I think the change to a yearly model is a significant downgrade in both usability and usefulness. The history of random events isn't what I'm looking for from the Event Navigation template, and I shouldn't have to hunt down which year the Lohlunat Festival started to find the link to it. I think the yearly list would be great on its own on the Calendar event page, but as a *navigation template* the old year-agnostic version is much more useful. Please consider reverting the change to the template. 176.127.193.241 13:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- The change was made partly as the Special Event page is being updated for events going forward, featured, special, and seasonal ones at that. I can see that the nav wasn't updated to reflect that and have added it as a footer. SFC3 (talk) 17:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- With all due respect, I find the old version completely useless for anything except linking to event pages. Personally I don't care about where the event takes place (all events have free transwarps or are queues/missions), I don't care what its outdated input was (they're all Daily Progress now), the vendor for all events is the same now, etc - to me, this is all wasted space that could be used to make an actual list of events, which an... event navigation should be, instead of just arbitrarily selecting a few and ignoring the rest probably. It was severely outdated come September 2019 and again, missing most events the game has had. RadioActivitii (talk) 17:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- To me personally old version was better - the current one has a different purpose. It used to show core events and their occurrence throughout the year, which is more useful when you want to check which events I can expect, and what type of reward I could get (new player/visitor perspective). Still, current version shows some info not available in the old version so I combined them here: Template:Test. It could need more updates, but I think it is a good start if we want to find a compromise. --Damixon (talk) 18:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for the responses. Upon reconsideration, I can see why a change is favored. The criticisms of the old template are valid, so I think a pruned top-bar navigation for perennial events combined with the yearly list below would be an ideal compromise. I felt that linking to the big event pages is still worth focusing on because they're still current content every year. Here's a mock-up that hopefully prunes the bad and keeps the good. 176.127.193.241 20:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- I think the biggest flaw in the redesign is trying to do it by year. There should be a list on the event page by chronology but given the distribution of events, and how they come round on cycles, I think it makes a poor nav plate. It would be better split by event type (ie. seasonal, 14day, recruitment and so on).Scientifictheory (talk) 07:45, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Annual Events Anniversary Event First Contact Day Lohlunat Festival “Hearts and Minds” Q's Winter Wonderland Date January - February April June - July Halloween & Friday the 13th December - January Reward • t6 starship • various • t6 starship • duty officer • t6 starship Notes • Omega Stabilization • Event mission • Risa, Risian Vendor • Sibak • Q , Holiday Item Vendor
Having it as "Notes" does keep some useful flexibility. Though I think the mission list for each - even if as a drop down within each column, is a useful thing to have. Remember, we don't have a "Wonderland" or "Anniversary" nav plate to connect their articles - that's what this was previously doing before it was cut back.
I do think it is best to perhaps just keep this template as "Seasonal Events" than try to cover all of them. I tried to break the others down and the recruitment ones are easy to split, but the rest;
- Battle at the Binary Stars
- Best Served Cold
- Borg Resurgence
- Crystalline Catastrophe
- Defense of Pahvo (Dissension, Peril)
- Galactic Red Alert
- A House Divided
- Into The Breach
- Mirror Invasion
- Mycelial Crisis
- No Win Scenarios (Arena of Sompek, Kobayashi Maru)
- To Hell With Honor
- A Widening Gyre
You have a mix in here of events that are useful to know about because they re-occur and involve lots of different missions. I'm thinking Re Alert or No Win. But many of them are just "we launched this new TFO and it is part of the event campaign". I think this lot is best put as part of the TFO template instead. So cutting it all off from here is the best course. Scientifictheory (talk) 07:20, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- Edit: Actually, new idea. How about we create a nav plate for each of these seasonal events but we have an identical top bar on each of them that links between them. Not as a series of sub templates mind you; you have a unique template for all of the Wonderland articles, built around what it needs, and a unique template for Risa, based around what it needs. But row one looks the same and is just a series of big colourful buttons for each. Something like this (very roughly mocked up):
Scientifictheory (talk) 07:24, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- I'm also for just keeping the template as seasonal events that would connect mentioned events at the bottom of the page. For other events (Featured TFO) it could just have link to Event/Special event page. Related to the new idea, these are all links that could be found on the main event page so it probably isn't necessary (but maybe I'm wrong, not fully sure, heh). Changes the background color style to the table. --Damixon (talk) 01:55, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- A while back I was toying with the idea of replacing the Set page with something like what's at the above here, maybe something similar could work on the event nav? That way we could list all events, but then categorise them better and list more information about each event. Obviously can't just copy and paste that and have it work here but it could make an solid start. I think there needs to be a middle ground for info too - like the above example has too much to be useful at a brief glance and I'd argue some of it is a bit... questionably useful, at that. Like the list of NPCs is kind of irrelevant, for example. -RadioActivitii (talk) 02:13, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- That is very opaque in terms of redability. I'd keep the categories, lose the dates and have it as one drop down of lists of them by type if we follow this.Scientifictheory (talk) 08:20, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
- Made a slight amendment to simplify it a bit. Although I'm getting the feeling it is trying to be too much. It feels like something with this kind of breakdown and lots of notes should be on the main event page only and a nav plate should keep to just connecting the articles. Just a personal feeling.Scientifictheory (talk) 09:33, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
- We should just focus on linking the pages within a logical breakdown to help people find the articles; not explaining how the events function. Leave that to the pages. I'd say take your full template and have that on one or two events pages to explain the different types of events. Then take a copy of it, remove the explanatory notes and simplify the structure for use in navigation. Further, if there isn't an article created for something it shouldn't even be on the nav template. Scientifictheory (talk) 11:02, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
- I removed notes and added recruitment events. Version with notes could be used on main event page? I'm ok if we completely remove notes, you have a point there - it should be used to link to other articles, not explain things. There is no individual article for weekend events, but I thought it should be there to inform what type of weekend events exist (do you suggest removing them?). About multiple-choice events, we could link to the section of the special event page they are mentioned in - I don't think they should have their own page. --Damixon (talk) 17:36, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
- Weekend, certainly. It isn't a list of all events (that's what the article is for), it is navigation between the articles we have. If we don't have articles for weekend events, why have them in a nav template?
- As for the 4 week, my personal opinion is that if there will never have one then there is zero point in it being in a nav template to link articles, but we do include the sub-articles so it makes sense there. However, does Mycelial Crisis need an article then, if the rest don't? Scientifictheory (talk) 07:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
- Just to drop in, but each template looks better than the one before. This is an amazing combination of "at a glance" useful links/info, and being visually appealing. Kind regards, MarkoNolan (talk) 22:30, 3 January 2021 (UTC)