Illerai:Requests for deletion/Template:HasMMG

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. The result was Delete after planning stages for placement and implementation of templates.

Template:HasMMG

Like RuneScape:Requests for deletion/Template:Official world, the links contained in the banner can easily be merged into the article, like with King Black Dragon's page right now: A ==Money making== section has been added with links to the money making guides related to the article in a list. This way readers that are looking for the MMGs related to the content can choose to go to the section for it via the Table of Contents, instead of the current status quo of presenting the info at the very top of the page for every single reader. Furthermore, since there is currently no guideline on whether extremely low gp/h guides should be linked inside the template, I don't think reserving a very prominent spot at the top of the page for a low value link (Garlic's and Mithril bolts (unf)'s for example) is of great experience to most of our users.

Delete - As nom, and as part of an effort to reduce our top page clutter (or instances of banner blindness when we have way too many messageboxes on pages). Shayani (talk) 13:26, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Keep - MMGs are too important to be shoved at the bottom of pages. User:Kelsey/Signature 13:48, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

There's also only so much to be shoved inside the lead of every article. Table of Content is literally for this purpose; i.e. letting users decide whether they want to see the MMGs related to the page, or the Combat Achievement tasks lst, or the monster's signature drops and its rarity, etc. Distracting users uninterested with making money in anyway, especially on mobile where we don't have a lot of screen real estate, before the content is even introduced is not ideal IMO. Shayani (talk) 15:18, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Table of contents are often extremely cluttered, I don't see it as a solution. User:Kelsey/Signature 15:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Keep - As indicated by Kelsey, MMGs are rather important. The slayer banner would be more suitable for deletion, as the infobox already indicates it is a slayer monster, where the "category", which lists "black dragons", could be linked to the same page as the banner currently does. Furthermore, the same treatment could be made for the "Instance" banner. Especially given that it always links the Instance page, it might be better suited in the info box as well. Ricewind (talk) 16:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Keep - I also agree MMGs are too important to be at the bottom of the page. The issue I see is that when there are 3 or more banners like in Cerberus or Vorkath's page they start to block out the actual article. There probably should be some sort of reformatting for the top of the page so that MMGs, Template:HasStrategy, Template:Instance, and Template:HasTask fit together better instead of just being centered banners. Dinguskhan (talk) 21:03, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

@Dinguskhan: So do you think that the HasMMG you added here is really too important that it needs to be the very first link on the page? I'm not convinced if we need to keep HasMMG for MMGs with really low gp/h, or even those that are MLGs (money losing guide!), just because of the few high profile MMGs (say Killing Venenatis or Theatre of Blood) that we have. Shayani (talk) 10:15, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment - Maybe a bit late but I've made a better mock of the how the section on KBD's page could look like here. Shayani (talk) 10:15, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Keep - As a newer player to Runescape, I really appreciate having the MMGs at the top of the page. While I agree with the point about MMGs with really low gp/h + MLGs being unnecessary, is there not another way to address those issues rather than getting rid of MMGs altogether? For instance, maybe just requesting for the guides themselves to be deleted, or having a certain gp/hr threshhold the guide has to meet before being posted to the top of the page? Honestly though, even if an options such as these aren't viable, each person should be able to determine for themselves based on the information available to them if the money making method is worth it. Also while I like the mock for KBD's page, I agree with Kelsey that table of contents are cluttered and I don't see it as a better option for MMGs than what we currently have. - Eta

Keep - All OSRS players need money, even HcIM. Even besides, this template is concise, and pushes content down by a mere 64 pixels on my 1080p screen. Even the low money makers are useful for new players, and old players alike. Nothing I can think of is bad about this template. I don't see any reason to remove it, nor any pros. Singestheos (talk) 22:20, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Delete - The current location for this is not appropriate, however the alternatives currently in use are also not appropriate.

• Compare a Money-Making Guide link to something like Treasure Trails information. If an item is involved in a Treasure Trails step, it will have a ==Treasure Trails== section with all relevant information about that treasure trail step. This information is fully described on the page for that subject, and the section header marks off that section of the subject's page. I feel this is an appropriate location and layout.
• In contrast, a Money-Making guide lives on a separate page. It is not a section of that subject's page, but a separate page that is linked-to by the primary page. As seen already on KBD's page, a ==Money Making section would not contain the knowledge sought after but instead just a link. I think this is a poor use of page layout.
• However, I also think the use of a banner to provide this kind of associated-page link inappropriately uses the highest-importance location on the page. Guiding a reader to find the knowledge they seek is always a challenge, and there is an understandable desire to place everything in the highest visibility location. Unfortunately, when everything is high-visibility, then nothing is. The Money-Making banner (and others like it such as the Slayer Guide banner) are not absolutely critical for every reader to observe and they clutter a space that should be reserved for information even more critical (such as the Dangerous rating of an activity).
• I believe there should be a designated place for closely-related pages that is not a top-page banner and also does not place each link as a standard section within the page contents.

Wolfizen (talk) 22:52, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment - What if the banners at the top of the page were dramatically reduced in size and complexity, so that the important links are all there, but can fit within a single row? Obviously it would look prettier than this, and maybe smaller, too, but here is a rough draft of what it could look like.    DrYoshiyahu     00:33, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I know this is just a rough draft, but this sort of format has been brought up before. It doesn't scale particularly well when you have (for example) multiple money making guides on one page. - Andmcadams (talk) 16:33, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment - I like DrYoshiyahu's proposal. While I can appreciate that some users find this information less important for the purposes, I think it is very user friendly for newer players who are not as used to navigating the wiki and thus the current position for it is the best. However, there is a lot of unnecessary text that is almost always the same for each link, so simplifying it down to a picture and a link as in DrYoshiyahu's rough draft would be more than appropriate and also cut down on the space it takes up on the screen. - Eta (talk) 13:07, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Delete - MMGs being displayed prominently at the top of related pages has never really seemed like a suitable use of space to me. I would be interested in seeing statistics on how many people click through the HasMMG template link rather than navigating directly to the MMGs page. I also don't hate DrYoshiyahu's general proposal, but I'm not a fan of the implementation on their draft page. It looks too bulky in design, and could very much be slimmed down even further. jayden 16:27, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

There have been drafts of composite banners with a somewhat slimmer profile, such as the ones found here, here, here, and here. Yet, they do all suffer from the limitations pointed to by Andmcadams in a comment above, in that they are difficult to scale up if any of the component banners contain multiple links, nor do they accommodate longer strings of text, resulting in loss of specificity (e.g. not specifying the cost of item retrieval in the instance banner, or the consequences of dying a second time).

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the money-making part of a potential composite banner would just link to an 'extended redirect' based on Shayani's mock-up, which would resemble something like this. This would not resolve all problems inherent in the idea however. Ostentatio (talk) 19:24, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

This is the sort of solution that came to mind for me as well, although a bit more refined than my idea. Just have a `HasGuides` banner for MMG, Slayer, and Strategy guides, and if there's more than one MMG for instance, have the link be to a subpage "page/Money Making Guides" to serve as a sort of disambiguation page for them. Duralith (talk) 23:04, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps a simplified list like the drafts above, but vertical and adjacent to the Table of Contents box? There is much unused space between the TOC box and the Stat box. Wolfizen (talk) 00:13, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Such a space doesn't exist on the mobile site, and I'm a bit concerned that having another list in roughly the same space (in a vertical sense) as both the TOC and potentially Infobox as well would end up looking quite cluttered visually and potentially unintuitive to navigate. Duralith (talk) 23:04, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Delete - I suppose I should make my stance explicit: whatever solution may eventually be settled on to convey the same information currently contained in banners, I don't see a future for the HasMMG template in its present state. In response to some of the sentiments expressed earlier on in the thread, it might be instructive to go back to one of the original motivations for this proposal, namely the desire to reduce the clutter of banners at the top of the page. I know most editors understand the issue well enough, but just to illustrate it very plainly, here are two images showing the space taken up by banners for mobile users and for those that browse the wiki on the desktop in a narrowed window:

Mobile comparison

<div class="thumbinner extimage" style="width:px; ">https://i.imgur.com/nZW9fzK.png

Narrow window on 1080p

<div class="thumbinner extimage" style="width:px; ">https://i.imgur.com/2NnW22M.png

I emphasize this general and basic point to express it is not sufficient to argue space can be freed up by removing some other banner in order to free up space for the money-making one: all banners need be considered individually as part of a concerted effort to remove or reduce as many of them as can be managed. Moreover, it cannot be treated as self-evident that other banners could be deleted with ease – the instance banner for example frequently contains longer strings of text describing the location, cost, or NPC associated with an item retrieval service which would make it ill-suited to fit inside an infobox; such a proposal is further complicated by pages like Grotesque Guardians which lacks an infobox altogether, coupled with the loss of parity between quest pages and boss pages which both use the banner. Note the Grotesque Guardians page also has a Slayer task banner, meaning it suffers from the same issue with regard to the absence of an infobox (besides certain species pages such as troll and scabarites).

Ease of access to money-making guides is no doubt crucial, being one of the preeminent ways users interact with the wiki. In my opinion, any replacement for the banner need not be relegated to the bottom of the layout – it would make more sense I believe to place the proposed separated section above or near the drop table section on NPC pages, and above or near the rewards section on activity pages. This would fit with our placement of the average drop value template as a preamble to the drop table, resulting in a cluster of money and value-related elements on a cohesive segment of the page.

The mock-up for a separated section drawn up by Shayani cannot adequately be characterised as a bare link, containing no information in itself. On the contrary, I believe it represents a clear increase in utility for users compared to the current banner link. As it also displays the expected hourly profit and requirements of the linked guide, users can use this information to decide if it might be worthwhile to click through, or whether not to bother based on a lack of prospective profit or because they do not meet the requirements. Currently, it is only possible to tell if a method is attractive by opening up the page. A separated section also allows guides to be grouped together based on subject matter, making it easy to compare the three different guides for killing Vorkath at a glance, for instance. This benefit may grow more significant as time goes on, as we continue the trend of specifying overly broad guides and splitting them up according to method.

I'd like to close off by saying I'm not confident if data will save us, in considering this matter specifically. It would seem to me that the metric most relevant to us isn't necessarily the proportion of users accessing a money-making guide by clicking a banner as opposed to navigating via the table on the main money making guide page. Rather, the ratio between people finding their way to guides through a banner versus a separated section would seem most important to evaluate the validity of fears over loss of access. Yet if such a test were possible, and if it were to show a drop in people opening guides from subject matter articles – would it mean the links have grown more obscure as they are lost within the layout, or that users have gained the ability to discriminate between guides, without needing to access them? Ostentatio (talk) 04:50, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Delete/Comment - I think that the template in its current form certainly contributes to the broader issue of too many hatnotes contributing to the header sections of articles being overly bloated. With that being said, I don't think putting links to MMGs or strategy guides, or slayer task guides - or the guides themselves- further down on the page is the right move. All three should be fairly prominent, and relying on the TOC to find them in a page feels like a misstep to me, especially since that would effectively bury said guides for anyone using the mobile site. I've commented bits and pieces of this idea elsewhere, but I think that HasMMG, HasStrategy, HasTask, and potentially Instance and any hatnote that might be added for the Guide: namespace could all collectively be replaced with a new template along the lines of Ostentatio's mockup here. To Andmcadams' concern above about gracefully handling multiple MMGs, I think the best way would be to replace the link in the new header template with a link to a subpage "/Money Making Guides" listing the relevant guides, similar to a disambiguation page.

Hopefully that all makes sense. I've just spent my day writing essays for grad school applications so my brain is toast.

TL:DR - Delete but not until there's been a broader rework of all the things we like to shove into the header of pages. Duralith (talk) 23:04, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment - I have no opinion on whether or not this template should be deleted, however I believe I am noticing a pattern regarding the fate of some of these types of templates, starting with the deletion of "Template:Floor" in June 2022 and "Template:Official world" this May (as seen in the archives). I agree with the comment Duralith made in their TL;DR, in that there needs to be a broader rework of hatnotes. Personally, I think after this deletion request, there needs to be a separate discussion about hatnotes/message box templates in general — that is, about which boxes are and are not worth the space they take up at the top of the screen. YoshiFan12 (talk) 22:55, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Keep/commentI agree with keeping it at least until we get a better way of presenting it but always at first sight. Personally, the great obviousness of these posters have appeared to me at unexpected moments wanting to read a topic that I was unaware of, what it showed in the hatnote, mainly because they are player-game interactions and not merely ingame data. It has worked for several years and if not for this talk I would still assume it was part of the osrs wiki format.

• As soon as I had the idea when I saw the icons of the articles towards their counterparts on the RS3, RSC, etc. pages, perhaps a special category could be created for typical page attachments that deserve to be placed above the headline at the other end. of the title in the form of an icon or pop-up. The HasMMGLine feels more like a gadget than an article section to me, and isn't appropriate enough to consider using that over HasMMG, though if it were on top of the side or somehow the profit imbedded in the HasMMG would be great. The rest are cosmetic fixes.
• Regarding the issue of money making, there is a completely full template vs. the guide page that is limited to a few, I think that everything profitable and efficient can be accepted as MM and there should be a consensus and debugging of those that already exist and help a little by removing methods that were made obsolete with the Tax, and at some point we should have a standard price for the HasMMG shortcut to appear or not. Maybe :

If profit value > ( )

2.  ? idk

• Someone looking for MMGs will search directly where they are published, that is, MMG page, template, or searches, and in places where there is a specific strategy for it, they simply place the link somewhere in the MMG because the profit varies, I mean that despite the ToC It is a list of topics presentation, it will only cause a negative effect in the meeting by the MMG, the content generally presents extensive reading, and the MMG I suppose that they are one of the topics searched because of the fast and that few will unfortunately stay to read the ToC, 7 years without changes and everything has been fine
• In a mobile browser I use the preview a lot and the current format is not an impediment to me because I easily scroll even if it is not the most beautiful, there are no ways for that to distract me. I consider all these hatnotes to be categories of pages with the purpose of reporting an aspect of the game that is presented in different scenarios and that it is okay to leave them in their respective sections, they were created from the beginning with a purpose and I have seen sections moving towards sub- pages due to the fact that we are evolving and wanting to avoid clutter, one more section just for this after so long will only cause a headache for many.
• Removing the hatnote shortcuts just for a reference in the rest of the article is not fixing, overviews are not always fixed topics in all ToCs and would cause confusion, instead absolutely all overviews could be moved to their respective strategy pages, but I would leave both or just the hatnote imo.

TurcoNeg (talk) 02:45, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Delete/Comment - My opinion on this topic has evolved as the conversation around banners has progressed. Initially, I was pretty staunchly opposed to the removal of the MMG banners, and my main point of contention in favor of the retention of MMG banners was the ease of navigation they provide. However, my stance on this has changed, and I now no longer think they have a place on the wiki. I myself almost exclusively use the banners to navigating to the MMGs I’m interested in, but as I will argue below, I don’t think the creation of an article section to house the same information would significantly impact the navigability of the site for myself or other similar users and could instead provide some benefits.

I will start by noting that Shayani’s mock-up is particularly attractive. Not only does it convey more information to the user without their having to navigate to a new page - thereby allowing them to determine if the method is with their time without navigating to the full guide - the mock up will also help users to compare different MMGs available for the same activity.

Consider the guides available for Vorkath. Clicking the MMG link provided by the banner leads to a disambiguation page between three different guides. The page provides no information beyond the weapon needed as to what guide would be best for the reader. For readers only able to afford a blowpipe, this is perhaps not a significant issue. For those with more funds, they will need to click on each link and find the expected profit value to make the comparison. As Ostentatio’s use of Shayani’s mockup demonstrates, this comparison would become a much easier affair.

Unlike the Vorkath MMGs, there are also cases, such as lizardman shamans, where the MMG name provides no real actionable information for the player. Including both guides in the banner, as the lizardman shaman page already does, or creating a disambiguation page, would not help the reader to quickly determine which method is feasible for them to attempt. A table containing GP rates (and perhaps requirements) would facilitate the decision making process.

Additionally, I think we are perhaps undervaluing the utility of quick comparisons. As the recent discussion on the killing snakes guide shows, the expected profit of MMGs can vary over time. However, the value of monster drops is not the only factor that goes into the profitability of a money making method. When different methods for the same activity have competitive GP rates, market changes in supply costs can have a significant impact on a user’s preference for a given method. In the case of Vorkath, at this time last year the DHC method generated an additional 240k per hour less than the DHL method due to the increased cost of bolts. In the same way, cannonball costs might have a strong influence over whether a player considers the extra effort of killing shamans in the canyon over in the Settlement/Temple to be worthwhile. Rather than being more useful for navigation, in situations where the user just needs to make a quick comparison the current banner system makes the process of finding the desired information more cumbersome.

Ostentatio also makes the valid point that the original aim of this proposal was the decluttering of the top of pages containing MMG banners and that we should not assume that the removal of other banners is a readily available alternative solution. While Ostentatio pointed to the instance banner as containing information ill-suited for an infobox, I would argue that other banners, particularly the safe and dangerous activity templates, should also maintain their top-of-page positioning because of the importance of the information they provide (Wolfizen also briefly touched on this point). Death mechanics are not always intuitive, especially for new players (e.g. why is Pest Control a safe activity while Temple Trekking a dangerous one?), and these warnings likely help to prevent the unintentional loss of hardcore/group hardcore status. If we are primarily focused on cleaning up the tops of pages, it seems to me that the removal of MMGs (and perhaps slayer/strategy guides) would be the most clear path forward short of a large redesign of banners as a whole.

Indeed, given that broader and more systematic changes to how we use banners would probably require a much larger and more in-depth discussion, I think that it is best to focus on removing MMG banners as a more immediately implementable remedy for dealing with page clutter. To that end, I believe that adopting a solution in the vein of Shayani’s mock-up would both be beneficial both in decluttering the tops of many articles as well as creating new functionality for readers seeking to quickly compare the various MMGs available for a given piece of content. --Omnes Ferant (talk) 22:49, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Delete - I don't think this has to be that complicated: Shayani's template is a massive usability improvement over the current template, and tbh that more than justifies the change, even if we weren't concerned about bloating the top banner space. We should probably discuss where we want the money making section to go on the page, though. ʞooɔ 05:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Keep: Disclosure: I was made aware of this conversation through a post on English Wikipedia's Teahouse, though I'm an avid osrs player and have edited this wiki a handful of times as well. I think the template should be kept simply because I don't think there is a better place for the information on a page. Contrast Treasure Trails info which can go in its own section because the relevant information is a few lines at most. A money making guide would either have to be embedded into the article itself (which I think most would agree isn't a productive change) or made its own section which consists only of a link to the MMG page. I think putting the link closer to the top of the page is more helpful to more people and I think that this template is the cleanest way to do that. Scatter (talk) 18:33, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Scatter: I believe most who argue in favour of an independent section have something like this in mind, which would also replicate the profit rates and requirements of the money-making guides it links to. The advantages this provides over the current approach is that a user is able to use this information to decide whether a guide is worth opening or not, that is to say by evaluating how enticing the profits appear to be, and if they meet all its requirements. Ostentatio (talk) 22:14, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I missed that when reading through the discussion, and it works better than other proposed solutions discussed here. Changing vote to delete in favor of something like the template linked above which transcludes basic info into the article. Provides important info more quickly than HasMMG and elegantly solves the issue of having multiple MMGs as well. Scatter (talk) 23:14, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Keep I don't think the hatnotes are all too invasive. I think they're important for newer players that may not realise a certain boss or method is particularly profitable when done a certain way. I'm in favour of them being reworked in some way, but I do think they're of enough importance to be somewhere immediately visible.

Although, I do think this community has a problem with prioritising gp generation over actually enjoying themselves, so removing the prominence of MMGs may work towards solving that issue.

Overall I think "keep", but bottom line is I don't mind if they're removed from a prominent position. Lewufuwi (talk) 22:32, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Keep Coming from the RS3 wiki I was really surprise to see that this template is considered for removal. Imo, it's one of the most useful templates on wiki period. Sure, it might just be a link to another page, but one of the main points I consider when training anything, is the gp/hr I can make while doing said training. Without the template, I'd either have to check manually if the page even exists, or would have to calculate everything myself; which in-turn saves me a bunch of time. I would argue that probably the other banners showing up are the cluttering part, and not the MMG redirect. Rederdex (talk) 06:59, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Delete - I think Ostentatio put it best. In it's current state, I don't see why HasMMG should exist at all. Informing people that mmgs do exist on subject pages at all has never really seemed useful to me when people clearly just go to the money making guide page, especially with no way to even see the profit. I do like the mockup for a section with a table that lists name and profit, that's certainly infinitely more useful and a nicer solution for when a page has multiple guides to boot, but I think we shouldn't keep the banner even without that section. User:Crow/Signature 08:05, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Keep - Very useful for folks less familiar with the wiki and with OSRS. If it does go away then maybe there should at least be a section under each activity/boss/etc. pointing to the more in-depth guides or a space for simple guides.--Thistleetree (talk) 16:56, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Thistleetree: There is a draft for a standalone section listing slimmed down summaries of the available money-making guides, somewhat resembling what you describe. I believe most of those in favour of removing the current banner would like to see it replaced with such a section, which also has the benefit of displaying more information than can fit in the banner we have now. Ostentatio (talk) 18:28, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Seems like an improvement to me, maybe it'd make sense to have a new thread "Replacing Template:HasMMG" rather than debating its deletion. To that draft I think the average loot value should remain in the section on drops rather than added to the new MMG section. --Thistleetree (talk) 22:40, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Delete - I love Shayani's mockup, and think it makes a lot more sense.

I get that a lot of people come to the wiki for money-making guides, but I worry that a sludge of boxes at the top of the page meant to facilitate linking single-time visitors moves the purpose of the wiki away from sharing information in a logical order, to trying to catch the attention of people before they go somewhere else. Ultimately, if people read the page, they will find what they need.

Remyma (talk) 05:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Keep - If there's no hasmmg template at the top, then I assume there isn't an mmg and it's a bad money making method. -- -- F-Lambda (talk) 12:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Could you not...slightly change your way of checking whether there's an MMG? Like by looking at the table contents? ʞooɔ 14:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it's worth mentioning that a lot of the people voting to delete are suggesting or in support of a rework of the hatnote that would still put a link to any MMGs at the top of the page, just in a way that would hopefully contribute less to the hatnote bloat that exists on a number of pages. Duralith (talk) 15:15, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Closed - Preface that this was a vote of 9 deletes to 10 keep, there was more comments on those keeps that were in favor of the mockup that Shayani presented for a separate section/template containing the MMGs related to said page details. For now, this template will NOT be deleted until we have discussed more on where this section will be housed for primarily the popular and bulkier pages as a standard decision standpoint. So for the final say, this is an allow to delete on the contengency we discuss placement and implementation strategy (aside from just DO IT of course). Jakesterwars (talk) 03:42, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. No further edits should be made to this page.