Nookipedia talk:Project Items

Rename to Project Items + Merging Project Fashion
I'd like to propose expanding the scope of this project to cover all items. Our current work on creating item pages, Cargo tables, and so on is pretty standardized and similar across all types of items (furniture, clothing, interior, etc.), so I don't think we need to limit ourselves to just furniture here. This would also mean folding Nookipedia:Project Fashion into this project (not that that project was ever active). ~ Super  Hamster  Talk 18:05, January 11, 2021 (EST)
 * per SH's comments above, sounds good to me. Drago   (talk)     Drago PC Villager Icon.png 12:39, January 12, 2021 (EST)
 * per the above. ~ AlexBot2004  ( Talk ) 14:13, January 12, 2021 (EST)
 * Done! Project moved. ~ Super  Hamster  Talk 01:25, January 13, 2021 (EST)

Project history
For brevity's sake, I've removed the project's history from the lead. Pasting it here for posterity:


 * Originally conceived in late 2010, the project had been on hiatus since January 9, 2011 until its revival in July 2014 by Mario. The project was briefly taken over by sunmarsh from October 2019 through December 2020.

~ Super  Hamster  Talk 01:26, January 13, 2021 (EST)

Templating PC item page prose
For our NH + PG item pages, we have the prose written out instead of templated. If I'm remembering correctly, the main reason was to keep them similar to conventional articles + make it more inviting for users to edit to add additional info.

For Pocket Camp item pages, I'm thinking of templating the prose. There are several thousand more PC items than other games, with more added each month, and changes frequently introduced (namely items being re-issued). Long-term, it'll be easier for us to create new pages + update existing ones if we don't have to worry about manually updating prose. If any article needs additional information, it could still be written in after the template. Let me know your thoughts. ~ Super  Hamster  Talk Contribs 19:51, May 31, 2021 (EDT)
 * I think that would be nice, though I do want to see it in action before I decide to support this. I think the templating the prose could work well, but I would like to an example using one of 's items. -- PanchamBro (talk • contributions) 19:56, May 31, 2021 (EDT)
 * I think that sounds like a reasonable proposal. It would definitely cut down on the amount of boilerplate text that needs to be added to each page, and as you said, any extra information could always be added following the template. -- Jake (talk)  00:53, June 1, 2021 (EDT)
 * - I agree with that it would be nice to see an example first, but generally I think this is a good idea.  seems to be less popular among editors, so I don't think there will be much desire to add more content to these pages. Also if we find that we need to add a sentence or two within the boilerplate text, we could also add an optional note field (or similar) somewhere in there to allow for more flexibility. Sunmarshsignature.png  ( talk )  16:51, June 1, 2021 (EDT)
 * Now that we can take advantage of Scribunto/Lua, I created Module:PC Prose - this script takes the same parameters that the infobox has and outputs prose. You can see it in action at User:SuperHamster/Sandbox/Turquoise. Still a work in progress, but enough to give an idea of how this would work. ~ Super  Hamster  Talk Contribs 20:56, June 12, 2021 (EDT)
 * Definitely need to fix the "Crafting" availability though; that thing is supposed to be for, not . The code should be . But beside that, it looks good! Now we could also display what tasks could be done and what trades Lloid can offer. -- PanchamBro (talk • contributions) 02:51, June 13, 2021 (EDT)

Generating NH item page prose via module
Similar to the above discussion regarding Pocket Camp items, I'd like to propose that we switch over to automatically outputting New Horizons prose via Scribunto module. This means that we would write Lua code that would be added to our NH infoboxes; this code would take the data from the infobox and automatically output prose.

Originally, we decided to have our NH item pages include plaintext prose as it is conventional + makes it more inviting for users to edit and add additional info. However, with each passing game update, we've had multiple rounds of item page creation as well as item metadata changes (especially with 2.0). This has led to prose being incorrect, inconsistent, and incomplete. Having the prose generated from the infobox data will minimize errors, ensure consistency, and make item metadata easier to update as the editor only has to worry about updating the infobox data. This also means that we can easily expand our prose (e.g. if in the future we want to include HHA base score in the prose, we can easily add that in by adding one line to the Lua module instead of having to have a bot go through and update thousands of articles).

One downside is that any additions we've made to prose (such as adding trivia and interesting item details) will be overridden, so we will want to note down where these additions were made and add them back in after the transition. Fortunately I don't think we've done this with too many items.

Let me know what you think. ~ Super  Hamster  Talk Contribs 23:42, November 17, 2021 (EST)
 * Oh god no uhhhhh I feel like with Pocket Camp that is an always updating game that mandates a way to automate the prose for anytime the game changes the values or whatnot.


 * With New Horizons, the game is pretty much done over implementing new items for now. I'm sure we'll still get updates, but those will primarily add a few items, the quantity of which aren't big enough to warrant using an automated prose. And that's because unlike Pocket Camp, New Horizons updates are pretty damn specific at what they want to bring to the game, and rarely do we ever see a change in the way that pretty much impacts the wiki like how 2.0 did to ours.


 * I like the idea of automated proses, but I just think that it doesn't apply to New Horizons. for now. -- PanchamBro (talk • contributions) 00:04, November 18, 2021 (EST)
 * My main concern isn't new items, it's solving issues with our existing item pages. Some recent and existing issues I can think of, or found through a few minutes of spot-checking, include mismatched prices between prose and infobox; missing prices in the prose for items that can be bought; prose sometimes missing describing outdoor furniture; and some items missing their functionality, such as some mirrors failing to mention that the player can change their look. Beyond that there's some opportunity to improve and expand the prose, which can be done more easily via module e.g. we can add in additional interaction and function details; expand customization details given the addition of Cyrus; and pending the addition of new parameters, note things such as houseware items that can be placed on surfaces.
 * I think it'll be easier long-term to invest time in a module (and gives us a peace of mind that all pages are consistent) vs. attempting to do these fixes by-hand or bot and always having the potential for errors. But I may also be overblowing this issue, and if you think these are more easily solvable long-term by hand/bot then that's fine by me too. ~ Super  Hamster  Talk Contribs 00:43, November 18, 2021 (EST)
 * Addendum: if we do stick with prose as-is, then I think what we can do is work on an "audit report" of sorts to detect pages with missing prose, mismatched values, etc. For example, we can pretty easily identify outdoor furniture that doesn't mention it in prose by searching within Category:Outdoor_items for pages that are missing the text "As an outdoor item". That could help streamline these fixes and make things consistent. ~ Super  Hamster  Talk Contribs 01:46, November 18, 2021 (EST)


 * - Given the large amount of items and the fact that most of the existing prose was created based on values from the NH Infobox, it would be great to have a tool that would allow us to easily adjust the prose for entire categories of items rather than doing so manually/via bot. IMO I think this is something we should do for all item pages, going forward. That said, Lua scripting isn't something that's accessible to the average editor, so I think we should also invest a bit of time in making sure we have a proper documentation page for the module: something that helps users at least identify points where they can make edits to the output text (without changing how the module actually works), or better yet, some very basic examples of the arguments used in the module and how they work, in case the module needs to be maintained by someone other than yourself. Sunmarshsignature.png  ( talk )  11:19, November 18, 2021 (EST)

Suggesting changes to NH Tools
I would like to suggest changing several parts of tools item pages. We should specify if an item is a tool or a good both by its category and its starting prose (e.g. "The Vanilla Cone is a tool item" → "The Vanilla Cone is a goods item"). I'd like to know what everyone else thinks about this change. -- PanchamBro (talk • contributions) 09:39, November 18, 2021 (EST)


 * I'm a bit out of the loop when it comes to the latest update/changes made to existing item types. Is 'goods' a new category of item within the catalog? Or is it an internal designation? If so, I'd say go for it. I'm also in support of a category designation here. Sunmarshsignature.png  ( talk )  11:24, November 18, 2021 (EST)
 * Would say an internal designation, based on the ACNH Spreadsheet renaming "Tools" to "Tools/Goods". So it's not all tools, it's tools and goods. -- PanchamBro (talk • contributions) 22:32, November 18, 2021 (EST)

Disambiguation pages for items
I saw that has created a disambiguation page for Apple (fruit), and wanted to start a discussion here about how we wanted to handle this in the future. While I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, I wonder if creating disambiguation pages is the best course of action. Are we going to create disambiguation pages for every item that appears in more than one game? And if so, is the article mainspace the appropriate place for these pages, or should they be in the Item namespace?  ( talk )  15:26, November 20, 2021 (EST)
 * It seems okay if the disambiguation pages are in mainspace instead of item namespace; all of the artwork, bug, fish, and sea creature pages are in mainspace even though technically they are only relevant in Animal Crossing due to being collectible items in the games. There are some other "item concepts" that are in mainspace rather than in item namespace (Bells, medicine, turnips, various tools, clothing, etc.). I feel like ideally if we had more manpower, we would want to create encompassing item pages in a similar style as the artwork pages (here's a random example):


 * Intro prose that mentions the item name, the general games it has existed in, and any real-world relevance if it's a real object.
 * "Appearance" section that describes the item's general appearance and maybe any alterations to its appearance or interactivity between game entries.
 * "Item details" where it showcases some general info about the item in each game it has been in; buy price, sell price, colors, etc.
 * Maybe some trivia about the item that would otherwise be redundant to repeat on each item page (like it'd be pretty redundant to repeat the trivia x5 if the item itself has been in 5 mainline games). Or anything notable about the item that isn't covered earlier.


 * However, due to the mindbogglingly large number of items throughout the Animal Crossing series and the tremendous amount of work it would take to make that many dedicated pages, it seems like at least for now, it would be better to have disambiguation pages for items with multiple game entries, like Rocket (item). (Though "(item)" wouldn't be specified in the name in most cases, it would just be the item's actual name. In this case it is specified due to the existence of Rocket the villager.) They're much easier to make but can still help a user with navigation. And then maybe one day, in an ideal world of a far-off future, perhaps the disambiguation pages could be converted into actual encompassing pages of information, while remaining disambiguation pages for the time being. HylianAngel (talk) 01:42, July 12, 2022 (EDT)