User talk:BadCatMan

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 * User talk:BadCatMan/2012

Did You Know
BadCat, awesome template on the User:BadCatMan/Main Page... does it randomly add pages or just recent pages... just curious :) Darkwynters (talk) 16:44, January 13, 2013 (UTC)


 * It doesn't. :) Template:DidYouKnow is entirely manual, a user has to add and move information by hand. As even Wookiepedia doesn't have an automatic system, I figured that it wasn't worth the effort trying to develop one. We'll need to keep it up-to-date, like every week or fortnight. I'll go add something else to it to demonstrate.


 * I've only taken trivia from recent new pages as that was the policy at Wookiepedia and other wikias. However, we could change that to whatever we like, such as recent, significant edits or random information from whenever. Another approach would be to develop a sizeable backlog of trivia and have some code cycle through it each week as other wikias do with their featured articles and images. -- BadCatMan (talk) 03:23, January 14, 2013 (UTC)

Towns
BadCat, I noticed a number of settlements in the Category:Towns, but two admins have (in the past) deleted this category... what do you think? I decided it was best to talk to ye first before organizing... checkout Category:Locations by type... as suggested by User:Zerak-Tul and get back with me :) Thanks! Darkwynters (talk) 22:00, January 28, 2013 (UTC)


 * Yup, they're all my articles. :( I hadn't actually noticed a problem with the category, and thought it was already in use.


 * Well, we have Category:Small towns and Category:Large towns, sorted according to their DMG 3e classification. But some places described as towns don't necessarily have their population or size given, such as those I created here, like Maerstar. These can't be put in either "Small towns" or "Large towns". So I think we need a wider category to include those places, i.e., "Towns".


 * As well, people looking for examples of towns in the Realms will search for, say, "Towns". That should bring up the category. Searching for "small towns" and "large towns" is less obvious, and more effort.


 * So I think we should have the category, and arrange them thusly:


 * Towns
 * Large towns (subcatg)
 * Small towns (subcatg)
 * Unclassified towns
 * Towns that appear in small towns
 * Towns that appear in large towns


 * That's my idea anyway. — BadCatMan (talk) 00:02, January 29, 2013 (UTC)

"Towns that appear in small towns"?? BadCat, before I add Category:Towns, which has been deleted twice... take a look at the Category:Settlements... I know you like the Towns category, but maybe Settlements is all you need... likewise Category:Villages is a population category, but many settlements are called villages in the sourcebooks... but the cat is based on population... or I could just create the Towns cat again and link it to Small Towns and Large Towns... OOO, wait I guess we could make a Settlement by type cat... and link Villages, towns, etc to it, because they are a type and also distinguished by population :) What do you think? Darkwynters (talk) 18:08, January 29, 2013 (UTC)


 * The current Category:Settlements by population is based on a set of definitions in the DMG 3.x according to population. It's really only valid for settlements statted out in 3.x (and doesn't really match reality). Before that, maybe after too, and for those settlements in 3e not clearly defined, the terminology is much vaguer: writers forget about hamlets and thorps, any small place is called a village; towns and cities can be any size; and villages can be called towns and towns can be called cities; and population figures don't play into it. Population figures also fluctuate with edition.


 * For example, Sevenecho is called a "small town" in the FRCS 2e, a "hamlet" in The City of Ravens Bluff, and "a small town, little more than a hamlet" in Dungeon magazine 75, but it only has a population of 70, a thorp in 3e terms. That's quite a range, and it skips the village size. (A poisoning of the wells possibly reducing the population was only by coincidence.)


 * So, I think we need a more general set of settlement categories that can include older and more general descriptions such as these. Of course, "hamlet" would be a slightly different thing from "hamlet (81–400 people)", making sorting these out to be quite a chore.


 * Settlments by type would be nice. That could also include alternative kinds of settlement, such as dwarf holds, nests, warrens, etc. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:43, January 30, 2013 (UTC)