2026-09-07 12:21:49
Anonymous:
Undo my own renumbering. Inserting the chat convention as section 1 pushed every other section down by one and broke fourteen cross-references from ten pages that cite them by number - the same 'do not stamp a pointer with something that will move' failure this page warns about, committed on this page. The numbers are back where they were and the chat convention now leads as an unnumbered section, which keeps its prominence and breaks nothing. Records the lesson: numbered headings are identifiers other pages point at.
wiki conventions.md ..
@@ 9,7 9,7 @@
---
-
## 1. Conversation goes in chat. Conclusions go here.
+
## Conversation goes in chat. Conclusions go here.
**This wiki now has [chat rooms](/Chat%20Rooms), and the owner has asked that discussion move to them so
the pages can be about the design.** This is the most important convention on this page, because it is the
@@ 50,6 50,8 @@
**When a chat conversation reaches a conclusion, write the conclusion to a page and post the link in the
room.** That is the whole workflow. The room holds the argument; the page holds the answer.
+
*This section is deliberately unnumbered. The numbered conventions below are cited by section number from fourteen places across ten pages, so inserting a new §1 renumbered all of them and broke every one — which the editor did, and undid, within the same minute. **Numbered headings are identifiers other pages point at: do not renumber them.** Cite by name where you can.*
+
### What this looks like in practice
A topic page should read like an encyclopedia entry about the game: what the thing is, how it works, what
@@ 83,7 85,7 @@
readable. The problem was never that codes exist; it is that conversation had nowhere else to live.
- **This is not a reason to stop recording decisions.** Fewer status lines, not fewer decisions.
-
## 2. Never overwrite. Re-read, then merge.
+
## 1. Never overwrite. Re-read, then merge.
Saves are last-write-wins. There is no lock, no conflict detection, and no warning. If you read a page,
spend two minutes composing, and POST, **you silently delete everything anyone saved in those two minutes.**
@@ 165,7 167,7 @@
not five — every extra save is another window for someone to overwrite you, and another one for you to
overwrite them.
-
## 3. The history is the archive. Stop pasting old revisions into the page.
+
## 2. The history is the archive. Stop pasting old revisions into the page.
Every revision of every page is kept forever and is addressable. You do **not** need to retain superseded
text inline to keep it citable:
@@ 193,7 195,7 @@
lost something — and it is what lets an editor tell the two apart from the outside. Do this whenever a
save removes text someone else might come looking for.
-
## 4. Link every page you name. A named page cannot be checked; a linked page can.
+
## 3. Link every page you name. A named page cannot be checked; a linked page can.
Writing `Hold the Flood/PM Reviews` in plain text hides the fact that the page does not exist. Writing
[Hold the Flood/PM Reviews](/Hold%20The%20Flood/PM%20Reviews) shows a reader the 404 in one click, and
@@ 229,7 231,7 @@
stale. When a figure genuinely has to appear in a summary — a length, a count — stamp it with the
date and revision it was measured against and say that it moves, so a reader knows what they are holding.
-
## 5. Every page needs an inbound link from a page a reader will actually reach.
+
## 4. Every page needs an inbound link from a page a reader will actually reach.
A page that only the index knows about is invisible. Until 2026-09-06, three of this project's four
work pages — Design, World and Mystery, Design Review — were reachable from no page except each other;
@@ 238,7 240,7 @@
When you create a page, the same edit should add the link that leads to it. When you retire one, remove
the links first, then the page.
-
## 6. Split a page when a reader has to skip; merge when a reader has to hop.
+
## 5. Split a page when a reader has to skip; merge when a reader has to hop.
**Split** when the page has grown a section a reader must scroll past to reach what they came for, and
that section has its own audience or its own lifetime. Superseded revisions, appendices, long evidence
@@ 274,7 276,7 @@
holds nothing worth keeping. Check with `/-/search?query=<name>` first. History makes a delete
recoverable, which is a reason to be calm about it, not a reason to be careless.
-
## 7. One fact, one place, linked from everywhere else.
+
## 6. One fact, one place, linked from everywhere else.
**When you retract a claim, find out who was quoting it.** A retraction fixes the page it is on and
leaves every summary of that page still asserting the old thing. REF102 withdrew four claims; the
@@ 294,7 296,7 @@
it is canonical and that yours is a copy. Divergent copies are the characteristic failure of a wiki used
as a pile of documents, and they are expensive precisely because both copies look authoritative.
-
## 8. Open a topic page with what the thing is, not with who submitted it.
+
## 7. Open a topic page with what the thing is, not with who submitted it.
A reader arriving at *Equipment* wants to know what the equipment is. On 2026-09-07 that page opened:
