General Guide to making a guide

necroaqua

Grandfathered
Table of Contents
  • Intro
    • Intro
    • Table of contents (The Why)
    • Behind the editor: BBCode vs WYSIWYG
  • Technical
    • Double-posts
    • BBCode Tutorial
      • Basic formatting (Formatting, Strikethrough, Fonts, Size, Color)
      • Links
      • Spacing
      • Spoilers and Code (small note about quotes at the end)
      • Lists
    • Wowhead links
    • Table of Contents (The How)
  • Formatting
    • Color (The Why...but also The How too...)
    • Spoiler Tags to clean things up
    • Code tags to show macros
    • Strikethrough to indicate information that WAS true, but is not longer true
  • Behind the scenes
    • Updates
    • Backups
Intro
Hey all - I wanted to write up some notes and suggestions for making guides for xpoff. I’ll note that these are MY OPINION. They aren’t official, they aren’t rules - they are suggestions. This is also more focused on a lot of the more technical aspects of making a guide. I’m not your high school english teacher - you’re on your own to figure out grammar, how much humor to use, and whether to use the passive voice.

The point of a guide is to convey information. The hard part is conveying that information is a way that is easy for the reader to consume. I’ve got a couple of guidelines that I like to follow to make this happen.
  • Be like wikipedia. This will come up all over the guide, but the concept is pretty basic. Wikipedia focuses on the information. There are no popups, no crazy colors, no rambling tangents - its all about the information.
  • KISS - an acronym for “Keep It Stupid Simple” (or some variation of that). Keep things as simple and straightforward as you can. You can have the detailed and complicated information out there (especially in a different section) - but try to keep the simple version as the main focus.
So the rest of the guide will cover various topics that might be helpful in making a guide that is presentable and conveys information in a meaningful and understandable way.

Table of contents (The Why)
The organization of your guide is important. You should be able to look at the various sections of the guide and see a general flow. That should also make for a good table of contents. The table of contents is basically going to be your outline. I know you probably didn’t actually care about outlines in school - but even a simple table of contents is useful here.

For organization, I would generally have sections follow a rough format of:
  • Intro - introduce yourself (optional) and the purpose/contents of the guide. Good place for a list of updates and table of contents.
  • Pre-guide information - Information that is useful/important reading before the bulk of the main guide. Really important things that everyone should see go here.
  • Main guide - the bulk of the information. Can be split into many parts depending on what the guide covers.
  • References, Long explanations, other supporting info - Some of us like to ramble or have in-depth explanations. This is useful and should be part of the guide - but put it at the end, where it can be found by those who are interested. This is also where very useful reference pages can go (lists of enchants/quests/etc that aren’t the main point of the guide)
Your guide, depending on the content - may not have some or all of those. A class guide will start with the intro, have pre-guide info with things like races and that you should level to 19 before turning in quests, then the main guide will cover gear and gameplay, finally followed by maybe a list of quests that are good upgrades, or some macros that are useful. In general, make a list of the sections and see if has a flow.

A table of contents is a good idea for two main reasons. First, is that it gives an overview of the guide and will hopefully show the reader where the information is. Second, is that a guide might be spread out over multiple posts - so it can provide links to the posts.

That enough on Table of Contents for the why. We’ll get to the HOW in a later section.

Behind the editor: BBCode vs WYSIWYG
Presumably most of you edit with the What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) style editor. It looks closer to what you might see in Word or Google Docs with familiar buttons and dropdowns for common actions like bold, italics, underline, font, size, color, lists, etc. This is generally really helpful and really great - and I use it 90% of the time. But it isn’t perfect. And some things can be easy to mess up. You ever see a wowhead item link followed by the next word without a space? The author probably had a space there, but the space was actually part of the link. Its hard to tell that it is - because you can’t turn the space a different color like you can with most text.

So for some formatting, we need to go under the hood. There are several different “markup” languages. Reddit and wikipedia and github use something called markdown. Your internet browser uses Hypertext Markup Language - otherwise known as HTML. The XPOff forums use something called Bulletin Board Code (BBCode). Basically, we can add formatting tags in BBCode formatting - and then it gets “rendered” into the actual formats that we see on the forum. The WYSIWYG editor does the same thing, but in real time. The edits you make are still kept track of as BBCode behind the scenes. This means we can switch between the WYSIWYG Editor and the BBCode editor at any time, and we’ll see different formats. It also means that you can drop BBCode into the WYSIWYG Editor, and it will render properly. See the screenshot below for the button to switch to the BBCode Editor. To switch back, there is a link below the text box that says "Use Rich Text Editor" - which will bring you back to the normal editor.

8iJWDaE.png


So if your formatting looks weird - we’re going to go to the BBCode Editor. Thats where you can see what the backend looks like and figure out if you skipped a tag or if that space is actually included in the link. Don’t be scared. Even though it looks pretty scary with brackets everywhere, its usually pretty easy to pick up the basics. See the BBCode Tutorial below for more details.

Technical Stuff
Double-posts

XPOff has a "feature" that merges posts if the same person posts multiple times in a row. While great for general forum use, it isn't so great for guides.

The exception to this is that the Original Post and the Second Post will not be merged. So we get two distinct posts for our guides. Otherwise, we might be able to work with someone to post in between each post - but its difficult to do since guides aren't made public until they approved.

So plan on two initial posts. I generally do the Intro post with the update list, table of contents, and important information first. Then the second post with the bulk of the guide. If you want to add any distinct posts later, simply post them and link to them from the table of contents.

And if you only need one post, I'd still recommend posting once with a "RESERVED" comment, just in case you need it later on down the road.

BBCode Tutorial
BBCode works by looking for tags. Each tag is in square brackets, and certain tags will do different things. I'm covering a bunch of common tags. For more advanced stuff, the xpoff BBCode guide is here and a generic reference guide can be found here: https://www.bbcode.org/reference.php

Basic formatting (Formatting, Strikethrough, Fonts, Size, Color)
The basics are pretty straightforward. Place things between tags, and they'll be formatted. The following bbcode...
Code:
[B]Bold[/B]
[I]Italics[/I]
[U]Underline[/U]
[S]Strikethrough[/S]

gives you the following output:

Bold
Italics
Underline
Strikethrough

Font/Size/Color is a little more interesting.

Code:
[FONT=Times New Roman]Font[/FONT]
[SIZE=5]Size[/SIZE]
[COLOR=#00ffff]Color[/COLOR]

gives you...

Font
Size
Color

Links
Simply pasting a link will make it clickable, but you can also use URL tags to make text link to something.

Code:
https://xpoff.com/
[URL="https://xpoff.com/"]XPOff Home Page[/URL]


gives you...

https://xpoff.com/
XPOff Home Page

Spoilers, Code, and Quotes

Spoiler tags are useful for hiding things. You can also change the text from spoiler to something else.

Code:
[Spoiler]Default spoiler[/Spoiler]
[Spoiler="Custom"]Super awesome custom spoiler[/Spoiler]

gives you...

Default spoiler
Super awesome custom spoiler

Lists
Lists have several options and can get a bit complicated. The basic idea is that you can use LIST tags, and then each item needs to be wrapped in LI tags, or use the shorthand bullet point tag.

Code:
List of THINGS
[LIST]
[*]First item (note that no closing tag is needed)
[*]Second item
[*]Third Item - this one has sub items
[LIST]
[*]Sub-item one
[*]Sub-item two - dont forget to close the sub-list!
[/LIST]
[*]Fourth Item
[/LIST]

gives you...

List of THINGS
  • First item (note that no closing tag is needed)
  • Second item
  • Third Item - this one has sub items
    • Sub-item one
    • Sub-item two - dont forget to close the sub-list!
  • Fourth Item

Wowhead links
I don’t know the details behind how it works, but there is a bit of fancy javascript that takes any wowhead link and renders it with the item color and mouseover information.

This happens on page load, so you’ll notice that if you edit a comment - it will lose the formatting and just be regular links. Just refresh the page and it’ll reload the wowhead stuff.

These wowhead links are great. They convey a LOT of information and you only need a wowhead link. You can drop the link in there as is, or actually do the formatting behind the link. The two following code examples will look the same after the wowhead javascript runs. But they look very different without the fancy javascript. Ideally, you should do the second option - as it will work better for the few people that have javascript disabled - but honestly, thats very few people and not worth fretting over.

Code:
https://www.wowhead.com/item=1482/shadowfang
[URL="https://www.wowhead.com/item=1482/shadowfang"]Shadowfang (ilvl 25)[/URL]

will both render as...

https://www.wowhead.com/item=1482/shadowfang

however if the javascript doesn't work, the second option will look like...

Shadowfang (ilvl 25)

Again, its up to you whether or not its worth making it look pretty since 99% of the time you'll see the wowhead stuff.

The only issue with this is trying to link to a specific wowhead comment. For example, if I find a good wowhead comment and want to link to it, it will instead render the page instead. You'll want to either use a link shortener or possibly copy the information from wowhead and put it in your guide.

Example link to wowhead comment: https://www.wowhead.com/item=10400/blackened-defias-leggings#comments:id=2369889

Table of Contents (The How)

Your table of contents should be a list of the sections in your guide. Perhaps an item for each post in your guide, with sublists representing the sections within each post. That way, you can link to the location of each post. This makes it easy to link to posts later on that might not be on the first page of your guide thread.

Each Table of Contents is going to be different. Adjust it to the structure and setup of your guide.

Formatting
Color (The Why)
Color is a very important thing. It conveys information. Going back to our “Be like wikipedia” point, we want a simple color scheme. Don’t make all of your text purple - that doesn’t really work with the site colors and makes it hard to read. Don’t randomly [COLOR]color[/COLOR] words for emphasis. Thats what Bold, Italics, and Underlines are for.

Using a different color should mean something. Generally, green is for good things. Red is for bad things. If you have a to-do list, Green might be done, Red might be not done (and yellow could be partially done). We don’t have to explicitly explain what the colors mean, because we’ve used colors that people already have associated with meanings. This works with the colors of a stoplight, and its very easy for the meaning of the colors to come across. If you wanted to use BLUE and PURPLE and ORANGE for your to-do list, you would have to make a key that says what the colors are, and then the reader has to refer back to the key while reading. We want to avoid that.

So when should we use colors?

We should use colors where it easily conveys some information. In our to-do list, green easily shows that something is done. Red shows that something is not done. If we want to specify that something is Horde-only, then we can color the word Horde in red to help convey the information.

Another easy place to use colors is to represent CLASSES and ITEM RARITY. Wow has trained your brain to know that yellow is the text used for a rogue. Red is a death knight. Blue is a shaman. Pink a paladin. You know that oranges > purple > blue > green > white > gray because its been ingrained into you for years. We probably use blue to describe a drop more often than we actually use “rare”. So when you make a list of various classes and how to counter them - use the correct color. Its even easier to find how to counter a rogue when your brain sees the yellow that it knows means rogue. You can even use it to imply information without saying it. My signature uses the class colors. You know my character Skullshadow is a rogue because it is in yellow - even though it doesn’t actually say rogue in my signature.

Even better - we know the EXACT colors for these things. Each color can be represented by a HEX value. This is typically a 6 character string that has how much Red, Green, and Blue make up the color. There is sometimes a 4th pair of characters for Alpha - but we won’t use it in BBCode. Here are the codes for each class and item rarity taken from the wow wiki [1][2], followed by what the code actually looks like after its been rendered.

Code:
[COLOR="#C41F3B"]Death Knight[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#A330C9"]Demon Hunter[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#FF7D0A"]Druid[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#ABD473"]Hunter[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#69CCF0"]Mage[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#00FF96"]Monk[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#F58CBA"]Paladin[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#FFFFFF"]Priest[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#FFF569"]Rogue[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#0070DE"]Shaman[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#9482C9"]Warlock[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#C79C6E"]Warrior[/COLOR]

[COLOR="#9d9d9d"]Poor[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#ffffff"]Common[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#1eff00"]Uncommon[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#0070dd"]Rare[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#a335ee"]Epic[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#ff8000"]Legendary[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#e6cc80"]Artifact/Heirloom[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#00ccff"]WoW Token[/COLOR]

gives you...

Death Knight
Demon Hunter
Druid
Hunter
Mage
Monk
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior

Poor
Common
Uncommon
Rare
Epic
Legendary
Artifact/Heirloom
WoW Token


Color references: Class, items (first hex is alpha, so use last 6 digits here), and resource-colors.

Spoiler Tags
Spoiler tags are rarely actually used for actual spoilers on xpoff. They are more often used to hide things. If you have a lot of information, you can stick it in spoiler tags and its hidden. Its like stuffing all your stuff in the closet instead of cleaning your room. You can still go into the closet to find that piece of information, but everything looks nicer.

For us, we want to use spoilers hide details. Especially when a reader is likely looking for one specific piece of information. The quick start guide hides each spec in a spoiler tag because usually people are only looking for information at one class. They don’t want to scroll through pages of information that isn’t relevant to them (or if they do, they can open all the spoiler tags). Spoiler tags clean things up very nicely. You could also use them for each section - but remember that each spoiler tag has less width than the usual post. If you next spoiler tags within spoiler tags, the inner ones will get to be a pain to read.

You can set the spoiler tags to display a certain bit of text. This text does not get any formatting, so I would suggest keeping it rather generic. “More Info”. “Item Details”. “Gear”. If you put “Druid” in the spoiler tag - its hard to really see it, as usually people only really see the tag itself and not the text. So put the title of the tag outside of it (using the appropriate color/size/etc), and then have the spoiler tag text be pretty generic.

Code:
[Spoiler='Druid Stuff']List of druid-only stuff[/Spoiler]
[Spoiler='Rogue Stuff']List of rogue-only stuff[/Spoiler]

Code
Formatting tags between Code tags will NOT be rendered. It will also use a fixed width font. This is great for guides where you want to show BBCode examples or other programming code, but are also for showing macros. Some macros might have brackets in them, so putting macros in code tags will prevent any formatting mishaps, as well as looking much more hackerish with that fixed width font. Code tags are also good for anything that needs to be copied/pasted, as it clearly defines where the reader should start and stop the copy.

Here's a macro to use your first trinket, regardless of what you have equipped. The example has the slash the wrong way to make the example work.

Code:
[CODE]#showtooltip 13
/use 13[\CODE]

Code:
#showtooltip 13
/use 13

Strikethrough
Strikethrough is an interesting feature that doesn’t get much use. Strikethrough is best used when you want to remove/replace old information, but you still want the original information to be present (but clearly no longer valid). Some example uses:
  • To-do lists. It can be useful to maintain a to-do list. It indicates what you are planning to do in the future, but also what you have already completed. You can strikethrough a task to mark it as complete.
  • Drawing attention to information that has changed. For example, before patch 8.1.5, the “Stats” enchant to bracers showed +1 on the tooltip, but actually gave +2 stats. Patch 8.1.5 fixed this. Instead of simply removing the note about it giving +2 stats (which might go unnoticed) - we can instead strikethrough the old information (and possibly add that it was removed in 8.1.5).
  • Carefully choosing a different word in a sentence. Since we often write how we speak, we can have a sentence where we “say” a word or part of a word, scratch it out, and then replace it with a different word. We want the reader to know what we were going to say, and that we actively chose to say something else. Here is an example: I made a twink to farm levelers play competitive wargames.
Outside of those cases or something similar, I would suggest thinking rather hard about using strikethrough. Often, using different formatting or even simply just removing the old information may be the right answer.

Code:
I made a twink to [S]farm levelers[/S] play competitive wargames.

Updates

Its a good idea to post updates on the state of your guide. This lets readers know when the guide was last updated, and if it still applies to the current patch. A simple list at the top of your guide, with dates and a small note about what was updated is a perfect. A reader wants to show up and know whether or not this guide has been updated for patch 8.1.5. Likewise, if your guide is out of date, you may want to place a blurb near the top of the guide letting people know.

This is less important for guides that won't change from patch to patch (like this one!).

Backups
It is always a good to make backups. You never know what might happen. XPOff suffered a hostile takeover a while ago, and ended up restoring to an old backup of the site and old version of my guide. Since my guide was backed up, I was able to bring it back up to speed. I’d highly recommend backing up - and I have 3 strategies for you to do so.

1. Copy and Paste everything into a Google Doc or Office365 or w/e

This option is really quick and really easy. Copy all the things and paste it into google drive. Its better than nothing and again, really easy. A lot of the formatting won’t keep and it’ll be a pain if you need to use it - but better than nothing. It will also be on the web so you still have it if your computer fails. Every so often, make sure to update your backups.

2. Dump the BBCode into a .txt file and store into dropbox/drive/etc

This is a much better option and honestly isn’t that much harder to do. Directly copying the BBCode will keep ALL of the information and formatting. If you have easy access to a code editor like notepad++ or texedit (mac) or gedit (linux) - that will best keep the spacing when saving the file. Sometimes notepad will do weird things with line breaks - but it shouldn’t be a huge problem.

Copy over every post into .txt files. You can use one giant one, or one per post for easier restoration. Throw that into your favorite cloud storage and you’ve got a back up that will restore perfectly. Every so often, make sure to update your backups.

3. Commit the BBCode to github/gitlab/bitbucket

This one is a bit scarier. Git is a piece of software designed to keep track of changes for code repositories. Github, Gitlab, and Bitbucket are websites that let you host some of your git repos for free. I’m not going to try to teach you git in this guide - but know that it is an option and there is lots of info out there. The basic idea is that you’ll make .txt files like option 2 - but when you make updates, you’ll do it through the git process, which will keep track of WHAT you changed. This makes it possible to go back and undo specific changes if need be. This is known as version control and is the main reason to use option 3. Honestly, this is a bit overkill and a ton of work unless you know git already. This is what I use, but its because I’m a nerd and I use git for work.



Thats all I got for now. Hope you learned something. Feel free to ask any questions or leave any comments.

I might do a small section with templates for a basic signature or perhaps an outline for a class guide.
 
Last edited:
Wow... an impressive amount of effort, expertise, and insight on display here.

Respect.

You mentioned "reserving" the second post... is there a known limit to how long a post can be, or are you simply recommending the "split" for functional/aesthetic purposes if the original grows "unwieldy"?
 
Wow... an impressive amount of effort, expertise, and insight on display here.

Respect.

You mentioned "reserving" the second post... is there a known limit to how long a post can be, or are you simply recommending the "split" for functional/aesthetic purposes if the original grows "unwieldy"?

Thanks =)

There used to be a post length limit, though that was before double posts were implemented. I haven't run into a max limit since...so not sure. But you hit it right on the head with the post being unwieldy. Sometimes theres a natural split - and its often convenient to link directly to the "meat" of a guide. Reserving the second post also just gives you options for any future additions - even if you don't have plans for it yet.
 
Another excellent guide. Really good stuff for people new to the site! This is great stuff you can use in regular posts / signatures too, so keep that in mind when reading this guide.
 
I was reading some recently-posted guides today... and it occurred to me that because exhaustive "lists" have such a prominent role around here, that your "Guide for guides" could benefit from two specific additions: ;)
Table of Contents
  • Technical
    • BBCode Tutorial
      • Simple Tables (for Aligning Columns)
    • Wowhead links
      • Basic URL Modification (for Tooltip Customization)

BBCode Tutorial: Simple Tables

Like other BBCode usage, trying to micromanage "table" details can quickly become convoluted... but I'd argue that their simplest (and most-useful) application is for "aligning similar items" in comparative lists. Even the most basic "2-cell table" can considerably improve the readability of such content.

As examples, I'll use small pieces of two excellent guides that I've seen here recently...


...in the above list we have each "line" consisting of a quest, followed by a (potentially long) list of rewards. Readers are most-likely comparing the numerous rewards while deciding which to pursue, so "lining everything up" can be quite helpful in that regard.

A simple "2-cell table" would take the form of:

[TABLE][TR][TD]Everything-in-1st-column[/TD][TD]Everything-in-2nd-column[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]​

...and could give us a result like this:


The obvious trade-off for this improved readability is the increased vertical-space it occupies... so frequent use of collapsed [SPOILER] fields should be considered for "longer" guides.

1H:
Discontinuer's Hammer (E) (25 int, 6 stam, 4 vers) [Quest (H) - Hillsbrad Foothills]
Stout Fist (E) (25 int, 6 stam, 4 haste) [Quest (A) - Wetlands]
Recruit's Hammer (R) (21 int, 6 stam, + aurora) [Battleground Crate]
Thruk's Fillet Knife (21 int, 6 stam, 1 vers, 4 haste) [Thruk - Blackfathom Deeps]
Recruit's Hammer (U) (18 int, 5 stam, + aurora) [Battleground Crate]

...in this list we have each "line" consisting of an "Item-Stats-Source" layout. Again, if readers are intended to quickly compare the different items "at a glance", then better alignment can make that easier.

A simple "3-cell table" would take the form of:

[TABLE][TR][TD]1st-column[/TD][TD]2nd-column[/TD][TD]3rd-column[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]​

...and could give us a result like this:

1H:
Discontinuer's Hammer (E)
Stout Fist (E)
Recruit's Hammer (R)
Thruk's Fillet Knife
Recruit's Hammer (U)
25 int, 6 stam, 4 vers
25 int, 6 stam, 4 haste
21 int, 6 stam, + aurora
21 int, 6 stam, 1 vers, 4 haste
18 int, 5 stam, + aurora
Quest (H) - Hillsbrad Foothills
Quest (A) - Wetlands
Battleground Crate
Thruk - Blackfathom Deeps
Battleground Crate

...and just for reference, here's how this looks when actually entering it into the XP-Off text-editor:

table-code.png

Now, I'm not suggesting that anyone should go back and try to "reforge" an already-finished guide (because there isn't a particularly convenient way to copy a "portion" of every existing line and paste it all as a single "column")... but if people would "draft" their next list in an application that uses columns/tables/cells, then it really is as simple as copying/pasting each finished "column" into the BBCode! :D

(You can also make even nicer tables by using more cells for grouping items, shaded rows, header cells, etc... but at that point you should probably be using some kind of "specialized" editor!)



Wowhead links: Basic URL Modification

A forum-author might want to customize the URLs of their Wowhead links for any number of reasons, the most practical of which is to allow item tooltips to display the appropriate "version" of an item.

For example, let's mouse-over the items from the aforementioned "F2P Rsham Guide" excerpt...

Discontinuer's Hammer (E)
Stout Fist (E)
Recruit's Hammer (R)
Thruk's Fillet Knife
Recruit's Hammer (U)

...hopefully you noticed that despite the guide being intended for F2P, none of the tooltips are displaying the actual items that a level-20 player would receive!

The reason is that the "plain" Wowhead links are for the "default" version of each item: no scaling, no upgrades. Now, let's see how they should look (to their intended audience)...

Discontinuer's Hammer (E)
Stout Fist (E)
Recruit's Hammer (R)
Thruk's Fillet Knife
Recruit's Hammer (U)

There are several modifications happening here, so let's break them down:

Scaling

Not every item is scaled... so check the "default" link on Wowhead first, and see if it's already correct. If not, then mouse-over "Select version" and click "Scales with level":

scaling.png


As soon as you've done that, the URL in your web-browser will change (to one with &bonus=#### in it)... and you can copy/paste it as the "scaled" link.

(...but scaled to what?)​

Player Level

Once you have the URL for the "scaled" version, you then specify the player's level by adding &lvl=20 to the end of it (or a different number for a different level, obviously). This is now enough to complete Thruk's Fillet Knife and Recruit's Hammer (U), above.​

Rare/Epic Upgrades

Once you've added the player's level, you now have to account for "upgraded" item-levels. For a Rare Upgrade you also add &ilvl=26 to the URL (player level + 6), or for an Epic Upgrade you add &ilvl=32 (player level + 12) instead.​

...and that's all it takes! Wowhead tooltips can get even more elaborate (e.g., Felstalker Bracers), but this should be enough for most guides. Now, get out there and make some beautiful item lists! ;)

(Closing Note: While I already had great respect for the amount of work that so many others have put into the guides on this site... I have now learned first-hand how goddamn long it takes to type these things up! Holy-fuckballs! Give them all more "likes", people!) :eek:
 
I was reading some recently-posted guides today... and it occurred to me that because exhaustive "lists" have such a prominent role around here, that your "Guide for guides" could benefit from two specific additions: ;)


BBCode Tutorial: Simple Tables

Tables is a great suggestion. I've simply never used tables with bbcode - but there are definitely times where it makes sense to do so. I can already see the list of enchants in the 19 quick start guide being a table.

And you've already done a great writeup with examples - so I may just add a section to links to your post =P

Wowhead links: Basic URL Modification

This is something that I just discovered recently and is on my todo list for the 19 quick start guide. Theres a whole bunch of cool things like even specifying which parts of a set bonus you have.

I'm also currently working on a small python script that will take a yaml file of pre-generated links and then replace {brackets} with the appropriate links/bbcode. So I can write the guide and say something like {the_pacifier} and then run my script. The script would search the yaml for `the_pacifier` and find the wowhead link with the epic ilvl (and maybe the purple (E)), and then replace the brackets with that. It'll be great given how often I link a given item - I can just have the link defined once and use the brackets every time I need to set it. Its a pain to set up, but the thought of updating every single wowhead link to show the various ilvls (scaling) and player levels (heirlooms) is even more of a pain...
 
Wow... an impressive amount of effort, expertise, and insight on display here.

Respect.

You mentioned "reserving" the second post... is there a known limit to how long a post can be, or are you simply recommending the "split" for functional/aesthetic purposes if the original grows "unwieldy"?

Yep, am placing my 2 hands next to yours, totally agreed ;) There too many crap guides around! Go awayyy crap guides!
 

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