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Hey all. With the imminent release of ''[[Halo: Shadows of Reach]]'', ''[[Halo Infinite]]'' and whatever else ends up being announced soon, we're going to soon have a myriad of new info to add to the site. In this light, now seems like a good time to formally introduce the new sourcing system we've been working on (and by we, I mainly mean [[User:Dab1001|Dab1001]], who is responsible for all of the implementation of the following).
Deleted material, cut content or "the cutting room floor" refers to content created during the development of a game, film, book or other media and ultimately removed from the product before release. This can be done for a variety of reasons including simple issues such as time and technical limitations or more niche reasons such as needs for page formatting - in the case of a book. This page covers a standard of guidelines for writing articles about cut content on Halopedia.


The new system we're working with is designed to do several things to improve on the standard <nowiki><ref></nowiki> tags you're no-doubt familiar with as standard on most wikis. In no particular order, this system is designed to be easier, quicker, more consistent and futureproof. For a detailed explanation, see below.
==Does it need a page?==
When creating a cut content article, first ask if the content in question ''needs'' a new page? Can it be covered in sufficient detail on an existing page's production notes section? For example, the article [[Guardian Forest]] discusses a lot of in-depth development information on the cut level, while a detail such as the [[:File:HReach-M392-DMR-Profile.png|Armalite logo]] found on an early rendition of the [[M392 DMR]] found in ''[[Halo: Reach]]'' can be easily surmised in a sentence or two on the page's production notes section.  


==Overview==
==Cut content vs. concept art==
If you're familiar with using infobox templates already, the new sourcing system should come naturally to you. For a general jist, referencing works now by using a template to handle all layout, formatting and so forth of references - the only information you need to input is a link, a page name, chapter number or level. All bold and italic text, hyperlinking and placement of information is handled for you. As such, instead of having to write out;
A common misconception that often arises in fanbases is the nature of cut content vs. concept art. In media production, thousands of conceptual images are produced by dozens of concept artists over a multi-year period. At the beginning of a production, many of these concepts are simply sketches or quick paintings done to establish art direction, mood, tone, atmosphere and convey key aspects of the game's visuals. In this stage, illustrations may feature armour, weapons, vehicles and characters which do not appear in the final game - it is important to distinguish these elements from actual cut content. In these cases, these elements were likely never intended to make it into the final product, and wouldn't count as cut content due to having never been ''cut''.  
:<code><nowiki><ref name="H5MeridianStation">''[[Halo 5: Guardians]]'', campaign level [[Meridian Station]]</ref></nowiki></code>
To render<ref name="H5MeridianStation1">''[[Halo 5: Guardians]]'', campaign level [[Meridian Station]]</ref>, you simply have to write;
:<code><nowiki>{{Ref/Level|Id=H5MeridianStation|H5G|Meridian Station}}</nowiki></code>
To render this.{{Ref/Level|Id=H5MeridianStation|H5G|Meridian Station}} Both methods produce the same outcome to the end reader, but the second option ensures that all citations use the exact same formatting and placement order for text and information, as a result making our pages look cleaner and more organised. For example, compare [[Guardian Forest|this page's]] reference section versus the one seen on [https://www.halopedia.org/index.php?title=United_Nations_Space_Command&oldid=1372609 this] revision of the UNSC page. With multiple editors employing slightly different styles for how references are formatted, things look messy - something this new system avoids entirely! Additionally, by using a lot of automation, we can ensure that reference formatting styles can be easily updated across the site in the future by updating the source template alone or using bots - something that massively helps with making the site as a whole adaptable for the future.


If the stuff I've just written seems confusing or intimidating, that's fine. Below is written a deep-dive into some different referencing scenarios and what you'd do, but it doesn't cover anything. If you get stuck with anything, feel free to message me [[User talk:BaconShelf|here]], on the [[Halopedia:Discord Server|Discord server]] or in this thread and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
In general, a good way to distinguish cut content is to consider whether any 3D assets, physical props, animations or footage exists of the content in question - or if it has been discussed in any capacity via interviews.


<code><nowiki>


</nowiki></code>
=Real persons notability=
''Based on discussions had in Discord last night''


When creating articles on real-world people, a few considerations should be made. Due to the size and scale of the ''Halo'' franchise, many thousands of people have been involved in its development over the decades, and as such covering all of these people in detail is an unreasonable task - especially when considering the masses of outsourced work that goes to hundreds of freelance studios and workers across the world. As such, some notability guidelines to consider when making an article about a real person may include (though are not limited to) the following:
*'''Tenure:''' whether the person in question has multiple credits to their name. A programmer who has only worked on one title may not be notable enough to warrant a full article, but one who has worked on multiple projects across the franchise may. This becomes especially applicable for writers and artists, whose work may also cross into ''Halo'' expanded media, such as books and comics.
*'''Founder:''' staff members involved in the production of ''Halo: Combat Evolved'' or ''Halo 2'' (or other media of the era, such as the original novels) are likely to be more notable on the basis that they were the ones that created the very principles that ''Halo'' (and by extension, much of modern FPS game design) is based on. These teams were also much smaller, and individual contributions much easier to note or track.
*'''Seniority:''' those working in higher-up roles at their respective studios are more likely to warrant notable status than junior or contracted staff. Leads, seniors, directors and so forth ranging from disciplinary leads (IE Senior Programmers, Lead Artists, etc) through to creative/art directors, studio heads and the like are important to the franchise's overall direction and growth.
**As a corollary to this point, Microsoft regularly relies on outsourced and contracted workers for much of its hiring policies. As such, someone who has only worked on ''Halo'' games for a limited period of time like this is less likely to be a notable figure for the series as a whole.
**Contracted workers on expanded content, such as novel writers or comic artists, are more exempt from this consideration provided they are still noteworthy in other areas.
*'''Public:''' some staff members on the ''Halo'' series are much more public-facing than others. This can apply to both senior staff who are more involved in interviews and press, or to community managers and writers. Team members who are generally well-known are more likely to gain notability here, though this attribute is difficult to quantify - and usually likely corresponds with the above characteristics too.
**Also remember that ''Halo'' franchise developers are real people, and as such some people may prefer not to have a large spotlight placed on their lives, for plenty of valid reasons. As such, if there is little information about a given developer easily available - this may be for a reason. Halopedia will remove, rename, or replace articles and images about real people upon request.


==The crunch==
When considering to make an article about a person, it may be worth keeping some of the above qualities in mind. Oftentimes, particularly in more recent games, a single person might only warrant one or two mentions across the whole wiki due to the sheer size and scope of modern games development. In the case of artists (in particular, concept artists), Halopedia does [[:Category:Images by artist|categorise artwork]] by their creator - as such it may instead be prudent to simply link to the artist's category instead. While certain artists such as [[Eddie Smith]], [[Isaac Hannaford]] or [[Nicolas Bouvier]] have had huge sweeping contributions to the identity of ''Halo'', some concept artists may only require a link to their personal categories. These category pages may be used to provide links to the artist's portfolio(s) of work or provide a brief summary of which projects they worked on.
As explained prior, referencing is handled now via a template, the root of which can be found at [[Template:Ref]]. You may notice I said ''root'', that's because I lied. It's not a template, it's a system of several templates. Due to how many types of references we may want to do, we can't fit everything into one template, so it's broken into several specialist ones - luckily, they're all listed in the link I just provided. Additionally, typing <code><nowiki>{{Ref/</nowiki></code> in your wikitext editor will bring up a list of them in a little drop down menu, so you don't need to remember them all.


Some of the most common scenarios are listed below.
When discussing contracted staff, rather than linking to a page on the staff member themselves, linking to the studio they worked under may instead be an option. ''Halo'', as with all large game projects, makes extensive use of outsourced studios such as [[Certain Affinity]] or [[Liquid Development]]. In some select cases, linking to a given person's Wikipedia page (should they have one) may also be preferable.
 
===Referencing webpages===
 
===Referencing media===
This section covers the most common referencing you'll likely do; books, novels, comics, games and such. In general, referencing of these media forms all follows the same basic idea, with some slight changes depending on what exactly you're doing. For example, take this reference;{{Ref/Novel|Id=HO15|Oblv|Chapter=15|Page=123-124}}
 
Here's now this reference is broken down, with accompanying notes in brackets to explain what's what.
 
<nowiki>{{Ref/Novel          - (The specific reference template we want to use to cite this media)
|Id=HO15                    - (This parameter is the name we want to store in case we want to reuse this reference - see the Reusing Citations section below)
|Oblv                        - (This is an Acronym that allows us to call this media title easily. See the Acronyms section below)
|Chapter=15                  - (Should be self-explanatory - place your chapter number here)
|Page=123-124                - (Should be self-explanatory - place your page number(s) here. In general for novels, we prefer chapter numbers over page ones though.)
}}</nowiki>
 
Depending on circumstance, you'll need a different referencing template. For referencing novels, you'd use [[Template:Ref/Novel|Ref/Novel]]. For reference books (IE ''Warfleet'' or the EVGs) you'd use [[Template:Ref/Book|Ref/Book]], for comics [[Template:Ref/Comic|Ref/Comic]] and so forth - you get the idea. Notably, we have several for games including [[Template:Ref/Level|campaign levels]], [[Template:Ref/Map|Multiplayer maps]], [[Template:Ref/Mode|gamemodes]] and a generic [[Template:Ref/Game|Ref/Game]] for misc. info. Below, I'll cover some scenarios so you can get an idea of how to use these templates.
 
 
 
====Acronyms====
As mentioned above, Acronyms are a system developed to make referencing media quicker than easier. As seen in the example used in the Overview section, this system essentially allows you to be <s>lazy</s>-efficient. Instead of having to write out particularly long source names such as ''Halo 5: Guardians'' or ''Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn'', this system simply allows you to type in the acronym of the appropriate media and the automation handles the rest. For example, typing out <code>H5G</code> will automatically translate to the reference displaying ''[[Halo 5: Guardians]]''.
 
Pretty simple right? For a full list of all (and I do mean ''all'') supported acronyms, see [[Halopedia:Acronyms]]. It's a very comprehensive list.
 
===Reusing citations===
Often times, you'll want to use the same citation to reference multiple pieces of information because you're a civilised person and understand the benefit of calling the same variable several times. As touched on above, this is handled easily in the new templates system. As a recap, how you're used to reusing citations right now is by typing out something like <code><nowiki><ref name="HO15"></nowiki></code>.
 
In the new system, all reference templates have a field called <code>Id=</code>. This works exactly the same way as our <code>name=</code>, except you type the name ''without'' quotation marks. To go back to our ''Halo: Oblivion'' citation{{Ref/Reuse|HO15}}, what we've got here in our field is this field; <code>|Id=HO15</code>
 
If we want to call the ''Halo: Oblivion'' citation later, all we need to use is following; <code><nowiki>{{Ref/Reuse|HO15}}</nowiki></code>. I'm not sure if there's much that needs explaining here - you simply add the tag of the reference you wish to call in the field.
 
===Notes===
 
===Citation lists===
To add a list of sources, you're likely used to typing out <code><nowiki><references/></nowiki></code> at the bottom of articles. This one is a pretty simple chance, as where you would type <code><nowiki><references/></nowiki></code> you now simply use the <code><nowiki>{{Ref/Sources}}</nowiki></code> tag. This is done so that we can customise reference list stylings consistently, should we need to. Typing <code><nowiki>{{Ref/Sources}}</nowiki></code> still gives you the below list;
{{Ref/Sources}}

Latest revision as of 07:03, October 26, 2022

Deleted material, cut content or "the cutting room floor" refers to content created during the development of a game, film, book or other media and ultimately removed from the product before release. This can be done for a variety of reasons including simple issues such as time and technical limitations or more niche reasons such as needs for page formatting - in the case of a book. This page covers a standard of guidelines for writing articles about cut content on Halopedia.

Does it need a page?

When creating a cut content article, first ask if the content in question needs a new page? Can it be covered in sufficient detail on an existing page's production notes section? For example, the article Guardian Forest discusses a lot of in-depth development information on the cut level, while a detail such as the Armalite logo found on an early rendition of the M392 DMR found in Halo: Reach can be easily surmised in a sentence or two on the page's production notes section.

Cut content vs. concept art

A common misconception that often arises in fanbases is the nature of cut content vs. concept art. In media production, thousands of conceptual images are produced by dozens of concept artists over a multi-year period. At the beginning of a production, many of these concepts are simply sketches or quick paintings done to establish art direction, mood, tone, atmosphere and convey key aspects of the game's visuals. In this stage, illustrations may feature armour, weapons, vehicles and characters which do not appear in the final game - it is important to distinguish these elements from actual cut content. In these cases, these elements were likely never intended to make it into the final product, and wouldn't count as cut content due to having never been cut.

In general, a good way to distinguish cut content is to consider whether any 3D assets, physical props, animations or footage exists of the content in question - or if it has been discussed in any capacity via interviews.


Real persons notability

Based on discussions had in Discord last night

When creating articles on real-world people, a few considerations should be made. Due to the size and scale of the Halo franchise, many thousands of people have been involved in its development over the decades, and as such covering all of these people in detail is an unreasonable task - especially when considering the masses of outsourced work that goes to hundreds of freelance studios and workers across the world. As such, some notability guidelines to consider when making an article about a real person may include (though are not limited to) the following:

  • Tenure: whether the person in question has multiple credits to their name. A programmer who has only worked on one title may not be notable enough to warrant a full article, but one who has worked on multiple projects across the franchise may. This becomes especially applicable for writers and artists, whose work may also cross into Halo expanded media, such as books and comics.
  • Founder: staff members involved in the production of Halo: Combat Evolved or Halo 2 (or other media of the era, such as the original novels) are likely to be more notable on the basis that they were the ones that created the very principles that Halo (and by extension, much of modern FPS game design) is based on. These teams were also much smaller, and individual contributions much easier to note or track.
  • Seniority: those working in higher-up roles at their respective studios are more likely to warrant notable status than junior or contracted staff. Leads, seniors, directors and so forth ranging from disciplinary leads (IE Senior Programmers, Lead Artists, etc) through to creative/art directors, studio heads and the like are important to the franchise's overall direction and growth.
    • As a corollary to this point, Microsoft regularly relies on outsourced and contracted workers for much of its hiring policies. As such, someone who has only worked on Halo games for a limited period of time like this is less likely to be a notable figure for the series as a whole.
    • Contracted workers on expanded content, such as novel writers or comic artists, are more exempt from this consideration provided they are still noteworthy in other areas.
  • Public: some staff members on the Halo series are much more public-facing than others. This can apply to both senior staff who are more involved in interviews and press, or to community managers and writers. Team members who are generally well-known are more likely to gain notability here, though this attribute is difficult to quantify - and usually likely corresponds with the above characteristics too.
    • Also remember that Halo franchise developers are real people, and as such some people may prefer not to have a large spotlight placed on their lives, for plenty of valid reasons. As such, if there is little information about a given developer easily available - this may be for a reason. Halopedia will remove, rename, or replace articles and images about real people upon request.

When considering to make an article about a person, it may be worth keeping some of the above qualities in mind. Oftentimes, particularly in more recent games, a single person might only warrant one or two mentions across the whole wiki due to the sheer size and scope of modern games development. In the case of artists (in particular, concept artists), Halopedia does categorise artwork by their creator - as such it may instead be prudent to simply link to the artist's category instead. While certain artists such as Eddie Smith, Isaac Hannaford or Nicolas Bouvier have had huge sweeping contributions to the identity of Halo, some concept artists may only require a link to their personal categories. These category pages may be used to provide links to the artist's portfolio(s) of work or provide a brief summary of which projects they worked on.

When discussing contracted staff, rather than linking to a page on the staff member themselves, linking to the studio they worked under may instead be an option. Halo, as with all large game projects, makes extensive use of outsourced studios such as Certain Affinity or Liquid Development. In some select cases, linking to a given person's Wikipedia page (should they have one) may also be preferable.

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