Help talk:Create a New Article

Quickly Create questions about Novel template

I was looking for a template for creating an article based on a story, to answer questions about best practice for story articles. I couldn't find a Quickly Create template for stories, so I'll just ask the questions.

• Question 1: Is infantry equipment outside the scope of "BattleTech" listed for a story? Specifically, I was thinking of the DEST_Infiltration_Suit in Black Dragon that Cassie used against the DEST commandos working with the Black Dragons, but I'm sure I can think of others.
• Question 2: Should there be a Quickly Create template for stories?

Thanks!

75.23.228.139 01:12, 9 August 2022 (EDT)

Infantry equipment, or even civilian equipment in general is not outside the scope, but I tend to only include items that are named, so no generic "laser pistol" or "hover limo". And yes there should really be a help create for every type of article on the entire wiki including stories.--Dmon (talk) 06:13, 9 August 2022 (EDT)

If I understand the answer to Question 1, infantry/civilian equipment can be included in BattleTech section of novels, but best practice suggests that is specific equipment. I suppose a good rule of thumb is that equipment can be included if it meets the following criterion, to avoid the BattleTech section being polluted with generic equipment:

* Equipment name is branded with either organization or manufacturer. For example, "blazer pistol" or "vibroblade" contain neither an organization nor a manufacturer, so they wouldn't be acceptable for novel BattleTech. However, "Mauser 960" or "DEST Infiltration Suit" would be acceptable. (Mauser is a manufacturer, DEST is an organization)

Would it be possible to confirm that my distinction of generic equipment versus non generic equipment is correct? Thanks! 75.23.228.139 16:00, 9 August 2022 (EDT)

Quickly Create questions about MWDA Clix template

Just curious, because I couldn't find the answer here, and because I found individual articles for BattleTech CCG cards on BTW

EDIT: I see links to pieces in https://www.sarna.net/wiki/MechWarrior:_Dark_Age_Sets_(Collections), but those articles are for encyclopedic entries on the units they are based on, with very little MWDA Clix information on them. For example, Janis Nova Cat's Arbalest link goes to the Arbalest article, rather than an article about the Janis Nova Cat Arbalest MWDA piece.

• Question 1: What is BTW's policy on articles for individual MWDA Clix?
  • Author's Research: I haven't come across any on BTW, which leads me to suspect that there's either some sort of ban on posting articles about individual MWDA Clix, or that no one has thought to do so.
• Question 2: If articles for individual MWDA Clix are not banned, is there any sort of recommendation on what should be templatized?
  • Author's recommendation: I'm no expert on MWDA clix, but it seems reasonable to have a standard info box that includes faction, point value, and release set, although I'm sure there are other things that a MWDA Clix infobox should have. Additionally, picture of the Clix, combat dial info, and hero card text (if it is a unique piece) should probably also be included. Finally, the MWDA Clix article should link to the equivalent encyclopedic article(s) (aka linking a Janis Nova Cat Arbalest MWDA Clix article to both the Janis Nova Cat article AND the Arbalest article)
• Question 3: Assuming that MWDA Clix articles are not banned, would that mean that some sort of category for Clix would also be warranted?

75.23.228.139 14:56, 10 August 2022 (EDT)

Best practice for numbers on articles for weapons/ships

I’ve seen both methods used on btw, so I’m curious...

Query 1: what is the recommended punctuation for a radix point, continental (aka use the , character as a radix point) or commonwealth (aka use the . character as a radix point)? CASE article appears to use continental, machine gun article appears to use commonwealth.

Query 2: how should thousands be delimited? Comma or period?

75.23.228.139 02:50, 19 August 2022 (EDT)

There isn't a proper policy in place yet (I am actually working on it right now), but as far as I understand the established punctuation is to use full stops for radix points and commas to delineate thoussands (i.e. what you describe as commonwealth) as the Sarna.net BattleTechWiki seeks to follow the BattleTech style guide which in turn defaults to american spelling. I need to check the CASE article and probably correct it there - thanks for pointing this out. Frabby (talk) 06:21, 19 August 2022 (EDT)

Related topic:

What is Sarna's practice on ambiguous terms for large numbers, like "billion" (like the Sarna article "...the population numbered a mere two billion") and "trillion" (like the Republic of the Sphere article "The estimated population of the Republic of the Sphere was 1.25 trillion")

Depending on the perspective of the reader, the Sarna article refers to either:

• 2,000,000,000 (2x10^9 aka short scale aka Commonwealth)
• 2,000,000,000,000 (2x10^12 aka long scale aka continental)

The Republic of the Sphere article could refer to either:

• 1,250,000,000,000 (1.25x10^12 aka short scale aka Commonwealth)
• 1,250,000,000,000,000,000 (1.25x10^18 aka long scale aka continental)

Given that BattleTech is (typically) written from an American (aka short scale aka Commonwealth) perspective, I think it's safe to say that ambiguous large numbers above "million" are using the short scale, but maybe there can be a note in some policy that billion = 10^9, trillion = 10^12 and quadrillion (whenever BattleTech start using quantities that high) = 10^15?

75.23.228.139 14:44, 19 August 2022 (EDT)