The result of the debate was support proposal. 1358 (Talk) 20:42, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
Greetings, Wookieepedians. We are faced with the issue of how we might potentially handle the inclusion of the number sign (#) in titles for individual comic issues. To give a very summarized rundown, many Star Wars comics, primarily those published by Dark Horse, include the number sign in their literal titles. For example, take the newest Star Wars series. Dark Horse consistently names these issues "Star Wars #1", "Star Wars #2", etc. The literal name of issue seven in this series is, for example, simply "Star Wars #7". See here for a quick example of how many other Dark Horse Star Wars titles include the number sign.
Now, it's important to point out that due to Wikia article-naming restrictions, we are technically unable to include the # sign in article titles. Try moving an article to any name with # in the title, and you'll get a big red error message. We are, however, able to nonetheless present the page itself with the number sign if we so choose. Please see my work on Star Wars 1: In the Shadow of Yavin, Part One, which I've formatted as an example to demonstrate on this forum. We can then format the name as such in Appearances lists. Please see the Dominus sector article as an example of how titles appear with and without the number sign included.
So I believe this begs the question: Do we want to include the # sign for comic issues in articles as such? Up until this point, we have largely, if not completely, omitted the number sign from comic issue names (mostly, I figure, on account of Wikia's aforementioned naming restrictions). I am creating this forum first to open it up for discussion, and then ultimately I hope to conclude with a final vote that will ideally achieve a standardized way of handling this.
To hopefully try and guide the initial discussion, at face value I believe we are left with a few options. We can either:
- a) Include the # sign for comic issues so designated by Dark Horse (from the comic itself and/or the DH website) and omit it for those that do not include it
- b) Omit entirely for all instances for the sake of uniformity
- c) We are also left with the instances in which a comic issue is provided with competing titles. Perhaps the issue itself does not include the # sign, whereas the Dark Horse website does. I believe these examples exist, but I cannot think of any off the top of my head. Feel free to note any examples below.
As a final note, I understand that the naming of comics (and other things, like novels and sourcebooks, etc.) can sometimes be very divisive and open up different avenues of debate, such as whether to include "Star Wars" in every title and whatever else there may be. Please reserve this forum simply for the discussion of number signs. If need be, we can tackle other issues in future forums as they come up. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:36, July 21, 2013 (UTC)
Discussion[]
- My first question: how many comic issues would this affect? Cade
Calrayn 00:45, July 21, 2013 (UTC)
- I can't say for certain, but I would estimate many, if not most. As far as I can see, all the currently ongoing Dark Horse series include the number sign. I imagine many of the retired series do as well, though someone would need to check on a case-by-case basis as this is potentially implemented. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:47, July 21, 2013 (UTC)
- Again, this page shows a brief rundown of many Dark Horse issues, many of which do include the number sign. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:54, July 21, 2013 (UTC)
- I'll be fine if we continue the trend of removing the number sign. However, I think staying true to the source (in this case the Dark Horse comics) will be a better option. JangFett (Talk) 02:40, July 23, 2013 (UTC)
- In the text of the article itself, I really don't care, though I'll note that requiring the # sign would increase article sizes due to need to pipelink everything; in turn that increases the database size, which makes it ever so slightly harder when Wikia inevitably collapses and we have to find our own hosting. In terms of the title of the article, as Tope states above, the # sign cannot be included in article titles due to MediaWiki (not Wikia) technical limitations. I have noticed that Tope at least has begun going around and using {{Title}} to insert the # into the title. This IMO is a Bad Idea™ because it greatly complicates linking to that article. I know I, and probably many others, commonly create links to pages with long titles, such as comic issues, by opening the target article in a new tab, copying the title, and pasting it into the edit box. This is not a matter of laziness; it is simply the most efficient way to create links, and modifying the title like that completely eliminates it. Newcomers might not even understand that you have to use something different than what is displayed and get confused when their link doesn't work. For all of these reasons, Wikipedia (and yes, I am aware that we are not them) has technical settings in place to cause the DISPLAYTITLE magic word (their only way of modifying titles) to fail silently if the modified title would not resolve to the actual title of the page in the database when copied and pasted into a link. We should not be allowing this either for the same reasons. TL;DR: Don't care about article text, Strong Oppose modifying the title itself. —MJ— Comlink 03:28, July 23, 2013 (UTC)
- Per MJ, for the most part. If I might make an example of drawing, when you're sketching a piece of art (a model, painting, whatever), there is a point at which trying to copy it exactly begins to hinder your own abilities and your work gets sloppy. While the benefit would be a more accurate representation of the book's name, the number sign is pretty much a styling traditional to professional comics. Because Wookieepedia is in a different medium, and decidedly not a comic book, we aren't obligated to use it if it would make our jobs working in our webpage medium more cumbersome in any way, which it would in both ways MJ described. However, I think the first one is a much bigger deal than the database issue MJ stated. Let's not neglect that all instances of the issue's full title in articles would also now have to include the number sign. To impose that as a requirement would mean that every time someone links to a comic book's full title, they would no longer be able to type just [[Star Wars: Legacy 1: Broken, Part 1]], which would just auto complete. They would now have to type [[Star Wars: Legacy 1: Broken, Part 1|Star Wars: Legacy #1: Broken, Part 1]]. This is similar to what must already be done for something like Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (novel), where you take an extra step to format the title, but in that case it's necessary for disambiguation. In the proposed case, it would be just for adding a symbol that neither adds nor subtracts meaning and would point to the same place—and it would have to be done every time. I'm sure someone out there is going to think this rationale is a plea for laziness, but a rote task gets annoying very quickly when you don't feel like you're doing either something concrete or otherwise of value to you. The proposed benefit here would be stylistic, not concrete, and it would begin to get grating eventually. Probably sooner rather than later. That perception of annoyance would go doubly for new people who won't see the benefit we perceive the addition of just one character providing. Let's just cut out the extra step and leave the number sign to link to subsection headings. TL;DR: Do care about article text (keep # out), Strong Oppose modifying the title itself. NaruHina Talk
02:31, July 25, 2013 (UTC)
- For further evidence as to why we should not be modifying the title, it causes people to do this [1] [2] [3] which causes it to link to the wrong article and forced me to fix each one [4] [5] [6]. This is not even a newcomer; hell, this guy has been around long enough and is knowledgeable enough that he's a former WOTM winner from over a year ago. If he doesn't know that you can't do a straight copy-and-paste, newbies most certainly won't. —MJ— Holocomm 00:58, July 31, 2013 (UTC)
- Per MJ, for the most part. If I might make an example of drawing, when you're sketching a piece of art (a model, painting, whatever), there is a point at which trying to copy it exactly begins to hinder your own abilities and your work gets sloppy. While the benefit would be a more accurate representation of the book's name, the number sign is pretty much a styling traditional to professional comics. Because Wookieepedia is in a different medium, and decidedly not a comic book, we aren't obligated to use it if it would make our jobs working in our webpage medium more cumbersome in any way, which it would in both ways MJ described. However, I think the first one is a much bigger deal than the database issue MJ stated. Let's not neglect that all instances of the issue's full title in articles would also now have to include the number sign. To impose that as a requirement would mean that every time someone links to a comic book's full title, they would no longer be able to type just [[Star Wars: Legacy 1: Broken, Part 1]], which would just auto complete. They would now have to type [[Star Wars: Legacy 1: Broken, Part 1|Star Wars: Legacy #1: Broken, Part 1]]. This is similar to what must already be done for something like Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (novel), where you take an extra step to format the title, but in that case it's necessary for disambiguation. In the proposed case, it would be just for adding a symbol that neither adds nor subtracts meaning and would point to the same place—and it would have to be done every time. I'm sure someone out there is going to think this rationale is a plea for laziness, but a rote task gets annoying very quickly when you don't feel like you're doing either something concrete or otherwise of value to you. The proposed benefit here would be stylistic, not concrete, and it would begin to get grating eventually. Probably sooner rather than later. That perception of annoyance would go doubly for new people who won't see the benefit we perceive the addition of just one character providing. Let's just cut out the extra step and leave the number sign to link to subsection headings. TL;DR: Do care about article text (keep # out), Strong Oppose modifying the title itself. NaruHina Talk
Voting[]
Ok, I thank those who have contributed to this discussion, including those whom I have spoken to on IRC regarding this who did not leave comments on this forum. All of the concerns mentioned both in this forum and what I saw on IRC are certainly valid. From what I gather, it seems there is serious and widespread concern from many of you regarding the use of the number sign in one form or another, mainly for technical and application reasons. It also seems that, in one form or another, the general feeling here is to avoid the number sign in comic names, both in article titles and the Appearances list. In other words, it just seems like it'll be easier on everyone to not use them, and I can't say I disagree. I'm therefore extending a proposal to standardize our non-use of number signs in both comic titles and magazine titles, which are treated the same way.
The following statement, if approved, will be added into a "Comics and magazines" subsection under Wookieepedia:Naming policy#Specific rules: Do not include the number sign (#) in article titles, in-line text, the Appearances/Sources lists, or any other instance when referring to comic book or magazine issues, including comic trade paperbacks and collections. Although some comic book and magazine issues may use the number sign in their published titles, such use of the number sign creates technical and applicable issues for Wookieepedia in certain instances. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 05:45, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
Support[]
- Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 05:45, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
- —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers 06:04, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
- Because big red error messages drive me nuts. Trak Nar Ramble on 06:17, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
- Menkooroo (talk) 07:52, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
- Green Tentacle (Talk) 10:38, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
- 501st dogma(talk) 11:58, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
- —Silly Dan (talk) 13:03, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
- NaruHina Talk
22:23, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
- Yes indeed. Corellian Premier
The Force will be with you always 22:40, August 3, 2013 (UTC)
- Good compromise. Nicely handled CT, Tope. :) MasterFred
(Whatever) 02:03, August 6, 2013 (UTC)
- Fred pls. Cade
Calrayn 02:21, August 6, 2013 (UTC)
- Exiled Jedi
(Greetings) 02:27, August 6, 2013 (UTC)
- CC7567 (talk) 20:36, August 6, 2013 (UTC)
- Aye. Winterz (talk) 02:51, August 8, 2013 (UTC)
- I thought this already was policy. One of those "we've done it this way for so long, based on an early consensus, that we've never really bothered codifying it" sorts of things, it seems. jSarek (talk) 04:30, August 9, 2013 (UTC)
- grunny@wookieepedia:~$ 04:38, August 9, 2013 (UTC)
- 1358 (Talk) 19:00, August 16, 2013 (UTC)
Oppose[]
Comments[]
I am a little confused. I know that by voting to support this CT the following instance would become banned:
[[Star Wars #1: In the Shadow of Yavin, Part One]]
(This link takes takes you to Star Wars not Star Wars 1: In the Shadow of Yavin, Part One).
But, does it also ban
[[Star Wars 1: In the Shadow of Yavin, Part One|Star Wars #1: In the Shadow of Yavin, Part One]]--Fe Nite (talk) 17:50, August 6, 2013 (UTC)