Forum:Merging item articles
We've traditionally dealt with multiple versions of an item by creating a separate article for each version of an item. This is illustrated on Tier 13: there are separate (raid finder), normal, (heroic) articles for everything involved, with navigation between the different versions handled by disambiguation links at the top, or See also sections at the bottom. This isn't particularly nice to read, nor particularly easy to edit -- adding something like a set screenshot would require you to modify three pages.
Now that we're no longer transcluding {{tooltip}} to include item information in other articles, we can actually locate multiple versions of the item on the same page. This is used on the Tier 14 articles such as White Tiger Plate and 
[White Tiger Handguards], which Gourra has created recently.
If you have Javascript enabled, you should see quest-like tabs next to the article title, allowing you to instantly switch between Raid Finder, Normal, and Heroic versions of the article, with the tooltip and other article content updating appropriately. Without javascript, you'll see the normal version of the article, with the Heroic and Raid Finder item tooltips in a separate "Other versions" section. While some amount of care must be taken while composing the article to ensure that the non-Javascript version makes sense, most of that work takes place in templates, so creating such item articles is relatively easy (especially if using the item creation gadget from the edit toolbar).
You can link to a particular version of the item by specifying the link anchor:
[[White Tiger Handguards]]→ [White Tiger Handguards][[White Tiger Handguards#Heroic]]→ [White Tiger Handguards][[White Tiger Handguards#Raid Finder]]→ [White Tiger Handguards]
This syntax works correctly with the AJAX tooltips, {{lootbox}}, {{costitem}}, and {{itembox}}. You can find a (fictional) example illustrating this in action on Multichromatic Test Item Vendor, with various versions of Multichromatic Test Item#Green, Multichromatic Test Item#Blue being involved.
Some details -- particularly the syntax of some supporting templates -- are still a work-in-progress. If you've got questions, suggestions, comments, or any other thoughts about this, please post below.
— foxlit (talk) 23:00, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
- Looks good and certainly will make things easier.
(Sssss/Slithered) 23:13, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
- Agreed. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 23:54, 6 August 2012 (UTC)