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Before starting to add content, we should discuss the general structure of this wiki. Since 4e is near, I think we have enough time to discuss this thoroughly, since anything we might add now will be obsolete in the not-so-far future. These are the topics that should be discussed:

• What kind of information should be added to the wiki, and what kind should not
• How we are going to seperate different types of content (say, SRD vs. homebrew)
• What policies we should have as a wiki
• What other possible topics are crucial to discuss before adding content

Please discuss the matter, and sign your entries by typing four tildes (~~~~) or clicking signature button above. --Blacxthorne 18:53, 21 April 2008 (GMT)

Well, first things first will be a delineation and separation of 3.5e vs. 4e. "Obsolete" isn't the right word; there are a large contingent of players who simply won't be moving to 4e.

Case-in-point: I know the in-house DnDresources.com group isn't planning on going to 4e, as we've multiple long-established campaigns that would be entirely too much effort to try to translate. One of the campaigns was a heavy lift from 2nd to 3e, and there's no wish to repeat that effort.

Therefore, we need to come up with a classification system for articles that are 4e-specific, 3.5e-specific, or version-agnostic. I'd agree that we need to separately identify official SRD content from homebrew, too.

In the end, though, we're probably looking at something that looks more like a TOC-of-TOCs page than a hierarchal tree. Go to *this* TOC for 4e, go to *that* TOC for 3.5e, go to *this other TOC* for only homebrew... Messy, but I can't see an easier way of doing it save for a tag-search engine.

Templates would be another boon; a simple template for each aspect of the game, such that feats "look the same" no matter whether they come from the SRD, Player A, or Player Anon.

--Cuilean 20:39, 21 April 2008 (GMT)

I completely agree that 3.5e, 4e, and homebrew should be kept separate. Perhaps each should have its own namespace and the TOC of TOCs would simply list links to the main headings of each (e.g. 3.5e/Races, Combat, Spells, ect.). Another issue to mention is the incorporation of 3rd party OGL information. Should we have an SRD-only section, or should we make it an OGL section that incorporates other 3rd-party work?

Perhaps campaigns collectively should have their own namespace, too, or should each individual one have its own namespace? Again, search-ability would be easier with individual namespaces, but it might make the wiki unwieldy. I'm not sure.

As far as policies are concerned, I think we definitely need to be absolute nazis about copyright issues. We don't want this site getting nailed because some yahoo thinks CA material is SRD. That being said, we should come up with some tag system for OGL materials so that our pages don't become cluttered with OGL announcements. I think a simple [[SRD] (superscript link) to a page listing all the necessary documentation would be the least invasive and least repetitive way of handling this. Alternatively, footnotes can work fine, but I think using the link would potentially be better for Lady, as the page with each reference could also have a link to sell books (SRD could have links to PHB, DMG, MM, and UA; Arcana Evolved could have a link to buy that book, etc.).

Another policy we should consider is the duplication of work. The SRD/OGL section will have a lot of useful information, but sometimes homebrews alter this "core" material. How do we want to handle altered core materials for the purposes of homebrews? A link to the original with a list of changes can be confusing, especially if badly written. Rewriting the entire thing can duplicate a lot of material but make for a more attractive and more understandable page.

That's all I have right now. I'll probably add some more later on.

--Raven Bloodmoon 23:39, 21 April 2008 (GMT)

--EDIT CONFLICT--

I knew the word "obsolete" would come back and bite me in the ... you know. What I meant was mainly the SRDs, that would be updated. Of course not everyone will convert; I understand the skepticism (although I'm very eager to see 4e) and that was one of the things I meant by "different types of content". SRD vs. homebrew was just an example, editions is also a part of that.

Some good ideas about the templates, and "classification". Here's a couple of things that comes to mind:

• We should have a namespace for SRD. That would seperate SRD content from the rest of the wiki content (which will mainly be homebrew content, and personal workspaces). If you look at the main page fake content table, you can see that I already illustrated this, linking SRD content to pages that have that namespace ("Basics" is linked to SRD:Basics, for example).
• We should have templates for skills, feats, spells, statblocks, and any feature that has the same "outfit" everywhere. We can also have variations of different editions. Instead of {{feat}}, for example, we would use {{feat35e}} or {{feat4e}}, etc. But this is obviously something to consider much later, as we have more important issues.
• For classification of different edition content, I think we can have a better solution than having entire trees of single editions. We can have all index pages broken down into editions. Instead of having a Spells page like this:

4e Spells

3.5e Spells

2e Spells etc.

and make each page to list its own set of spells, we can have a single Spells page like this:

4e Spells

• Spell A
• Spell B
• Spell C

3.5 Spells

• Spell D
• Spell E
• Spell F etc.

That will definitely simplify navigation. If you want spells, you just go to the spells page and see all of the spells together, but seperated into the editions they are intended for.

• More on editions: As to the pages that have content of a single edition (say, Spell D from the above example is 3.5e material) then we should classify it in category, obviously. And it seems like the best thing to do is classify it in the name, in parentheses, like Spell D (3.5e) or Spell C (4e). This would help us disambiguate spells from different versions that share the exact same name. But adding edition parentheses to every single title is a little nauseating. But it's possibly the best. But here's the part where it gets tricky: We also need the same parentheses for disambiguation of spells and feats and other types of things that might share the same name. One can accept the fact that we have to put parentheses after every title, but having two sets of parentheses is ridiculous. Alternatively, we can have both in the same parentheses: Blahblah (4e spell), Yadayada (3.5e feat). --Blacxthorne 23:41, 21 April 2008 (GMT)

As to Raven's concerns: I thought about namespaces to different classes of pages (and told you a little about that) but I changed my mind, because that seems to make things very complicated. We would have to have many namespaces like CampaignSetting: Feat: Spell: etc. Plus there would be almost no content on the (Main) namespace. Campaign settings having their own namespaces (like Sultansword: namespace) is out of the question. We want to have practically unlimited content here, and that means dozens or more campaign settings should be at least theoretically possible. If we had to give namespaces to each one of them, that would be the new definition of Abyss :). However, that kind of thing is covered by my suggestion above. Basically, "class"="campaign setting" here, so my campaign setting page would be titled Sultansword (3.5e campaign setting). House rules, monsters, classes, feats and such, that are homebrew for a particular campaign setting, will often be available for any campaign setting. So I say we don't have them under the campaign setting, but indicating it in, again, the parentheses. For example, if I have, say some house rule called "death roll", instead of having it titled Sultansword (3.5e campaign setting)/Death roll, we'll have it titled Death roll (Sultansword house rule). This is just a suggestion though.

And of course for clarification, we will have lots of templates. Ones indicating OGC and SRD of course will be two of the most important templates. Of course the details should be settled along with the policies themselves.

Some of the policies I suggest are:

• Copyright policy (also covering other licenses, like CC, OGC, etc.)
• Discussion policy (how to handle discussion pages)
• General usage guide (about how we should use ResourceWiki, this will basically be a beginner's guide and will have some basic stuff from all the policies and more, like how to add new pages, where to contribute and discuss, how to handle vandalism, no personal attacks, etc.)
• Manual of style (how particular types of content should be written, for example if we're using a certain template for feats we mention it here)

That's it for now. It's 3:12 here. I gotta sleep, I'll come back in 2 days. Thanks a lot for discussing all this, it definitely gives hope about the whole thing :). --Blacxthorne 00:14, 22 April 2008 (GMT)

Personally, I find the prospect of having to add a suffix longer than than that which it is describing annoying in an extreme. It clutters things, makes them more confusing, and generally degrades the site. I don't see how using separate namespaces for 3.5e and 4e is complicated or otherwise unwise. I also don't know why anyone would make a spells namespace or a feats namespace. That just sounds sort of silly. Within an edition, there are very few places where a disambiguation would be required, and we can handle those instances easily enough(i.e. Jump (Disambiguation), Jump (Skill), and Jump (Spell)).

I do agree that we need written policies regarding licenses, copyrighted materials, and usage. A manual of style would be useful, as well, but it would need to be simple and elegant. Short pages are good pages; short titles are good titles. People generally don't like having to read more than they have to, and anywhere extraneous information is jammed into a name or page, the wiki gets more confusing. Remember KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. It's a great rule to live by.

--Raven Bloodmoon 01:12, 22 April 2008 (GMT)

Certainly a good point. I didn't actually suggest namespaces for spells and feats; I thought that was what you were suggesting and said that it can't be possible, so I guess we're in agreement on that :). Why i didn't support editions as namespaces was because we'd still have to use parentheses and that would mean that everything would have a namesapce (i.e. prefix) and parentheses (i.e. suffix), like 35E:Sultansword (Campaign Setting). As an alternative, we could remove editions from titles altogether. I suggested that list pages should have lists seperated into editions. Maybe normal pages could do that too. So let's say we have a Jump spell for 3.5e and 4e, and Jump skill for 3.5e only (because I think it's part of thievery now in 4e? whatever it's just an example). We would have Jump (skill), which describes the 3.5e skill, and has a template (simply a notification regarding this being 3.5e content). Then we would have a Jump (spell) page. This page would have two sections, one titled Jump (3.5e spell) and another titled Jump (4e spell) with descriptions below each title. Yes I think this would be great. and Jump would redirect to Jump (disambiguation), which would list everything called "Jump". We don't need namespaces, and parentheses would be just (feat), (skill), (campaign setting), (rule) or (house rule), etc.

That leaves us with the campaign setting-specific rules and stuff. Do you think that Jump (Sultansword spell) is too much? I don't think so, but if it is, alternatively we could have a Jump (Sultansword spell) as another section title in the Jump (spell) page. The SRD is going to be seperated by the namespace, so that wouldn't mix SRD and hombrew content--If we have Jump (spell) then it means that it's a homebrew spell anyway, and different from SRD:Jump (spell). Right?

Just as a reminder (I forgot to mention it before), the manual of style should definitely have the core rulebook basics (that spells should be written in italics, abilities should be capitalized, etc). --Blacxthorne 09:48, 22 April 2008 (GMT)

After thinking about it, this might actually work out better. If we do it this way, we won't have to have Elyria/Races/Riverfolk. My primary concern was the use of categories. I find them an excellent way to categorize the large number of pages that we end up creating as we make our settings (lists of feats, spells, etc.), and the primary complaint I've recieved about my past wiki attempts were that it was hard to look for a specific feat or spell in the list because of all the [CARP] around it. Putting the item of interest's name first should clear up a lot of that. I'm sorry I didn't think of it myself.

As far as disambiguations are concerned, the way I have usually seen it done is that each page "jump" page will have a link to the Jump (Disambiguation) page (usually the only page entitled "Jump" or redirected to from "Jump") and then all germaine content. I think this would suffice.

I hate to say this, but before we settle on a manual of style, we should really see what style they adopt for 4e. Even now, I initially agreed with you, Blacxthorne, but we all have a 3e/3.5e bias. One solution would be to format all of the 3.5e materials the way 3.5e is formated and format all 4e material in the 4e format. That may end up looking a tad wonky, depending on what WotC hands us. It might be better if we just settle on our own independant format for consistancy's sake. The wiki on a whole will look better for it.

So to summaraize topics in need of discussion, we now have:

• How we will separate different content
  • How TOCs will be handled
• What policies we will have as a wiki
• What style our manual of style will have
  • How licenses and copyrights will be denoted within a page
  • Templates and their uses
• Anything else we can think of

--Raven Bloodmoon 12:38, 22 April 2008 (GMT)

:Yeah, I'd guessed "obsolete" really wasn't what you intended, B, but wanted to make sure that we didn't paint ourselves into a 4e corner.

You mentioned above separation-of-namespace regarding SRD and Homebrew, and I'm all right with that. But my follow-up question is how to handle the separation of editions --- that is, how to denote SRD3.5e from SRD4e. Does the edition namespace come first (4e/SRD)? Is it part of the namespace (SRD4e)? Is it a subsection of the SRD namespace (SRD/4e)? Is it not separated at all, but as per B's second example, duplication in place, e.g.:

• Magic
  • 4e Spells
    • Spells A-D
    • Spells E-H
    • ....
  • 3.5e Spells
    • Spells A-D
    • Spells E-H

Totalitarian copyright-police is an absolute must. Generate a separate namespace for licenses, where we can put the OGL3.5e, the OGL4e, the basic CC texts, etc., and make sure we put a linking tag regarding the appropriate license at the top of each section, especially if the license changes as you browse. I know this sort of belongs in the style manual, but if we can get clear icons for each type of license and make their placement mandatory, we'll dodge any sort of legal bullet.

Space shouldn't be an issue. I vote for duplication of work with appropriate attribution rather than delta-text for home-brew rule changes. One plus side is that a player can then print out the home-brew page by itself and hand it to their DM, and it will contain all the info as opposed to just the changes. A mixed-bag side is that if for some reason the original text changes (rule clarification, errata, etc.) the basis for the change is preserved. We need to put that in the style manual too so people have a clear guideline as to how to attribute and denote changes.

I'm not averse to parenthetical clarification, even long ones, so long as we agree on how those parenthetical clarifications get assigned.

I say we go ahead and pick a style and stick with it. They didn't make sweeping style changes from 2e to 3.0 to 3.5. So, I'd propose that we take the 3.5e style, because I'm pretty sure they won't make huge changes to it for 4e anyhow.

--Cuilean 15:59, 22 April 2008 (GMT)

I think a TOC of TOCs, so to speak, might be the way to go. It's still technically duplication, but I think duplicating further up the content tree would lessen its impact. It's easier to just duplicate the titles of chapters rather than duplicating each heading in each chapter, so to speak.

Copyright Gestapo it shall be. I like the idea of having icons like that, as it has the potential to make things look nice while still keeping our site legal.

I am also pleased that we can duplicate where necessary rather than having lists of changes to core materials. That will keep the wiki quite useable and nice. I think notating changes from core is a good case for footnotes. It's page-specific and campaign-specific, so there's no reason it will be duplicated on multiple pages. Footnotes are also relatively unintrusive in the course of a text.

As far as parenthetical clarifications go, let's do it military style. We need a callsign for Edition, CS, and Type for certain. I propose the following:

• Edition
  • 3e (assuming anyone is still using it)
  • 3.5e
  • 4e
  • (Future addition number followed by "e")
• Campaign Setting
  • SRD
  • Sultansword
  • (Official Campaign Setting Name)
• Type
  • Race
  • Class
  • Skill
  • Feat
  • Invocation
  • Spell
  • Power
  • Monster
  • (We should publish a complete list somewhere with provisions on how to append it.)

So to piece it all together, after a page title, the parenthetical would read [Edition] [Campaign Setting] [Type], each separated by a single space. For example, (3.5e Sultansword Spell). It's basically what Blacxthorne suggested.

So 3.5e style it is, then? I have some free time coming, so I'll see what I can do about typing up a preliminary Manual of Style to cover 3.5e style. We can then add to it as we finalize more stuff.

On a slightly OT note, does anyone know if 2e or 1e are OGL? If so, do we eventually want ot expand to support those as well? I realize this would be a serious back burner project, but it would probably make us the most complete dnd wiki on the web by far. It'd be a feather in our hat, at least. Shut up. I like feathers.

--Raven Bloodmoon 23:19, 22 April 2008 (GMT)

I was just working on the Manual of Style and had a question. Are going to use contractions or not? WotC does, and it drives me crazy. I feel like I'm reading a poorly written 3rd grade paper on ebonics. I, however, prefer proper grammar, so I'd rather let you decide.

Here's what I've done so far. Feel free to comment all you like. It's far from complete, but it's a start.

--Raven Bloodmoon 00:59, 23 April 2008 (GMT)

Good effort, Raven. I will get back on the MOS.

First let me say htat wikification (wiki-linking) is a huge pain in the chair either way. Let's say we had it all in parentheses. A wikified jump would be coded as [[Jump (3.5e Sultansword spell)|''jump'']]. If we had it otherwise (just the type in parentheses and editions in headings under the single page), we would have to code it like this: [[Jump (spell)#Sultansword|''jump'']]. If it were an SRD spell, [[SRD:Jump (3.5e spell)|''jump'']] or [[SRD:Jump (spell)#3.5e|''jump'']] would be the case. However, having long parentheses would be more helpful, because the page we link to each time, however long its name is, will contain accurate information. For example, if I use a 3.5e SRD jump, I'll link it to SRD:Jump (3.5e spell) that contains only the description of that spell. Although the other example also scrolls to a specific section of a page, it'll still have the other sections, and maybe somewhat ambiguous for those who do not realize that they're led to that specific section, but look at the whole page instead thinking what the baator is going on. Besides, we will not have to have edition and campaign setting in the same parentheses, unless there are versions of the CS. Sultansword is Sultansword, and it will either be 3.5e, or 4e, and I'll not have both. So instead of adding the same edition to all Sultansword pages, we would have edition notifications in the pages that say that the information is specific for 3.5e, or 4e. For campaign settings like Forgotten Realms, I still think in-parenthesis edition clarification is not needed, and in-page notification will suffice, but I'll leave that to those who know better.

For convenience, in each page, we would have a note, or several notes, to related pages. For example, in Jump (3.5e spell), which is a non-CS-specific homebrew spell (does not have the SRD: namespace or a campaign setting name in the parentheses), we could have notes like:

This page is about a 3.5e homebrew spell. For a list of other spells named "jump", see jump (spell).

This page is about a 3.5e homebrew spell. For the 3.5e SRD spell, see SRD:Jump (3.5e spell).

Of course in this page, we would not have links to the skill, the other editions specifically. Since the title obviously contains (3.5e spell), the only thing it can be mistaken for is the SRD version (someone forgets to add the namespace), or some other spell (still homebrew, but CS-specific). The first link already goes to a page that lists all the spells named "jump" in the wiki. Further specific links (to 4e SRD, to 4e homebrew) will not be needed.

We would also have navigation templates. The idea is to have a navigation box that provides useful links to other pages, related to the page you are in. The jump 3.5e spell page would have a J-3.5e-homebrew-spells box (that contains links to all 3.5e homebrew spells that begin with J, plus links to other letters) plus a box to jump-spells (that contains homebrew and SRD spells from all the editions). That would cover almost everywhere you would want to go from that specific page. That requires a lot of templates, and lots and lots of wikiness, but I know it can be done (and I can do it). This is just to give an idea as to how the pages will be like when the wiki is golden. It has very low priority, of course, at least for now.

To summarize the disambiguation/classification/clarification issue... I think, going on with the example of jump, we should have:

Spells (lists all homebrew spells under edition sections, and first-letter subsections)

SRD:Spells (lists all SRD spells under edition sections and first-letter subsections)

Jump (redirect page, to Jump (disambiguation))

Jump (disambiguation) (lists all SRD and homebrew pages with the name jump: skills, spells, feats, etc.)

Jump (spell) (another list page, lists all SRD and homebrew spells with the name jump)

Jump (3.5e spell) (describes a non-cs-specific homebrew spell, or more if available)

• Also links to: Jump (spell), SRD:Jump (3.5e spell)

SRD:Jump (3.5e spell) (describes SRD spell)

• Also links to: Jump (spell), Jump (3.5e spell)

Jump (Sultansword spell) (describes Sultansword-specific spell)

• Also links to: Jump (spell)

I think that's all the clarification we need.

Back to the MOS... I really don't like contractions in "formal" information. But the WotC do it. The question is: Does it make it look unprofessional and poorly-written? Or does it give the whole thing the young, cool, friendly spirit? I think it's debatable. But if we're gonna "not like" contractions, we shouldn't dictate them. I think it's fair to say something like, that using contractions are allowed, but not preferred, and editing them to their formal versions whenever possible is encouraged, but it's not allowed to edit formal usage to contract them. Unless, of course, they are representations of speech. --Blacxthorne 14:30, 23 April 2008 (GMT)

The reason to include version information in campaign-setting specific links like "Jump (3.5e Sultansword spell)" would be so that users who are looking for 3.5e-compatible home-brew alternatives can see them at a glance on the disambiguation page. Those three or five more keystrokes will add an extra bit of navigation clarity.

I will take a glance through the manual of style myself, but I nod to Black's statemenet regarding contractions. We can't force people not to use them, but we can note the preference for non-contracted grammar. We can also reserve the right to edit them to non-contracted form, save in the instances where the contraction is part of a conversation. --Cuilean 15:30, 23 April 2008 (GMT)

Well, the great thing about wiki is that you don't have to link them as they are. You can type [[Example]] to link to the "Example" page, but you can also type please see the example [[Example|here]]. to make the word "here" a link to the "Example" page. Users looking for 3.5e-compatible alternatives can check the Jump (disambiguation) page, or the Jump (spell) page can either use an alias for it (like we did with the word "here" above) and list it as Jump (3.5e Sultansword spell), or list it as it is, without modifying the name, under a heading that notes the following list contains 3.5e spells.

More about the MOS. Dictating American grammar and spelling as a policy rule is a little too much, just like the contraction preference. Instead, we can, again, note that we do not mind British spelling, but (since the site is hosted in the USA) American spelling and grammar is preferred. Editing the British spellings to American versions of words are possible, but not from American to British. Having a policy that says American grammar and spelling is to be used at all times, prohibiting the British spelling altogether is alienating and we do not want that. I think even mentioning encouragement in this matter is unnecessary, just saying that the American spelling is preferred and editing to American is possible, is enough, and it will be respectful to other preferences, not essentially branding them "wrong". --Blacxthorne 16:17, 23 April 2008 (GMT)

Perhaps I'm really that new to Wikis --- I thought disambiguation was automatic, not manual. To use your Jump example, I was trying to express that a player looking for 3.5e variants of the spell would be better served if the edition were added even on campaign-specific links, so they don't have to know if a given campaign is 3.5e or 4e. For example:

• SRD:Jump (3.5e spell)
• SRD:Jump (4e spell)
• Jump (3.5e Kiernan spell)
• Jump (4e Dovann spell)
• Jump (3.5e Sultansword spell)

But this brings up a different point... how does one tell between multiple non-campaign-specific variants? They'd all be labelled Jump (3.5e variant spell) or the like. Do we stuff them all into one page?

(Colored myself red; Black'll keep indenting, and Raven'll not have to do anything. ;D) --Cuilean 23:33, 23 April 2008 (GMT)

Heh heh. Well, more used to forums, than new to wikis perhaps :). Good idea though, it looks nice. Anyhow. The disambiguation page could be more like this:

Jump may refer to:

Skills:

• Jump, an SRD 3.5e skill
• Jump, a homebrew 3.5e skill

Spells (3.5e):

• Jump, an SRD spell that boosts Jump checks for a limited duration
• Jump, a homebrew variant of the 3.5e SRD spell of the same name
• Jump (Sultansword), a homebrew spell from the Sultansword campaign setting, and a variant of the 3.5e SRD spell of the same name

Spells (4e):

• Jump, an SRD spell that allows the caster to jump through dimensions

See also:

• Thievery (4e skill), an SRD 4e skill that replaced the Jump skill from 3.5e

I used this just to illustrate things, so it's completely fictional. A disambig page can be broken down to little sections like this.

• The first part does not have 3.5e as a subheading, because there are just two possibilities that do not need to be broken further down into editions. Even if they were of different editions, one could easily know which is which because of the short description. Plus there's no need for definition because they're skill and the names pretty much speak for themselves. Note that the links do not have parentheses at all, because the subheading says that they're both skills. Further disambiguation is made by the short descriptions and not parentheses, because (in this scenario) there's only one edition that contains a skill named Jump, which means whoever searched "jump" probably wasn't looking for a 4e skill anyway--and since they're both known to be skills, the editions of both are pretty much obvious. The only thing that distinguishes them is the SRD and homebrew. That can be found out the short descriptions, and no parantheses are needed because, first, I'm not for (homebrew) and (SRD) in parentheses, and second, there are only two in the list. When there's just one thing distinguishing two elements, there's no need to put it in parantheses, the descriptions will cover it well.
• The second part is a little longer so it's broken down into editions for faster searching. Note that it's also very important to discern editions of spells more than many other things, like NPCs or monsters. And because they are spells, the name is almost always more ambiguous so that needs to be clarified in the short descriptions. One of them also has parantheses to distinguish it as a campaign-setting-specific spell. The other two of 3.5e do not have them because they are known to be spells and 3.5e, so the thing that distinguishes them SRD vs homebrew, apart from descriptions, and thus they do not need parentheses as per above. Besides, it's more important for the reader to know what they do than what source they are from.
• The third part is a just-in-case addition, regarding the possibility that someone might search for Jump in 4e. So it's helpful to note that there's a new skill that covers that task now. Since it is just one item, the parantheses contain both the edition and the type, because there's no subheading that notes any of these things. Whether it's SRD or homebrew is once again covered in the description.
• Also note that the wikifications link to pages titled somewhat differently, and the links do not show the whole page title, for the sake of simplicity. You can see where a link goes, hovering over it, in the tooltip.

As to the multiple homebrews, we can always have them all in the same page. Why can't a page contain four, or even eight, different homebrew spells? It's definitely not too much to take. If you don't like the idea, we can always have roman numbers after the parantheses and a comma, like: Jump (3.5e spell), IV--Blacxthorne 00:58, 24 April 2008 (GMT)

The reason I dictated American spellign and grammar was largely for page-naming reasons. If someone spells a page name "centre", it will never get linked to by 97% of the people on this site. Also, I don't know what english dialects are out there, but we want this wiki readable for the majority of our visitors. Making it mandatory just gives us the right to go change stuff when it's incomprehensible. Again, taking an anti-contraction stance just justifies us if we decide to edit someone else's page to remove 8,000 contractions. See, I have never bothered to read a Manual of Style, and I highly doubt that anyone aside from the three of us will read this one, but it serves as a tool when we find ourselves moderating the wiki. We can always point and say, "Look. Now cut it out," should we have to. Laws and enforcement of the laws are two different things. For example, did you know it's illegal to drive barefoot in Florida? How many cops ticket people for driving barefoot in Florida?

(Yay! I get to stay lazy!)

--Raven Bloodmoon 01:06, 24 April 2008 (GMT)

Mmm... so disambiguation pages are all manual, too, eh? Definitely a labor of love to comb through and keep everything straight, then. --Cuilean 02:41, 24 April 2008 (GMT)

Of course, that's what wiki is all about, painful searching and fixing ;). And Raven, actually, what I meant by the Manual of Style was not about page titles, but about the contents of the pages, and that's why I said we should not dictate; as contractions do not kill, nor do British spellings. The only thing that's important is as you said, the page titles and that's something that should be exclusive to page titles and section headings, and we can cover everything on that later (American spelling, title capitalization, parenthesis, etc). I know it's taking a little too long, but I'm going to come up with a General Usage Guide too. --Blacxthorne 11:55, 24 April 2008 (GMT)

Now we have an introduction and a cheatsheet. That's a start, right? --Blacxthorne 15:01, 24 April 2008 (GMT)

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