Talk:Katapesh

Conflict in valid resources

There is a conflict in the resources "Campaign Setting", "Legacy of Fire Player's Guide" and "Dark Markets, A Guide to Katapesh", concerning the Pactmasters and the history of Katapesh. I will try to gather the conflicting parts of information here. It is not unresolvable. Obviously we have to follow the newer supplement, where the story of Katapesh is not only concrete but also really interesting. But I think somehow we have to report this conflict in our page (e.g. with italics as it is mentioned in our canon policy). Just of few words and then the name of the resource we consider to have higher precedence. It will be good for our reliability. --Dmeta 19:53, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the policy on that might change. For the time being, just detail the conflicts in this section of the talk page and explain which version you used. As we revisit old policies we can then make necessary changes to any pages that need them. -- yoda8myhead 17:51, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Readability

For articles of this size, especially those that have entire sourcebooks dedicated to them, we need to make sub-articles. For example, the history section of this particular article is really hard to read. It is simply an info-dump, but doesn't give context or even a general overview of the complex history of Katapesh. While getting all this info into the wiki is important, if no one can read it, it doesn't do much good. I think the article would benefit from a general overview of the history of Katapesh, linking to a sub-article wherein one could find more information with subheadings based on ages and/or major periods of change. This will make the information easier to organize and both the main and sub-articles easier to read. -- yoda8myhead 20:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Mmmm .. I found it useful. I mean it's a whole story behind the two major cities. And there are a lot of details explained if someone read the history (i.e. why the Solku is a center for the religion of Sarenrae etc). I tried to not include the historical details that were not so important. Do you think it is better to introduce a new article "Katapesh History" ?

What do you think about the monsters ? Some of them exist only in Katapesh but not all. One option is to link directly to the monster page. The other option is to handle them as "Dragons or Sand eel or.. (Katapesh)" where the specifics for their existence in Katapesh are written and then link to the monster page (Dragon or Sand eel or ..).

I found an editing error in the "Dark Markets" :) The info for the halflings (race) was misplaced. I think the same is true for the guilds in Katapesh (city) (a number of them are listed under the Nightstalls heding) but I am not sure yet.--Dmeta 23:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I think creating a page for History of Katapesh would be very helpful. Perhaps even one on History of Solku if there is enough information on each to warrant their own articles. There's no hard and fast rule on when a subject deserves its own article, but typically if something could exist in a detailed and lengthy enough format that it would be distinct from other information on a general article, it should be separated. A few sentences on the general history of the nation is fine here, with a See also: History of Katapesh (city) link at the top of the subheader or after the brief overview. The same should apply to monsters, geography, etc. Once a subsection gets too long or unwieldy, it should be branched off into its own article.

Now, for monsters, if they exist only in Katapesh, their ecological information should be mentioned in their primary article. If they are general monsters, like dragons, I think they should be mentioned in a general article on wildlife of Katapesh, but shouldn't get their own article. -- yoda8myhead 23:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Yoda on the monsters, I would link to the monster's main page, and on that main page, add the Katapesh information into a subsection of the "X in Golarion" section (which may need to be made for some, but is already present in some monsters that are famous in other settings)- Cpt kirstov 20:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that this wiki is exclusively through the lens of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting. So specifying that something exists in Golarion is redundant. If it didn't exist in Golarion, it wouldn't be in this wiki. --yoda8myhead 20:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Yup, I've been using this to describe differences in animals from one location to another (similar to iguanas in the Galapagos, the main description would explain general iguanas, and the 'iguanas around the world' would include the orange iguanas that were recently found to live around one volcano in the Galapagos, I would use this similar for variants on the norm found in various parts of Golarion)- Cpt kirstov 21:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Error

This information written in the Gazetter is an error "The Pactmasters that rule Katapesh arrived out of nowhere in the Age of Destiny,". We have to change it with the correct information. Could we also organize and send this kind of reports to PAIZO ? --Dmeta 19:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

When I spoke with Wes Schneider at PaizoCon, he said that they don't have the time to catalogue errors in past books nor can they verify each and every error we find with errata. We just have to do our best to reconcile errors. In this instance, we have a year in which the Pactmasters came, and we know what Age that occurred in, so there's not much more we need to do. --yoda8myhead 20:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

So, there is clearly a contradiction. I am using the information in the "Dark Markets" instead of the "Campaign Setting". --Dmeta 16:17, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Wilderness locations

I don't know a way to organize them better. If you think of something better, please ..--Dmeta 19:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

A list is perhaps the worst way to do it. A short paragraph mentioning a few of the most notable locations and describing the variety of non-mentioned ones followed by a link to the main article Geography of Katapesh or whatever it ends up being called. Lists should be avoided in all situations, mainly because they provide minimal information and are quickly glossed over when people are reading an article. -- yoda8myhead 20:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, even the source books of PAIZO effectively are using lists. The formal way of the lists may be suitable for an informational site. But ok. I will try to change it tomorrow. --Dmeta 21:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

If you think a list is the most effective way, they should be kept on sub-articles. Main articles are bound to get rather long anyway, so if long lists can be moved to an isolated location it can help keep things readable. For an example, see how un-useful the listing of locations are in the Korvosa article compared to the template of Sandpoint locations in the Sandpoint article. Another way to make lists more useful is to use definition lists (as on the Shoanti article) to give a list that includes brief information and possible a link to another full article. -- yoda8myhead 21:42, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok. You are right. I checked the examples you mentioned. --Dmeta 21:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Monsters

I believe we have to move the monsters section in another location, in the same way we moved the history and the wilderness section. --Dmeta 16:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC) --Dmeta 19:53, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup

This page has a ton of great information from a lot of different sources but it's just sort of thrown on here at the moment and could use some organization and refining. It is already making good use of subpages, and I think that can be increased to make this look even better. Also, artwork would go a long way to increasing the look of the page. But we should consider moving some of the lists at the bottom to their own articles and getting them off the main Katapesh page, which should be a general overview of the nation, not a substitute for a player's guide. -- yoda8myhead 03:50, 22 August 2009 (UTC)