Editing Forum:Image Captions - Yay or Nay?

{{Forumheader|The World that Never was}}

<!-- Please put your content under this line.  Be sure to sign your edits with either your talk page template or four tildes ~~~~ -->
{{ENX|time=12:31, 17 February 2015 (UTC)|text=So in the past, KrytenKoro and I have debated endlessly about various aspects of the captions we use on our images here. We've argued about what they say, how we write what that argument resulted in, et cetera. It's gone on and on, but lately I've been starting to see things in a similar way to Kryten. This is a summary of the most recent conversation we've had regarding captions; in it, Kryten's opinion (and I guess my current one, too...) is clearly stated:
*Kryten feels that captions should only be used when necessary. The user of an ability and the game in which the image of said ability is from are only important if they serve as clear delineations of a variant of the technique in question. Placement of images in sections almost always makes the game in which the image comes from clear. Lead images need clarification in most cases, unless a technique is identical between different games. Practical use of a technique is (or almost always should be) described in article text. A caption, meanwhile, should justify the caption's, and, to a lesser extent, the image's, existence in the article. If the article text doesn't make it clear (through description of the practical use of a technique) why the image is there, the caption should. The lead image on an article could do without a caption. We could omit all but ''KH3D'' (most recent) and ''KHII'' (variant) images, placing others in a Gallery: page if necessary. Captions in general, in and outside the realm of ability articles, are pointless and patronizing to the reader. It would be better to purge captions that don't serve to inform the reader of anything new. 

And so this forum is to get the community's opinion. Do we purge captions unless absolutely necessary to understand something the article cannot say in other ways, or do we keep them, redundant as they may be? I'm fine with either, but we need to decide the following, if we decide to keep them:
*What goes in the captions.
*A specific format for how we write them that we all agree on and adhere to across the Wiki, for all article types, preferably.

Regardless of the outcome of this forum, I'd like to think we should update the MoS (when are we gonna start the process of actually rebooting the thing to include all of our new policies and such? Operation:Keychain?...). I know the MoS is not something "set in stone," based on what others have said when I mention it, but I'd like to think it is the opposite of the Pirate's Code; not just "guidelines," but actual rules...}}
{{ENX|time=18:05, 23 February 2015 (UTC)|text=It's been almost a week, guys. What are we gonna do here?}}
{{KrytenKoro|Possible compromise (and believe me when I swear up and down I hold no preference for or against this): infoboxes? It would satisfy the framing concerns, and could possibly subsume a fair bit of the mechanics sections.}}

If you did that, what would go in the box? Could it be for anything besides action abilities/commands?  --{{User:Neumannz/SigTemplate}} 21:26, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

::EDIT: I would be alright with paring down captions as much as possible. I agree that specifying game/character in a caption is only necessary for abilities that differ between them. As for placement, unless you want to separate per-game mechanics by full-clears, there's not necessarily going to be clear section-to-image relationships. Galleries for essentially redundant images would be fine.  --{{User:Neumannz/SigTemplate}} 21:26, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 ::EDIT: I would be alright with paring down captions as much as possible. I agree that specifying game/character in a caption is only necessary for abilities that differ between them. As for placement, unless you want to separate per-game mechanics by full-clears, there's not necessarily going to be clear section-to-image relationships. Galleries for essentially redundant images would be fine.  --{{User:Neumannz/SigTemplate}} 21:26, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
-::AP, description, when learned. Possibly the damage algorithms given by the guides. It would be possible to handle for all abilities, but would work best for those with images.
-::For placement, yes, I think they should have full clears if they have images in the mechanics section. Otherwise, the image should go in a gallery, I feel.{{User:KrytenKoro/Sig}} 22:42, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
-:::Personally, I do not like the infobox idea since in most cases, we do not have a gif for every game/character, which would leave empty space/red links. If we do go along with the infobox, we can also put buy/sell price in there. {{User:TheFifteenthMember/Sig1}} 18:32, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
-::::Just a reminder, infoboxes do not need to have images.{{User:KrytenKoro/Sig}} 22:24, 24 February 2015 (UTC)