Talk:Nightbeat

I can't say I agree with the "link to most popular character" thing. For consistency's sake, I feel that if there IS a disambig page, then the non-parenthetical redirect should go to that. One could make a fairly compelling argument that, say, the movie and Animated Bumblebees are more popular than G1 Bumblebee, though you'd get just as many arguemtns against mostly from G1 fans. I'd rather not have to deal with that kind of "notability" crap and just go with a blanket disambig redirect. --M Sipher 23:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to agree. I generally prefer G1 over the other stuff, but really, what makes G1 Optimus more notable than RiD Optimus or UT Optimus? Who is the best of the Megatrons? What about all the Grimlocks? Surely, G1 Grimlock is more notable. Yet we should redirect to the disambiguation for fairness sake. Admittedly, some, like Jazz and Ark, just link to too many pages, so we should probably have a bot fix those (or a really dedicated user). Overall, I think that Disambiguations should take priority. If there's just two, leave it at the first article written. Otherwise, I say disambig. -- SFH 23:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say Bumblebee should redirect to Bumblebee (disambiguation) for the reasons M Sipher suggests. There's a lot of popular Bumblebees. But there's no other Nightbeat that comes close to the prominence of the original. This adheres to current policy. --ItsWalky 23:49, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this should direct to G1 Nightbeat, but I understand the conflict. Declaring one part of fiction 'more important' is the first step towards declaring that some things are 'non-canon' and refusing to document them, or actively suppressing their existence.

In this case the decision is easy though-- None of the other Nightbeats have any fictional appearances, at all. Justification enough. We can re-evaluate this decision int he future if that changes. -Derik 23:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Bad example. See here, left and front. -- Repowers 00:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

He was also in the Armada cartoon, though very briefly. --ItsWalky 01:06, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Speaking role! Speaking role as new justification! -Derik 01:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

And this is exactly the kind of backpedaling desperate justification I hope to avoid. "Notability" is a very dangerous slope I'd prefer to steer clear of. --M Sipher 02:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

If "prominence" on a character is hard to discern, link to the disambiguation. If it's not hard to discern at all, link to the most prominent character. Where things are obvious, do the obvious. That's not real difficult. We're aiming for ease of use here. If someone types in "Nightbeat," who are they looking for? Why force 99% of the people looking for a "Nightbeat" to go through another page? --ItsWalky 02:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I think Sipher'd (probably) agree with that call- but he (and I) are really, really wary of formalizing that kind of thing. Because it can really easily lead to people deciding that declaring "G1 Blurr is CLEARLY more prominent than Armada Blur!" is acceptable.

Really- if you ever do this kind of direct-link it should have a two-part requirement. Not only does one claimant for a name have to be demonstrably 'prominent,' all other claimants have to be be demonstrably 'obscure.' So the standard isn't just 'more prominent,' but it's 'prominent among a field of nobodies.' -Derik 03:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I can agree to that. --ItsWalky 03:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)