Ah i should've just copied my issue before posting
#Making the editing process easier for editors
proud marsh
i do not feel like typing the whole thing out again
tl;dr wiki has issue with a template being used because its spread across 3 different templates, templates are confusing for new users and it takes an hour to add new things due to the amount of places it has to be, im not sure if a mod can repost my question somehow
yeah its the fandom links that are not allowed here, welp
balmy moat
Some things I can recommend from personal experience:
Creating a /doc page for a template to document usage examples goes a long way to improve usability.
Adding links between related templates on documentation pages (or adding categorization to the templates) can also prove very helpful for discoverability.
If you have a 'style guide' page for contributors on your wiki, either including links to the templates in question or a brief explainer can also prove helpful in improving usability.
proud marsh
Some things I can recommend from personal experience:
Creating a /doc page for ...
we have a style guide for the template but the wiki still has only 5 editors keeping the whole thing afloat
i say we but the admins have made it already, its too confusing and not very user friendly
undone plover
You need to auth to post links, then it will work.
proud marsh
i already lost the og post and im not sure if im willing to rewrite it
testing before i lose it
Okay so this wiki that maybe i want to migrate. Admins are mostly afk and only around for fixing major issues, so they use a template that has 3 separate instances because it holds around 700ish dragons https://dragonvale.fandom.com/wiki/Template:Dragon_Variable, https://dragonvale.fandom.com/wiki/Template:Dragon_Variable_2, https://dragonvale.fandom.com/wiki/Template:Dragon_Variable_3 it has documentation but its still difficult for newer editors to edit and users already have to go through a big check list when adding a singular dragon. as shown through these screenshots written by one of the editors
so mostly, i want to see if somehow we can maybe change how we input dragons, and change how much work that has to be put in when a new dragon comes in, because it takes over an hour for one dragon to be put in
balmy moat
The templates as designed should work in Miraheze, but it looks like it's designed to pull from a master table that is maintained by the admins or someone in the know, hence the big list of instructions to add new entries.
One big gap I see in the actual template page is a list of (or link to) valid names for prepopulated instances.
E.g. where this template is factually used downstream is something like:
{{Dragonbox | name = firedragon}}
But how would the casual editor know that the exact format is firedragon or panlong, etc when calling the actual template?
If one wanted to re-jigger how this whole structure works more efficiently and eliminate multiple template calls, a data management extension might be the route to go but any method will be complicated.