StrategyWiki talk:Guide/Layout

Outdated

Lots of things need to be updated. The button section at the bottom is the most obvious. The section on ToCs could also use a bit of work. -- Prod 23:14, 16 October 2006 (CDT)

Don't we need the link to OoT to go to the begining as the main page isn't that much of a good example--Rocky (Talk Contributions ) 09:01, 4 March 2007 (CST)

Just what I thought a while ago. I'll change that right now. Also, what's wrong with the buttion section?--Dan 09:02, 4 March 2007 (CST)

Using / instead of the base name

In every ToC I've seen we use [[BaseGameName/Page]] rather than [[/Page/]]. The policy denotes using /Walkthrough/ so what's correct? --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 19:29, 5 May 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, that policy is being completely disregarded. I think that what we are currently doing (with BASEPAGENAME and walkthrough pages NOT being subpaged under walkthrough) should be set as the new policy. Anybody else have any comments on this? --Ryan Schmidt^{Talk - Contribs} 09:00, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

I think that in the ToC we shouldn't have everything a sub-page of walkthrouh but in the toc use this layout [[/Whatever]] on the ToC because it saves a lot of characters

I agree with the "/Whatever" links for new ToC's. However, it actually takes up more space by removing the game names on existing pages (as that previous diff is retained). But the "/Walkthrough/" should definitely be removed from the policy. Also, it should have some sort of reference to the new preload buttons we have for new pages, as they can automatically lay out the ToC (and they include the "/Table of Contents" into the main page, removing the need of maintaining two (read the ToC section thoroughly to see what I'm talking about)). Finally, do you think this policy would better fit into the StrategyWiki:Guide? It seems like a crucial part of making one. --Ryan Schmidt^{Talk - Contribs} 11:30, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

Probably better there, If you're OK with it, I'll change the templates.--Rocky ^{(Talk - Contributions)} 11:33, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

Actually, it appears that it is already on the guide at StrategyWiki:Guide/Organizing the pages (and more up-to-date than this page). I'm thinking that we should slap a policy tag on top of that page and just delete this one. --Ryan Schmidt^{Talk - Contribs} 11:36, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

Should I change the preload template then?--Rocky ^{(Talk - Contributions)} 11:39, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

Not yet. I want to see what everyone else thinks about this (see the community portal talk page). --Ryan Schmidt^{Talk - Contribs} 11:46, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

The problem with using the simpler slash system is that some games (e.g. BS Zelda: Kodai no Sekiban) work best with two levels of subpaging. If the adaptive linking method is used, links that are supposed to go to Game/Walkthrough or whatever will end up going to Game/Subpage/Walkthrough. It's also less ambiguous, and probably easier for a new user to understand (since ../Walkthrough/ does not go to the same page as /Walkthrough/ or even ../Walkthrough). Garrett^Talk 15:15, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

What IS the difference? --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 15:36, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

I think the StrategyWiki:Guide is essentially going to become our "policy" pages. The /Walkthrough/ stuff is mostly deprecated, but there's nothing explicitly against it. the [[/x/]] system should be avoided at all costs on the ToC pages since it won't work properly. -- Prod (Talk) 14:46, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

Lanugage policy discussion

This is being moved from the deleted Languages policy page to preserve the discussion, as something about how we romanize Japanese may be added to a different guideline at some point. — najzere^T 20:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't much care for this policy

I'm not sure how this went from a two-person user talk page discussion to an enforced policy in the first place, but this thing causes too many headaches for what appears to be no benefit. First of all, this policy's purpose isn't helpful, and totally irrelevant for the majority of our readers. Anyone who even understands the difference between the ways of romanizing Japanese also isn't confused by seeing one of them instead of the other. For most readers, however, any representation of the language will be equally unintelligible and therefore ultimately unimportant. Second, English isn't a phonetic language. As someone who has no idea what the Japanese or its romanization mean, all I see is childish-looking phonetic spelling. Maybe I misunderstand the purpose of the romanization though; is it supposed to be used as a phonetic guide? Because there are already English standards for doing that. My main gripe though, is that this phonetic spelling is different than what's on Wikipedia. Like it or not, WP is the first place we look (and probably readers look) for "authoritative" namings. I guess this is because they have policies to fact-check and provide references.

Anyway, it seems like this policy would entail a lot of work to "fix" existing usages and require specific knowledge to enforce. Besides NMH and Procyon, how many admin can fix these romanizations when they're contributed? I'm not against the phonetic version in {{nihongo}} templates (like most things I consider it to be whatever the editor decides), but I like the symmetry between Wikipedia's (and whichever sites they're referencing for their information) and our guide names. Also, citing the "difficulty of trying to type the accented vowel" as a reason for this policy isn't sensible, as we currently enforce the "é" character in all things Pokémon, non-standard letters in guide naming and even the foreign characters we're romanizing. I think policies should be made to stop anything detrimental to the wiki, not force a superficial style opinion. And if this spawns more huge editing notes on guide main pages like this guide, then it's even more bothersome. — najzere^T 23:29, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Be bold allows us to propose changes at any time, even in an official form (nothing gets done around here unless we stir it up a little). The issue here is that the policy requires a certain level of understanding or commitment, I can see that. I can also see how this is and will be difficult to uphold. However, the reason it is a policy is to have a written guideline for presenting words in a standardized form. The main intent of this document currently (so far, only related to Japanese) is to create a common presentation for transliterations, urge our viewers to not rely on already established transliterations that may be inaccurate, and act as a mediator in transliterations disputes.

To calm your and perhaps others' nerves, I see no reason why we can't move it to appendices, remove the enforced policy tag, use it like a policy, but expand the page to include information regarding languages as well (pronunciation guides, etc.). I don't want to make this a stressful addition, but simply copying the names of things from the internet just won't do (we must be better than the rest). Again, perhaps labeling it as a guideline would be more accurate to the efforts involved. I've already proven in the example you linked that established names should not be blindly trusted. Unless an article is highly revised on Wikipedia, or a featured guide, it is unlikely that it has been given the same fact checking that other articles have had.

The use of the diacritics in Japanese is only used for typesetting. Pokemon includes the symbol "é" which is not part of the Japanese language (Romanji is an established latin alphabet for their language that excludes characters such as Q and X). It is, as you state, the official English use of the name (ポケットモンスター, Pocket Monsters, is the real name). However, this is what is referred to as "artistic freedom", and a copyrighted, typeset term and trademark. As far as I know, "Pokémon" could be Spanish (it includes a Spanish character and Japanese shares similar phonetic characters). Therefore, there's no reason to use ā, ē, ī, ō, or ū unless you're trying to save space.

On the topic of phonetics, the transliteration of Japanese to English does not follow an English phonetic standard. It uses Japanese pronunciation in the form of English characters. Obviously before anyone can read the English equivalent correctly, you have to understand what sounds are used in Japanese (it is much more phonetic, with some variance within characters, than English). The complexity of this is that there are a few standards, established in the academy, that have been used over the years for romanizing Japanese. As such, characters like "チ" (pronounced tee or chee), "ツ" (tu or tsu), or "シ" (see, shee, or thee like theatre) are typically written as ti/chi, tu/tsu, or si/shi. Simply put, this is the difference between the old and new schools. To me, it really isn't important which we choose, but whichever it is, we need to educate people why we use it and how to spot the differences between the two. Wikipedia uses the new school methodology, but I favor the old school because of its simplicity.

Old and new school differences (I'm just listing some notes): basically it comes down to an English speaking guide versus Japanese grammar. The old school uses two roman letter combinations for single characters, whereas the new sometimes uses three. This works well for the old school because it clearly establishes the consonant-vowel combination (e.g. ta, ti, tu, te, to) that is a basic guideline of the written language. It also helps establish that typically two roman characters is equal to one mora (syllable). The two character representations, such as ti, tu, and si, are also important because they are not phonetic, whereas chi, tsu, and shi are specific to one use of the character (the number 2 is represented with ツ, which would be pronounced tu, not tsu). Therefore, the old school allows for ambiguity (something that cannot be eliminated with standards, and is required when using characters such as "フ", which represents both "hu" and "fu").

This is about being correct, and forcing correctness. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 00:16, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would argue against having a standard for this kind of thing, and moving it to the appendices as a guideline sounds like a good idea. I was mainly concerned with having this as an enforced policy, which lends a particular weight to it (we don't even have policy pages for control tables or page naming, which are much more pervasive and actually affect our English audience). Guideline vs. policy issues aside, what about straying from Wikipedia's naming conventions? Representing the romanization is trivial (unlike the actual Japanese characters, they don't even help me find foreign box art or game sites) and you say it's unimportant which standard we choose, so why wouldn't we just use Wikipedia's style like we do for everything else? I don't know how you expect the average English-speaking user to produce these romanizations if they can't grab them from Wikipedia, which is the only other place I ever see them. The logistics of enforcing this style need to be addressed, because while asking English speakers to properly use English in guides seems very reasonable, I'm not sure that asking them to properly romanize another language is. Whatever standard is ultimately chosen, I think with the information here, on Procyon's talk page and elsewhere you have the beginnings of a good guide for the page, so maybe if it's not too complicated the actual mechanics behind it can be explained to the lay person. — najzere^T 01:53, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Right right. I've been looking up the possible romanization systems on Wikipedia, but I've yet to find Wikipedia's stance on it. I'll update the page soon. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 07:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Deletion

I think this is too specific and unimportant to be a policy, and should be moved to a paragraph somewhere in the guide about general editing, with a link to how Wikipedia does it. As for the actual content, I have researched this topic and here are my findings:

1. Romanization of Japanese is used to aid in pronunciation of Japanese to non-Japanese speakers using the Latin alphabet.
2. There are three well-known methods of romanization: Hepburn, Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki. Hepburn is the most widely used, both in and out of Japan, and is the de facto standard for most of the world (used in the Library of Congress, for example). Kunrei-shiki is widely known, if not used, in Japan (it's taught in schools there). Nihon-shiki has little to no following, although it is the strictest of the three, meaning it provides the most accurate mapping to actual Japanese phonetics.
3. Hepburn romanizations are the most likely to be correctly pronounced by English speakers.
4. The removal of macrons from vowels (ō → o) mainly stemmed from the difficulty in producing them. Acceptable alternatives would be "oh", "oo" or "ou" for "ō", although none are standard.
5. Doubling of vowels by standard comes from a modified form of Hepburn, which is used mainly by linguists.
6. Kunrei-shiki users are mainly Japan natives and linguists, as this method is best for illustrating Japanese grammar, as opposed to pronunciation.

Given the above, and the fact that Wikipedia itself uses revised Hepburn, I am in favor of also using this method on our wiki, as it seems to be the most popular and expected form. This also means romanizations can be copied from Wikipedia by our English speaking users without necessarily knowing how to romanize Japanese. — najzere^T 18:23, 27 January 2010 (UTC)