Talk:Epic Power Set Proliferation

Ordering the Pools

I set up the page to help people understand who gets what pools. I appreciate the corrections and the mark ups, what I don't see any value in is the need to alphabetize everything. The ATs are paired mostly in the sharing of pools, so, show them paired. No need to break up the pairings for the sake of alphabetization. The pools were grouped across the rows by type of powers to help people see and remember who got what. The names of the pools could have been the same "Ice" which would have naturally grouped them together. But, in order for each pool to have a unique name, the thesaurus was broken out and we get "Artic" and "Chill" which disrupts the natural grouping. There's no need for alphabetization of four items in a list to impose order on something you can see in a glance. If you want to alphabetize everything, then alphabetize the powers in a pool... but, of course, that would be objected to because they're ordered in the order one can access them -- which just shows that alphabetization is not always the best way to display information. I object strenuously for this to be alphabetized, there's no pressing reason why that is a preferred way to display information when there is very good reason to display them in other logical ways. Zombie Man 08:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The article exists to document the Epic Powersets as provided to all the archetypes in Issue 18. For that reason, the information should be provided in the most organized fasion, not by whatever subjective guidelines you've invented inside your head. Why should Mastermind be grouped with Blaster? Because you decided it should. Why should ice-themed sets be on the same row? Becuase you decided they should.

The historical and technical reasons and decisions made in the bringing about of these Epic Powersets is entirely irrelevant to the information itself and should have no bearing on their presentation. The way you have it, to the unknowing user, just looks like a sloppy, scrambled list that isn't easy to browse. That's the exact opposite of what we strive for on the wiki. --GuyPerfect 17:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

While I don't agree with the way he worded it, I think GuyPerfect is correct. The ATs may be paired, but the pairings have already been listed in it overview. Generally, the wiki places alphabetization over any other style of sorting, unless it's been deemed otherwise. For instance, powerset overviews are listed by level unlock, but the full descriptions of the powers are alphabetized. Lists are almost always sorted alphabetically, with very few rare exceptions. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 17:49, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the table did a good job at showing the ATs as paired. It's too tall, so the paired AT's weren't obviously paired since they are usually offscreen from one another. Plus it isn't obvious unless you already expected to find it that way. I think the only way this would have worked is to have an explanation prior to the table spelling out that you had organized it thus. But given the height of the table, I still don't think that's ideal. The pairings are already explained; I don't see that much value in illustrating it in the table as well. I also find the organization of powersets by theme problematic because the themes are not consistent across all archetypes. Even if they had named all ice-themed powers "Ice Mastery" and so on, they probably won't line up if you sort alphabetically. The PPP's are unique in that they're intentionally created to give each AT a pool from each Patron. The APP's aren't that intentional in their design, so I think it's misleading to organize the pools in a way that suggests they are. So I'm voting for alphabetical as well. -- Sekoia 18:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

While I am of the opinion that prioritizing alphabetization of lists of a handful of items that can be viewed at a glance is a case of undue attachment to an organizing schema -- which is just one of many tools or organizing data -- I concede to consensus and drop my case for my organizing schema.Zombie Man 01:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, until you mentioned it on the talk page, I didn't even see a pattern to the table you first implemented. It made no sense to me; there was no obvious pairing going on, because it's two lists of disparate items (the proliferation isn't always an exact copy). I was going to alphabetize it but then GuyPerfect got to it before I did.

I re-implemented alphabetization. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 04:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)