HRWiki talk:Standards

From Homestar Runner Wiki

Revision as of 13:41, 13 April 2005

REALLY External Links?

I can't find anything about this in the user guide.. but you know in the external links section of writeups, and in other places, how it puts that icon after the link (a blue box with an arow coming out)? To me, that essentially says "The link will open up in a new window" as well as "The link goes offsite". I've seen many websites (including every website I've built.. lightsecond.com, bend.com) that have the convention that if the link goes offsite, it should do so in a new window. Can/should we do the same here?
MetaStar 20:47, 25 Sep 2004 (MST)

I'm voting against it. Opening a link in a new window is almost pretentious, as if the site you are on should have the power to not let you leave. Modern browsers like Firefox will let you open a link in a new tab when you want to go elsewhere by middle-clicking your mouse, and users are used to doing that when they want to stay on the current site. Furthermore, Firefox by default doesn't open new window links in new tabs, which annoys me to no end. I would say that an offsite link should behave like a normal link, so as not to confuse the user, and that opening a link in a new window should be a perogative of a web application that has a good reason for not taking you offsite. An example of this would be Hotmail, which opens links in a new window to keep you logged in unless you explicity log out. Most users of this site won't be logged in, and they'll be expecting the wiki to behave like like a normal website. So I saw leave it the way it is, and let the user control where his links pop up. If the icon is confusing, change the icon. Render

What about if it's a logged-in-user user preference? And of course this all pre-supposes that such fancies are possible in MediaWiki, which I dunno :) Anyway I have yet to understand tabs since they always open underneath the current page.. they make me think of icky popunders. (Do you know of any good tabbed-browsing-for-dummies like faq on the 'net? I'd read that ;)
MetaStar 22:21, 25 Sep 2004 (MST)

User-configurable preferences are always good. Any admins know if this is possible in MediaWiki without a major overhaul? (As for tabs, I suppose it's just one of those things that just sort of grows on you. I like the pop-under effect because it lets me open interesting links for deferred viewing while I continue reading the page I'm on.) Render

Bold Punctuation?

I like how this is coming along, Jones. One question, though: haven't we always placed the colon outside the bold tags, as in "THE CHEAT:"? I guess I don't mind it either way, as long as we are adhering to a standard, but are there rules to this sort of thing? I remember being taught in school that punctuation should never be bold. --JoeyDay 09:43, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

Er, I thought we did it the other way around. And since the colon is part of the character "declaration" (rather than part of the dialogue), it seems more natural to have it bold as well. -- InterruptorJones 10:00, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

Okay, I've been looking around the web (but Tom is better at Googling than I am) and I can't find anything about whether or not punctuation should be bold. I think it looks more consistent to have the colon in bold. I just wanted to be sure that was the right thing. Carry on. --JoeyDay 10:26, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

I've always bolded the colon. ~Hobo

Think about it the inverse way. What if you were being asked to bold the dialog instead of the character name? Would you then bold the colon as well? The colon would still have a space before the dialog started so that would look pretty silly: "THE CHEAT: Meh!". so I think you should do with the colon what you do with the character name, not what you do with the dialog. :)

MetaStar 20:19, 25 Sep 2004 (MST)

Cast (in order of appearance) vs Featuring/Features

I was thinking, for pages for things like early Strong Bad Emails and anything else where only one character appears, it seems kind of redundant to add the "in order of appearance" part since only one character appears. For SBemail#1, I just put "Cast" but even this seems a bit improper as a cast is generally referring to "The actors in a play, movie, or other theatrical presentation," not just one actor. I thought "Featuring" or something like that would be more appropriate... I feel like I'm rambling. ~Hobo

I guess I don't have an opinion on this one. Certainly "(in order of appearance) is superflouous for one-character toons, but beyond that I don't much care. Anybody else? -- InterruptorJones 11:41, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

To me, "Featuring" would make the most sense for one-character toons ~Hobo

Yeah, for a one character toon I like the word "Featuring". --JoeyDay 12:55, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

But what about the meaning of the word "featuring"? Didn't cheatday feature The Cheat? I'd think using that word for some emails and "cast" for others would be misleading. Or at the very least, confusing. I'm thinking that leaving off the "in order of appearance" for toons with only one character would work well enough. -- Tom 14:24, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

I'm with Tom on this. Brevity good, "featuring" bad ;) I know on albums and song titles they say "song, by Rapper, feat. other guys".. but it isn't feat. Rapper. I'm also selfishly hoping the word "featuring" can be ostricised for long enough to easily convert things.

A quick look at a thesaurus suggests to me we could say "Starring: Strong Bad" but I'd also listen to other bright idears

MetaStar 20:28, 25 Sep 2004 (MST)

SB email reference.

I have been using the following styles when referencing a Strong Bad Email depending on the context.

in the email "[[the facts]]"

 in the Strong Bad Email: [[the facts]] 

==Complete Filmography==
* Email: [[duck pond]]

My goal is to make it clear that we are refering to the title of something. Otherwise one could get a sentance like,

Pom Pom kicked Strong Bad in the head in Pom Pom.

Not clear at all. Should this reference be standardized? -Drhaggis 11:47, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

It wouldn't hurt to standardize it since I see all sorts of different usages all over. However, I tend to put the quotation marks inside the link like this: [[the facts|"the facts"]], which yields "the facts". Looks better to me, but I'd like to hear others' opinions. -- InterruptorJones 11:54, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

I don't think having the leading "Strong Bad Email" is needed. But that's me. What about readers who don't know the emails? But then, if we started putting "in the email, sibbie", would we also need to start using that for toons and shorts as well, as in "in the toon, Where's The Cheat?" and "in the short Experimental Film"? Hmm. I'd also like to hear some other' input.

Though I do like having the Filmography listings standardized. Very good. -- Tom 12:34, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

I will third the opinion that quotes should be around the title of a toon or email when it is being used in a sentence (as opposed to a bulleted list of related items such as that found on the SBEmail page). I'm not sure which I like better. Putting them outside the link would be easier on my poor typing finders, but putting them inside the link does look nicer. Just my two cents for what it's worth. Should we start a decision poll on the Forum? Not sure we need the leading "in the email, 'whatever'". I think we can just say, "in 'the facts'." As long as it's in quotes you know it's a toon or an email as opposed to it being a character as in Drhaggis' example. --JoeyDay 12:41, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

For me, having the quotes in the brackets is unnecessary piping. We should also be adding quotes around unlinked toon titles. -Drhaggis 15:02, 21 Sep 2004 (MST)

Since when do we not transcribe easter eggs?

I personally think easter eggs should be transcribed. We can't hardly bill ourselves as a definitive knowledge-base of all things Homestar if we don't have transcripts of the easter eggs. Yes, it would ruin the surprise, but so does everything else on our site! The whole reason for a transcript is for people to understand what the characters are saying. If I can't make out what Strong Sad is saying in some-such easter egg, I'd like to be able to find it on the site and read what other people think/know he's saying. --JoeyDay 13:37, 22 Sep 2004 (MST)

Okay, fair enough. So we need a standard for transcribing them. Any ideas? -- InterruptorJones 13:50, 22 Sep 2004 (MST)

I liked having the short transcript under the bulleted item, but that does get bulky. Let me play around with some ideas and get back to you. --JoeyDay 14:24, 22 Sep 2004 (MST)

I took this claim against transcription of EE, was for cases when the egg would be detailed on another page. Such as in the case of a game, or the introduction of another characeter. -Drhaggis 19:02, 22 Sep 2004 (MST)

I thought we always did transcribe them. And the unwritten rule has always been this: If the egg is "clickable", that is, the user has to do something to cause the egg, it goes in the "Easter Egg" section. If the egg does not require any action on the part of the user, besides them just sitting in front of their computer a little longer, it goes in the Transcript. I'm pretty sure that's what everybody does anyway, but I just want to make it clear. -- Tom 19:08, 22 Sep 2004 (MST)

What about creating subheadings (i.e. ===cheatsa===) before each easter egg transcript in the Easter Eggs section? That would make things clearer. (I'm thinking something like:)

===Homestar===
'''Click on the word "Homestar" to see Homestar crying.'''

''{Homestar is still bawling.}''

'''HOMESTAR''': Ohh, Tenderfoot! Can you tell me what to do
with myself? I feel like I'm at a crossroads, and there's like,
a Denny's on one corner, and an IHOP on the other!

''{Homestar is kneeling over the Tenderfoot drawing.}''

'''HOMESTAR''': Can you give me some sound financial advice?

''{Homestar is laying on the ground again.}''

'''HOMESTAR''': Tenderfoot, can you help advise me on my future?

Anybody with me? --oddtodd 11:17, 20 Nov 2004 (MST)

Format for Lyrics

Song lyrics are inconsistently styled throughout the site. I propose that we embed lyrics in <pre> tags, so that they show up inside of a box the same way that the transcribed text of the Strong Bad emails do. Thoughts? Render

Seconded. --Upsilon

Seconded. -flatluigi

Forward references

dragon has a link to guitar. Should guitar have a link to dragon?

Chronology on the official site shouldn't affect what can link to what in the wiki. If a link to a future email is interesting and relevant, I don't see why it shouldn't be included. Render

Category pages

Currently Category pages, such as Category:Strong Bad Email or Category:1936 only contain text such as "These articles are all Strong Bad Emails.", and all the substance on that topic is contained in a separate page. Would it make more sense to move all of the substance to the Category page, and turn the actual Strong Bad Email or 1936 page into a mere redirect to the Category? Once and Only Once etc, since it would also provide the listing of everything in the Category underneath. -- thejesterx 21:47, 6 Oct 2004 (MST)

No, I don't think so. The Strong Bad Email page has a lot of information that wouldn't fit in the category page, and it's a lot easier to link to a regular page ([[Strong Bad Email]] vs. [[:Category:Strong Bad Email|Strong Bad Email]]) than a category. Categories should just be categories, not articles. ~~~

Character pictures

Now we use thumbnails for toon screenshots - should we do the same for character images? I assume we should, but I thought I'd better verify since it's not made clear anywhere. --Upsilon

EDIT: According to the projects page (drawn to my attention by spblat), "we need to comb the entire wiki changing full-sized images to thumbnails". This pretty much answers my question. --Upsilon

Easter Egg Transcribing Part 2

OK, since I've heard conflicting ideas on the wiki on whether or not Easter Eggs should be transcribed or not, can we finally get some sort of official, definitive yes/no on this? There's both the discussion on this page, the actual Standards page itself, and the discussion page for extra plug to take into consideration as to my confusion concerning it. I'm asking about this since, while I took the conversation on this page and in extra plug to mean Easter Eggs are expected to be transcribed now, some Easter Egg transcriptions are now being removed (see, for example, Where the Crap Are We?.) --TheNintenGenius 12:00, 18 Oct 2004 (MST)

This site aims to preserve so much other minutiae about Homestar Runner that I can’t imagine where the policy to not transcribe easter eggs came from. Are we trying to reduce spoilers? In that case, all of the transcripts are also inappropriate. I say we transcribe eggs in the easter eggs section where they are clearly marked and can be skipped by those who want to discover them on their own. Render

I was the one who deleted the Where the Crap Are We? egg transcript. I've probably removed a couple of others as well, because I wasn't aware that we should be transcribing eggs. Sorry about that. (I assume we are now giving egg transcripts?) --Upsilon

Yes, we are now transcribing easter eggs. I believe I caused the confusion. Sorry 'bout that. — InterruptorJones[[]]

FYI: In the other "Easter Egg Transcribing" section, I proposed a format to transcribe easter eggs with in order to reduce clutter. --oddtodd 11:21, 20 Nov 2004 (MST)

Thumbnails vs full-size images?

I read here that we should be focused on using thumbnails instead of full size images. I've been doing this on some, but I don't want to go nuts before I know I'm not messing things up. Are there any cases where full size screenshots (like this) should be preserved? -- spblat 7:13 PM 23 Oct 2004 (later) foo. Answered my own question. looks like full speed ahead--the standards page is quite clear on this.

Places

Should we start adding "Places (in order of apperance)" on toon pages? I think it would be helpful to new-comers, as well as everyone else. →FireBird

Wikilinks in transcript dialogue

There should never be links in dialogue or email sections.

I'm not so sure about this rule. Certainly we shouldn't create links willy-nilly. But when Strong Bad asks, "Did the quadratic formula explode?", it'd be nice to just link the words "quadratic formula" than to have to propose a whole fun fact about it (which is often not that much fun). - [[User:furrykef|furrykef (Talk at me)]] 01:03, 25 Nov 2004 (MST)

Nah. I'd like to keep it as it is. →[[User:FireBird|FireBird]]

Splitting Fun Facts

I have an idea for splitting the Fun Facts section intol multiple smaller segments - so, if we can't get rid of the now-customary influx of "facts", we can at least split them up. I put my proposed edit (which is open for debate!) at 'link deleted'. --Jay 03:44, 7 Jan 2005 (MST)

Sounds interesting and well thought out, but I think we might want to wait for the dust to settle from this whole star thingy before we start to shake things up any more. -- Tom 21:02, 7 Jan 2005 (MST)

Strangely enough, it was the whole star thing that caused me to bring it up in the first place (though I'd been toying with the idea for a while.) --Jay 00:07, 8 Jan 2005 (MST)

I was bored at work and started segmenting some of the Strong Bad Emails. For now I'm not doing any more in the interest that the Wiki should decide on one standard for the fun facts; otherwise I'm just opening up a can of worms that doesn't need to be touched. Kamek 10:19, 11 Jan 2005 (MST)

Since I had to remove the subpages, I moved the proposed changes and example to my talk page. Nothing changed, really. PS. I like the "Fast Forward" category name (used in some kinda robot by Kamek) over my somewhat lame "To be continued..." --Jay 13:06, 11 Jan 2005 (MST)

Well, if the two of you want to tackle this, I don't really see any reason why you shouldn't. I'll try to help when I can. -- AgentSeethroo

I'll go ahead and continue with the refactoring of the Fun Facts. The way I see it is that if something isn't done about it, nothing will get done at all. For the most part I'll try to stick to your proposed standards, Jay. I might add or remove categories if necessary. Kamek 17:59, 11 Jan 2005 (MST)

I think the fun facts layout should be as following:

== Fun Facts ==
=== Trivia ===
Interesting facts about the toon or e-mail.
=== References ===
Interesting references to other things outside Homestar Runner.
=== References To Other Cartoons ===
References to other cartoons.
=== References By Other Cartoons ===
References that other cartoons have made to this toon or e-mail.

I realize that this is roughly what is already being done, but I think the sections should be reworded.

And what about this "gold star" thing? Is it going to happen, or are we going to trash it? Have we even decided yet? →[[User:FireBird|FireBird]]

As you've probably noticed, I've split all the sbemails and TGS8. The Fun Facts heading is still there, but everything is in subcategories now. The only complaints I got were one person who didn't like me splitting the emails with very few facts - which I have explained (on my talk page) - and another who didn't like the category name "Fast Forward" (because it was too ambiguous) but didn't offer anything better. (Of course, I'd gladly delete the Fast Forward subcategory and every last Fun Fact within it, except that most people don't seem to agree that this is a good idea.) Is everyone okay with this being a permanent change? Any complaints about the splitting itself, rather than the format? Should we update the Standards? --Jay 19:57, 18 Jan 2005 (MST)

Real-World References?

Is just me, or do we need better name for "Real-World References"? The name isn't very accurate when we add facts about other fiction. I suggest "Outside References" or "Cultural References". --Trogga 15:02, 11 Apr 2005 (MDT)

On the one hand, I think you're on to something when you say that "Cultural" might be a better term. On the other hand... well, you'd have to go through a LOT of articles to fix it... --Jay 15:16, 11 Apr 2005 (MDT)

That's why we Projects, my friend. --Trogga 07:41, 13 Apr 2005 (MDT)

Err... Why was my edit reverted?

Internet (as in the Internet; the one Homestar Runner is on) is a proper noun and should thus be capitalized. See Wikipedia:Internet. --_{Úħ¡ βøв} 20:38, 27 Mar 2005 (MST)

Forgot to mention that Flash (as in Macromedia Flash; the format that most Homestar Runner content is in) should also be capitalized, yet the F goes uncapitalized on many pages. --_{Úħ¡ βøв} 20:40, 27 Mar 2005 (MST)

Good question about the "I" in Internet. I'm not really sure, you might want to ask over on InterruptorJones's talk page. As for the "F" in Flash, that's a good point. I change it when I see it, and I've updated the page to note the capital. -- Tom 00:16, 28 Mar 2005 (MST)

Duration vs. Running Time

I've noticed that, at least for Strong Bad Email pages/transcripts, the note about how long it is is inconsistent. Some pages use "Duration," others use "Running Time." Not that it's really that big of a deal, but which one would be better to use? (I vote "Running Time.")—StrongstarRunbad 09:14, 30 Mar 2005 (MST)