Template talk:List of companies

Changes to first and second columns

First, many months back, looking at this list found me asking "Where is this sign?" Some I have not figured out, others I have found and I want to answer the questions I once had here. I am planning to add content and make corrections to this table, which I am willing to make as a collected edit. But, I wanted to address maintainability issues before I started, while there is less to move. I have wanted some protocol to help make the content of the first two columns easier to understand and maintain. I had considered tags; M:, Main:, or Prop: for properties. Sign: or Add: for signage only, and Prod: for products, but I think that would have been a mess, more difficult to explain and more difficult to enforce. I hope what I ended up with is more intuitive. I recognize that the present listing of properties is rife with omissions -- I am not presently attempting on my own to completely correct the problems in that column.

Benefits of the offered changes:

1. Placing the product parenthetically into the first column helps that content follow the content of the Logos. This format is also useful for signs that might have only product names or that name two or more companies (especially agricultural retail signs like Farmers Feed & Seed Co. and Holdingford Mill)
2. Listing the advertisement signage parenthetically helps the second column be clearer and less ambiguous. It now only contains one general type of thing, namely locations, which will make it cleaner to give locations of companies known only through comics (Conagher's) or combinations of comics, map, and other content (Captain Dan's). Also makes it easier and cleaner to indicate where companies have properties and where they just have signage. This is especially useful for "companies" that presently seem to have no properties in the known game maps.
3. With the use of parentheses, I suggest the "and/or" be removed.

I note that I am not proficient with the translation switching. I have tried to maintain that functioning. I recognize that that some content I have added to this edit is not presently supported (Captain Dan's Edible Wood Pulp) (Is there already a translation string out there for "Sour Cream and Mayonnaise packets"?) This would be an opportunity for someone to help get up to speed on this, or otherwise help me update the translation switching.

Also, I throw hard returns before the open parenthesis for visual separation on the page and in the wikitext - I have no problem if someone tells me that is bad style here. Mikado282 (talk) 09:51, 22 March 2014 (PDT)