User talk:Jmattera
X-boats in ship scheme?
User:Tjoneslo & User:Jmattera. Where do X-boats fit in the ship classification Military starship nav bar system? Thanks! Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 21:08, 16 February 2015 (EST)
- I would argue they should be type "HK" - Non-commercial/General Courier vessels. Tjoneslo (talk) 22:12, 16 February 2015 (EST)
Contact, Please
Hi User:Jmattera, would you please contact me off-board using E-mail at "Maksim_Smelchak" at that Yahoo place. Thanks! Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 13:09, 1 February 2015 (EST)
I sent you a note and you can drop me a note at jmattera1 @ gmail. Jmattera (talk) 13:40, 1 February 2015 (EST)
Thanks. Will try to respond later tonight or tomorrow. Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 21:25, 2 February 2015 (EST)
Hi User:Jmattera. I sent you that E-mail. Thanks! 205.225.192.66 09:38, 4 February 2015 (EST)
Thanks, Jmattera! Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 07:34, 12 February 2015 (EST)
Hi Jmattera,
The Military starship nav bar is super cool, but hard to read with a black background. Any chance you could re-make it with a lighter, more-easily-read background such as white? LOL ;)
Maksim-Smelchak. (talk) Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 10:57, 17 January 2015 (EST)
Page Design Response
Hi Jmattera,
I think you should go for it and make your changes. That's what Wikis are for.
I like the idea of two pages Military Starship Types and Civilian Starship Types.
Wikies are supposed to be cross-linked, easy-to-read, well-organized, and accessible.
Traveller materials have always had that problem. I very much prefer the current Major Race pages compared to the old, highly-limited ones.
Maksim-Smelchak. Maksim-Smelchak Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 19:22, 16 January 2015 (EST)
Ship Class Single Page Treatment
Maksim-Smelchak, thanks for the information. Yes at times is is difficult to determine a good size for a page. I've run across both situations, pages too large and complex and pages too small and trivial that do not really justify themselves as entities which require independent existence. I tend to favor pages with a little more weight to them, but when it comes down to ship classes, I believe that each deserves a single page treatment.
On the other hand, I have been using the class summary pages such as Battleship as a means of linking together the smaller entities and provide an overall breath to provide for a better understanding subject matter. My goal is to make the summary pages a tool to make it easier to find all the ship classes of a particular type.
Unfortunately then there are pages such as the Starship Types page, which I consider way too big and with too much wasted space.
As a minimum I believe it should be split into two pages Military Starship Types and Civilian Starship Types, but I have been reluctant to make such a drastic change. I would appreciate your thoughts on how to reorganize that page in particular.
Other thoughts I have had is listing the various entities within the class across the page using tables, or just not listing them at all, but saving the class breakdowns for the class summary pages.
I'd be interested in hearing your opinions.
Jmattera (talk) 18:58, 16 January 2015 (EST)
I think you are right. Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 06:15, 17 February 2015 (EST)
(Header System)
Hi Jmattera,
Thanks! I'm with you.
I would like to see the Traveller Wiki entries more organized and interconnected like you.
A lot of the smaller entries almost never get seen such as Igsiirdi, a Vilani government entry, so now I've linked it to the Vilani entry.
I will work up a guide to using the (Header) system that I use.
Essentially it has three parts:
- (Entry Name), which is the name of the entry itself, such as Vilani
- (Category Name), which is the category or tag, usually at the bottom of the page, such as (Sophont).
- (Section Name), describes a section ith an entry, uch as (Synopsis), (Physiology), or (History).
So, that entry would read: "Vilani (Sophont) Synopsis"
The (Synopsis) part I important, it's a brief and quick definition or explanation of the entry so the writer can very quickly know what the entry is about. All of the entries benefit from that. And it's a standard Wiki practice.
Each kind of category in the Wiki has a pre-designed "template" of sections, that I designed to help organize and develop, or flesh out, the entry.
I'll work on more explanation for you.
Maksim-Smelchak. Maksim-Smelchak (talk) Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 08:57, 16 January 2015 (EST)
So, for example, a creature entry would read:
Zh'a Cha'a (Creature) Synopsis
- Zh'a Cha'a are small, generally green lizard-like reptillianoids with sucker feet.
Zh'a Cha'a (Creature) Physiology & Ecology
- Physiological data.
Zh'a Cha'a (Creature) Diet & Trophics
- Zh'a Cha'a are largely insectivores.
Zh'a Cha'a (Creature) History & Advisory
- History of the beast and a JTAS advisory.
Zh'a Cha'a (Creature) References
- Sources.
Ship Listings
Thanks for the feedback.
It has been a real struggle to try to put some consistency and organization into the ship listings. Part of the problem is that I'm often taking someone else's creation and reworking it so that it makes more sense in my view. But again it is my view and I don't want to get into a flame war because my vision doesn't match up with another's views.
I've had several discussions with a retired navy guy, and he's helped to shape my actions in trying to organize the ship information. Please feel free to contribute your opinions. By the way it is great to see the mass of contributions you've made lately.
Can you provide some insight on your titling of headers? ie. Military, Government, etc. I am more likely to use category rather than including a category in a header line.
Jmattera (talk) 21:02, 15 January 2015 (EST)
Thanks Jmattera
Hi Jmattera, Thanks, mate! What you say make sense. By the way, I think you do some great writing and like your posts. Maksim-Smelchak. Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 19:34, 14 January 2015 (EST)
Ship Tonnage Response
With the wide variance in tonnage, I'm not sure of the value of having it on that particular page.
Tonnage does not seem to be a good measure because there is a lot of variance not only between tech levels, but between ship classes within the same tech level. I've struggled with attempting to organize the various ships into some system that makes sense, which accounts for the way I've organized the ships on the sub pages. If you feel that there is some better why to present the information, I would appreciate your input. Jmattera (talk) 19:21, 14 January 2015 (EST)
Ship Tonnage Inquiry
Hi Jmattera, Could you add tonnage amounts to the "Starship Types" entries, please? Thanks! Maksim-Smelchak. 205.225.192.66 17:40, 14 January 2015 (EST)
Summary Type Pages
Please don't edit the /summary pages. These are automatically generated (and later updated) by PyRoute trade generation system. Your edits may disappear unexpectedly sometime in the future.
Thank you. Tjoneslo (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2014 (EDT)
New template for the starship types page
I created a new template for the Starship Types pages. You can seen an example User:Tjoneslo/ship list, and review the Template: Ship summary list. The idea here is the template can automatically generate the list of ships from the pages in the wiki, assuming they are formatted correctly. This means if you add a new (for example, Battleship) ship page, the list is automatically updated, because the list is generated.
The downside is the template is limited in what it can include. Basically everything on the list has to be a page with some very specific formatting requirements.
Let me know what you think. I can add or change things some, if you'd like to see more. Tjoneslo (talk) 17:17, 1 February 2015 (EST)
I see what the problems are, but it does make a good tool for finding unlinked files. Use of the template would need better data discipline, then we have currently, to assure that the information was keyed in correctly. This not only included the file name, but also the ship class. There is the additional issue that people use a variety of designation for the same ship class. For example some may use FL for Flotilla Leader, Frigate Light, Light Fighter, etc. Also I've been adding in ship class nationalities to my tables. This issue, if desired, could be changed with a modification to the ship infobox.
Off the top of my head, to improve the tool:
- Develop a standardized ship abbreviation nomenclature, and apply it
- Develop a standard for grouping ship types. For example, close escorts are part of the Escort type along with Destroyers and Frigates. All escort types above a certain tonnage are one of the Escort types. This characteristic would allow us to group them more efficiently.
- Standardize the file names: Class Name Class Class Category (ie Mattera Class Monitor)
- Add nationality to the ship infobox and update the template to extract.
- Use the nomenclature to override the design designation to properly group the ships into the class pages. For example MG-0101111-000000-00003-0 is an AL, Assault Lander, not a MG Assault Lander.
- Another issue is those ships which do not have an ship infobox. I think the solution is to make up one, even when the item does not reside on the site. I've linked ships off other sites that I've found.
- I think the last issue is the problem with duplicate entries. I'm most cases, I've tried to get rid of them, but another alternative is to combine the information and just note that are difference between the various entries.
I'm willing to work on the data integrity issues, if you want to pursue the template. In the long run, it would be a time saver, and help to reinforce data integrity. Jmattera (talk) 18:36, 1 February 2015 (EST)
- Some responses:
- If you have a definition of nomenclature for article names, and things in the in the articles, please add them to the Manual of Style. That is the appropriate place to discuss the details. I like the ideas and am encouraging them.
- Ship type codes has a pretty standard set of ship type description codes. If you have any changes to the code, this page should also be updated.
- I added an "Origin" field to the template, and have it default to the Third Imperium. I've updated the template to include origin, with header, and also default to the same.
- For ships on external sites, we should create a page with the Infobox, a {{Sources}} template to point to the external site, and a {{Complete}} template to let everyone know they need to go look at the original for more information.
- If you have two articles which describe the same ship, you should update one and delete the other (add a {{Delete}} template so I can find it and purge it). If you have two ships with the same name, I think the Article names would take care of most of them. Any others point out to me and we'll figure out how to split it into two articles.
- Unfortunately the Ship type codes do allow for some overlap CH Carrier Heavy, Cruiser Heavy. I've started collecting the current codes in Ship Hull Designations and I'm starting to identify the overlaps. I've done most of the military types and will start in on the civilian when I get a chance.
- Adding Origin is a good idea. I was putting origin information in the footnotes.
- As for duplicate ships, I only ran across one I didn't resolve and only because there was a difference in the stats, and I couldn't determine which was definitive.
- The rest of your ideas run in lines along my own.
- The challenge here is the Ship type codes are canon. So what ever we come up with to distinguish the (e.g. "CH") types can't vary too much from the established codes. And, as you point out in the Designation article, sometimes they change without anything being done to the ship simply because the underlying definitions have changed.
- The other fun challenge is ships designed under two different system (e.g. High Guard and FF&S) will come out with significant differences. For some this makes no difference because there is only the one design. For others (e.g. Free Trader) has designs from every single one of the systems, and the small differences may well drive us crazy trying to resolve. Tjoneslo (talk) 10:15, 2 February 2015 (EST)
Without some playing around with the codes in the ship infobox I don't see a way to assuring the template to work correctly. Of course the other option is to have an additional code the ship infobox tied to our selection criteria for the table, but not necessarily part of the infobox display. For example:
- 10 == battleship
- 11 == superbattleship
- 20 == heavy cruiser
- 21 == light cruiser
- 30 == heavy carrier
- 40 == destroyer
- 41 == destroyer escort
- 50 == Escort
- 60 == frigate
- 70 == smallcraft
- 80 == auxiliary
- A0 == Merchant
- BO == Commercial
- CO == Non-Commercial
- DO == Civilian auxiliary
Basically the first number or letter would be the major category, and the second the subcategory. In this way we can disassociate the Traveler ship type code with the code we would want to use to control the selection mechanism. That way we could control the fact that some nationalities call cruisers, frigates, and assure that those specific frigates show up on the cruiser table.
Your thoughts? Jmattera (talk) 18:01, 2 February 2015 (EST)
PS. I finished Ship Hull Designations. There is considerable overlap of some codes, and some like the merchant ships are widely scattered. PSS. I tried adding an origin to Prince Stuart IV Class Battleship and it didn't work.
- My preference is to take your first suggestion. Muck around with the type designation (tdes) codes for the ships in the template to match the assigned category's regardless of their designation title. This means going through the designations to find a smaller, unique set. Tjoneslo (talk) 20:46, 2 February 2015 (EST)
- Hi Tjoneslo and Jmattera. I'm very impressed with what you gentlemen are doing. Just wanted to send a compliment on. Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 21:27, 2 February 2015 (EST)
Proposal (2015)
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| B | A | Heavy Battleship, Superbattleship, Dreadnought | |
| C | A | Heavy Cruiser, Armored Cruiser | |
| F | A | Heavy Frigate | |
| V | A | Heavy Carrier | |
| B | B | Battleship | |
| C | B | Battlecruiser | |
| D | D | Destroyer | |
| B | L | Light Battleship, Pocket Battleship | |
| C | L | Light Cruiser | |
| V | L | Light Carrier | |
| B | M | Monitor | |
| B | R | Battle Rider | |
| B | Z | Battle Rider Hybrid | |
| C | L | M | Light Missile Cruiser |
| B | S | Strike Battleship | |
| F | H | M | Heavy Missile Frigate |
| C | L | B | Light Bombardment Cruiser |
| D | L | Light Destroyer, Destroyer Escort |
Of course this is not everything. The first letter represents the ship class category (Battleship, cruiser, carrier, etc). The second serves as the primary modifier (heavy, light, strike, etc). The third letter represents the variant (Missile, bombardment, etc). If you limit the template to only looking at the first two letters, it allows the CLM and the CL to be listed together.
If you think it might work, it would just be a matter of expanding the list, but it would require that the tdes codes be standarized, even if non-canon. I am not advocating that ignore cannon in the rest of the ship description outside the infobox and the derived tables. Jmattera (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2015 (EST)
- I like this, it should work. I think the place it won't work as well is with the civilian ships, as the number of primary mission codes are much more limited. I think the thing to do now is go through the Ship Hull Designations and assign a "standardized tdes" code to each entry. Tjoneslo (talk) 01:02, 4 February 2015 (EST)
- I created a sub page Ship Hull Designations/updates with a copy of the destinations page to allow defining the updates without messing with the original. Tjoneslo (talk) 08:27, 4 February 2015 (EST)
Moving pages vs deleting them
Because you are in the process of updating several articles with new names, I'm pointing you at this advice: User Talk:Maksim-Smelchak#Correct_way_to_delete_pages. Tjoneslo (talk) 11:44, 5 February 2015 (EST)
Summary of page template
In order to make the process of including text in the category's cleaner I've created a new Template:Summary of page. I'd like to encourage you to use this instead of the <noinclude> + page as template scheme you have been using. This new scheme is quicker, leaves fewer wiki tags around, and encourages correct article formatting. If you have questions, please let me know. Tjoneslo (talk) 10:56, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
Orks page
There is an Alternate Traveller page for Orks, which seem to be based on the Games Workshop Warhammer 40,000 version rather than Tolkein fantasy version. As part of Alternate Traveller, they should have a Category: Warhammer 40K Canon for Warhammer 40,000 content. You have automated its categories and I can't change it. Also, the Dune Canon page has the Sadaukar terror troops as Orks. I think the line should be deleted to maintain internal consistency. Thank you.Hotspur23 (talk) 04:50, 14 January 2022 (EST)