Talk:Red Dead Wiki

Manual of Style
I may not be a very active member of this wikia, but I see way too many mistakes. By now, most of them are cleaned up but most of these edits appear like the doinds of a ten year old boy who can't wait to spill everything out. There is hardly any punctuation besides periods and if here is, it usually results in Run-On sentences. Capitalization is misused as I see words like Capturing or Done in the middle of senteces and names of important characters such as Bill Williamson being entirely lowercased. Some of the pages also have many grammar mistakes that look very similar to "I on teh comptr zo i dnt needz 2 ceck meh spelzing rite?". The page Agustin Allende was somewhat like this. I suggest we should make a Manual of Style. Basically, its an online manual that shows and tells everybody how we want our pages and how the edits should be done. A good example would the Halo Wikia's Manual of Style found [|here]. Anyone up for the idea?


 * I am absolutely all for this. I spent a couple of my days away from work editing things here and there on this wiki, but became disgruntled after many of the pages I had cleaned up--bad grammar and all--were modified by others and regressed back to their sixth-grade book report format. I tried coming back again and again to help maintain this wiki, but without a manual of style or anything of the sort to help contributors conform to a set of standards I just feel like I'm polishing a turd, and as such I rarely waste any more time contributing, though I do still check this site very frequently. Redemption, for me, is the greatest game I've ever played, and since I have the time and ability to really help shape this wiki up, it's unfortunate that we don't have something like this implemented here for me to motivate or encourage myself to do so.Ramikadyc 05:44, June 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, something certainly needs to be done. I've no clue where to begin making such a guide though. Any suggestions? JackFrost23 03:25, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * I also agree on the Style Manual, but like Ramikadyc and JackFrost23, I don't know where to start. Give me a few days to see what I can possibly find, or let's just steal the Halo Style Manual. :) ShotgunMosquito 05:08, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * My first instinct is to just "borrow" the same guide from the Halo wiki, as suggested, and adapt it to RDR standards as we go; the Halopedia Manual of Style is a more general and basic version of the very in-depth Wookiepedia version, which I use as a comparison point to note where we can start our Manual (Halo wiki) and, over time, where it can end up (Wookiepedia). That's my suggestion. Ramikadyc 07:16, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

Main page redesign
News piece is great, but the page stretches a bit, nice work Ausir

TeslaRaptor | User | Talk | 18:54, April 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * What do you think of having a fixed-width main page like e.g. at Alan Wake Wiki? By the way, while the current color scheme fits the game, I think the red links are a bit hard to the eyes and can confuse people who are used to red links being to non-existing articles. Would you mind that being changed? Ausir(talk) 20:00, April 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't mind, I had this on the Killzone Wikia and thought it would fit with the color scheme, but I don't mind it being changed. Fixed-width thing is beyond my knowledge, hehe, I suggest you do what you think is best and we'll all see if it works out! --  TeslaRaptor | User | Talk | 20:08, April 17, 2010 (UTC)

New main page and skin
At my sandbox wiki you can find a mock-up of a new main page and skin. Tell me what you think and whether you'd like it to replace the current one or not. As you can see, I made the links brown instead of red, since the red ones, while they fit the theme, ten to be a bit hard on the eyes, and for anyone with wiki experience red links usually equal links to non-existng articles, so they can be confusing to other people. Ausir(talk) 14:23, April 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * I say, go for it. I think it looks awesome. But you already knew that :P Lordofthelargepants The Zipper and The Pockets 14:29, April 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * My god Ausir, that is awesome. Love the colour scheme, it fits great! Though I'll be missing my beloved red :( You have access to the MediaWiki here, right? --  TeslaRaptor | User | Talk | 15:02, April 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * I have set it up here already (you might need a hard refresh), although I'm still going to be tweaking some colors. Ausir(talk) 17:18, April 20, 2010 (UTC)

It looks awesome, maybe you can give the background picture some texture on the black parts?  TeslaRaptor | User | Talk | 17:31, April 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * How about now? Ausir(talk) 22:36, April 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm very happy with it, amazing work. I like how you still put some red on the buttons and item-bars. Still getting used to the new recent changes page though, I've been watching the red links for a few months now hehe. Oh also, I'm not sure if it's worth it listing Gunslingers in the sidebar. I'd rather see it as an article.  TeslaRaptor | User | Talk | 11:42, April 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * Cache problems (according to Light Daxter from J&D Wikia) so the old skin is back for a while.  TeslaRaptor | User | Talk | 14:34, April 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * Should be back to normal now. Ausir(talk) 16:05, April 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * its back to normal now.Lordofthelargepants The Zipper and The Pockets 20:05, April 21, 2010 (UTC)

Timer
I keep changing the _ more days part because its almost always incorrect. There is no time zone (as of now, 1:23 R* NY time) in the US that it is 12am or later in making it Thursday, therefore making it 5 more days, its 6 as of now on the 12th of May. If you are unsure as how to go about this see here. Thank you.

This Wiki deserves better admins.

Dondingo4 17:27, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

can u hunt buffalo in free roam???

Editing
One really helpful tip is read out loud what they've written that would be helpful, as how you hear it to your ears will be how someone will "hear" it as they read. Also to use a spell checker. People do have a tendency to write the way they talk (Please do keep "text speak" out of the articles. "U will find ur treasure" is just lacking in taste for an "official" document. It's fine for a text or a post...but not in an article.)

I've been going through what I can and cleaning up punctuation and grammar as best as I can, as well as capitalizing things that should be capitalized (like proper names; I must have changed macfarlanes ranch to MacFarlane's Ranch three or four times) and uncapitalizing things that shouldn't be (like, "...the Wagon at the side of the road). I've also fixed things like "threw" instead of "through" and "you're" instead of "your". But even I have brain farts at times and discover I've done that, too -- since spell check doesn't catch synonyms. And I've been known to do one of my greatest "args" out there (you know, you look at it and think "Argh!") and that's to have plurals be possessive (such as "apple's for sale).

Not everyone has perfect writing skills, of course. And this is a community website. Even I catch myself with dumb, incorrect things and I'm not only a writer, but I majored in English! Or someone catches me. But, yes -- by paying attention as we write (like perhaps pretending it's a "homework" assignment) because it does reflect on the writer does help. If we just go in and clean up what we find (I don't change someone's writing style...just what are likely typos) it'll all get sorted out.

Plus the RDR Wiki is pretty much brand spankin' new, so it's evolving. I can say that what I've read so far has mostly been just fine. This isn't going into an Encyclopedia Britanica book, so it doesn't have to sound like it was written by a college professor (and to that -- I did have a few who couldn't write their way out of a grammatical paper bag...!)

I've been having fun browsing, and even though I'm almost to 100% of the game, I'm not sure I could be as detailed as many of the people here have been for the articles I've read. But I wouldn't mind going over anything someone wants to submit or has submitted if they'd like me to do so. My username is (as posted here) h3th3r71. Sometimes it's just nice to have a "second pair of eyeballs" look over something.

Personally, I think what's in here has been pretty good overall. I haven't read any mistakes -- grammatical or otherwise -- that have made my toes curl, and while a style may not be what I'd use (since there's many different people putting stuff in here, you're going to see a lot of different here), the articles have always done what they're supposed to do: gotten pertinent information across in a clear way. I've found what I've read here to be most helpful when I've been stuck.

Keep up the great community work, y'all! :-)

H3th3r71 18:57, June 23, 2010 (UTC)h3th3r71