Improving Articles - Introducing "MOS"

way to go, (i) think its about time we clean up some articles. (2K Dragon) dude! think about what we are talking about here! lol just kiding!

-Level Walkthroughs: Yeah, they shoul be seperated from the article in that the article proper is factual, while a walkthrough is subjective.

-Weapons/Vehicles: Hmm...I think they could be listed in a sub-section perhaps in the main article, though how/if to use them would go in the walkthrough article.

-Enemies/Allies: Yeah, pretty redundant.

-Transcripts: Hmm...I think it's worth keeping the YouTube links personally, but rather grouped at the bottom of the article rather than spread out, which is just plain ugly.

-Trivia: Seems good.

-Biographies:

-Background: I don't think it's worth having this as a seperate section per se, but rather as a brief blurb at the top, at most, a VERY brief summary of the character's life. This seems to be the usual MOS for most characters on wikis.

-Biography: Yeah, seems good.

-Combat: I don't know how this would work out without strategies really. Besides, few characters are actually fought in the series and whatever tactics are required to beat them can be fit in walkthrough articles.

-Age, etc.: Don't see this being viable. Such things are covered in CharBox templates. A "personality" section might be worth it but I'm universally uneasy about such sections, as they're ultimatly subjective. Those behind the universe's storyline might give official statements, but these are generally few and far between.

-Species:

-History: Good place to start.

-Description: I think "physiology" makes a better blanket term here. "Description" is too general and leaves things open for "humans are weak" or "sangheili are cool."

-Culture: Yeah, this can be applied for most, if not all sentient species.

-Homeworld: I don't think this warrants a sub-section of its own. The homeworld is specified in the species template and I don't think it's worth mentioning/speculating how the nature of a world contributed to the species' traits and if we know it did, can be inserted in to the relevant section (usually physiology).

-Rank Structure: I guess, but don't go overboard. We have articles for the likes of the UNSCMC and the Covenant Navy for instance, ranks fit in far better there than in a species where military service isn't a universal career path.

-Combat: I agree that the likes of weapon weilding is moronic, that in reality, such limits don't exist. However, I'm still uneasy, as the basis of combat traits is subjective. Perhaps it should rely on sourcing from strategy guides, which are about as official as things can get?

-Changes: Could probably be merged with production notes IMO.

-Trivia: Fine

-Weapons: Oh boy...

-Ammunition: Since individual articles usually exist for ammo types, they can be linked via the template. And if not, the info can generally be mentioned (an Overview section perhaps?)

-Influences: Should go in trivia. I don't recall there ever being a case where a weapon of the 26th century was ever explicitly linked with one dating back centuries in an in-universe sense.

-Accuracy/Disadvantages: I think the likes of these could go in a single section ("Gameplay"?). We know the MA5B has limited accuracy for instance, but is that stated in-universe? I think we should keep gameplay seperate from the Overview, which lists actual facts that can be sourced.

Appearances: Wouldn't the era template cover it?

Trivia: Fine.

<< [...] However, my MOS is not official and is only for personal use. You may follow it if you want. >>

just a question you know..

my opinion is that they both go or both stay. but ok, that's just my opinion.

Regards, Relentless

Harvard Stem Cell Institute Department of Stem Cell & Regenerative Biology,

If I might go on a slight tangent. Including pertinent, official, images in the body is a good idea as suggested by Hawki. This touches on another problem on the wiki, which is the atrocious state of image management: massive redundancies, non-descriptive file names (numeric gibberish or starting with numeric gibberish), unspecific categorization, etc..

To improve articles even further there must be a parallel effort to rectify the state of affairs on the image front. Alas, this is even harder since user privileges needed to really drive this (delete/rename images) are only available to admins.

However, regular users can still point our duplicate images for deletion, reupload image under saner names, change intrawiki image links, etc.. There is certainly enough manpower to do this on the wiki assuming some sort of effort could be organized.

Once corrected this would allow articles to link to directly related articles. Looking for images of the MA5-series weapon? There would be a category specifically for those. And of course, it would become much easier to audit what images are actually available.