Talk:Dinom (world)
Conflicting sources (2018)
I see five sources for information about Dinom:
- Marc Miller. Across the Bright Face/Mission on Mithril (Game Designers Workshop, 1980), .
- JTAS8 in article: "Crystals from Dinom"
- Dave Nilsen. The Regency Sourcebook (Game Designers Workshop, 1995), 42.
- Martin Dougherty. Behind the Claw (Mongoose Publishing, 2019), 85.Martin Dougherty, Neil Frier. Behind the Claw (Steve Jackson Games, 1998), 85.
- Maksim-Smelchak
Of those, I have Across the Bright Face and Behind the Claw. And they have some disagreements with each other and this article.
This article shows a UPP of D300535-A, but Bright Face says D100535-A. Claw says:
- Starport: Class II.
- Diameter: 1,061 miles (1,707 km). Atmosphere: None. Surface Water: None. Climate: Variable. Population: 241,000. Government: Representative democracy (a world-wide council). Control Rating: 1. TL: 9.
Translating from GURPS Traveller, that's about D100543-A.
- The most conspicuous point of disagreement is size. Is it a "3" like this article says, or a "1" like Bright Face and Claw say?
- There's also some disagreement about law; the GURPS Control Rating of "1" seems quite a bit softer than Law Level 3. But that could be a change between the 1106 of Bright Face and the 1116 marked in this article's infobox (both Law Level 3) and the 1120 of Claw (Control Rating 1), or just a Claw erratum.
This is probably a problem for all sorts of worlds, but this is one I just stumbled across (no pun intended). — Steve98052 (talk) 06:59, 22 June 2018 (EDT)
- The part you are missing is the T5 Second Survey, a canon effort driven by Don McKinney before his passing, adjusted the size (and other UWP values) of a large number of worlds across charted space. The reason was worlds need to be of a minimum size to hold a density of atmosphere. Since Dinom can (at certain times) can hold a thin atmosphere, this puts a minimum size on the world (size 3). The T5SS adjusted the size of the world to make this fit within specific physical parameters. Tjoneslo (talk) 07:21, 22 June 2018 (EDT)
- Aha, that makes sense. It's always troublesome to change canon, but bringing things more into line with established science is good where it doesn't break things.
- You wrote "a large number of worlds". Would it be practical to add a {{ }} template for instances where T5 or other sources) superseded earlier sources? There's already the practice of including extra infoboxes where worlds change between eras (population booms or collapses, government type and allegiance changes, etc. But this is different; it's not saying that the world lost two-thirds of its diameter; it's declaring past canon errata.
- — Steve98052 (talk) 14:23, 22 June 2018 (EDT)
Steve, The datasets have gone through three major iterations:
I think your idea about adding a tag declaring whether something is T5SS reviewed is a decent idea, but it's already there. If it says T5SS at the bottom, it's been done.
- You'd only have to update about 16,302 worlds if you wanted to add another informational tag!
- - Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2018 (EDT)
| Dinom/Lanth (Spinward Marches 1811) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Milieu 1116 | D300535-A
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| All the existing stuff . . . |
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| Revision Details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UWP data above are from the |
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| Sunbane | D100535-A | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Legacy Astrographic Data | D100535-A | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
OK, maybe adding tags isn't the right approach. I see that the infobox is generated with {{StellarDataQuery | name= {{World|Dinom|Spinward Marches|Lanth|1811}} }} though.
Are there data within that database that cover the earlier iterations, as well as the latest? In that case, the query might be able to generate a Revision Details section at the bottom of the infobox. (See the example at the right.) Of course, if the UWPs are the same in the earlier sources, there's no reason to generate a Revision Details section.
If the data are out there somewhere, it might help people to be able to see it in the infobox. Then, instead of looking at the infobox UWP and wondering, "Why doesn't this match my old book?", they can look at it and think, "Oh, they changed stuff!"
- — Steve98052 (talk) 18:00, 22 June 2018 (EDT)
Steve,
The UWP infobox can have numerous entries input into it. I track them that way and also on the discussion page with notes. A metadata page would work as well.
- The expanded version should be able to do most of the same things.
- Template:UWP
|uf = Template:First Imperium UWP |popf = Template:Rirst Imperium population multiplier |zonef = Template:Red | |ui = Template:Interstellar Wars UWP |popi = Template:Interstellar Wars Population multiplier |zonei = Template:Red | |u0 = Template:Milieu 0 UWP |pop0 = Template:Milieu 0 population multiplier |zone0 = Template:Red | |u1 = Template:First Survey UWP |pop1 = Template:First Survey population multiplier |zone1 = Template:Red | |us = Template:Solomani Rim War UWP |pops = Template:Milieu 990 population multiplier |zones = Template:Red | |u2 = Template:Second Survey UWP |pop2 = Template:Second Survey population multiplier |zone2 = Template:Red | |uc = Template:Classic Era UWP |popc = Template:Classic Era population multiplier |zonec = Template:Red | |uh = Template:Hard Times UWP |poph = Template:Hard Times population multiplier |zoneh = Template:Red | |ur = Template:New Era UWP |popr = Template:New Era populaon multiplier |zoner = Template:Red | |u4 = Template:Fourth Imperium UWP |pop4 = Template:Fourth Imperium populaon multiplier |zone4 = Template:Red | |ua = Template:Collapse UWP |popa = Template:Collapse populaon multiplier |zonea = Template:Red | |ue = Template:False Spring UWP |pope = Template:False Spring populaon multiplier |zonee = Template:Red | |ug = Template:Galaxiad UWP |popg = Template:Galaxiad populaon multiplier |zoneg = Template:Red
- - Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 20:20, 22 June 2018 (EDT)
I understand that there are data sets for quite a few eras. But what I was asking about was whether there should be a uL = {{Legacy UWP}} and uS = {{Sunbane UWP}} in addition to the sets already there — but an automated way to show it only if it differs from one of the data sets that are present already. If the template asks for all eras (and, hypothetically, superseded data sets) and shows only those for which the database has entries, the easiest way to make the template do the right thing would be to run a script on the superseded data sets that compares each entry with each of the corresponding newer data sets, and removes them from the active copy of the superseded data set. There's no point in showing a UWP from a superseded data set if the specific entry hasn't actually changed.
- ― Steve98052 (talk) 05:35, 23 June 2018 (EDT)
- I created the Stellar data process, and the underlying cargo tables, to serve my needs for the Trade map summary publication. The process now downloads the most current sector data from Traveller Map, runs the program to generate the trade data, then automatically uploads the template on the (e.g.) Dinom (world)/data page with the updated data. The process could add the legacy published data, I need to insert that into the automated processes.
- As the UWP template that Maksim posted implies, there are many different sources of legacy data. Which should we use?
- Tjoneslo (talk) 07:21, 23 June 2018 (EDT)
There is even variation within Sunbane and others. They aren't a single, unified set.
- When I uploaded pages, I made notes on the discussion or metadata pages.
- - Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 09:59, 23 June 2018 (EDT)