Zoids Wiki talk:Rules

Rationale:

• 1-Naming: Romanisations do not take into account spelling or grammar, or other such context that makes the name correct to an English-speaker. They are simply Japanese words written with English letters, and as such, are unreliable. Unofficial translations are subjective and often contradict one another, and therefore cannot be reliably cited.

This Wiki revolves around the use of many different contributors and users. This is the reason why popularity is a useful and reliable criteria for picking the naming convention.

• 2-Notability: If something is difficult to navigate it becomes difficult to edit and information becomes unreliable (for instance, if an article is unnecessarily long, a new page splitting up the content makes it much easier to check the correctness of). If a new page only contains repeated information, then to edit one page requires a user to edit two pages, obviously reducing the integrity of the wiki. If a new page does not contain information, then if, in future, someone wants to make the same page, they first have to find the old page and bring it to conform with their future page, making edits more difficult, and thus should be avoided (as well as making problems with navigation).
• 3-Speculation cannot be cited, by definition, and therefore cannot be taken as fact. Furthermore, official material is not made to be robust to inferences made by its fans (it is made to be entertaining), and therefore, no matter how common-sense the speculation is, it is unreliable, and should not be used.
• 4-There is no universal fan group for Zoids, so information about fans cannot be cited and is therefore not wiki-worthy (Note that this is distinct from, say, information about the popularity of the franchise, as this can be cited, for instance, by sales data).

Please note that these rules may be subject to change. For the relevant discussion on them, please see This forum topic.

A quick question. What do we do if somthing is implied or hinted, and how would we write that down? (Zoids Fanatic 23:55, June 29, 2010 (UTC))

I kinda want to use the forum to discuss this, and leave this page with naught but the rationale, but until an admin come along and sorts it out, there's no harm done. Anyway, it depends on exactly what it is you're talking about, I can't say without context, because if it is implied but the viewer must make the jump, then don't mention it, but if it is implied outright in-context, then just say that "X was implied by Y". Slax01 01:06, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

Well, let's hope the relationship sections are fine then. (Zoids Fanatic 01:13, June 30, 2010 (UTC))

What if the only "official" translation is clearly wrong? For example, the box of Elephantus calls it "Elepantus", the Sauro Knights box calls it "Ssauro Knights" and the manual of Airsplitter calls it "Air Spliter". Also, I haven't seen any official translation of Will's name (the hero of Saga Fuzors) - does that mean we should romanize it and call him "Wiru"? In cases like that, I suggest the "unofficial" translation takes priority over the romanization if there is no conflict (i.e. only one "unofficial" translation). Cheironyx 10:00, March 1, 2011 (UTC)

"In the event of two official translations existing, if common sense does not resolve the conflict" I'm pretty sure common sense can be employed here. Besides, most of those that you have listed don't have only one official translation (notwithstanding the fact that most of what you've listed are romanisations and not translations (according to wiki definitions) anyway). Elephantus needs to be checked out (I could only find the one box, according to the wiki it was re-released with a different box, and the one manual I found was too low resolution to read), Sauro knights is spelt that way on the back of the box, Airsplitter (I don't know what this is, but either way) you have implied that the box contradicts the manual- if so, then there isn't only one translation and finally, with "Will" if there's no official romanisation or translation, we are free to use anything we wish. If the official (ie: published) romanisation is "wiru" then yes, we do use that, but I'd want to see the source first. Slax01 11:02, March 1, 2011 (UTC)

Elephantus is consistently spelled without an "h" on the original and Memorial Box versions - in fact, every Japanese site calls it "Elepantus" as well. The box of Airsplitter (a limited edition Custom Blox) doesn't have the name in English anywhere, and again, all the Japanese sites call it "Air Spliter". I hadn't looked at the back of the Sauro Knights box, sorry about that. Finally, you might want to change the page to official romanisation > unofficial translation. Even so, there are characters like Störmer and Shuu who do have one official romanisation - "Sheterma" and "Syuw". I really wouldn't want to use those XP

P.S. "Information about fans" may be unreliable, but information about any particular fan or any fan-made game/custom/art can be cited just fine. The fan-made materials might be worth mentioning just to show people that they aren't official (e.g. mention Shield Liger Assault at the bottom of the List of Games page so people won't mistake it for an official game). Cheironyx 01:48, March 2, 2011 (UTC)

@elephantus: I only wonder what the OAR name was (as the article states it was repackaged) but otherwise, if consistent, then the page, indeed, should be changed to "Elepantus". Either way, the name Elepantus should be mentioned in the article.
@Airsplitter, again, if consistent, we use what the official media use.
@Romanisations, I thought I had put in a definition, but I guess they didn't make it off the draft page, so I've updated it accordingly, thanks for pointing that out.
@fan-made, if fan sections are to be made I suggest some things:
1- keep it to a single page, perhaps multiple pages, such as one for websites, one for custom models, etc, but VERY strictly enforce the content being kept on these pages ONLY, so that we don't get a repeat of people inserting nonsense into articles as has happened many times in the past. (and good lord it took alot of work to get rid of). The purpose of these pages would have to be very clear.
2- I am VERY adverse to putting any kind of fan material into existing pages, even with strict rules and sections, for many reasons, not least of which is past experience.
3- I am adverse to putting info about specific people up, as this can invade privacy and/or lead to ego trips/flame wars when people don't get the recognition they deserve, or someone else gets more than themselves. Even statements as simple as "this was done by X" can cause hell to break loose.
4- We can't be sure of who's posting what, so if we post a creation without the right to, many (significant) problems can be created, especially with the possibility of imposters. I'd want disclaimers and stuff, because experience has told me that the Zoids community in particular is quite strict when it comes to these kinds of things.

These are just some of the issues with fanpages. I must note that there are certainly advantages to having them, but I'd just be careful about them that's all. The existing rule was made because we had HUGE amounts of false info in the wiki, but as most of it has been removed, I'm not too opposed to relaxing the rule, provided we take due care with where we tread. Slax01 08:26, March 2, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, when I said "information about any particular fan" I was just trying to make a point - I don't see much reason to actually add that kind of thing to the wiki. For the fan-made stuff, I was thinking of just adding notes about "this is NOT official, so don't add pages about it or ask why it's not on the wiki". Anyway, my main point is that "official" spellings can still be plain wrong - just look at the official Zoids Infinity EX+ site - and there should be some better way of deciding what to use. Sorry about arguing so much ;) Cheironyx 10:04, March 2, 2011 (UTC)

Fan stuff in general lacks notability. For example, if I make a custom Zoid, who's to say it's more or less notable than another fan-made Zoid? There are potentially infinite things we would have to add to the wiki, and every one would need the "this is not official" disclaimer. It would be trivial to drum up more fan-made pages than official ones. In particular, this is a problem with internet forums. While some forums are indeed big, they are certainly not ubiquitous. Right now, this wiki isn't intended to supersede internet forums. The fan-made things can be kept to the fourms. We could add something like that in the future, but I'd suggest talking about that on the help desk. As it stands, the rule it just there to prevent people from claiming notability over other people, which can cause flames.

As for your second point, about the official spellings being wrong. The rules are primarily there disambiguate between various official spellings. That site falls under rule 2 "published Japanese media which uses English letters". Whereas rule number 1 states "published English media". So the site you've listed wouldn't be used unless there was no English version of that character's name.

To try and give an example of the rules in action I'll take some names. The site you've provided states "Brat Hunter". The English release of Zoids Legacy states "Ballad H.", the New Century DVD special features states "Brad Hunter (Ballad Hunter)" and finally, the anime calls him "Brad" (but don't state a surname).

So rule number 1 kicks in "published English media" over "published Japanese media which uses English letters". That leaves "Brad", "Brad Hunter (Ballad Hunter)", "Ballad H." all preferred over "Brat Hunter". But now we have to distinguish between the various english versions. The most popular version is by far the anime, which calls him "Brad", but ommits the surname. So further info is needed, leaving the anime DVD and Zoids Legacy. Now the DVD is less popular than the TV airings of the anime, and Legacy is the only Zoids game to recieve a world-wide release. So popularity can't distinguish between the two. Common sense kicks in, saying Legacy's translation is generally pretty poor, and that the anime DVD is the same as the TV show. This gives us the final name of "Brad Hunter".

That's how the rules work, and they work very well. Part of the reason for the rules was to stop the whole fan-made thing above. In some rare cases (e.g. Zoids Genesis) the names of characters have to be taken from fan-translations. But then it causes problems, why is one person's fan-translation better or worse than another person's translation? In particular, when people start doing "corrections" to Japanese names. For example, take a look at Palty. In the past (before we had these rules) there were two contesting names "Palty" and "Party". One fan thought "Party should be used because that's the correction to the spelling of Palty", another fan thought "Palty should be used because it sounds more foreign, and other anime/games do this (e.g Tales of Symphonia)". Both people here had perfectly valid reasons for supporting their claims, and as it stood, it was impossible to say who's translation was right, and who's was wrong. So the only way to resolve this was to make the rules (as they are now) and lay down the law. That's what is meant by: "Unofficial translations are subjective and often contradict one another, and therefore cannot be reliably cited.". It's only there to stop flame wars.

So, I've blabbed on for a while, but hopefully that gives enough reasons as to why the rules are as they are. They might seem like they are choosing a bad or deliberately wrong name, but we do always try and use the most correct official name possible. I am open to changing the rules, but so far the number of problems it's solved has been far greater than the number it's caused. Sylvanelite 07:13, March 3, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the rules work fine how they are. I guess the main idea I'm getting at is that we should have another option for when the fan opinion is overwhelmingly against the official spelling for a justified reason - e.g. Elephantus over Elepantus or Störmer over Sheterma. I'm guessing most fans wouldn't be happy with spelling Raven's name as "Leyvin", even if there was no anime and the Infinity page was all we had. But I don't mind too much if the rules stay as they are. P.S. The OAR Elephantus had no name, unless you want to call it "The Zoid That Has 2 Huge Ears And Is Sturdy And Strong" :P Cheironyx 07:26, March 4, 2011 (UTC)

I have said this in the past, and my argument hasn't changed. Here's a brief overview of what it was: Firstly is with respect to "most fans". "Most fans" would have no idea what the Elephantus or Stormer are in the first place, as most fans are spawned from the Nc0 or CC/GF animes (or at least, most english fans, who comprise our audience), and are probably not represented on internet forums (especially given the demographic and years zero/CC were released). This, by default, means people using these names can be assumed to be in a minority. Secondly, if we assume that people read this wiki (admittedly, a tall assumption xD), then any information we have on here *becomes* a popular opinion. Thirdly, "justified" is subjective. If you popularise a name, people will find so-called "justifications" to keep it (examples are plentiful, heck I just did it on the Elephantus talk page). I'm not trying to shoot you down, I appreciate the sentiment, and your point of view makes sense, I'm just playing devil's advocate so that decisions we make here are robust and sound. Slax01 08:13, March 4, 2011 (UTC)

This was written in reply to Cheironyx's edit, not Slax's. I was writing this while Slax posted, so there was a merge conflict.

There are three problems with that.

1) Who measures "overwhelming"? Can you tell me how many Zoids fans there are in the world, and of those, how many use the name "Elephantus"? The answer is no. What you can do is cite forums, but forums are very good at self-promoting wrong information. For example, fans "overwhelmingly" used the name Berserk Führer, which is one reason why the Fury's page initially lived under Führer. Ultimately though, the people that actually knew the name Führer were a small minority of the people who knew the Zoid (almost an insignificant number compared to the people who know the name Fury). It's impossible to measure "overwhelming", so we don't use that as a factor in decision making.

2) It doesn't settle arguments. Like the Palty vs Party thing. If someone comes up with a good reason for an alternative name, there is no way of settling the argument. "Better" is subjective. "Official" is not.

3) "Fan opinion" is self-fulfilling. "Because fans call it Elephantus, it should be Elephantus on the wiki", which in turn means any fans reading the wiki now call it Elephantus, which increases the number of fans calling it "Elephantus". That's circular reasoning, and could be applied to anything.

Making exceptions would defeat the point of having the rules, because the rules are ultimately only there to settle arguments when they arises. We would (actually we do) get thing like "but you made an exception for page XYZ why not ABC as well"? I am open to suggestions, but any changes to the rules have to be able to stop arguments without ambiguity, that's the only real strength to the current rules. Sylvanelite 08:19, March 4, 2011 (UTC)

I guess I can't argue with that. I really don't want Störmer and Shuu changed, but all I can say in their defence is that I've seen maybe two people spell their names that way and zero people (but one pamphlet) spell them another way :P Cheironyx 12:10, March 4, 2011 (UTC)

New rule

Can I propose a new rule/guideline or two? Firstly, most English-language Zoids material uses American spellings (e.g. Styluarmor over Styluarmour, Customize Parts over Customise Parts), so all Zoids terms (if not entire pages) should use American spelling, with exceptions for OER/Zoids2/NER stuff (since they were mainly in the UK and therefore use British spellings) or if there is solid evidence for the British spelling (e.g. サーベル sabre and セイバー saber are spelled differently in English and in katakana - sabre is used for the OJR Sabretiger and in weapon names from most releases, by the way). Secondly, evidence from memory, second-hand info and similar hard-to-verify sources should be strongly discouraged on almost every page. However, it should be strongly encouraged for discontinued and hard-to-get-at material such as Online Wars and the Fuzors mobile phone game, since it could be the only possible way to get information about them. Cheironyx 00:44, March 27, 2011 (UTC)

"all Zoids terms should use American spelling"

"In the event of two official translations existing, if common sense does not resolve the conflict, use the most popular version." -I believe this sentence adequately resolves the issue, especially considering that your rationale for using American is that it is the most popular (how widespread a term is in official media is a good proxy for popularity).

as for general spelling, american english should be used by default, for consistency. Writing in non-american english is not against the rules though, for the same reason "making typos" is not against the rules.

"... However, it should be strongly encouraged for discontinued and hard-to-get-at material such as Online Wars and the Fuzors mobile phone game, since it could be the only possible way to get information about them."

I disagree with this. If you look at the edit history of many of the video games' character pages, you'll notice that many had a great deal of completely false information inserted (example here). As such, I am against encouraging using hard-to-verify sources- it can easily lead to justified vandalism. I'd rather have no info than incorrect info. That said, the opposite is true, if you object with an article and want it deleted, you need to say why, and in saying why, you need citations, so if someone makes a page without citation, then it can't be removed without citation, so if the page is on an obscure object, which has no citations either way, then that means the page can't be removed at all. Of course, common sense hold here, so this is by no means a blank cheque to make pages. Slax01 05:43, March 27, 2011 (UTC)

Changed "most popular" to "most information" as popular can easily change due to fans of the franchise. "Most information" an example would be Bigasauru vs. Giant ZRK, Giant ZRK is more popular because it's the name used in the US and Europe but Bigasauru, while less popular and a #2 catagory name, has way more pertanant information to benefit the article.

I can see why you'd say this but I had thought about it when I wrote these and my reason for using popular is listed at the top of the page: "This Wiki revolves around the use of many different contributors and users. This is the reason why popularity is a useful and reliable criteria for picking the naming convention. "

Information, on the other hand, while it seems like a reliable objective measure, is actually much more subjective than it looks. Popularity can be got from measures like sales, viewership, or proxies thereof. But how do we measure information? Number of pages? Episodes? re-releases? do we take quality of information or just look at quantity? If we do look at quality, how do we define quality? Thus, I went with popularity. I know above I said not to add info about fans of the series, but its not really a contradiction, I could elaborate, but to save creating a wall of text, I won't unless asked.

On the Giant ZRK comment, I do want to change the page to Giant ZRK, in lieu of a citation for an english release under the name "Bigasauru". Slax01 08:24, April 6, 2011 (UTC)

Leon what's your problem dude? Undoing my edits and saying "why would you delete it with no explination?". HELLO: I GAVE my explanations already. I can't help it if you are illiterate! I am undoing your (horrible and messy) edits, if you have any sensible comments feel free to post them, but for god's sake stop undoing my edits for no reason!! Slax01 21:49, April 6, 2011 (UTC)

That is an exageration. I do not undo all of your edits. If it seems that way, then you have my apologies. Also, I did not see it last time, sorry about that. I will leave it the way it is now.--Leon35 00:03, April 7, 2011 (UTC)

By most information I meant pertaining the Zoid released, not quantity of the info per say but the version of the Zoid varient we know the most about. This would be the varient with the most pertinant information that visitors/ average fans most easily recognise/be looking for. It would also be the varient/spelling with info that can most easily be cited. Following the trend, in most cases, this would end up being the more popular varient/spelling anyway. Zaber over Saber, Sheild Liger over Shield Tiger, Bear Fighter over Zear and so on.

Maybe something to the extent of the "most known and generally used" would be a better way of putting it. Popularity-wise I'm betting Command Wolf AC out ranks the normal one 'cause it was piloted by Brad (same with CW Irvine) and it enjoyed a release here in the U.S., and there were 2 HMM AC's but we use the simpler name Command Wolf because it can direct to the most varients even though white/normal one never made it to the NAR. Plus, the anime character ussually just call it Command Wolf anyway. Spinosnapper (NAR and anime varient) is likely more popular than Spinosapper but -Sapper has better details. Similar cases include Diablotiger over the Battle Legends Diablo Tiger Alpha, Ultrasaurus over the American Ultra Saurus and the big bad NJR Blox names (Dimetroptera) over the cheaper, way-more-common-on-ebay NAR Z-Builder names (Dimetra Ptera).

I'm actually for keeping Bigasauru believe it or not, only because Bigasauru has stats, Battle Story info, how it fought, what beat it and other nice details. Giant ZRK, well, we know it showed up in the US and Namer named the large powerful machine Giant ZRK in the comics.