Talk:Shaidan Basin

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Geological features

Shouldn't this be a sub-section of the planetary description of Luthien instead of having its own article? Frabby 14:55, 14 March 2012 (PDT)

Yeah, you may be right. Let me ponder.--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:05, 14 March 2012 (PDT)

Okay, the number one reason I don't like it on the planet's page is clutter. The Planetary team is working hard to develop consistency between planet articles and this just adds clutter on a few important but limited (in number) articles.

Instead, I propose a child article (not sub-page). In this case, Geography of Luthien, which is offered as a link on the Luthien article. This page would be limited to natural items, nothing man-made. It would be presented in dictionary form divided by categorical sections and I'm thinking of re-directs provided to each entry. The parent planet page would still have a location section that lists the names of man-made structures categorized on that list by continents and islands (and oceans, where applicable). These man-made items would be linked to their parent articles (I do feel strongly that man-made items of reasonable size should have their own articles: drop-ports, cities, complexes, etc.). I'll clean up the Luthien article's current location list shortly, to demonstrate. Comments? --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:49, 14 March 2012 (PDT)

I find myself totally opposed to your reasoning. A clean, standardized "planet" article (please tell me you mean planet section in the System article!) is not, imho, a valid reason unto itself to exclude pertinent data from said article. As a user, I'd positively expect any and all information originally pertaining to Luthien to be right there in the Luthien article, not spread out over numerous articles. I think my rationale is the same here as for my opposition to the regimental articles for coherent brigades: It's just pointless to artificially divide up a topic into smaller chunks for the sake of having individual articles where it should have sections instead. I dislike the concept of sub-articles on principle - they are not worth having because they are not even a proper articles themselves.

And do those sub-articles not amount to cluttering BTW as well? ;) Frabby 04:17, 15 March 2012 (PDT)

Have to say I'm very surprised at your opposition. While, yes, I did mis-speak in calling it a planetary article vice a system article, I think the idea of overloading a page with information when it can be expanded via a link to a related page that can properly expand on that very specific information seems clean and logical. Someone reading an article on Luthien or New Avalon knows he can get a quick and concise list of all notable features of a planet and then move on to the wiki-linked page when he wants to know more about that specific feature. The subject of interest -when it has enough supporting information- doesn't deserve to be shoe-horned into an article on a different (but related) subject.

For example, a reader absolutely cannot learn everything that exists about World War II on that respective page on Wikipedia. The parent article instead introduces subjects (for ex: "European occupations and agreements") with 2-4 (or so) paragraphs after providing a 'main article' link (what we call a child page here). Same goes for real countries: I developed my compromise idea from how WP handles it with New Zealand, where WP provides a consistently formatted subject category ("Geography of...") outside the parent article (ex: Geography of New Zealand).

Re-reading my intended purpose here, I think I may have erred in removing the seas of Luthien from the parent article, because -as you stated- someone should expect to find the acknowledgement of their presence on the parent article, but as a reader, if there was room for expansion, I would understand there was a need to diverge from the parent article and go to one that focused on something very specific to a feature. For example, you wouldn't expect to see everything there was to know about the Draconis Combine on that page. You'd expect that details of Luthien would be found on a page devoted to Luthien. The Succession Wars doesn't detail every general, every unit, every battle of every campaign: you expect to drill down to get the specificity. Likewise, even more so for system articles. I don't expect to be able to find detailed descriptions of Nagoya Island on the Luthien system article. I'd expect to find a section in that article that talks about the planet Luthien and maybe a list of notable (for that section) geographical features...with a link to an article that expanded upon those features.

In the end, it is the intention of the UBP to list those facts the writers of BattleTech choose to reveal to us about the universe. My first instinct is to agree with Doneve that every notable feature (as defined by the BT writers by their inclusion in a product) deserves an properly-categorized article, but I'm willing to submit some subjects can be lumped in together rather than receive their own pages. However, I'm not seeing the value in cramming them into something as overly broad as an article on a solar system. The scrollbox I included on Luthien seems an ideal way to introduce an uncommonly long list of geographical features, but neither that scrollbox nor a Locations sub-section within a planet's section of a solar system article seems the appropriate place to provide details on populations, neighboring continents and climate features of a planet in that solar system. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:05, 15 March 2012 (PDT)

Okay, now I understand you better. I think what threw me off-track was how very short the Shaidan Basin article ist. Sub-articles tend to be very small, to the point where I challenge the necessity to create new articles for them. A workable middle ground position might be to create articles for individual important planets (in addition to the system articles), where Geography would be one mandatory section on the article. (Another would be a list of sources detailing/stories set on that planet, so that authors know which primary sources to check for continuity and established data.) Frabby 06:23, 15 March 2012 (PDT)

I was concerned I wrote too much above and might loose you.

Question for clarification: have you seen Geography of Luthien yet? I ask because I think child pages only need to be developed when there is a preponderance of information on a location (be it a planet, a city, a fortification such as a specific Castle Brian), as a way to allow current categories of articles to maintain their overall consistent format.

I don't really like the idea of individual planet articles (at first thought), because it will serve to confuse what the Planetary group is working to do right now to clean-up those articles. Links to child articles ("Battles on Sian", "Geography of Luthien", "Orbital Structures of Terra") can be created on the fly, when the need arises (i.e., details regarding those multiple locations) and placed within the system article, in the appropriate planet's section.

I especially like the idea of a "see also" section (or even child article for popular settings) of stories set on a planet, for the reason you mention. Properly-cited reference sources are already represented (and stories should be as well), but I could see a reader appreciating being able to quickly see what novels or BC fiction to turn to in order to read more about that setting. Good idea.

So, Frabby, after reviewing the above, do you endorse the idea of (limited number) child articles, where they are used to lump similar subjects under one article (such as "Geography of Luthien"), as a way to combat small, one-off stub articles (I hope that's not a loaded question)? Will this alleviate some of your discomfort?--Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 08:05, 15 March 2012 (PDT)

I remain sceptical, but I agree that child articles make sense to take particularly large sections out of articles. It should be an exception, and on the particular subject of geography I'd still prefer it to be a section on a "Planet" article; however, the "Planet" article could be a child article of its system article for particularly important or well-documented planets. Frabby 05:25, 16 March 2012 (PDT)

Skepticism is fine; in this case I presume it boils down to difference in opinion on how they're to be presented and I believe I've addressed your concern on articles regarding geographical features that -most likely- will never be expanded upon. At this time, I'll continue adding my UBP-derived materials for those specific types of features to one child page and then replace the individual articles with redirects to the child page. Thanks for the back-&-forth. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 06:59, 16 March 2012 (PDT)