Help:Best Practices: Showing Data
Welcome to the Help:Best Practices: Showing Data guide.
Summary
As talked about in the articles guide, showing data is one way to engage the reader for a longer period of time. So, let's talk about how to integrate this data to your wiki.
Helpful Links
- Tables: Help:Tables or https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables
- Tabbers: Help:Tabber or https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TabberNeue
- Extensions: DPL / Cargo / Scribunto / DataMaps
Data
Tables
Tables can be generated in either two ways, through the quick shortcut via the 'Insert' button or via Extensions. Tables are highly customizable from styling to making them sortable/non-sortable, they can provide a large amount of data at once.
If you want a table that can be refreshed and new content upon article creation then DPL would be the best solution to the problem. Having to manually update/add in content is very tedious, so why not save the trouble. The only flaw is DPL needs specific categories for it to function properly, this means having an organized category tree (as talked about in Categories). If the wiki is currently not organized then stick to tables for now.
Tabbers
While tabbers can get complex, tabbers are a great way to organize content in a way where content can be "too much" at times. Take the Truck Sim Wiki as an example. Tabbers are used in a way where the article doesn't have an infinite scroll bar but rather than tabs to keep content in specific areas. While the general view is named 'Cities' underneath it the reader can switch between Cities, Suburbs or Scenery Towns.
To go a step further, tabs can be nested within each other called Nested Tabbers. While it's easy to display data as seen in Helpful Links, it's not very easy to display images or audio. This type of data needs a specific amount of code in order for it to work properly. Let's head back to the Truck Sim Wiki. As seen here, this is complex nested tabber as stated previously, they don't work very well together with images/audio so you have to use HTML or {{!}} to separate the tabber information. Visit this template if you'd like a template for your own wiki.
Maps
Maps or DataMaps are interactive maps in which the reader can view data from an in-game map. Take ARK Wiki for example. They feature over 10 DataMaps and each one is specific for a DLC, Region or a standalone Mod. Maps can show where items spawn, bases and other information like where easter eggs can be found at.