Template talk:Animal Crossing series

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Contents 1 Update 2 What colors do you want? 3 updated/edited template 4 stop reverting 5 animal forest/Dōbutsu no Mori 6 Mediation request 7 Request for Comment: Animal Crossing series template

[edit] Update

You should add 2 more things to the animal crossing templatee. The film and animal crossing wii —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bombtom (talk • contribs).

[edit] What colors do you want?

Brown and yellow(AC's logo colors) ? Or that swampy green and yellow, which is up right now? --Stormtrooper88888 17:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] updated/edited template

I edited the template. It has the game names italicized, includes all of the game articles--Forest through Wii, and has the Animal Crossing film down as "Animal Crossing (film), not Anime. I have also removed the Animal Crossing character article. This template isn't meant to link to every AC article--there's a disambig page for that. And it's sorta random. If it's put back I'd like to see this template divided by category. Games: (or maybe Media:) and then Random:??

I don't know. I really don't think it belongs here anyway. TStein 03:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] stop reverting

I personally think that the wii should be on the template. I think that as time goes by, people will be looking for it. But stop reverts. You want the wii on, you want it off, discuss it. You want to change the order, or add a new category, discuss it. And, you want to remove the (GameCube) from the GameCube title, discuss it. This is getting ridiculous. TStein 03:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to readd it when it has an actual screenshot, or a release date, or a playable demo, or an actual name. Right now, it has none of those. It exists in hypothetical form only. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with that. But why does the wii article being removed always go along with the (GameCube) being removed from the GameCube title? Animal Crossing refers to a lot--the film, the new wii game, the English language GameCube game, the English language DS game. People are simply supposed to assume that Animal Crossing refers to the game cube game by default--because it isn't referring to the others? Or because that's what you think of when you hear Animal Crossing. That's ridiculous. TStein 08:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

"Animal Crossing" is only a working title for the Wii game. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:07, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The point still stands. I completely understand and support your position on not yet including the wii page--though I think it should be included soon. I don't understand why you keep reverting "Animal Crossing (GameCube)" to "Animal Crossing". TStein 11:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Because there's only one game named "Animal Crossing". The anime film is named Animal Forest (well, technically Dōbutsu no Mori but nevermind). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

And being specific hurts how? Adding "GameCube" isn't incorrect--and it's the name of the article on wikipedia. You're correct--techincally there are precise names for everything but they aren't always used or known. Putting in "GameCube" simply clarifies it. Maybe for some people it's between the movie and the game, maybe for some between the DS version and the GameCube version. Maybe only ten percent of users need the clarification. I don't know. But I fail to see how specificity hurts. We're not putting more info in the title than the article has--I simply want to have the same amount of info. TStein 11:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It is, however, unnecessary. There is only one game named "Animal Crossing" in the template. We could add endless reminders of all sorts of implicit things, but they would only be useless clutter, just as this is useless clutter. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It isn't unnecessary. People come to an encylopedia because they don't know something--not because they already know everything. You're assuming that people will know that the DS version is named Wild World and that the film isn't named Animal Crossing, and a million other things. If you want to talk about unnecessary and the Animal Crossing articles, then you're in the wrong place. You should be off rewriting and cutting, cutting, cutting any of the Animal Crossing articles instead of continually reverting one word on this template. Does it provide additional information? Yes. Your arguement is that the information provided in the one word isn't necessary because there will be no confusion. That people should and will already know that one word. My arguement is that people come to encylopedias to look things up, and we shouldn't expect them to know that there is only one game that's named Animal Crossing; that the other games are named something slightly different. Maybe people will know that Animal Crossing means the GameCube game, but they shouldn't have to know that. That information should be provided and it's one word. TStein 11:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

There's only one thing in the entire world named Animal Crossing. Anyone who doesn't even know the names of things can go to the series article, linked prominently in the title of the template. Navboxes do not replace proper article content and should not be used for such. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not replacing proper article content--it's being slightly more specific so that users can get to the article you want. I understand that there is only one thing in the world that is technically named Animal Crossing but Animal Crossing is not considered a specificity on wikipedia--"Animal Crossing:Wild World" is, "Animal Forest" is, but "Animal Crossing" is not considered a specificity. To get the game with that title, you'd need to go to "Animal Crossing (GameCube)". You're right, it isn't the title of the game, and technically there is nothing else that has an identical name. But, the category has gotten large enough on Wikipedia, that Animal Crossing no longer points to an article on the GameCube game. And considering that the disambig page is located there, clearly wikipedians believe that people looking for Animal Crossing will not just be looking for the GameCube game. Maybe people who type things into the little search box are just lazy and don't type the full and proper name. Or maybe we don't title Wikipedia articles as precisely as we should. Or, maybe, there are people out there who don't know what the precise name is, or that there are multiple games, each game with a slightly differing name. It doesn't matter. This wouldn't be replacing proper article info, this would simply help people actually get to the article that they are looking for, which is what a navbox is supposed to do. You're cutting the title name of the article because you don't feel it's necessary--you think that people will be able to navigate without it. Some will. But some won't. And it doesn't hurt, and it's the actual article name.

You keep reverting and backing it up by saying that having the full title of the article is unnecessary, but you haven't explained why. Only one game being named Animal Crossing isn't the issue--naviagablity is. And, even if you don't understand that, you haven't explained why having the full title is problematic. Say it is unnecessary. Say that no one except Animal Crossing fanatics ever reads the Wikipedia articles. Why does having the full title, one additional word hurt the navbox? Why is not having the word "(GameCube)" so worth a revert war?TStein 08:30, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not have "Animal Crossing (2003 GameCube video game with four characters and a blue background on the cover)"? Because there's only one single thing named Animal Crossing, and there's no chance for misunderstanding. The only reason the article has a parenthetical is because the entire series is named after that single game, and because the Wii and anime articles are poorly titled. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

So even though the series is names after that game there's no chance for misunderstanding? I say that that's wrong--you said it yourself, the series is named after this game, and there's no way to know that there is no chance for misunderstanding. Look, there's clearly a difference of opinion here. What you won't explain to me is what's so important about "(GameCube)" not being in the navbox that you're going to bat for this so badly. When there's a difference of opinion like this, and no one else to weigh in, and no comprimise can be reached, the sensible thing to do, is look at both sides and decide based on the following: if one of us was wrong, which scenario would be worse? If I'm right, and the word isn't included, users will be confused and have trouble finding the page that they want. If you're right, and the word is, what terrible thing will happen? There will be one unnecessary word in the navbox. The full title of the article will be in the navbox. Why is this such a cause for concern? I've asked this before, and I'm asking again. Explain to me why having one extra word is worse than users being confused, and I'll support your position. TStein 10:08, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] animal forest/Dōbutsu no Mori

No change will be made about the Animal Forest/Dōbutsu no Mori name on this template until a decision is made on the article. The only changes that will occur will be if and when the page location changes. We won't change the name with it. That discussion will take place on the Animal Forest/Dōbutsu no Mori talk page and when it is concluded whatever decision they go with, we will as well. TStein 08:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation request

TStein has requested informal mediation (see here) regarding whether Animal Crossing (GameCube) should be included in the Animal Crossing series template as "Animal Crossing (GameCube)" or simply "Animal Crossing."

Based on the previous talk page discussion, I understand that TStein wants to include "(GameCube)" to identify the link specifically, and A Man In Black wants to leave it out because he argues that there is currently only one relevant item actually named "Animal Crossing" - the GameCube game - and that the additional specificity is therefore unnecessary.

Given that, I have a couple questions.

1. A Man In Black, are you interested in mediation? If not, is there anything else that would help to resolve this dispute?
2. Assuming you are both interested in mediating, it seems to me that for a two person dispute of limited scope, we may want to try some other items on the dispute resolution list as part of the mediation. Both of you, let me know if any of the following might be helpful in resolving this dispute.
   1. Policy discussion: Do either of you believe that existing policy, guidelines, or precedents from other articles is strongly on your side? If the other editor cited some policy on his/her side, would that be helpful to you?
   2. Outside opinions: Alternately, if we brought in some outside opinions, would that help make up anyone's mind? I would be happy to give you an opinion if it would be helpful, or we could explore third opinions, requests for comment, or possibly a request for input on an appropriate policy or project page.
   3. Other suggestions: Please let me know if there is anything else that you think might be helpful in resolving this dispute -- either something that might be helpful in making up your own mind or something that might help you explain your point.

Let me know, and thanks for working on this! TheronJ 19:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

In re policies and guidelines, I'm sure that there are dozens of things that apply here, but I'm not sure that they would be helpful. There are ones on both sides--we want users not to be confused (Duh!), but A_Man_In_Black is right, we don't want unnecessary content. I don't think any of that is up for dispute, it's just a judgement call about whether or not users might be confused and which vice is worse to have in this case, confused users or an additional unnecessary word.

I'd be interested in additional opinions, but the big thing for me was actually having discussion take place. My position is and has been that I agree with A_Man_In_Black on his points that unnecessary content is bad and that there is only one thing named Animal Crossing. But, given how articles are named etc., I think it's possible for users to be confused and I don't think that one extra word is that bad--I think confusion is worse. I don't really know A_Man_In_Black's position on this--I know his intial position and that he reverted my edits after that. Which is why I'm not sure we need ouside opinions or other suggestions or anything but discussion really. Maybe we will, but I think discussion (past the original stating of opinions) has been what's lacking and I'm hoping this can be solved with simple discussion.

Thanks for be willing to help. TStein 12:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Does mediation mean I have to slog through hundreds of words saying nothing other than "There's an outside chance someone might be confused so we should be extra redundant?" At this point I'm just tired of the longwinded repetition. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 13:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for responding, guys.

• Man, my guess is we will probably get to several hundred words, and I apologise for that, but don't know a better way. (I'm open to suggestions, though).
• TStein, my first impression is that A Man In Black is right about at least one thing - you guys have already had a lot of discussion. (See here). Do you think there's more to be said?
• IMHO, the best thing to do would be for me to write up a request for comment and see if we can get a few outside editors to give their opinions. As far as I can tell, whether or not to include the word "(game)" is a judgment call, not a policy issue -- neither of you would be required to accept the majority opinion, but hearing how and why a few other editors would resolve the issue might help. Are you guys willing for me to put together an RFC?

Thanks again, TheronJ 15:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it most certainly is a judgement call. I've been trying to find out what the issue is to A_Man_In_Black--why he thinks that having one additional word is bad, and I haven't really gotten an answer. I wouldn't mind an RFC, but I'd love to know why A_Man_In_Black is against this. The judgement call seems to be about whether or not users would be confused and therefore whether or not the word is necessary. If users won't be confused, it's unnecessary. But if that's the case, I still don't know what's bad about that situation and why A_Man_In_Black is against this. I know where our difference of opinion lies in whether or not it's needed, but leaving that issue aside, I don't know why he's against having the extra word. So I'd appreciate knowing that before an RFC, but either way, I'd kinda just like this settled. TStein 09:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Update: It's been a week or so since I asked for feedback, and we haven't heard from A Man in Black. That's fine, since no one is required to mediate, but it makes traditional mediation somewhat hard.

TStein, my assumption is that A Man in Black probably feels that he has explained his viewpoint as fully as is possible in the ""stop reverting" discussion on this talk page. (I could easily be wrong, however, either about AMiB's opinion or his interest level, and, if so, I apologize.) Assuming that I'm correct, I think you have three options.

1. Decide that this isn't that important and leave the template at its current version.
2. Revert to your preferred version and see if A Man in Black reverts you back. If not, then he has presumably decided that it's not important enough to worry about.
3. Alternately, I would be happy to put together a request for comment to try to get some outside opinions, as discussed above. Depending on what comments you get, you might then decide to go with either of the options above.

Let me know, and thanks, TheronJ 21:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The extra word is bad because there's only one single thing in the entire world named Animal Crossing. I don't see any possibility of confusion, and this opens up the door for reams and reams of useless metadata for what should be a slim-as-possible navigation tool. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Update: I wanted to check in and see where we stood. From what I can tell,

1. As far as the three of us know, there isn't any strong policy or guideline stating whether Animal Crossing (GameCube) should be included in the template as "Animal Crossing" or "Animal Crossing (GameCube)".
2. Grossly oversimplifying both of your arguments, TStein believes that the word "(GameCube)" should be included to identify the game accurately, while AManInBlack believes that because there is no other product with the precise name "Animal Crossing" at this time, including the extra "(GameCube)" is unnecessary and surplus metadata.
3. Most recently, TStein took option #2 of my choices above, and re-added "(GameCube)" to the template.[1] AManInBlack hasn't responded yet.
4. TStein has also expressed interest in my proposal that I write a request for comment to get additional opinion, but I'm not sure where AMIB stands.

AManInBlack, what's your opinion at this point? Are you interested in continuing this discussion, and, if so, is there a possibility that a request for comment might be helpful? Thanks! TheronJ 19:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

AMIB has responded now. He may not be interested in dialogue of any type, but he's certainly highly invested in reverting my edits. My aim all along was to get AMIB to talk to me beyond stating his opinion, which this has failed at doing. This isn't something I'd like to leave alone. So I suppose move for an Rfc. TStein 08:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll put together the RFC. TheronJ 14:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

TStein, do the RFC comments help? We only got three responses, but two of them (SeizureDog and Tjstrf) support renaming Animal Crossing (film) to Animal Forest (film) and leaving out the "(GameCube)", the third commenter, Maverick423, ended up neutral between the two options.

• I tend to agree that renaming Animal Crossing (film) makes sense. The game "Dōbutsu no Mori" has been translated on Wikipedia as "Animal Forest", it would seem to make sense to translate the film "Dōbutsu no Mori" as "Animal Forest" as well.
• Regarding whether to include "(GameCube)" in the template, with the RFC comments added to you and AManInBlack, it looks like the opinions split 3 for AManInBlack/1 for you/1 neutral. You are certainly not required to accept the majority opinion, but given that (1) AMIB seems to have numbers on his side; and (2) we have all agreed that this dispute is a judgment call, are you satisfied leaving the "(GameCube)" out, or do you want to keep exploring this issue?

Thanks! TheronJ 15:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

First, I think that the film article should be named Animal Forest (film) as well--not Dōbutsu no Mori (film)--this is English Wikipedia and we should use English naming conventions. The Animal Forest article just wen through this whole thing a little while ago actually.

I'm sorry I wasn't commenting during the Rfc, but I think that people misunderstood my position. My opinion isn't so much that it differentiates it from the other games--we do use full and specific game titles, but that it differentiates it from the series. The template title "Animal Crossing" is a link to the series page--which many people may not realize, but the point is is that the game titles are similar enough and thought of similarly enough that everywhere we refer to the series on Wikipedia, and the internet, and in articles, we write Animal Crossing. The problem is we also refer to the English language GameCube game as Animal Crossing. In one template, the words "Animal Crossing" are used as a link twice, and they link to two different articles. That's confusing, and that's inconsistent. And, that supports what I'm saying--that the games and the series in general are referred to as "Animal Crossing" and we need more specificity.

Does this make sense to anyone on this page or from the Rfc? I'm not disagreeing with Amib about almost anything. I agree that it's the only game with that name and that it doesn't distinguish it from another game. But, I don't think it's useless metadata because I don't think it needs distinguishing from the other games, but from the series as a whole. TStein 02:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems like there's agreement to move "Animal Crossing (film)", so I went ahead and did it. Let me know if you disagree, and I can undo it. (I think you may run into some problems about whether the film is notable sooner or later, but that's an issue for another day).

As to the underlying dispute, I apologize if I didn't summarize your opinion accurately enough. I still think it's a judgment call -- Tjstrf makes a good point that Template:Fire Emblem series doesn't have a parenthetical in similar circumstances.

It's totally up to you whether you want to agree with AMIB and Tjstrf in this case -- if it were up to me, I would decide (1) AMIB and Tjstrf feel that the parenthetical should be left out and (2) it's not that big a deal, so I would just let it go. OTOH, if you want to keep arguing for your preferred position, you are absolutely free to do so.

Unless anyone objects, I am inclined to declare the mediation "closed", however. As far as I can tell (1) you and AMIB have both expressed your opinions in full detail; (2) since this is such a discrete issue, there aren't many potential compromises; and (3) you are deadlocked, and there doesn't seem to be a good way to break the deadlock through policy analysis or outside opinions. I'd be happy to give you advice on where to go from here, but I don't think further mediation is likely to solve the problem at this time. Thanks, and sorry we didn't get a better result, TheronJ 14:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment: Animal Crossing series template

Statement of dispute

This is a dispute about whether the game Animal Crossing (GameCube) should be listed on the Animal Crossing series template as "Animal Crossing" or as "Animal Crossing (GameCube)". (For reference, here is the "without" version and here is the "with" version).

Any previously uninvolved editors here for the RFC, please place your comment in the Comments section below. Thanks! TheronJ 14:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Statements by editors previously involved in the dispute

• I am acting as mediator between TStein and AManInBlack, who are deadlocked at this point. We haven't been able to identify any relevant policies or guidelines that decide the issue, but as I understand it:
  • TStein believes that the template should include the word "GameCube", because the detail is important and distinguishes the GameCube game from alternatives such as a wii game currently in development (but not on the template), Animal Crossing (film), and the other entries in the series.
  • AManInBlack believes that including "(GameCube)" at this point is useless metadata, because the only current product currently named "Animal Crossing" is the GameCube game, and adding "(GameCube)" therefore does not serve to distinguish the entry from anything else. (A Man argues that Animal Crossing (film) is a mistranslation and the film, which has only been released in Japanese, should be titled either "Animal Forest" or "Dōbutsu no Mori.")
  • I apologize if I oversimplified anything or got anything wrong. The two editors explain their positions in more detail in the section titled "stop reverting", above, and may have more to say here.
• Thanks, TheronJ 14:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Comments

• Just say "Animal Crossing" in the template. Animal Crossing is different game from Animal Forest. So different that it had to be translated back to make the e-Plus version of the game. Also, move Animal Crossing (film) to Animal Forest (film). Only move back to Animal Crossing (film) if it gets an English release with that title.--SeizureDog 14:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Animal crossing (gamecube) should be placed as clearly there is not only one animal crossing. there is animal crossing for the DS and the upcomming animal crossing for the wii. with out the gamecube part people wont be able to tell the diffrence. it will be like this

animal crossing, animal crossing, animal crossing.

compare it to

animal crossing DS, animal crossing Gamecube, animal crossing wii

Maverick423 15:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The disambiguation is unnecessary. Animal Crossing is the eponymous member of the series, but it is also the only one bearing the title Animal Crossing. (Gamecube) is not a part of its name, and nothing else exists that is officially known as "Animal Crossing". For comparison, please see Template:Fire Emblem series, on which game 7 is called simply Fire Emblem. Every Animal Crossing series title is an Animal Crossing, but there is only one thing that is the Animal Crossing. As for the film, it should probably be at a romaji name unless its proper title is romanized. --tjstrf talk 15:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

the only part about the fire emblem thing that's similar is that the Fire Emblam template also has two links named fire emblam and they go two different articles. In the Fire Emblam template, it isn't confusing because the top one reads "Fire Emblam video games"--there's no need to make it read "Fire Emblam (Series) video games". But in this template, there are films and video games and it looks like the "video games" thing is there to label the template. Everything in the template is named "Animal" and it's confusing as heck if you don't know the series. There's nothing to differentiate between the link to the series page and the game page except for formatting. Maybe we don't add (Game Cube) to the link in the box, maybe we add (Series) to the template title link. Templates are for navigation, to help people get from one place to the next. It therefore seems fundamentaly stupid to have two identical links on a template that go to different pages.

Another note. I'd edited multiple animal crossing articles and knew wikipedia fairly well before I ever used this template, and I still got sent to the wrong page a couple times. If it could confuse me for a moment or two, I certainly think it will confuse people who don't know wikipedia or animal crossing. Which is why I made the change to begin with. I understand the various reasons people are saying this is unnecessary or it's only necessary if users are confused. But I don't understand what bad thing will/could happen if this change is made. And I do know that users will/can be confused if the change isn't made. Is there any real reason NOT to make the change? TStein 09:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

so i see. as long as people dont get confused its ok. however if people are getting the wrong articles by mistake then the gamecube part should be added to clear up such confusion. Maverick423 16:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)