Minecraft Wiki talk:Community portal

This is the community's main discussion page.
Talk about anything wiki-related here!
Sign your posts with ~~~~, add new posts below others, and click "Add topic" above for new topics.
Note that this page is NOT for suggesting new ideas about the game. That belongs on the feedback site.

Minecraft Wiki talk:Community portal/Archive nav

Clock circuit, Logic circuit, Pulse circuit, Memory circuit, Transmission circuit

Should these pages really be at the location they're currently at? The scope of these pages makes me feel as though these would all be much better as subpages of Tutorials, rather than as top-level mainspace articles. - User-12316399 (talk) 12:30, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

(Weak oppose). According to MCW:NOTABILITY, "Gameplay strategies, guides, how-to's, etc., should be subarticles of Tutorials." The redstone articles are more like a encyclopedia than most tutorial pages. Tutorial pages are usually aimed more at readers wanting to construct something rather than to learn about something. That doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't go under tutorials though. jahunsbe (talk) 13:30, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

(i). But I agree at the same time, that they're not right in their current state. These pages are not tutorials in the same sense of the word like the other tutorials. They are indeed more about documenting something rather than guiding you through something. These pages are documenting game mechanics, and are using a completely different tone than any other "tutorial". Similar to enchantment mechanics, which has been (in my opinion) erroneously moved to a subpage of Tutorials. I bet there are more examples of this, like anvil mechanics, village mechanics. You can see the pattern here. In my opinion we should rather be looking for a new top level page, like Mechanics (for game mechanics, redstone mechanics, anything about not specifically one particular game object), next to the tutorial one, and then move all these pages as a subpage of that instead. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 14:57, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Proposal

• (done)Tutorials ("player guides on how to use or do things")
• (!)Mechanics ("regular articles about game mechanics")
  • (done)Mechanics/Anvil
  • (!)Mechanics/Dyeing (also see this discussion)
  • (done)Mechanics/Enchanting
  • (?)Mechanics/Redstone
    • (done)Mechanics/Redstone/Circuit
    • (done)Mechanics/Redstone/Components
    • (done)Mechanics/Redstone/Clock circuit
    • (done)Mechanics/Redstone/Logic circuit
    • (done)Mechanics/Redstone/Piston circuits (might want to make title singular and rewrite article?)
    • (done)Mechanics/Redstone/Pulse circuit
    • (done)Mechanics/Redstone/Memory circuit
    • (done)Mechanics/Redstone/Transmission circuit
  • (wip)Mechanics/Trading
  • (done)Mechanics/Village (although now contains a ton of outdated pre-1.14 content)

So I propose the following page structure. There may be more pages that should belong in here but I just listed some examples, you may add more if you know of any. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 09:01, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

If what Jack's suggesting is that Mechanics is its own section, not part of Tutorials but on the same level as Tutorials, then I (support) . —Memetics ^{talk | edits} 05:58, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes that is what I'm suggesting. Currently the Mechanics page redirects to a really old and outdated subpage of Tutorials, and is not the kind of page I was thinking about. I didn't link it for the reason that I'm thinking of a completely new page, similar to Java Edition guides. That one, this new Mechanics page, as well as the Tutorials page, in this proposal, would all be top level pages that provide a neat overview of all their subpages. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 07:20, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

(Support) – Nixinova File:Nixinova sig1.png File:Nixinova sig2.png 06:26, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

(Support) - when will we be getting round to doing this? - User-12316399 (talk) 08:47, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

If nobody complains I'll start moving these pages to their proposed destinations in around four hours. - User-12316399 (talk) 09:13, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I've went ahead and moved most of them. Should Tutorials/Piston circuits also move? I'll see if there's any others that could potentially be moved and list them here. - User-12316399 (talk) 13:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, definitely also move Mechanics/Redstone/Piston circuit. There are some tutorial subpages that might be a better candidate for Mechanics too, but in all those cases they would need to be rewritten so lets leave those where they are for now. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 12:33, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Continuing with the process of rearranging the pages in favour of the "Mechanisms" umbrella subject, I've marked the current "main" Mechanisms page as requiring attention. Namely, it is currently a redirect to a sort of unrelated tutorial page, however the redirect page should in my opinion be repurposed to displaying an overview of all kinds of mechanisms that are now subpages of it, with possibly a section for somewhat related tutorial links. This way the subpages would make sense, as their top level page shouldn't be redirecting. Also, I've similarly marked the Dyeing page for requiring attention, seeing it currently cannot be moved yet due to the above linked discussion for it. Lastly, the Redstone subpage hasn't been made yet, eventhough we've subpaged it with all the circuit pages. It would be a good idea to add some overview content to that sub-main page as well. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 12:49, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Reversion of the proposal

Besides the wiki's consistent insistence on mistreating tutorials (by rejecting both a custom content namespace or, if at all possible, placing them in the main namespace with no prefix), I strongly believe this proposal is similar, has no merit and must be reverted.

At no point is ever any substantial reason for tutorial grouping is provided (policy is not an argument as it is the thing being questioned).

No strong arguments (i. e. beyond opinion and personal preference) have been provided in favour of the mechanics proposal. Arguments against such grouping are problems with searchability (no search bar suggestions, potentially SEO issues as well) and overcomplication of page structure. You have categories for technical and queryable grouping, you have the ability to create a hub page which is not a superpage, and you have the ability to request custom namespaces to be created if nothing else serves your means.

You will definitely have to create mainspace redirects to tutorials and mechanics pages in this structure to avoid searchability issues (but potentially incur new issues with search engines - not an expert, but from what I know their page scoring algorithms are rather unpredictable and often counterintuitive). At this point you might as well put articles there.

Why not group blocks, items and mobs? While with tutorials you had the irrelevant excuse that they do not describe game content, alleging to a defined (in reality, unspecified) aim of the main namespace, mechanics are actual description pages.

P. S. Proponents' insistence on that my arguments must not be considered because I allegedly had half a year to "find" this discussion and participate in it are disgusting. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 20:32, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I oppose the current proposal, but I would support moving them to something like Villages/Mechanics (for example). It keeps these pages better tied to their parents, is much more clear, and could help with the accessibility issues by having them clearly linked on their main pages. One problem with the current proposal is that simple redirects don't work. You can't just have Village redirect to Mechanics/Village, as the main village page is still used. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 20:40, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for you guys' imput. Sad it was late, sorry that this caused frustration, but better late than never. This is yet another case where the com portal's function failed. Please understand your feedback is and will always be welcome, regardless of frustrated reactions. Anyway, I too am not an expert in SEO/searchability/redirects. I should have provided arguments for my proposal though. I've participated in the tutorials discussion too, and because you and others opposed to namespaces, I didn't again suggest it here. However these pages do share similarities with the tutorials, and I wanted to address that. Although I didn't start the discussion, I did have the very same idea before and had clear ideals. I'd gladly hear any other proposals, because my main point is and will be, these pages aren't following the proposed article structure as suggested by the style guide, and this has to be addressed in some way. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 21:06, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you had the right idea, but I disagree with the details. I'd propose moving the mechanics to pages like Village/Mechanics, Trading/Mechanics, etc. I would also propose moving the redstone circuits to something like Redstone/Circuits/X. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by PancakeIdentity (talk • contribs) at 22:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

I would actually support that far more than "Mechanics/Village", etc. I believe it is more meaningful to have the mechanics pages be structurally/logically dependent on the thing mechanics of which are described than on the concept of mechanics. I might actually support the same with tutorials, like mob farming and combat tactics as subpages of corresponding mobs, and e. g. "Cactus/Farming". --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 23:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

This proposal of PancakeIdentity & ATCN makes sense to me; I support that scheme. —Memetics ^{talk | edits} 07:30, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Here's the fact. Tutorials are community-made guides that guides you in the game. They are never official guides by Mojang or in the game. Logic gates, redstone circuits are all community-made concepts, they're not coded into the game. Mechanics in the other hand such as enchantment mechanics are mechanics that are coded in the game. I can't think of a good proposal, but I'll (support) Template:Ping because it makes much more sense.--skylord_wars (talk) 16:36, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I would also support making them subpages when available.  Nixinova  T  C  01:45, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Great, I also like this proposal better than mine. It's good to have consistency, and giving each article that has specific mechanics its own /mechanics subpage makes sense and keeps these related and close together. I agree that is better than keeping all mechanics subpages together instead. Now that I've seen the latter in action in page titles and links, it doesn't even look right after all anyway. For readers it makes more sense to go from for instance "village" to "village/mechanics" than to "mechanics/village", because it's a completely separate top level page. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 15:15, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

(support) moving pages to Mechanics/x and having redstone circuits as tutorials, per the arguments described above. I am wondering if, for example, the Village page should transclude its mechanics page using . The Blobs 23:06, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

(Support) moving mechanics pages to the Village/Mechanics format for reasons given above. I'm not sure about tutorials though, since there are some tutorial topics that don't have a clear root article (e.g. Tutorials/Tips and tricks) and they tend to contain more subjective information than regular articles. We could add a template to the top of all tutorial-style articles to inform readers that the article is a tutorial or has community-made content. –Sonicwave ^talk 01:35, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and (done) the village, enchanting, and anvil pages to the format "X/Mechanics" because I feel like there's a pretty clear consensus to do so.

I'm not clear on what needs to be changed about Trading and Dyeing, because if these two pages were moved as is, neither would have a base page. For trading, are we suggesting that it should be moved to Trading/Mechanics and have Trading redirect there? If so, that seems unnecessary and by that logic, the enchanting, brewing, and smelting redirects should exist only as redirects to their mechanics subpages. And for Dyeing, dye is actually a collection of items in the game so moving that makes even less sense; is the suggestion to split the dye page into one article about the items themselves and another about the mechanic?

I haven't moved the redstone pages yet because I don't think it's clear yet from this discussion whether they should be mechanics subpages of Redstone or tutorial pages.--Madminecrafter12 ^{(Talk to me | View what I've done)} 15:22, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

I see no reason to enforce a pointless redirect scheme for the sake of ensuring page relation consistency. If the mechanics are not descendants of a base something, they are a base something. Support leaving the above as is (without any moves or redirects). --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 15:33, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.--Madminecrafter12 ^{(Talk to me | View what I've done)} 23:35, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Re:dye; I think that was the idea. I would support just having a "Dyeing" page and no mechanics subpage. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 05:08, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

About the redstone pages, I (support) having them be subpages of redstone rather than tutorial pages. Putting them under redstone keeps them all better organized in one place. It would, however, probably be helpful to have links to the pages in Tutorials and maybe Template:Tutorials. I think the "Redstone/Circuits/X" format mentioned above would work well with Circuits having a list of subpages. jahunsbe (talk) 15:11, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Aim of the wiki and other titles in the franchise

This Discord message is the reason I'm posting this here. Since the introduction of an entirely separate game, Story Mode, questions have been raised about whether we need to provide detailed coverage of other Minecraft titles, or delegate this task to other wikis and settle for brief descriptions instead. Given the upcoming release of Minecraft: Dungeons, it would be better if this question was finally answered.

The aim of the wiki was implicitly and informally defined too long ago, when what is now Java Edition was the sole work titled Minecraft. As such, it cannot be said that we document Minecraft and therefore only the main game. This statement could be made broader, to the point that since what we call Bedrock Edition is the sole work officially named "Minecraft" without any other words in the title, we could say that this wiki should only document Bedrock Edition and delegate coverage of other editions to other wikis. While such an approach isn't going to be taken because of substantial similarity between Minecraft editions, something not true for completely independent titles in the franchise, it underlines the main issue with this argument: "Minecraft" in "we document Minecraft" isn't defined. And I have started this very topic specifically to help the community determine what definition is appropriate.

I support documenting other titles on this wiki. Content pages for these titles could be placed in subpages or separate namespaces (like UESP does). --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 14:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(Support) franchise as a whole, as I already stated on discord. I'd prefer just subpages, rather than separate namespaces though, so they can be found better with the search then. FVbico (talk) 15:12, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

UESP definitely supports search suggestions for other content namespaces. There are server configuration options for enabling them as content namespaces and as namespaces to be searched by default. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 15:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Uninvited, seriously I want to comment on this topic. I thought carefully about new community, the independent community is more new and dynamic, knowing how to running with scissors, like today Singapore and Japan. Singapore's approach gives a community the opportunity to develop independently, the new community is more focused on the gameplay writing of this new game.

A point of view made against Template:Ping: A new game released by Mojang must have much gameplay in the future, if it is not advisable to take many subpages, the reader will only be busy looking for the subtitle page, rather than a complete wiki. Looking at the previous Minecraft Wiki and not preparing any subpage for Minecraft:Story Mode, it is obviously not appropriate to outline the entire page with a whole game.

I quote words from Gamepedia suggesting wiki interface:

“

At Gamepedia, our goal is to provide the #1 wiki resource for gamers spanning all genres and platforms. Whether you are starting a brand new wiki or moving an existing one over, gamepedia will provide your community with all the necessary tools to create a great wiki. Please answer the following questions to give us a better understanding of your preferred involvement.

„

FANDOM has the same wiki: https://minecraftdungeons.fandom.com . Why couldn't set up a new wiki on Gamepedia by interfering with the right of others to establish a wiki freedom?

So my opinion is given  Oppose, sorry. All in all, we need to listen Gamepedia wiki managers and project creator's (Template:Ping) suggstion. --Angrydog001_{議(Talk)/誌(Logs)/勛(Contribs)} 17:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I can't understand this post. I'm unable to see links between its parts, and sorry for being blunt, but it doesn't sound coherent enough. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace)

^That being the case, we reserved our respective views. Besides, what BD saying is what I thinking. --Angrydog001_{議(Talk)/誌(Logs)/勛(Contribs)} 02:45, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

(+). If Minecraft Dungeons has a lot of content that differs than the main game, and will receive constant updates, then it may be better to have a separate wiki for it. If the game is similar to the main game then it should be on here, as a subpages of Minecraft: Dungeons. We didn't have this discussion about story mode because it didn't add enough content but now with 2 new games on the horizon this is quite different. – Nixinova File:Nixinova sig1.png File:Nixinova sig2.png 19:22, 11 June 2019‎ (UTC).

How much is too much? Given this question is not answerable, this topic is not about whether to make a new wiki for MC: Dungeons, but about the scope of this wiki, and thus whether titles like Story Mode or Dungeons should be documented here in detail. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 20:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I think this will should be more about the franchise as a whole, but I'm not sure of the extent we should document other games on here. I think subpages are the best idea at the moment for eg Dungeons exclusives. Story Mode can be easily described in one page. Though, what is technically the difference between bedrock, console, java, and dungeons? All are completely different games that just have similar content. To answer the main question... "probably". – Nixinova File:Nixinova sig1.png File:Nixinova sig2.png 21:07, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I think I can't formally answer this question. Because first, I'd like to know how we could even document other games in the first place, and make it fit on the wiki. But seeing we're still stuck on the wiki-wide refactoring of edition-specific information already, I'm not seeing how we're going to get consensus on how to document an even wider scope. So generally speaking, it's my opinion we should discuss at least how we could achieve this, before deciding whether we should do it. But for what it's worth, depending on whether it could be done with a clear distinction between each game, I'd be leaning towards the whole franchise. Because although they might not be the same game, if they are part of the same franchise, they essentially are still "Minecraft"-y. But I'm heavily concerned about the implementation of this. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 21:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Whether it is implementable is definitely not a problematic question. Documenting substantially different titles requires even less integration with main-game articles than edition refactoring. A custom content namespace or a subpage system (I'd prefer the former, I guess?) is not impossible, and integration into main game articles could be achieved with a dedicated section (such as "In other titles"), which briefly describes the subject's involvement in titles like Dungeons or Story Mode (also, why wouldn't we document books as well?) and links to more detailed dedicated articles. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 21:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(Strong oppose). Having too many articles dedicated to a particular game (Dungeons) or series of games (Story Mode) will basically make this wiki a huge mess. When I first began making the Story Mode article back in 2014, I had felt like that it would be best if information about the game was kept to that article, with the exception of trivia or pictures pertaining to the game in other articles.

Its simply unnecessary for numerous articles that are basically part of spin-offs to be included in this wiki. It would be better off if any additional information (e.g. locations / characters in Story Mode or items/armor/potions in Dungeons) be kept completely separate from this one. -BDJP ^(t|c) 23:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

(oppose). Story Mode is a standalone game created by another company, Telltale. They only acquired the rights to use Minecraft franchise for their game. Aside from that, Story Mode is a linear progression storytelling or basically just a point and click game, it's not worth documenting each character in the first place. As for Minecraft Dungeons even though it's a Mojang game, it's not suitable for this wiki. Every items, mobs, and mechanics will conflict with the base game. Sure we can utilize namespaces as the solution, but Minecraft Dungeons has a very different genre, it'll be 100% better to just separate the wiki, more efficient and maintained separately.

Back to the topic, yes this wiki documents the Minecraft franchise as a whole, hence why we have Minecraft Dungeons and Minecraft Story Mode articles. But this wiki isn't suitable to document all the contents and gameplay of another game, we should keep this wiki to only document the main game and only the titles of another game. – ItsPlantseed ⟨₰|₢⟩ 05:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

 Oppose. Unlike Story Mode, I think Minecraft: Dungeons is actually an indie game with enough new content that it's likely to contain a lot of diffenent content information. Even if it is the same thing as the vanilla, it must contain different information from the vanilla one. Putting them in subpages means there will be tons of subpages and subpages of subpages, so why not make it a standalone wiki? — SagvinXC  _{讨论(Talk)/贡献(Contribs)} 02:40, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Once again, the question of this topic has no relation to specific titles whatsoever! The question is the scope of the wiki. All conversation in this topic is basically people pushing incoherent, unexplained, and often false reasons why this wiki should not have extensive coverage.
Since the question is the scope of the wiki, nothing about non-primary titles matters: their number, their content, nothing. The only thing that matters is to what extent we should document, for the purposes of this discussion, an unknowable number of titles with unknowable content, of which the only thing known is that they're part of the Minecraft franchise.
For an example similar to non-primary titles, take mods. If not for the aggressive vanilla-elitist position of the community and disturbingly poor admin strategies during this wiki's first few years, this wiki could have become the source of information not only on vanilla Minecraft, but on a wide variety of mods as well. This has irrecoverably failed, and people are now pretending like mods were never within the scope of the wiki to begin with.
Technological limitations are most definitely not a problem with documenting many titles. Neither is "creating a mess", content organization is solvable. What's not easy to solve is involved editors.
I'd rather not resort to pointing out specific titles, but we may as well have lost our chance to provide due coverage of Story Mode – it's too late now for multiple reasons.
So the question is, what exactly is this wiki about? --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 09:02, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

What the wiki is about? Ultimately, to have people cooperate together. This conversation isn't a very good example of that. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 09:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

As I just said above, this wiki serves no purpose for documenting the contents of another titles. Other titles should have their own wiki separately if they don't share the same gameplay and genre. That's it, this wiki should only document the main vanilla sandbox game, Minecraft. And clearly unofficial community-made stuffs don't belong here, none of them are supported by the official nor the wiki. Mod pages only cover some parts of the community, some are taken care by an individual and most of them are abandoned just to fall into despair. But then again it's just my own opinion and I'm not fully opposing this, there are some of my concerns regarding this move among others:

• What belongs in the mainspace?
• The searchability and accessibility of specific titles.
  • If we were about to include namespaces for specific titles, the search bar functionality should refer to the title that people desire (one solution I can think of is to add a dropdown menu that search a specific namespace). – ItsPlantseed ⟨₰|₢⟩ 11:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I personally (+)(?) to opening it up.

• I'm imagining keeping mainspace for the java/bedrock/etc game, and opening new namespaces for each of the other game series: one for Earth and whatever sequels, one for Dungeons and whatever sequels, one for the Story Mode series, and so on.
• From mainspace articles like Pig, you could have sections at the bottom, near the History / References area, titled "In Minecraft Earth", "In Minecraft Dungeons", and so on. These could have see-also links to Template:Fake redlink and Template:Fake redlink, as well as short summaries perhaps. And then you'd have a nice, clean Template:Fake redlink with content only from that game.

I like this organization because it separates the peripheral content from the main-game content. Peripheral game info won't be sprinkled throughout the page, so when the main java/bedrock/etc game gets its many many updates, editors won't have to gingerly step over all this other content. And those other namespaces won't have to deal with the constant update churn from java/bedrock/etc that's irrelevant to their games. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by Sealbudsman (talk • contribs) at 20:10, 12 June 2019‎ (UTC). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

I would (support) this method. – Nixinova File:Nixinova sig1.png File:Nixinova sig2.png 20:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate this discussion, and I thank Template:Ping for raising it. The question of the purpose and scope of this wiki is at once a philosophical one and a matter of history, preference, and practicality.

First, the Ship of Theseus comes to mind - What exactly defines Minecraft the game, and at what point does Minecraft the game become something other than itself? Are Java Minecraft and Bedrock Minecraft the same game? Well, yes and no. How I see it is that essentially they are the same - a player's experience with the game involves mostly the same kinds of adventures and interaction with the game interface in both versions, despite that there are minor (and sometimes not so minor) differences. Should they have separate wikis? Probably not. I liken this to how I may act somewhat differently in different social contexts, such as at work, with family, among friends, on this wiki, etc. Am I a sufficiently different person in each context to be called a different me? No, I don't think so. (YMMV.)

I have a brother, and he's a lot like me but also very much his own man. I see Minecraft and Minecraft: Dungeons (etc.) in this light: Part of the same family, but not the same individual. So then, when people are seeking information about Memetics, are they looking for information about only one kind of me, about the various "me"s, or about me and other members of my family? I guess it depends on the seeker. I personally only really care about finding information here on the core game we call Minecraft. But sometimes I might look elsewhere for information on tutorials, on mods, on related games in the franchise, on Minecraft stories (official books), on toys, and so on. Why should I have to look elsewhere for this information, I wonder? Why can't I find it all here, on the official Minecraft wiki?

And here's where I arrive at my position of (+). To the extent that we can be a comprehensive and most-useful information source for all things Minecraft, I think we should be. I believe we can and should stay focused primarily on the core game but that we also can be so much more. I believe we can solve the technical challenges that this change will pose (and by "we," I mean "you, all you people with better technical ability than me," though I'll pitch in my $0.02 here and there). And I believe that this expansion of focus will help us to attract a much broader cadre of dedicated editors, which in my view can only serve to make this place a healthier and more vibrant community with more long-term staying power. —Memetics ^{talk | edits} 06:35, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

(-) I oppose this idea if the wiki continues in its current state. I've mentioned before that I think the wiki can already be extremely messy due to 5+ versions of Minecraft that have been, or are being, developed. However, if we do eventually find a good way to represent these differences without making these extremely messy pages, I would be more likely to support this. The wiki just doesn't need more mess, but if we can do it well, I'll support. –Preceding unsigned comment was added by PancakeIdentity (talk • contribs) at 02:40, 14 June 2019‎ (UTC). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

AttemptToCallNil's proposed resolution

I believe there is one most significant argument of those who opposed covering other Minecraft titles on this wiki in detail, and it is great difficulty in manage articles if they had to include other titles' information.

It does not seem to be a real challenge, however. I believe this to be even easier than managing editions of a single base game. Separate articles can be created and referenced from the main game article in a short section.

For organizing the separate articles, we could create subpages (not good for search) or use disambiguation in parentheses (this may have other issues), and we also have the option of a separate custom namespace. I do not believe there is substantial difficulty for wiki managers in configuring a separate namespace for each title, which are not expected to appear in significant numbers. Wikis which have to manage content from multiple titles use both namespaces and parentheses to various degree of success.

For examples of such coverage, I provide the Fallout wiki on Gamepedia (known as The Vault), Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP), and its Fandom counterpart (Gamepedia does not have a general TES wiki).

For the Vault, a single weapon type, a 10mm pistol, has many different implementations in the many titles of the Fallout franchise. There is even a common article for all those variations, which provides links to articles about such items in specific games.

One example from UESP is the Azura's Star, an artifact which makes appearances in four major titles. There is a lore page for it, a subsection for Daggerfall, and three articles for Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim.

A second example from UESP is the Light Armor skill. It also appears in four titles (but not the same four titles) and has a separate article for each of them: Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, TES Online.

The Fandom Elder Scrolls Wiki uses a more conventional parenthesized disambiguation. Azura's Star has a disambiguation page, and separate pages for Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. An identical approach is used for light armor: a disambiguation page and articles for Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, and TES Online.

These examples indicate it is possible to manage such content without creating a huge mess.

In particular regarding Dungeons, there is a reason I would strongly prefer not creating a separate wiki. A separate wiki would mean reduced interactions between base game and Dungeons editors, reducing flow of users from one wiki community to another, and creating possibilities for a greater split in the general Minecraft community. In this case, there would be a blank wiki with little to no established policies and a new administration team (much more reliance on GRASP for recent changes patrolling, less effective admin tools use – there has even been a concern than a certain non-English editor has a non-constructive approach to opening a Dungeons wiki in their language).

Since Fandom acquired Gamepedia and later announced Project Crossover (referred to by some people as "Project Gelatinous Cube"), which involves potential merges of same-subject wikis between the two wiki farms, the possibility of integrating the existing Minecraft community on Fandom (which is smaller and lacks the advantage of being official) into the one on Gamepedia has been discussed. In light of this possibility, proposing a further split of the Minecraft community seems counterproductive to me.

Another issue is caused by existence of non-English Minecraft wikis (but please don't joke about having them deleted, it's inappropriate). If a separate wiki is created for English coverage of Dungeons, it will be implicit encouragement for other wikis to delegate Dungeons coverage to separate Dungeons wikis, which may have undesired effects on their communities. Even if a non-English wiki defies this encouragement (which could even be named borderline denial of agency) and covers Dungeons on their wikis, a separate Dungeons wiki in that language could be opened, thus creating an ineffective system of content duplication (once again, something against the aims of projects like Crossover) and splitting the community.

I propose detailed coverage about Dungeons, and likely Story Mode as well, to be provided on this wiki, in separate custom namespaces.

Please note I would strongly not appreciate unargumented opposition – you're basically saying "your reasoning is faulty, and I won't tell you why". Also I ask you to avoid repetition of arguments provided above (that coverage here would be a mess – I have provided evidence to the contrary, or something among the lines of "there should be no coverage because there should be no coverage" – this is even worse than no argumentation because it's lack of reasoning that doesn't necessarily look invalid). --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 21:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

(Strong oppose) per my resolution as stated below. -BDJP ^(t|c) 04:53, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

BDJP007301's proposed resolution

The aim of this wiki for far too long has been about the similar editions of Minecraft that have been released on everything at this point. Computers, tablets, smart phones, game consoles; you name it. Then, out of nowhere, we get Story Mode (heck, it was revealed in a "game" released on Mojang's website), and the same with Dungeons and Earth; both are basically revealed without any proper tease or information beforehand. They are also revealed to be coming to basically the same devices, but how the games play out are completely different.

Both Story Mode and its sequel are not sandbox games, but instead are point-and-click and driven by a narrative. While they do have a similar visual style, they are completely different at their core, with stuff that is not possible in the sandbox game, such as animated facial expressions, fluid movement, a third-person camera constantly following the player at various angles, voice acting, etc. Also, as stated by ItsPlantseed, characters / mobs from a game other than the sandbox game are not suitable for this wiki (heck, there is already a separate wiki that we can move over to Gamepedia).

As for Dungeons, it is also not a sandbox game, but an action-adventure RPG. Again, while it does have a similar visual style to the sandbox game, it is completely different at its core, with stuff that is not possible in the sandbox game, such as a top-down camera, in-game currency that is used throughout the game as a whole (not just the Marketplace in the sandbox game), completely different weapons / items / mobs, powerups, etc.

As for Earth , it is also not a sandbox game (per se), but an augmented-reality game. Again, while it does have a similar visual style to the sandbox game, it ends up becoming different at its core. First and foremost, unlike the previous two, this is exclusive to iOS and Android. Secondly, while the gameplay is similar to the sandbox game, it is impossible in the sandbox game for there to be a 360 degree camera without the need for virtual reality (sorry, Bedrock Edition on Gear VR doesn't count), or for real people to be implemented into the world.

Simply put, Story Mode, Dungeons and Earth do not share the same gameplay or genre with the sandbox game, and as such, are completely different, and therefore must be completely separate from this one. For the fact that both Dungeons and Earth have separate Twitter accounts as well is something of note.

Managing articles to include information different from the sandbox game (which is what this particular wiki covers) will cause massive confusion among visitors. Having articles / subpages for Dungeons, Earth, and Story Mode will make this wiki more focused on editors than visitors, be much more difficult to maintain, and said articles may eventually become abandoned and suffer from all kinds of internet rot (I'm looking at all the mod pages that have been made and then eventually deleted because of being left abandoned). It will especially become difficult when, exaggeratingly speaking, that a major update for Dungeons, Earth and the sandbox game are all released on the same day, meaning that it could take days, let alone weeks, for all the information to be updated (instead of it currently taking around a day or less for us to update the articles with the major updates to the sandbox game).

As for Dungeons in particular, keeping the information separate will help tremendously as it'll avoid editing conflicts with this wiki as a whole, will make this wiki easier to maintain, and avoid internet rot (I'll be happy to help set up the Dungeons wiki if need be).

While I was not able to provide good examples of information being separate (as some wikis I have been looking up haven't been updated in 2+ years, and also for the fact we aren't Wikipedia), it will be easier to have the information completely separate overall for the reasons as stated above.

I vehemently oppose any coverage about Dungeons, Story Mode, or Earth on this wiki, with the exception of one article having a brief explanation about each game. This wiki is meant to be about the sandbox game, not the Minecraft universe as a whole.

I end with this quote from Jasper Boerstra (this one and this one):

No

No

-BDJP ^(t|c) 04:53, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

In other words, here are the key points of this topic:

1. Story Mode (SM) and Dungeons (D) are completely different games than Minecraft, and therefore must be described separately.
2. Having any sort of SM/D information on this wiki (implicitly – regardless of arrangement) will be excessively confusing to readers.
3. This wiki will not be able to maintain SM/D articles, and they will be abandoned (implicitly – as opposed to if they were hosted on another wiki, where they would be better off).
   1. Evidence of that imminent abandonment is mods.
4. Maintaining SM/D articles will divide the attention of existing editors (implicitly – as opposed to if the articles were hosted on another wiki), which will harm main game coverage.
5. This wiki is only about the sandbox games.

All the points presented above are refutable, and thus so is this entire proposal.

Point 1. No logical link. Once again, I must refer to Fallout and Elder Scrolls, where there is no evidence of decisions that games outside their typical RPG form must have separate wikis. TES: Blades and Fallout Shelter, I believe, are described on the same wikis as other games in the Minecraft universe, which both SM and D are explicitly stated to be part of. A factor weakening my position may be absence of a base series of games in the same universe prior to the release of dissimilar titles, though, 1) sandbox games rarely get sandbox sequels due to the nature of the genre, and 2) other points remain unaffected by this.

Point 2. That "implicitly" part in my point is key. I have presented _two_ arrangements in my proposal which are demonstrably not disastrous for readers. One point, however, I have not covered, is searchability of SM/D content (think SEO). Since it should be expected that people will initially come to SM/D articles from search engines, how close to #1 will the wiki be will determine whether it remains functional. I am not remotely knowledgeable on SEO, so this is just my relatively-layman hypothesis: being associated with an active wiki is likely to be a positive factor, but so may be having a separate subdomain, and/or association with Gamepedia. I will ask for expert advice.

Point 3. The "implicitly" part is again key; even if you have not said this, your argument – that a separate wiki is better – is automatically invalid without it. Having SM/D articles on this wiki is likely to improve the chance of current visitors, whether editors or readers, finding them, thus helping these articles to stay alive. The searchablility factor is still applicable.

Point 3.1. There have been many contributing factors to mods becoming unused here. Their less-searchable arrangement (as opposed to, say, a custom namespace). The core community's negative attitude towards unofficial content (including the popular non-sequitur "we're the official wiki and therefore can't cover unofficial content"), to the point they were effectively subject to unstated exemptions from all rules (then-admin Kanegasi told me that in 2013). The presence of separate, official mod and mod pack wikis, including the FTB Wiki (which would make this wiki just a secondary source of information). Probably other factors as well.

The Russian wiki had a different situation for all the listed factors. There are still mod articles being developed, and even though they aren't updated very well, neither is base game information. This is, however, not necessarily applicable to the English wiki for one of the factors I listed: managing a non-English language project or a wiki is something almost no single mod wiki does at all, much less something they do effectively.

A more important analogy to see with content rot is, yes, non-English language projects (typically referred to with terms which imply their derived, dependent status on the English wiki, a despicable trend of marginalizing people who don't speak English; I deliberately avoid such terms as "translation project" or "language wikis"). Why did so many translations on this wiki become inactive and had to be purged? Because they didn't have enough editors. There are, once again, many reasons for that, and not being a separate wiki isn't necessarily among these reasons. Some translation projects did get their wikis, even recently. Are they more active now? Some may be, but definitely not all. Could we have done things better for them? Yes. For one, listing non-English versions on top of each page would have contributed to influx of a new editors.

Point 4. That's a mostly flawed model of editors. Typically, wiki editors, especially on relatively large wikis, have areas in which they work. They may not have or like all the games or editions, they may do something that few other can, or they may be bad at something people are often good at. If an editor is focused on updating command documentation, writing change logs, or editing tutorials, they will be mostly unaffected by there being a separate namespace.

I said "mostly". The editors whose attention will be divided are those metapedically focused: tracking discussions, managing templates, clearing backlogs (yet most of those isn't the work which greatly peaks with updates, that would be content writing). What would happen if there was a separate wiki? They'd need a metapedic setup: people who can create and revise rules, guidelines, policies, templates, content layout... and where will they take these people from? Who will they ask for assistance? Will there be a "they" even? Capable wiki maintainers are much less common than your average article creators, and we have quite a bit here. The topic of dividing the community was one I covered in my proposal.

Point 5. That's just what the dragon left for his treat. Because it's simple: figuring out what this wiki's about is the aim of this discussion. This hasn't been decided yet.

 

(-) We have screwed up with mod coverage, we have screwed up with translation projects, we have screwed up with Story Mode. I believe proposals like this can lead us to screwing up with Dungeons, Earth, and whatever comes next as well. I have nothing left in my life than these few communities online I still believe I can help, and it seems to me people are pushing, in good faith, for something that is likely to deal irrepairable harm to these very communities. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 22:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I think non-core-MC content (SM, Earth, Dungeons) shouldn't really be documented fully in this wiki, but wouldn't mind if they were. Also, these massive 6KB text walls aren't really encouraging discussion here. – Nixinova File:Nixinova sig1.png File:Nixinova sig2.png 02:51, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Trying to stay on a discussion of scope of the wiki: I think the wiki would be better, and more of something to take communal pride in, with more of the official franchise in it.

Imagine: you'd look at a page like Sheep, and you're not just reading about how it works in the core sandbox game, instead you have access to sections about the other games right there, and you can get a glimpse how the Sheep plays its part across all Minecraft worlds. That's lore, that's interesting stuff fans would love. And that goes for Dungeons readers too! They get to know the Sheep as it was in the original game. It's a much richer page.

And then we look back on that a few years later and can be proud we made that transition and made it all that much richer.

I read BDJP's piece, and while I don't really feel much of it actually discourages me from supporting opening the project up, I think his point about internet rot is an interesting one to consider. Ultimately with that though, you can never predict beforehand what editors will come. We've had times when we wished we had more Bedrock and Console editors, but over time they did come. I'm optimistic about Earth and Dungeons editors; we had a fantastic Story Mode editor after all ; ) – Sealbudsman talk | contribs 01:49, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I've added a few bits of trivia to pages such as pig and mooshroom saying that muddy pigs and mooblooms exist; since Earth runs in Bedrock there's not any exclusive functionality afaik so no need for any sections or anything. – Nixinova File:Nixinova sig1.png File:Nixinova sig2.png 02:17, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

This is a tough issue with no easy answer. Both (all) sides have persuasive points. I'm comfortable with us being "Minecraft-the-sandbox-game documentation," a comprehensive user manual with text and pictures. I'm also comfortable with that being just one facet of a wiki that covers the entire Minecraft universe, because I am convinced that we can manage successfully the complexity of such a wiki with our current leadership at the helm.

So since a choice is required, I'll keep my original stance. I like the idea of us being the comprehensive, go-to wiki for all things Minecraft. I think we ought to be more than just a fancy user manual for the core game. I concur with Sealbudsman (18 July) and lean toward the solution AttemptToCallNil has proposed, with separate namespaces. I think that needs to be accompanied by a distinct page style for each namespace, if possible; the pages' look and feel - i.e., color scheme, head banner, maybe page structure - will help people tell at a glance which specific Minecraft "species" (sandbox game, interactive story, novel, toy, whatever) the particular page is about. This should be accompanied by clear infoboxes or whatever identifying the "species" at the top of each page.

As long as we continue to document the ever-evolving core game(s) effectively, I believe (as I said before) that expanding our scope will result in a larger, healthier community of editors and, if managed properly, will not result in the confusion we wish to avoid. I even asked my nine-year-old daughter about this issue and read her the various opinions here. She said at first that it might be confusing to have the expanded scope, but then she brightened and declared with enthusiasm that she thinks it will be fine because we can label the information to make it clear which Minecraft thing the information is about. She even mentioned a wiki for another game where this is done. So if she can distinguish such information without confusion (and with enthusiasm, even), then I am confident that the vast majority of our readers will have a similar experience.

Also worthy of note: We must make this decision based on reason and evidence if we want to make the best decision. However, we have to acknowledge, I think, the emotion behind this: Our feelings of what scope is best are tied up with our involvement and history with the game(s), and with the wiki, and with the various communities involved. Whatever decision we make, we are going to feel uncomfortable with it to some degree, and some people will be affected more than others, no matter what we decide. We have to acknowledge that that's a normal and expected part of the process of change here and to be prepared for that. We have to do our best to proceed with patience and empathy, and with a degree of compromise, regardless of the outcome. Having said that, we can only make a good decision here by doing our best to acknowledge and then set aside our emotional associations with Minecraft and engage in the rational basis for what our scope ought to be. What is best for the wiki and for its user community?

Whatever the wiki's scope, I think we'd generally agree that readers of the wiki usually arrive here because they're seeking information about Minecraft. They want to learn. To best inform and educate readers, then, the wiki needs to have content that is clear, accurate, current, complete, and easily accessible. Some of the arguments laid out so far raise concerns that expanding our scope would make achieving those goals more difficult. But I'm more persuaded by the arguments that if we organize the information carefully and systematically, the potential problems will be minimized and that we will gain more in the benefits, which would include a more active, healthy community of editors, some of whom would focus on parts of the wiki more narrowly and some of whom would be more broadly involved.

Therefore, the reasoning and evidence overall say to me that we ought to go ahead with expanding our scope to cover the whole franchise: the Minecraft universe (or the whole Minecraft Tree of Life, if you will, not just one branch). We need to evolve just as Minecraft evolves. It won't be easy, but it promises to be worth the effort. —Memetics ^{talk | edits} 15:40, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Earth

(New section to differentiate from the text walls above)

Minecraft Earth is now out and since it runs on Bedrock, all Bedrock features apply to Earth. There are a couple of exclusive features - mooblooms and muddy pigs - but otherwise features are the same. I think it would be fine to have info about mooblooms and muddy pigs documented on their respective parent pages (pig and mooshroom), since there isn't that much (Muddy Pigs jump in Mud and Mooblooms plant dandelions when they walk), and for a page on Mud to be created. – Nixinova File:Nixinova sig1.png File:Nixinova sig2.png 22:34, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

At first thought, I'd be fine with documenting those here. However, it's the gameplay that really separates Earth. Do we document how to get each type of block, if there's chances or only specific locations? What about combat? Monster spawning, if it happens? And for small stuff like the two new mobs, Earth is in a closed beta right now. It could receive lots of new features by release or in future updates. Etc, etc. It just opens up a big can of worms that we *really* aren't ready to deal with, at least not until we figure out how we're gonna deal with the already varied versions of the base game. So, (oppose), at least until we figure some more stuff out. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 00:06, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Pages for Mud and Mob of Me have been created while this discussion has fizzled out; should these be kept, and other Earth exclusives be documented? Since Earth runs on Bedrock there won't be many more of these new pages created.  Nixinova  T  C  05:54, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

The de facto consensus at the moment (based on the fact no-one seems to have said anything about the recent pages) seems to be to create pages on Earth info but not to incorporate it into main-game pages, which seems to be working. For Earth-exclusive information about main-game features I think we should add a "In Minecraft Earth" section to avoid the confusion already created by {{only}} sometimes. This discussion needs to have some sort of conclusion by now since the game is already out.  Nixinova  T  C  07:26, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above, a summary (to the best effort)

Reactions to full-franchise coverage

Support:

1. AttemptToCallNil – supports as the writer of the proposal (diff)
2. FVbico – support (diff)
3. Nixinova – conditional support (diff)
4. Sealbudsman – "wouldn't be opposed" (diff)
5. Memetics – support (diff)

Oppose:

1. Angrydog001 – oppose (diff)
2. BDJP007301 – strong oppose (diff)
3. ItsPlantseed – oppose (diff)
4. SagvinXC – oppose (diff)
5. PancakeIdentity – conditional oppose (diff)

Other:

1. Jack McKalling – could not answer the core question (diff)

Points made

For coverage of other titles on other wikis:

1. It is too difficult to manage articles about similar content on one wiki when it appears in different titles with major differences.
2. Other titles may have, or are known to have, radically different gameplay requiring similarly different wiki coverage, and this may be confusing to readers.
3. Covering other titles will require a new set of templates for every such game/series, which is about the same as making a whole new wiki.

For full-franchise coverage on this wiki:

1. It is possible to cover substantially different implementations of the same entity in different titles on the same wiki (provided examples: parenthesized disambiguations on the TES Fandom wiki and the Fallout wiki, custom content namespaces on UESP) – refutes opponents' point 1
2. Having all titles under the same wiki-roof is likely to bring the community together (as opposed to potentially causing a split). There will be easier access to experienced users: those who monitor recent changes and revert bad edits, and to those who can help with wiki/technical things if needed.

Further discussion

Assuming we still want to discuss this further. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 21:09, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd be less opposed to covering everything on this wiki if we didn't try to Frankenstein like 5 different games' version of a mob/block/whatever on to one page. It's already messy enough covering Java and Bedrock on the same page in some cases, and they're essentially the same game. I think it could work much better if we keep everything separate (even if still on this wiki) by creating separate pages (or sections on pages). If we did put everything on this wiki, I'd say we should put other games under their own namespace, like Minecraft Earth/Cluckshroom or whatever. Documenting things on the same page can be slippery. Sure, some new Minecraft Earth mobs might be similar to existing mobs, but this might not also be the case in the future. Also, there's vastly different gameplay mechanics, like obtaining blocks. I think more separation is, in this case, better than less. Not saying completely different wikis, but yeah.

Also, I'm much more open to have Earth on this wiki than something like Story Mode or Dungeons. Earth at least uses the Bedrock engine and has similar(ish) gameplay. Story Mode and Dungeons are much different games that are better described as using Minecraft as a setting rather than being Minecraft. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 21:36, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Sectioning is definitely a good idea if we go down the route of documenting everything on this wiki and will avoid the "Template:In../..^{[Edition and Education Edition only]}" spam we have currently.  Nixinova  T  C  21:43, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Of course; can't speak for other supporters, but I never meant for base game articles to provide spin-off coverage, hence the TES/Fallout examples. Though a mention of the separate article would be useful, I think. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 21:42, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Earth and Dungeons seem to be completely different games; the gameplay at MINECON Live had pretty different gameplay from standard Minecraft. Perhaps they should have their own wikis, once we learn more about them. We could still mention them in Trivia sections, similar to Story Mode. The Blobs 22:50, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Confused idiot rambles about coverage

I've only skimmed over the furious debate that went on above, but here's my opinions on the matter that I wish to add, despite this probably making it worse.

(support) (Java, Bedrock, Console, Pi, 3DS, etc.) - pretty sure we can all agree on this one

(Weak support) coverage of Earth on this wiki. While presented in a different way, MCE is at its core still a sandbox game, and shares tons of elements with the main series game - blocks, mins and the like. I currently don't see any problem with it. That being said, I haven't actually seen any MCE info be implemented into existing pages about non-MCE-exclusive objects, though, so I'd have to see such an implementation in action to make a satisfactorily informed decision. That being said, I wouldn't oppose there being a separate wiki for Earth content (earth.minecraft.gamepedia.com) if said wiki doesn't have an unreasonably high amount of duplicate content.

(oppose) - Dungeons is a considerably more distant game from normal Minecraft - it's less of a differently presented version of Minecraft and more of completely different game which is designed to visually look like Minecraft. Plenty of things that would be considered notable in Minecraft terms would be completely unnotable from a Dungeons viewpoint; grass blocks have a lot of important properties in the base Minecraft game, whereas they're to my knowledge nothing more than a background object in Dungeons. (Reminds me that Story Mode had a lot of blocks in the background which are not at all present in the real game - should we document these in some form or another?) Likewise there are things in Dungeons that will not apply to the original game at all, so their notability here is questionable at best. I think it would be better overall to have Dungeons content covered over at another Gamepedia wiki (dungeons.minecraft.gamepedia.com), preferably with sufficient linking between the two wikis where desirable.

This is all probably nonsense though, so make what you will of it. - User-12316399 (talk) 16:55, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I have concerns about that you say "Document all main editions"; what qualifies an edition as main? If Mojang announce Bedrock is the "main" edition, and Java is somehow "secondary", would that affect our decision to describe that edition at all? I assume you meant all editions of the base sandbox game?

As for notability, it is apparently a new way to look at the issue, but I don't see how it is relevant given this wiki's scope - what this topic seeks to define, and therefore cannot address as a basis for decisions - pretty much is notability.

Mostly a side note as I believe the rest of my opinion on the topic of separate wikis for Earth and Dungeons is extensively documented above. I'm pretty sure making the wiki like "dungeons.minecraft.gamepedia.com" would be impossible, it would have to look like "minecraftdungeons.gamepedia.com" or something similar (that is, a further subdomain level is not something I have ever seen Gamepedia do). --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 17:36, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Pretty sure we only document Bedrock, Java, and Education (with Education as a variant of Bedrock). Other editions are only documented in history sections.

As far as Minecraft Earth, this uses the Bedrock Codebase, so it would be documented as a variant of Bedrock Edition. It would only be specified when there is a difference from Bedrock. The Blobs 20:47, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Mass deletion of mcspotlights videos

I hope this is the correct venue for this topic.

I've noticed a rather aggressive effort on the part of PancakeIdentity (talk • contribs • logs • block log) to delete those helpful little 1-minute summary videos created by mcspotlights. They mostly appeared in many of our articles about individual blocks. I've reverted a few of these deletions (for example, this removal of the planks video, and this removal in sugar cane) because the content of the video is still valid and true, not out of date, but possibly incomplete due to software updates.

PancakeIdentity and I have engaged in a bit of discussion about this on my comment board but I thought this should be discussed in a wider community.

My position is this:

• If the information in the video is valid and true, then it should be kept.
• The fact that information is incomplete isn't a good reason to remove it, unless the missing information is so significant that viewers may be misled by watching the video.
• If the information in the video is misleading, it should be removed.

My viewpoint is based on my personal experiences with my child, who had difficulty reading these pages when he started playing Minecraft, but could use a browser and watch videos. These little 1-minute summary videos were extremely helpful to him. Even now that he can read better, when he looks something up on this wiki, the first thing he does is scroll down to see if the article has a video by mcspotlights.

We may all be adults creating content here, but young children use this Wiki also. Information that is still useful to them should be kept.

What say others? ~ Amatulic (talk) 18:16, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I guess I personally don't see their use if they're incomplete. It doesn't provide a good overview of the item/block/whatever then. The videos are kinda weird for the wiki, and feel very out of place imo, tbh I'd support removing them entirely but I really don't see them happening. When I watched the first one, it struck me as extremely out of place, maybe better fit for some type of tutorial page. If we are insistent on providing video overviews, I'd say we should find/create completely updated videos. Otherwise, I'd say they're not really too useful and should be removed.

I will say though, I do think floor/ceiling placement for item frames is important enough for the video to be considered outdated.

I would also like to clarify, I have been watching all the videos without outdated notices and have kept the accurate and up to date ones On the pages. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 19:01, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Going in on "If we are insistent on providing video overviews, I'd say we should find/create completely updated videos.", I suggested this recently in the discord:

"Since so many videos are outdated (and now removed), should we try to make new videos altogether, and try to keep them updated? I'm open to try, but I've never actually video edited anything."

Since I posted that, Template:Ping pointed out we should alter Minecraft Wiki:Wiki rules/Video policy first.

The wiki admins would be in charge of the video process then, though editors would be able to help by providing scripts for the videos or alike. FVbico (talk) 19:11, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

It's just weird to me that Curse videos are exempt from the typical video policy. Also, how are the overview videos serving a business purpose? I'd be more supportive of overview videos if they were done professionally and essentially rehashed the wiki page's content. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 19:25, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

The videos being deleted seem professionally-enough done to me. They are nice and concise overviews of the main points in an article. Little details that are missing, like the ability to place item frames on floors, are easily discovered by player themselves and don't detract from the educational value, particularly for kids like mine who want to see them. That's rather the whole point of a concise overview; you can't include all details and still be concise. They don't need to be comprehensive, just informative.

We may as well argue that a video has no value because it was made with Java Edition while Bedrock has the larger installed base. I don't buy that line of reasoning (and by the way, I and my child play Bedrock and we still found those videos helpful), and I don't buy the reasoning that a perfectly valid video should be removed because more details became available in a software update. I'd rather keep them, adding a notation about changes, and delete only the ones that are now completely wrong (such as villages needing doors). ~ Amatulic (talk) 19:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I mean, I would argue that, although not for the same reason. That's not what we're talking about though so I won't bother. From my understanding, we as a community had reached a consensus to remove out of date videos (See above topic). Even if I disagree, I do see your argument about keeping incomplete videos. More of the community would have to chime in. In addition, "completely wrong" is too strict a criteria for removal imo. The wiki should not promote any out of date information whenever possible, unless the page is dedicated to an older version (such as the new Trading before Village and Pillage page). Like I already said, I think the best solution to make the most people happy is creating up to date videos and removing outdated or incomplete videos (even if I personally still dislike the current videos). Incomplete videos are incompetent as overviews, especially in the case of something like item frames, where the missing information is pretty essential to the current function of the item. We're gonna have to undo most of my edits if we decide to promote videos that don't showcase basic functions of an item. I've stated my opinion, and I think we need more community input before moving any further. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 00:44, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

I had just restored the video in chest and then I saw this reply. OK, I'll stop restoring them for now, if no more get removed.

My choice of words "completely wrong" was poor. I'm in favor of removing videos that have obsolete information (that is, information that is now wrong because things have changed, such as beds now defining villages instead of doors), but if the content is still all correct, it serves as a concise overview.

We disagree that a new capability to put an item frame on the floor is a critical feature. It wasn't before, and it isn't now, it's just an enhancement that isn't necessary for a concise overview video.

Ultimately, we disagree about what constitutes "out of date". My position is, if the content of the video is still valid and correct, and it covers most of what a young player needs to know, it isn't out of date yet, it's a keeper. ~ Amatulic (talk) 02:16, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm really glad the videos helped your child, but I'm just not sure we should specifically cater towards that audience. Maybe we should instead focus on increasing the wiki's readability? I know a lot of articles could really use it. Maybe as a separate project, but I digress. I don't know, the videos just feel very out of place to me, especially when missing good amounts of information. I really hope some other people chime in.

I also wanna say, I got the impression from the videos that they mostly focused on how to obtain the item and how to use the item in gameplay. It's when that information is missing is especially when I feel they should be removed. Especially since I would say most provide a good, solid overview for when they were released, whereas now, they can be missing info that I feel the creators wouldn't have left out if making them today.-PancakeIdentity (talk) 02:35, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Having watched many of these with my son, I can say confidently that they (at least the ones by the mcspotlights team) are concise yet thorough overviews, covering one specific block or item: what it is, how to obtain/craft it, the primary things you can do with it, and other considerations if there's any time left (these videos seem to be disciplined about running less than 90 seconds). Basically they give a new player all the basic information they need to know in far less time than it takes to read the article. This isn't about catering to children who have difficulty reading (but why not do so? Minecraft appeals to a wider age range than any other game). It's about providing information choices. For the comprehensive details, you read the article, which covers everything known about a topic. If you just want to get a quick understanding, those videos are extremely useful. They're professionally-done, well-scripted overviews. Overviews don't cover all information, by definition. And in many cases the videos aren't out of date. ~ Amatulic (talk) 15:24, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

I see both sides and at first blush fall somewhat in the middle. When I first started using this wiki, I absolutely loved those little video overviews, as did my daughter (we had an experience similar to Amatulic's). But lately, it has become somewhat disheartening to see the frequency of tags identifying videos as out of date. It makes the pages with videos feel out of place.

The rub of the problem seems to be this: If the videos are a core part of the wiki, i.e., an expected element of the basic content and structure of key pages, then most pages should feature current, accurate overview videos - at least the pages about the basic elements of the game, as the videos seem intended for bringing beginners up to speed. If the videos are not a core part of the wiki, then they should not be embedded in the pages at all, as having them on some pages sets up an expectation that they will be present on most pages. This expectation is reinforced by the way the current videos refer to other videos in the series: they present a comprehensive structure of video content about current basic game elements and mechanics, a structure that simply doesn't exist anymore now that so many of the video "nodes" in that structure are out of date.

And that to me seems like the bigger problem: Taken as a whole, the set of mcspotlights videos is no longer about the current game. As a whole, it's historical content, individual remaining videos notwithstanding. The old scheme for how our wiki pages were structured, including overview video content near the end, is no longer viable. As much as still I like the videos and appreciate their professionalism and consistency, I reluctantly have to conclude that it's time to pull them all until we have an active project creating a comprehensive set of up-to-date videos. Meanwhile, we can work on making the rest of the page content as accessible and user-friendly as possible. (Honestly, it seems as though the video content should be its own living project with an active maintenance team, one to which the wiki can point; otherwise, as the game is under constant development, we'll run into this issue of stale videos over and over again.)

If the community's consensus is to keep videos that are still accurate (even if incomplete), then I wouldn't oppose that, though I think the larger issue of the wiki's overall stylistic consistency would still need to be addressed. —Memetics ^{talk | edits} 11:56, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. Having a continuing project for creating updated videos would be great, but if it doesn't happen, I'd rather just remove them altogether. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 23:27, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I guess we could try to launch such project then, as I stated in the above comment thread early on, I actually suggested doing it, but it kinda stopped there.

If we were to make videos, I suggest making scrips for videos a subpage of the project (eg Videos/Stone for the video about the Stone page).

I'd gladly record it, but I suck at making scripts and never video edited anything, so this will need a collaborative effort nonetheless. FVbico (talk) 23:38, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Chemistry

(See Also: User:Blobs2/Renewable resources#Quasi-Renewable Resources)

Many pages have recipes involving elements or compounds because of . However, this implies that the player can obtain these items, which is not true since the chemistry GUI blocks are not legitimately obtainable (they can only be obtained in Creative or with commands, and the player must be in a world with "Education Edition" enabled). We should have a template that explains this, which would be used to describe methods of obtaining certain blocks and items, including when is used. It could look like this:

{{{1}}} cannot be obtained in Survival without commands and can only be obtained in Education Edition, or in Bedrock Edition worlds with "Education Edition" enabled. Therefore, the same rules apply to {{{2}}}.

I have written a similar paragraph on the Element page, but I would want to extend it to all chemistry pages. The Blobs 15:19, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

(support) this as the chemistry blocks are not renewable. —HaydenBobMutthew ^{(talk, contribs)} 04:43, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Sound file attribution

This was discussed before in this archived thread, but didn't get very far. Samuel Åberg's twitter ("slamp0000") describes him as the lead sound designer for Minecraft; however most sounds on this wiki have {{License C418}} slapped on them. In addition, this minecraft.net attribution page shows that some sounds were taken from Freesound.org, though likely edited afterwards. Since it's not clear which sounds were created by C418 or slamp0000, perhaps all non-music sounds (not taken from Freesound) should simply be tagged with {{License Mojang}}; the sounds listed on the "Sound attributions" page would instead be tagged with the license listed there. –Sonicwave ^talk 19:03, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Not a licensing expert, but I agree with this proposal. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 19:05, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

I might go ahead and begin slowly changing the non-music sound descriptions to use {{License Mojang}} instead of {{License C418}}. I'm not sure how to figure out which sounds are from Freesound without listening to everything on the attribution page and seeing what sounds familiar, since the files don't have attribution info in their metadata (unless I looked in the wrong place).

Also, License C418 says "In agreement with C418, Minecraft sounds are allowed to be hosted on the wiki. All music must be shortened to the first 30 seconds"; is this agreement publicly viewable or was it made through something like a private IRC channel? –Sonicwave ^talk 06:11, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Some changes I've made to infoboxes

I've done some stuff to infoboxes today and felt like I should check in here and ask for other peoples' thoughts on the matter before I proceed further.

Template:Fluid

I've decided to create a new infobox to split off fluids into. This might be a bit excessive, since there's technically only three fluids in the entire franchise, but they do behave considerably differently from other blocks, and it's worth noting that they probably won't even be considered blocks anymore with the planned fluid split (assuming that actually ends up going through, of course). I've equipped this template with its own set of parameters specific to liquids, and it seems to hold together relatively well. See Water, Lava and Mud for examples.

Biome colorations in Template:Biome

I added some fields to the Biome infobox that record biome-specific plant, water, sky and fog colour codes. A test case can be seen at Badlands#Badlands (I haven't filled in the details on any other infoboxes, though). While they fulfil their job I feel as though they take up quite a big chunk of vertical space, which I feel could potentially be alleviated by compressing all of these values into some sort of "Biome colors" title, collapsed by default but expandable, like what can be seen here. Are there any other thing whose colours/appearances vary by biome (I think fog is one, or at least it will be in 1.16), and should I even continue with this in the first place?

Splitting sounds and drops into their own sections

This is another thing I've considered doing for a while. I decided to give it a shot (see Anvil#Sounds and Barrel#Sounds) and want feedback on this way of setting it out. I thought that sounds took up a bit much space on some of the infoboxes, and also believed that there was much more that could be said about them in a dedicated section (i.e. their internal IDs, their subtitles, volumes, pitch ranges, and the sound type category thing you specify in playsound).

Drops is another thing I'm not really happy with being inside the infobox, since again, there's a lot more that could be elaborated upon that would end up clogging up the template were it kept in it, such as how many of each item it could drop with Fortune, different drops depending on tools, and other conditional stuff. A dedicated section for drops, roughly equivalent to the Obtaining section, seems like a better move. Granted, this may result in lots of trivial repeated information (Breaking a barrel with any tool drops a barrel.), but this shouldn't be too much of an issue. On the topic of drops and obtaining, I think we should try reformatting the Obtaining section to more closely resemble the French wiki's obtaining sections, since monotonous paragraphs of text are boring, harder to digest and retrieve information from, and are generally less pleasing to the eye.

Any thoughts on these? - User-12316399 (talk) 19:36, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I've now split off all block and enchantment sounds into respective sections and removed the Sounds parameter from the infobox template. Eventually I'll complete items and then mobs as well. - User-12316399 (talk) 07:46, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

...and some changes I want to make

Removing the Drops and Experience fields

I've detailed in the section below my proposals for how these would be documented. With those moved into that new section, these fields would become redundant and could be removed.

Removing data values

I'm not sure these (numerical IDs, at least) should be documented within the infobox, since the plan appears to be to remove them and perform a flattening across Bedrock Edition for parity reasons. We could probably keep the namespaced IDs there, though, since those will be official for as far as we can see going forward. Numeric IDs will still be kept in their own section. I'm also not sure about tags, these could probably also be relocated to a more technical section lower down.

Currently underway. - 23:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Flammability values

Certain blocks are more flammable than others, should the values for them be documented in the Flammable row?

Removing the tool fields

These are already documented in the very first section of most blocks, so do they really need to be documented in the infobox? (I do feel as though the section in question is rather incomplete in itself, and could do with more info such as the effects of Haste, Efficiency, and different tool types, as only listing unenchanted tool times feels very incomplete.)

Add more parameters

Now that we've relocated a bunch of block info to dedicated sections where they can be described in further detail, is there anything we could replace them with in the infobox that doesn't need much further elaboration? Two that come to mind are how much they slow entities passing through them (the value we'd show here would be the number they multiply entity movement by), and how slippery the block is (this only applies to a small set of blocks, though).

Any thoughts on these ones? - User-12316399 (talk) 09:36, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

We should keep numerical IDs until the flattening. The Blobs 13:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Should they be marked as Bedrock Edition exclusive as to not cause confusion? - User-12316399 (talk) 14:37, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd support that. Make sure to use the short=1 tag. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 01:45, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Replies

I feel like you should have copied the templates into your sandbox and made changes to them to see if they really work and fit. "Editing in production" has a risk of ruining pages. Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 9h58:44 | 1/10/2019 (UTC)

Regarding sounds, what would go under "Pitch, Volume, and Min. volume"? The default sounds.json file does specify volume and pitch for some of the sounds, but all of the sounds already have different pitches and volumes anyway, so in my opinion this wouldn't make much sense for a casual reader. I can see the "source" column being useful (though it would be better renamed "category", "type" or "volume setting"), though that would require reading decompiled code since categories are no longer specified in sounds.json since 1.9.

Also, we should probably amend Minecraft Wiki:Style guide/Features to specify where the sounds section should be placed within the article. –Sonicwave ^talk 05:48, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Those parameters are pretty much completely ripped off from the playsound command with no real knowledge of how they work. However, it's definitely possible to see that pitch is definitely one worth noting - glass breaking sounds and piston sounds are always lower pitched than their default values from the command, and some sound sources have variable pitches, such as sheep (and don't forget that baby animals are affected).

As for where to put these, I've just been putting them before Data values or Achievements, whatever comes first. - User-12316399 (talk) 20:52, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

The biome colors definitely need to be listed somewhere. Any chance we could display what these colors actually look like? Also, I'm not sure about removing them from infoboxes, but I definitely support expanding the breaking time table/template to include Haste and Efficiency. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 01:45, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I would (support) to have colors inside infoboxes.--skylord_wars (talk) 08:19, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure about including Haste or Efficiency in breaking rows, ad it would make them too complicated. Even if we only show Efficiency for diamond tools and only show Haste for diamond tools with Efficiency V, that is 13 scenarios instead of the current 6. The Breaking page does a good job of explaining the times in these situations. The Blobs 14:46, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

03/2020

A good amount of the parameters proposed for removal have now been removed from the infoboxes in question. There's a few more things I want to bring up:

• Are there any more parameters people want added to specific infoboxes that I haven't yet mentioned?
• I'm considering removing the Light source section from the Usage section of pages since most of the time it just pointlessly duplicates a single value shown in the infobox anyway.
• Also considering moving information about a block or item's fuel value into the furnace as well, given it is just a constant value. This would also get rid of a section.
• On some lesser-known infoboxes exist some parameters I'm not too happy with, since they include a very wide range of things: the Consists of section for structures, and the Blocks section for biomes, the former of which should already be detailed in the respective /Structure subpage, and the latter of which could probably be moved out into the main article body as there does tend to be a lot of whitespace to fill.
• Biome-related colours have been made optional parameters on the biome infobox, which I disagree with, as they should be filled in for every biome as they indeed do affect every biome on Bexrock Edition at least.

That's about close to all I have to say on the matter for right now. - User-12316399 (talk) 20:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

• (Oppose) removing fuel value and light source from the article bodies. I'm ok with it being in both the article and infobox, I just hesitate to hide basic functions of a block/item in the infobox. My general sense is that a lot of users tend to not read the majority of the infobox as it tends to be largely technical stuff. It hides the information more, especially since it'd remove the header from the Contents section.
• (Support) removing blocks section from the biomes infoboxes. Lots of info for what should be a smaller thing.

Related, I'd (oppose) removing the "consists of" section for structures as it works great for some structures and terrain features (mossy boulders for example).

• (Oppose) making biome colors mandatory (I think). If there's Java-exclusive biomes, would they need the biome color info? I wouldn't think so but I'm not too familiar with those pages. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 21:28, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Surely for cases of Consists of that can be clearly described, either the name of the structure or the introductory paragraph would offer sufficient information as to make it redundant?

Maybe having mandatory biome colours could be a temporary measure, to make sure all pages without them filled in are added to a category, to make pages with them not filled in easier to find. Also, simply because a biome doesn't have exclusive colours doesn't mean it doesn't have colours at all, so noting both java's and bedrock's values would be beneficial even if java's would be a lot more boring.

I've got pretty much all of the values I could think of added to a test template, a few examples of these can be found at Template:User-12316399/Block/doc. Feedback highly desired. - User-12316399 (talk) 01:29, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Handling loot tables on the wiki: a proposal

Currently the information on the wiki regarding obtaining blocks and items from entities and the like is a complete mess. It's pretty spread out and not consolidated into standardised sections like crafting and smelting information is. I propose that we fix this by having loot be handled much like recipes currently are.

Firstly, the Obtaining section would be split into up to four sections: recipes (for when the time is obtained through crafting, smelting and the like), loot (for when the item is obtained as a drop, from chests, fishing), trading (for when obtaining the item via trading), and other usage (filling and emptying buckets, filling and emptying bottles, filling bowls via milking and eating foods in bowls).

A proposal for how blocks would work: we should handle the "this block drops" and "obtaining this through drops" sections like we currently handle "usage of this as a crafting ingredient" and "obtaining this through crafting" sections:

• on the block's page, the Usage#Drops section contains a small one-row table describing what the block drops under the following conditions: silk touch, unenchanted correct tool, fortune I, fortune II, fortune III, no tool or too low tier tool, correct tool II (if applicable e.g. shears on cobwebs)

• on the desired block or item's page, the Obtaining#Loot section contains a template that calls for all blocks that drop this specific item when mined. it then displays that table in this section, including the entries that don't drop the desired item.

For example, here's how it would work with coal ore and coal:

• Coal ore's drops are listed in the Drops section of the coal ore page in a table like this:

Block	Silk Touch	Correct tool	Fortune I	Fortune II	Fortune III	Incorrect tool
&format=original Coal Ore	1 &format=original (100%)	1 &format=original (100%)	1 &format=original (66%) 2 &format=original (33%)	1 &format=original (50%) 2 &format=original (25%) 3 &format=original (25%)	1 &format=original (40%) 2 &format=original (20%) 3 &format=original (20%) 4 &format=original (20%)	&format=original Nothing (100%)

• The coal page calls for all blocks that drop coal, and lists coal ore's table entry, showing players that mining with the correct tool will drop coal, and advising them not to use ineffective tools or Silk Touch as these do not yield coal.

Now I think entity drops should be handled in much the same way, but the problem with this is that entities have a lot more weird conditions where they can drop different stuff depending on how they were killed. We'd need to consider death while on fire, skeleton arrow kills, charged creeper kills, among other things, and there's even cases where mobs drop things without even dying, such as chicken egg laying, turtle scutes, cat and villager gifts, and we could go yet further with the yet more weird cases such as shearing. (In fact, this even extends to blocks somewhat, with berry bushes, pumpkin shearing and also the advent of beekeeping.) Naturally-spawned equipment on mobs throws yet one more spanner in these theoretical works, and I think these should be kept on a separate table from the rest.

Chest loot and fishing loot probably shouldn't be as difficult to do, but should be also put into a table format like the other obtaining methods.

There's a few more things I want to mention on this matter:

• We could also move experience drops into this section, since they almost universally accompany all types of loot except chest loot.

• Don't forget that mobs are also a thing that can be dropped as a type of "loot" (see infested blocks, turtle eggs, splitting of slimes), which could also be integrated into the table somehow.

• If we include experience drops and mob spawning as parts of these tables, could we also have drops sections for projectiles? Thrown bottles o enchanting drop experience, thrown chicken eggs can drop chickens, and thrown ender pearls can occasionally drop endermites, so it might just fit in well, but this might be getting out of the scope of "loot". We could even consider explosions as a type of loot, but that's probably another step too far.

• We should address blocks more or less informally when describing what they drop. For example, we wouldn't distinguish between what a torch drops and what a wall_torch drops, since in casual gameplay those are the exact same thing despite having different block IDs. We would distinguish on different block states if they make a difference, such as wheat that's fully grown as opposed to wheat that's not.

• As I addressed above, mobs can drop items without having to be killed first. Should we have separate tables for "mob loot from killing it" and "mob gifts from the living thing", or should they be merged together? If these are to be made separate, should we also have block interactions such as berry harvesting kept separate as well?

• The template should be designed to merge a source block or entity if it can drop multiple different items, similarly to how consecutive identical major versions are merged by the History template. Here's an (incomplete) example table:

Block	Correct tool
&format=original Oak Leaves	1 &format=original
	1 &format=original
	1 &format=original

• We'd have trivial self-referential cases, such as a section on the Block of Redstone page saying that breaking a Block of Redstone drops a Block of Redstone, and another section on the same page saying that a Block of Redstone can be obtained by breaking a Block of Redstone. I really don't think that's anything worth worrying about though.

• Blocks and entities that don't drop anything should still have a drops section to be consistent with the rest, since most of the time (at least in the case of entities) they do still drop experience.

Any thoughts on this system? - User-12316399 (talk) 08:14, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I sorta agree with the "Fortune" table, but it can be more visualized by generating a small graph in each cell (I will try to create a preview of this using HTML and CSS later).

For conditional loot, another type of table can be created:

Loot type	Dropped when... Drop conditions
&format=original Gold ingot	Killed by a player. 5% chance.
&format=original Trident	Killed by a player. 1,25% chance.
...	...

If a condition is repetited multiple times, I think we can use color codes and a legend table.

If the chance involves Looting, we can embed a sub-table like the Fortune table.

About "entities" as "drops", from my point of view, I don't consider silverfish, small slimes,... as loot, they are special functions of the block/entity when triggered, thus they should be addressed as "special behaviors" or something similar.

Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 8h29:26 | 1/10/2019 (UTC)

---

Here is the table I attempted:

File:Loot table proposal – Mining.png

Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 9h48:08 | 1/10/2019 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep the non-enchanted versus enchanted options closer together, so if you switch Silk Touch with Incorrect Tool, that should be better. In your example Le Duy Quang, you're using percentage heights for each cell to represent their values. I don't know if I'd like that, as this technique is not used elsewhere on the wiki and would be inconsistent design. Not saying it shouldn't be used, but if not, it would look like this (please excuse resolution, I just messed around):

File:Loot table proposal2 – Mining.png

– Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 11:36, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

As we're on the topic of percentages for each item count, I think this is a point worth considering. - User-12316399 (talk) 11:46, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

The behavior of the lowermost cell filling the rest of the column is just ugly and illogical in my opinion. At least in each column, distribute the height of each cell. Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 14h05:35 | 1/10/2019 (UTC)

Here is the updated version of the table using my new template In-cell graph:

Block	Incorrect tool	Silk touch	Correct tool	Fortune 1	Fortune 2	Fortune 3
&format=original Coal Ore	Template:ICG	Template:ICG	Template:ICG	Template:ICG	Template:ICG	Template:ICG

Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 14h02:55 | 1/10/2019 (UTC)

(Support) something like this. It looks nice, is informative, and gets across much more than the current single sentences we currently use in most situations. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 02:00, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

(support) For complex pages like this, it is much advisable to use graphs or diagrams. But for others that's fine. We should draw a clear boundary whether to use tables or not.--skylord_wars (talk) 06:47, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we could still have a table like that, but hidden by default, and a more simplified version displayed so the full information can still be accessed without cluttering the page up too much? Or would this just complicate the code even further? - User-12316399 (talk) 09:28, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

So how exactly will we sort the Obtaining section once this is implemented? I'm thinking something like this (although named differently):

• Obtaining
  • Loot
    • Blocks (this section itself contains stuff like ready composters, ready berry bushes, and shearing pumpkins)
      • Block drops
        • Contained items
    • Non-mob entities
      • Non-mob entity drops
        • Contained items
    • Mobs (this section itself contains stuff like cat and villager gifts, laid eggs, shearing, etc.)
      • Mob drops
        • Mob equipment
        • Contained items
    • Fishing
    • Loot chests
  • Recipes
    • Crafting
    • Smelting
    • Blasting
    • Smoking
    • Campfire
    • Stonecutting
    • Brewing
    • Loom
    • Enchanting
  • Trading
  • World (items that can be obtained by changing an existing item, such as filling bottles and milking cows)

Are there any other notable categories I missed? - User-12316399 (talk) 12:00, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

I've transferred all smelting and mining experience drops from blocks and items into the main text of articles and removed the Experience field from the blocks infobox, in line with this Obtaining reform. I've requested a change to the Smelting template to better incorporate this information into the article (4 years ago, funnily enough). Would anyone be willing to implement this change (and also the newer one noted beneath it)? - User-12316399 (talk) 14:29, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I might try setting up a couple of examples on images soon, but I don't have much knowledge about scripting so the pages for the items they drop won't be able to automatically read and display the information. Also, would people be okay with me removing the experience parameter from the entity template and moving said information to the drops section? - User-12316399 (talk) 13:26, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Some examples can be seen on Coal Ore#Loot, Diamond Ore#Loot, Grass Block#Loot, Gravel#Loot and Hay Bale#Loot. The template seems to be acting up a bit, though, since the values are clipping into cells below. - User-12316399 (talk) 15:58, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we need every column on pages like Hay Bale. Could we do something else for cases like that? -PancakeIdentity (talk) 03:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

The """fix""" for the hay bale page is still awful. I don't think we even need a table in that case. The tables should just be used for blocks that can have different drops. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 04:49, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Replaced with two relatively short sentences. Header renamed to "Drops": I believe "loot" would typically apply to defeated mobs or treasure containers, not broken blocks. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 08:03, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

(x) the usage of {{ICG}} as it breaks completely on mobile. Something like the first table example is good though. Adding colours also isn't really necessary.  Nixinova  T  C  23:16, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

The text linking to this discussion is now showing up twice on a large number of pages. It appears this is because it is both part of the template and manually noted on the pages. We should probably either get a bot to remove the text from the pages or remove it from the template and from the pages later. jahunsbe (talk) 20:10, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

We're aware, the text will be removed from the pages themselves when they get double checked, which should happen soon; new pages that get the table no longer should add the text directly. FVbico (talk) 20:18, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

That works too. jahunsbe (talk) 20:29, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I've got my bot to remove those duplicate links.  Nixinova  T  C  02:14, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

February 2020

I've went ahead and created a new template, Template:Experience, which should be better than the previous method for transcluding experience drops. Sooner or later I plan on moving all Experience and Drops information from infoboxes into their dedicated sections in the respective pages, and then ripping out the Drops and Experience parameters from the infoboxes themselves, so if anyone wants to comment on that do it sooner rather than later. After this is done all the information will be in their respective sections and will be ready to be organised into the new table format when we've all come to an agreement on that.

A lot of people seem to be taking issue with blocks that drop themselves having dedicated tables. I did mention this before, but nobody seemed to have any problems with it with it until the trial implementation. I do think they should still have dedicated tables in articles - they do have their own loot tables, after all - but for these trivial cases they should be collapsed by default as to not take up a lot of space with this bland information. Blocks that do have non-standard drops would be open by default. Of course, this would mean that we'd make the table template collapsible and expandable, which doesn't seem like much of a challenge.

Otherwise, everything looks to be just about fine, and it shouldn't be much of a problem to take the newly added netherite tools into consideration for these templates. Is anyone else willing to contribute anything? - User-12316399 (talk) 10:14, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

29/2/2020

There are some problems with the current {{Loot table}} template:

• For multiple cases of the same block, Namespaced ID and Source just repeat, example: Wheat seeds § Loot.
• For the same loot but different amounts across multiple block states, there appears a boilerplate that also repeats.
• There isn't a way to handle other factors affecting drops, such as Fortune.

Currently I am replacing some of the complicated loot tables (for example Pumpkin seeds) to temporarily not use the template until these issues are fixed. Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 10h04:30 – 7 | 29/2/2020 (UTC)

Since when has the template not had a way to handle fortune? It's obviously there on all the applicable ore pages. - User-12316399 (talk) 12:08, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

The namespaced ID refers to the name of the loot table while source is the actual block. I don't see an issue there. And yeah, it handles fortune just fine already. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 16:40, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

If there are 8 cases, for example with pumpkin stem, then the Namespaced ID and Source will repeat 8 times. That's the issue. Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 2h18:36 – 8 | 1/3/2020 (UTC)

Source should probably be able to repeat, with the block state value clarified as in Snow#Loot. It would probably be best if we could find a way to have Namespaced ID be merged into the same box though, and also would appreciate if we could do a similar thing with XP drops as well since having that be repeated also doesn't help. - User-12316399 (talk) 02:22, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Reflecting after implementation

(Yes I know it's not fully implemented yet, but we've put it on most pages and we're getting there.) I've noticed a lot of complaints about the new system from myself and other users. Here's a bit of a summary:

• It's a lot of space to convey simple information. The wood page, for example, is just a huge template to say "Wood blocks drop themselves." (Especially when lacking a summary such as described below).
• Related, there's no easily readable summary for the loot. This is especially a concern with average readers who likely don't care about the nitty-gritty details, IDs, and percentages and just wanna know they can get (for example) 2-5 potatoes from a fully grown crop.
• It's not mobile-friendly. These tables can get pretty big and be a pain to read through on mobile.
• Lots of repetition. There just seems to be a lot of extra fat that could be trimmed from these tables.
• Various parts don't look very good and/or aren't readable. These tables can just look like a big jumble of numbers

This proposal did get great support (from myself included), but I think it was easier when it was just coal ore. I support documenting all these details, but the issue is how it costs readability and accessibility. Ideas I've seen have included adding a simpler summary above the table and auto-collapsing the table. This would make the simple version accessible for those who only care about that and keep the tables from chewing up page space when they're large. Some have suggested this as well as moving the loot table names and stuff down to the Data Values section.

What are your thoughts and suggestions? -PancakeIdentity (talk) 01:49, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I did have them collapsed by default when I started adding them, until I realised that all I had added up to that one point were basically one- or two-line tables that really didn't need to be collapsed by default given they took up barely any space, so I decided to leave them open. Of course, anything longer than about three lines with no unexpected drops is a candidate for being collapsed as to not take up extra space, whereas anything that length or shorter can probably be kept open for viewing by default. And summaries would probably be useful as well for basic info at a quick glance. - User-12316399 (talk) 02:01, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

(Unrelated, but since crafting recipes take up even bigger amounts of space, what's to say we can't have those be collapsed by default as well?)

I think auto-collapsed should be default with an option to change it to not auto-collapse.

Recipes are much more basic survival information, are easy to look at, and aren't filled with details the average person won't care about. And we actually do collapse them on some pages such as Dye. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 02:14, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Some users on discord have suggested just saying the formula and distribution type instead of every single chance. I would support this personally. It keeps the huge cells of percentages from existing while still allowing the exact information to be accessed using an online calculator. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 21:12, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

For some cases it should be fine to keep the fortune chances in the loot table template (e.g. Gravel#Block loot, Diamond Ore#Block loot), while also mentioning how the percentages are calculated, but for bigger cases like lapis lazuli and nether gold ore I think having an external accompanying table would be a better option (collapsed by default if it's a nuisance). I think the rates should still be directly documented though, for Fortune 0-3, since I doubt anyone would go to the effort of actually calculating said rates, but the formula would still be there if anyone wanted to see what Fortune 743 would drop. - User-12316399 (talk) 21:57, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Ginormous maintenance categories

Have a butcher's at these things:

• Category:Information needed
• Category:Verify
• Category:Unknown version history
• Category:Stub

These maintenance categories have grown to contain hundreds of pages needing attention. Yet, despite this, it seems as though few people are actually trying to fix the issues with these pages. I'd think that the sheer size of these categories for one is one of the main contributing factors to how these have grown out of control - why bother with fixing these pages when there's absolutely hundreds of them and it would take hours of arduous effort?

I think this calls for a split of these categories. I'm not sure how to do Information needed, Verify and Stub, but Unknown version history seems rather basic; splitting by edition and then by development period would probably dice it up into manageable chunks. Of course, it's no secret that the history template itself has a fair share of other issues that need working out, so maybe this category splitting thing could be done en route. Does anyone have any ideas as to how the other three (and any other problematic categories) could be divided up into bite sized chunks? - User-12316399 (talk) 09:02, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't know information needed or verify either, but at least stub could be gone through and split on a case by case basis by adding an additional argument into the template call, such as a particular type of page (like content, project, person, version, etc). Of course it can already be split between full-page and section-specific, by detecting whether or not that argument was specified. Good idea to start with these categories before any big history template overhaul, because missing information always makes things like this difficult. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 09:09, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Every so often I scroll through Category:Verify and fix what I can. I do agree that it should be split more since I just deal with modern Java when I go through the list. There should be a or something to exclude history verifications, and unknown v.h. should definitely be split by edition; that doesn't seem difficult to do.  Nixinova  T  C  00:38, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Since already checks which edition is being referred to, it should not be difficult to have categories for "Unknown Bedrock Edition version history", "Unknown Java Edition version history", etc. The Blobs 01:22, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Category:Testing needed and Category:when are out there, too. – Sealbudsman talk | contribs 01:43, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I've done a kind of sloppy split of the missing version history category, which does seem to work. There might be some formatting edge cases screwing it up somewhat that I haven't accounted for yet though. - User-12316399 (talk) 10:35, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I think we should also somehow distinguish between things that we don't know but can currently test, and stuff we can't currently test due to reasons (e.g. the version a change happened in not being archived). This should be easy to do for templates like verify. I'm not sure how we'd deal with this in the history template. If anything we should start a discussion of revamping the history template sooner rather than later. - User-12316399 (talk) 09:30, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

I have an idea to further split unknown version history. We have already proposed to distinguish editions, but we could also distinguish releases from development versions. If we know which release a change was made in, but not which development version, that is better that a completely unknown version history. The Blobs 00:14, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

One category per release version then? - User-12316399 (talk) 09:32, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes. We would have Unknown Bedrock Release, Unknown Bedrock Beta, Unknown Java Release, Unknown Java Snapshot, Unknown Education Version, and Unknown Legacy History (for Legacy Console, and New Nintendo 3DS). The Blobs 14:50, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

For unknown development versions would it be possible to categorise by version and not just development stage? - User-12316399 (talk) 07:50, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, did that and we now have even more unknown version history categories, and it seems to be working mostly as intended, so this should split things up into yet more manageable chunks. - User-12316399 (talk) 12:56, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Module/database thing for infobox values

Currently, blast resistance values are added to infoboxes via being loaded from a module Module:Blast resistance values, while all other block-related values are specified manually on the page. On discord yesterday I proposed that this concept could be expanded to other values related to blocks (and, by extension, items, entities and other stuff), and it raised a head or so. Would this be useful at all?

The values we'd need to implement into this new module table thing of doom:

• Blast resistance (number) (already done)
• Hardness (number) (already done, but in a different way that isn't inherently called by the infobox)
• Luminance (number)
• Flammability (number)
• Fire encouragement (number) (not yet in infoboxes)
• Catches fire from lava or not (boolean)
• Slipperiness (number) (not yet in infoboxes)
• Entity movement multiplier (one or two numbers, as some blocks like cobwebs can have different y and xz movement speed modifiers) (not yet in infoboxes)

For items (and blocks that exist as items):

• Renewability (boolean)
• Stackability (number)

Other stuff, like the needed tool and the IDs, would probably still be specified manually, and yet other stuff, like drops and experience, will probably be deprecated as I've mentioned here before. Are there any other notable values that we could add? - User-12316399 (talk) 12:01, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Why does the word "Cargo" come to mind? --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 14:54, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I definitely support the new parameters, such as movement speed and slipperiness. The hardness and blast resistance values are used outside of infoboxes, but not all parameters are. I would support having a module in this case so we get the same value across pages. I would not support a module for renewability because the Renewable resource and Non-renewable resource pages would still need to list the items manually. The Blobs 23:51, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

About transparency and documentation of its behaviors

The behavior of transparent blocks is extremely complex and there's not different "categories" like the wiki likes to say they are. Almost every block is unique in some way. I've been documenting placement behaviors (placing transparent blocks that require support on other transparent blocks) at Opacity/Placement. This page currently only covers Java Edition. The problem with this page is that the tables are very large, and it could very quickly get out of control if new blocks are added or the Bedrock information is included. In addition, the page is kind of hidden away. I'd propose some sort of on-page documentation for each transparent block's transparency behavior. This could also cover stuff like mob spawning, light levels, etc. However, I'm not sure the best way to go about this. I'd love some discussion, as the current way we deal with this is not very good. Thoughts? -PancakeIdentity (talk) 01:57, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree that documenting a block's behavior on its article is the better way. Should we pick some articles to experiment with adding that information to them? --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 07:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

It looks like Torch has a decent table on it. Maybe something like that? We could also probably just copy the shulker box/piston sections on Opacity/Placement to the shulker box and piston pages. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 17:03, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, something like the table on Torch – and with your improvements (good work on that) I'd even say exactly like that. Also agree on shulker boxes and pistons, I think this information should be on their articles. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 17:28, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

The other thing I was wondering is how to document how a free-standing block's transparency works (such as Spawner, Glass, Brewing Stand, etc). Right now, most just have something in the infobox, but this doesn't provide a lot of information. For example, glass and spawners being listed as being partially transparent leads to misconceptions about placement behaviors, spawning, etc. Should we make a new section on the pages dedicated to this? Maybe a "Transparency" section? I'm not sure. This could help trim down these placement sections, as if we say that all blocks can be placed on spawners on the Spawners page, it doesn't need to be documented everywhere else.-PancakeIdentity (talk) 17:44, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I would support a transparency section. I am not sure why so many different properties of blocks are categorized as transparency, so we definitely need more information. For example, ice is transparent but polar bears can spawn. This means that ice would need to be considered opaque in mob spawning, at least according to the Bedrock Edition algorithm. The Blobs 18:04, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, the behavior is pretty complicated. Ice seems to act as an opaque block (aside from rendering), like glass and light sources. It just has a hard-coded behavior to not allow snow on it to keep ice environments clean. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 18:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I've always found the non-light-related definitions of "transparent blocks" to be unintuitive (suffocates mobs, allows spawning, block placement etc.), so I would support documenting these behaviors separately. I might even support changing "transparency" to something like "light-blocking", since many "transparent" blocks aren't visually transparent (like chests). The table on Torch#Placement seems good, although I'm not sure if it would be better to have top and side placement in separate columns. –Sonicwave ^talk 18:48, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree, it seems like an outdated community term. I think it's time we try to move away from it. And I'll try to split the top/side placement and see how it goes. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 19:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

(Agree). They should be different infobox params instead of being shoved into a footnote.  Nixinova  T  C  19:42, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I think we should split it into rendering, light blocking, and mob spawning. Then the placement rules can be detailed elsewhere and not attached to any of these three. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 23:22, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Those properties plus placement are not an exhaustive list. We would need information about chest opening, water currents, etc. This is more information than belongs in an infobox. I propose that we reserve the infoboxes for the properties that will affect the most players, and document the rest in a "Behavior" section. The Blobs 00:07, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree. However, with the chest example specifically, I think that fits better on the chest page and not each block's page. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 01:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

(Agree). Visual transparency should be moved to model as that page fits better.--skylord_wars (talk) 08:30, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

There is already a page zh:教程/不透明度 about opacity in Chinese wiki, which is collected and collated by Chinese players. Different opacity is introduced here, and the transparency list in java edition is listed, except mob spawning. This may be useful and perhaps it can be translated to English. -Chixvv (talk) 09:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

In addition, 实体方块 does not mean solid block in Chinese, so don't be misled by machine translation.--Chixvv (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Information on mob spawning in Java edition has now been added to the Chinese page. --Chixvv (talk) 15:23, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I've accounted for different "transparency" block properties in my proposed block infobox overhaul, which can be seen here; please tell me if there's anything more that can be added. - User-12316399 (talk) 12:10, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

From Discord: Proper game rules and predicates regarding block placement

Summarizing a discussion that occurred just now on the Discord server in the #wiki channel.

Discord server member tryashtar provided us with rather useful information regarding block placement. This clearly invalidates "transparency"-based descriptions of placement rules. (Note that this relates to JE exclusively.) Quoting tryashtar:

- pressure plates require the block below to have a rim (e.g. hopper) or center point on top (e.g. glass pane)
- rails require the block below to have a rim
- banners and cakes require the supporting block to be a solid material (materials should probably be documented somewhere)
- bells and levers require the supporting face to be "full"
- carpet just needs to be above anything but air
- lanterns need a center point on top (if place on top) or below (if placed below) -- for example a lantern can hang below a down-pointing hopper but can't be placed on top
- redstone dust requires a full face below, but is also hardcoded to allow hoppers

The "rim" and "center point on top" are apparently well-defined in-game predicates; for example, the center point is a 2x2 center square on the hitbox (not visual box) assuming the surface is a 16x16 square grid. Quoting tryashtar on the "rim", "It's a predicate that is created specifically by removing the entire center section from a full cube, leaving only the, well, rim".

In references to other placement quirks (by tryashtar):

Sea pickles just check if the below block has a non-empty upward face
Not a block but item frames are really interesting, they can be placed anywhere that doesn't intersect with their hitbox (and support block material must be solid (or a repeater/comparator))

By the same person, on leaves' exceptional behavior:

Leaves are considered to have faces that are "full" but not "sturdy"

This rule-based system would probably be far better than exhaustive lists of compatible blocks. In addition, 3D wireframes have been proposed to be made for the predicates mentioned. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 21:33, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Having old sprite textures on, for e.g, snapshot pages

Hello, should we use old sprites textures for old content like snapshots before Texture Update ?

Thank you, 78.193.28.136 10:04, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

All visual content such as screenshots and renders should have up to date textures whenever possible. The only exception is when displaying content that is exclusive to an older version. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 17:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

OK then, I will take in charge some snapshots. 78.193.28.136 12:34, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

(Agree) Up-to-date content should be used on non-historical pages/sections. Version pages are historical pages, and therefore it would make a lot of sense for images to remain accurate to that version, which can be more easily done with images being separately versioned now. –Majr ᐸ Talk
Contribs 08:22, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Definition of "Partially Implemented"

The Bedrock Edition mentioned features page defines partially implemented as features that "had been shown by a Mojang staff member, but either had no further development or were canceled shortly after". (I think the Java page uses a similar definition). This is not intuitive to readers. In fact, it is contradicted by saying that Java Edition 1.9 combat mechanic have been partially implemented with shields and the off-hand slot.

I think the meaning the phrase "partially implemented" is obvious enough to most readers if it refers to combat mechanics and similar features. What we should do instead is rename the "Partially Implemented" sections. Since these features were "added" shortly after being mentioned, I propose the term "Mentioned with partial implementation". However, feel free to give other suggestions. The Blobs 04:21, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I think the best option will be in section "Deleted features" --Rychlik (disc) 12:17, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

(oppose) Many readers would confuse that with removed features. The Blobs 13:44, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Java Edition guides expand

In last 2 months (September - October) we created 7 new guides, but now there are only 2 guides to compleate Full Release guides, so it will be good idea to add new sections for Alpha and Beta Java Edition Guides. Now, I need only your support. Thanks. --Rychlik (disc) 13:50, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion management: existing measures aren't working

Since the hot discussions list on the community portal and the #talk-highlights channel in Discord don't get much attention, an idea was proposed to have a dedicated page on the sidebar.

Draft: User:FVbico/Open discussions.

My feedback is that we should probably not overcomplicate the classification (so maybe no minor/average/major) and rename "Moderation" to "Policies and guidelines".

Any other comments? --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 15:17, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Just for info, I added the minor, major average as in how much it would affect the wiki; changing NBT tag is much less significant than refactoring edition specific info. FVbico (talk) 16:09, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

How would one determine the scale of changes some discussion involves, if they want to know which of the three categories to put an entry into? Or what if someone decides to dispute the categorization as minor/etc? --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 16:27, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

"How much would this affect the wiki as a whole?", the answer eould be the section to put it in. You got a point though, but I thought it'd help keep the focus with the biggest things. FVbico (talk) 22:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

First, a more indepth explanation for each of the categories could be phrased in the lead section, and second, you could also rename them in a more concrete way, such as wiki-wide, page, template. Or use multiple choice labels instead of single-parent categories. Just some tips for this page. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 23:09, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I like the idea of having summaries of important discussions. Some time ago I proposed (on Discord) to occasionally add links to important discussions to the top of recent changes, although I'm not if that would be considered too intrusive. –Sonicwave ^talk 05:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

On sounds

All sounds should now be split into a dedicated section which provides much more information than was given for them in the infobox. There's a few things that need cleaning up now:

File names

File names for sounds don't seem to be standardised like many images tend to be. Is there a standard for sound naming, and if not, what should it be?

Missing sounds

The splitting of sound sections has helped to highlight what sounds are missing from pages, organised into a maintenance category Category:Pages with missing sounds. This should give a better idea of what needs uploading than the table on the associated wiki project.

Pitches

For sounds which are always played in-game with a different pitch than their actual sound file, should we only upload the original sound file and let the table's pitch parameter do the talking, or should we upload an artificially pitched up/down version of the sound instead?

I've brought up the idea of sounds being artificially pitched up or down using a script, would anyone else agree with this? - User-12316399 (talk) 09:27, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Block sounds

Sounds for the placement, breaking, destruction, walking on and falling of blocks should be next up to be uploaded (except for slime blocks, which are already sorted). These can be found at Category:Pages with missing sounds/Blocks. I've only added tables to one page per material type so that it doesn't become a particularly gigantic maintenance task, as the table with filled in sounds can then be pasted onto other pages. So if anyone's willing to upload these sounds I'd be more than happy.

Block sounds are pretty much done now - the only ones remaining are a few edge cases which will need more investigation, as well as jumping sounds exclusive to Bedrock Edition, with the discussion of how Bedrock Edition sounds will be represented still underway; see section below. - User-12316399 (talk) 09:27, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Parity

The tables I've added are based solely on information from Java Edition. If we're also to document Bedrock Edition sound related information where differences exist, how should we represent it? Should we create separate tables for Java and Bedrock Edition values, or mix them into the same table?

We should put them in the same table. I assume most, but not all, of the sounds match, so having them as separate tables would result in a lot of duplication. The Blobs 13:57, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I believe that Bedrock uses completely different sound IDs (mob.drowned.say instead of entity.drowned.ambient, for example). We could make another column for it (making the table wider than it already is), or put the JE and BE IDs on different lines, which would probably lead to lots of [only] tags. –Sonicwave ^talk 05:59, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more having two separate tables becomes the more appealing option. Given that there's still some new types of columns I want to add to the tables, having all the info being mashed into a single table does not sound useful. - User-12316399 (talk) 19:48, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

I've added an example section to Stone#Sounds which utilises separate tables for Java Edition and Bedrock Edition. I'm going with this since sound events seem to be always naked differently across versions, as well as the fact that certain sounds are version-exclusive (such as the jump and land sounds shown), that Bedrock Edition doesn't have subtitles, pitch and volume values being different across versions as well in some cases (usually being ridiculously long and precise in Bedrock) and that the attenuation distance parameter also seems to be Java Edition exclusive. If people would still rather have them be mixed into the same table then say so, but it's not what I think we should go with. - User-12316399 (talk) 08:57, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Historical sounds

There's also plenty of cases of sounds which have changed throughout the game's history, such as skeleton sounds, and there are also sound differences between the history of the editions, such as breaking blocks in the alpha versions of Java, iOS and Android. These should also be uploaded eventually.

Created Category:Pages needing sounds/Historical sounds, which should cover most of the stuff (the block sound differences seem to be merely pitch based). - User-12316399 (talk) 09:27, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Anyway, that should be about it for sound-related topics. If anyone wants to start work on any of these or comment on them then please do. - User-12316399 (talk) 08:53, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

The "Min. Volume" column should be removed, since it's not a field in sounds.json (at least for Java Edition) and only applies to the playsound command, not sounds played by the game by default. Sounds that play at different pitches in-game than the sound file should follow the in-game pitch, since that's what people would expect to hear (and some of them can quite different and hard to "derive", such as the zombie pigman's angering sound).

I'm still not sure about the "Pitch" and "Volume" columns; they specify the sound's ingame pitch/volume relative to the sound file, instead of relative to other sounds (which one might expect). There should at least be a tooltip explaining what they specify. –Sonicwave ^talk 05:48, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Add item icons to infoboxes where the item has a different texture than the block

Should we add item textures to infoboxes where the blocks/items have different textures? Pages like string, crops, campfire, bell, etc. I would also like to do this for entities, like boats and armor stands. It seems there was support for doing this with crops in above talk sections, and I personally would (support) doing this for all items.

The main argument against this that I'm predicting is that there's an invsprite in the infobox showing the item textures. While this is true, item-only pages, such as diamond, have both the large icon and the invsprite. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 00:28, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

(support) FVbico (talk) 00:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

(support) as the full-sized images are quite useful for people quickly wanting to download texture files.  Nixinova  T  C  06:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

(Oppose) - the only reason that items display large versions of their texture files in the infobox is because that's the image that describes the item the best and there's no better image. Having a massive item texture there alongside the existing 3D render would just clutter the page and add nothing of value. - User-12316399 (talk) 13:56, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

"Would just clutter the page and add nothing of value" – This has never seemed to stop you before.  Nixinova  T  C  04:48, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

(support) for both blocks and entities. --Capopanzone (talk | contribs) 10:21, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Proposed logo update

See the file on the Russian wiki: the change is making the "Minecraft" text gradient-coloured as opposed to the current flat grey. Another note is that maybe we should also update the grass block texture/model to the Texture Update version. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 14:33, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Update: the Polish wiki already has an updated logo. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 15:21, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

(Support) adapting the Polish wiki's logo. The gradient, while small, looks nice. And it just makes sense to use the Texture Update's grass block texture. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 02:55, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

(support) per Template:Ping. The Blobs 03:55, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

(support) using the Polish logo. –Capopanzone (talk | contribs) 20:14, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

(support) Marcelah (talk) 23:57, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

(support) - seems like consensus says to update it. - User-12316399 (talk) 09:53, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

I'd rather see a language-neutral logo with no text for the "Wiki" part of the logo: something more along the lines of a grass block with a book and quill in front of it. DSquirrelGMFile:GRASP logo.png𝓣𝓟𝓒 04:45, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

(Support) PL:Plik:Wiki HiDPI.png  Nixinova  T  C  05:03, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't see a difference, so I'm (neutral). --dr03ramos (talk) Admin wiki[pt] 13:49, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Articles on Mojang staff and related persons - do we really need them?

Except for perhaps the most notable people, do we really need articles that get almost no editor attention and rarely exceed a couple short sentences? I don't see how most of them are even relevant. Even spin-off titles like Story Mode or Dungeons are more relevant, I think. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 18:56, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I feel like, at best, we should try to expand the articles as much as possible, much like how Wikipedia does it with their policy on biographies of living persons, making sure that information about them is backed up be reliable sources. I do recall mentioning back in 2015 that we could possibly use LinkedIn profiles as a source for reliable information, though discussion never went anywhere beyond that. -BDJP ^(t|c) 21:30, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

We mention devs pretty often in history sections, and it might be useful to have these pages in those cases. Especially when they commonly go by nicknames (i.e. Jeb or Dinnerbone). Other than that, I don't know. I would like to see the general staff page updated though. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 04:41, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Other than the obvious ones I think there should just be an "employees" page that lists mainly job-related info; this also avoids the BLP issues we've had in the past.  Nixinova  T  C  06:03, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Official Minecraft wiki

So, if you visit the minecraft.net Community page https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/community and scroll nearly to the bottom, above Discussions & Help, there is a link to the "Unofficial Wiki"... which goes to this wiki.

I did a little search of the wiki here and found no mention of this unofficial link.

Discuss.

Sorry for being lazy and not creating an account. 49.178.46.161 13:40, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

User:FVbico mentioned on the wiki Discord that he contacted User:HelenAngel (the community manager) about this, as she has previously stated in a Discord private message that "the wiki is official and officially endorsed". While most of the content here is written by community members and Mojang doesn't take part in day-to-day editing activities, they do maintain some official documentation pages. –Sonicwave ^talk 18:19, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I asked about it, and minecraft.net is right; the web team was told that since Mojang doesn't own the wiki, it cannot be called official. FVbico (talk) 16:42, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Interesting. What does that mean for the opening... Welcome to the Official Minecraft Wiki on the homepage? --Thefakesheep (talk) 23:03, 3 December 2019 (UTC) (OP here)

While it is not technically an official wiki, it is probably the most credible Minecraft wiki, since the developers have acknowledged (and even created) the necessary pages. The Blobs 04:10, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

This somewhat implies that they consider what is official, and there is a possibility Mojang will have their own "official" wiki/resources. It will be otherwise if they don't care about the wiki being the official nor non-official. – ItsPlantseed ⟨₰|₢⟩ 07:51, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Cannot do the ScreenShoot Licence Project

The file MediaWiki:Msu-comment cannot be edited and I would like to licence it with "free art". --Andrew36903690 File:Diamond Pickaxe.png (talk) 08:59, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

That would change the default license for every file uploaded using msupload, which we can't be sure about the correct license. You will need to edit the file pages manually after the upload add the license or use Special:Upload.   File:HorseHead.png File:Gamepedia icon.png MarkusRost (talk) 09:42, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Make templates for common NBT practices.

NBT have several basic tags, and there are many common practices in Minecraft: Java Edition based on those tags. Mojang does use some functions to parse these practices accordingly, I showed three of them here using yarn's mappings:

• Boolean-like TAG_Bytes: Parsed by net/minecraft/nbt/CompoundTag#readBoolean. They are technically TAG_Bytes. They use 0 to represent false, and all the other possible values to represent true. e.g. NoGravity tag for entities. I've made a possible template User:SPGoding/Sandbox/Nbt practice/boolean for them:

  {{:User:SPGoding/Sandbox/Nbt practice/boolean|NoGravity|if true, the entity does not fall if in the air.}}

  • • User:SPGoding/Sandbox/Nbt practice/boolean

• UUID: An TAG_Int_Array with four TAG_Ints which represents the bits of an UUID. I've made a possible template User:SPGoding/Sandbox/Nbt practice/uuid_longs for them:

  {{:User:SPGoding/Sandbox/Nbt practice/uuid_longs|UUID|This entity's|indent=*:**}}

  • • User:SPGoding/Sandbox/Nbt practice/uuid longs

• Block state TAG_Compounds: Parsed by net/minecraft/nbt/NbtHelper#toBlockState. A TAG_Compound with a TAG_String named Name and a TAG_Compound named Properties with all the block properties stored. e.g. carriedBlockState tag for enderman entities.

Currently we have Template:Nbt inherit for inheriting NBTs from a parent, but we don't have similar things for those common practices, which leads to copy-pasting similar texts for many times. Thus, I propose to make templates for these practices. --SPGoding [Talk] 19:34, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

How they function may be similar, but this would result in complicating the NBT providing even more (it's already complicated for people unfamiliar with the wiki to provide or correct NBT info). Additionally, UUID tags are extremely invonsistent in java, it's one {l:,m:}, another time Least:,Most: and another time UUID:""; you cannot template that.

In short, it'd complicate the most complicated part of the wiki even more, needlessly. FVbico (talk) 20:17, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick reply. However, I don't think this template would complicate things too much, to the contrary, it would make changing similar stuff easier. For instance, the function Mojang used to get a BlockState has been called for 5 times. Let's see how many times they have been changed on this Wiki:

• Chunk_format/Vehicle
  • Template:Nbt: Optional. The custom block in the minecart.
    • Template:Nbt: The namespaced ID of the custom block.
    • Template:Nbt: Optional. The block states of the custom block.
      • Template:Nbt: The block state name and it's value.
• • Edit 1243175: First introduced.
  • Edit 1255212: Change the format of Properties.
  • Edit 1379673: Change name ID to namespaced ID.
• Chunk_format/Projectile
  • Template:Nbt: Optional. The block the arrow is in.
    • Template:Nbt: The namespaced ID of the block.
    • Template:Nbt: Optional. The block states of the block.
      • Template:Nbt: The block state name and its value.
• • Edit 1243162: First introduced.
  • Edit 1255211: Change the format of Properties.
  • Edit 1379671: Change name ID to Namespaced ID.
  • Edit 1379674: Change uppercased Namespaced ID to namespaced ID.
• Piston/BE
  • Template:Nbt: The moving block represented by this block entity.
    • Template:Nbt: The namespaced ID of the block.
    • Template:Nbt: Optional. The block states of the block.
      • Template:Nbt: The block state name and its value.
• • Edit 1242720: First introduced.
  • Edit 1255215: Change the format of Properties.
  • Edit 1379679: Change name ID to namespaced ID.

There are still two pages (Sand/BE and Enderman/ED) with the similar situation, but I believe there's no need to put them here anymore. I'm sure everyone can find where the problem is: people have to update the 5 pages individually if they want to improve the content of the BlockState structure. I believe this is much more complex than simply updating one universal template, and I believe you are more aware of this than anybody else because all these awesome changes are just made by you. Moreover, the function used to read boolean-like TAG_Bytes has been called 84 times, which means if anyone want to update the current description of it, they have to change tons of pages seperately. However, if we had a template for those common cases, this would no longer be a problem.

Here is all my opinion, I really appreciate for your patience. Merry Christmas! --SPGoding (Talk) 23:10, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

(support). I think it's the right idea, and if you can solve FVBico's objection to UUIDs where "you can't template that", then I feel it's got no major problems. Yes, doing the nbt templates is complicated, but I don't see this adding significantly to that, relative to the benefit. – Sealbudsman talk | contribs 15:47, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Just wanted to say, the UUID issue is fixed in the 1.16 snapshots. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 06:04, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I've updated the demo template. Thanks for telling me! SPGoding (Talk) 01:51, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Trading information on pages

Hello! My suggestion is make a template to automatically insert trading informations on the page from a database, like {{LootChestItem}} already do. For example:

Leather page
== Usage ==
=== Trading ===
{{Trading information|Leather}}

I hope you got it. This would make it a lot easier when adding new blocks and items or even in a new makeover in the trading system.(Mojang is unpredictable)

Thank you! --dr03ramos (talk) Admin wiki[pt] 21:51, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Not sure how we'd make those, but (support) FVbico (talk) 21:54, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

that would be really useful so (support) -Hanzepic ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:53, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

(support) If you can do it, that would be great, yes – Sealbudsman talk | contribs 15:37, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

(support) though I'd much prefer a dedicated template for trading like with crafting. - User-12316399 (talk) 16:05, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

(Support) If you can get someone willing to do it, this would be very helpful. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 00:16, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Gravatar machine broke

Is it just me, or is my icon still blank? I have my Gravatar set up (and have for a very long time), and yet my user icon is still the default grey person. -- File:Grid Command Block.png DigiDuncan! (talk) 01:45, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, it took a long time to finally work for me. Not sure how I fixed it tbh. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 04:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Version of the template for ?

Should we make a version of the template for ? Right now, we always have to add it onto the end of sentences. This can make things confusing or hard to read in certain cases. A version of the template would allow us to preface a sentence with the information that something is upcoming, leading to clean sentences and easier reading. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 05:24, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

So are you suggesting an "In Java Edition 1.16" format? I would (support) this. The Blobs 15:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, exactly. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 05:55, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about this. It's just a small patch to a very large and wide problem on the wiki. How is the RESI project going? I'd be neutral to this suggestion, but I'd rather like to see larger solutions or more progress on the overall project. – Jack McKalling [ File:Grid Book and Quill.png File:Grid Diamond Pickaxe.png ] 11:03, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

That project, while not fully done, is much less critical now that we have only 2 active versions that generally are working towards parity anyway. I think the best way to solve the remaining problems is through smaller solutions like this that increase article readability. And anyway, that project is about editions and not number versions, so this topic isn't completely relevant to that. The creation of this template would also allow us to use it in place of a standalone tag, such as in the description of recipe tables. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 05:55, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

(agree), placing this info right at the start of a sentence would make it much more readable. --Capopanzone (talk | contribs) 11:29, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

If this would be part of the template, maybe we could do something like Template:Cd or Template:Cd which would become "in Java Edition 1.16Template:Upcoming" (or whatever version is next). Doing it this way instead of directly naming the version prevents it from being used in a style guide breaking way (mentioning old/already released version in articles) and would automatically put it on the radar for removal upon release. Thoughts? -PancakeIdentity (talk) 06:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to include the [upcoming] tag in that case; part of the reason I'd prefer an inline version (like what {{in}} does) is to communicate that information without an awkward tag. –Sonicwave ^talk 18:22, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

True, I was just thinking of an easy way to have it on the radar for removal once the full version releases. If we could make it so the use of this specific part of the template would do that anyway, I'd be happy not including the tag. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 19:20, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

(support) doesn't seem too difficult. - User-12316399 (talk) 18:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I have a bit of a mockup here. It's not totally done (not sure how to remove that nocat thing), but I think it should work once that's taken care of. I think Template:Cd and Template:Cd could work as names for these templates. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 01:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Created under those names. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 02:17, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

• May I have a bit of detail for this thing so that I can try to contribute?
• Why don't we just add a parameter to specify whether to capitalize or not instead of duplicating the template?

Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 2h42:52 – 4 | 18/3/2020 (UTC)

I think that could work, but you should create a new topic for it because it'd apply to the original in templates as well. This new template is basically an in-line version of the upcoming template. Anywhere that an inline mention would improve readability, you can use it. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 02:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

A new method to verify stuff on Java Edition

PancakeIdentity recently introduced me to a tool on GitHub that can decompile and deobfuscate Minecraft JE using the official mappings. Thus this creates a new method of verifying information: just search for the related part in the codebase, instead of having to go into the game and snipe the right moment.

So far I have used the tool for a while and, even without the variables in the implementation code, I can understand things with little issues.

I post this here to encourage anyone, with a bit knowledge of Java and reverse-engineering, to clean up the Verify category.

Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 6h28:36 – 6 | 21/2/2020 (UTC)

If you are capable of and want to contribute, assign yourself here. Lê Duy Quang (Make some words | Contributions) at 6h56:41 – 6 | 21/2/2020 (UTC)

Chunk Loading overhaul

Hello there. I noticed many community pages, videos etc. (outside of the wiki) talking about (often now older) changes to chunk loading like the 15 seconds chunk loading on the other side of Nether Portal after entity pass trought. And then i noticed that this wasn't even stated anywhere on this wiki.

https://gist.github.com/Drovolon/24bfaae00d57e7a8ca64b792e14fa7c6 This page very nicely states how new chunk loading works and i would like to distribute its information to pages like chunks, nether portal etc. overhauling and renovating them more or less.

And here comes the question...

Is that information real and up to date? Can anyone confirm or deny it please?

Thank you, have a nice day. Klusimo (talk) 06:12, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

(support) Information about chunk loading is really needed to be added, and the content in that page you mentioned was obtained from the source code and is still not out of date.

And you know, these theories apply only to Java edition. ---Chixvv (talk) 15:44, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Alright ill start punping these informations to pages, ill do it solo i can :D. As for the java vs bedrock, ill add more info needed and let bedrock players test it. Klusimo (talk) 09:05, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

How to report someone for vandalism

Template:Dablink The result of the discussion was the issue was resolved.

---

U88888s keeps vandalizing pages. How to stop her? Dogquest (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Already accounted for via #requests in the discord. - User-12316399 (talk) 22:41, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Removing Tutorials/Cake farming

Template:Dablink The result of the discussion was delete.

---

Hello,

I think that Tutorials/Cake farming is completely useless.

That page is just a summary of tutorials on sugar cane farms, milk farms, wheat farm and egg farms put together (tutorials which already exist). Moreover, cake is really not that useful, meaning it's kind of weird to have a special page on it.

So, I think we should delete it.

Any objections ? Sagessylu (talk) 15:11, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

(support) You can only farm cake by farming the ingredients, which have their own pages. The Blobs 16:30, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

(Support) based on above arguments. –Sonicwave ^talk 19:40, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

(Support) because it isn't what it pretends to be; there is no cake farm described there, in the sense of having something that automatically fills a chest with cakes. As such, it's redundant with the other tutorials it references. ~ Amatulic (talk) 02:22, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

OK, I think we are going to delete it, aren't we ? Could an admin do that ? Sagessylu (talk) 18:11, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Tutorial link on MediaWiki:Sidebar?

Template:Dablink The result of the discussion was the proposal was implemented.

---

Tutorials, imo, is a very important page on the wiki and therefore is worth being linked to on the sidebar so that readers can access it more easily. I already brought this up on Discord and it got a lot of support, but since it's generally better to bring important sitewide discussions to the wiki I figured I'd do so. However, I don't intend to have a month-long discussion before any action is taken; if no one objects to this proposal I'll probably go ahead and add it in a few days.--Madminecrafter12 ^{(Talk to me | View what I've done)} 22:13, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

For transparency purposes, the people who reacted with the support emoji on Discord (as of the time of this post) are User:Leduyquang753, User:Capopanzone, User:AttemptToCallNil, User:Dr03ramos, User:Sonicwave32, User:PancakeIdentity, User:Marinah, and User:Nixinova (a total of eight users). I stand by my reaction and (+) implementing this addition. It wouldn't be bad if at least some of the other seven supporters also declared their support here. --AttemptToCallNil (report bug, view backtrace) 00:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Reaffirming my (support). -PancakeIdentity (talk) 00:31, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Support adding it to the sidebar under "Useful pages". –Sonicwave ^talk 00:25, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

(Support) adding it to the sidebar, whether under useful pages or elsewhere. I would be fine with adding it the same section as main page and community portal, but that section seems to be mostly for wiki editors rather than viewers. jahunsbe (talk) 00:41, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

(support) While the primary purpose of this wiki is to give information, people also seek tutorials. The Blobs 01:12, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

(support), sort of – as long as this doesn't get abused to link just any tutorial to an associated article. Some tutorials are more like intellectual exercises than instructions on building anything useful. ~ Amatulic (talk) 02:24, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Template:Ping I'm not sure what you mean by "as long as this doesn't get abused to link just any tutorial to an associated article". All this would mean is linking to the Tutorials page from the sidebar so I'm not clear on where linking a tutorial to an associated article would be involved. Am I misunderstanding what you're trying to say or did you misunderstand my proposal? Thanks, --Madminecrafter12 ^{(Talk to me | View what I've done)} 01:29, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

(done) under useful pages.--Madminecrafter12 ^{(Talk to me | View what I've done)} 16:58, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Remove Spawn Chunks page

Note that I wrote my original suggestion in big hurry and i felt it was bad so I rewrote it here.

Hello. I updated chunk loading and still am and i realised how much outdated/wrong spawn chunk page was. I suggest its removal and here are my reasons:

1) Spawn chunks are not special, but normal chunks that are loaded by the world spawn that gives them "Start" load ticket. They are not special on their own.

2) They are all the same as chunks loaded by player or forceload. Something Ill edit in forceload too. They are exactly the same in every load regard, but loaded by different thing. This is because they all get load level of 31 or bellow, which makes them "entity ticking" and that is the highest level of loaded chunks. They dont spawn mobs thought, BUT that is only if and because player's area where mobs despawn/spawn is away.

3) Actually there is only one chunk that gets loaded by the spawn but the load levels spread to adjacent chunks until theyre weak enough to not load chunks. This start ticket is just strong enough that it activates lot of chunks.

4) There are more unique chunk loading things similar to spawn chunks, if we would need page for spawn chunk need another like 3+ pages which is useless.

These are my reasons, I think removing that page and seriously improving ita section in chunk page will do better. Thank you for your time. Klusimo (talk) 07:04, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

There are already a page for bedrock edition - ticking area, why not create another new page with title like processing chunk only for java edition, and move all the information about chunk loading to these two pages. Then create a disambiguation page contains chunk, ticking area, processing chunk, commands/forceload, commands/tickingarea, and so on. That Spawn chunk can be redirected to processing chunk. These are my suggestions so you could take it if you like. -Chixvv (talk) 10:50, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Not bad idea but rather that "processing chunk", i think Chunk loading would be better. But I think its too complicated when we have it in chunk page (also not much would be left in the chunk page). In both scenarios removing spawn chunk page is what would be optimal.Klusimo (talk) 11:09, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

i think Java edition and bedrock editon should not be treated differently. so we can merge ticking area to chunk, or create a new page for java edition. since there isn't much useful information in ticking area(it only introduces that in ticking area events are processed and other chunk not), perhaps merge ticking area to chunk is also a choice. In doing so, both spawn chunk and ticking area page should be removed.-Chixvv (talk) 11:39, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree, I will definitely add it there. So now we also have suggestion to remove ticking area once i merge it. forceload should be removed too. Klusimo (talk) 08:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Added ticking area to chunk page. Now we only need to remove spawn chunks forceload and ticking area page. (Definitelly not their command pages).Klusimo (talk) 08:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok, so update to my suggestion, since their pages are stubs and it is already in chunk page now, i suggest removal of spawn chunks/forceload/ticking area pages(not their commands pages though). Klusimo (talk) 08:35, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

(Strong oppose) deleting these pages, at least with Chunk's current state. Spawn chunks are only described by the brief start ticket section. To figure out how the spawn chunks work, a reader has to read technical information about chunk levels and level propagation. The spawn chunks page may need updating, but it readily provides the size of spawn chunks, what runs in spawn chunks, and where entities work in the spawn chunks. I don't think all of this information is easily available on the chunks page. There is not enough information about ticking area either. The ticking area page provides information about which events can run and which events are suspended that isn't described on the Chunk page. While it would be possible to merge more information into Chunk, I don't know if that would be a good idea as I feel like it would make it more difficult to find information.

Instead, I would say that the Spawn chunks page should be updated with more recent information. It should be explained that the spawn chunks have a level of 22 which means that "All game aspects are active." A table or image should be made which shows level propagation in the spawn chunks. It can then be explained how the edges of the a spawn chunks do not process entities since they have a level of 32. All of this should link to the Chunk page for more a thorough and technical explanation. jahunsbe (talk) 19:12, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I get what youre saying but instead of that you can create secction in the chunk page. Its a stub after all now and it needs alot of testing, editing etc. so we can easily add more info about spawn chunks here. The thing is you can update several pages or have one page with all the info. It just needs more edits. You can contribute yourself. Klusimo (talk) 08:51, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Changes to the upcoming template (and similar)

From here on out, Bedrock and Java will match version numbers. I was thinking that to avoid spam and compress those ugly upcoming tags, we could just allow, for example, to be used. Individual versions could still be used for version exclusive features, of course. This would help compress those editor notes which can make pages look ugly and harder to read (See Log for example). I think this, along with the proposal above about modifying the template, would help us greatly improve the readability of articles. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 04:50, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

(support) We could have "1.16" redirect to Nether Update, to include both editions. The Blobs 15:16, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

(support). --dr03ramos (talk) Admin wiki[pt] 21:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

A couple notes from a discussion on discord: and could say "In the Nether Update (1.16), ...". In the normal template, we could also say "Nether Update" as opposed to "1.16". Just a couple more ideas. Personally, I'm neutral on these specific suggestions. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 02:19, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Loot tables and page organization

So, you've probably noticed the changes that are being made to loot documentation and page organization. This section should act as a sort or combined discussion post implementation of the loot table proposal above, as well as this discussion on the style guide (which has been implemented despite a seemingly majority oppose).

So, what're the issues? Many are the same as discussed in the subsection above, though I'd like to focus on a few things.

• The duplicate tables present on most pages under both "Obtaining/Loot/Block loot" and "Usage/Block loot". The first section is, in most cases, a duplicate or trimmed version of the second. This is duplicating information in the body article in a format most have agreed is not the most appealing. How should we resolve this?
• Readability of the tables. The tables are big, ugly, and filled with numbers most people won't care about. They're almost completely unnecessary on pages such as wood where every block drops itself. The only reason they're kept is that this table also documents the loot table ID. Auto-collapsing the tables has been discussed, what else could be done?
• The organization of the sections. The block loot and especially the breaking row don't feel like they belong under "Usage". However, the block loot doesn't really feel like it belongs under "Obtaining" either. How should we organize this info?
• Section names. A few users expressed distaste towards the number of subheaders on the older style guide discussion. Are there still concerns over this that need addressing?

Discuss these issues and any others you may have with the new template and/or page styling. There's been a lot of arguing over this (especially on discord) and not a lot of doing anything about it. -PancakeIdentity (talk) 00:13, 23 March 2020 (UTC)