Difference between revisions of "Nookipedia:Proposals"

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On the other hand, I'm not very confident that things will remain functional as it is. I'd have to go through some of the worst cargo tables and change <code>name</code> to  <code>en_name</code>, and with how slow some of these pages are, I feel like the worst cargo tables will just break again. If we want to assure we actually abide by the in-game names, I think we need to look into how the item names are being used at a technical point, and see if it'll be able to run without issues. -- [[User:PanchamBro|PanchamBro]] ([[User talk:PanchamBro|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/PanchamBro|contributions]]) 00:42, November 19, 2022 (EST)
 
On the other hand, I'm not very confident that things will remain functional as it is. I'd have to go through some of the worst cargo tables and change <code>name</code> to  <code>en_name</code>, and with how slow some of these pages are, I feel like the worst cargo tables will just break again. If we want to assure we actually abide by the in-game names, I think we need to look into how the item names are being used at a technical point, and see if it'll be able to run without issues. -- [[User:PanchamBro|PanchamBro]] ([[User talk:PanchamBro|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/PanchamBro|contributions]]) 00:42, November 19, 2022 (EST)
 
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As long as there are no significant technical issues, I wholeheartedly {{Support}} this proposal for all the reasons AlexBot2004 has outlined. Although it may take some getting used to, I think that the reasons we have the capitalization policy are not very good ones anymore, and that there are only benefits to this (again, as long as cargo, API and other technical things are taken care of).
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I also think it's worth noting that {{NH|short}} uses sentence case in all cases (e.g. in the catalogue or inventory); while earlier games don't, it obviously makes sense to keep this consistent, and I think using sentence case outside of prose (i.e. in lists, tables, etc.) makes more sense as a universal guideline. [[User:Chubby Bub|Chubby Bub]] ([[User talk:Chubby Bub|talk]]) 03:08, November 19, 2022 (EST)
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Revision as of 04:08, November 19, 2022

Nookipedia Proposals allow the community to vote on sitewide changes that would affect a large number of pages or users. This process is not a replacement for community-wide input (see:The Roost) or talk page discussion. Rather, it takes the final product of those discussions (in the form of a proposal) and puts them to a vote.

Rules

  • Proposals are only necessary for changes that would affect a large number of pages or users. Some examples: rules/policy changes, adding/removing namespaces, making major modifications to/replacing templates that affect 1000+ pages.
  • Proposals are for voting on fully worked out ideas. They should not have any yet-to-be-determined components: no 'option a, b, or c'. Proposals may be submitted without prior public comment or feedback, but should not receive major edits or changes once voting has started.
  • Proposals can only be submitted and voted upon by registered users. Comments or votes from unregistered users will be removed immediately. Furthermore, all votes or comments must have a signature attached (~~~~). Users are not allowed to vote on their own proposal, but may respond to comments.
  • Proposals will be open for seven days. This voting deadline can be extended upon request, at the discretion of a Bureaucrat.
  • At the end of the voting period, if the proposal has at least a 2/3 majority (66%) it will be considered successful. A Bureaucrat will then officially close the proposal, and either enact it themselves, or coordinate with other staff members to make sure the proposal is completed.
  • Once a proposal has been enacted, the staff member responsible will make a note here and move the proposal to the Archives.

How to make a proposal

All proposals must be made using the template provided below, posted under the "Current Proposals" heading:

{{proposal
| title       = A short, one-sentence description of the proposal.
| description = Additional proposal details/explanation.
| comments    = User commentary on proposal.
| votes       = User votes on proposal: {{Support}} or {{Oppose}} + signature (~~~~).
}}

Current proposals

Proposal: Change item capitalization policy to match in-game capitalization
I am proposing that we change our policy and item capitalization to use the in-game capitalization—which is generally all lowercase except for proper nouns—for all item names. This proposal has been divided into sections for ease of reading:
History of our item capitalization policy

Right now, our policy for the capitalization of item names defined on our general policy page and in our Manual of Style is to use title case, regardless of the in-game capitalization, as enacted by a 2014 poll. The reasoning behind the decision to make a policy regarding item names was brought forth by the staff largely due to the wiki at the time having inconsistent standards between pages (some pages used in-game capitalization, some used title case), but it was left to a poll because there was no consensus on which system to use. Since the policy's enactment, two discussions (one in 2015 and one in 2020) were started in opposition of the policy and how it was decided. In both discussions, the consensus was that a poll was not a great way to gather the opinions of readers and editors, though neither discussion led to any changes in the policy.

Why we should change the policy

I am proposing to use in-game capitalization for one main reason: it would be the most official way to present these names. We use official terms as they are in the games for all other subjects, so why should items be any different? I feel that capitalization is just as much a part of a subject's official name as anything else.

The capitalization of item names is not just aesthetic; it has practical effects. There are plenty of items that do use proper nouns in-game, and with our system of making everything a proper noun, the actual proper nouns in the original names are lost. Another issue with our current policy is shown with the "Snowman vanity" (uppercase "S") in the North American version of City Folk, which was changed to "snowman vanity" (lowercase "s") in the European version. With our current system, there is no way to convey to the reader that the name was changed without either breaking our policy or having an awkward note.

One point that was brought up in the 2015 discussion is that it would be hard to enact such a policy of using in-game capitalization since there was no accurate master item list for all games. Another point brought up in the 2020 discussion is that having item names in title case has stylistic value because makes it clear to the reader that these are actual in-game items and not generic terms. To respond to these two counter-arguments:

  1. Today we have spreadsheets for every game in the series that use datamined names, so those would be our sources if this policy were to be enacted.
  2. The most common way items are mentioned in articles is through tables or other similar templates which isolate the name from any other text, making it clear to the reader that these aren't generic terms. Also, items should always be linked to their respective item pages, which would make it clear even in the prose that a term is not generic.

As a wiki that covers content from the Animal Crossing series objectively and strives to be as accurate as possible, I believe there isn't a place on Nookipedia for a policy that makes us write item names contrary to how they appear in the games, especially for stylistic reasons.

Other item-related terms

There are also several non-item—but still item-related—terms that are not defined in our MoS, but still follow our item name policy on the wiki; namely HHA genres/themes and variant/pattern names. Any terms like these should be changed to in-game case just like the items themselves, for the same reasons stated above.

That being said, I am not proposing any changes to our furniture collection (series/set/theme) terminology in this proposal. Their full names aren't clearly defined via in-game strings like the other terms; the first part (e.g. "blue", "lovely", "modern") is defined, but the "series"/"set"/"theme" part, as far as I can tell, is just an internal property and is never appended to the name in-game. I think these warrant their own proposal to determine what we call them going forward, but at the moment, they can stay at their current names.

I also want to make it clear that this policy would not affect item image filenames; the standard for all filenames is title case and I see no need to change that.

How we would implement this policy

This is the format I am proposing we use going forward:

  • In the prose of an article: write item names exactly as they are in-game, except for (obviously) capitalizing the first letter if it is at the beginning of a sentence.
  • In tables and templates like {{House Info}}: capitalize the first letter; these will be essentially treated as sentences.
  • In item page infoboxes:
  • In the "name" parameter of the template, capitalize the first letter; these will be essentially treated as sentences. This will be what is displayed in the infobox and what is queried in Cargo for item tables.
  • In the "en-name" parameter of the template, write item names exactly as they are in-game. This will be stored to Cargo and can be queried if needed.

With thousands of item pages and even more mentions of items across the wiki, it will take a while for everything to be fully updated, but it will certainly be possible. Item pages would be automatically moved and their prose would be updated via text replacements, as would standardized templates such as the villager housing templates. Updating the item pages would in turn automatically update every Cargo item table; for non-Cargo tables, those will be replaced in due course with Cargo tables as item pages for all the games are created. The only thing that I don't think can be updated automatically would be mentions of items in the prose of mainspace articles; however, these take up such a small amount of the mentions of items across the wiki relative to the others I've listed that it could be done manually.

This was a long proposal, but for a change as large as this I feel I needed to go into as much detail as possible. Thank you for your time and consideration. ~ AlexBot2004 (Talk) 00:00, November 19, 2022 (EST)

Comments:

I'm kinda conflicted with this notion. On one hand, I think this is accurate, and I'm certain of using the in-game names as best as possible, I understand why this is necessary for us, and if anything it'll probably be better off to use the actual in-game names.

On the other hand, I'm not very confident that things will remain functional as it is. I'd have to go through some of the worst cargo tables and change name to en_name, and with how slow some of these pages are, I feel like the worst cargo tables will just break again. If we want to assure we actually abide by the in-game names, I think we need to look into how the item names are being used at a technical point, and see if it'll be able to run without issues. -- PanchamBro (talkcontributions) 00:42, November 19, 2022 (EST)

Votes:

As long as there are no significant technical issues, I wholeheartedly Support Support this proposal for all the reasons AlexBot2004 has outlined. Although it may take some getting used to, I think that the reasons we have the capitalization policy are not very good ones anymore, and that there are only benefits to this (again, as long as cargo, API and other technical things are taken care of).

I also think it's worth noting that New Horizons uses sentence case in all cases (e.g. in the catalogue or inventory); while earlier games don't, it obviously makes sense to keep this consistent, and I think using sentence case outside of prose (i.e. in lists, tables, etc.) makes more sense as a universal guideline. Chubby Bub (talk) 03:08, November 19, 2022 (EST)

Result: (??%) To be determined.

Voting on this proposal has ended. (refresh)