Forum:Some stuff that really needs a conclusion

Forums: Index > Watercooler > Some stuff that really needs a conclusion

So, a bunch of stuff has accumulated over the months that really need to be decided. I kind of feel badly about the music stuff because I know how pointless it is to try to have a civil discussion on translations. Plus, there were a lot of unknowns as to what exactly should have an article, what each article should have in terms of content, etc. I guess that stuff has been settled (?), but with the music sections staying stagnant and forgotten for so long, I don't want this to happen to other arguably pressing matters, even with the loads of stuff I'm trying to catch up on.

The first matter is article capitalization. The games are known to be rather inconsistent with capitalizing certain terms, like "police department". The working solution thus far has been to capitalize unless it's ever not capitalized in-game. However, this causes inconsistencies between articles on subjects that are "related". The concern for me is to have a system that's internally consistent, so that there's no ambiguity whatsoever as to whether or not a page should be capitalized. So if anyone wants to propose a different way of doing things, like capitalizing every page in certain categories no matter what, keep in mind that it should ideally be consistent and not rely on ambiguous criteria.

The second matter is names in Gyakuten Kenji 2. While the general consensus seems to be to stick with the Japanese names, there are a couple of complicating factors. The Zheng Fa character Shi-Long Lang simply converts the Japanese reading to the Chinese reading. We could naturally extend this to his father and the president, but does that go too far into "fan localization" territory? If we leave both alone, then Lang's father remains "Dairyuu Rou", which may seem silly to people considering what the obvious localized name "should" be. But if we just convert the father's name, the way it's being done now, isn't that kind of inconsistent? I'd also like to know what people think about putting the fan translation patch's names into character infoboxes.

I suppose the third matter is the biggest one: the timeline. There was a long, protracted argument about this, most of which quite frankly didn't serve to accomplish anything. The current implementation of the timeline is described here, and the important thing to note from that page is the working "theory" behind the timeline. The profiles of most characters align with a certain line of logic that treats each game as taking place in the same year (and T&T/AAI/AAI2 all take place in the same year), but a consequence of this is that any reasonable attempt to construct a timeline results in contradictions and logical stretches with the profiles.

The "catch-all" solution to this is to assign two-year ranges to every game and flashback case, which is essentially the logic behind the current timeline. I proposed in May that we henceforth use the latter year in each range, a proposal that apparently was ignored or misunderstood when the long debate occurred over the last week. At this point, it really just comes down to opinion. A strict interpretation of using the former years or the latter years results in arguably strange consequences, like DL-6 being treated as taking place in 2002, or Turnabout Trump being treated as being six years after Bridge to the Turnabout. I believe that this is an unproductive way of looking at things, because underneath everything is the same two-year range system.

It's been brought up elsewhere that there are outliers to this system; for example, Larry Butz increments a year in AAI2 (even though Dick Gumshoe does not), and Miles Edgeworth and Franziska von Karma decrement six years in Turnabout Reminiscence even though AAI repeatedly says it happened seven years ago.

The last matter is how to deal with stuff like the background, wordmark and favicon. I understand that some people want a sense of permanence in one or all of these things. Personally, I have an attitude of expecting any of these to deserve a change, and so I tend to be more willing to use themes from recently released games. I don't know exactly what's going to be achieved from a discussion on this topic, but I feel it should be thrown out there.

To avoid what happened with the timeline discussion, I'd like to ask that responses to this focus on either giving an opinion or providing new information that may be relevant to what we do with any of these items. The actual discussions on these items seem to have been driven into the ground, so it would likely not do any good to try to revive a debate on these items without the introduction of new information. I'd really like to re-foster an attitude of prioritizing consensus-building and actually doing stuff over debating over personal ideals. I could easily have spent the last few days working on finishing pages like Aura Blackquill. I don't mean to guilt-trip people by saying that, but I hope it illustrates what I'm talking about. I'll probably put a link to this on the main page or something later on.

capefeather (talk) 04:07, July 6, 2014 (UTC)

I can't really say about places such as, I dunno, Phoenix Wright's bedroom (which actually shouldn't be capitalized, but if it is, we could very well capitalize all named, really), but I'm pretty sure I'd support capitalizing the names of all government-related locations (Detention Center, Police Department, Defendant Lobby), or gameplay mechanics (Court Record)

My stance on timeline remains unchanged from my idea I expanded upon here. Basically the "year reference" system would work best to clear up vast majority of the contradictions, as well as prevent more of such contradictions in the future.

While Larry's situation clearly means he's one of a few characters whose birthday can be undoubtfully established (another example being Misty Fey), I'm really not sure how to feel about Turnabout Reminiscence. I think that matter requires unique approach as well, but I wonder how to handle this one, without pushing it.

That is, assuming the information provided by Jozerick is correct... I really need a way to ascertain that myself...

I also happened to have made another version of the background, in order to make it more reminiscent of the usual Ace Attorney GUI. What could follow, would be change of a background color to #7D7D7D, which would match the color of the transparent layer, were it ever impossible for browsers to load the background image.

I'm also kind of warming up on fan translation names, but somehow, the old suggestions that got rejected during discussions on the patch earlier, really strike me as way better than the final versions: "Arthur Cheval" and "Justine Pallathena" being the best examples. - Sligneris (talk) 15:11, July 7, 2014 (UTC)

So, for some background on the current capitalization system: One of the wikis I edited for before adopting this wiki is the StarCraft Wiki, and this wiki's manual of style was mostly influenced by a version of that wiki's manual. One of the conventions used by the StarCraft Wiki establishes which nouns should be treated as common, and which treated as proper, and even which to italicize. Nouns that are treated as common include races, professions, vehicle classes and most titles. People who have played this game are aware that all of these classes of names are precisely the names used in-game when labelling units and buildings - and they're all capitalized when used that way. It's only in game scripts and authorized works of fiction - the narrative - that any names are used in lowercase.

I'm mentioning this to illustrate how a wiki might use a name in lowercase, even though the name is capitalized in gameplay elements like buttons and HUDs. The standard on the StarCraft Wiki was to base capitalization on how nouns are used in narrative, rather than how they're used in gameplay. This is because names used in gameplay are treated as titles, and capitalized in a way that wikis often don't use (including Wikipedia and this wiki). It can be jarring to get used to non-capitalized article and section titles on a wiki, and this sentiment can extend to non-capitalized gameplay elements. Nonetheless, I've come to appreciate and even prefer non-capitalized titles and names.

That said, I made my proposal for the timeline arguing to reflect a perceived change in standards from the games, and this argument could apply here as well. The StarCraft Wiki's system is itself based on a perceived change and standardization of naming practices starting in 2006. This could be argued as a reason to capitalize "Court Record", though I'd have to recall how the term "Organizer" was used in AAI. What I'm worried about, though, is that there may still not be a well-established standard for these things. What if a bunch of terms are capitalized in DD's narrative script, then not capitalized in the next game? Or what about the same thing happening between AAI and DD? The thing about localizations as opposed to the original developers is that localization teams - and hence, localization standards - are more liable to change from game to game.

I don't know how many people have noticed this discussion, but surely more than one person has a take on this stuff? The Zheng Fa names are an issue where I have no idea where anyone stands, including me. And for all the talk on the timeline before, I'm not really sure exactly of what most people think about it, either.

capefeather (talk) 19:52, July 8, 2014 (UTC)

My thoughts:

1) Article capitalisation - Personally, I'm still leaning towards having articles in lower case by default unless the title is obviously a proper noun. For places like the police department, perhaps it should be capitalised if referring to the building and in lower case if referring to it as an organisation, if that makes sense? Perhaps that might be best for organisations as a whole?

2) Gyakuten Kenji 2 names - While I have a great deal of respect for the team that put the fan patch together, I still feel we shouldn't be preferentially legitimising their choice of character names. As for "Teikun Ō" and "Dai-Long Lang", perhaps it might be best to just use romanisations of their Japanese names for consistency's sake; we didn't have Gaspen Payne's page listed as "Fumitake Payne".

3) Timeline - I never really had that much interest in the timeline page to be honest. That interest has now pretty much bottomed-out.

4) Background, wordmark, and favicon - I quite like our current choices, although perhaps the favicon should be changed? I feel it might be best to have the wordmark and favicon generic and permanent, while the background can change depending on new AA stuff.

- Strabo412 (talk) 01:00, July 10, 2014 (UTC)

Regardless of how this turns out, I plan on sticking with whatever the consensus is. To be honest, though, I'm not sure I find the arguments about all this entirely convincing. The arguments usually revolve around a possible official release, or the fact that the translation patch isn't an official release. The problem is, as I said before, an official release is far from a given in this case. When the notion of using all Japanese names on Japanese pages fell flat, I concluded that the Japanese names are generally seen as placeholders in anticipation of an official release. But now, there's nothing to place-hold for. The DS is about as dead as a console can possibly be. And the result is a bunch of pages with a mixture of Japanese and English names, with no indication thus far that this (imo awkward) state of affairs will change.

The main practical reason I see for withholding preferential treatment of unofficial derivative works is to support current official releases and the possibility of more official releases to come. But what are we supporting by keeping mentions of fan translation names in the Name sections - or removing them altogether? In the absence of that, it seems to me that a preference already exists in reality. There's only one playable English version of the game, it's not from Capcom, and there isn't likely to be a competing translation or anything like that.

Like I said, I'm not going to defy consensus or anything. I just think that there's more to think about on this matter than whether or not we're dealing with an official release.

capefeather (talk) 03:54, July 10, 2014 (UTC)

Considering that only the original trilogy have ever been ported, I suppose holding out hope for an eventual translation is just foolish at this point. Perhaps we should just give up and use the fan names. If so, maybe we could have a new template that notes that the page's content is based upon an unofficial fan translation? - Strabo412 (talk) 22:38, July 10, 2014 (UTC)

Whilst I'm all for using the fan names for casual discussion, if only because they're easier to remember (but that's just me and my sucking at Japanese), I'm still skeptical about the formality since they are still unofficial. CrashBash (talk) 22:47, July 10, 2014 (UTC)

A new template might be needed for AAI2 regardless of what we do with fan translation names. The "flawed personal Japanese translations" excuse isn't exactly going to work anymore... capefeather (talk) 23:52, July 10, 2014 (UTC)

Do we have any more thoughts on this stuff? - Strabo412 (talk) 20:42, July 28, 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that the main problem with some of these items is that there are no explicitly mentioned systems as to how to deal with them. Even Ace Attorney Wiki:Age reckoning is rather dodgy, really, having been written from the perspective of an incomplete proposal that never ended up getting much discussion until now. This has caused a lot of confusion because so few of the conventions that have developed are actually "set in stone," as it were. The solution is to set clear, explicit policy pages for them, with descriptions of the rationales behind them. So, here I'll provide short synopses of what these policies are and what the details might entail.

1. Location/organization names: Article titles are based off of names used within the "spoken" dialogue, while the names displayed in the information boxes are based off of the "official" names used in the scene intros (the dialogue containing the date, time and location when the player enters a location and something new is about to occur). The infobox titles could possibly contain the full name of a location (e.g. "District Court - Courtroom No. 4" or "Global Studios: Studio Two" or "Fey Manor<br>Winding Way").
2. Article title capitalization: Could be based on whether the subject is ever used as a common noun in dialogue, or whether it's used as a common or proper noun in dialogue in the most recent official localization (at the time of this writing, Dual Destinies). This would mostly affect some gameplay-related pages and state institutions. I'm actually starting to lean toward the latter. I'm concerned that it might be more difficult to verify due to the lack of readily available script dumps, but at the same time, recent localizations seem to be more consistent with how they capitalize things. There's still also the possibility that perceived capitalization conventions may change. I also think that pages describing a set of multiple locations (defendant lobby) should remain as common nouns. Subjects that aren't mentioned in dialogue at all in any official localization (e.g. Logic Chess, Phoenix Wright's bedroom) might need to be handled subjectively on a case-by-case basis.
3. Timeline dating: The underlying logic operates under a system that assigns two possible years to each "year" as it's used in the games (e.g. T&T is assigned to 2018-2019, AJ is assigned to 2025-2026). Maybe have something like Sligneris's table to show how adhering strictly to one year creates issues. In practice, the right-side year is displayed for convenience purposes (e.g. so that we have the date of Turnabout Beginnings displayed as "Feb. 16, 2013" instead of "Feb. 16, 2012-2013"). Of course, this treatment does not apply to the DL-6 Incident or the present-day cases in the Phoenix Wright Trilogy or Ace Attorney Investigations games, but does apply to everything else, including birth years.
4. GK2 character names: I guess it's ultimately best to keep using the Japanese names for naming and referencing at this time (at least in content pages, not talk pages, of course). The translation patch is technically still in beta, and dowolf's translation hasn't been around that long, either. Even if we do plan on using the unofficial translation in the future, it's going to take a while before people are really comfortable with doing so. I still think that the patch and possibly dowolf's translations may deserve a place in the character infoboxes rather than the name sections, though. I feel that the name sections are supposed to explain the names, not be the only mentions of them.
5. Other GK2 content: Translations of terms and dialogue are mostly ambiguous, so any translation source could plausibly be used. Using the translation patch or dowolf's YouTube translation is preferred, but it's not going to be a big deal. That said, watch out for unambiguously named terms, i.e. Big Tower, which is spelled out in katakana as an English name.

I'm trying to aim for as much clarification as possible and to account for as many concerns as possible in the absence of clear consensuses. I've thrown out some possible variations, and I'm sure that someone will have something to say on this stuff, but I've also indicated what the favoured plan is for each item in the event that there are no responses in favour of alternatives. The policy pages are going to be published in a week or so, at least in a sort of draft form (there's a tag for this that hasn't been used in a while). Then after whatever needs to be said or modified, the pages can be made "official".

As for the other stuff, no one seems to object to Strabo412's suggestion of having a "permanent" favicon and wordmark, while having the background change depending on the game(s) being hyped or something. I guess the Edgeworth favicon is a bit too specific, so maybe use Gumshoe or a generic police officer instead?

capefeather (talk) 19:32, July 31, 2014 (UTC)

I don't think I have a problem with any of that really. As for GK2 names, there must be some way to incorporate them into the main infobox without it looking messy. Maybe by using mouse over text?

My personal suggestion for the favicon is probably either the Ace Attorney "shine" used in game titles, a pointing finger, or a defense attorney badge. - Strabo412 (talk) 19:28, August 1, 2014 (UTC)

Capcom clearly has zero plans of releasing their own English version of GK2, so I say that we just accept the fan translation names as canon. JolteonUltra (talk) 00:31, August 5, 2014 (UTC)

It seems so obvious to check the game script in hindsight, but regardless, it has been found that Turnabout Trump very definitely takes place in 2026. Valant brings it up when talking about performance rights. It's also a big sticking point for Zak's reappearance, which happens three days before he's declared legally deceased by death in absentia. So the underlying double-year treatment would only apply to flashback cases and birth years. I'm not sure how exactly this affects the presentation of the issues listed in Sligneris's table, but other than that, this shouldn't change much. capefeather (talk) 00:57, August 6, 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's obvious that this is what is implied by the scipt, at the very least. I still think we would be better off interpreting it as an error in the script and still go with 2025, since the basics of the problem was that they picked up from the beginning of T&T, rather from the end, like they should.

Like I said, I won't press on the matter though. We could split timeline in two, like suggested, but if 2025 would be mentioned as AJ year in one of them, I really wonder what would become of orginal trilogy years - or would they stay the same? - Sligneris (talk) 09:40, August 6, 2014 (UTC)

No offense, but MUST you interpret everything that doesn't bode with your way of thinking as an error on the game's part? CrashBash (talk) 15:56, August 6, 2014 (UTC)

We're not going down this road. I think we all agree that there are flaws in how the games tell time for profile ages under just about every interpretation we've thought of. Everyone's already said their piece about this, and no solution will satisfy everyone. If anyone doesn't recognize that, that's on them, but let's not dwell on disputes that will get us nowhere. capefeather (talk) 16:54, August 6, 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, I've given up trying to figure out what's going on, and I'm only going by what the games say. CrashBash (talk) 18:53, August 6, 2014 (UTC)

Well I think that having Turnabout Reminisence, Turnabout Beginings, and Turnabout Memories should be a year later than listed. As in TR is 2012 as apossed to 2011 so on and so forth. There is enough proof to suggest so. But if we don't do that i guess it wouldn't be the end of the world.Franzyfan1998 (talk) 19:37, August 6, 2014 (UTC)

In case people are following this thread but not Recent Changes or Current Events:

• Ace Attorney Wiki:Article naming
• Ace Attorney Wiki:Prosecutor's Path
• Ace Attorney Wiki:Timeline

capefeather (talk) 02:57, September 2, 2014 (UTC)

Saw that you made those ages ago but completely forgot about them. I've put in my two cents for article naming and GK2 names, but I refuse to get involved in the timeline. Mostly because it requires maths and thinking and stuff. And I'm a simple soul. - Strabo412 (talk) 22:54, September 2, 2014 (UTC)