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I would like to discuss implementing a standardized struture for our book pages (sourcebooks/accessories, adventures, novels, comics) I think this is important for the wiki as we show up in the top 5 of most search queries for dnd books/novels (if we have an article on it).
Many of the book articles were added when the wiki was young and not touched since. They lack formatting. We should fix it! Part of this is also making sure the image page for a book's cover is also properly formatted and categorized.
I have an idea of how we should structure our book articles, as described below:
- Infobox
- Obviously, an infobox.
- Lead
- First text about the book. Very brief. Example: Waterdeep and the North is a 1st-edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons accessory that was set in the Forgotten Realms.
- Book Quote
- The text from the back of the book in the Quote template
- Description
- This section describes what the book is about, and any publication history
- Contents
- A table of contents (ToC) for the book. Can be detailed.
- Synopsis
- Novels/Adventures/Comics only. A brief summary of the plot.
- Plot
- Novels/Adventures/Comics only. The plot of the story, as detailed as possible.
- Index
- Index of the book for the wiki
- Gallery
- Any additional media for the book.
- Credits
- The full credits of the book
And then the basic Appendix section. See Also, Notes and Further Reading if needed (like to a review in Dragon). External links would be any additional stuff like errata
Here is what the sections would look like as a template:
==Description==
==Contents==
==Synopsis==
==Plot==
==Index==
==Gallery==
==Credits==
==Appendix==
===See Also===
===Notes===
{{Notes}}
===Further Reading===
===External Links===
===References===
{{Refs}}
===Connections===
Any thoughts on this would be awesome. Let's use this forum thread to hash this out so we can have a format to work from.
Clean and simple, yet comprehensive. This plan has my support.
- We probably don't need both Synopsis and Plot.
- I'm also uncertain what would be covered by Description.
- Gallery should be a part of the Appendix like every other article.
RE: Ir'revrykal
A synopsis section would be a paragraph or two, while the plot would be much more fleshed out.
For description section, here is an example:
==Description== ''Complete Divine'' presents additional base classes, prestige classes, and feats. It also contains additional rules and character ideas based on belief and the afterlife, as well as a chapter on magic items based on the original D&D pantheon gods/goddesses. It replaces and expands upon ''[[Masters of the Wild]]'' and ''[[Defenders of the Faith]]''.
Description section would basically only work on sourcebooks/accesories/adventures.
For real-life products, I think the Gallery section works better as a non-appendix section. You can check comics and board games for examples. But for uniformity, I get it.