Megami Tensei Wiki talk:Manual of Style/Archive 1

Games
I've added small guidelines on Game articles, but I know you guys have ideas on content too, so suggest away! Bluer 23:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as the Gameplay section of an article, I always thought is was weird to make it seperate from the first thing being written about a game before the other sections. Sometimes there's two sentences and then your hit with a Contents box. Personally, I think gameplay should be included before the Contents box breakdown. As for character, I really don't like seeing all of that space if we used a list on main game articles, so I'm thinking of outlining characters, or the party, or whatever, with a link leading to the List of XX characters for any given game. The locations section is pretty much the same as characters.


 * I suppose we could do something like a short breakdown, letting main location articles, or character articles, filling the more detail specific information (while trying to add pictures of said location), but I don't see some of them really being more informative than, at most, a paragraph. Another thing we need to set up are the information boxes for the games and characters. I like what Icy did with Devil Children by putting the box art at the bottom. I would much rather see the logo of the game in the information box rather than the box art. Eventually, I'd like to get enemy data together for the games too. With all of this discussion I'm pretty well able to go to town on the wiki the more we talk this stuff out. Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga has pretty much acted as the learning and implementation of our ideas for me. Thanks for the help. ^_~ Akkilmar 23:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment. Yeah, I feel pretty strongly about the box art and/or cover art (too, ?) being at the bottom. I really don't care about what other people do on other wikis. Perhaps, we can help implement a new style. Change is good, right? Just don't expect any credit from thieves. Anyway, wonderfully fantastic images of demons are on the way. I even asked permission from someone over at Dokuganryu if I could use them. I got their blessing, with the reply: "At last, somebody asked permission." icy 02:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we should really cooperate with Dokuganryu. They've got real good images there. And icy, don't worry so much about the images, as long as we have follow fair use policy it would be all right. Bluer 03:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Demons
Basically, what I'm doing now is trying to figure out exactly how to group the demons. I've also, as you may have noticed, uploaded some images from the "Deities" group. (I'm trying to go in order.) I'm using the categories from here:. This is a good resource for us, although I haven't been able to contact the person responsible. icy 05:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I was having trouble with this too. I think what they were doing was making compendiums for each game though, but I haven't looked into their method that much.. Another question is: do we want to make a seperate article for each occurance of the demon, like DDS Jack Frost and Persona 3 Jack Frost, or should we try to compress information on one article with sections regarding each occurance. You could essentially make a different template styled after the game they appear in either way. Akkilmar 23:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea of having their different incarnations on the same page, and list the game they appeared in there, as well. I don't like the idea, however, of pointing out on the game pages which demons are available for recruiting. The list would be ridiculously long. Your thoughts? icy 23:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm... I agree. I would get insanely bored and tired of looking at a list like that on the game pages. Plus, it goes with my dislike of all that unused space on the game pages, like I was talking about with characters and location. I can get some sprites, that I'll do myself so we don't have to ask permission from some other site, for the Persona games if we wanted to put those with each incarnation too, for example. I'll build a demo template first to give us an idea tomorrow, if you'd like. Akkilmar 02:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, sounds good. About the individual Demon pages, it might be nice, since then only if someone was interested they could follow a path of links to find out more info on that particular one. I also think it might be interesting to include the origin of the demon in question. (Other than its relation to MegaTen and as long as it is somewhat brief.) If I hear enough loud "nay" votes from either you or Blue, I guess I'll reconsider. I don't know about you, but I was always fascinated with religion, myths and/or stories that gave info on what the person/god/goddess/angel/devil in question was known for. It's a good gateway to expand your knowledge of other cultures and what-not. Really, it's one part of the reason I was drawn to MegaTen in the first place. icy 03:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I have a demo template up in the sandbox. Akkilmar 18:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry for not replying, was busy somewhere. Anyway, the template looks nice. Some of the lettering sizes are kinda off. And maybe we can put the image above the Arcana type? Other than that, I'll have to check if we can adopt this template and variate it for other Persona use like Persona 3 which I just started play (and it looks really awesome so far). And based upon my experience for the other wiki, we should put the template's name above the ((name)) of the demon. And we mte have to figure out a name for the template, something easy to type like Template:PS2Persona or something (Personas are these things names, amirite?)
 * The origin section would be VERY Interesting indeed. We should make it brief tho since it's better covered in wikipedia, to which we should link to.
 * Btw, character infobox too? Bluer 16:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I've been pretty busy myself, so don't worry about it. Let me fix this one up and I'll start on a character info box for us to use. Should the character boxes be different for each game as well? The thing with the Persona games before P3 is that the demons and Persona are the same. Any demon in the game can become a usable Persona later. What I'll do is make a template called P2Demon for right now. Akkilmar 16:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

(Personas are these things names, amirite?) I'm not 100% sure, Blue, but I'm pretty certain that they are all Demons, since I have seen the Personas classified as Demons elsewhere. Really, a demon is merely something that a person can summon and use for some purpose. icy 03:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe they're explicitly called Personas in P3. Bluer 03:58, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but these Personas are all Demons, aren't they? icy 05:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah I kinda realized that in the end :p Bluer 10:01, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, it turns out that by trying to use the template I made, while trying to divide each game into a seperate section on the demon page, really makes things look horrible and not good. So, I bring to you a question (again): how do we want to do demon pages? We could have a single info box, but how do we utilize the amount of information for each occurance? Really, I'm just not sure what to do, but I'll build templates when we have a better solution. For now, I think I'll make a character info box like Blue was asking about. Akkilmar 01:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, this is the point where I bow out, and let you guys hash it out. If anyone needs me, I'll be over at Capcom. I do apologize, but that seems to be taking up my free time right now. icy 03:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, as far as these demons go, I've been referring to them like this: Izanagi. I think it's a good lay out for demons and Personae, but I don't don't how to refer to the demon clans. They've got several different names and it's rather intimidating. I think we might want some sort of demon specific template dealing with clans or demonic races. Possible a second template that will deal the Personae Arcana. If we used a game's template, Jack Frost is going to rack up twenty or thirty templates. Persona will be really easy since they're just divided by the arcana, which are the same in the english or Japanese version, but those demons....SeventhEvening 21:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Alright, I think the individual pages for demons should look something like Helios. Preferably with a bit more information, but with those categories. As far as templates go, maybe we should give each clan/arcana a template. Like "Justice Arcana" with a list of each persona in it. Or an over arching template that is "Persona" and only includes links to the Arcana pages, which will be lists. Demons would work the same, just replace the word "Persona" with demon and then list the Clans instead of Arcana. Personally, I think the over-arching template would be best. Like one for Persona (the arcana), One for Devil Summoner (raidou) classes (Pyro, Frost, Pagan, Skill, Wind, Volt, Fury), One for Shin Megami Tensei, and one for DDS. We might need more, I don't know what kind of classification exists in Devikids or Last Bible or older Devil Summoner games. We can cross those bridges when we come to them. Let me know what you think (especially since I probably won't be making the templates).


 * Actually, I think that's a pretty good idea. I'm still trying to work out disambiguation pages, which I understand for the most part, but I think I can try and work something out template wise. Now that i think of it we had been talking about character templates too... It's 02:08 here right now so I'm fried and may have some questions tomorrow, but we'll get it sorted out. Akkilmar 07:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Before I forget, the Navigation templates have a link to a Personae category. If we wanted we could add each Persona to a category, like Justice, and then add the Justice category page to the Presoae category page. So on and so forth for other games. I can make a template for each arcana (for the Persona series) listing each Persona in that arcana with every other arcana listed seperately. Before we go acting on this let me draw up some things and see how this will work out and connect. I'll also try to add some more Navigation templates for the other games that don't have any. Good night for now! ^_~ Akkilmar 07:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Cool. I'll wait for your word before I start slapping more non-existent categories to things. Although, I typically forget category markings and sign offs anyway. I think Arcana are pretty easy, and so are Devil Summoner (Raidou) categories, but those demon families and clans are going to be a bit painful. SeventhEvening 01:05, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Demons: History
A1G1S brought something up that I started to wonder about. I went back and deleted my comments on the Loki page after I thought about it. Where should the History go? He's been adding it to the Biography, which makes enough sense, but some of the articles have it at the top, and others have it as a separate section altogether (Philemon). I just wanted to bring it up and get it into the Manuel so we know and new members know. Akkilmar 15:25, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I was just getting ready to respond to A1G1S. I think it should be a separate section called "History" that goes at the bottom of the page (like Philemon). The Biography will have a lot of information about a demons in game appearances, so I think the last two sections of every demon page should be history and then the gallery. A1G1S is loading the in-game descriptions of the demons, which isn't the best thing for the history section, but it is a start. SeventhEvening 17:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

A separate section for demons
Hey. I think we should separate the Demon section from the Character one since demons are not same thing that Characters, don´t you agree?. --I need ur Halp! 03:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Skills: Status Section Versus Skills Section
I was just wondering if you should put the skills for demons under their status sections, which many articles seem to do, or under the skills menu. I personally find that it looks better to include the skills within the status template, and the articles are rather inconsistent. FifoIronton 01:08, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

Box Art
Please post your opinions about the current policy on box-art here.

A very good idea. A fair-use compliant box art would suffice. And it should be placed above the external link and navi temp in a gallery view placed at the center, with relevant descriptions. Bluer 22:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Out of curiosity, are there non-fair-use compliant box art? What would make it so?SeventhEvening 06:44, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Preceeded by/Succeded by Boxes
I've added a Preceded by/Succeeded by box to the bottom of Megami Ibunroku Persona. Tell me what you think about it. It's a really simple and easy to edit template, but I didn't want to put them all over the place just yet. Akkilmar 18:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I like it. I moved the one on Megami Ibunroku Persona to beneath the navitemplate, which I think looks much better. When it was above the navitemplate, I wasn't so sure I liked it, but beneath it's very unobtrusive. It's there if you need it, but it's not an eyesore if you don't want it. What do you think? SeventhEvening 02:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I like it there to. In fact I added it to all of the Persona games. Akkilmar 03:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Plagerism
Alright, this is not a huge issue because of the nature of Wikis, but please avoid cutting and pasting long articles from other sources, ESPECIALLY MegaTen wiki without editing.


 * First, it's not entirely ethical, unless you wrote it in the first place. It may not bother you, but it bothers me. I'm a Communication/Journalism major, so plagiarism kinda gets under my skin.
 * Second, if ethics isn't good enough, a lot of times, it just doesn't work. There are several articles on our wiki that are named differently than on MegaTen wiki. Not because one of us is right or one of us is wrong, but because we're writing about a Japanese universe using English. I had to delete the article of Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army skills because it referenced Susano-o, where we have Susa-no-O. That site also has the game as Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha Raidou, which is not our official title. If also only listed five demons with a particular skill as opposed to all of them, so it was extremely blatantly ripped from their site.

Naturally, this isn't a massive problem. We have a couple lists that A1G1S took from Megaten Wiki and a couple games have a wikipedia place holder until someone else gets to it. I've only deleted one page over this, and unless if find something else extremely incompatible, I won't be deleting anything else. I just wanted to throw my stance on this issue out there, since I do have the ability to delete articles. I'd love to hear some thoughts on this issue, and later, I'll figure out how to word an official stance that will go in the Manual of Style to inform future editors. Over and out: SeventhEvening 06:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm with you 100%. Outside of ethics we're just incompatible. Akkilmar 23:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation
Over at another wiki I am working on, our practice if brought over here will result in:

Persona may refer to:
 * Revelations: Persona, a game.
 * the series of video games
 * the concept.

In which case we should use a template to indicate a disambiguation page. Bluer 22:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, I had suggested this to Akkilmar and we were trying to figure out how it would work. Where does the disambiguation page go? Would it be something like Disambiguation:Persona or does it have to go on Persona ? I had kind of made a form of makeshift disambiguation page at Persona 2 so that anyone who searched for those terms would be pointed towards EP or IS. SeventhEvening 01:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The wiki I work with never bothered to write "Disambiguation". We could adopt the Wikipedia style, where the common use of the Word gets the full article while other uses are listed under "Word (Disambiguation)", or we could just make Word a disambiguation page itself. Bluer 07:37, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Lets use what we have now, which is Persona and [{Persona 2]] being disambiguation pages and see how that feels. So far, I think it works nice for Persona 2, but everytime I type Persona into the search box, I kinda think I should land in Megami Ibunroku Persona with a disambiguation link at the top. But that might damage how clean out layout is. I don't know, I see pros and cons with each. SeventhEvening 06:39, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Japanese / English

 * "In the case of multiple character names, the original Japanese name gets priority".

How is this decided and what was the case that brought to this decision? And forgive me, but last time I check, this is an English wikia? I understand that we're not about to change "Shin Megami Tensei" to "True Rebirth of the Goddess", but this is quite perplexing. Reasons?
 * "Kagenuki should not be an unofficial name such as "Shadow Extractions" or "Shadow Pulling"."

Was it suppose to say "Shadow Extractions" or "Shadow Pulling" are unofficial names and should not refer to "Kagenuki"."? Bluer 15:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, I'll try to clear this up. I sometimes type too fast and cause things to become unclear. The reason that Japanese names get priority almost entirely stems from Megami Ibunroku Persona. That game got mutilated in the US release. All the characters got renamed, several of them were Americanized, and the game was lambasted as one of the worst translation/localization jobs ever. Atlus, after hearing the criticism from the game, stayed very true to the source in Persona 2. But, many characters from Megami Ibunroku Persona appear. So to avoid confusion, those character kept their english first names, but they also took back their Japanese family name and their original appearance. Due to Atlus's current policy of remaining very true to the source, it was decided that Japanese names should get priority, since it barely affects anything outside of the first Persona, but doesn't tie us down to that terrible localization. It also prevents confusion with the game title, since Atlus US slaps Shin Megami Tensei on the front of all Megaten games, even though they're not part of that series. This causes two problems: Confusion, since Persona 3 is a Persona series game, but labeled as a Shin Megami Tensei Series game, as well as a second problem, ridiculously long titles becoming more ridiculously long unnecessarily. Example: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army (Which IS a devil summoner game and ISNT a Shin Megami Tensei game).


 * On the topic of Kagenuki. I can't think of any other examples, but in Persona -trinity soul-, there is an act called "Kagenuki". This series is not licensed in the US, and thus, there is no "Official" translation for this term. In the fan-subbing communities, there is dispute on if the translation should be Shadow Pulling or Shadow Extraction or any other number of similar terms. Marebito is referred to as "Outsiders" on Wikipedia last time I checked, but there is no source that officially calls them that. The purpose of that line was attempting to say that for concepts that no officially released translation exists for, we should use the Japanese term rather than, say, a fan-subbed or fan-translated term if at all possible. I mostly said that because if you read the wikipedia article on Trinity soul, you'll discover that it is terrible. I regularly edit it because people keep adding weird assumptions and theories that are completely unfounded. For example, under Inui it says "He is rumored to be Ken Amada from Persona 3. It is unknown if the dog he keeps is Koromaru.". In case you haven't seen the anime, Inui's dog doesn't even look like the same breed as Koromaru, so that's baseless and unnessisary, and will probably be deleted by me if someone else doesn't do it. Last month I had to remove someone's theory that Ayane was Chidori. My explanation is on the discussion board of that page (but my handle is Leviathan). I thought that, in the event we had more editors appear here, I could point something about Kagenuki's translation being unofficial, and hopefully avoid having a bunch of off the wall theories appearing, or unofficial terms appearing. Honestly, it's a bit moot right now, since we only have about 5 editors. But yeah, when you point that wording out to me, it does sound kinda bad. You can feel free to change my wording, or I'll come up with a better phrasing later.


 * Naturally, if you disagree with any of these policies, I'm open to suggestions or discussion about them. I just think that using redirects makes things keep the same user friendliness, without having to type "Guido" every time we need to talk about Kandori Takahisa. Akkilmar and me were the only editors that were active at the time this was changed and both of us felt the same about the Japanese over English policy, so it was unanimous at that time. I talked to Icy a little about it, and he/she said to use my judgment on it, but I've heard nothing from Icy in a while, so who knows his/her opinion. SeventhEvening 19:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry I wasn't around much, a friend of mine was in town unexpectedly after a couple of years... As far as I can tell, based on a previous discussion I read with Icy, was that he preferred the American naming since he's from America and that's what's readily available to him. I also just realized that Kandori Takahisa's name order is still Japanese. Takahisa being his first name. Anyway, I'm with SeventhEvening about unofficial naming and muddy sources, like Inui, since so much of that stuff can be made up on the spot just because someone thinks it is. I think adding disambiguation links at the tops of articles would be easy enough, so we could always add them to specific pages if you're unsure, Seventh.


 * Another thing I think we should consider more is what makes a side game versus a main game. I'm still of the opinion that Aegis: The First Mission should precede Persona 3 since it's storyline is directly related to the events that occur in the main game in the series. Just like if... is technically a side game to the Shin Megami Tensei series. Whereas Persona was a spin-off. I just got off work, so I'm a little brain dead. Akkilmar 23:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, with the muddy sources/unofficial naming, I think making an article named Shadow Extraction and making it a redirect is easy. That way, if someone was looking for Kagenuki information, but watched the Ainex fan-sub (like me), they might be more familiar with the term "Shadow Extraction". Honestly, I pull up the Hidehiko Uesugi page by searching for Brad. I didn't realize the Kandori Takahisa mix up, since I actually played the bad English localization, so I pulled the names of Wikipedia. Usually they put the Kanji, followed by the the name in Japanese order, but a couple characters are flip-flopped.


 * As for the whole side vs. main games, I'm a bit torn. I agree, lets have Aegis precede Persona 3. But I usually think of "Side games" as less than "main games" and thus I don't really want to call If... a side game, since I think it's a full length, legitimate game. For example, Persona 3 QIX, isn't something I consider a full length legitimate game. I think we should use the pre/suc template on cases that a loose time line is available. If we can't fit it on a time line, we shouldn't use that template with that game. On the Persona (Series) page where games are divided into only two categories, I actually plan on changing that to a more concrete division, like dividing it based on release date, or by platform. Or something timeline based. We might consider replacing the pre/suc template with a "Persona Series" template that lists all the games, and then mention what precedes and succeeds in the opening information about the game. What do you think? SeventhEvening 02:15, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree about the loose timeline for pre/succ template use. I think that by making a game specific template to replace the pre/succ template just to list the games in the series might be more templates than we need (like this sentence!). We could always get rid of the pre/suc template as well, but we'll have to remove the code from each game that uses it. At least until we come up with something better. Akkilmar 01:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Newest Revision
I have attempted to clarify things a little more. A large number of things have been categorized wrong, and nearly no images have the proper categories. I added a bit to that in order to hopefully clear things up so that the can be correct (or corrected) in the future. I also added a bit for consistency's sake under character sections. I firmly believe that demon clans should be in Japanese for Japanese games, but English for English games, since clans and races are not exactly equivalent across games. Please let me know what you think. SeventhEvening 23:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Personae's Images
I've noticed that several Persona/Demon articles uses different images on the top right corner, some uses their latest appearance, some uses their first appearance. Which leads me to this question, do we use their first appearance images on the top right corner then their later-latest appearance in the "gallery" section? Or vice-versa?-- N/A 07:18, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I think is as something to do with quality for example the Image of Isis in P3 don´t looks very good whit the Black Background, in exchange the other Image is clearer and is more recent --I need ur Halp! 15:26, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It does have to do with the quality of the image. The images from the Kaneko Complete works usually get priority, because they're hi-res and very clear. The persona 3 and persona 4 images that are from the game disk should be avoided since they have a black background and they "fade out" on the persona. This looks stylistic in game, but not so much on a wiki. The devil summoner art, which is also from a game disk, doesn't fade out, so it's better than the majority of the P3 or P4 art we have, but those pictures have multicolor backgrounds and thus arn't as good. If we had a pile of images for a demon or persona, and all of them were the same quality as the Kaneko complete works, the image that should be used is the "most common" one. Cerberus, for example, would be the white demon with the silver-tail from Nocturne, since that's how Cerberus usually looks (it's the same as the SMT art, only updated.) He shouldn't be shown as Koromaru's persona except for in the gallery. SeventhEvening 16:25, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

P4 for MASSIVE WIN!
I'm pretty convinced that on the subject of Persona 4, what we should refer to when the topic is exclusively Persona 4 is the English version. As such, any reference to Kuma would be changed to Teddie. Objections? &mdash; BLUER   一番 .   18:45, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Heh, I guess this is old, but none from me. Honestly, I think the English names should always take precedence since this is geared towards English-language readers and I imagine a lot of editors will be writing based on what they've played in English. With the *sole* exception of the original Persona due to the hack job... ReboValence 18:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I thought of that as well. But truth be told, I've only recently acquainted with Megaten, through the Persona series, so I can't argue much. &mdash; BLUER   一番 .   14:39, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Titling change
I'm proposing changes to the Manual of Style regarding our titling to establish a firm standard on our titling style.
 * New articles should be named according to the subject's official English term in all cases, even in the case of multiple character names, except when there is no official English term which will then be substituted to the official Japanese version.

Reason for this change include: TLDR: We address where an official English term exists, but when no official English term exists we address where an official Japanese term is prevalent.  BLUER   一番   03:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Readers should be more familiar with the North American localization. Explanation of the irregularities between the NA and JP versions can be explained in their pages.
 * If we're going by the most accurate and official title, we should be going by the official Japanese name down to the entire kana. However, this wiki operates in English, and we're delivering all information in English. As such, the official North American title is the most accurate.
 * This is not a reason, but a note. Atlus USA decided to append Shin Megami Tensei to all its recent titles. That should not be a problem for us. They might be doing it to connect them all to a subseries, or not, that's not for us to say. A reasoning was given to why SMTDS2RKvsKA was renamed to DSRKvKA in a discussion page. This is an important piece of information to clear the supposed "confusion" of why "King Abaddon" was made DS2 and given a SMT title - this information should have been cited in the article's page instead.
 * And something on the part of "Aigis". What could have been done is to name "Aegis" to "Aigis" following her English appearance - and in the sections talking about her Japanese appearance, we could have pipelinked the linkage to her article using Aegis, and use Aegis for all her Japanese appearances.
 * And it's high time we de"antagonize" the localization. Following Persona's remake I believe Atlus USA is doing its best to tackle its localization issues in the past, and will be releasing it to adhere as much to the Japanese version.

White text on off-white backgrounds
Some tables, like the ones for Water Spells and Nuclear Spells, are almost illegible (at least to me) because the text and the background are both very similar colors. Is there a policy on which colors are used in which contexts? -Gtrmp 01:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, we do have a yet-to-be-documented style for tables. You can see the design in pages like Wind Spells and Fire Spells. General tables use the light-blue colors, while game-specific tables follow the color code dictated in their respective game navigational templates.  BLUER   一番   03:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Japanese / English / region agnosticism
I wasn't going to say anything about this... but I've been reading some of the talk pages around here, and this seems like a very divisive issue which has caused open hostilities on occasion. I'm curious if the original founder of the wiki is still on board, and if not, is it because of something akin to this issue?

At any rate, I've no real steak in this wiki, other than I'd like to see the Megaten community have a nice resource and everyone involved being happy. A wiki will do best if it satisfies as many parties as possible. So I just wanna suggest, instead of thinking in terms of "fanboy purity" it might help to think more in terms of compromise and even in scientific terms.

I'd like to make some open suggestions, all of which are in accord with our organization at digitaldevildb.com...

To begin with, we take the stance that Megami Tensei is a phenomenon and not a product line. We think it's a part of history. We think one day Atlus and company might be flat broke or obsolete, but these ideas will carry on. So we don't put first priority on any particular production. We start with the primary source (almost always a Japanese product) but we document it in the native tongue of the article. For this website, English (or one language) might be the only technical option. So for example. Take the first Kuzunoha Raidou game....

For an English article, we start with Devil Summoner. This is an English loan word in Japanese, so no problem. The Kuzunoha Raidou... this is a proper noun in kanji/hiragana, so we leave it alone and respect the ordering of the name as it is a Japanese name. Next is chouryoku heidan or whatever... or "tai" is first actually. That is just versus, so we change it to vs. (abbreviated) ...and lastly we do a natural translation of the rest of the subtitle, because it isn't a proper noun, which yields "Super Army" ...we consider this a natural translation because it is independent of media hype, like changing Super to Soulless for no reason other than to maybe sell more product (or not) ...so that finally the English name of the article is Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha Raidou vs. The Super Army (The added for the sake of English grammar) ...and if this was a Spanish article for instance, then the natural title would start something like "Convocador del Diablo". We call this region agnosticism. We recognize that these games can be translated and read in any language.

Now once you have a title... you can make it very clear asap all the different versions of this game that have been marketed or produced by fans around the world in your very first paragraph. And you can either make redirects for all possible names for a title, or you can even make in this case a page called "... The Soulless Army" and list on that page all kinds of great information, like side by side the changes made by Atlus and details specific to that localization, credits and so on, which if all accounted for in one article would be way too much info.

Next for devils. You already are starting every page with a History section. So an easy way to be agnostic would be to organize the central hub of a reoccurring devil around the deity/demon that it most represents. Name that article the academic name of that deity, but try to respect the name used in the region the deity originates from, but at the same time use a name that can be read naturally in the language of the article. Then since this a Megaten centric wiki, the first section could list off all the versions of this deity in different games/versions in all regions with the names used in that production.

I like the idea that the wiki should teach people stuff they didn't already know, on top of whatever they were looking up. So if while I'm researching something I learn it's original Japanese market name, I'm not so perturbed, as if I'm trying to find something, and I'm constantly having to translate information through some Atlus USA game I'll never play or want to play.

Even if it seems like you're spreading your pages out too thin in the beginning, it will pay in the long run to have a sane organizational system. If the idea of region agnosticism does not seem compatible, then I think this wiki would turn off a lot less people if you treated teh Japanese as original source material. The people who know the most about Megaten play the Japanese games (and are generally offended by the translations done by Atlus USA) ...but speaking for myself... I would put a vote in for the agnostic approach, because it would be nice if the wiki was basically organized like digitaldevildb.com, so we can really form a solid partnership, and so people could easily prepare information rich articles for digitaldevildb.com while using the wiki as a source hand in hand. --Yksehtniycul 14:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd like to think the article title as a "landmark": a point of which a reader, especially the uninitiated, could go to when s/he wants to read on a particular subject. In contrast to veteran players such as you, I'm sure the uninitiated would be more familiar in the "official" names they've been brainwashed with. The wikifounder once mentioned that if he'd search for something it would be based on the terms he's been fed to: e.g. if he was searching for "Choriki Heidan" he'd be typing Soulless Army.
 * By going through the example, being a region agnostic, you could name "Soulless Army" into whatever English name you can come up with from the Japanese marketed name - that is if your mastery of the Japanese language is 100%. Choriki Heidan can be "Super Army", "Super-powered Army" (if you take into account the kanji for "chikara" in there), or "Super Powered Army Corps" if you go kanji by kanji. That's the same for Abadon-Ou, you can name it "Lord Abaddon", "King Abaddon" or "Ruler of the Abaddon".
 * So to avoid all these discrepancies, I recommended to use the official English name. I didn't intend it to mirror a stance of the "Atlus USA fanboy", I intended it for the ease of readers since that's basically more common. Broken rules it may have, I think Wikipedia's principle of naming articles "optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists" is best adopted here.
 * I picked this up from another convo. No really, I think "elitist" isn't the word to describe what we should be striving to be. "Resourceful", "comprehensive" and "informative": yes. "Elitist": no. At least that's what I think.  BLUER   一番   11:28, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well that's the beauty of redirects. It really doesn't matter what the central page is, as much as it being agnostic (not beholden to any faction) by some formulat. That is if agnosticism sounds like a good idea. A natural translation should also feel natural btw. So Super Powered Army or other variants wouldn't cut it. King Abaddon would be the natural translation for that game btw I think, but you'd might have to put it to a vote if you wanted something really solid to stand on. The number one wiki rule is to not be too tight up about rules. The rest just follows from natural consensus.--Yksehtniycul 11:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with the beauty of redirects: and that's why Redirect works for all other agnostic/natural translation variants to point to a title that has already been marketed. Overlooking marketed titles and mentioning agnostic and natural translation variants seems a bit too fanboyish to me, though I am seriously not saying this on a, quote, "Atlus USA fanboy", unquote, POV. If there's already a marketed title, that's better than taking time translating the Japanese title. If that still doesn't work for anyone, then try thinking of the English title as a mere "placeholder", especially when it "really doesn't matter what the central page is". At least, that's what I think.


 * If and when we have to "vote" for which natural translations to use, that's just going to hamper any content-writing initiative. Then again we can use it (the voting) for those Japanese-only titles that hasn't got any English names for it. At least, that's what I think.
 * If anyone can give an official answer as to why Atlus Japan decided to rename Megami Ibunroku Persona to just Persona, I will give a special prize.
 * Well, I need to get back to article writing. I'm not used to discussing this much - I am so afraid of it turning out to become like the discussion in King Abaddon's talk page. I hated the outcome since it turned away contributors and especially how I turned out in the end, tiring myself since all I ever want to do in a wiki is editing. I'm gonna increase my edit counts namespace-wise now. And I really, really apologize for not agreeing with your views and opinions.  BLUER   一番   12:34, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it's a genuinely tough conundrum, which is why sometimes it's better to just compromise. I think your thinking is correct for say Wikipedia. But this is a wiki entirely devoted to Megami Tensei, which means people expect a wealth of information as fine grained as it can possibly be. Accommodating the sort of casual browser that fits your ideal, is already catered to by Wikipedia. I think you really don't want say a Raidou page called Shin Megami Tensei (as SeventhEvening) pointed out somewhere, and I think it is practical to have a Raidou page called Shin Megami Tensei... Soulless Army whatever, because that would be the logical place to put info about the Atlus USA localization effort. A wiki is just a wiki, it can't be slick layouts, user friendly, or graphically rich... that is what websites like digitaldevildb.com are. A wiki is just a bare knuckle loosely linked pile up of whatever everyone can bring to the table without spiraling into chaos. You can't make a wiki more than a wiki. Again, it's easy to be an Atlus USA purist as much as anything else. Easier to just compromise and let things fall where they land.


 * I think the healthiest take away concept from this discussion section is, try to imagine Megami Tensei as a phenomenon, and not a product line, and it becomes very easy to try to take a wide view of it all. The idea is not to exclude anything, and to just document things transparently. So in the end you can accommodate all information for everyone. And again, like I've said, if you base everything on Atlus USA, it might as well be an Atlus USA wiki... because people who don't follow Atlus USA are just completely left in the dust without a clue or care in the world. And those are again, your best people. Trust me, I know this community, I've been around and active as long as anyone. --Yksehtniycul 15:03, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Amendment Proposal: a production pov wiki
First, I wanna make it clear. This is not a technical argument. This is a reaction to the animosity around here which needs to be put to bed. It's a cancer on the wiki. Bluer, you really don't want to be the sole editor doing muscle work. That's not good for you, the wiki, or the Megaten community...

We want everyone to be happy, so here is my proposed solution (as a non-editing diplomat)

Firstly, this amendment would only really effect the handling of the multiple versions of the games. It's not about languages or editing habits.

To begin with, there should be a top-level category called Productions, which includes a page for every single known production of a Megami Tensei game. These pages would look like Revelations: Persona (Production). These pages should include all the information (of which there is much) of what went into the making and release of a production, including credits, and translation notes.

Next, every single article that is not fully-qualified (by this I mean has a clarification in parenthesis at the end) is subject to disambiguation. This means, at any time, that page can be turned into a short list of the various usages of that phrase/title/word.

Now the most important principal, is whenever a user makes a new page, editors need to leave that page alone until the user is clearly done editing, let it sit for a day or two. And let them create it from whatever production pov they know about. If you notice a page go up that is not written according to ultimate canon (to be described later) there should be a template you should add to the top of the page that reads such as, "This page is written from the perspective of a particular production(s)" then list the productions as links to the Production pages mentioned earlier. Also stick it in a category named something like Production POV, so these can be rounded up later.

So that is the first stage, an article is just flagged as from a production pov. This is perfectly fine, no one has to edit these pages asap. They can stay this way forever if no one is up to the task. The next stage is editors should stick in the original (first production) title in parenthesis after any production centric reference to a title (once per section) followed by the Japanese kana (no romaji) ...for demons it might also be useful/educational to slip in academic titles somehow, or period, because a lot of the Japanese names really don't translate, and the academic title technically came first. More information could be loaded into popups.

At any rate, the second stage is markup.

The final stage should flatten out the information as much as possible. Starting with an article from the original production pov. With cross references in the "appearances" section. For most articles about demons and stuff it is sufficient that detailed information not be duplicated or disambiguation pages would suffice. But in the case of game pages and characters information could be presented from a production pov. In the end for characters and games, this would result in a wiki that could be read from any production pov.

The goal here is for everyone to be happy and feel comfortable contributing. Also for new users to not feel intimidated. It is primarily a humanistic approach with the goal of easing tension. There doesn't have to be one way of doing anything.--Yksehtniycul 11:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that sounds rather reasonable and would result in the most accurate and user-friendly articles. So it perfectly coincides with what has always been my goal. I fully support it, although I'm not entirely sure how you plan for the infrastructure to work. If everything winds up being in agreement, would you mind drafting a new Manual of Style in such a way that would allow for new users to understand how everything is to work? And would you be interested in policing this structure? I know I don't want to be in charge of that implementation. I'd rather work on content again. If this system winds up in action, and the verbal abuse ends, then we can finally move forward. SeventhEvening 02:39, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm really not good at policing or writing up specifications (that people can read)


 * An amendment of this nature would probably not effect the Manual of Style in most areas, and would only relax some rules, sort of making a manual of style for regular users, and a manual of style for super users who want to streamline the wiki in an ideal way. The proposal is really very simple. Would just require a couple templates. And the beauty is it actually doesn't require policing as written. It's just a matter of how anal you wanna be about it. I'm sure at Blue's present capacity, with a little help, he could make sure articles are properly flagged. It could also be stressed to users to flag their own articles.


 * Personally I'd really like to see disambiguation pages utilized more often. Otherwise misconceptions can easily arise, which also seeps into articles (I'm constantly correcting stuff) ...I kinda think that undecorated titles should be candidates for disambiguation, but I don't know that it would be worth breaking with Wikipedia's approach of putting (disambiguation) in the title and sticking disambiguation alerts at the top of every page (which imo kind of buggers the presentation, but at least it saves having to go thru two page links on occasion) ...still I think it would be worth discussing whether to break from Wikipedia's disambiguation style. Perhaps our disambiguation pages could be a little extra informative if so.--Yksehtniycul 11:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The way to start working this way is to just make a production page for every production, and a Productions Category (though not technically necessary) ...then make a template that says "This page is written from the perspective of X which could be inserted like (I think that is template syntax) at the top of pages. Another category template could be used at the bottom to add the page to a round up category, similar to the stubs category.


 * The next thing to do is if you see a reference that is not from the original production. Beside it in parenthesis put the academic name, and kana, and optional romaji. There needs to be a simple template for this so the style could be changed and the romaji could be made a popup when hovering over the kana. This is just markup, the second mitigating factor.


 * The last part is more complicated, and should probably not be explained in the Manual of Style, but possibly in a second document linked from the MoS, which should only be consulted by advanced editors. This document should explain (after discussion) the ideal perfect world normalized organization of the wiki, or ultimate goal.--Yksehtniycul 11:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Reorganization - A new Approach on Articles
Topic is on Disambiguation and the Approach of Tagging in Articles. Let me start with my proposal: As for Article Tags...there may be a need for: or Tagging by Game: where applicable. This is just a general idea.  BLUER   一番   11:43, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Multiple meaning Terms are placed with the "disambig" template. This will automatically place the Term into the disambiguation page category.
 * The (disambiguation) tag is dropped as it is redundant with the "disambig" template.
 * (Series) - already done for our Series articles.
 * (Character)
 * (Boss)
 * (Weapon)
 * (Armor)
 * (Demon / Devil)
 * (Devil Summoner)
 * (Persona 4) - this has been seen with "Protagonist".


 * Here is my push (yksehtniycul) ...I call for all content articles to be fully qualified (asap) meaning contain a qualifier in parenthesis in the title. Any link to a title missing a qualification should be considered either subject to correction (better targeting) or should be considered a glossary link designed to educate the reader on the multiple/possible uses of the term. This could be useful for very casual linkage, like Maoh in a devil's title. Ie. you don't want to take them to a page about Maoh in Megaten games, you want to take them to a page that explains to them what this term means.


 * All disambiguation pages should have (disambiguation) in the title (as do Wikipedia pages) and no template is necessary to waste any space atop a disambiguation page. Furthermore Wikipedia disambiguation pages do not have Table of Contents because you're not supposed to use headings in them. A disambiguation page should be as much like a ToC as possible itself. However because of the more esoteric/detailed and production specific nature of this wiki, I say we use to suppress the ToC, and use headings to make the disambiguation pages a little more informational, but still like a glorified ToC.


 * Pages that are listed in disambiguation pages do not need "this is a disambiguation" page at the top of the page, but should strive to list the disambiguation page itself and all pages on the disambiguation page in a See Also section near the bottom of the page (before links internal/external) ...as is wikipedia practice more or less.


 * Last point is all non-qualified pages should be considered redirects to disambiguation pages (if one exists). This will make the wiki very easy to organize and monitor. Non-qualified titles will go in the redirects pseudo category, and disambiguation articles will go in the disambiguation category. If an admin sees a non-qualified title in a normal category than they should consider moving it to be inline with this policy.


 * Note all of these specifications can be carried out in a very soft pattern. Authors can make new pages however they please. Admins, just try not to move pages around too much while someone is working on them.


 * PS: We kinda need a vote on what approach to use. But I feel very strongly about this methodology being the best approach. I won't put up much of a fight however. This needs to be resolved asap so editing can continue sans wars. --Yksehtniycul 12:00, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, in response to Bluers "tags", I don't think there should be any hard formula for qualifiers (I prefer "qualifiers" unless this is official wiki parlance to say tags) ...just use whatever works. Like instead of (weapon) use (sword) if it's a sword. Also I want to point out I don't like using caps in the qualifiers for non proper nouns. Wikipedia does not use caps otherwise.


 * PS: Semi-offtopic, should we break devils and persona up into different categories? I know there is some overlap, but it doesn't seem illogical. Also many games have a persona and devil version in the same game for some persona. So like Pixie (persona) and Pixie (devil) could coexist. Then though could Pixie (persona) be a redirect? Or would that muck up the categories system if there was a decision to categorize by persona?


 * PPS: See Demons Category Talk for my position that the Demons category should be called Devils and so on for pre Atlus USA categories (for now)--Yksehtniycul 12:00, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you have any design to illustrate? Maybe it's something like these?

 BLUER   一番   12:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Jack Frost - reserved for character?
 * Jack Frost (Persona)
 * Jack Frost (Demon)
 * Jack Frost (Enemy)
 * Like this...>

I'd say appearances should be in the character page only. --Yksehtniycul 14:17, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Jack Frost (character)
 * Jack Frost (devil)
 * Jack Frost (persona)
 * Jack Frost (enemy) (there is no enemy Jack Frost -- if anything enemy should be used for things like "Shadows" in P3, edited: but actually "(shadow)" would be better probably)
 * Jack Frost (mascot?)
 * I think I see it now. All right, I am in agreement! As long as I can find where to put information and organize stuff I'm all right to it ^^  BLUER   一番   14:59, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * If everyone agrees, I'd say the place to start would be on bosses, like in Nocturne, because I think bosses are the biggest spoilers and sometimes have story tie-ins. I'd kind of limit it for now to bosses that differ significantly from their devil counterpart. And a high level devil positioned early in the game, shouldn't be considered a real boss. Anyway, beyond this, when making links, try to include qualifiers in them when appropriate, and if that makes the link dead, just make a redirect for now, either from the official page or move the existing page to the official place (probably better practice and easier -- cause it will make an auto-redirect... but can also make double redirects, so check first how many pages redirect and decide what is better in the short term)


 * The thing to keep in mind, is this is just an ideal end state. There's no reason to be nazis about it, let's just try to avoid complaints when a page get's busted up or moved around in this pattern. Other than this the most important thing I think is to think more in terms of disambiguation pages than potpouri profile sections, and to put something on the MoS page proper asap.


 * PS: I'd like to say the new perspective is to not assume because names are shared across disparate titles that the direction of that production was aware of every other title. Ie. just because names are similar this isn't necessarily the exact same character thruout in 1-to-1 terms. So yeah there are similarities, but there are also important differences, and in the end it's cleaner to think of things by default as separate. Like P4 Izanami is not necessarily the same as Izanami in the first novel. --Yksehtniycul 22:40, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Dealing With the Chronology of Games
Don't worry about me; this time I am indecisive. Which do you think is good when sorting the sections on game information; by "alphabet" or "chronology" or by another way?

I was referring to the subsections under the "Stats" section, and other relevant sections.  BLUER   一番   12:27, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd say by series chronology. That is the first appearance of the game, then sequels follow. So all Devil Summoner games before Persona games for example. The only thing I want to point out, is if you actually have a stat section for every game under many devils like Kerberos, it will get pretty insane. This is why I suggest breaking pages up into (character) and (devil) pages, with the (devil) pages having stats, and the (character) pages having their involvement in game plots. I think though you will need other means of browsing stats eventually, like a page with just the stats for one game listed by Persona, and if those pages exist, you should have a link into them from the (devil) stats roundup pages near each stat table.

So okay, we haven't any Chronology Timeline like this on the right hand side, so I'm not sure which game goes first? Is this a correct chronology?  BLUER   一番   15:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Megami Tensei
 * Shin Megami Tensei
 * Shin Megami Tensei II
 * Shin Megami Tensei if...
 * Shin Megami Tensei III


 * Something like this is close chronology wise, but I've sort of fudged stuff around the kiddy games to get DS and Persona closer to the top maybe...
 * Megami Tensei
 * Shin Megami Tensei
 * Shin Megami Tensei II
 * Shin Megami Tensei if...
 * Shin Megami Tensei III
 * Shin Megami Tensei NINE
 * Giten (it has basically classic gameplay)
 * Majin Tensei
 * Devil Summoner...
 * Persona...
 * Last Bible
 * Devil Children...
 * Digital Devil Saga...
 * IMAGINE
 * Devil Survivor... --Yksehtniycul 21:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Categories
I move that categories be listed (moved to whenever possible) at the top of the articles. This is because many templates insert categories, and these categories tend to be meta categories, and I think the category list at the end of the page is better served by having the meta categories listed last.

I realize this could make it more difficult for new editors to find where the categories are listed (they should've read the MoS) but in essence the category area doesn't have it's own section so really it's more logical to put this at the top of the page. Plus it helps put things in perspective when seeing the categories listed first when editing the opening words of the page.

Anyway, I did this to this page Jack-o'-lantern (might need to purge it -- or just pretend edit it if you don't know how to purge) ...if no one else thinks this is a good idea I will undo it, but just to help illustrate, the weasel-words and cleanup categories are now listed last.--Yksehtniycul 20:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There is no difference when listing categories on top or the bottom, but listing them at the top would disrupt the article space, which are what editors mostly would want to edit - this will discourage newbies and this is what we want to avert most.
 * I've gone to revert this. If you want to illustrate it, perhaps you'd do so in a Sandbox next time.  BLUER   一番   02:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Skills
Would it not be a good Idea to start making pages for the game skills alone? I made has a sample a page for the skill Hassohappa has a start. --Bufula 04:30, September 20, 2009 (UTC)
 * I am agreed to this idea, and I actually got into doing pages for spells, such as Agi. Hassohappa is a well done example, and yes we may lack info, but the in-game info such as enemy use, SP and other trivial knowledge fills the page just as well.  BLUER   一番   09:43, September 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * I know it was 3 years ago and all but what'd I really like to see is pages fro ITEMS alone. Most of their names never seem to be translated (usually because there is no English equivalent I'm guessing) and it's usually near impossible to figure out what it is just by the context of what it does in-game alone. I mean, what the hell even is a Kodokuzara, Segaki Rice, or even Indulgence (okay I know that one but still)? You know all it'd really need would be a picture or something of their "real-world" equivalent and that'd be a start. -- Snowmanie 17:17, June 11, 2012 (UTC)

Japanese Terms for Demons in Parentheses
How is one supposed to know or find these? And surely it will be fine if I create a few pages without them? Forweg1 12:11, March 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's okay.  BLUER   一番   01:24, March 28, 2010 (UTC)