Life in a Wormhole: Administrivia and Bookmarks #eveonline

First, a note.

I get asked the same basic questions often enough, and find that they are answered by previous posts often enough, that I have compiled a list of those guide-like posts onto a single page that I can now direct people to when necessary.

Now then…

A few days ago, I mentioned that the naming convention for the bookmarks shared at a corporate level in the C6 system was a bit… arcane.

That’s actually being a bit kind. I don’t want to say there is no system at all — there is — but I think it’s fair to say that it’s sloppy and hard to navigate. When I’m in a hurry (say, trying to warp away from pursuers), the last thing I want to deal with is opening a list of possible warp-to points and say “Okay, now… which one of these goes where I want it to go?

Now, everyone’s going to have a system that works for them, and in your own private folders, that’s fine, but when you’re sharing bookmarks with others (as the corporate bookmarks folder automatically does), it’s important that the file name (because that’s essentially what it is) conveys a lot of at-a-glance information.

In descending order of importance, here’s the information I think a bookmark for a wormhole needs to convey:

1. What kind of bookmark it is. (Note, this is true for all bookmarks, while everything after this is basically wormhole specific.)
2. Where the wormhole originates.
3. Where the wormhole’s going.
4. Where it opened from. (Did you open it outward, or did someone else open it in to you.)
5. When it was opened.
6. What’s on the other side that’s important.

So let me give you some examples of what that looks like. For this example, let’s assume we live in a class two wormhole, and that we’ve agreed that our wormhole is always going to be referred to as “C2”. (There are many C2s, but this one is ours.)

In addition, any other wormhole will be referred to by its type, plus a sequential letter, so the c4 we connect to will be referred to as “c4a”. If we happen to explore our way into a second c4 on the same day, that would be referred to as “C4b”, and so on.

So here’s a bookmark name:

WH C2 -> HS (MAY15 0310e) Amarr -5

What does that tell us?

1. This is a Wormhole (WH) bookmark, not a LADAR, RADAR, MAG, GRAV, or any other kind of bookmark.
2. It originates in the C2.
3. It is an outbound wormhole. (The -> is pointed away from the c2.)
4. It connects to High-sec. (HS)
5. It was opened on MAY15, at 0310 hours, evetime. (O310e) From that, we know the hole will die of old age somewhere around 0300 evetime, MAY16.
6. The closest market system is Amarr, which is five jumps away. (Amarr -5)

The bookmark for the highsec side of the wormhole would look like this:

WH HS <- C2 (OPTIONAL: System Name.)

That’s quite a bit simpler. Here’s another one:

WH C2 -> C4a (MAY15 0340e) AAA:p5m10

This (obviously fictional) wormhole was opened at 0340 evetime from our C2, into a C4 occupied by “Triple A”, also known as Against All Authorities; their tower is at Planet 5, Moon 10.

Here’s a slightly more worrisome one:

WH C2 <- K162(C6) (???) StarBridge

In this example, we have an inbound wormhole that was opened into our hole from a class six wormhole. We don’t know when it was opened, so we don’t know when it will die. What we do know is that the C6 is held by a corporate member of Star Bridge, a Russian wormhole alliance that can sometimes be a problem for US wormholers.

More extensive notes (who’s been seen using a hole, what kind of ships, et cetera) can be sent out via evemail, posted to the MOTD, or shared via secure mapping tools like Siggy or and API-authenticated version of Wormnav.

Obviously, everyone’s going to have different formats they use to convey this information, but I don’t think anyone will argue that this is all information that’s important to have, and that it should be shared in this or some similar uniform way — the only other rule I’d add to the general guide to naming conventions is “keep it short”, because the file name will truncate in most drop-down lists. If you don’t have a naming method yet (or if it’s terrible) please accept my invitation to start with this method as a jumping off point for a system of your own.