User blog:Baziel/Anniversary Updates - Reintroduced and updated Introduction and Background Pages, Timelines and Factions

Some rather unexpected delays to our plans this week, but it has helped kick some of the background bits into order. The main hold-ups should be out of the way now and the site should be a bit better explained and easier to interact with.

To begin with, some of our explanation and 'starting point' pages have been refreshed and updated; to provide a more detailed explanation of the site and its ethos, as we are still concerned that people still don't quite 'get' the concept yet. For starters the Community Portal has been re-worked to provide a more detailed introduction to the site (and is now linked on the Front page as such). The improved portal continues to link to some of the most-useful explanatory pages of the wiki; with many links added, improved or themselves updated. Among these links is the new reworking of the Manual of Style, which provides a set of guidelines for content writing and a guide to writing pages, for both 'basic' and 'advanced' levels.

Perhaps the most far-reaching consequence of these background issues has been a complete re-working of our Referencing guidelines, to make references easier to add and a more streamlined process. In the past, we had included samples of text within references (to 'prove the point', as it were) and the basic system required a bit of knowledge to add them. Now these process has become rather unwieldy and weighty - with editors frequently reporting 'reference burnout' when trying to add references to detailed pages; and this significantly delaying projects. So to make the process easier, we have cut out the samples and provided a system of simplified templates to help add references to pages. A simplified guide to new referencing system has been created at Referencing. In time, the new system will be added to all articles - for the moment it makes completing articles a lot quicker.

With the background details out of the way, some of our articles can now take advantage of the revised system. First of these is the awe-inspiring article on Timelines; covering Crystal Dynamics' unique interpretation of temporal logic, and featuring several diagrams detailing the entire history of Nosgoth, this article explores the comprehensive, multiple-headache-inducing chronology of the Legacy of Kain series. Other articles that have been completed include the pages for Soul Reaver 2 Factions - with the page for Demon hunters already completed, the major Faction articles dealing with the Sarafan brotherhood and Moebius's mercenary army have also been completed (but not updated to the new reference system yet).

Still more to come Baziel 18:21, July 21, 2012 (UTC)