Forum:A Few Questions

For reference I'm working on the Vampire Wars wiki.

1: Sometimes it seems like I'm overloading pages with Categories. Is it better to have only a few so it's very specific, or a lot and make it include everything?

2: Last time somebody told me to get remove the "Read More" section at the bottom of the page, but I actually like it. ... When it works properly: Example 1. This page is great because it links to related articles and shows a picture.

Other times it will link to related articles, but ignores the content of the page, ignores the picture, and grabs useless text near the bottom: Example 2.

Is there any way to control it? Is example 2 messing up because all of the related pages are stored within their own templates?

3: I'm planning on making a new Abilities template because there are a lot of Abilities, and the one I'm using could be improved (See example 2 again). Somebody suggested using Infoboxes to organize the data, and I'm planning on using If Statements as well to make it universal. I'm not sure if I'll use Stylesheets or In-line CSS.

Can you give me any good tips on making a template that will be used a lot? I always feel like it should be better. Adam weiler 17:05, February 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * Categories: The number of categories that you use depends on your category structure. Your category tree is a useful page to help figure that out. Different wikis have various category organization schemes, but I can give you an example of how I do it on BioShock Wiki:
 * The general rule there is that a page should always be in the most specific applicable subcategory. So for instance, SportBoost is a Gene Tonic, and could go in Category:Gene Tonics, but there is a more specific subcategory (Category:BioShock Gene Tonics) for pages about Gene Tonics that were in the first game, so the page should go in that subcategory and not in the more general one. If you were going to use this categorization scheme for Vampire Wars wiki, you would place a page such as Just Add Water only in the subcategories Category:Movement Abilities and Category:Gift Abilities, not in the general Category:Abilities.
 * You should also be careful about categories that have been cut off from the rest of your tree by not being placed within a larger general category: that is bad for navigation. You can keep track of that kind of problem at Special:UncategorizedCategories and Special:WantedCategories.
 * "Read more" sections: Regarding the "Read more" sections, there is no direct way for you to control what pages are shown or what images and text are used. The extension follows some general rules when grabbing content for previews:
 * It only shows content from articles that are in the same category as the page being viewed.
 * The preview snippet uses the first image on the page, UNLESS:
 * The image in question is used on a large number of pages (something like 10 or more).
 * The image in question is smaller than a certain size (something like 100px square).
 * If the previewed page does not contain an image or the previous two exceptions apply, the preview will use a snippet of text from the article, EXCEPT it will never use text from within templates.
 * Template ideas: I've seen different types of templates used for that. Here's are some examples for inspiration:
 * Template:Infobox perk used on the perk page Ant Sight
 * Template:Infobox ability used on the ability page Drain Life
 * Template:Tonicinfo used on the tonic page Bloodlust
 * I can offer you tips on template making if you have some more specific questions.
 * Hope this was helpful. --Gardimuer { ʈalk } 22:38, February 29, 2012 (UTC)