User:Skalchemisto/model

Model Categorization Project

I'm very interested in a project to categorize and cross link items according to their cosmetic appearance more thoroughly in the wiki. As an example, these two items: Item:Watcher's Leggings Item:Recruit's Light Leggings of Adlan are cosmetically identical. However, there is nothing in the wiki at the moment that would tell a user this was the case as far as I can tell.

One way that this could be done would be to incorporate a new "Model" category. There would need to be some agreed upon naming convention that could be easiliy applied, e.g. simply the first item with that model discovered. This category could be added to each relevant item. In the above example, the wiki text

[[Model:Watcher's Leggings]]

to each of the above pages. It could also include a statement, not simply a hidden category, as in

[[Model:Watcher's Leggings]]This item uses [[:Model:Watcher's Leggings]]

This would automatically create an index page, which could then be used to manage the content in the same way that Category:Items is used now.

Many hands would make lighter and more accurate work for such a project.

Possible difficulties

• there are items that are very similar, but not exactly the same. For example, Item:Reworked Trousers is at first glance very close to Item:Watcher's Leggings until you notice that the belt buckle is a bit different, and when dyed the same color the Trousers has a different "sheen" than the Leggings. One way to manage this might to ask folks to confirm (on the Model discussion page) that an identical model is used.
• There are items that have the same model but a different dye when obtained. An example: Item:Copper-Inlaid Surcoat and Item:Saets-crus are exactly the same when dyed the same color, but the Copper surcoat starts out grey-ish while Saets-Crus is orangish. This would need to be listed on the Model page I would think, and could prevent those items from being linked by users. (Interestingly, the Copper Surcoat is one of the few pages that has a cross-link on it, to Item:Ornamented Dunlending Surcoat
• There could be, although I'm not certain, items that have the same Model but a different "base" color. An example might be Item:Arth-crus. That item has a fixed red vest color, only the sleeves are changed by dye. It's possible somewhere in the game there is an item that uses the same model but with a different color than red as the "base".

Potential Test Case

The Model category framework could be tested out pretty easily by using it on the items currently linked to Dunland Armor Sets. The kinks could be worked out by using that information and templates could be built for Model pages, etc.

Data Source

The excellent LotRO companion has already obtained all the necessary data to conduct this project. see /cosmeticlistraw

Issues

• Lotro Companions data files gives an itemization of which things have which appearance, but it does not tell help with the fact that there are many items with the exact same name in the client data. For example, there are 106 Tough Shoulder Pads associated with multiple different appearances. Which one is Item: Tough Shoulder Pads though? That is not easy to establish.
• However, the plugin Item Treasury can compare appearances and it also can show you cosmetic appearance of items by id, allowing for visual confirmation.

I welcome thoughts on this proposal.