a new guild page is created, lacking any information except maybe a link to their homepage? how would you move the page to a "Guildname (Server Region)" compliant page name?

Otherwise you can solve many problems by changing the policy to allow guild page names with server name in parentheses from the start even if there's no need for disambiguation (because currently it is not allowed IMO), but not force it. -watchout 16:04, 3 January 2007 (EST)

I would suggest changing to a yes Watchout, as Guild: and other such psuedo namespaces are already starting to creep in (as you should know) and are currently under proposal along with a similar disambiguation policy for all namespaces by myself. --Zeal (talk - contr - web) 03:50, 6 January 2007 (EST)

your proposal doesn't affect my opinion on this proposal. -watchout 06:35, 6 January 2007 (EST)

I strongly disagree with the Guild: namespace, since it simply creates more convoluted linking, things like Guild:Guildname (Server XY), which ends up being redundant. Namespaces are meant for hard separation from the wiki, and guilds are linked too often in server articles to partition them off too harshly. Secondly, although many new editors do not read up on the rules, that's no reason not to make them clearer. New editors are more likely to understand the rules when they're hard and fast. Ambiguous guild pages can certainly be dealt with trivially on a case-by-case basis. User:Montag/sig 05:06, 6 January 2007 (EST)

Servers are already in a Server: pseudo-namespace... If something's linked from there its already outside the normal wiki. So if you don't want to separate guild pages from server pages, you'd have to move them to Server: namespace ... Also I see no redundancy in Guild:Name [(Server)] -watchout 05:42, 6 January 2007 (EST)

The redundancy is in semantics. If something is followed by a server name, it has to be a guild. It can't be anything else. As an editor, I don't look forward to having to pipe and type manually every guild link I make to make it look nice. I'll put my comments about the Guild: namespace below. User:Montag/sig 12:38, 6 January 2007 (EST)

Just no. Because you can't know what a server name is so easily - The Argent Dawn, Cenarion Circle,.. etc. Example: I call my guild on the server Cenarion Circle "Rayne", so my guild's page is now Rayne (Cenarion Circle) - well I won't guess thats a guild's page, but naming it Guild:Rayne (Cenarion Circle) makes it clear. But actually this is not about redundancy but about content separation since guild are very abstract structures to the game itself. Moving them to a separate namespace takes only minor effort (can be done easily with a bot and any newcomer won't have much to "learn") and has great (positive) effect on disambiguation problems. While this idea won't. Many of the guild stubs you just couldn't move because you don't know their servers and you absolutely can't do this automatically with a bot. Have fun with moving about 1k guild pages by hand. -watchout 11:42, 8 January 2007 (EST)

Should be pretty easy to come up with reasonable solutions for all those situations. Here are some simple rules to follow: All guilds are followed by their server and region code in parentheses. In cases without a conflict, Guildname always serves as the list of guilds. When only one guild exists in the list, Guildname is a redirect. In the case of a conflict, Guildname (disambig) serves at the list of guilds and a tag noting this is placed at the top of the conflicting article. When only one guild exists with the conflicted article, the tag at the top of the article links to the guild page. ~

These rules produce the following solutions to the situations outlined by Fandyllic:

• Guild name, unique, no WoW item/name/term conflict -- Main article: Guildname (Server XY). Guildname is a redirect to Guildname (Server XY).
• Guild name, unique, conflicts with a WoW item/name/term -- Main article: Guildname (Server XY). Were you looking for Guildname (Server XY) placed at the top of the WoW term article.
• Guild name, non-unique, conflicts with a WoW item/name/term -- Were you looking for the guildGuildname (disambig) placed at the top of the WoW term article. Guildname (disambig) contains a list of all guilds with that name.
• Guild name exists on US and EU realm, no conflict with WoW article -- Same as above, except Guildname serves as the disambig for Guildname (Server EU) and Guildname (Server US).
• Guild name exists on US and EU realm, conflict with WoW article -- Same as Guild name, non-unique, conflicts with a WoW item/name/term.
• Guild name exists on multiple realms -- Main article: Guildname (Server XY). Same as above.
• Guild name has an article, but is otherwise the same as another guild name (i.e. The Mighty Guild vs. Mighty Guild) -- In the case of two guilds, X and Y, with similar names, put Were you looking for X? at the top of Y and put Were you looking for Y? at the top of X.

User:Montag/sig 04:55, 6 January 2007 (EST)

I really don't understand the last point, those 2 are different and not related with eachother in any way. Keep them that way. However, those outlines are nearly exactly what I wrote as a policy change. I do feel that Articles and Guildpages should be divided, now that we can add new real Namespaces, we should be able to do so and add Guild: Namespace. It simplifies naming and it doesn't strengthen the rules. Using a namespace allows for a disambig page completely seperated from an article (thus removing precious article space and keeping the article nice to look at.) I do not understand why people are so ultimately against a strengthening of the rule with forcing everyone to just write 2 diambigs on their guildpage, only 2 because thta is as far Blizzard allows is to do it. Disambig rules have been brought up, but tbh, the wiki does not have to be the same exactly everywhere. I'll be happy to get what I typed above, it's easy to understand for everyone and in the end also does what Montag showed in his above post. A Guild: Namespace would be a perfect extra to keep communtiy seperated from blizzard. --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 06:52, 6 January 2007 (EST)

Namespaces should be used very, very sparingly. They should never do the job that categories do. They're basically used to create a wiki within a wiki, and the contents are often meta-data for the wiki, completely separate, or simply a matter of practicality: every server in the game is named after a game term, so it would be infeasible to keep them in the global namespace. Keep in mind that if every guild is followed by its server name, we know the article is a guild just by looking at it. Guilds are also already organized and listed in Category:Guilds. So the identification and organization aspects of a namespace are already taken care of without having one. ~

Basically, I caution the use of namespaces. It's like building a wall, which you shouldn't do lightly. User:Montag/sig 12:38, 6 January 2007 (EST)

I share Montag's general dislike of adding in additional namespaces; I don't even think it's necessary for realm article names (discussion of which is inextricable from guild article names if our standards for each are to make sense together.)

If we put guild articles under names like Circle of the Moon (Earthen Ring EU), then the most natural place to look for the related realm page is Earthen Ring EU. Since such a large number of realms need the US/EU suffix anyway, why not just add it to all of them and do away with "Server:"?--Aeleas 13:56, 6 January 2007 (EST)

I could agree without the namespaces, hence why I didn't add it in the original proposal. Server: I feel is still needed. (though Realm: would fit better) but that's not what this is about. However, we should discuss what exactly Namespaces are and what their purpose is, because everyone seems to think differently about it. But a discussion for another day! --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 06:09, 7 January 2007 (EST)

You forget This is not Wikipedia. Mediawiki was developed for encylopedia wiki's in mind. WoWWiki is not one of those, and WoWWiki is dealing with a single portal, warcraft. So the intended use for namespaces is lost straight away. Encylopedias deal with termingology and explanation, not data and it's display (and subsequent redisplay). Why do you think all the wiki projects run seperate wiki's, not the same one with differing namespaces hm? that was never their intended use. Portals were. With that lost, there is no need to use them in the intended way.

Guild: has nothing to do with settling disambiguation, though it certainly does help it in a predictable and correct way. Namespaces should be used to give a user the ability to know what to expect from articles and all articles of that type, it creates a consistancy and familiarity across the wiki specific to that type of article. A realm page is never going to have the same content and data as a guild page, so why should they remain in the same namespace and create confusion? why should anything other than encylopedic information (terminology with explantion) be without a namespace?

To watchout, my proposal wasn't meant to influence, but the existance of Guild: as it's likelyhood to continue was. I try out my own proposal further in terms of disambiguation, but i'm starting to feel less and less of a need for them when used with namespaces and categories. I'm still against the proposed fixed ambiguation, even more so without namespaces (faaar too much work, unpredictable and further complicated compared to the opposite approach montag is so against and thinking takes too much work).

It's a discussion and descission needed asap if i'm alone in my view of namespaces. --Zeal (talk - contr - web) 06:21, 7 January 2007 (EST)

I support your view on namespaces u to the point where you say that they lessen the need for Disambiguation. There just are several things that require disambiguation, in order to prevent chaos. We want everything to run smoothly without problems. This includes making it easier for wiki users to do this. Fixed disambiguation on nonstatic things like guilds is required. a guild can disband any day, making it possible that the lowest possible page (without any disambigs) is outdated. New players on another realm see this page, will do the effort of moving it and bam... useless thing done. Doesn't take much time, I agree, but it's still useless. That is if they understand on how to move things, not exactly the easiest of all wiki things. Lack of disambiguation scares people away. It's a nuissance for experienced wiki users, I agree, however, don't forget, our target audience is MORE than 7 million persons, With at least half of them not having a clue on how to work a wiki (leave alone being able to state their oppinion on it in this discussion). Think, that we want to attract more wikipedians. We need to become as User friendly as possible and sadly enough for experienced users like ourselves, this includes making things very clear without any nuissance rules. Everyone understands adding their server and code to their page link, remember that! --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 08:50, 7 January 2007 (EST)

"Everyone understands adding their server and code to their page link" really? look here -watchout 11:52, 8 January 2007 (EST)

Allow me to rephrase :p Everyone who is even slightly serious about the page. Ofc, everyone is exaggerated, but still, we need to keep rules simple, but strict. One thing I like most about the wiki is that there aren't so many rules for people. For guildpages we have a lot of rules, but none of them is very strict (and they tend to be confusing aswell) That's what I meant most with that. A simple but strict rule is followed a lot easier than a set of rules which do not give a perfectly clear result. --Patrigan - Talk - SH (EU) 14:05, 8 January 2007 (EST)

Actually many guild pages are like that, I even had one once that had no indication that it was a guild page at all, the text referencing to a non-existent link, and the only way I found out that it was a guild page was through 'What links here' that showed only a server's page. Guild pages are the most problematic, since many newcomers write an article for their guild here - why... I don't know. It took me more than a year of reading wowwiki before I did my first edit. On the other hand it seems to be a problem of the interface - It's so easy to create a page but the policies are really hard to find. Btw. if you created a new page in a separate guild: namespace I think you may be able to display a link to the policy on the top or bottom via the skin ... hmm worth investigating actually, I'll try that out on my MW-Box :-)

Um... where did I trail off... Well anyway I don't think too strict rules are good, I think policies should provide a direction and not dictate every action. -watchout 18:29, 8 January 2007 (EST)

Additional options

I'd like to add Montag's version to the voting above, to provide a second option. I think the following would accurately describe it:

- Moved to Option 2, above -.

If the above looks good, I'll add it as a second option. It sounds like there is also interest in a "Guild:" option as well, which I would encourage someone also to write up and add, so that all the options are present and the issue can be settled. Perhaps we can add a chart with examples of the names/content each of the three options would generate in various cases.--Aeleas 13:15, 8 January 2007 (EST)

I've gone ahead and added that version as option 2 in the voting. As I said above, if anyone has something different in mind, I would urge them to add it now, so that all the options can be compared side by side. If a new policy is chosen and implemented, it will be a fairly large undertaking, and I don't think many people will be keen to revisit the issue in the near future.--Aeleas 11:49, 11 January 2007 (EST)