Gineipaedia talk:Policy/archive

From Gineipaedia, the Legend of Galactic Heroes wiki

This page contains an archive of Policy talk discussions. These matters are considered closed and should not be responded to from this page; if you would like to re-open one of them, please raise the point on the main Policy talk page (you may link to the section in question if you like).

Contents 1 Resolved issues 1.1 2011/05/10 — Gender of pronouns for vessels 1.2 2011/04/30 — Articles for (and arguments derived from) unmentioned real-life topics 1.3 2011/04/28 — Position of licensed works in canon 1.4 2011/04/28 — Battle-numbering policy 1.5 2011/04/27 — Position of ONW in canon 1.6 2011/04/26 — Naming Standards 1.7 2011/04/25 — Order of real-life Japanese names 1.8 2011/04/24 — Date formatting 1.9 2011/04/24 — Starzone article naming conventions

Resolved issues

2011/05/10 — Gender of pronouns for vessels

Do we want to refer to vessels as 'she' or 'it'? Memory Alpha and Wikipedia's guide lines say either is acceptable. Wookieepedia's says 'she' is un-encyclopaedic because it is ethnocentric and has a non-neutral tone. As far as canon, i can not recall any instance where i saw them referring to a ship as 'she', but that could be because Japanese does not have that convention.

I personally do not like using 'she'. It feels archaic to me. I also agree with the Wookieepedia argument regarding tone — the tradition of anthropomorphising the ship is meant to convey respect and appreciation for it, and i don't believe it's the job of a neutral encyclopaedia to do that.  ♥ kine @ 06:46, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I enjoy using 'she', but I have no attachment to it. You guys may have noticed I have since stopped with new edits. I'll go over the old ones as well. Vympel 01:22, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, alright then. Canary, are you in agreement here? Can we consider this resolved?  ♥ kine @ 02:27, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

My take on it is that either is acceptable, but that using "she" is informal and "it" is formal. Since we're emulating an Encyclopedia here, the most common term to use ought to be "it." Keep in mind that the Japanese don't give (anything) genders, and in German the word for "ship" (schiff) and all its derivations (Kriegschiff, Flagschiff, etc.) are neuter. So, basically, we kind of have to use it.

Also keep in mind that most of the text here will involve various human entities, referred to as a he or she, so without giving ships a neuter pronoun, we run the risk of making some very confusing articles. Canary 03:20, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant, i fully agree. Considering this one resolved  ♥ kine @ 03:29, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

2011/04/30 — Articles for (and arguments derived from) unmentioned real-life topics

Hi. I disagree strongly with the notion of creating articles for things that are never mentioned in the series, like Extra-Terrestrial Life, as well as with the idea of stating as fact suppositions derived from real-world concepts or theories that are not evident from the series (like the notion that Rondolina is the only habitable planet in its starzone, even though this is never mentioned).

Regarding the first: Gineipaedia is not a general-purpose encyclopaedia for anything within x degrees of separation from a topic mentioned in the series. We are not a science or geography wiki — that's Wikipedia's job. In particular i do not consider the topic of extra-terrestrials to be any more relevant to the LOGH series than hobbits or sand worms are. It simply has no place. The statement comparing LOGH to 'The Foundation' is worthwhile, but it belongs in a background-information section on the LOGH franchise or LOGH OVA page, not in an article about a random subject with no connection to the series.

Regarding the second: LOGH is not real life. We can not draw unsourced conclusions about LOGH simply from familiarity with some real-life concept. You can say that the 'Goldilocks Zone' concept precludes more than one natural habitable planet from forming in a solar system, but by the same token you can say that it is estimated that only 1% of planets exist within habitable zones and of those only a small fraction still are capable of supporting life — suppose we did the calculations and they disproved the entire basis of the LOGH universe? Saying 'Goldilocks' also does not preclude the idea of terraforming and other artificially supported means of habitation. Mars is outside of this zone, and yet according to our article on it, it is inhabited by humans. How can that be? We don't know, because it never says one single word about it.

As mentioned before i prefer to be strictly canonist about these things. I can see the logic in using commonly accepted data like Fleet Files to flesh out our existing articles, but creating entirely new articles about things that probably wouldn't even get a mention in LOGH fan fiction, much less official media, is another thing to me entirely  ♥ kine @ 19:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

1. We cannot be a credible database if we refuse to analyze information.

2. It is silly to pretend real-world science has no bearing in a science-fiction setting, particularly a setting that (very obviously) strives for the most realistic depictions possible.

3. Seeing a page you don't like and tossing up a verbose tantrum is not particularly civil.

4. For specific issues with specific articles, use the talk pages for those articles: this is not a general policy issue. Canary 19:30, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Re 1: A database is a collection of facts, not a collection of analyses. You yourself have stated that you dislike the idea of appendices becoming more content-laden than the articles themselves — what are analyses like these but appendices to the facts we are collecting?

Re 2: Firstly, LOGH was not created as hard science fiction. Its lasers may move at light-speed and it may not use as much nonsensical terminology, but it as just as hand-wavy about scientific matters as Star Trek is. Warp technology, Zephyr particles, artificial gravity, beam weapons that seem to traverse enormous distances without blooming or dissipating, these are all just as fantastical and the series did not dedicate one single moment to explaining them realistically. Just like Star Trek, LOGH uses these as a back-drop for what the author really cares about — in this case, battles and politics.

Secondly, no-one is pretending it has no bearing. In real-world science you can hypothesise, but you don't state things as fact without testing them. We have no way of testing the hypothesis that Rondolina is the only habitable planet in its starzone. That's not science.

Re 3: I don't think i've been uncivil at all, i haven't insulted anyone or anything. If i have offended you i'm sorry, i am just somewhat passionate about my pedantry...

Re 4: I do think it's a general policy issue, because we have numerous examples so far of things that are not mentioned in the series — stars, planets, moons, and so on. Some of these i can see an argument for; if you're going to have an article about Io then i guess it is not such a leap of logic to have an article about Ganymede. But these seem to be growing exponentially in number, so i think we need to come to a decision about their general usage  ♥ kine @ 19:47, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

LoGH is hard science fiction. This is a common misconception: hard sci-fi has nothing to do with explanations of science or usage of real-world technology: it's about depiction. It's a literary description. Basically, any universe that functions in accord with the philosophy of science is "hard" scifi.

Re: Rondolina example: The thing about a wiki is that you can EDIT content like that. Just open the page and change it to "Rondolina is presumably the only habitable planet," or something like that, or remove it. I've posted nearly 100 articles in the past week: obviously, there are going to be a fair number of mistakes, mis-statements and out-right errors.

Re:Civility--as I said earlier, this is not a policy issue. It's a page-specific issue. You posted in page talks AND wrote a thesis here. That's a bit of an over-reaction, I think.

Re:4 the only other examples are the other 8 planets in the sol system, plus Jupiters moons, all of which, as you've stated, have a very clear role in the wiki, even if they were not explicitly mentioned--their presence is implicit, and warranted due to the prominence of Earth in the setting. It's not like we've got pages for Altaire 1, Altaire 2, Altaire 3, Altaire 4, Altaire 5 and Altaire 6. If we did, then this might be more of a policy issue, but we don't, so it's not. Canary 20:10, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I apologise and retract my concerns, moving to resolved  ♥ kine @ 20:45, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

2011/04/28 — Position of licensed works in canon

Vympel and i (kine) were discussing the place licensed works — Fleet File information in particular — might have in our canon. On LOGH Wiki — and until now on Gineipaedia — we had considered licensed works to be non-canon, and information from them could only be included in Background information and/or Apocrypha sections. However, there is a possibility that we could change this.

Points in favour of an apocryphal status for all licensed works:

• Consistent with our position on other non-animated sources — currently, only animated works are considered primary canon. If we allow some specific licensed works in the main article text, then the obvious question is, why only those?

• Avoids the need to determine which specific sources, and which specific data from them, to allow. For example, should we allow historical information (like ship launch dates) from licensed sources, even if there's nothing in the animated sources to support it? If not, why the distinction?

Points in favour of a canon or pseudo-canon status for certain licensed works:

• When it comes to vessels, information like physical dimensions is useful to have. If we don't allow licensed works, we'll have almost no 'canon' information on any of this.

• Allowing this information as canon would make it easier and simpler for us to clean up the many 'mechanical details' sections which are currently languishing at the bottom of our ship articles. If this information became canon, we could move it all to a 'Design' section (or whatever) in the body, and we could also incorporate it into ship infoboxes whenever we get those.

Please register your opinion by replying below this line!

I would say that we follow the policy of "so long as it doesn't contradict anything from the logh OVAs, it's canon." I think this is similar to how Star Wars fans handle tertiary information--they consider in canon until it's contradicted by primary information. Canary 14:49, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Star Wars' canon policy is something I hadn't really considered. Though for Star Wars it can be something of a farce given there's reams of contradictory information, LOGH doesn't really contradict itself ever, AFAIK, so this could be quite workable. As I said, I'm not keen on the idea of referring to stuff in say, the fleet files, as 'apocrypha' - official / licensed material would be better, and I think we can assume its valid unless we have evidence from the OVAs (or MCISS or ONW or the Gaiden) to the contrary? Vympel 15:20, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

So wait, just to be clear, are you guys advocating that we include anything that doesn't contradict the OVA? Every single licensed work is canon and can therefore be added to the article body? What about licensed video games? Or are we drawing the line at books and models? If so, why? What makes a model more canon than something else? And do we know for certain that none of these licensed things contradict each other? What happens if they some day do? Creating a new animated work is a huge investment and requires the appreciation of 'core' fans to succeed, but anybody can churn out books and toys — this is a significantly reduced barrier to entry into our canon.

(And what about novels? Currently we consider these apocrypha, and this was decided on LOGH Wiki because not many English fans, contributors and readers alike, have access to them. Are we going to allow licensed works but not the novels? Or if we're going to allow the novels, then what? What happens if a novel doesn't directly contradict something in the OVA, but it introduces a back-story or motivation that people who are only familiar with the OVA won't understand? How will readers react? Is this making our wiki more accessible to readers and editors, or is it introducing a barrier for them as well?)

So are we sure we want to go down this path? I can still be convinced, but these are pretty important questions that we have to ask ourselves, and we need to have logical and consistent reasons for everything we do.  ♥ kine @ 15:04, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I won't presume to speak for Canary, but my attitude is that the information from certain licensed material need not be intergrated into the 'primary' part of the entry - but it should be treated/acknowledged as 'correct' unless we have reason to assume otherwise by reference to the OVAs/movies. In so far as novels and video games are concerned, I just don't think we need to think about this- at this stage. The only reason the miniature models are even an issue is because I (and others, no doubt) have them all and they clearly indicate what the dimensions of the various ships are, for example. After all, the users of this wiki will be English speaking fans, and the overwhelming majority of said fans will only be familiar with the animated series fansub - I don't foresee hordes of people coming in and adding ... I don't know what. But in terms of this being a barrier, I think it serves instead as an advantage. Ships example again - the average viewer of the anime has no idea how big the ships are. He decides to google it. Up comes the wiki. Up comes the dimensions. His curiosity is sated! Btw, this is exactly how I found the original wiki - and look at me now :)

Basically, we shouldn't try and build Rome in a day and try and anticipate problems that may never even arise. I think the more information the wiki has, about everything - the better. We can always change our minds down the line. Vympel 16:20, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

A further thought - the Galaxy-class entry on Memory Alpha:- http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Galaxy_class - it has a specific section in 'Appendices' for the Technical Manual, which lists the ships 'vital statistics'. That approach could work, or simply a citation code for the fleet files to be used on the Mechanical Details, or whatever. Vympel 16:35, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, i'm absolutely not opposing the inclusion of this information (or any information from secondary/licensed works — i am 100% behind including ship dimensions, novel information, game information, and so on); i'm just questioning how we should handle it.

If you don't think it needs to be included in the main article body, then that eliminates 90% of my concern right away. :) So let me make sure i understand the rest of where you're coming from here: You've mentioned that you dislike the term 'apocrypha' — is that the crux of your issue? For example, if we changed that section to something like 'Other media', would that satisfy your concerns? Or is it something more fundamental than that?

Edit: Responding to your Galaxy-class example — that is definitely acceptable to me, and sort of how i had envisioned it actually. What would you prefer? Should we do something like Appendices > Background information > Fleet File ?  ♥ kine @ 16:45, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh sorry I didn't see your last comment before I posted that re: memory-alpha. That (your suggestion re Appendices/background/fleet file etc) would work for me, actually. It's a bit hypothetical at the moment, since the fleet file booklets are untranslated - but we do know for most of the ships length, height, width, and crew numbers. But its a start. What does Canary think? In terms of the 'apocrypha' issue, yeah my concern was basically I didn't like the potential implication that the relevant numbers were somehow dubious or not reliable. We should only dismiss them if the OVA tells us different. Vympel 16:49, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

First thing's first: we need a clear definition of apocrypha. What all does it include? Narrative elements only? (X ship was launched on X day?) That works for me. I do not think it's necessary to deem ship dimensions as apocryphal, unless we come across 2 officially licensed sources that contradict. I think this mostly because I do not want to see the appendices portion of any page have more content than the page itself. That is, somehow, wrong. I think the best thing to do re: ships would be to keep the basic format the same, and cite the Fleet File collection where the information came from. Good thing we have that merchandise section, huh, kine? We can handle contradictory information on a case-by-case basis. I don't think that will be an issue however: when the logh project first started and that anon gave me those dimensions and brief descriptions, I double-checked the info with a random logh fansite (which is where I got those sprites. If we can find that site again, we REALLY need to ask for permission. I don't know how strong either of your Japanese is, but I might be able to write up a (very) crude message). I also double-checked my Fleet File booklets where applicable, and found only 1 or two inconsistencies (where it was obvious which one was correct or not simply by looking at the ship).

Considering the OVAs don't really tell us anything about ship specifications, we don't have to worry about being contradicted by the OVAs. Canary 17:52, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Re 'apocrypha': My definition of apocrypha is anything that is mentioned in some other media than the animated series (plus anything mentioned in the animated series that is overridden by ONW or whatever). That means novels, manga, games, licensed books, models, &c. That is of course not to suggest that those are 'wrong' or that there is a 'superior' way to look at the universe of LOGH; it's just a distinction that needs to be made in order to focus our efforts and prevent reader confusion. (IOW, like i hinted earlier, 'Apocrypha' means almost exactly the same thing as 'Other [non-animated] media'.)

As far as the rest, like i said, i'm not opposed to it being included there. I just want to differentiate the two – information explicitly mentioned in the animated series versus information mentioned elsewhere. Given that (and the fact that you agree the format should be kept the same), what do you think the best solution is as far as placement of that section? Do you just want to keep 'Mechanical details' but put it above the Appendices section? (This still grates against my desire to keep things separate, but it is a compromise i could live with.)  ♥ kine @ 18:30, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I see no reason to change anything: the key point would be to have the information cited. If we decide that only animated material is canon, and that everything else is apocryphal, we'll be digging ourselves into a hole in the long run. The thing is, we don't know whether the information is apocryphal or not--we're just assuming. The logh animators were very, very good, and very, very consistent. Wright Staff also put a lot of work into the authenticity and accuracy of their product. Therefore, I think we're safe in assuming that their information is accurate.

My opinion is basically the same as my opinion regarding different OVA series: Newer supersedes older; any information is considered accurate unless it is contradicted by something superior. Looking at Memory Alpha's 1701-E page, they've got technical information there that wasn't stated in any series or movie (weapons + dimensions) so I think we're okay. Canary 18:54, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

The thing about Star Trek is that there's HEAPS of information about the ships in the various displays that appear on-screen, and MA people are meticulous about documenting all of this. I can't say for certain whether that's where the weapon/size information on the Enterprise-E article came from, but MA's general policy on technical manuals is that information from them should only be referenced in background sections.

All of that said: If we want to keep 'Mechanical details' where it is, and cite it, that's OK. I will come up with a citation format for Fleet Files later (not sure if we just want to spell it out, or if we want an actual template like the series).  ♥ kine @ 19:10, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I've mentioned this elsewhere(?!?) but I'm not really happy with the current format for mechanical details. Ideally, I think just need a table, maybe something similar to the one used w/ character pages. Probably with the same placement. I would also like to remove all of the sprites from those pages, and instead compile all of the FPA sprites and GE sprites in two separate images, one for each page (Imperial ships and FPA ships) as something like a "size comparison chart." Each ship would need a label, of course. I say this for three reasons:

1) If we are asked to remove the sprites, it's much easier to delete two than twenty, and the damage to the layout of the pages will be minimal

2) We have far fewer sprites than screenshots, so if we stick to screenshots we get a more cohesive layout.

3) Some of the sprites are just way, way too small and look ridiculous on the page. Canary 01:52, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

On balance, I think Canary's right. And you probably haven't seen my post on the forum, but I did find that Japanese fan site with *all* the sprites. Here you go:- http://www.geocities.jp/izelone0079/

So yeah - I say lets work towards getting rid of the sprites, and moving the ship details into a box like with the character names?Vympel 02:04, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

That seems fair. I will start working on an infobox template for the ships (in addition to some method of citing Fleet Files), probably tomorrow or the next day. In the mean time, just leave the mechanical-details section where it is. (Considering this semi-resolved, pending completion of the aforementioned)  ♥ kine @ 03:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Template is up, FFC citations are done, moving this to resolved  ♥ kine @ 11:59, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

2011/04/28 — Battle-numbering policy

Basically, should it be "Third Battle of Tiamat" or "3rd Battle of Tiamat?" Which format should be standard?

I'm in favor of "3rd," that way the battles are better alphabetized in the tag index. Canary 15:38, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed with Canary.Vympel 04:06, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I prefer spelling it out, but since to my knowledge we never see these terms on-screen (we only hear them in dialogue) i have no argument other than preference. But it has to be consistent — if we are going to use the '3rd Battle of Tiamat' in the title of the article, we need to use '3rd Battle of Tiamat' every single time we mention this battle in any article. (Otherwise you are sort of implicitly saying that the title of the article is wrong.) If you think that's what we should do, then let's do it.  ♥ kine @ 14:50, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I prefer spelling it out as well, but by using numerals the pages are easier to index. I see no reason why we can't use 3rd and Third interchangeably, just as we use various German and English terms interchangeably. Canary 17:53, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, before we continue along that line of discussion, would you be amenable to spelling them out if we can use that sort key method instead? For example, we could have all of the Tiamat battles under 'T' and then sort them first, second, third, &c. Would that be a solution that allows us to switch back to full words?  ♥ kine @ 18:22, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

That would be perfect. As I stated earlier, this is mostly about indexing the pages correctly. Canary 18:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant — i'm going to start doing that now. Will consider this issue resolved!  ♥ kine @ 18:46, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

2011/04/27 — Position of ONW in canon

Vympel had pointed out that some of the ships look different in ONW from how they appear in the OVA. This raises the question of what sort of position ONW should have in our canon. Our current policy (and the policy that existed on LOGH Wiki) is that the main OVA always trumps ONW when any conflicts arise. However, that does present sort of a dilemma because in most other matters we have a newest-first policy (which logically should make ONW take priority). So which one should we choose to have precedence?

My my view is that ONW should take precedence over the OVA battle for Astarte for two reasons:-

1. As the newer production, it should be considered to be 'retconning' the OVA at the points where the two differ (which can be significant in terms of plot points). In addition to the primary consideration of the much expanded and elaborated plot, I think its significant that the producers took the time to alter the Pergamon to look more distinctive, as well as showing us Merkatz' unique flagship (I'll add an entry for that in the near future) - when they could've just animated the old version ships all over again; and

2. As a movie length account of the same events (and their background), it is closer to the original novel's version of events in several key aspects - whilst this isn't really a 'canon' consideration it does lend the ONW account more credibility with me simply because its closest to the creator's original intent.

This probably goes without saying, but notwithstanding what we may decide on this, ONW sheds IMO significant background light on the events of Astarte that the OVA does not, so its account of the leadup to the battle should still be incorporated into any account of Astarte we do. Further, perhaps in the 'background information' section of the ships, we could note they look different in ONW/OVA?Vympel 01:08, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree absolutely on the two points in your last paragraph. Regardless of what we decide, anything that doesn't represent a conflict between the two (like the expanded roles of Lichtenlade and the three chiefs of staff) will be incorporated into canon. Any plot points that are superseded by the higher-priority release (ONW or OVA, whichever) will be added to the 'Apocrypha' section at the bottom.

As far as the specific question at hand, your position makes sense, and i think it's similar to what Memory Alpha does. I'm leaning towards agreeing, but let's see what Canary says.  ♥ kine @ 04:19, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Vympel 100%. Canary 14:49, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Alright, it's decided: ONW officially takes precedent over the OVA.  ♥ kine @ 15:06, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

2011/04/26 — Naming Standards

The names for Kaisers are inconsistent. Several pages include the "von Goldenbaum" surname--most, however, do not. We need to decided: do we add 'von Goldenbaum' to each Kaiser's name, or remove it?

Character names in general are organized haphazardly due to the presence of both Eastern and Western naming conventions, which reverse the order of forename and surname. For eastern names, this doesn't really create any issues, but for Western names, it breaks apart families. If we change all of the western pages to surname first order, we would be able to "group" families together in the category index.

Exampe: "Alex Cazerne" to "Cazerne, Alex". That way, on the index page, his link would be right beside his wife and daughter.

I'm torn on this. With Goldenbaum kaisers, it's pretty obvious they're all Goldenbaums. The historical precedent would be to simply refer to them as "Catherine I" and "Rudolf I" and so on. (We don't even know if those are the names they're born with, or if a Kaiser chooses a "king's name" once he ascends to the throne). Given that is how kings and emperors are historically called, I am (mostly) in favor of omitting the "von Goldenbaum" surname from pages of Kaisers. (Obviously, it should stay there for the few Goldenbaums who never got to the throne).

My only problem arises with the fear of creating a double-standard: if we omit 'von Goldenbaum' from the Imperial Kaisers, are we not also obligated to remove the 'von Lohengramm' from the Goldenlowe kaisers? I'm not sure I'd like the pages to be, simply, 'Reinhard I,' 'Hildegard I,' and 'Alexander I.'

Of course, we could get around that by saying that Reinhard's last few words to Hilde prevent the Goldenlowe from being a "real" dynasty, but that would feel kinda cheap.

I am currently undecided on re-ordering the pages of western-name characters. Per my usual opinion, I'm am chiefly concerned with 1) clarity and ease-of-access-of-information and 2) consistency. Canary 00:05, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I have to admit that, at least on my part, there was very little thought going into the names for all of the kaisers. It's super haphazard.

In general i would prefer to be (if i can make up a word) a 'strict canonist' — we don't put anything into the wiki that isn't explicitly shown or heard in the series. To me that would include things like surnames. (The precedent i would point to is Therese — in all likelihood, her full name is Therese Wagner, since her father's name is Wagner and that's usually not a given name. But since this isn't actually shown or heard, i mention it only as a background note.)

So... if we were going to go that route, i would say that, no, unless they are explicitly referred to in the series as '_____ von Goldenbaum', they should not have von Goldenbaum in their name. That means Rudolf will have it, but most of the others won't.

And i don't think that's a contradiction, because our policy should be — like Wikipedia's and Memory Alpha's — to use the most common name. Rudolf von Goldenbaum is more commonly called that in the series than 'Rudolf I', Reinhard is more commonly called 'Reinhard von Lohengramm' than 'Reinhard I', and so on — just like how, in the real world, some people are known by their middle names, and some people aren't.  ♥ kine @ 15:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

So you're fine with everything being inconsistent? I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure I agree. Granted, I wouldn't change Therese's page to "Therese Wagner," because we don't know for certain that's her name... but in the case of the Kaisers, we DO know for certain that their surname is von Goldenbaum. Well, really, we don't even know if they HAVE surnames to begin with after becoming emperor.

Anyway, I've renamed the issue and added another little bit about alphabetizing pages. Canary 14:49, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Life is inconsistent, bros! Some people just go by different names. My father uses his middle name in day-to-day life, i don't. I don't even have the same surname as the rest of my family. That's how it is sometimes. As far as knowing that the emperors' surnames are Goldenbaum, i don't think that we do at all. Catherine, for example, was (according to Oberstein) a 'grandchild of the third kaiserin of the previous kaiser, Ludwig III' and her father's surname was 'Pegnitz'. That lends far more weight to the notion of her name being 'Catherine Pegnitz' than anything else. And that's not even unusual — for example, Queen Elizabeth's grandson (through her daughter) has the surname 'Phillips', even though the Queen obviously doesn't. In 500 years of history i bet there are dozens of examples of grandchildren and cousins with different surnames becoming kaiser. We can't necessarily assume anything about them.  ♥ kine @ 15:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the name-order thing: I strongly disagree with putting the names like that in the title. I think that there is a major incentive for us to use it the way it appears in the series — when i want to find Rudolf von Goldenbaum, the first thing i'm going to look for is R, not G. This is not only how i think of it in my mind when i want to find something, but it is also how i have been trained to do it by every wiki i've ever used.

There is a possibility to use a category sort key if we want to, without having to rename the articles. (For example, Cazerne's page would still be called 'Alex Cazerne', but he would appear under the C section along with the rest of his family.) However, i'm still somewhat wary of doing this because it is confusing.

Edit: Apparently — and i didn't realise this — Wikipedia and Memory Alpha both sort this way in categories. Huh. For examples, see Swiss physicists and Starfleet captains. (Albert Einstein appears under E and Benjamin Sisko appears under S.) This changes my opinion somewhat; if it's how other wikis do it, it's worth looking into. It would also address my misgivings over the '3rd Battle of Tiamat' naming convention. What do you think?

Edit 2: I've created a test category so you can see how this would work: Category:Sorting test. Please take a look there and let me know if it's something you want to pursue.  ♥ kine @ 16:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I understand your misgivings and share them completely. The test category looks good, however: it allows us to sort by surname without making wonky page names (ex. Cazerne, Alex just looks bad, right?). I think I'm in favor of this test category thing. Only... how does it function? What criteria does it follow? We need something that can easily accommodate both eastern and western naming conventions.... don't wany Yang in the W column, after all. Canary 17:57, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

The category sorting works like this: When you add a category to an article (say, [[Category:Soldiers]]), you just add a 'sort key' to the end of it. So, for Alex Cazerne, you would do this: [[Category:Soldiers|Cazerne alex]]. For Yang, you'd do: [[Category:Soldiers|Yang wenli]]. (It's important that the first letter is upper-case and everything else is lower-case and punctuation-free, because MediaWiki sorts them all separately.) Fairly easy, and completely controllable by us.

If you're OK with this, i might be able to have the bot change most of these for us relatively quickly (some we'll have to do by hand, but the majority can be fixed by swapping the first word with the second). But i'll have to double-check.  ♥ kine @ 18:16, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. Let's do it. Canary 18:57, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I believe almost all of the characters' names (FPA, Imperial, and Phezzan — but not pre-Imperial, since you'd asked me not to mess with those) should have sort keys added now. You can check any of the People categories to be sure. I've also added little note boxes to make sure people know they're sorted by surname (that addresses my concern about it being potentially confusing at first glance). And i've also fixed the sorting for all of the battles. So that takes care of the sorting matter.

Now, regarding the rest of it — consistency and surnames and all that — is that still an open matter?  ♥ kine @ 23:01, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Nah. I think we've settled everything here. Canary 01:51, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

2011/04/25 — Order of real-life Japanese names

Oh, another thing we must decide on: The order to use for the names of real-life Japanese people. For example, Yoshiki TANAKA (English order — surname last) or TANAKA Yoshiki (Japanese order — surname first)?

The advantages of English order are:

• Easily accessible to people who are unfamiliar with the Japanese order (which is a benefit considering this is an English-language wiki).

• Using English order for real-life Japanese names would make them consistent with the order of real-life English names — assuming we ever get an English release.

• Aligns with Wikipedia usage — familiar to WP converts.

The advantages of Japanese order are:

• More 'authentic' to those who are familiar with Japanese.

• Arguably more respectful of the culture of the person in question.

• Consistent with the policy for in-universe characters (we always use the name order given in the series, even if it's non-English, as with Yang Wen-li).

• Consistent with Japanese spelling.

Please register your opinion by replying below this line!

(I had been leaning towards English order, but i'm not married to the idea.) We might want to provide both orders in the body text, regardless of which we use. For instance, if we use English order we can do:

Yoshiki Tanaka (Japanese: 田中芳樹, Tanaka Yoshiki) is...

If we do Japanese order, we could do:

Tanaka Yoshiki (Japanese: 田中芳樹; English: Yoshiki Tanaka) is...

But maybe there are better ways, i'm not sure.  ♥ kine @ 22:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

To me, the simplest and most accurate method would be to retain the Japanese word order. I know Western academia sees fit to alter these things as often as possible, but it's a philosophy I (strongly) disagree with. I hope my reasoning for this stance is sufficiently obvious I need not explain it, so I will only add that, should we choose to alter the naming convention for production staff (authors, actors, producers, etc.) we would ALSO need to alter the naming convention for characters, lest we find ourselves with a double standard. I think we can all agree that double standards are bad, right? If we change Tanaka Yoshiki to Yoshiki Tanaka, we would also have to change Yang Wen-li to Wen-li Yang, as well as research the etymological roots of every character's name to determine which is a surname versus forename, and alter everything accordingly. To me, that sounds like a tediously bad idea. — Canary

I don't agree that we would also need to change the characters' names.

With respect of course — by arguing that having 'double standards' is inherently a bad thing, you would seemingly be arguing against your own position that we should be allowed to change date formats but not characters' names. Is that not a double-standard also? I would say it is just as much as changing Japanese names is, but that doesn't necessarily make either one the wrong way of doing things.

That said, as far as the philosophical issues, i have no argument for it, because you are right.  ♥ kine @ 00:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Date format "localization" v. name "localization" is not a double-standard, as they are two very different things. In this case, we're dealing with proper names on both ends, so it is a double-standard. Canary 02:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, i was actually thinking about this a bit further, and i think i'm going to concede. We both agree on the philosophical matters, my only concern was to make it friendly to people aren't familiar with Japanese conventions.

So let's do the Japanese order — but let's address my concern too. What's the best way to do it? Something like my example above? Or maybe a little italic line at the top that says like This person's name uses Japanese name conventions? Or... something else? Let's solve problems bros  ♥ kine @ 05:46, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Exactly how many instances are there of a Japanese staff member having a non-Japanese name? And rather than something at the top, I think a simple footnote ought to be fine. — ???

I think there are two Japanese people with non-Japanese names. One is James Onoda, i can't think of the other.  ♥ kine @ 15:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

See the Naming Standards issue above: if we reorganize pages so that surnames, or family names, are always given first, we can avoid this problem. James Onoda would become Onoda, James, normal JPN names (Tanaka Yoshiki) would remain the same. If we don't do that, I suppose a footnote would be in order. Nothing too prominent ought to be necessary, I think. Canary 14:52, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to add a foot note as suggested; see one of the 'People' categories for an example of what this'd look like (i'll probably stick it at the very bottom of the article i guess). Considering this resolved!  ♥ kine @ 23:01, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

2011/04/24 — Date formatting

We have also had a disagreement regarding date formats. Currently, we use dates according to the following patterns:

2801 CE
U.C.796
R.C.487
N.R.C.1

The formatting of the CE dates is not the same as the in-series dates. I would prefer that we make these all the same, by removing the punctuation from the in-series dates and putting them in the back; for example, 796 UC. Also: the term 'RC' (and by extension 'NRC') has a questionable and potentially nonsensical meaning — presumably it stands for something like 'Reich Calendar', which is a mixture of German and English. I would prefer that we use 'IC' and 'NIC'; for example, 487 IC.--Canary

The date formats we use are appropriate if we assume that their common usage is the most correct one. Wikipedia says that 'CE' always follows the date (unlike 'AD') and implies that it is usually un-punctuated. Meanwhile, all official and unofficial LOGH sources use U.C./R.C./N.R.C. in the way that they appear above — in front of the date, punctuated, and without a space.

We don't actually know what 'RC' stands for. There is some likelihood that it's either 'Reich Calendar' or 'Reich Century', but they never outright state this to my knowledge.

As has been correctly argued in the past, we do not have the ability to determine what the author's or producers' intentions were. We can't say for sure that 'RC' and whatever it stands for aren't 100% correct according to 36th-century spelling rules. ♥ kine @ 16:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It's possible background information re:calendar exists somewhere in the encyclopedia. Do you have access to it? I'll try looking through it myself, but my Japanese isn't very good, so even if it's there, I may not be able to find it. Regarding creative intentions, that is certainly a valid point (it's mine!) but I think we need to have a little bit of leeway. Right now, I'm thinking the best way to accommodate both sides of the argument be to have a "dating systems" page, or something like that (with "UC" and "Imperial Year" and the like all redirecting to it) that says something like...

IC stands for Imperial Calendar. In the OVAs it is symbolized with the characters "RC." It began in the year XXXX of the common era, when....

Something to make it clear that the dating system we use is synonymous with the systems in the OVAs, but not necessarily identical. That way, we can maintain consistency in terms of formatting, have the language necessary to talk about these eras instead of constantly abbreviating them, and at the same time accommodate the possible inaccuracy or alternate intentions of the OVA systems. Canary 03:21, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by 'encyclopedia', so i'm not sure if i have access to it. The Japanese sources i do have seem to use the UC date system exclusively, so they don't even bother to write it in a Western format (they just use the normal kanji for 'year').

As far as 'dating systems' pages, any description of how dates work on Gineipaedia itself belongs in a policy article (which is something i still need to create i think, regardless of how we decide). I also don't really consider that such a compromise. We could justify changing anything if all it takes to explain it away is throwing a page up pointing out the differences. :/

And regarding consistency, i am not really understanding why it's even an issue. We will very very rarely mix date formats — the only examples i can think of would be the Timeline and yet-to-be-created dating system pages and maybe once or twice in the history sections of the Galactic Federation, FPA, and Empire pages. In every single other instance (thousands of pages), we're going to be using only UC or only CE, so the question of formatting consistency doesn't even come up. It only appears otherwise in the tool-tip jazz. Is this all enough to justify changing an existing and consistently used convention of the series?

Vympel you need to tie-break bro :(  ♥ kine @ 03:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I have been dealing a whole helluva lot with the timeline recently. Regardless of the standard used by Japanese fan sites/resources, I think there are serious issues with using UC as the standard/default dating system. Why? Because it's inconsistent. It was not used at all for several centuries preceding the OVAs, and once the Neue Reich pops up... they're pretty much in charge, so it's safe to assume that UC will, once again, fall out of use. Canary 03:09, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Well what's the alternative? If we use CE dates, nobody is going to know what we're talking about and they'll have to look shit up every single time they come across a date. Even i don't know what the CE->UC correspondence is. And if we use any other date system, then we have the same problem that you mention, except even worse because none of them are as long-lived as UC.  ♥ kine @ 03:21, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

What we have here, is a failure... to communicate.

I'm not talking about changing the dating format for every page, ever. It's fine to use UC for all that stuff.

I'm talking about the timeline page, specifically, as I feel it is a very crucial page (and easily the kind of page that will be visited much more often than others). I am suggesting altering the date formats to make the timeline more cohesive, as which would also entail altering the formatting of other pages to be in-line with the Timeline page formatting.

What this means, practically, is that instead of seeing the date on Yang's page as U.C. 799, it would read 799 UC. Is that really so awful a change?

As a separate item, I am also suggesting renaming RC and NRC to IC and NIC for the purposes of communication: it's impossible to fully discuss either date without knowing what the abbreviation stands for. This limits what we're able to say, and how we're able to say it. This certainly involves far more interference from us, and I understand your reservations about making this kind of change, but given the circumstances, I feel it is warranted.

I am not suggesting we adopt CE or RC as the default dating system for articles. But it is a fact that for several articles there WILL be confusion over the dating system because we are forced to use either CE only, or RC only, or NRC only, or UC only. Having 4 dating systems is difficult: this is why today, we only have "common era" and "before common era." — Canary

Re: 'Is that really so awful a change?' It does bother me, yes, for the same reason i might dislike changing all of the dates on Wikipedia to read 'C.E.####'. As much as it might be preferable to some people to do it that way, it flies in the face of the established method. It does no-one any real favours, and it invites protests from irritating people like me. I guarantee that if Gineipaedia ever becomes popular, this issue will come up time and time again. (I am not even the worst pedant in the world surprisingly)

Re: 'As a separate item, I am also suggesting renaming RC and NRC to IC and NIC for the purposes of communication: it's impossible to fully discuss either date without knowing what the abbreviation stands for.' I don't understand how changing it to 'IC' will help anyone. If you have seen the series, you have seen them use 'R.C.' many times. You have not seen anyone ever use 'IC'. That immediately is -1 point for doing it that way.

(As far as what we call the date system itself — as a separate issue from what abbreviation we use — i am absolutely for calling it 'Imperial Calendar' because that is the direct translation from what they call it in Japanese (when they spell it out). So it's not like it would be un-nameable or anything. It would just have an abbreviation that is (presumably) in a different language from the one that it's being used in — and that's no different from a dozen abbreviations you and i use every day in English, like e.g., i.e., RSVP, and so on. Like i bet you could ask 20 people on the street what e.g. stands for and 90% of them couldn't tell you — but that doesn't diminish its usefulness, even to those people.)

Re: 'I am not suggesting we adopt CE or RC as the default dating system for articles.' OK, i'm sorry i've misunderstood you  ♥ kine @ 04:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Basically, I want the dates to be #### CE, ### UC, ### RC and # NRC. Nice and consistent, without changing anything important. Consider it minor localization. At some point, I would like to make a "Dating Systems" page, with information on all four dating systems used in logh: it would be nice if we could rig all of the dates to link to that page (the ones that "pop up" for each year w/ the identical year in NRC and RC, if that's possible. That... thingy (I am so incomptent and mediawiki stuff it's not funny any more) should also include CE at the very end. I think the order should go NRC, RC, CE (in order of newest to oldest). It's fine to keep the "base" as UC because, as you've said kine, that's what the OVAs do. Canary 14:18, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I will say that i find changing the punctuation/spacing less disagreeable than changing the abbreviation itself. But i still would prefer not to. So i think we are going to need input from others on that one, because we seem entrenched!

As far as your other suggestion re: having a dating system page and a link to said page in the date template, i agree. I would recommend an article called 'Calendar' in the newly created Science category. Of course, this article needs to be in-universe — no mentions of 'in the OVA' or 'this is how we do it on Gineipaedia' — stuff like that would be background information or Policy articles.  ♥ kine @ 19:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Works for me. My argument stems mostly from a functionality and aesthetic perspective, whereas yours is mostly ideological: not really a lot of room for compromise when the roots of our arguments have so little in common. On a mildly-related note: is it ever explicity stated what "UC" stands for? Central translates it as "Space Era," and IIRC, the Japanese was something like "Space Age". If we don't know, should we make any assumptions? "Universal Calendar" would seem to fit, for example.

I don't think it is stated what it stands for, but your assumption seems likely. 'Space Era' seems like the most elegant way of translating the full Japanese name.

I'm just going to change the date template as you'd indicated for now; if anyone decides against it later they can always be switched back (as long as people use it)  ♥ kine @ 21:33, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

2011/04/24 — Starzone article naming conventions

This comment has been moved from Translation.

Neither system nor starzone should appear in page names. Just use the name of the star. Ex., Amlitzer, not Amlitzer Starzone; Sol, not Sol Starzone; Tiamat, not Tiamat Starzone; etc., etc. That would be like "America Country" and "Britain Country"--a pointless redundancy. — Canary

I don't think i would agree:

1. I should point out that the articles we've brought over from LOGH Wiki, many of which were written by you, contain frequent references to '____ Starzone' and '____ star' — so this is not unique to the articles here. :p

2. The Japanese sources appear to refer to them in a majority of cases with '星域' Starzone, so there's precedent there as well.

3. I don't agree with your analogy. America is a country and that's all it is, but 'Tiamat' and 'Tiamat Starzone' are two different things. One is a star and one is the stellar system which encompasses that star.

I chose the latter for the article names because it was my intention that they include more than just information about the star itself. This mirrors the usage on Wikipedia (see Sun versus Solar System) and on Memory Alpha (see Sol versus Sol system) — the only difference here is that we simply do not have enough information about most of these individual stars to give them separate articles. So i chose the one that encompasses both the star and its system, as that way it will be consistent — every star has a starzone, and every event that occurred within that starzone (whether it's near the star or not) therefore has a place in a 'starzone' article.

... Does that make sense?  ♥ kine

Works for me Canary 23:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we should put in either starzone or system. I think 'starzone' sounds a bit clunky, personally, but I'm easy, really. Vympel 01:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)