A new user ("V-Dash") has begun to edit several Zelda pages by changing the genre and then reverting back to to it when someone disagrees. Obviously, this is a problem, and I'm unexperienced in dealing with it, but I haven't been able on solve it on my own and so I'd like for the members of this forum to look into it.
Zixor09:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)reply
I'm personally getting the sense that he's just enforcing his own opinion, regardless of any particular sites. The genre debate in LoZ is a complex one which not all all people can agree on. Certainly, a definitive conclusion on that matter would be great, but I think it's beyond the scope of what we're dealing with here. I don't agree or disagree with the content of either edit, only with V-Dash's method of enforcement, which is very disruptive. -He should, of course, be using the article's talk pages, instead of constant reversion.
Zixor20:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)reply
Per the AfD, it is allowed to survive provided it undergoes a major overhaul.
Artichoker and I are doing a rewrite per what I understand the requirements to be, but we could obviously use a lot of help, both in reformatting and in looking for the real world info. Thanks for any help you can give us.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.21:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)reply
I've made a start on the OoT section; is all this plot info in the other sections necessary, though? And where/how are we going to find criticism of such a subject?
Haipa Doragon(talk)00:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)reply
I've started it. I haven't had time to go back through the game and list each of the mentionable characters, but I'll list what I remember. I really don't have time to fill out the list, though, so I'll just be setting up stub-sections.
Can we please break this article apart and return its peaces to the different places?
Hell, if Dark Link didn't make it (and it's been a final boss, main character, and has a much more consistent appearance), why is this still here? Since almost all of the appearances are as bosses, I would suggest merging it with the Boss page.
'fact, I would suggest merging most of the recurring enemies to the enemies page as well, since they hardly have anything going for them besides "appears a lot" - which would allow inclusion on the recurring enemies page, but not really notable on their own.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.21:15, 31 October 2007 (UTC)reply
Isn't this virtually redundant now? Three links (with one likely to be deleted soon) isn't really enough to warrant a whole template. I think it should be merged into the main template.
Haipa Doragon(talk)20:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Manga/TV series/other non-canon information in articles related to the games
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, released in Japan as Zelda no Densetsu Mugen no Sunadokei (ゼルダの伝説 夢幻の砂時計)
In most of them, it gives a "lit.", and reiterates the romaji name in the nihongo tag. I believe it would be least redundant and most sensical (since this IS the english wikipedia, after all), to list it "Translation ~tag|kanji|romaji~".
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.22:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)reply
However, it was never released as "Zelda no Densetsu Mugen no Sunadokei", only as "ゼルダの伝説 夢幻の砂時計". Even if the English title isn't a direct translation of the Japanese, it would probably be better to simply leave it as <English name> <nihongo template with romaji and Japanese, with lit. translation if applicable>.
Axem Titanium22:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)reply
...it was a direct translation. That's no the problem I'm trying to address, though. The "Romaji" bits often have parts that are inconsistent, and frequently the romaji translation is given again. (Zelda no Densetsu is given as the japanese titles for a lot of them - why is some of it translated and some not?) Since this means nothing to a reader, why can't we have it be
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, released in Japan as The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (ゼルダの伝説: 夢幻の砂時計, Zerudo no Densetsu: Mugen no Sunadokei)
Because the name isn't "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" in Japan? Why in the world would the Japanese use a translation to refer to something? (Never mind that "Phantom Hourglass" isn't the translation.)
Is your problem that we use "Zelda" instead of "Zeruda"? Because that's not translation. That's reverse transliteration.
'05:45, 7 November 2007 (UTC)reply
...yes, Phantom Hourglass is the translation. "Mugen" is phantoms or phantasms, and "no" used with that kind of word uses it like an adjective (ex. Black Knight would be "Black" no "Knight").
If your argument is going to be "that's not what it is in Japan" (even though that's how the nihongo tag is meant to be used, and how it would be more accessible to the reader...) then they all need to be changed to having the kanji/kana form as the bolded title, and having the romaji only in the tag.
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, released in Japan as ゼルダの伝説: 夢幻の砂時計Zeruda no Densetsu: Mugen no Sunadokei (lit. "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass")
Mugen refers to dreams and fantasy. I don't see where you're getting "phantom" from. And no, putting the kana (in barely readable bold, no less) first is a worse idea. The English language uses the Latin alphabet, the kana is just there to show how the Japanese write it.
Do you seriously not get that Zeruda is just "Zelda" forced into Japanese phonetics? Transliterating it back into the intended English word isn't translation.
'16:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)reply
....yes, I get that it's meant to be "Zelda" in English. However, it is still translation, even if it's a reverse translation.
夢: Dreams, visions, illusions
幻: Phantasm, apparition, illusion.
It is not "Phantom" as in ghost, but as in apparition - something that is not really there.
dreams and visions
1 phantasm / dream / vision / dreams and phantasms / illusion / fantasy / imagination
2 of the product of a person's mind, the state of being fragile / being fleeting / being dreamlike / being phantasmal
1 dreams and illusions / dreams and phantasms / phantasm / illusion / dream / vision
2 of a matter, the condition of being extremely ephemeral / phantasm / dream / vision / dreams and phantasms / illusion / fantasy / imagination
While dream is certainly the most explicit translation, "Phantom", as used in the game, is perfectly acceptable - it's just easily confused with being ghostly, and so is less commonly used.
And no, putting the kana (in barely readable bold, no less) first is a worse idea. The English language uses the Latin alphabet, the kana is just there to show how the Japanese write it.
And say it, because I highly doubt they are reading it out in an alphabet that not all of them understand, much less one that can't accurately represent the sounds they are actually saying. Again, the nihongo tag makes itself clear - the first field is to be the translation, the second the actual name, and the third an approximate pronunciation. Few with even first year Japanese experience would honestly try to claim that the English alphabet can accurately represent the sound of the Japanese language.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.18:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)reply
PS. I just remembered - the actual japanese text makes it more clear that Phantom is the correct translation, as they alternate between using ファントム and 夢幻 to mean something like phantasm or illusion. (Plus, Bellum is called a "Mugen" Devil in the Japanese, and he's clearly not a dream by the western sense of the word.)
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.18:57, 7 November 2007 (UTC)reply
I think the WP:VG use of the nihongo template is to have the first parameter be the official English name, the second be the name in Japanese characters, the third be approx. transliteration, and if necessary (such as when the Japanese meaning is different) the fourth would be the literal (i.e., "lit.") translation of the Japanese. Thus, the fourth parameter would only be used if the Japanese title is somehow different than the English title. In the end, this results in a shorter string of bold words and titles which makes the lead paragraph(s) more readable.
Axem Titanium21:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)reply
If they're the same meaning, then the answer is to put them together, not create a clause exclusively for the Japanese name. Nobody is claiming that English sounds correspond perfectly to Japanese, but it's the best we have, and the writing system used here is Latin. "Zelda" from Zeruda is still not translation. It's reversing the transliteration of it into Japanese. They're not the same.
And, no. The Nihongo template doesn't promote using translations for the first field. Otherwise, {{Nihongo|komusō|虚無僧|extra2="Priest of nothingness"}} wouldn't be used as an example on the
template page itself.
'22:11, 7 November 2007 (UTC)reply
...
komusō. It is, indeed, the English name - like "Sayonara", it's an import word. "Priest of nothingness" is a literal translation like translating "Ohayoo Gozaimasu" to "It is honorably early" instead of "Good Morning".
Also, to be clear - the above examples were after my attempts to clean up the mess. This is what it originally looked like:
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, released in Japan as Zelda no Densetsu Mugen no Sunadokei (ゼルダの伝説 夢幻の砂時計, Zeruda no Densetsu Mugen no Sunadokei, lit. "The Legend of Zelda: Hourglass of Fantasies")
Since Mugen can indeed translate to Phantoms or Phantasms (and dreams only in the sense of hallucinations and apparitions, not as in Link's Awakening), the "lit." is completely redundant, and its beyond silly to reiterate the romaji part twice, just for the sake of changing Zeruda to Zelda.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.22:38, 7 November 2007 (UTC)reply
I think that we should merge the articles based on the various settings of the series (including and especially the Sacred Realm) into a larger article called
Locations and Settings in The Legend of Zelda series or something to that effect. This can combine the various articles and sections to create a strong article and will discourage in-universe information as the individual sections do not need to be large and only need to feature the most important aspects and information and how it affects the plot the games (Sacred Realm has a lot of in-universe information which seems to primarily exist just to fill space). Well maybe that doesn't make sense but I hope you understand what I am getting at. -
.:Alex:.18:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Maybe something less wordy like
World of The Legend of Zelda? Or perhaps even merge everything into
Hyrule with the caveat that it would discuss places that surround Hyrule (ie, that place Link is from in the original Zelda) and run parallel to Hyrule (like the Sacred Realm and Termina).
Axem Titanium (
talk)
18:12, 18 November 2007 (UTC)reply
's a bit late now, seeing as only Hyrule and Sacred Realm still exist. Funny how the Sacred Realm has had the least amount of impact in the series, having little to no real-world or game-world effect besides being a box for the Triforce, and yet it survived past Termina or Great Sea.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.20:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Re:JackSparrow Ninja. Well, it's not as if the new article wouldn't be just as big and/or messy if not done correctly. I think the Hyrule method can be good if done right.
Axem Titanium (
talk)
22:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)reply
...except that the Hyrule article has been written to cover the kingdom of Hyrule, and its recurring features - that's why the Great Sea is hardly even appropriate there, especially since it extends far beyond where Hyrule lay. If we completely rewrote the article, and made it into the "World of Hyrule", or some such (though we'd have to find some good confirmation that Hyrule refers to the whole planet), we could cover...Labrynna, Holodrum, and Cobble Kingdom/Great Sea as well. Sacred Realm, Termina, Koholint, and Twilight Realm are on totally different planes of existence - we could maybe have an article called "Alternate worlds in The Legend of Zelda series", but it would be basically a "List of characters" page for entire worlds - with no real link between them besides that they have appeared in Zelda. I don't really understand the constant need to delete all these articles, except in cases like the Sacred Realm, where it's essentially the legend of the triforce.
The
Universe of Kingdom Hearts article is a very good example of what I was getting at. Covering all of the different settings in their own section without trying to fill it with non-notable or original research crap ect.
Hyrule is full enough as it is, and Great Sea does indeed not belong there for the very point you stated. As for getting rid of Link and Zelda and Ganon, that would be a foolish and unnecessary idea. The people who keep trying to get rid of these articles don't realise how necessary they are (ESPECIALLY Link). -
.:Alex:.19:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)reply
...how are Link and them necessary? The Ganon article, for example, makes no attempt to have real-world info until the second to last-section, where it is mentioned that his design was sent for SSBB. It's all character info, and well...the setup in itself is hypocritical. In fact, nearly all of Zelda and Link could be appropriately shortened - for Link , everything past "Actor Portrayal", possibly excluding "Cameos", is in-universe plot summary more appropriate for the game page itself. Zelda's article is even worse in this regard.
And I know I sound bitter, and I admit I might be, since many of my favorite articles have been or are being deleted for the same reasons, and other editors being too lazy to help fix the problem (especially since they're usually not technically problems for which deletion is required...) - but the point stands that these articles don't stand well against most of the problems that have been cited against the others.
Oh, and one more thing - merging in no way helps articles that are poorly sourced or composed of original research. Only citing does that. Merging just makes a larger article with a larger set of problems, and is only useful if an article is a stub or cannot be effectively discussed by itself.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.23:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Well Universe would be a better choice than "World" as there are other dimensions in the series. It doesn't all take place on the same world.
.:Alex:.17:26, 2 December 2007 (UTC)reply
It needs a good bit of work, but why delete it? Why do people seem to delete every other page on the site? I just don't get it. I know, I know,
WP:IINFO, but I don't think that applies here. I think
Moblinsare notable, and maybe about half the article as it stands should be saved. That makes it a short article, but more than a stub, and too large to merge into another article without making a rather long and messy conglomeration. 春・
Harukaze・風
20:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)reply
We have many notable character articles, such as Link, Ganon, Zelda, Tingle, and a Recurring characters article. But these lists of all the characters in each game? Those establish no notability, and I propose they be merged anything usalbe into the Recurring characters article and transwiki the rest, so we have one strong article not a million stubby unnotable ones.
Judgesurreal777 (
talk)
19:57, 21 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Well I think transwikiing the weapons and instruments articles are a higher priority. But anyway, I'm not sure. Some of them contain absolutely nothing and are useless while others (like TP's) are really well done and I have no idea what we would do with some of the characters (like Midna and Zant) as a lot of them certainly aren't recurring.
.:Alex:.21:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)reply
I agree with Alex; there are a few one-time characters, such as Midna and Zant, who can likely have notability established; some of the weaker articles, though, the ALttP one in particular, should be merged or deleted; not every game that has a characters article actually has notable enough characters.
Haipa Doragon(talk)16:54, 22 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Actually, if I remember correctly, those two articles were merged because they could not establish any notability beyond "character in popular game". It might be possible to make an article entitled "non-recurring characters in The Legend of Zelda series", or just "Characters in The Legend of Zelda series", and merge all the lesser articles together - we might have to trim out most secondary characters, but Ganondorf, Link, and Zelda, (and technically Navi) are the only ones who've established any form of true notability as individuals - while characters in Zelda as a group have also established notability.
Or, we just transwiki-them, and it sucks for anyone who liked reading them. We should be able to get rid of all but seven pages in the project soon, anyway.
Well I redesigned the page in a style similar to
Wikiproject Nintendo (and
Wikiproject The Simpsons and
Wikiproject Harry Potter as other examples) to make it much neater and more navigation friendly but it was reverted on the grounds that we should have a discusson first.
Here it is, please tell me what you think and if there are any specific problems with it. I personally think it's a good idea, but I'd like to hear all of your opinions on it.
.:Alex:.20:38, 23 November 2007 (UTC)reply
[1] - This is what exactly I was talking about; note my resolution's 1024x768. I would be happy for this to go through if this can be fixed, there's nothing wrong with it otherwise.
Haipa Doragon(talk)23:31, 23 November 2007 (UTC)reply
I've tried the page at 1280x1024 resolution, and there's a bit of empty space on that size, similar to what Axem's getting. It seems to be alright on other resolutions though.
Haipa Doragon(talk)17:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Well the width of the other pages is 95%. I've had to change it to 55% or something because the right panel becomes far too small. The other pages are ok because they have a statistics box that widens the panel enough.
.:Alex:.12:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Well we can. I just wondered whether we should go ahead with that or not. Besides it would be useful in keeping track of the quality of articles (I actually do value its intended use and not just using it for asthetical purposes).
.:Alex:.17:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Looks good. No more problems from me about the stretch/empty space, but there seems to be an extra vertical bar on the left side of the right panel. I don't know if that's intentional or not.
Axem Titanium01:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)reply
Depends on what you mean. Is it a BAR or just a gap? How wide? A pic might help. There is meant to be a small gap, about a centimetre in length or something.
.:Alex:.17:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)reply
We badly need cleanup on this page - anything we can do for sourcing, especially if we can get outside commentary to appease those with more exacting standards than I. If you don't like this page, Bosses, Enemies, and Songs, or any character pages could also use a lot of help. Without help, it looks like merging and deletion will shrink the project to the game pages and
Hyrule (if even that).
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.10:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Probably someone getting a hold of a too-close web address without nintendo realizing. There's been absolutely no word on it, and these things usually have at least 2-years notice. In other words, a prank, or fan-game that somehow got permission to use the address.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.00:46, 27 November 2007 (UTC)reply
It's definitely not the type of thing Nintendo would do... still, Eiji Aonuma (I think) did say something about the next Wii Zelda reinventing the franchise or something. But the site's clearly nothing definite.
Haipa Doragon(talk)19:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)reply
I notified the project, didn't I? I suppose I could look at rewriting it for clarity, but I'm no good at writing up real-world sources like it requests. I supposed I could do a google search and show the results. Oh! If someone can find a site with Miyamoto or Aonuma interviews, that might give some info.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.23:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)reply
This is why I suggested merging all of these articles together. Of course they need rewriting, but I doubt they will accomplish much on their own. There is only so much information for some of these places.
.:Alex:.16:19, 28 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Enemies itself is going to be impossible to merge, as its nothing like the Heartless or Nobody were on the KH page. Musical Instruments and Songs would also be hard to merge, as its already a collection of important items, but not a main part of the "universe". Races, without gutting mercilessly and removing all value of the information, would also be impossible to merge, and Recurring weapons looks to be the same way.
Master Sword, Hyrule, Triforce, Sacred Realm, and in fact, the big three articles (Link, Zelda, Ganon), would all be much better suited, and could actually work together on a
Universe of The Legend of Zelda series article. The others simply couldn't, without reducing them to something as trite as "there are many enemies in the game, there are varied races, music and songs are sometimes recurring puzzles in the game, Link collects a large amount of weapons". Merging would not help those articles at all, and would only make a bigger mess - and merging the others really only serves to have less articles in the project.
For most of these, the problem is not that the scope is too small to stand on its own, so merging will not help them. Merging only helps when an article has been split off, but turns out to be too weak to stand, like
Dark Link. The rest of these simply need cleanup and sourcing, and nothing else will help. None of the AfDs list "stub" or "too narrow scope" as a reason to delete for these pages.
Link has 40 refs and is a featured article (though not the best). It could definitely use work but there is no question about Link's independent notability.
Axem Titanium (
talk)
03:27, 30 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Except that nearly all of those refs are either game-script, or about the series and not Link. Yes, it is a very well referenced article, but the half of it that is actually about Link is mostly straight plot summary. Reducing it to the enyclopedic parts about Link would leave a very small article indeed.
"Conception", about half of "development", "portrayal" are about Link and encyclopedic. However, the article also has a huge problem with identifying each Link as the same character. "Characteristics" is slightly encyclopedic, but "appearances" is totally in-universe plot summary, and is in fact more about the games than the character. It really should not be featured, as it exhibits some of the worst of which lesser amounts has gotten other articles in the project deleted. For example, many of the sources paint his notability as important to the creators and the games themselves, not to the real world, and one of the sources is to one fan's now-impossible timeline theory.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.04:53, 30 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Yes, but a merge should be about the article's notability and not the actual quality of the article. I haven't looked at the article, you may be correct about its quality, but as for Link's actual notability, it's undeniable; well, except by you that is.
AshnardTalkContribs15:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)reply
Well, looking at the sources, they are about either the series, or are in-universe. I've had many articles where merges were demanded because the refs were the same kind - they're supposed to be about the character outside of the story, or whatever the rule is. I like the Link article, I want it to stay separate - but honestly, it's gotten really lucky, and is not truly worthy of FA.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.19:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)reply
We should probably do it anyway, and we can still build it up, but it would also take some of the heat off of the articles as it would be a more notable topic and less likely to be AFD'd.
Judgesurreal777 (
talk)
05:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)reply
Okay, here's what I'm seeing as a good setup:
Creation, spirits/gods (not as the spot for this information - basic info)
Triforce/Sacred Realm
Hyrule
Other Lands
Sacred Weapons/Artifacts (Legendary Items?) (Master, Phantom, Four, Biggoron? [games are somewhat unclear on if it counts], Noble, Light Arrow, Silver Arrow - possibly quest items)
Music and Instruments
If we want, we could further include major recurring weapons, major recurring characters (fine, you can keep it as a short paragraph with a link to the main article), and possibly some discussion of races and monsters.
However, I don't think we could do a good merge of the characters, bosses, monsters, or races articles. Those would almost certainly have to remain a "for more info, see here". But the basic setup should probably be something in that vein. I won't be available to really help until after this week, so if someone wants to start the sandbox page in their space, we can get this started. However, I do think we could probably get the recurring items page to nicely fit somewhere here - I've outlined how on that talk page.
We do this, the project shrinks down to characters, monsters, bosses, races, universe, and the titles. If we really wanted to, we could further cut down to have primary-secondary characters on the title pages, possibly bosses (though it might look iffy). However, I don't think we can safely collapse any more than that. After that point, all our effort needs to be on improving the quality of what we have - merging really wouldn't help any more. So, let's get Universe up and in good shape by New Years, and then turn our attention to sourcing.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.13:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)reply
Well, after a couple of weeks of no access or no time, I managed to start on the universe page
here. It's not at all formatted, and it looks like I accidentally signed it, but it's a place to start.
Some immediate concerns - the Triforce sections need to be condensed - instead of each piece getting a mention in the games it appeared in, detail the appearances of the entire Triforce, and have short descriptions of the pieces. Also, all the non-universe "Other appearances" and "trivia" sections will probably have to be combined, and then trimmed for importance.
Not even Mr. Lister'sKoromon survived intact.21:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)reply
Also, it might be better to split this into two articles:
Creation, Triforce, Realms, Hyrule, short par. of spirits/gods, char, races, and monsters
Artifacts: Legendary/Sacred Items, music and instruments, and items recurring enough that they are mentioned in reviews/previews or other news articles.
Continuing my relentless makeover of this project, I have come up with a new userbox as the current one really is a bit stale and.. bland? Comes in Link, Zelda and Ganon flavours, and I appealing to you whether we should use them and which one (or ones) to use. I also propose moving the userbox to
Wikipedia:Wikiproject The Legend of Zelda series/Userbox. And no, I have no idea why on earth it has come out weird down below. I can assure you it's most likely something to do with them all being together.
.:Alex:.19:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)reply
Hmm that's strange that the font-size is unreadable, since I can see it fine. Also, I think you removed the wrong 'the'. The Legend of Zelda is a title, so you should remove the other one.
Artichoker (
Discussion)
17:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)reply