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)

I think it would be advantageous to put a {{disambig2}} at the top, so people could easily go from the fictional to the real world category too. --abates 16:30, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

Yeah, I think I put that on Category:Films a while ago. —Interrobang 16:57, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

We shouldn't use "fictional X" for two reasons. One, there things like As the Kitchen Sinks that are fictional even within the fictional Transformers universe. Second, the wiki is written in-universe by default and putting Big Steve's Used Cars in a "fictional businesses" category would kind of break that. Within Transformers fiction, "Big Steve's Used Cars" is not a fictional company, but "As the Kitchen Sinks" is a fictional TV show. - Starfield 18:47, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

In-universe, As the Kitchen Sinks is not a fictional show. It depicts fictional events and fictional people, yes, but the show itself, as a piece of entertainment, is not fictional. I do get your point, as we actually have things like Frankenstein that are two layers of fiction removed from us. —Interrobang 19:18, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

Yes, of course. I meant, in-universe, As the Kitchen Sinks is a work of fiction, whereas "Big Steve's Used Cars" is a real business that sells real used cars to real people. Have I been saying it wrong all this time? Wasn't Buck Rogers a fictional TV show? Anyway, it sounds like you got my point. - Starfield 21:14, 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)

*shrug* The first rule is mostly there for Transformers Animated, which people will be resistant to moving to have a colon (plus, obvious cases like The Transformers Collection). The second rule I really don't care about and can be tossed (it mostly only concerns the movie series of video games and online games). —Interrobang 16:04, 6 September 2011 (EDT)

Jungaroo

Someone made a lovely Jungaroo gobox, but there's no page for him. --Jimsorenson 21:23, 6 September 2011 (EDT)