Forum:Manual of Style Changes

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TheFifteenthMember Yes. You're creepy. I can't say we'll miss you while you're gone, so it'd be best if you did go. We all win that way. — TheFifteenthMember 18:28, 12 January 2015 (UTC) With the return of many old users and the arrival of some new ones, I feel it necessary to formally agree on a new MoS because there is a lot of disparity between certain grammar points or phrasings that need to be clarified before anyone mass-edits any more pages incorrectly. I ask everyone to hold off on making controversial changes to articles, until the issues here are resolved. Otherwise, someone might make a bunch of pages say one thing, only to have this discussion reach a different consensus, meaning that all those pages have to be changed back. Without further ado, I'll bring up points that I've noticed: Pronoun for gender-neutral subjects: It is "them". You can read my reasoning here and I have a source to back myself up. One user disagreed and used this as his evidence. However, that article is outdated since it was written in 2004. Not only is Oxford a more reliable source in my view, the article written by them is newer and has more updated information. Language moves on. Especially if it's English. Ability captions: Do we use "the user" or the character's names? My view on this has changed somewhat in the past few days; considering the character has as much a difference on how the ability looks as the game, I think we should go with the latter. For example, Break Time looks different between Terra, Ventus and Aqua, and all three animations are in the same game. Hence, I think the captions should be anything along the lines of "In BBS, Break Time causes Terra to...", "In BBS, Ventus performs Break Time by..." or "In BBS, Break Time allows Aqua to..." (obviously with BBS in full). Total consistency among pages is not necessary here. As long as the sentence makes sense and is not overly clunky, I see no reason to just edit a page to reword a caption so that all of them are worded the same. Variety is acceptable and I would encourage it, especially if there are multiple captions on the same page. These are issues I can think of off the top of my head but there are more, no doubt. I'm asking everyone to bring up anything they want to change in the MoS and share their thoughts on the two points I raised. Also, relevant forum.

TheSilentHero — 18:32, 12 January 2015 (UTC) Another relevant forum.

KeybladeSpyMaster - I do it for my family, my home, my friends! I do it for her! TALK - Welcome to Spy Force One. - 01:20 PM Mon, January 12, 2015 MST Great idea to have this forum. I will address some of the points FM noted, I don't know if I really have to discuss the linked forums (I can if we want). The singular gender-neutral pronouns "They/Them": The Manual of Style currently discourages the use of the terms "they" or "them" as singular gender-neutral pronouns. I did some research last week on its validity in the English language, using a wiki higher than any of us, Wikipedia. The results are....indecisive. That's right. Even Wikipedia, the most professional of all these "Anyone-can-edit-wikis", the source of them all, is indecisive as to whether it is appropriate to use the terms "they"/"them" as gender-neutral singular pronouns. The article on the terms on Wikipedia cites multiple, in my opinion, reliable sources that both encourage and discourage the use of the terms. My conclusion is that it's use is dependent on who you ask. Apparently, Oxford believes it is okay to use the terms as singular gender-neutral pronouns. I have to side with them in this case. The reality is that it's common to use in common English in the United States, at least. And without a true consensus even in the United States as a whole, we cannot argue it as being incorrect in English grammar conventions very easily. I say we use the more reliable source as a deciding factor, and right now, I feel that is the Oxford Dictionary that TheFifteenthMember has cited. Ability Captions: I also agree that it should be the character's names. Here's why, and I explained it on ENX's talk page: I do not believe that using a specific character's name necessarily means that no one else but that one character can use the ability as described. If anything, I'd claim it's speculation to assume anyone can use it when there's no proof of that. Using the character's name 1) makes it more understandable and friendly; 2) specifically describes what's in the image or animation or whatever; and 3) prevents that speculation I mentioned by stating not that, for example, Aqua is the only person able to use Glacier, but by stating that she's someone who can use it. It doesn't necessarily rule out that someone else can use it, but that she's seen as being able to use it in this case. Something that appears to have been an issue yesterday, and that isn't addressed in the Manual of Style or really anywhere as far as I know, is the order of navigation menus. I personally feel that in regards to the games navigation menus, they should be ordered by release rather than in chronological order. It's easier. I don't know if we want to handle/define how other navigation menus are ordered, but I feel that their order is irrelevant, except that they should be above the game menus (to me, that flows better).

Chronological order is okay in my view. In truth, either method works. It's just arbitrarily choosing one and sticking to it. TheFifteenthMember 20:24, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

KrytenKoro - "Punch your lights out, hit the pavement. That's what I call entertainment. Causin' problems makes you famous - all the violence makes a statement." TALK - "They/Them" has been in accepted use as a singular pronoun since the Middle Ages. Its usage here is not possible to confuse readers, at this point. Are there sources which prefer other words? Sure. But it is not incorrect, it is not offensive, it is not confusing, and it is not awkward. As far as I'm aware, no other suggested pronouns have been put forward that meet all of these -- the only strike against "they" is from grammar prescriptivists, who are well known to make up rules for the sake of rules. Captions: Honestly, I'm against having captions that aren't being used to illustrate something interesting that can't be covered within our standard format. I'm against captions for captions' sake, and certainly "one image per game" per images' sake. That being said, Break Time is in fact the perfect example why "the user" should be used -- because that is a technique where the usage differs between users. Mentioning the user necessarily implies that the user is important context for what follows, even if it is weaker than outright saying "when X uses Y". "If anything, I'd claim it's speculation to assume anyone can use it when there's no proof of that" -- The thing is, this goes both ways. If you're assuming that a reasonable reader will read "the user" as meaning "all users", you've got to agree that a reasonable reader will read "Riku" as "only Riku". What obviously cannot specify the whole list of users for a generic ability in the caption, and captions are most efficient when they are concise. So why go into all this "Homing Cura in BBS used by Terra in Keyblade Graveyard" if they only relevant bit of info there is "Homing Cura"? At best, we're being boring, redundant, and non-concise, at worst, we're planting false impressions in the readers' heads. If the desire to add captions to everything is so that the images have the border that a thumbnail brings, the "frame" tag can be used in its place (or I'm sure the scripters on this wiki can whip up something that looks even better). I feel I may have been misunderstood in the past, as well -- if we have a caption at all, it should be something that describes what's going on in the image, stuff that is not redundant to the mechanics section or the lead. But this is still subject to the preference for brevity and relevance -- we don't need to describe every visual quirk of the animation, just those that are important. And again, it's very possible that we don't need a caption at all, or at the very least not one longer than "Homing Cura". I point to the very successful TFWiki for this -- they have so fully recognized the frequency with which captions are totally useless that where captions are not needed, they simply leave them blank or allow them to be used humorously, to make reading the wiki more entertaining. I'm fairly certain the community here would balk at turning captions into jokes, but it should be possible to at least recognize that a lack of lengthy captions will not reflect poorly on the wiki. Sidenote: I do not agree with "obviously BBS in full". Where we have official acronyms, they should absolutely be used to simplify content and be more concise. Using the full title for everything always obscures actual information with an endless stream of "Kingdom Hearts colon". Sidenote 2: "cause" is not a good verb to use, I feel, because it implies that the user is forced to perform these actions, or the technique itself. They aren't -- they retain what agency they have as player avatars. "Performs X by" seems technically okay, but still feels to me like it's saying that the user simply has to perform those actions and they get the technique, rather than having to unlock the skill. It's less of a quibble with that one. Navbox order: Honestly, this makes the most sense to me in order of game release. The game chronology itself is all over the place, with flashbacks to before BBS in KH1, or after KH2 in BBS, etc. The game release order is, I feel, how most fans list the games in their heads, and thus would be the more natural order they would expect when looking up information. However, as always I'd like to caution the overuse of navboxes -- I'm not very sure how valuable a by-game navbox is for a single-topic wiki, especially if it's expanded beyond major game mechanics into every possible thing that appears in the game. Like, I'd understand the KH2 navbox for reaction commands, and probably any other major topics that appear in the KH2 navbox, but not for Shadows or Air Pirates. We have categories that serve much of the same purpose, and they are less of a hassle to navigate (especially when dealing with phones or browsers that don't work nicely with the expand code, cough cough).

Eternal Nothingness XIII True, we don't have hearts. But we remember what it was like. That's what makes us special. — 22:51, 12 January 2015 (UTC) My opinions on these matters are as follows: They/Them - The only reason people are starting to be more lenient about this is because it is technically grammatically incorrect, but it is a common, everyday mistake nowadays in the English language. It's the same reason why words like "twerking" manage to make it into the English dictionary. This reliable, up-to-date source pushes for the usage of "he or she" and "him or her" over "them/their/they," but it is not necessarily "wrong" to do so. This site is also a .edu source, which means it is used for education purposes, thus people are being taught this stuff. We wouldn't teach people incorrect grammar. That's counterproductive to the school environment. The only reason I've been combatting the usage of they and them in articles for so long is because in the several years of schooling I have had, I have been told by teachers and professors alike (people who have doctorates in this, for Christ's sake...) that "they/their/them" is WRONG when it is used simply for the purposes of gender neutrality, as it is technically a plural term that applies to MULTIPLE subjects. Instead, these teachers and professors stress the usage of "he or she" and "him or her" in cases where gender is ambiguous. If the consensus on the Wiki is that "they/them/their" is allowed despite our stress for grammatically correct, professional-sounding articles, then I will no longer fight it. It will bother me, but I'd rather not cause problems. Do tell me, though, why these teachers would have their degrees and be certified to teach grammar to students like me if they were wrong? The point is, we're battling endlessly about preferences, and it's causing needless conflicts and leading us nowhere. I'd personally rather spend my time in other areas on the Wiki, rather than patrolling the captions for grammar issues. Ability Captions - Again, it really is stupid that this is causing such a problem when our time could be spent improving the sections of the Wiki that need it, rather than being all nit-picky about the captions' contents. I say our images should just have no captions at all unless absolutely necessary; the only reason I have been adding captions is I personally find the thumbnail frame, if just slapped on the page to reduce image size, to be ugly and not needed. Using vague terms such as "the user" all the time just creates a lot of redundancy an awkward sentences. Which sounds better: "Curaga allows the user to hold the user's Keyblade above the user's head as leaves wrap around the user," or "Curaga allows Aqua to raise her Keyblade above her head as leaves wrap around her body."? Obviously option number two is better-sounding. I know I chose a poor ability to illustrate my point, but you get where I'm coming from. To me, it's just annoying to say "the user" when the image is clearly exclusive to a certain character, and that character is obviously in the image using said ability. Again, we really are just getting ridiculously nit-picky here. It's the same issue that was raised on that stupid, unnecessary music forum: different writers will write different things, and based upon each writer's preferences, that will surely lead to conflict and an endless chain of edit wars. I find that the captions certain users like, such as the one on Inverse Burst, are generally weird-sounding. If we could just be free to say "Inverse Burst allows Riku to team up with Mickey and bombard enemies with light and dark projectiles," then it would be a much smoother read, as well as a simpler one. What are we even using the image captions for, anyways? I recall a user telling me directly that we should not just rehash the game's ability descriptions (which I feel, personally, would solve all of our ability caption problems). Instead, I was told the purpose of the captions is to state something the article cannot, such as a visual description of the ability ("Gold sparkles rain down while X uses Y in Z."). Then in recent days, people simply started describing what the ability did or gave a more generic visual description. Naturally these types of captions would be longer. I don't care how "irrelevant" people dub the caption type "X using Y in Z," because at least then, those captions are short, get the point of the image across, no matter how obvious, and prevent all these stupid arguments about wording preference, which, personally, I see no end to, because everyone has his or her (note I did not say "their") own opinion. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is I have felt genuinely lost when trying to improve our captions, which, in general, are poorly written all across the Wiki. Since we seem to be squabbling only about the ability captions for now, what is their purpose? That needs to be decided before we decide how to actually word what needs to be said. Game Titles - It was my understanding that this Wiki strives to be professional and as detailed as possible on all of its articles. Thus I believe we should always use game titles in full. Otherwise, it's just lazy, unprofessional editing to say "Birth by Sleep is the prequel to Kingdom Hearts." I do NOT think we should be saying Kingdom Hearts ___________ at the start of every sentence, mind you, but eventually we need to reaffirm what we are talking about, and in the case of game titles/names, the best way to do that is to state the full title. Obviously we, the editors, know what we are talking about, but we need to assume some idiot who has never played Kingdom Hearts before is reading one of our articles, gets lost in what we're saying, and then finds himself (notice I did not say "themselves," even though I do not know the gender of the reader in this example) asking, "What are they talking about, again?" It's important to say Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep in more places than just the article header. Again, using what comes after the colon (or just the subtitle in general) is lazy. Nav Template Order - I technically don't care what format we decide upon, game chronology, or in order of release date. To those who make mention of certain scenes that take place in game that crosses timelines with a later or earlier game, I say you're reading too much into it and making things unnecessarily difficult. Obviously we know Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep (notice I did not say Birth by Sleep) takes place before Kingdom Hearts, regardless of the fact that the main chunks of its secret ending take place after Kingdom Hearts II. That's all that matters when placing the templates in order of the games' stories, in my opinion. This is really just a matter of reaching a consensus, and then fixing the articles to reflect that. The only reason this was a problem yesterday was because one user simply chose to reorder the nav templates of his own volition without any prompting from another user, a policy that was in violation the way things were, or otherwise. I personally feel as if this "discussion of what needs to be updated in the MoS" turned into an argument about who's right and who's not, as well as why some people's opinions are better than others. The Manual of Style is severely out of date, but rather than argue and continue to deliberate on what the MoS should say, we need to ACT AS A COMMUNITY through polls or other such things and develop rules that set our consensuses in stone, rather than leaving them "implied" and then enforced by those whose opinions they are, thus confuses other editors who are not in that particular user's brain and leading to the creation of such forums as these. I do not mean to sound rude, immature, confrontational, or unprofessional in any way. I just want to feel as if my opinion matters on this place and to know that my voice has been heard. I will support whatever we decide 100%. I would just like our reasoning behind what we decide upon for the MoS to be based less upon one or two people's shared opinions, and more about concrete explanations/facts/evidence. I would like to apologize to the users of this Wiki for any trouble I might have caused. I am simply doing what I feel is best for this site, which may contrast other people's views. I did not mean to create any problems. Once these issues have been solved, I will resolve to ensure the Wiki reflects everything that is decided here, rather than based upon my personal opinion.