Adding works

If you'd like to add a missing work, here is what to do.

Of course, links can be added anywhere they're relevant in a wiki; that's the power of the thing. However, for organizational purposes, there are specific places where they need to be, and—if all goes well—other places that should reflect changes without requiring manual insertions. Broadly speaking, the first is on the approprate right sidebar page, and the second through nth are the main and related namespace start pages.

It may be that a link already exists on a right sidebar page. These works can sometimes seem to belong in a few places. Strategies for those situations are addressed here. The present editor has already added links for many that have not had there pages created in the place(s) that seemed fitting at the time.

These are the pages that list all of the works in each section, and the wiki's users can navigate the namespaces in that fashion. The works included there are sometimes broken into sections if there are a lot of them with more general works at the top and other sections grouping works similar to each other. For instance, Hârn realms usually have the kingdom module first with any works that pertain to the realm as a whole, followed by a section of the castles, keeps, and other holds for which material has been developed. There is variation as needed: Kaldor has sections for major holds and then minor holds, while Evael…doesn't.

Here too is where canon is mixed with fanon. The works are usually alphabetized, but sometimes other criteria may bump some higher in the list.

Related works are usually not included here, unless they seem to fit in several locations. For instance, the Kethira and Lythia articles are styled as Hârnic Lore works, yet they are appropriate to list with the Kethira works as well. Unfortunately, such double listing can cause unintended consequences with the plugins that generate lists on other pages, so this should be only judiciously done. Consequently, the Pamesani Games article is not included in the Rethem and Tharda right sidebars, though it does appear on those workspace start pages.

The namespace start pages differ from the right sidebar pages in the way that they collect and display the same works pages.

• Plugin-generated lists—To the greatest extent possible, links are not typed here directly, but rather lists are generated by the Tag plugin. Naturally, this depends on the relevant tags being included in the new page. That's another whole, uh, topic.
• Canon and fanon separate—Though merged in the right sidebars, different tabs on the start page hold lists of just canon or fanon. It seems useful to present them in both formats to help users look at it all in the way that suits their purposes at that moment. The tab structure may seem a bit overbuilt for some meager namespaces, but the hobgoblin won that one.
• More related works—The namespace pages also include those works from the Hârnic Lore section that relate to a given kingdom, adventures set there, nearby wilderness areas, and anything else that has been tagged with that realm. This is where the plugin-driven listing really shines; the same new work doesn't have to be added to multiple related pages.

If fate allows, the categories presently devised will suffice for a good while. The places where those are listed have gotten long enough already. Still, perhaps more will be needed. Those namespaces are explicitly typed into both navilist, which supplies the left sidebar, and works:navbar, which fills the dropdown menus that appear at the top of each page in the works namespace. It is to be hoped that they have been organized well enough that the appropriate places in each will be apparent.

This is only for entirely new categories, however. If, say, a new series of adventures comes out, the lists above don't drill down to works:adventures:unforgettable_epic:start. Those start pages do appear in the right sidebar page, right above the indented members of the series.

Templates are used to generate a lot of the stuff needed for a “complete” page, but there is still some editing involved. Explanatory comments need to be deleted, placeholder values need to be replaced with actual information, and extraneous duplicate placeholders need to be removed as well. Perhaps there is cover art to upload.

Page names—as opposed to the title of the work appearing at the top—should be chosen with some care. The main consideration is getting them to appear in the right spot in All works, alphabetized, which uses them for sorting. With that in mind, please follow these points:

• Replace spaces with underscores.
• The full title need not be used, but include enough of the start for meaningful alphabetization.
• Omit any “The” or “A” at the start.
• Where the title of the work has already been used by another work, append the author's last name.
• In series that follow a meaningful sequence, such as a series of adventures, use the name of the series itself (or a sufficient abbreviation) followed by an ordinal number, such as works:adventures:dark_rethem:dark_rethem_1. Leading zeros are probably not needed, unless another magazine comes out.

Icons are displayed over the page heading to indicate what kind of material is found in the work. More information on which ones are in use is here.

Firstly, icons are given in the template for both Columbia Games, Inc, icons:cgi, and Lýthia.com, icons:ldc. Delete the one that isn't needed for this work. Of course, there are other publishers, so modify one to icons:kpl, or whichever is appropriate.

Then, change the icons:some_icon one to whichever one is needed. If more are indicated, such as for an adventure set in a particular kingdom, add them. Generally speaking, one doesn't need to put in an icon for everything that describes the work, just the highlights. Tags, below, are where to be more generous about that sort of thing.

Some tags are given by the template. Again, tags for both cgi and ldc are given for those publishers, so delete one and perhaps modify the other accordingly.

Tag conventions are not entirely settled, but this is the current state of play:

• With the exception of the publishers tags, all tags on works pages take a namespace qualifier, as in works:harn or works:adventure. This is to allow for similar tags in other sections of the wiki without overlap.
• Tags, differently than page namespaces, are singular. This may be poorly thought out and confusing in practice, but that's how the present editor thought of them. Mea culpa.
• Works set in a kingdom are also given a tag for their region, usually works:harn, the kingdom tag, like works:kaldor, and a tag for the type of place they describe, such as works:realm, works:keep, etc.
• Works with appreciable HârnMaster content are given at least two tags, works:harnmaster and an edition tag like works:harnmaster_3 or …_gold. If it belongs to a particular section of HârnMaster material, like works:bestiary, or works:magic or the like, give it that one too.
• Wilderness works take an additional tag for the area within Hârn where they are located: works:northern_harn, works:eastern_harn, works:western_harn, works:central_harn, works:peran, or works:afarezirs. Additionally, there are works:earthmaster and works:trade tags for those sub-collections.

It seems like the smallest cover images scrounged off the internet are 140 pixels wide, so that size is used for them all here. The template will look for pageid_cover.jpg; if you're as fastidious as the present editor, name it that. Otherwise it's not important. Edit the name or the extension as needed.

The template gives both that guessed-at image and Lýthia.com logo. The latter has been used for fanon generally, though perhaps the ones with proper covers can be given less generic images. Delete the one not needed.

A sample table is provided by the template to indicate the layout of the credits. Use, change, move, or delete the categories like “Writers”, etc. to follow what is given in the work. If only one name is given, just use “By”.

In the second column of the table, add links to the pages for each writer, contributor, etc. The links should follow the form in the “Some Person” sample, separated by commas. If this information is not known, just leave the Some Person link in there, since it is a useful way of marking the pages that still need proper credit given.

If you happen to use Sublime Text for pasting into DokuWiki, the present editor may have developed a decent find-replace scheme to expedite the creation of the credits table. Fingers crossed. One can still get a good way through with regex in many editors.

If any of the names credited comes up with a missing link, make one. A different, far simpler, template will get you started in that namespace. take the following steps there:

• Check for errors in the link. If the name is misspelled in the work in question then keep the misspelling, but look for things like stray commas or the format of initials. By convention, this wiki is using an initial followed by a period with no intervening space between consecutive initials.
• If it is a name that is given in a different form in other works, then, again, keep the novel form. Copy the other listings in the other forms of the name from those pages, and add this new one to them in turn. For example, see Leitch, Peter.
• Switch the name filled in in the page heading to last-name-first form. This is to make the alphabetical listing in the Credits page easier to read.
• A few links are provided. Check them out to see if they're worth keeping. If they come up empty, delete them. They do need a bit of editing to work properly though:
  • The Wikipedia link needs any names after the first capitalized. These mostly come up empty, but what the hell. If anything, Hârn creators share quite a few names with rugby players, which is good for a chuckle.
  • The RPGGeek link usually has to be swapped out wholesale. Just click it and search for the name there. If anything comes up, paste it in.
  • The RPGnet link should work if the name is edited and there is anything there.
• Add a link to the right sidebar for the credits section.

As in the icons and tags above, links are given here for both Columbia and Lýthia. Delete, edit, etc.

After the publisher link, there is a catalog number, #5001, which happens to be that of HârnWorld. Change it to the appropriate number for other Columbia works, paste in the ISBN for Keléstia works, or remove it for fanon.

Two buttons are given with Columbia print and pdf links. They should work if the right catalog number is inserted in place of the “5001” given. Of course, Keléstia and fanon links will have to be pasted in entire. Remove the print button if it is not needed, and perhaps edit the icon and label of the remaining button, if need be.

Technically, the Lýthia downloads are all in zip files, but the convention here is just to use the pdf icon and label if that's the content of the zip. There are a few other choices, including zip itself, under File Type Icons here. Use what fits best.

Paste the copyright from the work in place of the one given here. Should just the top line suffice, or should a fuller declaration be pasted if given? The present editor is not a lawyer and has insufficient knowledge to answer that question.

These pages are still pretty spartan. The focus so far has simply been to build out the skeleton, but more information on each work could possibly be presented. It has only now occurred to the present editor that page counts might be good to know. Some works benefit from a listing of the beasts contained, or the like. This isn't the place to include a lot of the content, even if it were legal to do so, but some prose descriptive of the work itself could be appropriate. A listing of the beasts present in a bestiary article or spells in a magic one could be helpful. Links to out-of-print works in which some material has been previously published can be added.

Who knows, in the fullness of time, the community may adorn these pages to a degree now unimagined.