[Goober5000]

WTF, mate.   While the merging of the three separate pages is good, screwing with the order is not.  Within each section, each campaign must be in alphabetical order.  Chronological order is of purely fan interest and is hopelessly dependent on subjective interpretation.  It makes no sense anyway, since most of the campaigns take place within their own continuities.

The only grouping that should be permitted is the macroscopic grouping by approximate time period (pre-Great War, Great War, Reconstruction, Capella, post-Capella).  If you want to put the campaigns in your own schizophrenic fan-chronological order, do it on a separate page.

Re-alphabetize each of the sections or I shall be forced to take punitive admin-type measures.

[Snail]

Re-alphabetize each of the sections or I shall be forced to take punitive admin-type measures.

WTF, mate.

This guy's gone out of his way to make one hell of a good campaign list, and you want to screw him over because he didn't put them in alphabetical order?

(don't hurt me please)

[NGTM-1R]

WTF, mate.   While the merging of the three separate pages is good, screwing with the order is not.  Within each section, each campaign must be in alphabetical order.  Chronological order is of purely fan interest and is hopelessly dependent on subjective interpretation.  It makes no sense anyway, since most of the campaigns take place within their own continuities.

The only grouping that should be permitted is the macroscopic grouping by approximate time period (pre-Great War, Great War, Reconstruction, Capella, post-Capella).  If you want to put the campaigns in your own schizophrenic fan-chronological order, do it on a separate page.

Re-alphabetize each of the sections or I shall be forced to take punitive admin-type measures.

Where the hell were your objections when this was being discussed previously, Goob? You had a chance to stop it long before this...

[WMCoolmon]

WTF, mate.   While the merging of the three separate pages is good, screwing with the order is not.  Within each section, each campaign must be in alphabetical order.  Chronological order is of purely fan interest and is hopelessly dependent on subjective interpretation.  It makes no sense anyway, since most of the campaigns take place within their own continuities.

Er, no, I notice most of the campaigns state which year they occur in...and as discussed previously, some campaigns rely on/assume the events of other have happened. You can also make some pretty clear assumptions about where campaigns would happen if they were in the same continuity. Some people are interested in playing campaigns in what would be the chronological order. The same can't really be said of campaigns in alphabetical order.

If two campaigns can be swapped and not contradict anything (at least not more than they already did), why is it wrong? I don't see any objections about "disturbing the mood" happening. Maybe objections about "This campaign contradicts the other", but if somebody doesn't know enough about Freespace campaigns to know that, I'd consider it a good thing that we hooked in a newbie at least enough to raise a fuss on the forums about it. At least he cares that much.

Sure, it's fan conjecture, but I don't really care if somebody else has gone to all the trouble to look through the campaigns and put them in an order that they think causes the least number of inconsistencies - as long as they did a good job about it. I've always been curious about the apparent order that campaigns happen in, even if it wasn't 100% perfect. I'm not the only one, either.

If the official list includes the campaigns in that order, any future campaign makers who add campaigns will be able to choose where they appear in the timeline. That puts the creative choice back in the hands of the person making the campaign, not somebody making another list based solely on their own opinion. As is the nature of the wiki, if something is wrong with the order, someone will make a complaint here or on the edit page, and it will eventually be resolved.

The only grouping that should be permitted is the macroscopic grouping by approximate time period (pre-Great War, Great War, Reconstruction, Capella, post-Capella).  If you want to put the campaigns in your own schizophrenic fan-chronological order, do it on a separate page.

Wow. So this guy comes out of nowhere and offers to help out, spends several hours to do things himself, listens to all the input he's given and takes the time to make corrections, and then you come out of nowhere and start trolling.

Re-alphabetize each of the sections or I shall be forced to take punitive admin-type measures.

And then you threaten to ban him if he doesn't do things your way. As if not putting things in alphabetical order is somehow against HLP regulations, and as if the people who read the campaign list can't figure out that "A" comes before "B" and so on (Why anybody would have a desire to do such a thing, I can't say. I'd just use the search feature built in to every browser to find the campaign by its name or some part of it, if I didn't know it.)

[Snail]

I think this isn't a case of misuse of power as much as misapplication. ITA Master ****ed up the Wiki real bad with all his non-canon crap, he just gets some stuff on his talk page, but some guy does something helpful and gets threatened to be banned. It makes no sense.

[Narwhal]

Well, I admit in order makes little since in post-Capella. The order that exists right now for the post-Capella era isn't  based on my preference ,it is a remnant of my different attempts (and failures) to give some orders to the stuff.

Yet, for the other time periods, and ESPECIALLY the Great War period, since the Original campaign used a strict timeline (date were given before almost every mission), FREDer used this to give a starting date to the campaign. Moreover, while most post-Capella campaigns are going in their own direction, GW campaigns are relying heavily on the canon and are therefore rather (not perfectly) consistent with one another.

For the Capella Era, it's a mix. Some campaigns are clearly happening before or after some others, and sometimes one don't know. I'll try just to differentiate between the NTF war events (campaigns that starts in 2366, one year before FS, and deals primarly with the NTF - GTA war, and campaigns that starts in 2367, dealing mostly with Shivans. I am not sure this is gonna work, as the main FS2 campaign show, one can fight the Shivans and the NTF in the same campaign.

Similarly, I'll try to put together the "immediate post Capella" campaigns (between themselves in alphabetical order, prolly) and the "distant post Capella campaigns", in alphabetical order. I'll keep the current order for the Pre GW Era and the GW. I don't know yet for the reconstruction era.

[Narwhal]

I did some kind of alphabetical order, in most eras but the first 2. I divided the Capella era in 2366 and 2367, I added an "Capella aftermath era", which includes all the campaign which assume the war is not finished after the supernova, and happens immediatly after in events that still could be considered the second Great War. The post Capella era includes either events long after the GW2, or events immediatly after which can't be considered as GW2 (piracy, rebellion, bad guys popping out of nowhere but still not being Shivans, ...)

You could tone the blue down a little - it doesn't need to be eye-catching, just evident. It's already clear that the sections are broken up due to the headers so the different color is more of a guide anyway.

Well, it was eye-catching so that I could differentiate between main eras (bright blue) and different continuity (dark blue)

Also, when I said "The column headers should remain after each time period." I was referring to "Voiced", "Requirements", "Authors", etc. It can get a bit gnarly to understand what's what when you're halfway down the list. That was actually an improvement on the "Campaign List".

I'll try to do this next step, but in my attemps it looked terrible. If someone can do it better than I...

The other thing is that there's no download link for most of the campaigns. I think that a little down arrow button that goes to the campaign's download site, or the download page on Freespacemods, or the the download thread if there's no other recourse, would be nice. It would save some clicking. But it would take a lot of time to do it for every single campaign and there was some resistance to the idea the last time this came up (For the old campaign list).

Actually I thought about doing it, but then I think it would be redundant with the dedicated wiki page of each campaign. I might link to a website, if any, though. But I have a problem of (horizontal" space. Plus it's gonna take a long time.

[Narwhal]

Ok, I tried to add a "link" column. I only did it at the beginning of the list for now, since obviously some people are against this idea, so it would have to be discussed.
By order of availability, I put either the website, the release thread, the Freespacemod page or a direct download.

Most important problem IMO is that in the case of a direct download, I don't have the space to have the courtesy to put the download host...

[Snail]

Most important problem IMO is that in the case of a direct download, I don't have the space to have the courtesy to put the download host...

Generally linking directly to downloads pisses people off because random people click random things without caring, killing bandwidth.

[Narwhal]

No I kill the direct downloads then ? Fine with me.
I ll just keep the link to page or threads, if there is no problem with that.

[Jeff Vader]

I think I was thinking about something like that. Would it be wiser to do it so that if a campaign is hosted somewhere, add a link to the site, or the download page. And maybe if it is hosted at FreeSpaceMods, add a link to the download page.

[Goober5000]

1) I have no objections to this guy devising a way to put the campaigns in chronological order.  I have a strong objection to him trying to take his personal project and impose it on the campaign page, which is supposed to be a universal reference.

2) We already discussed the order that the campaigns should appear in when we first put together the campaign pages several months ago.  The issue was definitively settled with a format that appealed to all sides.  There's no reason to change it.

3) "Punitive admin-type measures" does not imply banning.  There are other actions, such as edit-protecting the page, that can be done.

[Narwhal]

And what would be this guy personal project ?

[Goober5000]

Arranging all the campaigns in chronological order.  This doesn't belong on the reference page because there's no possible way to put them in order; most of them take place in different continuities.  For example, Awakenings takes place three years after Silent Threat yet contains no Silent Threat ships and contradicts some of the plot points.

If you want to put the campaigns in order, that's fine.  But do it on a separate page, not the campaign reference page.  The wiki is first and foremost a reference, not a sandbox for speculation.

EDIT: If you wanted to return to your previous solution, "List of campaigns in chronological order", that would be fine.  Then we'd have a chronological sandbox list in addition to an alphabetical reference.

[Snail]

Is there a way to shuffle the page like how you can shuffle lists in Windows/Finder?

[Narwhal]

Actually, the only thing I now would like to order in loose chronological order are the GW Era campaigns.

While is it true Awakenings and Silent Threat contradicts each other heavily on the plot points and the technology available, a great number of campaigns made for GW are closely tied to the main plot of FS1. I am thinking of Orpheus campaigns, Phantoms, Echo Gate and a few other.
Sure, you WILL probably find stuff in the Orpheus campains that contradicts, say, Echo Gate. So what ? Still, together, it is RATHER coherent. You can find elements in the TVWP that contradicts the FS canon, too ; and it doesn't hamper you to put it in the "pre GW" and not in "alternative universe".
[Man, I hate to argue in a different language than my native one, I am too short on vocabulary]

What I thought when I arrived here was that "OMFG... these guys I fantastic. All those hi-quality campaigns for free. Now I wish I could help them and contribute but I suck at modelling and FREDing a mission is probably not as easy as creating a Panzer General II campaign. Nor do I have the time that. So I am going to help them with their wiki."

Now, yes, my plan was to improve the wiki with a comprehensive campaign list, and not being fond of the alphabetical order when an alternative exists, I tried in the first place to find another order. My attempt at having a chronological order proved impractical or even stupid for most eras, so I stopped, but it is not the case IMO for the GW era.
I tried to play by the rules by asking the communauty opinion on almost every step, which explains why I have started 3 threads already.

About this list remaining in some sandbox category, I don't think that would be a good idea : either get rid of it or replace at least one of the current list with it ; since I think having 4 different lists on the wiki for basically the same thing is... well... weird.

[Goober5000]

No, this is good, we appreciate your contributions.  But there are a couple of ground rules for the wiki.  A lot of changes took place in a short amount of time, without the chance for the moderators to double-check whether certain things were the best solution.

I agree that there should not be four separate wiki pages for the same thing, which is why I complimented you on the merge.  But the reference page should stay with the order it had before.  Your changes are good, but they should not interfere with the reference page.

So here is what I recommend:
    1) There should be a "Campaign List" page that lists all of the campaigns for FS1, FS2, and FSO.  It should have five eras: Pre-Great War, Great War, Reconstruction, Capella, Post-Capella.  Inside each of the categories, the campaigns must be in alphabetical order.  (This is the arrangement that was established previously.)
    2) There can be a "Campaign Continuities" page that groups the campaigns by their continuities.  This should not be as detailed as the "Campaign List" page because it is not a reference, just a list.  It should provide groups for the Volition continuity, the Derelict continuity, the Inferno continuity, the Shrouding the Light continuity, the 0rph3u5 continuity, and so on.  (This is what you were doing before it got merged with the reference page.)

So there you go, two pages for two different perspectives.  One is a reference page, and one is a fanon page.  How does that sound?

[Narwhal]

A question before answering on how it sounds : what do you mean by "not as detailed" ? Does it concern the number of campaigns featured or the number of information on each campaign you can find on the list ? I

[Snail]

If they could be merged (somehow) into one table-thing that could be shuffled like some pages on Wikipedia, would that be acceptable? If that's even possible.

[Narwhal]

Shuffle ?