Editing Forum:Technique animation captions

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{{KrytenKoro|Currently, all ability animation techniques are of the form "Character performing technique in world."

I agree with Erry that in many cases, it is unnecessary to specify the game that the animation is from, as it is often obvious from the section or article title which game it has to be. For example, Transcendence says that it only appears in BbS -- there is no need to specify the game, or honestly have a caption at all. For Aero, each image is neatly arranged in a section devoted to its game, large enough for the image to be appropriate -- for these, all that needs to be specified is if the animation is Aero, Aerora, or Aeroga.

However, because we ''do'' have techniques that vary by character and world, and we are ''not'' in the habit, or ever likely to be, of having images for every possible variation of a technique, or even making sure to detail every single facet of the mechanics, listing the character and world is not only totally irrelevant fluff, but it has the potential to imply to new readers that the animation is ''specific'' to that character or world.

Finally, having these qualifiers, which are totally arbitrary niggles at the throwaway discretion of the photographer, mean that we have to change the caption if we ever change the image -- an issue ''we have already seen''.

It is also not enough to excuse this with "the reader can tell from the character or world". This is hideously false in almost all cases (we have almost four games with the same character-world combinations), and requires that, for the reader to accurately read the image, they must have already read and be familiar with the character, world, and game articles. This is the ''opposite'' of what captions are for -- to make the subject of the image more accessible to the reader, and clarify why it is relevant. There is a reason that we don't, for example, note that the character has a certain Keyblade or Form/Command Style equipped at the time.

Having these in the caption, where they do not ''purposefully'' denote a variation of the technique, is dishonest, irrelevant, creates more work for us, and subverts the purpose of the caption for the reader. Leaving out the game, in some cases, leaves out the actual relevant information.

I propose that technique animation captions list
*the name of the technique if any of the below apply, or if there are multiple versions of the technique.
*the game the technique appeared in, if the image is not clearly placed in a game-specific section, or appears in multiple games.
*the character of the technique, if it varies based on the user ''in that game'' ([[Break Time]] is one of the few that would qualify here)
*the world of the technique, if it varies based on the world ''in that game'' ([[Pride Lands]] and [[Atlantica]] should be the only ones that apply here)

To clarify: This would not at all ''limit'' what can be mentioned in the caption. It would actually be perfectly appropriate to say something like "Transcendence summons several spherical spatial distortions, then expands them to cover the battlefield." If we all agree to it, we could even say something like, "Transcendence summons several spherical spatial distortions, then expands them to cover the battlefield. In this instance, Terra uses the technique to eliminate a Chrono Twister and several Tank Topplers in the Central Square." However, for ''these'' parameters, which ''do'' have a strong potential to mislead, we need to be incredibly careful in how we use them, if it all, to make absolutely sure we don't create a false interpretation of the image.

Since this would require modifying quite a few pages, why don't we allow a full week of discussion on this—so it'll be done the Saturday after Thanksgiving.}}

{{Chitalian8|time=04:22, 19 November 2011 (UTC)|neku= Not too much to say on this issue, looks like you hit the nail on the head. The only thing is that I think that the caption should ''always'' have the name of the technique. I just hope that that ridiculously long caption example you used was hypothetical, since that's frankly a terrible way to caption images. EDIT: I was talking about the one that described what enemies and where, the last example you gave.}}
[[File:Transcendence KHBBS.gif|frame|right|Transcendence summons several spherical spatial distortions, then expands them to cover the battlefield.]]
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{{neumannz|time={{User:Neumannz/SigTemplate}} 01:14, 20 November 2011 (UTC)|text=I strongly agree with your four conditions, although I consider it good practice to name the game regardless of whether the image is in a game-specific location, as long as the technique appears in more than one game. This is largely due to issues of consistency, but aside from that, the purpose of the image being to illustrate an example of a technique's use ''in a game'', it only make sense to include the game in the caption, even if it's in that game's section of the article. And besides, otherwise the caption will just say—for example—"Aero", and how does that look good to anyone?

I'm less enthusiastic about the full-on<!-- read "long-ass" --> description, but if we're careful with it, then I guess don't object.

</stuffy language>}}
{{KrytenKoro|I'm not saying that we ''have'' to use the long-ass description. I just wanted to make it clear that I was not trying to enforce a "you can only say these specific words" approach to the captions. We've had issues in the past where perfectly acceptable captions for story sections were simplified and reduced based on a perceived policy that didn't actually exist.}}