User talk:Elekim

Questions

Hi there! Regarding your recent posts on talk pages, I just wanted to agree that answers to most of these questions are quite relevant to the wiki and would be worth adding if you can find answers. You might be able to find answers elsewhere online, in the advanced rulebook, or through Patashu for particularly complex stuff. If you do find answers, feel free to add them to the articles, and include references wherever possible; it's helpful for future editors/debate on the subject.

Regarding talk pages themselves, please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~) - this will produce the signatures you'll see for other users, including a time stamp. Also, new topics go at the bottom of talk pages, and the headers should be in sentence case, e.g., "Example section title" rather than "Example Section Title".

Other than that, welcome to the wiki! -- Taohinton (talk) 18:27, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! Your tips are very helpful, so feel free to tell me more if my newbyness will accidentally break this wiki etiquette. ;-) I will try to edit articles directly, but I will often use talk pages (at least at the beginning) since I unfortunately do not have enough resources (highly uncomplete collection, short friend list, little spare time from work) to check most issues by myself.. :-( Elekim (talk) 06:05, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Experimentation

A couple of things you might find useful when experimenting with page layouts and especially template functions. Firstly, if you're not aware, you can use the 'Show preview' function to show what the page will look like if saved. This can be used to repeatedly change e.g. template calls, and observe the results, without needing to save the page. It's a good idea to use this before posting any edit, to check for typos and mistakes, the new layout of the article, and to make sure you're ready to save the page. Secondly, if you'd like to be able to save draft page versions, or ongoing projects of your own, you can do this by creating subpages for your user page, for example User:Elekim/Sandbox.

While it's okay to experiment on pages using the 'Show preview' function, edits shouldn't be saved unless they're intended to be kept. In the case of template stuff like on Hero Power/Wild format, this can be done using 'Show preview', or if you want to be able to save draft versions, on a user subpage :) -- Taohinton (talk) 00:22, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Notes

I sympathise with your edits to the notes sections of certain pages, but I don't wholly agree. (Apologies for the wall of text... it's a subtle point ;) )

Firstly, the division between Notes and Strategy isn't about how important the information is; it's about the type of information. Notes are about how the card functions, what it does, what happens if it's played in combination with certain other cards or effects. Some of the Notes info is very advanced, esoteric and potentially of only academic relevance to the game; some of it is pretty obvious, beginner-level information that most experienced players will already know. Strategy on the other hand is about how to play the card, what value it has, what it works well with on a tactical basis, how to counter it, etc.

If a 'note' is merely saying that the card works well with a certain other card, this should indeed be moved to Strategy. But if it's explaining how the two cards work in combination, it probably belongs in Notes. Some notes include elements of both, but the 'note' information should definitely be in Notes and not Strategy.

In terms of removing redundant notes, I agree there's no point in stating the obvious, however where exactly you draw the line marking 'the obvious' is more debatable than you might think. As a rule, it's worth remembering that a key portion of the wiki's readers are new players, newer players, and newish players. A lot of things that are obvious to you after a few months or years of playing the game are not at all obvious to newer players. For basic game rules, this should be kept to pages like Taunt - this is why everything there is spelled out in such simple detail. Individual card pages don't want to have the very basics of the game reiterated on each of them (as previously discussed with positional effects like Dire Wolf Alpha), but when it comes down to how gaining Mana Crystals works, or which cards generate Excess Mana, or whether a card's cost can be reduced below 0, this is more specific and complex information that it takes a while to learn, and that many newer players will not know. Other players may simply have forgotten the details, especially if they don't normally play that class, or have been away from the game for a while; while some players are very casual and never progress beyond the basics even after years of play!

If we were writing a wiki only for professional players, we could probably delete most of the content on the wiki, since everyone would know how the mechanics worked, and know all the card text off by heart! Instead we try to accommodate all types of players, but especially newer players, because they will find reason to visit the wiki far more often than experienced players (who already know most of the info on the site) and because they need more assistance.

What this means for Notes is that we sometimes have notes that seem obvious to more experienced players. Some might simply rephrase the card text, or state mechanics common to various cards, or mention caveats that are obvious to you and me, but for new players this can still prove useful. Obviously there's still room for improvement, and the value of each note is highly subjective depending on the editor, but as a rule "beginner's notes" don't take a lot away from the wiki, but they can add a lot of value for some readers. -- Taohinton (talk) 21:02, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

In effect, during my last edits I was wondering if I was too severe in moving Notes to Strategy: I though Notes were for behaviours and interactions which were different from "normal" ones found on "category pages" like Mana or Mana cost, but I think I got the point now. I will keep in my mind new and casual players in my future edits (and in revisions of my past edits too): thank you for your suggestions!

I have played Hearthstone since its release, but I'm still a causal player, with a limited collection; in addition, I'm a newbye editor, so probably sometimes my edits have a suboptimal structure, and my mother tongue is not English, so I may sometimes make linguistic mistakes. Thus I really appreciate corrections and suggestions: I try to contribute to this wiki with my experience, but you "senior editors" must feel free to modify what I write or tell me how to do it better. Elekim (talk) 08:17, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

No worries, and I hope I didn't come across too strong - you're making a lot of good edits, which are appreciated :) In terms of style the wiki's a collective effort and every editor has their own approach - there's no single 'correct' way to present the information or write a page, and there are often multiple viable approaches, which are however mutually-exclusive! It would be convenient for me if I just forced everyone to match my own personal preference, but that's not my way :P So I'm happy for you to bring your own unique style to the wiki through your edits; I'll just do my best to keep an overall cohesive form, and straighten up the edges where necessary. -- Taohinton (talk) 21:17, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Duplication of card notes for similar effects

Hey Elekim, hope you saw my comment earlier on one of the talk pages praising your additions to the various notes sections! I just saw your expansion of Embrace the Shadow, but I wanted to call your attention to a discussion Tao and I had a while back: Talk:Embrace the Shadow#Style in the case of duplicate mechanics. I won't repeat what I already said there, but in essence that decision was made to try to save you time in cases exactly like this - instead of writing out the same mechanics rules for every card that uses it, you can edit the "original" card's notes and just refer back to that one in similar cards, making it easier to maintain long term. Of course, feel free to take a different approach, just wanted to make sure you were aware of the conversation. - jerodast (talk) 20:16, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I saw your positive comments, thank you Jerodast! Talking about Embrace the Shadow, I was unsure if duplicating Auchenai Soulpriest's note or not, and I still am. However, I agree with your discussion with Tao about duplicates, so I changed Embrace the Shadow's notes again, almost reversing it to the previous state (linking additional notes to Auchenai Soulpriest's notes) but just adding a line that explicitly states its effect instead of simply saying "which has the same ongoing effect as Auchenai Soulpriest". This way all the needed information is on Embrace the Shadow's page, and one can follow the link to Auchenai Soulpriest's page only for detailed consequences and examples. Elekim (talk) 05:02, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Capital letters question

Yes the capital letters are much appreciated, thanks. https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/index.php?title=Frost_Shock&curid=1296&diff=277525&oldid=277223 Aegonostic (talk) 23:46, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Repeating notes

This is something the community has to have a longer discussion about, and, with more and more editors contributing, probably adopt some kind of official guideline for. But for now, I would just recommend not to take too hard a line on removing/reverting repetition across pages. I have seen you mention principles of avoiding this but unfortunately it's probably not as cut-and-dried as that. One of the primary goals of the wiki is "helpfulness". Unlike a rigid rulebook, sometimes that probably means presenting the most common issues with a little redundancy, rather than going for the most highly structured system. Often one of the signs that the information may be non-obvious or too hard to find is when editors/readers try adding it in a place "it's not supposed to go". (Or on the other hand sometimes it's just that they missed something and it really doesn't need to be there! It's a balancing act.)

Just to be clear, this is an observation based on watching the last month or so of edits by various people, not a criticism of any specific decision. I plan to try to organize a more directed discussion on how best to present the rules...sometime :) - jerodast (talk) 07:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

By the way I realize this is a little ironic knowing our conversation about Embrace the Shadow a few months ago. Like I said, balancing act, needs more thought, different cases different reader needs, etc... - jerodast (talk) 07:21, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree a deeper discussion is needed about this topic. I am (and was) open to both solutions (avoiding repetitions, incouraging repetitions), but for now I just keep an eye on consistency between card pages with the same mechanic: for example, in the past I added the note about the "not below 0 mana cost" to all cards with repeating/increasing/not-fixed cost-reduction effects (Emperor Thaurissan, Sea Giant,...), since most of them already had the note; but I recently removed the note about "not below 0 mana cost" from Lunar Visions since that note was not present in any other page about cards with "cost X less" effects (and they are dozens!); if someone, thinking that note was useful and that it should be statd also on the individual card page, would have reverted my change or supported their opinion, I would have simply added the note not only to Lunar Visions page, but also to any other card with "cost X less" effects (or at least those with X>1). I hope I have explained my thoughts clearly: English is not my mother language, so I apologize for any mistake... :-) Elekim (talk) 04:24, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I would not have noticed English was your second language, you write it very well :) Your logic makes sense and I see why Lunar Visions might have stuck out. I tend to take a more relaxed view of consistency as well since, again, we have no firm guidelines to tell us which is the "correct" version out of two inconsistent ones, but there's no denying that consistency is beneficial overall. Anyway, like I said, no real criticism intended so just keep using your best judgement! - jerodast (talk) 06:26, 10 May 2017 (UTC)