As per a buried issue in the discussion about area page format:
I'd like to free up the word "area" for general use. Also, it's already heavily used as an image tag template and in a file naming system.
I am thinking we make a category for "Geographical Phenomenon" (or a better term we come up with) instead of Category:Areas for level sets such as "Wolver Den," "Lichenous Lair," and so on. Yes, Category:Levels will absolutely stay as it is, as long as we maintain the category parameters.
"TERM WE COME UP WITH" would be isolated to appropriate "worlds," (a category previously created by an admin, then deleted by a different admin) and areas which we don't really know are "worlds" or "dimensions" etc.
The term we end up with should encompass the idea that Cradle is a mashup of different worlds as well as areas (some places are not worlds, such as many Gremlin areas that are part of the Clockworks machine), and elevators+gates allow us to visit tiny parts of these worlds/chunksofworlds/machinery as they move within Cradle. We'd end up with three major geography-related categories (there are other categories besides these three, of course): Areas, "TERM WE CHOOSE", and Levels, that are nested under generalized Category:Geography. "Areas" would include places we may or may not have more or less access to such as Almire, Underworld, Amu-Sol, and so on.
We seem to have succeeded in keeping missions vs. geography clear and organized, something a few of us have been working very hard on with the Mission project with careful wording - see the notes section of the Mission: Shadow of the Beast. These are fused seamlessly together by the "geography subpage" system.
For anyone curious, staff says this issue is up to us.
EDIT: removed stray thought.
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Settled on:
Region
I think that I understand and agree with the goal.
In situations like this, where I'm trying to name a concept, my tactic is to start explaining the concept out loud to an imaginary friend (or rather a friend who isn't there). This tactic seems to produce useful names that aren't overly fancy or artificial.
In this case, my explanation-out-loud keeps using various forms of the term "level type" or "level style". I'm not wedded to either of these terms. But you might try the tactic yourself. Cheers.