Template talk:3.5e Class Semantic

Wait!

I'd really like people to talk with me before changing anything semantic. A lot of what was just put here is redundant or at the very least needs discussion first. Spellcasting progression and type is already handled through categories which are equivalent to semantic properties for searching purposes. Same goes for BAB and skill points. And I'm not sure what Class Type is really supposed to be. In addition, no properties should have "3.5e" in their name -- they shouldn't have any edition in their name. Surgo 17:46, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Also this template itself is going to be replaced by me shortly (when I'm done with class today) -- I have a better way of doing it. Surgo 17:52, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Surgo, I know you're busy and thought I had a better sense of where this was headed than I guess I did...

Ok, so here's why I did all this just now. Category navigation specifically does not track parent category. If I click on 3.5e and then on Classes, I get 4e classes in the mix. If I go into Base classes and then into Good BAB, I get prestige classes and paragon classes and NPC classes and anything else that is specifically in that category, regardless of parent. That struck me as the opposite of what you had wanted to do, since it simultaneously makes navigtion more and less focused in ways I find counter intuitive. If I get into spellcasting progression or type at all from any way, it's going to show me everything in the category, which is not the same as setting it as a property.

Properties on the other hand can be set as custom filters on the category you're looking at. If we have defined properties for classes (some of which are for some classes, and I have no idea how since short of defining them through a template I have no idea how they got that way) we can leverage the filtering aspect of the semantic extension to cut down to subcategories and just filter by property. So if I went into 3.5e classes (and short of an edition property, the classes category would need to die in a fire to keep things separate) and just wanted racial substitution classes with full spellcasting of the arcane type, I just filter type to racial sub, filter spellcasting progression to full, and spellcasting type to arcane. And I get just those things that I want. We can not do this with category navigation.

Anyway, I jumped the gun on it, and I'm sorry. Spent most of last night reading up on it after I did the author template, and spent the night dreaming about it, and wanted to get it out this morning while it was still in my head. I'll back off a bit and try to catch you for discussion on it before I do anything further. - TarkisFlux 18:06, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

You're right -- properties with filters are probably the way to go with what we have as categories right now. Let's catch each other tonight and discuss everything we want to implement as properties. Surgo 20:59, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to make the chat later then (say, 8ish EDT). - TarkisFlux 21:30, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't a property called '3.5e' (or maybe just 'edition' if one property can have '3.5e' and '4.0e' as choices) would be useful as a filter?

Those really do work fine as categories for drilldown purposes. Everything else is a subcategory of 3.5e and 4e anyway. Surgo 23:03, September 24, 2009 (UTC)