Forum:Rethinking "Other appearances" and recurring subjects; removing subpages

Forums: Index > Rin's Travel Agency > Archive > Rethinking "Other appearances" and recurring subjects; removing subpages

		07:01, April 1, 2020 (UTC) Technobliterator Talk
		I'm making this forum now just to put it in the back of everyones' minds and maybe form consensus early, but this is something that I'd like to implement sometime after we're up to speed on VII Remake content (i.e. several months from now). In short, I think we should rethink, or at least, establish guidelines around the "Other appearances" sections (such as Limit (Final Fantasy VII)#Other appearances, Ruby Weapon#Other appearances), the recurring subject pages (such as Fire (ability), Gilgamesh (character)), and also subpages (such as Tifa Lockhart/Dissidia (PSP), Cloud Strife/Tactics). tl;dr "Other appearances" should be drastically reduced in favor of links to recurring subject pages.. Most pages that have "Other appearances" sections right now would not under the more detailed proposal below, and the ones that remain would focus on linking people to where they can find more info, or simply to a recurring subject page. Redefining recurring subject pages: their role is to get readers to where they can find the full information, with abridged overview on changes in the series. In short, these would be rethought as glorified disambigs, rather than as substitutes for a games' full article. Remove subpages for different appearances, in favor of just using tags. For instance, Cloud Strife/Tactics -> Cloud Strife (Tactics); Tifa Lockhart/Dissidia (PSP) -> Tifa Lockhart (Dissidia PSP). This could drastically simplify an existing complicated name scheme, though the characters' original appearance is still treated as the main page (i.e. "Cloud Strife", for the VII Compilation, remains "Cloud Strife", unless an entirely different character named "Cloud Strife" is created). To start with, I think the "Other appearances" sections need to be limited. In most cases, these sections exist solely to provide a gallery for images from a mobile game, such as Brave Exvius or Record Keeper, which I don't think is too helpful to readers. It doesn't really provide unique information, or what they were looking for. While I'm aware, for instance, that Black Magic (Final Fantasy IV)#Other appearances exists for times the spells' specific implementation from FFIV was used in the mobile games, I'm not convinced this helps readers find any information at all. For the most part, it just creates images that they weren't looking for and seems random. The main value of these sections, instead, would be to provide notable information on how something reappeared in or affected later entries, and pointing to full information, without simply dumping images. Ruby Weapon#Final Fantasy XIV tells the reader that the Ruby Weapon came back in a different form in FFXIV; a bunch of images from Dissidia 012 and related games only tell the reader that the abilities came back, which a paragraph could've said. Since all of these specific pages should link to recurring topics pages (or for skillset/list pages, link to more specific topics which in turn link back to recurring topics pages), this shouldn't rob the information of too much value to mostly remove these sections, in favor of a bullet point list of links such as on Cloud Strife#Other appearances already, and paragraphs in rare cases where notable info is found. Related to this, I think recurring subject pages should be treated as disambig+ pages. Stuff like Fire (ability), Gilgamesh (character), Potion (item), etc. When I say "disambig+", I mean that they exist to get readers to where they need to go, plus provide abridged information on how they have changed throughout the series. The vast majority of readers for gameplay pages are looking for information about the game they're playing, and information on other games is something they'll skip over. Now this is still useful for those who are curious, and so the page can still exist to provide an overview for how something has changed in the series over time. That said, when there is more to say about a topic than can be detailed in a table, a Fire (Final Fantasy VII ability) page offers much more value than Fire (ability)#Final Fantasy VII. More, smaller pages are better for us and for readers than making people download huge ones. All this would really mean is that we'd be creating more pages for things per-game with the "recurring subject" pages existing to provide {{main}} links to those, or to link to the subject in a pages' table in instances where there genuinely is nothing more to say about it. So for instance, for items in Final Fantasy X, we'd make per-game pages to describe how an item can be used in crafting support abilities for armor and the ways to obtain it, but we wouldn't make pages for weapons because there's nothing to say about them other than the sum of the support abilities. Finally, I think we should simplify the article naming guide by removing subpage naming for other appearances in favor of tags. "Tifa Lockhart/Dissidia NT" would simply be named "Tifa Lockhart (Dissidia NT)". The biggest benefit to this would be renaming "Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V)/Brave Exvius" to "Gilgamesh (Brave Exvius)". Although I understand what the first one means (Gilgamesh in Brave Exvius is based on Gilgamesh from FFV, and thus it's a subpage of his FFV page), the average reader probably doesn't. An article on "Gilgamesh (Brave Exvius)" could simply explain the connection to FFV in the intro to the page and with a link back to the FFV page in the infobox, clearing this up without the need of a confusing title making it hard to find. A confusing name scheme makes navigation around the wiki more difficult, and using this name scheme would be more in line with what we have for boss pages (i.e. "Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V boss)" rather than "Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V)/Boss"). It would vastly simplify the article naming policy. That said, a characters' original/"main" appearance is still treated as the base page. Cloud Strife therefore remains exactly where it is, because his appearance in the Compilation is the most important one. It's the one most people would look to first, and creating a separate "Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)" and a disambiguation only provides a nuisance. Under this proposal, we would only make a "Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)" page if an entirely different character named "Cloud Strife", of equal importance, appeared in a different game, and in this case, "Cloud Strife (Dissidia NT)" still links back to and makes it clear in the lede and infobox that it's based on the Cloud Strife from the VII Compilation. As I said above, I won't be implementing any result until a while after VII Remake's content is all up-to-date, so I'm just starting to get an early consensus here. Let me know if anyone has any thoughts!

I agree with most of what you're saying (our coverage of mobile games by just putting images in Other appearances sections is really bad. they should be linking somewhere! if we did it properly I think it would be fine, but a bulleted list would suffice too)

Although my main difference of opinion is that I think we should be following something closer to the Gilgamesh (character) scheme for all characters that appear in more than one sub-series. Character pages with a general profile, and then some sort of Incarnations section that links to subpages.

Yeah, I also think we should still be using subpages. Tags are used to distinguish two things with the same name, but these subpages aren't different things-- they're the same thing. The Emperor Mateus article concerns all that is Emperor Mateus, while the subpage "Emperor Mateus/Dissidia (PSP)" focuses specifically on Emperor Mateus in Dissidia. I don't think "Emperor Mateus (Dissidia PSP)" makes sense when he's not even called Emperor Mateus in Dissidia. I would sooner go for an article name like "Emperor Mateus in Dissidia PSP".

It's different with boss pages because they are distinguishing two things with the same name. JBed (talk) 08:09, April 1, 2020 (UTC)

Not sure how the "Gilgamesh (character)" (or Cid) scenario could really apply to anything else (if these would basically serve as glorified disambigs?), but I'm open to it if I saw an example. The important thing is people find where they need to go. Special:Analytics shows most people are just searching for the characters with their first name; it's good UX if they land on the page they're looking for first.

Regarding subpages, I'd question where this rule came from, why it's not arbitrary, but more importantly, if a reader would know this distinction.

The name scheme needs to be consistent so readers know how to get around the wiki. We understand why a subpage is used in one instance and a tag is used in another, but there's no guarantee the reader does. I imagine "Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V)/Dissidia (PSP)" and "Onion Knight (Dissidia)" is confusing in itself. Imagine if we had a boss page for Gilgamesh in Dissidia. Would it be "Gilgamesh (Dissidia boss)" and "Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V)/Dissidia"?

This is all something that can be simplified by just adopting tags. If we understand an article name to be "Subject (context)", the same applies to tags. "Tifa Lockhart (Dissidia PSP)", or "Tifa (as she appears in Dissidia PSP)". "Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V)", or "Gilgamesh (as he appears in Final Fantasy V)". This is all easily understood and consistent with what is done elsewhere, whereas "Tifa Lockhart/Dissidia" doesn't necessarily mean anything.

We've had people come here saying they're confused about the name scheme before, and we can stop this by applying a consistent name scheme that uses the same rule of "Subject (context)" everywhere else. Although Google will find the right page people are looking for, an ideal system would allow readers to just use the search bar and find things anyway.

p.s. "Emperor Mateius in Dissidia PSP" hits mots of the marks as far as I'm concerned. Explains to the reader what it is, no confusion, and doesn't rely on understanding of any seemingly arbitrary rule; though as you pointed out, it'd be "The Emperor in Dissidia PSP" due to different naming. I'd still use "The Emperor (Dissidia PSP)" just because then there's no fear of someone coming along and asking why we do this here when we do it differently elsewhere.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 09:02, April 1, 2020 (UTC)

Cid isn't the same as Gilgamesh (character) because Cid isn't the same character each time. Although Gilgamesh is also a bit of a grey area-- the style of the page would still work on characters that are or more clearly the same. I might sandbox something.

That's not what I was pointing out in regards to Dissidia. It's lore vs. gameplay. The Emperor in Dissidia is Emperor Mateus, but he is not called Emperor Mateus.

"The Emperor (Dissidia PSP)" might be a good name for a page about the playable character in Dissidia, but not for one covering his role as a character in Dissidia's story. Firstly, at the very least character name policy would at very least determine it to be "Emperor", but secondly he is Emperor Mateus from FFII. It's the lore of Dissidia.

Tags are for disambiguation. When we have two subjects that need to use the same page name. The subject of the Cloud Strife article is "the character in the FF series, named 'Cloud Strife'". The subject of the Cloud Strife Dissidia article is "the role of 'Cloud Strife' in the Dissidia universe". "Cloud Strife" isn't an adequate page name for the latter because it doesn't cover the subject.

To prove this, if Cloud were to be given the middle name "Rudiger", we would move his page to "Cloud Rudiger Strife" and also do the same for his Tactics and Dissidia subpages. It's why they're subpages. It's the same character, his name is the same wherever he is.

Imagine if we had a boss page for Gilgamesh in Dissidia. Would it be "Gilgamesh (Dissidia boss)" and "Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V)/Dissidia"?

Yes.

Slightly separate issue, Onion Knight and Warrior of Light should probably be parent pages similar to Ciaran. I can't remember if I had a strong reason for this, but Warrior of Light at least has been used in promotional materials for FFI long before Dissidia. JBed (talk) 23:37, April 1, 2020 (UTC)

Lot of good points here, although I'll start by saying I don't think the rule

Tags are for disambiguation. When we have two subjects that need to use the same page name.

was really substantiated here. It seems like an arbitrary rule that was dictated by the wiki a long time ago rather than a rule that has a basis in the English language.

If we go by the English language for article titles, there is nothing implied by the use of parentheses that is different from the use of slashes (conversely, the use of slashes in titles is very much not present in the English language, hence why it's never used on Wikipedia. Wikipedia uses tags in the proposed way of "<general thing> (<specific instance>)", as seen in projectspace: Wikipedia:Category:Wikipedia naming conventions ).

So I don't see why "Cloud Strife (Dissidia PSP)" conflicts with "the role of 'Cloud Strife' in the Dissidia universe". Parentheses still imply this, and this still makes logical sense to a reader.

Going back to the Gilgamesh example, if we have "Gilgamesh (Dissidia boss)" and "Gilgamesh (Final Fantasy V)/Dissidia", that is understandably confusing for readers.

Beyond this:

• Good point on the lore of the subject carrying over even when the name does not, but if the Emperor in Dissidia borrows lore from FFII, then the article name should still be "Emperor Mateus (Dissidia PSP)" under this proposal, with the lede clarifying this (Emperor Mateus, referred to as simply The Emperor, is a character in Dissidia Final Fantasy representing Final Fantasy II.)
• With Cloud, the distinction depends on how gameplay-focused the article is. The Dissidia series is all lore focused, so we'd indeed rename those articles to "Cloud Rudgier Strife (Dissidia NT)" and etc. under this proposal. If an article solely has a gameplay focus, i.e. Record Keeper, it'd remain where it is: that's the name the character is called in the game, and that's the only one what applies.
• I thought more about applying the "Gilgamesh (character)" approach for other characters, and where I think it'd make most sense would be replacing the existing "/Other appearances" pages (which tbh would be better off as "Cloud Strife other appearances" or something). It could be similar to w:c:dc:Batman, in providing a parent page that exists to link elsewhere; though unlike the Batman page, we are able to reasonably assume which Cloud Strife the vast majority of readers are looking for.
• Agreed on the Ciaran parent page for Warrior of Light and Onion Knight. Seems reasonable to me.-- Technobliterator ^T_C 00:35, April 2, 2020 (UTC)

Ah, your Wikipedia example is good. I hate it.

I knew Wikipedia didn't use subpages, but they deal with things differently and it basically never makes sense for them when they can pick a name that sounds like an article title. Also Wikipedia doesn't even seem to call these things "tags". Surely we didn't invent that name...

You're right, using slashes in a page title is bad. I like that subpages means that moving the main article makes it easy to move rest. We could use DISPLAYTITLE to change the "/" to "in"...

I'm not sure about that. In any case, I am convinced about not using slashes, and I wouldn't put up much of a fight if we stop them from being subpages.

In "Cloud Strife (Dissidia PSP)" the tag's not being used to remove ambiguity, but instead be more specific. As I demonstated, that page's name is dependent on the name of Cloud Strife as a whole, not just in Dissidia PSP. All our tagged pages are dependent only on the article's subject. Aeris (Final Fantasy VII party member) will only be renamed if a a new version of FFVII gives that party member a different name.

And the reason why "Cloud Strife (Dissidia PSP)" doesn't work is because the Cloud Strife character in Dissidia PSP is the Cloud Strife character in other things. We haven't removed ambiguity. Take "Garland (Final Fantasy)" -- ultimately that page covers Garland from FFI in all his appearances even outside of FFI. But the tag works because he's the FFI Garland.

If two characters with the same name appear in the same game (like maybe happens somewhere in Opera Omnia), "Garland (Final Fantasy)/(in)Dissidia" and "Garland (Final Fantasy IX)/(in)Dissidia" are clear. If they also created a new Garland for Dissidia, the page would be called "Garland (Dissidia original character)" (or something). We couldn't call that page "Garland (Dissidia)" because there would be three Garlands that are in Dissidia.

This has got me thinking about our use-titles-to-avoid-tags character naming policy. I think I was ambivalent in the past but I kind of like it. We could consider things like renaming Cid (Tactics A2) to Cid of Clan Gully and Garland (Mobius) to Heretical Knight Garland. But I think I may accidentally ignite a tag change debate if I push for that. JBed (talk) 03:16, April 2, 2020 (UTC)