Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pokémon/Archive 10

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I archived the talk page, which was 81 KB. I kept FFA. Alvin6226 ^talk 02:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Species uniformity

Last night i spent some time creating a possible solution for the problem that between our 450+ articles on pokemon species they all look one of several ways. Either they still have seperate Biology and Appearance sections, there's disparity whether to call it "Biological characteristics" (variances occur in capitalization) or "Characteristics", the Smash Bros info can be put almost anywhere, some are written "In the Pokémon foo" as opposed to "In the foo", and occasionally people even wikilink parts of the headers ("In the manga"). In an encyclopedia articles of the same nature are all dealt with in roughly the same way - this is an issue i also have with the animal articles of the wiki, but this project is much more feasible. In short, I've created a bunch of templates with a master template to be used for articles requiring more of an overhaul than others. The idea is that all pages will be laid out the same, and if we ever decide that one header isn't appropriate we can make a change across all of them rather than one by one - which obviously hasn't worked. You can view the whole project at my sandbox which besides a demonstration, has links to all the templates. -Zappernapper 14:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

the templates have now been uploaded to the template namespace and can all be found through {{PokePage}}

I totally agree with how the articles of similar nature should be handled similarly. While this is a solution to a not-too-important problem, it would be nice for each of the articles to be the same in formatting, especially because the information in each of the sections is handled similarly across articles. My one big concern would be with template vandalism. We've had it happen several times (remember the penises), most importantly notable when poor little Bulba was vandalised when he got to be the Featured Article. But yeah, this would be nice for eliminating those annoyingly different section headings in some of the species articles. --Brandon Dilbeck 16:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• cough*Wikipedia:Pokémon Adoption Center/Style*cough* -- WikidSmaht (talk) 16:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

this is to enforce WP:PCP/S, becuase several people write articles and name headers without refering to it. as for vandalism, due to the wide use of the templates, sprocting would be a feasible option. alternatively, monitoring a couple templates is easier than trying to monitor the 493 articles. any other feedback? encouragement? discouragement? if this is accepted by the community, i'd like to start implementing it soon. -Zappernapper 17:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. It would save us any headaches in the future if anything would need to be changed across the 493 monster articles we have. And as for "biological", surely there is a similar word that can be used that encompasses the "man-made" Pocket Monsters as well. -サターン・ヨッシー ^{HAPPY HALLOWEEN} 08:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

well, why use a controversial adjective when it works fine without? "Characteristics" is, personally, the most appropriate. After all, using the pokedex info we usually also describe how they behave, whether they are kept as pets, and the environments they are found in. These things don't necessarily have to do with biology. -Zappernapper 14:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Drop it people, can I just ask is Eevee part of this "system"? It's a train wreck. The headers aren't even phrases, and referring things as "card game" are in-universe. Also "In other media" refers to merchandise by itself, unless there are very few points of interest with anime and manga, and no merchandise. Highway ^{Grammar Enforcer!} 16:22, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorrry about that guys, just a really bad day. Some of the points I made could still help though. Highway ^{Grammar Enforcer!} 17:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) thank-you for joining the discussion. yes, eevee was the first article test run, following the directions laid out at {{PokePage}}. The headers chosen are more than likely temporary and can be easily changed to follow the current style guide. I only picked those because of this comment, which seemed a good enough reason. Nothing is set in stone so don't worry. As for content - not my fault. I was merely moving around what was already there, and what the template does insert ({{PokeVideoGamesIntro}}, {{PokeAnimeIntro}}, and {{PokeTCGIntro}}) is lifted from a few other articles. The paragraphs have remained essentially unchaged for a while, and are well referenced. If you have only an in-universe persepctive problem with how one is written, I invite you - and anyone else - to fix up the paragraph (that's why it was subst'd) and potentially the template itself, to prevent recreation of less-than-perfect wording. "In other media" actually had anime and manga sections as subheaders, go look at the page a little closer. A potential fix for how it looks is to create a "Merchandising" header. The PokePage template is not meant to solve all formatting issues, just help disseminate the most commonly used headers that should be consistent and add short intro paragraphs to sections needing them (which are easily removable becuase they are not subst'd in on the original save). what the headers currently actually say is not a flaw in the idea. -Zappernapper 17:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

i've repeated the same test (it was before this most recent discussion) on all eevee evolutions, except the last 2. the PAGENAME problem has been fixed and the headers have been changed to reflect current style guides. i'd like someone else to try out {{PokePage}} and make any suggestions. -Zappernapper 18:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think this is a terrible idea. It wastes server resources (450 purges every time you change it) and creates a vandalism hotspot. The problems with {{pokenum}} are bad enough: we don't want to introduce more. They look ugly in the edit window. Has any other article got this idea? No. There's a reason (well, those above probably). It's a solution searching for a problem. What does it matter if the headers are different? They're separate articles and worthy of inclusion on that basis. Variety doesn't matter.

The style guide aims to set a standard that articles should meet. It's not set in stone. There are always exceptions and cases where it's not appropriate. Blanket-washing templates just doesn't work like this.

Thanks and regards, —Celestianpower ^háblame 21:01, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Whoa... Highway and Celestian both give somewhat harsh objections to what seems like a pure good faith idea and experiment (Maybe they were not actually meant to be harsh, but that's what it just seemed like to me at first). I personally might have proposed the exact thing Zapper is at one time or another, because by what would have been my reasoning it saves a lot of work IMO, and though it's an easy target for vandalism, it can always be reverted right away, and might have diverted some vandalism away from the articles themselves. One thing I didn't know until now, however, is that Wikipedia actually has technical limitations and that would be negatively affected by having multiple templates at nearly 500 pages. So yes, Zapper's proposal does have technical flaws, and I therefore agree with Highway and Celestian that it shouldn't be implemented, but my message is: If responses to good faith proposals are a good deal harsher than this, it might approach violation of this Don't Bite the Newbies Wiki-policy that I keep on hearing about. :( Erik Jensen ^{(I appreciate talk!)} 21:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I apologise if my reply was harsh or nasty, since that was not my intention at all. Suggestions are always appreciated, even if they're bad. Also, the abopve was just my opinion. Others may (and do) disagree. Sorry again, and kind regards, —Celestianpower ^háblame 21:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, that's great that's cleared up. I'm sure that happens to everyone. As for Zappernapper, it seems that it's better not to use any templates because of technical issues. We'll have to just treat each article manually because Pokemon can have varying degrees of material to cover in different aspects. Some Pokemon are more notable in the anime than in the videogames Porygon and vice versa, while some might be more notable in appearance than biological traits and therefore should be sectioned differently to accommodate that. That's why a template is actually more trouble than it's worth. Erik Jensen ^{(I appreciate talk!)} 22:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

perhaps it's just my anal-retentiveness showing, but the reason for "blanket-washing" is to try and reduce the confusion when someone who hasn't spent weeks worth of time pouring over these articles goes from page to page and finds them all written differently (and in many cases, poorly). Biology and Appearance have long been defunct yet they still appear on a large number of pages. Stylistic issues aside... the objection i'm mostly concerned with is the server issues. This was something I had contemplated, but felt that if the server can upload the much more complex {{pokeinfobox}} 500 times, along with the uncountable number of pages using superheroboxes, fictional character boxes, and biography boxes, how exactly are templates that upload only a small amount of text going to be detrimental? I realize that i don't fully understand the nuances of the server issues, but ideally the templates won't be changed very much so i don't quite get celestianpower's concern. The other concern has seemed to be with vandalism - all of pokemon is a hotspot. I actually have been thinking along the same lines as Erik, if they are vandalised, it will be much more noticeable and can be reverted much more quickly. Even if someone has Luvdisc in their watchlist, due to the hundreds of poke-edits that occur every day, it will still take quite a while before anyone notices that someone vandalized a header. -Zappernapper 22:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

i missed those last two arguments somehow, and i was going to respond last night, but it was halloween, and i do have some ort of life, lol. neways... CP, i didn't take your argumnt harshly, you stuck to the idea itself and presented some very valid objections. as for the idea that all pokemon are going to need different attention, i completely agree, especially in "Other media" type areas. that's why the template allows you to only insert those you need. as for whether a pokemon is more notable in the video games, anime, biological traits, or appearance - they all require these sections. and having pages being drastically different from eachother while containing roughly the same information is distrating and if the main purpose of all actions is to create an encyclopedia this is an excellent way of making the goal more obtainable. what encyclopedia out there treats the same subject different ways? If i looked up Penguin in the Britannica i would expect it to be laid out in the same fashion as Wolf. But like you said each subject needs its own treatment, so i would expect a section on "Domestication" in the latter but not the former. This doesn't mean they won't both have sections entitled "Biological traits", "Geographical distribution", etc. One won't be called "Biological traits" with the other "Characterisitics".-Zappernapper 14:54, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

This is very well-thought-out on your part, and the reasoning behind this valid. I for one would support most of what you're saying; it's altogether likely, however, that this discussion here isn't really considered "in the spotlight" until the Species Merge discussion below is more or less over. If there's enough consensus and valid reasoning behind keeping each of the 493 Pokemon in their own articles, then this project detail should be the attention of our discussions. For now, though, I think this is put on hold. Regards, Erik Jensen ^{(I appreciate talk!)} 01:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

are bumps appropriate? i wouldn't think so... but this has now stagnated while everyone waits for AMIB to come back and tear Bulbasaur a new one (j/k). i'd still like a response from CP because his arguements were the ones i was trying to address, and i hope that he can at least give me some more explanation as to what the technical problems may be in response to my reasoning. Otherwise, hearing from more people out there in wikiland would be nice. I know SaturnYoshi, Brandon, Erik, HighwayCello, and CP aren't the only regular contributors.... -Zappernapper 16:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to put forward again with the idea of template vandalism. It happened just 16 hours ago at 04:25, 14 November 2006 (UTC) to the Pokenum template. Yes friends, the penis was plastered in Pokenum again. Fear not, the vandal was blocked, but still... We've got soooooooooo many templates to keep track of. --Brandon Dilbeck 20:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

well, a question... is it better to have vandalism potentially sit around for a couple days on one page before it's caught, or have it appear on all pages that use a template, but only last a few minutes? yes, this was a case in which sprocting wouldn't have worked as it was done by a registered user, but we shouldn't be afraid of moving forward in the goal of creating an encyclopedia because of immature peabrains. All this talk of vandalism on the templates has actually become overprotective. I looked over the edit histories of our templates, and even the one that CP and Brandon mentioned , {{pokenum}}, hasn't really been vandalized that often - the biggest issue was the edit warring while DP was coming out. Pokevandalism tends to occur in the articles themselves, not the templates; most reverted edits for templates are just goodfaith and as long as someone is willing to regularly check on them (myself) things usually don't get out of hand. My other edits are in articles pertaining to human sexuality, THAT gets a lot of vandalism. I think we're overworrying about template vandalism, it really just doesn't happen all that often - at least not within our project. I took a real close look, and pokenum seems to be the great exception, not the rule. -Zappernapper 05:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

In all honesty, after looking through a bunch of random Pokémon articles, this worry about consistency seems to be a touch overblown. In nearly every article I saw, the most that needed to be done was the changing of "Biology", Appearance", etc. into "Characteristics" and/or the addition of the standard introduction. Admittedly, some of the 4^th-gen Pokémon need more work than that, but as a whole that group of articles has been getting better constantly - in fact, they all look better than they did when I last checked a couple of days ago. As for using templates, it might be nice, but if enough people just go ahead and standardize one by one, it won't take that long. and if one of us is browsing and sees that an inappropriate change has been made, we can just change it then. Sorry, but it just seems simple to me. ~e.o.t.d~ 09:48, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, since I'm trying to organize it: WP:PAC/S still cites "Biological Characteristics" as the proper header. Personally, I lean toward simply "Characteristics", but I won't make a change until some kind of consensus has been reached. Just informing you all since that page seems to have been untouched for a while :). ~e.o.t.d~ 09:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

ur proposition is an example of why this is being suggested - let's say we reach consensus, in theory you'd think it wouldn't be that big a deal to change the 493 articles if we had enough people working on it. But "Bio/Appearance" have been defunct for a very long time now and the fact that many articles still have it shows that, in practice, waiting for them to get changed indiviually just doesn't work. the other thing is that, like a few have said, the headers titles are such a trivial aspect of the articles themselves they don't warrant the amount of attention that they need to keep them consistent. other problems with the headers include: omission/inclusion of the word Pokémon, wikilinking words in the header, inconsistent placement of smash bros. info (and sometimes not italicizing Super Smash Bros.). close monitoring of all the species articles doesn't happen, there's just too many, so the idea that we can change it when we notice it by browsing is impractical. I doubt Slugma is going to be quickly reverted. and what happens, one day in the future if we reach a new consensus? that's a lot of work that could be easily avoided.-Zappernapper 15:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Using templates for header names is not a good idea. While having standardized style is a good idea, there isn't any reason we shouldn't occasionally break the standards for exceptional cases (for example, non-biological Pokémon). Additionally, these are clear vandal magnets, and needless server demand. If Slugma is vandalized, that's a pain, but making it easy to vandalize 491 articles at once in a way that isn't immediately clear to new users how to revert? That's worse.

{{Pokenum}} was a bad solution to a worse problem, and {{Pokerefs}} was without a doubt the worst idea we've ever had and I'm sorry I supported it. I don't like the idea of building articles by a template, either transcluded or substed. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:25, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

you say that these templates are clear vandal magnets however you seem to ignore the simple fact that the templates are not vandalized that often - the articles themselves are more tempting targets. the Pikachu and Pokemon articles are vandal mangets - ere go even though they are in line with the ultimate goal of wikipedia, we shouldn't have them? A template that gets vandalized a total of four times - by only two different users - over the course of nine months is hardly what anyone would call a "vandal magnet." Just as new, or casual users are unlikely to understand templates well enough to fix vandalism to them, so too are they unlikely to vandalize templates in the first place. I'm actually of the opinion that templates deter vandals, and the evidence found from looking at our pokemon templates' histories supports this notion. Sorry if i went on a rant, this "vandal magnet" argument hasn't sat well with me since it was first mentioned, becuase there just hasn't really been any evidence to support it happening - if pokenum was vandalized even once a month i would see your point and drop this - but it isn't... it isn't even attacked at half that rate. Articles are the vandalism hotspots - they're the easiest to do, and if someone isn't watching the page, it can go unnoticed for a long time. I'll just sum up your remianing arguments briefly:

• • reasons exist for breaking format (e.g. non-biological pokemon)

Does this mean that you prefer to have "Biological Char." and "Characteristics" ? Isn't the fact we are making this distinction OR? The only "non-biological" Pokemon could be the Porygon family because they are referred to as "synthetic" but saying that Voltorb aren't biological is pure speculation - but perhaps that was just a poor example. And if there are going to occasional exceptions - there is no reason that particular article can't have a few of it's own headers (the idea that Eevee may have a section called "Merchandising" does not make the whole idea bunk)

• • needless server demand

To determine whether server demand is needless i suppose we need to look at what would happen given the two scenarios. Without templates we have a project drive to bring each article up to at least a characteristic organization. A year from now someone comes up with a valid change we need to make to say, how we labelled "In the video games". I know it sounds dopey but we can't assume the future - we need to make our project's contirubtions as future-proof as possible (similar to how we should be writing many of the articles, but i digress). So now we are faced with the choice of doing a lot of work over something positive for the encyclopedia as a whole, but so minor we leave it up to changing it when we someone gets around to it... oh wait, this already happened, and we're still waiting for it to be finished. That's a lot of wasted server resources. With templates we still must do a drive to apply them to each article, but once they're there, it's done. And there's no risk from a consensus being reached that would like the header written differently mid-drive, and no wasted effort two-years from now either - unless of course someone thinks it'd be a good idea to remove them all *sigh*. And like i asked before, how is a small amount of text transcluded even comparable to the behemoths like pokeinfobox, and all the various superherobox incarnations? or the buffyverse template? besides, most species articles rarely get to see the light of day (relative to other article groups with heavy template usage).

• • pokenum was a bad solution, i don't like building articles by a template

what would have been a better solution? you don't have to like it, but if it's there you should use it - unless you can come up with an alternative that's actually feasible. pokenum was created b/c it wasn't feasible to go around and change all the articles that mentioned the current number of pokemon every time nintendo had an itch to scratch. nor is it (apparently) feasible to reach a stylistic consensus and then wait around for people to fix articles. no one has yet to offer a realistic counter-solution to this issue that sophomorizes our project and degrades the idea of wikipedia being an encyclopedia as a whole. This is something that is wrong with many thousands of articles but i'm trying to fix what i can. -Zappernapper 14:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Zappernapper didn't leave me with much to say. After reading through the whole thing, I must say I agree with Zapper. Variables can be used to add additional info to articles that isn't included in the template. Plus,watching one template is much easier than watching 493 articles. Moreover, this also happens to be in line with AMIB's earlier proposal of cutting down on cruft. Cheers, The Raven's Apprentice ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 15:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

the only icky thing it does currently support is boilerplate. I'm not a huge fan of it myself, and have hopefully written the intructions to drive home the fact that they should only be used as a starting point. but as we've seen with pokestart, this might not always be the case. Of course it wouldn't be a shame to remove the boilerplate templates like {{PokeTCGIntro}} from the disseminating {{PokePage}}. btw Raven, could you possibly leave further elaboration on what you mean by, "Variables can be used to add additional info to articles that isn't included in the template." at Template talk:PokePage? I think i know what ur getting at but don't want to fill up this discussion further with extraneous conversation. -Zappernapper 17:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Rather than tirelessly prickling with templates to make sure that the headers are the same across all articles, why not, oh, actually improve the articles themselves? One of the complaints I've heard about these articles is that large sections of them are entirely identical; all this succeeds in doing is making that worse. These templates should be substituted where they are used currently and then deleted.--SB | T 19:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

i am not blatantly advocating use of boilerplate prose - that is not the issue here, the issue is merely organizational consistency. the use of things like {{PokeTCGIntro}} is trivial... what about {{PokeTCG}} itself? are you saying that it's better to have each article call it something different? and personal attacks are not constructive. -Zappernapper 20:13, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

What personal attack? Quoting from literature is not a personal attack. It is constructive though. --Keitei (talk) 21:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Sean Black's use of that particular phrase is unconstructive in attacking those with "little minds" 'nuff said. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 23:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

To deviate from the subject a bit: Oh, man... seems everything this project has ever done and is currently doing is under question; if it's not about inconsistent evolutionary stage handling in infobox cells (Togepi) or the prospect of having 493 Pokemon articles being ultimately flawed (the previous archived discussion), it's about the evils of template inclusion throughout these articles (this discussion), and it's even supposedly ridiculous to merge 493 articles into 25 list pages covering 20 Pokemon each (Highway). Some of us have gotta admit that this is becoming frustrating; it will be extremely important to find ultimate compromises on each of these issues in order for us WP:PCP members to not look all washed up to all other Wikipedians and their projects.

As for the templates: ultimately it seems better to put ourselves through the pain of overseeing each individual article for vandalism then to even touch templates. That's what the admins think, and I feel I have no choice but to support that because AMIB is almost always correct about controversial issues. Erik Jensen ^{(Appreciate|Donate)} 23:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Arguments are better than some of the "We're right because we're the overseeing Wikiproject, you aren't allowed to debate on what we've decided" stuff I've seen. I much prefer this to a Wikiproject which is stable because people don't like to disagree with its precedents. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 23:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

while i often respect CelestianPower and AMIB's opinions, i'm not one to concede "because they're admins." they have presented me with reasons for their opposition, and i've given rebuttals. The onus is now on them to counter... they aren't automatically right. CP still has yet to respond to my questions about server loads - small amounts of text are incomparable to large multi-variable transcluded tables ({{pokeinfobox}}, {{superteambox}}), and AMIB's worry of a "vandalism hotspot" has been currently discredited on the grounds of evidence. Amarkov... do u happen to have some insight on all this? -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 23:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I keep hearing "watching on template is easier than watching 493 articles." Sorry, doesn't wash. We'd still have 493 articles, any one of which could be vandalized, plus the templates which could ALSO be vandalized. We still need to watch all th. articles; the templates just add an additional problem. The templates don't make it any harder to vandalize articles: {{Whatever}} can just as easily be replaced as regular text.

Server loads are negligable aggravating factors. If there's a good reason to do this, we can ignore the server load.

I think using the simplest solution has its own merits; why are we using transclusions for simple text? It takes a hell of a reason to violate the basic transparency and simplicity of just using words to say what we want. Templates are good for relatively complex code or centralized navigation tools, but not the basic task of writing prose. If there isn't anything unique to say in an article, it is a fundamental disservice to the reader by covering this fact up. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

ok.... i think i understand AMIB's real objection. I'm 'not trying to say we should definitley use templates to insert a bunch of prose. If you don't like {{PokeVideoGamesIntro}}, {{PokeAnimeIntro}}, and {{PokeTCGIntro}} - fine. I don't really care about keeping those, that's not the goal. And i understand your objections about building an article with templates regarding the prose. My real goal is only for the headers like {{PokeAttributes}} and {{PokeVideoGames}}, I just want to create uniformity among how we label our sections. I'm sorry if it seemed otherwise, but i thought i had made that clear when i first brought this subject up. If the objections are just to how {{PokePage}} disseminates the sample intro paragraphs, i'll gladly remove that functionality. Since this seems to be your only actual concern, AMIB, is the use of templates for labelling sections appropriate to you? Another thing "templates are good for" includes creating a professional consistent look between related articles. I'll refrain from listing all my reasons for wanting these templates - they're already peppered throughout this discussion. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 14:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Then use the same words in each article. This borders on replacing every single example of "Pokémon" with a hypothetical {{Pokemon}}. There's no need whatsoever to use template transclusions for two- or three-word header names, and it poses a significant vandalism risk as well as violating common practice with templates. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

there's a large difference between using a transcluded {{Pokemon}} and a transcluded section header. We're not going to one day decide that we shouldn't use the accent, or that we're going to stop capitalizing it. However, what has already happened, several times, is an inconsistent liberty taken when creating sections or creating new articles. Let's say i go ahead and do what you propose... spend the few days all by my lonesome to change each page. Now two annoying things can happen. Someone can come along and decide to make a new TCG section for an article. Good for them, but they decide to break the consistency and wikilink the header. I'm not going to monitor all 490+ articles so i can fix it... and neither is anyone else. The other annoying thing is that someone comes along and has the group reach a consensus that says we should/shouldn't use the word pokemon as an adjective for each header for whatever reason. Now someone has to go through and fix them all. How long have Biology and Appearnce been defunct? waiting for the articles to to catch p to the latest style guide does not work. Secondly, please stop merely repeating things you've said (that I've countered), provide some evidence to support your claim, because the idea that the templates pose a "significant vandalism risk" is just plain false. 4 vandalisms over 9 months is not significant. and finally (a new argument, sort of), to quote myself - "Another thing "templates are good for" includes creating a professional consistent look between related articles." A detailed essay on templates and why we use them, the end of this particular section is what I'd like you to carefully consider. You view this as a violation, why not an innovation? Is it consistent with the ultimate goal of wikipedia to have articles like Cat and Dog so grossly inconsistent? For the most part they have many of the same sections - but they're scattered here and there without any real reason. One decides to put diet under characteristics, the other makes it its own topic. Diet has no reason to be treated differently between the two (in fact the prose is about the same stuff). Yes one has a section on its role in mythologies, the other doesn't, but when it does, shouldn't it follow a pattern? Wiki wants to be a professional scholarly resource - but we can't even impose a sense of order within the articles - no wonder we have so many stubs on species, no wonder they're each a random hodgepodge of information. We don't want to say, "When you create an article on topic X here are template headers that are commonly used. They'll give you ideas about the kind of information you should try and include and will help the encyclopedia maintain a consistent format. Here's how other pages like your article have organized the information." No... we want to say, "Just write what you can come up with, other people will come along later and try to make it less confusing. Oh, your reading about various aspects of topic Y and are trying to compare specifics of Z? And you're frustrated because each and every article is written and headed differently so ur not sure where the info might be, or even if a specific article will discuss Z? Too bad..." Old != better -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 12:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Not taking any sides, just pointing out: Zappernapper, you wouldn't be doing all the changes yourself. The only reason I haven't gone ahead and changed a lot of the "wrong" headers is that there still seems to be a lot of debate about what the "right" headers are, and I'm sure there's a few like me. Maybe the best way to get everything fixed is to stop arguing and actually reach a consensus so people can start working. ~e.o.t.d~ 05:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

what my point is, even if we reach consensus and go ahead and expend the energy to change them, we're not safeguarded from ever having to do it again. Two years from now, we might reach a new consensus, someone may think up something better, then the project has to change them all over again. then again with all the time i've spent developing these damned templates and then arguing the same arguements over and over i may have had every single page updated by now. But even if i did - that's not protecting us from future errors. I think i've figured out how people win their way around here, they just keep posting the same defeated argument over and over until the other side gets sick of it, well i'm close. why doesn't someone tell me again how templates will attract vandalism and four words of text will bring the wikipedia servers to a screeching halt. one more time is all it should take before i crack in front of blind eyes. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 14:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that there could be anything new that means a major change in our templates. Because we're slowly properly Wikifying our pages, we have to make sure they fit to the new rules and such that come in. I doubt that at any stage will we have to change the plans and modify these things significantly - from how Wikipedia would allow it. Although, I would say that vandals (persistent ones) will find templates to edit and if we have heavy reliance on templates, we'll have to seek S-Protection and such. It's best if seeking that isn't needed as not to block constructive edits from anonymous users. - Tetsuya-san (talk : contribs) 21:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem with templates is that vandalism to them is multiplied by the number of articles which uses them. With our 493 creature articles, if someone changes a template used on them, 493 pages just got vandalized. With this idea, we're using about 10 templates per page. So even assuming a template gets vandalized only about once every 2 and a half months, that's 493 instances of vandalism a week. It's easy to clean up, but many people still see it, which is not good. Many, many, people get a bad impression of Wikipedia because they see some random vandal adding "Fuck", and we really do not need to multiply that. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 21:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

10? pokenum, pokeinfobox, pokeattributes, pokevideogames, pokeothermedia (poketcg, pokeanime, and pokesmash are not going to be on each page - pokeothermedia prolly wouldn't be ether). Each article would only have 5 or 6 templates transcluded. And template vandalism is practically nonexisistent - that's a poor excuse but fine, I won't argue this nemore, i'm drained and sick of it. wikipedia wants to be a real encyclopedia, but each article is allowed to look any ole way it wants to for fear of infrequent bouts of vandalism. people do not get bad impressions of wikipedia because of vandals. they get a bad impressin from cruft, vanity, libel, and poor writing in general. I never said that consistency was a top priorty but it's one that detracts from serious study and research. I've used wiki often for researching various topics, and for me after poor refchecking and barbarous grammar, the most irritating thing is that i never know where anything is in an article. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 02:56, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

perhaps we should also stop using {{main}}, {{see also}}, {{details}}, and {{further}} - after all, they're only adding in a few words, and templates are only for complex code. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 18:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

{{Pokémon species}}

I've tweaked it so it does automatic weight unit conversion, if anyone cares. It would do the same for height if we went through all the articles and changed the current {{{height}}} into {{{feet}}} and {{{inches}}}. Why weren't {{height}} and {{weight}} used in the first place? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 23:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so they didn't exist when it was created. That makes sense. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 23:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

heck if i know, but thanks! -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 23:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment. If there's automatic conversion, are the conversions based off the metric or imperial measurements? If imperial, it can lead to rather inaccurate numbers as from the Japanese versions, but yeah. Is there an override to this? - Tetsuya-san (talk : contribs) 20:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

It goes both ways. You can still define the other measurement, though, and it will override the calculation. This is just to provide a somewhat accurate measure when we have no better one. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 20:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Singular/plural in introduction

I tried editing the "pokestart" template to say "NAME is one of the characters..." when I thought it was correct to say it that way, but it was reverted immediately. While it doesn't bother me that we say "one Pokémon, two Pokémon, one Snorlax, two Snorlax," using the word "are" in the introduction may appear quite jarring to some, especially for unique Pokémon such as Rayquaza and Celebi. I would suggest a change to "NAME is the name of one of the characters..." to avoid this problem. I am not asking to modify the rules for singular and plural other than this change. Peter O. (Talk) 00:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I ought to point out that the subject of the first sentence of an article is supposed to be the subject of the article and not the name of the subject. For instance, I wouldn't get away with starting an article with "Veronica Taylor is the name of an American voice actress." --Brandon Dilbeck 01:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

There's a simple answer to this: each Pokémon article refers to that species as a whole: therefore, saying "Snorlax is a fictional species..." is as grammatically incorrect as saying "Sheep is a species...". There are two grammatically corect ways to do that first part: "Snorlax are...", and "The Snorlax is..."; a while ago, a consensus was reached that the first one should be used, becuase the initial "the" can seem unnecessary to some users, and because most Wikipeda articles tend to use the title of the article as the first word(s). I hope that answers your question. :) ~e.o.t.d~ 09:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, it would sound WEIRD with "The". -Amarkov ^blah_edits 15:51, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In this case however, each Pokémon species is a proper noun instead of a common name. Instead of a plural, the word Snorlax, for example, could be seen as merely a proper name or marker in the context of "Snorlax is a species...," not like the word "sheep", for example could. The use here may also border on the use for collective nouns ([Korn/The Doors] [is/are] a band.) Peter O. (Talk) 17:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

What you're talking about is a difference existing between casually used (but still understandable) English and proper, grammatically correct English. In your band example, for instance, the best way to say both of those is " Korn is a band..." and "The Doors is a band...". Casual English might use "are" instead of "is", but this is Wikipedia, and everything should be written in an encyclopedic manner.

What seems to be causing the most confusion is the fact that each name is its own plural: the Japanese language has no plural concept, and Nintendo chose to carry that quality of the names over to the American versions of the game. When the singular and plural forms of a word are distinct from each other, it's obvious which form is correct:

"Squirrels is a species..." -- INCORRECT

"Squirrels are a species..." -- CORRECT

"The squirrel is a species..." -- CORRECT (though awkward)

It's harder to tell when Pokémon names are singular and when they are plural, but it's been defined that in the first sentence it should be plural.

Oh, and the fact that it's a proper noun doesn't have any effect on this at all. ~e.o.t.d~ 18:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem here is that such names as "Snorlax", so unmarked, could not (at least not immediately) be recognized or accepted as plural by people unfamiliar with Pokémon. Can you suggest a different wording for the introduction that would avoid this singular/plural issue? (As an aside, this is at least partially possible with Russian, which has the type "Snorlax -- a species".) Peter O. (Talk) 20:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If you'd like it changed, you can come up with different wording. Then put it here so people can debate over it. But for now, the standard is set. I look forward to seeing what you come up with (as the introduction isn't my favorite either). ~e.o.t.d~ 06:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I can suggest any of the following.

• Snorlax refers to one of the fictional species...
• A Snorlax is one of the fictional species...
• A Snorlax belongs to one of the fictional species... (here lighter than "the")
• A Snorlax is a character belonging to one of the fictional species...
• (something else)

Of course, we shouldn't say that the title of the article, as opposed to the introduction, is really a plural noun: we don't give articles names like "Pigs", "Wolves", or "Cats", for example. (Although the Pig article says "Pigs are ungulate mammals...") Perhaps the best thing to do is add "a" to the introduction, as this practice seems to be done in Pokémon Emerald's Pokédex entries and it seems to make sense even for real animals ("A pig is an ungulate mammal..."). I personally didn't like the type "the Snorlax": almost no one says "the Snorlax" when referring to that Pokémon. Peter O. (Talk) 20:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

what should i do

what should i start on?

Well, we have 500 articles, 485 of which can't even get good article status. Just pick a creature article and fix it. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 18:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Portal

We have a portal, but we need to improve and take more care of it. I suggest a committee should be formed from the project to help select content to be featured in the portal and add it into our species infobox template with a link. That way, we can develop a role model for other Projects to maintain their portals. Do you agree? We'd have monthly votes on articles to be featured from five selected from the Portal Committee (who would have a subpage, Wikipedia:Pokémon Collaborative Project/Portal Committee and shortcut WP:PCP/PC). Shin'ou's TTV (Futaba|Masago|Kotobuki) 05:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Most probably, no one's gonna care about this. --The Raven's Apprentice ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 09:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to be a part of this! -SaturnYoshi ^{THE VOICES} 18:59, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 00:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

Professor Birch

I could use some help on this, the user Jadisofslytherin is consistantly changing the image on the page with an oversized anime screencap, I've asked him three times to stop and he keeps doing it. I'm trying to be as nice as possible...but it's getting really hard to. Help please. -Sukecchi 02:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That's where you dispute it. Note it as vandalism with a warning, and follow other steps here: Wikipedia:Vandalism. This should only be taken after you request the user not to, of course. - Tetsuya-san (talk : contribs) 06:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)