Talk:Al Bhed/Archive 1

Archiving merging talks from February and March 2006

This page was merged last month as part of the cleanup and has now been restored by Kappa unilateral decision. Should we merge it again ? Renmiri 23:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but be careful and don't go overboard with trimming. I'm a mergist, but I'm starting to fear that we're going to lose key information if we're not careful in our merges. Deckiller 23:34, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

But what about Kappa ? Renmiri 23:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

In the end, you may just have to end up merging a very large entry -=shrugs=-. Deckiller 23:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh this is where it's being discussed. Please don't attempt to merge the Al Bhed language stuff, it doesn't belong on a list of races. Kappa 23:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Do we have something along the lines of a languages of final fantasy article? Deckiller 23:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so, but there is a List of fictional languages where Al Bhed Language would be at home Renmiri 00:03, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not appropriate to explain how the language works on that page. Why don't we just leave it on the Al Bhed page until such time as another spoken Final Fantasy language comes along, then they can go on a list? Kappa 00:15, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

ROT13

Actually, I don't really mind if the article is merged or not; I'm fairly happy either way. I think I'll back out of this one for the time being, although I DO agree that this will take some discussion. Deckiller 00:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Well we did merge A LOT of pages recently so we could let that one stay... On the other hand, how Al Bhed works is explained in good detail at the Substitution cipher page at the "Simple substitution" section as the pic above shows. Do you want to change their lame "zebras" Example to Al Bhed ? Renmiri 00:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Substitution cipher does not tell me how it was implemented within the game. If it was so simple, Al Bhed would look like "SIAA ZQ LKBA. VA ZOA RFPBLUAOAR" instead of pronouceable words. And it certainly doesn't tell me how the cipher was implemented in Japanese, if at all. Kappa 00:52, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Not to be too confrontational on this point, but that sort of information seems a bit more... specialized than we should probably be aiming for. Giving a solution key to the cipher is almost certainly game guide material, at least, and not the stuff of an encyclopedia. – Seancdaug 03:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

This was merged with Races of Final Fantasy in a unanimous agreement among several members of WikiProject Final Fantasy, and not a single individual has brought up any problems with it before now, and certainly no one reverted it without discussing it. On behalf of everyone who took part in the recent FFX Wiki Cleanup, I'd like to ask why. The reasons you cited in the edit history are horribly unspecific and the reasons you're offering now aren't even consistent with what's in the edit history.

Again, no one's complained about the merger, no one's suggested that it was done improperly (nor did you explain how that was so), and no one's said that the entry over on Races was too long. It wasn't even as long as the one on the Cetra, in fact, and not a single soul has opposed that, which suggests that there's a question of standardization of what's too long and what's not that needs to be addressed here.

I freely admit to finding this a bit insulting, as the Wikipedia writers' rules of engagement would suggest I do. Sure, the decision was made over the course of less than a week, but there was that whole unanimous agreement thing going on. I understand that CuaHL told me that some decisions I made early on were a bit hasty, but I fail to see how this was one of them, again due to the whole unanimous agreement thing. That said, it was a decision made about two weeks ago, and obviously such a non-controversial merger didn't require two weeks of sitting on the floor.

That being said... why'd you unmerge it (specifics please) and without bringing it up for discussion at all? Several of us -- particularly Renmiri, who I owe many thanks, and myself, I'd say -- have been looking to condense the FFX-related stuff into a general interest-friendly format, and -- in my own point of view (again, acknowledging the rules of engagement here) -- I'd say that to label a summary of the Al Bhed that was three sentences longer than the one you left on the Races page for the reason that it needed to be condensed in favor of spreading out FFX-related articles even further is counterproductive. That may just be my view, though.

So, I'd appreciate it if you could offer us an explanation consistent with the one you cited in the edit history, and maybe not revert something so drastically without at least mentioning it first.

P.S. By the way, Kappa, you do realize that if we waited, say 10 minutes for a response and then reverted the revert that'd be 10 minutes longer than you gave us to discuss it, right?

P.P.S. Renmiri, sorry if I came off rude in this thing. I know you don't like that. Just a bit miffed is all.

Ryu Kaze 00:34, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

In the edit summary I said it wasn't properly merged because you ommited the most interesting material, ie the implementation of the cipher. Apart from that, I fail to see who benefits from merging a race like the Al Bhed, which has enough to say about it to stand alone as a good article, into a list where most of the material about it is not relevant for the majority of readers. Kappa 00:52, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm not sure if the extra information even belongs in the article in the first place. Personally, if I hadn't merged the page, I might have just removed the information and put it in Wikibooks and the Final Fantasy Wiki. The reason I would do this is the same as the reason we don't include individual character class statistics in Final Fantasy Tactics, which several people have tried to add in the past. It's far too detailed in scope for a Wikipedia article, and would be better suited for a game guide, which would be at home at Wikibooks.PiccoloNamek 01:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

• Wikipedia's duty is to explain how things work. If you remove the explanation of the language, wikipedia users won't be able to understand how it works and wikipedia is failing them. The equivalent of including statistics would be to include the whole alphabet, which I am not suggesting. Kappa 01:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Clearly "most interesting" is a subjective point of view, Kappa. Granted, I can't remember the exact wording of the section at the moment, but I'm sure that mention of their language was in there and I know I put a link to the Al Bhed section on the Final Fantasy Wiki which still included the info on the language.

For that matter, it's also subjective to conclude that there's more to say about the Al Bhed than the Cetra or the Guado. I for one don't see it. You could talk forever about all of them. Ryu Kaze 01:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

• I agree that the Cetra and Guado would be better off with separate pages, it would certainly help to de-bload the races page. Kappa 01:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

That's not what I was saying. (Personally, I don't see how one could really call that page bloated considering just how many races it details.) What I was saying is that you're not sounding very neutral on this subject (I know about assuming good faith, but I'm just stating my honest observation of this discussion), and it seems to be for the sake of information on a cipher language that -- while brilliantly designed and executed in both English and Japanese -- is still fully described on the Final Fantasy Wiki page which was linked to as "For more information, go to etc." from the Races of FF page, and is hardly universally considered the most interesting aspect of a multi-faceted group of people. Ryu Kaze 01:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Al Bhed#Al Bhed language basically repeats the explanation of Simple Substitution cypher with an Al Bhed example. The Substitution cypher page has plenty of other treats for language / code afficionados, such as the Edgar Alan Poe example. IMHO that explanation belongs - if anywhere here at Wikipedia - there or at the games section of the List of fictional languages which BTW is very poor as it stands now. Renmiri 01:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Full agreement on my part. If it should be anywhere on Wikipedia itself, it's there. Hardly warrants its own page for the language's sake when the language technically should be somewhere else anyway. Ryu Kaze 01:38, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any other explanations of languages on that page, you seem to want to change its purpose entirely just to get rid of the Al Bhed page. Note that the language is not merely of interest to FF fans, but also to people interested in constructed languages in general. Since the Al Bhed are so fascinating and multi-faceted, there shouldn't be a problem in having a separate article about them instead of overloading a list. Kappa 01:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Twisting around what we're saying and ignoring other parts of what we've said isn't helping what is at this point clearly a biased argument, especially seeing as how you've yet to acknowledge your unilateral decision to incite this revert. Renmiri said that the language page is pretty poor as it stands now. As a "concerned Wikipedian," why not help it out while preserving the info you seem so desperate to keep a home for on Wikipedia?

Also, I fail to see how the language is going to be all that eye-catching to general interest readers who aren't fans of Final Fantasy when they're not going to be able to read about it on the page for constructed languages and would have to go somewhere they otherwise may never go to even hear about it. Your argument's lacking inner consistency and structural integrity.

As for the issue of the Al Bhed having their own seperate page, 1) none of the other races do (except for Moogles and Tonberries, and they're hardly in the same vein as the Al Bhed; not that I agree with those races having their own articles, either, but they're certainly not comparable in the way that the Cetra or Guado are), 2) there's nothing about the Al Bhed that warrants treatment the other races aren't getting, 3) three extra sentences and a link (which contains all the info you're so desperate to preserve) is not "overloading a list," which as I've already pointed out, can't fairly be considered bloated to begin with because it contains 34 different races while managing to not go overboard with them and still preserving important info, and 4) you've yet to offer a single explanation for how this revert for the sake of the "most interesting aspect of the Al Bhed" can be universally labeled as such, or how the way the merge was carried out inarguably qualifies as "not proper."

P.S. Thanks for being my first opponent in a battle on Wikipedia. Ryu Kaze 02:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Any chance that this very specific debate could be moved back to the article in question, rather than filling up the To Do page (and lose some of the more personal aspects that are starting to creep in)? >Gamemaker 11:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I never participated in the discussion to merge in the WPFF talk page, but I agree to merge Al Bhed into the Races of Final Fantasy page. We should be trying to reduce the amount of crufy-ness without the Final Fantasy articles and Wikipedia itself and having a simply list with detailed information on each race in the series does that well enough -- CHANLORD ^[T]/_[C] 00:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Chanlord, and love the usage of the word "miffed". — CuaHL 00:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I rather liked my usage of "miffed," as well. Conveys the intent and sentiments without the hot lead flying. Ryu Kaze 00:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I was miffed too, so much work we put on the cleanup and the page just pops up again... But talking about hot lead flying, it is obvious to me that Kappa cares deeply about the Al Bhed language. I propose that Kappa fixes it's description on the List of fictional languages which, as of now, reeks. That page is looking just as a laundry list of names. It needs fixin, a lot of it, regardless of our decision here, that page needs TLC. Someone who cares so much about the topic would be the ideal person to fix it Renmiri 15:21, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with you, and I wonder if I've been too harsh on him. I don't know the reasons for his feelings on the matter (he and his now passed-on brother may have played FFX together for all I know), but I do find it "miffing" the way he went about it. But again since I'm not fully aware of his feelings on the issue perhaps this was a one time thing and not indicative of his usual Wikipedia behavior. My track record here hasn't been exactly perfect, either, as I had to learn to take things a little slower, so I guess everybody deserves the benefit of the doubt.

But, yeah, on the matter of the fictional languages page, I agree that it's crying for attention, and someone who's got that much care for a fictional language already (a cipher at that, no matter how cleverly designed) would probably be the perfect person to work on it. Ryu Kaze 15:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I have to say that I agree with Kappa's decision. I know nothing about Final Fantasy, or about gaming in general for that matter, but I do know my share regarding constructed languages. And this seem to be for sure: merging this article into some other article won't do justice to the description of the language. Much as I'm a mergist myself, this article seems substantial enough to avoid merging. Besides, expanding the description on the List of constructed languages isn't really an option either, because - as the name suggests - it is merely a list of languages, and as far as descriptions are required at all, they shouldn't be longer than one or maximum two sentences. —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 16:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

There's not a lot to say about the Al Bhed language in the first place, IJzeren, as you can clearly see just by looking at the explanation of it. You say it's for sure that it wouldn't be doing this substitution cipher -- which can be fully explained for both english and japanese in two small paragraphs -- justice to offer a link to an explanation of it from a "Races of" page -- which, by the way, contained all of the notable information on the actual Al Bhed people that's on the Al Bhed page except for the two paragraph explanation of the language -- but you don't say why that is.

Languages are fine and dandy. God knows we need them. But the Al Bhed are a people before they're a language, and all the pertinent info on the people themselves was there, along with mention of their language and a link to the elaborated article on the Final Fantasy Wiki that contained the two small paragraphs explaining that language.

Even if you do agree with Kappa's reasoning, I don't see how it is you agree with the decision (to revert a decision unanimously agreed upon by almost 10 regular contributors to the Final Fantasy aspects of Wikipedia without notice and without bringing it up for discussion... and then to not even acknwoledge that they did so... or apologize... or offer an explanation for why they did so consistent with the reason they claimed for doing so... and then to insist upon their decision being the correct one after extensive responses from people dissatisfied with both the decision itself and the way it was carried out). You don't have to be familiar with Final Fantasy, video games or the Al Bhed (people or language) to think that wasn't the best decision. Ryu Kaze 17:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I didn't know about any discussion or decision. Unilaterally reverting such a decision if course not okay. I was merely giving my opinion about the article itself.