Forum:Part Ideas

Forums - Part Ideas

This page is waiting to be archived by an administrator. Please do not edit the contents of this page. I had an idea for a big change to how part pages are done here. As it is, I'd say a rough 75% of our part articles use incorrect part names, and a ton of our parts pages don't have known design IDs. Our parts pages are also really out of date. But right now, we use parts by design ID. I think, and you'll think this is crazy at first, we should have parts pages done by element ID. http://brickset.com/parts/6050916 Brickset does it this way], and it actually makes more sense. It'd also make inventories easier I think. You wouldn't have to worry about finding the colour names and whatnot when inventorying anymore. Since Brickset and LEGO.com do it this way, it may be easier to keep up to date. Since Brickset has a very useful API that I could get access to from Huw, we could possibly keep them up to date by a bot (or by Brickidata in the future :D). I've also drawn (on paper) a new part infobox idea that better-focuses on a part's element rather than the design (but it still includes the design info of course). The second part to my idea would be to make a Part namespace. It technically wouldn't make a difference in page names-- just "Part:12345" instead of "Part 12345". The advantage to this would be it'd be easier to slightly separate parts pages from set/theme pages and whatnot. I just imagine that when someone clicks "Random page", they're going to look for a set or theme, not some obscure part that's insignificant in every way (but you would then be able to do Special:Random/Part, which you can't do now since parts are in mainspace). Having a part namespace would also fix this issue that Brickset sometimes has with our integration there. It'd have a lot of benefits, and I can't think of any consequences of moving parts to their own namespace. A part namespace would also make the first idea more practical, since it wouldn't flood the mainspace with element ID part pages. Do these ideas sound good? If anyone needs, I can elaborate on either idea. --ToaMeiko (talk) 02:45, 24 March 2014 (UTC) If a new namespace would help with the Brickset integration, then that seems like a good enough reason to do so. I don't really see any downsides. As for design ID/element ID, the former is basically the "part" while the latter is the part in the specific colour/printing, right? If so, then I think it's a good idea to feature both separately. BrickfilmNut (talk) 03:02, 24 March 2014 (UTC) Things with unique printing usually have their own Design ID, but yes, basically Design ID refers to the piece/mould, and Element ID refers to that specific piece in a specific colour. @Meiko- don't have enough time to read right now, sounds interesting though NovaHawk 04:54, 24 March 2014 (UTC) You had me at "bot." Sounds good. :) Berrybrick (talk) 11:17, 24 March 2014 (UTC) (Now I've read it) Sounds great. I was actually thinking of suggesting a part namespace myself a few weeks ago because the the random page issue, but then I forgot. There are some things I'm wondering however: From what I understand, Brickset gets their data from LEGO.com's customer service database. This is incomplete, especially in relation to older parts. Is the part namespace going to be a domain ruled by machines, or are we able to still add in appearances which may be lacking? What would happen to existing part pages? Many of them do have descriptions, I could understand if some users weren't happy if all their work was just deleted. I'd be ok with switching it Element ID's, but I still think we should have pages for design ID's, basically as disambig pages to element ID pages. This could be done pretty easily with SMW (just set a Design ID property in the infobox and use an ask statement on the Design ID page). The could possibly be bot-made as it would involve simply sticking a template in, much like how we do {{ReviewPage}} on all review pages. But on the whole, definite support, it'd put us well on our way to being a much larger and more reliable site for parts and inventories, something, despite many people's best efforts, we're desperately lacking in NovaHawk 11:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC) (In case anyone does eventially bot-move parts to a part namespace- I'm not sure how bot-moving works, but if it's by the prefix "Part", Party Table Decoration, Place Card Fabuland Lamb, Party Table Decoration, Place Card Fabuland Rabbit may need to be moved back (unless you move by "Part " [with the space])) NovaHawk 11:36, 24 March 2014 (UTC) Of course you could still edit it. There is no protection level for just bots. That'd be stupid. Yes, LEGO.com doesn't have old parts, but old instructions do. Instructions have the element ID, not the design ID, so it'd be even easier for all the old parts we have that have {{partnames}} on them... --ToaMeiko (talk) 13:17, 24 March 2014 (UTC) Sounds like a good idea to me. --King Kahuka (talk) 12:49, 24 March 2014 (UTC) So we'd have separate pages for every colour of part?! Strong Oppose If that's what this would be, that's absurd! Please tell me it's not. (All the part articles aren't complete at the mo, having so many more because of colours would be ridiculous. Think of all the different colours you can get of 2x4 bricks and such...!) UltrasonicNXT (talk) If we want brickset integration, what's wrong with doing pages like http://brickset.com/parts/design-15470 ? UltrasonicNXT (talk) Well personally my support's conditional on it actually being able to be done by a bot, if we'd have to do it manually, I totally agree with NXT. What I'm mainly thinking about it making inventories much easier to do- you'd simply have to type in an element ID and its quantity for the set and the rest (image, design ID, name, etc) can be grabbed by SMW NovaHawk 02:51, 29 March 2014 (UTC) As it is we can't really do it with the design IDs like that-- those pages on Brickset don't have any Brickset API, so a bot can't use them. All the design pages on Brickset are is a compilation of Element ID pages that have the corresponding design number in the Element page's data. --ToaMeiko (talk) 16:21, 1 April 2014 (UTC) But we're going to have like 10/20 times more pages!!! We can't cope with the current number, most part articles are C4, we're never going to be able to cope with 10/20 times more! UltrasonicNXT (talk) We can't cope with the current number because it is impossible for bots to keep these things up to date, and the design ID method only makes inventories harder on the users who do them. A bot can work with element ID and keep all the part pages up to date, regardless of if there are 10/20 times more pages. This is also why I want parts in their own namespace, so that they don't overflow the mainspace like they currently do. People want sets/themes/minifigures in the mainspace, not random parts, thus they should be in their own namespace. LEGO.com and Brickset are done according to element ID. This not only guarantees we have a resource for a bot to compare our parts pages to, but is also more consistent with other sites. LEGO pieces also have the element ID embossed on them, but don't have the design ID anywhere on them. This will allow us to actually get the correct numbers for all these parts that have {{Partnames}} on them, since many of them have no known design ID, but do have a known element ID. This will make all of our parts pages consistent with each other, since currently some of our parts use Bricklink/Peeron numbers, and others use official LEGO/Brickset numbers. We should be using official numbers, which switching to Element ID will allow us to do. brickwiki:Element ID has some good information on this. --ToaMeiko (talk) 17:30, 1 April 2014 (UTC) Automating it all seems like an excellent idea, and would really sort out the whole part problem once and for all. I can't say as I really know enough to have an opinion on the rest of it, but Strong Support, just on the merits of the bot + namespace. -Cligra Since we have plenty of part article linked to in the mainspace, what will happen with those? Will redirects be created somehow, a bot go through a fix them, or will they have to be fixed manually? Berrybrick (talk) 23:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC) Whatever's easier. --ToaMeiko (talk) 16:21, 1 April 2014 (UTC)