Help talk:Style guide/Weapons

Crafting Ingredient Blueprints

Recently I have seen many edits to the weapon pages, where blueprints have been added regarding the weapon's use as a crafting ingredient. Please discuss whether such blueprints should be added to the guidelines and embraced, or whether they should be removed altogether.--Focusknock 11:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

 Information: For example: Razorback#As_a_Crafting_Ingredient

 Remove: While I see the reason for how to craft the weapon itself, how often do you ask yourself: Oh, what could I make out of that? --CruelCow 11:27, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

 Comment Well if I had a spare weapon and I was missing a few other weapons I might be interested to know what I could make. I think it's a pretty good idea.  – Smashman _(talk) 11:41, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

 Why not?: It's not as if they're harmful to the wiki or anything. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by The Neotank (talk) • (contribs) 16:46, 17 October 2010

 Sure: It can be useful for pepole who don't know what they can do with their spare weapons. --Parseus lm(pl) 19:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

 Comment If they're kept on the wiki, the template needs a serious update. It's an eyesore right now. ~ lhavelund ^{(talk ▪ contrib)} 02:07, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is now closed.

Bug section

Currently the trivia section is host to a number of statements concerning cosmetic and gameplay bugs concerning the weapon. I propose the addition of a Bugs section in order to seperate these from the trivia section but keep them relevant to readers.--Focusknock 10:04, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

As a sub-section of trivia, or a new section altogether? I think a sub-section would be more appropriate. --Underyx 10:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking more of a new section. A sub-section would simply clutter trivia up more, but I can see the merits of it.--Focusknock 10:08, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Screenshots as new section and as sub-section. The latter one seems nicer to me. --Underyx 10:18, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

 Approve Ya.  – Smashman _(talk) 10:11, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

 Tentative Support: It's always been my opinion that bugs really don't have a place in the Trivia sections, but usually if it's just one bug of notable interest I would leave it in. Some weapons though seem to just have bug after bug listed. I have already created a new section for Your Eternal Reward because there were so many and it didn't seem right to remove so much information just because it wasn't technically trivia. In this case it certainly deserved its own section. Actually, now that I think about it, "Previous Changes" might better fit as a subsection of the Bugs section. Anyway, if it'll help clean up the page, then I'm for it. Such a section would require more maintenance though, since new bugs would need to actually be verified. -- -- 10:13, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Technically bugs are not previous changes so I do not see why they need to be grouped with that section. They can be moved there with a relevant link to the patch that fixed them, but not beforehand.--Focusknock 10:19, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

 Yes, you dummies!: Why was this not done earlier? Bugs aren't trivia, argh. --Vaught 20:24, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

 Neutral Depends on the article. If there is only one bug, it should be put in the main article/trivia since an entire section would be overkill. If there is enough to support it like in the eternal reward - go for it!. --CruelCow 12:09, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

 Support Sounds like a good idea to me, if trivia needs clearing up separating out the bugs can't be a bad thing. GeneShark 13:27, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

 Conditional support As long as we have some guidelines that ensure bugs that influence game-play are not posted. -RJ 18:16, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

 Support My only concern is what constitutes an appropriate bug to list. The Mackarel being all wonky in left handed view would be a good one, but the small red triangle in one of Spy's knife animations is kind of not needed. -- Balladofwindfishes 13:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I would have to disagree. Cosmetic bugs have just as much importance as gameplay bugs. It just depends where it goes. The red triangle, for instance, would be better suited on the Spy page since it's not fixed to any weapon. --Focusknock m 14:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is closed. The overall majority is in favour.

Videos

...are not a necessity for every friggin weapon article. I don't need a video of an Eyelander-wielding demo to know what it is. Can we remove videos unless they're insanely interesting? ~ lhavelund ^{(talk ▪ contrib)} 21:46, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

 Oppose Odd, isn't it, you've only just now brought this up, after seeing so many articles have these videos? I must say no. Many people will know be able to see how these weapons work from simply words alone. They will want to see demonstrations. --Focusknock s 21:49, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

It's actually bugged me for a while, I just haven't really thought about it that much. I tend to ignore them, but the one on the HHHH page just stuck out in my eye. ~ lhavelund ^{(talk ▪ contrib)} 21:50, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

If you have an issue with the videos, I must point out that is not the guide's fault, but the editor who submitted the video. You are more than welcome to find a more suitable video as a demonstration. :) --Focusknock s 21:51, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Cosmetic items and gameplay descriptions

So yesterday, items that are purely cosmetic in nature (ie Iron Curtain, Big Kill, Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker, though Frying Pan hasn't yet been touched) had any basic description of their gameplay usage and their damage tables removed, replaced by links to the stock item that they take their stats from on the claim of redundancy. This strikes me as something that hurts the end usability of these articles, as it forces readers to have to go and read another article to get information on these items, and the removal of this information severely restrains the development and comprehensiveness of these pages.

Lets say a reader goes to check out what damage the Lugermorph does. They start reading the article but now have to follow the link to the Pistol article, read the statistics and gameplay info there, then come back to the Lugermorph article to finish reading it. Any web design guide will tell you that this is inefficient and that you should give the necessary information in as few clicks as possible; I don't see how removing this information and forcing the reader to go elsewhere for it is helpful.

My proposition is this:

• a brief* summary of how a cosmetic/promotional item works in gameplay should be allowed in the intro
• damage and function time statistic tables should be included for cosmetic/promotional items.

In practice, compare as it was with such gameplay info and as it stands at the moment without.

I was told that the removal was discussed the IRC logs, but a) I can't find such a discussion in the logs and b), more importantly, an open discussion here will clear up any ambiguities and establish a proper record to refer to, regardless of the result. -- Sabre 01:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

*ie no more than a two sentences, kept deliberately shorter and more concise than anything on the stock item's page and not copy-and-pasted

Old Previous Changes

I noticed the previous changes section for a lot of weapons starts right around January of last year. A lot of these weapons came long before that, and some are vanilla weapons! An example would be the Fire Axe. The Fire Axe long ago (I think Pyro update?) gained some new animations along with practically every vanilla weapon. Had that update happened in recent times, it would have easily been noted on the page, but it happened before the Wiki, so it got missed. Now, this is a huge undertaking, since it requires going through all the old patch notes, and keeping a tab of when a weapon was changed. Most articles have the major updates (like the Sticky Bomb launcher ammo being reduced), but neglect the minor stuff or the random balance changes that were minor (Sticky Bomb charge can no longer be "saved" by holding the detonation button, for example, is not mentioned). Just something to think about so we have a nice, comprehensive list of the many changes that have happened to weapons Balladofwindfishes 00:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

As I started adding Previous Changes myself some time ago, I noticed the same thing but thought nothing of it. Granted, there may exist patches to weapons that are neither recorded or noticed and become lost, but you will only drive yourself mad trying to find them all. I would suggest sticking with documented patch notes for now.--Focusknock 00:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Weapon attainability

If a weapon is obtainable through an achievement milestone. I believe that it should be noted somewhere on the page. A few days ago, someone tried that by putting the corresponding milestones in the Related Achievements section but that seemed silly as it could easily be lost amongst the other achievements. I believe that the Buff Banner page has a means of informing the reader how to obtain it without it immediately becoming lost, just appended at the bottom of the introduction (above any special taunts) outlining the number of achievements to reach the respective milestone and a link to that class's achievement set. Yay or nay? -- Psychopath 00:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I prefer NVis' idea: "How about making the infobox say "Unlock (16)"?" Nate ^{(T | C)} 00:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Original Weapon stats

When looking at a weapon's history, it mentions when it's stats our changed, but it's very hard to find out what the original stats were. Perhaps the Weapon's History section should include the Weapon's stats when released? RBGolbat 13:24, 24 July 2012 (PDT)