[Explanation needed]

[DontTalk]

One common flaw in profiles is that they lack detailed explanations. There are two main cases, the first being that the parenthesis with explanations behind the stats are lacking.

The second one is that often abilities from our Powers and Abilities pages get simply listed in the powers and abilities section without there being a more detailed explanation about which applications of the ability the character shows, how powerful the version of the ability is that the character posses and how exactly the effect of the ability is reached.

The second one is especially bad, since there is nothing to encourage someone knowing the character well to add this explanation. On the opposite, often a character appears more powerful if such explanations are left out. For example listing just "Soul Manipulation" makes it sound like the user could damage souls, even if that is not necessarily the case (the user could for example only be able to manipulate the souls of the dead, or he could require physical contact to do so etc.).

Now of course one can make threads about such issues with profiles and ask what a certain ability is or what the reasoning for a stat is, but that is usually tiresome and often it isn't much discussion necessary, but only the pointer to say that something should be clarified would be necessary.


So how are similar problems handled elsewhere? Well, Wikipedia has tags like the "Citation needed" and "Clarify" templates that users may just insert on pages in order to point such problems out.

So I thought maybe it would be a good idea to create something similar for our wiki, that users could then liberally insert in pages whenever they feel something isn't properly explained.


So in practice I would want to create a template, so that inserting {{Explanation needed|What needs to be explained}} gives a small non-intrusive note. For example:

Powers and Abilities: [[Superhuman Physical Characteristics]], [[Fire Manipulation]], [[Reality Warping]]{{Explanation needed|Which kind of effects were shown/explained to be possible through this?}}, [[Flight]]

Would result in:
Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Fire Manipulation, Reality Warping[Explanation needed], Flight

Just that the link would go to some page like this instead of going to the main page and a category for pages with the tag would be added.

What do you guys think about this idea?

 

[Antoniofer]

Welp, generally the way that the power works is used in the vsthreads, if we put how the power exactly works in the profiles that would require a lot of work.

 

[Promestein]

It's a lot to implement, but I feel like it'd be a good addition.

 

[Hop_Hoppington-Hoppenhiemer]

Hop agrees with Prom here. Actually, adding "clarify" to vague things does help allot.

And "citation needed" if a power that is not well known to the character is also a great implementation.

 

[DontTalk]

@Antoniofer: Well, this is not supposed to be a wiki wide revision project. The idea is exactly to improve the details on pages in a way that this isn't necessary.

In regards to vs threads I can just say that I often enough have seen that in effect it is a bad idea to discuss a character based on the profile, simply because the necessary explanations aren't there.

For example this profile has a bunch of abilities listed, but I couldn't with certainty argue about him in a vs thread.

What kind of Death Manipulation does he have? Death inducement or necromancy? Does it bypass durability?

Does his time manipulation allow him to time travel to the past? Stop time?

etc.

Technically I know none of this. I know people in threads than just kinda like to assume a lot of these things are part of it, but that is technically not justified and shouldn't be done.

I am also not the first one to think this is a problem.

 

[CrossverseCrisis]

It's better to qualify things here that can help a lot than just stamping the powers and leaving it without explaining to what degree it can do for the user.

Basically, i find this a good idea to do and have. It's gonna be a lot to implement, but we can gradually do this overtime whenever possible and convenient for all the profiles we have here.

 

[Gemmysaur]

While it's a magnificent idea and I support it wholeheartedly, the lazy side of myself (90%) screams too much work.

Regardless, I am on the 'yes' side, if only for it to be done slowly and over a bit of time for the knowledgeable people of each verse to add it. Though maybe, we could put clarifications at the bottom of the profile? Or maybe link it to a blog?

I was thinking myself for the Mushoku Tensei verse to make a blog to link to, to show the feats of the characters since Rudeus Greyrat's page is unecessarily long due to the addition of quotes from the novel and pictures from the manga to support his scalings.

 

[Reppuzan]

As stated before, it'd be a pain to implement, but ultimately it would be for the best, since hax potency varies so widely.

 

[LordXcano]

To add onto the first, I think [Explanation needed] can be added to things that even have parenthesis around them. For example:

Attack Potency: Planet level (casually beat Character B)

Okay, but why is that significant? You'd assume Character B is Planet level by default, but where is the evidence of that? There should be a link to Character B's page, or a scan where Character B destroys a planet or some such thing.

 

[Hop_Hoppington-Hoppenhiemer]

Yes. That is correct.

 

[Ryukama]

I agree with Xcano. That should also be added for pages when there is straight up nothing like, "Attack Potency: Town level" and there is no justification given.

 

[Antoniofer]

@DontTalk, yeah, I used to have that problem too; yeah could be useful, but it would take much work without mentioning that maybe the one(s) that known about said characters aren't active anymore.

@Xano, generally I do that, but only redirect one time; I can agree with that.

 

[Reppuzan]

@Ryukama

Yeah... that's a real pet peeve of mine. People also tend to just ignore me when I ask for justifications.

 

[DontTalk]

I was thinking myself for the Mushoku Tensei verse to make a blog to link to, to show the feats of the characters since Rudeus Greyrat's page is unecessarily long due to the addition of quotes from the novel and pictures from the manga to support his scalings.

Well, linking a blog is a form of explanation so that would of course be a legitimte way to provide the necessary information. Regarding long quotes on pages: one can solve that through collapsing it. Like done for the feats section Here or Here.

 

[AidenBrooks999]

I agree with the idea of adding clarificatio (Which... kind of reminded something I have to do...) and that stats should have a good justification

 

[Grudgeman1706]

I wholeheartedly agree with this, I can't count how many profiles I see having listed power ups or statistics without an explanation with it.

 

[CrossverseCrisis]

Staff only thread, people...

 

[Lina_Shields]

Let's be realistic here; this is going to take an extraordinary amount of time just to check all the profiles here on the Wiki and implement this.

Not to mention further research on the series in question needs to be done as well.

 

[Hop_Hoppington-Hoppenhiemer]

@Lina

DontTalk already said he's not for implementing a wiki-wide project for this.

Personally, Hop thinks we should just double fact check our profiles for links and explanations. Including doing so for newer profiles.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

This is, by all means, more a passive addition than any focused effort. Unlike something such as slightly modifying calc-based tiering, doing something like this for every single profile from every verse on this wiki is nearly impossible, and would take an absolutely absurd amount of time.

DontTalk's idea should be implemented, but keep in mind you do not need to actively search out pages for this. Instead, if you see something you are familiar with that needs clarification, do so. If you see something that needs clarification but you are not familiar with the character or verse, simply see if anyone you know does.

 

[Hop_Hoppington-Hoppenhiemer]

This is, by all means, more a passive addition than any focused effort.

It seems like people let that fly over their heads pretty fast.

 

[Gemmysaur]

Well, linking a blog is a form of explanation so that would of course be a legitimte way to provide the necessary information. Regarding long quotes on pages: one can solve that through collapsing it. Like done for the feats section Here or Here.

Oh wow. That's something. I can't understand half of it though, but thanks. I'll look through it, make stuff up and cross my fingers in hopes that it works.

 

[Amelia_Lonelyheart]

I'll keep this in mind for when I'm making pages then. It's a good addition that helps make the pages much more detailed. What would the basic format of this be however? Reference Tags or just basic descriptions?

 

[Antvasima]

@Darkanine Basic descriptions, I think.

Anyway, I do not particularly mind, as long as it is not an actual project, just an additional option to be added slowly and gradually, but given how many profiles that have unexplained statistics, it risks to clutter the wiki with tags, which would make it considerably uglier.

Speaking of which, I have been meaning to ask about something related for a while:

The Anime Characters Fight wiki encourages usage of longer statistics explanations at the bottom of profiles, in order to avoid constant discussions to explain them, and future confusion when whoever wrote them disappeared. Is this something that we could encourage as well?

 

[Gemmysaur]

It would be nice that way, but it would make the profile longer than SSJ3 Goku's banana hair. Maybe if we could have a spoiler tab or something to shorten it by hiding the extra info.

Don'tTalk provided me with a link for that but I tried what I could understand and it didn't really work out.

 

[Lina_Shields]

@Ant: Do we need ACF's permission to use that idea, or can we just apply it right away? I have done something similar to this page here explaining his tiering, in the Note: section.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, I think that A6colute has already done so in some of the profiles that he has written, but I can ask DarkLK.

Of course, if applied, this would be an even more gradual change to the wiki, and we would have to be very specific about that the explanations must be concise, and written with good grammar and sentence structures.

 

[SomebodyData]

I agree with the detailed explanations, and shortening it with tabs as Gemmy suggested.

I would also suggest making a page for a verse exclusive abilities that compose of other abilities, like a page for Undertale's Determination, Metroid's Phazon Manipulation, or ; as the examples suggest, all these abilities have quite a bit of abilities (Ie Phazon has mind manipulation, mutations, anti-psychic effects, etc) and these pages can give additional detail on how specifically said abilities work so there is redundancy on page after page and etc (Which could also help new users create new character profiles for pre-existing verses).

 

[Antvasima]

Well, we already encourage the writing of long explanatory blog posts for different verses, but I suppose that making them into actual pages might be an idea.

However, where specifically should we write all of these instructions, and what should we say?

 

[SomebodyData]

Well, we can write a little note in the Standard Format for Powers And Abilities, something like "Some verses have one primary ability that grants the user a plethora of abilities, like say [Example 1] or [Example 2]. In these cases, it is encouraged that a profile page for this ability is made, detailing the exact details, limits, or requirements for the ability and its sub-abilities."

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, that might be an idea, and we could place another note in the Standard Format for Character Profiles page, regarding longer explanations at the bottom of pages.

 

[SomebodyData]

Yes, that sounds pretty effective, especially with newer users (They have to see the standard formats by necessity), and I think a little announcement to inform the older users could also work.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, this is quite important, so we would have to wait for more staff input.

 

[DontTalk]

I have finished the first version of the tag. It looks like this[Explanation needed]. As mentioned at the top it links to a page detailing use. Please check that page out to see if you agree with what stands on it.

but given how many profiles that have unexplained statistics, it risks to clutter the wiki with tags, which would make it considerably uglier.

To at least prevent profiles to be completely cluttered with tags I added a note on the linked to page that says that if too many tags are in a paragraph they should be put together in one tag on the end of the paragraph.

The Anime Characters Fight wiki encourages usage of longer statistics explanations at the bottom of profiles, in order to avoid constant discussions to explain them, and future confusion when whoever wrote them disappeared. Is this something that we could encourage as well?

Partly this is already taken care of through the Franchise Explanation Blog Posts and similar Blog Posts can also be made for individual characters. I think what should be used depends on how long the explanation is in the end. Short explanations should go in parenthesis, medium explanations in a note at the bottom of the page, long explanations in blog posts. We might should think up a rule of thumb for that.

I would also suggest making a page for a verse exclusive abilities that compose of other abilities, like a page for Undertale's Determination, Metroid's Phazon Manipulation, or [...]

Not needing to write down the same text on every page is nice for shortening it, but then again I feel that goes against our current intention to not have a page for every small ability that only 3-7 people use. In general one can also simply copy & paste a description with a few clicks, so for the purpose of page creation it doesn't make that much difference and for reading about the ability it makes almost none. So I guess I am opposed to making proper pages for such abilities.

 

[Antvasima]

I attempted to clean up the flow of the text within the page somewhat.

However, we have a bit of a problem. The clarification texts within the tags themselves are not displayed.

 

[LordXcano]

I attempted to clean up the flow of the text within the page somewhat.
However, we have a bit of a problem. The clarification texts within the tags themselves are not displayed.

I can see them just fine?

 

[DontTalk]

@Antvasima: I can not reproduce the problem from my side either.

In case that is where the issue is: The clarification texts are supposed to be on the tags only in form of tooltips.

 

[Antvasima]

Here is what it looks like to me:

 

[Antvasima]

However, I use an android tablet, so going by your link, that is probably the problem. I cannot hover over a certain element with a touchscreen.

 

[A6colute]

First:

Powers and Abilities section is for brief listing of characters powers/abilities.

Notable Attacks/Techniques (or Standard Equipment, if it need) section is for proper explanation of those powers/abilities.

Second:

So I thought maybe it would be a good idea to create something similar for our wiki, that users could then liberally insert in pages whenever they feel something isn't properly explained.

I think it's a good idea.