Forum:Overhaul?

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I want to:

1. do the releases changes that are on the release talk page, as no-one has replied to me with a reason to the contrary, or taken any action to fix the page. (that is, categorise all current releases and then delete the releases pages and start over with the new 'releases' page referring to 'product lines' rather than geographical sorting).
2. remove the 'overview' sections -or rewrite them, whichever is easier and appropriate.

If no-one post here with a reason to the contrary, I'll start this week. Slax01 10:36, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

What exactly are you proposing to do? I remember being slightly confused after reading your last post on the model releases forum.... But I thought we'd basically reached a conclusion.... I'd say that rewriting the overview sections is definitely a good idea though. --Azimuth727 03:57, March 29, 2012 (UTC)

I agree to an overhaul, just one thing I found today: List_of_Zoids_Releases and Zoids_Model_Releases. One comes from the main page, the other from the Zoids page. Both seem to attempt to cover the same info. Both are totally different. I only noticed this by clicking on the main page and thinking "why are there only 2 posts on the talk page"... I'm not sure if this is common knowledge, but there are dozens of pages like this scattered all over the place. I don't think deleting everything is the way to go, but we at very least need to delete/consolidate some of it. Sylvanelite 08:53, March 29, 2012 (UTC)

Releases page, I want to:

• make categories with the info from the current releases page
• delete the current releases pages, but keep links to the categories, for instance in a timeline
• make a new releases page based on product lines, rather than geographical releases of products. (ie: a page on fuzor zoids, genesis zoids, custom parts, action figures etc. Not a page on the fuzors US, fuzors AU, fuzors JAP releases.)

Reasons have been provided at length.

Also, as per what Sylvan has said, I may try and make a site map. That was the original intention behind the image map on the main page. I never completed it due to never being able to navigate the releases pages.

Ideally you should start at the top and work down- this currently isn't the case. Best example is probably the Zoids page. Realistically, we could delete that page and simply shift the info over to the main page. I would have done so if the wiki skin change hadn't screwed everything up. Slax01 09:10, March 29, 2012 (UTC)

It's become obvious to me that we need to delete some pages. But we also need to make sure no information is lost in the process. There needs to be some kind of plan. There is enough difference between regional releases that it merits a mention. But at the same time, the information is inconsistent enough that it's hard to consolidate. One thing that I think we need to do is remove timing information from the various release pages. For example, nearly half of the Mechabonica article is about its relation to OAR, OER, Robo Strux, and OJR. This information is repeated almost word-for-word on every article that is even remotely related to Mechabonica (which there are a lot). IMO, This information needs structure to prevent so much repetition. (it doesn't help that the OAR and Mechabonica share the same images either). Some example solutions:

• Remove the duplicated information from the pages, and just have it in the "list of pages"
• Add a template (like the information box on the Zoids pages) which has information like "previous, next, inherited, etc"
• Add a table to replace the lists (like the Zoids or video games tables)
• Add headings to separate information about the Zoids in the release, the timing of the release, the reception, cancellation, and inheritance from other releases
• some combination of the above.

From what I've seen of the anime and model pages, tempates and headings seem to be the way to go. Most of the existing release pages are "walls of text". This massively hurts usability, but also means these pages are almost never edited. We need to break up walls of text into small, relevant, manageable, chunks. Removing duplicated and redundant information will come for "free" if we do this. (basing this on the huge number of "Van" pages which used to litter the wiki) Sylvanelite 09:05, March 30, 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the overhaul (as I have likely caused around 99.9% of all problems on the Wiki). One thing I would like to add is,

• remove anything fanon related

As said, having caused many of the problems on the wiki, there are many fanon-based material laying around, mainly in the character pages. The videogame character pages also have many, many issues (which is actually only half my fault, as I think I gave the creator of those articles the wrong idea). Of course, the main issue I have is how are we to verify the information in the character pages given that mostly there is either very little to none resources/citations we can use. Technically, all the character pages would be considered "fanon" as no sources were stated in the creation of them, or used in them. I have also seen many biased articles, to top that off.

(Zoids Fanatic 01:53, March 31, 2012 (UTC))

I have no issues with any of the propsed changes. When I come back from visiting colleges tomorrow, I may start to implement some of these myself. Leon35 22:58, April 1, 2012 (UTC)

Action started

There being no issues raised, and no attempts to clean up the Releases page, I have started my overhaul. Further work will clean up the pages and names, to bring them into line with the new navigational structure. Content does not, as of yet, line up.

Review of the overview sections has not started yet.Slax01 09:17, April 8, 2012 (UTC)

It's still worth noting that List_of_Zoids_releases is the page linked to on the main page. So we'll need to correct that one as well. Sylvanelite 00:46, April 9, 2012 (UTC)

I'm editing the non-linked page on purpose. It's a scribble page and is taking radical changes. Once I've finished, it'll be merged and flagged for deletion appropriately. Slax01

OAR

Can anyone explain this section from the OAR page:

Though referred to as the Original American Release, the OAR was also available in Australia, the UK and mainland Europe. The only difference between the OAR released in America and the OAR released elsewhere is that the American Serpent's wheels are green instead of brown.

When I was consolidating the releases, Serpent was consistently released under the "Power Zoids" box, both in the UK and USA. So that's easy, there's no need to use OAR when talking about the serpent. But if there are no other differences in the the rest of the OAR Zoids, why use it at all?

I'm going to keep the OAR category page, but if there's nothing different between the Zoids, then I'm going to remove it from the rest of the wiki. It's just one less thing to have to maintain. (especially since it's an uncitable fan-term).

Just as a heads-up, the rest of these fan terms are also going to come under scrutiny. They seem to be massively over-used, to the point where they are harmful to the wiki. We've lost a lot of information because of it (e.g. "power zoids" is never mentioned by name in OER or OAR articles, despite being clearly printed on the Serpent and Tank boxes). If there is a suitable replacement term, seen in official media, I will use that instead. Anything that's a "sub-line" of a fan-term, will be considered a full line separate from the fan-term (to stop the fa-terms poisoning the information). Another example is the Z-builders line, which despite being official, has next to no information, and the little information that is here, is hopelessly fused with the NAR. There are many more examples like this. Sylvanelite (talk) 02:12, July 28, 2012 (UTC)

Do we have any official names for these releases? While I agree with you about the use of fan made terms, even such names as "Hasbro Release" or "TOMY release" would be under fire, as those are not the real names of the lines. We need to find a way to identify the release locations of certain Zoid lines that don't have seperate brand names. After that is all said and done, I suggest we contruct one page for fan terms used in the Zoids community, which after we complete this overhaul, (one day haha) will be made.Leon35 (talk) 18:46, July 28, 2012 (UTC)

As far as official names go, there seem to be a few. For example, I see no reason to use OAR or OER instead of Power Zoids, NAR or NPR instead of Z-builders and NJR instead of BLOX.

My first step is to identify all these sub lines, and remove them from the fan-terms. For the OAR, the problem is there are no Zoids left. If the OAR article is correct, then it's the same as the OER, which means we've got two fan-terms talking about the same thing. (Location doesn't play into this, since the OAR states it was released in Australia, UK and Europe as well as North America).

The second step would be to identify what's left. Large chunks of the NJR, NAR, NPR, etc, should still be left. If they turn out to be useful, we can keep them. I agree, "TOMY release" isn't particularly useful, since almost every release was done by TOMY. Sylvanelite (talk) 00:04, July 29, 2012 (UTC)

"Power Zoids" only covers 2 Zoids; Serpent and Tank, not the rest of the OAR. And I may be wrong, but isn't the name of "Power Zoids" OER only?

OAR and OER are not the same. I am a bit confused by that sentence,

What I ment was, how can we identify "NJR: Zoids if we can no loger call them "NJR" (as an example)Leon35 (talk) 06:33, July 29, 2012 (UTC)

I'll address the last point first, since that's easy to answer. If NJR is useful, then I'll keep using it. But I won't use it for sub-lines, like BLOX. I'll use the name BLOX instead.

Power Zoids does only contain serpent and tank. It is called Power Zoids on both the OAR and OER boxes.

The trouble is, that the OER and OAR articles are really confusing:

The first five Zoids to be released in Europe were initially un-named, but when the line proved successful they were re-released under the names Tyrannazoid (Garius), Terrazoid (Glidoler), Spiderzoid (Gargantulus), Aquazoid (Aquadon) and Protozoid (Elephantus).

the first five Zoids initially went un-named but later became Tyrannazoid (Garius), Terrazoid (Glidoler) Spiderzoid (Garantula) Aquazoid (Aquadon) and Protozoid (Elephantus).

The first is from the OER article, the latter from the OAR. They are talking about exactly the same thing. The OER seems to contain everything from the OAR, with repeated lines simply saying "they are the same". Another example is from the Giank ZRK:

The Giant ZRK was also released in Europe in 1984. This version was identical to the OAR version, and even shared packaging

The trouble is since these are fan-terms, I can't correct this information (there is no way to get citations). If the OAR and OER are different, there is nothing mentioned here about what that difference is.

If the OAR Giant ZRK was released unchanged in Europe, why is it part of the OER? Why not part of the OAR that was released in Europe? Is there any way to tell the difference between OER Zoids and European OAR Zoids with identical packaging? Sylvanelite (talk) 08:27, July 29, 2012 (UTC)

OAR and NAR (and others) sent items to different Tomy partners, Tomy Corp. branches, and distributors that's how the "Found in Australia or Mexico" occured when Australia and Mexico had no line of thier own. More recent, NPR is Korean with different plastic than NJR even though the colors, inclusives (booklets, stickers and Irvine figure) and package (exept language) are identical.

Some of the different areas had already begun a line when Americans were sent over, like OER and OJR. While OAR may have come first and packages look the same, it does not mean the re-distrbuted Zoid was the only release of the Zoid spread world wide.

Advertising and sales varied geographically by line too. You couldn't send a U.S. mail-away coupon for an OER Zoid and vice-versa. Typically there is a slight packaging difference, like a backwards weapon.

OER Gaint ZRK has differences in instruction manual (like print, company-branch location, copy right date) and later-run package has a hook-compatable top flap. My later-run OER Giant ZRK has a mold issue too, but that's likely a production error as the same part is fine for later-release Mammoth.

Sectioned Release (OAR, NAR, NPR, NJR, OJR etc.) includes the When by year or month, Where by instruction language or geographic production, Who by company branch or company partner, What With by Zoids sold or advertised together, and Buyer Spread by language(s) and currency(s) advertised-in medias for products-of the same production set-center.

*Note- the above structure is a modified from global department-store company's GIS data catagorizing-application for "Runs", "Versions", "Lines" and "Editions" of various international toys, packaged foods, books etc. but has been generalized for the Zoids Wiki.* 68.4.85.85 01:27, July 30, 2012 (UTC)

In the case of Zoids, data is scarce, language is an issue and the Zoids Wiki is, for lack of a better term, chaotic when looking at some of the releases. But that doesn't mean the data has to be completely cut (or worse, erreneously catagorized) for the purpose of the Overhaul. The redundancy could be dropped, yes, but it would be plausible to continue using recognized terms from the Main Wikipedia Zoids Entry like OAR or NJR. It's just a matter of analyzing the presented data.

Non-Zoid example. There are these chocolate covered biscuts/cookies with two 'wafer' sides sandwiching chocolate-creme inside called Tim Tams. Tim Tams in Australia are packaged with energy in Joules by Arnotts Australia company. Tim Tams in Hawaii are exactly the same. Arnotts from U.S. World Market are packaged with energy in Calories by just Arnotts (no country) but the package is otherwise the same as the first two. Tim Tams from U.S. Target are packaged with energy in Calories by Pepperidge Farm in a white and purple box.

They all have different advertising (well, Hawaii Tim Tams had one local coupon) and price variation but take them out of the box and they're all the same treat that happen to melt at the same rate. But if they were to be dubbed with a 'release' Aussie-Release would be the first two Tim Tams akin to the NAR Dark Horn also found in Mexico and Australia, World Market would be World-Market or side-noted American Release like American Mammoth, and the Pepperidge Farm Tim Tams would be the American Release.

Zoid Examples. Leogator comes like the Fuzors version or in late-NJR shades of blue. The Fuzors-like one was done by the U.S. branch of Hasbro but was most often seen in the UK. Two blues, one Japanese and one Academy, were seen in in Japan and Asia respectively. So, if U.S. Hasbro is NAR by default, Fuzors-like Leogator is NAR with note where it was more often seen, Tomy blue is NJR and Academy blue is NPR despite being nearly identical to the Japan version.

The Old American lot from the U.S. branch of Tomy Corp. (then centered in Carson, California) are seperate from the other lines, particularly in advertising and print or how short the line or that OAR lacked a non-toy media 'series' to accompany it. OER's of the same moulds and colors could be distinguished by a later release date, different appearences and such.

Say the data is terribly redundant, just put the fact that X Zoid variant was released in Y Release even though it shares many characteristics with X Zoid of Z line if there's any data showing some differences in point(s) of the afore-mentioned "Release" structure.

Unless Zoids Wiki wants to be a bit like United States Kennel Club which is sorta case by case and does not fall in with international Clubs. ex: American Akitas and Akita Inus are different breeds with differnts standards except in North America. But even Wikipedia recognises the differences. Though, this Wiki isn't stable, so non-set, case-flexible rules are probably better for the unstable Zoids Wiki until it's more structurally sound. 68.4.85.85 02:16, July 30, 2012 (UTC)

I feel the above quite strongly supports my proposition (ie: to remove all current so-called "releases" pages (possibly keeping them as categories), make pages for identifiable product lines, and put all model variant info under the actual Zoid's page). This is for, among other things, due to the sheer inconsistency of what constitutes a "release". Indeed, every attempt I hear to justify the current releases pages has just dug the hole deeper. Slax01 (talk) 07:48, July 30, 2012 (UTC)