Talk:MouseHunt Wiki

Below are current discussions regarding the wiki in general and the Main Page in specific. Older discussions can be found in the following links:

Archive 1, Archive 2

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Alignment

If someone could fix the alignment on the gameplay sections, the terminology and community sections. I had the gameplay section fixed until someone deleted my edits. The words should be in a straight line. They should not be staggered--Tmm stinson 03:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, the words look fine to me staggered. -- Camomiletea 16:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

They used not to be staggered i looked at an older version link somewhere.--Tmm stinson 17:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's the oldest version I found of the page in its current form. I saw older versions of the page where the text wasn't staggered and it looked rather messy to me. The Gameplay box also then wasn't in line with the way the other boxes looked. -- Camomiletea 19:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I was able to change to make it look like it is now. If you dont like it feel free to change it back all i did was add < br/>  & nbsp; (minus the spaces)all you have to do it delete it.--Tmm stinson 22:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Someone else changed it so. I still liked them indented but whatever.--Tmm stinson 04:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Gave it a shot but only could find a workaround via bullets.... _____m. 22:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

What you'll find:

I think having the potions under "What you'll find:" there is unneeded as there is a potions section in loot and the page is relatively short. Thomas5436 15:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

   but youre still going to find the potions, whether there is a big page on it or not Mattymol 11:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

New! Tag

Please keep the " NEW!" tag for a standard 1 month or so after the page using it is created. That should be enough time for it to be recognized by players, and not too long that it becomes old. Older pages should not be using the NEW! tag, but instead a more appropriate REVAMPED! or something similar can be used, if needed. -- Grexx 17:35, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Pooflinger Tools

Was suggested on the forum that a link to Pooflinger be added to the main page. Is very useful, and currently quite well hidden. Just thought I would get feelings on this. Fishwick 18:47, 08 April 2009 (UTC) Just seen Brossows comments: No worries.

Just to further clarify, the developers do not support any 3rd party tools so they do not wish to have a direct link on the main page. At the moment however, they have allowed them to stay as links in the related links section. See the old edit here for reference. -- Grexx 07:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Would it be possible to make the "related links" link stand out a bit more? would the devs allow that? Mattymol 11:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Trap Check Update?

"Thanks for your ungoing patience and support." Shouldn't that say ongoing or was it ungoing on purpose? --Stevehanler 12:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the devs made a typo.[1] -- Camomiletea 14:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Pfft we never make typos :P Okay joking, I make at least three each news post. I guess you'll just have to have ungoing patience with my many typos! --Dave Vanderburg 19:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

It's okay. I thought it might be some inside joke I didn't understand. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. -- Stevehanler 04:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Tournaments

There should be a link to Tournaments in the Info Section, with all the necessary information about this. It confuses many people and they use the Wiki only to get disappointed when they find no links/references to it, especially newbies. Someone was dazzled by the difference of hunting group and party, for instance.

I added one. It doesnt look great but its there. I have also added a party horn button to the terminology section--Tmm stinson 02:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I made it look better it took some trail and error but it looks better--Tmm stinson 02:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Redirects on Abbreviations

Never realized there were so many redirects based on abbreviations. I would like to take the chance to clarify some points. Abbreviations in MouseHunt are not really set in stone. There are a good number of them, all player created, as can be seen from Abbreviations. Many people don't use abbreviations at all. Thus if everyone were to add their own abbreviation into the MH Wiki, it would result in many redirect pages that are useful to a small group of users, and meaningless to most others. There aren't that many articles on MouseHunt honestly, so please consider using bookmarks if you need to frequently access an article, rather than adding a redirect so that you can search an article faster using the abbreviation redirect. -- Grexx 20:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I think a lot of such redirects have only been added recently. At the time I wondered if they should be there at all, but didn't do anything about them. -- Camomiletea 20:54, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there really any harm in redirects? They:

• take up so little room in the DB (from an Admin's point of view for backup purposes)
• make common acronyms / abbreviations used on forums / chats / boards / etc an easy lookup reference for the full item of reference
• are a feature of mediawiki that even wikipedia uses very heavily to avoid many pages with similar titles with nothing more than a link to the "other page".
• can help enlighten users what people are referring to on forums, etc. (Type in acronym, and get taken to the expanded definition and it's own page)
• reduce maintenance of multiple pages.
• are used when renaming a page so that people who have book marked previous (old) pages are still taken to the new page thanks to the redirect.

There's probably more reasons too. I propose the reverse question - What are the reasons against having them? -- austin 11:20, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Austin, addressing the points raised. Firstly, space was never an issue. Every discussion, edit we make takes up space. If there is a need for an article/page, it will be there, be it as a full article or just a redirect.

Specifically with regard to redirects, there was never anything against them, so I don't understand why this has been brought up at all. They are well utilized on the wiki. If you look deep into the page structure, you will find that there are many meaningful redirects. We have never had a serious issue with multiple pages because naming is very direct on the MH Wiki, as only direct in-game names are used, followed by any necessary redirect on the short names, such as Ghost to Ghost Mouse.

The main issue with acronyms/abbreviations (AA) is, how do you define common? If a group of friends started bandying about their own abbreviations daily on the forums, does that make it a common abbreviation? For every AA used, I've seen enough players going "huh?", myself included. Which brings me to the point I made originally: AA are numerous and are all player created, and none are official. The only semi official AA that we might have is the ACRONYM, an intended result from the developers. There is no hard and fast rule on which AA signifies what.

Thus if we were to allow one, who is to argue that someone else should not be allowed to put each of their personal AA as a wiki page so as to avoid having to bookmark their frequently accessed articles. And then what? Back to the point I raised earlier, it will be chaotic, with many unregulated and unmonitored AA pages, that are neither useful, notable, and recognizable to the majority of players.

Regarding knowledge of a particular AA (or lack of it), that is already well covered by the article List of forum abbreviations and acronyms. It serves as a central area to monitor all the AAs in the game, so users won't even have to search for an AA, cutting down on the "huh?" factor. That article also solves any possible disambiguation issues with multiple items pointing to a single AA, and having to work out exactly which article is more notable. -- Grexx 15:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

So why have some redirects been proposed for deletion then? What's the harm in having them there? I'll tell people on the forums / via chat / etc to punch things into the search bar on here and it (mostly) takes them to the page they need. If redirects for common A/A are taken away, then they get a search list that may or may not have the result they're after near the top. It's just a small way to make it easier for users. Just about every item in the game can be made into an A/A. As long as there's no overlap, is there really a harm in having redirects to the page of the item in question? Camomiletea has decided that having redirects from acronyms of items in game to their respective pages is a bad idea. I disagree. Links from VMT to Venus Mouse Trap, DDB to Digby Drill Bot, are proposed for deletion, but only the DDB redirect and not the variations on its name here, here, here, or here. If it says in the description that it is also known as, then why remove that from the wiki? If it's written there, that's it's known as a DDB, then shouldn't the wiki reflect that?

As for personal acronyms, there's really a defined few that are accurate for the items in game. How many can you make for an item such as the VMT? It's either known as the Venus, or the VMT, or by its full name. Similarly for other items - there's really only a single or at best two entries that are possible. I'm doubting that there have been any cases of unruly A/A that are game related. If it's non-game related, sure remove them, but when they are used in common discussions, why not have them? I don't see why the vast majority of acronyms listed on this page shouldn't have their own redirect page. The main benefits (that I can see) are reducing the number of clicks for someone to find something (instant results), and faster searching. If it's limited to those couple of dozen, then where's the problem? I seriously don't see everyone put(ting) each of their personal A/A as a wiki page, because of the point mentioned before - the majority of the time, there really is only a single way to make an acronym from something.

I think it's a waste of time and adding to frustration removing something that is referenced and used. VMT has been accessed 131 times and DDB 272 times at the time of response, so it's not like it's a "one off" use page. Compare that to the Partybot redirect page which has only been used 8 times, and I think it's existence is warranted.

austin 02:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The lack of control over the endless possible AA variations has not been addressed. Who is to say which AA is common and which is not? What might be common knowledge now, would easily fall unused in future, and this has happened many times before. For example, with the AA "PB". It used to be so hot for referring to the Polar Base, until the PartyBot came out, and then it was just confusing, and thereafter not used anymore because none of the new players have had access to these items for the past 6 months and more, and people have moved on to newer traps and locations. There's always a flavour of the month, after which when it isn't so new anymore, the hype dies down and a lot less people talk about it. The article 'List of forum abbreviations and acronyms' serves very well as a buffer for the different situations and possibilities that can arise with regards to AA.

Additionally, for the possible AA variations in the Venus Mouse Trap, you have presented your own common interpretation of possible AA. What about 'VM trap', or 'VM', or 'Venus trap'? I think those are valid names too, so are they to be included? I'm sure they can be understood by some players, so where do we draw the line, and then why, when they are all player created AA? And what if we don't draw the line? Then are we going to let all possible AA onto the wiki? Regardless of possible boundaries, who is going to monitor the whole pile of them to ensure they remain relevant and updated? Is there a good plan on making sure that 6 months, or 1 year down the road, when most editors have lost interest in editing the MH Wiki, that it will remain consistently applied by others?

Bringing up the issue of the Digby DrillBot article, if you look further than that single article, you will realize that an introduction writeup like that stands out like a sore thumb, because almost all other trap articles make no mention of any AA, except for the very old trap write-ups, of which no one has had the inclination to go through. The AA 'DDB' itself was added by an unknown editor, at a time when no common standards were discussed or enforced, thus hardly something that most serious editors would consider as a reliable source. Please note the difference between the original in-game item description and the player written introduction to an article.

Regarding the name variations that you have added for the Digby DrillBot, the short names DrillBot and Drillbot are useful and acceptable. There is no dispute what DrillBot refers to, it is unambiguous, and it is a very easily understood short name for the Digby DrillBot, much like why Ghost is a redirect to Ghost Mouse. Drillbot is acceptable because the wiki is unable to direct to correct pages when non-initial capital letters are used (ie searching for abc will never direct to abC, but will direct to Abc). The 'Digby Drillbot' redirect is also used in this manner. As for the other two misspellings, 'Digby Drill Bot' and 'Drill Bot', these are not well thought out. As with the AA, where do you draw the line on which misspelling to use and which to reject, and if you allow all, then are you going to put them all up, and so on, for the sake of consistency? That they remain there, is not necessarily because other editors agree with them, but either because no one noticed, or there are more pressing issues to handle. Personally, I didn't even know they existed until you pointed them out, and if I had noticed it then, we would be having this discussion 5 months ago.

Another thing I would like to point out is that Camomiletea did not "decide" that having redirects on acronyms to their related articles is a bad idea. It has always been the case among the editors that we do not add redirects on AA. While it is not explicitly mentioned, one would have noticed the pages do not exist, if one had looked for them. Unfortunately, we don't have many dedicated editors to start with, and the few that are around, do not always have the time or inclination to address the issues. However if it is brought to attention, like now, we will discuss the issue until a satisfactory resolution.

About how many times a page has been accessed, just like to point out that redirects never get their counters incremented. The Partybot redirect has been a valid redirect to PartyBot ever since it was created, and thus the few visits it has had are only from editors. Same as with the VMT and DDB pages. That they have anything more than a double digit count now is due to the page being tagged for deletion. -- Grexx 10:48, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

My personal preference(s) (however much weight they convey) are if it adds to the wiki, and doesn't take away from the information on here, then why not have it? Yes, those variations on the VMT are fine (I wouldn't use an incomplete acronym personally), and I see no reason not to add those as redirects.

For the matter of duplicate acronyms - yes I was aware of that occurrence, and they are few and far between. Even on the List of forum abbreviations and acronyms page, there are only five instances in which case the acronym entry could be changed from a redirect to a short list of valid links. I personally do not see the harm in that.

I feel that creating them helps because if you are not familiar with what page name things are on (and I'm certainly not completely aware of all of them) then your default reaction is to use the search page. What happens when you search for "pb"? Not a lot. What about "bw" for Bristle Woods? Nada.

My intentions are all about making the wiki easier for users to find things. If adding those redirects for acronyms and / or abbreviations are going to enhance the use of the wiki and make it easier for people to find things, then I say it's a Good Thing^TM, and we should have it.

The hit counts for page redirects increasing is obviously a sign that they are being used then, so why take something away from the community if they are using it, and make it harder? Obviously the fear of "where do you draw the line" has come up a few times, but seriously - has it been a problem? Looking over the pages removed (or flagged) I have only seen inappropriate content or graffiti. There's not a single case in MH's history where there's been an inappropriate acronym used for in game reference. Now, if there hasn't been in the past X many years, why would it suddenly start up? It more than likely won't. -- austin 11:29, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Everyone's opinions are important, editors and users alike, that is the primary reason why I shifted this discussion to 'Talk:MouseHunt Wiki', which has higher visibility, and not in one of the redirect pages where it would easily have been lost.

I agree that creating the pages, no matter how obscure, would certainly help some users. But the set of users that could benefit from this is very small, and the work needed in ensuring that it stays updated and accurate is not. While it may seem like just 'one page', these single articles add up. Additionally, none of these are official in-game terminology.

Creating a disambiguation page for AA that are not official terminology adds unnecessary work that needs to be verified and kept updated, as well as duplicating what is already on the 'List of forum abbreviations and acronyms' article. Also, the same issue raised about the notability of an AA redirect applies to the 'List of forum abbreviations and acronyms'. There are no criteria, because it is not worth the effort to quantify or vet any of them. Thus the possible variations are of a very large number, and the AA on that page are of varying degrees of usefulness, notability, and accuracy.

I also don't quite understand why anyone would want to search for AAs that are not official terms in the first place, when keying in things like "party", "black", "widow", "army", "woods", "bristle", etc, will give you a useful set of results. Moreover, the MH Wiki is far from being a large wiki. All commonly required information are on average, at most 2 clicks away from the Main Pageor related article. Finding an article or piece of information is not difficult.

I would also like to mention some underlying factors that need to be considered for the discussion, since it is not immediately clear to users who have not followed the wiki since it was started a year ago, or gone through the history pages. The wiki has always had a very limited group of editors who work consistently on it. Also, the issue of consistency between articles is very important. If it applies to one article out of a set of similar articles, then it should apply uniformly (ie a section that is added to a single location, should apply to all other locations). This makes it a lot easier for users to follow, hence the common redirects on short names for mice, or the uniform layout of mice, location, trap pages etc. Additionally, we aim to avoid duplication of information as much as possible, since the only way to keep a single piece of information used across multiple pages accurate, is to update them individually. This is extremely prone to missed updates, and when discovered, requires a good amount of time to check and verify the accuracy. The goal is to find a balance between maintaining a high degree of accuracy on all articles using the limited editing resources available, and making the wiki as accessible as possible.

While I understand the intention to make it easier to perform searches through the use of AA redirects, the article 'List of forum abbreviations and acronyms' performs excellently as a central source for all AA, thus making AA redirects unnecessary, since all information about AA can be found (or should be) in the article. Even though the page count is increasing for the AA redirects, that doesn't make it any closer to an official term. That they would be utilized was never in doubt, but as mentioned earlier, not many benefit from it, versus the effort in keeping track of them.

There has not been any incidence of inappropriate AA because it was never the practice to make AA redirects. However, some have been added here and there over the last few months. It is a slow erosion of the consistency that we try to maintain on the wiki. Much like how you can have a nice, large garden with flowers, but without enough gardeners to take care of it, it will eventually be overrun with weeds, even if the flowers remain. Our existing practice is to follow strictly in-game descriptions and names, and will stay that way until majority consensus says otherwise. Even on Wikipedia, you do not see AA randomly added as redirects. They must meet strict criteria, and have a very comprehensive set of guidelines and rules based around the Manual of Style. Most importantly, they have lots of gardeners. -- Grexx 19:11, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I can see this going around and around in circles with no resolve and who ever gets bored first loses. I think that's me.

I really don't see the huge overheard in having the A/A - most particularly the acronyms, not the abbreviations. I showed examples where searching for common acronyms used on the forums, and on the List of forum abbreviations and acronyms page did not show up, thus having a need for the redirects, yet you still persist in saying this page is all that's needed. It obviously isn't, because those acronyms are not easily found. If it means creating a couple of dozen acronyms redirects, so be it. It's not like they change their meaning. In the case of new content being introduced by the devs, then yes, obviously a lot of pages need adding / creating / modifying. It goes part and parcel with the game. New content means new work.

You said that the work needed in ensuring that it stays updated and accurate is not (small). My answer: Yes it is. If someone searches for an acronym and hits a page meaning something else (unlikely) then the page is easily modifiable to become a list of possible meanings (2?) and shows up in the list of modified pages - just like any other edit. Acronyms don't change meaning in this game, due to the low content and possibilities. It's pretty much static content. The number of acronyms that have actual dual meanings can be counted on one hand. The rest are static. When new regions come out, then it's entirely possible there's conflict (RhinoBot versus Radioactive Blue Cheese as an example), but with the new content pages, I'm sure there's a checklist somewhere that the main editors follow when the devs introduce "new content", and creating acronym redirects would just be added to it. It would then immediately show up if there was any conflicts and the redirect changed to a list page. Simple. I once again do not see the problem. Keeping the acronym redirects to actual game content shouldn't be a problem. It's the same generic rule for other pages. If it's not in game content, or if it's rumoured, or misdirection, then it's not allowed. Redirects that make no sense to a page are not likely to be created. Someone's not likely to create a page "MPT" and redirect it to the RhinoBot for example. The only viable acronyms for that trap (as an example) are RB, or RBT (if you include the 'T' for trap). That's it. Period. Similarly for the Mouse Mary O'Nette - MMO. Sure it's known by other names, but as an acronym there's really only a couple that actually work, and they're not likely to be confused with other things, nor are they likely to change any time soon.

When someone says their hunting combo was "DDB/TB/GC" in a forum post, there's often someone who will ask for it to be explained in full. There's always new-comers to the game, and more often than not, after it being explained, they're pointed to the wiki for further reading. Having them type in the acronym into the search field is more often than not what results. When that fails, they try hitting on links in an effort to find them. I think it would be nice if they came across the answers first time. It's what Google spends hundreds of millions on each year - making searching easier and the results you want first time.

You said there's effort in keeping track of them (acronym redirects). Really? What effort? A quick perusal over that and I immediately found that someone had created a redirect with a mis-spelling. As redirects are added to the end of that list, it's a simple matter of keeping track of what the last redirect you looked as was and see what new ones are created. That is... assuming the Recent Changes page isn't being monitored.

I would like to leave it as a challenge - acronym redirects - for all items in game and watch how often they need updating. I'm betting that just like the ones in place now the answer would be "just about never". VMT for the Venus Mouse Trap, DDB for the Digby Drillbot, HVMT for the Horrific Venus Mouse Trap, and so on. The only time an acronym redirect would need modification is when new content is introduced and that same acronym already exists. No big deal. The challenge I place here is that there won't be more than a handful of acronyms with double meanings and there won't be any more than that with more than two edits due to new content. If they had have existed prior to the Tribal Isles being released, then there would be... one? (RB? <-- which incidentally has been there over a year.)

At the end of the day, it's a reflection of HitGrab's product maintained by the community. If HitGrab are after increasing user friendliness and ease of use, then it's something that should be kept. Maintenance costs are effectively zero. I would love to hear HitGrab's opinion on the matter too.

I don't see how presenting both our views here would be frivolous. It is nowhere near a competition where we are trying to bore each other to death as you put it. Both of us have very valid points. Regardless, what needs to be said has already been done in the discussion above. All the AA that was mentioned, is fully covered by Abbreviations. Thus I still fail to see any need at all for AA redirects of non-official terms, which would duplicate the information there, especially considering Abbreviations has been given front page status, and not hidden behind other articles.

There is never a quick perusal of recent changes, if one is seriously keeping watch. Few see the effort needed, because they haven't gotten beyond the surface and into the full work needed in keeping everything in order. You mentioned that you're sure there is a checklist somewhere, that someone is following. That's the thing, hoping that someone, somewhere down the line will handle any problem that crops up in a satisfactory manner. While that can perhaps work on Wikipedia itself (though not always either), with the millions of eyeballs each article can get, it fares poorly here, as has been our experience.

As for turning the discussion into a "challenge", the wiki should not degenerate into something as frivolous as tossing out challenges to add a page or make a change just to prove a point. Moreover, the time spent creating and monitoring these pages would be better spent on the real work needed on the wiki that is currently identified and outstanding. -- Grexx 19:45, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I put the emphasis on being bored, because you were not adding anything new to the discussion. You kept saying "it's adding work", but not saying how the additional acronym redirects are "work". I put it that the ones that are already there, have been for months, or in some cases over a year, and have been zero work. Yet, for some reason, now the work has been decided to delete them. Sounds like someone was adding work and making things less useful at the same time. I put it as a challenge, to prove a point, because I was running out of ideas on how to make that point. Existing redirects should be proof enough that they work, are a good thing, and have had zero maintenance, but for some strange reason it's not good enough. It's like talking to a wall.

You repeatedly mention that the Abbreviations page is good enough. I showed you a number of examples of searching where it's not. Having the redirects in place works there, and has no harm. If there is no harm, then why remove them? Bare in mind that I have repeatedly referred only to acronym redirects, and not abbreviation redirects.

Yes, this is not Wikipedia, and doesn't have the sheer number of eyes, but that's no reason to make it less useful. I leave with the simple question of What is the harm in leaving the ACRONYM REDIRECTS in place?