Pillars of Eternity Wiki talk:Community portal/Categories restructure

This page is for discussing the restructuring of categories, both ahead of the release of Pillars of Eternity II, but also the wiki in general. (Here is the list of all the categories that are currently used:

Introduction
The main task we need to do is to prepare the ground for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. In my opinion, we need many new categories, and renaming some current ones, in addition to reviewing the overall category structure, which can be seen at Special:Categorytree (once you search and navigate to the parent, which is Contents).

A WIP suggestion (early draft, not complete)
Naturally there will be a good deal of cross-linking, just like currently (this isn't a total overhaul, only a re-structure). For instance, Weapons will be under both Items (under World) and under Pillars of Eternity items.

The current category tree is very deep and complex, so this is a brief overview of the thinking, and far from complete.

NB: I've started to put the category suggestion into a table. But lost a bunch of data because the Visual Editor sucks. Undecided on how many of these categories need Pillars and Pillars 2 titles. But the idea is that we have both, so that we can separate e.g. POE1 companions and POE2 companions, in addition to have both. Perhaps this could be done via SWM or Cargo, but it may not be a bad idea to have a solid category structure anyway.

Contents (tree trunk, or top of the hierarchy)

 * Contents
 * Pillars of Eternity franchise (or ideally a better name)
 * (Computer) Games
 * Pillars of Eternity
 * Pillars of Eternity characters
 * Pillars of Eternity classes
 * Pillars of Eternity companions
 * Pillars of Eternity creatures
 * Pillars of Eternity game mechanics
 * Pillars of Eternity gameplay
 * Pillars of Eternity items
 * Pillars of Eternity locations
 * Pillars of Eternity modding
 * Pillars of Eternity quests
 * Pillars of Eternity races
 * Pillars of Eternity world
 * Pillars of Eternity II
 * Pillars of Eternity II characters
 * Pillars of Eternity II classes
 * Pillars of Eternity II companions
 * Pillars of Eternity II creatures
 * Pillars of Eternity II game mechanics
 * Pillars of Eternity II gameplay
 * Pillars of Eternity II items
 * Pillars of Eternity II locations
 * Pillars of Eternity II modding
 * Pillars of Eternity II quests
 * Pillars of Eternity II races
 * Pillars of Eternity II world
 * Pen-and-paper RPGs
 * World
 * Animancy
 * Characters
 * Conflicts
 * Creatures
 * Cultures
 * Deities
 * Factions
 * Geography
 * History
 * Items
 * Magic
 * Races
 * Pillars of Eternity wiki
 * Redirects
 * Templates
 * Pillars of Eternity templates
 * Pillars of Eternity II templates
 * Wiki maintenance
 * Templates
 * Pillars of Eternity templates
 * Pillars of Eternity II templates
 * Wiki maintenance

-- Preceding unsigned comment was added by Pangaearocks (talk|contribs). Please sign your posts with -- .

First and second level
After recently creating the short stories, I had to look how to categorize them. This is my first deeper look into the category tree. Before I got inactive, I already had started myself with some sort of restructure, though I see, you have changed many of my categories, Pangaearocks.

I think, "franchise" is an acceptable term. On the other hand: "Pillars of Eternity franchise" and "Pillars of Eternity Wiki" as the two main categories aren't distinguishable enough from each other. (The Cut content has to be moved elsewhere.) So what about simply "Wiki" for the second one?

As we are having "Games", the category "Category:Products" seems redundant. And there are not that many pages with the according template, that they would need auto-categorization. So I would simply remove that specific code.

As you already suggested further above, "Games" probably should get a more specific name, as PnP and card games also count as, well, "games". ;) Though instead of "Computer games" I'd prefer the term Video games. We could leave it with your "Pen-and-paper RPGs", or extend the abbreviation, making it "Pen-and-paper role-playing games". Perhaps too long …

Then we need (a) category/ies for other stuff, like the short stories, mentioned above, game guides and the almanac, the soundtracks … They could all get their own sub-category to the franchise or be pooled in something like "Other media" – where they then would have their sub-categories, I think.

So much for now. Categories are a complex topic, and their usefulness usually only shows when working with them. I need more time for that. I mean, most things you've done on your own, already. My apologies for not being there when you started all this.

--  -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 09:14, 10 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I've moved the "Games" category to Category:Video games. -- UserCCCSig.png  -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 10:44, 17 November 2017 (UTC)


 * And back … It's not as if we really have to distinguish between (as of now) two video games and two of another kind … -- UserCCCSig.png  -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 17:33, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The infobox product now uses several auto-categories, so Category:Products has become truly redundant: deleted. -- UserCCCSig.png  -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 18:53, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Top level "lore" category
Before, there was the category "World", as seen above. It was empty, and now is deleted.

Tagaziel created a new category "Eora" for all lore related stuff.

"World" and "Lore" can be found on several wikis as a such category, as well as analogies to "Eora": it's e.g. World on The Witcher Wiki, Skyrim on The Skyrim Wiki (actually all game related stuff, including a subcategory "Lore"), and Fallout lore on The Vault.

I thought, it would be a good idea to move it away from the world's name, Eora, and make it closer resembling the game by naming it "Cyclopedia". There are more ideas, I have, like structuring it similar to the in-game's Cyclopedia: But the main scheme might be clear.
 * Afflictions and Injuries – could become the name of a (currently not existing) category for Status effects
 * Bestiary – already there
 * Character Statistics – we have a category:Character stats and the character system
 * Combat Mechanics – together with the above currently roughly part of the category:Ruleset
 * Deities – already there
 * Equipment – not to be confused with Items … really?
 * Locations – already there
 * Lore – that one might become a bit difficult to hold some exclusive stuff …
 * Ship Combat – as of now only an article
 * Tips – well …

Now, Tagaziel thinks different, and that's why I'm making this public again. What do you think, community? I open the discussion with three profile comments by Tagaziel and me. (Transcluding doesn't work, so they're copyy-pasted.) You're invited to add below them!

"Uh, Category:Eora was named as such because it serves as a top-level category for all Eora-related lore. Now you've made it generic and difficult to understand, as (en)cyclopedia is what this wiki is supposed to be. Can you, like, ask people who implement ideas and categories before implementing far-reaching changes?"

- Tagaziel

"Before, there was "World" – not used (and deleted by now).

"Eora" IS the world – admitted.

You say, I've made it generic? That was my intention, as seen in the move summary. You think, this is harder to understand? Why? Take a look at the category:Pillars of Eternity Wiki – there's not much "(en)cyclopedic" to be found, other than the category:Cyclopedia. And if we're structuring that similar to the in-game cyclopedia (which I'm planning to do; Category:Bestiary, Category:Deities and Category:Locations already exist(ed); not sure, yet, how to implement the Category:Ruleset), then why shouldn't people who play the game not understand this or don't find what they're looking for? If I have in-game some sort of encyclopedia, that's what I also would look after on the wiki if I'm interested in background or expanded knowledge about entries in it. (We, together with some other folks, had a discussion about the usefulness of directly mirroring game content elsewhere, but I still think it makes sense.)

Yes, perhaps I should have warmed up that discussion, I've added some related comments to recently – admitted. Fearing some protest by you was also the reason that I then stopped with further changes: to give you (I don't think somebody else cares) the opportunity to react. ; )

Okay, category:Eora still exists. And during these changes, it perhaps becomes something more again than only a redirect, as it is of now.

Do you really think, "Cyclopedia" is THAT bad?"

- compleCCity

"Yes, it is bad, because it's not informative. It doesn't mean anything. When I started to work on the lore categories, I specifically intended to use Eora as a top-level category for Lore, just how Eora is basically a high-level article that groups links to articles and provides a general outline of what the world is.

I don't recall there ever being any intention - on my part or the founders - to structure the wiki like the in-game cyclopedia, because there's no need for it. We can - and should - use descriptive category names.

Category:Bestiary includes all articles on creatures encountered in the series.

Category:Deities includes all articles on deities.

Category:Locations includes all articles on locations.

Category:Ruleset details the ruleset for the game (class, races, multiclassing, attributes, and so on and so forth)

And so on and so forth. Category:Eora was intended to follow that pattern, grouping together articles related to Eora (basically, lore), and acting as a top-level article for setting-related stuff.

I'm generally fine with the changes you make, but this one basically pressed my berserk button."

- Tagaziel

I don't see my points negated by this last reply. I understand that the article Eora serves as a high-level article to group all cyclopedic information, but that's – in my eyes – the only reason to give the category the same name. I understand that the whole wiki is the "cyclopedia", but – as mentioned above – there's no other category with cyclopedic content in the base category: all other things are wiki related, the files and a parent category for the games and related stuff (Category:Pillars of Eternity franchise). I still believe that "cyclopedia" is a good name for this. --  -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 16:57, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

That's because the wiki is the cyclopedia. Every non-technical category on the wiki is an encyclopedic category.

Furthermore, with two main games, five DLCs, a PNP RPG coming, and a ton of additional materials, we need descriptive and unambiguous categories. We want users to be able to find categories quickly and without forcing them to wonder what we mean by Cyclopedia.

Which is why I support using top-level categories that are self-explanatory, rather than patterning them after what's basically a quick reference card in the game. I.e. "Afflictions and Injuries" might work in-game, but for the wiki, status effects is much better as it also encompasses Inspirations and the like.

I mean, really, Category:Cyclopedia feels like a bad meme. We heard you like cyclopedias, so we put a cyclopedia inside our cyclopedia, so you can cycle the pedes while you pede the cycles. :P Tagaziel (talk) 17:56, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm not aware of all the changes that have been made to fully understand the problem, am I right in saying Category:Eora was pretty much moved out of Category:Pillars of Eternity franchise‎, and renamed to "Cyclopedia"? On the surface, it seems like a pretty minor, trivial change, really. But I took a look at Category:Pillars of Eternity Wiki, and it kind of seems out of place, as all of the actual game "content" seems to sit under Category:Pillars of Eternity franchise‎. So the location I'm not a fan of. The name? I don't think either one is better than the other, but they do different things. "Cyclopedia" seems to be more generic and accommodating of a broader range of topics. I'm not so certain this is a good thing, since "Eora" seems to specifically handle the world setting of the franchise, not relating to any specific games (at least at the higher levels).

The category tree is so vast to get a real sense of things as a whole. I find that there are a lot of issues with the it being catered specifically for poe1 - but this is something that is inherent to the way that it was originally structured and needs to be worked on further. So I think keep Eora in place, as it was - a Category for specifically the lore and setting of the franchise as a whole, and continue to work towards bettering how the new content and the old content can be better categorized together. I sort of see what your end goal is, but I think it throws a spanner in the works - not to mention that it's going to be very difficult to accomplish considering what we already have isn't perfect.

I took a brief look through some of the categories as they stand and jotted down some specific things that should be done (in my opinion), but are unrelated to this specific problem:
 * Category:Contents shouldn't be the root category. Move Category:Cut content to Category:Pillars of Eternity Wiki, and make that the root.
 * Category:Cyclopedia --> Category:Locations needs some work. The generic "Locations" category at the topmost level should be the top level for locations (perhaps renamed to "Geography" as the above WIP table suggests). Sub categories should define wide-spanning areas - Category:Regions and Category:Countries should be moved here, and other "generic" areas alluded to in the story. Then separate subcategories should be defined for actual player-accessible locations specific to poe1 and poe2, under those should be the location types (Caves, Ruins etc):
 * Category:Geography
 * Category:Regions
 * Category:Countries
 * Category:Locations
 * Category:Pillars of Eternity locations
 * Caves, cities, inns, etc
 * Category:Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire locations
 * Caves, cities, inns, etc
 * The infobox should be changed to define poe1 and poe2 locations separately, since there is no crossover (could be implemented with the to-be-reworked Template:Infobox location poe2).

There's a whole lot more than that, I'm sure. Just a surface level look at things that could be looked at - every little bit counts! - Macklin (talk) 20:35, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Same could be said for Category:Files/Category:Images.
 * All the sub-categories for Category:Portraits should be appropriately named for poe1 specifically, then merged with both Category:Pillars of Eternity portraits and Category:Pillars of Eternity images - Portraits, before being deleted. I personally think images shouldn't be sub-categorised in such a specific way as by race - seems unnecessary.
 * Likewise, there are more loose game specific categories Category:Ability icons and Category:Class icons, Category:Race images, Category:Screenshots, Category:Scripted interaction images‎ all already have associated categories under Category:Pillars of Eternity images.
 * That category itself needs cleaning up too.
 * Move Category:Races from Category:Pillars of Eternity into the lore category, whatever it ends up being called.
 * Sub-category under poe2 and poe1 called "Game mechanics" or "Gameplay" to hold things that are apart of gameplay. Looking at Category:Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, things like Crafting (Deadfire), Combat (Deadfire), Ship combat etc should be moved into this.
 * Category:Pillars of Eternity has a lot of duplicate categories and stuff that needs to be placed into a generalized category - and one that isn't specific to poe1.

Only some short comments by me to directly address some of Macklin's points: So, in general, I read from this: you would keep the name "Eora" and don't support the idea of most of the above given new subcategories? And you'd like to have the category:Games more prominently displayed, like directly in the root? (By the way, "Cyclopedia" is still part of the franchise.) --  -- You talkin' to me? -- cCContributions -- 21:23, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * "Category:Contents shouldn't be the root category…" – That's planned; but I needed a proper category before, to move the Cut content to (but I don't think, the root category's right for it).
 * I totally agree that the current tree is … uhm … chaotic and shouldn't stay as it is. You've posted many ideas, but I was starting at the top of the tree and haven't put too much time into thinking about the details further down. That also applies to e.g. the images. Let's – for now – stay on the naming of the "lore" root category and the idea of mirroring the in-game cyclopedia, with or without the suggestions made in my intro.

Oh, I see - it's apart of multiple categories. The stuff I added above is separate, just some notes from when I was going through the tree. Basically, I think that we should still have a place for lore content, there's no reason to have to split it and mix in other non-world related stuff. Even if we did rearrange stuff, having this category still makes sense. Games in poe franchises is fine. Some of the new categories suggested seem to not be broad enough to warrant their own categories - and are just fine in a single page (like Status effects, or Ship combat). I think that Obsidian didn't put too much effort into the categorization of the cyclopedia in-game, it feels more like a bunch of dot points than anything - in a format that is essentially used as a repository for the tooltips that are shown when hovering over terms. Maybe a silly idea, but perhaps an index or glossary page is more along the lines of replicating it. Macklin (talk) 07:16, 5 January 2019 (UTC)