Legacy:Subtopic Discussion

For non-generic sub-topics, a redirect to the sub-topic should exist as a root topic (using the markup #REDIRECT link). This eliminates the possibility of someone constructing a root page out of ignorance of the sub-topic page's existance. It also makes linking to the sub-topic easier (pages can be marked Working With Actors instead of Actor/Working With Actors (makes grammatical integration impossible) or Working With Actors (tedious). However, this technique should not be used for genericly named sub-topics. For example, "Properties," as a sub-topic, needs to be defined differently for each root topic – a root topic redirect page named "Properties" is not useful. As an alternative, a root level page named as the complete topic+sub-topic could act as redirects to sub-topic pages. Ex: Actor Properties might be a good root topic to create as a redirect to Actor/Properties. – Aedis

That's a good idea, but I don't think Actor Overview should be a subpage of Actor. I see what you mean about having it show up in a search, but the search results pages will always be a fairly chaotic list, it's a bad idea to try and force a hierarchy. By all means put something at the top of Actor, saying, for example, "This page is the technical specification for the Actor class. For an overview of actors, see Actor Overview". Another option would be to rename "Working With Actors" to something like "Actor Overview" – Tarquin

I see your point. I'd like to collect some ideas for how we should use subtopics in some of the more obvious categories, such as Class Definitions and Tutorials. – Aedis

shunted from Project Discussion

Tarquin I think it's possible to over-use the subpages feature. Simply give tutorials full page names, eg "how to make a door" or "how to make bots jump" – that way they're distinguished from the concise names that are reference-style pages, and they can be seamlessly linked in continous text. From what I've seen of developped Wikis, there's not so much a page hierarchy as page chaos. Make index pages to keep track of everything, but IMO don't try and use the page names as a filing system.