Difference between revisions of "BattleTechWiki talk:Project BattleMechs"

Revision as of 17:00, 22 June 2022

This article is within the scope of the Project BattleMechs, a collaborative effort to improve BattleTechWiki's coverage of BattleMechs. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

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Archive, and move current discussions here. (DONE)

I move that the contents of this page be moved to an Archive page, so we can bring the discussion at Category talk:Inner Sphere Standard BattleMechs over here where it belongs, as it has expanded well beyond the question of "Deleting a category" and moved on to "How shall we organize Mech categories, and which ones should just go?"--Talvin (talk) 17:03, 21 June 2022 (EDT)

I decided to Be Bold, as some of this went back to 2010.--Talvin (talk) 14:12, 22 June 2022 (EDT)

Categories

Over at Category talk:Inner Sphere Standard BattleMechs I decided to revive the debate on whether to delete the category or remove the deletion tag. Responses were swift and vigorous, showing that over three years later we do not have consensus on this. Other topics relating to Mech Categories also were brought up.

I am doing my best to lay out the positions and arguments I have seen raised in public and in private or in a couple cases in my head. If I forgot yours or misrepresent yours, please assume good faith and just politely correct in a comment. Also note that these are not necessarily my views, some of them will contradict each other.

We have too many categories for Mechs, especially with our limited volunteer availability.
Faction Categories are generally supposed to be for who produces what.
We have Faction Categories that are about availability, like Category:Mercenary General BattleMechs
Omni/Standard/Industrial categories for both Clan and IS tech base are useful.
Category trees should not overlap without a very good reason.
Meta-categories should contain only other categories, not individual articles. Example: if we are going to have Category:Standard BattleMechs and Category:Inner Sphere Standard BattleMechs underneath it, the Akuma should be categorized to Inner Sphere Standard BattleMechs, and not in both.
BattleMech refers to all dedicated combat Mech chassis, be they "Standard" BattleMechs, OmniMechs, LAMs, QuadVees, or something we haven't seen yet. So we need Standard BattleMech to distinguish from those others.
Standard BattleMech is redundant. BattleMechs are not OmniMechs are not QuadVees are not LAMs. (Query, does "Standard" get used in this way in any official source, or is it a fandom/Sarna thing?)
As the storyline has advanced, the distinction between "Clan" and "Inner Sphere" is blurring, with more and more units that draw from both. We need to decide how to handle that moving forward.
Categorizing Mechs by Tech Base is trying to outMUL the MUL.
Categorizing Mechs by Faction Production is trying to outMUL the MUL.
Categorizing Mechs by Faction Availability is trying to outMUL the MUL.
Categorizing Mechs by Tonnage is trying to outMUL the MUL.

There is one item I think we have some kind of consensus on:

We really need to have a constructive conversation, or perhaps several in parallel, about Mech Categories. It's a mess.

I will come back with my own thoughts in separate comments. I am organizing this as best I can, if you feel it can be done better let's have a constructive talk about that.--Talvin (talk) 17:00, 22 June 2022 (EDT)