Neverwinter Wiki talk:User generated content

Dealing with user-generated content on the wiki
We need to decide on what our standard practices should be regarding adding pages about the content users create in the Foundry.

On STOWiki, it was decided that this content had to be kept in a Foundry namespace. (All titles for pages about Foundry missions had to start with Foundry:.) We had the additional requirement of requiring the ID be added to the end, but I feel that's not something we should do here.

The advantage of a separate namespace is that it essentially lets us set up either an opt-in or opt-out approach to whether user-generated content is including in searches. You could do this by going to your preferences page and checking or unchecking the Foundry namespace (or whether we decide on). We e can set it up so that it is either checked or unchecked by default.

The disadvantage is that this is less user-friendly to those adding the pages and linking between foundry articles is more of a pain. It'll require more vigilance from the community to make sure that user-generated content is kept in this namespace, and there'll be more errors for the experience users to help correct.

Another suggested standard: pages about official content should not link to pages with user-generated content. (Pages about the Foundry themselves is a reasonable exception.)

So, thoughts, comments? &mdash; oOeyes   03:31, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea of a foundry namespace and agree that the requirement to add an ID at the end is probably unnecessary. I do think it would be useful to have a standard template format for these pages though, as while they would be a separate namespace they would be more Wiki-like than a simple talk page and as such it'd be better for them to be at least internally consistent, although I'm not beholden to that idea.

I agree that that pages about official content should not link to pages with user-generated content, with the notable exception besides pages about the foundry itself to also include the page about the Well-Informed Harper which should have a link to the foundry namespace main page(and I think there should be a main page for that name space to give people at least an idea of what they are looking at.) Shaudius (talk) 04:40, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed on the main page. STOWiki has Foundry:Portal for that purpose and Foundry:List of missions as a list page for all the foundry content added. Of course, STOWiki opened the gates on this late enough that there aren't a very large number of foundry missions on the wiki. If we get enough, we'd need to break the list up somehow, but I think for now we're safe with starting with Foundry:Portal and Foundry:Quests (or Foundry:List of quests) as a starting point. &mdash; oOeyes  [[Image:User-OOeyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 05:36, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Requiring the user of a Foundry namespace sounds like a good idea, both for ease of distinguishing between official and user-made content, and to avoid cluttering (or even coincidental overlapping) of page names.
 * I see no reason to require IDs as part of page names, as that information can simply be included in the page's contents, with no loss of convenience.
 * Chances are, someone potentially interested in playing a foundry quest will visit its page anyway.


 * As for the linking from non-foundry to foundry pages, I entirely agree this is something that should not happen aside from links to a few specific entry pages, lest enthusiastic authors turn the wiki into well-intentioned advertising grounds.


 * Finally, a question: how do namespaces interact with categories, and what kind of guidelines do you think should be observed, should people wish to make new categories to group quests in an overarching plot, or reuse existing ones like a category for important/recurring NPCs? Derangement (Talk | contribs) 07:09, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Categories and namespaces are separate entities and don't affect each other. Any restrictions would be things we as the community would enforce (like there probably won't be any categories where it will make sense to mix official content pages and foundry pages). The wiki would allow this without a problem, but we would want to fix it when we see it happen. So the onus is on us to create and maintain a separate category structure for foundry pages. And since it isn't possibly to create a separate category namespace, we'd just have to keep them separate by name, i.e. Category:Quests and Category:Foundry quests and such. &mdash; oOeyes  [[Image:User-OOeyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 07:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

It should be a strict control imo, because we authors tend to be enhusiastic about our content. So a word limit, field limit etc ahouls be implemented. That said, there should be ome empty fields which let authors add things which make their campaign different in limited words.

However, we will have to rewrite a lot if foundry and normal Wiki is separated. afaik, STO Foundry was never really integrated to the game. The foundry in Neverwinter is integrated with the game. So eventually foundry pages may end up with twice the work.

This will also bring in another perspective. We will need a canon of the all the regions which can possibly be included in foundry stating the changes which happened recently which can serve as a source of guide or a handbook for them to design their quests within this timeframe. . . ..

Maybe it is better to define the limits of Wiki beforehand so the things can be focused on specific things rather than spent energy on things which may not be necessary.

Gillrmn (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not at all enthusiastic about imposing word count limits, even if some foundry authors are likely to be verbose. As guidelines, it'd be okay. Now, a page format for them to follow is okay, and in fact something we do need, but for the time being, we should be flexible about it until it's proven to work well. For consistency, I suggest we just start with the current quest layout with the minor tweaks needed due to foundry differences (i.e. who gives and completes a quest seems pointless for foundry quests, but having the quest ID could be useful).


 * Only the foundry quests themselves would be separated. The foundry itself is official content and the guides and other pages about it should remain in the main namespace. I don't see how this will call for any rewriting, especially since, so far, we're in agreement with allowing these pages to link into the foundry namespace. &mdash; oOeyes  [[Image:User-OOeyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 00:18, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * By rewriting I mean that you will have to add the maps in the foundry namespace again to specify the available foundry contacts, objects and exits in default cryptic maps. So the maps need to be copied and rewritten in context of foundry when porting them to its separate namespace.
 * Gillrmn (talk) 04:32, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Images already exist in their own namespace, and there isn't a way to create another image namespace, so the same files can be used unless they need to be marked differently, in which case different versions have to be uploaded either way. Besides, Cryptic's maps for the editor is still official content. It's not covered by the kind of separation we're discussing.


 * Now if a foundry author uploads screenshots and maps for his or her own quests, that's different and we wouldn't want that image used outside the Foundry namespace. We'd probably ask them to put something like Foundry-quest name at the start of the file name since we can't separate images by namespace, only where they're used. &mdash; oOeyes  [[Image:User-OOeyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 04:54, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Since there seems to be widespread agreement on using a foundry namespace, do we agree on the name Foundry? I'd like to send this in to our tech team Wednesday afternoon (tomorrow) and get it set up. An unfortunate thing happens to articles when they're put in a namespace that isn't created yet; they become completely inaccessible when it is created, so I want to make sure this is in place before early access starts.

Also, it'd be nice if we can decide whether to go with an opt-in or opt-out approach to having foundry articles searched by default, because that's also a configuration option handled by our tech team. &mdash; oOeyes   00:18, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Foundry sounds like a straightforward and good namespace for what we have in mind.
 * As for the opt-in vs opt-out nature of searches, I think that should be determined by how easy it is to tell if a search result belongs to the foundry namespace, and whether non-foundry pages tend to appear before foundry ones when there are hits from both.
 * If it's easy to tell the two apart, and inclusion by default does not make finding non-foundry pages harder, then I'd say an opt-out policy is probably best, as it maximises foundry page exposure, which is an incentive for authors to contribute with articles about their creations. - Derangement (Talk | contribs) 15:23, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * All the foundry pages will have the Foundry: prefix in their titles when seen in the search results (as well as anywhere else). Do we think that's good enough for an opt-out approach, or should we stick with opt-in?
 * And sorry, I forgot to leave a message about this, but I went ahead and had the Foundry namespace set up. It was better to have it up with a potential bad name (because we could rename it later) than having people trying to create Foundry:title pages early. &mdash; oOeyes  [[Image:User-OOeyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 00:09, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Problem with Foundry namespace
Just so you know that we're aware of the problem, for some reason, the Foundry namespace was set up with edit restrictions. (It doesn't even allow administrators to edit it.) I've sent a message to our tech team, and hopefully it will be fixed on Monday. &mdash; oOeyes   09:48, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This issue has been resolved, and the Foundry namespace is open for editing. &mdash; oOeyes  [[Image:User-OOeyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 00:49, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Visibility of Foundry: pages
So until somebody made an edit recently I wasn't even aware there were any "Foundry:" pages describing people's foundry missions, or even that it was a thing to be included on the wiki. No mention or links (that I could see) on the main foundry pages either. There is stuff in the discussion above about opting in/out of the namespace, but I'm not sure how to do that / if it can be done. So should something to be done to increase the awareness of "Foundry:" being an option and how to access stuff under it, or is this sort of an orphaned concept? - Serpinecoh (talk) 21:34, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I forgot to get around to creating a Foundry:Portal page to give some links into the Foundry section. We could then link to that from the main page and sidebar. If no one else gets to whipping something up, I'll try to find a free moment to come up with something. &mdash; oOeyes  [[Image:User-OOeyes-Sig.png|link=User talk:OOeyes]] 23:40, 12 September 2013 (UTC)