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Forums: Index > Rating Committee > Templates



Alright, so now that the RC rules are approved, we need templates to use them. We need an Excellent template and a Good template. They might work best as one template, but I know nothing of template-making. So I turn to you, the wiki, to make these templates. --DanielDraco 02:38, October 20, 2009 (UTC)

Template:RC:Rithaniel Favor
Three steps ahead of ya. → Rith (talk) 04:05, October 20, 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, Rith's pretty much covers all the bases already, it just needs updated RC art from Gan and maybe some tweaks to make it more general. Do we want to include the 0 point "read it, meh" rating in the template as well, or should that just be a comment in the rating section of the talk page? - TarkisFlux 04:57, October 20, 2009 (UTC)
For the sake of keeping track of who has chosen to give no favor and who simply hasn't looked at it yet, I think a template for no favor would be a good idea. --DanielDraco 13:04, October 20, 2009 (UTC)
I agree. -- SamAutosig Sam Kay   talk    contribs    email   17:54, October 20, 2009 (UTC)
Well, I'll see about making a few edits to my template to get that set up then, unless someone else would like to do so. → Rith (talk) 18:54, October 20, 2009 (UTC)
Aside from needing some color changes, I think I just did Rith: User:Tarkisflux/sandbox/Template:Junk2 - TarkisFlux 19:07, October 20, 2009 (UTC)
Cool beans, glad my base thing could have been of use to you. Though now there needs to be a dicussion about the colors. I for one think that the excellent rating should be kept red since it's the most eye catching color and it excites the viewer. Other levels, idk. → Rith (talk) 19:26, October 20, 2009 (UTC)
A few thoughts. First, I think the levels of favor should be color-coded by the background, not the border -- more attention-grabbing that way. The 0 rating shouldn't be called "adequate", because a rating of 0 might be adequate or it might be worse -- it's simply less than "good". -DanielDraco 00:26, October 21, 2009 (UTC)
I'd prefer to stick with borders, or no differences at all even, though I could see including the Rater's Favor box with the border. I don't think we need to be worried about drawing attention to an individual rater's opinion. If the author cares about why it has the rating it has they'll go read it all anyway; it's not particularly important to anyone else on the talk page most of the time. And I'd rather not have every talk page for a rated article have a big line of different colored blocks down it. It just sounds messy and distracting on top of not seeming especially useful.
Changing the wording for a 0 point rating is pretty easy. I just tossed in "adequate" as a place holder, how about "not worthy of note" or "meh"? Suggestions appreciated. - TarkisFlux 00:40, October 21, 2009 (UTC)
Also, I just left the gold star as the icon for featured articles. Do we want to change that? Take the heraldry that Gan did that we use as the backdrop for the main logo and use that? Something else? - TarkisFlux 06:45, October 21, 2009 (UTC)
Been playing with the template, and border only looks like the way to go for a few resons. There's a couple of pixels of the wrong color around rater box in the border+rater scheme that I can't get rid of (if anyone does and wants to edit that for a better comparison, be my guest), and they don't look right around the box. The changing background with rating looks a bit better, but I can't find a color scheme that I'm happy with. The one I have up right now is just borrowing from other colors around the site and wouldn't be too obnoxious on a talk page, but it's also not particularly attractive. All three are up over here still, so take a look and let's get this sorted out. - TarkisFlux 19:28, October 23, 2009 (UTC)
Yay, my name's up there!
But yeah, this needs to be decided on, so I'll go ahead and add my own two cents.
  1. Excellent -- should like the bottom three examples of 'excellent' you have (I like the darker background), only with the border (and the border only) being red.
  2. Good -- should be exactly like the third example you have given.
  3. Adequate -- should be like the third example of those that you have given, only with the 'gold' border (also only the border changing).
  4. No Rating -- should make the template dissappear entirely, if there is no rating, there is no need for there to be anything there.
Or, perhap, just have all the backgrounds be the same color, and just have the border (and the border only) change. Well, those are my suggestions, take from em what you will. → Rith (talk) 23:10, October 23, 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with points 3 and 4 there. First, because there is no such rating as "adequate". Second, because the reason to have a template there if there's no rating so so that A) a Rater can officially say that they aren't going to favor it and B) they can say why they're not favoring it. Personally, I'd like to see the only differences between the templates be the background color and words. Maybe excellent is a light blue, good is a light green, and no rating is the standard d20 colors. That way, you can quickly scan over the cluster of templates and see what the ratings are; it's easier to quickly notice different fills than different borders. --DanielDraco 20:28, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
If you want to get me some hex color codes to use DD I'll put them up. - TarkisFlux 21:36, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps #8095FF for excellent and #80FF82 for good? --DanielDraco 11:21, October 27, 2009 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

I don't think blue/green on beige is very flattering at all. And, in response to your statement on my statment, you obviously did not look at what I was talking about. Because Tarman's template had 4 levels, the two thumbs up ones, one that was labelled 'adequate', and another that was labelled 'no rating'. So, I thought 'Adequate' was the new '0' (which was what the template equated to), and that you had the option to not even say anything, which made absolutely no since to me. Now then, as for colors. It is not wise to have a cool color against a warm background, it is not pleasing to the eye in the least. I recommend staying with warm colors. → Rith (talk) 12:21, October 27, 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Rith. Those colors are not a good choice. They stand out, but in a bad way. I do not want to see a block of them alternating on a talk page. If you want to keep non-earth tones DD, can you pick something lighter perhaps?
On levels and wording - The adequate level was the new 0, but I've since changed the wording to "has not favored" since that better reflects what it actually means. The 4th level only exists because I want a default level for when someone puts in nonsense or forgets to put points down and it should not come up very often. I can remove it if you like, since the RC probably won't screw it up often, but my preference is to have a default case for the occasional error that shows as an error so it is easier to catch and correct. - TarkisFlux 15:37, October 27, 2009 (UTC)
Hrm, you're probably right on the cool colors thing. Looking over TF's template test page, I'm starting to like the idea of 0 = no red, 1 = red title, 2 = black title on red field. Though perhaps a slightly brighter red than the one used? --DanielDraco 19:27, October 27, 2009 (UTC)
Scratch the brighter red thing, I gave it another look and like it as is. --DanielDraco 19:28, October 27, 2009 (UTC)
Ok, lots of color adjustment later and this is where I think we're at. Black on red doesn't really work in the title box, so I went with a red block with lighter text. In practice it's still pretty easy to pick them out from each other. Does this look like something that everyone here is happy with? - TarkisFlux 23:40, October 27, 2009 (UTC)
I like it. --DanielDraco 12:38, October 28, 2009 (UTC)
Darkened the rater's name on the excellent rating a smidge. Happy with it myself now. Just need art from Gan I think, and in the mean time I'll use the regular site coat of arms sans text. - TarkisFlux 17:56, October 28, 2009 (UTC)

Header Alignment[]

I've set up the test template with different alignments for the "rater's favor" header. I like center best at present, but I also have left + space, left, right, and right + space for viewing. Opinions appreciated. - TarkisFlux 19:29, October 28, 2009 (UTC)

I like right or center, no real preference between the two. --DanielDraco 20:56, October 28, 2009 (UTC)
Anyone else in the RC have an opinion, or is this largely good to go? - TarkisFlux 05:58, November 2, 2009 (UTC)
I personally like the look of Center and Right+, but yeah, they look good. → Rith (talk) 09:45, November 2, 2009 (UTC)
I think I remember Surgo saying he preferred left alignment rather than right. Could be wrong though. -- Jota 17:31, November 2, 2009 (UTC)
No preference yourself Jota? - TarkisFlux 17:45, November 2, 2009 (UTC)
Not particularly, although if pressed I'd say the left. I feel like talk pages are naturally left-oriented and something else would look awkward, but as I said, I'm not terribly invested in any particular outcome. -- Jota 21:42, November 2, 2009 (UTC)
Ahem, mistyped before. I meant to say I like left or center. --DanielDraco 21:47, November 2, 2009 (UTC)
Unless I'm mistaken, Surgo was talking about the alignment of the template itself, not of the words in the template. That said, I still vouche for Center or Right+. → Rith (talk) 23:48, November 2, 2009 (UTC)
I didn't even realize we were discussing something different. That's what I get for not reading. In that case, right, I suppose, but it really doesn't matter. -- Jota 16:48, November 3, 2009 (UTC)

The Image[]

RatedGood

RatedExcellent

Well, these are roughs (since the font isn't right, among other things). Posting them for input. Each file is currently at about 20 kb, so that's tasty at least. --Ganteka Future 02:20, November 5, 2009 (UTC)

I love them...I just wish they were more square. Could just be me being overly OCD, though. --DanielDraco 02:58, November 5, 2009 (UTC)
Anyone else have two cents to add? If everyone else likes them, there's no reason not to go ahead and put them in the template so we can get started. --DanielDraco 21:09, November 7, 2009 (UTC)
I think it may be good to change the blue parts of the background to red (To match with the templates, a bit of my own OCD I guess, but right now I can just see them clashing with the colors of the template a bit much. (As they are, every single primary color would be on a rating of 'excellent', and that is difficult to do tastefully)), but past that, I think these will work outstandingly. → Rith (talk) 21:30, November 7, 2009 (UTC)
The wiki's logo has the blue scheme though, and changing the crest away from that seems...sloppy. At the risk of going in circles, I'd like to suggest blue colors in the template again (though a different shade of blue) -- I did some testing with replacing the #A30506 with #0605A3 in a temporary sandbox, and it looks okay to me. --DanielDraco 00:35, November 8, 2009 (UTC)
I'd accept that shade, whatever shade Gan used in the crest, or something darker... my preference is for the latter two I think but it's not particularly strong. Blue in general should be fine though. - TarkisFlux 04:04, November 8, 2009 (UTC)
Per Gan, the blue in the crest is 0000CD. I'll have in for testing shortly, and if it looks good I'd like to go with it for consistency. - TarkisFlux 00:43, November 10, 2009 (UTC)
So, that blue is too light because there's a shadow filter in the image that darkens it up. And the actual dark blue (0D0047) is probably too dark. So I did some other hunting and think that this shade (003F87) works well enough that I'm gonna stop worrying about it unless someone really hates it. - TarkisFlux 01:46, November 10, 2009 (UTC)
Well, actually, the darker blue is more subtle, and not as jarring as the pastel greens and blues were. I think you may have just solved the RC favor templates minor issues. → Rith (talk) 02:04, November 10, 2009 (UTC)
Looks good. Unless anyone has problems with it as it is, I say we go ahead and move it to a non-user page, put those images in there, and get started using it. --DanielDraco 21:59, November 10, 2009 (UTC)
Moved to Template:RC Favor, and the images added. As we had more votes for center than others, the header has been centered. As long as Gan doesn't change the image name when he update them later it should auto-propogate to anything we've rated. Wheee done. - TarkisFlux 02:05, November 11, 2009 (UTC)
RatedExcellent Tarkisflux's Favor
This article has been favored and rated Excellent by Tarkisflux, for the following reasons: it's finally done.






Talk page rater properties[]

If there's any desire to track the pages that other RC members have rated, I can add a Rater property to the wiki and set it with the template. It'll list on the talk page and not on the article proper, but that's the way it'll be if we want to track these things automatically. - TarkisFlux 02:53, November 11, 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Ratings will do little good if we only rate articles as happenstance leads us to them, so it'll be good to be able to find articles that others have rated. --DanielDraco 00:17, November 14, 2009 (UTC)
Done. You can check Property:Rated By after the templates refresh to see who's rated what already. - TarkisFlux 00:38, November 14, 2009 (UTC)
Doesn't appear to be working. --DanielDraco 00:54, November 15, 2009 (UTC)
Yeah... I thought it was just a delayed update originally, but now I'm starting to doubt that. I think talk pages may be outside of the namespace that the semantic stuff searches, but I can't find any documentation one way or the other. I could get around it by sticking it in the Author template if it has to be on the actual page, but I'd like to avoid that step for now. - TarkisFlux 21:45, November 15, 2009 (UTC)
Yup, it'll set properties on talk pages, but it won't do anything with them. So, options.
  1. I can edit the author template to accept a new field, rated by, that we will have to manually edit when we manually edit up the favor count.
  2. We can start putting the favor templates on the article page, at the bottom in their own section, instead of the talk page. This might also help keep things clear when the talk pages devolve into arguments.
  3. We can not worry about auto-tracking who has rated what.
  4. We can use categories on the talk pages instead of the property, but that's a category page per rater or a single category with everything anyone has rated and no way to sort things you've missed or check that individual raters are keeping up their ratings work.
  5. Something else I haven't thought of.
I think I prefer putting the templates on the article page directly from those options, but it's not up to me alone. - TarkisFlux 19:28, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I was just gonna manually track, but, autotracking is the wave of the future, and we should probably go that route. I agree that among those options, putting the favor on the bottom of the article itself probably works the best, with a header and a canned templated message saying something like "To discuss these Favors go talk page. To learn more about the Rating Committee, go here". But with actual links. Though, as I'm thinking about this, a "Rated By:" section in the author box might be okay too (if people can manage to make two edits instead of one on the talk page only, and not forget, which is likely to happen at some point), as I would rather clutter up the talk page than the main article. What else has anyone to say about this? --Ganteka Future 22:20, November 19, 2009 (UTC)
I think having a links built into the template is a great idea. Linking to the talk page of the rating committee would be a start, but if the template could change the links based on the individual rater (so that you could have an ask query for that rater and a link to that user's talk page, perhaps) that would be awesome. On having the raters listed in the main article, I don't really see a reason for that when the talk page is a click away. -- Jota 01:32, November 20, 2009 (UTC)
I think you missed something Jota. The linking stuff is easy. The part where you rate something with the template and your name gets attached to the article as a value of the Rated By property (so other members can find stuff that's been rated and we can track what the individual raters are doing) not so much; it fails entirely if we put it on talk pages like we are now and so autotracking who's done what is right out. If you want it to stay on the talk page I need to use categories instead of properties, which is slightly less flexible, can't be used in as many ways, and requires more upkeep and setup when we have RC membership changes. We could do it, that's why it's an option in the above, I just don't think it the best one. - TarkisFlux 02:00, November 20, 2009 (UTC)
And Surgo has pre-vetoed that option, which is fine, but it leaves us with categories on talk pages or author / new template that you add your name to when you update the favor score of an article. And of those I'd rather add my name to the page when I update the score. - TarkisFlux 02:38, November 20, 2009 (UTC)
I'll defer to your expertise in the matter, as my own experience is limited and the decision does not seem terribly critical. -- Jota 05:00, November 20, 2009 (UTC)
I'm with Jota on that. --DanielDraco 23:25, November 20, 2009 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Fair enough; changes made. See the author box on Dungeonomicon_(3.5e_Sourcebook) for how the raters param looks. If you're the first person to favor something, you should be responsible for adding that parameter at the same time as the favor parameter and sticking your name there. Everyone else should add their own names when they add a favor to the talk page. - TarkisFlux 00:03, November 21, 2009 (UTC)

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