Help:Add new Honor Variant

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What are Honor Variants

Honors are not the same all over the world. One division may create an honor, and another may create a similar honor with different requirements. The General Conference may make a third honor by combining the honors from two different divisions, or may adopt a division's honor but edit the requirements. If the division wishes to keep their original honor as they had written it, this creates two versions of the same honor.

Furthermore, the answer keys for an honor may be different for different parts of the world. For instance, the Currency honor has questions about "your" country's money - this answer will obviously depend on which country you live in.

So, honors may have different requirements or different answer keys, and this wiki deals with that by creating honor variants - if the requirements have variants, then the answer keys will too, but it's possible that only the answer key will have a variant. Thus, we have two different types of honor variants. Answer Key Variants and Requirement Variants.

When to create an honor variant

Honor Variants are applicable for honors that have the same name and overall topic but different requirements or need country-specific answers. Also, honor variants are only allowed for the following institutions within the Seventh-day Adventist Church:

  • General Conference
  • Divisions
  • Unions

Before an institution of the Seventh-day Adventist Church adds a variant to an honor that fits these criteria, it is best to consider adopting one of the variants that are already there. It is also recommended that you open a discussion on the proposed differences on the honor's discussion page, which may lead to an official change of the existing requirements. The NAD's Honor Taskforce, which is running this wiki, is open to suggestions on how to improve the existing honors further. You can use this form to reach out to them. It leads you through a process that helps to specify why it is good to apply the changes suggested. If that isn't an option you may add an honor variant.

It can happen that an honor is named differently but has similar content than an existing honor or that is approved by a church institution below the Union level. For those cases we have implemented cross-honor-links. For example they are used for the ADRA-honors. If the honor isn't approved at the Union level or above, the crosslink may only point from the lower-level version to the higher-level version, and the category of that honor needs to be set to Regional.

How to add Honor Variants

The way of creating them is the same for both.

  1. Open the landing page of the honor where you want to add a variant.
  2. Go into the Edit view.
  3. Add the property with the information of the wanted variant and increment the count of the variants (more on this below).
  4. Save the changes. Now the added Variant should appear in the dropdown, over which it is possible to create the needed pages.

Requirement Variant specific information

Requirement Variants are used for honors that have different requirements in different levels of our organization. For example, the North American Division may introduced an honor, and later the General Conference adopts it, but changes some requirements. Sometimes the originating division may adopt the GC's changes, but sometimes they may choose not to. That is where Requirement Variants come into play. This wiki allows variants for the following authority Levels:

  • General Conference
  • Division Level
  • Union Level

With the Requirement Variant the wiki will generate a link in the Requirements Tab but NOT one for the Answer Key Tab.

Properties of the Requirement Variant

The landing page uses a template that has key/value pairs (each key is assigned a value). The keys listed below specify requirement variants:

  • cnt_requirements_variants: This is the total number of Requirement Variants for the honor.
  • requirement_n: This is the name of the Variant, it defines the text used in the tab to describe the variant. You can find the possible values at Localization:Authorities. The "n" suffix at the end of the requirement_n key needs to be a sequential number starting at 1.

Answer Key Variant specific information

Answer Key Variants are needed for two reasons. One is because the honor has Requirement Variants and the other is for honors that need Country/Region specific answers.

Properties of the Answer Key Variant

  • cnt_answerKey_variants: This is the total number of the Answer Key Variants for this honor.
  • answerKey_n: The value assigned to the answerKey_n field has multiple elements, and takes the form country1;country2;;number of the requirement variant associated/source language code only needed in special cases. The first element is a list of semicolon-separated countries using the variant. The next element is separated by two semicolons and specifies a number identifying which requirement variant is used for this answer key (for instance, answer variant 3 may use requirement variant 2). The final element of this value is optional and is separated by a /. It indicates the answer key's source language.
You can find the implemented Countries using the ID as property at Localization:Countries. Each country ID needs to be separated by a semicolon.
The number of the Requirement Variant needs to be separated by two semicolons
When material on the wiki is translated, it has a "source language". This is usually English, but answer keys can use a different source language (it doesn't make sense to require English as the source language for an answer key targeting a non-English-speaking country). The source language code is only needed if the source language of the answer key page isn't English.

Examples

These are some honors that have already different combinations of Variants so you can see on how it is done in practice.

Additional information

You are probably reading this because you did not find your country listed in the Answer Key dropdown menu. You can add your country by following these steps:

  1. Edit the https://wiki.pathfindersonline.org/index.php?title=AY_Honors/Postcards&action=edit page by clicking this link (it's best to open this in another tab so you can continue reading these instructions).
  2. Near the top of the page you should find the list of countries listed as answer_variants=.... Add your country here (please maintain alphabetic ordering). Make sure you do not put a space between the two semicolons (;;) and the country name.
  3. Save the page, and click the Answer Key dropdown. Your country should appear. Click it.
  4. This will take you to a non-existent page. Click the create page link.
  5. Enter the text below to add all the formatting and requirements:
  6. {{subst::AY Honors/Postcards (Template)/Answer Key}}
  7. Save the page.
  8. Open the page for editing again (see the pencil icon at the top right).
  9. Add your answers below each instance of the {{ansreq=...}} text between the <translate></li> and </translate> tags.
  10. If you need help drop a note in the discussion page. Someone should get back to you in about a day.