Forum:Redundancy problem with RTS topics

Copied from User_talk:Coobra:

I am all for documenting the RTS series, but let us say that I wanted to look up the human town hall...
 * For Warcraft Orcs & Humans we have:
 * Town hall - The lore, with an empty statistics section
 * Town Hall (WC1 Human) - The lore and statistics
 * Warcraft: Orcs & Humans buildings - The statistics for all of them
 * Warcraft: Orcs & Humans manual - A verbatim copy of the manual with the lore


 * For Warcraft II we have:
 * Town hall - The lore, with a bare-bones statistics section
 * Town Hall (Warcraft II) - The lore and statistics
 * Warcraft II buildings - The lore and statistics for all of them
 * Warcraft II structures - The statistics for all of them
 * Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness manual - A verbatim copy of the manual with the lore


 * For Warcraft III we have:
 * Town hall - The lore, with a redirect to the statistics
 * Town Hall (Warcraft III) - The Battle.net lore and statistics
 * Warcraft III structures - The statistics for all of them
 * Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos manual - A verbatim copy of the manual with the lore

And then there are the Navigation boxes. Any thoughts?-- 21:46, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd merge the individual stat pages into the main Town Hall page and merge Warcraft II Buildings and Warcraft II Structures (how is that not redundant?). I can theoretically see the use of having a main page with all the structures, and the manual pages are useful reference. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 21:52, 12 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Maybe this should be a forum post. It was always a little redundant. Most Warcraft III creeps have a lore and a statistics page. One Wowpedian made Warcraft II buildings and the individual pages over the last few days.-- 22:01, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yea, probably best for a forum post, cause I wouldn't even know what to do with all these articles getting created. It's crazy. 23:40, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Personally I think it's great that someone is taking the time to add info about the first Warcraft games. I generally don't mind how most of the linked pages work, except for what has already been pointed out. The Warcraft II structures page adds nothing that Warcraft II buildings doesn't already have, as far as I can see. I think the way I'd prefer it, would be to have the statistics for the buildings on their respective pages, and just have directions to the pages, as with the WC3 one, on the Town hall page. PeterWind (talk) 08:53, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Whatever happens, I'd prefer if each flavour text appeared only once on the wiki. The WC2 Foundry description, for example, is copypasted at least 4/5 times all over the wiki so it's kinda hard to update it. Maybe use transclusion?Xporc (talk) 22:40, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
 * There is no reason to have that many transcriptions.-- 20:27, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I edited the Town hall article to give a better overview of Town Halls in general and also to provide what I think is the best possible framework for how we should consolidate most of the articles written on the Warcraft RTS buildings (and units).

Ideally, we should have an individual lore page on each building that gives a general description of the structure and its importance in the Warcraft universe. This page should include whether such a building makes an appearance in the Warcraft RTS games, in World of Warcraft itself, or in the RPG books. So, we would have an brief introduction and a description of what the building is. Then, there should be individual sub-sections in the same article about this building's importance and relevance to the Warcraft RTS games, usually with a link to the main article included in each section.

This should be followed by a separate article(s) written, which only describes the lore and the statistics for that particular building, depending on which specific RTS game the building appears in (so something like "Building (Warcraft I)"; or "Building (Warcraft II)"; or "Building (Warcraft III)" as the format). If two or more races share the same name for a building (such as the Barracks for Orcs and Humans, then the format should follow something like this: "Building (WC1 Human)" or "Building (WC1 Orc)".

If the building only makes an appearance in World of Warcraft or in the RPG books (and does not appear in the Warcraft RTS games), then there should not be a separate article written from the main lore article since there are likely no relevant statistics that exist for it.

So, for example, with the Town Hall article, we have:
 * Town hall - The main article which encompasses the entire lore for the structure as it appears in all the Warcraft games, but it does not include any statistics. Links are included to the other main articles.
 * Town Hall (WC1 Human) - The lore and the statistics for the Human version of the building as it appears in WC1.
 * Town Hall (WC1 Orc) - The lore and statistics for the Orc version of the building as it appears in WC1.
 * Town Hall (Warcraft II) - The lore and statistics as it appears in WC2.
 * Town Hall (Warcraft III) - The lore and statistics as it appears in WC3.

For Warcraft: Orcs & Humans buildings, Warcraft II buildings, and Warcraft III structures, I think it is reasonable to keep these pages just in case someone wanted to look up all the statistics for WC1, WC2, or WC3's buildings at once without having to go to the separate article written on each building to find that information.

The only reason I created the Warcraft II buildings article (which as you pointed out is similar to the Warcraft II structures article) was because I was glancing over the "Structures" page and I found that some of the building statistics were slightly off or wrong altogether, so I figured it would be easier to make a new page with the correct statistics. As you mentioned, we can probably merge or delete the Warcraft II structures article since we really only need one page on the statistics. I was kind of following the format of the Warcraft: Orcs & Humans buildings article when I wrote the Warcraft II buildings page at the time.

Finally, I think we should keep the Warcraft RTS manuals as they are since they are useful references for lore and other information on the Warcraft RTS games besides the buildings and units.

I hope this clears up any confusion. Let me know if you guys have any other questions or ideas on how to improve or better incorporate the Warcraft RTS topics (buildings, units, etc.) into the website. - Feeltriss (talk) 06:28, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Hey guys I know I'm late on this, but in the last weeks I've started the project of overhauling as good as I can the RTS units, starting with Warcraft I. The peon, peasant, footman, grunt, spearman, knight, raider, necrolyte, conjurer, cleric pages are the result of this work. Xporc (talk) 18:07, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I have not forgotten this, but I do not know how to respond. Good enthusiasm though. :(- 03:12, 12 May 2016 (UTC)