HRWiki talk:Standards

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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

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.

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