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Mod banners and ships

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Nyctaeus:
A recurring problem I feel I should adress.

First, the FSWiki congregates information about community assets. Special labels on top on the page exists to attribute ships made for specific mod categories, like [BPArticle] or {{Inferno_Ships}}. Those labels should be used only for ships made for specific mod. For example, UED Solaris rightfully belong to [BPArticle], while GTD Boreas belong to {{Inferno_Ships}}. Still, majority of assets of community model pool belong to neither mod, because they were released as mod resources and certain mods picked them afterwards.

A lot of duplicate articles containing BP reskins and BP designations were present in the past, until MattTheGeek cleaned all this stuff and merged them with proper articles. And now:


This appeared.

Majority of those pages should not display BP label on top, and majority of them fortunately does not that. They are mostly redirects which are okay to bear BP banner, but BP banner also appeared in main Cyclone and Ezechiel pages. Both of those assets were not made for BP. Cyclone is Axem's asset granted to Dimensional Eclipse by it's author, then finished by DE team. Ezechiel is old, almost venered community resource made by Venom. From the pages listed above, only UES Aranyaka article [and all redirects] should have BP banner on top, because Axem made it especially for Blue Planet.

Such issues are generated by the fact, that many community members does not know whole story of some assets. And it's okay. Nobody is obligated to know the story of every asset the community produced over the years, especially considering the fact that some details faded away since the release. Ezechiel for example is one of the first HTL models ever produced and released, and it's really hard to dig out all the details of it's first appearance in the community. I imagine many newer members may know it simply as GTF Nyx because they encountered it first in Blue Planet, so it's likely to be confusing.

Another part of the issue is the fact, that no clear guidelines exist dictating what deserves for it's own article, what should be a redirect and what should be just part of main article. Majority of FSWiki maintainers seems to be working on unwritten consensus, with visible patterns including:

- A mesh dicate if an asset deserve unique article. If mesh is unique [including kitbashes] it should have it's own page.
- A HTL of lowpoly asset should belong to the page of original asset [see GTCa Warlock].
- A retexture belong to main article [see Vishnan Inquisitor in AB_Zakros page].
- A rename is handled via redirect [see GTF Atalanta linking to TF Kvasir].

So..
Q: What should I do if I wikify a ship?
A: Try to track it's origin. Figure out who made it, where it appeared for the first time, who is it's original author, and which texture and name are original.

Q: The same mesh appeared many times in multiple mods. Which one should be wikified?
The page should bear the name it was released as. Original texture should be the top image displayed, and all reskins should appear below [or in gallery on the bottom of the page].

Q: I want to wikify a ship, but I have no idea who made it.
A: Ask. Me for example or any veteran member who can possibly provide information about it.

Q: Why should I care?
A: The FSWiki exist to provide reliable information about community assets. This knowledge is important for people who want to know the story of assets, as well as potential modmakers. For example if potential modmaker wants to pull-out GTF Nyx from BP, such modmaker should not credit just Blue Planet Team for it, but Venom for model and FreeSpaceKing for texture.

EatThePath:
I know on discord I intially disputed the need to take the labels back off, but I'll concede that. Putting that banner there does create a misleading impression of the asset's history and shouldn't be done.

That said, unless the banner and category are inextricably linked I don't think the categories are bad. A page can have many categories, and I think it would be useful mod categories to include everything used in that mod, and likewise make it easy to find other mods a ship you like appears in.

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