Talk:Ravnica (plane)

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Note that although the full title of the set is Ravnica: City of Guilds, the title of the article is simply Ravnica. This is in keeping with Wikipedia's naming conventions, which favor common usage when determining how to title an article, and writing out the full name in the article's body (see Frankenstein or Moll Flanders for an example). Note that in his article introducing the official Ravnica previews, the set's own lead designer, Mark Rosewater, does not once use the "City of Guilds" portion of the title and simply calls it "Ravnica" throughout, even though the article is essentially official Wizards of the Coast promotion for the set. Please respect the Wikipedia convention. Andrew Levine 00:11, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Copyright violation?

Do we have the right to use the official desriptions of the guilds? The current test is copied from http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/guildpact/gruul and similar pages. --Apoc2400 08:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I removed the extraneous text from the Gruul description (which referred to images on the original page). The text is actually that which is included with the theme decks; there shouldn't be anything wrong with transcribing a freely-available blurb. --Tikitikirevenge 00:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, the guild descriptions seem to have been taken from the Player's Guides from the fat packs for each of the sets, which is copyrighted material. 68.231.159.127 11:54, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spoilers

Is it really necessary to have a "WARNING, STORYLINE SPOILERS" note before every plot spoiler if there's one at the top already?

[edit] Recentish latge additions.

Unless references are provided for them I'll have no choice but to remove them. I've no objection to them, but verification is a must. Jefffire 23:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clean up

I've made an atempt to collect all the information together under the guild titles and cut out things which can't be validated. It still looks a little messy so I'd appreciate some help. Jefffire 14:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Read this: Rewording needed

We need to reword the guild entries so they look less like a cut and paste job from Mark Rosewater's articles. Any takers? Jefffire 11:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll work on it. Sometime. Scumbag 02:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My plans for the article

I have a few plans for this article, one I've already done:

  • Remove the "Play Style" sections from some of the guilds; eventually use the "Values and Gameplay" thing instead. There's no real competitive deck based soley on the guilds, so I don't think its relevent. The later, on the other hand, works as both a thematic and informative basis.
  • Rewrite the copied-from-Wizards guild comments.

This is off the top of my head - it's late, and I'm tired. Discuss. Scumbag 07:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Damn right, scumbag. I did a huge rewrite a few months earlier, but I regret to say I've been a bit lazy latley. Play style is entirely OR, and was incorrect in places. I'll have a go at rewriting the guild descriptions before Rosewater has our legs broke. Jefffire 11:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parun

Do we know who the Simic Parun is? It's the only guild without one listed, or mentioned. --Sakaki22 20:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wait, what is Ravnica?

Could someone add what exactly is Ravinca in the real word, i.e. where the story originated, and what exactly it has to do with Magic: the Gathering stuff, how exactly does Ravinca come into play? what exactly is this term used for within Magic?

If all this is already in the article, then its pretty hard to understand and should be cleared up. as a complete noob, this makes no sense to me, and doesn't help me understand anything. remember, the world of Magic is pretty deep and extensive... what a lot of experienced hoobyists/players take for granted is still a learning process for others. Knowsitallnot 23:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me for sounding rude, but what part of 'In the card game Magic: The Gathering, Ravnica is a plane whose primary planet is covered by cities. Ravnica is the setting for Ravnica: City of Guilds, Guildpact, and Dissension' did you not understand? It's clear that Ravnica is the setting for one of the later Magic: The Gathering sets. Scumbag 18:34, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rules?

This is about a card game. I would appreciate to find at least short rules for the game here. This is merely a description of the world of RAV.

Exactly. "This is merely a description of the world of RAV." Try Magic: The Gathering or look in rules at [1]. Also it would be best if you talked to someone- they are pretty complicated and based on flavor. Deadbraincell 03:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

It would be great to add in some illistrations of the land, etc. That way people can actually have a clue as to what it looks like, or what it is intended to look like. By showing the little sigils of the guilds and pictures of a couple cards doesn't at all help to orient you in the world of Ravnica. 70.48.161.4 04:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Ravnica has more pics than any other, but yeah, basic lands would be helpful. and not just here.Deadbraincell 23:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirecting to Ravnica: City of Guilds

This article is an excellent example of how not to write an article on a fan special-interest subject on Wikipedia.

It completely fails WP:WAF. It makes no reference to the real world (except for game-guide material, of course) after the first sentence. Instead, it describes the fictional world as though it were real, describing story and setting as history instead of plot summary.

None of the claims in this article are attributed. It doesn't even do a very good job of explaining where any of this came from. (I know it's from the Ravnica-block card flavor text, the fatpack guides, and the novels, but those are all primary sources.)

There's no evidence of notability. This is tied up in the above; there are no non-trivial references in independent, reliable sources for any of this.

This is not how articles should be written on Wikipedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have a problem with me, you take it out on me. You're just being petty. Scumbag 06:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Generally, when someone declares open contempt for Wikipedia's rules about writing about fiction and sourcing and original research, I go looking for problematic articles in that user's history. I don't have any problem with you, but I do have a problem with poorly-sourced, in-universe articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

MiB, WP:WAF does not mean you should blank this page; it means you should fix it. Personally, I'd like to see such material on Ravnica (plane), since Ravnica should redirect to the set of that name. People typing "Ravnica" expect to find the card set, not backstory. --Khaim 23:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Fix it with what? It was all explicit detail sourced to vague handwaves about what the article was about. There might be a place for a new article written from the ground up, based on attributed sources, but I don't see how what we had was going to form the foundation for that. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 21:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Just stop editwarring. You are the only one here who thinks that this content is inappropriate. This article is about major concept in Magic's storyline, and has huge impact on gameplay. This plane is detailedly described in several novels that go with the game. This is far more notable than some random Pokemon. Several editors, who actually play the game (and thus, are experts on the topic) disagree with your accessment of this article, yet you continue to ignore them. Please, start improving Wikipedia, instead of deleting what's already there.  Grue  12:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Where's the impact on the real world? What's with all the game rule text? Where are the attributions to reliable sources indepedent of the subject? In fact, where are the attributions to any published sources? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by A Man In Black (talk • contribs) 19:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC).
Impact on real word: One of the most popular blocks in Magic's history, aeb developer comments. Notability? Major characters (and places, concepts, groups, etc.) in a work of fiction should be covered in its own article if encyclopedic treatment of such a character / places / concepts causes the article on the work itself to become long. Published source? 651 cardboard cards that any reader of Wikipedia can effortlessly access if they require. I'm going to be removing some (but not all) of the warnings on the top of the page. The plot one comes to mind... there's no plot (intentionally) in the cards themselves. I will say, however, that shifting this to {plane} article was a great idea. Scumbag 02:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • "One of the most popular blocks in Magic's history" - Source? This is also a claim of notability for the real-world product (the MTG sets), not the fictional world depicted in same.
Nothing you'd trust. Developers mentioning it. Still works for most people. Scumbag 03:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • "Major characters (and places, concepts, groups, etc.) in a work of fiction should be covered in its own article if encyclopedic treatment of such a character / places / concepts causes the article on the work itself to become long." - Encyclopedic treatment is not recapping the story, in extreme detail, sourced only to the fictional work itself. It would suffice to say that Ravnica is a city-plane run by various guilds, whose cooperation and clashes are the setting for the sets. We can say that in the set articles.
Which guilds? What are their purpose? What ethos do they adhere to? Which tend to work together? Which are opposed? Scumbag 03:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Please find any information regarding the use of primary sources in WP:FICT. Why do you consistently use the wrong notability guidelines when making arguments?
This article doesn't make any effort whatsoever to satisfy WP:N, and it's written in an in-universe way, with no attributed sources. (Just saying "This comes from this set" doesn't really solve this problem.)
Now, this could become a half-decent article on the block, if we could scrounge up some info about production, critical reception, and other real-world topics while scrapping the bulk of the in-universe trivia, but I thought the MTG project had decided to do that on a set-by-set basis, instead of a block-by-block basis. Just synthesizing the "story" of the block from blurbs on the cards, that's original synthesis (which we don't do on Wikipedia). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
It fits great with WP:FICT.
There is no story from the blurbs of the cards. The blurbs talk about setting, not plot. You know that, right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scumbag (talk • contribs)
Not without secondary sources it doesn't satisfy WP:FICT As for setting/plot, I've been using "plot" to mean both. "Details about a fictional universe," be those details narrative or descriptive, still fall under WP:WAF. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Setting and plot are different. As I'm sure you're aware of as a prereq of editing this topic' article, there is no plot (and we'll use the actual definition of it, thanks) in the card sets. Only the details on the set's setting. You can claim something still falls under something else, but I'm still curious about what WP:FICT says about primary and secondary sources. After all, it's the notability guideline for this fictional topic. Scumbag 03:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm aware of the difference, but the fact remains that WP:FICT and WP:WAF guide how both plot and setting are dealt with on Wikipedia, and WP:N governs how everything is handled on Wikipedia. We still need references independent of the subject itself. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I forgot; you are right with regards to the strategy guide one. I pruned out those specific things before, but they've crept back in, it seems. I'll try to prune or reword them so they are less on strategy and more on "these cards were designed with a {bleh bleh bleh}. Scumbag 02:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're talking about here, but I'm sure I'll be able to see from the edits. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Never mind about it; I basically decided I'm way too tired to do it, so I just pruned it all out. Scumbag 03:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Secondary Sources

I don't know if it'll be reasonably possible to find secondary sources for this article, as it's mainly just an in-universe created by Wizards. I suppose we could use the books themselves, but they wouldn't really be secondary, would they? If no one objects, I may just remove that tag and replace it with one asking for in-line citations. --Temporarily Insane (talk) 23:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)