Help talk:Style guide

In-game message redirects

I saw some doubts if we need this: "For in-game messages, redirect the message (e.g. Something just walked over your grave. No, really!) to the article about the thing that caused it. If the message can have multiple causes, create a disambiguation page." I think this is not necessary and will clutter wiki with such messages, so I propose to delete that section. -- Derrek (talk) 18:56, 20 May 2014 (CEST)

I concur Derrek, not necessary for Wiki unless they are used as flavour on specific pages. DC Malleus (talk) 04:49, 26 May 2014 (CEST)

No, I don't think that's a good idea: for fear of *possibly too much* redirects to delete the whole way of retrieving connections. Some mysterious in-game messages ("You hear...") should be connected to the things that caused it. So even newbies have a chance to catch it. I'm contra: no deletion of such useful wiki contents. -- Bwijn (talk) 20:11, 26 May 2014 (CEST)

Can't one use search for that? I mean, browsing search results for such phrases (articles that contain flavour text), rather than finding a redirect page. -- Derrek (talk) 20:17, 26 May 2014 (CEST)

That advice has long, long ago been deemed really unnecessary. I think the odds of a user typing in the exact flavour text the game throws at them is much less likely than them looking up the monster they're facing or the item they just used. It's still there simply because no one's gotten around to removing it. I'm in favor of removing that instruction from the guide. --MoogleDan (talk) 13:50, 27 May 2014 (CEST)

Section Headings

Should the recommended section heading be Useful Info instead of Useful Infos? Wwf (talk) 01:49, 20 March 2022 (CET)

Americanized language rules?

Spelling and grammar should follow Americanized language rules. As a Canadian I find the spelling and grammar of the in game documentation and the wiki very familiar. In Canada the words "armour", "colour", and "flavor" are favored over "armor", "color", and "flavour" but both are acceptable. Even putting the comma before "and" in a list was correct when I learned grammar, but now it is optional. I don't think it is important enough to strictly follow the Americanized (Americanised? :) language rules for me to correct any pages or even change a page that I am updating. Do the guardians of the wiki have any feedback for me? Wwf (talk) 01:37, 22 March 2022 (CET)

DCSS uses Australian english (armour, artefact...), so the wiki should use the same (when talking about terms used in the game). But I'm not very consistent with it, so I default to commonwealth spelling that I know of. Not sure about the rest of grammar, so I defer to somebody else --Hordes (talk) 02:28, 22 March 2022 (CET)

Hashing Out Renames

With all the renames in current version (0.31) I think it's best to explicitly state what should be a page move, and what should be two different pages. Here's what I say:

• Species/Backgrounds: There's an official stance: if bot commands recognize them as different species, they get different pages.
• Unrands: If the name changes, it gets a new page.
• Other items: Make redirects so that readers are least surprised. So hand crossbow should redirect to hand cannon, they share an identical role. Same with potion of flight and potion of enlightenment. But potion of agility and potion of attraction are two separate things.
• Spells: If a spell still exists for monsters, it definitely gets its own page (e.g. Bolt of Fire/Starburst, Iron Shot/Bombard). Otherwise, follow the least surprise rule: PVapours should redirect to MVapours.
• Monsters: If it was just a rename, or only slight mechanical changes, then it should redirect. Otherwise new page. --Hordes (talk)

Those positions generally make sense, and I'm in favor of adding this to the style guide. The part about unrands is a little unclear. I checked the list of unrands to see how the wiki handled them in the past, and I found that the Ring of the Tortoise was renamed from ring of Robustness in 0.26. The old name redirects to the new name, which is consistent with how other items are handled, so I say we keep doing that for items without significant changes. Patrick2011b (talk) 20:24, 10 January 2024 (CET)

re: species/backgrounds. "Recognized by the bot" is a definitive way to tell if something's new or just a rename. But note that it takes some time for the bot to update, and we can get a confirmation from the devs much faster, as was done with Oni. The species was added 20-something days ago, but the Sequell ("bot") commit was done only yesterday. And the bot is not updated automatically after each new commit, so it'll take some time for Oni to appear in Sequell "properly" (you can see the current official list of species via !kw playable:sp.

re: unrands. The current way is to use the Move button when an unrand is renamed. It'll make a redirect for the old name and make redirects for all the linked images, etc. Creating a new page manually and then adding redirects is just an unnecessary busywork.

re: spells. Bolt of Fire and Starburst need two pages, since they have different range, number of beams, and free/fixed targeting. But I'll be fine with Iron Shot and Bombard sharing the same page, as they are very close. Ge0ff (talk) 17:47, 11 January 2024 (CET)

Iron Shot v Bombard should definitely be two pages, since they both exist in the same version: Cerebov has Iron Shot, Fredrick has Bombard. Ala something like Agony Range being its own page. Hordes (talk) 07:13, 12 January 2024 (CET)

Agony and Agony Range were significantly reworked recently, so they do need a page each, now.

Iron Shot and Bombard are too similar. You need two sentences to describe the former spell: "Iron Shot is a monster-only version of Bombard that doesn't have a knockback. It's the same projectile with the same properties." Is there anything else to add?

I propose to rename Iron Shot to Bombard, add Iron Shot as a sub-section there, and make an Iron_Shot -> Bombard#Iron_Shot redirect. There's no technical limitations: {{monsters with spell|Bombard}} will show kobolds and Frederick, and {{monsters with spell|Iron Shot}} will show all other spell users, w/o mixing them.

Dispel Undead - a player spell page - includes the monster-only Dispel Undead Range already. This looks like a better way of handling such similar spells. We could replace Dispel Undead Range with a redirect to Dispel_Undead#Monster_Version, because it's just a duplicate. Ge0ff (talk) 13:58, 12 January 2024 (CET)

Also, how should talismans/transformations work? I propose moving the old page to Statue Form (spell) and redirect Statue Form to the talisman.

Alternatively, we could delete the current talisman page, copy/paste the info onto the spell page, and move the spell to the talisman name. Hordes (talk) 11:40, 14 January 2024 (CET)

Yeah, the alternative idea makes more sense (we did something similar for Repel Missiles). An article about the talisman should be the main one. Everything worth salvaging from Statue Form should go there, including all the spell's History. Ge0ff (talk) 01:25, 16 January 2024 (CET)