MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

This is the place for discussion of topics that affect the entire wiki. Some topics that would ordinarily be here have merited their own pages:

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Moving From Wikia: Arriving Leaving Complaints New Ad Policy: Ads Bookworm Database-Crash: Damage Control Central Project:Bookworm Crash Leaving Take 2 Server Move: Arriving Take 2 Relicensing: Relicensing Dealing With Vandalism: Vandalism GoBots Sister Wiki: Discussion on the place of GoBots in this wiki

"Fictional" and "real" categories

I think we need to come up with a consistent way to distinguish categories of things that are real and categories of things that have appeared in fiction. So far, we've skimmed the issue by using synonyms, such as companies and businesses, but that doesn't really work for things like magazines, which is already used for real magazines. Currently, we have Category:Fictional books, Category:Fictional video games that consider the fictional entities "different". On the other hand, we have Category:Real-world events by day and Category:Real world films. We focus more on the fictional aspect of Transformers, so it makes sense to not point out the fictionality in categories, but "real world" sounds awkward to some. Which one should we use? —Interrobang 00:26, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

I thought I'd cheat and see how some of the other fictional Wikis deal with the problem. Three different approaches I saw:

• Doctor Who wiki has a "Real World" category for real world stuff and in most cases the categories for real world things are at "Real world X".
• Wookiepedia goes the parenthetical route, with "Books" and "Books (real-world)". Though they also have one or two like "Real world companies".
• Stargate wiki has "Books" versus "Stargate books" for real world books.

I kinda like the parenthetical approach that Wookiepedia have taken. --abates 03:11, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

I'd favor pointing out the status of both categories, just to make absolutely clear what they are for. The words can be "Fictional" and "Real-world" (I notice both real-world categories use a different spelling. Whichever it's gonna be (if), only one spelling should be used). "Nonfictional" kinda works as an alternative, would "Real-world" be disliked. Geewunling 04:35, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

If we go that route, I think "real-world" should be used, since "real world" is a lot more easier to fix than the other parsing. I like the Wookiepedia approach, but I'm not sure that's enough to change how we already do categories. The idea to label both categories sounds nice, but "Fictional X" seems incongruous with unlabeled categories, such as "weapons", "technology", etc.; considering that our main focus is the fiction, I'm leaning towards only labeling the real stuff. —Interrobang 13:02, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

"Transformers: "

We talked a bit about adding back "Transformers: " to the titles of articles previously, and the general sentiment was that people were for it or didn't have an issue with it. Does anybody else have any input in this matter? —Interrobang 00:34, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

I'm okay with this change, but I do have three questions on execution. 1.) Whether or not "Transformers" is followed by a colon seems random in our current system. How will that be handled? 2.) If "Transformers(:)" is going to be added to every relevant page name, then what about all the extra words in the titles of Japanese stuff? 3.) What conseuqneces will this have for categories, lists, storylinks, etc? Geewunling 04:41, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

1. I think we've had two consistent rules about that: If the title is some kind of phrase, like "Transformers United", "The Transformers Collection", or "Transformers Animated", then we don't use the colon. If the title is some kind of obvious "title: subtitle" setup ("Transformers: Armada", "Transformers: Prime"), then we use the colon. There's some borderline examples, but I think we can figure them out one by one. Official sources will help with determining colon-status. The other rule seems to apply to only games: If the title has another subtitle, then the first colon is dropped (ex. Transformers Prime: Terrorcon Defense). I dunno why, but we can add back the colon, I suppose.
2. I guess we add them? We could argue it for Victory, since it was released in English contexts as just "Transformers: Victory".
3. I think we're just going to continue the same in relation to those. The articles will still be sorted by their subtitles in categories. Storylinks I could go either way on, but I think the trend is to drop the main title. I've been doing that for the AAII storylinks to avoid excessively long links. —Interrobang 12:49, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

I don't see how "Transformers United" and "Transformers Animated" are any different from "Transformers: Prime". To me, all three could fall into either of your groups (phrase vs subtitle) and would prefer colons in all of those cases. Of your examples, only "The Transformers Collection" seems to really belong in the "phrase" group. --Khajidha 13:22, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

"United" and "Animated" are adjectives that modify "Transformers" and have official sources that omit the colon. "Transformers Prime" doesn't make sense in that way. —Interrobang 14:58, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

I am not certain about those two "rules" for colons either. They're rather vague and bound to cause arguments and confusion. It needs to be made more obvious whether a colon should be used or not before "Transformers" can be added everywhere (a help page on the matter would also be handy in the future, me thinks).

I think that if we would put the cartoon at Transformers: Victory, that would cause confusion with the manga, storypages, toyline and franchises, none of which were ever brought over and should thus not be named such. If moved, the Victory cartoon should best go to its Japanese name. Geewunling 15:28, 6 September 2011 (EDT)