Detective Conan Wiki talk:Manual of Style

From Detective Conan Wiki

Opinion on the manual of style

I think this is a good setup. Chekhov MacGuffin talk 21:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Naming convention

The rationale behind the convention can be summarized as follows:

Pros:

  • Following the standard and precedence set in Wikipedia regarding the anime and manga universes (or even in a more generic way), names are displayed in the order: First_Name Last_Name. Example: Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Ichigo Kurosaki, etc...
  • This is an English international wiki which aims at being as accessible as possible to a very broad audience and one of the main way of achieving this is by decreasing the possible levels of confusions that may arise. Following the first name/last name order makes it easier to understand for almost everyone (even to a Japanese audience). This may be one of the reasons Wikipedia also follows the same naming scheme.
  • Most people, fans and readers know every or most characters on a first name basis and sometimes don't even know their last names. Giving priority to the first name in the name order makes it more reader-friendly.
  • Since the creation of this wiki, 99% of names have been written this way (most often inspired by Wikipedia), setting a rule of "precedence".

Cons:

  • In Japan, one's family name normally precedes one's first name and, depending on the context, one's last name is used to call him/her instead of his/her first name.

Difference between Plot Overview and Background

  • Plot Overview should be written in Present Tense, Background in Past Tense, in order to differenciate them.

Categorizing Images

I think we have reached a critical point where we have enough pictures that categorizing them by type, episode/chapter, characters, etc. would be useful. I did a quick categorizing for five pictures shown below. Any input on the category names, what we should sort by, feasibility, etc?

In terms of priorities, I think stray images (not main episode image, not the people square images, not the crime infobox images, not character profiles) on pages would be the most important to categorize first because they are the most difficult to "find". Chekhov MacGuffin talk 02:44, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Looking for a Consensus on Standard Romanization Procedure

Right, so I've noticed that we have very inconsistent romanization rules in use on the wiki as a whole, mostly stemming from names or words that use long vowel sounds. I'd like for all of us to reach a standard format of romanization to use throughout if at all possible.

Romanization that seems to have been established

  • Use of katakana is not capitalized. It is written out in full. i.e. コナン is written "Konan" (in Japanese romanization sections only, such as in episode titles).
  • If katakana usage is a foreign loan word, the katakana is written out in full; not translated. i.e. An Idol's Locked Room Murder Case's romanized title is written as "Aidoru Misshitsu Satsujin Jiken" instead of "Idol Misshitsu Satsujin Jiken".

Current problems/What still needs to be established

  • Macron usage/lack of macron usage. Macrons are now being used for romanized Japanese titles but not currently within many other titles or Japanese lyrics sections.
  • Inconsistent naming procedures. We typically write out Kaitō Kid as "Kaitou Kid" to establish the name difference between Kid and Kaito Kuroba and because this is usually the way we see written throughout the English language fandom. We have followed suit for many other names, but even these are inconsistent. We currently write "Mouri" and "Hondou" but not "Satou" which we currently have written as "Sato" and "Kudou" which we currently have written as "Kudo". All of these names in modified Hepburn romanization would use the ō macron in place of the "ou", but we've previously established disregarding macron usage in names (see Kaitou Kid example above). Do we write out the long vowels in names and correct pages accordingly, or do we change "ou" to simply "o" minus the macron? (i.e. "Mouri" would become "Mori", "Hondou" would become "Hondo".)
Examples of characters the contain long vowels in their names but are not currently listed that way:
Shinichi Kudo --> Shinichi Kudou
Yukiko Kudo --> Yukiko Kudou
Yusaku Kudo --> Yuusaku Kudou
Kazuha Toyama --> Kazuha Tooyama
Juzo Megure --> Juuzou Megure
Miwako Sato --> Miwako Satou
Ninzaburo Shiratori --> Ninzaburou Shiratori
Shintaro Chaki --> Shintarou Chaki
Heizo Hattori --> Heizou Hattori
Ginshiro Toyama --> Ginshirou Tooyama
There are many more than those I have just listed.

Opinions

skyechan's opinion:
Macron usage - Stick to adding macrons in Japanese romanization of titles and lyrics. Standard exception being the use of long i ("ii") which should continue to be written as "ii".
Naming procedures - With the exception of "Kaitou Kid" for reasons I explained earlier establishing the difference between Kid and Kaito Kuroba, I think we should make it a standard now to simply drop the extra long vowels. As you can see from the partial listing above, we have far more characters where we do not write out the long vowels than those we currently do. Our German counterparts currently use this method of romanization on their character pages. This in mind, we'd only need to change just a few names to match this standard (as opposed to writing out the long vowels and changing virtually everybody).
Ocianne's opinion:
Naming procedures - Isn't the short 'o', without either a macron or the following 'u', misleading? It changes the pronunciation of the name, which is part of why the 'u' is included in Kaitou Kid in the first place. If it's important enough to use with Kid, why not maintain it throughout the wiki? I would think consistency and accuracy should typically have a heavier weight than tradition.
Chekhov's opinion (copied from forum page of same issue):
Macron usage - Don't use macrons for anything that will be typed often, like names (i.e. Kudo, not Kudō). Macrons are annoying to type, so no one would ever use them. They are probably not worth it because it would force the very few users who patrol edits to constantly fix everyone else. Places where macrons should be used are lyrics (where correct pronunciation is really important to someone using the lyrics for say karaoke), and "proper spellings" which won't get retyped a lot.
Naming procedures - I don't there is a good solution to this. Standardization is forever going to battle habituated fan spelling. "Fan spelling" has the advantage of making names easier for outside users to search for. "Fan spelling" also cuts down on the amount of correcting necessary by patrollers. Out of deference of the sheer mass of current usage, it makes sense to drop the extra long vowels, except in a few cases. (See below)
Specifics - There are several cases where I think the drop extra long vowel rule is less beneficial
  • Skyechan's aforementioned ii (as in Jii) to avoid the English short i sound, and Kaitou vs. Kaito
  • Common usage outside DC: 1) Nee-chan, 2) Tohto (best) or Touto instead of Toto (Old term for Tokyo often used as a copyright avoidance euphemism - the h form seems most common last I looked)
  • Mouri - A Gosho-acknowledged homage to Maurice LeBlanc, keeping the "u" reinforces the connection. It's also going to be the hardest name to get people on board with doing differently IMO, so this would save the trouble.
While I am here I would like to fish for an opinion on Jodie's aliasChekhov MacGuffin talk 22:37, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Galleries on Music pages

Lately we've been getting a lot of screencaps for opening and ending sequences in which those screencaps are being placed under the current galleries for the CD images. Personally I preferred only choosing four main screencaps to place on the side of the lyrics section ala our German counterpart wiki because the screencap gallery at the bottom looks really tacky to me. (Granted on our pages in comparison to the German ones we have our screencaps on the right-hand side of the screen.) So I was curious of everyone's opinion on which way we should go.

Regardless what we choose all screencaps with streaming site watermarks or subs must be removed/not used.

Examples of the two options:

  • Koi ni Koishite - Only four screencaps selected that best represent the sequence from the anime and placed on the right-hand side of the lyrics section. Gallery section only used for the CD images.
  • Q&A - Gallery is divided into two sections; the CD images and images for each part of the animation sequence.

Opinions

Please place your opinions below. Since I'm not sure how many users are really active instead of waiting for 10 opinions let's reach a decision by September 30, 2013. Please note that opinions from unregistered users/IP addresses will not be counted in the voting process.

As I stated above, I think capping the entire sequence is pretty tacky and doesn't look professional to me. (And in case you're wondering I don't like the Galleries for each episode either for the same reason, but that's not being discussed here.) I prefer following our German counterpart's idea of only selecting four screencaps that best encompass what the animation sequence is about. --Skyechan (talk) 18:01, 14 August 2013 (PDT)
I strongly oppose the four screenshot limit on principle; rules that artificially limit the amount expression is an unhealthy philosophy for a wiki. While I think it is wise the pare down image collections to only the most useful ones, that final number of images is probably not always four. Flexibility is a good thing, especially since there are multiple versions of an op or ed someone might want to screencap. The only hard upper ceiling to detail is taking so many screenshots it causes significant reproduction copyvio issues or server problems.
Galleries are an efficient way of sorting many images, I don't think they are tacky or unprofessional looking. I also dislike large blocks of picture-less text. I'm fine using both inline images and a gallery the same time, even with duplications. Chekhov MacGuffin talk 19:04, 14 August 2013 (PDT)
I think the number of screencaps should be at least 5, even if we're going to apply any limitation. I'm neutral about where we put the images, they can be either on the right side of the lyrics or placed under a gallery. However, if we choose the latter, I suggest that we create a separate section for them. The current format used in Q&A (having TV screencaps placed under a "CD info" header) doesn't make much sense in my opinion. --- BLACK DEMON | Reply 19:30, 14 August 2013 (PDT)

Need to codify what goes in character galleries before it gets out of hand

A while back I introduced galleries on character pages. I mostly used them for ±10 years images or other things of that nature, but I also used them as holding pens for orphaned images (I stopped doing that). It occurs to me now that character galleries have a potential to get out of hand. It would be bad if every image of each character wound up in their gallery. (That's what categories are for. I think it is worth making a serious push to add character categories to images.) I think the character galleries are useful in that they can be used for images which don't easily "fit" on the page but show aspects of a character that are worth noting like appearances in the future or past, Gosho's colored art, full body images/concept art, extremely characteristic scenes or poses, etc. At the same time we should nail down what doesn't go on gallery pages to avoid a massive image overflow. Thoughts? Chekhov MacGuffin talk 23:46, 19 August 2013 (PDT)

Should "name in other languages" be from official materials only?

Okay so I noticed that some editors have inserted foreign translations of Amuro's real name, as shown here. It's obvious that other than the Japanese name, none of these translations are from official materials (because they couldn't have been released yet), and most likely based on fan scanlations. So should we use official information only, or allow fan translations to some degree? (This will also apply to episodes' names in other language.)

Opinions

Black Demon's opinion: I think we should stick to official information from legally authorized materials (i.e not fan-made in any way), even if the fan translations are technically accurate or the official volumes/episodes in question will never be released. The main problem with fan translations is that there may exist many variants for a certain character name or episode title (especially with the latter). With characters' names, this usually happens when people can only provide an approximate transliteration basing purely on the name's pronunciation, unless it is properly written down somewhere ("Jodie Saintemillion" before V.34 for example). Another reason why we should restrict them to official materials is because not every country has been licensed to release Conan. If we also open to fan-translations, then probably everyone in the whole world will add a "likely" transliteration for the names in their languages. I don't think we have enough space and there's no way to determine if those transliterations are even close to reasonable. Of course, the biggest problem when doing this is that we can't verify whether some certain name matches with the official one in a country not familiar to us, nor can we check if the country even released official Conan materials to begin with. (Wait, is Conan even allowed in North Korea!??) However, I don't see accepting fans' would solve this problem, if not make it worse. TL;DR: We should only use official translations because otherwise there will be variants, and people from every country will add some versions of their own. --- Black ★ Demon 15:52, 26 May 2014 (CEST)
Opinion: I don't see the point of allowing fan-subs or scanlation names, they're the same as the Japanese one. Maybe the only difference is the script (in some languages). I prefer if we don't allow them, and write a comment in "In other languages" section warning editors not to write the names in other languages unless they're official. This can be done automatically to all articles using a bot or AutoWikiBrowser. --Al-mousawi (talk) 18:57, 26 May 2014 (CEST)
Chekhov's opinion: Same as BD, so no unofficial names.

Cast lists, order draft ideas.

Several users have expressed displeasure that cast lists keep being rearranged. I think the only way to deal with this is to codify a style for the MoS. Several different rulesets are possible so I would like to canvas for ideas.
I would also like to propose a policy addendum that anyone who makes a regular habit of nitpicking at the cast lists after they are put in the MoS format will be put on cast list probation, which can result in temporary banning if repeatedly violated. I figure that such a policy would be a balance between allowing editors fix a few particular pages they feel strongly about, while preventing editors from making a trivial editing career out of mucking with the cast lists.
Lastly, I have put a poll on the main forum in whether police officers should be listed by full name, or by title+name. Chekhov MacGuffin talk 21:48, 20 April 2016 (CEST)

Chekhov's proposal (anime pages, not volumes)

First: Conan (Or Shinichi for the first episode and that one episode without Conan)
Second: the main featured characters of a case in rough order of their importance to that case. This is the only situation where a flashback or voice character could wind up early in the cast list rather than the end. eg (Kaitou Kid, Makoto, Sonoko) (Okiya, Amuro, Akai) (Shinichi (flashback), Ran) (Haibara, Ayumi)
Third: Characters who are not the stars of the case, sorted by rareness and rough chronological order. Characters who come in pairs or groups, as long as one member isn't a star for an episode while the others are not, are kept together as a cluster. Examples of groups are the Detective Boys, the main Japanese police, FBI, Black Organization.
Fourth: Flashbacks, minor characters with little speaking roles, background chars, cameos, voices, on pictures, etc in rough order of appearance and importance.

Appearances in recaps

For appearances pages/cast lists for episodes we don't count OPs, EDs, next Conan hints, other stingers, etc. Currently recaps at the beginning do count though. Should those be excluded too? I personally think so, since they aren't actually new content. Thoughts?

Naming this Page (Suggestion)

I think Manual of Style might not right, how about name it Styling Standard or Styling Requirements

Doesn't matter much and people are already used to the current name--Intervencion (talk) 13:08, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
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