Talk:OTEX

wikilink + idgames formatting style for lists

Lingering question of mine that needs some context before I ask it -- Many articles on this site, including this one, have lists of Wads (usually mapsets) that are some combination of wikilinks and idgame archive (or forum) links per item.

Is there a consensus policy for how these should be formatted? One reason I ask is because the very first things I did as an IP editor 2 months ago were to make the formatting of this article's Wad section consistent. But the way I did it, which is no idgames link if there's a valid article here, doesn't seem to be that common in the wiki.

Here's a permalink of my most recent edit to this article's Wad section for reference. I personally like this style - only external links when needed - because it looks cleaner and helps emphasize Wiki article links.

So I was tempted to undo the Bot's recent redlinking, but in the spirit of being more communal, I think it's better to discuss this first :) --PhilthyPhilistine (talk) 15:14, 22 December 2021 (CST)

Articles that will HAVE to be created sooner or later anyway, typically because of Cacowards, can be redlinked before or bluelinked after they're created. I often just fire off a bot-pass when the thought occurs to me. This should not be reverted, it just creates more work (for me again, usually...) to repeat it later. And once the article is up, the archive/forum link can be removed, I agree that's cleaner and indeed how we usually format such lists. For people's body of work lists, both links are however always combined. --Xymph (talk) 16:04, 22 December 2021 (CST)

Okay, good, we're in agreement on all points. Temporary redlinks for making your life easier are a good thing. I appreciate the very hard work you've done on making this wiki much better!

For reference, the megawad article is a great example of a well-curated list of WADs that are significant mapsets with wiki articles. Not a single external link needed :) At the same time, makes sense that people's body of work lists would have any/all links. Those lists are more likely to be used for finding new maps to play, rather than general learning. --PhilthyPhilistine (talk) 17:28, 22 December 2021 (CST)

A good milestone was reached today: not a single Red or External link remains in the WAD lists of both this article and cc4-tex. For reference, these are the article permalinks for this milestone: here and here. --PhilthyPhilistine (talk) 15:56, 7 January 2022 (CST)