Forum:Title plurality for groups of things (RSC version)

Forums: Maple Grove > Title plurality for groups of things (RSC version)

At the RuneScape wiki I recently came across this rather useful forum post about plurals. Our articles on groups/classes of things currently use a mix of singular and plural forms in their titles. At the RSC wiki, we also have articles like Bar and Pub. To cite:

"We have three options:

1. Change them to use all singular
2. Change them to use all plural
3. Do nothing

Wikipedia policy is to use plural form for classes, which is the option I prefer. Some benefits to using plural:

• the title immediately tells you what kind of article it is — no need to guess "is [[Crossbow]] the page for the wooden item or the weapon type?"
• separate spellings means fewer parentheticals like [[Dwarf (race)]] needed to disambiguate titles, and less time spent looking up the exact title when you need to link it"

I wholeheartedly agree with this post, and I think it should be something we may need to work on here as well. What option do you prefer? --Zorak^Talk 22:30, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

Support plural - Clarity of page names and reducing naming conflicts for class pages seems like enough reason to do this. Also having more consistency seems to me like a good thing, if things weren't being done consistently here. Just out of curiosity, what is the scope of changes that would need to be made one way or another, roughly? Joeytje50^talk 22:39, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I think that it actually doesn't entail changing much. We're probably looking at general categories, but some things like Arrows, Throwing darts, Quests, Pies, Drinks, Runes or Plate Mail Legs are already plural. However, it also shows that we do not - for instance - have a page for Medium Helmets, square shields and kite shields. Some things like Bar are in need of a change, but also, Axe, Dagger, Mace, Short Sword, Battle Axe, 2-handed Sword, Herb, Ore, Rock, Pickaxe, Shield, Stew, Throwing knife, Spear, Plate Mail Body, Plate Mail Top, Chain Mail Body, Bow, Plated Skirt, Gem, Pizza, Cape, Amulet, Ring, Necklace, Shield, Certificate and Helmet. Also, the Armour infobox and ranged weapons infobox should link to general categories - like the weapon infobox already does. Also, a category page for staves, crunchies and battas might be nice. Some opinions on shop and general store might be nice :) --Zorak^Talk 07:25, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd say that, for consistency, both Shop and General Store should have their pages pluralised as well. The individual shops and stores have a page already, so those two pages are basically the same type of page as the other pages you listed. Joeytje50^talk 12:29, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Support plural - Yep, makes sense to me. The only exception to "good style" for the RSC wiki is that we have favoured original in-game capitalisation & spelling for various articles. e.g. Poisoned Rune dagger specifically has the capital R and lowercase d, as is shown in-game. Hero's Guild uses the RSC spelling instead of the (probably intended) RS2+ spelling. As long as there isn't some precedent in official RS1 era JAGeX materials (e.g., the hypothetical situation that in-game materials erroneously & consistently referred to a collection of bars as "bares"), it definitely makes sense to move Bar to Bars to me. Spelling mistakes/grammar get redirects from proper spelling to official RSC spelling. Hubcapp (talk) 22:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Closed - As a very short discussion has lead to a consensus. --Zorak^Talk 18:56, 17 May 2021 (UTC)