Rule Suggestion Regarding Feat Citations

[Firestorm808]

It would benefit feat cross-examination if there were a rule requiring future accepted calculations or photos on a profile to include the original source in the calculation text or photoshopped into the margin of the photo. This is especially important for comic and manga characters.

I have personally cited many feats for a few characters, but it would be beneficial if we all took the effort to cite character feats in one regard or another.

This should apply to any accepted calculations and photos following the rule's implementation.

Citations for the older profiles will be added at the community's discretion and their own pace.

 

[Antvasima]

It would be an absolutely enormous undertaking to insert source references into all of our profiles, but yes, it would technically be preferable.

 

[Firestorm808]

It is mostly referring to future profiles and calculations that will be made. Older profiles will be adjusted at the community's discretion

 

[Akreious]

I agree with the OP for the most part. While it'll be an absolutely massive endeavour to the profiles with massive amounts of citations required, it'll prevent situations where one side argues something and the other side asks for a citation of such sketchy/seemingly wanked abilities only for no citation appearing until several posts down the line, pretty much wasting everybody's time. Simply faster if it's just... there. For you to click on.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, at this point it is impossible to apply such a massive undertaking of research to all of our previous profiles, but I suppose that we could mention it as a voluntary suggestion in the Standard Format for Character Profiles page, if somebody asks Skalt711 to come here.

 

[Skalt711]

I'm here. Any help is needed?

Now that you mentioned the feat citations, I think that the Standard Format for Character Profiles should be extended with the new section References. It is obvious that it will have references to where feats appear. I think that the references should work similar to how Wikipedia handles them. Though I'm afraid that it might be hard for new users to understand.

 

[Antvasima]

References should be handled in a similar manner to Wikipedia, yes

 

[Skalt711]

Well then. I'll start working on the implementation somewhen after I'll handle render requests.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. Thank you.

 

[Skalt711]

Should the brief guide about the use of references be included in References section's description? It can link to the full guide of the references usage afterwards.

 

[Antvasima]

I suppose so.

 

[Firestorm808]

Can't wait till I get to add sources to the profiles.

 

[Skalt711]

Here's the draft with the References sectio. Suggestions to improve its description would be nice ^_^

 

[Antvasima]

I made a few minor grammar corrections, but it otherwise seems good to add to me.

You can ask some other VS Battles Staff members to comment here if you wish.

 

[Skalt711]

This References section should probably be applied to Standard Format for Weapon Profiles and Standard Format for Civilization Profiles as well. They're our other standard formats, after all.

 

[Skalt711]

I've contacted Crzer07 and AKM sama, and Ogurtsow in private, to reply here.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, it would be better if you focused on the bureaucrats and administrators for this type of evaluation. It is a part of our assigned tasks.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

AHHHHHHH

I was literally working on a proposal for this for this month (technically I had it ready for this week but the wiki ate my blog and I am very sad). In loose terms it is a optional secondary page that links to the original page that cites every statistic, claim, power, and ability on a page.

I was working on a proof of concept for one of the Goku pages and some other pages I'm much more familiar with.

I'm so happy someone had the same idea, though!

I'm here. Any help is needed?
Now that you mentioned the feat citations, I think that the Standard Format for Character Profiles should be extended with the new section References. It is obvious that it will have references to where feats appear. I think that the references should work similar to how Wikipedia handles them. Though I'm afraid that it might be hard for new users to understand.

I disagree with using references; for many pages it would clutter up the page or not cover every relevant citation on there. Hence why I propose we have a separate/secondary page dedicated to citations.

 

[Skalt711]

Hmmm, usually I trust Ogurtsow because he's pretty skilled at wiki stuff.

I contacted Dargoo Faust and A6colute as well. There should be enough replies for now.

 

[Skalt711]

Dargoo Faust, can you show me a proof of concept of a separate/secondary page? This seems interesting.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

Dargoo Faust, can you show me a proof of concept of a separate/secondary page? This seems interesting.

The wiki ate it, sadly. I had a blog and everything ready, and in-depth explainations as to why the current solutions (References, Respect Threads, and Blogs) fail to solve the issue; although I'm working on reconstructing it.

 

[Skalt711]

But how? A glitch is the cause?

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

But how? A glitch is the cause?

My browser crashed; not the site.

For some reason Wikia doesn't save blog text but does so on threads.

 

[Skalt711]

Wow, that's... Kind of ridiculous. For the future try to save parts of the text in sandbox.

"I disagree with using references; for many pages it would clutter up the page or not cover every relevant citation on there."

As of the sheer amount of reference potentially cluttering up the pages, I'm suggesting to put them in a scroll box. The current template for the scroll box provides way too small space for a visible text to appear, so we likely need a template for the references scroll box to allow bigger visible space.

As of not covering every relevant citation, the references are probably unable to handle multi-paragraph text. But that's only a theory! I haven't tested it in practice yet.

 

[Antvasima]

I think that it is much less complicated, and gives a better overview, to list the references at the bottom of the main pages. If the lists turn too large, which should be unusual, there are options that can make them scrollable.

 

[Antvasima]

See here for a recent example of a page with references: Superman (Post-Flashpoint)

 

[Antvasima]

@Skalt711

You should preferably ask Promestein, Ryukama, and some more administrators to comment here as well.

 

[Antvasima]

@Dargoo

You need to always copy long texts to a text editing program before you attempt to post them. The wiki only saves them for 20 or 30 minutes, if I remember correctly. After that a post times out.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

See here for a recent example: Superman (Post-Flashpoint)

That has a total of... 5 references. Now, they're relevent to important parts of the page which might need to be frequently looked over, but what we're discussing is citations for everything on a page. That's what I think references are great for, small bits of important information, but I'd like to keep the nitty-gritty details out of the main pages.

I think that it is much less complicated, and gives a better overview, to list the references at the bottom of the main pages. If the lists turn too large, which should be unusual, there are options that can make them scrollable.

It's not really an issue of the list being too large as much as it is too many individual lines of text having superscript that links down to references. The format works for wikipedia (mostly) because entire lines are subject to this, whereas we'd need, for this concept, one for every single power.

I would also perfer a page since we could post the scans themselves there instead of relying on outside sites which historically stop working after a year or two, or mentioning the volume/issue/page/whatever and still have regular users backtrack through the internet and pirating cites, which sort of defeats any convenience references puts forward.

 

[Skalt711]

I asked Promestei, Ryukama, DontTalkDT and WeeklyBattles to reply here.

 

[Ryukama]

I'm fine with whatever everyone else here agrees on

 

[Antvasima]

@Dargoo

I think that the scrollbox option is fine, and we should obviously not encourage inserting hundreds of references for every single power, just the most important statistics-scaling feats.

 

[Firestorm808]

Pages like Superman (Pre-Crisis) will need something like the scroll or toggle tool mentioned.

 

[Antvasima]

@Skalt711

I think that you can find instructions for different types of reference lists in the Community Central wiki, or Wikipedia itself.

 

[Skalt711]

@Antvasima

Gotcha.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

@Dargoo

I think that the scrollbox option is fine, and we should obviously not encourage inserting hundreds of references for every single power, just the most important statistics-scaling feats.

I don't think the scroll box accomplishes anything meaningful for purposes of discussion and debate.

And you'd have a point if we already didn't do exactly what you just said. Look at many of the given comics and wall-of-text esque powers characters and you'll see a wide overabundance of links to sources and explainations. Using resources on a few key feats doesn't do anything but give a general pointer to scans that are just going to be posted back onto the site when debate is needed.

If we had sources on-site we wouldn't have so many dead links to image hosting sites which die and cycle every couple of years; we should host scans on our site and not depend on third parties for our users to debate properly. I can't explain how even threads get to a standstill while waiting for relevent scans to be posted.

If this is something I'm being outnumbered/overruled on I'll head off the thread though. I was hoping this could be a solution to many of our on-site problems, and perhaps I can post a proof of concept on a blog to try and persuade people here.

 

[Skalt711]

@Dargoo Faust

I don't think the scroll box accomplishes anything meaningful for purposes of discussion and debate.

Please, explain how the scroll box has no meaning for purposes of discussion and debate.

And you'd have a point if we already didn't do exactly what you just said. Look at many of the given comics and wall-of-text esque powers characters and you'll see a wide overabundance of links to sources and explainations. Using resources on a few key feats doesn't do anything but give a general pointer to scans that are just going to be posted back onto the site when debate is needed.

So, what are you trying to say?

If we had sources on-site we wouldn't have so many dead links to image hosting sites which die and cycle every couple of years; we should host scans on our site and not depend on third parties for our users to debate properly. I can't explain how even threads get to a standstill while waiting for relevent scans to be posted.

Can't we encourage the members to upload the scans to the site?

If this is something I'm being outnumbered/overruled on I'll head off the thread though. I was hoping this could be a solution to many of our on-site problems, and perhaps I can post a proof of concept on a blog to try and persuade people here.

Please, continue developing your conception. We need to look at how it does work.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

@Dargoo Faust:

It doesn't directly or reliably provide easy access to scans. Users would still have to dig up a physical/digital copy of the comic or outright pirate it to see what they are referring to.

In essence, all it does is exchange a google search for a respect thread with a google search for the manga/comic.

Direct links to image hosting websites are unreliable in the long term. Lengthy ability explanations clutter pages.

And where would they post them?

Please, continue developing your conception. We need to look at how it does work.

Sure. I wasn't prepared to discuss this in detail so early, hopefully I can get it up soon.

 

[Skalt711]

@Dargoo Faust

It doesn't directly or reliably provide easy access to scans. Users would still have to dig up a physical copy of the comic or outright pirate it to see what they are referring to.

In essence, all it does is exchange a google search for a respect thread with a google search for the manga/comic.

We can upload scans as just images on the wiki.

Direct links to image hosting websites are unreliable in the long term. Lengthy ability explanations clutter pages.

Agreed that direct links are somewhat unreliable in long term. Can't we just encourage the users to push the lengthy explanations to the Explanations section? It even exists in our Standard Format for Character Profiles for something!

And where would they post them?

Firstly, users will upload images to the wiki, then in references the hypertext links will be given to them in the form of either [[:File:image name|Reference text]] or a direct link.

Sure. I wasn't prepared to discuss this in detail so early, hopefully I can get it up soon.

Take your time. Please, don't rush.

 

[Antvasima]

I am obviously fine with if we mention in the Standard Format for Character Profiles page that our members should preferably upload scans used for proof to the wiki itself. They can also link to them in the references to make the profiles better organised.