Zelda Wiki:Discussion Center

Disambiguation rules
Apparently I have caused some... consternation by moving "King Zora" to "King Zora (Ocarina Of Time)". I haven't been able to locate any disambiguation rules on this wiki, so assuming they don't exist (and if they do exist, this is still gonna be relevant), I'd like to discuss our options for the best possible system. What I think will work best is if disambiguation titles are going to be about the first appearance of the subject.

The advantages are that there is virtually no chance the first choice disamb titles won't do, as I don't recall an instance in which one game introduced two things with the same name. Nor do I ever expect this to happen. Secondly, a chosen disamb title has no chance of ever needing revising. For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if TWW Missy or TP Fado would return in the series. If disamb'ed by first appearance, nothing has to be moved.

I'm guessing some people might object to this because they feel it might be confusing for the visitors that they have to look for "King Zora (Ocarina Of Time)" to find the guy from OOA. True, but how much more easy would it be for them to do guess work as to where the page they are looking for could be located? I'm not much for making problems look larger than they are: if "King Zora (Ocarina Of Time)" were to be moved to, say, "King Zora (sea Zora)", it would be one of the very few cases in which disambs have to get creative. It is also not as if people won't be able to find the page at all, since "King Zora" itself should provide the proper redirects anyway. But my belief is that this is overcomplicating matters. Disamb'ing by initial appearance provides a clear, almost flawless answer to any disamb case. For that matter, I'd also like to point out it's a mistake to believe a disamb title has to be informative, as some people think. If all is coded well, only the page itself should display the disamb title, which should only be chosen on practical grounds to provide the most consistency.

The only page I could think of right now that, while it'd work, should arguably not be disamb'ed this way is Link (Goron), because the difference in the levels of fame among the fandom between him and the Hero of Time is rather huge. IfIHaveTo 10:54, 4 September 2010 (EDT)


 * No one seems to be commenting on this, so I will. Personally, I think things were fine the way they were. I don't like the idea simply because the title contradicts the content of the page. But hey, what do I know? Maybe the Quality Standards page should be updated? Try writing something on Adam's or Jason's talk page, since it seems they do most of the editing around the Quality Standards. Hylian King 07:31, 7 September 2010 (EDT)

Bunch of questions
As the header says:


 * 1) The above "disambiguation rules" matter. Any has an opinion?
 * 2) Can anyone tell how to get an image to function as a link to a page?
 * 3) I've noticed a lot of pages have trivia items that mention a likeness between two subjects that I find highly... nonexistent. Either because the likeness is not there or because there is no reason at all to assume the subjects have anything to do with each other (like the Garo and the Subrosians). Are there any quality standards for adding such content?
 * 4) In the same vein, a good number of pages have items in the trivia section such as "this is the only out of three that does..." How relevant is such information? What value has the observation that dungeon X is the only dungeon that cannot by entered before doing Y or is one out of only two dungeons that has the entrance on the left or some such details?
 * 5) The canon policy of the wiki... It's unclear, its consequences are unclear and its reasons are unclear. Anybody'd feel insulted if I'd try to work out a new policy and present it for consideration instead of discussing a new one? IfIHaveTo 16:08, 15 September 2010 (EDT)


 * Well.... First off, I edited your post there so it would have proper line breaks and formatting so people can read it. Here's what I have to say:
 * I don't know there. It's a complex issue.
 * You're looking for Template:ImageLink.
 * It sort of says it in Theories in Articles, but it's not clearly clarified that Trivia is not a place for theories. We may need to make a separate set of standards just for trivia.
 * See #3.
 * Can't see how more clarification can hurt. It was put together in a short time frame. But we can't get too specific if we are to remain in a neutral point of view.
 * There's what I can say on that so far. 21:41, September 15, 2010 (UTC)

ZW website running slow on my computer?
These past few days the entire Zelda Wiki website has been running quite a bit more slowly on my computer than usual. Whereas before a page load would take seconds, now it takes almost a minute. It's not that big of a deal, but it's enough to be annoying, especially when I'm doing things like checking pages to make sure I'm inserting a link that won't redirect. Anyways, I wanted to ask if anyone else is experiencing this, or if it's just my computer. Also, if the latter is true, if anyone knows what I can do to bring things back to normal. Changing browsers doesn't seem to help, although pages do load a bit faster on Firefox.

ZW is the only website that I'm experiencing difficulties with.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Hylian King 08:26, 24 September 2010 (EDT)


 * Hi HK. First of all, it isn't just you! =) The problem is on the site side, and the staff is aware of it and know how to fix it. Unfortunately, the problem can't be addressed just yet, so there's some delay. But hopefully it will get worked out soon!! 10:57, 24 September 2010 (EDT)

Unused Files Bug?
I'm not sure if this is on my side or not, but when I try to view more that 50 Unused Files, the page does not load. Pressing (Next 50) is also useless. Intestingly enough, if I go do 20 images per page, I can view the first 40 images. However, as soon as I try to see the next 20 (ie. 40-60), the page doesn't load. I'd really like to find a solution to this so I can add unused images to articles. 11:33, 1 October 2010 (EDT)


 * My theory was that it was a massive file breaking the whole thing. And I was right. It is this one. We'll have to manuallly delete it. 19:21, October 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well that one is gone now but there's one more here. Because it was missed the first time I went and looked for more but I couldn't find any that I could see. The page didn't seem to break after that one. 20:27, October 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yup, that was the last one. It works now! It's not broken anymore. 21:57, October 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's perfect! I guess the wiki doesn't like files bigger than.... 5000 - 6000 px. Whatever the case, I'm glad the page works again. Thank you Matt and Steve ^_^ 18:51, 1 October 2010 (EDT)

Comprehensive Soundtrack List
This is a major proposed change, so consider carefully and maybe consult other admins before replying.

I'd like to start a comprehensive list of music found in Zelda. Most of the songs essential to gameplay exist on the Wiki already, but these are only a fraction of the full audio experience from the games. Now, the soundtrack is one of my favorite parts of Zelda, and one of the factors that separate it from every other game. I believe it's important to name these songs so that fans have a source of reference for music, and so Zelda Wiki can cement its place as the most thorough source of Zelda material on the web.

Here's my plan. Every piece from every Official Soundtrack gets its own article, along with a list of games it has appeared in and under what conditions it appears in each game. It's also possible to embed audio samples or YouTube links in each article, so readers could listen to and compare the music while reading. Other articles that are involved with the soundtracks (for example, Hyrule Field or Princess Zelda), contain links to the appropriate soundtrack articles. It would be very similar to what www.lostpedia.com does for the Lost soundtrack. I would estimate that this would add roughly 1000 articles to Zelda Wiki. If this is an addition we want to see, let me know, and I will start making stubs. Bpenguin17 17:00, 14 October 2010 (EDT)


 * Hello, Bpenguin17! The project your are hoping to undertake is huge and definitely one that would greatly benefit Zelda Wiki, so we appreciate your interest! I don't know about the other admins, but I have a question. What would we do with music that pertains to the dungeons? For example, the Ocarina of Time soundtrack has a song titled "Water Temple." Would we have to create another article called "Water Temple (song)", or would we put the information in the Water Temple article? I'm sure other questions will arise later, but that's really the only one I have right now. :P Anyway, before "stubs" are created like crazy around the wiki...I think it wouldn't be too bad if perhaps we could see how you plan to outline these articles. I have created an infobox for official soundtracks to use for each song article. Maybe you could draft up two or so song articles? I and the other users/admins would love to give input. You can create the drafts in the Sandbox or create your sandbox by typing User:Bpenguing17/Sandbox on the search bar to the left. We look forward to seeing your work! Dany36 21:20, 14 October 2010 (EDT)
 * I like this idea! You will find that a grand portion of the major Zelda tunes have their own page, i.e. Saria's Song, Zelda's Lullaby, Wind God's Aria. For the dungeons, I think it'd be best to simply have a section on the specific dungeon's page pertaining to the music - that's more relevant, practical, and centralized as opposed to having a "Water Temple(song)" article. My only question is: Is there enough written content about these tunes to support article creation? Articles with written content that is less than 2 paragraphs usually get merged with a parent topic for relevance. I don't think there is enough written info around for specific song titles, but I'd love to be proved wrong :) Perhaps a page for each soundtrack in general is satisfactory. Who knows! Just some ideas! :P 01:51, 15 October 2010 (EDT)
 * Thanks for your input!


 * I had envisioned a separate article for each and every piece of music (e.g. "Water Temple (song)"), but Cipriano does have a point about efficiency. I suppose I'll make the individual articles first (for the sake of consistency), link the soundtrack page to the dungeon page, and just let editors decide later whether or not to merge them. If need be, I can imagine every song having a mergeable location somewhere on the Wiki, since most of them are themes for characters or locations. Alternatively, the text and information of the individual article could be condensed into one main soundtrack page per game. Again, I'll leave it up to editors to decide how, or if, to merge the music pages.


 * Thanks for the infobox, Dany! I'll see if I can get it to work in my Sandbox. Bpenguin17 17:23, 15 October 2010 (EDT)


 * No prob, Bpenguin! I think, at this point, it would be useful for users to all give their input on how this could work out, and not just the admins! I think some of the most-used songs (like the Fairy Fountain theme used at the selection screen, the Overworld theme, etc) should definitely get their own article...maybe? I mean, they're pretty big songs and I think they have enough notability to be mentioned somewhere in the wiki. For example, those two have been remixed in the OoT remixed soundtrack, so that's something else that we could mention. Dany36 17:49, 15 October 2010 (EDT)


 * So I've created a prototype for a soundtrack page in my sandbox, using the Overworld/Legend of Zelda Theme Song as an example. It's by no means a final draft, and I'd like your opinions on what could be done to make the prototype better before I start mass-producing others like it. For example, the "Elements" section may be too technical and only attractive to music buffs. (And it probably didn't help that I was making up words.)


 * Dany, if you think this should be "released to the general public", I'll go ahead and make the article outside of my Sandbox for everyone to see. Bpenguin17 18:15, 15 October 2010 (EDT)


 * All right, it's out there! It's right here! I wasn't sure what to call it, so we may have to change the name eventually. I'd appreciate it if you could give me feedback on layout, and make general improvements to the page (I know I have nowhere near the full list of appearances). Or, if you really don't have the time, you could begin to direct others' attention to this project of mine. Bpenguin17 18:26, 15 October 2010 (EDT)


 * It looks okay from what I can tell. Just remember that if the title needs something in parenthesis to capitalize it. Just like any book title. 22:42, October 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * I made some minor changes to the article (for example, the TP Hyrule Field theme is different from the original Zelda theme, so I removed it), and I added quotation marks to all of the song titles. Though...I'm just now remember that the the Hyrule Field Theme and the original Zelda theme are quite different, so maybe a new article should be made for that called the Hyrule Field Theme? And the Elements section seems fine to me. Kinda cool :P Dany36 19:03, 15 October 2010 (EDT)
 * Oh whoops, silly me. I thought you had added OoT under appearances. My bad! Oh, and where did you get the piece of information as to where Shigeru got the inspiration for that song? Dany36 19:06, 15 October 2010 (EDT)


 * Okay, thanks, Dany! My source for the theme song's inspiration was a YouTube interview with Shigeru's colleague and friend, 'The Story of "The Legend of Zelda" musical theme.' by EricSoussanin. I'm pretty sure it's legit, but you're welcome to check it out. Bpenguin17 03:11, 17 October 2010 (EDT)
 * I created the Fairy Fountain (Theme) page, and made a bare-bones page that basically lists every piece on the Ocarina of Time soundtrack. That should give all of us plenty to chew on for now. Bpenguin17 19:57, 20 October 2010 (EDT)
 * Sounds great! Except...we already have a page for the official OoT soundtrack: here. XD If you don't mind, I'll redirect your page to that one. Dany36 20:05, 20 October 2010 (EDT)
 * Ohhhh.... Suppose I should have checked that first. Well, it looks like the content is better on that page, but I have a better title. Shall we move all the content to "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Official Soundtrack)"?
 * I know it seems weird, but if you look at the image of the CD cover, it only says "The Legend of Zelda: Original Soundtrack" and not "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Official Soundtrack." We have to go with the official names. Dany36 11:53, 21 October 2010 (EDT)
 * But that could get confusing when I do the page for the first game's soundtrack. What would we call it? Bpenguin17 13:55, 22 October 2010 (EDT)

WOAH! Someone's been busy! Nice pages! Bpenguin17 01:54, 30 October 2010 (EDT)
 * Oh, I correct myself. They were just linked to each other. Nevertheless, thanks for the links. Sorry I've been slacking off on this project, I've been busy in real life. Bpenguin17 01:58, 30 October 2010 (EDT)
 * Don't worry about it! There's no rush or anything. :] Dany36 11:21, 30 October 2010 (EDT)

2 Questions
1.First, how do you add a picture to the wiki 2.Lastly, could somebody make a userbox saying "This user owns the Mask of Truth" with a picture of the mask of truth with a dark green background. Thanks --Zeldarules8 20:47, 29 November 2010 (EST)
 * I can only answer one of the two questions, sadly! If you're talking about uploading an image to the wiki, simply click on the "Upload file" link that's located on the toolbox on the sidebar to the left, then just follow the instructions there. If you're still unsure, then check out this nifty help page. Dany36 15:18, 3 December 2010 (EST)

What to do with Delimiters (Parenthetical descriptors)?
Okay, this is one thing that really bothers me. Delimiters (words in parentheses added to a title to specify what it refers to, like Beetle (Item)) are supposed to be lowercase. That's a basic rule for any encyclopedia, yet for some reason, we have uppercase. I've been meaning to crack down on them for the longest time, yet I've never gotten around to it. I think it's high time we finally fixed this. Thoughts? 03:02, 30 November 2010 (EST)
 * Aaaand here's my reply: I agree =). Of course, if the delimiter revolves about a name (Wii, for example), then it must remain uppercase, obviously. The reason (I think) it has been uppercase in all delimiters is because all words that constitute the title itself (except connecting words like in, of, and .... well, and XD) are uppercase as well. But it would be good to put your suggestion into practice. --K2L (Interrogatory) 18:48, 1 December 2010 (EST)
 * Would've preferred if Justin put it back himself, but okay...
 * I also agree. I can't think of any reason why anyone would be against this. If this Wiki is to look professional, we need to be careful about the details. If we're going to have rules against uppercase file extensions, there's no reason we shouldn't be looking after this. I'm thinking we add this into the Quality Standards. The more people that know about it, the less it'll happen. The less it happens, the less people will think the delimiters are SUPPOSED to be uppercase (like I once thought), and then it'll happen even less.
 * I'd consider going all the way and just moving some pages with uppercase delimiters myself and fixing the broken links. I was thinking maybe we could even work out the task for TheStoneWatcher. The only problem would be getting it to recognize the delimiters that are supposed to be uppercase, as K2L mentioned... 07:27, 2 December 2010 (EST)
 * I'm also in favor of moving the delimiters to lowercase for reasons already mentioned (plus having it in uppercase always bugged me and looks plain strange). I would have no problem manually moving the pages. :P Dany36 11:58, 2 December 2010 (EST)
 * Neither would I. Oh, and HK, Justin did put the request back himself, you didn't notice it because all he did was revert the deletion of his post, instead of rewriting it from zero. Now let's see who else agrees with this and, if there aren't objections, we might start moving the pertinent pages one by one. --K2L (Interrogatory) 13:12, 2 December 2010 (EST)
 * I am also for this plan. At the very least, we will be more harmonized with the other NIWA wikis that way. It might be a headache to implement, but if enough people are behind it I'm sure it will be fine. :P 14:31, 2 December 2010 (EST)
 * I'd like to recant my vote here. I've been all over the place looking at grammatical rules from various sources and can't find a strong case for this either way. How I feel about it seems to change with my mood, (It's part of the title, so it's capitalized. NO WAIT It's just a parenthetical description, not part of the title, so it's lower case!) so I'm going to follow Cip's lead on this one and go with the flow. 19:46, 3 December 2010 (EST)
 * I'm indifferent to this issue. Sure, it would harmonize us with the other NIWA wikis, but I don't see any strong benefit coming from it in the long run. Whatever is decided, I'm happy to go with the flow. 15:45, 3 December 2010 (EST)
 * You shouldn't act that indifferently because, in the event the Twinrova and MM (Boss) articles are to be split, the subsequent new articles will take into consideration the lowercase/uppercase issue. In any case, with you there are six votes in favor already. With a lucky seventh vote (a low number, admittedly, but then again, the wiki has been deserted in these days), we might start renaming various pages. --K2L (Interrogatory) 16:10, 3 December 2010 (EST)
 * I wouldn't call me a "favorable vote"; I'm more of an "invisible one". By going with the flow, I mean whatever the majority decides I will be fine with. If the two articles you mentioned are split, I will have no problem keeping the delimters uppercase or lowercase, depending on what the majority decides. Thus, if you guys want seven votes, don't count mine, as it doesn't lean either way. 16:39, 3 December 2010 (EST)
 * Just thought I'd point out that official wiki policy is to capitalize all elements in a page title as per proper English grammar rules. This policy would be something to be decided by staff, not the generic userbase. So no amount of "votes" from normal users can overturn that. Opinions would be taken in of course, but it's not up to them. 23:13, December 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * I like how Justin claims this is a "basic rule for every encyclopedia" um.. source, please? Really, there is not a proper "yes-or-no-you're-doing-it-wrong" rule for this... considering this, I see no reason to change it. It'll basically be a lot of work without any real difference. So, I guess you could say I'm against this for that reason. 23:28, December 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * First off... these things we're talking about are not called delimiters. A delimiter is a character or phrase that separates elements in a list of words, this is not even close to being that. Based on how things in parentheses are named, an appropriate name for these things would be a parenthetical description. I already looked into this when we corrected it a long time ago. The reasoning was that there really is no set rule on this, because wikis, and the internet itself, is too new for it. The only real "source" of this way of doing it is Wikipedia, which really doesn't talk about it much at all, they just do it. The only reason that anyone else does it is because the core MediaWiki installation is basically a stripped down version of Wikipedia, but with the same formatting and design. It has further been put forward by Wikia. Here is something that needs to be stressed, Wikia and Wikipedia are NOT role models to look up to. They're just the big boys on the block. Both of them lack equal competition. That leads to corrupt "do whatever we want no matter the consequences" kind of corruption. Because what are they going to do? Go to another version of Wikipedia? Opps, wait, there is none. Wikia is still a giant, there's NIWA of course, but that isn't close in size yet. If we need cross-wiki harmonizing, then they should do this and capitalze all these things. Doing something just because "others do it" is always a very bad idea and it can severely hold back progress. We're currently the most progressive wiki out there in grammatical accuracy and fluidity. This would be a huge step back on that. The most accepted English grammar rules on tiles is to capitalize everything in them except for minor words that are usually less than three letters. Which by the way Wikipedia absolutely refuses to follow, much to the torment of English teachers the world over. Just look, they don't treat titles like titles at all, they lowercase absolutely everything that isn't a name. This further degrades their credibility for this particular thing. Since parenthetical descriptions really don't have their own rule yet, the next best is to use the title rules. Which would be the way we have it now. So changing it just for the sake of copying others would be rather dumb. We shouldn't follow others' standards, we should set our own. 23:54, December 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * Mmmmmmmm ..... OK, I got it, good pal. But there was no need for that ultra-depression-inducing wall of text (which, as I said in another life, is something you seem to do just for fun). Mandi already taught me that a renaming of the pertinent pages is not necessary, and I began to agree with her conclusion quickly =). --K2L (Interrogatory) 19:06, 3 December 2010 (EST)
 * Mmmhmm.... That's just passion. And my natural desire to be descriptive, which is a good trait for here actually. 03:49, December 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is that a descriptive speak is very ambiguous when it comes to the mood of the speaker, so certain users may be hurt by the apparently destructive intention of the message, even if the person is not very experienced in the spoken-of topic. But, given what you said in your userpage, you seem to care little about that.
 * Anyway, after reading Embyr's latest post (above), I'm going to go with the flow as well. If I can't defeat someone, I'll join him/her. --K2L (Interrogatory) 00:10, 4 December 2010 (EST)

Just thought I'd point this out. In the Encyclopedia Britannica, they also use lowercase for the descriptors. Look at the title of the page in your browser here: Azilian industry 00:57, 4 December 2010 (EST)
 * Oh, also, for an encyclopedia, it's like looking up a word in the dictionary. It's not like the page is an essay and the title is the "Title" of the essay. It's like the word you're looking up, and in a dictionary, that would be lowercase. That's another angle on this. 01:24, 4 December 2010 (EST)
 * Changing the capitalization of descriptors serves little to no purpose as there are no concrete guidelines yet. I'd also like to challenge the idea that encyclopedias are like dictionaries, as dictionaries do not contain subheadings for each entry, nor do they contain the same amount or type of information. An encyclopedia is more like a report in that sense, and should therefore follow title guidelines for reports. 06:47, 4 December 2010 (EST)
 * Think about it. The title is basically the word you use to find the information contained on the page. It's not a true title. I don't know how to be any clearer than that. 14:12, 4 December 2010 (EST)
 * I'm coming in to condense the argument for those who just want the short and brief. To recap, the arguments are:
 * Change to lowercase: this is the trend for the grand majority of wikis/online encyclopedias, would harmonize with NIWA, parenthticals are not a "true" portion of the title, grammar rules, etc.
 * Leave as is: let's stay unique, there is no established, standard wiki rule, too much work vs. negligible benefit, etc.
 * And for everyone, lets make sure we are being civil in our comments. So far, it looks like the discussion is going along neutrally (for the most part), but, as seen in the past, it is in the nature of passionate discussions to get personal and inappropriate, if discussion gridlock occurs. I'd hate to see someone banned due to any uncivil or harrassing conduct. Thanks! 16:00, 5 December 2010 (EST)

Well, the issue shouldn't be weighed by NIWA harmonization or not, as every wiki can do as it wants. We do appreciate things like the community articles (I'm hoping to find time to edit WiKirby's around the end of the year). But ultimately, anything done at ZW's should be done for ZW's sake. As far as a "benefit" goes, I'll have to break some hearts here, the only benefits any wiki can really offer an editor is the experience of editing in itself. Not sure what other "benefit" is expected, but changing the titles to what we can all agree is Common Practice, if not an unwritten title expectation from viewers and cross-over editors.

Don't let fear of undertaking a large task decide your opinion. There was once a time Zelda Wiki didn't have an Item infobox on any pages. I figured it was worth doing anyway. While at these articles, I couldn't ignore the shoddy state they were otherwise in. Little by little, changes were made, and the items pages aren't near as embarrassing as they once were. The same thing will happen, editors making the title changes may run into articles they wouldn't have otherwise have seen and make improvements as they go. As it undoubtedly happened when people went around adding references, the regional name templates, the enemy grouping templates, and such.

I too always thought the capitalization was too much of an emphasis on the descriptor to the title. Last time it was brought up, it seemed to be divisive for ZeldaWiki.org. And the timing was pretty bad as we were pulling hairs on several other topics. This time, it looks like more people are in favor of the change, and willing to implement it. I recommend capitalizing (as in: To use as or convert into capital) on that ;)  19:34, 9 December 2010 (EST)


 * Okay, I'm not going to actively argue anyone's points here in this post. I'm just going to give some origin into why Wikipedia does this themselves. They do not do it for any reasons of grammatical correctness as is commonly believed. They do it because prior to early 2004, there were no such thing as piped links. So say you have the sentence: " Many Annual Plants are raised in greenhouses. " Here, when displayed, the "Annual Plants" portion can look out of place. Since they didn't have an option of piped links yet, they just chose to disregard grammar rules and instead treat it like a sentence so it would be less work for linking. Then having: " Many annual plants are raised in greenhouses. " So it really came out of necessity rather than grammatical choice. But in early 2004, piped links became an option. But for Wikipedia, already rather huge, it would have been too much work to correct all the titles, so they chose to do nothing. Then as time went on and other wikis came up, they just copy Wikipedia's style with little regard as to how it came about. To this day many English language scholars complain about Wikipedia's lack of grammatical accuracy. In fact I once heard my teachers say "Now, while you're ripping off your material for your papers from Wikipedia, make sure to correct the headers since they do not treat them correctly." Of course it was half a joke as he didn't want anyone to rip off of Wikipedia, but he was serious about the grammar failures on there. While it's understandable when you think of the time where they didn't have any alternative, but today they do, and they're stuck in the past. 02:22, December 10, 2010 (UTC)

Hyrule Castle/The Heart Container
I've been here for a while and still find these two pages complicated. I have two main questions:
 * Why is The Heart Container the Castle Town's talk page? It would be less confusing if it was on its own page called "The Heart Container".
 * What's the difference between the two? Questions get mixed between them frequently.

Anyway, I think we should combine Hyrule Castle and The Heart Container and categorize questions into subpages. This is similar to what I want. Suggestions for subpages include Articles, Files, Templates, Wikicode, Policies and Guidelines, User Info, Zelda Info and Misc. Of course, the archives would have to be sorted into these new groupings to make past information more accessible. (Sorry for any nonsense. I'm not used to staying up this late) 16:59, 19 December 2010 (EST)


 * No, we're way too small to have all those subpages like that. Wikipedia is not really relatable here. They're massive. What works for them will not be practical for a small wiki. All that would accomplish is make many little pages that will rot and die. As for the way the pages are layed out, the Heart Container is where it is because it's where those discussions were supposed to be, ones that didn't fit in Castle Town's scope. And otherwise, there would have been a odd-out discussion page on each which would have been mistaken for the actual one and discussed interchangeably. That's why they were merged into a pair of pages like that. The ironic part is how they became interchangeable. For now maybe we can set down what each were for. 05:58, December 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * All I really want are some well-defined pages. "You can ask about XXX here and YYY there". Just make sure the purpose of the page is written clearly. Also, make the purpose clearly visible somewhere at the top. A simple phrase written in large, red font should do. And I think we've discussed it on the chat, but we need to move the Heart Container out of the talk page.
 * I also wouldn't mind adding tips for making suggestions/complaints. For example, some basic guidelines might be:


 * 1) Keep your idea simple. — Don't make your idea so complicated that it takes a team of scientists to decipher it.
 * 2) Make your idea concrete. — Use examples or stories to make the idea relatable. Ideas leave better impressions when you can see, hear or "feel" them.
 * 3) Make your sentences understandable. — Make it so even a child can understand what you're saying.
 * 4) Guide the readers through your idea. — You've thought this over and know what you want, but the readers can't read your mind. Start from the beginning and build the idea up.
 * 5) Make the consequences of your idea clear. — What will your idea do? Why should people listen to what you're saying?
 * It's easy to forget the basics of presenting ideas, and I think even veterans would benefit from them. 09:12, 25 December 2010 (EST)

NIWA Account Merge
Ive just had a brilliant idea: why dont we make it that an account on one of the Wiki's (Zeldawiki, For example) can be used to log into other wiki's (Nintendo, Mario and Bulbapedia wikis)?

Each user might be able to have a page on their own on a separate Wiki (that may be called NIWAwiki) that details what sites they may have logged into. It may also have an option to merge accounts with other NIWikis (NIWA Wikis, Geddit?) or in the same wiki.

What do you guys think? GFlame (Talk) 01:07, 24 December 2010 (EST)
 * Hmm...that's a good idea! It could seriously be useful and make interwiki editing much easier... Have you thought about posting it on the NIWA forums? I think that idea might get a little more attention than here, to be honest... Here's the link! Dany36 01:43, 24 December 2010 (EST)


 * Yeah, I tried that, but, I'm not good at posting on forums and I lost whatever I did. Cant you do it? GFlame (Talk) 01:47, 13 January 2011 (EST)

Item templates
So, the templates that Minion is making for the items are certainly awesome and useful. My question is...how are we going to use them on item articles such as Boomerang, Hookshot, etc? If Minion's planning on doing the item templates for all games, we could end up having 10+ item templates on the Boomerang article since it has appeared in so many Zelda games to date. Are we going to use a hide/show template for articles that have more than two item templates? Or what other ideas do you guys have? Dany36 01:47, 24 December 2010 (EST)
 * This is tough - like you said, the Boomerang, Shield, Bottle, etc. pages are going to be overloaded if we stack the templates like normal, but I'm not sure that it'd be much better with 10+ hide/show templates - there is a system Bulbapedia uses to outsource templates and information relating to Pokemon found in Generations other than the current one. We could use the same idea here! Look here - the current template is shown for the current generation/game, and the previous, related, generation templates are linked to in the template itself, and exist on connected subpages. In this way, we could make the general template for items in Spirit Tracks, and any overlaps could be filtered into the template and linked to in subpages. For items not in Spirit Tracks, the template used could be the next newest game that features the item, with the same linking to previous titles' templates. A little confusing, but I think it's definitely more benefitial than either above option. 17:38, 24 December 2010 (EST)


 * I'm not sure we should go exactly the way Bulbapedia does it. But that does give me an interesting idea. Two solutions I can think of, is either:
 * Have each page involved have a sort of template "navigation" subpage in which there would be everything on it to do with navigation, and then including it back onto the page at the bottom. Having the item map ones under a random selection coding to randomly choose one to display.
 * Same as the first one except for instead using the Overflow template to making only one show up at a time, being able to scroll through all of them.
 * Either one could use a single hide template. But in the case, we'd want to use Show instead because it would give us a little more flexibility than Hide would. 23:25, December 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the ultimate goal should be to have them ALL accessible on every item page. This would be done by making a template with a list of games. Selecting a game would preview the appropriate template. Think of our upload page and the licensing dropdown menu. Also think of Wikipedia's javascript edit tool (viewable when editing an article).
 * Until we get such a javascript feature, we'll have to stick to more primitive methods. Dress this template up and add links to the other item templates. 09:12, 25 December 2010 (EST)
 * It would be appropiate to separate the weapons from the quest items, I think that would make the task easier. Considering that the games have generally different Quest Items, we would make one navigation templates per title (i.e. the OOT quest screen, the MM quest screen, the TWW quest screen, and so forth). --K2L (Interrogatory) 20:36, 27 December 2010 (EST)

Concern over signatures
I have noticed that transclusion of templates in signatures in the form of  are quite common on this wiki and are even found in archives of past discussion this concerns me for a number of reasons:
 * Signature templates target vandals and will even if the user leaves the project.
 * Signature templates increase server loads and whenever you change your signature, ass the talkpages you have posted on need to be re-cached.

Colud transcluded signature be upon archival of a discussion? -- 11:03, 11 January 2011 (EST)


 * Vandals are not a problem. Reverting edits is really easy. And a vandal would more likely attack bigger, more important pages. And two, the whole server load thing is a myth. Total myth. It's completely the other way around. Saving the whole of signatures to a page is much harder on the server than putting it in a template-like structure. Every time a talk page is edited, the entire contents are saved. Absolutely everything on it, every last byte. So having huge signatures directly on the page means a larger file size, meaning it is harder for the server to process and it takes up more storage space on the server hard drives. Not only that, a person editing it, and it being recached is not really an issue for a wiki this size. If a highly talkative user changes theirs, the chances are the server will be done updating it before the next page even loads. All this is further stressed by the fact that it is much easier to read pages in the edit view without the massive walls of formatting code in them. 23:59, January 11, 2011 (UTC)


 * 1) Even so I still favour protection of an admin's signature unless they allow non-admins to edit it.
 * 2) As for huge signatures, you are presumably referring to signatures longer than 255 characters of code, like yours. I don't think it applies to shorter signatures. -- 19:35, 11 January 2011 (EST)


 * I think performance factors generally considered a secondary issue in terms of trasclusion vs. substitution. For example, Matt's concerns over disk storage space are essentially a non-issue when we're talking about adding size in the order of bytes into a database hosted on a server with terabyte-capacity storage. Any reduction in size gained by removing text from a page would normally be negated by the fact that an edit was made, hence the old revision remains cumulatively in the database. I'd say the only notable performance concern is the effect on caching, as Myrtonos pointed out. However, in terms of the proportion of page views we get at ZW, pages which contain signatures (mainly talk and project) are relatively low-traffic areas, so the effect in the rare cases when people do update their signatures would likely be negligible.
 * The primary concern is one of practicality; clearly it's preferable to transclude long blocks of code rather than dumping it repeatedly into pages. As Matt pointed out, substitution would make talk pages less usable to others trying to edit (particularly if they're non-technical and easily scared by chunks of wikicode). Our policy has always been that custom signatures should be transcluded, and I feel that this makes talk pages more accessible for others to contribute.
 * As a side note, there's an interesting summary of the pros and cons here (And yes Matt, before you say it, I know it's on Wikipedia, but the points are still relevant to any MediaWiki site :p ) 12:58, 20 January 2011 (EST)
 * On the point Adam made, Wikipedia is rather large. They get a lot of people reading pages at once. They have problems that you just don't have in smaller wikis. We are severely dwarfed by Wikipedia in every way. Being so large magnifies just about every problem they can have. For smaller wikis (i.e. just about every single other wiki in existence) a vast majority of the problems are a non-issue. I don't even think the largest wikis aside from it even have to worry about it unless they have a really poor server. So page caching is negligible for a smaller wiki like us. Even a modest server like ours has little trouble with it. From my understanding, which may not be complete, the most taxing part of the wiki on the server is actually the image processing software. I remember in the past it gave us severe loading time issues. Just about anything else is rather overshadowed by it. Oh, and Adam, by space it takes up I was not referring to what the server had to store, at least I didn't intend to. Bad wording aside, I meant it affects a page's loading time. From my experience, a large page takes longer to load than a page with many transclusions. I guess it's because it doesn't have to handle it all at once in one big piece and can instead load it in bits over a short time (basically the same process download accelerators use to speed up downloads).  19:57, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

Control Schemes
This is really an old idea that I never really tried to push, but I just had a discussion with Dany36 about this, and she found it interesting. I was thinking we should have something on the pages about control schemes for Link's basic actions and items that Link can use, especially those used in combat. With thing like the Gale Boomerang, we tend to imply a lot of things because we speak "within the Zelda universe", but we never say exactly how Link does certain things. We avoid saying "player", so naturally, we don't say, "player's must press R to use the shield and B to use the sword" within our articles. This gets especially complex when we bring in things like touch controls, where it seems even more unnatural to talk about things like "tapping the screen" or "drawing a path". I was wondering if not talking about that took away from some of the information we put out there. References for talk about controls should be easy to grab considering how they're mentioned in manuals, tutorials, each time an item is obtained, and on the sub screen information for the items.

Talking about this sort of thing would be a lot to cover because some items control differently from game to game, so maybe there should be a concise template to encompass how a certain item is used in each of its appearances in the series. One thing I do wonder about is the slight differences between games because when you have items like the Bomb, it has appeared in so many games, and there are slight differences between how to use them and pick them up, especially when it comes to the different buttons or motions. If we do something like this, it may require a new template or perhaps an entire article about game controls for that particular game. Contrarily, it would be a quick mention for items that appear once or twice. It would be something like "move analog left or right to aim, X, Y, or Z to use."

It seems like such a small thing, but I start to wonder why we neglect to mention it at all, sometimes excluding from articles that previously mentioned things like this as if these weren't game we're playing. Don't get me wrong; I like how we talk only in universe, like we're not even controlling Link's actions. It makes articles more interesting, but we're still taking away from the whole game factor. I began to think about it more and more when I started reading through the PH and ST manuals to gather references, and there are so many different touch controls. Then there are already motion controls in Twilight Princess Wii, but it will be even more interesting when Skyward Sword comes out. Think of all the subtle motion controls.

Anyway, I would like to know what you guys think of how this information should best be handled, whether it be with a new template or series of articles. Strategy Wiki has articles about the controls for every game they write articles about, and while they're not as complete as the information I have in mind (they generally talk about the most basic controls, not about the subtle controls of each item), maybe they would be willing to lend us a hand. Anyway, please state what you think of all this, and if you like to take it upon yourself to put this idea to use, go for it. Noble Wrot 18:36, 11 January 2011 (EST)


 * I think this is a great idea. Perhaps we could incorporate something into the Item infobox? I'd like to hear more ideas about this. The more info the better, I say... and for the life of me I can't remember how to get the Fishing Pole to work in Phantom Hourglass... but that's neither hither nor thither... But I think the information should stay on the relevant pages, rather than be spread out into new articles. I like having everything relevant in one place. But that's just me. :) 21:12, 11 January 2011 (EST)


 * I think it's an interesting idea. It would be good to document the control schemes, because although I also like the fact that we talk in-universe, Zelda Wiki should cover everything about Zelda, from the in-game universe to the gameplay itself! When you say "on the pages", which pages are you referring to? The pages about each item? Or the pages about the games? I think it'd be good to have something on the item pages, and list how said item is controlled in each game. Lysia 09:40, 13 January 2011 (EST)


 * When I say on the pages, I do mean the item pages for items with their own controls, ones that can be used in the field. The thought first occurred to me when I worked on Shield, and I was trying to accurately explain the mechanics of using each one, and while I described how to use it visually, I did not mention any buttons commands, unless you look at the reference section. I would like these controls to be on each item page, but I think there should be a series of articles to talk about the overall control schemes of each game. Both seem like good ideas to me. Noble Wrot 13:03, 13 January 2011 (EST)


 * Like Embyr said, we could probably incorporate this information in the item infobox, sort of like how we've done it for the ocarina songs (ta-da). But...would we do the same with items such as the bow, boomerang, and bombs? I guess we could use the Exp template to specify which games the controls are the same for, or maybe we could just make an exception for those articles and devote a section to explaining the controls. Oh, and we'll also need to upload the button images, since I think that will look a bit nicer. :) Dany36 14:12, 13 January 2011 (EST)


 * We should see about Strategy Wiki allowing us to use their button images. It's what I had in mind for a start. Should I go ahead and post something about this on NIWA? Noble Wrot 15:41, 15 January 2011 (EST)


 * Hm, very interesting... So long as the "out-of-universe" writing is subtle, I really like the idea. This makes me think of the Sturgeon's One-Point Lessons article I worked on a while ago. The page is all about basic gameplay mechanics so it was pretty much impossible to write in-universe. Most of it is on controls so TWW practically already has a control scheme page... As for the button images, the GCN buttons as they're represented in-game in TWW have already been uploaded (specifically for the Sturgeon's One-Point Lessons, at the time), so using these would be one option: [[File:TWW A-Button.png]] [[File:TWW X-Button.png]] [[File:TWW Y-Button.png]] [[File:TWW Z-Button.png]] [[File:TWW L-Button.png]] [[File:TWW R-Button.png]] [[File:TWW D-Pad (Left).png]] [[File:TWW D-Pad (Right).png]] [[File:TWW C-Stick.png]] They aren't pretty when you look at 'em closely, but someone who actually has image editing skills can always fix that... Also, I think it's worth mentioning that some buttons have their own pages, like the B-Button and the C-Button which, for some reason, are on the same page. Might we want to work on expanding these as well? 08:28, 16 January 2011 (EST)

I like the idea of a page entirely dedicated to explaining what each button does in every game. Strategy Wiki shines again, and a good example of what I want is here. Perhaps add a picture from each game's manual, and group up common actions together, like "In the 2D games, keep moving towards a block to push it". I'm not sure if we should add the controls to every item page because they are very repetitive and the list could get long. Seeing the same, space-taking information on every page is pretty repulsive. It's probably better to explain the controls on each game's page. However, if an item is really unique, like the boomerang in PH, then I can see a section on the Boomerang article dedicated to explaining its controls. 04:50, 17 January 2011 (EST)

Edit notices
On wikipedia there are message boxes shown above the edit window on a page, would they be possible on other MediaWiki sites such as this one? 08:17, 13 January 2011 (EST)
 * Yes, a basic version of what Wikipedia uses is already available. Simply adding something to MediaWiki:Editnotice-0 would show that text on any page in the Main namespace in the edit view. What did you have in mind specifically with this? 13:10, 20 January 2011 (EST)

New discussion system
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?-- 10:11, 20 January 2011 (EST)


 * Yeah, I'd seen that a while back and thought it was quite interesting. But it still seemed to be a "work in progress", and I didn't see any massive benefit in using it, or forcing a change that people might not want. Not many sites seem to have adopted it so far. I'd be interested to see how it would handle existing discussions. What are your thoughts on it? Have you used it anywhere else before? 13:10, 20 January 2011 (EST)