Zelda Wiki:Discussion Center

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This has been bugging me for a little while now. Is there any particular reason the BS Zelda game pages are so devoid of content when compared to, say, the CD-i abominations? Inishie no Sekiban (Ancient Stone Tablets) in particular is very lacking in info. There are category listings for enemies that appear in the CD-i games but not the BS games. The BS Zeldas may be "uncanon" in the same vein as Crossbow Training or the Tingle games (although I'd argue that Inishie no Sekiban has no reason not to be considered canon plot-wise, but thats a whole debate I don't want to get into) but they WERE still made by Nintendo unlike the CD-i stuff. I would love to improve their pages, but its far, far too much work for me to do alone. I would really need help; it would be nice to see the effort that people are going into to categorise the stuff from those unplayable messes being put into the geniunely good and interesting BS games (no offense to the effort placed there, it is fascinating in a morbid way). I will work towards it as well, but I might need to get consensus on a few things.

To get started, I want to suggest that the BS The Legend of Zelda: The Ancient Stone Tablets be moved to BS The Legend of Zelda: Inishie no Sekiban or even possibly just BS Zelda no Densetsu: Inishie no Sekiban. The game has no official translation; fan translation should probably come second, with the possible and popular translations mentioned prominently, of course. Although if someone can find mention of these games in any NoA media that does name them, that would be great. I am quite well versed in the game being an ALttP obsessive so I am happy to get work done on it, but help would be appreciated. Fizzle 10:12, 2 January 2012 (EST)


 * Fizzle, there's nothing wrong in asking for help, but I hope you understand that everything at this wiki is done voluntarily. Everyone is free to contribute in whichever way they like, and should never ever feel obliged to do something they don't feel like doing, just because an area of the wiki is underdeveloped. Some subjects, regardless of how insignificant they may seem to you, simply get more attention than others. That being said, I'm not afraid to say that I myself know next to nothing about the BS games or the original Zelda classics, for that matter. I'm afraid I personally couldn't be of much help at all.


 * For the record, I agree with moving "BS The Legend of Zelda: The Ancient Stone Tablets" to "BS The Legend of Zelda: Inishie no Sekiban". 10:45, 2 January 2012 (EST)


 * Hey hey, I know that. Its not like I'm somehow forcing people to help me, that wasn't my intention. I was just asking for some help if anyone was willing to focus on it. I think you're misreading my distaste of the CD-i games (a natural reaction, surely!) as distaste at people adding that information in favour of others, which isn't the case. People can focus on what they like. I am sad that these games don't get much attention, however. Inishie no Sekiban is basically an early concept for Majora's Mask in a lot of ways, but not many people know that. They're fascinating and often forgotten, so it doesn't hurt to prompt people to check them out, surely.


 * And I was mainly just wanting to ask that naming question to be honest. Felt like a pretty big thing to go and change without any consensus.


 * Also, may I just add that I was genuinely wondering if it was wiki policy not to have categories for these games because they were Japan only or something like that. Fizzle 11:01, 2 January 2012 (EST)


 * We certainly do not have a wiki policy for not having categories for these games! :] I know it's a big task to work on adding content about a game without any help (I got to the exciting work of adding info about the cartoon and the original LoZ comics! :P), but really, there's nothing we can do to get other people to cooperate. :/ Believe it or not, adding info about the BS Zelda games was next on my to-do list (I saw some gameplay videos about that and they look pretty fun!), but since SS came along, that has taken priority instead.


 * I went ahead and moved the page since it never got an official translation. I'm sure no one will mind. :P Dany36 11:33, 2 January 2012 (EST)


 * Well, I personally look at it like this... Everyone knows about Skyward Sword now, there will be plenty of willing participents to update those pages, but those people who know about the BS Zeldas are much fewer in number, so it was sort of a "call to arms" of a sort I suppose. It's up to whoever to update whatever they want, of course! Everyone has their favourites and priorities (by the way, I really appreciate all the cartoon and comic information, I actually find that geniunely fascinating, I love all that stuff, I've been trying to add some manga information in a similar fashion). Was more of a suggestion than anything. SS work is a big deal right now, I know.
 * Thanks for moving the page! I think I'll focus on a characters page first. Fizzle 14:42, 2 January 2012 (EST)


 * For the record, I know you weren't trying to force anybody to do anything. My bad for sounding reproaching. I was just trying to answer your question: some areas of the wiki, such as BS Zelda, have weaker content because some things just don't get as much love than others, and no one wants to work on things they aren't interested in just because that part of the wiki's content sucks. Hopefully it won't be the case this time, but, like Dany said, sometimes you just end up being the only one who really cares about a particular subject. That's just the name of the game! 12:07, 2 January 2012 (EST)


 * In that case, people need to rearrange their priorities, ha! Having played both, I certainly recommend them being more worth the time than the CD-i games. Ah, I'm half kidding though. Like you say, people can care about what they care about, so I'm not trying to order people about, that's silly. I'll do what I can to work on the BS Zelda pages and hopefully it'll make more people interested the more they know. Very unique games. Fizzle 14:42, 2 January 2012 (EST)
 * Should Navi Trackers, the Tingle games, Mystical Seed of Courage, and other Japan-only games also have their titles moved to their Japanese pronunciations? Or did we get official translations for them somewhere?KrytenKoro 17:35, 10 January 2012 (EST)

Same-article coverage of same-named but different-entity subjects
Okay, currently this wiki has a general policy of merging the articles of subjects whose English names are the same, but not for Japanese. Personally, I have several qualms about this:
 * If the intention is to "merge things that are meant to have the same name", then this leaves out things which have different names only through translation quirks, like the Tower of the Gods and Tower of Spirits, which were given the same name by the Japanese authors who wrote the games, but were translated differently by the NoA localizers.
 * This leads to a lot of confusion on articles where we know for a fact that the entities are meant to be separate and unrelated, like the Hyrule of ST and all the other Hyrules, or the Temples of Time, or all the Links. While there is something to be said for merging the same-named character articles (as the Zelda authors love them some character archetypes), it's very messy to apply it to locations, where the most you can say is that both Temples of Time are "timey".

The method I've seen on wikis that are very succesful at comprehensively communicating all the knowledge of their subject franchise is to separate similarly-named-but-separate-entity topics by continuity/appearance. A good example of this is Transformers Wiki's coverage of Optimus Prime. Even then, they group all of the G1 versions of Optimus in one article, even when they are technically separate characters, but are the same "template" of being.

Minor characters and species of monsters, I think it's clean enough to merge them as done with Optimus Prime (G1) and as is already done on this wiki. There's no seriously conflicting backstory to each character.

Link and Zelda...as much as they portray a static archetype, they almost always have detailed backstories and plot that generate articles large enough that each version of the character could safely stand on their own. Or, you can keep the current version if you want.KrytenKoro 17:35, 10 January 2012 (EST)
 * I will cover qualm # 2 because it's the most delicate aspect. I wouldn't mind a separate article for ST Hyrule, I'm actually indifferent about it. But I've seen that some people incessantly makes analogies and the like as evidence to split or merge something. That's not how it works. The most ideal approach is to use common sense and discuss things case-by-case, it all depends on the subject of the article and its coverage. Take Fado as an example. There is an article about Fado from OOT, an article about Fado from TWW, and an article about Fado from TP. Yet we have different articles about Link, Zelda and Ganon. I know consistency is good and all that, but we can't take it to the extremes, since not all articles can be approached from the same perspective.
 * As for point one, the Japanese/English thing is a policy we have had since the inception of the wiki. I know some people want to merge Palace of Darkness with Temple of Darkness, or Tower of the Gods with Tower of Spirits. Problem, is, not all of us have played the Japanese version of the games, they're associated with the names given in the software aimed towards North America. Nowadays, in fact, Nintendo and several other companies localize the games in not only English, but also Spanish and French, and expectantly those language versions will have their own names for objects, places and characters as well. The Names template allows us to include those names and even translate them, but when it comes to the core content of the articles, as well as their titles, we must abide to the English version since this wiki's language is English, and therefore the names we must use are the ones provided by the English versions of the games. As flawed and schizophrenic as the North American canon is, it's unfortunately a law dictated by the wiki's canon policy, and therefore that's the canon we must abide. The Japanese canon can be helpful, however, when there is no official English naming about a subject, as would be the case of the enemies seen in the NES games, or Hyrule Historia.-- 22:08, 10 January 2012 (EST)
 * My point with qualm one is that the author intention is that these objects should have the same name. Personally, I would prefer split articles for all entities who we know to be distinct, but that's not how this wiki works, so I roll with it. However, merging by English name only (a second-degree version of the work) makes little sense when we end up having Eastern Temple and Eastern Palace kept separate, solely due to arbitrary limitations placed on the translators at the time. "English canon" and all that, but we still take the time to pave over obvious and fatal translation failures like the Oocca creating the Hylians.
 * Also, I do not think that asking to merge articles based on their Japanese name (while still using the English names for how we refer to things) is at all equatable to asking for merges based on the Spanish or French names. Japanese is the language that the games were authored in. Spanish, French, and even English, were not. In my mind, the common sense method would be to, when the authors intended two subjects to have the same name, at least treat the two subjects like they are meant to have the same name; even if we actually refer to them with separate names, or end up having separate articles for them. Especially since it is an indisputable fact that the translations for the early games were in many places, artificially false, it does somewhat of a disservice to the material to treat those translations as the "true and proper way the material was meant to be received and interpreted".
 * As an example of how I've dealt with this elsewhere, I work on the Digimon Wiki. Although the wiki is dub-based, and treats the dub canon and dub names as the primary source, we readily admit that the various attempts at localizing the material have been atrociously inconsistent, and that in order for a reader to recognize any sense of consistency, we have to group topics by what the author intended, even if we communicate all the info using dub terms. So, when a creature that has five different dubbed names but only one intended name appears, we give it just one article.
 * Long story short: That the wiki's language is English is not a good justification for ignoring author intention and instead binding ourselves to a source that has proven itself still able in this late period to make startling errors that lead to impassible contradictions, and was for a few titles intentionally false.KrytenKoro 10:16, 11 January 2012 (EST)


 * I do agree with you totally. I do think that, on the grand scale of things and with the release of more games, it will become very problematic to just throw so many things into one article just because they share the same name. This will gives people with lesser knowledge the impression that x and y are the same thing, a big contradiction to what the purpose of a wiki actually is: to give truthful information and to not confuse people who are looking for information. I can't see a fully agree with the rule of using only Nintendo of America's translations of various things, as I personally feel it borderlines anti-canon information. They have a history of mistranslations, which unfortunately means some information presented on the wiki is twisted. Because this is a Zelda wiki for all things truthfully Zelda, I believe that we should be going by the true, canonical translations, giving true information. Otherwise, it's another problem of a wiki not doing it's existing purpose correctly and is another way of ignoring the intention of the people responsible for making this series.

I would also like to argue that further on the issue of shared articles for different entities, the Link and Zelda articles are going to overflow with the release or more games. They will just keep getting messier because they're getting unreasonably long all due to these different people sharing an article. Then there are things that... just make no sense at all: there is an article for all Links including the Hero of Time, a separate article for the Hero of Time as a child alone and then an article for the Hero of Time a s ghost in Twilight Princess. This is an example where articles, in my opinion, should be merged. I think that alone proves that the Hero of Time is a good example of a character who needs his own page: he has featured in two console games, has a backstory and even has an entire life and future as ghost. That's three games he has appeared in, but his information is splatted into three separate articles. He is a fine example of how every Link is a different person with a different personality and story. Then why do individuals such as the Dragons and Light Spirits have seperate pages? By the current rule's logic, they should have the same page: same names, same roles. The Hero of Time truly needs his own page, if not all "developed" incarnations who featured in several games. The same applies to New Hyrule: it's backstory can't be listed because it's merged with the the old Hyrule, a predecessor kingdom with a vast and long story of its own to be listed. There are other issues in regards to different entities sharing the same article (Hyrule and New Hyrule) and the same entities having separate articles. (Desert of Doubt and Desert of Mystery). The logic behind the mentioned deserts is a funny one, as the deserts of Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess share an article, yet they don't hold the same name. It's all a little messy and contradictory, if you ask me. Her Grace 14:23, 11 January 2012 (EST)


 * To address the English/Japanese controversy, we stick to our guns with the English and NoA localization titles because that's the language that an obscene majority of our users not only speak, but the language in which the same majority of our readers play in. While it might make sense to merge the Tower of Spirits and the Tower of the Gods, that would cause so much confusion and madness - those who read this wiki would not see the connection, which is only present in a language they do not encounter on a daily basis (and because there blatantly isn't one, given in-game and developer evidence). This does not mean that we wouldn't include a bit about it on the page, it just wouldn't be the three-ring circus. We are also an English wiki, and not to beat a dead horse here, but the English versions of the games are what we specialize in, and have from the get go. Japanese translated material, if there is an official English counterpart, ends up as a trivia bit or a fun fact in the article - we don't base the majority of our information on the Japanese because that simply is not what our readerbase can see and relate to when they are playing the games. In the case of Hyrule Historia and other such examples, where and English version is not present, we, in our quest to provide the most infomation possible, use that until an official English release is sighted.


 * If there is going to be a long article on this wiki, leave it up to the Link and Zelda articles to be those articles. Splitting them up by incarnation would prove more "jumps" and thus a greater difficulty to access the information one is looking for. With accuracy, we also prize navigability - the faster a user can get to the information they need the better - but it also must conform to reasonable bounds and relevance to the article at hand. 14:48, 11 January 2012 (EST)
 * Just to clarify: Although I notified the wiki that Tower of Spirits and Tower of the Gods have the same original name, I do not think that they should have a merged article, as they are clearly intended to be separate entities. The actual suggestion I am making is that it is silly to keep things that are canonically the same entity separate just because their name has been translated differently in different games. In my opinion, no entities that are explicitly or obviously disparate should be covered in the same article unless there is overwhelming need to do so -- for example, the entities are a set of closely-related enemy species, reoccuring items with the same purpose and use, or a solidified character archetype like Beedle. I'm actually all for covering the Links or Zeldas on a page, since so much of their character is bound up in them acting like a reincarnation, but I definitely feel that "Young Link"/"Wolf Link"/"Hero's Shade" should have their character info (plot, personality, etc.) merged into the greater Link article...even if stuff like "appearance" or "official merchandise" gets treated as a subarticle. I'm a firm believer in making sure that a character's storyline is all in one place and easy to read through as if it were a biography.
 * In regards to "Young Link"/"Link"/"Hero's Shade" -- that's a crystalline example of where navigability suffers. It makes no sense to split the same entity's story among three different articles, while at the same time merging multiple entity's plots into one article. that's literally taking the worst of both options, rather than the best. For a real-world analogy, consider covering all "Peters" in the world in one book, but making a different book for one of them that legally changed his name. Instead of covering all Peters and all forms of Peters in one book, which makes it easier to find info on a Peter and keeps the individual stories complete, even if the information can get blended, long, and messy, or covering each Peter in a separate book, which keeps the individual stories complete and clearly distinct, even if it requires more work to find each of them, stuff like Desert of Doubt/Mystery or Young Link/Link is neither keeping the stories clearly distinct, complete, or easy to find (since they are now split amongst various articles). If the general attitude is to be mergist, it still makes more sense to be mergist about entities before you get to names.KrytenKoro 15:05, 11 January 2012 (EST)
 * First, I want to thank you KrytenKoro for creating this topic, as I was planning on doing so myself XD. I agree with you 100% and I'd just like to expand upon what you've already stated.
 * While I agree that the separation/merging of articles should be taken on a case-by-case basis, common sense also needs to factor into the decision. KrytenKoro mentioned in another discussion that we shouldn't blindly follow policies like robots and that our own logic needs to play a role. And while I know most of you would agree, it's not the vibe I get when reading through different articles on this wiki. A few examples have already been given of the inconsistencies this topic addresses, so I'll go ahead and list those and more:
 * - The Eastern Palace and Eastern Temple are on separate articles, despite sharing the same map locations, same entrance design, and similar themes.
 * - The Desert of Doubt and Desert of Mystery are on separate articles, despite sharing the same map location, a similar dungeon(which I'll mention in a second), and the same name in Japanese
 * - The Desert Temple and Desert Palace are on separate articles, despite sharing the same map locations, same entrance design, same themes, and same Japanese name.
 * - Hyrule and New Hyrule are on the same article, despite being very different land masses, having their own separate histories, and having different regions and races
 * - Eldin Volcano and Death Mountain are on separate articles, even though we all know they're one and the same.
 * - All Forest Temples are in the same article, despite the fact that they're each distinctly different places with the only resemblance being the forest theme.
 * - The Fire Sanctuaries are in the same article, despite being in two completely different kingdoms
 * - The Light Spirits and Dragons are on separate articles, despite the fact that they are both guardians over their respective regions, share the same name, and the Dragons in Skyward Sword are said to have eternal life(stated by Lanayru), implying they'd still be around during the events of Twilight Princess.
 * Now, there's two common mistakes made by these articles. The first is that when two articles are meant to detail the same thing, it's not made clear enough. In fact keeping them on separate articles is a mistake in itself, as it implies their similarities are merely coincidental. The second mistake lies in the phrases used to describe certain locations/characters that are not meant to be the same. I'll give a few examples:
 * - "The Forest Temple is the name of a recurring temple..."
 * - "The Forest Temple returns in Spirit Tracks..."
 * - "The Fire Sanctuary is an area that appears in two Zelda games."
 * - "Hyrule Castle reappears in Spirit Tracks..."
 * These are just a few examples, but in each case it's worded in such a way that implies the locations are one and the same, but they're not. As I stated earlier, each Forest Temple is different. They're not the same location that reappears or returns, they're different dungeons sharing the same name and theme. The Fire Sanctuaries don't appear twice, they're separate locations appearing only once in different games. And Hyrule Castle doesn't reappear in Spirit Tracks, it's an entirely new castle.
 * The reason I bring all this up is to make a point that all aspects need to be considered when deciding whether to merge or separate articles. Don't just consider names, consider common locations, common themes, common English and Japanese names, common qualities, etc. If two things share enough common features that they're so obviously the same thing then merge them. If not, separate them or at the very least, make it crystal clear that they're two distinct locations/characters.
 * And finally, on the subject of Japanese translations...never disregard those. Such translations are as close to canon as you're going to get, and following them has only cleared up inconsistencies in the past, not complicated things as far as I know. I understand that this is an English wiki, but all that means is you need to keep everything in English! Leaving translation errors all over our articles is only going to spread false facts around the internet, which has the opposite effect of what a wiki is meant to do. And let's be honest, the type of people who are going to search this wiki are likely people who want the most accurate information possible, so why would we give them inaccurate information based solely on the fact that we have to follow what NoA says? We shouldn't, because NoA makes mistakes, and there's no harm in addressing those mistakes on a wiki. In fact it's what we should be doing. :) Teekay 15:12, 11 January 2012 (EST)
 * Excellent list, Teekay. Now, I have a good idea of the changes the three of you would like to see, and they are all legitimate and backed-up with good evidence. To address this comment:
 * "I understand that this is an English wiki, but all that means is you need to keep everything in English! Leaving translation errors all over our articles is only going to spread false facts around the internet, which has the opposite effect of what a wiki is meant to do."
 * This is actually not how it works! By saying we are an English wiki, we mean that our canon is that of the NoA localization translations and the English games! ZW doesn't disregard Japanese translations by any means, but we do make articles with a priority on the English because that is what our readerbase plays. Japanese translations do add to the content of our articles, but they are usually only embellishment or fun facts, never the main event, unless there is no such English counterpart for some information. I apologize for this misconception - we are not spreading false information as the games' canon is virtually identical between releases, and is officialized by Nintendo either way - it is just that our founder, Jason, established this wiki with the intention of using English canon, and continues to do so to this day. "Mistakes" made by NoA are still considered official by Nintendo, thus, there is in effect no spread of false information - it just depends on the part of the world you are playing the games. To be clear, when I say "we", I mean not just the staff, but everyone that's worked on the wiki in the past. 15:29, 11 January 2012 (EST)


 * Just something real quick: any notable mistakes made by the NOA translation team are always noted in our wiki pages, most notably, the Oocca comment (which is in the Trivia section and most recently made its way in the main article by one of our editors), and the Master Sword backstory spoken of in the manual. Even small details like Auru being Zelda's tutor mentioned in the Japanese version are also noted. Dany36 15:35, 11 January 2012 (EST)
 * I understand the point you're trying to make, but I still disagree with the idea in general. Looking at any Zelda forum will show that a lot of people, Americans included, follow the Japanese translations. And as I'm sure you know, such translations don't radically change anything, in fact they often clear up the mistakes NoA makes. Everyone knows NoA's translations are meant to be taken as official, I'm not sure I've seen anyone who strictly follows their translations either.
 * Regarding the topic at hand, following Japanese translations would clear up a few of the inconsistencies where articles are separated based solely on their name variations, such as the Desert of Mystery/Desert of Doubt and Desert Palace/Desert Temple. I think it can only benefit wiki users, but if it can't be done then so be it.
 * @Dany36: I understand that, but merely mentioning the Japanese translations as if they're trivia doesn't necessarily solve the problem in my opinion. Teekay 15:44, 11 January 2012 (EST)
 * If you really want to be technical, everything released from Japan to English is translated, so yes, everyone follows the translations. :) As I've said before, they do vastly improve the quality and meaning of an article, however, this wiki was built from the ground up for readers that play and understand the English versions of the Zelda games - having the Japanese bits in there as trivia is the best we can afford those expecting to learn about the English versions of the games first and foremost. By not leaving them out and not giving them the centerpiece, we've acheived the best option in which English players can make their own judgments about what they think about the series given their experiences. And that is what wikis are all about. 15:51, 11 January 2012 (EST)


 * About the things that Teekay listed... The first three fall under the sub-discussion that is currently being talked about, so I won't touch that. Same with the Hyrule/New Hyrule since that's currently also being discussed, even going as far as opening a poll in our FB page to see what our readers think. As for Eldin Volcano and Death Mountain, I think that's stretching it a bit too much. Sure both are mountaneous and have volcanoes and lava and whatnot, but we just got scolded for calling the Desert colossus in OoT the "Gerudo Desert" like in TP even though it's never referred to as that in OoT (heck I even just recently took the OoT section out of the Gerudo Desert article for that very reason), so...now you guys just confused me as to what you are looking for! XD As for the Lanayrus and Farons... Yes, they MAY be the one and the same, and if at one point it is confirmed, then of course we'll merge them. For now, though, we are keeping it separate. Speaking of, has anyone seen if they mention them in Hyrule Historia? You know, to see if they are the same. Then that'll be one thing we can agree on. ;]


 * And Cip, I think you just explained it much better than any of us could have. "By not leaving them out and not giving them the centerpiece, we've acheived the best option in which English players can make their own judgments about what they think about the series given their experiences." We have to please both sides, and I think this solution does just that. Dany36 16:12, 11 January 2012 (EST)