User talk:ZS: Difference between revisions

User talk:ZS (view source)

Revision as of 03:35, 25 August 2012

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→‎Issues v2: New discussion

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Gboyers

Executive Manager, Managers, Executive Managers, Interface administrators, Administrators

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 I hope that explains everything in more detail. I do understand that you don't like the idea of choosing one image to take 'priority' at the top, but we need something there, and I'm not sure what you're suggesting as the alternative to that. As always, hit me up if you have any questions - [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 14:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
+== Issues v2 ==
+Hi ZS. I'm going to respond to your list of issues again, just to
+*Galleries not displaying properly.
+**Need to look into this, and I will let you know the result (remind me if I don't)
+*Title case in titles
+**I've explained the reasons behind this as being mostly for ease of use, not aesthetics - it's easier to remember to capitalise everything except a/the/in rather than having to sit and figure out which words are proper nouns and which are not. I know you hate typing [[Police Car]] when it is not a proper noun, but in my mind the proper name of a page IS a proper noun, just like the proper name of a car would be.
+*Aversion of parentheses in titles
+**I've said many times these are ugly, unwieldy and of no value. Police (car) is a horrible solution to a simple problem, that in NO way advantages users and makes the wiki messier and harder to use.
+**To use a random example, think of a domain name for an IRL company - if there were two companies called "Megacorp", one was a TV studio and one was a bank. You wouldn't expect the domain to be something like Megacorp(bank).com (but that would be the name of the Wikipedia page). They would probably be MegacorpBank.com and MegacorpTV.com. Even though that isn't the official technical correct legal name of the company, it's what it's known as, and the simplest way to disambiguate, creating better brand recognition and easier access to their site - it solves many problems. Calling them both Megacorp with no disambiguation, or using an unwieldy method such as parentheses, serves no value at all.
+**I remain completely convinced that we should avoid parentheses in titles wherever possible. Where the disambiguation is about games, use the now-standard "in GTA III Era" which is used all over this wiki to very good effect (particularly in categories and lists).
+*Regarding the title case and parentheses, just citing Wikipedia or Wikia as examples is not a persuasive argument. I have already pointed out that MuseWiki use parentheses for EVERY page title, and MeatballWiki use CamelCase (without spaces) for their pages - and they are both big.
+*Many images which failed to be transferred from the GTA Wikia still unattended after more than half a year.
+**You're right, this is [[Special:WantedFiles|still an issue]]. Needs to be addressed, but any user can put a {{template|delete}} tag on an empty image, or fetch the required image from Wikia, or even take a new screenshot to replace it.
+*Double standards on splitting vehicles between different games
+**You're right, this is an issue, and it's one we're combating at the moment. My rule-of-thumb is that if they are completely different vehicles, they should have separate pages. To clarify - I am happy for you to split vehicle articles into different eras *IF* they are completely different vehicles with the same name (eg Bus/Coach/Police Car). If they are simply new renditions, updated with better graphics quality and altered styling to fit into the game's setting, then they should generally stick on the same page.
+**However, certain vehicle pages should have central collection/disambiguation pages. For example [[Police Car]] should show all the different police cars we have, whilst the detail for each of them should be on separate pages (Some named [[Police Cruiser]] and others either [[Police Car in GTA III Era]] or [[Police Car in GTA Vice City]] etc - depending on how much content we have).
+*"Petty" use of roman numerals & unnecessary capitalisation in image names
+**See [[User talk:Andreaz1#Re: Image naming conventions|this discussion]] for a detailed discussion on image naming conventions.
+**Roman numerals is simply an issue of accuracy and consistency. Except for GTA 1, we always call the games by whatever Rockstar called them - using the number or roman numeral assigned. That means we use 1, 2, III, IV, V. That is the same regardless of the [[Grand Theft Wiki:Games|game name fomat]] - long, short, condensed or just the game ID. It's not 'petty' it just doesn't make any sense to go against convention and accuracy to use 'GTA4' in images, there's no reason why we should. I admit the decision to use 'GTA4' a few years ago was a mistake, and I think we have corrected it.
+*As for capitalisation, I believe we should just be consistent with the rest of the wiki and treat titles of articles as names & proper nouns, and thus show them in Title Case. Just like an author of a book on police cars would call it 'Police Cars of America' - using Title Case. That's what we've always done, it works for us, it's been justified, and I don't see any reason at all to change it (except 'Wikipedia does it'). I don't believe it has any negative effect on the wiki or its users, except being weird for those people who prefer to use Sentence case exclusively. Equally, I would feel weird using Sentence case in titles - perhaps it's just personal preference, but I have explained my justification.
+*Mandatory use of images in infoboxes
+**As I explained in the above reply, it is mandatory that all articles have an image at the top. This is for a the simple reason to help people quickly identify what the page is about. Additionally, it helps with aesthetics, and using images in infoboxes allows us to do clever semantic things (as mentioned above). This mandatory requirement for an image will not change, and for 99% of cases using a single image in the infobox is sufficient. Yes, that will automatically "favour" one game's image over the others, but that's tough - it helps people quickly identify that that page is the one they are looking for. The detail and separate per-game images come below. However I am happy for us to think of better ways of doing this for the 1% of cases where the vehicle looks totally different throughout eras (like [[Bus]], perhaps). However if it genuinely seems to be a completely different vehicle, then it should be on a separate page (as above).
+I think you really have something against the 'latest' games, and I'm not sure why. Just because people are more familiar with them, that doesn't make them wrong to focus on them. I agree entirely that this wiki is about ''all'' GTA games and now we have the "in GTA III Era" naming convention widely-used, I'm happier for us to use disambiguation pages and split articles up between eras. Yes, a lot of (younger) people will ''only'' know about GTA IV, but keep an open mind. I'm happy for you to take responsibility for the 1+2 era games to ensure they have fair representation and the articles are looked after.
+I know your list is just a personal 'things to keep an eye on' but as I've said repeatedly I'd rather we talk it out and end up on the same page, whatever that is. I am willing to change where there is adequate justification and it would have a net positive effect on the wiki - and with splitting vehicles per-era (ONLY where they are different enough for a split to be required) I think that is justified, so I'm happy to change that. [[User:Gboyers|gboyers]] <sup>[[User_talk:Gboyers|talk]]</sup> 03:35, 25 August 2012 (UTC)