User talk:Arylon

Subpage Issues - Read Please

I'm having my fill of explaining my use of subpages to every individual user who asks me about it - so I'm going to cover the issue here.

I am NOT ignoring the style guide, and if you'd like to know why and how, then I offer you the following.

When I write articles, what I do is put the actual article itself in a page that is appropriately named (ie my characters names themselves, rather than the subpage of my family) so the title of the article doesn't look ridiculous (I mean Arylon Family/Fisc for an article name looks absurd - its much more easily read and cleaner looking if the title is the appropriate name).

However, I am sensitive to the style guide, and the necessity to keep all articles streamlined for navigations sake, hyperlinking and what have you to specific subpages based on convention. As such, what I do is point a redirect on the subpage (ie on Arylon Family/Fisc - I have it redirect to Fisc Arylon) - that way anyone who attempts to navigate to any of my pages based on conventions of the style guide, or from links on the game itself will be able to access the article without having to search for it or otherwise get confused... but at the same time I get clean looking articles.

In other words, the subpages actively give you what would be there normally, but they redirect to proper article names. I'm more than a little OCD and seeing Arylon Family/Taran for a character's article name drives me absolutely batty - it would be like going to wikipedia and having an article named Bush Family/George W. It just looks stupid, looks messy and lame and I think makes the article look silly.

But as I said, I understand the reasons the style guide exists - and so I have come up with the redirect subpage technique to make sure the style guide is satisfied, while at the same time I can have article names that don't make me want to tear my hair out. There is nothing about the way I do it that causes problems with navigation or convention - in fact I don't see any issue with it at all. The style guide wants subpages to be navigatable - and they are - they just redirect to proper article titles.

And I might add it also makes the wiki more searchable. Under the subpage organization, if I type in "Fisc Arylon" to the searchbox - I will get search results and have to comb through all the articles that mention my characters name (which is a lot) and find the actual article. If my characters actual article is located under its proper name, and I type in "Fisc Arylon" in the searchbar then I am brought RIGHT to the page I want and don't have to muddle around the search results.

Now it should be noted I only use this style with things I know won't be duplicated (I don't make pages like "Sports" and tie them to specific families, realms, etc) - only do it when I know the article names won't be messing anything up (there will never be a Fisc Arylon article unless I write it for example).

So, to wrap up what I'm saying - I am not ignoring or flaunting the style guide, I'm working within it to make it better (for me). Thanks for your concern - but please understand that I know what I'm doing when I write wiki pages... I am not flaunting the style guide, I'm working within it to make my articles the best they can be. If you have any further questions or comments, I'm open to hearing them of course... but I hope this has explained exactly why I do it the way I do, and how it is not anti style guide.Arylon 21:32, 7 March 2008 (CET)