BattleTechWiki:Planet Article Overhaul

History

This is my recollection of the origin of the BTW planet articles. It may be flawed in regards to some specifics.

In the Great Before, Sarna.net existed for many years (since 1994) as a forum of BattleTech enthusiasts and a directory of files for fans to either to showcase or download. (Sarna may also have played host to Neveron, but I don't know enough to comment about that.) Visits to Sarna were not too frequent (by this fan), but they sometimes resulted in finding gems in the files.

But in 2006, the Great Founder, Nic Jansma decided it could be better. And so he sought high and low (I presume he used MSN Search, since he resides at Microsoft as a way to fill his days, but he may have been able to use the beta Windows Live Search...we just don't know) for a manner in which to bring added value to his domain. And his search was successful, as he downloaded and then installed the MediaWiki software, most famously used as the basis for Wikipedia. And on the 8th of September, Nic welcomed all to his new world o' information and things were good.

Of course, there was a little bit of backstage stuff going on, such as the wikifying of both the CCG files and planetary information accumulated from the Inner Sphere Atlas. By doing so, Nic immediately lept to the front of online CBT encyclopedias: one (a wikia) had less than 200 articles, the other was limited to article submission only and could not be corrected on-the-fly by the reader. By employing his 'bot' to auto-generate articles based upon the data he had at hand, he quickly outnumbered the pages of the wikia (and brought me on board by doing so).

However, that database was far from precise and the auto-generation...generated...some errors of its own. Primarily, many planetary coordinates were screwed up, with the X coordinate doubling for the Y coordinate. No 'fluff' text was provided with the planet articles and the map images were reliant on the coordinates provided. Also, as Sarna had no contributors at the time, the format of the article was not vetted by consensus (as none existed). Many dedicated writers and editors registered with the site, creating the first (in my opinion) successful project, with creating a series of articles on BattleMechs. This project influenced others: vehicles, ships, products, etc. And, though there was much desire to improve the planet articles and bring them in line with the developing standards that existed elsewhere, the sheer numbers of articles was intimidating.

Not that no efforts were made. Many planets had their Y coordinates fixed, but as there are more than a few planets that have never had coordinates provided, not all saw the treatment. Two efforts (that I recall) began to fix the map images provided, but both fizzled. Other efforts were made to provide fluff to planets, but these were more individual efforts (both from a writer's perspective and per article). Other issues were discussed, but so far -in spite of a project- no significant efforts has been made.

Hopefully, that will now change.

Identifying the Mission

BTW, at the time of this writing, as 2,333 pages devoted to planets (out of 13,503 total articles), almost 20% of the entire project. While that ration will most likely get smaller as non-planet articles are created, the planets are important parts of BTW. I, however, submit they are not very useful. As they currently stand, they provide very little information that is both helpful and correct. For example (based upon the standard, non-modified planet template):

Pages that link to "planet name" 

This is unnecessary. It exists already in the (left) sidebar for every article and is it not employed for any other class of article.

Note 

This note tells us something about the next entry, the system coordinates, that seems superfluous, as it tells us the coordinates are based off of the system's relation to Terra.

Map image 

discussed above, these maps are near worthless, due primarily to the unreliable coordinates upon which they are based, but also because of their scale. The appropriate means to receive location awareness is to click on the image to get a larger view, but they are designed to show just over all system within 2 jumps. I'm unsure how to improve upon the scale issue, but the images do need to be regenerated for corrective action.

X -xx.xx Y -xx.xx 

I believe largely fixed, though with plenty of errors, these coordinates come from a meta-source not recognized as official by our standards and, because of both errors in the originating source and in the translation, highly suspect as acceptable, without verification. As far as I'm aware, very few (if any) of the articles have a canon source cited and in the absence of that source, a discussion of how the coordinates were reliably determined.

Manufacturing Centers 

By no means irrelevant to the subject matter, this remains the first real information that a reader might seek. What that means is the subject planet has yet been identified before we go into a subject somewhat arbitrary in its importance. The intent for most articles on BTW is to open with a planet intro statement ("Planet X is located in the Inner Sphere and is most commonly associated with the Free Worlds League.") and then a description or history of the planet/system.

Owner History 

Potentially a good 'list' to have, the method in which is has been presented is lacking. Right now, eras have been used to show who owned it when, but the list is not reflective of when the planet actually changed hands. While the eras used are significant (Star League, Late Succession Wars (3 years), Clan Invasion (2 years), FedCom Civil War), they don't tell a reader anything about the politics and events that occurred with that planet.

Nearby Planets 

What an extensive list. I admire the original team (from the Inner Sphere Cartography Society) and its efforts to create a database to allow for JumpShip routes. The problem is it serves no purpose on BTW. The database's original intent was for a person to select a starting planet and a destination planet, and the ISCS site would determine the shortest route, based on the limited (by 2 jumps) planets nearby each leg of the jump. The translation over to Sarna may or may not be accurate, but as far as I know, it's never been checked. Also as far as I know, as new planets are added to the canon, they are not added to this table on all planets within 2 jumps of it. While I understand someone may value being able to see a list of such planets, the decision to limit it to 2 jumps seems peculiar and the fact is the information is part of a table, also depicting who owned those planets over the years. I definitely believe that these tables are not being updated, as the canon progresses through the decades. Therefore, this suspect table is also growing outdated as time moves on.

Category 

Category:Planets. That's it. Unlike 'Mechs, which are categorized five ways to Sunday so that a reader can find similar models that meet a certain search criteria, or Characters, which can likewise be sub-divided, the articles were only added to one top-level category: Planets. Categories can provide so much more information about a planet than being (solely) dropped into a category with 2,332 other alphabetized planets.

And that defines a typical, unmodified planet article. What can be done to improve these articles?