User talk:Sinnoaria/archives

Response to User_talk:Saiyr

Having hidden text creates more work for everyone. Granted, it's only a few clicks, but it's annoying nonetheless. In the particular case of Combat Mastery, I would be fine if it started unhidden. However, I still don't see the benefit. All of the racial stats are grouped together by row, so you just need to remember the color code that the wiki uses to see race-specific information. In general, for example in loot tables, text hiding becomes really annoying. Lots of mob entries have "unknown" or "none" for their loot tables. Why on earth do I need to click "show" to find that out? The hidden text label takes up more space than the text itself! If you really feel strongly about the combat mastery table, then perhaps you should look for input on the talk page. I already sought input from the MW IRC and everyone agreed with me. It seems to me that you are in a minority, but that may just be my perception.

Re Farming, it seems ridiculous to have an article consist entirely of a bunch of one sentence bullet points. Apologies, but two to three lines should not be considered a wall of text. It's called a paragraph. The main reason why you may find it annoying to read is because the text spans the length of your monitor, which, in today's widescreen world, can be problematic. Either way, I don't understand why we should cater to ADD kids who can't read more than one sentence on a line. The ideal solution would be a skin that doesn't stretch to monitor width, but I doubt anyone will step up to the task. Saiyr 02:23, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Response 2

Yes, after my last comment I realized that bullet points are nice for fast indexing. However, splitting by each sentence (which seems to be favored) is still stupid. For example, "If there is a plot of land available, you'll either be able to purchase it directly or given a choice to apply to queue for it. If you are given an option to queue for the land, you must wait until 5 hours have passed since the previous owner vacated the plot. At any time, if you are not online to pay, the plot of land will be passed on to the next person in the queue. You are only given the option of immediately leasing the land if 5 hours have passed since previous owner moved out and nobody is in the queue for it." used to be split into a bunch of sub bullet points. What is the point? These sentences are all dependent on each other. They should not be split into 4 bullets.

Re hidden text, I agree that it is situational, but I don't think it's used well in many instances. If the loot table unhidden would cause a huge column imbalance, then fine. Otherwise, there is literally no point in hiding the data. You aren't having to scroll anymore to reach what you want.

Also, despite the fact that the people who agree with me are all from MW, it's still a simple majority. All of the people who think hiding text is better are on my talk page (that's two people). Like I said, if you want a bigger sample size, then you should try the talk page, but it seems to me that people don't mind it.

I don't understand why you think the newest way isn't much different from the oldest method. This solves your use case exactly, by grouping all of the relevant data into one (technically two since the white is common) chunk, rather than having to scan line-by-line to find race-relevant data. As for your idea, perhaps it would be possible to collapse the groups of rows. I don't know how easy it would be to implement floating rows to the top, or how well it would actually work.

I agree with your easily viewable comment, it's just we have [vastly?] different notions of easily viewable. Due to hidden text, on more than one occasion has my experience been more like "Ok, so this is the information I need, oh wait, it's all hidden in text, *click* *click* *click* *click* next page". Shadow mission rewards are a prime example of this.

Also, sorry for the slowish responses. I have been busy with school lately so not really checking the wiki, and e-mail notifications appear to be broken. Saiyr 08:55, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I should point out that a well-structured page should not really need hidden text at all. If people are searching for quick information, a mix of section anchors and ctrl-f should get you there faster than eye-scanning. Except hidden text breaks ctrl-f, which is another annoyance.

Response 3

This is getting way too long, so I'm quoting you and replying inline.

Thing is that the information isn't exactly streamlined if I want to see something far apart such as human vs elves on a lower res computer/device such as a PSP. And also, with a "well structured page," there would be issues on their own. Though I have to admit that the way the hidden text here works is not as good hidden text I've seen elsewhere (in that it does break searching and referencing completely), I do believe that a nice feature would be a a reversed situation where you could collapse/hide it but have it show up as default. Also, the "everyone" you speak of is only a small selection of people who have their own preferences. What I think would probably work would be some sort of CSS feature that would allow users to control how the page looks. However, it would be more work to maintain and add in.

How many people browse the wiki on a low res device? I don't find that particularly relevant. And what would be the problems with a well-structured page? I agree with show-by-default being fine, because I don't have to do more work. In response to your "everyone" comment, let me reiterate that this small selection is the only sample size that we have, and if you want to get a bigger one, you should post in the combat mastery talk page. I am watching it, so I will be able to participate in the discussion as well. Also, "some sort of CSS feature that would allow users to control how the page looks" is very vague and hand-wavey. I can neither agree nor disagree.

However, I do find the "Oldest" way as a better way than the "Newest" way in terms of having a table for comparisons. The Newest way seems more like the table might as well be broken up into three different tables. I also find that the "presentation" format of using bullets can be very useful. I, for one, was taught to take notes in classes and we did it in a way that we could present the notes to others in an easily accessible manner. Granted, we didn't use "bullets" but instead used a list, the two are very similar. Powerpoint presentations, as an example, are generally done using the bullets method. The main idea is to put out the main/important points under the subject it is about.

If you break up the tables into three, they are misaligned. Scanning becomes more difficult, not to mention it takes up even more space from the table breaks. You have presented two different use cases:

1. Looking up race-specific information
2. Comparing across races

The oldest table does 2 and not 1, which you dislike, and now you dislike that the newest table does 1 and not 2.

Just because you use bullets does not mean you put one sentence per bullet. I am not arguing the effectiveness if bullets [anymore?], just the way it was used excessively. PowerPoint slides use bullets, yes, but they rarely have five levels of list nesting. They do typically only have one or two sentences, but that's because of innate space constraints due to projectors and font size. I don't think having four sentences on one bullet is a stretch.

I mean, yes, you are biased against hidden text, I am biased towards using hidden text when it would make things look nicer/hide away stuff that most people don't need to know (at least not right away). At the same time, while you prefer the more formal paragraph format, I prefer a structure where it is main point(s) can be taken note of right away and then the sub-points can be quickly glanced over. Granted, there are times that I prefer paragraph format since I do write stories and not just poetry/songs.

Most of the Internet is biased against hidden text. I would say websites that use it are in a vast minority, and many of them that do use hidden text are forums that have spoiler tags. I don't see why MW is really a special case. I don't mind Farming as it is right now, but the levels of nesting it used to have is excessive.

Personally, I think that the best solution would be to try to find a middle ground. It won't be the BEST for everyone, but it won't be the WORST either.

I think we already did. Hidden option but shown by default.

But also, during the time before, not counting Angevon, I could almost also state that the "majority" of the people on your talk page preferred hidden text for that page. I'm not saying that we aren't the minority, I am just saying that many people aren't willing to 'complain'/'state their dislike' about something doesn't mean that they like it and vice versa. Now if you could honestly state that during your questioning of preference, there was well over 100 people, perhaps even 300 people, out of which 80% said that they preferred the "Newest" way, I might have to say that you at least had a reasonable sample size. On the other hand, a 100% majority, which almost sounds like what happened, is very rare and makes it sound like a case of either small sample size or a state similar to the mob mentality (I'd rather not throw this discussion into psychology even though to fully explain myself I'd have to. Therefore, I'll just use a similar state (that more people have heard of) instead of having to give psychology based reasons for everything I'm stating.). --Sinnoaria 18:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

This is absurd. My sample size includes everyone on my talk page, which makes your statement completely meaningless. Yes, lots of people won't vocalize their like/dislike, whatever. However, the burden is on the people who favor hidden text to show that their solution is acceptable to everyone, not me. My change is very minor compared to the old version, whereas the hidden text in three tables is a HUGE change that was made without consultation (with the stipulation that anyone could change it). I have already reiterated this above. I never stated that it was a 100% majority. Everyone I asked on IRC agreed with me and the only people who vocally disagreed with me were on my talk page. I also heard complaints from people on the Steam channel I am in, but I didn't mention it. In any case, it is still a majority. Requiring 80% of any sample size is too much, and like I said before, the burden is on you to show that a radical change is for the better, not me. If the Senate required 80% majority, nothing would ever get done.

I am done talking about sample sizes and majorities. Let's move on to compromise. Hidden option but shown by default? Saiyr 19:09, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

If you can't get it to work, I may look over the weekend. At least at some time when the wiki isn't experiencing high traffic. No problem regarding the long text, I just decided that including the original text in the reply would make it easier to recall context, so you could see what I was directly replying to. Saiyr 01:46, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Yo, check this table and tell me what you think. Saiyr 21:17, 24 April 2010 (UTC)